Abstract

Feuding Over Poverty

"Poverty's where the money is this year," remarked one observer last summer in Washington when the anti-poverty bill was passed. Within weeks, the New York Daily News began a crusade against Mobilization for Youth (MFY), then halfway through its second year on Manhattan, New York, New York State's Lower East Side. MFY is thus a pilot experiment in combating poverty; its fate may well influence the orientation of the national War on Poverty, so crucial to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's vision of the Great Society. Poverty is indeed where the money is this year, as that Washington observer remarked in August 1964. Big Money means Big Power. On November 6, 1964 the Times carried an advertisement supporting MFY. Almost every civil rights leader in the country signed it.