his land-no right beyond. This right is fixed by law. It is an artificial right; it is not a natural right. Ocean, navigable river, unnavigable stream, are not subjects of private property except as they are made so by artificial arrangement, for the simple reason that they are given to man by God-they are not the products of man's industry. What is true of ocean and river is equally true of land. No man ever made an acre of land and its contents. Man may transfer the soil from one place to another, in which case we speak of him as "making land;" but he does not really make the land, he simply moves it. The land belonged to the Almighty. To whom has he given it? Not to a few favored individuals, but to the human race. If land is the subject of private ownership at all, that private ownership depends upon the arrangements which society has made, not upon the inherent and natural right of the so-called owner. Society has a right, if it chooses, to say, "The ownership of navigable rivers in common will be injurious; we will let New York State give a monopoly of them." It has a right, if it chooses, to say, "It will cost too much for us to build a waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific; we will let a corporation build the waterway and levy the tolls." But if the corporation gets the river or the canal, it is because society has given it, not because the corporation has a natural right to it. That the right to land is an artificial right is plain, in the first place, because it is not the product of human industry. Man did not make these prairies and store them with their vegetable richness; nor these coal-mines, filling them with fuel for the future; nor these wells where the oil is stored; nor these forests into which we go for our lumber. These were put there by the Almighty. And for whom? As we have already seen, not for individuals but for the whole human race; not to single men or single classes of men, but to man, God gave the world, saying, Take it, rule it, use it; it is yours. That the right to land is an artificial right dependent upon artificial arrangements made by society is further illustrated and confirmed by the history of the evolution of landownership. In a state of nature men live in the forest as the wild beasts live. The territory over which the tribe roams is the common property of the tribe; the only law recognized is the law of the strongest. Controversies arise between families or between tribes. Partitions are made, and out of these controversies private ownership arises. The early traditions of the Hebrew people furnish an illustration of such a controversy and its peaceful settlement. Abraham divides the land into two sections, gives to Lot his choice, and Lot chooses the fertile plains where are the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this fashion the first division of lands is made. How later the governments divide the lands they have acquired by grant to favorites, and how the grants thus made continue through successive generations by bequest or exchange, is familiar history. William the Conqueror crosses the Channel, conquers the Anglo-Saxon people, takes possession of England, divides the land among his retainers, and to-day the great land-titles of England date back to the distribution of land made by William the Conqueror, because he had conquered England. The English came over to this country; they found five hundred thousand Indians roaming over this unused continent. England conquered the continent, took possession of it, and then divided it. The great landtitles of America go back, the oldest of them, to the patents issuing from Holland and from England. The later titles come in the same way. America, taking possession of the vast regions of the West, divided them up and said to every man, You may have one hundred and sixty acres of land if you will occupy and till them. How does the owner get his right to this one hundred By the act of the Nation. His title grows out of the homestead law. That law might have said two hundred acres; it might have said one hundred acres; it might have said a thousand acres. The title to the land depends on the act of the government. All land-titles in their his tory are thus derived from the action of society; the right to land is an artificial, not a natural, right. and sixty acres? As the titles are derived from the act of government, so, in the theory of the law, the government still has the supreme ownership. We have already seen that in the Hebraic commonwealth the land belonged to God; the men who occupied it were only tenants of God. We have seen how under the feudal system the land belonged to the king; the men who occupied it were only tenants of the king. Under the doctrine of eminent domain, the ultimate ownership of the land of the United States is not in the individual owner, but in the State. The owners are quasi tenants; their rights are limited and defined by the law which has created them. Those rights are not absolute, as is their right to the product of their own industry. What is true of the ocean, the rivers, the land and its contents, is equally true of the great forces of nature. Light, heat, gravitation, electricity, are not subjects of personal ownership except as law makes them so. The world is a great electric motor; it generates electricitythat is, it transforms some other power into electricity. This electric power which the world generates belongs to all the people in the world. If one man discovers a way of tapping this electric reservoir and drawing off the electric current and using it for illumination or for locomotion, the State gives him an exclusive