Читать книгу The Impending Crisis - Basil A. Bouroff - Страница 4

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“An estimate of the distribution of wealth in the United States was made by Mr. Thomas G. Shearman |RESEARCHES OF MR. SHEARMAN.| in the ‘Forum’ for 1889, and for January, 1891. It was based on careful estimates of the wealth of the very wealthy, a list of which he gave, and estimates of the division of the remaining wealth of the country between the middle class and the poor based on assessors’ returns.”^[10]

“Mr. Shearman came to the conclusion that 1.4 per cent of the population own 70 per cent of the wealth; 9.2 per cent of the population own 12 per cent of the wealth; and 89.4 per cent of the population own only 18 per cent of the wealth.”^[11]

In these conclusions, we have a still greater twist of facts by wrong handling. Now, to illustrate these conclusions as they stand by another set of diagrams, they will be as follows:

Population: 62,622,250. Wealth: $65,037,091,197.

These diagrams indicate by percentages the exact conclusions of Mr. Shearman in respect to the population and the wealth distribution in this country. The author |LOOSE AVERAGES.| of these conclusions obviously put too much salt of his own into his averages; for, by parceling out the wealth of a number of the well-to-do and rich people, he succeeded in persuading his readers, that, in America, the body of tens of millions of propertyless people, the paupers and the tramps, do not possess, on an average, less than $200 worth of wealth for each person, including women and children of all ages. Whereas, in reality, the wealth from which he made the fictitious averages, belongs to a very few persons of the nation. While an astonishing majority of the people, as we shall see, have no rights whatever to this wealth.

Let us again illustrate the conclusions in a tabular way for the sake of definiteness:

Table II.[12]
Percent. of population.	Population in economic groups.	Percent. of wealth.	Aggregates of wealth per group in dollars.	Wealth per head in dollars.
1.4	876,710	70	45,525,973,867	51,928
9.2	5,761,242	12	7,804,450,932	1,354
89.4	55,984,298	18	11,706,676,398	209
100.00	62,622,250	100	65,037,091,197	1,036

The first glance at this table and a glance at the table on page 6 show the reader that Mr. Shearman divided the population into three groups; and Mr. Holmes divided it |LINES OF DIVISION OF THE PEOPLE.| into five groups. The bases of division are economic in both tables; but the lines of division are very different with the one statistical authority and the other. If we examine these lines, we shall find that Mr. Holmes’ fifth group consists of over 32½ million persons who, taken together, had been worth a little over 3 billion dollars; so that, each person of the group could have about $99 worth of wealth, as the average of table I shows. The next higher group of the same author, which comprises nearly 7 million persons, had, on an average, more wealth to each person, than each person could have in the fifth group, hence the per capita wealth of the fourth group of people was $377. While the group still higher up in wealth, which consists of little over 17½ million persons, and which had over 13 billion dollars’ worth of wealth, could have $741 to every head, that is, if this wealth were equally divided among them. The second group of Mr. Holmes’ division consists of over 5½ million persons, among whom the poorest ones had, probably not less than $5,000 worth of wealth, as their average worth of over $59,000 shows. Such a division of the population into five economic groups, if every family is rightly and honestly valued, presents an immense amount of truth to the public judgment.^[13]

But what Mr. Shearman really did with his estimates and conclusions is this: Seeing that the extent of poverty is appalling, he made the division line in the group of |SWEEPING AVERAGE.| well-to-do people; he thus made the group of the very poor extend so far as to comprise nearly 56 million persons; and then, by dividing the wealth of the well-to-do persons among all these millions, he obtained an average of $209 worth of wealth to every pauper, to every tramp, to every man, woman and child—who have had no wealth, and have had no rights whatever to the wealth they are nominally represented as entitled to.

Consequently, his distribution of wealth among the third group of people is merely on paper, is nominal, is showy, and it does not correspond to reality with reference |ONLY NOMINAL DISTRIBUTION.| to more than 35 million persons as represented in Mr. Holmes’ distribution of this wealth. Mr. Shearman might as well follow the example of Mr. Carroll D. Wright^[14] and, by a single effort in calculation, divide among all individuals the 70 per cent of wealth that belongs to his 1.4 per cent of the people. In doing that, he might apportion more than $1,000 worth of it to |JESUITS AND GALILEO.| every penniless individual, and then might say, Why, we are all rich, we are the most civilized and righteous people in the world! But such an effort, and such an assertion, however, would not at all alter the real situation; no more than Galileo, when in view of the danger of death, signing the Jesuit verdict in favor of the non-revolution of our planet round the sun, could thereby stop the actual revolution of the earth; for the earth’s progressive motion went on, in spite of the ardent desire and policy of the Jesuits to make it stand still by a verdict. Nothing but an indescribable shock of the earth against another heavenly body can change its principles of motion.

The same is true of the nation. Once the principle of concentration of wealth is left unimpeded in its action, it must work out its end; |DANGER.| it must of living necessity produce revolution and bloodshed. And neither the extremely moderate statisticians, nor the false averages, of even of the meanest falsehood, can prevent its action toward such a horrible result. “You remember the French revolution?” |FRENCH REVOLUTION, ROME.| asked Hon. Jno. S. Crosby of his audience in Binghamton,^[15] N. Y., and then he said: “In France all the lands had come into the hands of a few people, the king and nobles, and a majority of the people were depending on them for a living. The time came when these down-trodden people rose up and Paris streets ran with blood. Your country will have the same experience if you keep on fooling with the laws of God.

