Angell's book _The Great
Illusion_, Reed declares that the pretence of fighting kings is maudlin,
and that Money is the true king. Putting his finger on the sore spot, he
adduces figures showing the colossal profits made by the great American
companies. Under the bizarre title _The Myth of American Fatness_,[27]
he shows that it is not, as Europe fancies, the American nation which
battens on the war, but only two per cent of the population.
Ninety-eight per cent of the inhabitants of the States are thin folk,
and grow thinner daily. During the years 1912 to 1916, wages increased
nine per cent, whilst the cost of food increased seventy-four per cent
during the years 1915 and 1916. From 1913 to 1917, the general rise in
prices was 85.32 per cent (flour 69 per cent, eggs 61 per cent, potatoes
224 per cent! Between January 1915 and January 1917, the rise in the
price of coal was from $5 to $8.75 per ton). The bulk of the population
has suffered cruelly, and serious hunger strikes have taken place in New
York. Of course the European press has either said nothing about these
or has ascribed them to German plots.

During the years 1914 to 1916, there occurred an increase of five
hundred per cent in the dividends paid by twenty-four of the largest
companies (steel, cast iron, leather, sugar, railways, electricity,
chemical products, etc.). The dividend of the Bethlehem Steel
Corporation rose from $5,122,703 in 1914 to $43,593,968 in 1916. The
dividend of the United States Steel Corporation rose from $81,216,985 in
1914 to $281,531,730 in 1916. During the years 1914 and 1915, the number
of wealthy persons in the United States increased as follows: From 60 to
120 in the case of those with a private income exceeding one million
dollars; from 114 to 209 in the case of those with a private income
ranging from half a million to one million dollars; while the number of
those whose income ranged from one hundred thousand to half a million
dollars was doubled.[28] In incomes below one hundred thousand dollars,
there has been no notable increase. John Reed adds: "There are limits to
the patience of the common people. Beware revolts!"

The first article in the July number of "The Masses" is a message to the
citizens of the United States entitled _War and Individual Liberty_,
penned by Bertrand Russell, the distinguished English philosopher and
mathematician. It is dated February 21, 1917, prior to the U.S.
declaration of war, but could