Callous Christian People

The New York Times. 1895-02-25

Dr. Wilson Criticises the Methods of the Charity Organization Society.

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If this organization did not sail under false colors I would have no quarrel with it. The declaration is made by the highest authority that its work is not to relieve suffering, and its name is a misnomer.

What an object! To spend $47,000 and mot directly relieve anybody, because it is against its principles to directly dispense alms in any form. Yet all this is raised and received in the sweet name of charity, and all spent in the direction of ‘snookers.’

Possibly the people will learn after a while that the poor and prisoners are not the only people who receive money under false pretense. Look at the name of this society, and then look at its declaration of principles by its founder and Secretary. Perhaps, in no city in the world is the system of disbursing charity so highly organized as here, or so well supported. Yet nowhere, I think, do the poor receive so little of actual relief, or is it so humiliating for them to take that which comes to them after they have run the gantlet of the circumlocution office.