the very first direct result of the growing consciousness of conditions throughout the country is a sudden growth in the volume of money devoted to charity, and a sudden and quite extraordinary increase in the personal interest shown by the wealthy in the matter of reform.
it is perfectly natural that this should be so. in every nation, in all periods of history, it has been true. sometimes this impulse toward charity and reform, which grows out of real personal study of the problems of poverty, goes very far toward saving a nation from ruin. no student of political economy can afford to ignore this impulse toward charity, and sweep it away as most thoughtless writers to-day are inclined to sweep it away, as though it were merely a conscious effort on the part of the rich to buy their way into the kingdom of heaven, to escape the accusing finger of the poor, and to avoid the payment of a debt to humanity long overdue. one must recall that, in the twenty years from 1742 to 1762, an impulse toward charity, based really on conditions very similar in their nature to our own, went far toward saving the nation of england from almost certain ruin. the rich at that time had forsaken religion, had plunged into immorality far deeper and far more general than the wealthy classes in the united states to-day, and come to sneer at purity and fidelity to the marriage vow, and openly boasted of their profligacy. the poor, on the other hand, had sunk to depths of ignorance and brutality absolutely unknown in this land of ours. the tremendous growth of manufacturing towns was the cause that widened the rift between these two classes. it was, in fact, exactly our phenomenon, differing only in degree. society had come to live in deadly fear of the masses, so that the statute books of the land were filled with laws dealing death upon the poor for the most trivial of offences. it was a capital crime to cut down a cherry-tree; it was a capital crime to steal.
mark well the sequel: society was forced in its own defence to begin the study of the problem of wealth and poverty. men and women who, through all their earlier years, had been carefully and sedulously trained to regard the poor as a different species, and to look with scorn and indifference upon their suffering, went into the streets of the industrial cities to learn. ministers of god who had seen their churches empty year by year went out into the lanes and alleys of england to seek their flock. hence sprung whitfield and john wesley, and hence the methodist church, which, whatever any one may think of its doctrine, could have justified its existence in the world by the work it did in the first twenty years of its lifetime.
a very little later, as a result of this same impulse of charity, growing out of a fight for life on the part of the higher classes, mr. raikes, of gloucester, founded in england his system of sunday schools, the very beginning of popular education. hannah more, a noble woman of the time,173 devoted the better part of her life to laying bare the horrible conditions of agricultural labour. out of the same movement came clarkson and wilberforce with their tremendous anti-slavery campaign that was in the end to lead england to a peaceful if expensive emancipation. before that era john howard was a quiet country gentleman, wealthy and happy, and blindly ignorant of poverty and crime. at the end of it he took his place at the top of the list of the world’s great reformers; and the prisons of england, from that day to this, have never sunk to the depths of ignominy and shame in which they lay when john howard first was moved to study them. hospitals sprang up all over the land. organized charity began in england. the poor of england, from that day to this, have at least been considered174 human beings, instead of mere beasts that perish.
therefore, let me repeat, it is fatuous to dismiss the present tendency toward charity and reform as if it were mere time-serving. it may be, indeed, that it is one of the greatest economic facts in america to-day. it may be that, as it spreads and grows and brings into the battle thousands upon thousands of devoted men and women, hundreds of millions of dollars of hoarded wealth, social reform upon social reform, it will act as a check and an offset to the tremendous industrial discontent that is spreading over the country. it may be that, as in england, it will bridge the chasm between the rich and the poor, or, at the worst, prevent its widening to the point of open war.
i hesitate to undertake any extensive review of the great charities and reforms that have sprung out of this new impulse that has moved the rich to study the poor. i hesitate not because there is dearth of material, but because of my own knowledge. i know that the facts of record are but a very small part of all the facts in the case. the tremendous benefactions of a rockefeller, a carnegie, a mrs. sage, do not begin to measure the organized and unorganized charities that have been inaugurated by the wealthy within the past ten years.
personally, i do not think very much about the forms of charity that are to-day most prevalent amongst the wealthy. millions of dollars every year are poured indiscriminately into all sorts of hoppers here in new york, in the vain hope that they will help to bring about better conditions. money-charity, if i may call it so, seems to me a beautiful thing if it is really done in a spirit of helpfulness—but, alas, how vain it is! i do not know but that, in the case of more than half the recipients of charity of this indiscriminate sort, it does more harm than good. this i do know, that, according to the best estimates obtainable, from eighteen per cent. to twenty-five per cent. of the people of new york state accept charity every year. this is a matter of record. how many more are the recipients of unrecorded charity i do not know, but i should not be surprised if forty per cent. of the population of the greatest state of the union are the beneficiaries of charity, of one sort and another, in such a year as 1908, for instance.
professor bushnell, in an estimate made177 some years ago, estimated that nearly two hundred million dollars a year was spent upon the maintenance of abnormal dependents in the united states. think, then, of the amount of money that must be lavished upon the thousand and one indiscriminate charities extended to people who cannot be classed as dependents at all.
charity, beautiful as it is in many instances, is a hopeless answer to the questions of the day. the wonderful growth of it in the past three or four years in the social world to which i belong is hopeful, not because of the actual good it has accomplished or can accomplish, but simply because it is another index of the times, another indubitable sign that the wealthy men and women of society are really throwing their hearts and minds into the mighty problem of adjusting the relationship178 between the classes which are so rapidly drifting apart.
of all the charities i know, i think that the sanest, the most far-sighted, and the most surely pregnant with good is the sage foundation. perhaps my opinion is little more than conceit. i myself have given so much time and effort to studying the causes of the growth of poverty in this country that perhaps an institution founded with a tremendous fund of money behind it to carry on an exhaustive and scientific research into the causes of poverty strikes me as the most intelligent of all the charities i have ever seen, merely because it fits in with my own personal ideas, and is the very charity i myself would have founded had i had the disposition toward charity and the means to put it into effect.
i cannot speak with authority of the179 actual work that the sage foundation is doing; but i fancy, if one could to-day take an inventory of actual results accomplished, he would find that the foundation has barely been begun, and that these artisans of the millennium have not yet even drawn tentative plans for the superstructure. i have, however, read with extreme interest a report made by the trustees as the result of an investigation of the living conditions in families in new york city, and i do not hesitate to say that, in the compilation of that report alone, the sage foundation has accomplished a work of great practical utility.
people of my class, when they read a book, seldom write to the author and give him their impressions. in all human probability the compilers of this report do not know whether any one in the wealthy class180 of new york society has read the book. i can assure them that it has been excellently read. one night, in a company of about a dozen, i mentioned it. all but two in the party had read extracts from it in the newspapers, two had read it in full for information, and one raised a laugh by saying that his secretary had tried in vain to buy it at four book stores.
this work, in my opinion, will bear a tremendous crop of fruit. we need facts, and we need them very badly. frankly, we are afraid of such estimates as those contained in mr. robert hunter’s “poverty,” full as it is of vague, loose, and inaccurate statements, academic estimates in round millions, and glittering generalities of all sorts. we cannot find knowledge in the socialist libraries, for we distrust the socialist propaganda intensely. we181 must have sane, clear, dispassionate analysis of the situation, or we shall stumble blindly on as we are stumbling to-day, wasting our millions on foolish charities, debauching honest men and women by unnecessary gifts, pandering to laziness, and actually increasing in this land of industry the army of dependent paupers. i hope that the time will come when the sage foundation will be, as it were, a guiding light upon the sea of charity.
