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cannot be settled by an appeal to the results of the investigations that have been made as to the immediate causes of poverty. The investigation in the city of York, before referred to, gives the following as to the immediate causes of primary poverty, that is, where the income was insufficient to provide the minimum requirements for physical efficiency even if wisely spent:

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Is Greater Diffusion Possible?-Most people agree that a greater equality of possessions would be desirable if it could be brought about without any confiscation of the real earnings of the more efficient members of society. The idea of a leisure class whose mission is to further culture without great contribution to the production of what it consumes, does not find much favor in this democratic age. The disadvantages of wide extremes in wealth have been so often pointed out by social philosophers that they need not be emphasized here. But those who believe that the competitive system roughly apportions rewards according to individual production will say that nothing can be done directly to diffuse wealth. That each individual should bear the consequences of his own conduct, they think is necessary as a discipline for the race. "Give the children of the shiftless, by thoughtless charity or various systems of poor relief, the right to eat the substance of the efficient and the prudent, and you will soon lose both the

capital and the morality under which that capital has been created," says a writer of this class.

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Those, on the other hand, who think that something can and should be done directly, question the possibility of discovering the separate productivity of workers under modern complex industrial conditions with any degree of exactness, and think there is little danger of discouraging industry and thrift. If the highest incomes were $100,000 per year, men would struggle just as hard as they do now to get into the highest class.

If we take the view that something can be done to lessen the extreme inequality in wealth distribution that exists at the present time, it is necessary to formulate some programme of social reform. In framing such a programme it must be remembered, on the one hand, that the right of private property is not an absolute right. No one has a vested interest in that institution, and we are at liberty to make such modification in the institution as will contribute to the social welfare. For the present the measures here advocated are not in the slightest danger of being carried so far as to discourage that wealth-getting ambition which is considered by many to be essential to progress. On the other hand, there is danger of injuring by wrong methods the very persons whom it is desirable to elevate. Indiscriminate charity may convert poverty to pauperism.

"This distinction between the poor and the paupers may be seen everywhere. There are, in all large cities in America and abroad, streets and courts and alleys where a class of people live who have lost all self-respect and ambition, and who rarely if ever work, who are aimless and drifting, who like drink and who have no thought for their children, and who live aimless and contentedly on rubbish and alms. . . . In our American cities, Negroes, Whites, Chinese, Mexicans, Half-breeds, Americans, Irish, and others are indiscriminately housed together in the same tenements and often in the same rooms. The blind, the crippled, the consumptive, the aged, — the ragged ends of life; the babies, the children, the half-starved, underclad beginnings in life, all huddled together, waiting, drifting. This is pauperism. There is no mental agony here; they do not work sore; there is no dread; they live miserable, but they do not care.

"In these same cities, and indeed everywhere, there are great districts of people who are up at dawn, who wash and dress, and eat breakfast, kiss

1 Hadley, Economics, p. 49.

wives and children, and hurry away to work or to seek work. The world rests upon their shoulders; it moves by their muscle; everything would stop if for any reason they should decide not to go into the fields and factories and mines. But the world is so organized that they gain enough to live upon only when they work; should they cease, they are in destitution and hunger. The more fortunate of the laborers are but a few weeks from actual distress when the machines are stopped. Upon the unskilled masses want is constantly pressing. As soon as employment ceases, suffering stares them in the face. They are the actual producers of wealth, but they have no home nor any bit of soil which they can call their own. They are the millions who possess no tools and can work only by permission of another. In the main they live miserably, they know not why. They work sore, and yet gain nothing. They know the meaning of hunger and the fear of want. They love their wives and children. They try to retain their self-respect. They have some ambition. They give to neighbors in need, yet they are themselves the actual children of poverty."

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We shall not discuss here the methods of alleviating the suffering that comes from poverty. The best methods of charitable relief are necessary as palliatives, but they cannot cure the evils of poverty. Two classes of reform measures should be distinguished: (1) those that aim to alter the methods of wealth acquisition in the future, and (2) those that aim to diffuse the excessive accumulations of the past.

