In the year 1840, at the beginning of this golden period of national happiness and prosperity, there were in this country 1,240 cotton manufacturing plants, with a combined gross output of $46,000,000 worth of goods. Each plant made $37,000 worth of goods. Twenty years later, the number of plants was 1,091, and the output was $115,000,000. Our fathers saw these figures; but it is not on record that any man, at that time, saw their true meaning. It was simply, to their minds, the working out of the factory system to its completion. It meant economy. It was part of the same system that had reduced the cost of making a yard of broadcloth from fifty cents in 1823 to fifteen cents in 1840. They could not, naturally, see in it, as we can, the seeds of a revolution that was to make over again the America of that day, to drag the boasted freedom of America in the mire of poverty, to prostitute our political system, to tear and wreck and sweep away the sacred barriers of Society. It was, in truth, the handwriting on the wall, but America lacked a prophet. If, indeed, there had been such a one, his warning would have been in vain. For evolution is inexorable; and the nation, high and low, rich and poor, poverty and Society--all are but its creatures, brought into life by it, buried at its command. Let me hurry on to sketch the progress of this wonderful change that was to found in America two great new classes, the Idle Rich and the Slaves of Industry. I have compiled a table from the census reports, dealing with textile industries alone, because that branch of manufacturing was the oldest and one of the greatest, as it is to-day, and because it illustrates perhaps better than any other the progress of principles, rather than the influence of special causes, particularly through this twenty-year period of which I am writing: TEXTILE INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES Average Av. No. of Year No. Capital Employés Product Average 1860 3027 50,000 65 75,500 1870 4790 62,500 57 108,600 1880 4018 103,000 96 144,000 In these few figures all the industrial history of that great period may be found epitomized. The number of plants, instead of increasing as the volume of demand for products increased, was contracted. The leadership of the trade, and, therefore, the making of prices, was taken by the houses of larger capital. The average capital employed in the trade doubled in the twenty years. The output also doubled for the average factory. The number of employés, on the other hand, increased but half. Better machinery, more efficient control over the workers, more drastic industrial discipline, fiercer industrial competition for individual work, did their destiny-appointed task.