The morning call., 1890-12-31
Should BE DONE FOR
THE POOR"


Professor Felix Adler recently delivered
lecture in New ! oTk on the conditions of
the poor and the measures that should be
en- for their relief. While the obligation
q HseYe distress through charity funds is
admitted to.rest on society at large, this
method is at best but a kind of surface
scratching: 1t does not reach the seat of
the disease. 1t simply tides the poor over
crisis, leaving them at the mercy of another.
1t does not seem to have occurred to theo-
retfcal writer's On poverty that the main
cause lies in. the unequal distribution of the
proceeds of labor. A country like the
: United States produces enough for all its
people. There should be no poverty except
in cases of inability to work from one cause
or aUother. Poverty is itself so much of a
punishment thai with reasonable encourage
ment in The way of living wages most men
and women would seek to aycid it. Pro-
: lessor Adler draws revolving picture of
?. the :lOdging-houses in certain portions of
New ork.> He describes one room, thirteen
feet square, in which seyenty-tive people of
=. both sexes find nights rest But there
were lower depths than this. There were
places where. 8 cents was charged for a
: IS aotg for night, and still others where
: for 2.cents the privilege of sit ting in a chair
could be purchased. and there were then
Others without the 2 cents who walked the
streets until taken in by the police The
Professor continues:
The restitution of families in this city followed
fist from the mania for cheapening the articles
of production. That meant a eheapening of
: labor. The ''sweat' tofiers on the East Side
worked seventeen hours day They did not
have time to eat. Similar conditions pre-
vailed among the cigar-makers, the shnt-makers
and others.
The mania for cheapening the articles of
production lies at the basis of such poverty
as is described. 1t is by cheapening arti-
cleS of production that an unequal distribu-
ton OF the proceeds of labor is effected.
When men work for bare livelihood, and
women and children are made bread-win-
ners by force Of necessity. capital gets more
than a fair. share. In all cheap countries
there is a class smaller in number, but
whose we alth IS as extreme as the poverty
OF the poor. The cheapening of production
has thrown more than fair share of the
proceeds Of industries to capital. 1t is lit
tie singular that in the face of these disclos-
ures there should be a class of political
economists who would extend the cheaper
ing process to all industries by opening our
markets to the products of industries in the
old countries, where the cheapening of
labor has been reduced to science. The
real question which determines wages in the
old countries is the cost of maintaining the
laborer in a condition of efficiency. No
hope of providing for old age is offered.
Those born to poverty must remain Ia pov-
erty. The classes who have held the labor
ing class in this condition of servitude meet
sometimes and consult as to measures to
mitigate the misery of their own victims.
But we seldom hear OF proposition to be-
gin by being Justly giving to the laborer
share OF the proceeds of industry that will
enable him to take care of himself