The why of poverty

Front matter

o

From the collection of Julius Doer ner, Chicago Purchased, 1918.

•339

Introduction

The most troublesome element of the social problem on its economic side is the element of poverty. All other questions at the present time seem to radiate from this as their common center. Every scheme for reform seems to have this for its ultimate end, — to relieve poverty. Poverty makes men restless, it makes them envious, it makes them desperate. And there is poverty in our land, hard, grinding poverty, notwithstanding the fact that the nation as a whole is growing richer at the rate of more than a billion dollars annually. Periodically there sweeps over the country a wave of hard times and thousands of struggling workers are almost swallowed up in its resistless flood. Even during what we call easy times there are many who must battle night and day to keep the wolf from the door. Multitudes of families know nothing of luxury,

The Why of Poverty.

and not a few are strangers to even the comforts and decencies of life. Children are reared amid squalor and filth unfit for animals. Women wear out their lives toiling for a mere pittance. Hungry ones long in vain for nourishing food ; and weary ones are spurred on to their toil by the knowledge that rest means starvation.

These weary ones look across the way and see their neighbors living in plenty, who apparently toil no harder than they. The sight fills them with discontent; for they feel sure that something is wrong with the world in which they live. Wealth is certainly very unequally distributed. The fact is patent to all, and the question naturally arises, — What is the cause of this inequality? Who is responsible for the fact that one man has enough and to spare while his brother man perishes with hunger? Is it the fault of existing social systems, or of the wickedness of individual men and women, or of an unequal Providence?

This is a vital question. It strikes at the tap-root of the social problem in its broadest outlook. In the cause of an evil lies the secret of its cure. Therefore the first step towards the cure of poverty must be the discovery of the causes of poverty.

Most men are ready to lay the blame for every evil and for every misfortune which they suffer upon others, whether they have sufficient

Introduction.

reason to do so or not. The poor are apt to say that their condition is the result of adverse circumstances. They accuse their wealthier neighbors of dishonesty and extortion. They murmur against the peculiar difficulties and adversities which Providence has placed in their pathway. The writings and speeches of radical socialists abound in denunciations of all who have succeeded in accumulating large fortunes. Without discrimination they are branded as robbers of the poor, oppressors of the weak, enemies of honest toil ; and the poor are led to believe that the property of every rich man represents a certain amount of wealth stolen directly from them. On the other hand, how often we hear the wealthy and comfortable ones speaking contemptuously of the poor as the miserable and pitiable victims of their own ignorance or lack of thrift. They say that all who suffer are themselves to blame. They are idle, careless, improvident, immoral, and much more of the same sort.

Such sweeping denunciations on either side are unjust, and most frequently they are the utterance of those who know but little as to the actual truth involved. Worse than all, they do not help in the smallest degree to relieve existing difficulties or to prepare the way for better things in future. Quite the contrary. They intensify all feelings of hostility and drive men farther apart than ever, thus

The Why of Poverty.

causing an unreasonable and useless delay in the solution of the social problem.

In all such assertions there is a shadow of truth, a small basis of reason; and it is this element of truth that gives them power for evil. There are undoubtedly many dishonest men among the wealthy. But there are also many dishonest poor men. If some of the poor are thriftless and idle, the rich are not without their idlers and their unthrifty ones. Wealth is not proof positive of dishonesty any more than poverty is incontrovertible evidence of a lack of thrift and industry. Furthermore, if a man is poor because he has been wronged, it does not follow by any manner of necessity that he has been wronged by a rich man. Whenever, therefore, a tale of wrong and suffering comes to us, we cannot jump at once to a conclusion regarding the cause. We must investigate the matter carefully in all its bearings, before we can pronounce judgments that shall have any weight or offer advice that shall be of real service. We must first inquire who has been wronged. We must find out to what extent he has been wronged. Then we must ask who has wronged him. Is he really wronged at all? Or is he simply unfortunate ? Has he been wronged by others or by himself? Is his unhappy condition the result of his own ignorance, selfishness, obstinacy? Or has he been the

Introduction.

n helpless victim of a partial Providence or an unequal system of distribution? That a person is wronged implies injustice on the part of some one. That which is wrong when suffered cannot be right when committed. It may be himself, or it may be another, that has done the wrong. Wherever the wrong lies, we must trace it and remove it. Otherwise we may not hope to remove its results.

