THE SURVEY
Volume XXX, Number 1, Apr 5, 1913
THE COMMON WELFARE
RESPONSE TO FLOOD CALLS
For the first time in the history of our great disasters, the country's
machinery for relief has been found ready to move with that precision
and efficiency which only careful previous organization could make
possible. In the flood and tornado stricken regions of the Mississippi
valley the Red Cross has given splendid evidence of the effectiveness of
its scheme of organization and of its methods as worked out on the basis
of experience at San Francisco, and as tested by the Minnesota and
Michigan forest fires, the Cherry mine disaster, and the Mississippi
Floods of last year.
Utilizing the largest and ablest charity organization societies which
serve as "institutional members," a force of executives and trained
workers was instantly deployed. With foreknowledge of just what to do
and how to do it, and without friction, these men and women have
reinforced the spontaneous response to emergency of citizens and
officials in the stricken communities.
Omaha's tornado had scarcely died down when Eugene T. Lies of the
Chicago United Charities was on his way to the city. Ernest P. Bicknell,
director of the National Red Cross, had reached Chicago, en route to
Omaha, when news of the Ohio floods turned him back. The same news
summoned Edward T. Devine from New York. It was Mr. Devine who organized
the Red Cross relief work at San Francisco, following the earthquake and
fire of 1908. Mr. Bicknell established headquarters at Columbus, itself
badly in the grip of the waters. At Dayton Mr. Devine, C. M. Hubbard of
the St. Louis Provident Association and T. J. Edmonds of the Cincinnati
Associated Charities concentrated their services.
When Cincinnati and its vicinity needed help, Mr. Edmonds returned to
his home city. The Omaha situation by this time could spare Mr. Lies for
Dayton. To Piqua, Sidney and other Ohio and Indiana flood points went
James F. Jackson of the Cleveland Associated Charities and other workers
from various organizations. The news from the Ohio and other floods
almost swamped that of an isolated disaster in Alabama where a tornado
devastated the town of Lower Peachtree. To handle the relief at this
point the Red Cross dispatched William M. McGrath of the Birmingham
Associated Charities, who had seen service a year ago in the Mississippi
floods.
To work under the direction of these executives, agents have been
drafted from the staffs of charitable organizations scattered throughout
the entire middle West, and even as far east as New York. Close
co-operation was at once established between this force, hastily
organized local committees and various branches of federal and state
government service. In Ohio the resources, equipment and staffs of the
army, the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, the life-saving
service, the militia, the naval militia, and state departments of public
health, have all been applied promptly to the problem of emergency
relief. Governor Cox of Ohio, as ex-officio chairman of the Ohio Red
Cross State Commission, did much to assure this early co-operation.
Following the first work of rescue and relief, sanitation looms up as
one of the gravest problems of the Indiana and Ohio valleys. Immediately
upon the arrival of the secretary of war at Dayton a sanitary officer
was appointed, who divided the city into sixteen districts, each in
charge of a district sanitary officer. Each of these selected his own
staff from among local physicians and volunteer physicians from other
cities. Red Cross nurses in considerable numbers were early supplied.
Instructions in brief form have been sent broadcast over the city giving
definite directions to the inhabitants for the safeguarding of health.
The sewer and water systems are being reopened as rapidly as possible.
Early this week the expectation was that, although the dead in the city
would not total 200, it would be necessary to feed many thousands of
people for a week and several thousand for several weeks. The Dayton
situation, though more severe, was typical of what was to be found in
other stricken towns.
The extent of the Omaha disaster is already reported in statistics which
are said to be complete and accurate. The summary includes: 115 lives
lost; 322 seriously injured; at least 1,000 slightly injured; 822 houses
destroyed: 2,100 houses partially wrecked; property loss estimated at
$7,500,000; 733 families being fed in relief stations (March 30); 59
dead; 150 injured and $1,000,000 property loss in surrounding towns.
Efforts are being made by the real estate exchange to prevent the
raising of rents. The plans suggested for rebuilding include a county
bond issue of $1,000,000 and the securing of other money from the
packing and railroad companies to be loaned without interest.
President Wilson's call to the nation for relief, and the quick action
of governors and mayors in rallying their states and cities, started
emergency supplies and funds for supplementing the tents, blankets and
rations which the army and militia had rushed into the field. The
National Cash Register Company, whose undamaged factories in Dayton were
of great value in providing shelter and space for relief administration,
secured through its officers in other cities supplies and money which
were promptly forwarded. The company officials did much to systematize
the local relief, and department heads assumed charge of different
divisions of the work. Organization charts and diagrams were printed at
the factory so that the people of the city could act intelligently.
Early this week the relief funds were reported to have reached $408,000
in New York, $300,000 in Chicago, $105,000 in Boston, and varying sums
in other cities. Most of the money was contributed through the Red
Cross. Contributions received at its Washington headquarters totalled
$816,000, with New York first, Massachusetts second and Illinois third
in size of contributions.
