Material welfare

“ Our prosperity and comfort depend on the number and quality of things we can make that the rest of the world wants, and the facility with which we can exchange those things for things that we want. The gentleman who has just spoken proposes to tax the very relations upon which our material welfare is founded! We want corn and wheat and tea and coal and sugar ”

“ She may add to the value of some products directly, as in turning milk into butter, and raw materials into palatable food; but her chief energy may be in getting satisfaction for the household out of materials gained by her husband. Both are essential to the welfare of either, and prudence requires a proper adjustment between them. A force of physicians may be needed to keep a community in working condition; but if a whole community tried to live as doctors some other community must furnish the material wealth to sustain them. ”

“ The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. ”

“ Here more than there is the tendency to exaggerate legislation and to neglect enforcement of law. Instead of harnessing the whole army of workingmen to the crusade and strengthening civic agencies such as factory, health, and tenement departments, houses are built and given to men, clubs are formed to amuse factory girls, amateur theatricals are organized. All this is called "welfare work." "What is welfare work?" ”

“ Infant’s Milk Depots, advice to mothers, and all the institutions and measures forming part of the campaign to lower infant mortality, must invariably have the general aim of promoting the public welfare, and must never assume the form of Poor-Relief, otherwise many who need their services will fail to avail themselves of these, for, as is well known, a great many people are frightened away from any institution connected with the system of Poor-Relief. ”

“ In the meantime, the State factory legislation has revolutionized the methods of sanitation in the workshops of the country and is safeguarding better and better the lives and limbs of the workers.
Employers are making increased provision for the welfare of their employes through sanitary and safe work places, opportunities for recreation and education, model homes rented or sold, and relief funds for sickness, accident and death benefits, as well as old age pensions, all affecting millions of railroad, factory, mine and department store workers. ”

“ Today I challenge every State to take the money they save from lowering their caseloads and use it—for child care, for transportation, to subsidize the training and wage help that people need to move from welfare to work. ”

“ They listed the poor in each parish community, assessed rates for their maintenance, and appointed overseers to administer the welfare system, deploying surplus funds to provide houses of correction for vagrants. Raw materials such as wool, flax, hemp, and iron were bought upon which the able-bodied unemployed could be set to work at the parochial level. ”

“ All welfare work, in the end, whether it be the salvation of the worker from accidents, the teaching of individual or196 community hygiene, the care of the sick, financial compensation for the injured, the teaching of languages, trades, sciences, or the inculcation of thrift, has for its object the making of better men and women, the giving to the worker born under unfavorable social conditions the opportunity to lift himself above these conditions. And from this both the employer and employed must benefit together. ”

“ All services in the household, in contributing to bodily comfort of the family, make an essential part of human welfare, but prudence requires such an adjustment of these services to the total wealth-producing energy that they may be maintained without reducing the total power. All public expenditures in the care of streets and parks are an essential to welfare so long as the sources of wealth production are kept the more active from such advantages. ”

“ The industrial insurance companies with their already well organized plans on clean-up, baby welfare, health, fly and mosquito campaigns, are important agencies for such steps in most cities. The aid of public school principals, the clergy and others is also sought. Very effective organization is secured also through the help of the various welfare and civic organizations. ”

“ Such services must consist of care, research or education in the fields of human health or social adjustment and rehabilitation; relief of victims of natural disasters and other emergencies; or assistance to those who are impoverished and therefore in need of food, shelter, clothing, education, and basic human welfare services. ”

“ That we may the better see what are the implications in respect of social structures, let us first note the implications in respect of individual structures.
The welfare of a living body implies an approximate171 equilibrium between waste and repair. If the activities involve an expenditure not made good by nutrition, dwindling follows. If the tissues are enabled to take up from the blood enriched by food, fit substances enough to replace those used up in efforts made, the weight may be maintained. And if the gain exceeds the loss, growth results. ”

“ Or, for example, the employment of the farmer may be pursued, not only without interfering with the rights or privileges of the mechanic, the physician, or the merchant, but it will directly contribute to their welfare, and is indispensable to it. ”

“ We have slashed this redtape to 37 States, covering 75 percent of all the people on welfare in America, so that they can take steps to fix the broken system. State by State, we are building a welfare system that demands work, requires responsibility, and protects our children. ”

“ Elements of welfare.—The welfare of communities, like that of individuals, is made up of health, wealth, wisdom and virtue. If we can say of any human being that lie is healthy, wealthy, wise and good, we are sure of his satisfaction so far as it depends upon self. When a community is made up of individuals kept in health and strength from birth to old age, sustained with accumulated treasures, wise enough to use both strength and wealth to advantage, and upright, just and kind in all human relations, our ideals of welfare are met. ”

“ And I shall take it for granted that a large portion of all national welfare is dependent on the work which the population can constantly be doing; or, if I may so express it, that the greater part of the national wealth is the income from the work which is the outcome of the national health.
It is a common expression that we do not know the value of a thing till we have lost it; and this may be applied to the losses of work which are due to losses of national health. ”

“ In fulfilling this social vision, we ruled out the expropriation of wealth and its redistribution among our people in the form of welfare wages. We sought more lasting change and improvement of human welfare, centered on the person’s productive capacities and initiative. ”

