GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
The kind of work the government undertakes and the way in which it does
its work depend, in the ordinary course of events, almost entirely upon
public opinion; that is, upon what the people think about political
matters. This obvious truth will be readily admitted, and the inevitable
deduction is that women, in the wide range of their interests and
activities, are valuable factors in government.
By means of lectures, study clubs, and leagues for political and civic
education, women now seek to educate themselves in public affairs, and
learn to coöperate with men in the extension of civic enlightenment.
City Clubs exist for women, like those for men, as forums of free
discussion of public questions, in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston,
while the Twentieth Century Club of Boston is an organization of men and
women.
Women also seek to arouse public opinion by explaining problems of
government to the people. By printing and circulating ordinances,
discussing charters, asking citizens what they need, and helping to show
them how their needs may be met, the development of fundamental
democracy is being aided by women, slowly, perhaps, but none the less
positively.
Bulletins and other publications on civic matters, issued by women as
individuals and associated in clubs, are as creditable as any in the
field. Their studies of city budgets and budget-making are beginning to
prove that even the hard technique of government now interests them as
it does men. That their attitude toward some of the technique is still
the woman’s attitude, however, may perhaps be shown at times; for
example, when Martha Bensley Bruère and others suggest that one prime
function of public utilities should be to serve the home in order that
science may supplant excessive drudgery there.
Chambers of Commerce and similar bodies of men have been prominent as
volunteer associations initiating or supporting public activities. In
this connection a curious fact lies in the selection of a woman as
secretary of the Chamber of Commerce in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her
first task was to straighten out the funds so that there might be a
basis for work of any kind. Women serve in auxiliary groups to Chambers
of Commerce and the main group often relies for the success of an
enterprise upon the hard work of its auxiliary members. In Santa Fé the
women have their own Board of Trade.
It is not alone in the advancement of “general enlightenment” on civic
matters that women are interested. Often, through their clubs and
associations, they join actively in municipal campaigns for specific
reforms. Indeed, it may be said that in every recent effort to “clean-up
a city’s politics” in the United States, the enlistment of the women, as
individuals and in organizations, has been a voluntary or requested
factor. Sometimes we find forceful women, single-handed and alone,
leading a fight for the betterment of municipal politics. Such a contest
was waged by Virginia Brooks, in the town of Hammond, Indiana, and it
may well be told here in her own words, taken from the _National
Municipal Review_:
According to your request I will tell you a few of my activities in
West Hammond. You have probably read of my long fight, extending
over a year and a half, to rid West Hammond of a graft ring that has
been assessing the Poles out of house and home for rotten
improvements, which represented about 25 cents on the dollar. I
might run over the incidents briefly. I was a musician by profession
and knew little of business or property, when I was confronted with
$20,000 worth of assessments on a little piece of property left to
my mother by my father upon his death.
That November, 1910, three days after the receipt of the
assessments, I put my furniture in storage and with my mother came
to Hammond, feeling I must do something, but not knowing where to
begin. No sooner had I stepped into the town, than I was aware that
the streets were made of inferior material and poor workmanship; in
fact one street was under construction, and so raw was the poor work
that the Poles were threatening the lives of the workmen. This
resulted in my interviewing all the inspectors and workmen on the
different improvements and collecting evidence which I turned over
to the state’s attorney, who would not give me any assistance.
I have stopped election after election, where the grafters tried to
turn West Hammond into a city. I have stopped rotten paving and been
kicked by policemen controlled by the clique and thrown into jail
and persecuted by the friends of the grafters. I have had judgments
against me by judges that were hired by them and almost every
indignity waged against me to the naming of the worst dive here, the
“Virginia” Buffet. In spite of the grafters, I have succeeded in
electing to office this spring an entire active anti-graft ticket
and at the coming meeting of the board will close down all of the
notorious dives in West Hammond. I have saved for the Poles nearly
$21,000 on reductions of over-charged assessments. I have succeeded
in ousting an old clique who for years had been grafting on the
school board, and being elected myself to the office of president.
This means that I will introduce into the neglected school, manual
training, domestic science, free night school, free kindergarten,
and a playground.
I have established a settlement house in Hammond, Ind., right across
the state line, where the boys and girls have night classes, and
where mothers who work can take their babies for care. There are
some 32,000 Poles in this region and the future looks to great
achievement.
The logical outcome of the deep and intelligent interest in public
affairs shown by women, the suffragists say, is the possession of the
instrument which crystallizes public opinion into effective governmental
action—the ballot. In as many as twelve states, nearly one-fourth of the
United States, the women now have the suffrage. That they exercise their
rights with as much discrimination and thoughtfulness as men, to say the
least, is the testimony of more than one competent observer. Writing in
_The Survey_, on March 21, 1914, Graham Taylor said of women in
elections:
Illinois and Chicago give the country the most significant test of
women’s voting....
As registration is required only in larger places, the figures for
the state cannot be given at this writing, but in Chicago 217,614
women registered at their first opportunity. Added to the 455,283
men on the polling lists, these new voters increased the electorate
to 672,897 voters, the largest number registered in any city in the
United States.
At the primaries the women’s votes came within 1 per cent. of
equaling the men’s. At the election the women polled, at the lowest
count of the police returns, before the official revision, 158,686
or 73 per cent. of their registered voters, while the men’s votes
numbered 328,987 or 72 per cent. of their registrations This is
conceded by all concerned to be a very favorable showing for the
women at their first registration and election. It ought to dispel
the conjecture that few women want to vote or will not vote, if
given the right, whether they seek it or not.
