These are not my figures. They are not the figures of any rabid Socialist making frenzied guesses. They are taken from a book called _The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States_, by the late Dr. Charles B. Spahr, a book that is used in most of our colleges and universities. No serious criticism of the figures has ever been attempted and most economists, even the conservative ones, base their own estimates upon Spahr's work. It would be worth your while to get the book from the library, Jonathan, and to read it carefully. In the meantime, look over the following table which sets forth the results of Dr. Spahr's investigation, Jonathan, and remember that the condition of things has not improved since 1895, when the book was written, but that they have, on the contrary, very much worsened. SPAHR'S TABLE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES ==========+============+=======+==========+=================+======= | No. of | Per | Average | Aggregate | Per Class | Families | Cent | Wealth | Wealth | Cent ----------+------------+-------+----------+-----------------+------- Rich | 125,000 | 1.0 | $263,040 | 32,880,000,000 | 54.8 Middle | 1,362,500 | 10.9 | 14,180 | 29,320,000,000 | 32.2 Poor | 4,762,500 | 38.1 | 1,639 | 7,800,000,000 | 13.0 Very Poor | 6,250,000 | 50.0 | | | ----------+------------+-------+----------+-----------------+------- Total | 13,500,000 | 100.0 | $4,800 | $60,000,000,000 | 100.0 ----------+------------+-------+----------+-----------------+------- Now, Jonathan, although I have taken a good deal of trouble to lay these figures before you, I really don't care very much for them. Statistics don't impress me as they do some people, and I would far rather rely upon your commonsense than upon any figures. I have not quoted these figures because they were published by a very able scholar in a very wise book, nor because scientific men, professors of political economy and others, have accepted them as a fair estimate. I have used them because I believe them to be _true and reliable_. But don't you rest your whole faith upon them, Jonathan. If some fine day a Republican spellbinder, or a Democratic scribbler, tries to upset you and prove that Socialists are all liars and false prophets, just tell him the figures are quite unimportant to you, that you don't care to know just exactly how much of the wealth the richest one per cent. gets and how little of it the poorest fifty per cent. gets. A few millions more or less don't trouble you. Pin him down to the one fact which your own commonsense teaches you, that the wealth of the country _is_ unequally distributed. Tell him that you _know_, regardless of figures, that there are many idlers who are enormously rich and many honest, industrious workers who are miserably poor. He won't be able to deny these things. He _dare_ not, because they are _true_.