The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-11-09
THE STATE AND
SOCIAL DISTRESS
Address Delivered by Rev. John A.
Ryan, D. D., President of the State
Conference of Charities and Correc-
tions at it's Annual meeting in Aus
tin, Minn., October 24-26.

tin, Minn., October 24-26.
The prominence given to public in
stitutions, public officials, and legisla-
tion in the program of this Conference,
has suggested the topic of your Presi-
dents annual address. To some of
you the phrase, social Distress" may
be new, while to others it may not
be enlightening. have selected it be-
cause | could find no better express
sion to denote the wide and varied
province which modern charitable en-
deavor has taken for it's own. A brief
preliminary survey of this province
will furnish a justification of our pro-
gram, and prepare us to find that the
part taken therein by the State is and
must be large one.
| should define social distress, then,
as any condition of suffering or in
competence which directly or indirect
ly affects group of persons, social
group. Hence the phrase applies to
mental and moral, as we'll as to ply
sical misery and incapacity. For ex-
ample, the moral evils inflicted upon
neighborhood by disreputable saloon
or an indecent dance hall, the help
lessness and inefficiency which accom-
Dany feeble-mindednes and illiteracy
are quite as truly forms of social dis
tress as the physical misery which at
tends upon sickness, poverty, and
crimes of violence. All these condl-
tions have in common the element OF
undesirable existence, subnormal ex-
istence, existence that is unbecomlng
to creatures made in the image and
likeness of God Moreover, they are
all social forms of distress, since they
press upon social groups, or, while
directly injuring only isolated individ-
uals, react harmfully upon the COM
munity. Understood in this way, so
cial distresss will be found to compre-
hend and to bind together all the top
les set down for discussion in this
Conference, or in any other confer
ence that assemblies under the title OF
Charities and Corrections. If some OF
our subjects seem alien to the essen
tial or the traditional work of charity;
if, for example, the spread of tuber-
culOsis, and state refOrmatory for
women seem to be out of place as sub
iects in an organization whose name
suggests the discussion of how to feed
the hungry, cloth the naked, and shell
ter the homeless; if labor legislation
and a more efficient police, seem to fit
into the deliberations of a law-maklng
body rather than of group OF char
itv workers, our answer and our de-
tense must be that persons who take
these views have a narrow and ina'
uuate conception of charity, of social
distress, and of the responsibility OF
the State They do not realize that
charity is simply love of the neigh
Dor, that genuine love of the neigh
Dor extends to all forms of human
need, and that these needs comprise
not only lack of food, clothing, shelter,
and health, but the absence of a rea-
sonable minimum of mental and moral
equipment and opportunity. Precise
ly because competent workers and stu
dents have obtained this wider vision
of the meaning and scope of charity,
many subjects now appear in the
program of a charities conference
which would have been regarded as
not belonging there twenty years ago.
Theories Regarding the States
Function.
1t is scarcely necessary for me to
observe that in this paper the State
is not taken in its peculiar American
acceptation, as one of the subdivisions
of our national federation of common
wealths, for example, Minnesota, Wis
consin, or Michigan, but in the wider
and more general sense of the civil
power, or civil authority, whether
located in the city, the county, the
state, or the nation. We mean the
State written with capital initial let
ter
In the field of distress as well as in
other sections of the social province,
plausible arguments have been found
for two Numerically opposite theo-
ries of the proper functions of the
State The first, which may be called
the Individualistic theory, dates back
to the eighteenth century political
philosophers of England and France;
the second, which l shall take the
liberty to denominate Socialistic, is in
large measure reaction against the
first. According to the individualistic
view, the State should confine its ac-
tivities to the protection of life and
property, and the enforcement of con-
tracts. The conclusions of this theory
with regard to social distress received
their most thorough and best known
expression in the classic Report of
the English Poor Law Commissioners
of 1884. This Report recommended
that the civil authorities should merely
relieve actual destitution in well
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