If human life, if morality, health and financial prosperity have any value, then these paragraphs answer what good has been done.
The accomplishment of large results is due to the fact that organization on such a plan frees more money for relief than it consumes in salaries. All employees of the Board are chosen by civil service examinations. The Board “believes that social action should be based on accurate knowledge and investigations should both precede and accompany all efforts to improve social conditions. It strives for harmonious coöperation with all existing agencies, both public and private, and does not duplicate the work of any. The Board gives no public outdoor relief except in cases where the breadwinner of the family is a city prisoner, and then only on the basis of actual destitution, and upon the recommendation of the superintendent of the Provident Association.”
The policy of the Board is briefly summarized in its annual report as follows: “It lays emphasis on justice before charity and on prevention rather than cure. It agrees that the burden of caring for the poor should be laid upon the entire community through taxation rather than be provided for by the voluntary gifts of the generous minority.”
This very gradual transition from private to public control is especially apparent in the development of child-helping agencies. The Children’s Clinic in Chicago, for example, was first established by the Children’s Hospital Society. The county looked upon it, saw it was good, and assumed responsibility for it. Then social workers backed by philanthropists went a step further and established a psychopathic clinic with an alienist in charge to examine the children for mental weaknesses. “Of course,” says Jane Addams, “women interested in these children are not more interested in the psychopathic feature, which is philanthropic, than they are in the medical clinic, which is political. They are not more interested in the children who are dependent and are sent to one of the homes which are supported partly by public funds and partly by philanthropy than they are in those children who are sent to the homes which are supported altogether by public funds. And there you are—the whole thing absolutely mixed! Now a child may be paroled in care of its mother and paid by Court—where it once was dependent on private charity. We are not quite out of charity for the judge is often assisted by a committee composed of representatives of various city charities, but it is hard to tell what is philanthropy and what public service.”
Attitude of Social Workers
The spirit of this whole movement from old-fashioned charity to coördinated social service was abundantly manifested at the Seattle Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1913. With the opening of the Panama Canal problems are arising along the Pacific coast in increased numbers. As preventive work, the Seattle Charity Organization Society was anxious to secure, and did secure, the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in order to arouse local interest in the impending situation. Of the Seattle Charities, Mr. Richard Hayter is director and Miss Virginia McMechan, widely known for her social work, is general secretary—never an insignificant office, and by no means a purely clerical one.
For the sake of the whole Pacific coast the Seattle charity workers advertised this conference far and wide.
Under the Central Council of Social Agencies, representing the fifty-six leading public and private social agencies of the city—from labor unions to the chamber of commerce, with the mayor at the head—active local committees were formed [consisting of men and women]. The Rotary Club, a business men’s body, raised the necessary $2,000, a corps of speakers was sent to organizations all over the city and state, even into Idaho, and a vigorous advertising campaign was conducted by means of billboards, 50,000 circulars, and columns of newspaper publicity. Country newspapers were reached by news-letter service. Letters sent out along the entire coast brought in three hundred new conference members.
In the midst of this glowing setting the fortieth conference camped on July 5, registering at the close, July 12, an attendance of paid members numbering from outside the state of Washington over 450, and from Seattle and Washington 350 more. Seattle people fairly swarmed to the evening meetings, and the conference sermon drew a packed house of between 3,000 and 3,500. President Tucker estimated the total attendance at the thirty meetings during the week at between 25,000 and 30,000. Enthusiasm was no less remarkable. Through all the seven days the conference was “live.” The newspapers gave it practically unlimited space, one paper running two extra conference pages almost every day containing the important speeches in full. This was done, the editor said, “as a good business proposition.”
When the conference got down to work, it was clearly evident that social welfare, not charity, was the spirit of the delegates and speakers. Preventive measures, standards of living and labor, the relation of commercial organizations to social welfare, and the distribution and assimilation of immigrants were predominant over talk of mere relief. Courts, city officials, lawyers, and teachers were drawn into the conference as an evidence of its wider appeal and public importance.