The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-16
What Model Charity Means
By EUGENE IT.. LIES

ards would certainly call for the ap-
 plication of every known remedy In the
 category of human helpfulness and in
 this category would necessarily be
 compassion and devotion. without
 which our striving falls short. Lack
 of warmth simply means incomplete
 equipment of the idividual worker; the
 equipment needs enlargement. On the
 other hand. we do say empha tically.
 that mere warmth of sentiment and
 good intentions without sound method to be attained spells small change char
 to be attained spells smallchange char ity and encoura cement of weakness.
 The assertion that the charity or
 ganization societies give too little ma
 terial relied in proportion to the amount of advice extended to the poor may
 honestly be met with the statement
 that the whole relief question has in
 the past years received conscientious attention at the hands of these bodies and that they, indeed, long ago promul- gated the Idea of full and adequate pro-
 vision for clearly ascertained needs of
 dependent families. They have also had the courage to face misunderstand- ling by proclaiming that things alone,
 though important will not and cannot solves our poverty problem in the large; that personal service is indispensable to even the successful giving of gooes and money. Relief" has been in, : mensely widened so that if now covers all that one may think of as wise |friendliness." and the wisest friend is an adviser, an encouraEer, an inspirer. He will aid in the removel of personal barriers to recovery and in the use of the strengthening resources of the community. Is there any folly so gross as that which leads a man to believe that the sorrowing. the baffled, the broken, need no advisers, no encourag- ers no insprers?
 The trouble with the critic of salaries 1 in the charity field very often Is that he has never tried to work out an actual case of distress, does not realize It's oif-
 ficulties Without systematic and care | fully directed organization in city like l Chicago, for example. where the United | Charities alone annually has to deal with l bout 15,O00 cases, what would happen | Imagination can supply the answer. He would have free service, the critic, but fl would be service to hand out alms. We. l too. would have free service. but 1t would he the service of wise friendliness. and l that would be trained, directed service. TO get such implies the provision of trainers and directors kept at their talks all of the time and thus we get back to paid force.
 The Part of Government
 When we arestold tha. governmental agencies should assume a large part of the work now being done by private charity, we say yes and mo- Yes, if con- ditions in the community are such as to give reasonable warrant that all the hard won experience in the charity or sanitation field Ia to be respected. that high ideals of service will obtain. that
 there is community pride and community
 stability of purpose. a genuine sense of
 state as H. G. Wells calls 1t. of suff-
 cient strength to stand by the effort
 through thick and thin. But no. ever no, if shallow, visionleas. job hunting. social grab baggers are to he in the sad
 dle. Our patriotism, our humanity, would