Part 3

The legal department conducted under Kate Barnard, the commissioner, by Dr. J. H. Stolper, has taken up a vast number of Indian orphan cases. The results have been positively surprising. The legal department has not failed in one single case. The entire amount of money wrested from incompetent or dishonest guardians and returned to orphans has been nearly $950,000. The value of the land is not stated but it is probably several times as much as that of the actual cash returned. The number of minors represented in the report is 1,373 and the number of cases 1,361. These were tried out in thirty-six different county courts. The cost of handling this enormous amount of legal work as well as all the legal work in the office was less than $6,000 which covers the salary of the general attorney, that of one stenographer and the necessary travelling expenses.

The commissioner suggests that, as there seems to be some difficulty in appropriating sufficient money for the support of her office, she should be allowed to charge a uniform fee of $5 for each case of the kind which is undertaken, that fee going to the support of the Department of Charities and Correction. At present no fees are charged from any of the minors.

Beside acting as next friend of orphan children, the general attorney of the commission has been for a year or more acting as public defender. It seemed to the Legislature that there was as much need of a public defender as of a public prosecutor and accordingly, at the last Legislature a law was passed creating the office. This the governor vetoed, but his veto was not in time to defeat the bill. However, the question of the salary was not taken up and Dr. Stolper, attorney for the commissioner, was appointed public defender and has been doing the work. A number of interesting instances of miscarriage of justice which the public defender has been able to remedy are given in the report.

The report gives the usual account of inspection of institutions both state and county and shows that the commissioner with her very limited office and inspection force was able to do much more work than would be expected. On the whole it seems as though the plan of a single headed commission is a success in the state of Oklahoma.

FEDERAL QUARANTINE AT NEW YORK

THOMAS W. SALMON, M. D.

Attention has again been directed to the unsatisfactory conditions which prevail in the administration of quarantine inspection at the port of New York by the report of a special committee of the New York Academy of Medicine.

This report, which was recently made public, strongly advocated the national control of quarantine from “the point of view of convenience, efficiency and uniformity of administration, economy and law.” The subject aroused discussion in the newspapers a few weeks ago because the chairman of Governor Sulzer’s commission for the investigation of state departments urged the transfer of this function to the federal government.

In the discussion of this recommendation, several important points have been overlooked. For example, there is some significance in the discrepancy between the large sums spent by New York on the quarantine station, which protects the country at large, and the small amount expended for the State Health Department, upon which rests the protection of the citizens of the state. Doubtless, as has been pointed out, the fees charged steamship companies can be increased so that the state will not be required to make any annual appropriations for the maintenance of the quarantine station but the health officer of the port has asked for an appropriation of about $1,800,000 for needed repairs and improvements. About $180,000 is appropriated for the State Department of Health each year. This constitutes practically all the money spent by the state for the protection of the health of its 9,000,000 citizens. Out of it must be paid all salaries and expenses of administration, the cost of collecting vital statistics, maintaining laboratories for research and for the production of diphtheria antitoxin, the control of epidemics, the inspection of water supplies and, in short, all the work in the prevention of disease in which the state is engaged. If the Legislature grants the $1,800,000 which the health officer of the port requests, it will give him an amount equal to that expended during ten years for safeguarding the health of those residing in the state.

Closely related to this aspect of the question is the fact, which has received little attention, that some of the largest immigrant-carrying lines do not enter New York at all but dock at Hoboken and Jersey City. Last year more than 36 per cent. of all the passengers who arrived at this port from Europe landed in New Jersey. The following table shows the passengers brought during 1912 by steamship lines having docks at Hoboken and Jersey City:

STEAMSHIP LINES CABIN STEERAGE TOTAL North German Lloyd 51,920 118,803 170,723 Hamburg American 38,033 98,043 136,076 Holland American 18,611 33,877 52,488 Scandinavian American 5,265 13,064 18,329 Lloyd Sabaudo 652 7,119 7,771 ────────────────────────────────────────────── 114,481 270,906 385,387

Less than 30 per cent. of the immigrants who arrived at this port during the year remained in this state, a large proportion landing in New Jersey, being examined at Ellis Island and going west by one of the railroad lines terminating at Jersey City. They were distributed over a wide area and it cannot be denied that it is chiefly for the protection of distant states that New York’s expensive quarantine is maintained.

