CHAPTER XIII

PROSPERITY FOR ALL

AMERICA is the most prosperous nation in the world. The rich are richer than anywhere else, and there are more of them. The poorer classes are, perhaps on the whole, better off here than in any other land; perhaps better off than at any other period in the world's history. There are here at least no fixed social classes, no rigid barriers that make it impossible for the poorest youth to make his way to fortune. Nor is there, perhaps, any land where wealth carries with it less prestige. We have no first, second, and third class railway carriages and waiting-rooms. Except for certain snobbish smart sets, which are not representative of the true American spirit, a genuine sense of social equality has persisted since pioneer days. The rich man is the lucky fellow; but, in general, we feel that he is one of us and wish him well. It has never been an implication of our ideal of Equality that wealth or income should be equally distributed. He may take who can get; and so long as the race is open on equal terms to all, we shall take the other man's success in a sporting spirit.

It is a grave question, however, whether this attitude can be maintained much longer if inequality of wealth and manner of life continues to be more and more marked. We have developed during the past few decades what is commonly called a plutocracy;

that is, a comparatively small group of people who have vastly greater wealth than the great body of the people, and proportionate power over industry, and even over politics, journalism, and education. The wealth of our prosperous land is being divided far more unevenly than it used to be; a much sharper line separates the rich from the poor. Discontent is raising its head among what are sometimes called the "disinherited classes"; not so much because of socialistic or Bolshevist propaganda-these doctrines are exotic on our shores, and make no very widespread appeal-but out of a natural desire for a fair share of the good things of life. We must, therefore, seriously consider whether some modification of the present inequality in the distribution of wealth is not demanded by our ideal of Equality.

There are various estimates as to the present distribution of the wealth of the country. One statistician declares that one per cent of our people own eighty-five per cent of the national wealth. A far more conservative estimate is that of the United States Industrial Commission of 1915, which reported that two per cent of the population own sixty per cent of the national wealth; another thirty-three per cent own thirty-five per cent, and the remaining sixtyfive per cent of the people own but five per cent of the total wealth of the country. One man gets an annual income said to be in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars an income equal to that of fifty thousand poorly-paid laborers. Or, to put it another way, it would take one of the laborers fifty thousand years to earn what this man gets in a single year. The twenty-five or thirty biggest fortunes in the country probably amount to five billion dollars; and, according to an estimate in the New York Times in

1920, one hundred and sixty-two men have annual incomes of a million dollars or more apiece.

On the other hand, the incomes of our poorer families are sadly inadequate for the maintenance of a minimum American standard of living. As prices go in 1921, $1,500 a year, or thereabouts, is necessary to maintain the average family of five in even a moderate degree of comfort. Yet probably fifty per cent of the families in the country receive less than that. Reliable recent figures are hard to get. But in 1919, an investigation by Dr. Harris, of the New York City Health Department showed that twenty per cent of the thousands of poor families investigated in that city had an income of less than $600 a year! Thirty per cent had less than $900. In Massachusetts, in 1917, more than half the men in the industries of the State received less than $20 a week-$1,000 a year. Of the women workers, about a third received less than $10 a week. In Baltimore in 1918, seventy-six per cent of the working women and girls were receiving less than $10 a week. The Interchurch Report on the Steel Strike, in 1920, reported that the annual earnings of seventy-two per cent of the steel workers (who, with their families, aggregate three quarters of a million people) "were, and had been for years, below the level set by Government experts for families of five."

The most serious aspect of the matter is that in recent years the situation has been growing distinctly worse. Father Ryan, in 1906, estimated that between sixty and seventy per cent of American laborers were getting less than a living wage-which he then set at the very low figure, $600. The cost of living in 1921 is probably, for the whole country, nearly a hundred per cent higher than then. And in spite of a good

many exceptions, the average earnings of the laboring classes have not kept pace with this increase. If between sixty and seventy per cent of "working-class" families were living in 1906 on less than a fair "living wage," it is probable that more than seventy per cent were so situated in 1920.

Many figures could be cited in support of this conclusion, drawn from such reliable sources as the documents compiled by the Treasury Department from income tax returns, and Poor and Moody's Manual. In his testimony before the United States Railroad Labor Board, since summarized in a pamphlet entitled Relation between Wages and the Increased Cost of Living (1920), Mr. W. Jett Lauck gave clear proof of his conclusion that, in general, "wage increases have lagged behind price increases; and usually they are far behind." Behind not only in amount, but in time; that is, increases in prices were followed, not preceded, by increases in wages. The situation is well known to workers among the poor. For example, the Charity Organization Society of New York, in 1919, had a Committee on Home Economics, which reported that, "in spite of the common belief that wages generally had advanced, only two-fifths of the families interviewed reported an increase in the family income. In most cases the wage increases were slight in amount and far less than the proportionate increase in living costs."

It is probable, however, that we are now to see a long period of falling prices. If wages are not too generally and drastically cut, the workers may presently be better off than they were before prices and wages went up. Certain classes of workers, now relatively overpaid, should receive less than they now receive. The whole matter of remuneration for labor

is in chaos. He takes who can get; while those who are not in a position to demand much, are fain to be content with little. Evening-up to some extent there should be. But we must not be content with a return to the status quo ante. We must be satisfied with nothing short of the abolition of undeserved poverty —the securing to every willing worker an adequate livelihood.

We are very far from securing that now. To realize that this is so, one has only to go and see how "the other half lives." The housing conditions of a large section of the city and town population in the United States are a national disgrace that can hardly be exaggerated. Lack of air and sunshine, lack of sanitary arrangements, above all, lack of room, are the conditions under which millions of children are growing up in this country today. Out of thirty-eight compositions written by New York school-children from the East Side, describing their homes, seen by the writer some years ago, twenty-one spoke of the bad smell. If the others did not mention it, it was merely because of their habituation thereto. There are many thousands of occupied rooms in tenements throughout the cities of this country with no windows at all, and, of course, hundreds of thousands of rooms with windows opening only on to narrow air shafts where no adequate ventilation is possible. In one of the compositions above referred to, a little girl said of her room, "It is so dark it seems as if there was no sky."

It may be doubted if there is any more significant aspect of a nation's life than the conditions under which its children are growing up. The overcrowded, noisy, dark, unsanitary homes which at present are the lot of a large percentage of them today are a men