"My country, 'tis of thee!": Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.Johnson, Willis Fletcher
History
"My country, 'tis of thee!": Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.
Johnson, Willis Fletcher
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- History
Nowhere in the world are there more charitable hearts with plenty of
money behind them than in large cities, yet nowhere else is there more
suffering. Your next-door neighbor may be starving to death and you not
know anything about it. You know nothing of his comings and nothing of
his goings; he knows nothing of you, and if he has any spirit whatever,
and any respect for himself, he would rather apply to the police or to
the authorities in charge of the poor than to the people living nearest
to him. Whenever the newspapers of a city make some startling disclosure
of destitution and suffering a number of purses open instantly, and
frequently some of the sufferers have received gifts from their own
landlords, who actually did not know of the name and existence of the
tenant. A judge of the Supreme Court of the city of New York has long
been known as a frequent and prompt visitor in person to all individuals
reported as in destitute condition and deserving of immediate
assistance, yet he said once to his own pastor, and to his own physician
also, who chanced to be present, that the great sorrow of his life was,
that he was utterly incapacitated by the conditions of city life from
discovering for himself the whereabouts of individuals whom he would
gladly assist with his pocket and his counsel.
As nobody knows anybody in the large cities, what is called the floating
population have everything their own way, each one for himself. Business
wrongs that would not be tolerated for an instant in a smaller community
are perpetrated with entire impunity in the large cities. The poorer
classes have no strong friend or acquaintance to complain to. Were they
in a smaller place they would know some one; probably they would know
everybody of any consequence, and also be known, and could quickly
bring public sentiment to their aid, but in a large city there is no
such opportunity. The only hope of the oppressed is in the courts, which
always are overcrowded with business, and can give very little time to
any one, and in the press, which is also overcrowded with work, and
should not be charged with this sort of responsibility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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