HN 79 < LEGISLATION ILLINOIS CL JLs^ SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN 1921 By SEBA ELDRIDGE Professor of Economics and Sociology in Rockford College; formerly special agent of the New York Charity Organization Society, and secretary of the Department of Social Betterment of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities. ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS W. M. SHIMMIN & COMPANY 1921 <"$ v COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE The survey of social legislation here presented was undertaken in connection with a course in that subject offered at Rockford College during the cur- rent year. As the subtitle of this volume indicates, it has special reference to the 1921 session of the Illinois Legislature, and aims to interpret needs and opportunities in the field of social legislation which that and subsequent sessions of the Legis- lature might well consider. This survey makes no pretence of being a com- prehensive treatment of problems in the field indi- cated, nor an exhaustive analysis of the problems actually considered. For only those problems were selected for treatment whose consideration seemed especially urgent at this time, while the treatment itself is descriptive and explanatory in character rather than technical and detailed. The method employed is perhaps a little un- usual. Instead of collecting elaborate and detailed data on the problems dealt with, data already ac- cessible were utilized in the definition and diag- nosis of these problems. It is believed that results have been secured by this method which are quite reliable, and which are sufficiently exact to supply guidance to a practical treatment of the problems under consideration. The method exemplified is commended to the consideration of sociologists and social workers elsewhere who feel the need for a [3] M19G991 definition of problems in their communities, but who find that the more expensive and elaborate survey of the usual type is for one reason or an- other impracticable. The references appended at the end of the sev- eral chapters are intended to be helpful to the citi- zen and legislator rather than to the research worker. Fuller bibliographies on the subjects cov- ered can be procured from the works cited or, for that matter, from any competent reference librarian. Needless to say, the current edition of Hurd's Re- vised Statutes of the State of Illinois should be consulted by one going seriously into any of these subjects. Most of the material included in this book was originally published as a series of articles in the Rockford Republic. The author's thanks are due Mr. T. Barney Thompson, the editor of that paper, for his hearty support of the undertaking represented by these pages. To personal friends of the author, who cannot here be named, thanks are due for cooperation which has facilitated the publication of this study in its present form. SEBA ELDRIDGE, March, 1921. Rockford, Illinois. [4] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 7 I PROVISION FOR THE FEEBLEMINDED 19 Number of feebleminded Feeblemindedness pre- ventable Methods of prevention Progress in Illinois Survey needed. II CHILD WELFARE PROBLEMS 25 Inspection of children's homes More inspectors needed Mothers' pensions Division of child welfare proposed. III REFORMS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS 31 Modern Penal principles Penal institutions Juvenile delinquency Adult probation The jail problem Illinois jails State penal institutions. IV EDUCATIONAL NEEDS 43 Low level of efficiency School finances Financial reforms proposed School organization Admin- istrative reforms proposed Larger unit needed State Superintendent should have more power Investigating commission proposed. V PREVENTION OF DISEASE 55 Means of prevention Public health machinery Illinois conditions Causes of conditions Meas- ures proposed. VI LABOR CONDITIONS 63 Child labor laws Minimum requirements Hazardous occupations for minors Women's hour legislation Minimum wage laws for women Insecurity of laborers Social insurance the rem- edy Industrial accidents Improvements needed Scope of law State accident fund Economic pro- [5] CONTENTSContinued. CHAPTER PAGE vision for sickness Losses from sickness The Health Insurance Commission's proposals Need for sickness insurance Moral considerations Specific provisions of sickness insurance acts Unemployment insurance Other remedies for unemployment Old age Enforcement of labor laws Defective administrative machinery New industrial commission proposed Coordination of machinery incomplete Work of industrial com- mission. VII HOUSING PROBLEMS 91 Aim of housing legislation Conditions in Illinois Method of Improvement Criticism of housing bill Light and ventilation Sanitation Other provisions Problem of Chicago Construc- tive housing. VIII LOCAL GOVERNMENT 103 Extreme decentralization in state government Defective organization of local government Pro- gram of reform Unit of local government. [6] SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS We are offering a summary of our findings not as a substitute for the perusal of the text itself, but as a guide thereto. Naturally, neither the evidence in support of our conclusions nor the details of our recommendations can be set forth in such a sum- mary. For these the text itself must be consulted. Provision for the Feebleminded (Chapter I). One of the most serious problems confronting the State of Illinois is that of dealing properly with its feebleminded population. The problem is all the more serious in that the feebleminded are probably increasing more rapidly, proportionately, than is the normal population. This is due to their lack of restraint, especially in sex matters. All feebleminded persons should be segregated in special institutions or closely supervised in their own communities during the procreative period. This is particularly urgent for feebleminded women of the childbearing age, as they are more likely to find mates than are feebleminded men. The state now provides for only a small proportion of this group. Appropriations should be made without de- lay for institutional facilities for the accommoda- tion of at least 1,500 more feebleminded persons than are now provided for. Provisions should also be made for a survey of the feebleminded population in the state, with a [7] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS view to devising and establishing machinery for the continuous identification, registration and classi- fication of feebleminded persons, and to formulat- ing a comprehensive and economical program for dealing with them. Such a survey would consider the possibility of substituting colony care of the feebleminded for the more expensive institutional care, and the feasibility of leaving certain classes of feebleminded in their own communities under su- pervision. Child Welfare Problems (Chapter II). The present laws relative to dependent children should be so amended as to bring all institutions and agencies caring for such children under the super- vision of the State Department of Public Welfare. Under present laws, agencies not receiving children from the juvenile courts or not in receipt of public funds are exempt from regulation by the state. A larger staff of inspectors should be provided in or- der that children's institutions and agencies subject to state supervision may be more frequently and thoroughly inspected. The rates according to which pensions may be granted to mothers whose husbands are deceased or disabled should be revised to correspond to the increased prices of living necessities. Legislation should be enacted making it mandatory on local authorities administering the mothers* pension law to provide funds for adequate pensions. At the present time few if any counties in the state provide pensions large enough to make it possible for the pensioned mother to care properly for her children. A Division of Child Welfare should be estab- [8] CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS lished in the Department of Public Welfare (to supersede the Department of Visitation of Chil- dren), whose function would be to supervise and coordinate child-helping work throughout the state. Such a Division should supervise the work of pro- bation officers attached to the juvenile courts, in- cluding the administration of mothers' pensions, in- spect and supervise children's homes and placing- out agencies, and accept the guardianship of chil- dren which can not be properly dealt with by the juvenile courts or other agencies. Reforms in Penal Institutions (Chapter III). Both juvenile and adult probation work is of poor quality in most counties of the state, owing to lack of guidance and oversight by the state itself. As already recommended, juvenile probation officers should be brought under the supervision of the State Department of Public Welfare, which should be given the authority to formulate and enforce standards relative to the training and remuneration of probation officers, the detention of children await- ing court action, the keeping of probation records, etc. Adult probation work should be brought un- der the Division of Pardons and Paroles of the same department, which Division should exercise powers similar to those specified in connection with juvenile probation. The majority of county jails in Illinois are un- sanitary and otherwise unsatisfactory. More stringent laws regulating sanitary conditions in jails should be enacted. All jails should be put under the supervision of the State Department of Public Welfare and that department given the [9] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS power to insist on the maintenance of proper standards of care and sanitation, and to close jails adjudged unfit for habitation. Ultimately, jails should serve only as houses of detention for persons awaiting trial. The projected farms for misde- meanants will contribute to the realization of this object. We should insist now on the segregation of old offenders from prisoners charged for the first time with law violations, and on the detention in separate homes of juveniles awaiting court action. A woman's reformatory corresponding to the Pontiac institution for men should be established, and an appropriation made for the development of the farm for woman misdemeanants authorized at the 1919 session of the Legislature. Educational Needs (Chapter IV). Public schools in most rural sections of the state and in many in- dustrial centers are inefficient and unprogressive, and farreaching measures of improvement must be instituted before they can provide that type of training which the state should provide for all its future citizens. The causes of and remedies for this situation are in part of an administrative char- acter and in part of a fiscal character. To solve the financial problems 1) the county instead of the school district should be made the taxing unit for school purposes, thus permitting a more equitable distribution of school funds among the several districts of the same county ; 2) a much larger distributive fund should be provided by the state, such fund to be distributed according to need instead of according to minor population, and so employed as to stimulate progressive educational [10] CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS developments in the schools; 3) the maximum tax rate which may be levied for school purposes should be substantially increased, or else limitations on the tax rate for school purposes should be removed altogether, provided that levies above a certain rate be subject to the approval of the voters concerned. A number of administrative reforms are neces- sary. The school district is altogether too small an administrative area for school purposes, except in densely populated communities. The county should be made the administrative unit for rural schools, and responsibility for the development of these schools delegated to county superintendents. Ex- pert staffs of supervisors should be employed to visit and supervise district schools, and more ef- fective methods of training teachers for those schools should be instituted. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction should be given broader administrative powers, in- cluding such discretionary authority in the use of the distributive fund as will enable him to stimulate the improvement of school buildings and equip- ment, the modernization of the school curriculum, the utilization of school buildings for social and educational activities for adults, the development of medical and nursing services in the schools, the en- gagement of expert staffs of supervisors for the rural schools, and the further consolidation of small districts in the rural sections. It is suggested that a commission be appointed to formulate legislation and devise machinery for the introduction and execution of these measures. Prevention of Disease (Chapter V). There are SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS approximately 35,000 premature deaths and a money waste of $180,000,000 in Illinois each year caused by preventable disease. Outside of the larger cities little or no progress has been made in the estab- lishment of machinery for obviating this appalling waste of life and money. There are three important causes of this failure to develop public health machinery throughout the state. 1) Most health districts are too small and have too little taxable property to support an ef- ficient public health service. 2) Local officials and the public generally have not realized the serious- ness of the problem, nor the enormous benefits which would come from dealing with it adequately. 3) The State health authorities have not had the power or the resources to stimulate the develop- ment throughout the state of machinery for disease prevention. The State Department of Public Health should be given the requisite authority and funds to de- velop this machinery. The state should be divided into districts sufficiently large for each to furnish employment to a complete corps of public health specialists, including an epidemiologist, a sanitary engineer, sanitary inspectors, public health nurses, etc. Local health centers should be established in these districts, and a general use thereof encouraged. Campaigns of education in hygiene and sanitation should be organized throughout the state. Local communities should be represented in these activi- ties, through advisory boards; and they might be required to assume a substantial part of the expense of public health service in their districts. [12] CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Labor Conditions (Chapter VI). The child labor law should be amended by raising the minimum age at which minors may enter employment from four- teen to sixteen, while the continuation school law should be so amended as to require the attendance of all children between this minimum and the age of eighteen at continuation or full-time schools. The child labor law should be further amended to re- quire certificates of physical fitness for children under eighteen entering employment, and to require all working minors under this age to have periodical medical examinations. The minimum age at which employment in hazardous occupations is allowed should be raised from sixteen, the present minimum, to twenty-one. The law regulating hours of employment for women should be so amended as to make eight hours the maximum working day, and forty-eight hours the maximum working week. Under present provisions women may work ten hours a day for seven days a week if required by their employers, while a working week of sixty hours is the rule. Such long hours are a menace to the health of work- ing women and to the physical vigor of the race. All night work for women should be prohibited, be- cause of the moral and physical risks which it in- volves. A minimum wage law for women and minors should be enacted, in order to protect these classes from undernourishment and other evils due to ex- cessively low wages. Such a law should provide for a special wage commission with power (or dele- gate power to any general industrial commission [13] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS that may be established) to appoint wage boards representing employers, employes and the general public to investigate conditions in particular in- dustries from time to time, and to recommend min- imum wage rates for women and minors engaged therein ; such recommendations to serve as a basis for the discussion and determination of wage rates in these industries by the industrial or special wage commission. The workmen's compensation law should be amended to provide more adequately for depend- ency created by death or disability from industrial accident. Compensation should be in proportion to the extent of dependency so caused, and for the en- tire period of such dependency. See the text for specific changes recommended. The scope of the compensation law should be enlarged to include all classes of industries with the exception of those en- gaging casual workers only. At the present time only about 55% of the wage-earners in the state are covered by the compensation law. A state accident fund should be established, in order to assure prompter action on claims for compensation, and to provide employers with insurance against their compensation liability on a cost basis. A sickness insurance system should be estab- lished to make better economic provision for sick- ness for wage-earners and others with incomes be- low a stated amount. Less than 25% of the wage- earners in the state carry disability insurance, and this insurance covers only 6% of the loss caused by disabling sickness of a week or more in duration. Adequate provision for sickness cannot be expected [14] CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS under existing arrangements. The time has come for a serious consideration of unemployment insurance under state auspices. The state should also purchase its supplies and plan its construction work in such a way as to afford the maximum relief to wage-earners during times of industrial depression. Better economic provision must be made for old age. Many thousands of worthy aged in the state are dependent on public or private charity for the necessaries of life, because they have been unable to make adequate provision for this period of their lives. Our machinery for the administration of labor laws must be deemed defective in view of the changes constantly taking place in industry, and the lack of any authority during the intervals be- tween legislative sessions for dealing with such changes. There should be established a paid in- dustrial commission charged with the responsibility of administering all labor laws, and for the co- ordination of all divisions and bureaus concerned in the administration of these laws. This commis- sion would be given authority to lay down and en- force detailed rules for protecting the lives, health and safety of industrial workers. There would seem to be no reason why the present Department of Labor and the Department of Mines and Min- erals should not be consolidated under the headship of such a commission. Housing Problems (Chapter VII). Investiga- tions in a number of cities in Illinois have revealed