Relief party

“ Otherwise, all the citizens of both states, as one citizen, voter, and taxpayer has as much right as another in this respect, would be entitled to be heard. An individual citizen may be made a party where relief is properly sought as against him, and in such case he should have suitable opportunity to show the nature of his interest and why the relief asked against him individually should not be granted. ”

“ A review of the facts before the District Court convinces me that it did not, and therefore the emergency relief sought by appellants should be denied.
The Socialist Labor Party has been an organized political party in Ohio since the end of the 19th century, and although it has not achieved ballot position since the enactment in 1948 of the laws it challenges, [4] not until July 2, 1968, did it press its claims for equitable relief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is because it is the uniform experience both in this and other countries that State relief saps the foundations of human effort that many of us regard its extension, in spite of all past history, with the utmost apprehension.
The next great principle is that State relief is certain eventually to diminish and even to dry up the springs of private charity, and that we must make our election between them. It is sufficiently obvious that people will not do that of their own accord for which they are already taxed. The Unemployed Workmen Act was based upon the voluntary principle ”

“ But one of these recommendations—the only one for introducing some sort of co-ordination and control into this chaos—namely, the suggested registration of all forms of public relief, has been ignored altogether. It is rather significant that no one of the signatories of that report has, as we might have been entitled to expect, raised any sort of protest against the omission. If we are to have the policy of the Minority, we must have it as a whole and not in part. It is always an easy and a popular step to extend public 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 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. ”

“ Sometimes, when I think of those Charity Organisation Committees so much misunderstood by many, because they have so resolutely determined to give no fresh unsatisfactory relief, some of them tenderly pitiful of the poor, some of them a little far off from them, but all trying to help them in thoughtfully considered ways, and of the great current of careless, inconsiderate relief going on unchecked and uncontrolled by them, I feel as if a union between you and them would do more than almost anything else to help the poor. ”

“ It is not too much to hope and to ask that one of the first steps in the reform of the law of public relief may be the subjection to wholesome systematic restraint of all those parasitic sections of the population which now abuse public and private charity. Only when they cease to obstruct the path of the social reformer will it be possible to view in its true proportions and relationships the momentous question of society's obligation to the unemployed and the helpless poor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would be possible to multiply illustrations of overlapping between the ever-increasing number of public relief agencies to almost any extent. But it is hardly necessary to labour the point. It stands to reason that if we multiply relief agencies without establishing any systematic co-operation between them, overlapping will increase in proportion. ”

“ A 'Protestant Association,' consisting of the worst agitators and fanatics, was formed, and at a great meeting held on May 29, 1780, and presided over by Lord George Gordon, it was determined that 20,000 men should march to the Parliament House to present a petition for the repeal of the Relief Act. ”

“ The Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933 opened with a declaration that the economic depression created a serious emergency, due to wide-spread unemployment and the inadequacy of State and local relief funds, resulting in the existing or threatened deprivation of a considerable number of families and individuals of the necessities of life, and making it imperative that the Federal Government cooperate more effectively with the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia in furnishing relief to their needy and distressed people. ”

“ 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.) ”

“ To those who fear we are turning Socialists, and to those who think we are withholding just and desirable public aid and support, I say that government under the Republican Party will continue in the future to be so administered as to breed not mendicants, but men. Humanitarian legislation is going to be the handmaid of character. ”

“ The problem to be solved, therefore, is how to collect our volunteers into a harmonious whole—the action of each being free, yet systematized; and how thus to administer relief through the united agency of corporate bodies and private individuals; how, in fact, to secure all the personal intercourse and friendliness, all the real sympathy, all the graciousness of individual effort, without losing the advantage of having relief voted by a central committee, and according to definite principles. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The scheme as finally decided upon consisted of a small managing committee with sub-committees in control of food, clothing, shelter, fuel, burial, medical relief, transportation, information, finance and rebuilding.
[114] “During the emergency stage of relief the people are dealt with in large groups with little attention to the special needs of individuals ... in the rehabilitation stage the family or the individual becomes the unit of consideration.”— (Bicknell, E. P., “Disaster Relief and its Problems,” National Conference of Charities and Corrections, sess. xxxvi, 1909, p. 12.) ”

“ So, too, we have, as you know, expended greater sums in cooperation with states and localities for work relief and home relief than ever before—sums which during the coming winter cannot be lessened for the very simple reason that though several million people have gone back to work, the necessities of those who have not yet obtained work is more severe than at this time last year. ”

“ It is not necessary to repeat the fact, which the reader has already seen, that the process of complete social organization was largely expedited by the organization of relief, and materially reacted upon by it. The community's “big men,” the men of prominence, the men of broad experience in civic and philanthropic work, the men who knew the resources of the city and had the prestige to command them, were deeply immersed in the relief work while the businesses and the departments of the shattered body politic waited or went forward in a more or less indifferent way. ”

“ That prompt and efficacious measures of relief ought to be adopted, and any postponement of them to a future session, or a future parliament, may be fatal in its consequences, and may have the effect of seriously damaging, if not of destroying, some of the most valuable of our institutions in Church and State. ”

“ However, every sincere reform campaign is valuable because of its immediate and far-reaching educational effect, even when the candidates fail of election. It is gratifying to those [261] who are socially interested to watch the evolution of political platforms. Every party now inserts human welfare planks and pledges devotion to measures that in the days of our initiation were regarded as dreams and ridiculed as beyond the realm of practicality. Settlements have increasing authority because of the persistency of their interest in social welfare measures. ”

“ On the other hand, to fix responsibility and prevent confusion, all executive work, both for relief and for rehabilitation, should devolve upon the Commission, which should be held responsible for initiating relief measures, presenting them to the Finance Committee and subsequently carrying them into effect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our city, in every cause that appeals to benevolence and humanity, has always been in the forefront of the generous, and, in such a case as the Texas disaster, the city’s liberality should be maintained. The Citizens’ Permanent Relief Committee has taken steps to render aid to the hurricane sufferers, and, through that useful and beneficent organization, every person in this vicinity will have the opportunity to join in giving aid for a purpose which must excite universal pity and sympathy. ”

“ The action of the rulers of particular towns precedes the action of Parliament.
Before 1569 no effectual system of poor relief had been established, but many experiments had been made. At the beginning of the century a serious problem was before the Government. The social changes of the time had resulted in the formation of crowds of vagrants, and the greater complexity of economic conditions made the position of the workfolk more unstable. ”

“ Such a policy, far from endangering our ascendancy will only strengthen our moral power. It will not be a mere favor extended to rebels, but a service rendered to the people. There is no way in which harmony and peace and general prosperity can be better restored than by a policy calculated to identify the personal interests of the individual citizen with the common welfare and to enlist the energies of all in the common good.
My party friends, the great Republican organization to which we belong has, by its magnificent achievements, well deserved the power it now enjoys. ”