The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-12-03
TEE CAUSES OF POVERTY.

In the current number of the Century
is an article by the late General Fran
els A Walker, on The Causes OF Pow
erty.' He examines the theories of pow
erty ard its remedy advanced by
George and Bellamy, and finds them
inadequate; he does not give any solu-
ton Of the problem; in fact, his article
indicates that he thought there was no
absolute solution. He assigns several
causes for poverty, but his first one. it
seems to US. may be called the first
great cause, all others being but secon-
dairy causes.
In the first place." says General
Walker. Il should without hesitation
say that easily chief among the causes
of poverty is the hard condition of the
human lot as by nature established.
The prime reason why bread must be
so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap,
is that the ratio of exchange between
the two has been fixed in the constitu-
ton OF the earth, much to the disad-
vantage of the latter. When it is
written that God cursed the ground and
babe it be unfruitful, bringing forth
eat his bread with dripping brow, the
scripture does not exceed the truth of
the unceasing and ever-painfuI struggle
for existence.
Taking It by and large, it is a hard,
cold, and cruel world, in which little
is to be got except by toll and anguish;
and OF that little not all can be kept
Inv a nv Jaor,.ae f ,or, a,,1 ,,a;,,e rTyl,a,a
are, indeed, regions where the earth
spontaneously brings forth fruit enough
for a small population. and where a
moderate effort viii largely increase
that product, while the climate is so
benign that life is easily protected from
exposure. But these are not the re-
gions where man ever has, or seemingly
ever can, become a noble being; and
even here, in the midst of tropical
plenty, the serpent stings: the tiger
prowls at night around the village; the
earthquake and the tornado work their
frightful mischief; cholera and malaria
kill their millions; while every few
years gaUnt famine stalks over the
land, leaving it numbered with corpses.
Throughout all the regions inhab
tied by our own race life is a terribly
! close and grinding struggle. From four
to seven months the earth lies locked
up in frost, and it's wretched inhabit-
ants cover over the scanty fire and try
to outlast the winter. When summer
| opens it is to a harsh soil that the peas
ant resorts to- win the means, scanty at
the best, of barely preserving life. Ster-
ility is the rule among the soils of
earth, mountain and plain alike The
exceptions are comparatively few fer
tile valleys in which are concentrated
| the productive essences OF nature The
! literature of primitive peoples is ever
! telling the story of this unceasing
wrestle with the hard conditions of ex-
istence, and the same dreary tale is re-
! peated down to our own day"
| The fourth and last cause that he as
signs is found in improvidence, lack of
thrift, or positively bad habits on the
part of the working classes. This is a
! secondary cause that crowds the first
very close, but taken with the first, as
suTes poverty every time.
Poverty can never be abolished in
this world, though it may be much les
sened, but this lessening must come
chiefly from Individual effort To do
this there must be constant economy on
! the part of those whose lot in life it
| is to labor. and that is the lot of all
! but the few. General Walker says that
we must strain out of the blood Of the
i race more of the faint inherited from q
! bad AID vicious pool before we can
/ eliminate poverty, much more pauper-
! ism, from our social life; that the scien-
/ tific treatment which is applied to ply
steal disease must be extended to men
tai and moral disease, and a wholesome
surgery and caUtery must be enforced
! by the whole power of the state for the
good Of all: that popular education
! must be made more sensible, practical
and useful: that the housewifery arts
must be taught to girls in the schools,
and there the boys must learn to use
/ hand and eye and brain in close and
vital cooperation and coordination
and when all this is done we shall still
J have to wait with patience the slow,
sure action of time, the alI-healer And
yet, when all this is done and we have
waited with patience for time to do it's
work. there will still be poverty in the
world, but not so much, and people will
! have learned better how to deal with it.