CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH IN MONOPOLIES,
ETC.
The first and the second chapters have revealed to us that, since the
year 1890, there have been nearly 34-millions of individuals without
property in the United States. The third chapter has shown that about
one-half the results of their labor must be expended for the necessary
support of existence, while the other half must go to enrich the owners
of rentable farms and homes for which these owners draw incomes from the
propertyless, without any labor or without any expenditure of their own
energy. Besides this, out of the more than 47-millions of individuals in
the gainful pursuits,[112] there must have been hundreds of thousands of
families who have small properties, like homes, but their members have
been obliged to support themselves by laboring under the same conditions
of dividogenesure as did the propertyless.
If we admit then that there have been only 38,837,849 individuals in the
gainful pursuits absolutely under the principle [SN: DAILY INCOME FROM
THE POOR.] of dividogenesure, and that if one million families have
employed them in various ways, gaining 25 cents daily from each person
thus employed, the total daily income of these families would be
$9,709,462 per every day.[113] And if the labor year on an average, for
all, consists of 250 days, the yearly income of the million families
would amount to $2,327,365,500. This amount then would be yearly added
to the aggregate wealth of the fourth group of the 2d R. table, p. 47.
Though most of the income would go to only a few families among the
million.
And if the mortgagor families continued to exist even without an
increase in their numbers—which is really impossible, for the mortgages
certainly must have increased—and continued to pay the annual [SN:
INCOME FROM THE DEBTORS.] interest charge at the rate of $539,352,898,
as has been stated on pp. 125, 126, then the yearly income of the
wealthy families in the 4th group of the 2d R. table must have been
still greater than what they could get from the propertyless alone on
the condition of giving them employment, and renting them the rentable
farms and homes. In fact, the direct and indirect profit in favor of the
wealthy few from the application of the labor energy of the above
millions of the economically enslaved would amount to $20,067,028,786
worth of wealth during seven years. And what do we have?
Mr. G. B. Waldron, continuing the estimates of the increase of wealth by
the Director of the Mint, from 1870 to 1897, has shown that by 1890 the
increase [SN: INCREASE OF WEALTH.] of wealth had reached
$65,037,091,197, as has been already stated in several places, while in
1897 the increase amounted to $86,825,000,000 worth.[114] So that an
addition of $21,787,908,803 worth of wealth has been made by the
people’s energy during seven years. Yet, with this enormous increase of
the wealth in seven years, listen! listen! to what the statisticians
said in 1897:
“In the United States wealth has increased phenomenally; wages since
1873 have fallen (on account of too great supply of labor); the
concentration of capital has [SN: STATISTICAL CONCLUSIONS.] increased;
the number of the out of work has grown.”[115] Some men tried to
minimize the significance of these statements by proving the contrary
situation. Mr. Atkinson is one of those who said that “wages have risen
and prices fallen,” which view he entertained on the bases of government
reports. But all such arguments “have been shown in the article ‘Wages’
of Enc. of Soc. Reform, to be false.”[116] And Prof. Mayo Smith has
disproved all attempts of these men to show that the wages have risen,
on the whole, by showing the falsehood of the averages such men
represented in their arguments.[117]
Further, the fundamental doctrine of wages in economics is that the
rates of wages depend principally on the efficiency of labor and [SN:
THE ECONOMIC DOCTRINE OF THE RATE OF WAGES.] on supply and demand of
labor. That is, if the efficiency of the laborers is high, the wages can
be high, and if the demand is great and the number of the laborers
small, the wages are again high; but if the demand for laborers is
small, and the supply is large, the wages must naturally be low, whether
the efficiency of the laborers is high or low.
The wages in the United States since 1873, on the whole, have gradually
fallen, but not so low as they ought to have done. For, as [SN: WAGES
WOULD BE TWICE AS LOW.] the propertyless people have increased in
numbers up to tens of millions, the wages should have fallen twice as
low, otherwise only half the employees at a time should have employment,
because of the over-supply of laborers. But, since the trade-unions have
been organized, the wages have artificially been kept up (for the
employed) by these organizations, and by the employers themselves to
some extent.
“A trade union,” says Mr. Webb, “is a continuous association of
wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions
of their employment.[118] The chief object of it is to elevate the
social position [SN: WAGES ARTIFICIALLY KEPT UP.] of its members. * * *
It is a union of individual forces in order to compete against the undue
and unfair encroachments of capital into the continuance of the
established well-being of the united individuals.”[119] Hence, “the
trade unions wish to keep up the rates of wages, and to prevent a
laborer from accepting employment, under stress of starvation, on terms
which in its common judgment would be injurious to the union’s
interests. And they would rather encourage idleness than cheap labor.
Such idea existed with them since the beginning, or when it originated.
This idea originated in 1741,” says Mr. Webb,[119] “but the special
enforcing of it commenced at the beginning of the eighteenth century.”
* * * And surely many an employer knows very well what the “Strike in
Detail” of the trade unions under this enforcing means.
The trade unions have used all the means in their power for the purpose
of holding up the wages. But, if the wages have fallen notwithstanding
the artificial support, their falling testifies to the presence of a
mightier force pressing them down.
In 1896 it was said that, “according to the last volume of the
Connecticut Labor Report and the Massachusetts Statistics of
Manufactures, the nominal rate of wages in [SN: GROSS INCOMES OF WORKERS
DECREASED.] 1894 had declined 7 per cent below the level of 1892, while
the yearly incomes of laborers had been still farther reduced by the
lack of employment.” The Connecticut Report testifies that wages for the
same period fell about 10 per cent, and it says that “the heavy losses
of the wage-earners, however, came not from reduced pay, but from
reduced employment, and that the reduction in pay and in the employment
had decreased the total wage-payments 25 per cent.” And “the great mass
of families in Connecticut had had their incomes reduced one-fourth,”
says Dr. Spahr.[120] So that, in Connecticut and Massachusetts,
together, “the family incomes of the laborers between 1892 and 1894 fell
at least 20 per cent. In Pennsylvania they fell 24 per cent. The fall of
wages in agriculture from 1890 to 1894 reduced the incomes of laborers
to the extent of 20 per cent.”[121] And the rents of houses, on the
whole, have risen against the homeless.
It is not necessary to multiply the same examples in the remaining
States, since we know that the supply of labor has increased throughout
in the United States; and since we know that the demand for labor has
proportionately decreased. And, consequently, the wages in general must
have fallen according to the fundamental principles of economics,
because of the increase of population without property and without
resources.
Now then, if the incomes of, say, 40-millions of individuals in the
gainful pursuits, have on the whole been reduced; and all these [SN: WHO
PROFITS BY THE INCREASE OF WEALTH?] millions of people have been made
worse off, we have the right to ask: Who was profited by the phenomenal
increase of wealth during the period of the seven years? In other words:
Who had obtained the amount of $21,787,908,803 worth, the increase of
wealth up to 1897? Is it the group of tenants, or the group of
mortgagors? or is it the group of owners of free farms and homes worth
$5,000 and under, as they are represented in the 2d R. table, p. 47? And
was it possible for all these highly productive families to retain a
goodly share of this phenomenal increase of the wealth?
The above total of the increased wealth, divided by the 7 years, gives,
on the average, an increase of $3,112,558,400 every year. It being, of
course, understood that this average was smaller in the year 1891, and
augmenting year by year, it became largest in the year 1897. And this
augmenting necessitates a progressive increase in the business of all
monopolies, trusts and combinations, highly increasing the gross and the
net incomes of all.
THE TOTAL ITEMS OF THE CONCENTRATION
OF WEALTH.
Let us then sum up the net earnings of the natural monopolies alone, as
they are given on p. 101, leaving out their necessary increase [SN:
PROFITS OF NATURAL MONOPOLIES.] consequent upon the unavoidable growth
of business in their favor during the seven years. The net earnings of
$563,689,333 by these monopolies in every year amount to $3,945,825,331
worth of wealth in seven years. This is one item of positive loss by
tens of millions of the people in favor of a few families, connected
with the monopolies.
Another item of similar earnings, we have seen on pp. 125, 126, consists
of the annual interest charge, equal to $539,352,898, from the results
of labor of the mortgagor [SN: PROFITS OF MORTGAGEE MONOPOLIES.]
families, who are compelled to lose this amount of their substance
yearly in consequence of the abnormal distribution of wealth in general.
And, as there is no reason to suppose that mortgages were not increasing
in their numbers, and the mortgagor families were not losing their
properties by foreclosure, so there is no reason whatever to suppose
that the above annual interest charge against mortgages, on the whole,
had diminished up to 1897. Hence, we consider that the above annual
interest charge continued to be paid at least as it was paid in 1890.
For, in order to diminish it or to stop its ruinous effects, some
important reform must be accomplished, which, however, has not been
done.
The annual interest charge of $539,352,898, against the private
family-mortgages, in seven years amounts to $3,775,470,286 worth of
wealth or of the products of the mortgagor families, lost during the
period in favor of group 4 of the 2d table (p. 45 or 47). This amount is
in addition to “the net earnings of $3,945,825,331, which accrued to the
same group of families in the table.
Further, we have seen in the lower table, p. 116, that there were
4,999,396 families that hire their homes, because being homeless. [SN:
MONOPOLIZERS OF RENTABLE HOMES.] And this number of the homeless must be
augmented by 246,938 families, found in the group of the “tenants of
farms and homes,” which are represented by the author of the same 2d
table to be so many more than the lower and upper tables, p. 116,
contain of the tenant families. We have therefore to deal with 5,246,334
families that hire their homes[122] mainly in the 448 cities and towns
we have spoken about on pp. 81, 114-15, 132. For it is they that find
shelter in the rentable houses of these cities, towns, etc., by paying
rents. And our problem is to find the amount of rent they paid to the
owners of these houses.
An example of average monthly rentals may here be presented for Boston,
as follows:
Monthly rentals under $5 average $4
From $5 to $10 average 8
From $10 to $15 average 12½
From $15 to $20 average 16⅔
From $20 to $25 average 22[123]
These averages may be too small for many cities and too large for the
whole United States. But if we take the general average for all [SN: PER
FAMILY HOUSE RENT.] families at $9.50 a month, it will probably be
little below,[124] but cannot be above the true one. In fact, if every
family of 4.93 members paid an average of $9.50 of monthly rent, it
would indicate only the net income in favor of the owners of the
rentable houses, and absolute losses on the side of the homeless.
Now then, by paying $9.50 a month each, the 5,246,334 homeless families
paid $598,082,076 rent in one year. And by paying the same amount seven
years, without regarding the increase of families, they paid
$4,186,574,532 worth of their energy, as an unavoidable tribute to those
that speculate in their comfortable beds, while performing every action
by the hired labor of agents and building new houses by hired laborers.