As we study the conditions of American society one fact impresses itself upon us almost immediately, namely, that the poor of cur land do not belong to any particular class, nor can they be said to form a distinct class of themselvesj This fact should be emphasized, for it is significant. Many associate poverty with toil, and talk about “ poor working people/’ Others speak of the “ poor classes,” and the “ wealthy classes,” as though there are some distinct line drawn between them. Now, however this may be in other lands, it is not so in our own America. Our poor are not a separate class, nor are they all working people. Many of the hardest workers in the land are among the so-called wealthy classes. The thousands of poor people in our great cities and elsewhere are in the main so many distinct and wholly unrelated units. They are not connected by ties of class or heredity. The poor man of to-day is the son of yesterday’s millionaire, and his son will probably be the

The Why of Poverty.

capitalist of to-morrow. The rotation “ from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves in three generations ” is no myth, but a common occurrence in American society. Furthermore, the man who now complains of poverty but a few years ago stood side by side with his rich neighbor in school, in the work-shop, or in the counting-house. Then there was no appreciable difference in their wealth. They began life at practically the same point ; but their paths diverged. No candid student, therefore, can justly connect poverty and labor as though there were some natural relation between the two.

To connect poverty with progress, as though the latter were cause and the former effect, is equally unjust. The assumption that poverty increases as a consequence of the material progress of society is utterly false, not to say foolish. The countries of the Old World have made great material progress during the past few centuries, and poverty has not increased. On the contrary, the most carefully collected statistics and the most thoroughly sifted facts prove that poverty and pauperism have decreased in modern times. In England the number of paupers to-day is less than one-half as great in proportion to the entire population of the country as it was in the seventeenth century. Even the casual reader of history cannot be ignorant of the fact.that in England and France the condition of the poorer people has

Introduction.

been constantly improving for two hundred years. In our own land the condition of things is vastly better than in any country of Europe. We must take into account the enormous increase in our population during the present century, and it would be difficult to prove that the proportion of poverty is any greater than in the early days of our national existence. One thing is certain; the average earnings of laboring men are rapidly increasing, and every year the manual laborers are securing a larger share of the profits of production. The truth of this statement may be easily verified by any intelligent person who will take the trouble to consult the facts within the range of his own observation.

The writer of Progress and Poverty brings before us, as an illustration of his pet theory, the growth of a new state like California, and says that in the early days of its history, before the resources of the State began to be developed, there was no appreciable poverty within her borders; but with the building of railroads and the development of the wonderful resources of the State poverty appears. Therefore, — the material progress of the State is the cause of the poverty of some of its inhabitants!

Such a conclusion, though widely accepted, is a palpable non sequitur . To use a technical phrase of the schools, it is “ mistaking ante-

The Why of Poverty.

cedent coincidence for cause.” As well might we say that because Mr. Jones died on the very day when Mr. Smith was married, therefore, Mr. Smith’s marriage was the cause of Mr. Jones’ death, or vice versa. Before the resources of California were developed and railroads built, only men of energy or of some wealth could obtain a settlement in the state but with social development and improved facilities for travel multitudes have flocked in, poor men as well as rich, the idle as well as the industrious, tramps and speculators as well as artisans and legitimate traders, and they have brought with them all the causes of poverty. The gravest charge that we can justly make against the material progress of the state is that it has not sufficed in every case to neutralize the real causes of poverty.

The same may be said of the country at large. Poverty exists in spite of increasing wealth. But no reasonable man can ask the question, — Why does increasing prosperity tend to make certain classes of the people poorer? Such a question is stultified by facts. Increasing prosperity does not tend to do any such thing. The question which we must ask, and which it is above all things important that we should answer, is — Why does not our marvelous national prosperity preclude the possibility of any individual cases of poverty within our borders ?

Introduction.

In asking this question, we take one thing for granted. The nation as a whole is growing richer. The poverty which causes so much trouble and complaint is individual. In other words, many individuals in the land do not share in the constantly increasing national wealth. These facts are universally acknowledged, although their significance is often misunderstood. Mr. George, in all his works, bears testimony to the material prosperity of our country, and the most radical socialistic writers do the same. In fact, this is the chief source of their grievance. If society in general were growing poorer, then there would be no cause for complaint or even for surprise that individuals are poor. But poverty is not national ; nor are all men growing poorer. The charge is made that while one portion of society is daily growing poorer, others are growing proportionately richer, day by day. It is asserted that the benefits of our increasing national wealth are shared by only a part of the people, and that those who need it most not only fail to obtain any share of it, but are actually losing that which they already possess. The truth of such a statement has been questioned, however, and the most thorough students of social economy assure us that the poor are in point of fact the greatest gainers by the country’s prosperity. But which position soever is the true one, all are agreed on the one point, — that poverty is individual.

