The current complaint by the left wing is that there is too great a gap between the rich and poor, and that’s why we have so many poor people. The rich have all the money and won’t give any to the poor, or some such nonsense. Let’s review a bit of history. My daughter Melissa, has a masters degree in historical restoration, and before she joined me in Colorado Gold, she was busy on the Hudson River, restoring the grand mansions of the ultra, super rich of 150 years ago. The big mansions, which were probably the summer homes of their even larger mansions on 5th Ave in New York. The ones with maybe 50 bedrooms ands a staff of maybe 50 to serve and maintain the luxury life styles of the Carnegies, Vanderbilts, and the like. The wealth of these people was peanuts to rich people today. Did these rich people hog all the money and never give any to the poor? Maybe, but they did give them JOBS! Were I rich, I would give nothing away, but start businesses and give jobs.
John D. Rockefeller used to give away silver dimes on street corners, for the fun of it. They would be worth about $1.50 today. Carnegie built and donated hundreds of libraries around the US and donated 6,000 pipe organs to churches. He built Carnegie Hall in New York, and established many foundations, as did all super rich people. If you remember the Baltimore riots of a few weeks ago, you might have noticed that the street was full of, at one time, wonderful brick row houses. There were literally millions of them built in major American cities, and built and owned by workers in factories started by the super rich. Philly, at one time was host to Philco, The Philadelphia Corporation, who made millions of radios and TV sets. Philly was home to Disston Saws, Botany 500 suits, and Stetson hats, just to name a few, and all employed thousands of workers who were well paid and could afford to own their own home, which they did. There was no welfare system then. In Baltimore, the owners of these meticulously maintained, owned houses, were in the habit of washing their outside stairs every morning. In Philly, like in all large cities, they went to work on streetcars, elevateds, subways or busses, and didn’t need a car. The cities were virtually crime free, had no slums, and streets were tree lined. Neighborhood restaurants, churches, markets, and other stores satisfied the needs of these neighborhoods. Welfare destroyed America and the cities, and the super rich provided jobs with security. The gap between the super rich and the poor, was vastly larger than today. There were poor neighborhoods and wealthy neighborhoods with homes to match the size of incomes, but there was nothing wrong with that!
I grew up in a row house, and owned several in Philly. It was a great childhood! The home I grew up in, was built in 1905, had three stories, high ceilings, a yard, garage, basement, and was roomy and comfortable. American cities were wonderful a hundred years ago, and even less. They began to degenerate when FDR began the welfare state, and it has gone downhill ever since. The welfare state, built public housing beginning in the 1930’s, ruining neighborhoods in which they were built, and was the beginning of suburbia. People didn’t want to live next to public housing, sold their devalued homes for bargains, and left. Government then allowed people to buy homes with nothing down, and that finished the big cities’ row house neighborhoods. We now have wrecked or demolished homes which were wonderful and beautifully maintained by owners, till the neighborhoods went bad. We now have huge crime, slums, and ’no-mans-land ’neighborhoods. I lived in, and owned a marvelous row house in west Philly, on Hoffman Ave. in the early 1960’s when I began my chain of iced creme parlours, and it was marvelous. Foster Bixler lived next door and he worked for Philadelphia Gar Works. 20 years later It was lost. Lots of beautiful row houses were torn down, and most had been wrecked by buyers with "no money down." The federal government killed the big cities.
While they were destroying the big cities, the feds polluted the air and caused gas shortages, because whites fled the cities for the suburbs, and consumed cars, gas and money, trying to get to work on crowded freeways. In South Philly, South Broad St. divided the areas between the Italian West side, and the Jewish east side. Frank Rizzo, who became mayor and was a superb police commissioner, was born and raised in a South Philly row house. The Jews sold and left first, making the east side a slum, and the Italians hadn’t sold when I left Philly in 1971, but I assume they have by now. Income gap? Sure, but it is not the fault of the rich. It’s the fault of the poor, who would rather not work, achieve, and live on handouts. Who would hire someone who knew nothing, had hideous personal habits, was ill-educated, and basically worthless? The citizens who worked for the super rich in their factories a hundred years ago or less, bought wonderful row homes, cared for them, and the big cities were whole, wholesome, friendly, and virtually crime free. My dad was a corner druggist, did well, and bought a retirement farm in southern Maryland when I was 14, which we went to on weekends, but he didn’t sell our row house. The neighborhood was fine, and the home was just that: A home. There were big gaps then too, like now, but I’d give anything to turn the clock back to those row house days!