I had four experiences last week that couldn’t have happened two years ago to any Government official anywhere in the country.
I was in Cincinnati--visiting a Northside community known as the Steele Subdivision.
I met the Reverend Edward Jones, 61, a gentle-hearted man, wide of mind, who has been the Pastor 31 years of the First Baptist Church. He told me about his community.
Three years ago garbage of all kinds lay in the street in a casserole of neglect. Cars slouched in alley-ways -- their wheels stripped and their insides picked clean. The scruffy houses were only a cut above shacks -- no windows, no heat, no air, no nothing.
I looked around to see these sights -- but the neighborhood was completely changed. I asked Pastor Jones what happened. How could an eyesore three years ago now be a sight for sore-eyes?
“We have 285 families in the Steele Subdivision,” he began, “most of them low-income. Three years ago, we decided to quit ‘crying’ on each other’s shoulders about our poverty and instead start putting those shoulders to the wheel -- to get ourselves out of poverty. We got each family to chip in a dollar. Then we hired a bulldozer to cover up the garbage dump. That was something everyone could see. They could look out the window and say, ‘the dump is gone. And it went because we wanted it to go.’ ”
“In no time, we tore down 24 houses -- all of them were condemned buildings. That was another improvement we could see. The houses went because the local people wanted them to go.
“In December of 1964, we had enough community support to apply to OEO for a grant. But we made a resolution before accepting it--we didn’t want the money as a substitute for our effort but only as a supplement to our initiative.
“Since then, the Steele Subdivision has never been the same. I went over to the Sisters of Mercy Convent three blocks away from my church to ask their help. The next day 24 of the sisters came over. They’ve been helping out since. They set up an adult education program-teaching the people home economics, sewing and typing.
“Last year, we petitioned the Hamilton County officials for use of the Steele Grade School, which had been abandoned. We are now using the bottom of it for our Head Start program. What’s more, the Ursuline Sisters from St. Margaret Mary High School are now helping us run it,”
I asked Pastor Jones to explain this turn-about in his community.
He put it this way: “The War on Poverty has worked in this community because the people were willing to work.”
I asked if the community could use any more help.
“You bet we can. You supply the money and we’ll supply the effort.”
Later that day, I went to St. Joseph’s Infant Home of Cincinnati. This is a three-story building that is 87 years old -- but it has some of the youngest and freshest ideas I have ever seen.
Sister Rose Eileen of the Sisters of Charity met me at the door. She is the supervisor of the children at St. Joseph’s and has been both a nun and registered nurse for 25 years.
When we walked into the main lobby of St. Joseph’s, I was greeted by 50 old people Catholic, Protestant and Jew -- -married, unmarried-employed, unemployed.
Sister Rose Eileen told me they were all from the Foster Grandparents program of Cincinnati.
“Each one of the old people works 20 hours a week,” she said. “Each grandparent takes care of two children. Nearly all the youngsters are unadoptable -- because of either physical or nervous disorders.”
I spoke to a few of the Foster Grandparents. One man, 78, didn’t hesitate to tell me what was happening. “Ever since I’ve been taking care of my two little ones, I haven’t had an ache or pain. I can’t figure it out. I’d been taking medicine for the past 15 years and was always feeling bad. But I haven’t needed a pill in the last six months. That’s exactly how long I’ve been working with my Foster Grandchildren.”
That man was now getting medicine that no doctor could ever give him; the medicine of being needed. He was wanted, He was using his hours in helping others -- instead of trying to get others to help him.
As for the children, Sister Rose Eileen told me that since the old people had been coming they were crying less and enjoying life more. In fact, the children are even to the point of expressing their “felt need,’” Sister said, philosophically, they would probably be out on the picket lines soon — in the style of any normal American youth.
A few hours later, I was in Chicago -- at the Bethany Methodist Hospital. Reverend Bert Selin, 65, a Methodist minister since 1924, is the Administrator of Bethany ---- a job he has held for the past 25 years. His hospital has 85 beds for the acutely ill and 105 for the chronically ill.
He took me to one of the day rooms in the chronically ill section where I saw one of the most unforgettable sights I had ever seen. A short skinny girl with scraggly hair, wearing a dress too long and too loose, was feeding a patient with Parkinson’s disease. His hands, arms and head shook uncontrollably.
The girl took a spoonful of soup -- and somehow got it into the patient’s mouth. She did it again, And again -- until the soup was gone. Then she fed the patient the rest of the meal --- weary spoonful by weary spoonful.
