Society: Its Origin and Development

by Henry K. Rowe

285. The Impulse to Charity.—The first impulse that stirs a person who sees another in want is immediately to relieve the want. This impulse to charity makes public begging profitable. It is an impulse creditable to the human heart, but its effects have not been approved by reason, for indiscriminate charity provokes deception, and is certain to result in chronic dependency. Wise methods of charity, therefore, constitute a problem as truly as poverty itself. Experience has proved so conclusively that the old methods of relief are unsatisfactory, that it has become necessary to determine and formulate true principles of relief for those who really desire to exercise their philanthropy helpfully. How to help is the question.

286. History of Relief.—Some light is thrown on the subject from the experience of the past. The whole notion of charity as a social duty was foreign to ancient thought. Families and clans had their own dependents, and benefit societies helped their own members. The Hebrew prophets called for mercy and kindness, Jesus spoke his parable of the good Samaritan, and the primitive Christians went so far as to organize their charity, so that none of their members would fail of a fair share. The church taught alms-giving as a deed of merit before God, and all through its history the Catholic Church has done much for its poor. In the Middle Ages it was a part of the feudal theory that the lord would care for his serfs, but in reality they got most help at the doors of a monastery. In modern times the church has shifted its burden to the state. This was inevitable in countries where there was no state church, and it was in accordance with the modern principle that the state is organized society functioning for the social welfare of all the people.

In America the colonies and then the States adopted the English custom of relieving extreme need. At first it was possible for local committees to take care of their poor by doles furnished sparingly in their homes, and to place the chronic dependents in almshouses. The former practice is known as outdoor relief, the latter as indoor relief. Such relief was not administered scientifically, and did not help to reduce the amount of poverty. The almshouses were the dumping-ground of a community's undesirables, including idiots and even insane, cripples and incurables, epileptics, old people, and orphan children, constituting a social environment that was anything but helpful to human development. After a time it became necessary for the State to relieve the local authorities. The defectives and dependents became too numerous for the local community to take care of, and enlightened philanthropy was learning better methods. The result has been the gradual extension of State care and the segregation of the various classes of incompetents in various State institutions, including hospitals for the insane, the epileptic, and the morally deficient, sanitaria for those who suffer from alcoholic and tuberculous diseases, and schools for the proper training of the youth who have come under public oversight.

287. Voluntary Charity.—Public relief has been supplemented extensively by voluntary charity. This has become increasingly scientific. Indeed popular ideas have been largely transformed during the last generation. In the small towns and villages where there was little destitution, and where all knew one another's needs, there was no special need of scientific investigation or charitable organization, but in the large cities it became necessary. Thomas Chalmers in Scotland and Edward Denison and Octavia Hill in England demonstrated the conditions and the advantages of organized effort. The first charity organization society was organized in 1869 in London. Its fundamental principle was to help the poor to help themselves rather than to give them alms. Its aim was to federate all the charitable efforts of London, and while this has not proved practicable, it has greatly increased efficiency and has helped to bind together philanthropic effort all over England. The income of the various charitable agencies of London alone was reported to be $43,000,000 in 1906.

In the United States the first organization on the English model was the charity organization society of Buffalo, founded in 1877; Boston followed with a similar organization the next year. These were followed by the organization of a National Conference of Charities and Corrections, which holds annual meetings and publishes reports that are a valuable storehouse of information. Many charitable agencies of various kinds contribute to the work of relief, some of them really helpful, others actually blocking the way of genuine progress, but all showing the strength of the philanthropic motive in American cities. The closer their alliance with the associated charities the more effective are their measures of charity. Three stages have marked the history of the charitable organization societies, as they have learned from experience. The first has been called the repressive stage. The fear of pauperizing recipients of charity made the societies too strict in their alms-giving, so that hardships resulted that were unnecessary, but such a course was the natural reaction against the indiscriminate charity that had been in vogue. This stage was succeeded by the discriminative, in which help is given discriminatingly, as investigation shows a real need at the same time that efforts are being put forth to make prolonged giving unnecessary. Closely combined with this discrimination, which is in constant use, is the third method of construction. By this constructive method the worker tries to get at the cause of the particular case of poverty and to alter the social conditions so that the cause shall no longer act. Experience and experiment have produced numerous specific measures of a constructive sort, like the establishment of playgrounds and public parks, kindergartens and schools for specific purposes, social settlements and school centres, municipal baths and gymnasiums, tenement-house reforms and the prevention of disease.

