The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-02-13
A MILLIONAIRE'S MAIL
What 5000 Begging Letters Show
Do College Presidents, Bishops and
Civic Workers Present q New
Problem in 1endicancy?
Gillian Laser, Exclusive Service The

Survey Press Bureau.1
American Mendicancy'' is the name
applied by a recent newspaper writer
to the begging which besieges Amer
lean nnillionaires. He dep1ores its ex-
istence and sees something un-Amer-
lean in it's unashamed directness. The
Brahnlin caste of India, he says, with
its red thread worn as token of super
iority and it's aims bowl that may not
be denied, is duplicated in the United
States by the college presidents and
bishops and all those who beg for re-
1igious, educational, civic and similar
purposes - they demand reverence
from all other castles but they present
the aims bowl always.
And it is right that they should!
declares William H. Allen of the New
York Bureau of Municipal Research
in his recent book: Modern Philan-
thEopy. This seems at first a sur
prising statement, for one would nat
letters OF appeal would expose an I'M
precedented story Of paHperIsm and
indigenoe- I& is most amazing to
learn that among those 5000 average
begging letters the illegitimate let
tiers, those from cranks and fmpost-
ers, eshould be almost negative
err from college president. helpless wild
legitimate?
II the letters are actually worth
amusement afforded by curios, freak
messages and absurd requests, If they
do not represent mendicaacy but are
the necessary expression OF human
need, how is American philanthropy
going to meet the obligations present
ed by them?
ern Philanthropy chance to have
been addressed to Mrs. Hartman, but
they might have been addressed to
any one of a hundred great pailan-
T6FnTofSfS divided ono less
well known givers, or they might have
been the mail of only two weeks in
that this undeveloped means of learn
ing the truth about the nations needs
is right at hand, and is lying inert in
a thousand ltois Wastezbaske5s. what W rat are
ing to keep on sepping I'D the torrent
of need with the tiny sponge of fruit
less giving, are we going to let it
rage unrnoIested, or are we going TO
seek its source? ttIt stimulates a
mans inagination'' as one reader
wrote after having the case put before
him.
If one mail brings ten letters from
as many states each pleading for
money to pay physicians who claim
that they can cure tuberculosis, can
Ger, irfantiIe paralysis, or what not,
provided their hands are sufficiently
and previously Crossed with silver"
against qllacks shown to be an innae-
date one? Not ten persons are to be
saved from chicanery but as many
millions whose danger IS revealed by
the involuntary and corrOborat1ng tes-
timouy of those ten unconscious wit
nesses.
The possibilities that may result
from such disclosures are evident in
the study of only one n1illionaire's
begging mail. Ten college presi-
dents prove as strong a case for the
need of Industrial institutions for the
negro as that already nlade out
against the malpractice OF unscrupu-
lous doctors. And the farmers whose
crops have gone to pay the exorbttant
demands of illegal rates of interest,
emphasize the need of action against
sharks.
needs suggest the value of a clearing
house for the Use of both appealers
and givers, single dynamo which
will generate the power Of both need
and philanthropy into working cur
rents for the entire country. Need
should not have to go farther to seek
philanthropy than philanthropy must
go to seek need. One is as ever pres
ent as the other, and a common meet
ing ground where the two may stand
as peers is no longer a visionary ideal
but a necessity.
The clearing house plan is logical
and feasible. Its work should involve
a twofoId activity-with and for both
appea1er and giver. All letters of ap-
er himself or by the receiver OF many
appeals who does not want their use
fulness to be lost, would be studied
as the 5000 Jefferson Mrs. Hartman
were studied. The effort would be
first to discover the nationwide needs
disclosed by parallel evidence; and
second, by means of a. million tiny
wires of contact with receiving sta
lions connected with the central dy
namo, to relieve individual needs at
their sources.
{ In the service of givers the collect
ed information, definite, accurate, and
complete, would be offered as the ba-
dependent not upon whin1, nor acct
dent, nor sudden emotion, but on ac-
tITaI and proven needs, the vitality of
which has been gagged Philanthropy
view all of city 8 or states relief
problems TO view society instead of
societies, education instead Of educa- |
tionaI institutions.
Conditions themselves could be at
tackled instead of the hydra relief |
problem which is but symptom of
gigantic problem must be a govern
mental one writes DR.. Charles Nc
Carthy of the Wisconsin Legislat tive |
Reference Library. Private phiIan- |
thropy cannot affect the whole social
The force, the organi- |
zation itself, the government that con- |
trolls society must meet society's prob |
lens instead of helping to create them. |
Efficient government is potentially |
the greatest of all philanthropy. What |
is the use of giving millions for edu-
cation if inefficient public officers by |
wasting millions create ignoranee?'' |
says Mr. Allen. ''Why gifts for scien- |
tific research if inefficient governm ent |
prevents the application of truth? Why |
hope for cleanliness and virtue if in
efficient government to1erates filth and !
rewards vice? Whether government !
is creating or corrnpting evils. a clear /
ing house is bound to reject
Like the seismograph which delicate |
Iy charts every ztrenlor of the earth S |
crust, SO the clearing house adjusted |
to the life of the nation would regis
ter every accomplishment of govern |
ment and its every DETECTION in meet !
ing the needs of the people.
ssTshe only agency whose business it |
is to be on the constant lookout for |
unequal opportunity, for unnecessary |
suffering, preventable and durable dis |
only agency which in city, a county, |
a state or a nation, represents 100 per |