Evening star., 1932-01-31

r N these hard times. when one hears
the misuse of the lovely word
charity" so often, we American
4 women ought to awaken to the fact
that fashions have changed in So
cial service as well as in everything
else. We go on talking and acting as
If conditions still were what they used
to be a hundred, or even fifty years
ago, and as If gracious descents into
the slums, at long intervals, with
baskets containing flannels, bacon and
potatoes, were still our whole duty to
that class of persons We pityingly de-
scribe as the poor"
The truth is that having no caste
in America, and having had for years
industrial and social conditions which
destroy the last veStigeS of caste, we
90 not have that humble class Of
laborers and cottagers and dependents
who look up with grateful smiles at the
great lady when she cOndeScends to
visit them. and pat their children's
heads all round, and advise them to
keep the place cleaner.
No, we have thousands of persons
who need help-but they are not the
poor" they are not our interiors" they
are not "the other half" They are
folk just like our own ancestors of
generation or two ago, perhaps Eu-
ropean-born. and not accustomed to
our conditions here, perhaps tenn
porarily under some disadvantage due
10 world market or national labor con-
ditions-but otherwise just exactly what
your family and mine were yesterday,
and what you and I may be tomorrow.
X x
ITO the organized charities and the
n aI lo
Chests I pay my deepest respect and
indeed contribute my checks-but in
many. many cases they are still deal
ing with the old-fashioned aspects of
the problem; they are dealing with
deStitution, nakedness, the hungry, the
unfit, the eternally helpless. Some
times a case lands on one of their
agencies, and they know-and know
with deSpair-that it will never be
lifted again. Two such cases are being
handled in my neighborhood as I write.
One is the case Of a fOTeign-bOrn man
and his wife both conSumptive, help
less and we'll pleased to be pensioners
for life. The other is that of a single
woman, odd, erratiC, eloquent, who
simply moves from one charity bureau
to another, enjoying herself and the
sound of her own voice
But these parasites will always exist,
and they are not the problem that is
keeping Uncle Sam awake these cold
Winter nights. The problem is deeper,
and it lies with finer and more worth
while persons. 1t lies in the families
Of mechanics, laboring men, small
Salaried men, who have been squeezed
out of work by present conditions, and
who have been handicapped for years
by the eXorbitant price of living and
the needs of growing children.
These families are by no means "the
lower classes" nor proper objects of
charity" You and I may be in eX-
actly their fix some day, and we will
still know ourselves to be what we are
men and women with intelligence
enough to keep our heads above water
in normal times, but submerged when
the SubnOrmal and Sub-SubnOrmal crises
arise.
= K X
THE children of these families go to
Il the same schools our children do,
read the same books, see the same
movies. speak the same language. We
all meet in the chain groceries and
corner drug store, the five-and-ten.
There Is no essential difference except
that the Browns salary comes from a
bakery, which is always busy, and the
Smiths from a cotton mill which is
temporarily shut down.
You have only to look about you to
realize that most Of our fortunes in