There is no evidence that any of these societies are deliberately dishonest in their dealings with the city and the public. They are as a rule conducted by men and women whose motives are good, but who have no experience or practical knowledge to fit them for the management of a charitable institution. They are easily imposed upon by professional beggars, and in most cases fail in their well-meant efforts to reach and relieve the deserving who are in actual need. Most of the small organizations that waste public money in misdirected charity are controlled by women of eminent respectability, but with no knowledge whatever of the details of the work they have undertaken. The result in many cases has been that they employ enough help to absorb the bulk of the money received without realizing that they are doing more harm than good.
The city does not spend its own money cheaply. Of the appropriation of $1,941,215 for the support of the Department of Charities for the current year the sum of $529,626 is allowed for the payment of salaries of commissioners and employees. No private business could long endure if conducted on such a basis. Some of the institutions where hundreds of homeless waifs from the streets are cared for—institutions semipublic in character, managed by men of more than local reputation as experts in such work, societies founded by men and women whose lives have been devoted to doing good—show by their annual reports that more than half their income is paid out in salaries. One institution that received $30,000 from the city in 1898 and $20,000 from all other sources, reported a salary account of $31,000. Another, receiving $100,000 from the city and $120,000 in donations, had a salary account of $115,000. For every five persons supported by public charity there are three persons employed on salary in the work of relief. Of every five dollars paid out by the city treasury to relieve the sick and destitute, two dollars is absorbed by the salary and expense accounts.
The theory of the law under which city money is paid to private charitable institutions is that they relieve the municipal authorities of the care of a certain number of persons who would otherwise become public charges to be maintained in the hospitals, asylums, or homes owned by the city. It is also a popular theory that young children who have become a public charge will receive better care and training in a home controlled by a private society than they would in a public institution. Appropriations and legislation are also obtained by private organizations on the representation that for every dollar paid to them by the city or State an equal amount will be contributed by founders and subscribers. This representation is not always true, and in many cases it happens that when a society begins to receive money from the city private contributions fall off. When the city authorities first took up the question of caring for homeless and destitute persons and found that they had to deal with a grave problem, some of the private charitable institutions were already in existence and came forward with offers to share the burden. At that time it was considered a good business arrangement for the city to use private societies in the work of relief. This plan, it was expected, would save the city considerable money, because the officers of the societies would contribute their services, and the cost of applying public charity to necessary relief would in that way be reduced to a minimum. That expectation has not been realized. With the rapid increase of necessity and demand for public relief the expenses of administration of the societies have increased out of all proportion to the work accomplished. In the beginning the city authorities shirked a public duty, and by giving city money to private persons who were willing to relieve them of a burden they invited the creation of new societies and a steadily increasing demand for more funds.
Of the two hundred and twenty charitable societies that receive money from the city more than one hundred have been organized during the past ten years. The records of the finance department and the annual reports of these new organizations show that many of them have received from the city sixty to ninety per cent of all the funds they have handled, and that almost the same percentage of their total income was charged to expenses, the chief item of expense in every case being the payment of salaries to officers. Year after year the promoters and officers of these small organizations appear before the city authorities when the annual budget is to be passed, and, attempting to excuse the poor showing they make, say, in pleading for a larger appropriation, "We hope to do better next year." The most liberal-minded defender of indiscriminate public charity would find it difficult to excuse the existence of some of these societies.
There are scores of small organizations helping to spend public money that are unknown to the general public. In fact, some of them are never heard of except when their officers appear before the Board of Estimate once a year to ask for more money. There is a society, organized for the purpose of supplying clothing to shipwrecked sailors, which for several years obtained a small appropriation from the city. When the officers requested an increase of the amount allowed, the city authorities asked for some particulars of the work done. The report submitted in reply showed that the society had received, in addition to the money obtained from the city, several donations of second-hand clothing and one box of wristlets (knit bands to be worn on the wrists); had sent to a sailor shipwrecked on the coast of Oregon a suit of underwear, a pair of hose, and a rubber coat; to a crew wrecked on the reefs of Florida some shoes and oilskin caps. There was no report of relief or clothing supplied to a sailor or any other person in the city or State of New York, but there was a charge for salaries that almost balanced the amount received from the city treasury.
