Vernon Parish Democrat., 1920-04-03

dren 70 work Or starve. AS these
men grew older their families grew in
size and demand. while their ability
to earn decreased. The tragedy reg
lstered 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 were resolving that if they could
help it It would not put It's lash upon
their children. They knew poverty
Intimately. It wasn't word, a name.
1t 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 mobilized 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 can 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, maga-
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 man left his supper table to
peek through the haIf-closed door into
the room where his kiddles were Sleep
ing, tiptoeing back. only to look into
the eyes of 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 to |
the dark minds of the wOrkmen. In !
that light they saw more clearly their .
needs and more completely realized !
their rights. 1t is the natural ambition !
Of man to climb. He wants to get on T
and up. Ignorance had kept him from
climbing. Ignorance is darkness. Men
stumble when they try to go forward
IN the dark. Education is the light in
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 their +
fathers and mothers never thought of
wanting. The homes which satisfied
heir parents depressed and irritated
them. The bathtub and tooth brush are
acquired habits. The desire to straight
IN the back that has been bent in toll
90 long, is put there by education.
One thing stood In the way-it OBJ
the path upward to decent
living. They saw the barrier clearly
md distinctly--poverty. They saw this
AilpuSSdutG DllHAAGAG WAS uiduS out OF
,oor wages. They saw more. They saw
hat poor wages built the poorhouses
md filled them, organized the bread
ines. introduced the soup house. Out
# their thoughts. in their experience,
hey carved a TRUTH "As long as some
,eople have more than they can pos
IDLY use, while others through no
ault of their own have less than they
bsolutely need, something is wrong"
nd when the call to arms came these
thoughts were living in the mass, mind
f the world. Many not concerned with
he problem of the other seven-eighths,
nothing of what was happen
lg in the minds of the men and
gomen of toll. and caring less. they
id not know that these men were
hitting and planning to tear down the
yall of poverty.
Copyright. 1920. Western Newspaper Unlon)