The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-02-15
ORGANIZED CHARITIES
A PROTEST AGAINST THEM FROM
THE ECONOMIC STANDPOINT.
Charge that the Charities Mitigate
Hardship hut Tend to Create a
Permanent Pauper Class.
Gunton's Magazine.

er that we have had so much of the latter
thrust upon us. Decent home life costs
more than herding together like pigs. the
apology for which is its cheapness. IL is
because the cost or standard Of living con-
trolls wages that the maintenance of the
former marks the type of civilization. The
economic problem of society is. therefore.
not one of reducing rents, regulating inter
est or aboiishing profit. but ii is prob
lem of increasing wages, and the latter de-
pend ultimately on the desires, character
and opportunities of the labpring classes.
Charity does not deal with this problem, II
rather complexities and delays its economic
solution by expedients to alleviate the con-
sequences of low wage. Charitable relief
given to low wage workers makes il pos
sible for them to compete with self-support-
ing workingmen, and such a struggle is
contrary to all conditions of economic COM
petition, since the cheaper laborer succeeds
not through any superiority. but solely be-
cause of his social inferiority, and this takes
away the incentive for the ill-paid toiler
to rise, and defeats all progress.
Fewer work hours have also an economic
significance; they cannot come in response
to the appeal for charity; they imply in
creased leisure with diminished exhaustion
er variety of social life. Regarding the la
borer, as has been usual only physical
factor in production, while ignoring him
practically as a social factor in consump-
ton. explains his slow progress. and has
neutralized the advantages he has had un-
der our republican institutions. 1t was DR..
Johnson who said, Il have found men more
kind than l expected. but less just. for
after all it is easier to be charitable than
to be just easier to give a contribution to
some benevolent society than to pay a fair
wage to employees Our charity organiza-
tions have educated the people to shunt
their responsibility for social conditions
they sadly acquieSce in, and yet which they
condemn. One 1.-THE of the effort now spent
on equipping and in administering what is
intrusted to them by The benevolent dis
posed would, If devoted to the getting at
and removal of the causes of poverty, have
radically improved the social and industrial
outlook.
Organized charity has largely spent itself
helping individuals escape from a bad lot
i'm life-and that is the very ground of its
impeachment. Economics aims to change
the lot. for therein is the root of the evil.
Then. too. more less of charity may be
found blended with manifold plausible
schemes for social Improvement ii is the
concealed factor oftentimes in many quasi
benevolent devices for ministering TO hui
man welfare. and to that extent is il posi-
lively harmful. For whenever meals or the
necessities of life are sold at less than cost
to the poor, it is an injury to the recipients.
and is commercially dishonest, because ii
makes it harder for every person who must
do business without the aid of any secret
relief funds.
COMMERCIAL INJUSTICE.
The lunch carts. which are now found in
every street and are making their appear
ance in almost every town, are fraudulent
devices to furnish low-priced meals. They
are not honest competitors with those who
are in the restaurant business. for they
escape the cost of rent. by using the pub
lie streets with slight compensation to the
municipality for their movable saloons:
they cater to an irresponsible and irregular
class of customers, and are not to he re-
garded filling any economic or whole
some function. 1t is doubtless q money
making scheme, and mainly so because
avoiding the conditions which belong to the
conduct OF every recognized and property
looked almost entirely the effect of charity
on others than its recipients.
There is too much of coddling and nursing
on the part of charitable agencies. by which
the improvident and incapabl are carried
along and made permanent burdens So
ciety: A growing class is thereby created
which has come to feel that Ii will be cared
for somehow, and so the only thought Ii en-
tertains is to get along with the least effort
on its own part. Even the fresh-air funds
and country weeks and excursions for poor
children which are now so popular, and
withal so humane. that even to crticise
them seems heartless. when Institutional
class which depends upon them. and re-
CARDS them as something society owes TO
it. 1t would be in the long run far better
by the enforcement of sanitary laws. to
give the children all the year round clean
and wholesome streets to live in. and
healthful lodgings, thus rendering less
necessary the spasmodic and irregular gifts.
which reach. after all. only a comparatively
small number of the thousands dwelling in
the wretched slums of the cities. Warner
says the most constant cause of poverty
everywhere and at all times is sickness but
for this the remedy is not free dispensaries
established by charity. but a wholesome
environment. Lord Beaconsfield. when
prime minister of England. said. THE
health of the people is really the foundation
power as a state depend The London
Board of Health reports that. on the lowest
average. every workingman or working
woman loses about twenty days in the year
from simple exhaustion induced by bad
housing. vet we are just awaking TO the
ethical and economical significance of sani-
tary living environments for the toiing
masses.
A SOCIAL PROBLEM
We have had enough of the laisses fare
system; the time has now come to face
squarely social problems, TO deal with
them by economic methods. 1t is preventive
work that is called for-not the increasing
of charitable agencies which augment year
ly the burdens of the benevolent, while at
the same time not affecting the conditions
that make temporary relief necessary. Con-
Germ for persons will call for charitable do
ing and friendly ministry. but it is concern.
for the Improvement of social and Industrial
conditions that is most urgent. For the
unemployed. work should be furnished and
how to provide il is an economic question
il does not come within the purview OF
charity.
1t Is really hopeful sign when laborers
refuse TO be satisfied with wage on which
ii is impossible to live decently. contri-
button from great employers of labor 10
lessen the distress of such. is no salve for
the sin and suffering the pittance they pay
TO women and girls makes inevitable.
So far as there has been Improvement in
regard to the tenements in our factory
towns, il has been due in the main to the
Labor Bureau whose Investigations have
made public the conditions amid which op-
eratives I'm the mills are forced to live. and
this fearless expose has paved the way for
remedial legislation. In the battle for in
have carried the day in the face of bitterest
| opposition on the part of statesmen, en-
| ployers of labor and political economists OF
the Manchester school. Charity busy
mitigating hardships that were as brutal as
| they were atrocious. but charity was i'm
potent to alter state of things that was
| Its own contemplation.
CONDONES WRONGS.
Even with US rich church corporation
resists some of the requirements of the law
| for the sanitary Improvement of tene-
ments from which it derives a large reve.
nue.. yet, because at the same time con
| spicuous dispenser of charity, il practically
| silenced criticism on its business methods
| Thus has charity been made to condone or
| extonuate what needed TO be strongly dealt