ALL kinds of relief, charitable or other, doubtless tend to perpetuation
of pauperism, inasmuch as paupers are thereby kept alive; and living
paupers unquestionably propagate their unthrifty kind more abundantly
than dead ones. It is not true, though, that relief interferes with
Nature's beneficent law of the survival of the fittest, for the power
to excite sympathy and obtain relief is a kind of fitness. I am still a
devotee of the homely primitive doctrine that mischance, disability or
even unthrift, is not a capital crime justly and profitably punishable
by starvation. I still regard the Good Samaritan with a certain
toleration and Jesus Christ's tenderness to the poor as something more
than a policy of obstruction.
If no such thing as an almshouse, a hospital, an asylum or any one of
the many public establishments for relief of the unfortunate were known
the proposal to found one would indubitably evoke from thousands of
throats notes of deprecation and predictions of disaster. It would be
called Socialism of the radical and dangerous kind--of a kind to menace
the stability of government and undermine the very foundations of
organized society! Yet who is more truly unfortunate than an able-bodied
man out of work through no delinquency of will and no default of effort?
Is hunger to him and his less poignant than to the feeble in body and
mind whom we support for nothing in almshouse or asylum? Are cold and
exposure less disagreeable to him than to them? Is not his claim to the
right to live as valid as theirs if backed by the will to pay for life
with work? And in denial of his claim is there not latent a far greater
peril to society than inheres in denial of theirs? So unfortunate and
dangerous a creature as a man willing to work, yet having no work to do,
should be unknown outside of the literature of satire. Doubtless there
would be enormous difficulties in devising a practicable and beneficent
system, and doubtless the reform, like all permanent and salutary
reforms, will have to grow. The growth naturally will be delayed by
opposition of the workingmen themselves--precisely as they oppose prison
labor from ignorance that labor makes labor.
It matters not that nine in ten of all our tramps and vagrants are such
from choice, and irreclaimable degenerates into the bargain; so long as
one worthy man is out of employment and unable to obtain it our duty
is to provide it by law. Nay, so long as industrial conditions are such
that so pathetic a phenomenon is possible we have not the moral right
to disregard that possibility. The right to employment being the right
to life, its denial is homicide. It should be needless to point out
the advantages of its concession. It would preserve the life and
self-respect of him who is needy through misfortune, and supply an
infallible means of detection of his criminal imitator, who could
then be dealt with as he deserves, widiout the lenity that finds
justification in doubt and compassion. It would diminish crime, for an
empty stomach has no morals. With a wage rate lower than the commercial,
it would disturb no private industries by luring away their workmen,
and with nothing made to sell there would be no competition with private
products. Properly directed, it would give us highways, bridges and
embankments which we shall not otherwise have.
It is difficult to say if our laws relating to vagrancy and vagrants
are more cruel or more absurd. If not so atrocious they would evoke
laughter; if less ridiculous we should read them with indignation. Here
is an imaginary conversation:
The Law: It is forbidden to you to rob. It is forbidden to you to steal.
It is forbidden to you to beg.
The Vagrant: Being without money, and denied employment, I am compelled
to obtain food, shelter and clothing in one of these ways, else I shall
be hungry and cold.
The Law: That is no affair of mine. Yet I am considerate--you are
permitted to be as hungry as you like and as cold as may suit you.
The Vagrant: Hungry, yes, and many thanks to you; but if I go naked I am
arrested for indecent exposure. You require me to wear clothing.
The Law: You'll admit that you need it.
The Vagrant: But not that you provide a way for me to get it. No one
will give me shelter at night; you forbid me to sleep in a straw stack.
The Law: Ungrateful man! we provide a cell.
The Vagrant: Even when I obey you, starving all day and freezing all
night, and holding my tongue with both hands, I am liable to arrest for
being "without visible means of support."
The Law: A most reprehensible condition.
The Vagrant: One thing has been overlooked--a legal punishment for
begging for work.
The Law: True; I am not perfect.