[85] See tables [p. 98] of this book.
[86] See Report of Departmental Committee, p. 30.
CHAPTER IV.
The Salvation Army Slum Department.
So much has been written on the question of the slums in the past few years; so many settlements, evening recreation centers, summer playgrounds, clubs, visiting nurses' associations, and kindergarten associations have been organized; so much has been done by tenement house commissions and tenement laws; so many churches have turned from their original efforts to the slums; that we wonder why so little is heard of what the Army, the organization supposed especially to represent the poor, is doing in this direction. To tell the truth, if we go down into the slums, either those of Deptford, Whitechapel, or of Westminster, in London; or those of the Jewish, the Italian, the Negro, or the Irish quarters in New York, or those of the Slav or Jewish quarters in Chicago, expecting to find there the work of the Army much in evidence, we shall be disappointed. What slum work is done by the Army in these densely populated corners is done with love and earnest hearts, with sacrifice and the best of intentions; but apparently it does not bear fruit in the same proportion as does the work of the settlement, whether church settlement or secular, or in the same proportion as many of the kindergartens, summer playgrounds and evening recreation centers. Nevertheless, the slum post of the Army is doing valuable work and should be supported.
A sweeping tenement house reform can do more than any number of settlements; a settlement can do more than the Army slum post; but neither the tenement reform nor the settlement does the work that a slum post does. Probably the work done by other organizations most nearly allied to that of the Army slum post is that done by the various organizations of church deaconesses, which have been growing rapidly in late years, in which women are employed by the churches to visit the poor in their homes, and nurse the sick, besides other duties. If we depend or count largely on the Army slum work to reform the slums, we shall be disappointed in learning that, after years of successful growth in the Industrial and Social Departments, the Army has but twenty slum posts in the United States[87], some of these being very small, and that it has no large number in other countries. Such as it is, the work is well worth while. But let us examine its origin, present status and the reason for its relatively small growth.
In the beginning of the Army movement, Mrs. Booth, the late wife of General Booth, supplemented her husband's work by a personal visitation of the people in their homes. She proved the utility of this work and also its place among the works of women. From her early efforts has sprung the more widely organized department of slum work.
The slum work may be divided into three divisions: visitation work, the slum nursery, and the maintenance of the slum post. Wearing a humbler garb, even, than the regular Army uniform, the lassies start out on their daily tours of visitation. They take care of the sick, and at the same time, they clean the home and put everything in order. Often they come upon cases of need and of want, and then they provide the little necessaries: a sack of coal, a supply of food, or some needed clothing. They take the children from the worn-out woman and amuse and instruct them, while the mother does her work; and, wherever they go, although most plainly dressed, they are clean and neat, and they strive to make everything else clean and neat.