Poverty and Equality: A Distant Mirror

• Published in: Michigan Law Review 2002, Vol.100 (6), p.1661-1675
• Main Author: Nichol, Gene R.
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Conservatism; Court decisions; Equality; Evaluation; Families; Government policy; History; Law and legislation; Lifestyles; Lives in the Law; Morality; Poverty; Reforms; Social aspects; Social conditions & trends; Society; Welfare
• ISSN: 0026-2234; 1939-8557
• DOI: 10.2307/1290461

Book review(s) of: 'Fighting poverty with virute: Moral reform and America's urban poor, 1825-2000', by Joel Schwartz. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 2000. Pp. 353. Cloth, $39.95; and 'Mother Jones: The most dangerous woman in America', by Elliott J. Gorn. New York: Hill & Wang. 2001. Pp. 408. Cloth, $27. In one sense, Joel Schwartz's new effort, 'Fighting poverty with virtue', is tremendously timely. Bill Clinton's 'Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act' of 1996 was designed to "end welfare as we know it," turning greater attention to poor people's habits than to their pocketbooks. George Bush's compassionate conservatism is meant to pick up the pace, overtly seeking "to save and change lives." The White House's ominously entitled "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives" is apparently set to unleash new waves of moral reformers. Elliott Gorn's first-rate biography of "Mother Jones,'' the "mother of the commonwealers" (page 63), effectively chronicles the life of a rabble-rouser unlike any on the political land­ scape today - even at the fringes. Amidst violence, massacres, bois­terous organizing tours, surprisingly powerful electoral campaigns, and countless strikes, successful and unsuccessful, Mother Jones fought for decades to lift the fortunes of the economically powerless.