The whole increase of the wealth then has been lost in favor of the few. But what does this over four billion dollars difference between the total increase and the total net incomes of the monopolies and combinations mean in view of the situation? Where does this over four billion dollars’ worth of wealth come from? This surplus amount of $4,282,283,387 of the net incomes certainly cannot mean anything else than that the families, unconnected with monopolies, trusts, and other combinations were quickly eating up [SN: LOSS OF THE PREVIOUS WEALTH.] themselves. They not only have absolutely lost all that they produced during the time of seven years, but have also lost $4,282,283,387 worth of the wealth which they owned in 1890. So that the aggregate of about $9,260,228,000 worth of wealth which was owned by the 11,190,152 “families worth $5,000 and under”[160] in that year, must have been greatly reduced by monopolies, trusts and combinations. There cannot be any doubt, too, that hundreds of thousands of the “families worth $5,000 and over”[160] have also suffered from the same causes. Hence, the absolute loss of $4,282,283,387 worth of the previously owned wealth must have been shared by all in favor of the very few families whose undoubted prosperity has indeed been unusual. For they have concentrated the enormous total of over $26,000,000,000 worth of the people’s wealth in seven years, and have thus made the greatly increased population much poorer in 1897 than it was in the year 1890. And this fact of growing poverty has not been unsuspected. For, if Mr. W. H. Mallock, in trying to prove the contrary, admits “that the rich” in England “do grow [SN: THE POOR GROW ABSOLUTELY POORER.] richer and the poor grow relatively poorer, because their numbers increase, although it seems that in the distribution of wealth a greater share (of it) falls on their part.”[161] As for the United States, it was also said that “since 1873 the poor have grown relatively, if not absolutely poorer.”[162] The method used here for establishing this fact leaves no doubt that the rich in both countries do grow absolutely richer and the well-to-do and the poor in the United States do grow relatively and absolutely poorer: accordingly, “the largest fortunes” in this country “are increasing most rapidly,” says Dr. Charles R. Henderson.[163]