The Washington herald., 1913-02-09
BY LILLIAN LASER.

Exclusive service the Survey Press Burcan.l
American Mendicancy" Is the name
| applied by 4 recent newspaper writer tc
the begging which besleges American
miIlionaires. He deplores its existence
and sees something un-American In its
/ uuassumed directness. The Brahmin caste
Of India, he says, with its red thread
worn as a token Of superiority and Its
aims bowl that may not be denied, is du-
plicated in the United States by the coll
lege presidents and bishops and all those
who beg for religious. educational. civic.
and similar purposes-they demand rev.
erence from all other castles, but they
present the aims bowl always.
And 1t Is right that they should. de-
clares William II. Allen, OF the New
York Bureau OF Municipal Research, in
his recent book, Modern Philanthropy"
This seems at first a surprising state
ment, for one naturally supposes that his
study of 5000 letters OF appeal would eN-
pose an unprecedented story of pauper-
ism and indigence. 1t is most amazing
TO learn that among those 5000 average
begging letters the illegttimate letters.
those from cranks and impostors, should
be an almost negative quantity. May all
these letters, whether from college presi-
justly be called legitimate?
II the letters are actually worth read
ing for something more than the amuse-
ment afforded by curios, freak messages,
and absurd requests, II they do not rep
resent mendicancy. but are the necessary
expression Of human need, how is Ameri-
can philanthropy going to meet the obli-
cations presented by them?
The 600 letters reviewed in Modern
Inl.NI
dressed TO Mrs. Hartman. but they might
have been addressed to any one of a hun
dred great philanthropists, or divided
among loo less well known giyers, or
they might be the mail OF only two weeks
In Mr.. Carnegie's office The point is that
this undeveloped means Of learning the
truth about the nations needs Is right
at hand. and is lying inert in a thousand
wastebaskets. What are We going to do
about II? Are We going TO keep on sop
ping up the torrent of need with the tiny
sponge OF fruitless giving. are We going
TO let II rage unmolested. or are We going
to seek its sources? 1T stimulates q
mans Imagination" as one reader wrote
after having the case put before him.
II one mail brings ten letters from as
many States. each pleading for money to
pay physicians who claim that they can
cure tuberculosis, cancer. infantile paraly-
sis. or what not, provided their hands are
sufficiently and previously crossed with
is not the need for concentrated
action against quscks shown TO be an i'm
mediate one? Not ten persons are to be
saved from chicanery, but as many mill
Ions. whose danger is revealed by the in
voluntary and corrobrating testimony of
those ten unconscious witnesses.
The possibilities that may result from
such disclosures are evident in the study
Of only one miIlionaire's begging mail.
Ten college presidents prove as strong
a case for the need OF Industrial insti-
tutions for the negro as that already
made out against the malpractice Of un-
SCrupulous doctors. And the farmers
whose crops have gone to pay the ex-
orbitant demands OF illegal rates of in
terest, emphasize the need OF action
against loan sharks.
These evidences of nationwide needs
suggest the value OF a clearing house
for the use Of both appealers and CIV
ers. a single dynamo, which will gener-
ate the power of both need and phil
into working currents for the
entire country. Need should not have
10 60 farther to seek philanthropy than
must go to seek need. One
IS as ever present as the other, and
common meeting ground. where the two