The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Survey, volume 30, number 7, May
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Title: The Survey, volume 30, number 7, May 17, 1913
Editor: Paul U. Kellogg
Release Date: April 12, 2023 [eBook #70514]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SURVEY, VOLUME 30, NUMBER
7, MAY 17, 1913 ***
Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
THE COMMON WELFARE
THE PITTSBURGH SCHOOL STRIKE
Pittsburgh school affairs are under a cloud but the outside world
should understand certain facts, notably that the cloud itself is
stirred up, to some extent at least, by interests using it as a
cloak for their operations. These interests are two-fold: the first,
political, embracing the faction opposed to Senator Oliver; the
second, partly political and partly personal, embracing the men from
whose hands the school affairs of Pittsburgh were wrested by the
Legislature two years ago. Under the old system school buildings and
maintenance were in control of petty ward boards; in some districts
the schools were excellent but in others waste, mismanagement and
graft were rampant. Under the new system many of the old directors
secured election as ward school visitors and, shorn of their spoils,
have been bitterly opposed to the control of the small, centralized
executive board appointed by the judges of the Allegheny county
courts.
Charges brought against Supt. S. L. Heeter by a housemaid gave
politicians and ousted directors their chance to start an agitation
for a return to conditions under which they throve. These charges
were given publicity by Coronor Jamison, president of the old
central board. Superintendent Heeter demanded a court trial and was
acquitted. Afterward a committee of citizens, including the president
of the chamber of commerce and two clergymen, was appointed to
investigate the superintendent’s fitness to remain in office. This
committee has not yet reported.
Whether Superintendent Heeter is retained in office or not is aside
from the main issue—the revolution in the conduct of the Pittsburgh
schools in the past year and a half. The new board has been obliged
to spend $150,000 in transforming indescribably dirty old fire-traps,
with poor light, worse ventilation and unspeakable toilets, into
schools that could be used with decency.
The great mass of Pittsburgh’s good citizens refuse to get excited.
Not all the scare heads of the interested newspapers, the _Leader_
and the _Press_, or mass-meetings and parades of children arranged
by still more interested individuals, have befogged the recognition
by Pittsburgh people of the improvement in school affairs since
1911. The exaggeration of the children’s strike in the press of
the country, however, has been broadcast. _Collier’s Weekly_, for
example, that usually accurate publication, prints a picture with
the explanation that “a strike of 50,000 school pupils paralyzed
the Pittsburgh school system.” There was marching of children; but
when an effort was made to discover the identity of the men who the
children reported were urging them on, the agitators quickly dropped
out of sight. For a few days attendance dropped off in certain
sections, but many parents had kept their children at home for fear
of their becoming involved.
The situation has been tense, but social workers in Pittsburgh do
not anticipate that the Legislature will respond to the manufactured
agitation and put the schools back in the hands of the ward boards
whose long regime left conditions that can not be remedied in years.
A bill introduced this week would make the central board elective.
Theoretically there are arguments in support of the election-at-large
of members of the centralized board, but the appointive board was
regarded as a necessary measure if the schools were to be freed from
the domination of the old boards.
Efficiency has been the new board’s watch-word. Janitors and teachers
are not appointed on the basis of political “pull.” Already the high
school attendance has increased over 60 per cent. Manual training,
cooking and sewing classes are now found not only in wealthy
districts, but also in sections where boys and girls need such
training most.
The one point in which the new board has been weak was the failure to
establish sympathetic relations with the public in the reforms it is
putting forward and to utilize publicity as a constructive force in
the securing of them. This indifference to public opinion, although
only apparent, has been mistaken in many quarters as contempt,
especially because of the autocratic personalties of two members of
the board. It is perhaps unfortunate that the board’s president,
David Oliver, is a brother of Senator Oliver, thus giving a decided
political turn to newspaper discussion. He was the logical man for
the place, a leading member of the state school commission which
drafted the new code. As president of the old board in Allegheny, now
the north side, he had helped to make the schools of that section far
superior to those of the old city; this, in spite of the fact that
civic conditions in Allegheny were even worse than in Pittsburgh.
The unfortunate Heeter affair is in fact but an incident in the
forward movement toward responsible municipal rule in Pittsburgh.
STANDARDIZING CHILDREN’S CARE
Judge John E. Owens of the Cook County Court, Chicago, has
the distinction of having inaugurated the service of social
investigators, of having extended the court’s supervision over
thirty-three child-helping agencies and of having promoted their
close co-operation with the court and with each other.
Although Judge Owens has a contingent fund for the employment of
other judges to assist him in passing upon cases of insane and
dependent persons, he prefers to do all the work himself and use the
money for four social investigators. They report upon the conditions
involved in each case, and, aided by this information, the judge
enters his decision.
Hitherto the board of visitors, which the judge of the County
Court appoints to report upon the care of children committed to
child-helping institutions and agencies, has ordinarily attempted
little more than a perfunctory service. The present board with
Wilfred S. Reynolds as its secretary, however, had the services of
experienced social workers.
The first report of the board of visitors to the county judge tells
of co-operation and fellowship which has come into being, and of the
standardization thus brought about in buildings, equipment, methods
and service.
Among the recommendations of the report are the following:
A full record of all facts concerning the child and its previous
environment which are in the possession of the court should
accompany all commitments to institutions;
Regular and definite reports should be required by the court from
all institutions and organizations concerning all children under
guardianship;
Money which the court orders parents or guardians to pay for the
support of children should be paid to the clerk of the court and
turned in to the county treasury;
The submission of plans for new buildings or improvements should
be required of all institutions, so as to secure suggestions and
approval from a board of competent ability;
A diet should be established upon a scientific analysis of food
properties;
Assignment of routine work to be done by the children should be
strictly upon the basis of the child’s training, not service to the
institution;
Classes in industrial and special training should be organized, and
supplemented by routine work about the institution;
Record systems must be complete of the child’s history, its
institutional life and the after disposition;
Visits to placed-out children should be made as often as once in
six months;
Adoption should not be consented to until six months after placing;
Placements should be kept within the state; and
Personal investigations of all applying for children should be made.
To estimate fully the importance of the achievements recorded in this
report requires some knowledge of the acute disturbance[1] within the
field of child-care in Chicago during the year or so preceding the
work of this board of visitors. To it is attributed the credit of
having brought harmony and efficiency out of the chaos produced by
the disruption and antagonism which marked the recently repudiated
county administration.
THE CONTRACT LABOR PROBLEM IN MISSOURI
The Missouri Legislature of 1911 passed a law which provided for
the gradual abolition of the convict leasing system. Under this law
contracts employing 1,700 prisoners were due to expire December 31,
1913. Before the convening of the next Legislature, January, 1913,
many had decided that the law of 1911 by no means solved for Missouri
the problem of convict labor. It was discovered that it was most
difficult to employ convicts to the satisfaction of all.
A number of bills were introduced to solve the problem. One
representative went into the penitentiary to explain to the convicts
his bill to repeal the 1911 law. He was hissed by the convicts
who showed in this way their disapproval of the system of leasing
out their labor to contractors. When, however, the representative
explained that his bill provided that the state would get thirty
cents a day for each man and that thirty cents would go to their
nearest relative the convicts became calmer. Another bill provided
that the contract system be maintained, but set $1 a day as the
smallest wage that might be paid. Of this amount thirty cents a day
was to be given to the convict.
Finally a resolution was passed appointing three senators to
investigate and recommend to the Legislature then in session the best
means of handling the situation.
The gist of the report follows:
Prisoners in penitentiary, 2403; employed under contract system,
1600; 1650 prisoners let at $.70 per day each, forty-six cripples
at $.50 and forty-four females at $.50. The earning capacity of
the prison for the biennial period 1911-1912 was $710,000. This
excludes 400 prisoners employed by the state. The committee further
reports that about 1000 of the prisoners are confirmed criminals
and could not under any circumstances be employed outside of the
prison walls. About 300 white men and a like number of Negroes
could be worked upon the public highways.
The committee states that at this time the state cannot afford to
purchase the machinery and manage the industries now in the prison.
This it is estimated would cost about $1,000,000 for two years and
such an expenditure would cramp badly all other state institutions.
The report finally advises the Legislature to extend by enactment
the time of the prevailing contract system to a period beyond the
convening of the next Legislature, because it would be inhuman and
dangerous in many ways to allow the men to be idle.
Before the Legislature adjourned a bill was passed following in the
main the suggestions of this report. The abolition of the leasing
system is suspended till December 31, 1915. The services of the major
portion of the prisoners may be contracted at 75 cents a day for
each (an increase of 5 cents). A number not to exceed one-quarter of
all the prisoners are to be tried out on public road work and in the
manufacture of school furniture. The state binding twine factory is
to be continued.
LABOR PROBLEM OF THE POST OFFICE
The post-office appropriation bill for the year beginning July, 1913,
which was passed in the last days of the Sixty-second Congress,
provided for 2,400 additional clerks as well as an increased number
of carriers. It raised the minimum pay for clerks and carriers from
$600 to $800 a year and set the minimum for substitutes at forty
instead of thirty cents an hour. Large appropriations were made for
auxiliary clerk and carrier hire, a special sum being set aside to
prevent overwork of the regular employes during the summer vacation
period. The minimum pay for laborers and watchmen in the department
was raised from $650 to $720.
The raising of minimum salaries and the provision of extra service
to prevent overwork and insure the effectiveness of the eight-hour
day worked within ten consecutive hours, which was passed last year,
rounds out the legislation of the Sixty-second Congress affecting the
postal employes. This Congress, in the words of the _Union Postal
Clerk_, in the two years of its existence, “enacted more legislation
providing for the betterment of the condition of the postal employes
and the improvement of the service than has ever been enacted since
the establishment of the civil service among postal employes.”
The conditions which prevailed at the opening of this Congress were
described in THE SURVEY of August 6, 1911. Last year’s improvements,
which were summarized in THE SURVEY of July 13 and September 14,
include the abolition of the gag rule; the enactment of an eight-hour
day for clerks: and a Sunday-closing provision, with compensatory
time off for the group of employes who are not affected by this
provision; the raising of pay in the mail service; the providing of
safer construction for mail cars, and the provision that 75 per cent
of clerks and carriers in the second highest grades of pay should be
automatically raised each year to the highest grade.
