depriving the farmer of a portion of his earnings? In reply to these questions, it is to be observed that the unparalleled accumulation of wealth that has marked the career of the United States has for the most part taken place since the introduction of steam as a motive power, and that prior thereto the disproportionate distribution of wealth between city and country did not exist. The following table shows the increase of steam power in the United States since 1840:1 This table should be compared with the one given above showing the distribution of wealth. Such a comparison renders it unnecessary to argue that the swiftness with which wealth has been produced and accumulated in the United States would have been impossible in the absence of steam. In illustration of the efficiency of steam as a wealth-producer in the industrial world a single comparison will suffice. It is estimated that by converting the energy stored up in coal into steam the productive efficiency of labor is multiplied six hundred times.2 But why is it that in the distribution of the wealth that has thus been created the cities have absorbed such a disproportionate amount? An answer to this question will involve an analysis of the tendencies of steam as a wealth-producer. In this way we may hope to understand also whether the cities have prospered at the expense of the farmer, or whether their progress is due to the operation of normal economic law. 1. Steam as a motive power in the operations of the farm has never admitted of direct practical application to any considerable extent. Except in the work of threshing, it has been exploited to only a slight degree in farm economy. Conse 1 Mulhall, North American Review, vol. clx, 1895, p. 642. 2 D. K. Clark, Manual of Engineering, p. 846; Mulhall, History of Prices, ch. ix, passim. quently, the volume of farm produce has not been greatly increased or its cost of production very much cheapened through the influence of steam-driven machinery. Indirectly, however, the use of steam in transportation and in the manufacture of farm implements has affected agriculture in both these respects, and in numerous others so important as to call for separate treatment in the following section of this study. 2. It is in pursuits other than those of the farm that we must look for the whereabouts of the 16,940,000 horse power of steam which the table given above shows to have existed in the United States in 1895. The process by which such an enormous amount of power has been absorbed in the industries of modern life is a matter of no little interest. In this connection, it is pertinent to observe that the utilization of steam made the era of invention a necessity. Its employment as a motive power stimulated the inventive ingenuity of man. As a consequence, numerous ingenious contrivances have been put to work, propelled by an invisible force, so cheapening production that commodities once luxuries for the rich have come to be almost necessaries of life to the masses of the people. Consumption has thus been so enormously increased that employments once offering work to only a few now demand hosts of toilers. Compare, for example, the business of transportation before and since the time of the railway. Steam power, steel rails and other inventions have rendered the swift and certain movement of persons and commodities one of the daily necessities of the multitude. Since 1870 $1,000,000 a day have been spent in railway construction giving employment to labor; and now in the United States an army of nearly a million men are employed, directly and indirectly, in transportation. Again, when Arkwright invented his cotton-spinning machinery in 1760, there were 5200 spinners and 2700 weavers, or 7900 in all; while in 1887 there were 320,000, an increase of over 4000 per cent. In 1833 the number employed at spinning, weaving and calico-printing was 1 E. V. Smalley, The Forum, vol. xvii, 1894, pp. 242, 243. 2 Mulhall, History of Prices, p. 56. 800,000, and in 1887, 2,500,000.1 Notwithstanding the displacement of labor by machinery, the increased demand, owing to reduction in the price and improvement in the quality of the articles manufactured under new conditions, has operated not only to prevent any material reduction in the rates of wages, or in the number of employees, but even largely to increase both. It is obvious that the industrial opportunities thus thrown open have mainly been such as to stimulate immensely the creation of those new forms of wealth which go to swell the sum total of values in cities. Intimately connected with these facts is the difference in the nature of the human wants which the industries of the farm and of the city supply. Those met by the former are mainly physical, while those supplied by the latter are social. Physical wants . . . cannot be increased in each individual to any considerable extent. The stomach of the savage will consume as much as that of the civilized man; hence the effectual demand, through this class of wants, can only increase in about the same ratio as population.... Social wants are essentially different in all of their characteristics. They are the result of social, rather than cosmic, influences. They can be increased indefinitely in each individual, and can consequently be multiplied much faster than the population.3 The influence of labor-saving contrivances in agriculture has consequently tended to eliminate the man from the farm.1 Mr. E. V. Smalley states that "the farmer of our day, with the help of machinery, exerts a productive force equal to that of three men in the days of his grandfather"; and Mr. Atkinson has estimated that, by the aid of improved means of transportation and specialization of industry, the labor of one man on the plains of Dakota is sufficient to furnish 140 in Boston with bread. Not thus, however, with social wants; they are unlimited and tend to multiply faster than population. Con 1 Wells, Recent Economic Changes, p. 368. 