In the preceding chapter, we have dealt with ready-made conclusions of different statistical authorities, which, by the way of "RESULTS OF THE FIRST CHAPTER." analysis, revealed to us, that 32,563,644 persons^[22] of the population had on an average $99 worth of wealth, according to Mr. G. Holmes; that 55,984,298 persons^[23] had on an average $209 worth of wealth, according to Mr. Thos. Shearman; and that 54,794,468 persons^[24] out of 62,622,250 inhabitants, with $65,037,091,197 worth of wealth, had on an average $148 worth of wealth apiece, according to Dr. Spahr.

These differences in conclusions indicate that the national wealth is very strongly concentrated with a few persons, and that in order "WEALTH IN THE HANDS OF FEW." to obtain the nominal average of $148 worth of wealth to every poor person, one has to move the line of division of wealth so far up toward the wealthy few as to include nearly all the people among the masses of the poor. While, without this unfair moving of the line, more than 30-millions of the population would have no real wealth at all. For $56,907,454,798 worth of the wealth actually belongs to one-eighth of the population, or to 7,827,782 individuals, including men, women and children. And among these, we are told, “1 per cent of the population held more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent held together.”^[25] So that the day is not far off when these 99 per cent of the people shall absolutely depend upon the 1 per cent of the rich and far reaching.

Regarded as the Logical Premises of the life of the nation, this extremely unequal distribution of wealth cannot be other than extremely dangerous for the existence "THE SITUATION IS DANGEROUS FOR THE FUTURE." of the nation as it is, for the logic is inexorable: Whatever you have sown, that shall you also reap, is a saying that cannot be mistaken either by the wealthy or the poor. The situation indicates that this apparently polished nation presents only an enormous working mechanism, made not of steel and iron, but a mechanism of wood, which may be broken into pieces at any future time, in consequence of any insignificant occasion, if it continues to work heedlessly on with a wrong speed against itself. A rational regulation of its speed is absolutely necessary, in order to save it from an otherwise unavoidable destruction. A civilized nation cannot live long without a highly intelligent regulation of all its working principles. For, to live a national life is not to play a childish game.

Yes, we have examined the above conclusions, but we have not realized the entire truth of the situation. For we were told that, "THE SITUATION IS WORSE THAN INDICATED." “Less than half the families in America are propertyless,”^[26] which clearly means that the distribution of wealth among the people is much worse than we have a right to suppose upon the basis of the stated conclusions of 1890. As these conclusions differ from each other in contents, we have the moral right to re-examine the varying statistical tables that testify of the same distribution of wealth. And we have a right to find the naked truth in the mass of materials we have, and to look it straight in the face, if we can.

But before proceeding to compare the main tables of statistics, it will be well to show what the wealth of the nation in 1890 consisted of. Accordingly, the table on the next page represents eight items into which the wealth was classified. And it represents the summary of all kinds of wealth that was found existing in the United States in the year of the 11th census. While the next table, following it, represents the history of the accumulation of wealth, by application of the labor energy of the people upon various resources of land.

STATISTICS OF WEALTH.

“The census valuation of real and personal property in the United States (Alaska excluded) in 1890^[27] was prepared by J. K. Upton,” as follows:

The last historic table shows that the accumulation of wealth by the nation has been phenomenal, and equal to the expense of labor "INCREASE OF WEALTH PHENOMENAL." energy which was embodied by the people into that wealth. And if the amount of wealth existing in 1890 had been equally distributed among the people, every man, woman and child, would have had more than $1,000 of it, or exactly $1,036 as the nominal per capita distribution of it by Mr. Carroll D. Wright indicates.

Let us, however, see the actual distribution of wealth, as it was in 1890:

It is difficult to understand why this important table has been published in round numbers almost throughout. It is, however, not at all difficult to see that it represents an extremely unequal distribution of the wealth among the American people.