the existence of deplorable housing conditions [15] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS which must be dealt with, in part, by legislation. A state housing law based on the so-called Model Law should be enacted and made mandatory on all cities of more than 5,000 population, with the possi- ble exception of Chicago. If Chicago is exempted from the provisions of such a law, a special housing law applying to that city should be enacted. The tentative draft of a housing bill proposed by the Housing and Building Commission is seriously defective in many of its provisions, as a detailed comparison of that bill with the Model Law will show. If that bill is to serve as a basis of housing legislation, therefore, it should be so amended as to approximate the provisions of the Model Law. See the text for a detailed comparison of the pro- visions embodied in these two measures. The problem created by the acute housing shortage in most cities of the state should receive the attention of the Legislature, which might well consider the creation of a fund to be loaned to municipalities and limited-dividend companies de- siring to erect houses of approved standards for sale or rent on a cost basis. Local Government (Chapter VIII). Social and industrial problems in the state are complicated by an outworn system of local government, and the so- lution of many of these problems w r ill be difficult or impossible until a more efficient system of local government is established. Governmental activities in the state suffer from an extreme decentralization, as our survey has shown. Moreover, local government itself is de- fective in organization, as is evidenced by the great [16] CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS number of independent governmental bodies func- tioning in the same territory, the existence of a cor- responding number of independent taxing authori- ties, and the statutory specification of maximum taxing and borrowing powers for a great number of specific governmental functions. There should be a closer relationship between the state government and local governments. A great deal more authority and responsibility should be delegated to the state government in certain di- rections, as, for example, in educational and public health matters. A unified system of local govern- ment with the county as unit should be substituted for the independent and uncoordinated govern- mental bodies now existing in the same community. Tow r nship organization would not be abolished un- der this plan, but would be subordinated to county organization. City and village governments, on the other hand, would not be subordinated to county governments, although they should be brought into a more organic relationship with both county and state governments. With this unification of local government would go a pooling of taxing and bor- rowing powers, and the distribution of revenues among various governmental activities by the local officials made responsible for this function. 17 CHAPTER I. Provision for the Feebleminded. One of the gravest situations confronting Illi- nois today is that constituted by its large and probably increasing feebleminded population. It is a situation whose menace is not fully realized by the average citizen, and it is high time that the state at large woke up to its seriousness. Mr. Charles H. Thorne, former director of the State Department of Public Welfare, has stated that sixty per cent of the inmates of the State Training School for Girls are mentally defective ; that eighty per cent of the almshouse population in Illinois are feebleminded ; that in every community in Illinois there is a group of feebleminded families, and that these families are dependent on public charity. Number of Feebleminded. The number of feebleminded people in the state is variously esti- mated at from 8,000 to 25,000. Mr. Thorne himself estimates the number to be 12,500, which is admit- tedly a conservative figure. The gravity of the sit- uation is not fully revealed by these figures, for the feebleminded reproduce their kind generation after generation, and so, under present conditions, im- pose a permanent burden on public and private charity, besides swelling the ranks of the delinquent and criminal classes, who are themselves a heavy charge on our courts and our penal institutions. [19] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS Moreover, the number of feebleminded is prob- ably increasing as, owing to their lack of restraint, the birth rate among this group is much larger than among the population at large. The gravity of the problem thus increases with each generation, and unless we institute and carry out an adequate pro- gram for dealing with it it may get beyond our control. At any rate, the cost to the state in money and in suffering will become the greater the longer we delay in grappling with this problem in a thorough- going manner. Feeblemindedness Preventable. It is estimated by various authorities on this problem that from 25 to 75 per cent of feeblemindedness is hereditary, while the preponderant opinion is that approxi- mately two-thirds is hereditary. All are agreed that hereditary feeblemindedness is preventable, and that a considerable proportion of non-hereditary feeblemindedness is also preventable. But heredi- tary feeblemindedness is the more serious evil, as it is passed on from generation to generation, and, as I have already intimated, the amount of heredi- tary feeblemindedness is probably on the increase owing to the high birth rate among the feeble- minded group. The method of preventing hereditary feeble- mindedness is to make it impossible for the feeble- minded to reproduce their kind, and measures having this object in view are now being carried out in most states in the Union, Illinois included. But these measures have not hitherto been ade- quate in any state, although we have the necessary [20] PROVISION FOR THE FEEBLEMINDED knowledge upon which to base an adequate pro- gram. The point to be emphasized here is that the supply of feeblemindedness can be largely cut off at its source, as soon as we are willing to institute the necessary measures. Methods of Prevention. Theoretically, there are a number of possible methods of preventing feeble- minded people from reproducing their kind. One method would be to make it illegal for feeble- minded people to marry. This method is obviously impracticable, as the feebleminded themselves are generally lacking in self control, especially in sex matters, and while such a law as I have indicated would make legal marriage of feebleminded per- sons impossible, it could not prevent them entering into illicit relationships nor obviate the natural consequences thereof. As a matter of fact, a considerable proportion of feebleminded women give birth to illegitimate children. A law prohibiting their marriage would only increase illegitimacy, but would probably nqt reduce the birth rate among the feebleminded. Sterilization is another method, and this has actually been tested in some states with certain types of criminals. But popular sentiment against the use of this method is so strong that it cannot be utilized as a general means of preventing pro- creation by the feebleminded. A third method, and the one everywhere ac- cepted as offering the only practical solution, is to segregate feebleminded adults, and particularly feebleminded women during the childbearing period, [21] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS in institutions, so that sex relationships are im- possible to them. A fourth method, and one which has consider- able possibilities, is to supervise certain types of the feebleminded in their own communities. Progress in Illinois. Considerable progress has been made in Illinois in the segregation of feeble- minded persons. Lincoln State School and Colony has a capacity of 1,800, but owing to the pressure for the admission of new cases, it now shelters 2,300 inmates, including many adults. To relieve the pressure on this institution, and to accommodate many others in need of custodial care, a new institution is in process of development at Dixon. At present there are 150 feebleminded boys in the institution, and it is expected that ap- proximately 500 additional beds will be made avail- able during the present year. Comparing these provisions with the need, as indicated by the number of feebleminded in the state, they are seen to be quite inadequate. The State Department of Public Welfare is alive to this situation, and expects to ask the Legislature for funds to provide for at least fifteen hundred more feebleminded than have already been provided for at Lincoln and Dixon. This measure ought to re- ceive the support of every intelligent citizen in the state. It would scarcely be possible to deal too generously with this matter, as undoubtedly there ought to be provision made for the more or less permanent segregation of a large proportion of the state's feebleminded population. On the most conservative estimate we need two [22] PROVISION FOR THE FEEBLEMINDED or three times the amount of institutional facilities that we now have for the care of the feebleminded. It will be money well spent, as there will be more than an equivalent saving in the cost of maintaining public outdoor relief, almshouses, jails and peniten- tiaries, to say nothing of private charities. And with the segregation of all the feebleminded adults who are liable to reproduce their kind, the need for institutional provision for this class of unfortunates will be progressively smaller, for ultimately we should only have to deal with the feeblemindedness due to non-hereditary causes. Survey Needed. In order to determine the di- mensions of this problem, and to formulate a de- tailed plan for dealing with it, a state-wide survey of the feebleminded should be undertaken. So far as practicable, all the feebleminded should be iden- tified, registered and classified, and brought under the supervision of the state. At present we do not know exactly how many feebleminded there are in the state, nor has there been a sufficiently detailed investigation of the problem of feeblemindedness to make possible a comprehensive and economical program of dealing with it. Many types of the feebleminded can safely be left in their own homes, or at least in their own communities, provided they are placed under the proper supervision. On the other hand, a large proportion of the feebleminded should be perma- nently segregated in institutions or colonies, where they will not reproduce their kind, nor be a burden on our courts, our charities and our penal institu- tions. We do not know how many feebleminded in [23] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS the state ought to be thus segregated, and a survey such as I have indicated should yield us this in- formation. Such a study would also consider the feasability of colony care as a substitute for the very much more expensive institutional care. Finally, the in- formation which a survey supplied would make possible the formulation of a comprehensive plan for supervising those feebleminded persons who can be properly cared for in their own communities. The Legislature would be well advised to provide for a survey of this character, for its future treat- ment of this problem could then be planned in the light of a comprehensive and thoroughgoing knowledge of the whole situation. REFERENCES: (jiiyer, Michael F. Being Well-Born. Bobbs-Mor- rill Company, Indianapolis, 1916. (ioddard, H. H. Feeblemindedness. Macinillan Company, New York, 1914. The Institution Quarterly. Illinois State Depart- ment of Public Welfare, Springfield. (Consult indices of issues during 1916-1920 for special articles and notes on the feebleminded). |24| CHAPTER II. Child Welfare Problems. There are something like twelve thousand de- pendent children in Illinois which are cared for in children's homes, manual training and industrial schools, and in private homes where they are placed by child-helping agencies. The expense of main- taining these children is well over a million dollars. In addition approximately one-half million dollars is expended in the various counties of the state in the form of mothers' pensions, providing partial support for a large number of children not included in the total given above. There are also many children cared for in institutions for the phys- ically or mentally defective not included in this total. In this chapter we shall consider the question whether these wards of the state are being cared for properly, and whether the funds devoted to their care are wisely expended. We shall not discuss, however, the care of children that are mentally or physically defective, nor efforts to reduce infant mortality, although these undertakings come with- in the scope of child-helping activities broadly con- ceived. Inspection of Children's Homes. Up until two years ago the state was given authority only to supervise children's institutions which were in re- ceipt of public funds, or to which dependent chil- [25] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS dren were committed by the juvenile courts, al- though no association caring for dependent children could be incorporated until its purposes had been approved .by the State Board of Administration, now the Department of Public Welfare. At the 1919 session of the Legislature, however, an act was adopted bringing all boarding homes for chil- dren (with an exception noted later) under the supervision of the Department of Public Welfare, and authorizing that department to license and in- spect such homes, and to revoke their licenses in case of failure to maintain the standards of care laid down in the act. So far as the law is concerned, therefore, all in- stitutions or agencies caring for dependent children are subject to state supervision, excepting children's homes or placing out agencies which do not receive commitments from the juvenile courts or which are not supported in part from public funds. The law should be amended to bring all agencies caring for dependent children, without exception, under state supervision. Moreover, there should be an amendment of the act providing for the licensing and inspection of boarding homes for children which shall bring all such homes under state supervision. The 1919 act exempted from state supervision homes in which children have been placed by parent, legal guardian or accredited association, an exemption which is unjustifiable, since such homes may and often do require as strict a supervision as any other type of children's home. Parents and guardians are often willing to shirk their responsibilities, and where [26] CHILD WELFARE PROBLEMS such is the case, we cannot expect them to take enough interest in a boarding home where they have placed children to see that the proper care is given. More Inspectors Needed. Not only ought the law to be modified in the respects indicated, but there should be a larger appropriation for the ad- ministration of the law. At the present time there are only eight inspectors to visit all the children's institutions subject to state inspection, and all the children placed in foster homes by children's agencies in receipt of public funds. With the pres- ent staff, inspections cannot be sufficiently thorough and frequent to guarantee that all these children are being properly cared for. On reporting to the Department of Public Welfare a number of chil- dren's boarding homes discovered in Rockford last year, we w r ere informed that the Department's staff of inspectors was so small that such homes could not be inspected. So, under present conditions, the 1919 law is practically a dead letter. If children's agencies now exempted from state supervision are brought within the law the staff of inspectors should be correspondingly enlarged. Under present conditions we have no assurance that only those children are admitted to children's homes or placed in foster homes who are really en- titled to this provision. A few years ago in New York City it was discovered that a considerable proportion of the children in the orphanages of the city were not orphans at all and that they had par- ents who were entirely capable of caring for them. The same thing is true in all probability of [27] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS many institutions in Illinois, for we are probably no farther advanced in the administration of our char- itable institutions than is New York. A larger staff of investigators for the supervision of dependent care for children would make an investigation into this aspect of the work possible. Mothers' Pensions. In a recent issue of the Institution Quarterly the statement is made that ''mothers' pensions in the majority of the counties are not accomplishing their purpose," the small size of the pensions granted and lack of supervision over the families aided being given as the two principal causes of this failure. Twelve counties in the state do not grant pensions at all, thus ignoring the law, while in a great many counties the pensions are ad- ministered by township supervisors, justices of the peace and other local officials who have not had the training and experience which would fit them for this work. So serious is the situation in regard to mothers' pensions that many students of the problem are ap- prehensive that the law will largely fail of its pur- pose, and this form of aid sink to the level of ordi- nary outdoor relief. Probably the only action which can save the situation is to bring the administration of mothers' pensions under the supervision, though not under the direct control, of the State Depart- ment of Public Welfare, giving that department the authority to insist on proper standards in the grant and administration of these pensions. The appointment of local probation officers in charge of this phase of juvenile court work should be subject to the Department's approval, and the [28] CHILD WELFARE PROBLEMS Department should also have the power to order an increase in the size of the pensions granted. In order to assure the appropriation of sufficient funds for this purpose, the state should either supplement the grants made by the county boards or an act should be passed making it mandatory on these boards to provide sufficient funds. The rates according to which grants may be made should be adjusted to correspond with in- creases in the cost of living since the law was enacted. At present a grant of fifteen dollars per month for one child under fourteen may be made, and ten dollars for each additional child until a limit of sixty dollars per month is reached. Obvi- ously such grants are not adequate with the prices of living necessities as high as they are. With the introduction of these changes the in- tent ot the mothers' pension law would be realized, whereas at the present time the grants made are rarely sufficient to enable the pensioned mother to stay at home and care for her children, as the law intends. Division of Child Welfare Proposed. To provide the machinery for the better care of dependent children in the state, a division of child welfare should be established in the Department of Public Welfare to supersede the present Division of Visi- tation of Children. This division would exercise the supervisory