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Poverty In Poverty

Decent Essays

Poverty is very widespread and touches the lives of millions of Americans. Through the speeches of Russell Conwell (Acres of Diamonds 1915) and Samuel Gompers (What does the working man want? 1890) we see through their eyes how each man feels about this topic. Being in poverty is something that none of us want for ourselves. Even though we try our best sometimes it is something that is out of our hands and something we can’t avoid. Conwell’s philosophy is in many ways aligned with the foundations of Social Darwinism. He believes that it is our duty to work hard and earn our wealth. A wealthy person is deemed an honest man, because he does the work and doesn’t rely on someone else to do it for him. The survival of the fittest has been proven by the fact that those who are poor were not willing to try and work or just didn’t have what it takes to overcome the odds and were pushed off to the side. The fittest were willing to work and overcome the odds by hard work or figuring out ways to bypass the obstacles that were standing in their way. For example, Conwell speaks of the man who began whittling toys for his children and became a millionaire. He used what he had around him and a skill he had to become successful. Also, Conwell speaks of the man who went off to foreign lands looking for diamonds instead of continuing to work hard on his farm. Had he done so he would have been the one to find the diamonds right there on his own land. Samuel Gompers sees that the poor face many difficulties and are treated like a machine instead of a man, because of the long hours he must work. He believes by shortening work days that men are more likely to do more outside of work to better themselves and that they will be more productive at work as well in their personal lives. He feels that politicians and college professors take advantage of workers because of the amount of men and women who are looking for work which allows them to pay them less in wages and force them to work long hours in unsafe working environments. Gompers wanted employers to see these mean and woman who are searching for jobs as human beings not as just another cog in the wheel of the labor movement. For example, the mention of a man who works

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