Hunting Down The Welfare Queens

             I was attracted to Joe Nocera’s column on the Op Ed page of this week’s New York Times (Living in Fear of the NCAA) that tells us of the probing into the very personal financial lives of the families of some college star athletes. The column set my mind wandering back 60 Years to a time when I found myself professionally involved in what you might call, the hunt for “welfare queens”, a similar, but slightly different situation.

            I was a young reporter quite new to the business, and somewhat naive to the realities of big city daily journalism. I was assigned to the “health and welfare beat” of the Cleveland Press. The job was touted by my top editors as key for Ohio’s largest newspaper that had earned a reputation as serving the fundamental needs and interests of the hard working blue collar population of our great town.

           Our  compasionate concern for the working poor, the sick and helpless, and their struggles for a decent life in our heavy industry town separated our newspaper from the rest. Indeed, Time magazine had just listed The Press one of the ten greatest newspapers in the nation. 

            But my tough minded city editor, who had the social conscience of a 19^th century slave holder, saw my assignment quite differently. His vision: expose the cheats on the welfare role as well as the dolts of the city and county bureaucracy who were, he believed recklessly spending the taxpayers money

            Thus, I found myself tangled in a web of sensitive tension between my top bosses and their high minded ideals, and the city editor who had different views of our mission. Something of an institutional schizophrenic quandary, you might say. But I dealt with it. I would win no Pulitzer prize but I was doing my job.

             To the delight of my top bosses. I had spent considerable time touting the good deeds of child welfare agencies, nursing home, emerging hospitals, covering juvenile court.   I joined the boards of several community centers. We touted the United Way.  We were good community citizens.

            But the rest was grim, but apparently necessary in the scheme of mid-century urban journalism.  Fairly frequently the city editor with impish gleam in his Irish eyes, would assign me to ride with what he called the “Welfare Police.”   He wanted  a good story.   All I had to is keep my eyes and ears open.  Look for the Cadillac in the driveway, (It might be a Chrysler or a Lincoln), or hidden in the garage. Count the number of televisions, the number of kids. Any sign of a man around the house.  He was dead serious. 

            As it turned out I found little if anything that would make page one, but I saw plenty of sadness, filth and poverty in those ugly government run projects and central city tenements.  There was no shortage of heart wrenching poverty.  The likes of which most do-goodies of the 21^st century would cringe with disgust. And I told that story as I saw it.   If there were welfare queens out there (and I sure there were a few) I didn’t find them.

            And, to be quite honest, I had no regrets.   Instead, was able to tell of the real tragedy of mid-century urban America.  As Joe Nocera said in his column: "How could this be happening in America?"    Perhaps my words more than a half century ago raised some influencial eyebrows.