Chapter I: Front Matter

THE SURVEY

Volume XXX, Number 1, Apr 5, 1913

THE COMMON WELFARE

RESPONSE TO FLOOD CALLS

For the first time in the history of our great disasters, the country's machinery for relief has been found ready to move with that precision and efficiency which only careful previous organization could make possible. In the flood and tornado stricken regions of the Mississippi valley the Red Cross has given splendid evidence of the effectiveness of its scheme of organization and of its methods as worked out on the basis of experience at San Francisco, and as tested by the Minnesota and Michigan forest fires, the Cherry mine disaster, and the Mississippi Floods of last year.

Utilizing the largest and ablest charity organization societies which serve as "institutional members," a force of executives and trained workers was instantly deployed. With foreknowledge of just what to do and how to do it, and without friction, these men and women have reinforced the spontaneous response to emergency of citizens and officials in the stricken communities.

Omaha's tornado had scarcely died down when Eugene T. Lies of the Chicago United Charities was on his way to the city. Ernest P. Bicknell, director of the National Red Cross, had reached Chicago, en route to Omaha, when news of the Ohio floods turned him back. The same news summoned Edward T. Devine from New York. It was Mr. Devine who organized the Red Cross relief work at San Francisco, following the earthquake and fire of 1908. Mr. Bicknell established headquarters at Columbus, itself badly in the grip of the waters. At Dayton Mr. Devine, C. M. Hubbard of the St. Louis Provident Association and T. J. Edmonds of the Cincinnati Associated Charities concentrated their services.

When Cincinnati and its vicinity needed help, Mr. Edmonds returned to his home city. The Omaha situation by this time could spare Mr. Lies for Dayton. To Piqua, Sidney and other Ohio and Indiana flood points went James F. Jackson of the Cleveland Associated Charities and other workers from various organizations. The news from the Ohio and other floods almost swamped that of an isolated disaster in Alabama where a tornado devastated the town of Lower Peachtree. To handle the relief at this point the Red Cross dispatched William M. McGrath of the Birmingham Associated Charities, who had seen service a year ago in the Mississippi floods.

To work under the direction of these executives, agents have been drafted from the staffs of charitable organizations scattered throughout the entire middle West, and even as far east as New York. Close co-operation was at once established between this force, hastily organized local committees and various branches of federal and state government service. In Ohio the resources, equipment and staffs of the army, the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, the life-saving service, the militia, the naval militia, and state departments of public health, have all been applied promptly to the problem of emergency relief. Governor Cox of Ohio, as ex-officio chairman of the Ohio Red Cross State Commission, did much to assure this early co-operation.

Following the first work of rescue and relief, sanitation looms up as one of the gravest problems of the Indiana and Ohio valleys. Immediately upon the arrival of the secretary of war at Dayton a sanitary officer was appointed, who divided the city into sixteen districts, each in charge of a district sanitary officer. Each of these selected his own staff from among local physicians and volunteer physicians from other cities. Red Cross nurses in considerable numbers were early supplied. Instructions in brief form have been sent broadcast over the city giving definite directions to the inhabitants for the safeguarding of health. The sewer and water systems are being reopened as rapidly as possible.

Early this week the expectation was that, although the dead in the city would not total 200, it would be necessary to feed many thousands of people for a week and several thousand for several weeks. The Dayton situation, though more severe, was typical of what was to be found in other stricken towns.

The extent of the Omaha disaster is already reported in statistics which are said to be complete and accurate. The summary includes: 115 lives lost; 322 seriously injured; at least 1,000 slightly injured; 822 houses destroyed: 2,100 houses partially wrecked; property loss estimated at $7,500,000; 733 families being fed in relief stations (March 30); 59 dead; 150 injured and $1,000,000 property loss in surrounding towns. Efforts are being made by the real estate exchange to prevent the raising of rents. The plans suggested for rebuilding include a county bond issue of $1,000,000 and the securing of other money from the packing and railroad companies to be loaned without interest.

President Wilson's call to the nation for relief, and the quick action of governors and mayors in rallying their states and cities, started emergency supplies and funds for supplementing the tents, blankets and rations which the army and militia had rushed into the field. The National Cash Register Company, whose undamaged factories in Dayton were of great value in providing shelter and space for relief administration, secured through its officers in other cities supplies and money which were promptly forwarded. The company officials did much to systematize the local relief, and department heads assumed charge of different divisions of the work. Organization charts and diagrams were printed at the factory so that the people of the city could act intelligently.

