And now, can we get any broad view of the results of this long process of wealth-concentration? In 1850 the wealth of the United States was estimated at nine billions; in 1870 it was thirty billions; in 1890 it was sixty-five billions; and in 1900 it was ninety-five billions. How is this wealth distributed? Writing in 1896, Dr. C. B. Spahr made his famous calculation, embodied in the statement that one-eighth of the population owned seven-eighths of the wealth, and that one per cent. owned more than the remaining ninety-nine per cent. And at that time the machinery of exploitation had hardly more than got under way. The best attempt at an estimate since then is the one by Lucien Sanial, published by the American Branch of the International Institute of Social Science. This is the result of a careful analysis of the census of 1900; it shows that of ninety-five billions of the country’s present wealth, sixty-seven billions are owned by a capitalist-class of two hundred and fifty thousand persons, twenty-four billions by a middle class of eight million four hundred thousand persons, and four billions by a working-class of over twenty million persons. And now, if the sixty-seven billions owned by the capitalists be assumed to earn ten per cent.—which is surely a reasonable average amount—our people will be paying interest upon four hundred and fifty billion dollars at the end of the twenty year period! And that represents the centralisation of the actual ownership of wealth; but one does not get a real understanding of the situation until he begins to consider the centralisation of the _control_ of wealth. In explaining the struggle over the surplus of the life-insurance companies, one of our financial magnates remarked to me: “I would rather have the power of manipulating four hundred million dollars, than the actual ownership of fifty millions.” And with that crucial fact in mind, let one consider the figures given by Mr. Sereno S. Pratt in _The World’s Work_ for December, 1903, and summarised in Dr. Strong’s “Social Progress,” as follows: “One-twelfth of the estimated wealth of the United States is represented at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the United States Steel Corporation.