A few minutes later -- after the young lady left the room -- the patient told me what a beautiful girl she was. That short, skinny girl with the scraggly hair was beautiful to that man with Parkinson’s. She was not only beautiful, but loveable.
Pastor Selin told me the girls were from the nearby Brunswick Job Corps Center for Women. “I don’t know of any program that has been a greater boon to the hospital than the help of these girls. Not only ours but every hospital. Every hospital in Chicago wants to hire these girls when they finish their 3 month training at the Job Corps. There are more jobs than there are girls.”
The next day, I was in St, Louis. I went to the Gateway Neighborhood Youth Center -- which is not far from the Mississippi River -- and not far, either, from the worst poverty area in St. Louis.
Outside of the center, I was stopped by Pastor David Spooner, a 31-year old minister of the United Church of Christ and ordained six years ago at the Eden Theological Seminary.
Right now, he is both the Chaplain at the St. Louis City Hospital and the Chairman of the Shouteau-Russell Council -- the local citizen’s coordinating group.
Pastor Spooner is an intense young man in the full flower of his days. He spoke his mind without hesitating, “I don’t know how the War on Poverty is being waged elsewhere around the country, but here the fighting is heavy and the warriors are many. In only two years, we have ten Neighborhood Improvements Associations. The local citizens come together to discuss what needs to be done -- how it will be done and who will do it. We have a legal services for the poor program and a health center.
“Two years ago we only had five people show up for the first meeting of my local Improvement Association. A month later -- at the second meeting -- 60 people came. The next month we had 160 -- almost the entire neighborhood.
“These people don’t see the poverty program as a political gimmick. For one thing, they are too proud to accept money from Washington on the silver platter of welfare.” The poor don’t want to be ‘spent-on’ the way they want to be ‘invested-in’.” What Pastor Spooner said reminded me of an old saying: “The greatest good we can do for others is not just to share our riches with them -- but to reveal their riches to themselves.”
I have told you about these scenes because that’s the War on Poverty.
- We couldn’t be fighting it without the Baptist Pastor Edward Jones in the Steele Subdivision,
- We couldn’t be fighting it without Sister Rose Eileen of St. Joseph’s Infant Home,
- We couldn’t be fighting it without the Methodist Minister Bert Selin in Chicago,
- We couldn’t be fighting it without Reverend David Spooner in St. Louis.
Two years ago, there wasn’t an official of the United States Government who could have made that trip and seen those sights. Two years ago, we believed that because church and state were separate, church and state had to be mutually exclusive. Two years ago, we believed that the money of Government could not be mixed with the currency of salvation.
I think the War on Poverty has taught us new lessons about ourselves. We have not merely created a political agency -- of a political government -- for political reasons. Instead, we have an agency that attacks the causes of poverty from all angles--politically, economically and morally.
But there is still opposition. One of the most common objections to the War on Poverty is that it cannot be won because Jesus Christ said it couldn’t be won. Skeptics love to quote the famous biblical passage --"The poor you always have with you.”
The interpretation of this passage supposedly implies that poverty is as much a law of nature as it is an unchangeable fact of society. And that Christ himself admits nothing can be done about poverty. Some people even tell me that because of this text the War on Poverty is anti-christian -- we are going against Christ’s prophecy.
After the biblical dust had settled, however, I think the real meaning of Christ’s words are apparent. “The poor you always have with you” was a commentary not on poverty but on human nature.
Societies, will always have poor people
- because the rich will always be selfish.
- because the poor will always be deprived of economic opportunity
- because the poor will always be denied equal rights to justice and liberty.
- because some men will always hoard more goods than they need.
Although all of this is true, Christ did not say it had to be true. Christ did not suggest that we must always have poverty. He was only saying that poverty would always be the result when his followers did not live according to God’s will. In effect, he was saying that if enough people lived according to the Judeo-Christian morality there would be no poverty at all in the world.
This explains why the War on Poverty is not only being fought politically but, also morally. And I consider it a great tribute to the United States of America and to the Democratic Party -- especially President Lyndon Johnson --- that this nation is the first and only to establish the eradication of poverty as a national, not only a religious, goal.
The difference between politics and morality is that the political man acts for the good of the people while the moral man acts because the people are good.
At the Office of Economic Opportunity
- We believe that the 35 million poor people in this country are basically good human beings.
