Social welfare

“ It is necessary, then, to analyze this aim of social efficiency in terms of our society. The equality of opportunity which we profess to offer is to be thought of in terms of possible service which may be rendered.
In any community the contribution to the general welfare which may be made by any one of its members is conditioned by the interests which the individual has in the general good. The unsocial individual, the one who seldom responds to the needs of the group, is out of sympathy with social problems, and contributes little to social welfare. ”

“ Can political independence ever become subordinate to social welfare? Are there any spiritual bonds that can hold more strongly than national ambitions and national pride? Such questions as these carry the student of society into a wider range of corporate life than the average man enters, but a range of life in which the welfare of every individual is involved.
315. The Significance of National Life.—The nation is a group of persons, families, and communities united for mutual protection and the promotion of the general welfare, and recognizing a sovereign power that controls them all. ”

“ There is, as I explained to you in the Labor Exchange the other morning, no compulsion, in the end, even as to the performance of the universal duty of public service. We only insist that those who finally refuse to do their part toward maintaining the social welfare shall not be partakers of it, but shall resort by themselves and provide for themselves. ”

“ Or should the welfare of the majority give way as a social ideal to the welfare of the best—the most capable, the most upright, the most enduring? Is it possible to evolve a social order in which the greatest good of all can be well served, since biological inequalities are so very great? ”

“ Yet these persons themselves are by their very actions proving the efficiency of the vital principles which we have enunciated. What is the whole social welfare movement but a recognition on the part of municipalities, educational boards, and religious organizations of the fact that the future welfare of the race depends upon the administration to the young of forceful uplifting environmental stimuli? ”

“ The insurance schemes shall include at least unemployment benefits and an old-age pension for everyone. (4) In case of special hardship, there shall be a right to social welfare. (5) The aim of social security and social welfare is to enable people to live their lives on an equal footing and on their own responsibility. In homes, the residents are entitled to joint responsibility and joint decision-making rights. Article 24 (1) Every citizen shall have the right to equal, free access to public educational and training institutions. ”

“ To-day, this program can be carried out more easily than ever before in human history. The social conscience is already awakening and in his efforts to win more support for his righteous cause, the worker will derive aid from the churches as well as from the many organizations that have come into existence during the past decade solely to cast their influence in behalf of social-welfare movements. The social question to-day includes the industrial question. ”

“ For those, therefore, who regard the material welfare of a community as the test and basis of its welfare in all other ways, the abiding social problem is always this: how to adjust circumstances in such a way that the smallest possible number of these potentially great wealth-producers may be wasted, and the largest possible number may be induced to exert themselves to the utmost. ”

“ Other needs in the area of social welfare include increased child welfare services, extension of the program of aid to dependent children, intensified attack on juvenile delinquency, and special attention to the problems of mentally retarded children. The training of more skilled workers for these fields and the quest for new knowledge through research in social welfare are essential. Similarly the problems of our aged people need our attention. ”

“ It is within our local communities that the real contribution to the welfare of our citizens is made. Those closest to the problem-the social workers in State and local governments, area agencies, and private and voluntary organizations-are usually the most qualified persons to decide what help is needed and the best way to provide it. ”

“ Since, then, the welfare of the body social depends mainly on the relative smallness of Classes D and E, the selfish and the noxious, it follows that an important, if not the chief, duty to society, for all who really and reasoningly desire the well-being and progress of the community, is so to regulate their conduct as to cause these classes to become relatively smaller and smaller. ”

“ All these conditions are abnormal, wholly unfavorable to a fair consideration of what will promote welfare. Even if socialistic methods might work fairly well when all were favorably disposed, there is great question whether they would work as well as present social methods, under equal good will. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But here we are met by a fact which forbids us thus to put in the foreground the welfare of citizens, individually considered, and requires us to put in the foreground the welfare of the society as a whole. The life of the social organism must, as an end, rank above the lives of its units. ”

“ Without a single exception, professional social workers speak of the integrated social program as a milestone, a breakthrough, moving relentlessly towards a reorientation of the entire welfare movement in our country. ”

