The Morals of Money

Words such as millionaire, multimillionaire and billionaire carry a magic and compelling ring. Understandably enough, many people are mesmerized by those words, by what they think those words imply — and by the thought of piling up a personal fortune as an end in itself.

These people seem to believe that every millionaire has his millions in ready cash, stored in strongboxes beneath his bed or in a handy wall safe in his library, to hold or squander according to his whim. They also apparently believe that money can buy them everything and solve all their problems.

In the case of a "working" millionaire — a wealthy individual actively engaged in business — nothing could be further from the truth. In the first place, although a businessman may be "worth" many millions of dollars, precious little of his wealth is in fluid, spendable cash. His fortune is invested — tied up — in land, buildings, machinery, equipment, raw materials, finished-product inventories, in all the things which make up his business and keep it in operation.

Certainly, only a minute fraction of any working businessman's fortune is ever available to him as personal cash on hand unless he chooses to go out of business and liquidates his holdings by selling them. But the successful businessman very seldom sells out.

He knows that wealth which serves no constructive purpose has no real justification for its existence. It might be said that he views business as a creative art. He uses his money as capital, investing and reinvesting it to create businesses and to expand them. These, in turn, create jobs and produce goods and services — and help create a better life for all.

The successful businessman also knows that wealth does not automatically grant him a year-round, no-limit license for fun-filled frolic. He is well-aware that money has the power to do many things for people — but he also realizes that money can do many things, bad as well as good, to people, their private lives, personalities and moral and intellectual values.

Believe me, wealth is something with which one has to learn to live — and the task is not always as simple as might be imagined. A man who becomes rich finds it necessary to adjust to the idea of being wealthy. He must make certain that he maintains his perspective and his sense of values. He must learn to cope with the special problems his wealth creates, to handle the types of people who are wont to flock around him because he is rich.

And even though the successful businessman may not have to worry about his rent or grocery bills, though he may be secure from personal financial want, he is never secure from financial worries. The businessman's wealth derives from the profits made from his business ventures — profits which are dependent upon the efficient operation of those ventures. Consequently, he always has money problems.

If one of his firms is operating at a loss — as will often happen — he must take immediate steps to remedy the (continued overleaf) situation. He must find money to finance the expansion and modernization programs of his companies. He must see to it that his companies pay debts promptly. He always has to think — and often has to worry — about these and countless other questions of finance. Take my word for it, a businessman's worries over paying off a $5,000,000 bond issue that has matured are no less great, immediate and personal than those of a $75-a-week clerk who has to meet a $500 note that's falling due!

No matter how wealthy or successful a businessman may be, he has heavy responsibilities to his employees, customers, shareholders and the public at large. Unless he stands ready to discharge his obligations, he will not remain wealthy very long.

I received my first lessons about money and business in the tough, no-nonsense school of the Oklahoma oil fields. The men I met and with whom I worked had very definite views on the morals of money, the ethics of business and the responsibilities of a businessman.

"Moral responsibility can never be avoided." "The last thing you should ever do is borrow. The first thing you must always do is repay your debts." "If you can trust a man, a written contract is a waste of paper. If you can't trust him, a written contract is still a waste of paper." "Money is only as good as what you do with it. The best thing you can do with your money is to keep it working and to make sure it keeps you working, too."

Such are a random but representative sampling of the tenets which formed the credo of the oil fields. They may sound homely in this age of nuclear-powered Madison Avenue slogans, but I've found them to be as valid and valuable as anything I've learned during my career.

I'll admit I didn't take all the lessons to heart at the beginning. I was 24 when I made my first million. With that money — and the arrogant self-confidence of youth — I decided to retire and spend the rest of my life enjoying myself.

I had a great time — at first. But a man in his mid-20s who has worked hard and achieved results can only play so long. He can attend only so many parties, drink only so much champagne and paint the town red only so many times before he realizes that he's wasting his time — and that he's bored stiff.

It took me about two years to reach the supersaturation point, but reach it I finally did. I retired in 1916. By early 1919, I'd tasted far too much of my fartoo-premature retirement, and my money and I were back in the oil business, this time to stay. I've kept my money working, and it's kept me working, ever since.

Once an individual achieves financial success and is identified as a millionaire, he is thenceforth a marked man, and matters only get worse as his wealth increases. If he's seen talking to other businessmen over a restaurant lunch, he is sure to receive a dozen telephone calls a few hours later from people asking him to confirm or deny the reports of projected mergers, stock splits or extra dividend payments which are already making the rounds. Let him attend a social function and dance with a young lady more than once, and the rumors of a "sizzling new romance" which buzz through the ballroom are certain to find their way into the gossip columns. The conversation at the luncheon table may have been concerned solely with hobbies or horse racing. The millionaire's dancing partner may have been his niece or his cousin. But the results are inevitable.

