New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1893-06-14
AN THE SOCIAL. MAIADY.
1t is Grave and Menacing, but Not 50 Dan
gerous as Its Doctors and Drugs.
The Remedy is in the Hands Of the Victims,
Whose Wounds Are Self Inflicted,
Says Ex-senator INGALLS,.

.E7s
Says Ex-senator ingalls,.
There is no form of power SO tangible
80 substantial and palpable, SO positive
md so readily apprehended asthatw
accompanies and results from the posses
sion of money. The desire for money
is the most constant and universal pas
sion among men; not always-seldom,
perhaps-for its own sake. but for its
Consequences, its effects, what it COM
nanas and what it brings. Millions care
nothing for literary fame, for the re-
wards of ambition, tor military glory,
out everybody wants money. Manhood
disregards the joys of youth and age
sinks into apathy that is Indifferent alike
to the pleasures of love and the exulta-
tons Of success, but the need of money
survives the decay Of the faculties, and
ends only with - Money intelligent
ly employed H. Is cultivated leisure,
books, travel, music, congenial compani-
onship, art. agreeable occupation, the de-
light of the senses, the best food and APP.
parel, the comfort aud happiness of those
beloved, the felicity of >benevolence and
scharity, the relief of suffering, the power
81 doing good, skilled nurture in illness,
consolation in bereavement and superb
ority to the minor accidents of existence.
l"Old age and poverty" says Shake
speare, 'are an ill-matched pair" and at
any stage nothing is so melancholy, so
wretched and depressing, as hopeless and
helpless poverty. The man whose daily
bread for himself and his family depends
pom wages that an employer may give
OF withhold at pleasure, IS not free. The
alternative between starvation and sub
ty is something more than name, He
who depends upon the will of another
for shelter, clothing and food cannot he
| a free man in the BROAD, full meaning of
that word. Freedom does not consist in
definitions. TIE declaration that life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness are
the inalienaDle rights of every human
being makes no man independent. The
right to liberty is an empty mockery and
delusion, unless the power to be tree ex-
lists also. Freedom is merely the reno
Val OF legal restraints, the permission to
come or 90. Added, to these must be
the capacity and the opportunity, which
only exemption from the necessity of in
cessant daily labor can bring. To para
phrase Shakespeare, poverty and liberty
are an Unmatched pair. Freedom and
dependence are incompatible. The abo-
lition of poverty has been the dream of
Missionaries and the hope of philanthro-
pists from the dawn of time. In cquali-
ty of fortunes and the obvious injustice
of the unequal distribution oi wealth
among men has been the perplexity Of
philosophers. It is the unsolved enigma
Of political economy. Civilization has
10 paradox SO mysterious as the existence
Of hunger when ther2is an excess Of
food-of want in the midst of superfui-
tv. That one man should have possess
sions beyond the capacity of extrava-
gence to squander, and another, able and
willing to work, should perish for want
Of embers,ra and crust, renders soci-
ETY. unintclligible. It makes the character
of human rights logogriph. So long as
such conditions continue, the key to the
cipher in which destiny is written is not
revealed-the brotherhood of man is a
phrase; justice is a formula and the di-
vine code is illegible.
To admit that the ignorance, wretch
eClness, disease, want poverty and degra-
dation of society are inevitable and ire
mediable, is to impeach God. Torepeat
the vain and paltry expedients which the
experience of centuries has rejected as
frivolous chimeras and vagaries is to acs
knowledge that civilization is a failure
and that mans only refuge f1om the IN
tirmities and obstacles of his nature is in
barbarism, the equality Of the saYagcs,
where all fortunes and stations and con
ditions are reduced to the level Of the.
lowest by the irresistible gravitation Of
its basest appetites and the inertia of its
most groveling instincts.
If the unequal distribution Of the bur-.
dens and benefits Of society depends up
on legislation, institution and govern
ment, then under system like ours the
equilibrium should be restored. If wealth!
results from unjust laws and poverty