VOL. XXI JANUARY 2, 1909 NO. 14
CHARITIES
AND THE COMMONS
THE PITTSBURGH
SURVEY
[Illustration]
A JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILANTHROPY
PUBLISHED BY
THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
ROBERT W. DEFOREST, President; OTTO T. BANNARD, Vice-President;
J. P. MORGAN, Treasurer; EDWARD T. DEVINE, General Secretary
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OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION=
"THE SHELTERING ARMS" was opened October 6th, 1864, and receives
children between six and ten years of age, for whom no other institution
provides.
Children placed at "THE SHELTERING ARMS" are not surrendered to the
Institution, but are held subject to the order of parents or guardians.
The children attend the neighboring public school. The older boys and
girls are trained to household and other work.
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Application for admission should be addressed to MISS RICHMOND, at "THE
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AS MEN SEE AMERICA. I.
THE FIRST OF THREE FRONTISPIECES.]
THE COMMON WELFARE
EVERY CITY NEEDS A CITY PLAN NOW
The congestion exhibit in New York last spring proved one of the most
effective and startling means of making a contented community sit up
and think about its "other half." It formulated questions half formed
in many minds and demanded answers. Its influence was felt over the
whole country, and its discussions have bobbed up here and there and
everywhere ever since in articles, conferences and addresses.
That the congestion exhibit answered questions as well as asked them,
and that it has a constructive program to offer not only to New York but
to the whole country are amply proved by the decision just reached, and
announced to-day for the first time, to hold an exhibit and conference
of city planning next March. "Every American city needs a city plan
now," is the conclusion of the committee, and the steps by which it
has arrived at this conclusion are interestingly set forth in its
announcement.
While the organization bears the name of the Committee on Congestion
of Population in New York, its scope and purpose are much wider. The
program approved by its executive committee is "to obtain a plan for
the development of Greater New York, and other American cities, along
economic, hygienic and aesthetic lines; and to promote the better
distribution of population throughout city, state and nation."
To establish the need for such a program, the committee offers as
"admitted facts" the following:
Many American cities with a population of over 50,000 have
congestion of population, factories and offices; such congestion
creates problems for which we cannot find solutions; no city
should use all the land within its boundaries as intensively as
is necessary in its most congested areas,--to do so perpetuates
congestion; no American city yet has a legal right to prescribe the
height and use of buildings in its various sections; no city can
develop normally without a plan which anticipates its growth for
twenty-five or fifty years.
As a means of stimulating consideration of the subject and of promoting
farsighted planning for the future, the committee has adopted as its
slogan the statement, "Every American city needs a city plan now." It
will show, it announces, the cost of the lack of a city plan in New
York, the city planning which has been done in some American and foreign
cities, and the pressing need for a city plan in New York to-day. The
conference on city planning in March will include an exhibit of the best
developments from all over the world. Both exhibit and conference will
be keyed up to two major considerations: "the concentration of one-half
the population of a great state in one city makes the problem of
statewide importance; the concentration of one-nineteenth of a nation's
population in one city gives the problem national bearing."
There will be study of the best methods for distribution of population,
for promoting feasible methods of locating factories and industrial
colonies, and an educational campaign to show the advantages of
migration from congested centers.
EMPLOYERS PAY FOR SANATORIUM CARE
Massachusetts, almost invariably a leader in preventive measures, is
developing this year a most unique and promising kind of co-operative
effort in the prevention of tuberculosis. Massachusetts was the first
state to organize a board of health, dating from 1869. It was the first
state to choose its factory inspectors from the medical profession,
this dating from 1906, and out of these two farsighted provisions of the
law has grown during the past two months a plan by which manufacturers
are assuming a part of the financial burden in seeing to it that
operatives in their factories, found to have tuberculosis in the
incipient stage, are sent to the Rutland Sanatorium and given the best
possible opportunity for cure.
The plan originated in Worcester which, with a string of neighboring
towns and villages, forms one of the sixteen inspection districts into
which the state is divided. As a result of the activity of Dr. M. G.
Overlock, the state inspector of health in charge, seventy manufacturing
plants, employing more than 20,000 hands, have followed the example of
David H. Fanning, president of the Royal Worcester Corset Company, in
agreeing to pay a part of the maintenance cost of any of their employes
sent to Rutland. The cost in the sanatorium is nine dollars a week.
Of this the state pays five dollars and the company four dollars. The
term usually agreed upon is three months. At the end of that time, a
large number of the cases have been so far restored that they can be
taken to nearby, supervised boarding houses and farms and make room for
new patients,--a plan hit upon to relieve the great pressure upon this
institution which accepts only incipient cases. The employer continues
his contribution. The boarding houses, conducted along approved lines,
have sprung up all over the surrounding hills much as they have at
Saranac Lake in New York.
The factory inspection has been keyed up to take the greatest possible
advantage of the co-operation of employers. Frequent visits are made to
all plants, but to those in which the work rooms are full of dust, or
where there are other conditions favoring tuberculosis, Dr. Overlock
makes a visit once a month. All minors on the working staff are taken
before him, and required to furnish a full family history. If there has
been tuberculosis in the family, even remote, a medical examination
is at once made. The others are examined more superficially, but the
least trace of suspicious symptoms is at once seized upon as cause
for an examination. In this way, it is believed, incipient cases among
minors will be caught in their earliest stages. The system will later be
extended to adults. An extension of the plan to secure the interest and
help of employers has begun in some other inspection districts, and will
eventually be introduced throughout the state.
But the carefully laid plans to detect and ward off incipient cases
comprise only one part of the Massachusetts plan to fight tuberculosis.
In May three homes for advanced cases will be opened, and the
development of the plan calls for additional homes, scattered through
the state, until it shall have made complete provision for all cases,
early or advanced. In view of the almost unanimously expressed opinion
at the recent International Tuberculosis Congress, that the strategic
point of attack in the campaign is in isolating advanced cases, the
provision of these homes is, perhaps, the most important plank in the
Massachusetts health platform. Governor Guild is much interested in the
whole plan. In a recent letter to Dr. Overlock he wrote: "It has been a
great pleasure for me to inaugurate the new policy of the commonwealth
of provision for all cases of tuberculosis, not merely as at present the
care of the curable, but the care of the incurable as well."
SALARY LOANS IN CINCINNATI
The business of lending money on salaries and wages has received a
practical knockout blow in Cincinnati through the _Commercial Tribune_,
which instituted the crusade, with the co-operation of the officials of
the city and of various private organizations.
Aided by an ordinance which orders the licensing of salary loan offices
and which makes a weekly report to the city auditor necessary, the
campaigners have already been able to put one office out of business
entirely, and to sew up all the others in the courts in such a way that
it now seems very likely that most of these will retire rather than face
the storm which awaits them.
D. H. Tolman is more deeply involved in Cincinnati than he has ever been
before. His son, E. E. Tolman, who is said to be connected with the
business of his father, is under arrest and is now waiting a hearing in
the police court. His manager has been arrested and convicted on three
counts.
Although these cases have been appealed to a higher court, an
application for an order to restrain the further interference with the
Tolman business has thus far been refused.
D. H. Tolman has ordered his manager in Cincinnati to refuse to comply
with the ordinance and unless the courts do issue this order the manager
will be arrested every week.
The _Commercial Tribune_ has secured all of the Tolman forms from a
former manager. These have all been printed together with a letter
from the ex-manager in which the latter makes a complete exposé of the
methods pursued behind the doors of one of his offices.
The auditor of Cincinnati has declared his purpose of keeping up the
fight. He has forced ten salary loan offices to pay a license fee and
to comply with the provisions of the local ordinance. Agents have been
permanently employed by the official to watch the loan offices and to
ferret out any new agents who may attempt to operate secretly.
The Legal Aid Society which was recently formed to advise the poor,
has made it its business to impress upon all who seek its meetings
the futility of borrowing money from the salary loan people and has
furnished a list of the companies which are classified as "loan sharks,"
to every man and woman whom it could reach.
In this way people who never read the newspapers are given information
which they otherwise would probably never receive.
The Legal Aid Society is also at work on a code of laws which will be
submitted to the General Assembly at its coming session and which it is
hoped will solve the question of loaning money on salaries and chattels
in Ohio for all time.
The attorneys of the society promise a law which will set a fixed
rate, which will include interest and expenses, on all such loans.
It is said now that this rate will be either three or four per cent.
The contemplated law will also contain a provision which will make the
recovery of usury possible.
It is further planned to have a provision in the law similar to the
Massachusetts statute, requiring the signatures of the wife, when a
borrower is married, and of his employer. Some of the best attorneys in
Cincinnati including former Prosecuting Attorney Benton Oppenheimer, are
at work on these laws.
Another movement now on foot is the founding of a salary loan office on
the same basis as several chattel loan offices which are now operating
in the country, whose stockholders are philanthropists and men of wealth.
Cincinnati has such a chattel loan company and the men who are now
fighting the salary loan business there are urging the stockholders of
this company to take up the other work.
The most gratifying thing of the Cincinnati campaign has been the
falling off of business in the loan offices. The companies admit this
and one broker left for Florida after explaining that his business had
decreased seventy-five per cent during the campaign.
