Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/186

 1 70 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ciple of " solidarity," which includes enlightened self-interest, national duty, and the sentiment of charity. Individual motives are left to the conscience of citizens and to expert psychologists. In 1902 the " Commission d' assurance et de prevoyance sociales," appointed by the Chamber of Deputies, formulated the principle in these resolutions :

The commission believes that it is the duty of the republic to establish a public service of social solidarity; that social solidarity differs essentially from charity in the fact that it recognizes the right of persons designated by the law and gives them a legal means of enforcing their right; that the principle of social solidarity inspires and commands two distinct forms of realization, insurance and assistance. In so far as insurance is concerned, its purpose is to furnish for all the members of the nation the means of assuring, by their own personal efforts, a pension for old age and incapacity for labor. In relation to assistance: in view of the duty of the nation to aid an old person or invalid who from any cause is deprived of resources, and believing it to be a necessary deduction from the premises that all the members of the nation are bound to share the burden of social solidarity, it is resolved to create, upon these principles, a service of social solidarity, and to take for the basis of study the two reports of MM. Guieysse and Bienvenu-Martin, and their propositions for a law.*

2. History. The principle of solidarity is not a recent dis- covery. Even in mediaeval times church and state co-operated in measures of relief, though the church generally acted as almoner of charity, and the intervention of the government was for a long time chiefly repressive and primitive. At the Revolution the national obligation to the poor was distinctly recognized and embodied in legislation, although the measures adopted were not fitted to the conditions, and came to grief in the reactionary move- ment which has not yet spent its force. The law of March 19, 1793, declared in its preamble that relief of the poor is a national

1 When Senator Strauss was challenged (June 8, 1905) for favoring the expression " solidarity " rather than " charity," he replied : " Whether you call beneficence by the name of charity or solidarity, and whatever be the motive followed by each individual, we agree in striving for the same end. But when I speak of private charity, it is almsgiving that I have in view ; I do not bring into question the charitable spirit which is one of the manifestations of fraternity and of solidarity. We are establishing here something more and better than a charity

which is voluntary, capricious, and intermittent something better than a

charity which is inadequate and humiliating."