The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charities and the Commons: The Pittsburgh Survey, Part I: The People, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Charities and the Commons: The Pittsburgh Survey, Part I: The People Author: Various Release Date: June 19, 2014 [EBook #46029] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS: *** Produced by Richard Tonsing, Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net VOL. XXI JANUARY 2, 1909 NO. 14 CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY A JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILANTHROPY PUBLISHED BY THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ROBERT W. DEFOREST, President; OTTO T. BANNARD, Vice-President; J. P. MORGAN, Treasurer; EDWARD T. DEVINE, General Secretary 105 EAST TWENTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK 174 ADAMS STREET, CHICAGO THIS ISSUE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS TWO DOLLARS A YEAR ENTERED AT THE POST OFFICE, NEW YORK, AS SECOND CLASS MATTER List of Contents (created by transcriber) THE COMMON WELFARE THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY PITTSBURGH THE NEW PITTSBURGHERS SOME PITTSBURGH STEEL WORKERS THE TEMPER OF THE WORKERS UNDER TRIAL THE WORKING WOMEN OF PITTSBURGH IMMIGRANT TYPES IN THE STEEL DISTRICT THE SLAV'S A MAN FOR A' THAT THE NEGROES OF PITTSBURGH THE JEWISH IMMIGRANTS OF TWO PITTSBURGH BLOCKS HOMESTEAD THE CIVIC RESPONSIBILITIES OF DEMOCRACY IN AN INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT THE TREND OF THINGS Telephones { 1646 } Stuyvesant { 1647 } Millard & Company Stationers and Printers 12 East 16th Street (Bet. Fifth Ave. & Union Square) New York ENGRAVING LITHOGRAPHING BLANK BOOK MAKING CATALOG AND PAMPHLET WORK AT REASONABLE PRICES The Sheltering Arms William R. Peters President 92 William Street Herman C. Von Post Secretary 32 West 57th Street Charles W. Maury Treasurer 504 West 129th Street OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION "The Sheltering Arms" was opened October 6th, 1864, and receives children between six and ten years of age, for whom no other institution provides. Children placed at "The Sheltering Arms" are not surrendered to the Institution, but are held subject to the order of parents or guardians. The children attend the neighboring public school. The older boys and girls are trained to household and other work. Application for admission should be addressed to Miss Richmond, at "The Sheltering Arms," 129th Street, corner Amsterdam Avenue. We can print your Book as easily as though you were in our own city Books and Reports ARE OUR SPECIALTY ¶Let us have your manuscript or full information and we will send you an estimate and samples of our work. Wm. F. Fell Co. PRINTERS 1220-24 Sansom Street PHILADELPHIA SPECIAL SALE During JANUARY and FEBRUARY we offer you your choice of all $19.00, $20.00, $22.00, $23.00 or $25.00 SUITINGS or OVERCOATINGS TO ORDER AT $18.00 and all $27.00, $28.00, $30.00, $32.00 or $35.00 SUITINGS or OVERCOATINGS TO ORDER AT $25.00 All prices marked in plain figures. DEVINE & CO. Formerly DEVINE & RONAN 150 Nassau Street ROOMS 1611, 1612, 1613. Please mention Charities and The Commons when writing to advertisers. Drawn by Joseph Stella. AS MEN SEE AMERICA. I. THE FIRST OF THREE FRONTISPIECES. [Pg 499] THE COMMON WELFARE EVERY CITY NEEDS A CITY PLAN NOW The congestion exhibit in New York last spring proved one of the most effective and startling means of making a contented community sit up and think about its "other half." It formulated questions half formed in many minds and demanded answers. Its influence was felt over the whole country, and its discussions have bobbed up here and there and everywhere ever since in articles, conferences and addresses. That the congestion exhibit answered questions as well as asked them, and that it has a constructive program to offer not only to New York but to the whole country are amply proved by the decision just reached, and announced to-day for the first time, to hold an exhibit and conference of city planning next March. "Every American city needs a city plan now," is the conclusion of the committee, and the steps by which it has arrived at this conclusion are interestingly set forth in its announcement. While the organization bears the name of the Committee on Congestion of Population in New York, its scope and purpose are much wider. The program approved by its executive committee is "to obtain a plan for the development of Greater New York, and other American cities, along economic, hygienic and aesthetic lines; and to promote the better distribution of population throughout city, state and nation." To establish the need for such a program, the committee offers as "admitted facts" the following: Many American cities with a population of over 50,000 have congestion of population, factories and offices; such congestion creates problems for which we cannot find solutions; no city should use all the land within its boundaries as intensively as is necessary in its most congested areas,—to do so perpetuates congestion; no American city yet has a legal right to prescribe the height and use of buildings in its various sections; no city can develop normally without a plan which anticipates its growth for twenty-five or fifty years. As a means of stimulating consideration of the subject and of promoting farsighted planning for the future, the committee has adopted as its slogan the statement, "Every American city needs a city plan now." It will show, it announces, the cost of the lack of a city plan in New York, the city planning which has been done in some American and foreign cities, and the pressing need for a city plan in New York to-day. The conference on city planning in March will include an exhibit of the best developments from all over the world. Both exhibit and conference will be keyed up to two major considerations: "the concentration of one-half the population of a great state in one city makes the problem of statewide importance; the concentration of one-nineteenth of a nation's population in one city gives the problem national bearing." There will be study of the best methods