iHUiiifrtfi tr!t,L•;;;;,; -[iJOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL congenial that he withdrew from business and retired to a farm at West Roxbm-y, content, within the hmitations of the moderate income then at his command, to devote his days to the care of his wife and children, and the pm-suit of his favorite studies, especially such as related to social questions. For this purpose, the choice of West Roxbury as his residence was wisely made, as the socialistic community of Brook Farm had recently been established there, and his inquiries were stimulated by the intellectual companionship of the brilliant group of colonists who there followed the precepts of Fourier, among whom was George William Curtis, — afterwards to become his son-in-law. In later Hfe, by inheritance from his father, Mr. Shaw be- came possessed of a comfortable fortune, which he received and administered with an earnest feehng of stewardship. Voluntarily avoiding the ownership of a greater estate which once seemed within his grasp, to the end of his life he gave his thoughts and means to the spiritual and physical welfare of his fellow-men, and to those especially whose poverty, ignorance, or servitude seemed to him the result of unfair conditions or oppressive laws. The hope held out in Henry George's '' Progress and Poverty,'' that a way might yet be found to restore to their rights the disinherited of civilization, brought comfort to his declining years. The loss of his only son during the civil war he bore with an external Spartan calm, and few realized the depth of his grief. Long after Mr. Shaw's death, Joseph H. Choate ^ paid 1 At the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Meeting, United Charities Building, November 13, 1905. EARLY YEARS 3 this tribute to his memory: ''He was a man among ten thousand. Born to wealth, he treated his wealth very largely as a trust for the use and benefit of suffering man- kind. To every good cause he lent his sympathy, his advocacy, and his material support, — and yet he always exercised a wise and sound discretion." Endowed by nature with many similar gifts, Mr. Shaw and his son-in- law were inspired by the same motives, and united in an intimacy which led Mr. Curtis thus to eulogize him: ''The strength, simpUcity, and sweetness of his nature, the lofty sense of justice, the tranquil and complete devotion to duty, the large and hmnan sympathy, not lost in vain philanthropic feeling, the sound and steady judgment, the noble independence of thought, the perfect courage of conviction, the unity of sympathy with understanding, . . . and a character without a flaw, seemed to belong to what we call the ideal man." The qualities exhibited b}^ her father and thus eloquently described descended to his daughter, and his influence upon her life and its results cannot be overestimated. Josephine's mother, Sarah Blake Sturgis, one of the twelve children of Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, a Boston merchant, in her twentieth year married her cousin, Francis George Shaw, their mothers being half sisters, daughters of Samuel Parkman, one of the leading men of Boston. Her ancestors were people of strong, original, and upright character, and so from girlhood she was con- trolled by established principles and an exalted sense of duty. Yet, notwithstanding her unbending strength, the dominating impression received from companionship with 4 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Mrs. Shaw was that of a woman with whose good breed- ing were blended sympathy, cultivation, and charm. To these admirable qualities, she added the graces of generosity and humor; her deeds of kindness were con- stant, while abounding humor sweetened and softened all she did. Whatever things were best in art, hterature, or music instantly appealed to her, and were loved from the time she first saw or heard them ; and with the aid of a retentive memory, she was able — even towards the close of a life prolonged to her eighty-seventh year — to recite whole pages of Shakespeare and Milton, her favorite poets. As Josephine survived her mother only two years, having always lived with or near her, Mrs. Shaw's constant com- panionship and example must also have proved continually helpful in the formation of her daughter's character and in her later career. The possession by both Mr. and Mrs. Shaw of so many attractive qualities of heart and mind drew within the familiar circle of their friends many interesting and not- able people; among these were Margaret Fuller, Lydia Maria Child, James Russell Lowell and his first wife, the Storys, Mrs. Browning, Francis Parkman, Agassiz, and Beecher. The wartime Massachusetts people of note — Governor and Mrs. Andrew, Charles Sumner, Theodore Winthrop, and others — were household friends. The long list of their acquaintances included such dis- tinguished and different people as Mme. Mohl, Fanny Kemble, Charlotte Cushman, Thoreau, Emerson, Long- fellow, Thackeray, Browning, Charles Kingsley, Wendell Phillips, WilHam Lloyd Garrison, Ole Bull, Theodore EARLY YEARS 5 Thomas, and Henry James, Sr. When a little girl, Mrs. Shaw had known John Adams, and as a young woman, she had met Andrew Jackson in the White House, — "A rough old fellow, wearing carpet slippers," she used to say. When Josephine was three years old, Mr. Shaw brought his family from West Roxbury to Staten Island, New York, where for three years they occupied a rented house near Sailors^ Snug Harbor. ^ This change of resi- dence was occasioned by the failing sight of Mrs. Shaw, and her desire to be near a specialist, Dr. Samuel Elliott, imder whose treatment she entirely recovered. It is interesting now to reflect that but for this physical dis- ability of her mother, Josephine might have lived, and worked, and died, as she was bom, a Massachusetts woman. In 1851, Mr. Shaw took his family abroad, and they remained in Europe for nearly five years. These were years of rapid development for Josephine. She had a marked facility for the acquisition of languages and be- came proficient in Italian, French, and German. She attended school in Paris for several months during their last year abroad. Her uncle, Joseph Coolidge Shaw, from whom Josephine derived her Christian name, was a Roman Catholic priest,^ and Josephine and her sister Susannah, during a winter spent in Rome, were allowed to attend a convent school at which they were the only 1 Sailors' Snug Harbor. A private charitable institution, founded in 1807 under the will of Captain Richard Randall for aged and decrepit sailors, at New Brighton, Staten Island. 2 In 1851 he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Frederick, Md., where he died before completing his studies. 6 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Protestants. The affection which Josephine then formed for the nuns remained with her through life, and on sub- sequent visits to Rome as a woman, she returned to the convent to be warmly welcomed by them. In the varied works of philanthropy to which her life was afterward devoted, Mrs. Lowell must have been aided by the spirit of religious toleration, which she thus early acquired. Mr. and Mrs. Shaw had five children, — Anna, who afterward married George William Curtis ; Robert Gould, who was killed at Fort Wagner ; Susannah, later Mrs. Robert Bowne Minturn; Josephine; and Ellen, who married General Francis Channing Barlow. Josephine was always a brilliant child. Her mother, writing of her when she was ten years old, said: '^Effie is the genius of the family. She can cook, cut out things, trim hats and caps, speak French, German, and Italian, and write poetry.'^ Within her own home and to her intimates Josephine was always known by the diminutive name used by her mother in this letter. In 1855, Mr. Shaw brought his family home, and after a summer spent at Newport, they settled in a house which he built on Bard Avenue near West New Brighton, Staten Island. The marriage, on Thanksgiving Day, 1856, of Josephine's sister Anna to George William Curtis, was an event which exercised a marked influence on her future life, for Mr. Curtis became for many years a member of the household, and she had the inestimable advantage of close companionship with that scholarly and patriotic man dm*ing some of her most impressionable years. To her Mr. Curtis's library was always open, even though EARLY YEARS 7 he might be there reading or working. And this was true also in later years when he moved into a house of his own near by. While hving on Staten Island, Josephine went to Miss Gibson's school in New York. In her seventeenth year she went to school in Boston, and the winter of her eighteenth year was also spent in that city. As a young girl, Josephine was pretty and charming and fond of general society. This was before the days of golf and tennis, but she had her horse and rode well. Croquet was the only lawn game, and she played it with skill. The earliest recorded indication of the life of de- votion to others, which was afterwards to be Mrs. LowelFs, was given when she was thirteen years old. Near her father's home on Staten Island was a settlement of poor Irish families. She became interested in them and used to have the mothers and children come to spend the after- noon on her father's lawn, where she would give them ice- cream and cake — a custom which she continued for many years. The fifties were years of preparation for the great struggle for the preservation of the Union. The Shaws were abolitionists, and the atmosphere of their home was so intensely patriotic that their children naturally grew up with a sense of responsibility for public affairs and the desire to serve their country. Before the war broke out in 1861, Robert Gould Shaw had enhsted in the famous Seventh Regiment of the New York National Guard. When President Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand men, the Seventh volunteered, and on the 19th of April, 1861, Shaw marched off in its ranks and reached Baltimore 8 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL soon after the Sixth Massachusetts had passed through that city on its way to the defence of the national capitaL These two regiments were the first to arrive in Wash- ington. Shaw's Harvard biographer thus describes his personal appearance at that time: ^^A pale, thoughtful- looking young man, with a manner so quiet as to seem almost lazy, — such was Robert Gould Shaw to a casual observer, but his well-defined nose, firm, clear-cut mouth, and the steadfast glance of the peculiarly colored light gray eye, together with his alert, quick, decided step as he moved, showed that beneath his quiet exterior lay all the qualities that belong to a man of more than common character.'' Thirty-five years later, the New York Sev- enth went to Boston to take part in the dedicatory cere- monies of the Shaw Monument on Boston Common. After her brother had left for the war, Josephine, then in her eighteenth year, joined the Woman's Central As- sociation of Relief for the Army and Navy of the United States. In this, the earliest organized charitable work of her life, she was associated, among others, with Miss Ellen Collins, of New York City, her friend and co-worker in many benevolent movements ; also, with Miss Gertrude Stevens, afterwards Mrs. W^illiam B. Rice, Mrs. Lowell's friend and colleague in the State Charities Aid Associa- tion and other philanthropic enterprises. Of their early patriotic work, Mrs. Rice gives the following account : '^We worked together, from morning until night, in the office of the Woman's Central Relief Association. This was a branch of the Sanitary Commission covering several states and having its headquarters in New York \ EARLY YEARS 9 City. This branch had over nineteen hundred contribut- ing societies scattered over the states of New York, New- Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. '^ We girls unpacked and repacked the boxes of clothing, special goods, &c., sent for the soldiers, wrote letters, and made ourselves generally useful. Mrs. Lowell was greatly interested in the work, which we used to refer to familiarly as the 'San. Com.^ She was so young, — I think it must have been her first public work, and she gave it up only a few days before she was married. I found a little note from her among some old papers a few years ago, asking if I could take her day at the office that week as she could not come, and neither could her sister. That was the day of her marriage to Colonel Lowell, October 31, 1863.^' CHAPTER II A Young Girl^s Wartime Diary In the eventful days immediately after the battle of Bull Run, Josephine Shaw, then a young girl of seventeen, began a diary, the only personal record she left behind of her daily life. The four little old-fashioned copy- books in cardboard and paper covers, containing nearly three hundred pages of pencil entries, including the period from July 23, 1861, to November 9, 1862, are full of interest, for in them are set down not only the feelings and opinions of the sensitive and intelligent writer, at that time of national crisis, but also those of the patriotic and cultivated New England family to which she belonged. July 23d, 1861. Yesterday was the saddest day this country has ever experienced. In the morning the papers said that we had gained a great victory at Bull's Run, taken three batteries and were pushing on to Manassas Junction. We found afterwards that these accounts were exaggerated, and that the action at Bull's Run was merely the beginning of a battle, which appeared to be favorable to the Federal forces. About half past three, Anna and Mother had gone to drive and I was sitting in Mother's room, when Nellie came up crying, and said, **Our whole army has been cut to pieces and entirely routed." ''Which army?" I asked. I immediately thought that we had been driven from Virginia and the three divisions of our army completely destroyed. I went down to ask Anna, but she could tell nothing excepting 10 A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 11 that our men had run from the enemy and lost everything. In a few moments Father, George and Mother (who had met them and walked back with them) came in and we all sat on the piazza in a most unhappy state of mind. The report was that a panic had taken possession of our army as they were attacking the batteries at Manassas Junction and they had all run, with no regard to anything else but saving their own lives. Our loss was said to be about three thousand and that of the enemy very severe also. Father had brought down a letter from Rob, saying they (Patter- son's Column) were about to march somewhere from Charlestown, but we have heard this morning that Pat- terson was expected to make a junction with McDowell and would have saved the day had he done so. As we sat all together on the piazza feeling very miserable, George didn't enliven us much by saying, ''The next thing they will do will be to march on Washington, take possession of it, and then Jeff Davis will issue his con- ditions from the Capitol and offer us peace.'' After talk- ing it over we all felt better and prepared to hear that it wasn't quite so bad as the reports said. In the evening Mr. Appleton (a neighbor) came in to George's and told us that Patterson's forces were supposed to be engaged at Manassas. We didn't tell Mother, although we all knew it, for it would have caused her useless anxiety. Lou Schuyler (who is staying here with her sister) heard of the report on the boat but didn't speak of it. In the evening Sam Curtis and I went to Mrs. Oakey's and Mr. Oakey demonstrated in a very scientific manner that this couldn't possibly be true. In spite of his cheering remarks, we all felt very badly and merely hoped we might hear better news in the morning. Our hopes proved true, although even today the news is so humiHating that we feel as if we couldn't trust our own 12 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL men again. They ran with no one pursuing ! The enemy didn't even know such a direful rout had occurred. In their reports they say only that they have gained the battle, but with fearful loss on both sides. It was evi- dently the battle on which everything depended for them. Their four best generals, Beauregard, Johnston, Davis and Lee, were there with ninety thousand men, while our force was only twenty-five thousand. I can conceive what must be the feelings of the men under Patterson ; they might have turned the fortune of the battle and were doing nothing ! Poor fellows ! Our men ran as far as Fairfax Court House and the Rebels took possession of the territory as we left it. McClellan is called from Western Virginia and we shall have to retake by slow degrees what we have lost in one day. This morning our loss was said to be only five hundred, but what are we to believe ? This afternoon all the most humiliating circumstances of our defeat proved to be false. Our men behaved with the greatest courage and bravery, charging and carrying the batteries and fighting with as much intrepidity as the most veteran troops could display, until the force of the enemy became overpowering by the junction of Johnston with Beauregard. Then, and not until then, they re- treated in good order. Mr. Russell, of the London Times, is said to have said that nowhere in the Crimean War had he seen men make such splendid charges. This morning I and the Oakeys went down to the sewing meet- ing and worked hard until three o'clock, when we came home and heard the joyful tidings that our men were not cowards. The false reports were from the exaggerated statements of civilians who had witnessed the battle and been very much frightened themselves, and all the agony of yesterday was occasioned by the readiness of newspaper reporters to transmit any stirring news to their employers. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 13 One little incident showed the difference of feeling be- tween today and yesterday. A few days ago Mother bought Frank a uniform and George had promised to buy him a knapsack yesterday, but when he came down from town he said to Frank: ^'My dear little boy, you must forgive me this time for when I got to New York, I heard such terrible news that I had no heart to buy your knap- sack/' This afternoon Frank came over in great glee, with knapsack and fez. I know a great many men in the army who are : My brother, and first cousin, H. S. Russell, in Gordon's Regi- ment (2d Mass. Vol.), Capt. Curtis, Lieut. Motley, Lieut. Morse, Capt. Tucker, Lieut. Bangs, Lieut. Robson in the same Regiment ; Joe and Ned Curtis, the former belonging to the Ninth Regiment, N. Y., the latter, a surgeon in the Georgetown Hospital. My cousin, Harry Sturgis, in Raymond Lee's Mass. Regiment. My uncle, WilHam Greene, Colonel of the 14th Mass.; Dr. Elliott and his three sons of the Highland Regiment; Capt. Lowell of the U. S. A., and Theodore Winthrop, who died for his country at Great Bethel, June 10th, 1861. Also, Rufus Delafield, a surgeon U. S. A. Twenty brave men, — nineteen living and one dead. — O. Wendell Holmes, Caspar Crowninshield. August 2d, 1861. Today I went up to the Cooper Union instead of Susie, as she was not quite well and could not go. Lou Schuyler and Miss Collins were there and I copied lists of donations for the papers, while they unpacked, arranged and repacked articles for soldiers. August 3d. I stayed at home all day and gave out work to twelve women. Fifteen have been here today. More anecdotes of Bull Run. Arthur Dexter (the husband of one of the Curtis cousins) is captain of a Rhode Island 14 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Company and in marching had hurt his foot very badly ; in fact, so badly that he could not bear a boot, so he went into action with one boot and one slipper and leaning on a cane, which he did not throw away until the charging began. That's the right spirit. Mr. Dana came here this evening and told us of a man who was going down to Manassas to reconnoitre as the men came back. He said they came on pell-mell, well frightened and disordered, by hundreds, with no pretence at command or obedience, so that it was melancholy to see, when suddenly turning a corner they came upon a whole company, marching quietly up, ranks close and eyes to the front, with the Captain marching in front. The sight was really sublime, in the midst of the flight, and he called out ^'What com- pany?" but the only words he heard were, '^ Steady, my men," and the brave fellows passed on without his being able to identify them. Yesterday, someone told me the following: In the battle the Captain of one of the com- panies ran away, the First Lieutenant fell and the Second was wounded, of course leaving the men without officers, when the First Sergeant stepped out of the ranks and say- ing a few words to the men, led them on ! Where we fail is in the commissioned officers. The men are splendid. August 7th. Tomorrow it will be decided whether Dan Oakey can obtain a commission in de Trobriand's Regiment (55th). If he goes, I have promised to knit him a pair of stockings. August 9th. It is just a month since Rob's Regiment left New York, and Uncle WiUiam's went today, bound also for Harper's Ferry. Our last sight of Rob was from the Flora; he was standing on the paddlebox of the Kill Van Kull waving his handkerchief to us, and we saw him until the steamboat rounded the point between Snug Harbor and Factoryville. I pray God that the next A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 15 month may pass as safely for him and Harry. Mother had a letter from Mr. Olmsted, taking rather a gloomy view of the state of affairs. George, also, is rather de- pressed and everybody generally wants Lincoln to change his Cabinet. I don't see the use of being depressed; if Washington had been depressed, our country would never have been born. The true spirit is, ''If new difficulties arise, we must put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigencies of the times." And we should feel as our dear old Uncle Sam ^ writes in a letter to his father : '' I have so much faith in the justice of our cause, and am so sure that Providence, in its own good time will succeed and bless it, that were twelve of the States over- run by our cruel invaders, I should know that the remain- ing one would not only save herself, but also work out the redemption of the others." Bravo, Uncle Sam ! That's the spirit of the Revolution and the spirit we need now. For my own part, I believe (to put it rather strongly) that if we had no soldiers and all the officers were drunkards, the Cause, by its own force of right, would run without help from anybody. No matter if everything isn't going on just right, ''Our cause can't fail," because it's God's cause as well as ours. August 15th. Spent the whole day cutting out shirts at home. This evening we hear (through the Rebels) that Lyon has been killed and our forces defeated in consequence of our attempting to stand the attack of 21,000 men with 5,000. Bull Run over again. As the news comes from the Secessionists, it is, of course, exaggerated and we may hope that it is only a check, if it be a reverse at all. The public mind appears to be in a very desponding state ; all the news from every- * Major Samuel Shaw, who was on General Knox's staff in the Revolution and first United States Consul to China. 16 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL where is uncomforting, our army is said to be in a dreadful condition and every responsible person at Washington, from Lincoln down, is either '^ a knave or a fool,'' as a letter from the Capital to Mr. Gay said today. George wrote a very fine letter to Mrs. Gaskell (24 pages) and read it to us this evening; also some splendid resolutions he has formed for the committee of Richmond County. Eng- land and France are to have a consultation as to the course they shall pursue in regard to us, and Father and George say that if they say we must absolutely make some settle- ment, we shall of course do so, because we cannot possibly fight all the world. Ah, well ! We shall see. These are extraordinary times and splendid to live in. This war will purify the country of some of its extravagance and selfishness, even if we are stopped midway. It can't help doing us good ; it has begun to do us good already. It will make us young ones much more thoughtful and earnest, and so improve the country. I suppose we need something every few years to teach us that riches, luxury and com- fort are not the great end of life, and this will surely teach us that at least. Mother had a nice letter from Rob today. He still enjoys himself, although he does have to sleep on the bare ground in a little tent of boughs and has hard work to do. He says a Connecticut Regiment came there a few days ago, and on their arrival the men dispersed and got drunk, whereupon one of the officers was not ashamed to ask Rob to send a guard of Gordon's men to make them behave, which he did, and since that time they have had chief charge of the Connecticutians, who don't mind their officers in the least. August 17th. Mr. Field and the Curtises took tea here. Mr. Gay^ was to have come but for some reason didn't. These fearful times make us so suspicious ! I 1 Sidney Howard Gay, managing editor, New York Tribune, A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 17 know that we all go to bed tonight fearing that he had bad news and wanted to let us pass a quiet night and not hear it until tomorrow. It seems always as though we were walking over mines, which may at any moment blow up and destroy all we love most. We never knew before how much we loved our country. To think that we suffer and fear all this for her ! The Stars and Stripes will always be infinitely dear to us now after we have sacrificed so much to them, or rather to the right which they represent. What can be the end of all this misery ? Nothing seems to be done by us and every- thing is done by the Rebels. Discontent with the Ad- ministration is growing fast, and if they don't do some- thing, there are many people who will be disgusted with war and ask for peace. '^How long, oh Lord, how long ?" It is true what Mrs. Child ^ says : *'The Lord is tedious, but He's sure.'' We must do something soon. It's im- possible that this inaction should continue much longer. This suspense is horrible. August 19th. Mrs. Tweedy kindly asked Susie, Nellie and me to spend a week or two at Newport and perhaps Nellie and I shall go. I think we should enjoy ourselves for a week. August 24th, On Thursday (22d) Nellie, Howard ^ and I left New York at 12 : 15 and coming by the Shore Line reached Newport at 9 p.m. Yesterday we walked down to the beach in the morning and in the afternoon went to see the Constitution y the ship where the Cadets live. We took a sailboat and when we had gone over the ship, visited the fort. It was a very pleasant trip and with pleasant people. Wherever we go we hear pleasant things of Rob. Yesterday a young Mr. Tuckerman in- ^ Lydia Maria Child, author. 2 WilUam Howard White, a cousin, brought up in the family. 18 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL quired after him, saying: '' Mother will be so pleased to hear something of Rob ; we can't help calling him Rob, — you know everybody does, he's such a general favorite/' And then Minnie Temple says that Gus King (who was in Rob's tent in Washington in April), upon seeing his photo, exclaimed, ''Oh, do you know Rob Thaw? Why he'th the beth fellow I ever thaw !" It is so pleasant to hear such things of the dear fellow. August 26th. There is not much news to be had in Newport, and the minds of the people here are occupied with other things to the exclusion of the war as an all pervading thought. August 31 St. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The Tribune says today that Fremont has declared Missouri to be un- der martial law and granted freedom to all the slaves. I rather think Mother feels well tonight ; I only trust that it's true. Uncle William went on tonight, so Nell and I wait until Tuesday to go with the Wards. This afternoon we went on board the Constitution to a hop and danced with the ''middies." Oh ! if Fremont only has freed the slaves, what a step it will be. Joy ! Joy ! Joy ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! September 1 st, 1 861 . It was only confiscation, but that's better than nothing. September 4th. We left Newport yesterday at 11 o'clock A.M. and arrived here (Naushon) ^ at 6 p.m. Fremont's proclamation is of great importance as a sentence of death is passed among all men found armed against the United States and it frees all the negroes belonging to the Rebels. This morning we had a bath and after dinner took a splendid ride. Our party consisted of Misses Webster, Watson, Ward and Shaw, and Messrs. Grey, Ware and Winter. 1 An island ofiE Martha's Vineyard, where John M. Forbes had his country home. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 19 September 8th. Cousin John ^ read a sermon. Lilly Ward and I swam across Mary's Lake, with the occasional aid of Will Forbes ^ in a boat. Tried shooting at a mark for the first time in my Ufe. Hit the target five times out of six at 100 yards. Took a long walk and ended the day by a row in the harbor. Two boats raced. We beat. September 16th. Yesterday there was a letter from the President to Fremont sa3dng that he wished him to modify his proclamation in regard to slaves and that he expressed his desire publicly at the request of Gen. Fremont, whom he had privately informed of it before. Today those nasty papers say that Fremont will resign. I wish they might all be cut off in the midst of their career and not be allowed to publish a single issue for six months. September 19th. Spent today and yesterday in collecting contributions for our Society, $110.00. Mr. William Winthrop spent the evening here and states it as his opinion that the war is to last three years, while Father and Uncle Jim think that it will be over in three, or at most six, months. May they prove the truer prophets. September 22d. Yesterday it was two months since the Battle of Bull Run and we have had no general action yet. . . . Gen. Fremont's failing appears to be a desire to act independently. It was for that he was court-martialled, and for that that Lincoln blamed him in issuing his proclamation. It is a very natural desire in a true lover of his country to take the way he thinks best to save her, but a subordinate officer should obey the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. 1 John M. Forbes, a Boston merchant doing business with the Bast, and a great helper of the Union cause in Massachusetts. 2 Son of John M. Forbes, and afterward Lieutenant Colonel of the 2d Mass. Cavalry of which Charles Russell Lowell was Colonel. 20 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL September 25th, Gen. Fremont is to be allowed by the Administration to carry out his own plans unmolested and he is going to take the field himself, which is a good move as his reputation is at stake. Mother had a lovely letter from Mrs. Fremont, telling her, among other things, to ''Watch my Chief," and speaking of ''Our General." It is really delightful to see a woman so much in love with her husband. September 26th. Today was the National Fast and Mother and I went over to Brooklyn to hear Mr. Beecher, but behold ! when we reached the Church we found it shut and the sexton said that Mr. Beecher would not preach today, as he had said all he had to say on the state of the country, and didn^t know what to preach about. His daughter Hattie was married last evening. After the disappointment, "ma chere mere" and I betook ourselves to Mr. Chapin's ^ where we heard a splendid sermon. One thing he said particularly pleased me. Speaking of the Nation, he said: "God Almighty doesn't thresh chaff ; it's wheat he takes the trouble with." It was so true and exactly what I had thought myself that the Lord would not give us so much suffering if it were not to purify us in the end. September 29th. Mother and Howard went to hear Mr. Beecher, and talking of Fremont, etc., etc., he told her she must have trust in God. "But I do," she an- swered. "What good does it do you ?" he asked. "You trust in God and worry all the time. It's just as if I should pay my passage through to Albany in the cars and then walk up all the way." October 3d, 1861. Everything goes on as usual. We have no battle yet, although September has passed, the 1 Rev. Edwin Hubbell Chapin, 1814-1880, minister of Universalist Church, Fifth Avenue. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 21 month in which they were to take place. The weakness of the Rebels is shown, I should think, by that one fact and they keep having doleful accounts of the condition of their army. Uncle William Greene says that ''Peace will come upon us like a river.'' Would to God it might. October 17th, Letter to Father from Rob. They have very stormy weather and the tents are not of the most comfortable under such circumstances. Cousin Annie Greenough wrote to Aunt Katie that Dr. Sargeant (2d Mass. Vol. Reg.) has just come up and left Rob with a very bad cough. He advised him to ask for a furlough, but our dear soldier would not, considering, I suppose, that his duty required his presence, and I like it much better that he should realize the responsibility of his position. October 29th. We heard today various things to make us proud of Massachusetts men. A man who saw the fight at Balls Bluff says that whenever one of their number fell, he was instantly brought within the Unes by some of his comrades who rushed out to get him. The men fought all the way to the line and retired in excellent order. Alice Forbes writes to MolUe: ''Wendell Holmes was knocked over, but, jumping up, he waved his sword and was cheer- ing his men on when he received another wound which disabled him. Tell his friends of his gallantry.'' November 2d, 1861. Dear old Scott has resigned ! Touching scene, war-worn veteran, farewell speech, sur- render of command, etc., etc. Mother and Father feel rather badly tonight, for we see in the Post (a truthful paper, the only one we believe) that a messenger was sent out about a week ago with an order for the superseding of Fremont by Hunter. This, added to a violent storm, suggestive of fleets wrecked, makes us rather gloomy, though to speak the truth, I don't see why Lincoln should 22 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL supersede Fremont when he is in the field pursuing Price with great energy. If his command is taken from him, Father prophesies that he will be our next President. Who can tell ? It is a year day after tomorrow since Old Uncle Abe was elected, and he has not made himself despised by the people yet. If he is a little too good- natured, he knows how to hold his tongue, — one of the first and cardinal virtues. November 12th, ... I began knitting mittens last Monday. November Hth, And have already knit four pairs. November 30th. All has been quiet for the last fortnight, but now we hear reports of a bombardment of Pensacola. They come through the Rebels and so we have no reasons for believing them, and great ones for not believing them. We must wait for reliable information. An order has been issued by Cameron to Gen. Sher- man commanding him to use the negroes at Beaufort to pick the cotton and then to ship it to New York to be sold on account of the Government. Free cotton, I rather think, will be as good as slave. Who one short year ago would have imagined that we should have shiploads of cotton picked by paid negroes? December 4th, 1861. The latest, best and most ardently wished for Republican triumph has been achieved. Fer- nando Wood is defeated and George Opdyke is Mayor of New York. Hurrah ! We scarcely hoped for such de- lightful news. A Republican Mayor of New York ! The idea is positively an almost inconceivable one. December 16th. Today is my birthday, — 18 years. Sent today 42 pairs of mittens to Rob. April 3d, 1862. No news today excepting that the House and Senate have both passed Lincoln's bill offering to buy the slaves from the border States. A very great advance. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 23 One anecdote of President Lincoln, on very good au- thority, I must repeat. Mrs. Andrew being introduced, he immediately began : ^' Well, Mrs. Andrew, how do the Governor and Butler get on?" ^'You probably know more about it than I do, Mr. Lincoln," was the reply. ^^Well," answered Abe, ''the more I hear of it the madder I get with both of them," and upon her endeavoring to say a word for her husband, he reassured her in the follow- ing words : ''Oh, you know I never get fighting mad with anybody." Mrs. Andrew told the story to Mr. Gay the day it occurred and Mr. Gay told me, so it came direct. The next anecdote Mr. Gay gives on his own authority, i.e.y the President said it to him. He was speaking of some little charge brought against him by the Tribune, and after saying it was neither just nor fair, he pro- ceeded: "But I don't care what they say of me. I want to straighten this thing out and then I don't care what they do with me. They may hang me." Dear old fellow ! The following I cannot vouch for, although a Unitarian minister told it. It shows Mr. Lincoln's quickness in escaping questions and conversations which wouldn't be agreeable. Bishop Clarke having been to see him on business, thought he would consider it peculiar if he didn't speak of religious matters before leaving, so he began: "Mr. Lincoln, you have a heavy responsibihty. I hope you have strength to bear it." "Oh, yes," interrupted old Abe. "Mrs. Lincoln was just saying this morning that I was growing fatter every day. Why, when I was inaugurated I could meet my fingers and thumb around my ankle, but I noticed today when I was putting on my stockings that I couldn't do it now by an inch." Bishop Clarke left. April 9th, Father goes to Washington tomorrow on behalf of the Contraband Society, to try and persuade 24 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the Government to take the matter in hand. They have so much to do that it will be a difficult matter to get them to do anything. Dr. Hooper ^ goes with him, representing the Boston Society. April 12th, A year ago today the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter. One year of war ! and here we are with 700,000 men under arms, great battles fought and to be fought ! George was counting over this evening, what we had accomplished this year in Freedom's cause, and he named the following five great steps : 1st, The Government of the United States has entered into a treaty with England for the more effectual repression of the slave trade. 2d, This year has witnessed the first capital punishment of a slave trader. 3d, Steps have been taken for facilitating general emancipation. 4th, Slavery is aboHshed in the District of Columbia (a thing which has been petitioned for since Mother was 23 years old and which only the war had power to accom- plish). 5th, Negroes are permitted to carry mail bags. Ten common years might have effected that, not to speak of what makes such things possible, — the great revulsion in pubUc feeling on the questions of freedom and slavery. It is exactly hke a revival — a direct work of God, so wonderful are some of the conversions. April 15th, A year since Lincoln's Proclamation, in which he says that the object of the 75,000 men was to repossess the forts of the United States, and today we hear of the unconditional surrender of Pulaski, one of the strongest, and the defense of Savannah. Yorktown is still untaken and we hear nothing of the Merrimac, except reported bursting of shells, running ashores, etc., etc., none of which are probably true. I heard today 1 R. W. Hooper, a physician of Boston, who took great interest in the war. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 25 of Wendell's promotion to a captaincy. He told me in Boston that he only wanted to be captain for the sake of leading the men in battle, and now he will soon have his wish. Poor Mother is very low spirited and of course must be, for Rob is in continual danger, as his Regi- ment is acting as skirmishers, scouts, etc. She was speaking yesterday of not being able to do anything ''until she had heard." I suppose it is to hear that Rob is shot. April 18th. Father says that they (the Committee) had various interviews with the President and were very much charmed with him. He was much perplexed in regard to the contrabands, and said ''He prayed that if it were possible that cup might pass from them." He seemed favorably impressed with the plan they proposed, but the main object they had in view (to have Mr. Olmsted nominated as Military Governor) had failed, as Mr. Chase had already offered the place to someone else. They succeeded, however, in causing the Administration to take a more active interest in the question. April 21st. Letters today from Rob for Mother and me, dated 11th and 16th instant. He seems rather blue, owing, I suppose, to his doing nothing, and the feeling that at Corinth and Yorktown laurels may be won. We hear today that Banks pushes on and has occupied New Market. I hope for the boys' sake that they may be in action before the war is finished, for they would feel dread- fully to come home without seeing a battle. George read his new lecture this. eve, "The Way of Peace," and it is splendid. May 9th, 1862. Today Mother received a note from Dr. Walser, the physician of the Hospital at Quarantine, saying that 250 wounded and sick are expected to^ morrow and that his provisions were most insufficient. 26 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL so we have been very busy trying to get some new things to help him. The letter came at 5 p.m., and now at 10:30 A.M., we have already got SIOO. to pay sewing women, seven pieces of cotton, 12 made shirts, 22 cut out, slippers, etc. This is doing pretty well, I think. May 16th. Yesterday a letter from Rob for Father, saying he had made up his mind to enter the regular army and asking him to do all in his power to get him a com- mission. I should be very sorry if I didn't know that Rob knows what he's about and wouldn't undertake such a step without thought. He says he thinks the war is to be a long one. May 19th. Rob came home tonight. In the first place, when Father came down this afternoon he brought a letter from Rob, dated Washington, where he said he was with Copeland,^ who was trying to get permission to raise a regiment and wished to make him major. Father upon receipt of this telegraphed asking how long he was to remain in Washington, with the intention of going on to- night in case he stayed long enough. Apparently in an- swer to this came a telegram from Copeland: '^ Lieut. R. G. Shaw's leave of absence extended ten days by order of Major General Banks." We thought then that he had much business on hand and might possibly get home, but otherwise Nellie, Clover ^ and I were going on with Father. We thought of it, that is. After tea as we sat in the parlor, a man came up on to the piazza and we said: ''Who's that?" The door opened and Rob stood there. The confusion was extreme, as may be imagined, but we calmed down shortly. May 20th. Yesterday we had a beautiful and touching proclamation from Lincoln, rendering General Hunter's * Morris Copeland, Quartermaster 2d Mass. Infantry. * Miss Hooper, daughter of Dr. Hooper. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 27 order freeing the slaves of North CaroKna, South Carolina and Georgia null and void. One of the most extraordinary things that has happened for a long time was the calmness with which that order was received. We have certainly advanced twenty years. The confidence in the President was shown by the entire acquiescence in everything he does. We feel that he is earnest and means to do right. A unique man. Rob's attempt to get a conunission is fruit- less. Mr. Sumner told him it is impossible. May 22d. Rob started to go back today at 7 a.m. and now his visit seems almost like a dream. A thing I had been longing for for eight months passed so quickly ! Well, all human affairs are the same, the unhappy mo- ments are long and the happy ones short. That's all bosh, though, for they all seem short to me. Rob is very much dissatisfied with the little prospect of fighting they seem to have and has two plans on hand for leaving the regiment. One to enlist in the regular cavalry, if he can- not get a commission, and the other to try to get a place on Fremont's staff. Mr. Gay has written to him to ask him, and I have little doubt of his saying yes, for Mother's and Father's sakes. May 27th. Rob and HaP both safe. The Boston Transcript says: '' Captain Carey telegraphs for publica- tion the following account of the regiment : Captain Mudge and Lieut. Crowninshield wounded slightly; Major Dwight and Dr. Leland probably prisoners. All the other officers safe." I didn't feel yesterday as if any misfortune had or would take place, so the news didn't create a great revulsion in my feelings, but poor Mother, who had been really waiting to see Lieut. R. G. Shaw killed, was, as everyone would expect, very much affected. May 29th. First letter from Rob since the battle. * Colonel Henry S. Russell. 28 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL '^ Quite a fight '' he calls it. A bullet struck his watch and made a dent in it, else his stomach would have received it. As it was, his thigh was bruised. The papers give an account of very severe fighting, fatiguing and harassing. The Second behaved very well and covered the retreat. Dear fellows ! June 3d, 1862. Rob's watch came today. The blow was exactly on the edge and a quarter of an inch farther out would have been fatal. The hands are lost and it is broken apart. June 6th. Letter from Rob giving a description of a cavalry charge on two of their companies, before he reached Winchester, and then of their march through Winchester. Short but graphic, and Father thinks of having it printed as being interesting. All the account of brave deeds, bayonet charges, calmly receiving the fire of the enemy and withholding their own, and all the stirring accounts of courageous men, make one so long to be with them. I should of all things enjoy a forlorn hope (I think). Well put in, I suppose, but still I really do think so, for I'm not an atom afraid of death and the enthusiasm of the moment would be sublime. An immense body of brave men is grand and I would give anything to be one of them. I cannot express what a sense of admiration and delight fills my soul when I think of the noble fellows advancing, retreating, charging and dying, just how, when and where they are ordered. God bless them ! Mother says she hates to hear me talk so, but I think one loses sight of the wounds and suffering, both of the enemy and one's own force, in thinking of the sub- lime whole, the grand forward movement of thousands of men marching '4nto the jaws of death," calmly and coolly. God bless them ! I say again. I saw today the report of a Lieutenant in the First Massachusetts expelled for A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 29 cowardice in the face of the enemy. Such a thing I can- not understand. I should think a man would be afraid to be a coward in front of his men, all looking to him for example. I should think he'd go and shoot himself. I remember hearing it said that . . . would never have been taken prisoner if he had behaved well. And then, think of a man, with consciousness of such conduct, dar- ing to come home and show his face in Boston ! Bah ! Perhaps he did behave well after all, though. June 10th. This is the anniversary of Theodore Win- throp's death, and we've just got used to missing him. As Mother said today, ''It doesn't seem a year since he died, but it seems as if he had been dead years." Think of his falling with Nellie's and my photographs in his watch ! I can't realize it ; a man who will be known in all history and who is now spoken of as a second Sir Philip Sidney. Jwie 25th, Today New York was in a fever and stocks went down, down, down, because Lincoln and General Pope went up to West Point by special train last night to see General Scott, who it was reported was going back to Washington with them, which also occasioned intense excitement, when, behold ! he went as far as Jersey City and there remained at one of the stations. Lincoln being called upon to make a speech came upon the platform and told the people that if they could only know the object of his visit, they would find it much less important than they supposed, but that he couldn't tell them what it was, because Stanton was very particular about the press, and he didn't know what would happen to him if he should ''blab." July 2d, 1862. McClellan, quoting old Dr. Beecher, might have said to me last night : "Don't return thanks for me ; I'm a good deal hurt," for instead of Richmond 30 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL being in our possession, we are 27 miles from it and our Fourth will be a very sad one. Looking at it from a military view, as I did at first, I still insist it's not so very bad, but Father reminded me of the 50,000 killed on both sides, of the numberless wounded and of their friends tonight, and the thought is indeed dreadful. Oh, the agony of hundreds of thousands in our land at this hour ! God help them, for nothing else can. At first I only thought of the whole result and felt as Father says he does, that it is in Our Father's hands and if it is good for us to suffer we must bear and it matters Httle what the end is. So we grow through it, but oh ! the thought of those poor suffering boys and men, in the hands of the enemy, too, and the cold young faces turned up to the beautiful stars ! It is enough to break our hearts. Every new battle makes one feel how wicked, wicked it is, the desolate homes and empty hearts, created by men's evil deeds. Young boys going out to die for their country wilUngly and joyfully are grateful to the heart and mind, but the men who made it necessary that they should do so are base, and oh, so wicked ! July 4th. Our loss this morning is reported at 15,000 and that of the Rebels at 40,000. Jimmy Lowell was killed,^ and his mother sees it for the first time this morn- ing. I didn't know him before last winter, when he was introduced to me at the Agassiz's and much to my grati- fication asked me to dance. What rendered it pleasanter was that, being lame from his wound, he hadn't danced at all that evening. Poor Mother! I won't say poor Son, for he died for his country and such martyrs are not to be pitied. 11 :30 P.M. Just come home from Col. Howe's (Agent of N. E. Regs.) where, in spite of troublous times, we 1 At the battle of Glendale, Virginia, June 30, 1862. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 31 went to see the fireworks. There was a soldier there spending the night who had been wounded and Col. Howe brought him down because he'd heard him say: ''Oh! How I wish I could be in the country today." I talked to him all the firework time and he told me about his wound, the battle, etc. He was only 17 years old when he enUsted last August in the Third New York Reg. and had been at Edisto Island all winter until the attack on James Island in which he was wounded in the jaw, or rather the front part of the lower jaw. Teeth and all were knocked right out by a bullet passing in behind under the tongue. All his upper front teeth were gone, too, and one would have supposed that he couldn't talk, but he managed very well with his face plastered up. After he was hit he walked by himself half way to the hospital and two drummer boys helped him the rest of the way. When he got there the pieces of bone hanging out were cut off. The fireworks and our brightness seemed so incongruous in his sight and in the thought of thousands suffering tonight. July 8th. Col. Howe told us of one poor boy shot through the head who, in a fit of delirium, imagined him- self a prisoner and all his nurses rebels, and so railed at and abused them, ending with: ''I don't care what you do with me. You may cut me in pieces, you may kill me, but I will hurrah for the Stars and Stripes." Dear Boy I Oh, I wish I were old enough to go on a hospital ship or offer my services as nurse. When I hear of these poor fellows, I feel so dreadfully mean to be dressed up in white muslin and enjoying myself. July 13th. I feel as blue as blue can be tonight. Everybody seems down and altogether it's doleful. Father says he has a presentiment that some great blow is coming and didn't feel quite comfortable this morning 32 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL when I mentioned that it was just a week to Bull Run. Nahant, August 11th, 1862, After that comparatively long time of inaction it begins again, and near home this time. We get the news late here, and we were at the ^'Sanitary" when Eugenia Mifflin told of a battle in the Shenandoah Valley, in which she said Major Savage and Captain Abbott were killed and Sam Quincy taken prisoner. Rob^s safe, as I was sure from the beginning, for being a Staff Officer, any accident would have been reported. There are only two or three officers untouched in the Second, Richard Carey, Dan Oakey and many others being among the wounded. August 12th. This has been a sad day for the three houses that stand on the Nahant shore, with the moon looking so calmly down on them, the moon who knew all Saturday night and yet wouldn't tell. Richard Carey is dead and his poor young wife has been crying bitterly all the afternoon, left with her one little girl to whom she has taught her father's name and kept him always in her mind. She had her trunk packed and was much excited this morning, expecting to go soon to nurse him, when came a telegram to her Father from Col. Andrews, saying: ^^ Captains Carey, Abbott, Williams and Good- win, and Lieut. Perkins were found dead on the field of battle. Send your son on for their bodies." ^ August 29th. After thirteen months' hard fighting, pouring out of blood and money, and all alternations from hope to fear, from fear to hope, here we are back at Bull Run and Manassas Gap again, with the Rebels within twelve miles of Washington. We hear nothing definitely, only contradictory reports of attacks, defeats, retreats, repulses, etc., first on one side and then on the other, ' This fight was at Cedar Mountain. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 33 but on the whole things look black enough for us. Soon we may expect an Emancipation Proclamation. (I hope.) Naushon, September 5ih, 1862. It doesn't seem very- pleasant, after eighteen months of anxiety, loss and sorrow, to be back in the forts around Washington with the Rebel Army besieging us, but such is the case. There have been sundry battles, skirmishes, etc., and that's the result, — we've got into such a custom of masterly retreat, that we don't know how to advance. Of course, all our friends are constantly in danger now, because the army is concentrated in front of Washington, and besides that, things look dark enough, for the Rebels are very energetic. September 8th. The Rebels are in Frederick, James- town and Poolesville. There's no hope of our cutting them off because they never go anywhere without leaving means of retreat, and we are so slow we never catch any- body. September 9th. Nothing looks bright and cousin John who went up yesterday and returned today, said all Boston is as ^^blue as indigo." The enemy has been reinforced and now they say they intend to march on Philadelphia and New York, though I think that's all talk, for how can they get North if we couldn't get South? September 20th. On the 25th of the month a procla- mation is due from Mr. Lincoln and everyone looks for emancipation. If he issues such an edict of course the pro-slavery generals must either resign or fight for freedom with a will, because if slavery is extinct, not to be revived under any circumstances, all their hopes of preserving it are past and they will be tired of shilly-shally when there's no object to be gained by it. Oh, that the Lord would only put it into Lincoln's head to do something strong and decided ! We must ride this time through. 34 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL September 21st. Wilder Dwight ^ died of his wounds the other day in a hospital at Boonesboro. One after the other we hear of our friends faUing off and still our dearest aren^t touched. I wonder why ? Col. Dwight will be a dreadful loss to the Regiment and to his Mother, who adored him, but he himself (as I have just seen in a letter from his mother to Mr. Ward) was ready to go. Know- ing that he is gone and that I shall never see him again, the only day of our acquaintance dwells pleasantly in mind. He introduced himself to me in the coach at Nahant one day this summer and we had a very pleasant talk about the Regiment, the war, etc., and his pride in the former was good to see. After leaving him in the coach, we met again at the Sanitary and he walked home with me, bid- ding me goodbye in these words : ''As, if the worst comes to the worst, this is the last walk I shall ever take with you, goodbye,'^ and then we shook hands and he went gaily off across the fields. In the afternoon he came to Aunt Mary^s ^ and gave us an account of how he managed to get paroled when he was taken prisoner, and was in very good spirits, ''Ridiculously good spirits" he said I thought them. I shall always remember him pleasantly, he was so bright and cheerful and so brave and good an officer. Heaven rest his soul ! I can see him now as he stood saying a few last words in the little parlor at Nahant and, nodding brightly to me, went out on the piazza and so out of my sight forever. Of Bob he seemed very fond and that was enough to open my heart to him, even if he hadn't been so pleasant himself. September 22d, 1862. God bless Abraham Lincoln. He has issued a proclamation emancipating all slaves on the » Wilder Dwight, Major in the 2d Mass. Infantry, mortally wounded at Antietam. * Mary Sturgis, wife of Robert Shaw. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 35 1st of January, 1863, in any State then in rebellion against the Government. Father and George think it's splendid and believe fully in its wisdom and effects, but Mother fears it won't be as well as if he had emancipated on the spot, although of course she rejoices in the step. Howard went for the papers this morning and proclaimed the news aloud as he appeared, thereby upsetting the equilibrium of the family. Old Abe is wise and I guess this will work. October 25th, 1862. Another battle before the month is up. Oh ! we are indeed being crushed and chastened ! It is a great comfort in these days when (in New York at least) the people seem trifling and uncertain, to hear such good, strong confidence expressed as Mr. Henry James ^ said he felt in the people's '^coming to self- consciousness," as he called it. When I asked him if he thought it would take long to make them feel that they were the one and only power, and that they must save their native land, he said : ^'No, perhaps a day might do it. Some manly act on the part of a leader might crys- tallize the men near him." Everything looks dark and imcertain ahead, except the pure faith in God and our- selves. However, it isn't well to be down-hearted in view of the proclamation, — that must work. I was told yesterday by Lou Schuyler that the negroes in Georgia had quietly refused to work, sitting calmly with no idea of insurrection, but simply immovable. In Louisiana (as a lady told Mother who came from there) there is no more slavery, and with such facts before us how can we say nothing has been accomplished? Yesterday at the theatre it didn't sound well when Richeheu^ said: ''Take away the sword," etc., to hear loud applause, but we comforted ourselves with the re- ^ The elder of that name. * Played at that time by Edwin Booth. 36 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL flection that it was New York and only the upper gallery at that. I suppose waiting is wholesome and trust that it is as Mr. James said, that ^^When the people do wake up and know themselves, we shall have blessed happy peace forever.^' We, as a Nation, are learning splendid lessons of heroism and fortitude through it that nothing else could teach. All our young men who take their lives in their hands and go out and battle for the right grow noble and grand in the act, and when they come back (perhaps only half of those who went) I hope they will find that the women have grown with them in the long hours of agony. Mr. James brought Nellie and me today two photographs of Wilkie,^ who had gone off in the 44th as Sergeant, and on the back was somebody's or some- thing's escutcheon with the motto, ^'Vincere vel mori." It seemed a very fitting one for a young soldier going forth in all the ardor of a first campaign. Dear boys ! How noble they are, and yet how can they help being noble? I have longed so to go myself that it seemed unbearable, and Emmie Russell ^ wrote me from Florence that it always made her cry to see soldiers, partly for thinking of our army, and partly for chagrin that she was not a man to go too. We can work though if we can't enlist, and we do. It is very pleasant to see how well the girls and women do work everywhere, sewing meetings, sanitary hospitals and all. Lou Schuyler told me at the Sanitary yesterday that there were 150,000 sick and wounded now in the different hospitals to be cared for ! and I suppose, poor fellows, they are cold and tired and miserable, even after all that's been done for them ! God help us all. October 29th. Rob is home again for tomorrow. That dear General Gordon, feeling that he ought to be at home 1 Wilkie James, brother of Professor William James. 2 Afterwards Mrs. Charles L. Pierson, of Boston. A YOUNG GIRL'S WARTIME DIARY 37 for Sue's wedding, and not being able to get him a fur- lough, sent him to New York on official business. We thought he was on the advance, far away, when suddenly at 2 o'clock he appeared, having come down with Annie Haggerty,^ whom he had gone to see in New York. He looks splendid and seems in good spirits. To have him at home is lovely. We were saying this morning that we were all together but one, and now that one has come. He said tonight, poor boy, that he wished we were done with this fighting and expected to be '^slaughtered before it was over.'' I suppose they must all feel so, seeing so many of their friends and companions dying around them. Tomorrow, Harry and he meet. They've not seen each other since Cedar Mountain. So far the Lord has been very merciful to us, in turning all our sorrows to joy. October 30th, 1862, Well ! Sue's gone and we've had a perfect success in the wedding, with only one thing to mar our enjoyment of the day. This morning three gentle- men appeared and asked Father, for the Governor, to be Provost Marshal of Richmond, Queens and Suffolk Counties, and he refused the offer. Mother, Nellie and I felt dreadfully because we thought of the great good he might do, and of the dreadful rascal who will probably be put in, but he felt he couldn't do it well (of course he'd do it better than anyone else they give it to), and I think, too, that Rob's advice had something to do with it, for he said that it required a military man and that he knew Father couldn't do it. Rob went back this afternoon, not much wanting to, certainly, dear boy. It must be dreadfully hard to go away from this nice, homey house into cold, weariness and fighting. 1 Afterwards Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw. CHAPTER III Marriage The diary ends abruptly as it began. Among the entries for the first day, — July 23, 1861, — is a list of her friends in the army, including the name of " Capt. Lowell of the U. S. A/' It is a remarkable and characteristic fact, that this is the only mention made, in all the papers of Mrs. Lowell which I have examined, of the man whose name she bore for more than forty years. Their acquaint- ance must, when this entry was made, have been only a slight one. In the spring of 1863 when Lowell was organizing the Second Massachusetts Cavalry in Boston, he again met Josephine Shaw, and became engaged to her after he had seen her only nine times. Miss Elizabeth C. Putnam, a friend of Mrs. LowelFs, said : " It was in the spring of 1863 that I first saw Effie Shaw. She was sitting on a packing box at the Camp at Readville, the afternoon sun striking across the feather on her hat, and lighting up her delicate complexion, her fine hair and fair brow. She was staying with Mrs. John Forbes at Milton, and Lowell had asked her to be his wife/' Her love was most worthily bestowed. The necessary limitations of space permit only brief mention of Lowell's family, and the important incidents of his career. Charles 38 »• 3 » » >•> >,>»,>, > > MARRIAGE 39 Russell Lowell, Jr./ was born in Boston, January 2, 1835, the eldest son of Charles Russell Lowell and Anna Cabot Jackson, his wife, and grandson of Rev. Charles Lowell, D.D. The poet, James Russell Lowell, was his uncle. Entering Harvard in 1850, he graduated at the head of the class of '54. During his college years Lowell held a leading position, being especially noted for his inde- pendent intellect and commanding will. Much of his time was devoted to sociological studies, and his com- mencement oration showed deep and intelligent interest in the welfare of the people. He took with him from college the reputation of a thoughtful and brilliant youth of whom much might be expected in the futm-e. Lowell immediately began to earn his own Hving, and the year after his graduation, at the age of twenty, was already in a position of trust and promise, at the rolling- mill of the Trenton Iron Company of New Jersey. While thus employed, the shadow of a grave disease fell upon him. A friend found him in his room bleeding at the lungs, and it became necessary for him to resign his position, stop work, and seek health outdoors in a mild climate. Then followed three years of travel, of which more than two were spent in foreign countries, much of the time on horse- back, so that he became an expert rider. By 1858 he was sufficiently recovered to return to America, but not at first for life on the Atlantic coast. In 1860, feeling * Much of the mformation relating to General Lowell given here was obtained from his biography by Professor James M. Peirce. Harvard Memorial Biographies, Vol. I. " The Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell,'! by Edward W. Emerson, has also been helpful. 40 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL stronger, he took charge of the Mt. Savage Iron Works, Cumberland, Maryland, where the opening of the war found him at the head of a small city of workingmen. When Lowell heard the news of the attack on the Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore, he resigned his position at Cumberland, and went immediately to Washington, being obliged to walk from Baltimore, as the railroad track had been torn up. Arriving thus among the first comers at the capital, April 21, 1861, he made personal application for a commission, both to President Lincoln and General Sherman. He was a man of striking appearance and manner, and having created a favorable impression, was conamissioned Captain of the Third — afterwards Sixth — Regiment of U. S. Cavalry, May 14, 1861, and at once began recruiting and drilling his company in preparation for the field. The Third Cavalry was with the Army of the Potomac in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, as part of Stoneman^s command, and Lowell was nominated for the brevet of Major for distinguished services at WlUiamsburgh and Slatersville. His brother James, wounded at Glendale, June 30, died a prisoner, July 4 of that year. As aide on the staff of General McClellan, Lowell was conspicuous for bravery at Malvern Hill and South Mountain, and also at Antietam, where his horse was shot under him; in this battle a bullet passed through his coat, and another broke his sabre. In recognition of his gallantry General McClellan selected Lowell to carry to President Lincoln at Washington thirty-nine captured colors, the trophies of the campaign — a high honor, and equivalent to a rec- MARRIAGE 41 ommendation for promotion. November of '62 found Lowell in Boston, organizing the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, of which on April 15, 1863, he was appointed Colonel. It was at this time that he again met and be- came engaged to Josephine Shaw, whose brother Robert was his friend. When Lowell's new regiment was ready to take the field, he led it from Boston and was given command of the cavalry of the Department of Washington, with head- quarters at Vienna, Virginia, fifteen miles from the capital, where he was kept busy watching Mosby and preventing his raids. On starting for the front Lowell gave his fianc^ a horse which had been wounded under him at Antietam and from fright was useless in battle, a big Virginia roan named Berold, which she rode during the srnnmer and autrnnn of 1863, and for many years afterwards, the horse living to a great age. Lowell is said to have had thirteen horses shot under him before he himself was killed. The career of young Shaw in the army should be traced as well as that of Lowell. His promotion had been rapid. From the ranks of the New York Seventh he had applied for, and on May 28, 1861, received a conamission as Second Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts and started for the war with that regiment; he was commissioned First Lieutenant July 8, 1861, at the Battle of Cedar Mountain served as an aide on General Gordon's staff, and on August 10, 1862, was promoted Captain. Early in 1863, when the Government decided to form negro regiments. Governor Andrew, by letter, offered Shaw the 42 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL colonelcy of one to be raised in Massachusetts. At this time Shaw was in camp at Stafford Court House, to which place the letter was carried by his father. After some hesitation due to misgivings as to his abihty to fill so im- portant a position, he accepted the commission of Colonel of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which bears date April 17, 1863, and immediately gave all his energy to the organization of his new command, the first regiment of colored troops, from a free state, mustered into the Federal service. On the 2d of May, 1863, he married Anna Kneeland, daughter of Ogden Haggerty, Esq., of New York, and on the 28th of the same month, he left Boston for the seat of war, at the head of his command. Their triumphal march through Boston has often been described. Early in July Shaw wrote from St. Helena Island, South Carolina, to General Strong, expressing a desire to be in his brigade, a wish which was soon after gratified. On July 18, the day of the battle of Fort Wagner, Shaw wrote home from Morris Island : ''We're in General Strong's Brigade. We came up here last night, and were out again all night in a very heavy rain. Fort Wagner is being very heavily bombarded. We are not far from it. We hear nothing but praise of the Fifty-fourth on all hands." After writing this letter, which was his last, Colonel Shaw received orders to report with his regiment at Gen- eral Strong's headquarters, and there he was offered the post of honor, because of greatest danger, the advance, that evening, in the assault on Fort Wagner. Here was the opportunity he had waited for, ''when his men could COL. ROBERT GOULD SHAW, 1863 MARRIAGE 43 fight alongside of white soldiers, and show somebody be- sides their officers, what stuff they were made of." The closing incidents of Colonel Shaw's Hfe were well described in a letter written shortly after the battle by the surgeon of the regiment : '^ General Strong had been impressed with the high character of the regiment and its officers, and he wished to assign them the post where the most severe work was to be done, and the highest honor was to be won. I had been his guest for some days, and know how he regarded them. The march across Folly and Morris Islands, was over a very sandy road, and was very wearisome. When they had come within six hundred yards of Fort Wagner, they formed in Une of battle, the Colonel leading the first, and the Major the second battalion. '^At this point the regiment, together with the next supporting regiments, the Sixth Connecticut, Ninth Maine, and others, remained half an hour. Then at half past seven, the order for the charge was given. The regiment advanced at quick time, changing to double-quick when some distance on. When about one hundred yards from the fort, the Rebel musketry opened with such terrible effect, that for an instant the first battalion hesitated ; but only for an instant, for Colonel Shaw, springing to the front, and waving his sword, shouted 'Forward, Fifty- fourth ! ' and with another cheer and a shout, they rushed through the ditch and gained the parapet on the right. Colonel Shaw was one of the first to scale the walls. He stood erect to urge forward his men, and while shouting for them to press on, was shot dead and fell into the fort. I parted with Colonel Shaw, as he rode forward to join his regiment; as he was leaving, he turned back and gave me his letters and other papers, telling me to 44 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL keep them and forward them to his father if anything occm-red/^ ^^ Bravely he led the men, and fell as a brave and noble soldier should, in the very front, into the fort, and now sleeps there with the brave fellows who were with him in his life, anxious to shield him, to rescue, to avenge.'^ Two days after the assault on Fort Wagner, Colonel Lowell wrote to Miss Shaw : ^'A. has just sent me a report about dear Rob, and it does not seem to me possible that it should be true. We have been talking over the good fellows who have gone before in the war. There is none who has been so widely and dearly loved as he." In another letter he wrote : ^'Everything that comes about Rob, shows his death to have been more and more completely that, which every soldier, and every man must long to die. But it is given to very few, for very few do their duty as Rob did. I am thankful that they buried him with his 'nig- gers,^ for they were brave men and they were his men." The heroic death of Colonel Shaw profoundly stirred the hearts of northern people, and brought many touching proofs of sympathy to his young widow and his father's family; his body was not recovered, and was probably buried where he died ''with his niggers," as his ad- versaries said. The people of his native city, with the aid of Augustus Saint Gaudens's art, have worthily com- memorated his name and fame, and also made record of the officers and men of his command who died with him, in the monument on Boston Common. MARRIAGE 45 Lights and shadows, in swift succession, brought joy and sorrow into the Ufe of Josephine Shaw in the fateful year 1863. The spring and summer had witnessed her only brother's marriage and death ; the autumn saw her union with the man to whom she had given her heart. Although Mrs. Shaw at first preferred that the marriage be post- poned until the close of the war, she was persuaded to change her mind, and in her twentieth year Josephine became the wife of Colonel Lowell at the Unitarian Church on Staten Island, on the 31st of October, 1863, and went to live with her husband, at his headquarters, a little farm-house at Vienna, Virginia. This was a tranquil interval in the war, and so it was possible for the young couple to pass much of the winter of '63-4 together, and Mrs. Lowell devoted many hours to the care of the sick and wounded soldiers, in the military hospitals near by. Emerson, in his life of Lowell, says : '^Chaplain Humphreys wrote home of the kindly and refining influence of Mrs. LowelUs presence in the camp, and of the hospitality that welcomed the officers in turn, at the little home which the colonel and she had estab- lished there. . . . With the foreigners in the hospital I was greatly assisted by the wife of the Commander, who visited the patients verj^ frequently. She delighted the Frenchmen, Italians and Germans by conversing with them in their own languages, that so vividly recalled their early homes. She often assisted in writing letters for the disabled soldiers, and when I sought to give comfort to the dying, her presence soothed the pangs of parting, with a restful consciousness of woman's faithful watching and a mother's tenderness." 46 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL But the brief period of happiness with her husband in the camp at Vienna soon passed, for in July, 1864, orders called Colonel Lowell to more distant and dangerous duty, and his young wife returned to her father^s home. On the 20th of the same month, Colonel Lowell was given command of a new Provisional Brigade, and at Winchester, September 19, when in conamand of a Reserve Brigade by appointment of General Sheridan, he participated in a superb charge. On the 15th of October, the army was surprised at Cedar Creek, in the absence of General Sheri- dan, and, after his historic ride from Winchester, saved by his return. Emerson gives this touching extract from one of LowelFs letters to his wife : ^'I don't want to be shot till IVe had a chance to come home. I have no idea that I shall be hit, but I want so much not to be now that it sometimes frightens me.'' But it was ordered otherwise; Lowell's wish was not to be granted. The following account of his last fight is taken from the Harvard Biographies, and Emerson's ''Life." On the 18th of October, 1864, Colonel Lowell was ordered to make a reconnaisance, and, at the head of the Reserve Brigade, led the Cavalry Corps into action. Of this movement. General William Dwight, commanding the First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, wrote: ''They moved past me, that splendid Cavalry; if they reached the pike I felt secure. Lowell got by me before I could speak, but I looked after him for a long distance. Exquisitely mounted, the picture of a soldier, — erect, confidant, defiant — he moved at the head of the finest Brigade of Cavalry that today scorns the earth MARRIAGE 47 it treads." And so Lowell rode into action. Soon a horse was shot under him. Then at 1 p.m., on October 19, he was wounded by a spent ball in the right breast, the lung collapsed and hemorrhage ensued. For an hour and a half the wounded man lay on the ground, under temporary shelter, until he heard an order to advance, when with assistance he remounted his horse, sitting firm and erect, but the voice was gone, — he could only whisper. In the hail of fire, in which Lowell sat his horse, he re- ceived his second mortal wound; a bullet severed the spine at the neck, paralyzing the body. The wounded officer giving no sign of suffering, and retaining a clear mind, dictated loving messages for his wife and family, and gave orders for his command. Early next morning, October 20, 1864, at Middletown, Virginia, in his thirtieth year, he died. ' ^ We all shed tears, " said Custer, ' ' when we knew we had lost him. It is the greatest loss the Cavalry Corps has ever suffered." Sheridan said of him : '^ I do not think there was a quality which I could have added to Lowell. He was the perfection of a man and a soldier." For a year Colonel Lowell had done the full work of a Brigadier General of Volunteers, and by a sad coinci- dence his commission to this rank, determined on days before, was signed on the 19th of October, 1864, the day on which he received his death wound at Cedar Creek, and too late for him to wear the higher honor he had earned so well. The funeral of General Lowell took place on Friday, October 28, at the College Chapel, Cambridge, and his remains were afterwards interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery, with the appropriate military honors. CHAPTER IV The Worker After the death of General Lowell, his widow, not yet twenty-one years old, lived with her parents on Staten Island. There her daughter, Carlotta Russell, — named for her father, — was born, November 30, 1864. The power to rally from the tragedy which had clouded her life did not come at first. A friend describes her at that time as ^ Agoing about the house with her little girl in her arms, not sad but with a quiet look as if she were living in another world. Time afterward softened the poignancy of her grief, and those nearest to her felt that her life was a happy one." She had a sitting room in her father's house in which she kept near her Lowell's sword and other treasures, and there she used to work. Berold, his favorite horse, was cared for in her father's stable until his death, and she and her little daughter spent part of each year with General Lowell's family in Massachusetts. But grief at her husband's loss was not permitted to paralyze Mrs. Lowell's energies, and she soon began her wonderful work for the alleviation of human misery, which was to last for more than forty years. Shortly after the close of the war, the Freedmen's Association was formed, with which Mr. Shaw was actively identified, and his daughter joined one of its committees having an office in Bible House on lower Fourth Avenue, New York City. Among the objects of this association was 48 »•»,*. >», », » > » » ■, » ,» « > *a THE WORKER 49 the establishment of schools for the colored people in the South, and in furtherance of this work, when she was only twenty-three, Mrs. Lowell and Miss Ellen Colhns went to Virginia in 1866, and visited many schools for colored children in Richmond, Petersburg and other places, stopping as they journeyed, at Httle country homes. There was much active opposition at that time to this kind of educational work, so that the position of the teachers was difficult. Most of them were young women, and lived with white families willing to help the freedmen. The visit of the two young northern women brought needed encouragement to the teachers, and because of it more schools were opened. The friendship between Mrs. Lowell and Miss Collins continued until Mrs. LowelFs death. Miss CoUins, on Mrs. Lowell's nomination, was appointed a '^ Visitor" by the State Board of Charities in 1876, and was annually reappointed for many years. Her visits to the public charities of New York City, and reports of the conditions found in them were thoroughly practical and useful to the Board, and directly contributed to bring about reforms which have made Ufe less hard for the city's poor, sick and unfortunate. In December, 1869, having sold the homestead on Bard Avenue to his son-in-law, Robert B. Minturn, Mr. Shaw removed with his little familj^, then comprising only Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. Lowell and her little girl, to a smaller house near by on the shore of the Kill Van Kull. All of Mrs. Lowell's letters subsequently dated from Staten Island were written at this later home. Mrs. Lowell revisited Europe in 1870 with her daughter, 60 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL a cousin, and a friend, and letters of introduction made them known to many distinguished people. They visited the Kingsleys at Eversley, and also in the Inner Cloisters of Westminster, and were hospitably entertained at the homes of Dean Howson and his wife at Chester, and of Canon Venables at Lincoln. They also made the ac- quaintance of Canon Benson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, of Hughes, and of Carlyle. The sympathies of the latter were with the South in the Civil War, and Mrs. Lowell, who had several interesting conversations with him about the great Rebellion, thought he did not fully appreciate either the quality or the patriotic motives of the young men who had fought in the armies of the North. Wishing to influence his opinion on a subject so sacred to her, Mrs. Lowell afterwards sent him a set of the Harvard Memorial Biographies, containing, among others, sketches of the lives of her husband and her brother, northern men who had laid down their lives for their country. In acknowledgment of this volume she received the following letter: Chelsea, 10 March, 1870. Dear Madam : I received your gentle, kind and beautiful message and in obedience to so touching a command, soft to me as sunlight, or moonlight, but imperative as few could be, I have read those lives you marked for me ; with several of the others ; and intend to read the whole before I finish — many thanks to you for those volumes and that note. It would need a heart much harder than mine not to recognize the high and noble spirit that dwelt in those young men, their heroic readiness, complete devotedness, their patience, diligence, shining valor and virtue in the THE WORKER 6i cause they saw to be the highest, while alas ! any difference I may feel on that latter point, only deepens to me the sorrowful and noble tragedy each of their lives is. You may believe me, Madam, I would strew flowers on their graves along with you, and piously bid them rest in Hope ! It is not doubtful to me that they also have added this mite to what is the eternal cause of God and man ; or that, in circuitous but sure ways, all men. Black and White, will infalHbly get their profit of the same. * With many thanks and regards, dear Madam, I remain, Yrs. sincerely T. Carlyle. The necessities of the war had drawn many women into hospital work, and after it was over, their interest in such work continued, although the military hospitals soon ceased to exist. On the invitation of Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, a number of these New York women, including Mrs. Lowell, met at her house in 1872, and formed the ''Visiting Committee of Bellevue and other Hospitals.^' This started such a stream of well-known women, down East Twenty-sixth Street, to Bellevue, that it was said to be the fashionable promenade of the City of New York, and Mrs. Lowell then began her acquaintance with the public charities of New York City, whose adminis- tration she strove for a generation to improve. It was at this time also that she became interested in the Richmond County Poorhouse on Staten Island. Mrs. Lowell spent the winters at her father's house on Staten Island until 1874 when, as she wished her daughter to attend school in New York, Mr. Shaw bought her the house No. 120 East Thirtieth Street. For many years she used to return to Staten Island for the week ends, and fre- 52 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL quent visits were paid in summer to her husband's sister, Mrs. George Putnam at her home at Ponkapog near Boston. After the death of Mr. Shaw in 1882 her mother rented the house next door, No. 118, and hved there until her death in 1902. The houses were made to connect on the first floor, and there was constant going and coming ; the three women, Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. Lowell, and her daugh- ter were one family. A friend said of them ^^I had never before been with people who talked over the affairs of city and State exactly as they would those of their own family, and on Decoration Day, when the flag hung across the doors of these two houses, one knew what it meant to the women within.'' Governor Tilden's appointment of Mrs. Lowell in 1876, when she was only thirty-two years old, as the first woman commissioner of the New York State Board of Charities, came as a well merited recognition of the public services she had already performed; the circumstances which obtained her this distinction are elsewhere described. Mrs. Lowell accepted the appointment, and her official position afforded opportunities for the prosecution of her work in a wider field. The publication and circulation of her able reports as state papers, not only preserved them in the archives of the Board, but also gained for the writer increased influence and a larger following. Mrs. Lowell was reappointed by Governor Cornell May 25, 1881, for a full term of eight years, at the close of which, in 1889, she retired from the Board, to be free to take up other work, notwithstanding the expressed wish of her colleagues that she accept another term of office. THE WORKER 53 No commissioner of the State Board of Charities ever rendered more faithful and efficient service than did Mrs. Lowell dm-ing the thiiteen years of her membership, and her retirement was regarded by her associates as both a personal and a public loss. Work, effective and continuous, was easy and natural to Mrs. Lowell ; she was endowed with a strong constitu- tion, and all her habits of life were such as to fit her for instant response to any call for service ; she was an early riser, and retired early, and no petty cares were allowed to make demands upon her time. The years of her great- est activity were before the drudgery of correspondence and the preparation of papers had been diminished by the assistance of the private stenographer ; and typewriting machines and manifolding inventions, now in common use, were then little known ; so she early learned to rely entirely upon her own hand, and depended upon it throughout her life. Her handwriting was large, rapid, even, and strong, and the interlineations or erasures in her letters or papers were few. By dint of constant practice, she became a clear and concise writer, and to the habit of logical and orderly statement, she soon added an easy and finished hterary style. In a letter which she wrote to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Shaw, on the last day of 1893, she said: '^I have just counted the record of my letters since January 1, 1893. I find this is the 1899th ! That's rather good for my own hand, isn't it? Or per- haps bad? I only hope that half have been of some use to somebody !" Unfortunately for the success of the task of the biographer Mrs. Lowell retained no copies of 54 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the letters she wrote, and with the exception of the diary, some manuscript papers, and a few letters addressed to her, to which she attached special value, practically nothing helpful in the preparation of this work was found at her house and search for it elsewhere thus became necessary ; she had evidently labored for daily results, entertaining no idea, or refusing to be influenced by any, that her work was of great historical interest and value, and that she was really breaking a path in many fields of philanthropy. The house. No. 120 East Thirtieth Street, which Mrs. Lowell and her daughter occupied from 1874 until 1905, was not large, having but two rooms on the first floor, and it was her custom to receive visitors in the sitting room which fronted on the street. Because the light was better and room for her papers more abundant in the dining room, in which her desk was placed, much of her writing was done there ; she frequently received intimate friends in this room, and many important consultations were held there, while, in true womanly fashion, she used to poke the fire, whose fitful light illumined her noble face. Good books were Mrs. LowelFs constant companions ; she possessed a considerable library, and habitually read aloud to her mother in the evenings. She had a lively sense of humor, a gift so helpful when life is devoted to serious work, laughed heartily, and would often lay aside her corre- spondence to read aloud a comic story or an account of some heroic act, and then resume her work. While not a musician, she had an inherited love of good music, which she cultivated, and frequently attended concerts ; she was fond of the theatre, but always avoided tragedies. THE WORKER 55 In her attendance at committee meetings, Mrs. Lowell was absolutely punctual, coming just before the ap- pointed hour, and wasting no time in unnecessary talk. She had a retentive memory, which was strengthened by careful training, and kept herself well informed upon the sociological subjects of the day. Her vocabulary was large, and although she was quite proficient in three European languages, she never yielded to the temptation to display superior knowledge by quotations from them, but habitually and skilfully made use of the purest and simplest English words she could find in which to express her meaning. She had rare moral courage, being entirely without either self-consciousness or fear ; and by practice became a ready, fluent, and convincing speaker, equally effective in persuasion on the platform of a great hall, or with a friend by her own fireside. While she had unusual gifts of eloquence at command, she was never eager to speak, but if the subject under consideration was opened by others^ and progressed satisfactorily, was content to sit with folded hands, and depart without opening her lips. But if, on the contrary, the cause, which she had come prepared to advocate seemed in danger, she would seize the first opportunity to speak, and earnestly take part in the debate, in a manner which showed both her thorough understanding and her preparation for the discussion. She was a courteous and cheerful antagonist; and her espousal of any cause generally carried it to victory. During the fives of her brothers-in-law, George WilUam Curtis and General Barlow, she often consulted them about her work, and it was her invariable custom to read 56 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL her papers to her mother and daughter, and to welcome their suggestions and advice. Her official position as a commissioner of the State Board of Charities, and her long and active work for the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, had identified Mrs. Lowell in the public mind as the friend and promoter of organized and systematized public and private charities ; but she nevertheless believed first in the home, and its influence, and strongly disapproved of any woman undertaking public work, or charitable interests, un- til even the smallest home duty had been fully discharged. She was always at heart opposed to what is called insti- tutionalism, and strove to preserve the home, stoutly maintaining that even a poor home, if its conditions were endurable, was preferable to a good institution ; and she her- self never became institutionalized, as happens to so many who are officially connected with charitable administration. No self-interest entered into Mrs. Lowell's character ; she lost herself in the people she loved, or whom she was trying to help. Flattery could not touch her, and the complimentary things which people said, or wrote about her, made no apparent impression ; when she was a girl, she was not indifferent to admiration, but after her hus- band's death she did not hear its appeal. From that time until the end of her life she was always dressed in black, but did not wear crepe ; and her dresses, while sim- ple, were always suitable for the occasion. Her hair was neatly coiled quite close to her head, and not ungracefully, for it was naturally sUghtly waved. Of medium height and weight, and exceedingly refined in her personal appearance, THE WORKER 57 Mrs. Lowell was not beautiful, although her fine head, in- telligent eyes and clear skin made her very attractive. She was in everything feminine, and unhke many other women who have attained prominence in pubHc affairs, she never for a moment lost any of her womanly charm. There was about Mrs. Lowell's home a simplicity which made every one, rich or poor, feel welcome there, and it was a sanctuary to many perplexed and troubled souls. The arrangement of her rooms was such as to suggest, to persons of small means, new ways to make their own humble apartments more attractive. Mrs. Lowell was not rich, as wealth is estimated now, but her circumstances were comfortable. Although she had a fine sense of beauty she cared little for the personal possession of things, futilities they seemed to her, and allowed herself no extravagances; so, as her wants were few, her income proved more than sufficient for her needs, and she always had something to give, when her heart and judgment im- pelled her to open her purse. Had she restrained her hand, she might have ridden in her own carriage ; but she pre- ferred to give to worthy objects, and contentedly walked or rode in the street-cars, as she went busily about the great city, whose streets she trod so long. Full well she reahzed the truth of Joaquin Miller's lines ^ : For all you can hold in your cold dead hand, Is what you have given away. The simple charm of Mrs. Lowell's daily life was re- flected in her personaUty. Her step was quick and firm, 1 From his memorial poem to Peter Cooper, 1791-1883, phil- anthropist and founder of Cooper Institute, New York. 58 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and all her movements so well adjusted as to show the full control exercised over her body by her mind. Even toward the end of her life, her eyes were bright and sym- pathetic, and her abundant brown hair only faintly tinged with gray ; her skin remained fresh and clear as a girFs ; and some one beautifully said of her face "that it always seemed like an alabaster vase with the light shining through/^ She was sweet with an inward peace, and strong for any task. In her religious belief Mrs. Lowell was firm and sincere, but liberal and without bigotry. She was brought up in and always held to the Unitarian faith, and while living on Staten Island attended regularly the little Unitarian church at Sailors' Snug Harbor. Here her brother-in-law, George William Curtis, for many years conducted the simple services when there was no pastor. " This service," says her daughter, " was, I think, more congenial to my mother than any other. She was a great believer in going to church and always went wherever she was.'' She made the Sabbath a day of rest, except when work seemed to her an evident duty ; and chose such recreations for the day as did not involve the labor of others. Throughout her life she loved to read the Bible. An aristocrat by birth and culture, all doors to which these qualifications give entrance were open to Mrs. Lowell, but she went seldom into general society, pos- sibly because experience of it had taught her that the time might be better employed, and moved only in the higher aristocracy of usefulness. She was democratic THE WORKER 59 by nature and training, and was content to live and work with everyday people, whose names did not ap- pear in the social columns of the daily papers. It was not only Mrs. Lowell's to do, but to inspire ; she was a quickening spirit, and breathed the breath of life into many others. And she was always a spur — sometimes an uncomfortable, pricking spur — to the laggard; and she was a standard-bearer to those who tried to lead. Always reticent in personal matters, few except the members of her own family knew of the attack of a painful and mortal disease, which advanced steadily until, after a few months of uncomplaining suffering, she passed to her reward. The rector of Grace Church, Dr. William Reed Huntington, conducted the funeral service at her residence,^ and she was buried beside her husband in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. Left a widow at twenty for her country's sake, Mrs. Lowell had for forty years, with consecrated purpose, waged a continual battle against ignorance, vice, and crime ; and in the effort to right the wrong had unflinchingly, with clear eyes and a tender heart, followed where duty seemed to lead. This was a sure preparation for her saintly and heroic end. We who shared in her work now hold her in loving and thankful remembrance. One of the most interesting, significant, and hopeful phenomena of the nineteenth century is the birth and growth of organized philanthropy. The history of this world movement will some day be written, and the his- * Shortly before Mrs. Lowell's death, she moved to 43 East Sixty- fourth Street because the erection of high business buildings had shut out the light and air from her residence in Thirtieth Street. 60 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL torian cannot fail to make prominent mention in it of five women, all of the English-speaking race, leaders in as many benevolent crusades, whose humane activities were embraced within its span. Elizabeth Fry,^ under whose dauntless leadership the prisons and jails of Great Britain were reformed in its opening years, will first command his praise. Nor will he neglect to pay tributes to the humane services of two heroic women who simultaneously, toward the middle of the century, successfully contended against official igno- rance and neglect in hospital management. One of these was Florence Nightingale, ^ whose ministrations in the field hospitals of the Crimea not only brought relief to the thou- sands of wounded and dying soldiers there, but also devel- oped the profession through which women trained nurses have come, with their skilled and gentle services, to cheer and relieve the sick and wounded, and comfort the dying of the civilized world. The other was our own country- woman Dorothea Lynde Dix,^ the early apostle of State care for the insane, whose labors in this cause were brought to a successful issue in twenty states and in Canada. Of the women who rendered distinguished service to hu- manity during the last quarter of the century, Octavia Hill,^ the devoted English woman whose long, unselfish, and intelligent efforts for the improvement of the homes 1 Elizabeth Fry, an English Quaker minister and prison reformer, 1780-1845. 2 Daughter of William E. Nightingale of Derbyshire, England, 1820- 1910. ' Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1802 ; died, 1887. * Still living at Marylebone Road, N. W. London, in 1910. THE WORKER 61 of the London poor, continued into the twentieth century, have inspired an army of settlement workers to follow in her footsteps, will surely receive the commendation so richly deserved. On the shining roll will be emblazoned also for generations yet unborn, the name and fame of the *^ City's Saint" of New York, the story of some of whose charitable undertakings this volume all too imperfectly narrates. Should the judgment of the future historian accord with the estimate now entertained by- those best acquainted with Mrs. Lowell's work, he will claim as her most useful achievement the success of her long labors to rescue the erring and feeble-minded of her sex. She early recognized the temptations and dangers to which yoimg women of wa3rward tendencies or defective will were exposed, all the more severe in the metropoUs be- cause of the swiftly changing social conditions, floodtide of immigration, and congested population centering there, and devoted years of her life to secure them refuges. When, as the result of her indomitable championship of their needs, the State of New York, in 1878 estabUshed the first custodial asylum for feeble-minded women in the United States, if not in the world, and in 1881 the first house of refuge for women in the State, thus adopting as wards of the State all young women of these classes needing its care, Mrs. Lowell's greatest victory for hu- manity was won. Since that time, other states and countries, following the example set by New York, have opened similar doors erf hope and shelter to thousands of young women, all of whom, and multitudes besides, have reason to bless the name of Josephine Shaw Lowell. CHAPTER V Letteks to Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw For many years Mrs. Lowell carried on an affectionate correspondence with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw — the Annie Haggerty of her girlhood diary, who after long residence as an invalid abroad died in Boston in 1907. Mrs. Shaw preserved many of Mrs. LowelFs letters, from some of which extracts are here tran- scribed, as they exhibit not only varying phases of her character, but also give her opinion of some pubUc men, and explain her reasons for undertaking different kinds of philanthropic work. A few other letters to Mrs. Shaw are reserved for insertion in following chapters, for which they seem particularly appropriate. West New Brighton, June 17, 1878. Dearest Annie: I have got home today from what has been an interest- ing and busy little journey of a week. Last Monday I left here at eight and went, by train, to Binghamton, arriving at 5 p.m. I at once procured a buggy and went off two miles to visit an Inebriate Asylum and stayed till eight, when the Superintendent drove me back to my boarding house. Tuesday at nine I called on a lady on business (about poorhouse work), and then went off to a Convention of Superintendents of the Poor ; 62 LETTERS TO MRS. ROBERT GOULD SHAW 63 there were about a hundred, I should think, and I was the sole and solitary woman ! They talked away until twelve, when we scattered for dinner and returned at two and stayed till five. There were some other ladies there then, so it was pleasanter — in the morning I felt as Robbie Barlow did once at the circus, when a great many guns were fired off, and he kept ejaculating : '^ Oh, I wished I hadn't came ! I wished I hadn't came !" At five I drove out to an Orphan Asylum, with one of the Managers, and then to his house to tea and back again to the convention, where again there were no other ladies, and where I addressed the meeting on the subject of tramps. A little after ten the session came to an end, but the next morning at nine, they were at it again and sat until twelve. Then I got my dinner and at one went off in a buggy to the Poorhouse and there remained for a couple of hours — came back and took the train at 4 : 30 for Rochester to attend the meeting of the State Board of Charities on Thursday. Luckily for me several of the members were on the train, for we were left and never got in until one o'clock a.m. ! Thursday we were in session 13 hours, with one hour for dinner and one for tea and I got to bed about twelve o'clock. Friday I spent the morning at a Reformatory and at 4 : 30 left for Syracuse, reaching there at 7, when I went straight to the asylum — went all over the house and saw the children in bed. Next day I was up at six and saw them at breakfast and after breakfast I went all over the institution and saw the schools and left for New York at eleven and got to Thirtieth St. at 7 P.M. July 9, '82. Dearest Annie : ******* Bob Minturn began to talk to a colored man on the horse-cars the other day at Cambridge and found he had 64 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL been in Rob's regiment. He said: '^Our Colonel wasn't like dem colonels dat says: 'Now, boys, go and take dat fort and I'll stay just hyar ' — No, our Colonel says : ' Now, boys, dere's Rebs in dat fort ; will you follow me ? ' And we pokes out our heads and says : ' Yes sah ! } }) (Date missing. Written early in '85.) Dearest Annie : ^ Ht ^ ^ ^ ^ H: On the train coming from Albany Thursday, I had a long talk with Theodore Roosevelt about politics. He acknowledges that the best part of the Republican party supported Cleveland, and I think his reasons for vot- ing for Blaine are rather mixed, but he is so young that he will get over the bad effect and will do good ser- vice yet. He said he couldn't help wishing he was " in the fight " when he goes to Albany, but it was a wise thing to refuse renomination under the circumstances, because, otherwise, everybody would have said more even than they did that it was his political ambition that dictated his course. He is going to work in the State Charities Aid this winter and do some writing. He has quite a literary turn, you know. He says his baby is as sweet as can be. Anna Roosevelt takes care of her. She is nearly a year old. 120 E. 30th St., Feb. 12, '88. Dearest Annie : Here during the week, at the MetropoUtan Opera House, we have been having the " Trilogy" and heaps of Boston people have come on to hear them. I am going to give you a list of the friends we had here yesterday. Friday, Howard White slept here so he was at breakfast. At 10 — young lady from Iowa on business; at 11 — Amy LETTERS TO MRS. ROBERT GOULD SHAW 65 White and Lucy Russell ; at 1 — Rose Howard (from Brookline) she and Amy to lunch ; at 4 — Nannie Cod- man ; at 4.30 — Mrs. Wister and two young cousins of hers, McAllisters ; at 5 — May Minturn and at 6 — G. W. C. (Nannie, May and George to dinner) ; at 8 — Rob Minturn; at 8.30 — Mr. and Mrs. Burlingham — and it was snowing and sleeting all day ! On Thursday I had a very different kind of a day, but equally lively — I will rehearse its history. At 10.30 I went to our ^^ Charity Woodyard" at 19th Street and Ave. B., at 12 to 32 Nassau Street, to meet Mrs. Barney from R. I. and four gentlemen of the Prison Assn. to talk over Police Matron Law ; at 1.30 — to office of my colleague, Mr. Stewart, and then to lunch with him at a down town restaurant ; at 2.30 to the C. O. S. office and received ^'applicants" — at the same moment came in two men from Canada and a man from Florida — all three had come with money to look for work and had spent it all and needed help ! At 4.30 — to my Com- mittee meeting — two ladies and six men and most lively discussions, and at 5.30 home ! I had a most interesting day, of course. George was here Tuesday night and again last night on his way to and from Boston. He had been invited to a dinner by the '' Tavern Club'^ and had a beautiful time. The members are all young professional men and the only ''old ones'' were Charles Norton, Harry Lee, Mr. Osgood, Henry Higginson, Uncle James Lowell and George. Mr. Norton presided and made a most eulogistic speech about George — as the principal guest — to this George responded, and then Uncle James read a poem to George, which is to be published soon. George says it is "the greatest honor of his fife." There was much clap- ping and cheering and then music and then an end. 66 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL March 18, '88. Dearest Annie: I have sent you some little accounts of our *' Blizzard '^ — and suppose yoiu" Semi-Weekly Evening Post will tell you the story. It was really the most amazing storm we have ever had here — Monday no one went down town — there were no trains, no horse cars, no mail, no way of getting out. May Minturn was in Philadelphia (just to see Gertrude) meaning to come home Monday, and it was not until Friday morning that she could come ! Edith was at the Codmans' in Boston and she has not come yet. We had no milk from Monday to Friday, and had to live on condensed milk and were lucky to get that, as our grocer went out of it Tuesday and the streets were so packed with snow that it could not be brought up town. However, now things are all right again — every one turned to on Tuesday and the sidewalks were cleared and on Wednesday all the gutters and culverts had been opened and Thursday and Friday and Saturday the snow had been melting pretty steadily. I was told that men made from $10. to $20. on Tuesday shovelling snow, and Mother paid $6. — for the work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, in front of these Uttle houses. On Thursday George came up to pass the night and we went that afternoon to the reception to Mr. Irving, of which I send you an account. It was very interesting and Mr. Irving appeared very well. George told us thrilling tales of the storm on the Island — how one gentle- man (Mr. K. his opposite neighbor) went to St. George to take the morning boat, found none and stayed all day at the station, the storm being too severe to go home. And how another of our friends, who did get to town earlier, was foolish enough to come back by a late boat and spent the night at the station ! Anna was^ LETTERS TO MRS. ROBERT GOULD SHAW 67 of course, most interested in the storm and could not re- sist going out to do a little sweeping of the piazza in the midst of it. Have you followed the new Emperor's ^ course with the pleasure that we feel? It is a most pathetic situation, isn't it — this man under sentence of death, working to do what he can in the short time before him — it gives all he does and says a sacredness. March 3, '89. Dearest Annie: ******* Today is Mr. Cleveland's last day as President, a real misfortune to this country, I truly believe. He has stood, a firm rock, opposed to the folly and extravagance of Congress and his very last veto (of a bill to pay back to the states a war tax of 1861 !) is perfectly splendid — so wise and clear and full of principle. He is a great man and a true patriot. Naples, May 7, '92. Dearest Annie: We took the most beautiful drive to Sorrento. The weather was heavenly and the blue sky and blue mountains were like a dream, so soft, so misty, so indescribable. The two girls were enchanted with Sorrento and we stayed there until Friday, taking the Capri excursion by steamer Thursday. Our windows hung over the water almost, and Venus set opposite to Vesuvius and into the Bay, upon which the moon, from behind out of sight, cast a most mysterious white light. 1 Frederick III, Emperor of Germany, and King of Prussia, March 9-June 15, 1888. 