But then, you see, the African doesn’t know it. Therein he is a fool.
What good does our Mumbo Jumbo, the Gold Reserve, do us? None.
But then, you see, we do not know it.
Wherein we are bigger fools than the African is.
Poverty
BY JOHN H. GIRDNER, M.D.
I HAVE just read Mr. Robert Hunter’s book entitled “Poverty.” It contains much valuable information, mostly in the form of statistics and references to other publications concerning the poor in different parts of the United States and England. It is a good book of reference; but to my mind its principal virtue is as a thought provoker. The question, “What are you going to do about poverty?” stares the reader in the face from between the lines on every page, and it haunts him after he has laid the book aside.
We of the United States are accustomed to boast of our material wealth and prosperity. When the writer or the orator wishes to wring the hearts of his audience and deceive them into the belief that ours, as conducted at present, is the very best of all governments, he draws a harrowing picture of the dreadful suffering of the poor of London; and then we pull the Stars and Stripes a little more closely about us, and, as that other Pharisee, we thank God that we are not like other men. Before we shed any more tears over the poor of London let us see if we cannot find use for our tears nearer home.