for distribution of population, for promoting feasible methods of locating factories and industrial colonies, and an educational campaign to show the advantages of migration from congested centers. EMPLOYERS PAY FOR SANATORIUM CARE Massachusetts, almost invariably a leader in preventive measures, is developing this year a most unique and promising kind of co-operative effort in the prevention of tuberculosis. Massachusetts was the first state to organize a board of health, dating from 1869. It was the first state to choose its factory inspectors from the medical profession, this dating from 1906, and out of these two farsighted provisions of the law has grown during the past two months a plan by which manufacturers are assuming a part of the financial burden in seeing to it that operatives in their factories, found to have tuberculosis in the incipient stage, are sent to the Rutland Sanatorium and given the best possible opportunity for cure. The plan originated in Worcester which, with a string of neighboring towns and villages, forms one of the sixteen inspection districts into which the state is divided. As a result of the activity of Dr. M. G. Overlock, the state inspector of health in charge, seventy manufacturing plants, employing more than 20,000 hands, have followed the example of David H. Fanning, president of the Royal Worcester Corset Company, in agreeing to pay a part of the maintenance cost of any of their employes sent to Rutland. The cost in the sanatorium is nine dollars a week. Of this the state pays five dollars and the company four dollars. The term usually agreed upon is three months. At the end of that time, a large number of the cases have been so far restored that they can be taken to nearby, supervised boarding houses and farms and make room for new patients,—a plan hit upon to relieve the great pressure upon this institution which accepts only incipient cases. The employer continues his contribution. The boarding houses, conducted along approved lines, have sprung up all over the surrounding hills much as they have at Saranac Lake in New York. The factory inspection has been keyed up to take the greatest possible advantage of the co-operation of employers. Frequent visits are made to all plants, but to those in which the work rooms are full of dust, or where there are other conditions favoring tuberculosis, Dr. Overlock makes a visit once a month. All minors on the working staff are taken before him, and required to furnish a full family history. If there has been tuberculosis in the family, even remote, a medical examination is at once made. The others are examined more superficially, but the least trace of suspicious symptoms is at once seized upon as cause for an examination. In this way, it is believed, incipient cases among minors will be caught in their earliest stages. The system will later be extended to adults. An extension of the plan to secure the interest and help of employers has begun in some other inspection districts, and will eventually be introduced throughout [Pg 500] the state. But the carefully laid plans to detect and ward off incipient cases comprise only one part of the Massachusetts plan to fight tuberculosis. In May three homes for advanced cases will be opened, and the development of the plan calls for additional homes, scattered through the state, until it shall have made complete provision for all cases, early or advanced. In view of the almost unanimously expressed opinion at the recent International Tuberculosis Congress, that the strategic point of attack in the campaign is in isolating advanced cases, the provision of these homes is, perhaps, the most important plank in the Massachusetts health platform. Governor Guild is much interested in the whole plan. In a recent letter to Dr. Overlock he wrote: "It has been a great pleasure for me to inaugurate the new policy of the commonwealth of provision for all cases of tuberculosis, not merely as at present the care of the curable, but the care of the incurable as well." SALARY LOANS IN CINCINNATI The business of lending money on salaries and wages has received a practical knockout blow in Cincinnati through the Commercial Tribune, which instituted the crusade, with the co-operation of the officials of the city and of various private organizations. Aided by an ordinance which orders the licensing of salary loan offices and which makes a weekly report to the city auditor necessary, the campaigners have already been able to put one office out of business entirely, and to sew up all the others in the courts in such a way that it now seems very likely that most of these will retire rather than face the storm which awaits them. D. H. Tolman is more deeply involved in Cincinnati than he has ever been before. His son, E. E. Tolman, who is said to be connected with the business of his father, is under arrest and is now waiting a hearing in the police court. His manager has been arrested and convicted on three counts. Although these cases have been appealed to a higher court, an application for an order to restrain the further interference with the Tolman business has thus far been refused. D. H. Tolman has ordered his manager in Cincinnati to refuse to comply with the ordinance and unless the courts do issue this order the manager will be arrested every week. The Commercial Tribune has secured all of the Tolman forms from a former manager. These have all been printed together with a letter from the ex-manager in which the latter makes a complete exposé of the methods pursued behind the doors of one of his offices. The auditor of Cincinnati has declared his purpose of keeping up the fight. He has forced ten salary loan offices to pay a license fee and to comply with the provisions of the local ordinance. Agents have been permanently employed by the official to watch the loan offices and to ferret out any new agents who may attempt to operate secretly. The Legal Aid Society which was recently formed to advise the poor, has made it its business to impress upon all who seek its meetings the futility of borrowing money from the salary loan people and has furnished a list of the companies which are classified as "loan