The Progress., 1893-10-21

| rural estates, he sports the finest blood
horses in America, and his wealth must
be estimato1 by the million. He holds
no public Office and has no visible
means of support save as the boss of a
political club organized for plunder in a
! great city.
Not only have we such corruption be-
fore our eyes and absolutely master of
our municipal life, but more-they add
insult to injury; they pose as the bene-
factors of society. The people are un-
mercifully taxed to fill the pockets of
these thieves, and the masses of the poor
people in the cities must bear the bur
den.
WEALTH AND POVERTY.
What is true of New York is true in a
smaller degree in nearly all of the great
cities of America today. This intensi-
fication of life has brought us the mar
velous increase of wealth and the pain
full increase of poverty. Our life today
may be termed the tropics of civiliza-
ton. 1t is probable that the Astor es-
tate alone has reached $500, 900.
There are single individuals in this
city whose income cannot be less than
800, 900, 900 year.
There are thousand men in this city
whose wealth is vastly over 81 ,0O0, 900.
There are dozen men i'll this city who
can, if they will, control both the finan-
cial development of the nation and die
tate its political policies by the use of
their money.
The poverty of the poor is in like man
ner increasing to the degree of starva-
ton from day to day.
While thousand men in this city esti-
mate their wealth at over 81 ,O00, 900, it
can be safely said that there are 100,-
900 people in this city who are hungry
for bread every day in the year. The
number of people who sleep on boards,
and who drift from house with nowhere
to sleep, approximates 100, 900 daily. The
children of this generation of paupers
seem to increase with greater rapidity
than the normal rate of the increase of
the average population of the world.
HOPE.
While the evil elements of life have
l.
the fact that the better elements of life
are also being intensified. The heroism
of this life in its crying wants, its needs,
is as brilliant in its individual examples
as at any time in the history of the
world. While crime and corruption and
debauchery have increased in the city,
the army of self sacrificing men and
women who are willing to give their
lives for the betterment of mankind
daily increases.
We have the meanest men in New
York in the world perhaps. We also
have some of the best men and women
in New York in the world. The intensi-
fication of life in this century has intro
duced a new element just here in our de-
velopment of civilization which must in
the immediate future tell as it has not
in the past.
WOMEN WORKERS.
The number of women that have pour
ed their lives into the current stream of
active endeavor has been, within the last
20 years, increasing as never before i'll
the history of the human race. Accord
ing to the report of the census of 1880,
there were in America among women
who earned their daily bread outside of
domestic service the following numbers
in different professions: 40 lawyers, 165
ministers, 800 authors, 5SS journalists,
2,061 artists, 2,136 architects, chemists,
pharmacists, 2,106 stock raisers and
ranchers, 5,145 government clerks, 2, ,43S
physicians and surgeons, 13, 1S2 profes-
sional musicians, $500 farmers and
planters, 2l,071 clerks and bookkeepers,
IA, ,465 heads of commercial houses, 1861
600 public school teachers.
This was by the census of 1880, but by
the report of the last census of 1890 tSere
is received the remarkable fact that in
these 10 years the army of women who
earn their daily bread outside of their
homes now reaches the enormous total
of 2,700,000.
For the first time in the history of
economics woman has entered as an ac-
tive factor. Her influence in develop
ing the history of the next generation
can but be marvellous. Her influence in
molding and fashioning the life of socie-
to when thus brought in active contact
with its working force cannot be less
than it has been in other spheres where
woman's influence has been felt when
woman's position is recognized as il
should be in the world of economics.
We stand upon the threshold of an
economic evolution, of q new social
order. 1t means, sooner or later, that
woman will be emancipated from the
slavery in which she has labored in the
! past, in an unequal struggle with man
and that society in its working force will
be elevated and refined and humanized
by her touch, her sympathies and hel
life.
POLITICAL EQUALITY OF THE COMMON PEo-
PIE.
Third-The rise of the common people
to political equality in government witt
the traditional ruling classes has beer