[Footnote: For methods and results in
baby-saving, consult the Secretary of the National Association for
the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1211 Cathedral Street,
Baltimore, Maryland. Also Outlook, vol. 101, p. 190. J. S. Gibbon,
Infant Welfare Centers.] Poverty, the necessity of self- support on
the part of mothers, also plays a large part; we shall consider in
chapter xxx the possibility of state care of mothers during the infancy
of their children. II. Poverty and inadequate living conditions? If
human illness can be in large measure averted by state action, poverty
can be practically abolished. The poor we have always had with us,
indeed; but we need not forever have them. There is no excuse for our
tolerance of the suffering and degradation of the submerged classes;
the causes of this wretchedness are in the main removable. The initial
cost will be great, but in the long run the saving to the community
will be enormous. Individual effort can only achieve a superficial
and temporary relief; and even the two or three hundred charity
organization societies in the country are impotent, for lack of funds
and of power, to stem the forces that make for poverty. To dole out
charity to this family and to that is unhappily necessary in our
present crude social situation; but it is not a solution. It not only
runs the continual risk of encouraging shiftlessness and dependence,
but it does not go to the root of the matter.
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