Golden Age, March 4, 1931

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Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND, COURAGE

in this issue

HELPING THE POOR

ONLY ONE REMEDY

' SCREENINGS

MALNUTRITION AND WHITE FLOUR

GARDENING VERSUS GOLF

BENEFITS FROM THE KINGDOM

An address by Judge Rutherford, broadeast in watchtower national chain program

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■ every other WEDNESDAY

five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.2 s

Vol. XII - No. 299

March 4» 1931

CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

There Is But One Remedy . . . 373

100,000 Living in Basements , 368

.Bartering in Kentucky . . , 368

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Twelve Hundred Ways to Help

the Poor ....... 355

34,400,000 Telephones . . . 367

Paroles in Alabama .... 369

Shrinkage of Newspaper Influence 369

Ten Million Deficient Children 371

Something New in Prison Design 371

Marriage in New Zealand . . 372

One Issue Did the Trick . . . 374

MANUFACTURING AND MINING

A Ford Car in 48 Minutes . . 369

Copper Production to Be Lessened 370

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Gold Supply Short .... 368

Railroads Gradually Slipping . 368

Thirty-Million-Dollar Boat . 369

European Air Mail in a Year . 370

New Stock Orgy in Sight . . 371

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Political Influence of Racketeers 382

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Truck Gardening Versus G-olf . 377

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

A California Radio Enthusiast. 367

Some of the High Dams . . 368

Revolving Solarium ..... 368

Weather Map Receivers . . . 369

Germans Make Iron Cotton . 369

Empire State Mooring- Mast . 369

European-South American

Telephone Service . . . . 370

Shipment of Frozen Light . . 370

HOME AND HEALTH

When You Buy Tobacco . . 371

Glucose Deal Goes Through . 372

Why Take Chances .... 374

Malnutrition Due to White Flour 375

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

Gasparri Saved the Kaiser . 371

Cave Dwellings in Spain . . 383

Three Kinds of Prisons . . . 366

Light Kates in Winnipeg . . 367

Newspaper Protest at the League 370

Too Many International Conferences ......371

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

How Could You Fail? ... 372

Benefits from the Kingdom . 378

Religious Business Getting Hard 383

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Golden Age

Volume XII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 4, 1931 Number 299

Twelve Hundred Ways to Help the Poor

allowed to stand idle. This septennial resting of the land was good for it, but there is little likelihood of any such arrangement’s going into effect here. At least, not right aw’ay.

The poor w’ere allow’ed to glean the corners of the fields. Wages had to be paid to the poor day by day as earned. And the priests and Levites, i. e., all W’ho w’ere engaged in what w’e call “religious” wTork, had to divide up with the unfortunate. As a result of these and other regulations the Jew’s of Moses’ time, and for long afterw’ards, had no beggars, no paupers.

The effect of these regulations made by Jehovah thirty-five hundred years ago is salutary among the Jew’s to this day. A young Jew can come from Europe w’ith no money, but go into business almost straightway, because his fellows, his kinsmen, will loan him money or goods w’ith-out interest and help him in other w’ays to get a start in the world.

The Key to the Situation

In the time of our Lord the Roman government ruled over Palestine and most of the rest of the earth, and it was W’hile it w’as thus in physical control that the Devil took the Lord Jesus up into a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and told Him that these were his very own kingdoms and represented him and his policies. The Roman government w’as the ancestor of all the governments of what is now called “Christendom”. As the Devil ruled it, so he rules them.

Pauperism W’as common in the time of our Lord. God’s government of the Jew’s ceased with the reign of Zedekiah. Thereafter it was true, and still is, that The poor ye have ahvays W’ith you, even unto the end of the age’. “And now w’e call the proud happy; yea, they that w’ork wuckedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.”—Mal. 3:15.

That this matter of taking care of the poor is most emphatically the concern of government 355

ONE of the principal duties of government is to see that there are no poor, or, if there are poor, that they are helped to bear the burdens which, for the moment, are too great for them. New’ York city has tw’elve hundred social agencies for the amelioration of the condition of the poor, and so, as far as the poor are concerned, it has twelve hundred kinds of government, and has to help support them all. At first glance it would look as if this wms about 1,199 too many.

One of the duties of New York policemen is to carry with them a little book containing this list of 1,200 social agencies, and if one is in difficulty of any kind he goes through the list and tries to help the needy one select from the haystack the particular needle that will make the needed repairs. It looks like a haphazard, crazyquilt kind of scheme. There is manifestly too much overhead expense, duplication and lack of organization. In short, it looks like the Devil’s way of doing things; and that is just what it is. It makes a big outward show, but is hollow inside.

In God's government of the Jew’s very special care was taken of the interests of the poor. Every fifty years there w’as w’hat might be called a fresh deal all around. All the property of the country was distributed anew' and any family that had been unfortunate in handling its inheritance could try it all over again.

If the arrangement that God Almighty himself ordered for the Jew’s were made into a law in the United States, there is not the slightest question that the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional, with perhaps Justice Holmes and Justice Brandeis dissenting.

And then the Israelites w’ere forbidden to charge interest on loans to one another. And if a law wTere to be passed making interest illegal in the United States, the Supreme Court w’ould most certainly declare that unconstitutional, too.

And once every seven years the land was

is proven T>y the following scriptures which tell what is going to happen during Christ’s reign:

He shall judge tliy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he erieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from, deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood bo in his sight.—Ps 72: 2, 4, 11-14.

It will 'be understood at the outset, therefore, that there is no real remedy for the condition of the poor until the full establishment of God’s kingdom in the earth in power and glory, and this article is merely a resume of conditions that have prevailed and do prevail under the Devil’s administration of affairs in the meantime.

