proximately 22,238 human lives. Such a gain would represent a total of 342,465 years of additional lifetime to the total population, and by just so much the industrial efficiency of the American nation would be increased.48

49

While many forms of contagious diseases, through the health activities of the community and the discoveries of scientists, have been largely eliminated, many other diseases resulting from the strain of industry have alarmingly increased.

Increase in Sickness.— President E. E. Rittenhouse of the Life Extension Institute declared in a recent address that the mortality records indicated a marked decline in the power of the American workers to withstand the conditions of modern life, as witnessed in the extraordinary increase in the death rate from the breaking down of the heart, arteries, kidneys, and the nervous and digestive systems, which diseases, he stated, are reaching down into middle life and apparently increasing there and at all ages. Of the 410,000 lives annually destroyed by these "old age" diseases, 60,000 occur under the age of 40 and 105,000 between the ages of 40 and 60. In the last thirty years the mortality from these diseases has nearly doubled.50

Occupational diseases, socialists contend, would soon be reduced to a minimum in a system where industry was conducted primarily for human welfare, not for private profit. Much of the sickness and death can be traced to presentday industry with its greed for gain, and its inevitable poverty. Disease leads to great economic losses. The human agony and misery following in its wake are beyond all power of calculation.

49 F. L. Hoffman, Mortality from Consumption in Dusty Trades, in Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, No. 79, Nov., 1908, p. 832. 50 Lauck, etc., op. cit., p. 319.

Summary. The socialist then criticizes the present system on the ground of its wastefulness and inefficiency. Competition involves enormous wastes both in the realm of production and in that of distribution, while the waste in human life and energy resulting from unnecessary unemployment, industrial accident and illness accompaniments of the present profit system—is of startling dimensions.

CHAPTER II

THE SOCIALIST INDICTMENT: II. INEQUALITY OF WEALTH

Inequality of Wealth. We have thus seen that socialists criticize the capitalist system on the ground of its inefficiency. A further count in the socialist indictment is that the present system of private ownership leads to an inequitable distribution of wealth; that it means untold wealth for the few and poverty for the many; and that this inequality runs directly counter to the welfare and happiness of mankind.

That these inequalities exist few can deny. In this country, according to Dr. W. I. King, of Wisconsin University, two per cent. of the population own sixty per cent. of the wealth. On the other hand, the poorest twothirds of the people possess but one-twentieth of the wealth of the nation, and the poorest four-fifths but one-tenth.1

The Wealthy. The country now boasts of several thousand millionaires. A few years ago one fortune was estimated at one billion dollars, " equivalent to the aggregate wealth of 2,500,000 of those who are classed as 'poor,' and who are shown . . . to own on the average $400 each." 2 In 1916, according to the Income Tax statistics, 292 people in the country received a return on their investments of $1,000,000 or over; 524 of between

1 King, Distribution of Wealth and Income Among the People of the U. S., pp. 80-2.

2 Report of U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations, p. 32.

$500,000 and $1,000,000; 6,127 from $100,000 to $500,000; 10,452 from $50,000 to $100,000; 23,734 from $25,000 to $50,000; 78,880 from $10,000 to $25,000.3

Socialists readily grant that very considerable differences in ability and industry exist among producers. They claim, however, that most of the large fortunes are based primarily on the ownership of machinery and natural resources and the receipt of rent, interest and profit flowing from such ownership. The owner of land or of stocks in a corporation may have acquired this property through dint of hard labor. He may, on the other hand, have inherited it or received it as a gift. He may know little or nothing about the conduct or of the location of the business. However, because of his ownership, and not because of his ability or industry, his income is. assured.

Indeed, a recent analysis of 50 of the largest American fortunes shows that nearly one-half of these fortunes have already passed to the control of heirs or to trustees, and the business from which most of these yearly incomes are drawn is probably managed by executive officials on salary.

Wages. Beyond a certain amount, increased income means little if any additional happiness. It often means increased burden. It frequently exerts a vicious influence on its recipient. At the same time, where the few gain, the many lose. Hand in hand with affluence is found the gaunt specter of poverty. Most of the estimates of wages and the relation of these wages to a minimum standard of

3 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1918, p. 720. In 1910 the comparatively few who lived in whole or in part from property income received more than one-half of the total annual income (53.1 per cent., approximately $16,225,900,000), while the many who lived primarily from service income obtained but 46.9 per cent., or $14,303,600,000, according to Professor King. (King, op. cit., p. 158.)

4 Report of Commission on. Industrial Relations, p. 32.

living were made prior to the war, and do not hold good at the present time. These pre-war figures, however, are instructive. One of the latest estimates was made by Lauck and Sydenstricker in 1916. After examining practically all the authoritative data available prior to the war, these authors concluded that fully one-fourth of the adult male workers in the principal industries and trades who were heads of families earned less than $400 a year, or less than $7.70 a week; one-half less than $600 a year ($11.35 a week); four-fifths less than $800 ($15.40 a week), while less than one-tenth obtained the equivalent of $1,000, or approximately $20 for the weekly period. Eight hundred dollars was generally regarded at that time as the minimum required by the ordinary family for obtaining life's necessities. Many other estimates were of a similar nature.5 Women were, according to the various estimates, even more poorly paid than men.

5 See Streightoff, The Distribution of Incomes in the United States, Ch. VI; Nearing, Income, Ch. IV, Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations, p. 31 seq. According to the 1910 census, the average yearly wage of wage-earners engaged in manufacturing industries was $517.91. In the textile industries the wages were particularly inadequate. In this industry, a few years ago, nearly one-third of the men and nearly two-fifths of the women in the New England mills, and nearly one-half of the men and two-thirds of the women in the Southern mills, earned less than $6 a week, less than $312 a year; while over one-half of the men and two-thirds of the women in New England — nearly three-fourths of the men and over nine-tenths of the women in the South-earned less than $8 a week, less than $416 a year, in this industry. (See Laidler, Boycotts and the Labor Struggle, p. 276; Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 310-11.)

In fact an examination of the earnings of women workers 18 years of age and over employed in the principal industries indicated that one-fourth received less than $200 yearly - less than $4 a week, while two-thirds obtain less than $400, less than $8 weekly. (Lauck, etc., op. cit., p. 61.) In the sweating industries of the great cities the situation among the women and child workers was even more tragic.