The advocate and Topeka tribune., 1893-06-21


yield it's natural nourishment. It
failed to consult the miners who are
numbered, and not named; and who
are driven like dumb brutes down
into the bowels of the earth to bring
forth its miserable products for the
enrichment of greedy and soulless
corporations. A few Of its witnesses,
however, have contributed thoughts
that seem sadly out of place amid the
general array of testimony. Bill Nye
states the case in this manner:
II is easy TO be happy, though poor, when
life is young and our friends are also
happy, though poor; but notice mighty
few old people who prsnoe gaily about in
poverty when the sun gets low and their
companions of the old times are chewing
the fragrant Cud Of success.
Poverty and youth and friends (in
YOUNG COUNTRY with health to flavor il all,
find many sunny day, but don't look for
them in an old mossy town, where com
parisons are used, nor when the shadows
fall to the eastward in life. Old people
who have tried TO be happy, though poor,
and to do the same on the CORY field, where
they have fought and been defeated, have
way of controlling their mirSh that is worthy
of a Scotch audience.
The following is from I. V. Pow
derly:
know of no way by which poor man
may remain happy. Some incident in the
life Of such a man may for long time
cause him to be happy, but as long as he is
poor he will have the haunting fear of want
constantly with him, and that of itself will
undermine his happiness. If man has no
education. no ambition, never mingles with
thOss who are educated, aud il he knows
nothing of what the world and society owes
to him, he may enjoy kind Of happiness
such as hog enjoys when wRllOwing in the
mire; but that is not the ideal happiness to
which we turn when the word is spoken. To
be really happy, we should be educated, re-
fined, healthy; as long as one is healthy,
want, or the fear of want, will have de-
pressing effect. The educated man realizes
that under our competitive system it is
possible for the wealthy to oppress the poor
and keep them upon the verge, Of starva-
tion; with this knowledge such man can
not enjoy happiness, for he is dependent
not upon nature or his own resources but
upon the whim or caprice of another. AS
long as we have very rich men and very
poor men the glsring inequality between
the conditions Of the two will make happi-
ness for the poor impossible. To my mind
there is no way by which poor man may
remain happy. l have mingled with the
poor all my life, and am satisfied that if
poverty and happiness could go hand-in-
hand, / would have found it somewhere dur
ing all these years Take away the sppetites,
the desires, the passions, the sympathies.
the affections and ambitions Of the poor
and you may make them happy, but then
you have Rutomsta TO deal with and not
men. The attempt to make poverty and
happiness synonymous terms must, under
existing conditions, prove abortive; and if
the system of commercislism under which
we now operate the world gives way for one
more equitable and humane, we reduce the
numbers of the very rich and very poor.
A higher education, keener realization of
the obligations and duties Of citizenship,
the taking of the control Of natural oppOr-
tunitieS from the grasp of the selfish and |
the restoration to mankind of its natural |
riRhta,- will bring us naarar 20 earthly hsnni- |