an atlantic essay on philanthropy

The Atlantic, Vol. 145, No. 5, pp. 683-687, by Alice Hamilton, as quoted:

The American workman may earn high wages ... but even if he does, he must live all his working life under the shadow of three Damoclean swords: sickness, loss of his job, and old age, and against these our country, the richest in the world, gives him no protection.

Would generous gifts to organized charity remedy this lack? Well, let him who asks that question imagine for a moment that he himself is faced at sixty-five with the alternatives of private charity, administered with the greatest tact and understanding, and a state pension administered as a matter of official routine. I think there can be no doubt of his choice.