Title: The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913
Author: Various
Language: English
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             _The Survey, Volume XXX, No. 3, Apr 19, 1913_



                           THE COMMON WELFARE


THE STRIKE OF THE
JERSEY SILK WORKERS

For seven weeks the 27,000 workers in the silk mills and dye houses of
Paterson, N. J., have been on strike for improved conditions and against
a proposed change in method that will, they declare, alter the character
of the industry.

The strike began with the broad silk weavers as a protest against the
introduction of the three and four loom system. They were soon joined by
the ribbon weavers and the dye house men, whose demands are for an
eight-hour day and a minimum wage of $12 a week. The dye house men have
been laboring in two shifts of twelve hours each. Their work is often
carried on under unhealthful conditions of dampness, high temperature
and poor ventilation.

All the strikers joined the branch of the Industrial Workers of the
World which conducted the Lawrence strike. This is one factor which has
caused tension in a situation, in which statutes dating back to colonial
days have been brought to bear on a modern industrial struggle till a
Supreme Court judge denounced the lengths to which the police have gone.

Back of the police incidents and the spreading of the revolutionary
doctrines of the Industrial Socialists is a profound economic change
involved in the introduction of the four loom system. This is not merely
the substitution of machines for skilled men due to invention, but the
supplanting of high-grade textile manufacture by low-grade output
because of the greater profits in the cheap goods. It is as if a
vineyard were giving way to a hay farm—a change which seriously affects
the working population of Paterson.

In order to make the situation clear it is necessary to take a brief
look at the history of the silk industry in this country. Twenty years
or so ago the competition between Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the
manufacture of cheap silks was keen, but within a few years the battle
was over. Induced, it is said, by real estate companies, the manufacture
of cheap silk on a large scale migrated to Pennsylvania. Great factories
were built and leased on easy terms, and these were equipped with
automatic looms, four of which could be operated by one girl or boy.
There the wives and children of the coal miners furnished a cheap labor
supply.

Since this migration the best grade of silk has been made in Paterson,
and there has been no competition to speak of that the Paterson
manufacturers needed to fear. Yet they have been making only moderate
profits while the Pennsylvania manufacturers of cheap silk have been
making fortunes. Under the system of multiple looms, the business of
Pennsylvania, has expanded 97 per cent in the last six years; under the
one and two loom systems of Paterson its business has expanded only 22
per cent in the same time. Therefore the Paterson manufacturers propose
to compete in the manufacture of cheaper silks and consequently decided
to introduce the multiple loom system. To them this is only a natural
economic development, and the opposition of the workers they feel is
irrational, as opposed to progress. This view is made apparent in a
statement issued by the silk manufacturers’ association:

  “As regards the three and four loom system, it is applicable only in
  the case of the very simplest grade of broad silks and as a matter of
  fact has for a long time been worked successfully and on a very large
  scale in other localities. Paterson cannot be excluded from this same
  privilege. No fight against improved machinery has ever been
  successful.”

The beginning of the change came in one of the big Paterson mills about
a year ago and the strike of last spring[1] was at first against the
four loom system. The strike became general, however, and this demand
was completely lost sight of before the strike came to an end. Since
then nine or ten other mills have installed the four loom system and a
score have begun to require the weavers to tend three looms instead of
two.

Footnote 1:

  See THE SURVEY of March 16, 1912.

The strikers claim that the new system will cause unemployment, as did
the installation of the two loom system together with other improvements
in the mechanical equipment of the loom some years ago, and that the
logical consequence will be the employment of unskilled women and
children in place of the skilled weaver, and a forcing down of the level
of wages until the Paterson average of $11.69, as given in the federal
report for the year 1908, becomes as low as the Pennsylvania average of
$6.56. As the percentage of women employed in Paterson mills has
increased in the last few years and as the average of wages given out by
the manufacturers this year is under $10, there is basis for these
fears. Nor do the manufacturers deny these possibilities; they claim
that the loss of skill is an inevitable accompaniment of improved
processes, and the replacing of men by women and children is only in
line with the development in all the textile trades.

Some of the claims of the strikers are thus summarized by the _Paterson
Evening News_:

  “The best information obtainable appears to show that the alleged
  mechanical advantages of the new system have not proved themselves
  sufficient to offset the additional strain to which the care of three
  or four looms subjects the weavers; that the premium wages first paid
  as an inducement to users of the system have been pared down; that at
  present a day’s work under the system is proportionately less well
  paid than a day’s work at two looms; and, finally, that the wages of
  two loom workers have been depressed with the scaling down of the
  piece-rate paid to the three and four loom workers.”

In spite of the fact that it is only the large manufacturers who propose
to install the new system, the strike is general. The multiple looms,
which are large and equipped with automatic devices, can only be
installed in large mills. By this system cheap silks alone can be made;
the smaller mills must use the Jacquard or other small looms fitted to
the making of the fancy grades of silk for which Paterson is famous. The
small manufacturer, therefore, does not fear the installation of the new
system in the large mills; but he does feel strongly that he has a
grievance toward the workers in his mills who struck sympathetically for
a wrong not their own.

But it is a very real fear that the entire industry will be undermined
that has made the workers stand together, regardless of individual
grievances.

While the desire to keep up with industrial progress and to realize
large profits is the reason for the importing of the four loom system
into Paterson; the desire to save their present standard of living and
prevent their industry from coming into the hands of women and children
like the other textile trades is the reason for the workers’ opposition.
Today Pennsylvania and New Jersey present different phases of the
industry, and New Jersey has had a higher wage standard; tomorrow with
the triumph of the four loom system they may tend to an equalization of
conditions.

The outstanding features in the strike now in its seventh week are lack
of violence and disorder, the refusal of the employers to meet or confer
with the strikers, aggressive repression by the police and the city
government and the efforts of citizens to bring about a settlement.
Although practically all the workers in the major industry of the city
are on strike, there has been little disorderly conduct attributable to
the strikers. There have been reports of the breaking of a window by a
stone in a house occupied by a boss dyer and at least one attempt was
made to damage a house by means of a bomb, but responsibility for these
acts has not been fixed.


CITY OFFICIALS ADOPT
REPRESSIVE MEASURES

In striking contrast to the order maintained by the rank and file of the
strikers, there have been actions on the part of the city officials that
leading newspapers outside of the strike district have not hesitated to
characterize as anarchical. Soon after the strike began and it became
known that it was to be conducted under the auspices of the I. W. W.,
the police began to arrest strike leaders and others who addressed
meetings of strikers, regardless of whether they had yet been guilty of
any illegal act. Several of them were held in jail for a time and then
so great was the outcry raised that for a period of two or three weeks
these tactics were abandoned.

On Sunday, March 30, however, the police resumed their former tactics.
William D. Haywood, the leader of the strike, had announced that he
would speak at an open air meeting, and a large crowd gathered to hear
him. As Haywood was going to the meeting place to speak he was
approached by members of the police force. They told him that the chief
of police had issued an order forbidding any out-door meeting. According
to all reports, including testimony given by the police authorities
themselves, Haywood acquiesced at once and passed the word to the
assemblage that the meeting would take place in Haledon, an independent
borough just outside the city limits of Paterson. Accordingly, Haywood
started to walk down the street in the direction of Haledon and he was
followed by the crowd. Just before he reached the city limits, a patrol
wagon bore down upon him. Together with Lessig, another strike leader,
he was arrested, taken before the Recorder’s Court, charged with
disorderly conduct and unlawful assemblage under the English act of
1635. After being held in jail in lieu of $5,000 bail, both were found
guilty of unlawful assemblage and were sentenced by the recorder to six
months’ imprisonment.

A writ of _certiorari_ was immediately sought by Haywood’s attorneys and
a hearing on this appeal was held by Supreme Court Justice Minturn. When
the evidence, most of it furnished by the police department, was in,
Justice Minturn ordered the release of Haywood and Lessig. He was unable
to find that there had been any unlawful assemblage. The evidence tended
rather to show that Haywood was co-operating with the authorities in an
endeavor to carry out their orders. At the time of this resumption of
their activity the police began also to arrest pickets. From twenty to
one hundred a day were taken to headquarters. After Judge Minturn’s
decision, all those held in jail were discharged. Since then, while the
arrest of pickets has gone steadily on, Recorder Carroll has refused to
hold them.

Throughout the strike to date the manufacturers have consistently
refused to meet with a committee of strikers or to discuss terms with
them in any way. At one time a delegation of clergymen endeavored to get
them to meet a committee of strikers in order to discuss grievances.
This suggestion was instantly voted down. Last week, when a public
meeting of citizens was held to consider whether or not the strike could
be brought to an end, the manufacturers, through their representative,
stated their position in just two propositions: First, the employers
will refuse to meet any committee of strikers “dominated as they are by
the I. W. W.”; second, they will meet any of their individual employes
“who are not dominated by the I. W. W.”

All along there has been a lively public interest in the strike.
Ministers and public-spirited citizens have at different times
endeavored to ascertain the underlying causes and to co-operate in
restoring harmonious relations. These efforts reached their most formal
stage when last week at the call of the president of the Board of
Aldermen a public meeting was held in the high school auditorium on
Wednesday evening to which employers, strikers, church organizations,
the board of trade, organizations of bankers and professional men, and
the general public were invited. Representatives of the strikers
explained their grievances, a single representative of the employers
stated their position as just quoted, and the ministerial association
came forward with a proposal for a legislative investigation. Finally, a
committee of the Board of Aldermen proposed in a series of resolutions
that a committee of fifteen be appointed to discuss a basis upon which
the strike could be settled, the committee to consist of five
representatives of the strikers, five representatives of employers and
five men to be appointed from the membership of the Board of Aldermen.
The resolution was passed by the unanimous vote of an audience
two-thirds of which were strikers. The strikers appointed their
committee. But the employers, in line with their official policy which
has been against any meeting with any body of men even to discuss a
settlement, refused to do so.


“A MAN’S
FRIENDS”

“I don’t believe there is a man in the country who will not put himself
or some one he loves above the whole nation if he is put to a hard
enough test.”

These words, spoken by one of the principal characters, contain the
essence of a new play, A Man’s Friends, written by Ernest Poole and
recently presented in New York. Without moralizing on the need for a
wider social consciousness, Mr. Poole seeks to show the limits of the
average man’s circle of human loyalty and how far his loyalty to the
whole people’s welfare is inhibited by his devotion to his own “crowd.”
The play aims to point out that, however much our attention has been
focused on graft in its great anti-social consequences, a larger factor
in thwarting social progress is our restricted loyalty to groups which
are less than the whole people.

A district attorney fights a political machine which, through bribery,
has defeated a new building code. He convicts the bribed alderman but
cannot obtain from him any information as to the “men higher up.” At
last he discovers that his own son-in-law was the go-between in the
matter of the bribe. The intense loyalty of wife to husband is shown by
his daughter who says to her father: “Your life and principles are
nothing now—promise me you’ll keep Hal out of jail,” and by the wife of
the guilty alderman who declares “it is not a question of right and
wrong—it’s what I think of Nick.”

The play brings out the loyalty to one’s circle of intimates, shown in
the refusal of the convicted alderman to divulge incriminating
information; and the loyalty to a political coterie whose watchword is
“You might as well be dead as a squealer,” and concerning whom the
district attorney says: “It is the unwritten law of your system to
perjure yourself to save a friend.” He further remarks to the boss, “You
won’t help those not in your crowd—and your crowd is too small, even
though you can call a hundred thousand people in New York by their first
names.”

One element in the play is the definite human appraisal of just what
graft and disloyalty to public welfare involve. It flashes out when the
boss after telling how he had given a few dollars to a “down and outer”
is silenced by the district attorney’s daughter who points out that he
owns the gambling place in which the derelict lost his money. It is
again emphasized when the district attorney says to those who appeal for
leniency toward the men responsible for the defeat of the building code,
“All right let’s be human,” and then refers to the 149 factory girls who
lost their lives in a factory fire which the building code would have
prevented. “People vote,” he says at another time, “with the man who
laughs, but the laugh is too expensive.”

How the district attorney shows his own human qualities in the end by
saving his son-in-law from prison, but in a way to render important
service to the 9,000,000 people of the state, is the climax of the
piece.

The play is intended to show how the absorption of the average man in
his own affairs and in the interests of his small group of friends is
responsible for popular indifference which often makes the conscientious
public servant lonely and disheartened. The district attorney, as
candidate for governor, has returned from a campaign trip. “There are
one million men out for the graft and nine million who don’t care,” he
says. His daughter replies: “That does not seem like you, father.”
“Well,” he adds, “you ought to have seen them all along the line of my
trip; big meetings, cheering, too, plenty of enthusiasm. But the minute
I left each town I felt it all suddenly die right out. Every man jack of
them back to his business, his job and his friends—the things he really
cares about—and I felt as though I had carried on the cheers of each
town. Each town throwing it all at my head and shouting ‘Go on, be a
hero, save the country—only for God’s sake leave us alone, we have not
time, we are busy.’”


BRIEUX’S “DAMAGED
GOODS” PRESENTED

“I didn’t know” bids fair to become an obsolete phrase in connection
with the nature of the social evil, if the ripples started by the
production of Brieux’s Damaged Goods in New York this spring extend as
far as its sponsors intend. The Committee of the Sociological Fund of
the _Medical Review of Reviews_ believe that syphilis should no longer
be regarded as a mysterious disease, whose ravages are to be shunned but
its causes ignored.

Bernard Shaw’s preface to the Brieux play, with its warning against the
usual treatment of the subject as taboo and its appeal for publicity and
legal assistance in coping with the evil, was read by a clergyman well
known for his human contact with every-day social conditions. The drama
itself was simply staged and given a sympathetic reading by a strong
cast. Almost every bearing of the menace on family and social life is
brought out in a way well calculated to meet prejudice due to
indifference, ignorance or tradition, and to create a conviction that
here is a scourge to be conquered by publicity.

Those who saw the play had come with various mental attitudes. Some were
even vaguely questioning whether they had come to see a play or hear a
sermon. Not a few of the theatrical critics have dubbed it the latter,
but to many parents this very quality made it seem peculiarly profitable
for young men who are breaking loose from home life. By some it was even
felt that the educational value of the piece would justify its being
given a special performance at some holiday season, and that prevention
through knowledge would thus be promoted.


NEW YORK CHARITIES
AND THE LAW MAKERS

Convinced that the state charitable and correctional institutions are
facing a serious crisis, New York social workers are protesting against
certain of the recommendations of Governor Sulzer’s Committee of Inquiry
which they fear the Legislature may act upon. This committee, which was
appointed by the governor to examine into the administration of the
state’s departments in the furtherance of economy, has made
recommendations, relative to state charities and corrections, ranging
from the repeal of the act establishing the state industrial farm colony
for tramps to the refusal of large part of the sums asked for repairs on
state institutions. The Prison Farm for Women, Letchworth Village and
the State Training School for Boys are among the institutions that would
be most seriously affected. The Committee of inquiry also recommended
that the State Probation Commission, a non-salaried body, be merged with
the Prison Commission.

All told, there are fourteen state hospitals for the insane and sixteen
state charitable institutions with a total of 42,000 patients and
inmates. The Committee of Inquiry, partly on the alleged ground that the
state has little control over the expenditures of these institutions,
has made sweeping recommendations for retrenchment on projects to which
the state has already committed itself by legislation. Social workers
who dispute the findings of the commission point out that it had but a
few weeks in which to gain an understanding of the workings and
relations of the state institutions to various supervisory and
administrative state bodies and that its statements as to excessive cost
of housing the inmates are apparently made without a comparison of the
situation in other states.

The Committee of Inquiry recommends that the state charitable
institutions in some way ought to be consolidated, This, social workers
urge, could not be done except by putting together state wards of
entirely different types since the only institutions having a capacity
of less than 300 are the State Women’s Relief Home, an institution for
aged veterans and their wives; the Thomas Indian School; the State
School for Blind: the State Hospital for Crippled Children, and
Letchworth Village for the Feeble-minded.

For many years the state has been gradually building up a group of
institutions for the care of the insane and feeble-minded, the
epileptic, and delinquent cases requiring reformatory treatment. The
insane are increasing at the rate of about one thousand a year. There is
an accumulation at the present time of 5,000 patients in excess of the
certified capacity of the fourteen state hospitals. To delay
appropriations for new state hospitals already started, it is claimed,
is only to put off what must be eventually done.

For the feeble-minded and epileptic New York has provided four
institutions in the central and western part of the state which care
altogether for about 4,000 inmates and one, Letchworth Village in the
southeastern part of the state, which as yet has less than 100 inmates.
This, when completed, will serve New York city and vicinity where more
than half the population of the state centers.

The next largest group of institutions is the reformatories of which
there are two for women, one at Bedford and one at Albion; one for girls
at Hudson; and two for boys, of which the State Agricultural and
Industrial School at Industry is known the country over as a model of
its kind. This institution for caring for boys outside the metropolitan
district, social Workers urge, should be paralleled without further
delay as suggested by the Committee of Inquiry by one in Westchester
County for the boys of New York City and its vicinity.

The state has also undertaken to round out its reformatory and penal
system by providing a state farm for women over thirty years of age, the
age up to which they may be received in reformatories, and the state
industrial farm colony for tramps. These institutions are planned to
care for offenders who now cause much expense to localities. Both of
these institutions were established after long study of the subject by
organizations and individuals expert in dealing with dependents and
delinquents but the committee recommends the abandonment of the second
and further investigation as to the desirability of the first.

After discussing the situation at a meeting held in New York on April 3,
a committee consisting of Henry Morgenthau; Homer Folks, secretary of
the State Charities Aid Association; John A. Kingsbury, general agent of
the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor; the
Right Rev. N. G. R. McMahon, supervisor of Catholic Charities, and Mrs.
John M. Glenn, was appointed to confer with the governor who has given
the committee assurance that he is considering the situation as a whole
and will not make separate judgments on each institution by itself.

A similar meeting was held in Buffalo. At this delegates were also
selected who have interviewed the governor in behalf of the important
humanitarian projects undertaken by the state in the last ten years
which are now threatened.

[Illustration:

  SLEEPING IN THE LAVATORY AT BEDFORD
]


BEDFORD REFORMATORY
NOW FACING A CRISIS

It was not much more than a year ago that, in connection with the
founding of the Bureau of Social Hygiene, the New York magistrates began
to make extensive use of Bedford Reformatory for women as a means of
saving the young prostitute. And yet the reformatory is already facing a
crisis through overcrowding.

The Committee on Criminal Courts of the New York Charity Organization
Society has appealed to the public to write, urging an appropriation of
$700,000 for this institution, to the leaders of the Legislature: James
J. Frawley, chairman Finance Committee of the Senate; Alfred E. Smith,
speaker of the Assembly; Robert F. Wagner, majority leader of the
Senate; Aaron J. Levy, majority leader of the Assembly. This the
committee believes to be a conservative and economical estimate of what
will be needed to put up new cottages and other buildings to accommodate
present inmates, and to provide for reasonable growth in the next few
years.

The letter sent out by the committee reads in part as follows:

“Twelve years ago the state authorities established Bedford Reformatory
to care for women between the ages of sixteen and thirty, to try and
save some, at least, of the young girls who were otherwise destined to a
life of shame and degradation. What Bedford means to the community, the
extraordinary work it is doing and has done is set forth in the enclosed
article by Ida M. Tarbell.[2] That article is a challenge and a call to
every man and woman in the state.

Footnote 2:

  Miss Tarbell’s article which appeared in the _American Magazine_ was
  reprinted as a pamphlet by the committee.

“Bedford Reformatory now faces a crisis.”

“Today there are 178 more girls there than the place will hold. They are
sleeping on cots in the hallways, in parlors, in the gymnasium, in the
lavatories, in the linen room, everywhere they can put a bed. Two girls
in a room is the rule instead of the exception, notwithstanding the
moral dangers of this.”

“Chief Magistrate McAdoo and Chief Magistrate Kempner and their
associates in New York and Brooklyn have been asked not to commit any
more girls to the institution and the stream has stopped for a moment.
But the magistrates are now at their wits’ ends. What are they to do
with first offenders? The young girl who is just embarking on this kind
of career—shall they fine her and force her to work all the harder at
her unlawful calling to earn the money with which to pay the fine? All
are agreed that this is objectionable. Fines neither deter nor reform.
Shall they send her then to the work-house to mingle in close
confinement with the hardened offender, there to become embittered and
to have a prostitute’s life fastened more firmly than ever upon her?
They must do this or discharge her to walk the streets again.”



                            EDITORIAL GRIST


              THE BATTLE LINES OF CHILD LABOR LEGISLATION

                                              ANNA ROCHESTER
                                          National Child Labor Committee

A majority of the twenty-nine state Legislatures which have been
considering child labor laws this winter are still in session, so that
many of the most important bills are still pending.

The campaign that is being waged against the most outspoken opposition
is on in Pennsylvania, one of the two strongholds of glass manufacturers
who employ boys under sixteen at night. With the single exception of
West Virginia, where a bill based on the uniform child labor law was
defeated this winter, night work for youths under sixteen is no longer
allowed in the important glass-producing states. The uniform law was
introduced in the present Pennsylvania Legislature by Representative
Walnut and referred to the Committee on Labor and Industry. The
committee reported it to the House with several amendments. The House
rejected all but two of these. Now the uniform law, with the
street-trading age limit reduced from twelve years to ten, and the age
limit for breaker boys reduced from sixteen to fourteen, has reached its
third reading in the House. If its friends can still protect it from the
mutilations desired by the glass interests, the telegraph companies, the
textile manufacturers and other opponents, Pennsylvania will be in a
fair way to protect the 29,170 children employed in manufactories in
that state.

The uniform law is also pending in Massachusetts, where it met no
opposition in the hearing before the Committee on Social Welfare.
Massachusetts has now a ten-hour day and the uniform law would bring her
into line with Ohio, New York, Illinois, Mississippi and twelve other
states that have the eight-hour day for all under sixteen.

But Massachusetts would lead the country in one respect if another bill
that is likewise before the Committee on Social Welfare should pass.
This provides for a five-hour day and compulsory school attendance for
all workers under sixteen. If this is put into effect it will set a new
standard for the Uniform Child Labor Law, which has been drafted by the
National Child Labor Committee and endorsed by the American Bar
Association. It is based on the best provisions of the best statutes now
in force in the several states. Yet the National Child Labor Committee,
fearing that two five-hour shifts for certain minors might tend to
fasten on industry the ten-hour day for adults, would suggest that
Massachusetts go one step further and fix a four-hour day for all under
sixteen.

Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan will also advance beyond the standard of
the uniform law if bills now pending are enacted. Michigan, it is true,
is not trying to reduce the working day below nine hours, but merely to
extend it to include canneries and four other occupations hitherto
exempt. But Michigan and Ohio propose to raise the general age limit for
employment from fourteen to fifteen, while Connecticut is considering
sixteen years. Ohio intends also to increase the compulsory school
attendance age from fourteen to fifteen for boys and sixteen for girls,
and to require that boys of fifteen may not go to work unless they have
completed the sixth instead of the fifth grade, the requirement of the
present Ohio law and of the uniform law.[3]

Footnote 3:

  The Ohio law has passed both Houses.

The Ohio bill includes, also, the street trading provisions of the
uniform law. Special street trading bills are pending in Iowa, Nebraska,
New York and also, we understand, in Michigan and Minnesota. Their
outcome is doubtful because the average legislator seems to be blind to
the bad results of street trading and cheerfully reflects the popular
view that these “sturdy, little merchants” are all supporting widowed
mothers and headed straight for the White House.

Many states are coming to recognize the needs of children over fourteen.
This is evidenced not only by the wide discussion of vocational schools
and the bills before the Legislatures of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,
Massachusetts, New York and other states, but also by the extension of
child labor laws. Thus California, having proved the advantage of the
eight-hour day for women and boys under sixteen, is considering the
eight-hour limit for all under eighteen. Wisconsin is proposing to
enlarge the list of hazardous occupations forbidden under eighteen and
to provide for continued revision in the future by the Industrial
Commission. The prohibition of night messenger service for those under
twenty-one is included in the uniform law, as pending in Pennsylvania
and passed in Delaware, but not in Massachusetts and Utah, where it has
already been enacted. In Connecticut, a dangerous trades bill is pending
and the bill for a general sixteen year limit includes an age
restriction of twenty-one years for night messenger service. The same
night messenger prohibition was included also in the bills based on the
uniform law that went down to defeat this year in Utah, Idaho, Arkansas,
Texas and West Virginia. Iowa, the only other state in which a night
messenger law has been introduced this year, proposes an eighteen year
limit.

Regulation of hours for all under sixteen was proposed in Nevada. In
Tennessee, there is a bill now before the House Committee on Labor,
providing for an eight-hour day under sixteen instead of the present
sixty-hour week. A second measure adds mercantile establishments and the
stage to the occupations prohibited to children under fourteen. Still
another bill has passed in Tennessee, enlarging the Factory Inspection
Department by adding a clerk and two deputy inspectors. The matter of
enforcement has not received as wide consideration as it deserved.
Industrial commissions are under discussion in many states, notably
California and Ohio. In Iowa it is proposed to create within the Labor
Department a bureau of women and children. Montana’s educational bill
would provide for truant officers to enforce the child labor law. In
Wisconsin a bill is pending covering some details of the issuing of
employment certificates and in Utah it was proposed to increase the
number of inspectors. Most important in this connection is the bill in
Missouri to extend the jurisdiction of the Factory Inspection Department
over the entire state (it is now confined to cities of 10,000 or more
inhabitants) and to abolish the present fee system.

Two of the bills recommended by the New York Factory Investigating
Commission and directly affecting child labor are still pending: one to
prohibit work in cannery sheds by children under fourteen, and the other
to prohibit the manufacture in tenement houses of dolls or dolls’
clothing and articles of food or of children’s or infants’ wearing
apparel. Other bills recommended by the commission and already passed
and signed standardize the issuing of employment certificates throughout
the state; give the commissioner of labor power to inquire into the
thoroughness of this work as carried on by local health officers;
provide for physical examination in factories of children fourteen to
sixteen. This last provision promises to be better than the present
Massachusetts law because it permits the cancelling of employment
certificates of children whom the examination reveals to be physically
unfit for factory employment. Following the recommendation of the
commission the present Legislature has also reorganized the Labor
Department, established an industrial board, increased the number of
inspectors and extended the jurisdiction of the Labor Department to
cover the enforcement of the labor law concerning women and children in
mercantile establishments in second class cities.

In a few states there is a fair record of progress in the legislation
already enacted this year. New Jersey and Indiana have brought their
educational requirements and provisions for working certificates up to
the standard of the uniform law. Vermont has established a nine-hour day
and Rhode Island a ten-hour day. The Vermont law also does away with the
twelve year limit in certain occupations and substitutes the provision
that

  “A child under sixteen years of age, who has not completed the course
  of study prepared for the elementary schools shall not be employed in
  work connected with railroading, mining, manufacturing or quarrying,
  or be employed in a hotel or bowling alley, or in delivering messages,
  except during vacation and before and after school.”

Along with this the law has an absolute fourteen-year limit in “mill,
factory, quarry or workshop, wherein are employed more than ten
persons.” In North Carolina a bill was introduced with a fourteen-year
age limit and a prohibition of night work, but the age limit was
immediately amended back to the old thirteen (twelve for apprentices),
the increased appropriation for inspectors was cut out, and only the
night work prohibition was passed. The Child Labor Commission in
Delaware drafted a bill based on the uniform law, which, in a much
mutilated form, was finally passed and signed.

Only a few backward states show no progress whatever. Georgia defeated a
child labor bill last summer. Alabama has no legislative session until
January, 1915. The Florida Legislature has just convened and a bill
based on the uniform law will be introduced. No child labor bill was
introduced in South Carolina but a compulsory school attendance law was
passed by the Legislature, only to be vetoed by the governor. The House
passed it again over the governor’s veto, but it failed in the Senate by
two votes. In New Hampshire, the only northern state with a general
twelve-year age limit, a bill providing for a fourteen-year limit has
been unanimously reported to the House and there seems to be a good
chance of passing it.

The National Child Labor Committee is watching the situation and helping
where it can in these campaigns. It hopes to report many more victories
when the legislative season closes. Meanwhile it appeals to the citizens
in every state to aid in the enactment and the enforcement of these
laws.


                      ETERNITY AND A PENNY PILL[4]

                                                 RICHARD C. CABOT, M. D.

Footnote 4:

  See Courses on Sex Hygiene. By Jane R. McCrady on page 124 of this
  Issue.

There are some things (chocolate, for instance, or tracts, or paper
drinking-cups) that can be shot out of a slot at you and hit their mark.
You can apply them to their uses at once. It is the same with the facts
fired at you through the window of his booth by the railroad information
man. Such facts set you on your track or your train at once.

But when people ask for clear directions about the train to proficiency
in violin playing, belief in immortality, or understanding of sex, they
always miss their train. Sometimes they complain of the officials.

After a course of lectures on sex last year some workers of my
acquaintance handed in written questions beginning “What should I say to
a young girl who,” etc., and were disappointed when no definite answer
was forthcoming. To illustrate the difficulties of an answer let us ask
a few parallel questions:

  What paint shall I use for a Madonna?

  What are the best words to use in a love sonnet?

  What is the best book on being a millionaire?

  What kind of bread makes you popular and handsome?

  What liniment makes one’s sympathies most supple?

People rush to lectures on “sex hygiene,” sometimes for good reasons,
sometimes to satisfy morbid curiosity, but often with a pathetic hunger
for the bread of life. In the hope of forestalling such disappointments
the lecturer should hang up before them a sign reading:

  “This lecture will not solve fundamental problems. Seek ye the Lord.”


                        THE DAWN OF A BETTER DAY
                         A MANUFACTURER SPEAKS

                            Dudley D. Sicher

  [_This poem was read at a banquet of the Cotton Garment Manufacturers
  of New York during the last week of March. The author, a
  representative manufacturer, dedicated these verses, reflecting a new
  attitude toward employes, to his business associates._—Ed.]

           Do we purchase Toil at the lowest rate
             As we buy our cloth and thread?
           Do our workers labor long and late
             For the price of their daily bread
           In gloomy lofts where shadows frown,
             In foul, unwholesome air,
           Till Want and Weariness drag them down
             Where—we neither know nor care?
           If such things be, they must pass away
             Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

           Have they wrought us harm in the darker days,
             Have they kept the whole truth hid?
           Have they told false tales of our works and ways
             And of wrongs that we never did?
           Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame,
             But pass old slanders by.
           And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blame
             Where e’er the blame may lie.
           Old feuds, old sores be forgot for aye
             In the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day.

           Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score,
             Let us turn the blotted page,
           And grant that we owe our workers more
             Than the dole of a “living wage.”
           They give us more than their time and skill
             In the health and strength they spend;
           And earn the right to the kindly will
             And helpful hand of a friend.
           We must give them more than the coin we pay
             Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

           So, here’s a task that we may not shirk,
             For the toiling thousands plead;
           We must give them comfort while they work
             And help in every need;
           We must lend them strength if their souls are weak
             And teach them how to live;
           Nor let us, all to meanly seek
             Return for all we give,
           As we lift our eyes for the gladdening ray
             Of the golden Dawn of a Better Day.

           If this light that leads us shall not dim
             They will see, ere the course is run,
           That the worker’s weal and the weal of him
             Who owns the shops are one.
           Then each shall have his rightful gain
             Ungrudged—and great and small
           Shall give their best of hand and brain
             For the good of each and all,—
           And we’ll stand together, come what may
             In the brighter Dawn of a Better Day!



                                 CIVICS


                           THE SCHOOL CENTER

                            HENRY S. CURTIS

Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: “Thou, O king, sawest and beheld a great
image. His head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms were of
silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, and his
feet part of iron and part of clay; and a stone smote the image upon the
feet that were of iron and clay and brake them in pieces. Then was the
iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken in pieces
together.”

This image might represent America nearly as well as the empire of “the
great king.” In the original democracies of Greece, the freemen met
together in the market place to elect from their friends and
acquaintances the officers who determined the policy of the state. The
weakness of American democracy is that we have not organized this
primitive element or _demos_ on which it is supposed to stand.

Politics in our cities have been corrupt, because there have been no
meetings of the community to discuss community affairs. The individual
has often been reckless in conduct, because he was not acquainted in the
section in which he lived and consequently had no social accountability
to public opinion. Foreigners have come among us and drifted in and out
of the city slum, bearing with them their racial antipathies to each
other, and casting no anchor in the locality because at no time have
they become a real part of a community. We have had no real city
communities or neighborhoods but mere districts of people in no way
organized or related to each other. The feet of the image are of miry
clay.

In the country sections the situation is little better. In the days of
the pioneer the early settlers were drawn together by common dangers and
necessities into a brotherhood of the wilderness. They assisted in
erecting the cabin of the newcomer. The women had their quiltings and
their sewing circles. The whole community met together to marry the
lovers and bury the dead. The school house was the common center, where
Sabbath service, debate, music school, and “spell down” were held.

These conditions have undergone an almost complete change. The
specializing of industry and new machinery have made farmers independent
of their neighbors. The community uses of the public school have fallen
away.

The last few years have seen a rapid advance in the principles of
Democracy through the initiative, referendum and recall, the
presidential primaries and other measures; but the fundamental unit is
still unorganized. The feet are still of miry clay. To secure the
democratic control of the community or district is the greatest problem
of our democracy. This result demands that some agora, forum, or
neighborhood center shall be restored to the people.

If a neighborhood center is to be created, the facilities which the
neighborhood wishes to use must be brought together in a single place.
Thus each facility offered will bring patrons, not to itself alone, but
to all the others as well, as each department in a department store
brings customers to all the others.

A comparatively few years have seen the cities take up as municipal
undertakings the public playground, the municipal gymnasium and bath,
the branch library, and a few scattered beginnings in the way of
municipal camps. While the undertakings have been carried on by the city
and maintained by public funds, they have not been really furnished to
all the people of the city, as a rule, because they have not been
accessible. They have not been placed in communities, they have no
definite clientele. They cut across the lines of the existing
organizations of the people. The individual has no direct touch with the
community that brings him into relationship with them. All of these
facilities are at least as much for the children as adults, but they lie
off the beaten paths of child travel, and hence secure a minimum rather
than a maximum use.

The only public institution that is central to each community is the
school. If this can be made the nucleus around which the other
institutions can be gathered, it may be possible to create again a
modern forum or market place, that will serve the same purpose as did
the old. The large undertakings already under way for the improvement of
the school itself can not be carried to full success without certain
radical improvements in the school equipment. The playground activity
demands larger playgrounds. New York is now paying more than a thousand
teachers every summer to direct the play in its school playgrounds; but
there are very few schools that have an out-door playground fifty feet
square. It is not the same thing to play in a school basement that it is
to play in the open air. The school basement is always sunless, and the
air is not the same as it is in the open. The French requirement for the
lighting of school buildings is that there shall be no other building
within a distance equal to the height of the school. The gymnastic work,
to secure the best results, must be done in the open air, and not in a
dusty gymnasium. In London, all the longer exercises are always taken
out of doors in pleasant weather. Some foreign cities now require a
certain minimum playground space for every child. In Munich this is
twenty-five square feet. In London it is thirty square feet. This would
mean an acre of playground to 1,452 children, not a large amount surely,
and much less than should be taken in the smaller cities. Throughout the
middle states and the West, now generally a block for all new schools is
given. In some cases the usefulness of the ground is being nearly
destroyed by placing the school building in the center, but where the
building is placed at the side or end, as it should be, this ground
becomes available for many school and community uses.

This block should be shaded by trees. It should have grass plots, if
they have to be renewed every year, as Jacob Riis says; and running
around the outside should be a narrow space for children’s gardens where
all the nature work material of the school could be grown. In one corner
should be a school menagerie and benches should be placed under the
trees.

During the school hours, the school park should belong to the nurses and
mothers with baby carriages. From three to ten p. m. every school day,
and all through the summer, it should be the playground of the children
and the social center of the adults. In the winter it should be flooded
for skating.

Each of the new public schools of New York contains a gymnasium, but
most of these are on the top floor, and they have to equip another in
the basement for the play center. Each of the new public schools of
Cincinnati contains a gymnasium and a swimming pool, and they are
generally on the ground floor or near it. Most of the new high schools
all over the country contain a gymnasium at least and many of them
swimming pools as well. Wherever these facilities are furnished, they
are generally used by the school during the day and by the public at
night. A number of cities are now building municipal gymnasiums and
baths also, but the children want to use the gymnasium and swimming pool
during the day, the adults want to use them at night, it is not evident
that two sets of gymnasiums and two sets of swimming pools are
necessary.

Berlin has an interesting solution of this problem. They house the
gymnasium in a separate building in the yard. In this way the noise and
dust which is incident to exercise is removed from the school, and it is
possible to give more freedom to the work. In most cases there is a
swimming pool in the basement where the pupils are taught to swim. But
the chief advantage of the gymnasium’s being in a separate building is
that it is thus more accessible to the general public as a free
gymnasium and bath at night.

Our public schools and especially our summer schools are greatly
hampered by the lack of library facilities. The school in order to be
successful must create a love of reading. It cannot do this without
books. At present only a small proportion of the children have access to
a library, and this is often so distant that little use is made of it.
The reason is simple, the library is a strange place and its methods are
unknown. If the child, despite this, manifests his desire to draw out
books, he must often first get some one to be his security for their
return, and this is not always easy for a child of laboring or foreign
parentage. But the school may safely trust the child because he is a
member of the school and known and responsible, when it would not be at
all safe for the public library to give out a book to him.

Parents often have little time or inclination to go to libraries for
books, but depend on their children to provide them with reading. If the
library were a separate building in the school yard or a part of the
school, it would be no task for the children to take out and return as
many books as might be desired in the home. The growing use of the
school as a social center makes it increasingly important that the
branch libraries should be connected with it.

The theaters of Greece and Rome were public institutions. Many of the
best theaters of Europe are subsidized. The dramatic form of
representation is the one that is nearest to having the experience
itself. The socialized theater might undoubtedly be one of the greatest
agencies for good that could come into any community.

In the past the expense of the public theater has been almost
prohibitive; but to the credit of Thomas A. Edison be it said, that he
has brought the theater to every man’s door. Most of our new schools
contain auditoriums, and the state and city departments of public
instruction will soon be required by public sentiment to furnish
educational moving-picture films to every school in the state. With the
addition of the theater the success of the school social center and the
organization of community life is assured.

Besides these activities which should be connected directly with the
school itself, the school is the best dispenser of much of the social
betterment work for children. If each school had a camp in the country,
it could make a much wiser selection of children to be sent there than
any fresh air agency can do. No one child would be sent out successively
by half a dozen different societies to the exclusion of the needy but
timid child. Judging from a very limited experience it has seemed to me
that the children are not at their best in the fresh air camps. Often
away from all their friends and acquaintances they are homesick and feel
that this trip and this camp have no connection with anything else in
their lives.

Besides these great disadvantages under which the present system works,
there are corresponding advantages that are lost to the school. With
such a camp, there would be an opportunity for nature study and
gardening of a most approved kind. Athletics might be so carried on as
to supply many of the deficiencies of the school year, and boy scout
patrols might be organized for all the older boys. But, best of all, the
children would then learn to meet their teachers on a common footing and
the tone of the school would be improved.

This extension of the school would not mean for the most part a large
increase in expense. Already we are getting the larger playgrounds, the
auditoriums, the gymnasiums, and the swimming pools in our new school
buildings, but the cities are also building municipal baths and
gymnasiums, small playgrounds and public libraries in places that have
no relationship to any definite community. It is mostly a question of
locating without duplication the facilities that all need in places
where they will be accessible to all.

We may well ask ourselves if the school is competent to take these new
responsibilities. The answer must be that at present the average school
principal is certainly not competent to take charge of these new phases,
but that men usually rise soon to new responsibilities or new men appear
to take their places. These new relations would bring the school and the
home together, would make the school a part of life, would give the
pupil a new set of associations with his teachers and with study, and in
every way would redound to the good of the school and the community.


                      MUNICIPAL MUSIC IN NEW YORK

                            S. H. J. SIMPSON

When the sailing list of each trans-Atlantic liner reads like the
program of an all-star gala performance, and conductors, managers and
husbands also sail, the small number of the cultured rich who maintain
music in New York go likewise; but the city is not left empty. Then the
Metropolitan assumes a perpetually “morning after” appearance; so, too,
Carnegie Hall; and the new piano emporium will serve as a sounding board
for band concerts across the way. It is to these band concerts—not only
in Bryant Park but in almost every park and pier in the city—that the
reader’s attention is called.

The vastness of New York is one of the greatest problems confronting any
public spirited enterprise which aims to reach that vague, elusive
faction—the people. The problem has been met and fairly solved musically
by the three men who are responsible for the invasion by band and
orchestra of the city’s parks and piers during the past three years. It
is refreshing to meet with a movement which aims toward no tangible
education, moral rescue or poor relief, and to find a department of city
government frankly idealistic enough to organize a force whose only aim
is the presentation of pure beauty. And it is curiously paradoxical that
this movement should have found its opportunity in New York. It is,
nevertheless, true that New York supports more entirely free summer
concerts than any city in the world.

At the beginning of the current municipal administration the park and
pier music in its present form had its birth in the constitution of a
committee consisting of the commissioner of docks and ferries, the
commissioner of parks and a new official designated as the supervisor of
municipal concerts in parks and recreation piers. To the latter is due
the lion’s share of credit for the ideals, the organization and the
practical working of the system. To the commissioners New York owes a
debt for their hearty co-operation, and in some cases, acute personal
interest in the problems of the undertaking.

Not only has the size of the music loving population been considered in
the multiplication of concerts, but the varieties of appreciation and
the national tastes of different neighborhoods have been sympathetically
studied by Arthur Farwell, the supervisor. The $100,000 annual municipal
appropriation is divided between the piers and parks, and provides for a
force of about seventy bands and conductors. Extraordinarily interesting
is the study of neighborhoods in connection with the make-up of
programs. This is especially so among the docks. The long pier at 129th
Street, with an orchestra attracts what the directors are pleased to
designate as the “high-brow” crowd. The call there is for the best in
operatic and symphonic music—two and three movements of symphonies are
often given. Selections from Italian opera flourish at East 112th
Street, and at East 3d Street, all sorts of Jewish religious music is
featured. The only crowd which has given any trouble assembles at West
50th Street, and the largest of the pier audiences is found at East 34th
Street. Probably the most generally representative gathering is in the
Mall in Central Park, where seven concerts a week are given in summer.

In thus cursorily reviewing the facts of the condition of municipal
music in New York, only the smaller part of the situation is discussed.
The movement, under its present impetus, is new, and to a large number
of people, unknown. Although it is beyond the scope of the present
article to consider, in any detail, the ethical aspect of the situation,
it is, nevertheless, appropriate, in view of the comparative untriedness
of the idea, to answer a few questions which are constantly brought up
by those who are interested in the conditions. Even so, it seems that
the time has come when the movement may fairly be said to have passed
the experimental stage, if success may be measured by popular approval.

It merely remains to count the numbers in attendance. And here we find
the answer to the most frequent query as to whether there is sufficient
popular demand to warrant all this effort. The question has been
submitted to a practical referendum. Do the people want it? Although no
formal count of the audiences has been made it has been estimated that
they ranged during the summer of 1912 from 5,000 to 15,000, in the
various localities. In Central Park, every seat in the Mall and on the
terrace was filled by eight o’clock, and stragglers wandered about the
outskirts or stood packed between the benches all the evening. Every
spot within hearing was filled, and it was with some difficulty that
aisles and passages were kept clear. Nor is this audience a casual one.
Any number of habitues are noticeable, night after night, in the same
seats—jealous of their places—and night after night, the same tired
mothers are there, with the same baby carriages. And way off, along the
driveways, or here and there in a street near the docks, a policeman, a
laborer, a little street urchin, may sometimes be seen to stop, and,
“lifting his head in the stillness,” listen—and pass on.

This attention is, with few exceptions, so marked, that it, of itself,
answers another question: Isn’t all this stuff way above the heads of
the people? Again, the size of the audiences furnishes the most
convincing answer. Theoretically, of course, the best, being the most
human, is above no one’s head. But even practically, no genuine
heterogeneous crowd of “street-bred people” trails from the dark places
on a hot night—carrying or wheeling babies, with small children tugging
at the skirts or clamoring to be carried—to hear such things as are
above its head.

The aim of the movement is distinctly not educational in the instructive
sense, nevertheless, the popular interest in the programs has been taken
into consideration by Mr. Farwell in his brief and readable program
notes. These give simple, important facts relating to composers and
compositions, and do not attempt any detailed analyzation such as is
familiar to the average concert goer. That these find a place, would
seem to be proved by the knots of people who gather, program in hand,
under the lights.

Underlying the entire discussion of this, or any purely artistic
movement in this country, there is often the question: What’s the use?
Be the reason what it may—personal gratification, civic pride, or any
other cause—it is almost safe to say that no citizen grudges New York
its parks, its buildings, or its Metropolitan Museum of Art. Why, then,
its public music, which gives innocent pleasure, rest, perhaps
inspiration to thousands? I do not think that this is grudged to the
people. Its neglect is simply a matter of ignorance, rather than
indifference, on the part of many men who regularly pay their opera and
symphony subscriptions, and who have watched with interest the efforts
of several organizations to bring the price of concert tickets down to a
low figure. But this philanthropic effort does not strike at the root of
the matter. Ideally, music should not have to be offered to the people
as a commodity, nor as a charity, nor, primarily, as an education. It
should stand, rather, as a temple, to which they may come gladly and
freely, and from which they may go full hearted, carrying its best with
them.

And this has been accomplished in the piers and parks in the last three
years. But the winter contrast is striking. Fed up all summer, it seems
hardly fair that men should be starved all winter. The daily papers
printed, during September, 1912, a number of letters, asking why these
concerts could not be continued through the winter months. There is but
one solution of the problem—the municipal orchestra—and in this
connection I cannot do better than quote a letter, written by Mr.
Farwell to the New York _Times_, in response to the various suggestions
and inquiries:

  “The Central Park concerts have shown once for all that the greatest
  in music appeals directly and powerfully to the people when it is
  given to them under the right conditions. This is one of the mysteries
  of music—its power to short circuit an intellectual by a spiritual
  process. To wait until some hypothetical time in the future for the
  high gift of music to be given to the people is to be both dilatory
  and blind. The time for national initiative is at hand. What the
  people of New York really need is a permanent municipal symphony
  orchestra.”

Popular response to good music is no longer an open question. The people
have answered it conclusively, and popular demand has become a live
issue.


                THE HOUSING PROBLEM AS IT AFFECTS GIRLS

                                               EDITH M. HADLEY
                           President Chelsea House Association, New York

In a factory town, at the lunch hour, have you ever consciously watched
the girls and women thronging down the steps and filling the streets
surrounding the workshop? Have you listened to their noisy laughter and
scraps of conversation and tried to understand their meaning? In 1910,
when the last Census of Manufactures was taken, there were over
1,500,000 of these girls and women—factory workers in the United States.

In a large city at nightfall, when the lamps are lighted, have you ever
observed the streams of girls flowing into the streets from the offices
and great department stores? Again at night, have you seen the girls,
waiting at the entrances of tenement houses or on the street corners for
their “gentleman friends” who are to emancipate them for a few hours
from their cramped and dingy environment? And have you asked yourself
where and how do these girls live?

During the last few years we have heard so much about the discontent of
the labor classes, the “restlessness of the present age,” that the
phrases fall upon unheeding ears. But it takes no Socialist to
understand that, if a family man’s expenses are $900 a year, and that
working to the best of his ability he can earn only $700 to $800, and
that if it costs a girl $8 a week to live, and she cannot earn that
much, there must be discontent. It is time for the community to regulate
such conditions.