The post-office is not as yet, however, in the opinion of those who
have studied its labor problem, a model employer. The substitutes
are not on an entirely satisfactory basis, as no provision is made
guaranteeing them a minimum number of hours a week, or setting a
limit to the number of years they serve before they are received into
the regular service. By the terms of the bill, whatever may have been
done by administrative readjustments, no provision is made to relieve
the overstrain on certain sections of the railway mail service. In
spite of many years of vigorous agitation no retirement or pension
bill for the service has as yet been passed.
THE AMERICAN COMMISSION ON CO-OPERATIVE RURAL CREDIT
Over a hundred strong and representing over three-fourths of the
states and Canada, the American Commission for the Study of the
Application of the Co-operative System to Agricultural Production,
Distribution and Finance in European Countries sailed from New York
on April 26. This commission is to visit certain European countries
under the direction of the Southern Commercial Congress. According to
the officers of the Congress it will take special note of
1st. The parts played, respectively, in the promotion of
agriculture by the governments and by voluntary organizations of
the agricultural classes.
2nd. The application of the co-operative system to agricultural
production, distribution and finance.
3rd. The effect of co-operative organization upon social conditions
in rural communities.
4th. The relation of the cost of living to the business
organization of the food-producing classes.
The work of the commission was given standing by the joint resolution
of the Senate and the House of Representatives authorizing the
secretary of state to bespeak for the commission the diplomatic
courtesies of the various European governments. It was further
strengthened by the appointment by President Wilson of a commission
composed of seven persons to accompany and co-operate with the
American commission, and through the appropriation by Congress of
$25,000 for the expenses of this federal commission. Senator Duncan
Fletcher, of Florida, president of the Southern Commercial Congress
is chairman of the federal commission. The other members are: Senator
Gore, of Oklahoma; Congressman Moss, of Indiana; Clarence J. Owens,
of Maryland, managing director of the Southern Commercial Congress;
Kenyon L. Butterfield, of Massachusetts, president of Amherst
College; John Lee Coulter, of Minnesota, the government’s expert
on agricultural statistics; and Colonel Harvie Jordan, of Georgia,
president of the Southern Cotton Growers’ Association. Sevellon Brown
accompanies the federal commission as a representative of the State
Department.
The American commission will return to New York on July 25. The
federal commission will as soon as possible thereafter render its
report to Congress. A committee of nine governors appointed at the
last conference of governors is awaiting the report of the American
commission in order to draft appropriate state legislation in regard
to farmers’ credit and co-operative organizations. Few commissions
have gone abroad with the backing and the enthusiasm that accompanies
this one. Representative of national and state public authorities,
business men, and farmers, its report promises to hasten practical
measures for the relief of the financial burden of the American
farmer.
LOUISVILLE BEGINS TO CLEAN HOUSE
Louisville, Ky., is at last making progress in the task of securing
better housing for the people. Three years ago a law which set much
higher standards than those previously prevailing was secured. The
act simply gave the city permission to employ a housing inspector
instead of commanding it to do so. As a result, Louisville’s housing
legislation remained until last summer a matter of purely academic
interest despite all the efforts of the housing committee.
During the vacation season four medical school inspectors were
assigned to housing work. There were hopes that these men would
accomplish something but when the schools opened again in the fall
and the result of their efforts was summed up the total, according to
the housing committee, was disappointingly small.
Meanwhile some amendments had been made to the law which included
a mandatory provision for an inspector. This inspector was to be
appointed by the health officer, Dr. W. E. Grant, who is in sympathy
with those who are working for better housing for Louisville. The
city administration pleaded that it was too poor to pay an additional
salary but the offer of the Charity Organization Society to provide
the money was not accepted. At last, however, a policeman was
detailed to the task and though he was without training he proved to
have tact and persistence. As a result one hundred violations of the
law were corrected within two months.
MILK BILLS DEFEATED IN NEW YORK STATE
At almost the very close of the session of the New York Legislature,
the bills introduced at the instigation of the New York Milk
Committee by Assemblyman Carroll to give to the state more complete
control over milk production and milk handling through the State
Departments of Agriculture and Health were defeated, although one
came within half a dozen votes of passing. These bills were drawn in
accordance with the resolutions adopted by the governors’ delegates
from eastern and middle states at a conference last February.
The bills were drawn to supplement each other and provided that
the State Department of Agriculture should have charge of dairy
inspection and the State Department of Health of medical inspection
of the dairy employes and laboratory tests of milk. According to the
first of these bills, veterinarians now in the employ of the State
Department of Agriculture were to be employed as dairy inspectors.
It is the opinion of the committee that only competent veterinarians
can perform the examination of dairy cattle and that the training
which competent veterinarians receive equips them to make sanitary
inspections of the buildings in which dairy cattle are housed and
the surroundings of these buildings. The companion bill to amend
the public health laws gave to the local medical representatives
of the State Department of Health power not only to make medical
examinations of dairy employes but to test the water supply on dairy
farms and the milk delivered by farmers to creamery and milk stations.
After the Carroll bill was defeated Senator Wagner introduced a bill
providing for a commission to investigate the methods of production,
distribution and sale of milk and cream. The state commissioner of
agriculture, the Senate and Assembly chairmen of the Committees on
Agriculture, the master of the grange, the secretary of the New
York Sanitary Milk Dealers’ Association and the president of the
National Housewives’ League were named in the bill as the members of
the commission. This substitute was attacked by the New York Milk
Committee as merely a measure for delay and on the ground that it
contains but one actual representative of the consuming public, the
president of the National Housewives’ League. The secretary of the
Milk Committee pointed out that the commission contained no health
expert, no sanitarian, no bacteriologist and no veterinarian. In
the closing moments of the Legislature an attempt was made to have
at least the state health commissioner added as a member of the
commission. This effort proved to be unnecessary for the bill was
only passed by the Senate.
“HUNTING A JOB” IN SOCIAL WORK
“Hunting a job” in social work presents almost as many terrors as
confront the unemployed casual laborer. The New York Charities
Directory lists 3500 organizations, a large part of which employ
paid workers. This is but a local index of the number of societies
that need trained workers. Yet the individual who is looking for a
position in social work, soon learns that the task of finding the
right opening is not easy. He secures interviews with busy executives
only to find that the positions he had heard of are already filled.
Executive officers, on the other hand, are forced to spend much time
looking up references and writing to possible applicants, and then
often fail to find the right candidate. As a result the right person
and the right place frequently fail to make connections.
This difficulty it has been felt was only partially overcome by the
existing employment agencies and employment departments of colleges
and schools of philanthropy. In an effort to meet the needs more
completely the Intercollegiate Bureau of Occupations, with the
co-operation of the New York School of Philanthropy and of the
Russell Sage Foundation, has established a separate department to
serve as a clearing-house for workers and positions in social work.
This bureau was organized by the New York alumnae societies of nine
eastern colleges for women to help solve the problem of employment
for college graduates and other trained women in occupations other
than teaching. Since its opening on October 1, 1911, the bureau has
filled 158 positions in the field of social work and 271 in other
lines of activity.
The new Department for Social Workers will follow in its special
field the methods which have proved successful in the general work of
the bureau. It will accept for registration both women and men, and
will be national in scope. It is governed by an Executive Committee
of eight, which includes three representatives from the Board of
Directors of the bureau, Mary Vida Clark, Mary Van Kleeck and
Margaret F. Byington. The other members of the committee are Edward
T. Devine, of the New York School of Philanthropy; John M. Glenn,
of the Russell Sage Foundation; R. H. Edwards, of the International
Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association; Elizabeth W.
Dodge; and James S. Cushman. An Advisory Committee composed of
persons actively interested in social and civic work of national
scope will assist in increasing its usefulness to social organization.
At the outset it has been decided to limit the services of the
department to those who have had some training or experience. A
year in social work, or in a school of philanthropy or a college
degree, is required of applicants. A registration fee of one dollar
is charged, and a small commission for positions secured through the
bureau. No fee is charged to employers. Sigrid Wynbladh, formerly
with the New York School of Philanthropy, has been appointed
assistant manager, in charge of the Department for Social Workers,
under the supervision of Frances Cummings, manager of the bureau. The
office is located for the present in connection with the main office
of the bureau, at 38 West 32nd Street, New York, but it is hoped that
space may be secured later in the United Charities Building. The new
department opened March 1. Already 182 well qualified applicants are
registered and 107 calls have been received for responsible workers.
TO ORGANIZE RURAL FORCES
The United States Department of Agriculture which, together with
the various state agricultural agencies, has hitherto given primary
attention to the problems of production is now aiming to bring about
a better organization of rural life. One of the first things the
department will attempt is to look into existing organizations,
enterprises and activities in order to determine just how they are
working and just what their effect is on rural communities. Next, it
expects to take steps to encourage and bring into active co-operation
organizations that will be helpful in advancing rural life.
The Department of Agriculture and some of the states have already
developed work in this field and it will be the object of the Rural
Organization Service, operating through the department, to secure the
co-operation of all these agencies. The Department of Agriculture is
now charged specifically with the problem of studying the marketing
of farm produce. Congress at its last session appropriated $50,000
to enable the secretary of agriculture “to acquire and to diffuse
among the people of the United States useful information on subjects
connected with the marketing and distributing of farm products.”
Marketing, however, is only one aspect of the problem of rural
organization. The General Education Board, which for several years
has co-operated with the Department of Agriculture in the support
of its farm demonstration work, has expressed a willingness to
extend its co-operation with the department in this problem of Rural
Organization Service. This offer of further co-operation has been
accepted. The secretary of agriculture has sought and secured the
services of Dr. T. N. Carver, professor of economics in Harvard
University, as director of this work, and the president of Harvard
University has granted Dr. Carver indefinite leave of absence.
It is expected that the work of investigation, experiment and
demonstration now conducted by the Department of Agriculture and by
many of the state colleges and experiment stations will fit into the
new scheme. The Rural Organization Service plans to co-ordinate and
crystalize these results and apply them in community effort for the
advancement of agriculture.
CONFERENCE OF NEGRO INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS
A conference on Rural Industrial Schools for Colored People in the
South was held in New York April 17-18. The conference was called
by six colored principals: Leslie Pinckney Hill, of Manassas, Va.;
William E. Benson, of Kowaliga, Ala.; W. J. Edwards, of Snow Hill,
Ala.; W. A. Hunt, of Fort Valley. Ga.; W. D. Holtzclaw, of Utica,
Miss., and Emma Wilson of Mayesville, S. C. Between one and two
hundred people attended the various sessions, and nearly every
southern state was represented.
