Public relief

“ Many of the men who would be included in this form of relief are now dependent upon public aid, and it does not, in my judgment, consist with the national honor that they shall continue to subsist upon the local relief given indiscriminately to paupers instead of upon the special and generous provision of the nation they served so gallantly and unselfishly. Our people will, I am sure, very generally approve such legislation. ”

“ We shall never get back to a healthier position until the public realise that the problem of public relief is the most difficult and critical that any nation has to deal with, and is one which requires the undivided and concentrated attention of the community as a separate branch of administration. ”

“ The administration of public relief is, they consider, a matter of so much complexity, its maladministration in the past has led to such grave evils, that it is necessary that it should be administered by experts specially appointed and qualified for the purpose, otherwise no limits can be set to the spread of pauperism and dependence. The Majority would appear to have some warrant for their criticism in the experience that we have already had of the delegation of relief duties to bodies outside the Poor Law. ”

“ The problem was to contrive how plenty (εὐπορία, not poverty, ἀπορία) should become permanent. His proposals are adequate aid and voluntary charity. Public relief should, he urges, be given in large amounts so as to help people to acquire small farms or start in business, and the well-to-do (εὔποροι) should in the meantime subscribe to pay the poor for their attendance at the public assemblies. (This proves, indeed, how the payments had become poor relief.) ”

“ There are important points in favor of the system ; but the same tendency exists to encourage and increase pauperism under this method as under the system of public outdoor relief. We believe that outdoor relief in some form is a necessity, and is conducive to the good order and well-being of society, and we can see no reason why the necessary funds for its use should not be raised in the same manner as are other necessary expenses of a state or municipality. We believe that the trouble com- plained of under the public relief system lies in the abuse of the system and not in the system itself. ”

“ I heard also of one or two wealthy men whose names do not appear as contributors to the public relief fund, who have preferred to spend considerable sums of money in this private way. In my wanderings about the town I heard also of several instances of poor people holding relief tickets, who, upon meeting with some temporary employment, have returned their tickets to the committee for the benefit of those less fortunate than themselves. ”

“ To help those least fortunate of all, I am recommending a new public welfare program, stressing services instead of support, rehabilitation instead of relief, and training for useful work instead of prolonged dependency. ”

“ Since the reign of Charles I., Englishmen have made themselves responsible for the maintenance of those who are destitute. All, who cannot obtain food or shelter for themselves or from their nearest relatives, have a right to relief from compulsory rates levied upon the rest of the community.
It will be our object, in the following pages, to trace the growth of this system. We will examine the causes which led the public authorities of state and town to control the relief of the poor, and the steps which they took to render its administration effective and successful. ”

“ But what do you do in reality? The local papers teem with cases of distress: families are starving; the poor, unhoused and unfed, are seen upon the road sides exposed to every vicissitude of the season, surrounded by children who cry in vain for bread. What, I ask, is the measure of relief you propose? not a public subscription; no general outburst of national charity—no public work upon a grand scale to give employment to the idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and hope to all. ”

“ All work undertaken should be useful- not just for a day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation.
(2) Compensation on emergency public projects should be in the form of security payments which should be larger than the amount now received as a relief dole, but at the same time not so large as to encourage the rejection of opportunities for private employment or the leaving of private employment to engage in Government work. ”

“ Akin to public charity are all those public enterprises undertaken to ameliorate the condition of the poor—parks, model tenement houses, art galleries, free concerts, free baths, and relief works of all kinds. To these I must add all those Federal, State, and municipal enterprises, such as the post office with the proposed savings attachment, a State system of highways and waterways, municipal water, gas and electric works, etc., that are supposed to be of inestimable advantage to the same worthy class. These likewise fill the heart of the American Philistine with immense satisfaction. ”

“ It may be assumed that in the administration of relief, the public is warranted in imposing such conditions on the individual relieved, as are conducive to the benefit either of the individual himself, or of the country at large, at whose expense he is to be relieved. ”

“ No fact is 209more clearly established by the history of all kinds of relief administration since 1834 than that the effect of refusing to make public provision for persons in distress is merely to lead to the provision of assistance in a rather more haphazard, uncoordinated and indiscriminate manner by private agencies. ”

“ The English system of Poor Relief presents a striking contrast to the rest of our national institutions. In most departments of our social organisation, public control is less extensive in England than in the other countries of Western Europe. But, in regard to the relief of the poor, we have adopted an opposite policy. ”

“ Therefore, the Congress would have to reduce drastically some of certain large items, very large items, such as aids to agriculture and soil conservation, veterans' pensions, flood control, highways, waterways and other public works, grants for social and health security, Civilian Conservation Corps activities, relief for the unemployed, or national defense itself. ”

