I remember Grandma Rose telling me what it was like living through the great depression. My Grandpa Chet had a steady job as a mechanic at Wisconsin Power and Light Company. She told me how the family never went without food but there were a lot of people who were hurting. She told me how the "bums"- that's the term she used- used to come around to the back door looking for odd jobs. "You'd find something for them to do, rake leaves or clean the gutters or something, then you'd give 'em a bowl of soup and send 'em off with maybe a piece of bread and they'd thank you and be on their way." She was quick to add, "You were never scared- it was just hard times."
I got to thinking the other day how we don't have that kind of charity anymore. Nowadays we write a check to some association or other and we never see the person who receives it. We no longer look someone in the eye and see a fellow traveler in need and share from what we have, knowing it could just as easily be ourselves who have the hat in hand. And what may be even worse is that the person receiving our charity doesn't have to swallow his pride and come begging. He doesn't have to look his benefactor in the eye and walk away thinking, 'When I get back on my feet I'm going to do the same for someone else'.
Grandma told me about the work programs that the government started. "You'd see people out digging ditches and it looked like busy work but you figured, 'at least they're working.'" I guess that was the beginning of what we now call the Welfare State- the idea that somehow the government is supposed to 'do something'. It seems to me the problem with that is you can't look 'The Government' in the eye when you take your hand out. You don't have to walk away thinking, 'now I have to pay this act of kindness forward'. Accepting assistance from the government- as opposed to charity from a person- is somehow less an act of humility. And the virtue of Charity has been replaced by our 'civic duty' and takes the form of paying taxes.
Prosperity has brought great advances in technology and raised the standard of living of a generation of Americans, but it seems to have come at a cost. Given the choice between FDR's Great Society and Grandma's Charity I honestly wonder which is better. Because like Grandma said, "You were never scared- it was just hard times."
