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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.)