The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-10-12
ECONOMY IN USE OF MONEY.
We Are Educated tn the Point OF
Wanting Much.

Bishop Haygood. in the Independent.
The Southern negro is now furnishing an
object lesson and Illustration of what is
here set forth. He is now at the point of
greatest trial; freedom and the degree and
kind of education he has received have in
creased his wants much faster than they
have developed earning capacity, and his
great
pated and partially educated negro is felt
IN large measure by the people of every CIV
i in conntry-nost of all in America. For
the whole genius of American life develops
wants faster than ii does ability, in nor
NAL way, TO supply them.
There are other elements that enter into
our national and social life and breed in US
growing discomfort
The social order is such that from the very
the rich.
The French peasants, at the close of the
war with Germany, showed that they had
more ready money than any people of
son to believe that the French peasant or
artisan does more work than his Ameri-
earns less; our wages, with or without the
tariff are better. But the F'renchman has
money laid by at the end of the year; the
American is generally in debt.
The F'renchman saves more, the differ
ence being largely in the cost of living
the French, family is trained to want
less and to be content with less. The best
dress of the Americans wife will clothe
the Frenchman's family for a year. In
Qlfference
bill will buy all the food the French fam
lily does not produce. The French woman
wears a wooden shoe. costing little and
wearing a long time. neighbor of this
wrlter-he will not see this; he cannot
ahord the Independent-with an expensive
family, small income and house rent to
for his fourteen-year-oldd daughter. In six
weeks she will want another pair of the
same sort; her school romping will knock
the tender thing to pieces directly; and
that family do not take care of anything
they puy. yet are always complaining OF
On an income of 5000 year they want
1890 worth of such things as rich people
nave. The daughter of a rich man going to
the same school wears such shoe, And
cannot have six-dollar hat-nearly half
what her father earns by his weeks work.
His family earn nothing and want to hire
a cook The full list of illustrations would
fill book
Should this American workman have put
It is not the custom of this country; but il
he had not been enslaved by the shoddy
feeling that he must initiate rich people, he
money and more substantial in it's make
up-for her sake, If not for his own. He is
training her to want more than her future
husband can afford, unless in the social lot
terry she should marry rich"
Our American life is a sort of lottery.
np n T o Trev som was brought
drew canal boat and became President of
the United States. But when one loses his
money in a lottery he should not complain
The French woman and her daughters go
TO the village fair or church neatly but
cheaply dressed. They are not embarrassed
when they pass in the streets or aisles of
the church the wives and daughters of the
rich who have sense enough not to make
the church a display place for finery. 1t is
not expected of this Frenchwoman and her
daughters to dress like the rich; they would
be suspected if they did,. The Americans
wife and daughters may go TO the fair or
the chuch in plain attire but it hurts them;
and they will not If they can help il. And
many rich people give them wide room and
do not know them. The wrong and silly
feeling is equal in both cases; the new rich
are conceited: the poor, wanting to be like
the rich, sensitive.
AS a people we have just education enough
to want more than we can earn, not enough
to be "contented with such things as we
have"
Law, organizations. strikes. force. will
never correct these evils; whether they will
ever be corrected some wise people ques-
ton. But 1t does seem that more and bet
ter education, the bitter experience that
follows thwarted vanity, the horrors and
hells of debt, and the prevalence of Chris
tianity will make our national life better
than it is.
If nOt-after us the deluge