Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-11
THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY.
WRITTEN FOR THE p1spAroH. ,

blamed the mason.
Thereupon, the contractor being released
and the mason summoned, the mason ad-
mitted that he did make blunder in the
laying of a stone OF two at the corner of the
house. but pleaded in extenuation that as
he was in the act of setting that course in
position, there passed along the street a
very pretty girl in a most wondrously blue
dress, and he looked away from his work for
a moment to gaze, as was natural at that
particularly azure garment and its wearer.
Accordingly, the judges sent for the girl
in the blue dress, and discharged the mason
from all guilt. Evidently the blue dress
had caused the corner of the house to fall in
pieces. But the girl, while not attempting
to deny that her dress was really blue, cast
all blame for that upon the dyer.
So the dyer was dragged into the court.
Had he, or had he not, dyed that dress into
that tint of sky and sea? Was he, or was he
not, responsible for that garment so deeply,
darkly and beautifully blue? To this cross
examination the dyer had no satisfactory
defense, and he was accordingly sentenced
to be hanged in the doorway OF the house
with the broken corner.
The police officials, however, who had
fitted the dyer with halter, came back
hastily to the judge, and declared that the
sentence was impossible. The dyer was too
long for the doorway.
every well, answered the magistrate, who
by this time had grown weary of the per-
plexities of absolute justice. ego find some
other dyer and hang him."
Real Causes Hard to Find.
IT is not only in Oriental counties that
people are easily persuaded to be satisfied
with the handiest solution of other peoples
troubles. The real causes of things are al
ways hard to find. Only the patient, and
honest, and genuinely interested ever dis
cover them. Perhaps the majority OF men
and women are like the hasty thinkers de-
rided by the Greek philosopher, who, find
ing dry stick lying at the foot of a tree, cry
"There is one of the roots!''
The real reason, for example, which lies
behind the fact of poverty-who knows what
it is? Why are some people poor and other
people rich? 1 had letter last week from O
workingman, who reminded me that "of the
entire wealth of this nation at present over
three-fifths is owned and controlled by a
little less than 35 900 people," 1t seemed to
this correspondent that in this fact lies the
secret of most of the evils of the business
and industrial world. But how. did the
25,C00 rich people come to be rich, and the
rest of us to be poor2
Some people main tain that poverty is for
say shiftlessness; others say drink. Still
others-and these stand on fairly solid
ground-say that the devil is the author of
1t. Who is to blame for the poverty of the
world, the capitalist or the laborer? The
capitalist puts the guilt upon the laborer.
The laborer, if he shares the opinions of my
correspondent, lays his troubles to the men
who have the money. My friend says:
There are two great powers that make it
all but impossible for man with limited
capital to do business under any principle at
all, to say nothing of Christian principles,
and these two powers are the landlord and
the great capitalist. These are the upper
and lower millstones between which the
small capitalist and the workingman are
ground, until the last penny is gotten that it
is possible to extort from him.
kindest Judgment the Truest.
THE truth is, however, that the kindest
Judgment of men is apt to be the truest.
Most men in decent society are fairly well.
meaning people. The majority of the $4,000
men who practically own this country are
men of ordinarily good intentions. Of
course they do not know what poverty
really means, not many of them. The SEN
sation of hunger, for instance, is one with
which they are acquainted only in literary
way. They have read about it in books.
They guess at it from the discomfort of
having dinner an hour late. But to go
hungry day after day as a good many poor
people do, actually not to have enough to
eat, the $1,000 are profoundly ignorant of
that.
Nevertheless the rich do honestly desire
to help the poor. The people who live in
the palaces are far more sorry for the poor,
than most of the discontented think. There
are not many rich men who will not at once
give thought and help to any reasonable
plan for evening up the good things OF life.
General Booth had no difficulty in getting
the great sum of money that he asked for.
The great trouble with the rich men is that
they do not know what to do. They do not
know how to set about the betterinr and
uplifting OF the submerged classes. The
problems of poverty, the problems of in
dustrial discomfort, the problems of crime
if anybody could conclusively show how
the spending of five hundred millions of
dollars would bring about solution even to
one of these hard questions, the money
would be paid in tomorrow
But these problems are thus far almost en-
tirely in the dark. Nobody knows the
answer The social economist is one of the
most important factors in tie weIl-being of
the community. If were asked to advise
a bright and thoughtful young person as to
a course of reading I would suggest list
of books dealing with the fact of poverty,
and the proposed remedies for that fearful
disease. "In Darkest England" and "How
the Other Half Lives'' would be good ones
to begin with, as showing conditions of liv-
ing Tor, rather, of starving) in New York
and London. By way of local illustration, it
would be well to make a tour of inspection
with an agent of the association for the
of the Poor. Then, after that,
Henry Georges Progress and Poverty
would show one possible way of dealing
with this evil. Lawrence Gronlund's "Co-
operative Commonwealth" would suggest
another phase of the question. Schoffie's
"Quintessence of Socialism" would be a
good book to take next. And then, say, Prof.
Ely's Social Aspects of Christianity" and
Robert Woods English Social Movements"
Whom the Studies Would Help.
ANY thoughtful young person who would
read these books would be set in direction
OF study which he would find rich in most in
teresting and uplifting reading, and which
would bring him very close to the conditions
and the needs, the distresses and the
dangers of his own time. Above all other
men, it seems to me, the managers of our
great industries and the wonderfully able
young lieutenants whom they have to carry
out their plans, ought to study sucn books
as these. They can illustrate, verify and
correct the stat ements and positions of the
books by their daily experience.
The workingmen in their unions might
both get good and do good if they would
invite to the study and discussion of these
subjects in which they are profoundly inter-
ested, men whose point of view is different
from theirs. A series of carefully studied
papers on the various phases of social econ
omy and industrial reform, followed by open