Innocents at Home

Charity creates a multitude of sins.

--Oscar Wilde

American travelers are often shocked at the ragged beggars who gather around the cathedrals of Europe, the mosques and holy places of the Orient. The sight of a paretic Venetian pandering his nine-year-old daughter, or of a Calcutta mendicant clutching the withered body of a dead baby with one hand, a beggar's bowl in the other, is not easily forgotten. In such situations, Americans often assume the smug attitude that such things are not done at home; in the good old U.S.A., everything is organized, charity is tidily and efficiently handled.

Last week, from the doings in a Manhattan courtroom, Americans learned that the nation is nursing something far worse than the professional beggars of Europe and Asia. Millions of dollars are being siphoned away from charitable donations annually by professional promoters and racketeers. Even some of the worthiest causes pay fund-raisers up to 85% out of every donated dollar.

In Manhattan's County Courthouse in Foley Square, a committee headed by New York State Senator Bernard Tompkins and Assemblyman Samuel Rabin listened in stunned silence as a parade of witnesses, many of them very reluctant, unfolded a sordid tale of profit in the name of charity. Items:

P: The National Kids Day Foundation, Inc., a West Coast organization headed by Hollywood Gossipist Jimmy Fidler, collected $3,978,000 in five years, disbursed a total of $302,000 for charitable purposes. The rest--82% of the take--went into the pockets of professional fundraisers (Fidler receives no salary). Whimpered Fidler: "It seems like they're picking on us for publicity."

P:Slick Chicago promoters started a "snowball" campaign by mailing 2,000 crisp dollar bills to "sucker lists" (with an appeal to match the dollar, or better), eventually got back a clear $630,000 for a nonexistent "National Cancer Hospital." The cost of fundraising: $435,000. Another Chicago outfit raised $2,531,000 for the relief of war widows and orphans aided by Gold Star Wives of America, Inc. After fund-raising expenses were deducted, the widows' mite was $309,000.

P:The Kings County (Brooklyn) Council of the Marine Corps League collected $67,244 for veterans' welfare. The net take: $4,000. The rest went into the bank accounts, one hidden, of the promoters.

P: The Disabled American Veterans collected $21,480,000 over a period of three years with a series of splashy contests and a campaign to flood the mails with unsolicited trinkets. Out of this sum, the expenses of the fund-raisers amounted to $14,529,000, "administrative costs" ate up another $2,400,000, and $3,837,000 more went for D.A.V. lobbying. Not a cent went for the direct aid of a needy veteran. The D.A.V. does maintain 1,800 local chapters, which help veterans, for example, with their claims against the Government.

P:An unestimated mountain of "clothing for Korea" was sold on the secondhand market and the profits pocketed by the pitchmen.

"Bishop's" Rook. The names of dozens of celebrities, it turned out, had been freely taken in vain. The D.A.V. campaigns used the names of President Eisenhower, former President Truman, and Generals Omar Bradley and Douglas MacArthur in unauthorized "endorsements," until they were stopped by the threat of a mail-fraud trial. The National Kids Day appeal featured a "testimonial" from Bing Crosby, although Crosby made affidavit that he had never given permission to use his name.

One successful fund-raiser in New York's Westchester County reckoned that he and his family would realize $75,000 this year for operating half a dozen smalltime charities. Another admitted he had posed as a priest and a policeman in telephone soliciting. In The Bronx, six "nuns" in rented habits and their self-styled "bishop" were arrested for rooking the public in door-to-door campaigns on behalf of themselves. A commonplace practice is to inundate the mails with cheap ballpoint pens (the D.A.V. mailed 32 million in one year), punch cards, nail files, copies of the Lord's Prayer and other unrequested items, accompanied by a "remit or return" demand.

The Unknown Soldier's Widow. Such shoddy shady practices are within the law of many states, as long as some pittance goes to a genuine charity, but the Tompkins-Rabin committee promised, after the first round of witnesses last week, to seek legislation to end the charity rackets. Worried administrators of such legitimate charities as the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and the various Community Chests pointed out that their fund-raising and administrative costs rarely exceed 12%. There was widespread fear that worthy causes would suffer financial loss in the exposure of the rackets.

But the U.S. public, which freely contributes to such hoaxes as the relief fund for "The Unknown Soldier's Widow," showed no signs of tightening its purse strings. U.S. charities of all kinds will receive more than $4 billion this year.

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