Next as to the test of the way they will vote. In the increased
number and classification of candidates for the city council and in
the decision required upon no less than twelve measures of great
public importance by the “little ballot” measuring no less than 40
by 12 inches of solidly printed matter, this election exacted of all
Chicago voters as great discrimination as they had ever been
required to make. It therefore severely tested the interest and
intelligence of all new voters, especially women who had hitherto
had so much less occasion than men to consider closely such
subjects. How did they stand the test?
The aldermanic candidates numbered 154, each ward having from two to
seven names to choose from, and designated as Democrats,
Republicans, Progressives, Prohibitionists, Socialists, Independents
and Non-partisans....
The votes of the women which were awaited with equal eagerness by
partisan leaders and by the rank and file of those who had hitherto
constituted the non-partisan balance of power, tended decidedly
toward non-partisanship. The newspapers agreed with the Municipal
Voters’ League in crediting the women with electing no less than
seven of the better candidates and with wielding their power either
to defeat or lessen the majority of many more undesirable
candidates.
While eight women were candidates for the city council no one of
them expected to be elected, but each entered the lists to make an
educational campaign. Two of these campaigns were especially
noteworthy. Marion K. Drake led the forlorn hope in running against
the notorious alderman, “Bathhouse John” Coughlin who for over
twenty years has disgraced the first ward and city of Chicago by
exploiting the floating vote of the lodging houses. Her spirited
campaign against his character and the conditions for which he
stands was well supported by many of the most influential men and
women of the city, and resulted in doubling the vote cast against
him as compared with that of two years ago. With 7,355 men voting in
that ward, and only a few more than 3,000 women, this is a good
showing although nearly 600 more women voted for the discredited man
than for the worthy woman candidate, which is not surprising in view
of the dependence of the underworld upon its patrons.
In the great cosmopolitan tenement house family ward, surrounding
the Northwestern University Settlement, its head resident, Harriet
E. Vittum, made a most effective educational campaign. Her slogans
were “For the babies,” “For the school children,” “For the working
boys and girls,” “For men and women,” under each of which she
grouped the better home conditions and municipal policies for which
she asked votes. A house to house canvass among the foreign people,
rousing mass meetings with many men speaking for her in the foreign
languages and a children’s parade of many hundreds of little boys
and girls were some of the features of the campaign. That any woman
in such a “man’s world” as this ward has been could have secured
1,421 votes, the number next highest to that of the reëlected
alderman speaks highly for her candidacy.
In deciding the important public measures, including heavy bonded
issues, the women showed as intelligent discrimination as the men.
In proportion as these propositions were actually most dangerous or
doubtful, they were overwhelmingly defeated—notably a discredited
subway scheme, a suspicious county hospital bond issue, and some
city bond issues for purposes for which other funds are available.
Many women served as clerks and judges of election throughout the
city, with two noteworthy results—that their services were highly
commended by the election commissioners and that every woman
official reported the most considerate and decorous speech and
conduct upon the part of the men during registration and election
days. The leading election commissioner issued the following
statement on the morning after election: “Chicago women are again to
be congratulated as an influence for good in politics. Their
presence was like oil on the turbulent waters in every precinct of
every ward in which there were bitter clashes. In no precinct did
the presence and activity of women in the political contest make
them mannish. There was less drunkenness around the polling places
than there has been in years, because the practical politicians knew
that drunken workers around a polling place would drive away the
vote of the women for their candidates. Today’s election really
demonstrated that elections and government have been brought closer
to the home. The women have shown that. Above all, the women in all
walks of life and in all parties proved they are interested in and
appreciate their duty.”
Mary E. McDowell who led the fight for a better candidate who almost
won out in the stockyards district had this to say: “After nineteen
years I thought I knew my ward. But I never really began to know it
till I came to experience this great new neighborliness which has
come to all of us women through the political work of the election.”
Jane Addams, who was judge of election in her own precinct
surrounding Hull House, said: “I was amazed at the way the women of
my own ward had informed themselves. Of the 159 women registered in
the precinct, 139 voted. The women in every ward of the city showed
that they had an intelligent understanding of the issues. I think it
was a great thing to have women in Chicago brave enough to run in
this aldermanic election and to be willing to face the probable
defeat. There was something very exhilarating, something very young
and courageous in the willingness of a woman to tackle the fight
against Alderman Coughlin. It has undoubtedly been a red-letter day
for women, this first day of voting.”
Women’s votes down state get full credit from both the politicians
and the newspapers, not to say the liquor dealers, for having put
out of business 946 saloons in 114 incorporated cities and villages.
In 29 more the vote to remain dry rolled up a majority of 8,888,
aggregating a total dry vote in these districts of 35,462. While the
liquor forces carried 60 cities and villages and thus kept them
“wet,” they failed to win a single township which was dry prior to
the election. In some places, as at Springfield, women’s votes
helped swell the majority for the saloons. But in a total vote
estimated at 200,000 cast on the saloon issue outside Chicago, where
the issue was not raised, the _Chicago Tribune_ figures that 100,000
were cast by women and that 65 per cent. of these were against the
saloon.