History of Pauperism

In ancient times the Devil’s way of caring for the poor was by polygamy, prostitution and slavery. Anything to subjugate, humiliate and prostrate men and women made in the image and likeness of God seems to be his motto. And he has stuck to his work of thus dishonoring God with great enthusiasm.. '

There was a show of what is sometimes called “charity” by some care of hunchbacks, cripples and-“queer” people at the castles of the feudal lords. In more savage parts of the world crippled children were left to die and helpless old people were put out of the way. .

Pauperism was fostered in Imperial Rome by the Tammany Hall and Ohio Gang statesmen of the time who gave free grain, not to the wounded and helpless, as Athens had done, but to all men residing at the capital who could prove themselves Roman citizens and whose votes could thus be controlled. To get the free bread the people virtually became beggars. Julius Caesar found one-third of a million of these able-bodied pensioners and cut the number down one-half. These were like the people that today are living from dividends and have not another excuse for breathing.

Knowing that the Devil would do as much as possible to make it uncomfortable for those 'who were faithful to God, the Lord left special instructions to His people to have a reasonable, loving interest in. one another, and to do what lay in their power to help when necessity should arise, and that is still their obligation.

In the days of Constantine, after he had murdered his own son and enforced the doctrine of the trinity, he was glad to turn the care of the poor over to the bishop of Rome, and that dignitary was glad to get the job, and has hung on to it from that time to this, and kept as close to the public treasury as he could, so as to have as much as possible of the,tax moneys flowing through his hands. ■

The scheme thus worked out between Constantine and the bishop of Rome accounts for the fact that in Austria the poor are cared for by communes through the priests, that in France the church has charge of the poor, and that in Hew York' city in 1929 the same institution received $4,150,000 while the Protestant churches, including the Salvation Army, all of whom are eager to feed at the same crib, received $910,000. Mayor Jimmy Walker, is a Catholic.

The Rise of Beggary

With the turning of the poor over to the church the view gradually arose that there is something inherently saintly about beggary, and monasticism came in to claim a superior degree of sanctity for those who ceased to labor that they might have to give to others, as the Scriptures admonish all to do, but rather depended for a livelihood on what could be squeezed out of others more industrious. The various orders of mendicant friars was a logical outcome.

In the Middle Ages, with the rise of the universities, begging scholars became common, as did traveling musicians, playwrights, minstrels and collectors for institutions. By 1779 Charlemagne took a hand in the growing evil and demanded that the bishops and notables provide for their poor. He imposed a poor tax, and for a time benefactions of all sorts multiplied. After his death conditions became as bad as ever. The bishops would not let go of what got into their hands any quicker than they will now.

After the Black Death in 1348 there was a shortage of workers, and many people left their homes and went from place to place in search of the better wages often to he had. This so increased beggary that in 1.378, in the reign of Richard II, a law was passed forbidding any to give to those well able to work, under penalty of imprisonment.

In 1531 Emperor Charles V made the commonsense declaration that the trade of begging leads to idleness, and decreed that, under penalty of imprisonment, none might beg except the religious beggars, the friars, pilgrims, and people who had suffered by war, fire or floods. Of course these numerous exceptions defeated the end he had in view.

Beggary in Asia

The idea that there is something inherently saintly about beggary probably came into Europe from India, where this view has been entertained for several thousand years, and has had much to do with the condition that country is in to this day.

The most saintly(?) people in India are the Brahman priests. To be a Brahman one must not have a drop of non-Brahman blood anywhere in one’s descent back to dim antiquity, and then, to be a priest, he must learn to recite the Vedas, every word of which, every syllable, and every phonic accent, must be so memorized that he can go through the whole thing without a hitch. Such recitations may last for days, for weeks, even for months, every evening in the presence of a select audience especially invited.

But of all things that the priest must learn to do, he must learn to beg and to live by beggary, for that is part of the Brahman religion. Even the boys 'who are being trained for other positions, as professional men, lawyers, teachers, journalists, clerks and government officials, must at least once in life take the beggar’s bowl. A religious ceremony enjoins bhiksha or begging on every Brahman boy before he starts in life as one of the dvija or twice-born.

When they are away at school it is not unusual for the children of Brahmans to beg their meals, and this regardless of whether they need to do so or not. It is considered part of their education to thus live on charity, and the Brahmans are the highest caste in India.

Although the Brahman priests are the only officially accredited beggars devoted to Vedic and Sanskrit learning, they are not the only religious mendicants in the country. They travel free on the railroads, and there are many places where food and shelter are provided free of charge. 'Holy5 beggars infest every temple and shrine, and although they are much worse than useless they are accorded the highest reverence that anybody may have.

In China conditions are so chaotic that at this moment there are probably 65,000,000 people destitute for lack of food, and millions of them have never known any other condition in life. There is believed to he enough food in the country to take care of the necessities of all these, but political conditions are so upset that virtually nothing can now be done to help matters. The Chinese themselves will have to remedy conditions.

Begging in Japan is not the fine art that it is in India and China, yet in Tokio there are hundreds who live by soliciting alms in public. They have formed a beggars’ guild. They limit the begging of each person to three hours a day and share the day’s pickings communistically.

On the Continent of Europe

Prior to the World War, Germany had practically eliminated extreme poverty in that country. For the purposes of poor relief a settlement is acquired by two years’ continuous residence, by marriage, or by descent. A German in distress must be relieved by the local union in which he becomes destitute.

German workmen must be insured against sickness, and must themselves pay two-thirds of the contributions, their employers paying one-third. For accident insurance the contributions are paid entirely by the employers. The working of these insurance associations is controlled by the government.

For invalidity and old age insurances, the contributions are paid half by the workmen and half by their employers. The old age pension is given on the completion of the 65th year, contributions having been paid for 1,200 weeks, equal to about 25J years, a margin of five weeks being allowed each year. This compulsory old age insurance is said to have put 40,000,000 Germans beyond the fear of want in their last years.

