HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 



307 



ited in his powers. He can give as much as he sees fit. 

 As the office is a political one, about the time of nomi- 

 nation and election the amounts increase largely. The 

 political bosses favour this and use it — now in the inter- 

 ests of the Republican now of the Democratic party. It 

 thus becomes a corruption fund of the worst kind. 

 What the township trustee fails to do, private benevo- 

 lence supplements. The so-called charitable people who 

 give to begging children and women with baskets have 

 a vast sin to answer for. It is from them that this pau- 

 per element gets its consent to exist." 



In every American city, as in Indianapolis, there 

 exist a large number of people who, in the ordinary 



course of life, can never be made good 



Paupers as ... ^ , •.•..■ , 



Citizens. Our free institutions do not 

 parasites. 



make them free ; our free schools do not 

 train them ; our churches do not contain the means of 

 their salvation. It is well to face the fact that the ex- 

 istence of the great body of paupers and criminals is 

 possible only by feeding them in one way or another 

 on the life-blood of the community. It is the presence 

 of this class which adds terror to poverty. It is they 

 which make intolerable the lot of the worthy poor. The 

 problem of poverty and misfortune is a difficult one at 

 best. It is rendered many times more difficult by the 

 presence among the poor of those whom no condition 

 could bring to the level of self-helpful and self-respect- 

 ing humanity. The difficult problem of the unemployed 

 becomes far more difficult when associated with the 

 hopeless problem of the unemployable. 



It is not important to our present discussion to con- 

 sider how these conditions arose. It may be a defect 

 of human society that the law of natural selection has 

 not had its perfect work. The destruction of the unfit 

 has not kept pace with their power of reproduction. 



