Searching (of course) for something else, I found myself looking at Tom Johnson’s account of the recovery from the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Initially, the community organized for its own relief, everyone was assigned a job and there was no quibbling over money. But after a time…
To meet the problem of a community with no money was not easy, but we were presently confronted with the graver problem of a community with too much money. The greatly exaggerated reports of the loss of property and of human lives, the first press dispatches placing the number of the latter at ten thousand, brought a correspondingly great volume of relief. Continue reading Charity and money