History of the Great American Fortunes Part 23

The reports of the tax committee of the Boston Executive Business a.s.sociation in 1891 estimated that two billion dollars of property in Boston escaped taxation, and that the public treasury was cheated out of about $17,000,000 in taxes every year. As for New York City, we have seen how the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Goelets--the whole aggregate of the propertied cla.s.s--systematically defrauded in taxes for many decades. It is estimated that in New York City, at present, not less than five billion dollars of property, real and personal, entirely escapes taxation. This estimate is a conservative one.

Spahr, after an exhaustive investigation in the United States concluded more than a decade ago that, "the wealthy cla.s.s pay less than one-tenth of the indirect taxes, the well-to-do less than one-quarter, and the relatively poorer cla.s.ses more than two-thirds."[185] What Spahr omitted was this highly important qualification: When the rich do pay. Tenants of the property owners must pay their rent on time or suffer eviction, but the capitalists are allowed to take their own leisurely time in paying such portion of their taxes as remains after the bulk of the tax list has been perjured away. Thus in a report he made public on February 28, 1908, Controller Metz, of New York City, pointed out that the huge amount of $102,834,227, was due the city in uncollected taxes, much of which amount ran several decades back. Of this sum $29,816,513 was owed on real estate, on which the taxes were a direct lien.

The beauties of law as made and enforced by the property interests, are herein ill.u.s.triously exemplified. A poor tenant can be instantly dispossessed, whether sick or in dest.i.tution, for non-payment of rent; the landowner is allowed by officials who represent, and defer to him and his cla.s.s, to owe large amounts in taxes for long periods, and not a move is taken to dispossess him.

And now by the most natural gradation, we come to those much bepraised acts of our multimillionaires--the seignorial donating of millions to "charitable" or "public-spirited" purposes.

Like the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Rhinelanders and a galaxy of others, Field diffused large sums; he, like them, was overwhelmed with panegyrics. Millions Field gave toward the founding and sustaining of the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, and to the University of Chicago.

It may be parenthetically added that, (to repeat), he owned, adjacent to this latter inst.i.tution, many blocks of land the increased value of which, after the establishment of the University, more than recouped him for his gifts. This might have been either accidental or it might have been cold calculation; judging from Field's consistent methods, it was probably not chance.

So composite, however, is the human character, so crossed and seamed by conflicting influences, that at no time is it easy to draw any absolute line between motives. Merely because he exploited his employees mercilessly, and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars, it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, because under the private property system, compet.i.tion, whether between small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those who are in the contest must abide by its desperate rules. They must let no sympathy or tenderness interpose in their business dealings, else they are lost.

But without entering into a further philosophical disquisition, this fact must be noted: The amounts that Field gave for "philanthropy" were about identical with the sums out of which he defrauded Chicago in the one item of taxes alone. Probed into, it is seen that a great part of the sums that multimillionaires have given, represent but a t.i.the of the sums cheated by them in taxes. William C. Schermerhorn donates $300,000 to Columbia University; the aggregate amount that he defrauded in taxes was much more. Thus do our magnates supply themselves with present and posthumous fame gratuitously. Not to consider the far greater and incalculably more comprehensive question of their appropriating the resources of the country and the labor of hundreds of millions of people,[186] and centering attention upon this one concrete instance of frauds in taxes, the situation presented is an incongruous one. Money belonging to the public treasury they retain by fraud; this money, apparently a part of their "honestly acquired" fortune, is given in some form of philanthropy; and then by some curious oversetting of even conventional standards, they reap blessings and glory for giving what are really stolen funds.

"Those who enjoy his confidence," wrote an effervescent eulogist of Field, "predict that the bulk of his vast fortune will be devoted to purposes of public utility." But this prediction did not materialize.

$140,000,000 TO TWO BOYS.

Field's fortune, conservatively estimated at $100,000,000, yet, in fact, reaching about $140,000,000, was largely bequeathed to his two grandsons, Marshall Field III., and Henry Field. Marshall Field, as did many other multimillionaires of his period, welded his fortune into a compact and vested inst.i.tution. It ceased to be a personal attribute, and became a thing, an inert ma.s.s of money, a corporate ent.i.ty. This he did by creating, by the terms of his will, a trust of his fortune for the two boys. The provisions of the will set forth that $72,000,000 was to set aside in trust for Marshall III., until the year 1954. At the expiration of that period it, together with its acc.u.mulation, was to be turned over to him. To the other grandson, Henry, $48,000,000 was bequeathed under the same conditions.

These sums are not in money, although at all times Field had a snug sum of cash stowed away; when he died he had about $4,500,000 in banks. The fortune that he left was princ.i.p.ally in the form of real estate and bonds and stocks. These const.i.tuted a far more effective c.u.mulative agency than money. They were, and are, inexorable mortgages on the labor of millions of workers, men, women and children, of all occupations. By this simple screed, called a will, embodying one man's capricious indulgence, these boys, utterly incompetent even to grasp the magnitude of the fortune owned by them, and incapable of exercising the glimmerings of management, were given legal, binding power over a ma.s.s of people for generations. Patterson says that in the Field stores and Pullman factories fifty thousand people work for these boys.[187] But these are the direct employees; as we have seen, Field owned bonds and stock in more than one hundred and fifty industrial, railroad, mining and other corporations. The workers of all these toil for the Field boys.