There are about 200 schools for Negroes in the South which are
supported by private philanthropy. Some of these schools are
supported by such bodies as the American Missionary Association
but a larger number have been organized by the initiative of their
principals and have no backing save that of their individual boards.
Mr. Hill, in his opening address, pleaded for co-operation among
the principals and the boards of Negro schools. Under the present
system he said each school works for itself, determines its own
educational standard, buys its supplies and unaided raises its
money. He recommended co-operation in the raising of funds, in the
standardizing of studies, in the standardizing of accounts and in the
buying of supplies.
These four suggestions were the central themes of the conference.
The problem of how to raise money received the most attention. At
present the members of the board of the school and the principal
appeal to any person of means who can be approached. As the number
of schools increases the same people are solicited again and again,
and the raising of money becomes increasingly difficult. The colored
principal jeopardizes his school by his continued absences, and he
often grows despondent as he knocks, frequently in vain, at the door
of office or home.
Clarence H. Kelsey, president of the Title Guarantee and Trust
Company of New York declared that the present system of money-raising
is breaking down. Many of the smaller schools, he said, would in the
future find it impossible to continue unless they could enlarge their
plans for self-support.
Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of the New York _Evening Post_
and chairman of the board of directors of the Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, suggested that the field be divided
and one section of the country assigned to one school, another
section to another. Instead for instance of twenty-five schools
trying to get support from a city like Rochester, two or three should
use this territory.
The city would then feel responsible he argued for a definite amount
of support, and would take a keener interest in doing a good deal
for a few schools than in doing a little for a score or two. The
conference came to no decision on this matter.
The discussion on co-operation in the raising of funds incidentally
indicated the need for carrying out Mr. Hill’s next two suggestions,
the standardizing of the curriculum, and the standardizing of
accounts. The curriculum in the Negro schools is left to the
principal and his board. While recognizing the different conditions
in different southern states, it was agreed that some uniformity
in courses of study should be secured. The need of good academic
training was strongly emphasized by the conference. It was argued
that in his zeal for industrial work, the principal must not forget
the foundation of all school work, the ability to read and write
well, to use numbers, and to reason clearly and intelligently.
Standardizing studies it was recognized would facilitate the
standardizing of accounts. A suggestive paper was read on this
subject by Charles E. Mitchell, certified public accountant of the
West Virginia Colored Institute.
The fourth suggestion that the schools might save by co-operative
buying was a new idea to most of the people present, and was felt to
be worth looking into carefully. Mr. Hill pointed to the co-operative
movement in Germany, where the farmers, each insignificant as a unit,
as a co-operative body can command a credit of 200,000,000 marks.
“Why,” he said, “should not the schools buy their flour from the same
mill, their coal from the same mine? Such an arrangement would save
them tens of thousands of dollars each year.”
While the conference was concerned with the smaller secondary schools
of the South, delegates were present from Hampton and Tuskegee.
The conference closed with the formation of a temporary
organization consisting of W. D. Holtzclaw, president; Emma Wilson,
vice-president, Leslie Pinckney Hill, secretary and treasurer, and
four other board members W. A. Hunt, W. J. Edwards, W. T. B. Williams
and O. L. Coleman. These officers are to hold a meeting in Atlanta
on June 17, and will submit their conclusions to the larger body of
school principals in November. It was the hope of the meeting that a
practical plan of co-operation might be presented.
THE RURAL CHURCH
In some great day
The Country Church
Will find its voice
And it will say:
“I stand in the fields
Where the wide earth yields
Her bounties of fruit and grain;
Where the furrows turn
Till the plowshares burn
As they come round and round again;
Where the workers pray
With their tools all day
In sunshine and shadow and rain.
“And I bid them tell
Of the crops they sell
And speak of the work they have done;
I speed every man
In his hope and plan
And follow his day with the sun;
And grasses and trees,
The birds and the bees
I know and feel ev’ry one.
“And out of it all
As the seasons fall
I build my great temple alway;
I point to the skies,
But my footstone lies
In commonplace work of the day;
For I preach the worth
Of the native earth—
To love and to work is to pray.”
LIBERTY H. BAILEY in _Rural Manhood_.
FARMER SMITH AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH
FRED EASTMAN
Secretary Matinecock Neighborhood Association,
Locust Valley, N. Y.
Farmer Smith needs help. He needs it here and now. He is trying to
keep his family supplied with food and clothes. He is struggling to
give his children an education and at the same time to pay off the
mortgage on the farm and to save enough to keep his wife and himself
from want in their old age. All around him are those who are waging
the same battle, but they give him little help. Each one fights
alone, as his father did before him.
Twelve years ago Farmer Smith had a $5,000 farm. It yielded him
an income of about $500. That was a return of 10 per cent. Today,
because of the general rise in land values, that farm is worth
$10,000. It yields him about $700. It is now only a 7 per cent
investment. His profits have decreased. Moreover, his land is poorer
than it was twelve years ago. Smith never learned how to farm
intensively. He knows only the crude methods used by his father in
the days of virgin soil. The years ahead give him no promise that he
will be able to make even as much from his farm as he is making now.
The economic pinch has left its marks upon his social life. Many of
his old neighbors have sold their farms and moved away. Some have
left their farms in the hands of tenants who are robbing the land
of its fertility. Community spirit has vanished. The old forms of
recreation have lapsed with the passing of the settled population. No
new forms have taken their place except in the towns, and these are
usually of a character that would not be tolerated in the country.
Smith’s boy is waiting his first opportunity to get off the farm. His
has been a life of all work and no play, and while it has not exactly
made him a dull boy, it has made him hate farming. Smith’s wife is
leading the life of a drudge, and she swears her daughters are not
going to live on the farm if she can help it. With the stagnation
in social life has come stagnation in moral and religious life, for
morals do not flourish in a stagnant community.
Yes, Smith needs help. He needs to know how to farm more
scientifically. He needs a better income. He needs to know how to
organize with his fellow farmers to protect themselves against the
inroads of the middlemen and the tenants. He needs better markets
for his crops and better transportation facilities to those markets.
He needs a school for his children that will give them as good an
education as they would get in any city school, a school that will
instill in them a love of the country, a knowledge of farming and an
appreciation of its economic significance. He needs more recreation
facilities for the whole family. He needs a handier kitchen for his
wife and daughter and many more opportunities for them to broaden
their lives and enrich their minds in literary and social activities.
The question is, Should the church give it? Should it go to Farmer
Smith and say:
“Smith, I am a bit ashamed of myself; I have not been doing for
you what I ought. I have been preaching about Elysian fields and
allowing the riches of bluegrass, corn and wheat fields to be
squandered with prodigal hand; I have been trying to pave your road
to Glory Land, but I have paid no attention to your road to the
nearest market; I have talked about mansions in the skies and cared
little about the buildings in which you and your family must spend
your lives here and now; I have been teaching your children God’s
word in the Bible, but I have left his word in the rivers and the
hills, in the grass and the trees, without prophet, witness, or
defender.
“Forgive me, Smith; I am not going to do it any more. I am going
to take an interest in your every day affairs—your crops, your
stock, your markets, your school, your lodge and your recreations.
I am going to see if I can help you in your effort to get your boy
started on a farm of his own. I’ve preached a long time against
Sunday baseball; now I’m going to try to give your children so much
recreation through the week that they won’t care for it on Sunday.
I am going to take as one of the articles of my creed, ‘I believe
in better roads for Smith, and I propose to have them.’ I am going
to try to save you and your family not only for Paradise, but for
America and American farms.”
Should the country church take its place shoulder to shoulder with
Smith in the line in which he is battling for existence? Should it
take up the task of encouraging agricultural organizations that will
work for more scientific farming, better roads and better markets?
Should it throw open its doors, not three hours a week but three
hours a day, to Smith’s sons and daughters that they may have a
place to meet and to play and to mingle with each other in literary,
athletic and social activities? Should the church forget all about
itself and its creedal and polemic differences? Should it forget its
own salvation in its effort to save Smith? Should it lose itself in
his service, even if some churches have to die in the attempt, as
long ago their Master died?
Should it?
“THE COUNTY MAN”
JOHN R. HOWARD, Jr.
General Secretary Thomas Thompson Trust
The rural leader, whether his interest is primarily in the church,
the school, good roads, health, wholesome recreation or the care of
the neglected, must, if he would get anywhere, be interested, also,
in better farming. For one reason, there is no better way to obtain
the interest of the farmer. Then, too, a normal standard of health,
intelligence or morals depends, in the country as in the city, upon
a normal standard of living. Finally, the socialized church, the
vocationalized school, good roads, sanitation, community play places,
experienced advisers for family problems all cost money, and the
majority of our rural townships are taxed already to the limit of
endurance.
The “county man” is the man the United States Department of
Agriculture is sending into the counties of the North, not only to
make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, but to help the
farmer earn two dollars where he earned one before—quite a different
proposition. This entails not only scientific choice and treatment
of crops, but co-operative buying of fertilizers and feed and
co-operative marketing of products. Further, this “county man,” who
is helping the farmer to double his dollars, has a rare opportunity
to work out with him the problem of spending them and will prove to
be a vital factor in the promotion of any of the ends of community
betterment.
That the government requires the formation of a county organization
to direct the work and to finance it, beyond the $100 a month allowed
by the government toward the agent’s salary, establishes at the
outset a co-operative county agency through which other work may be
taken up. It is the intention of the government to encourage all
purposes looking to a better country life.
There are 127 of these men now in the field. They are serving in
twenty-three different states. The unfulfilled applications number
276. In January the number was but sixteen although fifty-nine more
had been promised. This shows how eager counties throughout the
country have been to take advantage of this important new service.
Rural leaders should urge the establishment of this service in
their counties, encourage it when started, and, whether the initial
organization be an agricultural association or an improvement league,
be ready to make use of it for the social and educational as well as
the agricultural needs of the county.
SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS[2]
PHILIP WELTNER
The second Southern Sociological Congress came to a close on the
night of April 29. Its four days were given over to solid criticism
and constructive suggestion. Eight hundred delegates gathered
together from all over the Southland to learn from the ninety-six
specialists the congress brought to Atlanta. Most of the ninety-six
were men and women of the South.
