1914-10-09ss

“Two or three weeks ago, we received a large number of letters complaining that women whose husbands had gone to the front were being visited by charitable ladies, who, with prying questions and suggestions, made them feel as if they were regarded as paupers”

  Hamilton Spectator.   October 9, 1914.

          It was barely two months since war had been declared, and since many Hamilton men had volunteered for service and had left wives and children without support.

          There was a plan to help the wives and children but it was not moving forward smoothly.

The Hamilton Spectator, on October  9, 1914, published an editorial about the situation, attempting to help resolve the problems :

“We attributed this state of affairs to the inevitable delay in getting the work of the Patriotic fund in smooth running order, and assumed that only cases of extreme destitution were being regarded as requiring ordinary charity.”¹

¹ “Patriotic Fund”

Hamilton Spectator.  October 9, 1914.

The newspaper had received letters about the problems being faced by those entitled supported by the Patriotic fund. One of which follows :

“To the Editor :

“Being an old subscriber, I hope you will not deny me a space in your valuable paper. Can anyone tell me why the wives of the men who have given up the means of supporting their families and given themselves to the service of their country, are obliged to have provisions given to them in the same way as benevolent societies to the worthy poor at Christmastime or to the beggar of handling money? Do we not know best what the babes left behind need? I wish these noble men and women who have so nobly given to this cause could in some way be brought to meet those who need it. It would at least save a lot of expense.

                             ONE WHO IS INTERESTED.”¹

The Spectator clearly articulated that the wives and children were not supposed to be objects of charity:

“They were to get a regular allowance consisting of three parts:

(1)  A portion of the soldier’s pay assigned for their benefit,

(2)  A contribution from the Dominion government,

And (3) an appropriation from the Patriotic fund.

These three sums were to make a regular income, which would at least keep the wolf from the door, and procure the bare necessaries of life. The wife or other dependent was to get this allowance this allowance as regularly as a pension or salary, and she was to receive it as a matter of right, precisely as if she earned it.”¹

The fact that a woman left behind had to be visited to assess whether she was somehow more or less deserving of Patriotic fund support was deemed to be unacceptable:

“What she did with it was nobody’s business but her own. If she spent it foolishly so much the worse for herself, but hers it was to spend in any way she pleased.”¹

The editorial concluded, thunderously, in opposition to recipients of the Patriotic fund being visited to assess whether they were worthy :

“There is no occasion whatever for the wives of members of the first Canadian contingent being visited by charitable ladies and treated in a patronizing though kindly way, as if in need of alms.

“Possibly an attempt has been made to relieve some few cases of dire privation. Grievances such as those complained of in the above letter can only be explained in this way.

“But we should think it was now high time for the handling and distribution of the Patriotic fund to have to have fallen into the systematic grooves all along intended. If women entitled to receive regular stipends are even yet being treated as if paupers, there must be something wrong somewhere.”¹