Some small gifts were as significant as the larger ones. A young man who
appeared to be a poorly paid clerk came to the Red Cross office in New
York at the noon hour last Friday and pulled from his pocket a five
dollar and a one dollar bill. The person in charge asked him if he was
not giving more than his share, and suggested that he keep the one
dollar hill. "No," said he, "I've kept some small change for carfare and
lunch, and tomorrow's pay day." One letter accompanying a small
contribution read:
"Just one short year ago, when the ill-fated Titanic deprived me of
mine all, the Red Cross Society lost not a moment in coming to my
aid. Through you I now wish to give my 'widow's mite' to help the
stricken ones in the West, and I only wish I could make it a
thousand times as much."
Emergency supplies and funds have been prompt and abundant, but the
extensive work ahead of lifting household and community life out of
desolation justifies and requires a very large fund. For, as Mr. Devine,
with the San Francisco catastrophe in the background of his experience,
telegraphed after reaching Dayton: "The disaster is appalling even if
the loss of life is less than it was feared."
Spontaneous contributions through a variety of channels are usually
sufficient for immediate needs, and the Red Cross is following its
customary policy of reserving as much of its funds as possible for
permanent rehabilitation. When a disaster comes in any part of the
country the nearest "institutional members" of the Red Cross at once
dispatch trained members of their staffs to the scene. Each organization
has an "emergency box" containing, convenient for carrying, an equipment
including detailed printed instructions, record cards, Red Cross flag,
expense sheets, vouchers, etc. The use of this equipment, especially the
uniform record cards, which have been carefully prepared on the basis of
the San Francisco experience, means that help is not lost or wasted, but
gets to the people who need it most. Even more important, it means that
help is given not merely to keep victims of the disaster from starvation
and exposure during the weeks immediately following, but to afford a
reasonable lift on the road to the recovery of the standard of living
maintained before the disaster.
A RELIEF SURVEY BY THE SAGE FOUNDATION
This emphasis on rehabilitation is the message of a report[1] which, by
a coincidence, was on the press for the Russell Sage Foundation when
news of tornado and flood came from the middle West. It is the first
comprehensive review of emergent relief work following great disasters.
It is based on the San Francisco experience and put forth as a "book of
ready reference for use on occasions of special emergency."
[1] San Francisco Relief Survey. By Charles J. O'Connor. Francis H.
McLean and others. Survey Associates, Inc., for the Russell Sage
Foundation. To be published April 18, the seventh anniversary of the San
Francisco earthquake. Price postpaid $3.50. Orders for delivery on
publication day may be sent to THE SURVEY.
The volume presents a study of the organization and methods of relief
following the San Francisco earthquake and fire, made for the Foundation
by a group of people who held responsible positions in connection with
the relief work. It is to appear on April 18, the seventh anniversary of
the disaster.
For the assistance of those in the middle West upon whom heavy
responsibilities came so suddenly, the Sage Foundation sent out post
haste advance copies of the first two sections of the report as a
practical handbook to charity organizations in and near the stricken
regions.
The Relief Survey is divided into six parts: Organization and Emergency
Period; Rehabilitation: Business Rehabilitation; Housing Rehabilitation;
After Care; The Aged and Infirm. Some of the prime points emphasized for
the "Organization and Emergency Period" are the following:
1. The recognition of the American National Red Cross, with its
permanent organization, its governmental status, and its direct
accountability to Congress for all expenditures, as the proper
national agency through which relief funds for great disasters
should be collected and administered; thus securing unity of
effort, certainty of policy, and a center about which all local
relief agencies may rally.
2. The importance of postponing the appointment of sub-committees
until a strong central committee has been able to determine general
policies and methods of procedure. The hasty organization of
sub-committees at San Francisco resulted in much unnecessary
overlapping effort and some friction when committees got in each
other's way. The relief forces were not united until a whole week
after the disaster, and after unfortunate difficulty and
bitterness.
3. The desirability of contributions, especially those in kind,
being sent without restrictions, as only the local organization is
able to measure relative needs at different periods of the work. At
San Francisco much pitifully needless restrictions imposed by those
who sent funds or supplies from distant states. The delays in
securing authority for the wise use of these contributions were
well-nigh intolerable. The only safe course lies in placing
implicit trust in an efficient and recognized director of relief
such as the Red Cross is in a position to furnish.
4. The value of utilizing for emergency administration a body so
highly organized and so efficient as the United States Army, to
take charge of camps, and to bring to points of distribution the
supplies required for those in need of food and clothing.
5. The wisdom of reducing the bread line and the camp population as
quickly as possible after the disaster so that the relief resources
may be conserved to meet the primary need of rehabilitation. The
care used in emergency expenditures means much in husbanding
resources so that permanent rehabilitation may be efficient and
thorough.