288. Friendly Visiting.—The functions of charity organization societies have been described as the co-ordination and co-operation of local societies rather than direct relief from the central organization, thorough investigation of all cases, with temporary relief where necessary, the establishment of friendly relations between the poor and the well-to-do, the finding of work for those who need it, and the accumulation of knowledge on poverty conditions. The actual contact of charitable societies with the people has been mainly through friendly visitors who voluntarily engage to call on the needy, and who meet at regular intervals to discuss concrete cases as well as general methods. These visitors have the advantage of bringing their spontaneous sympathy to bear upon the specific instances that come to their personal attention, whereas the officials of the charity organization society inevitably become more callous to suffering and tend to look upon each family as a case to be pigeonholed or scientifically treated, but the conviction is growing, nevertheless, that the situation can be effectively handled only by men and women who are genuinely experts, trained in the social settlements or in the schools of philanthropy. Whether a voluntary church worker or a charity expert, it is the business of the visitor to make thorough investigation of conditions, not merely inquiring of landlord or neighbors, or taking the hurried testimony of the family, but patiently searching for information from those who have known the case over a long period, preferably through the charity organization society. Actual relief may be required temporarily and must be adequate to the occasion, but the problem of the visitor is to devise a method of self-help, and to furnish the courage necessary to undertake and carry it through. It is important to consider in this connection the character and ancestry of the family, its environment and the social ideals and expectations of its members, if the steps taken are to be effective. The two principles that underlie the whole practice of relief are, first, to restore the individual or family to a normal place in society from which it has fallen, or to raise it to a normal standard of living which it has never before reached; secondly, to make all charity discriminative and co-operative, that it may accomplish the end sought without pauperizing the recipient.

289. Public and Private Agencies.—Institutions and agencies of relief are of two kinds, public and private. It is one of the functions of every social group to promote the welfare of its members. It is to be expected, therefore, that the church and the trade-union will help their own poor, but it is just as proper to expect that the whole community, and even the whole state, will take care of its own needy. The distinction between public and private agencies is not one of fundamental sociological principle, but one of convenience and efficiency of administration. Where the state has extended its activities, as in Germany, relief by such a method as the Elberfeld system is practicable; where public opinion, as in the United States, is not favorable to remanding as much as possible to the government, it is thought best that private agencies should supplement State aid, and in most cases make it unnecessary.

290. Arguments for and Against Private Agencies of Relief.—Some argue that private agencies should do it all. In spite of the large resources at the command of the state and the frequent necessity of legislation to handle the problem, they claim that public aid humiliates and degrades the recipient, while private assistance may put him on his feet without destroying his self-respect; and that public charity is too often unfeeling and tends to become a routine affair, while private aid can deal better with specific cases, show real interest and try experiments in the improvement of methods. There are those who would have all charity given back to the church. They believe the responsibility would stimulate the church's own life, extend its influence among the unchurched, show that it had an interest in the bodies as well as the souls of the people, and bring about co-operation between churches in the districts of town or city. It is of the genius of true religion to be helpful, and the church could soon learn wise methods. In answer to this argument the reply is that at present the indiscriminate charity of the church is doing real harm; that the church does not like to co-operate with other agencies; that it does not have adequate resources to deal with the problem or legal authority to restrain mendicants or segregate the various classes of dependents; and that all persons in the community ought to share in the responsibility of poor relief, and not all are in the church. They recognize the valuable aid of such organizations as the Hebrew Charities and the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of the Catholics, but they believe that such as these at best can be only auxiliary to the state.

An illustration of the usefulness of private associations appears in a group of seven boys of foreign parentage in New York City, who organized themselves in 1903 into a quick-aid-to-the-hungry committee. They were only thirteen years old and poor. They lived on the East Side, and pennies and nickels did not make a full treasury. But they knew the need and had an instinct for helping the right people. In seven years these boys helped in more than two hundred and fifty emergency cases; their pennies grew to dollars as they earned more; their charity developed their self-respect; they held weekly meetings for debate, and several of them made their way through college. Funds were supplied, also, from friends outside, who were glad to aid such a worthy enterprise. The great need among private agencies is fuller co-operation with one another and with public boards and institutions. Then duplication of effort, misunderstandings, and wastefulness are avoided, and the hope of a decline in conditions of poverty increases.

There are limits, however, to the ability of private agencies to control the situation. There are cases where the organized community or state must take a hand. There are lazy persons who will not support themselves or their families; there are certain persons who are chronically ill or dependent; there are various types of defectives and delinquents. All these need the authority of the public agencies. Then there are constructive activities that require the assistance and sanction of government, like parks and playgrounds, industrial schools, employment bureaus, the establishment and administration of state institutions, and the enforcement of health, sanitary, and building laws. Of course there is often inefficiency in government management. The local almshouse needs reforming, and the overseers of the poor should be trained experts. The organization and superintendence of state institutions is not ideal, and building arrangements need improvement, but there is a steady gain in the efficiency of boards of trustees and local managers. There is a willingness to learn from experience and a disposition to raise the standards in all departments of administration.