SOCIAL DISCONTENT AND LABOR TROUBLES 183
all that makes for human progress, far outstripped those in which socialistic and revolutionary ideas have predominated. In com- munities where the industrious are constantly liable to be robbed of the fruits of their labors there is little inducement to save, and capital seeks other fields of investment and enterprise.
Desmolins, in his noted book Anglo-Saxon Superiority, says : "Socialistic countries are the poorest, weakest, and most back- ward of any in the world."
Political demagogues and socialistic speakers delight to pic- ture the ills of society and to portray to the toilers some Utopian plan which is to remove the inequalities of fortune, supply all their wants, and administer to their pleasures, with but little care or labor on their own part. 1 They will not admit that there has been any improvement, and, without offering proof, assert that the benefits of progress are more and more confined to a few, that the masses are forced into deeper and deeper poverty, and that the chances of making a living are growing more and more uncertain.
Now, let us examine briefly into the actual conditions, past and present. It is true that a few enormous fortunes have been accumulated, and these have attracted much attention. In the meantime the number of moderate fortunes and the number of fairly well-to-do people has increased, relatively, faster. In regard to the assertion, so often disproved, that the "rich are growing richer and the poor poorer," Mr. Carroll D. Wright, in The Elements of Practical Sociology, says: "The doctrine is a false and misleading one ; to the investigator the real statement should be, the rich are growing richer ; many more people than formerly are growing rich, and the poor are growing better off." Mr. William H. Mallock and Sir Robert Giffen, after most care- ful examination of statistics as to the respective amounts of wealth distributed to the various classes, say that, in England, the greater part of the enormous gains of the last fifty years has
1 LECKY, the English historian, in Democracy and Liberty, in speaking of Ameri- can politics, says : " If the poorest, most ignorant, and most numerous class can be persuaded to hate the smaller class and to vote solely for the purpose of injuring them, the party manager will have achieved his end."