Furthermore, we have seen in the upper table, p. 116, that there were
other 1,624,765 families that hire their farms, because being landless.
If we regard the average tenements of these families at 136 acres of
land per family,[125] we shall [SN: MONOPOLIES OF RENTABLE LANDS.] find
that the 1,624,765 tenant families held about 220,968,040 acres of land
every year. Although this general average for all farmers in the United
States may be a little too small for the tenant families, because their
acreage increases much more rapidly than that of the families owning
their farms, as we shall soon see, yet we shall consider this average as
it is given.
As to the average rent per acre of the farming land for the United
States, the general average was $2.81 for wheat and $3.03 for corn
raising lands.[126]
Supposing, however, that many farm tenants hold the grazing and other
less valued lands, let us even admit that the general average rent per
acre was only $2.75 for all lands hired by these tenants.
By paying then $2.75 of rent per acre, the 1,624,765 tenant families
paid $607,662,110 in one year for the 220,968,040 acres of land [SN: THE
PROFITS OF LAND MONOPOLIES.] that does not belong to them. And by paying
the same amount seven years—from 1891 to 1897 inclusive—they paid
$4,253,634,770 worth of wealth to a number of the speculators upon land
and upon the energy of the farmers who are the slaves of dividogenesure.
It follows that every farming family of this group, on the average, paid
about $374 for the land alone.
It seems, however, that there are many farm tenants that pay separate
rents for the farm houses. And in the year 1890 these paid [SN: HOUSE
RENT ON FARMS.] the total of $140,000,000 of the house rent, says Dr. C.
B. Spahr.[127] By paying this rent seven years they paid an additional
amount of $980,000,000 worth of their crystallized energy. Including
this total into the general total of house rents, let us now sum up the
above losses of the productive people, which are the gains of the few
monopolists and speculators for the seven years as follows in the 1st
table of concentration of wealth on the next page:
1st Table of Concentration of Wealth.
-----------------------------------+------------------
Monopolies and Combinations. |Total Net Incomes.
-----------------------------------+------------------
The natural monopolies[128] |$ 3,945,825,331
Mortgagee monopolies[128] | 3,775,470,286
Companies, etc. of rentable houses | 5,166,574,532
Monopolies of rentable lands | 4,253,634,770
-----------------------------------+------------------
Grand total |$17,141,504,919
-----------------------------------+------------------
Even this grand total indicates that a nation of thirty millions of
individuals would be rich by it, yet it does not include many other net
incomes.
Besides these certain facts, the highest rentals derived from the
offices, hotels, and other rentable properties found in the central
parts of the cities above and below 100,000 population are to be
ascertained. And no one will doubt that the comparatively very few
owners of these city-centers must have collectively drawn a greater
amount of the net incomes from rent, than can be expressed by three
billion dollars’ worth of wealth, derived without work by the few owners
of the most valuable parts, especially of the 28 cities far above
100,000 population.
Further, we have not treated the net earnings of the companies and
combinations filling up the large storehouses of the wholesale and
retail business in the same great cities, which distribute the
industrial products of the people, for consumption at home and abroad.
And while the distribution of these products is carried on by cheap
laborers, we have not represented here the few monopolists that grow
into multi-millionaires behind the busy work of the distribution. The
net incomes of these will be included into the incomes of the
Manufacture and Mechanical Trades hereafter.
But further still, we entirely omit the indication of the net earnings
of “the meat companies” in the large cities, like those of the Chicago
stockyards, “the cattle companies, [SN: THE TRUSTS’ NET INCOMES
OMITTED.] uniting more than $100,000,000; combinations of the millions,
invested in the elevators of the Northwest against the wheat-growers; in
whiskey and beer about $100,000,000; in sugar, $75,000,000; in leather
over $100,000,000 (1894). The trust of piano-makers was to have a
capital of $50,000,000, and there is the Cordage Trust that gets from 40
to 50 per cent on its capital; the Cotton Seed Oil Trust and Lard Trust”
and others.[129]
Finally, we have not treated the earnings of some other well-known
monopolies, trusts and combinations, which have, as all the others, been
established with no other purpose or end in view than to draw from the
productive people all they can for themselves by means of speculation.
For, drawing wealth by combined speculation is the easiest thing in the
world for those who were enabled to make its beginning.
Omitting the above trusts and combinations, because of the uncertainty
of their net earnings, we have positive means to find out the [SN:
OWNERS OF THE CENTRAL PARTS OF THE CITIES.] highest rentals of all
central parts of the cities and towns spoken of before. In estimating
the total income of the nation for the year 1890, Dr. Spahr found that
“the total income from house and office rents, as estimated in the text”
(his text) “is one-seventh of the total income of the non-agricultural
population.”[130] And the total income of the latter population was
$8,200,000,000,[131] one-seventh of which is equal to $1,171,428,571
3-7—apart from the agricultural land rents. This one-seventh, then, paid
seven times in seven years, amounted to the same $8,200,000,000, which
amount shows that the owners of the central parts of the cities and
towns obtained at least $3,033,425,468 rent from their properties.
It does not, however, make a difference whether we accept the whole
amount of rent estimated by Dr. Spahr or simply add the three billions
and over to our grand total, p. 150. In any way, these facts indicate
that the wealth has concentrated with the very families that were
enormously wealthy in 1890 and appeared to be much wealthier in 1897.
Yet the concentration of wealth is not only very rapid in drawing the
wealth of all the 11,190,152 families worth $5,000 and under[132] to
[SN: CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH IN HIGHER SPHERES.] a very few families of
the 4th group in the 2d table,[133] but it is also rapid among the
families worth $5,000 and over,[134] so that all are crushed by the
monopolies, the trusts and combinations. In order to illustrate it, I
here quote the same authority that estimated the increase of the wealth
from 1890 to 1897 before making a conclusion from the foregoing,
respecting industries, as follows:
“As to development of ‘the’ trusts before 1890,” Mr. G. B. Waldron says:
“Of the manufacturing and mechanical industries, whose statistics were
returned in the census [SN: TRUSTS IN INDUSTRIES.] of 1890, there are 43
whose manufactured product for the year 1889 was about $30,000,000,
whose capital averaged above $10,000 per establishment, and which
admitted of comparison with the census of 1880. Of these 43 industries
we have chosen 30 as especially illustrating the growing concentration
of capital during the 10 years from 1880 to 1890.
“It is a significant fact that while in 1880 these industries were
carried on by 84,708 establishments, or about 33 per cent of the total
number of manufacturing establishments of the country, the same
industries in 1890 were carried on by only 69,659 establishments, or
about 22 per cent of the total establishments, and fewer in number by
over 15,000 than in 1880.
“The value of the total product of these 30 industries in 1880 was
$3,125,915,574, or 58 per cent of the total manufacturing products of
the country. In 1890 these same industries produced products to the
value of $4,595,804,626, or about 51 per cent of the total product.
“The concentration of capital in these 30 industries is shown from the
fact that in 1880 their total capital was $1,735,577,540, or an average
of $20,489 per establishment, while in 1890 their total capital reached
$3,468,277,249, or $49,789 per establishment, a gain of 143 per cent in
10 years. There has been a similar concentration of employees in these
industries. In 1880 the 84,708 establishments used 1,340,490 employees,
or an average of 16 to an establishment. In 1890 there were 1,964,232
employees in these industries, or an average of 28 to an
establishment.”[135]
This is a separate and an additional item of the concentration of wealth
which undoubtedly continued—from 1890 to 1897—to farther aggravate the
general situation, shown by the grand total of the net incomes in favor
of monopolies, on p. 150, beside the uncertain ones.
For the 30 different industries, taken out of the 43, have perhaps
forever supplanted 15,049 factories and other establishments in ten
years. During the same time the supplanters did much more than double
their own capital. In fact the increase in the capital of these
supplanters reached the amount of $1,732,699,709 over the capital they
had in 1880.
But, if Mr. Waldron would investigate the same facts in the total number
of industries, he could probably show us that the supplanting of
different establishments reached at least 21,586, and that the increase
of capital reached over two billion dollars’ worth with the fewer
supplanters. That is, if the above rate of concentration of the capital
were the same, as it must have been, throughout the industrial
operations in the entire country.
And while there was also the concentration of the employees, we know
that, with the astonishing increase of the capital in favor of the
supplanting trusts, the wages of these employees have fallen,[136]
notwithstanding that their highly productive labor enormously increased
the capital of the fewer employers.
As regards the fall of wages in all the manufacturing industries since
1890, it will not be out of place to state here the minimum injury
thereby sustained by the employees in the seven years under our
consideration.
When all the available data of the Eleventh Census were published, Dr.
Spahr started to estimate the total income of the nation for the year
1890. In estimating it he found out that the total income of the
manufacture and mechanical trades alone amounted to $2,790,000,000,
including their net profits of $1,116,000,000 for the year. The total
number of persons engaged in these trades was 5,091,000, of whom
4,650,000 were wage-earners, while the remaining 441,000 were officers,
firm members and clerks. Disregarding these, the average of actual wages
of the wage-earners for the year was $360. After that year these meager
wages, by reduction and unemployment, “had decreased 25 per cent,” says
Dr. Spahr.[137]
But if we regard the average reduction of these wages at 10 cents a day
only, and the average labor year at 250 days, leaving thus [SN: SPECIAL
LOSSES OF THE WAGE-EARNERS.] a sufficient room for unemployment, we then
find that the 4,650,000 wage-earners were losing $116,250,000 every
year. And distributing the same losses over seven years, they have lost
$813,750,000 worth of their energy in favor of the trusts and
combinations. The losses, however, have been greater than this amount,
although we consider only this minimum, which is simply an increase in
the injustice brought about by the principle of dividogenesure.
But while the real producers of wealth thus constantly lose their energy
in products, the net profits of the trusts of these industries for the
year 1890 amounted to $1,116,000,000.[138] This great yearly income [SN:
NET INCOMES OF THE TRUSTS.] excludes all expenses, and excludes even the
yearly waste of machinery, tools, and of the other capital used in
operations. Obtaining such profits seven times in seven years, these
trusts have profited themselves by about $7,812,000,000. And these
enormous profits accrued to them for nothing more than the trouble of
buying the machinery and other capital that the real producers of wealth
operated upon, mostly under hired supervision. And while the human and
mechanical forces work out these results, the real beneficiaries do
nothing but speculate on the ways of concentrating the entire increase
of wealth to their hands.
The speculative efficiency of these trusts and the profound injustice of
it will be more apparent, if we remember that these profits do, not only
imply the systematic extortion of the crystallized energy of the real
producers of wealth by means of exorbitancy in dividogenesure, but they
imply a similar extortion from the public at large, which consume the
products of these industries for excessive payments.