FOR A COURT OF DOMESTIC RELATIONS
One of the interesting bills to be brought before the 1909 session of
the New York Legislature is that drawn by Bernhard Rabbino, relating to
a special domestic relations court. Mr. Rabbino believes that if we have
courts for the purpose of divorce, for separating mothers from children
and children from fathers, we should have a separate tribunal to which
families in discord could appeal.
There are probably from 12,000 to 15,000 domestic trouble cases handled
yearly in Manhattan and the Bronx alone, but as no records are kept of
summons cases,--and these come under that head,--it is not possible to
compute the exact number. Probably it is greater than the number of
cases handled by the children's court, and a domestic relations court
is justified by Mr. Rabbino, additionally, on the ground that it
precedes the children's court, having for its fundamental purpose the
preservation of the family as a unit, with an opportunity for fathers
and mothers to secure the same expert and individual attention that is
given to the children.
Domestic affairs are admittedly out of place in a general police court.
The unfortunate participants are not in any sense criminals, and yet
they are surrounded by thieves, pickpockets, drunkards, disorderly
persons,--the regular rabble of the criminal court,--and an outraged
self-respect is the consequence of such treatment. The present
organization of magistrates' courts contemplates that the magistrate
shall sit one-half of the day on the bench and the other half shall be
in chambers for the settlement of just such cases as Mr. Rabbino would
bring before the domestic relations court. As a matter of practice,
however, so congested are the courts and so pressing their work,
that there is no time for this personal consideration which the law
contemplates. The magistrate does what he can in the face of tremendous
difficulties, but he has not the time to investigate these cases, and
without proper attention there can be no adjustment of them. Divorce and
separation are the natural results.
The idea of such a court would be to prevent litigation as a whole
and particularly to safeguard the homes of the poor, for the poor are
those who are obliged to resort to police courts. The better-off take
their affairs to the Supreme Court. It is very possible that these
lower courts might develop into something higher, and many matrimonial
difficulties which now cause a permanent rupture of relations be
peaceably adjusted with judicial assistance. Such a court might also
have a marked effect on juvenile crime, for any force that makes for
better home conditions is preventive of crime. The bill requires also
that the court of domestic relations have exclusive jurisdiction over
all cases of abandonment, non-support, and the non-support of poor
relatives as provided by law.
The bill as drawn would make this domestic relations court part of the
city magistrates' courts, on the lines of the children's courts now
being generally established throughout the country. The idea, however,
would be to have a special court altogether, and if successful, this
would probably be done.
The introduction of this bill in the Legislature may bring to sharp
discussion the whole question of division of jurisdiction in the city
courts. The present established principle is that such courts should
be divided geographically, covering a certain borough or section of a
borough. The children's court differs radically from this and introduces
a functional division. It is an open question whether, with the police
courts crowded as they are, such a functional division has not become
necessary for more cases than those of delinquent children,--whether
the separation of special kinds of cases into children's courts and
into courts of domestic relations will not prove more effective than a
further division of territory.
THE YEAR IN MUNICIPAL EVENTS
A review of municipal events and tendencies for the past year, which
might be the title of Clinton Rogers Woodruff's report as secretary of
the National Municipal League, centers around efficiency and honesty in
government as a result of clear accounting systems and understandable
statistics; wide-spread efforts at charter revision; a constantly
growing sentiment for nomination reform; and a militant desire, evident
in many sections, to tackle the problems which have grown up around the
saloon in politics.
The Massachusetts Bureau of Municipal Statistics, the first of its kind,
has already resulted, Mr. Woodruff believes, in a number of cities
reconstructing their accounts on a sounder and more substantial basis.
The first year's report shows a confusing lack of system in handling the
receipts and disbursements of towns and cities; a wide variety of dates
for closing the fiscal year; many defects in the treasurers' methods
of accounting; and the need for consolidation of the administration of
trust funds. In many instances, money left to the community for special
purposes has been used by the town trustees for general purposes.
But "the movement for uniform accounting proceeds without interruption."
Originated by the National Municipal League, it was given momentum
by the Census Bureau and by legislation in Ohio and Massachusetts.
Accounting investigations and reforms are being made the basis for
an approach to the solution of important problems in Boston, in New
York by the conspicuous work of the Bureau of Municipal Research,
and in Minneapolis. The point of attack in Minneapolis has been the
administration of the school fund "which seems to have been particularly
inadequate and inefficient." A grand jury found "a startling and
deplorably loose state of affairs." The investigation was made by
trained men from San Francisco and other Pacific Coast cities. In
Wilmington there has been a thoroughgoing examination of municipal
account.
