Part 4

The first co-operative movement in the New England States, the New England Protective Union stores, began in 1845 and ended in 1857. The second movement, the Sovereigns of Industry, which was launched in 1874, had an equally brief history. The first had at one time as many as 700 stores, of which but two remain; while five are left of the 280 of which the latter movement once boasted. At the present time urban co-operation is practically confined to immigrants, largely non-English speaking. Their efforts have not met with much greater success than those of New England’s native sons. All told, there are about sixty co-operative stores throughout New England. Most of them are too young, too small, and too isolated to be dignified as a movement.

The meagre results of distributive co-operation are only exceeded by those of co-operation in manufacture. All effort in that direction has been abortive, and “true co-operative production does not exist in New England.”

The author finds greater cause for encouragement in rural co-operation. “The farmers’ movement,” he says, “which is much more influential in the industrial world, not only penetrates, by means of co-operative creameries, almost every township of western New England, but through association for co-operative sale extends to many other large territories.” Co-operation among farmers consists of co-operative buying of supplies, co-operative marketing of products, and co-operative production in the way of butter and cheese making. He estimates the number of more or less co-operative creameries throughout New England at 125, although probably not more than twenty-five of these are purely co-operative. “There are many indications today,” continues the author, “that rural New England has reached a point not only desirable but increasingly practicable.” With a large American commission now abroad for the special purpose of studying agricultural co-operation, it is to be hoped that this movement will be accelerated.

The really important part of Dr. Ford’s hook is his discussion of general co-operative principles. The economic conditions for successful co-operation are wanting in this country. People will co-operate either because they are driven to it by necessity, as is the case in Europe, or because they see in it special inducement to make it worth their while. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, these conditions do not exist in the United States so far. In a country where every workingman carries the baton of a captain of industry in his dinner pail, it is not surprising that he will not set aside the opportunities of individual effort in favor of the uncertain, remote, and, at best, meagre returns of co-operative endeavor. All other reasons, such as the mobility of our population, our improvidence, and our lack of co-operative spirit must give way before this one fundamental reason.

The conditions that are responsible for the heavy mortality of co-operative enterprises in this country are rapidly changing. The obstacles in the way of co-operative success are gradually disappearing. Once the point is reached in New England as it has been abroad, at which societies of like interest federate for educational and trade advantage, these smaller federations “will in turn unite in a general co-operative union with common funds to sustain societies that are weak, and promote development on lines of common importance, an immense force will be set at work for the moralization of trade, the reduction of the cost of living, and the socialization of the people.”

As the title indicates, the book deals only with co-operation in the New England states. The author further limits his research to “associations for the production and distribution of the immediate necessities of life.” Notwithstanding this limiting of the inquiry both in scope and extent the book should prove of value to the student of co-operation in this country. The facts have been painstakingly collected. The author’s insight is keen and penetrating, his deductions are clear and logical, and his hopeful tone is most invigorating.

LEONARD G. ROBINSON.

THE CASE OF OSCAR SLATER

By A. CONAN DOYLE. George H. Doran Co. 103pp. Price $.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $.57.

The case of Oscar Slater, sentenced in the High Court of Edinburgh to life imprisonment for the murder of an old lady in Glasgow, was some time ago brought to the attention of the famous writer of detective stories, together with certain circumstances which cast doubt on Slater’s guilt. With a sincere desire to clear the man, the creator of Sherlock Holmes set to work to examine the evidence and testimony presented at the trial, and to analyze the conduct of the case and the decision of judge and jury.

The result is a convincing argument for the man’s innocence of the offence for which he was convicted and an arraignment of the ineffective methods of the police who were engaged in the investigation, both in Scotland and in this country.

The undeniably bad character of the suspect created so strong a presumption of guilt that even the total refutation of the strongest piece of evidence and an obviously false accusation by the judge in his final charge, secured only a commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment when an appeal was made.

It will be interesting to know whether the detective knight’s efforts toward securing justice meet with success.

MAY LANGDON WHITE.

PERSONALS

The first woman judge of delinquent girls sits on the bench in the Chicago Juvenile Court. She is Mary M. Bartelme, a Chicago lawyer. Previous to her present connection she was for eighteen years public guardian of Cook County, acting in this office, in the words of the _Continent_, as “official mother to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children” who had no other parents and whose persons or estates were in the care of the court. Guardianship of their persons meant actual custody and education, and this for a period of many years; it meant also in many cases interest and love for the child and always, in the tangled relations of life, an understanding of human nature, as well as a thorough knowledge of the institutions best fitted for special cases. All this experience has thus been excellent preparation for Miss Bartelme’s present delicate task of reconstructing the lives and characters of delinquent girls.

