Conventional charity drops pennies in the beggar’s cup, carries bread to the starving, distributes clothing to the naked. Real charity, which is justice, sets about removing the conditions that make beggary, starvation, and nakedness.
Conventional charity plays Lady Bountiful; justice tries to establish such laws as shall give employment to all, so that they need no bounty.
Charity makes the Old Man of the Sea feed sugar-plums to the poor devil he is riding and choking; justice would make him get off his victim’s back.
Conventional charity piously accepts things as they are, and helps the unfortunate; justice goes to the legislature and changes things.
Charity swats the fly; justice takes away the dung-heaps that breed flies.
Charity gives quinine in the malarial tropics; justice drains the swamps.
Charity sends surgeons and ambulances and trained nurses to the war; justice struggles to secure that internationalism that will prevent war.
Charity works among slum wrecks; justice dreams and plans that there be no more slums.
Charity scrapes the soil’s surface; justice subsoils.
Charity is affected by symptoms; justice by causes.