sharks," to every man and woman whom it could reach. In this way people who never read the newspapers are given information which they otherwise would probably never receive. The Legal Aid Society is also at work on a code of laws which will be submitted to the General Assembly at its coming session and which it is hoped will solve the question of loaning money on salaries and chattels in Ohio for all time. The attorneys of the society promise a law which will set a fixed rate, which will include interest and expenses, on all such loans. It is said now that this rate will be either three or four per cent. The contemplated law will also contain a provision which will make the recovery of usury possible. It is further planned to have a provision in the law similar to the Massachusetts statute, requiring the signatures of the wife, when a borrower is married, and of his employer. Some of the best attorneys in Cincinnati including former Prosecuting Attorney Benton Oppenheimer, are at work on these laws. Another movement now on foot is the founding of a salary loan office on the same basis as several chattel loan offices which are now operating in the country, whose stockholders are philanthropists and men of wealth. Cincinnati has such a chattel loan company and the men who are now fighting the salary loan business there are urging the stockholders of this company to take up the other work. The most gratifying thing of the Cincinnati campaign has been the falling off of business in the loan offices. The companies admit this and one broker left for Florida after explaining that his business had decreased seventy-five per cent during the campaign. FOR A COURT OF DOMESTIC RELATIONS One of the interesting bills to be brought before the 1909 session of the New York Legislature is that drawn by Bernhard Rabbino, relating to a special domestic relations court. Mr. Rabbino believes that if we have courts for the purpose of divorce, for separating mothers from children and children from fathers, we should have a separate tribunal [Pg 501] to which families in discord could appeal. There are probably from 12,000 to 15,000 domestic trouble cases handled yearly in Manhattan and the Bronx alone, but as no records are kept of summons cases,—and these come under that head,—it is not possible to compute the exact number. Probably it is greater than the number of cases handled by the children's court, and a domestic relations court is justified by Mr. Rabbino, additionally, on the ground that it precedes the children's court, having for its fundamental purpose the preservation of the family as a unit, with an opportunity for fathers and mothers to secure the same expert and individual attention that is given to the children. Domestic affairs are admittedly out of place in a general police court. The unfortunate participants are not in any sense criminals, and yet they are surrounded by thieves, pickpockets, drunkards, disorderly persons,—the regular rabble of the criminal court,—and an outraged self-respect is the consequence of such treatment. The present organization of magistrates' courts contemplates that the magistrate shall sit one-half of the day on the bench and the other half shall be in chambers for the settlement of just such cases as Mr. Rabbino would bring before the domestic relations court. As a matter of practice, however, so congested are the courts and so pressing their work, that there is no time for this personal consideration which the law contemplates. The magistrate does what he can in the face of tremendous difficulties, but he has not the time to investigate these cases, and without proper attention there can be no adjustment of them. Divorce and separation are the natural results. The idea of such a court would be to prevent litigation as a whole and particularly to safeguard the homes of the poor, for the poor are those who are obliged to resort to police courts. The better-off take their affairs to the Supreme Court. It is very possible that these lower courts might develop into something higher, and many matrimonial difficulties which now cause a permanent rupture of relations be peaceably adjusted with judicial assistance. Such a court might also have a marked effect on juvenile crime, for any force that makes for better home conditions is preventive of crime. The bill requires also that the court of domestic relations have exclusive jurisdiction over all cases of abandonment, non-support, and the non-support of poor relatives as provided by law. The bill as drawn would make this domestic relations court part of the city magistrates' courts, on the lines of the children's courts now being generally established throughout the country. The idea, however, would be to have a special court altogether, and if successful, this would probably be done. The introduction of this bill in the Legislature may bring to sharp discussion the whole question of division of jurisdiction in the city courts. The present established principle is that such courts should be divided geographically, covering a certain borough or section of a borough. The children's court differs radically from this and introduces a functional division. It is an open question whether, with the police courts crowded as they are, such a functional division has not become necessary for more cases than those of delinquent children,—whether the separation of special kinds of cases into children's courts and into courts of domestic relations will not prove more effective than a further division of territory. THE YEAR IN MUNICIPAL EVENTS A review of municipal events and tendencies for the past year, which might be the title of Clinton Rogers Woodruff's report as secretary of the National Municipal League, centers around efficiency and honesty in government as a result of clear accounting systems and understandable statistics; wide-spread efforts at charter revision; a constantly growing sentiment for nomination reform; and a militant desire, evident in many sections, to tackle the problems which have grown up around the saloon in politics. The Massachusetts Bureau of Municipal Statistics, the first of its kind, has already resulted, Mr. Woodruff believes, in