Legislative reference bureaus are being established to help in this
movement, of particular value to Chicago which "is on the threshold of
an era of public improvement which will call for the most intelligent
direction from the city government." Mr. Woodruff predicts that "we may
expect within the next half dozen years to find a series of similar
bureaus established in all the leading cities, gathering for their
respective municipalities information concerning improvement; and,
moreover, we may expect a further development, in that all of these
bureaus and libraries will be so co-ordinated, each with the others, as
to form a strong chain of information that will banish from the halls of
legislation and the offices of administration, the dense ignorance that
all too frequently found a welcome lodgement."
Charter changes are pressed every year more strongly to the front.
It is true now that wherever a good government organization of any
sort is found, there will be accompanying it a campaign either for a
new charter or for amendments to the existing one. Perhaps the most
noticeable tendency of the movement is a demand for a greater degree
of home rule for the cities which have been "subjected to a degree of
legislative buffeting that has well nigh destroyed the cherished ideal
of self-government."
Nomination reform has been much discussed, and a number of laws
providing for direct nominations have become effective during the year.
Mr. Woodruff holds that the results of direct nominations have, on
the whole, "recommended themselves to those who are striving for the
elimination of nomination monopoly and for the inauguration of a simpler
and more direct form of election machinery." Further, he holds that "it
is now generally conceded, except by a very small and diminishing group
of men, that the preparation and distribution of the ballots at the
general election is a proper state function and expense."
The objections to direct nominations are discussed at length and finally
dismissed with the conclusion: "We must realize that we are living in a
democracy, and that the election machinery must be democratic and must
record the wishes of the people and be responsive to their desires.
Direct nominations are a step in advance because they enable the
people directly to express their wishes. No doubt they have made their
mistakes, and will continue to make them; but they have had to bear the
brunt of them in the past, and they must continue to bear them in the
future; and this in the long run will prove to be the most effective way
of building up an enlightened and efficient democracy."
The initiative and referendum are advocated, because "they are
unquestionably proving effective in breaking down some of the privileges
and monopolies that have characterized political organizations for many
years."
TO STIMULATE PARKS AND PLAY
The Council of One Hundred, an auxiliary to the Parks and Playgrounds
Association of New York, has been fully organized by Miss Pauline
Robinson and Seth Thayer Stewart, with a membership of well known
men and women who are interested in playground activities and civic
improvement. At the first meeting of the council at the home of Mrs.
Charles B. Alexander, in December, Richard Watson Gilder presided,
introducing Mrs. George C. Riggs (Kate Douglas Wiggin), who read
a valuable paper. Eugene A. Philbin, president of the Parks and
Playgrounds Association, outlined the development of that organization,
which is the union of the Brooklyn Society for Parks and Playgrounds and
the Metropolitan Parks Association. Howard Bradstreet, the secretary of
the association, gave through lantern slides a synopsis of the active
work in conducting playgrounds and baseball centers during the last
season. Seth Thayer Stewart sketched a possible plan for the extension
of the recreation idea throughout the city, and Dr. Luther H. Gulick
spoke briefly on recreation for girls.
The Council of One Hundred, of which Mr. Gilder is president, Jacob H.
Schiff, George D. Pratt, Mrs. Frederick W. Whitridge and Mrs. Samuel
Bowne Duryea, vice-presidents; and Miss Pauline Robinson, secretary
and treasurer, will meet two or three times a year. Its purpose is to
assist individually and as a body in the active work of the Parks and
Playgrounds Association. While much is being done by the city through
park and school in the way of offering play facilities to children,
nevertheless, so great is their number in New York, that only a small
percentage of the possibilities have as yet been realized. With a
million children of school age or under, occupied only a small part of
the time, the street must be the chief resort for the large majority.
The experience of last summer showed both the feasibility and the good
result of organizing the children of the street by play leaders who
appreciate the value of free play, and are acquainted with child nature.
The plan of work as outlined calls for the placing of such play leaders
in various sections of the city; the encouraging of the establishment
of places for recreation by different organizations and neighborhood
committees, and for the provision and maintenance of various forms of
play throughout the year in sections otherwise neglected. During the
summer the association maintained eight vacant lots as playgrounds,
eleven baseball centers and a camp for boys. The neighbors of several of
these grounds have asked to have them extended during the winter, and
the association will undertake to do so early in the new year.
NEW YORK STATE TRADE SCHOOL PLANS
Much significance is attached to the recent organization of the New York
state branch of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial
Education. The passage of the industrial education bill last year opened
up to the state possibilities in the way of industrial education which
it has not thus far been able to measure. A volunteer body of some
sort has been needed to awaken interest and stir up the whole state.
Particular opportunity offers among the up-state cities and it was with
this in mind that the officers and advisory board were elected, for as
the list shows, the members are representative of the state as a whole
as well as of many lines of industrial and educational activity. The
officers are:
President, James P. McElroy, manager of the Consolidated Car
Heating Company, Albany; vice-president, Dr. Andrew S. Draper,
state commissioner of education, Albany; secretary-treasurer,
Arthur L. Williston, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
Additional members of the executive committee are:
V. Everit Macy, chairman of Board of Trustees, Teachers'
College, New York; Joseph R. Campbell, president Diamond Saw and
Stamping Works, Buffalo; Thomas D. Fitzgerald, president Allied
Printing Trades Council of New York State, Albany; Frank L.
Babbott, manufacturer and member of the School Board, Brooklyn.
At a public meeting following the formation of the branch, considerable
enthusiasm was developed and a number of interesting papers were read.
Of these, perhaps the most substantial contribution to the discussion
of the evening was by Dr. William H. Maxwell, city superintendent of
schools, New York, who presided. Among other things Dr. Maxwell said:
Certain things may be taken as demonstrated with regard to
industrial education:
First, trade schools are needed. They are needed for the sake
of our industrial wealth and efficiency. They are needed for the
sake of the boys and girls of this city. The best preparation for
a trade is the manual training high school where, in connection
with elements of a liberal education, students receive instruction
in drawing, in tools, and in applications of art to industry.
But these schools breed engineers, not journeymen. Hence we need
schools to give training that will shorten and enrich the period of
apprenticeship for the journeyman.
Second, such schools must be a part of the public school
system and must articulate directly and closely with the elementary
schools, to the end that boys and girls between fourteen and
eighteen, or at least sixteen, may obtain that training which will
enable them to be of use in a shop; because it is in the public
schools that the boys and girls are found who need such training.
Third, to carry out this articulation, elementary schools
should have manual training to discover these boys and girls who
have an aptitude for mechanical pursuits. Brains are as necessary
in mechanical pursuits as in law or theology.
Certain difficulties stand in our way:
First, apathy of manufacturers who have shown little desire to
obtain really skilled American workmen, as for example, the firm
which established a school to train apprentices and found that they
were taken away by other firms as soon as they had learned a few
tricks of the trade.
Second, apathy of the financial authorities of the city who
have just cut out the amount asked for by the Board of Education
for shops and kitchens, and given only $22,000 for a trade school.
It is encouraging, however, to remember that the first annual
appropriation for manual training in Brooklyn was only $5,000. If
we make good use of the small appropriation, the demonstration will
secure larger appropriations in the future.
Third, the foolish or nebulous arguments of many of those who
have been advocating trade schools. Arguments have been foolish
when they became pleas for the elimination of existing high schools
and the conversion of these institutions into trade schools. Those
that have not been foolish have been largely nebulous, vapory
exhortations to establish trade schools, without the substance of
a well considered plan. Such a well considered plan is now the
great desideratum. While the advocates of trade schools have been
talking, the Board of Education has established and maintained five
prosperous and useful evening trade schools which are patronized
largely by apprentices. Those evening trade schools confine their
operations chiefly to the building and machinists' trades. Shall we
stop there? Will our friends not give us a plan for teaching our
three largest trades, clothing, beer brewing, and sugar refining?
What we need farther is a well thought-out plan of co-operation
between the school and the manufacturer, such as that at Fitchburg,
Mass.
For these reasons,--the apathy of manufacturers, the apathy of
the financial authorities of our city, and the need of definite,
coherent plans,--the cause of trade schools stands sorely in need
of the aid of this local branch of the national society. The time
is surely opportune when the Board of Education has appointed a
standing committee on this subject and when the state, through the
industrial education bill, passed last winter by the Legislature,
has decided to give substantial financial assistance to any
community that established trade schools.
TO RESTRAIN HOLIDAY BEGGING
The mummery and begging in which the children of New York city so
generally indulge Thanksgiving Day and other holidays have long been
matters of concern and alarm to those who are interested in educational
work with young people. Many articles have appeared denouncing the
custom. On the morning of Thanksgiving, the New York _Times_ contained
an especially well directed effort to protest against this growing evil.
The children of Asacog Social Settlement, 52 Sands street, Brooklyn,
partake very generally in these holiday mummeries, masquerading and
begging. The harmful results have long been realized, but the efforts
heretofore used to modify the custom have been quite ineffective. It
was resolved this year to undertake a different method of modifying the
nuisance.
