sustained by its representative in the present day by corresponding service, will long be tolerated as one either of privilege, honor, or credit to him who bears it. Gunpowder equalized the force of the seignior and the serf; Vanderbilt became the great communist of the time when he reduced the cost of moving a year's supply of food a thousand miles to the measure of a day's wages of an ordinary mechanic. Yet more remains to be done before the mass of the people even in the United States can be said to live well. What are you going to do about it? In this series of articles, and in articles elsewhere published dealing with the same facts and statistics, the writer has proved, by arguments which no one has yet been able to refute or to gainsay, that in this country, which is no longer subject to the inherited wrong of slavery, in which birth gives no privilege, and in which all have or may have equal opportunity to attain material welfare, the working men and women who perform that part of the work of production which is either manual or mechanical, are steadily securing to their own use and enjoyment an increasing share of an increasing product; while on the other hand, both the material capital which has been saved in a concrete form, and also the element which is yet more necessary to material abundance, the capital which is immaterial, i. e., the mental factor in all productions, are being placed at the service of those who do the primary work at a lessening rate of compensation or profit. Nevertheless, when all Europe is a prey to fears of anarchy, nihilism, socialism, and communism, and when it seems to be as impossible for the standing armies and national debts of the Continent to be sustained as for the armies to be disbanded or the debts repudiated without violent revolution, may it not be well for us to take an inventory of our resources and to review our present methods of distribution, lest we also should perhaps be called upon, again and again, to apply force in sustaining rights of property both in land and capital, which need no force for their defense when fully comprehended and justified by the service to humanity which their possession makes their owners capable of rendering in ever-increasing measure. May not the harmony of interest between labor and capital be disclosed by the statistics of the nation to every one who can read what underlies the columns and is written between the lines? May it not therefore be well for all to give their attention to what are indefinitely termed the "claims of labor," lest for want of thought, that which is right should be misconstrued and assumed to be wrong by those whose narrow or monotonous conditions of life limit the scope of their thought and may possibly lead them to misdirect their acts. The conclusion of the whole matter may perhaps be brought within the mental conception of any one who believes that there is order in the universe, and that there is an over-ruling power that makes for righteousness. The lesson which we learn is this not only does enlightened self-interest coincide with or lead toward moral and material welfare, but even unenlightened self-interest, as represented by the mere money-getter, the mere capitalist, or by the man who has himself no knowledge of his own function, yet works of necessity in promoting an increased product and a reduction in the cost of all the necessaries of life, under which conditions the great mass of the community cannot fail to attain better conditions of welfare. Great inventions, which were first applied within a century, tended to the concentration of great masses of people under adverse conditions in the cities, and also to the diffusion of other great masses of people, occupied in farming, over wide areas, under isolated conditions which. were not conducive to the best kind of welfare. The application of steam, of water power, and of gas led to concentration of the factory population. The introduction of the railway led to wide diffusion of the farming population and to "extensive" methods of agriculture. These applications of science are now being met by other great inventions, the tendency of which is in the reverse of what has occurred during the present century. The application of electricity to the production of speech and light, to the development of power, and to the operation of elevated or surface railways by which very rapid transit may be secured, and many other modern methods of distribution, are tending to diffuse many arts heretofore confined to the centres and crowded parts of great cities, throughout the suburbs and adjoining towns, where broad, low, well-lighted, and well-ventilated factories. may occupy a larger area of ground, and where the factory operatives. may live under very much better conditions. On the other hand, the adoption of the silo, and what are called the "intensive" methods of cultivation, are leading to the breaking up of large farms and bringing the people who are engaged in agriculture into closer communication with one enother. All these new forces are now in accord with the gregarious habit of men, and without overcrowding, will bring about more favorable conditions of life, while promoting an increase of product at a much less cost of labor than ever before, with correlative high wages and low prices. Yet the motive which sets all these new forces in action is the self-interest both of the capitalist and of the workman, each striving to attain personal welfare only, but yet promoting the public welfare, whether conscious or unconscious of their true functions in society. It was said by the prophet of olden time that "The Lord maketh the wrath of man to praise him." It might be said by the prophet of the present, that the Lord maketh the selfishness of man to work for the material welfare of his kind. I' VII. AN EASY LESSON IN STATISTICS.' N this and in articles which are to follow, I shall endeavor to bring the present condition of the people of the United States into a form of statement which will enable readers to understand the bearing of many questions now pending to whom statistics are apt to be very dry and uninteresting. Persons who are not accustomed to deal with figures in very large sums, and to whom the incomprehensible millions of our national book-keeping carry but a confused impression, may easily