a number of cities reconstructing their accounts on a sounder and more substantial basis. The first year's report shows a confusing lack of system in handling the receipts and disbursements of towns and cities; a wide variety of dates for closing the fiscal year; many defects in the treasurers' methods of accounting; and the need for consolidation of the administration of trust funds. In many instances, money left to the community for special purposes has been used by the town trustees for general purposes. But "the movement for uniform accounting proceeds without interruption." Originated by the National Municipal League, it was given momentum by the Census Bureau and by legislation in Ohio and Massachusetts. Accounting investigations and reforms are being made the basis for an approach to the solution of important problems in Boston, in New York by the conspicuous work of the Bureau of Municipal Research, and in Minneapolis. The point of attack in Minneapolis has been the administration of the school fund "which seems to have been particularly inadequate and inefficient." A grand jury found "a startling and deplorably loose state of affairs." The investigation was made by trained men from San Francisco and other Pacific Coast cities. In Wilmington there has been a thoroughgoing examination of municipal account. Legislative reference bureaus are being established to help in this movement, of particular value to Chicago which "is on the threshold of an era of public improvement which will call for the most intelligent direction from the city government." Mr. Woodruff predicts that "we may expect within the next half dozen years to find a series of similar bureaus established in all the leading cities, gathering for their respective municipalities information concerning improvement; and, moreover, we may expect a further development, in that all of these bureaus and libraries will be so co-ordinated, each with the others, as to form a strong chain of information that will banish from the halls of legislation and the offices of administration, the dense ignorance that all too frequently found a welcome lodgement." [Pg 502] Charter changes are pressed every year more strongly to the front. It is true now that wherever a good government organization of any sort is found, there will be accompanying it a campaign either for a new charter or for amendments to the existing one. Perhaps the most noticeable tendency of the movement is a demand for a greater degree of home rule for the cities which have been "subjected to a degree of legislative buffeting that has well nigh destroyed the cherished ideal of self-government." Nomination reform has been much discussed, and a number of laws providing for direct nominations have become effective during the year. Mr. Woodruff holds that the results of direct nominations have, on the whole, "recommended themselves to those who are striving for the elimination of nomination monopoly and for the inauguration of a simpler and more direct form of election machinery." Further, he holds that "it is now generally conceded, except by a very small and diminishing group of men, that the preparation and distribution of the ballots at the general election is a proper state function and expense." The objections to direct nominations are discussed at length and finally dismissed with the conclusion: "We must realize that we are living in a democracy, and that the election machinery must be democratic and must record the wishes of the people and be responsive to their desires. Direct nominations are a step in advance because they enable the people directly to express their wishes. No doubt they have made their mistakes, and will continue to make them; but they have had to bear the brunt of them in the past, and they must continue to bear them in the future; and this in the long run will prove to be the most effective way of building up an enlightened and efficient democracy." The initiative and referendum are advocated, because "they are unquestionably proving effective in breaking down some of the privileges and monopolies that have characterized political organizations for many years." TO STIMULATE PARKS AND PLAY The Council of One Hundred, an auxiliary to the Parks and Playgrounds Association of New York, has been fully organized by Miss Pauline Robinson and Seth Thayer Stewart, with a membership of well known men and women who are interested in playground activities and civic improvement. At the first meeting of the council at the home of Mrs. Charles B. Alexander, in December, Richard Watson Gilder presided, introducing Mrs. George C. Riggs (Kate Douglas Wiggin), who read a valuable paper. Eugene A. Philbin, president of the Parks and Playgrounds Association, outlined the development of that organization, which is the union of the Brooklyn Society for Parks and Playgrounds and the Metropolitan Parks Association. Howard Bradstreet, the secretary of the association, gave through lantern slides a synopsis of the active work in conducting playgrounds and baseball centers during the last season. Seth Thayer Stewart sketched a possible plan for the extension of the recreation idea throughout the city, and Dr. Luther H. Gulick spoke briefly on recreation for girls. The Council of One Hundred, of which Mr. Gilder is president, Jacob H. Schiff, George D. Pratt, Mrs. Frederick W. Whitridge and Mrs. Samuel Bowne Duryea, vice-presidents; and Miss Pauline Robinson, secretary and treasurer, will meet two or three times a year. Its purpose is to assist individually and as a body in the active work of the Parks and Playgrounds Association. While much is being done by the city through park and school in the way of offering play facilities to children, nevertheless, so great is their number in New York, that only a small percentage of the possibilities have as yet been realized. With a million children of school age or under, occupied only a small part of the time, the street must be the chief resort for the large majority. The experience of last summer showed both the feasibility and the good result of organizing the children of the street by play leaders who appreciate the value of free play, and are