I count myself fortunate in having had a hand in bringing this
remarkable and invaluable volume into existence. Quite incidentally in
my book _Poverty_ I made an estimate of the number of underfed children
in New York City. If our experts or our general reading public had been
at all familiar with the subject, my estimate would probably have passed
without comment, and, in any case, it would not have been considered
unreasonable. But the public did not seem to realize that this was
merely another way of stating the volume of distress, and, consequently,
for several days the newspapers throughout the country discussed the
statement and in some instances severely criticised it. One prominent
charitable organization, thinking that my estimate referred to starving
children, undertook, without delay, to provide meals for the children.
In the midst of the excitement Mr. Spargo kindly volunteered to
investigate the facts at first hand. His inquiry was so searching and
impartial and the data he gathered so interesting and valuable that I
urged him to put his material in some permanent form. The following
admirable study of this problem is the result of that suggestion.
I am safe in saying that this book is a truly powerful one, destined, I
believe, to become a mighty factor in awakening all classes of our
people to the necessity of undertaking measures to remedy the conditions
which exist. The appeal of adults in poverty is an old appeal, so old
indeed that we have become in a measure hardened to its pathos and
insensitive to its tragedy. But this book represents the cry of the
child in distress, and it will touch every human heart and even arouse
to action the stolid and apathetic. The originality of the book lies in
the mass of proof which the author brings before the reader showing that
it is not alone, as most of our charitable experts believe, the misery
of the neglected or the actively maltreated child that should receive
attention. Even more important is the misery of that one whose whole
future is darkened and perhaps blasted by reason of the fact that during
his early years of helplessness he has not received those elements of
nutritious food which are necessary to a wholesome physical life.
Few of us sufficiently realize the powerful effect upon life of adequate
nutritious food. Few of us ever think of how much it is responsible for
our physical and mental advancement or what a force it has been in
forwarding our civilized life. Mr. Spargo does not attempt in this book
to make us realize how much the more favored classes owe to the fact
that they have been able to obtain proper nutrition. His effort here is
to show the fearful devastating effect upon a certain portion of our
population of an inadequate and improper food supply. He shows the
relation of the lack of food to poverty. The child of poverty is brought
before us. His weaknesses, his mental and physical inferiority, his
failure, his sickness, his death, are shown in their relation to
improper and inadequate food. He first proves to our satisfaction that
this child of misery is born into the world with powerful
potentialities, and he then shows, with tragic power, how the lack of
proper food during infancy makes it inevitable that this child become,
if he lives at all, an incompetent, physical weakling. It is perhaps
unnecessary to point out that the problem of poverty is largely summed
up in the fate of this child, and when the author deals with this
subject he is in reality treating of poverty in the germ.
There have been many books written about the children of the poor, but,
in my opinion, none of them give us so impressive a statement as is
contained here of the most important and powerful cause of poverty.
Among many reasons which may be found for the existence of distress, the
author has taken one which seems to be more fundamental than the others.
But, while this is true, there is no dogmatic treatment of the problem,
for the author realizes that the causes of poverty in this country of
abundance are numerous. Indeed, wherever one looks, one may see
conditions which are fertile in producing it. Students of the poor find
some of these causes in the conditions surrounding the poor. Students of
finance and of modern industry find causes of poverty in the methods and
constitution of this portion of our society. The causes, therefore, of
poverty cannot be gone into fully in any partial study of modern
society. It is even maintained, and not without reason, that if all men
were sober, competent, and industrious, there would be no less poverty
in the world. But however that may be, one thing is certain, and that is
that as the race as a whole could not have advanced beyond savagery
without a fortuitous provision of material necessities, so it is not
possible for the children of the poor to overcome their poverty until
they are assured in their childhood of the physical necessities of life.
We should have no civilization to-day, our entire race would still be a
wild horde of brutalized savages, but for the meat and milk diet or the
grain diet assured to our earliest forefathers. And it should not be
forgotten that as this is true of the life of the race, so is it true of
that portion of our community which lives in poverty unable to procure
proper food to give its children. This is the great fundamental fact
which lies at the base of the problem of poverty and which is the theme
of this book. It is a fact which should be best known to the men and
women who work in the field of our philanthropies, and yet it must be
said that it is a fact which has heretofore been almost entirely ignored
by this class of workers.
For this reason I welcome this volume. I am convinced that it will mark
the beginning of an epoch of deeper study and of sounder philanthropy. I
look to see in the near future some effort made to establish a standard
of physical well-being for the children. I expect to see the community
insisting that some provision shall be made whereby every child born
into the world will receive sufficient food to enable him to possess
enough vitality to overcome unnecessary and preventable disease and to
grow into a manhood physically capable of satisfactorily competing in
industrial or intellectual pursuits. I do not believe that this is a
dream impossible of realization. About a hundred years ago our
forefathers decided that there should be a universal standard of
literacy. To bring this about the following generations of men
established a free school system which was meant to assure to every
child a certain minimum of education. If that can be done for the mind,
the other thing can be done for the body. And when it is done for the
body, we shall make another striking advance in civilization not unlike
that recorded in the history of mankind when the free people of this
American continent established a system of free and universal education.
If such a momentous thing should follow the publication of this book,
and similar studies which will without doubt subsequently be made, its
publication would indeed mark an epoch. But, of course, it must be said
that before any far-reaching result can come, the general public must be
acquainted with the conditions which exist. It is for this reason that I
hope Mr. Spargo’s book will be read by hundreds of thousands of people,
and that it will awaken in them a determination to respond wisely and
justly to the bitter cry of the children of the poor.