What are the Have-To-Be?
In England and America they are the neglected or unfortunate members
of communities who have been condemned by evil chance to be classified
in the social category as "The _hopelessly_ submerged ten per cent.
stratum of society," mentioned elsewhere in this appeal, and, of late,
frequently referred to under that cruel classification in order to ease
the conscience of society as to their presence in its midst.
We are not sure of the origin of the phrase, but have been told that
it is used by the Salvation Army to excite sympathy for the
"submerged" and to elicit support for the army of rescue.
They argue in this wise, and wisely, too, from their point of view of
the evils they aim to attack: "The churches cannot reach these people
in the depths of slums, and the wretches will not come to the
churches. Religion is the only means of combating sin, and we must
take religion to these unfortunates even if we have to employ
spectacular means to accomplish it."
The Salvation Army, the King's Daughters, private missions, and the
several churches, together with the more recent experiments of College
and Social Settlements among the "Submerged" have accomplished noble
results in pioneering, but they need reinforcement to complete the
work, and adequate co-operation must include a popular movement whose
object shall not be less than a Strict Social Quarantine.
A shot is no better than its aim, irrespective of the force behind it.
Partial measures are always ineffective in the same way that any
faulty aim is ineffective.
Aim at anything short of Perfect Social Quarantine and you can have no
quarantine at all.
By evidence of numerous experiments and the successful results which
have been accomplished we are made bold to assert that the combined
effort that has been put forth by the missions, by private charity, by
the Salvation Army, and other detached bodies of altruists, if it had
been applied to the _aim_ of a Strict Social Quarantine, by means
of ample crèches, kindergartens, manual-training and parental-farm
schools, during the last twenty-five years of social experiments,
would have cleared the social atmosphere of its malarial conditions,
and to-day there might have been no Have-To-Be-Bads _loose_ in the
community.
Of all this restless striving to benefit mankind and purify social
conditions, nothing else has been so successful in proving the error
of the hypothesis of the "hopelessly submerged" as the kindergarten.
The character-forming schools which have had opportunity to care for
childhood from earliest perceptions until character has made an
impression, have proven that it is absolutely unnecessary to have a
Have-To-Be-Bad class at large and that the condemnation carried by the
tradition is as unjust as it is cruel.