And in order to restore the figures of this table so as to bring the whole into accord with the last census, it is necessary to regard the "EXTREMES TO BE EQUALIZED." size of each family at 4.93 members, as the census represents them. In doing this, it is also necessary to restore the round numbers, supplying all omissions in the aggregate totals and in the wealth of the groups. Before giving a further explanation, then, the restored table will appear as follows:

Now, this restoring has been made up by borrowing $323,136,803 from the wealth found in the 2d group; and again by adding $37,091,197 worth of wealth which was omitted in the round numbers of the total aggregate of wealth. These two amounts, consisting of $360,228,000 in the restored table, have on the basis of the original averages been distributed among the families of the 3d and the 4th groups. So that the 3d group of families appears to be richer by $322,541,600; while the 4th group by $37,686,400; and the 2d group appears to be poorer by $323,136,803 worth of wealth. Hence, we have made the 1st R. table represent the distribution of wealth by $360,228,000 more equal than the author of the original table has actually found it to exist.^[31]

On the other hand, in restoring the numbers of family-members to the census average of 4.93, we "FAMILIES MADE EQUAL TO CENSUS." add about 7 members to every 100 families of five members each, as Dr. Spahr represents them. This addition of 190,152 families to the whole renders the average-family and the total number of families in the United States exactly as they were given by the census in 1890.

But in restoring this table to the census status, we do not for a moment disregard its original value, as the most reliable work, nor do we think of making an argument, or anything of the kind, in favor of anybody, upon the ground of the surface restoration. No, there is a deeper sense and a deeper ground in the restored and the next table, and we have an abundance of other material for our purpose of showing the truth. Meanwhile, this restoring of the 1st table that had omissions, has been necessary for many reasons, and because it seemed to many thinkers as probably an extreme representation, though it was true to the facts. For these thinkers desired that the distribution of wealth should be more equal than it has really been.

And, further, holding a conservative position, it was necessary too to avoid a serious disturbance in the original averages of the family wealth found by Dr. Spahr, thus making the table comparable with another table, which is the most important one, because it indicates the tenants of farms and homes and the owners of mortgaged farms and homes.

Furthermore, the restored table may serve as a means of comparison of its classes of different worth with the corresponding classes in the following table, based upon the eleventh census facts. Accordingly, the next table represents the families of different worth which were classified upon the same economic bases as in the table of Dr. Spahr.

We have read on pp. 11 and 12 that, when Mr. Shearman made his list of statistics of wealth distribution, “that his table was based on careful estimates of the wealth of "METHODS OF RESEARCH." the very wealthy; while the wealth of the poorer classes was estimated on the bases of assessors’ returns;” just as the table of Dr. Spahr, p. 28, which represents the very wealthy families in the 1st group, the well-to-do in the 2d, and the poor families in the 3d and 4th groups. This arrangement and representation of the families evidently agrees with that of Mr. Shearman, and proves the fact that both distinguished authorities used the same or similar methods in studying the actual distribution of wealth, and in representing their conclusions to those that were anxious to know of the distribution.

But the 2d statistical table, on the preceding page, was based upon the carefully averaged conclusions of Mr. G. K. Holmes, the U.S. Census Expert on Mortgage Statistics in 1890.

“Mr. Holmes,” as the author of the 2d table says, “follows a method contrary to that of Mr. Shearman, and by estimating the wealth of the poor, arrives at the wealth of the rich. He finds that .03 per cent of the people own 20 per cent of the wealth; 8.97 per cent of the people own 51 per cent of the wealth, and 91 per cent of the people own only 29 per cent of the wealth.^[32]

“The fact that Mr. Holmes is not a partisan either of conservatism or radicalism, gives to his estimates an unwonted value. As published in the Political Science Quarterly,” says the Editor of the Encyclopedia of Social Reform, “and in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, these estimates have resulted in these four groups of families seen in the 2d table, p. 32.”

We agree with Rev. W. Bliss and others in regarding the estimates of Mr. Holmes as exceedingly valuable, because without them we could neither have known the "IMPORTANCE OF HOLMES’ WORK." number of the tenant families, nor the number of the mortgagor families, in the United States. And hence, we could not have known the seriousness of the situation in the economic conditions of the nation. While having the table based upon his estimates, the reader may, at the very slight examination of the first two groups of it, reflect and know the great danger implied in them for the nation. And it is this table that can tell the number of the propertyless families in the United States, even without regarding any further material on the subject.

But the first trouble about this table^[34] is, that the author of it has omitted $38,468,981^[35] worth of wealth from the aggregate wealth of the group 4, for the sake of roundness "FIRST DIFFICULTY." in the great numbers, I suppose. Otherwise it is impossible to admit that the omitted wealth did not belong to anyone in the United States at the time of his making up the table. So that, restoring the $38,468,981 worth of wealth to the 4th group, we find its aggregate amounting to $48,638,468,981 worth of wealth. And it thus begins to correspond with the great masses of wealth owned by the first two groups in the 1st table, p. 28 or 29. This omission cannot be regarded as a serious one; but, to reach a definite conclusion, we must restore it.

