VII.
The final word, which has to do with the needs of the whole community, hardly requires saying. It is a plea for comprehensive planning. Surely, if ever a city needed the definite plan that an outside commission could make for it, it is Pittsburgh. In most cities the "improvement" problem is largely aesthetic. In Pittsburgh, it is also economic and social. Its correct solution is something more than a desideratum; it is a need.
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL ARCH.
[EFFECT OF FORESTS ON ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT]
W. W. ASHE
U. S. FOREST SERVICE
Three rivers determined the location of Pittsburgh. They have been important factors in creating its industrial position; they are now important agents affecting the health and earnings of thousands of its citizens. The two score of iron and coal towns which are known as the Pittsburgh District, fringe the banks of these rivers. Mine, factory and furnace alternate with the residence settlements of the laborers, and they and the railroads compete with the streams themselves for ownership of the narrow strip of land between low water and flood crest. With every recession of the floods, man crowds the streams, only to be driven back when they reassert their suzerainty. Whatever can be done therefore, to tame their caprices, to equalize their flow, either by lowering the flood crests or increasing the low water stages, adds to the well-being and prosperity of men who work at forge and furnace, or go with the barges,—men whose living is from day to day, and to whom the idle day brings want.
The flood is the open expression of the rivers' authority. But they have another and more subtle influence. It is less direct, but it has a wider relation to the well being of the city, not only affecting the laborer who lives on the lowlands, but affecting all citizens alike. The rivers and their tributaries near which Pittsburgh and the surrounding towns are situated, furnish these in most instances with their water supply. The character of this water affects the health of the users, and their working efficiency.
All the drinking water used in the Pittsburgh District, except that from artesian wells or similar primarily pure sources, has been contaminated by the sewage of towns and villages higher up the rivers. Through such contaminated water typhoid fever and other zymotic intestinal diseases are widely disseminated. Scarcely a town in the steel and coal district has not been devastated by an outbreak of this dread scourge. The condition of Wilkinsburg is typical, its water supply being contaminated by the sewage of more than twenty towns. The new filtration plant for Greater Pittsburgh delivers to most of the city a drink much superior in quality to the highly polluted waters generally used. But filtration is only a first step toward purity, and toward decreasing typhoid fever and the other water-borne diseases. Filtration removes a high percentage of the pathogenic bacteria by which these diseases are transmitted; but a highly contaminated water, such as that of the Allegheny River, purified even by the best methods of sand filtration, is not pure water. Intelligent users must at length realize this and demand for their own health not a purified water merely, but a primarily pure supply, safeguarded by sedimentation and filtration against occasional contamination. Within easy reach of Pittsburgh and nearly every one of its satellite towns, lie abundant sources of primarily pure supply, in the forest-protected mountain streams.
Hitherto the cost of purchasing a forested watershed and holding it as unproductive property has deterred cities from seeking such sources. That difficulty no longer exists. Forest lands have now a recognized and constantly increasing earning power. If a watershed is purchased at a reasonable price and is well managed, it will become, as stumpage further appreciates in worth, a valuable municipal asset. Or if a town is small and unwilling to assume the responsibility of such management; it can well co-operate with the state in developing a system which will secure to it pure water, and at the same time preserve to the state the earning power of its forests which are among its most valuable natural resources.
Domestic water supply, however, is largely a matter local to each town or each group of towns. But the wage earners of the whole Pittsburgh section are yearly vitally affected by the rivers in a different way. The earnings and even the lives of thousands, especially of those living in the low districts of the larger cities, are threatened by the winter and spring floods. These floods frequently result in losses to wage earners aggregating several million dollars a year. In the flood of March, 1907, it is estimated that more than 2,000 families in the river districts of Pittsburgh, and an equal number in the low lying sections of nearby cities, were forced from their homes or their stores by high water. Quantities of personal effects were injured or destroyed; lives were lost; and much suffering followed the winter exposure. The effect of the flood in increasing certain kinds of disease is shown by a comparison of the pneumonia and typhoid records in the flooded wards of Pittsburgh. Dr. Beaty of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health gives us the number of cases of these two diseases in certain wards on the North Side, which are largely tenanted by laborers, and were partly inundated.
In March and April, 1906, when there was no flood, there were fourteen cases of pneumonia and forty-eight of typhoid fever.
In March and April, 1907, when the flood had a height of thirty-six feet, there were forty cases of pneumonia and 118 cases of typhoid fever, more than twice the number of the preceding year.
During the flood the water and dwellings in these districts became badly contaminated by human waste, since the flooding of toilets and sewers prevented their use. At the same time many families usually dependent upon street hydrants for domestic water had to make use of this extremely impure river water. This affected large numbers of people, many of them recently arrived foreigners unacquainted with methods of securing ready relief. But a more general suffering was occasioned by the loss in wages through the closing of large establishments whose plants were flooded. It was estimated at the time by one of the local newspapers that more than 100,000 people in the Pittsburgh District were idle for an average period of a week on account of the March flood of 1907. A typical example is the National Tube Works, where different departments were closed from ten to fourteen days, throwing about 10,000 men out of regular work. About 4,000 of these were employed for three days as laborers, cleaning up after the water subsided. The same thing is yearly repeated in many other large factories as well as on the railroads. It is no exceptional occurrence. A similar, though less severe flood occurred two months earlier the same year and another in March, 1908. It is indeed an exceptional spring when there is not a flood. The losses to laborers by curtailment of wages from this cause are seldom so excessive as they were in the flood of March, 1907, but they amount annually to more than $100,000. Moreover, this loss takes place in the winter, when the wage earner can least afford it.
DENUDED LAND DEVOID OF HUMUS, ON THE MOUNTAINS; LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR FLOODS ON THE MONONGAHELA RIVER.
RAILROAD BRIDGE DESTROYED BY FRESHET. THREE MEN WERE KILLED IN THE WRECK WHICH FOLLOWED.
FARMING LAND DESTROYED BY FLOODS. MONONGAHELA RIVER.
WAGE-EARNERS' HOMES ABANDONED ON ACCOUNT OF FRESHET.
The river floods cannot be prevented by local effort. Their damage is by no means confined to Pittsburgh; it extends the entire course of the Ohio River and its most important tributaries; its causes originate in other states besides Pennsylvania. Although the state and even the cities might well co-operate in certain ways, the prevention of these floods is a problem for the Federal government to consider.
The cause of a flood lies partly in natural conditions. The run-off of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers is naturally concentrated and the highest floods occur when a deep snow on a frozen soil is suddenly melted by heavy warm rain. But their height has been accentuated by human agency; and this points to the two necessary phases of river flood control work. One is the re-establishment of normal forest conditions. This means not so much a great extension of the forest area, although there are many steep slopes now cleared which should be re-wooded; but it means the restocking as densely as possible of lands which have been cut or badly burned and are thinly or partially wooded. This is a means to an end. The forest produces a deep mat of leaves and mould, the humus which not only has a high water storage capacity itself but determines largely the porousness and absorptive power of the underlying soil. This function of the forest is not incompatible with the use of its timber. The most rapid growth of timber is secured by maintaining the deepest humus; but the cutting of it must be adjusted under skilled direction in order not to jeopardize the water storage function of the soil.
Furthermore, there is need of more evergreen forests. The pine and hemlock have been largely removed from the mountain sources of the Ohio. But these trees prolong the melting of deep snows, even under warm rains, for several days longer than deciduous trees. The re-establishment of forests of conifers will therefore contribute to lowering the crests of floods by distributing the flow over five or six days instead of two or three. This is one phase of the work of river control.
FEDERAL STREET DURING FLOOD OF MARCH 14, 1907.
On account, however, of the large areas of open farm-land that lie on the watershed of the Ohio and that cannot be reforested, additional means are necessary for storing the surplus storm water. There should be storage reservoirs such as are now being used at the head of the Mississippi River for regulating the flow of the river above St. Paul. These reservoirs must be on wooded watersheds; otherwise they will silt up and they will hold back some of the storm water and lower the height of floods, they will have an additional value for they can be used as reservoirs for domestic water supply. They can also be made to increase the dry season flow of the streams, thus furnishing a stable water power for industrial use and permitting steady navigation during summer and autumn when the water stage is frequently too low even for coal barges. Thus, by means of the forests will be secured not only a reduction in floods but also a greater earning capacity to the region through the development of the latent power of its streams.
The rivers, then, are at once the making and the menace of Pittsburgh. It is through the forests and by reservoirs that the menace can be removed and the highest utility of the streams established. The purity of the water for drinking purposes can thus be assured. This involves a betterment in the health of the community and an increase in the efficiency of the laborer. The equalization of the river flow can also be thus attained. And this involves, first, the lessening of flood losses, and, second, the increasing of the power of the streams to meet the exacting requirements of water power development. The lowering of the floods secures also a further betterment in health by improving the sanitary condition of the districts subject to inundations, and a betterment of economic conditions, both by giving the laborer more steady work during flood and low flow periods, and by opening to him, through the creation of new industries, a wider field of employment.
A MILE OF WATER ON PENN AVENUE DURING PITTSBURGH'S RECORD FLOOD, MARCH, 1907.
[THE TRANSIT SITUATION IN PITTSBURGH]
JOHN P. FOX
SECRETARY TRANSIT COMMITTEE, CITY CLUB OF NEW YORK; MEMBER TRAMWAYS AND LIGHT RAILWAYS' ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN
Transit has a place in the study of living conditions in an industrial city like Pittsburgh. Many of the workers are dependent on street cars to take them to and from home, about their occupations, and to places of recreation. Cheap and efficient transit can enable families living under crowded and unhealthy conditions to move to larger, healthier, and less expensive quarters, and still to reach their work. Low fares and good service bring the operators in a suburban mill town in touch with the full resources of the labor supply in the central city, and also effect a large and direct pay roll economy for carpenters, plumbers, painters, and other city trades whose employes move from point to point during working hours. Again, in no place are people packed together more closely than in the cars, under more conditions favorable to the spread of disease and especially of tuberculosis. And among accidents, few are more numerous, more costly to corporation and community, and more unnecessary, than those caused by street cars.
The street railway system of Pittsburgh is a surface electric system, under the management of the Pittsburgh Railways Company. This company is the consolidation of many other companies, different groups of which had previously combined. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, again, is under the management of the Philadelphia Company, which largely dominates the gas and electricity supply. The Philadelphia Company is said to be controlled by nonresident investors. The present owners and local managers may well be without personal responsibility for the acts or omissions of their predecessors, and yet be crippled by exorbitant obligations to them. Their legal responsibility as to the performance of public service is, however, clear cut.
All the available through thoroughfares leading to the heart of the city from the South Side, North Side, and East End are occupied by the Pittsburgh Railways Company under franchises granted to its subsidiary companies, and as a practical proposition it is impossible to construct additional surface lines or extend surface transit facilities to new areas providing for the growth of the city, except in subordination to these strategic lines. This restriction of course does not apply to rapid transit lines,—subway or elevated.
The principal franchises to these streets held by the original companies appear to be indeterminate in duration, as in Massachusetts, the city having reserved the right to revoke a franchise at any time that a company failed to comply with all the conditions of the agreement. The terms of the original franchises (the Second avenue line being the exception to many of these points) provide for an annual compensation to the city, either a car tax and a percentage of the net profits or a fixed rental in place of one or both of the former. The streets must always be kept in good repair, and in certain cases, at least, clean (either from curb to curb, or along the car tracks). The city sometimes retained the power to alter the conditions, and notably reserved the right to purchase any road after twenty years, at a price to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers. Important provisions of these original franchises are not being observed by the existing company. These facts must be borne in mind in discussing both the equipment of the present system to meet the social needs of Pittsburgh, and ways open to the public to effect improvement.
Though the steam roads have played an important part in the past, the growth of Pittsburgh is now chiefly along electric car lines. The radiation of surface lines from the business center out over the district seems quite complete, especially considering the topography of the city and the suburbs. Large areas of vacant land available for single houses, can be reached for five cents from the business district.
While the radiation of surface lines may be satisfactory, the equipment and operation are exceedingly unsatisfactory, as every practical man in the railway company will admit. The present system has its base located on the point between the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Most of the lines begin as loops through these business streets, operating without transfers between the different lines and without through cars.
FOR PROFILE LINES AND CAR ROUTES, SEE MAP FACING PAGE [784].
A five-cent fare carries one varying distances from this business center, before a second fare is charged. The longest ride for one fare is about eight miles; while a continuous ride of fourteen miles on another route, costs fifteen cents. Passengers cannot change cars in the business center without paying two fares, and a ride across the city and suburbs may cost as much as twenty-five cents. Free transfers, are given between many lines before they enter the downtown district; but no transfers are issued after 11:30 P. M., and none on holidays such as the Fourth of July, when travel is heaviest.
