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An Interesting Study of a Universal Human
Illusion---Some Remarkable Instances
i Where Wealth Brought Misery and
Divorce—and Destroyed
Happiness and Contentment
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T HE fact that great wealth le no in
surer of domestic happiness Is be
ing constantly demonstrated In
the divorce courts.
More marriages among the wealthy end
In the divorce court, proportionately, than
among the middle classes or the poor.
In fashionable society the proportion of
divorces is as high, If not higher, than on
the stage.
The beautiful Elsie Whelen, of Phila
delphia, married Robert Goelet, “the
richest bachelor In the world.”' Certainly
every luxury must have been hers. They
did not satisfy. It Is whispered that v her
real reason for obtaining a divorce was
that she grew tired of being "simply
rich." She promptly ma-ried Henry
Clews, Jr., an amateur painter and
writer, with an interest in everything
artistic.
Mrs.. William Miller Graham, of Cali
fornia, had a remarkable career. She
was once a waitress and she married her
husband when he was a penniless pros
pector. She struggled through life with
him until he acquired a fortune of $20,-
000,000 in California oil wells. Mrs. Miller
Graham won a brilliant success in
English high society and was warmly ad
mired by the late King Edward.
Mrs. Graham enjoyed the luxuries that
wealth brought for she built the most
beautiful villa at Santa Barbara, called
"Bellosguardo,” with a wonderful theatre
attached. But recently she began a di
vorce suit against her husband. The suit
was dropped for the sake of her child,
but her lawyer explained that there was
no reconciliation.
Equally remarkable was the case of
Dr. Joseph A- Blake, one of the most
successful of American surgeons, and his
wife. Dr. Blake married Miss Catherine
Ketchum, a brilliant and attractive
woman, who received the honorary de
gree of M. A. from Yale University in
1909.
Dr. Blake made an income of at least
$100,000 a year. He and his wife occu
pied two fine houses at 601 and 603
Madison avenue, New York, but proceed
ings recently introduced showed that for
several years Dr. Blake kept his house
at 601 locked against his wife.
The public first learned that the two
had not been living nappy together when
Mrs. Blake brought suit for $1,0000,000
against Mrs. Clarence H. Mackay for
alienating her husband's affections. This
suit was dropped, but Dr. Blake and Mrs.
Mackay have since been married in
Paris.
A few months ago, Mrs. Kathryn
Browne Decker secured a divorce from
He«ry E. Decker, of the Sheffield-Farms-
Slawson-Decker Co., the big milk or
ganization.
The Deckers were married five years
ago. Mrs. Decker was Kathryn Browne,
the actress. Although she had achieved
more or less success on the » stage, it
was not until she married Decker that
she began to lead a life of luxury and
ease.
The Deckers entertained lavishly. Mr.
Decker testified that he spent $35,000 en
tertaining hi3 wife's friends during the
first three years of their married life.
Despite it all, however, the Deckers do
mestic happiness was short lived. A bare
three years after the marriage finds Mrs.
Decker back on the stage and their
charming home life a thing of the past.
A few month after her return to profes
sional life she sued for separation and a
month or two ago the decree was
granted.
Cases of this character are being con
stantly revealed. Hardly a month passes
in which another one is not added to the
long list. Why is it?
One of America’s most distinguished
psychologists and philosophers, Profes
sor George Trumbull Ladd, here explains
the basic reasons why wealth dees not
bring happiness.
“The fascinating Mrs. William Mille
Graham, of California, originally <
waitress, starved for her husbanr
while he was a penniless prospector
but when he made $20,000,000 sh.
asked for a divorce.”
Photo ay
eaMeiiSu.
STUDIOS
“The
beautiful
Elsie
Whelen,
of
Philadelphia,
who married‘the richest bachelor in the world’ could not live happily
‘ with him, because she grew tired of being ‘simply rich.’ ”
The Illusion That Wealth Brings Happiness Explained
By Prof. George Trumbull
Ladd,
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy In
Yale University.
A MONG the Judgments upon human
affairs which hare been passed by
those who “ought to know best”
there are few more nearly unanimous
than this: Riches, whether in the acquir
ing or in the possession, do not bring
happiness.
On the contrary, they, probably oftener
than not, serve to diminish or to destroy
the happiness of those who had been
happy without them. And yet, if we are
to judge the most intimate beliefs of men
from the universality and intensity of the
conduct which gives them expression—
and, surely, “actions speak louder than
words”—there is no opinion more nearly
unanimous than this: Riches, if not in
the acquiring, at least in the possession,
do bring happiness.
Indeed, from the conduct of the multi
tude in our own land and day one would
almost seem forced to conclude that, in
the Judgment of all but the very few, to
get money and so to control the things
which money will buy is the only way
to get happiness. Here, then, is "The
Great Illusion.”
Now, the curious thing about all this is
that, when in a reflective and confessional
mood, the rich men themselves will tell
you that thei.- riches have not brought
them to the happiness they expected from
them; often, that they are not at all so
happy as they were when they were poor.
And those who are not yet ready to make
confession, or are still too proud to make
it, show plainly by their conduct that in
reality the cause is little, if at all,
different with them. Yet they, too, and
the multitudes of the people, go steadily
or fitfully and feverishly on, Just as
though they were firmly convinced that
the experience of the race did not tell
the truth; or that they could somehow
make themselves exceptions to the uni
versal law. There must be something in
human nature, and in its environment, to
account for such self-contradictory and
irrational behavior as this attitude of the
multitude of men toward great wealth
seems to indicate.