Early this week the relief funds were reported to have reached $408,000 in New York, $300,000 in Chicago, $105,000 in Boston, and varying sums in other cities. Most of the money was contributed through the Red Cross. Contributions received at its Washington headquarters totalled $816,000, with New York first, Massachusetts second and Illinois third in size of contributions.

Some small gifts were as significant as the larger ones. A young man who appeared to be a poorly paid clerk came to the Red Cross office in New York at the noon hour last Friday and pulled from his pocket a five dollar and a one dollar bill. The person in charge asked him if he was not giving more than his share, and suggested that he keep the one dollar hill. "No," said he, "I've kept some small change for carfare and lunch, and tomorrow's pay day." One letter accompanying a small contribution read:

"Just one short year ago, when the ill-fated Titanic deprived me of
mine all, the Red Cross Society lost not a moment in coming to my
aid. Through you I now wish to give my 'widow's mite' to help the
stricken ones in the West, and I only wish I could make it a
thousand times as much."

Emergency supplies and funds have been prompt and abundant, but the extensive work ahead of lifting household and community life out of desolation justifies and requires a very large fund. For, as Mr. Devine, with the San Francisco catastrophe in the background of his experience, telegraphed after reaching Dayton: "The disaster is appalling even if the loss of life is less than it was feared."

Spontaneous contributions through a variety of channels are usually sufficient for immediate needs, and the Red Cross is following its customary policy of reserving as much of its funds as possible for permanent rehabilitation. When a disaster comes in any part of the country the nearest "institutional members" of the Red Cross at once dispatch trained members of their staffs to the scene. Each organization has an "emergency box" containing, convenient for carrying, an equipment including detailed printed instructions, record cards, Red Cross flag, expense sheets, vouchers, etc. The use of this equipment, especially the uniform record cards, which have been carefully prepared on the basis of the San Francisco experience, means that help is not lost or wasted, but gets to the people who need it most. Even more important, it means that help is given not merely to keep victims of the disaster from starvation and exposure during the weeks immediately following, but to afford a reasonable lift on the road to the recovery of the standard of living maintained before the disaster.

A RELIEF SURVEY BY THE SAGE FOUNDATION

This emphasis on rehabilitation is the message of a report[1] which, by a coincidence, was on the press for the Russell Sage Foundation when news of tornado and flood came from the middle West. It is the first comprehensive review of emergent relief work following great disasters. It is based on the San Francisco experience and put forth as a "book of ready reference for use on occasions of special emergency."

[1] San Francisco Relief Survey. By Charles J. O'Connor. Francis H. McLean and others. Survey Associates, Inc., for the Russell Sage Foundation. To be published April 18, the seventh anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake. Price postpaid $3.50. Orders for delivery on publication day may be sent to THE SURVEY.

The volume presents a study of the organization and methods of relief following the San Francisco earthquake and fire, made for the Foundation by a group of people who held responsible positions in connection with the relief work. It is to appear on April 18, the seventh anniversary of the disaster.

For the assistance of those in the middle West upon whom heavy responsibilities came so suddenly, the Sage Foundation sent out post haste advance copies of the first two sections of the report as a practical handbook to charity organizations in and near the stricken regions.

The Relief Survey is divided into six parts: Organization and Emergency Period; Rehabilitation: Business Rehabilitation; Housing Rehabilitation; After Care; The Aged and Infirm. Some of the prime points emphasized for the "Organization and Emergency Period" are the following:

1. The recognition of the American National Red Cross, with its
permanent organization, its governmental status, and its direct
accountability to Congress for all expenditures, as the proper
national agency through which relief funds for great disasters
should be collected and administered; thus securing unity of
effort, certainty of policy, and a center about which all local
relief agencies may rally.

2. The importance of postponing the appointment of sub-committees
until a strong central committee has been able to determine general
policies and methods of procedure. The hasty organization of
sub-committees at San Francisco resulted in much unnecessary
overlapping effort and some friction when committees got in each
other's way. The relief forces were not united until a whole week
after the disaster, and after unfortunate difficulty and
bitterness.

3. The desirability of contributions, especially those in kind,
being sent without restrictions, as only the local organization is
able to measure relative needs at different periods of the work. At
San Francisco much pitifully needless restrictions imposed by those
who sent funds or supplies from distant states. The delays in
securing authority for the wise use of these contributions were
well-nigh intolerable. The only safe course lies in placing
implicit trust in an efficient and recognized director of relief
such as the Red Cross is in a position to furnish.

4. The value of utilizing for emergency administration a body so
highly organized and so efficient as the United States Army, to
take charge of camps, and to bring to points of distribution the
supplies required for those in need of food and clothing.

