Read Ebook: The Survey Volume 30 Number 2 Apr 12 1913 by Various Kellogg Paul Underwood Editor

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?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? THE NEW COMMITTEES OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES AND ? ? CORRECTION ? ? ? ? ? ? COMMITTEE ON ORGANIZATION ? ? ? ?Kingsbury, John A., New York Assn. for Improving ? ? Chmn. Condition of Poor ? ?Weir, L. H. San Francisco Playground Association? ?Field, Parker B. Boston Children's Mission ? ?Hubbard, C. M. St. Louis Provident Association ? ?Magruder, J. W. Baltimore Federated Charities ? ?McLean, Francis H. New York Assn. of Soc. for ? ? Organizing Charity ? ?Miner, Maud E. New York New York Probation and? ? Protective Assn. ? ?Montgomery, J. B. Coldwater, Mich. State School, ? ? Children's Inst. ? ?Bowman, H. C. Topeka State Board of Control? ?Tilley, David F. Boston State Board of ? ? Charities ? ?Deacon, J. Byron Pittsburgh Associated Charities ? ?Abbott, Grace Chicago Immigrants Protective ? ? League ? ?Amigh, Ophelia L. Birmingham Ala. Home of Refuge. ? ? ? ? ? ? COMMITTEE ON NOMINATIONS ? ? ? ?Wilson, George S. Washington Bd. Public Charities ? ? Chmn. ? ?Persons, W. Frank New York Charity Organization ? ? Society ? ?Baldwin, Roger N. St. Louis Civic League ? ?Krans, James R. Memphis Associated Charities ? ?Murphy, J. Prentice Boston Children's Aid Society? ?Ryan, Rev. John A. St. Paul St. Paul Seminary ? ?Lovejoy, Owen R. New York Natl. Child Labor ? ? Committee ? ?Little, R. M. Philadelphia Soc. for Organizing ? ? Charity ? ?Taylor, Graham Chicago Chicago Commons ? ? ? ? ? ? COMMITTEE ON TIME AND PLACE ? ? ? ?Bowen, A. L., Chmn. Springfield, Ill. State Charities ? ? Commission ? ?Gates, W. Almont San Francisco State Bd. Char. & ? ? Correction ? ?Almy, Frederic Buffalo Charity Organization ? ? Society ? ?Fox, Dr. George Fort Worth Charities Commission ? ?Wing, Frank E. Chicago Muncie Tuberculosis ? ? Sanatorium ? ?Riley, Thomas J. Brooklyn Bureau of Charities ? ?Glenn, Mary Willcox New York ? ?Darnall, O. E. Washington Natl. Training School ? ? for Boys ? ?Logan, Joseph C. Atlanta Associated Charities ? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

FAMILY DESERTER BROUGHT TO BOOK

Probably the first check of its kind ever received by a charitable organization is for 5.43 reimbursed to the United Hebrew Charities from the bank account of a deserter who was brought to book through the action of the National Desertion Bureau.

Six years ago Elias Zepnick deserted his wife Yetta and their eight minor children in New York city, leaving them penniless. Their condition was so serious that the United Hebrew Charities gave rent, clothing and living expenses to the unfortunate family. For two years Zepnick kept under cover but in the latter part of 1910 he was located at St. Louis. He was defiant and the Legal Aid Bureau, in whose hands the case was at that time, brought proceedings under the Child Abandonment Law. The arrest of the offender and his extradition to New York quickly followed.

He was convicted and the court was about to pronounce sentence when it was discovered that the prisoner had a considerable sum of money upon deposit in a St. Louis bank. The judge pleaded with him to provide for his wife and his eight little ones and held out the hope of a suspended sentence. His refusal aroused the court and the maximum punishment, two years at hard labor in Sing Sing and a fine of ,000, was meted out to him.

This did not seem to unnerve him. He made repeated requests for release and the remission of the fine, but when reminded that he had money in the bank and should evidence his good will by applying part of the funds to his family, he became sullen and would not yield.

