p. 9 | Waste and Want by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 17, 1904

Waste and Want.

By Editor

A press item says that "statistics of the indigent in Chicago show that 13,000 families, or about 80,000 persons, were aided by the Bureau of Charity the past year." And besides this there were thousands of the labor strikers who for months had to be assisted by the charities of labor unions from other States. There is always plenty for all in this country, but, owing to greed and waste and mismanagement and misdirection of effort and misuse of means, there are all the time thousands in want while necessary supplies abound. The foregoing situation is only one of many, of more or less magnitude, surrounded in the aggregate by a general condition popularly called "prosperity." One feature of the general misuse, or actual waste, of the world's resources was recently elucidated by General Miles, in a speech at Washington, in which he said:—

In this enlightened age of progress and intelligent, refined civilization we would be glad to believe that the burdens and dangers of war have been lessened; yet, strange as it may seem, there never has been a time in the world's history when so much wealth was squandered in preparation for war, nor when so many millions of trained, skilled, and disciplined men, armed with the most destructive weapons, were taken from the avenues of peaceful industry, as at the present time.

It is a fact that is continually being demonstrated by individuals, and it is just as true of nations, that "wilful waste brings woful want."