right to use that method for a term of years. When that term expires, his right expires. Nor does this right even for this limited term prevent any other man from discovering any other method of entering nature's reservoir and drawing off the force which she has created for the human race. The right to the forces of nature, like the right to land and its contents, is an artificial right limited and determined by the law of society which has created the right. Thus we have two kinds of right to property. The first is absolute-the right of every man to himself, and therefore to the product of his labor, the right of every man to his life, and therefore to that into which he has put his life. The other is social, legal, artificial, dependent upon the arrangements which society has been pleased to make. All rights to ocean, to navigable rivers, to unnavigable rivers, to land and the contents of the land, and to the great forces of nature, are of this latter kind. They are dependent upon the arrangements which society has been pleased to make. They are founded upon the will of the community. The great sources of wealth are in this common wealth. What has made this Nation in the aggregate wealthy beyond all compare is primarily, not what our industry has produced, but what we have found already produced for us: the rich prairies, the almost inexhaustible mines, the great forests, the mill streams, the navigable rivers, the great forces of nature -light, heat, electricity. We are the richest people, not because we have produced more per capita than any other people have ever produced, but because we have found a treasure which no other people ever found. It was made for us; it was stored here awaiting our arrival. How ought this common wealth, this wealth which by nature belongs to no individual because no individual produces it, to be distributed? In a previous article I have traced the progress toward the larger distribution of wealth in the abolition of feudalism and the substitution of the wages system. We have seen that this system converts capital from a dead possession to a living instrument of industry; that the wealth once buried in forests used by royalty for hunting, or in parks kept by nobles as pleasure-grounds, is now invested in factories which give employment to hundreds and food or clothing or tools to thousands, or in railroads which serve the entire Nation as a public highway. We have seen, too, that under the wages system not only is nearly all property used for the benefit of the all, but it is actually divided among a vastly greater number of owners than ever before. Statistics are rarely interesting, but they are sometimes very significant. The student who wishes to know to what extent the distribution of wealth is already carried in democratic America will find ample material for his inquiry in the admirable monograph of Mr. Charles B. Spahr on "The Distribution of Wealth." He shows that while in England, not yet wholly freed from the relics of feudalism, "more than threefourths of the people of Great Britain and Ireland are without any registered property whatever," "nearly half the families in America own the real estate they occupy," and in the rural communities the proportion of real estate owners is still greater. Again, in Great Britain less than six hundred and fifty thousand persons, that is, a little over one and a half per cent. of the population, are possessed that prosperity. For the true wealth of of property valued at five thousand dollars or more; in America approximately oneeighth of the families of the Nation-city, town, and country-own each more than five thousand dollars. The statistics of the savings banks confirm these figures. The total deposits in such institutions for 1890-91 aggregated over two thousand five hundred million dollars. The total number of depositors in the savings banks alone for the year 1890 was over four million and a quarter, with an average deposit of $354.80 for each depositor. As most of these depositors probably represent families, the proportion of wealth owners to the population is seen to be large. But these figures do not adequately represent the extent to which wealth is distributed in the United States. This is further indicated by the extent to which wealth is owned by great corporations. The corporation is a modern contrivance by which, for purposes of administration, the property of a great number of owners is put into the control of a small number of sagacious men. It is essentially a democratic invention. The stock is owned by many stockholders; the administration is conducted by a few directors. In estimating the extent to which property is distributed in the United States, the economic student must take account not only of the landowners and the savings bank depositors, but of the smaller stockholders in the corporations of the country. The observer in any fairly prosperous American town may see the evidences of this distribution of wealth for himself. As he goes by the miner's or manufacturer's cottage he sees a hammock under the trees-this means leisure; he hears the music of an organ or a piano-this means culture; he meets the grocery wagon or the butcher's cart driving through the town-this means good food and plenty of it; he finds the best building in the town a school-house and perhaps the next best a public library-this means education. To this comparatively equable distribution of wealth the unexampled prosperity of the United States is due. Whatever tends to increase the distribution of wealth will tend to increase that prosperity; whatever tends to diminish that increase and substitute therefor a