The cars till recently have had no cross seats, longitudinal seats having been used, according to the company, "to allow an extra large capacity," viz., standing capacity. Trailers are run at the rush hours. A line of express cars runs east from the business center to East Liberty, through Liberty avenue, making few stops, though the speed on sample runs was found to be sometimes slower than that of cars on the parallel Penn avenue. The speed of the cars is fast enough for surface operation, except when the power is poor, on steep grades or in the congested district. The service is very unsatisfactory both as to the few cars run and as to the amount of standing, which is inexcusably large. The rails are of the girder type, one obsolete in first-class systems; and are in very bad shape everywhere. The property is very much run down, except for a few new pay-as-you enter cars. The only real rapid transit in Pittsburgh is furnished by the Pennsylvania and other steam railroads, the common time scheduled from the Union Station to East Liberty being ten minutes by train, against thirty minutes by surface express cars.
Before taking up in detail the discussion of improvements on existing lines, it may be well to touch on the financial condition of the Pittsburgh Railways Company, and to consider whether the property can afford to make such improvements; for one hears the excuse for bad conditions that the company is not earning a dividend and was forced even to reduce the service. The Boston Elevated Railway Company, which operates all the surface, elevated and subway lines about Boston, is regarded as a very prosperous concern, paying dividends of from six to eight per cent. the net earnings per car mile after paying taxes being 6.54 cents. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, according to its last public report, had net earnings, after paying taxes, of 12.55 cents per car mile, about double the amount of the Boston company. This is a most remarkable financial showing, and at once raises the question, where does the money all go to and why cannot more of the excessive profits be diverted to better service and equipment? The Boston company is operating to-day three subways and one elevated line, besides having contracted to build two more subways and another elevated. It is obvious that the Pittsburgh Railways Company could not only give a first class service on existing lines, but could also assume the fixed charges of a real rapid transit system, if profits were not diverted to pay excessive rentals and other fixed charges on the many companies consolidated at different times. Some way must be found to cut down these exorbitant charges, for the present management can hardly expect the public to endure existing conditions much longer, when the earnings are so vast. People in other cities, when really aroused, have found ways to bring the most intrenched monopolies to terms.
The congestion of cars in the business district of Pittsburgh is a very curious phenomenon. Most people, seeing the frequent blockades at street junctions in the rush hours, would say that there were already too many cars on the streets, and that the overcrowding is a necessity, only to be remedied by building a rapid transit line. Others, however, see that the terminal loops cause much of the congestion, and that by rearranging or abolishing these, even more cars could easily be handled in and out of the crowded center. As a matter of fact, at no place in Pittsburgh does the number of cars passing hourly reach even half the maximum number found possible in other cities; 43 cars in thirty minutes was the largest number counted by the writer, against 128 cars in Berlin. The maximum Pittsburgh hourly rate on a single track would be 86 cars; Boston has scheduled 220 an hour; Berlin runs as many as 256; while Brooklyn handles over 300. At the busiest junction in Pittsburgh, the writer found a rate of 276 cars an hour in all directions, against 557 in Berlin, where there were many more vehicles besides.
The overcrowding of the Pittsburgh cars is either intentional or due to bad operating methods. The seating capacity of the present surface lines has been far from reached. Take Fifth avenue at Smithfield street, for example. In one half-hour in the evening from 5 to 5:30 P. M. about 2,290 passengers were carried east one night in forty-three cars, thirty-two being motor cars and eleven trailers. If every motor car had hauled a trailer, and four additional pairs of cars been run, every passenger could have been seated, whereas 785 were obliged to stand, or more than fifty per cent of those seated. The total number of cars in one hour would only be 144 against 256 in Berlin. If the company had cross seats in all the cars, merely seventeen more trailers on Fifth avenue, added to the present number of motor cars, would have seated all the passengers, with a total of only 120 cars an hour. In Berlin the street railway company provides as many as 3,116 seats in half an hour, and the London County Council as many as 3,538 seats, against the 1,504 in Pittsburgh.
It may be wondered how it is possible to get so many cars past as in Berlin. It is done by fine traffic regulation by the police, who use careful judgment, and do not hold up traffic too long in any one direction, as is common in other cities, even in London, the home of street regulation. Again, the Berlin tracks are so good and the motormen so careful, that the latter operate cars over switches and junctions at speeds which are never seen in Pittsburgh, car following car with amazing rapidity. And the Berlin manager proposes to run even more cars.
MOTOR CAR AND DOUBLE-DECK TRAILER CROSSING POTSDAMER PLATZ, BERLIN. 557 CARS AN HOUR AGAINST 276 IN PITTSBURGH.
In no city does the writer recall so much standing required of passengers as in Pittsburgh. It would appear to be the company's object to run few enough cars to make people stand on every trip throughout the day, and as nearly the whole length of each line as possible. There is little relief during the slack hours, as every car, sooner or later, seems to have its standing load. In other cities of the country, a marked change of policy towards the public has shown itself in the largely increased number of seats furnished. It is a question whether it is a good policy for any public service corporation, no matter how securely intrenched, to continue the policies of the past.
SECOND CLASS BERLIN ELEVATED AND SUBWAY CAR. FARE 3½ CENTS. SOFT LIGHTING; NO STRAPS; DESIGNED BY ONE OF THE FIRST ARCHITECTS OF BERLIN.
It is one thing to allow a few persons who like it to stand on the car platform; it is another to require it of mothers, overworked girls, the tired, the ill, the infirm. No one knows how much disease is spread through such crowding. In no place are conditions more ripe for infection,—with the extreme of personal contact, the mixture of every class, the constant rubbing against one another and the holding of dirty strap. Under such conditions, when a consumptive coughs, who is safe?
The seating capacity of a city car line seems hardly to have a final limit, for some new way is constantly found to squeeze in more or larger cars. To get some figures by which to judge Pittsburgh, let us take the 256 cars run hourly on a single track in Berlin, or call it 250. If double-deck cars were run in Pittsburgh, of the same length and width as the largest cars now in use, each could easily seat as many as 120 passengers. This would allow a perfectly feasible capacity of 30,000 seats an hour, against a rate of 3,008 actually found on Fifth avenue.
Why double-deck cars are not run in this country is a mystery to every English manager and to not a few Americans. They nearly treble the seating capacity, and yet weigh no more than our wastefully heavy rolling stock. They give passengers decent room and air space. They are far more economical even than trailers. Roofs on these cars are now enclosed, and smoking is made possible all the year round. They can climb and descend hills more quickly and safely than single-deck cars of equal capacity, because more weight can be concentrated on the wheels. Two types have been designed for Pittsburgh of the same length and width as existing cars, both having an enclosed roof adapted for winter. The higher one would have 120 seats. The other type, low enough to go under existing railroad bridges, would furnish ninety-eight seats on one car, with four entrances each side. If such cars had been used on Fifth avenue the night when 2,290 passengers were counted in half an hour, they could have furnished seats for every person, with seven per cent excess. Only twenty-five cars instead of forty-three would have been needed, which would have required fifty men against the seventy-five actually employed for the 1,508 seats. To furnish more seats with trailers would cost more than the present system; but double-deck cars would cut thirty-three per cent off the operating expense, and the company would gain more than the immense monetary saving. They would lose less fares, have the good will of the public, and fewer accidents. The new pay-as-you-enter cars are the most expensive thing with which to furnish seats, and they take twice as long to load as a double-deck car, the introduction of which would appear to be the wisest move the company could make, as well as the best thing for the public.
One of the most objectionable features of the Pittsburgh railway system is the looping back of all cars in the business district, without either through cars or free transfers between the north, south, east, and west sides of the city. In the expensive days of horse cars, there was more excuse for short hauls and double fares; but for the wealthy Pittsburgh electric system, there is no excuse for not serving the entire district, at least within the city limits, for a five cent fare. Boston has had through cars across the city for about twenty years, and for ten years the company has had no higher fare than five cents for the entire Metropolitan district of a dozen cities and towns. The longest ride is at least sixteen miles, with free transfers given at about forty points. Berlin has the most complete system of through cars, connecting every part of the city for a single fare, allowing a ride of thirteen miles or two hours for two and one-half cents.
It seems very doubtful if the present restricted plan of operation pays nearly as well as would through cars and single fares for the entire city. The loops tie up many cars and men in the business district, because of the long stops at a few points and the slowness of switching. But one thing is certain, and that is the gross injustice of a ten cent fare across the city. Its tendency to isolate such public institutions as the Carnegie Institute, the Technical Schools, the University of Pittsburgh, is a very serious matter. An apprentice who attends the evening courses at the Technical Schools three nights a week, pays $5 a year for his tuition. If he has to ride each way, it costs him about $7.80 a year from only the nearest part of the city, $15.60 from the rest. Is this good public policy toward the ambitious workman who is unfortunate enough not to live within the favored zone? Is it good sense that the railway company shall charge twenty cents a round trip to so many who appreciate the free advantages of the Carnegie Institute, and thus bar many of the poorest from ever reaching its doors? The company may reply that all such public institutions should be located in the business district, where all lines center. But the city must grow beyond that congested triangle, and why should not the company's policy grow as well? The same question might be asked in connection with the company's refusal to give transfers after 11:30 P. M., and on the holidays when travel is heaviest. Altogether, it is not a matter for wonder that the public is a unit against the railway.
The whole fare system of Pittsburgh needs careful scrutiny. Should workmen's fares be introduced, to give every family a chance to live where it can find the best house, the most congenial neighbors, and the desirable surroundings, and yet get to work without exorbitant car fares? The London County Council, from its workmen's homes, seven miles out in the suburbs, gives a ride to the city, with a seat for every passenger, for two cents at the rush hour. One London steam road gives workmen an eleven mile ride for two cents each way. English managers say that American companies throw away large profits by maintaining too high fares. The question of public policy to consider about workmen's fares is not whether more people could be carried or whether they would pay, for foreign experience has settled these points, but whether more riding is necessary and desirable, that is, whether satisfactory living conditions can be provided within walking distance of where people work.
A feature of transit requiring more attention is the matter of car ventilation. The Pittsburgh company is said to be trying a method of artificial ventilation for its cars. For such densely packed spaces, a constant supply of fresh air is an urgent necessity. A downward movement of warm air, if found practicable, would be the most hygienic and economical. The car transoms should have handles attached to make proper opening and shutting easy. At the present time, there is often too much cold air blowing into the cars, because there is no easy way for the conductor to close the ventilators. The coal stoves should be banished from the interiors.
While there are spitting signs in the cars for the instruction of passengers, some of the employes appear to be the subjects who need most attention. The constant expectoration of motormen through vestibule doors, and the fouling of front steps, are practices that are not conducive to health or happiness.
To reduce the wear and tear on the nerves of the community the noise from car operation ought to be much less. Excessive gong ringing is far too common in Pittsburgh. Ninety-four blows in a minute is a ridiculous frequency. One sound from a good gong is enough to inform a vehicle that it is in the way. Too much pounding simply exasperates a teamster. There should be very little need of gong ringing anyway. A properly trained motorman slows down for pedestrians and obstructions, and does not rely on the gong to get them off the track before he is too near for safety. For the car gearing, the London mixture of sawdust and oil should be tried in the gear cases. The London cars almost startle one with their quietness. They are kept in perfect order, with no loose parts to rattle, no bad rails to pound over. While the Pittsburgh rail joints are often quiet, the tracks at junctions are in a condition most injurious to the cars, and a cause of excessive noise, there being actual gaps in the rail heads over which the cars must jump. Bad track maintenance has allowed much corrugation to creep in, viz., little waves along the heads of the rails, which are both noisy and expensive. The unfortunate supplanting of magnetic brakes by air brakes will increase the flat wheel nuisance. Worn trolley wheels cause unnecessary noise overhead. Rails on curves should be greased.
The Pittsburgh Railways Company, in its latest reports, gives no figures for the cost and number of street car accidents. Such omission invites close scrutiny, and there are many dangerous features about the cars and the operation. One excellent thing in use by the company is the magnetic brake[3], which, however jerky and sudden may be the type in use in Pittsburgh, is in its latest form far safer than air brakes in every respect. Unfortunately, the company is not using this latest type, but is adopting air brakes on new cars. Air brakes are one thing on steam roads, where rails are seldom slippery and where there is usually plenty of time to stop; but for city streets and Pittsburgh grades, they are an added source of danger. The magnetic brake can now stop a car in one-third of the distance that air can, and cannot skid the wheels up to speeds of thirty-two miles an hour. It is little affected by a greasy rail, and its tremendous reserve power makes it almost impossible for a motorman to have an accident,—the hand attachment providing safety in case of an electrical breakdown. The best test of brakes yet made, which has just been completed in England, has settled these points beyond all question.
[3] A brake with which powerful magnets drag on the track and stop the wheels as well.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL CAR WITH SEVENTY-TWO SEATS. THE SAFEST TYPE IN THE WORLD, WITH THE LATEST MAGNETIC BRAKES AND AUTOMATIC WHEEL GUARDS.
