Chapter IV: Act II: shows William working in different places, and for short times, (2)

The principle is admitted that workmen should be compensated for injuries by accident arising out of their employment. It is only consistent that incapacity caused by diseases due to the employment should also be included. Some diseases are, in the ordinary use of the term, accidental. But many people work where trade diseases of an insidious nature are contracted and where there is constant risk of illness on that account. These diseases are as serious as accidents. There is no social justification for drawing an arbitrary line of distinction--the principle of compensation is no longer in an experimental stage. A compensation law should include, says Sir Thomas Oliver, the leading English authority on the subject, "industrial diseases, the consequences of which may be immediate or remote, and which are often more severe than accidents."

It must be admitted that even our discredited system of employers' liability has afforded occasional relief to the victims of accidents. But even this uncertain and irregular protection, poor as it is, has in most instances been denied to workers exposed to the creeping horror of industrial disease. The exact occupational cause of the affliction is, of course, more difficult to prove. The employee is thus placed at still greater disadvantage in dealing with his employer. American judges, basing their opinions on outgrown decisions of the British House of Lords, have declared that "industrial injuries" include only those afflictions of an accidental nature whose cause can be ascribed to a definite point of time, and have thus almost universally barred even from the occasional and expensive relief of employers' liability the victims of such typical maladies as the match maker's "phossy jaw," the lead worker's "wrist-drop" and painter's colic, the boiler maker's deafness, the glass worker's cataract, the potter's palsy, the hatter's shakes, and the compressed air worker's bends.

The public has not yet forgotten pitiful cases where match manufacturers, through the work of their attorneys, were able to deny all financial relief to their victims of "phossy jaw." And there are cases now pending in the courts where men totally blinded by the fumes of wood alcohol have year after year sued in vain for some financial relief from brewery companies which employed them to varnish the inside of beer vats.

Occasionally, however, large awards have been made. But they, as in the case of damage suits arising out of accidents, encourage further expensive litigation. One case of wood alcohol poisoning in Ohio (Joseph Frank _vs._ The Herancourt Brewing Co., 82 O. S., 424) is now a matter of record. The Supreme Court compelled the employer to pay $12,500, with interest and costs, aggregating over $15,000.

"After five years of litigation, six hearings in three different
courts, including two trips to the Supreme Court, printing of
several thousand pages of record testimony and briefs, taking
voluminous depositions in different parts of the country involving
great expense, during which the injured workman--in this instance
rendered blind--was totally unable to support his wife and family,
the wife being obliged to work at nights in downtown cafes,
scrubbing floors after midnight, in order to provide scant food for
herself and babies while the latter slept."

This verdict is of peculiar interest, according to the well-known Cincinnati law firm which prosecuted the case, because it is the first instance so far as they have been able to ascertain in which there has been a recovery from injuries resulting from the poisonous influence of wood alcohol.

But do not be misled by this rare case. And do not hastily conclude that the new state insurance law in Ohio has rendered justice in such cases more certain, for the contrary is true. A victim of industrial lead poisoning appealed to the state board under that law, and the attorney general, on October 26, 1912, ruled that disability due to lead poisoning was an occupational disease and "not an injury" under the act. Similar decisions have been made by the Washington State Insurance Department.

In fact, with the exception of occasional instances in two or three states, where claims have been paid by employers without protest, the victims of occupational diseases in America are still practically without relief.

THE SOCIAL AIM IN GOVERNMENT

SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY

PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL LEGISLATION, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

"This not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster,
not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts
wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call
upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great
trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all
patriotic, all forward-looking men to my side. God helping me, I
will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!"

--Thus spoke the President of the United States in his inaugural address. Legislation in nation and state, giving expression to the will of the people and often to their aspirations, is supposed, in theory at least, to emanate from the representatives of the people. In European governments there is usually a privileged initiative on the part of the executive branch of the government or the administrative officers who represent the electoral majority, that is, "the government of the day." Thus the government bills in the British Parliament are the only ones sure of full consideration. In American legislatures a somewhat similar role is played by the President and the governors of the states in their legislative programs as outlined in the messages they send in accordance with constitutional prerogative or command. As party leaders they voice the dominant wishes of the voters and interpret public opinion; as chief executives they exercise great power over the legislatures in compelling compliance with the people's mandates.

A comparison and study of the subject-matter of President Wilson's inaugural and the inaugurals or messages of thirty-five governors opening legislative sessions since January 1 of this year, shows the great influence of the progressive forces of the nation which were victorious in all parties and in all of the states at the polls in November. A more confident note, new in most cases, is struck in all these pronouncements. It is the social spirit and the social conscience in every community that seeks and demands a new adjustment of law and government to human needs, and for the people, a new freedom.

President Wilson voices this new feeling best.

"Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which 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.
This 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 first duty of law is to keep
sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and
laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are
powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the
very business of justice and legal efficiency.

