AMERICA'S POOR LAWS:

...Indeed, this need is events of a single day from either of for the family and, symbolically, by its made all the more urgent because so two directions...

...As she writes would be better off with Frances Fox even when we allow for the brevity in her conclusion to Down and Out in Piven's and Richard Cloward's three- of From Poor Law to Welfare State, the USA, "The American poor law year-old study, Regulating the Poor: what remains is thin and frequently has hardly changed in spirit from its The Functions of Public Welfare, or misleading...

...Each of four major completing the tragic pattern of ninemany historical questions about wel- characters has a chance to describe teenth-century America...

...living...

...gives birth to a baby girl...

...For as he to describe the numerous college-eduso many good books-ones as different acknowledges, his aim is to compen- cated youth who approached settlement in subject as Jeremy Brecher's Strike!, sate for the fact that "there is no work with a missionary zeal or the Colin Greer's The Great School Le- interpretative history of social welfare way in which settlements, like the Edugend, David Rothman's The Discovery in America from the colonial period cational Alliance in New York, were of the Asylum-that have sought to to the present," and such an under- run by established groups (the Gerprovide us with a new history of the taking is not minor...

...Cloward and Piven But since the book starts at both ends, gives Komisar a chance to develop report that, when told of their rights, two narratives unfold simultaneously properly the views she states with such most of these men were not interested in opposite directions, meaning, in a passion...

...It would be a misfare than an indication that the gov- now totals $22.4 billion or two per- take, however, to insist too strongly on ernment, to quote from the official cent of the national income, not been the experimental, post-modernist nature statement of the Conference, still be- able to improve their position through of Crossings, for not only does it delieved support for such children should more quid pro quo dealing with those velop a complex historical theme, but come "from private charity, not from receiving government support, now up beneath its glittering surface are the the public...

...nor do they compen- Clovis' husband Prentiss may finally sate for Komisar's reliance on the fa- MARK TAYLOR bridge the gulf that has so long sepamiliar litany against welfare: that it is rated them...

...In contrast or payments for not planting crops...

...Beggars are no longer Commonweal: 409 branded, nor are children sold by the need to know more about why so many becomes a process of making judgdozen to manufacturers, yet poverty working poor have come to accept the ments and then balancing, modifying, is still looked on by many as a per- stigma of welfare to the point where and correcting them as new reports sonal failure, and dependence on gov- they will not even collect wage supple- come in from elsewhere, reports that ernment welfare is enough to cancel ments they are entitled to...

...Yet Trattner's caveat is a par- at a certain stage in her career, it fails over the last few years we have had tial disclaimer, no more...

...Mason's death fare are capable of affecting current these events as they appear to him or has the same actual and metaphoric welfare strategy...

...Yet nothing could be New Viewpoints, $3.95 (paper) size the literature that already exists more dubious than such a generalizain the field," Trattner writes in his tion...

...Most importantly, Komi- to $77.3 billion, in the form of tax enduring rhythms of literature, and of sar does not lose perspective as she breaks on mortgages and capital gains myth, that resist ultimate isolation and gets close to the present...

...Any- opposition to a measure adding a $25 By contrast, Lucy Komisar is most one interested in gaining perspective million appropriation for aid to the at home in dealing with the dark side on the welfare dilemmas of the 1970s farmers themselves...

...In splendently original...

...In inner cities today 60 per- within the novel itself...

...He (Russian Jews) whom they felt threatlitical turmoil of the 1960s failed to moves with great facility from the ened by and superior to...

...But Trattner never thoroughly lies behind two recent books on wel- the ironies of welfare in America- explores how the Roosevelt Adminisfare in the United States, Walter Tratt- noting, for example, how the Amer- tration was reluctant to provide relief ner's From Poor Law to Welfare State: ican Revolution, by fostering the be- except as a way of halting social disA History of Social Welfare in Amer- lief that poverty need not exist, en- order...

...There is scarcely an event that opposing it and many of the inadeprepared to offer...

...EARL ROVIT tion of the church building and the loss Flashes of insight do not, however, Harcourt, $7.95 of his ministry...

...In analyzing the New Deal, for seen in a far different perspective than President Nixon's Family Assistance example, he is able to pinpoint those liberal or consensus historians were Plan...

...on it Mayas one more welfare hoax, a sophisti- hew himself is confronted by the elders cated embodiment of the President's of his congregation, who make him assertion that "any work is preferable Crossings choose between a vulgar modernizato welfare...

...Finally, we require improved seeks to blur its identity as fiction by Similarly, Komisar argues that Theo- perception of what has prevented al- actively involving the reader in the dore Roosevelt's heralded 1909 Con- liances between all those on govern- novelistic process, making him a charference on Dependent Children was ment assistance...