powers which we have said should be granted the state in the matter of dependent children. According to a plan formulated by Wilfred S. Reynolds, one of the best informed students of this [29] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS problem, such a division would co-ordinate the work of existing agencies ; appoint, in consultation with the county judge, local (unpaid) boards of child welfare to supervise child-helping activities in their several communities ; have a voice, through these boards, in the appointment of local probation officers ; provide investigators to co-operate with local agencies ; exercise, when called upon, super- vision over mothers' pensions; license and inspect all child-caring agencies, irrespective of the sources from which children are received ; and accept the guardianship of children which cannot be properly dealt with by the juvenile courts. A state program with substantially these pro- visions must be adopted and carried out if we are to be assured that the dependent children who have a claim on the state for protection are to be prop- erly cared for, and opportunities afforded them for developing into useful self-supporting citizens. REFERENCES: Mangold, George B. Problems of Child Welfare. Macmillan Company, New York, 1914. Standards of Child Welfare. Children's Bureau. United States Department of Labor, Washing- ton, 1919. The Institution Quarterly. Illinois State Depart- ment of Public Welfare, Springfield. (Consult indices of issues during 1916-1920 for special ar tides and notes on child welfare.) [30] CHAPTER III. Reforms in Penal Institutions. Illinois has made great progress recently in the development of a modern correctional system, and in not a lew instances the state has been a pioneer in the adoption of more enlightened and construct- ive methods of dealing with offenders against the law. There is still great room for improvement, however, and conditions in some of our penal in- stitutions are quite repugnant to modern humani- tarian sentiment. To get our unsolved problems clearly before us, a word must be said regarding the principles underlying modern penal systems. Modern Penal Principles. Increased emphasis has been given in recent years to the possibility and the importance of reforming or educating the of- fender so that he may become again a respectable law-abiding member of society. There is now a widespread conviction that this is the most ef- fective way of protecting society against crime. While the desire for retribution or revenge against the perpetrator of criminal acts is still a strong motive with many people, it is gradually receding into the background, and a more humane and in- telligent interest in the offender is taking its place. It is recognized that if this more constructive aim is to be realized the treatment of the offender must be based on a careful study of his mental and physical traits and his social environment, and that [31] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS modern educational methods must be employed in bringing about a better adjustment between him and society at large. This conviction finds expres- sion in the claim that the treatment of the offender must be "individualized." But since our penal authorities cannot give in- dividual attention to each prisoner in their charge, as a private tutor can to his pupil, prisoners must be classified according to the seriousness of their offense, their mental characteristics, etc., and treat- ment carefully adapted to each of the classes dis- tinguished. The treatment itself consists of educating the prisoner morally, politically and industrially, giving him a larger measure of responsibility, according as he shows himself deserving of it, and eventually promoting him, so to speak, to a position of com- plete independence, or freedom. Some few types of prisoners, such as the im- becile or insane, must be kept in permanent cus- tody, but rather as mentally defective persons need- ing oversight than as criminals to be punished. In this scheme of punishment or correction, the element of retribution is subordinated to the needs of the prisoner himself, and our penal institutions are tending to become great educational institutions which deal with special classes of immature and miseducated persons. Penal Institutions. In accordance with this theory, it is held that first offenders against the law, unless their offenses be particularly serious, should not be sent to a penal institution at all, but given another chance to make good, under the [32] REFORMS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS supervision of court officers, in their own com- munities. This we call the probation system. Again, those guilty of a first or even a second offense, unless it be a grave one, are dealt with in reformatories rather than in penitentiaries, for it is believed that a better response will be secured if there is not the discouragement of having to serve a term in an institution which carries with it in the popular mind a disgrace which cannot be blotted out. Besides, the methods of the reformatory are better adapted to the problems of the young or first offender for whom there is a good prospect of reclamation. Then there is the penitentiary for the more serious offenses, with methods which are or ought to be adapted to the problems of those guilty of such offenses. Finally, for all these types of institutions there is the so-called indeterminate sentence and parole upon release, which puts a premium upon good conduct and the desire to reform, so that, except for a minimum sentence laid down in the law, the length of stay in the institution largely depends on the prisoner himself. All the features of this system have been es- tablished in Illinois, or at least provided for in the penal law of the state. We have the beginnings of a system of juvenile courts and juvenile probation ; the beginnings also of a system of adult probation ; provisions for the indeterminate sentence for all except a few of the more serious crimes ; an ex- cellent parole law providing for the supervision for a certain length of time of prisoners released on [33] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS indeterminate sentences ; and we are beginning to transform our penitentiaries from institutions for punishing criminals into institutions for their edu- cation and reformation. Many of our county jails, on the other hand, are breeding places for crime, vice and disease, and their improvement should be delayed no longer. Juvenile Delinquency. The law establishing juvenile courts and providing for probation of juvenile delinquents has been on the statute books for a number of years and considerable progress has been made in developing these features of our correctional system. Cook county, for instance, has developed a wonderfully efficient system for dealing with juvenile delinquency, and so have a few other counties. But in some counties no attempt has been made to carry out the law, while in other counties the administration of the law is lax and ineffective. Several counties detain boys waiting a court hear- ing in jail with old offenders, while a large number of counties have special departments in the jails for boys or send children to the almshouse while they are awaiting court action. In comparatively few counties are properly trained persons engaged as probation officers, and in some counties the pro- batin officer is paid on a per diem basis. But rarely are adequate salaries paid probation officers, and very little provision is made for necessary clerical assistance for them. The result of all these conditions is that in very few counties is there an efficient system for dealing with juvenile delinquents ; the great majority of [34] REFORMS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS probation officers are unqualified for the duties of their position ; the records kept are poor and not uniform from county to county ; children often suf- fer grave moral injury by being kept in the jail or the almshouse with criminals or paupers ; and, in general, the opportunities for reclaiming juvenile delinquents from careers of crime and vice are not utilized as they should be. Those who have gone into this situation thor- oughly are agreed that the most promising plan for the improvement of juvenile court work is to bring it under the supervision of some state agency to which is delegated the power to insist on the main- tenance of proper standards in the administration of the juvenile court law, particularly as regards the training and remuneration of probation officers, the detention of children awaiting a hearing before the court, and the keeping of probation records. Logically this supervisory function would fall to the Department of Public Welfare, and if a division of child welfare is established in that department, as was advocated in a previous chapter, it should be given the power to supervise and standardize the work of local probation officers. This work is now suffering from its extreme decentralization, and needs the stimulation and the guidance which a central state agency could supply. Adult Probation. What has been said regarding juvenile probation applies in the main to adult pro- bation, except that adult probation in the rural counties of the state is even more backward than is juvenile probation. In one-half the counties of the state no use is [35] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS made of the law providing for adult probation, with the result that many first offenders are committed to a reformatory or a penitentiary who ought to have a chance to make good in their own com- munities. Case histories, or records of the family and other circumstances of offenders put on proba- tion, are rarely kept, and female offenders are gen- erally put under the charge of male probation of- ficers, which is a most reprehensible practice. The remedy here is the same as for juvenile pro- bation. Supervision over adult probation should be exercised by some state agency, preferably the Division of Pardons and Paroles of the Department of Public Welfare, or by some new division estab- lished in that department for this special purpose. This division should lay down and enforce mini- mum standards as to the compensation and quali- fications of probation officers, the keeping of rec- ords, and the methods of probation. Finally, probation officers for both juvenile and adult delinquents should be put under civil service rules, selected on a merit basis and made entirely independent of local politics. The Jail Problem. County jails now generally serve as places of detention for persons accused of offenses against the law and for witnesses expected to give material testimony in regard to serious crimes, and also as penal institutions for people found guilty of misdemeanors or violations of local ordinances. This practice of incarcerating in the same insti- tution persons who may or may not be guilty of serious crimes, other persons who are guilty of [36] REFORMS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS minor offenses only, and persons (witnesses) who are not charged with crime at all is vicious and de- moralizing and ought not to be tolerated. It is now generally held by experts that jails should serve only as houses of detention, and not as places of punishment. Moreover, there should be a classification of those detained in jail ; and wit- nesses, old offenders and those charged for the first time with violation of the law should all be segre- gated one from the other. There should be separ- ate detention homes for juveniles alleged to be delinquent, and there should be, in all cases, a strict separation of the two sexes. Illinois Jails. Hitherto there has been but little recognition of these principles in Illinois, as the county jails quite generally function as a "catch all" for the classes mentioned. However, in more than half the counties of the state children are not detained in jail with old offenders, while there is generally a strict segregation of the two sexes when incarcerated in the same jail. The state law is now taking steps to provide for another class by the establishment of state farms for misdemeanants. Appropriations have already been made for a state farm for male misdemeanants, and a farm for women misdemeanants has been au- thorized, but no appropriation has yet been made for it. It is to be presumed that the Legislature will make good this oversight and provide the nec- essary funds for the latter institution. Stringent laws should be enacted prohibiting the incarceration of juveniles in the common jails, or their detention, even temporarily, at county alms- [37] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS houses; and responsibility for the enforcement of these laws should be lodged with the State Depart- ment of Public Welfare. This done, and the two state farms for misdemeanants established and properly utilized, the local jails would be used only as places of detention for persons awaiting trial, for witnesses, and for persons convicted of violating local ordinances. Laws would then be needed providing for the segregation of these classes within the jail and for the separation of accused persons who are old of- fenders from those charged with law violations for the first time. Responsibility for the enforcement of these laws should also be lodged with the State Department of Public Welfare, for experience has shown that the enforcement of laws regulating jails cannot be expected from local officials. Moreover, steps should be taken to close those jails which are seriously below standard in the mat- ter of sanitation. Every one who has inspected our county jails in Illinois has been horrified at the conditions found to exist in many of them. A recent inspection of county jails by the State Department of Public Welfare showed that the conditions in 20 jails were good, in 19 fair, in 41 very poor or bad, while 21 were adjudged unfit for use. Only the 39 graded as good or fair are deemed to be suited to their pur- pose, while 62 are adjudged unfit for human habi- tation. Some of the smaller counties have not even com- plied with the law prohibiting the feeding of pris- oners on a per diem basis, a system which puts a [38] REFORMS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS premium on the underfeeding of prisoners and on graft by local politicians. Laws should be enacted giving the State De- partment of Public Welfare authority to order the closing of jails adjudged unfit for use, and to lay down standards of sanitation which must be com- plied with in the maintenance of jails. This new legislation should require the medical examination of all prisoners when taken to jail, the isolation of prisoners with infectious diseases and the provision of a detached hospital room for pris- oners suffering from acute illnesses. A standard amount of air and window space should be insisted on, and the use of common towels, drinking cups and tubs prohibited. There should be provisions also for clean bedding, for satisfactory toilet arrangements, and for a cleanly and orderly upkeep of jail premises. Needless to say, the state should be given the authority to see to it that these provisions are car- ried out after they are enacted into law. As in so many other community matters, local officials man- aging the jails need the stimulation, the guidance and the supervision of some state agency that is independent of local politics and local prejudice. State Penal Institutions. Conditions in the state institutions themselves are much better, and im- provements are projected which should give Illinois a modern scientific correctional system. Enlightened provision has been made for juvenile delinquents in the State Training School for Girls at Geneva and the St. Charles School for Boys. And with the completion of the state penal [39] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS farm at Lockport and the establishment of farms for male and female misdemeanants a great ad- vance will have been made toward a scientific sys- tem of individualized treatment for adult offenders. The completion of the Lockport institution will make possible the abandonment of the state peni- tentiary and the woman's prison at Joliet, and the Chester State Hospital for the Criminal Insane. There should be provision for a woman's re- formatory corresponding to the Pontiac institution for men. The Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Menard, which is of antiquated construction, should eventually be abandoned for an institution of mod- ern design, although the time for that has perhaps not come just yet. These changes made, Illinois \vill have four grades of institutions for male and female offenders : one for juvenile delinquents, one for misdemean- ants, one grade (the reformatories) for more serious offenders, and a fourth grade (the penal farms or penitentiaries) for the most serious offenses recog- nized by the law. This will permit a scientific classification of prisoners, and with the abandon- ment of the old-style penitentiaries, discipline within the institutions can be made truly educa- tional. Our excellent parole law and provisions for the indeterminate sentence will complete the system and make feasible the gradual promotion of the prisoner to responsibility and independence, ac- cording as he shows himself to be trusted. The Legislature should authorize the establish- ment of a woman's reformatory, and provide funds for the farm for women misdemeanants already au- [40] REFORMS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS thorizecl. Certain special needs in existing institu- tions should be provided for, such as necessary re- placements and improvements, the development of prison industries, and the like. REFERENCES : Parmalee, Maurice. Criminology. Macmillan Com- pany, New York, 1918. The Institution Quarterly. Illinois State Depart- ment of Public Welfare, Springfield. (Consult indices of issues during 1916-1920 for special ar- ticles and notes on penal problems in Illinois.) [41] CHAPTER IV. Educational Needs. The public school lies at the very foundation of our democratic institutions, as every reflective per- son realizes ; and it is of the utmost importance, therefore, that the public schools offer the best possible training to our boys and girls and thor- oughly equip them for their duties as citizens after they shall have become men and women. This being true, we should take stock of our schools from time to time, and determine whether they are performing this service in an acceptable manner. We shall attempt within the limits of this survey such an evaluation of our Illinois schools, confining our attention to the elementary and sec- ondary schools as being of more general concern to the state at large than are institutions of higher learning, although these are of course important too. In 1918 there were 11,899 school districts in Illi- nois employing 34,597 teachers, using 13,652 build- ings for school purposes and furnishing instruction to 1,081,504 elementary and high school pupils. These districts spent in round numbers sixty-seven million dollars, of which approximately sixty-two millions were provided by the districts themselves, one and three-quarters millions by the townships and three