I HAVE no great confidence in organized charities. Money is left and
buildings are erected and sinecures provided for a good many worthless
people. Those in immediate control are almost, or when they were
appointed were almost, in want themselves, and they naturally hate other
beggars.
They regard persons who ask assistance as their enemies. There is an old
story of a tramp who begged a breakfast. After breakfast another tramp
came to the same place to beg his breakfast, and the first tramp with
blows and curses drove him away, saying at the same time: "I expect to
get dinner here myself."
This is the general attitude of beggar toward beggar.
Another trouble with organized charities is the machinery, the various
methods they have adopted to prevent what they call fraud. They are
exceedingly anxious that the needy, that those who ask help, who have
been without fault, shall be attended to, their rule apparently being to
assist only the unfortunate perfect.
The trouble is that Nature produces very few specimens of that kind. As
a rule, men come to want on account of their imperfections, on account
of their ignorance, on account of their vices, and their vices are born
of their lack of capacity, of their want of brain. In other words, they
are failures of Nature, and the fact that they need help is not their
own fault, but the fault of their construction, their surroundings.
Very few people have the opportunity of selecting their parents, and it
is exceedingly difficult in the matter of grandparents. Consequently,
I do not hold people responsible for hereditary tendencies, traits and
vices. Neither do I praise them for having hereditary virtues.
A man going to one of these various charitable establishments is
cross-examined. He must give his biography. And after he has answered
all the supercilious, impudent questions, he is asked for references.
Then the people referred to are sought out, to find whether the
statements made by the applicant are true. By the time the thing is
settled the man who asked aid has either gotten it somewhere else or
has, in the language of the Spiritualists, "passed over to the other
side."
Of course this does not trouble the persons in charge of the organized
charities, because their salaries are going on.
As a rule, these charities were commenced by the best of people. Some
generous, philanthropic man or woman gave a life to establish a "home,"
it may be, for aged women, for orphans, for the waifs of the pavements.
These generous people, filled with the spirit of charity, raised a
little money, succeeded in hiring or erecting a humble building, and the
money they collected, so honestly given, they honestly used to bind up
the wounds and wipe away the tears of the unfortunate, and to save, if
possible, some who had been wrecked on the rocks and reefs of crime.
Then some very rich man dies who had no charity and who would not have
left a dollar could he have taken his money with him. This rich man, who
hated his relatives and the people he actually knew, gives a large sum
of money to some particular charity--not that he had any charity, but
because he wanted to be remembered as a philanthropist.
Then the organized charity becomes rich, and the richer the meaner, the
richer the harder of heart and the closer of fist.
Now, I believe that Trinity Church, in this city, would be called an
organized charity. The church was started to save, if possible, a few
souls from eternal torment, and on the plea of saving these souls money
was given to the church.
Finally the church became rich. It is now a landlord--has many buildings
to rent. And if what I hear is true there is no harder landlord in the
city of New York.
So, I have heard it said of Dublin University, that it is about the
hardest landlord in Ireland.
I think you will find that all such institutions try to collect the very
last cent, and, in the name of pity, drive pity from their hearts.
I think it is Shakespeare who says, "Pity drives out pity," and he must
have had organized charities in his mind when he uttered this remark. Of
course a great many really good and philanthropic people leave vast sums
of money to charities.
I find that it is sometimes very difficult to get an injured man, or one
seized with some sudden illness, taken into a city hospital. There are
so many rules and so many regulations, so many things necessary to be
done, that while the rules are being complied with the soul of the sick
or injured man, weary of the waiting, takes its flight. And after the
man is dead, the doctors are kind enough to certify that he died of
heart failure.
So--in a general way--I speak of all the asylums, of all the homes for
orphans. When I see one of those buildings I feel that it is full of
petty tyranny, of what might be called pious meanness, devout deviltry,
where the object is to break the will of every recipient of public
favor.
I may be all wrong. I hope I am. At the same time I fear that I am
somewhere near right.
You may take our prisons; the treatment of prisoners is often infamous.
The Elmira Reformatory is a worthy successor of the Inquisition, a
disgrace, in my judgment, to the State of New York, to the civilization
of our day. Every little while something comes to light showing the
cruelty, the tyranny, the meanness, of these professional distributers
of public charity--of these professed reformers.
I know that they are visited now and then by committees from the
Legislature, and I know that the keepers of these places know when the
"committee" may be expected.
I know that everything is scoured and swept and burnished for the
occasion; and I know that the poor devils that have been abused or
whipped or starved, fear to open their mouths, knowing that if they
do they may not be believed and that they will be treated afterward as
though they were wild beasts.
I think these public institutions ought to be open to inspection at all
times. I think the very best men ought to be put in control of them.
I think only those doctors who have passed, and recently passed,
examinations as to their fitness, as to their intelligence and
professional acquirements, ought to be put in charge.
I do not think that hospitals should be places for young doctors to
practice sawing off the arms and legs of paupers or hunting in the
stomachs of old women for tumors. I think only the skillful, the
experienced, should be employed in such places. Neither do I think
hospitals should be places where medicine is distributed by students to
the poor.
Ignorance is a poor doctor, even for the poor, and if we pretend to be
charitable we ought to carry it out.
I would like to see tyranny done away with in prisons, in the
reformatories, and in all places under the government or supervision of
the State.
I would like to have all corporal punishment abolished, and I would also
like to see the money that is given to charity distributed by charity
and by intelligence. I hope all these institutions will be overhauled.
I hope all places where people are pretending to take care of the poor
and for which they collect money from the public, will be visited, and
will be visited unexpectedly and the truth told.
In my judgment there is some better way. I think every hospital,
every asylum, every home for waifs and orphans should be supported by
taxation, not by charity; should be under the care and control of the
State absolutely.
I do not believe in these institutions being managed by any individual
or by any society, religious or secular, but by the State. I would no
more have hospitals and asylums depend on charity than I would have the
public school depend on voluntary contributions.
I want the schools supported by taxation and to be controlled by the
State, and I want the hospitals and asylums and charitable institutions
founded and controlled and carried on in the same way. Let the property
of the State do it.
Let those pay the taxes who are able. And let us do away forever with
the idea that to take care of the sick, of the helpless, is a charity.
It is not a charity. It is a duty. It is something to be done for our
own sakes. It is no more a charity than it is to pave or light the
streets, no more a charity than it is to have a system of sewers.
It is all for the purpose of protecting society and of civilizing
ourselves.