And such orthodoxy could be harsh indeed. Minister William Slocum’s message to the National Conference on Charities and Corrections warned, “Indiscriminate alms giving is a crime against society. It saps the very foundations of the self-respecting home.” Poverty researcher and charity reformer Robert Hunter noted, “The sins of men should bring their own punishment, and poverty which punishes the vicious and the sinful is good and necessary.” In fact much of the religiously inspired charity reform of the Gilded Age aimed not at providing charity but denying it, finding most applicants wholly
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