Almighty Dollar Meaning

Example : 1836: "The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty."— Washington Irving The Creole Village, in Knickerbocker Magazine (November 1836), later re-published in Wolfert's Roost's and Other Papers (1855)