“Rome was once the mistress of the whole world. She lorded it over the other countries. But she fell, and Pliny, her historian, lays the cause of her downfall to land monopoly.”^[16] And so it was with ancient Egypt; so it was with ancient Assyria, and so it was with the Byzantine Empire, those great and powerful nations that perished for similar misconduct in relation to themselves.

Exactly so, this young nation also irrationally strides in the way of Rome. The concentration of her wealth in a few hands is now more rapid than it was before the last |RUSH OF THE NATION.| census. That census brought about astonishing conclusions, yet the nation rushes as fast as she can to her ruin. And who can locate the weight of responsibility for her end? Every one seems to think about his selfish interests. Consequently, nothing has been done in the past to evade the ruin; nothing but the greatest national harm is being done in the present; and no fundamental |LOGICAL PREMISES FOR THE YEAR OF. … | measure, no rational remedy, no serious means appear for delaying it in the future. While the Logical Premises^[17] for revolution and bloodshed have been established in the nation’s life, and their forces have been working to that inexorable end.

Now we are ready to present another conclusion that the statisticians of 1890 reached. It deals with the numbers of families, leaving out the individual inhabitants.

We have been assured that the U. S. nation in 1890 consisted of 12,690,152 families, and that each family, on an average, consisted of little less than 5 members, namely: 4.93 members.^[18] The distribution of the national wealth among families, therefore, was expressed as follows:

“Less than half the families in America are propertyless; nevertheless, seven-eighths of the families |HALF THE NATION.| hold but one-eighth of the national wealth,” and vice versa. “While one per cent of the families hold more (wealth) than the remaining ninety-nine,” says Dr. C. B. Spahr.^[19]

At last we have struck in these conclusions a piece of more serious reality. “Less than half the families in the United States are propertyless.” Here you are! “Less than half.” |CONCLUSIONS OF REALITY.| Yet even here, we are far from the fulness of truth. It seems as if the statisticians themselves were afraid to reveal the full truth to the people. And there are many intelligent persons who believe that the pure and complete truth should be known only to God Omniscient, while His creatures must be content to know but particles of truth mixed with falsehood.

As long, however, as the U. S. nation remains a democratic nation, and as long as responsibility for its prosperity or distress and disaster |RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PEOPLE.| rests upon a majority of its people, this people ought to know not particles, but the whole truth of the conditions of their existence. Otherwise the least possible minority of the sharks in human form or the wolves in sheep’s skin, may devour or ruin the greatest bulk of the people.

Let us then illustrate here one of the above conclusions, while leaving the two others for later discussion.

“Seven-eighths of the families hold but one-eighth of the national wealth,” and vice versa, as the diagrams on the following page indicate, where the 12,690,152 families represent 62,622,250 individuals as in the preceding diagrams.

Population: 12,690,152.^[20] Wealth: $65,037,091,197.

These diagrams represent exactly the truth of the conclusion: “Seven-eighths of the families of this nation held but one-eighth of the national wealth;^[20] or seven-eighths of the nation’s wealth was held by but one-eighth of the families.

The table on the next page illustrates some of the details of the above conclusion.

The upper division of that table presents the distribution of wealth among the families, where the two “per family” averages indicate |FAMILIES.| a difference in the worth of more than 11-million families that held $732 each, and the worth of little over 1½-million families that held $35,875 each. So that, each family of the latter group was worth as much as 49 families of the former. While the general average of $5,125 shows that, if the national wealth had been equally distributed among all families, every one of them would have had this average amount as its own.

Table III.
Proportions of	Number of families in groups.	Proportions of	Aggregate wealth per group, in dollars.	Average wealth per family.
⅞	11,103,883	⅛	8,129,636,399	$ 732
⅛	1,586,269	⅞	56,907,454,798	35,875
8/8	12,690,152	8/8	65,037,091,197	5,125
	Number of individuals.		Wealth—the same in dollars.	Wealth per head.
⅞	54,794,468	⅛	8,129,636,399	$ 148
⅛	7,827,782	⅞	56,907,454,798	7,269
8/8	62,622,250	8/8	65,037,091,197	1,036

The lower division of the table represents the same amounts of national wealth, the same population, only individually considered; and both the wealth and the population |INDIVIDUALS.| were divided into eight parts each, in order to carry out the proportions between numbers of the individuals and the wealth they possessed. The result in this division is that 7,827,782 individuals have had an average wealth of $7,269 each man, woman and child, and 54,794,468 individuals had but $148 worth of wealth to every head.^[21] The difference between the worth of one person of the one group, and one person of the other group, is $7,121 in favor of the rich person. And that, again, one person of the wealthy class, on an average, is worth more than 49 persons of the poor class.

But the most astounding fact is that we have over 54½-million inhabitants of this poverty-stricken class, and we have only a |NUMBERS NEAREST TO THE TRUE ONES.| little more than 7½-million inhabitants of the wealth-swollen class. So that, these 54½-million individuals appear to be totally dependent upon the mercies and motions of 7½-million persons who are steadily growing richer and decreasing in numbers, while the poor are growing poorer and rapidly increasing in numbers. For such has been the growth of economic slavery that the above millions have to combat with.

Besides all this, we have seen the statistical conclusion that, “Less than half the families in America are propertyless,” which certainly |THE PROPERTYLESS FAMILIES APPEAR LITTLE BETTER OFF.| means, that these propertyless families must be found included among the 54-millions of the poor. So that the present average wealth of these millions, which is $148 per every head, was made of the wealth of the upper classes, which average was not at all possessed by the poor. The economic conditions of the poor must be still worse than Table III represents them. But we shall find this out in the next chapter; while the conclusion that, “1 per cent of the families hold more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent of them,” nearly corresponds with the conclusion of Mr. Shearman, as represented on pp. 12 and 13.