"These are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave the
others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected,
fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right. This
is the high enterprise of the new day; to lift everything that
concerns our life as a nation to the light that shines from the
hearth-fire of every man's conscience and vision of the right. It
is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans; it is
inconceivable that we should do it in ignorance of the facts as
they are or in blind haste. We shall restore, not destroy. We shall
deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified,
not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon;
and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit
of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and
knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excitement of
excursions whither they cannot tell. Justice, and only justice,
shall always be our motto.

"And yet it will be no cool process of mere science. The nation has
been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the
knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often
debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which
we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our
heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice
and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We
know our task to be no mere task of politics, but a task which
shall search us through and through, whether we be able to
understand our time and the need of our people, whether we be
indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have the pure
heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high
course of action."

Governor Cox of Ohio, speaking for a state that had just made many fundamental changes in its organic law by adopting the recommendations, almost in their entirety, of a constitutional convention, says:

"Progressive government, so called, which means in its correct
understanding, constructive work, along the lines pointed out by
the lamps of experience and the higher moral vision of advanced
civilization, is now on trial in our state. Every constitutional
facility has been provided for an upward step and Ohio, because of
the useful part it has played in the affairs of the country, is at
this hour in the eye of the nation.

"The state has the resources, human and material, to make a
thorough test of the principle of an enlarged social justice,
through government, and the results of our labors will extend
beyond state borders. A thorough appreciation, therefore, of the
stupendous responsibility before you, and full recognition of the
probable insidious resistance to be encountered, will add
immeasurably to your equipment to meet the emergency. If I sense
with any degree of accuracy the state of public mind, I am correct
in the belief that a vast preponderance of the people of all
classes have faith both in the wisdom and the certain results of a
constructive progressive program of government. Let us in full
understanding of the consequences of our acts maintain this measure
of public confidence and encourage the faith of those who are
honestly skeptical because of the apprehension generated in their
minds by a third class, which may be unconsciously prompted by
sordid impulses developed by unbroken preferences of government.

"No fair-minded person will dispute the logic nor question the
equity of any plan which contemplates legislative action entirely
within the limitations of suffrage endorsement. If the legislature,
in the passage of a single law, runs counter to public desire or
interest, the people through the referendum have the means to undo
it. No greater safeguard can be devised by the genius of man, and
to question either the moral or practical phase of this
arrangement, is to admit unsoundness in the theory of a republic.
In other days changes in government such as are made necessary
everywhere by our industrial and social conditions, would have been
wrought by riot and revolution. Now they are accomplished through
peaceful evolution. He must be indeed a man of unfortunate
temperamental qualities who does not find in this a circumstance
that thrills every patriotic fiber in his being."

Governor Sulzer of New York, in similar vein, says, speaking of the proposed amendment to the constitution of the United States, providing for the popular election of senators:

"I favor this change in the federal constitution, as I shall every
other change that will restore the government to the control of the
people. I want the people, in fact as well as in theory, to rule
this great republic and the government at all times to be
responsive to their just demands."

Again, in speaking of the value of human life and its conservation, Governor Sulzer says:

"If Americans would excel other nations in commerce, in
manufacture, in science, in intellectual growth, and in all other
humane attainments, we must first possess a people physically and
mentally sound. Any achievement that is purchased at the continued
sacrifice of human life does not advance our material resources,
but detracts from the wealth of the state. The leaders of our
civilization now realize these fundamental truths, and the
statesmen, the scientists, and the humanitarians are endeavoring
more and more to protect human life and to secure to each
individual not only the right to life, but the right to decent
standards of living.

"We have had to change old customs and repeal antiquated laws. We
must now convince employers that any industry that saps the
vitality and destroys the initiative of the workers is detrimental
to the interests of the state and menaces the general welfare of
the government. We must try to work out practical legislation that
will apply our social ideals and our views of industrial progress
to secure for our men, women and children the greatest possible
reserve of physical and mental force.

"I hold it to be self-evident that no industry has the right to
sacrifice human life for its profit, but that just as each industry
must reckon in its cost of production the material waste, so it
should also count as a part of the cost of production the human
waste which it employs.... No business has an inalienable right to
child labor. No industry has a right to rob the state of that which
constitutes its greatest wealth. No commerce that depends on child
labor for its success has a right to exist. Let us do what we can
to protect the children of the state and preserve their fundamental
rights.... Human life is infinitely more valuable than the profit
of material things. The state for its own preservation has the
right to demand the use of safer and more hygienic methods, even if
at greater cost of production to the employer. Occupational
diseases should be studied, and the results of careful
investigation embodied in laws to safeguard the health and lives of
the workers."

