The ebb of the tide is coming; the only question is, when? According to precedent, it should come in 1913; but I expect it much sooner, partly because I do not believe that we had anything like a thorough liquidation in 1904, and partly because of the extreme violence of the present activity. During the last year the “boom” has reached real estate, and that always means that other avenues of investment are clogged. I anticipate the storm in 1908 or 1909; but I do not predict it, because it depends upon uncertain factors. Another great war might put it off ten years; and on the other hand, crop failures might precipitate it this summer. What I do believe that I can predict—for reasons which I stated in the introduction to this argument—is the course which political events in this country will take from the hour when the “hard times” arrive. As we saw from the Chicago _Tribune_ item, the first sign of trouble is the turning out of work of a million workingmen; and what are the consequences—the economic consequences—of the turning out of work of a million men? According to the census the average yearly wage of the factory employee is four hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Dr. Peter Roberts says that the average wage in the anthracite coal district is less than five hundred dollars. In the Middle States a third of all the workers get less than three hundred a year, and in the South nearly sixty per cent. get less. It was proven before the Industrial Commission that the maximum wage of the hundred and fifty thousand railroad and track hands and the two hundred thousand carmen and shopmen, was a hundred and fifty dollars in the South, and less than three hundred and seventy-five in the North. And this to feed and clothe a family, and provide against sickness, accident, and old age! The meaning of it is simply that when a million men are laid off, in a month or two they and their families are starving.