CHAPTER XIX
My colleagues did not share my discouragement in regard to the East End. There was much to hope for, they maintained, from the spread of information concerning it, from the awakening interest of the upper classes in its condition, and from all our new and intelligent methods of doing good.
This was true. Each board-meeting, conference, committee-meeting to which I went as guest or member, gave me fresh proof of the growth of knowledge about the destitute, while the practical activity of individuals and of societies seemed full of promise for the poor.
There was one great Bureau of Inquiry which existed solely for the purpose of investigating new “cases.” Its agents, visiting the needy, gleaned innumerable factsthat were entered in the books under heads like these: “Work, How Many? Bad Habits, What? Ill? Rent? Pay? Can Read? Can Write?”
This vast body was constantly torn in twain between a desire to find out genuine suffering, and a fear of being deceived.
Closely connected with this Bureau was the Society of Good Samaritans, who represented, not only the new knowledge concerning the poor, but also improved methods of relief. The Samaritans always sat in lengthy conference on Friday night, discussing in friendly fashion (not without gossip) the domestic affairs of the family in hand, and voting: “No Aid”; or, “Aid, $2.00 in groceries, visitor please follow up”; or, “Give Citizen’s Emergency Ticket for snow-shovelling”; and again, “No Aid.”
Another relief-giving society, the Almoners, differed from the Good Samaritans only in the greater carefulness of its proceedings. All its action was well considered and most deliberate. Its committee-meetings were full of anxious discussionof the question, “What do we do with such cases in District A?” and its most innocent reports were headed “Confidential!”
For instance:
“The Almoners request that the facts given below be used, especially if unfavourable, with great care.
In the case ofAbruzzi, Federigo,No. 10 Mulberry Street.
In the case ofAbruzzi, Federigo,No. 10 Mulberry Street.
In the case ofAbruzzi, Federigo,No. 10 Mulberry Street.
In the case of
Abruzzi, Federigo,
No. 10 Mulberry Street.
“Barber. Six children. No work. Gave shoes and stockings.”
These organizations were alike in the business-like quality of their work, in the wary kindliness with which they treated the poor, and in their thirst for accurate information. It occasionally happened that representatives of all three societies met by chance in the one room of a new “case,” and gravely carried on their investigations together.
Perhaps some of the questions that these agents of organized philanthropy wereauthorized to ask passed the line where friendly interest becomes impertinence. However, they but voiced the popular opinion, that “people of that sort” do not mind intrusion. Of many this was doubtless true, and a great corporation can hardly be expected to engage in character-study.
The intellectual curiosity evinced by these bodies in matters of practical detail was visible also in their theories of work. New charity methods, English, German, and Australian, were carefully discussed. On our boards were men who were familiar with all known schemes of in-door and outdoor relief, and women who were masters of statistics. We knew not only the best ways of carrying on investigation, but also the best ways of co-operating with the Church, with the State, and with one another.
But here theorizing stopped. These students of social disease did not seem to doubt the essential soundness of the social constitution. Criticism of the present industrialsystem and of the relation between classes did not, apparently, occur to them. The Altruist’s economic ideas would have filled them with surprise.
My misgivings concerning all this work did not come from the usual objections to it, that the proceedings of huge bodies are often too slow to be of use, because of the time wasted in adjusting formalities, and that the energy meant for action is dissipated in argument. I was impressed only by the hopelessness of finding out what to do. After patient inquiry the gulf between misery and the wish to help was nearly as wide as before. Facts may be facts without telling the truth, and with all our knowledge we did not understand.
This was not true of every member of the associations. There were certain women who possessed a gift of practical kindness, and were philanthropists by divine right. And surely the effectiveness of an organized body means the effectiveness of the individuals composing it.
But different attitudes were represented.Side by side with these women who were quick to help and slow to condemn, were others who allowed their respect for the ten commandments of the Old Testament to keep them from obeying the one command of the New. They pronounced judgment on the unfortunate with the most impressive finality, as if wrong-doing were doubly wrong in the East End. As I listened to them I sometimes thought that the ethical standard which the rich try to preserve for the poor is very high.
I liked to watch these charitable women, and to wonder why they were doing this work. Some, whose faces had been made sweet by sorrow, were striving only to find expression for sympathy with human pain. Some, who looked eager, restless, dissatisfied, were trying, I thought, to find in the lives of others the absorbing interest they had missed in their own. A few, I feared, had espoused the cause of the needy for the sake of social distinction. An interest in the poor was one of the really important things, like the cutof one’s sleeves, or one’s knowledge of Buddha.
I discovered a new species of benevolent woman, unlike the old-fashioned Saint Elizabeth who encouraged pauperism by indiscriminate distribution of loaves. A call that I made on a fellow-Almoner (for in an interval when my Cause did not keep me busy I had rashly joined this body) made me hope that the old Lady Bountiful armed with pity will never quite give place to this new Lady Bountiful armed with views.
I had given my friend this name because she looked so sympathetic. She was a blithe little woman, very wealthy and very charitable. On this occasion I found her just going out. As she came smiling to meet me, in her light cloth gown with gloves and gaiters of the exact shade, I thought how charming she was.
My Lady Bountiful had principles. She always performed her full social duty, and she told me, before I introduced the subject I had come to discuss, how tired shewas. Dinners and receptions and the theatre had tired her out. Yet she had given up none of her charity work. Her maid did all the necessary visiting for her.
When I set forth the object of my visit she looked disapproving. I wanted to change the policy of our Board, of which she was a director, to meet the distress caused by a sudden financial crisis. But My Lady interrupted my description of the misery of the unemployed in the East End.
“I do not believe in voting special relief for these people,” she said. “Their suffering will be a lesson to them. When they have work they are improvident; when it stops they starve. They must learn thrift and economy, even if it has to be taught them in this severe way.”
It was a strange situation,—Dives in his purple and Lazarus in his rags again. But Dives played a new rôle, no longer standing aloof, but coming near enough the gate to study Lazarus, and then intimatingthat his character was not all it should be.
My Lady went on to speak of work, of how noble it is, and how little common people appreciate its sacredness. I watched with a certain feeling of curiosity the dainty figure against the rich background of the beautiful house. The fingers that were emphasizing the panegyric of work had never been guilty of a half-hour’s honest toil.
“No,” said my hostess, when I rose to go, “this crisis means discipline for the poor, and we must not interfere. I think as you investigate further you will find that poverty is always the result of idleness, intemperance, or crime.”
“Then this distress is retributive?” I murmured. “It testifies to the negligence of the poor, and indirectly to our own industry, temperance, virtue?”
“Yes,” said My Lady, firmly. She was always firm. “Don’t look so unhappy,” she added, as she took my hand at parting. “It isn’t such a bad world, afterall. I never can see why people insist on crying out all sorts of unpleasant things about it. I am a thorough optimist, you see.”
I reflected, after the cool air of the street had soothed my irritation, that we were all like that. Each one of us had pronounced opinions, right or wrong. I wondered if it would not be better for the poor if we knew less about them and cared more.