We are told, as though to settle the case against social work, that there are even social workers “who, while they may not say it publicly, do not hesitate to say privately that they regard social work as a mere “palliative,” and while they get their living from it, their real hopes are pinned to the coming social revolution.”[74] The personal immorality of anyone who would continue to get a living from a calling he believed to be sailing under false colors is not our business, but, if social work is what our definition says, there is no reason why any social worker need hesitate to say, either privately or with all the publicity he can command, that his hopes are pinned to the coming social revolution, or to the effects of New Thought or the Seventh Day Advent or anything else to which he may have happened, according to his lights and temperament, to have pinned them. Social work attempts to serve persons in need of help; it shepherds the rear of the social procession; it cares for the casualties; it also claims opportunity for the unprivileged and asserts the rights of the individual lost in the mass. In so doing it finds itself effecting progress in the many ways already discussed. They are usually indirect ways. These critics assume that it could induce progress directly by an attempt to bring about radical social changes that would do away with the need for its services. They quote against it Tolstoy’s indictment of our social system--“The present position we, the educated and well-to-do classes, occupy is that of the Old Man of the Sea, riding on the poor man’s back, only, unlike the Old Man of the Sea, we are sorry for the poor man, very sorry. And we will do almost anything for the poor man’s relief; we will not only supply him with food sufficient for him to keep on his legs, but will provide him with cooling draughts concocted on strictly scientific principles; we will teach and instruct him and point out to him the beauties of the landscape; we will discourse sweet music to him and give him lots of good advice. Yes we will do almost anything for the poor man, anything but get off his back.”[75]