68 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Florence, May 21, '92. Dearest Annie: We have been in Florence ten days now and I find it as lovable as ever. We lived here two winters, once in the Casa Ricasoli, now taken down, just at the corner of the Carraja Bridge, and once in the Villa Lustrini, near the Porta Romana, so I feel much at home here. We are now at the other end of the Bridge, on the North side, so it is cool and lovely all day and we see the hills and the Duomo and Campanile and the Palazzo Vecchio tower, with the river at our feet. It is beautiful. ' We go out in the afternoons here and drive in the en- virons. Such beautiful views — the only drawback being that our dinner is at seven and interferes with the sunset. The other day we got them to give it to us at six and then went to the Cascine in the train and then up to the Piazzale Michael Angelo, near San Miniato. The City, lighted under oin- feet, with the river glancing all through the valley, was most beautiful. London, Sept. 3, '92. Dearest Annie : You have seen that all our hopes were in vain and that our dear George died on the 31st. George is an awful loss to us. He has been a constant happiness to us for more than thirty seven years — never a break or an unpleasant thought or word has come between us. As Lotta says : '^ Besides our loving him so much, he was the life of everything." Well, dearest Annie, Goodbye — it must be one loss after another to the end — Goodbye. LETTERS TO MRS. ROBERT GOULD SHAW 69 West New Brighton, Jan. 7, '93. Dearest Annie : Last Sunday, after I had written to you, Mr. Saint Gaudens came down to look at Rob's pictures. He is full of enthusiasm about the monument, which he has decided is to be as follows : A great bas-relief, 12 ft. x 14 ft., the background a mass of soldiers with muskets and bayonets, and Rob on horseback riding beside them, his figure and the horse pretty much filling the whole space, life size. March 5, 1893. Dearest Annie: Last night mother had an inauguration dinner, — Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Fairchild, her mother, Mrs. Lincklaen (Gov. Seymour's sister) and Mrs. George Ward. We had each a small flag, and coffee out of Uncle Sam Shaw's Cincinnati cups. You know Mr. Fairchild took the most prominent part in the movement against Hill last spring. He told me that Mrs. Fairchild started him by asking him what he meant to do about it, and by her scorn when he said he didn't know. He remarked that he had to go out that evening, and she told him that he had better go and stay until he found out what to do ! He thereupon set to work and he and others gave the first impetus to the great popular movement that nominated Cleveland. He said when they came back from Chicago, Mr. Cleve- land wrote him that the work of the convention ''would be the admiration of all men who believe in morals as a force in politics, and the wonder of all who do not.'' 120 E. 30th St., Nov. 26, '93. Dearest Annie : Mr. Saint Gaudens was delighted to find the photo- graphs of Dick, and said he was just the horse he wanted, 70 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and he thought Rob's pictures were beautiful. He very much wants a suit of clothes — have you any ? Coat, trousers, shoes, would all be useful. Mother has only the cap and overcoat, you know. He was much pleased to have the little photograph with you, because it shows the whole figure and the proportions. He says Rob was always a great hero of his, and that he feels that this is the best chance he shall ever have to do anything great. Mother did not like the idea of having a monument, you know, but she is very much pleased, likes Mr. Saint Gaudens (who is very simple and unaffected) and also the little rough sketch he has made for the monument. I wish Father could have seen it — he would have been pleased, too, I am sure. Feb. 25, '94. Dearest Annie : I wonder if you are much disturbed about the bomb- throwers? What a crazy, dreadful set of creatures, and how all the newspaper talk only serves to set off some other lunatic to do the same thing. Certainly the modern newspaper is a very ^^ mixed good." The view a reporter takes of things is generally the wrong view, but it helps to make public opinion. Well, there's no use talking about it — only I am glad you and Aunt Anna Greene do not take your dinner at a cafe. 120 East 30th St., Sept. 25, '98. Dearest Annie : We (I especially) are most intensely interested in Theodore Roosevelt's campaign for Governor — it is a misfortune that it is a '^machine" nomination, but the fact is that the popular demand forced it on the machine, and it really is a triumph over Piatt, although he supports LETTERS TO MRS. ROBERT GOULD SHAW 71 it. Mr. Roosevelt has done great service in every place he has held, and his moral tone acts like a tonic wherever he is. He has tremendous force and life in him, and many- people, who never do anything themselves, complain of him as lacking '^judgment,'' but I think the results of his action show that he has been pretty nearly right every time. I have a great respect and admiration for him in every way. For six years he was U. S. Civil Service Commissioner and did fine work, and it is said that Dewey's \dctory at Manilla was due to his orders when Assistant Secretary of the Navy. CHAPTER VI Work for the State Charities Aid Association The patriotic work of the Woman's Central Relief Association, an auxiliary of the United States Sanitary Comnaission, in which Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, Josephine Shaw, Miss Ellen Collins, Miss Gertrude Stevens, and others were engaged, has already been mentioned. Soon after the close of the war, many of its contributing societies in New York State were reorganized as Visiting Com- mittees for the public charitable institutions, under the leadership of Miss Schuyler, and many of the active mem- bers of the Relief Association interested themselves in this new work. From these Visiting Committees as a nucleus, the State Charities Aid Association was formed in 1872. Mrs. Lowell immediately joined the new Associa- tion, and soon afterwards, in 1873, became a member of the Richmond County Visiting Committee. From 1875 to 1876 she was successively member, secretary, and chair- man of one of the Association's four Standing Committees, — that on ''Adult able-bodied paupers," which had head- quarters in New York City. She was also in 1876 elected a member of the Executive Committee. The Richmond County Poorhouse near Castleton, on Staten Island, was not far from her home, and Mrs. Lowell made herself familiar by frequent visits with its condition, and gave her practical sympathy continuously to its aged 72 THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 75 inmates, among whose average population, at that time of about one hundred, there were a dozen or more insane,, and an occasional idiot, epileptic, or blind person. Under her chairmanship of the Committee on ''Adult able-bodied paupers," the following resolution was adopted : ''That an investigation be made as to the methods, expenses, extent and results of poor law administration and relief in the several towns in the County of West- chester, with a view of ascertaining how near the same come to the greatest practical efficiency and economy, and that the investigation extend over a period of ten years last past/' The time to be covered by this investigation was afterwards changed to include the years from 1864 to 1873, and the burden of the work of making the investiga- tion devolved upon Mrs. Lowell, who also wrote the report for the committee. When the work of gathering statistics was undertaken, in part by local correspondents, and in part by special agents, it was found that contrary to the express provisions of the law no records were kept in most of the towns of the amount spent for outdoor relief, or of the persons relieved, though the amounts appropriated, as shown by the reports of the Supervisors, were very considerable. In regard to the entertainment of tramps, grave abuses were discovered. Although the methods varied in detail in the different towns, it was everywhere true that tramps were lodged at public expense, and that the official profits of the overseers bore a direct relation to the number relieved. Mrs. Lowell in her report says : 74 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ^^Each overseer is thus a centre of pauperism and va- grancy and his interests are directly opposed to those of every other member of the community, the paupers and vagrants included, though they may not think so. . . . The only persons who have any official relations with pauperism and vagrancy are constantly under temptation to foster these evils." The report suggests that the remedy may be found in a change in the character and position of the overseers, and maintains that the persons receiving aid directly from these officials should not help to elect them, that their term of office should be long enough to enable them to gain some experience, and that their compensation should not depend upon the number of paupers and vagrants whom they can collect around them. This conclusion, based upon the conditions found to exist in Westchester County, is confirmed and supported by letters from Superintendents of the Poor of various other counties, to whom the Committee appealed for opinions. Although Mrs. Lowell was unavoidably absent, her report was presented and read at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the State Charities Aid Association, held in Masonic Temple, on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue, on February 24, 1876. The President of the Association at this time, and until 1882, was Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler; but she yielded the chair- manship of the annual meeting to the distinguished leader of the New York bar of that day, Mr. Charles O'Connor, just then recovered from a dangerous illness. A newspaper report of the meeting in a city paper of the THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 75 following day observes that the large and brilliant audience feared that the great lawyer might not be able to come. *'But this fear was dispelled before eight o'clock by the appearance at the foot of the central aisle of Mr. O'Connor, accompanied by Governor Tilden, Dr. Austin FHnt, Jr., and Mr. Joseph H. Choate. As soon as the audience was fully aware of his presence, it greeted him with a round of hearty applause." Continuing its report of the meeting, the paper noted the presence on the platform, besides those named, of Howard Potter, Benjamin H. Field, James Roosevelt, John Crosby Brown, Alexander Hamil- ton, Jr., George L. Schuyler, Robert J. Livingston, Theo- dore Roosevelt, member of the State Board of Charities, President Barnard of Columbia College, and others. After brief introductory addresses by Mr. Potter, Vice President of the Association, and Mr. O'Connor, in which the objects of the association were commended and the public invited to further its philanthropic work, the princi- pal address was delivered by Mr. Choate, afterward, from 1895 to 1899, President of the Association, and reelected to that office in December, 1905, upon his return from Eng- land. In the course of his remarks, he congratulated the Association upon the presence on the platform of the dis- tinguished reform governor, and in the inimitably smooth, serio-comic vein for which he was already famous, said of him : '^If, Hke Alexander, he is seeking new worlds to con- quer, and new rings to break, why, if he will lend us his ears we can show him foemen worthy of his steel. We can point him out hospital rings, and poorhouse rings, 76 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL rings of overseers of the poor with tramps whom they will entertain, rings of able-bodied paupers in all the counties of the state.'' Changing his tone to one entirely serious he continued: '^The association found what is known as the poorhouse system a gross, degrading, abominable system of plague spots — nothing less, dotted throughout the State, one assigned to each of the sixty counties. Children and abandoned women, the old and the youngs the rich and the poor, the sane and the insane, the innocent and the criminal, huddled and jumbled together into these poorhouses, to the complete and utter degradation and de- struction of all of them. They found too, throughout the State, able-bodied paupers as if by special legislative en- actment, fostered by the good treatment they receive ; they found millions, actually miUions of money, distributed in outdoor relief, wasted, thrown away upon the undeserving. ^^Now we come next to the subject of able-bodied paupers. That is a grand historical subject. I do not understand how these women grappled with it. I can see verj'^ well how Mr. Roosevelt, or Mr. Schultz, might underta-ke to grapple with one sturdy beggar. But here the curiosity of women, that unfailing tower of strength, comes in. They proposed to find out the facts, and in the masterly report read here tonight, signed by Mrs. Lowell,, you have the whole subject. ''What do we find in this report of Mrs. Lowell ? That tramps and able-bodied paupers are encouraged in their idleness in this State. Hotels, open houses, are kept for them by overseers, ring politicians who dispense the public money in such a way as to encourage tramping. These overseers have a motive for this; they are paid so much a head for every tramp they entertain. If they give a tramp a ten cent breakfast, they draw twenty cents from the State. It turns out that they have realized THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 77 from this source in Westchester County more than the average county doctor or average lawyer in that county I Well, it is no wonder that tramps are numerous." It requires Uttle stretch of the imagination, even after the lapse of thirty years, to think what must have been the effect upon the audience, when, toward the conclusion of his address, Mr. Choate remarked: '^The Association is adopting Mr. Greeley^s views and saying to the tramps ^Go West.' Let them go to Montana, and Colorado, and New Mexico, and Washington, and Oregon. The soil is pining for them ; the forests are waving them a welcome ; the rivers are waiting to wash their feet." Shortly after this meeting. Governor Tilden, who had been deeply impressed by Mrs. Lowell's paper and her personaUty, appointed her to a vacant seat on the State Board of Charities, whereupon her official work as a member of the Association terminated. Many years later, in 1895, Mrs. Lowell delivered the following hitherto unpublished address, to the members of the State Charities Aid Association, in which she described the evils existing in 1872 in the poorhouses and jails of New York. County Visiting Committees Our great national sin, slavery, was answerable for manifold and various evils, among others for the bar- barous condition of the poorhouses and jails of our country, so far behind those of other civilized nations. The thirty years during which reforms were steadily growing else- where, were here devoted by the reformers to the one 78 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL great fight; it absorbed all their time and strength, and meanwhile all lesser evils took firm root. As soon as the war was over, however, and strength could be gathered for fresh work, these lesser evils were attacked, and in this State especially, the very men and women who had contended against slavery, and who later had '^enhsted for the war" under the Sanitary Commis- sion were gathered together again by their old leaders for the new fight. The reports made of the condition of the poorhouses of New York in the fifties and sixties seem scarcely credible — insane men and women, chained naked in outhouses ; children born, growing up and bringing forth more chil- dren in the poorhouses; the sick, the insane, the idiots, the babies, men, women and children, all together, with no care and no control ; the whole thing was frightful. The decent people living in the counties in which these horrors existed knew nothing of them ; never for a mo- ment felt that they had any obligation towards the poor creatures within those dreadful buildings, or any interest in cutting off the stream of misery, pauperism, vice and crime that had its rise within their walls. The State had been roused and shocked by the horrors depicted by Dr. Willard and Miss Dix, to the point of establishing an asylum for the chronic insane,^ but very much the same things went on, after the asylum was full to overflowing, the individual sufferers only being changed, and the pubhc was quite satisfied that its duty was done. 1 The Willard Asylum, established 1865, at Willard, Seneca County, New York, and opened October 13, 1869. THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 79 The State Board of Charities was established in 1867, and among its manifold duties was that of visiting the county poorhouses once in every two years. There were fifty-eight poorhouses and only eight Commissioners, but nevertheless they have done good service in discover- ing and reporting many fearful evils. Still their work would have been slow indeed had not Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler organized the State Charities Aid Association to carry on a more constant, thorough and continued at- tack through its County Visiting Committees. Beginning with her own county of Westchester in January, 1872, and the Belle vue Visiting Committee for New York, before the Association itself was formed. Miss Schuyler established a system, which during the past twenty-three years has done untold good and been the cause of an incalculable gain to the State and its people in many different ways. The plan was a simple one : to form in each county a local committee for the purpose of visiting the county poorhouse, encouraging county officials in a conscientious discharge of their duties, detecting and remedying wrongs, securing the moral and physical welfare of the inmates and gradually bringing the whole poorhouse administra- tion up to a civiUzed standard, which I think it safe to say was nowhere found in this State in the year 1872 or for many long years thereafter. The worst poorhouse I ever saw myself was in one of the central counties of the State, and an irresistibly grotesque element was added to its horrors by the naive hospitaUty with which the good-natured superintendent 80 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL showed us the sights ; from the very clean dairy, of which he was proud, to the filthy bunk, of which he was not ashamed, where ^'John pigged in'^ as he expressed it. '^Yes," he explained, as he poked at the bundle of rags covering John, ^'he's half-witted and he'll swear awful if you stir him up. — Here ! John ! John !" Then as we hurriedly escaped from John and the broken plaster, black laths and bedbugs of the poorhouse itself, into the yard surrounded by broken-down outhouses, and asked about a miserable family, man, woman and three young children sitting there, he answered: ^'Oh! theyVe been here about four or five years. Oh, yes, them children, the two littlest was born here." It was evident that he had no doubts in regard to any part of his dominion, and no idea that there was room or reason for improvement. In many poorhouses, to this condition of things was added also neglect and cruelty, and it has been a long and weary task, not yet finished, to instruct local public opinion as to what common decency and common sense demand in a poorhouse, and to arouse public opinion to secure it. As usual, in our unhappy State, ^' politics'^ is at the bottom of these evils as of most others, and this too has rendered the task of the local Committees much harder to accomplish. But in 1893, after twenty-one years of work, the Associ- ation was able to write concerning its County Visiting Committees : "The central idea of the State Charities Aid Association is the visitation of public charitable institutions by unpaid, unofficial local visitors. To this end it aims to organize THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 81 in every county a Local Visiting Committee, unsectarian, non-partisan, composed of both men and women, includ- ing representatives of various professions and occupa- tions, thus claiming fairly to represent the people of the county, and collectively the people of the entire State. In forty-eight of the sixty counties of the State there now exist such Visiting Committees, with a roll of seven hun- dred and fifty members. During the ten months ending September 30, 1893, thirty-two committees have made two hundred and twenty-five visits to the poorhouses and almshouses of the State, exclusive of the very large num- ber of visits made by the Committee of New York County. These figures can convey but little impression of the work which they represent. To appreciate their real meaning one must accompany a group of these workers on their visit to the poorhouse, note the minuteness and thorough- ness of their examinations, the evident harmony and spirit of cooperation that exists between those in charge of the institutions and the visitors, the brightness which lights up the faces of the inmates as one by one they are pleas- antly greeted by the visitors with kindly words and often presented with a paper or book, the consultation between the visitors and those in charge as to what should be done with some new arrival whose case deserves special atten- tion, how this or that difficulty may be adjusted, and observe that evils that cannot be remedied under exist- ing conditions are noted by the secretary and reported to the Central Association. Bearing in mind that these visits are made by these same people at varying intervals throughout the year, and that in forty-seven other coun- ties this sort of work is being done with more or less regularity, we may thus form a truer conception of the tremendous step that has been taken by the State Charities Aid Association, not only toward bringing the public 82 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL charitable institutions to a high standard of efficiency, but also toward bridging the chasm between the fortunate and the most unfortunate, toward developing that truest of all charity, personal interest in persons. " At the time of the organization of the Association, in 1872, so many flagrant evils existed in the almhouses, the results of bad systems and no oversight, that the work of the committees was in many cases necessarily largely in the line of correcting active abuses of various kinds. At the present time it may be said that in most of the counties comparatively little remains to be done in this line. The removal of the insane and the children has done away with the occasion of many of the most serious evils. There has also been a steady improvement in the con- struction and arrangement of buildings, the separation of the sexes, cleanliness of inmates and provision for read- ing and amusement. Much indeed remains to be done, but in only rare cases is it in the line of correcting the old- time abuses. For this reason there has been a tendency on the part of a few of the committees to relax their efforts and cease visiting, or to visit less frequently. In most cases, however, a broader view of the work is being taken. The merely negative side of the work of visitation and inspection is, after all, the least important. A wide and ever increasing field of positive constructive work opens before such a body of local workers in every county. The study of the causes of dependency through the history of individual inmates, which in some counties has been un- dertaken, leads to a truer conception of the real nature of the poorhouse and who should be its inmates, and a deeper sense of personal responsibility for the well-being of the merely unfortunate inmate and the reformation, if possible, of the pauper. Such a sense of personal responsibility may find a wide field for exercise not only in the improve- THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 83 ment of the lot of the inmates of the poorhouse, but also in the visitation and supervision of dependent children who have been placed in families by officials, the after- care of the insane, and, in general, a personal oversight and befriending of all who for any reason have needed special care or treatment, which has, for the time, deprived them of normal relations to family, home and neighbor- hood.^' One very encouraging and interesting fact in regard to the visiting committees is that their personnel has con- tinued without great change, except by death or change of residence, from the time of their organization. Besides their own work of visiting the poorhouses, many of these committees have become the centres of local charitable work, and many individual members having been led first by their membership in these committees to study the grave questions of pauperism and crime, have extended their work in other directions, accomplish- ing good in fields outside and far removed from those nominally covered by the work of the State Charities Aid Association. The founding of the Working Girls' Clubs by Miss Grace Dodge is one of the most interesting instances of this, and also the establishment of the Hospital Book and News- paper Society, and the society for Instruction in First Aid to the Injured ; the establishing of the Bellevue Training School for Nurses by the Hospital Committee of the New York County Committee of the Association is directly in the line of the work of the State Charities Aid Associa- tion, and has blessed many people who never heard 84 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of the State Charities Aid Association, never saw, and never will see, the inside of a public institution even as visitors, while it has conferred untold benefits upon the inmates of hospitals all over the country. The work of the Belle vue Visiting Committee began in 1872, some months before the Association itself, and it was after- wards called the New York County Committee; it has perhaps done more work and accomplished more results than all the other county committees combined, leaving out those for Kings and Erie counties which have had, of course, kindred problems to solve. At the time that the Bellevue Committee first entered on its work, I remember well the scorn with which two young physicians, both internes of the hospital, spoke to me of the folly of those ''silly women, ^^ who expected to accomplish any reforms in Bellevue ; one of them adding : ''To begin with, no decent woman ought to be seen inside the gates.'' Pardon me if I pause here to protest against this curious but common masculine argument — that men and indecent women may freely associate anyivhere, but no "decent woman" is to enter in, even to save and re- form. But to return to Bellevue, I remember also hearing Dr. James Wood (who, for thirty years, with other leading physicians, had held official positions in the Hospital, while not one of them, apparently, had ever attempted any reform) describe the condition of things in the past. He said: "We could not prescribe stimulants, for the pauper nurses drank them all, — indeed they used to drink the alcohol out of the specimen bottles — and one THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION 85 morning during a typhus epidemic, when I went early to the hospital, I found in one ward three corpses in the beds among the sick, and the nurses all drunk on the floor.'' These were the kind of women, too, who were taking charge of the hundreds of children, sick and well, living on Randall's Island under the fostering care of the city when the Randall's Island Visiting Committee was formed in February, 1873, and the "Children's Law," of 1875, removing children from poorhouses and forbidding them being received in them, was the result of this Committee's work in conjunction with the State Board of Charities. But I need not go on ; time would fail me to tell of all the work done by the New York and Kings County Visit- ing Committees and the Visiting Committees of the County Poorhouses. The point to be dwelt on is that there still remains any quantity of work to do; that the State Charities Aid Association has hundreds of trained and intelligent volun- teers, ready to do it ; that they need, however, the sup- port, moral and financial, of the great body of their fellow- citizens, whom they are serving and whose interests they are defending. As Mrs. Lowell shows in this paper, conditions in the almshouses and other charitable and reformatory institutions of New York State a generation ago were such as to give ample employment for the reforma- tory efforts, not only of the State Board of Charities, but also of the State Charities Aid Association, and other private philanthropic agencies, all earnestly seek- 86 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ing, each as best it might, to raise the standard of care for the sick, unfortunate, and delinquent wherever they were found. Early in the field, and always ably led by devoted men and women, the work of the State Chari- ties Aid Association has prospered, and it has rendered many important pubHc services, which it is a pleasure to acknowledge here. CHAPTER VII The State Reformatory for Women at Hudson When Mrs. Lowell took her seat as a member of the State Board of Charities, April 29, 1876, John V. L. Priiyn of Albany was President of the Board. Early and interesting evidence of the promptness and sympathetic intelligence with which she entered upon her official work is shown by the following letter addressed only a few days after her appointment, and before she had yet attended a meeting, to Commissioner Letch worth, of the Eighth District, then Vice President of the Board. West New Brighton, May 16th, 76. My dear Mr. Letchworth : I am glad to see that you object to the prisonlike charac- ter of some of our reformatories. I was shocked at the cells and general jail look of parts of the House of Refuge. It can never be a fit place for young children and ought to be converted into a juvenile prison, which it really is now. I have never thanked you for your kind note of welcome to the State Board of Charities. I hope I shall be able to be useful. The hope that her services might be useful was more fully reahzed by her work in and out of the State Board than any mortal knows, and indicated the dominant pur- pose of her life. 87 88 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL She immediately began a series of thorough inspections of the jails, penitentiaries, and almshouses to which at that time young women were committed as criminals, vagrants, or paupers, and familiarized herself with con- ditions in those institutions. She also began a pains- taking inquiry into the treatment of young criminals and vagrants in other states of this country, in England, and in the countries of continental Europe. Within less than a year Mrs. Lowell was prepared to lead in a crusade for reformed methods of caring for young women of the delinquent and vagrant classes, and pre- sumably at her instance, a bill was introduced in the Legis- lature of 1877, ''To provide for the custody and reformatory treatment of vagrants." This bill was considered by the State Board at a meeting held June 14, 1877, and on motion of Mrs. Lowell, it was ^'Resolved, That the act to provide for custody and re- formatory treatment of vagrants be referred to a committee of this board to consider, and that they suggest such legis- lation on that subject as they deem expedient, and report at the next meeting of the board.'' Pursuant to this resolution, a committee of three was appointed with Mrs. Lowell as chairman. The minutes of the Board omit the names of her associates. This conmiittee at the next meeting of the Board, held Septem- ber 7, presented two reports, Mrs. Lowell submitting that of the majority; the Board, having considered both re- ports, added Commissioners Foster and Donnelly to the committee, thus increasing its membership to five, and THE STATE REFORMATORY ' FOR WOMEN S9 instructed the committee to report at the next meeting of the Board. Meanwhile Mrs. Lowell continued her work in the institutions and with her pen, and when the Board met January 3, 1878, presented a ^'Report on pauperism in regard to vagrant, feeble-minded, and idiotic inmates of the almshouses of the State." The Board received the report and ordered one thousand copies printed. The minutes of this meeting contain no reference to any report by the committee of five. At the meeting of March 14, 1878, the Board approved the report on va- grancy, above mentioned, and adopted the following resolution : ^'Whereas J The poorhouses and jails of the several coun- ties of this State contain a large number of vagrant, dis- orderly and idle persons for whose employment no ade- quate provision is made, therefore, ^' Resolved, That the Legislature be and is hereby re- quested to provide for the establishment of workhouses for the detention and employment of these classes, and for such able-bodied vagrants known as tramps, as are not provided for by the proposed amendments to the State Pauper Law, and to prohibit the commitment of able- bodied persons of these several classes to poorhouses, jails or other places of idle detention." During the session of the Legislature of 1878, a bill was introduced in the Senate which provided for the estabUsh- ment of workhouses to which delinquent women might be committed. This bill was noticed by Mrs. Lowell, who always followed closely legislation affecting charities or social subjects, brought to the attention of the State 90 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Board at a meeting held June 14, 1878, and on her motion the following resolution was adopted : ''Resolved, That Senate Bill 322, year 1878, be referred to a committee to be appointed by the President, with directions to report at the next stated meeting. '^ Commissioners Lowell, Foster, and Ropes were there- upon designated as such committee. When the State Board met November 12, 1878, Mrs. Lowell presented a report for the special conamittee thus appointed. This report was considered of such importance that, contrary to custom, it was ordered printed in full in the minutes of that meeting. The report, which bears Mrs. Lowell's signature alone, opens with a statement that since the last meeting of the Board the committee had conferred with the Board of Managers of the Elmira Reformatory, and after consider- ing the view of that Board are of opinion : ''That the wisest course in regard to the great reform contemplated by bill 322 is to press upon the Legislature the necessity for a reformatory for women, and request the passage this winter of a bill providing for the purchase of a site for such an institution. "The probability that the plan proposed of hiring buildings and using them as workhouses for women, would prove a failure, owing to the difficulty of finding suitable buildings, has influenced your committee and in- duced them to advocate placing the contemplated re- formatory on a more permanent basis. It is better to wait even many years, if that prove necessary, in order to make a good beginning, rather than to accept some half THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 91 measure at once, and bring discredit on the whole plan by failure.'' Thus Mrs. Lowell, wise and watchful, defeated, single- handed, an impracticable and ill-considered measure, — one which, viewed from the present standpoint of the ordinary student of applied philanthropy, seems ridiculous. Included in this report was a proposed address to the Legislature which^ Mrs. Lowell writing for the committee, modestly said, '^your committee has prepared, and asks that it may be printed and transmitted to the Legislature." It began by reminding the Legislature that by concurrent resolution of May 27-29, 1873, it had ''directed the State Board of Charities to examine into the causes of the in- crease of crime, pauperism and insanity in this State." Mrs. Lowell, close student of human nature, within and without legislative halls, well knew that the Legislature did not care to be told its duty, or to be addressed on such uninteresting subjects as reformatory measures, but that it did like to have its directions complied with and respected. Having thus secured the attention of the Legislature, the report referred to the examination made, pursuant to this legislative resolution, by the Secre- tary of the Board, with the assistance of some of the Com- missioners, into the antecedents of every inmate of the almshouses of the State, and reminded the Legislature, that the results of this inquiry were submitted to the Leg- islature in the tenth annual report of the Board (1877), and that ''even a casual perusal of that report will convince the reader that one of the most important and most dangerous causes of the increase of crime, pauperism and insanity is 92 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL unrestrained liberty allowed to vagrant and degraded women." Continuing, Mrs. Lowell gave the details of many almshouse cases taken from the records, all showing "too clearly what is the common fate of vagrant girls when committed to our poorhouses." The proposed address to the Legislature concludes as follows : ''There are two distinct and separate objects to be arrived at in dealing with these women : to reform them if that be possible, but if that cannot be done, at least to cut off the line of hereditary pauperism, crime and insanity now transmitted mainly through them. Neither of these objects can possibly be attained while this class of women is left under the control of count j^- authorities, whose action is necessarily, from the constant change of individual officers, spasmodic and uncertain. ''No argument can be advanced against the policy of withdrawing this class of offenders from the care of local officials, that will not be equally strong against the prac- tice of maintaining certain classes of criminals by the State. State prisons were established, no doubt, because it was found that no local machinery was fitted to cope with the more dangerous offenders against law and order. The incompetency of local machinery to deal with habitual offenders of what is supposed to be a less dangerous type, is equally proved by the facts quoted above. "In order to grapple with this gigantic evil and to stop the increase of pauperism, crime and insanity in this community, a reformatory for women, under the management of women, governed on the same principles as those which control the managenent of the State Re- formatory at Elmira is required. " We therefore, strongly urge the passage of a bill provid- THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 93 ing for the selection of a site, and the adoption of plans for such an institution/' Mrs. Lowell wrote, and she alone signed, as chairman, the foregoing report, whereupon "discussion ensued '' in the State Board upon the report with its proposed address to the Legislature, and it was accepted, ordered printed in the minutes and considered at the next stated meeting. The minutes of the State Board show that on January 15, 1879, "Commissioner Ropes called up the special order, being the report of the Committee on Senate Bill 322 (year of 1878). " Commissioner Lowell offered the following : "Resolved, That the report of the Committee on a re- formatory for women be accepted, and the address to the Legislature contained therein be adopted by the Board, printed and transmitted to the Legislature and that the substance of it be also incorporated in the annual report. " Commissioner Miller moved the following amendment : " Strike out all after the word ' resolved ' and insert ^ That the report of the Committee on Reformatory for Women be accepted and adopted, the Committee discharged and the report published as an attached paper in the annual report.' " Discussion ensued. " The President put the question on the adoption of Commissioner Miller's amendment and it was decided in the affirmative. " The President put the question on the adoption of the resolution as amended, and it was decided in the affirma- tive." 94 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The State Board was evidently not inclined to follow Mrs. Lowell's lead at that time, in her crusade for a woman's reformatory, if this took it into legislative halls. The discharge of the Committee relieved it from further consideration of this subject, but Mrs. Lowell's belief in the righteousness of her cause was not diminished, and she continued her propaganda. At a Board meeting held September 10, 1879, on motion of Commissioner Lowell, it was ^^ Resolved J That a committee be appointed to prepare a paper upon the subject of a State reformatory for women for the annual report, to be presented at the next meeting," and the President appointed Commissioner Lowell as such committee. The report thus called for was presented and read by Mrs. Lowell, at a Board meeting held January 13, 1880, and ordered printed in the annual report of the Board, as an appended paper. How hard Mrs. Lowell must have worked, for the thou- sands of young women whose cause, all unknown to them, she was championing with such ardor ! Within six months she prepared two papers, ^^One Means of Preventing Pau- perism and Crime" and ^^Reformatories for Women," both directed to the same object, — the removal of all young women from the almshouses of the counties and their fu- ture care in suitable State institutions. They are so char- acteristic of the writer and her style, and were so helpful in bringing about the great reform she advocated in chari- table administration, and the establishment of the State reformatories at Hudson, Albion, and Bedford, and of the THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 95 custodial asylums at Newark and Rome, that liberal quotations are made from them. The first of these papers to be published, ''One Means of Preventing Pauperism,'' was written for the National Conference of Charities and Correction at Chicago, June 12, 1879, and before the Conference as- sembled, Mrs. Lowell addressed to the President of the Board, who attended it, the following letter : 120 E. 30th Street, June 7th, 79. My dear Mr. Letchworth : I have written a paper for the Conference which I should have sent to you had I been quite sure of your address. Being unwilhng to risk its non-arrival, I have mailed it to Mr. F. H. Wines, Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, and hope it will arrive safely. Will you be so kind as to inquire of him if he has it and see that the right thing is done with it ? It is, of course, on the subject of a reformatory for women, and if it is printed by the Conference of Charities, I shall want a thousand copies struck off for use in our next campaign ! If it is not printed, I shall have it printed myself, I think, and therefore it is important for me to know what disposition is made of it. May I ask you to ''keep an eye" on it, and write me about the paper after the Conference ? I hope that the meeting will be a success. This interesting paper opens thus : "The Legislature of New York, by concurrent resolu- tion of May 27-29, 1873, directed the State Board of Charities to examine into the causes of the increase of crime, pauperism and insanity in that State. In com- m JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL pliance with this resolution, an examination which occu- pied the Secretary of the Board, with the assistance of various commissioners, for the greater part of two years, was made into the antecedents of every inmate of the poorhouses of the State, and the result submitted to the Legislature in the tenth annual report of the State Board of Charities/' [Then follow the shocking histories of a few only of the women found in the almshouses of New York State.] '^ Women who from early girlhood have been tossed from poorhouse to jail, and from jail to poorhouse, until the last trace of womanhood in them has been destroyed/' ''These women and their children, and hundreds more like them, costing the hardworking inhabitants of the State annually thousands of dollars for their maintenance, corrupting those who are thrown into companionship with them, and sowing disease and death among the people, are the direct outcome of our system. The com- munity itself is responsible for the existence of such miserable, wrecked specimens of humanity. These mothers who began life as their own children have begun it, inheriting strong passions and weak wills, born and bred in a poorhouse, taught to be wicked before they could speak plainly, all the strong evil in their nature strengthened by their surroundings and the weak good crushed and trampled out of Kfe, hunted and hounded, perhaps committed to jail while their tender youth had yet some germs of virtue remaining, dragged through the mire, exposed to the wickedness of wicked men and women whose pleasure it is to sully and drag down whatever is more innocent than themselves, in the power of brutal officials, — what hope could there be for them ? And how shall we cast a stone at them, whom we ourselves THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 97 have, by the strong arm of the law, thrust into the direst temptation ? To begin at the beginning, what right had we to permit them to be born of parents who were de- praved in body and mind? What right have we today to allow men and women who are diseased and vicious to reproduce their kind, and bring into the world beings whose existence must be one long misery to themselves and others? We do not hesitate to cut off, where it is possible, the entail of insanity by incarcerating for life the incurably insane ; why should we not also prevent the transmission of moral insanity, as fatal as that of the mind ? ''These men and women are now constantly maintained by the public, sometimes for years at a time in the same institution, sometimes continually changing from one to another, but never failing to demand support from their fellows. Why, then, should they not be maintained in institutions fitted to save them from their own weaknesses and vices, where in due time they may be formed anew in body and mind, and be ready to enter the ranks of the free and intelligent men and women ? Why should they not spend years, if necessary, in institutions described by Governor Haines of New Jersey in the following words : 'Preventive and reformatory institutions are not to be regarded as places of punishment, but as schools of cor- rectional education. ... In them the ignorant are taught, the vicious restrained, the desponding cheered and the hopeless encouraged. In them industry becomes habitual, and good citizens are made of those who would otherwise become pests of society, following their own evil propensities, or becoming the victims of more practised and designing offenders.' "In the present paper, I speak chiefly of women, be- cause they form the visible links in the direful chain of hereditary pauperism and disease, but it must not be for- 98 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL gotten that the treatment here prescribed for them should also be applied to the reformation of the men whose evil propensities may be likewise handed down from one gen- eration to another/' [Continuing, Mrs. Lowell gives statistical information, evidently gathered with much care, showing that in the year 1878, in the State of New York, outside of the coun- ties of New York and Kings, there were sentenced to the county jails, or to penitentiaries, or admitted to alms- houses, ^^662 women between the ages of fifteen and thirty, guilty of what are called ^ minor offences,' and dependent for longer or shorter periods on the public for maintenance, 254 of whom are prostitutes and 276 drunk- ards. More than a third of these women are under twenty-one years of age, so that probably for them, at least, many years of a shameful life are in store, during which time the public will maintain them." The names and histories of the 662 young women were obtained from the official records.] ''The presence of these women in the poorhouses, peni- tentiaries and jails, under the circumstances, renders it certain that they have less than the average self-control. They have entered on the downward course. In neither jail, poorhouse nor penitentiary, will they find anything to help them turn back ; on the contrary, all the surround- ings will force them lower, and this would be the case, were they much more able to resist than they are. In the jail and penitentiary every door to virtue is closed, and every avenue to vice and crime is open. In the poorhouse they find others like themselves, and although the de- grading influences may not be so strong as in jails and penitentiaries, they are there, and strong enough to pre- vent any chance of rescue. Having an inherited and THE STATE REFORMATORY S'M WOM^N ' 'W deep-seated repugnance to labor, these women, both in the poorhouse and jail, are supported in absolute idleness, without even the bodily exercise which is necessary for health. They are shutmp in poisonous air, suffering a physical degeneration only to be compared with the ruin wrought at the same time in their minds and souls. ^'To rescue these unfortunate beings and to save the industrious part of the conununity from the burden of their support, reformatories should be established to which all women under thirty, when arrested for mis- demeanors, or upon the birth of a second illegitimate child, should be committed for very long periods, not as a punishment, but for the same reason that the insane are sent to an asylum, and where they should be subject to such physical, moral and intellectual training as would re-create them. Such training would be no child's play, since the very character of the women must be changed, and every good and healthy influence would be rendered useless without the one element of time. It is education in every sense which they need, and education is a long process, tedious and wearing, requiring unfaltering hope and unfaiUng patience on the part of teacher and pupil. Consequently these reformatories must not be prisons which would crush out the life from those unfortunate enough to be cast into them ; they must be homes, — homes where a tender care shall surround the weak and fallen creatures who are placed under their shelter, where a homelike feeling may be engendered, and where, if necessary, they may spend years. The unhappy beings we are speaking of need, first of all, to be taught to be women ; they must be induced to love that which is good and pure, and to wish to resemble it ; they must learn all household duties ; they must learn to enjoy work ; they must have a future to look forward to; and they must 100 ^ ' JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL be cured, both body and soul, before they can be safely trusted to face the world again. '^The following description will give some idea of an in- stitution where the necessary circumstances might be obtained : "1st. — A comparatively large tract of land (from two hundred and fifty to five hundred acres), to allow of free out of door life without any communication with the outer world. " 2d. — A series of buildings, each to accommodate from fifteen to twenty-five women, and so arranged as to afford ample means of classification. '^3d. — These buildings to be under the charge of women officers. "4th. — The inmates to be trained in as many kinds of labor as possible, all household work, sewing, knitting, cooking, washing and ironing, inside the house ; and out- side to work in gardens and greenhouses, to take care of cows, to be dairy maids, etc. ; the object being their im- provement in every respect, and also their being finally fitted to support themselves by honest industry. " 5th. — Besides this education in labor, their mental and moral faculties should be enlarged by constant teach- ing, a school being one of the main features of the re- formatory. "6th. — The endeavor should also be made to restore the physical health of the women, and they should be kept under the care of a physician of their own sex. "7th. — The diversity of buildings would afford means of grading the inmates, and a transfer from one to another would mark a step in advance, or a temporary fall to a lower grade. By this means, the constant ' looking forward^ necessary to a hopeful life would be obtained. "8th. — The board of managers, which should be com- THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMiiij i # posed of both men and women, should have power to place out the women committed to then* charge, in situa- tions where their wages should belong to themselves, but where they would still be under guardianship and liable to recommitment to the reformatory in case of ill conduct. ^^ Under such a system many of the women, who with our present jail and poorhouse education are doomed, might without doubt be rescued. They need to be saved from temptation, which assails them from within and without, and to be guided aright, and many of them will respond joyfully to the efforts for their improvement. "If, however, there were no hope of reforming even one of the thousand of young women now beginning what may be a long life of degradation and woe, if the State owed no debt to those whom it has systematically crushed and imbruted from their earliest years, even then it would be the wisest economy to build houses for them, where they might be shut up from the present day till the day of their death. They will all live on the public in one way or another for the rest of their lives, many of them will con- tinue to have children, and to cut off this baneful entail of degenerate propensities would be economy, even though the term of guardianship ended only with the unhappy life itself. For self-protection, the State should care for these human beings who, having been born, must be sup- ported to the end ; but every motive of humanity, justice and self-interest should lead to the extinction of the line as soon as possible. '' Mrs. Lowell lived to see three State reformatories for young women established on the lines she projected in 1879, in this report, — Hudson, Albion, and Bedford. In all of them, seven of the eight conditions which she con- sidered essential to their successful operation have at least a^.:>;{;-f;jOSSipHINE SHAW LOWELL in part been met ; the State has not, however, provided any of these three institutions with a site of adequate size. The second paper above referred to is Mrs. Lowell's report on ^^Reformatories for Women, '^ which was pre- sented to the State Board of Charities at a meeting held January 3, 1880. This shows careful study and a mastery of the subject which merit even fuller quotation than space allows. She begins in her usual direct manner : ''In compliance with your resolution, I respectfully submit this paper on 'Reformatories for Women.' Such reformatories are needed for women who are now almost constantly inmates of public institutions, whether jails, penitentiaries or poorhouses, and who perpetuate the classes of criminals and paupers, themselves belonging alternately to both. LTnder the present plan of providing for them, they are constantly sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss of vice and crime, they are a serious burden upon the hard-working part of the community, and are, moreover, continually adding to that burden by pro- ducing children who are almost sure to inherit their evil tendencies. These women are the same individuals whether they be committed to jails and penitentiaries as criminals or to poorhouses as vagrants and paupers. It is as the inmates of poorhouses only that the State Board of Charities, as such, encounters them and becomes aware of their dangerous and corrupting influence, but as all attempts by government authority in other countries and states to reform this class of women have dealt with them in their alternate character of criminals, it is from the history of such attempts and from the records of experience gained thereby in prisons and concerning prison discipline that I must draw my principal facts and arguments in THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 103 favor of a change of system in our own State. My object is to show that the project of reformatories for women supported by public funds is neither a new or untried one." Then she refers to the work of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry in 1817, for the reformation of women prisoners in Newgate Prison, London, and of a conmaittee of ladies she formed, which, after twenty years' work, improved the whole prison system of England. English jails in 1821 were then described in almost the same words as those Mrs. Lowell used in 1880 to describe the jails of the State of New York. Excerpts to emphasize her points are freely made by Mrs. Lowell, from Mrs. Fry's reports, and from the Enghsh Jail Act of 1823. She notes that by 1841 the reforms were generally approved, and had also been adopted by the French government. Continu- ing, she says in her report : ''It appears by the above extracts that more than fifty years ago the English jails were redeemed from the disgrace of imprisoning men and women together under the charge of male officers, and I doubt if such a legalized inde- cency^ could be found today in any civilized conmiunity of Europe. The United States is half a century behind in the care of her jail inmates, and in the State of New York at any rate, men and women, the innocent and the guilty, are still imprisoned together in degradation and idleness. "Fortunately for the good name of the United States, however, two of the states have, within the past few years, adopted Elizabeth Fry's recommendation and have each 'one prison appropriated solely to female prisoners.' In 1873 a 'Reformatory Institution for Women' was opened by the State of Indiana. It is governed by a board of three women, and all the officers, except the physician 104 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and the steward, are women. The superintendent, in the report for 1878, writes as follows : ^^ ' The success in the prison is without a parallel in prison history; a well-organized family performing their daily duties willingly and cheerfully ; the most hardened soon submitting to the influence of Christian kindness and forbearance, and at the expiration of their terms are pre- pared to reenter society as good servants, or the lost places in the family circle. Eighty-two per cent of those dis- charged have been reformed and are now useful members of society ; no runaways and only one recommittal in five years.' ''In November, 1877, the 'Reformatory Prison for Women' was opened in Massachusetts. The Board of Prison Commissioners and the Advisory Board, consist- ing, respectively, of three men and three women, in a joint report made to the governor of the State in October, 1878, speak as follows : " ' The first year of the existence of the Reformatory Prison for Women has come to an end and has been marked by none of the catastrophies foretold by those who were faithless as to the success of such an institution. Women have proved themselves entirely adequate to the control and management of women. No disturbance worthy of notice has taken place, and no prisoner has escaped. Turbulent and insolent prisoners have been subdued and reduced to obedience as successfully as if they had been under the control of men, and we believe with better results to the character of those under discipline. A large majority of the prisoners have been habitually orderly and industrious, and easily controlled.' " The report concludes with the statistical information relating to women inmates of jails, penitentiaries, and THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 105 almshouses in 1878, which was included in the paper read to the Chicago Conference, and the following paragraph : ''Such being the experience of England, Indiana, Massa- chusetts and Ontario in regard to female prisoners, the citizens of the great State of New York may well demand of their legislature that some steps be taken to place her in the rank of states which deal wisely and humanely with their dangerous classes. Having set an example to the whole world in the Elmira Reformatory for men, it would be a like act of wisdom to establish an institution of a cor- responding character for women." Mrs. Lowell continued, both in the State Board and out of it, her campaign for women's reformatories ; a few of her letters written on this subject have been preserved, — all are worth printing, but space will not allow ; her efforts at length led to the adoption of the following pre- amble and resolution, which she presented at a meeting of the Board, March 8, 1881 : '^Whereas, In the inquiry made by the State Board of Charities into the causes of the increase of pauperism, it was conclusively proved that vice, pauperism, idiocy and insanity are to a great degree hereditary; and '' Whereas, The present organization of the poorhouses of the State renders it impossible that the vicious and pauper women, who become the mothers of vicious and pauper children, should be trained and disciplined in those institutions ; and '^ Whereas J Under a systematic course of instruction a certain number of such women might be reclaimed and the State saved from great future expense; therefore, '^ Resolved, That the State Board of Charities recommend that the Legislature establish an institution for the custody 106 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and discipline of vagrants and disorderly women, under the charge of officers of their own sex/^ The State Board of Charities henceforward stood be- hind Mrs. Lowell in her great enterprise. A preliminary skirmish only in her campaign for a woman's reformatory had now been gained ; the final victory must yet be won in the Legislature, and she now endeavored to convince it of the righteousness of her cause. Shortly after the State Board adopted Mrs. Lowell's resolution, she published another pamphlet, ^'Some Facts concerning the Jails, Penitentiaries and Poorhouses of the State of New York," in which she pointed out, in proof of her statements, the shocking conditions then prevailing in these institutions, and quoted more recent statistics from the latest report of the New York Prison Association, and a plea by Bishop Huntington in behalf of the female prisoners in the Onondaga County penitentiary. Distribution of this pamphlet of Mrs. Lowell's was made to the members of the Legislature of 1881 upon the introduction of a bill for the establishment of a reforma- tory for women. It was also widely circulated through- out the State, where it helped increase the number of those who were interested in social questions, and enlisted a large and active following in support of the bill. Mrs. Lowell had made many friends among the leading men in the Senate and Assembly during her success- ful work of 1878 for the Asylum for Feeble-minded Women, and to these she now again appealed, encouraged by one great victory for humanity, and supported by public sentiment and the press. Success in the Legis- THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 107 lature was not long delayed, for on May 2, 1881, the bill she had framed was enacted as '^ An Act to provide for the establishment of a House of Refuge for Women." The act provided for the establishment of the new institution at some point outside the counties of New York and Kings, and for the appointment by the Governor, with the con- sent of the Senate, of five managers to serve without compensation. Section 5 of the act directed the man- agers to organize within six months from their appoint- ment, and to purchase land and one or more buildings suitable for the detention and employment of such women as might be committed to their charge. ^'In case no land and buildings thereon, suitable for the purpose, can be purchased, the said managers are hereby authorized to select and purchase an eUgible site, within the limits of the State as aforesaid, and to cause to be erected thereon appropriate buildings with accommoda- tions for two hundred and fifty inmates, together with such household accommodations for the superintendent and family, and for subordinate officers, as said managers may deem necessary." This act, a model of its kind, made careful provision for the protection of the State from financial loss in the construction of the buildings, appropriated $100,000, for the land and buildings, and directed the Board to appoint a woman superintendent. Section 8 provided that when the House of Refuge shall be ready for the reception of inmates, all justices of the peace, police justices, and other magistrates may sentence and commit "all females between the ages of fifteen and 108 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL thirty years, who have been convicted of petit larceny^ habitual drunkenness, of being common prostitutes, fre~ quenters of disorderly houses or houses of prostitution, to the said House of Refuge for a term of not more than five years, unless sooner discharged therefrom by the board of managers." Other sections of the bill made it the duty of the mana- gers to provide for the employment of the inmates, for the formation in them ^'of habits of self-supporting in- dustry," and for ''their mental and moral improvement and good order," and authorized a system of credit by which a possible balance for work performed above the cost of maintenance might be paid the inmates on dis- charge. By all of these provisions the legislative sanction to Mrs. Lowell's views on the best methods of reformatory treatment for young women was given, and there is strong reason for the belief that the bill became law substantially as drawn by her, embodying in concrete form her con- victions, slowly matured during years of almshouse in- spection, as to what the State ought to do for its own protection, and for the reformation of the classes of young women to whom the doors of the new institution were soon to swing open. Governor Cornell appointed a board of five managers, of whom two were women, in May, 1881, who subsequently reported to the Legislature that after diligent inquiries and examinations, they were unable to purchase land with buildings thereon, suitable for the purposes of the institution ; but during the year a plot of thirty acres on the northerly side of the city of Hudson was purchased THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 109 for $3000 and premiums were offered for suitable plans for buildings. Delay ensued, and in the meantime, to- ward the close of 1882, a much more eligible and desirable site of about forty acres, lying on the southerly side of the city of Hudson, was offered for the institution, which the managers thought it best for the State to purchase. The appropriation being about to lapse, a bill was intro- duced in the Assembly of 1883, reappropriating $95,000 and making an additional appropriation of $25,000, but this failing to pass the Senate, all proceedings under the law of 1881 were necessarily ended. How extremely disappointing this delay, suspense, and legislative indifference must have been to Mrs. Lowell ! It must at times almost have seemed to her that she would not live long enough to witness the fruition of her work for the young inmates of the almshouses and jails, whose need for more hopeful care she had for so many years been pleading. But she did not lose heart, and her letters of that period show her still at work for the reformatory. The House of Refuge bill was again introduced in the Legislature of 1884, early in the session, and shortly after- wards Mrs. Lowell wrote as follows to Mr. Fanning : ^ February 22, 1884. My dear Mr. Fanning: I have yours containing Judge Cadman's letter and the copy of the bill relating to House of Refuge for Women. I should wish to make an amendment, substituting the * Assistant Secretary of the State Board of Charities. no JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL approval of the State Board of Charities for that of the Comptroller. Could not this be done? In thinking more of Judge Cadman^s letter and the bill, I have become quite enthusiastic for our poor House of Refuge, and want to start out on a new crusade for it ! I shall write a note to each member of the Legislature and send to you to be delivered at the Capitol, together with copies of the enclosed papers and my paper on Re- formatories for Women, if you consider the addition of that a wise thing. Please let me know, and have large envelopes addressed to each of the members of Assembly and Senate to be kept until I send you my notes and papers like enclosed. Have you plenty of ^Reformatories for Women'? I have, and will send them if needed. Meanwhile, please send me at once, list of Senators and 150 large half sheets. This bombardment of the Legislature was effective, and by the passage on May 21, 1884, of Chapter 314 of the laws of that year, the board of managers was given the means to purchase the site on the southerly side of the city of Hudson, where the institution now stands, and to erect the necessary buildings. Although the original appropriation for the House of Refuge had lapsed, as we have seen, the life of the board of managers was continuous, and it held meetings from time to time. The great importance of a strong and up- right board, under whose immediate supervision the build- ings of the institution should be erected, rules for discipline and administration adopted, and the staff of officers appointed, was fully realized by Mrs. Lowell who kept herself well informed on all that concerned the reformatory. THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 111 Two years elapsed after the passage of the second act establishing the House of Refuge, before the buildings were completed by the contractor and turned over to the State in May, 1886. Another year was taken by the managers in furnishing the buildings and appointing the officers and employees, and the institution was finally opened April 15, 1887, the first inmate being received May 7. A few months before Mrs. Lowell had written the follow- ing letter to her sister-in-law : West New Brighton, Dear Annie : December 19th, '86. You will be interested to know that another step has been taken towards the opening of the 'Women's House of Refuge' at Hudson (my reformatory that I worked so hard for for so many years). I stopped there on my way to Albany week before last and found the furniture almost all in, the fence put up, and the Superintendent and two of her assistants already at work, preparing to open within a month or two. There is no doubt that the buildings are excellent — cheap, simple, suitable, pretty, all but the prison. The Superintendent has just the right ideas, it seems to me, and is a woman of character and experience. For- tunately, we put into the law that she should appoint her own subordinates, so she is choosing them slowly and wisely. Altogether I feel much encouraged, and am glad things are going slowly, for there will be all the more chance of their going right. I have had many disappoint- ments about this thing, but they all turned out right in the end, and there is nothing to regret now, unless Governor Hill puts in some new managers to upset things, — and he has two more years to stay in office. . . . 112 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The work of the House of Refuge at Hudson, now known as the New York State Training School for Girls, has continued for nearly twenty years, and during all this time, until her death, Mrs. Lowell retained her earnest and intelligent interest not only in the institution and its inmates, but in all legislation which might affect it and them. The institution, which had an original capacity of two hundred and fifty, was soon filled ; from time to time its enlargement has been considered. Amendatory acts affecting the inmates and the government of the re- formatory have been introduced in the Legislature. Mrs. Lowell was always on the watch to further good and to prevent ill-advised legislation, as this letter to Mr. Fan- ning shows : 120 East 30th Street, Feby. 17th, 1892. Dear Sir: I have just received a copy of Senate Bill 367, intro- duced by Mr. Osborne to amend the laws establishing the House of Refuge for Women, and although, probably, the bill was framed by the Managers, it seems to me that there are some provisions which ought not to become law. As the amendments are not printed in italics, and as I have only had the bill for an hoiu-, I shall probably omit several things that ought to be noticed, and I write at once in order to call your attention to those which have struck me in a hasty reading. Page 2, section 8 of the present law is amended so that " any female between the ages of twelve and twenty-five years '^ may be committed. This seems to me a very great mistake; the present limits of age are fifteen and forty years and were intended to include women likely to have THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN 113 children. By excluding women over twenty-five, large numbers of this dangerous class could not be restrained in the House of Refuge, while on the other hand to include girls between twelve and fifteen is quite unnecessary, because the House of Refuge at RandalFs Island receives girls up (and this is my impression but I have no copy of the law) to sixteen years and that institution answers every purpose for the training of these girls without the disadvantage of their being associated with women much older than themselves and of course much more deeply experienced in vice. I protest strongly against this change which has, so far as I can see, not one argument in its favor. On page 6 it is provided that the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge for Women shall have power to place the children of inmates in " any asylum for children in this State'' and to pay for them at a rate not to exceed $2.50 a week. I am not at all sure that it is necessary that the children should be by law a charge upon the counties from which the women come, and that the county would be responsible for their board in any insti- tution within its limits to which the Board of Managers should conmiit them. In any event the payment of $2.50 a week is too much since some of the counties pay only $1 a week for children in institutions and none that I know of pays as much as $2.50 a week. It would seem as if this provision, giving the authority to pay this excessive rate of board, to "any asylum in the State'' were intended to pave the way for the opening of a special asylum in the neighborhood of the House of Refuge for Women to re- ceive these children and be maintained by these payments for board. There is no reason that the State should start any such institution and reUeve the counties of the care of those children. . 114 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL On the same page in section 11, it ought to be provided that the persons employed to convey women from the place of conviction to the House of Refuge should be women. On page 7, the appropriation of $150,000 I should say was a very large sum and should not be made without its being specified what use is intended to be made of it. Several years of work were required to secure the enact- ment of an amendment to the law recommended by Mrs. Lowell, that women and not men should be charged with the duty of conveying the young women from the place of commitment to the Refuge. Serious abuses in transit had emphasized the necessity for this change, and these compelled the Legislature to provide that women officers should have entire charge of delinquent women after commitment. Subsequent laws have provided for police matrons to take charge of women when arrested, and for women probation officers to attend the sessions of the courts and secure the parole of women, who, in the opinion of the magistrate, can be restored to good habits through the aid and counsel of such officers. It must be evident from the story told in this chapter that to Mrs. Lowell, more than to any person, is due not only the establishment at Hudson of the first reformatory for women in New York State, but also as a consequence, the adoption of the important and benevolent principle of State care for erring young women, who through the training and opportunities of such institutions may be saved and restored as useful members to society. CHAPTER VIII State Care for Feeble-minded Women The history of the establishment of the House of Ref- uge for Women at Hudson illustrates the willingness of the people of the State of New York to assume any reason- able philanthropic responsibihty. Mrs. Lowell's thorough exposition of the cruelty, injustice, and folly of sending young women of the vagrant and delinquent classes either to the almshouses or the county jails, and her campaign of ten years' duration, induced the State to assimie the guardianship of such young women as Hudson, Albion, and Bedford reformatories now shelter in large numbers. Side by side with these unruly young women, Mrs. Lowell found in the almshouses many others of feeble mind, or idiotic ; who were, from weak will or defective intellect, unable to distinguish between right and wrong ; for whose safety and that of the community greater cus- todial care was necessary than the county almshouses could give. Simultaneously with her campaign for a State re- formatory for women, she carried on another for a State custodial asylum. Commissioned to the State Board in 1876, she was, as the records show, at work for such an asylum the following year. At a meeting of the Board December 4, 1877, ''Commissioner Lowell presented a paper in which she had collected the facts stated in 115 116 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the Secretary's report on pauperism in regard to vagrant, feeble-minded, and idiotic inmates of the almshouses of the State. A discussion ensued in regard to the care of unteachable idiots, . . . and Commissioners Devereux, Letchworth, and Lowell were appointed a committee to consult with Dr. Wilbur, the superintendent, and with the trustees of the State Asylum for Idiots at Syracuse, as to the best means of securing proper custodial care for unteachable idiots.'' One thousand copies of Mrs. Lowell's report were ordered printed. Some of Mrs. Lowell's letters preserved in the files of the State Board show that she was continually at work for the future asylum. Thus under date of March 15, 1878, she wrote to the Assistant Secretary : ^^ Please do not send away those copies of the 'Extracts' unless you think that there are plenty more for the Legislature. " Will you also remember that the Board desires an ap- propriation of $15,000 for 1878 and the same amount for 1879 to be used to establish and carry on a custodial asylum for idiots, and when you have the opportunity, speak of the subject to members of the Assembly and Senate." Again on March 23, 1878, to Dr. Hoyt : '^I thought you were present when the Committee re- ported in regard to the custodial asylum for idiots. The Board of Trustees of the idiot asylum at Syracuse at the request of the State Board has agreed by formal resolu- tion to take charge of the proposed custodial institution, provided the State Board can obtain an appropriation STATE CARE FOR FEEBLE-MINDED WOMEN 117 from the Legislature of fifteen thousand dollars for 1878 and the same for 1879. " No place has been yet decided on for the institution nor any particulars as to the management agreed upon. The idea is that the institution should be an experiment for the present, and one proposal was to limit the age of female inmates to the years between sixteen and forty-five. "The matter has been presented by letter to the Chair- man of the Committee on Ways and Means and the Chairman of the Finance Committee, and I hope there will be no objection to it. I am very glad you have already interested yourself about it and also that Messrs. McGonegal and Loomis have spoken of it to their repre- sentatives." Victory in this campaign was not long delayed, for at the Board meeting of June 13, 1878, ''Commissioner Lowell, from the Committee on a custodial asylum for adult idiots, submitted a report which was read, accepted, and ordered filed. The report stated that the efforts of the Committee to secure an appropriation from the Legis- lature for the purposes of a custodial asylum had been successful, that an appropriation of $18,000 had been in- serted in the supply bill for this purpose, and that this sum was placed at the disposal of the Board of Managers of the State Idiot Asylum, who now have the matter in charge." Within less than two years Mrs. Lowell had successfully led the State Board to secure the adoption by the State, as its wards, of feeble-minded or idiotic young women, who up to that time had been exposed to the dangers of county almshouse care. 118 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The managers of the State Idiot Asylum at Syracuse acted with commendable energy under this legislative sanction, and in the summer of 1878 secured the lease of a vacant seminary building at Newark, in Wayne County, which they opened in September of that year, with a superintendent, matron, and two inmates, as the Custodial Asylum for Feeble-minded Women. Mrs. Lowell inter- ested herself from the beginning in the new branch, and contributed in every possible way to make the experi- ment at Newark the success she believed it should be. At the request of the State Board, made by a formal resolution at a meeting held February 12, 1884, Mrs. Lowell prepared and presented at the April meeting a memorial to be transmitted by the Board to the Legis- lature, recommending ^Hhe establishment of further and definite provision for the custodial care and sequestration of idiotic and feeble-minded girls and women, for their protection and the protection of the State from hereditary increase of that class of dependents on public charity." After serious delays and opposition, a bill was passed establishing the Custodial Asylum at Newark as a per- manent and separate State institution, and not as a branch of the asylum at Sjrracuse, which on May 14, 1885, took its place among the statutes of the State. The first sec- tion provides that ''The asylum established by the State Board of Charities at Newark, Wayne County, for feeble- minded women, is hereby continued and shall be a body corporate, and shall be known as 'The State Custodial Asylum for Feeble-minded Women at Newark, New York/ and shall be under the management and control of a STATE CARE FOR FEEBLE-MINDED WOMEN 119 Board of Trustees to be appointed as hereinafter pro- vided, and shall be under the general supervision of the State Board of Charities." The Governor appointed a board of nine managers which organized at the Asylum June 2, 1885, and entered upon the discharge of its responsible duties in the administration and development of the new institution. The mana- gers have in their annual reports to the Legislature traced the healthy growth of the asylum and given account of the beneficent work carried on within its walls for the educa- tion and care of the inmates. Although appropriations by the Legislature for new dormitory cottages have not been made as rapidly as needed, there has been a very sub- stantial increase in the size of the asylum which on October 1, 1910, sheltered 792 inmates, classified according to their degree of intelligence, in the enlarged original building, and in several outlying cottages, erected on a fertile and beautiful upland site of forty acres. At the dedication of the Custodial Asylum at Newark, June 10, 1890, the President of the Board of Trustees, Hon. S. S. Peirson, delivered an interesting historical address with details relating to the origin and develop- ment of the institution not elsewhere narrated. He re- called that prior to 1851 the public charities of the State of New York comprised only those for the care of the insane, the deaf and dumb, and the blind, and outhned the growth of a movement for the assumption by the State of the care also of the idiotic and the feeble-minded, which resulted in the establishment in 1857 of the New York Asylum for Idiots at Syracuse. Dr. H. B. Wilbur, Superintendent of 120 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL that institution for many years, had said in one of his first reports to the Trustees : ''The design and objects of this asylum are not of a custodial character/' and after twelve years of experience, he again reported : ''There is one class, constituting twenty per cent of the whole number, who, in the absence of any proper custodial in- stitution, are suffered to remain with us,'' and he recom- mended that the Willard Asylum for the Insane should be allowed to receive them. The State Board of Charities took up substantially the same thought, and, continued Mr. Peirson: " The joint action of the Syracuse Board and the State Board is shown in the following minutes of the Secretary, at a special meeting of the Board of Trustees held at Syracuse, March 12, 1878. The object of the meeting was to be the consideration of the question of a custodial institution for the idiotic. A committee of the Board of Charities, consisting of Mrs. J. S. Lowell, Mr. W. P. Letchworth, and Mr. J. C. Devereux, was heard at length on the subject. After full discussion by the Board of the whole matter, it was : ^Resolved, That we are willing to assume the respon- sibility of the management of a custodial institution.' "It is well known that Mrs. J. S. Lowell of New York, a lady well known throughout the State and nation for her philanthropy, was the moving spirit. The result^ of their joint labors was an act of the Legislature in 18S7, appropriating $18,000 'for the support and maintenance of adult idiotic and feeble-minded females at an experi- mental custodial asylum, under the management of the Trustees of the New York State Asylum for Idiots/ STATE CARE FOR FEEBLE-MINDED WOMEN 121 Before November, 1878, a building intended originally for a collegiate institute had been rented at Newark, and nine inmates received from county poorhouses and eighteen from the asylum at Syracuse." Mr. Peirson then related that the experiment at Newark having proved successful, the State Board and the Trustees of the State Asylum at Syracuse united in recommending the purchase of the site and buildings; but there was a difference of opinion as to whether the institution should be established as a new State charitable institution or continued as a branch of the State Asylum at Sjracuse. The State Board and Mrs. Lowell strongly supported the former plan, but a bill had been presented sanctioning the latter plan, and after 'Hhe hottest fight of the session, was defeated. ... In 1885, this district was again repre- sented by a Wayne County member, the Hon. E. K. Burn- ham ; ... his first act was to introduce the bill that had been prepared the previous session. . . . After fierce debate, and the true merits of the bill had been fully demonstrated, opposition almost vanished, . . . the Governor's signa- ture in due time was attached, and on the 14th day of May, 1885, one of the noblest charities in the State was per- manently estabhshed." When the asylum became a separate State institution, the managers suggested that, as Mrs. Lowell had carefully watched over its experimental days, and was regarded by them as its founder, it should bear her name; but she decUned this honor. CHAPTER IX The Charity Organization Society of the City of New York " It is an unhappy circumstance that one might give away five hun- dred pounds a year to those that importune on the streets and not do any good." — Samuel Johnson. The Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, one of the most useful organizations in the whole range of philanthropic work in the United States, was founded in 1882, on the initiative of the State Board of Charities and through the continued efforts of Mrs. Lowell, then a Commissioner of the Board. As early as 1843, the New York Association for Improving the Con- dition of the Poor had pointed out in its first annual re- port, that ^^ without cooperation too Httle will be gained in the contest with the forces of experienced and crafty pauperism ; with it, the walls of Jericho will fall down." But no practical steps had ever been successfully taken to insure such cooperation between the charitable societies caring for the poor in New York. The minutes of a meeting of the State Board of Chari- ties held July 15, 1877, a year after Mrs. Lowell took her seat, contain the following entry : *' Commissioner Lowell stated her intention to investi- gate during the present year the system of administering temporary or outdoor rehef in the several counties of the 122 THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 123 State, and submitted for the approval of the Board a form of blank to be used for the purpose of collecting from the superintendents of the poor information and statistics upon the subject." Although the minutes, for more than three years, contain no reference to the investigation undertaken by Mrs. Lowell, she no doubt made it, as time permitted, for at a meeting held July 15, 1881, she presented a ^'Report in Relation to Outdoor ReUef Societies in New- York City." In this paper she said that seventy-one societies, exclusive of dispensaries, were asked by letter, accompanied by blank, to furnish information as to their mode of work; that forty responded; that sta- tistics respecting some others were obtained from outside sources; and that for this reason, the figures given in tables appended to the report were incomplete. Statistics for 1880 were given ; then followed a classifica- tion of outdoor reUef societies into four classes : (1) those giving general relief; (2) the dispensaries; (3) those which care for the sick only; (4) those which are primarily educational and religious. Note is made that few church societies are reported, "although it is to be presumed that every church in the city had some organ- ized means of distributing alms." Statistics were ob- tained from sixty-six organizations in all, by which it appeared that in 1880 an aggregate of $546,832 was dis- tributed in charity among the poor, while about 525,155 cases were reported as having received some form of charitable relief. Then Mrs. Lowell made the following strong argument for organized charity : 124 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ''The foregoing figures, whether we regard them from a financial or humanitarian point of view, are suflScient to convince us that so important a business as the administra- tion of charity has become in New York City requires to be carried on on business principles, if the great evils of wasted funds and corrupted and pauperized citizens are to be avoided. Some system is required to enable these various societies and organizations to work in harmony, to attain the end they all aim at — some plan by which each may be helped by the knowledge and experience of all. That there is not already some such system in New York is a matter of regret to many of the wisest and most thoughtful persons who have practical experience in dealing with the poor, especially as almost all the other large cities in this country and in England have proved the value of associated work in diminishing pauperism and poverty in their midst. ^' Mrs. Lowell supported her plea by apt quotations from the first annual report of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, from a paper pre- sented in 1878 by Mr. Henry E. Pellew of that Associa- tion to the National Conference of Charities held in Cincinnati, and from the reports of several outdoor charities of New York City. Writing for the three New York Commissioners who formed the committee, Mrs. Lowell concluded as follows : "We have been able to collect only very imperfect statistics, and we have studied these statistics in a neces- sarily superficial manner, and yet we are led to the irresist- ible conclusion that there is at present inevitably great waste of energy, effort and money, owing to the want of THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 125 cooperation among the societies which administer the charities of New York City, while the same cause operates to encourage among the poor, pauperism and degrada- tion. " It is becoming that the State Board of Charities should, so far as possible, assist in an effort to remedy the evils apparent to all thoughtful students of the facts presented in this report, and we propose the following preamble and resolution for the consideration of the Board : " Whereas, There are in the City of New York a large number of independent societies engaged in teaching and relieving the poor of the city in their own homes, and " Whereas J There is at present no system of cooperation by which these societies can receive definite mutual in- formation in regard to the work of each other, and " Whereas J Without some such system, it is impossible that much of their effort should not be wasted, and even do harm by encouraging pauperism and imposture, there- fore, ''Resolved, That the Commissioners of New York City are hereby appointed a committee to take such steps as they may deem wise to inaugurate a system of mutual help and cooperation between such societies." Whereupon, '^on motion of Commissioner Craig the report was accepted and Commissioner Lowell requested to furnish a copy for the annual report of the Board. " On motion of Commissioner Stephen Smith, the pre- amble and resolution proposed by Commissioner Lowell in her report were adopted by the Board, and Com- missioner Lowell was designated to act as chairman of the conamittee." 126 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Under the authority conferred by the foregoing resolu- tion of the Board, the committee, under Mrs. LowelFs leadership, formed an association of representative men in the City of New York interested in philanthropic work, and knowing by personal experience the waste of time, energy, and money resulting from the lack of cooperation. The active support of such leading citizens as Abram S. Hewitt, James C. Carter, Charles S. Fairchild, and Seth Low was secured , and many leading clergymen of different denominations. Catholic, Hebrew, and Protestant, gave their counsel and aid to the movement. The delibera- tions of this association or commission resulted in the formation of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, which was organized by the election of officers on February 8, 1882, Samuel Oakley Vanderpoel, M.D., being the first President. The Legislature shortly afterwards incorporated the society by special act May 10, 1882, and its constitution was adopted at a special meeting of the society June 5, 1882. In drafting this constitution. Rev. S. H. Gurteen of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society was helpful. Throughout the form- ative period of the society's work Mrs. Lowell's was the directing mind. An interesting sidelight is thrown upon the earnestness and efficiency of her work for the Charity Organizatioa Society at this time, and upon other sociological subjects to which much of her thought and energy were afterwards given, in the following extracts from letters written to her sister-in-law Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw: THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 127 October 30th, '81. Dear Annie : The next day was all business, arranging for a small meeting in the evening to discuss the best means of charity organization in New York City. We had invited several clergymen and others, but had not many present. Dr. John Hall (who I thought was a CathoHc priest) and Mr. Heber Newton representing the clergy, Mr. Pellew and Mr. Gibbons the laity, and Mrs. Rice, Ellen Collins and Mrs. Lockwood the femality. We discussed for an hour and the outcome was that they thought the best way to do the work in New York was to have the State Board take up the matter, which means a very long and hard struggle for the next year, I suppose. I am ready to do it, however, for I think it the most important thing there is, next to Civil Service Reform, of course. . . . March 19th, '82. Dear Annie: All the week it seems to me I have been busy folding up circulars ! I agreed to see to the distribution of fifteen thousand papers (three different kinds) so I have had to have the five thousand envelopes addressed, and on Friday and Saturday I had four young women folding. They were precious slow, I think, compared to my rate of work, and I expect to have them on hand for a day or two more at least. It is for our new Charity Organization Society, and of course I shan't do it again, but now we have no office and no secretary, so I undertook it. I don't know whether I sent the circulars to you, but think I didn't, so I shall. We have a good set of workers and we have just engaged the secretary of the Philadelphia society to come to us, so I think we shall get along very well, though the work is going to be something tremendous. 128 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Did you see that an old lady (Miss Burr) has died in New York leaving three million dollars to charity? If she had only asked me I would have told her what to do with it. One million ought to go to public libraries and one million to build and partly endow an insane asjdum for poor people who aren't paupers. Those two things would do an immense amount of good. I wish I had three million ! And why couldn't she have left some for model lodging-houses, like Mr. Peabody? She has put a great share of it into the common charities, orphan asylums and sick, and left a good deal to women's seminaries out west, which is a good thing, of course. About public libraries, however, with reading rooms and sitting rooms attached, I am beginning to feel very strongly. People ought to have decent places to go to on week-day evenings and on Sundays. The one Nellie belongs to does a great deal of good and thej^ have S30,000 to build with, but that will only put up one building, and they need six, they say, and I say twenty or thirty. There ought to be such libraries all over the city. . . . March 28th, '82. Dear Annie : We are working on with our charity organization schemes, and last week Gertrude Rice (Stevens j^ou know) and I went round to the various charities to ask them to co- operate and found all the officers very cordial and ready to do all we wanted. Gertrude is a most satisfactory person to work with, very efficient and full of sense and no personal feelings to interfere. She takes a great part of the Association work on herself when Louisa Schuyler is away, as at present, in Florida. Mr. John Jay also is quite active in the Association now, being Vice-Presi- dent. . . . THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 129 May 23d, '82. Dearest Annie: I have been having a busy charity organization week — annual meeting last Monday, committee meeting Tues- day, hunting up workers Wednesday, small conference Friday, and another meeting last evening. We are doing as well or better than we could have expected, finding much interest and encouragement. We need more money and more people to 'Hake hold^' at the top, however, and lead the others. I see many pleasant people, especially men, upon whom we are trying to throw the responsibility of this work, so as to bring the business faculty to bear on the charity problem. What we need are more men of leisure with the tradition of public service like so many of the '^ nobility and gentry '^ of England. Our young men, those that we catch, are very good, but usually too busy. However, I canH complain for we have had very good fortune so far. It is interesting to see how much runs in families, however; the Roosevelts and the Dodges, for instance, you can depend on every time, — they are most satisfactory wherever you meet them ; being all rich, too, they have time to work, which is decidedly a good thing. . . . February 18th, '83. Dearest Annie : I begin ''way up" at the top as if I had a good deal to say, but I don't know that I have, unless an account of the various poor people who are being brought to our notice by our Charity Organization Society. They all want work, work, work ; many are widows with young children ; many are men who have had accidents ; so far, we have not really found many "unworthy," or at least, those are not the ones that make an impression. I more and more 130 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL feel, the more I see of these suffering people, that things are all wrong. It cannot be right that men should slave all their days for bread and butter. They do need time for some amusement, or at least for rest, and they do need money enough for their labor to enable them to lay by for a sick time or for old age without giving up all that makes life worth living. Whether Henry George and Father are right and that plan will help to make things straight I can't say, but that they need putting straight I am very sure of . . . . May 5th, '83. Dearest Annie : I cannot think of any news for you, — I don't do much but charity organization work and not much of that, and feel as if I might do a great deal more. I am learning all the time and am going to write two or three papers this summer, which I hope will tend to disseminate right views of charity, and that seems to be my only field of usefulness. Common charity, that is, feeding and clothing people, I am beginning to look upon as wicked ! Not in its in- tention, of course, but in its carelessness and its results, which certainly are to destroy people's character and make them poorer and poorer. If it could only be drummed into the rich that what the poor want is fair wages and not little doles of food, we should not have all this suffering and misery and vice. Good-by and excuse this tirade. Mr. Charles D. Kellogg, the first general secretary of the society, fresh from four years' similar service in in- augurating the Society of Organized Charity of Philadel- phia, says : THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 131 ''I was surprised to find at the outset so many well- devised and far-sighted preliminaries already initiated, which were easily traceable to Mrs. Lowell's forethought, so that the task before me was at once shorn of much of its anticipated difficulty. The principles laid down at the outset were so wise as to require but trifling new adaptation for many years, and the high character and thoroughly representative capacity of the citizens who worked with Mrs. Lowell to found the Charity Organiza- tion Society, and their unity of purpose, were such that the inauguration of the society was accompanied by far less distrust and jealousy than was encountered in other of the large cities." On October 10, 1883, Mrs. Lowell, as chairman of a special committee appointed by the State Board, pre- sented a report on ''The Organization and Work of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York," in which she communicated the facts above mentioned, relating to the founding and incorporation of the society, and continued: ''Almost at the beginning of the active work of this society, thirty-five reUef -giving societies and nine churches agreed to use it as a medium through which to exchange information in regard to their mutual bene- ficiaries. The Department of PubUc Charities and Cor- rection also agreed to give all the information which it might have about those who received city coal, and mooey appropriated for the relief of the adult blind, and about those persons committed to the penitentiary and to the workhouse ; S2500 for current expenses was contributed before the society had fairly begun work. . . . "The effort to get more cooperation has been so far 132 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL successful that on March 31 the charitable agencies which had agreed to report to this society had increased from forty-four to one-hundred and thirty-eight. They can be classified as follows : Thirty general societies for temporary outdoor relief ; Six national societies for temporary outdoor relief; Fourteen asylums and institutions for indoor reUef ; Eighty-eight churches and religious congregations. '^ District committees have been organized in six districts, five of which cover that portion of the city on the east side, between Houston and Seventy-second streets, and one on the west side from Houston to Fourteenth streets. These committees are composed of earnest men, sixty- eight in all, who have faithfully given time and labor in seeking a solution of the great difficulties which surround the questions of poverty and charity in this city. Each committee has a plain office located conveniently in its district, properly furnished, and each has its paid district agent. The society has found one hundred and sixty- seven men and women willing to act as friendly visitors to those needing them. . . . The support given to the society in money has been very generous. The amount collected for the general work of the society to March 31, 1882 inclusive, was $15,659.25. . . . '^The most striking facts brought to fight by the work of the Charity Organization Society are those relating to the number of people reported to them as having had relief or being criminals, sentenced to the workhouse or penitentiary, and those relating to the houses in which these people live. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 133 ''From January 1, 1882, to October 1, 1883, the Dames of about 45,000 individuals were reported to the society, representing a population (at the small average of four persons to each family) of 180,000, or more than the popu- lation of Buffalo, Pittsburg or Washington. ''In relation to the houses inhabited by this large num- ber of persons, the annual report of the society says : '"A street register has been made by taking all the names from the alphabetical cards and putting them on other cards, according to streets and street numbers. These cards are arranged by the street numbers, and each street is kept in a package by itself. . . . These reports show that alms have gone into, or that criminals have resided at 12,336 street numbers during the past fifteen months. . . . The houses would make a street six and five-sixths times the length of Broadway from the Battery to Fifty-ninth Street, or thirty-three miles in length. " ^ We find also from this street register that alms-getting families tend to congregate together. A dozen such families are often reported as hving at one street number. The greatest number of families reported from one house during fifteen months is eighty-three. . . . We believe that this teaches that the habit of looking to charity for support is contagious, that it rapidly becomes the fashion in localities.' "The above statement that 'looking to charity for sup- port is contagious,' should cause those who administer charity funds to consider well the wide-spreading evil that may follow the relief given even to persons really in need and really worthy, and to reflect whether, after all, it might not be wiser and more charitable to restrict all 134 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL direct relief to that given inside of institutions, which has this advantage that it does not corrupt others while reheving the sufferer. '^Another feature of relief -giving which has been brought to light by the registration system of the Charity Organization Society is the large proportion of able-bodied men who appear on the lists of the charitable societies. A circular of the committee of the society on cooperation, dated May 18, gives the following facts : '''Of 6964 cases, 4577, or over 65 per cent, were men with or without children, and so far as appeared, able- bodied. And but 1908 cases out of the 6964, or less than 27f per cent, were widows with children, or families where the bread-winner was reported to be sick.' "I have given this brief statement of the work of the Charity Organization Society to show the Board its general character, because the society is the outgrowth of the action of the Board taken. two years ago." The cordialitj^ and measure of cooperation between the different relief societies and the Charity Organization So- ciety were well illustrated by the fact that the society was the guest, during the second and third years of its active work, of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, which generously gave the free use of the second and third stories of its house at 79 Fourth Avenue, until the quarters became too narrow for the rapidly expanding needs of the Charity Organization Society. The following letters to Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw, give further illustrations of Mrs. LowelFs work for the Charity Organization Society during its early history. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 135 May 15th, '87. Dearest Annie : . . . Mr. Munroe belongs to a small and modest, but, I think, an important association of which I am president, the ' ' Labor Bureau Association. ' ' We have a ' ' Labor Test Wood Yard," where men asking for charity are given work, and we hope to develop it into something very useful in time. Mr. Bannard ^ (a lawyer) and Henry Iselin (the youngest of the family that used to live next us on Staten Island) and two or three more have worked very hard this past winter to make it a success, and they have formed very good plans for next year. I consider it of the greatest importance, for relief to able-bodied men is one of the worst and most dangerous phases of charity, and our object is to make this work a condition of relief, and the relief societies and individ- uals are coming more and more to use our yard. We have many safeguards and conditions to prevent the abuses that charity emplojnnent is apt to lead to, and we go on slowly and carefully, but, I am sure wisely, and I feel encouraged and happy about it. . . . ' February 5th, '88. Dearest Annie : ... I do not think we have had any occurrences lately, — personally I am doing nothing but Charity Organ- ization Society work. I am getting to be nothing but a schoolma'am. Every Thursday at a conamittee meet- ing I talk and lecture, and I am going to give talks about " Friendly Visiting '' among the poor at various meetings this month. 1 Otto T. Bannard, Vice-president of theOharity Organization Society since 1899. 136 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Last Thursday I read a paper to a small "Working Women's Society," which Miss Perkins has joined and which, we hope, may do great things in time. Many of the women spoke afterwards and were very interesting and intelHgent. They have had a practical education in life, which shows in their faces which are strong and in- dividual, but of course they need a great deal of advice, and I am thankful that Miss Perkins is with them and ready to work with them. The meeting was a small one at Cooper Union, and Miss Perkins presided. April 29th, '94. Deaeest Annie: Usually I allow no business on Sunday, keeping the day for friendly letters, but I have been at it all day. At 10 to 11 :30 visit and talk with an agent of the Charity Organization Society; at 11 : 30 to 1 to Mary Putman Jacobi's to talk about Woman Suffrage and a little speech I am to make next Thursday evening ; at 3 the president of the Charity Organization Society came to talk business, and then till 6 I wrote "C. O. S.'' things, so I have not read nor written any letters until now, 8 : 45. Besides this, I am still busy finishing up our East Side Relief work, and with "C. 0. S.'' affairs. Meanwhile the trees are all in leaf, and the spring days are so tempt- ing that I ran down to see Anna and Mrs. Gay last Wednesday. Anna was full of an election for School Trustees she had just been attending the night before, voting for the first time in her life. Women can vote on school questions here and in fifteen other states. . . . Women have always been influential in the manage- ment of the Society, and Mrs. Lowell and her friend Mrs. Rice, who had been closely associated in its work from THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 137 the beginning, long served on the Central Council and Executive Committee, Mrs. Rice being the official rep- resentative of the State Charities Aid Association. Much of Mrs. LowelFs work for the Charity Organiza- tion Society was so quietly done that only those associated with her knew it. ''She was,'' says Mr. Kellogg, ''active in the early efforts of the Society to secure from Congress favorable action upon a system of postal savings, so successful in England, which soon led the Society to establish its off- shoot, now under independent management, the Penny Provident Fund, with its more than three hundred sta- tions and ninety thousand depositors. " She was equally earnest in the Society's efforts to in- duce the city government to establish municipal lodging houses already authorized by the State Legislature, for men and women temporarily stranded in this great city; failing in which, the Society at its own cost established its own lodging house and wood yard on West Twenty-eighth Street, — now so well known to the community — which the tardy city fathers supplemented some years later by the Municipal Lodging House on First Avenue, the predeces- sor of the present institution in East Twenty-fifth Street, said to be the best in the world of its kind. The Society's laundry and work rooms for unskilled women also were results of her earnest endeavors to aid the poor by educat- ing them up to higher earning powers, rather than to weaken their moral fibre by unearned alms. In these and all related efforts she was generous with her own private means to aid in their fulfilment; and many a benevolent project was seconded, and many a struggling soul was hfted into hope and victory by her unrevealed liberality. She emphasized the work and strove to en- 138 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL large the number of the volunteer friendly visitors, by whose loving ministries in the dwellings of the poor their home life might be elevated, their habits improved, their temptations lessened, their courage stimulated, and their social relations sweetened. By such contact she felt also that the producing causes of dependence and distress could be the better discovered and counteracted/' Another of her associates in the work of the society, Miss Alice M. Decker, writes thus of Mrs. LowelFs methods of work : ''Mrs. Lowell joined the Third District, now Corlears, Committee in 1891, and for over ten years she was chair- man of the sub-committee, meeting each Friday morning for the consideration of the applications for assistance. She was most punctual and regular in attendance, remain- ing away only for illness, or for some other meeting which she thought of equal importance. She gave to all per- sons in distress the greatest thought and care, not only for their immediate need, but for their future betterment. ''Her very presence was an inspiration and none could attend the district meetings without raising their desires and trying to better their life's work. Her judgment, arguments and personality made these meetings of the greatest value ; her sympathy was so large that she her- self often said that she could not do friendly visiting. As an instance, when she came to the office one afternoon during holiday week, when four widows with their children were enjoying the Christmas tree, she immediately gave them each some money as she thought they looked so poor. Frequently after attending a meeting she would telephone after reaching home, fearing she had not been sufficiently expUcit, and thereby some person might suffer. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 139 "In passing along the streets she was constant^ on the alert, and no crippled child, or person in need of help, or any \aolation of the law escaped her notice and attention. I find it is impossible for me to tell how much the district committee, the agent and the neighborhood workers owe to the judgment, advice and loving kindness of Mrs. Lowell." Another of Mrs. LowelFs fellow-workers in the society, Mrs. Louise F. Ford, pays this tribute to her associate : "I remember when I first came to the Charity Organiza- tion Society in 1888. Mrs. Lowell was on the central office committee where I was emploj^ed. In a talk with her about taking up the work, she emphasized the fact that it should only be entered into with a feeling of consecration. The confidence which she placed in me and in any workers who came in contact with her, made the responsibility not only more acceptable, but sweeter and a privilege. I think one of the most beautiful and up- lifting influences which Mrs. Lowell created was through her belief in people, and this was an incentive to Uve up to her high standard. Her tenderness for the poor and troubled, and her ability to enter into any part of human life which needed though tfulness and kindness, as well as material help, were beyond any one^s else whom I have ever known. '^I am acquainted with a number of Mrs. Lowell's beneficiaries and it is remarkable what an impression she made upon them. They have come to me and talked about her, and how much she has been a part of their lives, what an inspiration she was, and how strongly she impressed upon them the real meaning of true friendship for those in a different class in life, but whose strong good characters she seemed to understand and appreciate. 140 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The absolute justice of Mrs. Lowell, the purity of her life, the truth which was imprinted upon every word she said and every look she gave, and her every act, will never be effaced from the memories of those who knew her. Her example I know will live always.'' When Mrs. Lowell died in 1905, the Charity Organiza- tion Society had for twelve years occupied offices in the United Charities Building, erected on the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-second Street by Mr. John S. Kennedy as a home for this society and other philanthropic organizations. During these years its work had steadily broadened and increased. Among the noteworthy ac- tivities of the society, the Joint Application Bureau deserves mention. This Bureau, maintained in co- operation with the Association for Improving the Con- dition of the Poor, greatly increased the facilities for serving the poor and is kept open every day in the year from nine in the morning until midnight for the receipt of applications for relief, and for the prompt supply of pressing needs, and in it the care of homeless men and women by the two organizations is concentrated. Another useful department is the Registration and In- vestigation Bureau through which confidential informa- tion about all the families ever known to the society is available to persons having a legitimate interest in them. The society also maintains ten district offices covering the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, each with its own staff and under the supervision of a local committee. It still maintains its wood yard and laundry in a separate building at 516 West Twenty-eighth Street, to provide tem- THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 141 porary employment for men and women. In 1905, some fifty thousand visits were made to the poor in their homes by agents of the society and about fifty thousand dollars was expended for the relief of famiUes under its care. The Tenement House Committee and the Committee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis recently formed have done good work. The Charities Directory of the City of New York, one of the publications of the society, had in 1905 reached fifteen annual editions, and Charities^ the weekly pub- lication of the society, now continued as The Survey y was in the eighth year of its existence; the School of Philanthropy, begun in 1898 as a summer course of six weeks, was then entering upon its second year as a full course and had been established upon a permanent basis by the endowment of Mr. Kennedy. A reference library, always open to the public, had grown until it contained several thousand bound volumes and as many pamphlets. The foregoing outline of the present-day activities of the Charity Organization Society, under the able ad- ministration of Mr. Robert W. de Forest, who has now been at its head for twenty-two years, will convey some idea of its immense usefulness not only in the relief of the poor in the City of New York, but also in the educa- tion of trained charity workers, and in the circulation of instructive literature on current sociological topics. For a longer period than she uninterruptedly devoted to any other branch of her philanthropic work, Mrs. Lowell was actively and closely identified with the Charity Organization Society. She died on the twenty- 142 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL fourth anniversary of the meeting of the State Board at which the first steps were taken for its formation. ''On her initiative/' said Edward T. Devine, now the General Secretary of the Society, ''it came into existence, and since its birth in 1882, she has been its guiding spirit and its most faithful, untiring and efficient member. She served continuously on its Central Council and its Committee on District Work, and at different times also on other committees." In the development and expansion of the work of the society, Mrs. Lowell was always active and influential, and it is impossible either to overestimate the value of her service, or the usefulness of the society to the city, in the general progress in charitable methods and resources since 1882, when on her initiative, the steps were taken which brought it into being. Duties of Friendly Visitors ^ " Charity organization is not a work to which any man should put his hand, unless he is prepared to give to it some measure of devotion.'* This is the motto I should be glad to see adopted by our society, for it contains a truth which we must all bear in mind, whether we be members of the central council or of the district committees, or friendly visitors. It is hard work which we have undertaken; work requiring time, and thought, and patience and judgment. I have been asked to speak of the duties of friendly visitors, 1 Printed by the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, May, 1883. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 143 and though I shall be able to make only a few suggestions on this all-important subject, still I am glad to do it, and I must say at the outset that the best success of our Charity Organization Society will depend eventually upon the devotion and the wisdom of the members of our district committees and their visitors. We at the central office may form all sorts of wise plans, and may do the very best we can, but the practical carrying out of the principles of the society depends on the district workers. It is they who come into personal contact with those we seek to aid, and it is they whose influence will raise or degrade them. And first, we must make a distinction between classes of cases. We are constantly coming on Chronic Cases, so to speak, old or permanently sick people who can never hope to earn a Hving. The only thing to be done for such, unless we simply pass them by, as perhaps in the early stages of our work we must, is to provide for them permanent relief of one kind or another — either put them into a suitable institution or secure from individuals such regular reUef as will place them above the need of casual help, and then see to it that they do not beg. Then come cases of temporary sickness. Here the object must be to effect a cure as soon as possible. Per- haps a change of rooms may be necessary; perhaps the sick member of the family should be removed to a hospital ; perhaps work must be suggested, and, if possible, found for some of the others. Each case will need different treat- ment, and many different societies and people may have to be asked to help in the cure. The great danger to be 144 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL avoided is the formation of permanent habits of depend- ence by means of the temporary help procured. The third class, out of work cases, are the most difficult of all, and the most important, perhaps. ^'The distress of those capable of work,'' to quote from an account of the Elberfeld system, ''is not to be treated as if it were an incurable disease, and as if it were only necessary to keep the patient aUve from day to day, no matter how ; but as an exceptional condition, the cure of which should be carefully and scientifically considered, that the patient may return to the normal condition of self-support.'' I have said these out of work cases are the most difficult of all, and they are so because the suffering is often very real and the family in much distress of body and mind, and yet the chances of doing a permanent injury to the character by unwise action are a hundred to one. And here we are brought face to face with the hard question of rehef-giving. The first impulse of many visitors is to exclaim : ''If I cannot give refief, what can I do ? How can people be helped who are hungry and cold unless they can be fed and warmed?" It seems at first as if there could be no answer, and, provided the hunger and cold do actually exist, they must, of course, be first removed. Our visitors must remember, however, that usually the hunger and cold are not so pressing or so sharp as they are represented to be; that the suffering family is not living in a desert, but among human beings, who do not look on and see their next-door neighbors starve ; that, as a fact, the daily supplies are forthcoming day by day. They must judge more by their eyes and THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 145 intellects than by their hearts, and if they see stout and healthy-looking people, with children who appear good- natured and in a measure contented, they must accept the statement that there has been nothing eaten for twenty- four hours rather as a fanciful way of describing the general poverty than as the exact truth. However, whether they feel constrained to supply temporary rehef or not, they must bear in mind that the final aim of the visitor must always be to discover by inquiry, thought and consultation, some means of helping the family permanently on to its feet ; and they must remember that, if it can possibly be avoided, it is well, while the plans for permanent improve- ment are being matured, not to procure temporary relief from any source, because the fact that it is supplied will tend merely to keep up false hopes in the hearts of the re- cipients that something will happen to enable them to avoid the great exertion which may, perhaps, be required of them in seconding the plans made for their good. One distinguishing trait of almost all people who have sunk low enough to have to seek alms is the baseless hope that in a week or so things will be sure to go better with them, and any reUef given them merely serves to confirm them in this shiftless '^waiting for something to turn up." A visitor can usually, if he or she will only take trouble enough, find some sort of means of letting the head or some member of the suffering family earn a dollar to provide for their im- mediate necessities. Some chopping of wood, scrubbing of floors, sweeping the yard, a dozen clothes to wash, errands to run, anything to avoid teaching the dreadful lesson that it is easy to get a day's Uving without working for it. 146 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The first requirement for a good visitor is that he should really give his mind to the case of the family placed in his charge, that he should study it in every way, considering what plans he himself would be likely to try were he in a like situation. Often it is brains more than anything else that is lacking to the poor, and the visitor must not only supply the brains in the formation of plans, but must spend time and hard work in persuading his poor friend that the plans are the best that are practicable for him. A great part of the work will be educational ; the visitor will find extravagance, shiftlessness, perhaps vice. All sorts of influences must be brought to bear. We are for- bidden to give any spiritual teaching, in order to avoid all suspicion of proselyting, but one of the first things a visitor should do is to find out what church the family even nominally belongs to, and try to strengthen its re- lations with that church. Should there be no response on the part of the family to these efforts, he should go to some member or to the minister of that church, that he may search them out and, if possible, bring them back into their own fold again. One very important point for a visitor to aim at is to find out all about the man of the family, where there is one. Charities and charitable people are too prone to deal ex- clusively with the woman, accepting her statement that the man is looking for work. Now, perhaps he is and per- haps he is not ; but it should be fully established, first, that he has no work ; second, that he would be glad to get it. The man and the woman should be seen and advised with together in regard to their present condition and future THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 147 plans. Where there is a real desu-e to help themselves, the man will be ready to accept his proper place as head of the family, responsible for its support ; and where he keeps out of the way and lets his wife do the running and the begging, the visitor may well suspect that all is not as it should be. In regard to seeking for work, a visitor can often help with suggestions and letters of introduction, after he thoroughly knows his family ; but, as a rule, no one has so much time to look for work as the man himself. If he is ready to work ten hours a day, let him spend the ten hours looking for work. The great lesson we want to teach people is to depend on themselves, and not to look to any one for anything except friendly advice and counsel. Another matter to be considered in connection with work is that anything which encourages the wife of an able- bodied man to become the breadwinner of the family is injurious. A woman's whole time is not too much for her to devote to the care of her children ; and the children of decent, industrious women often grow up to be vagabond and vicious because their mother has had to leave them to the education of the streets. Where the woman is a widow, this becomes sometimes a sad necessity, from the evil effects of which charity may well help her to guard her children; but where there is a husband and father able to work, he should feel it a disgrace that his overburdened wife should be called upon to earn even fifty cents a week toward the support of the family. After the slack time is past and the man is again at work, the opportunity comes for the visitor to make special efforts to persuade the 148 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL family to prepare for the future and to lay by for the idle time of the next year; he can then inculcate lessons in economy and in saving which may be the means of lifting the family permanently on to a higher level than they would ever have attained without his friendly encourage- ment. If he has made them really look upon him as their friend, they will be willing to put their weekly savings into his hands, so that they need not be tempted to spend them. No family that has been in want, and been helped out of it, should be deserted by their visitor until he has seen them safely past the dangerous period in the following year. An unending field of labor for visitors is to be found in the instruction of children and the encouraging of their parents to put them at trades requiring skill, which will insure them a fair livelihood. Poverty and crime, in our country at least, are to be found almost entirely among the people who have no habits of steady occupation and no regular means of earning a hving. They can do any- thing, they say, which usually turns out to mean noth- ing. Now, if the children in every shiftless family could be taught to do some one thing well, could be taught even to keep their own lodgings in decent order and to live economically, a great step would be gained. The visitors might perhaps persuade their own servants to train a young girl to fit her to be a good servant and to earn good wages. Widows and women with disabled husbands who have young children form a class by themselves, and may receive direct relief if only it is guarded and graded in ac- THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 149 cordance with their circumstances. The condition of a woman who must perform the part of both father and mother to her children is indeed pitiful, and here is a field where a friendly visitor may expend care and thought for years perhaps. The right plan to adopt is the follow- ing : 1st, Find what the woman can hve on decently. 