Poverty entails untold misery upon the earth. Life gives nothing at all to countless millions of children that are born and condemns them at the very moment of their birth to live in physical and moral wretchedness. They are born for sorrow and suffering. Life does not hold many happy days for them. The shadow of destitution hangs over their hovels. Fierce and remorseless is their struggle to win their daily bread. Starvation stares in their eyes. From sunrise to sunset they are on their legs for the merest pittance. Soaked in sweat, they toil and moil with their stooped shoulders and shrunken bodies. They have many more mouths to feed than the scanty food they have in the larder. They go to bed hungry on many more nights than filled. They lay on their beds of mattress or on bare floor at night. They snuggle together in a blanket, if they have one and whimper.

The poor, in this world of plenty, are in perpetual agony. Abject poverty mercilessly grinds down the masses. They have no wherewithal to lodge and clothe and feed and are without the barest means of sustaining life. The starving mothers could not give their breasts to their children. They slave all their lives, yet know not the joys of wholesome existence. The cold wind and frost of poverty withers them. Desperate is their plight and slowly do they starve to death. Condemned to live in the midst of dirt and filth and disease, they die of starvation and they die neglected. Famine and plague kill them like flies. Harrowing are the stories of the destitute. No wonder the poor everywhere are embittered against the whole world.

The mother earth can nourish with ease all that live upon her gentle bosom. Science and machine can make the world a good place to live in for every man and woman and child. They can relieve all men and children of undue hard labor and drudgery and leave them leisure to develop their mind. Mass production by machine can provide something for everyone in the world. Yet countless millions starve in the midst of plenty and are haunted by the specter of destitution. Man’s maladjustments bring starvation for swarming millions and fattening in unbounded luxuries for a small number of parasites. Life to those who amass colossal fortunes by corrupt means is a perpetual revel. They feed fastidiously and live luxuriously. They use their riches in riotous waste.

Thou Ahura Mazda, hast made the poor and the rich of common clay. Thou hast not made the rich of gold dust. Thou hast not ordained that the kernel should be for the rich and the husks should be for poor. Sad is the spectacle of poverty increasing in the world with the advancement of civilization. O Thou our Eternal Guide on the path of progress, lead erring mankind to make poverty, in the light of new knowledge only a cursed memory.