5. The wisdom of reducing the bread line and the camp population as
quickly as possible after the disaster so that the relief resources
may be conserved to meet the primary need of rehabilitation. The
care used in emergency expenditures means much in husbanding
resources so that permanent rehabilitation may be efficient and
thorough.

6. The need of establishing a central bureau of information to
serve from the beginning of the relief work as a clearing house, to
prevent confusion and waste through duplication of effort.

7. The necessity of utilizing the centers of emergency distribution
for the later rehabilitation work of district communities and corps
of visitors.

8. The necessity of incorporation for any relief organization that
has to deal with so large a disaster.

9. The possibility of a strict audit of all relief in cash sent to
a relief organization. The impossibility of an equally strict
accounting for relief in kind, because of the many leaks and the
difficulties attendant upon hurried distribution. Care in this
direction is assured if the Red Cross is fully utilized.

Nothing can take the place, the editors of the Relief Survey testify, of the spirit and devotion of the local committees. At San Francisco the citizens showed splendid self-reliance and faith in the future, which enabled them to rebound from fortune's sudden blow, and show what sustained and co-operative effort can achieve. But the most important factor, especially for permanent rehabilitation, in so great and complex a relief problem is a trained staff. This the American Red Cross, through the co-operation of charity organization societies throughout the country, is constantly prepared to bring together on short notice. Mr. Bicknell represented the Red Cross at San Francisco after Mr. Devine's departure, and was thus unusually well equipped to plan the methods which the Red Cross has devised for emergency use.

SOCIAL LEGISLATION AND THE EXTRA SESSION

An open letter was sent to President Wilson this week with over forty-five signatures, urging the importance of a group of social measures which were neither voted down nor passed at the last session of Congress. In the opinion of the signers, among whom are included some of the Democratic leaders who have been foremost in social reform, this overhanging social legislation should be definitely acted upon at the extra session. The movement to this end was encouraged by the positions taken by President Wilson in his inaugural address.

The letter is the outgrowth of a meeting of men and women interested in social legislation held last week in New York at the call of Edward T. Devine as associate editor of The Survey. The signatures to the document are those of individuals solely. The particular measures will be urged at the forthcoming Congress by such national organizations as the American Association for Labor Legislation, National Consumers League, National Committee for Mental Hygiene, National Child Labor Committee, the American Prison Labor Association and the Gloucester Fisherman's Institute. While each organization is committed only to the measures in its own field, all of them have a common interest in seeing that the extra session takes up social legislation in addition to the tariff and currency. The letter follows:

THE PRESIDENT, The White House, Washington. D. C.

_Dear Mr. President:_--

On the eve of the convening of the Sixty-Third Congress in special
session, the undersigned desire to bring to your attention certain
bills of importance which have received the favorable consideration
of the last Congress, but which, owing to various reasons, failed
of affirmative action.

Nothing could set more vividly before the country the urgency of
such measures than the words of your inaugural address, in which
you pointed out the need for perfecting the means by which the
government may be put at the service of humanity in safeguarding
the health of the nation, the health of its men and its women and
its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for
existence. The country has been stirred by your declaration:

"This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is
justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no
equality of opportunity, the first essential of justice in the
body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in
their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great
industrial and social processes which they cannot alter,
control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it
does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent
parts."

The undersigned are aware that the time and energy of Congress will
be largely expended upon the revision of the revenue and currency
statutes. Without in any way meaning to minimize the importance of
these subjects, we wish to lay emphasis upon what we believe to be
the necessity for the passage of certain other measures directly
affecting the health and happiness of hundreds of thousands of
citizens. The legislative proposals which we present to you are not
new; several of them have met with little open opposition; some
have been passed by one house of Congress; others by both; all have
been prepared by experts and are based upon tried principles
already embodied either in the federal laws, in the laws of the
various states, or in the laws of other nations. An example is the
bill which aims to compensate workingmen employed in interstate
commerce for accidents to life and limb. Another is the eight-hour
bill for women in the District of Columbia, which was lost through
an accident in the closing hours of the last Congress.

The measures which had not passed when Congress adjourned and which
are herewith advocated are as follows. It is the principles
underlying these several bills rather than the specific provisions
of any measure that we wish to be understood as urging upon the
attention of the President and Congress:

Providing compensation for federal employees suffering injury or
occupational diseases in the course of their employment.

Providing compensation for employees in interstate commerce
suffering injury in the course of their employment.

