In 1840 Worcester had thirty leading manufacturers of
whom twenty-eight began as journeymen and two as sons of
manufacturers. Of seventy-five manufacturers in 1850, six
only were sons of manufacturers, only six of the one hundred
and seven in 1860, and of one hundred and seventy-six
manufacturers in 1878, only fifteen. The chance that the head
of a manufacturing business will be reached by the son of an
owner in Worcester for forty years has been pretty steadily
about one in ten of the total chances of going to the head. As
the sons of manufacturers in Worcester in 1840 could not have
been, taking thirty manufacturers as the number, one per cent
of the population, the chances of success for them was above
the average, but not so far above as to discourage young men
without this good fortune. The chance that property will stay
two generations in one family seems also to be about one in ten
in Worcester. Of the thirty manufacturers in 1840, fourteen of
whom died or retired with property, only three in 1888 had left
sons with money; of the seventy-five in 1850, the sons of only
six survive now; and of one hundred and seven in 1860, eight
only were represented by sons in the business world of Worcester
twenty-eight years later. The business field at any given year
is apt to look to young men as if all the leading places were
filled by men whose sons were certain to enjoy the advantages of
wealth and likely to take the places of their fathers. But there
is not over one chance in ten that this will take place, and
scarcely this that wealth will be left by those who inherit it.
While of those in business on any date, one-fourth drop out in
five years, one-half in ten, and two-thirds in fifteen years.
Nine places out of ten thirty years hence are therefore open to
those who to-day have nothing.--Philadelphia _Press_.
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