246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



liausting their strength and injuring tlieir health for tlie same 

 money only that they get now. They would be no richer, and 

 would drive their muscles and frames at a wearing pace not con- 

 sistent with the laws of health. 



But neither theory is true. Instead of there being a given 

 amount of wants, as alleged, wants are found to be largely the 

 result of means. 



If the community have little, they require little, but as they 

 become wealthy they spread out in proportion. People can't hire 

 labor if they are poor, and hence to make a demand for labor 

 somebody must be rich enough to pay for it. This is perfectly 

 plain. Nobody goes in search of a poor man for employment, 

 only in the last resort. It follows that whatever tends to wealth- 

 making tends to want-making, and to an increase in the demand 

 for labor and the supply of employment. On the other hand, 

 whatever tends to a diminution of wealth tends necessarily to a 

 diminution of the means to pay for labor, and also to less dispo- 

 sition to hire others to do the work. I think that these positions 

 can not be successfully combated, and if not, we have a criterion 

 by which to determine in what direction to look for improvement 

 in the condition of the laboring man. Surely we shall never find 

 it in anything that tends to a diminution of resources. 



What is stated above in relation to wants being increased in 

 proportion to the increase of wealth does not hold good in some 

 individual cases, but in general it does, and it holds good to that 

 extent that the common people everywhere accept it as a basis of 

 action without stopping to reason about it at all, it is so natural. 

 It is the reason why people leave a country like Ireland and come 

 here. They expect to find dollars so plenty that, according to the 

 old story, they do not deem it worth the while to pick up the 

 quarters they may see lying on the wharf where they land. The 

 same thing takes the smart boys from the poor country districts 

 and small villages to the large towns and cities. They feel that 

 they must get to places where there is an abundance of money. 

 They do not fail to note that a man who has ten thousand dollars 

 will build a three thousand dollar house, while the man with 

 thirty thousand will build a house costing twelve thousand prob- 

 ably," and that calls for four times the labor of the other. They 

 must get where such men abound, and where there are hundred- 

 thousand-dollar men and millionaires, men who will build palaces, 

 railroads, great warehouses, and ships. Poverty-stricken places 

 are given a wide berth by all sensible folk, and so universal is the 

 practice that we are not left in doubt as to the meaning of it. 



Now wealth is principally the product of labor. Some get it 

 by their own labor, and some by the labor of others ; but however 

 got by the individual, it is the result of personal or machine ex- 



