Who Pays Your Charity Bills, Mr. Gifford?
Blanshard, Paul
Who Pays Your Charity Bills, Mr. Gifford? Hoover's Director of Unemployment Relief Generous With Other People's Money, Embarrasing Stockholder Finds By Paul Blanshard «irALTLR S. GIFFORD is...
...The ruling of the Interstate Commerce Commission la case 149 sayi> "It contributions are made without regard to traffic but incidentally for the benefit of the operations of the company, such as those to local fire departments, business leagues, Y. M. C. A., and similar institutions, charge the appropriate expense account of the department concerned...
...If human beings do not die of starvation In our streets it is the unknown givers, relatives who help relatives, friends who aid friends, ho have saved us this shame...
...Benjamin Young, accountant for the New York Telephone Company, has publicly admitted that his company's contributions to charity have been used as a part of operating expenses in rate exhibits...
...It is such an approach to equalizing income, all of It derived from someone's labor," that no future parade of the unemployed will be necessary, and no grim and violent protest need be feared...
...A thousand times, no...
...They may have given 80% of previous charity funds...
...The contribution of $50,000 In 1930 and $75,000 in 1981 to New York City's relief funds are not 'impossible of allocation,' They are clearly general gifts which should come from the stockholder*' pockets...
...It Is an attempt by volunteers to enlist sympathetic support for the work bureau and other relief which on the whole is being as well and humanly administered as funds permit, and which may cease operation without this aid...
...What A Socialist Thinks of Block-Aid The Inadequacy of Charity Forced Upon Workers by the Government's Subservience to Business By Norman Thomas (An address delivered over Station WOll on Good Friday, March 25th) ON THIS day which for so many...
...Apparently in the summer the breezes are to blow Away all problems of relief and fill empty stomachs instead of bread...
...This will stop after May 1st unless new funds are found...
...But of this I was not asked to speak, but only of a Socialist opinion of block-aid...
...He is not only president of America's greatest corporation, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, but he is also Erector of the President's Organization on Unemployment Relief...
...It Is charged to operating expenses and the consumer pays the bill...
...April 8 PHILADELPHIA.—Morris Hillqult, Socialist National Chairman, will speak on "Europe's Strugglo for Survival," at the Labor Institute, Friday evening...
...SU11 less do I- believe it can be that great spy system the Communists profess to fear...
...Some day perhaps block aiding will mean replacing ugly, dreary and dangerous blocks with homes fit for children to live in...
...It is they who have borne the burden of this tragedy and not any public funds whatever...
...They need none now...
...To work at block-aid for those not more usefully employed at more fundamental tasks is good provided the volunteer workers remember what democracy and brotherhood really mean...
...Yes, and off the children who are the builders of tomorrow which no one can estimate or imagine...
...To our shame block-aid is necessary if relief is not to stup while more adequate plans are made...
...W. H. Matthews has recently spoken, there is in that fact assurance that funds will be decently used...
...Other electric and gas companies in New York take their charitable contributions out of surplus...
...Some Socialist Proposals Neither li block-aiding a substitute for a great program of public works...
...Also he is My President, for, I own one share of stock in that corporation which is described in expensive advertising as the great "Industrial Democracy...
...Twenty thousand families—from fifty to a hundred thousand men, Women, and children, some with babes in arms wearily trudge by In the shadow of our cathedrals under the sky line of the richest City in the world...
...675 (Other General Expenses...
...The number is Mowing...
...Jesse H. Holmes will be the chairman...
...The obvious purpose of the Interstate Commerce Commission was *to direct the proper allocation of contributions made for some indirect service to the company and not to permit a corporation to pass on to the consumers the bill for Its own miscellaneous charities...
...Suppose New York should stage as its Easter Parade a march of the unemployed...
...At most the danger is that against the wishes of real friends of block-aid it may be taken as a substitute for an answer, an escape from really facing a problem that frightens ns comfortable folk...
...But there is a joker about this warmhearted generosity of ours...
...Of the 300 odd stockholders at the meeting, about one-half of them voted for the resolution and about one-half against, whereupon President Gifford blandly informed me that an actual count of the vote was unnecessary since the Board of Directors manages the company, anyway...
...Hoover's Director of Unemployment Relief Generous With Other People's Money, Embarrasing Stockholder Finds By Paul Blanshard «irALTLR S. GIFFORD is one of our Big Men who has Made , T v Good...