There was one point that Zepnick apparently overlooked. A husband and father is responsible for the necessaries furnished to the wife and children if he neglects to provide for them. Any stranger may make the necessary provision and hold the parent to account. In this case it was the United Hebrew Charities. After consultation with the National Desertion Bureau it was decided to institute a civil action and attach the money that Zepnick had in the St. Louis bank. The necessary papers were drawn by the desertion bureau. Then, through Bernard Greensfelder, a St. Louis attorney, a writ of garnishment was served upon the Commonwealth Trust Company and the money, amounting to 0, was attached.

Notice was served by the bureau's representative upon Zepnick at Sing Sing Prison, and what a change! For once he became meek and tractable. Realizing the futility of opposition, he defaulted and confessed judgment. On February 11, of this year final judgment was entered against him in the sum of 0 which less court costs left a balance of 5.43. The United States Circuit Court of St. Louis sent a check for the money, which was at once turned over by the Desertion Bureau to the United Hebrew Charities. Although the struggle lasted for five years, some little redress has been secured and now the Zepnick family will be able to enjoy a legitimate gratuity. Zepnick himself, however, is still obdurate and is believed to be in London and thus beyond the jurisdiction of our courts.

THE ITALIAN AND THE SETTLEMENT

Said an American afterward: "It was not a man who spoke but a bewildered people." The speaker was Vittoria Racca, professor of political economy at the University of Rome, and his audience was a gathering of settlement workers in New York to whom he endeavored to interpret the protests of the Italian immigrant usually heard only as a grumbling in dialect. Professor Racca has a two years' leave of absence in which to study the opportunities for his fellow country men and women in America and the efforts that are being made in their behalf. He purposes to write a book on the subject when he returns.

The speaker described the Italian parent in this country calling his children to his knee and crying in tragic amazement: "These are not like the children we had in Italy." Whence, he asked, came this strange brood and how was it hatched out under the parents' wings? With his explanation was bound up sane advice for many of his listeners.

More stress, said Professor Racca, should be laid on the building up of human personality by settlements. The buildings should not be so fine that the Italians do not feel at home. He went on:--

"The settlements should try to learn something about Italian customs, habits, employments, amusements, traditions--they should feel the spirit of the Italians and see things from the Italian's point of view. For example, one headworker was discouraged because she had introduced basketry into a club of Italians and they did not like the work. It would be a good thing for a headworker in such a case to find out what parents do in Italy, and in that way she might easily find some handwork which Italians would like to do. The Italian mother should be enlightened as to what the settlement is doing, so that she may understand why her daughter is out after dark, which is quite against Italian custom. If these suggestions were followed, the settlement would be the center for the whole neighborhood, and not only for the boys and girls."

Turning to what the Italian might gain from the land of his adoption, Professor Racca said:

"It would be a good thing if the young Italian could acquire something of the strong will of the American and could retain something of the geniality and taste of his Italian parents. As it is, fathers of boys who go to settlements make most extraordinary comments showing that they do not at all understand what is being done at the settlements. For instance, one says he is so sorry that the boys spend their evenings with those bad women there.

"The new life of the immigrant is sometimes a tragedy. They must adjust themselves to a totally different kind of economic life. Wages are seemingly high, but the cost of living is high also. It would be much easier for the immigrants if, on their arrival, they had to fight Indians than for them as now to combat the complexed social and economic conditions of a strange land. Amusements here are different. In Italy after work all meet in 'the coffee house of misery,' where there is little to eat or to drink, but where there is a flow of geniality and conversation. Here everybody stays by himself, and all wear beautiful hats and dresses, which hide the poverty of their lives. They are here ashamed to show their lack of success. They are exploited by employers, by employment agencies, by neighbors, by the Black Hand, by the police--by everybody with whom they have to do. They always get the worst of the law. If it is enforced, it is enforced against them. If it is for their protection, it is not enforced. The immigrant Italians feel that they are despised, which they often are, and so they congregate in villages, which makes matters worse, and they learn American conditions more slowly.

"Here the children learn much in the schools and in the settlements, but much more in the streets. In the schools they learn that the United Stales is the greatest nation in the world, and on the streets they learn that Italy is a despicable nation. So they think that everything Italian is to be thrown away. There is no family life, so the children acquire awful habits."

