The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-12-05

verSity they must necessarily want. This elucidates the problem.
 We cannot have our eyes closed to the fact that there is an intimate re- lation between housing conditions and the surrounding influences of those sections where housing conditions are becoming a problem. In the absence of legal restriction such influences with its temptation to the working people, robs the man, his wife and schildren makes them or keeps them paupers, materially and morally.
 Such influence, too, when. combin-- ed with the other influences of our so- ciaI conditions, not only keeps him poor in the real sense of the word, but in many instances degrades him to such an extent that the home has no other meaning for him but a place to prepare his meal and to shelter him at night.
 Is it any wonder, then. that we find him living in 8 cheap place that you and may condemn. It is either that he cannot afford to pay more rent Gin some places they are paying as low as $3 a month) or he thinks that any place, regardless of health and safe ty, is good enough to serve the pur- pose of shelter and of taking his meals this is his conception of homes a conception forced upon him by social
 
 terial conception of life propagated at every side about him., and by the surroundings he lives in.
 Labor Question.
 The labor conditions, especially in times of industrial stagnation with low wages relatively to the high cost of living and high rent, tend of necessity to creata sIums. The labor question is ultimately the. question of subsist- ence.
 The material existence of almost the whole Iaboring class, the daily bread so necessary to the working man, to his wife and children, is subject to the huctuation of the market.
 Merchandise is determined by the daily market value, by the supply and the demand. When merchandise is supplied too abundant1y it can easily be stored up for other times, but the worlingman. whose only means of gaining a livelihood is his labor, is forced to deliver his goods, that is his labor, at any price. regardless of what the supply and demand may be-, unless he cares to face the pros pect of starvation. Henca the ten dencfes among some workmen to un- derbid one another in times when work is slow. Hence also the decrease of wages below the barest necessities of life. The wealthy capitalist finds
  ital. He finds protection hundred fold in his capital, but the working man has little or no legal protection that would guard the income from his capital, from his daily labor, against the intruding self1shness of that low CT human nature which frequently makes a. decent subsistence for the workingrnan and his family nvxt to imp ossib1e. Here we can readily see a connection between his small week ly earnings and his rush into the cheap, crowded tenemen houses. Take opinion on what should be minimum. wage indispensabaleA for the decent subsistence of the workingman and his family. Then go to the crowded tenements, visit the low basements, go from family to family and you will be surprised how many are getting far below that which in your modest opinion is absolutely necessary for them. And yet instead of concentrat- ing our attention on the real cause we are inclined to pass 1t by, because of its delicacy and look for a cause of the workmar's miseries where cause does not exist.
 Only the other day spoke to gem tleman on this topic. ; The gentleman is well informed on general topics and is considered to be a quad-authority= on social questions. But it seems to me that his Knowledge on this topic is but a shallow structure built upon false principles of the material con- ception of life. His opinion of how the labor question should be remedied can be digested into this: Tn our modern conditions subsistence cannot increase in proportion to the increase of our population. Especially among the lower class the population is in-' creasing in geometrica1 ratio. which is much faster than the means of sub sistenee. If people increase faster than the means of subsistence they are doomed to destruction.
 Therefore, a. child born in an over populous country has no natural right to means of subsistence. A system Of relief Dis an evil because it increases the prevalent distress. The only rem edy, according to his opinion, is to re- strain the increase of population which should be done by legislation. and police control. For the rest, pow erty must be left to Itself.
 Now don't you think such teaching is an outrage on Christian sentiment ? It looks upon the poor workin ngman as one looks upon a thing that can be bought and sold in the market CT de- stroyed when it's presence is unde- sirable.
 It is by an application of such prin- cipees that men are turned into saw ages. And yet he is not alone in his views. The stage and the press are daily propogating the false theory of those who would trace mans descent to the ape. They. without realizing the consequences, seek to rob that poor workingman of the grandeur vested in him by God and make him the equal of the brute. denying him all human rights.
 Such false principles, if consistent ly carried out, must necessarily bring us to that state in which man can be treated by his fellow man as a dumb Is it any wonder, then, that we see SO many hardened and cold hearts looking at and reasoning about the miseries of the poor man but are far from helping his conditions in their own factories and mills. GA con, crete example of this .we have in the