6. The need of establishing a central bureau of information to
serve from the beginning of the relief work as a clearing house, to
prevent confusion and waste through duplication of effort.
7. The necessity of utilizing the centers of emergency distribution
for the later rehabilitation work of district communities and corps
of visitors.
8. The necessity of incorporation for any relief organization that
has to deal with so large a disaster.
9. The possibility of a strict audit of all relief in cash sent to
a relief organization. The impossibility of an equally strict
accounting for relief in kind, because of the many leaks and the
difficulties attendant upon hurried distribution. Care in this
direction is assured if the Red Cross is fully utilized.
Nothing can take the place, the editors of the Relief Survey testify, of
the spirit and devotion of the local committees. At San Francisco the
citizens showed splendid self-reliance and faith in the future, which
enabled them to rebound from fortune's sudden blow, and show what
sustained and co-operative effort can achieve. But the most important
factor, especially for permanent rehabilitation, in so great and complex
a relief problem is a trained staff. This the American Red Cross,
through the co-operation of charity organization societies throughout
the country, is constantly prepared to bring together on short notice.
Mr. Bicknell represented the Red Cross at San Francisco after Mr.
Devine's departure, and was thus unusually well equipped to plan the
methods which the Red Cross has devised for emergency use.
SOCIAL LEGISLATION AND THE EXTRA SESSION
An open letter was sent to President Wilson this week with over
forty-five signatures, urging the importance of a group of social
measures which were neither voted down nor passed at the last session of
Congress. In the opinion of the signers, among whom are included some of
the Democratic leaders who have been foremost in social reform, this
overhanging social legislation should be definitely acted upon at the
extra session. The movement to this end was encouraged by the positions
taken by President Wilson in his inaugural address.
The letter is the outgrowth of a meeting of men and women interested in
social legislation held last week in New York at the call of Edward T.
Devine as associate editor of The Survey. The signatures to the document
are those of individuals solely. The particular measures will be urged
at the forthcoming Congress by such national organizations as the
American Association for Labor Legislation, National Consumers League,
National Committee for Mental Hygiene, National Child Labor Committee,
the American Prison Labor Association and the Gloucester Fisherman's
Institute. While each organization is committed only to the measures in
its own field, all of them have a common interest in seeing that the
extra session takes up social legislation in addition to the tariff and
currency. The letter follows:
THE PRESIDENT,
The White House,
Washington. D. C.
_Dear Mr. President:_--
On the eve of the convening of the Sixty-Third Congress in special
session, the undersigned desire to bring to your attention certain
bills of importance which have received the favorable consideration
of the last Congress, but which, owing to various reasons, failed
of affirmative action.
Nothing could set more vividly before the country the urgency of
such measures than the words of your inaugural address, in which
you pointed out the need for perfecting the means by which the
government may be put at the service of humanity in safeguarding
the health of the nation, the health of its men and its women and
its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for
existence. The country has been stirred by your declaration:
"This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is
justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no
equality of opportunity, the first essential of justice in the
body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in
their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great
industrial and social processes which they cannot alter,
control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it
does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent
parts."
The undersigned are aware that the time and energy of Congress will
be largely expended upon the revision of the revenue and currency
statutes. Without in any way meaning to minimize the importance of
these subjects, we wish to lay emphasis upon what we believe to be
the necessity for the passage of certain other measures directly
affecting the health and happiness of hundreds of thousands of
citizens. The legislative proposals which we present to you are not
new; several of them have met with little open opposition; some
have been passed by one house of Congress; others by both; all have
been prepared by experts and are based upon tried principles
already embodied either in the federal laws, in the laws of the
various states, or in the laws of other nations. An example is the
bill which aims to compensate workingmen employed in interstate
commerce for accidents to life and limb. Another is the eight-hour
bill for women in the District of Columbia, which was lost through
an accident in the closing hours of the last Congress.
The measures which had not passed when Congress adjourned and which
are herewith advocated are as follows. It is the principles
underlying these several bills rather than the specific provisions
of any measure that we wish to be understood as urging upon the
attention of the President and Congress:
Providing compensation for federal employees suffering injury or
occupational diseases in the course of their employment.
Providing compensation for employees in interstate commerce
suffering injury in the course of their employment.
Harmonizing conflicting court decisions in different states by
giving the state itself the right of appeal to the Supreme Court
of the United States.
Establishing the eight-hour day for women employed in certain
occupations in the District of Columbia.
Co-ordinating the federal health activities and strengthening
the public health service.
Providing in the immigration act for mental examination of
immigrants by alienists; safeguarding the welfare of immigrants
at sea by detailing American medical officers and matrons to
immigrant-carrying ships.
Providing a hospital ship for American deep-sea fishermen.
Providing for the betterment of the conditions of American
seamen.
Establishing a commission to investigate jails and the
correction of first offenders.
