Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1918-08-09
S. PER CENT OF OUR
PEOPLE ARE POOR

Dr.. Edward Alsworth Ross has
come back from Russia with a warn
ing to the capitalists and the middle
class of America. Let it not be
supposed" he writes in the conclud-
ing chapter of his book, Russia in
Upheaval," that the United States,
with it's qualified political democracy,
will prove immune to anti-capitalst
agitation. The fact is, our society is
one of the most vulnerable because
we have chung so long to the law and
politics of an OutWorn individualiSm
that the resulting distribution of
wealth and of income would be gro
tesQue were it not so tragic. Accord
ing to the Investigations of Professor
King, statistican of unquestioned
skill and impartiality, IS per cent of
our people are poor; that is. they
have little or no property except their
clothes and some cheap furniture,
and their average annual income is
less than 5000 per capita. Thirty
three percent of our people compose
the middle class, in which each man
leaves at death from one to forty
thousand dollars worth of property
The remaining per cent comprise
the rich and very rich who own
almost one and one-half times as
much as the other 90 per cent to-
gether.
Take income rather than wealth.
From a critical study Of all accessible
wage statistics, Rubinow concludes
that in the period 1907-1912 the de-
was or 8 per cent, and in the period
of 1900-12, the loss was about 10 per
cent. Despite strikes. boycotts. trade
unions. the new unionism, and the L.
W. w, the ordinary wage Garner has
been losing surely and not even slow
ly. so that before the war his earning
power was from 10 to Is per cent less
than it was a quarter of a century
ago. He has missed slipping down to
lower plane of living only because
he raises fewer children than he used
to. and his wife and daughter more
often contribute to the family budget.
The receipts of property from the
product of American industry have
grown faster than ever before, while
all the organization of labor, the
struggles and sacrifices to resist ex-
ploitation by the employer. have not
labor. but have not awaited to prevent
the actual forcing down of real
wages. We imagine we are making
encouraging progress toward solving
the social question. In the mean
time. however. the silent, unnoted
pressure of capital. welded in ever
larger mass and even more successful
in wrestling from labor its one effect
i've weapon. organization. appears to
have lessened the share of the prod
uct of industry going to the workers
and increased the share going to own
ers of capital"
This is the American scene as it Is
viewed by this scholarly and quite
respectable professor of sociology at
the University of Wisconsin. And
what is his advice? Merely that 1--WE
so accelerate our social evolution
h0 nj hA oh off %
just sense of grievance of wageearn-
ers. There is no contenting all, but
it is possible to make the majority
feel that their interests are too we'll
looked after for them to risk tossing
a monkey-wrench into the machinery
of industry The labor
fighting, labor-crushing policies which
many employers associations delight
in are an anachronism. and those who
persist in them should be tolerated
about as long as smokers are toler-
ated in a powder factory. The nor
nal means by which workers protect
themselves from exploitation is col
lective bargaining. which presupposes
the union. The fact that only 16 per
cent of American wage-earners are in
unions has. no doubt, great deal to
do with the sinister tendency in re-
cent years toward lower wages and
bigger returns to capital. In the
production of resentment, it makes
very little difference whether the
workingmen are deprived of the right
to organize by the government of a
tsar or by employers associations
", Dnc, hara oiyan some