The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-03-09


~HARI ES DICKENS was a colorful and alb
~ sorbing writer of fiction. Consequently, IN
our interest in his remarkable capacity for por-
traying the humor and the patnos IN personal
conditions and human relationships, we ire
1uently overlook the underlying social message
IN his many and diversified writings.
It has been long recognized by socially
minded students of Dickens novels and OF con0l-
lions in England from 1880 to 1860 that Dickens
was the most important force in EngllSh htera-
ture in calling attention to the sad lot OF the
forgotten man and in demanding new zeal
for English society.
While Charles Kingsley wrote more obviously
in behalf of social reform, he had no such pop
ular following as Dickens and eXerted no sucn
influence upon England.
In Hugh Martins book on Christian Social
2efornners of the Nineteenth Century" the dis
tinguished English historian A. j. Carlyle pays
a tribute to Dickens as a social reformer, and
Mr. W. W. Crotch has given us whole volume
on Charles Dickens: Social Reformer.
To students of the social history of England
in the nineteenth century it is clear that Eng
land as we are today, was facing new era IN
civilization The old agricultural system was
breaking up, and in its place the industrial
revolution was bringing into being an urban in
dustrial culture which challenged the magma
ton and social conscience of the writer's Of that
day.
Today we find the old individualistic capital
ISM which was coming into existence in Dickens
time, inadequate to meet the needs of our times.
The novelists and statesmen of 1884 are arguing
for the necessity of a new deal to produce
better future for American society in the same
way that Dickens boldly and vigorously cham
pioned reform program in his time.
r EFT us look into the social background of
IL Dickens generation. The period from 1850
to 1910 was one characterized by the rise of the
great landlords and large estates the ousting OF
the small farmers and the building up of the
undemocratic system of English landholding.
The evicted peasants were reduced to the gross
est poverty and were only too glad to seek refuge
as servile farm laborers or as eager applicants
for employment in the new factories which were
Springng up. English farming was going
through as great a crisis as American agricul-
ture today
But much more important was the coming of
the industrial revolution which threw out of
work hundreds of thousands of handicraft work.
men and brought into existence the new empire
of machines.
Mechanical spinning. and weaving machinery
the steam engine and new methods Of making
iron and steel completely transformed industrial
England Factory workers labored from four
teen to eighteen hours day.
Huge rows of badly constructed tenements
came into being, utterly devoid of even the most
elementary comforts and sanitation They have
been hkened by English historians to rabbit
warrens." The factories employed not only men
but also women and children in large numbers
Pauper children were let out to factory own
ers and lived under conditions worse than those
of well-kept swine. The poor law" admins
tratiOn was inhuman in its operation. Debtors
we're still imprisoned. Prisons were poorly con-
structed, reeking with verrnin and their admin
iStratiOn savage and brutal. Usurers oppressed
the poor and evicted them ruthlessly from their
miserable habitationS. Educational facilities for
the poor children were few and crude, and pupils
were treated with the most unbelievable bru-
tality.
OUCH were the conditions which existed in
- England in the young manhood of Charles
Dickens. His novels were ALL in one way or an
other, eloquent protests against this inhumanity
Of man to man.
Dickens youth was designed ideally to hear
in upon his consciousness the hard lot of the
forgotten men of England in the first half of
the nineteenth century.
His father, while honest, had fallen upon I'M
happy times and was thrown into debtors
prison.
Here Dickens visited him, and was impressed
by the miseries and sufferings of English prison
life which were imposed upon ever poor but
honest victims.
On account of the intense poverty of his fam
lily, Dickens was put to work as youth pasting
labels in a warehouse where he received only IS
week.
AS DlCh6uS himself once SdlQ, KNOW LQaG
I have lounged about the street insuf1cientIy
and unsatisfactory fed. I know that but for
the mercy Of God might easily have been, for
any care that was taken of me, little robber
or a little vagabond."
IF Dickens youthful experience was calculated
l. ideally to produce a social reformer certain
OF his early professional experiences prepared
him admirably to set down the miseries of his
time in accurate and vivid fashion. He studied
shorthand and became one of the best English
newspaper reporters of his age. He possessed
something of Sinclair Lewis uncanny capacity
to observe and note down significant experiences
and situations which came within his view.
Added to these favorable conditions for the
production of a social novelist was Dickens re-
markabe stylistic power, which enabled him to
put before his reading audience in never be-
forgotten language the facts which he had as
sembled.
One Of the main sources of Dickens power
as a social novelist lay in the fact that he did
not allow his indignation to drive him into bit
ternesS of tone and thus discourage or ALLEVIATE
his readers.
Like Mr.. Roosevelt today, he approached
social problems with a loving and tender SYM
pathy and immense compassion and pity" which
enabled him TO carry his readers along with him
and to develop similar attitudes on their part.
In another way Dickens -foreShadowed the
qualities of our new deal. He did not write as
the spokesman of any particular class. He de-
sired social system which would represent a
real co-partnership Of the whole nation in
which everybody would have q square deal as
well as square meal