SECRETARY FIELD DEPARTMENT FOR ORGANIZED CHARITY, CHARITIES PUBLICATION
COMMITTEE
The city of Pittsburgh at the time of this survey possessed six private
relief societies which dealt with more than 1,000 families a year each;
three which dealt with between 500 and 1,000 families, and a Department
of Charities whose cases numbered over 1,000. In addition, relief was
given to a number of individuals by some of the settlements, by the
probation officers, and by private groups. The number relieved or the
amount of material relief were not ascertained and could not be in
less than from one to three years. It has developed also that other
associations, whose original purposes were of a different character,
some purely educational, have had smaller or larger funds to use for
relief. In the summer of 1908 requests for information were sent to 422
churches. Of these sixty-one replied and of this number sixty reported
that they gave relief. The more one went into this investigation, the
more one appreciated the impossibility of concretely recording the
number of organizations dealing in material relief. Without in the
least attempting to theorize, but drawing the obvious conclusion, it
may be said that Pittsburgh's primary charitable impulses to give to
the poor were being disintegrated because there was no sufficient
relation between the groups and no feeling of joint responsibility.
In presenting a rough picture of the whole charitable field in
Pittsburgh it is doubtless necessary to remind those who read this
that, if the survey had been undertaken in another city, conditions
similar in many respects would have been found. Though in certain
directions better co-ordination would be found, and in certain other
directions developments which are not here present, the fact remains
that in all our cities charitable societies simply "grew." Taken in
the large there are gaping rents and holes, discordant colors and bad
cloth in the fabric of each city's garment. Without the repression of
a single individual impulse of the right sort, the writer seriously
questions whether eventually we shall not have to apply the rigorous
precepts of town planning to the work of proper co-ordination and
systematization of charities.
Coming to medical care and nursing, the city on October 1, 1908, had
fourteen general and seven special hospitals, including two supported
by the city for contagious diseases. Fourteen of these reported a
total property valuation of $6,848,339; nineteen a bed capacity
of 2,268. Thirteen reported their number of free patients for the
previous fiscal year as 10,135, the cost of maintenance of these free
patients as $339,518. The capacity will soon be increased. Twelve of
the above hospitals maintained dispensaries. In addition there were
three dispensaries independent of hospital management. One of the three
reported patients to the number of 1,955 for one year, another 5,647,
the third, a state dispensary for tubercular patients, at the time
of the Survey, had not completed a year's work. A valuation of the
property could not be obtained. Not included above is the tuberculosis
camp maintained by the Department of Charities at the county
institutions at Marshalsea.
Nine agencies provided nurses to visit the homes of the poor. Of these
three were distinct organizations, one only being chartered; two were
carried by settlement house associations, two as departments of church
work, one by a religious order, and one by a school alumnæ association.
So far as observations go the specialized work itself was well done.
Yet the nursing associations may be specifically accused of such
failure of co-ordination that the nurses were constantly crossing one
another's tracks, visiting the same families, instead of having worked
out, jointly, a district plan.
The welfare of children is of course involved in the agencies named
above. In addition there are no less than forty and possibly more
institutions for their care. For the especial oversight of children
within family circle influences, there is the Juvenile Court
Association, two playground associations, and the Children's Aid
Society of Allegheny County. These, and other agencies are described in
the special article on children.
For the joint care of mothers and children there are six fresh air
homes and six day nurseries.
There are ten institutions to provide temporary shelter, principally,
for both men and women. The general intention of these agencies is to
set upon their feet people who are without immediate home ties and so
return them to normal conditions.
Coming to the aged where the fair chance may consist simply in
providing suitable institutional care, we find for them no less than
eight homes, exclusive of the care provided in the city institutions of
Pittsburgh located at Marshalsea and Claremont (formerly a part of the
municipality of Allegheny).
Six rescue homes for unfortunate women next come into the field of
observation.
Outside of the necessary care provided by public moneys, there would
seem to be very little private provision for the care of defectives,
there being for this class only one institution, a home for epileptics.