Governor Craig of North Carolina, another Democrat, but from the more conservative southland, strikes the same note, when he says:

"We have not realized the moral benefits that should have resulted
from modern progress. Avarice has been stimulated; hope and
opportunity have been denied; antagonism and resentment have been
generated. All classes have suffered. We realize the conditions;
the injustice has been uncovered. It cannot stand in the clear,
calm and resolute gaze of the American people. They are determined
that our law shall be based upon a higher conception of social
obligation and that our civilization shall mean a higher social
life. They have put their hands to the plow and will not look
back."

Let me quote from one more Democratic governor, this time a voice from the far West. Governor Hunt of Arizona says:

"Recent political events of national magnitude and world-wide
importance clearly prove the people's awakening to their
necessities, their duties and responsibilities. The overwhelming
triumph of militant progressive democracy and the simultaneous
springing into prominent existence of another great party founded
upon and professing the championship of those cardinal principles
of popular government which have long been synonymous with
progressive democracy, discloses a miraculous growth of progressive
conviction, a well-nigh unanimous determination on the part of the
people to assume full control of the government which, while over
them, is rightfully of and for them, marks a leading epoch in the
history of the world's advancement."

The National Progressive Party could scarcely have hoped to accomplish more than to bring such sentiments and these high aims to the fore, in the officially announced purposes of their late antagonists who were the victors in the recent elections. When we remember, however, the initiative and responsibility in legislation which the chief executive in nation and state has come to have in our system, the fact that the above quoted passages are typical of all the governors' messages is doubly significant. It warrants us in believing that the hour has struck when the things for which the social workers of the country have striven will become vital in the organization of American society.

More detailed examination of the recommendations of the governors shows some interesting tendencies. If the advice of the governors is followed some system of workmen's compensation will supplement or supersede our antiquated and unsocial system of employers' liability. This is the subject upon which public opinion seems to have most definitely crystallized. No less than twenty-one governors make definite favorable recommendations, and in three cases (Arizona, California and Oregon) a state system of insurance is advocated. If all of these states were added to those that already have passed adequate compensation laws, the system of workmen's compensation would be extended practically over all of the industrial area of the United States. This result seems inevitable, although the work may not be completed in this legislative year.

Next to workmen's compensation in point of popularity seems to be the necessity for a public utilities law, or a public service commission, or the extension of the powers of state supervisory authorities over public service corporations. This is a subject of positive recommendation on the part of fourteen governors. In an equal number of states the pending amendment to the United States constitution providing for the popular or direct election of Senators receives a favorable recommendation, while in the other states the governors transmit the amendment without comment for appropriate action by the legislature. The Kentucky Blue Sky Law, or some similar provision for state supervision of investment proposals and securities offered for public subscription, is the subject of comment and positive recommendation in eleven states.

In an equal number of commonwealths important recommendations are made with respect to increasing the powers of their labor departments, including factory inspection and other provisions for the enforcement of the labor laws. Several governors express a desire for a much more serious recognition of the state's duties in its relations to labor, especially that of women and children. In some instances--notably Ohio, where an industrial commission is proposed, Wisconsin, whose industrial commission, already the model for several other states, is to have increased powers, and New York, for which an industrial commission is also proposed--such recommendations are far-reaching and would mean a practical reorganization of this department of state activity. The governor of Rhode Island recommends the adoption of a fifty-four hour law to harmonize with recent legislation in New York and Massachusetts. In North Carolina a stronger child labor law is urged, and in Wyoming the prohibition of the employment of boys under sixteen in mines. This would bring Wyoming up to the standard already adopted in the leading mining states.

Popular government still has need of better agencies for expression, and numerous reforms in the organization of state governments are proposed. Restlessness under antiquated constitutional limitations is manifest everywhere. President Wilson in his last message as governor of New Jersey, voiced this feeling in strong language. He said:

"I urge upon you very earnestly indeed the need and demand for a
Constitutional Convention. The powers of corrupt control have a
numerous and abiding advantage under our constitutional
arrangements as they stand. We shall not be free from them until we
get a different system of representation and a different system of
official responsibility. I hope that this question will be taken up
by the legislature at once and a constitutional convention arranged
for without delay, in which the new forces of our day may speak and
may have a chance to establish their ascendancy over the rule of
machines and bosses."

Similarly a constitutional convention is urged or numerous constitutional amendments are proposed in six other states. The short ballot is advocated in six; the initiative, referendum and recall as a means of extending the control of the people over their legislation is recommended in nine states, in most of which a constitutional amendment would be necessary; and the adoption of rules to carry out a constitutional amendment already passed is recommended in Idaho. A larger measure of home rule for cities is urged by the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Missouri). The United States constitutional amendment providing for the income tax is urged for favorable adoption in three states. An amendment to the state constitution providing for woman suffrage is favorably recommended in five states (New York, Pennsylvania, Montana, Nevada and Iowa), and the immediate extension of suffrage to women in municipal affairs by the governor of Connecticut. Direct Primaries are still an issue in two states (New York and Tennessee). The need for stronger corrupt practices acts is presented in three states. Three governors also declare for a direct presidential preference primary (Iowa, Minnesota and Wyoming), while ballot reform is advocated in three states (Maine, Michigan and Wyoming).

