unearned dividends, are both undermining the right of property.  Against such counsels of force and fraud, the representatives of the common sense and funded wisdom of mankind are the middling rich.  It is an unromantic service—­doubtless breaking other people’s windows or scaling their bank accounts is much more thrilling—­it is a public service obviously tinged with self-interest, but none the less a public service of high and timely importance.  The business of keeping the sanity of the world intact as against the wilder expressions of social discontent, and the uglier expressions of personal envy and greed, may seem to lack zest and originality today.  History may well take a different view of the matter.  It would not be surprising to find a posthumous aureole of idealism conferred upon those who amid the trumpeting of money market messiahs, and the braying of self-appointed remodellers of the race, simply stood quietly on their own inherited rights and principles.

Such are some not wholly minor uses for the middling rich.  Should they be abolished, many of the pleasanter facts and appearances of the world would disappear with them.  The other day I whisked in one of their motor cars through miles of green Philadelphia suburbs dappled with pink magnolia trees and white fruit blossoms—­everywhere charming houses, velvety lawns, tidy gardens.  The establishing of a little paradise like that is of course a selfish enterprise—­a mere meeting of the push and foresight of real estate operators with the thrift and sentiment of householders, yet it is an advantage inevitably shared, a benefit to the entire community, an example in reasonable working, living, and playing.

On the side of play we should especially miss these harmless rich.  The sleek horses on a thousand bridle paths and meadows are theirs, the smaller winged craft that still protest against the pollution of the sea by the reek of coal and the stench of gasoline; of their furnishing are the graceful and widely shared spectacles not only of the minor yacht racing but of the field sports generally.  They constitute our militia.  The survival in the world of such gentler accomplishments as fencing, canoeing, and exploration rests with the middling rich.  They write our books and plays, compose our music, paint our pictures, carve our statues.  The pleasanter unconscious pageantry of our life is conducted by their sons and daughters.  To be nice, to indulge in nice occupations, to express happiness—­this is not even today a reproach to any one.  Indeed if any approach to the dreamed socialized state ever be made, it will come less through regimentation than through imitation of those persons of middle condition who have managed to be reasonably faithful in their duties, and moderate in their pleasures.  To keep a clean mind in a clean body is the prerogative of no class, but the lapses from this standard are unquestionably more frequent among the poor and the very rich.