and three-quarters millions by the state, the quotas furnished by the township and the state [43] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS being distributed to the districts in proportion to their minor populations. The expenses of the county superintendents of schools and of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and other general administrative expenditures do not enter into these totals. Low Level of Efficiency. There is no question but that the standard of efficiency in many of our schools, particularly in the rural districts, is very low. A sympathetic student of the rural schools has stated that they "are not living up to the measure of their possibilities under their present organization. They are not adequate for the new needs and new tasks that are before them." While this statement refers only to the rural schools, con- ditions in many of our urban school systems, par- ticularly in the mining towns in the southern part of the state, are almost as bad. The causes of this comparative inefficiency and the remedies for it may be divided into 1) those of an administrative nature and 2) those of a fiscal nature. We shall first discuss problems of the sec- ond group. School Finances. Practically all the school sys- tems of the state are suffering from lack of suf- ficient funds, but this condition is far more acute in rural communities and in certain industrial towns than in most of our city school systems. The rural schools are suffering just as much, probably, from a defective administrative organization, which makes it impossible to utilize properly the funds at their disposal, inadequate though they be. The [44] EDUCATIONAL NEEDS two problems are closely interrelated, as we shall see. The great variations in quality of school work in different communities are largely due to financial differences. Under present laws most of the funds for the maintenance of the schools come from the levy of taxes in the local districts. The districts are limited by law as to the rate for school pur- poses that may be imposed, the maximum levy now being two per cent on the assessed valuation of property, for school and building purposes, which may, however, be increased by referendum to as much as two and two-thirds percent. High school districts have an independent tax- ing authority, however, which increases the finan- cial resources for educational purposes of com- munities in which there are such districts. Now, the value of taxable property is very un- evenly distributed as between different counties of the state, and between different districts in the same county ; or, to put it differently, there is a great variation in taxable \vealth per capita in the school districts of the state. The result of this is that many districts are unable, on account of the relatively low amount of taxable property therein, to procure sufficient funds from taxation to pro- vide efficient schools, and the allotments from town- ship and state funds are not adequate to supply this deficiency, as these funds are comparatively small in amount and must be distributed in pro- portion to the minor population in the several dis- tricts. So serious is the situation that many of the [45] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS mining towns in the southern part of the state and many of the districts in the poorer agricultural sec- tions are unable to maintain creditable schools and to give the children in those districts that minimum of education which the state should provide for all its citizens. Financial Reforms Proposed. Practically all our school systems are handicapped by lack of sufficient funds, for scarcely any of them are able to pay sal- aries sufficient to attract and hold properly qualified teachers and to provide school buildings and equip- ment suited to modern educational purposes. This is seen in the fact that in 1918 31.6 per cent of the public school teachers of the state were receiving salaries of less than five hundred dollars a year, while of more than thirteen thousand public school buildings, only 2,335 were classed as standard, or superior, by the State Superintendent of Public In- struction. At least three important measures are necessary to the solution of this financial problem. First, the taxing unit should be made the county instead of the district. This would permit a more equitable distribution of funds raised from taxation among the several districts of a county, and it would not entail any essential injustice to people in the wealthier districts. Now, for ex- ample, a railroad running through a certain district may increase the taxable property of that district out of all proportion to its population, while an adjoining district may be so poor in taxable wealth that it cannot get funds enough from taxation to support its school. The fact is that wealth is not [46] EDUCATIONAL NEEDS distributed according to population, nor even ac- cording to that part of the population which owns the wealth ; and the larger we make the taxing unit the more equitably can funds from taxation be dis- tributed. -Making the county the taxing unit for school purposes would be a long step in that direc- tion. Secondly, to compensate for the unequal distri- bution of wealth between counties, a much larger fund should be provided by the state for distribu- tion to the counties for school purposes. In the opinion of many experts on this question, the levy of six millions a year by the state for school pur- poses should be increased to ten millions a year. Whether there should be so large an increase or not, there is no doubt that the state distributive fund should be very considerably increased. Moreover, the principle according to which this fund is distributed should be changed so as to per- mit allotments to the poorer counties in excess of the proportions to which -their minor populations would entitle them. Thirdly, the present law limiting the tax rate which can be levied by the local community for school purposes should be so modified as to permit the levy of higher rates when the people of a com- munity approve such a levy. Possibly there should be no limit at all, provided levies above a certain rate are first approved by a referendum vote, for probably no community would vote to spend more money on its schools than it could afford. School Organization. With these fiscal reforms should go some rather fundamental administrative [47] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS reforms, for the comparatively poor standards of many of our rural schools are due, in my judgment, to a defective administration of the schools as well as to the inadequacy of their funds. Some analysis of the administrative organization of the schools will be necessary in order to make the problem clear, and to indicate the direction in which im- provement is to be sought. Of the 11,899 school districts of the state, 11,252 are administered by boards of directors, 619 by boards of education (most of these are in urban districts), and 28 are administered under special charters granted by the State Legislature. These local administrative bodies may be said to be the center of gravity in our school system regarded in its administrative aspects, for they levy the school tax, provide buildings, administer school property and engage the teachers. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction, on the other hand, has little direct authority over the schools, functioning for the most part as an adviser and investigator rather than as an admin- istrative official. His administrative powers are growing, however, and he now has supervision over the examination of teachers and the granting of teaching certificates, and he may require the re- placement of old and unsanitary school buildings in local districts by standard buildings suited to school purposes. Other important administrative powers have recently been granted him. The county superintendents of schools likewise have but little direct authority over the schools, their functions being mainly of an advisory and [48] EDUCATIONAL NEEDS clerical nature. They are required, however, to visit the schools, hold yearly institutes for teach- ers and hear appeals from the action of local school authorities in certain matters, while under a recent act they have authority to enforce the provisions of the compulsory attendance laws, which pre- viously were very laxly administered. We ought to note also that township trustees fix the boundaries of school districts, hold title to school property and administer township funds, while the township treasurers distribute to the dis- tricts allotments from the state distributive fund previously distributed to them through the county treasurers. Finally, there are a great number of high school districts serving one or more townships or parts of townships, and independent, in their ad- ministration, of local boards of education responsi- ble for the elementary schools. Administrative Reforms Proposed. The most striking feature of this scheme of administration is its extreme decentralization, for the duties of all the officials above the local boards of directors (or education) are mainly of an advisory or clerical nature, though there is a tendency to extend the au- thority of the State Superintendent and of the county superintendents over the local schools. Another striking feature of the system is the lack of uniformity between different districts, as witness the school systems under special charters, and the lack of coordination between the inde- pendent high schools and elementary schools in the same districts. These are defects that ought to be remedied, but [49] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS limitations of space prevent us from discussing them at length. The same applies to township trustees. It is believed by many that school matters now handled by the township trustees should be delegated to other officials connected with the school system who are better qualified to deal with those matters. This would certainly simplify mat- ters, and it is difficult to see how any harm could come of it. A more serious problem lies in the extreme de- centralization of the school system. The volume of work in the rural district is not large enough to justify the engagement of paid experts to super- vise and direct the district school (or schools). The visit of the county superintendent to the district school is very infrequent, and he can exercise but little supervision over it. The great majority of these schools are isolated from other schools, and there is for the teacher but little of that stimulation which comes from contact with others in the same profession. The local boards of directors are of course not qualified to give expert direction to the teachers whom they engage or to suggest needed changes in their methods. Larger Unit Needed. The solution seems to be indicated by our city school systems. In the city there is daily contact and exchange of ideas be- tween teachers in the grades, there are frequent visits and helpful suggestions by supervisors and superintendents, there are frequent teachers' meet- ings where stimulating discussions of school prob- lems take place in short, there is that interchange [50] EDUCATIONAL NEEDS of experience which is indispensable to progress in any field of human endeavor. If there is to be the same sort of stimulus brought to bear on the development of our rural schools, the administrative unit must be larger than it now is, and there must be a larger measure of contact between teachers, and more expert oversight of their work by supervisors engaged for the purpose. The unit of administration should be made the county instead of the district. The county super- intendent should engage the teachers, plan im- provements in the school plants, determine the dis- position of school funds, and, in short, become a real administrative officer charged with the respon- sibility of developing the schools in his county to the highest point of efficiency. To do this, he must have a staff of supervisors large enough to make frequent visits to each school possible, and there should be arrangements where- by the teachers in a township or some larger section of the county would come together weekly or fort- nightly to talk over their problems and to exchange ideas regarding school work. The county institutes should of course be con- tinued and developed, and teachers encouraged and aided to attend meetings of the state teachers' as- sociations where their contacts would be broadened and their understanding of school problems deep- ened. State Superintendent Should Have More Power. As a further corrective of the extreme decentrali- zation of our school system, the powers of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction should be [51] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS very considerably extended, so that he shall be in a position effectively to stimulate and in some di- rections to compel improvements in the admin- istration of the local schools. He should be given the power so to use the state distributive fund as to bring about the moderniza- tion of school plants throughout the state, aiding financially those districts which are too poor to af- ford the expense; encourage the use of the school buildings for public lectures, musical entertain- ments and other educational activities for adults ; improve the curriculum, particularly by the addition of vocational training and organized play ; stimu- late and, if need be, provide from the distributive fund part of the expense for competent medical and nursing services in the schools, so that physical de- fects of pupils may be corrected ; and assist in the development of competent staffs of supervisors in the counties, as recommended above. He should also use this increased authority to further the con- solidation of small districts, in order to secure more effective teaching units. Investigating Commission Proposed. Legisla- tion will be needed for all these changes, and this legislation cannot be enacted without convincing the people of the state that it is demanded in the best interests of all concerned. To provide machinery whereby the details of this legislation may be worked out, and the support of public opinion secured for it, it is suggested that a commission be appointed which shall be repre- sentative of all classes of people who are special- ly interested in the improvement of our schools, and [52] EDUCATIONAL NEEDS particularly the teachers, school principals, superin- tendents and taxpayers. It should be possible for such a commission to formulate recommendations which shall embody all the changes we have sug- gested and which shall at the same time appeal to all the groups mentioned as essentially just and reasonable. Needless to say, such a commission should con- sider how local boards of directors would function under such a scheme of administration as I have outlined. My own opinion is that such boards should in the future be of an advisory nature, in- terpreting to the state and county superintendents local sentiment in regard to school matters. We should then have as much local influence in the administration of the schools as was compatible with efficiency, and that measure of centralization which is necessary to keep the schools abreast of the best thought and practice in educational matters. REFERENCES: Flexner, Abraham, and Bachman, Frank P. The Gary Schools. General Education Board, New York, 1918. Illinois State Teachers' Association. Illinois School Survey. 1917. Biennial Reports of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1914-1916, 1916-1918. Springfield. [53] CHAPTER V. Prevention of Disease. The State Department of Public Health has es- timated that the money cost of infectious diseases in Illinois for the year ending June 30, 1919, was $223,634,515, and that the number of deaths from all causes for the same year was 101,220. The cost of infectious diseases represents a waste which is practically all preventable, as sani- tary experts are agreed that infectious diseases can largely be abolished by the application of preventive measures demonstrated to be effective. I have cal- culated on the basis of Professor Irving Fisher's estimates, published several years ago in his Report on National Vitality to the National Conservation Commission, that there are approximately thirty- five thousand premature deaths in Illinois each year due to preventable disease and accident, and that there is a preventable money waste of approxi- mately one hundred and eighty millions of dollars due to the same causes. Means of Prevention. The methods of prevent- ing this waste of life and money, stated in general terms, are the following: safeguarding water, food and milk supplies so that they shall not be sources of disease infection ; segregation or expert care of persons suffering from infectious disease so that they shall not infect well persons ; fairly frequent medical examination of all persons for the detection [55] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS of physical defects and tendencies toward disease ; provision of adequate facilities for the treatment of disease and the correction of physical defect, and bringing these facilities within the means of all classes of the population ; the standardization, from a sanitary standpoint, of housing and industrial conditions ; general education in hygiene and sani- tation; and prevention of marriage by persons suf- fering from infectious disease or from mental or physical defects which may be transmitted to off- spring. Public Health Machinery. The machinery for the execution of these measures includes, in addi- tion to private physicians practicing medicine for a livelihood, well-equipped local health departments employing trained epidemiologists (experts in the control of infectious diseases) ; sanitary engineers and inspectors whose special functions are to trace out and block the sources of disease infection ; health centers conveniently located, where people are encouraged to come for medical examinations and advice, the charges for this service to be such that all classes of people, it matters not how poor they may be, can avail themselves of it; a public health nursing service operated in conjunction with these centers and with other divisions of the public health service, to visit in the homes of persons suf- fering from infectious or other diseases, and advise and cooperate with them in the treatment of their disease or defect ; adequate hospital and dispensary facilities, including general, infectious disease and other special hospitals and dispensaries, for the treatment of diseases and defects which cannot be [56] PREVENTION OF DISEASE cared for properly in the home the rates for these hospital and nursing services to be such as to bring them within the reach of all classes of people in need of them ; laws and administrative machinery for the regulation of housing and industrial condi- tions ; campaigns of popular education in the princi- ples of hygiene and sanitation ; laws, strictly en- forced, prohibiting the marriage of persons suffer- ing from communicable or hereditary disease or defect. In addition there must be, for the most effective work, machinery for the collection and analysis of data