Reitz 1 “Off and Running”: Perceptions of the Urban Poor in Denver's War on Poverty Introduction Thomas Malthus, famous classical economist and author of An Essay on the Principle of Population, begins his treatise of 1798 by writing “Hard as it may appear in individual cases, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful”. His words represent the beginnings of a debate that would rage for decades, a debate that would consume vast amounts of political energy, especially in the United States. In Malthus’ time, it was all too common to hear such arguments coming out of the academic class as political economists strove to explain the growing prevalence of impoverished masses in the first years of heavy industrialization and business cycle fluctuation, Knowing little about the marginal economic laws that their academic successors would eventually establish as textbook staples of the study of economics, these early economists were quick to attribute poverty to the defective self- discipline of the poor themselves. Men like Malthus led the theoretical charge against the supposed rampant vice of the underprivileged. It may be tempting for modern students of history and economic theory to consider Malthus’ position thoroughly antiquated by the time of the War on Poverty, which began in 1964. After all, the mission statement of the Office of Economic Opportunity (which was charged with the execution of the War on Poverty in the nation) certainly would seem to have implied a recognition of the many structural causes of urban poverty, rather than a mere resignation to the old idea that the poor are only poor because they make uninformed and dangerous choices. A closer lookReitz 2 at the hundreds of documents concerning Denver Mayor Thomas Currigan and his War on Poverty, housed in the Western History Archive of the Denver Public Library, however, shows a certain tendency of the upper class executives managing the War on Poverty effort to see the poor, (who, the executives obviously desired to help, unlike Malthus) in something of the same old Malthusian light. Not only is this evident throughout several of the reports and correspondences of these men, it also seems to be the case that they held the belief, to some degree, that the poor might not want to be made independent but only fed and housed at the state's expense. They also seem to have harbored such suspicions in the face of readily available and reasonably well-circulated knowledge to the contrary, Furthermore, this unfortunate neglect for the opinions of the poor did not merely exist within Colorado's capitol and surrounding areas. Certain evidence would seem to show that the very essence of this economic philosophy, philosophy which assumes a lack of motivation on the part of the poor to apply their own efforts to the relief of their destitution, was something of an extension of the modus operandi for the Office of Economic Opportunity at the federal level, an organization that may be shown to have virtually micromanaged the anti-poverty campaign in Denver. The best lens through which to glimpse the War on Poverty's nightmare of bureaucratic confusion and constant uncertainty about the capacities and motivations of those its proponents sought to relieve, is with respect to the views that those who actually were poor at the time held about the most appropriateReitz 3 techniques for lifting them out of their unfortunate circumstances. It is through this, lens that this paper will consider the effectiveness of Currigan's campaign. This analysis will also strive to show that the opinions of the poor about their own poverty were not only sought after and discovered by local academics and lobbyists in the trenches of Denver's low-income areas. They were actually presented, in the form of formal bureaucratic reports, to the executive directors of Currigan's War on Poverty Incorporated, months before any government grants were pumped into the roughly five major component projects of the anti-poverty campaign. Now to familiarize ones’ self about the information with which city-level bureaucrats in Denver went into the struggle, is to understand fully the precise way in which the campaign failed the impoverished citizens of Denver. For while it is true that poverty was reduced (at least nominally) in the Mile High City between 1964 and 1970, many of the War on Poverty's welfare benefits disappeared Johnson's Presidency and with the Office of Economic Opportunity, disbanded in 1980. Any truly lasting programs for relief that had their origins in the War on Poverty policies, in Denver and in the nation at large, remain those which responded directly to the demands of the poor who were originally sought out and interviewed in 1964, demonstrating both the self-determination of Denver's urban poor and their profound insight into their own individual struggles with economic di \dvantage. But before support can be offered for these conclusions, a brief overview of the campaign at both the federal and local level (in Denver) is warranted.Reitz 4 So to summarize the basic thesis of this work: firstly, I will endeavor to show how the War on Poverty campaign in Denver was conducted as a mere extension of the program at the national level, as demonstrated