Not in the school or settlement, but at home, said Professor Racca, we learn not to steal and lie. In Italy and Russia the home, he said, is the center of the intellectual and moral life. Therefore the responsibility is America's if in America these homes crumble and the morals of the children crumble with them. To prevent family disruption the adults as well as the children must be adjusted to the new environment. This adjustment is to be made, he declared, through the right kind of settlement. And this is what a social settlement should be:

"It should be a small institution for all the poor, not merely for the children. At its head should be one boss--a man. He should be married or a widower, and have varied experience. He should not be a minister, for if he is of the same religion as the people he would duplicate the work of their minister, and if he proselytizes, the people will run away. He should not be a professor, because he sees through narrow academic spectacles, and he should not be an amateur who goes into the work for a few years. He ought to be a practical sociologist, not necessarily acquainted with the theories, but he should know the facts. He should be a psychologist. He should know America thoroughly. If he is working for Italians he should have lived at least two years in Italy in the very provinces from which immigrants come. He should know dialect. He should not think that he can learn to know the Italian and his traditions by "doing Italy"--by visiting museums, art collections and churches. He should work in a narrow field and should take the place of the priests in Italy.

"He should visit every person every day, and in this way really be their friend, father and brother. He should be connected with all their organizations, so that the settlement could be the bridge between the organizations and the workers. If he thus knows everybody, the bad elements would dread this headworker. He would know that certain men were not working, and he would know that if they were nevertheless getting a living they are probably blackmailing. He must know individuals so well that he can handle each in his own way; one through an appeal to pride, another through a command, and so on."

Some headworkers, he said, are out of town several days a week. Social workers should not be "out" so much at lectures and parties. They should be at the disposal of the people of the neighborhood at every moment of the day and night. Educational work can be done better through chats than through lectures. "No one's system of life is ever changed because he has heard a lecture," he said. A headworker once made an appointment with him, he said, to explain to him what her settlement did and to take him around. Her telephone called her away every few minutes, and he had to content himself with reading a folder on the settlement's work.

Another mistake, said Professor Racca, was to let Italians speak at the settlement. "Southern Italians speak marvelously before they are born," he said; "though what they say may mean nothing. They always speak against America and praise the old country. And when poor people hear these hollow words they think this speaker worthy to be their leader."

Professor Racca in his address expressed the opinion that volunteer workers should be avoided because they usually have little preparation and the settlements cannot command them as well as if they were paid. Not many girls, he thought, should do social work for young men, because young men, of southern races especially, although they have respect for women, "do not have enough respect to accept a woman as their leader as confidentially as they would a man." For work with women and children he was of opinion there should be a woman as headworker. "She should be married and of mature age, so that she may have had varied experience. If possible, she should also be a nurse."

EDITORIAL GRIST

IN PROGRESSIVE KANSAS!

ISABEL C. BARROWS

How hard it is for a man who has at heart the principles of prison reform to carry them out in an old institution that should be leveled to the ground! J. K. Codding, warden of the Kansas State Penitentiary, writing in his eighteenth biennial report, expresses a wish to repair broken men and remake defective ones by plenty of productive labor, wise and firmly administered discipline, proper bodily care, and such mental and spiritual training as is possible under the limited opportunities afforded by a penitentiary. Prison recreations he advocates "not solely for the purpose of giving pleasure to the prisoners, nor as a prison fad, but for the same reason that we give them work, discipline and wholesome food."

But what can he do to carry out such a program in a prison where the cells are "little dingy, dark holes in the wall, damp, musty and disease breeding--an absolute disgrace to Kansas"? The prison physician echoes this complaint:

"If the institution hopes to make its inmates strive for better things in life it will have to set a better example. Compelling a man, after a day's work to go into one of the little cells now provided, and sleep on a bag of straw only half wide enough, and almost as unyielding as the floor, will certainly never do it."

Yet the power of personality is felt in spite of this. The officers are all under civil service and selected only for fitness. The warden says "a more courteous, prompt and efficient lot of prison officials cannot be found in any other penitentiary in the United States." The prisoners themselves respond to the wise treatment they receive and show it "in their willingness and ability to do the work assigned them; in their almost uniformly kind and courteous treatment of the officers; in the absence of any destruction of prison property; in the few punishments and in their general cheerfulness and obedience."

