Mr. Deegan further states that the report referred to “also shows that after all expenses and charges are levied, there still remains over $2,000,000,000 surplus to be divided as profits among the employers.” It is true that after deducting from the value of the products reported by the census, the aggregate of all reported expenses, the remainder is a little over $2,000,000,000; but the census report is careful to point out that this difference can not be regarded as representing profits for the simple reason that the expenses reported by the census did not include all the expenses incidental to the process of manufacture. Among the expenses left out of account is the important item of depreciation.
If Mr. Deegan had consulted the census report itself, such statements as he made would be reprehensible as well as inexcusable; but I presume that he got his information at second hand from some newspaper paragraph or article originating no one knows how or where.
But The Survey, however, ought not to be made the agency for the further promulgation of such misinformation. It might be said, perhaps, that such gross misstatements do not deceive thinking and well-informed people; but even well-informed people do not always know the facts which refute such statements; and thinking people do not have time to think about everything.
More than that it seems to me that some consideration should be shown for the unthinking people that they may not be deceived or misled.
Some of them have a vote.
Joseph A. Hill.
[Bureau of the Census.]
Washington.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The report is for free distribution and may be had by writing to the Commission to Study the Question of the Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers, State House, Boston, Mass.