In Europe Holland was the first to establish labor colonies for vagrants. The first was established by a benevolent society. There are now three such, run by the government. Britain has four such, In Switzerland there is one at Witzwil occupying 2,700 acres which operates a dairy, cheese factory, saw mill, planing mill, carpenter shop, wagon shop, machine shop, harness shop, shoe shop, basket shop, press room and bindery. There are 60 employees and 430 inmates. The guards work with the men. A small wage is paid. The colony turns over to the Canton treasury about 150,000 francs a year.

Belgium has a similar institution at Merxplas.

The discipline is said to be severe, but a small wage ■ is paid. The expense of maintenance is shared equally among the state, the province, and the commune where the beggar has his settlement, except when he is infirm or is a voluntary inmate. Beggars in Belgium must carry identification booklets in which all persons contributing must set dowm the amount of their contributions. Large posters warn the public against giving to unauthorized persons.

I ft the British Isles

In the effort to control and regulate poverty Britain has made all the mistakes that any other country has made, and several more besides. In the reign of Edward VI vagrants were legally branded, on the breast with a hot iron and made slaves for two years. If they ran away they could be branded on the forehead or cheek with the letter S; and if they ran away a second time they could be put to death. By the poor law of Elizabeth, in the year 1603, able-bodied paupers were sent to the workhouse, and those who did not work were sent to the galleys, banished or executed.

A step backward was made in 1795, when a living" wage was fixed by parliament and persons not receiving such wage were granted an allowance from the public, treasury. Employers took advantage of the act and paid as little as possible. It was this unwise legislation that fastened upon Britain its low wage standards. The law was repealed, after forty years, but not until it had unintentionally pauperized thousands.

About fifteen percent of the population of the United Kingdom are living on the poverty line, and as many more below it, according to reports published by the ministry of labor. Unemployed workers in Britain who are not eligible for unemployment insurance have to fall back on the poor relief, but there is no legal connection between the two systems.

In Great Britain old age pensions are paid to persons, who are British subjects and have attained the age of 70 years, and all persons over 65 years of age who have been contributors to the fund receive an insurance payment of two and one-half dollars a week, irrespective of means. Under new legislation the word “pauper” has been discontinued. Penniless lunatics are designated fiionpaying patients’.

Britain has many name charities. A man leaves his fortune to all persons bearing his name, imagining his name to be an. uncommon one; a common error. The trustees keep such bequests as quiet as they know how to do, so as to avoid the extra work if the bequests should become widely known. A worthy British benevolence is that of supplying new clothes to the poor, so that they may not lose the self-respect entailed by having to wear the cast-off garments of others.

In the Irish Free State there are 131,883 old age pensioners receiving a weekly allowance from the British government. Workhouses have been abolished and, as in England, a county system of administration has been established. Each county has a home for the aged and infirm poor.

Conditions in the United States

In 1910 the almshouse population of the United States was 84,198, of whom more than two-thirds were males and 42.6 percent were foreign-born. The men were mostly unskilled laborers; and the women, of the domestic servant class. In the next thirteen years the almshouse population fell to 78,000.

The total number of persons over 65 years of age who are partly or wholly dependent for support on other individuals or agencies is placed at 2,000,000. The insurance companies and banks are never tired of telling that out of every one hundred men starting life at 25, thirty-six will die before reaching 65, and that of the sixty-four living, one will be wealthy, four will be well-to-do, five will be just able to get along, and the remaining fifty-four will be dependent upon children or charity. This is the best that can be done for them in the richest country in the world and under what is alleged to be the world’s best government.

At this writing the president, famed for his ability to help the needy, and all the other statesmen big and little, and all the Big Business men in the country, are much disturbed to know what to do with the millions upon millions of others in America who are out of work and in need.

Theories and practices on how to care for the poor are changing rapidly. In 1910 New York municipal agencies expended $229,000 for outdoor relief, which means assistance to persons in their own homes instead of in public institutions. Sixteen years later this sum was $6,000,-000, representing the changed public attitude toward institutions, and their higher appreciation of the value of the home.

Under present conditions of poverty in the United States how silly is the report of Secretary Hoover, published back in the fall of 1921, showing, not that prosperity had come to the bulk of the American people, but that widespread poverty might soon be abolished.

A measure of conditions in the country is found in the statement that during the five summer months of last summer the number of nights’ lodgings furnished homeless men was about double that of the same period a year earlier. Conditions were worse in July than in January, an almost unprecedented thing.

An ominous feature is that the need for relief has been growing right through years that were labeled prosperous. In 1925, 97 representative agencies spent more than three times as much for relief as they did in 1916. In Detroit the relief expenditures grew from $156,000 in October, 1929, to $728,000 in April, 1930.

Organized Charily

Every government worthy of the name recognizes the decency of the people’s providing as a whole for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the juvenile delinquents; and organized charity usually steps aside and lets the rightful authorities handle these eases each in its own way.

In addition, state legislatures appoint boards of charities whose duty it is to visit and inspect all the institutions, whether state, county, municipal, incorporated or not incorporated, religious or not religious, which are or claim to be of an eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory character.

Does it not seem a stupid thing that in a city like New York there should be twelve hundred kinds of institutions which these state boards would have to supervise, if their work was properly done? And is it any wonder that, instinctively recognizing this chaotic condition, the New York Charity Organization Society was formed to give advice and information so that persons who really would like to know something about what New York is actually doing in a charitable way can get a line on things?

Because it has wanted the state’s approval and as much as possible of the state’s funds, organized charity has managed to keep in pretty close touch with the state, and perhaps it is not stating it too strongly to say that this has not been a matter of sorrow to the politicians, and to Big Business.

