Associated Charities Weeds Out the 'Unworthy'
Seattle's charitable bureau meets to handle a growing caseload, drawing a rigid line between the 'deserving' poor and those deemed unworthy of aid.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The board of friendly visitors of the Seattle Bureau of Associated Charities held an interesting and enthusiastic meeting at the office in the Seattle National bank building yesterday afternoon. The bureau, by the service of this board of friendly visitors, is gradually but surely weeding out the undeserving, shiftless, and worthless classes from among the deserving poor. A late case of interest is of a woman who had been receiving aid from King County for three years, but who, upon investigation, proved to be shiftless and unworthy, when the public aid was stopped. Her children had been left at haphazard and these the bureau will try to recover and bind or adopt to good families. An emergency fund, amounting at present to $30, has been subscribed among the friendly visitors themselves for cases where relief must be administered at once and where sufficient time is not at hand to make the formal investigations required in all charitable work.
“The bureau is gradually but surely weeding out the undeserving, shiftless, and worthless classes from among the deserving poor.”
This reflects the moralizing tone of 19th-century 'scientific charity,' which often prioritized surveillance over actual relief. Today's social service organizations grapple with similar bureaucratic barriers versus the needs of the unhoused.
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