Better legislative methods and the establishment of a legislative reference, research and drafting bureau are proposed in four states (Arizona, Minnesota, Ohio and Oklahoma). The governor of Arizona asks for an anti-lobbying statute. The fiscal policy of the state is a matter of some comment in practically every message, and in five states measures for taxation reform are proposed. In five states, including one of the previous group, the governors recommend an increase of inheritance taxes or the establishment of an inheritance tax where it does not already exist.

Constructive and far-reaching measures are suggested pertaining to public health. A decided awakening is noticeable in this field. Eight governors recommend more or less definite reorganization of the public health service and an extension of the powers of the public health authorities, state and local. In one additional state (New York) the governor has appointed an important commission. The results of its labors will probably be enacted into law at this session of the legislature. Pure food legislation and better protection of weights and measures receive attention in two states each, as does the greater restriction of the liquor traffic in two states. Special provision for the care of tuberculous persons is mentioned in five states.

Another important and popular subject of recommendation, in which the results of the last annual conference of governors are noticeable, concerns the better care of prisoners--their employment in outdoor work and opportunities for earning wages, part of which shall go to reimburse the state for the cost of their maintenance and part to the support of their dependent families. These matters are subjects of favorable recommendation in nine states. The general reform of the criminal law, especially the shortening of legal processes and the restriction of the right to appeal, is urged in four states, including Iowa, in which the governor recommends the abolition of grand juries.

A direct tax in support of higher education is urged in three states, and provision for the wider use of school buildings as social centers in the same number. Even more significant, the governors of two states (North Carolina and Tennessee) urge state-wide compulsory education. In four commonwealths co-operation with other states is proposed in accordance with the recent recommendation of President Taft addressed to the governors of several states. This urged an extension of rural credits and the provision of some plan similar to the land banks in foreign countries, to help the farmer get the necessary capital for a better system of agriculture. Minimum wage laws are proposed in five states. In two of these and one additional state public aid to dependent widows and mothers with children is recommended.

Curiously enough, the reform of marriage laws and of those providing a remedy for desertion and non-support, a subject reported upon by the Uniform Law Commissioners, does not figure so largely in the governors' recommendations as would be supposed. The uniform law commissioners have proposed an excellent and very carefully worked out statute for uniform marriage and marriage license laws. This receives only partial endorsement at the hands of three governors, while stricter desertion and non-support laws also have the endorsement of three governors.

Guarantee of bank deposits is proposed in three states and three of the western states (Arizona, Missouri and Tennessee) have recommendations for an extension of state authority, or the establishment of a state department, to induce immigrants to settle within their borders. A better regulation of prize-fighting is being agitated in Nevada. Its prohibition, along with that of gambling, is strongly urged by the governors of New Mexico and Oklahoma. The governor of Arizona asks for a statute prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons, while the governor of South Carolina asks the legislature to repeal the present statute on this subject in that state.

Non-partisan election of judges is recommended in Idaho and Pennsylvania, and the Kansas legislature is asked to petition for an amendment to the constitution of the United States to provide for the election of federal judges.

Better care of juvenile delinquents, state-wide supervision of moving picture shows, stricter regulation of loan sharks, better inspection of mines, and compulsory arbitration of labor disputes are each recommended in at least one state.

Thirty-nine legislatures have already met this year, and some of them have completed their legislative sessions. Two more will convene within the next three months, making forty-one in all which will play a part this year in the formulation of the statute law of the country. Our statute law is already increasing in volume at a rate that has caused some alarm. It is sorely in need of revision in many important particulars. Statesmen and reformers alike desire earnestly that it be undertaken with greater care and more painstaking labor in order that our state laws may give better expression to the present standards of conduct and to the needs of our own times.

THE SAND BED

CHARLES W. JEROME

I have a sand bed, and I play
There in the sand for half the day.

And mother comes, and sits by me;
And little sister likes to see

The many things I make of sand.
But she's too young to understand

About the houses and the hills
The mines and stores and flouring mills

And then I make believe, and say
My sand bed is the sunny bay;

These blocks are boats, and far away
They sail all night and sail all day,

And carry iron. When they return
They bring us coal that we may burn.

And now my sand bed is a farm.
This is the barn. Here, safe from harm,

My horses and my cows I keep.
These sheds are for the wooly sheep.

And there you see my piggies's pens.
This yard holds in the lively hens.

This is the garden, where I hoe
My plants; and here the flowers grow.

These sticks are pines, so straight, so tall
And dark. But these aren't half of all

The things I make each pleasant day
Out in the sand bed where I play.

A view of the town as it was before the "Gringo" came. Four years later during the Mexican War Commodore Stockton captured Monterey and left Walter Colton, a naval chaplain, in charge as Alcalde.]

