The United States has had a social welfare system for over 70
years, but each Christmas the New York Times continues to print
heartbreaking stories intended to inspire contributions to its
Neediest Cases Fund. In 1912, when Times publisher Arthur Ochs
established this tradition, there were no food stamps, no social
security for the elderly and people with disabilities, no school
breakfast or lunch programs, no Medicaid or Medicare, and no
Section 8 housing. Federal income taxes would not begin until
the next year. New York City had a public-private system of
poorhouses, outdoor relief, settlement houses, tuberculosis
sanatoria, insane asylums, and orphanages, yet many of the poor
lived in conditions so pitiable, Ochs thought they would no
longer be tolerated if the Times made them known. The first
Hundred Neediest Cases were peopled by widows, orphans, and sick
or disabled fathers. Mothers were often invalids, too delicate
or devitalized to hold jobs or do housework. Hunger, cold, and
the death of family memb