LIVERPOOL DOUBLE-DECK CAR, WHICH CANNOT RUN OVER ANYONE. SIXTY-FOUR SEATS WHERE PITTSBURGH WOULD HAVE TWENTY-EIGHT.
With the best magnetic brakes, projecting fenders ought to be unnecessary. Such fenders are prohibited in Europe, as doing more harm than good. A perfect wheel guard seems really the only thing needed, and such has been found by the city of Liverpool, which has had in use for seven years the noted plow guard, which has pushed 415 persons off the track and absolutely saved people from being run over. It should be applied in some form at once on all the Pittsburgh cars. Many Pittsburgh cars have no wheel guard at all.
To take up a few more danger points: Dim headlights, due to insufficient power, are another source of risk. Gong ringing by hand, the practice in Pittsburgh, is an antiquated method especially objectionable with the magnetic brake, where the motorman must both brake and ring with the same hand. There are no power brakes on the trail cars,—a serious omission. Single truck cars are not safe on many of the sharp curves, as between Forbes street and Homestead. When rails are dirty, they should be cleaned, not sanded. The car sanders are of a type that is useless on curves. The carrying of jacks on every car is an excellent thing, which the Pittsburgh company was the first in the country to adopt. But there should also be an emergency lantern, an emergency lamp inside the cars, blocks to hold a car up, a saw, etc., as in Berlin. The storing of cars out-of-doors, as at Highland Park, results in icy steps on winter mornings, and is a shiftless practice. The Pittsburgh rule to descend dangerous grades with wheel brakes on, instead of magnetic brakes, is exactly the most dangerous thing, as has been shown again and again in England. The type of rail in use and the method of laying are very unsatisfactory, and Philadelphia standards are greatly needed. The Pittsburgh rails and their condition are certainly an anomaly in the steel center of the world.
SIGN AT FREE TRANSFER STATION, NUREMBERG, SHOWING WHERE EACH CAR-LINE GOES.
DECORATED STOPPING POST IN NUREMBERG.
NUREMBERG MUNICIPAL CAR, SHOWING ILLUMINATED ROUTE NUMBER USED FOR EACH LINE.
There are other matters about the system besides those affecting health and safety which need improvement. It is very hard for strangers to find their way around. There are seldom signs on the street to show just where cars stop, whereas in Europe every stopping place has a printed sign. The signs on the cars are often too dim to read, and half the time show only where the car came from, not where it is going to. The routes of the cars are seldom given as they should be. The Berlin sign system with its route numbers instead of confusing colors, and such completeness that no stranger need ask a question to find his way about is urgently needed. Every stopping place in Pittsburgh needs to be called out, as in Boston.
The car lights should be placed over the seats, and the glare of bare filaments avoided. If the company cannot furnish a decent voltage on all the routes, then electricity should be abandoned for lighting cars, in favor of the brighter incandescent gas or acetylene used on steam roads. Windows do not open wide enough for coolness in summer, especially on the newest cars, and they are not always well washed. English cars are cleaned every night from top to bottom, and go out as bright as new every morning. Even the trucks are daily cleaned with oil. Dirty city air or passengers are regarded in England as no excuse for dirty cars.
The immediate transit needs of Pittsburgh, then, are evidently:
First, the running of enough cars throughout the day to furnish sufficient seats at all times and stop the dangerous overcrowding.
Second, the substitution of through routes for loops with universal free transfers and a five cent fare at least within the city limits.
Third, the improvement of equipment and operation, so that there shall be more healthful conditions, more safety, less noise and more convenience.
Fourth, besides these, there should be a thorough study of present conditions, the city's growth and needs, to determine a transit policy for the future.
BERLIN CAR TRACKS, LAID IN GRASSY LAWNS, WITH FLOWER BEDS EACH SIDE. THE COMPANY'S PREFERENCE.
Before taking up the rapid transit question, however, let us consider how the improvements necessary to the existing surface system may be obtained. Throughout his administration the present mayor of Pittsburgh has tried to get things done. Vain attempts have been made to get sufficient cars run and to abolish the downtown loops, with their inconvenience to passengers, unjust fares and street congestion. Where new lines have been needed in unserved districts, the company has refused to make extensions except on the unreasonable and impossible condition of perpetual franchises without compensation to the city. Under the different franchises, large sums are due the city for car taxes, rentals and the cost of neglected paving and street cleaning, the total claimed by the city amounting to about a million dollars. The present company, while meeting some obligations the past year, has refused to pay any of these old debts, though admitting its liability for at least a part of them, and the city has brought lawsuits to recover the money. It would have been easy for Mayor Guthrie to have resorted to grandstand plays. But more important than that, he has held the company in statu quo until legal complications have been developed and are now in shape for the city to enforce its rights.
An examination of the original franchises opens up some surprising possibilities for the city. These grants were for different routes and conferred no running powers over other lines. In fact, the franchise of the Pittsburgh, Allegheny and Manchester Passenger Railway Company contains the express provision that the ordinance should not be construed to grant or confer upon any other company the right to traverse the streets. As the different companies consolidated, they neglected to obtain from the city the right to run cars over one another's lines, and to-day the Pittsburgh Railways Company is operating its whole system in a way which has been declared illegal in a recent court decision. In the Erie decision, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that, under the state constitution, no street railway company had a right to run over the tracks of another company without express municipal consent, a city having the power to impose reasonable regulations for the operation of lines under an ordinance.
If the Pittsburgh Railways Company intends to obey the laws of the state, it must either break up its system into the original car lines and operate them separately, or else it must apply to the city for a permit to legalize its present methods of operation. In giving its permission, the city could dictate its own terms, as long as they were reasonable and constitutional; and it would certainly seem reasonable to require sufficient cars and seats, the abolition of the loops, and the universal five-cent fare as in other cities. If the company would not accept a reasonable ordinance, it might threaten to break up the system, and charge the public a separate fare for each line. It would seem doubtful, however, if the courts would permit any such burden on the public, and the company would hardly attempt to abandon the unity of its system pending litigation. If it tried to do so, after any decision favorable to the city, on the ground that it could not afford to meet the city's requirements, then the courts, on injunction proceedings brought by the city, would be in position to probe the street railway finances, determine the real value of the properties and what would be a fair return on the money actually invested. This would bring out the immense net earnings of the system, absorbed in the charges on an inflated capital, and might lead to a complete reorganization of the companies, on a proper capitalization. The city appears to have just the opportunity needed to bring about the improvement of the whole transit situation, and the people of Pittsburgh should see that the desired results are gained and that no false move is made. The rights of company and investor would be looked after by the courts, while the public might not only get the long needed improvements, but also see a surplus income from their fares available for a real rapid transit system. Such an outcome would put the Pittsburgh surface system on a sound basis, and the company might be the gainer in the end.
The city has a further hold on the situation, in the fact that some of the most important franchises can be revoked for non-fulfillment of conditions. Five, at least, of the ordinances provide that any failure to comply with any of the terms may, at the option of the city councils, be held to work a revocation of the privileges granted. The failure to pay the agreed car taxes, percentage of receipts, or rentals, and to pave and clean the streets properly makes it possible for the city to declare forfeited these franchises so vital to the company. The latter would then have to apply for new privileges and the city could dictate the terms.
Further, apart, from this possible right of forfeiture, the city is secure in its right to purchase some of these railways which have been in existence twenty years or more. By exercising this option, the city would not be committed to municipal operation any more than Boston or New York, where upwards of fifty million dollars have been invested by those cities in rapid transit lines. Pittsburgh would simply own the tracks and could lease them to the present company or another company, too, if competition were desirable, and make terms which would forever prevent neglect of the public interests. The cost of purchase should not be great, as it would be fixed by appraisers appointed by the courts. The physical property would not be very valuable after the franchises had been revoked, for the tracks are all in bad condition. After purchase, the city could maintain the tracks itself, laying modern rails, and keeping the pavement repaired and clean, the rentals paying the expense.
It seems to be the consensus of opinion of eminent legal authorities that all grants of franchises for public utilities are made upon the implied condition that the corporation receiving them will properly perform its obligations by furnishing reasonable accommodations to the public; and that when a corporation has committed its property to a public use, the public has a right to require proper performance of such duties under penalty of forfeiture of the franchise.
What has been said as to the city's expressly reserved powers on certain grants may be illustrated by a summary of two franchises.
The consent of the city for the construction, maintenance and operation of the lines of the Citizens' Passenger Railway Company was given upon the following conditions, among other things:
First, to pay into the city treasury "for each car run over its road," twenty dollars per annum, for the first five years; thirty dollars per annum for the second five years and forty dollars per annum for each year thereafter.
Second, to pay into the city treasury annually three per cent of the net profits of said company for the first five years, and five per cent of the net profits of said company for each year thereafter.
Third, to keep the streets over which the road passed in good repair from curb to curb.
The ordinance further provided:
First, that "any failure to comply with" these conditions should be held to work a revocation of the franchise.
Second, that the city should have the right at the end of twenty years, by giving the company one year's notice of its intention, to acquire the road and stock by paying for the same at a rate to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers.
This term has elapsed.
The franchise of the Pittsburgh, Oakland and East Liberty Railway Company was conferred upon the following conditions, among others:
First, the payment of an annual sum upon each car run on the road.
Second, the payment of an annual sum of $200 for each year during the first five years, and $400 annually thereafter, in lieu of a percentage of profits.
Third, that the company shall keep clean and in good repair from curb to curb that portion of the streets on which the road was constructed.
The ordinance further provided:
First, any failure to comply with any of its terms might, at the option of the city councils, be held to work the revocation of the privileges herein granted; and Second, that at any time after the end of twenty years, the city shall have the right by giving one year's notice, to purchase the road at a price to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers, to be appointed by the president judge of the Quarter Sessions Court of Allegheny county.
This term has elapsed.
In considering the transit needs of the future, the first question to ask is, perhaps, does Pittsburgh really need more rapid transit? For the immediate present, if the railway company were to bring the surface system up to modern standards as suggested, it would seem as though the existing lines might be satisfactory for some time to come. A number of other large American cities are getting along without fast service, such as St. Louis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, San Francisco, etc. A radial city, with all its disadvantages, does allow a short journey home, compared with a badly developed longitudinal city, like New York. And a considerable length of time can be spent daily in travelling without harm, if conditions are agreeable, as on many suburban lines.
At the same time, the growth of Pittsburgh needs to be directed according to the best public requirements, and not left to the traction company and real estate owners to work out as they see fit. Some of the broad questions that need to be considered will be discussed later,—such as the relative location of houses to business and manufacturing; the extent to which walking should be provided for; the directions in which Pittsburgh should grow. Of the more specifically transit questions, the chief ones to settle are the routes of rapid transit lines; the type of construction; and the best way to get lines built and operated.
The suggestion has been made in two quarters that a highly desirable change in the business district would be effected if the streets could be built up to a higher level, leaving the present streets either for pipes and wires, or for heavy and slow moving traffic. Such an improvement would be of great benefit in case of the highest floods; but from a rapid transit standpoint, it would give little, if any, relief, because cars and vehicles would still be on the same level. If two traffic levels were maintained, there might have to be numerous inclines, which would be awkward with such narrow streets. Still, Pittsburgh may some time have to consider the problem of cross traffic at street junctions, and how best to abolish grade crossings of vehicles. Chicago is trying freight tunnels; New York is considering them; London has planned bridges at congested points, the cost of a single one of which has been figured as high as $3,500,000. Pittsburgh is fortunate in having so many railroad lines along the water fronts, which must reduce the trucking through the streets.
The writer has previously advocated the running of more surface cars in the business district. Not that more cars are desirable on the streets; they are simply a necessity, until at least a rapid transit line can be built, or double-deck cars be brought into use, with their great reduction in number. The ultimately desirable thing is to remove all cars from city streets which have become too congested for safety or speed. The best example of such removal is of course in Boston, with Tremont and Boylston streets. London not long since opened a subway for surface cars under Kingsway, the new avenue across the city from north to south, with no tracks on the street above.
While as yet Pittsburgh hardly needs for rapid transit purposes the removal of all surface cars downtown, still it would obviously be a great advantage in reducing accidents and giving vehicles more room. To thus relieve the streets has been one of the stated aims of the Pittsburgh Subway Company.
The plans of this company appear to provide for a subway system for surface cars, consisting of a downtown terminal loop a mile in circumference, under Oliver avenue, Liberty street, Ferry street, Third avenue, and Grant street; a main tunnel to the east, passing in a straight line under Herron Hill to Junction Hollow; and two branch tunnels extending south from the main line to Brady street and Boquet street. The company has charters for several surface lines in the East End, to feed the subway and its branches. The main subway, sooner or later, would be continued east under Center avenue and Frankstown avenue to a portal at Fifth avenue. A branch tunnel is also provided from the downtown loop, north under the Allegheny River to the Allegheny Station of the Pennsylvania lines. The subway would be built by private capital; it would pay the city a percentage of its gross receipts, and be open to the cars of other companies on reasonable terms. There would be four stations in the business district, but none beyond, except one at East Liberty. The westbound cars would thus make no stops after leaving the surface, till they arrived downtown; and the longest run of five miles would be covered in ten minutes, at an average speed of thirty miles an hour. The object of the Pittsburgh Subway Company is obviously to force the Pittsburgh Railways Company to use the tunnels, under the fear of seeing a rival surface system grow up, with faster service, and superior downtown facilities. Another aim is to divert traffic from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which does a large suburban business along its main line. The whole scheme as outlined is very attractive in many ways, and deserves careful consideration.
Perhaps the best way to test the value of the subway scheme is to take up every possible objection to it. One prominent feature of the project is the treatment of the business district as a thing which cannot be extended because of the hills to the east. So the cars would run from the downtown loop to East Liberty without a stop. There has been much discussion in Pittsburgh of spreading out the congested business district; and the fact that business has reached the court house, would suggest that the "Hump" is not the insurmountable bar to growth that it has been supposed. It has been suggested that heavy property owners and large stores are likely to oppose strongly any improvement which would lessen their growing returns. On the other hand, it is conceivable that equally powerful interests may throw their influence in an opposite direction and a rapid transit line would afford exceptional opportunities for real estate investment and branch stores. Fifth avenue or Penn avenue, or both, would seem to be the proper places for such lines to the east. While a business zone along these streets would be narrow because of the hills, the speed of cars would make up for greater distances; and many people might live on the hills between these streets and walk to their work in this zone. A subway along a street might cost somewhat more than a tunnel; but Pittsburgh can afford to have the thing well done.
PROPOSED SUBWAY.
Another feature of the subway system which seems to need consideration is the proposal to run surface cars in it. Obviously, if all the Pittsburgh Railway cars could be put underground in the business district, it would be a great advantage, as far as the street surface is concerned. But of course this would not make it any easier to get on the cars, because the loading would be restricted to four stations, instead of being at every street corner. Again, there would be about sixty car routes to be provided for, and 490 cars an hour, without allowing for any increase of cars to furnish more seats. The routes and cars would have to be divided between two tracks, so that half the cars and routes would be on each track, viz., thirty routes and 245 cars an hour. This traffic would obviously fill the subway at the outset, without any room for growth, unless double-deck cars were used. Again, it is against the new lesson of rapid transit, learned at great cost in New York and Berlin, that a rapid transit line should have no junctions and but one destination each way.
The speed proposed for the cars from the East End is very high; for the running time of ten minutes from Kelley street to downtown would require an average speed of thirty miles an hour, including the stop at East Liberty and slowdowns for two junctions. To run at such a speed would require block signals and automatic safety stops, and would limit the number of cars to about sixty an hour. To use the subway to its full capacity, either trains must be run, or else the surface cars must be limited to the low speeds found in the Mt. Washington tunnel and the Boston subway.
In a paper before the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, the engineer of the subway company spoke of running trains and not surface cars in the subway, suggesting that in time all the steam railroad passengers from the east should be transferred to the subway at East Liberty; all the passengers from the west alighting in Allegheny and at McKees Rocks, taking a subway built from the business district through Allegheny and under the Ohio River at McKees Rocks. The loop in the business district would have two tracks, with all trains running in the same direction around the circle. This development of the subway, however, evidently belongs to the future, and the running of surface cars would appear more within the bounds of possibility.
One of the most serious questions about the subway proposition is whether it would pay. The promoters answer that they are willing to take all the risk. But if Pittsburgh really needs rapid transit, can the city afford to have it depend on any $10,000,000 or $15,000,000 experiment, and wait several years to know the results? A subway, to clear expenses, has been found to require from fifteen to twenty per cent annual income on the cost. The cost of subways in this country has ranged from $1,500,000 to $3,500,000 a mile. The New York subway cost about $3,000,000 a mile equipped. To make a subway pay as far as East Liberty, would require a minimum traffic in the heaviest rush hour one way of ten thousand passengers. It might take twice or three times this number, according to the cost and the volume of slack hour traffic.
It seems a very grave question if a radiating city like Pittsburgh can support such a subway as proposed, to say nothing of a system serving adequately all parts of the city. Subways have usually turned out to be very poor investments, as many companies have learned to their cost, in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Berlin. The New York subway pays only for about half its length, a considerable part of the dividends coming out of the surplus obtained from the elevated roads. Boston can afford subways, because they are mere short links in an extensive system.
Subways have other disadvantages which must be carefully considered. They might have been flooded downtown in March, 1907. On account of the cost they can only serve a very limited territory. They are extremely noisy. In New York, they are almost unendurably hot in summer, and the air is filled with iron dust. They take long to build. They are dangerous in case of fire, eighty-seven lives being lost in the Paris disaster. If deep, as in London, many people do not like to use them, even with elevators. The London underground roads are facing a very serious proposition, several already being in a receiver's hands. If shallow, they occupy or cramp the space needed for pipes, wires, and sewers, greatly disturbing the proper arrangement of underground necessities. They put passengers below ground in a place where the sun never shines, leaving to heavy traffic the light and air of the streets. Their signal advantage, on the other hand, is that they remove the traffic altogether from the street, and do not shut out light and air from the street surface.[4]
[4] Since this report was drafted, two subway ordinances have been put before Pittsburgh councils:—
a. One for the Pittsburgh Subway Company for a franchise over the route already indicated, asking for a fifty year franchise without compensation to the city for the first ten years, and with payments of one, two, three and four per cent per year, respectively, on gross receipts during the decades following. The same parties who hold this charter, are now applying for a charter for the Pittsburgh Underground Railway Company. The two routes are identical. This charter is pending before the Rapid Transit Board of the commonwealth.
b. The other ordinance before councils provides for the construction of a municipal four-track subway for surface cars from Seventh avenue and Grant boulevard east to Center avenue and Craig street, to be built by the City Subway Company, a corporation of three trustees chosen by the city of Pittsburgh. The city will pay the interest on bonds issued by the company, and the latter will turn over to the city such rentals as it can collect from the use of the subway, endeavoring to reimburse the city in the end for all money expended. It is stated in the proposed ordinance that this subway would be the beginning of a transit system, but who would operate the system is not specified.
Ordinary elevated roads are certainly not desirable in the business part of Pittsburgh, because the streets are narrow, the buildings high; and there is still at times much smoke. There is already quite an amount of elevated freight structure, black and without ornament. It is perfectly true that an elevated road can be made practically noiseless, as notably in Paris and Berlin; and there has been no damage to property in these cities. The Berlin structure is painted white and is an ornament to the city; but the streets are much wider there than in Pittsburgh.
The prospects for satisfactory rapid transit in Pittsburgh do not appear very good, unless perhaps some form of suspended railway should meet with approval. A German type which has had eight years of practical operation at Barmen and Elberfeld, is now under consideration for Berlin. Whether it would suit Pittsburgh is a question; but it has some very interesting advantages. It would cost only about a fifth of a subway's price; so that the same expenditure of money could serve five times the area,—a vital point with a radiating city.
The cars could cross existing bridges, probably, without interfering with surface traffic. Studies of routes, structure, and costs make the suspended appear a type of railway which could thoroughly compete with the Pittsburgh Railways Company; and if competition is necessary, it must be of no uncertain kind. Its cars could reach the heights about the city, without excessive grades, and open up new territory as a subway system could never afford to. If operated in co-operation with the existing company, it would allow a large reduction of surface cars in the business district as soon as opened, and the removal of all tracks when desired. On the eight mile line in Germany, not a single passenger has been injured in eight years of operation. The suspended line, moreover, does not shut in the streets, as does the ordinary two track elevated structure. With double-deck cars as feeders, it seems to offer the cheapest, most convenient, and safest means of rapid transit.
It would seem wise, if any rapid transit line is to be built in Pittsburgh, for the city to construct and control it, as in New York, Boston, and Paris. The city would merely have to borrow the money, and could retain control of the road in a way to get adequate service. It might be desirable to put the operation into the hands of trustees, who would run the road at a minimum cost and with only a safe margin of profit, giving the public either the largest extension of rapid transit lines possible at a five cent fare, or else serving a smaller territory with a lower fare. The Brooklyn Bridge railway was operated by public trustees most successfully for a number of years, with a two and one-half cent fare.
What part the steam railroads will play in the future development of Pittsburgh depends on their own efforts. Their suburban passengers would probably find a rapid transit system more convenient, because they could reach any part of the city quickly for five cents. A terminal for such passengers, more central than the Union Station, is one of the probabilities and would afford an artery of no mean significance, but still without the other advantages of a rapid transit line. The interurban business and that along the rivers could probably be best done by the steam roads, especially if they would run a frequent and cheap service of electric cars, as is done elsewhere. The electrification of all the steam lines about the city would be a great blessing, and the city should urge and encourage the matter in every way. Till this is accomplished, much nuisance could be avoided by a shortening of the maximum length of freight trains, which could greatly reduce the noise and smoke, and, judging from the latest experience, might be more economical to the roads in the end. The whole steam railroad situation in Pittsburgh, both freight and passenger, and the disposition of freight yards need further study, and especially in comparison with Berlin where the main line has a five minute service at the slack hours, suburban branches a twenty minute service, and where the whole system is to be soon electrified at a cost of perhaps thirty-five million dollars.
Any plans for the future transit of Pittsburgh should take into consideration, not only the present conditions and arrangement of the city, but also where the growth ought to be, where the healthiest sites for houses are, and other broad questions. Transit, city planning, and housing, are all closely related; and it may be well in concluding to try to get a wider view of things.
Transit systems have grown up in modern cities because of the needs and desires of people for moving about more than they did a century ago. In the old days, when towns were small and the uses to which districts were put were not specialized as now, people could walk to their work, or else had space to keep a horse or two. As cities increased in size and compactness, the keeping of horses had to diminish, and distances grew, as well as the desires of people to go about more. Public conveyances consequently came more and more into use; while the constantly improving facilities, notably electricity, increased the tendency to ride.
It would appear that the rate of a city's growth in people depends on the amount of intercommunication, just as the intensity of some chemical processes depends on the extent to which the different elements come together. So transit is now regarded as a necessity, and one which cities are beginning to feel, whatever the basis of ownership and operation, is too vital to be exploited solely for the gain there is in it.
Passenger transportation obviously has to meet the following needs:—First, carrying people to and from work; second, carrying people about their business during working hours, including shopping; third, carrying people about on social, educational, and recreative objects. The best transit system for meeting these needs is obviously that which conquers space and time most equally for all inhabitants at the lowest cost in money, convenience, safety and health. Of course people should not do unnecessary traveling,—walking, writing, and telephoning being desirable substitutes.
In American cities the economy of walking has been too much lost sight of, chiefly in the matter of getting to and from work. The largest demand on transit systems to-day is to carry people to work and back; and yet, curiously, this ought perhaps to be the least important kind of travel. For centuries, until a very recent time, everybody walked to business, and the poorest classes as well as some of the wealthy do still. The reason why so many have to live at a distance from their work is not the mere growth of cities, but our universal disregard of scientific town planning as practiced notably in Germany. We usually crowd most of our business into one center, and then have to ride a long way to get enough room for a single house. But congestion on transit lines is just awakening us to the fact that the common radial plan for a city is neither wholly necessary nor desirable.
It would look now as though the ideal city is a longitudinal one, with factories on the leeward side, after the European plan as found in Vienna and the new city of Letchworth, England; houses on the windward side away from the smoke; and stores and offices between. The whole city is narrow enough to enable people to walk across town to and from work, their homes being opposite their place of work or business. One or more high speed longitudinal transit lines would make the length of the city no greater bar to travel than getting about our congested business districts which are so often without even adequate surface transit. The ideal of universal walking to work, were it possible, would obviously abolish the rush hour travel, the cause of so many of the worst features of American city transit.
With existing, radial growing cities, it would seem best to try to replan on the longitudinal system as far as possible, modifying the ideal to fit topography and other present conditions. A rapid transit line is the best thing with which to begin the stretching out process in a city where no such facility already exists. By rigidly limiting the heights of buildings to the standards so successful in Europe, and then in some way preserving belts of houses alongside the business district as it begins to stretch, congestion may at least be checked. Of course it is impossible at this late day to provide many single houses within walking distance of a business district, though Boston has notably done so for both rich and poor with its Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the West and North Ends.
