>It is not in any sense true that becoming a professor is harder now than in 1905.

What? The number of PhD grads far outstrips the number of tenure track positions available in any given year. Far more than in the past. Not only that but people routinely need to do multiple post docs to even have a chance at an interview and even as recently as the 1950s one could get a tenure position without a single post doc and sometimes without any published work outside their dissertation.

Really depends where you define the starting line. Compare the two starting from birth, and definitely harder in 1905. Compare them as fully qualified individuals ready to apply, probably an edge in 1905.