twenty of being injured and one chance in one hundred of being killed. If he shall work as long as twenty years while he seeks by diligence and zeal to better his condition, the chances are even that in that period he will be injured, and one to six that he will be killed, so that the chance of being injured is three hundred times as great and of being killed is fifty times as great as his chance of becoming a general officer in the company.

From this and other illustrations Prof. Nearing deduces that the tendency of modern industry is toward a form of organization that will require the wage-worker to remain a wageworker, and without the least hope of being anything else.

Prof. Nearing also seems to find that when a worker reaches thirty years of age the slender, elusive chances he may have had, one in three hundred or four hundred of securing a better position, are practically exhausted, and from that time on he can look for nothing better, but only things worse. At thirty he has reached the maximum of his earning power. But there is no limit to the minimum, for wages are always subject to contingencies of sickness, accidents, suspensions in the industry, over-production, new inventions and the like.

So while the cost of living increases upon this working class and there is no corresponding increase in its wages, it is confronted with an iron-bound condition that offers no possible escape from a state steadily growing worse. This is not the deduction of an agitator; it is the conclusion of the highest authority in the United States on work and wages.

No, it is perfectly obvious that the working man is not getting any of the profit that is reaped from the increased cost of living. Nor is the working woman. Mr. Abram I. Elkus, of the recent New York State Commission to investigate factory conditions, made a searching inquiry about two great industries that employed together 10,893 women, and found that hundreds of these women received a compensation of $3 a week or less, while other hundreds received less than $8 each. On this he said:

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Some remedy is needed for such conditions. You know and I know that women can't live and keep body and soul together on such a wage as this. We have got to give the employes a living wage."

Miss Mary Dreier, another investigator, said that the object of the state was to discover if there were any industries that were paying

wages upon which employees could not live, and the Commission had ascertained that there were thousands of girls earning from $3.50 to $7 a week.

"We know they can't live properly on that," said Miss Dreier," and still they go along doing the best they can. We also know big ablebodied men earning not more than $7 or $9 a week. They have families to support, and we know it can't be done."

Miss Dreier said that in one store she investigated the rule was that the chairs for sales girls which were required by law were not to be used, and that the girls were afraid to tell about it. "Why is that?" she asked.

A girl in the crowd called back, "Blacklist.” So it appears that not only do these women work for less than enough to live on, but they are denied the right of speaking about the conditions under which they work, even when those conditions violate the law. Some one with an expert mind should point out the difference between such a situation and the slavery that existed in the South before the Civil War.

Still, the great toll is collected, and more of it every year, for still the perilous condition is maintained under which the cost of living is increasing, and there is no corresponding in

crease in wages and salaries. Where, then, does the tribute go? The farmer does not get it, but complains all the time of diminished returns for his hard work, complains so bitterly that he is now organizing or trying to organize a huge marketing system of his own that will save him a part of the money now taken from him. worker does not get it, because he grows always poorer, and slides downward to lower standards of living and bleaker prospects for himself and his children. Where does it go?

The

Fortunately, as to that also we have some official documents of great interest and value, so that no one need be driven to speculation or mere guess work, nor yet to individual assertions. It is all in the records.

When the Interstate Commerce Commission was investigating the financial wreck of the New Haven Railroad it found that in eight years the capitalization of that road was increased 1500 per cent. and that a very large part of the increase was not represented by improvements of any kind, but was merely the graft or "benefits" pulled off for the insiders that had control of the property. Nevertheless the increased capitalization was a burden on the road the operations of which must be taxed to pay the resulting dividends and interest charges.

That meant that the charges must be passed along for the public to pay, and that meant that all of them must in the end come out of the toiler.

About $125,000,000 of such "benefits" in the shape of these issues of interest-bearing securities were traced to the fortunate insiders, and suits were subsequently begun to try to recover these amounts. But in any case the securities remain a charge upon the property that the public must pay and in the end this charge must fall upon the back of the producer.

One of these operations may serve as a sample of all. There was a piece of trolley road, more or less junk, that bore the resounding name of the New York, Westchester & Boston. Its stock, we now learn, on high authority, was worth "10 cents a pound," but its purchase would afford a good opportunity to issue more securities for the benefit of the gentlemen on the inside, and others, and also to make further deals. So this junk railroad was hitched up with other "properties," some real and some imaginary, having a total outside worth for everything of not more than $4,722,348, and for the lot a price of $11,550,000 was fixed up and paid through Morgan & Co. to Oakleigh