Do not let anyone have any food if he refuses to do any work. Now we hear that there are some of you who are living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else’s. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we order and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat. My brothers, never grow tired of doing what is right.
Now “work” is a complex and interesting subject in and of itself. So I will provide a “counter argument” which is not really a counter argument. But that requires a lot of thought. It’s time for me to don my Knights of Columbus “chapeau.”
"Everyone Welcome, Everything Free" was the motto of the Knights of Columbus clubhouses which sprung up in Doughboy training camps, in major U.S. cities and wherever a Doughboy could be found. Manned by K of C secretaries who were affectionately known as "Caseys" the clubhouses provided recreation and a few of the amenities of home to any serviceman regardless of race or religion. And to Catholic servicemen they provided Chaplains and place to practice their faith. The Knights were one of the youngest volunteer organizations drawn into support to the AEF. They had been founded October 2, 1881 when a small group of men met in the basement of St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut. Called together by their parish priest, Father Michael J. McGivney, these men formed a fraternal society that would one day become the world's largest Catholic family fraternal service organization. They vowed to be defenders of their country and their families and their Faith. These men were bound together by the ideal of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the Americas, the one whose hand brought the Holy Faith to this New World. They called themselves Knights of Columbus.
During World War I, Supreme Knight James A. Flaherty proposed to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson that the Order establish soldiers' welfare centers in the U.S. and abroad. The Order raised more than $14 million for this program on its own, and was allocated another $30 million from a national fund drive. The pioneer work was done by half a dozen Knights of Columbus chaplains whoreached France in October 1917 and combined with their priestly duties the activities of Knights of Columbus secretaries. They were given a sum of money and one of them started the first Knights of Columbus club in France, at St-Nazaire, then the principal debarkation port of the AEF. A survey was made and the first group of secretaries arrived in March 1918. They set up headquarters at 16 Place de la Madeleine, Paris, and from that center the activities of the Knights radiated all over France, through England and Scotland, touching on Ireland and Italy, and following the Army of Occupation into Germany.
But of course these men were working; in service to their country.
So let’s continue the notion of charity and move past the Great War.
SOURCEIt is certainly true that churches and other faith-based charities played a larger role in the past than they do today, in particular compared to the size of the government. In 1926, congregations spent over $150 million on projects other than church maintenance and upkeep (Bureau of the Census, 1930). That same year state governments spent $23 million and local governments spent $37 million on programs the Census Bureau identified as charitable in nature, and relief spending undertaken by the Federal government was negligible. Yet church charitable activity fell dramatically starting in the early 1930s, at the same time that the role of the government grew through the New Deal. This raises the central question of whether the growth in government social service provision “crowded-out” charitable activity by churches.
Here is another
SOURCE A federal welfare system was a radical break from the past. Americans had always prided themselves on having a strong sense of individualism and self-reliance. Many believed that those who couldn't take care of themselves were to blame for their own misfortunes. During the 19th century, local and state governments as well as charities established institutions such as poorhouses and orphanages for destitute individuals and families. Conditions in these institutions were often deliberately harsh so that only the truly desperate would apply.
Local governments (usually counties) also provided relief in the form of food, fuel, and sometimes cash to poor residents. Those capable were required to work for the town or county, often at hard labor such as chopping wood and maintaining roads. But most on general relief were poor dependent persons not capable of working: widows, children, the elderly, and the disabled.
Local officials decided who went to the poorhouse or orphanage and who would receive relief at home. Cash relief to the poor depended on local property taxes, which were limited. Also, not only did a general prejudice exist against the poor on relief, but local officials commonly discriminated against individuals applying for aid because of their race, nationality, or religion. Single mothers often found themselves in an impossible situation. If they applied for relief, they were frequently branded as morally unfit by the community. If they worked, they were criticized for neglecting their children.
In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt called a White House conference on how to best deal with the problem of poor single mothers and their children. The conference declared that preserving the family in the home was preferable to placing the poor in institutions, which were widely criticized as costly failures.
I’m going to switch back to the Knights of Columbus for a moment because the last paragraph is important.
Late-19th century Connecticut was marked by the growing prevalence of fraternal benefit societies, hostility toward Catholic immigrants and dangerous working conditions in factories that left many families fatherless. Recognizing a vital, practical need in his community, Father Michael J. McGivney, the 29-year-old assistant pastor of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn., gathered a group of men at his parish on Oct. 2, 1881. He proposed establishing a lay organization, the goal of which would be to prevent Catholic men from entering secret societies whose membership was antithetical to Church teaching, to unite men of Catholic faith and to provide for the families of deceased members.
As we see from the above, when a young husband died the widow (given the general hostility towards single mothers and Catholic women in general) went to the poor house and the children to the orphanage. Father McGivney’s solution was to provide an organization where the men would help those in need, but here we see that there is a indirect connection of work and food, all are working towards helping their “extended” family when the one who normally worked in that family is no longer there to provide the work.
Indeed as all bad things, they start out with “good” intentions …
The emphasis during the first two years of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" was to provide work relief for the millions of unemployed Americans. Federal money flowed to the states to pay for public works projects, which employed the jobless. Some federal aid also directly assisted needy victims of the Depression. The states, however, remained mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called "unemployables" (widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the disabled). But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were declining steeply.
In his State of the Union Address before Congress on January 4, 1935, President Roosevelt declared, "the time has come for action by the national government" to provide "security against the major hazards and vicissitudes [uncertainties] of life." He went on to propose the creation of federal unemployment and old-age insurance programs. He also called for guaranteed benefits for poor single mothers and their children along with other dependent persons.
By permanently expanding federal responsibility for the security of all Americans, Roosevelt believed that the necessity for government make-work employment and other forms of Depression relief would disappear.
But that wasn’t what happened. What happened was a decoupling of work with benefits (it is one thing for those who cannot work, but to treat those who can work the same for those who cannot work, the results are devastating).
One more
SOURCEThe history of welfare reform reveals that the question of personal responsibility versus assistance to those in need has been a constant in the debate over welfare. Dissatisfaction with welfare began during the 1950s. Critics began to assert that the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program had made welfare a way of life, rather than simply short-term assistance, for many in the program. With this perception, a backlash set in.
During the 1960s President LYNDON B. JOHNSON's administration declared an ostensible "war on poverty" with its GREAT SOCIETY programs: Head Start, the Job Corps, food stamps, and MEDICAID funded education, job training, direct food assistance, and direct medical assistance. Although the poverty rate declined in the 1960s, more than 4 million new recipients signed up for welfare.
Instead of reform, welfare programs underwent major expansions during the Nixon administration. States were required to provide food stamps, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) consolidated aid for aged, blind, and DISABLED PERSONS. The Earned Income Credit provided the working poor with direct cash assistance in the form of tax credits. As spending grew, so did the welfare rolls.
I’ll get back to Paul’s statement, “Do not let anyone have any food if he refuses to do any work.” We can see what happens when we ignore that statement and the results are not pretty. Well that’s enough reflection on a short reading. I hope this doesn’t happen with every Morning Prayer.
