One Idea of Poverty by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 29, 1875

One Idea of Poverty.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

It was Bulwer who said that in nine cases out of ten, poverty is only an idea. Some with ten thousand dollars a year suffer more want of means than others with three hundred. The reason is, the richer man has artificial wants. His income is ten thousand, and he suffers enough from being dunned for unpaid debts to kill a sensitive man; he who earns a dollar a day, and who does not run in debt, is the happier of the two. Very few people who have never been rich will believe this, but it is true. There are thousands and thousands with princely incomes who never know a moment's peace, because they live beyond their means. There is really more happiness in the world among the working people than among those who are called rich—always providing that poor folks do not in a smaller way, emulate the prodigality of their richer brethren. Poverty is simply a question of the good or bad management of money in hand.