York. The erection of that monument will usher in that day which Thomas Jefferson said he would rejoice to see, when red men become truly one people with us, enjoying all the rights and privileges we do, and living in peace and plenty. I rejoice to foresee the day." INFORMING THE PUBLIC At the call of Professor Charles R. Henderson, President of the United Charities of Chicago, almost all the charitable and philanthropic agencies of the city, receiving the endorsement of the Association of Commerce, joined forces to furnish the public with full and authentic information regarding the work which each of them is doing, how each secures and expends the money contributed to its support, which is said to amount to $13,000,000 a year for all of them. Professor Henderson's statement explaining the purpose and method of this associated effort is set forth in the following lines: "It contemplates merely a plan for extending authoritative information to the public regarding humanitarian work done in this city by both public and private bodies." Its extent, character, scope and the interrelations of the various forms of activity. The whole thing is to be on a democratic basis, all the approved city-wide agencies to be factors in furthering the same. "It was felt by the original promoters of the movement that in a busy community like Chicago, intensely occupied with industry, commerce and pleasure, it is easy for the citizenship to forget the great operations constantly and quietly going on all the year round to ameliorate distress, care for broken, sick and wayward humanity and prevent the enlargement of these classes, and in so forgetting, fail to support financially, or aid personally in the work, all of which means more sickness, more despair, more dependence, more crime. "The question was, should the individual agencies be allowed to struggle alone in their presentation of claims to recognition and support, or should they join forces in securing audiences. The latter course has been decided upon. "It is not intended to start an investigation or probe into charitable bodies; nor a survey of social conditions; nor is it to be anything conducted under the auspices of the Association of Commerce, or any other single organization. Finally, it involves no federated money raising scheme. "The social workers who have met thus far have delegated to an executive committee of seven, supplemented by subcommittees to be appointed by them, the task of working out details. The members of the committee are: Dr. C. R. Henderson, president of the United Charities, chairman; Jane Addams, Hull House; Mrs. Lenora Z. Meder, president of the Catholic Woman's Protectorate; Isaac S. Rothschild, Associated Jewish Charities; Harry T. Williams, social service secretary Y. M. C. A.; Graham Taylor, School of Civics and Philanthropy, and a secretary still to be chosen. "This committee is to do several things: Find the groups of people who desire to secure information along the lines already indicated; to offer to the groups a choice of one or more lectures by experts in various lines of philanthropic service or prepared printed studies for any number of meetings up to thirty; to aid in training leaders of such study groups; to find the special lecturers who may be called for; to prepare or have prepared by competent authorities the studies mentioned; to provide newspapers and other periodicals with carefully prepared publicity material." BUSINESS SUSPENDED Missouri "good road days," announced by proclamation of the governor a month ahead of time and held on August 20 and 21, proved such a successful experiment in community co-operation that it is planned to repeat the road days next year. The proclamation asked for a gen eral suspension of business on those days and called upon all able-bodied male citizens to give these two days to the work of building public highways, able-bodied female citizens to supply food, encouragement and good cheer for the workers. The undertaking was planned and directed by the state highway commissioner, Frank W. Buffum, a "very live wire," as one citizen calls him, who was behind the governor's proclamation. The good roads movement has been growing fast the last few years and was one of the platform promises of practically all parties last fall and one of the subjects to which the Legislature gave a big share of its attention. The movement was extensively advertised, and well supported by leading newspapers and commercial organizations. Rain following a long drought with good weather on the two road days, brought out probably 250,000 citizens who accomplished work worth, in round numbers, $1,200,000. In addition a good roads fund of almost $100,000 was collected. It is estimated that 2,850 miles of road were built or improved. The work was characterized by the widest possible co-operation. The women's clubs issued a state-wide call to the women to help out by furnishing food to the road-workers. Practically all state, county and town officials turned out in force,-Governor Major of Missouri and Governor Hodge of Kansas both donning overalls and lending a hand on Cole County roads. In many localities it is reported that the citizens voluntarily set aside further time to complete improvements begun. The social significance of good roads is being preached throughout the state and is going hand in hand with the state-wide movement for improved schools. RED LIGHT LAW VOID IN IOWA News items have announced that the Red Light Injunction Law of Iowa has been declared unconstitutional in the state of its original adoption. In reality the law has not been declared unconstitutional but void. This declaration is however an interesting illustration of the willingness of the courts to set aside an admittedly beneficial law on the smallest technicality. It appears that the speaker of the Iowa Assembly of 1909, which passed the law, failed. to properly certify that the original act had been adopted by his house. On this ground after four years of effective and beneficial enforcement, the law has been wiped out. It is announced that the governor himself will institute an initiative for its re-enactment. It is interesting to