We may say, of course, that it is a primitive view of life, which thus confuses intellectuality and business ability; but it is a view quite honestly held by many poor people who are obliged to receive charity from time to time.  In moments of indignation the poor have been known to say:  “What do you want, anyway?  If you have nothing to give us, why not let us alone and stop your questionings and investigations?” “They investigated me for three weeks, and in the end gave me nothing but a black character,” a little woman has been heard to assert.  This indignation, which is for the most part taciturn, and a certain kindly contempt for her abilities, often puzzles the charity visitor.  The latter may be explained by the standard of worldly success which the visited families hold.  Success does not ordinarily go, in the minds of the poor, with charity and kind-heartedness, but rather with the opposite qualities.  The rich landlord is he who collects with sternness, who accepts no excuse, and will have his own.  There are moments of irritation and of real bitterness against him, but there is still admiration, because he is rich and successful.  The good-natured landlord, he who pities and spares his poverty-pressed tenants, is seldom rich.  He often lives in the back of his house, which he has owned for a long time, perhaps has inherited; but he has been able to accumulate little.  He commands the genuine love and devotion of many a poor soul, but he is treated with a certain lack of respect.  In one sense he is a failure.  The charity visitor, just because she is a person who concerns herself with the poor, receives a certain amount of this good-natured and kindly contempt, sometimes real affection, but little genuine respect.  The poor are accustomed to help each other and to respond according to their kindliness; but when it comes to worldly judgment, they use industrial success as the sole standard.  In the case of the charity visitor who has neither natural kindness nor dazzling riches, they are deprived of both standards, and they find it of course utterly impossible to judge of the motive of organized charity.

Even those of us who feel most sorely the need of more order in altruistic effort and see the end to be desired, find something distasteful in the juxtaposition of the words “organized” and “charity.”  We say in defence that we are striving to turn this emotion into a motive, that pity is capricious, and not to be depended on; that we mean to give it the dignity of conscious duty.  But at bottom we distrust a little a scheme which substitutes a theory of social conduct for the natural promptings of the heart, even although we appreciate the complexity of the situation.  The poor man who has fallen into distress, when he first asks aid, instinctively expects tenderness, consideration, and forgiveness.  If it is the first time, it has taken him long to make up his mind to take the step.  He comes somewhat bruised and battered, and instead of being met with warmth of heart and sympathy, he is at once chilled by an investigation and an intimation that he ought to work.  He does not recognize the disciplinary aspect of the situation.