Another of the minor institutions is a society that is engaged in an original method of charitable work. The agents of this society, or the members themselves, go out into the slums of the city on Sunday mornings and gather in a number of tramps. The homeless wanderers are assembled in a room hired for the purpose and supplied with a warm breakfast, after which they are compelled to listen to a sermon and a lecture. They are then allowed to depart and live as best they can until the following Sunday. For a number of years this society has received a small appropriation from the city on the ground that it is a useful public charity. To all of these small societies, no matter what may be their alleged field of charitable work, city money is appropriated without specific knowledge of the exact purpose to which it is applied. By legislation or petition, backed by the influence of prominent citizens, scores of these petty organizations, some of them merely a fad or whim of an idle man or woman, have been placed on the list of semipublic charities to be aided at the expense of the taxpayers, and there they remain year after year without so much as a serious inquiry as to their merits or the work they accomplish. The city authorities who grant the appropriations do not and can not know how the money they give to such societies is to be expended, because they have no legal authority to investigate the conduct of such institutions. The city officers, therefore, are not to blame. The fault seems to rest primarily upon that condition of public opinion that is cheerfully tolerant of any fraud committed in the name of charity, and secondly upon the members of the Legislature who vote without question or investigation for all legislation asked for by any benevolent person or society.
To the large charitable and correctional institutions of established reputation, to which children or pauper adults are committed by the local authorities, city money is appropriated on a business basis. A fixed sum is paid for the support of each committed person, and the taxpayers may know what they are getting for their money. While the city authorities can not regulate the expenses or salaries in these institutions, they know that the city is paying for a specific service and that the work is performed. That it might be done better or more cheaply need not concern them. But to the institutions and societies that do not undertake to support dependent persons, but engage in indiscriminate charitable work, the giving of city money is as doubtful a method of relieving the deserving poor as throwing coin in the streets.
The appropriation of city money made for 1899 direct to two hundred and fifteen charitable and correctional institutions and societies amounts to $1,784,846. The appropriations from the excise funds to institutions that support pauper children and adults will slightly exceed $1,000,000. The county of New York pays to State and private charitable institutions for the same period the sum of $118,682; Kings County, $82,669; and Richmond County, $4,845; all of which comes out of the general treasury. The money received for licenses for theaters, concert and music halls, amounting to $50,000 a year, is divided among eighty-two private societies and institutions. This makes an aggregate of $3,000,000 paid out of the city treasury annually and expended under the direction of private organizations. With the exception of less than $100,000 it is all appropriated under the provisions of special acts of the Legislature, or sections of the city charter, and the city officers have no control whatever over the methods of expenditure or the work undertaken by the societies that receive the money. Under such a system the possibilities for abuse of public charity are well-nigh unlimited.
These direct appropriations of money do not represent all of the city's contribution to the cause of charity. The property of all the charitable institutions and societies is exempt from taxation and from assessments for public improvements. The tax commissioners report that the assessed value of the property of such organizations is $70,781,990. At the present rate of taxation this means a loss to the city of more than $1,400,000 a year. The assessments upon the same property for public improvements exceed $100,000 a year, which is paid by the city. These exemptions materially affect the tax rate as well as the bonded indebtedness and annual interest charges of the city, so that the yearly contribution of the taxpayers of New York to charity is nearly if not quite $7,000,000, or about fifteen per cent of the direct expenses of the city government.
Some figures from the budget for 1899 will show the relative cost of caring for the poor. The city will pay for public education $13,040,052; for police, $11,797,596; for the fire department, $4,443,664; for the health department, $1,110,538; for lighting, $2,000,000; for water, $1,450,817; for cleaning the streets, $4,575,800; for parks, $1,729,235; for paving and repaving streets, $2,520,099; and for charity direct and indirect, $7,000,000.