In attempting to discover and explain the causes of poverty, modern socialists of the popular type ignore this fact. They attribute poverty to an imperfect system of social organization, and to the unequal division of the profits of labor. Now, if these were really the chief causes of poverty, we should find the ranks of the poor recruited constantly from particular classes. The demand for reform in any national or general system is always based on the assertion that it militates against particular classes in the community. Those who argue in favor of the “ Single Tax Doctrine,” say that the present system works to impoverish all who do not own land. Advocates of Protection ” and of “ Free Trade ” alike claim that the realization of their ideals would be a financial blessing to “ working men.” And so with other proposed changes ; they deal with men in classes. Since, therefore, poverty does not affect classes of men, but is wholly individual, we must seek for its causes in something wholly independent of our political or social organization. In short, we must seek for individual causes.

No one doubts that our social organization is susceptible of improvement at many points. Many are willing to acknowledge that there is a certain plausibility, to say the least, in the

Introduction.

theory of the public ownership of land, in the “ Single Tax Doctrine,” in the teachings of the “ Nationalists.” To some the notion of “ Free Trade ” is also very acceptable. In many ways it is clearly possible to bring about a more equitable distribution of the fruits of industry than is secured by existing laws and institutions. We can easily see, however, that all such changes must be very general in their results. They will, when perfect, secure absolute fairness to all the various classes of society, but they can neither prevent nor cure individual poverty. Even the absolutely equal division of the aggregate wealth of society would not accomplish that result except for a brief moment. W. H. Vanderbilt’s enormous income, divided amongst his employees, would not have added a hundred dollars each to their annual incomes. Neither would the most equitable adjustment of taxes, coupled with the fairest division of profits, increase the average income of our poorer citizens to any perceptible degree. By all means let us have these reforms, so far as they are just and right; but let us not expect too much from them. We may put them all in practice and yet find that poverty has not been cured or appreciably diminished.

During a period of excessively hot weather the entire population of a city may feel physically disordered. In addition to this general 2 i8

The Why of Poverty.

depression some individuals may have contracted distinct diseases through contagion or from some other cause. With a return of cooler weather the general tone of public health will be improved. Doubtless all will be somewhat better, but the sick ones will not be cured without special treatment and medicine suited to each disease. In like manner, while we may expect a general improvement in the conditions of society to result from improved social organization, we may hope to cure individual cases of poverty only by applying remedies that are as specific as the disease.

That there are specific or individual causes of poverty in our land, and that they are many in number and grievous in their effects, no one will have the hardihood to deny. They are apparent even to the dullest minds. Their comparative importance and extent are, however, often underestimated. They are considered of trifling significance in comparison with political systems and inequalities in the general organization of society. Popular reformers for the most part ignore these plain, prosaic facts, and go soaring off into the upper regions of theory, where they can avail themselves of the enchanting power which distance always lends to the view. Yet these commonplace facts are not so trifling and unimportant as many would have us to believe. On the contrary, they are the important facts in the

Introduction.

case. They constitute a force sufficient to vitiate whatever good results we may obtain from the best regulated system of social organization.

We need mention in this connection only a few of the more prominent among these disturbing forces by way of illustration.

First among them is the Liquor Traffic . The annual amount of this traffic is estimated at from seven to nine hundred millions of dollars . To this must be added an immense sum for indirect expense caused by the traffic, if we would measure the full power of the evil. Now the effect of this traffic upon the general wealth of the nation is not felt in any marked degree, although it diverts into useless and harmful channels a vast amount of energy that would otherwise be employed in valuable production. Neither does it perceptibly affect the original distribution of wealth among the various classes and individuals of society. It does, however, operate after the original distribution of the national wealth to entirely derange the results of that distribution, by transferring money from one individual to another without bringing any equivalent return. Thus the wealth of many individuals is diverted from its proper use and is practically consumed.

The same is true of the Tobacco Traffic. In this case the amount of wealth transferred

The Why of Poverty.

from one group of individuals in the community to another is about six hundred millions. This is a heavy tax, and one that is levied not on any particular class, but upon those individuals alone who willingly pay tribute to the tyrant.

