RICH AND POOR IN AMERICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2850, 28 October 1908, Page 80

RICH AND POOR IN AMERICA.

| The occasional " correspondent of The | Times, "who has been "describing his Year Amongst "Americans, observes in hie }ast article that in American cities there is a comparative absence of outward andi visible signs of deep and widespread! ! poverty ; but things are not what theyt seem. The poor in America devote a' ; larger proportion of their income to raiment than the poor in other lands. The/ famib'ar tokens of poverty are found im i the homes of multitudes of those whom : one -sees elsfwhere in brave attire. j In New, York City, according to official) j reports, two-thirdfe of the inhabitants live !in tenement houses that have- over - I 350,000 living rooms into which, becausej | they are windowless, no - ray of-eunligM} ! ever comes. In fairly prosperous years! there are at lenst 10,000,000— some careful' statisticians say from 15,000,000 to [ 20,000,000— -people in America who are; [ always underfed and poorly housed ; and! j of these 4,000,000 are paupers/ Little children to the number of 1,700,000, who should be at school, and about! 5,000,000 1 women are wage-earners in; ■ America. . ' | The case of "salary earners" must also jbe taken into consideration. The pros- • perity of the country, which has brought some material benefit to wage-earners andf to men of wealth, has brought no corres^ ponding improvement in the condition ofl the professional class. On the contrary, ! hand in hand with general prosperity has > come a proportionate increase in the cosb of living ; and the professional clac6 — %he most important element in the citizenship, of the country — has not shared in the increased) riches of the time. ... One in every ten who dies in New Yorki has a pauper's burial ; at the present ratio I of deaths from - tuberculosis, 10,000,000 | persons now living will succumb to thatf j disease, which is largely due to insufficiency of food. and light and air; andf 60,463 families in the borough of Manhattan, New York, were evicted from.' their homes in the year 1903. In America, as is generally -known, i there is great concentration of wealth.. j Property of the value of 32,888,000d0l id owned by 1 per cent, of the population ;! 20 per cent, of the entire wealth of thej country is owned by three one-hundredthd of 1 per cent." of the population ; and.tha' total number of millionaires in New York? G\ty alone rose from 28 to 1103 between/ the years 1885-92. ' ~ Many of the rich have honestly acquired! their estate ; but nice discriminations aref not made in the popular judgment upon/ | the possessors of gijfat wealth f and those) \ whose fortunes have been made as incident to performing great cervices to) the community are victims of the general* i resentment which has been aroused ,JjjJ , those who have made their fortunes inj ! evil fashion. And it must be admitted! that the goats would probably be found to outnumber the sheep if any unerring) separation ' were made. ■ Wealth has developed without any pro? portionate development of the moral'," social, and legal sanctions by- which ital pursuit, possession, and use ought to be controlled. Consequently, in America al rich man lies under such presumptions andi *■ prejudices that he must prove himselfkinnocent before he is believed to be guilt-^ less of malpractices in the acquisition of! - | his wealth, and the opportunity of proof! | is seldom given anoV never sought. - * • Nor are these prejudices softened by the) great gifts to education and charity which^ fail upon the nation in golden showerd | from the coffers of millionaires. Them ;• j moral title to the gbldi is challenged, andf". 1 their charity is cynically interpreted as &vt ' attempt, by the restitution of a par, to compensate for injustice in gaining thef whole. The generous benefactors are ]iv-^. ing in a fool's paradise if they inKbgineT" that their gifts awaken public gratitude,towards themselves and their class. Wg have sometimes thought that colleges,;-' libraries, and other buildings bearing theirj\donors' names, from the sight of which)., one cannot escape, tend in the present popular mood to keep the public mind! inflamed. Eleven times in America X have heard the couplet quoted: — Who builds a. house to God, not fame, Ne'er detecrate3 the building with his name;' and the language used by the alumni of colleges with leference to names of mif-f lionaires impo.-ed upon "donated" build*' ings must go unreported by me. Nog' does it go unnoticed that the rich do notf. give themselves, to the public service op the general welfare. Some of them hav«l intellectual and moral sanity and refine-" ment, and do not teem to lack the specffically social qualities, virtues, and amenftics which are supposed to be the exclusive} possession of an heieditary ai istocracy\£ Even there men. however, with one oi£ two exceptions, arc unchivalrous faineantaf • in relation to the social and political pro- . blems that pres.- fen- solution j and' thd* li-«ser port more completely, I thinff^thnn the analogous class of any otheicountry aie content, in heartleesnces an<B' cclfishness, to follow the thoughtless pui>fcui'e and conventions of tkeif "set," in? which the greatest consideration is giveri to those who have amassed .enough wealth? to rank amongst multi-millionaire!*. They are, undoubtedly a nowerful class; bufi

its power is largely unsocial, a solvent of I society and a disintegrating force .in the- I national life, in sprfce of, and sometimes j even by reason, of, occasional bequests to ] "endow a college or a cat." The gift j -without the giver is bare; and the rich, i as a class will 'remain- in disrepute as long ' as they remain so absorbed in becoming richer, or in spending or even giving wealth, that they cannot take their proper part, without fear or favour, in the tasks -which, In a democracy, no individual can . (honourably avoid. , I am predisposed to see Socialism where it is not rather than, not to see where it is, and to overestimate rather than to < underestimate its growth, and strength. ■ Yet the conclusion baa been forced upon ! me that Socialism has found, finds, and is ; ■fated to find, in the American democracy, j uncongenial coil. If this be a just con- | elusion, it confutes- the theory, which j many accept, that Socialism must have its > speediest and ita. highest development j ■wherever there is the highest capitalistic development; the "inevitable future" is disproved by the facts. There can be no more important work for the statesman or the sociologist than to fathom this phenomenon. But merely to state, not to fathom, it is my part-. "Je njimpoee rien, je ne propose meme rien; j'expose." i