Page:Wealth and Income of People of United States.djvu/14

x obtaining a degree of accuracy consistent with the time and materials available and sufficient for the purposes involved, in most parts of the book, there has been no attempt made to render the details exact or to enter into minutiae. The author has sought to make his ideas clear to every reader of good education rather than to present a study intelligible only to the technical student of statistics. It seems quite certain that it is absolutely impossible from the sources at hand to construct a technically accurate statistical answer to the questions about wealth and income concerning which the thinking public wish information. Numerous monographs and great bulky volumes of figures have been skilfully prepared which admirably cover various phases of the question. The author knows of no serious attempt, since that made by Dr. C. B. Spahr some two decades ago, to coordinate these studies into a connected whole. Separately, they are of practically no value to the ordinary citizen. Yet these careful studies made by the government or by independent workers at great expense and effort contain hidden away therein many broad truths which should be brought before the public. A knowledge of some of these facts is necessary to enable one to determine the course of political action which will best favor the advancement of the nation.

The purpose of this book is to present some of these