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The social survey is gaining recognition as an instrument for community
advance so rapidly that the new Department of Surveys and Exhibits of
the Russell Sage Foundation, which was established last October, has
found it necessary to increase its staff. The work of the department
during its first three months has been largely advisory—defining surveys
by specific illustrations, outlining the steps for selecting a
representative committee to back a survey or an exhibit, assisting in
the choice of subjects to be covered and estimating probable costs. The
increase in the staff will facilitate an extension of this service and
make more field work possible. The new members of the staff are Zenas L.
Potter of New York and Franz Schneider, Jr., of Boston.
Mr. Potter is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where he
specialized in administration of governmental problems. This was
followed by a year’s graduate work at Columbia in economics and social
economy, where he received the Toppan prize for the best work in
constitutional law. After leaving Columbia he was field secretary of the
New York Child Labor Committee for two years. He investigated the work
conditions of children in the state, and in 1912 directed the cannery
investigation for the New York State Factory Investigating Commission.
The findings of this inquiry are being used in the campaign for better
laws regulating child labor conditions in New York state.
Mr. Schneider, while taking courses leading to his bachelor’s and
master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave
special attention to subjects in the field of public health and
sanitation. Since 1910 he has taught in the institute, and will leave
the position of research associate in the sanitary research laboratories
to join the Department of Surveys and Exhibits. In the summer of 1911 he
was employed in Kansas on special investigations into the bacteriology
of the egg-packing industry, and during the summer of 1912 on an
investigation into the fundamental principles of ventilation. For the
last year he has helped edit the _American Journal of Public Health_ and
at present is health officer of Wellesley, Mass. The latter work is part
of a plan which is being worked out with Prof. E. B. Phelps, also of the
institute, to build up an organization to operate the Board of Health
work of small towns in the neighborhood of Boston. The aim is to give
these towns a service comparable to that of the large cities, a service
which they alone could not afford.
* * * * *
A young sanitary inspector in a mid-western city had his suspicions of a
new milk company. He never seemed to be able to catch the wagon as it
drove into town, so one day he jumped on his bicycle and rode out to the
farm to get a sample. The man was not there, and his wife said that they
had no milk left on the place that morning. The inspector’s suspicions
were more than ever aroused, and he made a search of ice boxes and
cooling places, only to find no milk. It is a very easy thing for milk
to disappear when an inspector turns in at the gate. Nothing daunted,
therefore, he pulled down a pail from its peg, marched out to the
pasture, cornered a cow, milked her, and, sample in hand, rode back to
the city triumphant.
The health commissioner is wonderfully proud of this spirit of
not-to-be-balkedness in his inspector. He has the makings in him of a
master of public health. But the commissioner felt obliged to explain to
his assistant with as sober a face as he could muster, that up to date
in that part of the commonwealth they had not hitherto arrested a single
cow for putting formaldehyde in her milk or for diluting it.
* * * * *
Childhood’s Bill of Rights, printed some time ago in THE SURVEY[3], has
developed an ever widening influence. One enthusiastic friend sent it
during the past Christmas season to some forty foreign lands. V. H.
Lockwood, author of the bill, is a busy Indianapolis attorney but he
finds time for social service whether called upon to act as judge _pro
tem_ of the juvenile court, as the vice-president of the Children’s Aid
Association, or on a committee of the State Conference of Charities. His
special interest just now is the work of the vice committee of the
Indianapolis Church Federation.
Mr. Lockwood, long ago, became interested in the juvenile court. He was
frequently consulted by Judge Stubbs, the first juvenile court judge in
Indiana, and for several years was one of his substitutes on the bench.
Out of this experience grew the Bill of Rights which was jotted down in
his notebook years ago. From it grew also the Children’s Aid
Association, which Mr. Lockwood helped to organize for the purpose of
saving children from being taken into court. He has also co-operated in
drafting several of Indiana’s laws for the safeguarding of children,
particularly those having to do with the juvenile court, contributory
delinquency, the licensing of maternity hospitals and children’s
institutions, and child labor.
[Illustration:
MRS. V. H. LOCKWOOD
]
To Mrs. Lockwood, however, is due most of the credit in connection with
Indiana’s child labor law. She has for several years been secretary of
the State Child Labor Committee and has been active in other welfare
work. Two years spent under the direction of the National Child Labor
Committee in investigating conditions in Indiana armed her with facts
which were used effectively before the two legislatures which considered
the child labor bill. The first attempt met with defeat, but the next
session passed the present law. Between the two sessions Mrs. Lockwood
traveled over the state, working to educate the people through the clubs
and schools. She is one of the lecturers of the Indiana Federation of
Clubs, and takes a part in many branches of social welfare work in
Indianapolis.
* * * * *
A Sunny Life: The biography of Samuel June Barrows, is the title of a
volume which Little, Brown and Company are to bring out in April. The
author is Mrs. Barrows. Readers of THE SURVEY who knew the former
president of the International Prison Congress, but who had only
glimpses of his remarkable experiences as editor, congressman, minister,
digger of Greek temples, and follower of Custer on the plains, will look
forward to this record of the man by his comrade and fellow worker of
fifty years.
* * * * *
Floyd J. Miller, who has been in newspaper work for six years, has left
the staff of the Detroit _Free Press_ to become financial secretary of
the Detroit Associated Charities.