One fact the Congress made plain enough, and that was that the South
knew its problems and was busy about their solution. Those present
seemed to realize that they were the empire builders of a new South.
While the questions coming before the several conferences were the
same as those that confront the North and West, they were treated
from the standpoint of the peculiar needs of the South. But this
was done without the slightest sectional consciousness. The South
was taking counsel of itself that the entire nation might profit by
its advance. Although the field of the congress was sectional, its
outlook was national.
The plan of organization followed was much the same as that of
the National Conference of Charities and Correction. There were
seven special conferences gathered under the name of the Southern
Sociological Congress. Each was separately organized and met with
the other divisions only in the general night session. The seven
divisions were: organized charities, courts and prisons, public
health, child welfare, travelers’ aid, race problems and the church
and social service.
The latter was an innovation with the Southern Sociological Congress.
It served to emphasize the fact that “the church is the fellowship of
those who love in the service of those who suffer.” The discussions
in this conference all served to bring out in sharp relief the new
spirit beginning to dominate the old church. It was agreed that the
social worker who can satisfy only the bare material needs of life is
poorly equipped for his task, that religion must lend its strength to
every effort towards individual or social reconstruction, and that
the call of the church is a call to service.
The individual conference that enjoyed the greatest popularity
was the one on race problems. Throughout its four days of almost
continuous session there were in attendance about 400 persons, half
white and half colored. Some of the Negro delegates, fearing an
unjust discrimination against those of their race in the conference
sessions, had prepared, while on the way to Atlanta, resolutions of
protest. These were never tendered. No reason was intruded for their
presentation. One of the Negro delegates expressed the situation most
aptly. He said:
“The old order of whites understood the old black man. But it has
remained for this Congress to demonstrate the possibility of the
young white men of the new order sympathizing in and appreciating
the hopes and aspirations of the Negro of today.”
Too great a significance can not be attached to this simple statement
of fact. Its optimism is the culture-soil out of which we may expect
to see develop that happy adaptation of the two races, which after
all is the solution of the race problem.
This incident, and what it goes to show, would alone justify the
existence of a southern congress separate and distinct from the
National Conference of Charities and Correction. The peculiar
problems that faced the conference on courts and prisons make this
separate treatment even more desirable. In the South there are not
many of those great central, highly organized penal institutions
known as penitentiaries. For the most part we have county chain-gang
camps engaged in road work. A distinct contribution was made to
southern penology by Hooper Alexander, of Georgia, when he showed the
absolute identity of the convict lease in Georgia with the system
once known as the institution of slavery.
The conference discussion made clear the fact that the county convict
road camp, prosecuted without a scintilla of effort at training or
character building, is not less immoral than the old lease system;
that the wrong of public exploitation is as great as exploitation at
the hands of a private lessee.
The congress made a tremendous impression on Atlanta and the whole
state of Georgia. Its influence will spread over the entire South. It
served to quicken the civic consciousness of our people and to make
them better acquainted with their common problems. It took the mask
off sociology and unfrocked it of scholastic appearance. In pointing
out our needs, the congress unified our aims and at the same time
broadened our vision.
UNIVERSITY FORUM
(_In downtown New York_)
JEREMIAH W. JENKS
Director of the Division of Public Affairs, School of Commerce,
Accounts and Finance, New York University
New York University has added a chapter to the history of “town and
gown” by opening a University Forum in lower New York. This has
been held throughout the winter in the Judson Memorial Building in
Washington Square, and its purpose has been to put the university
at the service of people in New York interested in a thoroughly
impartial discussion of questions of the day.
The purposes of the forum as announced last fall are to make the
university a greater force in training students to perform the duties
of citizenship, in helping citizens to understand the problems
of government, and in making thinking men act and active men
think. Public officials, business leaders, social workers, eminent
authorities were asked to present important questions of government
and industry and discuss vital problems of civic and commercial life.
The methods employed were somewhat different from those usually
followed in public discussions. In order that the academic atmosphere
of thoroughness, sincerity and impartiality might so far as possible
be conserved without sacrificing at the same time the interest
that comes from having questions presented by experts and from the
stimulus of controversy, it was decided that each question discussed
should cover three sessions. At the first session an able authority
has presented one side of the question. If there were time, as has
usually been the case in the hour and a half, the audience has
questioned the speaker in order to bring out more fully the points
made.
At the second session, a week later, the opposite side has been
presented with similar questioning.
At the third meeting the director of the forum has enumerated briefly
the most essential points made on both sides, giving his own judgment
regarding their validity and the relation of the question under
discussion to the public interest. In some instances where it has
seemed desirable, he has supplemented the arguments presented in
the discussion by points of his own in order to make the discussion
as complete as possible. In this summary an effort has been made to
present the questions as impartially as possible from the viewpoint
of the public interest.
In addition to this, representative citizens from the audience
have given in brief talks of not more than ten minutes each their
own views. Sometimes these voluntary speakers have been students,
sometimes citizens. So far as possible the names were learned in
advance in order that the discussion might proceed in the nature of
a debate with the two sides presented alternately. In these third
meetings especially, the interest has chiefly centered. In two or
three instances, notably perhaps in the consideration of woman’s
suffrage and the closed shop, the discussion was most animated, not
to say excited, but nevertheless the temper of university study and
the desire, however heated the feelings, to reach the truth and a
fair judgment was not lost.
The list of topics and speakers included:
The Control of Vice and Crime—
William J. Gaynor, mayor of New York; Arthur Woods, former deputy
commissioner of police, in special charge of the investigation of
Italian criminals and the white slave traffic.
The Relation of Government to Corporations—
Martin W. Littleton, member of the Congressional Committee on
Investigation of Industrial Monopolies; Herbert Knox Smith, late
United States commissioner of corporations in charge of the
Investigations of the Standard Oil Company, the American Tobacco
Company, the Meat Packers, the International Harvester Company,
and many other of the great corporations.
Socialism—
Victor L. Berger, the first Socialist to be elected to Congress;
Bird S. Coler, former comptroller of the City of New York.
Woman Suffrage—
Anna Howard Shaw, president National American Woman Suffrage
Association; Mrs. A. J. George, organization secretary of the
Massachusetts Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage.
The Open Shop versus the Unionized Shop—
John Kirby, president National Association of Manufacturers, and
Joseph W. Bryce, president of the Trades and Workers’ Association
of America; James O’Connell, president Metal Trades Department
and vice-president American Federation of Labor, and C. G.
Norman, ex-chairman Board of Governors of the Building Trades
Employers’ Association.
The meetings seem to have reached the results sought in more than
one way. They have been well attended both by students and public,
although comparatively few students have registered and done the
reading required and passed the examination in order to secure
university credit. For those students, however, who entered upon the
work seriously the course has been as severe both in the quantity
of reading required, in the reports upon that reading and in the
examination as the regular university courses, and students have
expressed their appreciation of the interest as well as the value of
the course. Similar expressions have come from citizens in numerous
instances. There have been regular attendants from Manhattan,
Brooklyn, the Bronx, Yonkers and also from New Jersey. Requests
have been made for an extension of the forum to other boroughs and
the matter is under consideration for the coming year. Inquiries
have come from as far west as Kansas and Calgary in western Canada
regarding the methods employed; and numerous requests for printed
reports of the addresses and discussions have been received.[3]
The audiences in one respect at any rate seem to have lacked somewhat
the university spirit of inquiry, having retained rather the normal
human spirit of liking to hear views that agree with one’s own. It
was noticeable, for example, that the people who came to hear the
Socialist speaker were the Socialists coming to be flattered, and not
the anti-Socialists coming to learn. Likewise, the anti-Socialist
speaker was not listened to by so many Socialists as by those of
his own opinion. Perhaps equally noticeable was this tendency to
listen to speakers of their own side in the case of the discussion on
woman’s suffrage. Surely it is to be hoped that in another year the
academic spirit will have increased sufficiently so that each group
will be equally anxious to hear their opponents, because it is, after
all, primarily from those who differ from us that we learn, rather
than from those with whom we agree.
THE ST. LOUIS PEACE CONGRESS
CHARLES E. BEALS
Secretary Chicago Peace Society
The biennial gathering of the pacifist clans in the Fourth American
Peace Congress at St. Louis, May 1-3, enabled those who attended the
previous congresses (at New York in 1907, at Chicago in 1909 and at
Baltimore in 1911) to gauge the direction and speed of the movement.
Like its predecessors, the St. Louis congress was initiated by
the American Peace Society, which has been the national peace
organization in the United States since 1828. Unlike any of its
predecessors, the Fourth American Peace Congress was financed
entirely by the local commercial association. The New York Congress
had Mr. Carnegie for its god-father. The Chicago congress received
material assistance from the Chicago Association of Commerce. The St.
Louis congress was the first one the expenses of which were entirely
underwritten by business men through a business men’s organization.
This precedent will render easier the organization of future
congresses.
In one respect the St. Louis congress was unique—in the official
participation of Latin-American governments. This is not saying that
this was the first congress in which ambassadors have taken part.
Earl Grey, then governor general of Canada, Ambassador Bryce and
the Mexican ambassador were notable figures at New York. Count von
Bernstorff, the German ambassador, and diplomatic representatives
of other nations were present at Chicago, and Minister Wu Ting
Fang was the most picturesque and popular visitor at the latter
congress. Indeed the international session of the Chicago Congress
may perhaps be reckoned as the most thoroughly international of the
four congresses. At Baltimore a French senator and a Belgian senator
were conspicuous figures. But the St. Louis congress was the first in
which the ambassadors and ministers of the Latin-American nations sat
as official delegates representing their respective governments. And
the frank, honest, kindly message delivered by the Peruvian minister
was welcomed by all lovers of truth and international justice. In
fact the congress insisted that he should repeat his address at
another session.
The two addresses most warmly applauded were those of Dr. Thomas E.
Green and Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, both of Chicago. Dr. Green, a wide
traveler and popular Chautauqua lecturer, spoke in place of Secretary
of State Bryan, and his address was a piece of oratory of the sort
seldom heard in this scientific age.
Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones discussed the psychology of heroism. The
writer recalls riding with Mr. Jones in Washington in 1909, when we
were corralling speakers for the Chicago congress. Mr. Jones burst
out: “I want some one to discuss the psychology of war. There will
be plenty of discussion of international law and of the economic,
moral and educational aspects of the peace problem.” Then and there
the subject of Armaments as Irritants was assigned to the veteran
social worker and militant pulpiteer. And his presentation of this
subject before the Chicago congress (using the homely barnyard figure
of de-horning cattle) was one of the most delightful and valuable
contributions to that congress. At St. Louis he followed up this
psychological investigation with his survey of heroisms. So human,
so true to life, so morally prophetic, so shot through and through
with first hand information gained in four years of service in the
Civil War, so illumined with poetry and ripe literary culture was
this address, that again and again the speaker was forced to bow in
response to the prolonged applause.
There were not lacking men who “spoke by the book,” men who had
participated in the Hague Conferences, senators and representatives,
authors of books on international problems—men like former
Vice-President Fairbanks, Dr. James Brown Scott, Senator Burton
(president of the American Peace Society), Congressman Bartholdt
(president of the congress), Congressman Ainey, Dr. Benjamin F.
Trueblood (for over a score of years secretary of the American Peace
Society), Prof. Paul S. Reinsch, Prof. W. I. Hull, Dean W. P. Rogers;
the United States commissioner of education, Dr. Claxton; college
presidents like David Starr Jordan, C. F. Thwing, S. C. Mitchell, A.
Ross Hill, Laura Drake Gill, Frank L. McVey, Booker T. Washington,
and others; business men like Andrew Carnegie, Leroy A. Goddard, J.
G. Schmidlapp and Eugene Levering; the secretaries and directors
of various peace offices from Bunker Hill to the Golden Gate; the
official head of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Mrs.
Pennypacker, and her predecessor, Mrs. Phillip N. Moore, under whose
administration was created the peace department of the women’s clubs.
British America was represented by such distinguished men as Hon.
Benjamin Russell, justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, and
John Lewis, editor of the _Toronto Star_.
In connection with the congress inter-collegiate oratorical contests
were conducted, the coming Hundred Years of Peace Celebration
described, special church services held, and social courtesies
bestowed through receptions and dinners.
Should one ask what is the most characteristic feature of the peace
movement in 1913, perhaps it might truly be said that pacifism more
and more is being formulated into a science. The organized peace
movement began ninety-eight years ago purely as a moral reform. It is
no less a moral reform today. But it has accumulated a vast amount of
historic, economic, juridical, biological and general sociological
data.
When one considers the movement of the human animal from the day of
the man whose bones recently were dug up from the Sussex gravels;
when one measures the progress of human beings from cave-dwelling to
Universal Postal Unions and Hague Conferences and Courts; when one
notes the marked decrease in the number of wars, the total abolition
of private war, the almost revolutionary mitigation of war practices
(so that today one finds it comparatively comfortable to “get his
living by being killed”); when one remembers that the world is
beginning to think in economic terms; when one examines the beginning
already made towards the substitution of judicial procedure for fist
law; when one counts up the half hundred things actually being done
officially by governments acting internationally; when one perceives
that the man animal is specializing in two things—rational thinking
and morality—then one can easily believe that, having so progressed
from jungleism towards internationalism, the race probably will not
stop now and here.
Direction and distance are prophetic. Only by some unforeseen
and catastrophic and utter extinction of the human species can
man escape his blessed and inevitable and rapidly approaching
terrestrial destiny of organized pacifism and world-wide scientific
and industrial co-operation. The tiny mountain rill of pacifism
has become an ocean-seeking river, on whose mighty current the
war-afflicted human race is being borne on towards the ocean of a
real civilization.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See THE SURVEY for March 30, 1912.
[2] See THE SURVEY for May 10, page 212.
[3] It would be desirable if a sufficient number of persons
interested would contribute so that it would be practicable to print
in full the discussions, properly edited with bibliographies and
notes, so as to make a really authoritative booklet on the questions
under discussion.
BOOKS
THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE
By H. G. WELLS. B. W. Huebsch. 61 pp. Price $.60; by mail of THE
SURVEY $.65.
This is a small book, sixty-one pages of large type, containing an
address delivered at the Royal Institution in England. But the value
of the publication is out of proportion to its size. Here is the
abundant Wells literature of the last two decades in a compact and
highly concentrated extract form. And this means, as every lover
of this English author will know at once, a wealth of suggestive
speculation and stimulating idealism.
The thesis of the book is that we now have the materials in hand for
a systematic and accurate “exploration of the future.” There is no
reason why we should not be able to forecast the future development
of society, by a critical study of operative causes, as definitely
as we now reconstruct the past conditions of the race by a critical
study of the geological and archeological record. What the scientist
now does in the fields of physics or astronomy, we ought to be able
to do just as easily in the field of social life. “Suppose,” says
Wells, “that the laws of social and political development were
given as many brains, were given as much attention, criticism and
discussion, as we have given to the laws of chemical combination,
and what might we not expect?” Here, evidently, is the philosophical
justification of The War of the Worlds, Anticipations, The Future in
America, New Worlds for Old, and many another fascinating volumes from
Wells’ pen which might be mentioned.
This thesis, however, constitutes only a part of the book’s abundant
material. A keen psychological discussion of the two divergent types
of mind, the forward-looking and the backward-looking, into which
all men may be divided; a passing glance at the pragmatic standard
of “it works”; a survey of the great-man theory versus the economic
theory of social determinism; an incisive critique of positivism; a
bold and eloquent prophecy of the future destiny of man upon this
planet—here are only a few of the “extras” which are contained in
this distillation of the Wells philosophy. About as good an example
of _multum in parvo_ as I have ever seen!
JOHN HAYNES HOLMES.
SOCIAL WELFARE IN NEW ZEALAND
By HUGH H. LUSK. Sturges & Walton Co. 287 pp. Price $1.50; by mail
of THE SURVEY $1.62.
Looking back as an old man upon the record he himself has helped to
shape, Hugh H. Lusk, in his Social Welfare in New Zealand, points out
the significance, particularly for the United States, of that method
of government which he calls State Socialism. Nothing so annoys New
Zealanders as the ever-recurring criticism that their experiments
have been carried out upon too small a scale and under conditions too
unusual to be of value to the great remote countries whose single
cities contain more people than the whole dominion of New Zealand.
Yet doubters still will question, and standpatters will refuse to
be moved, by this account of actual accomplishments. He who is not
blind, however, to the evils which have followed private profit in
public utilities, and who has seen governments conferring special
privileges upon the few at the expense of the many, as he turns here
again to New Zealand may well find inspiring faith in the ability of
a whole people to legislate toward the common good.
Mr. Lusk shows how in New Zealand, government-built railroads became
a necessity in a sparsely settled country where private capital
would not venture, and how an extensive scheme of legislation for
the benefit of settlers on the land was forced upon a people whose
appetite for mutual help grew with what it fed upon. Each piece
of legislation had in view no more than the meeting of a definite
difficulty as it arose. Yet step by step New Zealanders went on
in the same direction, until they had reached the point where,
somewhat to their own surprise, they found themselves famous and
envied in the world at large. Some of that surprise is due to the
fact that politics, even as we know them here, are there recognized
to have played an important part in shaping the destinies of those
islands. “Dick” Seddon and his followers appreciated to its full, the
vote-getting value of land reform, progressive taxation and public
improvements. Mr. Lusk makes too little of this significant lesson
from New Zealand.
And by one who understands the “States” so well, and who is writing
for our encouragement and warning, it is surprising that more
emphasis is not placed upon methods of administration. To me, as I
came to appreciate the New Zealand civil servant, his integrity, his
ability, the esteem with which he is held, it always seemed that
in him more than anywhere else was to be found the secret of such
success as New Zealand has attained. Turn the present corps out and
put in such incompetents and grafters as we have in many of our state
departments in America, and the whole New Zealand structure would
come tumbling down immediately. Not until law and public opinion make
it possible, can we have here such administration of labor laws,
for instance, as Edward Tregear has given these many years to New
Zealand, and not until then will new labor laws be of much more avail
to us than old ones are now.
Mr. Lusk’s moral is, “Go thou and do likewise.” By law prevent
the accumulation of inordinate riches and provide for the general
diffusion of the sum total of prosperity. But when we find that,
putting the best construction upon available data, the definition of
a man or woman not in receipt of an income of more than $975, “in
New Zealand, practically includes all classes and persons engaged in
laboring or mechanical pursuits as well as junior clerks or school
teachers,” we wonder, after all, whether New Zealand’s road is the
one for others to follow. There is many and many a man and woman in
that country to whom $975 a year is undreamed of comfort. If this
is all that reform can do under the best of circumstances, is this
particular game worth the candle? The New Zealand worker just now
is saying rather vociferously that it is not. There lies the real
hope for reform, that it does not stop, even though it falters. The
final lesson from New Zealand is beyond what we are here told. Surely
it is that those who will may preach reform and State Socialism to
their hearts’ content, but that the workers of other countries must
not imitate the mistakes of their New Zealand brothers, neglecting
political and industrial organization and leaving it to others to
decide what is the public welfare.
PAUL KENNADAY.
FIRE PREVENTION
By EDWARD F. CROKER. Dodd. Mead & Co. 354 pp. Price $1.50; by mail
of THE SURVEY $1.
Fire Prevention, by Edward F. Croker, formerly chief of the New York
Fire Department for almost twelve years, is a presentation of the
principal safeguards against loss by fire. In it ex-Chief Croker
tells in a readable way what, from his long experience as a fire
fighter, he considers the most effective ways to extinguish fires.
Most of all he emphasizes the necessity of preventing fires. “If I
had my way about it,” he says, “I would not permit a piece of wood as
big as a man’s finger to be used in the construction of any building
in the United States which had a ground area larger than twenty-five
by fifty feet and was more than three stories in height.” He calls
attention also, to a point which has been emphasized many times
when he declares that “it is not so much the buildings which should
receive added protection but the contents and the inmates of them.
We must add to the term ‘fire-proof,’ the terms ‘death-proof’ and
‘conflagration proof.’”
Perhaps to a lay reader to whom some of the intricacies of steel
construction, high pressure, and fire-fighting apparatus are not
plain, the most interesting chapters are those which deal with
housekeeping whether in the home, store or workshop.
In his chapter on Prevention of Fire in the Dwelling, Mr. Croker
gives a number of simple suggestions which would prevent most of the
thousands and thousands of fires in the 11,000,000 wooden buildings
in this country and save a financial loss which in two years equals
the cost of the Panama Canal. Concerning these suggestions there can
be little disagreement, although those which he makes for additional
laws may not win as unanimous support.