Abolishing the contract convict labor system by restricting
interstate commerce in prison-made goods.
Legislation giving effect to the principles underlying such
proposals as these would constitute, we believe, an important step
in the accomplishment of the forward-looking purposes which you
have placed before the American people.
Caroline B. Alexander
Frederic Almy
Louise de Koven Bowen
Louis D. Brandeis
Howard S. Braucher
Allen T. Burns
Charles C. Burlingham
Richard C. Cabot
Richard S. Childs
John R. Commons
Charles R. Crane
Edward T. Devine
Abram J. Elkus
H. D. W. English
Livingston Farrand
Homer Folks
Ernst Freund
John M. Glenn
Josephine Goldmark
T. J. Keenan
Florence Kelley
Howard A. Kelly
Arthur P. Kellogg
Paul U. Kellogg
John A. Kingsbury
Constance D. Leupp
Samuel McCune Lindsay
Charles S. Macfarland
W. N. McNair
Charles E. Merriam
Adelbert Moot
Henry Morgenthau
Frances Perkins
Charles R. Richards
Margaret Drier Robins
W. L. Russell
Thomas W. Salmon
Henry R. Seager
Thomas A. Storey
Graham Taylor
Graham Romeyn Taylor
Lillian D. Wald
James R. West
W. F. Willoughby
Stephen S. Wise
Robert A. Woods
COMPULSORY MINIMUM WAGE LAW IN OREGON
Oregon's minimum wage law,[2] which was recently signed by Governor
West, is the first one in America to have a compulsory clause. Failure
to pay the rate of wages fixed and in the method provided by the law is
punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. In Massachusetts, the first
state to establish minimum wage boards, the only penalty is the
publication of the names of offending employers in four newspapers in
the county where their industries are located.
[2] See Minimum Wage Legislation by Florence Kelley, on page 9 of this
issue.
The Oregon law applies only to women and children. It prohibits their
employment in any occupation in which the sanitary or other conditions
are detrimental to health or morals, or for wages "which are inadequate
to supply the necessary cost of living and maintain them in health." It
likewise forbids the employment of minors "for unreasonable low wages."
An Industrial Welfare Commission is created to determine minimum wages,
maximum hours and standard conditions of labor.
The commission is authorized to call a conference of representatives of
the employers, the employees and the general public to investigate and
make recommendations as to the minimum wage to be paid in a given
industry. If the commission approves these recommendations they become
obligatory. The powers of the Oregon commission to determine hours and
conditions of health and morals are more extensive than those delegated
to an industrial commission by the legislature of any other state. The
members of the commission are to be appointed by the governor.
The successful campaign for this law and the drafting of the bill itself
was based upon an extensive investigation conducted by the Social Survey
Committee of the Oregon Consumers' League. Wages, work conditions, and
cost of living were studied in Portland and elsewhere throughout the
state. The inquiry was directed by a trained investigator, Caroline J.
Gleason of Minneapolis, formerly a student of the Chicago School of
Civics and Philanthropy. The work was started in August 1912 and the
information covered 7603 women wage earners in Portland and 1133
throughout the rest of the state. Wage statistics were tabulated for
4523, and are particularly valuable in the cast of the department stores
which placed their pay rolls at the disposal of the survey committee.
Generous co-operation from committees in twenty-five counties of the
state was secured.
In the drafting of the bill the experience of the Massachusetts Minimum
Wage Board was studied. Legal advice was secured and the
constitutionality of the measure is upheld in an opinion by the attorney
general of the state.
Social workers from Washington and California have been in touch with
the investigation and the preparation of the bill. They have arranged to
have bills drawn up on the same lines introduced as soon as the
legislatures of their own states convene. The passage of the same
measure by the three coast states is regarded by the social workers in
each as a desirable and important piece of uniform legislation for an
area in which industrial conditions and problems are similar.
The Social Survey Committee in its report gives the principles and facts
which form the basis of the demand for the legislation as follows:
1. Each industry should provide for the livelihood of the workers
employed in it. An industry which does not do so is parasitic. The
well-being of society demands that wage-earning women shall not be
required to subsidize from their earnings the industry in which
they are employed.
2. Owing to the lack of organisation among women workers and the
secrecy with which their wage schedules are guarded, there are
absolutely no standards of wages among them. Their wages are
determined for the most part by the will of the employer without
reference to efficiency or length of service on the part of the
worker. This condition is radically unjust.
3. The wages paid to women workers in most occupations are
miserably inadequate to meet the cost of living at the lowest
standards consistent with the maintenance of the health and morals
of the workers. Nearly three-fifths of the women employed in
industries in Portland receive less than $10 a week, which is the
minimum weekly wage that ought to be offered to any self-supporting
woman wage-earner in this city.
4. The present conditions of labor for women in many industries are
shown by this report to be gravely detrimental to their health; and
since most women wage earners are potential mothers, the future
health of the race is menaced by these unsanitary conditions.