A JUDGE LINDSEY OF THE "IDLE FORTIES"

LAURA B. EVERETT

Under the colorless title Three Years in California was published in 1850 the diary of Walter Colton, elected Alcalde of Monterey in 1846, who, during his term of office presented what was, for that day, a singular spectacle of tolerance, humanity and purity of administration. He can, indeed, be reasonably compared with Judge Lindsey in the courage and originality displayed in his dealings with the criminal cases brought before him.

Colton's work in Monterey succeeded a period spent as editor of the Philadelphia _North American_, and he established later _The Californian_, the first newspaper published in California.

The office of the Alcalde combined administrative and judicial functions and, not seldom, even legislative ones. Colton was oppressed by his power and its responsibility. "Such absolute disposal of questions affecting property and personal liberty," he observes, "never ought to be confided to one man. There is not a judge on any bench in England or the United States whose power is so absolute as that of the Alcalde of Monterey." But he brought to his work in all its details an unflagging zeal and constant personal attention which made his administration unique in the history of the time.

In minor matters, where, as he says, "the Alcalde is himself the law," Colton devised methods of appealing to the better instincts of the wrongdoer. "There is a string in every man's breast," he writes, "which, if you can rightly touch, will 'discourse music.'" Colton, we see from his diary, put a sensitive finger on this string in many a heart.

His ideas of punishment belong to the present. "It is difficult," he says, "to discriminate between offences which flow from moral hardihood and those which result in a measure from untoward circumstances. There is a wide difference between the two; and an Alcalde under the Mexican law has a large scope in which to exercise his sense of moral justice. Better to err a furlong with mercy than a fathom with cruelty. Unmerited punishment never yet reformed its subject; to suppose it is a libel on the human soul."

The following extracts from his account of cases brought before him are representative:

"A lad of fourteen years was brought before me today charged with
stealing a horse. The evidence of the larceny was conclusive, but
what punishment to inflict was the question. We have no house of
correction, and to sentence him to the ball and chain on the public
works, among hardened culprits, was to cut off all hope of
amendment and inflict an indelible stigma on the youth; so I sent
for the father, who had no good reputation himself, and placing a
riata in his hand, directed him to inflict twenty-four lashes on
his thieving boy. He proceeded as far as twelve, when I stopped
him; they were enough. They seemed inflicted by one attempting to
atone in this form for his own transgressions. 'Inflict the rest,
Soto, on your own evil example; if you had been upright yourself,
you might expect truth and honesty in your boy. You are more
responsible than this lad for his crime; you can never chastise him
into the right path, and continue yourself to travel in the
wrong.'"

"Today I remitted the sentence of my prison cook. He is a Mulatto,
a native of San Domingo; had drifted into California, was attached
in a subordinate capacity to Colonel Fremont's battalion; and while
the troops were quartered in town had robbed the drawer of a liquor
shop of two hundred dollars. For this offence I had sentenced him
to two years on the public works. Discovering early some reliable
traits about the fellow, ... I soon made him cook to the rest of
the prisoners, and allowed him the privilege of the town, so far as
his duties in that capacity were required.... I have trusted him
with money to purchase provisions, and he has faithfully accounted
for every shilling. He has always been kind and attentive to the
sick. For these faithful services I have remitted the remainder of
his sentence, which would have confined him nine months longer, and
have put him on a pay of thirty dollars per month as cook."

The Alcalde settled family difficulties of all varieties, from the case of the grown son who struck his mother to that of the man who wanted a divorce because of suspicions he entertained of his wife's conduct during his absence in Mexico. The judge questioned the plaintiff severely as to his own behavior during the stay in Mexico, and convinced him that the wife, though indiscreet, was too good for him.

WALTER COLTON

Alcalde of Monterey in 1846. The position combined administrative, judicial and even legislative duties.]

After nearly six months as Alcalde, Colton writes:

"Of the women I have had to deal with here the washerwomen are the
most unmanageable. Two of them entered my office today as full of
fight as the feline antagonists of Kilkenny. It seems they had been
washing in one of the pools created by the recent showers, when one
had taken that part of the margin previously occupied by the other.
War offensive and defensive immediately commenced. One drew a knife
which had a blade two mortal inches in length, and the other a
sharp ivory bodkin. But what their weapons wanted in terror, their
ungentle anger supplied.

"At last one cried out: 'The Alcalde'; the other echoed it, and
both rushed to the office to have their difficulties settled. Their
stories ran together like two conflicting rivulets forced into the
same channel. When the tumult and bubble had a little subsided, I
began cautiously to angle for the truth--a difficult trout to catch
in such waters. But one darter after another was captured, till I
had enough to form some opinion of those that had escaped. These we
discussed till bitter feeling, like biting hunger, became appeased.
Both went away declaring either margin of the pool good enough, and
each urging on the other the first choice."

