They are too poor to do that which is required to
save their lives. ----
The great men of the world do not emerge from poverty, from
squalor.
They come from very modest homes, from the log cabin, and from
the towpath, as advertised. They come from those whose fathers
and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers had at least enough
to eat, and enough fresh air to give them pure blood and proper
nourishment for their brains.
Poverty destroys ambition, inventive power and the capacity to
struggle.
A starved body produces a starved brain. The greatest genius
that ever lived could not think better than a child of ten if you
deprived him of food for ten days.
What can you expect of the inferior minds that have been half fed
through a lifetime, or through several generations?
Do you know what made the Revolution and changed conditions in
France? It was not poverty. Not a single poor man was a leader
in that Revolution. Every one of them was well fed, had a well-
nourished brain--Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins,
Mirabeau--every one a well-fed brain in a vigorous body.
The labor unions and the great strikes, although sometimes unwise
and unreasonable, are great blessings to the Nation. They compel
the worker to get such pay as will feed himself and his children,
giving the Nation well-fed brains.
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