The result has been a wonderful system of getting money for “Charity” ; so wonderful, indeed, that a French expert recently came to America and spent several weeks to look into the details of “the miracle of the way your charity organizers extract money from the public”.

Causes of Vagrancy and Beggary

There is a slight difference between vagrancy and beggary. The gypsies are vagrants, but they are seldom beggars. The sturdy beggar is one who may or may not tramp from place to place, and who may or may not wish to beg as a livelihood. Improvident beggars beg because they are unable to work. Mendicant friars and religious beggars in. general beg because they have the idea that there is something sanctimonious about it, and because it is profitable. Ex-soldiers sometimes become beggars because their thread of employment has snapped.

War can be set down as the greatest cause of beggary. What the United States in times of peace is spending for the army and navy is more than, twice what all the states spend for charities and prisons, and half what is spent for the public schools. What all the nations of the world spend on armaments would wipe out every city slum, educate all the children in the world, put all industries on their feet and bring prosperity to all mankind. Does that not prove that war is the Devil’s own instrument, and that the governments that decry against it but spend millions on millions preparing for it, the while the people suffer, are the Devil’s own governments ?

The politicians are a cause of poverty. Look at the rottenness uncovered among the magistrates of New York. Look at Mayor Walker himself. When he became the chief magistrate of the greatest city of the Western world his salary was $15,000 a year; then he had it raised to $25,000; and then to $40,000. Why? Big Business is the biggest cause of poverty of all. It appropriates to itself the profits that should be distributed more widely.

Much poverty is caused by careless almsgiving. Undeserved or unwise gifts weaken the mind and the body as much as sensuality. Half the applicants for financial assistance need work

rather than money. Of 1,000 families applying for aid at Boston social agencies, 557 gave unemployment or underemployment as a cause of their economic breakdown. ’

Sickness is a cause of poverty because it leads to unemployment. Ingratitude is a cause of pauperism. A Brooklyn man 90 years of age was found in the subway weak and sick from lack of food. He had four daughters, all married and living in comfortable homes, but they had no place for their aged father, who had, without a doubt, lavished at least $20,000 on them when they were growing up.

The foreign-born have many economic breakdowns, as might be expected. An odd feature, however, is that these breakdowns do not usually occur until after they have been here for some time. Only five percent of such breakdowns occur within five years of the time they enter the country.

With 1,200 social agencies in New York city, public beggary is a disgrace; yet there are thousands that have been issued licenses to peddle chewing gum and pencils, merely a cloak to cover beggary. One can scarcely take a subway ride without being braced by at least one, and they are to be found in subway station entrances all over to-wn. If nobody gave anything to any of them, one could at least assess the 1,200 social agencies at what they are really worth to the community. In the face of this public beggary, the natural assumption is that they are worth nothing.

Sufferings of the Poor

If you wish to know something of the sufferings of the poor, go out in Christian service from door to door and in a district inhabited by the very poor. You will find everything you are looking for, and more too. YTou may find children crying for the milk which they need to save then-health, or even their lives. You may find a family without fuel, without food and about to be dispossessed in . midwinter because unable to pay the rent.

You may find people who a year ago were in fairly good circumstances, even comfortable circumstances, but who through some merger or other act of Big Business are reduced to penury, and feel the wolf at the door. Only the pawnbroker can gauge the depths of despair -which cause some strange faces to appear before him and unwillingly leave on his counter treasured things which he disparages.

Some time back a young man, 28 years of age, walked from Park Bow to the Bronx, over ten miles, in search of a job, only to find another man had beaten him to it because he had the nickel necessary for the subway fare. Starting back he collapsed in the street, unable to endure the tantalizing odors of food cooking in three restaurants along lais way. He got by the first one all right, staggered by the second, and fell in front of the third. He had not eaten in three days.

For four months in New York city a woman of 27 years of age supplied food, fuel and other expenses to care for her six children, all of them under ten years of age, and her husband, who was home and sick, and whom the doctor had ordered to drink plenty of milk, all on a total income of less than fifty-nine cents a day.

In another instance the husband went insane and the wife and mother maintained herself and four children on her needle earnings of $14 a week. When found she was on the verge of physical collapse, and the children weak, pale and listless.

In another instance the father, a strong, active man employed as an apartment house superintendent, fell suddenly ill. For a few days his sickness baffled the physicians, but it turned out to be infantile paralysis, which occasionally hut rarely attacks adults, and it left him completely helpless and his family penniless.

During a night in August a woman 70 years of age was found sitting on the steps of a house in West 180th Street, in a drenching rain. She had been dispossessed the week before and had no place to go. She was sheltering a small dog and a package of dog biscuits in her arms. It was all she had left in the world. And it is not much of a world that treats a seventy-year-old woman that way.

The Natural Nobility of Mankind

There still lingers in mankind a great deal of the natural nobility originally imparted to him, and which even, six thousand years of falling array from the divine likeness has not wholly erased. It is natural for man to be dignified and self-respecting.

An experienced social worker, when questioned as to her greatest difficulty in bringing help into homes that need it, said without hesitation, “Not to bring down their self-respect.” It was a good answer and was well illustrated in the case of a woman really in need who wTas visited by a group of Sunday school attendants who brought with them a great variety of groceries and other gifts. When she saw all the gifts she was overwhelmed by the knowledge that her neighbors knew she was poor. She burst into tears and went inside the house humiliated by this public recognition of her situation and the feeling that she was regarded as a pauper.

It takes a large amount of good judgment as well as kindness of heart to know how to give. A well-intentioned business man took in three boys of a. needy family and fitted them out with very expensive clothing, at the same time having their old clothing thrown away. When the boys returned home they were jeered by their playmates who instantly realized that the family itself could not provide such clothing.

