Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1906-09-14

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you are drowning. How much will
you give me IL I save your" "Ten dol
Iars- 'Oh. no; that Is not enough.
You must give me your all. You must
werk for me through life. and when
you get through 1 will let you be buried
In Just the rags you have on your
back" That Is the way the capitalist
treats the poor OF our large cities.
When he sells the poor man his coal.
he sells II by the shovelful. and he
sells 1t at ruinous price. He charges
the poor man three times the price at
which he sells II by the ton to the rich
man. When he builds the poor man
his miserable howell, the capitalist
usually gets 80. 40. 90 and even 100
per cent on his money Invested. dog
or wild beast would not live ip
some OF the filthy dens in which
the poor Of New York used TO be
housed. And yet for every one of those
dark cellars and back rooms In which
the sunlight never comes the capitalist
would charge the most astounding rent
and. Ike q modern Shylock, demand
his pound of flesh, nearest to his vic
Tins heart because the poor man could
not help himself. AS Solomon said
long ago, THE destruction OF the poor
Is their poverty" They are kept poor
by being poor.
Good Tenements Wanted.
Has not the state right to step In
and demand that our capitalists shall
not build insanitary tenements for the
poor? 'Oh, no." some man says; THAT
is not right! The capitalist is not in
business for his health. He is not q
philanthropist. You cannot demand
that he will put up a building which
is to be losing investment" No, my
friends; we do not demand that, but
we do demand that the tenement build.
Ing that the capitalist erects shall bo
one with such modern improvements
as the Alfred G. Clark tenements and
the Riverside tenements OF Brooklyn
| and the Mills houses OF New York.
There must be no more such lookeries
built as the Mulberry Bends" and the
Bone Alleys" and the "Cat Alleys"
and Seven Dials" and give Points"
And. furthermore, you must remember
that when we stamp out the bad tene-
ments we do not demand a charity in
its place. Jacob Riis In one of his
books declares that every tenement
house built on the Mills plan or the
Clark plan or the Riverside plan OF
Brooklyn has given q legitimate return
for the Investment from the very start
The city poor are not paupers. They
pay enough taxes for their public
parks. aud they should have them.
They pay enough money for decent
sanitary homes. aud they should have
them also. And it is the business of
the state to see that the extortioners
hands should not be reaping an extor.
toners return for the moneys invest.
ed 60
But we must give our poor more
than clean cradles and decent homes
and sunlight We must give the chill.
dren OF our poor neighbors an educa.
ton whereby they shall be able to
work intelligently with their hands. or
else Satan vii! come I'm aud teach them
how to work In another way. In other
words. the poor must be taught how TO
earn their own living. or else they will
learn how to live upon the moneys
some one else has earned.
But we must not stop here I'm our
work among the poor. We must give
them sunlight We must open their
eyes to see and teach their hands to do.
Why a poor man wants to live In a
city is uncomfortable to me. Where
there Is work for one man In n largo
city there are five applicants for the |
position. In 1888 there were 7oOOo |
deaths In the city of London: 1o.17o |
look place Ia the public warehouses.
d,ll3 In public hospitals and $50 In pub |
TIC asylums. This made In all 1862 |
paupers who died that year In Lon |
don. In other words, at least one-fiftb
or all the people dying In London in
one year were dependent upon public
enurity. Inc records OF other cities are
only ittie better. There were over
ooo00 paupers In 1883 10 England
alone. But today one out OF every ten
persons who die In New York city ia
buried In potter's field. That means
when they die they leave not an estate
large enough even to pay for the pine
oox which covers them and the hire OF
the hearse which drags them to their
grave nor the fee OF the gravediprer
who digs the hole In which the coffin
10 lowered. One-tenth OF oil the popu.
iation which die In New York city are
buried In potter's field. Now, DR.. Bar
nardo and General William Booth in.
tenigentiy recognized these social con-
uitionss and they sent forth their colo
nists by the thousands and the tens Of
thousands
Thank God, say, for a DIR. Barnar-
DO. In the winter nights he roamed
ABOUT the London streets gathering
the raggedest and most forlorn of bows
aud girls Into his public orphanage.
but no sooner had he collected them
there than he sent them out by almost
every steamer to the farthermost colo
MES. There they were adopted. There.
amld Inc pure. sweet influence OF the
country. the boys and the girls of the
London slums became the noble Chris
tan men and women OF the farm and
country village. DR.. Bernardo saved
the man by colonizing the boy. while
General Booth sent his Salvation Ar
my soldiers into the city slums and
gatnered the men aud the women to-
setner and took them out OF their sur
and placed them upon the
farms and saved them ALSO Thus. nv
brother. you and should embrace ev-
Ely means we can find to take q bow
,r girl or man or woman out of
he oyercrowded city and send them
'at to the soil. out into the farming re-
lions. Then we are doing Gods work
ls DIR. Barnardo did 1t and William
sooth Is doing 1t today.
The Inststutionai Church. .
But we must do more than simply
olonize our boys and girls In country