The question of the “excess of selling price over the cost of
production” in these industries has been well ascertained. A cost of
production according to economists, implies [SN: COST OF PRODUCTION.]
cost of materials used; salaries, wages, rent, taxes, insurance, repairs
paid; waste of machinery, instruments, and of other capital valued; in
short, it implies all expenses, including reasonable percentage on stock
and reasonable remuneration for the troubles of capitalists and
entrepreneurs. And all these expenses must be collected by means of
selling prices from consumers of the products. While what is
unreasonable in such prices under ordinary circumstances is called an
“excess of selling price over the cost of production.” This excess was
raised by the trusts up to 12.95 per cent in 1890.[139]
If then we take the selling prices even of the total profits of
$1,116,000,000 of the manufacture and mechanical trades for the year
1890,[140] and subtract this excess from [SN: EXTORTION FROM THE
PUBLIC.] it, we find that the excess amounted to $144,522,000 in one
year. Admitting that the above percentage sustained some fluctuations,
we cannot but think that, with the increasing activity in combinations
of the trusts, this percentage of the excess must have increased soon
after that year. So that the average of it, from 1891 to 1897 inclusive,
must have been carried on by the trusts in different ways and means. If
so, then they must have exacted from the consuming public fully
$1,011,654,000 worth of its wealth, as an excess of selling price over
the cost of production of the goods consumed. This loss of the public
wealth, of course, does not exclude the losses of the families worth
$5,000 and over; nor does it include any relation to exports of the
products of these trades. The loss simply indicates an extortion from
the public by perverted morality and profound selfishness of the
combines.
The next item in the concentration of wealth has been drawn from the
agricultural regions.
It has been estimated that the wages and earnings of all farmers from
1890 to 1895 have fallen over 20 per cent;[141] and that 8,497,000
persons engaged in agriculture [SN: SPECIAL LOSSES OF THE FARMERS.] have
suffered from the fall, according to the estimates of Dr. Spahr,[142]
which he based upon various reports. If, however, we admit only 10 cents
of this loss from every person, every labor day, in favor of the various
monopolies, trusts and combinations which use the raw materials and
transport the agricultural materials and products, we find that in about
266 working days in one year the above people lost $226,020,200 worth of
their products. Distributing these losses equally over seven years we
find that these people have lost and the monopolies, etc., have gained
about $1,582,141,400 worth of their wealth for nothing. And this is only
the minimum loss that was carried throughout the period of seven years,
as constant drain.
Another item of similar losses is represented by the 350,000 miners
whose wages since 1890 have fallen “exceptionally low.”[143] So that it
would be perfectly safe to regard [SN: SPECIAL LOSSES OF THE MINERS.]
the average fall in their daily wages at 15 cents, and the labor year at
266 days, allowing again for a possible unemployment. This being so,
they have lost about $13,965,000 in one year. And as their average wages
did not really rise again during the period under consideration, they
must, therefore, have lost about $97,755,000 worth of their labor energy
in favor of the mining trusts and monopolies. While the profits of these
monopolies in 1890 amounted to $80,000,000,[143] when the total income
was $210,000,000 which we leave out of further consideration. [SN:
PROFITS OF THE MINING MONOPOLIES.] The $80,000,000 profits must
naturally have increased with these monopolies. But even if repeated as
they were in that year, they must have amounted to $560,000,000 during
the seven years. Considering the excess of selling price over the cost
of production here at the rate of 12.95 per cent, this amount of net
profits includes $72,520,000 worth of the public losses, of
unjustifiable extortion.
Beside all this, I find the telephone and telegraph monopolies[144] had
an increase of $229,624,566, and the railroad monopolies[144] of
$80,377,053 in their net earnings over and above the amount on pp. 101,
150. The same course is true of many other monopolies and combinations.
And as Henry B. Brown, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, in an address at the Yale Law School, June 24, 1895, said:
“If no student can light his lamp without paying to one company; if no
housekeeper can buy a pound of meat or of sugar without [SN: ALL
PRODUCTS ABSORBED BY COMBINATIONS.] swelling the receipts of two or
three all pervading trusts, what is to prevent the entire productive
industry of the country becoming ultimately absorbed by a hundred
gigantic corporations?”[145] The foregoing facts clearly show that the
corporations, whether under boards of trustees or under directors of
monopolies, with the principle of dividogenesure do, not only absorb the
entire mass of products of the people, but absorb even the wealth that
was formerly produced and now being gradually lost.
But let us now turn to the meaning of the increase of the population in
connection with the preceding facts and estimates for the seven years.
The table on the next page shows it.
Increase of Population.
+----------------------+-----------++----------------------+-----------+
| Years. Individuals. | Percents || Years. Individuals. | Percents |
| | in Cities.|| | in Cities.|
+----------------------+-----------++----------------------+-----------+
| 1790 3,929,214 | 3.35 || 1850 23,191,897 | 12.49 |
| 1800 5,308,463 | 3.97 || 1860 31,443,321 | 16.13 |
| 1810 7,239,881 | 4.93 || 1870 38,588,371 | 20.93 |
| 1820 9,633,822 | 4.93 || 1880 50,155,783 | 22.57 |
| 1830 12,866,020 | 6.72 || 1890 62,622,250 | 29.20 |
| 1840 17,069,453 | 8.52 || 1897 71,551,571 | [146] |
+----------------------+-----------++----------------------+-----------+
The preceding table shows that, from 1891 to 1897 inclusively, the
population of the United States increased by about 8,929,321
individuals, or, distributing this [SN: INCREASE OF POPULATION.] number
over seven years, the increase will be 1,250,000 souls in each
successive year. And the approximate proportions of this increase
indicate that every year about 105,665 new families were reproduced by
the 5,246,334 families that hire their homes; and about 31,698 by the
1,624,765 families that hire their farms, leaving out here the
propertied. And the heritage of these 137,363 newly formed families
under the conditions is to be homeless and landless subjects of
dividogenesure, even as their unfortunate parents are. For scarcely any
of them could acquire property and thus escape paying rent.
If then we conclude that the one set of the newly born families
consisted of the tenants of rentable [SN: RENT PAID FOR HOUSES.] homes,
while the other of the tenants rentable farms, we must admit that they
paid at least the same average rents for homes and farms as their
parents did. Therefore, the first set per family paid $9.50 a month as
follows:
Table of the House Rent Paid.
105,665 families in 7 years paid $ 84,320,670
105,665 families in 6 years paid 72,274,860
105,665 families in 5 years paid 60,229,050
105,665 families in 4 years paid 48,183,240
105,665 families in 3 years paid 36,137,430
105,665 families in 2 years paid 24,091,620
105,665 families in 1 year paid 12,045,810
------- ------------
739,655 Total $337,282,680
Thus the homeless families of the year 1891 paid the largest amount of
the house rents up to the [SN: RENT PAID FOR FARMS.] end of 1897.
Meanwhile the other yearly additions of the new families paid less and
less, on account of having been younger in age. The number of the
increased families renting houses, then, was 739,655, and the total of
the rent they paid was $337,282,680.
The increased families of the farming occupations, by having paid the
average rent of $2.75 per acre, for the average of 136 acres of land per
family,[147] have paid sums as follows:
Table of Rent Paid for Land:
31,698 families in 7 years paid $ 82,985,364
31,698 families in 6 years paid 71,130,312
31,698 families in 5 years paid 59,275,260
31,698 families in 4 years paid 47,420,208
31,698 families in 3 years paid 35,565,156
31,698 families in 2 years paid 23,710,104
31,698 families in 1 year paid 11,855,052
------- ------------
221,886 Total $331,941,456
That’s what the increase of the homeless and landless population means.
The newly formed families could neither avoid paying the rents in favor
of the same landed and propertied rich; nor could they avoid paying
indirect taxes in favor of the national government, as we shall soon
see. And they could not avoid being the slaves of dividogenesure, nor of
being victims of extortion by various trusts and monopolies. In making
our final conclusion of the profits and losses, the above amounts of
$669,224,136 worth of paid rents by the increased families will be
included into the previous totals of house and land rents.
But, in respect to all farmers’ rents and the average acreage, it should
again be noticed that we have dealt only with minimums of their
expenditure in favor of the land monopolies. [SN: INCREASE OF RENTED
FARMS.] For, “according to the _abstract_ of the eleventh census (p.
97), farms cultivated by their owners increased 9.56 per cent; rented
farms, 41.04 per cent, and farms rented for a share in product,[148]
19.65 per cent. In the north central division farms cultivated by their
owners increased less than 1 per cent, while rented farms increased 66
per cent. In the North Atlantic division, rented farms increased only 6
per cent, while farms cultivated by their owners actually diminished.
The farmers thus complain that they are losing possession of their farms
and becoming tenant farmers.”[149]
On p. 112 we have seen the enormous amount of indebtedness on the owned
farms in the United States.[150] “The percentage of incumbered farms
was, for the United [SN: PERCENTAGE OF INDEBTED FARMS.] States, 47;
Kansas, 30; Iowa, 32; New Jersey and Mississippi, 34; Nebraska,
Delaware, and South Carolina, 35; South Dakota, 39; and at the other
extreme, Oklahoma, 95; Utah and New Mexico, 85; Arizona and Idaho, 74;
Montana, 73; Maine, 71.”[151] This economic state of the farms and
farmers continued to exist from 1890. Consequently there is enough
evidence to make one sure that thousands of farm mortgagors have lost
their mortgaged farms by foreclosure, and have become merely tenant
farmers without real property. The increase of the propertyless through
mortgages may even be greater than through the increase of the
population, though we regard only the latter.
Seeing also that the “Principal of Public Debt” has increased from
$1,549,206,126 in 1890 to $2,092,686,024 in 1899,[152] it is probable,
therefore, that the indebtedness of private families [SN: INCREASE OF
PUBLIC DEBT.] has also greatly increased up to the end of 1897. Yet,
except the annual interest charge against the indebtedness in force from
1890, neither the increase of the mortgage losses, nor the increase of
the gains from them, has entered into our accounts, even as the great
net earnings of the non-national banks, often drawing immense profits
from mortgages, etc., have been totally omitted from our estimate.[153]
If, therefore, there should be any decrease in the few unrevised net
earnings of the natural monopolies after 1890,[154] the net earnings of
the above banks alone would abundantly fill up the loss with a great
remaining superfluity. Seeing also that the cities grow and the
population increases, increasing every business in favor of the same
monopolies, no one will doubt that our conclusions will be moderate, and
especially so, because we have failed to ascertain the net incomes of
several trusts.
