Before its adjournment this month the Legislature in New Jersey finally passed a grist of bills in the field of social legislation. A large proportion, if not a majority, of these were pending when Woodrow Wilson left the state house at Trenton, and, as often happens, especially in the case of bills which carry appropriations, they came to a head during the last three weeks of the session. Mrs. Alexander reviews the notable part the governor-president had in their advancement.[[1]]
While no immediate steps were taken by the Legislature to relieve the congestion at the state insane hospitals, a movement toward a serious consideration of the whole subject of state care, custody and treatment of mental defectives, including the insane, the epileptic and the feeble-minded was inaugurated by a joint resolution providing $2,500 for a commission to report before March 1, 1914.
The Legislature decided to continue the Prison Labor Commission. In a general way the recommendations of this body were adopted. The Board of Prison Inspectors insisted upon retaining the powers of administration and control of the prisoners, leaving to the commission the power to plan and direct operations. The Prison Labor Commission is authorized to purchase a farm at an expense of $21,000. There is also $17,000 immediately available for stock, implements, buildings, fencing, fixtures and furniture for this farm. The general appropriation bill available next November provides $12,500 for the purchase of a quarry, $3,500 for the expenses of the commission, and $12,000 for buildings and furniture for the farm. The reformatory at Rahway has secured an appropriation of $5,000 for a foundry building. This is the beginning of a policy of trade school instruction. The output of the foundry is to be sold to state use account.
The appropriations for the other state institutions provide for a continuance of the research work going on in the several state institutions. The new reformatory for women at Clinton receives $25,000 for a new cottage, the Jamesburg School for Boys $20,000 for a trade school building, and the epileptic village at Skillman $55,000 to complete a custodial building and $110,000 for future building.
Besides these appropriation measures New Jersey has enacted a widows’ pension law, which will be reviewed in a later issue of THE SURVEY, a bill providing for summer agricultural schools, and a new parental school act which permits their creation under the educational authorities. Another measure which was passed is a new compulsory attendance law calculated to fill the gap between the educational authorities and those of the state labor department which went far to nullify the effectiveness of the old law. “Add to this program,” writes an enthusiastic New Jersey social worker, “a few odds and ends of laws and you can see Jersey is still hitting up the pace.”
NATIONAL HEALTH BODIES PLAN TO WORK TOGETHER
At the call of the Council on Health and Public Instruction of the American Medical Association, forty-seven representatives of volunteer and philanthropic bodies interested in some special phase of the health situation in this country met on April 12 at the headquarters of the American Association for Labor Legislation in New York city.
Feeling that, with the multiplication of independent organizations, there is danger of overlapping of function, interference in work, duplication of effort and expense and lack of effective co-operation for want of a common program of procedure, the American Medical Association early in January addressed a letter to the executive officers of about thirty of the more important national organizations suggesting a conference to discuss a plan for co-operation. This proposal met with a ready response. Among the bodies that were represented at the meeting held in New York were the United States Public Health Service, the National Committee on Mental Hygiene, the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, the National Committee of One Hundred on Health, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Child Labor Committee, the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and the National Commission on Milk Standards. John M. Glenn, director of the Russell Sage Foundation was chosen chairman of the meeting and John B. Andrews, secretary of the American Association for Labor Legislation, who with Dr. Frederick H. Green of the American Medical Association had made many of the preliminary arrangements, acted as secretary.
Among the suggestions discussed by the representatives of the various agencies were the following:
1. A central national health organization, composed of one representative (perhaps the executive officer) from each of the fifty odd national health organizations in the United States.