“ These are four different kinds of welfare, each of which is essential, and only confusion of thought follows any attempt to treat them all as wealth, however they may be intermingled and exchanged. Health is essential in gaining a full measure of wealth and wisdom, and perhaps in maintaining genuine character; but a healthy life gives no assurance of complete welfare. The facts concerning health in a community make a distinct subject [pg 002] of study for promotion of welfare, and we call it public hygiene. ”

“ But, although men need the assistance of each other, they are so formed that each must have the care of himself. If every man were fed and clothed from a common store, provided by the labor of all, many, depending upon the labor of others, would be less industrious than they now are. By the present arrangement in society, which obliges every man to provide for his own wants, more is earned, a greater number are cared for, and the general welfare is better promoted than would be done if each labored for the benefit of all.
§4. From this arrangement comes the right of property. ”

“ We have social welfare as the result of wealth consumed, or used up. Society is interested in all the wealth accumulated, and the methods of its accumulation and its fair distribution are a part of social machinery; yet these have their chief significance in the final consumption. It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that makes society interested in our possessions. It is not what society has, but how it uses it, that settles the chief questions of welfare or illfare. ”

“ Of course, if we are convinced that the improvement of the condition of the poor is to be found in the extension of material relief, then all questions of distinction between Poor Law and charity sink into insignificance. Our duty is plain. We have by all means in our power to bring about that condition, and to augment the volume of relief from every possible source.
No one probably will assent to the suggestion that material relief is the cure for poverty. On the contrary, every one appears to recognise—in theory at least—that material relief may do great harm. ”

“ He has the right to work in unhealthy trades at unhealthy times, or under unhealthy conditions, just as he has the right to consume unhealthy food and drink. If it be prohibited, it must be prohibited when it has a direct relation to the general welfare. ”

“ Nothing is more conspicuous in recent years than the growth of sensibility on the subject of economic evils, especially as to the conditions of industry. Economic efficiency, as a sole object, appeared to preclude regard to morality of method, and the result has been [Pg 166] poverty for the masses of mankind. If this is to cease, satisfactory minimum standards of comfort and welfare for the entire population must be accepted, which will form a first charge on industry. ”

“ The writer does not at all depreciate the value of the many semi-philanthropic and paternal aids and improvements, such as comfortable lavatories, eating rooms, lecture halls, and free lectures, night schools, kindergartens, baseball and athletic grounds, village improvement societies, and mutual beneficial associations, unless done for advertising purposes. This kind of so-called welfare work all tends to improve and elevate the workmen and make life better worth living. ”

“ We must provide at the earliest practicable time facilities for efficient utilization of these resources. We need a more diversified occupational pattern, a reduction in the volume and duration of unemployment, an increase in the worker’s share in a bigger national output. We must insure those social welfare benefits so necessary to the attainment of full stature of a self-respecting citizen-education, recreation, security against illness and the infirmities of old age. ”

“ I shall endeavour, however, to show, that though in undertakings in which the general welfare of society is concerned, persons of all ranks and conditions are called upon to give them their support, yet, in the INTRODUCTION of such measures as are here recommended,— a scheme of providing for the Poor,—there are many who, by their rank and peculiar situations, are clearly pointed out as the most proper to take up the business at its commencement, and bring it forward to maturity ”

“ Governmental limits.—All society recognizes certain universal wants and the necessity of meeting these with essential order and the best economy. These universal wants enforce the organization of society under some form of government. Such an organization grows out of the necessity rather than the will of humanity. Hence government, local or more general, is the direct effort of individuals in society for the general welfare. Usually the best test of general welfare is the assent of the majority of mature and intelligent members of the community. ”

“ All questions of nationalization of industries or of [pg 345] community consumption must be brought to the test of universal need. What the whole community wants the whole community has a right to provide in the way which brings most good with least expenditure of exertion in any form. No other question can outweigh in importance this one of public need or public welfare. Every producer and every consumer is interested in seeing that such welfare is not overlooked by the public, or infringed upon by any individual or combination of individuals in his community. ”

“ Every employer shall furnish employment which shall be safe for the employees therein and shall furnish a place of employment which shall be safe for employees therein and for frequenters thereof and shall furnish and use safety devices and safeguards, and shall adopt and use methods and processes reasonably adequate to render such employment and place of employment safe, and shall do every other thing reasonably necessary to protect the life, health, safety and welfare of such employees and frequenters. ”

“ The consideration that the employer benefits financially from the health and happiness of his employees is there, but it occupies a decidedly secondary place.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to demonstrate statistically that welfare work, as distinct from safety work, is financially beneficial to the employer; that the Corporation has received any tangible return for the large sums it spends yearly to give its workers the opportunity to lead cleaner, healthier, happier, and broader lives. ”

“ The machinery of government then becomes a part of every person's welfare, and his relation to its maintenance by contribution of his wealth is a part of prudent consumption. The economic question in consumption, then, involves not so much what one can get from society as what he can give to society, since his welfare comes largely through organization in the use of accumulated wealth. ”