ere was but little class distinction,
but there were a far greater number of what might be called fortunes,
and a noticeable exemption from that pauperism which has become chronic
of late years.

The Probate-Court records of the various States disclose the fact that
millionaires are becoming more numerous, while the smaller
property-owners are gradually sinking into the multitude of people
possessing nothing. In a valuable article by Eltweed Pomeroy on "The
Concentration of Wealth,"[2] some interesting figures and diagrams are
given, proving from probate records the exact extent to which small
fortunes have been crowded out or merged into enormous ones. These
records are valuable because they are official. But while they prove the
_extent_ to which wealth is concentrated, they do not disclose the
misery which that wealth is causing. For that, we must look to the
conditions about us. And in doing so it is not necessary to be a
philosopher in order to see the havoc which concentrated wealth has
wrought in recent years. Every day, it has been declared, America is
over four million dollars richer at night than in the morning. Who
receives this wealth? Surely not those who toil; else they would not
suffer so. They receive little of it. The national wealth, great as it
is, slips through their fingers to be collected in the vast reservoirs
of the moneyed aristocracy. They work, but it is the work of those who
labor to produce, but who receive none of that which is produced.

[2] THE ARENA, Dec., 1896, p. 82.

It is this condition that causes so many to declare that the present
distribution of wealth does not conform to the principles of justice.
And how can it be otherwise, when all wealth passes through the hands of
the producers and stops only when it reaches those who possess most?
Thus wealth is becoming with us not a power for general good, but a
power given to the few to control the many--a power of placing upon the
masses a yoke little better than slavery itself. The rich, becoming
further and further removed from the poor, are also becoming conscious
of being in a measure the proprietors of the poor. The poor have a
knowledge of this fact, and the strikes, boycotts, and general
discontent are but the expression of that knowledge.

In no country in the world does wealth, individual and corporate, exert
such an influence as in the United States, and as a consequence, human
life is becoming lamentably cheap. Cap