Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/34

12 forces to work things out in their own relentless way. The workers in each industry have the privilege of saying that they will not come down until everybody else does, and perhaps not then. Nobody has authority to say who shall come down first, or that anybody shall come down. They will have to settle it among themselves. Meanwhile, however, millions of men are idle. It is a pity the agony must be so long-drawn out, a pity that the inevitable adjustment cannot be quickly made, with intelligent comprehension and a coöperative spirit.

We can not hope to begin to handle ourselves properly, as a people, either in the economic, or commercial or political ways until we can ascertain the facts, until everybody can be made to see them clearly and face them no matter how uncomfortable they may be, and govern themselves accordingly. It is my purpose in this book to explain the nature of the wealth of the United States and examine comparatively the positions before and after the war. I shall discuss the amount of the income that we as a people derive from the use of our wealth and our work and the distribution that we make thereof. With the establishment of the facts I shall interpret their meaning and analyze the economic consequences of the war to the American people. And finally I shall try to point out whereby the ravages of the war may be repaired and a sound foundation be laid for restoring the old scale of living and then improving it. These things are going to happen, anyhow, by virtue of the natural processes of evolution, but they will be consummated more quickly and with less anguish if there be first a correct understanding of conditions and next a general coŏperation in working according to them.