A SOCIAL POLICY TOWARD DEPENDENTS 825 



present knowledge permit. The critical test lies here: Those who can 

 earn the minimum in competitive society belong to the industrial 

 group; those who cannot earn this minimum belong to the dependent 

 group. This is a rough measure, but it is far better than no standard, 

 and it is practically correct. In fact, it is already more or less con- 

 sciously applied in every instance where public poor-relief is given. 

 Of course, no thoughtful person will take us to mean that there is an 

 impassable barrier between the two classes, so that dependents cannot 

 be helped to ascend into and remain in the industrial group; and there 

 will always be some difficulty to decide the status of those on the 

 border-line. 



The members of the dependent group, who cannot earn even the 

 minimum wage necessary to a human existence, are now actually 

 supported by society; but frequently, and on a large scale, in such 

 a way and by such methods as to keep them down and drag others to 

 their level. For example, the products of charitable and correctional 

 institutions are sometimes put upon the market in such quantities 

 and massed at such points as to reduce the wages of self-supporting 

 work-people below the level of the minimum. In the sewing indus- 

 tries- very serious evil is thus introduced. 



(2) A social policy relating to the dependent group must isolate 

 the criminal group. One of the plagues of public and private charity 

 is the anti-social criminal, the sturdy rogue and vagrant, the debased 

 drunkard, the cunning thief, who mix in the throng of the merely 

 dependent and appropriate by impudence or craft the fund intended 

 for the helpless and incapable. At the door and desk of the municipal 

 lodging-house may be seen daily the sifting and judging process - 

 one of the most delicate and difficult tasks which ever test the judicial 

 faculties of man. The same problem often confronts the friendly 

 visitor in the homes of the poor, as when one is called to help the 

 wife and infant children of a lazy or absconding husband and 

 father. 



Recent experiments and discussions at this dividing-line have 

 shown that the rough and ready, but overworked, " work-test, " 

 even as a " workhouse test," is but one factor in the best method. 

 One difficulty is that the motley multitude called the " unem- 

 ployed " is composed of unlike elements, the vagrant, the inebriate, 

 the petty unsuccessful thief, the burglar " down on his luck," the 

 physical degenerate, the enfeebled convalescent just staggering back 

 from a hospital, the stranded country youth, the unskilled laborer 

 seeking a job without trade-union card, and others; some with hard 

 palms and thick muscles, some with deft but delicate fingers, some 

 accustomed to cold and heat, some with prophetic, cough ready to 

 perish with slight exposure to sun or storm. 



In order to treat with fairness, discrimination, wisdom, and 



