Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/30

 family would have got about $2,400. Mr. Blaine has also mentioned Illinois and Iowa as special examples of thrift and welfare. In regard to Illinois we have official statistics, and one of our Party's journals, in commenting upon Mr. Blaine's letter, says:

"During the last twenty-four years the aggregate wealth of the inhabitants of the State of Illinois has increased from 900 millions to about 3200 million dollars. The State has about 2,750,000 inhabitants. If this wealth had been equally divided every inhabitant would have received $1,163.00, or every family of four not less than $4,654.00. There would be no paupers, nor any starvelings in the State. But how has that wealth been distributed in reality? The ones, and especially those who did little or no work at all, possess hundreds of thousands, yea millions of dollars, while the industrious and saving people who worked hardest and enjoyed least are poor, miserable starvelings."

This is a convincing argument, indeed.

But is it not natural? Only imagine a hundred thousand people living on a certain area of land, or better upon an island. The island is very large, but its entire soil cannot be cultivated, as the inhabitants have but very imperfect implements; they are likewise limited in regard to providing themselves with the necessary amount of clothing, houses, furniture, etc. These hundred thousand people are working hard from early morn till late at night, and yet they do not produce more than hardly enough to keep themselves from starving and all sorts of sufferings. All of a sudden some one of these islanders makes an invention by which every one of his fellow-workers is enabled to produce in less hours twenty times more than he had been producing heretofore. Consequently these hundred thousand people were able to cultivate, say four times the area of land than formerly; and of the different necessaries of life they. could produce ten, twenty thirty, even one hundred times the amount produced by them before that invention had been made. One should think that after a change as favorable as this these hundred thousand people would henceforth live in luxury, comfort, and super-abundance; that misery and starvation would no longer be