But we must face the truth that monopoly of the sources of production
makes it impossible for vast numbers of men and women to earn a fair
living. Right here the conservation question touches the daily life of
the great body of our people, who pay the cost of special privilege. And
the price is heavy. That price may be the chance to save the boys from
the saloons and the corner gang, and the girls from worse, and to make
good citizens of them instead of bad; for an appalling proportion of the
tragedies of life spring directly from the lack of a little money.
Thousands of daughters of the poor fall into the hands of the
white-slave traders because their poverty leaves them without
protection. Thousands of families, as the Pittsburg survey has shown us,
lead lives of brutalizing overwork in return for the barest living. Is
it fair that these thousands of families should have less than they need
in order that a few families should have swollen fortunes at their
expense? Let him who dares deny that there is wickedness in grinding
the faces of the poor, or assert that these are not moral questions
which strike the very homes of our people.
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