There is in the government of human affairs one order that is best for all. What that order is and how it is to be attained should be the great problem for all who have at heart the betterment of the human race.
Never in the history of our country were the people confronted with greater social problems than they are to-day. The strikes, boycotts, and general discontent of late years prove conclusively that there is yet much room for improvement in our social order. What mean the great outcry and muttering of the masses? What means the cry from the vast army of discontented which wells up from the very heart of the nation, unless it signifies the rumbling which is often heard before the storm? Gloss it over as we will, the fact stands out as prominent as ever, that there is something radically wrong with our present economical system.
Many remedies have been suggested, many reforms have been inaugurated with the purpose of relieving the poverty and misery which press so heavily upon a large majority of the people. Stop immigration! Prohibit invention! exclaim some. The population is increasing too fast! reply others. And so the many reforms are advocated, all of which are discussed with more or less fairness. But when it is suggested that wealth is becoming too concentrated, that limitations should be placed upon it, the cry immediately goes up that he who suggests such a remedy is an anarchist, and one whose name should be synonymous with whatever is dangerous, lawless, and subversive.
Nevertheless, the question of wealth limitation cannot be dismissed with threats, epithets, or sneers. It will not dismiss itself, and we cannot dismiss it. Every observant person must admit that the great concentration of wealth, whether it be in corporations, trusts, or individuals, has reached a point dangerous to the future prosperity of the nation.
Millions of people idle, wealth piled up for the few by the toil of the many, paupers and millionaires on every side, and the conditions growing worse and worse,—these things are enough to make even the most optimistic painfully apprehensive of the future. Our government in some respects is in no better condition than was the old Roman Empire just before its fall, as described by James Anthony Froude. If we are to believe that eminent historian, the Roman Empire was crushed by the same power of unlimited, concentrated wealth that to-day is destroying the life, the liberty, and the happiness of the many in the United States. In mediæval Italy, too, popular freedom was lost through a moneyed oligarchy and proletariat. So in every country where individual wealth has transcended the bounds of justice, the people—the toilers—have eventually been enslaved.
Ours is fast becoming a moneyed nation; and a moneyed nation is generally a weak one. Superfluity of riches, like superfluity of food, causes weakness and decay. Individual prosperity or the prosperity of a community does not mean general prosperity, or the prosperity of a nation. Thus it has been shown that, in New York and Massachusetts and those States in which the greatest wealth is concentrated, the largest proportion of paupers are to be found. In 1833, when Tocqueville visited America, he was struck by the equal distribution of wealth and the absence of capitalists. Half a century later, when James Bryce, author of “The American Commonwealth,” visited our country, the trusts, monopolies, and concentrated wealth so amazed him that he exclaimed: “I see the shadows of a new structure of society—an aristocracy of riches.”
Fifty years ago there were no great fortunes here, and in fact but few fortunes that could be called large, and in those days there was comparatively little poverty. Now we have many gigantic fortunes and a vast number ranging from $100,000 to $10,000,000. In the past, wealth being more equally distributed, there was but little class distinction, but there were a far greater number of what might be called fortunes, and a noticeable exemption from that pauperism which has become chronic of late years.
The Probate-Court records of the various States disclose the fact that millionaires are becoming more numerous, while the smaller property-owners are gradually sinking into the multitude of people possessing nothing. In a valuable article by Eltweed Pomeroy on “The Concentration of Wealth,”[2] some interesting figures and diagrams are given, proving from probate records the exact extent to which small fortunes have been crowded out or merged into enormous ones. These records are valuable because they are official. But while they prove the extent to which wealth is concentrated, they do not disclose the misery which that wealth is causing. For that, we must look to the conditions about us. And in doing so it is not necessary to be a philosopher in order to see the havoc which concentrated wealth has wrought in recent years. Every day, it has been declared, America is over four million dollars richer at night than in the morning. Who receives this wealth? Surely not those who toil; else they would not suffer so. They receive little of it. The national wealth, great as it is, slips through their fingers to be collected in the vast reservoirs of the moneyed aristocracy. They work, but it is the work of those who labor to produce, but who receive none of that which is produced.
It is this condition that causes so many to declare that the present distribution of wealth does not conform to the principles of justice. And how can it be otherwise, when all wealth passes through the hands of the producers and stops only when it reaches those who possess most? Thus wealth is becoming with us not a power for general good, but a power given to the few to control the many—a power of placing upon the masses a yoke little better than slavery itself. The rich, becoming further and further removed from the poor, are also becoming conscious of being in a measure the proprietors of the poor. The poor have a knowledge of this fact, and the strikes, boycotts, and general discontent are but the expression of that knowledge.
In no country in the world does wealth, individual and corporate, exert such an influence as in the United States, and as a consequence, human life is becoming lamentably cheap. Capital is taking the place of men, and is valued more than men. Property is becoming sacred, human life profane. Laws are being made not for the good of humanity, but for the sake of property. One instance may be mentioned here: in the spring of 1896 a bill was before Congress to remove all criminal cases from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. It was argued by those in favor of the bill that much of the time of the Supreme Court was consumed listening to criminal cases (cases involving life and liberty), while high-priced corporation lawyers, whose cases involved millions of dollars, were required to wait in Washington until the criminal cases were disposed of. The bill naturally passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House.