Up to the time of her appointment cases of delinquent girls were heard, like those of boys, in open court. The effect is thus described by Judge Pinckney of the Chicago Court, whose assistant Miss Bartelme is:

“The delinquent girl, unlike the delinquent boy, is generally brought to court for some sexual irregularity. This means that the story of her shame and downfall is told openly, publicly. There are often present at such times curiosity seekers, sensation hunters, and now and then among the latter, I am sorry to say, are newspaper reporters looking for a story. Frequently the name of the girl, the names of her parents, of her brothers and sisters, and her home address appear in the newspapers, with all the harrowing details of her trouble. She is fortunate if her picture is not surreptitiously taken for publication.

“After such an exploitation of her trouble, you tell the unfortunate child that you want to do something for her—you want to help her. Is it any wonder that she does not readily respond to the proffered aid? Her feelings shocked, her sensibilities blunted, her sense of justice outraged, she is more apt to refuse than accept your suggestions for her future welfare. To my mind this procedure is unnecessary, is wrong, is barbarous. Even under the most favorable conditions possible to a public hearing, it is difficult to get into sympathetic touch with the child so that she will be in a receptive mood and willingly amenable to helpful suggestion and treatment.

“The plan proposed is to have the case of each delinquent girl heard by a woman, who shall act as the representative and assistant of the presiding judge. To this woman assistant, in the presence of the girl’s father and mother, the witnesses will tell the girl’s story. Every consideration will be shown the girl and her family. In so far as it is possible to do so, this darkened page in their lives will be guarded from the public gaze.

“It is believed that these delinquent girls will the more readily unburden their souls to one of their own sex, and especially if allowed to so do out of hearing of the public and surrounded by father and mother and those in sympathy with her and them.

“This is the all-important work for delinquent girls which Mary M. Bartelme is expected to do—will do. She is the unanimous choice of the judges of the Circuit Court for the position of assistant to the judge of the Juvenile Court.”

* * * * *

At the recent annual meeting of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, Dr. Edward L. Keyes, Jr., was elected president, to succeed Dr. Prince A. Morrow, founder, and until his death the head of the society.

Dr. Keyes is a charter member of the society and was for many years its secretary. He has also been a member of the Executive Committee, and worked in close touch with Dr. Morrow. Dr. Keyes is a professor at the Cornell Medical School and president of the American Association of Genito-Urinary Surgeons.

Professor Maurice A. Bigelow of Teachers’ College, Columbia University, and Dr. Rosalie Slaughter Morton were elected to fill the vacancies in the Executive Committee. Mr. Marshall C. Allaben of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions was chosen chairman of the Executive Committee.

* * * * *

The Italian Club of New York is an interesting center. In the low-ceilinged basement opera singers, art importers, physicians, orchestra leaders and the like rub elbows at the club tables.

In the three rooms on the main floor an exhibition is being held this month of the drawings of Joseph Stella, an Italian artist of more than ordinary promise. He is a brother of Dr. Antonio Stella, a pioneer in the tuberculosis movement and a leader in New York’s civic life. The artist himself was a member of the staff of the Pittsburgh Survey, and readers of this magazine will remember the striking character sketches of the steel workers he drew in black and white. An entire room is given up to these Pittsburgh drawings, which in many respects represent the artist’s most forceful workmanship. In another room is his earlier work with East Side types, and in another the canvasses he has produced in Rome and Paris, where he has spent the last two years. These have the color and method of the post-impressionists.

It is perhaps natural that the social workers who attend the exhibit drift back to the central room, where the artist’s pencil has so sympathetically and vigorously transcribed the writings, which stress and want and hope and striving spread over the faces of the steel district, immigrant and native-born alike.

There are also some charcoal sketches of Pittsburgh at night which did not lend themselves to magazine publication, but reflect marvelously the smoke and energy of the river valleys.

* * * * *

Steadfast and resourceful, with a strong body, a kind heart, a reverent spirit, combining rare judgment with knowledge, a leader well equipped for the service of her fellows has been lost to the Pacific Coast in the death of Dr. C. Annette Buckel of Oakland, Cal. Dr. Buckel was born in Warsaw, N. Y., in 1833. Earning the means for her medical education by teaching, she rendered efficient service in the United States military hospitals of the Southwest during the last two years of the Civil War. She selected and supervised the nurses, kept records in the absence of clerks, wrote letters for sick soldiers, obtained furloughs for convalescents, and comforted the dying.