acquainted with child nature. The plan of work as outlined calls for the placing of such play leaders in various sections of the city; the encouraging of the establishment of places for recreation by different organizations and neighborhood committees, and for the provision and maintenance of various forms of play throughout the year in sections otherwise neglected. During the summer the association maintained eight vacant lots as playgrounds, eleven baseball centers and a camp for boys. The neighbors of several of these grounds have asked to have them extended during the winter, and the association will undertake to do so early in the new year. NEW YORK STATE TRADE SCHOOL PLANS Much significance is attached to the recent organization of the New York state branch of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. The passage of the industrial education bill last year opened up to the state possibilities in the way of industrial education which it has not thus far been able to measure. A volunteer body of some sort has been needed to awaken interest and stir up the whole state. Particular opportunity offers among the up-state cities and it was with this in mind that the officers and advisory board were elected, for as the list shows, the members are representative of the state as a whole as well as of many lines of industrial and educational activity. The officers are: President, James P. McElroy, manager of the Consolidated Car Heating Company, Albany; vice- president, Dr. Andrew S. Draper, state commissioner of education, Albany; secretary-treasurer, Arthur L. Williston, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Additional members of the executive committee are: V. Everit Macy, chairman of Board of Trustees, Teachers' College, New York; Joseph R. Campbell, president Diamond Saw and Stamping Works, Buffalo; Thomas D. Fitzgerald, president Allied Printing [Pg 503] [Pg 504] Trades Council of New York State, Albany; Frank L. Babbott, manufacturer and member of the School Board, Brooklyn. At a public meeting following the formation of the branch, considerable enthusiasm was developed and a number of interesting papers were read. Of these, perhaps the most substantial contribution to the discussion of the evening was by Dr. William H. Maxwell, city superintendent of schools, New York, who presided. Among other things Dr. Maxwell said: Certain things may be taken as demonstrated with regard to industrial education: First, trade schools are needed. They are needed for the sake of our industrial wealth and efficiency. They are needed for the sake of the boys and girls of this city. The best preparation for a trade is the manual training high school where, in connection with elements of a liberal education, students receive instruction in drawing, in tools, and in applications of art to industry. But these schools breed engineers, not journeymen. Hence we need schools to give training that will shorten and enrich the period of apprenticeship for the journeyman. Second, such schools must be a part of the public school system and must articulate directly and closely with the elementary schools, to the end that boys and girls between fourteen and eighteen, or at least sixteen, may obtain that training which will enable them to be of use in a shop; because it is in the public schools that the boys and girls are found who need such training. Third, to carry out this articulation, elementary schools should have manual training to discover these boys and girls who have an aptitude for mechanical pursuits. Brains are as necessary in mechanical pursuits as in law or theology. Certain difficulties stand in our way: First, apathy of manufacturers who have shown little desire to obtain really skilled American workmen, as for example, the firm which established a school to train apprentices and found that they were taken away by other firms as soon as they had learned a few tricks of the trade. Second, apathy of the financial authorities of the city who have just cut out the amount asked for by the Board of Education for shops and kitchens, and given only $22,000 for a trade school. It is encouraging, however, to remember that the first annual appropriation for manual training in Brooklyn was only $5,000. If we make good use of the small appropriation, the demonstration will secure larger appropriations in the future. Third, the foolish or nebulous arguments of many of those who have been advocating trade schools. Arguments have been foolish when they became pleas for the elimination of existing high schools and the conversion of these institutions into trade schools. Those that have not been foolish have been largely nebulous, vapory exhortations to establish trade schools, without the substance of a well considered plan. Such a well considered plan is now the great desideratum. While the advocates of trade schools have been talking, the Board of Education has established and maintained five prosperous and useful evening trade schools which are patronized largely by apprentices. Those evening trade schools confine their operations chiefly to the building and machinists' trades. Shall we stop there? Will our friends not give us a plan for teaching our three largest trades, clothing, beer brewing, and sugar refining? What we need farther is a well thought-out plan of co-operation between the school and the manufacturer, such as that at Fitchburg, Mass. For these reasons,—the apathy of manufacturers, the apathy of the financial authorities of our city, and the need of definite, coherent plans,—the cause of trade schools stands sorely in need of the aid of this local branch of the national society. The time is surely opportune when the Board of Education has appointed a standing committee on this subject and when the state, through the industrial education bill, passed last winter by the Legislature, has decided to give substantial financial assistance to any community that established trade schools. TO RESTRAIN HOLIDAY BEGGING The mummery and begging in which the children of New York city so generally indulge Thanksgiving Day and other holidays have long been matters of concern and alarm to those who are interested