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Massachusetts is shown to be error by the reports of Illinois and Iowa.
The first estimate of the Federal Bureau, 1,304,407, was not too high,
but rather too low at that time. Applying the Massachusetts percentage
to the entire country at that time, there must have been 1,913,130
persons out of work; and it should be remembered, too, that this is
using as a base the number reported in the census of 1880, without
allowing for the increase. Colonel Wright gives in his Massachusetts
report for 1885, 816,470 persons engaged in all industries; the census
of 1880 gives that State 720,774, showing an increase of 95,696, or a
gain of over 13 per cent. Applying the Massachusetts gain to the entire
class of productive industries, we find 19,753,071 as the number to
which this percentage should be applied, instead of the Census number of
17,392,099.

I think no fair estimate of the number of unemployed in 1885 could be
much under 1,900,000, and I believe no fair estimate of the present
number of idle persons wishing employment and unable to find it, can be
placed lower than 1,500,000. At least 6,000,000 of persons ordinarily
employed are in enforced idleness from two to five months in the year,
and thus forced to consume, while seeking work, the little it was
possible to save during their six or eight months of employment.

It is not the purpose of this paper to consider the causes for this
tremendous aggregate of enforced idleness. Doubtless much of it is due
to the frantic attempts of combinations to control prices by limiting
production. Protected by laws of Congress from competition with the
industries of other nations, under the guise of "protection to American
labor," the combined steel industries of the country pay the Vulcan
Steel Works of St. Louis $400,000 to stand idle, thus throwing its
workmen out of employ! The Waverly Stone Ring pays quarries thousands of
dollars--in one instance, $4500 per year--to do nothing. The salt works
along the Kanawha were bought up by the American Salt Manufacturers'
Association, and have never employed a man since. Thus is American labor
protected! The Standard Oil Company buys up competitors and dismantles
their works. The tack manufacturers buy out a refractory fellow who
would not join the pool, and not a wheel has turned since. The Western
Lead and Shot Association buys the shot-tower at Dubuque, Iowa, to keep
men from working there. A leading politician and prominent officeholder