152 EMIL MUNSTERBERG 



aimed belong to the Caucasian race, which in rehgion, art, and 

 science stands above all other peoples of the earth. There are 

 good and bad Italians, good and bad Hungarians, good and 

 bad Americans. Under present laws we can exclude all bad 

 elements, whether they come from Germany, Sweden, Russia, 

 or any other country; but I stand by this proposition, that a 

 man is not proved to he bad because he can not read or write." 



Much more important for public poor relief is the question 

 of interstate migration and settlement. On the ground of a 

 report made at New York the conference decided to establish a 

 standing committee of seven members which should work for 

 the introduction of uniform settlement laws for which there 

 exists a real demand. The committee made a report on the 

 subject the following year, and fixed upon the general outlines 

 of a uniform law, the most important points of which are: 

 agreement upon the period of residence necessary to obtain 

 state and local settlements, the return of persons who do not 

 belong to the community, and the creation of a board for the 

 decision of mooted questions. On the whole, these proposi- 

 tions come near to the German system of legal settlement. 

 Acceptance of relief, reception into a public institution, etc. 

 are not to be reckoned in. Persons who in this way have not 

 obtained the rights of residence in a locality, but who have 

 remained a year in the state, are to be counted citizens of the 

 country in which they have remained the longest time. Per- 

 sons who have become a burden to the relief authorities, and 

 have no settlement are to be sent away as quickly as possible, 

 and that to the state to which they iDelong according to the 

 previous interpretation. 



The public poor relief, like that of England, rests upon the 

 more or less exclusive application of the system of indoor relief. 

 The poorhouses or almshouses are, as Warner calls them, the 

 charitable catch-all for the community. The laws exclude 

 pubUc outdoor relief partly in cases of permanent dependence 

 and entirely for able bodied persons, so that only the sick, 

 defective, and similar persons may be relieved temporarily by 

 the outdoor method. Outdoor relief, for example, is abolished 

 in many of the great cities, as New York, Brookl^m, Baltimore. 



The attitude of state relief is only intelligible when one 



