Democracy and Social Ethics | Page 7

why not let us alone and stop your questionings and investigations?"
"They investigated me for three weeks, and in the end gave me nothing
but a black character," a little woman has been heard to assert. This
indignation, which is for the most part taciturn, and a certain kindly
contempt for her abilities, often puzzles the charity visitor. The latter
may be explained by the standard of worldly success which the visited
families hold. Success does not ordinarily go, in the minds of the poor,
with charity and kind-heartedness, but rather with the opposite qualities.
The rich landlord is he who collects with sternness, who accepts no
excuse, and will have his own. There are moments of irritation and of
real bitterness against him, but there is still admiration, because he is
rich and successful. The good-natured landlord, he who pities and
spares his poverty-pressed tenants, is seldom rich. He often lives in the
back of his house, which he has owned for a long time, perhaps has
inherited; but he has been able to accumulate little. He commands the
genuine love and devotion of many a poor soul, but he is treated with a
certain lack of respect. In one sense he is a failure. The charity visitor,
just because she is a person who concerns herself with the poor,
receives a certain amount of this good-natured and kindly contempt,
sometimes real affection, but little genuine respect. The poor are
accustomed to help each other and to respond according to their
kindliness; but when it comes to worldly judgment, they use industrial
success as the sole standard. In the case of the charity visitor who has
neither natural kindness nor dazzling riches, they are deprived of both
standards, and they find it of course utterly impossible to judge of the

motive of organized charity.
Even those of us who feel most sorely the need of more order in
altruistic effort and see the end to be desired, find something distasteful
in the juxtaposition of the words "organized" and "charity." We say in
defence that we are striving to turn this emotion into a motive, that pity
is capricious, and not to be depended on; that we mean to give it the
dignity of conscious duty. But at bottom we distrust a little a scheme
which substitutes a theory of social conduct for the natural promptings
of the heart, even although we appreciate the complexity of the
situation. The poor man who has fallen into distress, when he first asks
aid, instinctively expects tenderness, consideration, and forgiveness. If
it is the first time, it has taken him long to make up his mind to take the
step. He comes somewhat bruised and battered, and instead of being
met with warmth of heart and sympathy, he is at once chilled by an
investigation and an intimation that he ought to work. He does not
recognize the disciplinary aspect of the situation.
The only really popular charity is that of the visiting nurses, who by
virtue of their professional training render services which may easily be
interpreted into sympathy and kindness, ministering as they do to
obvious needs which do not require investigation.
The state of mind which an investigation arouses on both sides is most
unfortunate; but the perplexity and clashing of different standards, with
the consequent misunderstandings, are not so bad as the moral
deterioration which is almost sure to follow.
When the agent or visitor appears among the poor, and they discover
that under certain conditions food and rent and medical aid are
dispensed from some unknown source, every man, woman, and child is
quick to learn what the conditions may be, and to follow them. Though
in their eyes a glass of beer is quite right and proper when taken as any
self-respecting man should take it; though they know that cleanliness is
an expensive virtue which can be required of few; though they realize
that saving is well-nigh impossible when but a few cents can be laid by
at a time; though their feeling for the church may be something quite
elusive of definition and quite apart from daily living: to the visitor

they gravely laud temperance and cleanliness and thrift and religious
observance. The deception in the first instances arises from a
wondering inability to understand the ethical ideals which can require
such impossible virtues, and from an innocent desire to please. It is
easy to trace the development of the mental suggestions thus received.
When A discovers that B, who is very little worse off than he, receives
good things from an inexhaustible supply intended for the poor at large,
he feels that he too has a claim for his share, and step by step there is
developed the competitive spirit which so horrifies charity visitors
when