"Then at least a third of your women are--what is it you call
them--wage earners? And they are all POOR. What is POOR, exactly?"
"Ours is the best country in the world as to poverty,"
Terry told them. "We do not have the wretched paupers and beggars
of the older countries, I assure you. Why, European visitors tell
us, we don't know what poverty is."
"Neither do we," answered Zava. "Won't you tell us?"
Terry put it up to me, saying I was the sociologist, and I
explained that the laws of nature require a struggle for existence,
and that in the struggle the fittest survive, and the unfit perish.
In our economic struggle, I continued, there was always plenty
of opportunity for the fittest to reach the top, which they did,
in great numbers, particularly in our country; that where there was
severe economic pressure the lowest classes of course felt it the
worst, and that among the poorest of all the women were driven into
the labor market by necessity.
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