But the conditions of Pittsburgh allow no simple alteration to fit the ideal plan. No single transit line can serve both sides of the Ohio, or the four shores of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Again, the question should be considered very carefully whether people ought to live too near the manufactories, on account of the smoke and the noise; and therefore whether the walking principle ought not to be waived in such a manufacturing region, and all the workers be transported up on the bluffs or beyond, where the air is purer, where more land is available for single houses, and where they can have quiet, healthy homes, making more efficient workers. If the smoke were not still so abundant, the fast transit lines should best lie along the rivers, with a belt of houses on the heights above. But as conditions are, the most desirable locations for houses are away to the east, north, and south of the business district, and so perhaps these are the regions which should first be made more accessible to the heart of the city.
The location of rapid transit lines in Pittsburgh obviously needs most careful study. It does not seem enough to connect East Liberty with the business district by a straight line, without serving the intervening territory. The situation needs the broadest study and outlook and the united judgment of the best minds in the city. A transit solution cannot be left to any interested company, but needs to be reached by considering the welfare of all the inhabitants, future as well as present.
[THE ALDERMEN AND THEIR COURTS]
H. V. BLAXTER ALLEN H. KERR, Collaborator MEMBERS OF THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY BAR
To fifty-nine aldermen is taken practically all the minor litigation of the four to five hundred thousand persons in Pittsburgh. To them the law entrusts all the preliminary matters connected with criminal prosecutions. To the educated public these courts are little known, perhaps because the amounts involved in litigation are small,—never over $300,—or because the proceedings are criminal in nature. But to the majority of Pittsburgh's vast army of foreign born, the squire's office is the only contact with law or justice. It is here that the wage earner, the alien, the Slav or the Lithuanian, comes first in criminal matters; it is here that the ignorant and illiterate enter their civil suits. This is the court of the people, such as it is.
Viewed thus, the aldermanic system is lifted from insignificance to rank as a vital question of municipal government. An ancient English system supplied the model, which aimed to decide small cases quickly and with substantial justice. But, as the system works out in Pittsburgh to-day, it for the most part achieves no such end and is a reproach to the community. For Pittsburgh has been a city too busy for introspection. A crowded center echoing with the thunder of steel mills, vast industries giving employment to alien laborers, the insistent cry of "tonnage" and the absorbing demands of business, have offered little opportunity for social study or civic experiment. It is not that Pittsburgh is derelict; her charities are many and generously supported, but Pittsburgh is busy, very busy, and the public have not taken time to think. Nowhere is this ignorance of home conditions more apparent than in the matter of the courts, and especially of the aldermanic courts which are to be considered here.
Before aldermen, informations or the formal charges of crime are made. Warrants for arrest issue from their offices. Hearings are held, the defendant is committed to jail, or bail is allowed. Summary convictions may be had before them, so that not only property but personal liberty is subject to their decisions. What this means can readily be understood when it is known that in 1908, 15,879 persons were incarcerated in Allegheny county.
To begin with, the whole aldermanic system is an anomaly in the growth of institutions. It is taken from the middle ages, only partly altered, cut, and fitted to modern conditions and a freer people. The origin of the office is obscured in antiquity. In Gothic times they had conservators of the peace, whose duty was, as the name implies, that of keeping the public peace; and during the troublous times when Queen Isabel deposed her husband and put Edward the Third on the throne, the King, fearing a general uprising, sent out writs of peace to all the sheriffs, and Parliament ordained that good men and true be assigned to keep the peace. At the foundation of the Colony of Pennsylvania, the office of justice of the peace was brought over from England, and became an integral part of our governmental institutions. Under successive state constitutions the power of the aldermen and justices of the peace has been gradually enlarged, and their jurisdiction greatly widened. Aldermen are elected for a term of five years. Formerly their jurisdiction was limited to amounts under forty shillings, but gradually it has been increased to $300. In cases where the amount involved is less than $5.33, the equivalent of the old forty shillings, there is no appeal from an alderman's decision. Litigants for so small an amount are in most instances very poor, and a hardship is wrought when such cases are wrongly decided. Another very radical disadvantage of this provision is that it permits the use of such tribunals for purposes of spite and oppression. A landlord recently refused to relet a tenement. An altercation followed which ended in the tenant's saying that he would get even at the squire's office. Thereupon he entered suit for five dollars for an imaginary debt. At the hearing this debt was denied by the landlord. No proof was offered that it existed; nevertheless the justice promptly awarded a judgment for five dollars, and, the amount being less than the old forty shillings, the landlord had no choice but to pay.
The very topography of Pittsburgh has influenced the growth of aldermanic litigation. The business district is crowded into a small triangle, hemmed in by two rivers. In consequence the aldermen in the four wards comprising the business section get a tremendous clientele. Furthermore the city has been redistricted and in the future there will be but twenty-seven aldermen, one for each of the new wards, instead of fifty-nine as heretofore. When it is known that some of the downtown aldermen make $12,000 a year from fees, under the present ward arrangement, an idea can be gathered of what will be the income of the aldermanship under the new districting which throws the heart of the business area, approximately the first four former wards, into one new ward. Of course ward lines are important only in the election of aldermen, for once elected their jurisdiction properly exercised extends over the whole county. A case may be put in the hands of any alderman whom the plaintiff may desire.
In appearance the average alderman's office is not prepossessing. A counter flanked by a railing, a few chairs, a safe and a number of dockets, compose the usual furniture. The floor is nearly always bare, generally dirty, while outside the appearance of the office is much that of any shop desiring customers. Often an electric sign or gaudy lettering on the building, or other similar device is employed to make the location of the office conspicuous. With few exceptions, the offices are on the lower floors, usually opening like a store directly on the sidewalk. Where the ward boundaries permit, they are put on the main thoroughfares, sometimes so close together as to be within sight of one another, which naturally results in the sharpest kind of competition. The more progressive aldermen indulge in advertising and it is a common sight to see blotters emblazoned with the name or the alderman, his address and telephone numbers, distributed among the downtown offices. Yet these are state judicial offices presiding over subordinate courts!
Each alderman has a constable who is elected at the same time and in such ways as makes the office largely political in complexion. In many offices the alderman and the constable do all the work. But in the downtown offices there are usually in addition to the alderman, a docket clerk, a writ clerk, and perhaps two deputies. The constable is not only the major domo, but usually the business getter of the outfit. It is he who mingles with the people of the ward and steers litigation in the direction of his employer. All this is to his benefit, because, like the alderman, his income is derived from fees. Such constables have often made as much as twenty dollars a day in the sections of the city settled by foreigners, but this is not the rule now, partly because the aliens are less ignorant and partly because of the influence of many national, fraternal and charitable organizations. However a conservative estimate of the income of the downtown constables at the present day would be $3,000.
The business of an alderman is to get customers, try cases, prepare informations, execute commitments and various other legal documents.
In civil cases, it follows from the very organization and jurisdiction of aldermanic courts, and the fact that the litigant may choose his tribunal, that the aldermen are often called upon for legal advice and opinions even in advance of the actual litigation. Each alderman knows that if he advises the complainant that he has no case another alderman will be consulted. If the latter advises suit the costs will go to him. As an alderman depends for his living on fees from litigation instituted in his court, it is not hard to find one who will tell you that you have a good case.
Not long ago a landlady and two boarders,—a man and his wife,—became involved in a teapot tempest, during the course of which the landlady pointed a revolver at her boarders. A squire was consulted, who advised an information for surety of the peace. The proceeding under an act of assembly for pointing firearms would perhaps have been proper, but there was clearly no case of surety of the peace. The case came up for hearing and after a long dissertation couched in legal verbiage the squire pronounced his judgment that the case be discharged and the costs divided. The plaintiff, who was represented by an attorney, immediately refused to pay and asked the squire what he was going to do about it (by act of assembly execution cannot issue for costs alone). The squire was nonplussed, and called in his constable. After a whispered consultation, he announced that he had reconsidered and that his final judgment was that the case be discharged and the costs put on the defendant. By this time the defendant had got her cue. She refused to pay, and asked the squire what he was going to do about it. Another whispered consultation followed while the squire scratched his head in perplexity. Another reconsidered judgment was given, this time that the case be discharged and the costs put on the county.
Not only do the aldermen give advice concerning prospective cases, but they solicit business and it is very common for them to hold themselves out as collecting agencies. Some aldermen who make a specialty of such work have a printed form reading:
Claim against you for $________ has been put in my hands for collection. Pay at once and save yourself costs.
If the claim is paid without suit a percentage charge is made for the service; if the defendant ignores the notice the alderman will enter suit. In short, we have here the anomaly of a state judicial officer whose living depends on the business he can drum up, and who can be both counsel, judge and prosecutor. From this it results that when a case is brought in an alderman's court, the alderman, the judge, considers himself in the employ of the plaintiff.
At a recent hearing before an alderman, who is without exception one of the most upright and efficient in the city, the evidence of the plaintiff was very uncertain while that of the defendant was clear and convincing. The squire "reserved judgment," which means that he did not wish to give his decision in the presence of both parties. The case had been conducted by an attorney who controlled considerable aldermanic business, and this attorney not long after reaching his office was called to the telephone by the alderman who said in substance:
"Now look here Mr.——, if you think you ought to get that money in that case of yours I will pay it myself, but I really cannot find for the plaintiff because I honestly think the defendant has a good defense." Only an incident, but what a flood of light it throws on the attitude of the alderman toward the plaintiff.
Few cases are decided otherwise than in favor of the plaintiff. Exactly what proportion can never be known, because our courts have decided that the dockets of aldermen are private records and not open to inspection by the public. One judge on the Common Pleas Bench, a man who has wide experience in such matters, when asked if he thought that as much as one per cent of the cases are decided other than in favor of the plaintiff, replied, "No, not nearly." As a matter of fact judgment is so universally given for the plaintiff that a defendant who has had any previous experience, does not take the trouble to appear at the hearing, but if he desires to contest the matter, takes an appeal from the alderman's decision.
It is a wise requirement of law that a plaintiff must make out his case affirmatively, proving all the matters essential to constitute liability on the part of the defendant. It is a matter of common knowledge, however, that aldermen give judgment on evidence of the most meager kind. A copy of a bill, its correctness unsworn to, left with the alderman is a common way of obtaining judgment for goods sold and delivered. Suits may be entered before more than one alderman, and in such cases although but one execution may issue, a defendant can be harried by threats and a multiplicity of summonses. In such cases, aldermen and their constables although legally without power, may when in league with unscrupulous creditors, be the cause of the greatest injustice. Cases have been known where constables, although knowing that a levy could not be made, would, nevertheless, frequently visit the house of the defendant, post notices of sale, demand admittance in the middle of the night, and in many other petty ways harass the defendant in the hope of forcing the payment of their costs. It is well known that much hardship is done in Pittsburgh through the instrumentality of what are known as "loan sharks," who lend small amounts at usurious rates of interest, taking as security assignments of future wages, bills of sale of household furniture, and other personal belongings. The defendants in such cases, although they are protected by law, are usually poor and ignorant, have little knowledge of legal procedure and fall an easy prey to the threats of such unscrupulous creditors. It can readily be understood how much such usurers are assisted by unscrupulous aldermen and constables.
Primary in importance to the alderman is the problem of getting his costs. Not long ago a well-to-do man residing in the residential section bought some cider from a huckster and ordered some apples. The cider was left in the barrel and the apples were to be brought the following day. When they came they were refused because of their poor quality. The huckster in a rage demanded the barrel in which he had left the cider, although both the apples and the cider had been paid for. He was told he could have it in a day or two, as soon as it could be emptied. He left to seek the advice of a squire who advised him to make an information for larceny by bailee (the technical term meaning larceny of goods temporarily in one's possession). He did so and a warrant was issued for the defendant's arrest. He was arrested and appeared at the alderman's office with bondsmen. Bail was refused by the alderman on one pretext and another and the defendant was told that if he would pay the costs the alderman would see to it that the whole matter was dropped. Before the hearing the squire had gone to the defendant's business office and told him that if he would pay the costs the matter could be fixed. Needless to say, rather than spend a night in jail while new bail was being secured, the victim paid the costs, preferring to be mulcted a few dollars than to incur the notoriety and annoyance of carrying the matter to a higher court.
Under such manipulation it is not difficult to see how large a volume of litigation may be instituted in the aldermanic courts. Of course this case is exceptional and there are many aldermen who never seek business or advise frivolous litigation, but even without it the volume of business is incredibly large. Some of the downtown aldermen have had as many as 500 civil cases brought in their courts in a month. Of course if there is any real controversy involved the case is appealed, but in practically all the cases the costs are paid either on appeal or by execution, the law making costs a first lien on the fund realized. A compilation of the costs paid in three hundred cases shows the average costs in each case to be $3.74. Formerly these costs had to be paid before the appeal could be taken, but by a late act an appeal can be taken without payment of the costs, if satisfactory bail be given for debt, interest and costs. However, the act works little benefit, because the alderman is the judge of the sufficiency of the bail and has it in his power to reject bondsmen until it is quicker and easier to pay the costs than bother over the allowance of bail. So that, as a matter of fact, the costs are always paid on appeal. Taking the downtown aldermen's offices where the cases sometimes number 500 in a month, the income from fees would be about $1,800 a month, which after allowance for fixed charges would leave a monthly profit to these downtown aldermen of about $1,000 in civil suits alone.[5]
[5] The costs reckoned above are without execution, which when issued would swell the costs by a couple of dollars, making an average of probably six dollars.
