GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ON HOUSING PLANS
A very large proportion of the workingmen and small tradesmen in San Francisco own their own houses and lots. The land values in certain sections had not been excessive, so that many wage-earners were able to invest savings in small lots on which to establish permanent homes. What part the Corporation took in adding to the number of those who own their own homes has been shown in this study.
It has been pointed out that the bonus group received the most bountiful housing aid, that the grant and loan group came second in the securing of liberal assistance, and that the camp cottage people were given the least.
The re-visit, to recapitulate, showed that a majority of the persons who received the bonus, which it must be borne in mind cannot be called a relief measure, possessed not a little property, were fairly well established in business or at profitable employment, and were entirely able to re-establish their homes when the unsettled conditions had passed. At the date of the re-visit this group of people were housed in their own homes, which compared favorably in almost every way with those occupied when the earthquake came.
The erection of cottages within the camps to serve as temporary shelter for approximately 18,000 people, was well planned and efficiently executed. As has been shown, a number of the cottages came later into the possession of speculators or were soon taken over by landlords in satisfaction of unpaid ground rent. On the other hand, many were owned by persons who were able to purchase small lots, and who in the fall of 1908 bid fair to retain their attractive and comfortable little homes. Without the gift of the cottages this would not have been possible to them. It would seem on the whole that these applicants were better housed at the date of the investigation than at the time of the fire which, probably, more than any other single fact, indicates the soundness of the housing plans.
The standards of many of the families who received camp cottages were so low that an extensive scheme of constructive philanthropy by which an effort might have been made slowly to raise their standards of living would have been of great value. This would have been a stupendous task. But should the expenditure of another great rehabilitation fund be called for, ought not such an attempt to be kept in mind?
The plan to aid applicants with small grants and loans was undoubtedly well conceived and effectively worked out. The machinery installed by the housing committee enabled it to reach the class of people whom it was most anxious to help, also to weed out a large number that it was thought unwise to aid. The great merit of the grant and loan policy was that it stimulated a large number to purchase lots and erect homes of their own who otherwise would probably never have seriously considered the possibility.
PART V
RELIEF WORK OF THE
ASSOCIATED CHARITIES
FROM JUNE, 1907, TO JUNE, 1909
PART V
RELIEF WORK OF THE
ASSOCIATED CHARITIES
FROM JUNE, 1907, TO JUNE, 1909
| PAGE | |||
| I. | The Nature of the Cases | [281] | |
| 1. | Introductory | [281] | |
| 2. | Nature of the Dependency | [282] | |
| 3. | Social Character of the Cases | [286] | |
| 4. | Occupations of Applicants | [294] | |
| II. | The Methods of Relief Employed | [298] | |
| 1. | Reapplications | [298] | |
| 2. | Emergent Relief | [299] | |
| 3. | Permanent Relief | [305] | |
| 4. | Relief Refused | [310] | |
| 5. | Conclusions | [314] | |
| 6. | The Associated Charities Since the Fire | [317] | |
I
THE NATURE OF THE CASES
1. INTRODUCTORY
In [Parts I] and [II] frequent mention has been made of the important rehabilitation rôle played by the Associated Charities. In this fifth part of the Relief Survey, measure is taken of the burden carried by the Associated Charities for the two years after it resigned as an investigating agent of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds and took up, with the financial aid of the funds, its independent work of caring for the remnant. The remnant was composed of the people who had suffered from the earthquake and fire but had asked for no help until more than a year had elapsed; of those who continued to need aid because of the extraordinary vicissitudes of their life; of others who had formed the habit of turning to a relief agency for assistance; and of those who required further succor because that given by the Corporation had been inadequate.
The Associated Charities was selected for special study, not only because it had been continuously the agent of the Corporation, but because its work promised to give the fullest answer to the question: To what extent has the San Francisco problem of dependency deepened? This study is, then, in a sense, an exhibition of the aftermath of the great disaster.
The range of the inquiry involved the asking of three questions: First, what was the character of the rehabilitation? Second, how was it done? Third,—a quadruple question,—how much was induced by the disaster itself, how much by the fact of the existence of relief measures the year after the disaster, how much by the administration of these measures, and how much by conditions that tend at all times to produce dependency?
The field of investigation plainly defines itself as: first, to know the number and character of the persons that remained dependent after the fifteen months of conscientious rehabilitation work, and to compare them in regard to number and character with the lesser number of persons that for two years before the disaster were under the care of the Associated Charities; second, to learn what methods of relief were used to render these persons once more effective members of the community; and third, to measure in some degree the efficiency of these methods.
The primary purpose of this study was to learn as far as possible the psychological effects of the disaster by studying a group of refugees who continued to draw on the relief funds after the general public had fallen out of the bread line. It has been impossible, however, to hold strictly to the purpose, because the Associated Charities,[225] in resuming its normal place in the community, aimed rightly to administer to the needs of the city’s poor whether or not the individual applicant could show a relation between his necessity and the disaster. From the point of view of the Associated Charities, all persons applying for aid from June, 1907, to June, 1909, had an equal claim on its funds. Its power of realizing this aim of impartially meeting the needs of the applicants has been limited by the fact that as a society it was known by the public at large, as well as by the direct and indirect sufferers from the disaster, by their relatives, and by their friends, to be acting as the financial agent of a corporation that continued to have large sums of money to disburse.
[225] Before and since the disaster the Associated Charities has been, except for the work done by the Hebrew Board of Relief, the accepted general relief society. It has had, throughout, the active co-operation of the Catholics.
2. NATURE OF THE DEPENDENCY
The interest in the relief administration centers in the desire to know to what extent it altered the poverty situation of the city. The presumption is, of course, that the work of the Associated Charities and kindred agencies was greatly increased by the disaster, but it is important to get a specific idea of the increase for the two selected years, and to determine what proportion is a distinct result of the social upheaval brought by the earthquake and fire of 1906.
To answer this question required a knowledge of the work of the Associated Charities for the two years before the fire as exact as for the two years under consideration.[226] By one of the most notable incidents of the great fire, the building containing the records of the Associated Charities escaped the flames. These records, no previous study of whose facts had been made, were therefore available. The stories of the applicants to the Associated Charities for the two years preceding April 18, 1906, have been analyzed, and in order that comparison might be possible, a similar study of records has been made of the post-disaster cases.
[226] At the time of the fire the Associated Charities had been in existence for over seventeen years. Its original aim had been to confine its work to organizing charity; but as there was no general relief society in existence it was called on more and more to do relief work. By 1905 the society had a list of 900 subscribers; an annual income of not more than $5,000; a staff consisting of a general secretary, two or three paid investigators, and a stenographer on part time. In addition to these, the office had the exclusive use of two district nurses supported by special funds. With a staff and an income so limited it was possible to give little beyond emergency aid to needy families in their homes. The problem of homeless men was not touched. The initial steps had been taken looking to co-operation with other philanthropic agencies along several lines. In conjunction with the Merchants’ Association, a charities endorsement committee had been formed; a children’s agency had been established, and a department of legislation and law organized to originate needed social legislation and to give free legal aid to applicants. For a résumé of the development of the work of the society after the disaster, see [Part V], [pp. 317]-[318].
As the means to aid during the two years from June, 1907, to June, 1909, were drawn almost exclusively from the Corporation and the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds, a statement of the work of the Associated Charities is practically a survey of the further use made of the disaster relief funds.
The Associated Charities, as an independent agent, reopened its doors to applicants on June 17, 1907; but since it had assumed the responsibility before the complete transfer of duties was effected, data are here given for the period beginning June 1. From June 1, 1907, until June 1, 1909, 6,766 applications were made to it in the following order:
| June 1, 1907, to December 31, 1907 | 2,547 |
| January 1, 1908, to December 31, 1908 | 3,154 |
| January 1, 1909, to June 1, 1909 | 1,065 |
| Total | 6,766 |
From April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906, 1840 cases had applied for aid at the office. There was therefore a nearly fourfold increase in applications during the two post-disaster years under comparison. There are no data to show the sequence of increase or decrease of cases for the earlier period. The number of monthly applications during 1908 and 1909 was as follows:
TABLE 96.—NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES FOR ASSISTANCE, BY MONTHS. 1908 AND 1909[227]
| Month | 1908 | 1909 |
|---|---|---|
| January | 474 | 229 |
| February | 815 | 237 |
| March | 417 | 219 |
| April | 219 | 145 |
| May | 172 | 135 |
| June | 195 | 274 |
| July | 146 | 113 |
| August | 152 | 97 |
| September | 115 | 84 |
| October | 173 | 42 |
| November | 126 | 161 |
| December | 150 | 183 |
| Total | 3,154 | 1,919 |
[227] As the figures in this table are for the calendar years 1908 and 1909, the totals do not correspond with the figures for the period from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, presented in other tables in this Part. While there were some inconsistencies between various records consulted, as to the number of applications per month, it is believed that the figures presented are approximately correct.
Although for three of the months of 1909, June, November, and December, there was an increase of applications over the corresponding months of the previous year,—an increase of 41, 28, and 22 per cent respectively,—the work for 1909 as a whole, compared with 1908, decreased 39 per cent.
In relating the facts found in the case records of applicants from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, 815, or 12 per cent, of the 6766 records are omitted,—107 because they were found to be the records of cases belonging not to the Associated Charities but to other relief societies; 606 because they were not relief society records, but were those of cases cared for in the City and County Hospital which for reasons of office organization were, during a number of months of the year 1907, filed with the Associated Charities’ records; 102 because they were too incomplete to give the required data. The facts drawn from the remaining 5951 cases are compared with 1550 cases of the earlier pre-disaster period. Two hundred and ninety cases, or 15.8 per cent, of the 1840 cases of that period (April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906), had to be omitted, some because they were records of cases handled by other relief societies, and a larger number because the statement cards lacked sufficient data to permit tabulation. The large number of cases marked “Unknown” throughout this study makes it incontestably plain that the records are lacking in many details. Though admirably complete as compared with those before the fire, and much more so during the years 1908 and 1909 than during 1907, yet data have failed with regrettable frequency.
TABLE 97.—ASSOCIATED CHARITIES CASES CLASSIFIED AS HAVING LIVED OR NOT HAVING LIVED IN THE BURNED AREA, AND BY NUMBER AIDED, AND NUMBER REFUSED AID. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[228]
| Classes of applicants | Appli- cants aided | Appli- cants re- fused aid | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Applicants who had lived in burned area: | |||
| With rehabilitation record | 1,309 | 571 | 1,880 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 1,512 | 604 | 2,116 |
| Total | 2,821 | 1,175 | 3,996 |
| Applicants who had not lived in burned area | 1,303 | 439 | 1,742 |
| Grand total | 4,124 | 1,614 | 5,738 |
[228] Data are not available as to the former place of residence of 123 of the 4,247 applicants aided, and of 90 of the 1,704 applicants who were refused aid.
One point on which the records in many cases fail to supply information is as to whether or not the applicant had been burned out. In the previous studies of this Survey no division has been made of the refugees into the two classes of those who lived within or without the burned area, because dependency as a result of the disaster was known to be due not alone to having been in the first named class. Since one of the vital points of this study, however, is to determine how much of the relief work of the Associated Charities during the second of the two-year periods was due, directly or indirectly, to the earthquake and fire, an effort has been made to reach the point by dividing the 5,738 applicants about whom the fact was known into two groups: 3,996, or 69.6 per cent, of whom had lived within the burned area; 1,742, or 30.4 per cent, of whom had lived without. The further classification given in [Table 97] reveals the interesting fact that a large number of persons who had lived in the burned area made no recorded application for rehabilitation until after June, 1907.
Fifty-three per cent of those burned out, who by June, 1909, had come to the Associated Charities for assistance, first made application for relief needed as a result of the disaster, after the rehabilitation work was done. Many of them had undoubtedly received their share of clothes, had stood in the bread line, and had lived in the camps, but as their names are not on the records of the Rehabilitation Committee they had had, up to the time that they applied to the Associated Charities, no rehabilitation in the accepted sense of the term.
3. SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE CASES
The social characteristics of these cases are second in importance only to the question of their relation to the disaster.
What do the records show with regard to their nationality, their family relations, their ages, the size of their families, their occupations, and their characteristics in general? What were the disabilities that drove them to ask for help? What proportion of the disabilities from which they suffered can be marked against the rehabilitation methods?
Forty-one different countries, as shown by [Table 98], are represented by the persons who made application in each of the two-year periods, and of whom the place of birth was learned.
Completely devastated. First tents in Washington Square
Partly Rebuilt. Cottages in Washington Square
Telegraph Hill and Washington Square
The situation as far as nationality governed application shows but slight variation between the two periods of time. There are, however, a few interesting variations; as, for instance, the falling off in the second period in the number of applicants born in the British Empire, in the Scandinavian countries, and in the United States. Only the Irish and Italians have materially increased their proportionate numbers. Did the relief funds cause this increase, or did the catastrophe bear most heavily on these nationalities? When it is recalled[229] that the Latin Quarter was wiped out and that “South-of-Market,” largely the residential quarter of the poor Irish, was entirely burned, the fire seems undoubtedly to be responsible.
TABLE 98.—NATIVITY OF APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[230]
| Nativity | APPLICANTS OF EACH SPECIFIED NATIVITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| United States | 532 | 1,933 | 42.7 | 37.0 |
| Ireland | 135 | 734 | 10.9 | 14.0 |
| Italy | 65 | 541 | 5.2 | 10.4 |
| Spain, Mexico and Porto Rico | 113 | 500 | 9.1 | 9.6 |
| Germany | 118 | 475 | 9.5 | 9.1 |
| Great Britain, Canada and Australasia | 113 | 373 | 9.1 | 7.1 |
| Norway, Sweden and Denmark | 38 | 138 | 3.1 | 2.6 |
| Finland, Russia, Poland and Armenia | 32 | 150 | 2.6 | 2.9 |
| Other countries (24) | 97 | 381 | 7.8 | 7.3 |
| Total | 1,243 | 5,225 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[230] Data are not available as to the nationality of 307 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 726 of the 5,951 persons applying for relief after the fire.
No question is of greater importance than that involved in the relation between relief and the family. In [Parts I] and [II] the effort of the Rehabilitation Committee has been shown to have been to limit closely the amount of aid given to single, able-bodied persons and to able-bodied men.[231] This policy is shown in the following table to have influenced the work of the Associated Charities also, so that the widow and the handicapped family received primary consideration in the extended rehabilitation work.
[231] See [Part I], [p. 47], and [Part II], [p. 123]. This policy was, of course, being carried out in spirit when breadwinners were helped not with continued general relief, but with means to re-establish a home through a housing or business grant.
TABLE 99.—FAMILY TYPES AMONG APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[232]
| Family type | CASES OF EACH SPECIFIED TYPE | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | ||||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | ||
| Families | |||||
| (1) | Married couples with children | 500 | 2,012 | 34.2 | 33.9 |
| (2) | Married couples without children | 109 | 522 | 7.5 | 8.8 |
| (3) | Widows with children | 167 | 1,044 | 11.4 | 17.5 |
| (4) | Deserted wives with children | 53 | 258 | 3.6 | 4.3 |
| (5) | Widowers with children | 41 | 144 | 2.8 | 2.4 |
| (6) | Deserted husbands with children | 8 | 20 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| (7) | Divorced men or women with children | 26 | 109 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| (8) | Orphan families | 10 | 30 | 0.7 | 0.5 |
| (9) | Illegitimate families | 6 | 65 | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| Total families | 920 | 4,204 | 63.0 | 70.6 | |
| Detached persons | |||||
| Men | 362 | 916 | 24.8 | 15.4 | |
| Women | 163 | 798 | 11.1 | 13.4 | |
| Total detached persons | 525 | 1,714 | 35.9 | 28.8 | |
| Dependent minors | 16 | 33 | 1.1 | 0.6 | |
| Grand Total | 1,461 | 5,951 | 100.0 | 100.0 | |
[232] Data are not available as to the family type of 89 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire.
Since the term “families” covers the widest range of variations in social status, it has seemed wise to make the nine family classifications given in the above [table]. It is plain that the seventh group lacks in value as compared with the classifying of each group separately according to sex. The incompleteness of the records made a separation by sex impossible. The most notable difference in the numbers applying for relief before and after the fire occurs in the case of widows with children. If to the 1,044 widows with children—taking the figures of the second period—be added the 258 deserted women and the 30 orphaned families, all supported by women, 1,332, or 22.3 per cent of all the cases, are shown to be families dependent upon women as breadwinners. If the 798 childless, detached women be added to the 1,332, we have 2,130 women dependents, or 35.7 per cent of those that applied,[233] which must be compared with 26.8 per cent for the period before the fire. The 164 widowers and deserted husbands with children, 2.7 per cent of all the cases of the later period, is a relatively larger number of such cases than is usually found in charity records. The proportion of the group called “illegitimate families” rests upon facts open to challenge as to exactness or completeness. Though the presumption is that the number is too small, 65 such cases for the second period are all that can be proven by the records. The fact that the percentage of applications from single men was less after than before the fire shows that the policy to limit relief given to this class had a deterrent effect. The 49 dependent minors applying to the Associated Charities in the two periods for various reasons were not referred for care to the city’s child-caring agencies.
[233] See Devine, Edward T.: Misery and Its Causes, New York, Macmillan, 1909. The percentage of women breadwinners in the 500 cases, New York Charity Organization Society in the year 1908 is given as 40.8 per cent.
Of 1,375 married couples who had lived in the burned area 647, or nearly 47 per cent, had a rehabilitation record, while the majority of all the men applying were without such records. By actual count over 80 per cent of the single men who made the first application after June, 1907, had come to San Francisco within the year after the disaster, lured presumably by the expectation of work.
The age of the person entered on the statement card as the main source of support for the family group, has been chosen as the age basis for [Table 100].
In the second period of time 55.6 per cent of all the cases in which the age was ascertained were over forty years of age. This proportion falls to 54 per cent when the family cases alone are considered.
