Page:Wealth and Income of People of United States.djvu/32

2 know that the total income is greater than formerly. Nowadays, it is demanded that the economist bring forth a more complete picture of the change that has been going on. Many difficult questions are propounded. If wealth and income are increasing, is not population increasing faster? Is not the increase of wealth recorded in the statistical reports of our government merely an illusion arising from fluctuations in the supply of the medium of exchange? If there has been an increase in the riches of the nation as a whole, has the increase been distributed to all classes of the population, or have the benefits been monopolized by a favored few? Are the landlords, the capitalists, the captains of industry, or the wage-earners receiving the principal share of the fruits of progress? Each of these questions has been the subject of excited controversy, but, in the majority of instances, neither party to the debate has been able to reinforce his opinions with any evidence worthy of consideration, and hence it has been impossible to reach an agreement. The economist, in studying these questions, has been hampered by lack of statistical information on the subject. With the exception of Charles B. Spahr's work, entitled The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States, all studies in this line have been admittedly incomplete and fragmentary. The book mentioned was published more than twenty years' ago, and, in the