CHAPTER VI.

Chapter 1213,460 wordsPublic domain

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.

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.

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.

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