"Almost every day of my life," he writes in a New York Times column, "I see a body sprawled on the sidewalk.... Some show signs of life; others are totally still. I assume they are all alive but I never stop to find out or even bend over to see if I could possibly be of some help."[1]

The familiarity in large cities in the United States of the people wrapped in cardboard," those "bag ladies shuffling in the night streets to keep warm," is acute and distressing. Rosenthal's failure to do anything about their plight leads him to classify himself among those moral cowards who failed to come to the help of Kitty Genovese. He is angry—at himself and "at the cops and the hospital people for not taking them somewhere they can be taken care of."

Social history suggests that few of us are able to accept all people in distress as equally deserving of our assistance. (Recall Emerson's derisory reference to "alms for sots.")

Some people seem to be in greater need than others, to be more deserving of help.

• Howard University was recently the scene of a "mock tribunal" to "dispel the myths of the homeless." According to a report in the Washington Post, homeless men and women told about their experiences in shelters and how they came to be homeless in the first place.

The room fell silent as David Hamilton Jones, 47, came for­ward on crutches. Jones said he once worked as an electrical engineer for companies that contracted with the federal government. For him, health problems that kept him from working caused financial problems, and he found it difficult to find a place to live. He told the audience he wants to work. "I'm not looking for a handout."[2]

In modern societies, needs have come to be defined increasingly as rights. The moral rhetoric seeks to persuade us that rights are not only political, but economic and even cul­tural. A central moral issue of philanthropy, then, is the way in which we choose, establish, and affirm such rights. One approach is for philanthropic voices to bring pressure to bear on the public authorities. Roman Catholic Bishop John R. McGann, of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York, argues in a New York Times essay that "affordable housing is a basic human right."'[3] The bishop urges an end to the curtailment of federal funds for the housing of the elderly and the handicapped, "in light of the grave moral respon­sibility of government to be deeply involved in such a critical need of its citizenry."

The antipoverty activist Mitch Snyder recently concluded a hunger strike that successfully preserved a public building as a shelter for the homeless in Washington. The hunger strike is by now a familiar device to win public sympathy for a cause and also to bring public pressure to bear on officials. Personal witness of this kind, in its many familiar variations in recent times, is an essential ingredient of American philanthropic discourse.

• Charles Hyder, self-identified by his sign "Fasting Physicist," had lost 160 pounds (of an original 310 at the starting point six months earlier) when he received a message from Mikhail Gorbachev:

Your spiritual strength is needed to continue the struggle for preventing a nuclear catastrophe. For that reason, we urge you to stop your hunger strike.[4]

In the rhetoric of philanthropy, basic needs come before less urgent ones. Corporal alms often come before spiritual alms, as Thomas Aquinas said many centuries ago. The elderly, the handicapped, and small children presumably have a more pressing claim on philanthropic resources than does the unemployed electrical engineer. Still, the engineer's need may be more easily met and dealt with, while those other claims seem endless.

There is no national assessment of the philanthropic effort as a whole, no "National Philanthropic Policy" established by Congress. We have only a gross calculation of how much money is contributed and to which areas of concern it is directed. We have, of late, estimates of the numbers of volunteers and rough breakdowns of what they do. National philanthropic priorities change depending on media coverage, economic conditions, and prevailing ideological winds. How then do we choose among the myriad of opportunities to do good?

One quandary of philanthropy is the priority given to needs near at hand when there is suffering elsewhere. One answer is to balance them: the sponsors of the United States portion of the Live Aid concert later organized Hands Across America. The former fundraising effort was aimed at the plight of starving people in Africa, the latter at the plight of those in poverty in this country.

As Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt have pointed out, some public choices have tragic side effects.[5] Calabresi analyzed, for example, the method of allocation of kidney dialysis machines. The number of machines available was determined to be significantly smaller than the life‑dependent demands on them. A first-order solution is to limit categorically those who are eligible to have access to the machines (by age group, for example). A second-order solution is to provide more machines; implicit in this second-order solution is a further reallocation that directs more medical resources to those suffering from kidney disease and less to those suffering from other diseases.

Those who cannot face the consequences of first-order choices turn to second-order choices, but discourse about the moral implications of second-order choices tends to be ignored by those whose entry into the matter is an agonizing first-order emergency. As Calabresi points out, some first-order solutions are morally intolerable, even though equally tragic second-order consequences may follow if we avoid them.

Philanthropy as moral discourse is cacaphonic. Those who believe that philanthropy represents a sector (as politics and economics are sectors) often indulge the babel of claims it as if it were guided by a Smithian invisible hand. The philanthropic marketplace is a triumph of free enterprise, scarcely restrained by the gentle guidance of the IRS. Anyone captured by a moral cause can organize and seek to enlist others to serve the same cause.

• The evangelical preacher and faith healer Oral Roberts, an early exponent of the electronic church, captured national attention by announcing that he would be dead within a year if he was not successful in raising $8 million to relieve fi­nancial pressures on the medical center he founded in Okla­homa. According to the evangelical Protestant monthly Christianity Today:

"I desperately need you to come into agreement with me concerning my life being extended beyond March," states a fund raising letter signed by Roberts. "God said, 'I want you to use the ORU medical school to put My medical presence on earth. I want you to get this going in one year or I will call you home!'" Roberts said he received this message last March....

Calvin College communications professor Quentin Schultze, a student of Christian fund raising, criticized Roberts's latest appeal, saying it reflects poorly on Christian organizations. But he added: "You've got to see it in the context of a man who has a tremendous amount of pressure on him. He's at the top of an organization that has to bring in millions of dollars each year to keep things going. . . ."

Critics say Roberts's approach to raising funds, even if sincere, constitutes a kind of moral blackmail. . . .[6]

Philanthropy as moral discourse is most often couched in terms that reflect immediate personal experience:

• Sammy Davis Jr., the entertainer and motion picture actor, almost died of liver disease. According to an interview in Newsday, Davis now believes that because he has survived his illness he has a responsibility to help others similarly afflicted. Davis expresses the common experience of a calling to philanthropic action:

"Maybe that's one reason I have survived.... I think I was put here to do more than sing 'Bojangles' and 'Candyman.'"[7]

• A man named David Tilman was the subject of a recent newspaper profile in the Daily Progress of Charlottesville. The reporter expressed admiration for Tilman's capacity for Voluntary service to the Boy Scouts and as a member of the volunteer fire department and rescue squad while at the same, time holding down a full-time job with the telephone company. "I just figure the Boy Scout work is more important ... so I go with that. That's one reason I quit the National Guard (after 22 years of service), was because of the Boy Scouts."[8]

The newspaper profile was one of a series on "Piedmont People," a familiar journalistic device to lend support to philanthropic work as a community service. Our democratic populism wants us to believe that ordinary people participate in the moral discourse of philanthropy as much as powerful organizations or famous personalities.

The strong will and sense of purpose that Emerson wrote about is transformed by moral aspiration. As Emerson saw so clearly, the moral sentiment can be foolish as well as practical, fraudulent as well as self-sacrificing. We must judge them all. Our answer to the claims of the helpless and the moral arguments of those who come to their aid is a measure of our civility, our humanity, and our good sense.

NOTES

The examples I have chosen reflect my recent parochial reading habits as a former resident of New York now resident in Virginia, but the kinds of evidence offered here will be found in the newspapers of every American community.

[1] A. M. Rosenthal, "The 39th Witness," New York Times (Long Island ed.), Feb. 12, 1987, Section 1, p. 31.

[2] "Dispelling the Myths of the Homeless," Washington Post, Feb. 15, 1987, p. B3.

[3] "Affordable Housing is a Basic Human Right," New York Times (Long Island Edition), January 25, 1987, Section 4, p. 25.

[4] "Personalities," Washington Post, Feb. 28, 1987. Mr. Hyder's hungcr strike was still under way as this was written.

[5] Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt, Tragic Choices (New York: Norton, 1978).

[6] "Did Oral Roberts Go Too Far?" Christianity Today, Feb. 20, 1987, Vol. 31, pp. 43-45.

[7] "People," Newsday, June 18, 1985.

[8] Lawrence Hardy, "Search for David Tillman Could Lead Number of Places," Daily Progress, Feb. 22, 1987.