The rea.ion Is this: Incomparably above
all the other animals stands man in the
variety and unlimited character of his
needs and of his ambitions. He has an
ever-needy, ever-restless, ever-aspiring
soul. Give the most intelligent and am
bitious dog a good full meal, and he does
not begin to think where the next meal
is to come from, or whether he may not
some day take a more luxurious one off
of a silver platter or a gold plate. For
the time he is satisfied; and the satisfac
tions are going always to be confined
within the circle of the same recurring
wants.
But with man the case is not so. . He is
built so that he can nevei be satisfied—
fully and forever—with what he has and
what he is. And here is the source of
his rise toward more and more of divine
excellence, or the cause of his falling into
the devil’s own v trap. If he chooses for
his pursuit, as the really good thing,
riches and all that riches can buy, he will
never get out of that trap, until he learns
the lesson of its illusion; he will be more
hopelessly caught, the more he fattens
on the bait. And even If he chooses the
real goods of life, the things that make
more than wealth can, for human happi
ness, he must cultivate other virtues than
right desire and toble ambition, in order
to secure a fair measure of happiness.
But let us turn for one moment to the
historical study of the growth of avarice
and the development of the great illusion
in its more modern and exaggerated
form. Those who are most industrious,
most foreseeing, most prudent, most self-
restrained, are sure in the long run to
acquire in store the greatest accumu
lations of material good. Other benefits
than those of having a supply for their
own wants and the wants of those de-
ndent on them
allow as a mat
ter of course.
They become
objects of envy,
of flattery, of ob
sequiousness on the
part of others. They
become possessed of
the power to command
‘the services of their fel
lows, to carry out their
schemes, to defeat their en
emies, and to bind to them
selves at least a semblance of
devoted friendship; or they
may discover the more refined
pleasures of bestowing largesse, of
being the objects or praise and, at
least, the semblance of gratitude, by
sharing some of their stored goods
with others. All these tilings are
pleasant; they all seem chiefly de
pendent upon the possession and
use of wealth—and the more the
better.
All modern scientific discoveries,
in the growing knowledge of how
to increase in magnitude and mul
tiply in variety the advantages
which wealth can secure, have
operated to enlarge the monstrosity
of the great illusion; so that it
sometimes seems as though the
sages were all dead, the teachers of
morals and religion all asleep; or had
themselves all fallen Into the trap of the
great illusion. But the voice of those
who have "tried it on,” and their sad ex
perience, if not their sad confession, and
the secret Judgment of the few remain
ing wise with the wisdom of Solon and
of Jesus, still persists in assuring us
that riches do not, and cannot, secure
happiness.
But let us now give somewhat more
particular attention to our own present
condition as viewed in the light of
.psychology and of history. Why is
•America so completely, it would appear,
under the Influence of the great illusion?
In the first place, all our economical and
material development has favored the
overestimate cf the value of riches to a
most monstrous degree. Sturdy, vigorous,
ambitious races have been put in con
trol of incalculable material resources for
their rapid development. The Govern
ment has on the whole favored rather
than successfully opposed these resources
being unjustly appropriated, or stolen
quite outright, by crafty and unscrupulous
individuals or corporations.
Our development of our inheritance of
common law from England has as yet
provided no safe-guard against these
illicit ways of acquiring wealth. The met
who have made these accumulations
although in general by no means men ol
great mental gifts, have been praised as
though they were. And, as has always
happened, they have been offered a cup
full of every form of deference, amount
ing to adulation; until, of late, the xida
has been turning toward equally un
reasonable distrust and hatred of all the
wealthy, such as has been the fate of the
very riob in all the ages. Let us call all
this a iiaiicholoi/ical atmosphrrei and
since all classes, and especially all our
young people, who have had neither the
wisdom that comes from experience nor
that which comes from expert observa
tion, are constantly breathing this atmos
phere, let us find in it the chief cause
for the prevalence in America at the
present time of "The Great Illusion.''
But the deceptive influence of the
general persuasion that happiness may be
got by attaining wealth, takes many sub
ordinate forms. Sometimes it is chiefly
the anticipation of the time when, being
rich, one shall be able to gratify all one’s
appetites. One who is tired of black
bread and meat once a week, will surely
be happy if l\e can have meat every day
and plum pudding on Sunday. Perhaps
the man thinks,he will enjoy champagne
more than beer; or, mayhap, the actress
or the rtanxeuse more than the wife who
married him when he was a common
laborer, and she herself a washer-woman '
or a bar-maid. The wife thinks if she
could only wear such dresses as are worn
by the wife of her husband's employer,
or could get accepted by the social circle
in which the lady moves, she should be
much the happier Of all such thoughts,
disappointment is pretty sure to be the
ultimate result. And it would be much
worse for man or woman if it were not so.
Or, in most cases, we will believe that
the ambitions rise to a higher level than
this. The man wants to have power, or
to be successful. But the happiness that
comes to oneself, and through oneself to
others, in all these ways, is neither de
pendent on wealth nor secured in sectr-
ing wealth. One may have it without
riches, and one is not sure of it with ar y
amount of riches. And the same thi^g
is true of every one of the Indispensab.a
conditions of happiness.
What are those conditions of happiness
which it is quite beyond the power of
wealth to afford but that may be had in
sufficient and, indeed, in large measure
without wealth? They are chiefly these
three: Appreciation, contentment, resig
nation. But the art of being happy is not
our theme. We are satisfied to do some
thing toward explaining "The GreaK.
Illusion.”
Copyright, 1915, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.
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