Much has been said about the advantages to commerce of the state control of quarantine at the port of New York. If $300,000 are collected during 1913 in fees from steamship companies, the amount will equal the earnings on $7,500,000 of invested capital. In other words, an amount of capital which would purchase ten large freighters must be set aside to meet the quarantine dues at this port for one year. If ten such vessels were tied up at one of the piers in this city for a year, as an object lesson, we would not hear very much about the advantages to commerce which local control of quarantine insures.

The tax rate in the Borough of Manhattan for 1911 was 1.72248. At such a rate it would be necessary to tax $17,000,000 of capital to raise $300,000 a year. This means that a tax equal to that rate on real estate in the Borough of Manhattan has to be levied on $17,000,000 of the capital of steamship companies to pay for a quarantine station, the cost of which should be borne by the country which it protects.

Another phase of the question which has not been touched upon is the relation between quarantine and the medical control of immigration. At ports where the United States Public Health Service administers the quarantine law and conducts the medical inspection of immigrants, the two functions are performed under conditions making each more efficient and also reducing interference with commerce to a minimum. The medical inspection of immigrants at Ellis Island, which is performed by medical officers of the United States Public Health Service, constitutes the second line of quarantine defense and not a few cases of small-pox and typhus fever which have escaped observation at the state quarantine station have been detected in the medical examination at Ellis Island.

If both functions were performed by the Public Health Service at this port the work could be carried on much more effectively and with benefit to the immigrant—a factor which no one seems to have considered. When cases of scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria and the other contagious diseases of childhood were taken off vessels at the state quarantine station, children died without their mothers, who were detained at Ellis Island, even being able to visit them once during their illness. At the same time a magnificent new group of hospitals for contagious diseases remained idle at Ellis Island. No better example of the danger and inutility of divided control could be found than this.

WILSON LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY

CAROLINE B. ALEXANDER Hoboken, N. J.

In attempting a review of the social legislation passed in New Jersey during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, it is difficult to disentangle his share in its accomplishment. It is also difficult to distinguish between purely political measures and those which would be of special interest to social workers.

Measures for better primaries and corrupt practices acts had been introduced several times while he was still president of Princeton University. The Employers’ Liability Act was recommended by a commission named by his predecessor, Governor Fort. The Consumer’s League and Federation of Women’s Clubs had been working for a long time to improve laws relating to the hours and condition of women and children in industry. At the same time, no one who has been in touch with the marvelous change which has brought New Jersey to the first rank of progressive states can fail to realize that in practically one session of the Legislature the astounding insight, force and influence of one man achieved what might otherwise have taken years to accomplish. It must be remembered that almost all the important Wilson legislation was passed by the Legislature of 1911, when the House was Democratic. The Senate, although Republican, was brought into line by the governor. The session of 1912, when both Houses were Republican, produced little important legislation, and the Legislature of this year up to the time when President Wilson resigned to assume his duties at Washington passed but one important measure—that regulating the trusts incorporated in New Jersey. The jury reform bill is still under discussion and will be the subject of a special session of the Legislature in May.

I shall attempt to give a list of the laws primarily relating to social legislation, but the great reforms which will always be associated with Wilson’s name, although specifically political in their nature, must have a vast influence on the whole structure of the state. If our politics become cleaner, inefficiency and graft must gradually disappear and the citizens will grow to feel that they can trust their representatives with larger and larger sums to be used for the relief and care of the wards of the state.

Among these laws perhaps the most important are the following:

Limitation of the working hours of women to sixty a week, the first regulation of any kind for New Jersey women in industry; appropriation for the first time for the Woman’s Reformatory which was urged in Governor Wilson’s message to the legislature of 1911; standardization of trained nursing; establishment under the State Board of Education of special classes for children three years below the normal and also special classes for blind children; provision for the punishment of any person controlling a public place of amusement who permits the admission of children under eighteen years without a parent or guardian, and for any adult who encourages juvenile delinquency; passage of an act requiring that no pawnbroker shall receive any article from any person under the age of eighteen years; prohibition of furnishing cigarettes or tobacco to minors; provision for parental schools or house of detention for juvenile offenders; appointment of a special county judge for juvenile and domestic relation cases; enactment of an act placing New Jersey in the front rank in the campaign against tuberculosis; prohibition of the use of common drinking cups; establishment of free dental clinics; regulation of moving picture shows; employment of prison labor on roads; enactment of a comprehensive and scientific poor law; regulation of weights and measures; passage of an indeterminate sentence act; abolition of contract labor in all prisons and reformatories.