As to the trusts, the American Anti-Trust Journal, No. 3, Chicago, says:
“Go and talk to the thousands of commercial travelers—those skirmishers
on the firing line of commercial independence—who have been thrown out
of employment by the trusts. They will tell you of hundreds and hundreds
of business men who have been forced out of business within the last
four or five years. They will tell you how the trusts ordered one man
after another to close his establishment. They will give you the names
of ambitious and thriving proprietors who are now clerks or agents of
gigantic corporate combinations, all hope dead, all opportunity gone.”
Dealing as it does with the trusts of still later development, the array
of facts in this Journal shows that our final conclusions for 1897 can
only be very moderate.
This being so, and disregarding the crooked ways of making profits, let
us then make up the complete summary of the preceding losses by the
United States people during the period from 1891 to 1897 inclusive, as
follows:
2d Table of the Concentration of Wealth.
----------------------------------+--------------------
Monopolies and Combinations. | Total Net Incomes.
----------------------------------+--------------------
The natural monopolies[155] | $ 4,255,826,950
Mortgagee monopolies[156] | 3,775,470,286
Owners of rentable houses[157] | 5,503,857,212
Monopolies of rentable lands[158] | 4,585,276,226
Owners of rentable offices, etc., |
in cities | 3,033,425,468
Manufacture and mechanical trades | 7,812,000,000
Mining monopolies | 560,000,000
----------------------------+--------------------
Grand total | $29,526,156,142
National and local taxes paid by |
them[159] | 3,455,963,952
+--------------------
THE TOTAL CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH | $26,070,192,190
|
The total increase of national |
wealth | 21,787,908,803
----------------------------------+--------------------
Excess of net incomes over and |
above the total increase of the |
national wealth | $ 4,282,283,387
----------------------------------+--------------------
The above table of the net incomes shows the conclusions that must
deeply astonish the thinking people. It shows that a “terrible change
has occurred in the conditions of life in America within fifteen or
twenty years.” But this concentration of wealth has taken place within
seven years, when the national expenditures for wars and the incomes of
monopolies and trusts started to increase. The latter obtained
$26,070,192,190.
Think of this total concentration of the wealth in seven years! It is
twenty-six thousand seventy millions of dollars’ worth of wealth. [SN:
TOTAL LOSS OF WEALTH.] While the total increase of the national wealth,
during the same time, only amounted to $21,787,908,803, which was
entirely concentrated in the hands of monopolies and combinations,
together with the additional concentration of yet another amount of
$4,282,283,387. This astonishing fact indicates that the _net income of
about one million families in the United States has been greater by
$4,282,283,387 than the total increase of the wealth collectively
produced by the nation_ during the period under consideration.
The whole increase of the wealth then has been lost in favor of the few.
But what does this over four billion dollars difference between the
total increase and the total net incomes of the monopolies and
combinations mean in view of the situation? Where does this over four
billion dollars’ worth of wealth come from?
This surplus amount of $4,282,283,387 of the net incomes certainly
cannot mean anything else than that the families, unconnected with
monopolies, trusts, and other combinations were quickly eating up [SN:
LOSS OF THE PREVIOUS WEALTH.] themselves. They not only have absolutely
lost all that they produced during the time of seven years, but have
also lost $4,282,283,387 worth of the wealth which they owned in 1890.
So that the aggregate of about $9,260,228,000 worth of wealth which was
owned by the 11,190,152 “families worth $5,000 and under”[160] in that
year, must have been greatly reduced by monopolies, trusts and
combinations. There cannot be any doubt, too, that hundreds of thousands
of the “families worth $5,000 and over”[160] have also suffered from the
same causes. Hence, the absolute loss of $4,282,283,387 worth of the
previously owned wealth must have been shared by all in favor of the
very few families whose undoubted prosperity has indeed been unusual.
For they have concentrated the enormous total of over $26,000,000,000
worth of the people’s wealth in seven years, and have thus made the
greatly increased population much poorer in 1897 than it was in the year
1890.
And this fact of growing poverty has not been unsuspected. For, if Mr.
W. H. Mallock, in trying to prove the contrary, admits “that the rich”
in England “do grow [SN: THE POOR GROW ABSOLUTELY POORER.] richer and
the poor grow relatively poorer, because their numbers increase,
although it seems that in the distribution of wealth a greater share (of
it) falls on their part.”[161] As for the United States, it was also
said that “since 1873 the poor have grown relatively, if not absolutely
poorer.”[162] The method used here for establishing this fact leaves no
doubt that the rich in both countries do grow absolutely richer and the
well-to-do and the poor in the United States do grow relatively and
absolutely poorer: accordingly, “the largest fortunes” in this country
“are increasing most rapidly,” says Dr. Charles R. Henderson.[163]
The reasons why “the largest fortunes are increasing most rapidly” have
already been indicated in this and in the preceding chapters. The most
potent of these [SN: THE REASONS WHY THE RICH GROW ABSOLUTELY RICHER.]
reasons are: 1. The profoundly unjust and abnormal principle of
dividogenesure, which further and further underrates the value of human
labor energy and overrates the value of mechanical forces in favor of
the wealthy. 2. The too high percentages for loans and capital, which
deprive mortgagors of the fruits of their labor and cause the losses of
property. 3. Abnormal excess of selling prices over cost of production,
and lowering prices on raw materials. 4. Different frauds and extortions
carried on by means of “watering-stock” and so on. All these and other
unjustifiable means are freely used by monopolies and combinations
against the general well-being of the United States people who are
constantly robbed and speculated upon by a very few members of the
nation.
As an example of the stock-watering by railroad monopolies, I introduce
here the exact paragraphs of Dr. Spahr who, after representing the table
of figures of stocks and bonds and the cost of railroads to original
investors, says:
“It should be observed, however, that the sum upon which the public is
paying interest is not the total capitalization of the railroads, nor
even the stocks and bonds not [SN: EXTORTION FROM THE PUBLIC.] held by
other railroads, but rather the sum upon which five per cent net is
realized by the roads. This sum in 1890 was $6,627,000,000.[164] Not
from the standpoint of socialism, but from the standpoint of common
morality, which condemns as robbery both the refusal of the public to
pay interest upon capital actually lent it, and the compelling of the
public to pay interest on capital never lent it, _the two thousand and
odd millions of railroad capital representing no investment_[165] is
simply capitalized extortion.
“But not even the fruits of this extortion have gone to the original
investors. The expenditures of railroads and the dividends they declare
[SN: DIRECTORS OF THE HIGHWAYS.] have been so largely in the hands of
loosely controlled directors, that railroad construction, railroad
purchases, and railroad speculation have all served as means to divert
the property of the stockholders on the outside, into the pockets of the
managers on the inside. Nearly all the profits of this extortion from
the public have passed into the hands of a comparatively few men
intrusted with the management of the public highways.”[166] These
passages simply indicate another way of extortion from the public of the
wealth it creates.
In addition to these crooked ways of concentrating all that the public
has and all it produces, [SN: THE TAXES.] let us examine the amounts of
the direct and indirect taxes paid by the wealthy and the poor during
the same time of seven years. Upon this subject Dr. Spahr speaks as
follows:
“When we consider only the revenues actually received by the government
the conclusion inevitably [SN: THE PROPORTIONS OF INDIRECT TAXES.]
reached is that the wealthy class pays less than one-tenth of the
indirect taxes, the well-to-do class less than one-quarter and the
relatively poorer classes more than two-thirds. The table summing up the
incidence of these taxes in 1890 would stand as follows:
+-------------------+---------------+----------------+-------------+
| Class of Incomes. | Total Incomes | Total Property | National |
| | in Dollars. | in Dollars. | Taxes +
| | | | in Dollars. |
+-------------------+---------------+----------------+-------------+
| $5,000 and over | 3,110,000,000 | 35,500,000,000 | 35,000,000 |
| $5,000 to $1,200 | 2,890,000,000 | 21,500,000,000 | 85,000,000 |
| Under $1,200 | 4,800,000,000 | 9,000,000,000 | 260,000,000 |
+-------------------+---------------+----------------+-------------+
+-------------------+---------------------+
| Class of Incomes. | Taxation to |
| +---------+-----------+
| | Income. | Property. |
+-------------------+---------+-----------+
| $5,000 and over | .01 | .001 |
| $5,000 to $1,200 | .03 | .004 |
| Under $1,200 | .05 | .028 |
+-------------------+---------+-----------+
The above table of indirect taxes indicates that the poorer classes
(including the homeless and landless) which had only little over
$9,000,000,000 worth of the aggregate wealth, paid more than twice as
much of these taxes as did the well-to-do and the wealthy classes taken
together. Dr. Spahr, therefore, adds:
“In the domain of direct taxation such injustice would not be tolerated
one month, [SN: THE INDIRECT TAXES PAID.] but in the domain of indirect
taxation it is endured year after year.”[167] So that, enduring similar
injustice seven years—from 1891 to 1897 inclusive, the increased number
of families paid the totals of indirect taxes approximately as follows:
Table of Indirect Taxes Paid, 1891-7.
-------------------+------------+-----------------+----------------
Classes | | Totals |
of Families. | Number. | of Property. | Taxes Paid.
-------------------+------------+-----------------+----------------
Families worth | | |
$5,000 and over | 1,695,117 | $79,825,000,000 | $ 840,000,000
Families worth | | |
under $5,000 | 12,755,310 | 7,000,000,000 | 1,479,179,059
-------------------+------------+-----------------+----------------
The fact that the total revenue, including customs, etc., received by
the government in the seven years amounted to $2,319,179,059,[168]
indicates, that while the population has increased, the indirect taxes
seem to have decreased by $340,820,941 below [SN: THE TAXATION MOST
UNJUST TO THE POOR.] the amount which would be required by the rates
paid in 1890. This diminution would average about $48,688,705 in each
successive year, and may be due to the passage of the Wilson Bill.
Although Dr. Spahr says that this bill has not materially changed the
situation, because the poorer classes, as we see, have paid $639,179,057
more for the support of the government than did the well-to-do and the
wealthy classes together. He therefore adds that “our system of national
taxation remains in proportion to its weight the most unjust to poorer
classes of any now tolerated in any popularly governed country.”[169] Of
course, “the situation was the most unjust,” when the families worth
$5,000 and under were smaller in numbers and when they owned over
$9,000,000,000 worth of collective wealth. But the injustice now
surpasses all degrees of comparison, because these families increased by
about 1,565,158, even without counting the families worth $5,000 and
over whose wealth must have been reduced below the worth of $5,000.
As to the distribution of local taxes in the year 1890, these were paid
as follows:
TABLE OF LOCAL TAXES PAID.
Families with incomes of $5,000 and over $220,000,000
Families with incomes of $5,000 to $1,200 170,000,000
Families with incomes of under $1,200 125,000,000[170]
From this table it is clear that the local taxation is not so unjustly
imposed upon the poorer families as the indirect taxation [SN: LOCAL
TAXATION IS LESS UNJUST.] is.[171] Yet judging from the facts that the
above table represents gross incomes, and that the poorer classes lose
all the wealth they produce in favor of monopolies and combinations, the
injustice against these classes cannot again be regarded other than a
profound injustice. For, having been paid seven years—from 1891 to 1897
inclusive—these taxes amount to as follows:
Table of Local Taxes Paid.
------------------+--------------+--------------------+---------------
Classes | Number | Totals of Property | Taxes Paid in
of Families. | of Families. | in Dollars. | Dollars.
------------------+--------------+--------------------+---------------
Families worth | | |
$5,000 and over | 1,695,117 | $ 79,825,000,000 | 2,615,963,952
Families worth | | |
under $5,000 | 12,755,310 | 7,000,000,000 | 875,000,000
------------------+--------------+--------------------+---------------
As to these taxes Dr. Spahr says that “from the incomes less than $1,200
less than three per cent is taken; from the incomes above $5,000 seven
per cent is taken. Nevertheless, even these relatively [SN: THE TOTALS
OF TAXES PAID IN SEVEN YEARS.] humane burdens rest twice as heavily upon
the property of the poorer classes as upon the property of the rich.
When these local taxes are joined with the national, the aggregate tax
is one-twelfth of the income of every class. There is no exemption of
wages. All the resourceless individuals,[172] even the absolute slaves
of dividogenesure, who divide the results of their labor with the
wealthy, are compelled to pay taxes from their wages. And “the
wealthiest class is taxed less than one per cent on its property,” says
Dr. C. B. Spahr, “while the mass of the people are taxed more than four
per cent on theirs.”[173] Consequently we see that the 1,695,117
families whose wealth, at the end of 1897, aggregated to $79,325,000,000
worth, paid $3,455,963,952 of the national and local taxes. While the
12,755,310 families whose aggregate wealth, at the same time, was
reduced to about $7,000,000,000 worth, also paid $2,354,179,059 of these
taxes, though these families could not have any net income at all.
Whatever might be the gross income of the 12,755,310 increased families
under the network of imposition spread by the combines, they could not
have any net income [SN: THE PROPERTYLESS IN 1897.] at all, because at
the end of 1897 these families represented about 63,150,136 individuals
of a multiple expenditure in every individual case. And as these
families include about 7,832,640 propertyless families which represented
about 38,785,279 homeless individuals, each of which in addition to his
multiple expenditure, is obliged to pay rent for shelter and to pay for
permission to labor, the multiple expenditure of every one of these,
therefore, surpasses that of each individual of the remainder of the
population.
It would, however, be wrong to suppose that we had only 7,832,640
propertyless families at the end of the period. For beside these
families there were thousands of the mortgagor [SN: NOT ALL THE
PROPERTYLESS COUNTED YET.] families in the beginning of 1891 which held
the last pieces of the mortgaged property. And they could not but lose
the very last under the heavy pressure of the combines and of the
taxation, thus becoming propertyless, too, though we are unable at
present to ascertain their number. Yet we may be sure of the fact, that
the more propertyless families we have, the more house and farm rent
they must pay to the wealthy; and hence the more rapid the concentration
of the wealth and more extensive slavery of dividogenesure must be
caused thereby.
It would also be groundless to think that the years 1898 and 1899 have
altered the firmly established [SN: THE YEARS AFTER 1897.] machinery of
concentration of the national wealth. No, the concentration of wealth in
these two years has undoubtedly been more rapid than in any two previous
years. For the trusts, etc., have been more active, and have obtained
greater net incomes on account of the war than in any two years before.
While in addition to the [SN: THE TAXES INCREASED.] more rapid
concentration of wealth by the combines, the war revenue caused a great
increase in the rates of the indirect taxes, etc. And since “these taxes
were imposed by Congress, under the Revenue Act approved June 13, 1898,”
both the propertied and the propertyless people continue to pay them up
to date as a drain additional to the other losses in favor of the
wealthy few.
It should also be remembered that, remaining unabated, the more rapid
concentration of wealth [SN: INCREASE OF THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH AND
RIGHTS.] and of property rights to-day, produces a still more rapid
concentration of wealth and of rights to-morrow, because increased and
concentrated wealth consolidates into interest-bearing property—the rate
of interest being derived from the growing population which by hunger,
thirst, and other forces is compelled to work for the mighty few. And
what will be the consequence?
According to Mr. J. K. Upton, special agent of the Eleventh Census, “the
estimated increase of wealth from 1880 to 1890 was 49 per cent. A
proportionate increase from 1890 to 1900 would indicate wealth of nearly
$100,000,000,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century,”[174] say,
at the end of 1901. And if the present situation continue, it will not
be difficult to guess the time when nearly the whole nation would
consist of desperate slaves of dividogenesure, and of about 1,000,000
masters distributing places of employment at will—in accordance with the
highest efficiency and profitableness of the employed—for the cheapest
remuneration favorable to a few multimillionaires.
As exposed in this work, the situation precludes the entertaining of any
better view, however desirable it may be. For the following estimates of
the increase of the people prove that the situation has even been worse
than here represented.
“PRESENT POPULATION OF THE
UNITED STATES.”
“According to estimates made for the World Almanac by the governors of
the States and Territories for 1900,”[175] exclusive of Alaska and the
Indian Territory, the “grand total, January 1, 1900, is 79,354,444
individuals.”
It is quite probable that the average family will now be at the most 4.9
members each.[176] If it is so, then we have about 16,194,581 families
in the nation. And, disregarding [SN: THE PROPERTYLESS IN 1900 A GREAT
NATION.] again those that were sure of losing the last pieces of their
mortgaged property, we should now have about 8,958,437 families without
real property, which would represent 43,896,342 propertyless individuals
of multiple expenditure in every case. So that, paying monthly rent at
$9.50 each, these homeless families must pay $1,021,261,198 for the year
1900 alone. But if we [SN: RENT WILL BE PAID.] admit the regular
increase of the farm tenant families, we may now have about 1,941,745 of
them occupying rentable lands at the averages of acres and of rent
previously stated, the total rent of all the tenants of farms and homes
would, therefore, reach $1,526,114,903 for one year. And the rent will
be higher the next year, although new rentable houses and flats are
built by the speculators every year.
For, with the active monopolies and combinations concentrating a greater
amount of national wealth than the people can produce, the increase of
population causes [SN: IMPOSSIBILITY OF ACQUIRING PROPERTY.] utter
inability of about 65,000,000 of individuals to acquire property.[177]
And this very inability causes a constant rise in the average land and
house rent. So that, if some years ago the average house rent was $9.50
a month per family of nearly 5 members, it may now be above $11 every
month. The 8,958,437 tenant families would, therefore, pay over
$1,687,367,389 of farm and house rent to the few owners of cities,
towns, and of lands in one year.
Thence, the phenomenal net incomes of the omnipotent afford the ample
reasons for defending by all means in their power the present situation
of the nation’s toiling for the few.
Finally, as long as the concentration of wealth in the private
monopolies, trusts and combinations not only absorbs all the yearly
increase of wealth produced by the nation, but absorbs the wealth
formerly [SN: IT IS A QUESTION OF TIME ONLY.] owned by the people, it
does not make a difference whether these combinations raise or lower the
high prices of utilities which they speculate in upon the market, the
whole wealth and the entire rights for wealth must sooner or later be
concentrated in the hands of a very few families, because all the means
of concentration are within their hands. Consequently, it is not a
question whether these all pervading combinations are beneficent or
malificent in their character, as in either case they work out the same
evil result. But the question is only a question of time: how long
before the people with all their superior productivity and phenomenal
increase of wealth will have neither wealth nor property, nor rights,
nor sufficient means for existence? How long before they all shall in
all details be absolutely dependent upon the very few speculators, whose
unbounded fortunes the tens of millions of workers are constantly
compelled to increase? See Appendix II.
Again, this concentration of wealth can neither be hindered by raising
the prices of the raw materials and products, nor even by the [SN:
REFORM IS NECESSARY.] raising of wages, nor by lowering the prices of
consumable utilities, nor by lowering the present rents, because the
rate of concentration of wealth now surpasses all degrees of change
which may be effected by such regulation, while the net profits from the
nation’s energy and labor are ultimately derived only by the few, who
are becoming fewer.
The millions of individuals must therefore free themselves from the
delusive hopes of some day becoming rich; for the strong tendency, as we
have seen, is to deprive [SN: VAIN HOPES OF THE PEOPLE.] every one of
his proper food and of the satisfaction of other increasing needs. In
order to become free from the economic bondage and slavery of
dividogenesure, it is necessary that the distribution of wealth should
be made to bring about more equal results, and that the present means of
the concentration of wealth should work in favor of all the people
engaged in the numerous spheres of human activity. See Appendix III.
And it is again to be hoped that the present parents in the United
States would in nowise hesitate to provide some better conditions of
life for their children in the far and near future.
APPENDIX.
I.
Percentages and numbers of families in the United States in 1890, under
owned and rented homes and farms, were represented by Dr. C. B. Spahr as
follows:
[Families Identified with Farms and Homes.]
----------------------+--------+-----------+-------+----------+---------
Owned: |Percent.| Numbers. |Rented | Percent. | Numbers.
----------------------+--------+-----------+-------+----------+---------
In cities above | | | | |
100,000 population: | | | | |
Homes owned | 22.83 | 444,879 |Rented:| 77.17 |1,503,955
In cities from 8,000 | | | | |
to 100,000: | | | | |
Homes owned | 35.96 | 629,092 |Rented:| 64.04 |1,120,487
Outside such | | | | |
cities: | | | | |
Homes owned | 43.78 | 1,849,700 |Rented:| 56.22 |2,374,860
Farms owned | 65.92 | 3,142,746 |Rented:| 34.08 |1,624,433
----------------------+--------+-----------+-------+----------+---------
Totals and averages | | | | |
(for all) owned[178] | 47.80 |*6,066,417 |Rented:| 52.20 |6,623,735
----------------------+--------+-----------+-------+----------+---------
Footnote 178:
As we have seen on p. 116 that 1,696,670 families out of the total of
the owning ones* in 1890, were in debt, having their properties under
mortgage. And only 4,369,747 families out of 12,690,152 in the United
States were free owners of wealth. Compare the above totals with
statistical averages on p. 79. See Dr. Spahr’s “Present Distribution
of Wealth in the United States,” 1896, p. 53.
II.
DEFINITIONS OF TRUSTS AND MONOPOLIES.