It was found in all cases that the children had no idea why they should
choose Thanksgiving for begging, beyond the fact that people gave them
money on that day and all their playmates chose this method of "having
fun," so of course it was necessary to be in the game.
So with "having a good time" in mind, parents, young people, children,
were invited to a festival on Thanksgiving eve. It seemed quite
necessary to draw a moral lesson in the attempt to overthrow such a
deeply seated custom, and this was done through a series of tableaus
and dances with connecting narrative.
The probable historical setting of the Thanksgiving custom was presented
through scenes of the Dutch in Holland, during the troublesome times
of William of Orange, when the sea beggars made their famous pledge.
Two tableaus showing the court scene and the banquet of the beggars
were followed by a costume dance by small boys, which was called the
"beggars' march." The English contribution to the celebrations was in
tableaus from the history of the Guy Fawkes plot. The Dutch and English
transferred to America were shown by Peter Stuyvesant and his surrender;
the southern scenes with their harvest ideas through a colored
plantation sketch; the Puritans and Indians by tableaus and Indian squaw
dances. Then followed the times of the Revolution, with the tyranny of
the British, the spirit of '76, and the Evacuation Day celebration on
November 25, 1783.
The tableaus were given in costume by the young people and children,
about seventy-five taking part. The members of the Civic Club, composed
of mothers and neighborhood women did a great deal in preparing the
costumes and dressing the actors.
The settlement had the valuable help of Miss Mari R. Hofer in preparing
Dutch and Indian dances, and of Howard Bradstreet, the narrator of the
evening.
Admission was by tickets given in clubs and classes, and the seating
capacity of three hundred and twenty-five was taxed to over five
hundred. But the carnival spirit was in the midst and no one minded
the necessity of standing on a chair with a friend or two in order to
catch an occasional glimpse of the stage. Several of the star performers
became so interested in the audience that it was necessary to snatch
the nearest boys or girls as the occasion demanded, hustle them to the
improvised "green" room, hastily dress them in remaining fragments of
costumes far removed from the historic time, and with impromptu coaching
from the wings, an attitude was struck worthy of any Dutch patriot or
Puritan dignitary.
The most gratifying results of the performance were that the begging
on the street was greatly diminished. Many of the children did dress up
and beg, for of course we could not expect a complete reformation on
Sands street. But up to eleven o'clock not a begging child had been seen
on Asacog corner. Later in the day little beggars began to appear but
in smaller numbers and at three o'clock in the afternoon, a very lively
hour, all the children on the block were out playing their ordinary
street games, and but one child was in fancy costume. From one tenement
from which twenty children begged last year, but two indulged this year,
one mother having been to the festival, and really beginning to realize
the dangers of street gaieties for the first time, refused to permit
her eight year old girl to parade in fancy dress, at which the child
volunteered to stay in bed, feeling life was too dull for words, and
besides she was tired from the night before, the carnival spirit having
worked itself out. In reality it was the "day after the fun."
FOLK DANCES IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL
The pupils in the Lincoln School, situated in the suburbs of Burlington,
Iowa, feel no restraint from want of room to play, for the school
grounds are as large as a small park, and stretches of prairie land
roll before and behind the building. Beautiful oaks and elms form tiny
forests round about, a brook rushes through the outskirts, and in each
season nature calls so loudly to the boy that it requires all the
ingenuity of teachers and truant officers to keep him in school. Many
nationalities have congregated in this part of the city, for it is a
factory district, and each September there are enrolled little Germans,
Russians, Swiss and Irish who are instinctively antagonistic to one
another.
The teachers of Lincoln School have found it advisable to be present
during the noon hour, as well as during recess, to prevent the playing
of rough games in which many children were injured, or which resulted in
fighting.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
About ten years ago a may-pole was introduced, which revolutionized
the school. A small organ was carried into the yard and as many as
forty children took part in this dance at the same time. About five
years ago, fearing that this dance would become monotonous, other folk
dances were introduced, and now one may see during all intermissions,
groups of boys and girls dancing the _gavotte der kaiserin_, Irish
reel, Highland fling, sword dance, dance of the Alpine peasants and
the minuet. In order that even these should not become uninteresting,
costumes have been provided for each dance, and this is bound to be the
greatest aid in discipline; for what boy will play truant when he can
impersonate Washington in the minuet or some Scottish hero in the sword
dance or Highland fling. To defray the expense of the costumes, a play
was given,--Spyri's Heidi. This met with such success that they now
have a dramatic club, whose members have presented Old-Fashioned Girl,
Eight Cousins and Little Baron to large audiences in the Opera House.
Many unruly boys have become docile, after impersonating some genuinely
honest boy character. The manners and dress of both boys and girls have
been much improved since they have taken part in these plays.
