The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1909-04-03
Columbia University Professor
>'s Charges It to Our Poor
Economic System.
HONESTY AND. FAIRNESS
NOT ALWAYS REWARDED
The Good Not Generally the Most
Successful in the Economic
Struggle. a.,

NEW YOHh, April l.-Dr. EDWARD
T. Devine, professor, Of social economy
at Columbia university, and general,
secretary of the Charity Organization
society, lectured before the New York
School Of Philanthropy, few days
ago on the subject, why Poverty
Exists" The lecture was the first of
the three Kennedy lectures to be Civ
en- for that society on Misery and
Its Causes"
In his lecture DR.. Devtne denied
that poverty is an evidence Of per-
honesty and fairness always lead to
success. He2said:
Elements Of Success.
"The qualities that have caused the
successful to survive ind to overcome
will not always bear scrutiny. Cum
ming, rather than strength Of char
acter; 1nsensibility, rather than pa
tience; the physical endurance Of an
animal nature, rather than the high
er and more complex spiritual organ
ization Of fully civilized man; con-
formtty to vice, rather than to supe-
rior virtue, may account for the better
showing of those successful lin the
economic struggle, which is only in
part as yet moral struggle"
Cause Of Suicide.
Whatever may be the cause Of sui
eide, the fact, DR.. Devine said, was
an evidence Of misery. The city at
present has 1000 suicides a year; last
years record was II in excess, Of
that for any previous season. Forty
three cases of attempted suicide were
carefully investigated. Two were di-
rectly due to poverty and four to un-
employment. The remaining 81 were
laid to a variety Of reasons, which led
the investigators to the conclusion
that poverty is not the greatest cause
OF suicide.
=. Statistics also show that the age
at which the greatest number of
cases occur is from so to so. Three
men to one woman kill themselves
There are more suicides among
Protestants than Catholics, more
among Roman than Greek Catholics,
more among Greek Catholics than
Jews.
Misery in New York.
There are more kinds fmisery in
New York, DR.. Devine declared, than
Milton imagined in his HELL" Con-
trary to the idea that misery is a
retribution for man or his par
ents' misdeeds, DR.. Devine stated that
1t depended largely on conditions
which society could control.
'The only thing that I believe we
n fol $o.7
when family asks for assistance"
said the lecturer, "is that they be-
lieve themselves to be in need Of as
sistance. The stories which the an
nails Of the tenement houses tell are
not Of poverty, even as they are not
Of punishment. They are, In the
main, Of maladjustment, of adverse
conditions over which the individual
who suffers is unable to exercise ef-
fective control, which nevertheless are
not beyond control"
The Social Evil.
DR.. Devine discussed at length the
statement OF a probation officer that
nine-tenths Of the misery in New
York could be traced to the social
evil. He pointed out the fact that
since the flaming of the model law I'm
1902 by William Baldwin and the
committee Of fifteen to protect the
children in the tenements, there has
not been one single conviction, OF
1,094 complaints, 81 were dismissed
by. the Tenement House department,
274 were dismissed by the corporation
counsel; only nine were brought to
trial, and they were acquitted. "The
complete reinforcement Is most
unfortunate breakdown Of municipal
government" DR.. Devine declared, and
he said that the part Of the police
courts in 1t was "a miserable fiasco."