SOCIAL UPLIFT.
In New Orleans during the past year several drug stores have been opened, a Business League organized, the Pythian Temple finished, five churches erected and 400 teachers have attended summer normal schools.
Dr. Cyrus Townsend Brady, by a startling paper read before the Ministers’ Alliance at a meeting at the Y. M. C. A., awakened the ministers into a realization of the Negro problem, and for the first time in the history of Kansas City a movement was organized by the ministers to investigate and endeavor to better the condition of the blacks.
The highest average that has been made on the punching machine in the Census Office was attained by Miss Eva B. Price, a colored girl, during the last two weeks in October. The work on these machines is done on the piece basis, and during this period Miss Price earned $88. The highest up to this time that had been paid any clerk on this work during any two weeks was $85. There are about 500 clerks working on the punching machines, and it is considered very high for a clerk to punch as many as 3,000 cards in one day. Miss Price’s highest mark for one day was 4,200 cards. She accomplished this unusual average during the regular seven-hour day, and has never worked on extra time.
In Philadelphia prominent churchmen of several denominations participated in a conference on the American Negro question, held in the Central Young Men’s Christian Association, 1421 Arch Street. Bishop Mackay-Smith presided, and the speakers included such leaders in denominational affairs as the Rev. Dr. Frank P. Parkin, district superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Rev. Dr. A. J. Rowland, secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society; the Rev. Dr. Edwin Heyl Delk, of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church; the Rev. Edwin F. Randolph, of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church; B. F. Lee, Jr., of the Armstrong Association, and James S. Stemons.
With the exception of the Bishop, these ministers and laymen are associated in the Association for Equalizing Industrial Opportunities, the purpose of which is to secure fair play for the Negro wage earner in the industrial world.
In Cincinnati the last of the $2,000 needed to start an institution for colored women similar to the Y. W. C. A. has been received by Miss Elma C. Leach, of the Elizabeth Gamble Deaconess Association, and the work will be prosecuted at once. The home will be opened on West Sixth Street, near Mound. Temporary quarters will there be provided for colored girls coming into the city for work and for girls who are found to be living in undesirable environments. A nursery will be established and theoretical nursing taught. Lectures will also be given.
In a report the State Inspector of Asylums of Kentucky says that the buildings in which the Negro patients at the Eastern Kentucky Asylum are confined are a disgrace to the State. One is a cottage with basement and one story above. This building, he states, is in a very dangerous condition, likely to collapse at any time. It is simply held up with props put under it from time to time, and should a heavy wind strike it, it probably would collapse. In this building there are forty-two colored female patients. In the other colored ward building, which has a basement and two stories, the conditions are equally as bad. Both male and female patients are confined in this building, but are kept separate and distinct. The female capacity is thirty-two—there are forty-one patients; the male capacity is seventy—there are eighty-eight patients. So crowded is the building that a great number are compelled to sleep in the basement, which is very dark and damp and in rainy weather water collects therein. The inspector states that neither the Board of Control nor the officers of this institution are to blame, for they are doing everything in their power to avert a disaster.