White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy PoorBanks, Louis Albert
History
White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor
Banks, Louis Albert
Poor -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Sweatshops; Working class -- Massachusetts -- Boston
"Another criticism which might be made is that the paupers are provided
with no regular religious service. At Deer Island there is a paid
chaplain, and although his duties do not call him to the almshouse, he
sometimes goes over. There is a large room called the chapel, and here
religious services are held when there is any one to lead them. A
Catholic priest goes down twice a week to minister to the wants of the
Catholics, who are in the majority; something like ninety-five per cent
being of that persuasion. The fact remains, however, that the city of
Boston does not give its paupers the benefit of any religious service
or guidance. As was said by one lady on hearing the facts: 'In the eyes
of the city it is a greater crime to be a pauper than a criminal.'"
Rev. Dr. Frederick B. Allen, of the Episcopal City Mission of Boston,
writing in the Herald of August 31, says:--
"In the management of human beings, especially the aged, the infirm,
the insane, and the sick, there is needed a wise and tender
consideration which sheer business management is apt to miss.
"The sociological problems of pauperism and crime, the study of
successful methods in other cities and other lands, the deep sense of
the sacredness of our humanity, even in its weakest and most
unfortunate members,--these make their demand for the aid of men and
women to whom these questions of human life and death are at least as
controlling as the reduction of the city tax rate.
"Were there any such board of advisers to do in our city institutions
what the State Charities Aid Society has done for New York State, we
should not have been confronted, as we now are, with poorly planned,
inadequate, and badly managed buildings, lack of discrimination in
those permitted to occupy them, insufficient and untrained nurses for
the sick, lack of proper ventilation and food, and everywhere the
absence of devoted personal, human, moral oversight and control.
"I second most positively Dr. Banks' assertion that 'an advisory board
of leading citizens, on which are three or four level-headed and humane
women, would work the revolution that is needed in the treatment of"
our brothers and sisters, the Boston paupers."'"
XII.
THE GOLD GOD OF MODERN SOCIETY.
"When wealth no mere shall rest in mounded heaps.
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
In many streams to fatten lower lands,
And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Thro' all the seasons of the golden year."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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