Imperial Valley press., 1914-01-02
Judge Neil Fights
| Organized Charity

nave NeW j OIh SCdIe duopC L1e law,
which he declares will break the
charity trust" He explains in the
following article, written for the
United Press, why mothers pensions
should be paid by every state.
By Judge Henry Neil
written for the United Press)
In every city, large and small peo-
organizations of we'll meaning peo-
pie who propose to care for children
in poverty. These people beg from
the rich and well to do to get money,
clothing, shelter and food for poor
children. Children who fall into the
hands of these charitable organiza-
tons are first disgraced, then taken
from their mothers, and in the end
poverty is not even relieved.
Begging is demoralizing to all con-
cerned, even when it is done by a
fine lady, or a fine organization of
our best people, on fine stationery
from fine office. History shows
that begging failed to educate the
children and as industry demanded
girls and boys who could read and
write, the free public school system
was established and has just about
abolished illiteracy.
Charity schools were a miserable
failure. They have gone. But the
Russell Sage Foundation and other
great institutions will go pifflng
around trying to convince the people
that charity will relieve child poverty.
Charity disgraces the receiver,
teaches him to beg and fills the giver
with a false pride that hurts his char
acter. Charity cannot even relieve
child poverty and it does not even
propose to abolish it.
For scores of years this begging
business went on unhindered. The
United Charities of Chicago collected
more than 100000 a year, rs per
cent of which went to salaries of Gin
vestigators," whose chief work was
obtaining jobs for dependent moth
ers. Such jobs as they obtained We're
washing and scrubbing, laborious
work which ruined the mother and
broke up the family. Thousands of
! families were broken up in this way.
The technical court charge for break
ing up the family, however, was tru-
ancy, delinquency, failing to keep
the house clean," OF the mother was
sent to the hospital, broken down.
Thus juvenile court records and the
amazing statistics of the charity
trust show that no homes were broken
up by poverty. The facts are that
poverty was the cause of all the
broken homes that passed through the
! juvenile court and charity trust.
Early in 1911 | happened to run
into this supreme crime against moth
erhood and childhood. Selling black
babies away from their mothers out
ragged humane persons throughout the
world and helped bring on the bloody
civil war. But l have seen white
mothers, good mothers, noble mothers,
separated forever from their own
children, because they were poor, and
this crime was committed in the name
of kindness and charity. | hope God
will forgive them. This is going on
in New York state at this very hour
and any person may prove it by Wis
iting the juvenile courts and observ-
ing the processes.
Appalled, at the separation of moth
er and child, the supreme crime, and
the most awful punishment that could
be devised by fiends, conceived the
idea of pensioning mothers. Quietly
the law was passed in Illinois and
went into effect on July /, 1911. Since
that time thousands of children have
been relieved from poverty and the
breaking up of homes has been
checked. The new system met with
the approval of the public and at this
time has been adopted by Is other
states. The begging charities of Chi
in
eyes of the public. The high salaried
experts and the horde of "investlgat-
ors" could not raise last year more
than $4,000, although assisted by
committees of prominent business
men. Many charity workers thrown
out of work by the failure of the
begging societies have been hired by
the county as civil service employees
to help the pensioned mothers, instead
of wasting their time as employment
agents for wash women and scrub
bers.
The pension system has been found
economical, as all the money goes di-
rectly to the children and their mother
and the family is not subjected to the
insult of charity any more than the
pupil in the public school. Under this
system families are not broken up,
hope Eliminates the life of the moth
er, she remains at home and takes
care of her own children, the little
ones may have home of which they
are proud, and the records of the ju-
venile courts show that the usual jul
venile delinquency has about disap-
peared from pensioned families.
Before the pension system was
adopted in Chicago 800 out of 100
children were brought into court on
charges of petty theft and other in
fractions of the law. After these
same 100 children had been pen
stoned only three were brought into
court ON charges. The cause of this
is the pension, which enables the
mother to remain at home and look
after her own children. The results
are amazingly successful, and Chi
cage will soon abolish entirely from
the city limits child poverty, the
blight of civilization.
Begging must stop. 1t is a failure.