To these fees, to form some estimate of the income derived from some alderman-ships, should be added the costs paid in criminal cases which an average of one hundred cases taken at random from the criminal docket of a prominent downtown alderman show to be $4.15 in each case. In criminal cases, if the defendant is discharged the alderman's costs are paid by the county. This procedure further adds to the revenue of the office. In 1907 the county paid to the various aldermen and justices of the peace the sum of $17,884.40 for costs in such discharged criminal cases, and to sundry officers in such cases $8,840.05, or a total of $26,724.45. To one alderman alone, having an office in a downtown section largely settled by Negroes and the poorer classes, $1,711.55 was paid in 1907 by the county as costs in such discharged criminal cases brought in his office. For miscellaneous work, criminal and otherwise, fees are paid in accordance with a schedule set by a recent act of assembly, that of 1893. Some of the main items are given below.
| Aldermen's Fees. | |
| For information or complaint on behalf of the commonwealth | $.50 |
| Docket entry on behalf of the commonwealth | .25 |
| Warrant | .50 |
| Hearing in criminal cases | .50 |
| Taking bail in criminal cases | .50 |
| Entering judgment | .50 |
| Discharge of jailer | .35 |
| Hearing parties | .50 |
| Holding inquisition under landlord and tenant act | 2.00 |
| Entering action in civil case | .25 |
| Summons | .25 |
| Entering satisfaction | .15 |
| Written notice in any case | .25 |
| Execution | .30 |
| Transcript of judgment | .05 |
| Return of proceedings on certiorari | 1.00 |
| Receiving the amount of judgment: | |
| If not over $10 | .25 |
| $10 to $40 | .50 |
| $40 to $60 | .75 |
| $60 to $100 | 1.00 |
| Assignment and making record indenture | .50 |
| Marrying each couple and certificates | 5.00 |
| Constables Fees. | |
| Executing warrant | $1.00 |
| Conveying defendants to jail | 1.00 |
| For executing bail piece | 1.00 |
| Executing search warrants | 1.00 |
| For serving subpoena | .50 |
| For arresting on a capias | 1.00 |
| For notifying plaintiff where defendant has been arrested | .25 |
| For advertising sale of goods | 1.00 |
| For holding appraisement where exemption is claimed | 4.00 |
| For attending election | 3.00 |
| For travelling expenses in the performance of any duty required by law, for each mile travelled | .06 |
It is evident that the office is lucrative, and lucrative just in proportion to the ability of the alderman to get customers. The anomaly extends to every branch of the office,—a state judicial officer with an income depending on the volume of the litigation instituted in his office.
It was a wise provision of the Legislature that permitted appeals by right, rather than by allowance, providing the amount involved is over $5.33. Practically all cases therefore involving any real controversy are appealed. A defendant is given twenty days in which to take his appeal. The procedure is simple, a transcript or copy of the alderman's record is obtained, the costs paid or bail given for debt, interest and costs, and the transcript then filed in the higher court where the case is begun over again just as if it had not been already tried. As the discretion of the alderman in allowance of bail is a factor, the costs are generally paid at the time the appeal is taken. In any case, they must be paid then or when the appeal is disposed of. If they are not paid at the time the appeal is taken, when the case is disposed of in the higher court, the alderman's costs are kept out of the amount realized and may be demanded by the alderman, his transcript being the evidence from which the higher court determines what disposition has been made of the costs. Cases have come to the writer's attention where although the costs were paid at the time of taking the appeal yet the alderman's transcript has been endorsed, "Costs not paid by defendant." If such a transcript were filed without the detection of the error, upon final disposition of the case the alderman would be in a position to demand his costs a second time from the prothonotary of the higher court and receive double pay.
Remembering that every case appealed from an alderman is retried, with costs to be paid over again, it is interesting to consider how much time is occupied by the Common Pleas Courts in such review work. In Allegheny there are four Common Pleas Courts. As the courts are separate and independent, litigation may be commenced in any one of them. So great has been the litigation in recent years that all these courts are far behind in their work, two being at least four years behind, the others at least two. Taking at random a term,—three months' business,—in one of the courts which is four years behind, we find 1,342 docket entries. It would be safe to say that about 1,000 entries would represent new suits, which should in due course result in jury trials. Of these 322 were cases appealed from aldermen, i. e. work already done and paid for, to be done over again. In these cases counting the costs actually paid we have a total of $1,322.08, and this in one term of one court. There are four terms to each court and four courts. The time occupied in retrying appeals from aldermen can be appreciated. In 1897 it was estimated that one-fourth of the work of the Common Pleas Courts consisted of the re-trial of such appeals with an aggregate of about $12,000 paid for costs in such cases prior to their determination in the Common Pleas Courts. From the figures previously given it appears that the proportion is about the same now although the increase in the volume of litigation has swelled the costs to about $15,000.
Taking four consecutive terms, one at each court, we find 667 alderman's appeals in the two courts which are four years behind, and 105 alderman's appeals in the two courts which are two years behind. By law an affidavit is required with each appeal that it is not taken for delay, but the above figures indicate that this oath is disregarded. So much for civil matters, where only money and time are involved. It is the criminal side of the alderman's court where liberty is involved, that arouses greatest sympathy. Summary convictions, or proceedings under special statutes where the aldermen can impose a fine and commit to jail on default, and proceedings for the determination of the existence of the essentials of a crime, comprise the criminal jurisdiction of an alderman just as it stood in the reign of Edward III in the fourteenth century.
Criminal proceedings generally are instituted by a warrant of arrest issuing upon a complaint under oath,—an information. From this information made before the alderman a warrant issues on which the accused is taken into custody. A hearing must then promptly be held; and the alderman decides whether there is sufficient evidence to hold the defendant for court; if so the prisoner is held for bail if the offense is bailable, or committed to jail in default. The alderman must then within five days return a transcript of this proceeding to a clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions, this court being the criminal court of the county. Considerable hardship may be done by the failure of the alderman to return his record within the five days required by law; cases have been known where through neglect prisoners have been kept in jail a month before the matter has been brought to the attention of the district attorney's office and the alderman made to produce his papers. It will thus be seen that although the alderman acts in this respect only as a committing magistrate, yet on his decision rests whether the prisoner be committed to jail; for although the offense may be bailable the question of bail in the case of poor people is very material. The writer has known cases where bail has been set at $1,000 on an information for assault and battery.
The power to arrest is a very important one which under any circumstances should be exercised only with sound discretion. One constable in Pittsburgh arrested a foreigner at night. Having no warrant he took him to an alderman's office, where he found the alderman out, and pretentiously used the telephone to locate him, with no results. Then substantially the following conversation took place:
"Now —— you, I will be the squire myself," taking his place behind the railing.
"How much money have you?" The prisoner was found to have a few dollars on his person.
"Well you are fined $—— (the exact amount the prisoner had with him) and discharged. Now get out."
The fine was pocketed and the prisoner permitted to go. It is probable that the constable was drunk, but the abuse is only the more apparent.
In another case an educated German was studying manufacturing methods and spent much time in the neighborhood of the steel mills. One evening he saw an alderman's constable, whom he knew by sight, on a street car handcuffed to a prisoner. With Teutonic curiosity he asked the details of the case. The constable, who was under the influence of liquor, beckoned the German over to him and deftly handcuffed him also. The German, of course, thought the affair a little joke. He was, however, taken to jail, but refused by the warden, because there was no warrant for his confinement. The constable then took the prisoner outside, and when they reached Diamond street asked him how much money he had. The German really had $600 or $700 on his person, but replied that he had only a few dollars, producing some bills and small change. The constable told him he would release him for $3.50. This the German paid and got his liberty. The latter was leaving the city the next day and, as he was a steel expert representing a foreign government, could not possibly remain to prosecute the constable. It is not likely that such abuses are common, but their existence indicates the possibilities of abuse of a system which provides for no form of supervision.
There are costs connected with all these criminal matters. These costs the defendant if guilty is supposed to pay. But the fact that an alderman entertains a frivolous information does not prevent his being paid for his work. If the case is discharged the county pays. If the prisoner is committed and the case ignored by the grand jury the county pays. The percentage of bills ignored by the grand jury is sometimes as high as seventy-two per cent. This means that seventy-two per cent of persons brought before the alderman have either been put in jail or held for bail on evidence not sufficient for the basing of an indictment. In all such cases the aldermen are secured in their costs, and as we have seen in 1907 the costs returned in such discharged criminal cases to the various aldermen and justices of the peace and sundry officers amounted to $26,724.45. Taking the year 1907, we find that for the support of the criminal court the county was put to a net expense of about $150,000. By law aldermen must pay over to the county all or sometimes a proportion of fines collected depending on the special act of assembly. These fines are supposed to be voluntarily accounted for, and up to very recently very little attempt was made to test the accuracy of such returns. In 1896, however, the county controller inaugurated a system of auditing the criminal dockets of aldermen for the better ascertainment of the county's share of such fines. The returns that year increased seventy-five per cent and have been increasing steadily ever since, although in 1907 the total amount returned to the controller in such cases was but $3,714.20.
In brief the whole aldermanic system is defective. At the threshold we find an office the income of which is derived from fees, depending upon the volume of business. Plaintiffs are customers, the more the merrier. Impartiality is impossible, and decision on merits almost unheard of. The fee system, which causes the injustice and corruption, has come down to us from colonial times, a relic of the days when the public purse was too lean to permit paying salaries to minor judicial officers. From a wise public economy this fee system has become, with the growth of the country, a source both of injustice and of extreme expense to the public at large. It should have been abandoned long ago, but through the indifference of the public and the political influence of the aldermen it remains and flourishes.
The second radical defect of the aldermanic system is that the office is mixed with politics. An effort was made a few years ago to abolish the aldermanic courts, and it is a matter of history how sudden a death the movement met at the state capital. One of the judges of the county bench in discussing the matter recently expressed the opinion that no act of assembly could be passed to remedy the situation, because of the political influence of the aldermen. It has been the boast of this country that the judiciary is not swayed by politics, but here in the subordinate courts we have a branch of the judiciary so steeped in politics that the squire's office as a campaign center and a place of political organizing rivals the saloon.
Third, we have the almost ludicrous case of judicial officers who with noteworthy exceptions are not learned in the law, are sometimes uncouth, generally ignorant, and have made their mistakes, not only in law, but in grammar, a source of constant lampooning. These are proverbial. The grave decisions of the higher courts that aldermen are state judicial officers presiding over judicial courts has a flavor of irony.
Fourth, the geographical distribution of these courts, and their concurrent jurisdiction, permit plaintiffs by taking their cases to the outlying wards to use aldermanic courts for purposes of annoyance and spite, permit competition among the aldermen, and result in a general demoralization.
We are driven to three conclusions: that the aldermanic system as found in Pittsburgh is always extravagant, that it is generally inefficient, that it is often corrupt.
Were the minor litigation handled by an efficient tribunal, not only would respect for law among the masses be restored, but the county courts would be relieved of a considerable portion of their work, and thus be enabled to clear their crowded calendars. This would remedy at one stroke an abuse, and solve a problem which occupies the attention of the whole bench and bar.
Pittsburgh is not alone in this problem. Conditions in Chicago a few years ago were similar. Their justice of the peace system had outgrown its justification, had become corrupt and woefully inefficient. Nothing had been done because of the political power of the justices and the necessity of an amendment of the state constitution. But the people took up the problem in a way that brought something about. The state constitution was amended, a municipal court organized, and as a result Chicago, in an incredibly short time, got rid of most of the evils of the old system. The Chicago solution was a municipal court of a distinctive type. A chief justice and twenty-seven associate judges with salaries, preside over a court having branches in the chief centers of the city. The court in its first six months disposed of 40,610 cases, of which but ninety-two were carried to the State Appellant Court.
The Pittsburgh problem is that of creating a system along lines which would serve Pittsburgh as well or better, and which would link efficiency with expedition, impartiality and economy,—a system which would obtain immediate justice for the poor and the uninformed, and would remedy the overworked condition of the county courts. Such a system would save the public thousands of dollars a year.