“ Social Services.—Through the Social Welfare Administration, the Government has extended material aid to over half a million people. Homeless men and women were resettled from squatter areas. Victims of typhoons, fires, floods, and other public calamities received immediate relief and aid. Self-help projects were developed all over the country. Institutional care was provided for orphans, the aged, and the infirm. ”

“ Thus, persons, men or women, who are quite unable to work, are fed and clothed with contributions that have been made at home and abroad towards the sufferers, whilst those who are able to work outside of the house, are furnished by the local Governments, for measures of relief, with wage-earning works such as those in rearranging public roads, paddy fields, in opening new fields for mulberry trees, and those in the house with materials for straw-works, bamboo-works, fishing-net-works, etc., which are bought up afterward by the authorities dearer than ordinary prices. ”

“ Again, in the administration of public charity, the industry and morality of the whole laboring population depends, to a most serious extent, upon adherence to certain fixed principles in awarding relief. ”

“ And yet I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. ”

“ Continued aid would only encourage pauperism. So the applicants are informed that the relief given is only temporary, and that every effort must be made by them to find employment. Outdoor relief is justified, not only as the most economical, but likewise in the interest of public and private morals. To dispense with public outdoor relief, properly administered, would be a calam- ity in any community. There can be no adequate remedy to take its place, and the poor would be obliged from sheer neces- sity to resort to crime. ”

“ The right kind of change will initiate widespread and innovative reforms in almost every area of government policy — health care, energy, the environment, the tax code, our public schools, our transportation system, disaster relief, government spending and regulation, diplomacy, the military and intelligence services. ”

“ For charitable relief, whatever form it takes, or whatever its effects, possesses at least this broad distinction from State relief, namely, that it is voluntarily provided, and usually comes from those who can best afford it. ”

“ There are still some who believe that much of this, at least, is a beginning at the wrong end, and that poverty will never be cured by great schemes of centralised relief, amongst which State relief must of necessity take the first place ”

“ Only nine hours later, the Citizens' Relief Committee was ready, and a working plan adopted; and from it grew up a wonderful system worthy of study by all students of emergency relief. Thus social service broke into the midst of the great calamity not as a mere adjunct to what was already well devised, but as a central and deciding element, justifying its faith by its work, and its presence by its wisdom in grappling with an inexorable need. ”

“ All over our own land, from every state and city and hamlet, from the president and the assembled congress, dropping all else to turn the nation’s resources generously to the rescue, through all grades of the people the response broke forth spontaneously, generously, warmly, without stint and with such practical promptness that relief for unexampled distress was already on the way before the close of the first fateful day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the provision against distress during this winter, the great private agencies of the country have been mobilized again; the generosity of our people has again come into evidence to a degree in which all America may take great pride. Likewise the local authorities and the States are engaged everywhere in supplemental measures of relief. The provisions made for loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to States that have exhausted their own resources, guarantee that there should be no hunger or suffering from cold in the country. ”

“ The President is also issuing an Executive Order that will launch an all-of-government effort to provide equitable emergency economic relief to working families, communities, and small businesses across the nation. ”

“ The governments of the afflicted areas, both State and municipal, can not be given too high praise for the courageous and helpful way in which they have come to the rescue of the people. If the sources directly chargeable can not meet the demand, the National Government should not fail to provide generous relief. ”

“ Of those societies that state that they give relief from their own funds thirty-nine are in cities that have no general relief societies and include most of the smaller cities. The remainder of this class, twelve in number, restrict their relief, for the most part, to emergencies and to those cases for which appropriate relief cannot, except with great difficulty, be procured from any other source. ”

“ The state shall emphasize social relief and assistance, welfare services, employment for citizens, social insurance, medical and health care, and other social welfare services. Priority shall be given to funding social relief and assistance as well as employment for citizens. ”

“ Famines from time to time occur, and since 1876, government relief works have, during periods of scarcity, been carried on, such as constructing wells and extending and making roads, and those who cannot work have received food and shelter from the government. ”

“ Thus the rich and the poor were brought in contact in a way advantageous to both parties; and if such a system could be universally adopted, more would be done for the prevention of poverty and vice than all the wealth of the nation could avail for their relief. ”

“ Is it impossible so to reorganise and reform this huge volume of charitable relief, which is at present largely indiscriminate and working upon no settled lines or policy, in such a manner as to make it really effective in dealing with distress which, as the Circular says, "can best be dealt with by charitable people"? Is it impossible to bring about co-operation between charity and the Poor Law upon the lines indicated? ”

“ We have seen that the social changes of the beginning of the sixteenth century led to a great increase in the number of vagrants; and that men were then more ready to substitute secular for ecclesiastical control in matters concerning the poor. Town Council, Privy Council and Parliament all endeavour to organise and supervise new methods of charity; and, by the combined efforts of all three, a new system of poor relief was gradually created. ”