“A trust,” as defined by a committee of the New York State Legislature,
“is a combination” aiming “to destroy competition and to restrain trade
through the stockholders therein combining with other corporations of
stockholders to form a joint stock company of corporations, in effect
renouncing the powers of such several corporations, and placing all
powers in the hands of trustees.” The general purposes and effects among
them are “to control the supply of commodities and necessities; to
destroy the very possibility of competition; to regulate the quality of
all commodities; and to keep the cost to the consumer at prices far
beyond their fair and equitable value.”[179] Further, “Trust is” an
acting scheme “where, by a device of trusteeship, various corporations
practically form one monopoly without losing their separate
corporateness. The novel characteristic of such a trust is not in its
being a monopoly, but the way in which the monopoly is attained.”[179]
Mr. Charles W. Baker in his _Monopolies and the People_, says:
“A trust is a combination to restrain competition among producers,
formed by placing the various producing properties (mills, factories,
etc.) in the hands of a board of trustees, who are empowered to direct
the operations of production and sale, as if the properties were all
under a single ownership and management.”[180]
MONOPOLY IN PRIVATE HANDS.
“A monopoly in industry may be defined as the control of some natural
agent, of some line of business, or of some advantage over existing or
possible competitors, by which greater profits can be secured than other
competitors can make.”[181]
All these definitions indicate that the private monopolies and
combinations have one and the same purpose or end in view: It is to find
such devices and means and to establish such organization of business
activity, which will enable the organizers and managers to obtain from
the people the greatest profits for the least cost, thus concentrating
the people’s wealth in a few hands without paying anything to the people
in return.
III.
On the contrary, a monopoly of the government or of municipality may be
defined as a system of controlling the natural or artificial agencies of
public service and utility at such a cost to the public served, which
will merely cover all expenses necessary (to construct and) to keep
these agencies in the best serviceable and available condition or state,
thus leaving no room for the unjust concentration of the people’s wealth
in any private hands.
INDEX.
Average: rate per cent on debt, 123, 124;
average wealth of the rich, the well-to-do, the middle, and of the
poor classes, 28, 29;
of over 27-millions, 51, 52;
average, for homes in debt, 113;
for farms in debt, 111, 112;
differences in averages of different authorities, 38;
—rents, see: Rent.
Blocks illustrating comparison of individual wealth, 50.
Bread-winners by C. D. Wright, 85.
Capita: per capita wealth, 27, 38;
per capita debt, 122, 123.
Capital: aids to increase production of wealth, 55-57;
concentration of capital increased, 140, 155.
Cities: per cent of the homeless in, 80;
cities’ families in debt, 114, 115;
large cities’ families in debt, 114, 115;
cities belong to 24 and 14 per cent of their population, 118, 132.
Comparison of the poor and the rich by dollars’ worth, 7, 8;
comparison in tables, 42;
of the family-groups, 39;
of the U. S. with France at the time of Revolution, 16;
with Rome, 17;
by Crosby Hon. Ino. Reciprocal comparison of the middle classes of
two tables, 39.
Concentration: of wealth in higher spheres, 153;
of employees, 155, 156;
1st table of concentrated wealth, 150;
2d and final table of, 169;
explanation of this concentration, 170;
concentration of wealth increases, 180, 181;
concentration of wealth greater than the total increase of it, 170,
171.
Consumers’ opinion on remuneration of capital and laborers, 97, 98;
do not know the bases of justice and rights, 98, 99.
Debt: on farms, 111, 112;
on homes, 113;
increase of, 1880-89, 119-122;
increase of public debt, 167;
total debt on acres and lots in 1890, 121, 124-5;
percentages of families in debt in cities, 114, 115;
debt of the U. S., states, counties, school districts, etc., foot
note, 126;
of New York, foot note, 134;
amounts of, on real estate, 121;
per capita, 122;
extinguished debt, 12.68%, 122;
interest charge against debt, 124;
combined interest charge against families’ debt, 125, 126.
Distribution of wealth: 1st table, 28;
1st R. table, 29;
2d table, 32;
2d R. table, 36;
2d Right table, 45;
1st and 2d tables, 47. Table I, 6;
diagrams for conclusions of Mr. Holmes, 5;
diagrams for conclusions of Mr. Shearman, 12;
Table II;
conclusions of Mr. Shearman, 12;
diagrams for conclusions of Dr. Spahr, 20;
double table III for these diagrams, 21;
conclusions of Dr. Spahr, 18;
conclusions of Geo. K. Holmes, 5, 6.
Dividogenesure: definition and origin of, 70;
divides people into classes, 71;
its tacit power of enslaving the people or expelling into the sphere
of charities, 72;
it enforces idleness, 73;
is the main cause of misery, 74;
is sister of primogeniture, 74;
is a pernicious principle, 74;
its favorites without moral responsibility, 75;
is a system of slavery distinct from any other slavery, 75, 76;
the propertyless are special victims of it, 92, 103-4;
is a foundation of iniquity, 87, 88;
implies degrees of hardship against its dependents, 117, 74;
its hardship according to the rates of gain from each employed
individual, 103-4;
its rates are not wages, but pure losses, 106;
differs from primogeniture, 131;
future of the nation under dividogenesure, 106-7, 181.
Energy: human energy embodied in objects, 98;
crystallized in articles, 99;
human energy concentrates into the hands of speculators, 99, 100.
Extortion: from the public by excess of selling prices over cost of
production, 158, 159;
by mining monopolies, 161;
by stock-watering, 173, 174.
Families: groups compared, 39, 42;
basis of family-worth, 39, 41, 42;
statistics of—occupying farms and homes, 79,—hire farms, 81,—hire
homes, 81, 82;
farm families in debt, 111, 112;
home-families in debt, 113;
table of farm and home families, 116;
one million of rich families, 92, 103-4;
dividends of the million families, 103, 104 and 138-9;
one million (families) masters, 181-2;
263,380 families of the well-to-do class included into the average
of the poor of the 2d table, 32;
exposed by comparisons, 39, 42;
surplus million families found in the tenant group, 2d table, 32,
34, 35.
Farms: acreage of, 148;
rent per acre, 148-9;
acreage for the increased population, 164-5;
rent, 165;
increase of rented farms, 166;
percentage of incumbered farms, 166, 167;
farms in France, 49.
Future of the nation (possible), 106-7.
Gainful pursuits, persons engaged in, 91-2.
Galileo signed Jesuit Verdict, 16.
Germany, Berlin, 48, 49.
Great Britain, distribution of private property, 48, 49.
Herron, George (Professor dismissed from the Iowa College), 107.
Holmes, G. K. U. S. Census Expert on Mortgage Statistics, 6, 14, 15,
24;
not partisan, 33, 35.
Holmes, G. H., view on mortgages, 132.
House-Scarb defined, 8.
Income: daily income from the poor, 138-9;
gross incomes of the workers decreased, 143;
net incomes of many trusts omitted, 151-2;
net incomes of the owners of the central parts of cities, 152-3;
net incomes of the manufacture and mechanical trades, 157-8;
net incomes of the mining monopolies, 161;
total net incomes of the natural, mortgagee, rentable house, and
land monopolies, 150;
total net incomes of all monopolies, etc., table, 169;
excess of the incomes over the total increase of wealth, 169, 170-1.
Inventions: as aid to human energy, 85, 86;
they are blessing and curse, 86;
inventors were a blessing to humanity, 98.
Landowners of England, Scotland, Holland and of Germany, 56.
Logical Premises, 5;
logical premises of life, 25.
Losses: special of the wage-earners, 157;
special of the farmers, 160;
special of the miners, 161;
loss of the previous wealth by the people, 171;
total loss of wealth in 7 years by the U. S. people, 170.
Mayo Smith, Prof., compares French proprietorship of land with that of
England, 49.
Monopolies: definitions of, Appendix II and III;
profits of the mortgagee, 145;
profits of the natural, 101, 145-6;
profits of monopolies of the rentable homes, 146-7;
profits of rentable lands, 149;
the total net incomes of 4 classes of monopolies, 150;
grand total of the total net incomes of the monopolies and
combinations, 169;
explanation of the net incomes of the monopolies, 170-1.
See: Incomes, the excess of.
Mortgages: statistics of, 111;
development of, 119;
significance of, 128;
semi-optimistic views on, 128;
view of Mr. E. Atkinson on, 128-132;
of Mr. G. H. Holmes, 132;
view of Rev. Wm. D. P. Bliss, Editor of Enc. of Soc. Reform, 133;
Semi-pessimistic views: view of Mr. J. P. Dunn, Jr., Burden of Debt,
134;
losses of property by foreclosure, an example, 135, 136;
view of Mr. D. R. Goodloe, 136.
See: Debt.
Mulhall, Mr., comparison of farmers of different countries, 93.
Napoleon Bonaparte, 107-8.
Poor: grow absolutely poorer, 172.
Population: in families, 18;
in individuals, 5, 12;
increase of in 1897, 163, 164, 165;
in 1900, 182.
Primogeniture, Great Britain and Japan, 70, 74, 136.
Productivity of the Americans: on farm, 93;
in industry, 94, 95, 96.
Propertyless: “Less than half the nation,” 18;
“tenants,” group 1st, 2d table, 32;
causes of the increase of the propertyless, 52;
propertyless is a resourceless man of multiple expenditure,
61-68-71;
he is a source of multiple income for many propertied, 68;
without employment, 69;
pay rent or are expelled, 77-78;
unseen forces compel him to be a slave, 76;
more than half the population, 82;
made the nation in 1865, 85;
could build and inhabit 33 most populous cities, 83, 84;
have nothing to hope for, 86-7;
number of in 1897, 179;
number of in 1900, 182.
Rates of interest are higher against the poor debtors, 127-8.
See: Debt.
Real estate indebtedness, 121.
See: Debt.
Rent: house rent per family, 147;
house rent on farms, 149;
rent paid for homes and farms by increased population, 164-5;
average house rent, 147;
for farms, 148-9;
totals of rent paid, table, 169;
according to Dr. Spahr for 1890, house and office, 152-3;
rent for 1900, 182-3-4.
Resources: of the propertied, 53-60;
of the propertyless, 61, 64-5;
a semi-resourced man, 68.
Rich: comparison of, 42;
deeper reasons why the rich grow absolutely richer, 172-3.
See: Distribution.
Rome, mistress of the world, 17.
Shearman, Tho. G., conclusions of, 11, 12, 24, 32;
his basis of averages differ, 38;
one average covers 89.4% of the entire population, 40.
Spahr, C. B., Dr. conclusions of, 18, 20, 24;
table, 28, 31.
See: Taxes.
Statistics of wealth, by J. K. Upton, special agent of the 11th
census, 27, 181.
See: Mortgages.
Steam power: increase of, 57.
