The daily Nome industrial worker. [volume] (Nome, Alaska) 19??-1918, 1913-08-28

uutive measures are taken to cure
the poor of their disease" which is
attributed to laziness.
Under the Development of bour-
geoisdom this conception of the
poor and of poverty has also de-
veloped Every man is held to be the
architect of his own fortunes. With
energy, application and industry it
is taught and upheld that every
average man can make his way in
the world quite successfully. No
matter how the practice works out,
that is the theory, and because to-
day people accepted the theory no
matter how opposite it may be to &C
tual fact, We have charity organiza-
tons and the like, We have demands
for assistance and help and
service" mark the words, to make
the lot of the poor tolerable.
There is therefore no consistency
in r. Fulton Cutting demanding
help for the poor but there is every
consistency upon the part of the rich
in refusing to. help the poor. The
latter contend that the theory which
is accepted, namely that the
poor are poor by reason of
themselves, their laziness, their
lack of thrift, and other fail
ings which it is desirable to remedy,
shifts all responsibility from them.
They recognize no responsibility for
the poor being poor by reason of
their being exploited of the product
of their labors, and they very rightly
hold that to give charity is merely
establishing bad precedent which
encourages vagabondage, which
stimulates laziness, and encourages
thriftlessness and Incorporate
! habits. If social conditions are such
that the poor suffer. They are merely
the unfit who are being eliminated.
To this end books, pamphlets and
essays have been written showing
, how degenerating is the effect of
upon him who receives alike. Moth
ing, one will say, is SO evil as indis-
criminate giving. Therefore it is
we'll that giving be recognized for
the evil that it is.
Comes now the socialist with his
iconoclastic views and says that
neither the charity mongers nor the
rich who refuse to give are correct
officially or socially.
They hold, do the socialists, that
poverty is not a healthy condition,
but it is condition that will pre-
vail just as long as capitalism pre-
walls. 1t is due, the socialists de-
clare, to the fact that the man who
works for wages and produces every
thing is granted in return but
pittance called wages upon which he
can just feed, clothe and reproduce
the species. Sometimes this may be
above the required amount, but Just
as often it sinks below that. They
allege that of necessity since the law
of wages prevails on account of COM
petition to obtain the means of exist
| ence among the wage workers, al
ways a drug on the market and al
ways with the demand less than the
supply, periodic idleness supervenes
for millions during which time they
are suffering the most severe desti-
tuition. Winter suspension of work,
industrial depressions, financial
panics and the like are inseperabIe
from present day society, and be-
cause they are. poverty will become
periodically accumulated into the
direct want
Charity will not remedy this state
of things. Charity merely applies
a salve to the social ulcer called
poverty Often enough it encourages
poverty because those interested in
charity work profit by the work, and
naturally have no immediate con-
Germ in seeing its abolition, further
inasmuch as it tends to make the
very poor less inclined to revolt it
has an evil effect upon the social
system. The symptoms of disease,
the sickness that supervenes is
merely manifestation of the
dangerous condition of the body de-
! handing that attention be paid to
the disease itself and at once efforts
are made under scientific means to
remove thecause. All the great pro-
gress which medicine has made, has
been due to the fact that physicians
have recognized that fundamentally
no error can be grosser than to
treat symptoms and leave the cause
of those symptoms untouched.
Now that charity workers are do