16

WHO PAYS YOUR TAXES?

processes which really and alone produce the rain. So,too, with pauperism. Various societies seek its cause inintemperance, ignorance, immorality, or crime, and refuseto consider that these things are themselves mainly theresult of social conditions.

Of these social conditions, ta^es and the laws are thechief factors. Drunkenness is not a cause; it is notnatural to ordinary men any more than dirt and diseaseare. Poor, dirty, and intemperate ! Can ten persons inone room be clean ? Can a girl be modest in such astate ? What relaxation or excitement can a car-driveror a sweat-shop tailor get except by drinking? Whereare the clubs of the tenement houses but in the rum-shops?

Ignorance is not a cause: how can a child who mustgo to work at seven years of age be other than ignorant ?Even wickedness is more an effect than a cause. Howcan a girl grow up pure in a room with five families?How can a starving man keep honest ? The wonder isnot that men are so wicked, but so virtuous.

Excessive taxation, injudiciously laid, has made indo-lent paupers of the Turks, who were once a nation sovigorous as to overrun Europe . It has made paupers ofthe mild East Indians, whose tendencies are so good thatcrime is hardly a factor. It has pauperized Spain , anation deeply imbued with religion. It has pauperizedItaly , the successor and descendant of the mighty empireof Rome . It has pauperized even the Protestants of