This essay offers the thought that being poor financially, may have its merits. Obviously, its drawbacks are well known. The conventional wisdom these days runs against being poor, but being one step away from financial disaster is in communion with the philosophy of a country woman who claimed Lusk, Illinois as her birth place.
Country women are accustomed to hard work and to plain speaking. This lady was fairly tall and raw boned, if that term can be used for a church going female. Her use of the English language reflected her educational accomplishments which had to do with completion of the third grade McGuffy Reader. Double negatives in one sentence were common place. The British Broadcasting Company would have been aghast at her spoken English, but as an Irishwoman, she had no use for the BBC or for the royal family. Her views on life continue to make eminent sense 44 years after her death.
Often, she spoke in aphorisms. She believed, for example, that being poor – which she often was – did not prevent a person from being honest. If a debt was owed to someone, it should be paid as fully and as promptly as possible.
Being rich or poor provided no excuse for avoiding service to your country. Her brothers and her son all volunteered for Army service in the First and Second World Wars. Awaiting the call from the draft board was sort of second tier patriotism to her. Avoiding service, for able-bodied men, was considered scandalous by the Lusk philosopher.
Being poor was no excuse whatsoever for not washing ones self. While your clothes may be worn, they should always be clean.
Being poor should not prevent one from looking for work. If a job developed, honesty demanded that the employee get to work on time and stay until quitting time.
Being poor did not entitle one to give up and to whimper about life’s unfairness. That Lusk woman didn’t demand miracles, but she did demand that those around her do the best they could do. Her exhortations and aphorisms were sometimes delivered with Bible verses such as, “The wages of sin is death.” Her demands were not couched in proper English grammar, but those around her always got the message.
It seems to me that people coming from those depression era circumstances are often better able to understand events that take place in our daily lives and in the life of this country. Let’s take the 2004 presidential election. In that contest, the man who had the most money had a clear advantage. George Bush and John Kerry had never been poor in their entire lives. Bush made preposterous claims for example, about the success of the war in Iraq. Poor people who saw their children become soldiers as a means of making a living knew not to believe such political propaganda. They simply watched the casualty figures mount and concluded that they were being lied to.
For his part, John Kerry picked a crucial time in the campaign to display his wealth and athletic skills. He visited one of his many homes and he was photographed wind surfing. That was a colossal blunder. If the idea was to show that he was physically fit, it was drowned out by the horse laughs from farmers and miners and other folks who have to work for a living. When a farmer is harvesting wheat in any Midwestern state, he would not be favorably moved by a rich man wind surfing in an elite setting on Cape Cod.
Bush and Kerry were always politicians of inherited wealth. Men from more modest circumstances would not have operated the campaigns as the well heeled candidates conducted them in 2004. They would have known to stick to provable facts and to avoid wind surfing on Cape Cod at all costs. Being poor is no excuse for running a dumb campaign.
Now that the campaign is finally finished, a candidate of modest means would know better than to star in a $40 million inaugural extravaganza. Candidates who have survived diminished backgrounds would think first of the military vehicles in Iraq which have inadequate armor. Such a candidate might think also about the victims of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia. A man who had to work his way through school might conclude that $40 million would buy some armor for combat vehicles or it might help a fisherman from Sri Lanka to replace his tsunami destroyed boat. Or it might provide shelter for homeless people here who have barely enough to eat.
First things first. Extravagant $40 million inaugural bashes probably would not even make the “To Do” list of a candidate who was raised by parents who lived from one paycheck to another or from a no-paycheck to another week or month without a job.
In the January 11, 2005 edition of the New York Times, there is a full page devoted to “What The First Lady Will Wear.” On Inauguration Day, Laura Bush will wear a gown designed by Oscar de la Renta. The gown will have to match her hair and her accessories. “Mrs. Bush has acknowledged that she is taking style cues from her 22 year old twin daughters,” says the Times. They will have to also wear ball gowns from designers to the wealthy.
While poor people with inadequate food and shelter are with us, the expenses devoted to the Inauguration including the ball gowns, is nothing less than an abomination. While soldiers are dying from lack of vehicle armor, the money spent to dress the first lady and her daughters must be regarded as loathsome.
Soldiers and poor people can read. They will view the inaugural activities with detestation. All of these descriptions will have been richly earned by the Bush family and the Inaugural Committee.
If one wishes to understand what women and men of modest means endure everyday, it helps to have been born in poor or less affluent circumstances. For example, if anyone seeks to understand people working in dead end jobs, it would help if the inquirer had worked for a time on the bottom rung of the labor ladder. To understand financial despair, it would help to have been broke once. If one wishes to understand sick people without health insurance, it might be well to have been sick in that same circumstance. To comprehend despair among soldiers, it would be well to have served as a private in combat situations. And if your bank or your landlord takes away your housing or your car, it may be well to have experienced that dread.