A public wash and bath association, as well as a widows' home
association, provide other forms of self-help to women particularly.
The former furnishes women with tubs and driers to use for the
washes which produce income. The latter lets nineteen houses with a
total of 110 rooms at a small rental to the families of widows with
limited means, thus providing pleasant sanitary quarters in a good
neighborhood. It is significant of the confusion prevailing that even
this last association has developed special relief funds of its own.
A legal aid society has lately been organized.
To this point we have been enumerating associations which, while
possessing social purposes, have embodied in their fundamental aims
some form of direct relief, material or otherwise, to the individual.
There are other agencies purely for social reform which should be
cataloged. These associations are primarily concerned with certain
forms of so-called preventive philanthropy. The Civic Club, the Chamber
of Commerce, the six settlements, the tuberculosis league, the child
labor association, have all dealt with specific social problems,
to say nothing of the endeavors of the Health Bureau in fighting
improper drainage, bad housing and preventable disease and of the
city administration in struggling for a better water supply and the
diminution of typhoid fever.
While both the child agencies and the social reform agencies last
cataloged find their proper positions in other lines of the Survey, it
is necessary that they be included in this bird's eye view of the whole
charity organism.
Drawing closer now to the organism from our bird's eye view, we observe
four plainly marked divisions. The classification here made is not
one which appears in any directory of charities but it is one which
is peculiarly adapted to a survey of a field. A different analysis
would be required for other kinds of study. We find then four lines of
activity: (1) Treatment of Families in their Homes, (2) Neighborhood
Aid, (3) Indoor Relief, (4) Social Aid.
By (1) we refer not only to material relief but also to all other
forms of aid, medical, legal, advisory, in fact to any dealing with
individual families in their homes, whether the treatment be mental,
moral, physical or environmental. It is with this group that this
study deals. By (2) we refer to the satisfaction of the needs of
neighborhoods rather than of individuals: to the general activities of
settlements, of bath houses, etc., so far as those activities are not
manifested in direct civic and social reforms. Of course (3) refers to
all forms of institutional care, temporary or permanent,--for children
or adults. Number (4) refers to all agencies or activities for civic or
social reform. The last three groups are considered in detail by other
contributors to the work of the general survey.
In Pittsburgh as in other cities the philosophy of individualized
charity still holds strongly its position. Individualized charity as
against social charity involves the idea that what one does concerns
only the doer and the "done to." That necessarily associated with
charity is the function of umpire and director has occurred only to
the larger societies. In the three last fields of our classification
everything tends towards organization of a public character. The very
end to be obtained, whether it be to provide hospital care, baths or
child labor legislation, requires the co-operation of many people
and with co-operation and the more or less resultant publicity the
organizers must inevitably sense some sort of public responsibility. In
the treatment of families in their homes, however, no such fundamental
need of publicity exists. Therefore it is that many people, having
perceived human suffering, without thought of the importance of
co-relation, of adequate knowledge, or of umpiring, took the easy means
of giving money and food and clothing without recognition of anything
beyond. Thus, possibly hundreds of individuals and groups are serving
simply as distributors of material things. It is true that one of the
relief associations maintained a registration system by which people
might learn what others were doing for a family, but the information
was concerned mostly with the giving or withholding of material relief.
More than that, it can scarcely be said that this registration system
was sufficiently advertised or advertised with sufficient continuity.
Even in communities where a charity organization society continuously
advertises its registration system, there is still revealed a wide
crudeness of thought which is crippling to any sort of decent social
progress. In the city where the confidential exchange of information
between societies has been best developed it is a fact that scarcely
more than a score of churches register regularly. By not doing so the
churches everywhere have put themselves in the wrong, they have not
recognized the very sacred and high social function which is involved
and which so vitally concerns the social welfare. For it will be
observed that there is nothing in the recognition of the high social
function which favors the centralization of relief work of any sort.
It means only that there shall be a working out together of the family
problems and an estimation of the remedies to be applied.
