The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-04-07
THE VIRTUES OF Misery.

uC HppCdI W lNcdSOu COu LIS
the following sensible reflections:
If everybody were frugal-living on
| the very least poSSible-hOW could the
weird progress? Suppose every man
would live in an old shanty, dress in
the cheapest, coarSeSt cloth, do with
out coffee, tea. sugar, tobacco, Whis-
key, white flour; never go to any en-
| tertainmcHt or use railroads, teie-
graph, or any machinery except the
crudeSt kind-wllat kind OF a world
would it be? What would the people
who now produce these things does
pecialy city people vino do not pro-
ducc food or material Of any kind for
clothing and shelter! Yet people are
told they live too fast! Yes, few
worthless idlers do, bat the producers
| do not live we'll enough
This is very proper and right.
Every now and then We hear some
shallow ated man urging that pres
ent conditions are necessary and
natural-that prosperity is a false
state and that poverty, restitution,
and wretchedness are proper condi-
tions of the human family. And they
will tell you that in the Twin Cities,
for ms tance. when real estate has al
most no value, it is a proper rebound
from what they Call a wrong condi-
| ton, when every man could find work
and there was money enough for every
| one. This is the shallowest of shall
| lownesSes, and marks a very ignorant
mind in the man who uses such an
argument. Ever since the white set
Elements began in the Seven
teeth century along the coast Of
America, there has proceeded the
most extraordinary development
| in this country that the world
| has ever seen. 1t has been the case
Of continent populating, with its
UverlloWings, still larger continent;
and this under the stimulus Of the
| highest material civilization ever
known in the world. Steam and
electricity have been harnessed to the
chariot Of man, and the white race
| has multiplied IN numbers at a rate
OF which the past history of mankind
affords no parallel. In little more
than a century population has adj
vanced from the Atlantic to the Paci-
| fic. And this populat ion has been in
dustrious, enterprising and inteHi-
| gent. The vast forests, which once
covered the land from the Atlantic
Coast to the Mississippi River, have
| been cut down; the wilderness has
been subdued and turned into gar
den Of fertility; mighty cities and
CONFERENCE.-The have sprung up
where the buffalo once ranged; the
former savage Inhabitants Of the
country have teen rolled away from
the face OF the earth, as if God had
no further use for them. Under
| these circumstances, when untiring
| industry has co-operated with bound-
| less fertility and unlimited resources
it would seem as if universal proSper
| ity should be the rule Of all who dwell
on the continent. On the contrary
Europe, 10y its brutalized and opprcs.
| siye systems has reached over and
dragged our country down into misery
and bankruptcy; and when we com
plain, men tells us that that misery
and bankruptcy are the natural! and
| ineyita BILE conditions to which man
must be reduced. We protest agains t
it; We protest against any system
which drives the people to penurious-
ness and which makes all lie a strug-
gle to cut off the enjoymentS that
should accompany high Civiliza ton.
| America is not to blame for these
conditions; the people are not to
blame, except SO far as they have IN
| wisely followed bad counsellors.
Our misery is an exotic; it is not a
natural accompaniment OF our insti-
| buttons or our conditions. 1t is forced
upon us by demons beyond the sea,
and by the servile wrctches Of our
Atlantic Coase, who are merely their
tools and agents.
The people must study these ques-
tions, and realize how they are being
played upon by aliens and enemies.