Clearly in anticipation of women’s voting in Chicago, an ordinance
was passed by the Chicago City Council abolishing the “family
entrance” and “ladies’ entrance” signs from saloons. This action was
not opposed by the liquor interests represented by the vigilant and
aggressive United Societies. To the representative women who
promoted this action, one of the most notorious of Chicago’s
aldermen, who for many years has led the forces for evil in the city
council, once a majority and now a hopeless minority, declared: “You
are doing a noble work, ladies; you should now clean-up the dance
halls.”
The handwriting seems to be on the walls, the enemies of the good
themselves being judges.
Lest Graham Taylor may be considered a partial witness, we submit the
two following extracts from the _New York Times_ on the Chicago women
voters, for no one accuses that paper of being a feminist advocate:
Chicago’s first election since women could vote there will doubtless
receive much study and doubtless excite much comment. Doubtless,
also, the comment will vary as widely as do opinions regarding the
propriety and the expediency of woman suffrage.
Some people, of course, will lay much stress on the fact that, of
the 217,000 women who registered, only 100,000 were sufficiently
interested in the election, in spite of all the talk there has been
about it, to go to the polls. The fact, however, that slightly less
than 50 per cent. of the women voters failed to do their duty—or to
exercise their privilege, if one chooses to look at it that way—must
be interpreted in the light of the other fact, that only slightly
more than 50 per cent. of the registered men took the trouble to
vote. This, in ordinary circumstances, would be taken as showing
that popular concern about the result of the election was not keen;
but the circumstances were not ordinary, and the suffragists will
find it difficult to explain, and still more difficult to excuse,
the conduct of their stay-at-homes.
That all the woman candidates were defeated, and with the biggest
majorities by their least reputable rivals, is another mystery for
which many and various solutions will probably be offered.
But what does stand clearly out of these mists of uncertainty is
that Chicago has struck a heavy, perhaps fatal, blow at the belief
so confidently expressed by every suffragist that the woman voters
in any community would stand together and exert, whether
successfully or not, all their influence in behalf of the causes
that especially interested them as a sex. There is no evidence or
even hint of such solidarity in these returns. The woman vote was a
divided one, and evidently divided along just the lines, good and
bad, with which men have made us familiar.
The stories of women who did and said foolish things at the polls
could all be paralleled by like stories of men, and are without
significance. The important revelation is that the women will not
vote as women—a revelation reassuring or disquieting according to
whether one wants them to do that or not.
Is it possible that Gov. Glynn can have kept a straight face while
he was saying, writing, or dictating the statement that the vote
cast on the Constitutional Convention question on Tuesday “plainly
shows that the people desire a revision of the Constitution”? Who
are the “people”? Can one-fifth of the legal voters of the State of
New York be called the people? At the Presidential election in 1912
there were cast in round numbers 1,600,000 votes. On the
constitutional issue on Tuesday there were cast in round numbers
300,000. There was nothing lacking either in the importance of the
issue or in the opportunity for the voter to express his will.
Certainly, few things are more important than the organic law of the
State, and the polls were open during the statutory hours. Yet more
than four-fifths of the voters did not take interest enough in the
matter to go to the polls.
The women suffragists are welcome to all the advantage they may
gain, and any taunts and gibes they may direct against the male
voters because of Tuesday’s election will be freely forgiven. Women
would have striven in vain to do anything sillier, and had the
administration of public affairs been in the control of babes in
pinafores the ordering of this election on Tuesday would have been
discreditable to their intelligence.
Where limited suffrage prevails as in Des Moines, Iowa, telegrams like
this in the Chicago _Post_ of March 30, 1914, are illuminating. It is
entitled “Women Prove a Factor in Municipal Vote”:
Voters were out early in the municipal election here today and by
noon it was freely predicted in official circles that the largest
total of ballots since the commission form of government became
effective will have been cast when the polls close.
The activity of women in connection with the proposition of
municipal ownership of the waterworks system was a distinct feature
of the voting. Under the law, women are permitted the ballot on bond
questions. In several of the residence precincts women were in line
when the polls opened at seven o’clock.
In our survey of women’s varied municipal activities, we have had
occasion to mention many instances of their holding official positions
of one kind or another, and no one can be found who would deny the
special aptitudes of women for certain municipal posts. Doubtless there
are some offices for which women are specially fitted, just as there are
some offices for which men are specially fitted. But office-holding in
general is still under dispute. Nevertheless, there are plenty of
advocates who claim that the wider participation of women in government,
through the occupancy of technical positions, is for the public good.
Ten years ago in the San Francisco _Bulletin_ there appeared the
following editorial on “Why Women Should Be in Municipal Offices”:
The days of chivalry are no more, and though that means that young
women no longer occupy their days at something called a lattice,
embroidering sashes to tie about the middles of queer young men in
boiler plate, it is probable that even they do not regret the loss,
though He is now nothing more than a member in good standing of the
Retail Clerks’ Union.
Men have been willing, for a wonderfully long time, that women
should work—provided it was for small pay and did not imply any
reputation or a possible swelling up beyond the nice, faithful
limits of their sphere. And this not because men are mean—but
because they are slow. They have even permitted certain emoluments
and rewards of merit to accrue to certain professions—like those of
nursing sick or spoiled children of larger and smaller growth, and
school ma’aming—for which they had neither much taste nor aptitude.