Both with the smaller groups and with the larger societies the lack
of co-operation has resulted in rather confused umpiring and in the
application of wrong remedies. For instance it has been revealed that
able-bodied men, with families, have been aided through the public
charities department. What they needed and should have had was the
careful attention of some private society which would bend every energy
to provide work for them. Whatever conditions were responsible for
the unemployment of these men (at a time when there was no particular
industrial depression) there was only one way of treating them so that
their own sense of initiative would not be lost. That was through
one of the several private agencies to provide absolutely necessary
amounts of relief to each man while pushing him into work. But with
certain striking exceptions each one of the agencies was working along
irrespective of the activities of others.
Few societies felt that to be brought in touch with a family should
mean the acceptance of the responsibility for furnishing or securing
the total necessary amount of relief, material or otherwise, which
might be required.
As a field investigator has written:
Previous to the organization of the Associated Charities in
February, 1908, no center of information existed, and there
was practically no attempt at co-operation among the different
relief agencies. Indeed, it was tacitly understood, if not
openly expressed, that families applying for aid to any agency
would go to others. One city official expressed the feeling
when he said, "Of course, they go to other societies; we
don't give them enough to live on." The shape of the city
made communication between the different districts often very
difficult in the days before the telephone, and habits formed
then are not wholly outlived. The main thoroughfares follow
the general direction of the two rivers. These become widely
separated by high hills as they extend back from the business
district on the "Point," and often one must either go a long
way round or climb over to get from one section to another. It
was very easy for a family to have its rent paid by a church,
to get groceries from the city charities, to secure a nurse if
needed, besides miscellaneous aid from one or more societies
and charitably inclined individuals without any one of these
organizations or persons knowing that another was helping.
From May 1, 1908, to September 20, 1908, the Associated Charities
investigated 216 families. Of these thirty were "out-of-town" cases
and twelve were false addresses, leaving 174 cases tabulated for
comparison. The following shows the number of these cases duplicated by
different societies and is probably a fair sample of the overlapping
constantly going on:
No. of cases helped by 11 societies 2
No. of cases helped by 7 societies 2
No. of cases helped by 6 societies 3
No. of cases helped by 5 societies 17
No. of cases helped by 4 societies 12
No. of cases helped by 3 societies 20
No. of cases helped by 2 societies 23
--
Total 79
A more thorough investigation than was possible with the limited
number of workers would have shown that many of these cases were also
receiving aid from one or more churches or individuals.
It should be remembered that this comparatively small list of
duplication, only covers the cases where actual investigations were
made by the society itself and not the many duplications revealed
in the registering of from 7,000 to 9,000 cases. The reason why no
tabulations were made of these was that, owing to the incomplete
registration, the returns could represent but a very incomplete set of
facts much less than in the case of the families actually seen.
Duplication of relief without thorough investigations, it need hardly
be said, may mean one of two things. It may mean in one instance the
dowering of a family which needs something else than financial aid,
or it may mean, in another, the inadequate dowering which compels
an otherwise decent family to beg from different quarters, thus
inculcating the begging habit. It is not an unjustifiable theory to
advance that it probably meant the one just as often as it meant the
other in the Pittsburgh field because there had not been, previous
to the coming of the Associated Charities, those frank and informal
conferences between workers in the different societies, which alone can
bring about that joint planning for the same families which is not only
economic but just and not only just, but humane.
Every charity organization society in the country can match these
stories of the evils resulting from the lack of a feeling of complete
responsibility, which means inevitably unfair umpiring and often no
direction at all. For how can there be direction when not all that
is being done is known, and when the manner and the character of the
remedies are held secret. The Associated Charities workers do not claim
that with their presence the uncooperative effects disappear as at the
touch of a wand, but that means to bring about complete and, if need
be, joint responsibility for doing the right and complete thing for
each family is furnished through their offices as meeting places and
neutral ground.
