THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



been said of the Army of the Unemployed, the fluctuat- 

 ing numbers of the utterly idle is no true measure of our 

 surplus population. There is an infinitely larger element 

 of half-employed and semi-prosperous, and it is from the 

 ranks of these that the colonizing hosts of the future will 

 mostly bo drawn. The very poor constitute a small cle- 

 ment in all communities, and however urgent their claim 

 upon charity, their situation is of far less importance to 

 the peace and stability of society than the conditions 

 of life and labor for the masses who do the world's 

 work. The future civilization is to be discovered at 

 neither of the social poles that of the very rich or that 

 of the very poor but in the continental expanse of hu- 

 man life that lies between these two extremes. 



The surplus population who will occupy and develop 

 the waste-places during the coming century are the men 

 and women of overcrowded eastern industries, stores, 

 and professions, and, in smaller measure, of unprofitable 

 eastern farms. To a very largo extent they are of the 

 best native stock. Their presence in the ranks of the 

 half - employed and semi - prosperous is due to several 

 leading causes to the wonderful invention of labor-sav- 

 ing machinery, which does the work of human hands 

 without charge for food or clothes ; to the competition 

 of foreign immigrants content with less wages and a 

 lower standard of living ; to the concentration of capi- 

 tal and the conduct of all lines of business upon so largo 

 a scale that small men cannot survive in the race with 

 them ; to the cessation of the rapid settlement of new 

 areas in the. West, which made constant demands upon 

 the products of eastern spindles, looms, and lathes; to 

 the natural movement of the greater manufacturing lines 



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