The Miller sun. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 190?-19??, 1904-12-07
DIRE WANT IN NATION.
Rob& II Hunter Says Country Has TO-.
100000 Paupers.

100000
Robert Hunter, who became promi-
nent in charity work in Chicago and re-
Gently married the daughter of Arson
Phelps Stokes of New York, an heiress
to millions, has written a book scoring
American m~illionaires and ~denouncing
the economic conditions of the United
States. The book is entitled Poverty"
and in it Mr.. Hunter asserts that 10000
600 persons in this country are in want.
He calls 1000, 900 paupers and the re-
mainder wage-earners. The pauper de-
ponds on public or private charity for
his s~ustenance. The others work, some
of them night and day, and yet are un-
able to obtain those necessaries which
will permit them to maintain a state OF
physical efficiency.
That 100000 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.
1.-The number of evictions in a COM
munity," he continues, sis a fairly good
measure of the minimum distress. In the
year 1903, 50,463 families in the borough
OF Manhattan were evicted from their
homes. That is about IA per cent of the
total number of families in the borough.
A another Indication the number of
pauper burials should be cited. Every
one familiar with the poor knows how
desperately they struggle TO give a 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. l should
say that the number of pauper. funerals
does not represent half the actual dis
tress of the community"
Mr.. Hunter quotes reports from off,
cial sources to the effect that in 1897
and 1899 rs 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
ity, and adds that he would not be sur
prised If the number of those in distress
IN the metropolis and in other large in
dustrial American centers rarely fell be-
low 20 per cent of the people.
Mr.. Hunter finds in the fact that
2,OOO,OoO wage-earners in the United
States are out of employment from four
to six months of the year additional data
Tor his estimates. e,
He thinks that an annual income of
s46O a year is the average amount on
which a family of father, mother and
three children can live and keep above
the poverty" line.
ut is hardly to be doubted" the So
cial agent continues, that the mass of
unskilled laborers in the North receive
less than $460 a year, and that the same
riass 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.
lie declares that 1,700,0 900 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 and mills.
Probably no less than 1000, 900 work.
srs are killed and injured each year while
doing their work." he says, ''and about
lO,OOO,OOO persons now living, If the
present ratio is kept up, will die of that
preventable disease, tuberculosis