in educational work with young people. Many articles have appeared denouncing the custom. On the morning of Thanksgiving, the New York Times contained an especially well directed effort to protest against this growing evil. The children of Asacog Social Settlement, 52 Sands street, Brooklyn, partake very generally in these holiday mummeries, masquerading and begging. The harmful results have long been realized, but the efforts heretofore used to modify the custom have been quite ineffective. It was resolved this year to undertake a different method of modifying the nuisance. It was found in all cases that the children had no idea why they should choose Thanksgiving for begging, beyond the fact that people gave them money on that day and all their playmates chose this method of "having fun," so of course it was [Pg 505] necessary to be in the game. So with "having a good time" in mind, parents, young people, children, were invited to a festival on Thanksgiving eve. It seemed quite necessary to draw a moral lesson in the attempt to overthrow such a deeply seated custom, and this was done through a series of tableaus and dances with connecting narrative. The probable historical setting of the Thanksgiving custom was presented through scenes of the Dutch in Holland, during the troublesome times of William of Orange, when the sea beggars made their famous pledge. Two tableaus showing the court scene and the banquet of the beggars were followed by a costume dance by small boys, which was called the "beggars' march." The English contribution to the celebrations was in tableaus from the history of the Guy Fawkes plot. The Dutch and English transferred to America were shown by Peter Stuyvesant and his surrender; the southern scenes with their harvest ideas through a colored plantation sketch; the Puritans and Indians by tableaus and Indian squaw dances. Then followed the times of the Revolution, with the tyranny of the British, the spirit of '76, and the Evacuation Day celebration on November 25, 1783. The tableaus were given in costume by the young people and children, about seventy-five taking part. The members of the Civic Club, composed of mothers and neighborhood women did a great deal in preparing the costumes and dressing the actors. The settlement had the valuable help of Miss Mari R. Hofer in preparing Dutch and Indian dances, and of Howard Bradstreet, the narrator of the evening. Admission was by tickets given in clubs and classes, and the seating capacity of three hundred and twenty-five was taxed to over five hundred. But the carnival spirit was in the midst and no one minded the necessity of standing on a chair with a friend or two in order to catch an occasional glimpse of the stage. Several of the star performers became so interested in the audience that it was necessary to snatch the nearest boys or girls as the occasion demanded, hustle them to the improvised "green" room, hastily dress them in remaining fragments of costumes far removed from the historic time, and with impromptu coaching from the wings, an attitude was struck worthy of any Dutch patriot or Puritan dignitary. The most gratifying results of the performance were that the begging on the street was greatly diminished. Many of the children did dress up and beg, for of course we could not expect a complete reformation on Sands street. But up to eleven o'clock not a begging child had been seen on Asacog corner. Later in the day little beggars began to appear but in smaller numbers and at three o'clock in the afternoon, a very lively hour, all the children on the block were out playing their ordinary street games, and but one child was in fancy costume. From one tenement from which twenty children begged last year, but two indulged this year, one mother having been to the festival, and really beginning to realize the dangers of street gaieties for the first time, refused to permit her eight year old girl to parade in fancy dress, at which the child volunteered to stay in bed, feeling life was too dull for words, and besides she was tired from the night before, the carnival spirit having worked itself out. In reality it was the "day after the fun." FOLK DANCES IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL The pupils in the Lincoln School, situated in the suburbs of Burlington, Iowa, feel no restraint from want of room to play, for the school grounds are as large as a small park, and stretches of prairie land roll before and behind the building. Beautiful oaks and elms form tiny forests round about, a brook rushes through the outskirts, and in each season nature calls so loudly to the boy that it requires all the ingenuity of teachers and truant officers to keep him in school. Many nationalities have congregated in this part of the city, for it is a factory district, and each September there are enrolled little Germans, Russians, Swiss and Irish who are instinctively antagonistic to one another. The teachers of Lincoln School have found it advisable to be present during the noon hour, as well as during recess, to prevent the playing of rough games in which many children were injured, or which resulted in fighting. [Pg 506] [Pg 507] About ten years ago a may-pole was introduced, which revolutionized the school. A small organ was carried into the yard and as many as forty children took part in this dance at the same time. About five years ago, fearing that this dance would become monotonous, other folk dances were introduced, and now one may see during all intermissions, groups of boys and girls dancing the gavotte der kaiserin, Irish reel, Highland fling, sword dance, dance of the Alpine peasants and the minuet. In order that even these should not become uninteresting, costumes have been provided for each dance, and this is bound to be the greatest aid in discipline; for what boy will play truant when he can impersonate Washington in the minuet or some Scottish hero in the sword dance or Highland fling. To defray the expense of the costumes, a play was given,—Spyri's Heidi. This met with such success that they now have a dramatic club, whose members have presented Old-Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins and Little