The question of wages is so closely allied to the question of housing
that a study of the latter involves some knowledge of the former. Cost
of living and standard of living must be approached from a fact basis.
Studies by Robert Chapin, Scott Nearing and the commission appointed by
Congress, indicate that a man, his wife and three children under
fourteen, cannot live and maintain efficiency under $900 a year on the
Island of Manhattan. This is not excessive for Boston, Buffalo and
Chicago. It is low for Pittsburgh, a little high for Philadelphia and
Baltimore but a fair average for the great cities east of the
Mississippi and north of Virginia.

Investigations prove that there is no great wage variation in different
sections of the country. In the West wages run slightly higher than in
the East, and in the larger cities than in the smaller towns. From a
study of 1,391 New York girls working in department stores, the average
earnings were reported as $4.69 a week during the first year and $5.28
the second. They increased in ten years, to $9.81, during which period
many fall out of the ranks. Buyers and expert saleswomen remain. Their
average earnings mount up to $13.33. In factories the average earnings
of 3,421 girls showed $4.62 a week for the first year and $5.34 for the
second year. After ten years’ experience $8.48 was reached.

The majority of girls at work live at home and, in many cases, have to a
certain extent the protection of their family. But an ever-increasing
number of girls are entering the towns and cities, quite alone and
friendless, to earn their way. These girls either keep house, live in
families, in boarding and lodging houses or in the organized boarding
house.

The girl who lives at home usually gives all her earnings to her
parents—over 84 per cent working in shops, and 88 per cent in factories
in New York city, and a similar number in Chicago and St. Louis. The
parents rely upon their daughters for an exact amount of income, so that
these girls are in no sense “pin money workers.” The girl at home in New
York city usually lives in a three to five-room flat in a tenement
house, for which her father pays from $10 to $35 a month; and into these
cramped quarters, one, two or more boarders are frequently taken.

In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Minneapolis and
St. Paul, it has been estimated that about 65,000 girls, exclusive of
stenographers, office girls, nurses and teachers, are without homes, and
entirely dependent upon themselves for support. Girls with a low
standard of living can live more cheaply by keeping house than in any
other manner. This means that several girls may join together and rent a
two or three room flat. After their daily work of eight to twelve hours
in factory, shop or office, is over, they have the housework to
do—cleaning, cooking, washing and sewing. A girl keeping house or living
in lodgings may save on food. She may go without breakfast or lunch, or
have bread and coffee for breakfast, bread for lunch, and bread and soup
or meat for dinner. She may spend part of her evenings making clothes,
the material for which has been bought with money saved from food. “Oh,
my, where would we get our clothes, if we bought meat every day?” asked
one girl. How long do these girls remain economically efficient?

Fortunate is the girl who can find a home with some respectable tenement
house family. Here she frequently underpays. Anna Friedman earns $7 a
week as cashier; she lives with Mrs. McCoy in a $27 a month five-room
flat. Anna pays $3 a week for her accommodation, but considers herself
entirely self-supporting, as Mrs. McCoy’s husband is absent part of the
time, and Anna’s companionship is of some value. She therefore has a
margin of $4 for clothes, laundry, amusements, sickness and incidentals,
and is well off. Girls living in this way usually associate with the
family, using all rooms in common.

The most dangerous way in which a girl can live is in a lodging, or as
they are called “a furnished-room house.” Investigations of forty-three
boarding and lodging houses in one city showed that five were known to
be houses where fast women lived. “Not only were good and bad houses on
the same block, but good and bad people were living in the same house.”

Freda Lippeg earned $3 a week, and paid $1.50 for her room; her food,
which she cooked in her room, cost her $1.46. Seeing how easy it is for
them to get plenty to eat, pretty clothes to wear, and to have “good
times,” what temptations are placed in the way of such girls living in
houses with immoral women!

While a landlady may prove to be a girl’s best friend, giving her
advice, trusting her when she is unable to pay, even lending her money,
in the majority of cases the girl has no supervision at all. With the
exception of houses in Philadelphia, where the wage earner’s standard of
respectability demands a sitting room, few houses can afford to have
one. As a lodging house is now conducted, the landlady’s net profits,
are usually free rent of her room and $150 a year. As the parlor is the
best paying room, the requirement of its use for lodgers would mean a
readjustment of rents, either of house or rooms or both. So the girls
receive their “gentlemen friends” in their bed rooms.

For the young girl in a strange city, earning moderate wages, no manner
of life is so capable of approaching that of the home as the organized
boarding house. Scattered throughout the United States are a number of
these houses, but the supply can in no way approach the demand. In many
cases they are too expensive for the poorer girl to afford. Few of these
houses aim to be self-supporting, which fact also deters many
self-respecting girls. The girl rightfully wishes to be a customer at
the boarding house, and not an object of charity. The rules in some of
the houses are stringent; sometimes a closing hour is enforced, and
girls returning later may be locked out. Nearly all have an age and a
wage limit. But they all have a drawing room which is usually furnished
with a piano, books and magazines. Here girls may receive their friends,
and have the companionship of other girls. Often warm friendships are
formed.

The welfare of the house depends upon the “housemother,” whose
opportunities and responsibilities are unbounded. To be able to keep a
clean, well ordered, full house; to supply an ample amount of nourishing
food; to receive enough board money from the girls to cover all expenses
without dunning them is no easy matter. But in addition to this to be
sympathetic without being partial or sentimental; to be able to care for
the tired and sick; to be patient and firm with the hysterical; to
understand and direct youth, gayety and extravagance; and to help the
girls who are in danger of losing their “woman’s heritage,” a woman must
give the best that is in her. The Eleanor Clubs in Chicago; the Ladies’
Christian Union Houses, the Chelsea House Association and the Virginia
in New York; and the Girl’s Friendly Society Lodges in New York,
Providence and Louisville are helping to solve the housing problem for
girls. But why have we not hundreds, instead of tens of these houses?
Can we not see the relationship between unsanitary, overcrowded homes,
the loneliness and often vicious environment of many lodging houses, and
human waste and immorality?

“If, because of our privileges, because of our warm, comfortable clean
homes, we can not say to these girls ‘My sister come home,’ surely it
rests upon us to do it in some community way. And if we can not get the
housing of girls taken up as a community duty, then all the more must we
struggle by private enterprise to find out the way. We must say there
shall be no town throughout the length and breadth of our land where the
girl can not find safe shelter, a place which if her need is great, she
may call home.”


                   JERSEY HOUSING ASSOCIATION FORMED

One hundred and seventy-four delegates attended the first state housing
conference and participated in the organization of the New Jersey State
Housing Association, in the City Hall, Newark, last month. The
conference and the formal organization of the association had its
inception at the National Housing Conference in Philadelphia in
December, 1912, when William L. Kinkead of Paterson and Captain Charles
J. Allen, secretary of the New Jersey Tenement House Department,
gathered the New Jersey delegates and took the preliminary steps which
led to the recent action.

Among the speakers were John A. Campbell, president of the State Board
of Tenement House Supervision; former Governor Franklin Murphy, James
Ford of Harvard University and his brother George B. Ford of Columbia
University, who had just completed an exhaustive survey of Newark, for
the City Plan Commission; Judge Harry V. Osborne, of the Essex County
Court of Common Pleas; Richard Stevens, Miles W. Beemer and others.

The dominant note in the conference was the proposed amendment to the
present Tenement House Law of New Jersey which Professor George B. Ford
referred to as “the best law of its kind in America when enacted in 1901
and not far behind the best laws of its kind at this time.” The
delegates were agreed that the present law should be amended to include
two family houses, many of which it was agreed are in worse condition
than the tenement houses.

Another proposed amendment which practically all the delegates favored
was to require that all tenement houses three stories high be equipped
with fire escapes. The law at present reads that outside iron fire
escapes be provided on all non-fireproof tenement homes more than three
stories in height. It was stated that the enactment of the proposed
amendments would necessitate a considerable increase in the staff of the
Tenement House Department and the delegates pledged themselves to use
every effort to secure a larger appropriation for additional inspectors
and clerks.

In his address Col. Franklin J. Murphy, Jr., called attention to the
fact that the city of New York, with 104,000 tenement houses, spends
$800,000 annually for the tenement house department, or $7.69 per house
per year, while in the last fiscal year New Jersey allowed $51,000 for
the tenement department, with 71,000 houses, or seventy-one cents per
house per year.

The purposes of the association as set forth in the constitution adopted
by the conference are as follows:

  1. To improve housing conditions in every practical way.

  2. To bring to the attention of each community the importance of right
  housing conditions and the consequence of bad conditions.

  3. To study in various cities and towns the causes of congestion of
  population and bad housing conditions and the methods by which such
  conditions may best be remedied.

  4. To aid all local housing committees by advice and direction and to
  encourage the formation of such committees where they do not at
  present exist.

  5. To act as a clearing house of information for such agencies and
  committees and to furnish advice and suggestions to those interested
  in housing reform and generally to promote popular interest in the
  subject.

  6. To aid in the enactment and enforcement of laws that will

    a—Encourage the erection of proper types of dwellings;

    b—Secure their proper maintenance and management;

    c—Prevent the erection of unfit buildings;

    d—Bring about a reasonable and practical improvement of the older
      buildings;

    e—Secure reasonable, scientific and economical building laws.

  7. To aid in defending such laws when enacted and in correcting and
  amending them from time to time to suit changing conditions.


IOWA’S REMOVAL LAW

Iowa claims to have in her “removal law” the best recall of all. This
law makes it the duty of the attorney general, or, if he fails, of the
governor or any six citizens, to take steps in the courts for the
summary removal of any officer of a town, city or county who neglects to
enforce any law.



                               EDUCATION


                    THE BEGINNINGS OF A NEW SCIENCE

If a man about town should drop into the Harvard psychological
laboratory and see an operator in rough clothes slowly turning a small
crank and calling off disconnected letters of the alphabet while a
changing panorama of squares and digits passed by beneath a glass plate,
he might think that this was the university’s day off and that here was
a new game for the amusement of the employes. But if he should ask
“What’s the ante?” and want to sit in, he would soon discover his
mistake. He would learn that he was looking at one of the few
experiments yet contrived for picking the right man for the right job.
He might even be told that this was one of the wee beginnings of a new
science which, by systematically placing the psychological experiment at
the service of education and industry, may some day prevent the tragic
waste of misfit starts in life and go far toward solving the problem of
vocational guidance for the schools. The observer would probably be
warned, however, against construing what he saw as any endorsement of
the social desirability of guiding children into this vocation or that.

The device of the changing panorama is designed to test a man’s fitness
to be a motorman on an electric street car. Worked out under the
direction of Prof. Hugo Munsterberg,[5] it is calculated to discover
powers of attention, discrimination and adjustment with respect to
rapidly moving objects, some going at different rates of speed parallel
to the line of vision, others crossing it from side to side. While
Professor Munsterberg undertook to transplant the activity of the
motorman into laboratory processes, he did not try to reproduce a
miniature of the exact conditions under which the motorman works. As the
crank is turned, a series of cards slips by under a glass plate, each
card having two heavy lines down its center to represent a street car
track. Along the sides of this track, between it and the curbstone at
the edge of the card, are scattered various digits which have
arbitrarily fixed movements, like the pieces on a chess board, though
not so complex. The job of the person being tested is to pick out, as
the cards slip by, the precise points on the track which are threatened
by the moveable digits in the street. Some of these numbers represent
pedestrians, some horses and some automobiles.

Footnote 5:

  Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, by Hugo Munsterberg. Houghton,
  Mifflin Co. 320 pp. Price $1.50: by mail of THE SURVEY $1.62.

Tried motormen, says Professor Munsterberg, agree that they really pass
through this experiment with the feeling they have on the car. Though
the test is not regarded as yet perfected, its results are thought to be
fairly satisfactory when compared with actual efficiency in service.
Efficiency, in this connection, means chiefly ability to avoid
accidents. Some electric railroad companies have as many as 50,000
accident indemnity cases per year which involve an expense amounting in
some instances to 13 per cent of the annual gross earnings. Professor
Munsterberg believes that it may be quite advantageous later on to
subject applicants for the position of motorman to tests based on the
principle involved in the one here described. Even in this inadequate
form, he thinks, the test would be sufficient to exclude perhaps
one-fourth of those who are nowadays accepted for service.

In a public address recently Leonard P. Ayres, director of the Division
of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, brought together all the
psychological tests in vocational guidance which, so far as he has been
able to discover, are being used in any completed form. Besides the
simpler tests for vision, hearing and color discrimination to which
pilots, ship officers and railroad employes are usually subjected, there
are only three, he said, which have for their object the more difficult
task of selecting from among all the applicants those best fitted to
perform the work. One of these is Professor Munsterberg’s test for
motormen.

Another is a test used in a bicycle ball factory, where girls inspect
the small polished steel balls for flaws by rolling them over and over
on one hand with the fingers of the other and examining them under a
strong light. S. E. Thompson, the employer, soon recognized that the
quality most necessary in the girls, besides endurance and industry, was
a quick power of perception accompanied by quick responsive action. He
therefore subjected his girls to the laboratory test which measures in
thousandths of a second the time needed to react on an impression with
the quickest possible movement. The final outcome was that thirty-five
girls did the work formerly done by 120; the accuracy of the work was
increased by 66 per cent; the wages of the girls were doubled; the
working day decreased from 10½ to 8½ hours; and the profits of the
factory were increased.

The third example which Mr. Ayres found of the application of
psychological tests to the selection of employes in industry is a series
of tests for telephone operators. These also were conducted by Professor
Munsterberg at Harvard. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company
employs 23,000 operators. Applicants for positions are given a
preliminary training of three months in the company’s schools. During
this time they receive salaries. So many eventually prove unfitted for
the work that more than a third leave within six months. Not only does
this involve financial loss to the company but it is a heavy handicap to
young girls who are trying to fit successfully into the industrial life
of the day.

The object of the tests was to develop methods whereby the unfit girls
could be eliminated before instead of after entering the service. The
girls were examined with reference to memory, attention, general
intelligence, space perception, rapidity of movement, accuracy of
movement, and association. The results showed in general that those who
came out best in the tests were most efficient in practical service,
while those who stood at the foot of the list failed later and left the
company’s employ.

“It seems fair to conclude,” says Mr. Ayres, “that when such tests are
perfected, short examinations of a few minutes each will prevent
thousands of applicants from wasting months of study and training in
preparing for a vocation in which they cannot succeed.”

While these three tests have been used only on actual applicants for
positions, a fourth test has been applied to beginning students in
stenography and typewriting to determine which ones possess the
abilities likely to bring success. This has been worked out under the
direction of Prof. James E. Lough of New York University and consists
chiefly of putting the subject through slight movements with a view to
measuring his ability in habit formation.

In addition to actual tests Mr. Ayres found that experimentation is
going on with regard to other occupations. Munsterberg is experimenting
on tests for marine officers. Ricker of Harvard has constructed
apparatus for testing chauffeurs. Whipple of Cornell has done some work
with tests for motormen. Seashore of Iowa has published a careful study
of tests of the ability of a singer. So far as is known, no work in this
field is being done in Europe.

By the extension and amplification of such means as these Professor
Munsterberg deems it not at all unlikely that we may some day have a
real science of vocational guidance. That there is need for a far more
adequate way of linking up young people to their work in life he has no
doubt. “Society relies instinctively,” he says, “on the hope that the
natural wishes and interests will push every one to the place for which
his dispositions, talents and psychophysical gifts prepare him.” But
this confidence he regards as unfounded. To quote further:

  “In the first place, young people know very little about themselves
  and their abilities. When the day comes on which they discover their
  real strong points and their weaknesses, it is often too late. They
  have usually been drawn into the current of a particular vocation, and
  have given too much energy to the preparation for a specific
  achievement to change the whole life-plan once more. The entire scheme
  of education gives to the individual little chance to find himself. A
  mere interest for one or another subject is influenced by many
  accidental circumstances, by the personality of the teacher or the
  methods of instruction, by suggestions of the surroundings and by home
  traditions, and accordingly even such a preference gives rather a
  slight final indication of the individual qualities.”

On the other hand, Professor Munsterberg recognizes that a valuable
start toward enabling young people to make wiser selection of their work
has been made by the agencies for vocational guidance already existing
in Boston and elsewhere. But he says that most counselors engaged in
studying the qualities of boys and girls about to enter industry seem to
“feel instinctively that the core of the whole matter lies in the
psychological examination,” and that for this they must wait until the
laboratories can furnish them with really reliable means and schemes.
They may then, he thinks, become the appropriate agencies for applying
the methods of psychology. He instances the long list of questions which
the late Professor Parsons, usually referred to as the father of
vocational guidance, employed with the idea of finding out something
definite about the mental traits of young people. Replies to questions
of this kind says Professor Munsterberg,

  “can be of psychological value only when the questioner knows
  beforehand the mind of the youth, and can accordingly judge with what
  degree of understanding, sincerity, and ability the circular blanks
  have been filled out. But as the questions are put for the very
  purpose of revealing the personality, the entire effort tends to move
  in a circle.”

Of course Professor Munsterberg does not undertake to pass judgment on
the social desirability of vocational guidance of any sort. That, he
declares, is not the business of the psychologist. His concern is with
means solely, not with ends. If the laboratory develops a way of telling
who are fit for stenography and who are not, that does not mean that all
the fit should be urged to become stenographers. The vocation may be
overcrowded. Again, if a test be devised for discovering what qualities
are essential to the successful operative in a particular industry, it
does not follow that all who want to enter that industry and have the
needed qualities should be advised to do so. Conditions as to health,
wages, hours, and a score of other things may suggest that another trade
ought to be chosen. So that vocational guidance, if it shall ever be a
closed and perfected system, will yet demand the supplementary services
of the labor investigator, the sanitary expert, the industrial
technician and whoever else can contribute to any phase of the problem
of why this calling should be followed instead of that.


              THE WINTER’S FIGHT OVER VOCATIONAL TRAINING

The past winter has been perhaps the stormiest season which the
incipient movement for vocational education has had to weather in this
country. Before state legislatures and national Congress the battle has
been fought. In Washington, D. C. the Page and Lever bills granting
federal aid to industrial education in the states inflicted mutual
slaughter on each other and died in conference. In Illinois a fight has
waged over two measures, one providing for the “dual” system of
administration and the other for the “unit,” and the probability is that
neither will pass at this session.

But in spite of these casualties the war has not been without its
fruits. Indiana enacted practically without opposition what is perhaps
the most comprehensive statute on this subject yet passed. The Indiana
Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Education, appointed in 1911,
published during the closing days of 1912 a vigorous report on the whole
subject of vocational training for youth. The reasons why boys and girls
need such training were put by the commission as follows:

  “The larger part of the boys and girls leave school before the
  completion of the elementary course, unprepared in anything which will
  aid them in their immediate problem of earning a living with their
  hands. From statistics available in other states it is safe to
  estimate that there are fully 25,000 boys and girls in this state
  between fourteen and sixteen who have not secured adequate preparation
  for life work in the schools and who are now working in “dead end” or
  “blind alley” jobs, or in other words, jobs which hold no promise of
  future competence or advancement. The investigations in Massachusetts
  and New York city show that not more than one out of five of the
  pupils leaving school at fourteen do so because it is necessary to
  help make a living. The conditions are doubtless even better in
  Indiana. The remainder, four out of five, leave school for a variety
  of reasons, chief among which is the feeling among pupils and parents
  that the schools do not offer the kind of instruction which they need
  for the work they expect to do and which would justify them in
  foregoing wage earning for a time in order to get it.”

The commission found no organized effort in Indiana to put pupils in
touch with the opportunities for life work. The pupils are in the main,
it declares, left to their own resources in choosing a vocation except
where enterprising teachers have been able to give personal advice. It
believes that every city and town should survey the vocational
opportunities within its borders and place the information, together
with all information available on vocational work, within reach of the
pupil at the proper age.

Contrary to the claims of some of those who are administering industrial
education in other states the commission found that the largest problem
in carrying out such training is the lack of teachers competent to do
the work. “If the vocational subjects are to find and hold the place
that is due them in the common schools of the state,” says the
commission, “the teachers must be educated to handle them more
effectively than they have been able to handle such subjects in the
past.”

The Indiana statute, which was signed by the governor in March,
established a state system of vocational education and gave state aid
for training in industries, agriculture and domestic science, through
all-day, part-time, continuation and evening schools. This work is to be
carried on either in separate schools or in special departments of
regular high schools. In every case, the local control is vested in the
regular board of education for the community and the laws are to be
administered as a whole by the State Board of Education. The state board
has been reorganized so that seven of its members must be professional
educators. The remaining five may be laymen. Two of the laymen must be
citizens of prominence and three of them shall be actively interested in
vocational education. One of these last three shall be a representative
of employes and one of employers. Attendance upon day or part-time
classes is restricted to persons over fourteen and under twenty-five
years of age; and upon evening classes to persons over seventeen years
of age. The state superintendent of public instruction is made the
executive officer and a deputy superintendent is to be placed under him
in charge of industrial and domestic science education. The agricultural
work is carried on by another deputy.

Local communities are required to supply the plant and equipment for
carrying on the work. When this has been approved by the State Board of
Education, the community is to be reimbursed out of the state treasury
to the amount of two-thirds the salary of each teacher giving
instruction either in vocational or technical subjects.

In order to secure the benefit of the knowledge and co-operation of the
layman, local school authorities are required to appoint, subject to the
approval of the State Board of Education, advisory committees composed
of members representing local trades and industries, whose duty it shall
be to counsel with the board and other officials in the conduct of the
affairs of the school.

In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey bills creating state systems of
vocational education are likely to pass soon. The Pennsylvania measure
has already gone through the House by a vote of 182 to 2. This latter
bill is very similar to the Indiana act. The State Board of Education
administers the act, with the state superintendent of public instruction
as the executive officer.

The regular board of education is in charge of the local schools. They
are required to appoint advisory committees composed of members
representing local trades, industries and occupations, to aid them in
making the work practical and effective.

In general the New Jersey measure is similar to those of Indiana and
Pennsylvania. There also the work is to be administered by the State
Board of Education and local boards of education, and may be carried on
either in approved schools or departments; these departments must
consist of separate courses, pupils and teachers. Advisory committees
are not provided for in the act, but it is expected that these will be
required by the board of education under authority conferred by previous
legislation.

In Connecticut and New York, which have already made some provision for
vocational education, laws are pending which considerably extend the
scope of the systems. In Washington a measure establishing a “dual”
system of vocational schools is regarded as unlikely of passage. In
Massachusetts a pending amendment to a former act authorizes school
committees, with the approval of the State Board of Education, to
require every child between fourteen and sixteen years of age who is
regularly employed not less than six hours a day, to attend school at
the rate of not less than four hours per week, during the school year.
Another measure which will probably become a law raises the compulsory
school age from fourteen to fifteen, for all children, and for
illiterates from sixteen to seventeen. Attendance on a vocational school
of children fourteen years of age is accepted as school attendance.


                   FROM SCHOOL TO JOB IN PHILADELPHIA

A twentieth century verification of the scriptural truth that “to him
who hath shall be given” is put forward by the Public Education
Association of Philadelphia, which recently completed a study of the
children in that city who leave school at fourteen or fifteen to go to
work.

There are in the Philadelphia public high schools, says a pamphlet
issued by James S. Hiatt, secretary of the association, 13,039 boys and
girls. At the same time there is a like number, 13,740, who have been
allowed to drop out of school at fourteen and to fight their industrial
battle alone. For the former group, who are really more able to take
care of themselves, the city pays $1,532,000 a year for further training
in citizenship and preparation for life. For the latter group it pays
nothing.

“Is this a square deal?” asks the association. “Is it economy on the
part of the city to permit these child workers to go out untrained into
industry, to give their lives before they are mature and then to become
a burden upon the community?”

