4
yet what they produced enabled them to at least live. And yet we who can produce a thousand fold more wealth per man today are told that we should be content with the beggar's existence that is the portion of great numbers. We produce it and then are told that we should have no share in the increase. It is a crime, an outrage.
Here are a few figures that show how much more we are producing in a few years. What a story the figures would tell if we had them for five centuries! These figures are from the government's report at the Louisiana purchase Exposition.
This will interest the farmer. With the new inventions the farmer raised eleven times more barley in 1896 than he did in 1830. Does he live eleven times better?
In 1895 he raised 3 times more cotton than in 1841. Is the cotton grower of the South 3 times richer than before the Civil War?
In 1896 he raised 10 times more wheat than he did 60 years before. Has his condition improved ten fold in this period?
Your experience gives the answer to these questions. You know that the successful farmer is the man who could not tell the difference between a plow and a phonograph. The successful farmer is a man like Joe Leiter who gambles in wheat, who corners it, and holds up a nation until bread riots threaten revolution.
Here is something for the wage worker. In making the delicate machinery of watches the worker in 1896 produced 17 times more than he did in 1862. Does the watch maker live on the boulevards and spend his vacation in Europe?
In printing and folding newspapers the worker produced 20 times more in 1895 than he did a few years before. Have you known any millionaire printers or pressmen?
In lithographing the worker produced 25 times more in 1896 than he did in 1867. Are all lithographers rich men?
Bear in mind that these are only a few illustrations among many and instead of the figures indicating the progress of five centuries they refer to a period of less than one century. They give some idea of our enormous increased power for producing wealth.