From the records for the first period, it was possible to tabulate data relative to the age of the breadwinner for only 661 family groups. In only 175 of these 661 groups, or 26.5 per cent, was the breadwinner known to be over forty years of age.
TABLE 100.—AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[234]
| Age of breadwinner | FAMILIES WITH BREADWINNER OF EACH SPECIFIED AGE | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |
| Under 30 years | 682 | 16.2 |
| 30 years and under 35 years | 597 | 14.2 |
| 35 years and under 40 years | 647 | 15.4 |
| 40 years and under 60 years | 1,632 | 38.8 |
| 60 years or over | 646 | 15.4 |
| Total | 4,204 | 100.0 |
[234] Data are not available as to the age of the principal breadwinner in 1,747 of the 5,951 families applying for relief after the fire.
TABLE 101.—AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE, BY FAMILY TYPE[235]
| Family type | Families for which informa- tion as to age of bread- winner is available | FAMILIES WITH BREADWINNER 40 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent of all families | |||
| Married couples with children | ||||
| Before fire | 372 | 83 | 22.3 | |
| After fire | 2,012 | 946 | 47.0 | |
| Married couples without children | ||||
| Before fire | 84 | 26 | 31.0 | |
| After fire | 522 | 293 | 56.1 | |
| Widows and deserted women with children | ||||
| Before fire | 135 | 44 | 32.6 | |
| After fire | 1,302 | 864 | 66.4 | |
| Widowers and deserted men with children | ||||
| Before fire | 34 | 17 | 50.0 | |
| After fire | 164 | 110 | 67.1 | |
| Other family types | ||||
| Before fire | 36 | 5 | 13.9 | |
| After fire | 204 | 65 | 31.9 | |
| Total | Before fire | 661 | 175 | 26.5 |
| After fire | 4,204 | 2,278 | 54.2 | |
[235] Data are not available as to age of the principal breadwinner and family type for 889 of the 1,550 families of persons applying for relief before the fire, and for 1,747 of the 5,951 families applying for relief after the fire.
Largely rebuilt. Washington Square restored to park uses
Telegraph Hill and Washington Square
The preponderance of applicants past forty in the second period is not surprising. Given a prosperous community and care in dispensing aid in time of disaster it was to be expected that those approaching middle age would be the ones to apply for and to receive aid.
It is interesting to note whether the strain due to the conditions following the disaster was felt more by the native or by the foreign born married groups.
TABLE 102.—AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES THAT HAD BEEN BURNED OUT APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BY NATIVITY AND REHABILITATION RECORD. JUNE 1, 1907-JUNE 1, 1909[236]
| Nativity and rehabilitation record | Families burned out for which information asto age of breadwinner is available | FAMILIES BURNED OUT WITH BREADWINNER 40 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | ||
| Native born | |||
| With rehabilitation record | 558 | 322 | 57.7 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 473 | 226 | 47.8 |
| Total | 1,031 | 548 | 53.2 |
| Foreign born | |||
| With rehabilitation record | 966 | 666 | 68.9 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 1,032 | 583 | 56.5 |
| Total | 1,998 | 1,249 | 62.5 |
| All cases with rehabilitation record | 1,524 | 988 | 64.8 |
| All cases without rehabilitation record | 1,505 | 809 | 53.8 |
| Grand total | 3,029 | 1,797 | 59.3 |
[236] Data are not available as to age of the principal breadwinner, nativity, and rehabilitation record for 967 of the 3,996 burned out families applying for relief after the fire.
The answer given by the table is that the foreign born family was older than the native born, whether it had had rehabilitation aid before applying to the Associated Charities or not. The facts indicate that the courage and resourcefulness of comparative youth whether of the foreign or of the native born, tended to make men under forty wait until all other resources had failed before appealing for aid.
The number of children shown in [Table 103] gives but the approximate number of living children of the different families. Though data were fairly complete for children, minor and adult, living at home, there were probably many instances in which children who were married or no longer members of the household, were not named on the statement card. The count, however, tells facts sufficiently interesting to a student of dependency to warrant its inclusion.
TABLE 103.—NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN FAMILIES HAVING CHILDREN APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE
| Number of children | FAMILIES HAVING EACH SPECIFIED NUMBER OF CHILDREN | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| One | 263 | 1,204 | 32.4 | 32.7 |
| Two | 205 | 989 | 25.3 | 26.9 |
| Three | 150 | 608 | 18.5 | 16.5 |
| Four | 85 | 370 | 10.5 | 10.0 |
| Five | 58 | 255 | 7.2 | 6.9 |
| Six | 26 | 130 | 3.2 | 3.5 |
| Seven | 9 | 69 | 1.1 | 1.9 |
| Eight | 9 | 36 | 1.1 | 1.0 |
| Nine or over | 6 | 21 | .7 | .6 |
| Total | 811 | 3,682 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
In the first period only 6 per cent of these families applying had more than five children; in the second only 7 per cent. Seventy-six per cent of the families in each period had three or a smaller number of children. Large families evidently played a small part in the dependency situation. It is true that the cases which presented serious problems of treatment were often those with a large number of children, but the actual number of such cases was small. The high average age of the applicant and the likelihood, therefore, of his having unrecorded children living away from home must, it is reiterated, be borne in mind.
The applicants in 75 per cent of the cases of the second period, mentioned in [Table 104], were found to be suffering from two or more disabilities. The classifications were taken from the case records.
TABLE 104.—CAUSES OF DISABILITY AMONG APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE
| Disability | CASES IN WHICH THE CHIEF DISABILITY WAS AS SPECIFIED | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| Death | 31 | 111 | 2.0 | 1.9 |
| Illness | 493 | 1,366 | 31.8 | 23.0 |
| Old age | 56 | 344 | 3.6 | 5.8 |
| Accident | 94 | 264 | 6.1 | 4.4 |
| Unemployment | 302 | 1,532 | 19.5 | 25.7 |
| Laziness | 26 | 184 | 1.7 | 3.1 |
| Desertion or divorce | 90 | 151 | 5.8 | 2.5 |
| Vicious habits | 143 | 295 | 9.2 | 5.0 |
| Other disabilities | 315 | 1,704 | 20.3 | 28.6 |
| Total | 1,550 | 5,951 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
The largest single disability for the second period was unemployment. Of those who applied to the office between June, 1907, and June, 1909, 1532, or 25.7 per cent, came for the alleged reason that they were out of work. The greater percentage of illness before than after the disaster is also noteworthy. Included in the other disabilities or handicaps that led to application for relief should be mentioned unsanitary surroundings and overstrain, the latter a term used to describe a general break-down of nerve due to the conditions following the disaster. Under the caption “vicious habits” are included all cases in which drunkenness, the drug habit, brutality, licentiousness, or professional mendicancy had played their part in bringing persons to be a charge upon a charity office. Add to those classed as having vicious habits those who were recorded as being lazy, as having deserted or divorced a partner, and 49 of those reported under “other disabilities” who had been neglectful or had served a penal term, and we have a total of 679 persons of the second period who may be said to have come to make application, or caused others to apply, by reason of the effects of wrong living. As this count does not include those whose illnesses resulted from evil practices or those whose unemployment resulted from disabling vice, it is not complete. It indicates, however, that dependency after the fire did not come in an exceptionally large number of cases as a result of evil living. Before the fire vicious habits were reported as responsible for 9.2 per cent of all the cases of distress.
4. OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS
In the [table] that follows all applicants for relief for the second period are classified by general occupation.
TABLE 105.—APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES CLASSIFIED BY GENERAL OCCUPATIONS, AS REFUGEES WITH AND WITHOUT REHABILITATION RECORD, AND AS NON-REFUGEES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909
| Occupation | APPLICANTS WHO HAD LIVED IN BURNED AREA | Applicants who had not lived in burned area | Applicants whose former place of residence is doubtful | Total of all classes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With rehabili- tation record | Without rehabili- tation record | Total | ||||
| Professional service | 44 | 38 | 82 | 45 | 6 | 133 |
| Public service | 11 | 7 | 18 | 10 | .. | 28 |
| Personal and domestic service | 574 | 366 | 940 | 252 | 13 | 1,205 |
| Unskilled labor | 255 | 372 | 627 | 288 | 20 | 935 |
| Transportation | 94 | 110 | 204 | 83 | 10 | 297 |
| Trade | 172 | 114 | 286 | 109 | 15 | 410 |
| Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 579 | 460 | 1,039 | 371 | 30 | 1,440 |
| Miscellaneous occupations | 24 | 32 | 56 | 30 | 3 | 89 |
| Unknown | 127 | 617 | 744 | 554 | 116 | 1,414 |
| Total | 1,880 | 2,116 | 3,996 | 1,742 | 213 | 5,951 |
A street, showing close quarters in camp
Washington Square Camp
In between 23 and 24 per cent of the cases, the facts of occupation were not stated in the records. A study of the cases remaining proves how widely need distributed itself through all economic classes in the community. The persons enumerated were engaged in about 200 different callings.
Of the 4,537 persons for whom data concerning occupation were secured, 32 per cent were employed in the manufacturing and mechanical industries, 27 per cent were in personal and domestic service, and 21 per cent were in unskilled labor. The proportion of applicants in trade was 9 per cent and in transportation between 6 and 7 per cent. Less than 3 per cent of the applicants were in professional service or in miscellaneous occupations and less than 1 per cent in public service. Whether considered as having lived within or without the burned area, no striking difference appears in the proportion in each group of occupations.
The facts concerning the occupations of the needy show that the mass of poverty in San Francisco centered, as might be expected, in the same occupations before the fire as afterwards. The data for both periods are presented in [Table 106].
TABLE 106.—GENERAL OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[237]
| Occupational group | APPLICANTS IN EACH SPECIFIED OCCUPATIONAL GROUP | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| Professional service | 67 | 133 | 6.1 | 2.9 |
| Public service | 13 | 28 | 1.2 | .6 |
| Personal and domestic service | 259 | 1,205 | 23.4 | 26.6 |
| Unskilled labor | 243 | 935 | 22.0 | 20.6 |
| Transportation | 85 | 297 | 7.7 | 6.5 |
| Trade | 107 | 410 | 9.6 | 9.0 |
| Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 297 | 1,440 | 26.8 | 31.8 |
| Miscellaneous occupations | 36 | 89 | 3.2 | 2.0 |
| Total | 1,107 | 4,537 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[237] Data are not available as to the occupations of 443 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 1,414 of the 5,951 persons applying for relief after the fire.
In the two years before April 18, 1906, as in the two years following June 1, 1907, the largest percentage of persons was engaged in those vocations which are grouped as mechanical and manufacturing trades, as unskilled labor, and as personal and domestic service. The proportion of applicants in these three groups combined was, however, smaller before the fire, totaling 72.2 per cent before the fire as compared with 79 per cent in the later period. This is possibly due, in part, to the fact that the proportion of persons whose occupation was unknown was larger before the fire than after. The proportion of demand for help from persons in professional and public service was larger before the fire than after, for applicants in these occupations constituted 7.3 per cent of the cases in the period from April, 1904, to April, 1906, and only 3.5 per cent of the later cases. The disaster only slightly affected the proportion of persons in need who were in transportation employment or in trade. Before the fire 7.7 per cent of all applicants were in transportation employment and 9.6 per cent in trade, and after the fire 6.5 per cent were in transportation employment and 9 per cent in trade.
No specific data as to income are offered, because after some brief experimentation a study of income seemed futile. A person applying for aid may understate his income because he is humanly open to the temptation of trying to make as good a case for himself as possible, or may overstate it because he does not take into account the amount of irregularity to which he as a weekly or daily wage-earner is subject. In about 3000 of the cases in which income data were available for study, the potential earning power could have been in every case safely estimated by the occupations. The income for the average breadwinners, most of them semi-skilled, may be said to have approached during the periods stated the sum of $15 to $20 per week, an amount that represents something near the minimum earning power of the wage workers in San Francisco, a class of persons paid more highly than in any other part of the United States. For instance, among the American families burned out who were given aid, 32 gave their earning power at $10 to $15 per week, 27 at $15 to $20, and 21 at $20 or over.
It is of course of fundamental importance that the relief agent should know the total income of the families or individuals applying for aid. Only by learning what the income actually or approximately is can treatment be made to fit actual need. The record hurriedly written under pressure of work may fail to reveal the facts used by the investigator in determining treatment. The record may not, therefore, show the actual sum of knowledge held and used as the basis for treatment. The record, on the other hand, may be no more meager than was the investigation that it records. In the latter case, investigation, as well as treatment, has been in the hands of an agent who has lacked either time or training, or both, to do work such as is called for by the present standards of adequate case work.[238]
[238] See [Part III], [p. 173], for method of determining income of persons owning their own business.
Summarizing the facts concerning the character of the cases and the situation that forced these individuals to seek aid, it would appear that the cases group themselves into three leading types.
1. Dependency because of abnormal conditions.
2. Dependency because disaster had converted semi-dependency into complete dependency.
3. Dependency because character and circumstance, irrespective of abnormal conditions, induced dependency.
It is plain that each group requires a separate treatment and that in estimating the character and utility of the relief measures applied, each class will have to be kept in mind. A conscientious effort was made to find how many of the applicants belonged to both periods of treatment, but the results of the efforts were so inconclusive that they cannot be given.
II
THE METHODS OF RELIEF EMPLOYED
1. RE-APPLICATIONS
The preceding chapter makes plain that from June, 1907, to June, 1909, there was made on charity the largest demand in the history of San Francisco, and it seems safe to assert that the majority of those who asked aid would never have done so had they not been suddenly overtaken by the material losses and physical strain of a great disaster.
This chapter deals with the policies and costs of relief and the reasons discernible for refusing aid to applicants.
Any account of relief work, to be satisfactory, must include such a statement of the effect of the relief upon those to whom it was given as will enable the reader to decide how far it was appropriate and sufficient for the need it aimed to supply, how far it was given only to those who could or would benefit by its use, and how far, when refused, it was justifiably withheld. An attempt was made to note the instances in which the work of the Associated Charities could be said to have restored a family to efficiency. Only a case by case re-visit, by Relief Survey investigators, which for the reasons given [later] it was thought best not to make, would have determined the point for any great number of cases.
[Table 107] shows the size of the grants and the number of persons that applied to the Associated Charities after having been under the care of the Rehabilitation Committee before June, 1907.
The largest proportion of the earlier grants was for furniture, which were given, in sums of from $75 to $150, to 905 applicants. The next largest was for general relief, by which 388 applicants were aided, in the greatest number of instances because of sickness.
TABLE 107.—SIZE OF GRANTS MADE BY THE REHABILITATION COMMITTEE, BEFORE JUNE 1, 1907, TO APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF WHO AFTERWARDS APPLIED FOR RELIEF FROM THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES
| Amount of grant | APPLICANTS RECEIVING GRANTS OF EACH SPECIFIED AMOUNT | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | ||
| Under $50 | 82 | 4.4 | |
| $50 and under $100 | 420 | 22.3 | |
| $100 and under $150 | 437 | 23.2 | |
| $150 and under $200 | 293 | 15.6 | |
| $200 and over | 517 | 27.5 | |
| None | 131 | [239] | 7.0 |
| Total | 1,880 | 100.0 | |
[239] Of the 131 applicants who received no money grant from the Rehabilitation Committee, 19 received relief other than money.
There is evidence that 1768[240] persons aided by one group of rehabilitation workers reapplied later to another group.[241] The question that arises is, Why?[242] In reading the records of cases, reapplication cannot be attributed to any one cause. For example, a group of about 60 lodging-house keepers, the majority of whom had been given over $200 with which to establish rooming houses, had to apply to the Associated Charities for aid in untangling their subsequent business difficulties. In a few instances the first grant served as a spur to ask for more; in other instances the amount given was insufficient to accomplish what was intended; in still other instances, failure of health, inability to secure lodgers, rise of rentals, the bank flurry, the unemployment crises, each played a part in inducing a miscarriage in the plan.
[240] From the 1,880 noted in the table have been deducted the 112 applicants to whom the aid given was neither in money nor in kind.
[241] It should be borne in mind that persons who reapplied were in many cases making their reapplication to the same individuals who had extended treatment in the first instance.
[242] [Part II], [p. 127] ff., should be read in connection with this discussion.
2. EMERGENT RELIEF
The relief given by the Associated Charities from June, 1907, to June, 1909, can be divided from the point of view of material service rendered into three principal types of aid:
1. Moving camp cottages to permanent locations.
2. Giving aid.
(a) In sums less than $50, or in kind. (Emergency and temporary relief.)
(b) In the form of care for the destitute sick.
(c) By finding work for the unemployed.
3. Administering pensions and grants.
(a) Grants made by the Rehabilitation Committee previous to the assumption of work by the Associated Charities.
(b) Grants or pensions made by the Associated Charities from money donated by the Corporation on advice of the Rehabilitation Committee.
The first type of aid has been already considered. The aid given in money, other than large grants and pensions, and in kind (2, a), is noted in [Table 108].
TABLE 108.—EMERGENCY AND TEMPORARY RELIEF GIVEN IN MONEY OR IN ORDERS BY ASSOCIATED CHARITIES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[243]
| Nature of aid | Number of grants or orders | Amount of grants or orders |
|---|---|---|
| Food | ||
| Groceries | 3,526 | $10,158.44 |
| Meat | 3,519 | 5,301.90 |
| Milk | 2,435 | 2,877.25 |
| Vegetables | 23 | 32.65 |
| Emergency and food | 592 | 2,094.20 |
| Total | 10,095 | 20,464.44 |
| Household | ||
| Rent and furniture | 499 | 6,466.88 |
| Sewing machines | 52 | 1,355.00 |
| Fuel | 163 | 212.35 |
| Total | 714 | 8,034.23 |
| Clothing | 212 | 1,583.37 |
| Lodging | 447 | 639.80 |
| Transportation | 27 | 76.85 |
| Merchandise | 718 | 718.00 |
| Carfare and incidentals | 1,042 | 2,438.57 |
| Grand total | 13,255 | $33,955.26 |
[243] Because of the fact that many persons received a number of grants, the total number of grants as shown in this table necessarily exceeds the number of persons receiving relief, as given in other tables in this Part.