comprehend the facts on which all fiscal or financial legislation ought to be based when the large sums of the national accounts are reduced to the quantities and values of a corresponding community of 6,000 persons. In this essay I have assumed the existence of a community of 6,000 souls whose conditions as regards occupations, industries, production, division, and utilization of land, etc., are as nearly as may be identical with those of the people of the United States in 1880, when the population was 50,000,000, or in the present year, when it is more than 60,000,000. I have made use only of such census figures as I believe to be worthy of trust or which I could substantially verify myself. Disregarding fractions, then, the following computations relating to 6,000 people correspond to the figures which would apply to the present population of the country, assuming that no material change has occurred since the census of 1880 in their relative occupations and production. The figures of foreign commerce have not held quite the same proportions, but in other matters of production and distribution there has probably been but little change. I assume a typical township which covers 300 square miles. It is about 25 miles long east and west, and 12 miles wide north and south. It comprises 192,000 acres of land, of which about one half, or 96,000 acres, is good arable land; the rest is about equally divided between. pasture, mountain, and forest. A little over twenty per cent. of the arable land, about 30 square miles, or 20,000 acres is under the plow. Within this area of 300 square miles there are 6,000 people, of whom 2,000 (1,700 males and 300 females, including 35 boys and 14 girls of 15 years or under) are occupied for gain, or are doing something by which they may get a living for themselves, each one on the average Reprinted from the Forum. supporting two others, either in farming, manufacturing, mining, or trading, or in professional or personal services. The 2,000 who are occupied for gain are occupied substantially as follows: 870 as farmers (490) and farm laborers (380), doing their work in part by machinery, mainly by the use of tools and implements driven by horse or manual power; 226 occupied in personal service-servants, draymen, hackmen, and the like-doing their work mainly by hand; 224 laborers not on farms-hewers of wood and drawers of water, diggers, and delvers; 214 mechanics or artisans, working where the work is to be done individually rather than collectively, and operating tools rather than machinery; 200 occupied in the collective work of the factory, operating machinery rather than using tools; 36 employed upon railways-engineers, firemen, and the like-omitting common laborers; 30 miners; 200 persons engaged in mental rather than in manual or mechanical industry, using their heads rather than their hands-clergymen, lawyers, doctors, literary persons, heads of corporations, merchants, traders, and the like. The study of the occupations of the people may enable one to make a better estimate of their average income or product than any figures which can be compiled in a census; therefore it may be useful to make even a closer subdivision of these pursuits : Domestic servants, waiters, laundresses, coachmen, and the like...... Draymen and hackmen.... Others, including mariners and police.. Common laborers.... Occupied in the mechanic arts: Carpenters, wheelwrights, lumbermen, and other men who work in wood..... Blacksmiths.. Painters Masons.. All other mechanics 20 14 12 112 214 Occupied in the collective or factory system: Workers in textile factories..... 60 Metal workers in blast furnaces, smelting shops, machine- 36 50 Boot- and shoe-makers and hatters...... 24 All other people who work in the factory rather than out-of- 330 Lawyers. Occupied on railways, omitting common laborers: Railway engineers, conductors, firemen, and brakemen.... Miners Occupied in mental work : Clergymen 36 30 7 to 8 Doctors.. 7 to 8 Professors, teachers, musicians, and literary people..... 7 to 10 Presidents of corporations, banks, railways, insurance com panies, and the like..... 30 24 Merchants and traders... Clerks, salesmen, saleswomen, and book-keepers 56 64 200 This classification by occupations is not an absolutely correct one, but it suffices for the general purpose of indicating the condition of the people. In former times, before the adoption of the factory system, each little community was to a large extent self-sustaining. The material for garments was spun and woven in the household. The farmer was a mechanic and almost of necessity a jack-ofall-trades, while the mechanic was apt to do a little farming. The local tailor and tailoress made the clothes. The work of each given community was much less subdivided individually than it has been since. Later came the substitution of the factory system for making cloth, the farmers' daughters leaving the farm and finding occupation in the factory. Then followed the wholesale clothier, and the local tailor as a maker of garments almost disappeared. But another phase of the distribution of work results from the reduction in railway charges. The railway system, by reducing the cost of moving goods to a fraction of a cent per ton a mile, practically converts a wide area into a close neighborhood. Hence there has been a considerable measure of household manufacture again introduced among farmers, but under wholly new conditions. The sewingmachine has become a necessary household implement, and the knitting-machine, sometimes owned in the farmers' families, but more often owned by a manufacturer of knit-goods, is widely distributed throughout the farmers' households of the eastern part of the country. The materials for ready-made clothing are cut at the manufacturing centres in the cities by the great clothiers, sorted, and put up in parcels with the thread, linings, and buttons; or the worsted and woollen yarns are made up in packages with directions for their use. These materials are then distributed throughout the farmers' families in the Eastern States, to be made up into garments or worked into hosiery and knit-goods, sent back to the cities to be pressed and finished, and then distributed for sale. Thus there is a considerable amount of manufacturing carried on, especially by the women of the farmers' families, which does |