The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25
PUT CHARITIES ON SUBSTANTIAL BASIS Mass Meeting Called for Tues-
 day Afternoon BUSINESS MEN TAKE HOLD Indiscriminate Almsgiving and Begging Are to Be Stopped and Cases Will
 Be Thoroughly Investigated
 By Trained Workers.
BUSINESS MEN TAKE HOLD

Tuesday afternoon at clock there will be a mass meeting in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce for the purpose of forming the Association of Charities. It Is called by w. D. Urquhart, who has been in charge of arrangements and will be participated in by the business men of Birmingham and the representatives of every charitable organization in the city. the association on a business basis in the hands of business men. This is supposed to be Birmingham's clearing house for scientific philanthrophy, charity of the head as well as of the heart
 The movement contemplates the ap- pointment of a strong board of trustees, whose names will guarantee a proper and intelligent administration of the funds and the employment of trained workers, whose energies will be directed toward helping the discouraged and unfortunate to be- come useful citizens and bread winners.
 Indiscriminate begging and almsgiving will be stopped. The unworthy will be weeded out and all donations to charity will be righteously bestowed.
 This system of organized charities has been tried In Atlanta four years and has been a great success. The Atlanta Consti- tuition, in commenting on the results had this to say:
 The charity of yesterday was all heart and no head. It was as often destructive as constructive. With the most benign, the most beautiful of intentions. it fre- Quently eventuated in cruelty, injustice, the misinvestment of sympathy and the defeating of Its own ends. It encouraged mendicancy. It fostered lying and hypo- orisy. Directly, it stimulated pauperism. Indirectly, 1t abetted vice. Through mad vertenoe, it recruited the ranks of the criminal. It impeded the reformative ef- forts of society. It brutally afflicted the actually deserving object and pampered the ingrate and incorrigible parasite
 'The charity of today-the Associated Charities brand-reasons from effect to cause. It has first a heart then a brain; it utilizes them in equal ratio. It views the man who begs for bread or clothing as the symptom of disease. Without 
 searches. painstakingly and with infinite patience, for the disease. If 1t cannot remove the latter, It's violence is at least mitigated. After it has stified the clamor of hunger and nakedness 1t seeks to place the victim where he will be able to pro- tect himself from these fundamental foes. It does not bludgeon sef-respect with dole; 1t does not crush manhood and hope and self-reliance with pittance. Its the ory is that society should not forever pen sion and support indulgence, if indigence can be made self-supportng. It winnows the sheep from the goats, tactfully but relentlessly. It shuts off or diminishes public and private drains, by diverting their sources into income where that Is possible. It attacks the jail, with it's endless menace and expense, as one of the most prolific avenues for it's reinforce ment. It undermnes the brothel and it's threat to the home, by dealing with the misery and the squalor, and the impul- siveness that furnish it's mainstay.
 All of this revolutionary work, and more, the Associated Charities has done in Atlanta. A little over four years ago the people of Atlanta, kindly and philanthropy icly, were giving generously to the blanket cause of charity. They had not awakened to the evils inseparable from the ancient definition above given. The average man dismissed the beggar who plucked at his sleeve on the street with a quarter-and forgetfulness. The average housewife gave generously of old clothing and food to the mendicant at the door, piously re- flected on the inequality of fate, and straightMaY forgot the transaction"