2d, What she can earn without neglecting her children. 3d, Secure for her regular help, which she can depend on receiving on a fixed day of the week or month, and which is to be sent to her, so that she need waste no time in going for it, and which, with her own labor, will make up the sum absolutely required for her family. 4th, As the children come to an age to help, see that they are trained to do so in the best way, and gradually diminish the reUef imtil it is entirely withdrawn. A very good plan with widows with young children is to induce two to live together ; one to go out to work, the other to care for both famihes at home. This saves rent and other expenses, and the children are not neglected and allowed to grow up worthless and idle. In such cases the amount of outside aid needed is reduced to the minimum. The difficulty is, not that there are not hundreds of ways of helping people, but that we will not take the trouble to carry them out. If you choose to say: "I can't be bothered by giving my clothes out to be washed ;" ''I can't have a man coming every day to run errands;'' *'I can't have a Httle girl in my house breaking the things and troubling the servant," that is all right perhaps. You must do what you think best, but do not deceive 150 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL yourself by saying that you do not know how to help poor people without giving them money. Acknowledge frankly that you will not or cannot take the trouble to do it, and that, consequently, you have not the faculty to be a friendly visitor of the Charity Organization Society. : Finally, all of us who ever attempt to have any dealings with the poor would do well to bear in mind the follow- ing admonition of Miss Octavia Hill, '^Let us never weakly plead that what we do is benevolent ; we must ascertain that it is really beneficent too." Among Mrs. LowelFs unpublished papers are copies of five addresses she delivered in 1888 to the children of a Sunday school in Harlem. Although written for the comprehension of youthful minds, they contain many valuable observations on '^ Charity and Relief-giving.'' The first only of the series is here included. Sunday School Talk to Children I have gladly availed myself of the invitation of your Superintendent to meet you for a few Sundays to talk about ^^Our Duties in Connection with Charity and Rehef- giving,'' because I believe these duties to be very definite, very plain and very imperative, and I know that there is a wide difference of opinion in regard to these duties among intelligent and benevolent people. I am glad to know also, however, that these differences of opinion are to be found only among intelligent people who have not given much thought to these subjects, while, on the con- trary, among the students of the problems presented by THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 151 charity and relief-giving there are practically no differ- ences of opinion. Today I want to clear the ground by giving an ex- planation of my terms, and by telling you what it seems to me should be our attitude of mind and heart in dealing with these subjects. I have used the two terms ^'Char- ity" and "Relief -giving/^ which are often accepted as synonymous, because to me they mean widely different things, sometimes diametrically opposite things, although undoubtedly relief-giving is frequently a part of charity. Charity is wishing well and doing good to those who have no legal claim upon us. ReUef-giving is suppljdng them with material help, food, clothing, etc., which may be done without either wishing them well or doing them good. Under these definitions, ''PubUc Charity" is a mis- nomer, if it is intended to describe by that term the reUef of a certain part of the community by a tax on the rest. The money raised by taxation for the support of those in want is simply a public fund, paid from self-interest in the same spirit and for the same purpose as the far larger amounts spent for the pohce. It is for the pubUc pro- tection, and there is no element of charity in it, since the persons whose money is spent are actuated by no feeling of kindliness towards those who receive it, but, on the contrary, pay their taxes grudgingly and in an unwilling spirit. Public officers not unfrequently justify them- selves in extravagance in the use of public funds for the relief of the poor, on the ground that they must be chari- table, but this they cannot be. No one can be charitable 152 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL with another person's money. A person in expending pubHc funds may be honest and conscientious ; he cannot be charitable, and the sooner it is understood that ex- travagant expenditure of the people's money is no charity, but a breach of trust, the better it will be for the com- munity. Public relief, then, must of necessity lack one of the requisites of charity, for the givers of it do not wish well to those who receive it. It often lacks also the other requisite, for it not infrequently does harm and not good. It is given in two ways : to families in their homes, called outdoor relief; and to individuals in public institu- tions, called indoor relief. When given to families, it too often acts as a premium on idleness and vice, and ends by creating generation after generation of paupers, who look to the public fund as to a family inheritance upon which they may always depend. In some of the counties of New York the fifth generation of paupers is now receiv- ing public relief. ReHef in public institutions may do good if properly administered, and it certainly has its element of charity, though the charity is not to be found in the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by the tax-payers. It is found among the paid officers and subordinates who spend their lives in unselfish work for those committed to their charge. It was found in the little Irish woman who for eighteen years, at a salary of eight dollars a month, received and washed and cleaned every woman who came into the almshouse on BlackwelFs Island, so delighted to be able to change disorder into order, to make clean that which THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 153 was unclean, that, when she died, I was sure that she would hear : ^^ Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things,'^ and would receive some great work of purification to do. There was charity in the heart of the matron at the Lunatic Asylum, an Irishwoman too, who for thirty years gave all her time and thought to the poor benighted creatures around her, teaching and helping them. There is charity among the mu*ses who are faithful and full of patience with the lunatics, the crippled, the idiots, bear- ing almost more than could be expected were these un- fortunates of their own blood. No one should be unmind- ful of the great charity to be found among all these. Besides pubUc rehef of these two kinds, we have private rehef -giving ; that is, money given by those who do own it, to those whom they do wish to help ; very different from public relief, and often as I have said, a part of charity, but not always, by any means ; for charity, besides being benevolent, must also be beneficent ; it must, as I have said, not only wish well, but it must do good ; and reUef- giving is not at all sure to do this ; it may often do — it does often do incalculable harm, harm so cruel that the benevolent relief-givers would be appalled could they realize it. You will see now why I have made my subject cover both charity and relief-giving; charity, the wishing well and doing good to those who have no legal claim upon us ; pubHc reUef-giving, which can never be charity, and pri- vate rehef-giving, which may or may not be charity. 154 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL I have divided our subject into three parts, one of which we shall consider on each of the three following Sundays. They are as follows : '^Our opportunities for Charity/' '^The dangers of Relief -giving/' ''Our personal obligation to those in trouble." And now I want to speak of what I believe should be our attitude of mind and heart when we undertake to study these questions. First, we should always regard them in relation to the welfare of the whole community, not as being con- cerned merely with the people whom we think we want to help, or whom we suppose ourselves to be helping. It is the habit, I fear, of a great many people to divide the population of the world, of the country, of the state or of the city into two classes : the rich and the poor ; and they have a theory that the rich support the poor; but Mr. Hewitt once gave the correct view in the following remarks made at a public meeting of the Charity Organiza- tion Society of this city: ''Here are the rich and there are the poor, separated by the great mass of honest, hard-working, prosperous, well-to-do people. The problem is to reduce the number of the poor by finding channels of occupation for them, so that they maj'- not feed and prey upon the product of the industrious. The problem is to take the idle rich — they are not all idle, but some are — and to develop in them the sense of trust, that they hold these profits which have been taken from the earnings of the great mass, and are taken every day from the earnings of the great mass THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 155 (for you know perfectly well that whatever the rich have has to be earned day by day by those who work) to develop in them a sense of trust, and so to organize the channels of communication between those who are consumers otherwise of the fruits of human industry, and these deserving laborers who have drifted out of the ordinary channels of occupation ; — to bring these two agencies to- gether, and make them useful to each other so that the great working class may accumulate still more, and not be shorn of their proper earnings, as they otherwise will be, by the consumption of the poor and of the rich/' Mr. Hewitt is right, I am sure, in the classification he makes of the population of the world ; — in the centre the great mass of workers, on each side the consuming idlers. This great mass of workers, whether by hand or brain makes no difference, are those who keep the world going, who clothe, feed, house, teach and train them- selves and everybody else ; — they are the only people who are needed ; — the idle poor and the idle rich live on them, and are equally dangerous and troublesome on whichever side they may happen to be consuming the product of the workers. Now, the interests of the workers are the important thing to be considered, both because they so far out- number the others, and also because it is they upon whom all depend, it is they whom the community has to thank for all it is and all it has, and whatever time or thought we may be giving to the idle poor or to the idle rich, our constant object must be to relieve the workers of the bur- den of their support, for the sake of the workers them- 156 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL selves, and for the sake of the idlers as well, whose man- hood and womanhood demand that they be raised from this pitiful and degrading dependence in which they live. Everything we do and abstain from doing should be with the view of diminishing the ranks of the idlers and adding to the great army of workers. We must always keep in mind a picture of the normal, the ideal com- monwealth, where all its members are useful, supporting themselves and adding to the common stock. We must resent and refuse to accept as permanent a condition of things where some of the people, because of illness, because of incompetence, because of vice, are dependent on the rest. Instead of being proud of our hospitals we should look upon them with shame as showing how many sources of ill-health are to be found in our city; oik asylums for children should cause us to hang our heads because of the thousands of homes destroyed by ill-doing, the parents deserting their children and casting off the first duties of life. Let us always remember that whatever the cause of dependence (I am speaking, of course, of dependence other than that which is natural and right, of children upon parents and of parents upon children) the state is bad and is productive of bad results. A man ought to support himself, and he ought moreover to support his family; and those two simple facts are never to be forgotten by any one who tries to help his fellow-man. Every idler transformed into a worker is a double gain, of course, for not only is the common stock relieved of the support of one dependent, but he, in his turn, adds THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 157 to that stock, and thus there is more for everybody, which is not an unimportant consideration, since there is not now enough wealth in the world to make every- body decently comfortable. So much for oxu* attitude of mind in regard to these questions. Equally important is our attitude of heart. We must beheve in, we must feel, the ^'Brotherhood of Man." We cannot be just, we cannot be charitable, we cannot be anything we should be without this. If we talk of 'Hhe poor," if we say what 'Hhey do," if we judge ourselves by one standard and our brothers by another, we cannot help them. To feel the brotherhood of man is the first, the second and the third requisite. This is what makes Walter Besant's book so full of sympathy; this is the secret of Tolstoi's power. They each feel the brotherhood of man and each is inspired by it, though the practical results are so different. The Russian sees that men are brothers, and says: ''Education and cleanliness keep us from our brothers; we must be near to them ; they are dirty and ignorant ; we must break down the wall; we must be dirty and ignorant too." He is appalled by the mass of dirt and ignorance and sees no other hope of getting near to his brothers but to sink to their level. The Englishman sees that men are brothers ; he says : ''Dirt and ignorance keep us from our brothers ; we must be near to them ; we must break down the wall ; we must make them clean and educate them." It is the English- man whom we must follow in practice, but we must fill our hearts with the self-sacrifice of the Russian. 158 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL And what is this feeling of the brotherhood of man but the recognition of the dignity of human natm-e ? No matter how low, how degraded, how brutish may be the man or woman, we need all the more to recognize in them the immortal soul. The less they know and feel their divine origin, the more must we be penetrated by the con- sciousness of it. The Economic and Moral Effects of Public Outdoor Relief ^ I have not been able to assent to the report of the Chair- man of the Committee on Indoor and Outdoor Relief, only because, as it seems to me, he does not draw the distinc- tion which is necessary between public and private reUef. I admit, of course, that there are persons who need relief, that is, help, in their own homes, and that both Pittas argument and Mr. Sanborn's argument apply to such : *^ Great care should be taken, in relieving their distresses, not to throw them into the great class of vagrant and homeless poor.'' Such people however, are, to my mind, not proper subjects for public relief at all; for what is pubUc relief, and upon what grounds is it to be justified ? Public relief is money paid by the bulk of the community (every community is of course composed mainly of those who are working hard to obtain a livelihood) to certain members of the community, not, however, paid volun- tarily or spontaneously by those interested in the individ- 1 Reprinted from the 17th Annual Report of the National Con- ference of Charities and Correction, held at Baltimore, May 14-21, 1890. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 159 uals receiving it, but paid by public officers from money raised by taxation. The only justification for the expendi- ture of pubUc money, money raised by taxation, is that it is necessary for the pubUc good. That certain persons need certain things is no reason for supplying them with those things from the pubhc funds. Before this can be rightly done, it is necessary to prove that it is good for the conununity at large that it should be done. It is always necessary, also, in considering the expendi- ture of public funds, to give up the vague notion that these funds come from an indefinitely large central source of supply, which can be drawn upon constantly without affect- ing any one. There is no such central source of supply. Every dollar raised by taxation comes out of the pocket of some individual, usually a poor individual, and makes him so much the poorer, and therefore the question is between the man who earned the dollar by hard work, and needs it to buy himself and his family a day's food, and the man who, however worthy and suffering, did not earn it, but wants it to be given to him to buy himself and his family a day's food. If the man who earned it wishes to divide it with the other man, it is usually a desirable thing that he should do so, and at any rate it is more or less his own business ; but that the law, by the hand of a public officer, should take it from him and hand it over to the other man, seems to be an act of gross tjo-anny and injustice, which, if carried far enough and repeated often enough, leads to a condition of things where there is not sufficient produced for everybody, and therefore all suffer, the men who earn the dollars as well as those who do not earn them. 160 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL It is good for the community that no one should be allowed to starve ; therefore, it is a legitimate thing that the public money should be used to prevent such a possi- biUty, and this justifies the giving of public reUef in ex- treme cases of distress, when starvation is imminent. Where, however, shall be found the proof that starvation is imminent ? Only by putting such conditions upon the giving of pubhc rehef that, presumably, persons not in danger of starvation will not consent to receive it. The less that is given, the better for every one, the giver and the receiver ; and, therefore, the conditions must be hard, although never degrading. On the contrary, they must be elevating, and this is by no means incompatible with severity. To those who object that, because the community re- lieves a person, that person should not therefore be reduced to pauperism by being placed in an institution, the only answer is that the receiving of relief from the community constitutes pauperism, and the refuge from pauperism is either in self-support or else in the giving of help from private sources. Because certain persons think that cer- tain other persons need help is no doubt the best reason why they should help them, but not a good reason why they should require the community to help them. There are undoubtedly many, many persons who do need help, and many, many more who would be glad to get it, and who think they need it ; and many, many more who do not think they need it, but who still would take it if offered to them. Where is the line to be drawn? If there were a store of pubUc property created by no THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 161 individuals, the result of no personal exertion or labor, — for instance, were the United States still possessed of all the property, lands, mines, etc., which have in the past belonged to the people, and were all these now rented, and the surplus income not required for the expenses of government divided per capita among the citizens of the United States, is there any individual, rich or poor, who would refuse to receive his share ? And, if not, why not ? Simply, because there would be no unpleasant con- ditions attached to receiving it. There would be no stigma connected with it, because every one would rec- ognize that he had a right to receive it, that it was public property, and that he was in exactly the same position as e\nery other citizen of the United States. Then, further, what would be the effect of this payment upon the char- acter and upon the conduct of the people of the United States? Excuse the extravagance of the supposition, and say, for the sake of illustration, that the sum paid to each man and woman over twenty-one years of age was $500 a year. Would there not be quite a large proportion of the community who now earn $500 a year who would, upon being assured of this income, cease to work for a living? Some of these, so ceasing, would devote them- selves to higher pursuits than earning a living, to study, to art, to philanthropy. Some, on the contrary, would spend their substance in riotous living, and would become much less worthy, much less decent, than ever before in their lives. But all who ceased to work for a living would, imdoubtedly, very soon become less fitted to earn a living, would become less energetic, less skilled in a money-mak- 162 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ing direction, less able to succeed. And what would be the effect on the children? Would they, with the assurance of $500 yearly income upon reaching their majority, probably be as energetic, as self-reliant, as fitted to earn a living, as they would have been without this assurance? Does experience prove that the children of persons who do not have to exert themselves have the same indepen- dence and the same power to support themselves as the children of those differently situated? We have been speaking of an income paid to every member of the community, regardless of his own exertions or character, and we have assumed that this income came from a source of wealth, the rent of public property, not created by individuals; but could there be any such source of wealth? The rents of public property would have to be derived from the energy and industry of the men who used it ; and were these and those who followed them to content themselves with the $500 coming to each of them from the public treasury, and therefore cease to produce, very soon the lands and the mines themselves would lose value, the rents would fall because of the want of industry of the people, and the community would lose a part, at least, of its regular income, and be driven to earn its own hving again by the sweat of the brow ; but it would have lost many of the qualities upon which success in earning a living depends. The people would earn a worse living than they used to, and would be dis- tinctly less well off than before the distribution of the public property began, until they recovered their energy and industry. Now, this is, as I have said, simply an THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 163 extravagant supposition; but, considering what human nature now is, were these conditions possible, are not such the results which must follow the general acquisition of an income which would accrue to each citizen of the United States without any exertion on his part ? At any rate, ex- perience shows that this is exactly the effect on those who receive pubUc reUef, except that to the unfortunate di- minishing of the energy and earning capacity of the re- cipients is also added a moral degradation, because there is a stigma attached to public rehef, arising from the fact that the money received is actually the property of in- dividuals taken from them against their will and not be- longing to the public ; and it is necessary to overcome a sense of shame before any one is content to become a pauper, and the loss of this sense of shame in itself con- stitutes a distinct moral degradation, and leads to still further deterioration of character. If the advocates of public reUef contend that there should be no stigma attached to its receipt, the answer is that, in that case, the tendency would be toward the con- dition where the whole people would be ready to accept an income from so-called pubhc funds, and that the re- sulting loss of energy and industry would be sufficient to plunge any nation into a greater poverty than any now suffers. Pubhc relief does not have an enervating effect upon the character of those who receive it because they are different from other human beings, but because they are human beings, and are actuated by exactly the same motives as the rest of the race. It is not because paupers are primarily more lazy than other people that they will 164 ^ JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL not work for a living if they can be supported without working. If you will consider, you will find that you do not know any one, or, if you do, you regard him or her as a most extraordinary individual, who works for a living when it is not necessary, when the living is supplied from some source without any conditions which are dishonor- able or irksome. The whole difference between a pauper and any of the rest of us who do not earn our own living is that he wants and gets very httle, while we want and get a great deal, and that our views of what are honorable and dishonorable conditions differ materially from his. Of course, to be logical, I ought to go on to the position which Dr. Chalmers took, that it would be better for the community that there should be no public relief, indoor or outdoor, none in the poorhouse and none outside the poorhouse; but I am not prepared to go quite so far as this, for I do think that, besides energy and the power of work, there are other human faculties which need develop- ing, and that the community should acknowledge an obliga- tion to succor, and even to support, those of its members who are absolutely unable to fight the battle of life, and that there should be a sure refuge from starvation. So far as this refuge is furnished from the funds raised by taxation, however, I am persuaded, as I have said, that the only safe way to provide it, is under such stringent conditions that no one shall be tempted to accept it except in an ex- tremity, and under such conditions, also, as will as soon as possible make the recipient of help able to support himself again and do his part in supporting others. I mean that public relief should be indoor relief, inside the THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 165 doors of an institution, where cure and education should be the primary objects aimed at, — cure of disease, moral, mental and physical, and education in self-control and self- dependence. The community may well say to any of its members: ''If you cannot support yourself by your own work, it is a pity. We will support you by our work ; but we will not make it so pleasant for you that you will desire to continue the condition, and we will train your mind and body so that you will be able soon to undertake the care of yourself." You see my argument is that the work of the mass of every community is an absolute necessity, in order to pro- vide for it the means of hving ; that no human being will work to provide the means of living for himself if he can get a living in any other manner agreeable to himself (you will observe that I do not say men will not work, but that they will not work for a living) ; and that the community cannot afford to tempt its members who are able to work for a Uving to give up working for a living by offering to provide a living otherwise ; and that public relief must be confined to those who cannot work for a living, and the only way to test whether they can or cannot is to make the living provided by the public always less agreeable than the Uving provided by the individual for himself, and the way to do this is to provide it under strict rules inside an institution. The practice of any community in this particular is a matter of great importance, for there can be no question that there is an inverse ratio between the welfare of the mass of the people and the distribution of relief. What 166 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL some one has called 'Hhe fatal ease of living without work and the terrible difficulty of living by work'^ are closely interrelated as cause and effect; and, if you will permit me, I will try to show by a short allegory what this re- lation is. Once upon a time there lived in a valley, called the Val- ley of Industry, a people who were happy and industri- ous. All the goods of this life were supplied to them by exhaustless subterranean springs of water, which they pumped up into a great reservoir on the top of a neigh- boring hill, the Hill of Prosperity, from which it flowed down, each man receiving what he himself pumped up, by a small pipe which led into his own house, a moderate amount of pumping on the part of every one keeping the reservoir well filled. Finally, a few of the inhabitants of the Valley, more keen than the rest, reflected that it was unnecessary to weary themselves with pumping, so long as every one else kept at work. The Hill of Prosperity looked very at- tractive; and they therefore mounted to a convenient point, and put a large pipe into the reservoir, through which they drew off copious supplies of water without further trouble. The number of those who gave up pump- ing and withdrew to the Hill was at first so small that the loss did not add very much to the work of the mass of the people who still kept to their pumping, and it did not occur to them to complain ; but those who could, followed the others up the Hill until it was all occupied, and by this time, although those who remained in the Valley did find THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 167 their pumping a good deal harder than it was when all who used the water joined in the work, yet every one had become so accustomed to some people using the reservoir water without doing any pumping that it had come to be considered all right, and still there were no complaints. Meanwhile, the people on the Hill of Prosperity having nothing to do but enjoy the prospect, some of them began to explore the neighboring country, and soon discovered another valley at the foot of the Hill, running parallel with the Valley of Industry, and called the Valley of Idleness, and in it were a few people who had wandered from the former Valley (for the two were connected at the farther end), and who were living in an abject misery, with no water, and apparently no means of getting any, so long as they stayed where they were. The people from the Hill of Prosperity were very much shocked at the suffering they found. ^'What a shame!" they cried. ''The poor things have no water ! We have plenty and to spare, so let us lead a pipe from the reservoir down into their Valley." No sooner said than done ; the pipe was carried into the Valley of Idleness, and the people were made more comfortable. But as soon as the news was brought into the Valley of Industry, some of the pumpers who were tired or weak, and some who were only lazy, left their pumping, and hastened into the neighboring Valley, to enjoy the free water ; but the pipe was not very large, and soon there was want and suffering again, and the people from Prosperity Hill were much disturbed, and decided to lay down another small pipe, which they did. But the result was the same, for the new supply of water 168 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL attracted more people from the Valley of Industry. And so it went on, new pipe, more people, new pipe, more people, until the inhabitants of Prosperity Hill were full of distress about it, and exclaimed, '^It seems a hopeless task to try to make these people happy and comfortable V^ And they would have given up in despair, but a new idea occurred to them; and they said, ''They do not seem to know how to take very good care of their children, and we will therefore take their children from them, and teach them to be comfortable and happy/' So they built large, fine houses for the children, and they carried water in large pipes into the houses. And some of them said, ''Let us put faucets, so as to teach them to turn on the water when they need it," But others said: "Oh, no! How troublesome it is to have to turn a faucet when you need water ! Let them have it as we do, free." And sometimes one or other would suggest that, after all, perhaps it was not quite right to waste so much of the water from the reservoir, and that the large pipe itself, which supplied the Hill of Prosperity, ought to have some means of check- ing the flow; but the answer was, "It is necessary and right that the water should be wasted ; for otherwise the people in the Valley of Industry would have nothing to do, and they would starve." Usually, however, the Pros- perity Hill people were too much engaged in taking care of the inhabitants of the Valley of Idleness to give much thought to those of the Valley of Industry; and their anxiety was quite justified, for they had to keep up a per- petual watchfulness, the people increasing so fast that it was necessary constantly to lay more pipe to keep them THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 169 from the most abject suffering, and even this device never succeeded for very long, as I have said. In fact, no one thought much about the Valley of Industry, or its people. Those in the Valley of Idleness only thought of them long enough to reflect how silly they were to keep on pumping all the time and making their backs and arms ache, when they might have water without any exertion, by simply moving into their Valley. The children bom in the Valley of Idleness did not even know there was a Valley of Industry, or any pumps, or any pumpers, or any reservoir; they thought the water grew in pipes, and ran out because it was its nature to. As for the people on the Hill of Prosperity, they were, as we have seen, rather confused in their views in this par- ticular ; and, besides thinking that their waste of the water from the reservoir was what kept the people in the Valley of Industry from starving, they used also to say some- times : ''How good it is for those people to have such nice, steady work to do ! How strong it makes their backs and arms ! How it hardens their muscles ! What a nice, in- dependent set of people they are ! And what a splendid quantity of pure, life-giving water they get out of our reservoir !" Meanwhile, you can imagine, though they could not, that it was rather hard on the men in the Valley of Industry, not only to have the water they pumped up drawn off at the top to supply two other communities, but also to have their own ranks thinned and their work increased by the loss of those who were tempted into the Valley of Idleness, to hve on what the Prosperity Hill 170 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL people and the Valley of Idleness people liked to call euphemistically free water, because they got it free, though actually it was not free at all; for the Valley of Industry people paid for it with their blood and muscle. I might go on to tell you how the situation was still fiu-ther complicated and made harder for them, and indeed for almost every one, when a few of them obtained con- trol of the inexhaustible subterranean springs ; but here, I think, the allegory may end for the purposes of this Con- ference, and it seems to me to teach a lesson which we may well heed. I have so far considered only the effect of relief upon the character of the recipient, from the point of view of the public welfare and the injury done to the community, as a whole, by the lowering of the producing power, the energy and industry of its members. This view is the most im- portant ; but because of its very importance, because it deals with the welfare of the whole community, it is not apt to appeal so strongly to our sympathies as considera- tions which affect individuals, and I shall therefore turn now to the effect on individual men and women of pre- senting to them the temptations of relief. You will ob- serve that I no longer say public relief ; for I do not wish here to discriminate between public and private relief, the evil effects upon the individual man or woman receiv- ing any relief, as distinguished from the help of friends, being about equal. We have seen that it is not in human nature to refuse any gift which comes hampered by no THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 171 disagreeable or dishonorable conditions; we have seen also that energy and the power of self-support must be diminished, as are all other faculties, by disuse; and, these two statements being accepted as facts, it follows that no greater injury can be done to a human being whose whole success and happiness in hfe consist in his power of exerting himself and supporting himself, than to tempt him by the offer of gifts, which will not support him, but which will lead him to suppose that he need not support himself, and therefore will induce him to give up the use of his self-supporting faculties. Can anything more certain be devised for destroying manhood ? As it is now given, relief seems to have all the disad- vantages it possibly can have, and none of the advantages. It serves to weaken the character, to excite the gambling spirit, the recklessness and extravagance which come of chance gains ; but it does not give the quiet and peace, the power to live for worthier objects than mere physical support, which an assured income supplies, while it also destroys all the incentive to activity, energy and in- dustry which are usually suppHed by the struggle to make a living. I am becoming more and more strongly convinced that the giving of relief in the manner which is now the custom is a cruel injury to those who receive it, both because it does produce such ruin of all the faculties which constitute what we call character, and also because it offers what to any but a heroic nature must be an overwhelming tempta- tion. 172 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL When we consider the hardships, the struggles, the suffer- ings of the mass of those who are commonly called the working people, of those who earn from day to day the support of themselves and their families, when we remem- ber how much hard work it takes to earn one dollar, and often how hard it is even to get the hard work to do, and then think of the reckless way in which a dollar is given here, there and everywhere, often simply for the asking, can we wonder that many succumb to the temptation ta ask ? The contempt for charity (I hate to so debase the beautiful word, but that is the use to which it has come) which the mass of honest and hardworking people most fortunately feel is their only shield and defence against the temptation so constantly held out to them ; but the tempta- tion is potent enough to decoy its thousands within the baleful influence of relief-getting, and, once under the spell, the salvation of the victim seems impossible, for the rewards are too great on that side and the struggle too severe on this. Imagine a poor, sickly woman, with little children to support. By hard work, which makes her back and head ache to the limit of endurance, she may earn a dollar a day, and keep her children from starvation. By asking for relief, by begging from door to door, she can make more in one day than a week^s work will bring. Except for her pride, except for her self-respect, what can weigh with her in favor of the badly paid work as against the well-paid begging ? Has any human being the right, instead of going to her assistance in her extremity, so to tempt her to degradation ? Or imagine the man who by a month's work can earn fifty or sixty dollars. He has a THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 173 sick wife. He has three or four Uttle children. He knows there is plenty of money in the hands of benevolent persons. He writes a letter, setting forth his straits. He receives $25 in return. Can that man ever again be free from the temptation to gain another $25 by the writing of another letter, instead of spending twelve weary days in getting it ? You see, these people are not in comfortable circum- stances. They cannot have what they want, often not what they need, even by making all the exertion of which they are capable. Then, if to them comes the tempta- tion to get it all without any exertion, is it not, as I have said, heroic, if they resist, and is it possible that any one with a heart and a conscience and an imagina- tion can be willing to stand as the tempter where the temptation is so dire and the results of giving way mean moral ruin ? It seems unnecessary to say that, if it were a question of giving an income sufficient to live decently upon to certain persons for life, the moral effect would not be so bad, would often not be bad at all ; but the trouble here is as to the choice of the favored persons and the danger of in- definitely enlarging the number of pensioners until the resources for their support and for the support of the com- munity as a whole are brought so low as to cause extended and general suffering, and therefore, the only way for the public to supply any such comfortable Hving is to supply it under conditions which so far detract from or at least counterbalance its comfort as to make the number of per- sons ready to accept it self-limited. As to what may and ought to be done in this direction by those persons who, 174 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL having a large share of the goods of this world, are called upon to help those who have less, I can only- say that I think there are many poor, feeble, suffer- ing women now struggling for their daily bread, whom it would be a very desirable thing to supply with an income sufficient to keep them in comfort to the end of their lives, and that the injury to their characters would be no more and no other than the injury of resting in comfort to the characters of the many strong and happy women who now live on incomes which they do not earn. Finally, the real condemnation of relief-giving is that it is material, that it seeks material ends by material means, and therefore must fail, in the nature of things, ever to attain its own ends. For man is a spiritual being, and, if he is to be helped, it must be by spiritual means. As Mazzini has said: "The human soul, not the body, should be the starting-point of all our labors, since the body without the soul is only a carcass ; while the soul, wherever it is found free and whole, is sure to mould for itself such a body as its wants and vocation require. '' Those who claim that relief must be given, even though it does destroy the character, because without it they fear that there may be physical suffering, besides forgetting the fact that it makes more suffering than it cures, forget also the awful question : "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? Or what shall a man give in ex- change for his soul?" THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 175 Poverty and its Relief : the Methods Possible in THE City of New York^ Wherever any body of Americans interested in the question of poverty and its reUef meet together this spring, the first thing they should do is to rejoice. During the winter of 1893-1894 we were forced by the emergency to do many things which seemed to us dangerous, and we dreaded to meet in the winter of 1894-1895 the evil con- sequences of our actions ; but from all the cities comes the same report, — the evil consequences have not ensued. This means that we did the good we meant to do and did not do the harm we feared we were doing. It means that our earnest desire not to hurt the souls of those in need, while we helped their bodies, was so strong and so genuine that our influence upon them was good ; and it may well give us renewed faith both in human nature and in the spirit in which we have tried to do our work. I believe the secret was that we did care more for the souls and characters of the people we tried to help than for their bodies, and that we did therefore treat each one as an individual person ; and, even though we had to deal with hundreds, we never lumped them and treated them whole- sale as a class. It has been most remarkable that the people, hard pressed as they have been again this winter, have not suc- cumbed to the temptation to turn for help where they got it so freely last year. The Secretary of the University Settlement in New York, who himself gave out hundreds * In "Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction " held in New Haven, Connecticut, May 24-30, 1895. 176 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of relief-work tickets in 1893 and 1894, and who watched aaieixiWy the special relief-work given from the Settlement to the striking cloak-makers this winter, said he found only six of last year's applicants among the five hundred who came this year. At the Charity Organization Society District Offices, where relief-work tickets were also dis- tributed in 1893 and 1894, there has been this year the same remarkable absence of apphcations from those who were helped then. And, as I have said, the account is the same from other sources. To take only three of the largest societies in New York : The number of ''cases treated^' by the United Hebrew Charities during the first three months of the years 1894 and 1895 was as follows: 1894 1895 January 3,625 4,447 February 4,175 3,449 March 4,592 2,997 12,392 10,893 The number of applicants to the Association for Im- proving the Condition of the Poor during the same period ^^^* 1894 1895 January 4,797 3,883 February 5,560 3,539 March 5,021 2,920 15,378 10,342 and the number of applicants to the Charity Organization Society: i894 1895 January 5,091 2,559 February 4,651 2,317 March 4,005 2,230 13,747 7,106 THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 177 Thus, as I have said, we do well to rejoice ; for a great danger has been escaped and a great lesson has been learned. ! But let me make now a practical application of the lesson learned, and try to sketch the rough outlines of a plan by which, in ordinary times, people in distress may be helped physically without being hurt morally. To turn to the special field assigned me. New York City, the problem of relief in New York is the same as in other large cities, — how to provide such help as is needed for the people who belong in the city without attracting to it persons from outside, and how to help effectively such of these last as do come. The problem would be simple enough if there were only a given number of people in the city suffering from poverty and want, which number could not be increased, and could be decreased by every individual Ufted out of misery; but the truth is the exact opposite to this. While the conditions continue which bring people to distress, while the great city attracts from all quarters and corrupts those who come, the suffering and misery will continue, no mat- ter how many are relieved. It is not only or chiefly selfishness which should lead every large city to dread an influx of the homeless and unemployed; for, in the nature of things, little can be done for them which will not finally be more of an injury than a benefit both to them and to others. The natural attraction of the city is felt not only by the most intelli- gent and energetic of country men and women, who rightly believe that their chances of rising are infinitely greater in 178 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the metropolis than at home, but by the happy-go-lucky, who hope that something will turn up every time they make a change, and by the purely lazy or vicious. Every charity, notwithstanding the best efforts of those who conduct it, adds to this attraction ; and the result is sad beyond expression. As Edward Denison said thirty years ago : ''A prominent characteristic of our social economy, and a main cause of its unsatisfactory condition, is the igno- rant rush of population from the villages and smaller towns toward the great industrial centres. ... It will be objected that, if the people flock to the towns, it is be- cause they find themselves better off there than in the country. But do they? My complaint is that the rush is an ignorant rush, which carries its dupes over the precipice into the gulf of pauperism, of crime, of disease, of starvation, of despair. . . .'' The problem is to drain a poisonous marsh into which run streams of pure water to be polluted in its depths. Shall pumps be applied to suck out the poisonous stuff and suck in still larger floods of fresh water to absorb the deadly miasm, and so create an unending task of pumping, or shall the streams be cut off? Practically, what solution of the problem do I propose ? That the chronically homeless and unemployed shall be dealt with almost entirely by a system of public relief, the exception being made only in favor of such private relief agencies as will bind themselves to take sole care, and permanent care, of such individuals as they undertake to deal with at all, — to provide home and work and educa- tion and religious teaching for them. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 179 The public relief I advocate would consist of three stages : the first, a decent lodging place, where cleanliness and strict order and discipline should be enforced, and where, at the discretion of the public authorities, men or women might remain from one to seven days, while ar- rangements for their permanent disposal could be made ; second, a farm school, where a training lasting from six months to two years should be given to fit its inmates for country work and country life ; and, third, what General Booth has called ''an asylum for moral idiots,'' where men and women who have proved themselves incorrigible shall be shut away from harming themselves and others. As General Booth says, ''It is a crime against the race to allow those who are so inveterately depraved the freedom to wander abroad, infect their fellows, prey upon society and multiply their kind." I fear that to many my scheme of public relief will seem harsh and cruel; but I believe it to be far more kind than any other, both to the unhappy beings themselves, who are now by mistaken leniency lured into a life which surely leads to physical and moral death, and to the community at large. Having now described what I think public relief should do for the chronically homeless and unemployed, I must take up the question of how private charity can help others in distress, — really help them, I mean, — help their characters and their souls as well as their bodies. Three things are necessary : 1. Knowledge of the facts. 2. Adequate relief for the body. 3. Moral oversight for the soul. 180 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL In New York City it seems to me that we have the means of supplying all three, if only we would use them. We have the Charity Organization Society to supply the knowledge of the facts. We have rich relief societies to supply the adequate relief for the body. We have churches, synagogues and devoted private individuals who long to help, to supply the moral oversight of the soul. Besides these positive means of effective work, we are also favorably situated, because we are almost entirely free from the complications of public outdoor relief, which is reduced to a minimum in New York City. Without indulging in any extravagant fancy, I shall try to draw a picture of what might easily be done with our available forces. The Charity Organization Societj'- is, of course, one of the latest societies estabhshed, but it was the natural out- growth of the charitable effort of the city. All those who were seeking to improve the condition of the poor, and to lift them morally and physically, felt that they must no longer work independently and at cross purposes, but must join themselves together in some representative body, where delegates from all the different benevolent societies should meet and consult and keep constantly in touch with each other. For this reason the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, the German Society, the French Benevolent Society, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Hebrew Benevolent Society, and many others, upon the suggestion of the State Board of Charities, united to form the Charity Organization Society, — the society to organize charity ; and representatives from all became THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 181 members of the Council, and inaugurated a system by which not only the societies which established this new society, but all others in the city, and all churches and in- dividuals, could get reliable knowledge of the facts about every individual whom thej^ wanted to help in any way, thus furnishing a sure foundation upon which to base their plans of help. If thoroughly carried out, this would have three most fortunate effects. It would prevent all '' over- lapping,'^ since, if the names of all persons applying any- where for relief were sent in to the registration bureau of the Charity Organization Society immediatel}', no two societies and no two individuals could be helping the same person in ignorance of each other's action ; it would pre- vent deceit on the part of those needing relief, because de- ceit would be immediately discovered ; and it would effect a decided saving of money by the relief societies, partly because all investigation at their own expense would be unnecessary, since the work is done without charge by the Charity Organization Society, and also because they would cease to give relief to those not really needing it. Through this saving it would be possible for them to give adequate relief in every case ; and this is undoubtedly one of the things most needed in any good system of relief, although it is a necessity but little recognized in prac- tice, even by those who most loudly advocate the value of relief in theory. Yet can any one really approve of inadequate relief ? Can any one really approve of giv- ing fifty cents to a man who must have five dollars, trusting that some one else will give the four and a half dollars, and knowing that, to get it, the person in distress 182 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL must spend not only precious strength and time, but more precious independence and self-respect ? Is it not a pity that all relief societies give to so many people, and give so little to each ? Would it not be far better if each were to concentrate upon a smaller number of persons, and to see that each one of those was reall}^ helped, that the relief given to them really relieved them ? There are many families in every citj^ who get relief (only a little to be sure, but enough to do harm) who ought not to have one cent, — families where the man can work, but will not work. The little given out of pity for his poor wife and children really intensifies and prolongs their suffering, and often prevents the man from doing his duty by making him believe that, if he does not take care of them, some one else will. On the other hand, there are many families who ought to have their whole support given them for a few years, — widows, for instance, who cannot both take care of and support their children, and yet who ought not to have to give them up into the blighting care of an institution; and these families get nothing, or get so little that it does them no good at all, only serving to keep them also in misery and to raise false hopes, or else to teach them to beg to make up what they must have. Ought not charitable people to manage in some way to remedy these two opposite evils — to do more for those who should have more, and to do nothing for those who should have nothing, saving money by discriminating, and thus having enough to give adequate relief in all cases ? The knowledge which the Charity Organization Society can give would help societies and churches to distinguish THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 183 more carefully than they do now between the people who should not have any relief at all and those who should have a great deal. All relief -giving, however, is such an unnatural way of remedying the evils from which our fellow-creatures suffer that, even when it is necessary, as it too often is, it tends to pervert and injure the character of those who receive it. Therefore, in order to make it as little dangerous as possible, moral care must always go with it. Even the widow with the little children, if she finds that everything is made easy for her, may lose her energy, may even, by being relieved of anxiety for them, lose her love for the children ; and the children themselves growing up without feeling the necessity of exerting themselves, may be ruined. Therefore, a watchful friend must always be on hand to see that these evils do not follow upon the receipt of the physical help which must be given ; and this friend ought logically to come from one of the religious bodies, and ought to have a special training to prepare him or her for this work of moral oversight. Already in some churches in New York there are bodies of visitors who receive such training. There are also small bodies of visitors in the various districts into which the Charity Organization Society has divided the city ; but these bodies of visitors are far too small, and the districts are far too large. Instead of eleven district committees there should be forty local centres, whether established by the Charity Or- ganization Society or otherwise it matters very httle; but in each of these local centres committees should be formed, and here delegates from all the local charities and 184 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL from churches should meet each week or of tener to consult together, not only as to the welfare of the whole of their re- spective districts, seeking always to make the work of the various societies and churches as effective as possible by thorough cooperation, but also to consider and consult as to the best means of helping any person or family in distress, who had applied for help or about whom any one came to ask advice. To these meetings should also come any individual who is especially interested in trying to help and raise families of unworthy and shiftless and disreputable character, and they should receive such advice and assistance as the members of the committees^ from their study of such matters, ought to be exception- ally competent to give. Thus, in the case of a person ap- plying to any church society for assistance, the regular course pursued should be as follows : First, all the particu- lars known should be sent to the Charity Organization Soci- ety, and a thorough investigation requested. Then, upoa receiving all the information as to the person concerned that could be supplied in this wa}'-, if it were found that no one had the care of the family, the church should appoint an especially intelligent and sympathetic man or woman to take the moral oversight ; and he should at once go to the district committee meeting nearest to his own house^ lay the facts before the committee, and ask their advice and help. If physical relief were required, the best source from which to obtain it would be pointed out; and, in any event, the visitor would at least have the ad- vantage of talking over the possible ways of helping, and would get encouragement from the experience of persons THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 185 who were constantly considering the needs of just such famihes. In regard to physical relief to able-bodied men and women the experience of 1893-1894 would seem to show that, while relief-work as a regular annual means of giving relief would probably be very bad for the community as a whole and be encouraging the less efficient and energetic workers to depend on it, yet its influence on the character of the individual may be good, and if very carefully guarded, it may be the best means of giving such relief as is absolutely necessary and inevitable. But I do not wish to be supposed to be presenting an ideal relief system. There is no ideal system of relief. For relief-giving by system is an evil ; and even though a necessary evil, as at the present stage of our social de- velopment it seems to be, j^et the only ideal in connection with it is that it may in time render itself or be rendered unnecessary. I think no one yet knows how this can be done; but the means by which we shall reach the knowledge of how to do it I believe to be evident, and that is by the patient and careful study by educated men and women who go to live as neighbors of the poor workers in the crowded parts of the city, of the actual people who must be helped and of the conditions that must be changed. The fact that such educated neighbors can do a great deal to make those around them happier and better is self-evident ; for, however wonderfully the overruling and omnipotent ''Power that makes for Righteousness" may turn what seem to us fatal surroundings into a means of grace to the human soul, yet there are many ways in 186 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL which pleasure and beauty can be brought to toilers in swarming tenement houses by those who have had larger opportunities. In daily intercourse with the children, with the boys and girls, and with the young men and women, much can be done to awaken nobler ambitions and create higher ideals. But, important as this personal work is, I do not think it the most important work to be done. The chief value, to my mind, of the colonizing of the more highly educated and, from a worldly standpoint, more favored individuals among those who live in densely crowded neighborhoods, and work hard for a good part of every twenty-four hours, is that they come to know them, to know their lives and to know their needs, and can report them to the people who have the power to supply what is needed. Experts are required now in every field. Most people have not time to attend to more than their own immediate surroundings and business. So many things press for attention that much which is of the greatest importance is pushed aside, and therefore it is necessary that each part of the public weal should be especially studied by those who devote themselves to personal observation and the collection of facts; and such students and collectors of facts in sociology are, or ought to be, the men and women who take up their residence among the plain people, as Lincoln called them, and observe their daily life near at hand and all day long and every day. The reason charity, so called, although it is sad to degrade a beautiful word, is so often discredited, and more often so discreditable, is that it has usually worked THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 187 without any knowledge of this daily life. It has kept out of the way of it, and has tried in a feeble and ineffectual manner to deal with the broken fragments, the failures, thrown out by it. When men and women have broken down because of long hours of overwork and horribly bad surroundings to work in, charity has put them into hospitals, and has either never thought or said anything about the causes of the breakdown, or it has complacently remarked that it was a pity that such conditions were necessary for business reasons. When charity has found men and women drunken and shiftless and unable to care for their children, charity has taken their children away from them, and has said ''That's the way poor people are" ; but it has not asked why they are so or tried to prevent their being so. When girls have gone wrong and boys have stolen, charity has provided refuges for the girls and has put the boys into prison, and has talked as if such ruin of lives, and what looks like ruin of souls, were inevitable, never even wondering what other outlet for the natural love of pleasure and adventure, so carefully provided for in the case of other boys and girls, there was for these boys and girls. Now, that is all changed or is changing: and it is, I believe, because men and women are learning the actual life of the mass of workers who do not break down, but who only die ; who are not drunken and shiftless, but who lead lives of such heroic self-sacrifice and devotion as we cannot lead because the demand is not made on us, and of the lives of the boys and girls, who grow up brave and pure 188 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL through and in the midst of circumstances which, as I have said, seem to us fataL But, notwithstanding all the virtues and all the heroism of the mass of the people, they do need and ought to have a great many things they do not have, and the whole community ought to help them to get them ; but the first step toward helping them to get them is to know exactly what they need, and this knowledge the residents in college settlements and the individual residents in tenement houses must get for us. They must report the neglect of the city government to do its duty, whether as street- cleaners, as police or as educators. They must report the oppression of employers, whether the oppression be the re- sult of individual carelessness or, as is often the case, the result of trade conditions. They must cry aloud for more air, more space, for a larger and better life in every way for the great masses of men and women in our cities. Not only does self-interest require that we help to lift our fellow-men, to make them useful citizens, law- abiding, and industrious, but no one can escape re- sponsibility for the intellectual and moral development of the race. As Drummond says : ''The directing of part of the course of evolution has passed into the hands of man. A spectator of the drama for ages, too ignorant to know that it was a drama, and too impotent to do more than play his little part, . . . Nature meant him to become a partner in her task, and share the responsibility of the closing acts. It is not given him as yet to bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or to unloose the bands of Orion. In part only can he make the winds and the waves obey him or control the falling THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 189 rain. . . . But in a far grander sphere and in an infinitely profounder sense has the sovereignty passed to him. For he finds himself the guardian and the arbiter of his per- sonal destiny and of that of his fellow-men . The moulding of his life and of that of his children's children in measure lies with him. ... He shapes the path of progress for his country and his time. The evils of the world are combated by his remedies, its passions are stayed, its wrongs redressed, its energies for good or evil directed by his hand. For unnumbered miUions he opens or shuts the gates of happiness, and paves the way for misery or social health. Never before was it known and felt with the same solemn certainty that man . . . must be his own maker and the maker of the world.'' Charity Problems^ What is the ideal of charity ? It is the good Samaritan, who took infinite pains to help one stranger whom he chanced upon by the way, and if every one should be neighborly in this sense to any one who falls into distress and comes naturally into his life, no one would have to go about hunting for people to help, or, in other words, there would be no need of '^ charities." Charity is not an occupation ; it is not even a piece of life. It is fife. It pervades all relations. A man cannot be charitable and yet overwork and underpay his em- ployee ; a woman cannot be charitable and yet browbeat and scorn her servants or back-bite her acquaintances. If the nature is charitable, it will show itself in charity to all, rich and poor alike. If the nature is uncharitable, to be a member of twenty boards, to know all about the 1 Published in the Charities Review^ January, 1896. 190 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL dangers of pauperizing and the advantages of organized charity, will not make it otherwise, but will probably intensify the hardness. And because charities are con- founded with charity, because to be connected with charities does in some unaccountable manner satisfy the conscience which thus fails to feel its own selfishness and cruelty, are among the reasons why charities do inter- fere with true charity. It seems often as if charities were the insult which the rich add to the injuries which they heap upon the poor. But people usually are not to blame for substituting charities for charity, at least not entirely to blame. They do not see the world as it i& because they have not been brought up to do so, and not having much imagination, they do not for themselves discover the truth, and it is necessary to understand the facts if this error is to be avoided. The facts are that the great mass of the population in any community is working hard to keep that community alive. They work primarily for themselves, but they work also for all the idlers, who, though they do nothing to keep themselves alive, yet are kept alive and are fed and clothed, some at but little expense per head to the workers, and others at a large expense per head. Of course it is this great mass of men and women who work who ought to be the objects of charity, of love, partly because they are the great mass, partly because they are the workers, partly because their lives are very hard and could be made much easier by a little charity, even by a very little thought, on the part of their fellow-men. Strangely enough, however, this great mass of the people^ THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 191 these men who work all night m cellars to give us our daily bread, these men who bring the milk and the vege- tables to us every day, these men who dig out from dark caverns the coal that warms us, who, by their faithfulness and intelligence, carry us safely on thundering railwaj'- trains, to whose watchfulness we confide our lives without a thought ; these women who cook for us and wait upon us and clothe us; all these men and women without whom we could not live in comfort for one day, without whom we could not live at all for one month, we forget. We seldom think of them at all, unless we are forced to. When they undertake to seek some slight improvement in their lot, we have to think of them, but it is with some- thing of the feeling, perhaps, which the slaveholder felt upon hearing of an insurrection of slaves. Their hard- ships, their suffering, their weary bones and aching heads are nothing to us ; we accept all the benefits they confer on us and never even give them a thought, far less our love, our charity. They usually do not complain or ask for sympathy, and they seldom receive any. They struggle and work, they live and die, and very few people trouble themselves about them, little realizing that instead of helping them, they are often sadly hindering them, and even adding to their hardships by their vain efforts to help an entirely different set of people — the people who are the ^^benefi- ciaries of charities." These are the poor idlers, the failures, the broken-down men and women who could not stand the strain of the working life because of some special weakness either of body or mind or character. These 192 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL people do appeal to charity, they do ask for help, they do enlarge upon their distress; and though, as I have said, to try to help them, though vainly, often re- sults in increase of suffering to the great mass of men and women who work, yet charities still continue and still are supported by thoughtless people who pride themselves on their kindheartedness. This harm is done in various ways. Charities sometimes tempt their beneficiaries to idleness, and sometimes they do not. In the first case the harm done is directly to the persons so tempted, who thus lose character, independence, and the means of self- support, and indirectly only to the mass of the workers, who thereby have a larger number of idlers to support, while their own numbers are also diminished by deser- tions to the ranks of the idlers. On the other hand, the charities which do not tempt to idleness often do not do much harm and sometimes even do good to the persons they undertake to help, while they do a great deal of injury to large bodies of workers. This harm is done by giving relief in aid of wages, as it is technically called; that is, by giving small sums to persons who, in consequence, are enabled to work for less wages than they otherwise could live on, so that they, competing for work, underbid other workers, and gradu- ally, if their number is large enough, and unfortunately a very few comparatively can produce this effect, bring down the wages for all the workers in their particular trade. A simple illustration will show how this happens. Let us imagine a small town where twenty women go out to THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 193 scrub at $1.50 a day, for four days a week, having a hard time, of course, but managing to Hve. Some charitable ladies in this town, full of commiseration for four or J&ve of these women whom they employ, think it would be kind to get up a charitable society to help them. Strangely enough, it does not occur to them that perhaps the best way to help them would be to pay $2 for scrubbing. No, that would '^ raise wages," which to some people seems the wickedest thing in the world; but a charitable society founded on the most approved modern lines, which will not '* pauperize" these poor women, is exactly the thing ; so it is organized, and each woman can get $2 worth of sewing a week, to be paid for from the funds of the society. What will probably happen ? There being some competi- tion for the scrubbing, the women who secure the relief work offer to do scrubbing at $1.25 a day instead of $1.50; the ladies, charitable and others, are not loath to pay less than formerly, and employ those who work the cheapest ; then gradually, the others are told by their employers that Mrs. So-and-So works for $1.25 and they must do the same, and so the result is that the women who scrub and also do charity sewing, instead of earning $6 a week as formerly, earn $7, while the rest, who only scrub, earn $5 instead of $6. That is, instead of $120 paid in wages each week to twenty women, the twenty women get $110 a week, of which $100 is wages earned for real work and $10 is money paid for relief work, and the good of the extra dollar a week to the five charity workers is but a poor offset to the loss of a dollar a week to the other fifteen women. 194 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Nor is it likely that the harm will end here. For prob- ably the number getting charity work will increase and the wages go still lower until they are all working at scrubbing at $1 a day and getting $2 worth of sewing a week, which would mean that each woman earned, as before, $6 a week, but it would be $4 in wages and $2 for relief work; that is, there would be $80 paid in wages each week for the same amount of scrubbing as formerly, and $40 in relief, the gain to the women being nothing, the loss being the added work of sewing besides the loss of indepen- dence. This is no hypothetical case ; it is exactly what happened all over England from 1792 to 1834, during the years when relief in aid of wages was given to all working men from the public funds until wages were brought down so low that there were no working people in England who were not also paupers. But although charities are dangerous, especially the large charities which attract all the weak and the incom- petent to depend on them, charity is necessary, and also some kinds of charities. Charity must feel for the great world of working men and women, must earnestly desire their welfare, listen to their wrongs, and do its best to help them in their efforts to shorten their hours of work and increase their wages, never forgetting also that nothing will really help them which does not also help to raise their characters, to make them more honest, more industrious, more intelligent. Charity must be extended to a man's own immediate employees and to all who work for him, to servants, THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 195 clerks, saleswomen, and demands consideration for their welfare, their health, their feelings. Educational chari- ties are always good. Too much money and time and thought cannot be given to teaching of all kinds — knowl- edge to the ignorant, wisdom to the foolish, skill to the helpless, goodness to the wicked, that is, in teaching people to be and to do something. Emerson says : '^He who gives me something does me a low benefit ; he who teaches me to do something of myself does me a high benefit." Finally, it is necessary to protest against a most lament- able misunderstanding of what is called organized charity ; people suppose it to mean apparently that they are each to put a little money into a machine, and that from this machine there will come out a great quantity of money, which will be wisely and kindly distributed to a great many people. They do not pause to consider how wisdom and kindness are to be developed by a machine or to reflect that these attributes can be exer- cised only by human beings in their relations to human beings. Organized charity means, in fact, only that charity, real charity, love, if it is meant to reach stran- gers, those outside the natural lines of our own lives, must be organized, that is, must be properly ordered, because if not, if it be disorganized and disorderly, it will do harm where it was meant to do good in the ways already described. Organization does not dispense with human sympathy. It only prepares the way for it. As a system of water works in a city does not make the life-giving water unneces- 196 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL sary, but only offers a means by which it shall reach those who need it, so a system of organized charity merely provides the means by which sympathy and the desire to do good may bring life and hope to the desolate and oppressed. It reheves the charitable of no duty. It only makes their duty more imperative, because clearer and more effective. The True Aim of Charity Organization Societies^ A Charity Organization Society means a society for organizing charity; it means the attempt to put intelli- gence and order in the place of ignorance and chaos. The first society of the kind was established in London in 1869 by men and women who had spent their whole Uves in working for the poor in London, and who, having given time and thought and life to the work, had become con- vinced that they were not doing any good, but on the con- trary were doing harm. They found that they were working at cross-purposes; that those in one part of London were ignorant of what was being done in the other parts ; and they came to the conclusion that what was needed was more intelligence, not more feeling and heart; that earnest workers who were trjdng to help those in distress should come together, compare notes, and help each other to accomplish their common purposes. The example of London was followed by Buffalo in 1877, and later by Philadelphia, Boston, New York and other cities, and there are now about one hundred and ^ Reprinted from the Forum for June, 1896, written presumably in 1895. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 197 ten societies in the United States that work on this prin- ciple of associated charity. The idea has never been that a new society should be formed to do new work, but that the existing societies should unite to do their work better and accomplish their primary object — the helping of people in distress. The cause of the great difference in the new way of doing the old work in London was that the men and women who established the Charity Organization Society beheved that poverty could be cured ; they believed, as a result of their lifelong study of it, that poverty was due to certain causes which were removable; and that has always been the fundamental distinction between the old and the new charity. The old charity accepted the idea that the distress of poverty and pauperism is necessary. The new charity rejects this idea; it says that poverty and distress are due to certain causes which usually have their roots in the character of the people who are in distress, and therefore its great aim is to influ- ence the character of those whom it seeks to help. And if in England, where the struggle for existence is so much more severe than it is in the United States, men and women who had given their lives to charitable work were able to agree that the usual cause of poverty is to be found in some deficiency, moral, mental, or physical, in the person who suffers, it certainly can be accepted as still more generally true in this country. And this, which makes the daily work of charity discouraging, is, rightly looked at, an encouragement. If it could be said that there were in the United States numbers of honest, 198 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL industrious, intelligent, and energetic people who were in a chronic state of distress and suffering, that would be a horrible situation ; and yet it would be a situation which would make the helping of them easier and more encom-ag- ing than is the helping of the people that now have to be dealt with; for, since their distress is due to inherent faults, either physical, mental, or moral, it becomes very difficult to cure it. But besides the weaknesses which make difficult the helping of people who want help, there are weaknesses of the would-be helpers which make it far more difficult. The development of character is not easy. It requires a great deal of intelligence, patience and sympathy; and it requires, moreover, as a foundation, a correct concep- tion, not only of the people who need help at the moment, but of the whole population of the world in general. This may seem an extreme statement, but it is true. The theory that there are two classes of people, the rich and the poor, and that the rich support the poor by giving them work and money, is contrary to the truth ; and those who hold that view are incapacitated from being of very much use to their fellow-men. The fact is that the population of the world is divided into two classes, two very important classes, but poverty and riches are not the distinction between them. The distinction is one of character and life. The workers and the idlers constitute the two classes into which human beings are divided. The workers are those who usefully serve their fellow-men; and they are workers, whatever be their occupation, if this condition of useful THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 199 service is complied with. They may spend all night mixing bread; they may lie for ten hom-s every day on their backs in the dark, hundreds of feet under ground, picking out coal ; they may set type all night in a news- paper office ; they may sew all day, or wait on table, or wash clothes, or cook, or run errands; they may plan railroads; they may superintend factories; they may write poems ; they may sing, or act, or preach, or teach ; they are always workers, if what they do is of use to the world. The idlers are the people who live on the workers. They may be rich or they may be poor ; and one pecuHar- ity of the poor idler is usually absolute degeneration of character. It is a sad fact that a worker is easily converted into an idler, and it is this fact which makes the attempt to help unfortunate people so difficult a matter. The truth is that, looked at from a temporal amd material point of view, the mass of the world's workers have a hard time of it. There is little room for enjoyment, often no room for self-culture, for the common worker. He has to forego many of the pleasures and some of what many people call the necessaries of life; and often the uncommon worker, the captain of industry, or the genius in any de- partment of work, has also to toil terribly, as Sir Walter Raleigh puts it. To the uncommon worker, the genius whose high intelligence and noble nature enable him to see the real value of things, to live laborious days is not a hardship, and he cannot be tempted by the offer of any of the lower pleasures to give up what is in reality the highest function of his nature. But alas ! the common mass of men and women is not made of such stuff. They 200 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL seem to need the pressure of necessity to force them to exercise their faculties. And in the different meanings to different people of this word necessity is to be found, in a great degree, the cause of the great differences in their condition. I am ignoring, of course, the pressure of unjust social laws and legislative enactments which produce hardship and cause more people to become idlers than would otherwise be the case. But while acknowledging this unfortunate effect of unjust conditions, I still believe that one principal cause of the great differences in the material comfort of different classes of persons lies in their standard of living, or, in other words, in their view of what are the necessaries of life. The ex-slave of some of the West India islands, where there is much common land, where the climate makes clothing unnecessary, and where one bread-tree will furnish sufficient food for a family, has so far lowered his standard that he desires nothing ; and so he plants his bread-tree, makes his hut, and will not work for himself or any one else, having all the necessaries of his life without working. Nor does the pauper work in those other countries where clothes are required, and food ready to eat does not grow on trees which can be had for the planting, but where food, clothing, and shelter can be got from the public without any unpleasant ac- companiments ; for, although he wants more than the black man, still he can get all he wants without work. And going higher up the social ladder and coming to the man who wants a good house, good clothes, and good food, but who gets all these from his father, we find that he does THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 201 not work for exactl}^ the same reason that keeps the black man and the pauper from working. He gets all he wants without working. Such being the tendency of human beings not to work when they can get what^are to them necessaries without it, a high standard of Uving is one of the most important factors in raising the condition of the people. And one of the great dangers to be guarded against in this country is the lowering of the standard of hving by the influx of foreigners. This also points to the most important service that can be done for these for- eigners, which is to raise their standard of living imtil they will not live in filthy tenement houses, or allow their children to go without education for the sake of the pit- tance that they can earn, or work for wages upon which it is impossible to live decently and bring up a family to be healthy, intelligent and self-respecting members of the community. Now, by this long and rather roundabout road I have come back to the various things which charity organiza- tion societies attempt to do for the people who are unfortunate and who need help. The object is to make them workers and not idlers, and to educate them to a higher standard of living if they happen to have a low one. But, in order to come to any decision as to the kind of help which any person or family will require, it is necessary first to learn to know each of them, to find out whether each individual is a worker or an idler, to know the character, history, and general tendency of each; and this cannot be done except by really sym- pathetic study. It is impossible, when they are in mis- 202 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL / fortune, to find out the truth by a few questions. The desire to help them and to help them in the best way- must be sincere, and they must believe that it is. Then, having learned about them, it is always necessary to re- member how easy it is to tempt the average human being to become an idler. In the case of a family where the misfortune is of a temporary nature, where want of work has brought want of bread, it does not do to take the course that seems so easy and natural and so right at first sight. It does not do to send groceries, coal, and clothes, recklessly pouring out before those tempted people what to them represents the results of two or three hard days^ work, and giving them perhaps the first lesson in the terrible truth that it is very easy to get a living without work, and this just when they are suffering from the torturing difficulty of getting work to make a living. Instead of this, it is necessary to try in every way to devise some means by which what is needed may be worked for by some one in the family, by the husband or father, if it is in any way possible. Of course, some- times there may be absolute destitution, requiring imme- diate relief, though this is rare in any community ; and even where this is so, it is possible, by supplying what is needed for one day, to gain time to think over some plan by which the head of the family can provide, as he ought to, for the next day, the next week and for all the weeks thereafter. There are many men and women who are suffering be- cause they are confirmed idlers, and who are idlers partly because they can do no work well enough to secure decent THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 203 wages for it, and partly because they have no energy and no ambition ; that is, they suffer from radical deficiencies, both of character and education, which act and react upon each other, each e\dl only aggravating the other. Such people as these are the most difficult and dishearten- ing to help, for there seems no foundation to build upon. But if there are children, it does not do to turn away discouraged ; it does not do to take the easy course and supply with gifts of money and necessaries all the defi- ciencies left by their want of character and skill, for this is to educate the children in exactly the same way that the parents have been educated, to rely on other people, — to be, in a word, paupers. Such families as these will furnish hard work for years to any one who is sufficiently courageous and unselfish to undertake their care. Of course, the objective point is the proper education of the children, to make them feel the responsibilities that their parents never felt ; to teach them the skill that their parents never learned ; to give them the character their parents never had ; — a long, hard task, requiring courage, devotion, and the realizing sense that every little bit of improvement which may be put into the souls of those children is just so much gain to them for eternity. There are dangers that beset the work of a charity organization society, as there are in all other fields of human effort ; and one is the making a fetich of investiga- tion. Investigation of this kind is not a good thing in itself ; it is an e\dl. It is not desirable to try to learn all the facts about other human beings, if they do not want to tell them ; the only excuse for investigation is to learn 204 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the way to help them. Investigation is and must be one of the cornerstones of all the work of scientific charity, but the tendency to look upon it as a thing to be carried on almost for its own sake should be resisted. It is an invasion of privacy which ought not to be undertaken except with the object of helping people ; that is its reason and justification. If a person comes asking help, and con- tinues to ask it after it has been explained that he cannot be helped unless inquiry is made into his antecedents and present condition, he puts himself into the hands of the society to be investigated, and he must be investigated, because he cannot be helped without that knowledge. What a person needs cannot be known without finding out what he is ; for how otherwise can one help him, give him what he needs or keep from him what he ought not to have ? The thing to be constantly kept in mind is, that investigation is not an end in itself nor a good thing in itself, but that it is the means to a good end, which is the helping of persons in distress. Still another danger is that of taking short views, of thinking only of the people in distress ; it is necessary to think also of the effect of what is done upon other people. Sometimes helping the individual may be objectionable because it will injure other people. For instance, it is said that one reason of the very low wages of working women in Paris, which makes it impossible for any woman to earn a living there by needlework, is the work that is done in institutions for poor women and sold at low rates ; that is, those good people who have charge of institutions for poor women are so possessed with a desire to maintain THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 205 their institutions and to teach the few women they have in them, that they injm-e thousands of working women for the sake of the few hundreds they have directly under their eyes ; and this lowering of wages is one of the most disastrous effects of any extended relief system. Another mistake is made in taking a negative position ; in telling people not to give carelessly and selfishly, in- stead of telling them that they must give carefully and thoughtfully ; in constantly saying don't, instead of do. The societies thereby expose themselves to the charge of telling people that they must not help the poor, when their one object is to help the poor and make other peo- ple help them. The charity organization societies fail also to explain another important matter. It is often difficult to under- stand how careless giving actually increases physical suffering and distress, and how it may, and often actually does, make people poorer. But it does so by undermining the independence, self-reliance, and energy of persons whose only capital consists in those invaluable qualities. It takes from them their only source of income and support, and does not give them enough to make up for it. If any one were to say, '^I will pick out a certain family, and I will give them a hundred dollars a month for the rest of their natural lives," — that would not hurt them any more than a hundred dollars coming from any other source. Such income often prevents people from working for their living; but it also often leaves them free to do something that is better worth their while. The trouble with indis- criminate and careless giving is that it prevents people 206 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL from making the exertion necessary for their own support, while it does not give them enough to hve on — only enough to starve on; and by and by gets tired of giving them even that. If a man makes eight dollars a week and four are given him, and he stops making the eight, as he is almost sure to do, he is certainly very much poorer and suffers a great deal more than while he made the eight ; and in the nature of things he is soon left without either. The aim of a charity organization society should be to get people to do far more in every way for those in dis- tress than they have ever thought of doing. It should teach them that people ought to give more time, thought and money than they are in the habit of giving. To take only one example, the case of a widow with young children. A working man dies and leaves a little money, and his widow tries to get along with it and succeeds for a httle while; then it is gone, and she and the children are de- pendent. What is the usual course of things? People give her a little money here, a little money there, and she spends almost all her time running around for the money until she gets to be a regular beggar, and the children beg and the whole family goes to destruction. People have given them money because, as they truly say, it was such a pitiful case. What ought to have been done? First, all the relatives should have been made to give something regularly ; then what the woman could have earned, with- out neglecting her children, should have been taken into consideration ; and then somebody should have given her enough to make up the rest of her support in a decent way, so that the children would not have been left to starve THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 207 and freeze or have been forced to beg. But there are very- few people who are wilUng to give one woman ten dollars a month for ten years, diminishmg it, of course, as the children grow older, and watching over them all that time. That is the way, however, in which dependent widows and children should be taken care of. It is a question of letting them become beggars or of watching over them and giving them enough to make sure that the children are brought up properly ; the watching being more important and more difficult than the relief. Every different case of distress can be dealt with in the same spirit, but it is not necessary to go into details. The principles of the charity organization societies can be summed up in two texts: ''Man shall not live by bread alone, ^' which applies to the poor as much as to the rich ; and ''What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The Evils of Investigation and Relief ^ There are two fundamental axioms which every charity organization society established during the past twenty- nine years in any part of the world has tried to learn, to put into practice and to teach : 1. That, in order to help any person who is in chronic distress, you must find out the cause of the distress. 2. That, having found the cause, you cannot remove it, or cure the distress, except by careful, intelligent, patient, personal work. Or, to put it in other words : 1 A paper read before the Training Class in Practical Philanthropic Work, June 21, 1898. Published in Charities for July, 1898. 208 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Assuming that the distress is a disease, in order to cure it you must learn what it is and then use skill and con- science in its treatment. Surely these are reasonable axioms, and they appear to be so closely connected, so mutually interdependent, that it seems evident that one is of no use without the other. That is, if you are not prepared to give careful, conscientious treatment, the inquiry into the causes of the trouble is useless, and to give careful treatment, unless you know what the trouble is, is sheer waste of time and effort. But, notwithstanding the fact that these two hands of charity, so to speak, must necessarily lose their useful- ness and power unless they work together, there is great danger that this may be forgotten even by charity organi- zation workers themselves, since the two functions have to be performed often by different individuals, and it is certain that the teaching of the charity organization societies has been misunderstood, and most grievously misunderstood, by many people who have adopted the perverted opinion that to inquire into the cause of the trouble afflicting a poor man or woman is in itself a good thing, no matter what use is made of the knowledge obtained, and who think that in holding this opinion and carrying it out they are only doing what the charity organi- zation societies tell them to. Therefore, it seems to me that all charity organization people should protest against this idea, than which nothing could be more false to what we really do believe and try to practice. We had in New York, in the hard times of 1893 and THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 209 1894, a most painful experience in this regard. The very word investigation seemed then to have been made a sort of shibboleth by the newspapers, and, in too many cases, by the ministers also. To every remonstrance against methods of reUef -giving which were injurious to the character of those who were supposed to be helped by them, and cruel in their entire disregard of their com- fort, happiness, and moral and physical well-being, it seemed to be considered a sufficient answer to say, ''All the cases have been thoroughly investigated," and it was evidently thought that this answer ought to be entirely satisfactory to the charity organizationists, even though the investigations were made, not for the purpose of fur- nishing guidance and knowledge for a long course of treatment by which weak wills might be strengthened, bad habits be cured and independence developed, but in order that a ticket might be given by means of which, after a long, weary waiting in the street in the midst of a crowd of miserable people, whose poverty and beggary were published to every passer-by, some old clothes or some groceries might be got. Think of the destruction of self-respect, the crushing out of all shame, the fostering of everj^ unworthy feeling, which such an experience must result in. Yet this was what, in too many cases, investigations were made for dur- ing that winter in New York, and both newspapers and ministers seemed alike to accept the theory that so long as the people were found upon investigation to be worthy, it mattered not how much their characters were injured, provided only their bodies were fed, or, in other words, 210 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL how thoughtlessly the work of making them unworthy was carried on. Since such dreadful results can come from a failure to recognize the true uses and limits of investigation, and since they have arisen from a misunderstanding of the teaching of charity organizationists, I believe it to be our duty to declare that investigation, in itself, is bad; that the only excuse for trespassing upon the privacy of other human beings, for trying to learn facts in their lives which they prefer should not be known, for seeking to discover the weak spots in their characters, for trying to find out what pitiful personal sorrows their nearest and dearest have brought upon them — the only justification, I say, for doing all these painful things, which are too often included in the single word investigation, is that the person in distress has asked you to help him, and that you mean to help him, to help his soul and not only to feed his miserable body, and that you cannot help him unless you do know all about him. But I must turn now to the other subject in regard to which the views of the Charity Organization Society have been almost as much misunderstood as they have been in regard to investigation, that is, the subject of relief. Relief is, equally with investigation, held by us to be an evil, but in our present state of society to be also a neces- sary evil. That is, we consider both to be essential, but both to be very dangerous, and, therefore, that both must be guarded and managed so as to do as much good and as little harm as is possible in the nature of things. The reason the charity organizationists have been sup- THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 211 posed to recommend investigation in toto, and to con- demn relief-giving in an equally wholesale way, is because in every community where a charity organization society is started, no one, as a rule, believes in any sort of investi- gation, and every one does believe in every kind of relief, and, therefore, the advantage of the former has been dwelt on, and attempts have been made to show the dan- gers that are inseparable from the latter. When Edward Denison went to live in the East End of London during the great '^East End Distress, '' he wrote to a friend words to the following effect, ^' Every shilling I give away does fourpence worth of good by helping to keep their miserable bodies alive, and eightpence worth of harm by helping to destroy their miserable souls/' I believe that this is the very best that can be said of relief, and of relief under the best circumstances, for this relief was not given by a public official sitting in his office and dispensing orders to persons who applied for them, nor was it given by the agent of a charitable society sent out to try to discover during a half-hour's visit whether a family she has never seen or heard of before requires relief. This relief was money given by Edward Denison himself, a man of exceptional intellectual and moral power, who was giving his life as well in trying to learn how to help the starving people, for whose sakes he had left a home of luxury and culture to live in the dreary waste of East London ; and it was given to people whom he knew, whom he was studying day and night. And if this was the result of his almsgiving, what must be the results of the common, careless relief-giving that we know? 212 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Personally, I believe that relief is an evil always. Even when it is necessary, I beUeve it is still an evil. One reason that it is an evil is because energy, independence, industry, and self-reliance are undermined by it ; and since these are the qualities which make self-support and self- respect possible, to weaken or undermine them is a serious injury to inflict on any man. Self-support is the normal condition of all. A man who does nothing in return for his living, whether he lives in misery or in luxury, is despi- cable, but to a poor man the injury is greatest, for his power of self-support is his only capital ; he has absolutely noth- ing else to depend on ; if he is deprived of this we cannot give him anything to make up for what we have taken from him, even on the side of material well-being, while of the fatal moral injury done we can have no doubt on comparing a pauper or tramp with a self-respecting man. To go a step farther : besides supporting himself, a man ought to support his wife and children, and his indepen- dence is destroyed if he cannot, and to do it for him is to put him in an unnatural and degraded position, which, if con- tinued, will surely deprive him of both the desire and the ability to do his duty. If we could only thoroughly rec- ognize that, whatever be the cause of dependence, whether it be sickness, want of work, laziness or vice, the state of dependence is bad, and produces bad results in the character, which reappear as bad results in the surround- ings, that is, in more and more poverty and suffering — if, I say, we could only see and feel how baneful, morally and physically, dependence is, we should be so possessed with the dangers surrounding the giving of relief that we THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 213 should be willing to take any pains, to suffer ourselves, and even to see our poor friends suffer temporarily, for the sake of saving them from those fearful permanent evils. The trouble is that we exaggerate the importance of physi- cal suffering. But do not misunderstand me. I am talking of relief. Do not go away and say that I have said we must not help people. We must help people; we all need help, and always shall. Being finite beings, it is impossible to im- agine that, in any future existence even, we should ever reach a point where we should be self-sufficient and need no help from others. Since, then, every human being needs help, it is of course the duty of every human being to give help ; but, unhappily, we often do not know how to help, and there are many ways in which we can hurt people even when we mean to help them. It is a pleasant truth that the bulk of mankind is obliged, by the very fact of living, to help other people, whether they want to or not. Every one who works at what is useful to man- kind is helping his fellow-men every day of his life. We do not think about it very often, but we should be badly off if the butchers and bakers and milkmen and brick- layers and tailors all stopped helping us for any length of time. Human beings have come to rely so entirely on each other for their daily means of living, that they would soon (that is, those of us who live in cities where we cannot supply our own daily wants) perish miserably if they were not helped to a living by others. Emmanuel Swedenborg makes real charity to consist in this work of supplying the needs of our fellow-creatures by the discharge of our 214 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL daily duty. The great mass of the men and women who earn their Hving, whether by working with the head or the hands, may feel the joy of a sense of helping their fellow-men ; the fact that they are paid for their work is proof that they are doing something that somebody wants done, that is, something that may be presumed to be use- ful. Of course, there is a very sad exception. People who keep saloons or gambUng houses, or other places where vice is encouraged and indulged, are paid for their work and are supplying what some people want ; but so far from being useful it is ruinous ; it destroys instead of helping. Now, in all our attempts to help other people we must remember that this distinction exists : we may do for them what they want us to do, and yet it may be the very most cruel thing that could be done for them. We see it often in the case of parents and children. The parents give the children all they want, and instead of being helped they are really destroyed by it. They grow up lazy, selfish, shiftless, unfit for life. We see it often between sisters and brothers ; the sisters will work and slave, and let their brothers live on them ; and the sisters are unsel- fish and noble and industrious, and the brothers are selfish and mean and dissipated. It may seem kind, but can any- thing be more cruel than to destroy the character, the soul, of another person ? What is a little ease or comfort or pleasure worth, compared to nobiUty of character ? And yet, as I have said, parents who think they love their children, sisters who think the}^ love their brothers, will, to give them a little passing happiness, do them this great wrong. THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 215 Now, is not this the very wrong that rehef does? To give people a Uttle temporary physical help, and to please ourselves, we are willing to do an immense moral harm to the people we think we want to help, and also a great economic harm to the whole community, for relief- giving does without doubt encourage idleness and make idlers. Now, to be an idler is a very bad thing — bad for the man himself, whether he be rich or poor, because, as I have said, he loses energy, intelligence, and persever- ance, and finally the power of work, and becomes, by the disuse of these faculties, a distinctly lower creature than he was before, or than he might have been had they been de- veloped by exercise ; and bad for the community, also, for if the workers of a community have to support many per- sons in idleness, they have to work harder and to fare worse themselves than they otherwise would. Mazzini says somewhere : " The human soul, not the body, should be the starting-point of all our labors, since the body without the soul is but a carcass, and the soul, wherever it is found free and holy, is sure to mould for itself such a body as its wants and vocation require/' Then is not teaching a charity wide and broad enough to employ every one with a head and a heart who is not already busy in some other part of the work of the world ? To teach some one something — that is a charity in which there is no danger ; it is a charity where there can be no overlapping ; it is a charity of which there cannot be too much, and the good results of which will never end. No matter who it is, no matter what you teach, whether it be sewing to a little girl, cooking to a big girl, honesty and 216 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL purity to a youth, neatness and thrift to a woman, in- dustry and self-control to a man, temperance, moraUty, or reUgion, you have done a service, and a service which will never end. To give material aid is nothing ; food, clothes, fuel, rent — all these pertain to the body and are perishable ; even if they do no harm, they certainly do Httle good. You give one month ; the next month you must give again ; and finally there is no result to show except usually the need of more fuel, more food, more rent. But once teach something of value, and you have started an unending succession of benefits ; you have learned in teaching; those you teach will teach again; and so on, in ever widening circles of good. Mr. Emerson says: ''If a man give me aught, he has done me a low benefit; if he enable me to do aught of myself, he has done me a high benefit. '' Then teach, teach, teach. Teach some one to do something of himself, to return to the community at least as much as he receives from the community. I cannot speak more strongly than I feel on this subject of the evils of rehef, for I beheve that among the many causes of poverty one of the most potent is careless relief- giving, whether by what are called charitable societies, by private individuals, or from public funds. I believe that no society should exist for the purpose of giving relief ; I believe that no money should be collected and kept on hand for that purpose ; but that societies should be formed to help, and that when material aid proves to be needed in any special case, special requests should be made for it. Being convinced that all material aid is bad, even THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 217 when it must be given, I think that the giving of it ought to be made as difficult as possible ; and I also think that if there were no relief funds to stand as a constant tempta- tion to poor people, and if the giving of relief were nobody^s business, and a very special effort had to be made whenever it was found to be required, many kind people would be surprised and delighted to find how very seldom any reUef at all was needed. To sum up : the principles which I have tried to make clear in the foregoing pages are : first, that we must help people ; second, that in order to help them we must find out what the matter is ; third, that in trying to help we must beware of doing harm; fourth, that we must take thought and trouble to help them ; fifth, that no help is real which does not develop the character and make the person helped more able to take care of himself; and, finally, that the distinction to be kept in mind is that between the body and the soul. If we help the body only, our help is worth nothing ; like the body itself, it perishes daily and has to be daily renewed. If we help the soul, if we teach something, our help is eternal, hke the soul, and there is no end to the good we have done. The Uses and Dangers of Investigation in Public AND Private Charities^ The uses of investigation in the work of charity are obvious. The first is so obvious that it seems almost need- 1 Read before the New York Medical League at its meeting at the Academy of Medicine, January 20, 1899. Published in the Medical NewSj February 4 of that year. 218 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL less to mention it, especially to an audience of medical men. It would be as reasonable to ask what is the use of a diagnosis, as what is the use of an investigation. The use is to find out what is the matter, because if we do not know, we cannot do any good at all. There is always a cause for the distress of those who come asking for help, and we cannot really help them, unless we know what the cause is and at least try to remove it. And yet there are many people who are benevolent and who want to help, but who go on blindly without getting any thorough knowledge of the actual condition of those who come to them. To take the commonest and perhaps the most natural form of this error as an example — many benevo- lent people know only the women of the families they are trying to help. They want to elevate their physical and moral condition, but how can they elevate them if they are only brought in contact with one half of each family, leaving out of account the person whose duty it is to do for his wife and children what they are undertaking to do for them ? How do they know that the husband of the woman they are supporting is not at work ? How do they know that he is not spending all he can earn, and all he ought to devote to his family, at the corner grog shop ? How do they really know anything of the family, if they ignore the existence of the head of it, of the man responsible before God and man for its well-being? The second use of investigation is that it prevents the growth of great moral evils, for its absence tends to the speedy demoralization of decent people. What I mean will be perfectly clear to you if you will consider what THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 219 a terrible temptation is presented to unhappy people in distress, if they can go round from church to church, from person to person, repeating a story of misery and distress, obtaining from each twenty-five cents, fifty cents, or a dollar, and sure that not one of them will ever make any real inquiry into the facts, sure that none of them will ever know that the others are giving also. Let me give an illustration. A decent but improvident man dies and is buried by his club, or his friends, or by charity, and the newly made widow is left with a number of young children dependent upon her for support and care. She must act the part of both father and mother, and her state is pitiful indeed. She has no relations, and she turns to the members of her church. She touches the sympathy of those she applies to, but no one feels any sense of re- sponsibility, no one feels obhged to make an investigation, no one recognizes the great danger with which the woman and her children are confronted, the danger of becoming de- graded and corrupted into beggars and liars, and so every one does just enough to quiet his own sense of pity, gives a dollar, or five, or ten according to the more or less touch- ing nature of the woman's story, — and then dismisses it from his mind. The poor woman, truly in distress, finds that the recital of her sufferings brings in a sum of money which ten days of hard work would not earn, and most naturally she is content, when the proceeds of her first appeal are spent, to make another. Why should she not ? It would be stupid to seek for washing or scrubbing at a dollar and a half a day, when she can get five or ten dollars in an hour by telling the truth to two or three kind-hearted people. She 220 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL finds, however, that as the truth becomes less sad, as her loss affects her less and the urgency of her appeal is dimin- ished, the proceeds are diminished also ; therefore she does not confine herself to the truth. She colors and exagger- ates ; she takes one or two of her children with her to help her emphasize the story ; she teaches them to cheat and to lie, and she finds it pays ; and thus she is tempted into a life of deceit, and her children follow in her path ; and it is the neglect and carelessness of benevolent people who will not take the trouble to find out the real condition of the family, and to make and carry out a plan by which they can be rendered self-supporting, that bring them to this horrible condition. But investigation is of use not only in preventing the demoralization of decent people, but in the detection of those who have become expert deceivers, and this is important because it too has a bearing on public morals. It would certainly not be worth while to take any trouble to save the sums which rich people waste on ill-considered alms ; but it is worth while to take a great deal of trouble to save the poor from the temptations which beset them when they see the rewards reaped by successful knavery. It would not be worth while to piu-sue impostors and punish frauds, were the only advantage gained the saving of money to extravagant and selfish people; but it is worth while to prove that lying and cheating are not an easier and pleasanter way to get a livelihood than working. Let me sum up, then, the uses of investigation I have named. First : Investigation is the only means of learn- ing how really to help those in distress. Second : It THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 221 prevents the demoralization of decent people by remov- ing the temptations to beggary. Third : By the discovery of fraud, investigation makes a life of deceit less attractive. But to offset these uses, I must now turn to the dangers of investigation, for it is a dangerous tool, which may wound cruelly if used without thought and care. . . . [Here Mrs. Lowell referred to the painful experiences of the winter of 1893-1894 in terms similar to those used ia the preceding paper, and continued.] . . . Everything that is said against investigation by its critics is true, and no one feels the truth of it more strongly than we who beUeve in its necessity. We know that it is a necessary evil, and we try to make it as httle evil as we can, and we justify it, as I have said, only because it is the preliminary to the real work of helping those in distress by careful, conscientious, patient, painstaking, personal work, just as the torture of a sick man by the physician^s examination can be justified only for the same reason, that he has to know what the matter is before he can take one step in trjdng to cure the man. The necessary invasion of the privacy of the Uves of other men^ and women is one of the great evils of in- vestigation; it is a sort of outrage upon the dignity of a human soul, and ought not to be undertaken if the object of the investigation is not a nobler one than the mere feeding of the body, for the soul should not be sacrificed to the body. '^What will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" In all such work the best rule is to ''do unto others as ye would they should do unto you," and to try to realize what would be the effect on one^s self of the contemplated action, 222 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and also to remember that, the object being to help, one must do as little harm as possible in the process of helping. The thorough investigation and study of the character and needs of persons who ask for help, and the attempt to educate and develop them, even by means which may not be very pleasant to them, is sometimes called the new charity ; but it seems to me it is only obedience to the old teaching I have already quoted. For, after all, would we not each one of us prefer to be dealt with, were we in the place of an applicant for relief, in such a manner as would elevate us morally and physically? Would any one of us deliberately choose such treatment from another as would undermine our moral strength and power, even though it should save us from suffering ? Does not God deal with us in what we choose to call the new way ? Are we not driven by necessity to exert ourselves ? Do we not suffer the results of our own acts ? Can we by any means escape from the consequences of our sins and mistakes? And is not the common way of relief-giving and what we call charity so far as possible an interference with God's education of his people ? We relieve men and women of the necessity of working, we reward them for idleness, we encourage them in vice, we take their children from them when they are young and troublesome and care for them in institutions, and when they are old enough to labor, we give them back to those who claim a parent's rights, although they never dis- charged a parent's duties. We tempt our poor weak brothers and sisters to give up the struggle which has been appointed to make them strong and brave. We accept THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 223 every invention they use to work upon our feelings ; we lead them to lie to us and become cheats. Emergency Relief Funds » To the Editor of Charities : Sir: — Will you give space to the accompanying statement in regard to the suffering caused by the severe cold and storms of February, and by the efforts to relieve it ? We take the liberty of addressing your readers upon this subject, because we have all of us had opportunities of knowing a good deal about the facts, and we believe that the efforts to relieve the distress will result in creating much more distress ; and although it is too late now to avoid the evils we deprecate, we hope that a repetition of the conduct leading to them may be prevented, when it is understood that the consequences are cruel to those whom it was intended to help. Our prayer to the chari- tably disposed is that, whether in times of supposed emer- gency, or from day to day, they will, in the words of Miss Octavia Hill, of London, not rest content with benevolent feelings, but assure themselves that their actions are beneficent as well. The special lesson to be gathered from the lavish gener- osity with which money has been poured out to meet the present emergency is that sympathy ought to be con- tinuous, and that the money which can be spared so readily should be given year by year to the hundreds of societies which are always working to prevent, as well as to relieve, the suffering of the poorer part of the population of the city. Money is always necessary, not only for relief, but for the education of the rising generation, to develop their character and their powers, so that they will not have to 1 Published in Charities of February 25, 1899. 