The second trouble in the same table, p. 32, is, that the total of families in it contains exactly 1,000,000 families more than the nation consisted of in the year 1890. For there were 12,690,152 families in the United "SECOND DIFFICULTY." States, whereas the second table represents 13,690,152 of them, an absolutely round number having been added to some group of the families. As this table has been published since 1896, it may be that the author of it had a reason to add one million families to the 1st group, because, as the population has increased, so the families without property have also greatly increased during the seven years since 1890. And he is undoubtedly right in his calculations as to the growth of the propertyless. The statistics of 1890, also, represented an ample ground for similar calculations on the part of anyone who has studied them.

The estimates of Mr. G. Holmes, however, do not warrant the conclusion that there were 7,871,099 family-tenants of farms and homes in the United States in 1890. For, whatever degree of moderation "NOT SO MANY TENANTS." might be in his estimates, this number of the propertyless families could not have existed at that time in the United States. For, if so many propertyless families had been in existence ten years ago, a thousand presidents at this time might lose their heads in view of the national troubles that could result from that abnormal situation of so vast an extent. The individuals that now howl about an unusual prosperity might be the indirect butchers of human flesh before they themselves are butchered. No, we drop out the surplus million families from the 1st group of the 2d table, and the table will be more correct as follows:

The conclusions in the first two groups of families of this table now appear as trustworthy as the entire conclusions of Dr. Spahr in the 1st table, p. 28 or 29; and, that "TRUSTWORTHY CONCLUSIONS." the first two groups, made up on the basis of Mr. Holmes’ estimates, actually surpass everything in statistical importance for this country, no one will doubt, when he has read this work. For the first group represents the tenant-families that hire their farms and homes from others, being themselves propertyless. And the second group represents families that are in debt, and that are also rapidly becoming propertyless, as we shall see in Chapter V.

The differences between the 1st and the 2d tables, however, appear very great. The 1st table shows that the national wealth is quite abnormally concentrated in a "DIFFERENCES IN THE TABLES." comparatively few hands, represented by the first two groups. The 2d table shows that the same wealth is more equally distributed among the families of the last two groups, than is true in the 1st table. And it is the 2d table which was compiled from the estimates that by some men were regarded as extremely moderate, and, therefore, inconsistent with the real situation of the people.

It is certainly not difficult to misrepresent the whole situation even without intending to do any wrong to the nation. For the right or the wrong representation of realities "COULD BE MADE UNINTENTIONALLY." depends very greatly upon the handling of the averages in the distribution of wealth among the people. The census facts or the assessors’ returns may be right, as well as the classifications of these facts or returns. And yet the final representations of them may be twisted, either according to the desire of the statisticians or according to the abstract rules of arithmetic. So that these rules and desires may be satisfied, but the realities may easily be obscured, and even the greatest national dangers may be concealed under an improper use of the averages.

Thus, we have seen the average of Mr. Shearman, which, including some of the well-to-do families among millions of the poor, makes these poor appear as if every "OR WITH A BIAS OF WILL." one of them possessed $209, because Mr. Shearman’s average covered nearly 56-millions of individuals.^[36] While Mr. Carroll D. Wright,^[37] describing the problem: “Are the rich growing richer and the poor poorer?” makes a single average on the basis of the entire population. His sweeping average actually and correctly makes, not only the 56-millions of the poor of Mr. Shearman, but every pauper, every tramp, and everyone in hundreds of the lunatic and other asylums, worth $1,036 of wealth. Whereas, in reality, 1 per cent of the population held more wealth than the remaining 99, as Dr. Chas. Spahr has proved.^[38]

Now, something similar has taken place in the 3d group of the 2d table, where more than 3-million families are represented as the “owners of free farms and "A DEGREE OF MODERATION." homes worth less than $5,000.” And, consequently, the difference between the 1st table and the 2d table in the wealthy groups appeared. The 2d table contradicts nearly all statistical authorities and has been spoken of as based upon extremely moderate conclusions. It is, therefore, necessary to show the degree of moderation implied in its distribution of wealth.

The fact that all families in the United States "FIRM BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION." were classified according to their economic worth, as families worth $5,000 and over and $5,000 and under, gives us the best basis for a comparison of the two contradictory tables of the great authorities.

