In a careful analysis of the principal data available, Mr. Robert Hunter
has attempted the difficult task of estimating the measure of privation,
and his conclusion is that in normal times there are at least 10,000,000
persons in the United States in poverty.[43] That is to say, there are
so many persons underfed, poorly housed, underclad, and having no
security in the means of life. As an incidental condition he has
observed that poverty’s misery falls most heavily upon the children, and
that there are probably not less than from 60,000 to 70,000 children in
New York city alone “who often arrive at school hungry and unfitted to
do well the work required.”[44] By a section of the press that statement
was garbled into something very different, that 70,000 children in New
York city go “breakfastless” to school every day. In that form the
statement was naturally and very justly criticised, for, of course,
nothing like that number of children go absolutely without breakfast. It
is not, however, a question of children going without breakfast, but of
children who are _underfed_, and the latter word would have been better
fitted to express the real meaning of the original statement than the
word “hungry.” Many thousands of little children go breakfastless to
school at times, but the real problem is much more extensive than that
and embraces that much more numerous class of children who are
chronically underfed, either because their food is insufficient in
quantity, or, what is the same thing in the end, poor in quality and
lacking in nutriment.
It is noteworthy that no serious criticism of the estimate that there
are 10,000,000 in poverty has been attempted. Some of the most
experienced philanthropic workers in the country have indeed urged that
it is altogether too low. I am myself convinced that the estimate is a
most conservative one. It would be warranted alone by the figures of
unemployment, which show that in 1900, a year of fairly normal
industrial conditions, 2,000,000 male wage-earners were unemployed for
from four to six months. But to these figures Mr. Hunter adds a mass of
corroborative facts which suggest that the only just criticism which can
be made of his estimate is that it is an understatement. And, if there
are 10,000,000 persons in poverty in the United States, there must be at
least 3,300,000 of that number under fourteen years of age.
To test the accuracy of the statistics of unemployment, low wages,
sickness, charitable relief, etc., by detailed investigation would be an
impossible task for any private investigator. No such test could be
effectively carried out in a single great city by private agencies. But,
while they are open to the criticisms which all such statistics are
subject to, those given by Mr. Hunter represent the most reliable data
available. They justify, I believe, the conclusion that in normal times
there are not less than 3,300,000 children under fourteen years of age
in poverty, and a considerably greater number in periods of unusual
depression. If we divide this number into two age groups, those under
five and those from five to fourteen, we shall find that there are
1,455,000 in the former group and 1,845,000 in the latter. It is a
well-known fact, however, that poverty is far more prevalent among
children over five years of age than among younger children, and it is
safe to assume that of the total number of children estimated to be in
poverty, there are fully 2,000,000 between the ages of five and fourteen
years, nearly 12 per cent of the total number of children living in that
age period. The importance of this from an educational point of view is
apparent when it is remembered that from five to fourteen years is the
principal period of school attendance.