regarding disease and death ; and facilities for the chemical and bacteriological analysis of water, food and milk supplies and other possible sources of disease infection, as also of cultures and speci- mens from patients suspected of having infectious or other diseases identifiable through such analyses. In this chapter we shall consider only those phases of this preventive machinery which ordinar- ily come under the jurisdiction of local health de- partments. Illinois Conditions. Outside of Chicago and a few other communities little or no progress has been made in the establishment of this machinery. Only 248 of the eleven hundred health districts into which Illinois is divided have health officers, and of these only one hundred and sixty-nine are medi- cally trained ; only nine of these health districts have full-time health officers, practically all of these being in the larger cities ; and only eleven districts have a public health nursing service. The appro- priations for health and sanitation in 1913 ranged [57] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS from twenty-two to eighty-five cents per capita for towns and cities of more than 2,500 population, not counting Chicago. No appropriations at all are re- ported for rural communities, whatever public health service there is in these communities being rendered by township or county officials who devote practically all their time to other duties. Effective work in the prevention of disease cannot be had on expenditures so low. Although much progress has been made in many sections of the state, particularly in the larger cities, in the fight against tuberculosis and venereal dis- ease, and many hospitals and dispensaries have been established for the treatment of these diseases, Illi- nois' general hospital facilities are quite inadequate, being only 62 per cent as great, proportionately, as hospital facilities for the country as a whole. The Health Insurance Commission, from whose report much of the data contained in this chapter are taken, says that this "inadequacy is most marked in the smaller towns and in rural communities. Yet hospitals are so supported, constructed and organ- ized that their actual use by the community falls far short of their capacity." Causes of Conditions. In the words of the Health Insurance Commission, "the two important rea- sons why local health administration in Illinois is generally weak are: 1) most of the health districts are too small and have too little taxable property to support an efficient service ; 2) other matters have made a stronger appeal to the citizens and to those who have directed local affairs." I would add another reason, the statement of [58] PREVENTION OF DISEASE which seems to me to indicate the direction along which improvement is to be sought. This reason is that the primary responsibility for local health ad- ministration devolves on local officials, who in the rural communities are chiefly interested in other matters ; and, further, that the powers of the State Department of Public Health are for the greater part investigative and advisory, and not adminis- trative, in character. Illinois stands, in this regard, in marked con- trast with several states which determine through their departments of health, the qualifications of local health officers, and with other states in which the appointment of local health officers is vested in the state board of health, and with at least one state in which a great part of local health work is done by representatives of the state board of health. "But in Illinois the Department of Public Health has no clearly defined authority in local health ad- ministration except in epidemics ; it has nothing to do with the appointment or removal of local health officers except under the act of 1917 relating to the formation of a new type of public health district, where it is to hold examinations and certify a list of eligibles from which the health officer of any such district is to be selected." And in the opinion of the Health Insurance Commission, from whose re- port the preceding quotation is taken, the 1917 act referred to, which is permissive, not mandatory, is not likely to be effective in bringing about any con- siderable improvement in local health administra- tion. Measures Proposed. I can see only one prac- [59] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS ticable method of developing throughout the state the machinery for disease prevention which I have described. That method is to give the State De- partment of Public Health the authority and the necessary funds to establish state health districts covering the entire state, each of them large enough to furnish employment to a complete staff of trained public health workers, including an epidemiologist, a sanitary engineer, a staff of sanitary inspectors and a corps of public health nurses. The department should also be given the au- thority and the funds to establish health centers and to develop or encourage the development of hospi- tal and dispensary facilities in these districts, and to so fix the charges for the services offered by these institutions that they will be available to all classes of the population. There should also be organized in these districts campaigns of education designed to secure a proper utilization of these facilities and to teach the people generally the principles of hy- giene and sanitation. This is a far-reaching program, but in no other way that I can see will it be possible to make much headway in the prevention of that enormous waste of life and money from which the state suffers each year. It is futile to expect that the local com- munities of the state, excepting the larger cities, will develop such a program on their own initiative and on their own limited resources. But in organizing this machinery the local com- munity should be represented. This might be pro- vided for by the appointment of district boards of health to act in an advisory capacity and to exercise [60] PREVENTION OF DISEASE a certain supervision over the paid staff assigned to the given district. It is possible, too, that local districts should be required to assume part of the expense of the public health service in these sev- eral districts, the state bearing the rest. REFERENCES : Fisher, Irving. Report on National Vitality. Gov- ernment Printing Office, Washington, 1909. (Can be procured from the author at Yale Uni- versity, New Haven, Conn.) Hill, H. W. The New Public Health. Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. Report of the Health Insurance Commission of the State of Illinois. Springfield, 1919. Annual Reports of State Department of Public Health. Springfield. [61] CHAPTER VI. Labor Conditions. Child Labor Laws. The purpose of child labor laws, as every one ought to know, is to guarantee to children their rights to normal physical devel- opment and to that measure of education which is requisite to good citizenship and industrial effi- ciency. To safeguard these rights, the best child labor laws fix age, educational and physical mini- mums for minors entering industry, and prescribe the methods of administering these laws, so that they may not be evaded. There is a tendency to raise these minimum re- quirements in order to secure to the child a more thorough educational training, and a longer period of physical development free from the physical and nervous strain incident to industrial employment. There is a tendency also to throw special safeguards around those industries which are highly hazardous to the health or morals of minors who might be en- gaged therein. The most authoritative standards for children entering employment are those adopted by the con- ference called in 1919 by the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, and these standards I am going to use as a test of our Illinois child labor law. We may assume that where our law falls short of the Children's Bureau standards, there is need of improvement, as there are no special [63] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS conditions in this state which make the adoption of these standards impracticable or undesirable. Minimum Requirements. The Children's Bureau Conference laid down an age minimum of sixteen for the employment of children in any occupation, except that the employment of children between fourteen and sixteen in agriculture or domestic service during vacation periods was approved. The Illinois law lays down an age minimum of fourteen, except that children under fourteen may be engaged in work of a harmless character during the summer vacation period. Next in importance to the age minimum is the educational minimum, which is in the nature of an addition to the age minimum. The Children's Bur- eau standards call for the attendance of children between sixteen and eighteen at full-time schools unless they have completed the eighth grade or are regularly employed ; and for the attendance of all children under eighteen either at a full-time school or a continuation school. The Illinois law calls for the attendance of chil- dren between fourteen and sixteen at a full-time school unless they have completed the fifth grade; and under the provisions of the continuation school law enacted at the last session of the Legislature, all children in Illinois between the ages of fourteen and eighteen will be required, after 1923, to attend con- tinuation schools, if not in attendance at a full-time school. But under this law, school districts in which there are fewer than twenty children within these age limits will not be required to establish contin- [64] LABOR CONDITIONS nation schools. This makes the law inapplicable to the great majority of our rural school districts, as comparatively few of them have that number of children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. The Children's Bureau standards call for a cer- tification of physical fitness for children under eight- een entering any employment, and for the periodical medical examination of all working minors under that age. The Illinois law requires a similar certificate for children under sixteen entering employment, but there is no requirement of a periodical examination for children who are working. Hazardous Occupations for Minors. The Chil- dren's Bureau standards call for the exclusion of all minors from hazardous or dangerous occupa- tions or from any work which retards their proper physical development, such employments includ- ing, among many others, night messenger service and the employment of girls as messengers for tele- graph and messenger companies. A special age minimum of eighteen is laid down for employment in and about mines and quarries. In Illinois there are a number of prohibited oc- cupations for minors under sixteen, but no legal protection of minors above that age against haz- ardous or dangerous occupations. This somewhat detailed comparison of our child labor law w r ith the standards laid down by the Chil- dren's Bureau Conference will indicate needed amendments to the law which the Legislature should be asked to consider. Corresponding changes would be required in other laws relating to [65] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS the welfare of children, particularly the school at- tendance law and the mother's pension law. Women's Hour Legislation. All disinterested students of labor conditions are agreed that the hours of women engaged in industrial occupations should be regulated by law. The working day should be limited to eight hours, and the working week to forty-eight hours, and preferably to forty- four. Moreover, overtime and night work should be strictly prohibited. It is unnecessary to enter at length into the rea- sons for such regulation. The United States Su- preme Court has upheld eight-hour laws for women on the ground that they are essential to the main- tenance of the health of women workers and to the physical vigor of the race. A mass of evidence has been collected on the physical and moral dangers of industrial night work for women, and such work has now been prohibited in all the leading Euro- pean countries. If the hours which women are al- lowed to work in industrial establishments should be limited by law, then the necessity for prohibit- ing overtime follows as a logical consequence. Illinois is very backward in this regard, as in- dustries regulated by the law are permitted to work women employes ten hours a day for seven days a week, if they so desire, and there is no restriction whatever for many occupations in which women are engaged; while eight states have an eight-hour law for women, and a larger number of states pro- vide by statute for one day of rest in seven. In only eight states are such long hours permit- ted by law as in Illinois. Overtime is not allowed [66] LABOR CONDITIONS in our law, but this is less creditable than it may seem, as a normal working week of sixty hours is sanctioned by law, while a working week of sev- enty hours is made possible. There are no prohibitions in our statutes against night work by women, although twelve states have outlawed such work in one or more occupations, and practically all the leading nations of Europe have enacted laws against it. Minimum Wage Laws for Women. If the health of women and the physical vigor of the race are to be safeguarded, a living wage must be paid to women employed in industry. Thirteen American states now have such laws, and these have demon- strated their value as solutions of this problem. None of the gloomy predictions of those who op- posed this legislation when it was first proposed have been realized. Minimum wage laws have not, in practice, established maximum wages beyond which it is difficult for workers to advance ; they have not driven out industries which paid less than a living wage when these laws were enacted ; nor have they operated to cause unemployment, except during short periods of readjustment after their enactment. There is no good reason, therefore, why Illinois should not afford the same sort of protection to its w r omen workers. Under the best minimum wage laws, a commis- sion is appointed which is representative of em- ployers, employes and the general public ; this commission appoints wage boards to investigate conditions in particular industries and to recom- mend minimum wage rates therefor ; and their rec- [67] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS ommendations are acted on by the commission. This permits the adjustment of wage rates in cor- respondence with changes in the prices of living necessities. There are usually provisions for the employment of apprentices and of the mentally or physically handicapped at less than the wage rates laid down by the commission. The best laws also provide for the fixing of minimum wage rates for children. With such a law, and under suitable penalties, we should be able to protect all our woman and child wage-earners against the evils that come from excessively low wages, without at the same time working any hardship on employers. Wherever such laws have been enacted, they find their most enthusiastic friends among the employers as well as the employes who directly benefit by them. Insecurity of Laborers. Industrial accident, sickness, unemployment and a penurious old age are evils which haunt all people dependent on their labor for a livelihood who have any foresight, and evils from which those who exercise foresight as well as those who do not are liable to suffer. These things probably produce more misery in modern society than all other causes put together, and im- pose a greater burden on public and private phil- anthropy. One of the great constructive tasks confronting Illinois and other states is to make adequate pro- vision for and against these evils, and to reduce as much as possible the misery which they represent. Most states have already made a beginning in deal- ing with these problems in a constructive manner, [68] LABOR CONDITIONS but all of them, Illinois included, have still a long way to go before adequate provision is made. Let us see what has been done in this state to cope with these evils, and what further remains to be done. Social Insurance the Remedy. The plan now accepted by experts the world over for dealing with these evils on their economic side is to provide adequate insurance against them, under the aus- pices of the state, for all people of small incomes, and particularly for the wage-earning group. Experience has shown that the wage-earner act- ing alone cannot or will not provide himself with adequate insurance against these evils, except in a very small proportion of cases ; but that adequate insurance can be provided through governmental agencies representing both the wage-earners them- selves and also the employers and the general pub- lic. In other words, wage-earners in cooperation with employers and the general public are able to do what they are not able, or willing, to do when acting individually. It is a case where group action is far superior to individual action. Through an application of the insurance princi- ple the risks to which the wage-earner is subject are distributed over the whole group of wage-earn- ers, and over industry at large, in just the same way that risks from fire, flood or tornado are dis- tributed among a large group of people insured against these contingencies. The majority of wage earners do not earn enough to provide adequate in- surance for themselves, and many of them do not have the foresight, even if they had the means, to insure themselves on their own initiative. [69] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS For all these reasons, so-called social insurance is the only means hitherto discovered of adequately protecting the wage-earner against the evils under consideration ; and by far the best means, from the standpoint of the general public, of dealing with the distress caused by these evils. Moreover, so- cial insurance provisions can be so administered as to lessen the extent of the evils (excepting old age) against which insurance is made, and it is far bet- ter, of course, to prevent such evils than to alleviate them. Industrial Accidents. Workmen's compensation systems have now generally displaced, in this coun- try, the old employers' liability laws, and for the reason that these laws were of uncertain benefit to the wage-earner and a source of risk and annoyance to the employer. Illinois has a fairly good work- men's compensation law, but many changes are re- quired therein before all wage-earners in the state who meet with industrial accident can be promptly and adequately compensated therefor. We have space to consider only a few of the more important changes needed. The best compensation laws provide compensa- tion during the whole period of disability or de- pendency caused by accident, in proportion to the degree of disability and the number of people de- pendent on the person killed or disabled. The Illinois law provides a flat compensation of four times the average annual earnings of the em- ploye, in case of death or total incapacity, condi- tioned in the case of death on the dependency of wife, child or other relatives. This compensation [70] LABOR CONDITIONS is paid in periodical installments extending over a period of eight years, providing the dependency or incapacity