Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-02-12
NO. 80.

into the southland, too. But there is no lack
of succor when the people know what to do
and how to do it. What is most needed to re-
lieve the immediate pressure is more efficient
organization of the forces for relief We want
more effort like that of the Salvation Army aud
the American Volunteers.
"There should be more personal application
i'll this relief work. You can have no concep.
tion of conditions until you have come into
actual touch with them. No newspaper, how
ever enterprising, can present an adequate pic.
ture to your mind If every well-to-do person
in Cleveland will, tomorrow, relieve just one
case of poverty, no poverty would exist on the
following morning. Until relief is afforded,
you do not deserve the name of Christian
community
The speaker then showed stereopticon views
from photographs taken in the poverty districts
In the course of her comments on those views,
she said that landlords should not be permitted
to collect rents for such miserable tenements as
were shown, but that they should be compelled
by municipal order to tear them down and erect
decent dwellings instead.
"The newspapers that make the contempt.
ibie assertion that no great degree of distress
exists in Cleveland should view the sights
have witnessed to-day, and they would then be
silent for shame" she said "The preachers
who, from their pulpits, inveigh against the
relief movement as an encouragement to i'm
position and promoter of pauperism should
have their chicken fxings' taken from them
until they know what it is to be really hungry,
and then they will not dwell so much Oh fine
ethical points. 1t is said these peoples mis-
fortunes are their own fault. What about the
children? What can the babes do to better
their condition? What can the mothers who
have the care of these babes do to help them
selves?"
Mrs. Cougar did not believe in placing too
vigorous restrictions on foreign immigration.
She could say with Wendell Phillips: "The
world is my country and each man my coun.
trynlan Such restriction would avail nothing
foi the poverty class" She then paid her re-
spects to the convict labor question in emphatic
language, and said that no honest American
workman could compete with prison labor at
40 cents day. She denounced the syndicate
ownership of land as step toward that land
ordism that curses European countries. 1t
was bes. to discourage English syndicates on
American soil, aud, in fact, in all foreign cap
ital
The refusal of the railroads to transport
the breadstufs donated by Western farmers to
Eastern sufferers was used as an argument in
favor of government control of railways. The
same control for steamship lines, telegraph,
etc., was also advocated The speaker also
favored municipal control of street railways
gas plants, etc.
The labor exchange plan was offered as
partial solution of the present industrial diff.
culties, and the system was explained at length.
of the exchange instead of denounc-
ing its advocates as cranks and socialists
There are more than 200 of these exchanges
now in practical operation throughout the
United States, and all are established successes.
The one at Ashtabula, the speaker said, she
lad personally investigated, and found its
and their results all that could be de-
sired. Attention was directed to the fact that
he local headquarters of the exchange are at
No. so Euclid avenue. Whenever this plan of
abor exchange should be universally adopted,
III labor organizations would cease to exist
trikes would become unknown and reign of
.ternal justice would be inaugurated.
CONCLUDED ON EDITORIAL PAGE.