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American Charities

Creator: Amos G. Warner (author)
Date: 1908
Publisher: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York
Source: Straight Ahead Pictures Collection

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Idleness during a short period, for hard-working people, would be no inevitable injury if their leisure could be turned to account in recreation and culture; but in the situation of the poor it means first of all discouragement and that fear of want which Robert Hunter has said is the essence of poverty. The man must spend his time tramping in search of work, or idling in streets, saloons, and lodging-houses, for the tenement offers no inducements for home-staying. As resources dwindle, he will be less and less well nourished and clothed, and when at last he is able to resume work, he is physically and mentally debilitated. If the process be repeated season after season, each is likely to find him progressively less competent and ambitious.

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Nor will the deterioration affect him alone. If he have a family, the wife must take any kind of casual labor that may be available, however exhausting it may be and regardless of her own physical fitness, while at the same time the whole family will have less food, fuel, and clothing. This extra labor and great thrift on the wife's part may tide over the period of the husband's out-of-work for one season, or two, or three even; but sooner or later, sickness or some other common vicissitude is liable to drain the last resources and deprive the household of its independence. Mrs. Bosanquet says that it takes a very high order of intellect to be self-supporting on an intermittent income; to what extent irregular employment and its accompaniment, intermittent income, operate in enervating the working-class, can be fully known only by those who live among them and see dependents in the process of making. (135)


(135) "Aspects of the Social Problem," p. 97.

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In the foregoing outline of a few conspicuous social causes of degeneration, the element of personal habits and character has been omitted. It is obvious that individuals of strong physique or judgment may escape the diseases incident to their trades, while others who are careless or intemperate will succumb to them. It has often been observed that the victims of tuberculosis are lacking in judgment and as a class more deficient in the practice of personal hygiene than well persons. In other words, disease, accident, unemployment -- all the environmental causes of deterioration and incapacity -- seem to have an affinity for the relatively unfit. Yet every worker is enmeshed in a network of fateful conditions for which he is not responsible and from which he could not escape were he of ever so immaculate character and habits, of tireless industry, or even of a considerable degree of capacity.

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We found that disease produces poverty, and we now find that poverty produces disease; that poverty comes from degeneration and incapacity, and now that degeneration and incapacity come from poverty. Yet it is not without benefit to trace the whole dismal round of this vicious circle, for it well illustrates the interaction of social forces. A produces B, and B reacts to increase A. In biblical phrase, "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." The "unfit" aid in accomplishing their own extermination. But in tracing the long circle the number of those forces which are distinctly preventable constantly grows, and includes not only the diseases of occupations, but also many of those pertaining to the manner of living, concerning which nothing has yet been said.

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CHAPTER XI.
THE INSANE.

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The amount of pauperism apparent in a community bears a direct relation to the poor laws and their administration; but insanity, because it requires immediate attention and institutional restraint, is not greatly affected in amount by the absence or provision of proper care. In the United States there were, in 1903, 150,151 insane persons in public and private asylums, 11,807 in almshouses, and an unknown number in private families. In 1880 there were enumerated 51,017 outside of hospitals as compared with 40,942 in them, and in 1890 only 32,457 outside, as compared with 94,028 in them. (136) In the census of 1903-1904 no attempt was made to enumerate those outside of institutions, but it is believed to be not less than in 1890. The number of hospitals increased from 162 in 1890 (of which 119 were public and 43 private) to 328 in 1900 (of which 226 were public and 102 private). This increase may signify an increasing ratio of insane in the population or merely an enlightened public demand for proper hospital care of the mentally sick.


(136) The enumeration in 1890 is known to have been leas complete than in 1880.

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Table LXIV. (pp. 318-319) shows the number and ratio of insane in hospitals in 1880, 1890, and 1903 for each of the United States.

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Of the 49 States and Territories, only 8 show decreased ratios in 1903 as compared with 1890; and if the number outside of hospitals had been enumerated in 1903, there would probably have been increased ratios for every State.

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Table LXIV.
Insane in Hospitals (1880-1903) (137)


(137) Special Census Report, "Insane," etc., 1904, p.9.

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