CHAPTER IX
THE MATHEMATICS OF A DREAM
In the midst of the consternation his revelation had produced,
Ernest began again to speak.
"You have said, a dozen of you to-night, that socialism is
impossible. You have asserted the impossible, now let me
demonstrate the inevitable. Not only is it inevitable that you
small capitalists shall pass away, but it is inevitable that the
large capitalists, and the trusts also, shall pass away. Remember,
the tide of evolution never flows backward. It flows on and on,
and it flows from competition to combination, and from little
combination to large combination, and from large combination to
colossal combination, and it flows on to socialism, which is the
most colossal combination of all.
"You tell me that I dream. Very good. I'll give you the
mathematics of my dream; and here, in advance, I challenge you to
show that my mathematics are wrong. I shall develop the
inevitability of the breakdown of the capitalist system, and I
shall demonstrate mathematically why it must break down. Here
goes, and bear with me if at first I seem irrelevant.
"Let us, first of all, investigate a particular industrial process,
and whenever I state something with which you disagree, please
interrupt me. Here is a shoe factory. This factory takes leather
and makes it into shoes. Here is one hundred dollars' worth of
leather. It goes through the factory and comes out in the form of
shoes, worth, let us say, two hundred dollars. What has happened?
One hundred dollars has been added to the value of the leather.
How was it added? Let us see.
"Capital and labor added this value of one hundred dollars.
Capital furnished the factory, the machines, and paid all the
expenses. Labor furnished labor. By the joint effort of capital
and labor one hundred dollars of value was added. Are you all
agreed so far?"
Heads nodded around the table in affirmation.
"Labor and capital having produced this one hundred dollars, now
proceed to divide it. The statistics of this division are
fractional; so let us, for the sake of convenience, make them
roughly approximate. Capital takes fifty dollars as its share, and
labor gets in wages fifty dollars as its share. We will not enter
into the squabbling over the division.* No matter how much
squabbling takes place, in one percentage or another the division
is arranged. And take notice here, that what is true of this
particular industrial process is true of all industrial processes.
Am I right?"
* Everhard here clearly develops the cause of all the labor
troubles of that time. In the division of the joint-product,
capital wanted all it could get, and labor wanted all it could get.
This quarrel over the division was irreconcilable. So long as the
system of capitalistic production existed, labor and capital
continued to quarrel over the division of the joint-product. It is
a ludicrous spectacle to us, but we must not forget that we have
seven centuries' advantage over those that lived in that time.
Again the whole table agreed with Ernest.
"Now, suppose labor, having received its fifty dollars, wanted to
buy back shoes. It could only buy back fifty dollars' worth.
That's clear, isn't it?
"And now we shift from this particular process to the sum total of
all industrial processes in the United States, which includes the
leather itself, raw material, transportation, selling, everything.
We will say, for the sake of round figures, that the total
production of wealth in the United States is one year is four
billion dollars. Then labor has received in wages, during the same
period, two billion dollars. Four billion dollars has been
produced. How much of this can labor buy back? Two billions.
There is no discussion of this, I am sure. For that matter, my
percentages are mild. Because of a thousand capitalistic devices,
labor cannot buy back even half of the total product.
"But to return. We will say labor buys back two billions. Then it
stands to reason that labor can consume only two billions. There
are still two billions to be accounted for, which labor cannot buy
back and consume."
"Labor does not consume its two billions, even," Mr. Kowalt spoke
up. "If it did, it would not have any deposits in the savings
banks."
"Labor's deposits in the savings banks are only a sort of reserve
fund that is consumed as fast as it accumulates. These deposits
are saved for old age, for sickness and accident, and for funeral
expenses. The savings bank deposit is simply a piece of the loaf
put back on the shelf to be eaten next day. No, labor consumes all
of the total product that its wages will buy back.
"Two billions are left to capital. After it has paid its expenses,
does it consume the remainder? Does capital consume all of its two
billions?"
Ernest stopped and put the question point blank to a number of the
men. They shook their heads.
"I don't know," one of them frankly said.
