Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1905-07-11
ANOTHER REMEDY FOR
PRESENT RECOGNIZED ILLS
BY Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow.

At the Cincinnati Vine Street Congregational church
the pastor, Herbert S. Bigelow, commented on DR.. Wash
ington Gladden's plan Of spending a million dollars. He
said in part:
"Dr. Washington GLADDEN. says that If he had a million
dollars he would spend it on a church, bath houses, free
concerts, a sanitarium for consumptives and model tene-
ment houses for the poor. He rules out charity, yet these
things are after all charities, though less harmful than
mere aims giving.
as DIR. Gladden's advice the best that can be given
to the man with the million? It may be, but it does not
seem to me to be the highest. There is, ! believe, another
way by which a man with a million might become a great
benefactor.
Beneath all these proposed charities lies the problem
Of poverty. I would spend my million teaching the peo'
pie the political causes of poverty and helping them to
organize politically for the %eradiction of those causes.
What kind of a social order is this, that it should seem a
beautiful or a good thing for one man to provide for an
other a church or a bath, or a concert, or a hospital
Dr. a model tenement? DR.. GLADDEN. and | want to main.
tain our own church; we want to pay for what we get
whether 1t be concert or hospital service; and we do not
want to live even in a model tenement.
He is Sick Of Doctoring Symptoms.
Last week received a letter from a Brooklyn
preacher which contained this sentence: I am growing
to be less interested in doctoring the symptoms of social
Ills and more interested in going to the roots of the trou-
Die. To get people interested in political activity is
clearly to me a more economical use of ones energies
Il agree with that preacher. The problem is, how
to spend our million dollars, or our talents, or the working
years that are ahead of us so as most speedily and surely
o bring the people into that condition in which they will
not have any need of charity, not even the charity of bath
houses and model tenements and free concerts.
Il would begin first of all by sending our crusaders
who, by pen and voice, and organization, would teach
people to get the initiative and referendum, that is, the
constitutional right, in city, county or state, by a petition
If a reasonable number of the voters to compel the sub
mission to the people of any law, and the enactment of
any law which receives the support of the majority.
Portland Points the Way to Do It.
in Portland, Oregon, the other day, a company asked
or a telephone franchise. The council, protecting the in
erests of the old company, refused the request. The
people straightway demanded a popular vote on the ques-
ion, and by a vote of about eight thousand to four hun
lred they reversed the action of their supposed repre-,
sentatiyes.
Whenever the people have that power which they
low enjoy in the state of Oregon, they can get public
paths, if they wish them, and free concerts and hospitals,
supporting them by public money. And when they have
he intelligence to meet the expense of these products,
tut by taking, through taxation, the unearned increment
If land value. they will be in a fair way to help them
selves.
"Once headed in this direction, they will be able to
work out their social salvation, without any mans
charity"