Yet without the control of physical heredity
or the substitution of artificial for natural selection, poverty can be
undoubtedly greatly lessened, and it is the rational aim of applied
social science to discover how this may be done. It would seem that the
existence of 10,000,000 persons in the United States living below the
poverty line cannot be justified upon either moral or economic grounds;
that it represents a great waste of human life and human resources, and
that much of the social maladjustment which this poverty is an
expression of might easily yield to wisely instituted remedial measures.
If the social maladjustment which is undoubtedly the cause of the bulk
of modern poverty were done away with, it is safe to say that it would
be reduced to less than one third of its present dimensions.
The Concrete Causes of Poverty.--It is necessary to inquire somewhat
more minutely into the concrete conditions, social and individual, which
give rise to poverty and dependence. Manifestly the poor do not
constitute any single class in society.
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