The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1890-07-04
6snlus and Spirit Of AationaIIsm
An Address delivered before the LIST
Nationalist Club Of st. Paul,
BY REV. c. A. CREssY

0Cl iOuO onOuSHCS VI UIle aDloSU MINDS.
Centuries of human experience have
placed these problems before u.s. They
cannot therefore be missed as ssfads.s'
They cannot be laughed away.
Ridicule will not down them Mems
who seriously discuss these question
in public may be called fools, cranks.
alarmists, etc., but calling names is
not getting rid of the problems.
They are here confronting us at
every entrance-way along ali lines of
our future progress.
They must be settled on the basis
OF right and justice to all concerned.
Some OF the factors of these pro-
blems may be briefly outlined:
a. The rapid absorption OF our
unoccupied lands and natural re-
sources.
~ Poverty increasing on the one
hand, while wealth is enormously in
creasing ON the other.
(3) The army of the unemployed
growing larger year by year. Over
100, 900 workers in n Y. city were
tout Of work" last winter. San
Francisco had $4,000 UNEMPLOYED
men and women who asked but
could not obtain work.
az llliteracy on the increase in
many sections of the country, not
withstanding our excellent public
school system.
~ Crime and insanity increasing
in greater rates than population.
Let me give you some figures from a
competent authority:
IN 1850, with a population of
%, 100000, we had between 5000
and 1000 prisoners; in 1880, with
SO, 900, 900 population, we had S.
600 prisoners. In 1850 we bad 49,
600 insane; in 1880 we had $1,000
insane. This shows that our system
OF punishment is not preventing
crime and insanity from increasing
faster than the increase in popula-
ton. In 1880, too, there were ST.
600 homeless children, and $4,000
paupers in aims houses"
These are grave facts, and they en-
ter as serious factors into the prob
lens which face us, and which must
be speedily settled.
Let me suppose for moment that
you are philosophers, and say that
these facts are but the phenomena of
causes that lie deeper still.
l find the causes of the facts I have
mentioned in the existing Industrial
and social orders.
To say that the present established
order is the best is to ignore one of
the most emphatic lessons of history.
that the world moves along a line of
progress toward better and better
conditions.
To assume the present order to
be the best, is to put up bars against
further progress
To call the present order the best
is to stifle aspiration, kill out hope
from the great yearning heart of hui
manity, and reduce man to the aw-
full condition of absolute despair. It
needs but an intelligent considera-
ton OF the existing order to show us
that the perpetuation of the present
Industrial system is:
a. Compelling men and women.
even children, to employments for
which they have neither ability nor
taste, and for which they get no ade-
quate remuneration, besides shut
ting out from employment MANY
who would be glad to obtain it.
~ Thereby depriving them of the
happiness which proper employment
would give them.
~ Depriving children of the edu-
cation and training which their ma
ture and future relations to society
demand.
a. Engendering by forced wrong
associations moral conditions that
will be prolific of crime and pauper-
ism when these children are grown To
be men and women.
~ Society is thereby mourning
trouble and expense itself; for when
these wrong conditions have pro
duced their fruit in criminals and
paupers. society must protect itself
from the first, and disburse it's
charities" (mis-called,) to the Sec
ond, while neither measure cures the
evil.
(6) Society thereby defeats the
vClv 0Auo III WHlCA III eX1SCS VIZ: the
protection and good of all.
1t used to be customary, when we
were boys, to hear the old "chest-
nuts" continually rung, that "energv
industry and economy were the snre
roads to success" How we used to
have these notions shot at us. on
almost every occasion when "some
remarks" were in order, and, too Oft
en-, out OF the same kind of a weapon
with which Samson slew SO manv of
the Philistines. The fellows who
come round to the schools to "ad.
dress" us, were in the habit Of intro
ducing us to Ben. Franklin. going nm
one Of the streets of Phiiidelnh;a
munching his penny roll, and com,