perism.=--Pauperism is poverty become chronic. When a family
has been hopelessly dependent so long that self-respect and initiative
are wholly gone, it seems useless to attempt to galvanize it into
activity or respectability, and when a group of such families
pauperizes a neighborhood, heroic measures become necessary. The
families must be broken up, their members placed in institutions where
they cannot remain sodden in drink or become violent in crime, and the
neighborhood cleansed of its human debris. Pauperism is a social pest,
and it must be rooted out like any other pest. If it is allowed to
remain it festers; nothing short of eradication will suffice. But when
once it is destroyed living conditions must be so reformed that
pauperism will not recur, and that can be only by constant vigilance
to prevent a continuance of poverty. The problem is one, and its
solution must involve both poverty and pauperism.

284. =Unemployment.=--One of the causes of wide-spread poverty is
unemployment. This is due sometimes to physical weakness or lack of
ability or character, but as often to industrial depression or lack of
adjustment between the labor supply and the employer. There is always
an army of the unemployed, and it has increased so greatly through
immigration and otherwise that it has demanded the serious attention
of sociologists and legislators. Charitable organizations have given
relief, but it is not properly a question of charity; private agencies
have made a business of bringing together the employer and the
employee, but not always treating fairly the employee; permanent free
labor exchanges are now being tried by governments.

The National Conference on Unemployment, meeting in 1914, recommended
three constructive proposals, which include most of the experiments
already tried in Europe and America. These are first the regularizing
of business by putting it on a year-round basis instead of seasonal;
second, the organization of a system of labor exchanges, local and
State, to be supervised and co-ordinated by a national exchange; and
third, a national insurance system for the unemployed, such as has
been inaugurated successfully in Germany and Great Britain.

The problem of unemployment is less complicated than many social
problems, and there is every reason to believe that through careful
legislation and administration it can be largely removed. The problem
of those who are unable to work or unwilling to work is