A NEW FEDERAL AGENCY FOR SETTLING STRIKES
An important power vested in Secretary Wilson of the new federal
Department of Labor, which has hitherto practically escaped attention,
gives to him the right assumed by President Roosevelt, when he initiated
the machinery for settling the coal strike of 1902. The provision
referred to in the law creating the department reads as follows:
"That the secretary of labor shall have power to act as mediator
and to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes
whenever in his judgment the interests of industrial peace may
require it to be done."
Speaking of this section Secretary Wilson gave this interview to the
_Washington Post_:
"The secretary of labor, by the terms of the act creating the new
department, is empowered to act as mediator in disputes between
labor and employers. The policy to which I shall adhere during my
administration will be to do all I can to bring labor and capital
together in mutual conferences, so that they may settle their own
differences."
It has been pointed out that this power can be invoked at the will of
the secretary. In this way he can bring public attention to bear upon
any labor dispute which he believes warrants his official notice. Mr.
Wilson has as yet given no indication as to how frequently he expects to
use this power. Attention has also been called to the fact that this
section may have an important effect upon the Erdman Act for settling
transportation strikes.
FINGER PRINTS
TEN CENTS
KATHARINE ANTHONY
It was in a small restaurant in the downtown business district. The girl
who came in and sat down opposite me at the "table for ladies" was
clearly "office help." She could not have been more than sixteen, and in
the boyish-looking brown velvet hat that she wore she appeared scarcely
that. Her manner had little of the self-assertiveness so commonly seen
in the young girl wage-earner.
"How much is the veg'tubble soup?" she asked the waiter in a confiding
tone.
"Ten cents," he said.
The price appeared satisfactory and the waiter went away with his very
brief order. While the young girl waited, she caught my eye.
"It's cold today," she remarked, with a winning smile and an air of
taking me into her confidence as she had done with the waiter.
"A bit chilly, yes."
"He don't let me down to dinner till so late," she continued, "sometimes
half-past one. You get hungry, and then you get over being hungry, and
then you don't want nothing when you do go down. You know?"
Yes, I recognized the experience.
"The office where I used to work, we went out to dinner right at twelve
every day."
"What keeps you so late now?"
"I guess he just forgets to let me down. He forgets to go out himself, I
think."
The waiter brought the soup, a watery looking fluid in which floated a
tomato and an onion in partial dissolution. He placed beside the plate a
dingy blue check which bore in large print 10c.
"When I'm there a month, I'm going to ask him to let me down every day
at a regular hour," she went on. "I'm only there a week now, so I
wouldn't ask him yet."
She tasted the soup, but it was apparently not to her liking, or else,
as she had said, her appetite had gone when the first feeling of hunger
had passed. She glanced at the dirty blue check which committed her to
her choice for better or worse, and then tried another spoonful of soup.
"I used to take a cup of coffee and a Charlotte 'roosh' every day, but
my mother said I'd starve. She told me I'd got to have soup, it was more
stren'thening."
"She was quite right, of course."
"But what's the use of ordering it if you can't eat it after all?"
She regarded the plate disconsolately. A little rallying induced her to
make another effort. Then she gave it up entirely.
"I wonder what my mother would say if she could see me now!"
"I wonder!"
Taking two nickels from her small rusty bag, she rose, leaving the plate
of cold soup almost untouched. She said good-by with her peculiarly
friendly little smile, deposited the blue check and the two nickels at
the cash counter, and went back to her afternoon's work.
WILLIAM, A MODERN DRAMA[3]
[3] Drawn from the records of the Juvenile Protective Association,
Chicago.
The curtain is about to fall upon a human drama as full of complicating
agencies and dramatic ironies as the most exacting either of Greeks or
of moderns could require.
The dramatis personae are: a colored youth of twenty-two years; his aged
mother (the father disappeared while the youth was still a child in
Kansas); a friend who failed him and then too late repented; a partner;
a dishonest clerk; a lawyer of similar type; and a judge according to
the letter of the law. The acts are only three and brief.
Act I shows William at work for a large firm in Missouri at $9 a week.
He manages to live on $3, sending $6 to his mother. He could not write;
she could not read. But the weekly money order became the tryst of
mother and son, and by it she knew that all was well with him. Among his
fellow workmen was one, also a William, who seemed friendly and like
William I, anxious to live economically. The two Williams shared a room,
and all went well for about three months.
One pay day, William II borrowed from William I the $6 that should go to
the mother, but only for a day or so, to be returned surely before the
end of the week. But the man disappeared, and with him vanished the
money. Then William I went to the little clothes press, and not having a
suit of his own, took one of William II's, and pawned it for $6, and
sent the money to his mother according to his word. That night,
repentant but penniless, William II returned. He expressed himself as
well pleased with what had been done with his suit, satisfied to have
the money raised by any means possible. So the two, reconciled, slept.
