The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1907-07-12
THE REAL SOURCE
Conditions of Injustice as Seen and
Analized By the Famous Author,
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Before You blame anybody for any
injustice, look into the cause of things.
In almost every country town heads of
families are blaming the shopkeepers,
the grocers and meat sellers for exor-
bitant prices demanded.
Again, rents cause citizens in all
parts of the United States to cry out
against the landlords greed.
In return the shopkeepers, the mark
ct people and the landlords complain
of unpaid bills and show books with
long accounts unsettled. And SO the
aggressive and dissatisfied thought
currents Hil the air.
Meantime few go back to the real
cause, the monopolies and trusts.
The man who sells groceries aud the
man who sells meats are not grinding
the poor the man who acts as landlord
to the people who live in tenements is
not devil going about to seek whom
he may devour.
Back of all these middlemen. who
are merely trying to make living
(like all the rest of the working world).
lies the system.
A grocer's wife, with tears in her
eyes, told me of the dissatisfaction of
their customers over the increased
prices, for which the grocers were not
responsible, and of her own dissatis-
faction at the inability of many of
their customers to pay. An hour later
a little booklet, written by a woman,
came to my hand.
quote from it. The booklet is by
Virginia M. Woodward, and is called
Parental Rights and Economic
Wrongs"
".Ihe great villiainies of life are not
individual crimes, but the results of
corrupt systems. The individual
crime only affects individuals. Its
sphere of operation and the term of
its results are limited, while the effects
of the villiainous system are constant,
reaching every individual, and gener-
ating host of supplementary evils.
1t is impossible that system founded
on injustice can work Justice, even
partially or temporarily. It can confer
benefits only by favoring some at the
expense of others, and in proportion as
the favored are few and greatly fav-
ored, the victims will be many and
greatly defrauded.
Everything man eats, wears or
uses in any way can be directly traced
back to the natural resources Of the
earth. Man can no more live without
land than he can live without air.
He may live in the fifteenth story of
city skyscraper and be ignorant of
the difference between sand and soil,
but bis existence depends absolutely
upon land as does the building in
which he lives. His food, his cloth
ing, his furniture, his tools--every-
thing whatsoever that he uses or pos
sesses comes from the soil.
"Cotton must grow and sheep must
Craze, and the leather that he uses de.
pends upon the cattle ranges. Wood
comes from the forest that no man
planted, and coal from the mines that
were stored by nature. Stone aud
brick, iron and lead, silver and gold
all come from the storehouse that no
man filed, but from which all men
must live. Take away this natural
wealth from man and what remains?
A naked, tooliess, weaponless savage
Take away absolutely from any man
the product Of land and nothing re-
mains, not even his body, for his body
is dependent upon food and water. air
and sunshine, shelter and clothing.
''All the natural wealth of the
future generations has been surrender
cd into the hands of men who have
become Eillionaires thereby
Here is the cause of all the troubles
of which the middle class people of
America complain. Not one grocer,
shopkeeper or tradesman in one hun