Charles A. Ellwood

“ If an income was paid to every member of a community regardless of his own exertions or character, the result would be a diminution in the energy and earning capacity of the recipients. That is exactly the effect on those who receive public relief, except that there is also added a moral degradation, because there is a stigma attached to public relief, arising from the fact that the money received is actually the property of individuals, taken from them against their will and not belonging to the public. ”

“ The "interdependence of function," which begins in the biological and ends in the ethical stage of human development, is the fundamental fact of all socio- psychological phenomena. The working unities which organisms formed, at first unconsciously, but finally consciously and pur- posefully, to sustain and develop the life-process, have alone made possible the development of that intercerebral process which in humanity we rightly term, by way of preeminence, the social process. ”

“ The instinct to imitate is admittedly one of these. But there are many others. Who can doubt that such universal tendencies as the tendency to store up a food-supply, to cooperate in obtaining a food-supply or in repelling the attacks of enemies, to form enduring family groups, to live in communities, to render obedience to elders and authorities, to judge some kinds of action right and other kinds wrong, to communicate by means of articulate sounds, to wor- ship supernatural beings, etc., have long been innate, instinctive, in our species, and are truly matters of race heredity ? ”

“ We cannot ignore the fact that outdoor relief in some form and under certain circumstances is not only humane and just, but that it is an actual necessity in any civilized community. And the main question to determine is whether it shall be administered by people in their individual capacity at their own expense, by organized charitable associations with funds raised for the purpose by voluntury contributions of the people, or by public officials from money raised by tax upon the property. ”

“ THEORY OF IMITATION IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 727
is in accord with some psychological teaching of the present time. That it does not satisfy all inquiring minds, however, is evident from the fact that Professor Giddings, in an able review of Professor Baldwin's work, 1 suggests that the real basis of our discrimination in selecting models for imitation is the conscious- ness of similarity or of "kind." We chiefly imitate, he argues, our similars, especially those who are like-minded with ourselves ; indeed, we do not receive suggestions at all from creatures wholly unlike ourselves. ”

“ In a new country, where labor is still in great demand most of the time, the full evil effects cannot be seen. But the dangerous system is here ready to do all its natural mischief in times of reverses and crowded population.
The system tends to excite hostility to the state itself. First, relief educates a large class to look to government for help; and when this is received the feeling of dependence increases. The poor man has become a pauper, a beggar. A willing pauper is near to being a thief. ”

“ I am persuaded, therefore, that the only safe way to provide public relief is under such stringent conditions that no one shall be tempted to accept it except in an extremity, and under such conditions, also, as will as soon as possible make the recipient of help able to support himself again and do his part in supporting others. ”

“ The coordination of functioning activities into working unities larger than the individual organism, 1 then, viewed in the light of evolution, explains all socio-psychical phenomena, including suggestion, imitation, consciousness of kind, and the like. Upon this basis a deeper interpretation of the social process which shall reconcile the conflicting theories of the present seems to us possible; while the recognition of the working unity, "the social coordination," as the fundamental fact with which it deals, should make social psychology at once concrete and practical. ”

“ The consciousness of kind, especially of mental and moral resemblance, evidently comes in to limit and control the process of imitation ; it leads to an instinctive discrimination among possible models for imitation and to an instinctive selection of those models whom we believe to be most nearly like ourselves. Therefore Professor Giddings thinks that the principle of " consciousness of kind" should be recognized as another factor in the social process, a factor which limits and modifies the action of the principle of imitation. ”

“ My argument, in brief, is that the work of the mass of every community is an absolute necessity, in order to provide for it the means of living; that no human being will work to provide the means of living for himself if he can get a living in any other manner agreeable to himself ; and that the community cannot afford to tempt its members who are able to work for a living to give up working for a living by offering to provide a living otherwise ”

“ Moreover, and most important of all, the individuals who do not select the right models for imitation are constantly eliminated, and thus natural selection fixes in the race a larger and larger number of instinctive impulses which tend to discharge themselves along one line rather than along another.
The whole drift of our argument against the imitation theory of social order and progress must now be apparent. It divorces the social process from the life-process as a whole. ”

“ If the advocates of public relief contend that there should be no stigma attached to its receipt, the answer is that in that case the tendency would be toward the condition where the whole people would be ready to accept an income from so-called public funds, and that the resulting loss of energy and industry would be sufficient to plunge any nation into a greater poverty than any now suffers. ”

“ The problem of how to deal with the third class is probably most difficult to solve. When such a mother is respectable, honest, and industrious, and calculated to properly train her children, there would seem to be no other proper and humane course to pursue than to aid her by outdoor relief, so long as she takes proper care of her children and does all she can to aid in their support. But there is the same danger attending such a course as there is in furnishing outdoor relief to the first class the danger of the mother relaxing her own efforts, losing self- respect and self-reliance. ”