know that the statement is being made that the law is not essential to the suppression of commercialized vice in that the keeping of a disorderly house is a penitentiary offense in Iowa. It has been that same offense in New York for many years, but the courts have not until recently imposed prison sentences because the defendant was almost always only an employe of the proprietor. It is because this Injunction and Abatement Law of Iowa was so framed that it reached A the real profiter from the vice, the owner of the house, that it has been so successful. like law has been passed in five states and its passage in New York state next year is confidently expected. AFTER-CARE FOR GERMAN INSANE A cable dispatch to a New York newspaper announces that the city of Berlin has established a bureau for aiding persons discharged from hospitals for the insane. That this action was not hasty or ill-considered may be inferred from the fact that the first after-care society was organized in Germany in 1829. In 1841 a society for similar purposes was organized in France, one in England in 1879 and in 1906 an aftercare committee of the New York State Charities' Aid Association was formed. The significance of the news from Germany is not that a novel thing has been done but that the importance of rendering special aid to those convalescent from mental illness should receive official recognition and become a part of the municipal activities of a great city. In this country also it has been recognized that aid of the state should not end with the discharge of patients from hospitals for the insane but should follow them, in a helpful and protecting way, into the community where the difficult work of rehabilitation must be carried on. Several of the New York State Hospitals have after-care workers who are quietly rendering services of the most valuable kind not only to the patients and to their families but to the community for, not infrequently, efficient after-care does much to prevent or to retard recurrences of mental disorder. The law recently passed in New York authorizing the State Hospitais to establish out-patient departments will make after-care work much more effective and it will permit the discharge of many convalescent patients who previously have had to remain under treatment only because it was impossible to provide skilled observation and care after leaving the hospitals. There is a growing belief among those engaged in the care of the insane that much more can be done in the community and in the home for those suffering from mental diseases than has been done in the past and it is not at all unlikely that assumption of after-care work by the state and provision of mental clinics for the treatment of early cases for the observation and those discharged convalescent may constitute a most important step in checking the steadily mounting numbers of those for whom permanent care in hospitals for the insane must be provided. The extension of such agencies and spreading information as to their value is the especial province of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene and the local societies or committees formed by that organization; new agencies in the fields of social service and preventive medicine. UNPAID MEDICAL SERVICE ALICE HAMILTON, M. D. What about the medical care of the poor? If we should put the question to visiting nurses and other social workers they would at once speak of the public hospitals and the free wards of private hospitals, of the dispensaries, and finally of kindly physicians who are willing to give a certain, or uncertain, part of their time to charitable work. The provision for medical care seems at first thought ample, even generous. But if we should ask with little Wilhelmine "What good came out of it all?" the answer often would not be so prompt. For operative surgical cases, for acute diseascs, for sick babies, the care which can be 728 THE SURVEY obtained by the poor in many places is con- The criticisms made by Dr. Richard Cabot of Dr. Heinrich Wolf's paper on page 738 of this issue attacks the question boldly. He holds that it is a wasteful system that those charitable associations pursue who trust to unpaid medical service when they have long since recognized the necessity of employing paid experts for all other departments. I FINGER PRINT CONCERNING BOOKS a HELEN R. GUTMANN F you were to listen, as you pass the different groups of school children, at the beginning of shrill voices raised in protest. In this group term, you would hear their a child is declaring the lessons to be too hard and too long; in that, complaining that the books furnished him are soiled or torn. Only a few are satisfied. There may be some truth in their complaints; some teachers do give too hard lessons, and little, warm, sticky fingers stain and tear the pages. However, schools are generally carefully graded and books too badly damaged are discarded. But into the hands of children of a scarcely larger growth the book of life is forced with no thought of obscure meanings, nor of pages damaged beyond repair by environment, heredity or both. Katie, as she sat awaiting her turn in the Juvenile Court, looked not unlike your fifteenyear-old daughter or mine. Possibly our taste does not run to lilac silk dresses for street wear, but that is only a detail, and the dress was clean. At any rate, no fault could be found with her neat dark blue serge coat, nor her close-fitting little black hat that almost hid her yellow hair. Yes, up to the time she crossed the room to take her place before the judge, she seemed like any other well-grown fifteen-year-old girl. But all Katie's girlishness was in the outline of face and figure. Her face was pitifully old with such age as a flower might show that had been forced into full bloom before the bud had fairly formed. All the color and fragrance of girlhood were gone. Her big light blue eyes were expressionless -I almost said colorless. The only thing that seemed alive in her heavy face was her strong white teeth that flashed in a snarl like that of an animal as she answered the judge's questions. Neither voice nor manner showed grief, shame, or repentance, nothing