But William II rising early in the morning, went for an officer, and
charging his room-mate with theft, had him arrested.
"He slep' with me all night there, and in the mawnin he don' have me
arrested!"--thus William I mourned his false friend.
So Act I closes with our hero in the penitentiary, locked in for two
years. But William II's repentance bore a late fruit. During the two
years, he sent out of his own money each week the $6 to the mother of
his friend, that she might never know the truth.
* * * * *
Act II shows William working in different places, and for short times,
as is the fate of "jail-birds." At last in company with George he opens
a restaurant, and prospers, and is popular. Then his evil fate overtakes
him. Invited to be door-keeper at a dance one night, he left George in
charge of the restaurant. George apparently went out on business of his
own, and presently the clerk followed his example, donning for the time
a coat of William's. But the clerk needed money; there was none in the
pockets of the coat; and so, at a convenient corner, he waylaid a
Chinese, relieved him of has funds, and left William's coat by way of
compensation. Easily identified by the coat and papers in its pockets,
William was as easily arrested--and as easily sentenced. The trial was a
farce. A lawyer was appointed by the court. This lawyer took his
client's indictment papers, ignored his client, called no witnesses,
heard the sentence, and drew his fee.
William appealed to the Pardon Board. But at the time of this appeal,
neither George nor the other door-keeper at that dance could be found to
prove an alibi for William. The board asked: "have you ever been in
prison before?" Alas for William! He could not say no; the board would
not listen to his version and investigate the facts. His own
truthfulness condemned him, and he was sent up on a five years'
sentence.
* * * * *
The setting of Act III is the penitentiary. Falsely accused, without
opportunity to prove his innocence, neglected by the lawyer paid to
defend him, William, being only a Negro, toiled faithfully in a stone
quarry, accumulating a reputation undesirable in the eyes of the world
and the law. One day his foot was injured by the crusher. Then after
months of stone dust, his lungs became infected. But at last word of his
case reached the Juvenile Protective Association, and presently
successful proof of his innocence of all connection with the attack on
the Chinese was secured, and William was paroled from prison.
How far he may recover from the injuries received during this
imprisonment remains to be seen. How much of opportunity to work and
support himself and the aged mother society will offer an injured Negro
with two prison records is a grave question. But the matter may be
settled by the quiet falling of the curtain upon the sad little drama of
the life of William.--S.
EDITORIAL GRIST
JOHN PIERPONT MORGAN 1837-1913
Mr. Morgan was for seventeen years treasurer of the Charity Organization
Society of the City of New York which founded THE SURVEY and under which
it was published until the fall of 1912. When, in 1907, the parent
society launched Charities Publication Committee in order "to give
national scope and breadth" to the magazine, Mr. Morgan was one of
fifteen guarantors who gave $1,000 each the initial year to promote its
educational work. Last summer he gave $250, the sum asked from him,
toward the clearance of an overhanging deficit, in advance of the
institution of the Survey Associates as an independent and co-operative
under-taking.
The public's chief concern in Mr. Morgan's great activities has been the
play of his powerful individuality in the rapid reconstruction of the
"mass of wrecked corporations which blocked the path of American
finance" following the panic of 1893, and in "heading the forces of
conservatism in the great business emergency" of 1907; his part as the
"immense constructive genius" throughout the period of expansion in
America's "large creative activities."
The "economic necessity or value of the enormous industrial
combinations" shaped at his hands will, in the words of the New York
_Evening Post_, "be the crux of later historical controversy over the
great career now ended"; and the same is true of the ultimate effects on
the working life of the people of his instrumentality in extending the
country's railroads, in improving its banking, and in projecting its
facilities for the manufacture of large staples.
Said Major Henry L. Higginson, New England's foremost philanthropist and
financier, in commenting on Mr. Morgan's death: "To make a great fortune
is little; to be a great citizen is much." THE SURVEY will, in an early
issue, publish an appreciation of other phases of Mr. Morgan's trenchant
personality by an associate in the fields of art and philanthropy.
Here, one circumstance which concerns this magazine closely may be set
down. The Pittsburgh Survey was made at a period of restlessness and
irritation in many high quarters, following a succession of
investigations and exposures. The period was also one of sensitiveness
among every day people lest the organs of publicity might be controlled
by invisible influences. _Charities and the Commons_ (as THE SURVEY was
then called) bore Mr. Morgan's name as treasurer on its contents page
while its staff was delving into the Pittsburgh district. The Pittsburgh
Survey was conceived not for the purpose of internal counsel and report,
but for the purpose of spreading before the public the facts as to life
and labor in the region, where the two greatest individual fortunes in
history had been made by Mr. Morgan's contemporaries, where he had in
turn become the dominant factor, and where social tendencies observable
everywhere had "actually, because of the high industrial development and
the great industrial activity, had the opportunity to give tangible
proof of their real character and their inevitable goal."
