Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LV
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
Copyright, 1899,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
Herbert SpencerAPPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
AUGUST, 1899.
PUBLIC CHARITY AND PRIVATE VIGILANCE.
By FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Ph. D.,
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
The Comptroller of the City of New York deserves the thanksof all good citizens for his serious indictment of the abuses ofpublic charity that have grown up in this city and State within thepast ten years. Probably very few of the more intelligent men andwomen of the community were aware that three million dollars,raised by taxation, are annually appropriated to the assistance of privatecharitable institutions, over which the public has no real controland only the most shadowy authority through the inspection ofthe State Board of Charities. Of those who were informed of thisfact, very few indeed were acquainted with the specific abuseswhich the comptroller's article exposes. To a few individuals, however,who have devoted time and money unselfishly to the defense ofpublic interests and to the exposure of the evils of irresponsiblerelief, these facts have long been familiar. Such can not fail totake satisfaction in the clear presentation of the case by Mr. Coler.Especially to the men and women who have been connected with thework of the State Charities Aid Association and the Charity OrganizationSociety will Mr. Coler's article be welcome, as a strong re-enforcementof arguments which they for years have been presentingto the people of New York, oftentimes, it has seemed, to butunwilling hearers.
It is therefore in no spirit of fundamental disagreement, butrather in the desire to further the reform which the comptrollerdemands, that I venture to criticise in two particulars the statementas he has left it.
It is an incomplete view of the enormously difficult problem ofcharity which fails to set forth some of the reasons that have ledto the growth of an excessive faith in the excellence of private institutionsand in the wisdom of a co-operation between them and thepublic, which is taken for granted when they receive appropriationsof public money.
Great as have been the abuses associated with private charity,they are small when compared with the abuses that have existed inthe public administration of poor relief. As all familiar with the historyof this subject know, the old English poor law was so administeredin the rural parishes that paupers were in a more eligible positionthan industrious farm laborers; that women with bastard childrenwere publicly rewarded for unchastity; and that, now andagain, rent-paying farmers were willing to surrender their lands tothe paupers to work them for what could be made, rather than to goon paying rates. The exposure of the evils of the system, which wasmade in the repor