A VAMPIRE MILLIONAIRE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8792, 22 April 1907, Page 1

A VAMPIRE MILLIONAIRE.

Mr Henry Frank, writing in the Arena on American millionaires, selects Eussell Sage as a typical instance of what he calls “the vampire millionaire.” Sage, he says, was the chief factor in creating in the imagination of the American child a god of gold that compels his idolatry. Sage’s only thought was money; his only passion was gold ; his only dream was a spectral mountain charged from base to summit with that element, that for him and his age became the supreme symbol of 1 wealth and power. Mr Prank gives some remarkable figures, in which he contrasts the wealth accumulated by a single millionaire with the wealth of the nation as a whole. Ha says: “When Sage was born the entire nation was reputed to pos’ess ess that! three billions of dollars in actual wealth. To day one man alone is reputed to be able to draW his cheque for more than one-third of the whole nation’s wealth when Eussell Sage’s baby eyes first opened on the morning light. When Sage was born the per capita wealth of the country is said to have been less than £6O. In 1890 the pet capita wealth was reputed to have been about £260.' To-day, probably slighly more. When Sage died he had gathered into his individual coffers a total amount of riches equal to the combined average possessions of 383,333 of the citizens of bis country at the time of his birth.”

Mr Frank then goes on to point out the startling contrast that exists between the millionaire’s powers of accumulation and those of the ordinary citizen: “ Had he annually earned but the sum which was equivalent to the average per capita wealth of his fellow citizens at the time of his birth, it would have taken him over 800,000 years to have hoarded the amount which he is reputed to have gathered into his personal coffers within the comparative'y brief space of four-score and ten years; provided that he had not spent a cent of it and had relinquished the accruing interest. On the basis of this calculation he sue ceeded in hoarding in a single year what it should have taken him 5000 years to have acquired had his annual earnings “been but the per capita wealth at his birth time. And let it not be forgotten that the per capita wealth of our people at Sage's b rth was but little less than the amount that the average laborer earned in a single year in the highest wages in 1890. In that year the annual average earning of the laborer was £llO. Making our calculation with that figure as the basis, we find that it would have taken 181,818 years for a single person to .have accumulated the treasure trove that Bussell Bage left as his heritage when the steel locks snapped shut on his amazing mausoleum.” These are, indeed, remarkable figures over which the thoughtful mind may ruminate with advantage.