They are literally a husbanding of
resources, a safeguard against later unprofitable but compulsory
expenditure, a repair in the social organism which, like the repair
of a leaky roof, may avert disaster." [Footnote: E. T. Devine, Misery
and its Causes, p. 272.] The public must be educated to see the wisdom
of investing heavily in long-neglected social repairs and reconstruction,
which in the end will far more than pay for itself in the lowering
of expenses for police, courts, prisons, hospitals, asylums, and
almshouses, in the lowered death-rate, immunity from costly disease,
and increased working capacity of the people.
(4) Finally, a hopelessness of accomplishing anything often paralyzes
our zeal. This sometimes takes the form of a more or less honest
conviction that poverty, unemployment, and other maladjustments are
simply the result of moral degeneration-of the laziness, extravagance,
drinking, or other wrongdoing of the poor; their suffering is their
own fault, and they must be left to endure it. Of course such factors
often-though by no means always-enter in. One may well say, "Who are
we of the upper classes to throw the first stone?" Under like conditions
most of us would have become as discouraged or demoralized, yielded
to the consolation of some vice, or balked at the monotonous grind
of factory labor. But however that may be, in so far as social evils
are due to these faults, the faults must be attacked, not accepted
as inevitable and incurable.
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