In the field of charity and philanthropy Pittsburgh shows a very
substantial degree of activity and earnest motive. Very much is needed,
however, both in the way of more enlightened specific and local
execution and of broader co-operation for economy and completeness in
each type of social service. The staff of the Pittsburgh Survey has
had the privilege of submitting to many institutions and agencies the
accredited results of recent experience in other cities and countries.
Such suggestions have been cordially received and in some instances at
once acted upon. The Pittsburgh Associated Charities, which has been
organized within the year, has secured the support of nearly every
phase of charitable endeavor in the city. It represents the immediate
advantage which Pittsburgh, under the spur of organizations like the
Civic Club, has taken of the Survey's presentation of the practical
conclusions of scientific charity. The Associated Charities is so new
that nothing can be said about results in the ordinary sense; but in
contrast to the confusion which existed until a year ago, its clear
cogent platform covering both remedies and reforms, its straight appeal
to the practical men, its strong representative board, and its fit and
well convinced executive officer, are achievements of the first order.
[Illustration: D. P. BLACK.
President Real Estate Trust Company, Member Civic Improvement
Commission.]
[Illustration: HENRY L. KREUSLER.
(Building Construction), Member Civic Improvement Commission.]
The development of the great filtration project has naturally
stimulated other movements for the improvement of the public health.
In this direction the municipal health department is a broadly and
consistently helpful influence. The fight against tuberculosis is
carried on effectively by both public and private agencies. The special
commission of experts appointed by the mayor and aided financially by
the Sage Foundation for tracing causes of typhoid fever aside from the
water supply, will render a most important service to Pittsburgh as
well as to the whole country. The successful record of the filtration
plant in greatly reducing the amount of typhoid in the city, gives
added point to this scientific effort to rid out the last lurking
places of infection. In general, however, it must be said that the
self-forgetful abandon with which many medical men in other American
cities are bringing their priceless knowledge to bear upon public
unsanitary conditions and unhygienic ways of life,--a type of effort
which both in motive and result may almost be taken as the test
of a city's progressive civilization,--has hardly as yet reached
Pittsburgh. The exceptions,--notable ones,--are of the sort that prove
the rule.
[Illustration: CHARLES F. WELLER.
Secretary of the new Associated Charities, Pittsburgh; member
Pittsburgh Civic Improvement Commission; former secretary
Washington Associated Charities and President's Homes
Commission.]
The co-ordination of charitable effort, both in its different kinds
and in its different localities, is a step which needs now to be
followed by the federation of agencies for social upbuilding. The
playgrounds which are fast becoming the headquarters of a kind of
neighborhood guild, will furnish a substantial part of the material
for this comprehensive social formation. In such enterprise, organized
local citizenship, especially as seen in the boards of trade, will
undoubtedly afford valuable re-enforcement to the distinctively
philanthropic motive. The settlement houses of which there are several,
might naturally take the lead. Such a federation would ensure to
each local agency information about the results of experience at
every other; it would bring the momentum of concrete local knowledge
to bear upon the public school system and other parts of the public
administration; it would draw into the work of constructive local
betterment many resourceful new individuals and new agencies, thus
spreading throughout the city the new point of view in citizenship;
it would bring forward from the congested sections of the city those
rear detachments of citizenship without which municipal reform must
continue to be shallow and casual. In the development and extension
of local social organization lies much of the promise of widespread
growth of public spirit in Pittsburgh. The people have a distinct
capacity for the invaluable village type of loyalty. This can in due
time with expanding experience be made into the most enduring type of
city loyalty,--that based on neighborly co-operation gradually extended
and writ large but carrying with it always that sense of reality, that
nearness to the soil, in which it began.
[Illustration: FRANCIS J. TORRANCE.