The great weakness in the treatment of families in their homes,
other than in medical and nursing care, is in the lack of thorough
knowledge regarding the individual causes of conditions, the individual
characteristics and connections and resources (other than material)
of families, and a planning upon this knowledge. There is no need to
draw illustrations from the Pittsburgh field because they can be drawn
from every city, even where a greater degree of co-operation has been
developed.
There is the instance of the aged mother, once a successful boarding
house keeper, assisted by a society to re-establish herself in this
business though her increasing infirmities doomed the project to
failure. This failure brought not only the mother but her widowed
daughter (herself in poor health) and two children into the direst
of situations. Then it was found that the money had actually been
thrown away because a certain well-to-do-relative in another city had
not been followed up. The clue which led in his direction had been
covered up during a hurried investigation. When he was informed through
correspondence of the situation he immediately made provision for the
mother in his own home and for the temporary care of the others until
the daughter recovered her health.
There is the instance of a man and wife, the man apparently recovering
from tuberculosis. No careful physical examination was made either
of the husband or wife. Various attempts at finding employment for
the husband were made but he began to fail. Then suddenly the wife's
condition became alarming and it was discovered that she was in a more
advanced stage of the disease than her husband. Meantime the couple
had not been assisted in tracing the whereabouts of the husband's
parents, supposed to be well-to-do. In the end, fortunately, the couple
themselves received word from the parents who were in California
prepared to receive the family (which included three young children)
and to provide care for the sufferers and if the worst came to give a
home to the children.
There are the many instances, where material relief has been given to
sickly families and the improper sanitation of the neighborhood or the
imperfect disinfection of the houses, the causes of the conditions,
have not been investigated and rectified.
There are the instances where a family, left as the result of an
industrial accident without its male bread winner, has not had
the kind of assistance which would enable it to secure the proper
settlement with the particular industrial plant in which the death
occurred.
There are the instances where the wayward boy has not been given the
specialized training which might have turned him into an interested
workman with a constantly increasing salary.
There are the instances where widows have been allowed to carry too
heavy burdens and where, unknowingly, children have been put illegally
to work, through holes in the laws which should be blocked up.
There are instances where with the failure to see the male bread
winners the whole moral and physical condition of the families has
rotted because shiftlessness and intemperance have been allowed to run
riot.
There are the instances where endless evil has developed when the most
hardened of beggars, because of their very vociferousness, have been
permitted to set an example of easy living to the honest and toiling
people in a whole community.
There are the instances where material relief has not been followed by
agencies for the development of a better family life: better cooking,
better home keeping, a larger fund of recreation, more harmony, better
individual development, more thrift. In other words, such a development
that there need not again be descent below normal living.
In Pittsburgh as elsewhere there has been too much reliance upon visits
to the families and upon a superficial sizing up of conditions. As
a result there has been too little development of treatment beyond
the mere giving or withholding of material relief and of medical and
nursing relief. Notable exceptions there are, but on the whole it can
but be said that material relief alone, and that in many instances
by no means adequate, has bulked too large. The same must be said of
outdoor relief everywhere. To-day it requires as much attention for its
right development as any other field of social effort.
It cannot be said that the outdoor relief agencies of Pittsburgh have
been as effective as educators of the community and directors of its
charitable impulses as they would have been with proper co-operation.
On their own initiative they are now putting an amount of effort, and
brains, and heart into the work of co-operation which assures far
more definite results when the new order has established itself. For
instance, it would have been possible, with proper co-ordination, for
the relief agencies to gather a vast mass of data regarding dependency
wrought or deepened by two social evils to which Pittsburgh is prone,
the prevalence of typhoid fever and the number of uncompensated
industrial accidents.
It was not possible for those engaged in this survey to obtain any
satisfactory data as to the approximate number of applications for aid,
due, superficially at least, to these two causes. They have also been
unable to obtain reliably complete data regarding the prevalence of
tuberculosis in the families to which a helping hand has been extended.
