The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-02-28
OUR HORRIBLE CONDITION.
Something Must Be Done to Check -
Downward Tendency So Poxarf,,

Something Must Be Done to Check -
/ Downward Tendency So Powerful.
Another very striking fact which must
impress every earnest man and woman
who seriously studies this great question
Is found in the increasing downward
pressure which bears upon the retreatine
battalion. Every step from the independ-
ent surroundings of those who are able
TO earn an honest living toward the ocean
OF hopeless existence known as the slums
roos man OF some of his natural manly
spirit and dignity. taking from him hope.
whlch IS Gods torch in the soul, and
brings his family into an environment
which as rule is more or less impreg-
mated by moral contagion, whose deadly
character increases as necessity presses
the toller nearer and nearer the precipice
which marks the line between the Door
strugglers and those who are in the
depths of the social cellar.
We find that during recent years the
Sums OF our great cities have season by
season encroached upon the shelving
rocks where honest poverty exists, and
year by year those who have watched
current events, with an eye single TO
truth and the happiness of the people.
nave noticed with mingled apprehension
and horror the giving way Of layer after
layer OF that treacherous boundary
which marks the precipice between hope
and despair, between honest, self re-
specting industry and hopeless, aban
doned 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 unin
vlted poverty, the very existence of
which was denied half decade ago bv
easy going conservatism, and which a
little later was sneered at as of little mo-
ment, has during the past three wears
grown to such commanding proportions
that now it is one of the most alarming
and momentous issues confronting ou1.
civilization.
Only education, justice and freedom
can avert the shock and devastation of
bloody revolution-education addressed
to the conscience of both rich and Door.
or the awakening of the divine in man;
Justice, which will be the flower of such
an education, compelling the privileged
class to yield what is right and Just to
those who have suffered, that all may
enjoy equal opportunities to earn live
ihood; freedom, which the people never
can know until the right to the crust of
the earth is given to all Gods children
by the abolition Of monopoly in land,
with all that it implies; freedom, which
furthermore demands that the coun-
try's highways of trade, the arterial
system of the nation, be so controlled
or regulated by the people that the
millions Of farmers, miners and fruit
growers of west and south and the COM
munities of other regions be not robbed
of their earnings to pay dividends on
stock which represents four parts water
to one part true value, while the real
wealth producer is yearly being pressed
toward serfdom; freedom, which will
be unknown until the greatest wealth
producing nation, the land which might
be the most Independent of all govern
ments, ceases to become year by year
more and more hopelessly debtor to
the nations which are wealth absorbers.
and which, shorn Of the power to thrive,
by craft, would no longer be in position.
to fatten off the wealth earning peo-
ples.-B. 0. Flower in Arena.