"Of course you do," Ernest went on. "Stop and think a moment. If
capital consumed its share, the sum total of capital could not
increase. It would remain constant. If you will look at the
economic history of the United States, you will see that the sum
total of capital has continually increased. Therefore capital does
not consume its share. Do you remember when England owned so much
of our railroad bonds? As the years went by, we bought back those
bonds. What does that mean? That part of capital's unconsumed
share bought back the bonds. What is the meaning of the fact that
to-day the capitalists of the United States own hundreds and
hundreds of millions of dollars of Mexican bonds, Russian bonds,
Italian bonds, Grecian bonds? The meaning is that those hundreds
and hundreds of millions were part of capital's share which capital
did not consume. Furthermore, from the very beginning of the
capitalist system, capital has never consumed all of its share.
"And now we come to the point. Four billion dollars of wealth is
produced in one year in the United States. Labor buys back and
consumes two billions. Capital does not consume the remaining two
billions. There is a large balance left over unconsumed. What is
done with this balance? What can be done with it? Labor cannot
consume any of it, for labor has already spent all its wages.
Capital will not consume this balance, because, already, according
to its nature, it has consumed all it can. And still remains the
balance. What can be done with it? What is done with it?"
"It is sold abroad," Mr. Kowalt volunteered.
"The very thing," Ernest agreed. "Because of this balance arises
our need for a foreign market. This is sold abroad. It has to be
sold abroad. There is no other way of getting rid of it. And that
unconsumed surplus, sold abroad, becomes what we call our favorable
balance of trade. Are we all agreed so far?"
"Surely it is a waste of time to elaborate these A B C's of
commerce," Mr. Calvin said tartly. "We all understand them."
"And it is by these A B C's I have so carefully elaborated that I
shall confound you," Ernest retorted. "There's the beauty of it.
And I'm going to confound you with them right now. Here goes.
"The United States is a capitalist country that has developed its
resources. According to its capitalist system of industry, it has
an unconsumed surplus that must be got rid of, and that must be got
rid of abroad.* What is true of the United States is true of every
other capitalist country with developed resources. Every one of
such countries has an unconsumed surplus. Don't forget that they
have already traded with one another, and that these surpluses yet
remain. Labor in all these countries has spent it wages, and
cannot buy any of the surpluses. Capital in all these countries
has already consumed all it is able according to its nature. And
still remain the surpluses. They cannot dispose of these surpluses
to one another. How are they going to get rid of them?"
* Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States a few years
prior to this time, made the following public declaration: "A more
liberal and extensive reciprocity in the purchase and sale of
commodities is necessary, so that the overproduction of the United
States can be satisfactorily disposed of to foreign countries." Of
course, this overproduction he mentions was the profits of the
capitalist system over and beyond the consuming power of the
capitalists. It was at this time that Senator Mark Hanna said:
"The production of wealth in the United States is one-third larger
annually than its consumption." Also a fellow-Senator, Chauncey
Depew, said: "The American people produce annually two billions
more wealth than they consume."
"Sell them to countries with undeveloped resources," Mr. Kowalt
suggested.
"The very thing. You see, my argument is so clear and simple that
in your own minds you carry it on for me. And now for the next
step. Suppose the United States disposes of its surplus to a
country with undeveloped resources like, say, Brazil. Remember
this surplus is over and above trade, which articles of trade have
been consumed. What, then, does the United States get in return
from Brazil?"
"Gold," said Mr. Kowalt.
"But there is only so much gold, and not much of it, in the world,"
Ernest objected.
"Gold in the form of securities and bonds and so forth," Mr. Kowalt
amended.
"Now you've struck it," Ernest said. "From Brazil the United
States, in return for her surplus, gets bonds and securities. And
what does that mean? It means that the United States is coming to
own railroads in Brazil, factories, mines, and lands in Brazil.
And what is the meaning of that in turn?"
Mr. Kowalt pondered and shook his head.
"I'll tell you," Ernest continued. "It means that the resources of
Brazil are being developed. And now, the next point. When Brazil,
under the capitalist system, has developed her resources, she will
herself have an unconsumed surplus. Can she get rid of this
surplus to the United States? No, because the United States has
herself a surplus. Can the United States do what she previously
did--get rid of her surplus to Brazil? No, for Brazil now has a
surplus, too.
"What happens? The United States and Brazil must both seek out
other countries with undeveloped resources, in order to unload the
surpluses on them. But by the very process of unloading the
surpluses, the resources of those countries are in turn developed.
Soon they have surpluses, and are seeking other countries on which
to unload. Now, gentlemen, follow me. The planet is only so
large. There are only so many countries in the world. What will
happen when every country in the world, down to the smallest and
last, with a surplus in its hands, stands confronting every other
country with surpluses in their hands?"