224 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL turn to strangers for help, even in much more serious emergencies than that of the past week. But far more than money, men and women are necessary who will give time and thought to the constant daily needs, material and spiritual, of that part of the population upon whom the burden of life rests very heavily, because they have not the strength and ability to carry it. That the very extraordinary weather we have had should have caused much suffering of various kinds was inevitable. All men whose business required them to face the severe cold, policemen, motormen, cab drivers, firemen, etc., must have suffered intensely, and in many cases their health may have been permanently injured by exposure. No sympathy for them and no effort to mitigate their sufferings could have been misplaced or mistaken, or would have been likely to injure them. That men, women and children who did not have to leave their houses suffered, too, must also be true, but so long as they kept under shelter and were provided with some food and fuel, their distress was not, as a rule, extreme. Among the things to be dreaded for the poorest people among us, whose clothing was necessarily not a sufficient protection against the cold and snow and wet, was lest they should be tempted out of the houses and expose them- selves to the inclement weather. Until last Monday this was avoided. The visitors and agents of the charitable societies bravely faced the cold themselves to carry help to the people whom they feared might be in need ; but they found no exceptional distress. Indeed, it is usually found that people in the tenement houses are not allowed by their neighbors to suffer, for those who have food and fuel share it with those who have none, especially when such emergencies arise as we have just experienced ; and many of the landlords and THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 225 small shopkeepers are also most charitable. Until Mon- day, then, this natural sympathy and neighborly kindness, supplemented by the usual efforts of churches and chari- table societies, sufficed to meet whatever special need there was. The heavy snowstorm following upon the severe cold, however, appealed forcibly to the sympathy and imagination of persons not themselves acquainted with the unending charity of poor people for each other, and large sums of money were deposited here and there to furnish reUef, and the fact was widely advertised. The natural consequences have followed. Poor people, especially women and children, though ill-prepared to face either the snow or the rain, were attracted by the news- paper accounts of large sums to be spent in charity, and have for the past four days been tramping through the snow, the rain and the slush, and standing or sitting for hours in the places where they have been told they would get orders for food and fuel. The consequence must be great suffering, and probably illness and death in not a few instances. Of course it is natural to argue that those who did not need relief very badly would not go to seek it through such difficulties ; but we are sure that if they did need it, they would have got it, either from their neighbors or from others who knew them and their needs, had they been left at home to receive it from what may be called their natural sources of help. Take, for instance, two of the individual cases which we have observed. On Monday morning in the snowstorm a woman walked from Fifty-ninth Street to Twenty-second Street to ask for help, spending from two to three hours in the journey, because, as she said, she had seen in the paper that they were giving relief there. She knew the Charity Organiza- tion Society office at Sixty-third Street, and would un- doubtedly have gone there for help, and have received it 226 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL there, had she not unfortunately seen this statement in the paper. On Wednesday an old woman, who, with her daughter and grandchildren, has been for years under the care of the Charity Organization Society committee, the office of which is in Broome Street, and who constantly comes to the Society when they need anything, walked from Water Street to Twenty-sixth Street to get a coal ticket. The agent of the society, calling on her Thursday, found the family with the coal ticket, but without coal or food, and in five minutes provided them with both, as she would have done the day before had the woman come, as she usually does, to the office, instead of walking three miles in a vain search for help. When asked why she had not come, she answered: ''You have done so much for us I did not like to, and I saw this in the paper.'' Our contention is that it is cruel to tempt poor people by offers of help to leave their homes to seek it and that what is needed, beyond what their own relations, friends and neighbors can supply, should be taken to them quietly, and even secretly, if possible, by those who know them well. That these people who are now seeking relief all over the city have not been without food and fuel, as has been claimed, is proved by the fact that they are able to go on these long journeys through the slush and to stand for hours waiting in line with the hope of getting a little coal ; for if they had been frozen and starved for a week, they would not have strength to bear the ordeal to which the charity of the benevolent is now subjecting them. As to the statement that there were numbers of persons homeless in the city during the storm, the mere fact that there were none found frozen, except men who were kept outdoors as watchmen, shows that the statement was with- out foundation. That men flock to any free shelter opened is no proof of actual homelessness, for there are from THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 227 10,000 to 15,000 men sleeping nightly in cheap lodging- houses in this city, and a few thousands of these can be drawn at any time into a free shelter, especially if food is provided also. It is to be remembered, also, that during and after a snowstorm, these men are better able than at any other time to pay for their lodgings, owing to the work supplied by the snow itself, and that the opening of new free shelters is especially unnecessary at such times. We protest against the undeserved shame brought upon our city by the false impression given to the world that it is full of starving, homeless people. We do not say that there was no additional suffering owing to the storm, nor that all the suffering there was would have been relieved ; but we do say that the forming of emergency funds and the advertising of them have increased it rather than diminished it. Finally, we must repeat that the true way to make sure that people will not suffer when an emergency arises is to strengthen the societies which are constantly busied in trying to help them, by providing these societies with plenty of money and with plenty of workers who will learn to know the individuals, and so be able to succor them effectively whenever they need help, whether the emer- gency is one which strikes only the single family, or one which reaches the whole population of the city. Josephine Shaw Lowell, 3d Dist. C.O.S. Com. Lillian D. Wald, Nurses^ Settlement. Elizabeth S. Williams, College Settlement. February' 18, 1899. CHAPTER X Improved Care for the Insane At the first meeting of the State Board of Charities which Mrs. Lowell attended, held June 8, 1876, Com- missioner Theodore Roosevelt having called attention to inadequate accommodations for the insane w^omen in the asylums of New York City, the subject was by reso- lution referred to the New York members of the Board, with request to call the attention of the proper authorities to the conditions found. This received the prompt con- sideration of the Commissioners, who, under date of October 20, 1877, in a conmaunication to the Mayor of New York in regard to the official charities of the city, protested against the insufficiency of the estimate of the Department of Public Charities and Correction for the year 1878. This communication, evidently written b}'' Mrs. Lowell, calls the Mayor^s attention in turn to the condition of the city^s hospitals, asylums, and other charitable institutions, and asserts that they — the State Commissioners — ^'had frequently pressed upon the at- tention of the (City) Conmiissioners the dangerously over- crowded condition of the Lunatic Asylum on BlackwelFs Island, and had anticipated from them a request to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for an appropria- tion to buy a farm upon which inexpensive buildings for 228 IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 229 the chronic insane could be erected, but of this do mention is made in their estimate." Two months later, December 24, 1877, Mrs. Lowell and Mr. Donnelly addressed another letter to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, in which they made ''one more appeal" for the full amount of the appropriation asked by the Commissioners of Public Charities and Cor- rection, for the city asylums for the insane on Ward's and Blackwell's Islands and even a larger appropriation for salaries than the Commissioners themselves requested. Attention was called to the crowded condition of the wards, the insufficient number of physicians and attendants, and the suffering incident thereto, both for attendants and patients. This communication was followed by another, also addressed to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment by Commissioners Roosevelt and Lowell, under date January 14, 1878. After furnishing information in sup- port of their recommendation, they again urged the Board to ask for a law authorizing the City of New York to buy land for the purpose of establishing an insane asylum outside of the city. In the minutes of the State Board of Charities, many entries show Mrs. Lowell's continued activity for the welfare of the insane throughout the State as well as of those in the island asylums maintained by the City of New York. It is refreshing to introduce here a letter from Mrs. Lowell's pen, addressed to WiUiam Pryor Letchworth, at that time the President of the State Board of Char- ities : 230 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL 120 East 30th Street, June 7th, 1880. Dear Sir : I am much obliged for yours, enclosing a letter from Mr. Ford, President of the Binghamton Board of Trustees, and I am sorry I cannot attend the meeting of the Execu- tive Committee. The spirit of Mr. Ford^s letter is gratify- ing, and I hope the Trustees will conform to it in future. So far as suggestions regarding the asylums are con- cerned, I believe I have but one to which I wish to draw the attention of the Committee. I was surprised and very sorry to see that Dr. Mac- Donald, in his report to the Trustees, recommended an expenditure for grading (and beautifying ?) the grounds of the Asylum. Apart from all questions of expense, I should have expected from Dr. MacDonald an appreciation of the fact that all such work would afford the very best means of employing the patients, and should have ex- pected him to value it accordingly, and to defer every half hour's labor of any kind which might be done by patients, until their arrival. If the grounds of the institution re- mained ten years in a rough condition, affording occupa- tion to a number of patients, it would be no matter of regret, and I have no doubt that some other varieties of work might, after due consideration, be also found for them to do. . . . I hope this matter will be forcibly presented to the at- tention of the Trustees. ... Respectfully yours, J. S. Lowell, Commissioner. Rumors of abuses in the management of the asylums for the insane caused the Legislature of 1880 to appoint a Senate Committee of Investigation, of which Senator IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 231 Woodin was Chairman. This Committee made a tour of inspection of the asylums maintained by the City of New York on Blackwell's and Ward's Islands, and on December 3, held a public hearing at which Mrs. Lowell spoke. She recommended that the power of appoint- ment and removal of subordinates should be given to the superintendents, condemned pohtical interference with management, recommended increased salaries, and called attention to the overcrowding of the institutions, the in- adequacy of the island sites, and the need for more hospital accommodation elsewhere. At the close of her address the Chairman remarked that she had made some of the most valuable suggestions the Committee had received. At a meeting of the State Board, held January 15, 1881, Mrs. Lowell presented a ''Report upon the Condition and Needs of the Insane of New York City," which was accepted and ordered transmitted to the Legislature with the annual report of the Board. Extracts from this report are included in this chapter. About this time Mrs. Lowell effected a most important and far-reaching reform, in the early care and observation of the alleged insane. Bellevue Hospital had long re- ceived persons who, from intemperance or a sudden out- break of insanity, had become disturbers of their homes or the public peace. In these emergencies patients were committed indiscriminatelj^ to what were known as the ''Cells," a series of dark, ill- ventilated rooms in the base- ment, where they often remained for several days, poorly fed and unable to sleep, owing to the disturbance created by the insane and drunkards suffering from delirium 232 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL tremens. Mrs. Lowell appealed to the Commissioners of Charity to erect a small pavilion on the grounds, to which patients suspected of insanity should be committed, where they would be under the immediate observation of members of the medical staff. The Commissioners finally consented to erect such a building, provided the necessary appropriation of $10,000 was secured. A committee was formed, consisting of Dr. Stephen Smith of the State Board of Charities, Dr. James R. Wood of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, and Bishop Henry C. Potter of the State Charities Aid Association, to attend the meet- ing of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment and present the matter. The appropriation was made, the pavilion built, and a well-organized service created, con- sisting of a special physician from the medical staff of the hospital and nurses from the Training School. Commis- sioners in Lunacy daily visited the institution, examined each patient, and discharged to the street those found not to be insane, and to the asylum for the insane those found to be insane. The number of persons committed as insane to this pavilion, but who were found, on careful observa- tion by expert physicians, to be not insane, has been in- credible. The success of this innovation has had much to do with the establishment of observation wards and psychopathic buildings in connection with hospitals and asylums for the insane. Some idea of the painstaking performance by Mrs. Lowell of her official duties may be gathered from the following paragraph from a letter of hers written that year to her sister-in-law : IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 233 West New Brighton, February 6, 1881. Dear Annie : ... I am all in a whirl of business, present and to come. Last week I finished off our report on New York City Charities, which, although it does not look like it, has kept me busy for six months, and it went to the Legislature on Thursday. Then I had to take up a case of abuse of a patient at the Lunatic Asylum, and on Wed- nesday (mercury at zero) I and a lady stenographer went over to Blackwell's Island, where I examined four attend- ants who were a good deal frightened. ... Of course I did not learn much, but it will have a salutary effect and make them see that such things will not be overlooked. I am also busy about the Women's Reformatory Bill and petitions in favor of it ; and altogether, as usual, I should like to be fifty people, and could lead fifty very pleasant lives ! Did I tell you that Father had organized a Rich- mond County Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- dren? It grew out of Mother's industrial school work, and will be very useful. The school goes on beautifully, eighteen or twenty children to dinner daily, and all learn- ing to be clean and decent and helpful. Mrs. Ix)weirs vigilance in regard to legislation for the care of the insane was shown in the following letter ad- dressed to the President of the State Board : 120 East 30th Street, March 14th, 1881. My dear Mr. Letchworth : There is a French pamphlet for you here. May I keep it to read before forwarding it? I do not know whether you have recognized the danger 234 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL that there is in a bill introduced by Senator Bixby and Mr. Browning granting to the Commissioners of Charities and Correction of New York City permission to transfer insane patients to State and county lunatic asylums. The danger lies in the words I have underlined, and county (the rest is all right), for although the bill qualified this authority by saying that the county asylums must be duly licensed by the State Board of Charities, what I fear is that an agreement might be entered into by the Commissioners of Charities and Correction with some asylums now taking 500 New York patients at $2.50 each week — putting up cheap buildings and then keeping the patients in poorhouse style, and we might find it diffi- cult to prevent it. Please explain the matter to Senators and Assemblymen, as at first sight the bill is all right. It will be necessary to act at once — the bill has passed both Houses and only needs to have some slight Assembly amendment concurred in by the Senate. I spoke to Senator Bixby about it. Truly yours, J. S. Lowell. June 17, 1881, was a red letter day for the State Board of Charities, for on that date Governor Cornell appointed Dr. Stephen Smith of New York City, Commissioner from the First Judicial District, and he was thus introduced to a public service with which he has been prominently identified nearly ever since, now for a period of almost thirty years. After a brief first term on the State Board, Dr. Smith was appointed State Commissioner in Lunacy, May 21, 1882, and resigned his seat on the Board to accept that position. IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 235 Being familiar with the origin of his office in the State Board of Charities, and recognizing the intimate relation of his duties to those of the Board, Dr. Smith, reversing the poUcy of his predecessor, proposed to its President that, although he was required by law to make his annual report to the Legislature, he would report the results of the current work of his office to the Board at its regular meet- ings, if the members approved. Accordingly, by resolution, the Commissioner was invited to attend the meetings of the Board and to participate in the discussion of subjects relating to the insane. Mrs. Lowell took an active part in securing this cooperation of the two branches of a com- mon service, and while she remained on the Board, gave unfailing support to the Commissioner in his efforts to improve the care of the insane. At a meeting of the State Board October 11, 1881, Mrs. Lowell and Dr. Smith were appointed a committee to report upon the condition of the asylums for the insane in New York County, and to suggest such measures for reform as in their opinion would improve the service. Mrs. Lowell, on behalf of this committee, presented at a special meeting March 16, 1882 a report which was printed in full in the Board^s minutes. The report urges that the Board prepare a bill : '^Providing that New York County, together with Kings, Monroe and Genesee Counties, which all now retain their acute insane, should be required, as are the other counties in the State, to place their acute insane in State hospitals. This plan has the advantage of placing all the counties of the State on the same footing ; it would simply be 236 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the consistent carrying out of the poUcy dehberately adopted by the State, that it is for the pubhc good that the acute insane should be cared for in State institu- tions. . . . ''This plan is undoubtedly directly in line of the past poUcy of the State Board of Charities, and there are no arguments to be made against it which do not equally tell against the whole scheme of State care for the acute insane. ... It is acknowledged by all experts that the care of recent cases of insanity to be efficient must be costly, and in order to protect the insane from the false economy of county authorities. State hospitals for the insane were built in the State at great expense, and are now ready to receive all the recent cases which occur. Mean- while, the two most powerful of the counties have been enabled to retain their acute insane, not because they have made adequate provision for them, but because they did not choose to pay for their care the amount required of the smaller counties. ''Yoiu- Committee recommend that the Board adopt the last of the three plans submitted, and appoint a Committee to draft a bill to be presented at the next meeting of the Board." This report was accepted by the Board, and on motion of Commissiomer Carpenter, it was : ^'Resolved, That this Board deems it desirable that the proper authorities of New York take immediate measures to remove the acute insane from institutions of that county to the State asylums above mentioned, and that the Com- missioners from New York be requested to bring this subject to the attention of the proper authorities of that city and coimty." IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 237 At the January meeting of the Board in 1882, President Letch worth appointed as the Standing Committee on the Insane, Commissioners Smith, Craig, and Lowell. In May, the resignation of Dr. Smith created a vacancj'- in the Board, which to my sm*prise I was appointed to fill. Some unknown friend had suggested my name to Governor Cornell, whom at that time I had never met, and thus began a service which still occupies much of my time and thought, and which associated me with Mrs. Lowell in her work as a Commissioner of the State Board. Im- mediately upon my appointment, I was much pleased by the receipt of the following letter, which illustrates the writer's unfailing courtesy and promptness : 120 East 30th Street, May 31, 1882. Dear Sir : I see that the Governor has nominated you as a member of our Board, and I hope the nomination will be confirmed. I shall be very glad to give you any information in my power in regard to the duties of the office, and meanwhile I enclose the Constitution, etc., of the Charity Organiza- tion Society, of which you are an ex-officio member, and in which I hope you may take an interest. Truly yours, Josephine Shaw Lowell. My first attendance at a Board meeting was on July 11, 1882, when by resolution, I was assigned to the vacancies in the standing committees, occasioned by the resignation of Dr. Smith. I thus found myself in the anomalous position of Chairman of the Committee on the Insane, 238 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL never yet having been within the walls of an asylum. Mrs. Lowell wished me to familiarize myself at once, by personal inspection, with the condition of the city asylums on the islands, and when my first visits to them were made in her company, I received useful object lessons of what official inspections should be. Nothing escaped Mrs. Lowell's watchful eye, and it was immediately evident that she was held in great respect by the asyliun officials. Nothing disturbed her serenity or was allowed to hasten or to retard the orderly course of her inspections. On my first visit in her company to the insane asylum for men on Ward's Island, in the course of our rounds we came to a ward filled to overcrowding with a class of senile dements, many of them suffering from paresis in its advanced stages. I had never until then been in so repulsive a place. The sights were no worse than the odors, and I sought fresh air at an open window. Mean- while, Mrs. Lowell, quite immoved, stood with the Super- intendent in the middle of the ward, pencil in hand, making notes of the conditions revealed to her practised eye. The first impression of her perfect courage remained, and was strengthened by my later experience of the con- duct of her work. Mrs. Lowell continued to call attention to the over- crowding in the asylums of New York City, and in October, 1882, the State Board of Charities adopted a resolution she offered directing the New York Commissioners to present the facts to the Board of Estimate and Apportion- ment. Meanwhile, she and Dr. Smith endeavored to find a suitable site on Long Island for a farm colony for the IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 239 able-bodied insane, with the intention, at that time, of having it conducted as a branch of the insane asylum for men on Ward's Island. At the close of the year 1882, the New York Commis- sioners, with the approval of the Board, held several conferences with the City Commissioners of PubUc Charities and Correction, endeavoring, but without success, to secure their active support of the application for the farm, and in December twice appeared before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, urging an appropriation for this purpose of twenty-five thousand dollars. Mrs. Lowell at the State Board meeting of January 11, 1883, presented a report on '^The Insane and Lunatic Asylums of New York City," which was adopted and ordered transmitted to the Legislature. In April, 1883, I was, at my request, relieved from further service on the Committee on the Insane, to take up reformatory work, which more particularly interested me. Mrs. Lowell also retired from the Committee in July of that year. We both continued, however, as State Commissioners residing in the city, to urge the improve- ment of its asylums, and to exert pressure for the estab- lishment of the farm colony for the insane. It was not easy to discourage Mrs. Lowell; she had learned to wait perse veringly. In December, 1883, the fol- lowing resolution which she offered was adopted by the State Board : ^'Resolved, That the New York Conamissioners be re- quested to go before the Board of Estimate and Apportion- ment of the Citv of New York and draw their attention 240 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL to the fact that three thousand acres of land in Suffolk County, suitable for a farm for the chronic insane of the city, are now for sale at fifty thousand dollars, and to recommend that an examination of the land be made with a view of purchasing it for the purposes above named/' The State Commissioner in Lunacy was requested to join in this apphcation. The minutes of the State Board for the years 1884-1886 show Mrs. Lowell's persistence in calling attention to the needs of the insane in the State, and especially to the need for increased accommodation for the insane of New York City, and for the establishment of another State asylum for chronic cases. During this period the Board of Estimate made an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars, for the purchase of more land for the insane. Mr. Letchworth in 1880 made an extensive European tour devoted to the study of the care and treatment of the feeble-minded and insane on the Continent and in England, as the result of which he subsequently published an important work which has since been regarded as authoritative. He was favorably impressed with the colony plan of treatment given at Alt Scherbitz, near Leipzig in Saxony, and at his own expense had plans and drawings of the colony made in the hope of procuring their adoption by asylums in the United States. These plans Mr. Letchworth generously placed at the disposition of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction of New York City through Mrs. Lowell in March of 1886. In July, 1887, Mrs. Lowell informed the Board that the New York Conmiissioners had recently appeared IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 241 before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and requested the transfer of sixty thousand dollars for the erection of buildings, and the preparation of the Long Island Farm for inmates, and that ten thousand dollars was available. At the October meeting of that year, Hon. Henry H. Porter, Commissioner of Pubhc Charities and Correction of the City of New York, with Dr. A. E. Mac- Donald, General Superintendent of the city asylums for the insane, appeared before the State Board and presented a general plan for the erection of asylum buildings, for the quiet and orderly clironic insane of the city, upon the land recently acquired by it near Central Islip, Long Island, which after discussion was approved by the Board. At the next meeting, a special conamittee was appointed to confer with the Mayor of New York City, and in their discretion, to act with him to secure better relief in the care of the insane. The conference with the Mayor was attended on Decem- ber 22, 1887, by Conmiissioners Craig, Lowell, and Stewart. The Mayor expressed his appreciation of the investiga- tions and reports the State Board had made, and an- nounced that in consequence, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment had voted to the Department of Public Charities and Correction all the appropriations it had asked for, including the sum for the farm colony for the insane at Central Islip. In October, 1888, pursuant to a resolution adopted by the State Board, at its meeting that month. Commissioners Milhau and Lowell had a conference with the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction, and also appeared before the Board of Estimate and Apportion- 242 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ment. They presented resolutions adopted by the State Board, advocating the erection on the farm at Central Islip of two or three more colonies for men, and increased accom- modation for women at Hart's Island, and this they re- ported to the Board at the November meeting. Twelve years had elapsed since Mr. Roosevelt and Mrs. Lowell began to urge upon the authorities of New York Citj^ the necessity of a farm colony for the chronic insane, when in May, 1889, the doors of the Central Islip Asylum were opened for the reception of patients. Meanwhile, the abuses, inadequacy, and lack of system of county care had become so apparent to thoughtful persons interested in the care of the insane, that under the wise and energetic leadership of Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, the State assumed in 1889 the guardianship of all the in- digent insane, by what is now commonly called the State Care Act. By this statute the State Commission in Lunacy was established, to consist of three persons, one a physician, one a lawyer and the other a citizen, and the office of State Conunissioner of Lunacy was abolished. This law became effective with the approval of the Gover- nor May 14, and his appointees. Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, Goodwin Brown, and Henry A. Reeves organized under the chairmanship of Dr. MacDonald, on June 5. Dr. Stephen Smith, who served as State Commissioner of Lunacy until May 9, 1888, being then superseded by Dr. Samuel Wesley Smith, was reappointed to the State Board of Charities in 1893, and elected Vice-President of the Board in 1903, a position which, although now in his eighty-eighth year, he still fills with energy and dis- tinguished abihty. IMPROVED CARE FOR THE INSANE 243 The State Commissioners in Lunacy had under super- vision April 1, 1910, nearly thirty thousand indigent in- sane, maintained in fifteen State hospitals, of which two are for the criminal insane. The State Hospital at Central IsUp, Long Island, in the establishment of which Mrs. Lowell was so influential, then cared for in comfort on a farm site of one thousand acres, beautified and made fer- tile by their labor, more than four thousand men, and has proved an inestimable blessing to the poor of the City of New York. The system of State care for the insane of New York, now in operation nearly eleven years, has proved thor- oughly successful. It is probably true that nowhere else in the world are so many patients so uniformly well maintained and scientifically treated, as in the State of New York today. During the years of Mrs. Lowell's official work, while county and municipal care were the rule, and State care the exception, and while there was much doubt in the public mind as to the merits of the dif- ferent systems, she early came to the conclusion that State care was the best, and was the active and consistent advocate of the uniform system which now happily pre- vails, and her services in this cause have far exceeded any mention of them here made. Her heart must have re- joiced at the final victory of the friends of State care. CHAPTER XI Work for Dependent Children An important reform in the care of the dependent children in the State was secured by the enactment of what is now often referred to as the Children's Law. In 1868, the year following the establishment of the State Board of Charities, an examination of the county and city poorhouses, as these almshouses were then called, made by members of the Board showed that they then housed 2261 children under sixteen years of age. The Board at once publicly took the position that the almshouses were unfit places in which to rear children, and that these institutions '' should be maintained exclusively as retreats or infirmaries for sick, aged or helpless indigents.'' The influence of the Board, supported by private charitable organizations, and reenforced by public opinion, had by October 1, 1873, caused the reduction of the number of children in the almshouses to 1015. William Pry or Letchworth, of Portage, then Vice- President of the State Board, visited the almshouses at the request of the Board during the year 1874 and ex- amined the children still retained in them. Assisted by the late Dr. Charles S. Hoyt, then Secretary of the Board, Mr. Letchworth led a movement to have all the children promptly removed from these institutions. For several years much of his time and thought were devoted to this 244 WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 245 task, and while he no doubt had the sympathy of the State Board, nevertheless he did the work. At first he appeared before many Boards of Supervisors and advocated the voluntary removal of the children. Afterward, when the plan of keeping the children in almshouses was abandoned by many of the counties, Mr. Letchworth conceived the idea of a law forbidding the commitment of children to the almshouses of the State. The Chil- dren's Law framed by him with the assistance of Dr. Hoyt, was enacted in 1875. This Act prohibited, from and after January 1, 1876, the commitment of children over three and under sixteen years of age to almshouses, and directed the removal to family care, orphan asylums, or other appropriate iDstitutions, of all children between the ages named whom the almshouses then sheltered. This reform accomplished, Mr. Letchworth, desiring to ascertain the condition of the other institutions in the State of which children were inmates, made in 1875 a comprehensive and painstaking series of visits to them. His ''Report on Orphan Asylums, Reformatories and other Institutions of the State having the Care and Cus- tody of Children, '^ dated January 11, 1876, was published in the Ninth Annual Report of the State Board, covering the year 1875. This useful and monumental pubhc paper, the first of its character ever presented, com- prised over five hundred printed pages and exhibited a complete survey of the conditions prevailing in the 123 children's homes reported upon, which at that time sheltered 17,791 inmates. The author was immediately recognized as the leading authority in the State of New 246 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL York on questions relating to the care of dependent children. An examination of the niinutes of the State Board during the thirteen years of Mrs. LowelFs membership discloses many entries showing her continual interest in the welfare of dependent children. At a meeting held March 8, 1877, ''on the statement of a case by Mrs. Lowell, the Board expressed the opinion that the loca- tion of orphan asylums on the grounds of the county poorhouses and under the charge of poorhouse officials is not in conformity with the act of 1875 'For better pro- tection of pauper and destitute children.'" On February 6, 1878, Mrs. Lowell presented and read a "Report on the Condition of the Dependent Children of Westchester County, recently removed from the House of the Good Shepherd by the Superintendent of the Poor.'' This report was probably presented in manuscript, not printed, and afterwards lost. At a special meeting of the Board, May 12, 1880, on motion of Mr. Letchworth, Mrs. Lowell was assigned to membership on a special coromit- tee of three, appointed in compliance with the request of the Directors of the New York Juvenile Asylum, to examine the affairs and management of that institution. Mrs. Lowell, in behalf of this committee, submitted and read a report at the Board meeting September 15, in that year, which was accepted and a copy ordered sent to the President of the Board of Directors of the Asylum. On motion of Mrs. Lowell, the Board, on January 13, 1881, resolved: "That in the opinion of this Board, the establishment of homes under county care for dependent WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 247 children is opposed to the spirit and reason of Chapter 173, Laws of 1875, the Children's Law and Chapter 404, Laws of 1878/' The second statute cited modified the original Children's Law by changing the age limits from three to sixteen years, to two to sixteen years and ex- tended its provisions so that it became unlawful to conmiit such children to jails as vagrants, truants, or disorderly persons. The violation of the law was made a misde- meanor, and the second section made it possible to se- cure the transfer of children not properly cared for by institutions or families. The following letter addressed to the Assistant Secretary of the State Board, shows Mrs. Lowell's early solicitude at the increasing munber of dependent children under in- stitutional care. Manchester-by-the-Sea, July 21, 1885. My dear Mr. Fanning : Can you have a table made for me, showing the exact number of dependent children supported by public and private funds in New York City in 1874 (if the Children's Law went into effect Jan. 1st, '75) and in 1884 ? The number, for instance, on Randall's Island and in each of the then existing private institutions in 1874, and the same (giving all the new institutions) in 1884, with the cost in each and the proportion of public money appropriated to each. Of coiu-se what I want to show is the increase in the number of children and in the cost to the city during the past ten years. It seems to me that what we must insist on is that children supported by public funds shall belong to the State, the parents to 248 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL have no claim on them. If parents do not want to give up their children they must support them or put them on private charity to maintain. Shortly afterwards the same concern was shown in a letter addressed to the President of the State Board. West New Brighton, December 1, 1885. My dear Mr. Letchworth : I have just received your letter and hasten to answer it, because I do not want you to suppose, as you seem to, that I do not approve of the Children's Law and do approve of mixing innocent children with boys already experienced in vice. I heartily agree with you in your views on both these points, but I did not believe the way to prevent the latter evil in the House of Refuge was to make that institution a perfectly acceptable place to which to commit innocent children. I think the Houses of Refuge ought to remain the reformatories to which bad boys shall be committed, and that homeless and truant boys should be sent to entirely other and distinct institu- tions, when it is necessary that they should be sent to institutions at all. I would join you in approving the submitting of a bill to the Legislature to accomplish this. As to the Children's Law, of course I agree that it was of inunense value in getting the children out of the poor- houses, but I think that the great increase of dependent children that has followed its enforcement is a great evil and that we must find some remedy for it. I am writing a report which I shall present at the meeting on the 15th, recommending the approval of a bill for the creation of a new officer for New York City, who shall have the entire charge of all the institutions on RandalFs Island which contain children, and who shall also have power to commit WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 249 children to private institutions and discharge them from them. In this way the advantages gained by the Brooklyn Law will be attained in New York without the great drawback of putting the dependent children back into the hands of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Corrections. With an officer whose duty it should be to investigate the status of parents bringing children for commitment, and a preliminary stay on Randall's Island in quaran- tine, of all children before their final admission to private institutions, many, if not all of the troubles we now suffer from would be remedied. Of course I would have the city property on RandalFs Island entirely devoted to the children, and no inmate or employee of the department of Public Charities allowed on it. I should be very glad to know before the meeting what you think of this sketch. The minutes of a meeting of the State Board, held December 15-17, 1885, record the presentation and read- ing, by Mrs. Lowell, of a ^'Report on the Orphan Asylum Societies of the City of New York,'' which was accepted and ordered transmitted to the Legislature with the Annual Report of the Board. Pursuant to provisions of the Membership Corporation Law, the approval of the State Board of Charities to certificates of incorporation of private charitable institu- tions for the care of orphan, pauper, or destitute children has since 1883 been a condition precedent to the filing of the certificate. This is one of the most useful functions of the Board, and has prevented many unnecessary or 250 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ill-considered incorporations. It is the practice of the Board to act upon such applications after reference to and written report from a Commissioner or committee. At a meeting of the Board held July 11, 1889, Mrs. Lowell presented the following preliminary report upon an intended application of this character, which was con- sidered of such value by the Board that it was inserted in full in the minutes of that meeting : To THE State Board of Charities: A few weeks since, Monsignor Donelly, one of the vicars-general of New York, requested me to interest myself in the plans of some Italian Sisters of the Order of St. Francis of Sales, who had come to this city for the purpose of opening an asylum for Italian children. I met the Superior of the Order, who intends shortly to return to Italy, and two of the sisters, at St. Michael's rectory, on June 15, and learned that they had been here about two months, and desired to establish an asy- lum (for girls at first, later for boys also) to receive orphan, half-orphan and deserted children of Italians ; that they had hired a home (No. 43 East Fifty-ninth Street), and intended also to teach a day school in Roosevelt Street. They said they desired to be incorporated, in order to be enabled to receive committed children and public money for their support. I explained to them and to the vicar-general, that I thought it necessary to be very careful in acting in this matter; that it would be a dangerous precedent to grant a charter to foreigners coming here for the purpose of opening an asylum for foreign children, to be supported by money raised by taxation. I said that it seemed to me to be necessary to secure responsible resi- dents of New York City as incorporators, and to have very WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 251 strict limits as to age, length of residence in the United States and in New York State and City, ability of parents to pay, numbers to be supported, length of time for which supported, and probably as to other points, in order to avoid the establishment of such an asylum acting as a temptation to poor Itahans to inunigrate. I told them that, at present, there was a strong inclination on the part of Itahans to place their children in institutions ("al Collegio," as they called it), and that I heard in two different institutions of the practice on the part of Italians, able to maintain their children, of paying brokers of their own nation to secure admission for them. I called at the house of the Sisters on June 18th and went over it. Finding that they already had four children as inmates, and were ignorant of the necessity of any hcense, I advised their applying to the Board of Health for per- mission to receive children. I was received with much kindness, and the superior seemed to appreciate the force of all I had said. I make this report at present, in order to suggest that when the application is received, it be very closely scruti- nized, as it will serve as a precedent and model for others to be framed in the future. I would also suggest that it is well, when foreign children are supported in this country by pubhc funds, that they should be brought up as Americans, and not as foreigners. Respectfully submitted, Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York, July 6, 1889. Her second comprehensive '^ Report upon the Care of Dependent Children in the City of New York and Else- where" was presented at a meeting of the State Board 252 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL held December 11, 1889, accepted and ordered trans- mitted to the Legislature. A digest of this report is included in this chapter. This was Mrs. Lowell's last appearance at a meeting of the State Board of Chari- ties, her term of office expiring shortly afterward. Her final official act was one intended to improve the condition of dependent children. Her interest in the welfare of children was however, continued ; this is illustrated by the following letters, of which the first was addres^d to Oscar Craig, of Rochester, who in April, 1889, succeeded Mr. Letchworth as President of the State Board. 120 East 30th St., March 20, 1891. My dear Mr. Craig : I saw yesterday for the first time a copy of Assembly Bill, 959, introduced by Mr. Beakes (and referred to the Judiciary Committee), and although I suppose you know all about it already, it is so dangerous a measure, that I think it best to write about it in case you have overlooked it. It is an amendment to the Act for the Care of Children, and provides for the full support by outdoor rehef of all pauper children, dependent upon their mother, unless she is declared by the County Judge to be an unfit person to have charge of them. The bill expressly forbids the putting any such child, that is, any child dependent upon its mother, into an institution of any kind, taking away all authority from the county officials in the matter. Of course 3^ou know I do not approve of the wholesale putting of children into institutions, but neither do I approve of obUgatory outdoor relief. WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 253 120 East 30th St., New York, July 8th, 1891. My dear Mr. Letchworth : I have yours of July 4th, and write you agam because it seems to me, as you say, that very little information of value can be obtained, unless each particular child in each institution is reported on separately, and I want to beg you to insist upon having the schedules made out in that way. If the United States census can be taken by individuals, there is no reason why the census of oiu- institutions could not be taken in the same way, and I should think it would be much better to defer the inquiry, if necessary, until you can obtain a special appropriation for extra clerical force, rather than to collect imperfect statistics. 120 East 30th St., July 4th, 1893. My dear Mr. Fanning : I received yours of June 19th at Bath with my paper, and I was rather disappointed to find that you did not think I had laid stress on the duty of parents to care for their own children, for I thought that was the special point I made. However, it cannot be too much insisted upon, and I quoted your letter the next day in the debate. It is a fact that the preaching of duties is what is needed now. If everybody did what duty demands to their family arid fellow-citizens, charity would not be needed. Selfishness and the shrinking from hardship of every kind, softness of character, is what is doing most of the harm now. People seem to think that physical suffering is the worst thing that can happen to anyone, and mushy sympathy is responsible for a great deal of demoralization. I was sorry you were not at the 254 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Convention, but was glad to see Mr. Letchworth and Dr. Hoyt. Rock Hakbob, Westport, N. Y., June 28, 1894. My dear Mr. Letchworth : I have been asked my opinion as to appropriations from public funds to sectarian institutions by a member of the Constitutional Convention, and I have replied that I recommend : 1st : That appropriations from public funds be allowed, never to exceed, however, $1 per week per capita. 2nd : That these appropriations be made to all institu- tions, sectarian and others, which reach a certain standard of excellence. 3rd : That their condition be ascertained by annual inspection. 4th : That the amount appropriated be diminished by one-half for every child in excess of 300 in any given insti- tution. Of course this leaves many points unsettled, but it seems to me to cover what is fundamental. It would be a misfortune to have sectarian institutions discriminated against, and our present position is certainly a misfortune. If you think there is any radical error in the above, so far as they go, please let me know, for I do not want to do harm by my advice. The State Board ought to have adopted some principles to guide the Constitutional Convention ; it is a shame to have so much knowledge and devotion as there is in the Board ignored and wasted at this important juncture. WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 255 120 East 30th Street, New York, January 7th, 1895. My dear Mr. Stewart : I have just given your address to Dr. Moreau Morris, of the Board of Health, who has really done a great deal to improve the children's institutions in this city, and I think you could not find a better inspector. As to the rules, — how would one do requiring that children supported by pubUc money (unless in a Reforma- tory) must go to the pubhc school after they reach six years? Going out of the institution and mixing with other children does more to counteract the institution influence than any other one thing. The value of play and outdoor recreation for the health and normal development of all children, but especially for those of the tenements of our great cities, was early recognized by Mrs. Lowell, and she was among the first through whose efforts a playground under private manage- ment was opened for children in New York City. In the spring of 1890, she secured control of a plot of vacant land on West Fiftieth Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, and had it suitably fenced and protected at a gate by a man who saw that no older boys or girls were ad- mitted. This playground, known as the ^' Sand Park, " was open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from June to September for two years, and was in charge of a directress and two assistants, of whom one was a kindergartener and the other a regular teacher. Boys were admitted in the morning and girls in the afternoon ; sand was provided and pails and shovels given to the younger children, who were placed under the 256 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL care of the older boys and girls ; turning bars and swings were also set up for them. Industrial training, principally in woodwork, was given the boys, and the girls were in- structed in sewing. All the children were taught games and songs used in kindergarten work. Mrs. Lowell not only established this park, but raised the money needed to carry on the work described, regularly spent part of two days a week there, and visited it almost daily. More of Mrs. LowelFs work for children was done through the agency of the Outdoor Recreation League, of which organization she was treasurer. In 1898 the following enterprises of the League were mentioned in a circular : a sunomer camp for working boys in Pelham Bay Park ; a playground for children at Ninety-fourth Street and Amsterdam Avenue ; cooperation with the Board of Education in visiting school playgrounds ; open-air gym- nasiums at Hester Street Park and in a lot at Fifty-second Street and Twelfth Avenue; increasing the number of play- grounds. The movement for parks and playgrounds for children is now widespread, and has resulted in the for- mation of the national, and many state associations. From conversations had with Mrs. Lowell on the sub- ject of recreation piers, before any of them had been built and opened to the public, I know that she was also one of the first, if not the first, to urge the city authorities to build and set apart second stories to some of the piers on each of the river fronts for the recreation of the people. These piers are now an inestimable blessing to many thousands, especially to the dwellers in the crowded tene- ments as refuges from the torrid heat of summer. WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 257 A Paper Read before the New York Association OF Teachers, 1880 ^ Mr. President and Members of the New York State Association of Teachers: I very gladly accepted the invitation to write a paper to be read before you, because I cannot count it other than a privilege to be allowed to speak to men and women holding positions of such responsibility and trust. It is not an uncommon fault to overrate one's own im- portance and the weight of one's own influence and power, but it is a fault which is impossible to a school teacher, for I do not believe that the most exalted opinion of the dignity and responsibiUty of the profession could place it higher than it should stand. Remembering that you have in your hands the task of moulding the future of more than six million men and women, that the character of the people of the State of New York is to take its im- press from your minds, can any task be more noble or more fearful than the one you have undertaken? Your work is not, hke that of the minister and preacher, the almost hopeless task of counteracting on one day of the week all that selfishness teaches on the other six ; you are at work day after day, with line upon line, precept upon precept, gradually shaping the minds of your pupils. Yours is not the difficult labor of the philanthropist, to reform the characters of adults, hardened by years of bad habits ; it is your work to form the character while it is yet 1 Published in pamphlet form by Pillsbury, 680 Sixth Avenue, New- York City, in 1886. 258 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL plastic, to tm^n the delicate young mind this way or that. If you are noble and high-minded, if you love the truth above all things, if you take the right views of life, you will train up noble and true men and women, and your pupils will be a blessing to themselves and others. If you are false and base, if you value the things that are temporal more than the things that are eternal, your pupils will be mean and worldly, will be dishonest and degraded, and you may one day feel that it were better for you that a millstone had been hanged about your neck and you had been cast into the sea rather than to have made one of those little ones to offend. Beheving as I do that you are given this great influence for good or evil, and believing too, that there are some radically wrong views which have become generally ac- cepted by you, and which are, unhappily, also partly because of your holding them, very deeply rooted among the American people generally, I cannot help, as I have said, being very grateful for the opportunity given me to point out to you some of these errors and tell you some facts which may startle you and lead you to consider more deeply the whole question of what is the object of sending a child to school and what should be the result of his ten or twelve years of schooling. I have said that I do not think any teacher could think any more highly of his office than it deserves ; but by that I mean of his office as it should be, not as it too often is. My ideal of a teacher's duty is to fit the boys and girls entrusted to his care to be useful citizens, to make them men and women who shall be able to take care of them- WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 259 selves and others, who shall do their duty to Grod and their neighbor. Compared to this, the object which seems too often to be set before the teacher, is too insignificant almost tp be mentioned in the same breath ; the aim seems to be to teach his pupils to shine on exhibition day, to learn to read and spell gUbly and write a composition which may be pubUshed in the county paper. In fact, while educa- tion should mean the training of the body, mind and soul, we Americans too often forget both body and soul and devote ourselves to a miserable one-sided development of the mind. Whether the error began with the teachers and spread to parents and children, or whether the teachers share it only because they are part of the people, I do not know, but I do know that it exists and that it is not an uncommon thing for devoted, hard-working parents to believe that they are doing their best for their much be- loved children by keeping them at school or college, while in fact they are training their minds at the expense not only of their physical strength, but of their ability to earn an honest living and of every noble and generous feeling of their natures, and this mistake is often fostered by teachers; they will encourage men and women whose strength is daily failing under the strain of life, to give their son or daughter an ''education," while if there were one spark of right feeling or nobility in the souls of those children, they would scorn to take an advantage for them- selves at such a cost to their parents. With all our education and our public school system and our immense expenditures for the young, we find that year by year, in tliis country, insanity and pauperism and 260 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL crime are increasing out of proportion to the increase of the population, and it behooves us to ask not only whether our schools are doing all they should and could to prevent so fearful a state of things, but also whether there may not be some causes in the schools themselves which may help on these evils. We have accustomed ourselves to believe that what we have called an education was the safeguard against poverty and vice, but unfortunately our hmited kind of education does not prove so ; we must adopt the real education physical, mental and moral, if we really desire to stem the current of insanity, pauperism and crime which is attaining such alarming strength in our country. Under the head of physical education I include the training of the body itself and all its members, and would not only have the pupils of our schools compelled to keep themselves in health while in school, but they should be taught the laws by which they could, through their whole lives, maintain their bodies in good working order, and they should, moreover, be given the power and ability to earn a living and support themselves and their children. This sounds hke a formidable innovation, perhaps, but in reality it would not prove so. As to bodily health during school years, it would be easy to so conduct our schools that they should not overtax the strength of the pupils or teachers ; and that should be my first reform. Of the three morning hours, one should be devoted to exercise, gymnastics or drilling, and there should be two hours' recess before the afternoon session, and no studying before breakfast or by lamplight out of school. All the conmion WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 261 laws of health regarding food, cleanliness, fresh air and exercise should be taught and enforced in every school, and should never be broken for the sake of forcing bright scholars to greater attainment or punishing backward scholars for laziness or dulness. I was much struck lately with some statements regarding the causes of in- sanity, made in the annual report of the Medical Superin- tendent of the Insane Asylum, at Toronto, Ontario, which apply unhappily to the United States, as well as to the neighboring province, and therefore I quote it : '^ There is a serious source of mental and physical de- terioration, which, in a secondary way, seriously affects the adult population as well as the youth of our land; it is the senseless mental overstrain to which the school children are subjected. . . . An examination of the list of studies required of children and youths up to the age of twenty-one and beyond it in our schools and universities, shows that no young and growing brain can undertake the work laid out for it without great and permanent injury to this delicate and complex organ. Children are put in the worst ventilated houses which can be found in the country, and these often are literally crammed with them. In this foul air they study for hours at a time. Evening brings no relaxation for them, for a task needing several hours^ study must be done before bedtime or early in the morning ; and this becomes a dreary iminviting round. They successfully or vainly endeavor, according to their strength, to overcome these daily burdens and obstacles to health, by a constant effort which produces mental tension. The result is, many never recover from the struggle during the remainder of a lengthy hfe. Night or day, except a few hours of sleep, from the age of seven 262 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL up to manhood or womanhood, the susceptible and tender brain is on the rack, and this strain is at a time when only moderate exercise is healthy to this impressionable organ. The brain must, like the rest of the body, in its early days, gather tone, fibre and capacity for the great struggle of life. The young are not permitted to do hard manual labor because of the tenderness of the body, until maturity is almost reached, but the most important organ of our physical system is urged onwards to the utmost extent of its powers from babyhood upwards. It needs no prophet to see that this hothouse growth in a foul at- mosphere, and a uniform system of forced training, with long hours of study, means nervousness, lassitude, peri- odic headaches, a lax prostrated physical and mental system. A tendency to, and an invasion of, insanity may end the chapter of blunders, especially if a hereditary predisposition exists. Such are the recuperative powers of the body that it will, in a majority of cases, come off victorious against a legion of such foes, yet an alarming section of the rising generation thus educated carry into after life, in some form of nervous or brain disorder, the effects of the prevailing ignorance and persistent efforts to produce a precocious race by a short cut, and this in spite of ruined constitutions.'^ As I have said, under the head of physical education I would include such a training of the body as would enable the large proportion of pupils graduating from school who cannot earn a living by head work, to earn it by hand work, and would create and foster a spirit among teachers and pupils which should recognize that to follow the example of Jesus Christ and learn and practise a trade is not unworthy of any boy. I do not advocate the teaching WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 263 of trades in our schools, but the teaching of the use of tools, which would give such control of the hands and body as would make it easy to learn whatever trade a boy might choose after leaving school. To introduce such a plan of industrial training in our public schools would not be difficult or expensive ; one competent master could teach three classes a day of twelve boys each, or fifteen classes a week. Such industrial training has been strongly ad- vocated in Boston, and will shortly, it is hoped, be intro- duced there. The argument which I advance in support of this proposition to introduce industrial training into our public schools, is the only one which I acknowledge to be of amy weight in favor of a pubHc school system of smy kind ; and that is, that it is for the advantage of the state to expend its money in this way. The state owes no one an education, no one has a claim on the state for an educa- tion, but in self-defence, the state has adopted the poUcy of educating its future citizens, in order to ensure its own safety and prosperity. Such being the case, if it can be proved that an industrial training for its citizens is as important or more important to the state than the mental training which has until now generally been considered sufficient, it requires no further argument to show that such training should be made a part of om* educational system. The statistics of our prisons and those of other states prove beyond a question that the fact of being able to read and write does not deter from crime or ensure the performance of pubUc and private duties, while on the 264 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL contrary, they seem to prove that an ability to earn one's living and the habit of steady industry are great safe- guards against evil practices. . . . It is unnecessary, however, to dwell longer upon the aspect of the educational question which deals with that small proportion of the graduates of our schools who be- come criminals. We may confidently hope that the day will never come when the great majority will not surely be honest, earnest, and hard-working ; and I am sure that the influence of school teachers will be all-powerful in this direction. The teachers themselves must believe, in order to instil the belief into the minds of their pupils, that good steady work is worthy and noble, and they must teach this to girls as well as boys ; and that the girls may share with the boys the advantage of industrial learning, I should give to every girl educated in a public school — and could I have my way, every girl in the State should have her first years of schooling in a public school — such teaching as would prepare her to be a good house- wife and mother. Sewing and cooking should be taught in every school. We shall, I think, be a much wiser and happier people when our young men and women learn in our public schools the arts which will help them to bring up and support their families comfortably and thriftily. I may pass over the subject of mental or book education^ simply saying that, in my view, it should be made more simple and more thorough ; that fewer subjects should be taught, and those should be better taught than at present. The great aim of the pubUc school teacher, at least, should WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 265 be to give such a training as should serve as a foundation for any superstructure that could be put upon it. I do not believe that it is the province of the State to lift any of its children to great heights of learning. The education given, and given to all, should be such as to open the door to learning to those who wish to enter, and to elevate and strengthen the general intelligence. Instead of spending the people^s money upon higher education for a few, I believe it should be spent upon broader education for all, including in this broader educa^ tion, as I have said, physical, mental and moral training. This last, the most important, is also the most difficult and the most dependent on the individual teacher. Al- most the whole duty of the teacher under this head seems to me to be comprised in giving to the pupils a right view of life, and by this phrase I mean a great deal. I mean that the children shall be taught what things are of real and lasting value and worthy of a struggle with adverse cir- cumstances, and what are unsatisfying and useless and not worth a second thought ; that they shall learn to set truth, moral and intellectual truth, above all things, and to know that to see truly is to see what God has made and intended us to see, and that self-interest and cowardice can never see truly. Moral training is of infinite importance for the individ- ual, for the state and for the nation ; and the following words of Sir Henry Maudsley, a distinguished English authority on insanity, may well cause parents and teachers to tremble at the thought of the responsibility laid upon them: 266 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL '^The aim of a good education should be to develop the power and habit of what the events of hfe will not fail to rudely enforce, renunciation and self-control, and to lead to the continued transference of thoughts and feelings into external action of a beneficent kind. By the habitual encouragement of self -feeling, and by an ego- tistic development in all the relations of life, a character may, by imperceptible degrees, be so framed that insanity is the natural and consummate evolution of it, while every step taken in such deterioration will so far predispose to insanity under adverse circumstances of life/' A school is no place for theological discussion or the teaching of sectarianism, but fortunately all parents will imite in wishing that their children shall be taught to love God, and to know their responsibihty to him and their duty to their fellow-men. I cannot better close my paper than by quoting the words of a teacher ^ speaking to teachers upon waste of labor in the work of education : '*But last of all there is a waste that brings loss and sorrow to the world ; this is neglect of moral and religious instruction in connection with intellectual training. Who are the men who are causing humanity to blush by their dishonesty and corruption, poisoning the world at the same time that they are cheating and astonishing it? Why, men who are educated, but who despise the slow methods of honest gain and reject the old-fashioned morality of the Bible. There must be a searching for the foundation; and that instruction or that education which does not make prominent justice as well as benevolence ; law as well as liberty; honesty as well as thrift, and purity of life as ^ President of Williams College. WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 267 well as enjoyment ; should be stamped by every true edu- cator as a waste and a curse, for so it will prove in the end. We understand the importance of our work, the value of mental and moral culture, we see the inviting fields that call the student to labor, and the waiting world that needs his time and the strength of his best cultured powers. Let us see to it that no old notions, no routine of duty, no shrinking from work or responsibiUty, shall spoil our harvest, so that at last we shall look back on a waste of energy and time. Let us work while the day lasts, with our might. Let us see that all our work is of the best kind. Let us train our students for the study, for the family, for the state, for the world. If we send them forth with the abiUty to labor, with a love of truth and justice, and with a spirit of self-sacrifice, our work will be a bless- ing to them and to the world." Children ^ It is a truism to say that the most important work to be done among the poor is for the children, and I am almost inclined to declare that nothing else is of any im- portance at all, as compared with it, for every other branch of charitable work produces but small results and for only short periods of time, while what is done for the children may make the difference for each child between a whole long life of virtue or of vice, and may make the difference for the community between a large or a small mmaber of paupers for hundreds of years. It is kind and it is pleasant and it is a duty to reheve physical suffering ; and yet more or less of physical suffer- lAn address delivered on November 18, 1898, in Harlem, before volunteer workers of the Charity Organization Society. 268 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ing is not a matter of vital importance. The patient, if left alone, will usually either get well or die before very- long. It is a duty to help the aged ; and yet, whatever the suffering m.Siy be, it cannot last very many years, and it leaves no bad results when it is over. If one can reclaim the man or woman who is leading a vicious life, it is a blessed work ; and yet how hard it is, and how often it proves fruitless I It is far otherwise with what is done for children. They may be easily influenced, and the influence acquired over them may be powerful and may be felt even for generations. There is thus every reason for a concentration of effort upon the children, and as I have said, in comparison wifth this work it seems as if no other were of any importance. But since this work for children is so important, since the material to be moulded is so ductile for a few years, and yet carries the impress it has received through life and on to future generations, it becomes of tremendous moment to do the right thing for them, to do the best thing for them, and not to injure them under the mistaken view that we are guiding them rightly. I am going to speak today only of what should be done for children abnormally situated, and of course I want it to be fully understood that I recognize that the training and education of the children of the great mass of the people is to be left to their parents, to the pubHc schools, and to such other agencies as the community may devise to forward their full and well-rounded development in body, mind and soul. What then can be done by private benevolent societies WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 269 and by private benevolent individuals for children whose parents are unable to bring them up properly ? What can be done which shall be beneficent as well as benevolent ? One very natural answer will occur to a great many people — that these children should be taken away from their parents and put with persons who can bring them up properly ; and the fact that there are in the old City of New York today eighteen thousand children who have l3een taken away from their parents and placed with others to be brought up shows how generally this solution of the difficulty is considered the best, and how easy it is supposed to be to find those who can bring children up better than it is possible for their parents to do. But unhappily the problem is by no means so simple as it appears when first considered, and it is not so easy to decide upon the comparative value of a home and a strange bringing up. To begin with, there is a great variety both in the degree and in the kind of incapacity on the part of the parents. They may only be incapable physically, they may be ill or weak, or the father may be dead and the mother left alone to take the place of both father and mother, and yet they may love their children dearly and be eminently fit to bring them up worthily. Surely in such cases, it cannot be right to tear the children away ? They may be foolish, weak and over-indulgent, they may be wicked and cruel, they may degrade and corrupt their children; and while there is no question that children should be saved from parents who will maim them physically or morally, there is a decided question as to whether it is good for them to be taken away from fooUsh and weak 270 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL parents, for there is every degree of foolishness and weakness, and it is difficult to decide when the evil of the foolishness and weakness outweighs the good of the unconscious discipline of family life and of family affection. On the other hand, also, it is necessary to consider what the alternative is. To what influences and training are the children to be subjected? Just as there is a great variety in the character of incompetent parents, so there is a great variety in the methods by which children may be educated when taken away from their parents. Children may be put in an institution where there are many hundreds of inmates, where they must live by rule, and in crowds, without personal affection, without natural outlet of any kind, where their health, their feelings, and their minds and souls must be stultified, because the life is absolutely unnatural. They may also be put in an in- stitution where there are only a few children and where, so far as is possible, every effort is made to teach them the ways of family hfe, from which they go out to the public school and mix with children living in their own homes, and are thus stimulated mentally and morally, and escape some of the very bad results of institution life. They may also not be put in an institution at all, but be boarded out in an everyday decent family, where they will be subjected to all the natural influences, pleasant and unpleasant, of common family life, and so become fitted to take their part in such life in the future. This unconscious educa- tion in the little daily duties of life is what no institution can give, and therefore, if children must be taken from their own homes, the best substitute is another home, WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 271 unless indeed they are abnormal children and need special training or discipline. But I have only touched on this question of home vs. outside training to call attention to the fact that even though children may be poorly placed with their own parents, it is a very serious question whether they should be removed, and also that it is very important to choose wisely the substitute for their homes, if it is necessary to separate them. In deciding the question of removal, it is also necessary to consider not only the direct effect on the child itself, but also upon the parents and upon other children and other parents, and therefore, as I have said, the problem in each case is not simple, but very compUcated. But I shall not speak further of the children who have to be taken away from their parents, but rather of the comparatively large class who ought not to be taken away and who yet cannot be properly brought up without outside help ; and I will hastily sketch some of the kinds of help they need. Take first the families where there is no moral deficiency, where the sickness or death of the father has removed the natural bread- winner and has made it necessary for the mother to sup- port the family, in whole or in part, besides caring for their daily well-being. Some women can do both, but not the average woman whom we meet. They must be helped, as Mrs. Tenney^ said last week, and I feel sure that in all such cases the help must be given upon the prin- ciples adopted by the first benevolent society established 1 Mrs. Sarah E. Tenney, for many years District Secretary in the Northern or Williamsburgh District of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities. ^72 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL hj women in New York one hundred and ten years ago, the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children. By that society a regular monthly pension is given, and the family is placed under the care of a special member of the society, and the help is often continued from the time of the death of the father until all the chil- dren are over ten years of age. Unhappily, however, the society does not give the help throughout the whole year, and therefore the principle of regular help is not carried out by them ; nor do they usually give large enough pen- sions, so that a family receiving aid from the society has often to get aid from elsewhere also. I fear, too, that often the visitors cannot give as much time and care to the family as is needed. Still these are all failures to live up ^o their own principles, and the principles are, as I have said, those upon which help to such families should be given. Regular help, friendly supervision, the help to be as much as is needed to supplement the earnings of the mother, and the supervision to be continued until the children have been trained in some means of self-support — these are the essentials, and it takes a great deal of money for each family, at least ten dollars a month, and a fair share of time and trouble ; but the results are worth it, and it ought to be considered cruel and wicked to take children away from a decent mother just for want of money to sup- port them and friends to look after them. In these cases the money and the friend are equally necessary, and the work is very simple indeed, requiring only kindness and per- severance. It is necessary to see that there is money ^enough, regularly supphed, so that the family does not WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 273 suffer; that the mother does not overwork herself, but does work so far as she is able; that her work does not prevent her giving the proper care to the children ; that the latter go to school and to church regularly ; that when old enough, they begin to learn some good trade ; that they get work and keep at it ; and finally that, as their earnings increase, the money given to the mother diminishes gradually until the family is self-supporting. This sort of help is not demoralizing nor pauperizing, if properly watched, because it only places the family in a natural position. Women and children ought to be supported, and there is no sense of degradation in receiv- ing support. The woman has plenty to do in caring for her family ; and when the duty of supporting them also comes upon her, it is an unnatural strain, and results dis- astrously unless she can be helped. With families where there is plenty of earning power and where the deficiencies are moral and not physical, the case is very different ; here the friend is of paramount im- portance and the giving of money is not only unnecessary, but usually very hurtful, and the work is very hard indeed, requiring devotion and consecration. If, however, such work were undertaken by a number of people with con- scientious persistent zeal, it would go far to make the next generation very much better than the present one. If for every family where the parents are weak, inefficient, shiftless, improvident, lazy, foolish, in fact everj'-thing short of downright vicious, a wise, kind, patient friend could be found, who would undertake the task of seeing that the children were trained so that they should grow up without 274 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL these faults and with the contrary virtues, you can see what a tremendous moral force it would be in the com- munity. Of course to achieve such results requires the charity which beareth all things, endureth all things, hopeth all things; and equally, of course, the moral ob- jects to be attained must be constantly kept in view, and striven for. If people who want to do good would give up some of the many varieties of charities upon which they expend time and strength, and would each concen- trate their force upon one family, they would accomplish a great deal more than they can by their present scattering manner of working. Of course the care of a family, where the parents can work and won't work, or where, though they work, they squander what they earn, involves a constant attempt to induce them to do their duty, a constant struggle, I may say, to make the father support the family, and to make the mother care for them properly, and, also ac- companying this, an unfaltering devotion to the work of developing the children individually, educating them for life by personal influence, seeing that they go to school, seeing that they go to church, seeing, when they are old enough, that they learn to work, seeing that they get work, seeing that they keep it, seeing, as a whole, as I have said, that they grow up entirely different from their parents. Of course it is of paramount importance that, in such work as this, religious influence should be brought to bear, and therefore each person should choose a family to care for of the same reUgious faith as her own, and this makes WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 275 such educating work peculiarly fitting for church mem- bers. The want of such work thirty years ago we are seeing now in the people appljnng for help to the Charity Organiza- tion Society. We are coming across an appalling number of young couples, quite unfit to bring up children, who will grow up equally unfit for the duties and responsibilities of life unless some one takes them in hand. I will give you a few examples to show you the kind of people I mean. . . . [The examples are omitted.] . . . Whether it would be possible to find friends who could hope against hope in these particular cases and follow the families round as thej^ are dispossessed from one place to another, and whether, if such could be found, they could save these children, are questions which only experience can answer. Naturally one longs to take those poor little children away ; but is it right to leave the parents ab- solutely free to live as they choose by reheving them of the children as fast as they are born, and putting them in institutions at a cost to the taxpayers of New York of one hundred and four dollars a year for each child, and then permitting the parents to take them home again and make slaves of them as soon as they are of an age to earn ? Is not such a course as likely as any other to drive the children into early loveless marriages, like those of their parents, just to escape the tyranny at home ? The whole problem is one of human weakness and human vice. What is needed is better education of every kind. I should personally be glad if we could have a law by 276 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL which, when parents had proved themselves entirely in- competent to care properly for their children, the children might be taken from them and given to other people to bring up, and by which the parents themselves should be subjected to a thorough course of education and not al- lowed to continue to produce children whom others must care for. I should like to have two large farms bought, one for men and one for women, and on these farms I should like to have such poor creatures as I have depressed you by describing shut up for one, two, five, or ten years, as might prove necessary, to train and fit them for normal life, and when they were prepared for liberty, I would return their children to them, but not before. I have not kept to my subject, but I hope you will for- give me, and I hope you will feel with me, how great is our responsibility to try to mould the children while we may, and not let them grow up, as we have their parents, without a helping hand to guide them. Report upon the Care of Dependent Children in THE City of New York and Elsewhere ^ To THE State Board of Charities: In a report upon institutions for the care of destitute children of the City of New York, presented to the Board in January, 1886, I made the following suggestions : ^^ First. Some means should be provided by which the responsibility for all admissions to all institutions de- pending in whole or in part on the public funds for support 1 This Report, dated December 10, 1889, of 75 printed pages, was included in the 23d Annual Report of the State Board. Extracts only are given. WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 277 should be placed where it can be adequately discharged ; no pubHc money should be spent except for the good of the community, that is, in cases where it is a necessity that parents should be reUeved of the care of their children. ''Second. It should be made the duty of some city oflficial to remove children from an institution when they are Ukely to suffer in health or character by being longer retained, and such official should also have the power to guard the pubUc treasury, by placing dependent children in places where they may be self-supporting as soon as they are old enough to work." Since that date no change has been made in relation to these matters. New York City supports an average population of about fourteen thousand boys and girls,^atan expense of one and one half million dollars annually, in institutions controlled by private individuals. That is, one of the most important of the duties of the city, that of the care of its dependent children, has been delegated to persons who are not personally designated by law to exercise it, but have voluntarily undertaken it. Were the question simply one of pubUc expenditm-e, this would show a strange carelessness on the part of the people in regard to their own interests ; but not only is the spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars of the public money yearly left to the discretion of a large number of practically unknown per- sons, but the education and training of an increasing num- ber (about fourteen thousand, as I have said, at any given ^ Owing to the changes of population in the institutions, the number of individuals yearly coming under their care is much greater than fourteen thousand, that being the average number supported at any given time. 278 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL date) of the future men and women of New York is placed in their hands, so that they may carry out all their own views concerning them, and there is even no inquiry made as to what these views may be. There is no official of New York City who knows, or has the right to know, whether thousands of children are being trained in idleness or industry, in virtue or vice. ' As to the selection of the children who are to be sup- ported by the public, in a certain number of the institutions this also is left absolutely to the decision of private per- sons, who have the right to receive as many as they wish, with the right to demand, also, the public money for their maintenance, which rights have been conferred upon them by the Legislature. The city authorities can control neither children nor money. The admissions to certain other institutions are made nominally by the magistrates of the city, but these gentlemen have neither the time nor the facilities for making a personal inquiry into the cir- cumstances of each case, and a practice has grown up by which the entire responsibility for the investigation as to the facts is placed by them upon the officers of a private society, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As to the length of time during which children shall be retained as dependents upon the city, this is a matter which is also practically left entirely to private persons. The Consolidation Act of 1884, Chapter 438, Section 4, reads as follows : '^ While any child which shall have been placed in such asylum, or other institution, as a pauper, in pursuance WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 279 of the second section of this act, shall remain therein at the expense of the county or town to which such pauper child is chargeable, the superintendents of the poor of such county or the overseer of the poor of such town, may, in their discretion, remove such child from such asylum or other institution and place such child in some other such institution, or make such other disposition of such child as shall then be provided by law. The name of no such child shall be changed while in such institution, as in this section aforesaid. But no parent of such pauper child, so in such asylum or other institution as in this section aforesaid, shall be entitled to the custody thereof, except in pursuance of a judgment or order of a court or judicial officer of competent jurisdiction, adjudging or de- termining that the interest of such child will be promoted thereby, and that such parent is fit, competent and able to duly maintain, support and educate such child.'' The Commissioners of PubUc Charities and Correction would, under this act, probably have the right to remove children supported by the city from institutions to which they have been committed, but practically such a course would be quite out of the question, as the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction have too many other duties to be able to give any time or thought to this subject. As a fact, there is no one who is able to protect the child or the public. Even though the fife in the insti- tution may be unfitting him for future self-support, even though there may be a good home available for him among strangers; there is no one except the managers of the institution in which he is, empowered to find such a home and put him into it. The interests of the child 280 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and of the city are left unreservedly in the hands of persons who are, as a rule, all of them benevolent and desirous of doing right, but many of whom have not the knowledge which would enable them to judge what those interests are, while some of them do not think it their duty to inquire. Almost all the institutions in which these children are housed are far too large to allow of any individual love or oversight being bestowed upon the mass of the inmates, and they suffer from the many evils, physical, mental and moral, which are known to affect children congregated in large masses. . . . That any community should subject thousands of the children upon whom its future virtue and prosperity are to depend to influences which are almost sure to have such results, is an anomaly, but this anomaly exists in the City of New York, where there are fourteen child-caring insti- tutions with more than three hundred inmates each, eleven of which have more than five hundred, and two of these latter more than one thousand each. The actual proof of these evils and the effects of the artificial training upon the character and success in after life of the children cannot be very readily traced with us, because usually there is no one to follow them up after they leave the institutions, and inquire into their failure or success. The physical evils of the congregation of large masses of children have been so marked as to attract the attention of physicians and others, and as a consequence there has been much improvement in this direction ; but it is pitiful to see the drooping, spiritless look of a child whom one has WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 281 known outside of an institution, after a few months' detention. In regard to ophthalmia, which formerly worked such havoc in several of the institutions of New York, per- manently injuring hundreds of children, besides blinding many, there has been a very marked improvement since my last report to you, which is undoubtedly due to the passage of Chapter 633, Laws of 1886, entitled ''An Act for the better preservation of the health of children in institutions,^' a copy of which is appended. This law was widely circulated among the officers of the institutions by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and has been enforced by the Board of Health of New York, over such institutions as come under its authority. By constant and efficient inspection, that Board has checked ophthalmia to a remarkable degree, and the inspector has also effected many other improvements in the institutions, most beneficial to the health and general welfare of the children. These reach directly, however, only children in institutions within the city itself, and New York taxpayers support many thousands of children outside its own lim- its. ... The children from certain institutions attend the pub- lic schools. . . . This, no doubt, does a great deal to counteract the dulling influences of institution life, and it is greatly to be desired that all the institutions in the city should send their children to the public schools, in order that they might associate with those differently situated. In the other institutions supported by public money, the children receive such schooling as the authori- 282 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ties think best, and there are no examinations by any city officers. ... I would not be understood, however, as recommending for New York City the method adopted in any of these counties. The problem in New York is too serious to be so disposed of and the difficulties are too great. There must be a new department created to have charge of the fourteen thousand children now dependent on the City of New York, to see that they are cared for and educated in the way best for the community and best for them ; to see that the money of the taxpayers is expended for the care of dependent children only when it is necessary so to expend it, and to save the community from the disgrace of having one child in every one hundred of its population deserted by its parents and relatives, and a pauper, dependent on public support. . . . Of the twenty-nine institutions receiving public money for the support of New York children, I visited seventeen in April and May. Seven of these have two buildings in different localities, and I therefore present twenty-four reports of inspections. I have not been able to inspect the remaining twelve institutions this yeaxj but I present the statistics for all. . . . Another point in regard to the future of our fourteen thousand dependent children which causes anxiety is that where industrial training is carried on, and the effort to give them at least some means of earning a livelihood is made, the teaching is such, both for boys and girls, as will inevitably lead them to seek employment in the city. The influx from the country to the city which goes on in this, as in other countries, is a subject of regret to students WORK FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN 283 of social phenomena ; the need of agricultural laborers and of women to help in housework is recognized and deplored, not only by those who suffer directly from the want of them, but by all thoughtful persons. Yet, here we have the anomaly of fourteen thousand boys and girls, supported and educated by the public, and scarcely an effort made to fit them for country life ; but, on the contrary, scarcely one hundred boys of all the eight thousand, even where they are brought up in the country on a farm, are given the inestimable blessing of the good healthy body and mind, and the safe future, which a thorough scientific training in farm work would go far to assure to them. Surely our communism is, of all the communisms ever dreamed of by social reformers, the most foolish and un- reasonable. We take children from their parents and support them at public expense, not to bring them up to be useful and happy citizens, but to stint and cramp them, and to return them at the end of five or six years to work for those who would not work for them, to be the support of those who ignored all duties and responsibilities toward them when they were helpless and dependent. Is it not time that the interests of the public, and the in- terests of these fourteen thousand children, were intrusted to the care of some responsible man, or men, in New York City, to see to it, not only that one and one half million dollars of the taxpayers' money is not worse than wasted every year, but to study the whole question, to devise means to save parents from the temptation to desert their children, and to save the children from a life of dependence, not only now, but in the future ? CHAPTER XII Special Investigations for the State Board op Charities One of the most important obligations devolved upon the State Board of Charities by statute is that of investi- gating the affairs and management of any institution, society, or association, subject to the general supervision of the Board, when this seems necessary to protect the public or individuals from wrong. Such an investigation is of comparatively rare occurrence, and is usually under- taken by a special committee appointed by the Board as best qualified to make the particular examination. The history of two investigations is interesting to follow in some detail, as a large share of the credit for the sub- stantial results obtained is due to Mrs. Lowell. In 1872 Professor Theodore W. Dwight, Vice-President of the Board, had made a report adverse to the worthi- ness and management of the New York Juvenile Guardian Society, a private outdoor relief organization of New York City; but notwithstanding this unfavorable report, the society had not been deprived of its incorporation, and it continued to collect money from the public. In 1877, when Mrs. Lowell had but recently been appointed a Com- missioner, she was associated with Commissioners Theo- dore Roosevelt and Henry L. Hoguet as the third member 284 SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS 285 of a special committee of three to make an investigation and report upon the affairs and management of this society. The store of information respecting the private charities operating in the city and general experience in philan- thropic work which Mrs. Lowell brought with her, made her a valuable help to her colleagues, both men of well- known standing and ability, and her influence was con- stantly felt and appreciated in their common work. Her brother-in-law and intimate friend, General Francis C. Barlow, acted as counsel to the committee, brought into the controversy no doubt by her interest and influence and aided by her suggestions and special knowledge. A summary of the proceedings of this special committee is given in the text of the Eleventh Annual Report of the Board, transmitted to the Legislature January 17, 1878, in the following words : "In February last a committee of the Board, com- posed of Commissioners Roosevelt, Hoguet, and Lowell, was appointed to inquire into and examine the affairs of the New York Juvenile Guardian Society, in the City of New York, Lq the management of which great abuses were believed to exist. The committee soon thereafter visited and inspected the buildings of the society, and examined . . . several of its officers and other persons. ''The officers of the society objected to the examination, denied the right of the committee to subpoena witnesses, de- manded that specific charges be made against the society, and claimed the privilege of being present if the investiga- tion was continued, and the right of appearing by counsel, cross-examining the witnesses, and producing and examin- ing witnesses on their own behalf. 286 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL "The committee overruled these objections, continued the investigation, and reported the testimony and facts regarding the matter to the Board, March 8, 1877. The society thereupon brought an action against the com- mittee, requesting the court by injunction to restrain the committee from pubHshing their report. The matter came up before Hon. Charles P. Daly, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, June 15, 1877, . . . and he de- livered an elaborate opinion upon the matter, fully sustain- ing the position of the committee. '^ Chief Justice Daly's interpretation of the powers and duties of the Board, in cases of special investigation, still guides the committees of the Board charged with such responsible inquiries ; and since his opinion was delivered^ the powers of the State Board of Charities in making investigations have never been successfully questioned^ while all those it has undertaken have been satisfactorily concluded. The proceedings in the case were reported by the Board to the Attorney-General, and while the investigation did not lead to the immediate annulment of the charter of the New York Juvenile Guardian Society, it had far-reach- ing results, as it was not only a strong link in a chain of attacks against the society, but also firmly established the Board's power of investigation. Soon after the completion of the work of the special committee, the sudden death of Theodore Roosevelt,^ its chairman, occurred, and at the first meeting held there- after, 2 the Board adopted a resolution of regret and appre- ' February 7, 1878. « March 14, 1878. SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS 287 elation of his services, while a letter from Mrs. Lowell, dated February 12, 1878, and addressed to Dr. Charles S. Hoyt, Secretary of the State Board of Charities, expressed her deep grief at the loss of her valued colleague. ^^ . . I went yesterday to Mr. Roosevelt^s funeral. His death is an incalculable loss to this city, and indeed to our work all over the State. He gave his whole time almost to matters connected with the duties of the Board, and his place cannot be filled. "To me the loss is a personal one, — he was ready to ad- vise and assist me always, and my efforts to improve the condition of things here will lose more than half their efficacy. ..." That Mrs. Lowell was determined to put an end to the society condemned by the report of the special committee, was manifest from the close attention she gave to all its proceedings. The following letter shows this watchful- ness I April 29, 1878. Dear Dr. Hoyt: From what Mr. Devereaux writes me, there seems still to be some danger of the passage of the bill amending the charter of the Juvenile Guardian Society, which would be a direct insult to the Board. Certainly you ought to be able to prevent the passage of any such bill, even if Mr. Fanning cannot. You were acquainted with the char- acter of that society long before Mr. Fanning was con- nected with the Board, and if there is the slightest danger that the bill will go through, you should make an official statement of the facts to the Legislature. I hope no such thing will be necessary, but I am disappointed that the matter is not yet settled. 288 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ''This matter/' in the words of Mrs. Lowell, was not settled for many years, and was the cause of much con- troversy and violent refutations by the society. In July, 1885, it published a small pamphlet entitled ''Needed Exposures of Base Insinuations and Brazen Falsehoods," in which it related with gusto the "thirteen defeats" of its base accusers, namely, a city commission "falsely claiming to be the State Board of Charities," and alluded to Mrs. Lowell as publishing falsehoods and defamation against it. It was not until 1894 that the committee of the State Board of Charities, and especially Mrs. Lowell, were vindicated in their attack on the New York Juvenile Guardian Society, by a judgment given August 1 of that year by the Supreme Court, annulling the corporate rights of the society, and thus ending this long battle, in which Mrs. Lowell, acting in the interest of justice and honesty, was one of the chief participants. The second special investigation with which Mrs. Lowell was connected was ordered by the Board at its meeting, December 11, 1883, to inquire into the affairs and management of the New York Infant Asylum, an impor- tant semi-public institution, incorporated in 1865 for the care of foundlings, and other infant children under two years of age. For several years prior to this action of the Board, there had been discord and contention in the board of managers, and an inquiry in 1879 by three New York Commissioners of the State Board had brought to light defects of importance. This led the Board to address a communication to the board of managers, recommend- ing reformed methods, but no action was taken ; the strife SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS 289 among the managers increased, and new and serious evils of administration appeared. Under these circumstances, on October 16, 1883, written charges were presented to me as the Commissioner of the First Judicial District, in which the institution is situated, alleging grave mismanagement of the New York Infant Asylum; the complaint was signed by two members of the board of managers, Theodore Roosevelt,^ son of the former Commissioner of the State Board, and as such well informed respecting its work and powers, and Theodore Kane Gibbs, a retired army officer, well known for his philanthropic work in the city. The principal cause of contention seems then to have been the illegal election, ''by a most unscrupulous device," of a large number of additional managers, who then ''pro- ceeded to deprive the medical members of the board of a participation in the medical management of the asylum. '* Then followed charges that undue and absolute authority was conferred upon the president of the board of managers, and that he had appointed to take charge of the country branch a physician "who has just been declared by a Coroner's jury incompetent to perform the duties required of a physician in charge of such an institution." At the request of the New York Commissioners of the State Board, supplementary charges were submitted in detail, covering nine pages of closely written manuscript, in the forcible English of Mr. Roosevelt, and bearing his signature. It was alleged that the change of medical control was followed by a rapid and marked increase in ^ Then twenty-five years old, member of Assembly. 290 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the death rate among the infants, due in part to the spread of an epidemic of measles, which should have been controlled ; and extracts from the verdicts of the Coroners' juries, censuring the management of the Asylum, were quoted. The financial management of the Asylum was also complained of, and among other things the state- ment made that the funds of the institution were kept with a business firm of which the Treasurer was a member, notwithstanding the fact that in 1879 the State Board of Charities had requested the discontinuance of this practice. In view of the number and the serious char- acter of these charges, the State Board appointed a special committee of investigation composed of Commissioners Stewart, chairman, Lowell and Milhau, the latter being an ex-surgeon-general of the regular army, whose medical knowledge proved of great value. Concerning such requests for investigation from in- stitutions throughout the State, Mrs. Lowell wished the Board's position to be well understood, as appears from a letter written about that time : 120 East 30th St., October 12, 1883. My dear Mr. Stewart : Will you allow me, as an older member of the Board than yourself, to make one or two suggestions in regard to the investigation you are about to undertake, or rather in regard to the general question of investigations of private charities? I think it quite important that we should always adopt, and keep to, the position that no society has a right to demand an investigation, and that we never undertake one for the purpose of clearing a society that SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS 291 has been attacked. That is theu- own office. We under- take investigations when we consider them necessary to protect helpless persons from injury or the public from fraud. That is what we have always asserted, and we even went so far as to refuse to investigate, except in a very superficial manner, charges made against so important an institution as the . You will see that if we were to place ourselves at the call of any society that was attacked, we might spend all our time in defending the good name of one or another. » It seems to me very desirable to explain this to the persons composing the , showing them that it was because the charge of fraud was serious, and not because they demanded it, that the Board appointed a committee to make the inquiry. I send you an opinion of Judge Daly in relation to om* rights in case of investigations, which will probably be useful to you. . . . This thoughtful letter illustrates the orderly and logical working of the writer's mind, and her thorough apprecia- tion of the position the State Board should maintain toward the public, and the charitable institutions in the State. Experienced in committee work, and familiar with the broad principle underlying it, Mrs. Lowell was desirous that precedents should be followed by her colleagues, and the investigations kept within proper bounds. Weekly sessions of the committee were held for four months, at my private office, the State Board not then having an office in New York City. Mrs. Lowell was regular in her attendance at the meetings, and took part in the examina- tion of witnesses. Her intimate acquaintance with the Asylum, and her long and varied experience in the man- 292 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL agement of private charitable institutions, were very helpfuL Mr. Roosevelt gave testimony, and followed the course of the investigation closely; and with the able cooperation of Dr. Henry D. NicoU, formerly of the medical board, actively led the contest of the minority members of the board, for a thorough reformation of the affairs and management of the Asylum. Coincidently with the examination by the State Board, the publication of the charges of Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Gibbs in the New York Tribune began a newspaper con- troversy of much acrimony, between the managers of the Asylum and the two complainants, which gave publicity to the matter, and awakened general interest. Mean- while the special committee was carrying on the investiga- tion, and finally presented its report, which was adopted by the Board December 16, 1884. It appeared therein that the charges were in general well founded, and it con- cluded with these words: ^'Your Committee is of the opinion that Messrs. Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Kane Gibbs, in calling the attention of the State Board of Charities to the mismanagement of the New York Infant Asylum, have performed a public duty.^' It is pleasant, while noting Mrs. LowelFs activity as a member of this investigating committee, to find her as- sociated with one, who, like herself, so often showed his fearlessness of public opinion and his courage when fighting for justice and equity. Theodore Roosevelt must then have realized, if never before, the importance of having only high-minded, unselfish, and experienced men and women on the boards of State charitable institutions; SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS 293 and later when as Governor of the State of New York, it became his duty to appoint managers of these institutions, he secured the services of many such, unusually well qualified by training and inclination for their positions. It should be said in conclusion, that the New York Infant Asylum has, ever since the State Board's investiga- tion, been under an harmonious administration, managers and officers all laboring together for the success of their humane work. CHAPTER XIII Work to Improve the Condition of the Almshouses It will be remembered that when Mrs. Lowell was a young woman her sympathetic interest was given to the inmates of the Richmond County Poorhouse, as it was then called, not far from her father's home on Staten Island, and that it was her report on ^^ Adult Able-bodied Paupers'' which led to her appointment in 1876 by Governor Tilden as the first woman commissioner on the State Board of Charities. At that time the State Board had not, as now, an organized Department of State and Alien Poor with inspectors whose duty it is to keep the county almshouses under systematic and thorough in- spection. The commissioners of the Board were then required to make reports upon the conditions in the alms- houses of their respective judicial districts, which usually include several counties. Serving without salary, and some of them men of large affairs, they found it practically impossible personally to make the frequent and careful inspections necessary to insure the welfare of the inmates of these numerous institutions. The Legislature of 1873 recognized this condition, and provided a measure of relief by conferring upon the State Board power to designate for the several counties visitors *'of all poorhouses and other institutions in said county subject to the visitation of the said Board under the said 294 WORK TO IMPROVE THE ALMSHOUSES 295 act, in aid of and as a representative of the Board, except such institutions as have a board of managers appointed by the State/' The records show Mrs. LowelFs im- mediate and useful exercise of the power of selection and nomination of visitors under the act. On December 5, 1876, the Board designated as visitors for New York County, on Commissioner LowelFs nomination. Miss Ellen M. Collins, Dr. W. Gill Wylie, Mr. Temple Prime, and Mr. Henry E. Pellew. Early appreciation by the Board of Mrs. Lowell's knowl- edge of almshouses was shown by the adoption, January 12, 1877, of a resolution requesting all the county visiting committees in the State to send their reports to her, and asking her to forward duplicates or synopses of such reports to the commissioner of the judicial district in which the institution reported upon was located. Mrs. Lowell thus became the State Board's clearing-house for all reports on county charitable institutions, and she from time to time reported to the Board upon the work of the visitors. These continued to render efficient aid to the Board until 1896, when the employment of salaried inspectors rendered the further designation of unpaid visitors not only un- necessary, but inexpedient. Both before and after the appointment of the county visitors, Mrs. Lowell took an active personal interest in these public institutions, and her official visits to them, especially to that maintained by the City of New York on Blackwell's Island, early convinced her that the commingling in these institutions of the feeble-minded, idiotic, and insane, and the morally depraved of both sexes, 296 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL was in large measure responsible for the great increase in numbers of the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes for the public to protect and maintain. In January, 1878, she submitted a report on pauperism based upon a report previously made by the Secretary of the Board, Dr. Hoyt, in which she pointed out that ''the State should in the interest of humanity, morality, and the common good, provide separate institutions for their care ; that is, custodial asylums for adult idiots and the feeble-minded of each sex, and reformatories for depraved and vagrant women." The Board accepted this report, and ordered one thousand copies printed. During the following month, Mrs. Lowell submitted a special report on the Westchester County Poorhouse, showing carelessness of the local authorities in the matter of records. The facts ascertained by her were brought to the attention of the County Supervisors throughout the State, with a request for the immediate introduction by them of a system of proper records of all inmates of almshouses. During the same year her visits to the almshouses of Richmond, Rock- land, and Herkimer counties were also reported. Much of Mrs. LowelFs best work was that intended to exclude from the almshouses all but the sick and aged poor, for whom alone they are suitable homes. These institutions then, as now, were the resort of tramps and vagrants in large numbers ; and Mrs. Lowell also recom- mended the establishment of State labor colonies, to which they should be committed, as the only reasonable means for the repression of trampery : a method which has since been approved by many public officials and others en- WORK TO IMPROVE THE ALMSHOUSES 297 gaged in relief work, and a reform certain of accomplish- ment in the near future. The following letters from the files of the Board, re- lating to the Richmond County Poorhouse, recall the usual conditions in such institutions less than a generation ago.. Miss Sarah M. Carpenter, to whom one of the letters was addressed, was appointed by Governor Cornell, in 1880, the second woman commissioner on the State Board, and represented the second judicial district, which in- cludes the county of Richmond. She was a faithful official, and, having served with credit, retired in 1893. April 21, 1882. My dear Miss Carpenter: I was yesterday at the poorhouse, and am more than ever impressed with the necessity of removing some, at least, of those inmates I wrote you of, if only they are insane. Fanny, who has the epileptic fits, had been so impudent to the keeper that he had locked her up. She had three or four fits just before, and of course the impudence is due to the same cause that makes the fits, but, as the keeper says, when she insults him before the others, he has to punish her to maintain discipline whether she is respon- sible or not. I was at the poorhouse only a little while, as I went merely to carry some books to the little library, but I talked to the matron about having lost her temper and thrown the water at Margaret. . . . She cried, and said she was so tried by them, etc. The Superintendents had heard all about it and have given the keeper the right to shut up the inmates on bread and water and then report 298 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL to the board each week. I suppose this is necessary, as the matron says they do not care at all about being shut up if only they get their meals. There was a man brought in some days before insane. He was lying on the floor in the basement cell with wristlets and belt on to be sent off Tuesday. That cell is a horrible place to keep them. I forgot if any action was taken on your report as to the insane. Cannot you get Dr. Hoyt to come down and see these cases and decide if they are insane ? 120 East 30th Street, September 25, '82. My dear Mr. Letchworth: ... I suddenly discovered yesterday afternoon that the new Richmond County Poorhouse was to be an im- portant matter, and meeting one of the supervisors, he told me the plan was to be adopted this morning ! . . . I begged him to defer it until the next meeting. ... He said he would do what he could, and I said that I would do my best to persuade you to be at that meeting. He said their idea was to build two wings, with a con- necting building, but when I suggested day-rooms, etc., he confessed they had never thought of anything of the kind. They seem amenable to advice and I hope you can be at the meeting. West New Brighton, July 4, 1885. Dr. C. S. Hoyt. Dear Sir : I have written to Miss Carpenter to-day, suggesting that it would perhaps be useful if you and she could visit the Richmond County Poorhouse on Wednesday, July 8th, when the Board of Supervisors is to meet there (or a WORK TO IMPROVE THE ALMSHOUSES 299 committee), in order to present to them the necessity of putting up at least one new building and providing for a better separation of the sexes and more room. I fear that the Supervisors may vote to spend money on a separate building for the insane, instead of remodelling the whole poorhouse. The Grand Jury has recommended that the county build an asylum. Last winter the poorhouse was much overcrowded. December 30, 1886. My dear Mr. Letchworth : Have you ever been able to do anything with our Richmond County Superintendents of the Poor ? I have never heard of it if you have. I was at the Poorhouse last week and found five children there ranging from three to thirteen years of age, besides the babies and the older children who were sick. It is trying to have men in office who care so little to obey the laws. . . . No wonder that almshouse discipline and good order were difficult, if not impossible, with the mixed population received under the operation of the Poor Laws of New York State as they were at that time. The returns of the Super- intendents of the Poor to the State Board for the year ending November 1, 1881, shortly before Mrs. Lowell's let- ters were written, gave the whole number of inmates of the fifty-eight county almshouses, city almshouses excepted, on that date as 6,174, of whom there were insane, 1,754; idiots, 253 ; epileptics, 171 ; blind, 131 ; deaf mutes, 36 ; chil- dren under two years old, 129 ; children between two and sixteen years, 93. Richmond County Poorhouse was thus not exceptional, and, because of Mrs. Lowell's watchful 300 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL care over it, probably one of the best. After the letters quoted were written, it improved so much that before she laid down her work she was able to visit it with sat- isfaction, all the more genuine because of her long acquaintance with bad conditions prevailing, and her suc- cessful efforts to improve them. In the chapters relating to the work for the Women's Reformatory and for a Custodial Asylum for Feeble- Minded Women, further and more particular mention is made of the great reforms which resulted in the establish- ment by the State of these two institutions and of the assumption by the State of the duty of making suitable provision for both delinquent and feeble-minded women, who until that time found their only asyliun in the alms- houses. Massachusetts Paupeks Inspections of the county almshouses and other chari- table institutions in New York State made by the officers of the State Board revealed the fact that they maintained a large number of paupers or vagrants who had no legal or moral claim for support upon the taxpayers of New York, but came from other states, many of them from Massachusetts. The subject received the consideration of the Board in 1877 and 1878, and a correspondence ensued between it and the Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity of the State of Massachusetts. The New York Board expressed the opinion that this State should not be bur- dened with certain classes of dependent persons sent from Massachusetts. WORK TO IMPROVE THE ALMSHOUSES 301 Definite action began when the New York Board, at a meeting held May 14, 1879, requested Commissioner Lowell 'Ho inquire into the facts concerning the transfer of paupers from Massachusetts to this State and report at the next meeting of the Board." Mrs. Lowell promptly took up the work thus confided to her, prepared a report and addressed a communication to the Massachusetts Board, both of which she mentioned in the following letter to the President of the New York Board. PoNKAPOG, Mass., August 22, 1879. My dear Mr. Letchworth : I have yours with note to Dr. Folsom,^ which I have forwarded. I agree with you that the Board should hear and consider my report and appoint a coromittee to pre- pare a plan of action before we can meet the Massachu- setts Committee. I shall not write again to Dr. Folsom, as I think the matter stands as it should now. I am glad you thought well of my communication to the Massachusetts Board. I felt I was discharging a delicate ofiice, and was anxious to say exactly the right thing. The report was presented and accepted by the Board September 10, 1879, and resolutions offered by Mrs. Lowell were adopted, expressing satisfaction at the appoint- ment by the Massachusetts Board of a Committee of Conference, and inviting a conference meeting in the City of New York the following November. She also at this meeting presented a paper to serve as a basis for discussion, which was accepted and a copy ordered sent * Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity. 302 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL to each member, and President Letch worth was by resolu- tion requested to prepare a paper embodying the views of the Board. The conference in the City of New York between the two State Boards began on November 12, 1879, and lasted two days. Thus within six months from the reference to Mrs. Lowell of the subject of controversy, during which period summer had intervened, she had succeeded in bringing about a conference. It was quite characteristic of her usual attitude that having by her papers and personal efforts seciu-ed the conference, she was almost a silent member ; evidently the discussion was going as she wished, and so she reserved her ammunition. In relation to what she thought about two instances of individual hardship cited, she said : "In this case the welfare of the pauper himself ought to be considered. The claims of common humanity are to be taken into consideration apart from the great in- terest of the State. Massachusetts has, in these two cases read for the information of the gentlemen, not only piu-- sued a selfish policy, but has been utterly neghgent of the welfare of the individual. If it be true, as stated, she has pushed these persons out of the limits of Massachusetts with no regard whatever for their welfare. Both of these cases were of decent respectable people. If Massachusetts chose to support them it would be perfectly proper to do so, but she had no right to send them to New York un- der the circumstances. . . .'' At another time she said: '^Is not the injury done to New York measm-ed by the advantage secured to Massachusetts ? From your own reports it appears that WORK TO IMPROVE THE ALMSHOUSES 303 in eight or nine years past there were about 2,000 paupers or lunatics removed from the state. Does not that serve to prove that this is a class of people who, if they were dependent in Massachusetts, would be likely to be depend- ent in New York ? Whether they went to BlackwelFs Island or to the poorhouse does not matter for the pmposes of this argument. We recognize that some laws need to be changed, and the question is, which laws need changing and who is going to change them. We want to get at the right principle as to what each state ought to do, and then perhaps we can form some plan of action. . . .'* An abstract of the record of the proceedings, which on the request of the New York Board was prepared by Mr. Letchworth, was printed in the annual report for the year 1880, and closed with the expression of the hope that a more liberal and harmonious policy would be hence- forward pursued by the Massachusetts Board, a wish which has since been realized. A final and important reference to the conference found in the records of the New York Board appears in a '^Special Report of the Standing Committee on the Insane in the matter of the Investigation of the New York City Asylum for the In- sane," by Commissioners Craig, Milhau and Foster, dated August 12, 1887, written by Oscar Craig, of Roches- ter, at that time President of the State Board. '^The effects of all deportations by foreign local authori- ties, charitable societies, famiUes and individuals of alien criminals, lunatics and paupers upon the City of New York, as the port of entry, are both direct and indirect, and thus doubly disastrous. Those who stay become 304 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL charges upon the city ; those who go to other states may be assisted by the authorities of such states to return to New York Cit}^, as was often done in former years. Such breaches of interstate comity by Massachusetts resulted in the conference between the Commissioners of Health, Lunacy and Charity of that State and our State Board of Charities, held in the city of New York, November 12, 1879. "Among the points brought out by this conference are the following : " 1st. Massachusetts had deported by state authority, exclusive of those sent out by its towns and cities, during the period from 1870 to 1878, seven thousand and five Paupers to the State, and mainly to the City of New York. ''2d. Massachusetts held New York responsible for the support of persons who have become dependent in that State, but had no settlement in New York, and had never been in New York, except as passengers in transit for Massachusetts. " It is difiicult to say how far benefit has resulted from that conference; but if Massachusetts still continues such deportations to any great extent, they are secret and indirect, through other doorways into the State, though the intended and ultimate destination of such as- sisted foreign paupers may be the City of New York, as the original port of entry." ^ The taxpayers of New York State and the large nimiber of paupers and vagrants, who in consequence of the more liberal policy pursued by Massachusetts since the 1 Twenty-first Annual Report of the State Board of Charities, for the year 1887, pp. 252-253. WORK TO IMPROVE THE ALMSHOUSES 305 conference of 1879 are now sent through New York State to their homes or places of settlement, have good reason for gratitude to Mrs. Lowell for the work she did for Massachusetts paupers. CHAPTER XIV The Women's Reformatories at Albion and Bedford Two years after its opening, the House of Refuge for Women at Hudson sheltered nearly two hundred inmates, and its work was a demonstrated success. Demands for admission were received in such numbers as to indi- cate that unless outside relief was speedily provided the institution would perforce grow to a size not originally contemplated, a condition which would prevent the large measure of individual care necessary for the genuine reformation of the inmates. Hence a demand sprang up among the leaders in reformatory work for two similar refuges, one to be located in the metropolitan and the other in the western section of the State, each designed to receive commitments from the neighboring counties. By this means it was believed the pressure upon the in- stitution at Hudson would be diminished, and all three could be kept within the limits of the best reformatory size. Mrs. Lowell and Mrs. • Abby Hopper Gibbons, who had worked together in 1886 and subsequently for police matrons in station houses, early recognized the need of such other reformatories for women, and 1889 found them each laboring for this end. 306 REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 307 In a letter addressed by Mrs. Gibbons to Anna, Powell, March 12, 1889, she wrote : '^I gathered my fragments, secured the necessary ma- terial, sent to Hudson for a copy of the report of the 'Refuge for Women,' and decided to have a bill ready by the day of our meeting, asking for a Reformatory for Women of New York and Kings County. I added to this some strong points showing the need. We took it (the Hudson report) for our guide. I sent it to Hon. Hamilton Fish to present." The Legislature passed the bill, and this information being conmiunicated by Mrs. Gibbons to Mrs. Lowell brought forth prompt congratulations in the following letter : New York, May 17, 1889. My dear Mrs. Gibbons : Thank you for your good news about the Reformatory Bill. I was very glad that the trip to Albany did not do you any harm, and sorry not to see you when I was at your house this week. I congratulate you on the great work accomplished this winter, for it will be a great blessing to have that reforma- tory. But the end was not to be reached that year, for the reason given in a letter written by Mrs. Gibbons to Rachel H. Powell, June, 1889: "Please convey to thy beloved parents the non-approval of our Women's Re- formatory Bill. ... I hoped the bill would pass, but why I should hope for any good thing from David B. Hill, 308 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL or expect it, I do not know." Like the first Hudson Reformatory bill, it was killed by executive veto. Meanwhile Mrs. Lowell, as Commissioner of the State Board of Charities, was helping on the movement for the new institutions. She was acting Chairman of the Board's Standing Committee on Reformatories, and presented to the Board in 1889 a report in which she called attention to the fact that the House of Refuge at Hudson was already full: ''It is most desirable that a second reformatory for women should be established in the western part of the State to receive young women guilty of misdemeanors, from the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth judicial districts. . . . Such an institution should be established at once; it would relieve the State Industrial School at Rochester of the older girls now committed there, and who ought to be removed, besides receiving those now sent to the House of Refuge at Hudson from the western part of the State. For New York City and Kings County such a reformatory is also needed. These localities cannot, under the law, commit to the House of Refuge for Women at Hudson; and though there is room in the House of Refuge on Randall's Island for girls under sixteen years, for those older there is no public institution but the work- house in New York, and the jail and penitentiary in King's County. " The committee requests the Board to recommend to the Legislature the establishment of both these new reforma- tories." ^ Mrs. Lowell's accessible papers covering this period contain nothing farther relating to the Bedford Reforma- » Report of the State Board of Charities for 1889, p. 124. REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 309 tory, and Mrs. Gibbons appears to have been henceforward the leader in the movement which resulted in the establish- ment of that institution. ' Success, however, sooner attended the effort to secure a women's reformatory for the western part of the State. On this subject Hon. William Pry or Letch worth has sup- plied the following letter, addressed to him as President of the State Board of Charities by Mrs. Lowell : 120 East 30th Street, January 24, 1890. My dear Mr. Letchworth : As you know, the Board recommended in its report this year the establishment of a new reformatory for women, on the Hudson plan for the western part of the State, . . . and the bill for that purpose is to be introduced this week. The proposed institution is to be exclusively for women committed from the 6th, 7th, and 8th Judicial Districts, and I write to ask most earnestly that you will present the matter very strongly to your Senators and Assemblymen. The Board has reason to be proud of the success of the experiment at Hudson, and there is no doubt that if that institution is enlarged, or overcrowded without being enlarged, as it will inevitably be, unless another one of the same kind is provided for the western part of the State, its usefulness will be almost destroyed. . . . The bill referred to in the foregoing letter became law without the approval of Governor Hill, April 30, 1890.^ It established as a new State institution the Western House of Refuge for Women, soon afterwards located at 1 Chapter 238, Laws of 1890. 310 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Albion in Wayne County, near Rochester. This reforma- tory, mainly conducted on the cottage plan, has rendered valuable service, and at the close of 1909 sheltered 270 inmates. Mrs. Gibbons, disappointed but not discouraged by the veto of the bill for a reformatory for young women of the metropolitan district, renewed her efforts for this institu- tion, and for nearly three years indefatigably continued them. '^In February, 1892, when she was past ninety years of age, she went once more to Albany with two other members of the Women's Prison Association, and appeared at a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee, to advocate the measure. This had the effect to carry the bill in the Assembly without a dissenting vote.'' ^ After passing the Senate, it was approved by Governor Flower May 16, 1892. Mrs. Gibbons received valuable aid in her campaign from Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, Joseph H. Choate, James C. Carter, and John H. Finley. She lived to see the purchase of the site at Bedford, where one of the principal buildings has since been named in her honor, and died in 1893. Work upon the buildings proceeded slowly for want of appropriations and other causes. The act which estab- lished the reformatory provided that the construction work should be upon plans and specifications approved by a special commission composed of the Superintendent of State Prisons, the Commissioners of the new Capitol, and the Comptroller. This commission seldom met, and its 1 "Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons,'! by Sarah M. Emerson, Vol. I, p. 253. REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 311 approval of plans and specifications was thus delayed, and building operations prevented for a considerable period. Mrs. Lowell no doubt did what she could to expedite it ; the following letter addressed to Mr. Robert W. Heb- berd, at that time Secretary of the State Board of Chari- ties, of which she was no longer a member, is an evidence of her interest : 120 East 30th Street, December 21, 1898. My dear Mr. Hebberd : I hope the Board is going to help this year in securing the appropriation needed to open and operate the Bedford Reformatory. We need the institution, and not for young girls and children, but for the older and more hardened offenders. The House of Refuge and the private rescue homes should take care of the younger and more in- pressionable, and let us keep the reformatories for the less manageable. I hope the Board will not cause delay by insisting on the buildings being altered, for we ought to have the institution for use. I wrote to Gov. Roosevelt, and think he will appreciate the seriousness of the matters referred to. . . . I sent Mr. Stewart what you wrote to me about him, as I thought he deserved the gratification, and enclose you his reply for the same reason.^ . . . Nine years elapsed from the establishment of the re- formatory at Bedford until its opening, for the first inmate was not received until May 11, 1901. ^None of the New * My first intention to omit this personal allusion has been changed because of a desire to show Mrs. Lowell's characteristic thoughtfulness for the gratification of others. 312 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL York State institutions of a charitable or reformatory character has had so tardy a beginning, but with the opening began an uninterrupted career of useful and in- telligent development. Mrs. Lowell became a member of the board of managers in 1899, upon appointment by Gov- ernor Roosevelt, and was most influential in planning for the success of the work now carried on there. Immediate and cordial support by the State was not accorded the new institution, and the work was at first prosecuted amid many discouragements. Shortly after it was opened, and when it contained few inmates, the re- formatory was visited by Governor Odell, who, from his subsequent attitude, evidently then reached the conclusion that it was not needed. On the recommendation of this Governor, the office of Fiscal Supervisor of State Charities was created by the Legislature in 1902, to assume the func- tions of supervision exercised at that time over the financial affairs of the State charitable and reformatory institutions by the State Comptroller. The Governor appointed as the first Fiscal Supervisor Mr. Harry H. Bender of Albany, then Superintendent of Pubhc Buildings. This official soon took the position that the reformatory at Bedford was superfluous, and did not favor requests made from time to time for the employment of additional officers thought by the managers to be needed at the institution. A cor- respondence ensued between him and Mrs. Lowell on this subject, as appears from the following letter addressed to Mr. Robert W. Hebberd : REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 313 120 East 30th Street, November 11, ^02. My dear Mr. Hebberd : I have had a correspondence with Mr. Bender, in which, in reply to my statement that so far as I could judge the only point of similarity between our reformatory and the Rathbone Home was that the inmates were of the same sex, he says he still thinks they are quite similar and wants to know if we cannot decrease the number of our officers. Wishing to be free so that she might more effectively pro- test and work against the proposed closing of the re- formatory at Bedford, Mrs. Lowell resigned from the board of managers, giving her reasons in the following letter, also addressed to Mr. Hebberd : 120 East 30th Street, November 22, '02. My dear Mr. Hebberd : ... I have resigned from the Bedford Board, telling the Governor I did not wish to involve the other managers in responsibility for my action in condemning his course. Mr. James Wood of Mount Kisco, near Bedford, was then as now ^ the President of the Board of Managers of the institution, and under his earnest and intelligent leadership organized opposition was arranged to defeat the bill to close the reformatory which was introduced in the Legisla- ture of 1903. Mr. Wood's account of what took place at the hearing in Albany is so interesting historically and so illustrative of Mrs. Lowell's methods and influence on such occasions as to merit insertion verbatim : 1 February, 1910. 314 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL '^Governor Odell visited the institution at Bedford but once during his governorship when we had but eighteen in- mates, and he never seemed to reaUze that that number had been increased but kept it in mind continually and thought that the State was incurring heavy expense in caring for a small number of inmates. State hospitals for the insane were sorely pressed for room at that time to receive those requiring their care ; the lease of the Flatbush Hospital by the City of Brooklyn to the State was about to expire, and it became necessary to provide acconmiodations for the in- mates of that hospital. Governor Odell, considering that the work at Bedford was not making adequate return to the State for the amount expended there, proposed to close the institution as a reformatory and convert it into a hos- pital for the insane, it being all ready to receive the in- mates of the Flatbush Hospital. For this purpose he had a bill introduced into the Legislature which was referred in the Senate to the Finance Committee, and in the Assem- bly to the Committee on Ways and Means. As it involved a change of law, it was also referred to the Judiciary Com- mittee of the Senate. For the first time in many years, a joint session was held for these committees to hear the advocates and opponents of the bill. ^^ Wishing* to present the needs for the reformatory properly, the management put themselves in touch with the State Board of Charities, the W^omen's Prison As- sociation of New York, the Supervisor of Catholic Chari- ties, the United Hebrew Charities, the Hebrew Women's Association, and other organizations. It was a matter of great satisfaction to the management that every one of the institutions and organizations thus approached sent a representative to Albany for the hearing, except the United Hebrew Charities, whose President sent a very strong letter to the Conamittees. REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 315 "At the hearing the Governor's representative in advocacy of the bill was the Fiscal Supervisor, Mr. Bender. The attendance of the members of the Committees at the hearing was unusually large, and it was presided over by the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, George R. Malby. Dm-ing this hearing, the Governor's representative attacked the reformatory in every way possible, using a great variety of detailed information obtained through the inspectors of the Fiscal Supervisor's Department. Among other things, it was charged that the treatment of the inmates was inhumane, a special point being made of the fact that on one occasion the fire hose was turned upon one of the inmates. Mrs. Lowell sat in the audience and immediately arose and addressed the Chairman of the hearing and stated that this charge should not be laid against the management of the institution as a whole but only against herself individually, as she was present on the occasion and herself directed the super- intendent to use the hose as stated. The facts were, she said, that the inmate was a desperate character who had acknowledged the commission of three murders in the City of New York, and had escaped punishment therefor on the claim of self-defence. She had been guilty of a number of violent acts while at the reformatory, and in this case had taken refuge in a room and had armed herself with such appliances as she could lay her hands on and was making desperate resistance to the officers. As a pro- tection to the inmate from what appeared to be neces- sarily severe treatment, which might do her personal injury, and also for the protection of the officers, Mrs. Lowell deemed it best that the hose should be used. ''This statement by Mrs. Lowell made a deep impres- sion upon the members of the Legislative Committees, and her magnificent bearing and courageous admission of all 316 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL responsibility had the effect to disconcert the Governor's representative and doubtless had much to do with the result of the hearing. The result of the hearing was that no member of the Committees named voted to report the bill. It was turned down by the unanimous vote of all the Committees. The representatives of all the institu- tions named were very emphatic in their testimony as to the need of the institution and the value of its work." When, as has been mentioned, appropriations for the salaries of needed officers were withheld by the State, be- cause of lack of sympathy with the work of the reforma- tory, Mrs. Lowell made provision from time to time from her own modest income for the most pressing needs. In 1902, she paid the salary of a young woman experienced in college settlement work, who devoted much of her time to the girls isolated for bad conduct, and also the salary of an instructor in amusements. The following year the managers called attention in their report to the need of a teacher of calisthenics and gymnastics, and again Mrs. Lowell supplied the needed instructor, the State at that time being unwilling to provide for the salary. Practically all the inmates were taught in the gymnastic classes, and the results were soon found so valuable, both for health and discipline, that this branch of reformatory work was adopted by the State, not only at Bedford, but also at the other reformatories at Hudson and Albion. A special matron was employed, also at Mrs. LowelFs expense, to take charge of the gardening and other outdoor work, under the direction of this officer much of the planting and weeding and gathering of crops being done by the girls. REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 317 In their report to the Legislature covering the year 1902, the managers of the reformatory paid the following tribute to Mrs. Loweirs services as a member of the Board : *'One change in the membership of the Board of Mana- gers has occurred during the past year. Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell, who had been a manager for nearly three years, resigned in November, 1902. Mrs. Lowell has been widely known for many years for her devotion to the work of social reform in various aspects, and she was pre- eminently suited for the office of a manager. Her interest in the success of this institution did not end with the faithful and efficient discharge of her official duties, but she constantly supplemented the work carried on by the State by providing at her own private expense for the salaries of special teachers which the State authorities had not seen fit to allow, and continues to do this up to the present time. She has also contributed in various ways to the encouragement and benefit of the inmates, as will be more fully shown by the report of the superin- tendent. The managers regarded her separation from the board as a most serious loss to the institution." In reply to a request to the superintendent of the in- stitution for some details of Mrs. Lowell's work as a manager, a letter was received from which the following extracts are given : Bedford, N.Y., November 1, 1905. My dear Mr. Stewart: It is difficult for us to express how keenly we feel Mrs. Lowell's loss. As you knew, at the time of the opening of the institution she was a member of our Board of Mana- gers. When the time approached, Mrs. Lowell was one 318 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of the Board who was most anxious concerning the secur- ing of a Superintendent and staff. She desired that the educational and reformatory side be made especially strong and was anxious to secure a Superintendent who was in touch with modern educational methods, who was not in institution ruts, and who had received academic training. This led her to correspond with presidents of women's and coeducational colleges and universities and with the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Mrs. Lowell's personal visits to the institution from the time of its opening were frequent. She not only advised with the Superintendent, but made the acquaintance of the inmates, especially those who were more refractory. She was in the habit of spending the night at the in- stitution, occupying a room in one of the cottages or in the Reception House, in order that she might become personally familiar with the methods of discipline at night. She gained the confidence and affection of individual inmates and from time to time corresponded with a num- ber of these. She also interested herself in their families. In one instance, she bore the expense of the journey of a young French woman whom we desired to return to her mother in France, an expense which the authorities did not deem necessary. The last letter received from her after the beginning of her final illness was one concerning the employment of the girls in the lowest grade. This was accompanied by a letter to one of the inmates whom she had befriended and who sent Mrs. Lowell a basket which she had made. Although Mrs. Lowell was seriously ill at the time, she personally wrote a note of thanks to the girl saying how much she appreciated being thus remembered. One of our cottages, the Lowell, was named in her honor. In this she was particularly interested. She was always anxious to have things done inamediately. On REFORMATORIES AT ALBION AND BEDFORD 319 one visit she was especially pleased with the painting and decoration of the sitting and dining rooms of this cottage which had been done by the inmates. She wanted the corridors painted at once to make the work complete; when told that we must wait a month to estimate for the necessary materials, she immediately gave the money to buy them, begging that the work be not interrupted. On Mrs. Lowell's retirement from the Board of Managers, not only the managers and officers of the institution, but the girls as well, felt her loss keenly. Her interest did not cease with her retirement from the Board. As before mentioned, she kept in touch with us until her death and her gifts in money continued to be a very great help. In every instance when the thing for which she paid had proved itself, we were able to make it permanent by con- vincing the authorities that it had been of value. On the Sunday following her death, memorial services were held for her in the Chapel of the Reformatory. . . . Very sincerely yours, KA.THARINE BeMENT DaVIS. CHAPTER XV Work for Police Matrons The indignities to which it was alleged women were subjected in the police stations and prisons of the City of New York, in which at that time no matrons were em- ployed, of such a nature that they cannot well be men- tioned here, induced Mrs. Lowell, in the spring of 1886, to request Dr. Annie S. Daniel to make an investigation and to report to her the findings. Dr. Daniel, who was then attending physician to the Isaac T. Hopper Home of the Women^s Prison Association, was an associate of Mrs. Lowell in the Working Women^s Society, and had made some in- vestigations for the Tenement House Commission, of which Dr. Felix Adler was chairman. Mrs. LowelFs familiarity with Dr. DanieFs reports of these investigations, and her knowledge of the great interest which she manifested in the condition of women prisoners, led to the request for her assistance in this new undertaking. Necessary per- mission for this investigation was obtained by Mrs. Lowell for three persons, and it was her intention to join in the in- spections, but the pressure of other official work prevented. Dr. Daniel informs me that Mrs. Weidemeyer, of the Charity Organization Society, visited the Essex Market prison with her, and that to all the other station houses and prisons she went alone. The written report, made by Dr. Daniel to Mrs. Lowell, substantiated the allega- tions of abuses, and resulted in a conference of public- 320 WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 321 spirited women, which assembled on Mrs. LowelFs in- vitation in the autumn of 1886, for the consideration of the need of poHce matrons in station houses, and of other social questions of municipal interest. At a session of this conference, held in November and December of that year, Mrs. Abby Hopper Gibbons, President of the Women's Prison Association of the City of New York, asked for the report for publication in the proceedings of the As- sociation, there to be made the basis of pubhc agitation on its part for police matrons in station houses. To this Dr. Daniel and Mrs. Lowell consented, and the move- ment for this important reform was thus begun. Dr. Daniel became the instrument in Mrs. Lowell's hands for this beneficent purpose. She has informed me that her report was received too late for publication in 1886. In slightly modified form, with the statistics brought down to the year 1887, it found place in the proceedings of the Women's Prison Association for that year. Free lodgings in the station houses were then given indiscriminately to homeless or vagrant men and women, a practice which, Mrs. Lowell beheved, increased the evils and abuses found in them. The charitable and cor- rectional institutions of the city were then administered by one Commission, and any one applying for a night's lodging was given shelter wherever it was sought, so that the same building served for correction and charity, and the station houses, being numerous and accessible, were resorted to, especially in bad weather, by the idle, the vicious, and the unfortunate in large numbers, beside hous- ing those arrested for crime. 322 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Following the conference of women, which was continued in 1887, Mrs. Lowell actively engaged, with other benevo- lent and public-spirited women, in securing three reforms, which aimed to prevent the recurrence of the disgraceful conditions then found to exist in the station houses : L The division of the Department of Charities and Correction into two departments. 2. The appointment of police matrons for all station houses and prisons. 3. The establishment of a municipal lodging house, or houses, for homeless men and women. Practical and useful reforms, all three, and all of them long since accomplished ; but the need of police matrons seemed the most pressing, and received Mrs. Lowell's first attention. The Women's Prison Association, formed in 1844, was simultaneously at work under the able leadership of Mrs. Gibbons,^ to secure reformed administration of the city station houses and prisons, and it was largely due to this Association that Chapter 420 of the Laws of 1888, enti- tled '^An Act to provide for Police Matrons in Cities'' was placed among the statutes of New York State, May 28 of that year.2 Under the provisions of this law, the i"Life of Mrs. Gibbons," Vol. I, p. 251. 2 Ibid. Vol. II, p. 262, Letter from Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell : Cambridge, June 5th, 1888. My dear Mrs. Gibbons : Thank you very much for your kind thought of me. The passage of that law is a great step gained in the struggle to save degraded women ; and I am sure everyone interested ought to be very grateful to you and Dr. Daniel. Sincerely and gratefully yours, J. S. Lowell. WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 323 Board of Commissioners of Police of the cities of New York and Brooklyn was directed within three months after the passage of the act, to designate one or more station houses within their respective cities for the de- tention and confinement of all women under arrest, upon the appropriation of funds therefor; the Commissioners were further directed to appoint for each station house thus designated not more than two respectable women, to be known as police matrons. When only one police matron was attached to a station house, she must reside there, or near by, and respond to any call therefrom at any hour. The law further provided that the police matron, subject to the officer in charge, should have the immediate care and charge of all women held under arrest at the station house to which she was attached ; also, that women and men should be kept separate and apart in the station houses. Although the city prisons then had matrons, they were sometimes incompetent, or their services did not cover all the hours of the day. On this subject. Dr. Daniel men- tions the following instance of Mrs. Lowell's method of work: ''Mrs. Lowell's abiUty to act promptly was de- monstrated when conditions, proved to exist in one of the city prisons, were told her. At the particular prison, a matron was in attendance from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ; the remainder of the twenty-four hours this woman's prisoners were entirely in the care of men keepers. Facts were dis- closed, which could neither be talked of openly nor pub- lished. Mrs. Lowell, hearing this shocking story, went at once to the Commissioners' office and was told that 324 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL nothing could be done, owing to the lack of appropriations. TVithin half an hour, she convinced the Commissioners that women prisoners must be protected, and a way was opened by them to appoint an additional matron. From that day to this, prisoners in that prison have had the protection of a woman. ^^ Notwithstanding the mandatory provisions of the act of 1888, by which the Commissioners of Police of New York and Brooklyn were directed to appoint pohce matrons within three months from the passage of the act, those officials disobeyed the law for more than two years, until a public scandal in a station house called forth the follow- ing letter from Mrs. Lowell, at that time a Commissioner of the State Board of Charities: No. 120 East 30th Street, August 5, 1890. To THE Board of Police op the City of New York : Gentlemen : When I and many other women made an appeal to you some months since to appoint police matrons to have charge of women detained in the station houses, we based our argument on the ground that common decency de- manded that drunken and degraded women should be removed from the sight and hearing of the men and boys who for various causes are held in the station houses. We said that we deemed it a great wrong that such women should be allowed to contaminate by their evil conduct and language, men and boys, arrested perhaps for some trivial offence, or perhaps entirely innocent. We did not say that we thought the women in the station houses unsafe while under the care of officers appointed WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 325 by you, for although we had heard such accusations, personally, I could not, I confess, believe them. Within two months, however, one of your officers has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to imprisonment for attempted assault on a girl of fifteen, while under the protection of your Board in one of your station houses. As your Board has had the power for the past two years to keep all women in the station houses safe from such wrongs, by placing them under the charge of matrons, it does not seem unjust to say that you are responsible for the fearful experience of this young girl, and also for the ruin of the fife of the man whom you placed in a posi- tion, the temptation of which he could not resist. Of him or his past I know nothing, but I see it stated that his fellow-officers testified to his good character, by which they presumably meant that he was a man whom they should not have supposed capable of so vile and unmanly a crime, and therefore it appears that it was actually the circumstances which have changed him from a respected officer to a convicted felon. In the name of the women who, in the station houses, are still exposed to this horrible danger, in the name of your officers to whom temptation is presented by the exist- ing system, I write to beg you to use at once your power to designate certain station houses where all women shall be detained and placed under the charge of matrons. Respectfully, Josephine Shaw Lowell. This letter was published in full, in one or more of the daily papers of New York City, with the statement that it had been received by the Board of PoUce. But the Board continued to neglect its duties in this particular. 326 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL and the pressure upon it was continued by Mrs. Lowell and her earnest associates, in a memorial addressed to the Grand Jury of the City of New York, a draft of which, found among her papers, is evidently in Mrs. Lowell's language. Beginning with the charge that the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City had persistently^ neg- lected to carry out the provisions of the act to provide for police matrons in cities, the memorial recites the provi- sion of that law requiring the Board to designate one or more station houses for the detention or confinement of all women under arrest, and the passage on September 7, 1888, by the Board, of a resolution designating all the station houses for the purpose mentioned, for lack of funds to carry out the provisions of the law, and then charges, that the adoption of this resolution was merely an evasion of law, as shown (1) "By the fact that no funds were re- quired to enable the Board of Police Commissioners to des- ignate certain station houses for the detention of women, which in itself would have been a great reform," and (2) "By the fact that since the adoption of that resolution, the Commissioners of Police have submitted to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment the estimates for the ex- penses of their Department for the years 1889, 1890, and 1891, and have never included, although repeatedly re- quested to do so, any estimate for funds to enable them to carry out such provision of the law as did require an appropriation, that is, those relating to the appointment of police matrons." Continuing, the memorialists offer to prove also, (1) the WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 327 impossibility of observing common decenc}^ in the sta- tion houses of the city, in at least fourteen of which the cells were so constructed, that women imprisoned in them could not be kept out of hearing of men and boys also confined there, while in four, the cells were so placed that any women imprisoned would probably also be in sight of other prisoners; (2) that at present women prisoners were searched either by irresponsible women or police officers; (3) that being under the care of men, women were exposed to danger from which the city should protect them; to sustain this charge, the conviction of a police officer of the 22d Precinct referred to in Mrs. Lowell's letter to the Board of Police was cited ; (4) that the police ofiicers themselves were unnecessarily exposed to temptation as proved in the same case. The memorial quotes the police statistics for 1889 in further support of its contentions : '^In that year, 147,634 lodgings in station houses were furnished to indigent persons, 69,111 to women, 78,523 to men ; an average of 189 women and 215 men each night. The women were under the sole charge of men. . . . During the same year, there were 82,200 arrests, of which 19,926 were of women, an average of 54 each day, and 62,274 were of men, an average of 170 a day ; of the 82,200, 9,514 were of boys under twenty years and 991 of girls under twenty years. '^ It is not too much to say that to put these ten thousand boys and girls, many of whom are innocent, into com- panionship in the station houses for hours at a time with the most degraded men and women of the city, within hearing, often within sight of much that is wicked and 328 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL debasing, is a crime against humanity, and must be pro- ductive of great moral injury to them. The confinement of the women in special station houses and the appointment of police matrons would in some measure protect these children and mitigate the e\dls to which they are now exposed." The Grand Jury apparently took cognizance of this strong appeal, for among Mrs. Lowell's papers is a printed copy of an act amending the Police Matrons Law of 1888, which provides, in Section 7, that the ''Board of Estimate and Apportionment in said City of New York is hereby authorized and empowered to reopen the budget for the year 1891 in order to include therein the estimates neces- sary to carry out the provisions of this act in said city.'' At this time, some of the leading New York papers came to the support of the women's crusade for police matrons. The Sun, under the caption ''Women's Side of It," published in its issue of January 4, 1891, a strong and ably written two-column article, in which are described the scenes of degradation and misery discovered by a philanthropic woman, a member of the Women's Chris- tian Temperance Union, in the station houses of Phila- delphia three years before, and of her successful efforts there for the appointment of police matrons, and adds ''In New York, such women as Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, Mrs. Mary T. Burt, Miss Grace Dodge, Mrs. E. B. Grannis, and others equally well known, are inter- esting themselves in this work. They have visited the station houses and seen scenes of depravity and misery which, if decency would permit being printed in detail, WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 329 would arouse the indignation of all humane people." Further reference was made in this article to conditions in the station houses of New York, and to the brutal treatment recently experienced in one of them by a young girl picked up insensible in the street. ^^All night she sat with wild frightened eyes, listening to the oaths and ribald jests of the women in the corridor. The next morning, Mrs. Lowell saw her standing behind the bar and listening to the charge against her. . . . She was sent back to the cell on false charges for another night, and then allowed to go back to her husband and baby ruined in reputation. . . . Mrs. Lowell investigated the case and found the woman in every way thoroughly respectable and above reproach." Courage and perseverance triumphed, the budget for 1891 was reopened to make provision for the appointment of police matrons, and the good women of New York had won another notable victory for humanity, over official ignorance and neglect. Since it was essential to the suc- cess of the experiment that suitable women should be appointed, Mrs. Lowell and her associates prepared the examination papers, which, pursuant to the Civil Service regulations, were to be filled out and submitted by the applicants, and drafted the rules to be observed by the matrons appointed. Miss Ellen Collins, who was associated with Mrs. Lowell in this as in others of her philanthropic activities, recalls that she and Mrs. Lowell were requested to attend the first examination conducted under the Civil Service rules, at which a number of capable women who had followed 330 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the movement with sympathy, presented themselves as candidates. The questions were intended to bring out, in strong rehef, the individual characters of the applicants. Memoranda made as the examination progressed were compared and tabulated on its conclusion. Mrs. Lowell and Miss Collins paid particular attention to the per- sonality of the women, and endeavored to ascertain their motives in applying for the appointments. Their reports were presented, and included in the records from which the first appointments of pohce matrons in New York City were made. Reference to this examination' was made in a letter from Mrs. Lowell to her sister-in-law : 120 East 30th Street, May 1, 1891. Dear Annie : Last week Ellen Collins (a friend of ours ever since the war, when we were together in the Sanitary Committee work) and I, spent three days helping the Civil Service Board examine 120 women applicants for Police Matron- ship, of which there will probably be twelve appointed at most. We talked to each one and asked her questions, based on her written answers in an examination paper, and you may imagine that we were pretty well exhausted. There were 28 who were really first rate, about 30 who were good, and the rest were ^'fair to middling" only. It was interesting and encouraging to see the way in which the work of the Civil Service Board is carried on. All Police officers have to go through a severe examination, and only those who pass the highest are sent to the Board of Police, 75, if they want 50, and if the Board skips anyone, they are obhged to give their reasons in writing. The Secretary told us that the character of the appUcants WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 331 had risen 100 per cent since they first began, about six years ago. The worthless ones find they cannot go through and so they stay away. The Sun continued to the pohce matrons the valu- able support it gave to the movement for their appoint- ment, and on November 1, 1891, pubhshed an article, ^'What the Matron Does," describing an inspection made of the EHzabeth Street Station, by a representative of that newspaper, accompanied by the matron on duty, in which a favorable accoimt was given of the improved care given the women prisoners, and from which the following ex- cerpts are made: Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell's recent letter to the Police Commissioners, complaining that the work required of the Matrons recently appointed to several police sta- tions, to look after women prisoners, was too severe, and that their hours of duty were too long, has brought up the question whether or not the new system is a failure. The Matrons are on duty fourteen hours consecutively, and this means twenty-eight rounds among the cells, and the climbing of many flights of stairs each night. The rooms assigned them, Mrs. Lowell says, are cold and cheerless and too near the men's quarters. . . . The Commis- sioners did not look with favor upon the Police Matron project when it was first urged by charitable women ; . . . however, they made the experiment, and now regard Mrs. Lowell's complaint with little sympathy. . . . The Matron who led the way was bright-faced and cheerful. She was very neat in a well fitting street dress. She seemed to take some pride in her little room, poor as it was. She pulled out the drawer of the table and displayed stores of 332 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL cotton cloth torD to the size and shape of small towels, and reels of coarse cotton thread with needles stuck in them. '^For the poor women/' she said smiling. '^Mrs. Lowell keeps us supplied with this. Almost all the women prisoners who come here are poor unfortunates, you know. Most of them are drunk and their clothes — what they have, poor things — are often torn and dreadfully ragged. I sew up the rents enough to make them respectable before they go out in the streets again, and then I give each of them some of this thread and a needle or two, so they do some patching themselves. These cloths are for towels. Mrs. Lowell supplies us with them too." Then the matron took down from a shelf a number of packages. ''Smell that,'' said she laughing. ''Isn't that good?" The package contained coffee. "And here is a supply of sugar," she continued, "and here is tea and here are cans of condensed milk. Oh, we have lots of good things here for the poor women, and you've no idea how much good it does them. Mrs. Lowell sends them all ; and just read that little letter she sends us, telling us to let her know when we want more." The friendly interest of Mrs. Lowell in the matrons and their charges was continued by subsequent visits to the station houses, for many years, and by interviews and meetings at her own house ; and there as everywhere, her strong and attractive personality was helpful to all she met. A semi-official character was given these visits by Mrs. Lowell's membership of the Women's Prison Re- form Committee, and she preserved her card of admission to the city prisons, bearing date March 25, 1904, signed by W. McAdoo, Police Commissioner. Among her papers on the subject of PoHce Matrons, is the following WORK FOR POLICE MATRONS 333 brief statement, written in ink in her large, firm hand, to which she had given additional and imusual emphasis, for such a paper, by her signatm'e : The change in the station houses where the matrons are, since their appointment is simply indescribable. Now everything is quiet, orderly, almost pleasant. It used to be horrible to find the drunken men and women pris- oners in contiguous cells, perfectly audible to each other, and under the charge of men. There are fourteen ( ?) station houses in New York City and eight ( ?) in Brooklyn, designated to receive women prisoners, each with a matron constantly on duty. The majority of the matrons have been in the service six or seven years, and do very well. They have all been ap- pointed after competitive examinations. There are no female lodgers (or men either) now received in the station houses. August, 1898. J. S. Lowell. With which song of thanksgiving is closed the chapter of Mrs. LowelFs work for Police Matrons. CHAPTER XVI The Consumers' League The bad conditions under which many working women and cash girls were earning their Hving in the City of New York led them to hold a series of meetings in 1886 for the discussion of these evils, with the hope of finding a way to end them. Mrs. Lowell and her friend, Miss L. S. W. Perkins, hearing of this movement on the East Side of the city, attended one of the first meetings, and because of their interest and helpfulness, although not themselves wage-earners, were welcomed at the succeeding discussions to which no other outsiders were invited and no reporters admitted. Women of different trades and occupations told directly and simply of their daily experiences, of many things in their places of employment done in defiance of law, of the dangers, moral and physical, amid which they worked, and of their fears of loss of position, or threatened loss of character, keeping them silent, even when to bad sur- roundings was added personal insult. These stories were heard with sympathy and with respect for the stalwart and upright views expressed, and for the high standard of honor and generosity which characterized both the speakers and their fellow-workers assembled at these meetings. The helplessness of these women to cope 334 THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 335 unorganized with the grave problems confronting them, and without the force of well-informed pubUc opinion behind them, seized upon Mrs. Lowell at this time and engaged her lasting interest. Out of these meetings grew the Working Women's Society, organized in 1886, of which she was a friend and counsellor. Being convinced that some of the existing evils might be remedied by the appointment of women factory in- spectors, to whom women might freely speak of things they shrank from telling a man inspector, Mrs. Lowell was active in securing the passage by the Legislature of New York of the first law on any statute book giving working women such protection. While the measure was under consideration, letters were received by Mrs. Lowell and others telling of unlawful working conditions ; pitiful tales they were, of locked doors in tenement house factories with workers on the sixth floor, with no fire-escapes, and no water above the third floor, of narrow, unsafe stairs, of unsanitary conditions, and of insult. Mrs. Lowell was active and helpful, both with her time and her means, especially in some of the early strikes for improved con- ditions, and often presided at meetings, both public and private. No complaints were disregarded, and for many abuses remedies were found. The work of the Society continued, and in the winter of 1889-1890 it investigated the conditions under which saleswomen and cash girls were working in the City of New York, and in its report showed them to be unsatis- factory in many of the large stores. Thereupon the So- ciety interested clergymen and philanthropists in the sub- 336 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ject, and under their auspices was held a large public meeting in May, 1890, at Chickering Hall, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighteenth Street, "to consider the condition of working women in New York retail stores." A report was made to the meeting by Miss Alice Woodbridge, for the Society, embodying the results of the investigation and presenting the following conclusions : "First. We find the hours are often excessive, and em- ployees are not paid for overtime. Second. We find the}'- often work under unwholesome sanitary conditions. Third. We find numbers of children under age employed for ex- cessive hours, and at work far beyond their strength. Fourth. We find that long and faithful service does not meet with consideration ; on the contrary, service for a certain number of years is a reason for dismissal. It has become the rule in some stores not to keep any one over five years, fearing that the employees may think they have a claim upon the firm, or in other words, that they will expecfc to have their salaries raised. Fifth. The wages, which are low, are often reduced by excessive fines. Sixth. We find the law requiring seats for saleswomen generally ignored ; in a few places one seat is provided at a counter where fifteen girls are employed, and in one store seats are provided and saleswomen are fined if found sitting. In all our inquiries in regard to sanitary conditions and long hours of standing, and the effect upon the health, the invariable reply is that after two years the strongest suffer injury." It was the sentiment of those present at this mass meeting that the working girls themselves would be un- able to secure needed reforms, for if they made complaint. THE CONSUMERS^ LEAGUE 337 others would be found to take their places, and that they were, as a class, too young and unskilled to make the formation of trades-unions among them either practicable or useful. The remedy could be found by the organization of shoppers or consumers. The meeting therefore adopted the following resolution : ^'Resolved, That a committee be appointed to assist the Working Women ^s Society in making a list which shall keep shoppers informed of such shops as deal justly with their employees, and so bring public opinion and pub- lic action to bear in favor of just employers, and also in favor of such employers as desire to be just, but are pre- vented by the stress of competition from following their own sense of duty." Authority was also given to the chairman of the mass meeting to appoint a committee to sit with a committee of the Working Women's Society to consider and take action upon the subject. The joint committee decided to form an association to be called '^ The Consumers' League of the City of New York," and spent much time in the work of organization and in the formulation of principles. These were fully set forth in a pamphlet of some thirty-one pages written by Mrs. Lowell, entitled "Consumers' Leagues," and pubHshed by the Christian Social Union, February 15, 1898, in which she explained the situation of the working girls, and the objects of the League. "Employers may be divided into two classes: those who employ directly and those who employ indirectly. The direct employers, those who pay the wages and who 338 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL seem to fix the conditions under which their employees work, are often as helpless as the employees themselves to change those conditions, because of the demands of the indirect employers. These last are the consumers, that is, the whole purchasing public, and, little as they think it, they have the power to secure just and humane con- ditions of labor if they would only use it. In order to induce them to use this power, it is necessary to show them how, and as a first step they must be made to feel their responsibility, must be made to realize that it is for the supply of their wants that all business of the world is carried on, and that their demands, however uncon- sciously to themselves, are actually the cause of the evils from which working-men, women and children suffer. The rage of the purchasing public for cheap goods is the awful power which crushes the life out of the working people, and it is strange that men and women who would shrink with horror from buying stolen goods will congratu- late themselves on buying cheap goods, one necessary element of whose cheapness is that part of the working time of other men and women, and even of children, has practically been stolen. ^^The great difficulty which has presented itself to conscientious individuals who desire not to take part in the oppression of their fellow-men by buying goods made and sold under inhuman conditions has always been that of learning what those conditions were. It was easy enough for the abolitionists to give up the use of sugar and cotton, because these were known to be slave-made, but the conditions of so called free labor are more com- plicated, and in order to learn where and how the goods they desire to purchase are made, it is necessary to have concerted action, and from this necessity was developed the idea of the Consumers' League. " THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 339 In the practical work of forming the League, Mrs. Lowell was active, and was elected its first President. Cooperating with her on the committee were, among others. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. Helen Campbell, and Mrs. Frederick Nathan, now President of the League. In a letter dated March 7, 1898, Mrs. Lowell said: ''I wonder if I wrote you about the ' Consumers' League, ' our shop society ? I am President of that and I never meant to be and I mean to be out of it next January without fail." Early in 1891 the League was ready to begin operations. Before its formation, the Working Women's Society had drawn up a ^'Standard of a Fair House," founded upon the business methods of some of the best firms in New York. This, with some modifications, was adopted by the League as the standard of excellence by which it would test all shops before placing them on a ''White List," which was to contain the names of such retail mer- cantile houses only as in the opinion of the Governing Board of the League should be patronized by its members, and was to be published at stated intervals in the daily papers. At the time of the adoption of the standard, there were only eight of the large department stores in the City of New York apparently entitled under its rules to a place on the white list. Printed notices had been sent to all the firms in the business directory of dry goods stores, fancy notions, etc., asking if they would permit their conditions to be inves- tigated in order that they might be placed on a white list and advertised as houses which treated their employees 340 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL kindly, and approached nearest to the League's standard of a fair house. As satisfactory replies to the circular were not received in sufficient numbers, Mrs. Lowell and Mrs. Nathan paid personal visits to leading firms to ex- plain the objects of the League more fully, and to invite their cooperation. They explained the rules and regula- tions which they had found in operation in eight of the leading dry goods firms, which in the opinion of the League were reasonable and fair, and took the position that it was only just that all competing firms should adopt the same fair conditions for their employees. The first white list was published as an advertise- ment in a leading newspaper, and copies sent broadcast to those interested in working girls, asking their help in the efi'ort of the League to raise the standard of conditions in the shops by patronizing only those on the white list. Difficulties were encountered however, and it was sometimes reported that certain firms did not wish to be put on the white list. When this occurred, Mrs. Lowell is quoted as having said: ^^We can't help that, we are sorry they don't approve of the League. But we will get information from the working girls themselves, and if the firms have good conditions and are just, they must go on the white list." Mrs. Nathan recalls a conversation that occurred on a visit of investigation she and Mrs. Lowell were making for the League to a dry goods firm. They ascertained that the cash girls were paid only one dollar and a half a week, and Mrs. Lowell asked one of the partners if he did not think that was very little. He said: *'It is a THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 341 question of economics. If we can hire girls at one dollar and a half, why should we pay any more? Plenty are willing to come for that price." Mrs. Lowell then asked : '^Do you think that is a fair wage to pay for a week's work? One dollar and fifty cents a week will scarcely pay for their shoe leather." He replied: ''Well, I tell you, if I see they are very ragged or poor looking, or need shoes, I give them a pair of shoes." To which Mrs. Lowell rejoined: ''Would it not be better to pay them a fair wage and let them buy their own shoes, better for their self-respect?" "We never confuse our charity and our business," he rephed. Mrs. Lowell closed the con- versation with the remark : "It seems to me that you are confusing them in a very peculiar way. I think it would be a great deal better for you to pay a fair wage." The Consumers' League of the City of New York, whose beginnings have been here outlined, has grown in useful- ness, and now receives a large measure of pubUc support. International recognition was accorded it by the award of a Gold Medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900. To the pioneer work of this httle group of humane women must be credited the formation of some sixty-four consumers' leagues in other states and cities of the Union, and also of the National Consumers' League, whose chief object is the abolition of the sweat-shop with all its attendant evils, such as child-labor, long hours of work, starvation wages, unhygienic environment, and the menace to the consumer of purchasing germ-infested garments. The National Consumers' League gives the use of its label to' those manufacturers who agree in writing to have 342 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL all their goods made on their premises, to employ no chil- dren under sixteen, and to exact no night work. This label is the best guarantee that the goods in question have been made under clean and wholesome conditions. The first consumers' league in England was organized in 1890, coincidently with the similar movement in New York in which Mrs. Lowell was a leader. France, Holland, and Switzerland now have such leagues, and efforts are being made to organize one in Germany. Mrs. Lowell expressed her satisfaction with the work of the League when in February, 1894, she wrote and published the following paragraphs in her report as President of the Governing Board : ^^The part of the community which the Consumers' League is intended to serve is a very important part. Almost all people who take an interest in helping their fellow-men have to deal with people who have failed in life, with people who are sick or weak or wicked, people who have not been equal to the struggle, but have fallen by the way for one reason or another. But these work- ing women have not failed ; they are bravely working and bravely striving. They belong to the class, who by head work and hand work, by intelligence or strength or skill, are keeping the world alive, clothing, feeding, housing themselves and everybody else. Of course we must not fall into the error of thinking that the handworkers pro- duce all the wealth of the world, but it is simply a truism to say that the workers produce all the wealth, since those who do not work produce nothing, and the working women do at least their share in the work of the world. THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 343 ''Besides our gratitude, however, for the services they render, they deserve our pity, because of their helpless- ness and the peculiar hardships to which they are exposed. They are helpless because they are women, and they are helpless also because they are young, and they are more- over exposed to peculiar temptations from the fact that, when wages fall below the living point, the wages of sin are always ready for them. ''There are said to be two hundred thousand working- women in New York City, and if the Consumers' League can help to raise the standard of the conditions among which those who work in retail shops are required to labor, it will have done something towards raising the standard for all.^' The report of the Governing Board for 1895, also pre- sumably written by Mrs. Lowell, presents clearly the reasons for the existence of the League, shows the progress of its work, and contains a discussion of the relations of employers and employees too valuable to be omitted here: "It may be asked why, if the Consumers' League believes in the organization of wage-earners for self- help, and if, as it appears, there exists an organization of retail clerks to do for themselves exactly what the Consumers' League undertakes to do for them, should the Consumers' League continue in existence? The answer is to be found in the peculiar circumstances and condi- tions of large numbers of the wage-earners in this par- ticular kind of employment, and also in the direct contact 344 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of large numbers of the consuming public with them — two facts which make such help both necessary and pos- sible. ''The peculiar circumstances and conditions of the wage-earners for whose benefit the Consumers' League exists are three : "First — They are all women; and consequently usually timid and unaccustomed to associated action. ''Second — They are young, many being between the ages of fourteen and twenty; and therefore without the wisdom, strength of character, or experience which would enable them to act in their own behalf. "Third — Their trade, although it has highly skilled departments, is mostly unskilled, and therefore there is an almost unlimited supply of applicants for their sit- uations in case they do not accept the conditions offered them. "These, then, are the reasons for the existence of the Consumers' League. "The peculiar relation of these women and young girls to the purchasing public (that they serve them di- rectly and personally and are brought into immediate contact with them, instead of being shut away from sight and knowledge in factories) has made it possible to appeal to the conscience of the purchasing public in their behalf ; and this appeal has resulted in the formation of the Consumers' League. "This fact, however, has also acted in a contrary direc- tion in preventing them from receiving the protection of the State, which has been extended over women and girls THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 345 working in factories. Because they were constantly in the pubUc gaze, the conditions of their work could not become so very bad as those possible in factories ; there- fore the attention of philanthropists and labor leaders was not attracted to them until the standard in regard to factory workers had been so far improved by factory laws and factory inspection that the long hours and fa- tiguing work of saleswomen seemed bad by contrast, and then attempts to improve their conditions were under- taken and the struggle to give them the benefit of State inspection and State protection has now been going on in New York for four years. . . . '^The Governing Board has made special efforts to increase the number of names on its White List during the past year. It has appealed to firms which almost reached the necessary standard, hoping that they might be persuaded to do the few things which are absolutely required in order to be placed on the List, and it has also been more active in inspecting shops. One of the members caused to be prepared a list of ' Retail Stores in New York City where are employed twenty-five saleswomen or over,' which shows that there are 73 houses in this class ; of these, 56 have been inspected by Committees of the Consumers' League, and there are only 19 of these larger shops on the White List. To facilitate the work of the Committee, a printed form has been drawn up, and it is now required that reports be made on these forms. In this way there is uniformity of information gathered about each establishment, and general statements are not accepted by the Board. The large establishments 346 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of dressmakers and milliners have not as yet been visited at all by the Committees of the Board. '^Special efforts have also been made to advertise the White List. Besides being advertised in the daily papers, it was printed on postal cards, and 4000 were sent to selected names taken from the Social Register in June. In December it was printed, with the 'Standard of a Fair House,' and the names of the Governing Board, and 7000 copies were distributed in the daily newspapers by dealers. At the same time it was placed, by permis- sion of the managers of twenty of the largest hotels, in the ladies' parlors, in a neat cover, marked with the name of the League. ''The Board has again devoted special attention to the question of overtime, and has made repeated efforts to persuade all the largest houses to pay for all work required of their female employees after 6 p.m., whether on Satur- days throughout the year or at the holiday season. "An interesting computation of the number of hours of unpaid work given by the employees to their employers, in the case of sixteen of the largest dry goods houses in the city, has been made by a member of the Board. She has multipUed the number of employees of each firm by the number of days at the hoHday season, during which, according to their advertisements, their respective shops would be open in the evening, and this again by four (the number of hours from 6 to 10 p.m.), and the result is very astonishing. It shows that in the aggregate these sixteen firms demanded and received at the holiday season of 1895 at least 600,200 hours of free labor — or THE CONSUMERS^ LEAGUE 347 60,020 working days of 10 hours each, which is 191 years and some months. This is the Christmas present made by the employees to their employers. . . . Besides this, many shops received also from each of their employees a gift of four hours every Satiu"day evening throughout the year. ''The large employers will say it is untrue to call this work at the holiday season a gift to them, contending, as they do, that the extra hours' work on Saturdays throughout the year and for one or two weeks at the holi- day time are 'nominated in the bond,' or are, at least, considered in the wages paid ; but as many of these young girls receive fifty cents a day or less for an ordinary day's work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (with half an hour for lunch), it seems but reasonable to contend in their name that the wages could scarcely be lower, even were there no over- work. If bricklayers, whose wages are fifty cents an hour, call all work after 5 p.m. overtime, for which they receive double pay, it is not inadmissible to call the hours demanded of cash girls and saleswomen after 6 p.m. on Saturdays and at the holiday season overtime, and ask that they shall have for those hours at least the same pay they receive for four hours of work by daylight, and enough besides to pay for the extra supper they must buy when kept after 6 p.m., since they cannot go home to eat it. . . . "The Board would suggest to all owners of buildings, in which business is carried on, that they are morally responsible for the manner in which it is conducted and for the welfare of the men and women employed in them, at least while they are not able to protect themselves. 348 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL It is especially necessary that the interests of the employ- ees of shops should be considered by private individuals, because from the peculiar relation of the large shopkeepers to the newspapers and the dependence of the latter upon the former it is impossible to secure any public statement of their case, the editors being unable to publish facts that would injure the interests of their advertisers. ''The purchasing public is undoubtedly responsible for the long hours of labor demanded of thousands of women and girls in this city, and the Governing Board appeals to shoppers in the closing words of an address read by one of its members to a church society of ladies, as follows : " To sum up, what we ask you to do is this : Shop during reasonable hours — when possible, early in the morning, when saleswomen are fresh and not tired out and nervous. Avoid making purchases of a Saturday afternoon, so that eventually the shops may all give a half holiday. Make your holiday purchases early in the season if possible. Make constant inquiries as to proper provision of seats, and request floor walkers to encourage saleswomen to sit down when not waiting on customers. Report to the League any information gleaned outside the shops from working girls, whether favorable or unfavorable to employers. Become members of the League and per- suade your friends to join also. If at any time you may feel irritated or annoyed by the apparent indifference or carelessness of saleswomen, stop and consider what it means to be on one^s feet from ten to fourteen hours a day, in a crowded space, shoved and pushed about, lift- THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 349 ing heavy boxes at times, waiting on impatient customers and customers who wish to be helped to know their own minds, keeping accounts of sales and stock, taking ad- dresses often given hurriedly and carelessly, and fined in many instances if they are written down incorrectly, and all this for salaries ranging from $3 to $8 a week, and obliged to dress neatly and fairly well, and to pay out of it for one's meals, lodging, washing, clothing, and car- fare. "But while we make this appeal to the women who shop to consider the feelings and comfort of those who sell, we must also appeal to saleswomen themselves to do their duty to the public and to their employers. Our efforts to secure for all the women and girls who work in retail shops in this city the same conditions which exist in the shops on the White List of the Consumers' League are hampered by the fact that the service is often better in the shops which are not on the White List. The sales- women in the shop which of all others in New York gives its employees the greatest number of privileges have been so notoriously rude in their treatment of the public that ladies have given that reason for not patronizing it, and thus a very strong moral as well as business argument can be made in favor of fines and severity of discipline. If punctuality, fidelity, and conscientious discharge of their duties can be secured only by punishment, then punishment should be resorted to until the moral develop- ment of the saleswomen is so improved that they will respond to kindness. ''The Governing Board desires to call the attention of 350 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL members of the League to the paper by Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, read at the last annual meeting of the League, which was sent to all members in November. Its sub- ject is ^The Property Rights of Employees/ and it con- tains a statement of the relation of employees to employers^ and to the business which they carry on in common, which cannot be too often repeated, since it is the true one, and yet is far from being as yet widely recognized. The Board, therefore, makes no apology for quoting at length from the paper : ^' As every one knows, industrial operations for the crea- tion of wealth and the production of exchangeable values were originally carried on by slaves. What a man needed for his own use he first contrived to make. Then, when the chances of war threw prisoners into his hands, especially women, whose time and strength ceased to be their own, these could be utilized by the man who owned them and who enriched himself at small expense by their labor. Under this system there were but two factors in industry, the owners and the owned. Gradually this one pair of factors became converted into two other pairs, which are as essentially distinct from each other as both are from the original couple, the owner and the slave. These two modern pairs are, on the one hand, the master and the ser- vant ; on the other hand, the employer and the employed. These two couples are radically distinct from each other for several profound reasons. Yet in the average current thought, they are not infrequently confounded. Thus, the other day I heard a lady remark, apropos of the motor- men engaged in the Brooklyn strike: 'It would be THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 351 as absurd to allow the men to dictate what the manage- ment shall do as for me to allow my servants to tell me how to run my house.' ^' This remark embodies the stubborn conviction still naively entertained by thousands of people that the workers in any industrial enterprise are and must always be the servants of those who conduct this enterprise. This as- sumption is naive and unhistorical ; but in it is contained the gist of much that is fallacious in theory and singularly harsh and unjust in practice. The fallacy is in placing a household in the same category as an industrial enterprise. The function of the industrial business is the creation of wealth; the function of the household is the fulfilment of personal satisfactions, the creation, if possible, of happi- ness. The business makes money ; the household spends it. Labor in a household is personal service ; work in a business is industrial investment. Recompense for the first is a fixed stipend calculated upon the income of the person benefited and served ; recompense for the second consists in a share in the profits which the work secures, and is therefore not fixed, and should not be, but varies with the success of the business. . . . "It is not a sentimental, but an economic classification, it is that of the census, which ranks in one class the pro- fessions and the domestic servants ; physicians, lawyers, clergymen, architects, soldiers, teachers, with manicures, nurses, coachmen, gardeners, cooks. The common bond of union between the different members of this class which seems so heterogeneous is the fact that the work in each case is directed toward the personal welfare of some in- 352 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL dividual who is relatively helpless and often unable to test or estimate the intrinsic value of the service ; that is, to know whether it is well done or not, or, at all events, how it should be done ; and, further, that the pecuniary reward of such work can rarely be much more than the living expenses of the workers, and cannot, unless invested in strictly industrial enterprises, procure wealth. Hence, as a substitute for wealth, the special rewards of personal service are personal affection, appreciation of fidelity, trust, social honor. . . . "Every detail of this situation is in contrast with that of the industrial enterprise. Almost at the outset of the growth of this, the element of personal contact dis- appears, and at the maximum of expansion, in huge con- glomerations of factory labor, personalities themselves are swamped. The servant, whether domestic or pro- fessional, contributes nothing to the income of the person he serves and out of which he is paid. The employee is constantly helping to create the fund which is partly re- turned to him in wages. On this account he cannot prop- erly be said to be employed by a master. He follows a leader in carrying on an enterprise for their common, definite, pecuniary benefit. " The wage fund doctrine is, I need hardly say, a very famous theory which has had and has extremely practical and far-reaching consequences. In this theory, which is now rapidly beginning to be discredited, industrial wages are paid out of capital, just as domestic wages are paid out of income. The capitahst does not purchase a labor product, but the time of a laborer, which has often been equivalent to the purchase of the laborer. THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 353 " But there is another theory, and this seems to me the true one, namely, that industrial wages are not paid from the capital invested in the work, but from the product or profits of the work. The payment of wages is only a form more or less convenient for distributing a share of the product to those who have helped in the production. On the theory that the capitalist personally pays the wages out of his own property, it is conceivable that he should try to keep these wages as near the limit of subsistence as possible, and try to regulate them exclusively by the f aciUty of procuring laborers ; in common parlance, by the demand of the labor market. The laborer's subsistence is then reckoned in the cost qf production, and should be regulated on the same principle as other items of cost; that is to say, kept down as much as possible in the in- terest of thrift and economy, and so as to leave the profits as large as possible for the single owner or group of owners of the concern. On the other theory, that all the workers in a business are creating the wealth out of which their subsistence is to be drawn, the whole principle of owner- ship is shifted. While the possession of the inherited or acquired capital and of the brain power which initiated the business confers a primary ownership, a first lien on the product, it does not justify the permanence of absolute control, because it does not exclusively suffice for the maintenance of the business. This necessitates the co- operation of many other people, often hundreds or even thousands, each of whom, with his own hands and brains and vital forces, has created a certain share of the product, and is therefore to that extent its owner. The right of 2a 354 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL private property means nothing else than the right to own the product of one's own labor. Yet the right of private property was once invoked as a justification for ownership in the slave; and only within this generation has this monstrous right been finally and forever banished from recognition among civilized nations. Today we may go a step beyond the mental conquest of thirty years ago and paraphrase the pungent words of Emerson : 'Pay the profits to the owner, And fill up the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? Who works is the owner, And always was. Pay him! ' "A man may be said to own a diamond absolutely. It is a material entity, whose properties are fixed and depend upon nothing external, not even on the activities, physical or mental, of its owner. An industrial enterprise is quite other than this. It is a complex spiritual organism, whose constituent parts are the vital actions of human beings. The relations to consider are primarily those of these, human beings to the business or to the product which is the tangible proof of their different activities. The re- lations of the larger group which obeys to the smaller group, or individual, who directs, are of secondary im- portance. Yet these relations, or, as they are commonly called, the relations of the employer to the employed, or of the master to the hands, are usually put forward as not only of prime, but even of exclusive importance. "It is not necessary for our present purpose to do any- thing further than enunciate this principle of partial ownership in the product as the real recompense for all in- dustrial labor. . . . THE CONSUMERS^ LEAGUE 355 " How the ownership may be recognized and expressed is a second question. The first question to be settled is the fact of the ownership, and at this moment I can hardly do more than suggest this fact. "It is possible that at a given moment the adoption of the principle of diffused ownership among the employees of an establishment might not increase the amount of mon'ey they were already receiving. Nevertheless, it would radically change their position. It would be im- possible to stigmatize any claims of workers as impertinent. They might be unreasonable; it might be necessary to resist them for the sake of the common welfare. But with the disappearance of the notion that the business was absolutely owned by one man, and that every one else was simply employed by him at his good will, would dis- appear the other notion that every arrangement involving the rights, the comforts, or even the pleasure of the workers must be left absolutely to the control of a master. We should hear no more of such phrases : ' I must manage my own business in my own way.' ^I will not be dic- tated to by my employees,' etc. The transformation I have supposed applied to business organizations is pre- cisely what has already been effected on a large scale in the pohtical organization. Little more than two centuries have elapsed since a king could declare and be believed, 'L'6tat, c'est moi.' No one questions today that the state consists not of the king, but of the people. We should try as fast as possible to bring about the regime where every business and industrial organism will also be seen to consist not of a single man, but of all the people, 356 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL men and women, in it, each of whom has the right to speak, the minimum right of a single vote, upon such topics as they have demonstrated a capacity to discuss. . . /' During her presidency of the Consumers' League, which, notwithstanding her intended early retirement, continued until 1896, the meetings of its Governing Board were held at Mrs. LowelFs residence in New York, ^nd at the time of her death she was one of the Honorary Vice- Presidents. CHAPTER XVII Work for the Emancipation of Labor Mrs. Lowell left the State Board of Charities, not- withstanding the earnest wishes of the members of the Board and of her family and friends that she should re- main a member, for reasons best told in two of her letters, of which one was addressed to Mrs. Henry S. Russell, daughter of John M. Forbes of Boston, a lifelong friend, and the other to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw. 120 East 30th Street, April 7, 1889. Dearest Mollie : Of course your remarks about my plans for future work interested me, and I was much pleased that you should care. But, to begin with, I never meant to have the matter talked about. I have not resigned from the State Board yet, and shall not, until the end of my term, a couple of months hence, I beUeve. Then what I want to do is, with others, to try to prevent strikes, by various means already successfully tried elsewhere, and here ignored by both employers and unions. I don't think that the strong intelligence of business men has made such a success of their relations with their work people (either for them- 357 358 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL selves or the work people) that there is no room for other people to come in, and suggest new things. The experience of the business men in their own ways may have con- vinced them that some change is desirable. . . . The main point, to my mind, however, is that there ought to be a different feehng on the whole subject of ^^ Labor and Capital." It is wrong and stupid that men who have to work together and are absolutely dependent on each other, should hate each other, as employers seem to hate their men, and men their employers now-a-days, and I believe that something can be done, and a great deal, to change that feeling, just as Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Hughes did so much in England forty years ago. At any rate, the interests of the working people are of paramount importance, simply because they are the ma- jority of the whole people, and the indifference and ignor- ance and harshness felt and expressed against them by so many good people is simply awful to me and I must try to help them, if I can, and leave the broken down paupers to others. Read what Mr. Emerson says about our relations toward the working people in ^^Man the Reformer." . . . 120 East 30th St., May 19, '89. Dearest Annie : . . . Nellie says you think I ought to continue on the Board, but I think that there is far more important work to be done for working people. Five hundred thousand wage earners in this city, 200,000 of them women and 75,000 of those working under dreadful conditions or for starva- tion wages. That is more vital than the 25,000 depend- ents, counting the children. If the working people had all they ought to have, we should not have the paupers WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 359 and criminals. It is better to save them before they go under, than to spend your life fishing them out when they're half drowned and taking care of them afterwards ! Exactly what I can do, I do not know, but I want the time to try, and as my term is up now, I had to seize the opportunity to leave the Board. There ! . . . While still a member of the State Board, Mrs. Lowell began to study questions conmionly called those of labor and capital, and letters addressed to her, which she pre- served, showed that she obtained information at first hand by active correspondence, in this country and abroad, with writers on economic subjects, with master builders and other large employers of labor, and with leaders of organized labor. Hon. Abram S. Hewitt and Colonel George E. Waring ^ wrote freely to her, and evidently relied upon her judgment. Dr. Jane E. Robbins has said that some of Mrs. LowelFs papers on industrial conciliation which she sent to Colonel Waring during a labor crisis at the beginning of his services as Com- missioner of Street Cleaning led him to form a permanent Board. of Conciliation which helped him to work out suc- cessfully many of the problems of his department. Some exceedingly interesting letters from Colonel Waring, endorsed in Mrs. LowelFs own handwriting "Not for pub- lication," were laid aside with regret. The following strong and helpful letter of Mr. Hewitt's 1 George E. Waring, Jr., 1833-1898. Colonel in Civil War. Sani- tary Engineer. Commissioner of Street Cleaning, New York City, 1894-1896. 360 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL is not only interesting reading, but has supplied the title for this chapter ; New York, June 5, 1885. Dear Mrs. Lowell: I am much obliged to you for your pleasant note of the 4th instant . The speech on the ' ^ Emancipation of Labor ' ' has already had a wide circulation among the trades union people. I do not know that any copy of it ever reached Mr. PhiUips, but if I have fifty copies to spare I will send them to him in the course of a day or two. I have great pleasure in sending to you two copies of the '^Century of Mining^' and a dozen copies of the "Emancipation of Labor.'' I do not think that this kind of work ever receives from the parties most interested the recognition which it ought to have ; certainly it ought never to be done in the hope of receiving any such recognition. My experience is that the demagogue who deliberately deceives the working- men gets their support, while those who tell them the truth and labor assiduously to discover it, are usually regarded as enemies. In my own case the only candidate who has of late years been run against me for Congress has been a nominee of the labor organizations. Of course he never got many votes, but it was evidence of the total ignorance of these organizations on the subject which most concerned them, and to which I had given the labor of my life. Nevertheless the work must be patiently and conscien- tiously done, and I see very clearly in the changes which are going on throughout the world steady progress toward the knowledge of sound principles and their application to the great business of life. Mankind is better than it ever has been, and the fruits of industry are more justly distributed than in any previous period of the world. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 361 This ought to encourage us to continue our work, for '4t is not in vain." Yours sincerely, Abram S. Hewitt. The New York Times of December 2, 1892, pubUshed the following letter from Mrs. Lowell, and the extracts to which it referred, and in an editorial observed, that she was correct in thinking that they have a particular interest at the present time : To THE Editor of the New York Times: I am very glad that you have called the attention of the directors of the railroads to their responsibility for the prevention of strikes among railroad employees next year. I desire to refer you and your readers to an article published in Scribner^s Magazine in 1889 by Charles Francis Adams, then President of the Union Pacific Rail- way Company, under the title, ^'The Prevention of Rail- road Strikes," and to ask you to publish the inclosed extracts from that article. The only solution of the labor question for railroads as well as for all other branches of industry, lies in the recognition that there are two parties interested, and that each party has a right to be heard on all questions which concern both. The fact that it is an Adams who again speaks for justice and the representative system cannot fail to be of interest to those who care to see the great qualities of a great family transmitted from generation to generation. Josephine Shaw Lowell. The winter of 1893-1894 was one of extraordinary severity in the City of New York. Industrial conditions 362 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL were then depressed and the unfortunate combination caused much suffering and distress among working people. Organized efforts for their relief were promptly begun, Mrs. Lowell, as usual, being one of the leaders. Several papers from her pen, on the methods and satisfactory- results of this emergency relief work, were pubUshed at the time and are noted in the index ; limitation of space permits the admission of only one of them, ^'Poverty and its ReHef, the Methods Possible in the City of New York,'' which is included in the chapter on the Charity Organiza- tion Society. Among Mrs. Lowell's associates in this work was Miss Lillian D. Wald, who, in a memorial address, made the following mention of her manner and methods in the emergency : ''In the early summer of 1893 the lower East Side gave evidence of the terrible winter which was to follow. . . . It was not easy to pass the summer and see actual want of food among people, who in almost every instance appeared to be wholly respectable ; to see the unemployed organize almost spontaneously and storm an empty hall in their desire to get in for the purpose of conferring about their need, because they had no money to pay for a meeting place; to see the battle between the people who wished to talk over their matters which they were not allowed to do on the street, and the police who naturally wished to guard property. All New York seemed to be away during the summer, and the little group at the College Settlement, where I was then in residence, was anxious and bewildered, as were the other people of the neigh- borhood. With the autumn came pubUc recognition of WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 363 the hardships upon the working people, and the desire and abihty to help them personified in Mrs. Lowell. '^I must be pardoned for injecting a memory of my first acquaintance and personal experience with her at that time. She seemed to realize the condition of mind of young and untried people in an experience so bitter as the season of 1893 to 1894 was to them. Inexperienced as I was, and un- accustomed to thinking of troubles so grave and great, she treated me like a comrade, and in the midst of the gigantic work entailed upon her as administratrix of much of the relief for the unemployed, she found time to write many notes asking my counsel, climbing the five flights of stairs to the tenement where I was at that time living, inviting me to publish letters with her concerning the situation, treating me as a comrade in the responsibility and the ser- vice of the winter. I think because she was so simple about it, one took it in the same way and talked freely without self -consciousness, or perhaps it was her deeply tbought- out plan to encourage the beginner by dignifying her. '^The special work for the unemployed, called the East Side Relief Work, was organized by Mrs. Lowell, and was composed of representatives from churches, settle- ments, philanthropic societies and individuals. Con- sideration of the work to be done was started the latter part of October, 1893. ... Of course there were able and devoted men and women working with Mrs. Lowell, but she was the animating spirit and all of those associated with her at the time did, I am sure, carry a life-long mem- ory of her patience, intelligence and ability. She modestly said: ^I believe that through this relief as little moral harm as was possible has come to those whose physical needs have been supplied.' The payment for all of the work was in money, Mrs. Lowell believing that it would go back into the natural channels of trade in the poor 364 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL neighborhoods in which the people lived, thus doing double good. . . . Perhaps Mrs. Lowell's lasting in- fluence over those fortunate enough to be with her was due to the conviction that all of her social help was con- sidered by her head as well as by her sympathy — both equally alert to respond to every human call. ..." Some of Mrs. LowelFs letters written to her sister-in- law at this time of industrial distress refer to this emer- gency, and show the sympathetic and humorous touch which illumined even her most trying work. 120 East 30th Street, Nov. 26, 1893. Dearest Annie : You will be interested in the enclosed. It has absorbed most of my time for the past two weeks. We have had Committee meetings at the College Settlement about four times a week, to make our plans, and now they are just about being consummated and we hope to have both kinds of work going by Wednesday. We shall hire an idle shop, 163 Attorney Street, up five flights in a rear building, and the idle owner to act as foreman, and we shall put our poor ^^ Hebrew Jews" at work to clothe the poor Negroes of the Sea Islands. We have engaged a good woman to be our Superintendent and look after the women and also the peace and comfort of the men. Besides this, we have a street sweeping Superintendent who has been for years with the best private cleaner in this City and we expect to make the streets ''as clean as von pin." It is interest- ing meeting the Committee people, for they are all good workers, and give their lives to trying to help, so that they know a good deal more than the usual well-to-do folks who serve on Committees. Mr. Elsing and Mr. Devins have the churches right down among the tenement houses, and WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 365 the latter told me the other day that he was a poor boy in this city, so he knows how to feel for them. Dr. Jane Rob- bins has lived two years in a tenement house among the Italians in Mulberry Street, and she says she loves them. What we ought to have are settlements in every street, to help civilize and Hft the people. There is one interesting man hving down in Forsyth Street, Charles B. Stover ^ — educated for a Lutheran minister, but deciding not to take orders, he devotes himself to pubUc work. He is a school trustee and gives lots of time to that, and, besides, he keeps himself so busy that he does not go to bed but two or three times a week ! He sleeps in a chair the other nights. Dec. 17, 1893. Dearest Annie: My excuse for my silence is to be found in the enclosed papers, for I have been spending the last three weeks in trying to get this plan into working order. It has been a very interesting experience and I have learned a great deal. We have had meetings of the Committees to get the thing started, and now I am Chairman of the Com- mittee that runs the shop and also a member of the Ex- ecutive Committee that runs the whole thing, so I have still to be down town three times a week nearly all day. We have a shop meeting at 12, and then I go to a Charity Eating House to take lunch, and to the Executive Com- mittee at 2 : 30. Our shop is full of poor, thin Jews, who have been months without work and many of whom can- not speak Enghsh, and our street sweeping company is composed of all nationaUties. We had ninety men on last week and we expect to have hundreds before the end. ^ Commissioner of Public Parks, in Mayor Gaynor's Administration 1910. 366 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL 120 E. 30th St., March, 1894. Dearest Annie : I am feeling quite elated, having finished compiling what I hope will prove a new book to be published by the Putnams.^ There is almost nothing of mine except the few words needed to string together quotations from other people, but it has taken me some time. It is an account of various instances of conciliation, beginning with extracts from some English authors on English experience and leading up to our own New York, Chicago and Boston builders and bricklayers, and including an account of some of Mr. Weiler's plans. It is very interesting to me, and very encouraging, as it is a record of real justice and in- telligence triumphing over selfish brutal passion. I long to see it published, as few people know anything of these things and they ought to be held up as examples to all employers and workmen. Mr. Charles S. Fair child has supplied the following in- vitation from Mrs. Lowell to attend a meeting with the object of arranging a settlement of the tailors^ strike. 120 East 30th Street, New York, Sept. 3, 1894. My dear Mr. Fairchild : It may have escaped your notice that the garment- makers of New York and Brooklyn are asking for higher wages and shorter hours, and have determined to strike if they are refused. That they should be forced to strike would be a great misfortune, but a still greater misfortune to the city would 1 This book was put through the press during Mrs. Lowell's absence in Europe by her friend, Mrs. Nicoll Floyd. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 367 be to have them continue to work at the present rates. Good workmen have been earning six dollars a week by fifteen hours work a day, which means that they are overworked and that they and their famihes are underfed and their health being undermined. The situation is one which no power except the workers themselves can improve; if three-fourths of the con- tractors desired to advance wages they could not do it so long as the workers accept the low wages, and charity would only make matters worse by encouraging the people to think that they could continue to work for wages in- sufficient to sustain life decently. The outlook has been very dark, because there seemed no remedy, as one could not hope that the workers, after all the sufferings and privations of the past year, would dare to take any risk. They have, however, had the courage to do so, and now the duty of all public spirited men and women is to support them in their demands and to render a strike unnecessary, or, at least, make it as short as possible. It is stated in the Times of Sunday that in Brooklyn the contractors have asked for a conference with the workmen, while in New York, the Contractors' Protec- tive Union is to hold a meeting on Tuesday evening, at 200 East Broadway, to arrange plans to protect their interests. The gentlemen and ladies named in the enclosed list are invited by Dr. Jane E. Robbins, Head- worker of the College Settlement, and me to meet us at 95 Rivington Street, at 6 p.m., on Tuesday, the 4th inst., where we can talk over the situation and, afterwards, if so decided, attend the meeting of the Contractors' Protective Union, for the purpose of requesting them to confer with their workmen and make a settlement without forcing a strike. I hope very earnestly that you will be able to be present. 