7
There you are John. Twenty millions of you own only 4 per cent while 250,000 men own 70 per cent of the wealth. The figures are only cold witnesses to the dreadful life that many are forced to live today. They show that plenty is produced for all but that only a few get it. They show that those who produce all get little, while those who produce little get all. What a wretched mess to make of the great powers we have for producing wealth! Every century for thousands of years has enabled men to produce more wealth than the previous generation. Now we have all the advantages of all the generations that have gone before, and yet millions suffer for want of enough to eat and wear. Did it ever occur to you, John, that this is a stupendous crime?
The Machine.
Now as a matter of fact it makes no difference to you and me, as workers, how much more wealth we may be able to produce with new inventions, we cannot hope to get the increase as things stand today. During the past century our power to produce wealth has multiplied repeatedly but our wellbeing has not multiplied accordingly. If it had most of us would be enjoying a big income instead of that miserable sum that Prof. Nearing has mentioned. If our fathers have not received the increase how can we hope to receive it under present arrangements?
In some of the steel mills of this country the process of rolling steel has become almost automatic. Where thousands of men were once necessary a few men now do the work. One throws a lever, another turns a wheel, still another presses a button and these motions control machinery that seize huge ingots, take them to the rolls, roll them into shape, cut them into lengths and dump them into cars ready to be hauled to the market. The former skilled workers are outside the steel mills wondering why every advance of mankind reduces more of them to beggars and outcasts. What has happened to the steel workers is happening to the glass workers, the molders, the miners and every other section of workers in modern industry. There isn't any less work done now than before. The difference is that machinery is doing the work instead of men.
Even the pick and shovel men are being thrust aside. There are machines for sewer and ditch digging now that
