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English VI.

Debate for Tuesday, Mar. 13, 1894.Question: "Resolved, That in times of depression, municipalities should give work to the unemployed."

Brief for the Affirmative.M. S. Hyman and D. King.

Best general references: Albert Shaw in Review of Reviews, Jan. and Feb. 1894; Josephine S. Lowell in the Forum, Feb. 1894.

I. In times of depression there is an emergency, relief for the unemployed is necessary, because the larger number of destitute is a menance to public safety.

II. Relief should be administered through work; for (1) it does not humiliate or pauperize the recipient, (2) automatically separates those desirous of work from the vagrants and shiftless, and (3) facilitates enforcement of the vagrancy laws.

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III. The measure is limited to the emergency and the payment made to correspond with the value of the services, by making the remuneration lower than the customary wages.

IV. The municipalities should furnish this employment; for (1) private attempts are inadequate, (2) municipalities could supply simple work better than individuals, (3) the burden, if any, would fall on the whole community,

V. Difficulties can be avoided (1) by the limitation of relief to residents of the municipality, (2) by administration of the relief-work through an outside, non-political commission, and (3) the system once established, by the accumulation of an emergency fund in normal years.

Brief for the Negative.H. L. Prescott and H. C. Metcalf.

Best general references: Washington Gladden in Review of Reviews, Jan. 1894. Notion, Dec. 28, 1893. Henry W. Farnam in Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. III, p. 282.

I. Efficient municipal aid is (1) impracticable, because (a) manual labor only can be furnished, for which the majority of the unemployed are unqualified. (2) It is inadvisable, because (a) it furnishes too great an opportunity to officials to distribute aid for partisan purposes. (b) It weakens the beneficial offects of private charity.

H. It tends to develop the evils of

(Continued on third page).

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