Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/51

 each other. It makes the wealthy realize their duty to the poor, and the poor look less bitterly upon a rich class that directly confers benefits upon them. State charities are such cold, impersonal things. You rich people at the North pay taxes to support your sick and blind because your State forces you to do it, and you avoid them as much as you can."

The New Englander, high in office over the charities of his native town, stared at the speaker, and made an effort to protest against these heretical remarks. But Rondelet continued,— "You think us behind the world in every way, behind the North particularly. Well, perhaps we are; but the social atmosphere which your condition of things has brought about is not without its drawbacks. The aristocracy of money, which rules your society with a golden rod, is not, to my mind, a noble or great phase of human existence. You are now suffering from a very plethora of money, a terrible indigestion from too much high living, while we are growing day by day weaker and weaker from inanition; and yet you would have us call you brothers! Our country is one now, and I hope and believe will ever remain so; but the country cannot march as it should in the progress of nations while one foot is bare, lame, and blistered. It is strange that you forget us so; our