It may be that no one wishes to understand all of the travails that befall ordinary working and retired Americans. That may be the case particularly among the more affluent. On the other hand, if one wishes to understand the dynamics of the American people, there are those American citizens who worry about not having enough to eat, or worry about the rent or are concerned about being sick without insurance. Those things are part and parcel of American life in 2005. Discerning citizens would be well advised to understand that. Being poor or coming from deprived or modest backgrounds might be helpful in understanding those situations.
If we turn from the individual citizens to the American influence on world affairs, it seems to me that there is a verse from the King James version of the Bible, that may offer some wisdom. In Proverbs 16:18 we are warned that, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Quoting from Proverbs doesn’t make me a Bible scholar, but those words have meaning to the more affluent among us who proclaim that America leads the world in nearly every category.
Take automobiles, for example. In affluent neighborhoods and suburbs, finding an American car in the parking lot of a market will take a bit of searching. The well-to-do and those who aspire to be well-to-do drive foreign cars. It is de rigueur to own a Volvo or an Infiniti or a Lexus. Less well off citizens drive Fords and Chevies and Chrysler products.
In 2004, Toyoto sold 2,000,000 cars in this country. They seem to have passed Chrysler and are threatening Ford for total sales in the United States. Whereas two decades or so ago, the world looked to American car manufacturers for innovative leadership, those laurels have now passed to the Japanese and to the Germans. Close behind them are the Koreans.
For 45 or 50 years following World War II, American cars set the standard for the world to follow. American manufacturers were slow to recognize that less affluent buyers were buying Volkswagens, Hondas and Subarus rather than Fords or Chevies. By the time American car companies woke up, the luxury market included Lexus’s and Infinities fighting it out with Cadillacs and Lincolns which now find favor largely with limousine companies.
By paying attention to Toyota, Nissan, Honda, VW and the Korean manufacturers, we might have learned something to prevent the rapid drop in the sale of American cars. Poor people could have told Detroit something worthwhile – if Detroit had asked and had paid attention.
In the field of education, poor people could point out some other shortcomings. The cost for tuition, board and room at well regarded universities now exceeds $40,000 for one year. Travel to and from the school and incidental expenses are additional expenses to be borne by the student or his family. And Americans thought their educational institutions were without parallel.
Simply put, $40,000 puts attendance at a first rate school out of the question for children of poor people or even those of modest means. To anyone who claims that American higher education leads the world, there are some sobering thoughts. One of the first is that many soldiers being killed or wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, joined the military primarily or solely because they could use military pay to afford a college education. The main thrust of the American military is aimed at enlistments among high schoolers who come from modest or poor backgrounds. Recruiting shows and exhibits do not bother with well-to-do high schools. Their aim is at deprived schools in run down neighborhoods.
Enlisting is sort of a chimera. Recently, the Army has instituted its “Stop Loss” program which means that the soldier is kept in the military, at the end of his enlistment, whether he likes it or not. When he finally completes his enlistment, the soldier is probably 22 or 23 years of age which is not a prime time to become a college freshman. Having been away from academic pursuits for at least three years is a primary reason for abandoning a college career. With re-enlistment bonuses of several thousand dollars, many young men will opt for more soldiering. Students from well-to-do families can embrace a college career directly after high school. At age 22 or 23 years, these youngsters are set to start their life’s work. Poor people know that the educational cards are stacked against them. They are smart enough to know that, but not smart enough to make a level playing field for everyone who aspires to attend a university. On top of everything else, the U.S. Government has now announced a cut in Pell Grants which means that there will be even fewer resources for worthy students who come from poor circumstances.
My reading of educational facts in continental Europe leads me to conclude that many governments encourage students to succeed regardless of financial circumstances. This is not the American way. A case in point is a young Czech man who spent a summer in New Jersey working for a farmer who sold his produce in local farmer’s markets. That fellow is now a PhD candidate at the Economics University of Prague. The fellow who sold us tomatoes and cabbages came from a family of modest means, yet he will soon be addressed as “Doctor” or “Professor.” Could a student of similar means achieve that in this country? The chances are that it would take considerable financial resources that poor people don’t have and have no prospects for achieving.
In leaving the field of education as it relates to students of lesser means, there are two sobering thoughts. American government officials have imposed a series of immigration rules that have caused a deadening effect on foreign students studying in this country. This is absolutely counter-productive because those students, in later life, will have no understanding of how things work in the United States. Ignorance may well mean hostility.
Secondly, the Chief Executive of the United States government has told us that layoffs and outsourcing of jobs is sort of a blessing. He says the obvious answer is to find a nearby junior college and to study to learn a new career.
