154 EMIL MUNSTERBERG 



cities in order to learn their opinions and experience, and that 

 almost all had expressed themselves as favorable to private 

 outdoor relief, although some believed that they must defer 

 the entire abolition of outdoor relief on account of the special 

 circumstances of their community. Especially worthy of 

 notice is his account of Tacoma, where relief from public means 

 had been suspended, and where investigation and the menace 

 of sending visitors caused many to decline further help from 

 public poor relief. The incisive language of this part of the 

 report is as follows : 



''Cut off from their supplies at the courthouse, the long 

 procession which had received its monthly dole of alms from 

 that source took up its march for this office. Great was its 

 disappointment when we began to ask questions and to speak 

 of sending visitors. Not a few were disgusted and flatly de- 

 clared, ''Well, if you're that particular, I guess we won't bother 

 you." The upshot of the business was that scores at once 

 went about doing what they would better have been doing 

 long before, i. e., taking care of themselves. $150 a month 

 easily took the place of the $1,000 formerly paid, and with 

 what advantage to the recipients you very well know." 



A remark of Bailward seems to be significant also within 

 the limits for German relations. He says : 



"It is self evident that in individual cases it is much cheap- 

 er to give any one sixty cents in outdoor relief than to sup- 

 port him in a poorhouse at $1.25 a week; in the long run, how- 

 ever, nothing is dearer than this procedure. The more out- 

 door relief is applied, the more demand there will be, after a 

 time, for indoor relief." 



I have laid emphasis on this remark, because in Germany 

 also the facts again and again awaken similar reflections. 

 Very often the American reports pay us the compliment of 

 saying that our individualizing and honor office system would 

 admit of extended outdoor relief. In the last analysis the 

 question of the right use of one or the other system, or of both 

 in reciprocal relations, is, as Henderson rightly remarks, a 

 question of practical administration whose success depends 

 upon the value of its organs. The apprehension in respect to 

 admission of legal outdoor reUef is therefore doubtless con- 



