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Note and Comment

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 12, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 37.

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Note and Comment

By Editor

Great Fortunes

THERE are some things pertaining to this world that to the ordinary mind are quite incomprehensible in a way. Take, for instance, some of the fortunes represented in the vast combinations of wealth in the present day. The Record-Herald speaks of this as follows:—
A well-informed writer on financial topics quotes, as the best information available on the subject, an estimate of the fortunes possessed by nine very wealthy Americans, which is perhaps as good an estimate as can be made.
At the head of the list is the name of John D. Rockefeller, undoubtedly the richest man in the country, and credited with the possession of $1,000,000,000. Next comes Andrew Carnegie, with $500,000,000. J. P. Morgan is rated at $300,000,000, and William Rockefeller, George F. Baker, James B. Duke, James Stillman, Henry C. Frick, and W. K. Vanderbilt are said to have fortunes ranging down from $250,000,000 to $150,000,000, in the order named.
These colossal fortunes and scores of others very nearly their equal indicate that we have reached the time spoken of by the apostle James when men should heap up treasures for the last days.
In contrast with this picture we have on every hand an increase of poverty and pauperism. The high cost of living is causing wide-spread and increasing discontent on the part of the laboring classes. A great industrial conflict is being waged continually. Its outbreaking we see occasionally in strikes, the destruction of property, and even of human life; but every day witnesses a growing tenseness and a deepening spirit of rivalry. Arbitration serves from time to time to avert a threatened clash, but this is proving continually less effective. Only as we look beyond this scene of turmoil and strife to the better day of universal peace that will be ushered in by the coming of Christ the Lord, do we find assurance of changed conditions.