One deficiency which Colton had to supply was the absence of a penitentiary system. To quote:

"There are no workhouses here, no buildings adapted to the purpose,
no tools and no trades. The custom has been to fine Spaniards and
whip Indians. The discrimination is unjust, and the punishment
ill-suited to the ends proposed. I have substituted labor, and now
have eight Indians, three Californians, and one Englishman at work
making adobes [sun-dried bricks]. They have all been sentenced for
stealing horses or bullocks. I have given them their task; each is
to make fifty adobes a day, and for all over this they are paid.
They make seventy-five, and for the additional twenty-five each one
gets as many cents. This is paid to them every Saturday night, and
they are allowed to get with it anything but rum. They are
comfortably lodged and fed by the government. I have appointed one
of their number captain. They work in the field; require no other
guard; not one of them has attempted to run away."

Later, Colton had to deal with runaways; two Mexicans each telling him that the devil incited their flight, while one fellow who stayed behind in a jail delivery explained that he would not be seen running from Tophet in such company.

Of a convict who escaped and was brought back Colton says:

"If he will only stop stealing he may run to earth's utmost verge.
He is rather a hardened character, but if he has a good vein in him
I will try to find it. I always like to see a fellow get out of
trouble, and sometimes I half forget his crimes in his misfortunes.
This is not right, perhaps, in one situated as I am; but I cannot
help it."

It measured only about 8x12 inches. The paper was established by Walter Colton who had had journalistic experience as editor of the Philadelphia _North American_. This issue was published scarcely a month after the American occupation.]

Colton decided that a new school house was necessary--"to be sixty feet by thirty, two stories, with a handsome portico. The labor of the convicts, the taxes on rum, and the banks of the gamblers must put it up," he writes. "Some think my project impracticable; we shall see,"--and he gives the following account of how some gamblers were made to contribute to this enterprise:

"A nest of gamblers arrived in town yesterday, and last evening,
opened a Monte at the hotel."

After stationing a file of soldiers at the outer doors, Colton entered to find no one, "save one Sonoranian, composedly smoking his cigarito. I desired the honor of an introduction to his companions. At this moment a feigned snore broke on my ear from a bed in the corner of the apartment."

"'Ha! Dutre, is that you? Come, tumble up, and aid me in stirring
out the rest.' He pointed under the bed, where I discovered a
multitude of feet and legs radiating as from a common center."

"'Hallo there, friends--turn out.'... Their plight and discovery
threw them into a laugh at each other." He and his secretary found
others "in every imaginable position--some in the beds, some under
them, several in the closets, two in a hogshead, and one up a
chimney. Mr. R---- from Missouri--known here as the
'prairie-wolf'--I found between two bed-ticks, half smothered with
the feathers. He was the ringleader, and raises a Monte table
wherever he goes, as regularly as a whale comes to the surface to
blow. All shouted as he tumbled out from his ticks. Among the rest
I found the Alcalde of San Francisco, a gentleman of education and
refinement, who never plays himself, but who, on this occasion, had
come to witness the excitement. I gathered them all, some fifty in
number, into the large saloon, and told them the only speech I had
to make was in the shape of a fine of twenty dollars each. The more
astute began to demur on the plea of not guilty, as no cards and no
money had been discovered, and as for beds, a man had as good a
right to sleep under one as in it. I told them that was a matter of
taste, misfortune often made strange bedfellows, and the only way
to get out of the scrape was to pay up. Dr. W---- was the first to
plank down.

"'Come, my good fellows,' said the doctor, 'pay up, and no
grumbling: this money goes to build a school house, where I hope
our children will be taught better principles than they gather from
the examples of their fathers.'"

Of how the labor of the prisoners united with the money of gamblers to build the needed school, he writes:

"One of the prisoners, an Englishman, ventured a criticism of the
stonework of another prisoner, which revealed the fact of his being
a stonecutter himself. I immediately set him at work at his old
trade. But he feigned utter ignorance of it, and spoiled several
blocks in making his feint good. I then ordered him into a deep
well where the water had given out, to drill and blast rocks....
Finding that the well was to be sunk some twenty feet deeper, ...
he requested that he might be permitted to try his chisel again.
Permission was given, and he is now shaping stones fit to be laid
in the walls of a cathedral. He was taken up for disorderly
conduct, and he is now at work on a school house, where the
principles of good order are the first things to be taught."

Colton gives an instance of trust justified on an occasion when, pressed for funds, he created a "trusty."

"The most faithful and reliable guard that I have ever had over the
prisoners is himself a prisoner. He had been a lieutenant in the
Mexican army, and was sentenced, for a flagrant breach of the
peace, to the public works for one year. I determined to make an
experiment with this lieutenant; had him brought before me; ordered
the ball and chain to be taken from his leg, and placed a
double-barrelled gun, loaded and primed, in his hands.

"'Take that musket and proceed with the prisoners to the stone
quarry; return them to their cells before sunset, and report to
me.'

"'Your order, Señor Alcalde, shall be faithfully obeyed.'