caused by the accident does not cease earlier. Under certain conditions compensation may be paid in a lump sum. There are minimum and maximum amounts below or above which the total amount of compensation must not go, except that such amounts are increased if more trten one person is dependent on the wage-earner, or de- creased in case the wage-earner had relatives other than wife or child who were but partially dependent on him. Also an employe totally and permanently disabled by industrial accident covered by the law may, after receiving compensation payments amounting to four times his former annual earn- ings, receive an annual pension of eight percent of this amount, or thirty-two percent of his former annual earnings. Improvements Needed. It is obvious that de- pendency caused by industrial accident resulting in death may continue for a longer period than that provided for in our law, and the law should there- fore be so amended as to provide for the full period of dependency so caused. It should also provide compensation greater than fifty percent of the dis- abled workman's earnings (or thirty-two percent after the first eight years), where there is total de- pendency caused by the accident. In the best laws, the disabled workman receives sixty-six and two- thirds percent of former wages during the entire period of disability, and if he is a minor at the time of accident, he receives, after reaching the age of 21, that percentage of the wages of able-bodied men [71] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS in the occupation group to which he belonged. In case death results from the accident, and the wage earner leaves a widow, she receives, under the best laws, thirty-five percent of the amount of his former wages until her death or remarriage, with a lump sum on remarriage equal to two years' com- pensation. If he leaves one child but no widow, the percentage is twenty-five percent unless or until such child is eighteen ; and if there is more than one dependent in his immediate family, there is an in- crease in the percentage of wages paid as compensa- tion, equal to ten percent of former wages for each such additional dependent until a limit of sixty-six and two-thirds percent of former wages is reached. For parents, brothers, sisters, grandchildren and grandparents, who are wholly dependent, the scale of compensation is the same as for dependent chil- dren where the workman left no widow. There are lower rates of compensation where such relatives were only partially dependent on the earnings of a workman meeting with a fatal accident. Compensation for partial disability follows the same general principles. In the standard law, com- pensation for partial disability is for the entire period of disability, while in Illinois compensation is paid for certain specified periods regardless of the length of time for which the disability continues. In both the Illinois and the standard laws the com- pensation for partial disability bears some propor- tion to the loss of earning power caused by the dis- ability, but the correspondence is much closer in the standard law than in the Illinois law r . Scope of Law. Our compensation law in Illinois [72] LABOR CONDITIONS covers only hazardous employments, or only about 55 percent of the wage-earners employed in the state. In this regard we come about midway between states such as New Mexico where the law covers only about 30 per cent of the wage-earning group, and New Jersey, where 99 percent are covered by the law. Sufficient progress has now been made in the development of machinery for insuring the employer against his compensation liability to jus- tify the inclusion of all employments under the com- pensation law. The only exception which should be made is industrial establishments which engage only casual workers. But employments wherein regular as well as casual workers are engaged should be included, as the casual workers can be covered by the payment of small additional pre- miums. One large group of industrial casualties which should be included either under the compensation law or under a separate sickness insurance act is the so-called occupational diseases, such as lead poisoning, caisson disease, etc. The Health Insur- ance Commission in its report two years ago recom- mended that a commission be created to study the problem of occupational diseases in Illinois, and the methods of compensating the losses caused thereby. Many diseases due in the last analysis to industrial conditions will have to be provided for under a sick- ness insurance act, as responsibility for them can rarely be fixed with sufficient definiteness to re- quire particular industrial concerns to compensate therefor. State Accident Fund. Another important im- [73 1 SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS provement in our workmen's compensation system would be the establishment of a state insurance fund under the management of the Industrial Commis- sion. Experience has shown that employers can insure themselves in a' state fund for one-fourth to one-third less than in commercial companies or mu- tual associations. So great are the advantages of a state fund that some states have made them ex- clusive, by requiring all employers to insure therein against their compensation liability. A larger num- ber of states have established competitive state funds, leaving it optional with employers whether they shall insure in such funds or in mutual or commercial companies. Economic Provision for Sickness. Sickness un- provided for has caused many times the amount of misery that industrial accidents have caused, and has imposed a far greater burden on public and pri- vate philanthropy. There would seem, then, to be a more urgent need for economic provision for sick- ness among the wage-earning group than for in- dustrial accidents. We have dealt with the latter problem first probably because accident is more spectacular and unexpected, certainly not because it constitutes a more serious evil. Were all occupational diseases covered in the workman's compensation law, as has been proposed, only a fraction of the serious illnesses from which wage-earners suffer would be provided for. What seems to be needed is a system providing for all illnesses which mean loss of any considerable work- ing time by the wage-earner. The principle of in- surance, or the distribution of risks, is as applicable [74] LABOR CONDITIONS to sickness as to industrial accidents, as the experi- ence of private companies dealing in sickness in- surance clearly demonstrates. But private insur- ance must be supplemented by state insurance, if adequate economic provision for sickness is to be made. Losses From Sickness. The facts established by the Illinois Health Insurance Commission show very clearly the need for such insurance in this state. The commission estimated, on the basis of its investigations, that one-fifth of the wage-earners in this state lose w r ages of a week or more each year on account of sickness; that more than one-fifth of this number lose an average of 7.35 weeks' wages, and that many wage-earners lose much more than this ; that less than twenty-five percent of the wage- earners in the state carry disability insurance ; that only 13.4 percent of the wage-earners who are actually ill receive insurance benefits partially in- demnifying them for the loss due to their illness ; and that, taking the wage-earning group as a w r hole, the disability insurance received covers only six percent of the loss caused by disabling sickness of a week or more in duration. The Health Insurance Commission's Proposals. Despite evidence so eloquent, the commission dis- agreed in its conclusions, the minority favoring a system of state sickness insurance, the majority go- ing on record in opposition to such insurance. In my judgment, however, the minority report is far the abler document, something not unusual in the history of investigating commissions. Let us see if [75] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS that is not the conclusion to which the logic of the situation forces us. The facts show clearly that economic provision for sickness among wage-earners in this state is Avoefully inadequate. This the majority itself was compelled to admit. . Its unfavorable report was based on certain theoretical arguments rather than on the facts brought out by the commission's inves- tigations. Let us see what these arguments are. In the first place, said the majority, neither the employer nor the state is responsible for the wage- earner's illness, and neither should be required, therefore, to contribute to any fund from which sickness benefits are paid, as they w r ould be if an insurance system were established in this state which followed the principles in operation else- where. This argument, I venture to say, misses the point of the question under consideration. The em- ployer and the state contribute to sickness insur- ance funds, not because they are guilty of the wage- earner's sickness and ought to be penalized for it, but because the employer and the state, and only they, have the machinery requisite to a satisfactory administration of sickness insurance provisions. It is expected that the employer will recoup himself for his increased operating expenses due to his con- tribution to the insurance fund, by charging a slight- ly higher price for his products ; for that is what they have done, with the approval of all concerned, where sickness insurance systems are in operation. The state, in its turn, is compensated for its con- tribution to the fund by the greater happiness and [76] LABOR CONDITIONS working efficiency of a large class of its citizens, and by a diminution of its expenditures for the re- lief of destitution due to illness. Need for Sickness Insurance. The majority prophesied that more adequate provision for sick- ness will be made in the future by the wage-earner himself, as sickness insurance is growing in popu- larity, and the insurance companies themselves are urging it upon the wage-earning group. The ex- perience of other countries gives no warrant for such a prophesy, as the movement for compulsory sickness insurance is rapidly growing, and state systems are now in operation in at least ten Euro- pean countries. Moreover, a majority of our wage-earners do not earn enough to permit them to provide adequate sickness insurance for themselves, as at least that proportion of wage-earners in the country at large, and probably also in Illinois, do not receive in- comes large enough to maintain a bare subsistence standard of living, much less to make provision for the "rainy day" when incomes are cut off by sick- ness, accident or unemployment. Besides, there is lack of foresight in many cases, even when there is sufficient means, and this has the same result. Another telling point against the majority re- port needs to be made. Many wage-earners present too high a risk, considered from the actuarial stand- point, for private companies to provide them with insurance ; and yet it is just these wage-earners who need sickness insurance most. For they are more liable to disabling sickness than is the average wage-earner, and they are more apt to belong to [77] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS the lower income-groups which have little or no margin for savings or insurance. All this group could and would be provided for under a state sys- tem of sickness insurance. Moral Considerations. The majority of the com- mission also opined that state sickness insurance would undermine the wage-earner's independence, and make him less self-reliant in providing for him- self. A sufficient reply to this contention would be to point out that the wage-earner in the past, for all his independence, has not been able or willing to make adequate economic provision for sickness, and that so far as we can judge he is not likely to do so in the future. But the best refutation of this claim is to point out that, under state insurance, it is not others who are making provision for the wage- earner, but it is the wage-earner himself, in coop- eration with others who provide him the necessary machinery. Wage-earners will simply be doing something as a group which they are not able to do as individuals. Another contention of the majority report is that a state insurance system would, on account of the large funds involved, be peculiarly susceptible to political control and management. This is an argu- ment which has been advanced against every pro- posed extension of governmental functions, and it is an argument which experience has discredited over and over again. The administration of sick- ness insurance provisions can in all probability be made as independent of partisan politics as can the public schools. For it is not proposed to establish a large central [78] LABOR CONDITIONS fund to cover the sickness liability of all wage- earners in the state, but to create for this purpose mutual local funds which shall be jointly managed by employers and employes under public super- vision. So far as I can see, there would be no par- ticular reason why partison politics should be in- truded into the administration of such funds. Finally, the majority of the commission is not consistent with itself, as it recommends that the county tuberculosis act be so amended as to pro- vide for payments to wage-earners under treatment in the county tuberculosis sanatoria, and it further recommends that occupational diseases be com- pensated for by the employer. These are genuine sickness insurance provisions, although of a special character, and there is no logic in stopping with them and leave other types of illness just as serious in their consequences unprovided for. Specific Provisions of Sickness Insurance Acts. Under the usual provisions of sickness insurance systems, there is compulsory insurance for wage- earners whose incomes are less than a stated amount, and voluntary insurance for wage-earners and others who receive more than this amount ; the cost of the insurance is borne by the employer, the employe and the state, each contributing a propor- tion laid down in the law ; the insurance benefits include a cash payment, generally from 50 to 60 percent of the weekly wage, during the period of disability, with a limit of twenty-six weeks' pay- ment altogether ; medical and hospital care is usual- ly provided as well as special maternity benefits for [79] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS working women and for the wives of insured wage- earners. Disability due to chronic invalidity or to acute illness of prolonged duration is compensated for under special provisions in the sickness insurance act or under a pension or insurance system for old age and invalidity. The institution of such a system in Illinois would do much to allay misery and discontent among the wage-earning classes in the state ; it would give them a more hopeful outlook on the future, and, far from undermining the independence of the wage-earner, it would by increasing his eco- nomic security make him more self-reliant than before. Unemployment Insurance. Although unemploy- ment insurance is of more recent origin than insur- ance against accident and disease, exactly the same considerations apply in the one case as in the others. Wage-earners have not been able in the past to make adequate provision for unemployment, as they have not enough margin for sufficient sav- ings, and private commercial companies do not of course insure for unemployment. England now has a state system of unemployment insurance, and experience with the operation of this system has been quite favorable. Unemployment insurance can be so adminis- tered as to reduce labor turnover, whether due to defective methods of the employer or to irresponsi- bility on the part of the employe. By operating the system in connection with the state employment ex- changes, as is done in England, "soldiering" on the [80] LABOR CONDITIONS part of the employe is reduced to a minimum. The general features of the system are similar to those of the sickness insurance system. The development of this form of insurance in the United States would do much to alleviate the distress experienced during periods of industrial depression such as we are now going through. Other Remedies for Unemployment. Compul- sory insurance alone will not, of course, constitute a complete remedy for the evil of unemployment. Such insurance can be administered, as aforesaid, so as to reduce the labor turnover. This is done by reducing the contributions to the unemployment fund of employers who can show a small labor turn- over, and of employes who have a record of steadi- ness in their jobs. But other measures are needed. Our own ad- mirable system of state employment offices should be developed and extended. Our rehabilitation service for industrial cripples which was recently initiated ought to receive the most generous sup- port. Experts on the problem of unemployment are now pretty generally agreed that the state should so plan its engineering and other enterprises as to take up as much as possible of the slack in em- ployment during periods of industrial depression ; and that it should be specially active during such periods in placing orders for necessary supplies, in order to stimulate the resumption of industrial ac- tivity. All these are proposals worthy of the most serious consideration by the Legislature and by others interested in this problem. And they are [81] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS deserving of special consideration at the present time. Other agencies must assist in the solution of the problem. The Federal Employment Service de- veloped during war time, and allowed to fall into neglect after the armistice, should be reestablished. Employers must do their part by making a more careful study of the market and planning their op- erations so as to offer steady employment the year through. Seasonal industries should be dovetailed together in some way, and employers might well take the lead in a movement to bring this about. With all these measures, including unemploy- ment insurance, put into operation, the amount of unemployment would be greatly reduced, and where there was unemployment it would be provided for. Old Age. More adequate provision for old age is also needed. Approximately 1,250,000 people in the United States who are sixty-five years of age or over are dependent on public or private charity. It has been estimated that one wage earner in eight- een reaches that age in penury. Savings and volun- tary insurance have been found to be as inadequate here as in the case of accident, sickness and unem- ployment. It is only a question of time until the problem will be pressed on our attention so insist- ently that we shall be compelled to do something about it. Alaska and Arizona have already taken up the problem and provided old age pensions, while a certain amount of encouragement and as- sistance are offered to wage-earners to insure them- selves by the states of Wisconsin and Massa- chusetts. Old age pensions are now provided in [82] LABOR CONDITIONS Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, while Germany and some other countries have compulsory systems of insurance for old age. Enforcement of Labor Laws. Illinois