The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-27
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
what Causes Poverty


To tho Editor of the IndianapoIs Jon rnax.
In the Journals reportof Mr.. Georges address
in this city appears this: 'Mr. George then
asked, Where is the country whore there is not
wantaud sufferinga The voices Of little children
are in the moan even here in America. where we
have sought our promised land. While we prate
of the right of men, there are already many
thousands who find it difficult to assert the first
of natural rights-the right of earning living
and who have to accept degrading charity
or starve'S Well, does not Mr.. George see
this want and suffering all largely the
result of the time and money that
is wasted in the use of strong
drink and tobacco, rather than in our political
policy, or what he affects to believe misap-
plication Of our democracy. 1t cannot be de-
MED that large sums of money, and that which
rightly belongs to those families for a support,
and who are dependent upon labor for that up
port are spent in demoralizing amusements,
and those pernicious stimulants and narcotics,
and which not only causes want and suffering
in those families, but often reduces them to the
disgrace that a drunken husband and father
brings upon them, as well as often
have to accept a degrading charity
or starve" 1--WE pride ourselves upon
our common schools, yet after our boys
and girls are educated it is often vainly asked,
what shall we do with themf" Well is it not
fashionable now a.days to finish mp their educa-
tion by placing within their reach all the filthy,
f1ashy literature they can read, instead Of put
ting them onto tho farm or into the shop to
learn to earn an honorable living by the sweat
of their brow; and the girls into the house by
the side of their mothers to learn to be house
Representatives, aud ironers, and scrubbers-
that they may know how to preside over their
own homes when they come to have one; and
that the boys may know howto provide for wife
when they shall get one. instead of learnng from
that stuff to have corrupt and visionary
view of the duties of the life that is before theml
Then, for further finishing TOUCH not the
theaters, skating Kinks base ball, lawn tennis,
progressive euchre, etc., all taken in, and, in
addition, the boys-do they not take to the
cigarette as naturally as the girls do to the
chewing wax? Then with extended jaw, and
looking as guilty as chipmunk that has been
stealing corn from newly planted held, is 1t not
shape of ,quid of tobacco has been
applied to that boys education; and
when, with the sweetness of that quld stick
ing In the corners OF his mouth, with
the peTlOuIcaI- now OF LndL sweetness from his
mouth to the carpet, Is he not sufficiently pol
ished up to walk beside his parent to the cigar
stand and into the saloon! ''Ih the shadow of
our colleges children are growing UP in vice and
crime because poverty has driven from their
homes all refining influences" Is it not rather
drunkenness, idleness and debauchery of the
father, and often the mother, too That causes
that vice and crime, and drives away all REIN
ing influences from those homes? Is not such
too often the case2 Were not the seeds of all
al
those young minds in their earlv life, when
they were INDUCED in all those pastimes and
demoralizing amusements2 Instead, should they
not have been laying the foundation for future
home of domestic happiness2 Nor then, should
misfortune come or Proyidencefrown upon them,
need sin or crime find a Judgment in those
novels. They do not necessarily exist with
Gods poor, but oftener in gilded paiaces-homes
of wealth and refining influences" There is
growing up among US an aristocracy Of wealth,
as merciless rs any aristocracy that ever held
sway" Whence comes that aristoc-
racy9 Is it not growing up on the
credulity Of the laboring classes by
their confidence in those who affect to es-
pouse their cause and assume a leadership
which often leads them from their work and to
break faith with their employers, and into acts
that prove detrimental to their best interests
Is not the list of those aristocrats materially
swelled by those who 60 about proclaiming, from
the lecture stard, that the laborer finds it diff
cult to assert his rights to make a living" and
that ''our government is becoming means of
robbing the peopleq' That money paid at the
door, at a dime head, ard for the privilege of
hearing a harangue about the wrongs
of the laboring classes, and their
rights to share in an equal division of the uni
versal domain; and the money paid for those
hundreds Of thousands of books. written in the
interest of those same classes, Goes it not all 20
to swell that aristecracy of wealth. While this
aristocracy is growing, are the Georges obvous
of the fact that the iaboring classes, in which
they manifest SO much interest, are, to large
extent, spending their time, and what little
means they can gather together between the
times of visiting the saloons, cigar stands, base
ball parks and other places of amusements that
call them away from the legitimate pur
suits cf lfe and to pursue which
would remove that which ''fosters the vice that
is born of .want2" If not oblivous to all this
what are they doing or saying to in ace those
people to reform, and go to work and DO what
their duty to their families, and to the couimu-
nifty requires of them to dos Do they not SEQ
the continual growth of that arstecracy, as it is
fed by the earnings of that aboring class, in the
propretors Of all those places of resort. aud.
correspOndingly, hear the complaint of hard
times grow louder and louder. while '.the strug
gle for mere existence grows more and more in
tense2'
Or do they propose to play the arrant dema-
gogue in arraigning our government for She sins
that lay at the feet Of that class for which they
affect SO much solictudea
More and more children mustgo to work before
they have HAD time to play" There is no other
alternative, Dir. George, if their fathers spend
their time in idleness and debauchery, and do
not support those children and their mothers
Yes. yes, let tiem go out into the streets and
alleys among the slums to play instead of being
kept at home and taught the q, b and Of labor,
the prerequisite OF all legitimate requirements of
life. There they will be taking lessons
of older ones, who have already
become initiated into those vices
of the slums and graduating into the company
of dime novels and the like, they will soon find
themselves in love with and patrcnizing all the
amusements OF the period. and within their
reach; and entirely ignorant OF and loathng
the duties necessary to self support. This is no
fancy picture. bat the picture OF rnultitudes upon
multitudes. Then why the wonder that linen
who don't get vito arc increasing more and
more. and women who wait in vain for a hus
n:naYe While he haa THIS grown mn. aow can