1. Based on this reading, how do you think Carnegle viewed inherited wealth?
*There are but three miss de st can bet surplus wealth can be disposed of I can belet to the familles of the deg cherr ives by it e bequenthed for pathle paronet ot Acantbelt to the. farmistered during dhhat has teach gosserors Under thelestractor Stat it can be it. matalith of the words. the arse is bed the few has hithers been a seconds ode not eddie r ease greatest porting ght that alish are left o the fits con that ital agatite the state and pairs. The successors have become impoverished through theftalyosacitoperor ants. salue of land.. I Way ideal ad ect lease great fortunes to thor claren-firmietalite sion af. valtion, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that general speaks done from a fer the children that they steal a be so burdened. Nether sit wel for the said in the not will ing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of inconse and We tie date begond pronat deed, if any, for the soon mete toy wel hesitate, for it is no longer guestional lorence hirs dequeathed oftener work more for the injury than forthe good o the toplittis get aims boon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their fantesarate tie ren wild bequests are an improper use of their means.As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world..
The cases are not few in which the real obiect
sought by the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted.
The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion... Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the comma-nity, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.
This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administra. thon of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people.There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes: but in this way we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor -a reign of harmony -another ideal, differing, indeed from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is prepared to put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an Ideal state, is which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many because administered for the cansmon good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of dis few can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if is had been dis Iributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes. from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts.