diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/68546-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/68546-0.txt | 7167 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 7167 deletions
diff --git a/old/68546-0.txt b/old/68546-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 94c90af..0000000 --- a/old/68546-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7167 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The house on Henry Street, by Lillian -D. Wald - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The house on Henry Street - -Author: Lillian D. Wald - -Illustrator: Abraham Phillips - -Release Date: July 17, 2022 [eBook #68546] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE ON HENRY -STREET *** - - - - - - -[Illustration: THE HOUSE ON HENRY STREET] - - - - - THE HOUSE ON - HENRY STREET - - BY - LILLIAN D. WALD - - With Illustrations from Etchings and Drawings by - Abraham Phillips and from Photographs - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1915, - BY - HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY - - November, 1938 - - Printed in U. S. A. - - - - - TO - THE COMRADES - WHO HAVE BUILT THE HOUSE - - - - -PREFACE - - -Much of the material contained in this book has been published in a -series of six articles that appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ from March -to August, 1915. And indeed it was due to the kindly insistence on the -part of the editors of that magazine that more permanent form should -be given to the record of the House on Henry Street that the story was -published at all. - -During the two decades of the existence of the Settlement there has been -a significant awakening on matters of social concern, particularly those -affecting the protection of children throughout society in general; and -a new sense of responsibility has been aroused among men and women, but -perhaps more distinctively among women, since the period coincides with -their freer admission to public and professional life. The Settlement is -in itself an expression of this sense of responsibility, and under its -roof many divergent groups have come together to discuss measures “for -the many, mindless, mass that most needs helping,” and often to assert -by deed their faith in democracy. Some have found in the Settlement -an opportunity for self-realization that in the more fixed and older -institutions has not seemed possible. - -I cannot acknowledge by name the many individuals who, by gift of money -and through understanding and confidence, through work and thought and -sharing of the burdens, have helped to build the House on Henry Street. -These colleagues have come all through the years that have followed since -the little girl led me to her rear tenement home. Though we are working -together as comrades for a common cause, I cannot resist this opportunity -to express my profound personal gratitude for the precious gifts that -have been so abundantly given. The first friends who gave confidence and -support to an unknown and unexperimented venture have remained staunch -and loyal builders of the House. And the younger generation with their -gifts have developed the plans of the House and have found inspiration -while they have given it. - -In the making of the book, much help has come from these same friends, -and I should be quite overwhelmed with the debt I owe did I not feel that -all of us who have worked together have worked not only for each other -but for the cause of human progress; that is the beginning and should be -the end of the House on Henry Street. - - LILLIAN D. WALD. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. THE EAST SIDE TWO DECADES AGO 1 - - II. ESTABLISHING THE NURSING SERVICE 26 - - III. THE NURSE AND THE COMMUNITY 44 - - IV. CHILDREN AND PLAY 66 - - V. EDUCATION AND THE CHILD 97 - - VI. THE HANDICAPPED CHILD 117 - - VII. CHILDREN WHO WORK 135 - - VIII. THE NATION’S CHILDREN 152 - - IX. ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN THE SETTLEMENT 169 - - X. YOUTH 189 - - XI. YOUTH AND TRADES UNIONS 201 - - XII. WEDDINGS AND SOCIAL HALLS 216 - - XIII. FRIENDS OF RUSSIAN FREEDOM 229 - - XIV. SOCIAL FORCES 249 - - XV. SOCIAL FORCES, _Continued_ 270 - - XVI. NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 286 - - INDEX 313 - - - - -FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - - THE HOUSE ON HENRY STREET _Frontispiece_ - Etching by Abraham Phillips - - LILLIAN D. WALD AND MARY M. BREWSTER IN HOSPITAL UNIFORM, 1893 6 - - WITH PRAYER-SHAWL AND PHYLACTERY 22 - Etching by Abraham Phillips - - THE NURSE IN THE TENEMENT 28 - - A SHORT CUT OVER THE ROOFS OF THE TENEMENTS 52 - - AND THEIR ECSTASY AT THE SIGHT OF A WONDERFUL DOGWOOD TREE 78 - - IT HAS BEEN CALLED THE “BUNKER HILL” OF PLAYGROUNDS 82 - - THE CHILDREN PLAY ON OUR ROOF 82 - - THE KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN LEARN THE REALITY OF THE THINGS THEY - SING ABOUT 90 - - USES OF THE BACK YARD IN ONE OF THE BRANCHES OF THE HENRY STREET - SETTLEMENT 162 - - HERE AND THERE ARE STILL FOUND REMINDERS OF OLD NEW YORK 170 - Etching by Abraham Phillips - - ESTHER 182 - Drawing by Esther J. Peck - - THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE 186 - Drawing by Abraham Phillips - - IN A CLUB-ROOM 192 - Drawing by Abraham Phillips - - AFTER THE LONG DAY 204 - Drawing by Abraham Phillips - - AN INCIDENT IN THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT ON HENRY STREET, - COMMEMORATING THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT 214 - - THE OLDER GENERATION 218 - Etching by Abraham Phillips - - PRINCE KROPOTKIN 234 - - BABUSCHKA, LITTLE GRANDMOTHER 242 - - THE SYNAGOGUES ARE EVERYWHERE—IMPOSING OR SHABBY-LOOKING - BUILDINGS 254 - Etching by Abraham Phillips - - A MOTHER IN ISRAEL 268 - Etching by Abraham Phillips - - THE DRAMATIC CLUB PRESENTED “THE SHEPHERD” 272 - - A REGION OF OVERCROWDED HOMES 298 - - AT ELLIS ISLAND THERE IS A STREAM OF INFLOWING LIFE 308 - Photograph by Louis Hines - - - - -THE HOUSE ON HENRY STREET - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE EAST SIDE TWO DECADES AGO - - -A sick woman in a squalid rear tenement, so wretched and so pitiful -that, in all the years since, I have not seen anything more appealing, -determined me, within half an hour, to live on the East Side. - -I had spent two years in a New York training-school for nurses; strenuous -years for an undisciplined, untrained girl, but a wonderful human -experience. After graduation, I supplemented the theoretical instruction, -which was casual and inconsequential in the hospital classes twenty-five -years ago, by a period of study at a medical college. It was while at the -college that a great opportunity came to me. - -I had little more than an inspiration to be of use in some way or -somehow, and going to the hospital seemed the readiest means of realizing -my desire. While there, the long hours “on duty” and the exhausting -demands of the ward work scarcely admitted freedom for keeping informed -as to what was happening in the world outside. The nurses had no time -for general reading; visits to and from friends were brief; we were -out of the current and saw little of life save as it flowed into the -hospital wards. It is not strange, therefore, that I should have been -ignorant of the various movements which reflected the awakening of the -social conscience at the time, or of the birth of the “settlement,” which -twenty-five years ago was giving form to a social protest in England and -America. Indeed, it was not until the plan of our work on the East Side -was well developed that knowledge came to me of other groups of people -who, reacting to a humane or an academic appeal, were adopting this mode -of expression and calling it a “settlement.” - -Two decades ago the words “East Side” called up a vague and alarming -picture of something strange and alien: a vast crowded area, a foreign -city within our own, for whose conditions we had no concern. Aside from -its exploiters, political and economic, few people had any definite -knowledge of it, and its literary “discovery” had but just begun. - -The lower East Side then reflected the popular indifference—it almost -seemed contempt—for the living conditions of a huge population. And the -possibility of improvement seemed, when my inexperience was startled -into thought, the more remote because of the dumb acceptance of these -conditions by the East Side itself. Like the rest of the world I had -known little of it, when friends of a philanthropic institution asked me -to do something for that quarter. - -[Illustration] - -Remembering the families who came to visit patients in the wards, I -outlined a course of instruction in home nursing adapted to their needs, -and gave it in an old building in Henry Street, then used as a technical -school and now part of the settlement. Henry Street then as now was the -center of a dense industrial population. - -From the schoolroom where I had been giving a lesson in bed-making, a -little girl led me one drizzling March morning. She had told me of her -sick mother, and gathering from her incoherent account that a child had -been born, I caught up the paraphernalia of the bed-making lesson and -carried it with me. - -[Illustration] - -The child led me over broken roadways,—there was no asphalt, although -its use was well established in other parts of the city,—over dirty -mattresses and heaps of refuse,—it was before Colonel Waring had shown -the possibility of clean streets even in that quarter,—between tall, -reeking houses whose laden fire-escapes, useless for their appointed -purpose, bulged with household goods of every description. The rain added -to the dismal appearance of the streets and to the discomfort of the -crowds which thronged them, intensifying the odors which assailed me -from every side. Through Hester and Division streets we went to the end -of Ludlow; past odorous fish-stands, for the streets were a market-place, -unregulated, unsupervised, unclean; past evil-smelling, uncovered -garbage-cans; and—perhaps worst of all, where so many little children -played—past the trucks brought down from more fastidious quarters -and stalled on these already overcrowded streets, lending themselves -inevitably to many forms of indecency. - -[Illustration] - -The child led me on through a tenement hallway, across a court where open -and unscreened closets were promiscuously used by men and women, up into -a rear tenement, by slimy steps whose accumulated dirt was augmented that -day by the mud of the streets, and finally into the sickroom. - -All the maladjustments of our social and economic relations seemed -epitomized in this brief journey and what was found at the end of it. -The family to which the child led me was neither criminal nor vicious. -Although the husband was a cripple, one of those who stand on street -corners exhibiting deformities to enlist compassion, and masking the -begging of alms by a pretense at selling; although the family of seven -shared their two rooms with boarders,—who were literally boarders, since -a piece of timber was placed over the floor for them to sleep on,—and -although the sick woman lay on a wretched, unclean bed, soiled with a -hemorrhage two days old, they were not degraded human beings, judged by -any measure of moral values. - -[Illustration: LILLIAN D. WALD MARY M. BREWSTER - -In hospital uniform, 1893] - -In fact, it was very plain that they were sensitive to their condition, -and when, at the end of my ministrations, they kissed my hands (those who -have undergone similar experiences will, I am sure, understand), it would -have been some solace if by any conviction of the moral unworthiness of -the family I could have defended myself as a part of a society which -permitted such conditions to exist. Indeed, my subsequent acquaintance -with them revealed the fact that, miserable as their state was, they were -not without ideals for the family life, and for society, of which they -were so unloved and unlovely a part. - -[Illustration] - -That morning’s experience was a baptism of fire. Deserted were the -laboratory and the academic work of the college. I never returned to -them. On my way from the sickroom to my comfortable student quarters -my mind was intent on my own responsibility. To my inexperience it -seemed certain that conditions such as these were allowed because people -did not _know_, and for me there was a challenge to know and to tell. -When early morning found me still awake, my naïve conviction remained -that, if people knew things,—and “things” meant everything implied in -the condition of this family,—such horrors would cease to exist, and I -rejoiced that I had had a training in the care of the sick that in itself -would give me an organic relationship to the neighborhood in which this -awakening had come. - - * * * * * - -To the first sympathetic friend to whom I poured forth my story, I -found myself presenting a plan which had been developing almost without -conscious mental direction on my part. It was doubtless the accumulation -of many reflections inspired by acquaintance with the patients in the -hospital wards, and now, with the Ludlow Street experience, resistlessly -impelling me to action. - -Within a day or two a comrade from the training-school, Mary Brewster, -agreed to share in the venture. We were to live in the neighborhood as -nurses, identify ourselves with it socially, and, in brief, contribute to -it our citizenship. That plan contained in embryo all the extended and -diversified social interests of our settlement group to-day. - -[Illustration] - -We set to work immediately to find quarters—no easy task, as we clung to -the civilization of a bathroom, and according to a legend current at the -time there were only two bathrooms in tenement houses below Fourteenth -Street. Chance helped us here. A young woman who for years played an -important part in the life of many East Side people, overhearing a -conversation of mine with a fellow-student, gave me an introduction to -two men who, she said, knew all about the quarter of the city which I -wished to enter. I called on them immediately, and their response to -my need was as prompt. Without stopping to inquire into my antecedents -or motives, or to discourse on the social aspects of the community, of -which, I soon learned, they were competent to speak with authority, -they set out with me at once, in a pouring rain, to scour the adjacent -streets for “To Let” signs. One which seemed to me worth investigating -my newly acquired friends discarded with the explanation that it was in -the “red light” district and would not do. Later I was to know much of -the unfortunate women who inhabited the quarter, but at the time the term -meant nothing to me. - -After a long tour one of my guides, as if by inspiration, reminded the -other that several young women had taken a house on Rivington Street -for something like my purpose, and perhaps I had better live there -temporarily and take my time in finding satisfactory quarters. Upon that -advice I acted, and within a few days Miss Brewster and I found ourselves -guests at the luncheon table of the College Settlement on Rivington -Street. With ready hospitality they took us in, and, during July and -August, we were “residents” in stimulating comradeship with serious -women, who were also the fortunate possessors of a saving sense of humor. - -Before September of the year 1893 we found a house on Jefferson Street, -the only one in which our careful search disclosed the desired bathtub. -It had other advantages—the vacant floor at the top (so high that the -windows along the entire side wall gave us sun and breeze), and, greatest -lure of all, the warm welcome which came to us from the basement, where -we found the janitress ready to answer questions as to terms. - -Naturally, objections to two young women living alone in New York under -these conditions had to be met, and some assurance as to our material -comfort was given to anxious, though at heart sympathetic, families -by compromising on good furniture, a Baltimore heater for cheer, and -simple but adequate household appurtenances. Painted floors with easily -removed rugs, windows curtained with spotless but inexpensive scrim, a -sitting-room with pictures, books, and restful chairs, a tiny bedroom -which we two shared, a small dining-room in which the family mahogany did -not look out of place, and a kitchen, constituted our home for two full -years. - -The much-esteemed bathroom, small and dark, was in the hall, and -necessitated early rising if we were to have the use of it; for, as we -became known, we had many callers anxious to see us before we started on -our sick rounds. The diminutive closet-space was divided to hold the bags -and equipment we needed from day to day, and more ample store-closets -were given us by the kindly people in the school where I had first given -lessons to East Side mothers. Any pride in the sacrifice of material -comfort which might have risen within us was effectually inhibited by -the constant reminder that we two young persons occupied exactly the same -space as the large families on every floor below us, and to one of our -basement friends at least we were luxurious beyond the dreams of ordinary -folk. - -[Illustration] - -The little lad from the basement was our first invited guest. The simple -but appetizing dinner my comrade prepared, while I set the table and -placed the flowers. The boy’s mother came up later in the evening to find -out what we had given him, for Tommie had rushed down with eyes bulging -and had reported that “them ladies live like the Queen of England and eat -off of solid gold plates.” - -We learned the most efficient use of the fire-escape and felt many -times blessed because of our easy access to the roof. We also learned -the infinite uses to which stairs can be put. Later we achieved “local -color” in our rooms by the addition of interesting pieces of brass and -copper purchased from a man on Allen Street whom we and several others -had “discovered.” His little dark shop under the elevated railway -was fitfully illuminated by the glowing forge. On our first visit the -proprietor emerged from a still darker inner room with prayer-shawl and -phylactery. He became one of our pleasant acquaintances and lost no -occasion of acknowledging what he considered his debt to the appreciative -customers who had helped to make him and his wares known to a wider -circle than that of the neighborhood. - -[Illustration] - - * * * * * - -The mere fact of living in the tenement brought undreamed-of -opportunities for widening our knowledge and extending our human -relationships. That we were Americans was wonderful to our -fellow-tenants. They were all immigrants—Jews from Russia or Roumania. -The sole exception was the janitress, Mrs. McRae, who at once dedicated -herself and her entire family to the service of the top floor. Dear Mrs. -McRae! From her basement home she covered us with her protecting love -and was no small influence in holding us to sanity. Humor, astuteness, -and sympathy were needed and these she gave in abundance. - -[Illustration] - -It was vouchsafed us to know many fine personalities who influenced and -guided us from the first few weeks of residence in the friendly college -settlement through the many years that have followed. The two women who -stand out with greatest distinction from the first are this pure-souled -Scotch-Irish immigrant and Josephine Shaw Lowell. Both, if they were -here, would understand the tribute in linking them together. - -Occasionally Mrs. McRae would feel impelled to reprove us for “overdoing” -ourselves, and from our top story we were hard pushed to save visitors -from being sent away when she thought we needed to finish a meal or go -to bed. Cautious as we were not to make any distinctions in commenting -upon the visitors who came to see us, she made her own deductions. At -whatever hour we returned, she would be at the door to welcome us and to -report on the happenings during our absence. “So-and-so was here”: shrewd -descriptions which often enabled us to identify individuals when names -were forgotten. “Lots of visitors to-night,” she would report. “Were -messages left, or names?” we would naturally inquire. “No, darlints, -nothing at all. I know sure they didn’t bring you anything.” - -The key to our apartments, usually left with her, was one day forgotten, -and when, upon unlocking the door, we saw a well-known society woman -seated in our little living-room, we were naturally puzzled to know how -she had arrived there. Mrs. McRae explained that she had taken her up -the fire-escape!—no slight venture and exertion for the inexperienced. -We suggested that other ways might have been more agreeable and safer. -“Whisht,” said Mrs. McRae, with a smile and a wink, “it’s no harm at all. -She’ll be havin’ lots of talk for her friends on this.” - -When her roving husband died at home, the funeral arrangements were given -a last touch by Mrs. McRae, who placed on the casket his tobacco and pipe -and ordered the procession to pass his tenement home twice before driving -to the cemetery, “So he’d not think we were not for forgivin’ him and -hurryin’ him away.” - -Her first love went to my comrade, whose beauty and humor and goodness -captured her Celtic heart. During our second year in the tenement -Miss Brewster was taken seriously ill, and one evening we had at last -succeeded in forcing Mrs. McRae to go home and had locked the door. -Unknown to us the dear friend remained on the floor outside all through -the night, trying to catch the sound of life from the loved one. - -Bringing up a large family, with no help from the “old man,” and with -stern ideals of conduct and integrity, was not easy. Some of her -children, endowed with her character, gave her solace, but she was too -astute not to estimate each one properly. - -When we moved from the tenement to our first house Mrs. McRae and her -family gave up the basement rooms, which were rent free because of her -janitor service, in order to be near us, and she spread her warmth over -the new abode. When, some years later, she was ill and we knew that the -end was near, one close to me in my own family claimed my attention. Torn -between the two affections, I was loath to leave the city while Mrs. -McRae was so ill. She guessed the cause of my perturbed state and advised -me to go. “Darlin’, you ought to go. You go. I promise not to die until -you come back.” - -Letters kept up this assurance and the promise was fulfilled. - - * * * * * - -Times were hard that year. In the summer the miseries due to unemployment -and rising rents and prices began to be apparent, but the pinch came -with the cold weather. Perhaps it was an advantage that we were so early -exposed to the extraordinary sufferings and the variety of pain and -poverty in that winter of 1893-94, memorable because of extreme economic -depression. The impact of strain, physical and emotional, left neither -place nor time for self-analysis and consequent self-consciousness, so -prone to hinder and to dwarf wholesome instincts, and so likely to have -proved an impediment to the simple relationship which we established with -our neighbors. - -It has become almost trite to speak of the kindness of the poor to each -other, yet from the beginning of our tenement-house residence we were -much touched by manifestations of it. An errand took me to Michael the -Scotch-Irish cobbler as the family were sitting down to the noonday meal. -There was a stranger with them, whom Michael introduced, explaining when -we were out of hearing that he thought I would be interested to meet a -man just out of Sing Sing prison. I expressed some fear of the danger to -his own boys in this association. “We must just chance it,” said Michael. -“It’s no weather for a man like that to be on the streets, when honest -fellows can’t get work.” - -When we first met the G⸺ family they were breaking up the furniture to -keep from freezing. One of the children had died and had been buried -in a public grave. Three times that year did Mrs. G⸺ painfully gather -together enough money to have the baby disinterred and fittingly buried -in consecrated ground, and each time she gave up her heart’s desire in -order to relieve the sufferings of the living children of her neighbors. - -Another instance of this unfailing goodness of the poor to each other -was told by Nellie, who called on us one morning. She was evidently -embarrassed, and with difficulty related that, hearing of things to -be given away at a newspaper office, she had gone there hoping to get -something that would do for John when he came out of the hospital. She -said, “I drew this and I don’t know exactly what it is meant for,” and -displayed a wadded black satin “dress-shirt protector,” in very good -condition, and possibly contributed because the season was over! Standing -outside the circle of clamorous petitioners, Nellie and the woman next -her had exchanged tales of woe. When she mentioned her address the new -acquaintance suggested that she seek us. - -Nellie proved to be a near neighbor. There were two children: a nursing -baby “none so well,” and a lad. John, her husband, was “fortunately” in -the hospital with a broken leg, for there were “no jobs around loose -anyway.” When we called later in the day to see the baby, we found that -Nellie was stopping with her cousin, a widower who “held his job down.” -There were also his two children, the widow of a friend “who would have -done as much by me,” and the wife and two small children of a total -stranger who lived in the rear tenement and were invited in to meals -because the father had been seen starting every morning on his hunt for -work, and “it was plain for anyone with eyes to see that he never did -get it.” So this one man, fortunate in having work, was taking care -of himself and his children, the widow of his friend, Nellie and her -children, and was feeding the strangers. Said Nellie: “Sure he’s doing -that, and why not? He’s the only cousin I’ve got outside of Ireland.” - -Mrs. S⸺, who called at the settlement a few days ago, reminded me that -it was twenty-one years since our first meeting, and brought vividly -before me a picture of which she was a part. She was the daughter -of a learned rabbi, and her husband, himself a pious man, had great -reverence for the traditions of her family. In their extremity they had -taken bread from one of the newspaper charities, but it was evidently a -painful humiliation, and before we arrived they had hidden the loaf in -the ice-box. My visit was due to a desire to ascertain the condition of -the families who had applied for this dole. Both house and people were -scrupulously clean. It was amazing that under the biting pressure of want -and anxiety such standards could be maintained. Yet, though passionately -devoted to his family, the husband refused advantageous employment -because it necessitated work on the Sabbath. This would have been to them -a desecration of something more vital than life itself. - -[Illustration] - -We found that winter, in other instances, that the fangs of the wolf were -often decorously hidden. In one family of our acquaintance the father, -a cigarmaker, left the house each morning in search of work, only to -return at night hungrier and more exhausted by his fruitless exertions. -One Sabbath eve I entered his tenement, to find the two rooms scrubbed -and cleaned, and the mother and children prepared for the holy night. -Over a brisk fire fed by bits of wood picked up by the children two -covered pots were set, as if a supper were being prepared. But under the -lids it was only water that bubbled. The proud mother could not bear to -expose her poverty to the gossip of the neighbors, the humiliation being -the greater because she was obliged to violate the sacred custom of -preparing a ceremonious meal for the united family on Friday night. - -If the formalism of our neighbors in religious matters was constantly -brought to our attention, instances of their tolerance were also far from -rare. A Jewish woman, exhausted by her long day’s scrubbing of office -floors, walked many extra blocks to beg us to get a priest for her Roman -Catholic neighbor whose child was dying. An orthodox Jewish father, -who had been goaded to bitterness because his daughter had married an -“Irisher” and thus “insulted his religion,” felt that the young husband -and his mother were equally wronged. This man, when I called on a Sabbath -evening, took one of the lights from the table to show the way down the -five flights of dark tenement stairs, and to my protest,—knowing, as I -did, that he considered it a sin to handle fire on the Sabbath,—he said: -“It is no sin for me to handle a light on the Sabbath to show respect to -a friend who has helped to keep a family together.” - -[Illustration: WITH PRAYER-SHAWL AND PHYLACTERY] - -There was the story of Mary, eldest daughter, as we supposed, of an -orthodox family. When we went to her engagement party we were surprised -to see that the young man was not of the family faith. The mother told -us that Mary, “such a pretty baby,” had been left on their doorstep -in earlier and more prosperous days in Austria. “The Burgomeister had -made proclamation,” but no one came to claim her, and the husband and -wife, who as yet had no children of their own, decided to keep her. “God -rewarded us and answered our prayers,” said Mrs. L⸺, for many children -came afterward; but Mary, blonde and blue-eyed, was always the most -cherished, the first-comer who had brought the others. When she was quite -a young girl she was taken ill—a cold following exposure after her first -“grown-up” party, for which her foster-mother had dressed her with pride. -It seemed that nothing could save her, and the foster-mother in her -distress thought with pity of the woman who had borne this sweet child. -Surely she must be dead. No living mother could have abandoned so lovely -a baby. And if she were dead and in the Christian heaven, she would look -in vain there for her daughter. “So I called the priest and told him,” -said Mrs. L⸺, “and he made a prayer over Mary, and said, ‘Now she is a -_Krist_.’ The doctor, we called him too, and he said to get a goat, for -the milk would be good for Mary; and she get well, but no so strong, as -you see, and that is why she don’t go out to work like her brothers and -sisters. We lose our money, that’s why we come to America, and Mary, now -she marry a _Krist_.” - -[Illustration] - -Gradually there came to our knowledge difficulties and conflicts not -peculiar to any one set of people, but intensified in the case of our -neighbors by poverty, unfamiliarity with laws and customs, the lack of -privacy, and the frequent dependence of the elders upon the children. -Workers in philanthropy, clergymen, orthodox rabbis, the unemployed, -anxious parents, girls in distress, troublesome boys, came as individuals -to see us, but no formal organization of our work was effected till we -moved into the house on Henry Street, in 1895. - -So precious were the intimate relationships with our neighbors in the -tenement that we were reluctant to leave it. My companion’s breakdown, -the persuasion of friends who had given their support and counsel -that there was an obligation upon us to effect some kind of formal -organization without further delay, finally prevailed. As usual the -neighborhood showed its interest in what we did; and though my comrade -and I had carefully selected men from the ranks of the unemployed to -move our belongings, when all was accomplished not one of them could be -induced to take a penny for the work. - -From this first house have since developed the manifold activities in -city and country now incorporated as the Henry Street Settlement. - -I should like to make it clear that from the beginning we were most -profoundly moved by the wretched industrial conditions which were -constantly forced upon us. In succeeding chapters I hope to tell of the -constructive programmes that the people themselves have evolved out -of their own hard lives, of the ameliorative measures, ripened out of -sympathetic comprehension, and, finally, of the social legislation that -expresses the new compunction of the community. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -ESTABLISHING THE NURSING SERVICE - - -When I first entered the training-school my outpourings to the -superintendent,—a woman touched with a genius for sympathy,—my youthful -heroics, and my vow to “nurse the poor” were met with what I deemed vague -reference to the “Mission.” Afterwards when I sought guidance I found -that in New York the visiting (or district) nurse was accessible only -through sectarian organizations or the free dispensary. - -As our plan crystallized my friend and I were certain that a system for -nursing the sick in their homes could not be firmly established unless -certain fundamental social facts were recognized. We tried to imagine how -loved ones for whom we might be solicitous would react were they in the -place of the patients whom we hoped to serve. With time, experience, and -the stimulus of creative minds our technique and administrative methods -have naturally improved, but this test gave us vision to establish -certain principles, whose soundness has been proved during the growth of -the service. - -We perceived that it was undesirable to condition the nurse’s service -upon the actual or potential connection of the patient with a religious -institution or free dispensary, or to have the nurse assigned to the -exclusive use of one physician, and we planned to create a service on -terms most considerate of the dignity and independence of the patients. -We felt that the nursing of the sick in their homes should be undertaken -seriously and adequately; that instruction should be incidental and not -the primary consideration; that the etiquette, so far as doctor and -patient were concerned, should be analogous to the established system of -private nursing; that the nurse should be as ready to respond to calls -from the people themselves as to calls from physicians; that she should -accept calls from all physicians, and with no more red-tape or formality -than if she were to remain with one patient continuously. - -[Illustration] - -The new basis of the visiting-nurse service which we thus inaugurated -reacted almost immediately upon the relationship of the nurse to the -patient, reversing the position the nurse had formerly held. Chagrin -at having the neighbors see in her an agent whose presence proclaimed -the family’s poverty or its failure to give adequate care to its sick -member was changed to the gratifying consciousness that her presence, in -conjunction with that of the doctor, “private” or “Lodge,”[1] proclaimed -the family’s liberality and anxiety to do everything possible for the -sufferer. For the exposure of poverty is a great humiliation to people -who are trying to maintain a foothold in society for themselves and their -families. - -My colleague and I realized that there were large numbers of people -who could not, or would not, avail themselves of the hospitals. It -was estimated that ninety per cent. of the sick people in cities were -sick at home,—an estimate which has been corroborated (1913-14) by -the investigation of the Committee of Inquiry into the Departments of -Health, Charities, and Bellevue and Allied Hospitals of New York,—and a -humanitarian civilization demanded that something of the nursing care -given in hospitals should be accorded to sick people in their homes. - -[Illustration: THE NURSE IN THE TENEMENT - -Ninety per cent. of the sick of the city remain at home] - -We decided that fees should be charged when people could pay. It was -interesting to discover that, although nominal in amount compared with -the cost of the service, these fees represented a much larger proportion -of the wage in the case of the ordinary worker who paid for the hourly -service than did the fee paid by a man with a salary of $5,000, who -engaged the full time of the nurse. Our plan, we reasoned, was analogous -to the custom of “private” hospitals, which give free treatment or charge -according to the resources of the ward patients. Both private hospitals -and visiting nursing are thereby lifted out of “charity” as comprehended -by the people. - -[Illustration] - -We felt that for economic reasons valuable and expensive hospital space -should be saved for those for whom the hospital treatment is necessary; -and an obvious social consideration was that many people, particularly -women, cannot leave their homes without imperiling, or sometimes -destroying, the home itself. - - * * * * * - -Almost immediately we found patients who needed care, and doctors ready -to accept our services with probably the least amount of friction -possible under the circumstances; for those doctors who had not been -internes in the hospitals were unfamiliar with the trained nurse, whose -work was little known at that time outside the hospitals and the homes of -the well-to-do. - -Despite the neighborhood’s friendliness, however, we struggled, not -only with poverty and disease, but with the traditional fate of the -pioneer: in many cases we encountered the inevitable opposition which -the unusual must arouse. It seems almost ungracious to relate some of -our first experiences with doctors. No one can give greater tribute than -do the nurses of the settlement to the generosity of physicians and -surgeons when we recall how often paying patients were set aside for more -urgent non-paying ones; the counsel freely given from the highest for -the lowliest; the eager readiness to respond. Occasionally sage advice -came from a veteran who knew the people well and lamented the economic -pressure which at times involved, to their spiritual disaster, doctors as -well as patients. - -[Illustration] - -The first day on which we set out to discover the sick who might need -a nurse, my comrade found a woman with high temperature in an airless -room, more oppressive because of the fetid odor from the bed. Service -with one of New York’s skilled specialists had trained the nurse well -and she identified the symptoms immediately. “Yes, there was a Lodge -doctor.—He had left a prescription.—He might come again.” With fine -diplomacy an excuse was made to call upon the doctor and to assume that -he would accept the nurse’s aid. My colleague presented her credentials -and offered to accompany him to the case immediately, as she was “sure -conditions must have changed since his last visit or he would doubtless -have ordered” so-and-so,—suggesting the treatment the distinguished -specialists were then using. He promised to go, and the nurse waited -patiently for hours at the woman’s bedside. When he arrived he -pooh-poohed and said, “Nothing doing.” We had ascertained the financial -condition of the family from the evidence of the empty push-cart and the -fact that the fish-peddler was not in the market with his merchandise. -Five dollars was loaned that night to purchase stock next day. - -My comrade and I decided to visit the patient early the next morning, to -mingle judgments on what action could be taken in this serious illness -with due respect to established etiquette. When we arrived, the Lodge -doctor and a “Professor” (a consultant) were in the sickroom, and our -five dollars, left for fish, was in their possession. Cigarettes in -mouths and hats on heads, they were questioning husband and wife, and -only Dickens could have done justice to the scene. We were not too timid -to allude to the poverty and the source of the fee, and felt free when -we were told to “go ahead and do anything you like.” That permission we -acted upon instantly and received, over the telephone, authority from -the distinguished specialist to get to work. We were prudent enough to -report the authority and treatment given, with solemn etiquette, to the -physician in attendance, who in turn congratulated us on having helped -him to save a life! - -Not all our encounters with this class of practitioner were fruitful of -benefit to their patients. Heartbreaking was the tragedy of Samuel, the -twenty-one-year-old carpenter, and Ida, his bride. They had been boy and -girl sweethearts in Poland, and the coming to America, the preparation -of the clean two-roomed home, the expectation of the baby, made a pretty -story which should have had happy succeeding chapters, the start was so -good. Samuel knocked at our door, incoherent in his fright, but we were -fast accustoming ourselves to recognize danger-signals, and I at once -followed him to the top floor of his tenement. - -Plain to see, Ida was dying. The midwife said she had done all she could, -but she was obviously frightened. “No one could have done any better,” -she insisted, “not any doctor”; but she had called one and he had left -the woman lacerated and agonizing because the expected fee had been paid -only in part. It was Samuel’s last dollar. The septic woman could only be -sent to the city hospital. The ambulance surgeon was persuaded to let the -boy husband ride with her, and he remained at the hospital until she and -the baby died a few hours later. - -Here my comrade and I came against the stone wall of professional -etiquette. It seemed as if public sentiment ought to be directed by the -doctors themselves against such practices, but although I finally called -upon one of the high-minded and distinguished men who had signed the -diploma of the offending doctor, I could not get reproof administered, -and my ardor for arousing public indignation in the profession was -chilled. Later, when I heard protests from employers against insistence -by labor organizations on the closed shop, it occurred to me that they -failed to recognize analogies in the professional etiquette which -conventional society has long accepted. - -However, many friendly strong bonds were made and have been sustained -with a large majority of the doctors during all the years of our -service. We have mutual ties of personal and community interests, and -work together as comrades; the practitioners with high standards for -themselves and ideals for their sacred profession comprehend our common -cause and strengthen our hands. It is rare now, although at first it was -very frequent, that the physician who has called in the nurse for his -patient demands her withdrawal when he himself has been dismissed. He -has come to see that although the nurse exerts her influence to preserve -his prestige, for the patient’s sake as well as his own, nevertheless, -emotional people, unaccustomed to the settled relation of the family -doctor, may and often do change physicians from six to ten times in the -course of one illness. The nurse, however, may remain at the bedside -throughout all vicissitudes. - -The most definite protest against the newer relationship came from -a woman active in many public movements, who was a stickler for the -orthodox method of procuring a visiting nurse only through the doctor. To -illustrate the importance of freedom for the patients, I cited the case -of the L⸺ family. A neighbor had called for aid. “Some kind of an awful -catching sickness on the same floor I live on, to the right, front,” she -whispered. A worn and haggard woman was lifting a heavy boiler filled -with “wash” from the stove when I entered; on the floor in the other -room three little children lay ill with typhoid fever, one of them with -meningitis. The feather pillows, most precious possession, had been -pawned to pay the doctor. The father dared not leave the shop, for money -was needed, and all that he earned was far from enough. The mother, when -questioned as to the delay in sending for nursing help, said that the -doctor had frightened her from doing so by telling her that, if a nurse -came, the children would surely be sent to the hospital. No disinfectant -was found in the house, and the mother declared that no instructions had -been given her. - -The nurse who took possession of the sickroom refrained from mentioning -the hospital; but when the mother saw the skilled ministration, and -the tired father, on his return from work, watched the deft feeding -of the unconscious child, they awoke to their limitations. The poor, -unskilled woman, bent with fatigue, then exclaimed, “O God, is that -what I should have been doing for my babies?” When the nurse was about -to leave them for the night the parents clung to her and asked her if a -hospital would do as much as she had done. “More, much more, I hope,” -she said. “I cannot give here what the little ones need.” Late at night -three carriages started for the children’s ward of the hospital; the -father, the mother, the nurse, each with a patient across the seat of the -carriage. - -Said the critic when I had finished my story: “I think the nurse should -have asked permission of their doctor before she granted the request of -the parents.” - -All the social agencies combined have not been able to dislodge -permanently the quack who preys upon ignorance and superstition. One day -a teacher in a nearby school asked us to visit a pupil who was highly -excited and uncontrollable. The mother, when questioned, confessed that -she had employed the “witch doctor” to exorcise the devil, who, he said, -had taken possession of the girl. In our efforts to free the girl from -this man’s control I invoked the aid of the parish priest, suggesting -that his powers were being usurped. The County Medical Society finally -secured conviction of the “doctor” on the charge of practicing without a -license. - -In the Italian quarter this species still preys upon the superstitious -fears of some of the people, and the secrecy involved in his “treatment” -makes permanent riddance extremely difficult. The people on the whole, -however, give remarkable response to the “American” custom of employing a -regular practitioner and the visiting nurse. - - * * * * * - -In this country, unfortunately, we have little data on morbidity. -Statisticians desirous of obtaining figures for study have found -interesting material in our files, and it has been possible to make -comparison of the results of hospital and home treatment. Those who -are familiar with the discussion upon papers presented by children’s -specialists in recent conferences on the saving of child life have had -their attention drawn to the disadvantage of institutional treatment. -Discussion of this subject is recent, and the laity do not always know -that certain complications incident to the hospital care of children are -obviated by keeping them at home. Among these are cross-infections, while -the high mortality among infants in hospitals has long been recognized -and deplored as unavoidable. - -We soon found that children’s diseases, particularly those of brief -duration, lent themselves most advantageously to home treatment. Our -records show that in 1914 the Henry Street staff cared for 3,535 cases -of pneumonia of all ages, with a mortality rate of 8.05 per cent. For -purposes of comparison four large New York hospitals gave us their -records of pneumonia during the same period. Their combined figures -totaled 1,612, with a mortality rate of 31.2 per cent. Among children -under two—the age most susceptible to unfortunate termination of this -disorder—the mortality rate from pneumonia in one hospital was 51 per -cent., and the average of the four was 38 per cent., while among those of -a corresponding age cared for by our nurses it was 9.3 per cent. - -[Illustration] - -Doctors and nurses highly trained in hospital routine are apt to be -hospital propagandists until they learn by experience that there is -justification for the resistance, on the part of mothers, to the removal -of their children to institutions, and that even in homes which, at first -glance, it seems impossible to organize in accordance with sickroom -standards, the little patients’ chances for recovery are better than -when sent away. Diseases requiring climatic or operative treatment, or -peculiar apparatus, must usually be excluded from home care. - -In a letter written to a friend more than twenty years ago I find this -account of one of our patients: - - “Peter had pneumonia, complicated with whooping-cough. He - is a beautiful yellow-haired boy, and even if the hospital - could have admitted him, or his mother would have agreed to - his removal (which she wouldn’t), I should not have liked - to send him. The sense of responsibility for the sick child - seemed a force that could not be spared for rousing an erring - father. He is, apparently, devoted to the child, but had been - drinking, and there was not a dollar in the house. The child, - desperately ill, clung to him, calling upon him with endearing - names. During the illness he worked all day (he is a driver) - and sat up all night, and I think he will never forget his - shame and remorse. The doctor had ordered bath treatments every - two hours. These I gave until eight o’clock and the mother - continued them after my last visit, but when the temperature - was highest she was worn out, and active night-nursing seemed - imperative. This Miss S⸺ willingly undertook—a service more - difficult than appears in the mere telling, for the vermin - in these old houses are horribly active at night, and this - sweet girl ended her first vigil with neck and face inflamed - from bites. Yet the people themselves were clean, and in this - were not blameworthy. There is nothing harder to endure than - to watch by a night sick-bed in these old, worn houses and see - the crawling creatures and the babes so accustomed to them that - their sleep is scarcely disturbed. Peter has had a beautiful - recovery, rewarding his nurses by a most satisfactory return to - a normal state of good health.” - -[Illustration: Convalescent Home—“The Rest.”] - -The staff, which in the beginning consisted of two nurses, my friend -and myself, has been increased until it is now large enough to answer -calls from the sick anywhere in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, -and the calls in the year 1913-14 came from nearly 1,100 more patients -than the combined total of those treated during the same period in three -of the large hospitals in New York—a comparison valuable chiefly as -measuring the growing demand of the sick for the visiting nurse. - -The service, though covering so wide a territory, is capable of control -and supervision. The division into districts, with separate staffs -for contagious and obstetrical cases, may be compared to the hospital -division into wards. Like the hospital, it has a system of bedside notes, -case records, and an established etiquette between physicians, nurses, -and patients. Those that can best be cared for in the hospitals are sent -there, the sifting process being accomplished by the doctors and nurses -working together. Approximately ten per cent. of our patients are sent to -the hospitals. - -Serious nurses are gratified that the former casual and almost -sentimental attitude of the public toward them and their work has been -replaced by a demand for standards of efficiency. - -Enthusiasm, health, and uncommon good sense on the part of the nurse are -essential, for without the vision of the importance of their task they -could not long endure the endless stair-climbing, the weight of the bag, -and the pulls upon their emotions. - -There has been an extraordinary development of the visiting-nurse service -throughout the country since we began our rounds, and the practical -arguments for sustaining such work would seem irresistible. It requires -imagination, however, to visualize the steady, competent, continuous -routine so quietly performed, unseen by the public, and its financial -support is the more precarious because there can be no public reminder of -its existence by impressive buildings and monuments of marble. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE NURSE AND THE COMMUNITY - - -The work begun from the top floor of the tenement comprised, in simple -forms, those varied lines of activity which have since been developed -into the many highly specialized branches of public health nursing now -covering the United States and engaging thousands of nurses.[2] - -In trying to forestall every obstacle to the establishment of our nursing -service on the East Side, it seemed desirable to have some connection -with civic authority. Through a mutual friend I met the President of the -Board of Health and, I fear rather presumptuously, asked that we be given -some insignia. Desirous of serving his friend and tolerant of my intense -earnestness, he sanctioned our wearing a badge which had engraved on its -circle, “Visiting Nurse. Under the Auspices of the Board of Health.” - -As it transpired, we did not find it necessary or always felicitous -to utilize this privilege, but our connection with the Board of Health -was not a perfunctory or merely complimentary one. We found from the -beginning an inclination on the part of the officials of the department -to treat us more or less like comrades. Every night, during the first -summer, I wrote to the physician in charge, reporting the sick babies -and describing the unsanitary conditions Miss Brewster and I found, -and we received many encouraging reminders that what we were doing was -considered helpful. - -[Illustration] - -In the new activity for the promotion of public health many campaigns -have been waged to popularize the study of social diseases. Education -is the watchword, and where emphasis is laid upon the preservation of -health rather than upon the treatment of disease, the nurses constitute -an important factor. Appreciation of this is recorded by the Commission -which drafted the new health law for New York State (1913). “The advent -of trained nursing,” says its report, “marks not only a new era in the -treatment of the sick, but a new era in public health administration.” -This Commission also created the position of Director of the Division of -Public Health Nursing in the state department of health. - - * * * * * - -I had been downtown only a short time when I met Louis. An open door in a -rear tenement revealed a woman standing over a washtub, a fretting baby -on her left arm, while with her right she rubbed at the butcher’s aprons -which she washed for a living. - -Louis, she explained, was “bad.” He did not “cure his head,” and what -would become of him, for they would not take him into the school because -of it? Louis, hanging the offending head, said he had been to the -dispensary a good many times. He knew it was awful for a twelve-year-old -boy not to know how to read the names of the streets on the lamp-posts, -but “every time I go to school Teacher tells me to go home.” - -It needed only intelligent application of the dispensary ointments to -cure the affected area, and in September I had the joy of securing the -boy’s admittance to school for the first time in his life. The next -day, at the noon recess, he fairly rushed up our five flights of stairs -in the Jefferson Street tenement to spell the elementary words he had -acquired that morning. - -It had been hard on Louis to be denied the precious years of school, -yet one could sympathize with the harassed school teachers. The classes -were overcrowded; there were frequently as many as sixty pupils in a -single room, and often three children on a seat. It was, perhaps, not -unnatural that the eczema on Louis’s head should have been seized upon -as a legitimate excuse for not adding him to the number. Perhaps it was -not to be expected that the teacher should feel concern for one small -boy whom she might never see again, or should realize that his brief -time for education was slipping away and that he must go to work fatally -handicapped because of his illiteracy. - -The predecessor of our present superintendent of schools had apparently -given no thought to the social relationship of the school to the pupils. -The general public, twenty years ago, had no accurate information -concerning the schools, and, indeed, seemed to have little interest -in them. We heard of flagrant instances of political influence in the -selection and promotion of teachers, and later on we had actual knowledge -of their humiliation at being forced to obtain through sordid “pull” -the positions to which they had a legitimate claim. I had myself once -been obliged to enter the saloon of N⸺, the alderman of our district, -to obtain the promise of necessary and long-delayed action on his part -for the city’s acceptance of the gift of a street fountain, which I had -been indirectly instrumental in securing for the neighborhood. I had -been informed by his friends that without this attention he would not be -likely to act. - -Louis set me thinking and opened my mind to many things. Miss Brewster -and I decided to keep memoranda of the children we encountered who had -been excluded from school for medical reasons, and later our enlarged -staff of nurses became equally interested in obtaining data regarding -them. When one of the nurses found a small boy attending school while -desquamating from scarlet fever, and, Tom Sawyer-like, pulling off the -skin to startle his little classmates, we exhibited him to the President -of the Department of Health, and I then learned that the possibility of -having physicians inspect the school children was under discussion, and -that such evidence of its need as we could produce would be helpful in -securing an appropriation for this purpose. - -I had come to the conclusion that the nurse would be an essential -factor in making effective whatever treatment might be suggested for -the pupils, and, following an observation of mine to this effect, the -president asked me to take part, as nurse, in the medical supervision in -the schools. This offer it did not seem wise to accept. We were embarking -upon ventures of our own which would require all our faculties and all -our strength. It seemed better to be free from connections which would -make demand upon our energies for routine work outside the settlement. -Moreover, the time did not seem ripe for advocating the introduction of -both the doctor and the nurse. The doctor himself, in this capacity, -was an innovation. The appointment of a nurse would have been a radical -departure. - -[Illustration] - -In 1897 the Department of Health appointed the first doctors; one hundred -and fifty were assigned to the schools for one hour a day at a salary of -$30 a month. They were expected to examine for contagious diseases and -to send out of the classrooms all those who showed suspicious symptoms. -It proved to be a perfunctory service and only superficially touched the -needs of the children. - -In 1902, when a reform administration came into power, the medical -staff was reduced and the salary increased to $100 a month, while three -hours a day were demanded from the doctors. The Health Commissioner of -that administration, an intelligent friend of children, now ordered an -examination of all the public school pupils, and New York was horrified -to learn of the prevalence of trachoma. Thousands of children were -sent out of the schools because of this infectious eye trouble, and in -our neighborhood we watched many of them, after school hours, playing -with the children for whose protection they had been excluded from -the classrooms. Few received treatment, and it followed that truancy -was encouraged, and, where medical inspection was most thorough, the -classrooms were depleted. - -The President of the Department of Education and the Health Commissioner -sought for guidance in this predicament. Examination by physicians -with the object of excluding children from the classrooms had proved a -doubtful blessing. The time had come when it seemed right to urge the -addition of the nurse’s service to that of the doctor. My colleagues -and I offered to show that with her assistance few children would lose -their valuable school time and that it would be possible to bring under -treatment those who needed it. Reluctant lest the democracy of the -school should be invaded by even the most socially minded philanthropy, -I exacted a promise from several of the city officials that if the -experiment were successful they would use their influence to have the -nurse, like the doctor, paid from public funds. - -Four schools from which there had been the greatest number of exclusions -for medical causes were selected, and an experienced nurse, who possessed -tact and initiative, was chosen from the settlement staff to make the -demonstration. A routine was devised, and the examining physician sent -daily to the nurse all the pupils who were found to be in need of -attention, using a code of symbols in order that the children might be -spared the chagrin of having diseases due to uncleanliness advertised to -their associates. - -With the equipment of the settlement bag and, in some of the schools, -with no more than the ledge of a window or the corner of a room for the -nurse’s office, the present system of thorough medical inspection in -the schools and of home visiting was inaugurated. Many of the children -needed only disinfectant treatment of the eyes, collodion applied to -ringworm, or instruction as to cleanliness, and such were returned at -once to the class with a minimum loss of precious school time. Where more -serious conditions existed the nurse called at the home, explained to the -mother what the doctor advised, and, where there was a family physician, -urged that the child should be taken to him. In the families of the poor -information as to dispensaries was given, and where the mother was at -work, and there was no one free to take the child to the dispensary, the -nurse herself did this. Where children were sent to the nurse because -of uncleanliness, the mother was given tactful instruction and, when -necessary, a practical demonstration on the child himself. - -[Illustration: A SHORT CUT OVER THE ROOFS OF THE TENEMENTS] - -One month’s trial proved that, with the exception of the very small -proportion of major contagious and infectious diseases, the addition -of the nurse to the staff made it possible to reverse the object of -medical inspection from excluding the children from school to keeping the -children in the classroom and under treatment. An enlightened Board of -Estimate and Apportionment voted $30,000 for the employment of trained -nurses, the first municipalized school nurses in the world, now a feature -of medical school supervision in many communities in this country and in -Europe. - -The first nurse was placed on the city payroll in October, 1902, and -this marked the beginning of an extraordinary development of the public -control of the physical condition of children. Out of this innovation New -York City’s Bureau of Child Hygiene has grown. - -The Department of Health now employs 650 nurses for its hospital and -preventive work. Of this number 374, in the year 1914, were engaged for -the Bureau of Child Hygiene. - -Poor Louis, who all unconsciously had started the train of incidents that -led to this practical reform, has long since moved from his Hester Street -home to Kansas, and was able to write us, as he did with enthusiasm, of -his identification with the West. - - * * * * * - -Our first expenditures were for “sputum cups and disinfectants for -tuberculosis patients.” The textbooks had said that Jews were practically -immune from this disease, and here we found ourselves in a dense colony -of the race with signs everywhere of the white plague, which we soon -thought it fitting to name “tailors’ disease.” - -Long before the great work was started by the municipality to combat its -ravages through education and home visitation, we organized for ourselves -a system of care and instruction for patients and their families, and -wrote to the institutions that were known to care for tuberculosis cases -for the addresses of discharged patients, that we might call upon them to -leave the cups and disinfectants and instruct the families. - -Since 1904 the anti-tuberculosis movement has been greatly accelerated, -and although it is pre-eminently a disease of poverty and can never -be successfully combated without dealing with its underlying economic -causes—bad housing, bad workshops, undernourishment, and so on—the most -immediate attack lies in education in personal hygiene. For this the -approach to the families through the nurse and her ability to apply -scientific truth to the problems of human living have been found to be -invaluable.[3] - -Infant mortality is also a social disease—“poverty and ignorance, the -twin roots from which this evil springs.” There is a large measure of -preventable ignorance, and in the efforts for the reduction of infant -mortality the intelligent reaction of the tenement-house mother has been -remarkably evidenced. In the last analysis babies of the poor are kept -alive through the intelligence of the mothers. Pasteurized or modified -milk in immaculate containers is of limited value if exposed to pollution -in the home, or if it is fed improperly and at irregular periods. - -[Illustration] - -The need of giving the mother training seemed so evident that, in the -course of lessons given on the East Side antedating our nursing service, -I had demonstrated with a primitive sterilizer a simple method of -insuring “safe” milk for babies. - -The settlement established a milk station in 1903, when one of its -directors began sending milk of high grade from his private dairy. -Following our principle of building up the homes wherever possible, the -modification of the milk has always been taught there. The nurses report -that it is very rare to find a woman who cannot learn the lesson when -made to understand its importance to her children. - -[Illustration] - -Children under two years who show the greatest need are given the -preference in admission to our clinic. Excellent physicians practicing -in the neighborhood have contributed their services as consultants, and -conferences are held regularly. In 1914 the number of infants cared for -was 518 and the mortality 1.8 per cent. The previous year, with 400 -infants, the mortality was one-half of one per cent. - -The Health Commissioner of Rochester, N. Y., a pioneer in his specialty, -founded municipal milk stations for that city in 1897. He states that -the reduction of infant mortality that followed the establishment of the -stations was due, not so much to the milk, but to the education that went -out with the milk through the nurse and in the press. - -In 1911 New York City authorized the municipalization of fifteen milk -stations, and so satisfactory was the result that the next year the -appropriation permitted more than the trebling of this number. A nurse -is attached to each station to follow into the homes and there lay the -foundation, through education, for hygienic living. A marked reduction in -infant mortality has been brought about and, moreover, a realization, on -the part of the city, of the immeasurable social and economic value of -keeping the babies alive. - -The Federal Children’s Bureau in its first report on the study of infant -mortality in the United States showed that, in the city selected for -investigation, the infant death rate, in those sections where conditions -were worst, was more than five times that in the choice residential -sections. - -This report constitutes a serious indictment of society, and should goad -civic and social conscience to aggressive action. But there are evidences -(and, indeed, the existence of the Bureau is one) that the public is -beginning to realize the profound importance in our national life of -saving the children that are born. - - * * * * * - -Perhaps nothing indicates more impressively our contempt for alien -customs than the general attitude taken toward the midwife. In other -lands she holds a place of respect, but in this country there seems to -be a general determination on the part of physicians and departments of -health to ignore her existence and leave her free to practice without -fit preparation, despite the fact that her services are extensively used -in humble homes. In New York City the midwife brings into the world over -forty per cent. of all the babies born there, and ninety-eight per cent. -of those among the Italians. - -We had many experiences with them, beginning with poor Ida, the -carpenter’s wife, and some that had the salt of humor. Before our first -year had passed I wrote to the superintendent of a large relief society -operating in our neighborhood, advising that the society discontinue its -employment of midwives as a branch of relief, because of their entire -lack of standards and their exemption from restraining influence. - -To force attention to the harmful effect of leaving the midwife without -training in midwifery and asepsis free to attend women in childbirth, the -Union Settlement in 1905 financed an investigation under the auspices of -a committee of which I was chairman. - -A trained nurse was selected to inquire into and report upon the -practice of the midwives. The inquiry disclosed the extent to which -habit, tradition, and economic necessity made the midwife practically -indispensable, and gave ample proof of the neglect, ignorance, and -criminality that prevailed; logical consequences of the policy that -had been pursued. The Commissioner of Health and eminent obstetricians -now co-operated to improve matters, and legislation was secured making -it mandatory for the Department of Health to regulate the practice of -midwifery. Five years later the first school for midwives in America was -established in connection with Bellevue Hospital. - -[Illustration] - -Part of the duty assigned to nurses of the Bureau of Child Hygiene is -to inspect the bags of the midwives licensed to practice, and to visit -the new-born in the campaign to wipe out _ophthalmia neonatorum_, that -tragically frequent and preventable cause of blindness among the new-born. - -These are a few of the manifestations of the new era in the development -of the nurse’s work. She is enlisted in the crusade against disease and -for the promotion of right living, beginning even before life itself is -brought forth, through infancy into school life, on through adolescence, -with its appeal to repair the omissions of the past. Her duties take -her into factory and workshop, and she has identified herself with the -movement against the premature employment of children, and for the -protection of men and women who work that they may not risk health and -life itself while earning their living. The nurse is being socialized, -made part of a community plan for the communal health. Her contribution -to human welfare, unified and harmonized with those powers which aim at -care and prevention, rather than at police power and punishment, forms -part of the great policy of bringing human beings to a higher level. - -With the incorporation of the nurse’s service in municipal and state -departments for the preservation of health, other agencies, under -private and semi-public auspices, have expanded their functions to the -sick. - -I had felt that the American Red Cross Society held a unique position -among its sister societies of other nations, and that in time it might -be an agency that could consciously provide valuable “moral equivalents -for war.” The whole subject, in these troubled times, is revived in -my memory, and I find that in 1908 I began to urge that in a country -dedicated to peace it would be fitting for the American Red Cross to -consecrate its efforts to the upbuilding of life and the prevention of -disaster, rather than to emphasize its identification with the ravages of -war. - -The concrete recommendation made was that the Red Cross should develop -a system of visiting nursing in the vast, neglected country areas. The -suggestion has been adopted and an excellent beginning made with a -Department of Town and Country Nursing directed by a special committee. -A generous gift started an endowment for its administration. Many -communities not in the registered area and remote from the centers of -active social propaganda will be given stimulus to organize for nursing -service, and from this other medical and social measures will inevitably -grow. It requires no far reach of the imagination to visualize the -time when our country will be districted from the northernmost to the -southernmost point, with the trained graduate nurse entering the home -wherever there is illness, caring for the patient, preaching the gospel -of health, and teaching in simplest form the essentials of hygiene. Such -an organization of national scope, its powers directed toward raising -the standard in the homes without sacrifice of independence, is bound to -promote the social progress of the nation. - - * * * * * - -In the year 1909 the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company undertook -the nursing of its industrial policyholders—an important event in the -annals of visiting nursing. I had suggested the practicality of this -to one of the officials of the company, a man of broad experience, and -he, immediately responsive, provided opportunity for me to present to -his colleagues evidence of the reduction of mortality, the hastening of -convalescence, and the ability to bring to sick people the resources that -the community provides for treatment through the institution of visiting -nursing. - -The company employed our staff to care for its patients, and the -experiment has been extended until a nursing service practically covers -its industrial policyholders in Canada and the United States. The company -thereby gave an enormous impetus to education and hygiene in the homes -and treatment of the sick on the only basis that makes it possible for -persons of small means to receive nursing without charity—namely, through -insurance. - -The demand for the public health nurse coming from all sides was so great -that for a time it could not be adequately met. Women of initiative -and personality with broad education were needed, for much of the work -required pioneering zeal. Instructive inspection, on the nurse’s part, -like other educational work, requires suitable and sound preparation, a -superstructure of efficiency upon woman’s natural aptitudes. - -[Illustration] - -The Henry Street Settlement and other groups with well-established -visiting nursing systems responded to the need by offering opportunities -for post-graduate training and experience in the newly opened field of -public health nursing, and sought co-ordination with formal educational -institutions for instruction in social theories and pedagogy. In 1910 -the Department of Nursing and Health was created at Teachers College, -Columbia University, embracing in its completed form the Department -of Hospital Economics established there in 1899 by the efforts of -training-school superintendents. This department is in affiliation with -the settlement. At least four important training-schools for nurses are -now working under the direction of universities, and other provision has -been made to give education supplementary to the hospital training. - -Nurses themselves have taken the initiative in securing the means for -equipping women in their profession to meet the new requirements. They -are providing helpful literature and finding stimulating associations -with others enlisted in similar efforts for human welfare. I had the -honor to be elected first president of the National Organization for -Public Health Nursing. At the conference held in 1913 (less than a year -after the formation of the society) an assemblage of women gathered from -all parts of the country to seek guidance and inspiration for this work, -and something that was very like religious fervor characterized their -meetings. - -The need of consecration to the sick and the young that has touched -generation after generation with new impulse was manifested in their -eagerness to serve the community. From the root of the old gospel another -branch has grown, a realization that the call to the nurse is not -only for the bedside care of the sick, but to help in seeking out the -deep-lying basic causes of illness and misery, that in the future there -may be less sickness to nurse and to cure. - -A pleasant indication that the academic world reached out its fellowship -to the nurses in their zeal for public service was given some months -later when Mt. Holyoke College, at the commemoration of its seventy-fifth -anniversary, honored me by conferring on me the LL.D. degree. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -CHILDREN AND PLAY - - -The visitor who sees our neighborhood for the first time at the hour -when school is dismissed reacts with joy or dismay to the sight, not -paralleled in any part of the world, of thousands of little ones on a -single city block. - -Out they pour, the little hyphenated Americans, more conscious of their -patriotism than perhaps any other large group of children that could -be found in our land; unaware that to some of us they carry on their -shoulders our hopes of a finer, more democratic America, when the worthy -things they bring to us shall be recognized, and the good in their -old-world traditions and culture shall be mingled with the best that lies -within our new-world ideals. Only through knowledge is one fortified -to resist the onslaught of arguments of the superficial observer who, -dismayed by the sight, is conscious only of “hordes” and “danger to -America” in these little children. - -They are irresistible. They open up wide vistas of the many lands from -which they come. The multitude passes: swinging walk, lagging step; -smiling, serious—just little children, forever appealing, and these, -perhaps, more than others, stir the emotions. “Crime, ignorance, dirt, -anarchy!” Not theirs the fault if any of these be true, although -sometimes perfectly good children are spoiled, as Jacob Riis, that -buoyant lover of them, has said. As a nation we must rise or fall as we -serve or fail these future citizens. - -[Illustration] - -Their appeal suggests that social exclusions and prejudices separate far -more effectively than distance and differing language. They bring a hope -that a better relationship—even the great brotherhood—is not impossible, -and that through love and understanding we shall come to know the shame -of prejudice. - -[Illustration] - -Instinctively the sympathetic observer feels the possibilities of the -young life that passes before the settlement doors, and sincerity demands -that something shall be known of the conditions, economic, political, -religious, or, perchance, of the mere spirit of venture that brought -them here. How often have the conventionally educated been driven to -the library to obtain that historic perspective of the people who are -in our midst, without which they cannot be understood! What fascinating -excursions have been made into folklore in the effort to comprehend some -strange custom unexpectedly encountered! - -When the anxious friends of the dying Italian brought a chicken to be -killed over him, the tenement-house bed became the sacrificial altar of -long ago; and when the old, rabbinical-looking grandfather took hairs -from the head of the sick child, a bit of his finger-nail, and a garment -that had been close to his body, and cast them into the river while he -devoutly prayed that the little life might be spared, he declared his -faith in the purification of running water. - -[Illustration] - -It is necessary to spend a summer in our neighborhood to realize fully -the conditions under which many thousands of children are reared. One -night during my first month on the East Side, sleepless because of the -heat, I leaned out of the window and looked down on Rivington Street. -Life was in full course there. Some of the push-cart venders still sold -their wares. Sitting on the curb directly under my window, with her -feet in the gutter, was a woman, drooping from exhaustion, a baby at her -breast. The fire-escapes, considered the most desirable sleeping-places, -were crowded with the youngest and the oldest; children were asleep on -the sidewalks, on the steps of the houses and in the empty push-carts; -some of the more venturesome men and women with mattress or pillow -staggered toward the riverfront or the parks. I looked at my watch. It -was two o’clock in the morning! - -[Illustration] - -Many times since that summer of 1893 have I seen similar sights, and -always I have been impressed with the kindness and patience, sometimes -the fortitude, of our neighbors, and I have marveled that out of -conditions distressing and nerve-destroying as these so many children -have emerged into fine manhood and womanhood, and often, because of their -early experiences, have become intelligent factors in promoting measures -to guard the next generation against conditions which they know to be -destructive. - -Before I lived in the midst of this dense child population, and while -I was still in the hospital, I had been touched by glimpses of the -life revealed in the games played in the children’s ward. Up to that -time my knowledge of little ones had been limited to those to whom the -people in fairy tales were real, and whose games and stories reflected -the protective care of their elders. My own earliest recollections of -play had been of story-telling, of housekeeping with all the things in -miniature that grown-ups use, and of awed admiration of the big brother -who graciously permitted us to witness hair-raising performances in the -barn, to which we paid admittance in pins. The children in the hospital -ward who were able to be about, usually on crutches or with arms in -slings, played “Ambulance” and the “Gerry Society.” The latter game -dramatized their conception of the famous Society for the Prevention of -Cruelty to Children as an ogre that would catch them. The ambulance -game was of a child, or a man at work, injured and carried away to the -hospital. - -Many years’ familiarity with the children’s attempts to play in the -streets has not made me indifferent to its pathos, which is not the -less real because the children themselves are unconscious of it. In the -midst of the push-cart market, with its noise, confusion, and jostling, -the checker or crokinole board is precariously perched on the top of a -hydrant, constantly knocked over by the crowd and patiently replaced by -the little children. One tearful small boy described his morning when -he said he had done nothing but play, but first the “cop” had snatched -his dice, then his “cat” (a piece of wood sharpened at both ends), and -nobody wanted him to chalk on the sidewalk, and he had been arrested for -throwing a ball. - -A man since risen to distinction in educational circles, whose childhood -was passed in our neighborhood, told me how he and his companions had -once taken a dressmaker’s lay figure. They had no money to spend on -the theater and no place to play in but a cellar. They had admired the -gaudy posters of a melodrama in which the hero rescues the lady and -carries her over a chasm. Having no lady in their cast, they borrowed -the dressmaker’s lay figure—without permission. Fortunately, and -accidentally, they escaped detection. It is not difficult to see how the -entire course of this boy’s career might have been altered if arrest had -followed, with its consequent humiliation and degradation. At least, -looking back upon it, the young man sees how the incident might have -deflected his life. - -The instruction in folk-dancing which the children now receive in -the public schools and recreation centers has done much to develop a -wholesome and delightful form of exercise, and has given picturesqueness -to the dancing in the streets. But yesterday I found myself pausing on -East Houston Street to watch a group of children assemble at the sound of -a familiar dance from a hurdy-gurdy, and looking up I met the sympathetic -smile of a teamster who also had stopped. The children, absorbed in their -dance, were quite unconscious that congested traffic had halted and that -busy people had taken a moment from their engrossing problems to be -refreshed by the sight of their youth and grace. For that brief instant -even the cry of “War Extra” was unheeded. - - * * * * * - -Touching as are the little children deprived of opportunity for wholesome -play, a deeper compassion stirred our hearts when we began to realize -the critically tender age at which many of them share the experiences, -anxieties, and tragedies of the adult. I cannot efface from my memory -the picture of a little eight-year-old girl whom I once found standing -on a chair to reach a washtub, trying with her tiny hands to cleanse -some bed-linen which would have been a task for an older person. Every -few minutes the child got down from her chair to peer into the next room -where her mother and the new-born baby lay, all her little mind intent -upon giving relief and comfort. She had been alone with her mother when -the baby was born and terror was on her face. - -I think the memory never left her, but it may be only that her presence -called up, even after the lapse of years, a vision of the anxious little -face inevitably contrasted in my mind with the picture of irresponsible -childhood. - -At about the same time we made the acquaintance of the K⸺ family, through -nursing one of the children. The mother was a large-framed, phlegmatic, -seemingly emotionless type, although she did show appreciation of our -liking for her children. The father was only occasionally mentioned. We -assumed that he was away seeking work, a common explanation then of the -absence of the men of the families. One afternoon I stopped at their -house to make arrangements for the children’s trip to the country. Early -the next morning, awakened by a pounding on the door, I opened it to -find little Esther beside herself with excitement, repeating over and -over, “My mother she die! My mother she die!” Following fast, it was not -possible to keep pace with her. When, breathless, I entered their rooms -it was to see the mother’s body hanging from a doorway. She had been -brooding over a summons to testify in court that morning against her -husband, who had been arrested for bigamy, and this was her answer to the -court and to the other woman. - -The frightened little children were scattered among different -institutions. From one of these Esther was sent West, to a home that was -found for her. Possibly she was so young that the terrible picture faded -from her mind. At least there was no mention of it in the first letter -which she wrote, announcing that her new home was a farm and that they -had “six cows, eighty chickens, eleven pigs, and a _nephew_.” The nephew -Esther eventually married. - -In the first party of children that we sent to the country were three -little girls, daughters of a skilled cobbler. The mother, a complaining, -exacting invalid, spent a large proportion of her husband’s earnings for -patent medicines. Annie, not quite twelve, was the household drudge, -and the coming of the settlement nurse lifted only part of her burden. -The new friends, determined to get at least two weeks of care-free -childhood for the little girls, procured an invitation for them, through -a Fresh-Air agency, from a farmer in the western part of the state. It -was necessary to secure the mother’s admission to a hospital during the -time the children would be absent from home—not an easy task, as she was -not what is termed a “hospital case.” When we met the children at the -railroad station on their return, their joyousness and bubbling spirits -attracted the attention of the on-lookers; but as Annie neared home its -responsibilities fell like a heavy cloud upon her, and before we reached -the tenement she was silent. Her quick eye discerned the absence of the -brick which had kept the front hall door open, and in a second she had -darted into the yard and replaced it. Before we left, with sleeves rolled -up she was beginning to wash the pile of dishes that had accumulated -in her absence. Gone was the gayety. The little drudge had resumed her -place. Later, when the child swore falsely to her age, and the notary -public, upon whose certificate employment papers could at that time -be obtained, affixed his signature to her perjury, the position she -secured as cash girl in the basement of a department store was, to her, -emancipation from hateful labor and an opportunity for fellowship with -children. - - * * * * * - -Recalling early days, I am constantly reminded of the sympathy and -comprehension of those friends who, though not stimulated as my comrade -and I were by constant reminders of the children’s needs, from the -beginning promoted and often anticipated our efforts to provide innocent -recreation. We had not thought of the possibility of giving pleasure to -large groups of children in picnics and day parties, when a friend, a -few days after our arrival in the neighborhood, asked us to celebrate -his sister’s birthday by giving “fun” to some of our new acquaintances. -I yet remember the thrill I felt when I realized that this gift was not -for shoes or practical necessities, but for “just what children anywhere -would like.” - -Two memories of this first party stand out sharply: the songs the -children sang,—“She’s More to be Pitied than Censured,” and “Judge, -Forgive Him, ’Tis His First Offense,”—painfully revealing a precocious -knowledge, and their ecstasy at the sight of a wonderful dogwood tree. -Now, when the settlement children go on day parties, they have another -repertory, and the music they learn in the public schools reflects the -finer thought for the child. - -[Illustration] - -During the two years that Miss Brewster and I lived in the Jefferson -Street house we frequently made up impromptu parties to visit the distant -parks, usually on Sunday afternoons when we were likely to be free. After -a while it was not difficult to secure comradeship for the children from -men and women of our acquaintance, and the parties were multiplied. In -the winter, rumors of “a fine hill all covered with snow” on Riverside -Drive would be a stimulus to secure a sled or improvise a toboggan, and -we found that, given opportunity and encouragement, the city tenement -boys threw themselves readily into venturesome sport. - -[Illustration: AND THEIR ECSTASY AT THE SIGHT OF A WONDERFUL DOGWOOD -TREE] - -Happily some of the early prejudice against ball-playing on Sunday has -vanished. We were perplexed in those days to explain to the lads why, -when they saw the ferries and trains convey golfers suitably attired -and expensively equipped for a day’s sport, their own games should -outrage respectable citizens and cause them to be constantly “chased” -by the police. The saloons could be entered, as everybody knew, and I -remember a father, defending his eight-year-old son from an accusation of -theft, instancing as proof of the child’s trustworthiness that “all the -Christians on Jackson Street sent him for their beer on Sundays.” - -In our search for a place where the boys might play undisturbed, one of -the settlement residents, a never-failing friend of the young people, -invoked the Federal Government itself, and secured for them an unused -field on Governor’s Island. - -Now, in summer time, many of the organized activities of the settlement -are removed from the neighborhood. Early in the season the “hikers” begin -their walks with club leaders. I felt a glow of happiness one Sunday -morning when I stood on the steps of our house and watched six different -groups of boys set off for the country, with ball and bat and sandwiches, -each group led by a young man who had himself been a member of our early -parties and had been first introduced to trees and open spaces, and the -more active forms of healthful play by his settlement friends. - -[Illustration] - -The woeful lack of imagination displayed in building a city without -recognizing the need of its citizens for recreation through play, music, -and art, has been borne in upon us many times. New Yorkers need to be -reminded that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was effectually closed to -a large proportion of the citizens until, on May 31, 1891, it opened -its doors on Sundays. It is interesting to recall that of the 80,000 -signatures to the petition for this privilege, 50,000 were of residents -of the lower East Side and were presented by the “Working People’s -Petition Committee.” The report of the Museum trustees following the -Sunday opening notes that after a little disorder and confusion at -the start the experiment proved a success; that the attendance was -“respectable, law-abiding, and intelligent,” and that “the laboring -classes were well represented.” They were also obliged to report, -however, that the Sunday opening had “offended some of the Museum’s best -friends and supporters,” and that it had “resulted in the loss of a -bequest of $50,000.” - - * * * * * - -When we left the tenement house we were fortunate to find for sale, on -a street that still bore evidences of its bygone social glory, a house -which readily lent itself to the restorer’s touch. Tradition says that -many of these fine old East Side houses were built by cabinetmakers -who came over from England during the War of 1812 and remained here as -citizens. The generous purchaser allowed us freedom to repair, restore, -and alter, as our taste directed. Attractive as we found the house, we -were even more excited over the possibilities of the little back yard. -Our first organized effort for the neighborhood was to convert this -yard and one belonging to an adjacent school, with, later, the yard of -a third house rented by one of our residents, into a miniature but very -complete playground. There was so little precedent to guide us that our -resourcefulness was stimulated, and we succeeded in achieving what the -President of the National Playground Association has called the “Bunker -Hill” of playgrounds. - -Along the borders we planted bright-colored flowers—which were not -disturbed by the children. An old wistaria vine on a trellis covered -nearly a third of the playground, and two ailanthus trees, usually -regarded with contempt by tree lovers, were highly cherished by those who -otherwise would have lived a treeless life. Window-boxes jutted from the -rear windows of the two houses controlled by the settlement, and in one -corner, shaded by a striped awning, we put the big sand-pile. Joy-giving -“scups” (the local name for swings) were erected, and some suitable -gymnastic apparatus, parallel bars and overhead ladder placed. Baby -hammocks were swung, their occupants tenderly cared for by little mothers -and little fathers. Manual training was provided by a picturesque sailor -from Sailors’ Snug Harbor, who, at a stretching frame, taught the making -of hammocks. - -In the morning under the pergola an informal kindergarten was conducted, -and in the afternoon attendants directed play and taught the use of -gymnastic apparatus. Later in the day the mothers and older children -came, and a little hurdy-gurdy occasionally marked the rhythm of the -dance. So interested in the playground were the household and their -visitors that at odd moments an enthusiast would rush in from other -duties and give the hurdy-gurdy an extra turn, to supplement the -entertainment. At night the baby hammocks and chairs were stored away and -Japanese lanterns illuminated the playground, which then welcomed the -young people who, after their day’s work, took pleasure in each other’s -society and in singing familiar songs. - -[Illustration: IT HAS BEEN CALLED THE “BUNKER HILL” OF PLAYGROUNDS] - -[Illustration: THE CHILDREN PLAY ON OUR ROOF] - -On Saturday afternoons the playground was used almost exclusively by -fathers and mothers, but it was a pretty sight at all times, and the -value placed upon it by those who used it was far in excess of our own -estimate. It was something more than amusement that moved us when a young -couple, who had been invited to one of the evening parties, stood at the -back door of the settlement house and gazed admiringly at the little -pleasure place. Gowned in white, we awaited our guests, and as I rose -from the bench under the pergola to cross the yard and give them welcome, -the young printer said with enthusiasm, “This must be like the scenes of -country life in English novels.” - -It was a heaven of delight to the children, and ingenuity was displayed -by those who sought admittance. The children soon learned that “little -mothers” and their charges had precedence, and there was rivalry as to -who should hold the family baby. When (as rarely happened) there was -none in the family, a baby was borrowed. Six-year-olds, clasping babies -of stature almost equal to their own, would stand outside, hoping to -attract attention to their special claims. Once, when the playground was -filled to capacity, and the sidewalk in front of the house was thronged, -the Olympian at the gate endeavored to make it clear that no more could -enter. One persistent small girl stood stolidly and when reminded of the -condition said, “Yes, teacher, but can’t I get in? I ain’t got no mother.” - -There was much illness, unemployment, and consequent suffering the -next winter. One day, when I visited a school in the neighborhood, the -principal asked the pupils if they knew me. She doubtless anticipated -some reference to the material services which the settlement had -rendered, but the answer to her question was a glad chorus of, “Yes, -ma’am, yes, ma’am, she’s our scupping teacher.” “Teacher” was a generic -term for the residents, and nothing that the settlement had contributed -to the life of the neighborhood impressed the children as had the -playground. It is worth reminding those who are associated with young -people that the power to influence is given to those who play with, -rather than to those who only teach, them. Our children on the East Side -are not peculiar in this respect. To this day I receive letters from men -and women who try to recall themselves to my memory by saying that they -once played in our back yard. - -[Illustration] - -An organized propaganda for outdoor gymnasia and playgrounds crystallized -in 1898 in the formation of the Outdoor Recreation League, in which the -settlement participated. The tireless president of the League eventually -succeeded in obtaining the use of a large space in our neighborhood, -originally purchased by the city, during a brief reform administration, -for a park. Some very undesirable tenement houses had been destroyed, -and when a Tammany administration returned to power a hot summer was -allowed to pass with nothing done to accomplish the original purpose. -Unsightly holes, once cellars, remained to fill with stagnant water, -amputated sewer- and gas-pipes were exposed, and among these the children -played mimic battles of the Spanish-American War, then in progress. - -The accident that the Commissioner of Health, a semi-invalid, felt -gratitude to a trained nurse who had cared for him, gave me an -opportunity to approach him on the subject. He promised (and he kept his -promise) to use his influence to get an appropriation on the score of -the menace to the health of the city. The appropriation was sufficient -to fill in the space and surround it with a fence, and the Outdoor -Recreation League was able to demonstrate the value of playgrounds. -In 1902 the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of Mayor Seth Low’s -reform administration, at its first meeting, appropriated money for the -equipment and maintenance of Seward Park, as it was named,—the first -municipal playground in New York City. So much interest had been aroused -in this phase of city government that two city officials left the board -meeting while it was in progress to telephone to the settlement that the -appropriation had been passed. - -Many friends of the children combined to urge the use of the public -schools as recreation centers, and in the summer of 1898 the first -schools were opened for that purpose. Those of us who had practical -experience helped to start these by acting as volunteer inspectors. -The settlement then felt justified in devoting less effort to its own -playground, and deflected some of the energies it required to meet other -pressing needs. - - * * * * * - -It is a delight to give the children stories from the Bible and the old -mythologies, fairy tales, and lives of heroes, and we mark as epochal -Maude Adams’s inspiration to invite our children and others not likely to -have the opportunity to see Peter Pan. She has given joy to thousands, -but it is doubtful if she can measure, as we do, the influence of “the -everlasting boy.” Through him romance has touched these children, and not -a few of the letters spontaneously written to Peter Pan from tenement -homes have seemed to us not unworthy of Barrie himself. Protest against -leaving the big, familiar farmhouse at one of our country places, when -an overflow of visitors necessitated a division of the little ones at -night, was immediately withdrawn when the children were told that the -annex, perched on high ground, was a “Wendy House.” - -[Illustration] - -The need of care for convalescents was early recognized, and the -settlement’s first country house was for them. It was opened in 1899, -and its maintenance is the generous gift of a young woman, a member of -the early group that gathered in the Henry Street house. We soon felt, -however, that it was essential that children and young people as well as -invalids should have knowledge of life other than that of the crowded -tenement and factory; and from the time of the establishment of our first -kindergarten we longed to have the children know the reality of the -things they sang about, the birds and animals which so often formed the -subject of their games. A little girl in one of the parties taken to see -Peter Pan turned to her beloved club leader when the crocodile appeared -and asked timidly if it was a _field-mouse_! A recent lesson had been -about that “animal.” It seems almost incredible that the description, -probably supplemented by a picture, should not have made a more definite -impression upon the child’s mind; but I am inclined to think that little -children can form no accurate conception of unknown objects from pictures -or description. A neighborhood teacher took her class to the menagerie -in Central Park just after a lesson on the cow and its “gifts”—milk, -cream, butter. She hoped that the young buffalo’s resemblance to the cow -might suggest itself to the children who, of course, had never seen a -cow. In answer to her question an eager little boy gave testimony to the -impression the lesson had made on his mind when he answered, “Yes, ma’am. -I know it. It’s a _butterfly_.” - -[Illustration] - -We value the “day parties” for incidental education as well as for the -pleasure they afford. Each year as spring approaches a census is taken -of the surrounding blocks, that the new arrivals may be included in the -excursions. The most treasured invitations for these parties come from -friends whose country estates are near enough to offer hospitality, -and to whose gardens and stables the children are taken. The larger -parties, composed of women and children, usually go to the seashore in -chartered cars, and these excursions, purely recreative, compete, and not -unsuccessfully, with the clam-bakes and outings of the old-time political -leaders. - -[Illustration: THE KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN LEARN THE REALITY OF THE THINGS -THEY SING ABOUT] - -The beautiful country places presented to the settlement for vacation -purposes, and the comparative readiness with which money for equipment -and maintenance for non-paying guests has been given, indicates the -favor with which this development of neighborhood work is regarded. -Opportunities for confidence and mutual understanding, not always -possible in the formal relationships of clubs and classes, are afforded -by the intimacy of country-house parties. The possibility of giving -direction at critical periods of character-formation, particularly -during adolescence, and of discovering clews to deep-lying causes of -disturbance, makes the country life a valuable extension of the organized -social work of the settlement. “Riverholm,” overhanging the Hudson; “Camp -Henry,” on a beautiful lake; the “House in the Woods,” “Echo Hill Farm,” -and a commodious house in New Jersey, lent by friends during the summer -months, give us the means whereby some of the plans we cherish may be -carried out. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: “House in the Woods.”] - -It would be inconsistent with settlement theories if these country -places did not express refinement and beauty,—the beauty that belongs -to simplicity,—not only in the buildings, but also in the service and -housekeeping. It has seemed to us, therefore, worth the additional -expenditure of effort to have small, distinct household units wherever -practicable. People who live in crowded homes, walk on crowded streets, -ride on crowded cars, and as children attend crowded classrooms, -must inevitably acquire distorted views of life; and the settlement -is reluctant to add to these the experience of crowded country life. -Valuable training in housekeeping is possible in a household even of -from fifteen to twenty-five persons,—a small unit according to New York -standards,—and tactful direction can often be given toward acquiring -those manners generally recognized as “good.” Many of the children who -come to us know only foreign customs and foreign table-manners; and the -extreme difficulty of maintaining orderly home life in the tenement -makes it important to supplement the home-training or to supply what -it can never give. Indeed, we recognize in this desire to protect our -children from being marked as peculiar or alien because of non-essential -differences the same reason that urges the careful mother to insist on -“manners,” that her children may not be discredited when they mingle with -the fastidious. - -[Illustration] - -The ideal of limitation as to numbers cannot always be carried out, -and naturally it does not apply to the camp, where a freer and less -conventional life attracts and satisfies boys and young men. - -The older members of the settlement, who are earning money, use the camp -and country places as clubs, paying for the privilege and conforming to -the regulations which they have had a share in establishing. - -[Illustration] - -Those who have promoted the various Fresh-Air agencies throughout the -country may not realize that physical benefit is not all that has been -secured. We are persuaded that opportunity to know life away from the -city is in part the explanation of the increasing number of city boys -who elect training in agriculture and forestry. Formerly, when careers -were discussed, the future held no happiness unless it promised a -profession—law or medicine. - -If I appear to lay too much stress upon the importance of play and -recreation, it may be well to point out that it is one way of recognizing -the dignity of the child. The study of juvenile delinquency shows how -often the young offender’s presence in the courts may be traced to a -play-impulse for which there was no safe outlet. - -Perhaps nothing more definitely indicates the changed attitude toward -children and play than the fact that last summer (1914) the police -officers of the precinct called to enlist our co-operation in carrying -out the orders of the city administration that during certain hours of -the day traffic was to be shut off from designated streets, that the -children might play there. The visit brought to mind years of painstaking -effort to secure the toleration of harmless play, and the hope we -had dared to express, despite incredulity on the part of the police, -that some day the children might come to regard them as guardians and -protectors, rather than as a fear-inspiring and hated force. One captain -of the precinct, at least, had proved the practicability of our theory, -and when he was transferred we lost a valuable co-worker. The Governor -of New York, campaigning for re-election in the fall of this year (1914), -advocated that public schools should be surrounded by playgrounds at “no -matter what cost.” - -Tremendous impetus has been given to the playground movement throughout -the entire country by individuals and societies organized for the -purpose. Wise men and women have expounded the social philosophy of play -and recreation, pointing out that these may afford wholesome expression -for energies which might otherwise be diverted into channels disastrous -to peace and happiness; that clean sport and stimulating competition -can replace the gang feud and even modify racial antagonisms. The most -satisfactory evidence of this conviction is, of course, the recognition -of the child’s right to play, as an integral part of his claim upon the -state. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -EDUCATION AND THE CHILD - - -Perhaps nothing makes a profounder impression on the newcomer to our -end of the city than the value placed by the Jew upon education; an -overvaluation, one is tempted to think, in view of the sacrifices which -are made, particularly for the boys,—though of late years the girls’ -claims have penetrated even to the Oriental home. - -One afternoon a group of old-world women sat in the reception-room at the -settlement while one of the residents sang and played negro melodies. -With the melancholy minor of “Let My People Go,” the women began -crooning a song that told the story of Cain and Abel. The melody was not -identical, but so similar that they thought they recognized the song as -their own; and when a discussion arose upon the coincidence that two -persecuted peoples should claim this melody, the women, touched by the -music, confessed their homesick longing for Russia—for Russia that had -dealt so unkindly with them. - -“Rather a stone for a pillow in my own home,” said one woman on whom -life had pressed hard. “Would you go back?” she was asked. “Oh, no, no, -no!” emphasizing the words by a swaying of the body and a shaking of the -head. “It is not poverty we fear. It is not money we are seeking here. We -do not expect things for ourselves. It is the chance for the children, -education and freedom for them.” - -[Illustration] - -The passion of the Russian Jews for intellectual attainment recalls the -spirit of the early New England families and their willingness to forego -every comfort that a son might be set apart for the ministry. Here we are -often witnesses of long-continued deprivation on the part of every member -of the family, a willingness to deny themselves everything but the barest -necessities of life, that there may be a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher -among them. Submission to bad housing, excessive hours, and poor working -conditions is defended as of “no matter because the children will have -better and can go to school—maybe college.” Said a baker who showed the -ill-effects of basement and night work and whose three rooms housed a -family of ten: “My boy is already in the high school. If I can’t keep on, -the Herr Gott will take it up where I leave off.” - -A painful instance was that of a woman who came to the settlement one -evening. Her son was studying music under one of the most famous masters -in Vienna, and she had exiled herself to New York in order to earn more -money for him than she could possibly earn at home. Literally, as I -afterwards discovered, she spent nothing upon herself. A tenement family -gave her lodging (a bed on chairs) and food, in return for scrubbing done -after her day’s work in the necktie factory. The Viennese master, not -knowing his pupil’s circumstances, or, it is possible, not caring, had -written that the young man needed to give a concert, an additional demand -which it was utterly impossible for her to meet. She had already given up -her home, she had relinquished her wardrobe, and she had sold her grave -for him. - -One young lad stands out among the many who came to talk over their -desire to go through college. He dreamed of being great and, this period -of hardship over, of placing his family in comfort. I felt it right to -emphasize his obligation to the family; the father was dead, the mother -burdened with anxiety for the numerous children. How reluctant I was to -do this he could not realize; only fourteen, he had impressed us with -his fine courage and intelligence, and it was hard to resist the young -pleader and to analyze with him the common-place sordid facts. He had -planned to work all summer, to work at night, and he was hardly going to -eat at all. But his young mind grasped, almost before I had finished, the -ethical importance of meeting his nearest duties. He has met the family -claims with generosity, and has realized all our expectations for him by -acquiring through his own efforts education and culture; and he evinces -an unusual sense of civic responsibility. - -[Illustration] - -Those who have had for many years continuous acquaintance with the -neighborhood have countless occasions to rejoice at the good use made of -the education so ardently desired, and achieved in spite of what have -seemed overwhelming odds. New York City is richer for the contributions -made to its civic and educational life by the young people who grew up in -and with the settlements, and who are not infrequently ready crusaders -in social causes. A country gentleman one day lamented to me that he had -failed to keep in touch with what he was pleased to call our humanitarian -zeal, and recalled his own early attempt to take an East Side boy to his -estate and employ him. “He could not even learn to harness a horse!” -he said, with implied contempt of such unfathomable inefficiency. -Something he said of the lad’s characteristics made it possible for me to -identify him, and I was able to add to that unsatisfactory first chapter -another, which told of the boy’s continuance in school, of his success -as a teacher in one of the higher institutions of learning, and of his -remarkable intelligence in certain vexed industrial problems. - -Such achievements are the more remarkable because the restricted tenement -home, where the family life goes on in two or three rooms, affords little -opportunity for reading or study. A vivid picture of its limitations was -presented by the boy who sought a quiet corner in a busy settlement. “I -can never study at home,” he said, “because sister is always using the -table to wash the dishes.” - -Study-rooms were opened in the settlement in 1907, where the boys -and girls find, not only a quiet, restful place in which to do their -work, but also the needed “coaching.” The school work is supplemented -by illuminating bulletins on current topics, and the young student is -provided with the aid which in other conditions is given by parents -or older brothers and sisters. Such study-rooms are now maintained by -the Board of Education in numerous schools of the city,—“Thanks to the -example set by the settlement,” the superintendent of the New York school -system reported. - -The settlement children are given instruction in the selection of -books before they are old enough to take out their cards in the public -libraries. Once a week, on Friday afternoon, when there are no lessons to -be prepared, our study-room is reserved for these smallest readers. The -books are selected with reference to their tastes and attainments, and -fairy tales are on the shelves in great numbers. Of course, no settlement -could entirely satisfy the insatiable desire for these. - -One day when the room was being used for study purposes a wee neighbor -sauntered in and said to the custodian, “Please, I’d like a fairy tale.” -Although reminded that these books were not given out excepting on the -special day, the child lingered. She saw a boy’s request for “The Life -of Alexander Hamilton” and a girl’s wish for “The Life of Joan of Arc” -complied with. Evidently there was a way to get one’s heart’s desire. -The child went out, reappeared in a few moments, and with an air of -confidence again addressed the librarian, this time with, “_Please, I’d -like the life of a giant_.” - -[Illustration] - -It is easy to excite sympathy in our neighborhood for people deprived of -books and learning. One year I accompanied a party of Northern people -to the Southern Educational Conference. We were all much stirred by the -appeal of an itinerant Southern minister who told how the poor white -natives traveled miles over the mountains to hear books read. He pictured -vividly the deprivation of his neighbors, who had no access to libraries -of any kind. When I returned to the settlement and related the story to -the young people in the clubs, without suggestion on my part they eagerly -voted to send the minister books to form a library; and for two years or -more, until the Southerner wrote that he had sufficient for his purpose, -the clubs purchased from their several funds one book each month, -suited to different ages and tastes, according to their own excellent -discrimination. - - * * * * * - -The first public school established in New York City (Number 1) is -on Henry Street. Number 2 is a short distance from it, on the same -street, and Number 147 is at our corner. Between their sites are several -semi-public and private educational institutions, and from School No. 1 -to School No. 147 the distance is not more than three-quarters of a mile. - -It is not unnatural, therefore, that the school should loom large in -our consciousness of the life of the child. The settlement at no time -would, even if it could, usurp the place of school or home. It seeks to -work with both or to supplement either. The fact that it is flexible -and is not committed to any fixed programme gives opportunity for -experimentation not possible in a rigid system, and the results of these -experiments must have affected school methods, at least in New York City. - -[Illustration] - -Intelligent social workers seize opportunities for observation, and -almost unconsciously develop methods to meet needs. They see conditions -as they are, and become critical of systems as they act and react upon -the child or fail to reach him at all. They reverse the method of the -school teacher, who approaches the child with preconceived theories and a -determination to work them out. Where the school fails, it appears to the -social workers to do so because it makes education a thing apart,—because -it separates its work from all that makes up the child’s life outside the -classroom. Great emphasis is now laid upon the oversight of the physical -condition of children from the time of their birth through school life; -but the suggestion of this extension of socialized parental control did -not emanate from those within the school system. - -[Illustration] - -Cooking has been taught in the public schools for many years, and -the instruction is of great value to those who are admitted to the -classes; but appropriations have never been sufficient to meet all the -requirements, and the teaching is given in grades already depleted by -the girls who have gone to work, and who will perhaps never again have -leisure or inclination to learn how to prepare meals for husband and -children,—the most important business in life for most women. - -The laboratory method employed in the schools never seemed to us -sufficiently related to the home conditions of vast numbers of the city’s -population; and, therefore, when the settlement undertook, according to -its theory, to supplement the girls’ education, all the essentials of our -own housekeeping—stove, refrigerator, bedrooms, and so on—were utilized. -But neither were single bedrooms and rooms set apart for distinct -purposes entirely satisfactory in teaching domestic procedure to the -average neighbor; and the leader finally developed out of her knowledge -of their home conditions the admirable system of “Housekeeping Centers” -now sustained and administered by a committee of men and women on which -the settlement has representation. - -A flat was rented in a typical Henry Street tenement. Intelligence and -taste were exercised in equipping it inexpensively and with furniture -that required the least possible labor to keep it free from dirt and -vermin. Classes were formed to teach housekeeping in its every detail, -using nothing which the people themselves could not procure,—a tiny -bathroom, a gas stove, no “model” tubs, but such as the landlord provided -for washing. Cleaning, disinfecting, actual purchasing of supplies in -the shops of the neighborhood, household accounts, nursing, all the -elements of homekeeping, were systematically taught. The first winter -that the center was opened the entire membership of a class consisted of -girls engaged to be married,—clerks, stenographers, teachers; none were -prepared and all were eager to have the homes which they were about to -establish better organized and more intelligently conducted than those -from which they had come. When one young woman announced her betrothal, -she added, “And I am fully prepared because I have been through the -Housekeeping Center.” - -Other centers have been established by the committee in different parts -of the city. Dr. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools, always sympathetic -and ready to fit instruction to the pupils’ needs, has encouraged the -identification of these housekeeping centers with the schools. Whenever -an enterprising principal desires it, the teachers of the nearby -housekeeping center are made a part of the school system. Perhaps we may -some day see one attached to every public school; and I am inclined to -believe that, when institutions of higher learning fully realize that -education is preparation for life, they too will wonder if the young -women graduates of their colleges should not, like our little girl -neighbors, be fitted to meet their great home-making responsibilities. - -Out of the experience of the originator of the housekeeping centers -“Penny Lunches” for the public schools have been inaugurated, and provide -a hot noonday meal for children. The committee now controlling this -experiment has inquired into food values, physical effects on children, -relation to school attendance, and so on. - -The schools in a great city have an additional responsibility, as many -of the pupils are deprived of home training because of extreme poverty -or the absence of the mother at work, and a measure of failure may be -traced to an imperfect realization of the conditions under which pupils -live, or to a lack of training on the part of some of the teachers. The -Home-and-School Visitor, whose duties are indicated in her title, is -charged to bring the two together, that each may help the other; but -there are few visitors as yet, and the effect upon the great number of -pupils in attendance (over 800,000 in New York) is obviously limited. - -We are not always mindful of the fact that children in normal homes get -education apart from formal lessons and instruction. Sitting down to -a table at definite hours, to eat food properly served, is training, -and so is the orderly organization of the home, of which the child so -soon becomes a conscious part. There is direction toward control in the -provision for privacy, beginning with the sequestered nursery life. -The exchange of letters, which begins with most children at a very -early age, the conversation of their elders, familiarity with telegrams -and telephones, and with the incidents of travel, stimulate their -intelligence, resourcefulness, and self-reliance. - -[Illustration] - -Contrast this regulated domestic life with the experience of children—a -large number in New York—who may never have been seated around a table in -an orderly manner, at a given time, for a family meal. Where the family -is large and the rooms small, and those employed return at irregular -hours, its members must be fed at different times. It is not uncommon in -a neighborhood such as ours to see the mother lean out of the fourth- -or fifth-story window and throw down the bread-and-butter luncheon to -the little child waiting on the sidewalk below—sometimes to save him the -exertion of climbing the stairs, sometimes because of insufficient time. -The children whose mothers work all day and who are locked out during -their absence are expected to shift for themselves, and may as often -be given too much as too little money to appease their hunger. Having -no more discretion in the choice of food than other children of their -age, they become an easy prey for the peddlers of unwholesome foods and -candies (often with gambling devices attached) who prowl outside the -school limits. - -[Illustration] - -Even those students who are better placed economically, or who have the -perseverance to go on into the higher schools, may have had no experience -but that of a disorganized tenement home. Emil was an instance of this. -He supported himself while attending school by teaching immigrants -at night. We invited him to a party at one of our country places and -instructed him to call in the morning for his railroad ticket. He failed -to appear until long after the appointed hour, not realizing that trains -leave on schedule time. Apparently he had never consulted a time-table -or taken a journey except with a fresh-air party conducted by someone -else. Next morning he returned the ticket, and I learned that he had not -reached the farm because he did not know the way to it from the station. -Somewhat disconcerted to learn that he had taken fruitlessly a trip of -something over an hour’s duration, I asked why he had not telephoned -to the farm for directions. This seventeen-year-old boy, in his third -year in the high school, had not thought of a telephone in the country. -Moreover, he had never used one anywhere. - -Happily, there is a growing realization among educators of the necessity -of relating the school more closely to the children’s future, and it is -not an accident that one of the widely known authorities on vocational -guidance has had long experience in settlements.[4] - - * * * * * - -A friend has recently given to me the letters which I wrote regularly to -her family during the first two years of my life on the East Side. I had -almost forgotten, until these letters recalled it to me, how often Miss -Brewster and I mourned over the boys and girls who were not in school, -and over those who had already gone to work without any education. Almost -everyone has had knowledge at some time of the chagrin felt by people who -cannot read or write. One intelligent woman of my acquaintance, born in -New York State, ingeniously succeeded for many years in keeping the fact -of her illiteracy secret from the people with whom she lived on terms of -intimacy, buying the newspaper daily and making a pretense of reading it. - -We had naïvely assumed that elementary education was given to all, and -were appalled to find entire families unable to read or write, even -though some of the children had been born in America. The letters remind -me, too, of the efforts we made to get the children we encountered into -school,—day school or night school, public or private,—and how many -different people reacted to our appeals. The Department of Health, to -facilitate our efforts, supplied us with virus points and authority to -vaccinate, since no unvaccinated child could be admitted to school. We -gave such publicity as was in our power to the conditions we found, not -disdaining to stir emotionally by our “stories” when dry and impersonal -statistics failed to impress. - -Since those days, New York City has established a school census and has -almost perfected a policy whereby all children are brought into school; -but throughout the state there are communities where the compulsory -education law is disregarded. The Federal Census of 1910 shows in this -Empire State, in the counties (Franklin and Clinton) inhabited by the -native-born, illiteracy far in excess of that in the counties where the -foreign-born congregate. - -Wonderful advance has been made within two decades in the conception of -municipal responsibility for giving schooling to all children. Now the -blind, the deaf, the cripples, and the mentally defective are included -among those who have the right to education. When in 1893 I climbed the -stairs in a Monroe Street tenement in answer to a call to a sick child, I -found Annie F⸺ lying on a tumbled bed, rigid in the braces which encased -her from head to feet. All about her white goods were being manufactured, -and five machines were whirring in the room. She had been dismissed from -the hospital as incurable, and her mother carried her at intervals to an -uptown orthopedic dispensary. A pitiful, emaciated little creature! The -sweatshop was transfigured for Annie when we put pretty white curtains -at the window upon which she gazed, hung up a bird-cage, and placed a -window-box full of growing plants for her to look at during the long -days. Then, realizing that she might live many years and would need, even -more than other children, the joys that come from books, we found a young -woman who was willing to go to her bedside and teach her. - -Nowadays children crippled as Annie was may be taken to school daily, -under the supervision of a qualified nurse, in a van that calls for them -and brings them home. One of these schools, established by intelligent -philanthropists, is on Henry Street; the instructors are engaged and -paid by the Department of Education. There are also classes in different -sections of the city equipped for the special needs of cripples, to give -them industrial training which will provide for their future happiness -and economic independence. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE HANDICAPPED CHILD - - -Educators have only recently realized the existence of large numbers -of pupils within the schools who are unequal to the routine class-work -because of mental defects. It was one of our settlement residents, a -teacher in a Henry Street school, who first startled us into serious -consideration of these children. In the year 1899 she brought to us from -time to time reports of a colleague, Elizabeth Farrell, whose attention -was fixed upon the “poor things” unable to keep up with the grade. She -had, our resident declared, “ideas” about them. We sought acquaintance -with her, and we felt it a privilege to learn to know the noble -enthusiasm of this young woman for those pupils who, to teachers, must -always seem the least hopeful. - -The Board of Education permitted her to form the first class for ungraded -pupils, in School Number 1, in 1900, and the settlement gladly helped -develop her theory of separate classes and special instruction for the -defectives, not alone for their sakes, but to relieve the normal classes -which their presence retarded. We provided equipment not yet on the -School Board’s requisition list, obtained permission for her to attend -children’s clinics, secured treatment for the children, and, finally, and -not least important, made every effort to interest members of the School -Board and the public generally in this class of children. - -[Illustration] - -The plan included the provision of a luncheon. For this we purchased -tables, paper napkins, and dishes. The children brought from home bread -and butter, and a penny for a glass of milk, and an alert principal made -practical the cooking lessons given to the older girls in the school by -having them prepare the main dish of the pupils’ luncheon—incidentally -the first to be provided in the grade schools. Occasionally the approval -of the families would be expressed in extra donations, and in the -beginning this sometimes took the form of a bottle of beer. Every day -one pupil was permitted to invite an adult member of his family to the -luncheon, which led naturally to an exchange of visits between members of -the family and the teacher. - -Among the pupils in this first class was Tony, a Neapolitan, impossible -in the grade class because of emotional outbursts called “bad temper,” -and an incorrigible truant. When defects of vision were corrected the -outbursts became less frequent, and manual work disclosed a latent power -of application and stimulated a willingness to attend school. Tony is now -a bricklayer, a member of the union in good standing, and last spring he -and his father bought a house in Brooklyn. - -[Illustration] - -Another was Katie. Spinal meningitis when she was very young had left -her with imperfect mental powers. Careful examination disclosed impaired -control, particularly of the groups of smaller muscles. She has never -learned to read, but has developed skill in clay-modeling, and sews and -embroiders very well. She makes her clothes and is a cheerful helper -to her mother in the work about the house. Last Christmas she sent to -the school warm undergarments which she had made, to be given to the -children who needed them. Her intelligent father feels that but for the -discriminating instruction in the ungraded class her powers would have -progressively deteriorated and Katie “would be in darkness.” - -The teacher who thus first fixed our attention upon these defective -children has long been a member of the settlement family. She has carried -us with her in her zeal for them, and we have come to see that it is -because the public conscience has been sluggish that means and methods -have not been more speedily devised toward an intelligent solution of -this serious social problem. - -From the small beginnings of the experimental class in Henry Street a -separate department in the public schools was created in 1908, and this -year (1915) there are 3,000 children throughout the city under the care -of specially trained teachers who have liberty to adapt the school work -to the children’s peculiar needs. All these ungraded classes are under -the direction of Miss Farrell. - -Looking back upon the struggles to win formal recognition of the -existence of these children, who now so much engage the attention of -educators and scientists, we realize that our colleague’s devotion to -them, her power to excite enthusiasm in us, and her understanding of the -social implications of their existence, came from a deep-lying principle -that every human being, even the least lovely, merits respectful -consideration of his rights and his personality. - -Much is required of the public school teachers, and many of them rise to -every demand; but naturally, in so great a number, there are some who -do not recognize that theirs is the responsibility for discovering the -children who are not normal. Harry sits on our doorsteps almost every -day, ready to run errands, and harmless as yet. Obviously defective, a -“pronounced moron,” he was promoted from class to class, and when one of -his settlement friends called upon the teacher to discuss Harry’s special -needs, the teacher, somewhat contemptuous of our anxiety, observed that -“all that Harry needed was a whipping.” - -From one-half of one per cent. to two per cent. of children of school -age are, it is estimated, in need of special instruction because of the -quality or the imperfect functioning of their mental powers. The public -school has the power, and should exercise it, to bring within its walls -all the children physically and mentally competent to attend it. If -children are under intelligent observation, departures from the normal -can in many instances be recognized in time for training and education -according to the particular need. Long-continued observation and record -of the child are essential to intelligent treatment of abnormalities -concerning which there is even now very little accurate information. -Cumulative experience and data, such as can be obtained only through the -compulsory attendance at school of the multitudes of children of this -type, will finally give a basis for scientific and humanitarian action -regarding them. - -[Illustration] - -Up to a certain period the child’s helplessness demands that every -opportunity for development be given him, but that is not the whole of -society’s responsibility. The time comes when the child’s own interests -and those of the community demand the wisest, least selfish, and most -statesmanlike action. Society must state in definite terms its right -to be protected from the hopelessly defective and the moral pervert, -wherever found. This constitutes the real problem of the abnormal. At the -adolescent period those unfit for parenthood should be guarded—girls and -boys—and society should be vested with authority and power to accomplish -segregation, the conditions of which should attract and not repel. - -Because so much needs to be said upon it, if anything is said at all, I -am loath to touch upon the one great obstacle to the effective use of -all the intelligence and the resources available for the well-being of -these children, the most baffling impediment to their and the community’s -protection, namely, the supreme authority of parenthood, be it never so -inefficient, avaricious, or even immoral. - - * * * * * - -The breaking up of the family because of poverty, through the death or -disappearance of the wage-earner, was, until comparatively recent years, -generally accepted as inevitable. - -In the first winter of our residence on the East Side we took care of -Mr. S⸺, who was in an advanced stage of phthisis; and we daily admired -the wonderful ability of his wife, who kept the home dignified while she -sewed on wrappers, nursed her husband, and allowed nothing to interfere -with the children’s daily attendance at school. When her husband died -it seemed the most natural thing in the world to help her to realize -her own wishes and to approve her good judgment in desiring to keep -the family together. The orphan asylum would doubtless have taken the -children from her, leaving her childless as well as widowed, and with no -counterbalancing advantage for the children to lighten her double woe. -A large-minded lover of children, who gave his money to orphans as well -as to orphanages, readily agreed to give the mother a monthly allowance -until the eldest son could legally go to work. It was our first “widow’s -pension.” - -Our hopes in this particular case have been more than realized. The -eldest boy, it is true, has not achieved any notable place in the -community; but his sisters are teachers and most desirable elements in -the public school system of the city,—living testimony to the worth of -the mother’s character. - -In no instance where we have prevented the disintegration of the family -because of poverty have we had reason to regret our decision. Of course, -the ability of the mother to maintain a standard in the home and control -the children is a necessary qualification in any general recommendation -for this treatment of the widow and orphan, and competent supervision is -essential to insure the maintenance of these conditions. - -[Illustration] - -At the famous White House Conference on Children, held at the invitation -of President Roosevelt, there was practical unanimity on the part of the -experts who gathered there that institutional life was undesirable and -that wherever possible family life should be maintained. Testimony as to -this came from many sources; and keeping the family together, or boarding -the orphan with a normal family when adoption could not be arranged, -became the dominant note of the conference. - -The children, in this as in many other instances, led us into searching -thought many years ago. Forlorn little Joseph had called upon me with a -crumpled note which he reluctantly dragged from a pocket. It was from -the admitting agent of an orphanage, explaining that Joseph could not -be taken into the institution until his head was “cured”; and it gave -some details regarding the family, the worthiness of the mother, and -her exceeding poverty. The agent hoped that I might relieve her by -expediting Joseph’s admission. - -I tried to make the child’s daily visit to me interesting. The treatment -was not painful, but the end of each visit—he came with patient -regularity every day—left me as dolorous as himself. One day I tried, -by promise of a present or of any treat he fancied, to bring out some -expression of youthful spirit—all unavailingly. “But you must wish for -something,” I urged; “I never knew a boy who didn’t.” For the first time -the silent little lad showed enthusiasm. “I wish you wouldn’t cure my -head, so I needn’t go to the orphan asylum.” - -Unscrupulous parents, I am well aware, often try to shift the -responsibility for their children upon public institutions, but there -are many who share Joseph’s aversion to the institutional life, and we -early recognized that the dislike is based upon a sound instinct and -that a poor home might have compensating advantages compared with the -well-equipped institution. - -There have been great changes in institutional methods since I first had -knowledge of them, and much ingenuity has been shown in devising means -to encourage the development of individuality and initiative among the -orphans. The cottage plan has been introduced in some institutions to -modify the abnormal life of large congregations of children. But at best -the life is artificial, and the children lose inestimably through not -having day by day the experiences of normal existence. Valuable knowledge -is lost because the child does not learn from experience the connection -between the cost of necessities and the labor necessary to earn them. It -was somewhat pathetic, at another conference on child-saving, to hear -one of the speakers explain that he tried to meet this need by having -the examples in arithmetic relate to the cost of food and household -expenditures. - -The lack of a normal emotional outlet is of consequence, and as a result -astute physiognomists often recognize what they term the “institution -look.” Maggie, an intelligent girl, who has since given abundant evidence -of spontaneity and spirit, spent a short time in an excellent orphanage. -She told me the other day, and wept as she told it, that she had met no -unkindness there, but remembered with horror that when they arose in the -morning the “orphans” waited to be told what to do; and that feeling was -upon her every hour of the day. In fact, Maggie had stirred me to make -arrangements to take her out of the institution because, when I brought -her for a visit to the settlement, she stood at the window the entire -afternoon, wistfully watching the children play in our back yard, and -not joining them because no one had told her that she might. - -One is reluctant to speak only of the disadvantages of institutional -life, for there are many children rescued from unfortunate family -conditions who testify to the good care they received, and who, in after -life, look back upon the orphanage as the only home they have known. -For some children, doubtless, such care will continue to be necessary, -but the conservative and rigid administration can be softened, and the -management and their charges delivered out of the rut into which they -have fallen, and from the tyranny of rules and customs which have no -better warrant than that they have always existed. - -Perhaps these illustrations are not too insignificant to record. -Happening to pass through a room in an asylum when the dentist was paying -his monthly visit, I saw a fine-looking young lad about to have a sound -front tooth extracted because he complained of toothache. No provision -had been made for anything but the extraction of teeth. An offer to have -the boy given proper treatment outside the institution was not accepted, -but it needed no more than this to insure better dentistry in his case -and in the institution in future. The reports stated that corporal -punishment was not administered. When a little homesick lad displayed -his hands, swollen from paddling, a request for an investigation, and -that I be privileged to hear the inquiry, put a stop, and I am assured -a permanent one, to this form of discipline. These are the more obvious -disadvantages of institutional life for the child. The more subtle and -dangerous are the curbing of initiative and the belittling of personality. - -An intelligent observer of the effects of institution life on boys, -a Roman Catholic priest, established a temporary home in New York to -which they could come on their release from the institution until they -found employment and suitable places to board. His insight was shown -by his provision for the boys during their brief sojourn with him of -a formal table service, and weekly dances to which girls whom he knew -were invited. As he astutely observed, the boys often went into common -society, or society which made no demands, because, from their lack of -experience, they felt ill at ease in a circle where any conventions were -observed. - -Where life goes by rule there is little spontaneous action or -conversation, but the children occasionally give clews to their passion -for personal relationships. In an institution which I knew the children -were allowed to write once a month to their friends. More than one -child without family ties took that opportunity to write letters to an -imaginary mother, to send messages of affection to imaginary brothers and -sisters, and to ask for personal gifts. They knew, of course, that the -letters would never leave the institution. - -An unusual instance of intense longing for family life and the desire to -“belong” to someone was given by Tillie, who had lived all her life in -an orphan asylum. Sometimes she dreamed of her mother, and often asked -where she was. When she was ten years old the wife of the superintendent -told her that her mother had brought her to the asylum, but that all she -could remember about her was that she had red hair. From that day the -child’s desire to re-establish relations with her mother never flagged. -In the files of the asylum a letter was discovered from an overseer of -the poor in an upstate town, saying that the woman had wandered there. At -Tillie’s urgent request he was written to again, and after a search on -his part it was learned that she had been declared insane and taken to -the hospital at Rochester. The very day that Tillie was released from the -orphan asylum she secured money for the trip and went to Rochester. The -officials of the hospital received her kindly and took her into the ward -where, although she had no memory of having seen her, she identified -her mother—doubtless by the color of her hair. The mother, alas, did -not recognize her. Two years later the girl revisited the hospital and -found her mother enjoying an interval of memory. Tillie told me that -she learned “two important things”—that she had had a brother and my -name. How I was connected with the fortunes of the family the poor, -bewildered woman could not explain, and I have no recollection of her. -Tillie followed these clews, as she has every other. She has learned that -the brother was sent West with orphans from an Eastern institution, and -that he has joined the army. The devoted girl is making every effort to -establish a home to which she can bring the mother and brother, utterly -regardless of the burden it will place on her young shoulders. - -We must turn to the younger countries for testimony as to the wisdom -of the non-institutional care of dependent children. In Australia the -plan for many years in all the provinces has been to care for them in -homes, and in Queensland and New South Wales the laws permit the children -to be boarded out to their own mothers. It is encouraging to note the -increasing number of responsible people in America who are ready to adopt -children. It may not be possible to find a sufficient number of suitable -homes to provide for all who are dependent; but once the policy of -decentralization is established, other methods will be evolved to avoid -large congregations of boys and girls. Two of my colleagues and I have -found much happiness in assuming responsibility for eight children. Quite -apart from our own pleasure in taking to ourselves these “nieces” and -“nephews,” we believe that we shall be able to demonstrate convincingly -the practicability of establishing small groups of children, without -ties of their own, as a family unit. Our children live the year round in -our country home, and are identified with the life of the community; and -we hope to provide opportunity for the development of their individual -tastes and aptitudes. - -[Illustration: On the Farm] - -Education and the child is a theme of widest social significance. To the -age-old appeal that the child’s dependence makes upon the affections -has been added a conviction of the necessity for a guarded and trained -childhood, that better men and women may be developed. It is a modern -note in patriotism and civic responsibility, which impels those who are -brought in contact with the children of the poor to protect them from -premature burdens, to prolong their childhood and the period of growth. -Biologists bring suggestive and illuminating analogies, but when one has -lived many years in a neighborhood such as ours the children themselves -tell the story. We know that physical well-being in later life is largely -dependent upon early care, that only the exceptional boys and girls can -escape the unwholesome effects of premature labor, and that lack of -training is responsible for the enormous proportion of unskilled and -unemployable among the workers. - -The stronghold of our democracy is the public school. This conviction -lies deep in the hearts of those social enthusiasts who would keep the -school free from the demoralization of cant and impure politics, and -restore it to the people, a shrine for education, a center for public -uses. - -The young members of the settlement clubs hear this doctrine preached -not infrequently. Last June the City Superintendent, addressing a class -graduating from the normal school, made an appeal for idealism in their -work. He spoke of the possibilities in their profession for far-reaching -social service, and named as one who exemplified his theme the principal -of a great city school, once one of our settlement boys. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -CHILDREN WHO WORK - - -Bessie has had eight “jobs” in six months. Obviously under sixteen, -she has had to produce her “working papers” before she could be taken -on. The fact that she has met the requirements necessary to obtain the -papers, and that her employer has demanded them, is evidence of the -advance made in New York State since we first became acquainted with -the children of the poor. Bessie has had to prove by birth certificate -or other documentary evidence that she is really fourteen, has had to -submit to a simple test in English and arithmetic, present proof of at -least 130 days’ school attendance in the year before leaving, and, after -examination by a medical officer, has had to be declared physically fit -to enter shop or factory. - -No longer could Annie, the cobbler’s daughter, by unchallenged perjury -obtain the state sanction to her premature employment. Gone are the easy -days when Francesca’s father, defying school mandates, openly offered -his little ones in the labor market. Yet we are far from satisfied. -Bessie, though she meets the requirements of the law, goes out wholly -unprepared for self-support; she is of no industrial value, and is easily -demoralized by the conviction of her unimportance to her “boss,” certain -that her casual employment and dismissal have hardly been noted, save -as she herself has been affected by the pay envelope. Her industrial -experience is no surprise to her settlement friends, for she is a type of -the boys and girls who, twice a year, swarm out of the school and find -their way to the Department of Health to obtain working papers. Bessie’s -father is a phthisis case; her mother, the chief wage-earner, an example -of devotion and industry. The girl has been a fairly good student and -dutiful in the home, where for several years she has scrubbed the floors -and “looked after” the children in her mother’s absence. - -Tommy also appeared at the office with his credentials and successfully -passed all the tests, until the scale showed him suspiciously weighty for -his appearance. Inquiry as to what bulged one of his pockets disclosed -the fact that he had a piece of lead there. He had been told that he -probably would not weigh enough to pass the doctor. Talking the matter -over with Mrs. Sanderson, I learned that the immediate reason for -taking Tommy out of school was his need of a pair of shoes. The mother -was not insensitive to his pinched appearance. A few days later Tommy -was taken to visit our children at the farm, and it was pleasant to see -that the natural boy had not been crushed. He devoured the most juvenile -story-books and was “crazy” about the sledding. The self-respecting -mother was not injured in her pride of independence by a little necessary -aid carefully given; and though I have not seen Tommy recently, I am sure -that neither he nor his employer lost anything because of the better -physical condition in which he entered work after his happy winter at the -farm. - -This attempt to cheat the law by the very children for whose protection -it was designed, and the occasional disregard of the purposes of the -enactments by enforcing officials, suggest Alice’s perplexity when she -encountered the topsy-turvy Wonderland. - -It was about twelve years ago that a group of settlement people in -New York gathered to consider the advisability of organizing public -sentiment against the exploitation of child workers. The New York Child -Labor Committee thereupon came into existence, under the chairmanship -of the then head of the University Settlement, and that committee has -since been steadily engaged in advancing standards of conditions under -which children may work. Through legislative enactment and publicity it -has endeavored to form public opinion on those socially constructive -principles inherent in the conservation of children. - -Of necessity child labor laws approach the problem from the negative -side of prohibition. To meet the problem positively, the Henry Street -Settlement established in 1908 a definite system of “scholarships” for -children from fourteen to sixteen, to give training during what have been -termed the “two wasted years” to as many as its funds permitted. - -A committee of administration receives the applications which come from -all parts of the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, and preference is -given to those children of widows or disabled fathers whose need seems -greatest. Careful inquiry is made by the capable secretary to discover -natural inclinations or aptitudes, and these are used as guides in -determining the character of the instruction to be given. Three dollars a -week—somewhat less than the sum the children might have been earning—is -given weekly for two years, during which time they are under continual -supervision at home, at school, and through regular visits to the -settlement. They are looked after physically, provided with occasional -recreation, and, in the summer time, whenever possible, a vacation in -the country. The committee keeps in close touch with the educational -agencies throughout the city, gathers knowledge of the trades that give -opportunity for advancement, and, to aid teachers, settlement workers, -parents, and children, publishes from time to time a directory of -vocational resources in the city.[5] - -Approval of this endowment for future efficiency comes from many sources, -but no encouragement has been greater than the fact that, while the plan -was still in its experimental stage, my own first boys’ club, the members -of which had now grown to manhood, celebrated their fifteenth anniversary -by contributing three scholarships; and that the Women’s Club, whose -members feel most painfully the disadvantage of the small wage of the -unskilled, have given from their club treasury or by voluntary assessment -for this help to the boys and girls. - -The children who show talent and those whose immaturity or poverty of -intellect makes their early venture into the world more pitiful, have -equal claim upon these scholarships. - -Pippa was one of the latter. She was scorned at home for obvious slowness -of wit and “bad eyes”; her mother deplored the fact that there was -nothing for her to do but “getta married.” Pippa’s club leader’s reports -were equally discouraging, save for the fact that she had shown some -dexterity in the sewing class. At the time when she would have begun her -patrol of the streets, looking for signs of “Girls Wanted,” the offer of -a scholarship prevailed with the mother, and she was given one year’s -further education in a trade school. After a conference between the -teachers and her settlement friends, sample-mounting was decided upon as -best suited to Pippa’s capacities. She has done well with the training, -and is now looked up to as the one wage-earner in the family who is -regularly employed. - -One of the accompanying charts compares the wage-earning capacity of the -boys and girls who have had the advantage of these scholarships with that -of an equal number of untrained young people whose careers are known -through their industrial placement by perhaps the most careful juvenile -employment agency in the city.[6] The deductions that we made from the -experience of the Henry Street children were corroborated by an inquiry -made by one of our residents into the industrial history of one thousand -children who had applied for working papers at the Department of Health. -The employment-record chart was compiled from data obtained in that -inquiry. - -[Illustration: Comparative Weekly Wages of 72 Children Who Have Worked -Four Years without Previous Training, from the Record of ⸺ Employment -Bureau; and of Scholarship Children Who Have Had Two Years of Vocational -Training.] - -Our connections in the city enable us occasionally to coax opportunities -for those boys and girls for whom experience in the shop itself would -seem best. Jimmy had lost a leg “hooking on the truck,” and his mother -supposed that “such things happen when you have to lock them out all -day.” In the whittling class the lad showed dexterity with the sloyd -knife, and he was thereupon given special privileges in the carpentry -and carving classes of the settlement. When he reached working age, -one of our friends, a distinguished patron of a high-grade decorator, -induced the latter to give the boy a chance. Misgivings as to the -permanency of his tenure of the place were allayed when Jimmy, aglow -with enthusiasm over his work, brought a beautifully carved mahogany box -and told of the help the skilled men in the shop were giving him. On the -whole, he concluded, “a fellow with one leg” had advantages over other -cabinetmakers; “he could get into so many more tight places and corners -than with two.” - -The Typical Employment Record of One Child between the Ages of 14 and 16. - - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | POSITIONS HELD |LENGTH OF TIME IN EACH| KIND OF WORK | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | First | 3 Days |In Factory, Sorting Buttons| - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Second | 2 Months | Ribboning Corset Covers & | - | | | Machine Work on Them | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Third | 1 Week | Ribboning & Buttoning | - | | | Corset Covers | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Fourth | Time Unknown | Ladies’ Underwear | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Fifth | Up To Christmas | Errand Girl | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Sixth | 2½ Months | Ribboning Corset Covers | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Seventh | Time Unknown | Errand Girl | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Eighth | A Few Weeks | Trim, Cut & Examine | - | | | Mens’ Ties | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Ninth | A Few Weeks | Return To Second Job | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - | Tenth | A Few Weeks | Home Work, Ribboning | - +------------------+----------------------+---------------------------+ - -Bessie and Jimmy and Pippa and Esther and their little comrades stir -us to contribute our human documents to the propaganda instituted in -behalf of children. In this, as in other experiments at the settlement, -we do not believe that what we offer is of great consequence unless -the demonstrations we make and the experience we gain are applicable -to the problems of the community. On no other single interest do the -members of our settlement meet with such unanimity. Years of concern -about individual children might in any case have brought this about, but -irresistible has been the influence exercised by Mrs. Florence Kelley, -now and for many years a member of the settlement family. She has long -consecrated her energies to securing protective legislation throughout -the country for children compelled to labor and, with the late Edgar -Gardner Murphy, of Alabama, suggested the creation of the National Child -Labor Committee. In its ten years’ existence it has affected legislation -in forty-seven states, which have enacted new or improved child labor -laws. On this and on the New York State Committee Mrs. Kelley and I have -served since their creation. - -Though much has been accomplished during this decade, the field is -immensely larger than was supposed, and forces inimical to reform, not -reckoned with at first, have been encountered. Despite this opposition, -however, we believe that the abolition of child labor abuses in America -is not very far off. - -In Pennsylvania, within a very few years, insistence upon satisfactory -proof of age was strenuously opposed. Officials who should have been -working in harmony with the committee persisted in declaring that -the parent’s affidavit, long before discarded in New York State, was -sufficient evidence, despite the fact that coroners’ inquests after mine -disasters showed child workers of ten and eleven years. The Southern -mill children, the little cranberry-bog workers, the oyster shuckers, -and the boys in glass factories and mines have shown that this disregard -of children is not peculiar to any one section of the country, though -Southern states have been most tenacious of the exemption of children of -“dependent parents” or “orphans” from working-paper requirements. - -In the archives at Washington much interesting evidence lies buried in -the unpublished portions of reports of the federal investigation into the -work of women and children. The need of this investigation was originally -urged by settlement people. One mill owner greeted the government -inspectors most cordially and, to show his patriotism, ordered the flag -to be raised above the works. The raising of the flag, as it afterwards -transpired, was a signal to the children employed in the mill to go home. -In the early days of child labor reform in New York the children on -Henry Street would sometimes relate vividly their experience of being -suddenly whisked out of sight when the approach of the factory inspector -was signaled. - -It is perhaps unnecessary to mention the obvious fact that the child -worker is in competition with the adult and drags down his wages. At -the Child Labor Conference held in Washington in January, 1915, a -manufacturer in the textile industry cited the wages paid to adults in -certain operations in the mills as fourteen cents per hour where there -were prohibitive child labor laws and eleven cents an hour where there -were none. - -The National Child Labor Committee now asks Congress through a federal -bill to outlaw interstate traffic in goods produced by the labor of -children. Such a law would protect the public-spirited employer who is -now obliged to compete in the market with men whose business methods he -condemns. - - * * * * * - -Sammie and his brother sold papers in front of one of the large hotels -every night. The more they shivered with cold, the greater the harvest -of pennies. No wonder that the white-faced little boy stayed out long -after his cold had become serious. He himself asked for admission to -the hospital, and died there before his absence was noted. After his -death relatives appeared, willing to aid according to their small means, -and the relief society increased its stipend to his family. At any time -during his life this aid might have been forthcoming, had not the public -unthinkingly made his sacrifice possible by the purchase of his papers. - -[Illustration] - -Opposition to regulating and limiting the sale of papers by little -boys on the streets is hard to overcome. A juvenile literature of -more than thirty years ago glorified the newsboy and his improbable -financial and social achievements, and interest in him was heightened -by a series of pictures by a popular painter, wherein ragged youngsters -of an extraordinary cleanliness of face were portrayed as newsboys -and bootblacks. In opposition to the charm of this presentation, the -practical reformer offers the photographs, taken at midnight, of tiny -lads asleep on gratings in front of newspaper offices, waiting for the -early editions. He finds in street work the most fruitful source of -juvenile delinquency, with newsboys heading the list. - -I am aware that at this point numerous readers will recall instances -of remarkable achievements by the barefoot boy, the wide-awake young -news-seller. We too have known the exceptional lad who has accomplished -marvels in the teeth of, sometimes because of, great disadvantages; but -after twenty years I, for one, have no illusions as to the outcome for -the ordinary child. - -When the New York Child Labor Committee secured the enactment of a -law making it mandatory for the schoolboy who desired to sell papers -to obtain the consent of his parents before receiving the permissive -badge from the district school superintendent, we sent a visitor from -the settlement to the families of one hundred who had expressed their -intention to secure the badge. Of these families over sixty were opposed -to the child’s selling papers on the street. The boy wanted to “because -the other fellows did,” and the parents based their objections, in most -cases, on precisely those grounds urged by social workers,—namely, that -street work led the boys into bad company, irregular hours, gambling, and -“waste of shoe leather.” Some asserted that they received no money from -the children from the sale of the papers. On the other hand, a committee -of which I was chairman, which made city-wide inquiry into juvenile -street work, found instances of well-to-do parents who sent their little -children on the streets to sell papers, sometimes in violation of the law. - -The three chief obstacles to progress in protection of the children are -the material interests of the employers, many of whom still believe -that the child is a necessary instrument of profit; a sentimental, -unanalytical feeling of kindness to the poor; and the attitude of -officials upon whom the enforcement of the law depends, but who are -often tempted by appeals to thwart its humane purpose. A truant officer -of my acquaintance took upon himself discretionary power to condone the -absence of a little child from school on the ground that the child was -employed and the widowed mother poor. Himself a tender father, cherishing -his small son, I asked him if that was what he would have me do in case -he died and I found his child at work. Oddly enough, he seemed then -to realize for the first time that those who were battling for school -attendance for the children of the poor and prevention of their premature -employment, even though the widow and child might have to receive -financial aid, were trying to take, in part, the place of the dead -father. - -To meet cases where enforcement of the new standards of the law -involves undeniable hardship, another form of so-called “scholarship” -is given by the New York Child Labor Committee. Upon investigation a -sum approximating the possible earnings of the child is furnished until -such time as he or she can legally go to work. An indirect but important -result of the giving of these scholarships has been the continuous -information obtained regarding enforcement of the school attendance law. -Inquiry into the history of candidates disclosed, at first, many cases in -which, although the family had been in New York for years, some of the -children had never attended school, and perhaps never would have done so -had they not been discovered at work illegally. The number of these cases -is now diminishing. - -Allusion to these two forms of “scholarships” should not be made without -mention of one other in the settlement, known as the “Alva Scholarship.” -The interest on the endowment is used to promote the training of -gifted individuals and to commemorate a beloved club leader. The money -to establish it was given by the young woman’s associates in the -settlement, and small sums have been contributed to it by the girls who -were members of her own and other clubs. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE NATION’S CHILDREN - - -Few people have any idea of the extent of tenement-house manufactures. -There are at present over thirteen thousand houses in Greater New York -alone licensed for this purpose, and each license may cover from one to -forty families. These figures give no complete idea of the work done -in tenements. Much of it is carried on in unlicensed houses, and work -not yet listed as forbidden is carried home. To supervise this immense -field eight inspectors only were assigned in 1913. Changing fashions in -dress and the character of certain of the seasonal trades make it very -difficult for the Department of Labor to adjust the license list. This -explains, to some extent, the lack of knowledge concerning home work on -the part of officials, even when the Department of Labor is efficiently -administered. Nevertheless, home work has greatly decreased. - -Twenty years ago, when we went from house to house caring for the sick, -manufacturing was carried on in the tenements on a scale that does not -exist to-day. With no little consternation we saw toys and infants’ -clothing, and sometimes food itself, made under conditions that would not -have been tolerated in factories, even at that time. And the connection -of remote communities and individuals with the East Side of New York was -impressed upon us when we saw a roomful of children’s clothing shipped -to the Southern trade from a tenement where there were sixteen cases of -measles. One of our patients, in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, until -our appearance on the scene, sat coughing in her bed, making cigarettes -and moistening the paper with her lips. In another tenement in a nearby -street we found children ill with scarlet fever. The parents worked as -finishers of women’s cloaks of good quality, evidently meant to be worn -by the well-to-do. The garments covered the little patients, and the bed -on which they lay was practically used as a work-table. The possibility -of infection is perhaps the most obvious disadvantage of home work, -and great changes have been wrought since the days when we first knew -the sweatshop; but we are here discussing only its connection with the -children. - -[Illustration] - -When work is carried on in the home all the members of the family can -be and are utilized without regard to age or the restrictions of the -factory laws. One Thanksgiving Day I carried an offering from prosperous -children of my acquaintance to a little child on Water Street whose -absence from the kindergarten had been reported on account of illness. He -had chicken-pox, and I found him, with flushed face, sitting on a little -stool, working on knee pants with other members of the family. They -interrupted their industry long enough to drag the concertina from under -the bed and to join in singing Italian songs for my entertainment, but -the father shrugged his shoulders in dissent from my protest against the -continuance of the work. - -Examination of the school attendance of children who do home work bears -testimony to its relation to truancy. Josephine, eleven years of age, -stays out of school to work on finishing; Francesca, aged twelve, to -sew buttons on coats; Santa, nine years old, to pick out nut meats; -Catherine, eight years old, sews on tags; Tiffy, another eight-year-old, -helps her mother finish; Giuseppe, aged ten, is a deft worker on -artificial flowers. - -It is painful to recall the R⸺ family, who lived in a basement, all of -the children engaged in making paper bags which the mother sold to the -small dealers. Something, we know not what, impelled one of the five -children to come for help to the nurse in the First Aid Room at the -settlement. His head showed evidence of neglect, and when our nurse -inquired of him how it had escaped the school medical inspection, the -fact was disclosed that he had never been in school. Immediate inquiry -on our part revealed the basement sweatshop and the fact that none of -the children, all of whom had been born in America, had ever been to -school. When the mother was questioned, she answered that she did not -like to ask for more aid than she was already receiving from the relief -society, and when we reproved the other children in the tenement for -not having drawn our attention to their little neighbors, they answered -that they themselves had not known of the existence of the R⸺ children -because “they never came out to play.” The stupidity of the mother and -the circumstances of the family have continually tested the endurance of -their well-meaning friends; nevertheless, at this writing the eldest boy -is in high school and supporting himself by work outside school hours at -a subway news-stand. - -What I have written thus far has been in large measure confined to the -lower East Side of New York; but it may not be amiss to remind the reader -that through the nursing service and other organized work our contact -with the tenement home workers extends over the two boroughs of Manhattan -and the Bronx. The settlement has never made a scientific study of work -done in the homes, but our information regarding it is continuous and -current. This cumulative knowledge is probably the more valuable because -it is obtained incidentally and naturally, and not as the result of -a special investigation, which, however fair and impartial, must be -somewhat affected by the consciousness of its purpose. - -In 1899 a law was passed in New York State licensing individual workers -in the tenements for certain trades. In 1904 this law was superseded, -primarily at the instigation of the settlement, by one licensing the -entire tenement house, thus making the owner of the house responsible. -In 1913 a law recommended by the New York State Factory Investigating -Commission was passed by the legislature; this law brought under its -jurisdiction all articles manufactured in the tenements, prohibited -entirely the home manufacture of food articles, dolls or dolls’ clothing, -children’s or infants’ wearing apparel, and forbade the employment of -children under fourteen on any articles made in tenements. - -All our experience points to the conclusion that it is impossible to -control manufacture in the tenements. Restrictive legislation (such -as the law forbidding the employment of children under fourteen) is -practically impossible of enforcement, for it is a delusion to suppose -that any human agency can find out what manufactures are going on -in tenement-house homes. The inspectors become known in the various -neighborhoods; and at their approach the word is passed along, and -garments on which women are working may be hidden, or the work taken -from children’s hands. The more painstaking and conscientious the -attempts at enforcement, the more secretive the workers become, and one -is forced to the conclusion that the only practical remedy is to prohibit -this parasitic form of industry outright. More of the men in these -families would go to work if it were not so easy to employ the women -and children; and many of the women would be able to work regular hours -in establishments suitably constructed for manufacturing purposes and -under state inspection and supervision. During the period of transition, -suffering will doubtless come to some families whose poor living has been -maintained by this form of industry, and relief measures must carry them -over the time of adjustment. Most families working at home are already -receiving aid from societies, which thus indirectly help to support the -parasitic trade. - - * * * * * - -In 1913, 41,507 children of Greater New York secured working papers. But -the record for 1914 shows a decrease of about 10,000 in the applications -for papers, and consequently so many more children in school, because of -the amended statute which raised the minimum educational requirement. A -public sentiment which keeps boys and girls longer in school emphasizes -the need of more educational facilities adapted to industrial pursuits. -The children least promising in book studies may often become adepts in -manual work, and respond readily to instruction that calls for exercise -of the motor energies. The armies of children who go to work immature, -unprepared, uneducated in essentials, with no more than a superficial -precocity, are likely to be thrown upon the scrap-heap of the unskilled -early in life, and yet many of these have potentialities of skill and -efficiency. - -[Illustration] - -It is not surprising that with increasing knowledge of the children’s -condition plans for their guidance, training, and reasonable employment -should have made advance in the last decade. The settlement is now -interested in promoting an inquiry for New York City that should lead to -the establishment of a juvenile bureau intended to combine vocational -guidance and industrial supervision,—a bureau associated with an -educational system and dissociated from the free employment exchanges -which as yet do not inquire into the character of employment offered. - -One outcome of this inquiry has been the formation of a society of -employers designed to bring about scientific consideration of the present -misemployment of children and adults, underemployment, and other wastes -of industry. - -We believe that continuation schools are necessary for all boys and girls -engaged in shop or factory work, and that expert vocational guidance and -educational direction should be offered those who leave school to become -wage-earners. It is inevitable that to people at all socially minded -close contact with many children should exercise the humanities. The -stress that we lay on the enforcement of these protective measures comes -from a conviction that the children of the poor, more than all others, -need to be prepared for the responsibilities of life that so soon come -upon them. - -The great majority of the boys and girls accept passively the conditions -of the trade or occupation into which chance and their necessities have -forced them. The desire for something different seldom becomes articulate -or strong enough to impel them to overcome the almost insuperable -barriers. Occasionally, however, the spirit of revolt asserts itself. -“I work in a sweatshop,” said a young girl who brought her drawings -to me for criticism, “and it harasses my body and my soul. Perhaps I -could earn enough to live on by doing these, and my brother bids me to -display them”; and she added, “I could live on three dollars a week if -I were happy.” The drawings were promising, and the temperamental young -creature, in answer to my questioning, admitted that she had illustrated -_David Copperfield_ for pastime and had “given David a weak chin.” - -The difficulty of proper placement in industry experienced by the -ordinary boy and girl is intensified in the case of the colored -juveniles. It is now nine years since a woman called at the Henry Street -house and almost challenged me to face their problem. She was what is -termed a “race woman,” and desired to work for her own people. It was -not difficult to provide an opening for her. The devoted daughter of -a man who had felt friendship for the colored people made it possible -for us to establish a branch of the settlement on the west side of the -city in that section known as San Juan Hill. At “Lincoln House,” with -the co-operation of representatives of the race and their friends, a -programme of social and educational work adapted to the needs of the -neighborhood is carried on. To find admirably trained and efficient -colored nurses was a comparatively simple matter; and the response of the -colored people themselves in this respect was immediately encouraging. -Necessity for patient adherence to the principle of giving opportunity -to the most needy children, that they may be better equipped for the -future, is emphasized in the case of the colored children in school -and when seeking work; but difficulties, mountainous in proportion and -testing the most buoyant optimism, loom up when social barriers and -racial characteristics enter into individual adjustments. The restricted -number of occupations open to them discourages ambition and in time -reacts unfavorably upon character and ability; and thus we complete the -vicious circle of diminishing opportunities and lessening vigor and -skill. Colored women are often conspicuously good and tender mothers, and -when I have watched large groups of them assembled in their clubrooms, -exhibiting their babies with justifiable pride, I have felt a wave of -unhappiness because of the consciousness of the enormous handicap with -which these little ones must face the future. - -[Illustration: USES OF THE BACK YARD IN ONE OF THE BRANCHES OF THE HENRY -STREET SETTLEMENT] - -A distinguished musician told me not long ago that he gave specially of -his time and talent to the colored people of New York because of a debt -he owed to a gifted colored neighbor. When he was a boy, his attempts to -play the violin attracted the man’s attention; the latter offered his -services as instructor when he learned that the boy could not afford to -take lessons. The colored man had great talent and had studied with the -best masters in Europe, but when he returned to America he was unable to -obtain engagements or procure pupils, and in order to earn his living was -obliged to learn to play the guitar. Discouraging as was his experience, -there is, I believe, relatively freer opportunity for the exceptionally -gifted of the colored race in the arts and professions than for the -ordinary young men and women who seek vocational careers. - - * * * * * - -Experience in Henry Street, and a conviction that intelligent interest -in the welfare of children was becoming universal, gradually focused my -mind on the necessity for a Federal Children’s Bureau. Every day brought -to the settlement, by mail and personal call,—as it must have brought -to other people and agencies known to be interested in children,—the -most varied inquiries, appeals for help and guidance, reflecting every -social aspect of the question. One well-known judge of a children’s -court was obliged to employ a clerical staff at his own expense to reply -to such inquiries. Those that came to us we answered as best we might -out of our own experience or from fragmentary and incomplete data. -Even the available information on this important subject was nowhere -assembled in complete and practical form. The birth rate, preventable -blindness, congenital and preventable disease, infant mortality, physical -degeneracy, orphanage, desertion, juvenile delinquency, dangerous -occupations and accidents, crimes against children, are questions -of enormous national importance concerning some of which reliable -information was wholly lacking. - -[Illustration] - -Toward the close of President Roosevelt’s administration a colleague and -I called upon him to present my plea for the creation of this bureau. On -that day the Secretary of Agriculture had gone South to ascertain what -danger to the community lurked in the appearance of the boll weevil. This -gave point to our argument that nothing that might have happened to the -children of the nation could have called forth governmental inquiry. - -The Federal Children’s Bureau was conceived in the interest of all -children; but it was fitting that the National Committee on which I -serve, dedicated to working children, should have become sponsor for the -necessary propaganda for its creation. - -It soon became evident that the suggestion was timely. Sympathy and -support came from every part of the country, from Maine to California, -and from every section of society. The national sense of humor was -aroused by the grim fact that whereas the Federal Government concerned -itself with the conservation of material wealth, mines and forests, -hogs and lobsters, and had long since established bureaus to supply -information concerning them, citizens who desired instruction and -guidance for the conservation and protection of the children of the -nation had no responsible governmental body to which to appeal. - -[Illustration] - -Though the suggestion was approved by President Roosevelt and widely -supported by press and people, it was not until the close of President -Taft’s administration that the Federal Children’s Bureau became a fact, -and the child with all its needs was brought into the sphere of federal -care and solicitude. The appointment of Miss Julia Lathrop, a woman of -conspicuous personal fitness and adequate training, to be its first chief -was a guarantee of the auspicious beginning of its work. In the brief -time of its service it has had continuous evidence that the people of -these United States intelligently avail themselves of the opportunity -for acquiring better understanding of the great responsibility that is -placed upon each generation. - -[Illustration] - -The Federal Children’s Bureau would not fulfill the purpose of its -originators if its service were limited to the study and record of the -pathological conditions surrounding children. Its greatest work for the -nation should be, and doubtless will be, to create standards for the -states and municipalities which may turn to it for expert advice and -guidance. With the living issues involved it is not likely to become -mechanical. - -The Children’s Bureau is a symbol of the most hopeful aspect of America. -Founded in love for children and confidence in the future, its existence -is enormously significant. The first time I visited Washington after the -establishment of the Bureau I felt a thrill of the new and the hopeful, -and I contrasted its bare office with the splendid monuments that had -been erected and dedicated to the past. Some day, I thought, a lover of -his country, understanding that the children of to-day are our future, -will build a temple to them in the seat of the Federal Government. This -building will be more beautiful than those inspired by the army and -navy, by the exploits of science or commemoration of the dead. As my -imagination soared I fairly visualized the Children’s Bureau developed, -expanded, drawing from all corners of the land eager parents and teachers -to learn not only the theory of child culture, but to see demonstrations -of the best methods in playgrounds, clinics, classes, clubs, buildings, -and equipment. The vision became associated with a memory of the first -time I saw the Lucca della Robbias on the outer wall of the Florentine -asylum and felt the inspiration of linking a great artist with a little -waif. But those lovely sculptured babes are swathed. Some day, when -the beautiful building of the Federal Children’s Bureau is pointed out -in Washington, I have it in my heart to believe that the genius who -decorates in paint or plastic art will convey the new conception of the -child,—free of motion, uplooking, the ward of the nation. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN THE SETTLEMENT - - -The settlement, through its preservation of several of the fine old -houses of the neighborhood, maintains a curious link with what, in this -city of rapid changes, is already a shadowy past. The families of some -of the residents once lived nearby, and recall, when they visit us, the -schools and churches they attended, their dancing classes, and the homes -where they were entertained. One visitor told of the scandal in the best -society, more than half a century ago, at the extravagance of a proud -father, then an occupant of one of the settlement houses, who gave his -young daughter a necklet of pearls on the day of her “coming-out” party. -Old men and women for whom the names of the streets evoke reminiscences -delight to revive the happy memories of their youth and to identify the -few buildings, greatly altered as to their uses, that still remain. - -Cherry Street and Cherry Hill, a short distance away, call up traditions -of a great orchard to which we owe their names, its beauty in the -blossoming time, the quaint, clean houses, each in its garden, all the -pleasant, comfortable life of a bygone time. There is nothing pleasant or -comfortable about Cherry Street to-day. Legends of the daring deeds of -the Cherry Hill gang lend a dubious glamour to some parts of it, but for -the rest it is dingy and dull. - - * * * * * - -We met Lena in one of the dull houses where we had been called because of -her illness. The family were attractive Russians of the blond type, and -the patient herself was very beautiful, her exceeding pallor giving her -an almost ethereal look. The rooms were as bare as the traditional poor -man’s home of the story-books, but the mother had hidden the degradation -of the broken couch with a clean linen sheet, relic of her bridal outfit. - -[Illustration: HERE AND THERE ARE STILL FOUND REMINDERS OF OLD NEW YORK] - -After convalescence Lena was glad to accept employment and resume her -share of the family burden. One day she rushed in from the tailor’s shop -during working hours, and, literally upon her knees, begged for other -work. She could no longer endure the obscene language of her employer, -which she felt was directed especially to her. The story to experienced -ears signaled danger, but to extricate her without destruction of the -pride which repelled financial aid was not simple. Readjustments had to -be made to give her a belated training that would fit her for employment -outside the ranks of the unskilled. Fortunately, the parents needed -little stimulus to comprehend the humiliation to their daughter, and they -readily agreed to the postponement of help from her, although they were -at a low tide of income. - -The very coarseness of this kind of attack upon a girl’s sensibilities -I have learned in the course of years, makes it easier to combat than -the subtle and less tangible suggestions that mislead and then betray. -Sometimes these are inherent in the work itself. - -A girl leading an immoral life was once sent to me for possible help. She -called in the evening, and we sat together on the pleasant back porch -adjoining my sitting-room. Here the shrill noises of the street came but -faintly, and the quiet and privacy helped to create an atmosphere that -led easily to confidence. - -It was long past midnight when we separated. The picture of the wretched -home that she had presented,—its congestion, the slovenly housekeeping, -the demanding infant, the ill-prepared food snatched from the stove by -the members of the family as they returned from work,—I knew it only too -well. The girl herself, refined in speech and pretty, slept in a bed with -three others. She had gone to work when she was eleven, and later became -a demonstrator in a department store, where the display of expensive -finery on the counters and its easy purchase by luxurious women had -evidently played a part in her moral deterioration. Her most conscious -desire was for silk underwear; at least it was the only one she seemed -able to formulate! And this trivial desire, infinitely pathetic in its -disclosure, told her story. As I stood at the front door after bidding -her good-night, and watched her down the street, it did not seem possible -that so frail a creature could summon up the heroism necessary to rise -above the demoralization of the home to which she was returning and the -kind of work open to her. - -During that summer she came each day to the settlement for instruction -in English, preliminary to a training in telegraphy, for which she had -expressed a preference. Nothing in her conduct during that time could -have been criticised, but subsequent chapters in her career have shown -that she was unable to overcome the inclinations that were the evil -legacy of her mode of life. - -The menace to the morals of youth is not confined to the pretty, -poor young girl. The lad also is exposed. I could wish there were -more sympathy with the very young men who at times are trapped into -immorality by means not so very different, except in degree, from those -that imperil the girl. The careless way in which boys are intrusted with -money by employers has tempted many who are not naturally thievish. I -have known dishonesty of this kind on the part of boys who never in after -life repeated the offense. - -An instance of grave misbehavior of another character was once brought -to me by our own young men, three of whom called upon me, evidently in -painful embarrassment. After struggling to bring their courage to the -speaking point, they told me that L⸺ was leading an immoral life, and -they were sure that if I knew it I would not allow him to dance with the -girls. They had been considering for some time whether or not I should -be informed. Heartily disliking the task, one of the young men had -consulted his mother and she had made it plain that it was my right to -know. Fortunately the district attorney then in office had from time to -time invoked the co-operation of the settlement in problems that could -not be met by a prosecutor. A telephone message to him brought the needed -aid with dispatch. When all the facts were known, I felt that the young -man had been snared exactly as had been the young girl who was with him. -Both were victims of the wretched creature whose exile from New York -the district attorney insisted upon. The three had met in a dance-hall, -widely advertised and popular among young people. - -The inquiry of the famous Committee of Fifteen, as New Yorkers know, was -given its first impetus by the action of a group of young men of our -neighborhood, already distinguished for the ethical stand they had taken -on social matters, and every one of them members for many years of clubs -in another settlement and our own. They comprehended the hideous cost of -the red-light district and resented its existence in their neighborhood, -where not even the children escaped knowledge of its evils. - -Although in the twenty-one years of the organized life of the settlement -no girl or young woman identified with us has “gone wrong” in the usual -understanding of that term, we have been so little conscious of working -definitely for this end that my attention was drawn to the fact only when -a woman distinguished for her work among girls made the statement that -never in the Night Court or institutions for delinquents had she found a -girl who had “belonged” to our settlement.[7] - -I record this bit of testimony with some hesitation, as it does not seem -right to make it matter for marvel or congratulation. One does not expect -a mother to be surprised or gratified that her daughters are virtuous; -and it would be a grave injustice to the girls of character and lofty -ideals who through the years have been connected with the settlement if -we assumed the credit for their fine qualities. - -But as in ordinary families there are diversities of character, of -strength, and of weakness, so in a large community family, if I may so -define the relationship of the settlement membership, these diversities -are more strongly marked; and it is a gratification that we are often -able to give to young girls—frail, ignorant, unequipped for the struggle -into which they are so early plunged—some of the protection that under -other circumstances would be provided by their families and social -environment. - -All classes show occasional instances of girls who “go wrong.” The -commonly accepted theory that the direct incentive is a mercenary one is -not borne out by our experience. The thousands of poor young girls we -have known, into whose minds the thought of wrong-doing of this kind has -never entered, testify against it. - -However, a low family income means a poor home, underfeeding, -congestion, lack of privacy, and lack of proper safeguards against the -emotional crises of adolescence for both boys and girls. Exhaustion -following excessive or monotonous toil weakens moral and physical -resistance; and as a result of the inadequate provision for wholesome, -inexpensive recreation, pleasures are secured at great risk. - -In the summer of 1912 a notorious gambler was murdered in New York, -and the whole country was shocked by the disclosure of the existence -of groups of young men organized for crime and designated as “gunmen.” -There is not space here for a discussion of this tragic result of street -life. It is probable that the four young men who were executed for -the murder were led astray, in the first place, by their craving for -adventure. They were found to have been the tools of a powerful police -officer, and it was generally believed that they were mentally defective, -and were thus made more readily the dupes of an imposing personality. -They had not suffered from extreme poverty, nor had they been without -religious instruction. Two of them, in fact, came from homes of orthodox -strictness; but it was plain from their histories that there had been no -adjustment of environment to meet their needs. There was no evidence that -they had at any time come in contact with people or institutions that -recognized the social impulses of youth. - -[Illustration] - -At the time of the murder I was in the mountains recovering from an -illness. The letters I received, following the disclosure of the -existence of the “gunmen,” particularly those from young men, carried a -peculiar appeal. Our own club members urged the need of the settlement’s -extending protection to greater numbers of boys. Some of the young men -wrote frankly of perils from which they had barely escaped and of which -I had had no knowledge. They all laid stress upon the importance of -_preventing_ disaster by the provision of wholesome recreation which, as -one correspondent wrote, “should have excitement also.” Their belief in -the efficacy of club control is firmly fixed. A few evenings ago one of -the young men of the settlement conversant with conditions, speaking to -a new resident, defined a “gang” as “a club gone wrong.” - -[Illustration] - -Mothers from time to time come to the Henry Street house for help to -rescue their erring sons. They come secretly, fearing to have their sons -or the police trace disclosures to them. A poolroom on a nearby street, -said to have been, at one time, a “hang-out” of the gunmen, and its lure -evidently enhanced by that fact, was reported to us as “suspicious.” -The police and a society organized to suppress such places told me that -the evidence they could secure was insufficient to warrant hope of -conviction. Mothers who suspected that stolen property was taken there, -made alert by anxiety for their sons, furnished me with evidence that -warranted insistence on my part that the Police Commissioner order the -place closed. - -Formal meetings with parents to consider matters affecting their children -are a fixed part of the settlement programme, and the problems of -adolescence are freely and frankly discussed. An experienced and humane -judge, addressing one such meeting, spoke simply and directly of the -young people who were brought before him charged with crime, showing his -understanding of the causes that led to it and his sympathy with the -offenders as well as with their harassed parents. He begged for a revival -of the old homely virtues and for the strengthening of family ties. A -mother in the group rose and confessed her helplessness. She reminded -the judge of the difficulty of keeping young people under observation -and guarding them from the temptations of street life when the mothers, -like herself, went out to work. Ordinary boys and girls, she thought, -could not resist these temptations unaided; and speaking of her own boy, -who had been brought before him, she summed up her understanding of the -situation in the words: “It’s not that my son is bad; it’s just that he’s -not a hero.” - - * * * * * - -I do not know who originated the idea of a “club” as a means of guidance -and instruction for the young. Our inducement to organize socially -came from a group of small boys in the summer of 1895, our first in the -Henry Street house. We had already acquired a large circle of juvenile -friends, and it soon became evident that definite hours must be set aside -for meeting different groups if our time was not to be dissipated in -fragmentary visits. When these boys of eleven and twelve years of age, -who had not, up to that time, given any evidence of partiality for our -society, called to ask if they could see me some time when I “wasn’t -busy,” I made an appointment with them for the next Saturday evening, -whereupon the club was organized. - -[Illustration] - -It is still in existence with practically the original membership; and -the relationship of the members of this first group to the settlement and -to me personally has been of priceless value. Many of its members have -for years been club leaders. They contribute generously to the settlement -and in a variety of ways enter into its life and responsibilities. -Clubs formed since then, for all ages and almost all nationalities, have -proved to be of great value in affording opportunity for fellowship, and, -during the susceptible years, in aiding the formation of character; and -the continuity of the relationship has made possible an interchange of -knowledge and experience of great advantage to those brought together. - -The training of club leaders is as essential as the guidance of the club -members. Brilliant personalities are attracted to the settlement, but -it can use to good purpose the moderate talents and abilities of more -ordinary people whose good-will and interest are otherwise apt to be -wasted because they find no expression for them. - -Given sincerity, and that vague but essential quality called personality, -in the leaders, we do not care very much what the programme of a club may -be. I have never known a club leader possessing these qualifications who -did not get out of the experience as much as it was possible to give, if -not more. An interest in basic social problems develops naturally out of -the club relationship. Housing conditions, immigration, unemployment, -minimum wage, political control, labor unions, are no longer remote and -academic. They are subjects of immediate concern because of their vital -importance to the new circle of friends. - -[Illustration: A Settlement Interior.] - -The leaders of the clubs meet regularly for inspiration and guidance. -Their conferences might be likened to serious faculty meetings, only here -the social aspects of life and individual problems are discussed. We ask -them to bear in mind the necessity of encouraging the altruistic impulses -inherent in normal human kind, but, like other faculties, needing to be -exercised. Where the material needs challenge the sympathies one must -be reminded that “where there is no vision the people perish.” In our -neighborhood there are traditions among the people that readily lend -themselves to the reaffirmation of this message. - -[Illustration: ESTHER] - -The girls’ and children’s department has long had the inspiration of a -gifted young woman who, though a non-resident, has contributed in equal -measure with those who have found it possible to detach themselves -sufficiently from their family obligations to reside in the settlement. -Among the leaders are young men and women who themselves have been -members of the clubs, some of them now occupying positions of trust and -authority in the city. - -The classes have more definite educational programmes, but in the -settlement they are interrelated with the clubs and made to harmonize -with their purpose. For children attending school the manual training is -planned to demonstrate the value of new experiments or to supplement the -instruction the school system affords. The art classes are limited and -informal, and without studio equipment as yet, but interested teachers -have given their time to students who show inclination or ability, -and effort is made to bring out not conventional, imitative work, but -the power to see and to portray honestly the things about us. All the -settlement family felt that for this reason, if for no other, it was -fitting to have the story of “The House on Henry Street” illustrated by -one who had found his art expression there. - - * * * * * - -The dramatic instinct is very strong in the Jewish child, and musical -gifts are not uncommon. With encouragement a high degree of talent is -often developed. Perhaps the most impressive evidence of this has been -given in the cycle of Hebrew ritual festivals, poetical interpretations -of the ceremonies cherished by the Henry Street neighborhood. The -value of these is not limited to the educational effect upon the young -people. They interpret anew to the community the rich inheritance of -our neighbors, and the parents of those who participate give touching -evidence of their appreciation. - -[Illustration] - -When a beautiful pageant based on the incident of Miriam and her maidens -was in rehearsal an intractable small boy was dismissed from the cast. In -the evening his father, a printer, called and expressed the hope that -if his son’s behavior was not unforgivable we would take him back. He -wished the boy might carry through life the memory of having had a part -in something as beautiful as this festival. After a performance a woman -who had suffered bitterly in her Russian home blocked for a moment the -outgoing crowd at the door while she stopped to say how beautiful she -thought it, adding with deep feeling, “I thank most for showing respect -to our religion.” - -The dramatic club has attempted serious work, and “The Shepherd,” by -Olive Tilford Dargan, and Galsworthy’s “Silver Box” were two of their -performances given at Clinton Hall that, in the judgment of the critical, -reached a high level of excellence. - -[Illustration: THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE] - -The Neighborhood Playhouse, opened in February, 1915, is the outcome -of the work of the festival and dramatic groups of the Henry Street -Settlement. For nine years gifted leaders have devoted themselves to -this interest, and the building of the well-appointed little theater -was necessary for the further development of the work. In addition to -the education incident to performing parts in good plays under cultured -instructors, and the music, poetry, and dance of the festival classes, -the playhouse offers training in the various arts and trades connected -with stage production. Practically all the costumes, settings, and -properties used in the settlement performances have been made in the -classes and workshops. - -[Illustration] - -“Jephthah’s Daughter,” a festival, opened the playhouse. We were pleased -to believe that the performance gained in significance because the music, -the dance, and the color were a reminder of the dower brought to New York -by the stranger. Seventy-eight young people were in the cast, and many -more had a share in the production. Children belonging to the youngest -clubs in the settlement pulled the threads to make the fringes; designers -and makers of costumes, craftsmen, composers, painters and musicians, -seamstresses, directors, and producers, all contributed in varying -degrees, showing a community of interest, service, and enthusiasm only -possible when the purpose lies outside the materialist’s world. - -[Illustration: From “Jephthah’s Daughter.”] - -It is our hope that the playhouse, identified with the neighborhood, -may recapture and hold something of the poetry and idealism that belong -to its people and open the door of opportunity for messages in drama -and picture and song and story. In its first brief season, beside -the productions of the groups for whose development the theater was -constructed, there have been special performances for the children at -which famous story-tellers have appeared. Important anniversaries have -been impressively celebrated. Ellen Terry, of imperishable charm, gave -Shakespearean readings on the poet’s birthday, and Sarah Cowell Le Moyne -gave the readings from Browning on his day. Ibsen and Shaw and Dunsany -have been interpreted, and distinguished professionals have found -pleasure in acting before audiences at once critical and appreciative. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -YOUTH - - -We remind our young people from time to time that conventions established -in sophisticated society have usually a sound basis in social experience, -and the cultivation of the minor morals of good manners develops -consideration for others. - -[Illustration] - -We interpret the “coming-out” party as a glorification of youth. When the -members of the young women’s clubs reach the age of eighteen, the annual -ball of the settlement, its most popular social function, is made the -occasion of their formal introduction and promotion to the senior group. -As Head Resident I am their hostess, and in giving the invitations I make -much of the fact that they have reached young womanhood, with the added -privileges, dignity, and responsibility that it brings. - -Intimate and long-sustained association, not only with the individual, -but with the entire family, gives opportunities that would never open up -if the acquaintance were casual or the settlement formally institutional. -The incidents that follow illustrate this, and I could add many more. - -Two girls classified as “near tough” seemed beyond the control of their -club leader, who entreated help from the more experienced. On a favorable -occasion Bessie was invited to the cozy intimacy of my sitting-room. That -she and Eveline, her chum, were conscious of their exaggerated raiment -was obvious, for she hastened to say, “I guess it’s on account of my -yellow waist. Eveline and me faded away when we saw you at dancing class -the other night.” It was easy to follow up her introduction by pointing -out that pronounced lack of modesty in dress was one of several signs; -that their dancing, their talk, their freedom of manner, all combined -to render them conspicuous and to cause their friends anxiety. Bessie -listened, observed that she “couldn’t throw the waist away, for it cost -five dollars,” but insisted that she was “good on the inside.” An offer -to buy the waist and burn it because her dignity was worth more than -five dollars was illuminating. “That strikes me as somethin’ grand. I -wouldn’t let you do it, but I’ll never wear the waist again.” So far as -we know, she has kept her word. - - * * * * * - -Annie began to show a pronounced taste in dress, and gave unmistakable -signs of restlessness. She confided her aspirations toward the stage. The -young club leader, with insight and understanding, used the settlement -influence to secure the coveted interview with a manager. - -Promptly at the appointed hour on Saturday, when the girl’s half-holiday -made the engagement possible, Miss B⸺ went to the factory to meet her. In -the stream of girls that poured from it Annie, who had dressed for the -occasion, was conspicuous. It required some fortitude on the part of her -settlement friend to adhere to their original programme, but they rode on -the top of a Fifth Avenue stage, ate ice cream at a fashionable resort, -and finally met the theatrical authority, who gave most effectively the -discouragement needed. - - * * * * * - -When Sophie’s manner and dress caused comment among her associates, her -club leader, who had been waiting for a suitable opportunity, called to -see her on Sunday morning, when the girl would be sure to be at home. -Sitting on the edge of the bed in the cramped room, they talked the -matter over. As for the paint,—many girls thought it wise to use it, for -employers did not like to have jaded-looking girls working for them; and -as for the finery,—“Lots of uptown swells are wearing earrings.” - -Contrasted with the girl’s generosity to her family the cost of the -finery was pathetically small. She had spent on an overcoat for her -father the whole of the Christmas gratuity given by her employer for a -year of good service, and her pay envelope was handed unopened to her -mother every week. - -Sophie finally comprehended the reason for her friend’s solicitude, and -at the end of their talk said she would have done the same for a young -sister. - -It is often a solace to find eternal youth expressing itself in harmless -gayety of attire, which it is possible to construe as evidence of a -sense of self-respect and self-importance. It is, at any rate, a more -encouraging indication than a sight I remember in the poor quarter of -London. I watched the girls at lunch time pour into a famous tea-house -from the nearby factories, many of them with buttonless shoes, the tops -flapping as they walked; skirts separated from untidy blouses, unkempt -hair,—a sight that could nowhere be found among working girls in America. - -[Illustration: IN A CLUB-ROOM] - -The settlement’s sympathy with this aspect of youth may not seem -eminently practical, but when Mollie took the accumulated pay for many -weeks’ overtime, amounting to twenty-five dollars, and “blew it in” on -a hat with a marvelous plume, we thought we understood the impulse that -might have found more disastrous expression. The hat itself became a -white elephant, a source of endless embarrassment, but buying it had been -an orgy. This interpretation of Mollie’s extravagance, when presented to -the mother, who in her vexation had complained to us, influenced her to -refrain from nagging and too often reminding the girl of the many uses to -which the money might have been put. - -[Illustration] - -At the hearing of the Factory Investigation Commission in New York -during the winter of 1914-15 a witness testified regarding the dreary -and incessant economies practiced by low-paid working girls. This -stimulated discussion, and an editorial in a morning paper queried -where the girls were, pointing out that the working girls of New York -presented not only an attractive but often a stylish appearance. I -asked a young acquaintance, whose appearance justified the newspaper -description, to give me her budget. She had lived on five dollars a week. -Her board and laundry cost $4. She purchased stockings from push-cart -venders, “seconds” of odd colors but good quality, for ten cents a pair; -combinations, “seconds” also, cost 25 cents. She bought boys’ blouses, -as they were better and cheaper. These cost 25 cents. Hats (peanut -straw) cost 10 cents; tooth-paste 10 cents a month. Having very small -and narrow feet, she was able to take advantage of special sales, when -she could buy a good pair of shoes for 50 cents. Her coat, bought out -of season for $7, was being worn for the third winter. Conditions were -exceptional in her case, as she boarded with friends who obviously -charged her less than she would otherwise have been compelled to pay; but -there was practically nothing left for carfares, for pleasure, or for the -many demands made upon even the most meager purse; and few people, in any -circumstances, would be able to show such excellent discretion in the -expenditure of income. - - * * * * * - -In the tenements family life is disturbed and often threatened with -disintegration by the sheer physical conditions of the home. Where there -is no privacy there is inevitable loss of the support and strength that -come from the interchange of confidences and assurance of understanding. -I felt this anew when I called upon Henrietta on the evening of the day -her father died. The tie between father and daughter had been close. When -I sought to express the sympathy that even the strong and self-reliant -need, so crowded were the little rooms that we were forced to sit -together on the tenement-house stairs, amid the coming and going of -sympathetic and excited neighbors, and all the passing and repassing of -the twenty other families that the house sheltered. It would have been -impossible for anyone to offer, in the midst of that curious though not -ill-meaning crowd, the solace she so sadly needed. - -Emotional experiences cannot be made public without danger of blunting or -coarsening the fiber of character. Privacy is needed for intimate talks, -even between mother and daughter. The casual nature of the employment -of the unskilled has also its bearing upon the family relationship. The -name or address of the place of employment of the various members of the -family is often not known. “How could I know Louisa was in trouble?” said -a simple mother of our neighborhood. “She is a good girl to me. I don’t -know where she works. I don’t know her friends.” - -And the wide span that stretches between the conventions of one -generation and another must also be reckoned with. The clash between -them, unhappily familiar to many whose experiences never become known -outside the family circle, is likely to be intensified when the -Americanized wage-earning son or daughter reverses the relationship of -child and parent by becoming the protector and the link between the -outside world and the home. The service of the settlement as interpreter -seems in this narrower sphere almost as useful as its attempts to bring -about understanding between separated sections of society. - -[Illustration] - -One evening an eloquent speaker addressing a senior group dwelt upon the -hardships of the older people and the obligations of their children to -them. The young women lingered after the speaker had gone, discussing the -lecture and applying it to themselves. Though sensitive to the appeal, -they were loath to relinquish their right to self-expression. One girl -thought her parents demanded an impossible sacrifice by insisting on -living in a street to which she was ashamed to bring her associates. The -parents refused to leave the quarter where their countrymen dwelt, and -although the daughter willingly gave her earnings and paid tribute to her -mother’s devotion and housekeeping skill, she said she felt irritated and -mortified every time she returned to her home. - -Quite naturally it came about in the beginning of our understanding of -the young people that we should take some action to protect them from -the disastrous consequences of their ignorance; for it is difficult -for the mothers to touch upon certain themes of great import. They are -not indifferent, but rather helpless, in the face of the modern city’s -demands upon motherhood. Rarely do they feel adequate to meet them. Yet -they desire that their girls, and the boys too, should be guarded from -the dangers that threaten them. - -Years ago we invited the school teachers of the neighborhood to a -conference on sex problems and offered them speakers and literature. -The public has since then become aroused on the subject of sex hygiene, -and possibly, in some instances, the pendulum has swung too far; but -we are convinced that this obligation to the young cannot be ignored -without assuming grave risks. Never have I known an unfavorable reaction -when the presentation of this subject has been well considered. It is -impossible to give directions as to how it should be done; temperament, -development, and environment influence the approach. The girl invariably -responds to the glorification of her importance as woman and as future -mother, and the theme leads on naturally to the miracle of nature that -guards and then creates; and the young men have shown themselves far -from indifferent to their future fatherhood. Fathers and mothers should -be qualified, and an increasing number are trying to take this duty upon -themselves; but where the parents confess their helplessness the duty -plainly devolves upon those who have established confidential relations -with the members of the family. - -[Illustration: At Riverholm.] - - -WHITHER? - -(To a Young Girl) - - Say whither, whither, pretty one? - The hour is young at present! - How hushed is all the world around! - Ere dawn—the streets hold not a sound. - O whither, whither do you run? - Sleep at this hour is pleasant. - The flowers are dreaming, dewy-wet; - The bird-nests they are silent yet. - Where to, before the rising sun - The world her light is giving? - - “To earn a living.” - - O whither, whither, pretty child, - So late at night a-strolling? - Alone—with darkness round you curled? - All rests!—and sleeping is the world. - Where drives you now the wind so wild? - The midnight bells are tolling! - Day hath not warmed you with her light; - What aid canst hope then from the night? - Night’s deaf and blind!—Oh, whither, child, - Light-minded fancies weaving? - - “To earn a living.” - - [_From “Songs of Labor” by Morris Rosenfeld, - translated by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank._] - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -YOUTH AND TRADES UNIONS - - -The portrayal of youth in a neighborhood such as ours cannot be -dissociated from labor conditions, and it was not incongruous that some -of the deeper implications of this problem should have been brought to us -by young women. - -In the early nineties nothing in the experience or education of young -people not in labor circles prepared them to understand the movement -among working people for labor organization. Happily for our democracy -and the breadth of our culture, that could not be so sweepingly said -to-day. Schools, colleges, leagues for political education, clubs, and -associations bring this subject now to the attention of pupils and the -public. - -[Illustration] - -Our neighbors in the Jefferson Street tenement where we at first lived -had, like ourselves, little time for purely social intercourse. With -the large family on the floor below we had established a stairway -acquaintance. We had remarked the tidy appearance of a daughter of -the house, and wondered how, with her long hours of work, she was able -to accomplish it,—for we knew our own struggle to keep up a standard -of beauty and order. We often saw her going out in the evening with -books under her arm, and surmised that she attended night school. She -called one evening, and our pleasure was mingled with consternation to -learn that she wished aid in organizing a trades union. Even the term -was unknown to me. She spoke without bitterness of the troubles of her -shop-mates, and tried to make me see why they thought a union would -bring them relief. It was evident that she came to me because of her -faith that one who spoke English so easily would know how to organize in -the “American” way, and perhaps with a hope that the union might gain -respectability from the alliance. We soon learned that one great obstacle -to the organization of young women in the trades was a fear on their part -that it would be considered “unladylike,” and might even militate against -their marriage. - -The next day I managed to find time to visit the library for academic -information on the subject of trades unions. That evening, in a basement -in a nearby street, I listened to the broken English of the cigarmaker -who was trying to help the girls; and it was interesting to find that -what he gave them was neither more nor less than the philosophic argument -of the book I had consulted,—that collective power might be employed to -insure justice for the individual himself powerless. - -The girls had real grievances, for which they blamed their forewoman. One -or two who tried to reach the owner of the factory had been dismissed,—at -the instance of the forewoman, they believed. It was determined to send a -committee to present their complaints and to stand by the girls who were -appointed on it. - -The union organized that night did not last very long, for the stability -of the personnel of the trades union, particularly among women, cannot -always be reckoned on. People as yet step from class to class in America -with ease as compared to other countries, and this has obvious democratic -advantages; but it is not so fortunate for the trade organizations or -for the standardization of the trade itself, which is thus continually -recruited from the inexperienced. There is a flux among the workers, the -union officials, and the employers themselves. Among women, the more or -less ephemeral character of much of their work, their frequent change of -occupation, and marriage, all operate against permanency. The girl who -knocked at our door that night, to invite us to our first trades union -meeting, is now in a profession. - -Later, when we moved to Henry Street, Minnie, who lived in the next -block, enlisted our sympathy in her efforts to organize the girls in her -trade. She based her arguments for shorter hours on their need of time -to acquire knowledge of housekeeping and home-making before marriage and -motherhood came to them, touching instinctively a fundamental argument -against excessive hours for women. - -[Illustration: AFTER THE LONG DAY] - -We invited Minnie to a conference of philanthropists on methods for -improving the condition of working girls, in order that she might give -her conception of what would be advantageous. Representatives of the -various societies reported on their work: vacations provided, seats in -stores, religious instruction, and so on. “We are the hands of the boss,” -said Minnie when her turn came. “What does he care for us? I say, Let our -hands be for him and our heads for ourselves. We must work for bread now, -but we must think of our future homes. What time has a working girl to -make ready for this? We never see a meal prepared. For all we know, soup -grows on trees.” - -[Illustration] - -Minnie, who was headlined by the press during a strike as a Joan of Arc -leading militant hosts to battle, had no educational preparation for -leadership; no equipment beyond her sound good sense and her woman’s -subtlety. Speaking once of the difficulty of earning a living without -training, she told me that her mother could do nothing but sell potatoes -from a push-cart in the street, “among those rough people.” Then, -repenting of her harshness, “Of course, some of those people must be -nice, too, but it is hard to find a diamond in the mud.” - -Frequent and prolonged conferences at the settlement with Minnie and -Lottie, her equally intelligent companion, and with many others, -inevitably led to some action on our part; and long anticipating the -Women’s Trades Union League, we took the initiative in organizing a union -at the time of a strike in the cloak trade. The eloquence of the girl -leaders, the charm of our back yard as a meeting-place, and possibly our -own conviction that only through organization could wages be raised and -shop conditions improved, finally prevailed, and the union was organized. -One of our residents and a brilliant young Yiddish-speaking neighbor -took upon themselves some of the duties of the walking delegate. When -the strike was settled, and agreements for the season were about to be -signed by the contractors (or middlemen) and the leader of the men’s -organization, I was invited into a smoke-filled room in Walhalla Hall -long after midnight, to be told that the girls were included in the terms -of the contract. - -[Illustration] - -Though its immediate object was accomplished, this union also proved to -be an ephemeral organization. For years I held the funds, amounting to -sixteen dollars, because the members had scattered and we could never -assemble a quorum to dispose of the money. - -When, in 1903, I was asked to participate in the formation of the -National Women’s Trades Union League, I recognized the importance of -the movement in enlisting sympathy and support for organizations among -working women. To my regret I cannot claim to have rendered services of -any value in the development of the League. It was inevitable that its -purpose, as epitomized in its motto—“The Eight-hour Day; A Living Wage; -To Guard the Home”—should draw to it effective participants and develop -strong leaders among working women themselves. Those who are familiar -with factory and shop conditions are convinced that through organization -and not through the appeal to pity can permanent reforms be assured. It -is undoubtedly true that the enforcement of existing laws is in large -measure dependent upon watchful trades unions. The women’s trades union -leagues, national and state, are not only valuable because of support -given to the workers, but because they make it possible for women other -than wage-earners to identify themselves with working people, and thus -give practical expression to their belief that with them and through -them the realization of the ideals of democracy can be advanced. - - * * * * * - -The imagination of New Yorkers has been fired from time to time by young -working women who have had no little influence in helping to rouse public -interest in labor conditions. My associates and I, in the early years -of the settlement, owed much to a mother and daughter of singularly -lofty mind and character, both working women, who for a time joined the -settlement family. They had been affiliated with labor organizations -almost all their lives. The ardor of the daughter continually prodded -us to action, and the clear-minded, intellectual mother helped us to a -completer realization of the deep-lying causes that had inspired Mazzini -and other great leaders, whose works we were re-reading. - -More recently a young capmaker has stimulated recognition of the public’s -responsibility for the well-being of the young worker. Despite her long -hours, she found time to organize a union in her trade, not in a spurt -of enthusiasm, but as a result of a sober realization that women workers -must stand together for themselves and for those who come after them. - -The inquiry that followed the disastrous fire in the factory of the -Triangle Waist Company in March, 1911, when one hundred and forty-three -girls were burned, or leaped from windows to their death, disclosed the -fact that the owners of this factory, like many others, kept the doors of -the lofts locked. Hundreds of girls, many stories above the streets, were -thus cut off from access to stairs or fire-escapes because of the fear of -small thefts of material. The girls in this factory had tried, a short -time before the fire, to organize a union to protest against bad shop -conditions and petty tyrannies. - -After the tragedy, at a meeting in the Metropolitan Opera House called -together by horrified men and women of the city, this young capmaker -stood at the edge of the great opera-house stage and in a voice hardly -raised, though it reached every person in that vast audience, arraigned -society for regarding human life so cheaply. No one could have been -insensitive to her cry for justice, her anguish over the youth so -ruthlessly destroyed; and there must have been many in that audience -for whom ever after the little, brown-clad figure with the tragic voice -symbolized the factory girl in the lofts high above the streets of an -indifferent metropolis. - -Before the fire the “shirt-waist strike” had brought out a wave of -popular sympathy. This was due in part to the youth of a majority of -the workers, to a realization of the heroic sacrifices some of them were -making (an inkling of which got to the public), and in part also to -disapproval of the methods used to break the strike. Fashionable women’s -clubs held meetings to hear the story from the lips of girl strikers -themselves, and women gave voice to their disapproval of judges who -sentenced the young strikers to prison, where they were associated—often -sharing the same cells—with criminals and prostitutes. Little wonder -that women who had never known the bitterness of poverty or oppression -found satisfaction in picketing side by side with the working girls who -were paying the great cost of the strike. Many, among them settlement -residents, readily went bail or paid fines for the girls who were -arrested. - - * * * * * - -Cruel and dramatic exploitation of workers is in the main a thing of the -past, but the more subtle injuries of modern industry, due to overstrain, -speeding-up, and a minimum of leisure, have only recently attracted -attention. It is barely three years (1912) since the New York Factory Law -was amended to prohibit the employment of girls over sixteen for more -than ten hours in one day or fifty-four hours a week. The legislation -reflected the new compunction of the community concerning these workers, -though unlimited hours are still permitted in stores during the Christmas -season. - -[Illustration] - -Few people realize what even a ten-hour day means, especially when the -worker lives at a distance from the shop or factory and additional hours -must be spent in going to and from the place of employment. And in New -York travel during the rush hours may mean standing the entire distance. - -Working girls, in their own vernacular, have “two jobs.” Those who have -long hours and poor pay must live at the cheapest rate. Often they are -not able to pay for more than part use of a bed, and however generous -may be the provision of working girls’ hotels, the low-paid workers are -not able to avail themselves of these. The girl who receives the least -wage must live down to the bone, cook her own meals, wash and iron her -own shirt-waists, attend to all the necessary details for her home and -person, and this after the long day. The cheapest worker is also likely -to be the overtime worker, a fact that is most obvious to the public at -Christmas time. - -The Factory Investigating Commission, appointed after the Triangle fire -to recommend measures for safety, was continued for the purpose of -inquiry into the wages of labor throughout the state and also into the -advisability of establishing a minimum wage rate. The reports of the -commission, the public hearings, and the invaluable contributions to -current periodicals are enlightening the community on the social perils -due to giving a wage less than the necessary cost of decent living; and -as the great majority of employees concerning whom this information has -been gathered are young girls, the appeal to the public is bound to bring -recommendations for safety in this respect. The dullness of life when -pettiest economies must be forever practiced has also been well pictured -in the testimony brought out by the commission. - - * * * * * - -In these chapters I have sought to portray the youth of our neighborhood -at its more conscious and responsible period, when the age of greatest -incorrigibility (said to be between thirteen and sixteen) has been -passed. Labor discussions and solemn conferences on social problems -may seem an incongruous background for a picture of youth. Happily, its -gayety is not easily suppressed, and comforting reassurance lies in the -fact that recreation has ever for the young its strong and legitimate -appeal; that art and music carry their message, and that the public -conscience which recognizes the requirements of youth is reflected in the -increasing provision for its pleasures. “Wider use of school buildings,” -“recreation directors,” “social centers,” “municipal dances,” are new -terms that have crept into our vocabularies. - -[Illustration] - -Though the Italians have brought charming _festas_ into our city -streets, it was not until I admired the decorations that enhance the -picturesque streets of Japan, and enjoyed the sight of the gay dancers -on the boulevards of Paris on the day in July when the French celebrate, -that it occurred to me that we might bring color and gayety to the -streets—even the ugly streets—of New York. For years Henry Street has -had its dance on the Fourth of July, and the city and citizens share in -the preparation and expense. The asphalt is put in good condition (once, -for the very special occasion of the settlement’s twentieth birthday, -the city officials hastened a contemplated renewal of the asphalt); the -street-cleaning department gives an extra late-afternoon cleaning and -keeps a white uniformed sweeper on duty during the festivity; the police -department loans the stanchions and the park department the rope; the -Edison Company illuminates with generosity; from the tenements and the -settlement houses hang the flags and the bunting streamers, and the -neighbors—all of us together—pay for the band. Asphalt, when swept and -cleaned, makes an admirable dancing floor, and to this street dance come -all the neighbors and their friends. The children play games to the music -in their roped-off section, the young people dance, and all are merry. -The first year of the experiment the friendly captain of the precinct -asked what protection was needed. We had courage and faith to request -that no officer should be added to the regular man on the beat, and the -good conduct of the five or six thousand who danced or were spectators -entirely justified the faith and the courage. - -[Illustration: AN INCIDENT IN THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT ON HENRY STREET, -COMMEMORATING THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT] - -The protective legislation, the new terms in our vocabulary, and the -dance on the street are but symbols of the acceptance by the community -of its responsibility for protecting and nurturing its precious -possession,—the youth of the city. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -WEDDINGS AND SOCIAL HALLS - - -When we came to Henry Street, the appearance of a carriage before the -door caused some commotion, and members of the settlement returning to -the house would be met by excited little girls who announced, “You’s -got a wedding by you. There’s a carriage there.” It was taken for -granted in those days that nothing short of a wedding would justify such -magnificence. - -In one way or another we were continually reminded of the paramount -importance of the wedding in the life of the neighborhood. “What!” -said a shocked father to whom I expressed my occidental revolt against -insistence upon his daughter’s marriage to a man who was brought by the -professional matchmaker and was a stranger to the girl; “let a girl of -seventeen, with no judgment whatsoever, decide on anything so important -as a husband?” But as youth asserts itself under the new conditions, -the _Schadchen_, or marriage-broker, no longer occupies an important -position. - -[Illustration] - -When we first visited families in the tenements, we might have been -misled as to the decline in the family fortunes if we judged their -previous estate by the photographs hung high on the walls of the poor -homes, of bride and groom, splendidly arrayed for the wedding ceremony. -But we learned that the costumes had been rented and the photographs -taken, partly that the couple might keep a reminder of the splendor of -that brief hour, and also that relations on the other side of the water -might be impressed with their prosperity. - -Since those days the neighborhood has become more sophisticated, and -brides are more likely to make their own wedding gowns, often exhibiting -good taste as well as skill; though the shop windows in the foreign -quarters still display waxen figures of modishly attired bride and groom, -with alluring announcements of the low rates at which the garments may be -hired. - -We were invited to many weddings, and often pitied the little bride -who, having fasted all day as required by orthodox custom, went wearily -through the intricate ceremony, reminiscent of tribal days. One bride to -whom we offered our congratulations accepted them without enthusiasm, and -added, “’Tain’t no such easy thing to get married.” - -The younger generation, born in America, whose loyalty and affection for -their elders is unimpaired by the changed conditions, but for whom the -old symbols and customs have no longer a religious meaning, often submit -to the orthodox wedding ceremony out of deference to the wishes of the -parents and grandparents. - -[Illustration: THE OLDER GENERATION] - -The ceremony in the rented hall (where it takes place owing to the -physical limitations of the home) loses some of its dignity, however -much it may have of warmth and affection. To the weddings come all the -family, from the aged grandparents to the youngest grandchildren. Before -the evening is over the babies are asleep in the arms of their parents or -under the care of the old woman in attendance in the cloak-room. - -[Illustration] - -At a typical wedding of twenty years ago the supper was spread in the -basement of one of the public halls, and the incongruities were not more -painfully obvious to us than to the delicate-minded bride. The rabbi -chanted the blessings, and the “poet” sang old Jewish legends, weaving -in stories of the families united that evening. We were moved almost to -tears by the pathos of these exiles clinging to the poetic traditions -of the past amid filthy surroundings; for the tables were encompassed -by piles of beer kegs, with their suggestion of drink so foreign to -the people gathered there; and men and women who were not guests came -and went to the dressing-rooms that opened into the dining-hall. Every -time we attended a wedding it shocked us anew that these sober and -right-behaving people were obliged to use for their social functions the -offensive halls over or behind saloons, because there were no others to -be had. - -An incident a few days after my coming to the East Side had first brought -to my attention the question of meeting-places for the people. As usual -in hard times, it was difficult for the unhappy, dissatisfied unemployed -to find a place for the discussion of their troubles. Spontaneous -gatherings were frequent that summer, and in one of them, described by -the papers next morning as a street riot, I accidentally found myself. - -It was no more than an attempt of men out of work to get together -and talk over their situation. They had no money for the rent of a -meeting-place, and having been driven by the police from the street -corners, they tried to get into an unoccupied hall on Grand Street. Rough -handling by the police stirred them to retaliation, and show of clubs was -met by missiles—pieces of smoked fish snatched from a nearby stand kept -by an old woman. Violence and ill-feeling might have been averted by the -simple expedient of permitting them to meet unmolested. Instinctively -I realized this, and felt for my purse, but I had come out with only -sufficient carfare to carry me on my rounds, and an unknown, impecunious -young woman in a nurse’s cotton dress was not in a position to speak -convincingly on the subject of renting halls. - -Later, when I visited London, I could understand the wisdom of -non-interference with the well-known Hyde Park meetings. It is -encouraging to note that common sense is touching the judgment of New -York’s officials regarding the right of the people to meet and speak -freely. - -Other occurrences of those early days pointed to the need of some place -of assemblage other than the unclean rooms connected with saloons. -Walhalla Hall, on Orchard Street, famous long ago as a meeting-place -for labor organizations, provided them with accommodations not more -appropriate than those I have described. When from time to time a -settlement resident helped to hide beer kegs with impromptu decorations, -we pledged ourselves that whenever it came into our power we would -provide a meeting-place for social functions and labor gatherings and a -forum for public debate that would not sacrifice the dignity of those who -used it. Our own settlement rooms were by that time in constant service -for the neighborhood; but it was plain that even if we could have given -them up entirely to such purposes, a place entirely free from “auspices” -and to be rented—not given under favor—was required. Prince Kropotkin, -then on a visit to America, urged upon me the wisdom of keeping a people -free by allowing freedom of speech, and of respecting their assemblages -by affording dignified accommodations for them. - -[Illustration] - -It was curious, when one realized it, that recognition of the normal, -wholesome impulse of young people to congregate should also have been -left to the saloon-keeper, and the young lads who frequented undesirable -places were often wholly unaware that they themselves were, to use their -own diction, “easy marks.” - -A genial red-haired lad, a teamster by trade, referred with pride to his -ability as a boxer. In answer to pointed questions as to where and how -he acquired his skill, he said a saloon-keeper, “an awful good sport,” -allowed the boys to use his back room. Fortunately the “good sport’s” -saloon was at some distance; and, suggesting that it must be a bore to -go so far after a day’s hard work, I offered to provide a room and a -professional to coach them on fine points if James thought the “fellows” -would care for it. A call next morning at the office of the Children’s -Aid Society resulted in permission to put to this service an unused part -of a nearby building, and during the day a promising boxer was engaged. -James had not waited to inquire if I had either the room or trainer -ready, and appeared the next evening with a list of young men for the -club. - -Some weeks later a “throw-away,” a small handbill to announce events, -came into my hands. It read: - - EAT ’EM ALIVE! - Grand Annual Ball of the ⸺ of the - Nurses’ Settlement.[8] - -The date was given and the price of admission “with wardrobe”;[9] and to -my horror the place designated for this function was a notorious hall -on the Bowery, its door adjacent to one opening into “Suicide Hall,” so -designated because of several self-murders recently committed there. -There was a great deal of mystery about the object of the ball, and -the instructor, guileless in almost everything but the art of boxing, -reluctantly betrayed the secret. They had in mind to make a large sum of -money and with it buy me a present. They dreamed of a writing-desk. It -was a difficult situation, but the young men, their chivalrous instincts -touched, reacted to my little speech and seemed to comprehend that it -would be embarrassing to the ladies of the settlement to be placed under -the implication of profiting by the sale of liquor,—though this was -delicate ground to tread upon, since members of the families of several -of the club boys were bartenders or in the saloon business; but the name -of the settlement had been used to advertise the ball, and “there was -something in it.” - -To emphasize my point and to relieve them of complications, since they -had contracted for the use of the place, I offered to pay the owner of -the hall a sum of money (one hundred dollars, as I recall it) if he would -keep the bar closed on the night of the dance; and I pledged the young -men that we would all attend and help to make the ball a success if we -could compromise in this manner. The owner of the hall, however, as some -of the more worldly-wise members had prophesied, scoffed at my offer. - -Public halls are the most common way of making money for a desired -end. Sometimes ephemeral organizations are created to “run” them and -divide the profits that may accrue. At other times, like the fashionable -“Charity” balls, the object is to raise money for a beneficent purpose. -It required some readjustment of the ordinary association of ideas -to purchase without comment the tickets offered at the door of the -settlement for a “grand ball,” the proceeds of which were to provide a -tombstone for a departed friend. - - * * * * * - -It was soon clear to us that an entirely innocent and natural desire for -recreation afforded continual opportunity for the overstimulation of the -senses and for dangerous exploitation. Later, when the question could be -formally brought to the notice of the public, men and women whose minds -had been turned to the evils of the dance-halls and the causes of social -unrest responded to our appeal, and the Social Halls Association was -organized. - -Clinton Hall, a handsome, fireproof structure, was erected on Clinton -Street in 1904. It provides meeting-rooms for trades unions, lodges, and -benefit societies; an auditorium and ballroom, poolrooms, dining-halls, -and kitchens, with provision for the Kosher preparation of meals. In -summer there is a roof garden, with a stage for dramatic performances. -The building was opened with a charming dance given by the young men -of the settlement, followed soon after by a beautiful and impressive -performance of the _Ajax_ of Sophocles by the Greeks of New York. - -The stock was subscribed for by people of means, by the small merchants -of the neighborhood, and by settlement residents and their friends. A -janitress brought her bank book, showing savings amounting to $200, -with which she desired to purchase two shares. She was with difficulty -dissuaded from the investment, which I felt she could not afford. When -I explained that the people who were subscribing for the stock were -prepared not to receive any return from it; that they were risking the -money for the sake of those who were obliged to frequent undesirable -halls, Mrs. H⸺ replied, “That’s just how Jim and me feel about it. We’ve -been janitors, and we know.” The Social Halls Association is a business -corporation, and has its own board of directors, of which I have been -president from the beginning. - -Clinton Hall has afforded an excellent illustration of the psychology of -suggestion. The fact that no bar is in evidence, and no white-aproned -waiters parade in and out of the ballroom or halls of meetings, has -resulted in a minimum consumption of liquor, although, during the first -years, drinks could have been purchased by leaving the crowd and the -music and sitting at a table in a room one floor below the ballroom. -Leaders of rougher crowds than the usual clientele of Clinton Hall, -accustomed to a “rake-off” from the bar at the end of festivities, had to -have documentary evidence of the small sales, so incredible did it seem -to them that the “crowd” had drunk so little. - -It has been a disappointment that the income has not met the reasonable -expectations of those interested. This is due partly to some mistakes -of construction,—not surprising since there was no precedent to guide -us,—largely to the competition of places with different standards which -derive profit from a stimulated sale of liquor, and also partly to the -inability, not peculiar to our neighbors, to distinguish between a direct -and an indirect charge. In all other respects the history of this -building has justified our faith that the people are ready to pay for -decency. It is patronized by five to six hundred thousand people every -year. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -FRIENDS OF RUSSIAN FREEDOM - - -If spiritual force implies the power to lift the individual out of the -contemplation of his own interests into something great and of ultimate -value to the men and women of this and the generations to come, and if, -so lifted, sacrifices are freely offered on the altar of the cause, it -may truly be said that the Russian Revolution is a spiritual force on the -East Side of New York. - -People who all through the day are immersed in mundane affairs, the -earning of money to provide food and shelter, are transfigured at its -appeal. Back of the Russian Jew’s ardor for the liberation of a people -from the absolutism that provoked terrorism lies also the memory of -pogroms and massacres. - -Though I had agonized with my neighbors over the tales that crossed -the water and the pitiful human drift that came to our shores, I did -not know how far I was from realizing the depths of horror until I saw -at Ellis Island little children with saber-cuts on their heads and -bodies, mutilated and orphaned at the Kishineff massacre. Rescued by -compassionate people, they had been sent here to be taken into American -homes. - -[Illustration] - -The procession of mourners marching with black-draped flags after -the news of the Bialystok massacre, the mass-meetings called to give -expression to sorrow at the failure of Father Gapon’s attempt to obtain -a hearing for the workingmen on that “Bloody Sunday”[10] when, it will -be remembered, the priest led hosts of men, women, and children carrying -icons and the Emperor’s picture to his palace, only to be fired upon by -his order, are some of the events that keep the Russian revolutionary -movement a stirring propaganda in our quarter of New York, at least. - -Our contact with the members of the Russian revolutionary committee in -New York is close enough to enable us to be of occasional service to -them, and some report of our trustworthiness must have penetrated into -the prisons, as the letters we receive and the exiles who come to us -indicate. - -A volume might be written of these visitors. The share they have taken -in the revolutionary movement is known, and their coming is often -merely an assurance that hope still lives. The young women, intrepid -figures, are significant not only of the long-continued struggle for -political deliverance, but of the historical progress of womenkind toward -intellectual and social freedom. - -When Dr. W⸺ called upon me he was on his way to Sakhalin to join his wife -after nearly twenty years’ separation. For participation in an act of -violence against an official notorious for his brutality and disregard -even of Russian justice she had been sentenced to death, but the sentence -had been commuted to imprisonment in the Schlüsselburg fortress, whither -she was conducted in heavy chains, and where she remained thirteen years. -Later she was rearrested and sentenced to exile for life. She had been -for five years in the frozen Siberian village of Sakhalin, when, in 1898, -her husband, having seen their only son established in life and settled -his own affairs, obtained permission from the government to join his wife -in her exile. - -In imagination I followed this cultured, impressive-looking man on his -long journey with a hope that was almost a prayer that the reunited -husband and wife would find recompense in their comradeship for all that -had been given up and that the woman’s fine spirit would make up for -whatever she might have lost through deprivation of stimulating contact -with her own circle in the world. - -My interest caused me to follow their subsequent history. A few years -after Dr. W⸺ had joined his wife they were permitted to remove to -Vladivostok. In 1906, after the October manifesto, there was a military -revolutionary movement in Vladivostok. The governor gave the order to -fire and Madame W⸺, who, with her husband, was watching the crowd, was -killed by a stray bullet. Her son is now a lawyer in Petrograd. Although -separated from his mother nearly all his life he shows his devotion to -her memory and his sympathy with the cause by defending the “politicals” -who come to him. - - * * * * * - -The settlement from time to time affords occasions for conference on -Russian affairs between influential Americans and visiting Russians who -entertain hopes of reform by other than active revolutionary methods -and it has also given a hearing and found sympathetic friends for other -unhappy subjects of the Czar. - -Echoes came to us of the persecution of the Doukhobors, a Russian -religious communistic sect, whose creed bears resemblance to that of -the Friends. Like the active revolutionists, these people had suffered -flogging, imprisonment, and exile, but in their case for espousing the -doctrine of non-resistance. - -In 1897, upon their refusal to take up arms, persecution again became -active. The Russian press was forbidden to allude to the subject, but a -petition was said to have been thrown into the carriage of the Empress -when she was traveling in the Caucasus, where the Doukhobors had been -banished, and her interest was aroused. By 1900 Tolstoi had succeeded in -fixing attention upon their plight, and arrangements were finally made, -chiefly through the efforts of Friends in England and America and the -devotion of Aylmer Maude, for their settlement in Canada. - -In order to raise funds for the emigration of these peasants to Canada, -Tolstoi was persuaded to depart from his established principle and -accept copyright for “Resurrection,” but the Doukhobors refused to -benefit by the sale of a book which they did not consider “good.” - -During the first years of their life in Manitoba things did not go well -with them, and the House on Henry Street became the headquarters for some -of their friends as they came and went from England. A young man who, -under the influence of Tolstoi, had given up his commission in the army -spent a winter in Canada helping them to lay out their farm lands. - -When he visited us he paid full tribute to the sincerity of their -religious convictions, but somewhat ruefully lamented the fanatical -extremes to which they carried them. The Doukhobors, who believed that -all work should be shared, voted against one person milking their single -cow. “But the cow,” said the young ex-captain, “was not a communist, and -went dry.” - -[Illustration: _Fraternal Greetings P Kropotkin_] - -My association with the fortunes of the Doukhobors ended with a slight -incident some time later. A peasant, unable to speak any language or -dialect that we could command in the house or neighborhood, presented a -card at our door on which were written these three words, “Kropotkin, -Crosby, Wald.” When an interpreter was secured from Ellis Island we -learned that, hearing of the pilgrimage of the Doukhobors to Canada, he -had decided to follow them, and for clews had only the remote connection -of Kropotkin’s sympathy with Russian peasants, Ernest Crosby’s devotion -to Tolstoi, and some rumor of his and my interest in these people. That -he should have succeeded in finding me seemed quite remarkable. He was -sent to Canada, and subsequent letters from him gave evidence of his -contentment with the odd sect to which he had been attracted. - -After rather serious conflict between their religious practices and the -Canadian regulations, the Doukhobors are reported to have settled their -differences and to have established flourishing communistic colonies -where thousands of acres have been brought under cultivation. - - * * * * * - -The Friends of Russian Freedom, a national association with headquarters -in New York, is composed of well-known American sympathizers, and, like -the society of the same name in England, recognizes the spirit that -animates Russians engaged in the struggle for political freedom, and is -watchful to show sympathy and give aid. - -An occasion for this arose about eight years ago, when the Russian -Government demanded the extradition of one Jan Pouren as a common -criminal. The Commissioner before whom the case was brought acceded -to Russia’s demands and Pouren was held in the Tombs prison to await -extradition. Then this insignificant Lettish peasant became a center of -protest. Pouren, it was known, had been involved in the Baltic uprisings, -and acquiescence in Russia’s demands for his extradition would imperil -thousands who, like him, had sought a refuge here, and would take heart -out of the people who still clung to the party of protest throughout -Russia. A great mass-meeting held in Cooper Union bore testimony to -the tenacity with which high-minded Americans clung to the cherished -traditions of their country. Able counsel generously offered their -services, and it was hoped that this and other expressions of public -protest would induce the Secretary of State to order the case reopened. - -My own participation came about because of a request from the members -of the Russian Revolutionary Committee in New York that I present to -President Roosevelt personally the arguments for the reopening of the -case. An hour preceding the weekly Cabinet meeting was appointed for my -visit. I took to the White House an extraordinary letter sent by Lettish -peasants, now hard-working and law-abiding residents of Massachusetts -and New Hampshire. It read: “We hear Jan Pouren is in prison, that he -is called a criminal. We called him ‘brother’ and ‘comrade.’ Do not let -him fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty vampire.” To this letter -were appended the signatures and addresses of men who had been in the -struggle in Russia and who, by identifying themselves with Pouren, -placed themselves in equal jeopardy should the case go against him. They -offered to give sworn affidavits, or to come in person to testify for -the accused. With the letter had come a considerable sum of money which -the signers had collected from their scanty wages for Pouren’s defense. -I also had with me a translation of the report to the second Duma on the -Baltic uprisings wherein this testimony, in reference to the attempt -of the Government to locate those involved in the disturbances, was -recorded: “They beat the eight-year-old Anna Pouren, demanding of her -that she should tell the whereabouts of her father.” - -The President and the Secretaries concerned discussed the matter, and I -left with the assurance that the new evidence offered would justify the -reopening of the case. At the second hearing the Commissioner’s decision -was reversed and Russia’s demands refused, on the ground that the alleged -offenses were shown to be political and “not in any one instance for -personal grievance or for personal gain.”[11] - - * * * * * - -George Kennan, who first focused the attention of Americans upon the -political exiles through his dramatic portrayal of their condition in -the Siberian prisons, is still the eager champion of their cause. Prince -Kropotkin, who thrilled the readers of the _Atlantic Monthly_ with his -“Autobiography of a Revolutionist”;[12] Tschaikowsky, Gershuni, Marie -Sukloff[13]—a long procession of saints and martyrs, sympathizers, and -supporters—have crossed the threshold of the House on Henry Street and -stirred deep feeling there. Katharine Breshkovsky (Babuschka, little -grandmother)[14], most beloved of all who have suffered for the great -cause, is to many a symbol of the Russian revolution. - -Who of those that sat around the fire with her in the sitting-room of -the Henry Street house can ever forget the experience? We knew vaguely -the story of the young noblewoman’s attempt to teach the newly freed -serfs on her father’s estate in the early sixties; how her religious -zeal to give all that she had to the poor was regarded as dangerous by -the Czar’s government, and how one suppression and persecution after -another finally drove her into the circle of active revolutionists. Her -long incarceration in the Russian prison and final sentence to the Kara -mines and hard labor was known to us, and we identified her as the woman -whose exalted spirit had stirred Mr. Kennan when he met her in the little -Buriat hamlet on the frontier of China so many years ago. - -And then, after two decades of prison and Siberian exile, she sat with -us and thrilled us with glimpses of the courage of those who answered -the call. Lightly touching on her own share in the tragic drama, she -carried us with her on the long road to Siberia among the politicals -and the convicts who were their companions, through the perils of an -almost successful escape with three students to the Pacific, a thousand -miles away. She told of her recapture and return to hard labor in the -Kara mines; of the unspeakable outrages, and the heroic measures her -companions there took to draw attention to the prisoners’ plight, and -how, despite these things, she looked back upon that time as wonderful -because of the beautiful and valiant souls who were her fellow-prisoners -and companions, young women who had given up more than life itself for -the great cause of liberty. - -Her visit to America in 1905 was made at a time when the long-cherished -hopes of the revolutionists had some promise of realization. It was -deemed necessary to gain the utmost sympathy and support from the -comrades here, and she did indeed reawaken in the hearts of our neighbors -their most passionate desire for the political emancipation of a country -so well beloved from a government so well hated. - -I accompanied Madame Breshkovsky to a reception given in her honor by -her fellow-countrymen, and her approach was the signal for a great -demonstration. They lifted her from the floor and carried her, high above -the heads of the people, to her chair. They sang “The Marseillaise,” and -the men wept with the women. Love and deference equally were accorded -to her noble character and fine perceptions. In addition to her clear -and far-sighted vision, her gift of quick and accurate decision and her -extraordinary ability as an organizer gave her, I was told, remarkable -authority in the councils of her party. - -When I last saw her, at the close of her stay in this country, she -implored me never to forget Russia and the struggle there, and said, as -we separated after a lingering embrace: “Should you ever grow cold, bring -before your mind the procession of men and women who for years have gone -in the early dawn of their lives to execution, and gladly, that others -might be free.” - -Upon returning to Russia she was arrested, and after almost three years’ -imprisonment in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, “that huge stone coffin,” -was sent to Siberia “_na poselenie_,” as a forced colonist. The first -letters that came to her friends from Siberia told of the journey to -the place of her exile in the Trans-Baikal, two or three hundred miles -northeast of Irkutsk. They traveled by train, on foot, in primitive -carts, or “crowded like herrings in a barrel” in boats that floated with -the current, having no other means of propulsion, and, finally, after -nearly three months spent on the way, reached the little island town of -Kirensk, surrounded by two rivers, “the immense and cold Lena and the -less majestic Kyrenga.” - -A letter from a fellow-exile, written in August, 1910, tells of her -passing through his village in a company of two hundred and fifty -political exiles and criminals, surrounded by a numerous guard. “Among -the crowd in gray coats, under gray skies and rain, her imposing -figure struck everyone.” He notes how her first thought, after days of -travel through the pouring rain in a miserable cart, and nights spent -in barracks or around a bonfire in the open air, was for others, “our -unfortunate comrades.” “Their sufferings,” he adds, “do a terrible sore -at her heart.... She formed the center of the party and the object of -general attention, not only of her political comrades, but also of the -criminals and the soldiers of the convoy. When I had traveled under -escort to our exile some months before everywhere we heard ‘Babuschka is -coming. God grant us to see her!’ The prisoners and the exiles in Siberia -waited with reverence to see the miracle woman. She kissed us all and -cheered us all.” - -Her attempted escape from Kirensk, recapture, and sentence to the Irkutsk -prison in the winter of 1913 are known to all the world. Her letters to -American friends from her Siberian exile revealed the heroic soul. Her -physical sufferings were only incidentally alluded to, as in one letter -where, in the quaint English acquired in America and by study during her -last imprisonment, she said: “My gait is not yet sure enough, and it will -take some time before my forces and my celerity rejoin me to the point as -to let me exercise my feet without the aid of anyone.” Nevertheless, she -continues quite undaunted, “I hope to restore my health and to live till -the day I see you again.” - -[Illustration: “BABUSCHKA, LITTLE GRANDMOTHER”] - -The sufferings and deprivations of the young political exiles caused her -the greatest sorrow. It was, indeed, the only suffering she acknowledged, -although she deplored that reasonable conversation was impossible, with -the spies always within sight and hearing, and expressed her “disgust” -that they accompanied her whenever she went out. - -In Kirensk there are over a thousand exiles forced to live on their -earnings and the small stipend received from the government. There is -little work to be had, and that little is rendered more uncertain by the -fact that the police shift the exiles about, seldom allowing them to -remain in one place for more than six months. Most of them are thus kept -in a state of semi-starvation. The magazines, books, and picture post -cards which Madame Breshkovsky received were used by her to extraordinary -advantage. Of some periodicals that I had caused to be sent her she -wrote: “They make a great parade in Siberia, going as far as Irkutsk -and Yakutsk, and some of them find resting-place in the libraries and -museums.” She taught English to the young “politicals” and reading -and writing to the illiterate native Siberians. “You understand my -situation,” she wrote: “an old mother who would serve every one of them. -I aid, I grumble, I sustain, I hear confessions like a priest, I give -counsel and admonition, but this is a drop in the ocean of misery.” And -of herself again: “How happy I am; persecuted, banished, and yet beloved.” - -From the letters that have come to America and are shared by the circle -of her friends here I select one, written in answer to a request that she -send a message of her philosophy to the students of a women’s college who -had asked me to tell the story of the Russian revolution as personified -in her: - - “October 20, 1913, Kirensk. - - “Very dear and well-beloved Lillian:— - - “Your letter, as well as the postal cards which you were good - enough to send me, were received by me several days ago, and - perhaps it is with the last mail that I send you this reply. - Snow already covers the mountainous borders of the superb Lena, - and frost will soon fill the waters with masses of ice, which - will interrupt all communications for two or three weeks, - leaving us isolated on our little island, entirely engulfed by - cold, badly treated by the north wind. I hasten, therefore, - to thank you for your indefatigable attention towards the old - recluse who, habituated as she is to pass her days now and - again imprisoned or exiled, rejoices, nevertheless, to find - herself loved—to feel that the most noble hearts beat in unison - with hers. - - “It is strange! Every time that I am asked to speak about - myself I am always confused and find nothing to say. It is - very likely that if I paid more attention to the exterior - circumstances of my life there would be enough to talk about - that would fill more than a book. But ever since my childhood - I have had the habit of creating a spiritual life, an interior - world, which responded better to my spiritual taste. This - imaginary world has had the upper hand over the real world in - its details, over all that is transient. - - “The aim of our existence, the perfecting of human nature, - was always present to my vision, in my mind. The route, the - direction that we ought to take in order to approach our ideal, - was for me a problem, the solution of which absorbed the - efforts of my entire life. I was implacable for myself, for - my weaknesses, knowing that to serve a divine cause we must - sincerely love the object of our devotion, that is to say, in - this case, humanity. - - “These meditations, and a vigorous imagination, which always - carried me far beyond the present, permitting me to inhabit the - most longed-for regions, combined to attract very little of my - attention to daily circumstances. - - “Without doubt, I have had suffering in my life, as I have - had moments of joy, of happiness even. It is also true that - the struggle with my failings, with the habits engrafted by - a worldly education, have cost me more or less dearly. The - misery of those near to me tore my heart to the extreme. In a - word, life has passed in the same way as a bark thrown upon - the mercy of a sea often stormy. But as the ideal was always - there, present in my heart and in my mind, it guided me in my - course, it absorbed me to such a degree that I did not feel in - all their integrity the influences of passing events. _The duty - to serve the divine cause of humanity in its entirety, that of - my people in particular, was the law of my life_,—the supreme - law, whose voice stilled my passions, my desires, in short, my - weaknesses.... - - “Since I live in my thoughts more than by emotion, it is my - thoughts that I have to confess more than the facts of my life. - These facts, to tell the truth, are sufficiently confused in - my memory, and often I would not be able to relate them in - all their details. Also, in conversing with those who care to - listen to me, I feel that I am monotonous, for it is always my - ideas and my abstract observations that I want to communicate - to my listeners. I have studied a great deal in order to - understand even ever so little of the origin of the human soul, - in order to understand more or less its complexity of to-day. - There lies my only strength, so to speak, and I continue my - study, knowing how complex my object of study is, and what an - innumerable quantity of different combinations, of types, of - low types, have been formed during the long history of the - laboratory where is prepared the supreme fusion called the - human soul. - - “The esteem for the individual of the human species, and the - adoration of the intellectual treasure of this individual, - ought to form the center of all religion, of all knowledge, - of all ideal. _It is only in venerating the human being as - the most beautiful creation of the world, it is only in - understanding the beauty and the indestructible grandeur of - an intelligence illuminated by love and knowledge, that the - education of the young generations will bring the desired - fruits...._ - - “Lillian, my friend, I hope to be understood by you ... I - embrace you. I kiss your two hands and thank you for your noble - and dear existence. To your entire settlement I send greetings. - - “Your - - “Katharine Breshkovsky.” - -Madame Breshkovsky’s friends are to be found in every civilized nation, -and her influence, from an exile’s hut in an isolated village in the -Arctic Circle, has radiated to remote quarters of the globe. From her -prison at Irkutsk this woman, nearing her seventieth birthday, sends -messages of hope and cheer, proclaiming her unquenchable faith that the -cause is just, and therefore must prevail. - - * * * * * - -I would not have our profound interest in the Russian revolution entirely -explained by the fellowship we have had with those who have participated -in it, by the literature which has stirred hearts and minds everywhere, -or by our actual experience with innocent victims of outrages. The -continuance of a policy of suppression of freedom infiltrates the social -order everywhere, destroys the germination of new forms of social life, -and he who has not sympathy with the throbbing of the human heart, and -who does not revolt against injustice anywhere in the world, who does not -see in the gigantic struggle in Russia a world movement for freedom and -progress that is our struggle too, will not comprehend the significance -of the sympathy of the many Americans who are friends of Russian freedom. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -SOCIAL FORCES - - -It would be impossible to give adequate presentation of those forces -termed social which have hold upon our neighborhood. - -People with an ephemeral interest in the social order and some who -are only seeking new thrills are prone to look upon the East Side as -presenting a picturesque and alluring field for experimentation, and -they are, at times, responsible for the confused conception of the -neighborhood in the public mind. - -The poor and the unemployed, the sick, the helpless, and the bewildered, -unable to articulate their woes, are with us in great numbers. -These, however, comprise only a part of our diverse, cosmopolitan -population. There are many men and women living on the East Side who -give keen scrutiny to measures for social amelioration. They are -likely to appreciate the sincerity of messages whether these relate to -living conditions, to the drama, or to music. Not only the East Side -“intellectuals,” but the alert proletariat, may furnish propagandists of -important social reforms. - -The contrast between the character of the religious influences of the -remoter past, or even of twenty or thirty years ago, in our part of the -city, with those of the present day, is marked in the church edifices -themselves. - -Across from the settlement’s main houses on Henry Street stands All -Saints’, with its slave gallery, calling up a picture of the rich and -fashionable congregation of long ago. For years after their removal -to other parts of the city, sentiment for the place, focusing on the -stately, young-minded, octogenarian clergyman who remained behind, -occasionally brought old members back, but now he too is gone, and the -services echo to empty pews. The Floating Church, moored to its dock -nearby, was removed but yesterday. Mariners’ Temple and the Church of the -Sea and Land still stand, and suggest an invitation to the seafaring man -to worship in Henry Street. - -[Illustration: “All Saints’,” on Henry Street.] - -Occasionally a zealot seeks to rekindle in the churches of our -neighborhood the fire that once brightened their altars, and social -workers hailed one as “comrade” who ventured to bring the infamy of the -red-light district to the knowledge of his bishop and the city. That -bishop, humane and socially minded, came down for a short time to live -among us, and in the evenings when he crossed the crowded street to call -or to dine with us he dwelt upon the pleasure he had in learning to know -the self-respect and dignity of his East Side parishioners. He spoke -with gratification of the fact that during his stay downtown no begging -letters had come to him from the neighborhood, nor had anyone belonging -to it taken advantage of his presence to ask for personal favors. The -neighborhood took his presence quite simply, regretting, with him, the -spectacular featuring of his visit by the newspapers. Indeed, the only -cynical comment that came to my ears was from a young radical, who, -hearing of the bishop’s tribute, said: “That’s nothing new. It’s only new -to a bishop.” - -In the Roman Catholic churches the change is most marked by the dwindling -of the large Irish congregations and the coming of the Italians. Patron -saints’ days are celebrated with pomp and elaborate decoration. Arches -of light festoon the streets, altars are erected on the sidewalk, and -the image of the saint is enshrined on the church facade high above the -passer-by. Threading in and out of the throngs are picturesquely shawled -women with lovely babes in arms, fakirs and beggars, venders offering for -sale rosaries, candles, and holy pictures. Mulberry, Elizabeth and even -Goerck Streets’ sordid ugliness is then transformed for the time, and a -clew is given to the old-world influence of the Church through drama. - - * * * * * - -The change from the Russian pale where the rabbi’s control is both -civil and spiritual to a new world of complex religious and political -authority, or lack of authority, accentuates the difficulties of -readjustment for the pious Jew. The Talmudic students, cherished in the -old country and held aloof from all questions of economic needs because -of their learning and piety, find themselves without anchor in the new -environment and precipitated into entirely new valuations of worth and -strength. - -Freedom and opportunity for the young make costly demands upon the -bewildered elders, who cling tenaciously to their ancient religious -observances. The synagogues are everywhere—imposing or shabby-looking -buildings—and the _chevras_, sometimes occupying only a small room where -the prescribed number meet for daily prayer. Often through the windows -of a dilapidated house the swaying figures of the devout may be seen -with prayer-shawl and phylactery and eyes turned to the East. At high -festivals every pew and bench are occupied and additional halls are -rented where services are held for those men, women, and young people -who, indifferent at other times, then meet and pray together. - -But though the religious life is abundantly in evidence through the -synagogues and the _Talmud-Torah_ schools[15] and the _Chedorim_, where -the boys, confined for many hours, study Hebrew and receive religious -instruction, and although the _Barmitzvah_, or confirmation of the son -at thirteen, is still an impressive ceremony and the occasion of family -rejoicing, there is lament on the part of the pious that the house of -worship and the ritualistic ceremonial of the Jewish faith have lost -their hold upon the spiritual life of the younger generation. - -For them new appeals take the place of the old religious commands. The -modern public-spirited rabbi offers his pulpit for the presentation -of current social problems. Zionism with its appeal for a spiritual -nationalism, socialism with its call to economic salvation, the extension -of democracy through the enfranchisement of women, the plea for service -to humanity through social work, stir the younger generation and give -expression to a religious spirit. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: THE SYNAGOGUES ARE EVERYWHERE—IMPOSING OR SHABBY-LOOKING -BUILDINGS] - -Settlements suffer at times from the criticism of those who sincerely -believe that, without definite religious propaganda, their full measure -of usefulness cannot be attained. It has seemed to us that something -fundamental in the structure of the settlement itself would be lost -were our policy altered. All creeds have a common basis for fellowship, -and their adherents may work together for humanity with mutual respect -and esteem for the conviction of each when these are not brought into -controversy. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, an occasional Buddhist, and -those who can claim no creed have lived and served together in the -Henry Street house contented and happy, with no attempt to impose their -theological convictions upon one another or upon the members of the clubs -and classes who come in confidence to us. - - * * * * * - -During any election campaign the swarming, gesticulating, serious-looking -street crowds of our neighborhood are multiplied and intensified. -Orators, not a few small boys among them, appear on nearly every street -corner, and an observer might almost measure the forces that influence -the people by the number and character of the orators, the appeals upon -which they base their hope of approval at the polls, and the reaction of -the crowds that surround them. - -Pleas supported by reasonable show of argument are likely to find -intelligent response, although, as is but natural, the judgment of a -temperamental people is at times not clearly defined. During the recent -almost riotous support of a Governor who had been impeached (it was -generally believed at the behest of an irritated “boss” to whom he -had refused obedience) many New Yorkers who had come to count upon the -East Side for insight and understanding were perplexed at what seemed -hero-worship of a man against whom charges of misappropriation of funds -had been sustained. Those who knew the people discerned an emotional -desire for justice mingled with some gratitude to the man who, while in -Congress, had kept faith with his constituents on matters vital to them. -Stopping at a sidewalk stand on Second Avenue, I asked the owner what it -was all about. “Oh,” said he, “Sulzer ain’t being punished now for bein’ -bad. Murphy’s hittin’ him for the good he done.” - -[Illustration] - -Our first realization of the dominating influence of political control -upon the individual and collective life of the neighborhood came, -naturally enough, through the gossip of our new acquaintances when we -came to live downtown, and we were not long oblivious to the power -invested in quite ordinary men whom we met. - -Two distinguished English visitors to America, keen students and -historians of social movements, expressed a desire to learn of the -methods of Tammany Hall from someone in its inner councils. A luncheon -with a well-known and continuous officeholder was arranged by a mutual -friend. When my interest was first aroused in the political life of the -city this man’s position in the party had been cited as an example of -the astuteness of the “Boss.” He had revolted against certain conditions -and had shown remarkable ability in building up an opposition within the -party. Ever after he had enjoyed unchallenged some high-salaried office. - -Under the genial influence of our host, and perhaps because he felt -secure with the English guests, the “Judge” (he had at one time presided -in an inferior court) talked freely of the details about which they -were curious,—how the organization tested the loyalty of its members -and increased their power and prestige as their record warranted it, -giving, incidentally, an interesting glimpse of the human elements in the -great political machine. His own success as judge he attributed to the -fact that he had used common sense where his highly educated colleagues -would have used textbooks, and with keen appreciation of the humor of -the situation he told how, when he was sworn in, a distinguished jurist -said he had come to his court “to see Judge ⸺ dispense with justice.” -He defended the logic, from the “Boss’s” point of view, of efficiently -administering such patronage as was available, and made much of the -kindness to the poor that was possible because of the district control. -Comparing their own with what he supposed to be my attitude to the poor, -he added with a smile of comprehension, “It’s the same thing, only _we_ -keep books.” - -A political organization watchful to capture personal loyalty makes -dramatic appeal, the potency of which cannot be ignored. The speedy -release of young offenders from jail was, years ago, the most impressive -demonstration of beneficent influence, and it was whispered that district -leaders were notified by the police of arrests, that they might have -an opportunity to get the young men out of trouble. Certain it is that -several times when anxious relatives rushed to us for help we found that -the leader had been as promptly notified as the families themselves. - -So much genuine kindness is entwined with the administration of this -district control that one can well comprehend the loyalty that it wins; -and it is not the poor, jobless man who, at election times, remembers -favors of whom we are critical. - -Opposed to the solidarity of the long dominant party are the other party -organizations and numerous cliques of radicals, independents, and -reformers. These, when the offenses of the party in power become most -flagrant, unite, and New York is temporarily freed from “boss” rule, to -enjoy a respite of “reform administration.” Into such “moral campaigns” -the House on Henry Street has always entered, and sometimes it has helped -to initiate them, though steadily refusing to be brought officially into -a political party or faction. Indeed, it would be impossible to range -residents or club members under one political banner. As is natural in so -large a group, nearly every shade of political faith is represented. - -A large proportion of the young people who come to the settlements are -attracted to the independent political movements, and are likely to -respond to appeals to their civic conscience. While serving on a State -Commission I heard an upstate colleague repeat the rumor that Governor -Hughes, then a candidate for re-election, was to be knifed by his -party. We had seen in our section of the city no active campaign on his -behalf. Posters, pictures, and flattering references were conspicuously -absent. Governor Hughes had made a profound impression upon all but the -advocates of rigid party control because of his high-minded integrity -and emancipation from “practical” political methods. I telephoned two -or three of our young men that the time seemed ripe for some action in -our neighborhood. In an incredibly short time a small group of Democrats, -Republicans, and Socialists gathered in the sitting-room of the Henry -Street house, and within twenty-four hours an Independent League was -formed to bring the Governor’s candidacy before the neighborhood. -Financial and moral support came from other friends, and before the end -of the week he addressed in Clinton Hall an enthusiastic mass-meeting -organized by this league without help from the members of his own -political organization. - - * * * * * - -The sporadic attempts of good citizens to organize for reform have, I am -sure, given practical politicians food for merriment. One election night, -dispirited because of the defeat of an upright and able man, I was about -to enter the settlement when one of the district leaders said: “Your -friends don’t play the game intelligently. You telephone them _to-night_ -to begin to organize if they want to beat us next election. You got to -begin early and stick to it.” - -However, every sincere reform campaign is valuable because of its -immediate and far-reaching educational effect, even when the candidates -fail of election. It is gratifying to those who are socially interested -to watch the evolution of political platforms. Every party now inserts -human welfare planks and pledges devotion to measures that in the days -of our initiation were regarded as dreams and ridiculed as beyond the -realm of practicality. Settlements have increasing authority because -of the persistency of their interest in social welfare measures. They -accumulate in their daily routine significant facts obtainable in no -other way. Governors and legislators listen, and sooner or later act on -the representations of responsible advocates whose facts are current -and trustworthy. The experience of the social worker is often utilized -by the state. At the twentieth anniversary of our settlement the Mayor -drew public attention to the fact that no less than five important city -departments were intrusted to men and one woman who were qualified for -public duty by administration of or long-continued association with the -settlements. - -Soon after our removal to Henry Street in 1895 messengers from the -“Association,” the important political club of the district, brought -lanterns and flags with which we were requested to decorate in honor of -a clambake to be given the next day. The event had been glaringly and -expensively advertised for some time. The marchers were to pass our house -in the morning and on their return in the evening. The young men glowed -with the excitement of their recital, and I can still see the blank -look of non-comprehension that passed over their faces when I tried to -soften refusal by explaining—lamely, I fear—our reasons for avoiding the -implications of participation. The courteous district leader of the other -great party was equally at sea when, a short time after, he brought flags -and decorations for their more humble celebration and met with the same -refusal. The immediate conclusion appeared to be that we were enemies or -“reformers,” and the charge was held against us. - - * * * * * - -The gay and spirited clambake parade, with its bands and flying banners, -the shooting rockets and loud applause of the friends of the marchers, -had passed by when we were drawn to the windows to gaze upon another -procession. Straggling, unkempt, dispirited-looking marchers returned -our scrutiny and held aloft a banner bearing the legend “Socialist Labor -Party,” the portrait of a man, and beneath it the name “Daniel De Leon.” - -It was our first intimation of the socialist movement in America, and -students of its history will be able to identify this leader and recall -the pioneer part he played in its early phases, his alliance with the -once-powerful Knights of Labor, and the progress and decline of his -society now overshadowed by the present Socialist Party.[16] - -Meeting a neighbor on the Bowery one day about two years later, he -stopped to explain that he was on his way to an interesting performance, -and invited me to accompany him. Together we walked along until we -reached the Thalia Theater, famous under its old name of the Bowery in -the annals of the American stage. In this theater Charlotte Cushman -made her first appearance in New York, and here the elder Booth, Lester -Wallack, and other great players delighted the theatergoers of their day. - -Venders of suspenders, hot sausages, and plaster statuettes surrounded -the building, and placards on the Greek columns advertised the event as -“The Spoken Newspaper.” A huge audience was listening to editorials and -special articles read by the authors themselves, and the atmosphere was -charged with intense purpose. Acquaintances gathered quickly, and eagerly -explained to me that members of labor organizations and “intellectuals” -of the neighborhood had united for the purpose of publishing a newspaper -for socialist propaganda and to help the cause of the working classes. -They had little money; in fact, were in debt. The men had contributed -from their scanty wages; those who possessed watches had pawned them, -and they were using this medium (“The Spoken Newspaper”) to raise money -to pay the printer and other clamorous creditors, a charge of ten cents -being made for admission to the theater. A charter had been obtained -under the name of “The Forward Association,” but I was made to understand -that this was not a stock corporation and was not organized for profit. - -The genuinely social purpose of the organization held the men together -during the lean years that were to follow. Finally, in 1908, the -Association became self-supporting, and in 1911 the charter was amended -to meet the enormously extended field. The Forward Association now -publishes a daily paper in Yiddish, with a regular circulation of -177,000, and a monthly periodical, and holds property estimated to be -worth half a million dollars. From its funds it has aided struggling -propagandist newspapers and has given help to labor organizations. - -The hope of a more equal distribution of wealth bites early into the -consciousness of the proletariat. Even the children, who cannot be -excluded from any discussion in a tenement home, have opinions on the -subject. Happening one day upon a club of youngsters, I interrupted -a fiery debate on socialism. Its twelve-year-old defender presented -his argument in this fashion: “You see, gentlemen, it’s this way: The -millionaires sit round the table eating sponge-cake and the bakers are -down in the cellars baking it. But the day will come,”—and here the -young orator pointed an accusing finger at the universe—“when the bakers -will come up from their cellars and say, ‘Gentlemen, bake your own -sponge-cake.’” - -Mixed with my admiration for the impressive oratory was the guilty -sense that the settlement was probably responsible for the picture of -licentious living manifested by the consumption of sponge-cake,—our most -popular refreshment, with ice cream added on great occasions. - - * * * * * - -However one may question the party socialists’ claim that an economic -and social millennium is exclusively dependent upon their dominance, few -acquainted with those active in the movement will deny the sincerity of -purpose, the almost religious exaltation that animate great numbers of -the party. The first socialist member from the East, and the second in -the United States, has been elected to Congress from our district; a -man universally esteemed for his probity, with a record of many years’ -unselfish devotion to the workingmen’s cause. - -A copious literature and widespread propaganda proclaim the willingness -of the American people now to give socialism a hearing. It seems a far -cry from that first unimpressive little parade that drew the settlement -family to the windows twenty years ago. - - * * * * * - -Years ago the lads in one of the settlement clubs debating the subject of -woman suffrage declared it to be “a well-known fact that when women had -the vote they cut off their hair, they donned men’s attire; their voices -became harsh.” - -I cannot say that even to-day the ardent advocates of woman suffrage -come in great numbers from among the male members of the settlement -clubs, but, on the whole, the tendency is to accept women in politics as -a necessary phase of this transitional period and the readjustment of -the old relations. The conviction that the extension of democracy should -include women has found free expression in our part of the city, and Miss -L. L. Dock, a resident of many years, has mobilized Russians, Italians, -Irish, and native-born, all the nationalities of our cosmopolitan -community, for the campaign. When the suffrage parade marched down -Fifth Avenue in 1913, back of the settlement banner, with its symbol of -universal brotherhood, there walked a goodly company carrying flags with -the suffrage demand in ten languages. The cosmopolitanism of our district -was marked by the Sephardic Jewish girl who bore aloft the Turkish -appeal. The Chinese banner was made by a Chinese physician and a Chinese -missionary. There are four American-born Chinese voters in our part of -the city. - -[Illustration] - -The transition is significant from the position of women among orthodox -Jews to the motherly looking woman who stands on a soap-box at the corner -of Henry Street and makes her appeal for the franchise to a respectful -group of laboring men. The mere fact that this “mother in Israel” is -obliged to work in a factory six days of the week is an argument in -itself, but intelligently and interestingly she develops her plea, and -her appeal to the men’s reason brings sober nods of approval. - -The Russian revolution owes much to the valorous women who from the -formation of the Tschaikowsky circles in the early ’70s have worked as -comrades for the cause, and this is well known to the “intellectuals” -of the East Side. I doubt whether a single man or woman could be found -among them opposed to granting the franchise to women. If they seem -indifferent, it is doubtless because they think it a matter of course and -strenuous effort to secure votes for women unnecessary. From the party -organization men there is not so much encouragement. - -[Illustration: A MOTHER IN ISRAEL] - -Commissioner of Corrections Katherine Davis testifies that the inmates of -the girls’ reformatory disapprove of women voting as “unladylike,” and -it may surprise those who do not know the thought of these poor women to -learn that they cling to orthodox ideals. I understand that I shocked -one girl, who had been sentenced to the “Island” from the Night Court, -by advocating the appointment of women police. The probation officer who -called upon her asked her opinion of my recommendation, which was then -sufficiently novel to attract newspaper attention. “Oh,” said the girl, -“it’s not right. Woman’s place is the home.” - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -SOCIAL FORCES, CONTINUED - - -The drama is taken seriously in our neighborhood, particularly among the -people whose taste has not been affected by familiarity with plays or -theaters classed as typically “American.” In the years of our residence -on the East Side there have been several transitions in the Yiddish -drama[17] from classic to modern and realistic. Feeling has at times run -high between the advocates of the different schools, and discussions in -the press and disputes in the cafés have reflected a very lively popular -interest. - -Jacob Gordin, the Yiddish playwright, contributed an important chapter to -the history of the stage, and his art was, I think, a factor in drawing -intelligent attention to the East Side. The Yiddish drama, before his -time, had not been looked upon with great favor, and there was in this, -as in other instances, an implication of the contempt that Americans not -infrequently feel for the alien, and also a fear, on the part of members -of the older Jewish communities, that the Yiddish theater might retard -the Americanization of the immigrant. - -Mr. Gordin was one of our early friends, and we found pleasure in our -theater parties. The audiences seemed scarcely less dramatic than the -performers, and we took sides, perhaps not illogically, with the new -school. Upon our appearance interpreters from various parts of the -house were sure to offer their kind services. The acting was of high -grade, and the fame of some of the performers has now gone far beyond -the neighborhood and the city. The stage during this period performed -its time-honored function of teaching and moralizing. One of Gordin’s -plays that had many seasons of popularity was “The Jewish King Lear.” It -depicted the endless clashing between the generations. The Shakespearean -Cordelia, on the Bowery stage, is the daughter of character who longs -for self-expression and becomes a physician. Another impressive play was -“God, Man, and the Devil.” Here was preached the story of man’s fall, -not because of poverty, but through the possession of riches. The pious -Jewish scribe resists the worldly man and his enticements, but having -come into the possession of money he becomes grasping, eager for power, -susceptible to flattery. The portrayal of his spiritual downfall gave the -playwright opportunity for remarkable delineation of Jewish character. -I also found it interesting to take William Archer, the English critic, -on his first visit to America, to see Ibsen metamorphosed in “The Jewish -Nora,” which was then playing at a nearby theater. - -The Italians have now almost abandoned the marionette theater, and we -can no longer find on Mott, Elizabeth, and Spring Streets the stuffy -little theaters filled with workingmen (and an occasional woman), sitting -enthralled night after night while from the wings the fine voice of the -reader continued the story of Rinaldo and other popular knights. - -The puppet theater was usually a family affair. Its members slept and -cooked behind the scenes, alternating in reading the story or operating -the puppet figures of knights and ladies. One hot night we strolled from -the settlement to a marionette theater nearby to show our guests (among -them a theatrical producer) the simplicity of the primitive stage still -to be found in the great city. - -[Illustration: THE DRAMATIC CLUB PRESENTED “THE SHEPHERD”] - -During the story that was then being enacted a doll, representing the -infant heir, was dropped in a miniature forest to be rescued by the -valorous knight. At that moment the naked baby of the proprietor walked -out from the wings, crossed the stage, and snatching up the doll, clasped -it tight in her little arms and disappeared. The audience gave no sign -that the current of their enchantment had been broken, nor did the reader -or the manipulator of the rescuing knight pause for a second in their -rôles. - -The theaters on the Bowery and in its vicinity advertise Italian opera -and occasional revivals of serious drama, but more obvious at present -are the lurid advertisements of sensational melodrama. We are plainly -under the influence of Broadway and the “movies,” but at the Metropolitan -Opera House our neighbors can always be seen in great numbers among the -“appreciators” at the top of the house. - - * * * * * - -A short time ago an unselfish and well-beloved member of the older circle -of Russian revolutionists asked me to help him establish a comrade on -some self-supporting basis, and began by saying, “Being a literary man, -he wants to open a restaurant.” The fact of his being “literary” would -immediately bring him custom, and I foresaw another meeting-place for -philosophers, poets, and revolutionists, graduates of universities or -gymnasia, writers and publicists, students familiar with Kant and Comte -and Spinoza. - -In these little East Side cafés, over a steaming glass of tea or a -temperate meal, endless discussions take place. In the groups that gather -there are many men of education who, during their first years in this -country, worked as cloakmakers, tailors, or factory operatives until they -were able to obtain employment more suited to their aptitudes or talents. - -[Illustration] - -The cafés and the bookshop where the interesting proprietor specializes -in radical literature are the meeting-places for the “intellectuals,” -centers from which radiate influences that are not insignificant. As they -prosper, many of these men move their families to other parts of the -city, but they continue to be East Siders at heart, and find congenial -atmosphere in their old haunts. So they come back for the fellowship they -miss in their new habitations. - -The saloons of the neighborhood touch the life of an entirely different -set. They are informal club-houses for many men, some of whom have for -years been members of the same political organization. Not that the -organization trusts to the saloon alone. All through our neighborhood are -the club-houses maintained for members of the party who are kept together -through social intercourse. - -However, among workingmen, the saloon may be patronized for other reasons -than refreshment and sociability. When I expressed to a sober man, long -out of work, my surprise that he should have been seen going into a -saloon, he explained that if a man did not sometimes go there he was -likely to be out of work a longer time. “The fellows just kind of talk -about jobs when they’re sittin’ round in the saloons, and sometimes you -pick up something.” His reasoning reminded me of a friend who professed -indifference to the numerous expensive clubs to which he belonged, but -found them useful in his business. “Often a chance conversation or a -meeting with men develops into something big.” - - * * * * * - -When the Empress of Austria was assassinated in 1898 newspaper reporters, -seeking “color,” asked the settlement’s direction to anarchists who, in -the excitement of the time, were believed to form a considerable portion -of the East Side population. - -I recalled two men who, in a cellar in Grand Street, had a few rows of -books for sale which advertised them as “Dealers in Radical Literature.” -One partner proclaimed himself a State Socialist, the other a Philosophic -Anarchist. The latter, mild and gentle, devoted disciple of Prudhon, -with whose writings he was familiar, was almost pathetically grateful, -and showed not altogether complimentary surprise when we purchased -Kropotkin’s “Fields, Factories, and Workshops,” Tolstoi’s “My Life,” and -Walt Whitman’s poems. In his naïve simplicity he assumed that only those -unsure of food and shelter found interest in such literature, and later -he and his partner, in all seriousness, proposed, with our co-operation, -to reform society. - -They had decided, after much thought, that the reason the people they -met at the settlement seemed to sympathize and understand was because -of the books they read. They felt sorry for the people on Fifth Avenue -who, living so far away from the poor, could not know how things might -be remedied. Their plan was that I should rent a store opening on the -avenue, place comfortable chairs and tables upon which books could be -spread. These books the merchants would loan,—their whole stock, if -necessary,—and then people passing on foot or driving by could stop and -read. - -Such naïveté could hardly be met with to-day, for education and -discussion of themes of social interest have widened the minds of the -community and contact with people of different positions in life is much -more general. - -Police interference with free speech and free assemblage in our country -has stirred vigorous protest from sober people and has had the effect of -kindling enthusiasm for propaganda of ultraradical philosophies among -those who might otherwise never have given thought to them. In some -quarters mere radicalism has become perilously popular. The spirit of -adventure, a kind of generous devotion not always balanced with knowledge -of definite issues or the constructive processes that are under way, -deflect forces that might be employed for immediate advances in social -welfare. - -I recall the indignation of a young man, just graduated from one of -our universities, when chance took him into an East Side hall where a -well-known anarchist was addressing a large and attentive audience and -reading selections from Thoreau. Without any obvious provocation the -police jumped upon the platform, arrested the woman and those who sat -with her, refused them permission to call a cab, and drove them in the -patrol wagon to the police station. At the time there was no limit to -which this man would not have gone to show his resentment against the -injustice of the proceeding, and it was some relief to his chivalrous -spirit to testify against the police and to use the settlement’s -experience in giving publicity to the occurrence. - -Something of this menace to cherished American institutions lay in the -occurrences at Lawrence, Massachusetts, during the winter of 1912. - -Unsatisfactory labor conditions gave the Industrial Workers of the World -an opportunity to capture the loyalty and devotion of the discontented -operatives. Reports of the unwarranted action of police and militia -during a strike that ensued, the imprisonment of the strike leaders, and -the difficulty of securing for them an impartial hearing were incidents -too serious to be lightly dismissed from the mind. I went to Lawrence at -that time, and came away reflecting with sadness on the manifestations -there of how slight is our hold upon civilization, how insecure our -reliance upon the courts for justice when feelings run high. - -The operatives’ story had not reached the general public, and I offered -the House on Henry Street as one medium for informing people in New York -who had no link with the working people. - -A participant in the strike came to us to tell the story, and her -presentation, on the whole, seemed fair and reasonable. It was no less -an indictment of the leaders of the established labor organizations for -failure to unionize the workers, and thereby secure better wages and -shorter hours, than of the capitalist, who, the speaker thought, should -be held responsible for creating the conditions. - -The reaction of the audience was definite—that the workers should have -tangible assurance of the existence of an American sentiment for justice, -and money came spontaneously to the settlement to be sent to the strikers -and toward the cost of the defense of the prisoners. The New York press, -on the whole, gave fair interpretation of the causes of discontent and -the disturbing consequences to society of what appeared to some observers -to be anarchistic methods on the part of those in authority. - - * * * * * - -The Social Reform Club, organized in 1894, was a factor in helping to -stimulate a more general public interest in matters of social concern. - -The club aimed at the immediate future, and labored solely for measures -that had a fair promise of early success. Its members, wage-earners -and non-wage-earners in almost equal numbers, were required to have “a -deep active interest in the elevation of society, especially by the -improvement of the condition of wage-earners.” - -Ernest Crosby, Tolstoian and reformer, was the first president, and the -original membership comprised distinguished men and women, courageous -thinkers who fully met the requirements of the society, and others, like -myself, who were to gain enlightenment regarding methods and theories for -the direct improvement of industrial and social conditions. - -Father Ducey, whose support of Father McGlynn[18] during his time of -trial was then still referred to; Charles B. Spahr, and others no longer -living were among the organizers. On the club’s weekly programmes can -be read the names of men and women who were then and still are bearers -of light for the community. Devoted members of the club testified to -their indebtedness to the Knights of Labor as “a great educational force -for social reform,” and a younger generation gained immeasurably from -association with men and women who had given themselves unselfishly to -the early labor movements in this country. - -It was at the time of excessive sweatshop abuses, and from the windows -of our tenement home we could look upon figures bent over the whirring -foot-power machines. One room in particular almost unnerved us. Never did -we go to bed so late or rise so early that we saw the machines at rest, -and the unpleasant conditions where manufacturing was carried on in the -overcrowded rooms of the families we nursed disquieted us more than the -diseases we were trying to combat. - -Our sympathies were ready for enlistment when working people whom we -knew, and whose sobriety of habits and mind won confidence and esteem, -discussed the possibility of improving conditions through organization. -In another place I have told how the young girls first led us into the -trades union movement, but now where the standard of the entire family -was involved through the wage and working conditions of its chief -wage-earner, it became to us a movement of greater significance. - -We were accorded a doubtful distinction by acquaintances who had no -point of contact with working people when we acknowledged friendship -with “demagogues” and “walking delegates” (terms which they used -interchangeably), and, inexperienced though we were, it was possible for -us, in a small way, to help build a bridge of understanding. - -Research was not then a popular expression of social interest. -Discussions developed the need of a formal investigation into conditions, -and a distinguished economist of Yale was asked to send someone academic -and “without feeling for either side,” while we chose a labor leader, -well informed from the workers’ point of view, to make the inquiry. The -paraphernalia of cards, filing cabinets, et cetera, was provided, and a -room set apart in the settlement, but the investigation ended before it -was fairly begun with mutual scorn on the part of the two men. - -Through the years that have followed the settlement has from time to time -been the neutral ground where both sides might meet, or has furnished the -“impartial third party” in industrial disputes. - -One such conference lingers in my memory because of the open-mindedness -shown by a man whose traditions and training were far removed from -wage-earners’ problems. A friend and generously interested in all our -undertakings, he questioned my judgment in espousing the workingmen’s -side in a threatened strike, believing that a compromise on disputed -hours and pay during that unprosperous time was better than interrupted -employment. We believed that the “half loaf” might prove too costly. The -wage was already below a living minimum, and the workers’ contention -that at the beginning of the season the market could be made to meet a -fair charge for labor seemed to us an entirely reasonable one. My friend -agreed to bring representatives of the manufacturers and contractors if -I would bring an equal number of workers to a conference in the Henry -Street house, over which he would preside. No agreement was reached, -but when the strike was finally declared this friend, whose wisdom and -experience have placed him high in the councils of the nation, had come -to see that the workers could not do otherwise, and throughout the strike -he aided with money and sympathy. - -Since those days cloaks are no longer made in New York tenement homes, -and the once unhappy, sweated workers, united with other garment-makers, -have been lifted into eminence because of the unusual character of their -organization. - -In 1910, after a prolonged strike, peace was declared under a -“protocol,”[19] wherein were combined unique methods devised for the -control of shops and adjustment of difficulties between the association -of progressive manufacturers and the trades unions. New terms—“a -preferential union shop” and the “Joint Board of Sanitary Control”—were -introduced. Under the latter, for the first time in the history, of -industry, sanitary standards were enforced by the trade itself. On -this board, the expense of which was shared equally by the association -of manufacturers and the trades unions, were representatives of both -organizations, their attorneys, and three representatives of the public -unanimously elected by both parties to the agreement. - -When I was asked to be one of the three representatives of the public, -already laden with responsibilities I was loath to accept another, -but the temptation to have even a small share in the socializing of -industries involving in New York City alone nearly 100,000 people and -several hundred millions of dollars was irresistible. - -High sanitary standards and a living wage, with reasonable hours of -employment, were assured so long as both parties submitted to the terms -of the protocol. Whatever changes in the administration of the trade -agreement may be made, the protocol has established certain principles -invaluable for the present and for future negotiations. The world seemed -to have moved since we shuddered over the long hours and the germ-exposed -garments in the tenements.[20] - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES - - -Illuminating anecdotes might be told of the storm and stress that often -lie beneath the surface of the immigrant’s experience from the time he -purchases his ticket in the old country until the gates at Ellis Island -close behind him and the process of assimilation begins. That he has so -often been left rudderless in strange seas forms a chapter in the history -of this “land of opportunity” that cannot be omitted. - -[Illustration] - -The confusion of the stranger, unable to speak the language and -encountering unfamiliar laws and institutions, often has tragic results. -Once in searching for a patient in a large tenement near the Bowery -I knocked at each door in turn. An Italian woman hesitatingly opened -one, no wider than to give me a glimpse of a slight creature obviously -stricken with fear. Her face brought instantly to my mind the famous -picture of the sorrowing mother. “Dolorosa!” I said. The tone and the -word sufficed, and she opened the door wide enough to let me enter. In a -corner of the room lay two children with marks of starvation upon them. - -Laying my hat and bag upon the table, to indicate that I would return, -I flew to the nearest grocery for food, taking time, while my purchases -were being made ready, to telephone to a distinguished Italian upon whose -interest and sympathy I could rely to meet me at the tenement, that we -might learn the cause of this obvious distress. - -My friend arrived before I had finished feeding the children, and to -him the little mother poured forth her tale. She, with three children, -had arrived some days before, to meet the husband who had preceded her -and had prepared the home for them. One _bambina_ was ill when they -reached port, and it was taken from her, why she could not explain. She -was allowed to land with the other two and join her husband, and the -following day, in answer to their frantic inquiries, they learned that -the child had been taken to a hospital and had died there. Then her -husband was arrested, and she, unacquainted with a single human being in -the city, found herself alone with two starving children, too frightened -to open the door or to venture upon the street. She thought her husband -was imprisoned somewhere nearby. - -My friend and I went together to the Ludlow Street jail, and here a -curious thing occurred. We merely inquired for the prisoner; we asked no -questions. His cell door was opened and he was released. Later I learned -that he had been arrested because of failure to make a satisfactory -payment on a watch he was buying on the installment plan. There must have -been gross irregularity in the transaction, judging by the willingness -to release him and the fact that his creditor failed to appear against -him. It was hinted, at the time, that there was collusion between the -installment plan dealers and the prison officials. - -A pleasanter story is that of the B⸺ family. One evening two neighborhood -women, shawls over their heads, called to ask if I would contribute to -a fund they were raising to furnish quarters for a family just arrived -from Ellis Island. When I expressed wonder that they should have been -permitted to land in a penniless condition the women shrugged their -shoulders in characteristic fashion and said, “Well, they’re here, and we -must do something.” - -Not wishing to refuse, or to participate blindly, I asked for the -whereabouts of the man of the family. I found him in a basement, a very -dignified, gray-haired cobbler, between 40 and 45 years of age. When I -asked how it happened that the first step of his family in America should -be to claim help in this way he explained the complications in which they -had been involved. He had preceded his family to make a home for them, -and after some years had sent money for steamer tickets for them. When -they arrived at the frontier, owing to some technicality, they were sent -back. He had sent more money to defray the additional expenses; then -himself had been compelled to undergo an operation for appendicitis, -which took all he had hoarded to furnish the home. He was just out of the -hospital when wife and children arrived. - -[Illustration] - -Appreciating the importance of having the family begin life in their new -environment with dignity and self-respect, an offer was made to loan him -money if he would recall the women who were begging for him. Together we -figured out the minimum sum needed, and within an hour the twenty-five -dollars was in his hands and he had recalled the women with joy. He took -the loan without exaggerated protest or gratitude, merely saying: “As -there is a God in heaven you will not regret this.” - -He was a skillful cobbler and the wife a good housekeeper, and in six -months they brought back the twenty-five dollars. It was pleasanter -not to think of the pinching in the household that made this prompt -repayment possible. Some time later he brought me forty dollars which -the family had saved, saying he knew it would give me pleasure to start -the savings-bank account which they would need for the education of the -children. The subsequent history of this family, like many another known -to us in Henry Street, shows the real contribution brought into American -life by immigrants of this character. - - * * * * * - -In discussions throughout the country of the problems of immigration -it is significant that few, if any, of the men and women who have had -extended opportunity for social contact with the foreigner favor a -further restriction of immigration. - -The government’s policy regarding the immigrant has been negative, -concerned with exclusion and deportation, with the head tax and the -enforcement of treaties and international agreements. By our laws we are -protected from the pauper, the sick, and the vicious; but only within -recent years has a hearing been given to those who have asked that our -government assume an affirmative policy of protection, distribution, and -assimilation. - -[Illustration] - -The need of constructive social measures has long been indicated. The -planting of roots in the new soil can best be accomplished through an -intercourse with the immigrant in which the dignity of the individual -and of the family is recognized. Heroic measures may be necessary to -establish a satisfactory system of distribution, and these measures must -be based on a philosophic understanding of democracy. Among them should -be provision for giving instruction to the prospective immigrant in -regard to those laws, customs, or prohibitions with which he is liable to -come in contact, and also in regard to the industrial opportunities open -to him. Then, with competent medical examination at the port of departure -and humane consideration there and here, the tragedies now so frequent at -the port of arrival might be diminished, or even eliminated altogether. - -In turn, the private banker, the employment agent, the ticket broker, -the lawyer, and the notary public have battened upon the helplessness -of the immigrant. Our experience has convinced us that in the interest -of the state itself the future citizens should be made to feel that -protection and fair treatment are accorded by the state. The greater -number of immigrants who come to us are adults for whose upbringing this -country has been at no expense. It would seem only just to give them -special protection during their first years in the country, to encourage -confidence in our institutions, and to promote assimilation. From an -academic point of view, it might be said that all institutions for the -citizen are available to the immigrant, but the statement carries with -it an implication of equal ability on the part of the latter to utilize -these institutions, and this is not borne out by the experience of those -familiar with actual conditions. - -[Illustration] - -Such thoughts as these lay back of an invitation to Governor Hughes to -dine and spend an evening at the settlement and there meet the colleagues -who could speak with authority on these matters. - -The Governor left us armed with maps and documentary evidence. A few -months later the legislature authorized the creation of a commission to -“make full inquiry, examination, and investigation into the condition, -welfare, and industrial opportunities of aliens in the State of New -York.” Among its nine members were two women, Frances Kellor and myself. -Upon the recommendation of that commission the New York Bureau of -Industries and Immigration of the Department of Labor was created.[21] -Miss Kellor, the first woman to be head of a state bureau, became its -chief. - -Pending the enactment of legislation, she and I, with a photographer and -a sympathetic companion interested in questions of labor, motored over -the state examining the construction camps of the barge canal (a state -contract), the camps connected with the city’s great new aqueduct, and -some of the canning establishments. - -In the latter we found ample illustration of indifference on the part -of private employers. In the camps surrounding the canneries were -large numbers of idle children who should have been in school. The -local authorities were, perhaps not unnaturally, indisposed to enforce -the compulsory education law upon these children whose stay in the -community was to be a transient one. In the public work the New York -City contracts, with few exceptions, showed carefully thought-out and -standardized conditions for the men; but examination of the state -contracts showed that while elaborate provision had been made for the -expert handling of every other detail connected with the work, even to -the stabling of the mules, nowhere was any mention made of the men. - -In a shack that held three tiers of bunks, occupied alternately by the -day and night shifts, with a cook-stove in a little clearing in the -middle, we found a homesick man, who chanced not to be on the works, -reading a book. When we engaged in conversation with him he pointed -contemptuously to the bunks and their dirty coverings, and said, “This -America! I show you Rome,” and produced from under his bed a photograph -of the Coliseum. - -[Illustration] - -The commission exposed many forms of exploitation of the immigrant, -and subsequent reports have corroborated its findings. Some safeguards -have now been established, and the reports of the Bureau of Industries -and Immigration in the first years of its existence bore interesting -testimony to its practical and social value. The significance of the -indifference of the state to its employees, as it appeared to the -investigators, was given publicity at the time, and roused comment and -discussion. I quote from it as follows: - -“The state, as employer, alone determines the terms upon which its -new canal shall be built. It defines in great detail its standard of -materials and workmanship, but takes no thought for the workmen who -must operate in great transient groups. It does not leave to chance -the realization of its material standard, but sends inspectors to make -tests and provides a staff of engineers. It does leave to chance (in the -ignorance and cupidity of _padroni_) the quality and price of foods and -care of the men. It takes great care to prevent the freezing of cement, -but permits any kind of houses to be used for its laborers. It is wholly -indifferent as to how they are ventilated, lighted, or heated, how many -men sleep in them, or whether the sleeping quarters are also used for -cooking and eating and the bunks as cupboards. Neither does it care -whether the men can keep themselves or their clothes clean. - -“The simplest standards which military history shows are essential in -handling such artificial bodies of people are grossly violated. Sanitary -conveniences are sometimes entirely omitted; the men drink any kind of -water they can obtain, and filthy grounds are of no evident concern. -The state does not inquire whether there are hospitals or physicians, -medicine, emergency aids, or anything of the kind. Notice is taken -of gambling, drunkenness, and immorality only when they impair the -efficiency of the men.... Men left alone in these miserable, uninspected -shacks, where vermin and dirt prevail ... must inevitably deteriorate. -The testimony of contractors themselves is that many of the laborers -become nomads, drifting from camp to camp, drinking, quarreling, and -averse to steady work. - -“We commend this responsibility in all its phases to the various state -departments charged with education, health, letting of contracts, -payment of bills, supervision of highways and waterways, and protection -of laborers. We ask the state as employer to consider its gain from the -men at the most productive periods of their lives; we ask the state to -measure the influence of this life upon its future citizens during their -first years in the country when they are most receptive to impressions of -America.”[22] - -Quite recently the Public Health Council of the New York State Department -of Health has adopted a sanitary code for all labor camps. - -It is impossible to compute the sums that have been lost by immigrants -through fake banks, fake express companies, and irresponsible steamship -agencies. In New York State these were practically legislated out of -existence through the efforts of the Commission of Immigration of 1909 -just referred to, yet in the winter of 1914-15 approximately $12,000,000 -was lost on the lower East Side by the failure of private banks, sweeping -away the savings and capital of between 60,000 and 70,000 depositors. -Happily, the postal savings bank has come, and is already much used by -immigrants, incidentally keeping a large amount of money in this country. -In important centers the stations might be socialized to the still -greater advantage of the depositors and the service by having someone -assigned to interpret, to write addresses and give information. These -favors have been the bait held out to the timid stranger by the private -agencies. - -[Illustration: A REGION OF OVERCROWDED HOMES] - -Perhaps an even greater loss has come to us through the land-sale -deceptions. Farms cultivated in New York State are actually decreasing, -while the population increases. The census of 1900-1910 shows 4.9 per -cent. decrease of farms and 25.4 per cent. increase of population. Great -numbers of the immigrants are peasants, and land-hungry, and if there was -a policy throughout the states of registration of land for prospective -settlers, and if severe penalties attached to land frauds, I have little -doubt that valuable workers might be directed to the enormous areas that -need cultivation. “I am an agriculturist,” said a man who found his way -to the settlement to tell his troubles, “and I pull out nails in a box -factory in New York.” His entire family have followed him to the land -that he is now cultivating. - -One winter a number of peasants from the Baltic provinces found -themselves stranded in New York. It was a period of unemployment, and -they could find no work. Unaccustomed to cities, they eagerly seized upon -an opportunity to leave New York. At the settlement, where they were -assembled, a state official told them of wood-cutters needed—in Herkimer -County, as I remember it. An advertisement called for forty men, and the -responsibility of the advertiser was vouched for by the local banker. - -“Who can cut trees?” I asked. A shout went up from these countrymen—“Who -cannot cut trees?” _Forty_ to go? Everyone was ready. So we financed them -in their quest for work, and bade good-by to a radiant, grateful group. -_Alas! only four men were needed._ The contractor preferred to have a -larger number come, that he might make selection. And this is not an -exceptional instance. Ask the itinerant workers, the tramps even, how -much faith can be placed in the advertisements of “Hands Wanted” in the -East and in the West at the gathering of the crops. - -The possibility of deflecting people to the land has been demonstrated -by Jewish societies in New York, and with proper support other -organizations interested in this phase of the immigrant’s welfare might -repeat their success. Such programmes of distribution, however, cannot -be carried out without effective co-operation from the people in the -rural regions, and assimilative processes will not be wholly successful -until the native-born American is freed from some of his prejudices and -provincialism. - -An unsocial attitude in the country naturally drives the stranger to an -intensive colony life which accentuates the disadvantages of the barriers -he and we build up. - -An experience in Westchester County illustrates this very well. We were -seeking lodgings for two intelligent and attractive young Italians -who were working on a dam at one of our settlement country places. -Incidentally, the work they were doing was quite beyond the powers of any -native workers in the vicinity of whom we could hear. We asked an old -native couple, squatters on some adjacent land, to rent an unoccupied -floor of their house to the two young men. The man, despite their -extremely indigent condition (the wife went to the almshouse a short time -after), absolutely refused, fearing the loss of social prestige if they -“lived in the house with dagoes.” - -Perhaps, having little else, they were justified in clinging to their -social exclusiveness, but their action in this case illustrates the -almost universal attitude toward the immigrant, particularly the more -recent ones, and perhaps only those who have felt the isolation and -loneliness of the newcomer can comprehend its cruelty. - -An educated Chinese merchant who once called at the settlement apologized -for the eagerness with which he accepted an offer to show him over the -house, explaining that although he had been thirty years in this country -ours was the first American home he had been invited to enter. - -We need also to analyze the philosophy of much of the discrimination -against aliens in the matter of employment, and it is not pleasant to -remember that until recently a state employing an enormous number of -foreign workers forbade the bringing of suit by the non-resident family -of the alien, although he might have lost his life in an accident -through no fault of his own. - -Scorn of the immigrant is not peculiar to our generation. A search of -old newspaper files will show that the arrival of great numbers of -immigrants of any one nationality has always been considered a problem. -In turn each nationality as it became established in the new country has -considered the next-comers a danger. The early history of Pennsylvania -records the hostility to the Germans—“fear dominated the minds of the -Colonists”—despite the fact that the German invaders were land-owning and -good farmers. - -An Irish boy observed to one of our residents that on Easter Day he -intended to kill his little Jewish classmate. Having had long experience -of the vigorous language and kind heart of the young Celt, she paid -little attention to the threat, but was more startled when the soft-eyed -Francesco chimed in that he was also going to destroy him “because he -killed my Gawd.” “But,” said the teacher, “Christ was a Jew.” “Yes, I -know,” answered the young defender of the faith, “He was then, but He’s -an American now.” - -Despite its absurdity, was not the boy’s conception an exaggerated -illustration of that surface patriotism which is almost universally -stimulated and out of which soul-deadening prejudices may grow—may take -root even in the public schools? - - * * * * * - -Great is our loss when a shallow Americanism is accepted by the newly -arrived immigrant, more particularly by the children, and their national -traditions and heroes are ruthlessly pushed aside. The young people have -usually to be urged by someone outside their own group to recognize the -importance and value of customs, and even of ethical teaching, when given -in a foreign language, or by old-world people with whom the new American -does not wish to be associated in the minds of his acquaintances. This -does not apply only to the recent immigrant, to whom his children often -hear contemptuous terms applied. I remember attending a public hearing -before the Department of Education of New York City at which Germans -vigorously urged the study of their native tongue in the public schools, -because of the impossibility of persuading their children to learn or use -the language by any other means than that of having it made a part of the -great American public school system. - -It is difficult to find evidence of any serious effort on our part to -comprehend the mental reaction upon the immigrant of the American -institutions he encounters. Indeed, gathering up the story of the -immigrant, I sometimes wonder if he, like the fairies, does not hold up a -magic mirror wherein our social ethics are reflected, rather than his own -visage. - -What we are to the immigrant in our civic, social, and ethical relations -is quite as important as what he is to us. We risk destruction of the -spirit—that element of life that makes it human—when we disregard our -neighbor’s personality. - - * * * * * - -Recent discussion of immigration bills focuses attention on two points -deemed of fundamental importance by the settlement groups. - -Three Presidents have vetoed bills for the restriction of immigration -by means of a literacy test or by conditions that would virtually deny -the right of asylum for political refugees. Once, in addressing a -committee of the House on such proposed legislation, I protested against -a departure from our tradition and reminded the members of the committee -of the splendid Americans who would have been lost to this country had -the door been so closed upon them. A young physician of Polish parentage -followed, and his cultured diction and attractive appearance lent -emphasis to his story. “My father,” he said, “came an illiterate to this -country because the priest of his parish happened not to be interested in -education, not because my father was indifferent. He has struggled all -his life to give his children what he himself could never have, and has -worshiped the country that gave us opportunity.” - -In his veto of the bill President Wilson admirably formulated his reasons -for opposing restriction of this character, and as these are exactly the -arguments upon which social workers have based their objections, I cannot -do better than quote him here: - -“In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies a radical -departure from the traditional and long-established policy of this -country, a policy in which our people have conceived the very character -of their government to be expressed, the very mission and spirit of the -nation in respect of its relations to the peoples of the world outside -their borders. It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of asylum, -which have always been open to those who could find nowhere else the -right and opportunity of constitutional agitation for what they conceived -to be the natural and inalienable rights of men, and it excludes those -to whom the opportunities of elementary education have been denied -without regard to their character, their purposes, or their natural -capacity.” - - * * * * * - -The immigrant brings in a steady stream of new life and new blood to -the nation. The unskilled have made possible the construction of great -engineering works, have helped to build bridges and roadways above -and under ground. The number of skilled artisans and craftsmen among -immigrants and the contribution they make to the cultural side of our -national life are too rarely emphasized. Alas for our educational system! -we must still look abroad for the expert cabinet-maker or stone-carver, -the weaver of tapestry, or the artistic worker in metals, precious or -base. - -[Illustration] - -In another place I have spoken of the rise of certain needle trades from -those of sweaters and sweaters’ victims to a standardized industry, -with an output estimated at hundreds of millions yearly. The industry -of cloak- and suit-making has been to a large extent developed by the -immigrants themselves. When the stranger looks upon the loft buildings -in other parts of the city, gigantic beehives with the swarms of workers -going in and out, he seldom comprehends that great wealth has been -created for the community by these humble workers. - -The man who now stands at the gates of Ellis Island turns his socially -trained mind toward the development of methods for the protection and -assimilation of the immigrant after the gates have closed upon him. But -the best conceived plans of this Commissioner of Immigration and others -who have long studied the question will be fruitless unless, throughout -the country, an intelligent and respectful attitude toward the stranger -is sedulously cultivated. - -In the early glow of our enthusiasm, when we were first brought in -contact with the immigrant, we dreamed of making his coming of age—his -admission to citizenship—something of a rite. Many who come here to -escape persecution or the hardships suffered under a militaristic -government idealize America. They bring an enthusiasm for our -institutions that would make it natural to regard admission to the rights -and responsibilities of citizenship with seriousness. Years ago we urged -the use of school buildings, that registration and the casting of the -ballot might be dignified by formal surroundings. This has been done in -several cities, although not yet in New York. - - * * * * * - -The foreign press, particularly the Yiddish, has a distinct Americanizing -influence. Many adults never learn the new language and, indeed, -acquire here the habit of newspaper-reading. The history of the United -States, biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other -distinguished Americans appear in the pages of these papers, and one -Italian daily published serially the Constitution of the United States. -Effective, too, as an educational and assimilating measure have been the -lectures in foreign languages conducted for many years by the Educational -Alliance on East Broadway and by the various settlements, and included, -for some years past, in the evening courses of the Department of -Education. - - * * * * * - -In our neighborhood the physical changes of the last twenty years have -been great. Since that first disturbing walk with the little girl to -the rear tenement on Ludlow Street asphalt has replaced unclean, rough -pavements; beautiful school buildings (some the finest in the world) have -been erected; streets have been altered, and rows of houses demolished to -make room for new bridges and small parks. Subway tubes take the working -population to scattered parts of the greater city; piers have been built -for recreation purposes, and a chain of small free libraries of beautiful -design. A Tenement House Department has been created, charged with -supervision and enforcement of the laws regulating the housing of 80 per -cent. of the city’s population, and so far assaults upon this protective -legislation have been repulsed, despite the tireless lobby of the owners -year after year. - -[Illustration: AT ELLIS ISLAND - -There is a stream of inflowing life] - -As our neighbors have prospered many have moved to quarters where they -find better houses, less congestion, more bathtubs; but an enormous -working population still finds occupation in the lower part of the city. -Carfare is an expense, and time spent in overcrowded cars, which scarcely -afford standing-room, adds to the exhaustion of the long day, and these -considerations keep many near the workshop. Despite the exodus, we still -remain an overcrowded region of overcrowded homes. Through the tenements -there is a stream of inflowing as well as outflowing life. The newcomer -finds a lodging-place most readily in this vicinity, and the East Side is -the shore of the harbor. - - * * * * * - -The settlements have been before the public long enough to have lost -the glamour of moral adventure that was associated with their early -days. Many who were identified with them then have steadfastly remained, -although realizing, as one of them has said, that high purpose has often -been mocked by petty achievement. - -A characteristic service of the settlement to the public grows out of its -opportunities for creating and informing public opinion. Its flexibility -as an instrument makes it pliant to the essential demands made upon it; -uncommitted to a fixed programme, it can move with the times. - -Out of the enthusiasms and out of the sympathies of those who come to -it, though they be sometimes crude and formless, a force is created that -makes for progress. For these, as well as for the helpless and ignorant -who seek aid and counsel, the settlement performs a function. - -The visitors who come from all parts of the world and exchange views and -experiences prove how absurd are frontiers between honest-thinking men -and women of different nationalities or different classes. Human interest -and passion for human progress break down barriers centuries old. They -form a tie that binds closer than any conventional relationship. - -[Illustration] - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] The “Lodge” doctor is the physician provided by a mutual benefit -society or “Lodge” to attend its members.—THE AUTHOR. - -[2] “Visiting Nursing in the United States,” by Y. G. Waters (Charities -Publication Committee). - -[3] The National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis -in its report for 1915 states that the tuberculosis death rate in the -registration area of the United States has declined from 167.7 in 1905 -to 127.7 in 1913 per 100,000 population; a net saving to this country of -over 200,000 lives from this one disease. - -[4] “The Vocational Guidance of Youth,” by Meyer Bloomfield (Houghton -Mifflin Co.). - -[5] Because of economic conditions in New York during the winter of 1915 -and the compulsory idleness of many unskilled workers, the Scholarship -Committee of the Henry Street Settlement, among other efforts for relief, -rented a loft in a building near a trade school, and thus made it -possible for 160 untrained girls to receive technical instruction, the -Board of Education providing teachers and equipment.—THE AUTHOR. - -[6] That the ephemeral character of work available for children of -fourteen to sixteen years of age is not peculiar to New York City is -shown by the following figures from the report of the Maryland Bureau of -Statistics for the year 1914. In Maryland, working papers are issued for -each separate employment. The number of original applications in one year -was 3,580 and the total of subsequent applications, 4,437. Of the 3,580 -children 2,006 came back a second time, 1,036 a third time, 561 a fourth, -363 a fifth, 194 a sixth, 116 a seventh, 53 an eighth, 29 a ninth, 18 a -tenth, and one child came back for the eighteenth time in a twelvemonth, -for working papers. Many of the children told stories of long periods of -idleness between employments.—THE AUTHOR. - -[7] While writing this we learn that a child attending a settlement club -has been involved in practices that indicate a perversion, but she cannot -properly be included in the above classification because of her extreme -youth.—THE AUTHOR. - -[8] We have been popularly known as the Nurses’ Settlement, but our -corporate name is The Henry Street Settlement.—THE AUTHOR. - -[9] Hat and coat checked without charge. - -[10] January 22, 1905. - -[11] U. S. Commissioner S. M. Hitchcock’s decision, delivered March 30, -1909. - -[12] Now published, with considerable additions, as “Memoirs of a -Revolutionist” (Houghton Mifflin Co.). - -[13] See “The Life Story of a Russian Exile,” by Marie Suldoff (The -Century Co.). - -[14] See the sympathetic sketch, “Katharine Breshkovsky,” by Ernest Poole -(Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago). - -[15] Report of the Federal Bureau of Education for 1913 shows 500 of -these schools in New York City. - -[16] See “History of Socialism in the United States,” by Morris Hillquit -(Funk and Wagnalls). - -[17] The early Hebrews possessed a few mystery plays, “The Sale of -Joseph,” “Esther and Haman,” and “David and Goliath,” and at the Jewish -carnival of Purim (Feast of Esther) merrymakers went from house to house -giving performances of song and mimicry, but the Yiddish theater is new -and was first introduced in Rumania not more than thirty-five years ago. -Transplanted to Russia, the actors, said to have been selected from the -original strolling companies, played a brilliant brief part until, under -government order, the Yiddish theaters were closed there. - -[18] Dr. Edward McGlynn was suspended in 1884 under charge of advocacy of -Henry George and of holding opinions regarding the rights of property not -in accord with Catholic teaching, and later excommunicated. He organized -the famous Anti-Poverty Society in 1887. In 1892 he was reinstated, his -position being judged not contrary to the doctrine of the Church as -confirmed by the Encyclical _Rerum Novarum_ issued by Leo XIII on May 15, -1891. - -[19] See reports and bulletins of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control -(Dr. George Price, Director), also Bulletins Nos. 98. 144, 145, and 146 -of the U. S. Department of Labor, and “Sanitary Control of an Industry by -Itself,” by L. D. Wald, in the report of the International Congress of -Hygiene and Demography, 1913. - -[20] In August, 1915, the protocol was succeeded by a time agreement of -two years. This agreement contains the main principles of the protocol, -with some modifications in the machinery of adjustment. - -[21] Report of Commission on Immigration of the State of New York -transmitted to the legislature in April, 1909. - -[22] “The Construction Camps of the People,” by Lillian D. Wald and -Frances A. Kellor (_The Survey_, January 1, 1910). - - - - -INDEX - - - Adams, Maude, 87 - - Adolescence, problems of, and settlement work, 170-179, 189-199 - - Anarchism, 274-279 - - Archer, William, 272 - - - Bellevue Hospital, 28, 59 - - Bialystok massacre, 230 - - Breshkovsky, Katharine, 238-248 - - Brewster, Mary, 8, 10, 16, 45, 48, 78, 113 - - Budget of a working-girl, 194; - her “two jobs,” 211 - - - Cafés, bookshops, and saloons, 273-275 - - Child Hygiene, Bureau of, 53, 57, 59 - - _Child labor_: - Children who work, 135-151; - conditions in New York City, 135-137, - —in Pennsylvania and the South, 144, 145; - National Committee on, 144, 146; - New York Committee on, 137, 144, 148, 150; - newsboys, 146-149; - obstacles to measures for protection of children, 149; - scholarships to aid children, 138-142; - statistics for Greater New York, 158; - sweatshops and children, 153-156; - typical employment record, 143; - Washington Conference on, 146 - - Clubs and classes in the settlement, 179-184 - - Columbia University creates Department of Nursing and Health, 64 - - Committee of Fifteen (New York), inquiry of, 174 - - Comte, 274 - - Continuation Schools, necessary for young workers, 160 - - Convalescents, country house for, 88 - - Crosby, Ernest, 234, 235, 280 - - - Davis, Katherine, 268 - - _Defectives_: - Responsibility of society for, 122; - special classes instituted, 117-120 - - De Leon, Daniel, 262 - - Diseases of children and home treatment, 38-40 - - Dock, L. L., 266 - - Doukhobors, the, 233-235 - - _Drama_: - As a social force, 270-273; - dramatic instinct of Jewish child, 184; - marionette theater, 272; - Neighborhood Playhouse, 185; - pageants and plays, 184-187, 226; - Yiddish plays, 270-272 - - Ducey, Father, 280 - - Dunsany, Lord, 188 - - - _Education_: - Bureau of vocational guidance proposed, 160; - continuation schools necessary, 160; - educational ideals and the settlement, 133; - effects of disorganized tenement life on, 110-113; - Federal Children’s Bureau, 57, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168; - foreign press as Americanizing influence, 307; - hardships endured for, 99-103; - institutional life and the child, 124-132; - necessity for early care and training, 133; - responsibility for defectives, 122; - scholarships, 138, 141, 150; - special training for defectives instituted, 117-120; - study-rooms at the settlement, 103 - (_see also_ Public Schools) - - Educational Alliance, The, 308 - - Empress of Austria, assassination of, 275 - - - Factory law (New York) amended, 210 - - Farrell, Elizabeth, 117, 120 - - Federal Children’s Bureau, 57, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168 - - Forward Association, The, 264 - - - Gapon, Father, 230 - - Gershuni, 238 - - Gordin, Jacob, 270, 271 - - Greeks of New York give “Ajax,” 226 - - - _Henry Street_: - Instruction in home nursing begun in old building on, 3; - its links with city’s past, 169; - physical changes of twenty years, 308 - - Home and School Visitor, The, 110 - - _Hospitals_: - Children’s diseases and, 38-40; - first school for midwives in Bellevue, 59; - large numbers of city sick unable to avail themselves of, 28 - - Housekeeping centers, 108, 109 - - Hughes, Charles Evans, 259, 293 - - - Ibsen, Henrik, 188, 272 - - Illiteracy, 113, 114 - - _Immigrants_: - Bureau of Industries and Immigration created, 293; - conditions of, in labor camps, 294-297; - contributions of, to national life, 305, 306; - dangers and early trials of, 286-293; - discrimination against, 300-302; - further restriction of immigration contrary to American - institutions, 290, 304; - land and the, 298-300; - positive governmental action and constructive social measures - needed, 291; - postal savings banks and, 298 - - _Industrial conditions_: - Programmes of betterment, 25; - unemployment in 1893-1894, 17; - wretched conditions impress Henry Street workers from the - beginning, 25; - youth and trades unions, 201-215 - (_see also_ Child Labor and Sweatshops) - - Industrial Workers of the World, 278 - - _Infant mortality_: - Federal Children’s Bureau report on, 57; - social disease, 54 - - Institutional life, disadvantages of, for children, 124-132 - - _Italians_: - Ancient customs preserved among, 69; - celebration of saints’ days, 252; - daily newspaper publishes Constitution, 308; - marionette theaters, 272; - preyed upon by quack doctors, 37; - tragic experience of Italian immigrant, 286-288 - - - “Jephthah’s Daughter,” 186 - - _Jews_: - Cycle of Hebrew festivals at Henry Street, 184; - difficulties of, in complex new world, 252-254; - dramatic instinct of Jewish child, 184; - Talmud-Torah Schools and Chedorim, 253; - value put upon education by, 97-100; - wedding customs, 216-219; - Yiddish plays, 270-272; - Yiddish press, 307; - Zionism, 254 - - - Kant, 274 - - Kelley, Florence, 144 - - Kellor, Frances, 293, 294 - - Kennan, George, 238, 239 - - Kindness of poor to each other, 17-20, 70 - - Kishineff massacre, 229 - - Knights of Labor, 263, 281 - - Kropotkin, Prince, 222, 234, 235, 238, 276 - - - Land, The, and the immigrant, 298-300 - - Lathrop, Julia, 166 - - Lawrence strike, The, 278, 279 - - Le Moyne, Sarah Cowell, 188 - - Life insurance and nursing service, 62 - - Literacy test for immigrants, 304, 305 - - Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 14 - - - McGlynn, Edward, 280 - - McRae, Mrs., 13-17 - - Maude, Aylmer, 233 - - Mazzini, 208 - - _Medical etiquette_: - And nursing service, 30-36; - its analogies with the “closed shop,” 34 - - Metropolitan Museum of Art, petition for Sunday opening of, 80 - - Midwives, 57-60 - - Milk stations, 55, 56 - - Morbidity, statistics of, 37, 38 - - Murphy, Edgar Gardner, 144 - - - National Organization for Public Health Nursing, 64 - - National Playground Association, 81 - - _Negroes_: - “Lincoln House,” 162; - peculiar problems of, 162, 163; - restricted opportunities for, in industry, 162 - - Neighborhood Playhouse, The, 185 - - _Nursing service_: - Co-operation with Board of Health, 45; - co-ordination with educational institutions, 63; - Department of Nursing and Health at Columbia University, 64; - development of, throughout country, 44, 60; - division into districts, 42; - effect of new basis, 27, 28; - etiquette of, 27; - honored by Mt. Holyoke degree, 65; - life insurance company and, 62; - new era in development of, 60, 61; - nurses for public schools, 51-53; - post-graduate training in settlement, 63; - principles of, 26, 27, 29; - professional etiquette and, 30-36; - Public Health Nursing, division of, created in New York State, 46 - —department of, in Columbia University, 64 - —National Organization for, 64; - staff of settlement increased, 41, 42 - - - Outdoor Recreation League, 85, 86 - - - Pageants, festas, and street dances, 184, 214, 215, 226, 252 - - Picnics and day parties, 77-79, 89 - - Play, children and, 66-96 - - _Playgrounds_: - In Henry Street Settlement’s back yard, 81-84; - movement throughout country in favor of, 96; - Outdoor Recreation League, 85, 86; - playgrounds “at no matter what cost,” 96; - public schools used for, 87; - Seward Park, 86 - - Postal savings banks and the immigrant, 298 - - Pouren, Jan, 236-238 - - Protocol established in cloakmakers’ strike, 284, 285 - - Prudhon, 276 - - Public Health Nursing, division of, created in Columbia University, 64; - in New York State, 46; - National Organization for, 64 - - _Public schools_: - Cooking instruction in, 107; - doctors appointed for, 49-51; - first class for ungraded pupils in, 117-120; - infectious diseases and, 46-53; - opened as recreation centers, 87; - Penny Lunches for, 109; - responsibility for defectives, 114-123; - settlement seeks to co-operate with and supplement, 105; - stronghold of democracy, 133; - trachoma in, 50; - trained nurses in, 51-53 - - - Quack doctors and the poor, 36, 37 - - - _Red Cross_ (_American_): - An agency providing “moral equivalents for war,” 61; - Department of Town and Country Nursing, 61 - - Riis, Jacob, 67 - - Roosevelt, Theodore, 125, 164, 166, 236, 237 - - _Russian freedom_: - Case of Jan Pouren, 236-238; - Friends of, in New York, 235; - Katharine Breshkovsky, 238-248; - Russian visitors at Henry Street, 231-233; - Russia’s struggle our struggle, 248; - spiritual force of, on East Side, 229; - woman suffrage and, 268 - - Russian Revolution, 229, 230; - New York Committee, 231, 236 - - - _Scholarships for children who work_: - “Alva Scholarship,” 150; - chart showing statistics of, 141; - Henry Street system, 138; - New York Child Labor Committee Scholarship, 150 - - _Settlements_: - Adherents of all creeds work together in, 254; - birth of idea, 2; - developments and opportunities for service, 309, 310; - College Settlement (New York), 10; - Union Settlement, 58; - University Settlement, 137 - - Sex hygiene, instruction in, 198 - - Shaw, George Bernard, 188 - - “Shepherd, The,” 185 - - Shirt-waist strike, The, 209, 210 - - “Silver Box,” The, 185 - - _Social forces_: - Drama, 270-273; - politics, 255-272; - radicalism, 276-279; - religion, 249-254; - socialism, 262-266; - social reform, 279-285; - woman suffrage, 266-269 - - _Social halls and meeting-places_: - Cafés, bookshops, and saloons, 273-275; - Clinton Hall, 185, 225, 227, 260; - need for, 219; - Social Halls Association, 225, 226 - - Socialist movement in America, 262-266 - - Social Reform Club, 279 - - Southern Educational Conference, 104 - - Spahr, Charles B., 280 - - Spinoza, 274 - - “Spoken Newspaper, The,” 263 - - Study-rooms and libraries in the settlement, 103, 104 - - Sukloff, Marie, 238 - - Summer scenes on the East Side, 69-71 - - _Sweatshops_: - Conditions in, 152-155, 281; - conferences on, 282; - protocol of 1910, 284; - restriction of, 157-158 - - - Taft, William Howard, 166 - - Tammany Hall, 256-258 - - Terry, Ellen, 188 - - Thoreau, Henry D., 277 - - Tolerance, religious, instances of, 21-23 - - Tolstoi, Leo, 233-235, 276 - - _Trades unions_: - Difficulty of organizing women and girls, 203; - early organizations of girl workers, 203-206; - shirt-waist strike, 209; - Women’s Trade Union League, 206, 207; - Youth and, 201-215 - - Triangle fire and investigation, 208, 209, 212 - - Tschaikowsky, N., 238, 268 - - Tuberculosis, system of care and instruction of patients, 53, 54 - - - Vacation houses and camps, 90-94 - - Vocational Guidance and Industrial Supervision, proposed Bureau of, 160 - - - Waring, Colonel, 4 - - Wedding customs, 216-219 - - White House Conference on Children, 125 - - “Whither,” by Morris Rosenfeld, 200 - - Whitman, Walt, 276 - - Widows’ pensions, the first in Henry Street, 124 - - Wilson, Woodrow, 305 - - Woman suffrage, 266-269 - - Women’s Trade Union League, 206, 207 - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE ON HENRY STREET *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |