The District of Columbia as a Local Welfare Unit

Abstract

IN THE zoOlogical garden of public welfare administration in which, if we are to trust the latest authorities, there are no two animals alike, the District of Columbia is a social rhinoceros. You remember the story of the countryman who, when for the first time seeing a rhinoceros in a zoo, said, ain't no such animal. There couldn't be any such animal in the public welfare zoo as the District of Columbia, according to all the theories. Yet there it is, alive, taking nourishment and performing fairly well all the functions of a department of public welfare. The District of Columbia is not described in A. C. Millspaugh's recent book, Public Welfare Organization, which describes all the state systems. Yet the District of Columbia is not within any state and is certainly part of the territory of the United States — a very distillation of the spirits of the United States, as it were. The District of Columbia is not included in a good deal of our federal legislation, which says that a given act shall apply to all of the states and fails to mention specifically the District of Columbia. Consequently, the residents of the District have to be continually vigilant to see that the District is included in acts of Congress when such inclusion is appropriate. By good fortune the District of Columbia is mentioned in the epoch-making Social Security Act, along with Alaska and Hawaii (although it is expressly excluded from the vocational rehabilitation provisions of that broadly inclusive act). The District of Columbia is not a county, although it is governed by commissioners appointed by the President of the United States, just as a good many counties are governed by commissions. The District is not a city, although it is entirely urban in population. Its Public Welfare Department is not considered a city department of public welfare. Still the problems which the public welfare administration handles in the District of Columbia include all of those which cities generally handle.