The folk-dances have been used in this school for so many years that all
are prepared to say that they are a success with the boys in as great a
degree as they are with the girls. A boy seldom refuses to join in the
dances. The most enjoyable period during the session is the time of the
rhythmic play. They need no other punishment for disobedience than to
threaten to refuse to play for the folk dances.
THE STANDARD FOR A CITY'S SURVEY
GRAHAM TAYLOR
Social research on a city-wide scale is a contemporary product.
Appropriately old London was the first to have its living conditions
comprehensively investigated. To Charles Booth belongs the credit of
having initiated and set the type of such enquiry. His great work in
seventeen volumes on Life and Labor in London standardized methods
and results in some lines of civic investigation. Its data were
almost entirely derived from secondary documentary sources furnished
by official records and the reports of voluntary agencies, but the
originality with which it is everywhere stamped lies in the handling and
verifying of the material thus acquired. The whole great analysis and
synthesis of the largest city population of the world, thus attempted
for the first time, deserves to be ranked as one of the greatest
achievements of the closing decade of the nineteenth century. That this
brave pioneering was attempted by one of London's great shippers, and
that it was so successfully carried through to completion at a cost
of twenty years of labor and a quarter million of dollars, also sets
a standard of self-exacting citizenship worthy alike of the world's
greatest city and of one of its most modest and personally resourceful
citizens.
The extent to which this survey of London afforded intelligent incentive
and basis for the reconstructive civic spirit and work which attended
and followed it is demonstrated by contemporary history. The voluntary
efforts to improve conditions, and the London County Council's
achievement in increasing open and street spaces and in furnishing
housing and other equipment for city life, were on a scale befitting
the foundation in fact substantially laid by Mr. Booth's monumental
work. Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and many provincial cities received
impetus and direction in their heroic efforts to ascertain and improve
their own conditions.
Seebohm Rowntree followed Mr. Booth's example in his study of poverty in
York, but went beyond his methods in making a first hand investigation
of the facts. Robert W. deForest and Lawrence Veiller set the type for
American enquiry into city conditions by their investigation and reports
of the Tenement House Problem in New York. And now the Pittsburgh Survey
registers the most inclusive standard thus far set in ascertaining
the facts of living conditions in a typical industrial community. In
cooperating to carry through this constructive survey the Russell Sage
Foundation and this magazine achieve the most noteworthy fulfilment of
their common purpose to improve social and living conditions in the
United States.
PREACHING AND PRACTICE
JACOB A. RIIS
[Illustration]
These two Christmas stamps are next of kin. Our Red Cross stamp is the
youngest child of the Danish _Julemarke_ which sprang out of a country
postmaster's brain to take its place among the most effective weapons
in the world-wide fight with the white plague. Of what stout stock the
family are,--it is a big family by this time, with sons and daughters in
many lands,--this year's issue of the Danish stamp tells at a glance.
For the big building pictured in it is the "Christmas Stamp Sanatorium,"
built for tuberculous children out of the half pennies the Danish people
have given these five years as their contribution to the great campaign.
[Illustration]
Denmark is a little country. All in all it has not much more than half
as many people as the Greater New York, if indeed it has so many. Yet
in so short a time it has wrought so great a tangible result. What it
has further wrought in the way of arousing public interest and guiding
public education in this matter is beyond calculation. For the last is
the biggest end of the work of the Christmas stamp, wherever it goes.
In New York city two years ago we raised a great outcry about child
cripples, made so by tuberculosis. We counted five thousand or more
in the tenements of the metropolis and decided that their one chance
of life lay in building a hospital on the seashore, on the lines of
the little one now run on Coney Island by the Association for the
Improvement of the Condition of the Poor. Forthwith money was raised,
a quarter of a million of dollars, to build a much bigger one with,
and architects were set to work to draw plans. The city appropriated
a site in a great seashore park, to be laid out for the people. Then
there happened what so often happens in New York when a great public
enterprise is to be carried out. It ran into a rut, somehow. Money
became tight, the controller could not find the funds, park and hospital
were side-tracked and stayed so.
They are side-tracked yet. The money kind-hearted New Yorkers gave for
the children is in the bank. The little cripples still crawl around
their tenements. The winds blow over the ocean and waste their healing
balm. The park is as far away as ever. And the purses of the charitable
snap with an extra twist of tightness when they think of it all. Next
time we shall plead the children's cause in vain.
That is the way of New York. The picture above tells the way of poor
little Denmark. No doubt there is an excuse, or a string of them, for
the American city. But excuses do not mend aching joints and wasted
frames. How long before New York will catch up with Denmark? Would it
not be fine if this lusty son of a worthy sire, the Red Cross Christmas
stamp, were to help get us started again?