"A constable reconnoitered and found all well. At sunset the
lieutenant entered the office, and reported the prisoners in their
cells, and all safe.

"'Very well, José, now make yourself safe, and that will do.' He
accordingly returned to his prison, and from that day to this has
been my most faithful and reliable guard."

"If there is anything on earth besides religion for which I would
die," Colton declares, "it is the right of trial by jury." And he
impanelled the first jury ever summoned in California. One-third
were Mexicans, one-third Californians, and the other third
Americans. The plaintiff spoke in English, the defendant in French,
the jury, save the Americans, Spanish--"and the witnesses all the
languages known to California."

"The inhabitants said it was what they liked--that there could be
no bribery in it--that the opinion of twelve honest men should set
the case forever at rest. And so it did, though neither party
completely triumphed." He gives the credit for the satisfactory
termination of this polyglot case to "the tact of Mr. Hartnell, the
interpreter, and the absence of young lawyers."

When Colton Hall, the first state capitol and the pride to this hour of Old Monterey, was completed, Colton writes:

"The town hall on which I have been at work for more than a year is
at last finished. It is built of a white stone"--now a beautiful
deep cream--"quarried from a neighboring hill, and easily shaped.
The lower apartments are for schools, the hall over them--seventy
feet by thirty--is for public assemblies. It is not an edifice that
would attract any attention among public buildings in the United
States; but in California it is without a rival. It has been
erected out of the slender proceeds of town lots, the labor of
convicts, taxes on liquor shops, and fines on gamblers. The scheme
was regarded with incredulity by many; but the building is
finished, and the citizens have assembled in it and christened it
with my name, which will go down to posterity with the odor of
gamblers, convicts and tipplers. I leave it as an humble evidence
of what may be accomplished by rigidly adhering to one purpose, and
shrinking from no personal efforts necessary to its achievements. A
prison has also been built, and mainly through the labor of
convicts. Many a joke the rogues have cracked while constructing
their own cage; but have worked so diligently I shall feel
constrained to pardon out the less incorrigible."

The Capitol of California in 1849.]

NEIGHBORLINESS AND A COUNTRY COMMUNITY

SARAH LOWRIE

With the growth of large cities in our country and the desertion of the farms for the town, there has been a less observable but quite as remarkable desertion of the city in favor of the country.

One would suppose that these two migrations would so balance each other that neither the town nor the country would suffer by the exchange of citizens. It would be reasonable to hope that going to the country would bring just the right impetus needed by the stay-at-homes of each community to brace them into new life.

But the thing has not worked out that way.

However much the shops and offices of the cities may have benefited by the advent of the farmers' sons and daughters, and however much the real estate agents and provision merchants of the country may have benefited by the advent of the well-to-do towns-folk, the morale of the country town, the ideals of the country people and the amalgamation of the native men with their new neighbors into a better citizenship have not prospered. Nor have the city institutions been able to replace the men of affairs who, having ceased to use the city except as a means for carrying on their business, have transferred their family and their leisure interests into the country.

The city churches, the city philanthropies, and the civic improvement organizations all tell the same tale: the rich men, the special executive men, the professional men, once their actual business engagements are over, turn their backs on the city with a sigh of relief and depart country-wards for rest and enjoyment for the night, for the week-end, and for the summer vacation. The city loses them, and they gain the country. But it must not be supposed that the country in any vital sense gains them. A man who has professedly moved from the town to the country for rest and pleasure, and who observably needs both, feels as free as a debutante to enjoy what is set before him in the way of diversion, with no moral obligation toward his neighbors but that of paying with a wry grin the outrageous prices levied upon all outsiders by the genial natives.

Without quite meaning to, without indeed quite realizing it, the richer men and women of this country, especially in our eastern states, have so shifted the obligation of neighborliness that they have the air of being transients everywhere and neighbors nowhere. Even their country places are not theirs year in and year out for as long as a single generation. We Americans like to change our minds and there is no telling what kind of scenery or what style of architecture we may fancy next.

One hears a great deal about the unfaithfulness of the Irish cook who may "up and leave" any day that she hears of a chance of "bettering herself" elsewhere; but the mistress's unrest is nothing to the plight of the farmer when one considers the lottery of the city folks. The gamble of his crops and the weather is nothing to this other gamble. For the farmer knows that no power under heaven can keep the city man satisfied with his site, his house with five bathrooms, his fancy chicken run, and his concrete garage if the whim should take his wife that the environment was no longer a suitable one for the children. There is no romance, therefore, to the farmer about either his potato crop or his city neighbor. He knows it is not philanthropy that led the city man to buy five acres of poor farm land at the highest notch price, and that no desire for his company has urged the new comer to plant his house on the other side of the back pasture. Being a sensible farmer he makes what profit he can out of his potatoes and his city neighbor before either crop has time to depreciate in value.

