ow the Other Half Lives," ought to be studied by every wealthy
citizen as well as by reformers. Herbert Spencer, in a recent thoughtful
essay, refers to this increasing interest in social welfare thus: "He is
struck, too, by the contrast between the small space which popular
welfare then occupied in the public attention, and the large space it
now occupies, with the result that outside and inside Parliament, plans
to benefit the millions form the leading topics, and every one having
means is expected to join in some philanthropic effort." This is because
the millions demand it, and they who, like the writer, have for half a
century been interested in behalf of the millions, may now be listened
to.

[16] And society is still organized to ensure the perpetuation
of this poverty, no matter what the bounties of nature, or
what the increase of wealth by art and invention. The army
of the dissatisfied, the hungry, and the demoralized,
continually grows and becomes more dangerous. The President
of the National Home Association at Washington stated a few
months since that there were _sixty thousand boy tramps_ in
the United States.

The enormous wealth developed in our republic, in which a single city
holds a thousand millionaires, controls the press, controls legislation,
and teaches the ambitious to sell themselves to the wealthy who are the
controlling power. Under such influences arises that moral insensibility
which, in New York, could squander twenty millions on one building,
while half the children were out of school, and a large portion of the
insane were left wallowing in indecent filth, worse than that of a hog
pen, as shown in the Albany _Law Journal_.

In presenting these views, I am not assailing millionaires as men more
objectionable or censurable than any other class. It is not true that
the mere ability to gain wealth implies moral inferiority, for it
implies many substantial and honorable qualities. Reverse the social
ranks, give the wealth to the poor, and our condition would not be
improved, perhaps it would be much worse. The fault lies in our social
system of struggle and rivalry, and while that system generates, as it
always has, extreme wealth and extreme poverty, we must combat these two
evils, and to control them is the purpose of this essay. Whether a
better social system is possible that would PREVENT them, is not now
under consider