Book Reviews

During the depression of the thir ties he camped out in flophouses. His effort, everywhere, was to find out what the working man and the "underprivileged" really thought. What he learned is that most men, if uncorrupted, have an in nate desire for "worth through work." People want money, of course. But even more important than money is self-esteem. Mr. Williams discovered this in the most unlikely places; even the Skid Rows in which he lived had their hierarchies of worth, reserv ing the name of "Scissorbill" for bums who were completely unproductive. The hobo, so Mr. Williams learned, rates himself above the tramp; the tramp in turn considers himself above the scissorbill. "We 'boes," so the Secretary of the Hoboes Union told Whiting Williams, "are mi gratory workers, itinerant labor ers! If we don't hop from the Northwest lumber camp in the winter down to the Oklahoma wheat fields in the summer - and get there on time, mind you-w'y, crops go to waste . . . So we 'hoes have to take the train - 'thout 637 638 THE FREEMAN October payin' no fare, of course. But a tramp! ... He walks from job to job - 'cause he don't give a damn whether he gets there or not . . .

But don't never take a tramp for a bum! He neither rides, nor walks, nor works! He's' a no-good complete." Investigating life among the bums who were lower than the tramps, Mr. Williams found the need for esteem struggling to keep itself alive even at the very bot tom of society. For example, no really self-respecting bum would ask for his portion of mulligan stew without contributing a sin gle sandwich to the collective dish. A Timely Message Since Mr. Williams' experience dates back to pre-Great Society days, his description of "Ameri ca's mainspring" as the "wish for worth through work" might seem outmoded in its substance. He himself recognizes that he may have written a book about the American world as it used to be. But the Great Society is, actually, merely a continuation of the New Deal, and Mr. Williams saw in the thirties how the "mainspring" of seeking "worth through work"

could be badly bent by the prac tice of giving government relief to people without requiring them to do anything to earn it. Men, so Mr. Williams insists, are not born to be "scissorbills." But, as he says, "we also know this - how easily we can become scissorbills !" All that is necessary is "to adopt the bum's scapegoats and false reasoning for side-stepping re sponsibility while adjusting to the crisis' challenge instead of mas tering it." Mr. Williams fears "the welfare state's increasingly generous gifts," not because he likes to see people· hungry, but because he knows the story of the Florida coast town where, after the shrimp boats had taken their operations elsewhere, the seagulls were found. to be starving because they have forgotten how to live off fish. Lessons from the Marshall Plan Though Mr. Williams hasn't in vestigated life in the so-called ghettoes in the nineteen sixties, the relevance of his book to the contemporary situation is obvious.

A government can't encourage "expectations" and expect quies cence. If the expectations aren't related to the· opportunity for work, the multiplication of scis sorbills will soon defeat the ef fort to combat poverty through government programs. We are now hearing about the necessity for a "Marshall Plan" for the Ameri can cities. But if a "Marshall Plan" is only money, it merely de lays the time for a final reckoning.

1967 WORTH THROUGH WORK 639 Money, if it inhibits the growth of the self-help philosophy, is worse than useless. Some of Mr. Williams' experi ence dates back to the period of the Marshall Plan in Europe. The money we exported immediately after World War II moved into a community where skills were wait ing to be put to work. But Mr. Williams finds the export of needed funds to Europe was le'ss significant than "the export of our unique respect - indeed our rever ence - for productive usefulness." In the ancient feudal Europe, it was only through politics, not use ful work, that a commoner could hope to rise. This tradition had hung on in Europe up to World War II. "Even in France and Brit ain," so Mr. Williams writes, "the aspiring commoner has long had to seek distinction less by the ladder of work than of politics." The sight of America's "economic missionaries," even those with ad vanced uni versi ty or technical de grees, working with their hands had more effect on Europe than the Marshall Plan money. And to the extent that the Peace Corps is effective, it is through this spec tacle of willingness to tackle jobs.

In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Williams notes, our engineer-managers have had trouble explaining the facts of industrial life to people who have considered that work is for slaves. But when desert nomads are turned into skilled drillers, re finers, and transporters of oil, "the dynamics of expectation" are transformed. Commoners discover they can hope to "climb to honor" through useful work as well as through politics. The worst thing about the Great Society is the way it has increased the growth of self-pity. This is at the crux of Mr. Williams' wor ries about our future. The older America which he knew, whether it was the America of coal mines and steel mills or the America of flophouses, indulged very little in "the sin of self-pity." The Road Bacle to Self-Respect How are we to get "America's Mainspring" to working again ? Mr. Williams lists the obstacles that stand in the way of a return to the older verities. He fears that in the' Great Socie,ty "more recognition and honor will go to elected managers as the distrib utors of gifts and less to the producers of goods and services."

And, since "leaders dependent on votes" prefer to deal less with in dividuals than with manageable groups such .as "farmers, wage earners, the sick, the elderly, or whatever," the individual's work based "Expectation Quotient" will be sacrificed to his "collective se curity-or, as in Europe, to his 640 THE FREEMAN October political career." Relief appropri ations, so Mr. Williams observes, must be handled with almost su pernatural wisdom or they end up by discouraging industrial pro ductivity as "smart group wan gling" takes over. The welfare state tends to cannibalistic con sumption of its own taxpayers. Meanwhile, since the incumbent officials are in a position to prom ise most, the tendency is toward perpetuation of one-party govern ment .. This one-party government, finding. it more and more difficult to raise taxes, goes in for per petual inflation. To preserve its sovereignty against increasingly "dangerous" criticism as the in flation strikes home, government is then tempted to expand its con trol over communications and opinion.

And so we go to pe·rdition. Mr. Williams is reminded of the kind hearted man who, when his dog begged a bite of meat during a terrible famine, gave the animal a juicy slice of its own tail. This is what the welfare state comes to in the end, once the "main spring" of "worth through work" has been snapped. + THE FREEMAN NOVEMBER 1967 Vol. 17, No. 11 ~ A visit to the local Welfare Office could tell us much about how freedom is lost, suggests newsman N. C. Christensen p. 643 ~ Or, visit the campuses, as Ralph Bradford has done, to know what is being dispensed there under the labels of economics and political science p. 647 11" For contrast, retrace with Edward Breese, the origin and development of an earlier and strictly homemade great society off the shores of Massachusetts p. 656 v Unfortunately, it is necessary to keep on explaining and trying to com bat the harmful consequences of the political propensity to inflate ....p. 662 ~ Dr. W. M. Curtiss critically ex amines various theories of taxation and comments on current practices .......... p. 674 JtI" Anne Wortham is an individual be fore she is a Negro, and respectfully requests that we let her keep it that way p. 679 ~ And FEE's prolific author of Deeper Than You Think, among other works, here delves into basic realities I .......... p. 683 ~ To the anonymous writer of the Monthly Letter of the Royal Bank of Canada, we are indebted for many helpful suggestions on the importance of self-discipline p. 688 ~ The much-touted "mixed economy"