Harmonizing conflicting court decisions in different states by
giving the state itself the right of appeal to the Supreme Court
of the United States.

Establishing the eight-hour day for women employed in certain
occupations in the District of Columbia.

Co-ordinating the federal health activities and strengthening
the public health service.

Providing in the immigration act for mental examination of
immigrants by alienists; safeguarding the welfare of immigrants
at sea by detailing American medical officers and matrons to
immigrant-carrying ships.

Providing a hospital ship for American deep-sea fishermen.

Providing for the betterment of the conditions of American
seamen.

Establishing a commission to investigate jails and the
correction of first offenders.

Abolishing the contract convict labor system by restricting
interstate commerce in prison-made goods.

Legislation giving effect to the principles underlying such
proposals as these would constitute, we believe, an important step
in the accomplishment of the forward-looking purposes which you
have placed before the American people.

Caroline B. Alexander Frederic Almy Louise de Koven Bowen Louis D. Brandeis Howard S. Braucher Allen T. Burns Charles C. Burlingham Richard C. Cabot Richard S. Childs John R. Commons Charles R. Crane Edward T. Devine Abram J. Elkus H. D. W. English Livingston Farrand Homer Folks Ernst Freund John M. Glenn Josephine Goldmark T. J. Keenan Florence Kelley Howard A. Kelly Arthur P. Kellogg Paul U. Kellogg John A. Kingsbury Constance D. Leupp Samuel McCune Lindsay Charles S. Macfarland W. N. McNair Charles E. Merriam Adelbert Moot Henry Morgenthau Frances Perkins Charles R. Richards Margaret Drier Robins W. L. Russell Thomas W. Salmon Henry R. Seager Thomas A. Storey Graham Taylor Graham Romeyn Taylor Lillian D. Wald James R. West W. F. Willoughby Stephen S. Wise Robert A. Woods

COMPULSORY MINIMUM WAGE LAW IN OREGON

Oregon's minimum wage law,[2] which was recently signed by Governor West, is the first one in America to have a compulsory clause. Failure to pay the rate of wages fixed and in the method provided by the law is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. In Massachusetts, the first state to establish minimum wage boards, the only penalty is the publication of the names of offending employers in four newspapers in the county where their industries are located.

[2] See Minimum Wage Legislation by Florence Kelley, on page 9 of this issue.

The Oregon law applies only to women and children. It prohibits their employment in any occupation in which the sanitary or other conditions are detrimental to health or morals, or for wages "which are inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living and maintain them in health." It likewise forbids the employment of minors "for unreasonable low wages." An Industrial Welfare Commission is created to determine minimum wages, maximum hours and standard conditions of labor.

The commission is authorized to call a conference of representatives of the employers, the employees and the general public to investigate and make recommendations as to the minimum wage to be paid in a given industry. If the commission approves these recommendations they become obligatory. The powers of the Oregon commission to determine hours and conditions of health and morals are more extensive than those delegated to an industrial commission by the legislature of any other state. The members of the commission are to be appointed by the governor.

The successful campaign for this law and the drafting of the bill itself was based upon an extensive investigation conducted by the Social Survey Committee of the Oregon Consumers' League. Wages, work conditions, and cost of living were studied in Portland and elsewhere throughout the state. The inquiry was directed by a trained investigator, Caroline J. Gleason of Minneapolis, formerly a student of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. The work was started in August 1912 and the information covered 7603 women wage earners in Portland and 1133 throughout the rest of the state. Wage statistics were tabulated for 4523, and are particularly valuable in the cast of the department stores which placed their pay rolls at the disposal of the survey committee. Generous co-operation from committees in twenty-five counties of the state was secured.

In the drafting of the bill the experience of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Board was studied. Legal advice was secured and the constitutionality of the measure is upheld in an opinion by the attorney general of the state.

Social workers from Washington and California have been in touch with the investigation and the preparation of the bill. They have arranged to have bills drawn up on the same lines introduced as soon as the legislatures of their own states convene. The passage of the same measure by the three coast states is regarded by the social workers in each as a desirable and important piece of uniform legislation for an area in which industrial conditions and problems are similar.

The Social Survey Committee in its report gives the principles and facts which form the basis of the demand for the legislation as follows:

1. Each industry should provide for the livelihood of the workers
employed in it. An industry which does not do so is parasitic. The
well-being of society demands that wage-earning women shall not be
required to subsidize from their earnings the industry in which
they are employed.

2. Owing to the lack of organisation among women workers and the
secrecy with which their wage schedules are guarded, there are
absolutely no standards of wages among them. Their wages are
determined for the most part by the will of the employer without
reference to efficiency or length of service on the part of the
worker. This condition is radically unjust.