It has also been cheerfully and generously conceded that in the
matter of minor housekeeping affairs women could be trusted to get
along, and the abominable lack of spirit shown by the weak
provisions of the civil service, that do not seem to take natural
laws into consideration, has proven that these fair creatures can so
far forget themselves in their heavenand-man-appointed task of
ministering angel as to actually take and pass common and vulgar
examinations, and to follow up their effrontery by accepting and
holding certain places of public trust and drawing their pay
regularly therefor. What wonder then that when the very old story of
the inch and the ell is being enacted men of tender municipal
conscience tremble and turn pale.
Men expect “graft” in their city halls; they do not look for the
enforcement of ordinances in disfavor with the “gang”; they expect
to have the streets swept when the winds come; they bear witness
that a man is a good fellow when he remembers his friends and
relatives by place and power; they are accustomed to suffer with
much noise and pay their taxes in silence; above all they constantly
make good their calling as the sex that recognizes logic with the
naked eye. For when a notorious politician follows his luck with a
notorious political régime in the institutions of his state they
actually hold him and his appointer responsible, and strangely
enough seldom say anything about his sex.
Let but another individual—a woman individual—make the mistakes
inherent in human nature—in an appointive position—and the most
logical and the kindest man one knows will refer the whole thing
finally and forever to—her sex.
If, however, it were possible that logic was not the inborn and
native possession of every man and might have to be learned, a
little tale from an English schoolroom can be warmly recommended,
for out of the mouth of babes and little girls cometh occasional
wisdom.
The little girl was given the following proposition as a “test of
her reasoning powers”:
French people are excitable, so are Italians; so all foreigners are
excitable. Is this true?
And this little illogically sexed miss replied: “It does not follow
that every member of a family is mad because two are.”
There is perhaps nothing a man does with such good will and in which
good will counts for so little as his struggle to be fair to
womankind. He often succeeds admirably when they are not his own.
Freedom of opportunity, the development of the individual common
fair play, all, all find shipwreck against convention and instinct
when it is the wife or the daughter.
Women have not been either kind or considerate in the matter. Quite
an appreciable number have wholly ceased to cry aloud about their
rights or wrongs and have quietly prepared themselves for holding
higher positions of trust. In rashly independent cities like
Chicago, or sexless ones like Boston, they are holding them freely.
They are calmly, almost judicially, inspecting factories and
collecting statistics of child labor. They are inspecting tenements,
garbage, streets and schools. They are sitting unmoved and silent
upon boards of all sorts, almost as if they were useful and
comfortable there. They are getting parks placed and playgrounds
graded and drinking cups sterilized and foods purified and milk
renovated and babies fed—officially. The fact of this wider
employment of women in the higher municipal duties marks a certain
state of growth and an emergence from crudity.
When a municipality has arrived at the stage when it really wants
the best return for its money it always has employed some of the
pottering sex. It does not get sentimental and expect or want any
perfection. It has entirely discarded the “ministering angel—thou”
attitude. It assumes that under a true democracy a part of the
people who pay its taxes may have a not unreasonable wish to take an
active part in its administration, and when it can get such
people—fairly faithful, often amply efficient and willing—it takes
them where they stand.
For five years the city of Los Angeles has had a municipal nurse. It
is only justice to her to say that she neither knew nor intended it.
But when three women who knew the ardent need of such a person
appeared before the supervisors and asked for one they forgot to be
logical and used their common-sense.
There are trained women in San Francisco who are ready today to
conduct school inspection after the manner in which it has been done
in New York and with like wonderful results could they be sure—not
of money reward—but of simple recognition and authority. For herein
is the ultimate triumph of man. He has loved to have womankind work
for so long that at last she has learned her abiding task, the
famous “work that is never done”—to work for love.
The hour must come when women will occupy in proportion all these
higher municipal posts. They will be found ready as soon as the men
are found who are ready to give them their opportunity. It is not
contended that they will be better or wiser, but that they will take
a more intelligent and lasting interest and that there will always
be certain things where children are concerned which they will know
more and care more about than men.
The chief good will come finally in the chance for freedom and for
growth under a democracy where a few mistakes are counted of less
moment than lack of fair play.
The prediction that women would be found in all manner of offices has
come true. The following is an incomplete list of offices which women
have held or are now holding:[54]
Mayor.
City Treasurer.
County Treasurer.
City Comptroller.
City Recorder.
Auditor.
City Clerk.
County Clerk.
Judges │Juvenile Court.
│Of the Peace.
│Deputy Probate.
│Police Magistrate.
City Attorney.
Deputy Clerk of the U. S. District Courts.
Sheriff.
Health officer.
Medical │City chemist.
│City bacteriologist.
│City physician and quarantine officer.
│Head of hospital.
│School inspector and physician.
Police.
Police Matron.
Civil Service Commissioner.
City Factory Inspector.
City Market Inspector.
Street Inspector.
Superintendent of Public Buildings.
Members of special commissions│Library.
│Recreation.
│Civic Improvement.
│Welfare.
│Municipal Housekeeping.
│Vice.
│Charter.
Members of school boards.
School Superintendent (495 in 1912 were women).
City Commissioner.
Alderman.
Members of election boards and clerks of election.
Fire Inspector.
Commissioner of Corrections.
Examining Inspector for Bureau of Municipal Investigation and
Inspection.
Advisory Council to Mayors.
Confidential Secretary to the Mayor.
Even in the field of technical finance, which is supposed to be somewhat
outside of woman’s interest (although in view of her household budgetary
experience, we know not why) we find women doing efficient and telling
work. To select a single example, we may take Mrs. Mathilde Coffin Ford,
of New York City, whose labors are thus described in a recent issue of
_The American City_ by Frank Parker Stockbridge:
In the government of New York, the greatest city of the western
world, women play a much more important part than is known to the
public—a more important part than they have in the government of any
other city in this country. Their part in and influence upon the
government of New York is constantly increasing, and the results are
good.
A woman is superintendent of schools in Chicago, but she hasn’t a
word to say about spending the taxpayers’ money upon the schools.
She has to take what is voted to her. A man is superintendent of
schools in New York City, but here it is a woman who tells him how
much money he can have to run his schools with. And she isn’t
stingy, either, because she lets him have something over forty
million dollars each and every year to compete with the motion
pictures.
The woman who exercises such an amazing financial power is Mrs.
Mathilde Coffin Ford, examining inspector for the Bureau of
Municipal Investigation and Statistics. Forty millions a year for
one woman to spend—and she receives a salary of $3,500 a year! Judge
Gary, head of the Steel Trust, gets $100,000 a year for spending
less, and certainly accomplishing less.
Of course, strictly and legally speaking, Mrs. Ford doesn’t have the
whole say-so of those forty millions a year; but in reality that is
just what she does. Not one dollar is spent by the Board of Estimate
upon the school system unless Mrs. Ford has looked into the proposed
expenditure, studied the possible educational result, reported
favorably upon it, and drafted (for the Comptroller to sign) a
resolution authorizing it. Thus, you see, Mrs. Ford knows what every
woman knows, how to keep the purse strings firmly and to let the man
think he is really doing the spending. Mrs. Ford is the housewife of
the city’s educational system, a kind of magnified housewife, simply
doing on a huge scale and with marvelously sharpened feminine powers
what any janitor’s wife in any schoolhouse under Mrs. Ford’s control
does for her household.
Take an instance. Mrs. Ford is now drafting the corporate stock
budget for the educational system. The Superintendent of Schools has
asked for forty-six new buildings in the five boroughs and named the
sites that he wants. His requests have been referred to Mrs. Ford.
All the requests of parents and neighborhood improvement clubs on
the same subject have been referred to Mrs. Ford. In three months
Mrs. Ford has found time to slip out of her office and go shopping
on the matter of new schools. She has gone to every one of the
proposed sites. She has studied the educational need of the given
neighborhoods. Her judgment outweighing the Superintendent’s, she
has, with her woman’s small hands, lifted some of the proposed
buildings bodily out of the proposed sites and placed them
elsewhere, where schools seemed to her to be more needed. In each
case she framed up a report embodying her reasons, which the
Comptroller solemnly signed without more ado, and which the Board of
Estimate will act upon without much ado. Thus Mrs. Ford did about
twelve million dollars’ worth of shopping.
In the fall Mrs. Ford spends a great deal more money. That is the
time for drafting the tax budget, or maintenance budget. Something
over thirty millions of dollars are spent annually in maintaining
the schools at their given efficiency. Last fall the Department of
Education asked for thirty-three millions, submitting a detailed
report of how they intended to spend the money. Mrs. Ford had to go
over every item. When she got through she had pared down the
estimate to thirty millions, and that was after she had allowed for
a more liberal expenditure in some items where she thought the
policy of the department niggardly.
These two instances do not begin to show Mrs. Ford’s complete range
of authority. She fixes compensation for all employees of the
Department of Education, save those of the teachers. She keeps track
of all the funds and accounts of the Department, recommends changes
from time to time in the financial arrangements for spending the
money voted. She follows the course of the legislation at Albany
which affects the school system in the city. In short, she more than
any other person is the public school system of New York City.
Back of all this power are years of experience in school work. Mrs.
Ford has headed nearly every sort of school in the country, and was
for years nominally Assistant Superintendent and really
Superintendent of Schools of Detroit. She has delivered over four
thousand lectures to teachers’ associations, telling them then, as
now she tells New York, how to run a school system. Mrs. Ford knows
how. It was no fluke that gave a woman such a strategic position in
the city’s administration.
Whether or not they are concerned in holding offices themselves, women
have taken an interest in the character of the officers charged with
every kind of public function. Civil service reform is one of the
earliest changes espoused by women. Their first paths beyond the home
threshold led them into fields of relief, correction, and labor where
their home training in thrift was rudely shocked at the extravagance and
irresponsibility which they met among officials in public institutions
and in city positions.
In 1896 women appeared before the annual meetings of the National Civil
Service Reform League to make addresses. In that year Mrs. Charles
Russell Lowell spoke on the “Relation of Women to the Movement for
Reform in the Civil Service,” and her speech helped to stimulate the
belief in men that the help of women was of importance, and to inspire
women to a sense of their own usefulness in this direction. Soon after
that women like Mrs. Oakley of the Federation of Clubs appeared at the
sessions to report work of clubwomen and carry back to them from the
National Civil Service Reform League some inspiration for further
effort. It was not long before women as well as men began to urge
greater interest in civil service reform at conferences of charities and
corrections and similar assemblies. Women’s auxiliaries to civil service
reform associations are now quite common. There are also committees on
civil service reform connected with the Association of Collegiate
Alumnæ, patriotic societies, and kindred associations. The Women’s
Municipal League of New York and the Women’s Auxiliary of the National
Civil Service Reform League have a joint committee for the promotion of
education along this line and for the continual study of the problem.
