Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-08-29

Management and Money.
Management is worth more than money.
1t is not the money man has that makes
him comfortable, prosperous and happy
but his management Of the money. With
out management his money will soon de-
part, and leave poverty and misery in its
stead. A very little money with wise man
agement goes very long way in the world.
If it does not bring wealth, it does insure
against penury.
Nine-tenths of all our poor and needy in
the land are not in need of money half as
much as they are of management. The
most of them, at some time in their life had
the opportunity and means to make some
thing of themselves. Had they managed
rightly they might have comfortable homes
and steady, paying work TO this day. Even
as it is, by far the greater number of them,
the vast majority, are not really suffering
| for want of money. Money does not scrub
floors, wash out stains, mend clothes, and
| bring order out of confusion. Money does
| not make the wasteful saving, the sluggish
| industrious, and the shiftless energetic and
enterprising
Few indeed are the poor, in this city, at
least, il not in the whole country, who do
not eat enough food in year, and get
enough clothing to have three square an. :.
wholesome meals every day and be dressI'd
respectfully and comfortably, summer and
winter; and few have not tiuIe and water
| enough at their disposal to make and keep
their dwelling place, however small and
humble, at least clean, neat, tidy and
cheerful. Yet look at the shanties, filthy
and dilapidated, that many Of them inhabit!
Behold the crowds of men, women and
children, ragged, half-starved, and misera-
BILE that lounge around them! What is
the trouble with them ? Chiefly it is
want of management. If those women
knew how and cared to select and prepare
food so as to get the most nourishment
from it with the least waste, and to appor-
tion 10 so as to have variety and make it
go furthest" if they knew how and
cared to save their clothes, to keep them
clean and whole if those men cared TO
repair their houses and furniture, to make
them comfortable, decent and attractive
and if they knew how and cared to earn q
proper livelihood and to proiitably employ
their earnings; in other words, if they had
alittle wise management, they might still
be poor, but the sting would be taken out
of their poverty, its misery and its shame.
For it is mistake to suppose that
poverty, in itself, is either disgraceful or
fraught with more unhappiness than
wealth. There are poor people, not few,
in this city who enjoy the respect of the
community as fully as they could if they
owned millions. And there are others in
whose humble homes, despite their bare
floors and scant furniture, there are as true
and genuine happiness and enjoyment to
be found as in the most luxurious mansion
in the land perhaps more. But these
honored poor are not dirty, nor ragged, not
wasteful, lazy nor shiftless. They have
but little money, and so cannot buy the
show of respect of their fcllow-citizens.
Nor would they il they could. But
they have the faculty of management.
They manage to keep up their own self
respect, and 50 manage to earn the real re-
spect of others.
The question of the cause and cure of
poverty has become problem of national
import. 1t is pressing evermore imper-
tunately for solution. Philosophers,
scientists, theologians have been wrestling
with it in vain. So long as money was
thought to be the key to the problem, SO
long they must fail. Money has nothing to do
with the cause of poverty, and it can have
nothing to do with its cure. Not in pos
session, but in being and doing must be
sought the solution. Stop asking what
men have, have not, and ought to have.
Tho trouble is not there. But find out
what they are, are not, and ought to be.
There you are at the true root of the diff
Guilty. Stop trying TO make them hare
more, until you have succeeded in making
them be more.
There is chance for real charity; the |
field for right beneyolence. 1t is vast |
one, and long already white for the har-
vest.