The Farmville Herald

W. D. Workman

Newburgh's Welfare Problem

WASHINGTON-A nationwide round of applause is due the City of Newburgh, N. Y., for daring to challenge the sanctity of that modern sacred cow- public welfare.

But there is more to the story than the well - publicized intent of the Newburgh city fathers to clamp down in the relief program. There is a much - less- publicized critique of welfare itself by these city officials, and it deserves the widest possible attention.

Newburgh's city manager and city council have served notice to all that chiselers will be forced from the relief rolls, that able-bodied persons will be denied relief if they refuse work, and that unmarried mothers cannot boost their relief receipts with more illegitimate children.

The city is being pressured by state and federal authorities to be more lenient in enforcing these and other stringent criteria, but so far, Newburgh is standing firm. Whatever happens, the cause of responsible government is being strengthened by the community's refusal to go any further down the road of the welfare state.

Newburgh believes, City Manager Joseph McD. Mitchell says, "That unless welfare considers the community's total economic and social situation, work on individual cases is futile and wasteful. No arm of government, anywhere, has the right to spend tax dollars with no tangible results for the community as a whole. Unless the sum total of all individual casework reflects in the improvement of police, fire, sanitation, housing, health, economic and moral conditions, welfare has failed . . ."

"Unless the welfare program can be used to serve the community as a whole, public funds are in fact being expended to further pollute our society . . . Our whole program is based on morality, and is designed for social reform . . . We do not think that it is moral to appropriate public funds to finance crime, illegitimacy, disease and other social evils."

Yet that is precisely what seems to have happened in Newburgh, a Hudson River city of 31,000 souls. The few years has brought an alarming increase of all those evils in the wake of a 150 per cent increase in the city's Negro population.

But Newburgh is not basing its case for welfare reform on the fact that these newcomers are Negroes, but on the threat of their collective behavior to the well being of the community. They have crowded into the waterfront area and made it into an area of slums and of crime the welfare area.

Newburgh fears that without curbs on welfare payments (which now cost the city more than does its Police Department) the situation will worsen.

"There will be more influx to Newburgh from the South," the city manager predicts, "more slums, we will lose more assessed valuations, there will be more illegitimacy, more welfare, more crime and violence . . .This thing is going to spread and will wreck the whole city."

The officials of Newburgh are not trying to escape their civic obligation to provide assistance for the disabled and those otherwise incapable of sustaining themselves. They do, however, mean to discourage the notion that Newburgh is a haven for those who wish ready access to welfare funds as a means of support.

The tart tongued Congresswoman from New York's 28th District, Mrs. Katherine St George, had this to say when the subject came up at a political action conference here in Washington:

"We will take care of the needy, but not of a batch of derelicts and free-loaders who are moving into our cities to live on relief."

Meanwhile, the ever - loving New York Times is shedding drip-dry tears over errant Newburgh -- charging it with seceding from law, from democratic government, and from common decency. This cannot be done, says the Times, simply "because the taxpayers are weary of their burden."

Who can think of a better reason for getting rid of unnecessary self - generating, and seemingly endless spending?