Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-04-28
Il)e Ea,,fdster 1ntflIi9cufe.,
LANCASTER. APRIL Is. 1886
Our state Charities.

Nothing in the conduct of public af-
fairs in Pennsylvania more thoroughly
needs revision and Reorganization than does
the distribution of the public charity. We
have had great deal of discussion about
the administration of one of the charities
of the state, the so-called soldiers orphan
schools, and the governor after personal
investigation has declared it to he
bad and has requested the resig-
nation Of the superintendent of pub
lie schools whose office was charged
also with the supervision of the orphan
schools, though they have no connection
in their theory, or otherwise in their con-
duct, with the public schools of the state.
They are in truth asyiums for children
who are supposed to be orphans, we be-
lieve, but who of course are not the
orphan children of soldiers who laid down
their lives in the years of the war. 1t was
for this class the charity was origi-
nally instituted, but now it is avail
able, as we understand it, to the children
of any one who was once soldier. We
have, therefore, supported by the state,
common schools for the instruction of all
its children, and boarding houses for the
care of the children of quondam ex-sol-
diers. 1t is the fact that the parent was
once soldier which entities the child to a
preference over other children in the state
in the receipt of its bounty. The distinc-
tion is mistake; it is not just TO the other
children OF the other citizens TO pick out
this one class of children to be
supported by the state. If it thinks
it to be its proper duty to take
care of all children, or of all orphan chill
dren, or all poor children, there are classes
between which it may justly discriminate
in distributing its bounty. But that the
rich child of an ex-soldier, should receive
the states bounty in preference to the poor
child of any other citizen cannot be demon.
strated.
1t is the duty of the state to take care of
all those who are unable TO care for them
selves, or who have not natural guardians
TO care for them. 1t is its duty to provide
for the lame, halt, blind and aged who can.
not provide for themselves. 1t is noble
charity to care for orphan children who
are poor and unprotected but justice de-
mands that the charity shall be general and
shall go out TO all those who need il ire
spective of the condition of their parentage
The state has no moral right to indulge
in charities to soldiers of it which do not
extend all over it; nor to select portions of
the people for benefactions to the exclusion
of other portions of like need. And yet it
is doing this thing steadily. 1t spends
millions yearly for charity, large
part of it being to special sections
and people who have no public demand
upon it than other sections and people.
Appropriations are freely made for private
charities started by Tom, Dick or Harry,
for the glorifcation of God and themselves
and incidental aid to worthy sufferers
and when they tire of the burthen and
are sated with the glory, they shoulder it
on the state.
And it has come TO pass that notwth-
standing three millions of the state money
poured out in charity, beggars abound
about us, the poor generally are in
sufficiently aided by the public in
stitutions, and the fundamental duty
of the state to provide for its helpless
poor is not discharged. With the wealth
of Pennsylvania there should never be
beggar on our street, nor a man, woman or
child in its borders without comfortable
subsistence, save only those able but un-
willing to earn it.