Haloes for Employers
Now something very like that is happening; the mere wealthy employer is
beginning to have not only the power but some of the glory. I have seen
in several magazines lately, and magazines of a high class, the appearance
of a new kind of article. Literary men are being employed to praise a big
business man personally, as men used to praise a king. They not only find
political reasons for the commercial schemes--that they have done for some
time past--they also find moral defences for the commercial schemers.
They describe the capitalist's brain of steel and heart of gold in a way
that Englishmen hitherto have been at least in the habit of reserving for
romantic figures like Garibaldi or Gordon. In one excellent magazine Mr.
T. P. O'Connor, who, when he likes, can write on letters like a man of
letters, has some purple pages of praise of Sir Joseph Lyons--the man who
runs those teashop places. He incidentally brought in a delightful
passage about the beautiful souls possessed by some people called Salmon
and Gluckstein. I think I like best the passage where he said that
Lyons's charming social acaccomplishments included a talent for "imitating
a Jew." The article is accompanied with a large and somewhat leering
portrait of that shopkeeper, which makes the parlour-trick in question
particularly astonishing.
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