A definite impetus to join in the movement for civil service reform was
given to club women in 1900 at their Biennial Convention in Milwaukee
when the following plea for their activity in this direction was made:
How cowardly and shallow a cry is this one we raise from time to
time—“Keep out of politics our school systems, our public
institutions for the dependent and unfortunate citizens of our
cities and states.” What does this mean? It means, keep these great
moral responsibilities out of the hands of those elected to assume
such responsibility.
Is this the attitude of a people free to choose those who are to
serve them?
Even if you should deliberately plan to withdraw from politics the
great interests of which we have spoken, responsibility for which is
the training of the individual and the race; if you could wish to
condemn our political life to dry rot, you cannot do it. The
tendency is to put those things more and more under the jurisdiction
of governments.
Let us change our cry. Let us say, “Purify and strengthen our
political life that it may be the worthy custodian of our deepest
interests.”
It was such a natural, inevitable step for the women who had taken such
an interest in industrial and sanitary problems to see that the
enforcement of the laws relating thereto must be in the hands of
competent men and women. A Committee on Civil Service was added as one
of the standing committees of the general federation and it was not long
until each state, as well as some of the city federations, had its civil
service committee.
While individual clubs have continued to report that this movement
proceeded slowly owing to the insistence of many women that civil
service work meant politics, an ever-increasing number of women, whether
they believe in women entering politics themselves or not, have felt
that they must agitate for proper responsibility on the part of those
chosen as guardians of every interest the women have developed.
While insisting upon proper civil appointments, women have not been
indifferent to the need for trained men and women for public service.
The Women’s Auxiliary of the Civil Service Reform Association and the
New York Bureau of Municipal Research have taken up the problem of a
closer relation of the public educational system and public service with
a view to the development of the training for public service in
municipal schools and colleges.
Naturally such movements do not ignore the opportunities for women in
the public service and the necessity of providing adequate training for
them. Indeed the work of women in bureaus of municipal research in New
York and elsewhere is an evidence of the desire on the part of women for
training in public service and demonstrates woman’s ability to adapt
herself to the requirements of that training. The New York Bureau has
had nineteen women in the two and a half years of its existence and its
last report (1914) tells of their assignments and the positions they now
fill. As city positions are generally accorded first to men, their
present offices are no final estimate of comparative efficiency. The
“Budget and the Citizen” by Mary Sayles and “Helping School Children” by
Elsa Denison are two of the noteworthy contributions of the New York
Bureau. Finally, it is to a woman, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, that the
Training School for Public Service connected with the Bureau owes its
origin.
With woman’s interest awakened to every need of modern municipal life
and her mind trained to do high and efficient public service, may we not
look forward with firmer confidence to the day when Mayor Baker’s dream
shall be fulfilled:
“The patriot’s dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.”
INDEX
Abatement law, 109
Abattoir, municipal, 73
Administration, 319
Aid, first, 95;
legal, 279
Aliens. _See_ Immigrants and Assimilation of races
Art, in schools, 12;
municipal, 293
Assimilation of races, 170
Associations. _See_ Leagues and Women’s clubs
Babies. _See_ Child welfare and Infant mortality
Baths, public, 82
Blind, education of, 21
Budget, city, 88, 96, 166, 332, 337
Child welfare, better baby contests and, 59;
children born out of wedlock, 68;
delinquency and, 281, 282;
elements of, 65;
ice and, 64;
milk and, 59;
mothers’ pensions and, 252;
social service and, 226, 233.
_See also_ Exhibits
Children’s bureau, 57
Civil service, in general, 335;
in public welfare work, 239
City planning, 218, 293
Clean-up crusades, 84
Clinics, dental, 48;
medical, 270;
psychopathic, 276;
tuberculosis, 48
Clubs, women’s, and assimilation of aliens, 196;
and child welfare, 65;
and civic improvement, 303;
and clean-up, 85;
and fire protection, 287;
and food, 74;
and garbage, 88;
and housing, 208;
and juvenile delinquency, 269;
and laundries, 83;
and milk, 62;
and prison reform, 285;
and public baths, 82;
and sanitation, 87;
and smoke, 92;
and the social evil, 97;
and social service, 224;
and vital statistics, 57;
and water, 79
Commissions, charity, 232;
food, 77;
housing, 206;
immigration, 197;
mothers’ pensions, 251–253;
playground, 136;
recreation, 165
Corrections, 259
Crime. _See_ Corrections
Cripples, education of, 16
Dance halls, 139
Defectives, education of, 17;
marriage and parenthood of, 69;
and probation, 264
Delinquents, literature on, 249.
_See also_ Corrections, Juvenile courts, and Recreation
Democracy, in health, 46;
in schools, 39;
political, 321;
social and industrial, 182
Detention homes, 261
Disease, contagious, 48;
occupational, 50
Dispensaries, 48
Domestic science, among foreign women, 177;
in schools, 11, 12
Drama, in general, 152;
in schools, 12;
in suppression of social evil, 124
Drugs, pure, 78
Education, 1–44;
associations in, 40;
curricula in, 11;
equal pay for teachers, 3;
equal, 3;
experiments in, 10–39;
influence in methods of, 4, 6, 9;
in school administration, 6;
women teachers and, 3;
libraries and, 43.
_See_ each succeeding chapter for education of public in special
fields.
Employment, Boston Bureau of, 28
Enforcement of laws, with respect to food, 73;
with respect to health, 96;
with respect to smoke, 91;
with respect to vice, 114;
with respect to housing, 216;
with respect to good government, 320
Federations. _See_ Leagues and Clubs
Finance, city, 332
Fire, clean-up crusades and, 84;
protection from, 287
First aid, 95
Flies, 72, 92
Food, pure, 70
Foreigners, education of, 22, 171;
protection of, 177
Fourth of July demonstrations, 156
Garbage, 88
Gardens, school, 23
Government, 319
Health, civic improvement and, 293;
housing and, 52;
public, 45–96
Homes, and sex hygiene, 128;
family visitation for health, 51;
in mill towns, 249;
homelessness, 249;
of negroes, 210;
pre-natal visiting of, 60;
for working women, 201
Hospitals, 47;
social service work of, 51
Housing, 199–219;
health and, 52;
literature on, 249;
and mothers’ pensions, 252;
of negroes, 187
Hygiene, and housing, 218;
opposition to sex, 113;
sex, 15, 48
Ice, 63
Immigrants, legal protection of, 279.
_See_ Assimilation of races
Infant mortality, district nurse and, 55;
federal bureau and, 57;
ice and, 63;
milk and, 59;
poverty and, 61;
official control of, 56;
of illegitimate children, 68;
study of, 58
Inspectors, of fire peril, 290;
of food, 71;
of housing, 204;
of sanitation, 86
Investigations, of prisons, 278.
_See also_ Surveys
Judges, women as, 273
Juvenile courts, resemblance of, to truant school, 22;
work for establishment of, 268
Juvenile leagues, housing, 216.
_See also_ Leagues
Kindergartens, 10
Labor, attitude of settlements toward, 182;
of the child, 41;
and child welfare, 100;
and city government, 320;
conditions of, 94;
and fire protection, 287;
food of workers, 74;
immigrant and, 170;
immigrant girl and, 171;
in times of strike, 178;
literature of, 248;
and mothers’ pensions, 252;
of the mother, 61;
negro and, 170, 184;
public responsibility for conditions of, 242;
social evil and, 118
Laundries, public, 83
Leagues, and assimilation of races, 196;
and charity, 228;
and civic improvement, 297;
and clean streets, 84;
and housing, 204;
junior, 87, 95;
and pure food, 71;
and pure water, 81;
and recreation, 134;
and smoke, 91;
and vice, 102, 125
Legislation, for blind, 20;
and corrections, 276;
for defectives, 19;
and housing, 250;
for safety, 156;
social, 255;
and the social evil, 101, 281;
and social welfare, 250
Librarians, social work of, 23
Libraries, 43
Literature, on aliens, 171;
on education, 20–42;
on health, 51–96;
on housing, 208;
on pageantry, 158;
on social centers, 163;
on the social evil, 124;
on social and industrial investigations, 248. (In no sense a
bibliography)
Manual training, introduced into schools, 13
Milk, bottle, versus breast feeding, 60;
as an economic question, 61;
elements of problem, 63;
municipalization of sale of, 62;
pure, 59
Milk stations, 60
Movies, censorship of, 148;
effects of, 147;
in sanitation, 90;
and the social evil, 125
Music, in schools, 12;
for public recreation, 143
Negroes, assimilation of, 183;
in cities, 170;
defective, 21;
and housing, 21;
recreation for, 146
Noise, in cities, 93, 94
Nurseries, day, 84
Nursing, colored women and, 56;
district, 53;
household, 55;
industrial, 55;
municipal, 55;
and pre-natal care, 60;
school, 55;
wet, 62
Occupations, diseases of, 50;
medical care in, 51;
of negroes, 184.
_See also_ Vocations and Labor
Organizations. _See_ Leagues
Office-holding, 328
Pageants, 153
Parental schools, 22, 270
Parks. _See_ Art, municipal
Physical training, for girls, 14;
in general, 13
Playgrounds, 131
Police matrons, 265
Police women, 266, 286
Politics, charity and, 231;
city government and, 319;
civic improvement and, 298;
corrections and police and, 266;
health and, 46;
juvenile courts and, 271;
probation and, 264;
schools and, 9, 10, 38;
social service and, 237;
vice and, 106;
water and, 79.
_See also_ Social evil
Posture, 95
Poverty, charity and, 240;
education and, 25;
extent of interest in, 260;
food and, 67;
health and, 83;
housing and, 218;
infant mortality and, 61;
the social evil and, 100;
some results of, 236
Prevention, among Jewish immigrants, 180;
of charity, 221;
of delinquency, 132;
of dependency, 250;
of disease, 49;
of the social evil, 118
Probation, 261
Prostitution. _See_ Social evil
Recreation, 131–169;
and delinquency, 282
Red Cross seals, 48
Safety, in general, 287;
on streets, 139
Sanitation, inspection, 86;
of manufactured goods, 223;
surveys on, 86.
