Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1915-12-30
Is THERE A WAY OUT?

all because the professional beggar
has made the public skeptical.
Undoubtedly we face an evil which
has grown into fearful proportions.
There is room for action. The follow
ing editorial from the Savannah Morn
ing News treats of one feature of this
matter:
BY finding a means to tighten the
burden imposed on cities of the
Southeastern states by the transient
pauper evil the conference of munich
pal officials at Jacksonville next
month would become one of the most
important meetings in the South in a
long while. A heavy tax is paid every
year to the custom of passing along
paupers from place to place; and it
must be said that the tendency ofssome
cities to make dumping points of 9TH
ers has contributed to the growth of
the evil and has tended to prevent
such a conference as that to be held
at Jacksonville. Common sense would
dictate policy of cooperation
no OF !,
err than continuance of efforts to pass
paupers along to the most convenient
reighbor community
"The problem the conference will
tackle will not be easy of solution;
there are many kinds of persons who
drift from city to city, southwark in
the fall and northward in the spring,
and who get help along the way by
telling a gerat variety of hard luck
stories to mayors and charitable or
CARNATIONS; there are many others
who would cease to be dependent up
on charity if they could reach rela-
tives at some distnt place; and there
are still others who will be dependent
upon charity wherever they are. Of
this last class it may be said that it
has long been customary to pass them
along as quickly as possible in the
hope of putting the burden of their
care upon some other community.
Some of the transients are able-bod-
led men, some women and children,
some crippled, some sick. Altogether
their numbers equal a small army in
the course of a year.
Cooperation among the cities
would naturally tend to prevent SO
much dumping from which Savan-
nah, as we'll as some other cities, has
suffered great deal; and it would en-
able mayors and charitable organiza-
tons to keep records of confirmed pau
per travellers with view to making
those who are able-b bodied do some
thing to support themselves or face
the penalties of laws against vagran-
cy, and tend to stop the costly prac-
tice of paying railroad fare to shift
paupers from city to city, process
that sometimes takes the same person
around the South in a circle or sends
him southwark in November and
rcrthward in March or April. Some of
the transients spend a large part of
their time travelling at the expense of
the communities of the South; they
truly live on the country
Each city seems to think that the
easiest way to rid itself of these trav-
elers is to pay Their way to another
city; but in the course of number of
years no city can find that it has prof
| tied thereby And the cities that are
so unjustly made the dumping point
Of nearby communities suffer a con-
| siderable loss. There is not a doubt
that cooperation among the Southern
cities will tend to make the evil less a
/ burden and so it is to be hoped that
this whole section will be represented
at the Jacksonville meeting and that
Cooperation to attack the evil will re-
suit"