The morning call., 1891-12-11
"Goop WHOLESOME SUMMATION,

The questions of best0wing charity and
the care of the INDECENT are every year
growing more pressing in this country. even
on this Coast, where there is not only less
poverty than exists in the East but where
what there is bears less heavily upon the
sufferer. We have in this city an army of
charitable as sociations all finding it difficult
to meet the legitimate claims upon their re-
sources, and buSily deviSing means to aid
the worthy cases daily coming before them.
Into the perplexity of study and discus
sion of the important subject Of helping the
poor have come, within the past few days,
two notable utterances. each from high
source Rev Brooke Herford recently
told the Associated Charities of Boston that
he thought there was danger of doing too
much for the paupers, and announced his
belief that occasional "good wholesome
starvation" would be good thing for them.
Just what Mr.. HEREFORD means by good
wholesome starv alton is hard to tell. Ger
tainly the helpless poor in this aud other
lands have had more than occasional ex-
perience of starvation, but We have yet to
learn that it has ever proven good or whole
some for them. 1t is probable that Mr..
HEREFORD, lie many another prescriber for
human ills, would feel considerable reluc-
lance to taking even small dose Of his own
medicine.
There is neither morality nor benefit in
starvation. To call it good or wholesome Is
a contradiction OF terms. How utterly alb
horrent to all ideas of humanity the condi-
| tion implied by it is was evidenced out here
| in California few weeks ago when Mer-
/ ced jury decided that hungry man who
stole meal he could not otherwise obtain
was guilty of no crime, and the verdict was
! received by the public with general satisfac-
ton.
The other utterance referred to is from
The Open Court, in the current issue of
! which writer on THE Lesson Tha; Hard
Times Teaches" asks:
rs it not cruel to feed paupers and make
them more unfit still in the struggle for ex-
istence than they already are? There should
be no charity" the writer continues. Eek
cept it be educational. so as to teach people
to help themselves, and show them way
out of being in need of charity. Yet for
those who refuse to learn any lesson from
life there is no other hope than an eventual
determination in hard times"
Ii is difficult to see why feeding a hungry
man should make him more unfit for the
struggle for existence. Under existing
economic conditions every eIiod of finaD-
cial depression brings to the condition of
pauperism men who. given the chance.
would be willing nay, glad. to work and
provide for themselves and their helpless
ones. 1t is useless to talk of what these
should have done during good times. There
is nothing the average wage-worker can do
To render himself invulnerable against the
attacks of hard times. He can only save.
and II is seldom possible tor him to attain
an independence by these means.
To say that these, when hard times come.
shall not be assisted by those who are more
fortunately circumstanced is to deny to
both classes a human right.
As for The class with whom the need for
aid seems to have become chrone-the
paupeTs indeed-they too, have the claim
of their circumstances upon the more unfor-
tunate. 1t Is no time to talk of educational
charity when a man is in hunger. 1t is not
our function to discuss his worthness or
investigate the genuineness of his need I'M
til his hunger is first satisfied. Then, let
education and charity 90 hand in hand.
The poor man, the pauper, the criminal,
even, has a claim on society, not because he
is poor, or pauper, or a criminal, but be-
canSe he is a man. To talk about eventual
determination of the unworthy by the
starving-out process is to press the doc
trine Of evolution into unwarrantable use.
Unfortunately, these starved-ou organisms
reproduce themselves in kind. 1t is not
the survival of the fttest that civilized So
ciety aims at, but the survival of the most
and the placing within their grasp of every
| opportunity to become the fittest.