Baron to large audiences in the Opera House. Many unruly boys have become docile, after impersonating some genuinely honest boy character. The manners and dress of both boys and girls have been much improved since they have taken part in these plays. The folk-dances have been used in this school for so many years that all are prepared to say that they are a success with the boys in as great a degree as they are with the girls. A boy seldom refuses to join in the dances. The most enjoyable period during the session is the time of the rhythmic play. They need no other punishment for disobedience than to threaten to refuse to play for the folk dances. THE STANDARD FOR A CITY'S SURVEY GRAHAM TAYLOR Social research on a city-wide scale is a contemporary product. Appropriately old London was the first to have its [Pg 508] living conditions comprehensively investigated. To Charles Booth belongs the credit of having initiated and set the type of such enquiry. His great work in seventeen volumes on Life and Labor in London standardized methods and results in some lines of civic investigation. Its data were almost entirely derived from secondary documentary sources furnished by official records and the reports of voluntary agencies, but the originality with which it is everywhere stamped lies in the handling and verifying of the material thus acquired. The whole great analysis and synthesis of the largest city population of the world, thus attempted for the first time, deserves to be ranked as one of the greatest achievements of the closing decade of the nineteenth century. That this brave pioneering was attempted by one of London's great shippers, and that it was so successfully carried through to completion at a cost of twenty years of labor and a quarter million of dollars, also sets a standard of self-exacting citizenship worthy alike of the world's greatest city and of one of its most modest and personally resourceful citizens. The extent to which this survey of London afforded intelligent incentive and basis for the reconstructive civic spirit and work which attended and followed it is demonstrated by contemporary history. The voluntary efforts to improve conditions, and the London County Council's achievement in increasing open and street spaces and in furnishing housing and other equipment for city life, were on a scale befitting the foundation in fact substantially laid by Mr. Booth's monumental work. Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and many provincial cities received impetus and direction in their heroic efforts to ascertain and improve their own conditions. Seebohm Rowntree followed Mr. Booth's example in his study of poverty in York, but went beyond his methods in making a first hand investigation of the facts. Robert W. deForest and Lawrence Veiller set the type for American enquiry into city conditions by their investigation and reports of the Tenement House Problem in New York. And now the Pittsburgh Survey registers the most inclusive standard thus far set in ascertaining the facts of living conditions in a typical industrial community. In cooperating to carry through this constructive survey the Russell Sage Foundation and this magazine achieve the most noteworthy fulfilment of their common purpose to improve social and living conditions in the United States. PREACHING AND PRACTICE JACOB A. RIIS These two Christmas stamps are next of kin. Our Red Cross stamp is the youngest child of the Danish Julemarke which sprang out of a country postmaster's brain to take its place among the most effective weapons in the world-wide fight with the white plague. Of what stout stock the family are,—it is a big family by this time, with sons and daughters in many lands,—this year's issue of the Danish stamp tells at a glance. For the big building pictured in it is the "Christmas Stamp Sanatorium," built for tuberculous children out of the half pennies the Danish people have given these five years as their contribution to the great campaign. Denmark is a little country. All in all it has not much more than half as many people as the Greater New York, if indeed it has so many. Yet in so short a time it has wrought so great a tangible result. What it has further wrought in the way of arousing public interest and guiding public education in this matter is beyond calculation. For the last is the biggest end of the work of the Christmas stamp, wherever it goes. In New York city two years ago we raised a great outcry about child cripples, made so by tuberculosis. We counted five thousand or more in the tenements of the metropolis and decided that their one chance of life lay in building a hospital on the seashore, on the lines of the little one now run on Coney Island by the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor. Forthwith money was raised, a quarter of a million of dollars, to build a much bigger one with, and architects were set to work to draw plans. The city appropriated a site in a great seashore park, to be laid out for the people. Then there happened what so often happens in New York when a great public enterprise is to be carried out. It ran [Pg 509] into a rut, somehow. Money became tight, the controller could not find the funds, park and hospital were side-tracked and stayed so. They are side-tracked yet. The money kind-hearted New Yorkers gave for the children is in the bank. The little cripples still crawl around their tenements. The winds blow over the ocean and waste their healing balm. The park is as far away as ever. And the purses of the charitable snap with an extra twist of tightness when they think of it all. Next time we shall plead the children's cause in vain. That is the way of New York. The picture above tells the way of poor little Denmark. No doubt there is an excuse, or a string of them, for the American city. But excuses do not mend aching joints and wasted frames. How long before New York will catch up with Denmark? Would it not be fine if this lusty son of a worthy sire, the Red Cross Christmas stamp, were to help get us started again? RAILWAY ACCIDENTS EMORY R. JOHNSON University of Pennsylvania The Confessions of a Railroad Signalman by J. O. Fagan is an exceptionally able book, worthy of the serious attention of every student of the causes of railroad accidents.