The record-union., 1894-02-03
THE UNEMPLOYED OF SAN FRAN
CISCO.

THE UNEMPLOYED OF SAN FRAN
CISCO.
Josephine Shaw Lowell, so many years
Secretary of the New York Board of
Charities, is probably the most expert
enced student of poverty and of public
relief and private charity in the United
States. Her essays on tn subjects are
recognized as standard.
In the Forum for February she says:
Temporary employment on a large scale.
freely advertised Is not means of prevent
ing, but, on the contrary, creates, distress and
vagrancy and begging in the locality where it
IS given. The present deplorable condition of
Chicago is plainly due to the fact that $780,
O00, 900 have been spent there in temporary
work during the past three years. Not only
the industrious and bona f1de searchers for
regular work were drawn to Chicago in the
expectation of wellpaid employment, but all
the aimIess wanderers who think they can
'better themselves by any change assem- mbled
there. The migration OF the latter class was
sufficiently marked to affect New York City,
which was remarkably free from them during
the winter of 1892.
Here is a suggestion for San Francisco
in her effort to relieve the unemployed
there. There are thousands of workers
in that city whose dependence is upon
regular employment. Whatever artificial
intervention in aid of the suffering tends
to interrupt the employment of these reg
ular labor dependents, must work injury.
The question, then, for the generous
souls laboring to relieve the distress of
the unemployed in San Francisco to ask
themselves is, Do our labors in behalf of
the temporarily unemployed tend to in
terfere dangerously with the great body
of toilers whose tasks have been and are
regular, and upon which they place sole
dependence? And. again, does our effort
tend to draw to San Francisco more of
the unemployed class2
Now, if San Francisco can answer
these two questions satisfactorily, well
and good; if not, what then?
It is bad, as Mr.. Denison, whom Mrs.
Lowell quotes, said in 1869, to do any
thing to increase the tendency to bind to-
gether large masses, to augment the dis
position of population to congest; there
ton. But public work for relief of
chronic distress under normal condi-
tions does just that thing. What then,
shall be done in San Francisco? These
thousands of unemployed men must not
starve; they ask for employment only;
on 81 day they cannot procure food.
Il al nd Wit
stout clothing, rest under shelter and nu-
tritious food in plenty they cannot work.
There must, therefore, be continuance
and enlargement of the temporary direct
relief of the pressing need Of these people,
for the present condition is abnormal,
and outside of and beyond the conditions
under which the laws referred to apply.
But this temporary aid must not be of
q character to encourage chronic depend
ence; the relief must be given only to
those who are actually suffering; there
must be none that will tend to degrade
the recipient into pauperism. So the
labor must be of character that will not
attract the worker, that will not content
him, and in a large sense the wage must
be such that the recipient will not re-
main satisfied with it.
San Francisco is, therefore, proceeding
rightly according to the conclusions of
the most experienced of those who have
labored in such fields. In fact, we cannot
see how San Francisco could adopt other
than the means she has employed for re-
lief of those able to work, except that
perhaps greater vigilance may be exer-
ercised in preventing the indrift of the
unemployed to add to the present con-
gestion, and that the wage paid ought to
be enough larger to supply food, shelter.
clothing, fuel.
Those unable to work, the sick. the
women with small children, the children
needing food and clothing and shelter,
and with no able-bodied parent to supply
them, they must be committed to the
charities of the various associations of
mercy and aid. Let San Francisco see TO
II. then, that these have assistance in their
workers, while taking all credit for what
has been done, let the men of the metro
nolis reflect that they have really done
very little. Only about $4,000. we be- |