by the direct control the Office of Economic Opportunity had over Currigan's campaign. Secondly, I will explain how the War on Poverty was a largely a long-term failure in the city of Denver. Thirdly, | will show, with help from two prominent writers on the subject, that the failure of the campaign was due, in large part, to Malthusian economic ideology in the policies it presented. Asa final note, it will be important for readers to grasp the limits of Malthus’ direct influence on the policy-makers in Denver. At no time will | argue that they read Malthus or kept a copy of his essay on hand as they constructed their programs, as to do so would simply be incorrect. But I will say, however, that the ideology used by the architects of the War on Poverty had its roots in the theories of, Malthus. Their policies can be seen, therefore, as an example of his theories in political practice. The relevance of this point is, of course, that it brings out the true tragedy of the War on Poverty in Denver: that economic theory which was originally highly steeped in Social Darwinism and prejudice was allowed to permeate a program whose initial purpose was to fight that same theory. General Context: The Federal Campaign Some 130 years after Malthus, President Lyndon Johnson, most notable for his "Great Society" initiative of the mid to late 1960s, presented a formal bill to the United States Congress, calling for a full assault against some of the structural causesReitz 5 that had contributed to the swelling numbers of the urban poor in cities across the country during the 1950s. The bill was called the "Economic Opportunity Act" and in. it Johnson's administration made very clear that it intended to devote many millions of dollars to the direct relief of poverty in the United States through a new executive office that would be known as the Office of Economic Opportunity. In a copy of the Economic Opportunity Act, relayed to Currigan's office on March 14, 1964 by Executive Director for the President, John J. Gunther, one of the first of Johnson's war cries rang out: “There are millions of Americans—one fifth of our people—who have not shared in the abundance which has been granted to most of us, and on whom the gates of opportunity have been closed.” The bill was introduced to Congress two days later and was eventually signed into law by the president on August 20, 1964. Johnson's Office of Economic Opportunity would be responsible, in the president's view, for the reduction of poverty rates as well as for the expansion of a lower class that was working toward middle class status or, in other words, for the development of increased opportunities for the working poor to become more financially independent and for the non-working poor to become gainfully employed. The preamble for the Economic Opportunity Act is extremely explicit as, to the function of the OEO, reading “The Director of the Office [of Economic Opportunity] is provided...with authority to carry out new programs to attack Lyndon B, Johnson.““The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964: A Summary”, (March 14. 1964). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Westem History Archive, The Denver Public Library. p. 4Reitz 6 poverty."? As will be discussed in a later section, the continued effectiveness of the O£0's policies may be linked somewhat to the proportions of income granted to the office that were spent on each of the major programs. ‘There were basically five overarching programs that were presented to Congress simultaneously as fixtures of the War on Poverty bill. First was the Job Corps, an organization whose main goal was to provide employment opportunities to underprivileged youth, ages 16-24. Next was the Head Start Program, which was designed to establish better education standards in primary and secondary schools that serviced areas of extreme economic disadvantage. Then came the Volunteers in Service to America program, which focused on providing qualified teachers, doctors and other professionals for underprivileged communities nationwide. Next were the Community Action Programs, whose emphasis was on the generation of economically self-sufficient families, especially from the ranks of those who depended heavily on Aid to Dependent Children payments for their mere survival. Lastly, the OEO made dramatic efforts to provide affordable legal services for the destitute. So it was with great enthusiasm, because the programs promised not only financial, medical, educational and legal aid but self-sufficiency, that many journalists and businessmen across the country took to the War on Poverty with crusader zeal, tickled by political rhetoric which emphasized the liberation of the poor from their daily trials and the liberation of society from the burden of increased welfare payments. Ibid. p. 1Reitz 7 Why the Dream Lost Its Steam: Historiography on the Movement’s Ineffectiveness Unfortunately for Johnson and his supporters, the War on Poverty Campaign had all but entirely lost its political fire and financial resources by the 1970s, To make matters worse, some articles in the Denver Post, published in 1971, even estimated that since 1964, poverty in Denver had actually increased. Whether or not this is