...The Canvassers' Job May I say a few word., about the volunteers on whom block aid relies...
...Let no one imagine that New York would be alone in staging this dreadful Easter parade...
...Offers a little Resolution So I went to the annual meeting of my fellow capitalists this week and made a speech attacking Mr...
...This is not to a Socialist a complete program of aid for unemployment— that requires planned production and distribution for use and not profit...
...Most of us in theory believe In work instead of relief and then favor cutting out work already planned to save taxes...
...On the other hand the greatest possibility is that It may convincingly demonstrate the need of far more drastic action by /publlc authorities...
...And then another twenty thousand families living somehow on three days' work a week—$15.00...
...Add to this suggested program the five day week, proper unemployment insurance and old age assistance and we might lift a burden of woe off our fellow citizens...
...A Growing Regiment 1 These are but the first regiments f t the army of 900,000 unemployed pew Yorkers...
...It is the plain truth that the best collector of relief Is the income and inheritance tax collector...
...It doesn't cost us anything...
...These folk have needed no charity workers, bankers, politicians or speakers to teach • them to give...
...or if impossible of allocation, charge account No...
...A contribution charged to operating expenses is added to the telephone company's rate base...
...million Americans is a day of solemn and sacred recollection of the Man of Sorrows, we •hall do well to remind ourselves that mankind still walks its weary way to Calvary...
...No volunteer has any right to act as a Paul Pry...
...W« have given away to charity 1233,000 in three years from the company's treasury...
...His or her first concern is to get moderate funds from those who can give, not from those who cannot...
...II,II.,..ii in I'liiln...
...Before them let the block alders be humble and willing to learn...
...When men high in this administration of relief speak out as candidly and boldly as Mr...
...they own far more than 80% of tile free surplus above the cost of existence and they did not give anything like 80% of the total relief when one reckons in the relief of friend to friend...
...What Is it but a lingering death for men to He down to sleep in fear and rise in dread of another day without bread for their children, save the uncertain and bitter bread of charity...
...The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, of which Mr...
...When I made this resolution, President Gifford was in the chair and he submitted it to a vote of the stockholders...
...The stockholders, he said, cannot determine a policy for the management If they do not like the way the company is run, they can choose another Board of Directors...
...The Inadequacy of Block-Aid As I see it, the greatest danger of the block-aid is that anyone should think it adequate...
...He should learn at once If he does not already know it, that the most magnificent thing about the crisis is the generosity of the poor to the poor...
...The canvasser should try to force a card on no one now loaded down with burdens...
...9^B^a^^a^aHaaVa^Ea^a^a^a...
...The telephone companies do not have a sound basis for this policy...
...April 8th, at 8 o'clock...
...What shall we do in this dreadful human emergency, in this tragedy beside which most of the wars of history might have seemed like a relief...
...It could be copied in almost every city and town, yes and hamlet...
...Gifford is President, owns all of the stock of the New York Telephone Company, which has made contributions...
...So my resolution Was referred to the Board of Directors without any counting of votes, and the great "Industrial Democracy" adjourned for...
...We cannot afford to forget:, no budget is balanced that has no promise for the unemployed...
...The unpleasant subject la this...
...One of Mr...
...The New York Telephone Company has taken advantage of the vague phrase "if impossible of al^ location," to charge Its large relief gifts to this account, thus evading the intent of the ruling...
...And this I have given...
...Next the 82,000 workers employed by the City who after April 1st will have their work cut to two days—$10— in order that the funds shall last through May...
...It flatly refused to charge these contributions to surplus when it was asked to do so by Chairman Milo Maltbie Of the New York Public Service Commission...
...I suggested that it is not wise to be generous with other people's money, and I offered the following resolution: "Resolved that, In view of the public criticism of the practice of the New York Telephone Company in charging charitable contributions to operating expenses, this corporation shall in future impose upon Itself and all subsidiaries a new rule of accounting under which all contributions to general welfare shall be deducted from the company's surplus funds...
...Meanwhile, let everyone give as best he can, as much as he can, through the best agency he can find in this crisis...
...I do not think block aid Intended to be, or indeed can be a successful conspiracy of the rich to make the por pay for unemployment relief...
