large number of our young men and women suffer from diseases of heart, kidneys, lungs, and circulation, with impairment enough to consult a physician, that is, over half of our young men and women in active work and presumably selected for their work as fit, are found, although unaware of the fact themselves, to be in need of medical attention; while 37 per cent are on the road to impairment because of the use of too much alcohol, tobacco, etc. Now, a stitch in time saves nine. Thus the lesson to all of us is obvious. I. M. Rubinow[129] says the problem of poverty among the old is connected with inability to find work because productive power has waned forever. American experience in tables of mortality shows that of 100 persons at the age of 20, 53 will reach 65; 12, 70; at which time the average expectation of life will be 8½ years. If we take 100 people at the age of 30, 53 will live to 65; 48 to 70. But this table was compiled half a century ago, although it is still used--to the great profit of insurance companies as expectation has greatly increased. Ten to fifteen years of life over sixty-five are assured to more than half all wage workers. In 1880 the percentage of persons 65 or over was 3.5; in 1890, 3.9; in 1900, 4.2; in 1910, 4.3. The number over 65 per 1000/15 increased from 54 to 60 in 1890, and to 63 in 1910. Employed males over 65 per 1000/15 constituted 50 in 1890; and in 1900, 47. Thus the production of old men is increased while the proportion of old men is declining. In 1880, of all old men over 65 years of age, 73.8 per cent were gainfully employed; in 1900, only 68.4 per cent. The total number of men over 65 in 1900 was 1,555,000. Thus economic progress in ten years meant an additional hundred thousand thrown out of employment. In agriculture, 6.1 per cent of the men employed are over 65; in the professions, 5.5 per cent; but in manufacture and mechanics, only 3.5 per cent; and in trade and transportation, 3 per cent. Thus old men are either thrown out or shifted to unskilled occupations. What does the “iron law” of the increase of old age dependency under a system of wage labor mean? It is wrong to seek the cause in exceptional misfortune or in psychological or ethical feeling. The author of “Old Age Dependencies in the United States” says after sixty men become dependent by easy stages--property, friends, relatives, and ambition go and only a few years of life remain, with death final. The wage-earner is swept from the class of hopeful, independent citizens into that of the helpless poor.