The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-02-08
Written for The HELENA 1sprpEsprSr.1

I'M Wv " TOVLLl1 I3I AGOL-
e. ished? My answer would be, Strike
III at the core, and remember that that
which is superficial and proves but a
palliative, while it may Danish the question
for awhile, will never answer II. You can
give opiates to soothe the pain and benumb
the feeling of the victim Of cancer, but
that could not rave him. Nothing but the
radical exsection of the cancer can stop
its ravages. Divide up tho wealth of the
world tomorrow, giving to every man
an equal share, and by the end of 1892
there would be again q vast num-
Der of destitute, homeless. starving, auf-
fering poor. The vicious, dissoluto crimi-
nal and drunken classes will always ba
poor, and, alas! with them will suffer the
innocent victims Of their neglect or cruelty.
Poverty can be ameliorated in many ways,
the suffering of innocent victims alleviated,
employment given at fair wages to thosa
willing to work, if the classes blessed with
riches and the many employers of labor
would wake to the importance of their re-
sponsibility towards their less favored fell
low-men, and be made to feel and rea!izo
the extent OF existing poverty. But, alas!
alienation and abolition are quite different
matters. ~
All schemes and plans which aim at tho
sweeping away Of existing misery without
the renovation of the miserable Themselves
seem to those of US who have lived and
worked among them in their haunts and
homes utopian and disappointing. You
providing you have wealth aud power
enough to pull down the rotten tenements.
building in their place model lodging
: houses, turning every saloon into 4 coffee
palace, c.osing every house Of disrepute
and washing away the filth and infection.
But that will but be q change in bricks and
mortar-a r6nOvatlng OF the locality. What
of the people-the teeminR humanity Of tbs
slums-those thieves, d%runkards, ex-con-
victs, ~loafers, saloon keepers, brothel-keep-
ers, and all the women and children they
also represent?
What of them? They will have gone like
a mighty lock of rocks to make a rookery
elsewhere. You will but have moved on
the slums, not have abolished them. Sup
posing. however that you intended to allow
the Same tenants back again into the reno
waited quarters, whore better homes and
more fortunate circumstance awaited
them. In some cases they might appreoi-
ate the change and, rising from their
misery, shake off the despair that had fot-
merly made them give up trying, and make
an effort to retrieve themselves. But. alas,
those of US who know The outcast poor by
personal contact have learned that which
makes US believe that the majority would
and wretchsdness, and that before many
months filth. squalor. disorder and misery
would reign in your improved slums.
Laws! Yes, very good. 80 far as they 90,
when properly enforced. Laws can re-
strain, but they cannot reform. You eau
punish the man who misuses his wife and
starves his children, and throw him into
Jail for a long time, but meanwhile tina
starving process goes on at home. You can
compel the eriminal whom you have caught
him in crime, to break stones, build roads,
make shoes n in many ways utilize the
weary hours of his term at honest labor, but
that does not send him out into the world
any less one Of the outcast poor.
There are many good suggestions that
should undoubtedly be put into force to
ameliorate the appalling state OF things
now existing. I have myself been into
rooms where five and seven families lived
huddled together. I have visited courts,
were utterly ~disregarded and the very air
breathed pestllence. l have seen hundreds
of people who had no place of shelter
during the cold of a wintrv night but some
entryway or doorstep; and | have heard
that cry which no woman's heart can ever
1OERGG-Lue CRY OF STARVING ClllOren.
Regulations should be enforced to pre-
vent the terrible ovorotowding in the tone
,ments. The sanitary condition of things
should be improved. and it would indeed DO
a boon if work could be provided for the
many who are anxious but unable to pro-
cure employment. The awful number Of
saloons should certainly be lessened, and
ated, should be closed. Suitable night
lodgings, such as those provided in our
shelter brigade, for the many who are now
homeless and penniless, would save, ali.
how many men from reckless despair and
women from shame. Yet. when I say that
and not remove the cause, | do not wish il
inferred that they should DO left undone.
Far f,om it. The sooner they arc done the
better for the fair name of our country.
But when they are accomplished there will
still be the same question to ask and an
swer: "IIow shall W. abolish poverty?"
The answer of the Salvation army and
the nswer of the Bible. as l read: the an
swer of Christ our Savior, is this: Begin
at the heart of humanity, purify the spring
and the waters will bs clean. Bring the
living vital religion of Jesus Christ, not in
books and tracts and sermons, but lived
out in pure, self-sacrifclng lives, to bear
upon the people.
Your bread is for their body. your educa-
ton for their homes, your homes for their
living, but it ia Christ's divine touch to
their hearts that will change them and
alone enable them to profit BY these other
advantages.
We. in the Salvation army. are sending
people to live among them, who are dealing
hand to hand and heart to heart with them:
and it is u practical devotion as this
which proves to them that there is n power
in religion that can transform the life aud
the environment of their wretched circum-
stances.
We have proved in the case of thousands
OF individuals that the change of heart was
followed by change of life. ambitions, cir
o~umstances-in fact. transforming tho out
casts into good citizens and Christ honor
ing servants. If this can be achieved in in
dividnal cases multiply the agency suti-
GENTLY and it can be accomplished for the
whole. Poverty would then be driven out,
selfishness and vim, with all their attendant
c u ses, would disappear, being abolished by
the reign Of Christ, and q millennium would
dawn. %.". *E#-"~. -&r" .
XII A0 ~