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Page 8
We may say, of course, that it is a primitive view of life, which thus
confuses intellectuality and business ability; but it is a view quite
honestly held by many poor people who are obliged to receive charity
from time to time. In moments of indignation the poor have been known to
say: "What do you want, anyway? If you have nothing to give us, why not
let us alone and stop your questionings and investigations?" "They
investigated me for three weeks, and in the end gave me nothing but a
black character," a little woman has been heard to assert. This
indignation, which is for the most part taciturn, and a certain kindly
contempt for her abilities, often puzzles the charity visitor. The
latter may be explained by the standard of worldly success which the
visited families hold. Success does not ordinarily go, in the minds of
the poor, with charity and kind-heartedness, but rather with the
opposite qualities. The rich landlord is he who collects with sternness,
who accepts no excuse, and will have his own. There are moments of
irritation and of real bitterness against him, but there is still
admiration, because he is rich and successful. The good-natured
landlord, he who pities and spares his poverty-pressed tenants, is
seldom rich. He often lives in the back of his house, which he has owned
for a long time, perhaps has inherited; but he has been able to
accumulate little. He commands the genuine love and devotion of many a
poor soul, but he is treated with a certain lack of respect. In one
sense he is a failure. The charity visitor, just because she is a person
who concerns herself with the poor, receives a certain amount of this
good-natured and kindly contempt, sometimes real affection, but little
genuine respect. The poor are accustomed to help each other and to
respond according to their kindliness; but when it comes to worldly
judgment, they use industrial success as the sole standard. In the case
of the charity visitor who has neither natural kindness nor dazzling
riches, they are deprived of both standards, and they find it of course
utterly impossible to judge of the motive of organized charity.
Even those of us who feel most sorely the need of more order in
altruistic effort and see the end to be desired, find something
distasteful in the juxtaposition of the words "organized" and "charity."
We say in defence that we are striving to turn this emotion into a
motive, that pity is capricious, and not to be depended on; that we mean
to give it the dignity of conscious duty. But at bottom we distrust a
little a scheme which substitutes a theory of social conduct for the
natural promptings of the heart, even although we appreciate the
complexity of the situation. The poor man who has fallen into distress,
when he first asks aid, instinctively expects tenderness, consideration,
and forgiveness. If it is the first time, it has taken him long to make
up his mind to take the step. He comes somewhat bruised and battered,
and instead of being met with warmth of heart and sympathy, he is at
once chilled by an investigation and an intimation that he ought to
work. He does not recognize the disciplinary aspect of the situation.
The only really popular charity is that of the visiting nurses, who by
virtue of their professional training render services which may easily
be interpreted into sympathy and kindness, ministering as they do to
obvious needs which do not require investigation.
The state of mind which an investigation arouses on both sides is most
unfortunate; but the perplexity and clashing of different standards,
with the consequent misunderstandings, are not so bad as the moral
deterioration which is almost sure to follow.
When the agent or visitor appears among the poor, and they discover that
under certain conditions food and rent and medical aid are dispensed
from some unknown source, every man, woman, and child is quick to learn
what the conditions may be, and to follow them. Though in their eyes a
glass of beer is quite right and proper when taken as any
self-respecting man should take it; though they know that cleanliness is
an expensive virtue which can be required of few; though they realize
that saving is well-nigh impossible when but a few cents can be laid by
at a time; though their feeling for the church may be something quite
elusive of definition and quite apart from daily living: to the visitor
they gravely laud temperance and cleanliness and thrift and religious
observance. The deception in the first instances arises from a wondering
inability to understand the ethical ideals which can require such
impossible virtues, and from an innocent desire to please. It is easy to
trace the development of the mental suggestions thus received. When A
discovers that B, who is very little worse off than he, receives good
things from an inexhaustible supply intended for the poor at large, he
feels that he too has a claim for his share, and step by step there is
developed the competitive spirit which so horrifies charity visitors
when it shows itself in a tendency to "work" the relief-giving agencies.
The most serious effect upon the poor comes when dependence upon the
charitable society is substituted for the natural outgoing of human love
and sympathy, which, happily, we all possess in some degree. The
spontaneous impulse to sit up all night with the neighbor's sick child
is turned into righteous indignation against the district nurse,
because she goes home at six o'clock, and doesn't do it herself. Or the
kindness which would have prompted the quick purchase of much needed
medicine is transformed into a voluble scoring of the dispensary,
because it gives prescriptions and not drugs; and "who can get well on a
piece of paper?"
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