1. The start
2. Well under way
3. Joining two cottages
4. The completed dwelling
Removal from the Camp
Most of this relief went to persons who would be dependent on aid in normal times and to the unemployed. The relief for the hungry was given for the most part in the form of orders, which varied in amounts from 10 cents to $10.44. The two items “emergency and food” are classed together under “food,” because they represent temporary aid given to persons whose special emergent need was food, but who had to have coupled with it other necessities. The rent and furniture grants varied in amounts from $1.00 to $75. A small supply of half worn clothing was kept on hand for distribution. This supply was drawn on in some instances; in others, money or an order was given for the purchase of new clothing. Materials for clothing, “merchandise,” were given in the form of $1.00 orders.
The following [table] shows actual expenditures for medical relief made by the Associated Charities in the course of its case work.
TABLE 109.—EXPENDITURE BY ASSOCIATED CHARITIES FOR CARE OF SICK, IN ADDITION TO AID FROM RED CROSS FUNDS. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909
| Nature of aid | Number of grants | Amount of grants |
|---|---|---|
| Glasses | 79 | $229.73 |
| Ambulance | 6 | 21.00 |
| Hospital | 9 | 118.14 |
| Surgical | 23 | 230.22 |
| Prescriptions at $.25 | 847 | 211.75 |
| Prescriptions for larger amounts | 1,351 | 1,181.38 |
| Total | 2,315 | $1,992.22 |
In [Parts I] and [II] accounts have been given of how the Department of Relief and Rehabilitation aided the hospitals in their care of the sick. To the Associated Charities, however, fell the task of caring for the sick poor in their homes, a task made doubly heavy because of the scattering of the applicants throughout the city. In the table of disabilities, in Chapter I,[244] it has been shown that although the percentage of sickness among applicants was less in the second period than in the first, the number of sick persons to be cared for was much greater. As the expense of caring for the sick in their homes was not made solely chargeable upon the Relief and Red Cross Funds, physicians and nurses having given their services freely, specific enumeration of services rendered to the sick does not belong to this particular study.
[244] See [Table 104], [p. 293].
The Society’s employment bureau was during the two-year period after the fire in charge of a paid agent, who replaced the volunteers that had been able before the disaster to give but irregular service. As has been shown in the [preceding chapter], the community was called on to care for an unusually large number of middle-aged women, widows with children, and aged men. The employment agent had therefore to deal with the problem of the more or less untrained, incapable worker, with whom a regular agency could not or would not grapple.
In looking through the records, applicants were found to have been of all ages, but except during the unemployment crises of February and October, 1908, they were predominantly feminine. In regard to capacity the majority were low-skilled. Among these were the usual types of persons: the willing and able to work, pathetically few in number; the willing but inefficient because too delicate, too refined, or too specialized as to training; and the willing, the eager for employment, who ought to be protected from work. In the last class were not only the obviously incapacitated, but the children under suitable working age and the widowed mothers.
The good social service work done by the employment agent in showing women in what way they could best serve the real welfare of their children and in bringing them in touch with the public and private sources of relief is an interesting and suggestive story, but it is not one that belongs to this Relief Survey, except in so far as it shows that the Associated Charities itself was enabled to do better work for its people after having passed through the ordeal of the rehabilitation work than before the disaster. The fine spirit of independence that drove some to persist in seeking work is illustrated by the following stories.
An Irish widow who had been burned out and who was suffering from incipient tuberculosis applied for work. She consented after much persuasion to go to a home farm near San José, where for the sake of her self-respect she was to do some housework. After a week or more a letter arrived from the perplexed head of the house saying that the Irish woman had suddenly and summarily left with the announcement that she’d “rather die than be so lazy.” She had left to hire out as a cook in a family which was quite unaware of her being tubercular.
Another woman accepted aid to carry out an employment plan which was somewhat opposed to her own. She dropped from sight, apparently having acquiesced in the office scheme. A year later she was found at a different address placidly pursuing, with fair success, the vocation she had been warned not to undertake on account of probable failure through ill health.
A widow in wretched general health who was burned out, had received before June, 1907, in addition to the aid of the camp and bread line, $1.00 for expressage. She came to ask the Associated Charities in the late spring of 1908, for money to go into business. Even the staff, whose policy was to make the largest possible concession to plans made by the applicant, hesitated and proposed that she do something involving less personal responsibility. She refused, so some generous-hearted members of the Rehabilitation Committee interceded for her. Two grants were made therefore, contrary to the judgment of the society’s staff, of $150 and $200 respectively, to be used under Associated Charities supervision for business purposes. In June, 1909, the woman was reported to be dying in a hospital; the business enterprise had failed.
In finding work for applicants a standard rate of wages for standard work was insisted upon. For all work the quality of which was below par by reason of the delicate health, relative inefficiency, or character defect of the applicant, the employer was left to settle terms with the employe. The greater number of women were given the only employment of which the average untrained middle-aged woman is capable; domestic work, “day’s work,” and house cleaning were paid for at prices ranging from $1.50 per day to $2.00 per day, plain sewing at $1.60 per day, care of the sick at $10 per week.
The two periods of unemployment which came in February and October, 1908, and which came as an indirect result of the disaster, brought heavy problems.
On February 5, 1908, arrangement was made to give work to unemployed men. It was decided that work orders should be granted to those applying, preference being given to men with families. From February 5 to March 26, 1781 work orders of three days each were given, a total of 5343 days’ work. As there were a number of repetitions, 1781 work orders represented about 920 men at work during the—approximately—six weeks. The majority of the men were untrained. One hundred and ninety-eight who had training were classified as follows: Bricklayers and stone masons, 7; electricians, plumbers, machinists, and engineers, 44; upholsterers, 2; watchmakers, 3; painters, 11; butchers, 5; cooks and bakers, 13; carpenters, 74; teamsters, 22; clerks and bookkeepers, 17. About 15 per cent of the 198 were members of unions. Most of the applicants had large families dependent upon them. As they were chiefly men newly arrived in San Francisco who expected to profit by the demand for labor created by the rebuilding, they were in reality not a fair charge on the relief funds. Their only relation to the earthquake and fire was the fact of their having been attracted to the city after April, 1906, by what proved to be in their case a Will-o’-the-wisp. The Porto Ricans and the Russians lead in the number of those who had come to San Francisco after the fire, and these are followed in point of numbers by the Mexicans and the Spanish.
As to the kind of work provided, four plumbers, six carpenters (all union men), and some of the laborers were set to work on the camp cottages. Seventeen of the carpenters were given work on the new Associated Charities building then in process of construction. Other groups were given work by the Corporation in repairing the almshouse road, in taking apart buildings at Stanley Place, South Park, and Lobos Square, and in loading wagons with warehouse supplies to be taken to the Relief Home. At this time and in the similar crisis in October, preference was given to family men. The payment was made either in money, or in kind; sometimes in both. Ninety-seven per cent of the men were paid at the following rate for three days’ work: Meat order, $1.00; grocery order from the store room of the Associated Charities, $3.00; and cash $.50. In some few cases, to those who were sent to work on the almshouse road, carfare also was given. As the Associated Charities purchased all groceries at wholesale, it was able to give four dollars’ worth of groceries for the three-dollar order. Men with large families, if they had no other employment were allowed five days’ work each week instead of three.
In October, 1908, about one-third of the men given employment were put to work upon a temporary tuberculosis hospital which was being built at the Ingleside Track. Four hundred and forty-two dollars in labor was paid for building four large wards, a diet kitchen, medicine closets in each one of the wards, and the bath and toilet rooms. Two-thirds of the men worked either at the almshouse or at the quarry which was started and run for several weeks by the Associated Charities. Many of the men, however, resented being put at quarry work which they considered belonged to convicts. Their dissatisfaction, the physical inability of a large number of them to do such heavy labor, and the inclemency of the weather, which caused the work to be intermittent, made the experiment one that can not be classed as a notable success.
To carry on this work for the unemployed the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds made during February, March, and October, 1908, three appropriations of $5,000 each. Of this amount, $14,105.26 was expended in wages or equivalent aid to unemployed men and their families.
3. PERMANENT RELIEF
The work of relief was carried on with most care in the case of those applicants to whom money had been given in sums of over $50, in some instances in one grant, in others, in the form of pensions. Though numerically of relatively slight importance, these cases occupied so much of the attention of the force that they may justly be taken as most representative of policies and accomplishments. The amounts of the gifts are shown in [Table 110]. The grant was made most often to the family whose dependence was a result of the abnormal times.
TABLE 110.—GRANTS AND PENSIONS OF $50 AND OVER GIVEN BY THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES[245]
| Amount of grant or pension | Grants or pensions of each specified amount |
|---|---|
| $50 and under $100 | 28 |
| $100 and under $150 | 55 |
| $150 and under $200 | 47 |
| $200 and under $250 | 48 |
| $250 and under $300 | 8 |
| $300 and under $350 | 11 |
| $350 and under $400 | 4 |
| $400 and over | 4 |
| Total | 205 |
[245] Some grants of over $50 have been grouped with the emergency relief cases.
The disaster case has many variations, but the common mark is that the applicant is thrifty, in fairly good health, and capable of self-support. Adventitious circumstances brought a reduction or a loss of income. With rare exceptions, when the grant was sufficient the family became entirely self-supporting. The policy of the office was to find what had been the former standard of living, and to aid so that not only would the same standard be maintained but a higher one if possible attained. The two cases that follow illustrate how in 18 or more cases a grant of from $75 to $500 gave the aid needed to make a fresh and successful start.
A peddler of imported linen goods, in poor health, with a wife also in poor health, and four children under fourteen years of age, who had been burned out, asked for no aid until 1908. He believed he could do without help, but when the wife became very ill the man knew that he must appeal for relief. He was granted at once $250 to purchase a stock of goods, though his plan for resuming his old business was vague. For about three months, as the family seemed able to care for itself, the case was not held under treatment. Then the wife died, leaving the man as sole caretaker of four ill children. The children, three suffering with typhoid fever and one with tuberculosis of the hip, were sent to a sanatorium and a grant of $150 was secured, which was supplemented later by a grant of $300. A large part of these two sums was spent for hospital treatment, but the remainder was invested in getting the man to make a fresh start at his old business of selling imported linens. When the family was revisited in June, 1909, the man’s sister-in-law reported him as making a good living. Having employed a housekeeper, he was able to keep his children properly and to give them a suitable education. This expenditure of $700 lightened burdens brought alone by disaster and illness.
Home for the Aged and Infirm (the “Relief Home”)
An American widow fifty-nine years of age, with a daughter of forty stone deaf and in ill health, and the daughter’s three children under thirteen, had kept a boarding house before the fire in fairly comfortable quarters in one of the busier districts of San Francisco. The daughter, separated from her husband, an inebriate and a gambler, was entirely dependent on her mother. With high courage the fine woman planned to rent and furnish a hotel in one of the smaller watering places of the state. The Rehabilitation Committee gave her $400 for the purpose. The venture failed, so two years later she applied to the Associated Charities for rehabilitation. She was given $200 with which to move the furnishings saved from the first venture to a suburban town, where she now has a successful rooming and boarding house. She is valiantly carrying her own burdens.
There are some 20 or more cases whose success is dubious, because the money was used for purposes for which it was not intended; because the plan to keep a domestic group intact through the expenditure of a large grant was frustrated; or because defective character balked the rehabilitation plans. In most of these cases the investigation failed to unearth characteristics or resources which, if discovered, would have made a flat grant unnecessary or undesirable.
Pensions were granted of course for several different ends. In a good many instances they were given primarily to tide a family over the period during which one of the younger members was being given a good business training so as to be prepared to undertake the chief support of the group. These so-called “scholarship” grants had definite and satisfying results. A typical case will illustrate the method.
A Mexican seamstress of thirty-five and her three orphan sisters were living together at the time of the disaster. One of the sisters, aged thirty-three, had to be sent afterwards to a hospital for the insane. A married sister, aged thirty-four, with a child of three years, was deserted by her husband the day of the earthquake, and had to place the child in the Orphans’ Home. The deserted wife assumed charge of the household, and the two young sisters of fifteen and thirteen who were markedly intelligent were kept at school. The seamstress was very proud of her young sisters, so she borrowed $20 from a woman who worked in the same factory with her in order that she might send the elder to a business college. Later when taken ill she found herself in debt and unable to carry out her plan. She then applied to the Associated Charities and was given two grants of $75, one for general relief, the other to keep the girl in the business college. The girl graduated and her knowledge of Spanish and English then enabled her to get a specially advantageous position. All the sisters are the better for the grant which raised their social status.
The pension was given most often to persons who, because of the catastrophe, fell into dependency from which, unaided, it was impossible for them to extricate themselves. The unanswered question in connection with these pension cases was: What sum of money, in San Francisco, constituted an adequate monthly sum for the support of a needy family? If a semi-dependent, how much should have been spent before it could be proven whether the power of self-support was latent or was lacking? No one knew, as the community’s best practice furnished no guide. The Rehabilitation Committee and the Associated Charities acted on the general principle of granting such pensions as they felt they could afford. The Associated Charities hoped, moreover, that if the sum of $15 to $25 given as a pension were not sufficient, the usual neighborhood help would gradually develop so as to eke out the amount given. The pensions were most often given in the form of money, but in some cases in weekly food orders. The following pension case is illustrative:
A Greek aged thirty-five deserted his wife and five children under thirteen years of age at the time of the fire. Before the disaster the family was known to the Associated Charities as one in which the man was not meeting his responsibilities. The oldest child, a boy, was a decent, serious little chap; the second, also a boy, was so wild that he had later to be sent to a reformatory; and the three youngest were sickly, weak-eyed little creatures. When the woman made application immediately after the disaster she was given $75 for clothing. She was lost in the big body of refugees, but when found again in the fall of 1908, though pitifully destitute, was making a brave effort to support her children. The eldest boy was given a position as office boy at the Associated Charities at $4.00 a month, a baby from the children’s agency was put to board in the home at the rate of $11 a month, and $150 was appropriated, to be given in monthly sums of $20. With this monthly income of $35, $10 of which went for rent, she was enabled, having judgment in expenditure, to get along.
As is brought out in [Part VI], an unusual number of old people had been thrown on the community for care. To some of these, who were invalids, pensions were given so that they need not go to the Relief Home.
In the two-year period covered by this study, from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, the total receipts of the San Francisco Associated Charities amounted to $252,046.75.[246] As has been stated above,[247] this money was contributed almost exclusively by the Corporation and the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds. The Associated Charities disbursed, in the period dealt with, $236,303.72,[248] of which sum $180,577.78, or 76.4 per cent, was expended directly on relief work, and $55,725.94 was expended on salaries and other administrative expenses.[249] The expenditure for salaries amounted to $41,560.21 for the period,—a monthly average of $1,351.80 for the last seven months of 1907, of $2,023.19 for the year 1908, and of $1,563.86 for the first five months of 1909.
[246] A statement of the receipts of the Associated Charities from June, 1907, to September, 1912, inclusive, is given in [Appendix I], [p. 419].
[248] The sum of $31,224.11 expended through the Associated Charities for the payment of what were known as the “Red Cross Pensions” is not included in this total.
[249] A statement of the disbursements of the Associated Charities from June, 1907, to September, 1912, inclusive, is given in [Appendix I], [pp. 419]-[421].
Data are not available for a complete classification of disbursements according to the nature of the relief afforded. It is impossible to state separately the expenditure for the purposes termed in this Part “emergency and temporary relief” and “aid given the unemployed.”
It appears from data available that there was a total expenditure by the Associated Charities for housing, from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, of $59,556.06.[250]
[250] Compare with figures presented in [Part I], [p. 86]. While the amount given above covers all housing relief granted by the Associated Charities for the period from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, the $55,963.50 mentioned in [Part I] relates to expenditures for moving or repairing cottages during the entire period of the relief work.
4. RELIEF REFUSED
The policy behind a refusal to aid measures the quality of relief as well as the policy which shapes giving. The cases to which material aid was refused have therefore been segregated and an attempt is here made to state what the records show concerning the basis and utility of such refusal. It will be remembered that 5951 cases applied for relief and that 1704 of these were refused aid. The following table gives the number refused who had or who had not lived in the burned area and the number who had not made application for rehabilitation aid before June, 1907.
TABLE 111.—APPLICANTS FOR AID FROM THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES TO WHOM AID WAS REFUSED, CLASSIFIED AS HAVING LIVED OR NOT HAVING LIVED IN THE BURNED AREA. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[251]
| Classes of applicants | APPLICANTS REFUSED AID | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |
| Applicants who had lived in burned area | ||
| With rehabilitation record | 571 | 35.4 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 604 | 37.4 |
| Total | 1,175 | 72.8 |
| Applicants who had not lived in burned area | 439 | 27.2 |
| Grand Total | 1,614 | 100.0 |
[251] Data are not available as to the former place of residence of 90 of the 1,704 refused aid.
It must be borne in mind that the total number of applications made to the Associated Charities on the part of applicants who had been burned out was, 1,880 by those who had had a rehabilitation record before June, 1907, and 2,116 by those who had had no such record. The percentage of refusals is seen to be, therefore, very nearly the same,—about 30 per cent of refusals for the first class, 29 per cent for the second.
Although many of these applicants had rations until, and shelter perhaps for months after they had secured work, to refuse further aid to 1,175 applicants burned out, or 29 per cent of those who made application from June, 1907, to June, 1909, called for an exercise of courage and a holding firm to the well-defined principles of the relief administrators.
