The Society for the Friendless grew out of the efforts of Rev. and Mrs.
Edward A. Fredenhagen to apply the methods of Jesus to the redemption
of the submerged masses.
The first home was opened at 1219 Washburn Ave., Topeka, Kansas.
Previous to this, a group of leading men had been interested in the
work. Foremost among these was Judge T. F. Garver. He became the
first president and the counsellor, and his wise counsels as well as
his legal talent have aided in directing the society to its present
carefully developed legal and philanthropic status.
The first tour, to investigate Kansas, was made in December, 1900. The
family reached Topeka in the Christmas holidays of the same year. Work
began at once and culminated in April, 1901, in the organization of the
first board of directors and the incorporation of the Kansas society
for the friendless.
The society was welcomed heartily by Governor W. E. Stanley, and by J.
S. Simmons, superintendent of the reformatory at Hutchinson.
The following June Rev. R. A. Hoffman, just leaving the chaplaincy
at the penitentiary, became the first district superintendent, with
headquarters at Salina, and served the society for six years. He did
a great deal of hard and capable work and left to go to the Colorado
prison association. The next superintendent to join was Rev. Frank
Brainerd, a neighboring pastor of the general superintendent in
Illinois. He remained with the society for seven and a half years
and did excellent work. He left to become general secretary of the
associated charities in Kansas City, Kansas. The third superintendent
was Rev. George S. Ricker, a scholarly pastor, who desired to give the
remainder of his life to work among the lost classes. He is still with
the society, and is senior among all the district superintendents.
By the autumn of 1901 the employment department and the temporary home
were well established. Then the next important step was taken in
the organization in the Kansas Penitentiary of the first of a series
of prison leagues, which were to form the nucleus of the important
department of jail and prison evangelism. Chaplain McBrian became
the superintendent of this league and for the eight years of his
chaplaincy, was the unwavering friend of the Society.
It soon became evident that the religious work in the prison would not
have its rightful opportunity unless the department of prison reform
should be developed in the state. So the society began a campaign for
the passage of the indeterminate sentence and the parole law to apply
to the penitentiary the same as it was operating in the Reformatory.
This passed the legislature in 1903, and has been one of the most
successful laws bearing upon the crime problem, operating in Kansas.
Under it the penitentiary has been changed from an old type punishment
prison to an up-to-date reformatory. The improvement in prison
management has kept pace with the change in the criminal code.
Finding children in the jails of Kansas, the society began, in 1903, a
campaign for the juvenile court act. The bill to introduce it in the
state senate in 1903 was defeated. Then followed the campaign, covering
two years, in which there was delivered over two thousand addresses.
Over twenty thousand calls were made on individuals in the state during
the biennium. Leading philanthropists came to the society’s aid.
The bill passed unanimously both house and senate, and a juvenile court
was established in every county in Kansas. The juvenile court system of
this state is modeled after that of Colorado.
Taking the Kansas society as a nucleus, the general superintendent
accepted calls into Missouri and outlying states. The first step was to
organize a league in the Missouri state penitentiary, under Chaplain
Geo. J. Warren, D. D. Since then the general superintendent has made
twenty-six major and many minor national tours, the longest one being
seven thousand miles. During that period, fifteen states have been
opened to the work of the society. Of these eleven still maintain the
society for the friendless. Ministers of ability and consecration have
accepted calls to be superintendents. There are seventeen of these now
in full service, with two laymen giving part time.
There are twenty centers of religious activity in penal institutions,
originally projected by the society.
When the society was nine years old the first national convention was
held in Kansas City, in January, 1910. In 1906 the original society had
been expanded from a state organization to one including all the states
and territories in the United States. At the first national convention
in 1910 the first elective national board was chosen. Previous to this
the board of directors of the “Kansas and Missouri division,” (Kansas
and Missouri having been united in one unit of territory), was a
holding board for all the work in the other states. In November, 1908,
the general office was moved from Topeka to Kansas City, the office
being in Missouri and the temporary home on the Kansas side of the
line. The first national convention came as a natural sequence. It was
to more completely develop this slowly evolving organization, so that
it would cover all the territories occupied by the living organism--the
society itself.