The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-02-14

dren to work or starve As these |
men grew older their families grew in |
size and demand, while their ability |
to earn decreased. The tragedy reg
istered in their pay envelopes. They
were being ground between growing
needs and diminishing wages. The
grinding not only hurt their bodies, it
furrowed their brain.
They lived in dread of poverty. 1t
had been their nurse, they feared it
would be their pallbearer. Poverty
had taken its revenge upon them.
They We're resolving that ii. they could
help it it would not put its lash upon
their children. They. knew poverty
intimately. 1t wasn't a word, a name,
it was living hateful, cruel compan-
ion. 1t was the devil that recruited
the Marys of Scarlet Hall, the Magda-
lens of the slums, and always the
army was modified from the shanties
of the poor. Children who had been
robbed of their youth, who had never
owned flower, poorly fed and mis-
| erably clad, dragged out of bed by
| alarm clocks, sounding the call to toll.
when they should have been answer
| ing the school bell, children physical
ly unfit for the breadwinner's strug-
gle, children without the moral en-
| durance necessary for the fight. were
| driven into No Woman's land, the
rotten scum under the world.
Light in Education.
Before the war men were brooding
on these things. papers, books, maya
zines mirroring life. pictured these
horrors. They were the subject of
public discussion and debate. Men re-
turning from hard days work talked
these things over with their wives aft
er the children had gone to bed, and
many a man left his supper table to
peek through the half-closed door into
the room where his kiddfes were sleep,
ing, tiptoeing back, only to look into
the eyes of a mother. and see reflected
there the fears he felt.
The invention of the typesetting ma
chine, the cheap manufacture of paper
the growth of public school systems
and public libraries, brought light t
the dark minds of the workmen. III
that light they saw more clearly theil
needs and more completely realized
their rights. 1t is the natural ambition
of man to climb. He wants to get OF
and up. Ignorance had kept him from
climbing Ignorance is darkness. Mel
stumble when they try to go forwar,
in the dark. Education is the light ii
the road. They sought to make haste
to make up for the lost time. Education
| taught them to want things for them
! selves and their families that thei
fathers and mothers never thought 0
wanting The homes which satiSfie
their parents depressed and irritate
| them The bathtub and tooth brush ar
. | acquired habits. The desire to straight
5 en- the back that has been bent in to-
[ too long, is put there by education.
D One thing stood in the way-it OF
\ structed the path upward to decen
d living. They saw the barrier clearl
2 and nctly-poyerty. They saw thi
e impossible obstacle was made out G
a poor wages They saw more. They sa'
5 that poor wages built the poorheuse
n and filed them, organized the brea
l. lines. introduced the soup house. Oh
:. of their thoughts, in their experience
st they carved a truth, las long as SON
i people have more than they can pc
n sibly use, while others through L
|, fault of their own have less than the
e absolutely need, something is wrong
e. and when the call to. arms came the:
IS thoughts were living in the mass mir
,e of the world. Many not concerned wit
b. the problem of the other seven-eighth
le knowing nothing of what was happe
Ie ing in the minds of the men az
IS women of toll and caring less thu
d did not know that these men We
n uniting and planning to tear down Il
70 wall of poverty.
<. Copyright, 1920. Western Newspaper Unio