368 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Sept. 9, '94. Deakest Annie : I don't seem to have much to tell that will be interesting, though I have had a very interesting week. The poor sweated tailors struck last Monday, asking for ten hours' work a day and weekly pay, instead of fifteen hours' and piece work, and everything went beautifully for the sweaters and the wholesale manufacturers and the newspapers were all agreed that the men were quite right and that the change must be made. Now, however, the men seem to have got puffed up by too much success, and they are asking unreasonable things and there is to be hard work in showing them that it was the righteousness of their cause and not their strength that won approval. I have been running round, seeing various people con- nected with the trade and having a very good time, but now there will be harder work. I was in it, because of my interest in the tailors, and because we had a meeting at the College Settlement to help them and the papers took it up, and we thought it was all lovely, when behold ! the poor things do this ! Speaking after Mrs. Lowell's death of this strike, one of her associates in this work, Dr. Jane E. Robbins, said : ''I have known Mrs. Lowell since the winter of the un- employed, 1893-1894. Living through that winter was a tremendous experience, so that I had special chance to know her great mind and her splendid heart. It was a wonderful revelation of the possibilities of womanhood. "During a tailors' strike in the fall of 1894, I went with Mrs. Lowell to confer with an executive committee representing the large clothing houses on lower Broadway. The presiding officer was markedly discourteous, but WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 369 Mrs. Lowell entirely ignored his rudeness and quietly pre- sented the cause of the poor tailor. She never seemed to have any time to think about herself. What she said was so convincing that before we left the meeting the executive committee had given us a message to take back to the strikers. We were to tell them to stand together firmly for a shorter work-day and for a living wage. I learned to depend upon Mrs. Lowell's judgment in all labor questions. In this particular strike I held back at first, because I knew so little of the pros and cons of the struggle; but she said wisely that all we really needed to know was that the poor tailors were making a brave fight, and that we must help them. She saw the reporters of all the influential papers, and she inspired several fine editorials. The tailors won their poor little struggle for better conditions.'' Mrs. Lowell was always glad of an opportunity to bring more comfort and pleasure into the lives of working people. Not long before her death she addressed a letter to the president of an important mining corporation, with whom she was not acquainted, in which she said that in passing through the miners' village she had noticed with satisfaction the admirable homes erected by the company for the miners' famihes, but was sorry to observe that so few shade trees had been planted ; and suggested that not only the greater comfort of the residents would be secured, but also the general appearance of the village improved by more liberal plantations, which have since been made. An instance of Mrs. Lowell's championship of labor, and of her readiness in debate, occurred at a session of the Twenty-fifth National Conference of Charities and Correc- 2b 370 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL tion, which convened in the City of New York under my chairmanship in May, 1898, and was noticed in the New York Sun of May 21, under the caption ^^SpUt on Prison Labor." Hon. Carl Schurz had presented a paper on the Spoils System, which, with the subject of which it treated, was open to discussion in the Conference. Mr. Charlton T. Lewis, President of the Prison Association, then called the attention of the Conference to the evil effect of politics in prisons, and emphasized the necessity of keeping pris- oners, the wards of the State, at labor, and of wisely direct- ing their work to make it both productive and educational. He complained that the amendment to the constitution of New York State relating to prison labor made it nec- essary that these considerations should be disregarded and left the laborers free only to make something to be used in other charitable, reformatory, or penal institutions of the State. And he continued : ^^Why? Because there are half a dozen men who call themselves par excellence labor men, the representatives of labor in this State, and who prove it by doing no work, but live by hanging around legislatures in order to lobby measures through which shall enable them to report something like success to the workingmen who have paid them for this legislative service. These men went to the party leaders, and said, ^Unless you accept this amend- ment and put it into the constitution, your party will get no votes from the labor unions in this State at the next election.' Under that pressure, this provision was put into the fundamental law of the State. Do I complain of the knot of those who regard themselves as entitled to speak for the laboring interest ? '^ WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 371 The report of the meetings says : ''Before Mr. Lewis had taken his seat, Mrs. Lowell, who had gone down into the audience after her speech, was climbing the platform stairs and asking for a chance to reply. It was the begin- ning of the general engagement. 'It seems to me,' she said, almost before she had gained the platform, 'that if Mr. Choate erred in speaking of the amendment in too favorable terms, Mr. Lewis errs far more in speaking of it in too condemnatory terms. I beUeve that it is the best labor law yet. One reason why it isn't working as well as it might is that between November, 1894, when it was adopted, and January, 1896, when it went into effect, the time was used by the prison authorities not in preparation for the new arrangements, but in trying to secure a repeal. Labor has been found for a large proportion of the prison- ers, as Mr. Lewis admits. I can't sit here and hear the labor imions attacked for defending themselves against the unwise and cruel competition of the prisons. The laboring classes are the people — all the people. The few people that don't belong to the laboring classes don't amount to anything. (Laughter.) Every step the labor unions took was spoiled by the action of the prison author- ities. Finally the unions had the power to stop that sort of thing, and they did it.' " In a recent life of Andrew Jackson^ the following passage occurs : "Jackson was in accord with his generation. He had a clear perception that the toiling millions are not a class in the community, but are the community. He knew and felt that government should exist only for the benefit of the governed ; that the strong are strong only that they may aid the weak ; that the rich are rightfully rich that they may so combine and so direct the labors of the poor as to make labor more profitable to the laborers." ^ "The True Andrew Jackson," by Cyrus Townsend Brady, p. 287. 372 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL However opinions may differ as to the position Mrs. Lowell then took, she evidently by her words and actions, and also by the sentiments expressed in her papers on labor questions, always held exactly to Jackson^s opinions, and no one can reasonably question her absolute sincerity. Paper Read at the First Public Meeting of the Working Women's Society^ As you have asked me to speak to you tonight, for which mark of confidence I thank you very much, it is not presumptuous to assume that you think I have some- thing to say which may help you somewhat in the great work upon which you have entered, which is, to quote from the preamble to your Constitution ^Ho assist in the removal of the unjust features of the present labor system." I shall first make a few practical comments and sug- gestions on some of the features of your declaration of principles, contained in this preamble, and then pass on to more general considerations affecting your organization. The second principle you announce is : '^That for united effort there is need of a Central Society which shall gather together those already devoted to the cause of organization among women, shall collect statistics and publish facts, shall be ready to furnish in- formation and advice, and, above all, shall continue and increase agitation on this subject." Now, you have constituted yourselves this central so- ciety, and it is to be your province to furnish information 1 At Cooper Union, February 2, 1888 ; Miss Perkins presided. See letter, top of p. 136. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 373 and advice and to continue and increase agitation. Let me beg of you to make yourselves ready to do this work wisely. These questions which you are taking up are not new ; they have been discussed and written about even in their present forms for more than one hundred years. There are many wise books, and unhappily many fooUsh books too, already written upon them, and in order to make yourselves author- ities upon them, you must study what has already been said, and learn what has already been done about them. It seems to me that the appointment of a Committee on Reading to mark out a course of study for the mem- bers of the Society, and to procure the books from libraries and supply them to the members in turn, would be a very wise step. You need to saturate your minds with the subjects connected with the aims of your Society. You cannot know too much of what has been said and of what is being said by students of the labor problems. You must make yourselves masters of the subject. The first of the '^Specific Objects of the Society" is stated as follows : ^'To found trade organizations in such trades where they do not exist, and to encourage and assist existing labor organizations, to the end of increasing wages and shortening hours." Now it seems to me a mistake to have given the increas- ing of wages precedence over the shortening of hours. The latter I believe to be the more important object, and it is also the one upon which you can the more easily secure public sympathy. I believe it to be the more important because securing leisure affords the opportunity for im- 374 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL provement in intelligence and in character, and, as the natural consequence, improvement also in work and in wages. It is a reasonable object, and can be proved to be so to the public if the right steps are taken. There is no question that, up to a certain point, more work can be done in short than in long hours, and the shorter hours are therefore, up to that point, as much for the benefit of the employers and of the public, as of the hand workers. What is that point ? That is for you to discover. That, even in piece-work, as much can be done and earned in ten hours as in eleven was proved in some large woolen mills in New England, where the owners desired to reduce the hours from eleven to ten, and the hands objected, but were persuaded to try it, and found they earned as much as before. Whether the same rule would hold good as between ten hours and nine, I do not know, but I believe that it probably would, as the natural result of more leisure would be increased health, strength, energy, intelligence, and, I think, increased conscientiousness also. Nothing could be better than the first part of your second object : ''By using all the means in our power to enforce the existing laws relating to the protection of women and children in shops and factories; investigating and pro- testing against all violations of said laws ; also, whenever possible, promoting legislation on this subject." And a committee to be charged with the duty of spread- ing the knowledge of the present laws, and teaching those who need their protection how, and to whom, to make complaints of their violation, would do great good. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 375 The framing of new laws is a still more important mat- ter, but one not to be lightly entered upon, until you have prepared yourselves by serious study to suggest and support wise measures which will not produce more harm than good, as is too often the case with many laws, the objects of which are of the best. In your fourth object, which reads : "To investigate and protest against all cases that are credibly brought to our notice of cruel and tyrannical treatment on the part of employers and their managers, open robbery by withholding pay, or underhand theft in imposing fines and docking wages on trivial grounds, shameful indecency in the arrangement of shops, and abusive or insulting language to the helpless and defence- less women employees," we come to the most dangerous ground upon which you will have to tread, full of snares and pitfalls for your feet, and where you will surely be engulfed unless you guard yourselves by the highest sense of duty. You will have to do what it is very hard for anyone to do, — what, unhappily, women almost never do. You must look at both sides; you must be just. Justice is the highest attribute of man, for to be just is to see and do the truth. As I have said, women are seldom just, because they allow personal feeUngs, whether of selfishness, friendship or sympathy to bUnd them to the other side ; they even pride themselves on saying, where their better feelings are engaged, that there is no other side. Now this is the weakness you must guard yourselves against. Ejiowing, as you do, the wrongs and sufferings of one side, which are 376 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL often so great as almost to overpower all possibility of seeing anything else, seeing, as you do, injustice which fills you with horror and indignation, yet you must for the sake of righting those wrongs, in the hope of de- stroying that injustice, constrain yourselves to pause, to consider what excuse there may be on the other side, and you must hear and try patiently to study the difficulties which beset the employer. You know, if you stop a moment to remember, that he has difficulties, for he often succumbs to them. I believe it is said that a great many more than half the men who go into business fail, which means that the difficulties are so great that half the employers cannot conquer them. Remember, too, that apart from all considerations of justice, it is bad policy to increase too far the difficulties of employers. The emploj^ers are now, and will be until we reach manufactur- ing cooperation, far more important to the people they employ, than they are to them, and you know that every failure throws work people out of employment and causes much distress. I believe in the right to strike ; but re- member that a strike is like war ; it brings great misery with it ; and remember that there are some places where the work people by striking have driven the employers away, and have left themselves with no means of living. Remember that you must not place yourselves in the position of enemies attacking, but of judges, hearing and weighing evidence, and remember, above all, that your sympathies are all, inevitably, on one side, and that, there- fore, you must try to lean towards the other, if you would even approach a just decision. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 377 And now I want to say something about what seems to me the great possibiHties of your Society. The sufferings and the wrongs of working women have for years been described and talked about, and have excited pity and indignation, and yet no one has had the sUghtest power to remedy them. The great machine, of which we are all a part, has rolled on, crushing the happiness and life out of hundreds of thousands of women; and many other women, who would gladly have given their lives to have saved their sisters, have themselves helped to trample them still lower in the dust. It is not, as I say, that they are careless, but that they are ignorant; they do not know what causes the injustice ; they do not know how it is to be remedied ; they do not even know, in any dis- tinct way, what the injustice is, what the sufferings are. They are as helpless on their side as the working women who have to suffer are on theirs. Now you can put an end to this ignorance and help- lessness, you, who have joined yourselves together to help working women, you, who are working women your- selves and know the conditions amid which you work, you, who already have the knowledge of facts, and are going to bring your intelligence to bear upon these facts, and study them, until you learn what they mean, why they exist, and how they can be changed. You are going to stand between your sisters on the one hand, and on the other, between the toilers who are underpaid and over- worked, and the women who are pining for want of work and are supported in enforced idleness, and you are going to open a pathway between the two. 378 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL And, now, how can you fit yourselves for this noble part of interpreters between sets of people so far apart that, without you, or some one in your place, it seems as if they could never understand each other? As I have already said, you must, first of all, be just, and then you must set yourselves to discover the causes of the wrongs which exist today in our social fabric, and the remedies which may be appUed to them. But you must remember that it is not individuals who are to blame, that they, as well as you, that we all are parts of a system which has grown up, which binds us all, and for which no man, no hundred men, no thousand men, are to blame, but which sweeps all men and women along, unable to resist its mighty current, and that the problem before us is to study, all together, how to change the system, how to keep what is good in it, and leave behind us what is bad. If the present system is harder on some people than on others, as it most certainly is, it is natiu-al that those who suffer from its weaknesses and maladjustments should realize them strongly, and that those who do not suffer, but who even profit by them, should scarcely realize them at all, and should be inclined, until they are taught better, to think it a pretty good system after all, and to dread changes. It is your work to teach them better ; you must show them the evils that exist, and, without claiming that they are responsible for what they never made and cannot unmake, point out to them what are the weaknesses and maladjustments of the present system. As an organization of women, it behooves you especially WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 379 to maintain each one of you her own independence of thought and character. Do not bUndly follow any leader. Discuss and consult and strive each one to cherish in her- self a sense of her own personal responsibihty for the acts of the Society. In that way you will reap the advantage of association ; you will strengthen and help each other, and your joint action will have the force of all its com- bined members. Whereas, if, without thought, you bUndly follow wherever one or two of the most impetuous among you may lead, you will not only fail to attain your objects, but your failure will bring renewed discredit on the efforts both of women and labor organizations. As women, also, you need to be especially on your guard against scolding. However just the cause she may defend, a scolding 57oman is a terror to all men; no one will listen to her, no one will sympathize with her ; she only injures her own cause. ^ You mus¥ conciliate and not antag onize. You must oe dignified, "generous, noble. You must make yourselves respected by your wisdom, your patience, your fairness, by the cheerful courage with which you press on to attain your high objects, — and that they are high, who can doubt? To help to raise labor, what is it but to help to raise mankind? You must be inspired by the highest patriotism, for it is true, as an Enghsh author says, that "The American Repubhc is founded on the sovereignty of the people, and it will prosper or perish according as the mental and moral status of the sovereign people is high or low. The question whether labor in America will in futm-e sustain, improve upon or degrade from its once 380 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL high condition is one beside which every other national problem, social, religious or political, is a matter of trifling moment, for upon this depends the destiny of the greatest state, and the life of the most beneficent government which the world has ever seen/' But you must be inspired by a higher motive than patriotism — by the love of your fellow-men — of all your fellow-men, rich and poor. Do not love the poor and hate the rich, but have as much patience with the rich as you have with the poor. Feel the brotherhood of man, and do not, in your thoughts, shut any one outside that brotherhood. Emerson says : '^ Hostility, bitterness to persons, and to the age, indi- cate infirm sense, unacquaintance with men, who are really at top selfish, and really at bottom fraternal, alike, iden- tical,'' and Jesus says: ^^Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Industrial Peace ^ What is extraordinary and abnormal and, consequently, unusual, of course catches and holds the attention more readily than a continuous and orderly development, al- though the latter may be of vastly more intrinsic value to mankind than the disturbances which startle and terrify by their violence. It is therefore natural, but none the less to be regretted, that public attention is constantly attracted to all the painful and deplorable episodes of the movement for the emancipation of the workingman, 1 Published in The Charities Review for January, 1893. Reprinted in pamphlet form. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 381 while the great forward march of the last twenty-five years in England, and more lately in this country, the tre- mendous triumphs of justice and right, the victories of intelligence and equity over ignorance and greed, are quite unknown to the mass of employers, as well as to the public generally, and their records buried in official reports, or in books read only by workingmen and students. The Labor Question is, after all, only another phase of the Liberty Question, which has confronted the human race, in one form or another, in all its contests since history be- gan ; it is simply a question of justice as opposed to tyranny, and the only solution, the acknowledgment of equal rights. As Mr. Charles Francis Adams, with the old Adams spirit, said in an article published in Scribner's Magazine in 1889, entitled ^'The Prevention of Railroad Strikes " : ''It is, of course, impossible to dispose of these difficult matters in town-meeting. Nevertheless the town-meeting must be at the base of any successful plan for disposing of them. The end in view is to bring the employer, who in this case is the company, represented by its pres- ident and board of directors, and the employees into direct and immediate contact through a representative system. When thus brought into direct and immediate contact, the parties must arrive at results through the usual method, that is, by discussion and rational agree- ment. . . . The movement follows the lines of action with which the people of this coimtry are most familiar. The path indicated is that in which for centm-ies they have been accustomed to tread. It has led them out of many difficulties; why not out of this difficulty ?'' Personal despotism has been driven out of all civilized 382 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL countries as a form of government, simply because the people rendered despotism too uncomfortable for the des- pot. Representative government has been forced upon Europe, not adopted because the governing classes wished to give up their prerogative; and in like manner, rep- resentative government in many important industrial fields has been forced upon employers, although it is to be said to their honor that in some cases, the employers have welcomed it and have recognized its moral as well as its material advantages. There is little doubt also that the representative system in the conduct of an industry requires higher moral and intellectual qualities in all the parties represented than are necessary in the realm of government, and this ex- plains why its adoption in this new field is less rapid. The very fact that it must be voluntarily adopted, even though under the pressure of circumstances, and that its maintenance is due to moral sanctions only, shows that it can be established only by and among men of high moral and intellectual development. It requires justice and intelligence, that is, the will, and also the power, to see the other side, and it requires good faith ; and these are noble qualities, and qualities which we like to think are peculiarly American. It is, therefore, not pleasing to learn that while the representative system has for twenty-three years been a signal success in some of the great English trades, and has been steadily gaining ground in that country, with no conspicuous failure anywhere, with us very many efforts toward it have been tried and have proved abortive, WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 383 and that we have no instance of a successful attempt that is more than eight years old. The defeat of justice which has disgraced much of our labor history is due, it is fair to say, almost equally to employers and employees; whichever side has had the power has unfortunately used it tjo-annically. The ex- ceptions to this rule are, however, all the more worthy of honor ; and it is for the sake of acknowledging our debt to the men who have done justly, and also of presenting them as an example to their fellow-employers and fellow- employees, that I wish to give at least a sketch of the development of an equitable system in two important trades in our own country. During the summer of 1884, there was a two months^ strike of bricklayers in New York City which caused great loss to both the bricklayers themselves and the builders, and left many questions unsettled when it was ended. Experience had taught both sides a lesson, however, and in March, 1885, a conference was held between the Master Builders' Association and the Committee of the General Good of the Bricklayers' Unions to discuss the various matters of mutual interest ; the results were so satis- factory that a permanent representative body was created, composed of an equal number of delegates from both sides, duly elected each year. The official name of this body is ''The Joint Arbitration Committee of the Mason Builders' Association and the Bricklayers' Unions," and at its organization provision was made, in case of non- agreement upon any point, for the selection of an umpire, whose decision should be binding on both sides. There 384 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL could be no stronger proof of the justice and good sense which have ruled in the deliberations of this self-con- stituted body than the fact that, during the eight years of its existence, it has never been necessary to appoint an umpire, every question having been decided by the com- mittee itself. At first, weekly meetings were held, and at these meet- ings the general interests of the trade were frequently discussed. Then there was business only for a meeting once a month, and latterly meetings are held still less frequently, except in the spring, when the committee meets often to discuss and agree upon the wages for the year, and to draw up the mutual agreement between the Association and the Unions. This agreement covers the hours to be worked, the amount of pay for overtime, the frequency of payments, and other matters of impor- tance, besides the amount of wages. When the Joint Com- mittee was first organized, the bricklayers^ wages were forty cents an hour, and nine hours was the working day every day except Saturday. Now the wages are fifty cents an hour, and the working day is eight hours. There has not been a strike among the bricklayers since 1884. Even during the past season, when, to speak mildly, every other trade was at least very much unsettled, there was no trouble between the builders and the bricklayers. All difficulties are settled at the meetings of the delegates of the Builders' Association and the Bricklayers' Unions, being discussed until an agreement is reached. Remembering what a strike means ; what misery and want it entails upon those who take part in it ; what loss WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 385 to the whole community ; what bitter feeling, what anger and hatred, it arouses ; one cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude and an admiration for the men, employers and employees, who have had the wisdom and self-control to establish and maintain so reasonable, so Christian, a method of settling the questions of mutual interest to them. The second instance of a successful understanding be- tween employers and employees which I shall describe is that between the manufacturers and the various unions of hat-makers of Danbury, Connecticut. For thirty-five years before the year 1885 there had been almost a con- stant warfare between the manufacturers and the work- men ; but in the autumn of that year the Directors of the National Associations of Fur-Hat Finishers and Makers appointed a committee of five to confer with the manu- facturers of fur hats in regard to the present state of trade, and the way to improve it and the condition of those em- ployed in it. This committee respectfully invited the fur-hat manufacturers to unite in an organization to act in concert with our associations in the adoption of such measures as will tend to establish and maintain harmonious relations between the manufacturers and their employees, and promote the best interests of both parties. The manufacturers responded to this invitation, and a convention, at which sixty-three were present, was held in New York, on October 25, 1885. Mr. Edmund Tweedy, of Danbury, in an address to the Convention, spoke as follows : "I will venture to say that the situation in which we find ourselves is without precedent in this or any other 2c 386 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL country. For the workingmen in a trade to ask their employers to organize themselves into an association is a fact so surprising that we may well question its signif- icance. The fact itself seems to me to place the sincerity of the jom^neymen beyond all doubt ; for labor is naturally distrustful of organized capital, and they cannot be un- conscious of the power which such an organization will give us ; and it also shows their confidence that the power will not be unjustly used against them. They are entitled to equal sincerity and confidence on om* part. '^What, then, does this invitation mean? It means, as I imderstand it, that the journeymen believe it is for the best interests of both parties that they and we should live in peace and harmony together, and that by mutual interchange of views and by concert of action it is possible to improve the condition of trade, remove many of its difficulties, and make it more profitable to all parties. They perceive that to attain these ends it is necessary that there should be thorough organization of the employers as well as of the workingmen, and they invite us to form such an organization, and pledge themselves to cooperate with us in all reasonable and proper efforts to accomplish the desired objects. Their plan contemplates, as I am advised, the admission of all those at present employed at the trade into their association, the bringing of inde- pendent shops under reasonable association rules, the appointment of committees of conference, representing both parties, to consider matters of interest to the trade, and the adoption of joint measures which will give to the joint organizations the practically absolute control of the business. Of course, the primary object that the work- man has in view is the increase of wages, but he is willing that it should be accompanied by increase of profit to the manufacturer. Are these objects desirable ? To me they WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 387 appear eminently so. If by means of such organizations the relations between employers and employed could be adjusted upon an enduring and satisfactory basis, all causes of strife and contention removed, the wages of the workingmen and the profit of the manufacturer increased, strikes and turnouts prevented, ''shop calls" regulated, differences settled by arbitration, stated times for fixing prices for labor established, reasonable regulations for the employment of apprentices provided, the health and com- fort of the workmen looked after, and other matters of like character discussed and regulated, who would say that such results would not be worth any sacrifice that they might cost? . . . ''Our action here today will have consequences of great moment to the trade, which may be felt for years to come, and may, perhaps, reach far beyond the limits of our own trade, and have an important influence on the relation of capital and labor in other industries. It behooves us to act with deliberation and judgment, casting aside all prejudices, and remembering that the benefits of organiza- tion can only come through the surrender, on the part of each, of some amount of individual freedom." Owing to the opposition of manufacturers in New Jersey, the organization of a national association was prevented and the Danbury members of the Convention organized a local association. Any person or persons en- gaged in the manufacture of fur hats in the town of Dan- bury were eligible to membership. This local association has continued in harmonious re- lation with the several unions of the trade for nearly seven years, and the following account of the manner in which their mutual interests are dealt with is dated November 12, 1892 : 388 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL ''Any differences which have arisen other than those relating to wages have been adjusted by the conference committees of the associations interested, each association having a standing committee of five members elected annually. There is no permanent joint board. ... In case any charge is to be considered against either associa- tion or any of its members for violation of existing agree- ments, this charge is formally made in writing and de- livered to the president of the association against which, or the members of which, the charge is alleged, so that full opportunity may be given for its deliberate considera- tion. Any party accused has full opportunity to be heard before the conference. ''When it is proposed by either party to amend existing agreements, a copy of the proposed amendments is pre- pared and served in the same way. If the matters to be decided are beyond the powers of the conference com- mittees, they report the same to their respective associa- tions, with their recommendations in relation thereto, and receive instructions from their associations for their guidance in future conferences upon the same subject matter. It rarely happens of late that it becomes neces- sary to take an appeal to the associations, as the plan has been so long in operation that all matters liable to lead to any serious differences have been definitely adjusted. "All differences in regard to wages are settled by arbi- tration committees appointed by the presidents of the associations interested, which committees are appointed in each case of disagreement. If the joint arbitration committee cannot agree, that representing each associa- tion selects a disinterested arbitrator, and these two select a third, and the decision of this board is final. "This system has now been in operation in Danbury for nearly seven years, and I believe that both manufac- WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 389 turers and journeymen have found it to be productive of great good in preventing serious disturbances, in maintain- ing harmonious relations between employer and employed, and in placing the rights and interests of both upon a safe and secure footing ; and I think all are convinced that it is one of the most successful attempts ever made to adjust the labor question on the lines of reason and equity." There are other instances where the same spirit has been exemplified, but these two are sufficient to show what can be done. Before closing, however, I wish to say that in thus dwelling upon the blessings which have been brought about by peaceful methods of settling differences between em- ployers and employees, I must not be understood as con- demning the methods of force when these are really necessarj^ as, unhappily, they sometimes are, on account of the want of intelfigence, education, and principle on one side or the other. A strike or a lockout may be absolutely unavoidable, but the very fact that it is so shows a low state of intellectual and moral development on the part either of the employers or employees concerned, or, per- haps, on the part of both. If both sides are just, if both sides are wise, there can be no question that peaceable methods can and will be adopted, and there can be no doubt that they will succeed. It is a most remarkable fact that, while this great and beneficent movement, which seeks and finds industrial peace in various ways, has been going on with accel- erated speed and success in England and in this coun- try for the lifetime of a generation, very little is 390 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL known about it outside the circles of individuals whose interests it directly affects. Even the very men whose business success and daily peace of mind would be assured by joining it are ignorant of it, and as to the general public and the newspapers, one might imagine from their tone in speaking of the Labor Problem that it had never been solved and was insoluble, whereas, here, in the practice of justice on both sides, the solution has been already found. Workingmen's Rights in Property Created by Them ^ The strength of thought and expression in the following letter is a justification for its reproduction. The novelty of the view taken by Mrs. Lowell, the fact that it is so pronounced and vigorously stated by a woman, deserves that the production should have some permanent shape, in order that it may be rescued from the oblivion of a daily paper, to which it was first contributed. Mrs. Lowell's long and most effective; work in relation to charity in and about New York, makes it all the more interesting that she should employ her leisure in trying to think out one of the most serious problems of the time, and endeavor to throw light upon the mute appeal of the workingman in the sullen stubbornness, or the blind fury of a strike. — Erastus Wiman. To THE Editor of the New York Tribune. Sir : — The underlying conception of their own rights and wrongs which inspired the recent action of the men at Homestead, and which is also the animating principle of members of labor organizations who strike but yet refuse to allow others to do the work which they will not do, although it has often been stated more or less clearly, is certainly not understood by the generality of thinking persons. 1 Published in pamphlet form in 1893 by the Farrington Company of New York. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 391 Members of labor organizations, who are often intelli- gent men and men who have studied both the history and principles of the labor question, regard themselves as contending for liberty against tyrannical power, and as the inheritors of the spirit of all the men in the past who have defended their own rights and the rights of others against oppressors. Ridiculous as this view appears to those who regard them simply as violent lawbreakers and thieves, it is well for persons who desire to be fair-minded and to do justice to their fellow-men, to look a little more closely into their claims and to compare their conduct with that of others, who in times past were regarded by those whom they resisted in exactly the same light, although now it is the custom to call them heroes. To go no further back than the men who began our own Revolution; in Massachusetts, Samuel Adams was out- lawed, and a price set on his head by the authorities he defied, and the men who threw overboard the tea from the ships in Boston Harbor allowed no consideration for the sacredness of private property to restrain them in what they thought a patriotic duty, but they were doubtless regarded as thieves by the unhappy merchants to whom the tea belonged. Those men in Massachusetts were fighting against the existing order of things ; they were rebels and revolution- ists ; they intended, most of them unconsciously at first, to substitute for the form of government they were resist- ing a new one, and one which has since then been acknowl- edged by a large part of the civilized world as the true and ideal form of government, although at that time, to the bulk of mankind it seemed to be the craziest sub- version not only of what was natural and safe, but of God^s laws. Now the trade union men of today are also contending 392 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL for a new order of things, not in the poHtical, but in the industrial world ; they are also rebels and revolutionists, whom the existing industrial authorities will, of course, seek to overcome, but who are justified in using force in defence of what they consider their rights, on the same grounds that have justified all rebels from the beginning of history. Legally they are wrong; morally they are right; intellectually they may be right or wrong. The fact that they hold a theory of their rights and of the rights of private property in general quite different from that held by their employers and by most thinking and unthinking men and women, does not prove, judging from analogy, that their view is necessarily wrong. The theory to which I refer, and which, whether put into words or not, is firmly fixed in the minds of all trade unionists, is that the man who by his labor for a series of years helps to build up a great business, be it factory, mine or railroad, thereby acquires a distinct right of property in that business, while the general view is that it is only the man who helps to build up the business by his money who has a property right in it. While always acknowledging the right of an employer to discharge a workman for just cause, the trade unionist has his own view of what constitutes a just cause, and does not include under that head the exercise of the legal right to belong to political, religious or trade associations, nor does he acknowledge that taking part in a strike is a just cause of discharge, or that by reason of such action (belonging to a trade union or taking part in a strike) a workman loses his property right in the business he has helped to build up by his labor. This view is .the ground upon which workingmen, locked out as at Homestead, or even on strike, refuse, so long as they can, to allow other men to come in and take possession of what they call, WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 393 to the scornful amusemeDt of their employers, their places. This is evidently a new conception of the rights of pri- vate property, and no especial means by which it might be put into practice have as yet, so far as I know, been pointed out, even by the men who defend the principle itself with their lives, as did the men locked out at Home- stead. The fact that the wages of only three hundred out of the three thousand men employed in the Homestead mills were to be affected by the proposed reduction proves that the resistance on the part of the whole body was one of principle, and presents a spectacle of industrial pubhc spirit which could not have been found, probably, in any trade less well organized ; that is, in any trade the mem- bers of which were not educated to a recognition of the fact that men who will not defend the rights of their fellows will soon lose their own. The suggestion that the laws relating to private property may in the future be materially changed will be new to many persons who have not studied carefully the prin- ciples underlying those laws ; to such the following quo- tation from a letter written in 1870 by the distinguished thinker, Chauncey Wright, will be very instructive : ''The rapacity of wealth is, of course, the taproot of all these evils, the source of the hostility which threatens social institutions. We have got to amend the great Roman invention, the laws of property. . . . Looked at rationally and from a utilitarian point of view, the right of private ownership — the protection of the individual in the possession, accumulation, consumption, productive administration and posthumous disposal of his surplus gain — is founded simply and solely in the motives they afford to his making such gains, and adding them, as he really does, in spite of his seeming private appropriation 394 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of them, to the store of pubUc wealth. . . . But so far as the laws of property are inherently, or through changed circumstances have come to be, productive, not of increased gains, but of a large and permanent class of unproductive consumers, so far they are legalized robbery, and must be abrogated or amended if justice is ever to be effected by legislation, through whatever political powers. ''It is perhaps unfortunate that the problem will have to be solved through democratic agencies and the un- avoidable ascendency of the will of the masses in political matters. But, after all, it is a real question which is the more untoward instrument for the really just and wise philanthropist to work with, the ignorant and prejudiced masses, whose benefit is sought, or the equally prejudiced aristocracies, blinded by self-interest, whose unjust privi- leges must be curtailed. . . . Democracies and aristocra- cies are both blind, and if led by men of their own sort, must inevitably carry the state with them to destruction. But do not let us dwell despondingly on the powers and tendencies of the instruments we have to deal with. . . .'' Josephine Shaw Lowell. Geneva, Switzerland, July 15, 1892. Industrial Conciliation ^ Whenever a strike or lockout is of sufficient importance to attract public attention, after it has continued for a few^days, there begins to be talk of arbitration on the part of the press and of the workingmen who are engaged in the contest. If arbitration is resorted to, the questions in dispute are 1 For Live Question Bureau, January, 1896. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 395 referred to one or more arbitrators, who hear both sides and decide between them. This is of course a judicial process, except that the submission of the question on both sides is purely voluntary, as neither can force the other into court, and the obligation to abide by the deci- sion is moral only, so that there is nothing legally binding in it. Usually strikes and lockouts are settled in a less formal way by the intervention of persons inspired either by private or public interest, who act as go-betweens and run from one side to the other, gaining a little concession first here and then there, smoothing away one difficulty after another, and finally arranging matters with as little loss of dignity as possible to the contending parties. But between civilized bodies of men whose services are vitally important to each other, who make their living by the help of each other, it is a disgrace that there should be these constantly recurring contentions. They arise only from the selfishness and tyranny of men, unrestrained by nobler qualities, and selfishness and tyranny are equally hateful and mischievous, whether ex- hibited by employers or employed. Unfortunately which- ever side has had the power has usually exercised it in so arrogant a manner and with such unrelenting harshness as to goad the other side to resistance, resulting often in a state of open warfare which has continued until either one side or the other is quite conquered, when the old series of acts is begun again, to end in the same way, or until both sides are exhausted. The fact needs to be emphasized that the same qualities 396 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL have been exhibited by both sides, that human nature, when undiscipHned, is very much the same thing in mas- ters and in men, in employers and employed, and that neither side has a right to cast stones, but both should cry, ^'Mea culpa ! Mea culpa !" At some times and in some places it is the labor organizations which are dicta- torial, while the employers cringe and relinquish all their rights to maintain peace, but more frequently the em- ployers are arbitrary and tyrannical, asserting loudly that they intend to manage their own business as they choose and will not be interfered with by their workmen. Here is the weak point. There will never be justice between employers and employees, and consequently there will never be a lasting peace, until the public and the employers recognize the claim of the employees to a voice in the settlements of questions relating to wages and to hours and conditions of labor. All these questions are of vital importance to the employees, and do, in fact, more nearly concern them than they do the employers, for in the case of the latter it is only their business success, or their living, which is involved, while with the employees their living, their health and indeed the happiness of their whole lives are at stake. It can scarcely be expected that American citizens who have been born and bred with the instincts of freemen will submit tamely to a system which places their welfare entirely in the hands of others. This suggestion that the employees have a right to a voice in what is called their employers^ business will be new to many, and will at first seem to be unreasonable, but the more it is considered, the more just it will show WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 397 itself to be, and it will finally be acknowledged to be true. As Mr. William H. Sayward, Secretary of the National Association of Builders, an association of employers, says, in a lecture on the ''Relation of Employer and Workman" : ''The labor question has two component parts, the employing or profit-labor, and the performing or wage- labor, and it is folly to attempt to deal with the question at all imless both parties are united in the consideration. Neither party to the joint interest can handle the ques- tion alone." The next question which presents itself is the practical one, how can employees be thus taken into the councils of their employers, and the answer made by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, for many years State Railroad Commis- sioner in Massachusetts, and for many years also President of the Union Pacific Railroad, in an article entitled "The Prevention of Railroad Strikes" is one which must cause a responsive thrill in every American breast : "... It will be impossible to establish perfectly good faith and the highest morale in the service of the railroad companies, until the problem of giving this voice to em- ployees and giving it effectively, is solved. It can be solved in but one way: that is, by representation. To solve it may mean industrial peace." [Mrs. Lowell here repeated a quotation from Mr. Adams' article which she used in an earher paper entitled "Industrial Peace."] . Mr. Adams' solution is, however, unhappily, so far as American railroads are concerned, purely theoretic, and if 398 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL there were not in other industrial fields proof that the principle he advocates is correct, arguments might be presented against it, which now, however, are invalid, since experience has demonstrated that the representative system is as useful in business as in government. For the last twenty or thirty years in many large industries in England, all questions of wages, hours and conditions of work have been settled, without strike or lockout, by ''Joint Boards, '^ ''Boards of Conciliation'' or "Arbitra- tion Boards,'' on which the associations of employers and employees have been represented by delegates duly chosen and empowered to legislate for their constituents, and on these boards the employers and employees have always had an equal representation. In our country, also, and in Belgium, such boards are known and have met with equal success, but the practice of justice with us has been neither so long nor so widely extended as in England, and strangely enough employers here, instead of instinctively recognizing that this is the only solution of the difficulties of the labor question, assume a tone of arbitrary ownership and proclaim their right to issue orders which must be obeyed. From business men one might have expected more practical conduct, since it is very evident that those who adopt this position do not succeed in avoiding labor conflicts and disturbances which cause them great loss and trouble, while the employers who recognize the justice of their employees' claim to a joint control in questions of common interest do escape them. In the cases where "Joint Boards" are formed, the prer WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 399 liminary step usually is the mutual recognition that both sides are about equal in strength, that each can injure the other seriously, but that neither can conquer the other. The proof of this necessarily comes from the experience of a long series of alternating strikes and lockouts, the employees making unreasonable demands when trade is good, the employers doing the same when trade is bad, a system mutually predatory. Finally, it occurs to a few men on one side or the other that the whole thing is foolish, wasteful and wicked and unworthy of intelligent men who make their living by the help of each other. Tentative overtures are made, the most reasonable and fair-minded men on each side talk over the matter among their fellows, a conference is proposed, and is held, and with much difficulty at last a ''Joint Committee,'^ a ''Wages Board" or a "Board of Conciliation" is formed, with equal representation from both sides, to which is delegated the power to settle all questions relating to wages, and conditions of work. This sounds simple enough, and to a disinterested ob- server seems the only reasonable method of settling ques- tions which are of the greatest importance to both em- ployers and employed, which cannot be settled except by mutual consent, either forced or voluntary, and which must be settled if business is to go on at all. And yet, the obstinacy and arrogance of men makes this reasonable arrangement a very difficult one to accom- plish and at first a very difficult one to carry out. As I have said, the two sides must be about equal in strength, or in other words, both must be well organized ; 400 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL there must be a strong association of employers and a strong trade union or other labor organization, both of which shall represent either the majority of the em- ployers and workmen in the trade or else the most success- ful and best paid. This is necessary because the '^ Joint Committee '^ or ^' Wages Board" must be composed of representatives who are authorized to bind their con- stituents, otherwise their agreements would be empty words. Besides this, however, both representatives and the organizations they represent must in the main be honest men, honorable men, intelligent men, or the plan will fail. The employers' association and the employees' union must enter into the arrangement in good faith, trusting their own representatives, trusting the repre- sentatives of the other side, really wishing to have justice done and not wishing for unfair advantages. With these conditions success is sure. The Rights of Capital and Labor and Industrial Conciliation ^ When the rights of Capital and Labor are spoken of, capital does not, of course, mean money, for money can have no rights, nor does labor mean work, for work can have no rights ; capital really means men who have money which they wish to employ in productive industry, and labor means men who have strength and skill which they wish to employ in productive industry. Since, then, it 1 Digest of a pamphlet published by the Church Social Union, Boston, June 15, 1897. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 401 is the rights of men which are to be considered, it will be simpler and tend to a better understanding of the subject to ignore the confusing formula, capital and labor, and talk about the men who own the capital and labor and who wish to find a market for them, and thus reach the consideration of their rights. As regards the men themselves, there is one fundamental conception which is essential to all rational and just think- ing about them and their relations, and that is the recognition that they are economically equals under our present social conditions; the man with the money which he desires to employ productively is helpless to ac- compUsh his purpose unless he can find men to work; the man with strength and skill which he desires to employ productively is equally helpless, unless he can find men to pay him for his work. You will note that I said the men are economically equals under our present social conditions, because in a state of nature the man with the strength and skill would be able to dispense with money, while the man with the money would never be able to dispense with strength and skill, his own or those of some one else. I am also ignoring the men who combine capital and labor in their own persons, who possess at once money, brains, strength and skill, for those can be classed for our purpose either with one side or the other, and there is no necessity to compUcate the question by considering them separately. . . . Although the need of capital and labor, or money and strength, for each other is mutual and in the long run equal, the supply of capital has always been limited, and 2d 402 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the supply of labor has usually been excessive, which in itself would have given capital the power to dictate terms. In addition to this, however, capital was usually in the hands of men of intelligence and of men who, by means of their capital, could live while they bargained, and labor was in the hands of ignorant men, with no property but their strength, who must therefore suffer unless they could dispose of it daily, and must die if they failed entirely to dispose of it, which gave to capital a despotic power over individual laborers, even though as a whole labor was always more essential to capital than capital to labor. But with the development of the trade union, the sit- uation had gradually changed, to a great degree, in all the trades where that new force has had a direct influence, and to some degree in all the rest ; and the theoretical economic equality of the men who possess capital and of those who possess labor has become to some extent an actual equality ; for now, in those trades which have been long '' organized, '^ labor, as well as capital, is in the hands of intelligent men, who have accumulated means upon which to subsist while they bargain, and thus the two contracting parties can meet on equal terms and settle their business relations as other buyers and sellers settle them, by a consideration of the actual situation and a reasonable discussion and give and take between men of equal intelligence, knowledge and resource. Thus we are brought to the question of their rights, or what they may reasonably and rightly demand of each other when they thus meet to settle matters between them. If my position is correct, then they are in exactly WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 403 the same position as other buyers and sellers, and they have the right to demand of each other nothing beyond honest and courteous dealing. They are equals, and they go into the market and bargain with each other, and each has the right to take or leave what the other has to sell, according as the bargain suits him or does not suit him. It is absurd to talk as if it were morally wrong to ask high wages or morally wrong to offer low wages. Within the limits of honesty and fair dealing, it is merely a matter of business. I say within the limits of honesty and fair dealing, because, of course, if the bargainers are not equal, if for some reason, one side has the power to fix the terms, and uses that power unjustly, either to exact ruinously high wages, or to insist that men shall work at wages upon which they and their families cannot live, then it is not a question of business, but of morals. It is dishonest, exactly as other unjust and forced bargains are dishonest ; and it may also be cruel, as for instance, where promises of work are broken and wages intermittent. . . . After their bargain has been fairly adjusted, the owners of capital and labor become employers and employed, and then a new set of rights comes into existence, and these are the rights which most people have in mind when they talk of the rights of capital and labor, and it is the attempt to settle these rights which causes a large propor- tion of the labor difficulties that so distress us. And now I am going to take the liberty of turning the whole question around, and instead of trying to define the rights of employers and employed, I am going to try to define their duties. It will amount to the same thing 404 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL in the end, of course, for no one can have a right to any- thing which is not somebody's duty to supply. Perhaps it may be his own duty to supply it, but there is no right without a corresponding duty on somebody's part. I think all the duties of employers and employees as such may be classed under three heads. Their antagonis- tic duties, those which may bring them into antagonism with each other; their common duties, those they owe in common to the community ; and their mutual duties, those they owe to each other. . . . First, then, the antagonistic duties of employers and em- ployed are those which each owes to the men of his own class, so to speak, the duties the employer owes to his fellow- employers and the workman to his fellow-craftsmen. An employer should not follow his own immediate in- terests selfishly and blindly, destroying others engaged in the same business as himself ; he should not make such agreements with his employees as will redound to his own advantage and ruin his competitors. There is a limit be- yond which competition even will not drive an honest and conscientious man, and that limit measures his duty to his fellow-employers. In the same manner, a work- man has duties towards his fellow-workmen, and, to his credit be it said, he feels these duties far more strongly than the employer usually feels the corresponding duty. It is the duty of a workman to consider the effect of his action upon the welfare of his fellows ; he should not accept wages and conditions of work which, even though they be good for him at the moment, will tend to injure other workmen. . . . WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 405 The duties which employers and employees have in common are of course those they owe to the public for whom they work together and from whom they draw the return for their joint labor. They owe to them an honest product, work worth what they ask for it, fair measure and full time. . . . The mutual duties, or rights, of employers and em- ployees relate, of course, to the giving of a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, and the giving of a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, and they include from each to each honesty, justice and courtesy. But even assuming these qualities to exist on both sides, the difficulty lies in deciding what is a fair day's work, and what is a fair day's wage. . . . The technical name for the representative system of trade government is ^^ Industrial Conciliation," and the distinguishing features of the system are : 1. Its recognition that the two sides have an equal right to a voice in the decision of all questions of common interest ; and 2. The permanent character of the machinery employed. In every case of industrial conciliation employers and employees have an equal number of representatives, and the representatives have equal powers. In all cases of industrial conciliation there is estab- lished a permanent board or committee, called a ''Board of Conciliation," or ''Joint Board," or a "Wages Board." The most successful instance of a board of conciliation in this country is that formed in 1885 between the Mason Builders' Association, representing fifty firms of employers 406 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL in New York City, and the Bricklayers' Unions, which have a membership of about four thousand. The Asso- ciation of Builders chooses each year eight representatives to serve on the Joint Board, and the Bricklayers' Union choose the same number and the sixteen men settle by discussion and agreement every question which arises be- tween any employer and employee in their respective or- ganizations. This Joint Board holds monthly meetings, if necessary, during the year, but its most important work is the drawing up of the yearly agreement, which is done in the spring. A comparison of the first agreement, made in 1885, with the last one, made in 1896, is sufficient to show the de- velopment of the Board since its inauguration, and also the gains made by the bricklayers in shorter hours and higher pay, while the fact that there has been no strike or lockout between the members of the Builders' Associa- tion and the Bricklayers' since the Board was established shows as plainly the gains of the employers and of the community at large. . . . When this Joint Board was first constituted, it was agreed that should it be impossible on any occasion for the mem- bers to come to an agreement, an umpire should be chosen whose decision should be binding on both sides. The fact that, during the twelve years in which this Board has met and has discussed questions of great importance to all its members personally and to the thousands of men repre- sented by them, it has never yet been necessary to appoint an umpire, speaks strongly in favor both of the intelligence and justice of the men chosen to act as members. . . . WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 407 During the ten years that have elapsed since the first agreement was signed, many changes have been made, questions of a very grave character have been presented for action, and although it sometimes appeared as if a very determined effort was being made to bring about a dis- ruption of the good feeling that existed between the two bodies, yet in the end both parties would give way a little, and finally the question would be settled amicably — and that was done without once calling in an umpire. This fact alone shows that men banded together for a common cause can do justice, one to the other. The history of the Bricklayers for the past ten years could be that of every organized trade in our community. A still more successful board is that of the North of England Iron and Steel Conciliation Board, which has had an existence of thirty years and settles all questions of wages, etc., for the whole trade. It is thoroughly repre- sentative in character : one employer and one delegate elected by the workingmen from each firm in union with the Board constitute its membership. The Board meets twice a year, but it has a Standing Committee which meets once a month or oftener, and has power to settle all questions, except a general rise or fall of wages, or the selection of an arbitrator to fix such rise or fall. These matters the Board itself must act on. There are two secretaries, one chosen by the employers and one by the workingmen of the Board. Mr. E. Trow, secretary of the workingmen, in a speech of March, 1894, explains the reason and manner of its establishment, and describes the way it has worked. 408 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Mr. Trow said that in 1866 he had had experience of a twenty-two weeks' lockout. In 1866 the men were starved into submission, and in 1867 and 1868 the employers took advantage of their weakness and forced down the wages to compensate them for the cessation. ... In 1868 the men met to consider the advisability of forming a ''Board of Arbitration and Conciliation. '' They succeeded in estab- lishing that Board, and from the year 1869 up to the pres- ent there had not been more than half a dozen meetings either of the Board or Committee which he had not atten- ded. They found at first that they had many grievances with which their employers were not thoroughly conversant. When they first met there was jealousy and suspicion on both sides. But the employers afterwards found that the representatives of the workmen were not unreasonable men, and the workmen's representative found that when face to face the employers were amenable to reason. It was a positive fact that before that time they thought the employers were not amenable to reason, and looked upon them as enemies and tyrants. They were cautious at first, but the employers and workmen met around the board on an equality. The workmen's representative had the same voting power as the employers', the same speaking power ; and from that day to this not a single man had been taken advantage of for daring to differ publicly from this employer. [The remaining pages of the pamphlet are devoted to a description of methods of conciliation inaugurated in 1869 by Brewster & Co., carriage builders, of Broome Street, New York City, and carried out for three years.] WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 409 The Living Wage ^ Any manufacturing business which is to continue in existence must receive as the price of its product a sum which in the long run, year in and year out, will provide for the following payments : 1. A living wage for those who do the mechanical part of the work ; because if they do not receive a living wage they will cease to work, either because they will die, or because they will seek a living wage elsewhere. 2. The usual rate of interest on the capital invested in the daily output ; because otherwise it will be withdrawn and will be placed where it will receive the usual rate. Of course this is not an absolute necessity for the capital invested in the plant, because that is fixed and cannot be taken out. 3. A due return to the managers of the business that is sufficient to repay them for their time and trouble, or they will give it up and undertake some better paying enterprise. Thus every business must strive, in order to exist, to keep up the price of its product. Meanwhile, there is a constant attack by the purchasers, or consumers, to lower the price, and the competition between manufacturers for business, and between work people for work, leads them, in the absence of combinations among themselves, to seek business and work by underbidding each other ; and thus prices, profits, interest and wages all tend to fall, to the disadvantage of manufacturers, stockholders and working people and to the advantage of consumers, 1 Delivered at Cooper Union, June 1, 1898. 410 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL who are after all only the manufacturers, the stockholders, and the working people themselves appearing in another character, that is, as buyers of each other's products. The world of business presents thus the curious spectacle of the very same people contending as producers to keep up prices, wages, etc., and as consumers contending to keep them down. There is one great difference, however, between the two characters thus assumed by the same individuals. As producers they work in comparatively small groups, and can agree together upon a certain policy by which they can attain their object, while as consumers they must in the very nature of things be disorganized ; and they constitute indeed only a great machine which sometimes does horrible mischief without intending to, and indeed against its will, if it can be said to have a will, certainly against the will of its individual members. The way this machine works is this. Everyone by neces- sity purchases what he needs at the lowest price he can find. The retail dealers seeking business lower prices to meet this demand of the buyers ; the wholesale dealers are forced, in consequence and for the same reason, to lower their prices; in order to do this, they must lower the cost of production. They have three ways of accom- plishing this. (1) They can give up part of their own receipts. (2) They can diminish the interest on their capital. (3) They can cut down wages. Of course they may also be able to improve their methods, and so diminish the cost of production without any of these other steps ; and this they often do ; but I am now concerned only with the cases where such improvements are not made. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 411 Now, if the working people have made a combination among themselves, if they have a strong labor organi- zation, they can withstand the attack on their wages, and either force the manufacturers to put the loss on the other two partners in the business, or else they can so strengthen the hands of all the manufacturers in the trade that these can resist the tendency to lower prices, and so enable the retail dealers to resist the demand of the public, and force the consumers to pay a price which will give not only a living wage, but also the usual return to capital and a fair payment for the management of the business. This was apparently what the coal miners accomplished in the last great coal strike in England. The coal owners pro- posed to lower wages, using as an argument that they could not pay the usual wages because they had made contracts for coal at certain low prices. The reply of the strikers was that they must have a living wage and that the coal owners must not make contracts which rendered it impossible for them to pay a living wage, for otherwise they, the miners, would not mine the coal at all. After a contest of several months, during which the English people supported the strikers in this position, the latter carried the day, and the principle that workers are entitled to a living wage, and that business must be so conducted as to give it to them, was established in England. Their success was due primarily, of course, to their strong trade union, and there is no other means, except a trust among manufacturers, which can prevent a con- stant lowering of prices and wages from the pressure of competition among work people themselves underbidding' 412 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL each other, and among manufacturers underbidding each other. Having got so far in my attempt to show how, and how only, a Uving wage can be secured, it seems pertinent to stop to inquire what a hving wage is. A hving wage is the sum per day which any given group of working people has agreed upon, whether the agreement be expressly made or not, as the sum they must have to secure what they have learned to consider the necessaries of life, and it varies according to the stan- dard of living of each group of working people. What is a living wage to many is a dying wage to others. The great object to be striven for, both for a nation as a whole, and for the individual working men and women, is that this standard of living should be constantly rising, in order that the condition of the people may rise con- stantly. It will be a good thing for the American nation when a piano and a bicycle are regarded as necessaries of life by everybody, provided that the truth is also recognized that the necessaries of life are to be earned by honest hard work, and not by gambling and cheating, whether on a large scale on Wall Street, or on a small scale on Hester Street. One of the great dangers which threaten this country from the influx of uneducated foreigners is that the stan- dard of living should be lowered among us, and the only means we have to counteract this danger, if we receive them into the country, is to raise their standard by educa- tion, to develop them in all directions, until they will not work for wages that make a decent life impossible, until WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 413 they will not live in filthy, dark rooms, until they will not let their children go to work when they ought to be at school, until they will demand conditions suitable for self- respecting American men and women. Education is the one means by which the standard of living can be raised, education of every kind — by the public schools, by the churches, by labor organizations, by such institutions as this great and beneficent one in which we stand, founded by the large-hearted Peter Cooper in order that the young men and women of New York might have the advantages of which he himself felt the lack, when, a poor boy, he sought to educate himself. This very series of meetings is due in part to his public spirit, for the hall is given to the People's Institute in order to carry out Peter Cooper's direction that instruction should be given in the Cooper Union on social and political science, meaning thereby not merely the science of political economy, but the science and philosophy of a just and equitable form of government, based upon the great fundamental law that nations and men should do unto others as they would be done by. We must depend, then, on education to induce the coming generations to raise their standard of living, and thus to make their living wage high enough to enable them really to live, that is, so that their bodies, their minds, and their souls may reach the highest development ; and we must depend on labor organizations, and organiza- tions of manufacturers to resist the constant pressure of the purchasing public to lower prices to a point which makes this Uving wage an impossibility. 414 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL When labor organizations and organizations of em- ployers act together in joint boards of conciliation, they are, of course, far more effective for this purpose than when the two bodies act alone, and often in opposition to each other. We have in New York City a very good example of the good results of one of these joint boards, that of the bricklayers and mason builders, in many directions,, among others, in keeping up wages to a very respectable point as wages go — fifty cents an hour. I heard one of the Mason Builders' Association say last year : "Supply and demand have nothing to do with the wages of the bricklayers who work for our members; if there were- two thousand bricklayers looking for work in New York and I wanted ten only, I should have to pay the wages fixed upon in our yearly agreement.'' It is interesting to note that on May 5 of this year the fifteenth annual agree- ment was signed, and that there has been neither strike nor lockout between the eight bricklayers' unions of New York and the Mason Builders' Association since 1884. One more point, and I have done. It is greatly to be desired for every reason, moral and material, that the efficiency of labor should be increased ; and while it is true that high wages are one means of making labor more efficient, it is also true, and exactly as important, that efficient labor makes high wages possible, while it also de- velops and fosters the moral qualities without which high wages will be of but very little use. If labor organizations demand for their members, as they should, a fair day's wage, they should also guarantee from their members a fair day's work. WORK FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR 415 Professor Thorold Rogers, in his great book on "Work and Wages," — that splendid plea for an adequate living wage, — says in closing his Chapter XIV (and I will close also with this quotation) : "The joint action of working men is only in its infancy yet. As association becomes wider and more coalescent^ many steps which have not yet been taken will become natural and easy; as, for instance, the maintenance of a standard of honor and efficiency in work, and the protec- tion of the public against the roguery of producers, of which at present workmen are the silent witnesses, but should not be the willing accomplices. I know nothing which would exalt the reputation and justify the action of trade combinations more than the establishment of a rule that members of such unions should denounce and expose dishonest and scambling work, and protect those of their order who may suffer ill usage for having re- ported and checked such nefarious practices. "As yet the rules of trade unions are principally con- fined to the process of bettering the whole class. Here- after they will or should extend toward purifying the class and making it a potent instrument for the moral and material advancement of all. Other professions exclude, either formally or informally, misbehaving, disreputable or incompetent persons from their ranks. It cannot be doubted that in time to come artisans and laborers will elaborate the necessary regulations, by which they will increase the usefulness, elevate the reputation and culti- vate the moral tone of those who ply the craft whose in- terests they seek to serve, and whose character they ought scrupulously to maintain." CHAPTER XVIII The Woman's Municipal League of the City of New York Early in September, 1894, an organized movement was begun to overthrow the municipal control of the City of New York, long exercised by Tammany Hall, and shown by the recent exposures of the Lexow Committee Ho be both corrupt and criminal. In this movement the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst was a prominent leader, and the organiza- tion took the form of a non-partisan Committee of Seventy, pledged to a campaign for the honest, economi- cal, and businesslike administration of municipal affairs without regard to national or State politics. William L. Strong 2 was selected as the candidate for Mayor, and numerous reform clubs and other auxiliaries sprang into being to lend their aid. Among these was the Woman's Municipal League, which was organized early in October by Mrs. Lowell, in response to the appeal of Dr. Park- hurst. The evidence brought out by the Lexow Com- 1 Hon. Clarence Lexow, Senator from the Sixteenth District, offered a resolution, January 29, 1894, for the appointment of a committee to investigate the Police Department of New York City, of which committee he became Chairman. 2 Mr. Strong was elected Mayor, November 6, 1894, receiving 154,094 votes against 108,907 cast for Hugh J. Grant, the Tammany candidate. 416 THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 417 mittee had made plain not only the protection of immo- rality by the police, but also a systematized traffic in vice, in which women were the helpless victims. In their behalf, the help of the women of the community was therefore invoked. The general plan of action was to hold meetings of women both uptown and downtown, to be addressed by women; and the League also arranged for a mass meeting of men and women at Cooper Union, which was addressed by prominent citizens, including Dr. Parkhurst, Henry George, Seth Low, and Charles S. Fairchild. After the victory of the municipal reform movement of 1894, the League became inactive and practically dis- banded, but it was revived in 1897 to aid the Citizens' Union in its contest of that year for a non-partisan city government, and has since maintained its organization.^ The constitution adopted in March, 1898, declares as the object of the League : ''To secure active support for such movements and candidates as may give promise of the best government for the city, without regard to party lines." During the administration of Mayor Van Wyck, vice again became so notorious in the city that Mrs. Lowell re- entered the field at the head of the League in the interest of reform. In this municipal campaign, which resulted in the election of Seth Low as Mayor, ^ effective use was made, by sending a copy to every voter, of a pamphlet by Bishop Potter, entitled ''Facts for Fathers and Mothers," in which he showed how the lack of police protection and the venality of the police courts were in- * In 1910, under the presidency of Mrs. Edward Ringwood Hewitt. 2 Mayor Low was elected in 1901 on a fusion ticket. 2e 418 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL juring the home. Mrs. LowelFs active work as Secretary of the League was terminated because of impaired health in 1902. The League pubhshes a monthly Bulletin in which prominent mention is made that it was ^'Founded 1897 by Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell' ' ; it has its head- quarters at 46 East Twenty-ninth Street. The present purpose of its members is to devote the energies of the League between elections to developing among women an increasing interest in the government of the city. It is the belief of the League that what is needed to secure good government is a comprehension by the people of its direct bearing upon their own health, happiness, and moral wel- fare, and also of the impossibility of securing good govern- ment unless the business of the city is put into the hands of experts. If the work of the city departments can be presented in such a way as to make its complexity and difficulty understood by the people, they cannot fail in the course of time to demand that this work shall be con- fided to persons fitted by character and education to per- form it, and that it shall not be given out as spoils at the expense of the interests of the public. The plans for this work of education have not yet been perfected, but in general they are to take advantage of existing associations of various kinds, which already hold meetings for social and educational piu'poses, and to offer to present at such meetings matters connected with the government of the city, as, for example, by illustrated lectures on the various city departments, talks upon civil service reform, or upon such other kindred subjects as may seem appropriate to the special audience addressed. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 419 Mrs. Lowell contributed a history of the League to Municipal Affairs for September, 1898, and her helpful pen brought aid, through the League, to the cause of municipal reform in the campaign of 1903 in the two able letters which follow. To THE Editor of the Woman's Municipal League Bulletin : ^ I congratulate you sincerely on your exposure of the fallacy that Tammany cannot be beaten twice in suc- cession. The statistics given by you in your September issue prove that New York has shown itself in the last three mayoralty elections to be an anti-Tammany city, and this fact should be repeated over and over again from now until November 3, in order that all the time- servers who desire above all things to be on the winning side may fully understand that in voting the Tammany ticket they are putting themselves on the side of a hopeless minority. I congratulate the League also upon its intention to appeal to the indifferent to register, and above all, to vote after having registered. Such appeals will affect many. Individual women, however, can do more by reminding the men with whom they have influence of the great issues at stake in the coming election, and begging them to do their duty as citizens of no mean city. We have now, as Mr. Jerome has truly said, an administration of city affairs far better than any that New York has ever known, and, as he might have added with equal truth, far better than that of almost any other city in the country ; and it behooves all good citizens to give the Mayor who has done us this great service the opportunity to continue, to im- * From the Woman' a Municipal League Bulletin^ October, 1903. 420 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL prove, and to perfect his work, which is but just begun. For the sake especially of the hundreds of thousands of helpless people living in our crowded tenement districts, those who have votes should feel it a sacred duty to con- tinue the present administration in power. To the well- to-do it is of little personal moment what sort of city government we have. A man with money can make him- self quite comfortable under any kind of administration, provided he has no care for the good name of his city, and no sympathy for his suffering fellow-citizens. If the water supply gives out or becomes polluted, the well-to-do can buy plenty of pure water ; if the streets they live on are filthy, they can hire men to clean them ; a bad police force never troubles the rich ; their food is not adulterated; they need no Health Department to save them from disease; their houses are not invaded by prostitutes ; they can get fresh air and sunlight without the help of the Tenement House Department ; the Fire De- partment is not their only protection against being burned in their beds ; their children are educated whatever may be the condition of the public schools ; if a pestilence of typhus fever or cholera threatens the city, they with their families, can leave it. Far otherwise is it with the mass of tenement house dwellers. They are dependent for everything that makes life bearable, for everything that makes life possible, upon upright, intelligent and devoted city officials. Let women realize this, and let them appeal to the voters to register and to vote for the sake of these helpless people who live so near to us, but yet whose lives are so cruelly different from ours. Josephine Shaw Lowell. September 10, 1903. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 421 To THE Editor of the Woman^s Municipal League Bulletin : ^ Last week a young girl came into the office of the Woman's Municipal League, and asked to see one of the ladies there alone. She had evidently been pretty once, but now, in her shabby-gay clothes, she had lost most of her beauty, with her youth and her health. She had come to beg the Woman's League to reprint the pamphlet entitled ^^ Facts for Fathers and Mothers.'^ She was told that it was not regarded as wise to reprint this pamphlet. She then told her story. She had dearly loved the man she married, but a few days after the wedding he had placed her in a disorderly house. She was kept there five months, and she was never allowed to go out. Once she got where she could call a policeman, but he passed along without paying any atten- tion to her. Finally, she grew so ill that they let her go. Her health shattered, she had tried to earn money, but had failed everywhere except on the street. '^I have come,*' she said, 'Ho save other girls. If Tammany gets back, there will be a lot more of us out there.*' She was asked if she would not give her name so that the officers of the Woman's Municipal League might try to help her. ''I have no name, and you'll never see me again. There's nothing you can do for me," she said, and with that she left. To-night she is out on the street. It may or may not be wise to reprint the pamphlet, *^ Facts for Fathers and Mothers," but must we not face the question of whether we, by our indifference, are not risking the return of this awful collusion between the police and vice ? One can help by giving his time and strength, or by sending money to R. Fulton Cutting, the Citizens' ^ From the Woman's Municipal League Bulletin^ November, 1903. 422 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Union, 18 East Sixteenth Street. Will not the man or woman who reads this letter follow this poor woman's lead, and help to save the other girls? Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York, October 17, 1903. What can Young Men do for the City^ Looking back through history, up to a very late time, cities are by far the most important political divisions ; indeed, one hears very little of nations until after the Middle Ages. It was in the cities of the world that all the in- telligence and power were collected, and it was the cities that controlled the world. How many great and wonder- ful cities have grown up, fought, conquered, flourished and been destroyed within only four thousand years. Babylon with her marvellous walls and hanging gardens is now only a name. Thebes was built and destroyed before the beginning of history, and the story of her mag- nificence is so marvellous that it was supposed to be a myth until the mighty remains of her hundred gates, her colossal temples and statues, buried for thousands of years by the sands of the Egyptian desert, have in our own century proved the truth of the old traditions of her glory. Memphis took the place of Thebes, and stretched for eight miles on each bank of the Nile. Her ruins are now almost lost, but in the twelfth century were described as still, after four thousand years of decay, holding ''works so wonderful as the most eloquent could not describe. '^ Sparta, forever associated with the great name of 1 Dated March 28. 1898. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 423 •Leonidas and his three hundred, who held the pass of Thermopylae against the hosts of Persia, and though defeated saved the whole of Greece, is now lost. How many cities have been great which now are small ! Athens with her wonders of art, her statues, her temples, all more beautiful than any that man has since created, with her tragedians, and her philosophers, to whom the world of letters still turns for inspiration — that marvel of the world, that little city which in one hundred and fifty years produced more great men, men great in every direction, than any other country in a like period, has since shrunk into insignificance. Jerusalem, with her magnificent temple, Jerusalem, the scene of the event which has had more influence on human history than any other since history began, what is she now ? Rome, the Mistress of the World, through her great martial force and her power of organization, with such a genius of government that Roman Law is the foundation of the Law under which the civiUzed world still lives, what influence has the present Rome ? Alexandria, built by Alexander the Great, for hundreds of years leading the world in learning, with her great schools and her Library, one of the seven wonders of the world, three times destroyed by ignorant barbarians, three times again filled with the treasures of the literature of Greece and Rome, do we even hear the name of Alexandria now ? Constantinople, built by that wonderful man Constan- tine the Great to be the capital of the earth, from 424 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL which he governed the world and the church, righting* ancient wrongs, dispensing justice to the poor, and even to men cast into prison as criminals; issuing a decree permitting complaints to be made against his officers, and promising redress if they were found to have inflicted wrongs ; diminishing taxes with one hand and encouraging science and the arts and religion with the other ; what is Constantinople now but the seat of the worst despotism that disgraces the world ? But, although the glory and the power of these cities and of many lesser cities have passed, yet to them man- kind owes its civilization. In the beginning men roamed over vast tracts of lands as nomads, following their flocks and herds from pasture to pasture ; then a few weaker families, needing protec- tion against more powerful clans, settled in one spot, and they built walls around their rude huts to prevent the inroads of the wandering tribes. Then arose in the cities division of labor and the refinements of social intercourse ; laws were required to decide between the conflicting inter- ests of many people living so close together; and then patriotism, the love of the city, was developed from the sense of the advantages enjoyed, and of the exertions required to preserve them. And so came civilization and political government, the very names of which explain their origin. Civilization, from dvis, Latin for a citizen, means the city-fying of a people. Political, from polisj Greek for city, means only city-fied government. By the way, civil and politey polished and urbane^ all words describing pleasing manners and meaning only city-fied, show how THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 425 the city people developed beyond the heathen of the country, the dwellers on the heaths, in all that makes men agreeable and pleasant, as well as in the arts of civilization. But mankind owes more than civilization itself to cities ; it owes to them the principles of civil and religious liberty, the great birthright of mankind from which it has so long been shut out, but for which cities have for many hundreds of years contended. In antiquity, even, the rise of cities was the most im- portant source of republicanism, especially in Greece and Italy, and in the turmoils and contests for the city govern- ment were developed the great qualities which made the cities so powerful. Athens and Sparta and Rome were great because their citizens were great, and their citizens were great because they were citizens and not slaves. In the Middle Ages, the cities of Italy and of Germany were so many fierce republics, fighting with each other, fighting against popes, emperors, kings and princes, inde- pendent, self-governing, developing citizens whose names and works are still the wonder and admiration of man- kind. In Germany the cities strengthened themselves to resist the assaults of the feudal lords, and finally made common cause; and in 1239 Hamburg, Lubeck and Bnmswick formed the Hansa or League, called in English the Hanseatic League, to protect themselves from pillage, to extend their commerce, to prevent injustice, and to main- tain their rights ; and at one time there were eighty-five cities in the League; and from them, and from other 426 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL less well-known leagues, wealth, industry, knowledge, and equal laws spread through the nations of Europe. In Italy, meanwhile, the great republican cities, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Perugia, Pisa, Lucca, and others, also held their own against popes and princes who longed to conquer them; they were fierce, fighting cities; the3^ struggled with each other as well as with their would-be oppressors, and they produced wild fighting men, and great painters, and marvellous architects, and intellectual giants, and mighty preachers, and saints, all in rich profusion, men who created pictures, statues, cathedrals, which still draw thousands of pilgrims to Italy yearly to gaze in awe and wondering admiration at these treasures of peaceful and beautiful art produced in the midst of turbulent times. But with the development of luxury and self-indulgence in the cities, the citizens became unwilling to exert them- selves to defend their liberties. Single families grew rich, and with their money they corrupted the people, and gradually, both in the German and in the Italian cities, the repubhcan form of government vanished; the rich families in Italy and the provinces of Germany, with the consent of the people, destroyed their liberty, and with their liberty they lost their greatness. The excite- ment of the public life and the greatness of the public interests had developed men^s minds and characters, but when they were governed from outside, when public affairs were no longer their business, they shrank in body and in soul, and Napoleon Bonaparte found them an easy prey when he built up modern Europe and gave the finishing blow to the free cities of the Middle Ages. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 427 But though the age of the ancient free cities and of the free cities of the Middle Ages has passed, we in this modern time and in this modern world are entering upon a new age of mighty cities, cities mighty in numbers and in wealth, and which will be mighty in spirit and in power, if their citizens are worthy. The fierce, fighting little cities are no longer the champions of freedom; civilization and civility are no longer to be found only within walled towns ; but our cities are of tremendous importance, nevertheless, because of the great masses of people congregated within them. In the United States it will be very soon true, if it is not so now, that half the population is living in cities, and the condition and life of these cities is therefore of vital importance from two points of view. First, because the welfare of so many hundreds of thousands of people is involved ; and second, because if the majority of the people of the country are residents of cities, then the cities will control the nation, and the nation will be what the cities are. Thus both local patriotism and national patriotism must be aroused by an appeal in behalf of the welfare of our great city, just entering on its new life. Few people realize how helpless the inhabitants of a city are to secure their own well-being except by placing the management of public business in the hands of competent and honest men. In the country a family can control its own life and secure its own comfort. It makes but little difference to a country family whether the pubUc affairs are well or ill-managed. No matter how stupid or corrupt may be the supervisors of a countj^, the individual residents 428 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL can lead healthy and happy lives, and usually the only evil that will touch them at all nearly, will be a slight increase in their taxes. They can have fresh water, fresh air and good food, and every year they have a chance to change the men who are cheating them if they choose. But it is not so in the city ; the comfort, the health, the life, and, to a great extent, even the character of the people of a city, depend upon the kind of men who have control of the public affairs. Consider how vital to city people is a supply of pure water, and how helpless they are to get it for themselves. An insufficient supply of water means constant discomfort and trouble ; bad water means disease and death. Thou- sands of people die every year in Philadelphia and in other cities of the United States from typhoid fever, because they have bad water to drink, and they have bad water to drink because their city officers are corrupt and ignorant, and do not care and do not know how to get a supply of good water. Think of the awful suffering from disease and death, the loss of wages, the widows and children left helpless, that come to the people of those cities because they place the care of their public affairs in the hands of men who may be good Republicans or good Democrats, but who are not good men and good engineers. Consider again the helplessness of city people to protect their health against the evils that come from dirt of all kinds, dirty streets and foul houses, and from bad food ; suffering, disease and death in its most fearful forms, small-pox, typhus fever, cholera, yellow fever, the plague. These are the things that afflict cities that have ignorant THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 429 and corrupt men at the head of their affairs, and these are the things which are entirely banished from cities whose business is managed by men of intelhgence and honest devotion to the pubhc good. Passing over many other matters which affect the comfort and happiness of the residents of a city, but which the individuals cannot themselves control from day to day, let us for a few moments consider the tremendous influence the schools have upon the welfare of a city. If the schools are of the right kind, and teach the children what they ought to know, and if there are enough schools so that all children can have the advantages they offer, then the citizens will be noble, upright, intelligent men and women, taking care of themselves and their children, doing their duty, good, prosperous and happy. If, on the other hand, the schools are bad, or if there are not enough schools, then the city will have many poor, miserable, incompetent, inefficient citizens, and there will be much unhappiness and wickedness. Yet how helpless are the people of the city to influence the schools, except by choosing disinterested, honest, honorable, intelligent men to manage them. If, then, as is the undoubted truth, the health, happiness and moral welfare of the people of a city depend upon the kind of men to whom is entrusted the control of the city government, how mighty is the responsibility of the voters of a city for the use of the power put into their hands on Election Day ! Oh young men ! Upon you and your fellows depends the future of this great city and the wel- fare of her three milhon people, more than two milhon 430 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of them women and children whose very helplessness should be their strongest appeal to you to protect them, and to give them the health and happiness that they cannot have if you do not do your duty as good citizens. But even more imperative than the duty we owe to our fellow-citizens in this great city is the duty we owe to our country and to the world. Even more inspiring than the cry of the three million people of New York for protection is the cry of mankind that we shall not allow their hopes for a larger and nobler life to be blighted. All through history there has been but one great cause in human affairs, — the cause of liberty. In a thousand contests mankind has struggled for more liberty ; under a thousand names the fight has been waged. There have always been two parties in history, the party that stands for freedom and the party that stands for despotism. The object of human government is to secure liberty, for the end of government is the improvement of the race, and the race cannot grow without the liberty which gives to individuals the free use of their faculties. There- fore liberty is the condition of human progress, and liberty is the worthy cause for which all the great sacrifices of history have been made. This country sprang from the love of liberty combined with the ability to organize liberty into institutions, America was the protest against the spirit of despotism. Democracy is the putting into government the principle of the brotherhood of man. "All men are bom free and equal" are the words upon which the government of America is founded. When these words were written in THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 431 July, 1776, they were a new declaration in politics. Reli- gious liberty had been asserted and was making progress, but political liberty for all men was a revolutionary thought. Americans declared it and they fought and died to establish it. They carried on their revolution through seven years to defend their right to liberty, and they conquered, and established the United States government. Our country led the whole world in this declaration, and it opened the new path to the hopeless races of Eu- rope. The down-trodden and suffering people of the old country took hope from our words and from our deeds. This was our first great service to liberty ; but eighty years later we again spent lives and treasure for liberty, this time for the liberty, not of ourselves, but of a cruelly tortured race, crushed to the earth by our own people. The sin of slavery had darkened all our land and threatened to destroy our nation, and we fought and conquered a sec- ond time, and stood before the world as real believers in liberty for aU men, for black men as well as for white men. This country, then, has been the hope of all nations ; the lovers of liberty have looked to this country from all over the world for inspiration in their struggle ; they have appealed to our success to confound the advocates of despotism. But, alas ! we, we, the people of the City of New York, have failed the lovers of liberty. Our city, with its in- competent and corrupt government, instead of standing as an example to the peoples of Em-ope, instead of inspiring the men who are seeking to estabUsh the forms 432 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of popular government in the old countries, has become a shameful warning, and when in other countries men desire to prevent the spread of democratic government, when they desire to preserve old forms, they point to us and say: '' Beware! or our city will become a second New York!'' And not only does our neglect of our duties to our fellow-citizens thus dishearten the lovers of hberty all over the world. There is danger, as our cities, this city and other cities, come to control the country more and more that, having surrendered our civic liberties, we shall surrender our national liberties, and the United States of America will sink back and lose its proud position as leader in the progress of the world and as the vanguard of liberty. Do you ask me what I mean by losing our hberties? I mean putting the government of our city and of our country into the hands of selfish and self-seeking men at the direction of party bosses, whether they be of one party or the other. Men must either be free men or they must be slaves. To be free men they must have their own opinions and must follow them ; they must not go to the primary and go to the polls and vote as some one else has told them to. They must vote according to their own consciences, according to what they think is right, right for the city ; only if they do this are they free men ; only if they do this will they have a free government; only if they do this will the country continue to be a free country. If men vote because they are paid to vote, or because they want an office, or because their employer tells them to vote as he THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 433 does, or because their friend asks them to vote as he does, — then they are slaves, and though the government continues to be democratic in name, it is actually a despotic govern- ment. If we hope to preserve our nation, it must be by re- awakening the spirit of liberty in our people ; and that spirit must be exercised in our local affairs, because they are the affairs with which we have to do from day to day, and the affairs which influence us most and which we can most influence. And what are these affairs, and how can we influence them? Let us consider some of them. Take first that which concerns the health and comfort of every man, woman and child in the city every day — the cleaning of the streets. If you are good citizens, citizens who love our city and care for her welfare, you should watch that the men whom the city pays to clean the streets, and to carry away the garbage, do the work they are paid to do, and do it well. It is good for them, as well as good for us, that they should be self-respecting, honest work- men, and it will help them to be so if they are watched, and encouraged when they do well, and remonstrated with when they do badly. If you are good citizens you should watch the course of the judges and see that the poor and friendless, who cannot protect and defend themselves, are not oppressed, and that justice is done. You should know how the prisoners are treated in the prisons, and how the men and women arrested and awaiting trial are treated in the station houses. If you are good citizens, you should know how the poor 2p 434 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL people in the institutions of the citj'-, inithe almshouses, the hospitals and the asylums, are cared for, and know whether they have enough food and kind care and tender nursing. If you are good citizens, you should care about the public schools and know whether they are good and whether there are enough of them, or whether there are children in the city who are being deprived of the teaching which will make the difference to them between success and failure in life. If you are good citizens, you should care to have the laws enforced, and you should learn what the laws are, so that you may help to enforce them. The voters elect the members of the Legislature who make the laws, and the voters ought to know what their representatives are doing, and support them if they do right and condemn them if they do wrong. If yoa are good citizens, you should join in the move- ments to get playgrounds and parks and public baths and public libraries, and all the things that are needed to make the lives of the people of the city happy and healthy and noble and good, and you should demand of the men elected to office that they provide the city with all these things. Above all, if you would be good citizens, you must use your own intelligence, your own judgment, your own conscience, in regard to all these vital matters. Every American voter owes it to his country to educate himself to understand public affairs, and the more he studies them, the more intelhgent he will grow, and, as I have said, it is these local affairs which are the most important THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 435 to us, for those are the affairs that are nearest at hand and which influence us most and for which all citizens, and especially all voters, are responsible. What young men can do for the city and for the country may be summed up then in the exhortation to be good citizens. And finally, let me repeat, a good citizen must study the needs of the city conscientiously, decide what men and what measures are for the best interest of the city, and support those with courage and independence be- fore election and at the polls. A good citizen must feel the responsibility that rests upon every voter in a demo- cratic country to do his part in governing from day to day, and as a freeman he must scorn all dictation from others as to his course, and above all he must remember that upon his good citizenship depends the future of this great country. To the hands of the young men of this city is confided the welfare of her three million inhabitants, and the destinies of the United States of America. Be true to these great trusts, and you will deserve the love and gratitude of your fellow-men. Relation of Women to Good Government ^ The fact that women cannot vote, and have therefore no direct influence in the selection of those who control the government, has given rise to the false behef that they can exert no influence upon pubhc questions, and to the still more false belief that the character of the government is of little importance to them. The moment any thought ^ Digest of address delivered at the Young Women's Christian Asso- ciation, February 6, 1899. 436 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL is given to the subject, however, it is impossible not to see that good government is really more important to women than it is to men, for the same reason that it is more important to poor men than to rich men, because they have less power to protect themselves from the ef- fects of bad government. I will show you that this is true by illustrations taken from our own condition. We in New York live under three different governments — the National or United States Government, of which President McKinley is now the head, the State Govern- ment, of which Colonel Roosevelt is the head, and the City Government, of which Mayor Van Wyck is the head. Each one of these governments has different duties, and takes care of a different part of our lives, but there is not a woman or a child in this city who is not influenced, whose life is not made harder or easier, by the things done bj'- these three governments of ours. The National Government, among other functions, decides whether the country is to be at war or at peace with other nations ; it decides upon the tariff to be im- posed on goods we want to buy from other countries ; it decides how large our armies and navies are to be in time of peace, and it decides many other matters which affect the wages of every man, woman and child in the country who works for a living, and whether it makes decisions which are wise and right, or decisions which are foolish and wrong, is therefore something which is vitally impor- tant to all the people of the country, whether they can vote or not. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 437 Think how mtimately all these things influence our lives. When the nation is at war many women and chil- dren are deprived of those who should support and care for them. There are many widows and orphans made. The people have to bear heavy taxes and pay for the support of the government, money which otherwise would support themselves in comfort, and this forces women and children into the labor market. High tariffs on foreign goods deprive the people of the chance of having many things which would conduce to their comfort and welfare ; large armies and large navies in time of peace cost so much that the people suffer from the weight of taxation just as if there were a constant condition of war, and starvation and misery result, as in Italy and Spain today ; and it is the weak women and children who suffer most, for they have to bear what is put upon them, and cannot get away, as the men often can. Our second kind of government, our State Government, has also a great deal to do with our well-being or om* want of it. It has different functions from our National Government, and they are not so tremendously important as those, but they are important enough, and here again they affect women and children more vitally than they affect men , and poor men more vitally than rich men . The State Government has a great deal to do with education ; it has a great deal to do with all the sick and defective people of the State, with the insane, with the blind, the deaf, the idiotic, with all the institutions where poor chil- dren are cared for ; it has to do with fire insurance and with 438 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL banks, with all the prisons, and with many other matters that concern the welfare of the people. The State Govern- ment ought to watch over all these poor and unhappy people and see that they are not abused and injured, but are kindly cared for and taught and reformed and helped and cured ; and as women and children are more tender and suffer more from ill treatment and neglect than men, it is more important to them to have a good State Govern- ment. The State makes all the laws — the factory laws, the health laws, among others. Consider how closely these laws touch the lives of women and their children. In states where there are no such laws, women and little children work sixteen and eighteen hours a day; their lives are crushed and destroyed. They get no time to eat or to sleep, they get no time to study or to grow. It is the government, good or bad, upon which their fate depends. And even after the good laws are made, if there is not a good government which conscientiously carries out the good laws, they can of course accomplish nothing. Remember how long the law requiring that women and girls in shops should have seats and be allowed to use them was on the statute book before it was of any use to them. For thirteen years there was hardly a shop-keeper in this city who even pretended to obey the law, because there were no officers to enforce it. Then as regards the third kind of government under which we live, our City Government, it is of the utmost importance to the welfare and happiness of all the people, and especially of the people who are not rich, and of course to the women, as part of the people. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 439 [Mrs. Lowell then continued her address with a de- scription of the comparatively independent conditions of family life in the country, an argument which she used effectively in one of her papers on the Reform of the Civil Service, to emphasize the greater importance of good government for cities. Municipal control over the water supply, the food supply, public health and the cleanhness of the city streets she again maintains can be so exer- cised as to be a blessing or a curse to the inhabitants. Stress also is laid upon the duty of the city authorities to provide adequate fire protection, and the best possible public schools. It is important to all dwellers in cities to have good government, ^'or in other words Civil Service Reform." Several of the following pages of this unpub- lished address are devoted to a closely reasoned state- ment of the necessity of Civil Service Reform in the United States, and the great advantages to be derived from it, and it then continues :] To return now from this rather long digression, I think you will all agree that, even if I have not proved that good government is more important to women than to men, at least I have shown that it is all-important to both if they Uve in a city. I have also shown you that good government depends upon having intelhgent and honest men and women to do the public work. My next effort will be to show how women may help to secure the appointment of such men and women to public office. I think that there can be no doubt that if women could vote they would have more power, and could help more directly than they can now, especiall}^ in securing the enforcement of the laws which most concern themselves. 