One of the most interesting moments of Citizen Kane is the scene where Kane’s old friend Leland remarks that when Kane spoke of advocating for the common man, he always spoke in terms of “giving” the people their rights, as if that was in his power. Raised amidst great wealth, his ideas of morality and honor were centered around what money could buy, and even though “big money” was often his enemy, he saw his own wealth as the solution to everything—or at least as the key to winning the people’s admiration, which appears to be what really drove him. As Leland and Susan both note, Kane always tried to buy people’s love through benevolence (e.g. by sending Leland a fat check alongside his pink slip or “fulfilling” Susan’s dream of becoming an opera singer), though he always seemed to miss the mark of granting what his friends actually wanted, since he was only every giving what satisfied his notion of what was right.