The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1894-07-12

Another very striking fact which
must impress every earnest man ant
woman who seriously studies this grea,
question is found in the increasing
downward pressure which bears upo1
the retreating battalion. Every steI
from the independent surroundings OF
those who are able to earn an honest
living toward the ocean of hopeless ok.
istence known as the slums, robs man
OF some of his natural manly spirit and
dignity, taking from him hope, which
is Gods torch in the soul, and brings
his family into an environment which
as rule is more or less impregnated
by moral cOntagion whose deadly char
acter increases as necessity presses the
toiler nearer and nearer the precipice
which marks the line between the
poor strugglers and those who are in
the depths of the social cellar.
We find that during recent years the
slums of our great cities have, season
by season encroached upon the shelly
ing rocks where honest poverty exist.
and year by year those who have
watched current events, with an eye
single to truth and the happiness of
the people, says b. O. Flower in the
Arena, have noticed with mingled ap-
prehension and horror the giving way
OF layer after layer of that treacherous
boundary which marks the precipice
between hope and despair, between
honest, self respecting industry and
hopeless, abandoned want.
The slums-the great nurseries of
vice, crime and immortality, as they are
the reservoirs Of filth-are today many
times more pOpulous and menacing to
society than ever before. The problem
Of unlimited poverty, the very exist
9nce OF which was denied half d decade |
ago by easy going conservatism, and
which little later was sneered at as
IT little moment, has, during the past |
;hree years grown to such command
ng proportions that now it is one of
he most alarming and momentous
ssues confronting our civilization.
Only education, justice and freedom
an avert the shock and devastation of
bloody revOlutiOn-education, address
ed to the conscience of both rich and
'oor, or the awakening of the divine
n man; justice, which will be the
lower OF such an education, compel
ing the privileged class to yield what
right and just to those who have
that all may enjoy equal op-
ortunlties to earn livelihood; free
ON, which the people never can know
ntll the right to the crust of the earth
given to all Gods children by the !
BOLTON of monopoly in land, with all I
lat it implies; freedom, which further +
lore demands that the country's high ]
avs OF trade, the arterial system of
re nation, be so controlled or regu-
ted by the people that the millions of {
lrmers, miners and fruit growers of :
est and south and the communities S
other regions be not robbed of their +
srnlngs to pay dividends on stock l
hich represents four parts water to 1
1e part true value, while the real ,
ealth producer is yearly being pressed a
ward serfdom; freedom, which will c
unknown until the greatest wealth T.
'oducing nation, the land which
light be the most independent of all h
'vernments, ceases to become, year @
year more and more hopelessly t;
btor to the nations which are wealth T
'sorbers, and which, shorn of the n
'Wer to thrive by craft, would no b
niger be in position to fatten off the D
salth earning peoples. il
Kate Field says her idea of hell is the IL