true, it speaks volumes about the utter failure of general enthusiasm for the movement, a failure that set in not even a decade after its inception. Many historians, economists and sociologists have speculated as to precisely why this, failure of interest and confidence in techniques for alleviating urban poverty occurred. Generally speaking, there are two dominant sentiments on the matter, The first position is that the poor were not allotted enough welfare payments when the time came to distribute funds from the federal government through metropolitan offices came because those in power considered the poor largely "undeserving" of a portion of public money. According to this school of thought, the resulting lack of financial relief provided little to no incentive for the poor to go to work. Such a view is well represented by the work of academics like Eileen Boris of the University of California at Santa Barbara Feminist Studies Department. In her article "Fighting the War Against Welfare: Teaching the War on Poverty in Historical Perspective", she writes "A larger historical context would serve as a vehicle to deconstruct misunderstandings of the poor and misrepresentations of theReitz 8 circumstances under which the social safety net developed, as inadequate as it has been from the start in rectifying race, gender, and class hierarchies."s For Boris, these “misunderstandings of the poor” are deeply rooted in preconceptions about the “lazy” poor and the “industrious rich”, conceptions that, as has been indicated above, were first championed by classical economists like Malthus. While it may seem to be a rather simplistic explanation, I believe that Boris is correct in her assertion that fears about the mismanagement of new resources and the squandering of new opportunities by the poor were definitely present at the highest levels of Denver's government! Further, Boris’ conclusion that those in poverty in the 1960s were not given enough incentive, through the War on Poverty programs, to go back to work (rather than receive unemployment benefits) is actually quite well supported by interviews with the managers of Denver's Office of Welfare in the late 1960s.5 Now the claim that misconceptions about the causes of poverty pervaded the campaign will be substantiated a bit later. So while Boris was correct about these misconceptions, her central argument, which tries to connect them to a lack of transfer payments to newly created government jobs, only explains why self- sufficiency wasn't accomplished on the employment front. In short, it leaves questions unanswered about the way in which hopes for self-sufficiency were * Bileen Boris, "Fighting the War Against Welfare: Teaching the War on Poverty in Historical Perspective” Radical History Review Vol, 69 (1997): p. 191 “Denver's War on Poverty Report”, (July 11, 1964). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Western History Archive, The Denver Public Library. p. 42 ® Jack Gaskie. “Red Tape Slows Denver's War on Poverty p26. "The Rocky Mountain News (January 30, 1966).Reitz 9 disappointed in the area of education. Further, articles from a 1965 issue of The Rocky Mountain News suggest that the majority of new jobs were directly created and administered by the government, rather than private firms. This, contrary to popular belief about the inherent security of government jobs, could well have inspired a lack of confidence in the security of market labor that perhaps frightened some poorer people, the real targets of the initiative, away from application. ADC and unemployment benefits had been around for a few decades by the time the War on Poverty was initiated and many of the unemployed considered the welfare payments they received to be reliable. It is possible that some would have considered the new government jobs to be as fleeting as the administrations which created them, Indeed, many proved to be. Fears about whether new jobs would last would, in the minds of those receiving aid, have retained the value of a their families’ non-market work by retaining the previous relative value of their welfare benefits. The result would be a failure of participation in the jobs newly created by the government. So Boris’ analysis, while insightful, is insufficient to totally explain the relationship between misconceptions about the inherent character, capacity and motivations of poor people and the seeming failure of the system to provide them with economic independence. The only truly devastating criticism of this conclusion would entail a concession to Boris’ ideological opponents, who would have to claim that the poor ® Jack Gaskie. “Success Ultimately Hinges on Shape of the State Economy”, The Rocky Mountain News (September 30, 1965),Reitz 10 are not educated enough, and therefore lack the necessary knowledge, to draw such conclusions. Fortunately for interested historians who would agree that Boris’ analysis, ‘seems meager, there also is another school of thought. Something generally notable about the theory coming out of itis that it seems to be favored more by economic historians than by members of the other sub-fields of the historical discipline. Because of this phenomenon, the fundamental principles of the theory can be found in the work of economist Robert H. Haveman, John Bascom Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Robert M. LaFollete Institute of Public Affairs. In an article published entitled "The War on Poverty and the Poor and Non- poor”, Haveman presents statistics suggesting that during and immediately after the War on Poverty, many of the transfer payments that were intended to fund education efforts in the poorest neighborhoods of America's sprawling urban centers, were actually made to organizations and individuals that did not qualify, under the standards set by modern economists, as poor. In this enlightening article, Haveman claims "..about 80% of total SWEs [social welfare expenditures] on education in the 1965-1980 period has gone to the non-poor”? Such research suggests that there were other causes for the failure of officials to provide independent solvency for many of the poor than by the mere lack of sufficient boost in market income from new government jobs, as Boris argues. Robert H. Haveman, "The War on Poverty and the Poor and Nonpoor". Political Science Quarterly 102, No.1 (1987). p.70.Reitz 11 The specific object of this paper, which encompasses the thesis given above, will be to reconcile these two theories. For even though neither can be said to truly account for the general lack of self-suffi ncy during and after the War on Poverty campaign, they both offer insights into grasping the whole picture. Even more than this, however, they both seem to be missing only each other's insight. In order to achieve this reconciliation, what follows will attempt to demonstrate, by examining the microcosm of Denver's own War on Poverty, the quasi-Malthusian rejection of the pauper's self-determination that was present within the calculations of Currigan's panel of officials (Boris' contribution) and the impact that those misconceptions about the poor had on the mal-distribution of federal funds into specific programs at the local level (Haveman's contribution). By fusing these two approaches, we will begin to fully appreciate the extent to which the War on Poverty truly was or was not a failure. General Context: The Denver Theater of the "War" Even though it did not share an extremely high degree of poverty with certain other, generally larger urban centers, one of the very first cities to jump on the "War on Poverty" bandwagon, curiously, was Denver, Colorado. Denver's mayor, ‘Thomas Currigan, being as avidly Democratic as Johnson, was quick to become personally invested in the fight against poverty in the City and County of Denver, as well as in the counties which made up the Greater Denver Metropolitan Area. So quick was he, in fact, that he had begun preparations to fight the War on Poverty inReitz 12 Denver as early as April, 1964 Later that year, after the passing of the Federal Economic Opportunity Act, he speedily assembled a corporation of bureaucrats he would (creatively) dub "Denver's War on Poverty, Inc." and immediately began corresponding regularly with R. Sargent Shriver, the newly appointed Federal Director of the OEO, and other top federal executives affiliated with the newly established Office of Economic Opportunity. In one carly letter from Shriver to Currigan, Shriver wrote “As you know, the success of the Community Action Program would depend upon the kind of initiative Denver is showing in mobilizing for a local war on poverty, and I encourage you to continue the efforts you have begun."® Clearly, Denver's eagerness to cooperate with the OEO was well appreciated by federal government officials Likewise, the initial response to the campaign in the immediate locality of Denver and its surrounding suburbs was also quite enthusiastic and positive. Letters poured into Currigan’s office, lauding him and his newly selected officials for both their willingness to become the architects of the movement and for the seeming promise of the blueprints of their new programs. One citizen of a lower- income neighborhood in Denver had remarked at one of Denver War on Poverty Inc.'s conferences, in reference to the coming Neighborhood Services Center, that the neighborhood services program would be a very good thing because it “would Bemard Valdez, “Letter from Bernard Valdez to Mayor Currigan.” (April 22, 1964). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Wester History Archive, The Denver Public Library. R. Sargent Shriver. “Letter to Mayor Thomas Currigan’” (August 5, 1964). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Western History Archive, The Denver Public LibraryReitz 13 help the residents to help themselves." The number of these enthusiastic statements that were written as a means of flattering political leaders is unclear, as many of them came from lesser politicians, lobbyists and activists. One thing that is quite clear, however, is that by the end of 1964, there was very little, if any, anticipation that the campaign would be anything but fruitful and effective. While this optimism reveals much that may not be relevant to this analysis, it certainly helps to show the extent to which Denver’ poverty war may more or less be considered a small scale expression of the larger national program. This can be gleaned from the description of the popularity of