He paused and regarded his listeners. The bepuzzlement in their
faces was delicious. Also, there was awe in their faces. Out of
abstractions Ernest had conjured a vision and made them see it.
They were seeing it then, as they sat there, and they were
frightened by it.
"We started with A B C, Mr. Calvin," Ernest said slyly. "I have
now given you the rest of the alphabet. It is very simple. That
is the beauty of it. You surely have the answer forthcoming.
What, then, when every country in the world has an unconsumed
surplus? Where will your capitalist system be then?"
But Mr. Calvin shook a troubled head. He was obviously questing
back through Ernest's reasoning in search of an error.
"Let me briefly go over the ground with you again," Ernest said.
"We began with a particular industrial process, the shoe factory.
We found that the division of the joint product that took place
there was similar to the division that took place in the sum total
of all industrial processes. We found that labor could buy back
with its wages only so much of the product, and that capital did
not consume all of the remainder of the product. We found that
when labor had consumed to the full extent of its wages, and when
capital had consumed all it wanted, there was still left an
unconsumed surplus. We agreed that this surplus could only be
disposed of abroad. We agreed, also, that the effect of unloading
this surplus on another country would be to develop the resources
of that country, and that in a short time that country would have
an unconsumed surplus. We extended this process to all the
countries on the planet, till every country was producing every
year, and every day, an unconsumed surplus, which it could dispose
of to no other country. And now I ask you again, what are we going
to do with those surpluses?"
Still no one answered.
"Mr. Calvin?" Ernest queried.
"It beats me," Mr. Calvin confessed.
"I never dreamed of such a thing," Mr. Asmunsen said. "And yet it
does seem clear as print."
It was the first time I had ever heard Karl Marx's* doctrine of
surplus value elaborated, and Ernest had done it so simply that I,
too, sat puzzled and dumbfounded.
* Karl Marx--the great intellectual hero of Socialism. A German
Jew of the nineteenth century. A contemporary of John Stuart Mill.
It seems incredible to us that whole generations should have
elapsed after the enunciation of Marx's economic discoveries, in
which time he was sneered at by the world's accepted thinkers and
scholars. Because of his discoveries he was banished from his
native country, and he died an exile in England.
"I'll tell you a way to get rid of the surplus," Ernest said.
"Throw it into the sea. Throw every year hundreds of millions of
dollars' worth of shoes and wheat and clothing and all the
commodities of commerce into the sea. Won't that fix it?"
"It will certainly fix it," Mr. Calvin answered. "But it is absurd
for you to talk that way."
Ernest was upon him like a flash.
"Is it a bit more absurd than what you advocate, you machine-
breaker, returning to the antediluvian ways of your forefathers?
What do you propose in order to get rid of the surplus? You would
escape the problem of the surplus by not producing any surplus.
And how do you propose to avoid producing a surplus? By returning
to a primitive method of production, so confused and disorderly and
irrational, so wasteful and costly, that it will be impossible to
produce a surplus."
Mr. Calvin swallowed. The point had been driven home. He
swallowed again and cleared his throat.
"You are right," he said. "I stand convicted. It is absurd. But
we've got to do something. It is a case of life and death for us
of the middle class. We refuse to perish. We elect to be absurd
and to return to the truly crude and wasteful methods of our
forefathers. We will put back industry to its pre-trust stage. We
will break the machines. And what are you going to do about it?"
"But you can't break the machines," Ernest replied. "You cannot
make the tide of evolution flow backward. Opposed to you are two
great forces, each of which is more powerful than you of the middle
class. The large capitalists, the trusts, in short, will not let
you turn back. They don't want the machines destroyed. And
greater than the trusts, and more powerful, is labor. It will not
let you destroy the machines. The ownership of the world, along
with the machines, lies between the trusts and labor. That is the
battle alignment. Neither side wants the destruction of the
machines. But each side wants to possess the machines. In this
battle the middle class has no place. The middle class is a pygmy
between two giants. Don't you see, you poor perishing middle
class, you are caught between the upper and nether millstones, and
even now has the grinding begun.