i can hardly pass from this subject without a word of praise for the work in behalf of the public health. the active, intelligent labour of such men as professor irving fisher on the propagandist side, and doctor flexner and doctor stiles on the practical side, cannot be praised too highly. it is made possible by charity. both messrs. rockefeller and morgan, admittedly182 two of the greatest of our capitalists, have given millions to this work. every year other uncounted millions pour into it from men and women in every city in the land. the work is spreading, growing wider, drawing into itself better medical talent, greater surgical skill, and deeper and deeper devotion on the part of its backers. help of this sort does not debauch the masses, for it does not lessen the self-respect of its recipients. the hospitals that are springing up all over the land, built and supported by private capital, are milestones in the march of progress, and i would give full honour to the men that plant them.
in my own circle i know a good many people who think that they are charitable; and i know a few charitable people. it is a habit of my mind to ridicule the fads183 and fancies of my class; and i am sorry to be obliged to admit that, in the vast majority of cases with which i come personally in contact, the charity of my class is one of two things: it is either simply a fad, with little real genuine spirit of helpfulness behind it, or else it is, as it were, a sop to fear. a good many people seem to think that it is up to the rich to distribute largess to the poor, whether the poor want it or not. they ignore the economics of the matter, if indeed they know them. they have come to be afraid of the growing pressure from below, and they think that by indiscriminate charity they can lessen it.
so they give ships of corn to the masses. you remember, perhaps, that, in the later plutocracy of rome, after the triumph of sulla, it came to be a regular habit,184 when frenzied mobs of romans or would-be romans threatened death and ruin to the plutocrats, for various and sundry men to buy shiploads of corn in egypt and distribute them gratis to the roman plebs. it is true that, in all human probability, the plutocracy of rome prolonged its life for more than half a century by just such means. if a mob of slaves is hungry, and you give them something to eat, they will go home and eat it; and, in the meantime, if you happen to be a roman senator with plenty of money, your hired thugs may be able to find the leaders of the delayed revolution and put them beyond any possibility of raising further trouble.
you forget, when you try the process in america, that the plebs of america are not slaves, and that their leaders, of whom there is a host, are pretty nearly as well educated, are certainly as shrewd, and are probably as strong, legally, as you are. i fail to see how in this land charity of this sort can have any real effect. i am sorry to say that there is far too much of it. let me pass on to the second weapon of defence. high society is becoming a rampant reformer. it will reform anything on a moment’s notice. when i read in the papers, and heard in the club, that a dozen women of great wealth were standing along broadway handing bills and encouragement to the girl shirt-waist strikers of last winter, i was not a bit surprised. it is just what you might have expected. nowadays i can hardly go to a reception or a ball without being buttonholed by somebody and led over into a corner to be told all about some wonderful new reform. it is186 perfectly amazing, this plague of reform, in its variety, in its volume, and in the intensity of earnestness with which it is pushed.
not long ago a professor of economics in a great university, lecturing on “social reform,” openly advocated almost every imaginable variety of labour legislation. i do not believe he understood exactly what he was saying when he gave as a reason for such advocacy that the support of such legislation by the wealthy classes would tend to check the spread of certain vague but dangerous movements amongst the people, which he did not describe in detail, but which, to any intelligent man, simply meant the widespread socialistic movement. i wonder, does that college professor really think that the enactment of all sorts of legislative reforms for labour would have any such tendency?
give lazarus crumbs, and he will crawl for them. give him nothing, and he will demand bread, and then a steady job. after a time we will be visited by mr. lazarus, walking delegate of the labour union, requesting an eight-hour day and higher wages for his constituency. dives will probably answer by building a church and a museum for lazarus, and forcing mrs. lazarus to turn over her garbage to the public scavenger. after that you may be sure of the result. every lazarus in the land will demand to be made a co-partner in the business of the nation. that college professor may know quite a bit about economics, but he couldn’t hold a job for a week handling a bunch of half a dozen railroad navvies on a construction job.
it is the same old story. there are too188 many among the idle rich who jump at the first obvious conclusion. they see the strange phenomenon that i have noted as arising out of our industrial evolution, and they say to themselves; “the nation, indeed, faces a crisis. we are in danger of falling. the world should continue as it is. it is pleasant to be booted, spurred, and in the saddle. no oats for the horse, and we shall be thrown down. the mob must be appeased. feed the hungry and we shall be saved. cure society of its most evident disorders and the public mind will forget the rest.”
so said the plutocrats of rome. so argued the hangers-on of louis of france. so charles the first of england fell. you may find a good many other illustrations, if you like, in athens, italy, and russia. i challenge any gentleman to instance a189 single case in history where petty reforms and petty charities thrown indiscriminately to the mob have ever established any permanent betterment of social conditions, or failed to be followed in the end by a terrific reckoning.
it is true that, amongst the wealthy, many men to-day are honestly advocating and honestly working for real, deep-planted, permanent reform.
it is almost astounding to read a paragraph like the following signed with the name of andrew carnegie:
whatever the future may have in store for labour, the evolutionist, who sees nothing but certain and steady progress for the race, will never attempt to set bounds to its triumph, even to its final form of complete and universal industrial coöperation, which i hope is some day to be reached.
by industrial coöperation mr. carnegie explains that he means the slow process of selling or giving actual ownership of manufacturing industries to the workmen. he claims that they began this experiment in this country when the carnegie steel company took in from time to time forty odd young partners, none of whom contributed a penny of money, the company taking their notes payable only out of profits.
a dozen other instances could be adduced, beginning with the united states steel corporation itself, the giant among the trusts. there is no doubt whatever that this reform is spreading. what is more, i believe it is an honest reform, and that most of the men who have introduced it into their companies have done it from an honest belief that it would elevate the workingman and solve in each separate191 instance the most dangerous of our industrial problems.
i am not myself a manufacturer, and i do not feel competent either to praise or to criticize this particular solution of particular industrial problems. i know that john stuart mill in his “political economy” vaguely hints at some such ultimate evolution of the wage-worker; and i know also that in many cases the coöperative idea, in actual practice, has succeeded very well indeed. in my own mind, knowing the habits of a plutocracy, i cannot help doubting whether widespread coöperation between wage workers and capital, particularly between the lower orders of the wage workers and the larger masters of capital, would not simply afford to dishonest, disreputable, or unprincipled captains of industry a fuller opportunity than they now enjoy to hold down the wages and profits of wage workers.
yet i would but express this doubt as a personal feeling of my own, rather than as a conviction founded upon research or upon broad knowledge of the subject. it is not germane to my theme to enter upon a detailed discussion either of this possible reform or of any other. i would simply point out as illustrations two or three of the greater reforms that i hear month by month discussed more and more among the people of my class.
personally, i am a bit tired of reform; for society, as i have said, will plunge en masse through any door that has a reform label sticking on it anywhere. often, as i think of the long list of reforms advocated by distinguished individuals, churches, educators, civic associations, politicians, and societies, i wonder what would happen if they all succeeded. i won’t be here to find out; but if, in some future existence, no matter what my destination, i hear that it has come to pass, i am quite sure that i shall be glad to be away.
in passing from this subject i cannot refrain from reiterating the note of warning contained in an earlier paragraph. to my charitable friends of the upper classes whose heads are full of reforms and alms-giving i would say, give not at all if, in giving, or in supporting reforms, you hope or expect thereby to gain the favour of the mob. remember that in rome the masses were a race of parasites who could be fed or crushed as the occasion demanded. in america, on the contrary, the masses are the producing elements of the nation, and you are the parasites. between the cry of the roman multitude for coin and the demand of the working american for wages there is an intensity and seriousness as much different as between the humming of the mosquito and the thunder of an earthquake.
“when the public deliberates concerning any regulation of commerce or police, the proprietors of land never can mislead it, with a view to promote the interest of their own particular order; at least, if they have any tolerable knowledge of that interest. they are, indeed, too often defective in this tolerable knowledge. they are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. that indolence, the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often not only ignorant, but incapable of the application of mind necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of any public regulation.”
—adam smith.
