The Arkansas General Assembly is to be commended for deciding to extend Medicaid benefits to the working poor of the state. It is nice to see Arkansas in the vanguard of states trying to deal with the health needs of the poor. Throughout most of our history, Arkansas has been slow to come to the aid of the downtrodden.
To be blunt, before the federal government forced Arkansas to create a public welfare program in 1935, there were no real safety nets to ensure that paupers could survive. Charles Dickens would have felt right at home in Arkansas prior to the New Deal,where the especially destitute who had bad luck were sometimes sent to live on poor farms.
From territorial times, Arkansas had left the care of paupers and the disabled to county government. It appears that a large percentage of the needy were cared for by their families, but many had no family support and were left to the mercy of the counties.
The earliest record I have located on county care for paupers is a Pulaski County expenditure of $100 in 1821. The 1851 Legislature authorized county governments to establish poor houses. These institutions varied a great deal, but usually they were situated on farmland where the inmates who were able to work were expected to help raise food.
Some counties contracted with private parties to run the poor farms, with the understanding that the contractor could sell unneeded farm produce.
Conditions on these poor farms varied greatly. An 1877 newspaper story from Searcy reported on the White County poor farm and its nine inmates. Most of the residents were described as "helpless women and children," and the few male inmates all suffered from physical handicaps ranging from blindness to "the rheumatics."
The Greene County poor farm was established in 1891 on 85 acres three miles north of Paragould. By 1919, the Greene County farm's reputation was so bad that a grand jury investigated. "Everything pertaining thereto is in bad sanitary condition," the grand jury found among many other things.
As far as I know, the state got into direct welfare assistance in 1867, when the first post-war Legislature authorized expenditures for artificial limbs for Confederate veterans. Despite the fact that the Union won the war, the 1867 Legislature was controlled by ex-Confederates, and they made no provisions to help Union veterans. This sort of stick-in-the-eye activity played out across the South, which helped bring on Reconstruction.
Religious and fraternal organizations provided some support for the poor, especially homes for orphans. These were especially important to Black citizens since apparently many of the county poor farms were limited to whites.
Batesville, for example, was home to an orphanage owned by the Masonic Lodge in the decades prior to World War II. The Little Rock-based Black Mosaic Templars offered medical services to members. The Methodist Church created the Arkansas Methodist Orphanage in Little Rock in 1902. The Presbyterians sponsored many social programs, including a children's home in Monticello.
Historian Michael B. Dougan has written that "the movement for state welfare assistance" began in 1892 when the state took responsibility for the Confederate Veterans Home on Sweet Home Pike southeast of Little Rock. In 1907, the state enacted a second law to provide artificial limbs to disabled Confederate veterans.
As Dougan concluded, "the glowing rhetoric of the Lost Cause justified this favored treatment for [Confederate] veterans; aid in other areas followed slowly."
Some progress was made in helping the indigent during the progressive era of the early 20th century. The Arkansas Conference on Charities and Correction was organized in 1912, seeking public and private support for a wide variety of social causes ranging from juvenile delinquency to public health.
Perhaps reacting to this growing public sentiment for reform, the 1917 General Assembly adopted the Mothers' Pension Law, which provided stipends to mothers with dependent children. The stipends were tiny, $10 for the first child and $5 for each successive one, the latter amount equal to the tobacco allowance given each veteran in the Confederate Home.
Concerned individuals played important roles in highlighting the needs of impoverished Arkansans. Rabbi Ira E. Sanders, who became the leader of Reform Judaism in Little Rock after his 1926 appointment as rabbi at congregation B'nai Israel, was active in a broad array of social and welfare programs such as the Little Rock Community Fund, and in 1927 he became president of the Central Council of Social Agencies in 1927.
That same year the energetic rabbi established the Little Rock School of Social Work in conjunction with the University of Arkansas Extension Department. Sanders trained a cadre of social workers who were soon employed by state and federal relief programs during the Roosevelt New Deal.
The arrival of the Great Depression in 1929 changed the nature of public assistance in Arkansas and the nation. Arkansas had endured poor economic conditions for generations, but it got much worse as a combination of flooding, severe drought, and poor cotton prices meant that even healthy men could not provide for their families. The food riot at England in 1931 was vivid testimony to the severity of the situation.
Things changed dramatically in 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. Within seven months of his inauguration, 15 percent of Arkansas families were on relief rolls. Many school districts were able to resume classes due to federal aid, and countless children were being fed with "surplus commodities" provided by the national government. After a time, the federal authorities balked at providing all the relief while Arkansas Gov. J.M. Futrell cut the state budget.
When New Deal officials insisted that Arkansas help with relief costs, the General Assembly created a Department of Public Welfare, but refused to appropriate funding. The furious federal authorities in March 1935 immediately stopped all relief in Arkansas, which was devastating to the one-quarter of the state's population then on relief.
The reaction was fierce, and Governor Futrell recalled the Legislature into session, warning of "angry mobs ... running loose in this state" if actions were not taken. Although they grumbled loudly, the legislature did make a welfare appropriation, but it was the lowest in the nation.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at [email protected]. An earlier version of this column was published Aug. 21, 2013.