440 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Take for instance the law of 1881, of which I have already spoken, which requires that employers shall provide suit- able seats for their female employees, and shall permit the use of them. Although this law had been on the statute book for thirteen years, in many of the largest shops in this city, where hundreds of girls and young women were employed, the law was a dead letter, and these tired young creatures stood, at certain seasons of the year, from eight in the morning until ten at night, with only short intermissions. It is hard to believe that, were these women voters, their needs, and the law enacted to protect them, would not be more regarded. Again, I do not expect, and I do not desire, legisla- tion fixing any minimum rate of wages for women ; but is it unreasonable to hope that with the added dignity and sense of personal importance and the increased public spirit which the suffrage would create in women, there would come also the capacity for self-protection by organization ? The only possible means by which in the last resort wages can be raised is by union among the wage-earners, by labor organization. The fierce competi- tion among retail dealers caused by the great consuming public in its quest for cheapness forces them, wilhngly or unwillingly, to press hardly on the wholesale dealers, who in their turn are forced to drive the workers to killing work at starvation wages ; and the only power that can strike back, and stop the horrible pressure that crushes out life, is a strong trade union at the bottom. This, it seems, women cannot now have, for lack of self-confidence, and for lack of the sense of class obligation, of class public THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 441 spirit which would lead them to stand by each other and to consider the interests of their fellow-workers as well as their own. This tendency to think only of their own needs and to forget the needs of other women is un- doubtedly a strong influence in keeping women's wages down. Were women trained in class pubhc spirit, in an unselfish regard for the common interests of their fellows, they would reflect upon the effect of their own actions upon the latter, and we should not hear of an educated young woman who wants to add a little to her income taking a clerk's place, but refusing to accept more than half a clerk's salary because she does not need more. She would think of the women who do need more and whom her selfish unselfishness is helping to starve. If women thought more of the needs of other women, we should not hear of their taking neckties to embroider at one dollar and a half a gross '^and find their own silk," to get pin money. They would think of the widows and children who have to sit from four in the morning until ten at night to make a living out of the same embroidery. I believe that the qualities, needed to help women win good wages for themselves and for each other, courage, self-confidence, pubhc spirit, would be fostered by the suffrage, and that is one reason why I want women to have the suffrage. I also beheve that the vote would be an actual protection to women who are personally at the mercy of brutal men. There are not a few men who have no regard for women at all, who look upon them only as things to be injured, in- sulted, maltreated and abused at the will of men. The law 442 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL should protect women from such men, or at least should punish the men when they carry out their views to the personal injury of the unhappy women who are in their hands ; but the same view is too often held by the very judges themselves. Now, had the women the franchise, I cannot help believing that, besides the sense of independ- ence and the instinct of self-defence which would in them- selves be a protection to them, there would also be felt by the brutal man who now despises a woman, and thinks she is of no account, a sense of respect which would protect her still further, and that besides this, the judges, regarding the women as voters as of equal importance with the men, would punish injury to them far more severely than they are now inclined to do. This past winter a woman with her children was three times forced by fear to fly from her husband at night, spending the cold dark hours in an outhouse, and although each time she caused his arrest, he was discharged each time, with a reprimand only. Had the woman been able, as the man was, to punish the judge by voting against him, is it conceivable that he would not have given her the full protection accorded her by the law? But notwithstanding the disadvantage under which women labor because they cannot vote, I believe that they have already great influence in improving the govern- ment, and that they can have a great deal more, and that it is their duty to bring as strong an influence as possible to bear upon this subject of vital importance to themselves, to their children, and to all their poor and weak fellow- creatures. THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 443 The way to accomplish this is ; first, to care about good government; second, to inform themselves about these matters, to observe, to study, to think, so that they may be reasonable and know what they are talking about ; and third, that they should talk about them among them- selves, and with the men of their families and of their acquaintance, for they have one great advantage in dealing with public questions. Whatever other advantages or disadvantages may have come to the human race, and to women themselves from their being shut off in the main from the struggle for existence, it seems to me that there has been one great gain, their more acute moral sense. I will not deny that they have been narrow, nor that their moral sense has been used in a narrow field ; I only claim that as a class they have a more sensitive moral instinct than men as a class, and I therefore hold them to a stricter moral responsibility. Conscience in human beings is a very peculiar and one-sided thing. Have you ever reflected upon the startling charac- teristics of the professional conscience, using professional in its widest sense to mean anything by which people make their living ? Have you ever noticed that each profession has a conscience adjusted to its own peculiar conditions, allowing its members to perform acts which men of all other professions condemn? Lawyers have a code of their own, which enables them, without blame from their own consciences or from their fellows, to do things which to all other people appear to be at least of questionable hon- esty. Doctors also do many things which seem extremely strange to all other people. Business men, though they 444 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL perceive the extraordinary lapses from truth on the part of lawyers and doctors, yet themselves stray very far from what non-business men think square dealing. PoHticians are at least as far as the other professions from following the strict line of honesty, and as for corporation conscience, it seems the most perverted of all, for it has a morbid sensitiveness in one direction, that of the stockholders, and an amazing callousness in all other directions. How- ever, I only refer to these facts concerning the profes- sional conscience as a proof that the consciences of men are greatly influenced by the circumstances under which they must earn their livings, and to show that it is en- tirely natural that women, not having been subject to the strain of such circumstances, should have a normal con- science, and consequently a clearer moral sense than men. This clearer moral sense has, however, not been as useful in raising the standards of the human race as it ought to have been because of the very reason which has created it, because women have been shut out from the general life of the world. Now, however, that they are coming forward into the struggle of life, that they are taking part in public work and in movements for the public good, they should prize this power which their sheltered lives have given them, and feel to the full the responsibility which its possession imposes upon them. The danger is lest they should cast it away as one of the trammels which have hampered them in the past ; but if they do, they will commit a great sin, for it should be an inestimable blessing to them and to the world, and they should realize that it is a sacred trust. It THE WOMAN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 445 is another instance of the contrast between evolution and effort. Through the past ages since the human race ex- isted, the priceless faculty has been evolving in women, unconsciously to themselves ; but now that they have come to a higher intellectual development and recognize the quality in themselves, unless they consciously preserve and use it, applying it as a test to every plan of action presented for their acceptance, they will lose it. ' In reform movements, as in other undertakings, the great service which women can render is the maintenance of uncompromising ideals. They can do this now more easily than men, because they still have the more acute moral sense and see the ideal more clearly, and because they are still in a measure re- moved from the necessity of acconamodating the ideal to the details of the actual. In other words, women may have the privilege if they will, of pointing to the higher aim to which all action should be directed, and of ignoring the means by which the aim is to be reached. But they will not long continue to hold these advantages unless they consciously and conscientiously exercise them. The temptation to give up the ideal will assail them also as they are more and more drawn into the strife, and to give up the ideal means to give up working with the eternal laws of Right, and to work against them, to give up working with God and to struggle against Him. CHAPTER XIX Tramps ^ September 30, 1896. Commander Booth Tucker, Salvation Army. Sir: In asking you to appoint a time when we could explain to you our views and plans in regard to the best way of dealing with homeless men in New York City, we did not say why we regarded ourselves as having any particular claim to be heard on the subject, so that you will now excuse us if we introduce ourselves more at length. We are members of a body which, since its organization two years ago, has devoted especial attention to the best way of diminishing vagrancy in this city, and, as individuals, we have each studied the whole subject in its wider aspects for a much longer period. New York City, among its other peculiarities, has been peculiar in never making any decent public provision for the care of homeless men until within the past year, when a beginning, to be described later, was made. In place of any such provision, there grew up the most pernicious system ever known in any civilized commu- nity, the police lodgings, whereby men and women were received for the night in the precinct station houses, without examination of any kind, kept practically without * Written by Mrs. Lowell for the committee. 446 TRAMPS 447 supervision, given no bath, no bed, no food, and turned out each morning, to return at night to the same or some other station house, and continue this Ufe for years. No one has ever been found to defend this practice ; during the past twenty years at least it has received fre- quent and strong condemnation from many quarters ; but it was not until March 15 of this year, that the last lodging room was officially closed. The essential evils of the pohce lodgings system were three : 1. Danger of physical contagion. 2. Certainty of moral degradation. 3. Encouragement of vagrancy. A proper system should avoid all three, and substitute for them the corresponding advantages : 1. Cleanliness and safety from disease. 2. Moral improvement. 3. Gradual diminution of vagrancy. It has been during the past two years the object of the Committee to which we belong to introduce such a system in this city. In 1895 we issued a small pamphlet, '^How to Help Homeless People, '' a copy of which we leave with you ; and in consequence of our efforts, the Department of Charities and Correction undertook to receive homeless men at East Twenty-sixth Street and lodge them over night, with the intention, as we hoped, of disposing of them the following morning in accordance with their own statement, sending men not resident sixty days in this city to the care of the State Board of Charities as State paupers, and sending self-confessed city vagrants to the institution provided by the city for the care of homeless men — the Workhouse. The intention was never carried out, however, and gradually, during the summer of 1895 there grew up on 448 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the East Twenty-sixth Street dock a lodging room which was almost as bad as the police lodgings and to which hun- dreds of men came night after night to lodge as a matter of course. There was practically no more examination than at the precinct station houses ; there was not much more supervision ; and, as in the latter, here also vagrancy was directly encouraged, the dock lodging house of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction being only another evil added to the police lodging rooms. In consequence of this condition, the Committee on Vagrancy, of which we are members, applied to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment on December 26, 1895, in support of the request of Commissioner Faure of the new Board of Charity Commissioners, for an appropriation to provide a proper system of caring for homeless men by that department. Stress was laid on the fact that the principal thing required was inquiry into the actual con- dition of each individual who applied for lodgings as home- less, in order to discriminate in disposing of him, so that men with homes in other cities should be returned to them by the State Board of Charities under the State Pauper Law ; that actual city vagrants should be committed to the Workhouse ; and that young beginners in the de- grading life of vagrancy might be ^f erred to private charity and some hope of salvation be offered them, the object in all cases being to stop the homelessness. Inquiry being the first step, money to pay inquiry officers was needed, and properly qualified officers. The money asked for ($10,000) was appropriated, on the un- derstanding that this provision by the Department of Charities for the proper care of homeless men was to take the place of the Police Lodging Houses, and on March 11, 1896, the City Lodging House was opened and, as we have said, on March 15, the Police Lodging Houses were closed TRAMPS 449 and one stain removed from the name of our city. The City Lodging House was kept open for nearly three months, and the result was very encouraging, despite the imperfections incident to an entirely new undertaking. We were not at all satisfied either with the amount or thoroughness of the inquiries made, and yet even the imperfect work done more than confirmed our previous opinion as to its value. The statistics collected were very striking, showing among other things that out of a total of 9,386 lodgers, 3,622 had been in the city less than sixty days and 968 more less than one year, while 4,678 were under 30 years of age, and in good health. From these figures our conclusions are that what is needed for our city is a temporary lodging house maintained by the Depart- ment of Charities, where men accidentally homeless may be received and kept so long as is necessary to determine as to the appropriate disposition of each one, but that there is no need to supply any permanent resort for homeless men in the city, since we believe that such a place would serve only to encourage men in a Ufe of vagrancy, than which nothing, in our opinion, could be more cruel. And it is upon this ground that we are disturbed by what we understand to be your plan to establish cheap or free lodging houses, and we have asked for this meet- ing in order to beg that you will not put it into operation. Unfortunately there are in the city already 104 cheap lodging houses for men, with 15,368 beds, the cost per bed per night running from 7 cents to 35 cents. These are acknowledged by all persons, we believe, to be an unmiti- gated evil, and although we know that such lodging houses as you would control would have many features not to be found in the existing houses, yet we are firmly convinced that even your lodging houses would, in the end, serve to increase vagrancy. 2g 450 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The number of vagrants in any city or country is not at any time fixed, but fluctuates with conditions and temp- tations, and every additional provision, good, bad, or in- different, made to shelter homeless men, will serve to draw men,, who have homes, but who for any reason do not like themT^rom theirtei^es^nto a homeless state. Insteadof substituting your lodging houses for the existing lodging houses, you will only add them to them just as the lodg- ing at East Twenty-sixth Street was in 1895 added to the police lodgings, and the number of homeless men will correspondingly increase. Instead then of creating a few thousand more vagrants for the purpose of trying to raise them morally afterwards, will you not bring the great power of the Salvation Army to bear on the vagrants who now live in our New York lodging houses? Hire rooms or buildings next to lodg- ing houses now in operation and fit them up with every appliance for moral and spiritual care, and attract the lodgers of actual lodging houses into meetings, for instruc- tion, for pleasant social evenings, for religious teaching ; but do not tempt from the country the innocent, honest lads who are longing to try their luck in the great city and who, when they hear that the Salvation Army has chea^ lodgings, will think it right to come and live in them, for, "iTyoudb, the souls of those who go to destruction in this city will far outnumber any that you can save, and you will do them and all of us a great injury, which all the good you have done cannot outweigh. We shall, of course, continue our efforts to secure for the, city such a system for the care of homeless men as we believe to be needed, including a temporary shelter in the city and a Farm School for vagrants to take the place of the Workhouse, as soon as it can be established and we hope that we shall have your help in this. As to shelters for homeless women, TRAMPS 451 we can only quote from our published report of last Spring, when we said : "To turn now to the more difficult problem of homeless women — the committee beUeves that the added de- gradation which must almost inevitably cling to that unhappy creature, a homeless woman, even beyond that of a homeless man, and the fact that she is a constant danger and injury to all around her, makes it still more cruel to provide shelters for such than for men. There is less excuse for them also, because, unless a woman is a confirmed drunkard, she can usually find some home whereat least her board will be gladly given for her services ; and if she is a confirmed drunkard, she had far better, for every reason, be placed in the care of an institution than encouraged to remain at large. "The effort should be to force all homeless women either into the workhouse, the almshouse, or into per- manent homes, where they can be watc hed over and j 3rQ=-- tect ed from the mse lves and^thers, a nd from which they cac^be sent tQ,gLtiLatioBfr in- families. Such places (like the 'Hopper Home,' 'House of the Good Shepherd,' 'Magdalen Benevolent Society' and others) are a blessing, but not homes which allow their inmates the liberty to come and go at will. "In the September 1895 number of the London Charity Organization Review, is an article on 'Cheap Shelters,' from which the following extracts are very suggestive : 'The good intention in starting "Women's Shelters", is to help the poorest and lowest, and, by providing decent lodging free, or for the smallest payment, to clear the streets of women who, though homeless, will not go to the workhouse. So far are these shelters, ip. fact, from accomplishing this, that the actual result 452 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL is precisely the reverse of that intended, and instead of clearing the streets, a women's shelter has the effect of considerably increasing the number of bad women who haunt them. ^To put the matter plainly, women's shelters give dis- tinct encouragement to immorality by making a life of sin more easy to women and girls, through the casual shelter afforded them. Women of bad character ad- mitted for the night are turned out next morning to spend the day and evening in the streets or as they can, and are again admitted at night. This enables them to carry on their shameful trade freely, making use of the shelters when it suits their convenience. 'Nor is this all. Besides the facilities to women of the neighborhood, others of the lowest class are attracted from a distance, thus increasing the special evil a shelter is designed to remedy. 'The question of the harm done by women's shelters is altogether too large a one to be discussed on the narrow basis of benefit to a percentage of those admitted. The harm done outside can never be precisely reckoned up : but it is of a nature so calamitous and enduring in its effects that the worst injury from dirt or small-pox is as nothing in comparison.' ''There are, of course, and must be, some casual cases of homelessness of women and children, and the practical way to manage these is not to encourage the cruelty'- which turns helpless creatures into the street, by providing per- manent places for them, but to treat each such case on its own merits, and with strangers, to send or much better to take them to the Joint Application Bureau at the Charities Building, 105 East Twenty-second Street, which is open from 9 A.M. to midnight every day, excepting Sunday, and from 6 p.m. to midnight on Sunday, where each case TRAMPS 453 will be carefully considered and provided for in some way.'' (Signed) Josephine Shaw Lowell, Charlotte Lindley Couper, John A. McKim, R. R. McBURNEY, Wm. H. Tolman, Jno. Lloyd Thomas, Jacob A. Riis, Homer Folks. The Influence of Cheap Lodging Houses on City Pauperism ^ There are two ways of looking at the problems pre- sented by city vagrancy and homelessness. They are exactly opposite in every respect, and result, naturally, in exactly opposite conduct. The first, which is held by a large company of most in- telligent and philanthropic men and women all over the world, is that the present condition of things is susceptible only of mitigation, never of radical change. They appear to think that because vagrancy and homelessness have in every civilized community always been one of the worst of evils, therefore they must continue, and that all the community can do is to make their evil less evil ; for even they, I think, do not contend that vagrancy and homeless- ness can be changed into benefits either to the unhappy victims or to the community. ^ Written for the Baltimore, Maryland, Charity Organization Society, February, 1897. 454 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The course of action they advocate is that decent pro- vision shall be made for homeless and vagrant men and women, that they shall be recognized as a necessary part of the body poHtic, and that both private charity and the municipal authorities shall build for them cheap or free lodging houses, where they may Hve clean, healthy, decent, and even comparatively comfortable lives, in order that they may themselves not be miserable and also that the community may be protected from the contagion of moral and physical disease which they spread about them, when they are neglected and ignored. There is, of course, much to be said in support of this view and this course of conduct ; but the other party dis- sents from it in toto and thinks the providing of cheap and free lodging houses as places of permanent, or anything approaching permanent, residence is a great economic mistake, and that though it is undoubtedly benevolent, it is not beneficent, but on the contrary does harm and is cruel. Those who hold this view, among whom I desire to be counted, believe that vagrancy and homelessness need not be permanent evils, and that they ought not to be allowed to be permanent evils ; that they can be cured, and that they ought to be cured. We think that the life in a cheap lodging house, under whatever management it may be, is a life not fit for a man to lead ; and further that a life without duties, without ties, without affection, without home influences is a life which is demoralizing, whether it is led in a luxurious clubhouse on Fifth Avenue, or in a miserable ten cent lodging house TRAMPS 455 on the Bowery ; and that therefore people who are trying to do good to their fellow-men should establish neither lodging clubs nor lodging houses, although both will unfortunately be estabUshed by people who are seeking pleasure and gain. Pray do not misunderstand me. The lodging houses we object to are such as make men contented with this miser- able isolated Ufe; which make a man physically com- fortable without raising his moral and mental standards ; which provide lodgings and food, and allow the lodgers entire liberty to procure the money to pay for them in any way they can ; which allow men to settle down for years, accepting these lodging houses as substitutes for homes. A home which takes entire charge of its inmates, which teaches them and raises their standard and makes them hate the life they are leading; which keeps them only so long as is necessary to train them for self-support; which pushes them on and up continually, is not what I refer to. The trouble is that the usual free or cheap lodging house, instead of raising the moral and intellectual stan- dard of its inmates, descends to their standard, except physically, accepts their view that the homeless hfe is a natural and necessary one, and by making it more bearable, tends to confirm them in their love for it. The cheapening of the means of living, although a blessing to persons whose standards are high enough to make them desire and strive for something better than a bare existence, is a curse to many who are satisfied with merely living, if they can accomplish that without any exertion. This 456 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL living without exertion and with Hberty to indulge the lowest propensities makes up for many deprivations, and it is this that makes cheap lodging houses so attractive and so fatal. The only way to counteract the temptations presented by this life is not to present facilities for carrying it on, but on the contrary to force, to drive, to spur all those who are inclined to it into a better way. There are in this city already 105 cheap lodging houses, with beds for sixteen thousand men, the cost per bed per night running from 7 cents to 35 cents, and these are acknowledged by all persons, we beheve, to be an unmitigated evil ; and yet the first of these was established by the advice of a City Missionary, who thought that to provide one or two such houses would be a great blessing to homeless men. He certainly never looked forward to providing for sixteen thousand men in such places. The former Chief of PoHce, Superintendent Byrnes, said of them : ^'It is undeniable, that the lodging houses have a powerful tendency to produce, foster and increase crime. In nine cases out of ten the stranger who drifts into a lodg- ing house turns out a thief or a burglar, if indeed he does not, sooner or later, become a murderer. Thousands of instances of this kind occur every year.^' I am aware that one principal object of cheap lodging houses established by municipalities or by private charity is to supersede the common lodging houses, or force them to improve by the competition ; but I contend that the object cannot be attained by this means and that the improvement of common lodging houses must be accom- plished by law and by strict inspection. TRAMPS 457 This, then, is our first charge against cheap lodging houses : that they do not really help, but on the contrary, that they keep down those who frequent them. But we beheve that they have also to answer for a worse sin, and that every new lodging house, under whatever manage- ment, increases the number of vagrant and homeless persons. It is because young people think there are so many chances of getting on in the great city that they now flock into it, and everything which makes them think it still easier to find food and shelter without much trouble but adds to their number. You may well ask me what measures we, who believe that vagrancy and homelessness can be cured, do ad- vocate? How do we propose to cut off the streams? First we believe in treating each one of these unhappy men and women, so far as it is possible, as an individual, finding out about them and using the knowledge gained to do what is best for him or her. Speaking broadly, there are three classes of persons styled homeless in any great city. To begin at the end, there are those who choose to be homeless. For them to be shut up away from the over- powering temptations which destroy them would be a mercy. They should be arrested as vagrants and kept in what General Booth has called ''An Asylum for Moral Lunatics," and failing such a refuge, in the workhouse for the longest terms allowed by law. In the second class are the honest seekers for work who come to the city, ignorantly thinking to find the means 458 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL of self-support here, and fail entirely, being forced to seek charitable aid within a few days of their arrival. They will in an incredibly short time become demoralized if they are encouraged to hope ; and they should be snatched up and sent home as soon as possible; at any rate, it is cruel to do anything to keep them in a life which leads to the lowest depths. The third class is of young fellows who either do not know how to earn their living, or do not care to do it, who are ignorant, or else lazy, or only without any settled habit of work. Whether they have homes or not, they certainly should never be allowed to live permanently in free or cheap lodging houses if it can be helped. If charity has to support them, it should be in some place where they would be under control and where they should be taught to work steadily every day and all day long. One of the great evils of cheap lodging houses, whether commercial or charitable, is that a man who gets good wages can earn by one or two days' work enough to pay his way for a week, and a man who works two days each week and idles four is not a desirable person, whether regarded as an individual or as a member of the community. There- fore the benevolent should not provide houses where men may live in this way, but should, by all means, provide places where they shall be obliged to work hard and reg- ularly. Farm schools are the best places and are in- tended to receive and educate the young men who claim to be homeless in this city. Of the 9,386 lodgers who in two months last year were received in the City Lodging House, 4,678 were under thirty and were strong men. TRAMPS 459 Surely it is only cruel to encourage such men to lead an idle, worthless life and to become confirmed vagrants. The Committee on Vagrancy of the Conference of Charities, which holds the views I have been trying to explain, advocates the maintenance by the city of a lodging house to be used as a distributing centre for the three classes I have described, and of a farm school where those who cannot be otherwise provided for shall be trained. CHAPTER XX Miscellaneous Papers Imprisonment of Witnesses My dear Mr. Fairchild : ^ I have an uncomfortable feeling that I wrote to you some time ago and asked if you could give me the chapter and year of the law which you were instrumental in having passed, forbidding the imprisonment of witnesses in this State, and that you were unable to do so. This does not deter me, however, from asking again, if you can help me to find the law in question, for I have just heard of a most flagrant case, that of a Norwegian sailor, whose pocket was picked by a companion, and who has consequently been already imprisoned in the Richmond County Jail, which is a filthy hole, full of criminals and vagrants, for thirty days, and unless something can be done about him, he is to stay there another month. If he should turn anarchist, or nihilist, and murder every- body connected with the law or government when he does get out, it would not be a surprising result ! Sincerely yours, J. S. Lowell. November 2nd, 1891. * Letter to Hon. Charles S. Fairchild. 460 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 461 The Elmira Reformatory^ To THE Editor of the Evening Post. Sir: May I say a few words more about the Elmira Re- formatory inquiry ? I wish to call attention to one of the worst results of this whole deplorable business, that is, the discredit which will fall upon the system upon which the State reformatory was estabhshed, and upon which it was successfully conducted during the first years of its existence. Mr. Brockway^s principle that moral means are the most efl&cacious in reforming criminals is sound, but Mr. Brock- way himself has dealt it the most fatal blow by abandon- ing it for 30 per cent of the population of the reformatory, and the danger is that this will be accepted as proof that the principle itself is false. As a fact, however, what has been proved is that Mr. Brockway was right when he said the reformatory should not contain more than five hundred inmates, and his own failure is due to the fact that, despite the protest of the State Board of Charities, made yearly since 1886, the managers have, nevertheless, allowed the institution to be extended until it now contains foxirteen hundred inmates, and this number, Mr. Brockway says in his testimony, cannot be managed by one man with- out recourse to the old brutal methods which the re- formatory was established to supersede. Mr. Brockway is himself the most pitiable victim of this misuse of the reformatory, for it has made him false to the very principle to which he has devoted his fife. Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York, September 26, 1894. 1 Published in New York Evening Post, September 27, 1894. A62 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Inspection of Private Charities^ The recent decision of the Court of Appeals in the case of the State Board of Charities vs. the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is not of extreme importance so far as regards the nominal ques- tion involved, for, whether the State Board of Charities inspects or does not inspect the building of the society, the welfare of only a comparatively small number of per- sons will be affected in a small degree, if at all. There are two other aspects of the decision, however, which seem to me to be of very great importance to the people of the State of New York, and these have received so far too little attention from the public press. The State Board of Charities was established in 1867 by Chapter 951, and was required by that law to visit ^^all the charitable and correctional institutions of the State, excepting prisons, receiving State aid." By Chapter 571, Laws of 1873, the powers of the Board were enlarged, and the Board or any of its commissioners was thereby au- thorized, whenever they deemed it expedient, "to visit and inspect any charitable, eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory institution in the State, excepting prisons, whether receiving State aid or maintained by municipalities or otherwise." , After the passage of this law the Board exercised this power whenever in its opinion any institution in the State which had the care of dependent persons, whether men, women or children, was suspected of not giving proper * Published in Charities of January 27, 1900. MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 463 care to those dependent persons. During the twenty-j&ve years from 1873 to 1898 the only important society, if I remember rightly, which protested against the right of the State Board to inspect was the New York Hospital, and this upon the ground that the charter granted by King George III to that society protected it from inspection by a board created only by the State of New York. But the present decision now, after twenty-seven years, plainly declares that the State Board of Charities has the power to inspect only institutions which receive public money for use or distribution as charity, and thus all institutions which do not receive public money are withdrawn from its supervision, and the dependent inmates are left with- out the protection which the State has afforded them for more than a quarter of a century. This aspect of the decision which affects the welfare of thousands of dependent and helpless men, women and children is certainly important enough to attract public attention, were there no other. There is another aspect of this decision, however, which is still more grave, for it tends to undermine respect for the opinion of the majority of the judges of the Court of Appeals, and that certainly would be a public calamity. As stated above, the law of 1867, establishing the State Board of Charities, did pro- vide that it should inspect only institutions receiving State aid ; but the law of 1873 swept away that restriction, giving it power, in its discretion, to inspect others, and Article VIII of the Constitution of 1894, with the laws of 1895 (Chapter 771) and of 1896 (Chapter 546) made it the duty of the Board to inspect all charitable institutions, 464 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL for they provided that the State Board of Charities ''shall visit and inspect all institutions, societies and associations, whether State, county, municipal, incorporated, or not incorporated, private or otherwise, which are of a chari- table, eleemosynary, reformatory, or correctional char- acter or design/' Now, in the face of this expUcit statement of the con- stitution and the laws that the State Board of Charities shall visit and inspect all institutions coming under the above description. Judge O'Brien states, and Judges Parker, Gray and Bartlett concur, that ''The powers of the board over charitable institutions originated in the abuses supposed to exist in the appro- priation and expenditure of public money for charitable purposes. . . . The charity with which the State is con- cerned . . . consists in the distribution of rehef or public aid, the fruit of taxation levied alike upon the willing and the unwilling. The right of visitation and regulation ap- plies only to those institutions, public or private, through which the State fulfils this function. They alone are within the reason of the law, and, consequently, within its scope and operation. One of the most familiar rules of statutory construction is that general words must be limited to the particular purpose or end which the law- makers had in view. They must be understood and ap- plied in the special sense in which they are used by legis- lators. What may be called governmental charity, or charity based upon public taxation and administered by a system of statute law, is a very different thing from the charity that moved the good Samaritan and prompted the widow's mite. The power of visitation and regulation applies to those institutions administering charity of the MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 465 former kind, in whole or in part, but not to those volun- tarily engaged in some good work of the latter character. They are left by the State to manage their own affairs in their own way, or, at all events, are not within the juris- diction of the State Board of Charities. That jurisdiction can then be defined by the application of a very just and simple test. If the particular institution, whether public or private, receives public money for use or dis- tribution as charity, and not for some other reason and some other purpose, that institution is subject to visitation by the Board, but this system of State supervision does not extend to the efforts of private benevolence. That may flow in various channels not subject to State regula- tion, since the government is in no way concerned with it.'' Now, the opinion is quite correct, so far as the first sentence refers to the law of 1867 (Chapter 951) establish- ing the State Board of Charities ; by that law the Board was empowered to visit and inspect only institutions re- ceiving State 'aid ; but what explanation is there of the fact that the decision is based on this law, which was in force only five years, and practically ignores its amend- ment twenty-seven years ago, by the law of 1873 (Chapter 571), empowering the Board and its commissioners to visit all institutions receiving State aid, or maintained by municipalities or otherwise, and further ignores the Constitution of 1894 and the laws of 1895 (Chapter 771) and of 1896 (Chapter 546), making it the duty of the Board to visit all institutions, enumerating even those ''not in- corporated,'' which certainly never received any State aid? It is no light matter that the confidence of the 2h 466 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL public in the intelligence of the majority of the judges of its highest court should be put to such a test. Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York, January 22, 1900. Moral Deterioration Following War I cannot speak on this subject without making a dis- tinction between different kinds of wars. A war which requires personal sacrifice, a war which makes a whole people place patriotism and public duty above private comfort and ease, which forces men and women out of self-indulgent devotion to material wealth — such a war does not as a whole cause moral deterioration, but on the contrary moral development in a nation. Such a war was the Civil War in this country forty years ago, and yet even that war, fought for noble purposes, and lifting the nation in some ways to a much higher moral plane than it had ever reached before, even that war was the cause of moral deterioration in many individ- uals, and dishonesty and recklessness were without any doubt fostered by it among the people at large. But if that is unhappily true of a war in which the motives were to preserve the life of the nation and to free from slavery four million men and women, what can be said of a war in which the nation makes no sacrifice, does not even feel the weight of added taxation, goes about its own selfish business and its own selfish pleasures exactly as if not in any sense responsible for the war ? Not only can no moral good come from such a war, but great moral evil must ensue. MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 467 To our disgrace, it is in such a war that the people of the United States are now engaged in the Phihppine Islands ; and I shall not ask you and the promoters of this meeting to excuse me for devoting the rest of my time to a con- sideration of this concrete instance of the ^^ Moral Deteri- oration following War/' because I believe it could not be more profitably spent. The history of the introduction of the United States to the Philippine Islands is a disgraceful one. In April, 1898, Admiral Dewey was ordered to prepare to take Manila from the Spaniards, and our Consul at Hong Kong arranged with him that a young Filipino named Emilio Aguinaldo, who had been at the head for one or two years of a revolutionary party in the Philippines fight- ing against Spain, but who at that time was resident in Hong Kong, should meet him for the purpose of securing Aguinaldo's help, and that of his former co-revolutionists against Spain. A friendly agreement was entered into by Admiral Dewey and Aguinaldo, whereby the latter was encouraged and aided in every way to raise and equip a FiUpino army, and he soon had from fifteen to thirty thousand men assembled, who invested Manila on the land side, while the Navy of the United States besieged it from the harbor. A revolutionary government was proclaimed by Aguinaldo, who declared himself Dictator, but who also sent out orders all over the Philippine Archipelago to hold elections, the result of which was that a legislative body was soon assembled at Malolos, thirty miles from Manila ; and Aguinaldo was by this body elected President of the Filipino Republic, a Filipino flag was raised and 468 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL saluted by Dewey's vessels, and the Filipinos were filled with enthusiasm and with gratitude towards the United States. In December, 1898, however, the President of the United States proclaimed sovereignty over the Philippine Archi- pelago. This naturally aroused the anger of the Filipinos, who had been treasuring for six months or more the hope that the United States intended to help and protect their young republic against the attacks of other nations, and the feeling became more and more bitter, and finally cul- minated in a fight between the outposts of the two armies on February 4, 1899 ; and from that time the United States devoted itself to the task of crushing out what was called the insurrection of the Filipinos. That is, the United States having obtained a foothold in a foreign country by professing friendship for the in- habitants, calls those inhabitants rebels because the people resist the invasion and try to defend their country. We direct our army to crush out all resistance. The Filipino people prefer death to subjugation, saying, as did Patrick Henry, the American patriot, '^Give me liberty or give me death." Our unhappy army set to do such an un-American, such a wicked task, tries to obey orders, be- comes gradually more and more cruel. I cannot do better than quote the account of President Schurman, who was himself a United States Commissioner there, of the gradual moral deterioration of our Army in the Philippines and its causes. [Then Mrs. Lowell quotes at considerable length from an article published in The Independent under the title MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 469 ''The Philippines Again," presumably by President Schurman, and continues : ] It is incredible that the American people should have been so ignorant and so careless in regard to the great wrong which has been done in their name ; but now at last we are awakening, we are beginning to realize the facts. The opposition in Congress, with the help of such liberty-loving RepubUcans (all honor to them !) as Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, Senator Wellington of Maryland, Mr. Littlefield of Maine, and Mr. McCall of Massachusetts are speaking again the words that seem natural to the men of our country. Now at last the question must be brought before the country at the next Congressional election ; and during the intervening six months every man and every woman who cares not only for the liberty of the Filipinos, but for the liberty of the United States of America, should, in season and out of season, press this vital matter upon the indifferent, until they must in self- defence think of it, and make up their minds about it. I said that the liberties of the United States are at stake equally with the liberties of the FiUpino people, for it is inevitable that should we willingly become the tyrants of these helpless millions, should we turn our backs so completely upon the principles which have made this country a world power, moulding and influencing the character of all the governments of the world during the past hundred and twenty-five years, as to make it possible for us to do such a thing, our moral deterioration would be so rapid, our conscience must become so hardened in the 470 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL process, and our love of liberty so absolutely dead, that we should become fit subjects for a tjnranny ourselves. ■ There is no other nation upon whom so dire moral injury could be inflicted, for there is no other which has so pre- cious a heritage to lose. No other nation has ever laid down the principle that all men are equal, or that governments derive their just powers from the governed, or that taxation without representation is tyranny. To ignore these principles and deny them by their acts would not therefore scar the conscience of Englishmen, Frenchmen or Germans, but it is impossible for us to do such things and preserve the moral qualities of which in past years we have been most proud. We should do well to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln in 1850, the man who as President twelve years later freed four million slaves. In answer to an invita- tion to attend a celebration in honor of Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the man who first said "All men are created equal,'' Mr. Lincoln wrote: '^This is a world of compensations, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for them- selves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson ; to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, fprecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very har- bingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression." MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 471 Booker T. Washington There is probably not an intelligent man or woman in the United States who does not know the name of Booker T. Washington ; but comparatively few of us know how great Mr. Washington really is, or how great is the service he is rendering to both blacks and whites. For the inter- ests of the two races are inextricably bound together. The ten milhons of colored people are as truly and vitally a part of the nation as are any other ten million Americans ; if they suffer, it is the nation that suffers; if they are degraded, it is the nation that is degraded. The only sure cure for the evils that come through the brutal and degraded members of the negro race is their moral development, just as the only cure for the evils that come through the brutal and degraded members of every other race is that they shall be elevated morally. There- fore Mr. Washington is one of the greatest living bene- factors of our whole people, since his Hfe is devoted to the moral elevation of thousands who are struggUng against tremendous odds to grow into higher and nobler men and women, who in their turn will pass on to others the light they have received. Last spring in Virginia we heard an interesting account of the inevitable results of no education and of education among the colored people of that state. In one of the counties in the neighborhood of Richmond, the resident physician said he should soon move, as he feared for the * August 20, 1903. Evidently an address to introduce Mr. Wash- ington. 472 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL safety of his family, the negroes were so lawless and vicious, — much deteriorated, he thought, since the aboli- tion of slavery. Replying to this Dr. Frissell, principal of Hampton, said that such were doubtless the facts in that particular county, for there had been but few schools in it, and very poor ones, but that he could show the doctor many coun- ties where exactly the opposite was true ; where the negroes had much improved since the abolition of slavery, and were decent law-abiding men and women, and good citizens, and naturally so, for in those counties they had had good schools, and, what was far more important, good industrial and agricultural training for the people. And this reminds me that we owe gratitude to Mr. Washington not only for his invaluable service to the cause of education in general, for he shares with General Arm- strong, who taught and inspired him, and whose shining example he is following, the credit of being among the first educators in this country to make industrial training an essential part of education. It is an interesting fact that we owe the practical demonstration of the value of industrial education, which is coming more and more to be considered as an indispensable part of the training of every child, to the efforts of these two great men to guide the bewildered freedmen up from slavery, and to fit them to be worthy citizens of the Republic. But I will keep you no longer. Mr. Washington has planned and created and controlled a great educational institution at Tuskegee in Alabama; but besides this MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS 473 stupendous labor he is obliged also to perform the more trying task of finding the money wherewith to maintain and extend it. In both these fields of work his wife is his worthy helpmate. Model Tenements for Widows with Small Children To the Editor of Charities :^ I have often wondered that no one thought of building Mills Hotels for widows with small children. The lives of these women are peculiarlj'^ hard, in that they must perform the part of both father and mother, must support their children as well as care for them. A building provided with day nursery, kindergarten, restaurant and laundry, where widows could have their children with them at night, and leave them safe in the care of good nurses and teachers while they were out at work, would be an incalculable blessing. The women could probably pay at least enough to cover all expenses, while similar buildings for widowers with young children would no doubt be a good investment. Josephine Shaw Lowell. To the Editor of Charities : ^ The disapproval of my plan for helping widows in the care of their children expressed by your correspondent X. Y. Z. is doubtless due to my mistake in speaking of the proposed buildings as ^^ Mills Hotels'^ instead of ^' Model Tenements,'^ for I do not contemplate that the meals should be taken in common, or that anything approaching an institution should be estabUshed. On the contrary, my idea is that each widow should hire from one to three rooms for herself and her children, which 1 Charities, May 3, 1902. ^ charities, May 24, 1902. 474 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL should be as truly their own home as the rooms in any ordi- nary tenement house, but that she should have the follow- ing advantages : (1) That, when she goes out to work she should be able to place her children in a day nursery or kindergarten in the house, instead of being obliged to carry them to one foiu' or five blocks away. (2) That, before go- ing and on returning from work, and on Sundays, she should be able to buy the family meals from the common kitchen, instead of having to cook them. (3) That she should also be able to have her washing done at the common laundry, instead of taxing her own small strength to do it. A widow in such a Model Tenement would thus be with her children when she is not obliged to be absent earning their support, and she would have the necessary assistance in her home duties, which no working woman can ade- quately perform without entirely overtaxing her strength. The strain put upon widows who support their children is more than human beings should be required to bear. Josephine Shaw Lowell. CHAPTER XXI Work for Civil Service Reform On Thanksgiving Day, 1856, George William Curtis/ who had the year before delighted American readers with his '^Prue and I/' and was then in his thirty-third year, married Anna Shaw and went to Hve with the Shaws at their residence on Staten Island. At that time, Effie^ as Josephine was called by her [family and intimate friends, was thirteen. The influence of Curtis' personality upon the expanding mind of his little sister-in-law was far-reach- ing. Sensitive, inteUigent, energetic, and patriotic by nature, she must have been stimulated in her mental growth by intimate association with one of the most cultivated and useful public men of his generation. Too much stress cannot be laid, in estimating the causes which produced the wonderful woman Mrs. Lowell after- wards became, upon the influence of her brother-in-law; she must literally have sat at his feet. In the diary *For many of the facts relating to George William Cm-tis I am Indebted to his life by Edward Gary, published in 1894 in the series of i* American Men of Letters." 475 476 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL which she kept in 1861 and 1862, she mentions that George read his paper aloud, and that it was ^^ splendid." Mr. Curtis went as a supporter of the candidacy for the presidential nomination of Governor Seward to the Republican National Convention of 1860 which nomi- nated Lincoln. When the Civil War broke out, he de- voted his time and thought to the cause of the Union in the press, and in 1863, when the war was half fought, be- came editor of Harper^s Weekly, and continued in control of the editorial policy of that influential paper until his death in 1892. During all the years of his direction of that jom-nal, he resided near the Shaws on Staten Island. How much pleasure and instruction Mrs. Lowell, who married the same year Mr. Curtis^ long editorship began, and retained her residence with her father's family, must have derived from hearing the policies of Harper's famil- iarly discussed at the fireside at that critical period of our history ! No wonder that in later years it was easy for her to write to the press on pubHc questions and to feel at home in the company of newspaper men, many of whom she numbered among her friends. Mr. Cary, in his Hfe of Curtis, already mentioned, gives two quotations from his letters which make touching wartime mention of relatives and friends referred to in Josephine Shaw's diary. 20 April, 1861. Anna and the baby are perfectly well. Her brother Rob and my brother Sam marched yesterday with their regiment, the 7th, both the Winthrops, Philip Schuyler, and the flower of the youth of the city. ^^^^^^^^^^f' ;# ^^^^^^1 ■ 1 C^i^ ^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^B^^'^'' ''^" '-^^1 ^pf'''^'''^B ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Bl^"^^-'' ' ' ^^^1 ^^j ^^^^^^1 ^H GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 477 April, 1865. Here upon the mantel are the portraits of the three boys who went out of this room, my brother, Theodore Winthrop and Robbie Shaw. They are all dead, the brave darlings, and now I put the head of the dear Chief among them. I feel that every drop of my blood, and thought of my mind, and affection of my heart, is conse- crated to secure the work made holy, and forever impera- tive, by so untold a sacrifice. May God keep us all as true as they were ! The war over, other questions than those of union or disunion, freedom or slavery, now forever settled, began to engross the attention of the people. Among these was civil service reform, in advocating which Mr. Curtis with voice and pen became a leader. He attacked the evils of the spoils system, and organized a crusade which assumed national importance for the establishment in our public service of as high a standard as was already attained in England. Under the provisions of a clause of the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act of March 3, 1871, President Grant was authorized to appoint a commission to inquire what rules and regulations for admission to the public service which the President could enforce under existing laws would best promote its efficiency. The President nominated Mr. Curtis to membership in this commission of seven, on March 4, 1871. He accepted the nomination, and was at once made Chairman. ^^Mr. Curtis' real object in undertaking this work,'' says Mr. Gary, ^'was the abolition of the spoils system, abuses under which he had already been studying for several years." 478 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL In the first report of this commission, submitted Decem- ber 18, 1871, Mr. Curtis said : ''In obedience to this sys- tem, the whole machinery of the government is pulled to pieces every four years,'' and that the object of the com- mission was ''to drive politics out of the civil service and to drive patronage out of pohtics.'' The commission sub- mitted, and the President approved, the rules for com- petitive examinations, and completed its work with their promulgation April 16, 1872. Mr. Curtis was a born reformer, and his abilities as a leader were always recognized. When the New York Civil Service Reform Association was organized in 1880, he was elected President, a position which he held until his death, and in 1881, he was, by common consent, chosen the first President of the National Civil Service Reform League. So engrossed did he become in the promotion of this reform, and his other public educational work, that during the administration of President Hayes he twice declined the coveted honor of representing his country at the Court of St. James. "I have been told," said Mr. E. S. Nadal, in an article on "Our Representatives in London," ^ "that he declined solely because he did not wish to relinquish the work he was doing at home." His interest in the reform of the civil service was sustained without interruption until his death in 1892 at his Staten Island home. Not long after the assassination of President Garfield by a disappointed spoils seeker, enraged because of a question of party patronage, a bill for the reform of the civil service, which had been introduced by Senator ^ Century Magazine^ July, 1909. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 479 George H. Pendleton of Ohio, was passed by Congress, and signed by President Arthur, January 16, 1883. All appointments to the national civil service were made subject to the provisions of this bill, which became opera- tive July 16, 1883. Curtis and his allied reformers had won a notable victory. Among Mrs. LowelFs papers there are a few letters which relate to the subject of civil service reform. The following extract from one dated January?, 1883, addressed to her sister-in law, Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw, refers to the first election of President Cleveland, a friend of the re- form: Dear Annie : Two months today since we lost Papa, and two months since the wonderful election which would have so delighted him, if he could only have known of it. He was intensely interested in the reform movement, and one of the last things he said on Monday was that he wanted to see the Posty " to find out what the probabilities of the election were." You know how it went — a perfect revolution, and the result has been most wonderful. The Civil Service Reform bill which George and his Association prepared and have been working for for a year, and which was sneered at and laughed at last winter, has now been passed by the very same Congress by great majorities in both Houses ! It is a wonderful triumph, and Father would have been perfectly deUghted with it. Poor Garfield's death has had a wonderful effect in opening people's eyes — if he had lived, we never should have got on so fast. Other work occupied Mrs. Lowell's busy days, and it was not until 1894 that she gave active attention to this 480 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL subject. In that year, Carl Schurz, who succeeded Mr. Curtis as President of the Civil Service Reform Asso- ciation of New York State, called on Mrs. Lowell and in- duced her to form a Women's Auxiliary to the Association. The meeting for organization was held on Mrs. LowelFs call in May, 1895, at the residence of Bishop Henry C. Potter, 10 Washington Square. Mrs. William H. Schieffe- lin. President of theAuxiUary, says that Mrs. Lowell re- fused an election as President, giving the reason that peo- ple were tired of seeing her name in print. She consented, however, to serve as Vice President, and was also Chairman of the Executive Committee. Mrs. Lowell's pen was busily engaged for the Auxiliary in its formative period; she framed the constitution, and in 1900 she suggested the plan of holding annual competitions for prizes for essays on civil service reform subjects, restricted to the women members of the clubs in the State Federations, or in the general Federation in states having no State Federations. The papers for the first three annual competitions — those of 1901, 1902, and 1903 — were prepared by Mrs. Lowell, and the essays were sent to her. The judges of the first competition were Charles J. Bonaparte of Baltimore, Lu- cius B. Swift of Indianapolis, and Mrs. Lowell. The winner of the first prize on this occasion, one hundred dollars in cash, was Marion Couthouy Smith, of the Women's Club of Orange, New Jersey. The second competition, which was open to women at large, was judged in 1902 by George McAneny, Mrs. Lowell, and Miss A. J. Perkins. The winner, Annie Jackson Evans, belonged to the New York Branch of WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 481 the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Pupils of the New York and Brooklyn public high schools contended for the prizes offered in the third competition held in 1903, in which the winner was Joseph H. Kohan, student in the Commercial High School of Brooklyn, who shortly after- wards won a scholarship in Harvard University. The prize essays are published in pamphlet form by the Auxili- ary, and the annual competitions are still held. A seal for the Women's Auxiliary was designed by Miss Frances Grimes, a pupil of Saint Gaudens, according to suggestions made by Mrs. Lowell, who also chose the motto, ^'The best shall serve the State.'' This seal reduced in size, is used on the paper of the Women's Auxiliary, and medals of gold, silver, and bronze have been struck to be given as prizes for essays on topics of government administration. It appears at the head of this chapter. The cause of civil service reform was also advanced by Mrs. Lowell through her membership in the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs. In 1900, at her suggestion, a committee of five was appointed to study the subject and report ways in which individual clubs might further the reform. This was afterwards consti- tuted a standing committee of the Federation under Mrs. Lowell's chairmanship. She wrote the reports of this committee for the years 1903 and 1904, and herself pre- sented and read the first of these at the annual meeting held in Utica. Both these reports were published in pamphlet form. The close of 1904 found Mrs. Lowell still at work for this cause in the Federation. 2i 482 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL So much for details ; but Mrs. LowelPs larger work was the preparation of a series of papers under different titles on the evils of the spoils system, and the urgent need of the general adoption of civil service regulations in this country, which she read at mass meetings, or other public gatherings, both in New York and other states. A list of all known to me is given in the index ; some of the more important are, in whole or in part, included in this chapter. All were written within the decade 1896-1905. In the selection of the papers here published, I have had the benefit of the advice of Hon. George McAneny,^ for many years a leader in the reform. Of the paper entitled ^^The Reform of the Civil Service and the Spoils System,'' Mr. McAneny writes : ^'The first in the series, which bears the date of December 30, 1896, and which, I believe, was given as the concluding number in a course of papers on Civil Service Reform at the Berke- ley Lyceum, I regard as one of the best presentations of the theory of the reform that has ever been given anywhere. The other lecturers in that Lyceum course, I remember^ were Theodore Roosevelt, Charles J. Bonaparte, Richard Henry Dana, John R. Proctor, then United States Civil Service Commissioner, Herbert Welsh, and myself." The last paper Mrs. Lowell ever wrote was her report as Chairman of the Committee on Civil Service Reform, of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, finished shortly before her death, and presented in her behalf two weeks after she had passed away, by Miss Miriam 1 President of the Borough of Manhattan of the City of New York^ 1910. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 483 Mason Greeley, at the Eleventh Annual Meeting held October 30-November 3, 1905. So dear was the cause of the reform to Mrs. Lowell, that as she lay on her death- bed, she wrote in pencil on a pad the names of women she hoped might be persuaded to join the Women's Auxiliary. This list was found afterward, and because of it nearly all whose names it bore joined the Auxiliary. The Reform of the Civil Service and the Spoils System ^ The Civil Service is defined in the dictionary to mean 'Hhe body of persons in the pay of the State, as distin- guished from the naval and military services." The reform of the Civil Service, then, is a very com- prehensive reform, since it must include the reform of the whole machinery of the United States Government, besides that of all the State Governments, and the hun- dreds of City and County Governments of the country, in which are employed approximately six hundred thousand persons, as follows : In the United States Government, two hundred thou- sand. In the State, City and County Governments, about four hundred thousand. That the Civil Service Reform Association recognized that they were aiming at a fundamental reform is proved by the language of the second article of their Constitution, in which it is stated that ''The object of the Association ^ A paper read to the Women's Auxiliary of the Civil Service Reform Association and the League for Political Education, December 30, 1896, and published in pamphlet form. 484 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL shall be to establish a system of appointment, promotion, and removal in the Civil Service, founded on the principle that public office is a pubhc trust, admission to which should depend upon proven fitness, and the Association will advocate all other appropriate measures for securing integrity, intelligence, efficiency, good order, and due discipline in the Civil Service/' But why, an innocent person might naturally ask, should it have been necessary in 1877, nearly one hundred years after the United States Government had been founded by some of the best and greatest men the world ever saw, — why should it have been necessary for a few private citizens to form an association to secure integrity, intelligence, efficiency, good order, and due discipline in the Civil Service of this country, when these qualities would seem to be a matter of course, or at least would seem to be the first business of the men elected to the control of the Federal, State, and City Governments ; for how could any of the ends for which these governments were established and carried on be attained, without integrity, intelligence, efficiency, good order, and due discipline? Or again, why should the Civil Service need to be reformed any more than the Naval and Military Service? To answer the last question first. The Naval and MiUtary Services were protected from the deterioration which befell the Civil Service by the fact that a severe train- ing was required at the West Point and AnnapoHs Acad- emies before an appointment could be received ; and con- sequently we never had in our army or navy the condition described by Macaulay as existing in the English Navy WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 485 under Charles II. He says that at that time high naval commands were distributed ''among landsmen who, even on land, could not safely have been put in any important trust. Any lad of noble birth, any dissolute courtier for whom one of the King's mistresses might speak a word, might hope that a ship of the line, and with it the honor of the country, and the lives of hundreds of brave men, would be committed to his care. It mattered not that he had never in his life taken a voyage, that he could not keep his feet in a breeze, that he did not know the dif- ference between latitude and longitude." And Macaulay adds: ''The same interest which had placed him in a post for which he was unfit, maintained him there." The answer to the first question is a much longer one. The same corrupt condition which Macaulay describes as existing in the Navy existed also in the Civil Service in England at that time, and for many years later, and it was by no means a new evil in that country or elsewhere ; on the contrary, it was one of the very oldest. The use of the public offices for the benefit, not of the people, but of the Emperor, King, Duke, or for the benefit of whoever had the power to use them to strengthen himself and his party, was the common way in which tyranny ex- hibited itself, or rather it was the very essence of tyranny. '^ L'etat, c'est moi," meant indeed that there were no public offices at all, but that they all were the private property of the King, and that the people, although they had to pay taxes to support the officers appointed at the King's pleasure, had no authority or right in regard to them. The founders of our RepubUc knew this ; they knew 486 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL that all the nations of history had suffered from oppression, from extortion, and from manifold other evils resulting from the abuse of the appointing power by their rulers, but they provided no safeguards against this abuse because unfortunately, they ascribed it, not to human nature, weak when exposed to the temptations of power, but to the monarchical and aristocratic form of government, and they believed that a government that was democratic even to so limited an extent as the one they established would be protected against these especial evils by its verj^ form. Madison said in Congress, during General Washington's administration, that any president who should remove a competent officer for political reasons would be impeached. The Fathers of the Republic were sure that the people would guard their own interests when they had the power to do so. They overlooked the fact that private interests in contest with public interests are apt to conquer, because they are supported by concentrated and individual effort, while the efforts opposed to them are apt to be scattered and far less intense. For this reason they failed in the Constitution to protect the new government from the old evils ; and the old evils crept in and assumed even exactly the old shapes so well known in history. For the spoils system so well known, alas, to us also, is only the old tyranny, with the party put in place of the King. Spoilsmen repeat Louis XIV's assertion, but instead of saying '^L'etat, c'est moi," they say, '^To the victors belong the spoils." In each case the people, who pay the WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 487 taxes, are ignored, and the offices are used for the benefit, not of the people, but of individuals and factions. In the old times and in the old countries the individuals benefited used to be the King and his favorites, while in these new times and in this new country, it is the party in power and its favorites who are benefited, and therefore, the evil is far greater ; for whereas the corruption used to be con- fined to a small number of men closely connected with the King, with us it has eaten into the character of the people itself. There were, comparatively, only a few persons in a monarchy who felt the fatal effects of the bribery of public office, for it was only a few who had any chance of being rewarded for unworthy political work by an ap- pointment, but here, in both parties, the men who will serve the party without conscience may all hope at least for the reward, and the moral evil is proportionately more hideous. Of the many evils which follow the adoption of the spoils system I will enumerate only a few. It demoralizes the whole mass of the people by teaching them that honest work and conscientious devotion to duty are not the road to success in the United States; it degrades the public officers themselves, who, whether honest and conscientious or not, have to depend on the personal and political favor of this or that person to retain their offices ; it causes inefficiency and extravagance in the service, because of the changes of officers consequent upon the ''clean sweep '^ which follows a change of administration; it brings dis- grace and loss to the nation abroad by reason of the ap- pointment of men as consuls, and even as foreign ministers, 488 ^ JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL not because they are fitted to fill the honorable places into which they are forced, but because they have proved them- selves adroit political managers and wire-pullers, or, in other words, have proved themselves unfit to fill any public place ; and it creates a fearful danger to the liber- ties of the people at home because of the encroachments made possible by the action of venal legislative bodies bribed to betray the people by corrupt combinations of capital, the election of such men to our legislative bodies being made possible by the use of ofiices as party rewards. At first, so far as regarded the Federal service, the founders of the Repubhc seemed justified in their hopes. For more than a generation the government of the United States was probably the purest that had ever been known ; only fit men were appointed to office, and no one was removed for political or personal reasons, but during all that time the poison of the spoils system, nurtured by Aaron Burr and Tammany Hall, was at work in this unhappy State, which has been politically corrupt almost from the moment of its birth ; and finally the fatal virus spread to the nation itself. That the beginnings of danger were recognized is amply proved by the warning voices that were raised, long before the evils themselves had assumed any very great proportions. From many I select only two. In 1832 Van Buren's nomination as Minister to England was opposed by Web- ster, Calhoun and Clay, because of his attempts to per- suade the President to adopt the " New York system of party removals.'' WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 489 "It is a detestable system/' cried Henry Clay, ''drawn from the worst periods of the Roman Republic, and if it were to be perpetuated, if the offices, honors, and dignities of the people were to be put up to a scramble, and to be decided by the results of every Presidential election, our government and institutions, becoming intolerable, would finally end in a despotism as inexorable as that of Constantinople/' In 1840 Horace Bushnell said : "Only conceive such a lure held out to this great peo- ple, and all the Uttle offices of the Government thus set up for the price of victory, without regard to merit or anything but party service, and you have a spectacle of baseness and rapacity such as was never seen before. No preaching of the Gospel in our land, no parental disci- pline, no schools, not all the machinery of virtue together, can long be a match for the corrupting power of our po- litical strifes, actuated by such a law as this. It would make us a nation of apostates at the foot of Sinai. . . .'' What is the remedy ? The disease is plain. How can it be cured? First by the reform of the whole Civil Service ; by the destruction of the great bribery fund, consisting of the salaries of the six hundred thousand offices, amounting to at least three hundred million dollars, which, for three generations, has been used to corrupt our people ; the removal from the domain of politics of these six hundred thousand offices, from heads of departments in the United States Government to the woman who cleans the station house in a country village; the honest and energetic enforcement of the principle that a pubhc officer is appointed to do public work, and that, so long 490 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL as he does that work well, the public will keep him in his place ; that is, by the substitution of the ''Merit System'' for the ''Spoils System." This is being slowly carried out by the passage and en- forcement of United States and State laws, requiring that appointments to subordinate executive offices shall be made from persons whose fitness has been ascertained by competitive examinations open to all applicants properly qualified. But it sometimes seems as if this Civil Service Heform, this simple device of guarding the entrance to the public service by examinations, were a very inefficient and a very inadequate weapon for accomplishing the great reforms which must be accomplished if the honor of our countr}^, if the morality of our country and of our in- dividual citizens are to be saved. But as the evil came about through the misuse of the petty offices as a means of bribing men to support this or that*<;andidate or party, so the beginning of the rooting out of the evil must be in rescuing the petty offices from this misuse. We must then turn to the Civil Service laws, whether Federal or State, to make the beginning of reform ; and the way in which these laws are carried into practice is the following : A central body, called the Federal, or the State, or the City Civil Service Commission, as the case may be, has the direction and control of the applications and examina- tions of candidates for positions in the Civil Service, or in that part of it which has been classified, as the term is, that is, which has been brought under the law ; but this body has nothing whatever to do with appointments. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 491 It receives the applications of those desiring to enter an examination, and requires that these applications shall be accompanied by the written recommendation of three or fom- reputable persons who know the appUcant ; and if these are satisfactory, he or she is summoned to take part in the competitive examination of candidates for the posi- tion sought. This examination is in writing, and is care- fully prepared to show the general attainments of the com- petitors, and in each case also to show his or her especial fitness for the particular position in question. The names of candidates are not known to the examiners who mark the papers; and from these marks an eUgible list is made up, the candidates' names appearing upon it in the order of their standing. The Commission also makes private inquiries of the references concerning the applicant and whatever further character investigation seems to be necessary, and if anything transpires during this character investigation to show that the applicant is in- eligible for the position he seeks, he is not put on the list. When the head of any department wants to fill a vacancy or vacancies, he sends to the Civil Service Commission for names, stating how many vacancies there are ; the rule as to the number of names to be sent in for each vacancy differs in the different services, but in this city there are two extra names sent in ; that is, three for one vacancy, four for two, five for three, etc., to allow the appointing officer some latitude of selection. The men appointed under the Civil Service law are re- ceived on probation only for six months, as it is recognized that a man might pass a good examination and yet not 492 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL be practically a good officer. No one, therefore, is finally appointed, until he has proved his fitness by a six months' trial. You will see that this system is a very good one, if honestly carried out, and that the separation of the ex- amining from the appointing power tends to secure honesty, for in order that dishonest appointments shall be made it is necessary that there be collusion between the examin- ing department and the other departments of the govern- ment. Nevertheless, during several years of Tammany rule in this city, notwithstanding the fact that we had a Civil Service Commission with some reputable men as commissioners : notwithstanding the fact that competitive examinations were held and that nominally the Civil Ser- vice law was carried out, and appointments were made from the names appearing on the eligible lists furnished to the heads of departments by the Civil Service Com- mission ; yet the whole system was rotten and the heads of departments '^got the men they wanted," and every- body knew it. No system is good if dishonestly applied; and unless competitive examinations are open to all and are fairly held, and unless the men who pass the highest receive the appointments, the whole system is, of course, a sham, and adds hypocrisy to the other evils of the spoils system. What we want then, is, first, a real reform of the Civil Service, an honest system, honestly carried out. W^e want our Civil Service, National, State, and Municipal, to be filled by men who have been tested by competitive WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 493 examinations and by a probationary period of service, and from whose appointments all question of personal or party favor has been absolutely eliminated. But this is not enough. The evil originated with politi- cal corruption, but it has not stopped there ; in the nature of things it could not. A nation which for three genera- tions has acquiesced in a system of dishonest appoint- ments to public ofRce, in dishonest work of public officers, in dishonest removals from public office, could not remain honest in other relations ; the poison has worked into the very thoughts and into the very life of our people. We are a dishonest nation. We do not do honest work anywhere. You will find, if you look around you, that, even in private corporations, influence is beUeved to be more potent than good work to ensure promotion and advancement of salary. I was asked only last week to write in behalf of a hard-working employee to the directors of the corpora- tion in which he had been employed for ten or fifteen years to ask for an increase of salary, and I was told that only influence could secure it. No, we cannot expect any thorough reform in this coun- try until the present generation has died off, and another has grown up under an honest systen of public work, a generation which believes in honesty because it sees it, which this generation never has. Our Street Cleaning Commissioner is giving us daily a lesson in honest work, and the fact that the men who are now cleaning our streets and making Eleventh Avenue and First Avenue and the tenement house streets, which used to hold festering heaps of rotten refuse all winter 494 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL long, cleaner than Fifth Avenue and Broadway, — that these street-sweepers are the very same men, most of them, who used to stand round our filthy streets leaning on their brooms, shows what can be effected by a change of system. In the old times those men were not appointed to work at street cleaning, but at dirty politics, and they knew it, and every man and boy in the city knew it, and the fact that they received their wages from the public funds for street cleaning affected no one. Of course they did the work they were appointed to do, not the work they were paid to do. But now they know they are retained ta clea» the streets, and that if they do not clean the streets they will go, and therefore they do the work for which the public pays them; and again, every man and boy in the city knows this, and, as I say, the difference in the moral effect is immense. And now, how can women help in destroying the evils of which we have been hearing, and how can we help to bring in an honest, fair enforcement of our national and state civil service laws, and thereby regenerate our people ? The duty which lies nearest to our hands just now is the salvation of our own city. And there are two sides to the duty. One is to save the city from the bad government that threatens it, and the other to help to secure a good government for it. To save the city from bad government is simply to keep out of power the men, whether Tammany^s men or Piatt's men, who want the offices for selfish purposes. If we consider how Tanamany Hall gained its power^ WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 495 and why it wanted its power, this will show us also how that power can be entirelj^ destroyed. Tammany Hall is a corporation which wants to hold the control of the New York City Government, not to serve the people of the city, not to give the city clean streets, pure water, efficient protection for life and property, smooth pavements, beautiful parks, or any other thing that it is necessary for the people to have, but because the yearly expenditure of the city for these and other purposes is more than forty million dollars. If Tammany Hall and the Republicans who have exactly the same desire can be prevented from getting possession of this forty million dollars a year to spend in strengthening themselves, they will, they must, cease in time to be dangerous, for they have no other way of keeping a following except the actual possession of the offices, or the hope that they will soon regain them. They are not Hke a political party which has principles and objects, to attract men to its standard ; to succeed is their only object, and if they fail often enough, they must break asunder and scatter. What, then, can each of us do to help to keep them out ? First, we must want to keep them out. Second, we must have faith that the right must triumph. Third, we must speak the truth about them. But, as I have said, besides saving the city from a bad government, our duty is to try to secure for it a good government. The people need all sorts of things, ma- terial, moral and spiritual, but they need a good system of government as the first condition towards obtaining 496 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL these things. We need such governments as many foreign cities have, where the best men are put at the head of each department and kept there. We want no two years' terms nor four years' terms to upset and de- morahze the business of the great city at regular intervals. We want common sense, common honesty and high civic patriotism in our city government, and we want, on the part of the people, the recognition that it is their duty to demand these qualities from those they put in power. . . . Civil Service Reform and Public Charity' I believe that of all the public officers elected in our State, the Superintendents of the Poor are the least tram- melled by political pledges, and the least controlled by political considerations in their actions. The people of the counties cannot help recognizing that a man to whom is entrusted the welfare of hundreds of peculiarly helpless fellow-creatures should have at least a certain fitness for his position, and they therefore as a rule choose men who, although in the dominant party, are not party slaves, and sometimes they even go so far as to entirely disregard party in the choice of the man most fit. But unhappily it is not common to disregard part}^ considerations, even in the election of Superintendents of the Poor. The people of the State of New York have so long been accustomed to the ownership of the public officers by whichever political party happens to be in power, or even to their ownership by a particular member of the * Digest of paper sent June 29, 1897, to Convention of Superin- tendents of the Poor of New York State. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 497 successful party, that they have lost all sense of the actual wrong and dishonesty of such a condition of things, and also of the absurdity. That the pubHc officers, appointed to the public work, and paid by the pubhc money, should not be the servants of the pubHc, but should be the slaves of a small number of persons, and sometimes of one person, who can force them for their own ends to neglect the pubhc work, seems natural enough in Russia, where the people are themselves almost slaves, but it is most unnatural in the State of New York, where the people think that they are free and that they govern them- selves. Civil Service Reform is the rescuing of the public officers from this unnatural control, placing them at the service of the people at large, and requiring them on pain of instant dismissal to do the work for which they are paid. . . . Our State charitable institutions have, for many years at least, been kept out of politics. We have never de- scended as a state to the depth of mean dishonesty which has been reached in too many of the other states of the Union, of sacrificing the insane, the idiotic, the deaf and dumb, and the blind, who are wards of the State, to the demands of party politicians. . . . Our State Board of Charities, also, has been always free from political influence, and here again we have been far more fortu- nate than many of our sister states. But we all know that this cannot be said of most of our county and city charities, nor of our jails and prisons. . . . 2k 498 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Civil Service Reformers ask that political opinions of local officers, whether elected or appointed, shall be ignored, and that they shall be chosen only because they are fitted to discharge the duties of the places they seek. And certainly nothing can be more reasonable, especially as regards Poor Law officers ; for what can politics have to do with the proper care of paupers, whether in or out of institutions? . . . There is no peculiarly protectionist method of caring for dependent children, no especially free-trade way of giving outdoor relief, no gold or silver plan for treating the evils of vagrancy, and therefore it is wrong to admit the consideration of these great questions when officers are to be elected whose special and only duty it is to attend to these and other local matters, be- cause it will inevitably lead the voters to disregard the qualifications which are needed in these important posi- tions. . . . There should be two objects, and only two, in the mind of every officer connected with the administration of public relief. First : To diminish the burden laid upon the public, by such wise economy as will result in preventing any increase in the number of persons to be supported by the commu- nity, either in or out of institutions — that is, to prevent pauperism. Second : To deal with each individual man, woman and child who is brought under his care so that their physical, mental and moral condition shall be improved, in order that if possible they may be lifted out of the dependency in which they are — that is, to cure pauperism. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 499 These two objects cannot be attained except by officers who possess a certain degree of intelligence and pubhc spirit to begin with, and who are ready to study the history of the administration of public relief, and to learn from the experience of others, and their own experi- ence ; and it makes no difference whether they are Repub- licans, Democrats, Populists, or Prohibitionists. . . . - The only questions considered should be as to the charac- ter, inteUigence and knowledge of the candidates, and in the case of Superintendents and Overseers of the Poor, they should be asked also what they intend to do with the dependent children, the tramps, the people in the alms- houses and the applicants for outdoor rehef . There are methods of dealing with all these people which will double and treble and quadruple their numbers, or in other words, which will entice four times as many persons as need be into the degradation of pauperism, and keep them in misery, and crush the hard-working tax- payers by the burden of their support ; and there are other methods which will free these unhappy victims from the bonds of dependence, and make them independent and happy, while at the same time the public is also relieved of their support. . . . Any community which allows part of its people to be tempted into the ranks of pauperism and the rest to be burdened by unnecessary taxes for the support of pauperism has itself to blame, because it does not choose to apply the principles of Civil Service Reform to the administration of its public charities and leave poli- tics out of consideration in matters with which pohtics have not the slightest concern. 600 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The Ethics of Civil Service Reform ^ There are three different ways in which the ethics or moral aspect of Civil Service Reform must be considered. First, as regards the community, the city, the state, or the nation, as the case may be, in its character of employer ; second, as regards the community as composed of possible office holders, and third, as regards the indi- vidual office holder. . . . The reason we in the United States require only to re- form our civil service and not also our military and naval services, as was necessary in England, is that we started the two latter in the beginning upon the plan which was right ; and in fact the object of Civil Service Reform is to apply in the civil service the very same plan which has worked so admirably in the Army and the Navy. That plan is simply to select good material from which to make officers of the Army and Navy, to train them especially for the work the public wishes them to do, to treat them honorably while they are in the service, and to expect them to behave honorably, and to give them every motive for honorable conduct, and to see that they do not starve when too old for further public work. This system has given us the men who have brought glory to the name of the United States during our late war ; and if we had the same system in the civil service, we should have exactly the same kind of men in the civil offices, and we should be as proud of them as we now are of our Army and Navy heroes. * Summary of address delivered in 1898, at the Broadway Taber- nacle, and believed to be unpublished. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 501 Now as regards the ethical aspect of the question. There is no doubt that it would be good policy if we could get such men into all the ci\dl offices of the United States, and of the states, counties and cities. Is it equally clear that it is dishonest and wrong not to have them ? It seems to me still more clear. The public offices belong actually to the people as a whole, because they pay the taxes from which are paid the salaries of these public officers, and it is due to the people that the work of these officers should be well done, and that the money which they pay should not be wasted. When the work is badly done and when the money of the people is wasted, the people are defrauded. . . , But it is an acknowledged fact, known to us all, that, as a rule, our public work is not so well done as pri- vate work ; that, with the rarest exceptions, we do not succeed in filling our offices with our best men ; and that, unhappily, we often do get very inefficient men and some- times very dishonest men into some of them. ... * Politics has a great deal to do with the choice of the in- dividual to fill an office. When a man is wanted, say for clerk in a public office, instead of finding the best man who can be persuaded to take the place, it is given to some one who has been out of work for a long time, some one who has been active as a politician, some one whom no private employer would take ; and thus the pubHc work is badly done and the public money is wasted. . . . This man relies more on his political influence to keep him in office than on his efficiency and industry; his place is insecure, and he enjoys it while he has it, and works for 502 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL his boss, on whom his welfare depends, and not for the people who pay his salary. Finally, if his boss gets into trouble, he is thrown out of employment and is left to starve or not, as happens. The system is a very cruel one to the individual office holder, besides being a wasteful one for the public. Civil Service Reform, so far as it is related to the com- munity as an employer, to the nation, to the state, to the county and to the city, consists in securing for the public a body of well trained and efficient men and women to do the public work ; in rewarding them for their honesty and efiiciency by promoting them to better offices with higher salaries ; in making them secure in their places as long as they do their work well, and dismissing them when- ever they do it badly ; and in providing for them when they have spent their lives in the pubHc service. That is. Civil Service Reform consists in getting the public work done as honestly and as efficiently as it is possible to do it, and in givirig the people a good return for the money they pay ; and this constitutes its ethical aspect so far as the public as employer is concerned. . . . As to the ethical aspect of Civil Service Reform as regards the people at large considered as possible office holders, it involves questions of equal rights, of fair play, or, in other words, of democracy. Offices in old times, in all countries, were the personal property of the king. They are so now in countries which have a despotic form of government. The king gave away the offices to his favorites, who sold them to strangers, and the only view of office was that it was a privilege given to those who had WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 503 influence, which enabled them to get power and money out of the people. It never entered anybody's head that a public officer was a servant of the people and required to do work for the people. . . . Now this old despotic view of public office, as the property of the person in power, be he czar, emperor or king, is, curiously enough, the view taken by a very large section of the people of this republic, the only difference being that, instead of thinking that the offices belong to one permanent despot, they are supposed to belong to the particular party which is in power, and often to the particular boss of that party. . . . Now Civil Service Reform means exactly the opposite of this view, and where it is honestly enforced, no one party or person has any control whatever over the great bulk of the public offices. A real reform of the civil service means that every man and woman in the country has a right to serve the public if he or she is qualified to do so, and that the right is conceded and acted upon. Every per- son who chooses to apply for an office is given a perfectly fair chance with every one else to prove that he has the qualities and capacity and character needed in that office. He does not have to go to a particular district leader or to a particular boss and ask, as a personal favor, to be appointed to an office, but he goes to the Civil Service Commission, makes his application, is notified when he can be examined, takes his examination, and if he is the best qualified, is appointed and enters on his term of probation, sure that if he does his work well, and is industrious and honest, he will in six months, receive his appointment, and that nothing but dishonesty or incompetence can 504 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL prevent his remaining in the piibhc service and receiving promotion. . . . Thus as concerns the community as a body of possible office holders, the moral side of Civil Service Reform consists in substituting a democratic system for a despotic system, a fair and just system for one con- trolled by personal and partisan favoritism. As regards the individual office holder, the ethical aspects of Civil Service Reform are almost more important, if that is possible, than in the two aspects I have considered. Picture to yourselves the position of the office holder under the two systems. Let us imagine a young man seek- ing a subordinate position in the civil service under the spoils system, a young clerk, with a wife and child to support. He is competent, but has found it hard to get employment, and is in extremity. A friend tells him that he knows the boss and will give him a note of introduction. In a general way he disapproves of the boss and of the ways of the boss, but he has no very strong principles, and he does need work. So he takes the note and goes to the house of the boss; his friend has a pull and he is ad- mitted to an interview, is graciously promised a place and receives a note to the head of a department, calls with the note on the Commissioner, has a talk, is promised an appointment, is told also that he is expected to join the district organization of the party to which the boss and Commissioner belong and to subscribe to the various chowders and balls that are given by the organization, and to work and vote with the boss and Conomissioner. He accepts the place with the conditions attached. At first he tries to do his work honestly for the WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 505 public ; he is sneered at by his colleagues in office as a fool who wastes his pains. . . . Then there comes to his knowl- edge something actually dishonest done by his superior in otnce, and he is asked to do his share in furthering it. He is shocked ; he would like to be honest, but he is weak; he knows of no other employment if he resigns; he knows that he has no one to appeal to, that every man in the public service above and below him depends, as he does, for a Uvelihood, on the boss, that the boss reaps part of the product of this dishonest}'- ; he becomes a thief, not for himself, but for others. Finally his friend fails to please the boss, or the claims of some one else must be attended to, and one morning he receives a note from his superior requesting his resignation, and he is turned out, hopeless, helpless, dishonest, degraded in his own sight, without faith in himself, in his country, or his God. This, you and I know, has been the history of many a victim of the spoils system in this country during the past hun- dred years, and this must be the history of many more until the real reform of the civil service has been adopted. [Describing in detail the competitive examination for the appointment by which the candidate is certified to the appointing power and enters on his six months' pro- bation, Mrs. Lowell concluded as follows:] We will assume that this successful candidate is our capable young man : he begins his duties in an office with other young men who have passed the same examinations ; each clerk knows that every other clerk is there, as he is, because of proved capacity and recognized good character ; 506 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL each clerk respects himself and respects his colleagues. Every one knows that, as he obtained his position by his o\\Ti good quahties, so he will be retained for the same qualities ; all depends upon himself ; there is no favoritism, no pull, no boss to fear or fawn upon. So these young men are happy in their work and proud of the service of the city ; they know they are doing good work, and every good quality is fostered, every evil quaUty repressed. After six months' probation, our young man receives his permanent appointment, and in due time he, with the other energetic young clerks, competes for a higher place, gains it in honest competition ; and so, as the years pass, he goes from place to place, receiving the approval of his own conscience and of his superior officers, respected, honorable, happy, a noble civil servant of the noble city he loves. Spain an6 Civil Service Reform ^ The dying of a nation is a tragic sight. The dying of Spain, the discoverer and once the owner of the greater part of the western hemisphere, her death throes upon the very spot where Columbus landed and w^here he Ues buried, is a tragedy which this nation could not watch unmoved, even were it not the instrument used to give the death blow. But Spain presents not merely a tragic spectacle to the people of the United States, it furnishes also a lesson and a warning. This country is called upon to end the long agony ; but Spain has been wounded unto death by her own sons. She 1 Letter to Evening Postt May, 1898. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 507 is a dying nation because of internal corruption and dis- honesty, and the description of the causes of her ruin has an ominously familiar sound to iVmerican ears. We have in Spain the spectacle of a nation which conducts its govern- ment upon the principles which control Tammany Hall and the Republican and Democratic machines. Not only its civil service, but its Army and its Navy, have for genera- tions been treated as ^' Spoils,'^ and the result is before us. We know well what incompetency, what weak inefficiency, are the necessary outcome of such principles, and it is not to be wondered at that Spain has failed in every direction. [In support of her contention that the humiliation of Spain in her war of 1898 against this country was inevitable because of her four hundred years of government by the spoils system, Mrs. Lowell made apt use of quotations on this very subject from addresses delivered, a few days before her letter was written, by Don Carlos in Brussels, by Charles Bonaparte at a Civil Service Reform meet- ing in New York, by Carl Schurz at the same meeting, and by James Russell Lowell, her husband's uncle, in letters written in 1879 from Madrid and later from London. Said Mr. Bonaparte: ''The corruption of her public service, civil and military, has cost Spain a world." Said Mr. Schurz : ''The battle that has just been won at Manila was a battle between a 'Civil Service Reform' navy and a 'Spoils' navy. I hope that, whatever may result from this war, undesirable as it is, it will at least convey this lesson to the American people." Writing from Lon- don, Mr. Lowell said : "Spain shows us to what a civil 508 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL service precisely like our own will bring a country that ought to be powerful and prosperous. It was not the Inquisition, nor the expulsion of the Jews and Moriscos, but simply the boss system, that has landed Spain where she is.'^ After quoting also from an article by John Foreman, '^ Europe's New Invalid, '^ from the National Review, September, 1897, in which the evil effects of the spoils system in Spain and her colonies were pointed out, Mrs. Lowell concluded her letter, which was widely reprinted and commented upon, as follows : ] As I have said, the d^dng of Spain is a tragedy, but to the people of the United States it is more than a tragedy. The lesson is writ large that all may see. The destruc- tion of two fleets because of incompetency and dishonesty, because of moral rottenness producing physical ruin, is a demonstration which none can fail to understand. But we have also the corollary, far more welcome and more glorious. The American people see in their own Navy the result of a careful selection of men for a special service, the result of the long and arduous training of these men for the work they have to do, and the result of the assurance given them by their country that the service they enter on in their youth and to which they devote their manhood is an honorable service. In the United States Army we find the same results from the same system. The people have heard but little of either Army or Navy for a generation ; and yet now, when they are needed, heroic men stand forth ready to do heroic deeds, and the Ameri- WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 509 can people reap the glory. There is no question that, had the American people so willed it, they could have had just such men to fill their civil service and their diplomatic service. The question now is, will the people take to heart the lesson and join England in her advance to civilization, humanity, and honor or will they follow Spain? Shall we have all our public work, naval, miUtary, civil, and diplomatic, done by our Deweys, our Hobsons, and our Merritts, or by the henchmen of our Hannas, Quays, and Hills? A Hard Lesson in Reform^ To THE Editor of the Tribune. Sir: In the Tribune of October 10 were printed on the same page three statements in regard to physicians in public employment, which, read in connection with each other, contain a lesson of vital import to the people of the United States. The first quotation, from the Journal of Kansas City, states that the Medical Superintendent of the State Insane Asylum at Topeka has resigned, and accompanied his resignation by a letter to the Governor of Kansas giving the reasons for his action. This letter tells an astound- ing story of alleged cruelty, inhumanity, and debauchery at that institution, and the writer placed the responsi- bility for these conditions upon the Governor when he said: ''You will probably recall that President J installed his father-in-law. Dr. W , a doctor without 1 Abstract of letter to New York Tribune^ dated October 15, 1898. 510 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL a diploma, in the position of assistant physician and that when it was shown that he was not a fit and proper person for the service, he was not discharged, but was transferred to the Asylum at Osawatomie. ... It is a well- known fact that Dr. W was a street fakir, a dealer in patent medicines, and an all-round professional quack. In the opinion of yourself and the Board, he seems to pos- sess the qualifications necessary to entitle him to care for the insane of Kansas. '^ [The second statement Mrs. Lowell quotes in this letter is from a report of Colonel L. M. Maus, chief surgeon of the Seventh Corps of the United States Army, in regard to the regimental surgeons under his command, who wrote: ^^A number of them had not been required to pass examinations at all. None of them had any knowl- edge at all of administrative duties such as were required successfully to run division hospitals. ... I feel quite sure that the medical service has suffered more on the score of inexperience on the part of regimental surgeons than for any other reason. These men were unable to appre- ciate the great value of sanitation.'