POLITICS -- Charity

[Guest guest]

An additional note to our perennial discussion on the feasibility of

replacing government charity with private charity--

As we headed into the Great Depression, in 1931, the dominant opinion was

that private charity was sufficient to help the unemployed. In fact, this view

was shared by philanthropists and charity organizations themselves, who would

be the very people to know whether or not their own funds were sufficient to

their project. So sure of this sufficiency were they, that the Red Cross even

refused Federal aid:

" Direct relief was just about the one sphere where President Hoover seemed

wholeheartedly to prefer voluntary to governmental action. The previous fall,

Hoover had refused to call a special session of Congress for unemployment

relief, saying this was the responsibility of voluntary agencies. In fact, the

voluntaryist tradition was still so strong in this field that the Red Cross

opposed a bill, in early 1931, to grant it $25 million for relief. The Red

Cross

declared that its own funds were adequate, and its Chairman told a House

Committee that such a Congressional appropriation would 'to a large extent

destroy

voluntary giving.' Many local Red Cross leaders strongly opposed all federal

aid, and even all public relief generally, and so the bill, after passing the

Senate, was killed in the House. Many private charity organizations,

philanthropists, and social workers had the same views, and the New York Times

hailed

the 'voluntary spirit' as opposed to public aid. A social worker, writing of

this period, has said in obvious bewilderment that:

the theory that England's depression, which began before the American

disaster had in some mysterious way been connected with their unemployment

insurance system (or 'dole') had been accepted by many people in this country. "

--Rothbard, Murray N., _America's_Great_Depression_, p271 (309 in the .pdf)

If people were starving in the street left and right, as Heidi had suggested,

it is doubtful that the private charity organizations would have opposed

government appropriations to their own organizations.

Chris