_See also_ Clean-up crusades
School buildings, 36
Schools, decoration of, 37;
for delinquents, 276;
and immigrants, 175;
inspection of, 37;
lunches in, 65;
open-air, 49;
for public servants, 337;
as social centers, 158
Settlements, 39, 182
Sex hygiene, 15, 48, 125
Smoke, 91
Social centers, 158
Social evil, 97, 180, 252;
and corrections, 260;
and courts, 273;
and legislation, 282
Societies. _See_ Leagues
Social service, 220–258;
among aliens, 182;
and corrections, 266;
in hospitals, 51;
as prevention of social evil, 118;
and probation, 264;
through milk stations, 61
Streets, factors in problem of, 87.
_See also_ Clean-up crusades
Suffrage for women, activity of suffragists, 106;
argument for, 321;
and civic improvement, 299;
defense of voters, 322;
and juvenile delinquency, 272;
needs of, 47, 80;
and social service, 257;
voters and the social evil, 109
Surveys, of aliens, 171, 196;
of housing, 202;
of negroes, 183;
recreational, 140;
sanitary, 86
Temperance, in school study, 12;
work of W. C. T. U., 225
Truant schools, 22
Tuberculosis, clinics for treatment of, 48;
hospital provision for, 48;
prevention of, 49
Vacation schools, 22
Vice. _See_ Social evil
Visiting teachers, 24
Vital statistics, 57
Vocational guidance, 27
Vocational training, 13–36;
reasons for, 236
Voters, women. _See_ Politics and Suffrage
White slave traffic, 180.
_See also_ Social evil
-----
Footnote 1:
This movement, however, is by no means recent. One of the most
exciting school campaigns in a great city was waged by the Civic Club
of Philadelphia, a reform organization of women, nearly twenty years
ago, in 1895. The story of that campaign is told in a pamphlet edited
by Mrs. Talcott Williams and printed as a publication of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science.
Footnote 2:
_New York Times._
Footnote 3:
Bulletin of Public Education Association.
Footnote 4:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 5:
Annual Report of the Women’s Municipal League.
Footnote 6:
This question is still pending.
Footnote 7:
_New York Evening Post._
Footnote 8:
_The American City._
Footnote 9:
U. S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau—Infant Mortality Series.
Footnote 10:
_The Survey._
Footnote 11:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 12:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 13:
Lenora Austin Hamlin in _The St. Paul Courant_.
Footnote 14:
_The Survey._
Footnote 15:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 16:
After hearing her once, a large group of working women in New York
City eagerly offered to pay $1.00 apiece for a course of lectures.
Footnote 17:
_The American City._
Footnote 18:
_The Survey._
Footnote 19:
_The American City._
Footnote 20:
_The American City._
Footnote 21:
_The American City._
Footnote 22:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 23:
_The Survey._
Footnote 24:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 25:
From a paper read at the Recreation Congress in Richmond, Va., May,
1913, and printed in _The American City_.
Footnote 26:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 27:
_The American City._
Footnote 28:
_The Survey._
Footnote 29:
_The Survey._
Footnote 30:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 31:
_National Municipal Review._
Footnote 32:
_National Municipal Review._
Footnote 33:
See Housing Conditions in Chicago, VI. _American Journal of
Sociology_, Vol. XVIII, p. 241.
Footnote 34:
Annual report of the Consumers’ League.
Footnote 35:
_The Survey._
Footnote 36:
From circular sent out by Committee on Women as Overseers of the Poor.
Footnote 37:
Report of the Consumers’ League.
Footnote 38:
_The Survey._
Footnote 39:
_The Survey._
Footnote 40:
“Pensions for Mothers” by Edward T. Devine, _The Survey_, July 5,
1913, p. 457.
Footnote 41:
_The Survey._
Footnote 42:
_The Survey._
Footnote 43:
An interesting development in this protection of child life is the
desire being expressed by groups of women that children born out of
wedlock shall be protected as well as the children of married mothers.
The International Council of Women, in its convention last June,
stated the position of such women clearly when it said: “There is no
such thing as an illegitimate child.”
Footnote 44:
The Board of Directors consists of: Chairman, James H. Tufts, Illinois
Association for Labor Legislation; Vice-Chairman, Mrs. Arthur Aldis,
Visiting Nurses’ Association; Secretary, E. T. Lies, United Charities
of Chicago; Treasurer, Charles L. Hutchinson, Corn Exchange Bank,
Chicago; Executive Officer, James Mullenbach; Jane Addams, Gertrude
Howe Britton, Rudolph Matz, Sherman C. Kingsley, Minnie F. Low, James
Minnick and W. R. Stirling.
Footnote 45:
_The Survey._
Footnote 46:
Parole and probation are so similar in purpose that no distinction
will be made here between the two functions. Women figure as parole
officers in women’s and children’s institutions just as they figure as
probation officers in the courts. The Los Angeles district of the
California Federation of Women’s Clubs has established a Psychopathic
Parole Society for the “prevention of insanity and to secure homes for
unfortunate women confined in Patton, many of whom were fit to be
discharged and others rightly and justly able to be paroled if right
homes could be found.”
Footnote 47:
_The American City._
Footnote 48:
_The Survey._
Footnote 49:
_The American Club Woman._
Footnote 50:
_The American City._
Footnote 51:
_The American City._
Footnote 52:
_The American City._
Footnote 53:
_The American City._
Footnote 54:
For further important statistics see _The National Municipal Review_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.