All the investigators fear poverty, fear it because they know how terrible it is, _that it is a crime_. Not a word of the poor is believed. Her next report will be a tissue of lies and accusations, viz.:
"The family has rich connections from whom they get help. From the grocer, butcher and baker I have learned that the family spends more than is necessary." If the applicant is a widow and young she inserts that neighbours doubt her morality; that she stays out late at night, etc., etc., and she closes her report with the observation that the applicant is unworthy and undeserving of charity. This she does because she has learned that she is not to advise to give, but that she is paid to find out reasons and excuses why help should not be given.
It is true that in the course of the work the investigators find cases where the organisations are deceived, but this makes them so suspicious that if one were to take their word for it help would never be extended to an applicant.
Then, another reason for her stony-heartedness is the continual sight of poverty. After a time she gets so accustomed to it that nothing shocks her. It is like a surgeon in a hospital who becomes so hardened that the amputation of an arm or leg is nothing--a trifle.
The poor represent so much material. One sews aprons and shirtwaists for a living; she, the investigator, visits the poor. The hangman too makes a living! It's all business. There can be no love in such work. The men and women in charge of it have not chosen it because they want to devote their lives to succouring the suffering widow or orphan. They are not sisters of mercy. They are paid to do the work. They make a living so.
If the investigators were superior beings things would be somewhat different; but superior beings go into business nowadays. It pays better. Some investigators only get thirty to forty dollars per month.
I have known investigators who left their own children at home without food. They trembled lest a mistake cost them their positions. They did all in their power to find out a reason why the applicant should not receive money to buy bread for her children. One might fancy that were they investigating their own cases they would still find reasons.