In addition to this legislation, it may be interesting to mention the appointment of commissions on prison labor, employers’ liability, city government, public expenditures, ameliorating the condition of the blind and playgrounds in all cities and villages. Governor Wilson also made several excellent appointments with entire disregard of politics, particularly those of his commissioner of education and his commissioner of charities and corrections. For the first position he brought Dr. Calvin Kendall from Indiana, and for the second he named Joseph P. Byers. Excellent appointments were also made to the boards of managers of the various state institutions.

Governor Wilson with his wife and daughter made a tour of inspection of all our state institutions, which in contrast to the usual perfunctory governor’s visit, was most valuable in bringing him in touch with the superintendents and with the various problems at the different institutions.

PERSONALS

Francis Greenwood Peabody, Plummer professor of Christian morals in Harvard University, recently retired from its faculty after service extending over a generation.

To the observant public he is known chiefly as author of several works on social ethics, such as The Approach to the Social Question and Jesus Christ and the Social Question or as a preacher and speaker whose inspiring thoughts are clothed in remarkably well chosen words. At Harvard he was a college preacher, and had a leading part in changing the religious exercises of the College Chapel so that attendance was voluntary instead of required, and there were ministrations from clergymen of different denominations. He helped to place the divinity school on a board basis.

His chief work in the academic world was the significant one of beginning and developing systematic instruction in the application of principles of ethics to pressing social problems. Just thirty-three years ago he began a course of lectures on that subject in the divinity school of Harvard. Four years later it was made a general university course for advanced students. In this said Mr. Peabody, there is “a new opportunity in university instruction. With us it has been quite without precedent. It summons the young men who have been imbued with the principles of political economy and of philosophy, to the practical application of those studies.”

That course at Harvard, with the instruction begun at Cornell in 1884 by Frank B. Sanborn, under President White, was the beginning of academic work in this country, specialized and practical, in that field, and at Harvard it has continued, a systematic development. It is within the division of Philosophy. This means no lack of appreciation of the economic forces in society, but it points to the broad highway to solving vital problems though the field of ethics. This teaching so won the confidence of a generous donor, prominent alike in business and philanthropy, that the erection of Emerson Hall was made possible, with ample quarters for the Department of Social Ethics. Thus Mr. Peabody leaves the department which he has built up on the solid ground of continuity.

Among the hundreds of young men who have taken Mr. Peabody’s general course and his seminary courses, many have been helped by him to be better citizens and neighbors. Not a few have carried stimulus caught from him into professional life in social service the country over.

The recent and really remarkable activity of Harvard students in social service, centering at Phillips Brooks House, was largely founded and fostered by Mr. Peabody. He has been identified with Prospect Union from its opening in 1891: a piece of university extension, in whose evening classes the teachers are college students and the students are all sorts and conditions of men from mercantile and industrial life in Cambridge. Long ago, he helped to start co-operative stores, a method of bringing forward democracy and thrift—which is none the less sound because many persons were not ready for it. He urged the trial in Massachusetts cities, under local option, of the foreign system of government administration of the sale of liquor—to which worse systems may yet bring us.

He was a leading founder of the Associated Charities of Cambridge. In these and many other ways he has brought the knowledge of a college professor, with warm interest, into the affairs of the community.

JEFFREY R. BRACKETT.

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The social survey is gaining recognition as an instrument for community advance so rapidly that the new Department of Surveys and Exhibits of the Russell Sage Foundation, which was established last October, has found it necessary to increase its staff. The work of the department during its first three months has been largely advisory—defining surveys by specific illustrations, outlining the steps for selecting a representative committee to back a survey or an exhibit, assisting in the choice of subjects to be covered and estimating probable costs. The increase in the staff will facilitate an extension of this service and make more field work possible. The new members of the staff are Zenas L. Potter of New York and Franz Schneider, Jr., of Boston.

Mr. Potter is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where he specialized in administration of governmental problems. This was followed by a year’s graduate work at Columbia in economics and social economy, where he received the Toppan prize for the best work in constitutional law. After leaving Columbia he was field secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee for two years. He investigated the work conditions of children in the state, and in 1912 directed the cannery investigation for the New York State Factory Investigating Commission. The findings of this inquiry are being used in the campaign for better laws regulating child labor conditions in New York state.

Mr. Schneider, while taking courses leading to his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave special attention to subjects in the field of public health and sanitation. Since 1910 he has taught in the institute, and will leave the position of research associate in the sanitary research laboratories to join the Department of Surveys and Exhibits. In the summer of 1911 he was employed in Kansas on special investigations into the bacteriology of the egg-packing industry, and during the summer of 1912 on an investigation into the fundamental principles of ventilation. For the last year he has helped edit the _American Journal of Public Health_ and at present is health officer of Wellesley, Mass. The latter work is part of a plan which is being worked out with Prof. E. B. Phelps, also of the institute, to build up an organization to operate the Board of Health work of small towns in the neighborhood of Boston. The aim is to give these towns a service comparable to that of the large cities, a service which they alone could not afford.

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A young sanitary inspector in a mid-western city had his suspicions of a new milk company. He never seemed to be able to catch the wagon as it drove into town, so one day he jumped on his bicycle and rode out to the farm to get a sample. The man was not there, and his wife said that they had no milk left on the place that morning. The inspector’s suspicions were more than ever aroused, and he made a search of ice boxes and cooling places, only to find no milk. It is a very easy thing for milk to disappear when an inspector turns in at the gate. Nothing daunted, therefore, he pulled down a pail from its peg, marched out to the pasture, cornered a cow, milked her, and, sample in hand, rode back to the city triumphant.

The health commissioner is wonderfully proud of this spirit of not-to-be-balkedness in his inspector. He has the makings in him of a master of public health. But the commissioner felt obliged to explain to his assistant with as sober a face as he could muster, that up to date in that part of the commonwealth they had not hitherto arrested a single cow for putting formaldehyde in her milk or for diluting it.

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Childhood’s Bill of Rights, printed some time ago in THE SURVEY[3], has developed an ever widening influence. One enthusiastic friend sent it during the past Christmas season to some forty foreign lands. V. H. Lockwood, author of the bill, is a busy Indianapolis attorney but he finds time for social service whether called upon to act as judge _pro tem_ of the juvenile court, as the vice-president of the Children’s Aid Association, or on a committee of the State Conference of Charities. His special interest just now is the work of the vice committee of the Indianapolis Church Federation.

Mr. Lockwood, long ago, became interested in the juvenile court. He was frequently consulted by Judge Stubbs, the first juvenile court judge in Indiana, and for several years was one of his substitutes on the bench. Out of this experience grew the Bill of Rights which was jotted down in his notebook years ago. From it grew also the Children’s Aid Association, which Mr. Lockwood helped to organize for the purpose of saving children from being taken into court. He has also co-operated in drafting several of Indiana’s laws for the safeguarding of children, particularly those having to do with the juvenile court, contributory delinquency, the licensing of maternity hospitals and children’s institutions, and child labor.

[Illustration:

MRS. V. H. LOCKWOOD ]

To Mrs. Lockwood, however, is due most of the credit in connection with Indiana’s child labor law. She has for several years been secretary of the State Child Labor Committee and has been active in other welfare work. Two years spent under the direction of the National Child Labor Committee in investigating conditions in Indiana armed her with facts which were used effectively before the two legislatures which considered the child labor bill. The first attempt met with defeat, but the next session passed the present law. Between the two sessions Mrs. Lockwood traveled over the state, working to educate the people through the clubs and schools. She is one of the lecturers of the Indiana Federation of Clubs, and takes a part in many branches of social welfare work in Indianapolis.

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A Sunny Life: The biography of Samuel June Barrows, is the title of a volume which Little, Brown and Company are to bring out in April. The author is Mrs. Barrows. Readers of THE SURVEY who knew the former president of the International Prison Congress, but who had only glimpses of his remarkable experiences as editor, congressman, minister, digger of Greek temples, and follower of Custer on the plains, will look forward to this record of the man by his comrade and fellow worker of fifty years.

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Floyd J. Miller, who has been in newspaper work for six years, has left the staff of the Detroit _Free Press_ to become financial secretary of the Detroit Associated Charities.

TREND

From the pages of John Gower, a correspondent of the New York _Evening Post_ takes the following passage, in the hope that the trials of a housekeeper in the fifteenth century may bring consolation to the householder of today. Says the worthy Gower: