Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabbath.
—James 5:4
7345 Welfare Spending
Since 1970, social-welfare spending has risen 127% to a staggering annual total of 331.4 billion dollars for federal, state and local governments. It has outstripped just about all other outlays.
Defense spending was greater than social welfare costs in the mid-1950s. Now it is only one-fourth as big as welfare. It leaped to 20.6% of gross national product.
7346 Free Food In U.S.
Right now in the United States over 36 million Americans get some free food.
Already in Brooklyn, New York, there is a food products company that sells 30,000 packages of assorted insects a month. Food packages include French fried ants, caterpillars, baby bees and grasshoppers.
In 1950 there were 6 million people on relief. Yet, in spite of the economic growth of this country, in spite of the added luxuries and new inventions … just 18 years later, in 1968, there were 9½ million people on relief! And $9.8 billion was spent in 1968 alone for relief cause.
—Selected
7347 Welfare And Crime
Into one New York City slum precinct the government pumps $33 million yearly in welfare checks, and organized crimes takes approximately the same amount back out. The numbers racket alone takes out at least $22 million. This is according to Ralph Salerno, a former top New York City detective and now an anti-crime consultant, as reported in the bulletin of the National Institute for Law, Order and Justice.
This reveals how frustrating must be the crusade against crime.
7348 To Collect All He Could
Congressman H. R. Gross (Iowa) reports a case of a full-time factory worker in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who lives in publicly subsidized housing, who draws a welfare check of about $200 per month, who feeds his family with food stamps, and who is the owner of a $5,000 station wagon. When questioned, the factory worker said, “I’ll collect all the welfare money I can get because my earning capacity is below my living standards.”
7349 High Living Under Welfare
The New York Daily News reported that the city is now paying the hotel bills for 702 families on welfare. One of the families, a couple with seven children, is staying in a three-room suite at the Commodore Hotel for $85 a day. Other welfare families are being lodged at the Commodore, and at other midtown hotels, at an average cost of $900 a month per family. The city’s welfare department is shelling out $600,000 a month for hotel bills, on the grounds that suitable housing cannot be found elsewhere.
7350 Welfare Queen
Human Events reports concerning the notorious Linda Taylor, accused by Illinois authorities of fraudulently using aliases to receive welfare money. She is known as the “Welfare Queen.” Ronald Reagan mentioned her frequently, along with other welfare stories. It is claimed that she ripped off $150,000 from welfare, tax-free.
Miss Taylor used 127 aliases in 14 states, passing as a heart surgeon, a witch doctor and a widow of eight “husbands.” Since she operated in 14 states it is claimed that Miss Taylor’s flimflamming may exceed $1 million. Her defense attorney contends that she will not be convicted because it will create a sorry situation—if the state tried to prosecute and send to jail everyone that took welfare money they didn’t have coming, there would just be nowhere to put them.
—Christian Victory
7351 When Mag Went To Devil
Some years ago in the state of New York, there was a poor, little outcast girl by the name of Mag, just like any one of myriads in all the country round about. How much do you suppose it would have taken to have saved her? How much money? How much human service? It was not expended. She sank into vice.
Seventy years passed, and somebody who knew that Mag went bad tried to find out what had been some of the results of her badness. They found she had 1,200 descendants in the seventy years. They found that, as far as known, 280 of these were paupers and 148 were criminals. They found positive proof that her descendants, by their vices, had cost the State $1,308,000.
If she had been saved, with an expenditure of ten, twenty-five or a hundred dollars, don’t you think it would have been good economy financially? Was there ever greater folly from a financial standpoint than to let Mag go down.
—Lansing
7352 Lincoln In Welfare’s Hands
Former Governor Henry J. Allen of Kansas made a statement that makes such good sense that it should be more widely disseminated. Said the Governor:
“Had Abraham Lincoln been living today, the Rotary Club would supply him with a set of books; the Lions Club with a good reading lamp; the Cosmopolitan Club with writing equipment; and the Kiwanis Club with a wooden terrazzo for the cabin.”
“He would have the protection of child labor insurance. A kindly philanthropist would send him to college with a scholarship.” “Incidentally, a case worker would see that his father received a monthly check from the country. He would receive a subsidy for rail-splitting, another one for raising a crop he was going to raise any way, and still another subsidy for not raising a crop he had no intention of raising.
“Result: There would have been no Abraham Lincoln!”
7353 On 10 Cents A Month
Rome, (UPI)—Retired shoemaker Giuseppe Sias, 69, went to complain about his pension but the National Social Security Institute told him there was no mistake. By some quirk of law, artisans’ old-age pensions have never been adjusted to match the rise in the cost of living. All Sias is entitled to, the institute said, it what he is getting, 10 cents a month.
7354 Dorothea Dix’s Crusade
At twenty-nine Dorothea Dix, a frail schoolteacher, was given only a slight chance to live. If she survived the lung disease that caused hemorrhaging, her doctor predicted she would probably be an invalid.
She went to England for rest. There, she read the New Testament through several times, asking, “What would Christ have me to do?”
She found the answer when she returned home and a minister asked her to teach the Bible to the woman prisoners in the East Cambridge, Massachusetts, jail. She found conditions there at the asylum to be extremely cruel. The determined Miss Dix gathered a mountain of evidence proving cruelty to the mentally ill and came before the Massachusetts legislature. “Gentlemen,” she cried, “I call your attention to the state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, and pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!”
Her speech shook New England. She moved on to other states and found similar conditions. Disregarding ridicule she prodded legislatures into building hospitals and voting reforms.
On to Canada, Scotland, England, and Italy she marched, calling for action. She found a cruel asylum next door to the Vatican. She complained to the Pope and he acted.
Finally at eighty she became an invalid. The last five years of her life brought many tributes and distinguished visitors. At her death, a hospital superintendent said of her, “The most useful and distinguished woman America had yet produced has died.”
7355 Welfare Among Ancients
Did the ancients know about public health?
The ancient Hebrews had sanitary codes which may well have been passed down from the rule of Hammurabi, King of Babylon about 2000 B.C. The Minoans’ civilizations also had some excellent sanitary provisions. The Romans built elaborate aqueducts to get pure drinking water to their city; their public baths were famous; and their main sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, is still in use. Both Demosthenes and Plutarch served as health officers. Unfortunately, after the fall of the Roman Empire, interest in sanitation and public health practically died out, and the whole field had to be developed again in modern times.
7356 Epigram On Welfare
• Nowadays God helps those who help themselves, and the government helps those who don’t.
—Dan Bennett
• Patrick Henry shouted, “Give me liberty or give me death.” The next generation shouted, “Give me liberty.” The present generation shouts, “Give me.”
—Sword Scrapbook II
See also: Philanthropy ; Poor.