They delve in mines, and risk accident, disease and death, or suffer an abjectly lingering life of impoverishment. Thousands of coal miners are killed every year, and many thousands more are injured, in order that two boys and others of their cla.s.s may draw huge profits.[188] More than 10,000 persons are killed, and 97,000 injured, every year on the railroads, so that the income enjoyed by these lads and others shall not diminish. Nearly all of these casualties are due to economizing in expense, working employees to an extreme fatiguing limit, and refusing to provide proper safety appliances. Millions more workers drudge in rolling mills, railroad shops and factories; they wear out their lives on farms, in packing houses and stores. For what? Why, foolish questioner, for the rudiments of an existence; do you not know that the world's dispossessed must pay heavily for the privilege of living?

As these lads hold, either wholly or partly, the t.i.tles to all this inherited property; in plain words, to a formidable part of the machinery of business, the millions of workers must sweat and bend the back, and pile up a ceaseless flow of riches for them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARSHAL FIELD III. and HENRY FIELD.

The Boys Who Inherited $140,000,000.]

Marshall Field III., still in knickerbockers, receives $60,000 a week; his brother Henry, $40,000 a week. The sum in both cases automatically increases as the interest on the princ.i.p.al compounds. What do many of the workers who supply this revenue get? Patterson gives this authentic list of wages:

Pullman Company blacksmiths, $16.43 a week; boiler-makers, $17; carpenters, $12.38; machinists, $16.65; painters, $13.60, and laborers, $9.90 a week. As for the lower wages paid to the workers in the Field stores, we have already given them. And apart from the exploitation of employees, every person in Chicago who rides on the street or elevated railroads, and who uses gas, electricity or telephones, must pay direct tribute to these lads. How decayed monarchial establishments are in these days! Kings mostly must depend upon Parliaments for their civil lists of expenditure; but Capitalism does not have to ask leave of anybody; it appropriates what it wants.

This is the status of the Field fortune now. Let the Field striplings bless their destiny that they live in no medieval age, when each baron had to defend his possessions by his strong right arm successfully, or be compelled to relinquish. This age is one when Little Lord Fauntleroys can own armies of profit producers, without being distracted from their toys. Whatever defense is needed is supplied by society, with its governments and its judges, its superserviceable band of lawyers, and its armed forces. Two delicate children are upheld in enormous possessions and vast power, while millions of fellow beings are suffered to remain in dest.i.tution.

FOOTNOTES:

[179] "The Truth About the Trusts":266-267.

[180] "Industrial Evolution of the United States," 313.

[181] Parsons, "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":196. Also, Report of Chicago Chief of Police for 1894. This was a customary practice of railroad, industrial and mining capitalists. Further facts are brought out in other parts of this work.

[182] "Report on the Chicago Strike of June and July, 1894," by the United States Strike Commissioners, 1895.--Throughout all subsequent years, and at present, the Pullman Company has continued charging the public exorbitant rates for the use of its cars. Numerous bills have been introduced in various legislatures to compel the company to reduce its rates. The company has squelched these measures. Its consistent policy is well known of paying its porters and conductors such poor wages that the 15,000,000 pa.s.sengers who ride in Pullman cars every year are virtually obliged to make up the deficiency by tips.

[183] Sweeping as this statement may impress the uninitiated, it is entirely within the facts. As one of many indisputable confirmations it is only necessary to refer to the extended debate over child labor in the United States Senate on January 23, 28, and 29, 1907, in which it was conclusively shown that more than half a million children under fifteen years of age were employed in factories, mines and sweatshops.

It was also brought out how the owners of these properties bitterly resisted the pa.s.sage or enforcement of restrictive laws.

[184] Eighth Biennial Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1894. The report, made public in August, 1909, of the Illinois Tax Reform League's investigation of the Chicago Board of Review's a.s.sessments, showed that these frauds in evading taxation not only continue, but on a much greater scale than ever before. The Illinois Tax Reform League a.s.serted, among other statements, that Edward Morris, head of a large packing company, was not a.s.sessed on personal property, whereas he owned $43,000,000 worth of securities, which the League specified. The League called upon the Board of Review to a.s.sess J. Ogden Armour, one of the chiefs of the Beef Trust, on $30,840,000 of personal property. Armour was being yearly a.s.sessed on only $200,000 of personal property. These are two of the many instances given in the report in question. It is estimated (in 1909), that back taxes on at least a billion dollars of a.s.sessable corporate capital stock, are due the city from a mult.i.tude of individuals and corporations.

[185] "The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States":143.

[186] "Hundreds of millions of people." Not only are the 85,000,000 people of the United States compelled to render tribute, but the peoples of other countries all over the globe.

[187] "Marshall Field's Will" by Joseph Medill Patterson. Reprinted in pamphlet form from "Collier's Weekly."

[188] The number of men killed per 100,000 employed has increased from 267 a year in 1895 to about 355 at present. (See report of J. A. Holmes, chief of the technological branch of the United States Geological Survey.) The chief reason for this slaughter is because it is more profitable to hire cheap, inexperienced men, and not surround the work with proper safeguards.

END.