Tli()U;;h the price of cattle and hogs to the producer be not
lowered, aii<I though the price of meat to the consumer be not
raised, a few are enjoying opportunities that should be the com-
mon privileges of many, and building fortunes that can ser^e no
piir]M>se but to lay the people under tribute to themselves and
tht)se who shall succeed them. When the rich grow richer, the
]><M)r grow poorer. The figures that stand in has-rdief on the
face of the embossed shield may be traced in corresponding
depressions on the other side.
Statesmen should concern themselves less about the price of
pork and beef and more about the absorbing power of aggre-
gated wealth. The j>rofits of trade, widely distributed, furnish
continuing opportunities for the growth of those small accumu-
lations of wealth which make provision for sickness and old age
and dependent children, and furnish opportunities for the cul-
ture that refines and purities social life, — fortunes the incomes
from which are returned to the people again in exchange for the
products of labor, — Binall reservoirs giving out a steady supply,
emptied and replenished again from the over-flowing stream
of tnido. But when the golden stream of profit is poured into
the Dead Sea of a millionaire's fortune, there is no outward
flow.
The number of persons engaged in trade and transportation,
aside from banking, insurance, and newspapers, as shown by
the census of 1880, was 1,700,385. Of these, 1,122,481 were en-
gaged in trade, and 557,904 were employed in transportation.