Taxes: proportions of national taxes, 175;
indirect taxes paid, 176;
decrease of national taxes, 176;
unjust to the poor, 176;
local taxes: proportions of, 176;
local taxes less unjust to the poor, 177;
local taxes paid, 178;
the poor pay taxes on gross incomes, 179;
total taxes paid by the rich and the poor, 178, 179;
taxes increased by the war, 180-1.
Tenants of farms and homes, 32;
the correct number of, table, 36.
See: Propertyless.
Trusts: definitions of, Appendix II;
development of, 154-156;
incomes of some trusts omitted, 151-2;
trusts more active, 180;
the view of Henry Brown, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme
Court on trusts, 162.
Wages: economic doctrine of the rate of, 141;
wages would be twice as low, 141;
artificially kept up, 142;
reports on the fall of wages, 142-3.
Waite, F. C., special agent of the 11th census in charge of True
Wealth: ascertained the earnings of the natural monopolies for
1890, 99, 101.
Wealth: table of, 27;
accumulation of, 27;
True wealth, 99, 101;
land is the source of wealth, 54, 55;
average wealth per family, $5,125, table, 29, 47;
per capita, lower table, 27, 38, table, 51;
aggregates of wealth owned by different classes, 1st table, 29, 45;
wealth owned by individuals, table, 51;
chart, 50;
concentration of wealth, tables, 150, 169 (for 1897);
increase of wealth (for 1900), 181;
increase of in 7 years, 139, 140;
increased phenomenally, 140;
who profits by the increase of, 144-5;
concentration of in industries, 154;
largest fortunes of, increase most rapidly, Dr. Henderson, 172;
wealth reduced with the increased number of families, 171.
See: in the tax table, 178.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTES:
Footnote 1:
Quoted from “The Public,” Number 69, July 29, 1899.
Footnote 2:
Louis Post, ibid.
Footnote 3:
His name cannot be here given.
Footnote 4:
This work will show the real causes of it and the rapid tendency
toward it.
Footnote 5:
Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1435. Ed. by Rev. Wm. Bliss and
published in 1897 by Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York and London.
Footnote 6:
This 5 per cent includes personal, unproductive property of all sorts.
Footnote 7:
Mind that these statements are of one authority only, viz.: Mr. G. K.
Holmes.
Footnote 8:
House-scarb means: all domestic or household property that may be
carried on from one rentable house to another.
Footnote 9:
Dr. C. B. Spahr, Pres. Distribution of Wealth in the U. S. (1896), p.
69; published by Thos. Y. Crowell & Company, Boston.
Footnote 10:
Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1388.
Footnote 11:
Ibidem, p. 1388.
Footnote 12:
This table gives you the exact equivalent of diagrams found on p. 12.
Footnote 13:
So far, we give honor to Mr. Holmes in advance.
Footnote 14:
One of the best authorities in statistics.
Footnote 15:
Reported in Binghamton Independent of Aug. 12, 1899.
Footnote 16:
“The Public,” Chicago, No. 74, Sept., 1899.
Footnote 17:
The diagrams and statistical tables supply the life contents for these
premises.
Footnote 18:
The exact statistics of the Eleventh Census, 1890, have given the
average at about 4.93 members to a family, which means that in each
100 families 93 have 5 and 7 have only 4 members. In 1880 this average
was 5.04, and in 1870, 5.09 members to a family.
Footnote 19:
Ibid., p. 69.—I italicize these conclusions. See Enc. of Soc. R., p.
1389.
Footnote 20:
Dr. C. B. Spahr, “The Present Distribution of Wealth in the U. S.,”
1896.
Footnote 21:
Whereas the general average of per capita wealth was $1,036.
Footnote 22:
Here, p. 6.
Footnote 23:
Here, p. 13.
Footnote 24:
Here, p. 21.
Footnote 25:
Here, see p. 18.
Footnote 26:
Dr. Spahr, “Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States,” p.
69.—Enc. of Soc. R., p. 1389.
Footnote 27:
Enc. of Soc. R., p. 1384.
Footnote 28:
C. D. Wright, “Atlantic Monthly,” Sept., 1897.
Footnote 29:
“Encyclopedia of Social Reform.” (p. 1388), 1897, by Rev. Wm. Bliss.
Footnote 30:
Dr. Spahr, “Present Distribution of Wealth in the U. S.,” p. 69, 1896,
who held each family at five members.
Footnote 31:
It should be borne in mind that, “Goods, wares, merchandise, utensils,
furniture, cattle, provisions, and every other species of personal
property, was included among the assets” representing wealth. Dr.
Spahr, Ib., p. 55.
Footnote 32:
Encyclopedia of Social Reform (publ. in 1897), p. 1388.
Footnote 33:
These totals have been summed up by me.
Footnote 34:
Table, p. 32, here.
Footnote 35:
Compare the total wealth of this table with that on p. 27.
Footnote 36:
Here, p. 13.
Footnote 37:
Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1897.
Footnote 38:
See here, p. 18.
Footnote 39:
This is the restored group of the 1st table, p. 29.
Footnote 40:
3d group, p. 32 or 36.
Footnote 41:
See Diagrams, p. 12, and Table II, p. 13.
Footnote 42:
Compare these families in the 2d restored table, p. 36.
Footnote 43:
Compare the same families in the 1st restored table, p. 29.
Footnote 44:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1389.
Footnote 45:
Statistics and Sociology, p. 201-2.
Footnote 46:
Subtraction has been made on p. 36.
Footnote 47:
See table, p. 29.
Footnote 48:
The total number of immigrants entered into the United States from
1891 to 1897 inclusively was 2,854,834.—The World Almanac, 1899, p.
176.
Footnote 49:
Here, p. 18.—Dr. Spahr, “The Present Distribution of Wealth in the
United States,” p. 69.
Footnote 50:
Even the uncultivated land is a great source of income to its owner.
And if it were not so, the great landowners of England and Scotland
would not have owned fully 20,000,000 acres of the U. S. land. But now
five of them own it, and draw large incomes from it, while remaining
at home beyond the Atlantic. And the Holland syndicate and the German
syndicate could not have owned 7,000,000 acres of the U. S. land, if
it were not a source of income, even without special application of
any labor energy to it. But now the former syndicate owns 5,000,000
acres of grazing land in Western States; and the latter owns 2,000,000
acres of it in various States, as the “Up to Date, Coin’s Financial
School,” has indicated, pp. 108-118.
Footnote 51:
Chas. R. Henderson, D. D., “Social Elements,” p. 144.
Footnote 52:
Some one may of course prefer to live in another’s house, as they say,
not willing to pay taxes for his own property. But a just taxation can
never cause this trouble. The abnormity of taxation is shown here in
Chapter VI.
Footnote 53:
Land, Capital, Rentables, Salables are income-bearing properties.
Footnote 54:
“Encyclopedia of Social Reform,” p. 1389.
Footnote 55:
_Dividogenesure_ means: (As a class and as an individual, I am the
owner of land, of wealth and capital): Divide with me your sole
results of active energy upon my source of wealth, or else you may be
sure you have only the right to starve from drain by others without
this supply. [Latin: _divido_, divide, part, separate. Greek:
_genesis_, origin, source, creation, origination, production. Latin:
_ure_, (perish) by rust, by fire, by cold, wither, dry up, or starve
to death.]
Footnote 56:
Here, p. 32 or 36.
Footnote 57:
Dr. Warner, American Charities, pp. 178-9, Dr. T. Ely’s edition.
Footnote 58:
I italicized his words.
Footnote 59:
I italicized his words.
Footnote 60:
Dr. Warner, ibidem, p. 181.
Footnote 61:
Remember that these conclusions are moderate.
Footnote 62:
These owning families include the mortgagors.
Footnote 63:
Many of these home-owning families are in debt, and their homes serve
as securities for it.
Footnote 64:
Enc. of Soc. R., pp. 899-900.
Footnote 65:
He pays rent.
Footnote 66:
He pays rent and divides the results of his labor, p. 58-61.
Footnote 67:
See conclusion, p. 18.
Footnote 68:
Mr. Wright, “Atlantic Monthly” for September, 1897.
Footnote 69:
See his conclusions and my explanation of them, here, pp. 12, 13.
Footnote 70:
Compare for this the original tables, pp. 28, 32 and 51.
Footnote 71:
See 1st R. table, group 1st, p. 47, and as individuals, p. 51.
Footnote 72:
Mayo Smith, “Statistics and Sociology,” pp. 200, 201-2.
Footnote 73:
Mr. E. Atkinson, “The Distribution of Products,” p. 15.
Footnote 74:
Ib., p. 22.
Footnote 75:
Ed. Atkinson, ib. p. 27.
Footnote 76:
Ed. Atkinson, ib., pp. 77, 78. Also, Enc. of S. R., p. 1093.
Footnote 77:
“Socialism and Christianity,” p. 205. Also Enc. of Soc. R., p. 289.
Footnote 78:
Prof. John R. Commons, “Distribution of Wealth,” p. 258. Also, see
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1102.
Footnote 79:
“Gross receipts less gross disbursements.”
Footnote 80:
Totals made up by me.
Footnote 81:
Compare the last two groups with the first two of the table, p. 28.
And compare the same groups of table, p. 51.
Footnote 82:
See this number and families, p. 92.
Footnote 83:
See tables, p. 36 or 45.
Footnote 84:
By the “other” monopolies, I mean some monopolies, companies, trusts
and combinations which have not been mentioned here at all, and many
of which deal with rentable houses in cities, and so on.
Footnote 85:
Prof. George Herron’s dismissal from the Iowa College is a striking
example, foreboding the nation’s near future. This professor was
forbidden by financial necessity to teach what is good for the
people.—“The Public,” Nov. 11, 1899, Chicago. “The Public” No. 115,
1900, has now on record four other professors similarly dealt with in
different colleges on grounds similar to that of Prof. G. Herron. One
of these four is President Henry Wade Rogers, of the Northwestern
University, at Evanston, Ill.
Footnote 86:
Artificial property again means all things that were created or
invented by man in the past or the present.
Footnote 87:
See the same number on p. 79.
Footnote 88:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 899.
Footnote 89:
This number contains 1,624,765 tenant farming families.
Footnote 90:
Remember that the tenant families are excluded here.
Footnote 91:
Lien means a legal claim on property which must be paid.
Footnote 92:
Remember that the 4,999,396 tenant families are excluded here.
Footnote 93:
These percentages are from the Official Bulletin, No. 98.
Footnote 94:
Dividogenesure is the stronger, the larger the per cent an employer
obtains from the results of the labor of every employee; and is the
weaker, the smaller the per cent he obtains from every one dependent
on him for life.
