The Saint Paul globe., 1899-02-12

singing as now. We have been making vast
and continuous material progress for cen
turies past but It is the rich who have reap
ed the fruits of it; the direction OF it has
been such that the rich have generation arter
generation grown richer. and the poor by
contrast poorer
are or are noe better off than their ancestors
who lived in the Middle Ages, is, after all,
question of very secondary Importance com
pared with this: Is their existing condltlon
a good, or even tolerable one? Let us look
at this point. In the first place what would
be a fairly good condition Of the working
classes? We think this: That every man
who was willing aid able to work should be
able to obtain employment at such wages and
with such a degree of constancy as would en-
able him by judicious management to secure
for himself and those dependent upon him
sufilciency Of plain food and clothing, and a
dwelling with, say the same sanitary con-
veniences and air space per person as a
modern prison cell; and to make provisions
during Working life, of from forty to forty
Gve years. for passing the remainder OF his
Says without the necessity of hard work
not so much with a view 10 his mere personal
ease, to the contingency OF his being no
longer able to find a market for his labor, by
reason Of the physical deterioration that age
ard so many years of wear and tear must
bring.
The above, we think Is not an unreason-
ably high standard, and yet, compared with
The existing state of affairs, it sounds quite
Utopian.
II is making a liberal allowance on the
favorable side of the matter, to say that not
one in twenty of the working classes get
within the standard of comfort We have
sketched-who have always a suh1ciency OF
food and clothing, and decent and healthy
home, and who, when too old to find employ
ment in a market in which employers have
a choice of younger men, can maintain them
selves without having to seek public charity,
or becoming dependent upon relatives who,
being themselves in straitened circum-
stances, generally regard such dependence as
burden, and make it very bitter.
To one who has made a practical inveSti-
cation of the subject, the home life of a vast
number of the working classes is something
horrible-"a thing to shudder at, not to see
1t is a life that puts decency, morality and
religion, as well as physical health and COM
fort, out of the question; that degrades
and brutalizes those condemned to it that
they live, as we'll as die like the beasts that
perish. Indeed. as literal fact, the poorer
members of the working classes often fare
worse than the beasts of the field.
No doubt many who read these lines, whose
lot has been favorabiy cast. will question the
veraeity of the statements herein contained,
fer how many of those comfortably situated
ever give thought to the condition of 9TH
ers less fortunate than themselves? Let
them take trip through some of the squalid
quarters of our own city even, and they
will find ample evidence of the truth of these
facts. In every requisite of health their
dwellings are. in many instances, inferior to
most stables; we have seen piggeries In COM
parison with which the same might be said
OF them, While any owner of horses who fed
his animals as scantily OF the poor
fed would be in danger of prosecution
by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals.
While the condition does not exist to a
great extent in the Western cities and towns,
we are fast approaching the Eastern level,
which is already on q par with that of the
crowded cities Of the Old World. In a dozen
parts of New York, Chicago. Boston, Phla-
deiphia and Cincinnati: and in some one or
more low quarter of all our large manu-
featuring towns, there hundreds of houses
In which.
Packed in one reeking chamber, man,
Maid, mother and little ones lie'
Each apartment being tenanted by family
family not unfreQuently consisting of as
many as nine children.
The poverty among the working classes Is
spreading rather than abating. Among the
better-off sections of them the increasing I'LL
certainty as to regularity of employment and
the difficulty yearly becoming greater of
placing" children as they reach the age OF
going to work, is deepening the feeling OF
anxiety and discomfort.
The masses see their representatives in hoth
our state and national legislative halls ignor-
Ing every measure tending to eradicate exist
ing conditions, and championing those tend
ing TO alleviate the same in other words
measures. and they asked to believe that
this is the science Of government They are
beginning to learn. however. that the real
meaning of politics" is a struggle for the
possession of power and patronage, not the
study and practice Of the noble art of doing
the greatest good to the greatest number.
They think they see this plainly, despite all
the subterfuge resorted to for concealing 1t;
they suffer by II, and they will scarce stand
by quietly and II go on much longer.
1T is well that while We range with science
gorying in the time
City children soak and blacken soul and
sense In city slime,
There among the gloomy alleys, progress