This experiment was realized to be a ticklish one, as a man less sincerely attached to his home might have been turned into a vagabond by such treatment.
In general, it may be said that, as there is less to work on constructively with the non-supporter, court action has more often to be invoked. If the non-supporter is a "chronic," his path must not be allowed to be too easy. "Sometimes you just have to keep pestering him" was the way one social worker put it. A Red Cross Home Service worker successfully shocked one elderly non-supporter into going to work, as described in one of the Red Cross publications:
"Well, Mr. Gage," I said, "I see you're not working yet."
"No, Mrs. Cox, the coal company promised to send for me."
"Well," I said, "I think you've been pretty fair with that company. You've waited on it for three months now. If I had the offer of another job I'd feel perfectly free to take it, if I were you."
"All right, I have a job for you," said I. "My husband wants a man now at his garage, to clean automobiles. The hours are from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and you'll earn $15 a week."
His paper fell from his hands to the floor; his jaw dropped, and he just looked at me. Then he tried to crawl out of it and began to make excuses.
"I haven't time to argue with you, Mr. Gage," I said. "I'll keep the job open till seven o'clock tonight and you can let me know then whether you'll take it or not."
At seven he came to say he'd take the job.[45]
If in desertion cases the interest centers very vividly about the absent man, in non-support cases the reverse is likely to be true, because he is often not very interesting per se, and because, moreover, he is always on the spot and does not have to be searched for. Familiarity certainly breeds contempt for the non-supporter. Consequently the social worker may easily fall into the danger of disregarding the human factors he presents, and either treating the family as if he did not exist or expending no further effort on him than to see that he "puts in" six months of every year in jail if possible (since the law usually secures to him the privilege of loafing the other six). It is not safe, however, to regard even the most leisurely of non-supporters as beyond the possibility of awakening. One district secretary who had thus given a man up had the experience of seeing him transformed into a steady worker after a few months of intensive effort by a first-year student in a school of social science, whose only equipment for the job was personality and enthusiasm. So remarkable are some of the reclamations that have been brought about with seemingly hopeless non-supporters that all possible measures should be tried before giving one of them up.