In the year 1923 a non-Labor group made an investigation of the operation of the unemployment insurance miscalled a “dole”. Their conclusion was expressed in the following language: “Of unwillingness to work where work was offered, of a preference of doles to honest earnings, there is little evidence. The crude idea that the relief is the demoralizing influence in unemployment receives no support from our inquiry.” That was a very good admission of man’suatu-ral nobility, his desire to stand on his own feet.

Most of this natural nobility is among the poor. The rich, most of them, are so used to standing on other people’s feet, and walking all over them, that they easily get to thinking that they are naturally better than other people and that riding on the backs of others is their natural right.

Occasionally there is a noble-minded one among the rich; and when such a one is met with, the natural result is a blessing all around. Such was’a Mrs. Gilchrist Thompson, of Kent, England. In forty years she selected 160 families from the crowded. slums of English cities and transported them to America, giving them a start in the new world.

At seventy years of age she visited all these families in their new environment and found that every one of them had made good. All were prospering in their new homes, and as a matter of fact almost all of the money advanced to all these families has been repaid by them. What a blessing this woman’s life has been to the world! She was not charitable, in the ordinary sense of the wrord. She had the rare combination of wealth, a kind heart, and a head full of common sense, that rarest of rare commodities.

Relation of Poverty and Crime

As we have already seen, under the right kind of government there will be no poor. There can be none, for the protection of the rights of all and the looking after the needs of all is the duty of all. It is inconceivable that a government of the people and by the people would be really run in the interests of only those who already had most of the assets of the country. Is not that the plain truth?

Well, government, then, is properly charged with this question of taking care of the poor. First, of seeing that there are no poor; and second, of rendering the aid necessary to get things back on a self-supporting basis when something happens, when a monkey wrench falls into the machine. And government is also properly charged with the care of criminals.

In the minds of many these two classes are confused. They think of them as one. Less than fifty years ago convicted criminals, wearing the uniform of the penitentiary, were employed as nurses in public hospitals, caring for the sick poor, the helpless imbeciles and abandoned children.

Only a little earlier, prisoners, dependent children, sick poor persons, the insane, the epileptics and helpless aged were huddled together all in one department. The generation that is does not have as much reason to be proud of its ancestors as it sometimes tries to pretend.

It was not till late in the year 1929 that in the great city of New York an order went forth that thereafter destitute men and women being taken to the city home for dependents on Welfare Island or to the city farm colony on Staten Island should thenceforth be taken to their new homes in ambulances of the Department of Hospitals insteaxl of in prison vans as had previously been the rule.

Of course there is a connection between poverty and crime. A Chicago boy of 15 shot himself because his father was out of work and neither of them could find anything to do. The boy thought that with him out of the way there would be one less mouth to feed.

It quite frequently happens that men out of work, out of money and not knowing what else to do, break windows or commit some other act of vandalism so that they may be arrested and locked up where they will be at least sheltered, clothed and fed. And women do these things, too.

The Generous Heart of Man

George Y. D’Hedberg was a general in the Russian army, a graduate of two universities, and a chemist. He came to America, and when the hard times came on he got out of work. Desperate, he heaved a 'brick through a store window and. stole a shirt which he intended to sell for bread for his wife and children. The story got into the papers and when D’Hedberg came up before the magistrate the store sent word it would not prosecute, a dozen concerns offered the man work, the magistrate dismissed the charge of burglary, made it disorderly, conduct, gave him a suspended sentence, and then went down in his own pocket and gave him the money for a breakfast and a shave. It came a little too fast for D’Hedberg. He tried to say something, but- the words would not come, and he just put his head in his arms on the bench and cried. And, somehow, it makes a fellow feel good.

And then there was Mother, the mother of fifteen. She did almost all of her own work, often nearly twenty hours a day in the harness, and tried to bring up all the kids to be clean and honest, and to fear nothing so much as to take an unfair advantage of anybody. And when a tiny baby girl was left one night on a neighbor’s doorstep, and nobody knew whose it was, and nobody else offered to care for it, Mother took it in and mothered it and crooned over it, and cared for it as if it were her own. And though both have been dead for many, many years, the memory of that unselfish act has been a boon to the lives of many.

The idea of living to make money is all a wretched, horrible, awful mistake. A. D. Purvis, Waller, Texas, conceived the idea of benefiting his fellow men in his own way. He opened a store and marked every article with its cost to him, in plain figures. People could buy or not, as they wished, and they could add a profit or not, as they chose. And they chose. In a short time the store was doing an annual business of $100,000, and Purvis is making money anyway.

A Peep at Philanthropies

A true philanthropist is one who loves his fellow men; not necessarily one who has a lot to give to them. Samuel Scotton died 118 years ago. He left a small sum and directed that the annual interest on it should be used on his birthday to purchase bread for the worthy poor.

In a city in northern New York state a theater owner advertised that on a given night the price of admission would be an old overcoat. As a result about 1,000 coats were obtained, new, old, good, bad and indifferent. He gave these to a charitable organization for distribution among the poor of the city.

A London domestic, touched with the condition of the poor, and wishing to help them, worked twenty years to save up $500 and then gave it all to the Poor Guardians of the district in which she lived, that it might be used to ameliorate their lot.

Sir James Barrie, London playwright, made a gift of all his rights to one of his plays to a children’s hospital in London. A Viennese surgeon of distinction made the statement, “The poor are my best patients, for God pays their bills.” "

Janies Eads How, millionaire physician, spurned his inheritance, but finally accepted it in installments. The “Millionaire Hobo”, as he was called, spent his life going from place to place seeking out the needy, and giving a dollar here and a dollar there as he thought would do the most real good. He did not believe in huge benefactions.