[THE CHARITIES OF PITTSBURGH]
FRANCIS H. McLEAN
SECRETARY FIELD DEPARTMENT FOR ORGANIZED CHARITY, CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE
The city of Pittsburgh at the time of this survey possessed six private relief societies which dealt with more than 1,000 families a year each; three which dealt with between 500 and 1,000 families, and a Department of Charities whose cases numbered over 1,000. In addition, relief was given to a number of individuals by some of the settlements, by the probation officers, and by private groups. The number relieved or the amount of material relief were not ascertained and could not be in less than from one to three years. It has developed also that other associations, whose original purposes were of a different character, some purely educational, have had smaller or larger funds to use for relief. In the summer of 1908 requests for information were sent to 422 churches. Of these sixty-one replied and of this number sixty reported that they gave relief. The more one went into this investigation, the more one appreciated the impossibility of concretely recording the number of organizations dealing in material relief. Without in the least attempting to theorize, but drawing the obvious conclusion, it may be said that Pittsburgh's primary charitable impulses to give to the poor were being disintegrated because there was no sufficient relation between the groups and no feeling of joint responsibility.
In presenting a rough picture of the whole charitable field in Pittsburgh it is doubtless necessary to remind those who read this that, if the survey had been undertaken in another city, conditions similar in many respects would have been found. Though in certain directions better co-ordination would be found, and in certain other directions developments which are not here present, the fact remains that in all our cities charitable societies simply "grew." Taken in the large there are gaping rents and holes, discordant colors and bad cloth in the fabric of each city's garment. Without the repression of a single individual impulse of the right sort, the writer seriously questions whether eventually we shall not have to apply the rigorous precepts of town planning to the work of proper co-ordination and systematization of charities.
Coming to medical care and nursing, the city on October 1, 1908, had fourteen general and seven special hospitals, including two supported by the city for contagious diseases. Fourteen of these reported a total property valuation of $6,848,339; nineteen a bed capacity of 2,268. Thirteen reported their number of free patients for the previous fiscal year as 10,135, the cost of maintenance of these free patients as $339,518. The capacity will soon be increased. Twelve of the above hospitals maintained dispensaries. In addition there were three dispensaries independent of hospital management. One of the three reported patients to the number of 1,955 for one year, another 5,647, the third, a state dispensary for tubercular patients, at the time of the Survey, had not completed a year's work. A valuation of the property could not be obtained. Not included above is the tuberculosis camp maintained by the Department of Charities at the county institutions at Marshalsea.
Nine agencies provided nurses to visit the homes of the poor. Of these three were distinct organizations, one only being chartered; two were carried by settlement house associations, two as departments of church work, one by a religious order, and one by a school alumnæ association.
So far as observations go the specialized work itself was well done. Yet the nursing associations may be specifically accused of such failure of co-ordination that the nurses were constantly crossing one another's tracks, visiting the same families, instead of having worked out, jointly, a district plan.
The welfare of children is of course involved in the agencies named above. In addition there are no less than forty and possibly more institutions for their care. For the especial oversight of children within family circle influences, there is the Juvenile Court Association, two playground associations, and the Children's Aid Society of Allegheny County. These, and other agencies are described in the special article on children.
For the joint care of mothers and children there are six fresh air homes and six day nurseries.
There are ten institutions to provide temporary shelter, principally, for both men and women. The general intention of these agencies is to set upon their feet people who are without immediate home ties and so return them to normal conditions.
Coming to the aged where the fair chance may consist simply in providing suitable institutional care, we find for them no less than eight homes, exclusive of the care provided in the city institutions of Pittsburgh located at Marshalsea and Claremont (formerly a part of the municipality of Allegheny).
Six rescue homes for unfortunate women next come into the field of observation.
Outside of the necessary care provided by public moneys, there would seem to be very little private provision for the care of defectives, there being for this class only one institution, a home for epileptics.
A public wash and bath association, as well as a widows' home association, provide other forms of self-help to women particularly. The former furnishes women with tubs and driers to use for the washes which produce income. The latter lets nineteen houses with a total of 110 rooms at a small rental to the families of widows with limited means, thus providing pleasant sanitary quarters in a good neighborhood. It is significant of the confusion prevailing that even this last association has developed special relief funds of its own.
A legal aid society has lately been organized.
To this point we have been enumerating associations which, while possessing social purposes, have embodied in their fundamental aims some form of direct relief, material or otherwise, to the individual. There are other agencies purely for social reform which should be cataloged. These associations are primarily concerned with certain forms of so-called preventive philanthropy. The Civic Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the six settlements, the tuberculosis league, the child labor association, have all dealt with specific social problems, to say nothing of the endeavors of the Health Bureau in fighting improper drainage, bad housing and preventable disease and of the city administration in struggling for a better water supply and the diminution of typhoid fever.
While both the child agencies and the social reform agencies last cataloged find their proper positions in other lines of the Survey, it is necessary that they be included in this bird's eye view of the whole charity organism.
Drawing closer now to the organism from our bird's eye view, we observe four plainly marked divisions. The classification here made is not one which appears in any directory of charities but it is one which is peculiarly adapted to a survey of a field. A different analysis would be required for other kinds of study. We find then four lines of activity: (1) Treatment of Families in their Homes, (2) Neighborhood Aid, (3) Indoor Relief, (4) Social Aid.
By (1) we refer not only to material relief but also to all other forms of aid, medical, legal, advisory, in fact to any dealing with individual families in their homes, whether the treatment be mental, moral, physical or environmental. It is with this group that this study deals. By (2) we refer to the satisfaction of the needs of neighborhoods rather than of individuals: to the general activities of settlements, of bath houses, etc., so far as those activities are not manifested in direct civic and social reforms. Of course (3) refers to all forms of institutional care, temporary or permanent,—for children or adults. Number (4) refers to all agencies or activities for civic or social reform. The last three groups are considered in detail by other contributors to the work of the general survey.
In Pittsburgh as in other cities the philosophy of individualized charity still holds strongly its position. Individualized charity as against social charity involves the idea that what one does concerns only the doer and the "done to." That necessarily associated with charity is the function of umpire and director has occurred only to the larger societies. In the three last fields of our classification everything tends towards organization of a public character. The very end to be obtained, whether it be to provide hospital care, baths or child labor legislation, requires the co-operation of many people and with co-operation and the more or less resultant publicity the organizers must inevitably sense some sort of public responsibility. In the treatment of families in their homes, however, no such fundamental need of publicity exists. Therefore it is that many people, having perceived human suffering, without thought of the importance of co-relation, of adequate knowledge, or of umpiring, took the easy means of giving money and food and clothing without recognition of anything beyond. Thus, possibly hundreds of individuals and groups are serving simply as distributors of material things. It is true that one of the relief associations maintained a registration system by which people might learn what others were doing for a family, but the information was concerned mostly with the giving or withholding of material relief. More than that, it can scarcely be said that this registration system was sufficiently advertised or advertised with sufficient continuity. Even in communities where a charity organization society continuously advertises its registration system, there is still revealed a wide crudeness of thought which is crippling to any sort of decent social progress. In the city where the confidential exchange of information between societies has been best developed it is a fact that scarcely more than a score of churches register regularly. By not doing so the churches everywhere have put themselves in the wrong, they have not recognized the very sacred and high social function which is involved and which so vitally concerns the social welfare. For it will be observed that there is nothing in the recognition of the high social function which favors the centralization of relief work of any sort. It means only that there shall be a working out together of the family problems and an estimation of the remedies to be applied.
Both with the smaller groups and with the larger societies the lack of co-operation has resulted in rather confused umpiring and in the application of wrong remedies. For instance it has been revealed that able-bodied men, with families, have been aided through the public charities department. What they needed and should have had was the careful attention of some private society which would bend every energy to provide work for them. Whatever conditions were responsible for the unemployment of these men (at a time when there was no particular industrial depression) there was only one way of treating them so that their own sense of initiative would not be lost. That was through one of the several private agencies to provide absolutely necessary amounts of relief to each man while pushing him into work. But with certain striking exceptions each one of the agencies was working along irrespective of the activities of others.
Few societies felt that to be brought in touch with a family should mean the acceptance of the responsibility for furnishing or securing the total necessary amount of relief, material or otherwise, which might be required.
As a field investigator has written:
Previous to the organization of the Associated Charities in February, 1908, no center of information existed, and there was practically no attempt at co-operation among the different relief agencies. Indeed, it was tacitly understood, if not openly expressed, that families applying for aid to any agency would go to others. One city official expressed the feeling when he said, "Of course, they go to other societies; we don't give them enough to live on." The shape of the city made communication between the different districts often very difficult in the days before the telephone, and habits formed then are not wholly outlived. The main thoroughfares follow the general direction of the two rivers. These become widely separated by high hills as they extend back from the business district on the "Point," and often one must either go a long way round or climb over to get from one section to another. It was very easy for a family to have its rent paid by a church, to get groceries from the city charities, to secure a nurse if needed, besides miscellaneous aid from one or more societies and charitably inclined individuals without any one of these organizations or persons knowing that another was helping.
From May 1, 1908, to September 20, 1908, the Associated Charities investigated 216 families. Of these thirty were "out-of-town" cases and twelve were false addresses, leaving 174 cases tabulated for comparison. The following shows the number of these cases duplicated by different societies and is probably a fair sample of the overlapping constantly going on:
| No. of cases helped by | 11 societies | 2 |
| No. of cases helped by | 7 societies | 2 |
| No. of cases helped by | 6 societies | 3 |
| No. of cases helped by | 5 societies | 17 |
| No. of cases helped by | 4 societies | 12 |
| No. of cases helped by | 3 societies | 20 |
| No. of cases helped by | 2 societies | 23 |
| Total | 79 |
A more thorough investigation than was possible with the limited number of workers would have shown that many of these cases were also receiving aid from one or more churches or individuals.
It should be remembered that this comparatively small list of duplication, only covers the cases where actual investigations were made by the society itself and not the many duplications revealed in the registering of from 7,000 to 9,000 cases. The reason why no tabulations were made of these was that, owing to the incomplete registration, the returns could represent but a very incomplete set of facts much less than in the case of the families actually seen.
Duplication of relief without thorough investigations, it need hardly be said, may mean one of two things. It may mean in one instance the dowering of a family which needs something else than financial aid, or it may mean, in another, the inadequate dowering which compels an otherwise decent family to beg from different quarters, thus inculcating the begging habit. It is not an unjustifiable theory to advance that it probably meant the one just as often as it meant the other in the Pittsburgh field because there had not been, previous to the coming of the Associated Charities, those frank and informal conferences between workers in the different societies, which alone can bring about that joint planning for the same families which is not only economic but just and not only just, but humane.
Every charity organization society in the country can match these stories of the evils resulting from the lack of a feeling of complete responsibility, which means inevitably unfair umpiring and often no direction at all. For how can there be direction when not all that is being done is known, and when the manner and the character of the remedies are held secret. The Associated Charities workers do not claim that with their presence the uncooperative effects disappear as at the touch of a wand, but that means to bring about complete and, if need be, joint responsibility for doing the right and complete thing for each family is furnished through their offices as meeting places and neutral ground.
The great weakness in the treatment of families in their homes, other than in medical and nursing care, is in the lack of thorough knowledge regarding the individual causes of conditions, the individual characteristics and connections and resources (other than material) of families, and a planning upon this knowledge. There is no need to draw illustrations from the Pittsburgh field because they can be drawn from every city, even where a greater degree of co-operation has been developed.
There is the instance of the aged mother, once a successful boarding house keeper, assisted by a society to re-establish herself in this business though her increasing infirmities doomed the project to failure. This failure brought not only the mother but her widowed daughter (herself in poor health) and two children into the direst of situations. Then it was found that the money had actually been thrown away because a certain well-to-do-relative in another city had not been followed up. The clue which led in his direction had been covered up during a hurried investigation. When he was informed through correspondence of the situation he immediately made provision for the mother in his own home and for the temporary care of the others until the daughter recovered her health.
There is the instance of a man and wife, the man apparently recovering from tuberculosis. No careful physical examination was made either of the husband or wife. Various attempts at finding employment for the husband were made but he began to fail. Then suddenly the wife's condition became alarming and it was discovered that she was in a more advanced stage of the disease than her husband. Meantime the couple had not been assisted in tracing the whereabouts of the husband's parents, supposed to be well-to-do. In the end, fortunately, the couple themselves received word from the parents who were in California prepared to receive the family (which included three young children) and to provide care for the sufferers and if the worst came to give a home to the children.
There are the many instances, where material relief has been given to sickly families and the improper sanitation of the neighborhood or the imperfect disinfection of the houses, the causes of the conditions, have not been investigated and rectified.
There are the instances where a family, left as the result of an industrial accident without its male bread winner, has not had the kind of assistance which would enable it to secure the proper settlement with the particular industrial plant in which the death occurred.
There are the instances where the wayward boy has not been given the specialized training which might have turned him into an interested workman with a constantly increasing salary.
There are the instances where widows have been allowed to carry too heavy burdens and where, unknowingly, children have been put illegally to work, through holes in the laws which should be blocked up.
