[Footnote 1: Report of Richmond Mayo Smith, Franklin H. Giddings,
and Fred. W. Holls, Committee on Statistics of the New York
Charity Organization Society.--Condensed for Public Opinion.]
The most interesting, and at the same time the most difficult, problem
connected with an analysis of cases is to determine the real cause of
destitution. It requires great experience and intelligence on the part
of workers in charity to give even approximately the fundamental
reason why a certain family has come to destitution. To classify cases
from records without personal knowledge of each case, and then simply
to count the cases, is a very inadequate method of arriving at the
truth. The primary difficulty, of course, is to reach a
classification. The one adopted by Mr. Warner in his book on American
charities is: 1. Causes indicating misconduct; 2. Causes indicating
misfortune. Under the first head come drink, immorality, laziness,
shiftlessness and inefficiency, crime and dishonesty, a roving
disposition. Under the second head come lack of normal support,
matters of employment, matters of personal capacity, such as sickness
or death in family, etc. The trouble with such a classification is
that one cause may lie behind another, as drink is often the cause of
lack of employment, of sickness or accident. On the other hand, lack
of employment may lead to drink, immorality or laziness.
With the limited number of cases that have been analyzed in this
investigation, it would be impossible to expect any very conclusive
results. We have endeavored, however, to make up for the small amount
of the material by a careful and intelligent analysis, and by
approaching the subject from three different points. We have first
taken the alleged cause of distress--that is, the reason assigned by
the person applying for relief. This, of course, will present the most
favorable side, and the one most calculated to excite sympathy. We
have, secondly, tabulated the real cause of distress, as gathered by
the tabulator from the whole record. This, of course, is the judgment
of an outside party, and the emphasis will be laid upon misfortune or
misconduct according to the disposition of the investigator. We have,
thirdly, the character of the man and woman as gathered from the
record. This is supplementary evidence as to the real cause of
distress. We go on now to present these three points of view. Loss of
employment, 313; sickness or accident, 226; intemperance, 25;
insufficient earnings, 52; physical defect or old age, 45; death of
wage earner, 40; desertion, 40; other causes and uncertain, 103;
total, 844. An attempt was made to follow the example of Mr. Booth and
introduce supplementary causes as well as principal causes. About the
only result, however, is that sickness often accompanies loss of
employment, and that loss of employment often accompanies sickness or
accident. It is clearly seen in this whole table how disposed
applicants for relief are to attribute their distress to circumstances
beyond their control.
In the following table we have an attempt to analyze the real cause of
distress, according to the judgment of the tabulator as gathered from
the full record. In chronic cases the same cause is apt to appear in
the successive applications. It was thought that this might lead to
undue accumulation of particular causes. A separate tabulation,
therefore, was made for the 500 first applications, and then for the
total--832 applications. The table is as follows: