On Topic: Is it really a new 'gilded age'?

The meaning of the phrase “the gilded age” has squirmed a bit during the 140 years since Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined it for their novel of the same name.

But it's never been intended as a compliment.

The Wall Street Journal carried the phrase in a headline earlier this month for a story about how companies that once thrived or starved on the flow of government contracts - from defense and I.T. to educational products and health care management - are now living the good life, regardless of federal cuts forced by sequestration.

The head of one technology company was described as owning a 3,000-square-foot compound in suburban Virginia that includes a “Garage Mahal” for his nine sports and classic cars. A photo accompanying the article showed another I.T. chief and his wife astride one of the lavish staircases in their 40,000-square-foot Potomac, Md., mansion - the twists of the ornate stairways would be enough to make M.C. Escher dizzy.

Sequester? What sequester?

Odd, though, that the WSJ would refer to “a new gilded age” taking root. Many of the companies in this article have diversified their customer base, which is always a wise business move.

Is the suggestion that these particular Washington, D.C.-area businesses have done well - OK, excessively well - through some untoward means?

That's certainly how Mark Twain and Warner meant the phrase when they created it for the 1873 novel. The book is a mix of soap opera, satire and post-Civil War political shenanigans - Samuel Clemens had worked as a news correspondent covering the nation's capital (writing for the Muscatine Journal, among other newspapers of the time), so he knew influence-peddling and corruption when he saw it up close.

In “The Gilded Age,” honest, hard work is rewarded - Philip Sterling gets rich by finding a coal mine. But innocence is degraded and destroyed - Laura Hawkins is seduced by the dark side of fortune and fame and becomes a lobbyist, and she dies of a broken heart and bad publicity.

Railroad stakeholders are cheated and votes are bought. Jury selection for a sensational murder trial is so biased by public sentiment it ends up with only two impaneled members who can even read.

And through it all is the character of Colonel Sellers, an irresponsible liar with dreams of striking it rich through a variety of slippery schemes - or eventually being named a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

But his greatest skill, in Mark Twain's words, was his gift of spin: “The Colonel's tongue was a magician's wand that turned dried apples into figs and water into wine as easily as it could change a hovel into a palace and present poverty into imminent future riches.”

Sellers, in effect, gilds the flimsiest notion with a thin layer of gold to make it appear to be worth more than it is.

Next time you're reading about the high pay on Wall Street or for occupants in the C-suite at big banks, or the inability of our elected leaders to make fair and common-sense decisions on just about anything at all, remember Col. Sellers and his cronies.

It's not simply about their wealth but about how they attained it.