There are instances where with the failure to see the male bread winners the whole moral and physical condition of the families has rotted because shiftlessness and intemperance have been allowed to run riot.
There are the instances where endless evil has developed when the most hardened of beggars, because of their very vociferousness, have been permitted to set an example of easy living to the honest and toiling people in a whole community.
There are the instances where material relief has not been followed by agencies for the development of a better family life: better cooking, better home keeping, a larger fund of recreation, more harmony, better individual development, more thrift. In other words, such a development that there need not again be descent below normal living.
In Pittsburgh as elsewhere there has been too much reliance upon visits to the families and upon a superficial sizing up of conditions. As a result there has been too little development of treatment beyond the mere giving or withholding of material relief and of medical and nursing relief. Notable exceptions there are, but on the whole it can but be said that material relief alone, and that in many instances by no means adequate, has bulked too large. The same must be said of outdoor relief everywhere. To-day it requires as much attention for its right development as any other field of social effort.
It cannot be said that the outdoor relief agencies of Pittsburgh have been as effective as educators of the community and directors of its charitable impulses as they would have been with proper co-operation. On their own initiative they are now putting an amount of effort, and brains, and heart into the work of co-operation which assures far more definite results when the new order has established itself. For instance, it would have been possible, with proper co-ordination, for the relief agencies to gather a vast mass of data regarding dependency wrought or deepened by two social evils to which Pittsburgh is prone, the prevalence of typhoid fever and the number of uncompensated industrial accidents.
It was not possible for those engaged in this survey to obtain any satisfactory data as to the approximate number of applications for aid, due, superficially at least, to these two causes. They have also been unable to obtain reliably complete data regarding the prevalence of tuberculosis in the families to which a helping hand has been extended. Nor could data regarding centers of infection and probable inciting causes of this disease be obtained. It was not possible to ascertain in how many instances physically weakened young men and women could trace as one of the causes of their condition, too early labor for wages. It was not possible to learn in how many families the mental backwardness of the children could be traced to physical condition. Nor, it must again be re-emphasized, do the relief agencies of other cities live up to their responsibilities in this direction. There have been many cities visited by the writer where long established charities, with fairly complete records and with a covering of practically the whole field, have not held in compact shape the illustrations to furnish the background which might cause people to hearken more quickly than anything else. A society, which among other activities, maintained a tuberculosis committee, was unable even to state the number of families, with whom it had come in contact, in which cases of tuberculosis had been discovered. Another city, where there was tolerably good co-operation, and where there had been considerable interest manifested in the housing problem, could not tell from its records, just where in certain specified neighborhoods the most unsanitary houses were located. The writer in this case felt personally responsible so that his position as critic must not be misunderstood.
To put it plainly the Survey has only revealed again that in the whole field of outdoor relief there must be a deeper realization of the fact that as umpires in the discrimination of causes, as workers in the right forms of treatment, and as educators in revealing true conditions, there is a very heavy responsibility which all who in any way deal with the dependent or neglected in their homes, must feel. It is because their work brings them into the homes that the responsibility is the greater.
Credit is due to the devoted services of many of the workers in Pittsburgh for their own self-sacrifices in order to do satisfactory work. They themselves felt the limitations which the environment of isolation had brought about and they had determined effectively to break the isolation. They alone know the amount of thoroughly good work which has been done in the past. Nor must it be forgotten that during those days of isolation the Association for the Improvement of the Poor steadily maintained a registration system which was used by not a few societies. Illustrations of thoroughly adequate treatment along the lines of material and other relief may be found in this association as well as of others. The idea of co-operation and adequate treatment was there but it required development through united action.
Still considering particularly those agencies brought into the families of the poor because of material needs, we can get a much clearer picture of the actual policies involved in their work by an examination of their methods. A description of the modes of procedure of the more important societies will therefore find its place here:
City Department of Charities: Relief in the homes is given in groceries, coal and shoes. The method of distribution varies slightly in the two offices: In Pittsburgh baskets containing flour, ham, potatoes, coffee, sugar and soap, valued at two dollars retail price, but costing the department less are given once in two weeks, while on the North Side orders are given on local dealers for the same amount, two dollars. Applicants come to the offices for baskets and stand in line to secure them; among them children were noticed daily. All the cases are supposed to be investigated by a visitor, and the findings reported to the examiner, who decides whether relief shall be given or not. No systematic re-investigation is made and a case continues to receive aid indefinitely although as many cases as possible are dropped at the end of the year.
Society 1: Material relief is given in practically the same way as by the city charities, though the amounts are not so uniformly fixed. With exceptions the work however deals largely with the basic needs of families. Special attention is given to some tuberculosis cases. There is investigation by field workers.
Society 2: Only general information possible. Average of expenditure to each applicant was a little less than two dollars. Instances were cited of payment of tuition, pensions, etc., and in one case of the purchasing of a tent and necessary equipment to enable a young man with tuberculosis to live in the fresh air. Volunteer investigators.
Society 3: This organization's work included the distribution of bushels of coal, meals, free lodging, baskets of provisions, bowls of soup, garments and shoes, blankets, hospital and medical care, transportation secured, families moved, rent secured and paid, gas bills paid, Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets.
Society 4: Another important society confines its work largely though not entirely to the giving of baskets of groceries and clothing. Its reports also show expenditures for tuition and board of orphans, burial expenses, etc. The report for the year 1907 showed the number of families aided to be 355, and the amount of money spent $6,562. Volunteer investigators.
Society 5: Baskets of groceries, value fifty cents each, are given each week and one load (twenty-five bushels) of coal each month. Rent is also paid in many cases "often for months." Employment is secured whenever possible.
Passing from the general agencies to the church societies (which do not ordinarily keep records in any city and which therefore are not included in the consideration of that subject though logically they should be), we find no complete records of work done on the part of the sixty-one churches reporting last summer except that twenty-nine were helping 491 families and that the amount of relief expended by thirty-four was $7,595.29. Under the head of remarks there were indications of some diversification from the stereotyped forms of relief. One church was educating a "bright young girl." One was loaning money. But encouraging as these instances might appear they are offset, by the story of a church worker who had been helping a family for fifteen years without seeing the husband.
The thoroughness with which treatment is carried out is partially indicated by the character of the records kept, though good forms may oftentimes cover poor work.
On the following page are given typical samples of forms used by three of the more prominent agencies. Below is presented the more exhaustive standard case record card used by some societies in other cities:
I.—Meager blank used by Pittsburgh Department of Public Charities.
II.—Blank formerly used by Allegheny City Department of Public Charities,—a much more complete record, abandoned since the merging of the cities.
III.—Blank used by private agency.
The systems pursued by other prominent Pittsburgh agencies are as follows:
Society A. Names, addresses, number in family, and religion are noted on blank cards, or written in books.
Society B. Record system not in existence. No paid worker. Only record of names and amounts.
Society C. Record of cases very meager, consisting only of names and addresses, with a few items of information, such as the number of children, whether married, single, widow or deserted, on cards.
Society D. No systematic records.
Society E. Clear general statements as to money received and expended but no case records.
In addition to such a record card these societies have so called continuation sheets on which chronologically are entered all information or advice obtained and all action taken. It is apparent that there can be no systematic knowledge of families unless there is such systematic keeping of records. The separation of families into the worthy and unworthy can nowhere be found in such records, which reveal instead the innermost causes, the remedies for the removal of the causes and the resources, material or otherwise, at hand to effect the removal. In other words the three fold function; umpire of the fight itself, determiner of immediate remedies, educator of the community to give a fairer show in the future, can only be carried out with such systematic recording.
After three months' effort it was found impossible to furnish any approximation of the amount spent annually for material and other outdoor relief in the city of Pittsburgh.
These partial returns were obtained:
| Agency. | (Spent in their last fiscal year before the depression. | |
|---|---|---|
| 9 (of 10) General Relief Societies | $78,257.00 | |
| City Department of Charities | 52,037.11 | (8 Mos.) |
| 54 (of 422) Churches | 22,161.00 | |
| 4 (of 9) Nursing Societies | 7,223.00[6] | |
[6] Exclusive of private relief fund.
It is unfortunate, that owing to lack of co-ordination there has been a confusion of function between outdoor relief and neighborhood agencies. Many of the latter have possessed distinctly relief funds and have been relief agencies. It is doubtful if this has been anything but a disadvantage to them. It has divided their attention between two totally different sorts of problems, two sorts which require above all else, concentration. The general isolation of the field has driven them, in many instances, thus to protect their own neighborhoods against neglect. But they have been unable in many instances to deal with these tasks adequately, and their larger feeling of social responsibility has not enabled them to build up much better plans for individual care than agencies, directly charged with this burden. They have been hampered by their own relief efforts and their legitimate work has suffered thereby.
They have felt much more clearly their responsibilities as umpires of the social struggle and educators of the social conscience, than the great bulk of the strictly relief agencies. The confusion of their function, before mentioned, has been, it would appear, a rather unfortunate departure which still further muddied a not clear stream.
With reference to the organization of the Associated Charities, it may be stated that the demand for it came both from the reputable societies themselves and the business community, the heavy contributors to charity. Greater harmony of action, greater efficiency in action, these were the common aims of the coalition. Several attempts had been made during the past ten years to place the charitable work of Pittsburgh on an organized basis, but without tangible results until February 21, 1908, when the Associated Charities received its charter. Its office was opened April 22 and the work of securing the co-operation of individuals, churches, relief societies and other charitable agencies, began. The society has grown rapidly along lines of work successfully followed by similar organizations in 172 American cities. It is already serving as a center of intercommunication between churches, social and charitable organizations, institutions and individuals who are interested in charitable and social service. It has already done much towards systematizing the charitable work of the city, with a view of checking the evils of unorganized charity and of making every charitable dollar do one hundred cents' worth of charitable work. While the force and equipment of the new association are necessarily small, they are growing, and the association hopes to increase its facilities, so as to keep pace with the rapidly increasing, heavy demand upon it.
The constitution of this organization provides for a central council, in addition to the usual board of trustees. The council consists of one delegate elected by each of the charitable, religious and social agencies which have joined the Associated Charities. Besides these delegates, the central council includes, as ex-officio members, the mayor, director of the Department of Charities, director of public safety, director of public works, superintendent of the Bureau of Health, and superintendent of the Bureau of Police. The province of the council is to promote the development of co-operation between individual societies, to pass upon questions affecting the general welfare of the poor and the charitable activities of the city. By October 31, 1908, thirty-one societies were affiliated in the central council and the registration bureau contained 7,039 records. The bylaws of the society provide that anything which involves the welfare of the city or its social conditions may become its concern. Thus as the servant of the charitable agencies of the city it will often serve as the rallying point for social advance though it would be the last to affirm that it will be the only rallying point for the general spirit of good feeling which is slowly manifesting itself among the social organizations of the city.
By the presence of this co-operating center, the co-ordination of the work of the charities of Pittsburgh should bring about:
1. Adequate material relief, when actually required. For not only will the total amounts necessary for individual families be carefully considered and worked out by joint committees but the relief may be gathered from a number of sources, from relatives, friends, employers, societies and charitably disposed individuals. The society has no relief fund of its own but its function is to organize relief.
2. The repression of mendicancy and the repression of illegitimate charitable schemes by the bureaus of registration and information and in cases of necessity, the prosecution of imposters.
3. The securing of employment, rather than the giving of material relief, wherever this is possible.
4. The inculcation of habits of thrift and providence, the development of industrial education.
5. The co-operative treatment of families to bring all members of such families up to the highest possible mental, moral and physical plane, not only to conserve the well-being of the individuals themselves but to prevent the weakening of society by adding in successive generations to those who are sub-normal (such as weak minded children).
6. Such special or institutional care of the deficient as shall work towards the same end.
7. The crystallization of the sentiment of the charitable forces of Pittsburgh, with reference to necessary social reforms.
8. Greater efficiency in the business affairs and records of the individual societies, thus imparting greater "doing" power to the same amount of charitable resources, and creating a body of social facts which can be made the basis for sound public opinion with respect to the living conditions of the community.
Here then has been the evolution. Individualized impulses developing specialized organizations in an un-plotted field. The conception of individual well-doing with no conception of the general social responsibility. Added to this the growth of more or less unnecessary, weak, and in some cases fraudulent, charitable enterprises (to which we have not alluded before) because of the ease with which support could be obtained in a community generous to a fault. This support gained too without necessarily bringing with it any sense of responsibility on the part of the contributors. There is a well corroborated story, vouched for by a leading professional man of the city, that for years a woman had collected about $7,500 annually for a fresh air home which cared for only a few children. The collections continued until he and others had a private investigation made and discovered the truth. It is comparatively easy to secure the assent of many men to allow their names to be used on boards of directors if no service is required. This is not a bad practice when such men know the responsible directors and can safely vouch for their actions. But care was not always taken to ascertain this.