3. The wages paid to women workers in most occupations are
miserably inadequate to meet the cost of living at the lowest
standards consistent with the maintenance of the health and morals
of the workers. Nearly three-fifths of the women employed in
industries in Portland receive less than $10 a week, which is the
minimum weekly wage that ought to be offered to any self-supporting
woman wage-earner in this city.

4. The present conditions of labor for women in many industries are
shown by this report to be gravely detrimental to their health; and
since most women wage earners are potential mothers, the future
health of the race is menaced by these unsanitary conditions.

A NEW FEDERAL AGENCY FOR SETTLING STRIKES

An important power vested in Secretary Wilson of the new federal Department of Labor, which has hitherto practically escaped attention, gives to him the right assumed by President Roosevelt, when he initiated the machinery for settling the coal strike of 1902. The provision referred to in the law creating the department reads as follows:

"That the secretary of labor shall have power to act as mediator
and to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes
whenever in his judgment the interests of industrial peace may
require it to be done."

Speaking of this section Secretary Wilson gave this interview to the _Washington Post_:

"The secretary of labor, by the terms of the act creating the new
department, is empowered to act as mediator in disputes between
labor and employers. The policy to which I shall adhere during my
administration will be to do all I can to bring labor and capital
together in mutual conferences, so that they may settle their own
differences."

It has been pointed out that this power can be invoked at the will of the secretary. In this way he can bring public attention to bear upon any labor dispute which he believes warrants his official notice. Mr. Wilson has as yet given no indication as to how frequently he expects to use this power. Attention has also been called to the fact that this section may have an important effect upon the Erdman Act for settling transportation strikes.

FINGER PRINTS

TEN CENTS

KATHARINE ANTHONY

It was in a small restaurant in the downtown business district. The girl who came in and sat down opposite me at the "table for ladies" was clearly "office help." She could not have been more than sixteen, and in the boyish-looking brown velvet hat that she wore she appeared scarcely that. Her manner had little of the self-assertiveness so commonly seen in the young girl wage-earner.

"How much is the veg'tubble soup?" she asked the waiter in a confiding tone.

"Ten cents," he said.

The price appeared satisfactory and the waiter went away with his very brief order. While the young girl waited, she caught my eye.

"It's cold today," she remarked, with a winning smile and an air of taking me into her confidence as she had done with the waiter.

"A bit chilly, yes."

"He don't let me down to dinner till so late," she continued, "sometimes half-past one. You get hungry, and then you get over being hungry, and then you don't want nothing when you do go down. You know?"

Yes, I recognized the experience.

"The office where I used to work, we went out to dinner right at twelve every day."

"What keeps you so late now?"

"I guess he just forgets to let me down. He forgets to go out himself, I think."

The waiter brought the soup, a watery looking fluid in which floated a tomato and an onion in partial dissolution. He placed beside the plate a dingy blue check which bore in large print 10c.

"When I'm there a month, I'm going to ask him to let me down every day at a regular hour," she went on. "I'm only there a week now, so I wouldn't ask him yet."

She tasted the soup, but it was apparently not to her liking, or else, as she had said, her appetite had gone when the first feeling of hunger had passed. She glanced at the dirty blue check which committed her to her choice for better or worse, and then tried another spoonful of soup.

"I used to take a cup of coffee and a Charlotte 'roosh' every day, but my mother said I'd starve. She told me I'd got to have soup, it was more stren'thening."

"She was quite right, of course."

"But what's the use of ordering it if you can't eat it after all?"

She regarded the plate disconsolately. A little rallying induced her to make another effort. Then she gave it up entirely.

"I wonder what my mother would say if she could see me now!"

"I wonder!"

Taking two nickels from her small rusty bag, she rose, leaving the plate of cold soup almost untouched. She said good-by with her peculiarly friendly little smile, deposited the blue check and the two nickels at the cash counter, and went back to her afternoon's work.

WILLIAM, A MODERN DRAMA[3]

[3] Drawn from the records of the Juvenile Protective Association, Chicago.

The curtain is about to fall upon a human drama as full of complicating agencies and dramatic ironies as the most exacting either of Greeks or of moderns could require.

The dramatis personae are: a colored youth of twenty-two years; his aged mother (the father disappeared while the youth was still a child in Kansas); a friend who failed him and then too late repented; a partner; a dishonest clerk; a lawyer of similar type; and a judge according to the letter of the law. The acts are only three and brief.