Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/355

 THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY 343

relief. And where poor-relief is not administered in this hard way, or where it reaches a lavish or actually prodigal extent, it escapes indeed arousing the feeling of bitterness, but produces in its stead other, and no less dangerous, evils, above all the evil of accustoming the receiver to free gifts, of making him covetous, of lessening his efforts to maintain himself out of his own endeavors. Where poor-relief so degenerates it becomes mere almsgiving, which has as its inevitable consequence the unlimited increase of the number of those seeking help. The lamentable fact that heads of families desert their wives and children is really fostered by the feeling, encouraged through the administration of adequate poor- relief, that sufficient provision will be made, without the presence and work of the head of the family, for the maintenance of those dependent upon him. Nay more: where greater riches afford the means of a lavish distribution of charity, the begging of char- itable assistance becomes a business which supplies itself with specific expedients in order to secure its share of the superfluous wealth without any effort. The appearance of poverty is feigned. Hypocrisy, lying, and cunning in written and personal representa- tion form the stock in trade of this beggar business, which, esti- mated by its moral quality, rivals the trade of the card sharper, receiver of stolen goods, and defrauder.

Thus the conduct of society toward poverty continues to oscillate between two evils the evil of insufficient care for the indigent, with the resulting appearance of an ever-increasing impoverishment which acts as an incentive to begging and crime ; and the evil of a reckless poor-relief, with the resulting appearance of far-reaching abuses, the lessening of the spirit of independence, and the patronage of begging and vagrancy. The history of poverty is for the most part a history of these constantly observed evils and of the efforts to remove them, or at least to reduce their dimensions. No age has succeeded in solving this problem. In the early Christian church the duty of poor-relief was based upon the love of one's neighbor, and the members of this community looked upon each other as brothers and sisters whose duty it was to render help to one another. Thus it was possible for a limited circle and for a limited time in some measure to avoid both