Official Charity [pp. 407-413]

Official Charity.
Portalis; on the contrary, it would
be easy to enumerate the frauds, the
misrepresentations, and the wastefulness which too often occur in administering to the wants of the poor, but
we forbear the recital of the afflicting
details. Portalis had but too much
reason to condemn.
III.
In another point of view, Portalis
reproved official charity. It seemed
to him irreconcilable with the rights
of donors to the poor, who wish to
feel free in the distribution of their
alms, and also with the rights of the
poor, who do not consent at first sight
to make acknowledgment of their
misery.
"This would be," said he, " destroying the character of charitable commissions, and perhaps even destroying their usefulness, in transforming
them into exclusive institutions. Benevolence breathes as it wishes and
where it wishes. If you do not let
it respire freely, it stifles or becomes weakened in the midst of
those who are disposed to its exercise. I argue that it would show a
false estimate of the interests of the
poor to isolate them in any way from
the religious souls who would protect
and assist them. Such people desire
to place their alms in a religious organization, which will not dispose of
them in any other establishment.
Far from prescribing limits and imprudent conditions to benevolence, I
would, on the contrary, open all
avenues that benevolence might
select for itself, and through which it
shall choose to extend itself." *
" The administration of alms is not
and cannot be the exclusive privilege of any establishment whatever.
Alms are free and voluntary gifts. He
who gives can do no more. He is the
one to charge the dispenser of his
own liberality. The man who is able
to give alms, and has shown his
willingness to do so, can ask himself
the simple question, To whom belongs their administration? To him
or to them whom the donor will have
charged to make the distribution?
There is not and there cannot be
any other rule in a similar matter.
To do away with this rule would
be to dry up the source of the charity.
"How is it possible to think that
religious organizations should be excluded from the right of administering the alms which they receive?
Under such a system, they might as
well assert that they are not allowed
to receive alms, that is to say, they
would have to destroy the natural
liberty of those men who lay aside a
portion of their income to devote to
charity, from charging the agents of
their own alms and their liberality." *
As for the poor themselves, Portalis thought, with reason, that
many among them refused to receive
assistance from any administration
whatever, and this is why he wished
that a portion of the accumulated
alms might be left to the disposition
of the curates of the parishes:
"Because these alms could be profitably disposed of to those poor who
from circumstances and misfortunes
have met with reverses and change
of position, and who, not wishing to
acknowledge their misery to the admiinistrators of benevolent institutions,
their equals and sometimes their
enemies or rivals, go to seek from
their pastors the consolations that sustain their courage, and obtain assistance that does not humiliate them.
It is to this interesting use that the
alms are generally consecrated by
* Rajfort du 16 A vril, i8o6.
4II
* Ibid.