VAST FORTUNES FROM LAND.
The foremost of all American fortunes derived from land is the Astor fortune. Its present bulk, embracing all the collateral family branches, is estimated by some authorities at about $300,000,000. This, it is generally believed, is an underestimate. As long ago as 1889, when the population of New York City was much less than now, Thomas G. Shearman, a keen student of land conditions, placed the collective wealth of the Astors at $250,000,000.4 The stupendous magnitude of this fortune alone may at once be seen in its relation to the condition of the masses of the people. An analysis of the United States census of 1900, compiled by Lucien Sanial, shows that while the total wealth of the country was estimated at about $95,000,000,000, the proletarian class, composed chiefly of wage workers and a small proportion of those in professional classes, and numbering 20,393,137 persons, owned only about $4,000,000,000. It is by such a contrast, bringing out how one family alone, the Astors, own more than many millions of workers, that we begin to get an idea of the overreaching, colossal power of a single fortune. The Goelet fortune is likewise vast; it is variously estimated at from $200,000,000 to $225,000,000, although what its exact proportions are is a matter of some obscurity.
In the case of these great fortunes it is well nigh impossible to get an accurate idea of just how much they reach. All of them are based primarily upon ownership of land, but they also include many other forms such as shares in banks, coal and other mines, railroads, city transportation systems, gas plants, industrial corporations. Even the most indefatigable tax assessors find it such a fruitless and elusive task in attempting to discover what personal property is held by these multimillionaires, that the assessment is usually a conjectural or haphazard performance. The extent of their land holdings is known; these cannot be hid in a safe deposit vault. But their other varieties of property are carefully concealed from public and official knowledge.