has devel- oped an enlightened code of laws for the regulation of labor conditions in factories, workshops and other places of employment, and it has established in the Division of Factory Inspection of the De- partment of Labor an elaborate machinery for the enforcement of these laws. These achievements are to the lasting credit of the state, for they attest an enlightened interest on the part of our legislators and political leaders in the welfare of the wage- earning class. These laws and this administrative machinery could be criticised in certain details, and the needs for improvement therein pointed out. We have already offered suggestions for the amendment of the workmen's compensation law, the child labor law and the women's ten hour law ; and have at- tempted to demonstrate the need for a health in- surance act and for a better economic provision, under the auspices of the state, for unemployment and old age. We could point out needed amend- ments in the health, safety and comfort law, the oc- cupational disease law and in laws regulating spe- cial kinds of employments, such as the structural law, the garment law, etc. The occupational disease law, for example, should be so amended as to bring under the provi- sions of this law factories using certain poisonous and dangerous substances not now specified in the [83] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS law. Moreover, all physicians should be required to report to the Department of Labor diseases which in their opinion are due to the occupations in which their patients are engaged. These and other changes which should be made would enlarge the scope of the law, and make it possible for the state better to protect the health and lives of wage-earners en- gaged in occupations specially hazardous to health. Defective Administrative Machinery. But the adoption of any number of changes such as these, however desirable they may be in themselves, would be of small importance compared with a far-reach- ing improvement which needs to be made in our machinery for the enforcement of labor laws. We have not in the past given as much attention to the enforcement of new laws as we have to their enactment, and the next great step in the improve- ment of labor conditions in this state is to devise better machinery for the enforcement of labor laws. This change is made necessary by the increasing complexity of labor conditions, and by the many important changes in industrial processes which oc- cur during the intervals between legislative sessions. Neither the Legislature nor the general public is qualified on account of this complexity and this constant change, to lay down or recommend de- tailed rules for safeguarding the health and lives of industrial workers. This has made it necessary for factory inspectors to make their own interpretations of the rather gen- eral laws enacted by the Legislature, and so has put a good deal of authority in their hands. Em- ployers are not always willing to accept the in- [84] LABOR CONDITIONS terpretations and orders of these inspectors, and this leads to difficulty and delay in the provision of really reasonable safeguards for workers supposed to be protected by the law. Moreover, the Division of Factory Inspection is often powerless to deal with conditions needing remedy because, owing to the difficulties cited above, the Legislature has enacted no laws to cover them. New Industrial Commission Proposed. This situation has been met in other states by the estab- lishment of industrial commissions with broad powers of investigation and administration similar to powers exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission and by public utilities commissions. The function of these industrial commissions is twofold: 1) It coordinates and supervises the ac- tivities of all bureaus and divisions of the state government that have to do with the regulation of labor conditions and with the relations between employers and employes. 2) It lays down, under the authority of general laws enacted by the Legis- lature, detailed regulations for safeguarding the lives, health and safety of industrial workers. With the enactment of the civil administrative code in 1917 the State of Illinois went far to provide for the first of these functions. With the exception of laws regulating conditions in mines all laws re- lating to labor conditions in this state are adminis- tered by the Department of Labor. Some further changes are needed, however, before we can be said to have the best type of administrative organization for the enforcement of laws pertaining to industrial relationships. I shall indicate only the more im- [85] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS portant changes that seem to be needed. Coordination of Machinery Incomplete. We may perhaps leave it an open question whether laws regulating conditions in the mines of the state should not be administered by the same department as other laws pertaining to industrial conditions. My own opinion is that one department properly organized could administer all our labor laws bet- ter than could two separate departments. The Department of Labor now exercises certain administrative functions relating to all classes of labor in the state, such as the administration of the workmen's compensation law and the arbitration and conciliation acts, and I can see no reason why under a reorganized department, such as I shall propose presently, all labor laws should not be ad- ministered by a single labor department. Indeed, there would be a demonstrable advan- tage in such a unification of our administrative ma- chinery for dealing with industrial conditions, for the same sort of detailed regulations are needed for the safeguarding of workers in the mines as in other employments, and a single industrial com- mission could be made responsible for the formula- tion of such regulations for the mines as for other classes of industrial establishments. Another basic change needed in the organization of the Department of Labor is the substitution of a commission of three or five members for the de- partment director, and delegation to this commis- sion of responsibility for all divisions of the de- partment's activity. Now, although many adminis- trative bureaus and commissions are grouped in the [86] LABOR CONDITIONS Department of Labor which were formerly inde- pendent, it is doubtful if there is a much closer co- ordination and unification of their activities than be- fore. An industrial commission would be given a good deal of discretionary or quasi-legislative power in dealing with all the functions now coming within the Department of Labor, and this would necessarily lead to a close coordination of all these functions. To avoid possible misapprehension, it should be pointed out that the existing Industrial Commission in this state is only a division of the Department of Labor, and is not an industrial commission of the type I have described. The present commission ad- ministers only the workmen's compensation law and the arbitration and conciliation acts whereas we should have a commission responsible for the administration of all our labor laws, including those administered by the present commission. Work of Industrial Commission. The most dis- tinctive feature of the work of an industrial com- mission is its formulation and enforcement of de- tailed regulations for safeguarding the health and safety of industrial workers and for promoting their welfare in other ways. Being a small body, and meeting continuously, it is well qualified, as the Legislature is not, to work out the details of labor legislation and to prescribe new protective meas- ures made necessary by the constant changes in industrial processes. The industrial commission is not, however, a lawmaking body and could not be such under our system of government. It operates under general [87] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS laws enacted by the Legislature, formulating, issu- ing and enforcing detailed rules requisite to the ac- complishment of the purposes which the Legislature had in mind in the enactment of these laws. For example, the Legislature enacts a law that factories and other places of employment shall be reasonably safe, defining the term "safe" to mean "such freedom from danger to the life, health or safety of employes as the nature of the employment will reasonably permit/' The industrial commis- sion then determines on the basis of its own investi- gation what safeguards are necessary in the case of any particular class of industrial establishments to make them safe in this sense. It orders the installa- tion of such safeguards. In considering what safeguards are needed the commission is assisted by sanitary and other ex- perts, is counselled by joint committees of employ- ers and employes concerned in such safeguards, is- sues tentative rules applying to particular classes of industrial establishments, holds public hearings when any one interested may be heard with refer- ence to these rules, and then issues final orders binding on all those coming within the purview of the regulations in question. There is provision for a court review 7 of the commission's orders in case employers consider them unfair. This privilege is so restricted, however, as not to defeat or delay the provision of reasonable safeguards in factories and other industrial establishments. This scheme of administering labor laws has worked out with great satisfaction in Wisconsin, New York and Pennsylvania, and it is only a ques- [88] LABOR CONDITIONS tion of time until other great industrial states, in- cluding Illinois, will adopt the same scheme. It gives both employers and employes a more direct voice in the regulation of labor conditions and as- sures the public that machinery exists for the prompt consideration and remedy of any unsatis- factory conditions that may arise in the course of industrial development. REFERENCES: Commons, John R., and Andrews, John B. The Principles of Labor Legislation, Revised Edi- tion. Harper's, New York, 1920. Report of the Health Insurance Commission of the State of Illinois. Springfield, 1919. U. S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau. Standards of Child Welfare. Washington, 1919. American Labor Legislation Review, published by American Association for Labor Legislation, New York. Pamphlet literature of National Consumers' League, National Child Labor Committee and American Association for Labor Legislation, all of New York City. Annual Reports of State Department of Labor. Springfield. [89] CHAPTER VII. Housing Problems. Every state in the Union has a housing problem, or rather a number of housing problems ; and these problems are particularly serious in states like Illi- nois which have large industrial populations living in houses rented for profit by their owners. The housing problem has been officially recog- nized in this state by the Legislature, which at its 1919 session authorized the appointment of a housing and building commission to inquire into housing conditions in the state and to recommend remedial legislation for conditions found to be unsatisfactory. This commission has prepared and published a tentative draft of a housing bill. As this bill will in all probability serve as a point of departure for legislative consideration of the problems involved, it behooves all who are interested in these problems to familiarize themselves with this bill and to offer whatever constructive criticisms thereof the nature of the housing problem seems to warrant. Aim of Housing Legislation. The aim of hous- ing legislation is to secure or promote the provision of sanitary and comfortable dwelling places for all classes of the population, irrespective of the incomes at their disposal, or the amounts they can afford to pay rent. This has been accomplished or at least attempted in the past, in this country, through the enactment [91] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS and enforcement of laws and ordinances applying to all classes of houses in which people dwell, or to certain specified classes thereof, such as tenement or multiple houses accommodating two or more families. The standards applied to new dwellings of the type covered by these laws and ordinances are usually considerably higher than standards applied to houses existing at the time such laws or ordi- nances go into effect, although good legislation on the subject lays down minimum standards for old houses as well as for houses erected after the legal regulation of housing condition is undertaken. Conditions In Illinois. A number of studies have been made of housing conditions in Chicago and other communities in Illinois, and these have shown, without exception, the existence of condi- tions which constitute a menace to the lives, health and morality of the people subjected to these con- ditions. The survey of housing conditions in Chicago made by the Chicago Health Department in 1917, in connection with its tuberculosis study, showed that a considerable portion of the dwelling houses in the congested sections of that city were unsatis- factory in the matter of lighting, ventilation, plumb- ing and general cleanliness, and that there was a good deal of overcrowding in many parts of the city. Dr. Emery R. Hayhurst in a report to the Health Insurance Commission published in 1919 asserted that the great majority of mining towns presented a housing problem. "The typical mining town," he [92] HOUSING PROBLEMS reported, "consists of rows of dingy houses, all built after one or two patterns, often located on hillsides, with rows of privies located close to wells or drain- ing toward the wells on the next street. Often small ditches of water act as open sewers, and sel- dom is any provision made for the disposal of gar- bage/' The Springfield Survey, which was published in 1918, showed that city to have a housing problem, and my own investigations in Rockford have re- vealed serious housing problems in this city, al- though a beginning has been made here in the regu- lation of housing conditions. Investigation in any industrial center in the State would undoubtedly reveal similar conditions. Even -rural districts are not without their housing problems, oftentimes of a serious nature. Method of Improvement. The only practicable way hitherto discovered of dealing with unsanitary housing conditions has been the enforcement of wise laws laying down certain minimum standards of sanitation beneath which no dwelling place in the community is allowed to fall. A number of states now have such housing laws, including Mich- igan, Minnesota, Iowa and several others, while a larger number of cities have adopted housing ordi- nances in advance of general state legislation on the subject. A few cities in Illinois have adopted such ordinances, some of them embodying fairly high standards of sanitation and convenience for the classes of dwellings covered. The most authoritative set of housing standards for this country is that known as "A Model Hous- [93] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS ing Law," which was drafted by Mr. Lawrence Veiller, director of the National Housing Associa- tion and our leading authority on housing problems. These standards are by no means ideal, in the de- rogatory sense of that term, but are based on an experience in practical housing reform extending over many years. They are embodied in the housing laws of the states mentioned above and in the hous- ing ordinances of a number of cities. They are none too high for any state or city in the country, with the exception of New York City and possibly one or two other large cities. They are, in fact, not as high as communities which do not have exorbi- tant land values should adopt and enforce. These standards are certainly not too high for the state of Illinois, with the possible exception of Chicago. The standards of the Model Law I am going to use as a criterion of the validity of the housing bill proposed by the Illinois Housing and Building Com- mission. It will be possible, on account of limited space, to compare only some of the more important provisions of the bill with the standards of the Model Law. Criticism of Housing Bill. As recommended in the Model Law, the law proposed for Illinois is to be made mandatory on cities, villages and towns having more than a certain specified population 5,000 being the number specified in the housing bill. This feature of the bill is to be commended, as a permissive bill would have a moral effect only, and that is not the primary purpose of serious legislation on any subject. Both the housing bill and the Model Law divides [94] HOUSING PROBLEMS dwellings into three classes : a) Private dwellings, b) two-family dwellings, and c) multiple dwellings. The last named class is subdivided into dwellings which are occupied more or less permanently by several families, including tenement houses, flats, apartment houses, etc. ; and into dwellings which are occupied as a rule transiently, such as hotels, lodging houses, club houses, etc. I shall largely confine my attention to the first subdivision of class c) as presenting the more difficult conditions to deal with and as being fairly typical, in the problems presented, of the other classes of dwellings dis- tinguished. Light and Ventilation. Adequate light and ven- tilation in dwelling houses are secured through pro- visions regulating the height of dwellings, the per- centage of the lot occupied, the dimensions of yards and courts, size and location of windows, floor area and height of rooms, etc. The Model Law specifies a maximum height of dwellings equal to the width of the widest street upon which it abuts ; the housing bill specifies a maximum of one and one-half times that amount. Both the Model Law and the housing bill, however, specify an absolute maximum height for dwellings, of eighty feet. The maximum relative to width of street, to be specified in our law, should conform to the standard in the Model Law. Both the Model Law and the housing bill specify eighty-five percent as the portion of the lot which dwellings on corner lots may occupy, or ninety per- cent when the lot is bounded on three sides by streets or alleys. But the housing bill specifies a [95] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS flat ratio of seventy-five percent of the lot for houses on inside lots, while the Model Law specifies a percentage varying from 40 to 70 percent, de- pending on the depth of the lot. The Model Law embodies the better standard. The specifications for rear yards are rather tech- nical and detailed, but a rough comparison may be made. The housing bill specifies an area for rear yards of eight percent of the lot area, in the case of corner lots, and ten percent in the case of inside lots. The corresponding specifications in the Model Law call for rear yards of approximately ten per- cent of the lot area for dwellings one story high, with five percent additional for each story more than one story, with a slight concession in the case of dwellings on corner lots. The specifications for courts are even more com- plicated, and I shall have to content myself with saying that the Model Law embodies, as in the case of rear yards, the higher standards, except in the case of one and two-story dwellings, where