“ So far as experience can teach anything, it teaches us that both indoor relief and family aid, or outdoor relief, as properly practiced, are both indispensable in any comprehensive plan of public charity. ”

“ It is urged that outdoor relief is undesirable, because it requires an amount of discrimination between cases that is practically impossible where the work is done by public officials. It has long been a principle that any work was suitable for a government to do in proportion as it could be reduced to a routine and done in a semi-mechanical way. As the work of giving outdoor relief cannot be done in this semi-mechanical way, it is unsuitable for public officials to undertake. ”

“ No temporary occasion should force a British subject to part with the last shilling of his little capital, and to descend to a state of wretchedness from which he could never recover, merely that he might be entitled to a casual supply. ”

“ That the law of the land, by the hand of a public officer, should take the dollar from him who earned it and hand it over to the man who did not earn it, seems to be an act of gross tyranny and injustice. ”

“ Thus the picture of the evolution of the family which we obtain from ethnology shows us, not merely the continued imitation of a primitive pattern, but also the constant elimination of those who do not conform to the pat- tern, plus the fixing in the race of those instinctive impulses which make conformity to the pattern easy. ”

“ Neither can widows with many children be expected to be entirely self-supporting. Women with large families are deserted by their husbands : how can they get along without public aid ? I do not believe in bestowing public relief with a lavish hand. ”

“ The organization of sub-human societies would seem, then, to be wholly an outcome of the process of natural selection, and the changes and progress which they exhibit, though perhaps in some measure mediated by the process of suggestion and imitation, seem largely to be due to the working of the same principle. Now, if natural selection be the method of progress in the societies of the animal world, is it not reasonable to suppose that it is also in some measure a factor in the progress of human societies? "Certainly," a defender of the imitation theory might reply ”

“ The truth for which we are contending, then, is that the process of imitation is at every turn limited, controlled, and modified by a series of instinctive impulses which have become relatively fixed in the individual through a process of evolution by natural selection. ”

“ The worst evils are due more to the character of the people, and to existing social forces and opportunities, than to any peculiar system of relief. At present it is a question of administration, and practical measures must be directed to the improvement of methods of administration. With a reformed poor law England was able to diminish its pauperism while continuing outdoor official relief. ”

“ The funds for relief should be gathered by assessment or taxation, thus making the burden equal among rich and poor. Private relief should not be given. Whenever anyone applies to a private citizen for aid, he should be sent to the one place where, after his case has been thoroughly investi- gated, proper action would be taken. Thus there can be no such thing as imposing upon charitably disposed persons, as is often the case. Public aid cannot be refused in cases of sick- ness, where all means of the family are exhausted, and the children left to suffer the pangs of hunger. ”

“ Care is uniformly taken that while sufficient aid is furnished it shall not be given in such generous measure as to make public charity attractive. There are, moreover, strict police regulations, punishing with imprisonment refusal to work when employment can be had, wasting the relief granted, and misspending time in amusement, idleness, or drink, in such a manner as to render public aid necessary. The system is still further fenced about with other restrictions and precautions, which, together with its peculiar official machinery, need not be detailed here. ”

“ The average annual cost of each outdoor pauper, or recipient of family aid, was less than $40 for a year of fifty-two weeks, while the average yearly cost of each indoor pauper was more than $139; and, if interest on the value of the almshouses, asylums, etc., where the indoor poor lived, were added, their yearly cost would go up to $ 1 80 at least, or four and one-half times as much as the cost of the outdoor poor.
Here we see one reason why outdoor relief is everywhere and always more common than indoor relief: for the same sum of money a much greater number of poor can be aided. ”

“ When such a family is again thrown upon its own resources, although work may be plenty, and the man abundantly able to perform it, yet that man and his family are apt to think it is not necessary to exert themselves as they have done in former years, that they can take the world easy. If such ideas should be realized and outdoor relief fur- nished them a second time, they will learn to rely upon the same source in every time of need ; such a family is then on the direct road to chronic pauperism. ”

“ It is even to be seen in family traits ; for any group which remains sufficiently isolated long enough to develop by natural selection physiological peculiarities may also develop innate psychical tendencies of its own. Again, it is plainly discernible in the pathological phenomena of the social life; the "instinctive criminal" and the "hereditary pauper" are such, not because of the contagion of vice, crime, and shiftlessness which certain models in society may furnish, but because inborn tendencies lead them to seek such models for imitation rather than others ”

“ As the state excites hope which it can never fulfill, a time comes when the pauper is a public enemy. Having been educated by the state to be a beggar, he turns upon the state because it does not recognize his demand for support to be based upon "natural rights." ”

“ Many families can almost support themselves, and it seems folly to dismember them and place the children in refuges or board them in private families, and compel the adults to resort to the poorhouse, when a little relief given in the home would keep the family together and enable them to make part of their support by ordinary methods. Those who receive outdoor relief receive usually less than it would cost to maintain the same number of persons in the almshouse. ”