but the anger of a cornered animal. Her mother in neat black was scarcely less phlegmatic. "It's only the ideas that that boy has put into her head. Katie is all right," said the mother. Katie did not seem to hear, but the judge looked up in surprise. "Not one boy, but a dozen," he answered. "Haven't you ever told your mother about your life?" The mother did not appear curious to hear. Katie admitted that her mother knew little or nothing of her child's experiences of over year, although she had just been released from a hospital as the result of them. a At last the mother sprang to her feet. "By golly, judge," she cried, "my girl is a good girl, she always brings home her pay envelope." woman. Her pay envelope! That was the keynote of Poor Katie, indeed, for suddenly the sullen I Other Poor Katie! Is it her fault that the book of September 20, 1913. LABOR at the head of the lakes is largely seasonal in character, depending upon work incidental to transportation by rail and boat in the summer, and in the winter upon work in the woods and saw mills nearby. Every spring men come to Duluth and Superior from the East and South for the summer jobs-dock, railroad and boat work. In the fall and winter they flock in from the Dakotas, from railroad construction and repair gangs, from the boats and docks. Some are on their way South or to lumber camps, others are looking for steady work in town, and many plan to winter without work. In the winter of 1910-11, these men overcrowded the police stations and cheap lodging houses "The facts upon which this article is based, were gathered by Miss Florence E. Perrin, formerly assistant superintendent of the state free employment office at Superior, Wis. September 20, 1913. and swamped the charitable organizations of the twin ports with applications for meals and lodging. Early in the winter that year it became evident to the Associated Charities of Duluth, that special measures would have to be devised to deal with the increasing number of men who were in distress from want of work. Most of the applicants were homeless men,transients, seasonal and casual workers. It was impossible by questioning such men to find out. which were worthy of assistance and which were "work-shy" or "unemployable." A practical work-test had to be devised. But this was not all. In addition to the work-test it was necessary for those who were worthy of assistance to be given a chance to earn what they needed, instead of charitable relief. 729 Accordingly Courtenay Dinwiddie, then secretary of the Associated Charities, proposed to the city of Duluth that it co-operate with him in furnishing employment to unemployed men. The idea was to provide work enough to enable a man to get food, shelter and whatever else he needed to put him on the road to a steady job. In many cases all that the men needed was fare to go to the woods, or the fee for an employment agent; in some cases it was boots, gloves or mackinaws. The idea was not to create some useless task which a tramp or "moocher" would be willing to accept as a last resort, but to enable willing workers to bridge over the gap between their regular jobs by offering them temporary employment at which they could earn what they needed. An opportunity presented itself in this way. A huge wall of rock intercepts the growth of Duluth's main thoroughfare. Some day the street will have to be cut through this rock. Mr. Dinwiddie therefore proposed that the city anticipate its future need, begin this work immediately and employ on it the many unemployed. In the spring when the demand for labor becomes great enough to absorb all the supply the work could be stopped, and thereafter it could be begun again whenever unemployment increased. In this way a necessary public improvement would be carried to completion and work provided for the unemployed. The cost of the improvement might be increased because the work would have to be carried on in the winter which is the season of greatest unemployment. This increase, however, could be offset by the saving in labor cost, for the market rate for common labor is much lower at such times than in busy periods, and, as a matter of policy, it might be desirable to fix the wages for this work slightly below the market rate. In addition the work could be made partially to pay for itself by crushing the rock and using it for street paving. The city approved the project, made a small initial appropriation and in January 1911 operations were begun. The skilled work, blasting and drilling, was done by regular employes of the city. The preparation of the rock for the crusher was left to the unemployed men who were referred by the Associated Charities. One of the foremen attached to the Department of Public Works directed the labor, hired the men referred to him, if he thought them fit for this work, and discharged them if they proved un730 THE ROCK PILE satisfactory. The men had to prove their worth by holding down their jobs just as they would in private employment. The men earned every cent they got and there was no danger of pauperizing them. It is significant of the class of men who were given employment, that only eleven out of three hundred and one had to be discharged. Any able-bodied man who was out of work could secure temporary employment. But he had to have a plan of returning to regular employment at the first opportunity. With such a plan he needed only to present his case to the Associated Charities, go to the rock-pile and earn enough to put him on his feet. Care was taken to prevent the quarry from becoming merely an additional short job for casual laborers. Wages were fixed at $1.20 per day and paid in meal tickets, employment office fees, or whatever else the man needed. The Associated Charities paid for these and was reimbursed by the city. The market rate for common labor at the time the work was carried on was $1.50 to $1.75 per day. The rate at the rock piles was fixed at a lower figure so that men who could get other work might not be attracted. The quarry has thus far been in operation two winters,-from January 12 to May 1, 1911, and from December 14, 1911 to March 7, 1912. Dur September 20, 1913. |