It must remain for Mr. Morgan's business associates to say how much
affirmative concern he had given or came to give to the working
conditions in those industries in which he controlled vast holdings, or
to such far-reaching reforms as the safety campaign. But the staff of
the Pittsburgh Survey can bear witness that no word of admonition ever
reached them, no trace of pressure to minimize or gloss over or reserve
for private consumption the human outcroppings of a thousand million
dollar corporation. The situation did not change after our first
strictures as to the seven-day week, the twelve-hour day, work accidents
and the like had been spread broadcast. If they reached Mr. Morgan's
ears, he was willing to let this left hand of philanthropic inquiry take
the exact social measure of what had been done or left undone in the
fiscal and industrial enterprises in which he was the master
entrepreneur.
MR. WEST'S ARTICLE[4] PROTESTED
[4] See Civil War in the West Virginia Coal Mines on page 37 of this
issue.
NIGHT LETTER
CHARLESTON, W. VA.,
March 30, 1912.
"Owing to delayed trains, did not reach home nor receive your
telegram of Friday until last night. West manuscript received and
read this morning. Am directed to renew protest against its
publication as contrary to facts in most important particulars and
most unfair in attitude and spirit. An article published in your
journal on a matter so important should be prepared by one of your
own staff from facts gathered by your own investigator. Am
authorized to place in your hands immediately five hundred dollars,
being amount estimated by you as necessary to cover expense of
special examination and article, and urge you in justice and
fairness to accept and use it for the purpose. It is impossible to
prepare an answer to the West article and have it in your hands
tomorrow, nor is one-fifth the space given West article sufficient
for an adequate reply thereto. If you decline to make your own
investigation and report, it is submitted that justice requires
that time be given so that West article and reply may appear in
same issue and space equal to article be given for reply. If you
refuse this I respectfully ask the publication of this protest with
Mr. West's paper."
[Signed] NEIL ROBINSON.
[Secretary West Virginia Mining Association.]
* * * * *
In line with the general practice of THE SURVEY when an article makes
major charges against an institution or industry--a copy of Mr. West's
manuscript was sent on March 20 to the secretary of the West Virginia
Mining Association, with a request that he indicate any points which
"seem to you in error."
On March 26 THE SURVEY received a letter from Mr. Robinson, who called
in person the day following to protest against the publication of the
article as unfair, and not of the calibre expected of THE SURVEY by the
public. He also offered us every facility if we would make an
independent staff investigation. We stated that such a staff inquiry in
the West Virginia field was beyond our means, that we had exercised due
care in selecting Mr. West as a non-combatant observer, and that the
manuscript had stood the test of criticism in various quarters. Further,
we stated that if Mr. Robinson could there and then dislodge the major
statements of fact in the article, we would surely not publish it;
otherwise, we would hold two pages of the same issue of THE SURVEY open
until Monday of this week for a statement in rebuttal.
In the interval a galley proof of the article was sent Mr. Robinson
containing revisions to cover minor points of criticism made by him and
other critics. Later issues of THE SURVEY are open to the West Virginia
operators for a full reply; and the findings of a federal inquiry which
would resourcefully and dispassionately cover the ground would, of
course, be handled at length.
Y. M. C. A. GROWTH
The Young Men's Christian Association began in 1851, sixty-two years
ago. The property value in plant and equipment, increased in the first
ten years of the twentieth century more than in all the previous fifty
years; the membership doubled, a tremendous growth.
Y. M. C. A. 1900 1910
Associations 1,439 2,017
Buildings 359 700
Property value $20,000,000 $70,000,000
Membership 252,000 500,000
Annual current outlay $2,900,000 $7,163,000
Will the next decade show a like growth for organized charity with
proper effort?
THE TOWN CONSTABLE
J. J. KELSO
The town constable is one of the most important links in the chain of
social service, and yet he is seldom taken into consideration by the
active workers for social betterment.
A town constable was recently held up to public censure at a church
meeting for failure to wipe out certain well-known evils. When asked
about it the next day his reply was: "The law is being enforced in this
town just as far as the people will stand for." His idea, you see, was
that observance of law was a matter of education, of moral backing, and
without this strong, sustaining support, one man, even with a badge and
a club, could not go beyond a certain point.
The idea got into another constable's head once that his duty was to
carry out the law, no matter what people thought about it, and to his
great surprise it was not long before his resignation was insisted upon.
He did splendid service and really frightened law-breakers, so much so
that they got busy in bringing about his downfall. Where were the good
people? Entirely missing. Here and there a man under his breath would
give the official a word of faint praise, but in the council church
members allowed themselves to be made the tools for his destruction.