The following criticisms are typical of those that had to be answered:
A woman prominent in labor circles, speaking of a rejected case, said to one of the managers of the Associated Charities and voiced a rather widespread sentiment: “I can’t see the justice of this picking and choosing. My friend was burned out and was just as good as some of those who received help—and there was plenty of money! Who was it for, if not for the refugees?” Another in writing to the office said: “Mrs. X—— is old and ought not to have to work any more. Surely some of that relief money can be found for her.” The bitterness of the refugees themselves made, however, the loudest plaint in the chorus of discontent.
Two classes then, in one or other of which many San Franciscans are today, quarreled with this policy of investigating the claims of the refugees; on the one hand, those who held theoretically that all who had felt the blow should, if they asked, receive help; on the other, those who held concretely that they themselves, having been losers, had a “right” to a portion of the relief fund.
The natural desire to give generously to the limits of one’s capacity, especially to those whom disaster has robbed of competence, is what constructive charity work always has to face from those who “cease not to give without any regard.” As years make it possible to view without prejudice the aim and result of the more cautious, less emotional policy pursued, it seems demonstrable that time will vindicate the much criticized deliberation of the Rehabilitation Committee and the Associated Charities. As has been considered in [Part I], the extent of need and of the sum to meet it were both unknown, and what was foreseen happened,—that a portion of the fund was needed to be held in reserve for those who at first courageously refrained from asking help, but who as the strain proved too great necessarily appealed. The dual risk of giving to the sham refugee and of carrying the man who could help himself and who was inclined to lean on relief could only be avoided by careful investigation and treatment, even though both raged at the refusals of an “unjust” committee. The final argument is that no relief should be so generous as to dry up the normal sources of aid in a community. That aid is wisest which rouses all the neighborhood and civic sources of help into effective action.
It is undeniable that the records show a certain number of persons to have been refused aid who seemed as entitled to help as some who by influence or persistence got at least a minimum. “Influence” is used with no invidious intention. In San Francisco as in every other community a certain number of wholly disinterested persons bear an enormous share of the burden of the charity work. When these asked aid for a case and gave their word that it was deserved, it was difficult, often impossible, to deny the aid. The Associated Charities did give help in a good many instances where in its own judgment aid could have been refused and the cases left for reconstruction to neighborship and individual capacities. [Table 112] shows the causes for refusal to aid.
The first three reasons for refusal and the ninth and tenth could be brought under the heading “thirst for relief money,” and make the total for the type, 516, or 30.3 per cent of the refusals. The attitude of mind was expressed collectively by the naïve Italian woman who said frankly that she “thought they could get something nice,” and by the Irish woman who said with equal naïveté “they could get something for the asking.” The 77 applicants who asked for money for purposes of relief no longer being granted, asked aid too late for the building of a cottage or for the moving of a house or for furniture. Twenty-seven of these had not been burned out, and about two-fifths of the remaining 50 had had rehabilitation before June, 1907.
TABLE 112.—REASONS FOR NOT GIVING AID FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES TO APPLICANTS
| Reason for not giving aid | APPLICANTS WHO HAD LIVED IN BURNED AREA | Applicants who had not lived in burned area | Applicants whose former place of residence is doubtful | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With rehabil- itation record | Without rehabil- itation record | ||||
| Applicant merely seeking more relief money | 54 | 36 | 21 | 3 | 114 |
| Applicant has already had as much money as is justified | 29 | 4 | 1 | .. | 34 |
| Applicant able to get along without help | 143 | 149 | 61 | 15 | 368 |
| Applicant has relatives who can help or have helped | 27 | 54 | 30 | 2 | 113 |
| Money no longer given for use desired | 19 | 31 | 25 | 2 | 77 |
| Applicant would not accept aid offered | 24 | 27 | 11 | 3 | 65 |
| Applicant’s plan unpracticable | 19 | 14 | 26 | 1 | 60 |
| Applicant withdrew application | 25 | 30 | 43 | 5 | 103 |
| Case reported without knowledge of applicant | 10 | 3 | 13 | 8 | 34 |
| Pauperization feared | 7 | 3 | 3 | .. | 13 |
| Applicant a professional beggar | 31 | 14 | 11 | 2 | 58 |
| Applicant lazy | 4 | 12 | 4 | .. | 20 |
| Applicant vicious | 5 | 11 | 8 | 1 | 25 |
| Applicant a drunkard | 34 | 17 | 4 | 3 | 58 |
| Applicant unthrifty | 3 | 11 | 4 | .. | 18 |
| Applicant could not be found | 13 | 40 | 36 | 14 | 103 |
| Aid received from other sources or case referred to other societies | 53 | 68 | 73 | 19 | 213 |
| Disposal of application not known | 71 | 80 | 65 | 12 | 228 |
| Total | 571 | 604 | 439 | 90 | 1,704 |
In reading some of the cases of families burned out who had no rehabilitation record in the group of 368 “able to get along without aid,” the question often mooted was, “If these were not given, why were others?” This may be a feeling, not a judgment. It is probable that the records, though relatively complete, do not tell enough to permit a fair judgment, but it is one of the regrets of the analyst of these cases that in justice to the difficulties of the current work they could not be re-visited. The protest of the office was that re-visits would stir a whole neighborhood to descend upon it again in hope that there was a little more money to be distributed,—a protest voiced concretely by one visitor, who said, “We can scarcely be seen to pass along the street in a given neighborhood without receiving calls a few days later from people eager to know if there is any more relief money to give away.” The objection, based as it was on a recognition of human frailty, had to be respected. Other objections given to a re-visit were that some persons would be found to be so disgruntled that a fair statement could not be got from them; that others were too stupid to understand the questions or too indifferent to care to answer them. An attempt to re-investigate any of these groups would fairly seem to have been a waste of effort and money.
The small number, 13, refused on the ground of fear of pauperization may raise a smile, but the heading is a reflex of the dread in the minds of some of the visitors. “This is a very decent family who have never had aid,” writes one of the visitors, “and I do not think it well to begin for fear of pauperizing them.” It is noteworthy that of the 58 refused as “professional beggars,” 45 had lived in the burned area and of these 31 had rehabilitation records; that of the 58 refused on account of alcoholic habits, 51 had lived in the burned area, 34 of whom had a rehabilitation record. Whether these refugees had acquired the habits of begging and of drinking after the earthquake experience is not shown by the records. The individuals in these last two groups, many of whom were members of families, needed much more than they asked for, but the thorough investigation and constructive treatment they should have received could not be meted out to them at a time when material assistance was the overwhelming issue.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Positive questions have been asked; they have received but few definite answers. It is easy to question, but hard to answer positively, when past efforts are but meagerly recorded, and present efforts are too fresh for an accurate measure to be taken of their results. It is a simple task theoretically to define a line of inquiry; it is a complex one to separate human beings into classes and to determine just what circumstances of character and condition forced each into his appropriate place.
The notable facts for the inquirer as to the effect of the disaster upon the dependency situation are these: There were a little over three and one-half times as many applicants for aid at the Associated Charities during the two years from June, 1907, to June, 1909, as in those from April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906.
It is not as plain as could be wished how many of the 3996 applicants to the Associated Charities who had lived in the burned area were charges on public or private charity before the fire, or would have become so in any case. The point seems hardly demonstrable.
What is plain beyond question is that the disaster brought for the two years a burden of dependency of over three times the ante-disaster proportions. What is not so plain is how far the relief funds swelled these proportions.
As to results, the records prove some definitely successful instances of aid given. Health restored; financial independence regained by the capable, temporarily dependent; and relatives or friends found to support dependent adults and minors, are achievements cheeringly demonstrable in 25 per cent of the cases.
A relief fund whose amount was fairly adequate to meet the need has had one patent result. A number of persons tottering toward dependency by reason of the failing health of a breadwinner, of a wife, or of children, who in ordinary times would not have been helped in San Francisco, at the right moment received the inspiration of friendly visitors and the instruction of trained nurses. The intellectual and physical care added to the material combined to stay deterioration, and in some instances to raise standards.
The more insistent call of the children for protection because of the demoralizing effects of the camp life brought response from the Associated Charities, which through its children’s agency found for each defenseless child a protecting friend, a foster home, or when nothing else was available or suitable, an appropriate institution.
For the remainder of the cases, results lie less within the range of demonstration. This much is certain; there was neither impulsive nor indiscriminate giving. Though the amount that was spent, inclusive of administration expenses, totals for the period from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, a sum of $236,303.72, yet the first feeling on reading the history of the treatment of the average case was rebellion that in so many instances such niggardly doles had been given. When, as was of course true of adult dependence, the aim was restoration of financial independence, the means granted often seemed insufficient to warrant any hope of success. After this feeling has been for six months tried in the crucible of a careful investigation of the facts of cost of living[252] and habits of spending among persons of low income, it still seems not without foundation.
[252] A study made of the family budgets of 49 cases under care of the Associated Charities from June, 1907, to June, 1909, could not, owing to lack of space, be included in this Relief Survey.
One result of the disaster and of the use of the relief funds is the notably increased efficiency in relief work in San Francisco. Out of the widespread experience born of and bred by facing a large and varied round of relief problems, comes the first gain. While it is incorrect to say that San Francisco had no poverty in the days before the fire, it is true that the mass of those seeking aid were dependents because of unemployment and ill health, both due in many cases to ignorance or to vicious practices. The problem of destitution involved in the care of this type of cases does not stimulate a worker to any such broad and aggressive social policies as those which he must meet when handling the cases of capable and nearly self-directing people whom circumstances alone, loss of occupation, insanitary conditions, new situations, force to seek aid and guidance. Add to this fact of greater experience, that the relief funds enabled the work to be carried by a staff of visitors more nearly adequate than before the fire to meet the demand for investigation and treatment. Add the further fact that there had been enough not only to pay for relatively efficient office service but to give aid of a kind approximately sufficient. In a summary of these three gains will be found in part the value to the Associated Charities of San Francisco and to the people it serves of having been selected as the final agent of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds will in part be clear.
6. THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES SINCE THE FIRE
When the Associated Charities set up its own office in June, 1907, the allowance of money made to it from the relief fund enabled the society to form a staff of from 12 to 15 experienced workers; to institute a division of labor among the office force which had never before been possible; to announce the formation of a new department, namely, a civic relief bureau; and to undertake to deal in a thorough-going way with all cases handled by this bureau, obtaining employment for applicants when necessary, and giving whatever relief might be called for by the exigencies of the case.
The co-operation of the Associated Charities with all the other philanthropic agencies of the city has been made much closer by the fire. In working together shoulder to shoulder under the Relief Corporation, the philanthropic agencies of the city became well acquainted with one another and the way was paved for important working agreements.
One such working arrangement is that by which various children’s institutions make use of the placing-out department of its children’s agency. During the years 1907-1909, 212 children were taken from orphanages and placed in family homes. Curiously enough, only four of these were children of refugees. The work of the placing-out department in 1909 was double what it had been before the fire.
The children’s agency has another department which demands mention here, because as a result of the disaster its work has also been doubled. This is the boarding-out department. Its expansion is due to two causes. On the one hand, children’s institutions could accept fewer children, having been cut down in capacity by their material losses; and on the other, there had been an actual increase in the number of foundlings, illegitimate infants, and children requiring protection. The records of the juvenile court for 1907-1909 show that 29 per cent of dependency cases came from residents of public camps. The boarding-out department of the Associated Charities had some of these to provide for. Among the candidates for public care were the children of ten insane mothers and the infants of ten unmarried mothers whose plight was thought to be directly traceable to the situation after the fire.
PART VI
THE RESIDUUM OF RELIEF
THE AGED, THE INFIRM, AND THE HANDICAPPED
Part VI
THE RESIDUUM OF RELIEF:
THE AGED, THE INFIRM, AND THE HANDICAPPED
| PAGE | |||
| I. | Ingleside Model Camp | [321] | |
| 1. | History of Its Establishment | [321] | |
| 2. | Administration | [324] | |
| 3. | General Statistics | [327] | |
| II. | Relief and Non-Relief Cases | [335] | |
| 1. | General Analysis | [335] | |
| 2. | Applicants and Non-applicants for Relief and Rehabilitation | [336] | |
| III. | Results | [356] | |
I
INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP
1. HISTORY OF ITS ESTABLISHMENT
Owing to the general confusion in the city, the emergency character of the relief, and the constant shifting and changing of the homeless population immediately after the earthquake and fire, the first grouping of the refugee camps was entirely accidental. No classification by age, condition, or special need was possible. But among the first naturally to be differentiated were the aged and the infirm, who must be cared for until friends or relatives could assume their support. If they proved ultimately to be friendless as well as homeless and incapable of self-support, provision would have to be made for permanent care. As early as June these classes were sent to Camp 6,[253] the Speedway, and plans for sheltering those who would require public relief during the ensuing winter were discussed. By the end of July their housing became a pressing problem.
[253] For description of the official camps, see [Part I], [p. 78] ff.
In 1906 the city and county of San Francisco had an almshouse accommodating about 900 persons, situated on a fine tract of land about one mile southeast of Golden Gate Park. Some of its buildings were very old and insanitary, the standard of care was low, and it was full to overflowing. After mature consideration the Corporation finally determined to build a Relief Home on this tract and to present it to the city as a permanent provision for aged dependents; but since it seemed probable that the new building could not be finished before the summer of 1907[254] it became necessary to provide at once temporary barracks for the shelter of the aged and infirm.
[254] The building of the Relief Home was authorized September 18, 1906, but on account of shortage of lumber and delay due to abnormal labor conditions it was not ready for occupancy until January, 1908.
At that time the cost of lumber, transportation, and labor was excessive, and there was the added difficulty of quickly finding a suitable location. The generous offer of Thomas H. Williams, president of the California Jockey Club, to give free use of the race track buildings, relieved the pressure on the Corporation to make provision for the winter. At Ingleside race track there were 26 stables, each 40 x 160 to 220 feet, containing from 20 to 40 box stalls apiece. The buildings were already piped for water, partially sewered, easily accessible by street car, and in such condition that they could be made ready for occupancy in a short time and at a relatively small cost.
The offer was at once accepted, and the Department of Lands and Buildings was authorized to make the necessary alterations. The stalls were thoroughly renovated to serve as single rooms for inmates. They were cleaned and disinfected, windows were put in, the floors were covered with canvas and the walls with building paper. The hay lofts were converted into dormitories. The buildings were connected with the main sewer to the ocean and each was equipped with toilets, baths, hot and cold water, and a large heating stove. The section to be used as a kitchen was furnished with four large army ranges, and the dining room with a number of long tables and benches, and with enamelware dishes. Simple furniture for each room and for the dormitories, a butcher shop, and storage warehouse, completed the preparations for those who were fairly able-bodied. For the sick a hospital section with a separate kitchen was established, to be used in addition to the annex of St. Luke’s Hospital already on the grounds. Finally, one section was set aside as a social and reading room, and another for religious services.
While these preparations were under way, a great diversity of opinion existed as to how many aged and infirm and handicapped refugees would finally remain to be cared for at Ingleside. The population of Camp 6, where the decrepit and semi-able-bodied refugees were concentrated, had been at the beginning of July 756 persons, and was over 800 when Ingleside Camp was ready early in October. It was expected to have added to this latter number a few persons from each of the other camps as these were abandoned, and to subtract a few who did not belong in the special classes for which Ingleside was intended. September 5, Rudolph Spreckels, chairman of the Department of Camps and Warehouses, estimated the final number at 500, because whenever the food kitchens had been closed only a few persons had applied to be admitted to Camp 6.[255] Seats for about 700 were provided in the dining room at Ingleside.
[255] San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 6, 1906.
Ingleside Model Camp
In the autumn, as fast as the cottages[256] were completed, the tents were abandoned and the families removed to the cottages. Those not capable of self-support or who had no relatives to care for them were assigned to Camp 6, to be sent to Ingleside when it should be ready. Some of this residue refused to go to Camp 6, and managed to find friends or work at the last moment,[257] so that when the inmates of Camp 6 were finally removed to Ingleside between October 8 and October 29, there remained to enter only 400 from Camp 6, and 84 from all the other camps,—a total of less than 500. The subsequent condemnation of the old City and County Hospital followed by the accidental burning of one of the almshouse buildings in the spring of 1908 made it necessary to send some inmates of both these institutions in March, 1908, to Ingleside Camp, which had been closed following the transfer of the aged and infirm in January to the Relief Home. One hundred and thirty-one almshouse inmates were about to be moved to Ingleside in the latter part of October, 1907, when the politicians discovered that this would deprive the almshouse men of their residence and invalidate their vote in the impending election. Some of the newspapers spoke of it as “a political job to deprive registered voters of the suffrage which had been enjoyed for years” and the transfer was finally postponed till after election. These 131 almshouse inmates are not included in the detailed statistics which follow.
[256] See [Part I], [pp. 82] and [85] ff.
[257] See [preceding reference], also, for part taken by Associated Charities in reducing number of the residue chargeable on the new institution.
At no time was the number of inmates higher than 809. Altogether 1,287 names were registered on the index book during the fifteen months of its existence. This discrepancy of approximately 500 between the highest number and the total population of Ingleside represents the movement of the more able-bodied and least permanent residents of the camp. In the detailed study of cases it will appear that a certain number of adults were sent to Ingleside who did not properly belong there or whose rehabilitation had been postponed by the withholding of the relief funds. Besides these, a few refugees waiting to hear from friends were admitted for a short period; and a few transient men and women stayed for less than a month, leaving in many cases no record except a name. In short, out of the total of 1,287 persons at Ingleside during 1906 and 1907, not more than half belonged to the aged, infirm, and handicapped classes for which permanent provision would have to be made.
2. ADMINISTRATION
Ingleside Model Camp was organized October 8, 1906, by Captain Julius N. Kilian,[258] of the United States Army. On January 1, 1907, the command was transferred to C. M. Wollenberg[259] who had been up to that time chief clerk in the Department of Camps and Warehouses.
