But to return to a consideration of the record card. It provided for a graphic presentation of the salient economic features of each family. When rightly filled in it showed the total present income of the family, its physical condition and the previous occupation of the breadwinner, the sum of its losses and its present resources. It gave a picture of the family’s former or present relations to its church, its lodge, its employers, its plan for rehabilitation, and the investigator’s estimate of this plan or the investigator’s alternative plan. Each visitor who had not had previous training as an investigator was given careful direction as to how an investigation should be made. Each was instructed to explain to the families that what was being aimed at was to find a way out which would be a real way out. Relief that had been already given was emergent, temporary. But now the Committee was anxious to learn of those who with a fair grant would be able to re-establish themselves.
In compiling the statistical abstract of applications for [Chapter IV] of this part of the Relief Survey no attempt was made to ascertain what references were seen or corresponded with, except for the business application cases. These were controlled by much stricter regulations than were the other applications. It is impossible, therefore, to state accurately the number of applications that were superficially investigated by visits to the applicants only. It is probably true that a study of the applications for household rehabilitation would show that comparatively superficial investigations had been made although there had usually been some attempt to corroborate the applicants’ stories by calling for a general letter of recommendation or one written directly to the Committee. Letters from ministers bulked large in this correspondence. The experience of the Rehabilitation Committee, it can be most positively stated, confirmed that of the special relief committee of the Chicago fire that such recommendations are valueless in the vast majority of cases. It is sufficient to state here, as this question will be brought up later in the discussion of the Committee’s relation to the auxiliary societies,[109] that the Committee learned quite early in its career that some of the clergy of the city had had manifolded a stereotyped form of recommendation to give to any one who might apply.
[109] See [Part II], [p. 137] ff.
The method of investigation in force would have been insufficient if it had been thought necessary to inquire closely into the moral character of the applicants. What the family had to say about its previous income; what its present income was; what its plans were and how it hoped with the aid of a grant to carry out these plans,—these with the visitor’s observations gave a sort of rough-and-ready gauge. There was, of course, a certain amount of deception, but the field investigations made later by the Relief Survey showed that the percentage of grants made upon actually fraudulent representations was comparatively small. Plans for rehabilitation that were inherently weak or confused or unwise had to be guarded against. The grant desideratum was practical definiteness. Illustrations of what were considered to be definite, what indefinite plans, are incidentally presented under the chapters dealing with particular forms of rehabilitation. It is well at this point to state that after October 12, 1906, before a grant for rehabilitation or aid for furniture could be obtained, an application had to be made to the Rehabilitation Committee on a printed form.[110]
[110] For reproduction of form see [Appendix II], [p. 435].
The applications for tools were made the subject of a comparatively superficial investigation. Transportation cases were subjected to a gradual rise in the standard of inquiry. In the case of “general relief,” which included the permanent care of aged or invalid persons and of unsupported children, medical co-operation was generally called for. Applications for emergent relief led to no extended investigation. The housing applications, as will appear,[111] were subjected to special forms of inquiry.
[111] See [Part I], [pp. 22]-[23] and [69] ff.; [Part IV], Housing Rehabilitation, [p. 211] ff.; and [Appendix I], [p. 417].
Applications were received at the seven section offices at any hour of the day, as well as at the central office of the Associated Charities. The rule was, theoretically, to receive no applications at the office of the Rehabilitation Committee; but so many applications, some of which called for immediate investigation and action, were referred directly to the Committee, that from one to four interviewers had to be held at the central office to attend to them. It would have been ill-advised during July and August to limit either the hours or places at which applications could be made. Any limitation might in some instances have caused actual distress. The magnitude of the task did not in itself, save in exceptional circumstances, delay the giving of emergent relief, as special arrangements were made for expediting emergency cases.
Before recommendations were brought to the members of the Rehabilitation Committee for decision they were read by trusted employes of the Committee in order that apparent injustices resulting from the varying standards of the different section committees might be done away with. The Committee itself established rough standards to govern its decisions. For household rehabilitation, for instance, its standard adopted after a careful employe had visited several furniture companies to learn the range of prices, was based upon a rate of $50 a room for each of the minimum number of rooms which would be required for an individual family. Certain fixed rules were also adopted with reference to business rehabilitation.[112] There was no little criticism of an intermediate step having to be taken between the passage of records from section committees to the Rehabilitation Committee. During the latter part of the second period, which ended in August, 1906, some members of the Rehabilitation Committee itself were inclined to doubt the wisdom of the plan. Nevertheless, the opinion of the majority of the Committee was that its rough standardizing was a great time saver. The reviewers exercised no discretionary authority. They were indeed willing to present any case, in any form, to the Committee if a section committee insisted upon it. A justification of the plan lies in the fact that when a case went directly to the Committee from a section, almost without exception it was sent back. The reviewers served simply as advisers to the section committees. They had in mind the broad lines of policy that had been marked out by the Rehabilitation Committee and were in many instances able to save from one to two days in the reaching of a final decision as to a grant. An explanation made by the trained reviewer to a district messenger, an agent, or Committee member, was oftentimes much more acceptable than would have been Committee action which reversed a section decision.
[112] For full discussion see [Part III], Business Rehabilitation, [p. 171] ff.