CHARITY— THEORY AND PRACTICE 13 



sentimentalists and sharp knaves who infest the offices and 

 homes of busy philanthropists with pleas which are plausible 

 but without foundation in reason. It is plain enough to a 

 student of world movements in charity that private agencies 

 may be so conducted as to increase the number of dependents 

 and throw heavier burdens upon taxpayers, as the history of 

 beggars in Italy and France clearly proves, not to speak of 

 innumerable facts in our own cities. Thus it is not uncommon 

 for churches to support a family of dependents until they have 

 remained long enough to acquire a legal settlement and then 

 cast them upon the local government to care for l:)y outdoor 

 and indoor methods, perhaps throughout generations. The 

 first to welcome state inspection should be those generous 

 benefactors whose methods are so wise that publicity would 

 give them distinction and whose generosity is so splendid 

 that its record would add luster to state history. But in- 

 spection and regulation by the incompetent appointees of the 

 spoils system would not jaeld desirable results, and the civil 

 service reform is as vital in this connection as in relation to 

 municipal government and state institutions. 



It is said to the reproach of workers in charity that they 

 do not go to the root of the evil and that they are satisfied to 

 mend and patch where radical measures are required for gen- 

 eral and permanent rehef. Socialists and special reformers 

 are particularly impatient with the entire range of philan- 

 thropic activity. But at the present hour the demands of 

 democratic sentiment and of the long look of science are heard 

 and heeded in the ranks of those who come nearest to the low- 

 est stratum of human misery. Intelligent visitors among the 

 poor are also dissatisfied with alleviating measures where any- 

 thing more satisfactory is possible, iDut under any system the 

 call for relief will always be heard and make its appeal to so- 

 cial sympathy. The independent and self respecting w^ork- 

 ingmen emblazon on their banners, ''Not charity, but justice," 

 and they organize to build the strongest dam possible against 

 the overflowing flood of pauperism. Their struggle for a 

 standard of life is the fight for civilization itself, and is not a 

 mere class contest. Universal suffrage means death to prog- 

 ress, unless the great majority of men have that taste for cul- 