Let us first see the inconsistency in the groups of families which represent the middle classes in the two tables.

Now, the restored group of the middle classes of the first R. table should be absolutely in favor of diminishing the differences in the worth of the identical families and in "INCONSISTENCY POINTS TO TRUTH." their number. Yet the two groups reciprocally exclude each other by their opposite terms. So that, the comparison shows that the greater number of families has much smaller amount of the aggregate wealth; and the lesser number of families has much larger amount of the aggregate wealth; and that the difference in family-numbers is greater than 2½-millions in favor of the group of the 1st table; and the difference in the wealth, nearly 2½-billion dollars worth is in favor of the group of the 2d table. Hence, the opposite terms of the two economically similar groups can in no way coincide with one another.

This being so, it is not difficult to find out the true situation as to the actual distribution of wealth which ought to have been represented by the 2d table. The alleged moderation of this table has "AVERAGES ARE THE CAUSES." been brought about by the same influence of averages which we have seen in the conclusions of Mr. Shearman.^[41] One average of this gentleman has covered 89.4 per cent of the population, and thus made the wealth of the richest of them to be distributed among the millions of the very poor. The 89.4 per cent includes nearly 56-millions of individuals, whose aggregate wealth amounts to 18 per cent of the national wealth, and apportions $209 worth of it to every individual. But if you exclude only 20 per cent out of the 89.4 per cent of this great mass of people, selecting the wealthiest of all for the exclusion, you will thus have 69.4 per cent of the people left with less than 9 per cent of the national wealth. Your average then will be altogether different; it will cover masses of the poorest people, and every one of them will have less than $99 worth of wealth.

It is by a similar inclusion of a number of the well-to-do families among the group of “owners of free farms and homes” that the more equal distribution of wealth "SOME OF THE RICH AVERAGED WITH THE POOR." has been obtained in the 2d table. Otherwise, this table could represent a more melancholy array of facts than the presentation of these facts which appeared in the first table. But, however bitter the truth may be, it is always better to taste it than to be ignorant of its existence, because one falsehood must create thousands of other falsehoods, and, accumulated and multiplied into a tremendous mass, these falsehoods may lead the nation to self-destruction even as many other nations were led to it.

Dividing again all families of the nation into the families worth less than $5,000, and families worth "THE SAME ECONOMIC BASES OF THE AUTHORS." over $5,000, we shall now compare these two classes of families in both tables upon their common basis. And, as this basis presents the very bottom of statistics, the comparison therefore cannot fail to show us the very naked truth as to the actual distribution of wealth which has partly been obscured by the 2d table.

As you see, the comparison of the families of the same worth in the different tables shows that the poor classes of the 2d table are larger by 263,380 families, and richer by $7,038,394,216 worth of wealth, "DIFFERENCES REVEALED." than they are in the first table. On the contrary, the comparison of the wealthy classes that consist of families worth $5,000 and over, shows that the 1st table is larger by 263,380 families, and richer by $7,038,394,216 worth of wealth, than the same families in the 2d table. Hence, the concentration of wealth in the first table is by $7,038,394,216 worth greater than it is in the 2d table. And it is clear that this amount of wealth is closely connected with the 263,380 families of the well-to-do classes. The question, therefore, is, Where could Dr. Spahr find so many more families worth $5,000 and over, than Mr. Holmes has found?

We know that both these great authorities dealt with the same primary facts of statistics, though Dr. Spahr dealt with them as they appeared in the Surrogate Courts, thus raising the value of the "BASAL FACTS UNALTERABLE." facts. And we know that these facts or returns represent the worth of every family, just at it actually was at the time of the 11th census. Supposing then that the above families were represented as worth $26,723 each, could Dr. Spahr make each one of them worth $4,000 of wealth, with the purpose of including them among the millions of families worth $5,000 and under in each case? And could he thus rob the 263,380 families of their ownership of wealth, in order to make the distribution of wealth so abnormal as his table shows it? No, sir; this is an utter impossibility on anyone’s part. And Dr. Spahr represented the above families among those that were worth $5,000 and over in each case, and that is what anyone ought to have done in his place.