concentration of wealth tends to diminish the community depends far more on the equity of the wealth-distribution than upon the aggregate amount of wealth possessed. This matter requires a little further elucidation. man. Money is simply a convenient means of exchanging the products of industry. In any community every member who is busy producing something which the community needs is also producing something which he can give in exchange for the labor of another which supplies his own needs. The shoemaker requires clothes of the tailor, a house of the carpenter, flour of the miller. But if for any reason the shoemaker is unable to produce shoes, and is compelled to lie idle, he no longer has anything to give in exchange for the work of the tailor, the carpenter, and the miller. Thus every busy man tends to produce another busy man, and every idle man tends to produce another idle Both idleness and industry are self-propagating. When wealth is so concentrated in the hands of an individual that the many are without means to purchase what their needs really demand, their inability produces a similar inability in others, and thus poverty breeds poverty. An Italian village, the wealth of which is concentrated in the castle of a single nobleman, while the peasants live on the coarsest foods, in the poorest hovels, wear the plainest clothes, and their children go barefoot, will give employment to a minimum of farmers, carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers. A New England village, in which there are no millionaires and no paupers, in which every family is well housed, well clad, uses the best flour, and eats meat twice a day, gives employment to a maximum of farmers, butchers, millers, carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers. Thus no industrial system can be advantageous to any one which leaves any one without the possibility of employment, as no industrial system can be ethically right which has the effect of forbidding any one from obeying the divine command and earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. As it is the glory of the United States that wealth has never been so widely distributed as it is in the United States to-day, and employment has never been so much in demand in all the various vocations of life, so it is the peril of the United States that wealth is still too much concentrated in the hands of the few, and still there are, even in prosperous times, some, and in unprosperous times great numbers, who in vain seek an opportunity to earn their livelihood by their industry. For we must recognize the fact that, while wealth has never before been so widely distributed as it is to-day in the United States, while the concentration of wealth attracts so much attention, largely because it is the exception in a community whose prosperity is more equally shared than ever before in the world's history, this concentration exists, and in forms which are perilous to American institutions. De Tocqueville warned us more than half a century ago that the greatest peril to America would arise from plutocracy, and events are proving his warning true. If it is true that less than one-half of the families of the United States are without property, it is also true that seven-eighths of the families own but one-eighth of the wealth of the Nation; if it is true that the families which own five hundred to five thousand dollars equal in number those which own less than five hundredthat is, those who have been able to save a little, those who barely live upon their income, saving nothing, and those who are dependent upon the charity of their neighbors it is also true that one hundred and twenty-five families own as much wealth as all the other families in the United States put together. A single striking but not unparalleled fact may serve as a concrete illustration of the extent to which, and the methods by which, the process of wealth-concentration is carried on in the United States in our time. The senior Cornelius Vanderbilt began life as a deckhand. It is currently reported that at his death he left one hundred and eighty million dollars to be divided among his heirs. If the popular chronology is correct, and Adam was created six thousand years ago, and had lived until our time, and had worked industriously throughout that six thousand years, three hundred working days in each year, and had earned one hundred dollars a day more than his livelihood, which is more than most industrious men are able to earn, he would have acquired exactly the fortune that Cornelius Vanderbilt acquired in a life time. Should we, then, put fetters on industry? limit the amount a man may earn? prohibit his making all that he can? No. Let him by his industry produce the utmost which his industry can produce. Let law stimulate, promote, encourage his industry. But a hundred and eighty millions are not made in a lifetime by productive toil. They are largely taken out of the common wealth. No one objects-no one, at least, ought to object-that any man, by his skill, by his knowledge, by his industry, shall be allowed to produce all the wealth he can, and shall own it when he has produced it; but the industrial reformer does object that a man be permitted, by his shrewdness, his skill, his ingenuity, perhaps his political unscrupulousness, to get all of the common wealth he can into his hands. Four evils grow out of this concentration in the hands of a comparatively few of that which is by nature common wealth. First are the material evils. Where industry is fairly compensated, every man, by his industry, supports not only himself but his neighbor. Ride through any one of our