Hellraisers Journal, Monday March 14, 1898
From the Salvation Army: A Picture of Poverty in America
From the Appeal to Reason of March 12, 1898:
A SHAMEFUL PICTURE.
Comrade Booth, of the Salvation Army gives us some facts that ought to make the “greatest country in the world” ashamed of itself. Read this and wonder no longer why socialism is growing:
The pauper world-there’s a world for you! A world with starvation. Then the vicious world, the gambler and the harlot. Last the criminal world-why, in this country alone there are 80,000 men and women who are behind bars. These are the three worlds in which our work lies. We have 415 different institutions, ninety of which are at work in the United States. We feed 250,000 hungry men, women and children every night and shelter 13,000 ragged men and women, of which 4,500 are in the United States. On cold nights the figures sometimes double. We give them hot and cold water with which to wash, and if the person is afflicted with those strange little pests-unknown, of course, in Denver-we furnish crematories for them. While the poor fellow is taking a bath we bake his garments, so that if he comes in 20,000 strong he goes out one single personality. In addition to this we furnish him with a rousing salvation meeting and give him something to think about. If a man falls we offer a hand to help him onto his feet again. We have sixty-nine institutions for the rescue of young girls. Talk of pity! Am I not talking to a people who are sending pity to that island Cuba? Yet in their midst they have objects of pity.
This country was stirred up by the freedom of slaves, but we offer to set free slaves far worse than the blacks. We have already secured 30,000 of such and at present the record is over 5,000 a year. We keep them four months and turn them out saved, yet we have no locks on the doors and no restraint. These girls have voluntarily come to us until our houses are crowded. After three years’ watching over these people 75 per cent have been found to remain virtuous. We can save a girl for $14! That’s the cost. Why it’s not more than some ladies give for those wonderful constructions they wear on the tops of their heads.
We have 500 ex-criminals in our care. We have eleven farm colonies and twenty-eight inquiry colonies. This is a new scheme. You have no idea how many men, women, sons and daughters disappear. When poor people come for us to find some missing relative we search for them. In this country alone there have been 1500 cases of inquiry successfully conducted.
Booth is doing grand work, but the scheme of salvation has a pitiful and fatal ending which will nullify all the work he accomplishes. Of the men he says: “We feed him, clean his clothes and give him something to think about.” Of the girls he says: “We keep them four months and then turn them out.” The army is not to blame, however, for the horde of fallen girls is so large that the shelters are kept crowded. It is because Booth is sincere in his work that I appeal to him to cease his useless task. Why try to cleanse a few drops while a whole ocean of immorality and crime is pouring from the cesspools of competition. Remove the cesspool, my friend, and then your efforts will soon cleanse forever the ocean. Socialism embraces all you would do, and more. All your work, all your prayers, as well as those of all the churches, will be as naught while our system of profit and private ownership of the necessities of the people exists. You are hewing manfully, but you are chopping at nothing but the branches. The upas tree of crime, of immorality, of degradation, will not die until you kill the roots. Strike there.
[Photograph added.]
12-Year-Old Fish Thief in Minnesota Jail
A CHILD 12 years old is in jail in Minnesota working out a fine of $25. For arson? Worse! Worse! He was guilty of catching 20 cents worth of fish out of the river because his mother and brothers and sisters were starving and his father out of work. And friend Booth wonders why Christianity doesn’t prevail under such hideous laws. The news item does not say how many fish the boy caught-simply 20 cents worth. See the commercialism in that statement? The creatures of God are not talked of for their beauty, habits, size or number, but only their “cents” worth. The bells will have to ring many a sabbath, and many a gilded sermon “talked,” to offset this one injustice of our “christian” laws.
SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
Editor: J. A. Wayland
-Mar 12, 1898
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66970306/
IMAGE
Gen William Booth, Salvation Army, Bff Eve Ns, Jan 6, 1898
https://www.newspapers.com/image/328143953/
See also:
The Salvation Army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army
William Booth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Booth
Hungry Ragged Blues – Aunt Molly Jackson