These methods

Modifying the Methods of Wealth Acquisition. again fall into two classes: (a) prevention of improper methods of wealth accumulation; (b) eliminating or strengthening the inefficient members of society. Under the first of these falls the problem of reducing to lower terms such incomes as are individually unearned. There must be such control of monopolistic privileges as to keep them from being the means of exploiting the masses. Fraud and favoritism must be eliminated so that income shall not be wholly out of proportion to service or needs.

The second class includes a large variety of methods. (1) It is possible to do something to prevent defective human beings from being born. There is a growing sentiment in favor of preventing the marriage of persons who are not fit for marriage. No individual would be deprived of any important right if a medical certificate of good health were made a condition precedent to the

1 R. Hunter, Poverty, pp. 3-5.

granting of a marriage license. (2) Education should be made compulsory with the endeavor of making the rising generation not only efficient producers of wealth, but also wise spenders of what they receive. (3) It is possible to provide against the misfortunes of life by insurance of various kinds.

If men will not voluntarily make provision for themselves and for those dependent upon them in cases of sickness, accident, old age, and premature death, they should be helped to do so indirectly by some comprehensive system of workingmen's insurance and old age pensions. (4) The solution of the problem of unemployment depends upon more indirect measures, such as monetary and banking reform, which steady the progress of industry, although European experiments show that there are possibilities in insurance against unemployment. (5) Opportunities for saving should be multiplied. The establishment of postal savings banks would be of some assistance. (6) The health and vigor of the people should be improved by sanitation and by legislation which improves the conditions of work.

The Diffusion of Wealth. To some extent large fortunes disappear without governmental interference, but it takes comparatively slight ability to maintain an inherited estate. It does not seem practicable or desirable to limit directly the total amount of wealth which a man may own, but there is no reason why the government should refrain from consciously encouraging the diffusion of wealth. The regulation and taxation of inheritances seems to be the proper remedy in this connection, even if its action is somewhat slow.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Can anything be said in favor of a leisure class?

2. Would Mr. Carnegie's plan of levying an inheritance tax of 50 per cent destroy the incentive to work?

3. Explain the various systems of poor relief.

4. Describe the German system of compulsory insurance.

5. Describe the old age pension system in Australia.

6. What objections have been offered against postal savings banks?

7. Discuss the following statement: "We have, then, little reason for expecting that the prevailing insecurity in the lot of the modern workman will ever be removed by the development of individual thrift." — A. S. JOHNSON, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXII, p. 244.

REFERENCES

ADAMS, T. S., and SUMNER, H. L. Labor Problems, Chap. V.

BROOKS, J. G. The Social Unrest, Chap. VII.

BOOTH. Life and Labour of the People in London, final volume.

CANNAN, EDWIN. "Division of Income," Quarterly Journal of Economics,

Vol. 19, p. 341.

COMMONS, J. R.

DEVINE, E. T.

Distribution of Wealth, pp. 252 sqq.
Principles of Relief.

ELIOT, C. W. "Great Riches," World's Work, Vol. 11, p. 7451.

ELY, R. T. Evolution of Industrial Society, Chap. VI, Part I.

HADLEY, A. T. Economics, pp. 39-63 and 330-335.

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HOBSON J. A. The Social Problem, Chap. IV, and Problems of Poverty, Chap. IX.

HENDERSON, C. R. Modern Methods of Charity.

JOHNSON, A. S. "Influences affecting the Development of Thrift," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXII, No. 2.

LONDON, JACK. The People of the Abyss.

LAUGHLIN, J. L.

MALLOCK, W. H.

"Large Fortunes," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 96, p. 40.

"Great Fortunes and the Community," North American Review, Vol. 183, p. 349.

Paupers in Almshouses, 1904. Special Report of the Bureau of the Census. ROWNTREE. Poverty, A Study in Town Life.

SPARGO, JOHN. Socialism, Chap. V.

SPAHR, C. B. The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States. SEAGER, H. R. Outline of a Program of Social Reform, Charities and the Commons, February 2, 1907.

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WATKINS, G. B. "The Growth of Large Fortunes," Publications of the American Economic Association, November, 1907.

YOUNGMAN, ANNA. "The Fortune of John Jacob Astor," Journal of Political Economy, June, 1908.

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