Nevertheless, there are the huge benefactions too. America’s gifts to philanthropy amount to about $2,500,000,000 annually. Forty percent of this goes for what is designated as “religion”, and the great bulk of this is utterly wasted, worse than wasted, maintaining in essential idleness poseurs who could be trained to do something really useful besides wear a sanctified look and beg and plead for money.

Twenty percent goes to education, and a good deal of that is wasted, too. Many children are educated until they have no common sense left. Ten percent goes to personal charity, ten percent to organized charity, ten percent goes to “health” campaigns, and the balance is divided among foreign relief, the fine arts, play and recreation and miscellaneous reform organizations.

Community Chests and Overhead

Most people who contribute to community chests think that the bulk of the money they contribute goes to the relief of the poor, but of the total funds of thirty representative chests only 18 percent went to the “outdoor relief” agencies, i. e., really went to those that deal directly with the poor, and about half of that went into "service expenditures”, so that the poor really got about 9 percent of what went into the chest.

On this point The Survey for September 15, 1930, said: “Letting the public think vaguely that the contributions are chiefly for 'relieving the poor’, and then using the money for other purposes, may be the easiest way of raising funds, but even such a well-intentioned deception will soon wreck chest and agencies alike.”

One of the distressing things about trying to do something for the poor is the number of hands that are held out for a rake-off. A gentleman who spent a quarter of a century in philanthropic work estimated that of the money given for charity 60 percent goes into the hands of the solicitors, and that “there are more grafters in this game than there are kinds of vermin trying to prey on the world’s visible supply of live poultry”.

A writer in the Saturday Evening Post says: “From the viewpoint of the professional philanthropist, the high cost of giving is the little joker that takes the'joy out of generosity and leaves the intending benefactor cold, suspicious and irritated. With some few exceptions, benevolence of all kinds is subjected to a heavy overhead and selling expense before it can distribute a dividend in the coin of actual charity and helpfulness.”

In Milwaukee, Malcolm Nichols, executive secretary of the Family Welfare Association, admitted that his association had received $230,000 from the Community Chest. Of this huge sum only $70,000 went to actual relief of the poor. The remainder was spent in administration, to see whether those who needed help should have it. The administration might about as well have taken the rest of it, while they were at it.

An observer in Toronto wrote as follows regarding conditions in his city: ■

At the top we have the generous public giving more than sufficient to feed every hungry mouth in Toronto. At, the bottom we have distress such as Toronto has never known, and between the generous givers and those in sore distress we have the Army and other predatory organizations and- individuals working persistently and mercilessly along scientific lines to reap for themselves what is given for those in need, and so successful are they that of the huge totals secured by about forty organizations, less than one dollar out of every ten dollars collected actually reaches those in distress.

The result is that distracted mothers remain distracted, hungry children remain hungry, and few of the many hungry men find their way to the magistrate’s court as vagrants and are turned over to Captain Bunting, who is well aware of the fact that the vagrant is a victim of infamy and that he can be disposed of, as I have shown elsewhere in this article, without financial loss to the Army.

Last year they served soup to 146,000 men, and that means that each of the 146,000 was served once, and the total cost to the Army was less than one officer’s salary per year. They estimate the cost at 10 cents per ration, or a total cost of $1,500, but I am told that the merchants of Toronto give the bread, meat and vegetables gratis, and that the soup serving costs the Army little or nothing. I have, however, learned that the merchants are now supplying other missions ‘gratis’, and we cannot doubt their doing as much for the Army.

The Army is now’ one of the world’s greatest financial institutions, and its huge resources have been built up by commercializing “charity” and religion, and by converting millions of dollars, given for charitable purposes, into buildings, furniture, salaries, pensions and gilt-edged securities. As a merciless machine for tenaciously holding on to funds collected for the poor it is a wonderful success, but as a so-called charitable institution its record proves it to be a ghastly failure.

The value of the Army property in Eastern Canada is $20,000,000.00, and the financial statement show’s that $4,000,000.00 -was added to the property accountin 1928. An examination of the Array financial statement indicates that about three cents out of every dollar collected goes to. the relief of distress, but it does not appear certain that such is the case.

I have, seen men W’ho had little pay for beds for men who had not the price, and I have seen men w’ho had little take out- to a cafe others who -were hungry; but- in two months’ time I neither saw’ a generous act nor heard a kindly word that could be placed to the credit of the officers in charge.

In the management kindness, pity, charity and even common politeness play no part. The Hostel is just run on hard merciless, parsimonious business lines, and profit, and only profit is the aim.

I have placed the facts before responsible government officials whose duty it was to act. I have placed them before the heads of missions and a few others ’who w’ere deeply interested, and this much. can be said for all of them: They all seemed to be infected by an elusive potent virus that produced an gmariiig unanimity.

None doubted my good faith. All,-without exception,' admitted that the conditions were deplorable. All, without exception, were convinced that, something must be done, and all, with two or three exceptions, refused to take any part in a movement for the abolition of the commercialization of charity.

Among those approached were a number of ministers and Christian laymen to whom I put two questions. I said that “it was common knowledge that many good people believed that the Prince of Peace would come again ’ and I asked, ‘‘ If He were here in Toronto would He put an end to the commercialization of charity?” and each replied in effect that “without doubt He would”. I then said that “of all the Christians appealed to, not one would make the slightest effort in aid of His reform”; and I asked, “Why is it so ? ” and from none was there a satisfactory reply.

Begging in New York

On- one occasion New York rounded up forty professional beggars, some of whom had been receiving $100 a day by imposing on the subway crowds. One of these, Samuel Ansel, 23 years of age, had $1,446 in bank, owned $40,000 in first mortgages, and was proprietor of several news stands. He employed a secretary and valet. The subway is the “Beggar’s Highway”.

