One of the greatest injustices to the poor is the right that the
charities arrogate to themselves to visit them whenever they choose.
Once you depend upon charity all privacy is gone. The sanctity of the
home is destroyed. It is as though the family were living in some one
else's--in the charities'--home. The investigator comes into the house
unannounced any time of the day or night, questions anybody she finds in
the house, criticises the meals, the curtains; goes around to the
grocery, to the neighbours, looking for a "clue" that will give to the
institution the right to cease helping the particular "case," to "cut
her" as they say. This continual living in fear of the investigator,
coupled with the attitude of the neighbours and merchants who have all
been told that Mrs. D. is a charge of the charities, pauperises the poor
to such an extent that most of them lose all sense of shame and pride.
Mere rags they are, that try to fit themselves to surroundings, and the
children, oh! the children of the poor! They are the greatest sufferers
of all. They are continually cross-examined by the investigators. Never
are they trusted, and the word "liar," is always on the lips of their
torturers. They must not play like other children, and if they make an
attempt to live their young lives, on the slightest childish quarrel
with their playmates the fact that they are depending on charity is
thrown in their face. "Charity kids," the other children call them. If
they claim at the grocers that the bread is stale the fact that the
mother depends on charity and consequently has no right to pride, is
brought up, and though they pay actual money they are not given actual
value for it. They must not play or stay in the hall. The janitor will
scold them more than any of the other children. The "Why don't you go to
work" is repeated every second. Their ages are always disputed. An
applicant's child is always over fourteen (working age) in the eyes of
the neighbours, janitor, groceryman, butcher, investigator and all the
rest of the torturers.
A woman's pension has been discontinued _because her children looked too
well_--they were "the picture of health," and as the investigator could
not understand it the pension was discontinued. Another woman's pension,
and many more before her and many more after her, was discontinued
because she dressed too neatly. (By the way, the woman was a dressmaker
by trade and as she had no sewing-machine she did it all by hand.) Like
the sword of Damocles is the charity demon, hanging over its victims.
"Who visits her?"
"Does she receive men at night?"
"Does she go out in the evening?"
"Does she buy butter?"
"Don't you think she looks in the mirror a little too much? Where does
she go?"
"Does she go to moving pictures?"
These are but a few of the questions that an investigator asks of the
neighbours and dealers, and beware if she, the applicant, has ever
quarrelled with them. But more than all this is the persecution of
coming into the house without being announced, so that the poor woman
might not be saved the pain of her friends (whom she does not want to
enlighten) meeting the investigator.
The sanctity of the home is guaranteed by the Constitution of the land.
It is a law. Are the laws different for rich and poor? In his own house
one may refuse to receive when and whom he likes. This inhuman system of
investigation is ruining the homes of the poor, driving away their boys,
their daughters, and making their escape from pauperism impossible.
I know of a boy to whom his mother had given vinegar to drink because
his cheeks were too red to please the investigator! I know of a woman
who when her husband died did not know that she was pregnant. Two months
later she knew it, but she had already told the investigator that she
was not. In fear that the investigator would not believe that she did
not know and would accuse her of immorality and cut off her pension, she
performed a criminal operation, infected herself and died. Such is the
dread of the "investigator," and almost all the applicants are women,
and all the investigators are women--mothers--sisters, sweethearts--but
their trade has hardened them so much that judging by their actions one
would think them wild beasts. And still the Managers think that they are
"too tender hearted." It is the whole system of organised charity that
is criminal--debasing both the giver and he that receives, and this is
not meant for the charities of this country alone. It is meant for the
charities of the whole world over.
"He who giveth to the poor," is no more. A sum of money is given to men
who make it their business to make the life of the one who needs so
miserable that he should prefer starvation and the grave to their help;
and these are the really worthy ones, while the successful applicant,
the one who can stand the whole vile process, is generally the most
miserable creature on earth, with no sentiment of pride or shame, and
often is not really in need. To their everlasting shame charities,
organised charity, has created a new type. The professional pauper.
These professional paupers have a regular system of obtaining money.
They know the names and locations of all charitable institutions, know
what to say to one and what to another--bribe the janitor and silence
the grocer and butcher. Borrow children from neighbours so as to make
the family appear bigger, and sell to others, novices, their knowledge,
or work on the basis of percentage. And for all this only Charity,
criminal, organised Charity, is to blame.
If men feel that through their fault, or the system which they continue,
their brothers and sisters suffer, that the children starve and perish,
then let them give _personally_, with their own hands, and if they want
to investigate the truth of what the poor have told them let them go and
do it _personally_. If they do not want to go then they shall not.
But giving to the organised charities is worse than stealing the last
crust of bread from the lost in the desert. Man's pride, his sense of
shame is his last property, the only one he has that might help him in
his struggle when he is down. Organised charity robs him of this last
thing, robs him and his wife and his children and children's children.
And this is the reason why those who have once applied to charities have
remained their "regular customers."