RAILWAY ACCIDENTS
EMORY R. JOHNSON
University of Pennsylvania
The Confessions of a Railroad Signalman by J. O. Fagan is an
exceptionally able book, worthy of the serious attention of every
student of the causes of railroad accidents.[1] The author gives his
qualifications for writing the book by saying that he "has been a
telegraph operator and tower-man for twenty-seven years and part of the
time chief clerk to a railroad superintendent," and he further adds that
"the extent of territory covered by this experience is even wider than
one would suppose. For a telegraph operator is, of necessity, one of the
best posted men in the service." In addition to this experience from
which a knowledge of the subject has been gained, the author possesses
a remarkably well trained mind and has command of exceptionally clean
English.
[1] The Confessions of a Railroad Signalman, J. O. Fagan. Pp. 182.
Price $1.00, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1908. This book may be
obtained at publisher's price through the offices of CHARITIES AND THE
COMMONS.
The main thesis of the book is that accidents are due mainly to
non-observance of rules. "Railroad managers, therefore, sooner or later
will come to understand that the one thing needed in the railroad
service at the present day is to educate employes to appreciate the fact
that successful and safe railroading in the future will have to depend,
not upon the multiplication of safety devices or the reconstruction of
rules, but upon the personal effort and conduct of conscientious, alert,
and careful men." Furthermore, the author has "arrived at the conclusion
that on our railroads the interests of the community have become
secondary to those of the employe and his organization." Mr. Fagan also
maintains that "it is actually a matter of reasonable demonstration
that at least seventy-five per cent of the casualties might be avoided
by increase of interest on the part of the employe, and the earnest
concentration of his best thought on the subject."
[Illustration: FROM CONFESSIONS OF A RAILROAD SIGNALMAN]
The natural remedy for the situation, as stated by Mr. Fagan, would lie
in the observance by employes of the company's rules and regulations,
in the discipline by the management of all employes for each and every
non-observance of any rule, and the enforcement of discipline with
appropriate penalties regardless of the personality of those subjected
to discipline. The enforcement of discipline, moreover, should not be
made to depend upon consequences resulting from non-observance of rules.
Employes should be penalized by loss of pay for their disregard of
the rules or regulations whether their actions do or do not result in
casualties.
Mr. Fagan, however, believes, and brings convincing evidence to show,
that the above remedy is beyond hope. The organizations of which the
railroad employes are members take the position that the member who
violates a rule is to be defended against condemnation by the public
or discipline by the management. Instead of taking the view that the
interests of the public are paramount to those of any individual
railroad employe, the railroad employes' organization seeks invariably
to shield its members against the consequences of their actions.
Furthermore, the managers of most railroads have decided that the strict
enforcement of the rules and the punishment of those who do not observe
the rules result in so many controversies with the labor unions and
are so destructive of harmonious relations between the company and the
unions, that it is better to strive for harmony rather than to enforce
discipline. In other words, discipline and the safety of the public
are made subsidiary to the maintenance of harmonious relations with
the employes. Such being the situation, Mr. Fagan believes that reform
is not to be expected within railway management but must come from the
outside as the result of the exercise of governmental authority. The
government must punish employes for non-observance of rules and penalize
railroad officers for the non-enforcement of their regulations.
The analyses and arguments of the book are convincing. The position
taken by Mr. Fagan is one the accuracy of which will doubtless be
vigorously denied by the organizations of railroad employes and will be
to some extent questioned by the responsible management of railroads.
However, it seems to the author of this review that Mr. Fagan has
established his thesis.
INDUSTRIAL ITALY
ARTHUR P. KELLOGG
The simple Italian peasant, he whose meager village life was so
accurately drawn by Mr. Mangano in earlier issues of this magazine, is
familiar in every city in this country, and we have in America what
is probably a fair appreciation of his poverty, his hardships and the
longing for better things which send great blocks of the population
of rural provinces flocking across the Atlantic. Of industrial Italy
we know less, having few sources of information. If the life of the
factory towns is really as bad as The Forewarners,[2] by Giovanni Cena,
makes it,--if wages are as low, work as hard, housing as squalid and
amusements as few,--then we have in the book a story of remarkable
growth in wretchedness, for the manufacturing towns of northern Italy
are, as Mrs. Humphry Ward points out in the introduction to the English
translation, only forty years old.
[2] The Forewarners, Giovanni Cena, 1908, New York, Doubleday, Page and
Company. Price $1.50. This book may be ordered at publisher's price
through the office of CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS.