That certain existing American fortunes have in their making been of the utmost benefit to the whole economic organism is to my mind unquestionably the fact.  Men like Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. James J. Hill, and Mr. Edward Harriman have in the course of their business careers contributed enormously to American economic efficiency.  They have been overpaid for their services, but that is irrelevant to the question immediately under consideration.  It is sufficient that their economic power has been just as much earned by substantial service as was the political power of a man like Andrew Jackson; and if our country is to continue its prosperous economic career, it must retain an economic organization which will offer to men of this stamp the opportunity and the inducement to earn distinction.  The rule which has already been applied to the case of political power applies, also, to economic power.  Individuals should enjoy as much freedom from restraint, as much opportunity, and as much responsibility as is necessary for the efficient performance of their work.  Opinions will differ as to the extent of this desirable independence and its associated responsibility.  The American millionaire and his supporters claim, of course, that any diminution of opportunity and independence would be fatal.  To dispute this inference, however, does not involve the abandonment of the rule itself.  A democratic economic system, even more than a democratic political system, must delegate a large share of responsibility and power to the individual, but under conditions, if possible, which will really make for individual efficiency and distinction.

The grievance which a democrat may feel towards the existing economic system is that it makes only partially for genuine individual economic efficiency and distinction.  The political power enjoyed by an individual American rarely endures long enough to survive its own utility.  But economic power can in some measure at least be detached from its creator.  Let it be admitted that the man who accumulates $50,000,000 in part earns it, but how about the man who inherits it?  The inheritor of such a fortune, like the inheritor of a ducal title, has an opportunity thrust upon him.  He succeeds to a colossal economic privilege which he has not earned and for which he may be wholly incompetent.  He rarely inherits with the money the individual ability possessed by its maker, but he does inherit a “money power” wholly independent of his own qualifications or deserts.  By virtue of that power alone he is in a position in some measure to exploit his fellow-countrymen.  Even though a man of very inferior intellectual and moral caliber, he is able vastly to increase his fortune through the information and opportunity which that fortune bestows upon him, and without making any individual contribution to the economic organization of the country.  His power brings with it no personal dignity or efficiency;