SOME MINOR FEATURES OF THE SALVATION ARMY SOCIAL WORK.
There are a number of features of the Salvation Army Social Work, which
for the sake of brevity we shall group together in one final chapter.
These are, (1): Christmas dinners, (2): prison work, (3): the employment
bureau, and (4): work among the children. Taking up the subject of
Christmas dinners, we find here what seems to be an advertising scheme
more than a systematic form of relief. Sentiment, doubtless, has its
place, even with the masses, and yet, in this great winter feast, there
is more sentiment than there is real practical good accomplished. To the
quiet, calculating student the question arises whether it would not be
far better to utilize the vast amount of energy and financial outlay,
which it gives to gorging the multitude for one day, in a better and
more lasting way; the question whether there is not, in these Christmas
feasts, a likeness to the old time feast of pagan Rome. In every city of
any size throughout the country the pots and kettles on the street
corner are familiar objects. At each Corps or other location of the
Army, tickets are given out entitling the bearer to a Christmas dinner,
or, in certain cases, to a basket with a dinner for a family. A good
deal of trickery is indulged in by the professional beggars, by means of
which it often happens that several dinners go to the same person. And
yet, as we have watched those 5,000 baskets containing food for 25,000
persons go out, to bring cheer and comfort to the hungry in their homes,
and as we have gazed on that vast banquet of 3,000 guests seated at one
sitting, we could not but feel glad that these poor brothers and sisters
of ours might realize the force of human sympathy for once in the year
at least.[93]
Another minor feature of the Salvation Army work is the prison work.
The majority of the jails, local, county and state, are visited at
intervals by certain members of the Army set aside for that purpose in
each community. In one State's prison there is a regularly organized
corps of Salvation Army soldiers, who are all prisoners, some of them
for a life term. In most prisons the Army provides literature, sees to
the correspondence of the prisoners and holds meetings with them. But it
is not so much the work with the prisoners in the jail that counts, as
it is the influence gained over them, which leads them to come to the
Army and make a new start in life when they get out. Many who find
themselves behind the prison bars are not to be classed as regular
criminals. A man is often classed as a criminal who is a victim of
misfortune only, and has no inherent criminal instincts. It is with the
criminal "by occasion," as Lombroso puts it,[94] that much successful
work can be done in the way of reform. The Army has a regular
organization known as the Prison Gate League. When a prisoner is
discharged he is met by one of this league and invited to go to work at
one of the Army's institutions. After being influenced and helped in
this institution for a certain length of time, if he seems to justify
it, he is sent out to work in some position. There are no definite
statistics recorded of those of this class who have been permanently
bettered.
Still another minor feature is the employment bureau system. While
mentioned here as merely one of a group of minor features, this system
is one of great importance to the industrial world. It is being taken
into consideration in many places by thoughtful men, and there is
promise of its assuming national, if not international proportions. The
general term, employment bureau, serves to bring to our recollection the
accompanying evils of the contract wage system and industrial slavery,
against which there has been agitation in the past, but it is because of
these accompaniments that the importance arises of securing a system
which shall be free from them. In Germany considerable work has been
done along these lines, municipalities and provinces have taken up the
work, and an all-round effort is being made to place labor in the right
position for work at the proper time.[95] New York City is to-day
swarming with many agencies, which are conducted by men and women, who
may rightly be classed as extortioners. In spite of the rigid rules on
the subject, the ignorance and poverty of their victims makes evasion of
the law comparatively easy. Jacob A. Riis, speaking of this subject,
says:
"It is estimated that New York spends in public and private charity
every year around eight millions. A small part of this sum
intelligently invested in a great labor bureau that would bring the
seeker of work and the man with work together, under auspices
offering some degree of mutual security, would certainly repay the
amount of the investment in the saving of much capital now much
worse than wasted, and would be prolific of the best results."[96]
In regard to the work of the Army in this field every large city
contains an employment bureau conducted by it and maintained for the
free use of the unemployed. Some of the men, who secure positions have
been in one of its own institutions, and the Army workers know whether
or not to recommend them for a certain position. Outside of giving men
work in its own institutions, the Army, during the year 1907, found
employment for 55,621 persons in the United States alone.
Contrary to expectation, the children's work of the Army has not
attained a magnitude in proportion to the other lines of work which have
been developed. This may be accounted for in part by the fact that there
are more institutions open for children to which the Army can turn for
help than there are institutions of other types. Thus, while the Army
can often get a child taken into some orphanage already existing, either
public or private, in the case of the drunkard, the unemployed or the
fallen woman, the Army finds it necessary to furnish its own
institutions. Again, the Army states that wherever possible, some friend
is found who is willing to adopt a child. Of course, this is far
preferable to placing the child in some institution, inasmuch as
adoption restores the home in a real sense.
The work among the children may be divided into temporary work and
permanent work. By temporary work we do not mean work that is
superficial, for it may be the most permanent and lasting in its
results, but we mean work that is undertaken which influences the
children for a limited amount of time only. The slum nursery or
kindergarten is of this type, but as we have already described it in
connection with the Slum Department, it needs only mention here. Another
line of temporary work is the Sunday School work of the Army, but that
comes under the religious work and not the social.
An important line of temporary work, however, is the summer outing for
the poor children. In each of our large cities these excursions for the
poor children have been carried out on a large scale. Arrangements are
made with a railroad or a steamboat company; the children are collected,
hundreds at a time, and cared for by parties of Salvationists, they are
taken out to the country for the day. Children who have never seen the
country, and who do not know what a tree, a green hill, or the running
water looks like, are thus given an entirely new outlook upon the world,
and a lasting impression is made on their minds. In Kansas City, this
line of work has been developed still further. One of the large parks
has been handed over to the Army by the city authorities, and in it has
been established a summer camp. Tents are pitched on the grass under the
trees, and poor families are brought out here for a week at a time. In
this way hundreds of families have experienced a little of summer
vacation who otherwise would never have left their slum dwellings.
The permanent handling of the children as opposed to the temporary,
begins with the Maternity Homes which are managed in connection with the
Rescue Homes, and continues on through the Orphanages. The children
cared for in this permanent way are the babies from the Maternity Homes
and orphans. From this it must not be supposed, with regard to the
Maternity Homes, that there is any intentional separation or even a
suggested separation of the child from the mother, but in many cases,
after a time, a partial separation is necessary. The mother is
influenced and taught to care for and love her offspring, but after
spending some months in the Home, she may take a situation of some sort,
often as a domestic servant, and here she cannot take her baby. Hence,
in such cases, the mother is expected to visit her child frequently, and
to provide for its support.
The other class of children dealt with in a permanent way are those who
are picked up from the street, or who otherwise fall into the hands of
the Army, often after being deserted by their parents. While Orphanages,
as already stated, are not an important item in the Army's work, there
are several in England and four in the United States. For the situation
of an Orphanage, a country location is sought. For instance, one near
New York City is located on a beautiful piece of property at Spring
Valley. Another is at Rutherford, N. J. One of the largest is situated
near San Francisco, California, and one of the latest additions for this
purpose has been the securing of a fine piece of property at Lytton
Springs, Cal. In all, there is accommodation for two hundred and
twenty-five children in the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] The author refers here to the annual Christmas dinner given in New
York.
[94] "The Criminal," p. 208.
[95] "The German Workman," ch. XVII
[96] "How the Other Half Lives," p. 253.