The Labor enquirer., 1884-05-10
CATO
From the Fear Of Poverty Comes
the Twin Evil, Lust for
Gain.
What Wonder that the Wronged
Man Hates, and Sometimes
Strikes.
Editor Labor Enquirer.

naturally just, naturally kind hearted /;
vet the same proportion are made to ap-
pear selfish Doors and knayes; forced to
practice deception and trickery,, and
oftentimes to act more like brutes than
human beings. Civilized man, living in
accordance with natural laws, unhar-
rassed by fears for his future welfare
would be different being from what he
now is. 1t has been said that self-preser-
vation is the first law of nature; but
how cruel it is to be compelled to exer-
else this law to the exclusion and aban-
donment of that other and higher law,
embodied in the golden rule. Under
the unnatural conditions which are
forced upon US we are obliged to stifie
all feelings of humanity in the struggle
for the means of bare existence. En-
danger mans life, liberty or happiness,
let him be threatened with dire peril,
and when he is fully cognizant of his
situation he at once becomes blind un-
reasoning brute on the one hand, or
cunning unprincipled knave on the
other; according as the animal or intel
lectual faculties predominant in him.
Men always fear that the most which
does them the greatest injury. In India,
where the man-eating tiger is found,
the native, when attacked by this fero-
cious beast, will leave his nearest friends
in danger while he secures his own safety
in precipitated fight. So in civilized
life men have learned through long and
bitter experience to fear that which takes
from him his manhood, stunts his body
and dwarfs his intellect, which leaves
him a burden on the community or his
own people; helpless, cold and hungry
in orld of plenty that terrible evil,
want and the fear of want. This fear OF
poverty it is which builds up colossal
fortunes on the one hand, and fills aims
houses maniacs. cells, and suicides
graves on the other. 1t causes nine
tenths of all the crime and misery in the
world, and makes of man slave where
he should be free; brute or knave
where he should be akin to divinity.
From the fear of poverty Is born that
twin evil, lust for gain. Few men start
out with the idea of becoming million
aires. When a man saves from his
paltry wages it is always with the SEEM
ingly laudabe purpose Of having some
thing in hand in time Of need but when
he has saved enough for any ordinary
emergency he is never satisfied. He
looks back at his former poverty-stricken
condition with feelings of horror, and
breads the possibility of being again re-
duced to penury and want. These fears
continually operate on his mind and are
kept active by the uncertainty of work
or wages always to be had, and the mis-
fortunes of his fellow workers. They
gradually strengthen, then debase his
acquisetive. faculty; until, in time,
money getting and money saving be-
comes an absorbing passion, and all feel
ings of Justice or humanity are quenched
in the desire for gain. If he is unable
to save anything; if circumstances b ave
so placed him that he is able to provide
but the bare necessaries of life for him
self and family, his condition is then
pitiable in the extreme. 1t is under
such circumstances as this that man
loses all his finer feelings, and becomes
brute, degraded alike in the eyes OF
the world and in his own. 1t is here
that the iron law of self-preservation
asserts itself the strongest, and man, in
his frantic endeavor to maintain exist
ence becomes unreasoning and ungovern-
able. He must work, beg, steal or starve,
and when the opportunity to labor is at
last denied him, when he can no longer
compete in the labor market, he is forced
to become tramp or criminal. Life is
sweet even to the poor devil who is
kicked from door to door in his pursuit
of that happiness which he once learned
our grand constitution declares him to
be entitled to.
What wonder that he menaces society
What wonder that he hates, or that he
sometimes strikes at the object of his
hate? He fights against bis destiny
with, the desperation of dying man.
Hope, that handspring of human exist
ence, has been turned to despair. His
prospects for future betterment are for
ever blasted, and he curses his fate, and
the things which oppress him with a
vehemence that shall yet bear fruit.
The fear of want retards progress and
human development. 1t is impossible
for man to think, to read, to invent, to
cultivate the fine arts when his first, last
and constant care is to keep famine from
his door. Thousands pass miserable
existence, and die paupers, without hav-
ing had an opportunity to develope those
faculties with which nature has endowed
every human being. Instead of Shake
speare, Raphael, Newton or Bacon
once in three or four hundred years, we
should have thousands of poets, painters
and philosophers, equally as great. every
year. Many man has been compelled
TO force gifted son or daughter to un-
congenial and ceaseless toll because his
own scant wages were insufficient to sup
port his growing family. Many a man
feels his soul burn within him, and his
quick 7ned thought rise in his poetic and
lofty fight, yet longs in vain for the op-
portunity to develop his imprisoned
genius. The fear of poverty is ever
before him, haunting vision by night
stern reality by day; from which there
is no escape, save in some instances by
bartering his soul for gain. or by that
last fearful refuge, suicide end.
| es CATo.