Page:The fallacy of danger from great wealth.djvu/19

Rh and retained only about 25 per cent. in cash as a reserve to pay its deposits on demand. These loans are made to merchants, manufacturers, and other business men to carry on the business of the world, and out of this are paid money for wages, and raw materials (these in turn being nearly all wages). No bank takes a rich man's money and keeps it as a hoard. That would be the business of a safe deposit company, if any one was foolish enough in these days to hoard his money in cash. No rich man does this. The ten-talent man never hides his money in a napkin. It is only a one-talent man who does this.

So, then, we find that, as a matter of fact, when the rich man adds to his "pile," he is adding to his investments in productive enterprises, no matter how much he adds, and that all of his wealth goes out ultimately in wages. A great "danger" to the country and to the poor! A "great peril"! It must be "controlled," and legislated against, etc., ad infinitum, and ad nauseam, too.

Even if money was given away freely by the wealthy, this would not increase the total receipts of the whole number of workmen; for all that is saved and invested already goes as