Population: 62,622,250. Wealth: $65,037,091,197.
These diagrams indicate by percentages the exact conclusions of Mr. Shearman in respect to the population and the wealth distribution in this country. The author |LOOSE AVERAGES.| of these conclusions obviously put too much salt of his own into his averages; for, by parceling out the wealth of a number of the well-to-do and rich people, he succeeded in persuading his readers, that, in America, the body of tens of millions of propertyless people, the paupers and the tramps, do not possess, on an average, less than $200 worth of wealth for each person, including women and children of all ages. Whereas, in reality, the wealth from which he made the fictitious averages, belongs to a very few persons of the nation. While an astonishing majority of the people, as we shall see, have no rights whatever to this wealth.
Let us again illustrate the conclusions in a tabular way for the sake of definiteness:
| Percent. of population. | Population in economic groups. | Percent. of wealth. | Aggregates of wealth per group in dollars. | Wealth per head in dollars. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4 | 876,710 | 70 | 45,525,973,867 | 51,928 |
| 9.2 | 5,761,242 | 12 | 7,804,450,932 | 1,354 |
| 89.4 | 55,984,298 | 18 | 11,706,676,398 | 209 |
| 100.00 | 62,622,250 | 100 | 65,037,091,197 | 1,036 |
The first glance at this table and a glance at the table on page 6 show the reader that Mr. Shearman divided the population into three groups; and Mr. Holmes divided it |LINES OF DIVISION OF THE PEOPLE.| into five groups. The bases of division are economic in both tables; but the lines of division are very different with the one statistical authority and the other. If we examine these lines, we shall find that Mr. Holmes’ fifth group consists of over 32½ million persons who, taken together, had been worth a little over 3 billion dollars; so that, each person of the group could have about $99 worth of wealth, as the average of table I shows. The next higher group of the same author, which comprises nearly 7 million persons, had, on an average, more wealth to each person, than each person could have in the fifth group, hence the per capita wealth of the fourth group of people was $377. While the group still higher up in wealth, which consists of little over 17½ million persons, and which had over 13 billion dollars’ worth of wealth, could have $741 to every head, that is, if this wealth were equally divided among them. The second group of Mr. Holmes’ division consists of over 5½ million persons, among whom the poorest ones had, probably not less than $5,000 worth of wealth, as their average worth of over $59,000 shows. Such a division of the population into five economic groups, if every family is rightly and honestly valued, presents an immense amount of truth to the public judgment.[[13]]
But what Mr. Shearman really did with his estimates and conclusions is this: Seeing that the extent of poverty is appalling, he made the division line in the group of |SWEEPING AVERAGE.| well-to-do people; he thus made the group of the very poor extend so far as to comprise nearly 56 million persons; and then, by dividing the wealth of the well-to-do persons among all these millions, he obtained an average of $209 worth of wealth to every pauper, to every tramp, to every man, woman and child,—who have had no wealth, and have had no rights whatever to the wealth they are nominally represented as entitled to.
Consequently, his distribution of wealth among the third group of people is merely on paper, is nominal, is showy, and it does not correspond to reality with reference |ONLY NOMINAL DISTRIBUTION.| to more than 35 million persons as represented in Mr. Holmes’ distribution of this wealth. Mr. Shearman might as well follow the example of Mr. Carroll D. Wright[[14]] and, by a single effort in calculation, divide among all individuals the 70 per cent of wealth that belongs to his 1.4 per cent of the people. In doing that, he might apportion more than $1,000 worth of it to |JESUITS AND GALILEO.| every penniless individual, and then might say, Why, we are all rich, we are the most civilized and righteous people in the world! But such an effort, and such an assertion, however, would not at all alter the real situation; no more than Galileo, when in view of the danger of death, signing the Jesuit verdict in favor of the non-revolution of our planet round the sun, could thereby stop the actual revolution of the earth; for the earth’s progressive motion went on, in spite of the ardent desire and policy of the Jesuits to make it stand still by a verdict. Nothing but an indescribable shock of the earth against another heavenly body can change its principles of motion.
The same is true of the nation. Once the principle of concentration of wealth is left unimpeded in its action, it must work out its end; |DANGER.| it must of living necessity produce revolution and bloodshed. And neither the extremely moderate statisticians, nor the false averages, of even of the meanest falsehood, can prevent its action toward such a horrible result. “You remember the French revolution?” |FRENCH REVOLUTION, ROME.| asked Hon. Jno. S. Crosby of his audience in Binghamton,[[15]] N. Y., and then he said: “In France all the lands had come into the hands of a few people, the king and nobles, and a majority of the people were depending on them for a living. The time came when these down-trodden people rose up and Paris streets ran with blood. Your country will have the same experience if you keep on fooling with the laws of God.
“Rome was once the mistress of the whole world. She lorded it over the other countries. But she fell, and Pliny, her historian, lays the cause of her downfall to land monopoly.”[[16]] And so it was with ancient Egypt; so it was with ancient Assyria, and so it was with the Byzantine Empire, those great and powerful nations that perished for similar misconduct in relation to themselves.