The enormous expense attendant upon Strikes and other social disturbances, which has of late amounted to an average of ten million dollars a year in our land, is another force which draws the wages out of the pockets of individuals, leaving them impoverished while their neighbors grow rich.

A still greater amount wasted in Useless and Expensive Amusements , will account for the poverty of others who have received their fair share in the first distribution. And others scatter their earnings in general extravagance.

Another force operating in perfects harmony with those already mentioned is Speculation. In the various exchanges and stock markets of our land, more than five hundred million dollars change hands every year, representing loss on one side and gain on the other in each transaction. Closely akin to the work done in these centers is that of the Lotteries and Gambling Dens, which amounts to one or two hundred millions annually.

We say that America is growing richer at the rate of more than a billion dollars every year, and we imagine that this means a great

Introduction.

deal if we could only insure its equitable distribution. And so it does. But the few items above mentioned give a total of about two billion dollars , a sum nearly double the entire increase of wealth throughout the country. Of what avail, therefore, is the utmost care in the original distribution of this wealth, when it is to be frustrated by such overwhelming forces of disturbance after the distribution has been effected. ^

We may summarize the principal causes of rpoverty among Americans in two words — LWaste and Speculation.

Waste takes place in three ways: i. The absolute destruction of wealth, as in the case of war, riots, and the like. 2. The exchange of useful for useless commodities, illustrated in the liquor and tobacco traffic. 3. The expenditure of labor which is unproductive, which is done by all manufacturers of useless and harmful commodities.

Speculation signifies any form of trade in which profits are secured by artificial means, and without making any return in the form of productive labor.

Either of these causes would appear to be sufficient of itself to account for all the poverty in America : and when both causes are present and vigorously active, poverty should not be a matter of surprise to any one. So long as these two forces continue to work unrestrained,

The Why of Poverty.

we may increase our national wealth ten-fold, yes, a hundred-fold, and we may readjust our social system never so carefully, and there would still be poverty, as hard and as bitter as at present. The man who has a million dollars and throws it away is just as poor as the man who had only ten cents and lost it. The lottery with a large capital has as many blanks as the smaller one, and they are just as blank.

It is neither true economy nor Christian charity to help those who can help themselves. He is the truest friend to one in need, who teaches him how he may supply his own needs. A man who is poor and suffering likes to be told that some one else is to blame for his unhappy condition ; that he would be all right, if his neighbors would treat him justly, or if society were on the right basis. But the most effectual way to relieve his suffering is to show that its cause and cure lie in his own hands. This is undeniably true of the burdened thousands in our land. • All the poverty that results from causes other than the two which I have named is a mere bagatelle) If the poor people of America would with one heart and voice declare war against these personal habits and practices of evil, if they would take a firm stand against every form of waste and every custom or institution that fosters useless expenditure, poverty and suffering would disappear as if by magic. Then the weakest might laugh in the

Introduction.

face of oppression and live in comfort despite all the intrigues of their fellow-men. If we could but proclaim a determined warfare of labor against waste and speculation, we should soon cease to hear of any strife between labor and capital.

The Why of Poverty.

Chapter II. The Tribute To King Alcohol

There are two lines of approach to every problem, — the line of theory, and the line of fact. When the facts are beyond our reach, or are difficult of interpretation, theories may be very useful as aids to a final solution of the problem in hand. The astronomer, the physicist, the biologist, often make theory the stepping-stone to valuable discovery. But when facts are abundant and plain, theories are unnecessary. More than this, they often serve to mystify that which is in itself perfectly clear. They obscure the point in question by turning the mind away from the simple facts involved.

At the present time men are approaching this problem of poverty along the line of theory. They are tickling the popular imagination with high sounding schemes of social and political reform. They are searching the heavens for causes dim and distant. And all the while facts sufficient and more than sufficient for the most complete solution of the problem lie close at hand. The facts are plain, self-evident, commonplace. And for this very reason aspiring minds overlook them or treat them with contempt. But the facts remain, and while they remain no theory that ignores them will avail one iota in the solution of the problem.

Let us approach the problem along the line of facts; and let us begin with a great fact which obtrudes itself unbidden upon the notice of every student of poverty. Other causes there are and grievous, but this far surpasses them all. It is the giant evil, the Goliath more powerful for harm than all the rest of the Philistine host.