^ The third statement quoted was an extract from the annual report of the Surgeon-General of the Navy, William K. Van Reypen, showing the care exercised to secure good material for the Medical Corps. '^In the last fiscal year 829 applications for information concerning the appoint- ments of assistant surgeons in the Navy were received, and 248 permits were issued to doctors to appear for ex- amination. Of the above number 65 candidates appeared before the Examining Boards, of whom 17 were rejected physically, 19 rejected professionally, 12 withdrawn for further examination, and 17 were found physically and professionally qualified for admission as assistant surgeons in the Medical Corps of the Navy." WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 511 Mrs. LowelFs letter continues : ] It seems almost unnecessary to point the moral. We have in these extracts an explanation of the causes of the deep disgrace that has often stained our public service, of the sorrow which is now wringing the heart of the nation, and of the glory which has turned the eyes of all the civilized world upon the United States with admiration. The Navy has done great service to the nation since May 1, but the greatest of all . . . is the lesson the Navy has given the nation of the value of efficient, conscientious training. . . . What we really need is to follow throughout our whole system, in our federal civil service, in our volunteer army and in our state and city governments, the example of our Navy, to select our public officers care- fully and to train them thoroughly. The lesson has been a severe one, but it would seem as if at last the people of the United States must have learned it. For thirty years a small handful of patriots have been warning them of the wickedness and folly of the spoils system — for thirty years the prophets of Civil Service Reform have shown how political and per- sonal influence in appointments to pubUc office eat out, ia time, the character and capacity of a nation. But the people did not heed. Their ears were dull of hearing. The people did not seem to care when it was only paupers who died of official neglect, when it was only helpless idiot children who had the scurvy, when it was only physicians to take charge of public insane asylums who were appointed without examination. But now, now that from Maine to Alabama, from Virginia to California, there is not a state where hearts are not bleeding for the lives of husbands, sons, and brothers lost and blasted by official ignorance and neglect ; now, when the blighting touch of political and personal 512 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL influence in appointments to public oflSce has fallen upon the flower of our youth, surely now, at last, the people of the United States will have ears to hear. The voters of the State of New York are especially fortunate above those of the rest of the country ; at this moment they have the opportunity of electing as Gov- ernor, Theodore Roosevelt, a man identified with the re- form of the civil service, so far as it has yet been adopted, and conversant with the Navy methods as few other men in the country can be, and whose character and past history as a public officer are a guarantee that the principles upon which these methods are founded will, if he is elected, be the principles which will control the State government. Civil Service Reform^ Your Committee on Civil Service Reform has continued to give especial attention to the investigation of the opera- tion of the reform law in the public institutions of New York State. The visits we have made have been not only interesting and instructive in the view they have given of actual administrative methods, but suggestive of im- portant lines of new work that may be profitably taken up. We find striking confirmation of the correctness of the theory of the merit system. There is, however, in some important institutions a certain impatience, on the part of the superintendents or other executive officers, of what they call the restrictions placed upon them by the re- quirements and prohibitions of the law, or its subsidiary rules. This impatience, and the accompanying criticism, ^ Report of Committee on Civil Service Reform, presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs held October 30 to November 3, 1905, at Binghamton, N. Y. This report represents the last public work of the chairman, Mrs.Charles Russell LowELL,whose death occurred two weeks earlier. WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 513 spoken or tacit, seemed to your Committee to indicate a misapprehension of the nature and intent of the law. But this attitude, which, if not openly hostile, is quite surely not friendly, is, nevertheless, a matter for serious consideration in any study of the working or results of the law. It is in itself a factor that must modify results. Objection to the law on the part of administrative officers is traceable, usually, to either one of two causes, the in- ability of the officer to use his subordinate service for po- litical purposes or his honest belief that the rules establish too many technical restraints of a sort that hinder his work rather than help it. We believe that the institutional heads referred to belong to the latter class. It is not un- natural that some among these should hold the view that their own judgment of the fitness of candidates for sub- ordinate appointments should be the basis of selection rather than the impersonal judgment of Boards of Ex- aminers. Theoretically, there is much to support that view, but we are convinced that those who do hold it, fail to take into account two fundamentally important prac- tical facts : first, that without the protection of the com- petitive system no public institution can be safe from the baleful intrusion of petty partisan poUtics, — a far greater embarrassment to the freedom of action of appointing officers than any code of rules could ever be ; and, second, that the methods of selection under the civil service rules are not yet perfected, that the examination sj^stem may be greatly improved through the cooperation of the very officers who so often complain of it, and that the tests of examination and probation, scientifically developed, have been shown by abundant experience to make the best sifting process as yet devised for any large body of employees. That these facts are not unrecognized was strikingly shown by one of the later experiences of your Committee, 2l 514 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL in visiting a State institution having the care of a large number of transgressors and degenerates. There we found the superintendent frankly grateful for the pro- tection the law afforded him. Nowhere is intelligent and sympathetic cooperation on the part of all officers and employees required more urgently than here. The work of the institution is difficult and complex, for it aims alike at the physical, mental, and moral improvement of its wards. In other words, no State institution would so quickly feel hampering restrictions upon its work, if such existed. Yet this superintendent declares that the freedom from importunity and dictation in the matter of appointment, and the resultant relief from any sense of obligation or responsibility not immediately concerned with the work of the institution, are an immense aid to the success the in- stitution is achieving. If, now and then, the privilege of direct appointment of a particular person to a particular position may seem desirable, and the methods prescribed by the law cumbrous in comparison, the superintendent finds that the advantage, in the long run, far outweighs the benefit in the occasional instance, and that the process of sifting, under the probation rule, is in itself invaluable. In our experience as visitors no institution seemed to us so effectively administered as this. The general idea upon which its work is based is at once scientific and sympathetic, and the details of its development are ad- mirably planned and carried out. In these contrasted cases, representing as they do clear differences of opinion on the point which it is especially our interest to study, the intelligence and zeal of the chief officials may be said to be equally admirable. In the case we have just noted, however, the superintendent is of the younger generation, to whom the civil service law is not a new thing, to be regarded distrustfully because it sub- WORK FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 515 verts much of the old order, but a condition met at the outset of a career, and accepted because official experience has proved it an aid rather than a hindrance. In these differences in age and in the character of previous ex- perience, with all such differences connoted, hes, we be- lieve, much of the explanation of the divergence of opinion. The men of older experience, much oftener at least than those who have come more recently into the field, are in- stinctively disinclined to use the new system or to aid in its practical development. It is a theory at least which we shall be interested to test by further observations. Meanwhile it is not to be denied that the competitive system has its imperfections. On the contrary, it will be more helpful to the Civil Service Reform cause if they be frankly recognized when revealed, either by administra- tive officers or others ; and if a sufficient part of the energy of those who study the subject be devoted to their correc- tion. The examinations should be as well fitted to the particular case as may be practicable. In technical posi- tions, previous training and experience should be given large weight, care should be taken that the best available candidates are attracted, and the competition of such candidates should be encouraged by giving to the public ser\dce more stability, making it more of a career than it is today. Great progress has been made in improving the system along all of these lines, but no doubt much still remains to be done. Under proper development we believe it will meet the demands of every honest appointing officer, and that, in fair course of time considerations of merit in public employment will prevail as generally as they do in private employment today. Your Committee feels that a wider knowledge of the meaning and results of Civil Service Reform will generally accelerate the continued growth of 516 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the movement. The committees of various local bodies in the National Federation, in cooperation especially with the Women's Auxiliaries of the Civil Service Reform Associations of New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland, have done a great deal of useful work in this direction. Many thousands of pamphlets have been placed in the hands of high-grade school children. Prizes have been given for essays submitted in competition, and speakers have been secured for public meetings. We suggest to in- dividual members of clubs that, through the reading room of public libraries and the classes in history and civil government of the Christian Association, the interest of many other young people might be enlisted. We have found librarians and the officers of such associations very friendly to suggestions we have made. We believe that actual visits, not only to institutions or departments where the merit rules are in force, but to the offices of the Civil Service Commissions, where the machinery of ex- amination may be seen, will prove of advantage to all students of the system. No great political reform wrought in America repre- sents the triumph of public opinion as does this. Its extension must depend on the same force, and there are branches of high importance, in both State and nation, to which it does not yet apply. We should help by every means within our power, and particularly through educa- tion, to create a public opinion so much stronger that the principle will be established in every place in which it does not now prevail. CHAPTER XXII Memorials The general feeling of loss occasioned by the death of Mrs. Lowell was expressed not only in the public press, but also at memorial meetings. Under the auspices of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, the most important of these meetings was held in the assembly hall of the United Charities Building, on the evening of November 13, 1905. Before the appointed hour, the hall was crowded with representative people, and many others could not obtain entrance. Robert W. de Forest, President of the Charity Organization Society, presided and deUvered the opening address, while among the speakers who followed him were Joseph H. Choate, Felix Adler, Jacob A. Riis,and SethLow. Their addresses, together with many other eulogies of Mrs. Lowell, not only in prose, but also in poetry, are included in a memorial volume published in 1906 by the Charity Organization Society. Considerations of space permit the inclusion only of some extracts from this volume, and in chronological order other memorial notices which it omits. Robert W. de Forest We have met tonight in memory of a noble woman — a woman whom we all honor for what she did and whom we 517 518 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL all love for what she was. I know of no one of the present generation in our city and State who has been a more potent force for social uplift than Josephine Shaw Lowell. I know of no one who has been so beloved and whose memory will be so tenderly cherished by all kinds and con- ditions of men. Whatever inequalities there be among those who are assembled here — whether of station or learning or opportunity — we are here on an equal plane of friendship for her ; man to man, and woman to woman. [Mr. de Forest here mentioned Mrs. Lowell's work for the Charity Organization Society, and many other so- cieties or movements of a humanitarian character, more particularly referred to elsewhere in this volume, and continued : ] Mrs. Lowell was every inch a woman. Unlike most women who have sought to be, or who have been, actors in public affairs, she never for one instant yielded a particle of her woman's charm or of her woman's tenderness. With the strength and courage of a man, she never hesitated to strike, and strike hard, when duty called to strike, but her woman's gentle touch bound up the wounds, and the blow left no sting behind. What must it have been to her hero husband to have had the love of such a woman, even for a few short months ! . . . In her dealings with others, Mrs. Lowell was absolutely sincere. She spoke out all she thought. She held back nothing of the truth as she saw it. No consideration of policy ever weighed with her. She would have thought MEMORIALS 519 policy inconsistent with truthfulness. Herein was one of the greatest charms of intercourse with her. Herein, perhaps, was her greatest source of strength. . . . Had Mrs. Lowell hved in mediaeval times, she would long since have been canonized as a saint. Had she hved at a still earlier period in our Christian era, she would have been among the martyrs. But Uving as she did in our times, she suffered more than forty years ago the cruelest martyrdom that could ever befall a wife and sister ; and whether because of that martyrdom, or rather, as I think, in spite of it, because she was herself, she has for all these succeeding years emanated that intense s^nnpathy for all humankind, and particularly for all humankind that needs and suffers, which ancient art, for want of better vehicle, has pictured with the halo. Felix Adler We meet together tonight as those who have suffered a common bereavement. I believe that if it had been deemed wise to select the Cooper Institute for this meeting, the Cooper Institute would have been filled to overflowing. The first citizens of the State and the laboring people would there have united in paying homage to the memory of Mrs. Lowell. It seems almost incredible that she has gone from us. But a few months ago she took counsel with us, and was actively interested in all reform movements. We had no warning of the peril. Of a sudden she has disappeared from our mortal view, and coming together here tonight it is the first opportunity that many of us have to exchange 620 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL comments and to jointly express our feelings about what we have lost. I can only say that the City of New York seems to me to be a less noble city to live in, now that I can no longer associate it with the presence of this noble woman. If I may be permitted to say so, I have much the same feehng about her that I had about Mr. Baldwin.^ The city we live in is not, after all, a city of houses and streets ; but the city means for us the women and men who live in it, the ideals that exist in it, the touch of nobility we experience in it ; and when such a person as Mrs. Lowell goes, the city is so far depreciated for us. And yet it seems to me that the very object of this meeting is that this shall not be the case; and that while she is withdrawn from our earthly walks and sight, we shall continue to sanctify the city by a permanent memorial of her ; and above all by having a care that the value of her life shall not be lost for us, by making sure that the memorial, at all events, shall be erected in our individual spirits. I do not think that we meet here today to do her honor ; she is past receiving honor at our hands ; we come here to do something for ourselves, not for her ; to see to it that the advantage and profit of that life shall not be lost for us. I think we can do that best and in the simplest way by each of us taking thought, and quietly and with a holy feeling, looking up to her as if she were present with us at this moment, and fixing in our minds the lineaments of her spiritual self. ^ William H. Baldwin, 1863-1905 ; railroad president and philan- thropist. MEMORIALS 521 Of the living we have but inadequate portraits. We see them at different times, in different relations, in differ- ent aspects ; but perhaps we never have the mental quiet and occasion to combine these portraits, to combine them as the artist would, and to fashion a portrait true to the character. The advantage and purpose of a memorial meeting is that we should add this portrait to our mental picture gallery. Each of us on the platform will en- deavor to contribute something to the fashioning of that portrait ; and then we shall take it with us and keep it in holy memory and consider it in quiet moments, and think of her as she was to us. ' I have always had a reverential feeling toward Mrs. Low- ell. It seemed to me that I never approached her without hearing the words : "Take off the shoes from thy feet, for the ground thou approachest is holy ground.^' Whether it was the unconscious idealizing influence of that sorrow of which she never spoke, or whether it was something else, her charm, her sweet dignity, her simplicity, the sense of close human relations with the poorest and humblest human beings, and at the same time a sense of elevation above the strongest and most capable of those who approached her, — whatever may have been the secret of the influence, it was, above all, the personality which counted. And if I am to express in a few words what in particular seemed to me the peculiar nature of her life, apart from this indefinable and unanalyzable sense of a lofty personality, so near as to be near the lowliest and so high and strong as to be above the strongest and most competent, I should say it was in her case the effect of the harmony of opposites. 522 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL She was an idealist of the purest kind. And yet she was always the most practical of realists. The partial list which Mr. de Forest has read to us is evidence of that practical realism, that strong common sense and sagacity which distinguished her in every movement in which she took part. She was a harmonizer of the ideal and the realistic. She was a harmonizer of opposites. She was an intense enthusiast for certain causes. Above all, she dwelt with motherly sympathy, with the motherhood that embraces all mankind; she dwelt upon the sufferings and the miseries of the world. But more than b}^ the sufferings and the miseries of the world was she touched by the wrongs. It was injustice in any form that called out her keenest feeling. It was this that made her for so long a time, with one other, the only support of the movement in this countr3^ for justice to the Filipino people. And yet, despite her capacity for righteous indignation, she was never one-sided. I could not say at this moment, truthfully, that she was on the side of the Filipinos, that she took the side of the Filipinos ; nor could I say truth- fully that she took the side of the laboring people, for the reason that she also felt so genuinely and intensely how cruel the oppressor is to himself. If ever any one loved the wrongdoer, it was Mrs. Lowell when she protested against his wrongdoing. Longfellow has shown us in one of his poems how Florence Nightingale visited the beds of the sick at Scutari, and how they loved her for coming to them, and how they thought of her as the Lady of the Lamp. I think of Mrs. Lowell also as the Lady of the Lamp. Mr. de Forest said MEMORIALS 623 that many envied the poor for the ray she cast into their life ; may I add that no one had need to be poor to have the blessed touch of that ray. Among many others, I am here tonight to express grati- tude for the ray she cast into my life, the ray of a true, spiritual presence, of fine American womanhood, and of noble humanity. She was the Lady of the Lamp for many of us. She carried aloft the lamp of hope and of pity and of a beautiful faith in us all, in all humanity. Father Huntington ^ . . . Memory goes back at once to what Mrs. Lowell was to a large body of young women in this city in the feather workers' strike ; and when I speak that word, I speak a word that rings of contention, of opposing in- terests, and perhaps of violent antagonism ; a word that is likely to be felt as a hostile word by some people who are here. And yet I must say, quite frankly, that I never have been able to understand how the moral side of a strike — perhaps its moral greatness — can be so ignored by gen- erous men and women. Consider what it means. However mistaken men and women may be, however foolish their effort, is there not something magnificent in seeing those who have work and are supporting their families giving up their chance of earning a living, surrendering their positions, and beggaring themselves, in the hope of securing for those who are less fortunate, those who have no employment — 1 Rev. James O. S. Huntington, Protestant Episcopal Order of the Holy Cross. 524 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL or those who are poorly paid — more poorly paid than themselves — of securing for them fairer treatment and juster pay ? . . . Mrs. Lowell did see this, and she acted accordingly. She was as quick as any one to see the futility of many of the efforts of working people and the ignorance that exists among them; but she saw deeper than that, and felt intense sympathy with that which was noble and true in the hard struggle. So she came forward in this strike of the feather workers as naturally and simpl}^ as she took her part with the work- ing people in the events that I remember distinctly so many years ago. She did not offer patronage ; that word is inconsistent with our memory of her. She did not come playing the part of Lady Bountiful, that half-pathetic, half-romantic figure. She came in her own natural way. She did not attempt to lay aside the advantages of the position that belonged to her ; she did not try to transport herself into their conditions ; there was nothing unreal or unnatural in her or her work. She came to the work with her clear intellect and her generous heart; and how she did put strength into those who were working under almost desperate odds ; how she lifted up the cause ; how she saw the amusing and the humorous side of affairs; how she would point it out, while feeling at the same time the pathos and the tragedy ; and how with the buoyancy of her life she carried all along with her. . . . MEMORIALS 625 Joseph H. Choate If you should ask me to sum up in one word the life and character of Mrs. Lowell, I should call it ^'Consecration." Other women, who have done and suffered much less than she did, have been canonized; but she was consecrated to a glorious and tender memory, consecrated to duty, con- secrated to charity in its largest and noblest sense — the effort to do all in her power for the relief and help of her fellow men and women. . . . I think it is very largely to her father and her husband that we should look for a certain inspiration that guided her subsequent steps. You know that very often our own dead exercise a much more potent and effective influence upon our lives and conduct than any living associates. Time cannot loosen their hold upon our hearts and minds. In one sense they never have come back ; they never do come back ; but in another and a very actual sense, they are always coming back to us ; especially in hours of stress and peril they are always with us, and we gain more sup- port from them sometimes than from any living compan- ions. We often hear their voices with absolute distinct- ness. You put your ear to the telephone, and you hear the voice of a loved friend in Boston, or Chicago, or St. Louis, with perfect distinctness, the quality, the tone, and the expression. You can tell by the sound in addition to the words they speak whether they are joyful or sorrow- ful, whether they are well or ill. And so through the long- distance telephone of time we hear the voices of our de- parted with equal distinctness. They startle us with their familiar reality. 526 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL In dreams, if they are dreams, we see their actual forms, just as they moved before us in Ufe, and in moments of peril and sorrow and danger, we are conscious sometimes of their attendant footsteps, and really feel the support of their loving arms. When you come to know more of Mrs. Lowell's early days, you learn the wonderful advantages which crowned her life, and how trial and suffering made her what she was. [Mr. Choate then made interesting and touching references to Mr. Shaw and Colonel Lowell, and continued :] With such an inheritance from the father, and an alliance with such a man, can anybody doubt that the inspiration she so derived from them set her in motion at least on the great and splendid career of which you have all heard so much tonight, and that it sustained her heart and courage through it all ? . . . I hope this memorial meeting, expressive of our admira- tion of this most valuable woman, will not end in empty breath. It seems to me, as Professor Adler has intimated, that there should be some permanent memorial for this woman who has done so much for us. . . . Jacob A. Riis Perhaps one excellent way of making future generations remember Mrs. Lowell would be to call one of the small parks now coming into existence all over the city after her. There is a distinct need of attaching the influence of such a name to one of the parks on the East Side. I have been trying to think back to the time when I first knew Mrs. Lowell, but I cannot remember. I came in MEMORIALS 527 course of time to pay almost daily visits to her house. In those days she lived in East Thirtieth Street, quite near to the ferry which brought me over to New York when I came in from Long Island, and I fell into the habit, espe- cially when anything troubled me, of ringing her doorbell when I passed the house. She was never ''out,'' always ready to sit down and listen and give advice and opinion. It was then I learned what a patient, sweet, wise and lovable woman she was. Mr. Stewart spoke of her courage. Yes, she was coura- geous. I think the only thing in the world she was afraid of — we were not — was of not following her own con- viction and conscience to the end. You have spoken about her cheerfulness. She was cheer- ful and hopeful because she believed in God, and could wait. That was often the friendly contention between us. She could wait. I was young then and impetuous, impa- tient. She believed in her fellow-man and could wait, because she saw the image of God in him, and was sure that, given the chance, it would work out. She was patient because life and her faith had taught her wisdom ; and she had that God-given sense of humor that gets us over so many rough spots. I recall an occasion when we had gone to Mayor Grant to see him about the police station houses. We had nagged and nagged the Mayor until he was tired of it, and when we told him for the fiftieth time, I suppose, that in Boston they had municipal lodging houses, he cried out in impatience: '' Boston, Boston ! I am sick of the name of Boston." I suppose he did not know what ''Boston" meant to her; I turned 528 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL , to her in some apprehension to see how she took it, but she was leaning back in her chair and laughing heartily. Speaking of her patience, I remember another occasion when we had gone to Albany to argue for something that we had up before an assembly committee. I was speaking. I was filled up with arguments which she had given me on the way up, and not those which I had thought out for myself, and was trying to keep my mind on them, when one of the assemblymen interrupted me: ^^Pro- fessor," he said, ^'you people come here year after year arguing for these things ; let me ask you, what do you get for it?" For the moment I was nonplussed. ''What do you mean ? " I asked. "I mean," he said, ''this," holding out one hand, "what do you get, do you understand ?" I could have throttled the man. He was the only one I ever knew to distrust or question Mrs. LowelFs motives. But when I glanced at her, I saw her sitting with that patient, far-away look in her face. Those things meant nothing to her. She was there in a cause. It was God's cause, and it was bound to prevail. The rest didn't matter. . . . [Referring to Mrs. Lowell's early work with Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States at the time of her death, Mr. Riis said : ] . . . Long before she died, she knew what Theodore Roosevelt stood for in the nation's life. I think I was the last of you all to see her. She sent for me to come out to Greenwich where she was, a very few weeks before she died, and I came quickly. . . . She spoke of Roosevelt, and she sent the last message of love and cheer. When I gave it to him he said : "She had MEMORIALS 529 a sweet, unworldly character ; and never man or woman ever strove for loftier ideals." . . . Seth Low I remember to have heard Colonel Higginson, of Boston, speak of Mrs. Lowell's husband as one of a group of young men whom he had known at Harvard, ''who threw away their lives like a flower" for our country. I have seldom heard a phrase that moved me more. It seems to present the picture of a gallant group of young men, full of the hope and the enthusiasm and the fancy of youth, each asking no greater privilege than to lay them all at the feet of his country, as a lover gives a bud to the lady of his love. It was not given to Mrs. Lowell to throw away her life like a flower ; but for forty-one long years, to use her own words, her character grew in this community; she had always an inspiring and uplifting influence, and shed abroad a delightful fragrance as she moved along our streets. ... I like Mr. Choate's suggestion for a permanent memorial of her ; and I hope that this meeting will ask that a committee be appointed by the chairman to arrange for a suitable memorial to Mrs. Lowell at the hands of the people of this great city. I suppose Mrs. Lowell may have felt that her name stood for something among the poor people of this city. I do not know whether she could realize how much it meant, not to them only, but to all of her fellow-citizens. Profes- sor Adler spoke of her as a Lady with a Lamp. She was, indeed, the Lady of the Lamp ; and she went before us always carrying that shining light. She does not need 2m 530 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL any memorial at our hands ; but for our own sakes we want to prove and establish before the world that we not only saw in her the light of her character, but that from the flame of her spirit we also have lit a light in our own breasts. William R. Stewart^ [Mr. Stewart, complying with a request which had been made him, spoke of Mrs. LowelFs work as a Commissioner of the State Board of Charities, in which he was associated with her from 1882 to 1889. The memorial volume pub- lished by the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York in 1906 gave place to the address in full. Mr. Stewart concluded as follows : ] Among Mrs. LowelFs characteristics which impressed me most strongly were her promptness, constant cheerful- ness, dauntless courage, and tireless industry in her work. She was always sincere and direct, and no one could doubt for a moment the position she took on any subject. These qualities and her total absence of self-consciousness account in large measure for the wonderful success of her work. The world will miss Mrs. Lowell, for good men and good women are needed on every hand to carry on its work. This State will miss her ; this city will miss her ; but we who knew her best will miss her most of all. The memorial volume also contained the following articles : '^Mrs. Loweirs Services to the State," by Edward T. Devine ; MEMORIALS 631 "Mrs. Lowell and the Unemployed," by John Bancroft Devins, D.D. ; "Mrs. Lowell and the Consumers' League," by Maud Nathan ; "Mrs. Lowell and the New York Charity Organization Society." This last included the following editorial paragraphs from Charities for October 14, 1905, after the announce- ment of Mrs. LowelFs death : We of Charities and of the New York Charity Organ- ization Society have indeed the right to share in an ex- pression of personal bereavement. Mrs. Lowell was the founder of the Charity Organization Society and for the twenty-three years since, as a Commissioner of the State Board of Charities, she called the Society into existence, she has been its most faithful, untiring, and efficient member. She, more than any other person — although it has never been, and she and her associates were always determined that it should never be, a one-man society — has been its guiding spirit. She has served continuously on its Central Coimcil and its Executive Committee, and has also worked always on the more humble routine of its district work. Only a few days before her death she had written to the president expressing- regret that she could not attend committee meetings during the winter and a desire to be allowed to remain in the Central Council. We moiu-n the loss of one whose place cannot be filled, whose services will never be forgotten, whose work will remain. 532 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The Independent for October 20, 1905, published the following : In the death of Josephine Shaw Lowell last week the United States loses one of its noblest and greatest women. For forty years there has been nobody in New York whose charitable and social reform effort has resulted in greater and more lasting achievement than hers. Her monument is built in the Charity Organization Society which she founded twenty-three years ago, in the constitution and statutes of New York, in the successful fight for Civil Service Reform, in her impress on the labor movement, on the college settlements, and in fact on every good endeavor for civic reform. Her beloved young husband, Charles Russell Lowell, was killed in the Civil War at Cedar Creek ; her patriot brother, Robert Gould Shaw, perished at Fort Wagner, at the head of his Negro regiment, and was buried with them. No wonder, with the example of two such sacrifices to treasure in her memory, Mrs. Lowell became what she was. Her work will remain. The Outlook for October 21, 1905, contained the follow- ing editorial : ^ The City of New York is poorer by reason of the death of Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell at her home in this city on Thursday of last week, for it has rarely numbered among its citizens a finer character or been the witness of a more high-minded and fruitful life. Connected by blood and marriage with some of the finest men of her time, — the ' Not included in the memorial volume. MEMORIALS 533 Lowells, George William Curtis, Francis C. Barlow, — the daughter of a man of unusual qualities of mind and character, and the sister of Colonel Robert G. Shaw, Mrs. Lowell embodied in herself the best traditions and the highest aims of American life. After the terrible tragedy which the Civil War brought upon her in the death of her husband, her brother, and her brother-in-law, all graduates of Harvard College and young men of singular mental and moral distinction, Mrs. Lowell consecrated her- self, in the truest sense of the word, to philanthropic work. Free entirely from the passion of publicity which has in- fected many women as well as many men of the time, she put her hand at the start to some of the most perplexing problems in the administration of the charities of the State. For thirteen years she served as Charities Commis- sioner. Twenty-three years ago she founded the Charity Organization Society, one of the most useful organizations in the whole range of charitable philanthropic work in this city ; and almost up to the time of her death she was an active worker in its behalf. Her interest in the Prison Association bore fruit in the separation of the sexes in prisons. She was one of the founders of the Woman's Municipal League, and no movement looking to the higher life of the city failed to secure her interest and sympathy, and in many cases her active support. Her calm courage, self-forgetfulness, practical sagacity, and high-mindedness gave her great influence with the men and women with whom she was brought into contact, and it is safe to say that no woman of her time has received higher regard in this city, nor has any been more useful, 534 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL than this quiet, unassuming woman, to whom the largest social opportunities were open, but who gave herself, with rare self-forgetfulness, to causes often inconspicuous, but all of the highest importance. She devoted herself to pubHc affairs without sacrificing her womanhness. A Woman of Sorrows Josephine Shaw Lowell It was but yesterday she walked these streets, Making them holier. How many years With all her widowed love immeasurably She ministered unto the abused and stricken And all the oppressed and suffering of mankind, — Herself forgetting, but never those in need ; Her whole sweet soul lost in her loving work, Pondering the endless problem of the poor. In ceaseless labor, swift, unhurriedly, She sped upon her tireless ministries. Climbing the stairs of poverty and wrong. Endeavoring the help that shall not hurt ; Seeking to build in every human heart A temple of justice — that no brother \s burden Should heavier prove through human selfishness. In memory I see that brooding face That now seemed dreaming of the heroic past When those most dear to her laid loyal lives On the high altar of freedom ; and again That thinking, inward-lighted countenance MEMORIALS 535 Drooped, saddened by the pain of humankind, Though resolute to help where help might be. And with undying faith illuminate. She was our woman of sorrows, whose pure heart Was pierced by many woes. And yet long since Her soul of sympathy entered the peace And calm eternal of the eternal mind. Inheritor of noble lives, she held Even to the end, a spirit of cheerfulness And knowledge keen of the deep joy of being By pain all unsubdued. Sister and saint. Who to lifers darkened passage-ways brought light ; Who taught the dignity of human service ; Who made the city noble by her life ; And sanctified the very stones her feet Pressed in their sacred journeys. Most high God ! This city of mammon, this wide, seething pit Of avarice and lust, hath known thy saints. And yet shall know. For faith than sin is mightier, And by this faith we live, — that in thy time, In thine own time, the good shall crush the ill ; The brute within the human shall die down ; And love and justice reign, where hate prevents — That love which in pure hearts reveals thine own And lights the world to righteousness and truth. Richard Watson Gilder. December 3, 1905. From Charities and The Commons y January 6, 1906. 536 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL A City's Saint Josephine Shaw Lowell "A woman lived and now a woman dies ;" If that were all, this line were much too long ; But with her went from out our social skies A light, and voice like a remembered song. Some saints have lived who on the ensanguined field Walked with the balm of healing in their hands ; And not until the eye of God is sealed Fadeth the glory where some woman stands. Shedding strange radiance from her tender eyes ; Now in the town, and now in court or camp — Some woman with her deed of sacrifice. Lighting the world like an eternal lamp. And she to whom War's tragedy of pain Had brought its tears — whose husband, brother, friend Passed in the cannonading to the slain — Walked with her lonely sorrow to the end. But in that sorrow's self-forgetfulness She wrought whose splendid task is done too soon ; Because she lived, the evil days are less Bridging these civic nights to highest noon. And amid the populous town, its walls that rise, Its massive structures wrought of myriad hands, This story of a woman's sacrifice Shines like a beacon where the city stands. MEMORIALS 537 This shall outlive its mortar and its stone, This shall be told where cities rise and fall ; A woman working in its way alone With loving hands built bastions round its wall. Joseph Dana Miller. From The Outlook^ January, 1906. Josephine Shaw Lowell and the Peace Movement ^ A stanza in the beautiful poem in memory of Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, by Joseph Dana Miller, re- printed in a recent number of Charities and The Commons, prompts me to a word of tribute to Mrs. Lowell in con- nection with a most important aspect of her service, which in the numerous and impressive testimonies to her great and varied ministry which you have published, has not, I think, found recognition. It was the side of her zeal and consecration which I personally came into closest touch with ; it was a remarkable work ; and the mere fact that it should not have been emphasized at all, if even mentioned, by the multitudes of fellow-workers expressing their gratitude for her wonderful life, is a striking witness to the opulence and comprehensiveness of that lifers service. *' And she to whom War's tragedy of pain Had brought its tears — whose husband, brother, friend Passed in the cannonading to the slain — Walked with her lonely sorrow to the end." 1 From Charities and The Commons, February 17, 1906. 638 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Mr. Conway has well said, in those last solemn pages of his autobiography, that the commanding cause of our time is the war against war, as the commanding cause half a century ago was the war against slavery — the war in which Charles Russell Lowell laid down his life. I have known no woman in America who personally felt this more profoundly than Mrs. Lowell. The present war system of nations was to her a monstrous and horrible thing — the grossest and most devastating manifestation of what is most unjust, wasteful, wicked, irrational, un-Christian, and inhuman among men. No service or sacrifice against it was for her too great. When it was fixed that the International Peace Congress in 1904 should be held in Boston, she at once became a member of the American committee ; and that committee made her a member of its executive committee. In this executive committee of twelve were two New York mem- bers besides herself, both men of great ability and devotion to the peace cause ; yet both of these would be most f or- w^ard to endorse any declaration that Mrs. Lowell did more than all others in New York together, save only Andrew Carnegie by his generous financial assistance, to make the Boston Congress and the great meetings which fol- lowed in New York the impressive demonstrations which they were. I would go farther — and as chairman of that executive committee my gratitude to all its members is, like that of its secretarj'-. Dr. Trueblood, heartfelt and strong — and say that the actual personal cooperation given us by Mrs. Lowell was greater than that of all the other members of the conunittee together. It was a MEMORIALS 539 service so conspicuous and rare that its record should not fail. The personal work which Mrs. Lowell did in New York in the way of solicitation for contributions to the congress fund was extraordinary. I find, looking at the record, that something over a hundred checks came to us from New York. More than three-quarters of these came through Mrs. Lowell's effort — seven contributions among them, I find, of $100 each, as many more of $50, and many more almost equal. This was the result of personal conference or personal correspondence — a correspondence continued throughout the long summer, much of it mortgaging her time at Ashfield in the vacation so greatly needed and so richly earned. To the Boston Congress itself, which would have been such an inspiration to her, she did not come, because every moment of the week was given by her to planning and providing for the great Cooper Union meeting and the other meetings in New York the following week, for which the great body of foreign delegates went from Boston. Oscar S. Straus was the force behind the reception by the Board of Trade at the Hotel Astor ; Miss Grace Dodge was the force behind the meeting at the Teachers College; and others contributed nobly to the splendid result. But Mrs. Lowell was in and behind everything, giving direction and unity to all. She kept the wires very hot between New York and Boston that week; and one morning, I remember, an energetic school teacher appeared at my office straight from Mrs. Lowell's desk to make absolutely sure that the Bishop of Hereford did not fail 540 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL to be present at the principal New York meeting. I think she stayed in Boston almost until the Bishop was actually on the train ; and I felt each time she came to me that Mrs. Lowell's eyes, so keen for every detail, were looking at me through hers. There are none of us charged with the peace work here in Boston who will not always feel her eyes upon us, en- couraging, pleading, and commanding. I trust that the same thought of her untiring service, her consecration, and her presence may be a perpetual inspiration to the new peace society just being organized in New York. Its organization would have been to her a joy — that greatest of joys to her, a new opportunity and instrument for ser- vice. Those in New York who loved her can show their gratitude in no way which would have given her greater satisfaction than by supporting as she would have done this hopeful movement in their city for the warfare against Edwin B. Mead. Boston, Mass. Josephine Shaw Lowell In Memoriam As now and then a star breaks through the gloom With glow so strong, so tender, and serene, Dispelling, one by one, the brooding clouds — Till midnight shades melt in the glow of morn — So, now and then a soul serene and strong Shines downward through the clouds of human pain, And through the dark of human need and wrong, MEMORIALS 541 Till, ^neath its patient toil and radiant calm — Evil shrinks back abashed, and good is crowned. A star like this is for no land or clime ; Each cloud ahke its radiance must share, And when its hght is lost, the whole earth mourns. A soul hke hers to the wide world belongs. Its light, though sometimes hid awhile or quenched. Flames ever at the heart of human woes ; And, kept alive by those who knew and loved. Becomes consuming fire to every wrong That holds humanity in suffering's thrall. Shine on, O Star ! in lifers oft-clouded heaven ! Burn on, O Soul of flame ! in life's sore needs. Pierce e'en om- sadness ! Let thy light be given To those who glad would follow where it leads. Who fain would change their love and grief to deeds. Mary Lowe Dickinson. From the New York Evening Post, April 14, 1906. The Service-tree To* Josephine Shaw Lowell There's an old Icelandic rune, Chanted to a mournful tune, Of the service-tree, that grows O'er the sepulchres of those Who for others' sins have died, — Others' hatred, greed, or pride, — 542 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Living monuments that stand, Planted of no human hand. So from her fresh-flowered grave — Hers who all her being gave Other lives to beautify, Other ways to purify, — There shall spring a spirit-tree, In her loving memory, Till its top shall reach the skies, Telling of her sacrifice. John Finley. From the Century Magazinej Maj^, 1906. The memorial volume also contains resolutions of regret at Mrs. Lowell's death, adopted by the Sixth New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, November 16, 1905. Resolutions were also adopted by the Woman's Auxiliary of the New York Civil Service Reform Association, November 7, 1905; by the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, and by the Woman's Municipal League of New York. The New York State Board of Charities at its meeting January 10, 1906, unanimously adopted a minute express- ing regret at the death of their former colleague, Mrs. Lowell. The State Charities Aid Association took appro- priate action at the annual meeting, December 6, 1906. The Women's Auxiliary of the Massachusetts Civil Ser- vice Reform Association adopted resolutions of regret, and MEMORIALS 543 the Federation Bulletin of January, 1906, published an obituary and "memorial notices. The Woman's Municipal League, in conjunction with the Consumers' League and the Woman's Auxiliary of the New York Civil Service Reform Association, organiza- tions, as we have seen, founded and led by Mrs. Lowell, held a meeting in her memory at New York, on April 12, 1906, under the chairmanship of Miss Margaret L. Chanler, President of the Woman's Municipal League. The Monthly Bulletin of that League for May following took the form of a memorial number to Mrs. Lowell, and the following extracts are made from tributes then paid to her : Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler It gives me much pleasure, as an old friend of Mrs. Lowell, a friend from girlhood, although several years her senior, to join with you in this tribute of affectionate respect to her memory. . . . Had she not chosen to give her life to the service of others, to the poor and friendless, she would doubtless have made her mark in literature, for that life of aspiration, earnestness, and industry was destined to leave its impress on the world in some form. One thing she could never have been, and this too was open to her, a society woman, caring for fashionable society alone. Not that her social position, always recognized as of the best, did not help her in her work, for it did ; but she looked upon it and upon her other possessions, as of the things to be used for others, if she ever thought of them at all. . . » 544 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Those who knew Mrs. Lowell well knew that the ex- periences of those years of the war were the abiding in- fluences in her life, not of despair or bitterness, but of sweetness and strength. One could not be with her — I never could — without feeling, through her silence, the ever-present background of the war; without a sense of reverence for that supreme sacrifice for country, so nobly accepted; without seeing the halo upon her brow. . . . Miss Kate Bond Mrs. Lowell was in earnest in whatever cause she under- took, and because she was in earnest, men and women believed in her and listened to her plans and followed her leadership. She considered carefully the methods she adopted ; she never wearied in her aims, and the citizens of this city took time to consider the practical suggestions made by this wise and self-sacrificing woman for the public good. . . . Behold the membership and influence of the Woman's Municipal League as it is today ! It was Mrs. Lowell, our strong adherent to the right, who conceived the idea of uniting women to consider the city's needs ! She never faltered in her interest or in her determination to promote an honest city government, in so far as her individual power and influence could effect it. Day and night, with but few to hold up her hands, in the early days of this League, Mrs. Lowell toiled to create interest among women and men in our city affairs. I have seen her when the early autumn came, previous to the city elections, while most of her associates were still out of town, day after day, preparing documents for distribution and writing MEMORIALS 545 notes to absent acquaintances, soliciting the use of draw- ing-rooms in which meetings might be held to discuss the city^s political issues. Great as was the cause to be main- tained, she held no detail as too small to receive her attention. . . . Miss Grace H. Dodge Miss Dodge spoke extemporaneously of Mrs. Lowell and her relationship to the peace movement, and especially emphasized her beautiful service in the fall of 1904, when the great National Peace Conference was held in Boston and extra meetings in New York City. She also further described the spirit of peace and love and gentle- ness which always pervaded Mrs. Lowell's personality and her home surroundings, and said how much this peaceful atmosphere had done to rest and help the many tired workers and friends who came in to consult her. Mrs. William H. Schieffeun ^ In the death of Mrs. Lowell, the Woman's Auxiliary of the Civil Service Reform Association has lost its most loyal and distinguished member. ... In studying the story of Mrs. Lowell's life, from the time when her young husband and her brother were killed in the Civil War — when she consecrated her life to the cause of humanity — we are thrilled at the revelation of the purity and nobility of her character. Mrs. Lowell's absolute abnegation of self, her unique unworldliness, her tender sympathy for 1 Minute presented by Mrs. ScliiefiFelin and adopted by the Woman's Auxiliary of the New York Civil Service Reform Association. 2n 646 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL the neglected and suffering, her passionate desire to help those longing and struggling for Uberty and independence, her burning indignation against all that was unworthy and untrue, her patriotism and civic pride, her cheerful- ness, helpfulness, and especially her humility, show a nature of surpassing purity and strength, a pattern not to women alone, but to all Americans. We who have been associated with Mrs. Lowell know that her place cannot be filled, for we have lost the inspiration of our leader and our dear friend. Tributes paid in words, however eloquent, do not alone record the memory of Mrs. Lowell and her work. It was the privilege of a loving daughter to commemorate the sacrificial lives of both her parents in providing the first of these other memorials. Charles Russell Lowell ac- quired in 1859 a tract of land containing two hundred and one acres, situated about four miles from the city of Dixon, Illinois. The purchase is supposed to have been made partly for investment and partly because of the beauty of the property. On his death, in 1864, Mrs. Lowell inherited this land from her husband, and for more than forty years, refusing either to sell or to lease, she held it in his memory, carefully preserving the natural beauties he had loved so well. Miss Lowell in turn inherited it from her mother, soon after whose death in 1905, she carried out her wishes by conveying it to the city of Dixon for a public park. There could be no more appropriate memorial. For many years a dweller in the most crowded city in the world, Mrs. Lowell had always deplored the lack of breath- MEMORIALS 547 ing spaces for the people and of playgrounds for children, and she herself had led, or actively supported, several movements in New York intended to supply present needs, and also to make ample provision of new parks in the sub- urbs for the future growth of the metropolis. With the deed of the property, Miss Lowell presented a valuable report which she had obtained from Olmsted Brothers, eminent landscape architects of Boston, in which they described the land included in the gift, and made recom- mendations for its development and for the manner of its future use. The Legislature of IlUnois promptly passed a law enabling the acceptance of the land for park purposes by the city, which on May 8, 1907, appointed a board of five commissioners for the control and improvement of '^Lowell Park.'^ A second memorial to Mrs. Lowell is a fountain at Rad- eliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, erected by Ma- jor Henry L. Higginson and Mrs. Higginson of Boston, The fountain, an old Venetian basin of red granite, was dedicated June, 1906, on which occasion a eulogy of Mrs. Lowell was delivered to the students by Major Higginson. In the early years of the Charity Organization Society, Mrs. Lowell was often associated with Mr. Robert W. Hebberd, one of the executive officers, who, after nearly ten years' subsequent service as Secretary of the State Board of Charities, in 1906 became Commissioner of Public Charities of the City of New York, by the ap- pointment of Mayor McClellan. Mr. Hebberd had the gratification of honoring the memory of his fellow-worker, by giving her name to a new hospital steamboat of his 548 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL department. Built at West New Brighton, Staten Island, within sight of Mrs. LowelFs old home. The Lowell was launched, May 25, 1908, with appropriate ceremonies, witnessed by many of her friends, and went into com- mission September 1, of that year. Assigned, primarily, to the duty of carrying patients from the East Twenty- sixth Street pier of the Department to the hospitals and other institutions on the islands in the East River, this steamboat, which has capacity for two hundred passengers, and is provided with several private cabins for the very ill, carries on her daily trips a physician, a matron, and a nurse, to minister to those in need of special care. A bronze me- morial tablet suitably inscribed has been placed by Mr. Hebberd in the saloon. Long may The Lowell ply the waters of the metropolis on her errands of mercy, and so continually recall the devoted labors of the noble woman whose name she bears, for the reUef of the sick and unfortunate of the great city. It will be remembered that several of the speakers at the Memorial Meeting to Mrs. Lowell, held in the United Charities Building, suggested that some suitable civic monument should perpetuate her name and her services to the City of New York. Shortly afterward a com- mittee, under the chairmanship of Seth Low, was organized to carry out this recommendation. After carefully con- sidering a number of plans, the committee decided that the memorial should take the form of a fountain,^ to be erected in Bryant Park, near the New York City Public Library. The fountain of Stony Creek granite consists ^ Designed by Charles A. Piatt, Architect. MEMORIALS 549 of a large bowl of classic design, from which the water flows into a basin of twenty-seven feet in diameter. The subscribers to the fund for the erection of the fountain niunbered nearly three hundred. At the New York State Training School for Girls, formerly the House of Refuge for Women, at Hudson, an institution which in consideration of Mrs. Lowell's founder's interest might appropriately in future bear her name, and also at the State Reformatory for Women at Bedford there are Lowell Cottages. These State institu- tions, the Asylum at Newark, and the record of her life work are her most enduring memorials. CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MRS. LOWELL'S WRITINGS 1861-1862 A young girl's wartime diary, July 23, 1861-November 9, 1862. 1877, Feb. 28. Lowell, J. S., Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Hoguet. Report relating to the New York Juvenile Guardian Society of the City of New York. Eleventh Annual Report, S. B. C.,i 1878, pp. 99-102. Sept. 4. Report on Assembly Bill No. 79, 1877, to S. B. C. Mrs. Lowell for majority, Samuel F. Miller for minority in re : Reformatory treatment of vagrants, Pamphlet. 4 p. Sept. 7. Extracts from a report on pauperism presented by Dr. C. S. Hoyt, Secretary of S. B. C, in regard to vagrant, feeble-minded, and idiotic inmates of the almshouses of the State. Oct. 20. Roosevelt, Theodore, J. S. Lowell, Edward C. Don- nelly. Communication to the Mayor of New York in regard to the Oflficial Charities of the City. Eleventh Annual Report, S. B. C, 1878, pp. 207-225. Dec. 24. Lowell, J. S., Edward C. Donnelly. Communica- tion to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York. Ibid., pp. 229-230. 1878, Jan. 14. Roosevelt, Theodore, J. S. Lowell. Communication to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York. Ibid., pp. 231-234. Mch. 5. Report of a majority of the Committee on Vagrancy, Mrs. Lowell, Chairman. Minutes, S. B. C, 1878- 1885, pp. 16-17. Mch. 14. Report of Committee appointed to confer with the Trustees of the Idiot Asylum. Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, p. 15. Nov. 12. Report of the Committee to which was referred the * New York State Board of Charities. 551 652 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Senate Bill No. 322, 1878, proposing the hiring of buildings as workhouses for women. Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, pp. 63-66. 1879, Jan. Lowell, J. S., Edward C. Donnelly. Report relating to the public charities of New York City. Twelfth Annual Report, S. B. C, pp. 237-256. Also in pamphlet form. May 28. One means of preventing pauperism, in re: The social harm caused by vagrant and degraded women. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference of Charities and Correction, Chicago, June, 1879, pp. 189-200. Pamphlet form, 14 p. Commissioners Lowell, Ropes and Foster. Report of the Committee on a Reformatory for Women, Twelfth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1879, pp. 289-292. 1880, Jan. 13. Reformatories for women. Thirteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1880, pp. 173-180. Also in pamphlet form. Mch. 29. Public aid for private charitable institutions caring for dependent children. New York World, 2 col. Paper read before the Members of the New York State Association of Teachers, "Relation of education to insanity, crime, and pauperism." New York, 1886. Pamphlet, 18 p. Public Charities of New York City ; Thirteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, pp. 137-169. Also in pamphlet form, 32 p. 1881, Jan. 6. Report upon the condition and needs of the insane of New York City ; Fourteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1881, pp. 177-193. [July. Considerations upon a better system of public charities and correction for cities. Proceedings of the Eighth National Conference of Charities and Cor- rection, Boston, July 25-30, 1881, pp. 168-185. Also in pamphlet form, 18 p. Oct. 11. Report in relation to out-door relief societies in New York City. Fifteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1882, pp. 321-331. CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 553 Some facts concerning the jails, penitentiaries, and poorhouses of the State of New York. Dec. 6. Report on the State Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb, and the Asylum for Idiots. Fifteenth An- nual Report, S. B. C, 1882, pp. 117-151. Also in pamphlet form, 35 p. 1882, Jan. 10. Report on the Public Charities of New York City. lUd., pp. 28^317. Mch. 16. Lowell, J. S., Stephen Smith, M. D. Report of committee to consider the needs of the insane of New York City, and to suggest a plan for their care. Minutes, S. B. C, 187S-1885, pp. 304r-306. Dec. 19. Lowell, J. S., John C. Devereux. Report of the Stand- ing Committee on Idiots. Sixteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1883, pp. 131-135. 1883, Jan. 10. Report of the Standing Committee on the Deaf and Dumb. Ihid., pp. 139-148. Apr. 11. Resolution opposed to the passage of Assembly Bill No. 654, entitled "An Act to make Provision in Aid of and for the Support of Certain Poor in the City of New York." Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, p. 391. Oct. 10. Report on the organization and work of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York. Seventeenth Annual Report, S. B. C. 1884, pp. 135- 139. Duties of friendly visitors. Charity Organization So- ciety papers. No. 11. 4 p. Report on the insane and lunatic asylums of New York City. Sixteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1883, pp. 151-163. 1884, Apr. 19. Stewart, W. R., J. S. Lowell, J. J. Milhau. Report of the Special Committee of the S. B. C. upon the man- agement of the New York Infant Asylum. Ordered printed by Board, Dec. 16, 1884. Pamphlet, 22 p. Public Relief and Private Charity. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. Ill p. "Questions of the Day," No. XIII. 554 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Devereux, John C, J. S. Lowell. Report of the Stand- ing Committee on the Deaf and Dumb. Seven- teenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1884, pp. 325-326. Commissioners Lowell, Ropes, Ripley. Report of the Standing Committee on Outdoor Relief. Ibid., pp. 141-16L 1885, Mch. 16. The bitter cry of the poor in New York. Some of its causes and some of its remedies; Christian Union, Vol. XXXI, No. 13. 3 col. Apr. 1. On the relation of employers and employed. A paper read at the Women^s Conference of the Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity, April 1, 1885. Pamphlet published by the society. 8 p. 1886, Jan. 12. Report on the institutions for the care of destitute children of the City of New York. Nineteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, pp. 165-243. Sept. Public outdoor relief; International Record, No. 7, p. 110. Dec. 9. Stewart, William R., J. S. Lowell, Robert McCarthy. Report of the Standing Committee on Reformatories. Twentieth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1887, pp. 165- 214. Dec. 15. Report on the Public Charities of New York City. Ibid., pp. 217-279. 1887, Apr. 25. Extracts from a paper read at the Woman's Con- ference, " New York City Department of Charities." Pamphlet, 5 p. July 12. The Work-house, New York City. Twenty-first Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 335-346. Aug. How to adapt charity organization methods to small communities. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Na- tional Conference of Charities and Correction, Omaha, Neb., Aug. 25-31, 1887, pp. 135-143. Dec. 5. Charity Organization. An address delivered before the Women's Christian Conference of New York City. Dec. 9. Report on the Department of Public Charities and CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 555 Correction of the City of New York. Twenty-first Annual Report, S. B. C, pp. 261-271. Also in pamphlet form. Report on the Work-house, New York City. 1888, Feb. 8. Paper read at first public meeting of the Working Women's Society. April Paper read at third annual meeting of the Charity Organization Society of Castleton. " Charity Or- ganization Society purposes.*' Ms. Pamphlet, 3 p. Nov. 20. Milhau, John J., J. S. Lowell. Report in reference to insane in New York City. Minutes, S. B. C, 188&-1890, p. 175. Dec. 8. Stewart, William R., J. S. Lowell. Report of the Standing Conmaittee on Reformatories. Twenty- second Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 315-368. Dec. 12. Report on the Randall's Island Schools for Defective Children. Ibid., pp. 431-435. Also in pamphlet form. Dec. 12. Report on the Work-house, New York City. Ibid., pp. 419-428. Also in pamphlet form. Report of the Standing Conmiittee on Out-door Relief. Twenty-third Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 349- 371. Sunday School Talks. Five papers " Our duties in connection with charity and relief giving;" read before the Sunday School of the Lenox Ave. Uni- tarian Church, New York City. 34 pages. 1889, Jan. 4. Paper read before the League of Unitarian Women. Ms. Feb. 8. Letter to feather manufacturers of New York. Ms. 3 p. July 6. Report on proposed organization of an asylum for destitute Italian children in the City of New York. Minutes, S. B. C, 1886-1890, pp. 209-210. Dec. 10. Report upon the care of dependent children in the City of New York and elsewhere. Twenty-third Annual Report, S. B. C, pp. 175-249. 556 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Lowell, J. S., Robert McCarthy. Report on the Stand- ing Committee on Reformatories. Ibid., pp. 123- 136. Also in pamphlet form. Report of the Standing Committee on the Deaf and Dmnb. Ibid., pp. 139-163. 1890, May. The Economic and Moral Effects of PubUc Outdoor Relief, Proceedings of the Seventeenth National Conference of Charities and Correction, Baltimore, May 14r-21, 1890, pp. 81-91. Also in pamphlet form, 11 p. Aug. 5. Letter to Board of Police of New York City, re : Police Matrons. | col. Out-door ReUef. Its effect upon the recipient. Twenty-fourth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1890. Also in pamphlet form. 8 p. 1891, Mch. Book review. " In Darkest England and the Way Out," by General Booth, 1890. Magazine of Christian Literature, March, 1891, p. 440. 3 p. Typewritten copy, 11 p. with emendations. General Booth's book again. (Incomplete). Type- written. 5 p. Nov. Labor organization as affected by law. (Largely quotation.) In first number of Charities Review, November, 1891. 1892, Jan. Need in New York City of Reformatory for Women. In State Charities Record, New York, January, 1892, Vol. Ill, No. 3, pp. 26-27. July 15. Workingmen's Rights in property created by them. Letter to editor of New York Times. Also in pam- phlet form, 6 p. Dec. 2. Raib-oad Strikes. New York Times, Dec. 2, 1892, 2 col. The Darkest England Social Scheme. A brief review of the first year's work. Typewritten. 10 p. The Rights and Wrongs of Strikes. 1893, Jan. Industrial Peace. Reprinted from Charities Review for January, 1893. Pamphlet. 7 p. May. A chapter of industrial history. Re: Industrial CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 557 Conciliation. Mainly translated from the French. Reprinted from Chanties Review for May, 1893. Pamphlet. 6 p. June. Felix qui causam rerum cognovit. Chanties Review, June, 1893. 8 p. 1894, May. Five Months' Work for the Unemployed in New York City. Typewritten. 27 p. The Great Coal Strike of 1894. Typewritten. 8 p. Sept. 26. The Elmira Reformatory. A Letter to the Evening Post. 1 p. Sept. The Unemployed in New York City, 1893-1894. Read before the American Social Science As- sociation, at Saratoga, September, 1894, and again before the Council of the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo, Oct. 3, 1894. Printed in Buffalo Courier, Oct. 14, 1894. If col. Oct. 9. Letter to Frances E. Willard advising how the W. C. T. U. can best help the working people. Typewritten. 5 p. Oct. 20. LoweU, J. S., FeUx Adler, C. W. Hoadley. Com- mittee of New York Council of Mediation and Con- cihation. To Clothing Manufacturers Association Contractors Protective Union Brotherhood of Tailors. Re: Arbitration. Typewritten. 2 p. Relief for the Unemployed. 1895, Apr. 4. An Example of Arbitration. Reprints from The Voice. 4 p. May. Poverty and its relief. The methods possible in the City of New York. Proceedings of the Twenty- second National Conference of Charities and Cor- rection, New Haven, Conn., May 24-30, 1895, pp. 44-54. June 20. Two much-needed county institutions. A paper read at the Convention of County Superintendents of the Poor, Ogdensburg, N. Y. Re: Farm colony for vagrants. 9 p. 558 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL 1895, Nov. 15. Industrial Peace. Fragment. 5 p. Nov. 15. County visiting committees. 10 p. Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation. Publications of the Church Social Union, Series B, No. 8. Boston. 19 p. Charity. To the Sunday School children of the Lenox Ave. Unitarian Church, New York City. Typewritten. 6 p. 1896, Jan. Industrial Conciliation. Some American examples of industrial conciliation. For "Live Questions Bureau." Tjrpewritten. lip. Sept. 30. Lowell, J. S., and others. Homeless men and women. A letter to Commander Booth Tucker, Salvation Army. Typewritten. 9 p. Dec. 30. The Reform of the Civil Service and the Spoils Sys- tem. Read before the Women's Auxiliary of the C. S. R. A. and the League for Political Education. Publication No. 2, League for Political Education. 16 p. Charity Problems. 2 col. reprint from the Chicago Record. 7 p. Relation of women to the movement for reform in the Civil Service. National Civil Service Reform League. The true aim of Charity Organization Societies. The Forum for June, 1896. Pamphlet. 7 p. 1897, Jan. 14. Argument on the Department of Public Charities, the Department of Correction, and the payment of public funds to private institutions. Reprint. 4 p. Feb. 16. The influence of cheap lodging houses on city pau- perism. Partly in Evening Post. Typewritten, with emendations in ink. 13 p. May. Industrial Conciliation. For Brooklyn Ethical Society, May, 1898. Typewritten. 12 p. Address to Women's Municipal League. June 29. Civil Service Reform and Public Charity. Proceed- ings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Convention of CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 559 County Superintendents of the Poor, of the State of New York. Civil Service Reform is the People's Cause. On better city government in New York City at close of Mayor Strong's administration. Typewritten. 4 p. The Rights of Capital and Labor and Industrial Con- ciliation. PubUcations of the Church Social Union, No. 38, June 15, 1897. Boston. Pamphlet. 23 p. "Your Committee thought that the offices of the Council might be useful in bringing the Affiliated- Trades and Mason Builders together." Re : Arbitra- tion. 1 p., pencil notes. 1898, Aug. Benefit from Police Matrons in New York City Station Houses. Ms. 2 p. City Coal. May. Civil Service Reform. Proceedings of the Twenty- fifth National Conference of Charities and Correc- tion, New York, May 18-25, 1898, pp. 256-261. Sept. Woman's Municipal League of the City of New York. In Municipal Affairs, September, 1898. The Ethics of Civil Service Reform. Address de- livered in Broadway Tabernacle. The Evils of Investigation and Relief. A paper read before the training class in Practical Philanthropic Work, June 21, 1898. Reprint from Chanties for July, 1898. Pamphlet. 4 p. A hard lesson in reform. Letter to New York Tribune. Civil Service Reform, Part I. Typewritten. 10 p. Civil Service Reform. Typewritten. 20 p. Nov. 18. Children. Typewritten. 27 p. Letter to Evening Post on Civil Service. The Living Wage. Ms. Out-door relief in coal. Report of Conmiittee, Mrs. Lowell, chairman. Spain and Civil Service Reform. Letter to Evening Post. 560 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL What can young men do for the city? Ms. 1899, Feb. 4. The uses and dangers of investigation in public and private charities. Read before the New York Medical League at its meeting at the Academy of Medicine, Jan. 20, 1899. In Pvblic and Private CharitieSy Feb. 4, 1899, on p. 135. 4 col. Also in Medical News for Feb. 4, 1899. Drunkenness and the evil of short sentences. A review of the Boston report on the subject. 1 p. Ms + 19 typewritten. Feb. 6. Relation of Women to good Government. Address to Y. W. C. A. Feb. 18. Lowell, J. S., L. D. Wald, E. S. Williams. Emergency Relief Funds. A letter pubUshed in Charities, Feb. 25, 1899. Sept. 15. Report of Committee on District Work. Charities, Sept. 25, 1899. 1900, Jan. 22. Inspection of private charities. Charities, Jan. 27, 1900. Why day nurseries are needed. 2 p. 1901, Committee reports on Civil Service Reform. 1902, May. Letters to editor of Charities in regard to communal dwellings for widows with children. Report of Committee on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs. 1903, June. Letter to President Roosevelt in behalf of Executive Committee, Women's Auxiliary, Civil Service Re- form Association, requesting that women steam- ship inspectors be appointed from eligible list. Sept., Oct. Letters to Woman^s Municipal L ague Bulletin. Booker T. Washington. Ms. 2 p. Nov. 10. Report of Committee on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, Utica, N. Y. Pamphlet. 11 p. 1904, Nov. 1. Report of Committee on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, Syracuse, N. Y. Pamphlet. 6 p. England of 1877, — America, 1904. 7 p. CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 561 1905. Report of Committee on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs. Bing- hamton, N. Y. (Last public work of the chairman, Mrs. Lowell.) Clippings from "Federation Bul- letin" of January, 1905. 4 col. 2o TOPICAL INDEX Almshouses 1877, Sept. 7. Extracts from a report on Pauperism presented by Dr. C. S. Hoyt, Secretary of S. B. C, in regard to vagrants, feeble-minded, and idiotic inmates of the almshouses of the State. Charity Organization Society 1883, Oct. 10. Report on the organization and work of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, Seventeenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1884, pp. 135-139. Duties of friendly visitors. Charity Organization Society papers. No. 11. 4 p. 1885, Mch. 16. The bitter cry of the poor in New York. Some of its causes and some of its remedies ; Christian Union, Vol. XXXI, No. 13. 3 col. 1887, Dec. 5. Charity Organization. An address delivered before the Women's Christian Conference of New York City. Newspaper. 4 col. Aug. How to adapt charity organization methods to small communities. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Na- tional Conference of Charities and Correction, Omaha, Neb., August 25-31, 1887, pp. 135-143. Also Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, publication No. 32, 8 p. 1888, April Paper read at third annual meeting of the Charity Organization Society of Castleton. Re: Charity Organization Society Purposes. Pamphlet, 3 p. 1895. The true Aim of Charity Organization Societies. The Forum, June, 1896. Pamphlet, 7 p. 562 TOPICAL INDEX 563 1899j Sept. 25. Report of Committee on District Work. Charities, Sept. 25, 1899. 6 p. Children 1886, Jan. 12. Report on the institutions for the care of destitute children of the City of New York. Nineteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, pp. 165-243. 1889, July 6. Report on proposed organization of an asylum for destitute ItaUan children in the City of New York. Minutes, S. B. C, 1886-1890, pp. 20g-210. Dec. 10. Report upon the care of dependent children in the City of New York and elsewhere. Twenty-third Annual Report, S. B. C, 175-249. Children. Tjrpewritten. 27 p. CrviL Service 1896, Dec. 30. The Refonn of the Civil Service and the Spoils System. Read before the Women's Auxiliary of the Civil Service Reform Association and the League for Political Education. Publication No. 2, League for Political Education. Relation of Women to the Movement for Reform in the Civil Service. National Civil Service Reform League. 1897, June 29. Civil Service Reform is the People's Cause. Civil Service Reform and Public Charity. Pro- ceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Convention of County Superintendents of the Poor of the State of New York. 1898, May. Civil Service Reform. Proceedings of the Twenty- fifth National Conference of Charities and Cor- rections, New York, May 18-25, 1898, pp. 256-261. Civil Service Reform, 10 p. Aug. Benefit from Police Matrons in New York City Station Houses. 2 p. Ms. 564 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Oct. 15. A hard lesson in reform. Letter to New York Tribune. 3 p. May. Spain and Civil Service Reform. Letter to Evening J*ost. 1899. Jan. 1. Letter to Evening Post on Civil Service. Ms. The Ethics of Civil Service Reform. Address deliv- ered in Broadway Tabernacle. 1901. Committee report on CivU Service Reform. 1902. Report of the Committee on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs. Printed. 1903. June. Letter to President Roosevelt in behalf of Executive Conmaittee, Women's Auxiliary, Civil Servive Re- form Association, requesting that women steamship inspectors be appointed from eUgible list. Ms., small fragment. Nov. 10. Committee report on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, Utica, N. Y. Pamphlet. 11 p. 1904. Report of Committee on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, Syracuse, N. Y. Pamphlet. 6 p. 1905. Committee report on Civil Service Reform, New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, Bingham- ton, N. Y. (Last pubhc work of the chairman, Mrs. Lowell.) Federation Bulletin, January, 1905. 4 col. Annual Report of the Women's Auxiliary to the Civil Service Reform Association. Civil Service Reform. Typewritten. 4 p. Civil Service Reform. Typewritten. 7 p. Report of Civil Service Committee. No date. Ms. 13 p. Two Systems. Ledger article on Evening Post letter. Report of Executive Committee of Women's Auxihary to Civil Service Reform Association. Addressed to Original Charter Commission. Consumers' Leagues Consumers' leagues. 2 p. TOPICAL INDEX 5^5 Defectives 1878, Mch. 14. Report of Committee appointed to confer with Board of Trustees of the Idiot Asylima, Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, p. 15. 1881, Dec. 6. Report on the State Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb, and Asylum for Idiots. Fifteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1882, pp. [117-151. Also m pamphlet form, 35 p. 1882, Dec. 19. Lowell, J. S., John C. Devereux. Report of the Stand- ing Committee on Idiots. Sixteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1883, pp. 131-135. 1883, Jan. 10. Report of the Standing Committee on the Deaf and Dumb. Ihid., pp. 139-148. 1884, Devereux, John C, J. S. Lowell. Report of the Standing Committee on the Deaf and Dimib. Seventeenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1884, pp. 325-326. 1888, Dec. 12. Report on the Randall's Island Schools for Defective Children. Twenty-second Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 431-435. Also in pamphlet form. 1889. Report of the Standing Conmiittee on the Deaf and Dumb. Twenty-third Annual Report, S. B. C, 1889, pp. 139-163. Department of Public Charities 1877, Oct. 20. Roosevelt, Theodore, J. S. Lowell, Edward C.Donnelly, Communication to the Mayor of New York in re- gard to the Official Charities of the city. Eleventh Annual Report, S. B. C, 1878, pp. 207-225. 1879, Jan. Lowell, J. S., Edward C. Donnelly. Report relating to the pubUc charities of New York City. Twelfth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1879, pp. 237-256. Also in pamphlet form. 1880, Public Charities of New York City. Thirteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1880, pp. 137-169. Also in pamphlet form, 32 p. 566 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL 1881, July. Considerations upon a better system of public charities and correction for cities. Proceedings of the Eighth National Conference of Charities and Correction, Boston, July 25-30, 1881, pp. 168-185. Also in pamphlet form, 18 p. 1882, Jan. 10. Report on the Public Charities of New York City. Fifteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1882, pp. 289-317. 1886, Dec. 15. Report on the PubUc Charities of New York City. Twentieth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1887, pp. 217- 279. 1887, Apr. 25. Extracts from a paper read at the Woman's Conference. Re: New York City Departments of Charities. Pamphlet, 5 p. Dec. 9. Report on the Department of Pubhc Charities and Correction of the City of New York. Twenty-first Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 261-271. Also in pamphlet form. 1897, Jan. 14. Argument on the Department of PubUc Charities, the Department of Correction, and the payment of public funds to private institutions. Pamphlet. 4 p. Suggestions regarding the Chapters on Charities and Correction in the proposed Charter for Greater New York. No date. Typewritten. 4 p. Diary , 1861-1862. A young girPs wartime diary; July 23, 1861--Novem- ber 9, 1862. Insane 1877, Dec. 24. Lowell, J. S., Edward C. Donnelly. Communication to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York. Eleventh Annual Report, S. B. C, 1878, pp. 229-230. 1878, Jan. 14. Roosevelt, Theodore, J. S. Lowell. Conmiunication to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York. Ibid., pp. 231-234. TOPICAL INDEX . 567 1881, Jan. 6. Report upon the condition and needs of the insane of New York City. Fourteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1881, pp. 177-193. 1882, Mch. 16. Lowell, J. S., Stephen Smith, M. D. Report of com- mittee appointed to consider the needs of the insane of New York City, and to suggest a plan for their care. Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, pp. 304-306. 1883, Report on the insane and lunatic asylums of New York City. Sixteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1883, pp. 151-163. 1888, Nov. Milhau, John J., Lowell, J. S. Report in reference to insane in New York City. Minutes, S. B. C, 1886-1890, p. 175. Labob 1885, Apr. 1. On the relation of employers and employed. Read at the Women's Conference of the Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity. Pamphlet. 8 p. 1888, Feb. 8. Paper read at first public meeting of the Working Women's Society. Ms. 1889, Feb. 8. Letter to feather manufacturers of New York. Re : Union. Ms. 3 p. 1891, Nov. Labor organization as affected by law. (Largely quotation.) Typewritten. 8 p. 1892, July 15. Workingmen's Rights in property created by them. Pamphlet. Reproduced from letter to editor of New York Times. The rights and wrongs of strikes. Nov. 8. Railroad Strikes. New York Times, Dec. 2, 1892. 2 col. 1893, Jan. Industrial Peace. Reprinted from Charities Review, January, 1893. Pamphlet, 7 p. May. A chapter of industrial history. Re: Industrial Con- ciliation. Mainly translated from the French. Pamphlet. Reprinted from Charities Review, May, 1893. 6 p. 568 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL 1894, Oct. 20. Lowell, J. S., Felix Adler, C. W. Hoadley. Com- mittee of New York Council of Mediation and Con- ciliation. To Clothing Manufacturers Association Contractors Protective Union Brotherhood of Tailors. Re : Arbitration. Typewritten. 2 p. The Great Coal Strike of 1894. Typewritten. 8 p. Oct. 9. Letter to Frances E. Willard advising how the W. C. T. U. can best help the working people* Typewritten. 5 p. 1895, Apr. 4. An example of arbitration. 4 pages of reprints from The Voice. Nov. 15. Industrial Peace. Fragment. 5 p. Nov. 15. Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation. Publications of the Church Social Union, Series B, No. 8. Boston. 19 p. 1896, Jan. Industrial Conciliation. Some American examples of industrial conciliation. For "Live Questions Bureau." Typewritten. 11 p. 1897, May. Industrial Conciliation. For Brooklyn Ethical Society, May, 1898. Typewritten. 14 p. June 15. The Rights of Capital and Labor and Industrial Con- ciHation. Publications of the Church Social Union, No. 38. Boston. Pamphlet. 23 p. " Your Committee thought that the offices of the Coun- cil might be useful in bringing the Affihated Trades and Mason Builders together." Re: Arbitration. 1 p., pencil notes. The Living Wage. Ms. Address to Industrial Union of Employers and Em- ployed, m re: Conciliation. Revision of an article published in Industrial Peace. Later than 1884. 5 p. Regarding strike in mines, Sept. 12-Nov. 3, 1885. A fragment. 1885 (?) The Coal Strike. A letter to the New York Evening Post, June 25, 1893. h col. The Coal Strike of 1893-4. A letter to the New York Evening Post, Sept. 27, 1893. i col, TOPICAL INDEX 569 Some American Examples of Industrial Conciliation. Address to "The Industrial Union of Employers and Employed." A fragment. Ms. 2 p. Lowell, J. S., Felix Adler, and C. W. Hoadley. Effort; to establish Board of Conciliation and Arbitration in Clothing Trade of New York City. Typewritten circular. The rights of capital and labor. No date. Tjrpewrit- ten. 13 p. Miscellaneous 1880, Mch. 29. Public aid for private charitable institutions caring for dependent children. New York World. Paper read before the Members of the New York State Association of Teachers, in re : Relation of education to insanity, crime, and pauperism. Pamphlet, New York, 1886. 18 p. 1883, Apr. 11. Resolution opposed to the passage of Assembly Bill No. 654, entitled "An Act to make Provision in aid of and for the support of certain poor in the City of New York." Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, p. 391. 1889, Jan. 4. Paper read before League of Unitarian Women. Ms. 1897. On better city government in New York City at close of Mayor Strong's administration. Typewritten. 4 p. Address to Women's Municipal League. 1898. What can young men do for the city ? Ms. Sept. The Women's Mimicipal League of the City of New York. Municipal Affairs, September, 1898. pp. 465-466. 1899. Feb. 4. The uses and dangers of investigation in public and private charities. Read before the New York Medical League at its meeting at the Academy of Medicine, Jan. 20, 1899. In "Public and Private Charities," Feb. 4, 1899, on p. 135. 4 col. Also in Medical News for Feb. 4, 1899. 570 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL The Relation of Women to Good Government. 1900, Jan. 22. Inspection of private charities. In Chanties j Vol. 4, No. 9, for Jan. 27, 1900, on p. 4. 2 p. Why day nurseries are needed. 2 p. 1902. May. Letters to editor of Charities^ in regard to communal dwellings for widows with children. 1903. Booker T. Washington. Ms. 2 p. Letters to Woman's Municipal League Bulletin, Octo- ber and November, 1903. 1904. England of 1877, — America 1904. 7 p. Business administration of a city. 3 p. Introduction of Dr. Parkhurst and Mr. John Brooks Leavitt at a Woman's Municipal League meeting. No date. Typewritten. 4 p. Small Towns: Civic activities. No date. Type- written. 12 p. Outdoor Relief 1881, Oct. 11. Report in relation to Outdoor Relief Societies in New York City. Fifteenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1882, pp. 321-331. 1884. Commissioners Lowell, Ropes, Ripley. Report of the Standing Committee on Outdoor Rehef. Seven- teenth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1884, pp. 141-161. Public Relief and Private Charity. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. Ill p. "Questions of the Day," No. XIII. 1886, Sept. Public outdoor relief. In IntemcUional Record, No. 7, p. 110. 1888. Report of the Standing Conmaittee on Outdoor Relief. Twenty-third Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 349-371. 1890, May. The Economic and Moral Effects of Public Outdoor Relief. Proceedings of the Seventeenth National Conference of Charities and Correction. Baltimore, May 14-21, 1890, pp. 81-91. Also pamphlet, lip. TOPICAL INDEX 671 Outdoor Relief. Its effect upon the Recipient. Twenty-fourth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1890. Also in pamphlet form. 8 p. 1891, Book review. ''In Darkest England and the Way Out," by General Booth, 1890. In Magazine of Christian Literature, March, 1891, p. 440. 3 p. Also typewritten. 11 p. with emendations. General Booth's book again. (Incomplete.) Type- written. 5 p. 1892, The Darkest England Social Scheme. A brief review of the first year's work. Typewritten. 10 p. 1893, June. Felix qui cau^am rerum cognovit. From Charities Review, June 1893. 8 p. 1894, May. Five Month's Work for the Unemployed in New York City. Charities Review, May, 1894. Relief for the unemployed. Typewritten. The Unemployed m New York City, 1893-1894. Read before the American Social Science Associa- tion, at Saratoga, September, 1894, and again before the Council of the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo, Oct. 3, 1894. Printed in Buffalo Courier, Oct. 14, 1894. 1^ col. 1895, May. Poverty and its Relief. The methods possible in the City of New York. Proceedings of the Twenty- second National Conference of Charities and Cor- rection, New Haven, Conn., May 24-30, 1895, pp. 44-54. 1896, Jan. Charity Problems. Reprint from the Chicago Record.'* 7 p. 1898. Out-door Relief in Coal. Report of Committee, Mrs. Lowell, chairman. City Coal. June 21. The Evils of Investigation and Relief. A paper read before the training class in Practical Philanthropic Work. Pamphlet. Reprint from Charities for July, 1898. 4 p. 1899. Lowell, J. S., L. D. Wald, E. S. William. Emer- 572 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL gency Relief Funds. A letter published in Charities, Feb. 25, 1899. Starving because of alms-giving. No date. Police Matrons 1890, Aug. 5. Letter to Board of Police of New York Gity, Re: Police Matrons. Reformatories 1878, Nov. 12. Report of the Committee to which was referred the Senate Bill No. 322, 1878, proposing the hiring of buildings as workhouses for women. Minutes, S. B. C, 1878-1885, pp. 63-66. 1879, May 28. One means of preventing pauperism, in re: The social harm caused by vagrant and degraded women. Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of Charities, Chicago, June, 1879, pp. 189-200. Pamphlet form, 14 p. Commissioners Lowell, Ropes, and Foster. Report of the Committee on a Reformatory for Women, Twelfth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1879, pp. 289- 292. 1880, Jan. 13. Reformatories for women. Thirteenth Annual Report S. B. C, 1880, pp. 173-180. Also in pamphlet form. 1881, Some facts concerning the jails, penitentiaries and poor-houses of the state of New York. 4 p. 1886, Dec. 9. Stewart, William R., J. S. Lowell, Robert McCarthy. Report of the Standing Committee on Reformatories. Twentieth Annual Report, S. B. C, 1887, pp. 165- 214. 1887, July 12. The Work-house, New York City. Twenty-first Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 335-346. 1888, Dec. 8. Stewart, William R., J. S. Lowell. Report of the TOPICAL INDEX 573 Standing Committee on Reformatories. Twenty- second Annual Report, S. B. C, 1888, pp. 315-368. Dec. 12. Report on the Work-house, New York City. Ibid., pp. 419-428. Also in pamphlet form. 1889. Lowell, J. S., Robert McCarthy. Report of the Standing Committee on Reformatories. Twenty- third Annual Report, S. B. C, 1889, pp. 123-136. Also in pamphlet form. 1892, Jan. Need in New York City of reformatory for women. In State Charities Record, New York, January, 1892, Vol. Ill, No. 3, pp. 26-27. 1894. The Elmira Reformatory. Letter to the Evening Post. 1899. Drunkenness and the evil of short sentences. A review of the Boston report on the subject. 1 p. Ms. + 18 typewritten. Are labor colonies needed in the United States? Not earlier than 1887. Typewritten, 14 p. Spanish Wab Papers Moral deterioration following war. Ms. Our duties to the Filipinos. (Incomplete.) Ms. Special Investigations 1877, Feb. 28. Lowell, J. S., Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Hoguet ; Report relating to the New York Juvenile Guardian Society of the City of New York. Eleventh Annual Report, S. B. C, 1878, pp. 99-102. 1884, Apr. 19. Stewart, W. R., J. S. Lowell, J. J. Milhau. Report of the Special Committee of the State Board of Charities upon the management of the New York Infant Asylum. Ordered printed by Board, Dec. 16, 1884. Pamphlet. 22 p. State Charities Aid Association 1895, Nov. 15. County visiting committees. 10 p. 574 JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL Sunday School Talks 1888. Sunday Talks, in re: Our duties in connection with charity and relief giving. Five Sundays. Deliv- ered before the Sunday School of the Lenox Ave. Unitarian Church. Typewritten. 34 p. 1895. Charity. To Simday School Children of the Lenox Ave. Unitarian Church. Typewritten. 6 p. Vagkants 1877, Sept. 4. Report on Assembly Bill No. 79, 1877, to State Board of Charities. Mrs. Lowell for majority ; Samuel F. Miller for minority, in re: Reformatory treatment of vagrants. Pamphlet, p. 4. 1878, Mch. 5. Report of a majority of the Committee on Vagrancy. Mrs. Lowell, Chairman. Minutes, S. B. C, 1878- 1885, pp. 16-17. 1895, Two much-needed county institutions. A paper read at the Convention of County Superintendents of the Poor, Ogdensburg, N. Y., June 20, 1895. Re: Farm colony for vagrants. Typewritten. 9 p. 1896, Sept. 30. Lowell, J. S., C. L. Couper, J. A. McKim, R. R. McBumey, W. H. Tolman, J. L. Thomas, Jacob Riis, H. Folks. Homeless men and women. A letter to Commander Booth Tucker, Salvation Army. (Mrs. Lowell believed to be the author.) Typewritten. 9 p. 1897, Feb. 16. The Influence of cheap lodging houses on city pau- perism. Partly in Evening Post. Typewritten, with emendations in ink. 12 p. INDEX Adams, Charles Francis, mention of, by Mrs. Lowell, 381, 397. Adler, Dr. Felix, 320; address of, at memorial meeting in honor of Mrs. Lowell, 519-523. Adult Able-bodied Paupers, Mrs. Lowell chairman of committee on, 72-73 ; report on, in almshouses, 73- 74. Agassiz, Louis, 4. Albion, House of Refuge at, mentioned, 101, 115; account of establishment of, 309-310. Almshouses, study of question of, by Mrs. Lowell, 72-73 ; description of evil conditions in, 79-80 ; investi- gations of, 88 S. ; report on vagrant, feeble-minded, and idiotic inmates of, 89 ; the removal of children from, 244-246; work to improve condition of, 294 S. Andrew, Governor John A., 4, 41. Andrew, Mrs., and President Lincoln, 23. Association for Improving the Condi- tion of the Poor, 140. Baldwin, William H., 520. Bannard, Otto T., 135. Barlow, Francis C, 49, 285. Barlow, Mrs. Francis C, 6. Barnard, President, 75. Bedford, N.Y., reformatory for women at, 101, 306-309 ; act establishing the, 310; opening of, and demonstrated need, 311-312; Mrs. Lowell's sup- port of, against political influences, 312-317; as an enduring memorial to Mrs. Lowell, 549. Beecher, Henry Ward, 4, 20. Bellevue Hospital, reform in regard to so-called insane patients at, 231- 232. Bellevue Training School for Nurses, 83. Bellevue Visiting Committee, 51, 84-85. Bender, Harry H., 312, 313, 315. Berold, the horse, 41, 48. Besant, Walter, reference to, 157. Blackwell's Island, almshouse on, 295. Blackwell's Island lunatic asylum, 228, 229, 230-231, 233, 238. Blaine, James G., 64. Blizzard of 1888, description of, 66. Boards of conciliation, 359 ; discussion of, 398-400, 405^08, 414. Bond, Kate, tribute paid by, to Mrs. Lowell, 544-545. Booth, General, quoted, 179. Brockway, Superintendent, and the Elmira Reformatory, 461. Brook Farm, 2. Brown, Goodwin, 242. Brown, John Crosby, 75. Browning, Robert, 4. Bryant Park fountain in memory of Mrs. Lowell, 548-549. Bull, Ole, 4. Bulletin, Woman^s Municipal League^ founded by Mrs. Lowell, 418; letters by Mrs. Lowell to, 419-422. Bull Run, Mrs. Lowell's diary concern- ing battle of, 10-14. Burlingham, Mr. and Mrs., 65. Burnham, E. K., 121. Burt, Mary T., 328. Byrnes, Superintendent, quoted on evils of lodging houses, 456. Campbell, Helen, 339. " Capital and Labor, Rights of, and Industrial Conciliation," pamphlet, 400^08. " Care of Dependent Children in the City of New York and Elsewhere, Report upon," 276-283. Carlyle, Thomas, letter from, to Mrs. Lowell, 50-51. Carpenter, Sarah M., 297. Carter, James C, 126, 310. Gary, Edward, "Life of George Wil- liam Curtis," by, 475 n. ; quoted, 476-477. Gary, Richard, 32. Central Islip, farm colony for the insane at, 241-243. 575 576 INDEX Chapin, Rev. E. H., 20. Charities, weekly publication of the Charity Organization Society, 141 ; articles in, quoted, 207-217, 223-227. Charities Directory of the City of New York, 141. Charity and Relief -giving, series of papers on, by Mrs. Lowell, 150. "Charity Organization Societies, The True Aim of," paper by Mrs. LoweU, 196-207. Charity Organization Society of the City of New York,^ founding of, 122- 126 ; organization and work of the, 130 ff. ; oflaces in the United Chari- ties Building, and increasing work of, 140; Joint Application Bureau, Registration and Investigation Bu- reau, and other departments, 140- 141 ; purposes and aims pointed out in paper by Mrs. Lowell, 180-184. ' ' Charity Problems," paper on, by Mrs. Lowell, 189-196. Chicago, paper by Mrs. Lowell pre- sented before National Conference of Charities and Correction at, 95- 101. Chicago convention of 1892, 69. Child, Lydia Maria, 4, 17. Children, work for dependent, 244 £f. ; playgrounds for, 255-256; papers pertaining to, by Mrs. Lowell, 257- 283. " Children's Law" of 1875, mentioned, 85; enactment of the, 244; modi- fications of, 247, 248-249. Choate, Joseph H., tribute paid to memory of Francis G. Shaw by, 2-3 ; speech of, at meeting of State Charities Aid Association, 75-77 ; mentioned, 310; address by, at memorial meeting to Mrs. Lowell, 525-526. "Civil Service Reform, The Ethics of," address on, 500-506. Civil Service Reform, work of George William Curtis in behalf of, 477-479 ; Mrs. Lowell's activities in aid of, 480 ff. ; prize essays in connection with, 480-481 ; papers by Mrs. Lowell on the spoils system and, 482-516. "Civil Service Reform and Public Charity," paper on, 496-499. Civil War diary, Mrs. Lowell's, 10- 37. Clarke, Bishop, 23. Cleveland, Grover, opinions of, 64, 67, 69 ; effect of election of, on Civil Service Reform, 479. Codman, Nannie, 65. Collins, Ellen, 8, 13, 72, 127 ; appointed a "Visitor" by State Board of Charities, 49 ; works with Mrs. Lowell in connection with Freed- men's Association, 49 ; appointed county visitor of poorhouses, 295, 329-330; mentioned in connection with first examination conducted under Civil Service rules, 329-330. Colony treatment, of the insane and feeble-minded, 238-243 ; for paupers, 295-296. Committee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, of the Charity Organ- ization Society, 141. Committee of Seventy, the, 416. Consumers' League, the, 334 ff. ; Mrs. Lowell as president of, 339, 356; establishment of national and for- eign leagues, 341-342. Copeland, Morris, 26. County Visiting Committees, Mrs. Lowell's address on, 77-85. Craig, Oscar, 252, 303. Crowningshield, Lieutenant Caspar, 13, 27. Curtis, George William, at Brook Farm, 2 ; marriage of Anna Shaw to, 6; mentioned, 13, 15, 16, 25, 66; services conducted by, at Sailors' Snug Harbor. 58; Tavern Club dinner described, 65 ; death of, 68 ; importance of influence of, on Mrs. Lowell as a young girl, 475-476; editor of Harper's Weekly, 476; work in aid of Civil Service Reform, 477^78. Cushman, Charlotte, 4. Custer, General, on the death of Colonel Lowell, 47. Custodial asylums for women, 61, 89, 101, 306-317. Daniel, Dr. Annie S., 320. Davis, Katharine Bement, letter by, on Mrs. Lowell's work in connection with Bedford reformatory, 317-319. Decker, Alice M., quoted regarding Mrs. Lowell, 138-139. De Forest, Robert W., 141 ; eulogy on Mrs. Lowell delivered by, 617-519. INDEX 577 Delafield, Rufus, 13. Denison, Edward, quoted, 178, 211. Deportation of paupers from other states to New York, 300-305. Devereux, J, C, 120. Devine, Edward T., quoted, 142. Dexter, Arthur, 13-14. Dickinson, Mary Lowe, poem by, in memory of Mrs. Lowell, 540-541. District committees of the Charity Organization Society, 132, 183-184. Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 60, 78. Dixon, 111., tract presented to, for a park, 546-547. Dodge, Grace H., 83, 328; remarks by, on Mrs. Lowell, 545. Dodge family as charity workers, 129. Donnelly, Commissioner, 88, 229. Drummond, Henry, quotation from, 188-189. Duties of Friendly Visitors, paper on, by Mrs. Lowell, 142-150. Dwight, Theodore W., 284. Dwight, Wilder, 34. East Side Relief Work, 361 £f. "Economic and Moral Effects of Public Outdoor Relief," paper on, 158- 174. Education of children, a paper on, 257-267. Elmira Reformatory, letter concerning Mr. Brockway and the, 461. "Emergency Relief Funds," article on, 223-227. Emerson, Edward W., "Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell," by, 39 n. ; quoted, 45, 46. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4 ; quoted apropos of rights of employees, 354. "Employees, Property Rights of," Dr. Jacobi's paper on, quoted, 350-356. England, consumers' league in, 342. "Ethics of Civil Service Reform," address on, 500-506. Europe, consumers' leagues in, 342. European visits, Mrs. Lowell's, 5, 50 ; letters to Mrs. Shaw regarding (1892), 67-68. Evans, Annie Jackson, 480-481. " Evils of Investigation and Relief," paper by Mrs. Lowell, 207-217. "Facts for Fathers and Mothers," Bishop Potter's pamphlet, 417-418, 421. Fairchild, Charles S., 69, 126, 417 ; a letter to, 366-367. Fanning, Mr., letters to, 109, 112-114, 247, 253. Farm colonies, for the insane, 238-239, 240-243 ; for paupers, 295, 296-297. Feeble-minded women, first asylums for, the results of Mrs. Lowell's efforts, 61 ; account of establishment of custodial asylums, 89, 101, 115- 121, 306-317. Field, Benjamin H., 75. Finley, John H., 310 ; poem by, in memory of Mrs. Lowell, 541-542. Flint, Dr. Austin, Jr., 75. Florence, a letter from Mrs. Lowell in, 68. Floyd, Mrs. Nicoll, 366 n. Forbes, Alice, 21. Forbes, John M., 18 n., 19. Forbes, William, 19. Ford, Louise F., quoted regarding Mrs. Lowell, 139-140. Forum, article by Mrs. Lowell, 196- 207. Foster, Commissioner, 88. Fountains erected as memorials to Mrs. Lowell, 547, 548. Freedmen's Association, formation of, and work of Mrs. Lowell for, 48-49. Fremont, General, 18, 19, 20. Friendly visitors, 132, 138; paper on duties of, by Mrs. Lowell, 142-150. Fry, Elizabeth, 60; work of, referred to by Mrs. LoweU, 103. Fuller, Margaret, 4. Garrison, William Lloyd, 4. Gay, Sidney Howard, 16, 23. George, Henry, 417. Gibbons, Abby Hopper, 306, 307, 309, 321, 322 ; work of, in securing estab- lishment of reformatory for women at Bedford, 310. Gibbs, Theodore Kane, 289. Gilder, Richard Watson, poem by, on "Josephine Shaw Lowell," 634-535. Grannis, Mrs. E. B., 328. Greeley, Miriam Mason, 482-483. Greene, Colonel William, 13, 21. Greenough, Annie, 21. Grimes, Frances, seal designed by, 481. Gurteen, Rev. S. H., 126. Haggerty, Anna (Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw), 37, 42. 2p 578 INDEX Hall, Dr. John, 127. Hamilton, Alexander, Jr., 75. Harper's Weekly, G. W. Curtis's editorship of, 476. Hart's Island, insane asylum on, 242. Hebberd, Robert W., 311, 313; hos- pital boat named after Mrs. Lowell, by, 547-548. Hewitt, Abram S., 126, 359; quoted, 154-155; letter from, to Mrs. Lowell, 360-361. Hewitt, Mrs. E. H., 417 n. Higginson, Henry L., 65 ; presentation of memorial fountain to Radcliffe College by Mrs. Higginson and, 547. Hill, David B., 307. Hill, Octavia, 61 ; references to, 150, 223. Hoguet, Henry L., 284-285. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 13, 21, 25. Hooper, Clover, 26. Hooper, Dr. R. W., 24. Hopper Home, The, 320, 451. Hospital Book and Newspaper Society, 83. Hospital steamboat named in honor of Mrs. Lowell, 547-548. Houses of Refuge, 101, 108-114, 30&- 317. House of the Good Shepherd, the, 451. Howard, Rose, 65. Howson, Dean, 50. Hoyt, Dr. Charles S., 244, 287. Hudson, N. Y., reformatory for women at, 101, 108-114 ; pronounced suc- cess of, leading to establishment of Albion and Bedford reformatories, 306. Huntington, Rev. James O. S., tribute paid to memory of Mrs. Lowell by, 523-524. Huntington, Dr. William Reed, Mrs. Lowell's funeral conducted by, 59. Idiots, campaign for a State custodial asylum for, 115-121. See Feeble- minded women. Imprisonment of witnesses, letter con- cerning, 460, Independent, memorial notice of Mrs. Lowell in, 532. Indiana, Reformatory Institution for Women in, 103-104. "Industrial Conciliation," paper on, 394-400. " Industrial Peace," paper on, 380-390. Infant Asylum, the New York, investi- gation of, 288-293. " Influence of Cheap Lodging Houses on City Pauperism," paper on, 453- 459. Insane, activity of Mrs. Lowell for the welfare of the, 228-243. Inspection of private charities, the, 462^66. Invasion of privacy of other lives as an evil of investigation, 221, "Investigation and Relief, The Evils of," paper on, 207-217. " Investigation in Public and Private Charities, Uses and Dangers of," paper on, 217-223. Investigations by Mrs. Lowell, of New York Juvenile Asylum, 246 ; of New York Juvenile Guardian Society, 284-286; of New York Infant Asylum, 288-293. Iselin, Henry, 135. Jackson, Andrew, 5 ; a reference to, by Mrs. Lowell, 371. Jacobi, Dr. Mary P., 136, 339; paper by, on "Property Rights of Employ- ees," quoted, 350-356. James, Henry, Sr., 5; quoted, 35, 36. James, Wilkie, 36. Jay, John, 128. Joint Application Bureau, the, 140. Joint boards, discussion of, 398-400, 405-408, 414. Juvenile Guardian Society, investiga- tion of the, 284-286; corporate rights of, annulled by judgment of Supreme Court, 288. Kellogg, Charles D., quoted regarding Mrs. Lowell, 131, 137-138. Kemble, Fanny, 4. Kennedy, John S., United Charities Building erected by, 140. Kingsley, Charles, 4, 50. Kohan, Joseph H,, prize Civil Service Reform essayist, 481. Labor, work in behalf of, by Mrs. Lowell, 359-372. Labor Bureau Association, 135. Labor questions, papers by Mrs. LoweU on, 372-415. Labor Test Wood Yard, 136. Lee, Henry, 65. INDEX 579 Letchworth, W. P., 87, 120 ; letters to, 87, 95, 230, 233-234, 248-249, 253, 254, 298, 299, 301, 309; inspection and study of European treatment of feeble-minded and insane, 240 ; work in behalf of dependent children, 244-246; "Report on Orphan Asy- lums, Reformatories," etc., by, 245- 246. Lewis, Charlton T., debate with Mrs. Lowell, 370-371. Lexow Committee, the, 416. Library of the Charity Organization Society, 141. Lincklaen, Mrs., 69. Lincoln, Abraham, 21-22, 26-27, 29, 33 ; anecdotes concerning, 23 ; Mr. Shaw's meeting with and opinion of, 25 ; cited by Mrs. Lowell in discuss- ing the Philippine question, 470. Livingston, Robert J., 75. "Living Wage, The," paper on, 409- 415. Lodging houses, evils of cheap, 446- 459. Longfellow, H. W., 4. Low, Seth, 126, 417, 548 ; address of, at memorial meeting, 529-530. Lowell, Carlotta Russell, 48, 546. Lowell, Charles Russell, 19 n. ; engage- ment of, to Josephine Shaw, 38 ; family and career of, 38^0 ; dis- tinguished war services of, 40-41 ; organizes Second Massachusetts Cavalry, 41 ; letters by, on death of Robert Gould Shaw, 44; marriage to Miss Shaw, 45; further army career and death, 46-47. Lowell, James, killed at Glendale, 30, 40. Lowell, James Russell, 4, 65. Lowell, Josephine Shaw, birth and parentage, 1-5 ; first European visit (1851), 5; childhood of , 5-8 ; work in Woman's Central Relief Associa- tion, 8-9 ; war-time diary of, 10-37 ; engagement to Charles Russell Lowell, 38; marriage to Colonel Lowell, 45; work of, in connection with Freedmen's Association, 48—49 ; visit to Europe in 1870, 50 ; letter to, from Carlyle, 50-51 ; becomes inter- ested in charitable work, 51 ; her home at 130 East 30th St., New York City, 51-52 ; appointment as commissioner of New York State Board of Charities, 52; effective work of, 52-56; dress, personal appearance, etc., 56-58; church connections, 58; her death, 59; place of, among leaders in charitable work, 61 ; letters to Mrs. R. G. Shaw describing acti\'ities of, 62-71 ; work in connection with the State Chari- ties Aid Association, 72 ff. ; poor- house reforms effected by, 72-83 ; Joseph H. Choate's public reference to work of, 76; address of, on County Visiting Committees, 77- 85; activities as a member of the State Board of Charities, 87 ff. ; ap- pointed chairman of committee on vagrants, etc., 88; Report on pauperism in regard to vagrant, feeble-minded, and idiotic inmates of almshouses, 89 ; the papers on "One Means of Preventing Pauper- ism and Crime," and "Reformatories for Women," 94-105 ; paper on "Some Facts concerning the Jails, Penitentiaries, and Poorhouses of the State of New York," 106 ; efforts of, result in establishment of House of Refuge at Hudson, 108-111 ; con- tinued interest of, in Hudson reform- atory, 112-114; campaign for a State custodial asylum for feeble- minded women, 115 ff.; work in connection with the Custodial Asy- lum at Newark, 118-121; the Charity Organization of the City of New York founded through efforts of, 122 ; "Report in Relation to Out-door Relief Societies in New York City" by, 123-125; letters of, in regard to Charity Organization Society and other sociological subjects, 127-130, 135-136; report on "The Organi- zation and Work of the Charity Organization Society," 131-134 ; paper on "Duties of Friendly Visi- tors," 142-150; Sunday School addresses to children, 150-158 ; paper on "The Economic and Moral Effects of Public Outdoor Relief," 158-174 ; paper on "Poverty and its Relief : the Methods Possible in the City of New York," 175-189 ; paper on "Charity Problems," 189-196; paper on "The True Aim of Charity Organization Societies," 196-207; paper on "The Evils of Investiga- 580 INDEX Lowell, Josephine Shaw — continued. tion and Relief," 207-217 ; paper on "Uses and Dangers of Investigation in Public and Private Charities," 217-223; paper on "Emergency Relief Funds," 223-227; "Report upon the Condition and Needs of the Insane of New York City," 231 ; reform effected by, regarding insane at Bellevue Hospital, 231-232 ; de- scription of, at Ward's Island insane asylum, 238; work for dependent children, 244 ff. ; reports by, on condition of dependent children and orphan asylum societies, 246, 249 ; letter concerning proposed orphan asylum of Italian Sisters of the Order of St. Francis of Sales, 250-251; interest in playgrounds for children, 255-256; and in recreation piers, 256 ; paper read before New York State Association of Teachers, 257- 267; paper entitled "Children," 267-276 ; special investigations for the State Board of Charities, 284 ff. ; the New York Juvenile Guardian Society, 284-288; the New York Infant Asylum, 288-293 ; reports on pauperism, Westchester County Poorhouse, etc., 296 ; investigation of the question of Massachusetts paupers, 300-305; efforts for addi- tional reformatories for women, resulting in those at Albion and Bed- ford, 306 ff. ; support of cause of re- formatory at Bedford against adverse influences, 312 ff. ; work in founding the Consumers' League, 337 ff. ; presidency of the League held by, 339, 356 ; work for the emancipa- tion of labor, 357 ff. ; relief work on the East Side, 361-365 ; paper read at first public meeting of the Work- ing Women's Society (Cooper Union, 1888), 372-380; paper on "Indus- trial Peace," 380-390 ; paper on " Workingmen's Rights in Property created by Them," 390-394 ; paper on "Industrial Conciliation," 394-400; paper on "The Rights of Capital and Labor and Industrial Concilia- tion," 400-408; paper on "The Living Wage," 409-415 ; work in connection with the Woman's Muni- cipal League of the City of New York, 416 ff . ; Woman's Municipal League Bulletin founded by, 418; letters to the Municipal League Bulletin concerning municipal re- form, 419-422 ; paper on " What can Young Men do for the City," 422- 435; paper on "The Relation of Women to Good Government," 435- 445 ; letter to Commander Booth Tucker concerning evils of cheap lodging houses, 446-453 ; paper on "The Influence of Cheap Lodging Houses on City Pauperism," 453- 459 ; letter concerning the imprison- ment of witnesses, 460 ; letter on the Elmira Reformatory and Superin- tendent Brockway, 461 ; paper on "The Inspection of Private Chari- ties," 462^66; paper on "Moral Deterioration following War," 466- 470; remarks on Booker T. Wash- ington, 471-473 ; proposed model tenements for widows with small children, 473^74; influence of George William Curtis on, 475-476 ; interest in Civil Service Reform, 479 ; forms a Woman's Auxiliary to the Civil Service Reform Association, 480 ; work for Civil Service Reform and papers and letters concerning, 481-516; memorial meetings and notices in honor of memory of, 517- 649 ; tract of land presented to city of Dixon, 111., by daughter of, 546- 547; fountain at Radcliffe College as a memorial to, 547 ; hospital steamboat named after, by R. W. Hebberd, 547-548; fountain in Bryant Park, in memory of, 548-549 ; cottages named for, at Hudson and Bedford, 549. Lowell family, the, 38-39. Lunatic asylums, efforts for improve- ment of, 228-243. MacDonald, Dr. A. E., 230, 241. MacDonald, Dr. Carlos F., 242. Magdalen Benevolent Society, the, 451. Massachusetts, reformatory prison for women in, 104 ; investigation and report on paupers sent to New York from, 300-305. Mead, Edwin, D., on "Josephine Shaw Lowell and the Peace Movement," 537-540. Medical News, article by Mrs. Lowell, 217-223. INDEX 581 Memorial meetings, addresr-S, £tnd notices, 517-549. Mifflin, Eugenia, 32. Miller, Joaquin, lines by, 57-58. Miller, Joseph Dana, poem by, in memory of Mrs. Lowell, 536-537. Minturn, Mrs. Robert Bowne, 6, 65, 66. Model tenements for widows with small children, proposition looking toward, 473-474. "Moral Deterioration following War," paper on, 466-470. Morris, Dr. Moreau, 255. Municipal lodging houses, 137, 446 fif. Nadal, E. S., quoted concerning George William Curtis, 478. Naples, a letter from Mrs. Lowell, in, 67. Nathan, Mrs. Frederick, 339, 340. National Consumers' League, 341-342. Negro regiments, organization of, 41- 42. Newark, N. Y., Custodial Asylum at, 118-121, 549. Newport, visits to, 6, 17-18. Newton, Rev. Heber, 127. New York City, relief -giving in, 175- 189. New York Infant Asylum, investiga- tion of the, 288-293. New York Juvenile Asylum, 246. New York Juvenile Guardian Society, investigation of the affairs and man- agement of the, 284-286. New York State Training School for Girls, 112. See Hudson reformatory. Nightingale, Florence, 60. Norton, Charles Eliot, 65. Oakey, Daniel, 32. O'Conner, Charles, 74-75. Odell, B. B., and the reformatory at Bedford, 312, 314. "One Means of Preventing Pauperism and Crime," paper on, 94, 95 ; quoted, 96-101. Opdyke, George, 22. Ophthalmia among children, 281. Orphan asylums, reformatories, etc., report on, by W. P. Letchworth, 245-246. Outdoor Recreation League, the, 256. Outdoor relief, paper by Mrs. Lowell on, 158-174. Outlook, editorial from, Lowell, 532-534. on Mrs. Parkhurst, Rev. Charles H., 416, 417. Parkman, Samuel, 3. Parkman, Francis, 4. Paupers, improvement of condition of, 294-300; from Massachusetts, 300-305. Peirson, Mrs. Charles L., 36. Peirson, S. S., address by, and tribute to Mrs. Lowell, 119-121. Pellew, Henry E., 124; appointed county visitor of poorhouses, 296. Penny Provident Fund, the, 137. Perkins, L. S. W., 136, 334. Philippine question, discussion of the, 466-470. Phillips, Wendell, 4. Pierce, James N., biography of C. R. Lowell by, 39 n. Playgrounds for Children, 255-256. Poems in memory of Mrs. Lowell, 534- 537, 540-542. Police lodging houses, 448. Police Matron Law, 65, 322-323. Police matrons, the crying need for, and work resulting in appointment of, 320-333. Poorhouses, study of, 72-73 ; descrip- tion by Mrs. Lowell of horrors of, 79-80; investigations of, 88 ff. ; removal of children from, 244-246 ; work to improve condition of, 294- 305. See Almshouses. Porter, Henry H., 241. Potter, Bishop Henry C, 232; pam- phlet by, "Facts for Fathers and Mothers," 417-418, 421. Potter, Howard, 75. "Poverty and its ReUef : the Methods Possible in the City of New York," paper on, 175-189. Powell, Rachel H., 307. Prime, Temple, 295. Private charities, inspection of, 462—466. Prize competitions for essays on Civil Service Reform subjects, 480-481. "Property Rights of Employees," Dr. Jacobi's paper on, 350-356. Pruyn, John V. L., 87. Putnam, Elizabeth C, quoted, 38. Putnam, Mrs. George, 52. Quincy, Samuel, mention of, in the wartime diary, 32. 582 INDEX Radcliffe College, memorial fountain to Mrs. Lowell at, 547. Randall's Island Visiting Committee, 85. Recreation piers, 256. Reeves, Henry A., 242. Reformatories for women, 88 &., 101 306-319. " Reformatories for Women," paper on 94, 95 ; quoted, 102-105. " Reform of the Civil Service, and the Spoils System," paper on, 483-496. Registration and Investigation Bureau of the Charity Organization Society, 140-141. Registration system of Charity Organ- ization Society, 133, 134. " Relation of Women to Good Govern- ment," paper on, 435^45. " Relief, The Evils of Investigation and," paper by Mrs. Lowell, 207- : ;217. "Relief Funds, Emergency," article on, 223-227. Relief-giving, paper by Mrs. Lowell, on economic and moral effects of, 158-174. Relief of poverty in city of New York, paper concerning, 175-189. "Report in Relation to Outdoor Relief Societies in New York City," 123- 125. "Report on Orphan Asylums, Re- formatories," etc., by W. P. Letch- worth, 245-246. Rice, Mrs. William B., 8, 136-137. Richmond County Poorhouse, 72-73, 294, 298-299. "Rights of Capital and Labor and In- dustrial Conciliation," pamphlet, 400-408. Riis, Jacob A,, memorial address in honor of Mrs. Lowell, 526-529. Robbins, Dr. Jane E., 359, 365, 367; quoted, 368-369. Rogers, Thorold, quoted by Mrs. Lowell, 415. Roosevelt, James, 75. Roosevelt, Theodore, member of the State Board of Charities, 75 ; men- tioned, 228, 229, 242, 284-286; death of, 286-287. Roosevelt, Theodore (later President), account of a talk with, '64 ; an opin- ion of, 70-71 ; and the investiga- tion of the New York Infant Asy- lum, 289-293; mentioned, 311, 312, 436, 482, 512, 528. Roosevelt family as charity workers, 129. Russell, Henry S., 13, 27. Russell, Mrs. Henry S., 357. Russell, Lucy, 65. Sailors' Snug Harbor, Staten Island, 5, 58. Saint Gaudens and the Shaw Monu- ment, 44, 69, 70. Salvation Army lodging houses, letter on, 446-453. Sayward, William H., quoted, 397. Schieffelin, Mrs. W. H., 480; minute concerning Mrs. Lowell presented by, to the Woman's Auxiliary, 545- 546. School of Philanthropy, the, 141. Schuyler, George L., 75. Schuyler, Louisa Lee, 11, 13, 36, 51, 72, 79, 128, 310; president of State Charities Aid Association, 74 ; leads agitation in behalf of proper care of the insane, 242; tribute paid to memory of Mrs. Lowell by, 543- 544. Seventh Regiment N. Y. N. G., 7-8. Shaw, Anna, sister of Josephine Shaw Lowell and wife of George William Curtis, 6. Shaw, Ellen, sister of Josephine Shaw Lowell and wife of General F. C. Barlow, 6. Shaw, Francis George, father of Jo- sephine Shaw Lowell, 1-2; tribute paid to, by Joseph H. Choate, 3; death of, 52. Shaw, Joseph Coolidge, uncle of Jo- sephine Shaw Lowell, 5. Shaw, Mary Sturgis, 34. Shaw, Robert Gould, grandfather of Josephine Shaw Lowell, 1. Shaw, Robert Gould, brother of Jo- sephine Shaw Lowell, 6 ; description of, at opening of war, 8 ; departure of, for the war, 14 ; wartime reports of, 21, 25, 26-27, 28, 37; army career of, 41 ; made colonel of Fifty- fourth Massachusetts Volunteer In- fantry, 42 ; death of, at Fort Wagner, 43-44. Shaw, Mrs. Robert Gould (Anna Haggerty), 37, 42; letters of Mrs. LoweU to, 62-71, 127-130, 136 fif. INDEX 583 Shaw, Major Samuel, of Revolutionary times, 1, 15, 69. Shaw, Sarah Blake Sturgis, mother of Josephine Shaw Lowell, 3-4. Shaw, Susannah, sister of Josephine Shaw Lowell, and wife of R. B. Minturn, 6, 37. Shaw Monument, Boston, 8, 44, 69, 70. Smith, Marion Couthony, 480. Smith, Dr. Samuel Wesley, 242. Smith, Dr. Stephen, 232, 242; ap- pointed State Commissioner in Lunacy, 234. Society for Instruction in First Aid to the Injured, 83. " Some Facta concerning the Jails, Penitentiaries, and Poorhouses of the State of New York," paper on, 106. " Spain and Civil Service Reform," letter to Evening Post on, 506-509. Spoils system. See Civil Service Re- form. State Board of Charities, Mrs. Lowell's work as a commissioner of the, 52- 56, 87 ff. ; special investigations conducted for, 246, 284-293; ap- proval of, necessary for certificates of incorporation of private] charit- able institutions, 249-250; Mrs. Lowell's reasons for resigning from, 357-359. State Care Act, the, for the insane, 242. State Charities Aid Association, forma- tion of, and Mrs. Lowell's work in connection with, 72 ff. State Commission in Lunacy, estab- lishment of, 242. Staten Island, residence of Shaw family on, 5-7. Station houses, change effected in, by appointment of police matrons, 331- 333. Stevens, Gertrude Rice, 72, 128. Stewart, William R., 65, 311 ; service on the Standing Committee on the Insane, 237-239 ; remarks at mem- orial meeting in honor of memory of Mrs. Lowell, 530. Stover, Charles B., mentioned by Mrs. Lowell, 365. Strikes, effort at prevention of, 357, 361, 366, 368, 369 ; papers touching on matter of, 372-415. Strong, William L., 416. Sturgis, Harry, 13. Sturgis family, the, 3. Sumner, Charles, 4. Sun, articles in the, in connection with police matron agitation, 328, 331- 332. Sunday School addresses by Mrs. LoweU, 150-158. Survey, The, 141. Syracuse, State Idiot Asylima at, 118. Tailors' strikes, 366-369. Tavern Club dinner to George William Curtis, 65. Teachers, paper read before New York State Association of, 257-267. Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organization Society, 141. Tenney, Sarah E., 271. Thackeray, W. M., 4. Thomas, Theodore, 5. Thoreau, Henry D., 4. Tilden, Governor, appoints Mrs. Lowell conunissioner of State Board of Charities, 52 ; mentioned, 75. Times, letter by Mrs. Lowell in the, 361. Tolstoi, reference to, 157. Tramps in poorhouses, 72-74, 89, 296- 297 ; letters and papers dealing with, 446-459. Trow, E., quoted by Mrs. Lowell, 407- 408. "True Aim of Charity Organization Societies," paper on the, 196-207. Tuberculosis, Committee for the Pre- vention of, 141. Tucker, Commander Booth, letter to, 446^53. Tweedy, Edmund, quoted, 385-387. United Charities Building, 140. "Uses and Dangers of Investigation in Public and Private Charities," paper on, 217-223. Vagrants, discussion of, 446-459. See Tramps. "Valley of Industry and Hill of Pros- perity," allegory, 166-170. Vanderpoel, Samuel Oakley, first presi- dent of Charity Organization So- ciety of the City of New York, 126. Van Wyck, Mayor, 417, 436. Visiting Committee of Bellevue and other Hospitals, 51. 584 INDEX Visitors, Friendly, 132, 138 ; paper on duties of, 142-150. Visitors of poorhouses and other insti- tutions, 294r-295. Wages boards, 398^00, 405-408, 414. Wald, Lillian D., quoted on Mrs. Lowell's methods of work, 362-364. Walser, Dr., 25. Ward, Mrs. George, 69. Ward's Island, lunatic asylum on, 228, 229, 230-231, 238. Waring, George E., Jr., correspondence between Mrs Lowell and, 359. Washington, Booker T., remarks on, 471-473. Weidemeyer, Mrs., 320. Westchester County Poorhouse, report on, 296. West Roxbury, residence of the Shaw family at, 2. " What Can Young Men do for the City?" paper on, 422-435. White, Amy, 64-65. White, William Howard, 17, 20, 64. Widows with small children, model tenements for, proposed, 473-474. Wilbur, Dr. H. B., 116, 119-120. Willard, Dr., 78. Willard Asylum, the, 78 n. Winthrop, Theodore, 4, 13, 29, 476, 477. Winthrop, William, 19. Wister, Mrs., 65. Woman's Central Association of Relief for the Army and Navy, 8. Woman's Municipal League of the City of New York, 416 ff. " Women, Relation of, to Good Govern- ment," paper on, 435-445. Women, the matter of reformatories for, 88 ff., 94, 95, 101, 306-319. Women factory inspectors, 335. Women's Auxiliary to the CivU Service Reform Association, 480-481. Women's Prison Association, 322. Women's shelters, 451-452. Wood, James, 313; quoted, 314-316. Wood, Dr. James R., 84, 232. Woodbridge, Alice, report by, on condi- tions of working women, 336. Woodin, Senator. 230-231. Wood yards, 135, 137. Working Girls' Clubs, 83. "Workingmen's Rights in Property created by Them," paper on, 390- 394. Working Women's Society, 335; for- mation of the Consumers' League by, 337-339 ; paper on labor questions read before, 372-380. Wylie, Dr. W. Gill, 295. Young men and what they can do for the city, Mrs. Lowell's paper con- cerning, 422-435. T HE following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books of related interest. Twenty Years at Hull House With Axjtobiographical Notes by Jane Addams Illustrated, cloth, $2.j0 net (carriage extra) "Jane Addams, of Chicago, is a marvellous woman. 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