The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1895-09-21

condition. The working people of the
United States are rapidly taking posses
/ sion of its wealth, as they have always
held possession of its policy and its legis-
lation. In fact, while we may boast
many millionaires, as we boast of an
occasional giant stalk Of corn. or tall
wheat straw. 1t is the people as whole
and the average working citizens of
whom we must think as the makers of
the Nation and the creators of its wealth.
1t Is the average citizen, no less, who
possesses that wealth, and who directs
the progress of the nation"
His point is made by the proofs he ad-
duces, that the future gains of power and
wealth must take the direction of i'm
proving the condition of the people di-
rectly by giving more universal distri-
button of comfort and of luxuries. This
he shows by diagrams based upon scien-
tifio and statistical proofs and irresistible
logic of evidence. By these diagrams,
and Mulhalps classification, he proves
that the slower growth of wealth is in
cattle and herds, the wide distribution of
the production aud use of which keeps
down the price of meat food from what it
would be were there more rapidity in
that growth.
Factories come next In Importance Of
investment, but improvements in the
arts are making each more productive
and the operation and product OF each
cheaper. So, while we are increasing
production enormously. it is with rela-
lively slow increase of the funds in
vested. But the upward curve in the
! line of houses and sundries is most strik-
ing. The growth in value of real
property is very steady and uniform.
Taken in conjunction with the known
decrease in the cost OF construction,
it proves that the people are rapidly
| coming to possess comfortable homes and
permanent residences. Sundries include
all the thousand and one articles of COM
!
fort and luxury which make life worth
living.
In these lines the highest and steepest
curve of progress is shown in the dia-
grams. Measured by the gauge of the
facts as shown by scientific proofs, we
are 80 per cent. more comfortable than in
| e. !, 10
our parents in 1860, and our children in
1900 and 1910 will have twice as many
luxuries, and live twice as easy and COM
Portable lives, if they choose SO to do, as
do we to-day.
The conclusions reached by Professor
Thurston are: % That great social and
economic laws are in steady, uninter-
| rupted operation, covering with broad
sweep the trend of modern progress, con-
trolling development in wealth, educa-
ton, and all material and Intellectual
lines in all civilized nations. " These
laws insure steady progress without
much regard 10 crises, or to what are
called good and bad times"
81 The trend of progress during past
decades is the best guide for predicting the
future. This guide indicates constant
! gain in rate of progress as well as in the
accumulation of wealth in all industrial
Iproducts and in general improvement.
/ ~ The point has been reached in the
| world, and especially in the United
States, at which physical power is being
| mainly directed to the supply OF the COM
| forts and luxuries to people already, on
! the average, we'll cared for and insured
against poverty and suffering and hard
ship.
81 Probably within another generation
the average citizen will possess comforts
and luxuries and enjoy advantages for
leisure, thought, study and intellectual
\ growth, which to-day are the sole possess
\ ion of those distinctively called rich.
| The direct means and methods of pro-
gress are through the continual improve
nlenk OF the arts anu Tue 5Ci6uCoo duQ VIC
steady reduction of the proportion of the
working power applied to the manufact-
ure of the more perishable forms of
wealth, and through the steady gain in
the productiveness of that power. as re-
suit of improvements in modern machIn-
cry, and the introduction of new inven-
| tons.
| (6] Culture and refinement will come
! to the nation with all that makes life
worth living, in constantly and rapidly
! increasing proportion, as the progress
| spoken of continues. Finally Professor
Thurston deduces, as the last conclusion
O the proofs arrayed in his essay. that
this nation will lead in still greater and
greater degree until economic laws break
the curve which exhibits the trend of
modern progress.
SAN BERNARDINo's SHAME.
Sacramento had a festival recently.
! For fancy's sake it WAS called ''carni-
val" But it was not a carnival in any