Nor could data regarding centers of infection and probable inciting
causes of this disease be obtained. It was not possible to ascertain in
how many instances physically weakened young men and women could trace
as one of the causes of their condition, too early labor for wages. It
was not possible to learn in how many families the mental backwardness
of the children could be traced to physical condition. Nor, it must
again be re-emphasized, do the relief agencies of other cities live
up to their responsibilities in this direction. There have been
many cities visited by the writer where long established charities,
with fairly complete records and with a covering of practically
the whole field, have not held in compact shape the illustrations
to furnish the background which might cause people to hearken more
quickly than anything else. A society, which among other activities,
maintained a tuberculosis committee, was unable even to state the
number of families, with whom it had come in contact, in which cases
of tuberculosis had been discovered. Another city, where there was
tolerably good co-operation, and where there had been considerable
interest manifested in the housing problem, could not tell from
its records, just where in certain specified neighborhoods the most
unsanitary houses were located. The writer in this case felt personally
responsible so that his position as critic must not be misunderstood.
To put it plainly the Survey has only revealed again that in the
whole field of outdoor relief there must be a deeper realization of
the fact that as umpires in the discrimination of causes, as workers
in the right forms of treatment, and as educators in revealing true
conditions, there is a very heavy responsibility which all who in
any way deal with the dependent or neglected in their homes, must
feel. It is because their work brings them into the homes that the
responsibility is the greater.
Credit is due to the devoted services of many of the workers in
Pittsburgh for their own self-sacrifices in order to do satisfactory
work. They themselves felt the limitations which the environment of
isolation had brought about and they had determined effectively to
break the isolation. They alone know the amount of thoroughly good work
which has been done in the past. Nor must it be forgotten that during
those days of isolation the Association for the Improvement of the Poor
steadily maintained a registration system which was used by not a few
societies. Illustrations of thoroughly adequate treatment along the
lines of material and other relief may be found in this association as
well as of others. The idea of co-operation and adequate treatment was
there but it required development through united action.
Still considering particularly those agencies brought into the families
of the poor because of material needs, we can get a much clearer
picture of the actual policies involved in their work by an examination
of their methods. A description of the modes of procedure of the more
important societies will therefore find its place here:
City Department of Charities: Relief in the homes is given in
groceries, coal and shoes. The method of distribution varies
slightly in the two offices: In Pittsburgh baskets containing
flour, ham, potatoes, coffee, sugar and soap, valued at two
dollars retail price, but costing the department less are given
once in two weeks, while on the North Side orders are given
on local dealers for the same amount, two dollars. Applicants
come to the offices for baskets and stand in line to secure
them; among them children were noticed daily. All the cases
are supposed to be investigated by a visitor, and the findings
reported to the examiner, who decides whether relief shall be
given or not. No systematic re-investigation is made and a case
continues to receive aid indefinitely although as many cases as
possible are dropped at the end of the year.
Society 1: Material relief is given in practically the same
way as by the city charities, though the amounts are not so
uniformly fixed. With exceptions the work however deals largely
with the basic needs of families. Special attention is given
to some tuberculosis cases. There is investigation by field
workers.
Society 2: Only general information possible. Average of
expenditure to each applicant was a little less than two
dollars. Instances were cited of payment of tuition, pensions,
etc., and in one case of the purchasing of a tent and necessary
equipment to enable a young man with tuberculosis to live in
the fresh air. Volunteer investigators.
Society 3: This organization's work included the distribution
of bushels of coal, meals, free lodging, baskets of provisions,
bowls of soup, garments and shoes, blankets, hospital and
medical care, transportation secured, families moved, rent
secured and paid, gas bills paid, Thanksgiving and Christmas
baskets.
Society 4: Another important society confines its work largely
though not entirely to the giving of baskets of groceries and
clothing. Its reports also show expenditures for tuition and
board of orphans, burial expenses, etc. The report for the year
1907 showed the number of families aided to be 355, and the
amount of money spent $6,562. Volunteer investigators.
Society 5: Baskets of groceries, value fifty cents each, are
given each week and one load (twenty-five bushels) of coal each
month. Rent is also paid in many cases "often for months."