commercial streets, and we wonder who it is that buys all these goods in all these shops. The man in one shop buys from the other shops. Each man purchases of his neighbor; they support one another. The children of the schoolmaster must be shod; they support a shoemaker. The children of the shoemaker must have clothes; they support a tailor. The tailor must have woolens; he supports a factory. The factory hands must have their children taught; they support the teacher in turn. Every one of us is thus engaged in supporting some one else, and every one of us is in turn supported by some one else. We hear much glorification of independence, but there is no such thing as independence. The more complicated society and the more advanced civilization, the less the independence. Let any one of these interdependent industries stop, and all are injured. If the factory stops, the children no longer go to school, the schoolmaster can no longer buy shoes, the shoemaker can no longer buy clothes, the tailor can no longer buy woolens. Whatever distributes wealth energizes industry; whatever concentrates wealth paralyzes industry. Sometimes we read in the newspapers that the hard times are due to over-supply. Too many houses, therefore men are shelterless; too much coal, therefore they are shivering; too much bread, therefore they are hungry; too many clothes, therefore they go naked! It does not take much thought to see the folly of such political economy. What causes hard times is not over-supply, but under-demand. See that every man is able to meet the demands of himself, his wife, and his children, and no factory would ever close its doors. If all the women in America were able to buy all the silk dresses they want, no silkfactory would ever stop its work. In the second place, this concentration of wealth tends to great political perils. As a result of this concentration of the common wealth in a few hands, one small body of men control the coal-oil-that is, the light; another small body of men control the anthracite coal—that is, the fuel; another small body of men control the gold and silver mines-that is, the basis of currency of the country; another small body of men control the transportation, on which the whole country depends for its life; and another small body of men, through the stock exchanges, are continually trying, with more or less success, to control the food supplies. A community in which a small body of men control the light, the fuel, the transportation, the money, and the food supplies, is perilously near a political oligarchy. And out of this grows that political corruption which is the worst foe and the greatest peril to the United States. A third evil grows out of this concentration of wealth: under it, and owing to it, society is divided into two classes, the tool-owners and the tool-users. A comparatively small body of men own the raw material and the tools with which it can be transformed into useful products; a large body of men use those tools in making the raw material into useful products. The tool-owners we call capitalists; the tool-users we call laborers. "I can myself remember when, in the remoter parts of New England, there were still the spinning wheel and the hand-loom in the farmer's house; when the sheep were sheared and the wool was sent to the carding-mill, and then brought back and woven and spun into garments. Now the spinning wheel is banished from the fam ily, the hand-loom is gone, and the spinning-wheel and the loom are under the roof of the great factories, operated by a thousand men, who own no share whatever in the machinery which they are using. In my boyhood, going home from school, I sat on the box of the stage with the driver, who owned, at least in part, the stage and four-horse team; and it was my ambition as a boy to be sometime a stage-driver myself and own four splendid horses. Now the locomotive engineer stands in the cab, and carries many more passengers a great deal more comfortably and at a far greater rate of speed; but he does not own the locomotive. The locomotive and the railroad track are owned by one set of men, and operated by quite another. Practically, all the tools and implements of industry, except in agriculture, are owned by one class, while they are employed in productive labor by another class."1 The result of this division of society into two classes-the few that own the tools and the many that use them only as they get the consent of the tool-owners to the use is to make a rift in what would otherwise be a homogeneous democratic society, and to bring about, as between these two classes, a chronic state of warfare which does not merely injure the classes but imperils the whole community. Only a few weeks ago the tool-owners in Pennsylvania—that is, the men into whose hands we have allowed the coal-mines to fall-and the workingmen in Pennsylvania—that is, those who are laboring in the mines--became involved in a controversy, and the rest of the community waited, wondering how high the price of the coal would go and whether the factories would have to close for lack of power and the poor would suffer cold for lack of fuel because of this labor war in the anthracite coal district. Such labor wars are an almost inevitable incident of this rift of society into tool-owners and toolusers; for more and more the tool-users are inclined to combine to protect their rights against aggression, and then to use that combination for purposes of aggression if they think they can do so successfully; and the tool-owners to combine to protect themselves against aggression, and 1Quoted from my "Christianity and Social Problems," page 161, |
