Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1904-12-06
DIRE mANr lN NATION.


100000 Paupers.
Robert Hunter, who became promi-
nent in charity work in Chicago and re-
Gently married the daughter Of Arson
Phelps Stokes cf New York. an heiress
to millions, has written d book scoring
American miliionaires and deaouncing
the. economic conditions of the United
States. The book is entitled Poverty"
and in it AR. Hunter asserts that 10000
COO persons in this country are in want
de calls 100000 paupers and the re-
nainder wage-earners. TIE pauper de-
Ponds on public or private charity for
his sustenance. The others work. some
OF them night and day. and yet are IN
able to obtain those neeessaries which
viii permit them to maintain state of
physical efficiency.
That 10.0O0.000 of the people of the
United States are in poverty. either as
paupers or as laborers pinched by the
iron wise of necessity. Mr.. Hunter calls
to witness an array of statistics.
The number of evietions in COM
munity," he continues, is fairly good
measure of the minimum distress. In the
year 1903, 50.463 families in the borough
OF Manhattan We're evicted from their
BONES. That is about Il per cent of the
total number of families in the borough
AS another indication the number Of
pauper burials should be cited. Every
one familiar with the poor knows how
desperately they struggle to give L de
cent burial to their dead. Even the poor
est people have friends, politicians or
/ others, who save them, if possible. from
this last disgrace. And yet one out of
every ten persons who die in New York
City is buried in a potter's field. Should
| say that the number Of pauper funerals
4 does not represent half the actual dis
tress of the community"
| MI Hunter quotes reports from Off
elal sources to the effect that in 1897
and 1899 IS per cent of the inhabitants
| OF New York State were in distress.
lie declares this figure represents only
the poor who finally are helped by char
4 lty, and adds that he would not be sur
prised if the number of those in distress
IN the metropolis and in other large in
dustriai American eenters rarely fell be-
low 70 per cent of the people.
Mr.. Hunter finds in the fact that
100000 wage-earners in the United
States are out Of employment from four
TO SIX months of the year additional data
for his estimates.
He thinks that an annual income of
$500 year is the average amount on
which family of father. mother and
three children can live and keep above
the poverty line.
1T is hardly to be doubted" the so
cial agent continues, that the mass Of
unskilled laborers in the North receive
less than $460 year. and that the same
class in the South receives less than
$780,"
Mr.. Hunter declares that the condi-
tons of want are increased by the ar
rival every year of 100000 male immi-
grants, who seek work in the very dis
| trict where employment is most scarce
He declares that 100000 little children
are forced to become wage-earners in this
country when they should be in school,
and that about 100000 women find it
necessary to work, of whom 1000 600
are employed in factories ara mills
| Probably no less than 100000 work
ers are killed and injured each year while
doing their work" he says, "and about
| 100000 persons now living, il the
present ratio is kept up, will die of that
preYentable disease, tuberculosis"