2 Ibid., ch. ix, passim; Public Opinion, September 5, 1895, p. 316. 8 Gunton, Social Economics, pp. 82, 83. 4 Prof. E. W. Bemis, Journal of Political Economy, vol. i, 1892–93, p. 195. 5 The Forum, vol. xvii, 1894, p. 244. 6 Mulhall, History of Prices, p. 82. sequently, in satisfying such wants, it is economically possible to substitute machinery or natural forces for man in increasing the volume and cheapening the cost of the needed commodities. The labor thereby set free is again absorbed, either in meeting the greatly increased consumption brought about by cheaper production, or in satisfying other social wants which it is the nature of a progressive society to evolve. Owing to such facts, although the number of persons ten years of age or over employed at farming declined from 20.78 per cent of the population in 1870 to 17.48 per cent in 1890, the number of persons employed in all remunerative employments advanced from 32.43 per cent to 34.68 per cent; the number engaged in manufacturing and mechanical industries increased from 8.28 per cent in 1860 to 10.74 per cent in 1890; and those engaged in trade, transportation, domestic service and professional employments increased in the same period from 13.7 per cent to 19.74 per cent.2 The following tables reflect the more rapid production of urban than of rural wealth: 3 CAPITAL EMPLOYED. NUMBER OF NET VALUE OF PER CAPITA 1870. Agric're $8,899,966,998 5,922,741 $1,958,030,927 $333 1,694,567,015 2,053,996 1,743,898,200 680 222,384,854 154,328 138,323,303 717 Manuf. 1880. Agric're 12,104,001,538 7,670,493 2,212,540,927 288 Manuf. 2,790,272,606 2,732,625 Mining 1,972,755,642 722 1890. Agric're 15,982,267,689 8,466,363 2,460,107,454 290 Manuf. 6,525,156,486 4,712,622 4,210,393,207 893 Mining 1,340,000,000 636,419 471,356,527 740 1 Recent Economic Changes, ch. ix, passim. 2 Carroll D. Wright, The Forum, May, 1895, pp. 306–309. 3 Ninth Census, Report on Industries and Wealth, pp. 392, 759. Tenth Census, vol. i, p. 712; vol. ii, p. 51; Report on Non-precious Metals, p. xxviii. Abstract of Eleventh Census, pp. 78, 99, 141; Eleventh Census, Report on Mineral Industries, p. xi. The figures given for mining in 1880 are in part estimated from data found in the Tenth and Eleventh Censuses. Any estimate of the capital employed would be largely guesswork. These figures tell their own story. With less than half the capital employed in agriculture, manufactures and mining have since 1870 annually created a per capita product two to three times as great. The adaptability of steam to non-agricultural industries and the nature of human wants are factors of paramount importance in creating this disparity in the production of agricultural and non-agricultural wealth. 3. Another explanation of the concentrating tendency of steam is found in the fact that steam power cannot be economically transmitted long distances. This has necessitated the erection of large factories close by the power-generating plant rather than the distribution of a number of small establishments at considerable distances apart.1 4. Apart from the nature of steam, the factory system of industry, as it exists to-day, is most favorable to economy of production for reasons peculiar to itself. To carry out the principle of the division of labor to the fullest extent, it is necessary that large numbers of men be assembled for work under one management in the same building. Further, in any industry requiring a large amount of machinery, the cost of protecting the machinery is less when it is concentrated under a single roof. It is evident, therefore, that the economy of production secured by the factory system inevitably tends to create urban wealth and to commit workmen to the socializing influences of city life. There has consequently resulted a limitation in the variety of work carried on in . . . rural establishments. Of old, nearly all the articles which entered into the family life of an agriculturist were made in the household. Cloth of various kinds, candles, soap, the greater part of the tools, even the worked timber used in the edifices, were of domestic manufacture. This is no longer the case in those parts of the country which have been subjected to modernizing influences. The ever-progressive division of labor and the rapid extension of commerce made possible by improvements in the methods of transportation, have led to the removal of many industries from the farm to the factory, where, by 1 Dr. C. H. Cooley, Publications of the American Economic Association, vol. ix, 1894, p. 297; Rae, Contemporary Socialism, p. 28. 2 Dr. C. H. Cooley, loc. cit., p. 297. |