[258] Captain Kilian had been in charge of the Moulder School Warehouse. See [Part I], [p. 37].
[259] Mr. Wollenberg continued in charge during the consolidation of Ingleside with the almshouse and, having qualified under the civil service law in July, 1908, became the permanent superintendent of the Relief Home.
Besides being old, infirm, or incapacitated to some degree, the classes assembled at Ingleside were inevitably the most discontented of all the refugees. During the months of Captain Kilian’s administration certain conditions prevailed that made his task exceptionally difficult. All the inmates had been torn from their habitual grooves of life and had suffered shock and considerable hardship; many had feebly but vainly tried to get back into old niches and could not adapt themselves to new ones. Some had applied for rehabilitation only to be gently told that they were too old to begin again or that their plans were impracticable; others had found their friends and relatives to be neglectful; still others, the last precipitate of the social confusion, were a semi-vicious, irresponsible, and idle lot who were at Ingleside only because they could not find food and shelter in their old disreputable haunts. All, regardless of capacity or need, were convinced that they were being deprived of their “just and equal share” of the millions contributed by a philanthropic public.
Among this heterogeneous company, many of whom had fallen into vulgar and disorderly, if not vicious, habits during six months of irresponsible camp life, it was Captain Kilian’s task to establish good feeling, health, and discipline. The restoration of order began with the enforcement of cleanliness and decency. When the inmates grabbed their food from the dishes on the table they were summarily relegated to what became known as the “hog table”; when they fought among themselves, or railed at the employes, or returned drunk from a visit to friends outside, they were warned; if the offense was repeated, they were ejected from camp. During the first three months 30 were ejected, and in the following year from five to 10 persons a month were sent away. Of the total of 70 persons sent away from the camp the majority (30 men and 10 women) were ejected for drunkenness; the remainder for stealing, vulgar conduct, and insubordination. It was found necessary to discipline and finally to discharge for intoxication a considerable number of employes as well as refugees. The strict insistence upon sobriety meant a better grade of helpers for the camp.
The restlessness of the inmates and the accessibility of Ingleside to five saloons at the gate and to the street cars made a rather strict regulation of admission and discharge necessary. When inmates overstayed their passes they were required to show cause on their return, and were sometimes refused re-admission. As a consequence, some ran away and others who went out on passes never returned. A curious result of the confusion after the fire is revealed by the easy movement of persons from the old almshouse to Ingleside. It appears that 59 of the 1,287 inmates of Ingleside had been in the almshouse at some time before the fire; and that 114 inmates ran away from the almshouse or were discharged at their own request between April, 1906, and January, 1907. Those familiar with the conditions of both institutions believe that between 100 and 200 persons left the almshouse and went to refugee camps to pose as earthquake sufferers, to return ultimately to the almshouse either directly or through Ingleside.[260]
[260] The almshouse records of this period do not show accurately the movement of the inmates. It is probable that a much larger number left than they indicate.
When Captain Kilian was recalled to regular military duty in January, 1907, he left a camp of about 660 refugees comfortably housed, well fed, and under excellent discipline. He had not, however, undertaken to solve one of the most important problems, the employment of inmates within the camp. During the military period, paid employes performed the greater part of the labor necessary to the maintenance of the camp. Mr. Wollenberg on taking charge required, as he had a smaller staff of employes, a definite amount of labor, varying according to the physical condition of each inmate. This policy served both as a disciplinary measure and as a means of natural selection. The comparatively ablebodied were ejected from camp if they refused to work, so that the population gradually sifted down to the aged, the infirm, and the incapacitated who had no relatives to care for them. Besides the routine duties necessary to keep the camp in sanitary condition, other work was provided. Twelve acres of ground were planted in potatoes, cabbages, and turnips at a cost of about $100. The yield was over $600 worth of vegetables. A dairy was established to provide the camp with milk; furniture was made by the men for the new Relief Home, to be opened in January, 1908. Tailoring and carpentry shops and a shoe repairing shop afforded work at a fair wage. A sewing department was organized by Lucile Eaves,[261] with an equipment of 20 sewing machines and materials in bulk from the relief supplies. Every woman who could sew was expected to be in the sewing room twice a week, and during fifteen months over 6,000 garments and 754 curtains for the Home were made and distributed. The Woman’s Alliance provided social recreation at least once a week, as well as books and magazines.
In spite of the shock of fire and earthquake, and in spite of the discomforts of camp life in the preceding summer, the health of the inmates of Ingleside Model Camp was exceptionally good. This was no doubt due to the regularity of life, the good food, the strict enforcement of sanitary regulations, and the prompt medical attention. The camp hospital, which contained an average of 30 patients during the first few months, was enlarged in July, 1907, to make room for its quota, 35, of the City and County Hospital patients, and thereafter averaged 77 patients. During thirteen months only 49 deaths occurred at Ingleside, and most of these were due to old age. There were, however, 24 deaths in hospitals to which patients were sent from Ingleside. This rather small number does not fully represent the proportion of deaths to the number of inmates, as the personnel of the camp was constantly changing. Of the 1,287 inmates of Ingleside 164 were known to be dead three years after the fire.
For the accommodation of its almshouse charges at Ingleside the city agreed to pay 30 cents a day per inmate, at the time that it was costing 38.6 cents a day to maintain an inmate in the almshouse. The average cost a day per inmate at Ingleside during 1907 was 50 cents. The total cost of Ingleside Model Camp for approximately fifteen months was:
| Construction | $36,230.59 |
| Operation and maintenance | $173,573.19 |
| Care of almshouse inmates | $21,447.04 |
3. GENERAL STATISTICS
The Ingleside records which constitute the basis of the tables that follow were merely admission cards made out by the commanders of camps. They give information with regard to sex, age, marital condition, nativity, occupation, address on April 17, 1906, and the name and address of a relative or friend who should be notified in case of death. The cards were obviously not intended for sociological purposes. They often do not give some of these simple facts, and are not uniform in statement; but they have been supplemented by information taken from the records of an investigator at Camp 6, and from the cases on file in the Associated Charities and the Rehabilitation Committee offices. The records have been further amplified through interviews with a number of employes who were for a long time at Ingleside, and are most of them now employed at the Relief Home. The greatest care has been taken not to draw unwarrantable conclusions from incomplete and uncertain data.
Aside from placing on record a brief history of Ingleside Model Camp, the main purpose of this study has been: first, to find what proportion of the inmates of Ingleside had been self-supporting before the fire of 1906 and what proportion were at that time potential almshouse inmates; second, to examine critically the treatment of those aged and infirm persons who awaited at Ingleside the outcome of their applications for rehabilitation; and third, to determine whether any number of those now dependent upon public relief could have been saved from that fate.
[Tables 113] and [114] show concisely the conjugal condition of the Ingleside population and the extent to which the inmates differed in this respect from the aged, infirm, and incapacitated population in the San Francisco almshouse during the thirty-five years preceding 1906, and from the general population of California.
TABLE 113.—INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP BY CONJUGAL CONDITION AND SEX[262]
| Conjugal condition | PERSONS WHOSE CONJUGAL CONDITION WAS AS SPECIFIED | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Males | Females | Total | |||||
| Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | ||
| Single | 385 | 53.3 | 90 | 20.7 | 475 | 41.1 | |
| Married | 77 | 10.7 | 67 | 15.4 | 144 | 12.5 | |
| Widowed | 166 | 23.0 | 218 | 50.3 | 384 | 33.2 | |
| Divorced, separated or deserted | 13 | 1.8 | 15 | 3.5 | 28 | 2.4 | |
| Unknown | 81 | 11.2 | 44 | 10.1 | 125 | 10.8 | |
| Total | 722 | 100.0 | 434 | 100.0 | 1,156 | [263] | 100.0 |
[262] These figures relating to conjugal condition were taken from the rough admission statements of persons admitted to Ingleside and do not exactly correspond with the figures presented in [Tables 119] and [120], which were take from the files of the Relief Committee and the Associated Charities. The latter probably correspond more nearly to the facts.
[263] The 131 inmates who were transferred to Ingleside from the almshouse, as has been stated, are not included in this study.
The preponderance of men is characteristic of all refuges for the aged and infirm, partly because old women can earn a bare living by petty domestic services long after the age at which old men can maintain themselves at hard labor; partly because relatives, however poor, are more loath to allow an aged woman than an aged man to become dependent on public charity. As regards family ties, the [table] shows further the isolated condition of this group. Two-fifths of them may be assumed to have had no living children; the remainder had had six months to rejoin their children but had failed to do so.
The conjugal condition of the Ingleside population is compared in the following table with that of the inmates of the almshouses of the United States in 1903-04, as well as with the general population of the state in 1900.
TABLE 114.—CONJUGAL CONDITION OF INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP, COMPARED WITH CONJUGAL CONDITION OF INMATES OF ALL ALMSHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1903-4 AND OF THE GENERAL POPULATION OF CALIFORNIA 15 YEARS OF AGE AND OVER, IN 1900
| Inmates of Ingleside Model Camp | Inmates of all almshouses of the United States 1903- 4[264] | General population of California, 15 years of age and over, 1900 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number considered | 1,156 | 163,176 | 1,095,222 |
| Per cent: | |||
| Single | 41.1 | 52.1 | 41.2 |
| Married | 12.5 | 16.0 | 49.3 |
| Widowed | 33.2 | 27.8 | 8.1 |
| Divorced, separated or deserted | 2.4 | 1.3 | .8 |
| Unknown | 10.8 | 2.8 | .6 |
| Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[264] The figures given relate to paupers in almshouses December 31, 1903, and to paupers admitted during the year 1904.
The percentage of single persons at Ingleside was about one-fifth less than in the almshouses of the country at large. This difference is due probably to the fact that the Ingleside Camp did not admit children.[265] Under no one of the three classifications was the number of single persons shown to be less than 41 per cent. The percentage of widowed persons at Ingleside was about one-fifth more than in the almshouses at large, and four times as great as in the general population of the state. The discrepancy between the number of widowed and married persons at Ingleside in comparison with the almshouses of the United States may be accounted for by the fact that a number of so-called “widowed” persons reported at Ingleside were separated or deserting partners.
[265] A few children were at Ingleside with their mothers for a short period while awaiting the completing of plans, but they are not included in the 1,156 cases upon which this table is based.
[Table 115] shows the ages of the inmates as compared with those of inmates of the San Francisco almshouse and of all almshouses during the periods specified.
TABLE 115.—AGE DISTRIBUTION OF INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP, COMPARED WITH AGE DISTRIBUTION OF INMATES OF SAN FRANCISCO ALMSHOUSE DURING A TEN-YEAR PERIOD, AND OF INMATES OF ALL ALMSHOUSES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN 1903-1904
| Age period | INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP | INMATES OF SAN FRANCISCO ALMSHOUSE 1894-1906[266] | INMATES OF ALL ALMSHOUSES OF UNITED STATES 1903-1904[267] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | |
| Less than 10 years | .. | .. | .. | .. | 7,151 | 4.4 |
| 10 years and less than 20 years | 2 | .2 | 17 | .2 | 5,706 | 3.5 |
| 20 years and less than 30 years | 22 | 1.9 | 159 | 2.1 | 13,835 | 8.5 |
| 30 years and less than 40 years | 67 | 5.8 | 386 | 5.1 | 16,402 | 10.1 |
| 40 years and less than 50 years | 114 | 9.9 | 775 | 10.3 | 21,358 | 13.1 |
| 50 years and less than 60 years | 226 | 19.6 | 1,457 | 19.4 | 26,448 | 16.2 |
| 60 years and less than 70 years | 412 | 35.6 | 3,008 | 40.1 | 31,810 | 19.5 |
| 70 years and less than 80 years | 235 | 20.3 | 1,446 | 19.3 | 26,237 | 16.0 |
| 80 years and less than 90 years | 49 | 4.2 | 231 | 3.1 | 9,715 | 6.0 |
| 90 years and over | 5 | .4 | 20 | .3 | 1,344 | .8 |
| Age unknown | 24 | 2.1 | 9 | .1 | 3,170 | 1.9 |
| Total | 1,156 | 100.0 | 7,508 | 100.0 | 163,176 | 100.0 |
[266] Figures for ten years. No report was published for the year 1900-1901.
[267] The figures given relate to paupers in almshouses, December 31, 1903, and to paupers admitted during the year 1904.
As Ingleside Model Camp was established to house the aged, the infirm, the handicapped, and the convalescent, it was to be expected that as many as 92 per cent of the inmates should be over forty years of age, 82 per cent over fifty, and 62 per cent over sixty years of age.
The Reading Room
The Sewing Room
Ingleside Model Camp
[Table 116] shows that for many years the foreign born have been more than twice as numerous in the almshouses as in the general population of the city and county of San Francisco. The proportion of foreign born found in the Ingleside figures would undoubtedly have been materially larger than the 53.8 per cent reported if it had been possible to distribute Ingleside’s 29.1 per cent “unknown” between native and foreign born. This result corresponds to the figures for the whole country in which the foreign born whites have a much larger representation in the dependent than in the general population. It must not be overlooked, however, that dependence may be due quite as much to the fact of belonging to the unskilled wage-earning class as to being a foreigner.
TABLE 116.—NATIVITY OF INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP, COMPARED WITH NATIVITY OF INMATES OF SAN FRANCISCO ALMSHOUSE DURING A TEN-YEAR PERIOD, AND OF THE GENERAL POPULATION OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO IN 1900
| Country of birth | Inmates of Ingleside Model Camp | Inmates of San Francisco almshouse during 10 years, 1894- 1906[268] | General population of city and county of San Francisco, 1900 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number considered | 1,156 | 7,433 | 342,782 |
| Per cent born as specified— | |||
| United States | 17.1 | 27.1 | 65.9 |
| Foreign countries | |||
| Canada | .9 | 1.6 | 1.5 |
| China | .2 | .3 | 3.1 |
| England | 4.2 | 5.1 | 2.6 |
| France | 1.6 | 3.0 | 1.4 |
| Germany | 9.9 | 9.8 | 10.3 |
| Ireland | 24.0 | 37.2 | 4.7 |
| Italy | 1.1 | 1.3 | 2.2 |
| Mexico | .9 | .. | .4 |
| Norway | .6 | .7 | .6 |
| Scotland | 2.0 | 1.3 | .9 |
| Sweden | 1.4 | 2.0 | 1.5 |
| Switzerland | .9 | 1.3 | .6 |
| Other foreign countries | 6.1 | 9.2 | 4.3 |
| Total | 53.8 | 72.8 | 34.1 |
| Unknown | 29.1 | .1 | .. |
| Grand total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[268] No report was published for the year 1900-1901.
The proportion of Irish in the Ingleside camp was about five times as great as in the general population of San Francisco, but only about two-thirds as great as in the San Francisco almshouse. The Germans, on the other hand, constitute a slightly larger proportion of the general population than of either the Ingleside inmates or inmates of the San Francisco almshouse. The English have contributed considerably more than their proportionate quota to Ingleside and to the almshouse.
Occupation is quite as important as nationality, age, or infirmity, in determining what individuals in a given locality are likely to become dependent. The table presented below shows the facts on this point:
TABLE 117.—OCCUPATIONS OF INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP[269]
| Occupation | PERSONS OF EACH SPECIFIED OCCUPATION | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |
| Laborers | 139 | 13.2 |
| Domestics | 85 | 8.1 |
| Cooks and cooks’ helpers | 67 | 6.4 |
| Housekeepers | 63 | 6.0 |
| Dressmakers and seamstresses | 44 | 4.2 |
| Lodging-house and boarding-house keepers | 30 | 2.8 |
| Nurses | 25 | 2.4 |
| Carpenters and carpenters’ helpers | 24 | 2.3 |
| Peddlers | 23 | 2.2 |
| Clerks | 18 | 1.7 |
| Bakers | 15 | 1.4 |
| Agents and canvassers | 14 | 1.3 |
| Teamsters | 14 | 1.3 |
| Waiters | 14 | 1.3 |
| Painters and painters’ helpers | 13 | 1.2 |
| Tailors and tailoresses | 13 | 1.2 |
| Miners | 12 | 1.1 |
| Cannery workers | 12 | 1.1 |
| Laundry workers | 12 | 1.1 |
| Sailors | 10 | .9 |
| Machinists | 10 | .9 |
| Shoemakers and cobblers | 9 | .9 |
| Storekeepers | 9 | .9 |
| Teachers | 9 | .9 |
| Blacksmiths | 9 | .9 |
| Other occupations | 362 | 34.3 |
| Total | 1,055 | 100.0 |
[269] Information relative to occupation was not secured for 101 of the 1,156 inmates.
The table reveals an occupational distribution of Ingleside inmates materially different from that found in the typical almshouse. At Ingleside, as in most permanent institutions for adult dependents, the laboring and domestic classes constituted the chief element, but the proportion of persons in these classes seems to have been smaller than is generally the case. Of the 123,647 inmates of almshouses in the United States in 1904 who were classified according to occupation by the census office, 59,119, or 47.8 per cent, were reported as non-agricultural laborers or as servants. The persons classified as cooks, laborers, and servants admitted to the San Francisco almshouse from 1869 to 1894 numbered 5,330, or 41.4 per cent of the 12,879 persons admitted who were nineteen years of age or over and had had occupations. It appears from [Table 117] that 354, or 33.7 per cent, of the 1,055 Ingleside inmates classified according to occupations were laborers, domestics, cooks and cooks’ helpers, or housekeepers. In other words, the proportion of persons occupied as laborers or in domestic occupations seems to have been about one-third at Ingleside, as compared with slightly over four-tenths in the San Francisco almshouse and slightly less than one-half in the almshouses of the United States.
These comparisons must be accepted with some caution because of differences in the classifications of occupations applied to the three sets of data. A reasonable allowance for this factor does not, however, alter the distributions in such a degree as to invalidate the results obtained. The figures cited may be accepted as indicating with substantial accuracy differences in the general proportions of laborers and domestic workers.
For the purpose of this study the chief interest of the table of occupations lies in a few groups which are represented not at all or by only a few individuals in the permanent institutions for dependents, but which at Ingleside comprised about 13 per cent of the population. In these groups were dressmakers, seamstresses, lodging-house and boarding-house keepers, nurses, storekeepers, agents and canvassers, and teachers. These, plus an indefinite number that might be added from the other miscellaneous occupations, were undoubtedly for the most part accidental dependents. They, it might also be assumed, would be likely to regain self-support if given assistance by the Rehabilitation Committee.
But the inference from the general information given in the foregoing tables is that, apart from this comparatively small proportion, in respect to age distribution, proportion of the sexes, social status, and nativity, the inmates of Ingleside Model Camp did not differ essentially from the inmates of the San Francisco almshouse. It would have been interesting to know how long these persons had lived in California, but unfortunately this information is given in only about one-third of the cases. Ninety per cent of this third are recorded as having been more than ten years in the state. Since applicants might assume, however, that relief would be given more readily to old residents than to transients, it is probable that a number of the unknown were recent arrivals who were careful not to admit the fact.
In the detailed study of individuals which follows, the cases are classified with respect to dependence or independence before the disaster and with respect to relief afterward. It will serve to show to what extent conclusions have been justified.
II
RELIEF AND NON-RELIEF CASES
1. GENERAL ANALYSIS
In analyzing the material relating to the 1,156 persons known to have been in Ingleside Model Camp at some time, and included in this study, it must be remembered that practically all had already received relief in the shape of food, clothing, and shelter at other camps or in hospitals during the six months succeeding the fire. The word “relief” will be used hereafter to refer to specific aid refused or given outside of Ingleside.
After the primal necessities, food, clothing, and shelter have been provided, the factor of highest importance in determining what further relief shall be given is the family relation. With respect to family relationship, the inmates of Ingleside have been classified in the following table:
TABLE 118.—FAMILY RELATIONS OF INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP
| Family relation | PERSONS IN EACH CLASS | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |
| Single and widowed men and women. | 868 | 75.1 |
| Aged married couples, or aged mothers, each with an adult son or daughter | 93 | 8.0 |
| Mothers with young children | 28 | 2.4 |
| Transients, for whom only slight data, or no data at all, are available | 167 | 14.5 |
| Total | 1,156 | 100.0 |
In this table the divorced, deserted, and separated persons are included among the single and widowed because they required the same treatment.
2. APPLICANTS AND NON-APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF AND REHABILITATION
The transients at Ingleside who were single men and women merely waiting to hear from friends or of possible jobs, and a few families temporarily stranded, are for lack of full information omitted from the discussion that follows. The 28 mothers with young children, most of whom were at the camp a short time, have also been omitted because they were not representative of the classes for which Ingleside was maintained, and furthermore because the Associated Charities assumed responsibility for their treatment.
The 961 persons remaining fall into two general classes: families of aged adults, and detached people of both sexes. Since the problem of an old mother with an adult son or daughter is almost identical with that of an old married couple, they are studied together. These two general classes have been rearranged in the following table according as they applied or did not apply for relief to the Corporation before April 1, 1907, or to the Associated Charities[270] through which agency applications for relief on the part of Ingleside inmates were made after that date.
[270] See [Part V], [p. 298] ff.
TABLE 119.—INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP CLASSIFIED AS FAMILIES AND SINGLE AND WIDOWED MEN AND WOMEN AND AS APPLICANTS TO SAN FRANCISCO RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS, APPLICANTS TO ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, AND NON-APPLICANTS
| Applicants and non-applicants | FAMILY CASES | Single and widowed men and women | All persons | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of families | Number of persons | |||
| (1) Applicants to S. F. R. and R. C. F. to March 31, 1907 | 26 | 53 | 215 | 268 |
| (2) Applicants to Associated Charities from April 1, 1907 | 7 | 14 | 68 | 82 |
| (3) Non-applicants | 13 | 26 | 585 | 611 |
| Total | 46 | 93 | 868 | 961 |
Of the 585 single and widowed non-applicants, 425 were men and 160 women. The 93 persons included under family cases are identical with the 93 mentioned in [Table 118] as aged couples or aged mothers each with an adult son or daughter.
(a) Family Cases
The group of 46 families of 93 persons, 12 of whom only were under fifty years of age, will first be studied.
The treatment of aged couples, whether a husband and wife or an old mother with an elderly son or daughter, should differ from that of infirm single men and women because there are bonds of relationship to be conserved. So long as either partner shows any capacity for self-support it is a practical as well as a humane thing to try the experiment of re-establishing him or her. If in some or even in a majority of cases the experiment prove a failure, the risk is nevertheless one to be taken. The experiments in behalf of this group of 46 families had often to be made with very scant information as to the capacity of the applicants. In judging the results it must not be forgotten that all the institutions for the aged and infirm were full in the winter of 1906-07, and that a thorough investigation such as is usually made by a charity organization society before giving aid was then quite impossible.
1. Twenty-six of the families, comprising 53 adults, as shown by [Table 119], applied to the Corporation for relief before April 1, 1907, and 20 of these received relief in addition to their home at Ingleside. Of the adults in these families, two-thirds were women of an average age of fifty-seven years, the other third, men of an average age of sixty-three years. More than half were permanently incapacitated by senility or by paralysis, lead-poisoning, blindness, deafness, severe hernia, the loss of a leg or an arm, or mental defect.
Of seven of the couples that received grants, the wife or husband died within a year after the fire, before the struggle to maintain themselves had more than begun. The following notes relate to six of the seven. A grant of $250 and a sewing machine was made to a paralyzed engineer and his wife. The wife had supported herself and her husband for several years by a little store which she re-established. After the husband died she continued to do well until she fell and broke her thigh. She was then sent to a hospital and from there to the Relief Home. A peddler of seventy-four who seemed to have had some savings received $150 to buy a stock of optical goods. The wife, who kept a rooming house at first successfully but after his death less so, applied to the Associated Charities in 1908 for more aid. The visitor, who refused assistance because the woman still had money from the husband’s life insurance, made the note: “The woman is a fraud and a fortune teller, but ill and pathetic.” Two families of this group, although chronic charity cases before the disaster, were helped to buy small amounts of clothing and furniture and in one case a seventy-five dollar wooden leg. The surviving partners, as might be expected, are now in the Relief Home. Two able-bodied wives, when deprived of their husbands by death, became self-supporting. One was a nurse, the other a washer-woman about fifty years of age. One received $22 to furnish a room, and the other was given clothing. The following notes tell briefly the story of one more of the 26 families. Three women of three different generations proved too heavily handicapped with sickness. The mother, who died of shock soon after the earthquake, has not been considered as among those applying for relief. The daughter had become poisoned while working in a lithographic shop and later developed tuberculosis. She and the grandmother, a seamstress, still able-bodied, were moved to a locality where the older woman could presumably get work, and were given a stove and a little money for comforts. But when the young girl also died, the old woman gave up the struggle and went to the Relief Home. Thus, of these 14 persons specifically mentioned, seven died within a year after the fire, four went to the Relief Home, while one became partially and two entirely self-supporting.
Besides the two families already described who received charitable aid before the fire, there were two other such among these applicants. One, an old mother and son, had lost furniture and personal effects estimated as worth $400. They applied for rehabilitation and a sewing machine in August, 1906. As the son was unmarried, able-bodied, and under forty years of age, the grant was refused on the ground that he should support his mother. Some months later, from the officers at Ingleside, it was learned that the man was industrious and had good habits, but was unable to keep regular work on account of being feeble-minded. A grant of $75 and a sewing machine was therefore made. A year later the Associated Charities found the man out of work and the mother feeble, and decided that the Relief Home was the place for her. It seemed inevitable that the son should arrive there when his only asset, muscular strength, should be used up.
The second family had been in receipt of aid from several charities before the fire. It consisted of a deaf, partly paralyzed, and hard-drinking old carpenter and his ailing wife, both past sixty years of age. They claimed to have lost a thousand dollars’ worth of furniture and personal property but applied while at Ingleside for the small sum of $40 for special relief. Ten dollars was given. Six months afterward they applied to the Associated Charities. The man, who meanwhile had been earning $3.00 per day, had broken two ribs. The Associated Charities, therefore, paid their rent ($12) and in March, 1909, they were temporarily self-supporting. They were, however, the inevitably dependent family that if life were prolonged would find its way to the Relief Home.[271]
[271] Six months after the date when this was written they were in the Relief Home.
The effect on family life of the presence of drunken husbands is a monotonous tale, but it is cheering now and then to hear of a decent wife rescued from her fate. A drunken old peddler and his old wife recovering from illness were granted $100 for furniture and clothing. Before they left Ingleside the camp commander urged that the woman be sent to her relatives in Pennsylvania “to escape the brutality of her husband.” Upon the relatives agreeing to care for her, transportation and $50 were given to carry her to them. The peddler drifted to the Relief Home.
Of quite another sort were the remaining nine of the 20 families that received relief. Although some of their members arrived at the Relief Home they came by another road, along which they struggled so courageously as to win the respect of all who knew them. In this better class are an aged German sign painter and his still more aged and very feeble wife. Before the fire he had been able to earn $20 a week, and although his eyesight was already failing, he asked the Corporation for tools, supplies, and a little rent. The visitor reported that there were three grown children,—a feeble-minded son, a crippled daughter who earned a bare living as a waitress, and a married son too poor to care for his parents. The feeble old mother was transferred to the Relief Home and $90 altogether was given the old man with which to re-establish himself. After a year, he too, overcome by his failing sight, submitted to be sent to stay with his wife in the Relief Home. When at the last moment he wept because he could not pay the rent in arrears, a benevolent society paid it in order that he might go conscience free.
Other families with an average advantage in age of at least ten years maintained themselves in spite of serious handicaps. A man who had many years before lost both legs, had prior to 1906 earned $45 per month as an elevator man. He asked for furniture and clothing. Although the wife was strong neither physically nor mentally, $150 was granted in care of the Associated Charities. Two and a half years later the wife was at work, the husband had just secured a permanent position as elevator man, and a little of the grant was left for emergencies. Another elderly couple, consisting of a blind husband and an able-bodied wife, who had earned together about $30 a month before the fire, received $150 for household relief and a news-stand. They went into business in a suburb and became self-supporting.
That kindly and influential friends are quite as useful as money to those in straits, is illustrated by the case of an old master mariner, disabled for many years, who was supported by his competent wife. Before the fire she kept a small notion store and was caretaker for a settlement club. On the recommendation of the settlement workers who knew her worth she received a grant of $115 and a refugee cottage which was erected on the grounds of a society for which she acted as janitress. She and her husband were then able to live comfortably in their cottage on her earnings of $25 per month.
The Kitchen
The Dining Room
Ingleside Model Camp
A similar case is that of the family in which the Hebrew husband, although seventy-eight years old, had been able before the fire to earn a living for himself and his wife with a little cigar store. They were known as honest, industrious people to a society that recommended them for a grant of $150. Later, $77.50 worth of plumbing and repairs were added to their cottage. They promised to be self-supporting for some time. In case of need the Hebrew Board of Relief stood ready to make a monthly allowance so that they might never go to the Relief Home.
Other cases of which less is known were encouraging. A painter, his wife, and his wife’s sister, who received $50 for furniture, had not again applied for help. An old hunchback and his wife who received $80 for furniture and clothing, were given the use of land on the edge of the city by some friends, and for a while at least were made self-supporting by the proceeds of their chickens and their garden. Another family, exceptional in that both partners were under fifty years of age, received a grant of $250. The husband, a longshoreman, had had both arms broken, but two years after the fire the couple were again self-supporting. As they are exceptional also in having several young male relatives in the city, they are not likely to become dependent.
Another history is differentiated from the varied but generally pitiful struggles of old persons by its ending touched with romance. An old mother with a daughter nearing middle age lost furniture, clothing, piano, and paintings worth $1,000. They had earned a modest living, the mother by taking roomers, the daughter by teaching music. They were given a sewing machine and $300 with which to establish a rooming house. Within a year and a half the mother became so seriously demented as to prevent their keeping lodgers. They fell behind in the rent, the Associated Charities supplied food and after a severe struggle on the daughter’s part to keep her mother out of the insane asylum, the old woman was finally committed in the summer of 1908. Meanwhile a kindly lodger became interested in the younger woman, and after his references had been approved by the Associated Charities, the daughter married him.
A brief review of the circumstances and habits of five of the six families who applied for relief and were refused fully justifies the decision of the Rehabilitation Committee. The first was a woman of fifty whose husband, a man over eighty, had died at Ingleside in the autumn of 1906. She not only was fairly strong but had grown children quite able to give her a home. The second was an old couple by no means incapacitated who had kept a store and been pretty well-to-do before the fire. They were given a cottage and $50 for furniture before coming to Ingleside, but were refused business rehabilitation on the ground that the $500 insurance they had received was sufficient to re-establish them. In 1908 the Associated Charities gave them a stove and had some plumbing done in their cottage, but they were found to be grasping and untrustworthy. Two other couples were of the hard-drinking, intermittently-working, often-sick type, to whom rehabilitation can never be given with any prospect of success. Of these, a comparatively young couple were given $50 for furniture and clothing and were provided with employment. In the following two years husband and wife had been twice to the Associated Charities for help, and had been in and out of the county hospital. When last seen they were “living with friends.” The other couple, the man a drunkard and the woman a fakir, had a charity record, reaching back to 1896, in which they were described as being too incompetent to support themselves. They were forcibly removed from a wretched shack to Ingleside in the winter of 1907 and are now in the Relief Home.
The last of this group was an old mother with an epileptic son of fifty, by occupation a cooper. They had lived on the verge of distress before the fire, and although the son afterward earned good wages for awhile cleaning bricks, it was not believed that he could long support his mother and himself. In the winter of 1907 both were obliged to go to the Relief Home.
2. The seven families at Ingleside who applied first to the Associated Charities for rehabilitation do not differ as a group in any way from the earlier applicants. Two are cases of old people neglected by their grown up children; two, of the chronically unfortunate and inevitably dependent class; and two couples, younger than those we have been considering, were forced to apply for help because the man in each family developed tuberculosis. One case only, foreigners of good birth and education, differs in the details of the struggle and in its solution. Both husband and wife were teachers who had scarcely made a living before the fire and who, being over sixty years of age, could not regain their clientele nor find new work. The Rehabilitation Committee through the Associated Charities sent them back to their native country where they will have a home with relatives.
If we turn from the picturesque, human aspect of the families who applied for rehabilitation or relief, to the financial, the brief summary is: (1) Twenty families of 41 persons, whose estimated total losses amounted to $10,000, asked for relief to the amount of $3,000 and were granted relief to the money value of $2,500. In addition they received shelter and food at Ingleside at a cost of $2,200. (2) After three years seven of the 41 individuals were dead, 10 were in charitable institutions, one was in an insane asylum, one was married, three were with relatives, and 19 were self-supporting.[272] Aside from the comfort afforded to each by the grants received, it may be said to have cost $132 apiece to make the 19 persons self-supporting. It must not be forgotten that while the effort was being made to gain self-support outside of the institution, the institution was spared the cost of maintaining each at a rate of not less than 50 cents a day.
[272] The data for all of the 20 families are not given in the preceding pages. The 19 persons listed as self-supporting, it should be borne in mind, were in several cases believed to be only temporarily independent of charitable aid.
3. The last group of the families of adults to be considered is the 13 families containing 26 persons that did not apply for specific relief other than institutional care. They differ from those that did apply chiefly in being a little more infirm and incompetent and in having no children or relatives, apparently, to fall back upon. It is probable that some of them did not apply for rehabilitation because Ingleside Camp and the Relief Home seemed to be the only natural or desirable relief. Information is available as to the subsequent fate of only 19 of the 26 persons. Of these, four were known to be dead three years after the disaster, eight were in the Relief Home, one was in another home, four were self-supporting, and two had moved to the country.
(b) Single and Widowed Men and Women
1. The 215 single and widowed men and women at Ingleside who asked for aid from the Rehabilitation Committee before April, 1907,[273] are roughly classified in [Table 120].
[273] See [Table 119], [p. 336].
TABLE 120.—SINGLE AND WIDOWED INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP APPLYING TO THE SAN FRANCISCO RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS FOR REHABILITATION, BY NATURE OF REHABILITATION APPLIED FOR
| Nature of relief applied for | Applicants for relief of each specified nature |
|---|---|
| Business rehabilitation | 46 |
| Household rehabilitation | 43 |
| Transportation | 27 |
| Special relief | 38 |
| Hospital care | 11 |
| General relief | 50 |
| Total | 215 |
Business Rehabilitation.
Of the 46 persons in this group who applied for business rehabilitation, 29 were men and 17 were women. Eighteen of the 29 men received aid to the amount of $1,389, the largest individual grant being $200 to an attorney, aged thirty-one, who asked only for law books. This man is one of the small group who, three years after the grant was made, were known to be self-supporting.
No action was taken by the Committee in six cases, either because the applicants could not be found at the addresses given, because they refused the aid offered, or because the applications were received too late.
Grants were refused in five cases. In this group is a so-called attorney, a man who had fraudulently lived by his wits for years. Immediately after the fire this plausible old fakir was cared for by a religious society which asked for special clothing for him because he was “an odd size.” He applied to the Rehabilitation Committee for $1,500 to rebuild a lodging house he claimed to have owned. The visitor found that he had not owned a house and lot before the fire, that the old woman relative whom he professed to have supported was another fraud, and that his only real claim on charity was that he was too fat to wear ready made clothes. In the summer of 1909 he was again heard of at a summer resort earning his living by assisting an evangelist in religious meetings.
Three years after the grants were made the condition of the 18 men who were aided was ascertained to be as follows: three were found to be self-supporting; for four no definite information was obtained but they were believed to be independent; eight were dependent, and three had died. The eight dependent cases, all elderly men, were with one exception being cared for at the Relief Home; one was in an insane asylum.
A young seaman who is recorded as having died after being aided, committed suicide. He had had a leg amputated, had been in the hospital for sometime after the fire, and then had gone to Ingleside to convalesce. The Relief Committee gave him an artificial leg, and he was in and out of the Relief Home several times trying unsuccessfully to find work. On his return from one of the attempts he killed himself. The other two who died were elderly men.
To put the case from the financial point of view, $1,389 was given to 18 men; $620 has made seven of them possibly self-supporting, and $769 was expended upon 11 who failed. Those who were not found at the address given may be self-supporting as they have not drifted back to the Rehabilitation Committee. A single fact is sufficient to explain the success of one group and the failure of the other. The seven successful ones averaged fifty years of age, while omitting the exceptional case of the young seaman 10 of the 11 averaged sixty-seven years. Again, the occupations of the unsuccessful are seen to be unskilled and common labor. Incompetence, physical or mental, added to age in most instances, brought these men to Ingleside.
Twelve of the 17 women who applied for business rehabilitation were given aid. One of these, a lodging-house keeper who expected to receive $2,500 in insurance, was granted only $75. When the insurance was received it amounted to but $700, and as she invested in a large rooming house, heavy debts were incurred. Though she was running behind she may not have failed. She blamed the Rehabilitation Committee for not having given aid sufficient to insure success. Two milliners, each about forty years of age, together received $699 and had not re-established themselves. One, however, had had typhoid fever after the fire, and never fully recovered. Both were doing a little casual work. Five others who were given grants amounting to $560 were dependent. None of these had given much promise of self-support but were given the full benefit of the doubt. One of them, later in the Relief Home, lost $100 in the fire, which she had painfully saved for proper burial. The Rehabilitation Committee replaced this money for funeral expenses.
One of the five women who were denied business rehabilitation was refused because she owned real estate which when sold would provide sufficient capital.
Household Rehabilitation.
The records of application for household relief by single or widowed inmates present quite another aspect of the relief situation than that exhibited by the data regarding business rehabilitation. The 43 people in this group[274] asked for very little more than the two essentials—furniture and clothing. Clothing had been given in quantities immediately after the fire, and these applicants, aged and infirm people, re-applied months later when winter was coming on. The heavier part of their demand was, however, for furniture to start bachelor housekeeping. Before the fire San Francisco abounded in furnished lodgings at all prices; but afterward there were almost none to be had at prices within the means of those whose age and incapacity prevented them from earning more than minimum wages. Furniture for the shacks, cottages, and tenements was necessary, but because of the dearth of second-hand stuff, the prices of new pieces, even of the meanest sort, were very high. The average grant of $59 per person, therefore, was not too much with which to buy a bed and bedding, a table, chairs, and cooking utensils, and, in some cases, to pay the first month’s rent. A visitor of much experience, in commenting on such cases, said, “It is appalling to think that mere beds and tables may make the difference between pauperism and independence.” Grants were refused to three applicants; two of them drank to excess, and the third was in need of permanent care.
[274] See [Table 120], [p. 344].
When one considers that these applicants above sixty years of age were sewing women, charwomen and cleaners, cannery workers, peddlers, and laborers who must regain their patrons or find new work, the results are very encouraging. One-third only were in 1909 found to be dependent on charity; another third were living with relatives or had died or been lost to view; while the last third were presumably self-supporting.
Transportation.
The 27 persons who applied for transportation were rather more homogeneous than those of any other group. In 15 cases transportation was granted. These 15 individuals were maintained for months at Ingleside until assurance was obtained that they would have proper care if transported; and yet, the experiment was not always successful. For instance, an old nurse was sent to Chicago where her nephews and nieces, although poor, had offered her a home which was visited and approved by the Chicago Bureau of Charities. After some months in Chicago the exacting old woman became so burdensome that the relatives could not care for her. With the advice of the Bureau of Charities she was sent back to San Francisco and placed in the home for the aged. In a few cases careful plans came to nothing, because erratic old people would not consent to be transported.
The case of an old woman of 97 is very pathetic. She had formerly lived in San Francisco and had stored her furniture when she went away. She happened to be visiting in the city on April 18, 1906, in the district burned. The step-daughter to whom she went first abused her and then sent her to Ingleside. The poor old woman while waiting to be given transportation to join her husband in Utah fell ill and just after the coveted transportation was given “died of disappointment.” No judgment can be formed as to whether there was unnecessary delay on the part of the visitor of the Rehabilitation Committee but after the shock of the earthquake, “disappointment” can scarcely be regarded as the chief cause of death.
The war veterans, four of whom were transportation cases and not less than a dozen of whom were at Ingleside, gave trouble quite disproportionate to the hoped-for results. They were traveling paupers each of whom had either been discharged for bad conduct from some soldiers’ home or more probably had left because of restless and vicious habits. Two were given transportation to Washington, District of Columbia, where they belonged, but neither ever arrived. Two others were refused transportation because they belonged in a veterans’ home in California.
To summarize the 15 cases to whom about $1,000 was given in transportation and money, four in 1909 were still, in spite of what seems to have been reasonable precaution, dependent on the charity of San Francisco and one on the charity of Philadelphia. The burden of the other 10 was transferred to relatives or to communities to whom it rightly belonged and San Francisco was relieved from a possible future obligation greater than that represented by the $1,000 expended.
Transportation was not given in 12 cases. The principal reason for the refusal of transportation was the lack of assurance that the persons applying would not become charges on the communities to which they wished to go. Six are now in homes for the aged, one died shortly after applying, two may have returned to the soldiers’ homes where they belonged, and three are possibly self-supporting. Their circumstances and condition are shown by the following transcript from the records.
Grant Refused:
Night clerk; age 61. Applied for transportation to San Diego. Recommendations not sufficient. Got job as watchman. In Relief Home.
Watchman; age 43. Applied for transportation to Los Angeles. Physically incapacitated. In Relief Home.
Hotel runner; age 47. Asked for transportation to family in Spokane. Able to work.
Peddler and war veteran; age 80. Applied for transportation to brothers in New York with whom he had quarreled long ago. Had left Veterans’ Home in 1904. Got work.
Ship joiner; age 75. New York relatives refused to receive him because of his vicious habits, but would pay for him in Relief Home, where he remained.
Chiropodist and war veteran; age 83. Son in New York surprised that he had left Soldiers’ Home. Would receive him if fare was paid.
French cook; age 68. Asked for transportation to brother in France, but brother did not reply to letters. Went to work.
Longshoreman; age 57. Wished to go to Los Angeles. Had been in hospital for weeks, unable to care for himself. Died shortly afterward in camp.
Teamster (Negro); age 65. Applied for transportation to wife in Washington, D. C. No reply from wife. In Relief Home for third time.
Carpenter; age 57. Wished to go to Seattle to collect debt of $50. Was advised to write. In Relief Home.
Grant Canceled:
Car builder; age 69. Granted $100 and transportation to sister in Northern California. Went to Iowa instead. Check for $100 cancelled.
No Action:
Cigar clerk; age 69. Applied for transportation to sister in Kansas. Could not be found by visitor. Later, in Relief Home.
Special Relief.
The 38 single or widowed inmates whose applications fall under the head of “Special Relief” were nearly all in need of special medical or surgical attention, or of convalescent care.
From the standpoint of restoration to self-support this group, as shown by the abstract given below, is discouraging, but it is doubtful if the Rehabilitation Committee in granting the special relief, expected the recipients to regain economic independence. Owing to the crowded condition of the hospitals in 1906 and 1907 it was necessary to avoid sending to them persons who could be provided for otherwise. The yet greater overcrowding in the institutions for the aged and infirm made it compulsory, until the Relief Home was completed, to give some outdoor relief to those who did not imperatively require institutional care.
Those still independent three years after the grant was made averaged twelve years younger than those then receiving relief. The financial showing is not so discouraging as the social. The 29 persons received grants amounting to $2,955, an average of $102 each. This sum would have paid for keep in an institution, if there had been room, for not more than seven months. The average time that elapsed before each became dependent is, in the known cases, considerably more than seven months. The money therefore was not wasted. Moreover, those objecting, as most of them did, to going to an institution, had the comfort of attempting self-support.
Grant Made:[275]
(a) Not Dependent (probably):
Domestic servant; age 68. Granted $150. No information could be obtained in 1909.
Domestic servant; age 35. Granted $75 for an operation. Self-supporting.
Cook; age 66. Granted $50. No information could be obtained in 1909.
Housewife; age 50. Granted $75 for washing machine. Ejected from Ingleside. Small amount for current expenses.
Cannery clerk; age 61. Granted $20, and later $75, to go to hospital and then to the country. Now with friends.
Plasterer; age 56. Granted $50. Later arrested and in jail three months.
Peddler; age 54. Granted $60 and a free license. No information obtained in 1909.
Carpenter; age 32. Tuberculous. Granted $300 to go a warmer climate. Now recovering.
(b) Dependent:
Cook; age 61. Living on savings before fire. Granted $100. Later assisted by A. C. In Relief Home.
Seamstress; age 59. Granted $100. Assisted by private charity.
Bookkeeper; age 65. Granted $100. In Home for the Aged.
Janitress; age 50. Granted $50. Sent to hospital.
Domestic servant; age 38. Granted $75. Partially self-supporting; in and out of Relief Home.
Nurse; age 78. Granted $200. Went to niece. Assisted by several charities.
Housewife; age 95. Granted $25 and later $125. In Home for the Aged.
Rooming-house keeper; age 72. Granted $75. Went to hospital. Assisted by private charity.
Nurse; age 65. Granted $100. In Relief Home.
Cloak maker; age 65. Granted $100. Assisted by charity. In Relief Home.
Housewife; age 81. Granted $140 in instalments. In Relief Home.
Dressmaker; age 57. Granted $100 and sewing machines. In Relief Home.
House worker; age 60. Granted $100 and truss. In Relief Home.
Seamstress; age 65. Granted $125 and sewing machine. In Relief Home.
Peddler; age 60. Granted $20. In Relief Home.
(c) Dead:
Seamstress; age 75. Granted $150 in instalments. Died September, 1907.
Nurse; age 79. Granted $100 “till well enough to work.” Died April, 1908.
Janitor; age 58. Granted $50 for stove and bedding. Died February, 1907.
Lecturer on psychology; age 70. Granted $75 and transportation to San Diego. In Relief Home. Died 1908.
Housewife; age 67. Granted $150. Went to relatives. Died 1907.
Grant Refused:
Seamstress; age 36. Because earning $12 per week.
Nurse; age 64. In need of permanent care. Died in Relief Home June, 1909.
Chambermaid; age 70. In need of permanent care.
Children’s nurse; age 73. In need of permanent care. In Relief Home.
Domestic servant; age 70. Asked for money to pursue invalid claim to property.
No Action—Check Canceled:
Housewife; age 55. Could not be found by visitor.
Dressmaker; age 73. Granted $100 and sewing machine. Could not be found.
Cannery worker; age 40. Granted $75. Could not be found by visitor. Assisted later by Associated Charities to go to the country.
Maker of knitted articles; age 68. Granted $100 and sewing machine. Drank to excess. In Relief Home.
[275] No information is available as to occupation, age, or present status of one of the 29 persons to whom grants were made.
Hospital Care.
The small group of 11 persons who applied for hospital care, were of the same general character. Illnesses of a serious nature required special treatment either at Ingleside or other institution. Two of the 11 were sent to an insane asylum, two died at Ingleside, and five were in homes for the infirm. Two became self-supporting.
General Relief.
There remains a heterogeneous group of applicants for general relief, most of whom asked for money for living expenses, or for such inexpensive things as false teeth, trusses, and spectacles. Of the 50 persons who applied for general relief, 20 were refused. The total amount paid out in grants to the remaining 30 was $1,735.70.
Three years after the grants were made 10 of these persons, five of whom received less than $25 each, were believed to be independent, 15 were in the Relief Home, one was dependent on other charity, and four were dead.
2. Between April, 1907, and April, 1909, 68 persons who had been at Ingleside Model Camp at some time, in addition to the 14 persons in the seven families already considered in [Table 119] and on page 342, applied to the Associated Charities.[276] Since these 68 persons did not apply to the Corporation during the first year after the fire they must either have gone from Ingleside to friends or must have expected to be self-supporting. More than half of them were over fifty years of age and nearly all were more or less incapacitated; in short, they do not seem to have differed from those who before the fire found their way to the almshouse. On April 18, 1909, 39 of these were in the Relief Home, four were in asylums or hospitals, four had left the city, and three were self-supporting. With regard to 18 persons of this group no information could be obtained.
[276] See [Table 119], [p. 336].
3. The most conspicuous thing about those who did not apply for rehabilitation, both men and women, is their high proportion of disabilities, a proportion even higher than that of the applicants. Of the 585 non-applicants among the single or widowed men and women,[277] no less than 330, 56 per cent, were infirm or crippled, or needed special care for some reason. [Table 121] shows the nature of their disabilities.
[277] See [Table 119], [p. 336].
TABLE 121.—DISABLED SINGLE AND WIDOWED INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP WHO DID NOT APPLY FOR REHABILITATION, BY SEX AND NATURE OF DISABILITY
| Nature of disability | NON-APPLICANTS WITH EACH SPECIFIED DISABILITY | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Wo- men | Total | |
| Infirm or crippled persons: | |||
| Too infirm to work | 33 | .. | 33 |
| Lame or crippled | 19 | 11 | 30 |
| Feeble | .. | 21 | 21 |
| Without one leg or one arm | 19 | .. | 19 |
| Blind or very deaf | 9 | 6 | 15 |
| Paralyzed | 11 | 1 | 12 |
| Bed-ridden | .. | 3 | 3 |
| Total | 91 | 42 | 133 |
| Persons needing special care: | |||
| Sick | 44 | 23 | 67 |
| Normally convalescent | 31 | 17 | 48 |
| Injured in accidents | 33 | 2 | 35 |
| Senile or demented | 16 | .. | 16 |
| Severely rheumatic | 15 | 4 | 19 |
| Tubercular | 4 | 8 | 12 |
| Total | 143 | 54 | 197 |
| Grand total | 234 | 96 | 330 |
Four-fifths of the 585 non-applicants were over fifty years of age. Nevertheless, they applied for no relief other than shelter for a longer or shorter time at Ingleside. Their neglect to make application for rehabilitation may be set down in a great measure to the want of initiative due to infirmity (more than one-seventh of the number have since died), and to the apathy that comes to the inevitable institution inmate. In 1909 one-third of this group were in the Relief Home or in some other charitable refuge. But the margin of over one-third of the remainder whose condition was known, who went to work or to friends and were not as yet dependent on charity, is surprisingly large.
[Table 122] shows what became of the non-applicants as far as the facts are known.
TABLE 122.—SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF SINGLE AND WIDOWED INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP, WHO DID NOT APPLY FOR REHABILITATION BY SEX
| Subsequent history | INMATES WHOSE HISTORY WAS AS SPECIFIED | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Wo- men | Total | |
| Died within one year of admission to Ingleside | 31 | 16 | 47 |
| Died within three years of admission to Ingleside | 33 | 11 | 44 |
| Went to work or to friends or relatives | 83 | 25 | 108 |
| Now in charitable institutions | 124 | 70 | 194 |
| No information available | 154 | 38 | 192 |
| Total | 425 | 160 | 585 |
It is highly suggestive that a very large proportion of those who went to work or to friends or relatives left in January, 1908, when Ingleside was about to be closed and all the inmates removed to the Relief Home. When the final alternative was presented to go permanently to an institution or to find some other home, they were able to make the latter choice. Most of them belonged to the wandering labor classes which find no hardship so great as the monotonous, comfortable life of an orderly institution where thorough discipline is maintained. The Relief Home was, fortunately, located beyond the city a mile from any car line. It was far removed from the bustle and the sensational diversions which were so pleasantly accessible to the lazy and the semi-vicious at Ingleside. The mere limitation of the right to go in and out freely was so irksome that many chose to take their chance in the world again rather than go where they must ask for a pass.
(c) Applicants Who Had Never Been at Ingleside
Mention has already been made, [page 325], of the fact that between 100 and 200 persons left the almshouse shortly after the fire, most of them presumably going to the camps and posing as refugees. Besides these there were 27 applicants for relief who, although not in the almshouse at the time of the fire, had been there one or more times, one of them 16 times, in the eight years previous. In most instances the Rehabilitation Committee had no means of knowing that these people were former almshouse inmates, and the grants were made merely on the ground of old age. The more important details concerning this group of 27, none of whom were at Ingleside, are as follows:
To 13 persons relief was granted in sums ranging from $15 to $125, and six of these were believed to be non-dependent in 1909, while seven were in the Relief Home. Grants were refused to nine applicants; eight of these required such care and supervision as that provided in the Relief Home, and the ninth, who was an opium taker, was aided by a sister. Checks were canceled in three cases: one, because other relief was given; another, because the applicant was found to be a drunkard; and the third, because the money had been paid to the wrong person. In the two remaining cases of the 27 no action was taken.
It is surprising to find that the 13 cases in which relief was granted average ten years younger than the Ingleside cases. They were either persons who had gone in former years to the almshouse to convalesce after illness, as was customary with those discharged from the City and County hospital, or persons who had some physical or mental disability that made it difficult to keep employment. Most of the others who were not in the Relief Home in April, 1909, if they live will probably come back there. Of the 14 applicants who did not receive aid, nine were in the Relief Home three years after the disaster or had died there.
One last group of the aged and handicapped remains to be mentioned,—35 applicants who had been neither in the almshouse nor at Ingleside, but who arrived at the Relief Home between April, 1908, and April, 1909. These had been able to hold out until then against the ravages of age, disease, incapacity, and misfortune. A few, a very few, were again independent of relief three years after the grant was made, but of the remainder, 21 were still in the Relief Home or other charitable institutions, and nine had either left the city or had died.
