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A NATION'S POOR.
A NATION'S POOR.
GEO. B.WATSON, Classical Department, SHAWNEE, KANSAS.
THE fear is frequently expressed that the condition of the laboring classes is daily becoming worse and that socialism in its most malignant form will soon be developed. As a matter of fact the condition of labor is better in America to day than it has ever been before in any other nation at any time. But our exceptionally rapid progress in nearly every direction demands an equally swift advancement of the laboring class in order to keep pace with the other factors of society, to maintain the proper balance; and while their lot is moderately fortunate great care should be taken to promote properly their welfare. We were once told that we were to have the poor with us always, and they are still here, but to-day the poor are not those alone who are merely objects of common charity. Our busy, practical people have already created another class of poor, a class poor not only in worldly goods, but in leisure, in amusements, in innocent enjoyments, in self-culture as well—poor in the things that make brighter side of life. This class is not the mill-stone hung about the neck of society, but its main strength and power—the soil which produces the character and rears the destiny of a nation.
The topmost branches of a tree bear a little perfect fruit, breathing the freshest air and ripening in the clearest sunlight, but the middle and lower branches are the heaviest laden; so with a nation—the few at the top represent culture, adorn society, direct its progress, and are the nearest perfect fruit, but it is the middle and lower classes, however, that yield the full harvest.
The welfare of the middle and lower classes, then, ought to be the chief care of government. Democracy is not principally concerned with the independent few but with the dependent many, and while it is not the office of government to middle with the ordinary affairs of life, it is its duty to afford advantages otherwise unattainable. Of the people only a few are
able, through their own efforts, to enjoy the greatest stores of happiness, to reach the highest culture, and since the interests of the fortunate and of the many are virtually inseparable, since the general advancement of all classes is of the greatest consequence, who will say that it is not the province of good government to become the special patron of the middle and lower classes? Not a patron, however, in the sense of giving office, nor of advancing their material interests to the detriment of other factors of society, but in the sense of conferring social elevation and culture, of affording them some of the comforts and refining luxuries of life.
The idea that government is incapable of granting such a boon is simply untenable. Government is not a mere symbol, and on the other hand it is far more than a vast police system. It has higher ends in view, and they are to yield to its people great and lasting benefits, which cannot come from individual effort. Neither will the result be social slavery or the sacrifice of individual independence. People know too well that they must work for a livelihood, and they will be no more inclined to look upon the government as a public almshouse than the parental roof. What better method then of allaying the discontent ever present among the hard-worked laboring classes can be devised than the bestowal of state patronage upon such institutions as not only our educational system, but also upon public libraries, museums, parks, theatres, art-gallaries and other sources of amusement, pleasure and profit. Suroly such gifts as these would not result in class-legislation, as such patronage would be for the people and for all the people.
It is a principle of common charity even to aid and elevate the less fortunate, and in a nation it becomes a strong element of self preservation. To seek the highest good of all is the chief object of govern-