The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1938-01-13
THE ORDER RECEIVED BY RED

THE ORDER RECEIVED BY RED
wood county commissioners last week ban
ming the publication of poor bills" pre-
,umably is designed to remove all stigma"
attached with being a county charge There
is some question how much of said stigma
remains after five or six years of astonish-
ing relief rolls, how much the elimination of
this accounting to the taxpayers will re-
move that stigma and whether it is not
most dangerous and unwarranted abroga-
ton of the generally accepted rule that the
voters are entitled to full reports of expen-
ditures by public officials.
One of the most common complaints on
relief as administered in the Era-Roosevelt
has been that it is no longer something to
be shamefaced about to be receiving help
from the treasury, be it county, state or fed
eraL Everybody else is getting it, has
been the common defense of the fellow who
always had little trouble getting along but
managed somehow until he adopted the
government owes me a living" attitude and
applied for his share of the dole.
There has been no public complaint on
the sparing of further hardships of elderly
persons unable to work and with no children
capable or willing to support them. There
is no stigma attached to the granting of aid
to the mother left destitute with several
small children, assuming she makes an hon
est effort to bring them up to be proper
citizens. No one quarrels with the family
which because of illness or other setbacks,
looks to a kindly county for temporary as
sistance.
Only stigma attached to relief has fall
len in the very vast majority of cases where
it was deserved: upon the incompetent, un-
dependable and plain lazy fathers and like
sons who in some cases before the Roose-
welt era and in a good many since have been
entirely satisfied to accept the county's sue
cor for themselves and their families, which
unfortunately for the treasury are in most
instances large.
By assuming to eliminate all stigma by
the practice of publishing ex-
pendltures for such purposes, the trainers
of the ruling disregard the fact that people
are prone to gossip. 1t will be no secret in
any small community that Mrs. A and that
lazy galoot of husband of hers are getting
help from the county again. My husband
saw the county welfare workers car parked
in their yard only yesterday-and that
daughter of theirs sporting permanent and
a new fall coat and their good-for-nothing
son chasing around and drinking every
night" And such stories will grow with
alarming speed until the AS may be driving
a Rolls-Royce and attending Jackson day
dinners before some new case interests the
gore-gatherers.
Changing the title of public help from
relief to welfare won't change the attitude.
of the client who is ION the county now and
riding for all he can get" it doesn't eli
inmate the chisler who has other means of
support or who accepts money for bread and
then blows it for booze. And no corps of
welfare workers which the county can sup
port can hope to maintain sufficient vigil
ance to detect all such cases. Call it "tat-
Ting" if you wish but more than one family
has been driven from the public trough by
neighbors and others who knew they were
chiseling and reported it and scores of per-
sons inclined to ride on taxpayers coattails
have been afraid to apply because Of the
knowledge that someone would report their
real circumstances. All this protection is
eliminated when poor bills are stricken from
county printing and welfare becomes a Sec
ret procedure.
The elimination of this accounting is
most vulnerable to attack from the angle of
possible graft although to do so unwarrant-
eddy embarrasses honest citizens who had
wished upon them the task of administering
the new set-up for wage of So per day
which cannot be drawn for more than rs
days in any one year.
Welfare board members have an unen-
viable job at best but the ruling makes It
doubly so since they will find themselves
frequently cropping in the dark once the
props of public inspection are removed. One
cannot pass lightly the fact that their posi-
ton is now more than ever packed with
political and social dynamite in the magni-
fication that rumor will give to their most
minor errors.
WHEN ONE WITNESSES THE CON-
tinuous streams of pulp wood and logs that
are going to the mills, the fact impresses
itself that the job of replenishing timber
must be started soon and on big scale. The
nation which allows its lands to become
treeless finds itself completely out of the