Charles Marino, sandwich man, paraded the streets in ragged clothing, and -wore no underclothing. He had $20,000 in banks, knows four languages, is well read, and defended himself with legal precision, and success. He advertises himself as “The human scarecrow”, and extorts sympathy and coin.

A woman, touched with the pitiful appearance of an old man, offered to help him lay by some money in a bank, only to-find, accidentally, that he already had a balance of $4,362.50 in that very bank. He was supposed to be selling lead pencils, but was really a beggar.

A reformed New York beggar states that he used to make five dollars in two hours begging on the subway steps, and a lieutenant-colonel of the Salvation Army, perhaps with a view to checking up on solicitors for the Army, made the declaration that by telling a sad story he picked up $3.45 on Broadway in one hour.

A woman investigator found stenographers most generous, and more so by day than by night. She found the police anxious not to see her, and Broadway crowds were more cautious than others. One peddler of pencils in the theater district finds it good business to wipe his forehead as if in agony. Even in coldest weather he stands wearily wiping his brow, and it brings in revenue.

A Profitable Business

Begging in New York is a profitable business, and anything that has a large profit in it will not be given up; not in these days. The public should shut down, absolutely, on that form of charity. It only encourages the training of experts in what is to many of them a life work, or at least until they get enough to retire.

What might be called one of the latest selling wrinkles in the beggar business is the entrance of cripples into the sale of chewing gum, pencils, shoe laces, combs and perfumes for anything that the charitably disposed person wishes to give. In practice the public gives liberally and takes almost none of the merchandise.

A legless man rigged up a home-made carriage and a dog harness and trained a dog to haul him around. It was a good show, and the crowd pays well for it. A mendicant was arrested near Fifth Avenue who declared he had been assigned to his post by the ‘King of the Panhandlers’, who was to get half his earnings. He claimed that the king posts men all over New YTork. . .

John D. Godfrey, mendicancy officer of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, declares that in eighteen years of experience he has never known a single case of a worthy public beggar. The really destitute do not beg.

A new business, that of the “weeping racketeer”, has been developed. The weepers go from door to door, preying on the sympathies of the housewives. David Koppleman, head of the Gordon Products Company, 17 East Seventeenth Street, was found guilty of training salesmen to thus prey on human sympathy.

A Chicago concern sends out salesmen instructed to say that the goods are made by the blind, and that the sales benefit the blind, whereas almost none of the articles are made by the blind, and the profits go to others.

A Brooklyn collector for the poor receives 35 percent of the first $10 collected each day, and 10 percent of all collections in excess of that amount. A Baltimore beggar not only had his own car and chauffeur, but at night dressed and acted like a prince of the royal realm, and made social pretensions.

In London a certain woman used to borrow a neighbor’s baby, and beg with it in her arms, from door to door. She would strike the child across the face to make it cry. When the tears flowed freely she would then knock on a door and ask for alms and it would nearly always be forthcoming.

Beggary Obstructs Legitimate Business

Beggary in a neighborhood makes that neighborhood objectionable, and many people who prefer to make some intelligent selections of their objects of charity would rather go the other way than to confront those who make a business of preying upon the public. This has the effect of hurting people that are innocent, i. e., the business people of the district in which the beggars ply their trade. For all practical purposes the peddlers of pencils and other trinkets are beggars. We understand that the licenses issued to such peddlers are all illegally issued, and doubt if the city treasury ever sees a cent of the money paid for them,.

There is another much more sinister way in which beggars interfere with business, and that refers to the religious beggars. A committee goes into a store and solicits aid for a cause, and the merchant knows instinctively that if he does not come across with a donation lie will lose thousands of dollars in trade.

Legitimate business sometimes loses in another way. On one occasion a store which loaned gowns for a charity bazaar had the gowns insured, and the insurance company made it its business to see who made away with the gowns. - They turned out to be relatives of the person, a wealthy woman, who sponsored the bazaar. Let’s see. Who was it that advised us to be on guard against those that loved to give alms publicly?

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye. have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father, which seeth. in secret, himself shall reward thee openly.—Matt. 6:1-4.

The Discredited Poorhouse

The poorhouse system of caring for the poor is discredited for many reasons. In the first place it is much more expensive than caring for them in their own homes. In the second place, care of the poor in their own homes preserves their self-respect and good will. In the third place, their rehabilitation as self-supporters is

much easier. In the fourth place, less than' half of the chronic dependents ever go to the poorhouse. ' .....

Outdoor relief, i. e., the helping of the poor in their own homes, has its drawbacks, too. When people get help too easily they become weakened by it, look foi’ it and expect it. There have been times when one-tenth of the population of the rich cities of Brooklyn and Chicago have become wholly or partially dependent. It takes much wisdom to know when to give and how much to give. . .

The old way of giving help was to hand out a sack of flour and a bag of beans. That was not much of a variety in the way of food, but it prevented starvation. Today the helpers of the poor try to diversify that diet a little.

Old people get "sot” in their ways. When the poor of Campbell county, Virginia, were transferred' from the poorhouse at Rustburg to the neat modern buildings at Chatham, where a half dozen counties house their indigent, the old folks were homesick for their more primitive home at Rustburg and wanted to go back.

Several years ago the Vance county (North Carolina) poorhouse was housing 20 inmates and costing $7,000 a year. A woman got hold of it, and turned it into a hospital which helps 200 people a year to regain their health. The poor were placed with relatives or in private homes. The total cost is little more, and the net results are very much better.

Some Wise Charities

Some of the things that can safely be done to help the poor even under present conditions are philanthropic workyards where men can work at small wages while hunting better jobs; philanthropic pawnshops where goods can be safely pawned at moderate interest; farm colonies where the city poor can work in the company of others, avoiding the dreaded loneliness of ordinary farm life; social settlements where the socially strong can hobnob with the socially weak; tenement house reform; old age pensions; workmen'’s compensation; aid to mothers with dependent children; legislation for the protection of workers in industry; child labor laws, and education laws.