Dr. Buckel is perhaps better known to readers of THE SURVEY, however, for her work in other warfare: as president of the first milk commission in California, which excluded tuberculous cows from the dairy. In all her work she emphasized prevention rather than cure. Through her efforts a school of cookery was opened, which resulted in manual training becoming a part of the public school system in Oakland. She was a director in the Mary R. Smith Trust from its beginning, and took a personal interest in each little girl in the cottage homes. So keen was her concern for handicapped children that at her death she gave her home that the proceeds might help in providing special training for such children.

S. I. S.

* * * * *

Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, since 1907, has resumed at a personal financial sacrifice, the secretaryship of the Maryland State Board of Health. Dr. Fulton has already been connected with the State Board of Health of Maryland and was its secretary for several years before he resigned to accept the position he has just vacated. He succeeds Dr. Marshall L. Price who was medical assistant of the board up to 1907 when he was elected secretary.

COMMUNICATIONS

RELIEF OF WIDOWS

TO THE EDITOR:

I thoroughly disagree with Porter R. Lee’s appraisal of the report of the Massachusetts commission on the children of widows, and regret that the report will be seen by only a part of your readers.[4]

Mr. Lee holds the commission’s conclusions to be of little value because derived “in almost every case from inadequate data.” Yet he adds later: “The report of the commission gives us much that suggests the fact of our failure to provide adequately or helpfully for the families of widows, a fact of which we had already become conscious. What we need, however, is not so much evidence of the fact of failure as a clear understanding of why we have failed.”

It might be honest to state that some of our figures are inaccurate and yet not dishonest to recommend legislation. Wholly accurate figures were never expected and not needed. The heads of the leading charitable organizations met us in conference to determine a method of investigation. The schedule method was recommended. Before the schedules were printed they were approved by several of these persons. Criticism began to appear when it seemed likely that legislation would be recommended. In June the appropriation could still have been saved. It was not saved because useful results were expected.

How inaccurate are the results? Mr. Tilley is cited as saying that a re-examination of one hundred cases disclosed “facts ... totally at variance with the reports.” Half of these records we already had discredited. Some cases resulted in reports closely like our own, sometimes lower, sometimes higher. The re-examination was in December, months after the first study. How absurd it is to suppose that the results would not be different! Everybody knows that the earnings of the poor fluctuate. Usually the overseers of the poor give special aid in winter. A page of our report explains Mr. Tilley’s one hundred cases; he makes only a blanket statement.

But again, how inaccurate are the results? The recommendations of our Minimum Wage Commission were accepted when it showed that $6 or $7 a week was the typical sum earned by an adult woman with a family which had also an adult male worker. Many such women received charity in addition. All of our widows received charity. From charity and wages together, our figures showed that they typically received $6 or $7 a week when there was not also an adult male worker and when several children had to be supported. It is not possible that our figures were so far wrong that these families were better off than the former group. And if they were so far wrong—what an indictment that would be of the accounting of the public and private charitable officers of Massachusetts!

No, the figures do not err so far. Our charities constantly protest that they have insufficient funds. Before me lies a circular of the Associated Charities of a city of 100,000 people, which has many well-to-do persons and few recent foreigners. The resources “to meet the needs of families in distress are wholly inadequate, as is well known to all familiar with the conditions.... We still use existing resources to the utmost.... Still we fall far short of being able to meet the demands upon us. Must we allow widows with young children to be overburdened and underfed,” etc? Are such stories untrue? Of course not! Most communities in Massachusetts have a poorer population and a weaker organized charity for dealing with the problem.

But, further, our opponents suggest an alternative bill, providing for “adequate” aid for all mothers with dependent children. If existing relief is adequate, this bill is a sham. The only alternative is to regard these opponents as agreeing that existing relief is inadequate.

The Legislature that gave us $1,000 hardly expected a wealth of figures. Mr. Lee does not in other matters rely on figures, I am happy to observe. “During recent years,” he says, “our enlarging conceptions of social treatment [not our figures—they are impotent] have condemned utterly much of our supposedly efficient work in family and individual reconstruction.” And for widows he grants: “There is a widespread conviction of sin in this matter and an earnest searching for the remedy.”

