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Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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History of Cass County, Iowa
Continental Historical Co.,
Springfield, Ill: 1884


  -309-
                             CHAPTER VIII
                        OTHER OFFICIAL MATTERS

                            COUNTY CHARITY

        Although the heart of every man in the county beats in earnest
     sympathy with the poor and destitute that lies within his knowledge,
     and the hand of pity is never withheld, in time of need, from those
     who are in want, the time has not yet arrived when the county has felt
     it just to itself and others, to provide a county home for the friend-
     less. Many, having in their mind the parish poor houses, and unions of
     the old countries, shrink back with horror at the idea, that any, in
     whom they feel an interest, should be doomed to inhabit a place, with-
     in the cold and cheerless walls of such an asylum. Little do they
     think that many a waif, upon the broad and troubled aea of the world's
     bitter experience, has hailed, as a safe harbor, as a secure haven,
     the much dreaded poor-house. Here the weary can find rest, and the
     wolf, starvation, be held at bay, until a brighter day can dawn. To
     those of us that think, the name has many a sad and tender recol-
     lection of pity for the unfortunate wretch, who is compelled to lower
     his pride, and seek relief, rather than meet death by starvation and
     exposure.
        The only effort of any note that has been made in Cass county,
     toward the establishment of a county poor farm, was in January, 1868,
     when a committee of the Board of Supervisors, who had been appointed
     for the purpose of selecting a tract of land for a poor farm, made a
     report, adverse to the whole matter, at that time, as not to the
     interest of the people of the county. So Cass county stands to-day
     without an institution of that character.
        Perhaps it may be partially owing to some mistaken notions of that
     noble charity, and the dread that many citizens have of such institu-
     tions, that there is none, but let not the stranger think, however,
     that it is a land where people are lacking in brotherly charity. The
     method of relief practiced, and the yearly amount annually appropri-
     ated for the relief of the needy, lias only to be scanned to demon-
     strate the fallacy of such a judgment. The weary wight that has lost
     his all through force of untoward circumstances; the widow and orphan
     struggling hard for the daily crust of bread; the waif left to live or
     die, as best it may, can here, all, meet openhanded charity, and a
     people whose heart and purse are ever open to the call of the suffer-
     ing and poverty stricken.

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