No, despite all the many advantages he enjoys, the wealthy businessman's life is not all champagne and caviar. He must accept the fact that, despite his wealth and position, there are drawbacks to being a millionaire. He may be respected or admired for achieving success and wealth, but he must expect that a considerable and vociferous segment of the population will envy and even hate him for it. There are times when he may be praised for what he says or does, but he will be reviled at least as often.

In some ways, a millionaire just can't win. If he spends too freely, he is criticized for being extravagant and ostentatious. If, on the other hand, he lives quietly and thriftily, the same people who would have criticized him for being profligate will call him a miser.

If he goes to parties and night clubs, he is labeled a wastrel and doubts are raised about his maturity and sense of responsibility. Let him shun the salons and saloons, and he is promptly tagged as a recluse or misanthrope.

To the auditors and critics of the rich, even the most minor actions loom as matters of major concern. Take tipping, for example. I've found that if I leave a liberal tip in a restaurant, someone is sure to say I'm showing off. If I don't overtip, that same someone will be the first to say that "Paul Getty is a penny pincher."

If I talk to reporters, word gets around quickly that I'm a publicity hound. If I don't grant interviews, I'm considered "uncooperative" or hostile to the press, and some gossip columnist is certain to write something to the effect that "Paul Getty is strangely uncommunicative these days. Could it be that he's trying to avoid answering certain highly explosive questions?"

Am I complaining? No. Not at all. I'm merely listing some of the things a millionaire has to accept with rueful and resigned good humor.

A wealthy person can obviously buy a plenitude of the material things in life. He can have an extensive wardrobe, automobiles, a fine house, servants — in short, all the material appurtenances of luxury living. The extent to which he is able to enjoy these depends on him, and, if he is an active businessman, to a considerable degree on the demands which his business makes upon his time and energies.

I still find that it's often necessary to work 16 and 18 hours a day, and sometimes right around the clock. When I travel, the problems of business are never farther than the nearest telegraph or cable office or telephone. I can't remember a single day of vacation in the last 45 years that was not somehow interrupted by a cable, telegram or telephone call that made me tend to business for at least a few hours. Such work schedules and the need for devoting the majority of my time to building and expanding my businesses have taken a heavy toll of my personal life.

I've been married and divorced five times. I deeply regret these marital failures, but I can understand why they were failures. Each one of my former wives is a wonderful woman who did her utmost to make her marriage to me a success. But a woman doesn't feel secure, contented or happy — she doesn't feel as though she is really a wife, or that she really has a husband — when she finds that her husband is thinking of his business interests first and foremost and that she comes next, almost as an afterthought.

Five marital failures have taught me these things. They've also taught me that a happy marriage is another of the countless things in life that no man can buy no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars he possesses.

Friendship is something else that can't be bought — although there are many who try to sell its counterfeit. I've often said that time is the only reliable gauge by which a wealthy person can measure friendships. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate in having made many real and good friends.

These people have been my friends for years and even decades. They've never tried to profit financially from our friendships. If they have asked me for anything, their requests were reasonable — the kind that good friends are likely to make of each other.

Such is not the case with the familiar type of individual who goes out of his way to become friendly with a wealthy person with premeditated intent to get something for nothing. That "something" may be a job, an inside tip on the stock market, money to start a new business or to shore up an old one that's crumbling, an outright cash gift — or a cash gift that's euphemistically described as a loan. (concluded on page 164)Morals of Money(continued from page 126)

For example, I have four grown sons. All chose to enter the family business. When each made his decision to do so, he was allowed to start right in — at the bottom of the ladder. My sons served their apprenticeships by serving customers in filling stations owned by my companies. They sold gasoline and lubricating oil, filled batteries, changed tires and did their share of cleaning grease racks and sweeping and mopping the premises where they worked.

Yet, innumerable casual acquaintances have blandly asked me to do them a "favor" and give their sons, or unemployed relatives, executive-level jobs in the firms I control. They never seem to understand why I turn them down, and almost always become highly indignant when I do.

Then there are those who ask me for tips which will make them rich overnight — or within a week or two at most. It's useless to tell them I have none to give. The get-rich-quick dreamers won't believe me.

"You damned millionaires are all selfish and unfair!" "You've got secrets for making money, but you won't share them." "You don't want anyone else to get rich!" So go some of the tirades against me.

Apparently, these individuals believe that modern business is conducted in the dark of the moon by warlocks and sorcerers who chant mystical incantations and draw pentagrams on the floors of board rooms. It doesn't do any good to argue with them. They will not believe that hard work — not tips or secrets — is the key to business success. They don't want to believe it. They want success and wealth served up to them. They don't want to work.