"I have demonstrated to you mathematically the inevitable breakdown
of the capitalist system. When every country stands with an
unconsumed and unsalable surplus on its hands, the capitalist
system will break down under the terrific structure of profits that
it itself has reared. And in that day there won't be any
destruction of the machines. The struggle then will be for the
ownership of the machines. If labor wins, your way will be easy.
The United States, and the whole world for that matter, will enter
upon a new and tremendous era. Instead of being crushed by the
machines, life will be made fairer, and happier, and nobler by
them. You of the destroyed middle class, along with labor--there
will be nothing but labor then; so you, and all the rest of labor,
will participate in the equitable distribution of the products of
the wonderful machines. And we, all of us, will make new and more
wonderful machines. And there won't be any unconsumed surplus,
because there won't be any profits."
"But suppose the trusts win in this battle over the ownership of
the machines and the world?" Mr. Kowalt asked.
"Then," Ernest answered, "you, and labor, and all of us, will be
crushed under the iron heel of a despotism as relentless and
terrible as any despotism that has blackened the pages of the
history of man. That will be a good name for that despotism, the
Iron Heel."*
* The earliest known use of that name to designate the Oligarchy.
There was a long pause, and every man at the table meditated in
ways unwonted and profound.
"But this socialism of yours is a dream," Mr. Calvin said; and
repeated, "a dream."
"I'll show you something that isn't a dream, then," Ernest
answered. "And that something I shall call the Oligarchy. You
call it the Plutocracy. We both mean the same thing, the large
capitalists or the trusts. Let us see where the power lies today.
And in order to do so, let us apportion society into its class
divisions.
"There are three big classes in society. First comes the
Plutocracy, which is composed of wealthy bankers, railway magnates,
corporation directors, and trust magnates. Second, is the middle
class, your class, gentlemen, which is composed of farmers,
merchants, small manufacturers, and professional men. And third
and last comes my class, the proletariat, which is composed of the
wage-workers.*
* This division of society made by Everhard is in accordance with
that made by Lucien Sanial, one of the statistical authorities of
that time. His calculation of the membership of these divisions by
occupation, from the United States Census of 1900, is as follows:
Plutocratic class, 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 wobbly little lamb between a lion and a tiger.
If one doesn't get you, the other will. And if the Plutocracy gets
you first, why it's only a matter of time when the Proletariat gets
the Plutocracy.
"Even your present wealth is not a true measure of your power. The
strength of your wealth at this moment is only an empty shell.
That is why you are crying out your feeble little battle-cry,
"Return to the ways of our fathers." You are aware of your
impotency. You know that your strength is an empty shell. And
I'll show you the emptiness of it.
"What power have the farmers? Over fifty per cent are thralls by
virtue of the fact that they are merely tenants or are mortgaged.
And all of them are thralls by virtue of the fact that the trusts
already own or control (which is the same thing only better)--own
and control all the means of marketing the crops, such as cold
storage, railroads, elevators, and steamship lines. And,
furthermore, the trusts control the markets. In all this the
farmers are without power. As regards their political and
governmental power, I'll take that up later, along with the
political and governmental power of the whole middle class.
"Day by day the trusts squeeze out the farmers as they squeezed out
Mr. Calvin and the rest of the dairymen. And day by day are the
merchants squeezed out in the same way. Do you remember how, in
six months, the Tobacco Trust squeezed out over four hundred cigar
stores in New York City alone? Where are the old-time owners of
the coal fields? You know today, without my telling you, that the
Railroad Trust owns or controls the entire anthracite and
bituminous coal fields. Doesn't the Standard Oil Trust* own a
score of the ocean lines? And does it not also control copper, to
say nothing of running a smelter trust as a little side enterprise?
There are ten thousand cities in the United States to-night lighted
by the companies owned or controlled by Standard Oil, and in as
many cities all the electric transportation,--urban, suburban, and
interurban,--is in the hands of Standard Oil. The small
capitalists who were in these thousands of enterprises are gone.
You know that. It's the same way that you are going.
* Standard Oil and Rockefeller--see upcoming footnote: "Rockefeller
began as a member . . ."
"The small manufacturer is like the farmer; and small manufacturers
and farmers to-day are reduced, to all intents and purposes, to
feudal tenure. For that matter, the professional men and the
artists are at this present moment villeins in everything but name,
while the politicians are henchmen. Why do you, Mr. Calvin, work
all your nights and days to organize the farmers, along with the
rest of the middle class, into a new political party? Because the
politicians of the old parties will have nothing to do with your
atavistic ideas; and with your atavistic ideas, they will have
nothing to do because they are what I said they are, henchmen,
retainers of the Plutocracy.
