The Labor enquirer., 1884-04-19

that the cornerstone of exactness is cor
rectness. What is poverty I?
Evidently poverty is a deficiency or
lack of wealth.
Wealth consists of many things, all
comprised under the phrase of things
tangible, needed or desired by human
beings, such as food, clothing, and tools
primarily. To provide these indispensa-
Bile wants we have two agencies, tirst'
the natural resources of the earth and
second, labor applied to those resources.
All articles of food, clothing, shelter or
instruments of production exist in their
original form as natural wealth. By the
means of human labor applied to them,
they are converted into actual wealth
either bv collection, las by fishing, hunt
ing, wood. getting, sand and clay collect
ing, etc. by extracting, las coal, iron,
salt and miscellaneous mining, stone and
slate quarrying, ETC., or by growing, las
fish, flesh, fowl and insect culture, grain,
fruit, forage, tree, fiber, vine culture,
etc.,.
Human labor applied to the materials
thus secured, changes them into articles
of wealth, and the absence or deficiency
among the population of this wealth, we
call poverty.
Our proposition therefore is, that the
people are poor because they lack wealth,
that is, they lack first, the natural wealth
of earth and second, that wealth when
improved by labor.
Now comes the question Why do
they lack this wealth? Why are thev
poor?
Is il because there is not enough nat
ural wealth to 60 around?
No. Natural History and Science tell
US otherwise the seas with their multi
tudes of fish, the land covered with Vir-
gin forests, the hills filled with minerals,
the broad plateaus wherein coal fields OF
unlimited area are buried, the teeming
fields under cultivation which now easily
supply food for the world, all evidence
concusively that it would be falsehood
and folly to shift the blame for our pow
erty onto the shoulders of Nature.
Is it then because there is not enough
human labor in the world to provide the
necessary actual wealth, so that each in
habitant may satisfy his desires?
Again the answer is, no For the sta
tistics of production being consulted, it
is found that the labor of one man is suf-
fcient to provide eight with food, that
the labor of another will provide four
with shelter, while the labor of third
will give six all the clothing they can
use; and this at normal working day
of eight hours.
Our first question is answered: Pow
erty is not caused by the non-existence
of wealth.
Let us pursue our reasoning pitilessl Y
We have proved that enough wealth
exists to supply the wants of every man.
But ours are not supplied. Some one
else then must have more than he needs,
since we are poor.
Here then is the cause of our poverty
We are poor because some one else has
more than he needs. Having this while
we are naked, freezing, or hungry, he
must be able to well defend his title to 1T
or run the risk of its loss.
His fright" to compel US to be misera'
Bile, shall discuss hereafter. My only
task now is to find why we are poor.
And believe l have answered the ques-
| ton:
WE ARE POOR BECAUSE SOME ONE ELSE
has MORE THAN He NEEDS.
The poor die OF toll, the rich of tor
pidity the poor of starvation, the rich
of surfeit; the poor of slavery, the rich
of safety. One class is worn out with
work, the other rusted out with inactlon
And our physicians great men are they
have recognized the two classes even
in the nomenclature of the diseases of
which they die.
Kill me poor man by exposing him
unprotected to the elements, by denying
him the shelter of the house that his
own hand shave builded, and the doctors
of the schools shall say he was taken OF
with cold. But let Croesus uncover his
delicate throat by inadvertance on an
evening and if he dies, It's not from want
of work to harden his cuticle to the air
of night, but pneum onia or a conges-
ton that acts as Gods special messenger
| to call him to the deity's councils in the
skies.
Through twenty years of toll starVe
me a workingman for want of proper
food, weaken him for me by days and
nights of endless labor and when nature
can resist no longer, the first fever" or
"miasma" takes him away. Through
those same years feed Plutus on turkey
and truff1es and though he dies as surely,
vet the medicos label his gluttony with
the aristocratic names of dyspepsia or
apoplexy.
woman of the people be driven by
starvation to the house of prostitution
and from thence to the drunkard's grave,
she shall be called dead of SIM" but
her sister in laces and diamonds shall sin
in society" for twenty years and tipple
both liquor and drugs and it shall be
l ]. ;nh