Relief for the Poor by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 15, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 15.

Relief for the Poor

By T.

Mrs. Elizabeth Milbank Anderson has given $650,000 to the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. This handsome gift is said to be the largest that has been bestowed for a similar purpose, excepting the gifts of Mrs. Russell Sage. The Anderson donation is made with the stipulation that none of it shall be used except in educational and preventive measures. The relief to the poor is to come in the way of preventing distress, rather than in trying to cure it after it comes. To use Mrs. Anderson’s own words in tendering the gift:

“I fully appreciate the necessity for ministering to the physical needs of the sick, disabled, and unfortunate; but in undertaking the work outlined, I wish to make it clear that the proposed Department of Social Welfare is to concern itself, in so far as it employs funds supplied by me, with a social program based upon preventive and constructive measures. Generally speaking, therefore, this program should include those activities which are calculated to prevent sickness and thus diminish poverty, such, for example, as the promotion of cleanliness and sanitation and aid in securing a proper food supply. In this connection your association will doubtless find it advisable, in some cases, to coöperate with public authorities and with existing agencies having similar objects in view, where such agencies are practising approved methods in fulfilling their purposes; while in other cases it may probably be necessary to establish the work as a new enterprise. . . . With the funds at your disposal I would expect you to create the proposed Department of Social Welfare, and to distribute the enterprises to be conducted under its supervision among at least three subdepartments or committees, one dealing with matters pertaining to public health and hygiene, one dealing with matters pertaining to the welfare of school children, and one with matters pertaining to food supply.”

Work of this character is very commendable, and we wish there were far more of it. It is just such large-hearted work that keeps the earth so that people can live on it at all. T.