The effect a rich man's money will have on others is often surprising, sometimes barely believable, and by no means always salutary or ennobling. I've said before that a millionaire is a marked man. There are many who consider him an easy mark as well. For instance, I have long been an avid and serious art collector. Through the years, I have been offered bogus Botticellis, counterfeit Corots and fake Fragonards by the carloads.

I recall one man who tried to sell me what he said was a rare 14th Century tapestry, and for which he asked "a mere $45,000." When I told him I wasn't interested, he flew into a rage.

"But you've got to buy it!" he shouted, thrusting the tapestry at me. "My wife worked months to make it!"

Another enterprising soul informed me that he was breaking up his collection of paintings and showed me several soot-begrimed, 10th-rate canvases in cheap, cracked frames. He had collected the paintings, all right — from scrap heaps and junk shops.

I don't suppose anything illustrates the cupidity and economic ignorance of some people better than the floods of letters by which all reputedly wealthy persons are constantly plagued.

In my own case, I receive up to 3000 letters every month from people who are totally unknown to me. Some are written by women — of all ages and from all walks of life, I gather — who say they've read or heard that I'm extremely rich and currently unmarried.

"You're just the man I've always wanted for a husband ..." "It's plain to see that you need a wife, and I know I would fill the bill to perfection ..." "I'll gladly divorce my husband and marry you, if you'll just send me the money to pay the lawyer's fees ..." These are typical lines taken from some of the marriage-proposal letters I've received in recent weeks.

The ladies often enclose snapshots or salon portraits which display greater or lesser quantities of their charms. On occasion, they'll send along entire photo albums. Some of these amorous hopefuls, I might add, hint coyly — or state bluntly — that they're willing to waive the fusty formalities of marriage and overwhelm me with love and companionship provided appropriate financial arrangements are made beforehand.

But the majority of my unwanted mail — about 70 percent, according to a tally made by my secretary — is made up of letters written by people who ask me to send them money. I do not doubt for a moment that some small percentage of these are from individuals who are actually in need. Unfortunately, it is utterly impossible to separate these from the thousands sent by professional panhandlers and chronic beggars. The letters come from practically every country in the world. It would cost vast sums to check the validity of the appeals. Thus, it's necessary to refuse them all.

Like almost all wealthy men — certainly, all with whom I am acquainted — I make my contributions only to organized, legitimate charities. Each and every year, my companies and I contribute sums totaling many hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity. This is the only way one can give money with any degree of assurance that it will be received eventually by deserving persons.

I've tried to make this dear in press interviews and public statements, but without avail. Thousands of people who want me to send them money continue to write to me. "You're rich. You'll never miss the money," most of my unbidden correspondents write, as though this explains and justifies everything.

Some plead. Others demand. A few even threaten. A surprisingly large number cannily specify that I'm to send them "cash — no checks" because they "don't want the tax authorities to find out about the money." There are even those who demand the sum they request "net — with all taxes paid."

The head of a state medical association once asked me for $250,000 — so that he could buy a yacht. "It's not much, considering what I've heard about the size of your fortune," he wrote.

This, mind you, was a professional man — a physician who was obviously highly regarded in his community and his state. So, I presume was the certified public accountant who used his firm's impressive stationery to request $500,000. He'd "discovered a sure-fire system for playing the stock market" — and wanted to play it with my money. "I'll see that you get 10 percent of the profits," he promised generously.

Then there was the high-school teacher who wanted a million tax-free dollars so that she could help her relatives, and the banker who wrote that he'd embezzled $100,000 and was certain I would make good his defalcations.

I could cite such examples almost indefinitely. In an average month, the total amount requested by these mail-order mendicants easily exceeds $3,000,000. On one memorable day a short while ago, a single mail delivery brought letters asking for a total of no less than $15,000,000!

All this, of course, is but a relatively minor annoyance among the sundry problems that come with wealth. I've mentioned several in this article which serve to make a rich man's life — pleasant and enjoyable as it is in many ways — something less than the carefree idyl so many people picture it to be.

As I've said, money can do things for people — and it can also do many things to them. What money does for or to a particular individual is largely dependent on his moral and intellectual standards, his outlooks and his attitudes toward life.

If he's a businessman, the important consideration is what he does with his money. The best use he can make of it is to invest it in enterprises which produce more and better goods and services for more people at lower cost. His aim should be to create and operate businesses which contribute their share to the progressive upward movement of the world's economy, and which thus work to make life better for all. Therein lies the justification for wealth, and therefrom does the working businessman derive the greatest sense of satisfaction.

That is what I have tried to do with my money, and those are the aims and goals of the companies in which I have invested. Those are — or should be — the morals of the successful businessman's money.