Employment is secured whenever possible.
Passing from the general agencies to the church societies (which do
not ordinarily keep records in any city and which therefore are not
included in the consideration of that subject though logically they
should be), we find no complete records of work done on the part of
the sixty-one churches reporting last summer except that twenty-nine
were helping 491 families and that the amount of relief expended
by thirty-four was $7,595.29. Under the head of remarks there were
indications of some diversification from the stereotyped forms of
relief. One church was educating a "bright young girl." One was loaning
money. But encouraging as these instances might appear they are
offset, by the story of a church worker who had been helping a family
for fifteen years without seeing the husband.
The thoroughness with which treatment is carried out is partially
indicated by the character of the records kept, though good forms may
oftentimes cover poor work.
On the following page are given typical samples of forms used by three
of the more prominent agencies. Below is presented the more exhaustive
standard case record card used by some societies in other cities:
[Illustration]
[Illustration: I.--Meager blank used by Pittsburgh Department of Public
Charities.]
[Illustration: II.--Blank formerly used by Allegheny City Department
of Public Charities,--a much more complete record, abandoned since the
merging of the cities.]
[Illustration: III.--Blank used by private agency.]
The systems pursued by other prominent Pittsburgh agencies are as
follows:
Society A. Names, addresses, number in family, and religion are
noted on blank cards, or written in books.
Society B. Record system not in existence. No paid worker. Only
record of names and amounts.
Society C. Record of cases very meager, consisting only of
names and addresses, with a few items of information, such
as the number of children, whether married, single, widow or
deserted, on cards.
Society D. No systematic records.
Society E. Clear general statements as to money received and
expended but no case records.
In addition to such a record card these societies have so called
continuation sheets on which chronologically are entered all
information or advice obtained and all action taken. It is apparent
that there can be no systematic knowledge of families unless there is
such systematic keeping of records. The separation of families into the
worthy and unworthy can nowhere be found in such records, which reveal
instead the innermost causes, the remedies for the removal of the
causes and the resources, material or otherwise, at hand to effect the
removal. In other words the three fold function; umpire of the fight
itself, determiner of immediate remedies, educator of the community to
give a fairer show in the future, can only be carried out with such
systematic recording.
After three months' effort it was found impossible to furnish any
approximation of the amount spent annually for material and other
outdoor relief in the city of Pittsburgh.
These partial returns were obtained:
(_Spent in_
_their last fiscal year_
_Agency._ _before the depression._)
9 (of 10) General Relief
Societies $78,257.00
City Department of Charities 52,037.11(8 Mos.)
54 (of 422) Churches 22,161.00
4 (of 9) Nursing Societies 7,223.00[6]
[6] Exclusive of private relief fund.
It is unfortunate, that owing to lack of co-ordination there has been a
confusion of function between outdoor relief and neighborhood agencies.
Many of the latter have possessed distinctly relief funds and have
been relief agencies. It is doubtful if this has been anything but
a disadvantage to them. It has divided their attention between two
totally different sorts of problems, two sorts which require above all
else, concentration. The general isolation of the field has driven
them, in many instances, thus to protect their own neighborhoods
against neglect. But they have been unable in many instances to deal
with these tasks adequately, and their larger feeling of social
responsibility has not enabled them to build up much better plans for
individual care than agencies, directly charged with this burden. They
have been hampered by their own relief efforts and their legitimate
work has suffered thereby.
They have felt much more clearly their responsibilities as umpires
of the social struggle and educators of the social conscience, than
the great bulk of the strictly relief agencies. The confusion of
their function, before mentioned, has been, it would appear, a rather
unfortunate departure which still further muddied a not clear stream.
