Like any other potent social medicine, government assistance to the needy often causes unpleasant side effects. The welfare state means new security for the millions who do not share the nation's affluence. But it also means public intervention in private lives, job-shirking relief chiselers who loaf at government expense, and tax burdens that soar higher every year. Can the side effects be nullified without crimping the cure? Last week one city answered with a resounding yes —and in the process, Newburgh, N.Y., gave the nation cause for some sober second thoughts on the use—and misuse—of civil charity.
Once a Hudson River whaling port and a headquarters for George Washington's colonial army, steep-sloping, tree-shaded Newburgh (pop. 31,000) has long been a shopping center for the green and pleasant fruit farms that prosper in the rolling hills of Orange County. Since World War II, most of the farms have been serviced by migrant workers, mostly Negroes from the Deep South, who drift from harvest to harvest during the long summer. Inevitably, many migrants have settled in Newburgh; since 1950 the number of Negro residents has risen 151%, even though the city's overall population has dropped 3%. Poor, ill-trained and badly educated, Newburgh's ex-migrants find it hard to get year-round jobs in a town with little industry. The stubborn discrimination of the North has forced them to congregate in four waterfront districts that police bluntly call "the trouble wards." The area is now a classic slum, going from bad to worse; during the past three years, the assessed value of property on Newburgh's downtown streets has dropped $945,000.
Down by the Riverside. Appalled by the growing decay, Newburgh's city council last fall went looking for a businesslike city manager. The council's choice was brash, balding Joseph McDowell Mitchell, 39, who had already served in administrative jobs in Culver City, Calif., and Marple Township, Pa. Mitchell ordered a survey of the welfare program, discovered that Newburgh's relief expenditures —$983,000 out of an overall city budget of $3,134,000 for 1961—came to more than the city spent on police and fire protection. He seemed shocked to learn that most of the money was going down by the riverside. Worse still, unless costs were cut, the city would have to forego a big urban renewal project or face either a deficit or a tax hike. So last month Mitchell and the council put together a tough new 13-point code aimed at stopping relief chiseling. Among the code's provisions: a three-month limitation on relief payments, except for the physically handicapped and the aged; unmarried mothers who bore any more illegitimate children would be cut off from assistance; whenever possible, food and rent vouchers would be issued instead of cash; able-bodied males on relief would have to work 40 hours each week for the city building-maintenance department; newcomers who settled in Newburgh without specific job offers would be limited to one week of relief payments.