The rich man's supreme duty is to keep in motion the machine by which he has made his wealth. This involves a continuation of the flow of profits. What is the man to do with these profits?

There are two main avenues which afford a way to dispose of one's profits other than when invested in the worthy objects already noted. A man may devote them to benevolences of various kinds or he may distribute them among his employees in accordance with some of the well-known forms of profit sharing. Let us look for a moment at these two methods.

Public Charities

The favorite method of disposing of wealth, either at one's death or during one's lifetime, is to bestow it in considerable sums upon some enterprise of a public interest. Mr. Carnegie was a conspicuous example of this kind of activity. Every day the newspapers tell us of some rich man or woman whose will is offered for probate and lists the various enterprises which are provided for in the will. So far as the man himself is concerned, there is much to be said in favor of doing this kind of thing during life instead of postponing it until after death and leaving money perhaps to be squabbled over in the courts. The personal satisfaction which must come to a man of seeing the things he wants done accomplished while he is himself still alive is well worth considering. The whole matter of the endowment of charities and other public enterprises is, however, open to serious question. Whose money is this anyway? To how much is a man entitled under the caption of his own personal fortune? Unless I am greatly mistaken, the fundamental conception which underlies all this discussion is this: Is the wealth which comes to man his, or is it a trust fund? If it belongs in fact to society, what right, therefore, has the man himself to determine for all time the method by which society shall use this money? We have at the present time billions of dollars tied up in the endowment of libraries, hospitals, schools, and things of that kind. This money all came from streams of wealth which various men and women set going. Acting within what they considered to be their own rights, they definitely tied up these billions of dollars to specific projects in which they themselves were interested.

It sometimes happens with the lapse of years that the causes to which these men have devoted their funds ceased to be of great concern to the community. Notwithstanding, as long as society stands, the funds which these men have set aside will go on supporting these worn-out and discredited institutions. People are beginning to ask with considerable insistence what inherent right our rich men have to determine forever the uses of their wealth. If this wealth is in fact not their own, but is a fund which they hold in trust for society, their right to tie money up in this way is open to serious question.

Many able minds do not favor this time-honored method of disposing of wealth through the endowment of institutions. The method presupposes a keenness of judgment as to what are the vital needs for society, which keenness most men may be supposed not to possess. It also takes for granted a degree of ownership in the man's surplus wealth which may be seriously questioned.

Refunds And Profit Sharing

There remains the method of distributing these surplus funds among one's customers through some one of various methods. At the outset it is to be said in favor of this proposition that it immediately restores the funds in question to society instead of freezing up vast fortunes and forever determining the uses to which they should be put. These fortunes, if distributed year by year, remain fluid and pass again into the hands of the individuals who compose society. Many may at times make bad use of the money. That, however, seems to be their right. No man can undertake to guarantee posterity from mistakes. The same right to say what shall be done with one's money belongs to the man who comes after me as I claim in the handling of the funds which pass through my hands. This right may be best recognized by turning the profits back into the stream from which they came.

When it comes to the distribution of surplus earnings among one's employees, one confronts on one side a danger and on the other an advantage. The danger is that the money thus distributed will be looked upon as a mere gratuity. Money passed around in this way may be a positive menace to those who receive it. Any kind of a hand-out, whether it is a sandwich and a bowl of soup, to a man who stands in the breadline, or an outright gift of funds without any quid pro quo concerned, impoverishes the man who receives it.