is
remembered that, even in this new country, three-fourths of the
population rent their homes and cannot buy them[14]; when these things
are remembered, as they should be, it will be readily seen that the
condition of our work-people is fast becoming no better than that of
the people of Europe, where a thousand years of false social
adjustments, of usurpation and of tyranny, have reduced the
proletariat class to the verge of starvation and desperation.

True, the immigrant laborers from Europe in the North, and the
colored people at the South tend to crowd into the cities, where their
labor is least needed and the conditions of life for them must be at
the hardest; true, in America if a man _has it in him_ the way is open
for him to mount to the topmost round of the social ladder; true, too,
the operatives in manufactures and the agricultural laborers here live
on a far higher plane than in Europe; but the elements of degradation
as well as of elevation are present in our land, and "easy in the
descent" to the infernal regions. Let us be warned in time.

CHAPTER XII

_Civilization Degrades the Masses_

There are men in all parts of the world, whose names have become
synonyms of learning and genius, who proclaim it from the housetops
that civilization is in a constant state of evolution to a higher,
purer, nobler, happier condition of the people, the great mass of
mankind, who properly make up society, and who have been styled, in
derision, the "_mudsills_ of society." So they are, society rests upon
them; society must build upon them; without them society cannot be,
because they are, in the broadest sense, society itself,--not only the
"mudsills" but the _superstructure_ as well. They not only constitute
the great producing class but the great consuming class as well. They
are the bone and sinew of society.

It is therefore of the utmost importance to know the condition of the
people; it is not only important to know exactly what that condition
is, but it is of the very first importance to the well-being of
society that there should be absolutely nothing in that condition to
arouse the apprehension of the sharks who live upon the carcass of the
people, or of the people who permit the sharks to so live. There is
nothing more absolutely certain than that the people--who submit to be
robbed through the intricate and multifarious processes devised by the
cupidity of individuals and of governments--when arous