The Destruction of Poverty (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ...old ruts that have never led to the least possible good, but the following of which has brought ruin and desolation upon the most powerful nations, and is breeding decay in those still surviving. The germ of decadence need not find congenial soil in this country, for it is the only nation where the conditions which surround the labor question are favorable for a final solution. And it is the first time in the history of the world when labor has had opportunities to solve its own problems. It has always been the master who made terms with his servants, now there are no servants. The hands of labor are not paralyzed in this country, for here a working man may hold up his head and look squarely at the sun. If he looks down, and his glance is furtive and he shambles along with the gait of a peon, it is because he feels still clinging to him the dead and useless barnacles of the effete, decaying systems of the old world. All these were stricken from his limbs when the tocsin of Liberty and Independence sounded upon "Liberty Bell," but the shadow of the burden which paralyzed the limbs of his predecessors still haunts him; he cannot realize the fact that he is free, and he fears to move lest the old lash come down upon his back to tell him that his freedom is a myth. There need be no apotheosis of labor, there can be none here, for the rights of labor are not superior to all other equal rights, but its equal rights must be maintained. There is life in maintaining the equilibrium, death in its disturbance. That is why there are paupers, poverty and starvation. Capital has thrown our social relations out of balance and labor does not know how to restore the equilibrium, so it attempts to undermine it. No one but a boor or a...