With reference to the organization of the Associated Charities, it may
be stated that the demand for it came both from the reputable societies
themselves and the business community, the heavy contributors to
charity. Greater harmony of action, greater efficiency in action, these
were the common aims of the coalition. Several attempts had been made
during the past ten years to place the charitable work of Pittsburgh
on an organized basis, but without tangible results until February 21,
1908, when the Associated Charities received its charter. Its office
was opened April 22 and the work of securing the co-operation of
individuals, churches, relief societies and other charitable agencies,
began. The society has grown rapidly along lines of work successfully
followed by similar organizations in 172 American cities. It is
already serving as a center of intercommunication between churches,
social and charitable organizations, institutions and individuals who
are interested in charitable and social service. It has already done
much towards systematizing the charitable work of the city, with a
view of checking the evils of unorganized charity and of making every
charitable dollar do one hundred cents' worth of charitable work. While
the force and equipment of the new association are necessarily small,
they are growing, and the association hopes to increase its facilities,
so as to keep pace with the rapidly increasing, heavy demand upon it.
The constitution of this organization provides for a central council,
in addition to the usual board of trustees. The council consists of
one delegate elected by each of the charitable, religious and social
agencies which have joined the Associated Charities. Besides these
delegates, the central council includes, as ex-officio members, the
mayor, director of the Department of Charities, director of public
safety, director of public works, superintendent of the Bureau of
Health, and superintendent of the Bureau of Police. The province of
the council is to promote the development of co-operation between
individual societies, to pass upon questions affecting the general
welfare of the poor and the charitable activities of the city. By
October 31, 1908, thirty-one societies were affiliated in the central
council and the registration bureau contained 7,039 records. The bylaws
of the society provide that anything which involves the welfare of
the city or its social conditions may become its concern. Thus as the
servant of the charitable agencies of the city it will often serve as
the rallying point for social advance though it would be the last to
affirm that it will be the only rallying point for the general spirit
of good feeling which is slowly manifesting itself among the social
organizations of the city.
By the presence of this co-operating center, the co-ordination of the
work of the charities of Pittsburgh should bring about:
1. Adequate material relief, when actually required. For not only
will the total amounts necessary for individual families be carefully
considered and worked out by joint committees but the relief may be
gathered from a number of sources, from relatives, friends, employers,
societies and charitably disposed individuals. The society has no
relief fund of its own but its function is to organize relief.
2. The repression of mendicancy and the repression of illegitimate
charitable schemes by the bureaus of registration and information and
in cases of necessity, the prosecution of imposters.
3. The securing of employment, rather than the giving of material
relief, wherever this is possible.
4. The inculcation of habits of thrift and providence, the development
of industrial education.
5. The co-operative treatment of families to bring all members of such
families up to the highest possible mental, moral and physical plane,
not only to conserve the well-being of the individuals themselves but
to prevent the weakening of society by adding in successive generations
to those who are sub-normal (such as weak minded children).
6. Such special or institutional care of the deficient as shall work
towards the same end.
7. The crystallization of the sentiment of the charitable forces of
Pittsburgh, with reference to necessary social reforms.
8. Greater efficiency in the business affairs and records of the
individual societies, thus imparting greater "doing" power to the same
amount of charitable resources, and creating a body of social facts
which can be made the basis for sound public opinion with respect to
the living conditions of the community.
Here then has been the evolution. Individualized impulses developing
specialized organizations in an un-plotted field. The conception
of individual well-doing with no conception of the general social
responsibility. Added to this the growth of more or less unnecessary,
weak, and in some cases fraudulent, charitable enterprises (to which we
have not alluded before) because of the ease with which support could
be obtained in a community generous to a fault. This support gained
too without necessarily bringing with it any sense of responsibility
on the part of the contributors. There is a well corroborated story,
vouched for by a leading professional man of the city, that for years a
woman had collected about $7,500 annually for a fresh air home which
cared for only a few children. The collections continued until he and
others had a private investigation made and discovered the truth. It
is comparatively easy to secure the assent of many men to allow their
names to be used on boards of directors if no service is required. This
is not a bad practice when such men know the responsible directors and
can safely vouch for their actions. But care was not always taken to
ascertain this.
* * * * *