PRACTICAL BENEFICENCE NOT MERE CHARITY.
The greatest blessing that he has conferred on New York, is helping the poor to get pure, sterilized milk. No work of beneficence ever before showed such surprising results. It has reduced the death rate of infants over fifty per cent. Formerly, almost seventy-five per cent. of the children of the very poor died.
It was in the summer of 1893 that Mr. Strauss opened his first milk depot, at which milk was sold for four cents a quart; one and one-half cents a bottle for sterilized pure milk; one cent a bottle (six ounces,) for modified milk, and one cent a glass for pure milk.
It was a loss to the benefactor, but he established other depots throughout the unhealthy portions of the city and in the parks. Doctors received blanks to fill out for milk for those unable to purchase, and to such it was given free. A doctor’s prescription was honored. What followed? The death rate was reduced.
At the instigation of his son,—who died from a cold contracted in distributing coal,—coal yards had been established on the docks and elsewhere. The dealers at that time were retailing coal at ten cents and fourteen cents a basket, which made the price from twelve dollars to sixteen dollars per ton. At Mr. Strauss’ depots, five-cent tickets procured twenty and twenty-five pounds; ten-cent tickets, forty and fifty pounds, and so on. Most of the coal was carried in baskets on the shoulders and backs of those who, in some cases, had walked miles to obtain it. During the last financial panic, grocery stores were started, where five cents procured a large amount of food. Lodging houses were opened, while a clean bed and a breakfast of coffee and bread could be procured for five cents, and lunch rooms where two cents purchased bread and coffee and corned beef.
The great financier, J. Pierpont Morgan, asked Mr. Strauss to be permitted to assist him in the grocery stores, and a large central depot was rented at 345 Grand street, for which Mr. Morgan furnished the money and Mr. Strauss acted as manager.
Although all these charities in which Mr. Strauss has been interested have entailed a steady loss, a great number of those he benefited and benefits are under the impression that he does not sustain a loss, and that they merely buy for less than they would pay elsewhere.