...I have told the committee which asked me to speak on block-aid tonight, that I would only speak II 1 could speak the truth as I see I t I speak for block-aid only because It promises some immediate help In a desperate emergency, only because the right sort of suppbrt may obviate some dangers thoughtful men feel, only with the confession that It Is the shame of our city and our society that we have to resort to this means at all...
...saying something: in public about ea unpleasant subject...
...Gifford'* and my companies is called the New York Telephone Company, and during the last three years we have been very generous in helping the poor...
...I hope block-aiding will open all men's eyes to the miseries around them but above all to the magnitude of the lie that we are meeting the situation by charity and to the hypocrisy of calling all forms of public relief a dole...
...So far the great mass of unemployed workers have been amazingly docile, Day after day at my office and In the five recreation huts for the unemployed which the League for Industrial Democracy of which I am an official, has somehow managed to maintain, I have seen these men and marvelled at once at their patience and their morale...
...I hope that this block-aiding campaign especially will arouse workers .organized and unorganized, employed and unemployed, to demand at least, as much direct consideration of government as organized manufacturers get In tariff legislation and organized bankers have got in some of our recent laws: A few Impressive and orderly demonstrations would have won the passage of the LaFolletteCostlgan bill for direct federal aid...
...We have been thanked warmly by the big charity organizations in New York City because we gave handsome gifts of 150,000 in 1930 and $75,000 in 1931 to unemployment relief funds...
...Admission will be 25 cents...
...Likewise It is a tragedy of a sort Socialists think Inherent in capitalism that a nation which raised $21,500,000,000 - In Liberty bonds for destruction in war against Germany has not raised, say, $5,000,000,000 in bonds to be repaid out of income and inheritame taxes on construction in a we' against poverty and especially against the slums and shacks In which one third of our people live...
...block aiding is no substitute for a budget for unemployment aid...
...At best it can only be a tiny part of the answer...
...First in the vanguard would come 20,000 families whose heads are registered for work with the Emergency Work Bureau, but for whom not even two or three days a week work or relief has been found...
...That patience will not and should not be immortal...
...This Means that the consumers are asked to pay for these contributions In higher rates...
...Inadequate as it was it would have been a beginning and would have made giving to block aids less necessary...
...Gifford and saying that be was in an absolutely indefensible position as President Hoover's chief relief- man when he headed a telephone system which foisted Its charity bills upon the consumers...
...But by no well meant shouting of slogans and blare of trumpets, by no occasional kindness from the comfortable, can mankind be sustained as It walks its via dolorosa...
...This which New York City threatens to do is a tragedy...
...Upon a thousand crosses, man, or rather the cruel and stupid economic system he has made crucifies his brothers...
...Gifford doesn't know it, but I bought one share of stock just for the purpose of sitting in an annual meetlag: with my fellow capitalists and...
...Other city relief funds are so low that without adding a single new case—and new cases are registering at the rate of 1200,a day—the relief will have to be cut in half to take care of the cases now being cared for...
...It cannot forever be Insulted even by the best charity In lieu of justice...
...He should seek to sell not one but a series of stamp cards to the well-to-do...
...Th«» money Involved Is trifling: compared to the telephone company's total expenses, but the principle Is profoundly Important...
...That way may be made the way of triumph only as we learn what liberty, equality and fraternity must mean in the control of machinery to the service of mankind...
...1 The Gifts We Made The New York Telephone Company has defended Its practice by citing an interpretation made by the Interstate Commerce Commission concerning contributions to welfare organizations which indirectly benefit the operations of the company, but this ruling does not fairly apply to the large donations made to unemployment relief in New York City...
...Is this plan of block-aid of which we have been hearing the answer...
...The real dole in our world is a dole* of unearned Income...
...Charitable contributions made by corporations are not deductible as operating expenses in determining Income tax...
...of 3233,413 during the last three years to charity and social welfare organizations...
...another year after casting 11,052,000 unanimous votes for the twelve directors whose names were contained upon a single printed ballot...
...Kindly Business Men Behind this' little lesson in "Industrial Democracy" there lies an Interesting story of the way in which a great American business man can afford to be kind with consumers' and workers' money...
...It is likely to grow by • t o and bounds if our city, a H of wild and wicked waste, sow in a spasm of economy rescinds appropriation of public works and direct relief aggregating $183,600,000 and this is precisely the proposal now before the Board of Estimate...
Vol. 13 • April 1932 • No. 14
