18763 The Tribe of Ishmael 



detailed investigation of the "Tribe of Ishmael," 

 a local group of "poor whites" mostly bearing 

 Ishmael as a surname. A large majority of them 

 were descendants of prisoners for debt sent over 

 from England to Jamestown, Virginia, to become 

 ancestors of a forlorn group of ne'er-do-wells scattered 

 through the Middle West. With the assistance of 

 the Associated Charities of Indianapolis, which he 

 himself organized, McCulloch gathered the records 

 of some five thousand of those benighted people 

 about whose doors clustered most of the petty 

 crimes and nearly all of the poverty of the 

 town. 



This piece of research was one of the first and 

 most illuminating of the many studies of inherited 

 incapacity. Its general conclusion I may sum up 

 briefly. Among the poor there are three kinds 

 the Lord's poor, the Devil's poor, and paupers; 

 that is, those that have fallen into poverty 

 through misfortune, those that have earned and 

 deserved it through vice, and those that have in- 

 herited feeble minds and feeble wills so that in an 

 open competitive world they of necessity fall to 

 the bottom, being destitute of initiative and self- 

 respect. 



Closely associated with McCulloch was Myron Reed 

 W. Reed, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, 

 a commanding figure in the pulpit but uncon- 

 ventional on week days, when he sometimes walked 

 down town in carpet slippers. Reed was a man of 

 charming personality, tall and handsome, with a 

 fine voice and a striking use of epigram. A noted 

 angler, he made frequent fishing trips to the region 

 about Lake Superior. One phase of his attitude 



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