The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1915-09-24
The Manly Report on Causes Of
Industrial Unrest
3rd Instal1ment---" unjust Distribution"

AAAASAt OAJuSt O4S'
telligent clerk, even the sources of
their incomes. Incapable of being
spent in any legitimate manner, these
fortunes are burdens, which can only
be squandered, boarded, put into So
called 'benefactions', which for the
most part constitute a menace to the
state, or put back into the industrial
machine to pile up ever-increasing
mountains of gold
REWARDS ONLY FOR SERVICE
In many cases, no doubt, these
huge fortunes have come in whole or
in part, as the rich reward for excep-
tional service. None would deny or
envy him who has performed such
service the richest of rewards, al
though one may question the ideals
of nation which rewards exceptional
service only by burdensome fortunes
But such reward can be claimed as
right only by those who have per
formed service, not by those who
through relationship or mere parasit
ism chance to be designated as heirs
Legal right, of course, they have
by virtue of the law of inheritance,
which, however, runs counter to the
whole theory of American society, and
which was adopted with important
variations from the English law with
out any conception of it's ultimate re-
suits and apparently with the idea
that it would prevent exactly the con-
dition which has arisen.
INHERITANCE LAW CONDEMNED
In effect the American law of in
heritance is as efficient for the estab-
lishment and maintenance of families
as the English law, which has bull
warked British aristocracy through
the centuries. Every year, indeed, sees
this tendency increase, as the crea-
ton of estates in trust secures the
ends which might be more simply
reached, if there were no prohibition
of entail.
According to the income tax re-
turns for ten months of 1914, there
are in the United States 1898 fortunes
yielding an income of $1,000 per
year or over. Practically all of these
fortunes are so invested and hedged
about with restrictions upon expendi-
ture that they are, to all intents and
purposes, perpetuities
AN analysis of fifty of the largest
American fortunes shows that nearly
half have already passed to the con
troll of heirs or to trustees (their vice
Iregents), and that the remainder will
pass to the control of heirs within 20
years upon the deaths of the found
ers'. Already, indeed, these founders
have almost without exception retired
from active service, leaving the man
agement ostensibly to their heirs, but
actually to executive officials upon
salary.
eve have according to the income
tax returns, Al families, with incomes
of 100000 or more, whose members
perform little or no useful service
but whose aggregate incomes, totalling
at the least fifty millions per year, are
equivalent to the earnings of 100000
wage earners, at the average rate OF
$500
Between the two extremes of su
perfluity and poverty is the large mid
die class: farmers, manufacturers
merchants, professional men, skilled
artisans, and salaried officials whose
incomes are more or less adequate
for their legitimate needs and desires
and who are rewarded more or less
exactly in proportion to service. They
have problems to meet in adjusting
expenses to income, but the pinch OF
want and hunger is not felt, nor is
there the deadening, devitalizing eff
feet of superfluous, unearned wealth
From top to bottom of society, how.
ever in all grades of incomes are an
innumerable number of parasites of
every conceivable type, They perform
no useful service, but drain off from
the income of the producers a sum
whose total cannot be estimated.
Beside the economic significance
of these great inequalities of wealth
and income, there is a social aspect
which equally merits the attention of
congress 1t has been shown that the
great fortunes of those who have pro
fitted by the enormous expansion of
| American industry have already or