The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-11
THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY.

A gifted social philosopher is featuring on
poverty to large audiences. Everybody en-
Joys the lectures and admires the lecturer,
but it is a question whether social science IS
advanced by the entertainment Without
disparagement to Dr. McGlynn it may be
said that neither his facts nor his theories
are new and that he suggests nothing prac-
tieal by way of cure for the undoubted evils
which he deplores.
Like Henry George, the Rev. Hugh Pen
teeOst and other philosophers OF their
school he takes as his text the inequality of
fortunes, and intimates that certain modlh-
cations of the laws and uSages of modern
society would tend to place all mankind on
a dead level. Were it not for disabilities
under which certain classes labor, he holds
that there would be no poor and no rich,
and that everybody would have enough and
no more; and as poverty is the chief
source of crime, he appears to think that
the fruit of the reforms he urges would be
so general return to virtue among the
masses that criminal courts. prisons and
police might either be abolished or might
be largely reduced. In other words, his
idea is that the obvious evils of modern
society are OF our own making and that II
we would undo our mistakes the golden age
would return to bless mankind.
1t might be a sufficient answer to all this
to ask the reformers to put their finger speci-
fcally on the laws and the customs which
thew want abolished. 1t is not fair to
arraign our social system in general terms
without defining its weak spots. This the
latter-day philosophers do not attempt.
They merely say, as Carlyle, Kingsley and
Proudhon said a generation ago, that pretty
much everything that is is wrong, and that
if we overthrow all existing institutions
and repeal all existing laws, the chaotic
condition which would result would be an
improvement on things as they are. So it
might, but it might not; and 50 long as
there is q doubt on the subject reasonable
people will not embark on an iconoclastic
crusade simply because certain theOriZers
recommend the experiment.
The flaw in the argument of modern So
cialists of the Pentecost school is that they
ignore the innate irregularity between man
and man. Except as to political rights,
men are not born equal. On the contrary,
they are born very unequal. One is born
bright and clearheaded, another dull and
obtuse; one is born industrious, another
lazy; one is imbued with honesty from his
birth, another is a born knaye; one is born
brave, another q coward; one IS perseYer-
ing, another is easily discouraged; one is
farsighted, another can see nothing beyond
his nose. And no education can eradicate
these innate distinguishing traits. School
ing will not make q dulard smart, nor Will
it Undue the laggard with push and
tenacity. 1t may temper faults, but 1t can
not wholly efface them. Hence each gener-
alton Of men which grows up is composed
of individuals who differ from each other
in all the attributes which go to secure
success in life. Those differences naturally
shape their respective careers. The man
who is born bright, energetic, industrious,
perseYering, farseeing and honest becomes
a prominent and wealthy citizen; while the
one who is born stupid, lazy, torpid, dull
and roguish as surely grayitates to the
lower levels Of society and joins the ranks
of the poor and the useless.
In order to get us all On the same level.
so that none shall be rich and none poor,
DR.. McGlynn must begin by making all in
fants congenitally equal, both in body and
mind and that, we apprehend, he will find
a rather difficult task. If he can show that
any law of the State or the nation operates
to bar the road to success to the son Of
poor man by reason Of his poverty, or to
the son of an obscure person by reason Of
his obscurity, good citizens will co-orerate
with him heartily in getting that law re-
pealed. But it has been the aim of law
makers in this country to see that no such
law gets into the statute-books, and 1t IS
believed that they have succeeded. EXpe-
rience indeed shows that they have, for
four out of FIVE of the men OF mark in the
United States have won their station in
spite Of poverty, aud sometimes in spite of
defects of early education.
Notwithstanding all that is said by these
latter-day philosophers, it is fact that, so
far as this country is concerned at all
events, poverty is ON the decline, and that
each generation enjoys more of the COM
forts Of life and of the blessings of civil
ization than its predecessor did. That fact
the philosophers win discover If they read
history in candid spirit. When they do,
they will have to admit that there are ex-
tenuating circumstances which may be
pleaded in reply to the indictment they
bring against modern society