With regard to these 13,740 between the ages of fourteen and sixteen
whom the school census of June, 1912, found to be at work, the study
undertook to answer two questions: first, are the occupations in which
the boys and girls are employed of such a nature that they will train
for a competence in later life? Second, is the immediate wage received
of sufficient importance to counterbalance the tremendous loss of power
in those who face mature life unprepared? As a continuation of this
investigation the Compulsory Education Bureau has followed up since
September of last year and will continue to do so, every child who
leaves school to go to work. The kind of job taken, the exact nature of
the work done, and the wage received will be learned. About 1,700 labor
certificates are issued in Philadelphia every month.

At the outset it was discovered that the problem is not one of the
immigrant child chiefly. The percentage of American parentage was 50.2;
of foreign parentage, 48.1; of Negro parentage, 1.7 Nor is it a problem
of boys chiefly, for 6,849, or 49.85 per cent of the total, were girls.

THE SURVEY has already told how the Vocational Guidance Survey of New
York followed a group of boys and girls from the day they received their
labor certificates through all the different jobs which they held during
the next four or five months. The study emphasized the hit-or-miss
jumping from one line of work to another which untrained youths are sure
to resort to, acquiring no training and achieving no advance. The
Philadelphia study furnishes a cross section of the positions held by
this much larger group at a given moment. Forty-three per cent of both
boys and girls were in the factory, where, says the report,

  “the positions are largely mechanical and require but short time in
  learning, little responsibility, and great specialization of
  processes. These positions offer an initial wage which is alluringly
  high, but hold out little incentive for growth and but slightly
  advanced wages for the experienced operative.”

Twenty-nine per cent were in the store and the office, “where a few may
advance to higher places, but it is evident that a majority must hold
low-grade positions which require little preparation or skill.”

A comparison of the employments of both sexes showed that there is no
kind of work which both boys and girls will not do. While boys
predominate in the store, the office, in messenger service, street
trades and skilled trades, girls have the largest number in the factory,
in service and in house work. Yet twenty-five girls were exposed to the
dangers of street trades and 118 boys were taken out of school to do
house work in their own homes without pay. The diagram on the next page
shows the percentages and numbers of the total engaged in the various
lines of work, and the relative proportion of boys and girls in each.

When it came to tabulating wages the surprising discovery was made that
with respect to 35.3 per cent of the total either no wage was received
or the amount of it was entirely unknown to the family. Twenty-two per
cent received between $2 and $4 a week, and 37 per cent between $4 and
$6. Smaller wage divisions are shown here:

                               MALE               FEMALE
            _Wages_     _Number_ _Per cent_ _Number_ _Per cent_
        Unknown or zero    1,961       28.4    2,893       42.2
        Under $2              19         .3       22         .3
        $2 to $2.50           59         .8       75        1.0
        $2.50 to $3           72        1.0      113        1.6
        $3 to $3.50          728       10.5      581        8.4
        $3.50 to $4          806       11.6      624        9.1
        $4 to $4.50        1,338       19.4    1,130       16.1
        $4.50 to $5          610        8.8      525        7.6
        $5 to $6             874       12.6      600        8.7
        $6 and over          424        6.1      286        4.1
                           —————       ————    —————       ————
             Total         6,891      100.0    6,849      100.0

Split up by sexes these figures show that 42.2 per cent of the girls
were found in the group whose wages were unknown or zero, while only
28.4 per cent of the boys were in that group. For both boys and girls
the largest number of those whose wages is known is found in the group
which receive $4.00 to $4.50. The detailed comparison is here given:

                      _Wages_     _Number_ _Per Cent_
                  Unknown or zero    4,854       35.3
                  Under $2              42         .3
                  $2 to $2.50          134         .9
                  $2.50 to $3.00       185        1.3
                  $3 to $3.50        1,308        9.5
                  $3.50 to $4        1,430       10.4
                  $4 to $4.50        2,468       17.8
                  $4.50 to $5        1,135        8.2
                  $5 to $6           1,474       10.7
                  $6 and over          710        5.1
                                    ——————      —————
                  Total             13,740      100.0

The average wage for all boys who receive between $2 and $6 is $4.26;
that for girls $4.19, the large number of girls who receive a
comparatively high wage in factories bringing their average up.

The average increase, between fourteen and fifteen years of age, of the
workers noted is thirty-seven cents. It is much less in some of the
industries. “Does such a slight return and such a meager raise,” asks
the report, “pay for all the loss of mature power, as well as for that
efficiency which might be gained by longer continuing in the proper kind
of training?”

[Illustration:

 ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╤════════════╤═════════════════╗
 ║                  THE CHILD                   │ THE SCHOOL │     THE JOB     ║
 ╟──────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────╢
 ║THESE 13,740 JOBS ARE HELD BY WORKING CHILDREN│LABOR       │TO WHAT DO THEY  ║
 ║IN PHILADELPHIA BETWEEN 14 & 16 YEARS OF AGE. │GREED       │LEAD?            ║
 ║      │       │         │       │             │      │     │_PUBLIC EDUCATION║
 ║      │       │         │       │             │      │     │     ASSOCIATION_║
 ╠══════╪═══════╪═════════╪═══════╪═════════════╪══════╪═════╪═════════╤═══════╣
 ║STREET│SERVICE│MESSENGER│SKILLED│MISCELLANEOUS│OFFICE│STORE│HOUSEWORK│FACTORY║
 ║TRADES│       │         │TRADES │             │      │     │         │       ║
 ╟──────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────────┼──────┼─────┼─────────┼───────╢
 ║  1.5%│   1.2%│     2.5%│   3.0%│         6.3%│  8.7%│20.3%│    12.8%│  43.4%║
 ║   214│    168│      346│    422│          873│  1200│ 2793│     1756│   5968║
 ╚══════╧═══════╧═════════╧═══════╧═════════════╧══════╧═════╧═════════╧═══════╝

               WHERE THE YOUNGSTERS WORK IN PHILADELPHIA

The figures and percentages refer to parts of the whole 13,740 boys and
girls found in the lines of work named. The drawings show roughly the
ratio of boys to girls in each line. “Housework” means housework in own
home.]

The following conclusions are drawn by the association as a result of
its study:

  “1. That the problem of the working child is not an immigrant problem,
  since over 50 per cent of those reported as at work are of the second
  generation of American birth.

  “2. That this is not the problem of the boy alone, since over 49 per
  cent of the workers are girls.

  “3. That the vast majority of children who leave school at fourteen to
  enter industry go into those kinds of employment which offer a large
  initial wage for simple mechanical processes, but which hold out
  little or no opportunity for improvement and no competence at
  maturity.

  “4. That wages received are so low as to force a parasitic life.

  “5. That but slight advancement is offered the fifteen-year-old over
  the fourteen-year-old child worker.”


                    ILLITERACY AND THE RURAL SCHOOL

Hardly are we given time to grasp the Census Bureau’s new facts about
illiteracy in the United States before the Bureau of Education gives us
its own interpretation of some of them. Illiteracy, as viewed by the
Census Bureau, means inability to write on the part of those ten years
old and over. As a nation the number of illiterates among us decreased
from 10.7 per cent of the population in 1900 to 7.7 per cent in 1910. In
spite of this decrease a bulletin by A. C. Monahan of the Bureau of
Education refers to the “relatively high rate of illiteracy” in the
country and says that this rate is due not to immigration but to the
lack of educational opportunities in rural districts. The percentage of
rural illiteracy is twice that of urban, although approximately
three-fourths of the immigrants are in the cities. Still more
significant is a comparison between children born in this country of
foreign parents with those born of native parents. Illiteracy among the
latter is more than three times as great as that among the former,
“largely,” says Mr. Monahan, “on account of the lack of opportunities
for education in rural America.”

The decrease in national illiteracy during the decade 1900–1910 was not
only relative but absolute, despite the growth of the population. In
1900 the figure was 6,180,069. In 1910 it was 5,516,163. But while
illiteracy among the total population was decreasing, that among the
foreign born whites remained almost stationary. In 1900 the percentage
was 12.9, in 1910 12.7. Among the whites born in this country the
decrease during the decade was from 4.6 to 3 per cent. Illiteracy among
the Negroes showed a decrease of almost one-third. In 1900 44.5 of the
whole Negro population could not write; in 1910 the percentage was 30.4.

The distribution of illiteracy between the sexes was very even. Among
males it amounted 7.6 of the total, among females to 7.8. There was less
of it among white females, however, than among white males, the
percentage for the former being 4.9, for the latter 5. White girls and
women born outside of this country show more illiteracy than men and
boys of the same class, but those born in the United States show less
than native males, as follows:

                        _Whites_   _Male_ _Female_
                      Foreign born   11.8     13.9
                      Native          3.1      2.9

The New England and the Middle Atlantic groups of states changed places
in the illiteracy column between 1900 and 1910. At the former period New
England was fifth and the Middle Atlantic states, comprising New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, fourth, but by 1910 New England had
displaced the latter group. In both years the West North Central,
comprising Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Nebraska and Kansas, showed the least illiteracy of any of the
geographical divisions, while the East South Central, comprising
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, had the worst record,

The section known as the West almost caught up with the North during the
decade, the respective percentages being 4.4 and 4.3.

Mr. Monahan’s bulletin goes briefly into the whole rural school problem.
The author found 226,000 one-teacher schoolhouses in the United States,
of which 5,000 are log buildings still in active use. Although more than
60 per cent of the children in the United States are enrolled in country
schools, the rural aggregate attendance is only 51 per cent.

With the help of recent appropriations made by Congress the Bureau of
Education has undertaken to make a careful study of the needs of the
rural schools, and the bulletin just issued is one of the first definite
results of the work.


                      WOMEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

How women have advanced from the educational ranks to the highest
administrative positions in the public schools is revealed in figures
just compiled by the United States Bureau of Education. Four states,
Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming, have women at the head of
their state school systems, and there are now 495 women county
superintendents in the United States, nearly double the number of ten
years ago.

In some states women appear to have almost a monopoly of the higher
positions in the public-school system. In Wyoming, besides a woman state
superintendent and deputy superintendent, all but one of the fourteen
counties are directed educationally by women. In Montana, where there
are thirty counties, only one man is reported as holding the position of
county superintendent.

The increase in the number of women county superintendents is most
conspicuous in the West, but is not confined to that section. New York
reports forty-two women “district superintendents,” as against twelve
“school commissioners” in 1900.


                        MOTHERHOOD AND TEACHING

Motherhood and teaching collided in New York three weeks ago when the
Board of Education refused to grant a year’s leave of absence without
pay to Katherine C. Edgell, a high school teacher, who wanted to bear
and rear a child. The board recorded its opposition by a vote of
thirty-two to five. By a vote of twenty-eight to nine it shut off
discussion because “too much had been published about this affair
already.”

Mrs. Edgell is still on the payroll of the schools, although she has not
been in attendance since February first. Inasmuch as it is the custom of
the board to punish unexcused absence by dismissal for neglect of duty,
it seems to have no alternative but to proceed to that extremity against
Mrs. Edgell. This is just what was done recently in the case of Lily R.
Weeks, who was absent some time on account of the birth of a child,
though the board did not know the nature of her illness. Mrs. Weeks
appealed her case to the state commissioner of education, before whom it
is now pending.

This demand of Mrs. Edgell that she be allowed to continue in her
profession though a mother is, of course, only a symptom of the
world-wide movement of women into the gainful occupations of life. It
reveals how acute has grown the feeling on this subject among some of
the women teachers of New York. Heretofore any married woman teacher who
wanted leave of absence to bear a child carefully concealed the nature
of her illness from the Board of Education. At length, one woman stood
out and asked that, as a matter of right, her position be kept open for
her while she brought a new life into the world. Instantly scores of her
colleagues came to her defense. Women lawyers passed resolutions in
sympathy with her and physicians publicly approved her stand.

The case of Mrs. Edgell is not the first time that the New York Board of
Education has expressed its opinion with regard to married women
teachers. Until 1904 a by-law of the board provided that the marriage of
a woman teacher should automatically cause her instant dismissal without
further action. But the Court of Appeals decided in 1903 that a teacher
could not be dismissed for marrying and the by-law was changed. Since
then the board has apparently not been altogether friendly toward the
married women in its employ. During the discussion that has attended the
Edgell case it has been repeatedly asserted by principals and teachers
that there are hundreds of women in the schools who have kept their
marriages secret because of the well-known policy of the board to make
it almost impossible for married women to secure promotion or increase
in salary.

A physician who is a member of the school board and a member of the
board of superintendents are authorities for the sweeping statement,
that if this ruling is adhered to the board of education is quite likely
to be responsible for 300 cases of deliberate abortion among the public
school teachers of New York every year.

When the board, by its vote of twenty-eight to nine, shut off discussion
because “too much has been published about this affair already,” it did
what was destined to provoke hotter and longer discussion than ever. But
underlying that there is a very general feeling that this subject
presents many phases which should be given profound consideration, not a
snap verdict. Would the distraction of a baby interfere with class room
work, or the absence of the mother and teacher handicap her own
children; or would having children of her own add something to a woman’s
educative powers? What effect would the widespread continuance of
married women in the schools have on men’s salaries? What is there in
the practice and experience of other cities to help New York in deciding
so big a question as the interaction of motherhood and teaching?

What protection should be thrown around the prospective mother is a
question that is only beginning to be raised among professional and
salaried classes. Up to the present nearly all women in these groups
have resigned their positions, if not at marriage then at childbirth. No
general policy of dealing with them seems to have been adopted either by
public or private employers.

With women in the wage-earning class the case is different. In at least
twenty countries or parts of countries in Europe legal protection is
thrown around the working woman who bears a child. In Berne,
Switzerland, all women “employed for purposes of gain” are prohibited
from working for from four to eight weeks after confinement. In Ticino,
Italy, no woman can work for six months after confinement. The
conception underlying this legislation is not that mothers are not
efficient workers, but that earning a livelihood must be made easier for
those who want also to fulfill the other functions of womanhood. In
England the period of prohibition is four weeks after, and in Germany
six weeks. In Servia no woman can work for six weeks before nor six
weeks after. In several of these places the position must be kept open
for the woman while she is bearing her child.

Examples of such protection nearer at home are not lacking. Both
Massachusetts and New York have laws declaring that specified periods of
absence shall be allowed to women in industrial establishments at time
of confinement.

A notable exception to the rule that no such policy has been adopted
toward salaried or professional women is to be had in France. There
boards of education are not permitted to refuse leave of absence to
teachers who want to bear children. Three years ago the government made
imperative the granting of at least two months’ vacation, together with
full treatment, to teachers expecting confinement. And in the following
year this protection was extended to the female staff of the department
of posts, telegraphs and telephones.



                                INDUSTRY


               NATION WIDE MOVEMENT FOR INDUSTRIAL SAFETY

                        FERDINAND C. SCHWEDTMAN

  CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE ON ACCIDENT PREVENTION AND WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION
                 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS

There was a time when most employers and employes thought that they were
the only factors to be considered in the adjustment of industrial
conditions. Enlightened employers and employes long ago learned that in
the final analysis the public is the arbiter as to whether conditions
are just or unjust, right or wrong.

The National Association of Manufacturers, in its work for compensation
and prevention of industrial accidents, started out with the theory that
the first essential requirement to the furtherance of equitable
conditions is a knowledge of the facts—all the facts, for half knowledge
leads to wrong conclusions. To meet this requirement we made a thorough
study of foreign compensation systems. The next requirement, it was
felt, was prompt action in line with sound conclusions.

Voluntary systems of prevention and relief have been established by
numerous American employers which compare favorably with European
conditions, but on the whole the United States is far behind other
civilized nations in these matters. Employers are not more nor less to
blame for this condition than employes, legislators or the public. We
each and all need education; we need to get in tune with the times.

For many years much time and attention at the board meetings of the
National Association of Manufacturers have been given to the
consideration of accident prevention and relief plans. In common with
other humane agencies, the association has felt that the economic loss
due to accidents, enormous as it is, is as nothing compared with humane
considerations. It has taken the stand further that prevention is even
more important than compensation.

Three years ago the conclusion was reached that the time had passed when
attention to these problems in the abstract was to any extent effective,
and that results could be secured only by practical campaign methods.
Macaulay’s truism, “The only knowledge that a man has is the knowledge
he can use,” has been the basis for the efforts which the committee,
formed at that time and entrusted with this work, has carried on during
these three years.

The spirit in which the committee’s recommendations have been received
and acted upon by members of the association reminds me of Emerson’s
statement: “Every good and commanding movement in the annals of the
world is the triumph of enthusiasm.” We have found enthusiastic support
everywhere. Our misgivings at the outset that the campaign would result
in the loss of the more conservative members of the association proved
to be groundless.

Our interrogation blanks, mailed to 20,000 American manufacturers early
in the committee’s work, brought forth the largest reply in the
association’s history. Ninety-nine per cent of the members answering
expressed themselves emphatically in favor of an extended progressive
campaign for accident prevention and compensation for injured workers.
At the last three annual conventions of the association, the greatest
attendance was during the reading of the report of the Committee on
Accident Prevention and Workmen’s Compensation. Many meetings in various
parts of the country dealing especially with the committee’s work have
been so well attended that no doubt exists today in the mind of a single
official as to the need for keeping the committee’s work well at the
head of the association’s activities. The wonderful increase in
membership of the association during the last three years is another
proof that the members desire to maintain an aggressive and constructive
part in settling the social and industrial problems with which the
United States of America and other industrial nations are confronted.

Progressive employers know that social legislation is not only desirable
from a humanitarian viewpoint, but necessary from an economic
standpoint. Thinking business men realize that sound social legislation
is both a human duty and the best safeguard against militant Socialism.
Sound social legislation will bring us the efficient, organized,
co-ordinated industrial peace of the bee-hive. Militant Socialism will
bring us the industrial peace of the grave.

The three years’ campaign of the National Association of Manufacturers
has been along the following lines:

  1. A strenuous campaign has been carried on in all the states for laws
  providing automatic compensation for injured workers or their
  dependents and support has been given to all reasonable bills, as the
  association realized that a perfect and uniform workmen’s compensation
  system for the whole United States can be secured only step by step.

  2. Members have been urged to support state compensation laws wherever
  these are optional, regardless of the fact that this means in many
  cases an increase of 300 to 1,000 per cent in insurance rates.

  3. Special efforts have been made to have manufacturers organise their
  own relief association, preferably in co-operation with their workers,
  for the reason that such systems have most effectively reduced
  accident rates as well as industrial unrest.

  4. Model workman’s compensation bills have been prepared and widely
  distributed. These bills are at present before the legislatures of six
  states. While they cover the whole subject, the committee urged an
  especially strong educational campaign for the recognition of three
  essential principles in compensation legislation, viz.: that a good
  workmen’s compensation law must encourage accident prevention; assure
  compensation, preferably by compulsory insurance, and cover all
  wage-workers. It also attempts to provide that doctors’ and lawyers’
  fees shall not rob the injured.

Correspondence in connection with the campaign with legislators,
lawyers, insurance men, employers and workmen amounted to an average of
twenty-eight letters a day for the last year.

On the association’s suggestion, enlightened insurance officials have
adopted resolutions providing for a limitation of business-getting
expense in workmen’s compensation laws.

So much for compensation work. Toward a practical accident prevention
campaign we have, however, devoted our greatest energies. Two
experienced safety engineers have been placed at the service of members
and so great has been the demand for their services that there are
engagements for more than six months ahead at this time. As this service
is charged for at a rate which makes it self-sustaining, this means
something more than interest—it means enthusiasm on the part of
employers in our accident prevention campaign.

The work of the safety engineers consists of inspection of factories and
making special reports for improving existing conditions which
manufacturers have almost uniformly acted upon; advice regarding safety
devices, shop safety organization and other means of preventing work
accidents; practical instructions to superintendents, foremen, engineers
and workmen in regard to safety devices; and illustrated talks with
lantern slides and motion pictures to workers, as well as employers,
especially to local organizations of both. An important part of the
campaign is the establishment of local safety organizations with the
work in every plant inspected placed in the hands of some one person.

Numerous employers and business men have, as a result of our advice and
practical work, engaged safety engineers for their factories. The
campaign has so increased the demand for experts that the supply is
inadequate and open letters have been written to engineering colleges
urging them to establish a special course of training leading to the
degree of “safety engineer.”

Local “safety revivals” have been conducted in many parts of the
country, with some member of the committee present as the principal
speaker. James Emery, my associate in this work, and I have spoken on
the subject of accident prevention or workmen’s compensation on an
average of once a week for the last three years. We have constantly
agitated for safety museums.[6] A special effort has been made to get in
touch with factory inspectors and to urge the keeping of statistics
bearing upon accidents.

Footnote 6:

  It is not betraying confidence when I call attention to a movement
  inaugurated by Congressman Robert C. Bremner of New Jersey and Lewis
  T. Bryant, labor commissioner of the same state, to establish a
  national safety museum at Washington. Letters and newspaper clippings
  indicate that President Wilson is in favor of such a museum and every
  voter of the country should get behind Congress to give such a matter
  prompt and favorable consideration. Every European nation has a number
  of such safety museums where can be found on exhibition safety devices
  for the protection of working men in every field, not only for
  accident but for sickness. A national safety museum in Washington
  would materially stimulate the safety movement and it would be a
  fitting monument to the spirit of the times.

The co-operation we have established with insurance companies, both
stock and mutual, promises to be a most effective means of establishing
a system for rating risks which, in the same manner as fire schedule
rating, shall provide subtractions and additions of insurance rates
contingent upon the accident prevention activities of each insurer. Many
insurance companies are endeavoring to arrange for central inspection
bureaus for rating good and bad risks.

A colored “safety” supplement has been established for _American
Industries_, the official monthly magazine of the association. The
interest of the members in this safety supplement is shown by the fact
that 5,000 extra copies were ordered after the supplement’s first
appearance. Another effective means of educating for safety is the use
of motion pictures which have been prepared partly at the expense of the
National Association of Manufacturers. These are distributed through
regular motion picture channels all over the United States. Several
thousand lantern slides are being used for educational lectures before
the general public, interested organizations and college classes.

The safety campaign was one of the factors that led to the organization
of the National Council for Industrial Safety, which had its first
enthusiastic meeting four months ago. This new organization plans an
annual gathering to take the form of a national “safety revival” and an
international safety convention during the San Francisco exposition.

Every phase of the association’s work is being supervised by members of
the committee who are divided into sub-committees. Although the
committee’s efforts are a work of love, the members receiving no
compensation whatever, the association’s activity for workmen’s
compensation and accident prevention has cost approximately $50,000
during the last three years. The board of directors consider this money
well spent and, judging by present sentiment, will not only continue,
but increase their efforts in future. Our safety campaign is too young
and too widely spread as yet to give accurate figures for results.
Perhaps the best sign of its success is the mass of enthusiastic
testimonials from association members to the value of our experts’
inspections and advice. The following partial figures will, however, at
least give some idea of concrete results:

  Two hundred and seventy-six members of the association have placed a
  special man in charge of their shop safety organization during the
  last year and a half.

  Several dozen manufacturers claim to have reduced their accidents in a
  campaign of from one to two years from 10 per cent to 50 per cent.

  In more than fifty cases the safety campaign has brought about a
  better appreciation of general efforts in the direction of sanitation
  and welfare work.

  Twenty or more establishments have established sickness insurance in
  co-operation with their employes, as part of their safety campaign.

  Old age and invalidity relief is being considered by several dozen
  large manufacturers now as part of the safety campaign.

  A dozen or more mutual insurance and relief associations have been
  established among certain classes of manufacturers, such for instance,
  as laundries, millers, etc., and accident prevention is invariably one
  of the most important, permanent features of such mutual
  organizations.

In another year the association hopes to make a thorough survey of the
20,000 members originally addressed in the safety campaign. This will
make it possible to show in figures the results of the association’s
efforts along these lines.

My experience of many years with associations of manufacturers and
business men convinces me that, regardless of popular impressions, the
large majority of captains of industry believe that “the gauge of their
success is the assistance they give others to succeed.” Unfortunately,
the every-day grind of their work does not permit many well-intentioned
business men to know much about social legislation and about the
advantages of co-operation and good will. I have found them exceedingly
anxious to secure information about these matters and to act in
accordance with sound advice.

