INHERITANCE  AND  INCOME  TAXES  149

can  accumulate  five  hundred  dollars  to  his  one,  but
because,  through  the  operation  of  this  special  privilege,
it  is  at  his,  the  poor  man’s,  expense  that  the  rich  man’s
accumulation  is  made.  Ex-Governor  Long  says  that
there  will  be  discontent  just  so  long  as  certain  comforts
and  possessions  are  within  the  reach  of  one  class  and
beyond  the  reach  of  another  class.  This  discontent
Archbishop  O’Connell  calls  the  “tumultof  theenvious.”
But  unprivileged  men,  whether  unprivileged  rich  or
unprivileged  poor,  have  not  far  to  look  to  find  that
discontent  and  envy  start  only  where  skill  and  enterprise
leave  off  and  special  privilege  begins.  You  are  not
envious  of  Edison  or  Marconi  or  Bessemer  or  railroad
magnates,  or  captains  of  industry;  you  gladly  accord
them  princely  rewards  as  public  benefactors.  It  is
only  when  the  people  are  called  upon  to  provide  an
Edison  fortune  for  every  city  and  town  in  the  country
through  privileged  exaction  that  your  discontent  is
aroused.  It  is  only  when  they  are  required  to  superimpose ­
  upon  an  unprivileged  steel  fortune  of  three  or
four  millions  a  privileged  fortune  of  a  thousand  millions,
based  upon  economic  rent,  that  the  shoe  begins  to
pinch.  It  is  only  when  the  ore  baron,  the  coal  baron,
the  oil  baron,  the  railroad  baron,  and  the  land  baron
are  privileged  to  take  ten  dollars  or  a  hundred  dollars
from  their  wages  and  add  it  to  the  monopoly  price  of
coal  and  iron  and  oil  that  men  are  swayed  by  the
“tumult  of  the  envious.”
Legislation  has  been  busy  constituting  criminal
offences.  The  air  is  charged  with  criminal  prosecution
and  conviction  where  fortunes  have  been  swelled
through  violation  of  law.  But  is  it  not  true  that  neither
legislatures  nor  courts  have  seriously  addressed