FARM MACHINERY 



71 



Disregarding the returns of the Eleventh Census, let us consider 

 what these per cents indicate. Starting in 1880 with a given ratio 

 between the number of farm employees and employers, we find that 

 in twenty years the employed, or dependent, class has increased 73.6 

 per cent, while the employing, or independent, class has increased 

 only 27.4 per cent. In other words, during the twenty-year period 

 from 1880 to 1900, the dependent increased 46.2 per cent more 

 rapidly than did the independent class. With these figures in mind, 

 one needs but a moment's reflection to satisfy himself that, at the 

 rates of increase indicated, the dependent class of farm operators 

 must soon outnumber the independent class.^ There is no need here 

 for argument that a large dependent class is dangerous to society .^ 



The reason for this condition of affairs has been already indi- 

 cated. The profitable use of a machine requires that it shall have 



planters, and overseers"), when taken together. The combined rate of increase 

 appears as follows : 



Base 



Agricultural laborers, farmers, planters, and overseers 



1,181,365 



122.9 



141.2 



These figures show that the total population engaged in farming increased at 

 a uniform rate, and there seems no good reason for supposing that there was in 

 fact any such extraordinary movement from the class of employees to the class 

 of employers and then back again within the period of twenty years from 1880 to 

 1900, as indicated by the returns. 



1 Of these evils that which is most serious and general is the divorce which 

 machinery is bringing about between labor and capital. So far has this already 

 gone that people have come to think of the two as things naturally distinct from 

 each other, and to regard it as a normal state of affairs that the persons who 

 perform the manual toil of a country shall be absolutely dependent for employ- 

 ment on a comparatively small class known specifically as capitalists, in whose 

 hands are concentrated the implements with which alone modem industry can be 

 successfully carried on. That such dependence is unfavorable to the highest type 

 of manhood will hardly be questioned ; and the enormous extent to which machin- 

 ery has increased and is still increasing the percentage of persons subject to such 

 dependence is surely a most serious matter. The manhood of a nation is its most 

 precious possession, for the loss or deterioration of which no increase of material 

 wealth can adequately compensate. Edward T. Peters, " Some Economic and 

 Social Effects of Machinery," p. 2 



2 In 1890 the proportion of male agricultural laborers reported as unemployed 

 during some portion of the census year was 17.2 per cent; in 1900 it was 36.1 per 

 cent. Females, in 1890, 18.6 per cent; in 1900, 44.3 per cent (Twelfth Census, 

 Occupations, pp. ccxxviii-ccxxxi). 