Kansas ought to give a good warden a good prison with plenty of land about it.

CHILD LABOR AND POVERTY

A. J. McKELWAY

Child labor is even more a cause than an effect of poverty. This was the point emphasized at the ninth annual conference of the National Child Labor Committee, which was recently held at Jacksonville, Fla. The meeting Was characterized by fearless and frank descriptions of conditions in the different states and especially in the South. Apology and defence, based on a comparison of child labor conditions from the sectional point of view, found no place at the conference. Delegates from the North and from the South vied in acknowledging the shame of a common sin.

The other distinctive note was that co-operation among all classes of social workers is needed to gain this reform. This note was sounded in a strong resolution which called upon many national organizations to supply not only the active sympathy of their membership but special investigations of child labor conditions from the different points of view which these organizations have taken in their respective spheres of work. Mention was particularly made of the National Education Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Medicine, the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, the American Red Cross, the American Bar Association, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Social Service Commission of the Federation of Churches, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Conference of Catholic Charities, the National Conference of Charities and Correction, the American Association for Labor Legislation, and the American Federation of Labor. Finally, since the child-employing industries, while forming only a small percentage of industrial establishments, have brought the reproach of child labor upon American industry itself, the National Manufacturers' Association was also mentioned.

At the opening meeting four questions were discussed: Is the immature child a proper object of charitable relief? Shall the state pension widows? Shall the school support the child? Shall charitable societies relieve family distress by finding work for children? The last question, so far as it was referred to at all, was emphatically answered in the negative, as the first was in the affirmative. The discussion turned chiefly upon the question of mothers' pensions and the respective value of public relief and private philanthropy. The sentiment of the conference was plainly for a carefully guarded form of mothers' pension by the state. This, it was felt, should be considered in relation to other remedies such as the minimum wage, workmen's compensation, and the prevention of those industrial accidents which so often deprive the family of the chief breadwinner. It was also felt that such pensions should be regarded from the standpoint of justice rather than of charity, the mother to be looked upon as rendering service to the state as the bearer and rearer of children.

A thorough acquaintance with the recent discussions of the problem in THE SURVEY was displayed and there was some apprehension expressed of the many failures through ill-considered legislation probable before success would be finally reached. The majority apparently believed that pensioning mothers was not simply a problem of relief but one comprising other elements, as the word "pension" rightly indicates. While it was recognized that hungry children make poor pupils, it was felt that any further weakening of parental responsibility for the child by the school would be unfortunate. The discussion along these lines included talks by Sherman C. Kingsley of Chicago; Jean Gordon of New Orleans; Mrs. Florence Kelley of New York; Grace Strachan of New York; Mrs. W. L. Murdoch of Birmingham; A. T. Jamieson of Greenwood, S. C., president of the South Carolina Conference of Charities; R. T. Solensten of the Associated Charities, Jacksonville, Fla.; Leon Schwartz of the B'nai B'rith, Mobile, Ala.; Mary H. Newell of the Associated Charities, Columbus, Ga., and others.

Rabbi David Marx of Atlanta added a touch of scholarly research to one session in his paper on Ancient Standards of Child Protection. Economic factors were discussed by Miss Gordon, who spoke on the eight-hour day and by Richard K. Conant, secretary of the Massachusetts Child Labor Committee, who dealt convincingly with the fact that the textile industry in Massachusetts no longer depends upon child labor in spite of the numerous plaints concerning the ruin of the industry of the sort which Dickens satirized in Hard Times.

