This season I am always reminded Charles Dickens' classic tale A Christmas Carol. Within the character Scrooge we find bitterness, avarice, cruelty...but also a notion that in those hearts that harbor those tendencies and qualities we may yet find another: Hope.
And yet...in rereading it again this year to my boys, we found another portion of this story that is overlooked too often. I hear many of my fellow liberals quoting the famous lines of Scrooge to the men seeking a charitable donation at the beginning of the story:
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that."
And why not use this cruel, hateful attitude to the modern day thugs and one percenters that would just as soon forget that there is even such a thing as "the least among us."
But there is another part of this story I would have you read, and consider, this Holiday season. Follow me over the fold, good kossacks, and we'll have another personal storytellers chat...
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