"I spoke of the professional men and the artists as villeins. What
else are they? One and all, the professors, the preachers, and the
editors, hold their jobs by serving the Plutocracy, and their
service consists of propagating only such ideas as are either
harmless to or commendatory of the Plutocracy. Whenever they
propagate ideas that menace the Plutocracy, they lose their jobs,
in which case, if they have not provided for the rainy day, they
descend into the proletariat and either perish or become working-
class agitators. And don't forget that it is the press, the
pulpit, and the university that mould public opinion, set the
thought-pace of the nation. As for the artists, they merely pander
to the little less than ignoble tastes of the Plutocracy.
"But after all, wealth in itself is not the real power; it is the
means to power, and power is governmental. Who controls the
government to-day? The proletariat with its twenty millions
engaged in occupations? Even you laugh at the idea. Does the
middle class, with its eight million occupied members? No more
than the proletariat. Who, then, controls the government? The
Plutocracy, with its paltry quarter of a million of occupied
members. But this quarter of a million does not control the
government, though it renders yeoman service. It is the brain of
the Plutocracy that controls the government, and this brain
consists of seven* small and powerful groups of men. And do not
forget that these groups are working to-day practically in unison.
* Even as late as 1907, it was considered that eleven groups
dominated the country, but this number was reduced by the
amalgamation of the five railroad groups into a supreme combination
of all the railroads. These five groups so amalgamated, along with
their financial and political allies, were (1) James J. Hill with
his control of the Northwest; (2) the Pennsylvania railway group,
Schiff financial manager, with big banking firms of Philadelphia
and New York; (3) Harriman, with Frick for counsel and Odell as
political lieutenant, controlling the central continental,
Southwestern and Southern Pacific Coast lines of transportation;
(4) the Gould family railway interests; and (5) Moore, Reid, and
Leeds, known as the "Rock Island crowd." These strong oligarchs
arose out of the conflict of competition and travelled the
inevitable road toward combination.
"Let me point out the power of but one of them, the railroad group.
It employs forty thousand lawyers to defeat the people in the
courts. It issues countless thousands of free passes to judges,
bankers, editors, ministers, university men, members of state
legislatures, and of Congress. It maintains luxurious lobbies* at
every state capital, and at the national capital; and in all the
cities and towns of the land it employs an immense army of
pettifoggers and small politicians whose business is to attend
primaries, pack conventions, get on juries, bribe judges, and in
every way to work for its interests.**
* Lobby--a peculiar institution for bribing, bulldozing, and
corrupting the legislators who were supposed to represent the
people's interests.
** A decade before this speech of Everhard's, the New York Board of
Trade issued a report from which the following is quoted: "The
railroads control absolutely the legislatures of a majority of the
states of the Union; they make and unmake United States Senators,
congressmen, and governors, and are practically dictators of the
governmental policy of the United States."
"Gentlemen, I have merely sketched the power of one of the seven
groups that constitute the brain of the Plutocracy.* Your twenty-
four billions of wealth does not give you twenty-five cents' worth
of governmental power. It is an empty shell, and soon even the
empty shell will be taken away from you. The Plutocracy has all
power in its hands to-day. It to-day makes the laws, for it owns
the Senate, Congress, the courts, and the state legislatures. And
not only that. Behind law must be force to execute the law. To-
day the Plutocracy makes the law, and to enforce the law it has at
its beck and call the, police, the army, the navy, and, lastly, the
militia, which is you, and me, and all of us."
