WCP530

[1]^1,2

West Thurrock Vicarage,

Grays, Essex.

Jan[uary]. 6. 1912

Dear Professor Wallace

Please let me join in the chorus of congratulations which pour upon you on the occasion of your 90^th birthday. I read the interview in the "Daily News"³ of this morning. The social evils you refer to are certainly very real and [2] our duty is to try every means to eliminate them.

My own opinion is, that if true religion governed in the hearts of the people the rich would appreciate their duties to the poorer people, but how is this to be accomplished? You say "strip the rich of his wealth" but I cannot think that this will solve the problem or make people happier [3] for we still have many factors to contend with — e.g. vicious tendencies, courteousness, incapacity, over popu-lation, sickness, infinity, accident, old age, laziness-&c. Certainly in Denmark where there are less rich people there is less poverty, but the State there is very careful to attend to and encourage its own people and its own manufactures first.

With peasant and undying revol-lutions of my former conversation with you touching the evolution of man and future progress.

Believe me | Sincerely yours | F. W. Hayes (Vicar) [signature]