Americans have always been ambivalent toward our leaders being wealthy.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other early presidents were wealthy landowners. The difference back then was that the early presidents wanted the fledgling nation to succeed and put their own financial needs to rest while they served.
The manner in which their wealth was gained was also different. Hard physical work was the norm. Today’s wealth accumulation through technology or financial manipulation did not exist as a possibility.
The robber barons who accumulated fortunes at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries did so on the backs of their workers and in an unregulated environment. Most of these folks wanted nothing to do with being president; they just wanted to control who was in the White House.
It wasn’t until the Rockefeller and Kennedy fortunes produced Nelson and JFK/RFK, that great wealth and how it was accumulated became important in politics. Neither the Rockefeller nor Kennedy fortunes were accumulated in legal manners. It was the foundations that were established after the death of their namesakes and the good deeds that resulted that cleansed the record.
This American ambivalence toward wealth is made clear in books like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which focused on the theme that great wealth does not guarantee happiness, Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, which created the phrase “conspicuous consumption” and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath which brought attention to the plight of the poor. Journalists who took on the wealthy robber barons were call ‘muckrakers.’”
Two very popular TV shows from the 1950s approached the issue of wealth from very different viewpoints. The Millionaire – which ran on CBS from 1955-60 – had impeccably-dressed Michael Anthony deliver a tax-free $1 million from aging multimillionaire John Beresford Tipton to an unsuspecting recipient. There were 206 of them and we learned what they did with the money.
There was also Queen for a Day, in which women down on their luck competed to be named Queen and to receive products that would change their life for the better. These products included Maytag washing machines and other stuff advertised on the program. The show which began on radio ran from 1940-64.
Today, we don’t capitalize on people’s misfortune unless it is politically expedient.
With the political season about to get into full swing, we will be bombarded about the good and evil of billionaire candidates. Remember that a billion is a thousand million and a million is nearly 20 fully loaded F-150’s.
To me, a candidate’s balance sheet is irrelevant. Anyone who reaches the status of being a serious candidate for the presidency has some well-ironed wrinkles in their past, just like anyone who has accumulated billions of dollars. What is important is the use of the dollars to improve the world. A lack of evidence of good use should result in a no vote.
So let’s get over our tendency to suspect or blindly follow very wealthy candidates and look at the merits of their use of the money. Being rich is not a bad characteristic unless you let it be.
Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star.