The following extract from one of the committee’s communications to the
members indicates our sentiments:

  “Remember that the most important factor in this endeavor is the right
  spirit. Without a spirit of progressiveness, without co-operation
  between the officers and members of organizations, without harmony and
  co-operation between yourself and your superintendents, foremen and
  workers, it is useless to attempt a campaign for safety. We
  manufacturers of the United States of America have a reputation for
  ability, energy and initiative all over the world, and we cannot, we
  must not, fail to make good.”

Let me say in conclusion that I do not share the prevailing pessimism as
to the industrial outlook in the United States. I repeat that there has
been an awakening in recent years. Social legislation has made rapid
progress. We need to maintain and increase our attention to these
matters. Employer, employe and the public need to get closer together
and this can be best brought about by a thorough knowledge of industrial
conditions and publicity without fear or favor to any class. If we each
and every one strive to that end, then is being fulfilled Tennyson’s
worthy charge to

“_Ring out the slowly dying cause And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life With sweeter manners, purer laws._

“_Ring in the valiant men and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand,
Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the light that is to be._”


             INDUSTRIAL SERVICE MOVEMENT OF THE Y. M. C. A.

                       FRED H. RINDGE, Jr., M. A.

            INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT, INTERNATIONAL Y. M. C. A.

Six years ago at Yale was started the industrial service movement of the
Young Men’s Christian Association. There are at present 3,500 students
from 150 colleges throughout the country engaged in this service under
the direction of city and student association branches. Engineering
students particularly are enlisted in this volunteer service for
industrial workers which presents an effective laboratory for practical
work, backed by the training, encouragement and supervision of
association officials whose co-operation is extended to the larger
efforts for industrial and social betterment which students engage in
after graduation.

Among the forty different lines of service are: teaching English,
history, and citizenship to foreigners; teaching drawing, electricity,
manual training, music and other subjects; conducting men’s and boys’
clubs and boy scout and big brothers work; giving noon shop talks in
factories; giving instruction in hygiene and first aid, athletics, etc.;
holding educational classes in labor unions; conducting socials,
entertainments, observation trips and week-end camps; doing charity
organization work; investigating working, living and recreative
conditions, etc.

The idea is permeating the leading colleges and universities. The old
Yale boat house is being used as a school for teaching English, civics,
and hygiene to foreigners. Students at the University of Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, and Ames are holding classes for foreign men and boys in
railroad box-cars. Men from Columbia, Harvard, Williams, Brown,
Pennsylvania, and other colleges are conducting educational classes in
labor unions, talking in shop meetings, and leading clubs of working
boys. University of Wisconsin engineering students are instructing
American mechanics and boiler makers in the round house, and convicts in
the jail. Undergraduates of Amherst, Massachusetts Agricultural College,
Princeton, Penn State and other institutions are doing deputation work
in rural industrial communities. Men from Cornell, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, McGill University, California and the University of Puget
Sound are visiting the homes of immigrants and are teaching groups in
boarding houses. Students of South Carolina, Furman, and other southern
colleges, are doing extension work in cotton mill villages.

[Illustration:

  CLASS OF RUSSIAN AND ROUMANIAN JEWS
]

Students have made possible unusual community meetings. In New York city
sixty classes in English and civics for foreigners have been taught by
students, and on several occasions the members of these classes,
representatives of sixteen nationalities, came together under their
respective flags to hear a lecture on American citizenship, to tell what
the work was doing for them, to sing their national songs and to unite
in learning “America.” The Working boys’ clubs came together on one
occasion to hear addresses by Ernest Thompson Seton and Dr. George J.
Fisher. In Pittsburgh, a foreign singing contest was attended by several
thousand people, and a huge American flag of silk was awarded to the
winning group. In San Francisco a mass meeting and entertainment was
attended by men of twenty-five nationalities.

In Tacoma last spring, the notable immigration conference, attended by
several hundred delegates, including five state governors, a Canadian
premier and representatives of capital and labor, was planned and
promoted by the Y. M. C. A. immigration secretary and his student
workers. The conference resulted in the formation of the Coast-wide
Immigration League, to cope with the problems of Pacific immigration
which will be aggravated on the opening of the Panama Canal. In April of
this year a similar conference was held in San Francisco. The man who
conceived and is promoting these conferences acquired his first
experience in teaching foreigners English as a graduate student at
college. It was this effort that determined his life work.

The interest that college men have in this service which brings no
financial compensation is due to the natural sympathy that most students
have for those less fortunate than themselves. To awaken that sympathy
they need only to be shown a real and definite job to do and how to do
it. They can also be shown that industrial service is not only an
altruistic privilege and patriotic duty but also “blesseth him that
gives and him that takes.” This service affords an experience which
students need, for it enlarges a man’s vision, increases his sympathy
with “the other half” and gives a knowledge of how to deal with men.


                    _Enlisting Students the Service_

The methods of enlisting students are interesting. Lectures on
industrial conditions and needs and the college man’s responsibility are
given before students by carefully selected employers, labor leaders,
and social workers. Especially prepared literature is distributed,
articles are written for student periodicals, and an industrial library
installed in the college Y. M. C. A. building. Interested students meet
weekly, often under expert leadership, for a discussion of industrial
subjects. The student and city branches of the Y. M. C. A. join hands in
the movement, and, in co-operation with churches, missions, social
settlements, boys’ clubs, libraries, civic associations, factories,
labor unions, foreign societies, etc., discover definite opportunities
for industrial service where students can be useful. Experience has
proved beyond a doubt that volunteer service can be conscientious and
efficient. A settlement worker writes: “I don’t see how we could have
done without the splendid work of those college men.” After a few men
are put to work, others become interested through observation, and the
movement naturally spreads.

[Illustration:

  A NOON CLASS CONDUCTED IN POLISH
]

In a three-day-campaign in New York, the industrial service movement was
presented to selected classes of students at Columbia, New York
University, and the College of the City of New York, with the result
that 280 students signified their hearty interest and 125 were willing
to undertake immediate work. In a single year 165 undergraduates engaged
in industrial service in New York city, and the movement has become of
such importance that a secretary gives all his time to it. This man was
captain of his university football team two years ago and became
interested at college. It is noticeable that generally the strongest and
most popular students volunteer for service. A list of those at work
from Yale includes varsity football, basketball, baseball, and track
men, intercollegiate debaters, class and fraternity officers, and honor
men. In many places the matter has been presented to the various
fraternities and has met a most cordial response.

Recently at the University of Michigan the movement was presented to
1,200 students in two days, to employers of the city at a luncheon, to
labor leaders at a dinner in the city Y. M. C. A., and to a special
meeting of engineering professors. At Cornell University over 1,600
students were addressed, and 525 signed up as interested and willing to
promote the ideas and ideals of the movement. One hundred and thirty men
volunteered for definite service, and many are already teaching in the
homes of foreigners, leading boys’ clubs, and doing other similar work.
Others will teach this summer where they live and work. The movement was
presented also at meetings of engineering professors and at a gathering
of the Business Men’s Association. The city and student branches of the
Y. M. C. A. are financing the scheme, and a strong student committee is
heading the work in the university.

In practically every college the faculty heartily supports the scheme,
and the sentiment of many professors was expressed when one said, “I
hope every one of my students will make a place in his program for some
volunteer altruistic service. They will have opportunity to do a great
deal of good, but will gain far more than they can give.” Recently at
the University of Iowa the movement was presented to a faculty meeting
which had not been addressed by any outsider for nineteen years. A
number of college faculties have met to discuss the movement, and to
consider the re-adaptation of engineering courses to give more attention
to the “human side of the engineering profession.” Already many
engineering schools have courses in “management,” but professors feel
increasingly that even these courses have too much of the “material” and
not enough of the “human” element. Such instruction supplemented by
personal friendly contact in service for industrial workers will do much
to remove prejudices and promote mutual understanding between college
men and workingmen.


                       _Appreciation of the Work_

Some quotations from letters written by working men show better than any
other testimony how they feel about this work:

  “I have not found words to thank the best friend I ever had on earth
  for all he has done for me. I am a better man.”

  “I have learn some English, got better job, will be good American
  citizen. I am grateful forever.”

  A foreign convict writes: “Now I got good chance to learn English to
  read and write because I got long time to do in this prison, and if I
  learn, that will help me when I get out from here. I no like to work
  all my life with pick and shovel.”

In the West a lumber company has provided a room where its foreign
employes can learn English under student leadership. A newspaper
clipping tells the story in these headlines: “Slavonians eager to
acquire knowledge of English after back-breaking work in mill.”

That American working men are also open to friendliness of this kind is
splendidly illustrated by an experience with a large labor union. When
the students first spoke to the members of the union, the men naturally
wondered and were suspicious of an ulterior motive. But when they went
down to the union rooms two nights a week, often at considerable
sacrifice, and taught mathematics, mechanics, and electricity, the men
warmed up. As the students proved that they were not “snobs” but good
fellows, the men unhesitatingly showed their appreciation. The work was
so successful that it has been carried on for several years. The
president of the union testifies that the wages of some of his men have
been raised from $18 to $28 a week, as a result of the instruction
given. A series of lectures has been given before 500 men in the union
and the men have now asked the students to plan the entertainments for
their social meetings. This latter request is particularly significant,
as the class of entertainment formerly enjoyed was of very low grade.
The work is spreading to unions in many other cities, and the students
are getting an entirely different view of the rights of the workingman.
In a number of instances the labor union, sometimes the Central Labor
Union, has invited selected students to act as fraternal delegates, with
full power to discuss and to introduce motions. This is a remarkable
development, and in no case have the unions had cause to regret the
step.

In one city the students discovered a Syrian who spoke six languages
fluently, had been a school superintendent in his own country, but
because he knew no English, was sweeping out a market for one dollar a
day. The man was befriended, educated and has become a power for good
among his countrymen.

An Italian lad lived in America four years before an American treated
him as a friend. By that time he was so discouraged that he had several
times attempted suicide. A college student met him on a street corner,
invited him to an English class in one of the settlements, helped him,
trained him for leadership, and he is now a social worker of remarkable
ability among his people.


              _Engineering Students Especially Interested_

Social workers in our colleges have in many instances found engineering
students “too busy,” and as a rule not so open to the altruistic appeal
as those in other departments of the universities. Yet, it is a fact
that 70 per cent of the 3,000 men engaged in industrial service are
engineers. The reason is obvious: A football captain (an engineer) said
the other day:

  “This industrial work is the livest thing that’s struck college since
  I’ve been here. It’s a real job and it’s practical. Everyone of us who
  goes into it is bound to acquire an experience in dealing with men,
  which the curriculum can’t give, and we need it!”

Indeed a prominent general manager, himself a college graduate, recently
said to the writer:

  “The college graduates in my employ are frequently a confounded
  nuisance. They come to us with a splendid knowledge of books, but when
  as foremen or superintendents, they get out into the shop, and deal
  with _working men_, they make a mess of it. A good part of my time is
  spent in straightening out difficulties and restoring harmony. They
  haven’t any real sympathy with men and don’t know how to handle them.”

Here then is a great need in the training of an engineer, which the
industrial service movement is designed to meet. Engineering students
are quick to see the point. As they teach English to foreigners or lead
a club of working men they come to understand these men, not as a
“class,” but as individuals. They get a friendly insight into their
working and living conditions and a first-hand knowledge of how to deal
with them intelligently and sympathetically. Thus one student writes:

  “My class of Italians is the finest bunch of men I’ve ever come into
  contact with—bright, keen, appreciative to an embarrassing extent.
  They have done me more good than I can ever do them.”

Another says:

  “My club of working men was the big thing needed to complete my
  college education. It taught me things I could have learned in no
  other way, and as an engineer, I am already deriving great benefit.”

It is also true that many a college man has been kept straight and
acquired higher ideals because of the responsibility of some group of
men or boys who were looking up to him. One such man, an engineer of
promise, says:

  “Before I undertook any of this work, my one ideal in life was to make
  all the money I could, regardless of anyone under me. Since I gave
  some of my time in volunteer service my ideals have all changed. Now I
  don’t care where I go or what my salary, so long as it is some place
  where I can help my fellow men.”

[Illustration:

  AN ENGLISH CLASS FOR RUSSIANS AND POLES
]

This naturally raises the great question of what these students will do
with their experience after they graduate from college.


                 _Larger Significance of the Movement_

As already indicated, after students have had a real service experience,
their changed attitude toward the world’s needs and their sense of
responsibility is bound to lead to greater activity in their larger
spheres of influence after graduation. Thus, it is not surprising that
we have in our central office a mailing list of 3000 graduates, most of
them engineers who were interested as undergraduates, and many of whom
are now in the forefront of movements for social and industrial
betterment. Here is what some of them write from various parts of the
country:

“It is surely satisfactory to feel one is doing something for the
betterment of the human race. You can count on me to co-operate in the
work wherever I go.”

“As a student I got interested in industrial service and resolved that
any men whom I might later control should get a square deal. I’ve just
investigated the living conditions of the men in this lumber camp, and
found them sleeping on old vermin-producing wooden bunks, that hadn’t
been changed in six years. I’ve had the whole outfit burned up and an
iron cot put in for every man in camp.”

“I am sending you my personal check to cover cost of equipment for
English classes in my steel mill.”

“We have put in a fine welfare club for our men, with reading, writing
and smoking rooms. No gambling or liquor allowed. It certainly pays and
I am delighted with my share in it.”

“As foreman in the steel mill, I see that my men get a square deal on
the job, a better job if they deserve it, and I have taken pains to
render personal service to many. We must get rid of the seven-day,
twelve-hour labor schedule before we can have real men with real homes.”

“I have signed up eight hundred working men for a Y. M. C. A. membership
in our mining town. After a thorough investigation, we feel that the
Association will meet the needs of the men better than any other
agency.”

“I am superintendent of schools here and am putting in evening classes
for the first time in this city, and an using Roberts’ method of English
for foreigners.”

“Have just been elected president of the Social Hygiene Society in this
community.”

“I have been traveling all over the country and have noticed that the
heart has almost been educated out of some of my friends with degrees. I
am convinced that every undergraduate enlisted in this volunteer work
will have the broad field of humanity opened before him. It’s great
business.”

One of America’s greatest football captains, a few months after
graduation, wrote from a construction camp in Colorado:

“Remembering what I learned in this movement at Yale, when I became
foreman I treated my gang of Italians as men and not as dogs, and it was
really pitiful to see the way they returned the little kindness I showed
them. Each day I was met with cheery words of greeting. When the job was
complete the men came to me in a bunch, thanked me for the fair way I
had treated them, and said they would like to work for me always.”

What greater satisfaction could an engineer ask? And what may it not
mean to the industrial world of tomorrow, as hundreds and hundreds of
engineering and other students graduate from college with a new vision
of their service opportunities, and a knowledge of how to help. In one
college town through the entire winter, the son of a railway magnate,
who has 25,000 men under him, taught a group of foreign laborers in one
of the worst districts of the city. Who can judge of that man’s
influence a few years hence?

This in brief is the story of the industrial service movement, which
heads up in the Industrial Department of the Y. M. C. A. International
Committee, in which state committees and nearly 300 student and city
associations co-operate, and for which thousands of college men are
conscientiously working. From the central office of the secretary a
letter of news, suggestion and inspiration, and quantities of helpful
literature go each month to the local secretaries who are co-operating.

Thus, quietly but rapidly, without undue advertising has been advancing
a great movement, broad in scope, submerging creed and class in
altruistic service; deep in influence, reaching to the very heart of
many vital industrial problems of the day. At a conservative estimate
3,500 undergraduates are reaching over 60,000 working men and boys each
week in definite constructive service, which will make for better
understanding, the improvement of industrial and social conditions and
the transforming of individual lives. No one can measure the helpful
service of the 3,000 graduates who also are promoting the ideals of the
movement. As hundreds of men continue to graduate with a new vision of
their service opportunities and responsibilities, who can foresee their
influence in maintaining industrial righteousness and industrial peace?


                      MAKING INCOME EQUAL OUTGO[7]
             WHAT THE STRUGGLE MEANS TO COTTON MILL WORKERS

                          MARGARET F. BYINGTON
        CHARITY ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT, RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

Footnote 7:

  See Federal Report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in
  the United States, 19 volumes. Edited by Charles P. Neill. Volume XVI.
  Family Budgets of Typical Cotton Mill Workers. By Wood F. Worcester
  and Daisy Worthington Worcester.

Hidden in monotonous uniformity there is to be found in the volumes of
the federal report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in
the United States a most illuminating analysis of the budgets of cotton
mill families. It is notable for simplicity rather than for
comprehensiveness. Budgets of twenty-one families employed in southern
cotton mills and of fourteen in the cotton mills of Fall River, Mass.,
have been secured and the conditions of the families studied. Because
the number is so small no attempt is made to use the figures as a basis
for generalizations, but the full statement of the circumstances as well
as the expenditures of each family gives the study a compensating
vividness.

The study of the fourteen families in Fall River is not as satisfactory
as the southern investigation because the standards of English, Italian,
French Canadian, Portuguese and Polish operatives are so different. Also
it was not possible, as it often was in the South, to get an almost
complete record both of family income and expenditure through the books
of the companies where the families worked. For these reasons the
analysis of the southern families’ budgets is more deserving of
attention.

Special interest attaches to the study of the twenty-one southern
families as it was the first budget study of southern families, I
believe. As a background we may quote from the report a brief
description of life in a southern cotton mill town:

  “Certain conditions of the new industrial life foster this isolation.
  The whole family—men, women, and children—are engaged in the same
  industry in which every other family in their community is engaged.
  They have their own churches and their own schools, in many cases
  furnished by the mill owners. They live, with few exceptions, in
  houses owned by the mill company. They buy their provisions, in many
  cases, from the company store. The cotton mill is the center of their
  lives. Their present and their future are bounded by it. In less
  isolated industrial communities there is always the prospect of
  working into some other and higher industrial group. The vision of the
  southern cotton operative, however, is so limited by his surroundings
  that this possibility rarely occurs to him. In other industries the
  father may feel that he can never hope for anything more for himself,
  but he can at least plan and struggle for a better life for his
  children. Here the mill demands the children as well as the fathers.”

This dependence on the mills serves to make the study more accurate than
is usually possible. The rent of company houses was, of course, known
and through the courtesy of the mill owners the investigators were
allowed to copy from the books of the company not only the detailed
expenditures for food, clothing, etc., but what was of more importance,
the actual wage of the various members of the family from week to week
for an entire year. The total income, in some cases practically every
item of expenditure, is therefore known.

The families chosen for study are considered typical, though probably on
the whole having somewhat better than average conditions. This necessity
for making an arbitrary choice is, of course, the one uncertain point in
the study. As the investigators, however, had taken part in the larger
investigation of the cotton mill industry made by the Federal Bureau of
Labor, reliance can probably be placed upon their judgment as to what
families were representative. Moreover the report states that the names
of the families working in one of the three mills were furnished by a
mill official as representative families, and in another they were
frankly avowed by the mill officials to be among the best. It may
therefore be assumed that while there is really no “typical family” and
while there are wide variations in circumstances, the stories of these
twenty-one families give an accurate picture of the home life of cotton
mill employes.

In view of the discussion of the effects of the work of young children
in cotton mills it is interesting to note that of the twenty-one
families studied not one was wholly dependent on the wages of the man.
The average number of wage earners in these families was 3.6 and the
average number of individuals 8.5.

Practically all the families live in company houses for which they pay a
low rent, usually $.75 to $1 a room per month. A typical house is “a
one-story frame, built upon brick piers instead of a solid foundation.
It is rectangular in form and divided into four rooms. The rooms are
about fourteen by sixteen or sixteen by sixteen feet, and they are
ceiled instead of plastered. Two rooms have fireplaces or grates, a
third is arranged for a cooking stove, and the fourth has no means of
heating. The flooring is of a single thickness and, as it is seldom
carpeted, furnishes little protection against the cold.” Most of the
homes are but meagerly furnished and only partly heated.

In the discussion of food, the menus and daily expenditures of many
families are given and repay careful study. As a standard for judging
the adequacy of the food supply, the dietary for the federal prison in
Georgia is used (20.5 cents per man per day). Eleven of the twenty-one
families fell below even this meagre diet. “Corn bread, biscuit, pork
and coffee form a large part of the diet of all families.”

In the matter of clothing the study is detailed and brings out some
interesting points as to the different standards of dress for various
members of the same family. The daughter who works in the mills spends
many times as much on clothes as does the mother who works at home. In
some cases, at least, the mother wears the cast-off clothing of the
daughter. One such mother spent $1.98 for clothing in an entire year,
while her daughter of twenty-one who was married that year spent
$113.84; another daughter of nineteen spent $77, and a third girl of
sixteen spent $86.

After giving the budgets of these twenty-one families in full, the
investigators attempt to formulate a “minimum standard” and a “fair
standard” of living. For the former the food cost is based on the prison
dietary; the housing standard on the rent of a mill house; and the other
items—clothing, furniture, fuel, light, and sundries—on the least amount
spent by any family for each item, excluding those that were manifestly
impossibly low. On this basis the “minimum standard” for a family
consisting of a man, his wife, and three children under twelve was
reckoned as possible at an expenditure of $408.26 a year. This amount,
the authors state, is “so low that one would expect few families to live
on it.” Frankly, from the description of what is included, I should be
inclined to say that no family could:

  “If the family live upon this sum without suffering, wisdom to
  properly apportion the income is necessary. There can be no amusements
  or recreations that involve any expense. No tobacco can be used. No
  newspapers can be purchased. The children cannot go to school, because
  there will be no money to buy their books. Household articles that are
  worn out or destroyed cannot be replaced. The above sum provides for
  neither birth nor death nor any illness that demands a doctor’s
  attention or calls for medicine. Even though all these things are
  eliminated, if the family is not to suffer, the mother must be a woman
  of rare ability. She must know how to make her own and her children’s
  clothing; she must be physically able to do all of the household work,
  including the washing. And she must know enough to purchase with her
  allowance food that has the proper nutritive value.”

Such a “standard of living” cannot be considered adequate, falls far
short of being scientific and it seems to me doubtful wisdom to consider
as a “standard” at all a program so bankrupt of actual family needs.

The “fair standard” is worked out on a similar scheme. It includes
somewhat more generous provision of food and allowance for certain other
factors which “these people have come to regard ... as essential to
their every-day life.” This “fair standard” is estimated at $600.74 for
the average family.

[Illustration:

  CHART OF THE WEEKLY EARNINGS OF ONE OF THE TWENTY-ONE SOUTHERN
    FAMILIES
]

A series of novel diagrams is presented showing, for each family, their
earnings from week to week, their average earnings for the year and a
comparison of this with the minimum and fair standards.

An additional study was made of the wages of seventy-five families for a
year, the figures being secured from the mill pay roll. The income of
fifteen families fell below even the minimum; twenty-two had more than
the fair standard, and thirty-eight between the two. Of the seventy-five
families, fifty had fathers working in the mill and only two of these
fifty fathers, both overseers, earned enough to support a wife and three
young children according to the fair standard, and four according to the
minimum. A decent home life for the families of these men would be
impossible were it not for the wages of the children or the income from
boarders. The great variations in incomes from week to week would
increase the difficulty of planning household expenditures even when the
average indicates a living wage.

The results of this low standard of living on physical vitality are
shown by the fact that each of the twenty-one families studied spent
some money for medicine or doctor. As illustrating the amount of
sickness in these families, with its resulting loss of income and added
expense we may quote from the description of one family which has
suffered extensively: “The father was injured in the mill twice during
the year and lost six weeks. The mother is ill with lung trouble. The
boy has tuberculosis, and the fourteen-year-old girl is very frail and
is constantly taking patent medicines. During the year they spent
$108.25 on medicines and doctor’s bills. The year before the
fourteen-year-old girl, whose earnings were a large share of the family
income, lost twenty-four weeks because of sickness.” Another family,
though in good general health, suffered as a result of bad sanitary
conditions: “The members of the family appear to be in good health. The
daughter, aged eighteen, had typhoid fever during the year and was
unable to work for eight weeks. The son, aged sixteen, had malaria and
lost from one to two weeks at different times.”