Three letters embody the secret of a large part of the want and destitution in our land. Three letters lock the door of comfort, of food, of happiness and of hope against millions of our people. Three letters contain the germ of misery unspeakable, of suffering, of wretchedness, of vice. Three letters suffice to tell us what has filled our alms-houses, pur asylums, our prisons. And those three letters spell the word — Rum.

Other evils are limited in their sphere to certain sections or classes, or at least to the individuals most directly concerned. But the evil of intemperance is universal in its effects. Go where you will, you find traces of its working. It disturbs the peace of our fairest

The Why of Poverty.

towns and villages. It invades the sanctity of our purest homes. It is constantly extending its encroachments, and striving to secure a stronger hold upon our social and political life. And wherever it comes, it dries up the fountains of wealth, it devours the fruits already garnered, it levies its tax not only upon its victims but upon their neighbors as well.

Intemperance is more rapid in its working, more far-reaching in its influence, and more terrible in its effects than any other single impoverishing force in the land. The poverty that results from strong drink is poverty intensified seven-fold. It is degradation, misery, hopelessness. War has slain its thousands; but alcohol has slain its tens of thousands. Worse than this; it has bound intolerable burdens upon millions of the living. To poverty and starvation it has added shame and disease and weakness. If many have died its willing victims, many more have been born to an inheritance of disease, and physical and mental weakness for which they are in no way responsible, but whose effects are not mitigated by their innocence. Statistics of the “ cost of intemperance ” only represent the beginnings of the cost. The almost infinite succession of wastes and losses that follow in the train of this evil can never be expressed in figures; they can never be traced by investigation ; they can only be seen and felt.

The people of the United States spend $900,- 000,000 every year for intoxicating liquors. These figures stand unchallenged, and are familiar to many readers. May they be repeated and emphasized till every intelligent person in the land shall heed them, and shall grasp something of their terrible significance. Nine hundred million dollars! Think what that means.

It means a yearly tax of nearly twenty dollars each for every man, woman and child in this country; which sum must be paid out of the earnings of honest industry.

It means a comfortable livelihood for at least one million families swallowed up in this awful whirlpool.

It means the food and clothing %and comfortable homes of thousands upon thousands of the wives and children of working men exchanged for beggary and rags and hovels.

It means a disturbance of the equilibrium of wealth too great to be balanced by any artificial means, a cancer in our social and economic life that can be cured only by being removed.

If our national congress were to appropriate one-tenth of this sum, or even one-hundredth, for some useless expenditure, it would raise a hue and cry in every part of the land, and political orators would never tire of repeating the story. If such a tax as this were levied even for educational purposes, or for

The Why of Poverty.

some other object equally worthy, it would be denounced as oppression, and men would rebel against it. We should hear of indignation meetings, of caucuses; yes, fortunate if we did not hear of mobs and riots and violence. And most certainly active and efficient measures would be taken to prevent such legislation in future.

But when the stupendous facts of the drink habit and its results are published the people are indifferent and soon grow weary of hearing them. Instead of rising in hot indignation against the evil and its abettors, they vent their wrath upon those who are trying to expose and cure it, sneering at them as fanatics and cranks, or hounding them as the enemies of the poor man’s pleasure and comfort. The poor man does not wish to be told that his own intemperate habits are the cause of his poverty. He would rather shut his eyes to the self-evident facts, and listen to some specious theory by which the blame could be laid on other shoulders. It is a salve to his conscience, an anesthetic to his wounded manhood; but it does not relieve his distress nor feed his starving family.

Thousands upon thousands of the ragged ones who murmur against God and their fellow-men, who talk about oppression and injustice, owe their poverty to drunkenness, and to that alone.

“ ’Tis true, ’tis pity ; and pity ’tis, ’tis true.”

The half has never been told, nor can be. Nothing could be more pertinent to the subject in hand. Until we meet and successfully cope with the facts involved in this old and commonplace story, there is little use in seeking deeper for causes or inventing new theories for cure.

Not seldom are new theories propounded and new economic systems advocated for the simple purpose of turning the public mind from this great evil, and obscuring its direct relation to the problem of poverty. Those who draw large revenues from this blood-tax, or whose livelihood is derived from the traffic in strong drink, pose as the champions of the oppressed, the friends of the poor and downtrodden. None more ready than they to talk about the injustice of any and every existing social system, if by this means they can blind the eyes of their patrons while they pick their pockets. It is for this reason that socialistic movements, strikes, riots, and other like disturbances, emanate in the great majority of cases from the saloons. Here discontent is fomented and the wildest schemes are formed.