The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-02-08
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BY Mrs. Bslvn A. Lockwood.

First-Be content with your lot! Wealth
and poverty are relative terms. The poor
farmer or miner who has enough to oat
and to wear. a wife, children and the COM
forts and love of q home. ia rich. He eats
we'll and sleeps we'll.
The millionai re or wealthy manufacturer
or stockholder, constantly petplexed by the
problom Of safely increasing his gains, fear :
ing disaster in speculation, nervous lest his
larizsd, and his life jeopardized, looking
upon all mankind as his eusmies in a way.
and from whom he must protect himself, ID
roor. His mind il too much harassed an d
his physical exercise too little to ecure
good digestion. Pampered with all the
%luxuries of life, he has no appetite, and,
lying on the most luxurious Of beds, he
cannot sleep.
second-Legislation should be such as to
impose the minimum of burdens by way OF
tariff and taxes on all of the necessaries of
life required BY the poor, and when i'm
Of the burdens of the state, the revenue
should be drawn largely from the luxurles
of life. The tendency of such legislation
will be to eaualize the possessions of the
rich and the poor.
Ihlrd-When from untoward circum-
disastrous fire, a food. a failure OF crops
and 9 famine, q town, q city or u state may
become impoverished. it becomes the dnty
OF the government to afford necessary as
sistance, not as u charity, but because gov
ernments are instituted among men for
necessary protection. The good Of the
state, as we'll as that of tho individual, re-
quires this. Not only should food and
clothing, bat paying labor be supplied. 1t
is always better to furnish employment to
persons in reduced circumstances than to
give money. When a nation or people can
succeed in Graduating it's pauper classes by
judicious legislation or moral suasion it
will also have to a very great extent got rid
Ut its criminal Glasses. Crime is very
largely the result of ignorance and pau
pcrism combined. Pauperism lisa disease,
OF becomes such in our large cities and de-
sends from mother to child. from father to
son. and il partly mental and partly phys
by the town usually become paupers in
turn, and often to the third and fourth
generation.
If the effete population of our large
cities, who fail to become ~self-supporting,
but who cling to the cities as reaches do to
the boarda of a decayed dwelling house,
could DO removed. or would remove them
selves to the country or the smaller towns,
they could readily DO supplied with fresh
air, food and work, and could easily be
made aelf-sustaining; but in the absence of
a compulsory statute they will not go. Poor
VI kAA0 ROtR0AA0 "ko AuAUAy oU01t Ill l.
featuring or mining towns, except on the
occasion of q strike or some untoward
cbullition abnormal in its nature. To OBJ
viate the latter, I would have an arbitration
board, or quasi court, to settle promptly
all difficulties arising between employer
where large numbers Of mon or women are
employed, who could consider the difficulty
promptly as soon as the disaffoction begins,
and before great lossss-often ruin is
entailed upon employer and employed,
and many times in the interest of hot
duty of an employer ia the welfare and
comfort of those under him, and he has
no right to become a millionaire on their
poorly paid labor. The greed of the en-
ployers in their haste to get rich and the
determination of those who buy to purchase
at the lowest possible price has had much
to do in grinding down the laborer. A ma
ton in prosperous only so far as every in
dividual of her commonwealth is prospered.
1t is . noticeable fact that fonr-fifths of
the criminals in our penal institutions are
men, n moro than one-half of those in
warehouses; and pauper. asylums. This
leads to another conclusion, namely, tina
the drink and tobacco habits have much to
do with the paupsrism n crime of the
country. rs much the larger portion of per-
sons addicted to these habits are men.
Both act on the, nervous c%enters, destroy
vitality and efficiency, infame passion,
weaken the intellect n consums fortunes.
They lead to pauperism and crime. The
tramps of to-day are largely the abandoned
children of criminal %parentage, who have
grown up without education or habits of
work.
Fourth-A sound currency and plenty of
the circulating medium for all of the ne
cessities OF trade and commerce have much
to do with the financial success of the bus
ness portion of a community, and this al
ways involves all of the smaller dealers and
depositors who depend upon the larger ones
in the case Of a money s%tringency. 1t would
not have taken much Of IA prophet to fore
tell that the last year would be fraught
with bank failures and financial disasters,
and that they would carry with them ruin
and disnny to many q house of heretofore
unimpeached standing. The withdrawal
of bonds from the national banks in the
payment of the public debt and the neces-
thereby has borne its legitimate results.
There is no reason why the general govern
ment itself should not issue all of the
money necessary for the use of the country
and be RESPONSIBLE for its redemption.
Fifth-Tho education of our children is,
to a very large extent, wrong, and aspe-
cially that of the female portion, and in q
large number Of instances entails upon
them poverty and misfortune. l would
have compulsory education md oompul-
sorry labor taught the child, commencing
with his seventh year. The industrial
school is undoubtedly to become the school
of the future. Both mind and body of tho
child should be cultivated, and at the on
pense of the state, as the good of the state
requires it. Every child Of the
wealth, whether Of rich or poor parents,
male or female, should be taught some
trade or profession by which ha may be
able TO earn a livelihood, and be made pro.
fcient in it. They should learn this use of
if necessary, learn the effects Of alcoholic
stimulants and narcotics on tho human
body. md that exercise only will perfect
the human syatem. The pauper is either
the incompetent man or woman, or ia n