Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1905-03-03
TO BE. OR NOT TO BE.


In letter from the Springfield Republican S
London core spondent we learn that prosperity
has struck England in just about the way it
strikes America. Briefly the Republican cor
respondent informs us that in England there
are probably 100000 men, women and chill
dren Sin the tolls of hunger, cold and despair. i"
In the same letter we ale informed that the
ruling class have announced, through the pa
pers, that England is prosperous. for her vol
ume of trade was greater in 1904 than in 1903.
From book written by Jack London, en-
titled ''The People of the Abyss" we learn
that, in 1902, conditions were such that one
fourth OF England's population was condemned
to life of poverty-sucb poverty as destroys
physically, morally and mentally, and that one
in four dies on charity, and that 93S out of
every 1000 die in poverty. | may say here
that London lived among the outcasts of society,
with view to collecting truthful data
lack I.ondons book and the Republicans
letter cover the period from 1902 to 1904. In
10 2, there was trade depression, and then the
poverty of England's people was ascribed to
that cause. In 1904 trade revived, but did not
homeless people. On the contrary, the number
seems to have steadily increased, The reason
ing is that prosperity reached only the mer-
chants, stock gamblers and money changers, or
sixt y-one out of every 900.
Again referring to the Republicans letter,
find that 1000 persons walk the streets OF Lon
don every night, hungry and sneterless, the
law forbidding their sitting or lying down; that
the charities, both public and private, are taxed
beyond their capacity to relieve that in Novem-
ber of last year, there were 10000 men in the
whole kingdom unemployed. The story can
not be told, and Dantes Inferno is paradise
to the condition of Christian Epgland's poor.
Now, there is cause for all this poverty,
and it is not providential. The people have
been crowded off the ea1th. There are FL.
600, 600 acres of waste land that could be culti
waited which is held for deer parks and hunting
grounds for the so-caled nobility, and the area
of uncutivated land steadily increases, and the
number OF land owners steadily decreases, un.
til, in fact, says the writer, "a few thousand
persons own the whole" To be off the land
and without employment means the greatest
suffering for the human family to which it can !
be subjected, and, in one respect, at least, is
worse than the orthodox hell, for the orthodox |
hell furnishes heat, and England's he! does
not even supply that desirable commodity, even
though the temperature be 40 degrees below
zero, and rags are the garments and stars the |
covetlets And England had men and money !
with which to destroy the Beers, and she has
king aud princes.
Conditions are but little worse in Russia than
in England, aud the United States is making
all possible haste to get down to England's
hell In comparison, we may 6ud that London
has population of 6,ooo, 900 people, and
22o 600 hungry school children. New York
has 1900 900 people, and 100000 hungry
school children London has 200, 900 people
ont of work, and New York has $4,000. Not
a bad showing, considering that our captains
of industry" have such protection as enables
them TO keep up a bowling prosperity in the
way of selling cheap goods to England and
dear goods to Americans. According to Jew
,sh rabbi whu was recently out on lecturing
tour in the United States, conditions as bad
in NV York as in London. Count Tostoi,
the great Russian, says that the laboring