...Where Trattner man Jews of the city) with the specific formal and informal structures of is most successful is in providing an intent of Americanizing new arrivals American society...

...Why, for example, acter in the work, and a force in its much less a high water mark in wel- have those receiving welfare, which eventual outcome...

...If it holds true for Jane Addams It is no coincidence, I believe, that preface...

...The book can be Mason, the central fact of the novel, a 1974 we need a history-especially one begun, literally, from either end, al- fact given archetypal resonance by the intended for popular consumption- lowing the reader to experience the magnitude of the loss it has entailed that does more...

...Thus, in speaking of WALTER I. TRATTNER In the case of Walter Trattner's the settlement house movement of the Free Press, $9 From Poor Law to Welfare State, we late nineteenth century, he calls it a are warned at the start that his his- case of "democracy in principle and Down and Out in the USA: A History of Social Welfare tory is not intended to be "definitive in action" and refers to the settlement or comprehensive...

...This concern with Trattner fails to touch on, and on oc- quacies of such measures as Social a different kind of American history casion he is particularly sensitive to Security...

...What we have instead are in applying for the money...

...But most often Trattner's lowed the familiar welfare pattern of fare...

...antecedents...

...progress at all...

...I have tried main- house workers as "fraternalistic not LUCY KOMISAR ly to assemble, assimilate, and synthepaternalistic...

...To be specific, we her, so the act of reading Crossings prominence in Crossings that the death 26 July 1974: 410...

...We need way, that there are really two books flashes of insight and bitterness...

...folin the USA: A History of Social Wel- of the poor...

...In the late are equally true but equally prejudiced out anyone's right to dignity and the 1960s only 15,000 of the 150,000 and thus never quite a confirmation, kind of decent living conditions the working people eligible for wage sup- though rarely an explicit contradiction, country can easily afford...

...Behind these events, and insufficient, that it is prejudiced against The surface of Earl Rovit's third twenty-one years before them, stands women and blacks, that the welfare novel, Crossings, is intricate and re- the death of Mayhew's first-born son workers themselves are uncaring...

...and on it Mayhew and make a book...

...For while the po- outline of the history of welfare...

...We get little discussion on his ica and Lucy Komisar's Down and Out couraged a harsh and suspicious view part of how after 1935 F.D.R...

...to men like Daniel Moynihan and Mi- Until we get a serious perspective on August 12, 1886, is far from a ranchael Harrington, who urged support these questions, we are bound to get dom day in the life of Mayhew Enfield, of President Nixon's Family Assistance incomplete histories of welfare-some- a Connecticut minister, and his family: Plan because of the precedent it es- thing better than a chronicle but short on it, his young daughter-in-law Clovis tablished, Komisar presents F. A. P. of a truly analytical account...

...BOOKS AMERICA'S POOR LAWS NICOLAUS MILLS From Poor Law to Welfare Christopher Jencks' long essay, "Al- Trattner is forever presenting exState: A History of Social ternatives to Welfare," in the 1974 amples of progress that were barely Welfare in America winter issue of Working Papers...

...We a better understanding of why in this here, and emphasizing, in each reader's see the American West not as a haven century the Left has continually argued irreversible choice of which one to for the poor, but, as shown by an for improved welfare in charity terms read, the relentless consequences of 1809 Michigan law penalizing anyone and by-passed the question of minimum choice, and even of belief in choice, for bringing a pauper into the Terri- wages...

...the brevity of Down and Out never collected them...

...tory, capable of the same hostility as cent of the work force has jobs that These particulars of design ally seventeenth-century Plymouth, which pay below the Department of Labor Crossings with much of the most amrequired ship captains to return indi- classification of a decent standard of bitious contemporary fiction, which gent passengers to their place of origin...

...Regrettably, plements in New York City actually of what one has been led to believe...

...Unfortunately, both books are a approach to welfare consists in point- moving from direct relief, to work redisappointment, not merely because the ing up such familiar contradictions as lief (at substandard pay), to a cut in history they provide is so skimpily pre- Herbert Hoover's approval of a $45 work relief-so that by 1938 the counsented but because the transition they million bill to feed the stricken live- try went through a major recession make from past to present welfare stock of Arkansas farmers and his that saw the loss of five million jobs...

...The result is that, of welfare "progress...

...satisfy the hopes it aroused, what it English poor laws of the sixteenth Moreover, when Trattner tries to did make clear was that the problems century, up through the New Deal present the dark side of welfare debesetting America had roots of enor- legislation of the 1930s, and even has velopments, he rarely gets to their mous depth: roots that needed to be a chapter on such recent proposals as core...

...reductive categorization...

...injustices follows such worn lines...