This is the picture of southern cotton mill life—a family living in a
four-room mill-owned house without running water and indoor toilets,
with but one room heated; a meager diet of pork and beans, biscuit,
coffee and syrup; an irregular income, not allowing on an average enough
for a fair standard of living for most of the families, yet tempting
often to extravagance in those weeks when it is high; a twelve-year
limit permitted by the child labor law, and adult wages that necessitate
the children’s going to work as soon as that law allows; the father
rarely earning much more, and sometimes even less, than the younger
members of the family; scant amusement, usually only the moving picture
show, possible on the meager income; poor health with the doctor often
an impossible luxury.


                                JOTTINGS


DETROIT BOOSTING FOR SAFETY

The campaign for safety is taking firm root in Detroit. The Detroit
Manufacturers’ Association has in its employ two safety inspectors who
are at the call of members for work in their plants at any time. They
are constantly hunting for danger points and suggesting methods of
eliminating them.

More recently, following the enactment of the Workmen’s Compensation
Law, there has been organized the Detroit Accident Prevention
Conference. There have been three meetings so far, with such men as John
Calder of the Cadillac Motor Car Company and W. H. Bradshaw, safety
director of the New York Central lines as speakers and papers by those
members who were equipped by reason of experience to give instructive
information. The meetings are held in the evening in a down town hotel
where a moderate priced dinner is served, the addresses and discussions
following. The average attendance has been about one hundred. As no
membership fee is charged and as great enthusiasm is displayed it is
hoped that shortly the attendance will be double this number.


TRADE SCHOOL FOR PRINTERS

In _Printing Trade News_ the recently established School for Printers’
Apprentices in New York is described by A. L. Blue, director of the
school. The school is co-operative in the extreme; it is managed by a
joint committee of employers (The Printers’ League), workmen (the New
York Typographical Union) and the public (the Hudson Guild). Its
headquarters are at the guild. The courses, which are for working
apprentices, are so planned as to develop individuality. Afternoon
classes are held for boys employed on the morning papers, evening
classes for others. The present enrolment is ninety-six.


SICKNESS INSURANCE IN WISCONSIN

A bill marking the initial step towards the establishment of state
accident and sick benefit insurance is pending in the Legislature of
Wisconsin. This is one of the first proposals of the kind submitted in
any state. Its insurance features are modelled after the English act.
The bill applies solely to vocational diseases. Both employer and
employe are to contribute toward the premiums. Single employes earning
less than $600 a year, who have someone dependent upon them, are
eligible to protection under the provisions of the bill; no person may
come under its terms who earns over $900. Persons earning $800 a year
must have two dependent upon them, and those earning $900 annually must
have four persons dependent upon them in order to come within the
proposed statute.

Employers are to be allowed to deduct 1 per cent of the wages of
employes and they must add to this sum one-half of 1 per cent of the pay
roll, the entire sum to be paid into a state insurance fund. When ill,
the employe is to receive 65 per cent of his wages during the period of
his illness, but for not more than twenty-six consecutive weeks nor more
than thirty-nine weeks in a single year. If the employe is sent to a
hospital, his regular wages are to be paid to him weekly. The State
Industrial Commission is empowered to enforce the provisions of the act
in the event of its passage.


MUNICIPAL MINIMUM WAGE

A minimum wage of 25s. ($6.08) a week for all able-bodied men will
henceforth rule, says _Life and Labor_, in the municipal service in
Glasgow. It is now many years since the corporation of Glasgow
acknowledged the principle of a minimum wage, the rate then introduced
being 21s. ($5.11). Since that time improvements have brought the wages
up to an average minimum of about 23s. ($5.60). so that the proposal for
a minimum of 25s., which was carried in the town council, means an
advance of about 2s. ($0.48 2–3) weekly to many of the lower-paid
workmen. To give effect to the proposal an additional expenditure of
$41,365 will, it is estimated, be involved.

The position in Manchester is better, from the workers’ point of view,
than it will be in Glasgow even when the minimum weekly wage is raised
to 25s. ($6.08). Seven years ago the Manchester city council raised the
minimum wage to 25s. Early in the present year there was an agitation
for an increase of 2s. ($0.48 2–3) a week in view of the increased cost
of living. A special committee reported in favor of an advance to 26s.
($6.33) a week, and this the council agreed to. This sum is paid to all
the laborers (as distinct from skilled workers in the several
departments) throughout the city.


FULL CREW BILLS

An unusual publicity campaign on the part of railroads has resulted from
the passage by the state Legislatures of the so-called Full Crew Bills
in New Jersey and New York, regulating the number of employes on trains.
In the New York newspapers for several days in succession the railroads
used three-quarter page advertisements for a joint statement of their
opposition. In this space they urged the governor to veto the bill, and
the public to protest against its enactment. It is claimed by the
railroads that the law will cost them $2,000,000 annually in the state
of New York without bringing any increase in efficiency or safety. They
point out that Governors Hughes and Dix both refused to approve similar
measures on the ground that such questions should logically be decided
by the Public Service Commission.

In their advertisements the railroads urged that the matter be left to
the state Public Service Commissions, and promised to abide by their
decisions.

The Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, which is urging such legislation
all over the country, insists that it is necessary to promote safety.
_The Railroad Trainman_, organ of the brotherhood says:

“Today our men are asking for legislation that is no more of a departure
from the beaten path than the safety device legislation of twenty years
ago was. They have tried to regulate the car limit of trains and the
number of men to be employed on them through their contracts. They have
failed in the first instance altogether and for the most part in the
other. They realize that, operated as trains are, freight train service
is often performed under unsafe conditions. Two men for an unlimited
number of cars is the rule for the most part. Because of it there are
freight trains running today averaging between fifty and one hundred and
thirty-five cars and two men are in charge with the conductor.

“There will be trains, perhaps, on which the extra man will not be
needed, but if the companies had been forehanded enough to put men where
they were needed they could have saved the ones not needed, but they did
not and legislation does not find a way to discriminate as readily as
the exercise of common sense does.”

The bills have been signed and have become laws in both New Jersey and
New York.



                          CHURCH AND COMMUNITY


                        Edited by GRAHAM TAYLOR


                     TERRE HAUTE’S LABOR PARLIAMENT

                           BENJAMIN B. TOWNE

Failure on the part of the churches of Terre Haute, Ind., to grasp the
problems of its 11,000 workingmen led to the holding of a “labor
parliament.” This parliament, convened last May, was directed by Harry
F. Ward of the Methodist Federation for Social Service. There were three
meetings in different churches, where the problems of industry and
Christianity were discussed in an open and frank manner.

But the prime movers realized, early in April, that to make this
parliament a success much local work would have to be done. As a
stepping-stone, the ministers adopted an industrial creed, which was
floated over the city, with the result that the laboring man discovered
that he and the church had common ideals toward which to aim.

The local work in the churches was adapted to the particular condition
of the locality, all efforts, however, being focused on the labor
parliament to be held in May. Shop meetings were held, lantern slides of
existing conditions were shown, and mass meetings for working men and
girls conducted. Besides these features, the newspapers helped this most
interesting scheme along, so that by the time set for the labor
parliament, all Terre Haute was prepared for the co-operative
discussion, which was to prove so beneficial to the church and organized
labor. The Central Labor Union co-operated well with the movement and
appointed a committee of three prominent labor men to help the
ministerial committee.

The labor parliament was, indeed, a success. Dr. Ward chose as his
subjects, Industry and Social Waste, Democracy in Industry, and the
Industrial Problem of Christianity. In all his talks Dr. Ward opened the
eyes of labor world and church. One, he showed, could not be of full
benefit in its community without the co-operation of the other. And now,
nearly a year after this industrial revival, what are the results? Are
any permanent effects apparent from these efforts, or did the movement,
swelling into the three days’ parliament, gradually fade away and become
forgotten by the laboring man? A few pointed statements of those nearest
the problem of both the church and laboring man will show the result.

A. M. Powers, president of the Central Labor Union, has this to say of
its success. “The movement has been beneficial, as far as I can see, to
both sides. When the church can show that the laboring man is not an
insect to be placed upon a sociological dissecting table for amused
speculations of theologians, but a man to be helped and to help advance
the cause of the brotherhood of man through the church, then the
antagonism will be replaced by a hearty co-operation because this spirit
of brotherhood is the basis of the organized labor movement.

“I believe the churches of Terre Haute have shown that this is the
spirit of their activity in their last year’s efforts, and as an
individual I endorse the movement and think that as long as the same
spirit is shown the labor unions will be willing to work hand in hand
with the church.”


George W. Greenleaf, secretary-treasurer of District Lodge No. 72,
International Association of Machinists, and city councilman, says:

  “The labor parliament and the preceding church services held in Terre
  Haute last winter were beyond the question of a doubt a benefit to
  organized labor. The chief benefit derived, in my estimation,
  consisted in the dispelling of the popular prejudice against our
  organizations and the placing of our cause on a higher plane in the
  minds of the public.”

                      TERRE HAUTE’S INDUSTRIAL CREED

  _United we stand_:

  _For equal rights and perfect justice to all men._

  _For the principle of conciliation and arbitration._

  _For the protection of workers from dangerous machinery, occupational
  diseases, injuries and mortality._

  _For the abolition of child labor._

  _For such regulations of conditions of labor for women as shall
  safeguard the physical and moral health of the community._

  _For the suppression of “the sweating system.”_

  _For a reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest
  practical point with labor for all and a reasonable degree of
  leisure._

  _For release from employment one day in seven, and whenever at all
  possible that this be the Sabbath Day._

  _For the highest wage that each industry can afford and for the most
  equitable division of the profits of industry that can be devised._

  _For the recognition of the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12) and the teachings
  of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy of all
  ills._

The ministers of the city feel much the same way about the effects of
the parliament.

Rev. A. E. Monger, pastor of the largest Methodist church in the city
and one of the promoters of the movement, says:

  “Since the campaign there has been crystalized in the churches a
  sentiment of responsibility for the welfare of the laboring man. The
  laboring men have found that the gospel does have a message against
  the great sins under which they are struggling.”

As a further evidence of the parliament’s lasting effect, Rev. John G.
Benson, another of its promoters, may be quoted:

  “We are getting requests from every quarter for a repetition of the
  parliament.”


                 NEW RECOGNITION OF SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY

In religious periodical literature two high notes of social significance
have recently been struck. The _Constructive Quarterly_ has appeared
from the press of the George H. Doran Company in America and Hodder &
Stoughton in England. It is planned to be a free forum where all the
churches of Christendom may frankly and fully state their “operative
beliefs” and their distinctive work, “including and not avoiding
differences,” but making “no attack with polemical animus on others.”

The purpose of this undertaking is to afford opportunity for the
churches, without compromise, “to re-introduce themselves to one another
through the things they themselves positively hold to be vital to
Christianity,” “so that all may know what the differences are and what
they stand for, and that all may respect them, in order to cherish and
preserve whatever is true and helpful and to discover and grow out of
whatever is harmful and false.”

As it has no editorial pronouncements and no scheme for the unity of
Christendom to promote, the _Quarterly_ will depend upon the catholicity
and representative influence of its editorial board, selected from all
countries and communions, to promote a fellowship of work and spirit.
The middle term of the _Quarterly’s_ subtitle—a journal of the Faith,
Work and Thought of Christendom—is likely to prove the basis for the
correlation of the other two. For long before the faith and the thought
of Christendom may be correlated, the churches will surely co-operate in
their common work.

The _Hibbert Journal_, which for ten years has been the ablest technical
quarterly review of theology and philosophy, announces a department of
social service. This policy was foreshadowed by the editor as early as
October, 1906, in a notably direct and able protest against the church
standing aloof from “the world.” He stoutly maintained that

  “the alienation from church life of so much that is good in modern
  culture, and so much that is earnest in every class, is the natural
  sequel to the traditional attitude of the church to the world.”

How false and unintelligible, as well as untenable, this attitude is
appears in these categorical imperatives:

  “If by ‘the world’ we mean such things as parliamentary or municipal
  government, the great industries of the nation, the professions of
  medicine, law, and arms, the fine arts, the courts of justice, the
  hospitals, the enterprises of education, the pursuit of physical
  science and its application to the arts of life, the domestic economy
  of millions of homes, the daily work of all the toilers—if, in short,
  we include that huge complex of secular activities which keeps the
  world up from hour to hour, and society as a going concern—then the
  churches which stand apart and describe all this as morally bankrupt
  are simply advertising themselves as the occupiers of a position as
  mischievous as it is false.

  “If, on the other hand, we exclude these things from our definition,
  what, in reason, do we mean by ‘the world?’ Or shall we so frame the
  definition as to ensure beforehand that all the bad elements belong to
  the world, and all the good to the church? Or, again, shall we take
  refuge in the customary remark that whatever is best in these secular
  activities is the product of Christian influence and teaching in the
  past? This course, attractive though it seems, is the most fatal of
  all. For if the world has already absorbed so much of the best the
  churches have to offer, how can these persist in declaring that the
  former is morally bankrupt?

  “Extremists have not yet perceived how disastrously this dualistic
  theory thus recoils upon the cause they would defend. The church in
  her theory has stood aloof from the world. And now the world takes
  deadly revenge by maintaining the position assigned her and standing
  aloof from the church.”

No better prospectus for the social work of either of these great
quarterlies could be framed than the intention to demonstrate and bear
home to the intelligence, conscience and heart of the churches these
very affirmations. For, while enough of church leaders and followers
thus face forward to warrant Professor Rauschenbusch in declaring that
it has at last become orthodox to demand the social application of
Christianity, yet there is a sharp reaction within every denomination,
which threatens to retard this hopeful movement of the churches to serve
their communities and thereby save themselves.

But the ultimate issue between those who are thus fearlessly facing the
present and those who persist in backing up into the future cannot be
doubtful. Social Christianity is not only demonstrably orthodox, but has
won its recognition and its own place in any theological, philosophical,
historical or experiential conception of Christianity that claims to be
comprehensive, not to say intelligent. Without a much larger emphasis
upon the social aims and efforts of Christianity in the thought, belief
and work of the church, the need that is finding expression in every
parish and community cannot be met—that which the _Constructive
Quarterly_ well states to be “the need of the impact of the whole of
Christianity on the race.”


            THE FIRST ORPHAN ASYLUM IN THE UNITED STATES[8]
                THAT OF THE URSULINE NUNS AT NEW ORLEANS

Footnote 8:

  This account of the founding of our first orphanage in the quaint
  language of the time was obtained for THE SURVEY from a friend of the
  institution by Albert H. Yoder.

At the outset of the colonization of Louisiana by the French, ten
Ursuline nuns of France, with noble generosity and self-sacrifice,
volunteered to go to New Orleans, there to instruct the children of the
colonists. They left Rouen in January, 1727.

After great difficulties and countless perils, they reached the mouth of
the Mississippi whose waters they ascended in pirogues. They finally
landed in the Crescent City on the morning of August 7, 1727, after a
sea voyage of nearly six months. They had set sail from the port of
Havre on February 23, 1727 after a month spent in Paris.

Arriving in New Orleans, they were met by Bienville, governor of the
province of Louisiana. As there were no proper accommodations yet
provided, the governor vacated his own residence and placed it at their
disposal for a convent and school. Immediately was begun the erection of
a new building which was completed in 1734.

The Ursuline nuns upon its completion took possession and occupied it
till 1824 when they removed to their present home below the city. This
structure, which is now the Archbishopric, or official place for the
transaction of the business of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, is the
oldest building in Louisiana and also in the vast extent of what was
known as the Louisiana Purchase.

The Ursulines began their self-sacrificing work immediately upon their
arrival on August 8, 1727 and opened a free school to which were added a
select boarding school and then a little later a hospital. Moreover, in
order to inculcate principles of civilization and, especially, of
religion in the hearts of the wives and daughters of the Negroes and
Indians, the nuns devoted one hour each day to their instruction.

Shortly after their arrival a new field of labor was open to their zeal
in the shape of a poor orphan whom Father de Beaubois, had withdrawn
from a family of dissolute morals. Although their lodgings at the time
were insufficient, the nuns being still in Bienville’s house (their new
convent, the present old Archbishopric, was not ready for occupancy
until July 17, 1734), they adopted the child. This was the tiny
mustard-seed from which sprang the flourishing orphanage which exists to
the present day. It proved a real providence for the country, especially
in colonial times, as may be gleaned from history’s record of the
Natchez massacre, which took place on November 28, 1729.

After this frightful tragedy, so pathetically described by
Chateaubriand, the Indians, who had spared only the young wives and
daughters of their French victims, were forced to give up their hostages
or to be massacred in turn. The generous Ursulines then opened their
home to these unfortunate little ones and mothered them.

This act of disinterestedness and charity was truly heroic, considering
the great difficulties usually attendant on the founding of a colony and
was highly commended by Rev. Father le Petit, Jesuit, in a letter
addressed, July 12, 1730, to Rev. Father d’ Avaugour, procurator of the
American missions. Having given an account of the appalling massacre of
the French at Fort Rosalie by the Natchez Indians, Rev. Father le Petit
adds:

  “The little girls, whom none of the inhabitants wished to adopt, have
  greatly enlarged the interesting company of orphans whom the
  _religieuses_ [Ursulines] are bringing up. The great number of these
  children serves but to increase the charity and the delicate
  attentions of the good nuns. They have been formed into a separate
  class of which two teachers have charge.

  “There is not one of this holy community that would not be delighted
  at having crossed the ocean, were she to do no other good save that of
  preserving these children in their innocence, and of giving a polite
  and Christian education to young French girls who were in danger of
  being little better raised than slaves. The hope is held out to these
  holy _religieuses_ that, ere the end of the year, they will occupy the
  new house which is destined for them, and for which they have long
  been sighing. When they shall be settled there, to the instruction of
  the boarders, the orphans, the day scholars, and the Negresses, they
  will add also the care of the sick in the hospital, and of a house of
  refuge for women of questionable character. Perhaps later on they will
  even be able to aid in affording regularly, each year, the retreat to
  a large number of ladies, according to the taste with which we have
  inspired them.

  “So many works of charity would, in France, suffice to occupy several
  communities and different institutions. But what cannot a great zeal
  effect? These various labors do not at all startle seven Ursulines;
  and they rely upon being able, with the help of God’s grace, to
  sustain them without detriment to the religious observance of their
  rules. As for me, I fear that, if some assistance does not arrive,
  they will sink under the weight of so much fatigue. Those who, before
  knowing them, used to say they were coming too soon and in too great a
  number, have entirely changed their views and their language;
  witnesses of their edifying conduct and great services which they
  render to the colony, they find that they have arrived soon enough,
  and that there could not be too many of the same virtue and the same
  merit.”

After giving details relative to the visit of the Illinois chiefs, who
had come to condole with the French and to offer help against the
Natchez, Father Le Petit adds:

  “The first day that the Illinois saw the _religieuses_, Mamantouenza,
  perceiving near them a group of little girls, remarked: ‘I see,
  indeed, that you are not _religieuses_ without an object.’ He meant to
  say that they were not solitaries, laboring only for their own
  perfection. ‘You are,’ he added, ‘like the black robes, our fathers;
  you labor for others. Ah! if we had above there two or three of your
  number, our wives and daughters would have more sense.’ ‘Choose those
  whom you wish.’ ‘It is not for me to choose,’ said Mamantouenza. ‘It
  is for you who know them. The choice ought to fall on those who are
  most attached to God, and who love him most....’”

The records make mention of Therese Lardas, daughter of a Mobile
surgeon. After her father’s death, her mother brought her to the
Ursuline orphanage, where she intended leaving her just long enough to
make her first communion; but, when she came to take her home, so
earnestly did the child plead to remain, that the mother could not
resist her entreaties. At the age of sixteen, she entered the novitiate.
She led the life of an exemplary lay sister, and died at the age of
twenty-nine on November 22, 1786.

In testimony of the good education given to all classes by the
Ursulines, the Rt. Rev. Luis Penalvery Cardemas said in a dispatch
forwarded to the Spanish court, November 1, 1795:

  “Since my arrival in this town, on July 17, I have been studying with
  the keenest attention the character of its inhabitants, in order to
  regulate my ecclesiastical government in accordance with the
  information which I may obtain on this important subject.... Excellent
  results are obtained from the Convent of the Ursulines, in which a
  good many young girls are educated. This is the nursery of those
  future matrons who will inculcate in their children the principles
  which they here imbibe. The education which they receive in this
  institution is the cause of their being less vicious than the other
  sex....”

Up to 1824, that is, for well nigh a century, the Ursulines maintained
their orphanage in what is now the old Archbishopric. At this period,
New Orleans having spread considerably and become too densely populated
to afford the advantages and charms of the country so necessary to a
large boarding school, the institution was removed three miles lower
down, to the magnificent place which the Ursulines hold to the present
day. Owing to the encroachments of the great Father of Waters, they are
to transfer again, within a year, to another site.

After 1824, several asylums having been founded for orphans of both
sexes, the Ursulines received but thirty or forty poor children. In
keeping with their sphere of life and future career, these children are
taught English, French, geography, arithmetic, elementary history, and
some housekeeping, sewing and laundry work. The nuns endeavor, above
all, by religions instruction and careful training, to inculcate in the
hearts and minds of their youthful charges principles of duty, so as to
form for the future women of confidence, courage, self-sacrifice and
devotion.


          SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA

                                                           J. G. SHEARER

The Presbyterian church in Canada does social service work through its
Department of Social Service and Evangelism. Efforts are directed along
several lines.

Social surveys of both urban and rural communities are conducted,
considering not only religious and moral, but also social and economic
conditions. An expert is employed who gives all his time to the work. He
secures the co-operation of a large number of volunteer helpers, many of
whom are proficient in various phases of social service work.

The problems of the city are studied and practical solutions sought.
This is attempted in the following ways:

  By evangelical social settlements, of which there are one in Montreal,
  one in Toronto and one in Winnipeg. Eight or ten others in the not
  distant future are planned for various other growing cities in the
  Dominion, especially where non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants are numerous.
  Our organizer and supervisor of this work is Sara Libby Carson,
  founder of Christodora House and various other settlements in New
  York, St. Christopher House, Toronto, and Chalmers House, Montreal. We
  also have established a training school for settlement workers, in
  connection with St. Christopher House, Toronto.

  By securing the co-operation of churches and sympathetic organizations
  in every variety of general social betterment effort.

  By establishing special redemptive and social missions on the crowded
  thoroughfares. The first of these was Evangel Hall, Toronto, in which
  evangelistic work, as well as various sorts of social work, is carried
  on.

The department has taken up in a large way redemptive and preventive
work in the interest of girls, and associated with that educational work
along the line of sex teaching among boys and men. There are five homes
which are called social service houses, in which girls and women
requiring special help are taken care of. Fifteen trained Christian
women give their time to this phase of the department’s endeavor, and
there is also a large army of volunteer helpers. In connection with this
work an educational campaign through pulpit and platform and the
distribution of literature throughout the Dominion is carried on. From
time to time legislation, federal or provincial, for the more adequate
protection of girls and women is sought.

In co-operation with other interested bodies the department keeps up a
steady campaign for the suppression of gambling, intemperance, sale of
immoral literature, unclean theatricals, the social vice, and the
promotion of the positive virtues, the opposite of these.

Special attention is being directed to positive effort and constructive
work along all lines aiming at social uplift, and a good deal of
legislation toward this end has been successfully put through.

The department has established a lantern slide and film service, and is
endeavoring to supply through illustrated means elevating entertainment
as well as information and inspiration.

All the evangelistic work of the Presbyterian church is done through
this department, so that evangelism and social service are kept in close
association in all effort undertaken.


                        SYNAGOGUE AND COMMUNITY

                                            RABBI HORACE J. WOLF
                                Temple ‘Berith Kodesh’, Rochester, N. Y.

