309.12 
 
 D496w 
 
 Welfare Federations 
 
 ‘By Edward T. Devine 
 
 How to T)o It: Philadelphia 
 The zIMiid-West Spirit: J^uisville 
 Where It Works: Cleveland and “Detroit 
 “The IPp^tional 'Agencies: (general (Considerations 
 
 REPRI NTED FROM 
 
 The SURVEY 
 
 II2 E. 19 St., New York 
 
 PRICE 50 CENTS 
 
COPYRIGHT 1921 BY 
 SURVEY ASSOCIATES, INC. 
 
 
I 
 
 HOW NOT TO DO IT: 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ^ inaugurated a plan of a different kind, in which the social 
 agencies are not so much participants as beneficiaries, whether 
 willing or reluctant. Pittsburgh has taken the matter up on 
 the same initiative but is not committed to the same plan. 
 New Orleans, where it was tried and abandoned, is again in 
 the throes of federation. Harrisburg has established a fed¬ 
 eration. Seattle has announced a community chest which 
 ^ at the moment of its birth may prove to be a changeling, a 
 - real federation of social agencies. Tacoma is starting con¬ 
 's^ temporaneously a community chest and a cotincil of social 
 ^ agencies and the twins may have Siamese ligaments. 
 
 > The rapidity of this spread of the movement for a kind 
 of federation which includes among other features the finan- 
 ^ cial function even when this is not the sole or dominating 
 >^purpose is the more remarkable because there is no organized 
 ^propaganda behind it, and because it has been in the face of 
 an adverse report issued four years ago by the American 
 / Association for Organizing Family Social Work. The fed- 
 vcrations have a somewhat informal gathering from time to 
 time, which is inaptly known as the American Association for 
 ^ Community Organization. While the name of this loose con- 
 ti)ference is obviously a misnomer, it is only fair to recognize 
 
4 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 that it is hard to find any designation in social organization 
 which is not a misnomer. 
 
 Community organization is a complex process whose varied 
 aspects—religious, philanthropic, educational, economic— 
 have varying degrees of importance according to the point of 
 view. The chamber of commerce really seems to many people 
 an ideal form of community organization. Its members sup¬ 
 port the colleges, churches, and philanthropies. Why should 
 they not control them ? Or, as it would be more likely to be 
 expressed, why should they continue to support agencies which 
 do not conduct their affairs in a business-like and sensible 
 way? In a quite different world, whose inhabitants in the 
 mass are not entirely unknown to business men, a central 
 trades and labor council may appear to be the normal method 
 of bringing together all whose views and preferences need to 
 be considered seriously. A church federation, again, may fill 
 the whole horizon; or a community council of which the* 
 public school building is the physical center. 
 
 Among these naive and divisive views we must class that 
 which regards a council of social agencies as an ideal plan 
 of community organization provided it is ‘^functional,” by 
 which appears to be meant that it does not function in the 
 raising of funds, but may in almost any other direction, 
 especially in the verbal exchange of views. After visiting 
 nearly all of the cities in which there are flourishing federa¬ 
 tions, East, West and South, including several, like St. Louis 
 and Chicago, in which there are councils but no financial 
 federations, and others, like Louisville and Milwaukee, in 
 which there are councils financed by, but otherwise indepen¬ 
 dent of their financial federations, I am unable to share the 
 preference for “functional,” i. e., non-financial, federations, 
 and I am strongly of the opinion that social workers are miss- 
 ^ great opportunity if they do not insist on taking a very 
 
HOW NOT TO DO IT 
 
 5 
 
 active and whole-hearted part in the kind of federation which 
 appeals to representative business and civic bodies because it 
 recognizes that common finance is one of the surest and most 
 legitimate means of encouraging the union of the philan¬ 
 thropic and civic agencies in a community program. 
 
 The fact appears to be that financial co-operation is one of 
 the very best ways to accomplish the constructive educational 
 results for which any council would be created. As Robert 
 E. Lewis, the general secretary of the Y. M. C. A. in 
 Cleveland, has said: 
 
 The acid test of cooperation is the use of money. It means 
 very little to hear papers in conference and to vote platonic 
 resolutions. Unless you cooperate financially, talk of cooperation 
 means very little. But when associations and welfare insti¬ 
 tutions in a city with every sort of affiliation and control are 
 willing to budget in the open, welcome public audit, shape 
 their work in a unified way and stimulate one another to frank 
 and full efficiency, it means something. 
 
