Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-04-26
Gerrltt Smiths Giving.
TIE pEMoRALIzISG EFFECT o. CHARITY UPON
ITS RECIPIENTS.
From Applston's Journal 70, April.

From Appleton Journal fos April.
Mr.. Smith was almost the Christian ideal
| of q charitable man. He did not comply
literally with the Scriptural injunction to sell
| all one has and give to the poor, but he real
| ly did far more he devoted all the energies
OF rare business abilities TO the accumulation
| of successive fortunes, Which he successively
and unreseryedly gave away Had he merely
bestowed the large patrimony with which he
started it would have borne but an insight
ficant proportion to the ultimate aggregate
of his benefactions but, instead of sterilizing
his faculties by depriving them of the instru-
ment which they could use most productive
", he made himself, as it were, living
spring from which flowed a copious and con-
tinuous stream of imunifcence. During the
great portion of his life according to his
biographer's estimate. his income varied
from forty to sixty thousand dollars year
and of this princely revenue, he not only
gave away regularly, year by year, by far the
greater part, but sometimes encroached upon
his capital in order to meet the multitudinous
demands which his reputation for benevo-
lence brought upon him. What he reserved
for his own uses amounted to much less than
he often bestowed upon a single object that
appealed to his sympathies. His house, a
large wooden mansion, was meager in its ar-
pointments. He spent nothing on pleasure,
nothing on amusement, and next to nothing
on dress. He bought no luxurics. ornaments,
or trinkets, purchased neither pictures nor
bronzes, forbade needless household decora-
tions, gave no holiday presents, INDUCED
his family In no expensive dainties. His
personal expenses were absurdly small, even
for a man of moderate means. not for the
reason that he was ascetic, but for the reason
hat fr,h
much to be wasted on frivohties, on things
that the rust corrupted and the moth devour-
ed. His house was large. Tor it answered the
demands of his hopitality. His table was
bountiful, as it must have been to feed the
people who came in from the highways and
byways but there was not the least ostenta,
ton. There was all that hospitality required
but nothing more"
On the other hand, he rarely turned a deaf
ear to any sort of appeal for charity. Be
sides his public contributions, he literally
gave away fortunes to relieve private distress.
The daily applications from strangers often
amounted to tens of thousands of dollars
more than once they reached a hundred
thousand and over "Old men and women
asked for sustenance in their infrmity. To
redeem farms. to buy unproductive hand, to
send children to school, applications were
made from every part of the country. A girl
wants piano: boy wants money TO buy a
watch, and incloses Photographic likeness
Of himself, to be returned in case the request
is declined. A woman solicits the gift of an
alapacs dress, and is particular that the
trimmings be sent with it. The small
about III all directions. carrying in the ag-
gregate thousands of dollars but not con-
tent with meeting ordinary demands upon
him. Mr.. Smith was continually devising new
methods of searching out and assisting tho
needy. AT one time he distributed thirty
thousand dollars among the destitute old
maids and widows of New York State In
1854 he gave to the poor colored people of the
State three thousand farms averaging from
forty to sixty acres each. and himself bore
all the expenses connecting with the draw
ing and recording Of the deeds. In 1Si9-5O
he gave similar farms to one thousand white
males of tie State, and, besides accompany
ing each deed with ten dollars in cash, gave
fifty dollars TO each of five hundred white fe-
males.
Certainly Mr.. Smith, if any, had the right
TO expect to see nnC recognize those benefits
that are supposed to wait upon charitable
deeds but what, in fact, were the results?
His gift of the farms not only impoverished
still further the poor recipients but was the
prolific source of innumerable disputes and
WIAlglts, anu WIS even ullt-t tue oCcdslOn
of imputations upon the donors candor and
integrity Mr.. Smith him WAS compelled to
acknowledge that this particular beneticence
which has seemed SO wisely adapted to
avoid the objections TO ordinary modes of
glving-had done more harm than good to
those who had been designed TO benefit by it.
Of the effects of his bounty upon his immed-
late neighbors, Mr. Frothingham give an ac-
count which would be laughable but for the
weighty lesson which it teaches.
''ile ruined his beloved PeterborO by eN-
cessiye indulgence. doing so much Tor the
villagers that they became quite incapable of
doing anything for themselves. His gener-
osity dried up the source of public spirit,
and made men positively sordid. He pro
posed to build and endow II library there
and the owners of desirable land sites were,
all at once, misers, who held the ground at
prices SO eIorbitant that the scheme was
He opened free reading room,
and the thirst for information being antici-
pated, was discouraged. lie offered to erect
II fountain on the common, and the jealousy
of the residents, each of whom wanted it III
front of his own house, caused Il bitterness
which the the waters of Bethesda could not
cure. He presented town clock TO the
and they grew at once SO parsi-
monious that he was requested to find man
TO wind 1t up. The common railing was
dilapideted, and remained so, because he did
not choose to repair it at his own expense
The brood of parasites increased on this
branching oak. Tramps. swindIers, cheats
Liars sprang up like weeds.
Bccgars infested the country. His bounty
would in many cases, if not in most. have
been more wisely bestowed on the devouring
sen which it could not poison, or buried i'll
the ground where it would lie forever hid"
Are sociologists blameworthy il, reasoning
from such facts as these, they reach the con-
clusion that giving is thing to he discour-
aging rather than to be placed on a moral
pedestal? Yet" says (or impiies) Mr..
for, whatever may have been
the effect of the benefactions upon their re-
cipients, they elevated and ennobled the soul
otrhe giver. But dispassionate observer may
be excused for thinking that the ruin" of
an entire village, and the encouragement of
trlmps, swindlers cheats, liars and beggars
ito say nothing of evils in other directions)
is too high price to pay for the elevation or
of single individual.