The changing relation of the synagogue and the community is proving the
truth of the hoary platitude that history repeats itself. During the
Middle Ages the synagogue was the heart of the secular as well as of the
religious life of the community; it was a social center as well as a
house of prayer. There the poor man found succor, the stranger
acquaintances, the children their teachers, and the young people “their
fates.” It would be almost impossible to list all the private and public
interests which, clustering about the synagogue, bore witness to the
vital part this institution played in medieval Jewish life.

This prominent role was due to the enforced isolation of the Jewish
community; thanks to the Ghetto walls the Jewish group constituted a
city within a city. Once the Jewish population was concentrated into
separate quarters, the synagogue became to the segregated community what
the home was to the individual family; it was not only a place of
meeting, but also a clearing house for individual and communal joys and
sorrows.

But the intimacy was broken down by the political emancipation that came
to Jewry at the end of the eighteenth century. Slowly, as the old
functions of the synagogue were taken over by special institutions
housed in their own buildings, the synagogue began to be used purely as
a house of worship; aside from this, its sole concern seemed to be the
Sunday school. Applicants for charity were referred to the charity
office across the street; social functions took place at the clubs;
legal disputes were no longer decided by a rabbinical court. True, there
were few large cities in this country in which the Jewish community did
not point with pride to its magnificent house of worship; but in the
majority of cases these gorgeous buildings (I am writing throughout of
the synagogues of the reform wing) were dark six days and nights a week.
In this respect, they differed little from the churches about them.

But the last decade, which has seen the rise of the institutional
church, is witnessing the return of the synagogue to its former close
relationship to communal Jewish life. The change is due to the same
causes that made for the broadening of the work of city churches. The
popular criterion of a social institution’s value, it was seen, is its
working efficiency. Men who judged by concrete and tangible standards,
and their number is legion, were becoming indifferent to religion
because it appeared divorced from life. The leaders of American Judaism
began to appreciate that it was insufficient to proclaim from the pulpit
that religion included charity, social amelioration, good citizenship,
as well as morality and reverence; they began to insist that the
synagogue should “monument its claims.” It was urged that the synagogue
should not only strive to touch the religious nature of the people with
the conventional methods of prayer and praise and preachment, but should
also bring to bear a system of institutional activities, social,
educational and philanthropic which would bring it into contact with its
members’ physical, mental and social nature as well.

As a result of this awakening there is hardly a synagogue in the United
States which has not some form of institutionalism—be it only a sewing
circle. A questionnaire sent out by the Committee on Social and
Religious Union of the Central Conference of American Rabbis to its
various members elicited ninety-seven replies. In these answers
seventy-one report the existence of congregational libraries; eleven
congregations conduct classes for the teaching of the English language
and instruction in citizenship; six maintain settlements; two have labor
bureaus; fifty list philanthropic activities, glee and choral societies,
athletic clubs, kindergartens, industrial schools and dancing classes.

The committee in summarizing its report says: “The majority [of our
colleagues] feel that all these institutional creations have helped to
deepen the interest of the members in the synagogue and in each other;
that they have helped to make the temple a center for Jewish communal
life; ... that they religionize social functions; that they stimulate
the Jewish consciousness; that they prevent disintegration....”

Once again the synagogue is playing a splendid role in Jewish communal
life. Men are beginning to perceive that the ideal synagogue will be in
use at practically all hours every day in the week, will never be dark
and deserted. The impressive appearing edifice that was tenanted by
silence and gloom on every day except the Sabbath is becoming an
anachronism. Our hope is that the synagogues that continue to slumber
may awaken before it is too late, and take their proper share in the
work of communal uplift.


           DR. HOWARD KELLY’S APPEAL FOR CHURCH CIVIC SERVICE

The demands for a better trained ministry and membership in the churches
are being strongly emphasized by such statements of what the community
expects of them as Dr. Howard A. Kelly of the Johns Hopkins University
medical faculty recently made in an address at the annual meeting of the
New York Probation and Protective Association. In giving his consent to
print some of his remarks, he writes, with special reference to his
efforts against the social evil:

  “I feel as though my own work in this field were to bring the churches
  together for neighborhood social interests. If we do not get the
  churches actively to work, I believe all the social developments of
  the last thirty years are destined to failure. I fully believe that a
  few strong men, say five or six in a city like Baltimore, can
  effectively put persistent effort into the work of amalgamating our
  churches for the expression of the Christian life in the active
  service of their fellow men.”

In his address in New York, after stoutly combating, from his
professional and public points of view, the policy of segregating vice,
he declared that the social work of the church is indispensable to
progress, and that it is the duty and the opportunity of the church to
fulfil the need in this direction. He spoke substantially as follows:

  “The most effective of all agencies in breaking down the strongholds
  of vice and in building up the national character is the church. For
  some reason unknown and unfathomable, some of my associates in this
  beneficent work who don’t go to church fight shy of discussing any
  enlistment of the churches everywhere. Not a few who have never had
  any personal interests in the church even stand ready to declare, with
  a distinguished head of our public libraries, that the church
  represents the largest outlay of capital for the smallest return in
  interest the world has ever seen.

  “The utility of the church in the social field is best defended
  perhaps by citing an investigation of over 1000 social workers of all
  kinds showing that over 90 per cent are church people, and I venture
  confidently to affirm that if the inspiration of the church direct and
  indirect is taken away from our various social movements, they will
  die outright in short order. I can furthermore now aver what I could
  not have said twenty years ago, of a group of splendid humanitarian
  workers who have no church affiliations, that this indefatigable but
  weary band has at last come to realize that unless the church comes to
  the front and does her duty this great purifying work will never be
  done.

  “The difficulty has been that our churches have been too much
  afflicted with myopia, seeing little beyond the confines of their own
  four walls. They have also one and all slipped into the easy ways of
  formalism, and worse still, the laity have thrust the burden of their
  religious obligations onto the shoulders of a groaning, overladen
  clergy, trusting to discharge their own personal responsibilities on a
  cash basis by check. I am sure that the clergy are well aware that
  there is much to be desired in the social relations of the church to
  the community and I believe no set of men will show themselves more
  ready to advance on new lines if they can see that the movement is
  really a spiritual one and that a large service can thus be
  inaugurated.

  “There are many reasons why the churches must be depended upon as the
  backbone of any morals movement:

    They are ideally distributed among the people.

    They have the intelligence and the means.

    They have a source of continuous inspiration needed in dealing with
    chronic distressing problems.

    They alone can guarantee perpetuity of effort.

  “In utilizing the church, the minister must be the organizer and
  leader of his people. A new relationship between pastor and layman
  will ensue, and laymen, once drawn into a local work, will soon branch
  out into all forms of civic work for the weal of the community. Again,
  the churches possess the community buildings so much needed. The only
  other similar institution capable of a similar co-operation on a large
  scale is the public school which, while valuable and necessary in this
  movement, has not the independence and lacks the great inspiration.

  “What, then, is the specific program for the church? First, of all,
  she must not abate but rather increase her dependence upon God. She
  must never yield to temptation to abandon the one really valuable
  quality she possesses by relegating to the background the living
  fountains of inspiration she holds in God’s word, for a mere mundane
  horizontal social Gospel which makes a religion of the human
  activities which are but its appropriate outward expression. First a
  glance upward, then outward to God for the life, and to the human
  arena for the sphere in which the life must be manifested. This does
  not hinder but quickens the impulse to effective service.

  “The profounder my faith, the more am I able to work in affectionate
  association and harmony with the many who do not see eye to eye with
  me here on earth; I cannot, however, continue to work with any who
  demand as the price of their help that I shall stifle all outward
  expression of my faith. He who walks in the light must sing of the
  light lest the light he has shall fade into darkness, and he too shall
  be left to flounder along the dead level of merely human self-guided
  impulses.


                        _A PRAYER FOR EFFICIENCY_

  _O God, as to an earthly father, we bring thee each our yearning
  confession of failure to realize to the full the powers thou hast
  given us as laborers in thy kingdom on earth. May we learn through
  this, our mutual prayer, to be charitable to one another’s
  shortcoming. Teach us, by love if it may be, by bitter rebellion, if
  it must be, that our prayer may be answered only as we are firm to
  lend a hand in mutual aid and sympathy to the less fortunate. Let each
  in strength supply his neighbors’ weakness, and build up in him the
  efficiency which is his birthright._

  _Thus, in humility of heart, we pray for justice to our overstrained
  and blighted brothers who never catch up, who grind their lives into
  sieves of despair and deficit, each grist the harder because there is
  less of life to spare. Think upon the handicapped in body and in soul,
  for whose backwardness we are jointly responsible through our
  inefficiency. May we give them health and leisure and knowledge and so
  joy and inspiration so that, restored to themselves, they may in free
  good will repay them a hundredfold, in deeds of brotherly gratitude
  and justice to others, for thy sake._

  _And chiefly we pray for those in whom we have put our trust; that
  their strength may be equal to the temptations of the power we have
  given them from thee. May they realise that not their own gain, but
  social justice, must measure the efficiency of their efforts. Bring
  home to their minds and hearts the far-reaching power, for evil and
  for good, of industry and government, of church and press; let them
  remember vividly the remote effects of indifference and negligence in
  the web of modern life._

  _May the getters of gold give justice to its producers; may its
  earners have charity toward its spenders; may the givers of gold be
  gifted with wisdom and courage; and may all social workers feel the
  weight of an especial responsibility; that the surplus wealth of which
  they are guardians may be husbanded for its true purposes and not be
  betrayed, nor delayed, nor wasted in their hands; that thou mayst have
  gratitude in turn toward all, for thy children’s sake. Thus may thy
  kingdom grow on earth into fuller and more abundant life for each and
  all.—AMEN._

  “The church must be a great, perennial fountain of spiritual and moral
  energy to the whole people in all the avenues of human interests. She
  must realize her obligation to champion the cause of the oppressed,
  whatever the cause and whoever the oppressor, whether in her fold or
  out of it. She must watch to prevent the rich from grinding the faces
  of the poor. She must when necessary provide for every legitimate
  desire of the people. If politics are corrupt, then she must enter
  aggressively into the field of politics, only for purity and not for
  party. She must fight all saloons and organize neighborhood opposition
  to their continuance, but provide too for some form of social life to
  replace them.

  “The rich churches most be big sisters to the poor, providing means
  and sending talented workers wherever they are needed. If the church
  needs money for neighborhood enterprise, let her lop off her choirs
  and stained glass windows and bells, expensive altars, and put the
  money saved into human lives. She must discourage all extravagances
  which give the poor just cause for bitterness and arouse envy and set
  up unworthy standards. Let the church make a map of neighborhood
  conditions. This will serve as an object lesson and as a basis for
  action. In weekly classes she should then study such social problems
  as:

         Social teachings in the Bible.
         Tuberculosis in our city.
         Prostitution.
         Housing the poor.
         Amusements.
         Wages paid in department stores and factories.
         Near town places of recreation.
         Hotels, saloons and rathskellers.
         The laws of city and state affecting social questions.
         Our prison system—what help have the men?
         Our various relief agencies—how far do they co-operate?”



[Illustration:

  ONE OF DAYTON’S MENACES

  A heap of dead horses awaiting skinning and rendering at the
    fertilizer plant
]

                                 HEALTH


                          SANITATION AT DAYTON

  [_The widespread flood disaster in Ohio during the last week of March
  led members of the Pittsburgh Flood Commission to study the situation.
  Morris Knowles, a member of the Engineering Committee of this
  commission, has had two assistants in the field for this purpose. One
  of these, M. R. Scharff, who had previously been employed by Mr.
  Knowles in making a sanitary survey of the coal-mining camps in
  Alabama, paid particular attention to the sanitary conditions
  resulting from the flood. The present article embodies observations
  made on this trip._—Ed.]

Following in the wake of great disasters which descend from time to time
upon our cities, paralyzing the public services that make crowded city
conditions possible, is the outcropping of disease that may, if
unchecked, prove more disastrous even than the catastrophe itself. This
tendency was discernible in the first reports of the floods that have
recently devastated Ohio, Indiana and adjoining states, due to the heavy
rains of March 24–28. Nearly every flooded city reported that its water
works plant had been put out of commission, or the water supply
polluted, which with the increased chance of infection, and the general
lowering of vitality presented a situation of unusual menace and one
demanding complete and immediate handling.

The most serious situation is Dayton, for here every sanitary problem
presented at any other point was involved. The complete, immediate and
effective organization to handle the situation which was formed there
was typical of the effective work now done at such emergency periods.

At Dayton the water works plant was incapacitated by water that reached
ten feet above the boiler grates; there was unknown damage to water
distribution and sanitary sewerage and drainage systems; storm sewers
and catch basins were clogged with filth and debris; dead animals were
strewn on every side; the population was at high nervous tension, their
vitality lowered by shock, exposure, cold, and lack of food and drink;
hundreds of people were crowded for days in single buildings or
dwellings; thousands, probably, had been exposed to intestinal infection
by drinking the dirty flood water as it swirled through the streets;
hundreds had only wet cellars and rooms to return to, if their homes
were not altogether destroyed; and everywhere on everything—walls,
ceilings, floors, furniture, streets and sidewalks—was a thick coating
of the black, sticky, slimy mud left by the retreating waters. This in a
measure pictures the situation at Dayton as the flood waters receded.
And Dayton knew at once that the toll of the flood would be as nothing
compared to the pestilence, unless attention and energy were directed to
these problems.

This appreciation of the paramount importance of sanitation was a
striking revelation of the success of the campaign of sanitary education
that has characterized the last century. In every phase of the work of
recovery, in the warning signs and directions on almost every post, in
the placards on the automobiles of the sanitary department stating that
“This car must not be stopped or delayed day or night,” in the daily
exhortations in the free newspapers distributed throughout the city, in
a thousand ways, Dayton declared again and again:

  “Sanitation first and foremost. Then everything else.”

Such was the spirit of the members of the Dayton Bicycle Club, when they
met as the waters receded from their club-house to consider what service
they could best render to their stricken city, and volunteered to remove
the dead animals strewn it the streets. Such also was the message
reiterated by the Ohio State Board of Health, the city health officials,
the representatives of the national government, the Red Cross, the
Relief Committee, the Ohio National Guard, and every one of the splendid
organizations that are working shoulder to shoulder to clean up Dayton
and to prevent conditions more costly in toll of life than the deluge
itself.

One of the remarkable features of the handling of the relief work at
Dayton was the entire absence of red tape, the lack of conflict, and the
universal evidence of harmonious co-operation between the various
organizations at work, notwithstanding that there was no complete
centralization of direction and that some of the organizations were
proceeding practically independent of the others. “Results, not credit,”
was the watchword, and the results were such as to reflect the most
lasting credit upon all engaged in the work.

The Dayton Bicycle Club showed wisdom in volunteering to remove the dead
animals from the street. Nearly every horse in the more than seven
square miles of the city that was under water—and this area contained
all the important livery stables—was drowned, and quick action was
needed to remove the bodies to prevent serious results. A sanitary
department was organized, and as rapidly as automobile trucks and wagons
were volunteered, they were pressed into service. Over 100 vehicles and
about 600 men were engaged on this work. A rendering company, which
handles all the garbage collected in the city, agreed to take care of
the horses and did so as fast as they came for a time. When the
carcasses came so rapidly that it was necessary to heap them up on the
grounds of the plant, and then on a vacant field nearby, the plant was a
grewsome place indeed. Up to the night of March 31, 1,002 had been
received. A number were picked up the next two days, so that the final
total was probably in the neighborhood of 1,100.

At about the time this work was started, a reconstruction department was
organized, under the Citizens Relief Committee, with divisions, each
under an engineer, assigned to street cleaning, sewers and drains,
streets, and levees. By March 31, the removal of dead animals had been
practically completed, and the organization and equipment of the
sanitary department were merged with those of the street cleaning
division of the reconstruction department. Sanitary notices directed
that all mud and rubbish be deposited at the curb, the city was divided
into districts and collection progressed rapidly, considering the wagons
and trucks available. More wagons could have been put into service, but
horses were lacking. All mud and rubbish was hauled to one of the
half-dozen city rubbish dumps located in low outlying sections, or was
dumped off bridges into the river. The employes of the city water works
department were able to get into the pumping station on March 28 and the
following day pumping was resumed. Dayton’s water supply comes from a
number of deep drilled wells along the Mad River. It is pumped direct
into the mains without storage, by means of a Holly vertical,
triple-expansion, crank and fly-wheel engine. This pump has given rise
to the local name of “Hollywater” applied to the city supply. It was
feared at first that the distribution system had been badly damaged, but
investigation showed that only three small mains had been broken. Water,
at reduced pressure, was therefore possible, except in one or two small
sections.

[Illustration:

  AN IMPROVISED COMFORT STATION
]

Dayton water is exceptionally pure, but it was feared that there might
have been leakage of flood water into the pipes while the pressure was
cut off and so notices to “boil all water, even the Hollywater” were
posted. Samples were promptly taken for analysis from various portions
of the distribution system by the chemist of the National Cash Register
Company, the bacteriologist of the city Board of Health, and by the
State Board of Health, but the injunction to boil water was continued,
even though the first analysis was favorable.

The catch basins and storm sewers throughout the city were badly clogged
with wreckage and filth, and early cleaning was imperative. The city was
divided into seven drainage districts, and gangs of men and wagons
assigned to shoveling out catch basins and hauling the rubbish to the
dumps. At the same time systematic inspection of the sanitary sewerage
system was begun. It had been expected that the sewers would be clogged,
like the storm drains, and the early sanitary notices issued contained
these warnings:


                                IMPORTANT

                             Sanitary Notice

                           FOR YOUR OWN HEALTH

  (1.) Do not use Sanitary sewers and Closets until notified by the
  Board of Health. Even if the hollywater system is on, the sewers are
  full of mud and will clog. Burn or bury all excreta garbage and filth.
  Add lime and bury deep. Use disinfectant in out-door trenches also.

  (2.) Thoroughly scrub, clean and dry your cellar. Keep your cellar
  windows open. Remove and burn or bury all rubbish. Sprinkle lime
  around cellar, especially in damp places. Sprinkle floor with
  disinfectant sent herewith (two tablespoons-full to one quart of
  water.)

  (3.) Thoroughly clean your in and out door premises.

  (4.) Place concentrated lye or a tablespoon of disinfectant in each
  sink or trap in toilet, basement and kitchen. Allow to stand over
  night. Do this every evening.

  (5.) Boil all water, even holly water, and thoroughly cook all food.
  Boil all cooking utensils. Do this for months to come.

  (6.) Do not enter houses which have been flooded until thoroughly
  cleaned and dried.

  (7.) Keep your own self clean.

  Do these things to avoid pestilence and sickness.

  Do it for yourself.

  Do it for Dayton.

  Take care of yourself and you will take care of Dayton.

                                                    =Maj. L. T. Rhoades,
                                                        U. S. Army.=

                         ONE OF THE EARLY NOTICES

  “Do not use water closets. Contents will reach cellars. Use vessels,
  disinfect, and bury in back-yards. Disinfectants: carbolic acid,
  chloride of lime, bichloride of mercury, and creolin.”

  “Do not use sanitary sewers and closets until notified by the Board of
  Health. Even if the “Hollywater” system is on, the sewers are full of
  mud and will clog. Burn or bury all excreta, garbage and filth. Add
  lime and bury deep. Use disinfectant in out-door trenches also.”

Inspection showed a much better condition than was anticipated. In all
but three districts, the sanitary sewers were running freely and the
warnings were replaced by new notices:

  “Sewers are open and ready for use. If the water supply is not
  sufficient for flushing, fill the tank of the closet with a bucketful
  of water, and flush as usual.”

Wooden public convenience stations were also established over sewer
manholes in the business sections and in residential sections without
sewer connections.

The three sewer districts that were out of commission were the St.
Francis, the North Dayton, and the Riverdale low line. The St. Francis
sewer is a gravity line, and a manhole at the lower end was completely
choked up. It was necessary finally to dynamite this manhole in order to
open the line. The two latter lines are both low, and sewage has to be
pumped into the river by pneumatic ejectors. The air lines from the
compressor plant in the water works pumping station were laid in the
levees which were washed out and at one point about 200 feet of pipe was
lost. This was difficult to repair, and these districts had to be left
without sewerage until April 2, when a by-pass on each line into the
storm drains was opened, and the backed-up sewage lowered sufficiently
to clear most of the cellars and to permit the use of water closets.

While this work was proceeding the organizations devoting their energies
to control of infectious disease, inspection, and administration had
been far from idle. The State Board of Health had three sanitary
engineers and two physicians, trained in public health work, in the city
before the waters receded. The city Board of Health was one of the first
in the field, and the medical corps of the Ohio National Guard promptly
took up the work. Co-operating with one another, under the direction of
Major L. T. Rhoades of the United States medical corps, who was
appointed chief sanitary officer, and with the assistance of local
doctors and nurses and those furnished by the Red Cross, these
organizations soon established control of the entire city in a
comprehensive and effective manner.

The Ohio State Board of Health engineers were assigned to assist in the
water works, sewerage, and general cleaning up. Then, in co-operation
with the city board and Major Rhoades, the city was divided into sixteen
sanitary districts, with a physician in charge of each. These physicians
inspected their districts, reported to headquarters, conditions
requiring particular attention, instructed people in sanitation and
followed up all reported cases of illness to guard against contagion.

The city bacteriologist reestablished his laboratory, which had been
inundated, and took up diagnostic and analytical work. The state
plumbing inspector and the state inspector of workshops and factories
established offices, and joined with the city inspectors in pushing
inspection work rapidly. Men were sent out to trace all contagious cases
that were on the books at the time of the floods, and the reporting of
infectious diseases and deaths were resumed as rapidly as possible.

Four contagious disease wards were established in addition to the
tuberculosis and small-pox hospitals, two in the St. Elizabeth and Miami
Valley Hospitals in the city and one each in North Dayton and Riverdale.
As fast as infectious cases were reported or discovered, they were
removed to one of these wards, and the houses placarded and disinfected.

A food inspection office was also opened, and all food arriving on
relief cars was inspected before distribution to relief stations, that
which had already been distributed being inspected at the stations.

The medical corps of the Ohio National Guard established a base field
hospital in the new courthouse, and a supply depot in the probate court
room of the old courthouse. In addition, seven relief hospitals were
established in Dayton View, Miami City, Edgemont, South Park, the Davis
Sewing Machine Company’s plant, North Dayton, and Riverdale, with a
surgeon of the medical corps of the National Guard and a corps of
civilian physicians and Red Cross nurses in charge of each. These
stations had maternity, general, and infectious wards. Hospital and
proved infectious cases were promptly forwarded to St. Elizabeth’s or
the Miami Valley Hospital. The base hospital received all cases among
the companies of the National Guard on duty; those which would obviously
not recover in time for useful service were returned to their homes. The
supply depot of the field hospital not only furnished the base hospital
and the seven field stations, but supplies were also furnished to the
sixteen stations of the sanitary committee, at the request of Major
Rhoades.

An efficiently manned hospital doing all classes of work was established
by the National Cash Register Company and the American Red Cross in the
administration building at the National Cash Register Company’s plant,
and other medical relief stations were maintained in the city by the Red
Cross.

Up to the close of the first week following the flood no unusual
prevalence of infectious disease had developed. Some cases of
diphtheria, pneumonia, and measles were reported, but the number was not
substantially larger than that previous to the flood. When the
conditions that prevailed during the first three days after the disaster
are considered, with the strain on the entire population during the
first days of reconstruction, it seems impossible that Dayton will
escape without a considerable number of cases of intestinal and exposure
diseases, such as typhoid and pneumonia. But the complete, efficient,
and harmonious system of public health organization that has been
established gives promise that no epidemic will follow and that the
first cases, due to infection before control was established, will be
the last.


                           THE FRIEDMANN CURE

                          ALICE HAMILTON, M.D.

As the interest in Dr. Friedrich Franz Friedmann and his tuberculin
increases and a large part of the world is anxiously waiting to have its
hopes confirmed that at last a real cure for tuberculosis has been
discovered, it will be interesting to state what is positively known
about this treatment, to what extent it is a new discovery and why the
medical profession has shown such hostility to its originator.