 The astounding opinion has been expressed in the opposi¬ 
 tion to financial federation that the welfare institutions have 
 nothing in common to justify their common appeal; that it 
 is no easier for them to engage in common publicity than it 
 would be to advertise at once a butcher shop, a lawyer’s 
 office and a bank. If this is so, the National Conference of 
 Social Work is evidently a mistake. The Russell Sage Foun¬ 
 dation in its several departments is striving for incompatible 
 ends. The Survey has no natural constituency. Poverty, 
 disease, crime, ignorance have no common origins or remedies. 
 The sense of community which have been awakening should 
 be put to sleep. We may preach co-operation but all the 
 time must expect in our hearts that those to whom we preach 
 will continue to regard one another with only that degree of 
 cordiality which a butcher shop naturally feels for a lawyer’s 
 office or a bank for a grocery. 
 
 i 
 
6 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 This is not the spirit of a genuine welfare federation. Con¬ 
 ferences held under the auspices of a council which is also 
 raising money, for that very reason have more vitality. Dele¬ 
 gates take their responsibilities more seriously. Standing 
 committees know that there is driving power behind their de¬ 
 liberations. Business men treat their conclusions with more 
 respect. 
 
 An alliance of the civic and charitable associations to pro¬ 
 mote their common ends and to provide common services is 
 obviously a very different thing from an independently or¬ 
 ganized and managed “community chest,even though the 
 latter may be called, as in Philadelphia, a “welfare federa¬ 
 tion.’’ In Baltimore the more accurately descriptive term 
 alliance is used. In Toronto it is called Federation for Com¬ 
 munity Service. In Cleveland the Welfare Federation has a 
 central body consisting of two representatives from each 
 agency, not more than one to be a paid employe, and a board 
 of trustees, one-third of whose members are elected each year 
 and not more than one-third to be paid officials of financially 
 participating agencies. The Detroit Community Union has a ^ 
 general council made up of two representatives from each 
 agency, one a professional executive and one a board member. 
 This general council elects the officers and a board of direc¬ 
 tors. In Cleveland and in Detroit the actual money raising 
 is done by a distinct but closely allied body known as the 
 “Community Fund.” 
 
 These details are mentioned merely to indicate that in 
 these cities and in many others having councils or alliances 
 or unions or federations which both raise money and perform 
 other functions natural to a council of social agencies, the 
 plan of organization permits, and indeed encourages, actual 
 control of the raising and apportioning of funds by representa¬ 
 tives of the agencies in whose names and in whose interests 
 
HOW NOT TO DO IT 
 
 7 
 
 the appeals are made. They embody the principle of repre¬ 
 sentative democracy. They embody the principle that the 
 paid executives of charitable societies are presumably leaders 
 and experts whose voices may properly be heard on the board 
 of trustees of any federation which they create or which is 
 in their interest. They embody also the principle of building 
 on historical foundations. They do not replace existing insti¬ 
 tutions by a new super-institution, but they unite or ally 
 the existing institutions in a common effort to care more in¬ 
 telligently for those who are in need, to check the destructive 
 influences, and to promote the healing and stimulating forces. 
 
 It may seem like straining at a minor point, like that foolish 
 contending for forms of government which the poet con¬ 
 demns, to insist on the inherent advantages of participation in 
 actual control by the agencies, especially since the same 
 people are very likely to be found in positions of responsibility 
 whether chosen by a small group of self-appointed guardians 
 or democratically elected and nominally representing some 
 useful existing society. But even in the political fieM, this 
 indifference to the forms of democracy is now found to be 
 rather dangerous policy. The autocrats are no longer cer¬ 
 tain to be representatives of the traditional culture, the estab¬ 
 lished church, vested interests. They may be very drastic 
 innovators. On the educational and philanthropic rafts also 
 the democratic principle may prove to be the only safe anchor 
 for the valuable cargoes which have come down to us on the 
 rivers of time. If there are rapids below us the willing hands 
 of many may be more certain reliance than the superior 
 traditions of the few. If we are to have federated financing 
 —and this appears to be the pronounced tendency—it is not 
 a matter of indifference, and not solely a matter of adminis¬ 
 tration, whether it is to be under the direction of the agencies 
 which are to spend it; whether they are to remain strong. 
 