* Rockefeller began as a member of the proletariat, and through
thrift and cunning succeeded in developing the first perfect trust,
namely that known as Standard Oil. We cannot forbear giving the
following remarkable page from the history of the times, to show
how the need for reinvestment of the Standard Oil surplus crushed
out small capitalists and hastened the breakdown of the capitalist
system. David Graham Phillips was a radical writer of the period,
and the quotation, by him, is taken from a copy of the Saturday
Evening Post, dated October 4, 1902 A.D. This is the only copy of
this publication that has come down to us, and yet, from its
appearance and content, we cannot but conclude that it was one of
the popular periodicals with a large circulation. The quotation
here follows:
"About ten years ago Rockefeller's income was given as thirty
millions by an excellent authority. He had reached the limit of
profitable investment of profits in the oil industry. Here, then,
were these enormous sums in cash pouring in--more than $2,000,000 a
month for John Davison Rockefeller alone. The problem of
reinvestment became more serious. It became a nightmare. The oil
income was swelling, swelling, and the number of sound investments
limited, even more limited than it is now. It was through no
special eagerness for more gains that the Rockefellers began to
branch out from oil into other things. They were forced, swept on
by this inrolling tide of wealth which their monopoly magnet
irresistibly attracted. They developed a staff of investment
seekers and investigators. It is said that the chief of this staff
has a salary of $125,000 a year.
"The first conspicuous excursion and incursion of the Rockefellers
was into the railway field. By 1895 they controlled one-fifth of
the railway mileage of the country. What do they own or, through
dominant ownership, control to-day? They are powerful in all the
great railways of New York, north, east, and west, except one,
where their share is only a few millions. They are in most of the
great railways radiating from Chicago. They dominate in several of
the systems that extend to the Pacific. It is their votes that
make Mr. Morgan so potent, though, it may be added, they need his
brains more than he needs their votes--at present, and the
combination of the two constitutes in large measure the 'community
of interest.'
"But railways could not alone absorb rapidly enough those mighty
floods of gold. Presently John D. Rockefeller's $2,500,000 a
month had increased to four, to five, to six millions a month, to
$75,000,000 a year. Illuminating oil was becoming all profit. The
reinvestments of income were adding their mite of many annual
millions.
"The Rockefellers went into gas and electricity when those
industries had developed to the safe investment stage. And now a
large part of the American people must begin to enrich the
Rockefellers as soon as the sun goes down, no matter what form of
illuminant they use. They went into farm mortgages. It is said
that when prosperity a few years ago enabled the farmers to rid
themselves of their mortgages, John D. Rockefeller was moved
almost to tears; eight millions which he had thought taken care of
for years to come at a good interest were suddenly dumped upon his
doorstep and there set up a-squawking for a new home. This
unexpected addition to his worriments in finding places for the
progeny of his petroleum and their progeny and their progeny's
progeny was too much for the equanimity of a man without a
digestion. . . .
"The Rockefellers went into mines--iron and coal and copper and
lead; into other industrial companies; into street railways, into
national, state, and municipal bonds; into steamships and
steamboats and telegraphy; into real estate, into skyscrapers and
residences and hotels and business blocks; into life insurance,
into banking. There was soon literally no field of industry where
their millions were not at work. . . .
"The Rockefeller bank--the National City Bank--is by itself far and
away the biggest bank in the United States. It is exceeded in the
world only by the Bank of England and the Bank of France. The
deposits average more than one hundred millions a day; and it
dominates the call loan market on Wall Street and the stock market.
But it is not alone; it is the head of the Rockefeller chain of
banks, which includes fourteen banks and trust companies in New
York City, and banks of great strength and influence in every large
money center in the country.
"John D. Rockefeller owns Standard Oil stock worth between four
and five hundred millions at the market quotations. He has a
hundred millions in the steel trust, almost as much in a single
western railway system, half as much in a second, and so on and on
and on until the mind wearies of the cataloguing. His income last
year was about $100,000,000--it is doubtful if the incomes of all
the Rothschilds together make a greater sum. And it is going up by
leaps and bounds."
Little discussion took place after this, and the dinner soon broke
up. All were quiet and subdued, and leave-taking was done with low
voices. It seemed almost that they were scared by the vision of
the times they had seen.
"The situation is, indeed, serious," Mr. Calvin said to Ernest. "I
have little quarrel with the way you have depicted it. Only I
disagree with you about the doom of the middle class. We shall
survive, and we shall overthrow the trusts."
"And return to the ways of your fathers," Ernest finished for him.
"Even so," Mr. Calvin answered gravely. "I know it's a sort of
machine-breaking, and that it is absurd. But then life seems
absurd to-day, what of the machinations of the Plutocracy. And at
any rate, our sort of machine-breaking is at least practical and
possible, which your dream is not. Your socialistic dream is . . .
well, a dream. We cannot follow you."
"I only wish you fellows knew a little something about evolution
and sociology," Ernest said wistfully, as they shook hands. "We
would be saved so much trouble if you did."
