THE FOOD QUESTION. 93 



a way that it can be digested. One pound of skimmed milk cheese, 

 if cooked in a suitable way, affords more nutrition than three 

 pounds of the best beef. 



When I first accepted the invitation to give this lecture, I sug- 

 gested to Mr. Appleton of your Committee that the title should 

 be " Was Nebuchadnezzar so badly off, after all, when he went to 

 grass." 



Nebuchadnezzar had lived on the fat of the land, as we do ; and 

 when he went to grass, he went to a more wholesome food. We 

 need more vegetables and less fat — more garden and less farm. 



No address of mine would be complete unless it contained some 

 figures ; and I will now venture to repeat some figures upon food 

 which I have given elsewhere, but which I am very sure will bear 

 repetition, even if they weary you a little in their recital. 



I suppose that what has led to my being here today is, mainly, 

 the fact that I have attempted to measure the price of life, and to 

 determine, more exactly than any one has yet done, the proportions 

 and relative cost to working people of food, clothing, and shelter, 

 under present conditions of life. 



My earliest investigations had for their objective point a deter- 

 mination of the money value of the annual production of this 

 country — an appalling problem, but one which I ma}' believe has 

 been solved with approximate accuracy, for the reason that many 

 lines of similar investigation, which have since been pursued 

 under the supervision of Col. AVright, Prof. Hadley and others, 

 have led to almost identical conclusions. Not to weary you with 

 incomprehensible figures of unnumbered millions, I will simply 

 announce, as a fact appearing at the end of the whole investiga- 

 tion, the following, viz. : that the average sum earned by, and so 

 available for subsistence of, each adult person does not, as regards 

 nine-tenths of our population, exceed forty cents per ciay. 



The working group (as distinguished from the family group) 

 consists of three persons, i. e., each person, who is engaged in an}' 

 kind of gainful occupation for which he or she is paid in money 

 wholly or in part, sustains two others. The family group is a 

 fraction under five persons. Ninety per cent of the people of the 

 United States who are engaged in any kind of gainful occupation 

 are what may be called working people in the narrow sense of the 

 word. I, myself, claim to be a working man ; but what I mean is 

 that ninety per cent of the people of the United States are in the 



