, 250,251;
Middle class, 8,429,845; and Proletariat class, 20,393,137.

"You cannot but grant that the ownership of wealth constitutes essential
power in the United States to-day. How is this wealth owned by these
three classes? Here are the figures. The Plutocracy owns sixty-seven
billions of wealth. Of the total number of persons engaged in
occupations in the United States, only nine-tenths of one per cent are
from the Plutocracy, yet the Plutocracy owns seventy per cent of the
total wealth. The middle class owns twenty-four billions. Twenty-nine
per cent of those in occupations are from the middle class, and they own
twenty-five per cent of the total wealth. Remains the proletariat. It
owns four billions. Of all persons in occupations, seventy per cent
come from the proletariat; and the proletariat owns four per cent of the
total wealth. Where does the power lie, gentlemen?"

"From your own figures, we of the middle class are more powerful than
labor," Mr. Asmunsen remarked.

"Calling us weak does not make you stronger in the face of the strength
of the Plutocracy," Ernest retorted. "And furthermore, I'm not done with
you. There is a greater strength than wealth, and it is greater because
it cannot be taken away. Our strength, the strength of the proletariat,
is in our muscles, in our hands to cast ballots, in our fingers to pull
triggers. This strength we cannot be stripped of. It is the primitive
strength, it is the strength that is to life germane, it is the strength
that is stronger than wealth, and that wealth cannot take away.

"But your strength is detachable. It can be taken away from you. Even
now the Plutocracy is taking it away from you. In the end it will take
it all away from you. And then you will cease to be the middle class.
You will descend to us. You will become proletarians. And the beauty of
it is that you will then add to our strength. We will hail you brothers,
and we will fight shoulder to shoulder in the cause of humanity.

"You see, labor has nothing concrete of which to be despoiled. Its
share of the wealth of the country consists of clothes and household
furniture, with here and there, in very rare cases, an unencumbered
home. But you have the concrete wealth, twenty-four billions of it, and
the Plutocracy will take it away from you. Of course, there is the large
likelihood that the proletariat will take it away first. Don't you
see your position, gentlemen? The middle class is a w