Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1919-12-05
POWERFUL SERMON
"UNTHRIFT HABIT

| Ninety cipnt per cent OF tne American
people are living from day to day on
their wages, and loss of employment
would mean pauperism for all but two
per cent.
Fewer than 100000 American
families own their own homes, 2,000,-
900 are carrying mortgages, and IL :
0OO,0O0 are renters. Every seven
years, one-third of the population of
the city of New York applies for
charity One person in every ten who
dies in our large cities is buried in a
pauper's grave.
These figures are from Government
statistics. They are a terrifying
story of poverty. Surgeon General
Gorgas, who made the Canal Zone
habitable, said in public address
Physicians have located the great
cause Of general i'll health in poverty.
Poverty is here directly attributable
by an eminent authority to the great
American habit of unthrift.
Poverty means dirt. Cleanliness
is a luxury. 1t demands leisure, peace
of mind, hot water, soap, bath tub and
good plumbing. The very poor cannot
be clean, and filth and dirt mean i'll
health, consumption and pauper's
grave.
Teach the people thrift. Teach them
to lay aside a part of their savings
Teach them to have thought of the
morrow. Teach them to eschew sos
hats, $50 shoes and 5000 coats off
wages that cannot warrant these
things.
Teach them not to be spendthrifts
and MASTERS for the ultimate lot of
the spendthrift and the waster is to
be at So years of age one of that
81 out of every 100, in part or in
whole, dependent upon kindred,
friends or the public for the bread
they eat, for the clothing they wear,
for the roof under which they find
shelter. Poverty is ignorance, and
ignorance is poverty. They are twin
calamities. They mean criminalty.
Go to the penitentiaries and there
study the inmates. There you will find
the havoc that ignorance and poverty
work upon mankind.
Poverty peoples the pauper asylums
the poor houses, the insane asylums,
the houses of correction, the reform
atories and other places of public
detention.
More than 100000 people, over
ten years of age, in America cannot
read the daily newspaper. There is
still with US the astounding 24.6 per
cent of American drafted men in the
late war who were illiterate. There
is the climax in the terrifying story
of the illiterate young men between
81 and 81 all directly attributable to
the destructive habit of non-thrift in
America.
Lack of thrift is the blight of child
rem. Statistics from the health bur
eau in the city of Portland are that
5000 out of 10000 school shildren 90
to school without having enough to
eat. This is in a city with a per
capita wealth exceeded by but one or
two cities in America. The facts are
confirmed by statistics from health
bureaus in other large cities. A
starved body produces a starved brain
it destroys the power to struggle. It
undermnes the ability to think. 1t
kills the power of initiative. 1t stunts
lives and hurries on i'll health The
insufiiciently nourished child has not
the strength to resist disease.
We have here from our lack of
thrift in America these things:
1st.-Ill health, wasting disease,
and grave in the potter's field,
2nd.-Stunted lives, inefficient men,
lack of initiative, failure and a grow
ing army of the submerged, which
more and more increases ferment and
social unrest.