ace to the nation's future, both from the point of view of health and of morals. Much can be done by enlightened housing legislation. But unless the incomes of the poorer people are considerably increased, conditions are bound to remain very bad. What with the wretched home-conditions and the undernourishment referred to in an earlier chapter, the physique and the morale of a large section of our people are in a fair way to be seriously impaired.

It is not that the country is poor. On the contrary, the national wealth is increasing by leaps and bounds. But it is becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of the wealthy classes. During the past decade there has been a far greater percentage of increase in the larger incomes than in the smaller.

One obvious reason for this lies in the fact that whereas practically the whole income of the poor is spent upon the necessities of life, which doubled in cost within a few years, the greater part of the income of the rich has been invested in securities, which have been purchasable at far lower prices than usual, and has been accumulating at a very high rate of interest. If the tendencies of the past decade continue unchecked, most of the surplus wealth of the country will be in the hands of a small class of rich people, within a generation.

If this surplus wealth were to accrue to the "capitalist" class only after the poorer classes had all received a living wage, and were to be used by them for reinvestment in industry, we might be content. Even then, the great power concentrated in so few hands would have dangerous potentialities; and it is a question whether the control of industry by a comparatively small set of people, implied by such a situation, is consonant with our American ideal of

Democracy. But the actual situation is much more obviously wrong. For on the one hand we have hundreds of thousands of families with less than enough to live on in comfort, and on the other hand a class of rich people who spend extravagantly for the satisfaction of luxurious personal wants.

The indulgence in luxury, and extravagant spending, are comparatively new traits in American life. But they have been growing rapidly, so that recent estimates assert that a quarter of the national income goes today for luxuries. The rich set the pace, and a great many who are not rich catch the infection and spend more than they can afford. The result is that instead of being, as we once were, a thrifty folk, we have become the most spendthrift nation on earth.

Most of this expenditure is innocent in itself, much of it is intrinsically desirable. Man does not live by bread alone; and the billions of dollars spent every year by Americans on automobiles, pretty clothes, jewelry, candy, soft drinks, tobacco, theatres and movies, and the other enjoyments classified as “luxuries," are by no means wholly wasted. But the production of these luxuries limits correspondingly the production of necessities; and it is a question how far any one has moral right to indulgence while others are suffering. Every dollar spent on personal enjoyment of any sort means so much labor withdrawn from the production of other goods. Ought we, as patriotic Americans, to look tolerantly upon extravagant expenditures of any sort, while our poor are wretchedly housed and underfed? Should we not consider seriously the motto adopted by the British Labor Party at a recent election, "No cake for any till all have bread?"

It is not enough to say, as we said at the beginning

of this chapter, that the poor in our country today are, on the whole, better off than the poor have ever been before. It has always been a bad world for the poor, and it is still a pretty bad world for them. Their status, though it has improved in some respects, has not improved in proportion to the increasing prosperity of the country. In the Old World the "common people" were not considered of importance, anyway; they swarmed and were swept away by famine and pestilence, with little pity from the ruling class. But the American ideal was that every human being has intrinsic worth, and a right to his share of the good things of life. So deeply rooted has this ideal become in our soil that we can never hope henceforth to have a stable social order until it again approaches some approximate realization. If class conflicts are ever to cease, if the "unrest" that we hear so much of today is ever to be cured, it can only be by the setting in of a vigorous tide in the direction of a greater equalization of the benefits of our national prosperity. Many observers would put the case even more decidedly; Professor Edward Ross, for example, in Changing America, warns us that "unless democracy mends the distribution of wealth, the mal-distribution of wealth will end democracy."

It is not, perhaps, in terms of regard for an abstract ideal, or in terms of a concrete pity for the sufferings of their less fortunate fellow-countryman, that we can most surely arouse the attention of Americans today. It is in terms of national efficiency and preparedness. We are wasting our man-power, lessening our productive efficiency, by permitting poverty, inadequate housing, underfeeding, anxiety over subsistence, the destruction of health, premature death. A division of the national wealth which allows a small

percentage of our people, at one end of the scale, to pamper and soften themselves by luxurious living, and refuses comfort, health, leisure to a considerable percentage at the other end of the scale, is not a sensible division. What we should seek is efficiency in consumption, as well as in production; that is, the greatest attainable welfare for the amount of wealth consumed. Luxury consumption is inefficient consumption; the same amount of money would produce more valuable results if consumed in the form of more necessary things by more people.

The problem of the ways in which money can most efficiently be spent to forward human happiness is a matter for very careful study. But it is clear that our present methods of consumption are far from the norm. Certainly more money should be spent upon food for the undernourished, comfortable homes to replace the squalid and unhealthful tenements into which the poor are crowded, care for the sick, education for the ignorant, and public works that benefit the whole community; less money, therefore, should be allowed for fine clothes, elaborate meals, and the costlier forms of amusement. Our present system of distribution, which permits a great expenditure for needless luxuries on the one hand, while on the other hand it denies the amenities of life to others, is an inefficient and inherently unstable system. And any nation that permits such a system to perpetuate itself will, in the long run, fall behind a nation that evolves a more efficient distribution of wealth.

Here and there one may discern signs among the upper classes of a realization of this truth. An American financier of note recently declared that in his judgment the interest in acquiring wealth was beginning to give way, in this country, to the interest

in performing public service. Perhaps we shall witness a revival of the spirit of the Greeks of the best period, by whom, Professor Butcher says, "money lavished on personal enjoyment was counted vulgar, oriental, inhuman." Perhaps we shall take Walt Whitman's utterance as our motto:

"I speak the pass-word primeval-I give the sign of democracy; By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms."

Several distinguished Americans have recently urged "self-limitation in regard to wealth." The wellto-do, one holds, should "take for their own use only what they require for the essentials of a civilized life, and regard the rest as a deposit for the general good." Another, writing in the Atlantic Monthly a "Word to the Rich," urges them to spend their fortunes during their life-time in good works. "The strong man has reached his goal, but it is not time for resting. The day has come for him to show other men that his life and his work are henceforth for them, and not for his own gratification. He must prove that he has labored for the common good, and that he knows the rightful, wise use of his profits. . . . This plan gives occupation and happiness to the giver, explains, and, if you please, atones to his fellows for his success. It blesses the receiver and the giver; it cultivates kindly relations and feelings between the lucky and the less lucky men; it takes a long step toward the making of a great, healthy nation; and what higher, more pressing duty can the citizen have than this task?"

Such instances as the following are becoming more and more frequent. The daily papers for November 29, 1920, announced that a young Bostonian had re