“ The principle of control demands that the new life of the people be regulated as effectively as it can be by municipal authority, and if necessary that such municipal authority be extended or State authority be localized. There are difficulties in the way of all such enterprises, but social welfare requires improvements in the way the working people live.
It is notorious that immigrants and working people generally have larger families than the well-to-do. The children of the city streets form a class of future citizens that deserve most careful attention. ”

“ These aims of welfare policy shall be attained through the constant improvement and equalization of the conditions of life and work, the transcendence, on the basis of solidarity and reciprocity, of differences stemming from economic un-development and other unequal conditions of life and work, the equalization of possibilities for education and work, and through the prevention and elimination of social differences which are not based on the application of the principle of distribution according to work performed. ”

“ Meantime public opinion failed to appreciate that the welfare and social development of these laborers was a matter of vital concern to the community, and that the rights and responsibilities of the management of these big concerns were equally matters of grave importance to community welfare. In short, public opinion had to be taught that the community is a party to industry, and must be concerned with how industry conducts its affairs. ”

“ Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. ”

“ To this basic reorientation, there was complementary success in the establishment of modern and improved facilities for the program; the recruit­ment and training of skilled manpower for social work; and the participation of local governments in welfare projects, In this manner, the government was able to intensify its welfare services and reached a new group of people whose con­tinued existence without the benefit of these social services threaten the peace and security of our society. ”

“ We believe that this work must grow and that there will come also a more realizing sense of the responsibility of 120the community for the welfare of its people. In the wise control of new building, and of the apartment houses which may be tenements in the future, by planning for wide streets and many open spaces, by the awakening of higher civic standards we shall come also to a higher social order. “Victory over evil at its source and not in its consequences; reforms which shall regard the welfare of future generations, who are the greatest number.” ”

“ Child-labor laws, compulsory education, minimum wage, children’s courts, welfare bureaus, devised primarily as mere protective agencies for the weaker and less self-defensible members of the community, are now suddenly seen to involve a host of positive social responsibilities. We are recognizing that the state has a duty not only to save the younger generation from exploitation, premature labor and demoralizing environments, but also to give it every possible opportunity to be trained for an effective vocation. ”

“ Second, we must now devote greater emphasis and resources to the satisfaction of social needs and the promotion of individual welfare. With the new stability and growth of our economy, we can now extend the horizons of our concerns from the provision of the basic necessities of life toward the broadening of social opportunities for every man, woman and child in this country. ”

“ Bad habits actually nullify good laws, while bad laws may be made quite endurable by good customs. Thus, the welfare of every community depends upon a conservative social influence, preventing abuse of opportunity for injury and stimulating individual energy. ”

“ In such a society individuals and communities at all levels will be schooled and experienced in self-discipline and prepared to follow conduct patterns that emphasize the principle: live and help others to live to the fullest and the utmost.
Beyond civilization lies the recognition and practice of the principle that the welfare of the whole takes precedence over the demands of any of its parts. At the same time, each part or segment of the social whole has specific rights that the directors of the whole are bound to recognize, respect, defend and implement. ”

“ This question can be answered by considering the kinds of conduct most compatible with the life, health and welfare of the social group, and by inspecting the actual contents of legal and moral codes.
It is plain that certain conditions are necessary in order to realize a continued life in any body of men in contact. Unless certain requirements of associated living are complied with, the groups breaks apart or goes to ruin. There must be in the first place a tolerance that shuns wanton interference with the life, health, welfare, or freedom of others. ”

“ The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country.
We can keep our government on a sane and healthy basis, we can make and keep our social system what it should be, only on condition of judging each man, not as a member of a class, but on his worth as a man. ”

“ In the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a good citizen—contributing something to the general welfare ”

“ We will continue to help those who cannot help themselves. We will offer people on welfare a new social contract. We'll invest in education and job training, and provide the child care and health care they need to go to work and achieve long-term self- sufficiency. We will give them the help they need to make the transition from welfare to work, and require people who can work to go to work within two years in available jobs either in the private sector or in community service to meet unmet needs. ”

“ To coordinate and facilitate access by eligible children and their families to the services available through community resources, including mental health, physical health, substance abuse, educational, domestic violence prevention, child welfare, and social services. ”

“ More than this, I think that we could agree on what kind of a world we would all want to build. It would be a world of independent nations, moving toward international community, each of which protected and respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress — not material welfare as an end in/of itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hopes. ”

“ 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?" ”