JAMES P. HEATON.
THE CHILDREN IN THE SHADOW
By ERNEST K. COULTER. McBride, Nast & Co. 277 pp. Price $1.50; by
mail of THE SURVEY $1.62.
THE AMERICAN CHILD
By ELIZABETH MCCRACKEN. Houghton Mifflin, Riverside Press. 191 pp.
Price $1.25; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.35.
To gain the sympathetic and accurate knowledge of children shown in
his book, Mr. Coulter stood on the reviewing stand for ten years. His
was the eye to see and the heart to feel from the first, but as clerk
of the Children’s Court in Manhattan for ten years he had the unique
opportunity of looking into the faces of a procession of 100,000
dependent, neglected and delinquent children as they filed by the
judge and told their stories.
These stories he often verified in alley, street, tenement, station
house, reformatory and prison. He shows how crowded streets, lack
of play space, poverty, sickness, insanitary houses, criminal
companions and parental neglect provide a fruitful soil in which to
breed neglected and delinquent boys and girls. These conditions he
charges to the greed of individuals and to the careless, neglectful
indifference of society.
As a means of helping individual boys who need the personal touch of
a friend right now, Mr. Coulter started the Big Brother Movement,
which is spreading all over the country. His permanent remedy for
the woes of children, however, requires not only the love of Big
Brothers, parents and friends, but also sanitary houses, good food,
playgrounds, fresh air and sky. Mr. Coulter’s pen pictures of
Children in the Shadow challenge us all not to rest until all such
children are brought out into the sunlight.
* * * * *
Miss McCracken’s book is a reprint of articles which originally
appeared in the _Outlook_, and deals with actual children and parents
of rather exceptional intelligence in both city and country. What
these exceptional American parents do for their children in home,
play, school, library and church is told in such a way as to appeal
to and educate parents who are not exceptional.
What children do for their parents is also set forth. The real
message of the book is that the reciprocal relation of children and
parents can be and should be one of the most beautiful and helpful
that this old world knows. The title might have been True Stories of
Parents Who Knew How to Live with Their Children.
HENRY W. THURSTON.
CO-OPERATION IN NEW ENGLAND
By JAMES FORD. Introduction by Francis G. Peabody. Russell Sage
Foundation Publication, Survey Associates, Inc. 300 pp. Price
$1.50, postpaid.
Individualism is generally assigned as the primary cause of the
failure of co-operation to gain a more extensive foothold on American
soil. But to the student of the subject this off-hand explanation is
far from conclusive. For not only have Americans been the leading
exponents of political, social and religious co-operation, but they
have likewise shown marked aptitude for economic co-operation.
Our very national life is purely co-operative. Our big business
is, though not in a strict sense, in a large sense co-operative.
Furthermore, were the traditional American individualism the sole or
even the main cause, why has co-operation in this country met with no
wider acceptance or greater success among the immigrants coming from
countries where co-operation is practiced to a very high degree? We
must therefore look for other reasons to account for the bankruptcy
of co-operative effort in this country. These are set forth by Dr.
James Ford in his book Co-operation in New England.
The first co-operative movement in the New England States, the New
England Protective Union stores, began in 1845 and ended in 1857. The
second movement, the Sovereigns of Industry, which was launched in
1874, had an equally brief history. The first had at one time as many
as 700 stores, of which but two remain; while five are left of the
280 of which the latter movement once boasted. At the present time
urban co-operation is practically confined to immigrants, largely
non-English speaking. Their efforts have not met with much greater
success than those of New England’s native sons. All told, there
are about sixty co-operative stores throughout New England. Most of
them are too young, too small, and too isolated to be dignified as a
movement.
The meagre results of distributive co-operation are only exceeded by
those of co-operation in manufacture. All effort in that direction
has been abortive, and “true co-operative production does not exist
in New England.”
The author finds greater cause for encouragement in rural
co-operation. “The farmers’ movement,” he says, “which is much more
influential in the industrial world, not only penetrates, by means
of co-operative creameries, almost every township of western New
England, but through association for co-operative sale extends to
many other large territories.” Co-operation among farmers consists
of co-operative buying of supplies, co-operative marketing of
products, and co-operative production in the way of butter and
cheese making. He estimates the number of more or less co-operative
creameries throughout New England at 125, although probably not more
than twenty-five of these are purely co-operative. “There are many
indications today,” continues the author, “that rural New England has
reached a point not only desirable but increasingly practicable.”
With a large American commission now abroad for the special purpose
of studying agricultural co-operation, it is to be hoped that this
movement will be accelerated.
The really important part of Dr. Ford’s hook is his discussion
of general co-operative principles. The economic conditions for
successful co-operation are wanting in this country. People will
co-operate either because they are driven to it by necessity, as is
the case in Europe, or because they see in it special inducement to
make it worth their while. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately,
these conditions do not exist in the United States so far. In a
country where every workingman carries the baton of a captain of
industry in his dinner pail, it is not surprising that he will not
set aside the opportunities of individual effort in favor of the
uncertain, remote, and, at best, meagre returns of co-operative
endeavor. All other reasons, such as the mobility of our population,
our improvidence, and our lack of co-operative spirit must give way
before this one fundamental reason.
The conditions that are responsible for the heavy mortality of
co-operative enterprises in this country are rapidly changing.
The obstacles in the way of co-operative success are gradually
disappearing. Once the point is reached in New England as it has been
abroad, at which societies of like interest federate for educational
and trade advantage, these smaller federations “will in turn unite in
a general co-operative union with common funds to sustain societies
that are weak, and promote development on lines of common importance,
an immense force will be set at work for the moralization of trade,
the reduction of the cost of living, and the socialization of the
people.”
As the title indicates, the book deals only with co-operation in
the New England states. The author further limits his research
to “associations for the production and distribution of the
immediate necessities of life.” Notwithstanding this limiting of
the inquiry both in scope and extent the book should prove of value
to the student of co-operation in this country. The facts have
been painstakingly collected. The author’s insight is keen and
penetrating, his deductions are clear and logical, and his hopeful
tone is most invigorating.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON.
THE CASE OF OSCAR SLATER
By A. CONAN DOYLE. George H. Doran Co. 103pp. Price $.50; by mail
of THE SURVEY $.57.
The case of Oscar Slater, sentenced in the High Court of Edinburgh to
life imprisonment for the murder of an old lady in Glasgow, was some
time ago brought to the attention of the famous writer of detective
stories, together with certain circumstances which cast doubt on
Slater’s guilt. With a sincere desire to clear the man, the creator
of Sherlock Holmes set to work to examine the evidence and testimony
presented at the trial, and to analyze the conduct of the case and
the decision of judge and jury.
The result is a convincing argument for the man’s innocence of
the offence for which he was convicted and an arraignment of
the ineffective methods of the police who were engaged in the
investigation, both in Scotland and in this country.
The undeniably bad character of the suspect created so strong a
presumption of guilt that even the total refutation of the strongest
piece of evidence and an obviously false accusation by the judge in
his final charge, secured only a commutation of the death sentence to
life imprisonment when an appeal was made.
It will be interesting to know whether the detective knight’s efforts
toward securing justice meet with success.
MAY LANGDON WHITE.
PERSONALS
The first woman judge of delinquent girls sits on the bench in the
Chicago Juvenile Court. She is Mary M. Bartelme, a Chicago lawyer.
Previous to her present connection she was for eighteen years public
guardian of Cook County, acting in this office, in the words of the
_Continent_, as “official mother to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
children” who had no other parents and whose persons or estates were
in the care of the court. Guardianship of their persons meant actual
custody and education, and this for a period of many years; it meant
also in many cases interest and love for the child and always, in the
tangled relations of life, an understanding of human nature, as well
as a thorough knowledge of the institutions best fitted for special
cases. All this experience has thus been excellent preparation for
Miss Bartelme’s present delicate task of reconstructing the lives and
characters of delinquent girls.
[Illustration: MARY M. BARTELME]
Up to the time of her appointment cases of delinquent girls were
heard, like those of boys, in open court. The effect is thus
described by Judge Pinckney of the Chicago Court, whose assistant
Miss Bartelme is:
“The delinquent girl, unlike the delinquent boy, is generally
brought to court for some sexual irregularity. This means that the
story of her shame and downfall is told openly, publicly. There are
often present at such times curiosity seekers, sensation hunters,
and now and then among the latter, I am sorry to say, are newspaper
reporters looking for a story. Frequently the name of the girl, the
names of her parents, of her brothers and sisters, and her home
address appear in the newspapers, with all the harrowing details of
her trouble. She is fortunate if her picture is not surreptitiously
taken for publication.
“After such an exploitation of her trouble, you tell the
unfortunate child that you want to do something for her—you want to
help her. Is it any wonder that she does not readily respond to the
proffered aid? Her feelings shocked, her sensibilities blunted, her
sense of justice outraged, she is more apt to refuse than accept
your suggestions for her future welfare. To my mind this procedure
is unnecessary, is wrong, is barbarous. Even under the most
favorable conditions possible to a public hearing, it is difficult
to get into sympathetic touch with the child so that she will be in
a receptive mood and willingly amenable to helpful suggestion and
treatment.
“The plan proposed is to have the case of each delinquent girl
heard by a woman, who shall act as the representative and assistant
of the presiding judge. To this woman assistant, in the presence of
the girl’s father and mother, the witnesses will tell the girl’s
story. Every consideration will be shown the girl and her family.
In so far as it is possible to do so, this darkened page in their
lives will be guarded from the public gaze.
“It is believed that these delinquent girls will the more readily
unburden their souls to one of their own sex, and especially if
allowed to so do out of hearing of the public and surrounded by
father and mother and those in sympathy with her and them.
“This is the all-important work for delinquent girls which Mary M.
Bartelme is expected to do—will do. She is the unanimous choice of
the judges of the Circuit Court for the position of assistant to
the judge of the Juvenile Court.”
* * * * *
At the recent annual meeting of the Society of Sanitary and Moral
Prophylaxis, Dr. Edward L. Keyes, Jr., was elected president, to
succeed Dr. Prince A. Morrow, founder, and until his death the head
of the society.
Dr. Keyes is a charter member of the society and was for many
years its secretary. He has also been a member of the Executive
Committee, and worked in close touch with Dr. Morrow. Dr. Keyes is a
professor at the Cornell Medical School and president of the American
Association of Genito-Urinary Surgeons.
