Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 1908)
t ! PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 23, J903 a r vy u The Uneventful Lives Led by Wives ofLeadingRiehMen. HE question is often asked, What be comes of the wife of Mr. Multi Millionaire? Can you re nt e m b e rf The Messrs. Multi Millionaire marry, undoubtedly. W e know that not so much because they subsequently divorce for, indeed, they don't as a rule but because we hear con stantly about Master Multi-Million aire, Jr., and how he is donning overalls or studying lazvn tennis, in order to qualify for the administration of papa's wealth. As for the divorce limelight, it appears to be peculiarly the property of the ordi nary, or garden, variety of millionaire. The possession of many millions seems to have either a sanctifying effect or to superin duce a sense of responsibility that is not to be trifled with. Feeling assured that Mr. Multi-Millionaire marries, how is it that we hear so little of the helpmeet whose proud joy it should be to revel in the grandeurs, in the semi-royalty that attends her liege's exalted stale? Is it that she is not by education and experience fitted to assume her share of the social conspicuity that limns his person ality in such bold relief? Is it that she prefers the cool, cloistral obscurity of her home to the feverish activ ities his wealth opens to her? Is it that she actually does remain ut terly unknown, or that we merely find her activities obscured by the more picturesque performances of her husband? A NATION lives by its ideals; and its load ers do more to make concrete and compre hensible those ideals than, perhaps, any other ' factors . 'which enter into the na tional life. True or false, there is much, very much, in the indictment of America by foreign critics, that" its ambitions, its aspirations, its be-all and end-all, are wholly materialistic. It is so very true that the average Amer ican is almost as sordid, almost as grasping, al most as materialistic as the average European. The main difference between the, two is that the European clutches nil his life and dies having gained nothing, while the American works hard half his life and then has something not far short of a competence. So the conditions faced by the two classes of humanity, here and abroad, are very similar, the one difference being that there they labor in the face of despair, here in the inspiring glow ' cf hope. THE MOTHER'S GREAT POWER The great "families," long ago founded in Europe, are here in the stages of their inception, upon a scale equally broaJ. amid conflicts quite as desperate. As ever, the lighters are the males, because nature has so constituted the species. But every student of humanity, from so om niscient an observer as Balzac to so inspired a dreamer as Olive-'Schroinrr, has noted that, how-vet-jTfci?ble the feats of the father, the in fluence of the mother, both in the endowment conferred at birth and in the breeding up to ma turity, plays a powerful part, Mr. Multi-Millionaire, never in all his life seen at close range by Jack Hometon, the street car conductor, hac his direct influence on, the birth and the career of Master Multi-Mifiion-aine; but he has, also, an indirect influence fre quently far more powerful than that of the pa rental Hometon upon the ambitions and the ideals of Conductor Jack. Mrs. Multi-Millionaire, so enveloped in the clouds of her golden obscurity that few of us recall that she exists, may dream her life is con secrated exclusively to her children, her char ities or her enjoyment of her wealth; but she is nevertheless the cherished ideal of many a Millie or Kate whe has married Jack Hometon and kept herself awake for his return from his run by dreaming dreams of hirury, and ease, and a Mul'.i-MilL'onaire my be of more than curiou, passing interest; and, because it is truth, it will be better than inert ignorance, even though tba example offered by some of these extremely rich women be more picturesque than edifying. Close your eyes again, Mrs. Hometon, sit ting in the comfortable rocker, and brush away fV.at ! t dream of T-onrlf in tK envied ne nursery for the baby, if orly they were as, nf the woman tou bvreveT reallr beard rich si the Multi-Millionsiree. 0f -)m the flashing, iStterin splendor ftf tha A EtUa plain troth, therefore, about lira.- jj, you wore biT tha Ufcy. elegantly for- n m . h"' i r Vt k' -K 1 1 1 1 I X III u ., ! I ' . - I V . t I When Armour the Great came to a few I 1. - t II LI 1 II I I li l,f v II I h :. A . - a 11 U V MM .J VITTT !!,.-vv n jysst ! I I i ? jt ' "".ln. i a i i . ill v '.'ii . i-V'r-- V-t J, iriv your own , th.m you sus is not so very potten in ytr enjojment of the great reception yew wera hekiinp, was safe in th elegantly Trele4 nursery ender tha wstchful eye cf the trusted aursa. It is not always so with tb ivf ( f the multi-millionaire-. Their type ist far more r typ1, and their day dreami y u poet. The glitter of their jewc- muoh mre to them than is the trm hurance of the wedding ring you wear; the trat reception is too frequently a greater trial, 1mitigated, than your weariness of waiting.. Ard the hahy, to them, is liable to be a more anxious burden than yours, with its modest fu ture of honest work and its plain destiny of lines known and simply safe. So many of thee Trry rich wonrm, albeit tbir wealth audly des soften the harsh lines cf life and smooth into plrafant content the countless little cares which poverty makes in evitable, live simply as women, jut Lka you. Their ideals, after the escape from the dark prison of poor circumstances lias been, effected by some lucky turn of fortune or by some.bold stroke of a husband's financial genius remain, the ideals of the plain mother, trusting to their husbands for the means, trusting to their' own love and affection for the inspiration- that shall make their children first good and then happy.' There is no essential difference between their measure of enjoyment and yours. Some-. times the balance is even in your favor. 1 Do you remember little Lolita Armour, of . Chicago ? Ah, but the vast wealth of the Armours en-"( nbled them to send to Europe for the great Dr. Lorenz, of Vienna, who cured her of. her. dis abling hip trouble. That was precisely whera the wife of the multi-millionaire had an advan tage over the poor mother, such as.no trite phil-1 osophies and dull preachings of contentment I could ever cainsay. Was it. though? When wo recall, with sucK' vividness, tho ease with which that Mrs. Multi- Millionaire was "able to summon to her afflicted! daughter the skill of the world's most skilful surgeon, we recall, too, how he performed the same operation on many poor children without charge, and how those demonstrations of his method, made before crowded clinjes in the im portant cities of the United States, put within reach of every other mother, including Mrs. Hometon. tho cure that cost the Armours so high a price in money. ' We do not recall, though, the more comfort ing fact, that for one unfortunate like the Ar mours' Lolita, there are thousands of children who are perfectly healthy, with the health that 110 riches can buy. FREAK OF FATE When Armour the Great came to years ago, the heir-apparent, of whom such mighty deeds were hoped by the. founder of tha family, had already passed to the grave. Into the hands of the second son, J. Ogden Armour,, .the power of the Armour wealth was given; and it is he who holds it today. He is a man whose life is on of perfectly' normal and balanced hygiene. I. ike his father, ' his interests are solely tli"se of the active busi-' noss man, and his. days are plainly those of tha manager of large affairs who, while living more splendidly than other', livr no less regularly, and. so far o his personal pleasures go, far less lavishly than many. His wife was Lola Spencer, of New York, girl as normal, as healthy s he. She loredT walking, she drove well and often, aad she playedr agame at tenni which was equal to any playe4: by the young girls and matrons of Chicago, bet new home city. Those two eugbt t have had a healthy child. Yet Lolita. now verging on her teens, wst born so frail that, for months after she canvr into the worM, she lived in a glass easa; sod." at she grew old enouch and strong enough t breathe the air of the life about her, ska wss hopelessly lama with congenital dislocation ef ' the hip. Hop first dawned when tha ls,Tzi method became known. Ever sine tha cperstioa iCONTIXVKD OX XXSI TXQZ.)