Footnote 95:
That is, the rate of making mortgages in 1880th year was 643,143, and
the yearly rate in 1889th year was 1,226,323 in one year.
Footnote 96:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 901.
Footnote 97:
Dr. Spahr, ib. p. 67.
Footnote 98:
All expressions under the inverted commas are from Bulletin.
Footnote 99:
Bulletin No. 71, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 901.
Footnote 100:
Continuation, “On the debt in force against acres, $162,652,944; on
lots, $234,789,848,” is the yearly interest.
Footnote 101:
Here, p. 112.
Footnote 102:
Ib., p. 113.
Footnote 103:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 902. This interest charge is at the end of the
Extra Bulletin No. 71.
Footnote 104:
Yet, it should be remembered that we do not here deal with the debts
of Railroad Companies, Street Railway, Telegraph, Telephone and other
companies and corporations; nor do we deal with the U. S. debt of
$891,960,104; States, $228,997,389; Counties, $145,048,045;
Municipalities, $724,463,060; School districts, $36,701,948, which in
1890 made the grand total of $18,027,170,546 including the debt under
our consideration. But we deal with family-debtors, for whom debt is
equal to ruin. Whereas debt to the others is prosperity.
Footnote 105:
That is, if we divide them by the line of families worth $5,000 and
over, and families worth $5,000 and under; and the latter will include
the economic dependants.
Footnote 106:
Here, p. 119.
Footnote 107:
Here, p. 121.
Footnote 108:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 904, Edition of 1897.
Footnote 109:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 904.
Footnote 110:
Ib., p. 904.
Footnote 111:
Mr. Dunn could not have known at the time that some Eastern States
were even worse than the Western ones, and that “New York,” for
instance, “is” more “conspicuously prominent as having a real estate
mortgage indebtedness of $1,607,874,301, which is 26.71 per cent of
the total indebtedness on acres and lots in the United States.”
Footnote 112:
Here, pp. 91, 92, or Mayo Smith, Statistics and Sociology, p. 200.
Footnote 113:
As the rates of their gains show, pp. 104, 105.
Footnote 114:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1386.—Waldron, “Handbook on Currency or
Wealth.”
Footnote 115:
References: Enc. of Soc. R., see “Unemployment.” Dr. Spahr, “Present
Distribution of Wealth in U. S.” (1896).—J. R. Common’s “Distribution
of Wealth,” Enc. p. 1392.
Footnote 116:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1392.
Footnote 117:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1370.
Footnote 118:
Mr. and Mrs. Webb, “History of Trade Unionism,” p. 1 or 2.
Footnote 119:
“Introduction and Mutual Insurance,” vol. I, pp. 148-9, 150-1164.
Footnote 120:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, pp. 1370, 1373 and the Labor Reports.
Footnote 121:
Dr. Spahr, ib., pp. 116, 117.
Footnote 122:
The above 246,938 families could not be here classified among the
tenants of farms consisting of the 1,624,765 families, because after
losing their country properties, these homeless hurry on to crowd up
cities.
Footnote 123:
Dr. Spahr, ibid, p. 122-3.
Footnote 124:
As numerous inquiries convince me.
Footnote 125:
According to the U. S. Census of 1890, there were 4,564,641 farms
consisting of 623,218,619 acres of land, or an average of 136 acres to
a farm. World Almanac, 1899, p. 184.
Footnote 126:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, pp. 22, 23; also based on the census.
Footnote 127:
“Present Distribution of Wealth in the U. S.,” pp. 104, 105; (see
here: Appendix I.). The same: Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1385—table of
incomes, 1890.
Footnote 128:
Some one may suppose that some net earnings of the national banks
might overlap some net earnings of the mortgagee monopolies, since
mortgage profits are often obtained by banks. But such a supposition
cannot have a real ground here, because the national banks are
prohibited by the law of the United States to make investments in
mortgages; and because mortgages of real estate, being not easily
convertible securities for loans, would not be admissible by them. The
only exception made by the law for these banks is that, for a
necessary accommodation of their business, a mortgage may sometimes be
held as a security, collateral to some other which is more easily
convertible into currency. (See Revised Statutes, §5137. Prof.
Dunbar’s “Theory and Hist. of Banking,” p. 26.)
It is the non-national or State banks that often directly deal with
mortgages. But estimating their gross earnings at $200,000,000 for the
year 1890 (see p. 101), Mr. Waite evidently could not ascertain their
enormous net incomes, hence we leave them to be understood as surplus
above all our concluding totals of net incomes.
And whereas, the net incomes of the national banks decreased
$110,378,930 in the 7 years, those of the life insurance companies
increased $108,932,030 (World Almanac, 1900, p. 180, 184) and with the
help of the omitted net incomes of the gas companies (p. 101) more
than offset the loss, leaving our totals correct.
Footnote 129:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, 1897, pp. 1346-7; from “Philadelphia Times,” etc.
Footnote 130:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., pp. 104-5.
Footnote 131:
It was the gross income.
Footnote 132:
See the upper table, p. 42.
Footnote 133:
Table, p. 47.
Footnote 134:
Lower table, p. 42, 1st two groups.
Footnote 135:
Mr. Waldron, “Hand-book on Currency or Wealth,” pp. 106 and 107. See
also: Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1389.
Footnote 136:
See the statistical conclusions on the fall of wages, p. 134; also Dr.
Spahr’s “Present Distribution of Wealth,” etc., pp. 95-118.
Footnote 137:
“Present Distr. of Wealth in U. S.” (1896), pp. 104, 105, 112. Here,
pp. 140-143. “Average daily wages: 1873, $2.04; 1891, $1.69; urban
laborers.”
Footnote 138:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., pp. 104-5. Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1385.
Footnote 139:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., pp. 98, 104-5. Also: Statistics of Massachusetts
Bureau of Labor, 1890, p. 319.
Footnote 140:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., p. 104-5.
Footnote 141:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., pp. 116, 117.
Footnote 142:
Ibid., pp. 104, 105.
Footnote 143:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., p. 104-5.
Footnote 144:
World Almanac, 1899, pp. 200, 225.
Footnote 145:
Quoted from Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1347.
Footnote 146:
For 1897 is an approximate estimate of The World Almanac, 1899, p.
200, foot note.
Footnote 147:
It might be that some of these families paid house rents on farms
beside the land rent, as Dr. Spahr has shown; while some others might
pay simply house rents, and thus offset each other, making the above
sum correct.
Footnote 148:
“For a share in product” is an initial form of serfdom pure and
simple.
Footnote 149:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, pp. 606-7.
Footnote 150:
Also here, p. 125.
Footnote 151:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, pp. 606-7.
Footnote 152:
World Almanac, 1900, p. 174.
Footnote 153:
Here, see foot-note, p. 150.
Footnote 154:
Table of profits, here, p. 101.
Footnote 155:
Includes the increase of $310,001,619 by the railroad, telegraph and
telephone monopolies, p. 162.
Footnote 156:
Excludes net incomes of the artificial gas companies and those of the
non-national banks (beside mortgages) as not given in the table on p.
101. See foot note, pp. 150, 167, 168.
Footnote 157:
Includes the house rent on farms and that of the increased population,
pp. 149, 164.
Footnote 158:
Includes the rent of land paid by the increased populations, p. 165.
Footnote 159:
This amount of double taxes is calculated to have been fully paid for
7 years on the net incomes here stated, and on all the property these
trusts, etc., have had in the beginning of 1891 and after, according
to the tax rates to be here indicated.
Footnote 160:
Compare tables, here, on pp. 42 and 47.
Footnote 161:
Mr. Mallock’s “Classes and Masses” (1896.)
Footnote 162:
Enc. of Soc. Reform, p. 1392.
Footnote 163:
His work on “Social Elements,” p. 162.
Footnote 164:
“Statistics of Railways, 1890,” p. 58.
Footnote 165:
I italicized the words.
Footnote 166:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., pp. 41, 42. The total capitalization of railroads in
1890 was represented by $9,437,300,000, while the total investment
amounted to only $3,714,400,000. And Mr. Van Oss stated that “shares
now return at least 18 per cent per annum on the actual investment.”
Ibidem.
Footnote 167:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., p. 143. The total incomes in the table of taxes
above represented are gross incomes.
Footnote 168:
Statistics, World Almanac, 1899, p. 165.
Footnote 169:
Dr. Spahr, “Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States,” p.
143-4.
Footnote 170:
Ib., p. 156-7.
Footnote 171:
“Extra Census Bulletin No. 70” represents taxes on property $465,000,000
including corporations for 1890
Licenses, poll taxes, etc. (about) 50,000,000
------------
Total (the same as that contained above) $515,000,000
The Bulletin adds that “three-fourths of this tax falls upon the
relatively poorer classes.” Dr. Spahr, ibid., p. 156.
Footnote 172:
See here, pp. 64, 65, 68, 72.
Footnote 173:
Dr. Spahr, ibid., pp. 157, 158.
Footnote 174:
The World Almanac, 1899, p. 164. Mr. Upton, here, p. 27.
Footnote 175:
The World Almanac, 1900, p. 539.
Footnote 176:
This average would mean that in every 100 families 90 have 5 and 10
have only 4 members. See the decrease of family membership: foot note,
p. 18.
Footnote 177:
“It is interesting to remark that, while in 1893 the number of the
propertyless families reached over 7-millions, the national and local
Building and Loan Associations having net assets of over $450,000,000,
have,” in 25 years, “helped to secure” only “probably over 400,000
homes,” says Mr. Wright, U. S. Commissioner of Labor. The World
Almanac, 1899, p. 168; ib., 1900, p. 172. But that inability is
aggravated by the taxation unjust to the poor. See here, pp. 174-178.
Footnote 179:
Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1346.
Footnote 180:
Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1346.
Footnote 181:
Ibid., p. 888.
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Transcriber’s note:
• Silently corrected obvious punctuation and capitalization errors.
Several unpaired double quotation marks were retained as they
occurred in the original text.
• Unless noted below, spelling and hyphenation are retained as in the
original.
• Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the book.
Other changes:
• Removed half-title page originally on first page
• Page 003: thousands of like opnions → thousands of like opinions
• Page 036: surplus milion families → surplus million families
• Page 039: distribution of weatlh → distribution of wealth
• Page 048: more wealth that → more wealth than
• Page 099: in possesion of others → in possession of others
• Page 108: Napoleon Boneparte → Napoleon Bonaparte
• Page 132: bound, by dividogensure → bound, by dividogenesure
• Page 163: In the table "Increase of Population" corrected the value
for percent of population in cities for the year 1880. Changed
from 2.57 to 22.57. The correct value was taken from page 18 of
the 1890 census
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1890d9-01.pdf pg
18
• Page 192: defintion and origin → definition and origin
• Page 193: not partizan → not partisan