Professor Maurice A. Bigelow of Teachers’ College, Columbia
University, and Dr. Rosalie Slaughter Morton were elected to fill
the vacancies in the Executive Committee. Mr. Marshall C. Allaben of
the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions was chosen chairman of the
Executive Committee.
* * * * *
The Italian Club of New York is an interesting center. In the
low-ceilinged basement opera singers, art importers, physicians,
orchestra leaders and the like rub elbows at the club tables.
In the three rooms on the main floor an exhibition is being held
this month of the drawings of Joseph Stella, an Italian artist of
more than ordinary promise. He is a brother of Dr. Antonio Stella,
a pioneer in the tuberculosis movement and a leader in New York’s
civic life. The artist himself was a member of the staff of the
Pittsburgh Survey, and readers of this magazine will remember the
striking character sketches of the steel workers he drew in black and
white. An entire room is given up to these Pittsburgh drawings, which
in many respects represent the artist’s most forceful workmanship.
In another room is his earlier work with East Side types, and in
another the canvasses he has produced in Rome and Paris, where he
has spent the last two years. These have the color and method of the
post-impressionists.
[Illustration: DOWN AND OUT
A hitherto unpublished sketch by Joseph Stella.]
It is perhaps natural that the social workers who attend the exhibit
drift back to the central room, where the artist’s pencil has so
sympathetically and vigorously transcribed the writings, which stress
and want and hope and striving spread over the faces of the steel
district, immigrant and native-born alike.
There are also some charcoal sketches of Pittsburgh at night which
did not lend themselves to magazine publication, but reflect
marvelously the smoke and energy of the river valleys.
* * * * *
Steadfast and resourceful, with a strong body, a kind heart, a
reverent spirit, combining rare judgment with knowledge, a leader
well equipped for the service of her fellows has been lost to the
Pacific Coast in the death of Dr. C. Annette Buckel of Oakland, Cal.
Dr. Buckel was born in Warsaw, N. Y., in 1833. Earning the means for
her medical education by teaching, she rendered efficient service
in the United States military hospitals of the Southwest during the
last two years of the Civil War. She selected and supervised the
nurses, kept records in the absence of clerks, wrote letters for sick
soldiers, obtained furloughs for convalescents, and comforted the
dying.
Dr. Buckel is perhaps better known to readers of THE SURVEY, however,
for her work in other warfare: as president of the first milk
commission in California, which excluded tuberculous cows from the
dairy. In all her work she emphasized prevention rather than cure.
Through her efforts a school of cookery was opened, which resulted
in manual training becoming a part of the public school system in
Oakland. She was a director in the Mary R. Smith Trust from its
beginning, and took a personal interest in each little girl in the
cottage homes. So keen was her concern for handicapped children
that at her death she gave her home that the proceeds might help in
providing special training for such children.
S. I. S.
* * * * *
Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary of the International Congress on
Tuberculosis, since 1907, has resumed at a personal financial
sacrifice, the secretaryship of the Maryland State Board of Health.
Dr. Fulton has already been connected with the State Board of Health
of Maryland and was its secretary for several years before he
resigned to accept the position he has just vacated. He succeeds Dr.
Marshall L. Price who was medical assistant of the board up to 1907
when he was elected secretary.
COMMUNICATIONS
RELIEF OF WIDOWS
TO THE EDITOR:
I thoroughly disagree with Porter R. Lee’s appraisal of the report of
the Massachusetts commission on the children of widows, and regret
that the report will be seen by only a part of your readers.[4]
Mr. Lee holds the commission’s conclusions to be of little value
because derived “in almost every case from inadequate data.” Yet he
adds later: “The report of the commission gives us much that suggests
the fact of our failure to provide adequately or helpfully for the
families of widows, a fact of which we had already become conscious.
What we need, however, is not so much evidence of the fact of failure
as a clear understanding of why we have failed.”
It might be honest to state that some of our figures are inaccurate
and yet not dishonest to recommend legislation. Wholly accurate
figures were never expected and not needed. The heads of the
leading charitable organizations met us in conference to determine
a method of investigation. The schedule method was recommended.
Before the schedules were printed they were approved by several of
these persons. Criticism began to appear when it seemed likely that
legislation would be recommended. In June the appropriation could
still have been saved. It was not saved because useful results were
expected.
How inaccurate are the results? Mr. Tilley is cited as saying that
a re-examination of one hundred cases disclosed “facts ... totally
at variance with the reports.” Half of these records we already
had discredited. Some cases resulted in reports closely like our
own, sometimes lower, sometimes higher. The re-examination was in
December, months after the first study. How absurd it is to suppose
that the results would not be different! Everybody knows that the
earnings of the poor fluctuate. Usually the overseers of the poor
give special aid in winter. A page of our report explains Mr.
Tilley’s one hundred cases; he makes only a blanket statement.
But again, how inaccurate are the results? The recommendations of our
Minimum Wage Commission were accepted when it showed that $6 or $7 a
week was the typical sum earned by an adult woman with a family which
had also an adult male worker. Many such women received charity in
addition. All of our widows received charity. From charity and wages
together, our figures showed that they typically received $6 or $7 a
week when there was not also an adult male worker and when several
children had to be supported. It is not possible that our figures
were so far wrong that these families were better off than the former
group. And if they were so far wrong—what an indictment that would be
of the accounting of the public and private charitable officers of
Massachusetts!
No, the figures do not err so far. Our charities constantly protest
that they have insufficient funds. Before me lies a circular of the
Associated Charities of a city of 100,000 people, which has many
well-to-do persons and few recent foreigners. The resources “to
meet the needs of families in distress are wholly inadequate, as
is well known to all familiar with the conditions.... We still use
existing resources to the utmost.... Still we fall far short of being
able to meet the demands upon us. Must we allow widows with young
children to be overburdened and underfed,” etc? Are such stories
untrue? Of course not! Most communities in Massachusetts have a
poorer population and a weaker organized charity for dealing with the
problem.
But, further, our opponents suggest an alternative bill, providing
for “adequate” aid for all mothers with dependent children.
If existing relief is adequate, this bill is a sham. The only
alternative is to regard these opponents as agreeing that existing
relief is inadequate.
The Legislature that gave us $1,000 hardly expected a wealth of
figures. Mr. Lee does not in other matters rely on figures, I am
happy to observe. “During recent years,” he says, “our enlarging
conceptions of social treatment [not our figures—they are impotent]
have condemned utterly much of our supposedly efficient work in
family and individual reconstruction.” And for widows he grants:
“There is a widespread conviction of sin in this matter and an
earnest searching for the remedy.”
Our analogy (with its implications) of widowhood through industrial
accident and through disease, Mr. Lee mistakenly, I believe, regards
as disproved by ourselves. For, he says, we reject the principle of
payment by way of indemnity for loss. We reject it as a determining
principle; another principle is more fundamental. Workmen’s
compensation measures, like sickness and old-age insurance, spring
fundamentally from a desire to establish or maintain the conditions
of efficient living. Nobody attempts really to measure the loss
through death by accident. It cannot be done.
But a man’s wages can be studied to learn his standard of living,
and then an expedient degree of comfort provided. The Washington
act does not even relate the award to the dead man’s wages. Usually
the award increases with the number of children. German statutes
have all had the comfort of the survivors in view. No abstract
desire to compensate for loss would ever secure legislation if, as
a consequence, the efficiency and comfort of the population were to
decrease.
Not only is Mr. Lee anxious to find whether relief is now adequate
or not, but he wants to know where the flaw in the service is.
Both questions are answered by our information as to the policies
of the child-helping and relief-giving agencies. He doubts whether
child-helping agencies are “competent witnesses” to the causes for
the removal of children. Are they likely then to remove children
for competent cause? Persons incompetent to discern the presence of
factors that make non-removal desirable will scarcely remove for
proper cause only. The letters of these agencies would repay reading.
What these letters say about local relief resources is more than
borne out by the reports of policy contained in the letters from the
overseers. Most widows are in their hands. Our schedules, further,
show that actually $2 to $2.50 a week per family is usually given.
None of our critics attack these statements. There is a problem and
present agents do not cope with it.
Suppose we had sent into the field experts to find out whether relief
is adequate. We should again face the issue of standards. Responsible
persons have not accepted Mr. Carstens’ interpretation of the Chicago
plan. One of the visitors of the State Board of Charity whom Mr.
Tilley sent to verify records reported one case: “Widow for nine
months. Four children, fourteen to seven years.... Complains of work
being slack and has not had a full week’s wages for a long time....
Is terribly overworked; there seems to be nothing but skin and bone
to her. The standing on her feet all day in the shop is what kills
her.... _Could stand a little more aid until the combined earnings
of herself and daughter show a little increase._” A little more aid!
Just how much more will be differently fixed by different people.
Most widows’ families in Massachusetts are not within sight of Mrs.
More’s and Mr. Chapin’s standards.
The conclusion remains that the overseers and many child societies
are not working well. We have a thousand overseers, elected for short
terms, and receiving little or no pay. Often they serve also in other
capacities and carry on private affairs. If ordered by an expert
commission to make specified payments to widows fit to bring up their
children they might apply the standard to other cases. The commission
would select its widows. Mr. Lee wholly misrepresents our intention
when he notes “incidentally that the cause of a husband’s death is
not always a satisfactory test of a wife’s moral habits.”
Mr. Lee objects that we offer nothing for the children of disabled
fathers, etc. If a third of the charity problem—widows—were to come
under the care of a new commission, that commission would be able
to work out its specialized technique. Later, we might know better
what to do about desertion and other problems. Meanwhile existing
charities, having a lighter load, could deal better with their
remaining cases.
Then as to our use of the word “worthy.” It is old-fashioned, but
convenient. No person works long in charities who acts on the notion
that one person is actually as good as another—else it would be folly
to try to make a person better! Mr. Lee supposes us to regard the
children of the disabled and similar groups as “unworthy.” Where such
an implication is even suggested I cannot discover.
In conclusion, I suppose that Mr. Lee and I differ fundamentally in
our approval of a proposed method of dealing with widows, and that
his criticism is derived from his point of view.
ROBERT F. FOERSTER.
[Chairman Massachusetts Commission on the Dependent Children of
Widowed Mothers.]
Cambridge.