the movement on the national level, already described above. Now much has been noted already about the degree to which Denver's War on Poverty Inc. was a puppet corporation under the control of the OEO. It is necessary that a moment be taken to clarify this relationship, in order to reveal who precisely was responsible for the fade out of the movement's popularity, as well as for whatever long-term failures may be attributed to it. Regarding this relationship, Currigan himself expressed frustration with the micromanagement by the OEO and its leaders. He especially resented the tendency for Shriver and his immediate subordinates to play the constant watchdog in nearly every major city for which they provided anti-poverty funding.” This scrutiny from the OEO was believed by several political analysts at the time to represent an effort of the newly established ‘© Denver's War on Poverty, Inc, Neighborhood Services Center Report”, (April 21,1965). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Western History Archive, The Denver Public Library. p. 2 "Dan Thomasson. "Denver's Poverty War Under Watch", The Rocky Mountain News (April 21, 1966)Reitz 14 office to ensure that the poor would vote in favor of Shriver's representatives in upcoming elections." However frustrated the board members of Denver's War on Poverty Inc. were with all the close monitoring of their actions, they were themselves responsible for holding many false preconceptions about the nature of the poor, the support for which and the significance of which will be discussed at length in a later section. ‘The Seminar: Community Leaders Listen In September and October of 1964, a group of professors from the University of Colorado at Denver held a conference in the heart of downtown Denver called the "Employment Security Institute on the Management and Operation of Youth Opportunity Programs", a conference whose goals were two-fold, Firstly, sociologists like Professor Howard Higman, who was then the director of the Institute on Youth Unemployment, wanted to assess the basic desires of those who were living in conditions of extreme poverty. He would then gather a list of, recommendations from them about just how to fight the War on Poverty. Secondly, bureaucrats from Currigan's own office would be invited so that they could learn first hand what living with poverty is like. This knowledge, the seminar’s hosts thought, would help them to better interpret sociological and economic statistics on poverty in Denver and would also better equip them to draw up effective policies. Interestingly, the disadvantaged youth who were given the incentive to appear at Ibid.Reitz 15 the conference by means of an award of three-credits in general studies at the University of Colorado, were not meant to come as students." They were brought in tobe the teachers. The Institute's seminar was covered in extreme detail in an article of Empire Magazine, working with information gathered through the Denver Post. The article, which took up a full eleven pages in the issue, was published in November of 1964, not even one month after the closing comments of the gathering, This article gives a vivid description of how the seminar was conceived in the minds of local leaders in the fields of the behavioral sciences, like Higman. "The counselor-students [or bureaucratic guests] would learn about poverty not from university professors, but from unemployed teenagers, ne'er-do-wells, policemen, social workers, aid-to- dependent children mothers and outside experts. je further noted that the U.S. Labor Department had originally asked Higman to feature only the lectures of intellectual authorities at the seminar but he, being known for doing things in an unconventional way, insisted on the "grass-roots" approach that was eventually adopted. The information that those who attended the seminar gleaned from their impoverished instructors was not only insightful, it was a bit surprising. Many of the youth who were present openly disapproved of any proposed programs that would only work to put them into temporary jobs. They argued that without an emphasis "° Mark Bearwald. "Basic Training in the War on Poverty." Empire Magazine with information from The Denver Post. (November 29, 1964). p. 16 "Wid. pe 16.Reitz 16 on education and the cultivation of human capital (work experience, job skills, education, etc.) they knew they would not keep their new jobs for very long. After a socio-drama was performed by social worker Dorothy Sherman about an underprivileged, jobless woman named Betty Andrews, "it quickly became clear to all the student: that Betty Andrews needed a lot more than a part-time job.""5 Also evident at the seminar was the general sentiment that the poverty relief services that were in place by that time targeted and relieved only those who already had built some human and social capital. As Sherman would later tell the employment agents who were present, "..the employment services you administer are tailored more for people like me, with many skills and a good employment record, rather than for people..with few skills and a spotty record, or no record at all."16 This evidence leads me to believe that the poor, uneducated attendees of the Institute's seminar, contrary to ideas circulating among certain concerned government officials, had more than enough mental capacity to see that merely acquiring a job, and not a decent education and record of work experience, would only treat one symptom of their condition, not the disease itself. Not only was such valuable data on the poor community's opinions about poverty being compiled by the academics and the select bureaucrats who attended the seminar, but it was also being collected and analyzed by the board members of the Denver War on Poverty Corporation itself. Some concerns of the poorer citizens interviewed by the Corporation before the programs were designed, “might be °S tid, p17 “TidReitz 17 summarized’, as the authors of the report on the Neighborhood Service Center Program noted, “as follows: opportunity for job training and employment through assistance of the Center in locating resources for this; opportunities for employment within the framework [of the program] and benefits to be derived from guidance in budgeting and [resource] management."”” A close look at these recommendations by the poor will reveal that the Denver War on Poverty Corporation received virtually the same suggestions in its formal reports as did those who held the Employment Security Institute Seminar. This is important because while some board members did go to the Seminar, they did not derive their reports from it. This is somewhat evidenced by the fact that the Seminar is not referenced in the report. Now that I have established that the opinions of Denver's urban poor were documented and also that those opinions were delivered to Currigan’s Denver War on Poverty Incorporated, an investigation into the extent to which their suggestions were carried out is warranted. What to Do With All Those Dollars Twill now examine the budget breakdown of the War on Poverty effort, at both the federal and local levels, in order to achieve a proper understanding of the extent to which the concerns of the Board of Directors of Currigan’s Corporation deviated from those of the people it worked to help. Here again we notice the striking similarity between the way government grants to fight poverty were “Dan Thomasson, "Denver's Poverty War Under Watch’, The Rocky Mountain News (April 21, 1966),Reitz 18, distributed at the federal level and the way they were handed out by local officials. Nowhere does the possibility that Denver's managers of the War on Poverty effort were acting as mere instruments of implementation for the federal Office of Economic Opportunity seem more probable, than when one performs such a budget analysis. At the federal level, the budget for the first year of the campaign was broken down roughly as follows: First, 412 million dollars was spent on Youth Opportunity Programs nationwide. Such programs included the Job Corps as well as any other employment creation organizations. Next, 315 million dollars was pumped into urban and rural community action programs, which placed the heaviest emphasis, on education reform, 50 million dollars was spent on rural economic opportunity programs (not relevant on the Denver level). A mere 25 million dollars was expended in “incentives for the employment of the unemployed.” According to a report on the Economic Opportunity Act itself, 150 million dollars were put forward in order to foster family unity through jobs creation.'* Here we see the inherent good logic of the first part of Boris’ critique of the War on Poverty's focus. For while 25 million dollars were fronted by the OEO in order to provide incentives for employment in the first year of the campaign, not a single dollar was allotted for the distribution of small business loans."? The excuse that the original summary of the budget breakdown gave for this is found in ' Lyndon B. Johnson.“The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964: A Summary”, (March 14, 1964). The ‘Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Western History Archive, The Denver Public Library. p. | "Wid. p.l.Reitz 19 “Utilizes existing funding extremely small print at the bottom of the summary pag authority"2° In other words, the government was not willing to risk its resources on public finance through government banking, although the structures which could ivate have accommodated such a decision were in place. Rather than stimulate pi investment and the accumulation of private capital for poor families interested in building businesses, Johnson's office chose to rely on private banks to finance such ventures (at significantly higher rates of interest). So when Boris writes about the lack of confidence, on the part of the federal government, in the capacity of the poor to manage their own assets, we may believe her. Not only was this negative perception about the financial competency of the urban poor observable at the federal level, it was also quite present in the minds of the managers of the Denver Metropolitan Area's anti-poverty crusade. For much of the budget in Denver's war on poverty also was reserved for job-creation, but again, only for job creation in the public sector. An article from the Rocky Mountain News describes the growing concern, as the years of fighting poverty in the city dragged on, that local firms were not investing enough privately in order to ensure a lasting, economic improvement for Denver's poorest neighborhoods. This article demonstrates that both the federal and local focus of funds (the focus of funds in the City and County of Denver), as they concerned methods of providing incentives for employment were basically identical. Furthermore, it sheds light on one of the ® Ibid., p.l ® Jack Gaskie. “Success Ultimately Hinges on Shape of the State Economy”, The Rocky Mountain News (September 30, 1965),Reitz 20 causes of the public's failure of confidence in the effectiveness of the campaign as a whole that was well documented by 1971. Turning to another major focus of the funding of programs in the War on oor”, we observe further trends of Poverty, the determination of who actually was " the influence of the OEO on the allocation of those funds by Denver officials. As has been noted by Robert Haveman, there seems to have been no great attempt to distinguish, on the federal level, between those who were not genuinely living in poverty and those who were? Hence, many of those who are considered “non- poor” by today's definitions received a significant amount of funding for enhanced opportunities to continue their education, at the expense of those now categorized as “poor”. In Denver, as at the federal level, board members were quick to settle on certain statistical definitions of what constituted poverty. The US. Census Bureau, whose data was used by both Denver and federal officials to identify those living in poverty, actually had no level of income measure lower than the category “those families with income less than $3,000 annually.” For modern economists like Haveman, the figure may have been too high, giving unnecessary funding to those who could feasibly help themselves without assistance from government transfer payments. These are the people Haveman refers to as the “non-poor” receiving the Robert H. Haveman, "The War on Poverty and the Poor and Nonpoor”. Political Science Quarterly 102, No.1 (1987), p. 70. assurance of Compliance with the Office of Economic Opportunity’s Regulations under TitleV1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and consus data)”, (April 29, 1965). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, ‘Western History Archive, The Denver Public Library. p. 1Reitz 21 benefits that could do more good if channeled completely toward the genuinely desperate. Why All the Apparent Mismanagement? Of fundamental interest to this paper, is the fact that the board members of Denver's War on Poverty Inc. may have derived and advocated their notions about what made a family poor from more than just an arbitrary figure in the census. Obviously, ifall the government grants for the funding of increased education of the poor went to those on the lowest end of the annual income scale, then, given the lack of trust in the poorest and least educated people to handle their transfer payments to their own benefit, the worst possible investment of government resources would have been made. As has been noted, the figure chosen most commonly to represent the specific definition of poverty was, not surprisingly, that of the Census Bureau as it appears in this “measuring stick” capacity all throughout the Corporation's progress reports in the years between 1964 and 19712425 ‘The issue now at hand is whether there is any support for the claim that Malthusian ideas about how a person becomes poor and stays poor influenced the relegation of federal resources in Denver's War on Poverty. Such support is, oddly, not difficult to find in the reports put forward by Denver's War on Poverty Incorporated in 1965. One report discussed the nature of low-income students in ‘Denver's War on Poverty Report”, (July 11, 1964) The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Western History Archive, The Denver Public Library ** “Denver's War on Poverty Report”, (1965). The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Western History Archive, The Denver Public LibraryReitz 22 their pursuit of education, as “..they [extremely low-income students] lack the ability to achieve according to the standards of the dominant culture; they lack motivation for traditional education; they lack satisfaction from personal achievement...”25 Whether or not students truly lack the ability to achieve given the ifficult to for education standards set for them in 1964 is debatable, but it is historians to believe, given the results of the Seminar, that these particular poor people would genuinely have lacked satisfaction from their personal accomplishments. Ideas such as these, and such as are presented in the reports on Denver's War on Poverty Inc,, are Malthusian in the extreme. These suggest that the poor are somehow hardwired for failure and they fall just short of blaming poor people themselves for their own lack of opportunity. Beyond education, this type of distrust in the abilities, capacities and motivations of the poor is present in a newspaper interview given by Bernard Valdez, Director of Denver's Office of Welfare, board member of Denver's War on Poverty Inc, and virtual right hand man to Thomas Currigan in his endeavors to alleviate poverty in the city. "In the beginning," Valdez told a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, “a big fear was that we wouldn't be able to motivate these people to want to improve themselves. That's no problem. Once we convince them we mean it, they're off and running- and very impatient with us for not moving as fast as they'd like.*27 So even Valdez who, along with Corky Gonzales (another board member), * thid, p 42. ~ Jack Gaske. “Red Tape Slows Denver's War on Poveny”, The Rocky Mountain News (January 30, 1966). p26Reitz. 23 was meant to represent the interests of the Chicano community in Denver, which was one of the poorest groups, admitted to feeling surprised that underprivileged people were as motivated to work as they eventually proved to be. Another significantly point that Valdez made in the same newspaper interview was that Denver's War on Poverty Board originally had an ADC welfare recipient on it. In regards to why she was asked to leave the board, Valdez said the following: "That seemed to a lot of the agency people to be going pretty far, because you must remember that the agencies are used to assuming that clients can't solve their own problems, let alone problems of the kind a board faces."2"' tremendous relevance of this statement to my thesis is practically self-evident, fully exposing what Valdez was convinced represented the assumptions of the Board. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this underlying disbelief in the desire for the poor to better their lives, is not just that it was entertained by the same government heads who, in th political rhetoric, preached the re-evaluation and reform of a system rigged against those with little to no human capital, but that those leaders, in both local and federal government, did so in spite of evidence for that desire. In other words, Currigan and his bureaucrats were well aware of the burning desperation of the poor in Denver to improve their circumstances and also that they were willing to do so by hard work, rather than reliance on government hand-outs. This has been demonstrated by the information gathered for both the Employment Security Institute on the Management and Operation of Youth Ibid.Reitz 24 Opportunity Programs in the very first months of the “war” and the same report in which the ideas about a poor person's self-discipline and self-determination may be found. Reconciling Theories So it appears that the best apparent explanation for the failure of long term confidence in and effectiveness of Denver's War on Poverty Campaign is the same best apparent explanation for the basic long-term failure of the federal government's campaign. This follows anyway, as the methods for each campaign, both federal and local, were extremely similar, if not practically identical. That best apparent explanation, as has been already indicated, can be found in the marriage of the istinctly valid, though incomplete, observations of Boris and Haveman. What Haveman lends to the explanation is a more sophisticated economic analysis of the insufficiency of government policies and mismanagement of funds in the 1960s to alleviate poverty in the long-term, than Boris provides. In his article, he is very careful to explain how the funds put forward in the area of education, which is incidentally the area that needed the most attention according to the urban poor who were interviewed in Denver. What Boris offers, despite her lacking Haveman’s insight, is a precise estimation of the causes of that federal fund mismanagement, namely that it was not brought about by the ignorance or incompetence of those wielding the funds, but rather through a fear that those who would receive the fundsReitz 25, did not have the intelligence, the responsibility or the motivation to put them to use in the interest of the community. Conclusion The cruelest irony of the War on Poverty, an irony that is so painfully evident in the campaign that was waged in Denver, is that, unlike Thomas Malthus, men like Johnson and Currigan recognized at least in their own speeches to Congress and to conventions of listeners in Denver, that the largest root causes of urban poverty were structural and systemic.2%° And yet, Johnson's Office of Economic Opportunity and Currigan's War on Poverty Inc. both seem, however unconsciously, to have allowed the old liberal economist’s caricature of the lazy poor man to influence their actions, to the partial mismanagement of the resources they were given the authority to distribute. On top of this, Haveman's contribution to the analysis of the War on Poverty helps interested historians to understand, from the standpoint of, modern macroeconomic theory, just why these misconceptions about the poor contributed to the overall long-term insufficiency of the movement to do what it had, in those early years, promised to the most underprivileged people in the nation. ® Lyndon B, Johnson.“The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964: A Summary”, (March 14, 1964), The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Westen History Archive, The Denver Public Library Remarks of Mayor Currigan at Conference Concerning Denver's ‘War on Poverty”, (July 11, 1964). ‘The Thomas Currigan Papers, WH929, Wester History Archive, The Denver Public Library.