The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-12-27


season work is scarce and often men
with large families, though strong and
robust, are unable to find employment
which would secure for their families
the simplest means of subsistence.
Many are ashamed to beg, but never
too proud to work, and their pitiful
cry, Let US work so that we may be
abel to purchase food for our little
ones, and cover them with the scanti-
est clothing" is not always heard, or
needed. For these Christmas should
be made a day of joy and thanksgiv-
ing. They receive no share of the mil
lions that come from the bowels of the
snowcapped mountains, nor can they
receive any help from the immense
treasures yet to be dug from our fer
tile valleys. They do not claim it. All
they ask for is work, and if there be no
work for able and willing hands who
have families to support, they should
not be allowed to suffer from hunger
or cold. In wealthy region. where
checks from $1,000 to 100000 are daily
issued, and constantly mentioned in
slow and measured terms as matters of
ordinary occurrence, it is awful to see
a poor widow with two or more chill
dren, pale and wan. buying coal by the
pound and measuring the coarsest
food by an income of fifty cents to one
dollar a day. No more sorrowful pic
ture could be presented than that of
able bodied men, willing, seeking work,
whereby they could earn enough to buy
food for their families. The news her
aided from the coal regions of Penn
sylvania during the last two months
a state of affairs there which
is hard to realize as occurring in a
Christian country, where riches abound
and prosperity reigns. The pith of the
news, as CLEANED from the evidence,
shows a tendency throughout that re-
gion, if not the whole country, to
bring the working classes to a. point
not only where a portion of this popu-
lation could secure even dollar day
for their hard work, but where they
could secure no work for their ready,
willing and brawny hands. In the
midst of plethoric wealth. an old man
with fearful eyes and haggard face,
who spent the greater part of his life
in the airless, musty coal pits, testified
that. with his dying wife, blind mother
in-law, and hungry children, he was
elected from a wretched lodgings for
nom payment of rent. When asked
about his sickly wife, with a gloomy
look. he answered, Dead" Exposure
accelerated her death and brought
peace to her troubled soul. A widowed
whose husbands life was sac
rificed in the coal pits, testified that
her scanty earnings from scrubbing,
and that of her boys, yet in their teens,
were never paid, but entered on the
credit side of the ledger for rent due
since her husbands life was sacrificed.
Such instances show the cruelty and
tyranny of greed and avarice, and how
lard-hearted a soulless corporation can
In the far west we have not
yet come to the point where the milk
If human kindness, flowing from the
generous fountains of truly Christian
souls, is entirely dried up. We have
lot yet reached that stage in human
Misery where numberless workmen,
pleading for their little ones, ask, for
he love of God and humanity, the
of working, if only, in return,
hey receive but sufficient to keep them
above starvation point. The laboring
classes, as a rule, are thrifty and in
lustrious. In the mining regions where
is secured, the work is
steady. In the cities, during the win
err months, it is different. Men, with
arge families, and no visible means of
are idle, widowed mothers,
With helpless children, are in our midst.
The well disposed, generous and Chris
ian people can easily find many such
'ersons who are worthy of charity.
We have and it is greatly to be de-
lored, a vicious and wretched element
society who need to be restrained.
hey are on the increase and to be
ound everywhere. What is the cause?
'eople have lost faith in God, in eter-
ity, in love and justice. That living
aith of past ages is abandoned. Heav-
n and hell are mere words, and all
hey convey are relegated to the do
lain of superstition. Heaven consists
a success in money matters, and the
My hell that has infinite terror is fail
re in making money The results are
reed and selfshness, followed by num-
erless crimes.
Last week we were informed by one
{ our daily newspapers of a sad state
affairs in this city. In civilized
it is dreadful to contem-
late that murder without remorse
hould occur for the stake of a few
ollars; that houses of infamy should |
xist for the sole purpose of corrupt
lg innocent souls. There could be no |
lore sorrowful sight than the scenes
epicted by our morning contemporary,
f boys in their teens lured into the |
aunts of vice for filthy lucre. Has
come to this, that in order to pay |
hylock his pound of flesh, or 50 a day,
ur Christian representatives $40 a
lonth, besides securing enough to fur
ish fuel, food and clothing, our boys
lorals must be sacrificed by the en-
dement's and unholy embrace of
rostitutes? There could be no
-ronger condemnation of the order of
lings that exists than the plain un-
arnished narrative of the reporter. It's
fleets are far-reaching in their evil
We may vince at the
-atements made by the unfortunate
lmates of these hotbeds Of crime,
leir daily wants and efforts to supplv