Our analogy (with its implications) of widowhood through industrial accident and through disease, Mr. Lee mistakenly, I believe, regards as disproved by ourselves. For, he says, we reject the principle of payment by way of indemnity for loss. We reject it as a determining principle; another principle is more fundamental. Workmen’s compensation measures, like sickness and old-age insurance, spring fundamentally from a desire to establish or maintain the conditions of efficient living. Nobody attempts really to measure the loss through death by accident. It cannot be done.

But a man’s wages can be studied to learn his standard of living, and then an expedient degree of comfort provided. The Washington act does not even relate the award to the dead man’s wages. Usually the award increases with the number of children. German statutes have all had the comfort of the survivors in view. No abstract desire to compensate for loss would ever secure legislation if, as a consequence, the efficiency and comfort of the population were to decrease.

Not only is Mr. Lee anxious to find whether relief is now adequate or not, but he wants to know where the flaw in the service is. Both questions are answered by our information as to the policies of the child-helping and relief-giving agencies. He doubts whether child-helping agencies are “competent witnesses” to the causes for the removal of children. Are they likely then to remove children for competent cause? Persons incompetent to discern the presence of factors that make non-removal desirable will scarcely remove for proper cause only. The letters of these agencies would repay reading.

What these letters say about local relief resources is more than borne out by the reports of policy contained in the letters from the overseers. Most widows are in their hands. Our schedules, further, show that actually $2 to $2.50 a week per family is usually given. None of our critics attack these statements. There is a problem and present agents do not cope with it.

Suppose we had sent into the field experts to find out whether relief is adequate. We should again face the issue of standards. Responsible persons have not accepted Mr. Carstens’ interpretation of the Chicago plan. One of the visitors of the State Board of Charity whom Mr. Tilley sent to verify records reported one case: “Widow for nine months. Four children, fourteen to seven years.... Complains of work being slack and has not had a full week’s wages for a long time.... Is terribly overworked; there seems to be nothing but skin and bone to her. The standing on her feet all day in the shop is what kills her.... _Could stand a little more aid until the combined earnings of herself and daughter show a little increase._” A little more aid! Just how much more will be differently fixed by different people. Most widows’ families in Massachusetts are not within sight of Mrs. More’s and Mr. Chapin’s standards.

The conclusion remains that the overseers and many child societies are not working well. We have a thousand overseers, elected for short terms, and receiving little or no pay. Often they serve also in other capacities and carry on private affairs. If ordered by an expert commission to make specified payments to widows fit to bring up their children they might apply the standard to other cases. The commission would select its widows. Mr. Lee wholly misrepresents our intention when he notes “incidentally that the cause of a husband’s death is not always a satisfactory test of a wife’s moral habits.”

Mr. Lee objects that we offer nothing for the children of disabled fathers, etc. If a third of the charity problem—widows—were to come under the care of a new commission, that commission would be able to work out its specialized technique. Later, we might know better what to do about desertion and other problems. Meanwhile existing charities, having a lighter load, could deal better with their remaining cases.

Then as to our use of the word “worthy.” It is old-fashioned, but convenient. No person works long in charities who acts on the notion that one person is actually as good as another—else it would be folly to try to make a person better! Mr. Lee supposes us to regard the children of the disabled and similar groups as “unworthy.” Where such an implication is even suggested I cannot discover.

In conclusion, I suppose that Mr. Lee and I differ fundamentally in our approval of a proposed method of dealing with widows, and that his criticism is derived from his point of view.

ROBERT F. FOERSTER.

[Chairman Massachusetts Commission on the Dependent Children of Widowed Mothers.]

Cambridge.

* * * * *

I have read Professor Foerster’s letter with much interest. His last sentence: “I suppose that Mr. Lee and I differ fundamentally in our approval of a proposed method of dealing with widows and that his criticism is derived from his point of view,” a clear-cut statement of the possible reason for my criticism of the Massachusetts report, is not wholly accurate. The agitation for widows’ pensions has caught so large a measure of popular support that we begin to think that every person must be for pensions, against pensions, or on the fence ready to jump to one side or the other. Such a choice of alternatives has little attraction for any one who approaches the question out of thoughtful experience with relief problems and the long struggle to procure for the widow and others who live in misery adequate reinforcements—reinforcements of income, health, recreation, education for children and decent living conditions.

Those who have been most concerned to do justice to the widow with children have seen most clearly the failure of our relief measures. The indictment which they have brought again and again has rehearsed the fact of our failure which is suggested anew by the Massachusetts report.