stantly less importance compared to other
things that can be done in life. It is a bad thing for a nation to
raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no
falser standard than that set by the deification of material
well-being in and for itself. The man who, for any cause for which he
is himself accountable, has failed to support himself and those for
whom he is responsible, ought to feel that he has fallen lamentably
short in his prime duty. But the man who, having far surpassed the
limit of providing for the wants, both of body and mind, of himself
and of those depending upon him, then piles up a great fortune, for
the acquisition or retention of which he returns no corresponding
benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be made to feel that,
so far from being a desirable, he is an unworthy, citizen of the
community; that he is to be neither admired nor envied; that his
right-thinking fellow-countrymen put him low in the scale of
citizenship, and leave him to be consoled by the admiration of those
whose level of purpose is even lower than his own.

My position as regards the moneyed interests can be put in a few
words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully
safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human
rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run
identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict
between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property
belongs to man and not man to property.

In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to understand
that there are certain qualities which we in a democracy are prone to
admire in and of themselves, which ought by rights to be judged
admirable or the reverse solely from the standpoint of the use made of
them. Foremost among these I should include two very distinct
gifts--the gift of money-making and the gift of oratory. Money-making,
the money touch, I have spoken of above. It is a quality which in a
moderate degree is essential. It may be useful when developed to a
very great degree, but only if accompanied and controlled by other
qualities; and without such control the possessor tends to develop
into one of the least attractive types produced by a modern industrial
democracy. So it is with the orator. It is highly desirable that a
leader of opinion in a democracy should be able to state his views
clearly and convincingly. But all that the o