"Well meaning, but lacking in judgment" was the decision; "rash, hasty,
ill-advised," and so he had to go in disgrace, while the law-breakers
smiled quietly and continued on in the old way. Public meetings in that
town still continue to denounce the well-known evils, indifferent to the
fate of the officer who thought he had all the forces of good at his
back.
Still another constable, whom I know well, told me privately that he
started out in the same way, but got a hint that he could not hold his
situation and, having a young family to support, he concluded it would
be the part of wisdom to let well enough alone, especially as the men
who counselled him were church leaders, who ought to know the sentiment
of the town on moral questions.
Some towns have a high moral tone largely because of the good influence
of the head of the police department. Others are on a low plane of moral
observance because the constable is indifferent, if not indeed hostile,
to advance measures. Lack of encouragement and appreciation is often the
secret of this indifference.
Visiting a town on one occasion to take part in a meeting on social
reform, I asked the constable who happened to be at the station if he
knew Rev. S. Thomas Strother. "No."
"Well, do you know Rev. Milton Smoot?"
Receiving another negative, I enquired in surprise, "Why surely you are
acquainted with the preachers of your town?"
"No," he said, in a surly tone, "they have no use for the likes of me."
Here was a man, specially appointed guardian of the town and invested
with the high dignity of safeguarding the lives, morals and property of
the community, whose mental attitude toward the better element was
evidently one of hostility. The explanation given me later was that he
was a recent appointee, only there a month, and there was not sufficient
time to get acquainted. "Well," I replied, "if I had been you people I
would have gotten up a banquet and given him such a welcome as would
hearten him in his great work for years to come." It is all in the way
you look at these things.
At a large church gathering on social welfare I took occasion to exalt
the office of constable and to praise the man who held that office. He
was at the back of the hall and I could see was greatly surprised at
this recognition. He came to me afterwards and earnestly expressed his
thanks. "No one has given me that much encouragement before," he said,
"and it will help me a great deal, especially as I want the young
fellows of the town to know I am their friend and not their enemy."
Social and church workers, let the town constable know that he is
appreciated, let him feel that good work is recognized, that if he is
attacked because of fearless discharge of his duty, he will have behind
him an unflinching body of men who will make his trouble theirs and
fight for a righteous cause as well as talk at church meetings.
MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION
FLORENCE KELLEY
Secretary National Consumers' League
Governor West of Oregon has signed a bill creating a Minimum Wage
Commission. Oregon thus follows Massachusetts in this new field of
industrial legislation. Minimum wage bills have been introduced in the
legislatures of California, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The New York Factory Investigating Commission will doubtless be
continued and empowered to investigate wages.
The Oregon law and all the pending bills have one characteristic in
common: they are alarmingly undemocratic. They fail to afford to
American employees in underpaid industries those democratic safeguards
which characterize English and Australian legislation. They apply to
women, oblivious of the fact that wives and daughters work because their
man breadwinner does not earn enough to support the family. These laws
and bills ignore the youth and shifting nature of the working force in
the underpaid industries which is so largely made up of young girls.
They need the moral support of their men fellow-workers in negotiating
about wages.
In America the governor appoints the commission, and the commission
selects the wage board. The board determines the lowest wage and the
women and girls take what they get. The recipients of the wages are not
allowed to elect representatives to the boards. They are, in fact, not
represented at all. The Kansas bill was killed by the legislature. It
substituted "an adjuster" for commission and boards.
If these other ill-considered bills become laws, it will be the work of
years to remodel them on more democratic lines, and on wise and just
principles in the light of the experience of Australia and England.
"THE HAND OF THE POTTER TREMBLES"
SOLON DE LEON
To lead poisoning among lead smelters, white lead workers and painters,
we have grown accustomed. Now comes the revelation of wide-spread
plumbism, or "potters' palsy," among workers in the potteries.
Trenton, New Jersey, the third largest pottery center in the country,
has recently been the scene of a brief study conducted by the American
Association for Labor Legislation. Brief as was the study it revealed
many cases of this disease.
One case was that of a fifteen-year-old orphan, as dipper's helper in a
pottery. He handles cups and saucers after they have received their coat
of glaze and before they are taken to the kiln. He gets his hands
covered with glaze. There are no washing facilities at the plant where
he works. When visited at home he had spots of white lead over the front
of his shirt. After nine months as dipper's helper he began to complain
of general ill health, with pains in the stomach. He worked
interruptedly for another month, and finally came down with an attack of
acute and excruciatingly painful poisoning which required a week's
hospital treatment.
A young girl, now married and a mother, worked in a tile plant for six
years, the last three of which she was a dipper. Within three months
after starting the latter work she suffered a typical violent lead colic
attack, accompanied by nausea and digestive derangements. The attack
lasted a week, and was followed by three more at intervals of several
months.
A former glost kiln-man of forty-five had worked in the Trenton
potteries continuously for upwards of twenty years. Five years ago he
was stricken with complete double wrist-drop and for two years was
totally incapacitated.