W. H. Swift, secretary of the North Carolina Child Labor Committee, who had just come from a struggle with the Legislature, vigorously attacked the contention that mill work is better for children than the squalor of some of the mountain towns. He described his own childhood in an "average mountain home" in the South as the oldest of ten children, all of whom, he said incidentally are now doing pretty well in life. He told of the sacrifices by his father for their education and said that any time within the past twenty years, his father might have moved to a cotton mill town and lived on the labor of his children if he had been willing to do so. In all probability in that case the children would have been doomed to the common fate of cotton factory workers, with the low wages and hopeless outlook of an unskilled trade. Then he said that he was the father of three children and had lived for years next door to the best cotton mill in North Carolina. But if he should lose his means of livelihood and be forced to labor with his hands, rather than put his three young children in a cotton mill, he would "take them back to the mountains, build a shack by the side of a spring and plow with a brindled steer on the barren, ivy-covered plains of the Pick-Breeches." His reference was to a well-known area in North Carolina where no one has ever been known to make a living. Mr. Swift's partial defeat in the legislative fight--the abolition of night work for children under sixteen only was secured--has made him all the more determined to continue the war until his state shall adequately protect its working children from exploitation.

One especially significant address was by Rev. C. E. Weltner of Columbia, S. C. After many years' experience in charge of the "betterment work" of one of the noted mills of Columbia, Mr. Weltner said he had come to the conclusion that a better way to spend any surplus earnings is in adding to the pay envelope so that the people may do a few things for themselves. The message of the conference was carried to many sections of the city through a series of parlor conferences, eleven in all, held on one of the afternoons.

The principal speakers at one of the evening meetings were John A. Kingsbury, of New York, who spoke on the poverty caused by child labor, and Julia C. Lathrop of the Federal Children's Bureau, who gave an admirable outline of the functions of the new bureau and of its first effort to secure birth registration laws and to learn the causes of infant mortality. Lewis W. Hine, social photographer, threw upon the screen pictures of child labor conditions among the canneries of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, showing children of tender ages engaged in shucking oysters and shelling shrimp. Child Labor and Health occupied a morning session. Dr. W. H. Oates, state factory inspector for Alabama, made a forcible protest as a physician against conditions which tend to cause diseases of the throat and lungs in the children of the cotton mills. Mr. Brown spoke of the evils of the night-messenger service and Dr. Lindsay discussed improvement in child labor legislation.

A successful new feature of the conference was a meeting for children held at the Imperial Theater. It developed into two meetings, for the thousand children expected were doubled in number. Children themselves gave the stories of different child-employing industries, with the help of the stereopticon.

At the final meeting Senator Hudson, of Florida, presided. The writer made his annual protest against cotton mill conditions in the South, the subject this time being Our Modern Feudalism. Jerome Jones of Atlanta, prominent in southern labor circles, spoke of the connection between child labor and low wages. Mrs. Kelley gave one of her vigorous talks on the child breadwinner and the dependent parent. Owen R. Lovejoy appealed for more effective support of the cause of child labor reform by showing how widespread the evil is, how fearful the abuses are in many instances, and explained that the resources at the command of the committee, in the face of the enemies and obstacles to be overcome, are very meager.

Florida conditions and legislative problems were discussed at an informal gathering and this culminated in the organization of the Florida Child Labor Committee, with Dr. John W. Stagg of Orlando, as chairman and Marcus C. Fagg of the Children's Home Society, Jacksonville, as secretary. The Florida Legislature is now in session.

MORALS COMMISSION AND POLICE MORALS

GRAHAM TAYLOR

It is as obvious in New York and Chicago as it has been in some other cities that the effort to secure a morals commission for city governments is intended not only to repress and prevent the social evil but also quite as much to protect and improve the morals of the police, which are corrupted under the present conditions.

Indeed, this is directly stated in the Report of the Citizens' Committee appointed at the Cooper Union meeting held in New York last August, after a commanding officer of the police force had been implicated in the murder of Rosenthal by the "gun men":

"The corruption is so ingrained that the man of ordinary decent character entering the force and not possessed of extraordinary moral fiber may easily succumb.... Such a system makes for too many of the police an organized school of crime.... We know that the connection between members of the police force and crime, or commercialized vice, is continuous, profitable and so much a matter of course that explicit bargains do not have to be made, both the keeping and breaking of faith being determined by these policemen for their own profit.

"Our recommendations on the excise and prostitution problems are intended to benefit the police situation.... While improvement in the police department will incalculably improve the tone of the city's morals without any change in the statutory standards, nevertheless we have throughout hewn to the line of police reform and not of vice suppression."

The Chicago Vice Commission came to a similar conclusion:

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