Kerby Anderson

One time when I was speaking on the subject of entitlements, someone reminded me of the scene in the movie “Cinderella Man.” The scene is relevant to our current debate on entitlements.

In the movie, Russell Crowe plays boxer James Braddock in the real-life story of a man who went from dockworker to champion. Braddock is living in a dingy tenement in New Jersey sharing little food with his wife and children. But even at this low point in his life, he has too much pride to ask the government for help. It is only after the utility man shuts off the heat that things get so desperate. When his wife farms the children out to a relative for fear they are slipping into pneumonia, Braddock relents.

Next we see him at the counter of New Jersey’s Emergency Relief Administration. The administrator counts out $19, looks at him with some pity and says, “I never thought I would see you here, Jimmy.” Braddock is humiliated. He collects his money and leaves. Next we see him inside a saloon in Madison Square Garden where he is begging a room full of boxing promoters and businessmen for enough money to turn on the heat. All the time he is mumbling apologies and choking back tears.

What caused him to try to make it without government assistance? Pride is one reason. Shame is another. You cannot watch the scenes I just described without sensing that James Braddock was ashamed he had to get a government handout. Soon he finds himself on the way to the miraculous title bout. Now that he has money, he goes back and returns every cent of charity he ever took.

Somehow it is hard to imagine this scene today. Our entitlement culture has removed any shame that used to exist when a person took a government handout. Some of that is good because we don’t want people to avoid getting help when they need it. But when entitlement has become a way of life without any shame, we have lost something.