m four to twenty thousand,
that most of the property here held is blamelessly held in good
hands--wealth that in no fair estimate can be regarded as harmful. In
terms of British currency, our category of the middling rich would include
the poorer individuals of the upper classes, the richer persons of the
lower middle class, and the upper middle class as a whole. This comparison
is made not to apply an alien class system which holds very inadequately
here in America, but simply to avow the difficulty of my task of apology.
The bourgeoisie is equally suspect among radicals, reactionaries, and
artists. My middling rich are nothing other than what an European essayist
would quite brazenly call the _haute bourgeoisie_. It is quite a
comprehensive class, made up chiefly of professional men, moderately
successful merchants, manufacturers, and bankers with their more highly
paid employees, but including also many artists, and teachers of all
sorts. Incidentally it is an employing and borrowing class in various
degrees, hence especially subject to the exactions of the labor union at
one end, and of the great capitalist and the Trust at the other.

The general harmlessness of the wealth of this class rests upon the fact
that it is in small part inherited, but mostly earned by individual
effort, while such effort has usually been honestly and efficiently
rendered and paid for at a moderate rate. In fact the amount of capacity
that can be hired for the slightest rewards is simply amazing. It is the
distinction of this class as compared both with the wage earning and the
capitalist class--both of which agree in overvaluing their services and
extorting payment on their own terms--that it respects its work more than
it regards rewards. Consider the amount of general education and special
training that go to make a capable school superintendent, or college
professor; a good country doctor or clergyman--and it will be felt that no
money is more honestly earned. This is equally true of many lawyers and
magistrates, who are wise counsellors for an entire country side. It is no
less true of hosts of small manufacturers who make a superior product with
conscience. For the wealth, small enough it usually is, that is thus
gained in positions of especial skill and confidence, absolutely no
apology need be made. I sometimes wish that the Socialists for whom any
degree of wealth means spoliation, would go a day's round with a country
doctor, wou