The Impending Crisis. Basil A. Bouroff
But the amazing feature of such opinions is that different men agree in affirming that revolution and bloodshed is almost unavoidable; yet different men, as I know, |CAUSES OF UNREST.| assign different causes for such an undesirable event.[4] Some say it must come because the population increases and the unemployed laborers increase. Others say that the trusts, combinations, and monopolies must ruin the nation. Still others say that progress and poverty, being very rapid in their diverse directions, must rapidly bring the wealthy and the poor into the state of cut-throats against each other. And only very few men understand that all these causes are but secondary, though working to the same horrible end. While the real, effective cause for revolution and bloodshed, with the nation, is the exceedingly unequal distribution of wealth, and its rapid concentration in a very few hands.
It is this situation that our democratic people will not be able to endure, because they are born |PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE BORN FREE.| free, whereas the storing up of wealth in a few hands makes them all economic slaves; deprives them of the privileges they enjoyed; makes them absolutely dependent upon the mercies of the rich, which, if shown to them, they may live; if withheld from them, they must starve to death.
Let us see, then, what it is that the Nineteenth Century has stored up, which is to result in such a terrific convulsion in the Twentieth Century.
The following diagrams present the Logical Premises from which the “revolution and bloodshed,” as a conclusion, must inevitably follow, provided their action is not checked.
Distribution of Wealth in the United States.[5] Population: 62,622,250. Wealth: $65,037,091,197.
“These diagrams showing by percentages the population and wealth distribution in the United States, according to tables compiled by George K. Holmes, U. S. Census Expert on Mortgage Statistics, are from the Encyclopedia of Social Reform.”
The contents of the above diagrams show on the bases of statistics that in 1890 three hundredths of one per cent of the population, |PERCENTAGES OF WEALTH AND PEOPLE.| which are the millionaires, held 20 per cent of the nation’s wealth. Eight per cent and ninety-seven hundredths of one per cent of the population, which are the rich, held 51 per cent of the wealth. The middle class, consisting of 28 per cent of the population, held 20 per cent of the wealth. The lower class, consisting of 11 per cent of the population, held 4 per cent of the wealth. And the poor class, consisting of 52 per cent of the population, held but 5 per cent of the national wealth,[6] as this table shows:
| Table I. | ||||
| Percentages of People. | Population in Groups. | Percentages of Wealth | Aggregates of Wealth in Dollars. | Distribution of wealth per head in Dollars. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00.03 | 18,786 | 20 | 13,007,418,274 | 691,867 |
| 08.97 | 5,617,172 | 51 | 33,168,916,461 | 59,041 |
| 28.00 | 17,534,216 | 20 | 13,007,418,253 | 741 |
| 11.00 | 6,888,432 | 4 | 2,601,483,644 | 377 |
| 52.00 | 32,563,644 | 5 | 3,251,854,565 | 99 |
| 100.00 | 62,622,250 | 100 | 65,037,091,197 | 1,036 |
This illustrative table represents the exact value of the diagrams on p. 5. And nothing is more interesting in this table than the sad differences in the worth of the groups, and especially when their respective wealth is divided per every head. The right-hand column shows that there are 18,786 persons whose aggregate wealth, if divided equally among them, would give $691,867 to each man, woman, and child. And there are 32,563,644 persons[7] in the last group, whose wealth, if equally divided among them, can give but $99 to every person. These two groups present the greatest possible extremes of group-poverty and group-opulence.
The other three groups, as their averages clearly show, are intermediary between the two extremes. |PER CAPITA WEALTH.| And if all the wealth of the nation were equally divided among its population, we could have $1,036 to every man, woman, and child. This per capita wealth indicates that the nation is very rich on the whole, but its riches, as you see, belong to a very few persons.
What then is the difference between a rich man and a poor man, between a rich woman and a poor woman?
If the 32,563,644 men, women and children had $100 per capita wealth, then one rich man of the first group of the above table, would be worth more |WORTH OF MEN.| than 6,918 men of the last group of the same table. A rich man’s horse often worth more than 10, 20, 30, or even more, poor men taken together. A rich woman’s finger alone worth more than 10 or 20 poor women taken together, because that finger is often embellished with the diamond rings that cost thousands of dollars. A complete ladies’ dress or a costume often amounts to more than $5,000, and hence it is worth more than 40 or 50 women taken together with their dresses. Such are the differences between the rich and the poor people when they are valued by the dollar.
But the dollar differences cause a great many other differences between the rich and the poor. The poor man is not only poor in wealth, but he is poorer still in social |POOR IN SOCIAL RIGHTS.| rights and privileges. And there is no possibility for the poor to rise up out of his poverty. For he has no resources of wealth which the rich people have; and he has no property of his own; for if he is worth but $99, which is really his house-scarb,[8] he has no productive property at all; he is then absolutely dependent upon the mercy of the wealthy, without which he cannot exist even for six months. He cannot acquire higher education and training, because he is encompassed with poverty which furnishes no means for the education that helps men to acquire wealth. Hence, the lack of education keeps the poor in poverty; and this poverty prevents him from getting the helpful education. So that, poverty and ignorance become the bitter enemies of the above millions of individuals in the modern world of progress. Yet the modern poor have a far more potent enemy than poverty and ignorance combined, which we shall see later on.
Meanwhile, we will say here, that the rich are the masters over the poor in the sphere of law, in the sphere of politics, in the club, in the theater, in the church, at home |DOMINANCY OF THE RICH.| and abroad—everywhere; as if all power were given unto them under the heavens over the poor. And how many church-ministers would not give them the same power and the best places in the hereafter? For the very character of sermons in our days depends upon the pleasures of the rich in many churches, because the ministers depend upon the wealthy few more than they depend on the millions of the poor. While all these poor are the rich men’s economic slaves, spending half of their labor energy in favor of the wealthy. That is what the Nineteenth Century has provided for the nation.
But the above statistical conclusions were by many regarded as “roseate” and “extremely moderate conclusions.” And it was in consequence of this that Dr. Spahr |CONCLUSIONS ARE MODERATE.| was obliged to reiterate the expression: “Since the completion of this study, a volume has appeared that must set at rest all question as to the extreme