A New York group of philanthropists requested that it be sent misfit Christmas presents. A great quantity of gifts, including 180 pairs of spats, were thus received, and were sold and the proceeds used to help the poor. Five abandoned mansions of Flushing were turned over to another group. It made good use of them by subdividing them into apartments for the needy. The Nassau County Bar Association has a committee which gives free legal advice to the poor of the county.

In Quebec all diners whose checks come to more than $1 a meal pay a 5-percent tax which goes to the aid of the poor. This meal tax has aroused no opposition, and last year brought in over $300,000.

In New York’s new law the title “Superintendent of the Poor” is changed to “Commissioner of Public Welfare” and all such terms as “pauper”, “'almshouse” and “overseer of the poor” are eliminated. The strong-arm methods of some business concerns in taking credit for the fact that 100 percent of their employees contribute to the Community Chest are not a help to the poor, but the reverse.

Despite all the hard things that have been said about them in recent months, if you are in trouble in New York city, and you do not know which way to turn, the best thing you can do is to go to a policeman and tell him all about it. He may be able to help you. That is what he is supposed to do, and he should be given the benefit of the supposition.

In the end, as stated at the outset of this article, there is no real help for the poor and needy except in God’s kingdom, which we now gladly proclaim is at the door.

Three Kinds of Prisons in New York State

NEW YtORK will probably go in for three different kinds of prisons, the first of which, the maximum security prison, is the walled fortress with steel cells and every known appliance to keep the prisoners from escaping. The existing prisons of New York state practically all fall into the maximum security type.

The medium security prison provides single rooms for the inmates instead of steel cells; the prison is well guarded at night, and the window’s are protected to make escape difficult, but the institution is not surrounded with a wall. The exercise yard for the prisoners has what is known as the cyclone fence, in place of a wall. The prisoners work on the farm under supervision of guards. Prisoners are selected for this medium security who can be trusted and who will benefit by the greater opportunity for development ’which it affords.

The minimum security is the type of housing which we find at road camps and reforestation camps, and resembles very closely an army cantonment. The dormitory type of housing is used, and at times a stockade surrounds the encampment, rather to keep outsiders out than the prisoners in. Only prisoners who can be trusted to the highest extent are selected for the minimum security institution.

The report of the commission which has been studying New’ York's antiquated prison system recommends the addition of psychiatric staffs with a payroll of $47,000 a year, and 43 clerks whose total-wages would he $57,000. These clerks will not be overpaid, as none of them are booked to receive over $1,800 a year.

Not to Buy Food with Relief Funds

AS IS well known, the United States has been the first to send relief when there have been food shortages in Russia, China and elsewhere. Well, the United States had its own famine-stricken districts last year, on account of the drought, and Congress has set aside $45,-000,000 for relief of the stricken areas, but oddly enough, it has stipulated that while this money may be loaned to procure seed and fertilizer and to feed stock, it may not be used to buy food for human creatures. Senator Caraway, of Arkansas, speaking of conditions in his state, said on this subject:

I could fill whole volumes of the Congressional Record with letters and telegrams from presidents of banks, from, merchants, from lawyers, from judges of courts, from county officials, from farmers and from people in every walk of life telling me that not only-are the people without means, but they are actually starving and there is no relief in sight.

Steamship Lines Feel the Pinch

THE steamship lines are feeling the pinch of hard times, and are trying to do something to offset the loss of 30,000 passengers experienced in 1930. Rates have been ent from 10 to 50 percent in the effort to stimulate travel.

The Czech Hangman a Hero

nDHE public hangman of Czechoslovakia is a -*• public hero, so it seems. He claims that after his first public execution he received six thousand offers of marriage, none of which he has yet accepted, and with every additional hanging the number is increased.

Graft in Postal Leases

HE Post Office Department is being accused of paying $120,000 a year rent for a building in St. Paul, Minnesota, that is not worth more than $290,000 all told. Now it is said that similar conditions prevail in many parts of the country and another scandal as big as the Teapot Dome is ahead.

Light Rates in Winnipeg

IN THE city of Winnipeg, as a result of having a municipally owned power plant, the average electric light rates are about one cent a kilowatt hour. This is less than one-fifth of what they would be if the plant were owned and operated by the Power Trust. The other four or five cents would go to the Trust.

Robberies in Granada

SPAIN is passing through a time of turmoil.

Robberies in the city of Granada are said to be so common that the morning greeting in the streets is, “Were you robbed last night?” The olive crop in the vicinity has failed, and thousands are starving. In some instances men have fainted in the streets.

Forgot to Notify the Greeks

FpHE Norwegian town of Trondhjem changed -*■ its name to Nidaros, but forgot to tell the Greeks. As a result a Greek vessel with a cargo for Nidaros spent two full days looking for a port which does not appear on any chart.

Brazil’s Horned Frog

RAZIL has a giant horned frog that will attack animals much larger than itself and has severely bitten humans. The bite is venomous, and has caused the death of horses. The horned frog feeds upon young chickens and ducks, and looks as bad as it acts.

“Shoemaker’s Children”

TN A WORLD ablaze with incandescent lights

West Orange, known all over the world as the-home of Thomas A. Edison, inventor of the electric light, is claimed to be one of the most poorly lighted towns in the country. It seems to be the old story of 'shoemaker’s children going without shoes’.

'A California Radio Enthusiast

CALIFORNIA radio enthusiast, using a ground consisting of copper tubing sunk 53 feet under the surface, has succeeded in bringing in 1,308 stations, covering every continent of the world and every state in the United States. Among the stations received was a 20-v-att station of Argentina.

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