A Modest Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A Modest Proposal - Essay Example There needs to be an intervention that raises awareness on the current situation the region is facing. This might assist the people identify what they need to do in order to salvage their region from heading further downstream. This paper will examine one intervention that helps the region identify their problems and why they need to solve them. In A Modest Proposal, the author claims to want to assist the deteriorating state of the Irish. He, however, does this by lashing out at the prominent people in society who look at the current situation and do nothing about it (Swift 48). Politicians, the wealthy, and the society do nothing to aid in the reduction of the state of impoverishment in the region. He even goes as far as attacking the English community for their tyranny against the Irish. All these are characteristics of people who take it upon themselves to make a change as they see fit. Their condition is not aided by the fact that, many of the people are able to work and feed th eir families. Begging on the street by a large number of the female sex is proof enough that the condition is beyond salvaging (Swift 50). One cannot help but feel sorry for the impoverished state of the Irish community. It is not fair to lash out at one group and blame it for the lamentable state of the nation. Everyone is to blame for this situation. The Irish, the English, and the masses are responsible for not taking care of their own problems. The people in the region are incapable of rising to the occasion, and helping themselves out of this predicament (Swift 55). This should not be the behaviour of free-minded individuals. This mode of thinking does not ensure a nation’s prosperity in any way. Thinking like that ensures that a nation and its people remain backward. It renders them incapable of solving problems on their own. The social and economic ills the nation face makes people despair. In his proposal, the irony in the solution, the author offers the people shows of this despair. No progress can be attained through such means. It is barbaric and more backward in thinking that killing infants for food is a means to an end. The humanitarian crisis the people face cannot be aided through scientific theories or methods (Swift 57). The only way to avert such a crisis is not through proposals that people should watch the number of children they conceive. It is only through guidance that the nation could get down from the squabbles of poverty and social corruption. Values and motivation need addressing so that individuals may recognize what they are up against. This is in their fight against their current conditions. The political inefficiency in the region prevents people from achieving their full potential. This is in terms of problem solving crisis they face. The political bodies cannot help in addressing the plight of the people, which makes the region more sad and pitiful. Progress among a people can only be measured by how much everyone is th riving. If only a selected few are making it, then that is not progress; whether economic or social. The region is stuck at one point where everyone is feeling the pressure of the large number of people in the area who cannot assist themselves (Swift 58). The current working/labour force is also in jeopardy. There is the need to focus energy on all these areas so as to force the land to move forward with no partiality. In

The Great Migration, Cause and Effect Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Great Migration, Cause and Effect - Essay Example The first great wave of migration began during the period of World War I. The manufacture of war supplies had demanded increased production while the draft, and disruption of immigration, left the factories short of much needed labor. As the pool of labor dwindled, companies began to look elsewhere for workers to fill the positions. The southern African-American population made up a substantial resource for unskilled workers and northern companies made extraordinary efforts to recruit them. Companies sent agents to the South and offered the African-Americans high paying jobs, transportation north, and housing arrangements upon arrival at their new location (Crew). The economic and social climate in the South during this period made the offers too good to resist and set off the first great wave of migration. The opportunity for greater wealth was a powerful motivation for the migration during the war. Blacks were leaving behind the rural life they knew to seek a new destiny. Many were leaving behind their families, wives, and children with the hope of creating a better future, and the opportunity for more money did not disappoint them. While most laborers in the South were earning little more than $2,00 per week, a letter published in 1919 explains to his friends back home, "Never pay less than $3.00 per day [...] Remember this is the very lowest wages. Piece work men can make from $6 to $8 per day " ("Don[']t Have to Mister"). Spurred by these tales of high pay, people left behind their social ties and the only way of life they knew with the promise of one day sending for those they left behind. If money had been the only factor, their decision to leave might have been more difficult, but there were other considerations in the South. The social and political climate in the South made the African-Americans even more eager to leave their rural way of life. The constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War that were to protect the rights of blacks were largely ignored in the South. Local laws, hostile prejudice, and Jim Crow laws left them vulnerable to violence, imprisonment, and death. The economics of sharecropping had also taken its toll on the farm workers. Bad crops, low prices, and unpredictable weather had left most of them in debt to the white landowners (Crew). By 1910, emancipation had a hollow meaning and the living condition of the former slaves were no better than they had been 50 years earlier. Migrating north offered them an escape from the ever-present oppression and the economic means to finally carve out their own identity. It is estimated that by 1919, the number of Blacks that had migrated north numbered near 1 million. Most settled in the industrial cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC, and Pittsburgh. Many of the new arrivals found the promise of better pay and human dignity a reality and were pleasantly surprised to find that the letters they read from people who had migrated before them had been accurate about the opportunities for work. They also enjoyed a new sense of identity, in a new place with attitudes more sensitive to their condition. In a letter dated 1917, a worker in Philadelphia expresses the simple joy of even the most modest