In the first place Friedmann’s remedy is not a “serum.” Anti-toxins,
such as those used against diphtheria and lock-jaw are sera. An
antitoxin is the serum of an animal which has been treated with
toxin-forming germs till his blood serum is full of defensive substances
against that toxin. An antitoxin, as its name indicates, is an antidote
to a poison.

Friedmann’s tuberculin belongs to the class which we have of late begun
to call vaccines, a term formerly applied only to the virus of cowpox
but now made to cover all forms of virus which are used to stimulate the
production of defensive substances. The real difference between an
antitoxin and a vaccine is that the first contains an antidote and is an
emergency remedy for an acute disease, while the second is a weak form
of virus which causes the body of the patient to manufacture its own
antidote.

What Friedmann claims as novel in his tuberculin is that it consists of
living tubercle bacilli, while those in general use consist of dead
bacilli or their extractives. It has long been known that living bacilli
would call forth a more rapid production of defensive substances than
dead. Dr. Trudeau of Saranac Lake demonstrated this twenty years ago,
experimenting on rabbits with bacilli of bird tuberculosis. Later
several Americans confirmed his results, using non-virulent strains of
human tubercle bacilli. Von Behring’s famous experiments on immunizing
calves were made with living bacilli. So far therefore as is yet known,
there is nothing new in the principle Friedmann is following. As to the
details of his cure, we are in ignorance.

It will be long before any dependable word can be given out as to the
results of Friedmann’s work in New York city. Every physician knows that
optimism, eagerness to grasp at every hopeful sign, are characteristics
of a fair majority of consumptives. We shall need a much longer period
of observation before we can be sure that this tuberculin has any
superiority to the many previously tested, almost all of which have had
initial success followed by more or less disillusionment.

Still greater caution must be used in estimating the immunizing
properties of Friedmann’s tuberculin. Friedmann treated over 300
children eighteen months ago and states that during this interval none
of them have developed tuberculosis. It will be at least fifteen years
before positive statements can be made concerning these children and
then only by comparing them with a similar group of non-treated children
living in conditions as nearly as possible identical with those of the
treated children.

As to the attitude of American physicians to Dr. Friedmann one can
hardly accuse them of unfairness and of narrow-minded professional
jealousy if one realizes that he has violated three of the fundamental
laws of medical ethics and, however impatient the non-medical world may
be of much that comes under this head, no one can think that secrecy,
exclusiveness or self-advertisement are in accordance with the best
traditions of medicine.

A significant contrast could be drawn between the methods pursued by Dr.
Friedmann and those pursued by Paul Ehrlich when he announced his new
cure for syphilis. No charge of charlatanism or commercialism could ever
be brought against Ehrlich. From the first, the medical world knew all
about salvarsan, and knew that it would be put into everyone’s hands as
soon as Ehrlich thought it safe to give it out for general use. He
insisted that it first must be carefully tested, not by himself alone
but by approved clinicians, who would agree to use it only on patients
that could be kept under constant supervision in hospitals, and who also
would agree to make detailed reports of these cases. After this thorough
trying out of the new cure, it was given unreservedly to the medical
profession the world over. Undoubtedly Ehrlich could have come to
America and reaped golden profits by keeping the cure in his own hands,
for thousands of cases were eager to have it administered.

The Friedmann tuberculin may be what its discoverer claims it is, but
the confidence felt in its promoter can never be the same as that which
Ehrlich has won.


                         COURSES ON SEX HYGIENE

                            JANE R. McCRADY

                      ELLIS MEMORIAL CLUB, BOSTON

Last spring I attended in Boston a course of lectures on sex hygiene
given expressly for social workers. The course was given at the request
of a number who had been meeting for some time previously to discuss
“what women social workers can do now to promote a better knowledge of
the meaning of sex in life.”

The course was planned by approaching the subject from various aspects,
physiological, psychological, neurological, ideal and simply human.
Talks were given by people whose interest in the subject was vastly
different—physicians, social workers and mothers, and all showed a
spirit of earnestness and willingness to help.

The first few lectures were crowded—overcrowded, in fact—which showed
the great need people feel in being aided and enlightened on a subject
which touches all to some extent.

When the course was over, there was a feeling of disappointment among
some who had attended throughout. Many others had dropped out because
they “could not give the time as they were not getting out of it what
they hoped for.” What did they hope for? The best answer is that when
the opportunity for written questions came, nearly all the inquiries
were “What shall I say to so and so when she asks so and so?” “What
should be said to a young man under such and such circumstances?” and
similar definite demands.

That was the point! People so often want absolute information on
subjects in which “circumstances alter cases!” No human being can tell
any other human being what he or she “should say” to a third person on
any subject at any given time. Each of us has to give of his knowledge
which is fed by his experience and modified by his temperament. We give
this knowledge (if we are wise) to whomsoever happens to need it in such
language as shall appeal to his knowledge, apply to his experience and
adapt itself to his temperament. We can not learn how to do that at any
lecture or set of lectures, and just as long as we expect it on this or
any other subject, we are sure to be disappointed.

The great importance of a right knowledge of sex is borne in upon social
workers daily, often hourly, on account of the many people they meet
whose lives are exposed to dangers which with either wrong or incomplete
knowledge they are not fitted to meet safely. It is frequently the duty
of the social worker either to supply the knowledge or help in the
situation brought about by lack of it. Often they feel unequal to the
task and become morbid over the sorrows brought about by ignorance and
their own inability to help matters. Lectures or books on sex hygiene
are advertised; to them they turn for assistance. All too often are they
disappointed, gaining no concrete knowledge of how to give an answer to
problems on their minds at the time. Likewise some people go to a
lecture or course given by some one who has been successful in
connecting his or her knowledge and experience and giving it out.
Afterward they come away thrilled and inspired and proceed to repeat
like parrots the words they have heard.

Bitter disappointment at the lack of interest on the part of the
audience is the result. I knew of some mothers who attended Laura B.
Garrett’s talks in Philadelphia, and came away eager to instruct their
children. In each case the result was wholly unsatisfactory. They tried
to reproduce Miss Garrett’s words, instead of simply getting knowledge
and suggestion from her talks. What they were imparting was not a part
of themselves, not their own, therefore not theirs to give.

Miss Garrett has worked out her talks from years of patient, earnest
work and hours of thought. She can tell us of her methods and can
illustrate, but if we are going to use her methods we have to make them
our own first. We must adapt them to our own experience and apply them
to the experience of those to whom we are giving them.

The same is true of any other speaker on this subject. There is no fixed
method by which a right knowledge of sex in life can be universally
taught. We may learn how to teach biology or physiology, or how to adapt
the law of life and of coming to life in plants or animals to human
laws, but that does not necessarily qualify us to meet the problems of
sex in life or to teach others to meet them. There are a few essentials
to the proper teaching of the meaning of sex in life and if we possess
these we ought to be able to deal with our problems as they come, if we
are capable of using our possessions.

First, a real living belief that our bodies are the “temples of the Holy
Spirit,” a belief which applies to all parts and functions of the body
and makes it a sacred duty to keep them healthy and clean and strong.

Second, an intelligent knowledge of the body as a machine so that we may
use it and not abuse it.

Third, a calm, moderate knowledge of the more common perversions of sex
and their relations to other forms of nervous troubles, and a belief in
human ability to overcome weakness and sin as well as to cure disease.

These things we can learn and keep on learning at lectures, but how to
give them out from our personality to other personalities is for each
person his or her own individual problem. It must be solved by bringing
his or her own experience of life, plus specific knowledge, plus
sympathy, plus common sense, to bear on each problem and so to adapt it
to the understanding of the person in question that it will help the
existing need.

When the Wise Men of Bethlehem presented gifts, each brought his own
gifts, not another’s. They were wise men. If we social workers are wise,
we shall cease to try to gain from others words in which to express the
knowledge of the meaning of sex in life and will bend our energies to
gaining high ideals, simple workable knowledge of the use of the body
and the evils of its abuse and an understanding heart and common sense.

Then we shall be able to bring our gifts to this subject and present it
to those who need it in such forms as to be practical and effective.


                      A PLEA FOR COMFORT STATIONS

                                             RELL M. WOODWARD
                             Surgeon United States Public Health Service

Travelers from almost all foreign countries describe the public
convenience stations of foreign cities. In London there are many places
where crooked streets converge, leaving perhaps an irregular open space
or plaza. These are not all occupied by statues, as the city has
attempted to provide comfort for the living as well as honor to the
dead. Two modest iron stairways with suitable signs lead to two rooms
below ground, one for women, the other for men, where toilets and
urinals are found.

On the continent the provisions are usually less complete and in many
instances in the eyes of Anglo-Saxon observers seem much too public. For
instance in Paris urinals for men are located at convenient points, but
some of them only cover the user from the breast to the knees. In
Antwerp and Brussels urinals are attached to posts at the edge of the
narrow sidewalk, and some of them have no screen at all. In Rotterdam at
frequent intervals scrolls of sheet iron shaped somewhat like a letter C
are located in the gutters of the sidewalks; the open side of the scroll
facing the street. They reach from a point above the head to about a
foot from the ground. In Italy there are places, notably Naples, where
two slabs of slate set in a wall at an angle serve the purpose of a
urinal. They are usually at the entrance to a small street or alley, and
are not screened. The custom of ages causes the natives to pass by these
without a glance, but to use them is embarrassing to the tourist.

It is not the intention to advocate such crude contrivances, but to
present a plea for the establishment at frequent intervals of
convenience stations designed for the use of both men and women, and
with such surroundings that one may enter and leave without feeling the
blush of shame.

Many American cities have provided a few such places, for instance in
parks, and some of these are admirable in conception and in structure;
but one cannot always remain near a park, and in winter when the kidneys
are most active, these stations are often closed. One of the most
practical stations of this kind that I have seen is in the Boston
Common. It is underground in a small hill, with a wide stairway leading
to it.

As one approaches it he sees that the room is lighted and is lined with
white tiling. There are urinals, closets, washstands, and a
shoe-blacking establishment. It has the appearance of a toilet room in a
hotel, and the place is well ventilated and kept clean. I do not recall
how it is heated, but such places could be heated with steam from
adjacent buildings or by stoves.

Cities must of course consider the economic side of any new enterprise.
I believe that such stations, outside of the cost of original
construction, could be made almost if not quite self-supporting, in the
following way. Lease the shoe-blacking privilege to an individual for a
good round fee, said individual to be subject to certain rigid rules and
regulations, and the place to be subject to periodical inspections. The
lessee should be required to keep the place in perfect sanitary
condition. In addition to his income from blacking shoes the lessee
might be allowed to rent a few closets, ordinarily kept locked, and
charge a small prescribed fee. If the patronage of the station in Boston
Common is a criterion it would seem to me that the city could demand a
fee from the lessee that would cover all ordinary running expenses.

A woman attendant in the ladies’ station could be allowed the privilege
of renting closets, and could also be provided with pins, buttons, and
other necessaries such as are kept in the ladies’ waiting rooms at
department stores.

As a public health measure the subject must be considered from two
standpoints, the health of the individual, and the health of the
community.

Physiology teaches us that the normal adult bladder, when fully
distended, holds twenty ounces, but that a discomfort begins when it
contains more than four ounces. As one advances in years prolonged
retention of urine causes ammoniacal decomposition, with consequent
irritation of the bladder. If the retention is frequent, disease of the
kidneys must follow.

At present in most American cities there are few convenience stations
available to the public outside of hotels and saloons. In nearly all
hotels one finds a sign stating that the toilet facilities are for the
exclusive use of the guests. This makes a stranger feel unwelcome.

Saloons are open to the public, but one dislikes to make use of the
sanitary privileges offered without purchasing something. To a man of
mature age, who is perhaps in the habit of taking an occasional drink,
this phase of the subject has little importance; but for a young man in
a strange city, driven for lack of comfort stations into a saloon the
question assumes a moral side. The only way to avoid the saloon is to
make use of an alley or other dark place, thereby breaking a city
ordinance and creating a nuisance which gives the offence a public
health aspect. The frequency with which this is done is evidenced by the
familiar sign “Commit No Nuisance.” In London I saw a sign that to my
mind was much less objectionable and equally effective; it read simply
“Decency Forbids.”

The establishment of comfort stations at convenient points would I think
contribute greatly to public health.


                                JOTTINGS


INFANT MORTALITY RATE IN N. Y.

The January Bulletin of the Department of Health in New York city shows
that the downward curve of the death rate during 1910 and 1911 was
continued in 1912 and that the lowest point ever recorded in the city
has been reached. In 1911 the death rate was 15.13 for 1,000, while in
1912 it was 14.11. The difference of 1.02 between the two years means
that 5,276 lives were saved in 1912, for, if the rate of 1911 had
prevailed last year, New York’s death roll would have been larger by
just that number. In analyzing the returns it is found that the decrease
has affected those diseases which the Department of Health seeks to
control; namely, the acute infectious diseases, tuberculosis of the
lungs, and the diarrhoea of children. On the other hand, there is a
decided increase in the mortality from those diseases which seem to be
peculiar to our modern society and which are not under public health
control, organic heart disease and Bright’s disease.

The infant mortality rate is low. Calculated on the basis of reported
births the deaths of children under one year number only 105 per
thousand born, and in all probability this is a little too high, for New
York city does not claim to have more than from 90 to 95 per cent birth
registration. The record is encouraging when compared with the figures
for Great Britain and Germany. The rate for England and Wales in 1911
was 130; that for Berlin in 1910 was 157.


HEALTH OF LONDON SCHOOL CHILDREN

Only in the last few years has the law required every child attending an
elementary school to be physically examined on entering and leaving and,
therefore, statistics on the health of school children in England are
only now available. About a million and a half children are now examined
annually. The report of Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the
Board of Education for 1911, has just been issued. It shows the
condition of 186,652 children in thirteen counties and sixteen urban
areas and is far from satisfactory. Only in one urban area did the
percentage of “good” nutrition reach 45, and from this figure it ranged
down as low as 3.8. Of 200,000 children examined in London more than
half were found to be defective and over 78,000 were recommended for
treatment. According to this report the malnutrition is due in the great
majority of cases to ignorance of the relative value of foodstuffs and
the means of using them economically, and only in the minority to
poverty. About .5 per cent of the children are feeble-minded and of
these about one-seventh are of such low grade as to be uneducable.


INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON SCHOOL HYGIENE

The preliminary bulletin of the Fourth International Congress for School
Hygiene announces a meeting, which is to be held in Buffalo, N. Y.,
August 23 to 30 next. The three preceding congresses were held in 1904
in Nuremberg; in 1907 in London, and in 1910 in Paris. The president of
the congress is Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard
University; the vice-presidents are: Dr. W. H, Welch, professor of
pathology at Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Henry P. Walcott, chairman
of the Massachusetts Board of Health. The lists of vice-presidents and
members of the international committee includes the names of some of the
foremost men of science in Europe and Asia. Buffalo has raised $40,000
to meet the expenses of the Congress and to entertain the delegates.


3 TO 1 FOR TUBERCULOSIS HOSPITAL

That the people are coming to favor taxing themselves for public
measures to control tuberculosis is indicated by a referendum vote on
the establishment of a county tuberculosis hospital in eight towns of
St. Lawrence county, New York. The public health committee of the board
of supervisors failed to draw up a question to be voted upon in all the
towns of the county as instructed by the board. But eight town
supervisors took an informal vote on the question. The question carried
in all eight towns. The ballots stood more than three to one in the
affirmative. This is the first time that this question has been
submitted to a vote of the people in New York state. Three of the towns
are distinctly rural and only one of the eight communities is a city.



                        CALENDAR OF CONFERENCES


                              CONFERENCES

                       APRIL AND MAY CONFERENCES

  ALABAMA SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS, Birmingham, Ala. April 22–24, 1913.
    William M. McGrath, Pres., Associated Charities, Birmingham.

  BAPTIST CONVENTION, NORTHERN, Detroit, Mich., May 13–20, 1913. Con.
    Sec’y. Rev. W. C. Bitting, St. Louis.

  BOYS, General Assembly of Workers with. Culver, Ind., May 17–30, 1913.
    Information may be secured from the Boys’ Work Dept., Y. M. C. A.,
    124 E. 28th Street, New York.

  CHARITIES AND CORRECTION, New York City Conference on. May 14–15,
    1913. Sec’y, John B. Prest, 287 Fourth Avenue, New York.

  CHARITIES AND CORRECTION, Semi-annual Conference, Colorado State Board
    of. Denver. May 13, 1913. Sec’y, William Thomas, Capitol Building,
    Denver.

  CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS, Arkansas Conference of, Little Rock, Ark.,
    May 13–15, 1913. Sec’y, Murray A. Auerbach, Little Rock.

  CITY PLANNING, National Conference On. Chicago, May 5–7, 1913. Sec’y,
    Flavel Shurtlett, 19 Congress Street, Boston.

  CONSERVATION OF HUMAN LIFE, Conference on. Portland, Ore., May 9–11,
    1913. Information can be secured by addressing Reed College,
    Portland.

  COLORED PEOPLE, Fifth Annual Conference of National Association for
    Advancement of. Philadelphia, Pa., April 23–25, 1913. Sec’y, May
    Childs Nerney, 26 Vesey St., New York City.

  JEWISH SOCIAL WORKERS, Third Informal Conference, National Association
    of. Atlantic City, N. J. May 29–30, 1913.

  MOTHERS, National Congress of. Boston, May 15–20, 1913. Sec’y, Mrs. A.
    A. Birney, 806 Loan and Trust Bldg., Washington, D. C.

  PEACE CONFERENCE, Fourth American. St. Louis, Mo., May 1–4, 1913.
    James E. Smith, Chairman. St. Louis.

  PLAYGROUND AND RECREATION ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. Richmond, Va., May
    6–10, 1913. Sec’y, H. S. Braucher, 1 Madison Avenue, New York.

  SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS, Atlanta, Ga., April 25–29, 1913. Gen.
    Sec’y, J. E. McCulloch, Nashville, Tenn.

  WOMEN’S CLUBS, New Jersey Federation of Atlantic City, May 2 and 3,
    1913. Sec’y, Mrs. Joseph M. Middleton, 46 Prospect St., Trenton.

  YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, International Conference of.
    Cincinnati, May 15–18, 1913.


                             LATER MEETINGS


                             INTERNATIONAL

  BLIND, Fourth Triennial International Conference on the London,
    England, 1914; probably July 20. Sec’y, Henry Stainsby, 206 Great
    Portland St., London, W.

  CHILDREN’S WELFARE, International Congress for. Amsterdam,
    Netherlands, 1914. President, Dr. Treub, Huygenstraat 106,
    Amsterdam.

  CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP CONFERENCE, World’s. Portland, Ore., June
    29–July 6, 1913. Chairman, Rev. James S. Martin, 209 9th St.,
    Pittsburgh, Pa.

  FARM WOMEN, International Congress of. Tulsa, Okla., October
    22–November 1, 1913. Sec’y, Mrs. John T. Burns, Tulsa, Okla.

  HOUSING, International Congress on. The Hague, Holland, September
    8–13, 1913. Sec’y, M. O. Veighe, director general Ministry of
    Agriculture, Brussels. Executive secretary section for United
    States, William H. Tolman, 29 West 39th Street, New York.

  INFANT MORTALITY, English-speaking conference on. London, England.
    August 4 and 5, 1913. Under auspices of the British National
    Association for the Prevention of Infant Mortality and for the
    Welfare of Infancy, London.

  PRISON CONGRESS, Quinquennial. London, Eng., 1915. Sec’y, F. Simon Van
    der Aa, Groningen, Holland.

  SCHOOL HYGIENE, Fourth International Congress on. Buffalo, N. Y., Aug.
    25–30, 1913. Sec’y Gen., Dr. Thomas A. Storey, College of the City
    of New York.

  STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION, WORLD’S, Lake Mohawk, N. Y., June 2–8,
    1913. Gen. Sec’y, John R. Mott, 124 East 28th Street, New York.

  STUDENTS (“Corda Fratres”), Eighth International Congress of. Ithaca,
    N. Y., August 20–September 13, 1913. Information can be secured by
    addressing the Cornell Cosmopolitan Club, Ithaca, N. Y.

  TOWN PLANNING AND ORGANISATION OF MUNICIPAL LIFE, First International
    Congress on Art of. Ghent, Belgium, Summer 1913. General Sec’y, Paul
    Saintenoy, Brussels.

  UNEMPLOYMENT, International Association on. Ghent, Belgium, September
    3–6, 1913. American Section secretary, John B. Andrews, 121 East
    23rd St., New York City.


                                NATIONAL

  CHARITIES AND CORRECTION, National Conference of. Seattle, Wash., July
    5–12, 1913. Sec’y, Alexander Johnson, Angola, Ind.

  HOME ECONOMICS, American Association of. Ithaca, N. Y., June 27–July
    4, 1913. Information may be secured from Marguerite B. Lake, Forest
    Hill, Md.

  INFANT MORTALITY, American Association for Study and Prevention of.
    Fourth annual meeting. Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 23–25, 1913. Exec.
    Sec’y, Gertrude B. Knipp, 1211 Cathedral St., Baltimore.

  MEDICINE, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF. Thirty-eighth Annual Meeting.
    Minneapolis, Minn., June 13, 14, 1913.

  OFFICIALS OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTION, American Association of. Fourth
    Annual Meeting. Springfield, Ill., June 24–26, 1913. Sec’y, W. T.
    Cross, Columbia, Mo.

  PRISON ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN, Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 11–16, 1913.
    Sec’y, Joseph P. Byers, Trenton, N. J.

  SOCIAL INSURANCE, First American Conference on. Chicago, Ill., June
    6–7, 1913. Sec’y, John B. Andrews, 131 East 23rd St., New York City.


                            STATE AND LOCAL

  CHARITIES AND CORRECTION, Ohio State Conference of. Akron, O.,
    October, 1913. Sec’y, H. H. Shirer, 1010 Hartman Bldg, Columbus, O.


                              EXHIBITIONS


                             INTERNATIONAL

  PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION, San Francisco, Cal., Feb. 20–Dec. 4, 1915.
    Social Economy Department—Frank A. Wolff, Washington, D. C.

  PANAMA-CALIFORNIA EXPOSITION, San Diego, Cal., Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 1915.
    Director of Exhibits, E. L. Hewett, San Diego.

  STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION WORLD’S, Lake Mohawk, N. Y., June 2–8,
    1913. Exhibits including “social study and service.” Gen. Sec’y,
    John R. Mort, 124 East 28th St., New York.

  SCHOOL HYGIENE, Fourth International Congress on. Buffalo, N. Y., Aug.
    25–30, 1913. Chairman. Committee on Scientific Exhibit, Dr. Fletcher
    B. Dressler, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C.


                                NATIONAL

  CONSERVATION EXPOSITION, NATIONAL, Knoxville, Tenn., Sept.-Oct., 1913.


                                 LOCAL

  CHILD WELFARE EXHIBIT, New Britain, Conn., April 25–May 2. Sec’y, E.
    W. Pelton.

  TAXATION IN NEW JERSEY. Charts prepared by the Bureau of Municipal
    Research will be shown at the New Jersey Federation of Women’s
    Clubs. Atlantic City, May 2 and 3. Sec’y, Mrs. Joseph M. Middleton,
    46 Prospect St., Trenton, N. J.



                                JOTTING


KENTUCKY SCHOOL LAW

A newly enacted state-wide compulsory school attendance law brings
Tennessee into line with its neighbor Kentucky. Attendance at school is
required of all between the ages of eight and fourteen and of all
between fourteen and sixteen who are not “actively and regularly and
lawfully” employed or who are unable to read and write. This new law
takes from the map printed in THE SURVEY of February 15 one of the five
gray southern states that have had compulsory attendance only in certain
counties.

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                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. P. 81, added title “The Survey, Volume XXX, No. 3, Apr 19, 1913.”
 2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.




*** End of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913" ***