the pro- visions of the housing bill are the more generous. The Model Law specifies a window area for habitable rooms of one-seventh the floor area of such rooms, while the housing bill specifies a win- dow area of only one-tenth the floor area, with the Model Law and the housing bill specifying abso- lute minimums for the window area of any habitable room, of twelve and ten square feet respectively. The Model Law specifies a minimum floor area for habitable rooms of ninety square feet, with the requirement that at least one room in each apart- ment shall contain not less than one hundred and [96] HOUSING PROBLEMS fifty square feet of floor area. The correspond- ing specifications in the housing bill are eighty and one hundred and twenty square feet respectively. The Model Law specifies, in addition, that no hab- itable room shall be less than seven feet wide in any part, but there is no corresponding provision in the housing bill. The provisions relating to air intakes for courts and to the lighting and ventilation of public halls are practically the same in the housing bill as in the Model Law. The provisions relative to the ventilation and lighting of water closet compartments are practi- cally the same in the two cases, both requiring a window or windows having a specified minimum area and opening directly upon a street, alley, yard or court. There is, however, a very serious excep- tion in the housing bill which should be eliminated if this bill is to serve as the basis of a housing law. This permits the substitution of a system of me- chanical ventilation for windows opening to the outer air. Such a concession would undoubtedly be abused, and would go far to invalidate the sec- tions of the law dealing with this matter. At the most, such a concession should apply only to hotels and other public buildings, not to private dwellings. Sanitation. Both the housing bill and the Model Law prohibit the occupancy of cellar rooms for liv- ing purposes, and they both impose about the same restrictions and regulations on basements occupied as dwellings. They also agree quite closely as to their requirements relative to water closet facilities for old and new dwellings. [97] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS The housing bill, however, while requiring new multiple dwellings to be connected with the public water supply, where there is such, permits the erec- tion of such buildings in communities which have no such supply. The Model Law has no such pro- vision, as it is believed that a community which has not advanced to the point where a public water supply has been provided has not reached the stage where multiple dwelling houses should be allowed. Experience has shown that the satisfactory disposal of sewage and waste is virtually impossible in mul- tiple houses if there is no public water system. The Model Law provides that no room in any dwelling shall be so occupied that there shall be less than six hundred cubic feet of air for each person over twelve years of age or less than four hundred cubic feet for persons under twelve. The corresponding figures in the housing bill are four hundred and two hundred cubic feet respectively. Other Provisions. The provisions in the housing bill relative to fire protection seem adequate, with one serious exception. Multiple dwellings three stories in height or less may be of wooden construc- tion, under these provisions, whereas wooden tene- ments (multiple dwellings) are not allowed under the Model Law. There is another difference of lesser importance. By the Model Law all new multiple dwellings more than three stories in height must be of fireproof construction, while under the housing bill only houses more than five stories in height must be of fireproof construction. However, multiple houses four and five stories in height [98] HOUSING PROBLEMS must, under the provisions of the housing bill, be of slow burning or fireproof construction. The enforcement provisions of the housing bill are on the whole quite adequate. One serious ex- ception may be noted. Building and health depart- ments are required to inspect annually multiple dwellings over three stories in height, and are given authority to inspect all other dwellings. Annual inspections should be required for all multiple and two-family dwellings without exception, since just as serious conditions may arise in multiple dwell- ings three stories in height or less, and in two-fam- ily dwellings, as in multiple dwellings more than three stories in height. Moreover, inspections of multiple dwellings should be permitted as often as may be thought necessary. Problem of Chicago. I am not prepared to say whether a housing measure based on the Model Law should apply to Chicago as well as to other cities in the state. Many students of the Chicago situation think that it should, but certain real estate interests in that city are opposed to the enactment of such a law, if it is to apply to them, and since these interests are admittedly very powerful it might facilitate the passage of a bill based on the Model Law if Chicago were exempted from its pro- visions. There can be no question that the standards em- bodied in the Model Law are none too high for other communities in the state, and some adjust- ment should be made whereby these communities will have the benefit of a measure based on the Model Law. Perhaps a special housing law should [99] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS be enacted for Chicago, and another general law enacted, approximating the standards of the Model Law, to apply to the rest of the state. That I prefer to leave an open question. Constructive Housing. The enactment and en- forcement of laws such as we have been considering will not solve all our housing problems. There is now an acute housing shortage in most cities in this country, and it is somewliai doubtful whether pri- vate enterprise will be able to make good this de- ficiency. Housing laws necessarily make building more expensive, and it becomes difficult, if not im- practicable, for builders and real estate operators to supply standard housing to unskilled wage-earners and others with very low incomes at rentals they can afford. This is not in any sense an excuse for fail- ure to enact housing laws such as we have dis- cussed, but it may make necessary the adoption of special measures designed to supply the deficiency created by this and other factors. Other countries have had to deal with this pro- blem already, and various methods have been tried in efforts to provide a solution. The most satisfac- tory method seems to be for the government to establish a reasonably large fund from which loans are made, under proper guarantees and at low in- terest rates, to municipalities, limited-dividend companies, responsible civic organizations and individual wage-earners wishing to erect houses of approved standards for sale or purchase on easy terms, or for renting at rates within the reach of the lower income groups. Many students of the housing situation in this [100] HOUSING PROBLEMS country believe that the federal government should establish such a fund to be loaned to the several states (in proportion to funds supplied by them- selves), and through the states to local govern- mental bodies, which, in turn, would either engage in the business of supplying cheap housing at cost, or would make loans to non-commercial companies or associations which would undertake to do the same thing; and to wage-earners desiring to pos- sess their own homes. There is no reason, how- ever, why a state like Illinois should not take the initiative in this matter, and supply loans to local communities suffering from a housing shortage and willing to undertake the responsibility for supply- ing it. REFERENCES : Veiller, La\vrence. A Model Housing Law, Revised Edition. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1920. Wood, Edith Elmer. The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner. Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. Report of the Health Insurance Commission of the State of Illinois. Springfield, 1919. The Springfield Survey, vol. I. Russell Sage Foun- dation, New York, 1918. Tentative Draft of Proposed Housing Bill. Illinois Housing and Building Commission, Chicago, 1920. [101] CHAPTER VIII. Local Government. Many of the social and industrial problems con- fronting the State of Illinois are complicated by an outworn system of local government. In consider- ing these problems we have suggested changes in local government deemed requisite to their solu- tion. In the present chapter we shall review these suggestions and touch upon certain governmental problems not hitherto considered by us. Extreme Decentralization in State Government. We have shown again and again that local govern- ments as at present constituted in Illinois are not fitted to deal with the complex social problems now demanding attention from the people of the state. We saw that the rural schools in the state have not progressed as rapidly as they should have be- cause the unit of school administration is the school district, an administrative area which is altogether too small for school purposes. For a similar reason machinery for the preven- tion of preventable disease and the conservation of physical vitality is practically non-existent in the rural sections of the state. Housing conditions are in many cities of the state very unsatisfactory, because the regulation of housing enterprise has been left to the local com- munity without guidance from the state itself. Mothers' pensions are generally inadequate in [103] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS amount and often poorly administered, whereas with a certain amount of supervision and standard- ization from state 'agencies a generous and enlight- ened provision would have been made for the pen- sioned mother. Juvenile probation and other phases of child-helping work are likewise suffering for the lack of state cooperation and oversight. The majority of our county jails are unsanitary and generally unsatisfactory, while a not inconsid- erable number have been adjudged unfit for human habitation. Local officials have shown that they cannot be depended on to provide decent and sani- tary jail facilities for petty offenders and accused persons awaiting trial. Adult probation has not been developed as it should have been, owing to the same lack of any general state supervision over probation officers. On the other hand, just those problems are be- ing fairly well dealt with for which the state has made itself directly responsible. I refer particular- ly to problems involved in the development of an enlightened system of dealing with serious offend- ers against the law, to the problems presented by our large feebleminded population, and to prob- lems incident to labor conditions and industrial re- lationships. I do not at all mean to imply that there are not serious problems in all these fields which have not been dealt with adequately. Our own discussion has emphasized many such problems, But more progress has been made in dealing with these groups of problems, and there is a prospect of greater progress in dealing with them in the future, [104] LOCAL GOVERNMENT than in the case of problems which are dealt with primarily by the local community. Defective Organization of Local Government. Not only is there too much decentralization in gov- ernmental activities in Illinois, but local govern- ment itself is not well organized. I refer particu- larly to the existence of a number of independent governmental bodies in the same community, func- tioning without much reference to one another. We may have in the same territory a county govern- ment, a township government, a city or village gov- ernment, a school district, a high school district, a park district, a sanitary district and a library dis- trict, not to mention courts and road districts. Efficient local government cannot be expected under such conditions, because there is no satis- factory way of coordinating the activities of these independent governmental bodies, and because of- fices are needlessly multiplied, making it difficult for the voter intelligently to select so great a num- ber of officials and to scrutinize their work. A closely related evil is the existence of a num- ber of independent taxing authorities, each of w r hich may cause taxes to be assessed up to a certain speci- fied maximum rate, irrespective of the fiscal needs of other governmental bodies. It often happens that more money is needed for a particular purpose than the maximum rate specified will yield, while the maximum rate allowed for other purposes would yield more than is needed. Again, there are specified maximum rates for particular functions under the same jurisdiction, as, for example, rates for sewerage facilities, water [105] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS fund, lighting, etc., which city or village authorities may cause to be assessed. One gets the impression from a survey of ex- isting conditions, of a jealous and suspicious legis- lative authority fearful of giving power to the local community, and, in order to keep local communi- ties from doing too much harm, setting up a great number of independent governmental units and specifying in detail the things they may and may not undertake to do. But strangely enough, after this has been done, these local governmental bodies are left practically to their own devices, with little or no help and guidance from the state itself. The Legislature breaks up local government into small fragments, so to speak, and makes but little effort to put them together again. Program of Reform. Probably no program for correcting this state of affairs would meet with general acceptance, at least for a long time to come. But I am going to suggest some general principles which it seems to me should be followed in the adjustment of relationships between state and local government. First, there should be a more organic relation- ship between the state government and local gov- ernmental institutions. And, in my judgment, this relationship should be administrative as well as legislative in character. Let me illustrate what I mean. We saw that if adequate machinery for the pre- vention of preventable disease is to be set up and to function satisfactorily throughout the state, [106] LOCAL GOVERNMENT some central authority must be given the responsi- bility for establishing this machinery. Local com- munities have had enough legislative authority to do this for themselves, had that been all that was necessary, but, excepting in the larger cities, they have done very little to develop the machinery needed. The problem is primarily an administrative problem, and must be dealt with as such. It is for this reason that we have advocated making the State Department of Public Health responsible for the development of public health machinery throughout the state. This does not mean, as we pointed out, that the local community would be de- prived of all initiative and relieved of all financial responsibility in public health matters. A similar analysis was made of the educational problem. We concluded that the unit of local school administration should be the county instead of the school district, and that the State Superin- tendent of Public Instruction should be given a good deal of authority to develop and standardize the public schools of the state, especially in the rural districts. We arrived at similar conclusions regarding the regulation of housing conditions, the care of dependent children, and the maintenance of local jails. In a word, there must be more authority given to state administrative agencies in all these fields, although every effort should be made to develop and utilize local interest and initiative in the treat- ment of the problems under consideration. The second general principle to be followed in the improvement of local government in Illinois is [107] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS that of unification. We should abolish the many independent governmental bodies functioning in the same territory, and substitute for them a gen- eral government exercising the same powers, but subject to that administrative control or oversight from state agencies of which we have spoken. Unit of Local Government. I believe that the county should be made the unit of local govern- ment under such a scheme, because the township is scarcely large enough in rural sections, with their comparatively small populations, to make possible the needed specialization in public health work, child helping activities, school administration and the like. There would be no objection to the re- tention of township organization, however, pro- vided it was made subsidiary to county organiza- tion. City and village governments would, of course, not be superseded by county governments of the type indicated ; and they should probably be less subject to control by the state than the county gov- ernments would be. Provision should be made, however, for cities and villages which wished to do so, to merge school, park and library districts with the general munici- pal government. With the growth of the city planning movement it is highly desirable that the schools and parks should be organically related, on the administrative side, with other community in- terests. There should, of course, be adequate safe- guards against the injection of partisan politics in the administration of our school and park systems. The scheme here outlined does not imply that [108] LOCAL GOVERNMENT the influence exerted by the state government in local community interests would be equally great in all directions. In many cases the state govern- ment would exercise little if any more control than it does at the present time. That would be true, I should say, of park and playground matters, and of other groups of activi- ties in w r hich local communities display sufficient energy and initiative to assure efficient service. In other cases for example, in the development of public health machinery, the state government should have a good deal more authority than it has enjoyed in the past. These are only examples. The general method of determining the relationship between the state and the local community would be to leave to the local community as much initiative and authority, in particular fields, as experience had shown to be feasible, and, on the other hand, to delegate to the state itself greater authority in regard to those mat- ters which the local community had shown itself poorly fitted to deal with. As I have already intimated, with this unifica- tion of local governmental institutions should go a pooling of taxing and borrowing powers, so that local authorities themselves would determine the distribution of revenue among the various activities for which they were responsible, subject to such ad- [109] SOCIAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS ministrative control by the state as might be pro- vided for under the new order of things. REFERENCES : Childs, Mary Louis. Actual Government in Illinois. Century Company, New York, 1914. Report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee, State of Illinois. 1915. [110] M190991 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY