Page:The iron heel.djvu/105

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THE PHILOMATHS
85

savage peoples of to-day, pointing out that they possessed neither tools nor machines, and possessed only a natural efficiency of one in producing power. Then he traced the development of machinery and social organization so that to-day the producing power of civilized man was a thousand times greater than that of the savage.

"Five men," he said, "can produce bread for a thousand. One man can produce cotton cloth for two hundred and fifty people, woollens for three hundred, and boots and shoes for a thousand. One would conclude from this that under a capable management of society modern civilized man would be a great deal better off than the cave-man. But is he? Let us see. In the United States to-day there are fifteen million[1] people living in poverty; and by poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be maintained. In the United States to-day, in spite of all your so-called labor legislation, there are three millions of child laborers.[2] In twelve years their numbers have been doubled. And in passing I will ask you managers of society why you did

  1. Robert Hunter, in 1906, in a book entitled Poverty," pointed out that at that time there were ten millions in the United States living in poverty.
  2. In the United States Census of 1900 (the last census the figures of which were made public), the number of child laborers was placed at 1,752,187.