Vanishing Assets

THE ENDING OF HEREDITARY AMERICAN FORTUNES--Gustavus Myers -- Messner ($3.50).

In 1909 a one-horse, Socialist-minded Chicago publisher printed a small edition of Gustavus Myers' History of the Great American Fortunes. Its author was a fact-worshipping reporter of Philadelphia and Manhattan who had spent eight years digging out his facts. No other publisher would touch it--they feared it was "of such a nature ... as to get us into a great deal of trouble." Declared a typical nose-holding review (New York Times): "It leaves such a bad taste in the mouth that readers may be cordially advised to read something else."

Most college libraries banned the book. But its word-of-mouth reputation grew; Congressmen took to quoting it; its facts were a gold mine for left-wing cribbers. By 1936 the Modern Library edition (sales: 25,000) could say honestly that the History of the Great American Fortunes was a semi-classic of research. Author Myers has never been sued for libel.

Now 67, slight, soft-voiced Gustavus Myers has written a sequel which leftists are not likely to crib. To declare that big U. S. fortunes are ending in the natural course of things is bad news for those who advocate ending them by "proletarian" revolution. Far less detailed than its predecessor, also far livelier, The Ending of Hereditary American Fortunes goes back a long way to explain its title. Key of Myers' argument is the U. S. tradition against special privileges that are due to accident of birth.

That tradition got off to a flying start with the fight against the colonial laws of primogeniture and entail, which permitted handing down intact such estates as that of the Van Rensselaers (3,000 farms, 436,000 acres). Far more complicated is Author Myers' tracing of that tradition in the struggle against "corporation aristocracy" and inherited wealth. From Andrew Jackson v. the Bank of the U. S. down, it is a fight in which inherited wealth wins the battles and loses the war. Value of Author Myers' documentation is that he keeps his eye on the whole war instead of just on the battles.

Victory for the trusts, profiteering from the Civil War, land-grabbing, fancy promotion schemes enabled a host of new millionaires to grab economic control of the country and throw $50,000 parties, but these victories also resulted in the Populists, the Knights of Labor, the Sherman Anti-Trust law, the first Federal income taxes. Further victories for wealth inspired further income taxes, inheritance taxes, soak-the-rich propaganda.

Result, in 1939: big U. S. incomes are taxed up to 75%. Within sight, if U. S. leveling tradition holds good, says Author Myers, is the time when taxation will have done for inherited wealth what the repeal of primogeniture and entail did for the great landed estates. In 1930 a Van Rensselaer heir died leaving $2,500.

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