The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1898-11-09
Heartless, but
Sure Cure for
!. Poverty

little woman. and a CHEEKY little woman:
but that day she was pale and preoccu-
pied. w,n
We talked about the weather and the
summer that is past and about Cyrano
and his nose and Glory and her parson,
and then she said:
Il wish l was good deal worse than
am or else good deal better, I'm hav-
ing such horrible time just now. There
is a haf-grown boy that haunes our
street looking for work. I've nothing for
him to do. No one seems to have any
thing for him, and this morning l saw
him stagger and sit down on M very
steps, and 1 knew he was hungry-and
he has such big helpless eyes and sucn
a pitiful puzzled kind of look-I had all
I could do to keep from running out and
giving him somthing to eat and some
decent shoes for his poor, tired feet and
some money to begin again with
why didn't you do it," asked.
The little woman's eyes grew big.
why" she said, sit wouldn't be right;
I would be encouraging pauperism The
survival Of the fittest you know. No;
mean the elimination of the unfit; that
is what my husband says it is, the elm
ination of the unfit mustn't interrupt
it. You see that poor boy is unfit, and
has haunted me all day."
And then she stopped the car to go
into big department shop to a bar
gain sale, where unfit articles of wear
ing apparel were to be eliminated this
day only at amazing reductions in
prices.
That elimination of the unfit doctrine
is beginning to percolate. For long
time it has been the sole property of the
social ethics faddists. Now the doctors
are taking it UP, and you can't read
report of physicians society in session
without seeing dozen eulogistic refer
ences to the glorious and humane doc
trine of the elimination of the unfi:
DR.. Cyrus Edison said some very in
teresting things about the same doctrine
in print the other day.
He doesn't seem to take much stock
in it.
I went to see physician who does
take stock in it, and asked him to tell
me about it,
He was delighted.
Why" he said, cts so simple That
is the beauty of it. You see we want
to evolute along the lines of perfection.
Now. that boy your friend has wor-
ried about; he can't, be perfect, and if
he's helped to grow Up and get married
his children will be more unfit than he
is. So you see we must eliminate him an
all of his kind. s,..-..
ITO do that we must do entirely away
with the free hospital idea. That's
curse
80 is the free dispensary. Any of the
new school of doctors will tell you that
'Those institutions help the unfit to
survive. A man who can't afford to pay
for hospital service is not worthy wor-
y. OO yOu CdICu IIlC
Same about schools. The public
school business is all wrong.
eff man can't afford to pay for his
children's schooling. those children
ought not to go to school. Why should
the government give every man and
woman a free education any more than
it should give them a free suit of
clothes?
Charities? All wrong-all terribly
wrong. Organized charity is the worst
of all. That puts respectable face on
what is really a very disgraceful thing.
That woman of yours in the car is primi-
tive yet; but, you see, she's learning.
"a few years ago nearly every one
would have felt as she did about that
boy; but now people are learning
learning rapidly. The public schools
stand most in the way of real growth.
They keep educating the unfit-and the
more the unfit are educated the worse
they get.
Same in medicine. It's all wrong,
keeping sickly people alive the way we
do! All wrong! The day will come
and come soon-when real humanity
will be shown by the doctors, and the
weak and diseased will die as they
ought to die
"The worlds growing-the worlds
growing! All the new schools are teach
ing these doctrines. The next genera
ton will begin to look at these things
as they should be looked at"
"And them"
"And then, in time. there will be no
more unfit" .,fit
And no more doctors?"
The enthusiastic young physician hes
itated. H..
Well" he said. e.rr
All these interesting things happened
on Wednesday Oct IL.
On Saturday, Oct Is, read in the
papers that one John Arheim, aged Is,
had died of hamilton.
He was looking for work and could
find none. .cad
So he died for want of food.
The people who knew him said he was
a good boy and an intelligent one.
His old mother is going to the island,
to the almshouse now.