* * * * *
I have read Professor Foerster’s letter with much interest. His last
sentence: “I suppose that Mr. Lee and I differ fundamentally in our
approval of a proposed method of dealing with widows and that his
criticism is derived from his point of view,” a clear-cut statement
of the possible reason for my criticism of the Massachusetts report,
is not wholly accurate. The agitation for widows’ pensions has
caught so large a measure of popular support that we begin to think
that every person must be for pensions, against pensions, or on
the fence ready to jump to one side or the other. Such a choice of
alternatives has little attraction for any one who approaches the
question out of thoughtful experience with relief problems and the
long struggle to procure for the widow and others who live in misery
adequate reinforcements—reinforcements of income, health, recreation,
education for children and decent living conditions.
Those who have been most concerned to do justice to the widow with
children have seen most clearly the failure of our relief measures.
The indictment which they have brought again and again has rehearsed
the fact of our failure which is suggested anew by the Massachusetts
report.
But an indictment is not a remedy. The evidence behind it is not
even valid always in the search for a remedy. What we need to
know now is why have public and private relief failed. Professor
Foerster mentions several statements of mine which do not seem to
him successful arguments against widows’ pensions. I am not arguing
against widows’ pensions. I merely recognize many considerations
growing out of ten years’ experience in social work which make me
both dissatisfied with what we are doing and suggest the need for the
most careful study before we can be sure of a remedy.
I realize that many people grow impatient when the question of
widows’ pensions is related to the problem of relief. Perhaps the
movement, as some people hope, will be the entering wedge of a
system of state endowment of motherhood. We cannot wisely, however,
begin experiments for the sake of their expected future value with
a total disregard of their certain present effect. Widows’ pensions
as projected by the commission would be in fact a relief problem.
The responsibility of the public outdoor relief machinery for their
administration as proposed by the commission’s bill would indicate
this even if there were no other indications, which there are.
I have found the Massachusetts report of the greatest interest, but
in my judgment it does not justify widows’ pensions. The figures
and the expressions of opinion secured from various agencies are
significant. They are significant of the need for a deeper probe,
however, not for an extension of an unsatisfactory system of relief.
A recommendation that this deeper probe be undertaken is the one
recommendation to which it logically leads.
It is because states which regard Massachusetts precedents with
respect are likely to consider this report as the long-needed
scientific and comprehensive study of the status of outdoor relief
that I have tried to estimate it from this point of view.
The commonwealth of Massachusetts gave Professor Foerster and his
associates on the commission a tremendously difficult task and gave
them hopelessly inadequate facilities with which to perform it. Under
the circumstances, perhaps none of us could have done any better. But
Massachusetts should have done better.
PORTER R. LEE.
[Contributing Editor Family Rehabilitation.]
New York.
CASUALTY COMPANIES AND COMPENSATION
(_From a personal letter to the editors of The Survey published with
permission of the author._)
TO THE EDITOR:
Allow me to say that I absolutely endorse the article in a recent
issue by Paul Kennaday entitled Big Business and Workmen’s
Compensation.[5] I have been acting for the Canadian Manufacturers’
Association, a body corresponding to your National Association of
Manufacturers, but more highly organized and representing a much
larger proportion of its constituency than the American body. In
fact, we represent about 85 per cent of all the manufacturers of
Canada. I say this to indicate the probability that the Canadian body
would not adopt any policy without the most careful consideration
and investigation. This body has adopted the same view as that
expressed in the article and is devoting a large amount of energy and
considerable money promoting a workmen’s compensation system of the
type of the Washington system.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that such a system is the
only satisfactory solution ultimate or even temporary to the problem.
This view is of course opposed by the liability insurance interests
who are conducting a carefully planned and well financed campaign
against “state insurance.”
Time and again we have had to deal with the representatives of these
insurance interests in connection with the investigation in Ontario
preliminary to the drafting of a Workmen’s Compensation Act for
that province, and I am glad to state that, generally speaking, the
motives and arguments (perfectly legitimate perhaps) of the insurance
interests are understood and rated at their proper value. I think I
have a pretty broad view of the situation in the United States and
I am sorry to say that the true position of affairs does not appear
to be generally appreciated by either the politicians or the leaders
of labor and industry. I should think it might well be one of the
functions of THE SURVEY to open up this matter.
F. W. WEGENAST.
[Counsel Canadian Manufacturers’ Association.]
Toronto.
WAGES FIXED BY LAW
TO THE EDITOR:
In his letter to THE SURVEY on the subject of fixing wages by law,
James Deegan says: “The report of the United States Bureau of
Commerce and Labor for 1910 states how labor received only 20 per
cent of the value of the product which it served to create.”
Considering carefully this rather surprising statement, I came to
the conclusion that the writer referred to the report of the Census
Bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor, presenting the
results of the manufacturers census of 1910. To be sure, this report
does not make any such statement as that which Mr. Deegan attributes
to it nor could the statement be properly based upon the statistics
which it publishes. On the contrary, the census figures conclusively
disprove this statement, showing it to be a gross perversion of the
facts.
It is true that the total value of products reported by the census
of manufacturing industries was a little over $20,000,000,000,
while the amount paid out for wages and salaries was a trifle over
$4,000,000,000, so that the latter amount was about 20 per cent of
the former.
If Mr. Deegan had stated that the amount paid to labor employed in
manufacturing industries represented 20 per cent of the total value
of the products turned out by these industries, the statement would
have been formally accurate, although it probably would be misleading
even then. The statement is, however, that labor received only 20 per
cent of the value of the product which it served to create.
Even with a superficial knowledge of economics and industrial
processes one ought to perceive that the laborers employed in
manufacturing industries by no means create the full value of the
products which these industries place upon the market. The laborer in
the factory does not create the raw material which the factory uses;
labor on the farm, in the mine or in the forest entered into that.
Now the report of the census shows that while the value of the
product produced by the manufacturing industries of the United
States was $20,700,000,000, the cost of the materials consumed in
the manufacture of these products was $12,200,000,000 and that
the value of the products, less cost of materials, was therefore
about $8,500,000,000. The value created by the laborers employed in
these industries could not possibly exceed this sum and would be
considerably less than this if any allowance were made for wear and
tear or depreciation of plant and machinery or fuel consumed or for
other expenses which enter into the value of the final product.
If, however, we credit laborers with having produced the full value
represented by the difference between the cost of materials and the
final value of products it follows that the $4,000,000,000 which they
received represented not 20 per cent but about 50 per cent of the
value which they created.
If we deduct from the final value not only the materials purchased
but also the miscellaneous expenses reported by the census, none of
which represent values created in these industries, the proportion
received by the laborers advances to about 65 per cent. And still no
allowance is made for replacement of capital.
Mr. Deegan’s proposition for regulating wages proposes to award the
laborers a minimum of 33⅓ per cent. It is evident that they are much
better off than this under the present regime and without any state
regulation of wages.
Mr. Deegan further states that the report referred to “also shows
that after all expenses and charges are levied, there still remains
over $2,000,000,000 surplus to be divided as profits among the
employers.” It is true that after deducting from the value of the
products reported by the census, the aggregate of all reported
expenses, the remainder is a little over $2,000,000,000; but the
census report is careful to point out that this difference can not
be regarded as representing profits for the simple reason that the
expenses reported by the census did not include all the expenses
incidental to the process of manufacture. Among the expenses left out
of account is the important item of depreciation.
If Mr. Deegan had consulted the census report itself, such statements
as he made would be reprehensible as well as inexcusable; but
I presume that he got his information at second hand from some
newspaper paragraph or article originating no one knows how or where.
But THE SURVEY, however, ought not to be made the agency for the
further promulgation of such misinformation. It might be said,
perhaps, that such gross misstatements do not deceive thinking and
well-informed people; but even well-informed people do not always
know the facts which refute such statements; and thinking people do
not have time to think about everything.
More than that it seems to me that some consideration should be shown
for the unthinking people that they may not be deceived or misled.
Some of them have a vote.
JOSEPH A. HILL.
[Bureau of the Census.]
Washington.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The report is for free distribution and may be had by writing
to the Commission to Study the Question of the Support of Dependent
Minor Children of Widowed Mothers, State House, Boston, Mass.
[5] See THE SURVEY for March 8, page 809.
JOTTINGS
HALVING THE TAX RATE
The Salant-Schaap lower rents bill, which provides for submitting
to a referendum vote the gradual lowering of the tax rate on all
buildings in New York city to one-half the rate on land, was killed
in committee in the New York Legislature. This is the bill which was
advocated at the Lower Rents Exhibit described in THE SURVEY of March
15 last.
RELIEF FOR BEDFORD REFORMATORY
In the final hours of the New York Legislature the sum voted to
Bedford Reformatory to relieve overcrowding was $414,000 and not
$500,000 as was stated in THE SURVEY of last week.
THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
By unanimous vote both the Senate and the Assembly in New York
passed the bill to incorporate the Rockefeller Foundation for the
dissemination of knowledge, the prevention of suffering, and the
promotion of the well-being and civilization of the peoples of the
United States. The bill which is very similar to the one urged before
Congress in 1910 has not yet been signed by Governor Sulzer.
HUNGARY PROTECTS ABANDONED CHILDREN
Hungary maintains seventeen institutions for indigent, abandoned,
delinquent and abused children. It is the custom to receive every
child applicant, to give him a bath and clean clothes, and then to
investigate his condition. If the investigation warrants the state’s
interference the child is admitted. Seventeen thousand children were
thus received in 1908. Most of them are placed out in the country
or smaller cities with farmers or artisans of good character and in
moderate circumstances. Five reformatories have been established
for delinquent or absolutely unruly children. They have room for a
thousand inmates, who live together in family groups of twenty-five,
learning a trade under the supervision of the head of the household.
Corporal punishment is still administered. Up to 1908, 2,331 inmates
had been released on parole, 86.6 per cent had worked steadily and
had kept straight, 5.4 per cent had committed crimes and 8 per cent
had disappeared.
Country Property
Owners having Property For Sale or To Rent for the coming season are
invited to write for our advertising rates.
THE SURVEY
105 East 22d Street, New York
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 247 Changed: be reckoned as the most throughly
to: be reckoned as the most thoroughly
pg 255 Footnote removed due to no anchor:
See The Survey, February 8, 1913, p. 653.
pg 256 Changed: institutions for indigent, abandoned, deliquent
to: institutions for indigent, abandoned, delinquent
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