Our Family Needs

Most of us love our children more than anything else in the world. After the final analysis, it is our children that we have most at heart and for whom we would give up everything else. These children serve to us as an incentive to work and labor, think and struggle in the early years of our business life. We are justified in wanting a certain amount of money to give them the proper education and the proper start, but after accumulating enough money to do this, do we then stop accumulating? No. We become so absorbed in the accumulation of money that we no longer think of our children's need. Many of us, if we thought only of the welfare of our children, would not accumulate another dollar. The average successful business man has already accumulated more than enough for his children's good. Additional wealth will simply handicap them and tend to harm them rather than to develop them.

Every successful business man knows that his success is very largely due to the fact that he was obliged to struggle in his early days. This struggle is what developed him and made him the power which he now is. Yet he is doing all he can to make it unnecessary for his own children to struggle. Furthermore, he is surrounding them with temptations which may be their downfall. Many of us, if we had at heart only the welfare of our children, would not necessarily retire from business and stop making money, but we certainly would stop accumulating more money for our families. From now on our profits would either go to others or to the endowment of educational institutions, hospitals, and other community enterprises. In so doing we would not only be making enduring investments; but would be removing from our children something which would surely be a source of great temptation and which possibly might lead to their downfall.

Effect On Oneself

What is true regarding the good of our families is also true regarding the good of ourselves. A certain amount of money helps a man 'to be thought more of in his community and aids him in securing more friends. A large amount of wealth, however, is a handicap rather than an aid. When a man becomes conspicuously rich in his community he becomes a target of criticism, people become suspicious of him and he is not loved as he was in the old days. In most instances this is very unjust on the part of the community. It should not be so, but we cannot make people over all at once. The world is not so much influenced by logic, wisdom, and statistics as by jealousy, fear, and hate. It is an old saying, "The higher up in the tree the bird builds her nest, the easier it is for the crows to find it."

I was much interested once in attending some taxation hearings in a certain state capital. I went to the hearings with a purpose of speaking in favor of taxing earned income at a lower rate than unearned income. I believe that the self-made man should be taxed lightly, while his children should be taxed heavily on what they inherited at his death. To my great surprise, the predominance of the sentiment was greatly against me. It was the self-made man, the man now alive who had accumulated wealth that most of the people were gunning for. The inoffensive residents of the state who were quietly living on the income of their ancestors, even though producing nothing themselves, were passed by. The few great captains of industry who had really developed the state were the ones that the community were anxious to tax. It was a case of plain jealousy. Yes, the average rich man would have more friends to-day if he had stopped accumulating years ago.

After all, is there any wealth greater than friends? Is not the richest man in the world today truly the man who is most loved? Is not the poorest man in the world he who is most hated? Faith, Courage, and Love are all essential, but the greatest of these is Love. Yes, Love is the most enduring investment even from a coldblooded statistical point of view.