[1] The author gives his qualifications for writing the book by saying that he "has been a telegraph operator and tower-man for twenty-seven years and part of the time chief clerk to a railroad superintendent," and he further adds that "the extent of territory covered by this experience is even wider than one would suppose. For a telegraph operator is, of necessity, one of the best posted men in the service." In addition to this experience from which a knowledge of the subject has been gained, the author possesses a remarkably well trained mind and has command of exceptionally clean English. The Confessions of a Railroad Signalman, J. O. Fagan. Pp. 182. Price $1.00, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1908. This book may be obtained at publisher's price through the offices of Charities and The Commons. The main thesis of the book is that accidents are due mainly to non-observance of rules. "Railroad managers, therefore, sooner or later will come to understand that the one thing needed in the railroad service at the present day is to educate employes to appreciate the fact that successful and safe railroading in the future will have to depend, not upon the multiplication of safety devices or the reconstruction of rules, but upon the personal effort and conduct of conscientious, alert, and careful men." Furthermore, the author has "arrived at the conclusion that on our railroads the interests of the community have become secondary to those of the employe and his organization." Mr. Fagan also maintains that "it is actually a matter of reasonable demonstration that at least seventy-five per cent of the casualties might be avoided by increase of interest on the part of the employe, and the earnest concentration of his best thought on the subject." FROM CONFESSIONS OF A RAILROAD SIGNALMAN The natural remedy for the situation, as stated by Mr. Fagan, would lie in the observance by employes of the company's rules and regulations, in the discipline by the management of all employes for each and every non-observance of any rule, and the enforcement of discipline with appropriate penalties regardless of the personality of those subjected to discipline. The enforcement of discipline, moreover, should not be made to depend upon consequences resulting from [Pg 510] [1] non-observance of rules. Employes should be penalized by loss of pay for their disregard of the rules or regulations whether their actions do or do not result in casualties. Mr. Fagan, however, believes, and brings convincing evidence to show, that the above remedy is beyond hope. The organizations of which the railroad employes are members take the position that the member who violates a rule is to be defended against condemnation by the public or discipline by the management. Instead of taking the view that the interests of the public are paramount to those of any individual railroad employe, the railroad employes' organization seeks invariably to shield its members against the consequences of their actions. Furthermore, the managers of most railroads have decided that the strict enforcement of the rules and the punishment of those who do not observe the rules result in so many controversies with the labor unions and are so destructive of harmonious relations between the company and the unions, that it is better to strive for harmony rather than to enforce discipline. In other words, discipline and the safety of the public are made subsidiary to the maintenance of harmonious relations with the employes. Such being the situation, Mr. Fagan believes that reform is not to be expected within railway management but must come from the outside as the result of the exercise of governmental authority. The government must punish employes for non-observance of rules and penalize railroad officers for the non-enforcement of their regulations. The analyses and arguments of the book are convincing. The position taken by Mr. Fagan is one the accuracy of which will doubtless be vigorously denied by the organizations of railroad employes and will be to some extent questioned by the responsible management of railroads. However, it seems to the author of this review that Mr. Fagan has established his thesis. INDUSTRIAL ITALY ARTHUR P. KELLOGG The simple Italian peasant, he whose meager village life was so accurately drawn by Mr. Mangano in earlier issues of this magazine, is familiar in every city in this country, and we have in America what is probably a fair appreciation of his poverty, his hardships and the longing for better things which send great blocks of the population of rural provinces flocking across the Atlantic. Of industrial Italy we know less, having few sources of information. If the life of the factory towns is really as bad as The Forewarners,[2] by Giovanni Cena, makes it,—if wages are as low, work as hard, housing as squalid and amusements as few,—then we have in the book a story of remarkable growth in wretchedness, for the manufacturing towns of northern Italy are, as Mrs. Humphry Ward points out in the introduction to the English translation, only forty years old. The Forewarners, Giovanni Cena, 1908, New York, Doubleday, Page and Company. Price $1.50. This book may be ordered at publisher's price through the office of Charities and The Commons. The book makes clear the source of the socialist vote in the Italian Parliament and the human stuff which the railway and other big strikes are made of. It is, supposedly, the life story of a Turin printer. Starting as the son of a clay digger, he graduates into the working world after a childhood spent in an orphanage. Having some little education more than his fellows, he becomes a proofreader for a house which is putting on the Italian market the standard works of science and philosophy in all languages. This gives him stronger meat than a weak body and an overwrought mind can digest, and he becomes oppressed with the wrongs of his class, with the grind of the factory and the squalid life of the house where he has a tiny cell in the garret. There he piles up, in proof sheets, a library of...