The Elbert County tribune., 1907-08-15
INSANITY EVER
ON THE INCREASE
Five Million Paupers and De-
pendent Afflicted Crooks
of Various Kinds, Not In
cluding Political Grafters,
Cost Us 5000, 900, 900
Annually.

HiiiuoIiys
Washinston.-When Prof. Charles
J. Bushnell, Phi. D., of this city. made
his recent statement that the Ameri.
can public was on the verge of bank
ruptcy because 1t expended $4,000, ,000,-
900 year on the criminal, pauper and
vicious classes, while the annual IN
~ crease of wealth aggregated only
$o,oO0.0Oo,0OO, he called down upon
his head storm of adverse criti-
cism. But Prof. Bushnell is not to be
frightened from his line of attack on
what he calls the social ills of the
country through adverse criticism, and
he reiterates the accuracy of his fig
ures and the logic of his conclusions
1t was to be expected" he said,
that some of my statements would
arouse incredulity in the minds of
those who do not realize the public
ignorance and widespread unfortunate
concealment of facts vital to the well
fare and happiness of the whole peo-
pie Any honest, faithful study of the
authorities and sources to which l re-
fer will convince the most skeptical
that my statements are surely In tho
main sound and even conservative"
Lose More Than We Gain.
DR.. Bushnell submitted a set OF
tables upon which his arguments are
based. These are the figures, he says.
which show positively that the nation
is drifting into bankruptcy:
IF" said DR.. Bushnell I'VE com.
pare Table B with Table A it appears
that as a nation we are losing more
wealth every year through distress
ing conditions of social disorder than
we are annually saving. This is the
main conspicuous fact of the situation
By unscientifically disjoined and bel
ligerent methods of business and at
tendant vicious social habits we are
producing as a nation less than half
of what we ought now to be producing
with our present methods of scientific
technology. Surely this is too great
a price to pay for our vaunted COM
mercial supremacy.
Poverty on the Increase.
Ten millions of our people, one
eighth Of the population, are now con-
stantly in such poverty that they are
physical efficiency; and 100000 of
them are public paupers. In 1899, one
of our prosperous years. 1S per cent,
or nearly one-fifth of all the people
of New York state, had to apply for
charitable relief; in 1903 IA per cent.
of all the families of Manhattan were
evicted, and every year about ten per
cent. of all who die there have pauper
burials. The average wage of un-
skilled workmen throughout the coun-
try is less than the scientific minimum
necessary for maintaining the average
workingman's family in physical ef-
ficiaRey- -. ., ,,-,., s...
suses, also, show that the insane in
this country have increased faster
than the population. We now have in
the United States In continuous char
table care probably 100000 abnor-
NAL dependents, including paupers, in
sane, blind, deaf and dumb, INDECENT
and discouraged-represe dead
loss to the nation every year equal to
the total wealth we have invested in
all the colleges. universities and tech
7.
If we could abolish this one item of
abnormal expense we could double
the facilities of all our institutions of
higher education every year, and do 1t
with no extra effort at all.
Industrial Accidents.
"One large source of this abnormal
dependence Is our vast aggregate of
unnecessary industrial accidents. Few
people begin to realize our annual ma
tional loss frona this source. At con-
servative figure 100000 workers in
the United States every year are killed
or injured in industry by accidents. of
which three-quarters are proven by
European experience to be wholly un-
necessary, and which cost the nation
annually in lost earning capacity and
damage suits at the lowest estimate
an amount equal to the whole wage
income of all the mine workers or all
the farm laborers of the entire coun
try. Josiah Strong says the least pos
sible estimate of our annual industrial
casualties is about $4,000.
Taking the fact at this lowest fig
ure it appears that in our present in
dustrial warfare we are killing and
injuring more people every year than
all the average annual casualties OF
our civil war, our Philippine war and
the Russian-Japanese war combined.
Think of our carrying on three such