Unfortunately, many of the layoffs and outsourcing have happened to people who hold more than one advanced university degree. And when the Chief Executive speaks about the opportunities offered by junior colleges, my mind turns to a 50 year old laid off coal miner who started to work at age 16, not long after completing the eighth grade in a country school. What are his chances of becoming a nuclear physicist, if that is his next planned career move? Maybe the Commander in Chief has some ideas. The rest of us do not. But he has been a rich man all his life. Do you think he has a plan for 50 year old miners? There is also the person holding down three jobs already to make ends meet. How will she or he find time to attend career-changing classes at a local junior college.
There is one circumstance where being poor has some great advantages. That circumstance is music. The poor people who have been oppressed and denied opportunity to succeed, have often turned to music. Does anyone who knows anything about music deny the power of the spiritual? Hearing “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord” or “Look Down Look Down That Lonesome Road” will tell any listener that poor people have constructed magnificent pieces of music. If the spirituals are sung by the likes of Leontyne Price or Paul Robeson, for example, the results are electrifying.
Jews have been pushed and ground down for centuries. Still they have produced sterling song writers such as Irving Berlin and George and Ira Gershwin. Broadway and the music world would have been much poorer had it not been for Jewish composers, lyricists and performers.
And finally, there are the Celts who produced, among other songs, “Danny Boy,” “The Minstrel Boy,” “Scotland the Brave” and the Welsh song “Ar Hyd Y Nos” which we know in English as “All Through the Night.” Are there more expressive lyrics than “Sleep my child, may peace attend thee, all through the night?” When Russian choirs sing, their hearts are in their music. All of these people, the Africans, the Jews, the Celts, the Poles and the Russians will grab your attention when they perform – and they may make you cry a bit. Generally speaking, poor people, engulfed by tragedy, will often put their thoughts into song.
The foregoing list of music by poor people is something that comes to mind as we close “Maybe Being Poor Ain’t All Bad.” Obviously, there are other people who have turned their poverty into music. Failure to include them is a function of space and time, and not one of deliberate omission.
By this time, this ancient essayist hopes his point about poor people has been made. Being born to royalty does not prevent some utterly miserable things to take place such as Britain’s Prince Harry appearing at a party dressed as a Nazi Afrika Corps trooper with a swastika armband. Ho boy – no poor Cockney would have ever made that mistake – right mate? Being born poor may mean that the person of lesser means may possess brain power that greatly exceeds the ruling class. And so, old essayists who came of age during the Great Depression may have a point when it is claimed that maybe being poor ain’t necessarily all that bad.
Now a concluding word or two about the Lusk philosopher. She was, of course, Lillie Carr, my mother. When she wanted to upgrade her background, she would claim that she came from Golconda, the seat of Pope County, about 20 miles away. She would contend that while no one knew where Lusk was, “ever’body knows about Golconda.” Maybe so, because around Golconda, they had “hard roads” (meaning paved ones). Lusk had only one-car trails that had no street or highway designation. Those unpaved roads were identified by naming some of the farmers who lived along the right-of-way for the roads. “Go by the Brown place and turn right on the road to the Jones place” is the way that directions were given.
The Lusk native, who moved to St. Louis in 1904, had eight children. Three of them died at an early age. When her youngest child went to join the American Army in 1942, his departure was marked by a blunder of colossal proportions. To put it mildly, Lillie harbored active and smoldering ill feelings toward England as she was an Irish nationalist.
When it was time for me to leave to catch the Kirkwood-Ferguson street car which would start my journey to Jefferson Barracks south of
St. Louis, she said to be careful. It was at this point that she needed re-assurance. The soon-to-be-soldier told Lillie that there would be plenty of help. She always liked the Poles because they were hard workers at the farm superintended by my parents in Clayton, Missouri. She was told about the Poles, the French and the Russian troops. Lots of help there. Inexplicably, Lillie’s son said that British troops would also be prominent in the fight against Hitler.
Immediately, it became clear from Lillie’s expression that her youngest child was in the throes of a gigantic mistake that would have been avoided had he shut up before including the Brits.
Lillie said, “Do you mean the English?” My shoulders shrugged in affirmation. The last words that reached my ears came from Lillie saying, “In that case Son, you do the best you can.” It was a long ride on that street car.
For whatever differences we may have had on religion, she taught me that being poor was no excuse at all for not doing my best in every case. It goes without saying that Lillie of Lusk has my eternal gratitude for demonstrating that being poor has many merits.
There are those who say, “I have been rich and I have been poor. Rich is better.” But on balance, there are times when being poor teaches you some valuable lessons. In the end, it seems to me, that maybe being poor ain’t all that bad. For those who disagree, my understanding is always available.
E. E. CARR
January 13, 2005
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I think the real lesson is “if you’re going to be poor, try to be born in Western Europe.” There are definitely some things in the US that get around the pitfalls that Pop mentioned — for example, for high-achieving poor students, the most prestigious universities usually are also the cheapest options — but overall the safety nets that we have are not of a very high quality. It doesn’t help that they come under direct fire from Republican politicians at every opportunity.