agazine, at the end of
November, 1907: "The tradition which many hold that the condition of
poverty is ordinarily and as a matter of course to be explained by
personal faults of the poor themselves is no longer tenable. Strong
drink and vice are abnormal, unnatural and essentially unattractive
ways of spending surplus income." Dr. Devine very frankly and bravely
admits that poverty is an unnecessary evil, "a shocking, loathsome
excrescence on the body politic, an intolerable evil which should come
to an end." What else, indeed, could a sane man think of it?

As a conservative man, I say without reservation that accidents
incurred in the course of employment, and sickness brought on by
industrial conditions, such as overwork accompanied by under
nourishment, exposure to extremes of temperature, unsanitary workshops
and factories and the inhalation of contaminated atmosphere, are far
more important causes of poverty among the workers than intemperance.
Every investigation ever made goes to prove this true. I wish that
every one who seeks to blame the poverty of the poor upon the victims
themselves would study a few facts, which I am going to ask you to
study, without prejudice or passion. They would readily see then how
false the belief is.

Last year there was a Committee of very expert investigators in New
York which made a careful inquiry into the relation of wages to the
standard of living. They were not Socialists, these gentlemen, or I
should not submit their testimony. I am anxious to base my case
against our present social system upon evidence that is not in any way
biased in favor of Socialism. Dr. Lee K. Frankel was Chairman of the
Committee. He is Director of the United Hebrew Charities of New York
City, an able and sincere man, but not a Socialist. Dr. Devine,
another able and sincere man who is by no means a Socialist, was a
member of the Committee. Among the other members were also such
persons as Bishop Greer, of New York, Reverend Adolph Guttman,
president of the Hebrew Relief Society, Syracuse, New York, Mrs.
William Einstein, president of Emanu El Sisterhood, New York; Mr.
Homer Folks, Secretary State Charities Aid Association and Reverend
William J. White, of Brooklyn, Supervisor of Catholic Charities. The
Committee was deputed to make the investigation by the New York State
Conference of Charities and Corrections, and made its report in
November, 1907, at Albany, N.Y.

I think you will agree, Jonat