The impending crisis : $b conditions resulting from the concentration of wealth in the United StatesBouroff, Basil A.
History
The impending crisis : $b conditions resulting from the concentration of wealth in the United States
Bouroff, Basil A.
Trusts, Industrial; United States -- Economic conditions; Wealth
2. That at the same time we had 4,999,412 other families that were
hiring not the farms but rentable homes of the propertied men. And these
nearly [SN: NUMBER OF FAMILIES HIRING HOMES.] 5-million families were
not only the sources of income and profit in favor of the owners of the
homes, but also the sources of income for the employers that permit them
to labor. So that a farm tenant is a direct[65] source of income to one
lord of property; while a home tenant is a direct[66] source of income
for two owners of wealth. And a great injustice hangs on the neck of
every one of these millions, because they have no property of their own.
But the principal point is this, that neither one of them has the right
to expend or apply his labor energy anywhere without paying for it to
those that may not labor at all and live.
Adding now the two classes of tenant families, we have 6,624,259 of
them; and regarding their [SN: NUMBERS COMBINED.] numbers individually,
we have 32,656,808 propertyless persons who are in bondage of
dividogenesure, because they have neither the right to expend their
strength nor to restore it without paying for both to the propertied.
The question now is, Do these numbers show that we had “less than half
the families in the United States without property?”[67] Even without
examining the numbers of the propertyless in cities and towns, the Extra
Bulletin proves that there were 279,023 more of the propertyless
families than the half of the entire population. And [SN: COULD BUILD A
LARGE CITY.] this little more than the half represents 1,345,683
propertyless individuals who could build and could inhabit yet another
one of the largest cities in the world, while under the unjust principle
of dividogenesure they have neither a farm, nor a lot, nor a single
house of their own.
But what do you think about the whole number of the propertyless? We had
fully 32,656,808 individuals of them in 1890, according to this
Bulletin, and they could [SN: COULD BUILD 32 LARGE CITIES.] likewise
build and inhabit 32 great cities having in each more than a million of
good citizens. A million population in one city, as you know,
constitutes one of the most populous cities in the world; and we could
have thirty-two such cities in the possession of these now propertyless
people. These millions of people could make one of the finest nations on
earth with 32 of most populous cities which they could erect by their
labor energy. How is it, then, that they are obliged to remain homeless,
landless, propertyless, resourceless? Have they been lazy to work? Have
they been incapable of doing anything for themselves? Have they been
degenerates? No, no, these tens of millions have been working hard, but
they have been deprived of the results of their labor by the unjust
principle of dividogenesure that compelled them to labor for the few
families of the wealthy group of the two tables on p. 47, which own the
results of their labor and toil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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