III
RESULTS
The final important question to be considered in this study of relief of the aged and infirm is: What proportion of the aged and infirm persons in the Relief Home in April, 1909, were there solely because of the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906? To answer this question one must know the proportion between the total population of San Francisco and the aged and infirm in the almshouse for some time previous to 1906.
TABLE 123.—PROPORTION OF ALMSHOUSE INMATES AND OF ALMSHOUSE ADMISSIONS TO TOTAL POPULATION, SAN FRANCISCO, 1890, 1900, 1905, AND 1909
| Year | Population of city and county of San Francisco | Average number of almshouse inmates | Almshouse inmates per 1,000 of population | Admission to almshouse during year | Admissions to almshouse per 1,000 of population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1890 | 298,997 | 736 | 2.5 | 560 | 1.9 | |
| 1900 | 342,782 | 947 | 2.8 | 670 | 2.0 | |
| 1905 | 379,847 | [278] | 890 | 2.3 | 773 | 2.0 |
| 1909 | 409,499 | [278] | 1,295 | 3.2 | 816 | 2.0 |
[278] Estimated.
It seems fair to assume that the disaster was responsible, at least in part, for the increase of the proportion of almshouse inmates in the population from 2.3 per 1,000 in 1905 to 3.2 per 1,000 in 1909. The fact that in 1909 the number of admissions was not higher indicates that already as regards this class the abnormal conditions resulting from the fire were passing away. The high death rate would shortly reduce the Relief Home population almost to its normal proportion.[279]
[279] Between 1900 and 1905 the inmates of the almshouse went in and out much more freely than they do now at the Relief Home, but the effect on the average number present is impossible to calculate.
The increase, from 1904-05 to 1909, in the relative number of almshouse inmates in the population must not be attributed wholly to the disaster. The condemnation of the unsanitary City and County Hospital threw a part of the burden of its chronic cases on the Relief Home. The shock of the disaster to highly nervous and ill-balanced persons doubtless produced insanity in a number of cases. As the state insane hospitals were already overcrowded, the least troublesome found refuge in the Relief Home. But perhaps the most important factor in producing this charitable burden was the general disorganization of industry in the years 1907-08, due to a street-car strike in San Francisco and to the financial panic. The slow recovery of certain industries caused by the exorbitant cost of building was perceptibly checked. The result was that only young and able-bodied men could get work. Old and semi-able men who would in normal times have continued for several years to make a bare living, could find no work after the brick cleaning was done. This economic stagnation accounts for the failure of some who were given tools, or small grants to set up little shops or buy stock to peddle. The buying capacity of the laboring class, their prospective patrons, was greatly diminished.
Finally, the number of the aged and the infirm in the Relief Home was increased by those sent from a number of the private charities whose buildings were burned or whose funds were lessened. The private charitable agencies were the more inclined to disburden themselves as the new institution was so attractive. As one of the employes put it: “If the city furnishes clean steam-heated rooms, three hot meals a day, electric lights, and every convenience, the place will always be full. Lots of people in the Relief Home never had so much before.” The new institution at its dedication was advertised to set a high standard of care. The maintenance of this standard by the superintendent drew to it, undoubtedly, some who formerly would not have applied for admission.
Since the variations in the numbers of the old almshouse inmates registered the increase due to the industrial stagnation following the labor agitation and the panic of 1893, it is reasonable to conclude that the several circumstances described above had increased the number of the inmates in the Relief Home as much as had the disaster of April 18, 1906.
An interesting question, growing out of the coalescence in the Relief Home of the Ingleside refugee group with the old almshouse population, is the comparative social standing of the two groups. Were the Ingleside inmates potential almshouse inmates or were they such as would not have arrived there but for a great and wholly impersonal misfortune? The “refugees” maintained in the Relief Home a class identity and were particular to insist that they were not like “the old almshouse people.” It has been pointed out[280] that there was a group at Ingleside whose occupations and general history marked them as belonging to a somewhat more skilful and resourceful class than the rest. Such of these as went to the Relief Home continued to be superior and exceptional, but far the larger number were precisely of the same human stuff as the interminable procession that had for forty years been entering the almshouse. On this point the testimony of employes who were in charge at Ingleside and later at the Relief Home was nearly unanimous and quite conclusive. They agreed that three-fourths of these refugees were “almshouse types” and would have reached an almshouse in a few years; and that some of the others, of rather better education and character, would have been cared for in private charitable institutions, or by children and relatives who because of the fire were too poor to take them. It is pointed out that these last if they shared the poverty of their kindred would have been far less comfortable than in the Home.
[280] See [Part VI], [p. 333].
One clear distinction between the almshouse people and the refugees is a difference of temper. During the relief period the refugees got the idea that there were “millions for relief,” in which they had a “just and equal share,” and that as the Relief Home was built for them they had exceptional rights in it as victims of misfortune. They were, therefore,—the women especially,—more exacting, lazy, and termagant than the old-time inmates. Ingleside has been described as “one long vacation picnic” where they had varied and abundant food, very little work and, to satisfy their gregarious instincts, continuous gossip. Those who had become accustomed to the freedom of the camps were consequently more incorrigible as well as more able-bodied than the almshouse inmates, and were never bound by such necessary rules of labor and discipline as existed there.
It has already been demonstrated[281] that so far as age, proportion of the sexes, marital condition, and nativity are concerned, at least four-fifths of the refugees at Ingleside did not differ essentially from the inmates of the San Francisco almshouse. Collateral information corroborates this conclusion. The rents they had paid and the wages they had received before the fire were rarely above those common to the unskilled laboring classes, while the streets they had lived in were in the districts familiar to charity visitor and settlement worker. It may be concluded upon these facts that not more than one-sixth of the Ingleside refugees, at most 200 persons, were of the more fortunate and resourceful sort who but for some extraordinary disaster would never have become dependent.
[281] See [Tables 114]-[116], [pp. 329]-[331].
Before undertaking to estimate the work of the Rehabilitation Committee in relation to the aged and infirm it is imperative to make clear the characteristics of the different classes with which they had to deal. The problems of the helpless, the very old, and the very young, stand apart. But the destiny of old people cannot, like that of children, be determined solely by the will of others, for self-will increases rather than diminishes with the approach of senility. So long as the old are on their feet in the world, whatever plans are made, whatever relief is proposed, may be set at naught. They cannot be imprisoned unless positively vicious, nor be refused relief, because the humane standard requires that age, however unlovely, shall be kindly treated.
There were at Ingleside 70[282] unruly, immoral, drunken people, who had to be ejected but who returned again and again by way of the jail and the hospital to ask assistance. To such as these only food and shelter could safely be given. In the Relief Home they were relegated to “The Last Chance,” the name given by the residents to the building for senile incorrigibles. Some were in their second infancy and behaved like filthy animals, others had senile dementia and “imagined violence like children,” accusing the nurses of stealing from them and of starving them, yet it would have been impossible to get them committed for insanity. Still others who came and went from Ingleside and who went in and out of the Relief Home as often as permitted, became insane with rage whenever they were crossed. Angry at some trifle, they would rave by the hour; but if locked up or deprived of some privilege they would gradually recover self-control and be quiet for weeks until crossed again. It would have been impossible for them to live in a family even of their own relatives. It was all but impossible to care for them in the institution until their vigor was depleted enough to make them stationary.
[282] See [Part VI], [p. 325].
Another class is the wanderers, in all stages of senile dementia. Some were intelligent enough to apply for relief but wandered from Ingleside, could not be found by the visitors, and turned up later in the Relief Home. A few were promised grants but never claimed the checks. Those in the Relief Home got lost, could not remember where their rooms were, or now and then climbed the barbed-wire fence and ran away. Although for their proper care the same precautions were needed as at a prison, neither Ingleside Model Camp nor the Relief Home could be so organized. Every person had the legal right to come and go from the Relief Home at will. Some of the relatively able-bodied would go out to visit acquaintances or relatives, to beg a little, to work a little, or even to pawn their clothes, and after drinking up the money obtained, return exhausted or filthy to recuperate in the Home. The same may be said of the one-third of the inmates who were entered in the records as drinking or drunkards. Many of them combined with intemperance some other infirmity. For our purpose, however, it is immaterial whether they began to drink as a result of physical debility or whether they were sick because of drunkenness. In either case, it was very nearly hopeless to give them money for rehabilitation. A number are known to have wasted their grants in drink.
See [Frontispiece]
“Portals of the Past”
This beautiful arch was found practically uninjured in the midst of the ruins at the summit of Nob Hill. Mr. James D. Phelan had it removed to the banks of a little lake in Golden Gate Park, where it stands as a memorial to the devastated city.
The Ingleside population affords a painful study in isolation. Among a thousand refugees over fifty years of age, a majority would be expected to have children or relatives and the hasty inference would be that family care should be given to a number that were in the Relief Home. Filial obligation is, indeed, too little emphasized; but frequent migration weakens the family tie. An examination of these cases does not show many in which the refugees were dependent because of wilful neglect by relatives. The superintendent of the Relief Home in the year 1909 carefully investigated all cases about which there was rumor of property concealed or relatives able to give support. The result was that only a very few of either were discovered. In the case of those who had hidden savings, or an inheritance, the city compelled the payment of $15 a month for board and lodging or the leaving of the institution. In the case of most children who had been well-to-do, a payment was agreed on rather than the return to relatives.
A cursory glance at the Ingleside records would give the impression that all the mutilated, semi-blind, deaf, rheumatic, and disabled old people in the countryside; the one-legged and one-armed men and the men with no legs at all; the partly paralyzed and otherwise crippled, had been gathered there,—a forlorn company more than half of whom added to other defects the slowness of old age. The problem was not merely the relief of the aged, but the relief of the handicapped. The crippled had been for the most part self-supporting before the fire; some were elevator men, some were watchmen, many had sold notions or papers on the streets or peddled goods in the country roundabout. The peddlers on the whole did very well with their grants, perhaps because a physical mutilation is an asset to a peddler, or because no definite patronage had to be regained. A person with a physical defect but accustomed to unusual or skilled occupation, as for instance, the printing and distributing of bill-heads or the repairing of musical instruments, is not debarred from self-support as is the man who belongs in the ranks of common labor.
The restoration to self-support of even the able-bodied elderly women was quite as difficult as the rehabilitation of the handicapped. There was after the fire, as always, a considerable demand for cheap general houseworkers. To the casual observer, these sturdy old women at Ingleside ought to have been able at least to earn their lodging and food. But if the observer had attempted to employ one in her own household she would have found it all but impossible to endure her personal peculiarities. More than half were born and had lived in foreign countries, and although to a degree Americanized, were relapsing into the peasant habits of childhood. In cleanliness and decorum a rising standard had left them far behind. To uncleanly and vulgar habits and lack of skill were added a tendency to misrepresent, even when truth-telling would be advantageous, and to be voluble on the subject of chronic grievances or ailments. Women of another type who were both cleanly and competent could not keep in work because they lacked initiative. Someone had to do their thinking for them. In the Relief Home where they had kindly supervision they became excellent helpers capable of earning small wages.
The chief elements in the failure of these old people, men and women, to recover their independence, were lack of adaptability, lack of speed, and poor judgment in business matters. Those who had maintained themselves for years, could not get back into their narrow familiar groove nor find another into which to fit themselves. An old man who was probably as good a cabinet maker as any other in the city, could do barely half the work in a day expected by employers, because of over-conscientiousness and slowness. In a thousand ways the inefficiency due to ignorance, lack of skill, and poor judgment, predestined the refugees of Ingleside to failure, whether they received grants or not, and whether the aid given was great or small.
In some cases the grants seem pitifully inadequate and it may be questioned whether the individuals had a fair chance to re-establish themselves. Remembering the high rents, the cost of materials, the cost of transportation, the dearth of employment, and the lessened consumption, larger sums than those given would seem to have been necessary to afford a prospect of permanent rehabilitation. But the Corporation could not anticipate panic nor exceptional lack of employment. A large proportion of these cases, moreover, had to be decided in August, 1906,[283] when the grants were discontinued or made in small amounts. In the cases of those who received $150 or more, there was no higher proportion of success than where smaller amounts were given. It is impossible to determine from the information we have whether the later dependence of one-third to one-half of the Ingleside refugees was due to the industrial situation or to the deficiencies of the individuals themselves or to inadequate relief. One conclusion we may safely set down: no case of failure was due to any one of these causes alone.
[283] See [Part I], [p. 99] ff.
Turning from the discussion of these qualifying circumstances to estimate the results of the relief of the aged, the infirm, and the handicapped at Ingleside and in the Relief Home, certain things emerge very definitely. For convenience and clearness they may be set down categorically.
1. The speculative character of relief after disaster, especially in the case of persons over fifty years of age, should be recognized and too much must not be expected from the issue. The recuperative power of aged persons is relatively small under ordinary conditions of life, but when they are thrown out of the groove of years, subjected to shock and hardship, and made to begin over again, it is infinitely smaller. For this reason the element of uncertainty should be reduced to a minimum by the use of records, by the employment of trained investigators, and by the consultation with camp commanders or others who have observed the applicants for some time. During the earlier part of the relief work in San Francisco grants were made after investigation, in lump sums which in a considerable number of cases were squandered or used unwisely. After the Model Camp at Ingleside had been in operation for some months and the camp commander had had time to observe the inmates, the recommendations of visitors were often modified at his suggestion; in some cases the money was placed in the hands of a visitor to be expended for the applicant, and in many others it was given in care of the Associated Charities. These later grants lasted longer and were of more avail in relieving the recipient than those made on less information and with fewer precautions.
2. The value of charity records as a basis for determining the kind and amount of relief that should be given in an emergency cannot be over-emphasized. The case records of the Associated Charities, of the several benevolent societies of the different nationalities, and of the Catholics and the Hebrews, and the records of the almshouse, all should have afforded a quick means of learning the former dependent or independent position of many applicants. Unfortunately in San Francisco, before the fire, most of these agencies did not sufficiently understand the value of permanent detailed records. The result was that a number of people who previously had been more or less dependent were assisted on the assumption that they were as likely to become self-supporting as those who had never applied for aid. Elderly indigents rarely resort to an alias and they might have been easily identified if the records had been reasonably complete and had been available in one central bureau. Since the disaster, the exchange of case information among the principal charitable agencies is proving invaluable in preventing duplication of relief and in developing unity of plans for constructive charity.
3. The value of trained investigators is distinctly apparent in a comparison of their recommendations with those of amateurs in the Ingleside cases. The inexperienced visitor, “taken in” by some plausible old person, would recommend a grant of several hundred dollars; the committee, mindful of many applicants yet to come and suspicious of the excessive enthusiasm of the visitor, would give half as much carefully guarded. The trained visitor, on the other hand, seized upon the hopeful points as well as the limitations of capacity and formed a balanced judgment which the committee usually accepted in substance and which was generally justified by the subsequent history of the applicant. The business of an investigator is not to harden his sympathies and expose imposture, but to become a trained and sympathetic expert in human nature. Especially in emergency relief, therefore, his judgment should be of the highest value.
4. The pension and the direct grant were both used in providing for two quite different classes of the aged and infirm. A number of feeble persons who had been decent and hardworking before the fire but who, very evidently, could never again be self-supporting, were given grants outright “till they should be able to work again”—as the committee kindly phrased it—or because they were “too nice to go to the almshouse.” A larger number of cases, where it was impossible to determine whether the applicants were still capable of self-support or in need of institutional care, were given the benefit of the doubt. This was, indeed, almost compulsory because institutional facilities were so meager. The intention of these grants must be wholly commended, but the history of the cases treated by the two methods indicates clearly that the money given in instalments in care of a visitor or of the Associated Charities had been much more effectively spent than that given to the applicant in a lump sum. If it be assumed—as it should be—that no decent person of this borderland class should be prematurely relegated to an institution, the results in San Francisco prove that a limited pension in the care of a friendly visitor is both wise and humane. It is, moreover, economical.
5. The age of possible rehabilitation is approximately defined by the results of these cases. The natural period of self-support is between sixteen and sixty; but the capacity of the unskilled laboring classes to keep the pace of modern industry often begins to decline at middle age. As regards health and ability to be self-supporting the decade between fifty and sixty is critical; and the number of those between sixty and seventy who, after such a disruption of their lives as that produced by the earthquake and fire, are able to re-establish themselves even with assistance, will be very small. To conserve the common self-respect and society’s humane instincts, as many as possible should be encouraged to try.
6. The lack of provision for certain classes in San Francisco was well known to charity workers before the fire, but it became a far more serious matter owing to the sudden increase and shifting of these classes of dependents. There were many people set down as “convalescents” at Ingleside who remained permanently in need of institutional care. The hospitals continued to discharge, at the earliest possible moment because of overcrowding, numbers of half-well people who had no homes and little or no resources. Even those who went back to poor homes frequently did not recover fully for want of proper care during the convalescent period. Those without homes must go to the Relief Home, and the increase of this class of inmates became a serious tax on the institution. The medical attention that must be given to the inmates of the Relief Home is greater than had to be given in the old almshouse. The increase in the number of the incurables, due in some measure to the shock and hardships of 1906, makes great demands upon the nursing staff. Although the number of admissions per thousand of the population is now no greater than before the disaster, the permanent burden of refugees will remain proportionately great for some years to come. Certain special classes—the convalescent, the incurable, the advanced tubercular, the chronic alcoholic, have never been adequately provided for in San Francisco. The transition from emergency to permanent provision affords the opportunity for developing the best methods and differentiating the kinds of charitable care.
SOME LESSONS
OF THE RELIEF SURVEY
SOME LESSONS OF THE SURVEY
| PAGE | |||
| Part | I. | Organization and The Emergency Period | [369] |
| Part | II. | Rehabilitation | [370] |
| Part | III. | Business Rehabilitation | [371] |
| Part | IV. | Housing Rehabilitation | [371] |
| Part | V. | After-Care | [372] |
| Part | VI. | The Aged and Infirm | [372] |