- We believe the poor are infinitely more than fringe operations, or that they are just the butter of the guns and butter equation,
- We believe the poor need the freedom of their own ambition or else they lose their ambition to be free.
- We believe the War on Poverty is not an act of charity, but a duty to justice.
Since the Fall of 1964, we already have enough concrete results to see that the War on Poverty is not only an act of political foresight but an act of moral insight.
Despite these successes, many Americans are still not disturbed by the presence of poverty in America. The apathetic middle-class is now joined by militant white back-lashers. These people are not disturbed that 20% of the nation is poor, while only 12% of the Federal budget is used to fight poverty.
They seem to have the idea the poor are sunk in poverty because they deserve to be there -- possibly because they are sinners. But they -- the middle-class -- enjoy wealth because of God’s special blessing,
The last session of Congress was a mirror to the image of our indifference to poverty. Some Congressmen were calling the poverty program a “boondoggle,” a “waste” or “Shriver’s pipe dream” Back home, their constituents were asking these questions:
- why are the poor lazy?
- can’t they make it the hard way, like I did?
- aren’t the poor too well off on relief?
- can’t they at least clean up their neighborhoods?
- why don’t they move out of the slums?
One person who has answers to these questions is Pastor Arthur Simon - a young Lutheran Minister who lives and works in the lower east side of New York at Trinity Lutheran Church. He attributes our indifference to poverty to the fact that “we have baptized middle-class respectability.”
He says there is nothing wrong with being middle-class -- the trouble is that such a style of life is often “a commitment to self-promotion, exclusion and evasion of human problems.”
Pastor Arthur Simon wrote recently: The middle-class
“Is self-promoting because it places too high a value on our own comfort : it indicates an inordinate desire for earthly possessions: and it is nourished by a search for status.
“It is exclusive because in this style of life people of similar background and circumstances are drawn together, like iron filings by a magnet, into neighborhoods which have systematically eliminated the less worthy.
“It is evasive because it cuts us off from precisely those people whose needs are most acute and to whom the gospel recommends us most of all.”
What does this clinging to middle-class values mean in actual fact? In Pastor Simon’s neighborhood, it means that during a period of time when 200,000 low-income people were moving into Manhattan below 14th Street, 17 Protestant Churches were moving out. Other Churches, like Trinity, dwindled to a handful of old faithfuls.
One of the tragic paradoxes of our day is that while Christians have the means of freeing the world from poverty, it is often others who do the freeing. Christianity seems to have a case of moral hemophilia where social responsibility is bleeding away. The test of 20th Century Christianity is not how much the poor enter into the life of the Church -- but how much the Church enters into the life of the poor.
This is not a new idea. A book was published 20 years ago in England called Christianity in the Marketplace by Michael de la Bedoyere. Its message was that the Church must go where the people are Without fear of becoming secular. Yet, many of us still think that to be secular means to be worldly. And so, avoiding worldliness, we also avoid the secular city. And we avoid poverty.
As editors and journalists of the country’s leading Protestant newspapers and journals, you might ask what is your role in the War on Poverty.
I think you have an obligation to communicate to your readers these facts:
- Tell them who is fighting the War on Poverty -- all Americans -rich, middle-class and the poor. Although this War can be waged by a few, it can only be won by all. It is an all out War.
- Tell your readers why we are fighting poverty. Remind them of Albert Schweitzer’s words: “Whatever you have received more than others in the way of health, in talents, in ability, in success, in a pleasant childhood, in harmonious conditions of home life--all this you must not take to yourself as a matter of course. You must pay a price for it. You must render in return an unusually great sacrifice of your life for other life.
- Tell your readers how we are fighting poverty. With Community Action programs. With Head Start, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Upward Bound, Job Corps, Health and Legal Services for the poor programs, Foster Grandparents.
- Tell your readers we need them--even the ones who picket OEO. And we need the editor whose sharp barbs can pierce like doubled-edged swords.
G.K. Chesterton once said “That a job worth doing is worth doing badly,” in the War on Poverty, we have made both errors in judgment and mistakes in technique. But these have been failures in performance, not failures in motivation. We are striking out for new directions, breaking into now horizons and establishing new paths.
Some people in this country are trying to survive the War on Poverty, but this country needs the War on Poverty to survive.
In short, we are trying, to fulfill the responsibility set before us by a current thinker:
“We must not follow where the path may lead, but we must go where there is no path, and then leave our trail.”
