708 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



Millions of men are out of work, and poverty casts 

 her gloom into the homes containing once happy families. 

 u Poverty is the general term of a condition that has many 

 phases and shadings between the unrelieved horror of the 

 black hole and the debatable land bordered by needed 

 comfort on one side and dispensable luxury on the other. 

 Poverty what a blanching, chilling, fear there is in the 

 word. It is HELL, become visible to the eye. It stands 

 for the superlative of shame and agony possible to man on 

 earth. To avoid it, to so entrench themselves behind 

 bastions of gold, that even the remote peril of it will be 

 banished from this life, many men stand ready to trample 

 on every law of natural right, and ignore every Divine 

 precept. 



"When threatened with judgment and punishment 

 beyond the grave, they cheerfully respond by act and 

 word. Well, that may be so, but you are only guessing at 

 it, and we know nothing about it, for we can see nothing, 

 but we do know that poverty is a palpable HELL on this 

 earth before our eyes, and we propose to keep out of it, and 

 will trust to luck and shrewd management to beat the hell 

 in the next world if there happen to be any next world, and 

 it happens to have a hell ANNEX. With these two big 

 'ifs' in the way we shall not worry much over our possible 

 fate in a problematical future existence. 



u That this is the conviction and impelling sentiment 

 of the ruthless and successful men, who are now bossing 

 trusts, monopolies, and great corporations in this country, 

 is amply evidenced by their conduct in the practical affairs 

 of life. It is manifest that they regard poverty as the only 

 HELL in sight, and feel that the only Heaven worth work- 

 ing for is here now, and can be bought with gold. The 

 universal terror of poverty has in it something more horri- 

 ble than physical death, for it dwarfs and shrivels up the 

 immortal soul. It makes tender-hearted men cruel, and 