"What are you city people for, but to be skinned?" was the frank remark of one of my nearest country neighbors one day, apropos of an outrageous bit of sharp dealing on his part as property appraiser for that district. It was not a flattering summing up of a relationship, nor did its grim humor hide any more indulgent version of our economic value as neighbors. In fact we were not, nor ever had been accepted by him and his kind as neighbors. We were a crop. A crop more lucrative than his potatoes, but from our arbitrary and unexpected demands, and the shortness of our seasons, and the variation of our types a much more "pernickery" crop to deal with. Perhaps I should have been flattered by his frankness, but I was not! For the moment indeed, I even resolved to deal no more with him or his, but on second thought I concluded that, although he would be the loser of some $200, I would be out a wash-woman, a chore boy, many dozens of fresh eggs, many quarts of milk, a care-taker for the house during the winter, and an immunity from his cows in my garden in the summer. In fact, I stood to lose double as much as he, if peace of mind and leisure to enjoy my home could be computed in hard cash. I concluded therefore that it would not pay to get mad.

But the remark rankled and in the end set this and that motive to work in my mind until my brain and heart became fallow ground for the cultivation of another sort of relationship than that of city folk and native, buyer and seller, employer and employed, or even giver and receiver. In the end we learned to be neighbors--he and I--not because his ground adjoined mine, but because we both began to feel a common civic interest in the same village and in the same country side, and because in a very particular and picturesque sense we both shared in an enterprise from which we both derived comfort and pleasure. The change in me was greater than the change in him for he had always been interested in the village life apart from his property, and apart from his comfort, and during all the year. The bond that brought us together was not the church, nor the library, nor the base-ball field--all donations in times past of the summer people to the natives, but it was the Neighborhood House, a donation from the country people and the summer people alike, not to any particular class but to all the dwellers in that mountain valley.

Of course, I realize that the particular Neighborhood House, which fits so well the need of our valley, might not do for just any valley. For instance, our valley in the Adirondacks has a scattered population of nearly a thousand people with two villages about five miles apart, and several little settlements here and there among the hills. In the larger village there are perhaps one hundred children in the school. The nearest hospital lies twenty-four miles across a mountain road, and several hours by boat across Lake Champlain at Burlington, Vt. An infirmary that could be used by the natives for long illnesses, and by the city cottagers for emergency operations was vitally needed; so our Neighborhood House has a sunny airy infirmary and a perfectly equipped little operating room.

Our village and the country people and the lumber camps back in the mountains can only depend on the services of two physicians, one of them an old and feeble man. To supplement their visits and for emergency calls for the summer visitors a district nurse was needed, so a bed-room, bath-room, and pleasant sitting-room for such a nurse were planned in the Neighborhood house to connect with the infirmary. To supplement the somewhat limited primary grades in the village schools and to provide occupation for restless little city children, a summer kindergarten had been established and proved most successful, so on the lower floor of the Neighborhood House a large, many-windowed room was set apart to be used, not only for this purpose, but for adult classes in domestic science, sewing, embroidery and dancing. There was no proper room in the village for fairs, church suppers, glee clubs, rehearsals, informal village meetings, etc. There was added, therefore, to this large room a kitchen to be used in connection with it for such entertainments and for cooking classes. There had been a successful men's club in the village for years, but the women and girls had no common meeting place and indeed no real center of interest outside their homes. A woman's club room therefore was made an important part of our Neighborhood House. It has an open fireplace, a store closet and cupboards, a writing table, tea and game tables, comfortable chairs, and a pretty color scheme, with prints and water colors on the wall, oriental rugs on the hardwood floors, pleasant chintzes, books, and flower bowls.

Though the village women had been long accustomed to make extra pin-money by selling eggs, maple sugar, balsam pillows, bread and cake, and rag-carpet rugs, there has been no store where these things could be ordered. We set apart one room in our Neighborhood House, therefore, for a Village Exchange, which was open for three months in the summer. During the winter months this pleasant little room was used by the boys for a game room. There was no hotel or even boarding house in the village for transient guests, which remained open throughout the winter; so two guest rooms were set aside in our Neighborhood House to be used by the strangers, lecturers, clergymen, visiting surgeons, and city visitors who might pass that way during the late autumn and the winter months.

Neither the village people nor the summer cottagers were well supplied with sick room appliances, and among the poorer citizens of the valley there was even a lack of necessary articles for confinement cases, while crutches, invalid chairs, and wheel chairs were difficult to procure in an emergency by rich and poor alike. So an emergency closet, stocked with such things was set aside for general use in the Neighborhood House. The rooms in the rest of the house were the house dining-room and kitchen, the pantry, cool room, linen and store closet, the stewardess's bed-room, and an up-stairs sleeping porch for the infirmary, and a splendid attic. Outside the house were the wood shed, earth closet, tool shed and ice house, an ample vegetable and fruit garden, a lawn space for croquet and tether ball, a small flower and shrub garden, and wide verandas.