While in the case of the second table, the little more equal distribution of wealth appeared not because it was actually so, but because the above 263,380 families, with their $26,723 worth of wealth "UNREAL BASIS OF MORE EQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH" on the average, unintentionally or accidentally, were included among the families worth less than $5,000. Consequently, their aggregate wealth, amounting to $7,038,394,216 worth, has been nominally distributed among the group of “owners of free farms and homes worth less than $5,000” to every family. This inclusion was as easily performed as was the inclusion of the well-to-do among the poor by Mr. Shearman. We therefore subtract the above families and their wealth from the 3d group and add them to the 4th group of families worth $5,000 and over, in order to show that these families and wealth belonged to another class of the people, as follows:

Now this table represents the very essence of statistics on the distribution of wealth which was "TABLE MOST VALUABLE." worked out by the two contradictory authorities. The 4th group of it contains the 263,380 families with their aggregate wealth, and equals the first two groups in the 1st R. table, these two and that being made of the families—each worth $5,000 and over.

It should be noticed here, that neither the 263,380 families that we have now included in the proper group of the table, nor their aggregate wealth, had anything to "GROUPS SIGNIFICANT." do with the groups of mortgagors and tenants in the 2d table. These two groups of families have been separated from the influence of the free owners of wealth, by being debtors and tenants, who have a definite significance of their own in the statistics. And this is the reason why the subtracted families worth $5,000 and over could only be lodged in the 3d group of families worth below $5,000 under its wholesale average.

It should also be remembered that, though the 4th group of the last table represents an enormous amount of wealth, yet there are hundreds of thousands of families in it which are worth but few dollars "THE WEALTHY ONLY FEW." over $5,000 worth of wealth. So that, the real concentration of that enormous amount of wealth remains in the possession of less than half a million families, as these facts have been represented by Mr. Shearman and the others in the first chapter. And nothing can be said against the accuracy of the careful estimates of the wealth of the very wealthy by Mr. Shearman and the other authorities.

In order to have a more definite idea of the distribution of wealth, let us compare both tables on one page, and remember that if the group wealth were equally divided among the group-families, each family could have such amount of it as the averages indicate. And mind that the next two tables, being based upon the same census facts, represent the results of careful comparison of the original ones.

It should be noticed again, that the differences in the family averages of the corresponding groups of the two tables, depend on the differences in the "AVERAGES OF FAMILIES’ WORTH DIFFER." numbers and in the aggregate wealth of the same groups of the tables. And these differences could not be avoided, since the two authorities have made a different classification of the families of different worth.

But the comparative importance of the two tables consists in the fact, that the last group of the 1st table shows the extremely abnormal concentration of wealth in "THE RICH AND THE POOR GROUPS." the hands of 126,750 families, which possess more wealth than the remaining 12,563,402 families do, on the one hand. While, on the other hand, the first group of the 2d table shows that there have been 6,871,099 families without real property; and the second group shows, that there were 1,483,356 families in debt and in danger of losing their properties, and that both these groups of families have been in the state of economic slavery to the wealthy few. But we shall examine their conditions of existence later on.

GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND GERMANY.

“The distribution of private property in Great Britain and Ireland in 1891,” was such that it was said “that less than 2 per cent of the families of the United Kingdom "THE PROPERTYLESS IN BRITAIN." hold about three times as much private property as all the remainder, and that 93 per cent of the people hold less than 8 per cent of the accumulated wealth. There remains, therefore, nearly 6,000,000 families”—i.e., 30,000,000 individuals—“or more than three-fourths of the people of Great Britain and Ireland, without any registered property whatever. They have indeed their household goods, but the total value of these can hardly exceed £100,000,000,”^[44] which is little over $16 to every individual.

“The ownership of land is an important factor in the social condition of a people,” says Mayo Smith.^[45] And “if we contrast the "DISTRIBUTION OF LAND IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND." peasant proprietorship system of France, with more than 4,500,000 owners of land, with the landlord system of England, with its 325,000 owners, the social as well as the economic influence must be very different”^[45] in the two nations. Certainly the French people feel and enjoy economic freedom, while the British people are pressed down by an economic slavery.

In fact, the statisticians seem to agree that the distribution of wealth, even in Paris, the capital of France, and in Berlin, the capital of Germany, is proportionally much more equal than it is in the nation of Great Britain or in that of the United States, although it is natural that the largest cities, as a rule, have the distribution of wealth much worse than the nations behind them.

ILLUSTRATIVE CHART.
Every block here represents a comparative average wealth of one man, woman, or child of the respective groups in the 2d Corrected Table, p. 51; while the figures above show the numbers of individuals owning one block each, as indicated.