8 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 independent and vigorous through association, or are to be¬ 
 come dependent, subordinate to a small group of financiers, 
 living by suffrance, cut off from living contact with their 
 sources of nourishment. 
 
 The absurdities and weaknesses of the traditional non- 
 federated methods of financing social agencies are undeniable. 
 They have been exposed frequently, most conclusively per¬ 
 haps by the recent study in Philadelphia. It there appeared 
 that about per cent of the city^s population are financing 
 the general non-sectarian agencies—or perhaps 5 per cent, if 
 we include the Jewish Agencies (which have their own 
 federation) and others not counted in the 234 agencies 
 studied. There are too few large givers among the wealthy 
 and there are altogether too many who in spite of all the 
 urgent appeals are never directly asked to share in the satis¬ 
 factions and responsibilities of social work. Essential agencies 
 are inadequately supported; and their support is from an 
 absurdly small number of people. Conversely, those who do 
 give are closely limited in the range of their sympathies, as 
 indicated by the number of agencies to which they con¬ 
 tribute. 
 
 All this is told with frankness and convincing detail in the 
 Philadelphia report. It puts the social agencies on the de¬ 
 fensive at least, for it is no more creditable to have disor¬ 
 ganization, haphazard income, chaotic competition for gifts, 
 erratic personal lavishness alternating with indifference, In 
 the financing of the charitable societies, than it is to leave 
 individual families who need help to spasmodic, disorganized 
 almsgiving. If there is any merit in the arguments for 
 organized charity in the relief and prevention of Individual 
 distress, there is merit in the larger demand for community 
 organization to meet the social needs as a whole. New York 
 
HOW NOT TO DO IT 
 
 9 
 
 and Chicago are not models to be followed but overgrown 
 examples of stupidity and provincialism. 
 
 It does not follow that the particular plan adopted in Phila¬ 
 delphia and in other cities which have a “community chest’^ 
 is the best way of meeting those needs. Indeed, the con¬ 
 stitution adopted for the new Welfare Federation of Phila¬ 
 delphia appears to have been also a changeling in the cradle 
 but with the change, so to speak, in the opposite direction 
 from that which may have taken place in Seattle. In other 
 words, a “welfare federation’’ has become a close corpora¬ 
 tion of givers, mainly of large givers; while in Seattle a “com¬ 
 munity chest,” having its origin in a desire of givers to be 
 free from the annoyances of many “drives,” seems to be 
 developing into a real federation of social agencies for com¬ 
 mon purposes, including the raising of funds. In Pittsburgh 
 and in many other cities the issue hangs in the balance. Will 
 the Chamber of Commerce create merely a community chest 
 in which social agencies have no other responsibility than to 
 get all the revenue they can, or will there be created by co¬ 
 operative effort a federation of agencies responsible for sur¬ 
 veying the needs of the city, co-ordinating its social activities, 
 creating new ones as required, educating public opinion, pool¬ 
 ing their resources of money and good-will in a united frontal 
 attack on all the destructive forces of evil, in a generous at¬ 
 tempt to give the maximum aid to those who need it ? 
 
 In Philadelphia the conditions would seem to be excep¬ 
 tionally favorable for a co-operative federation. In no other 
 city has more progress been made in the practical working out 
 of co-operative arrangements among the social agencies. 
 Their social service exchange is financially supported by the 
 associations which use it. Their “intake committee” has had 
 an extraordinary and lasting influence. Executives and staffs 
 have been good neighbors and this good feeling has reached 
 
10 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 the point of effective influence on the daily activities of the 
 societies, especially of the general relief societies and those 
 which are interested in children and in the care of the sick. 
 
 The Philadelphia Welfare Federation was created at a 
 meeting of citizens and consists of (a) its financial contribu¬ 
 tors, (b) representatives, (c) board of trustees and (d) coun¬ 
 cil of social agencies. The representatives include a few 
 ex-officio members and 100 persons elected at the organiza¬ 
 tion meeting. Their principal duty is to elect the board of 
 trustees. After its first year, representatives are to be 
 elected by the financial contributors. It would be difficult to 
 devise a plan which would more surely secure complete con¬ 
 trol in the hands of the directing group if this is desired, 
 as it probably is not. The organization meeting was of course 
 attended by those who were invited. Even so, however, it 
 was not entrusted with the task of choosing the trustees. The 
 process of indirect election which has been so brilliantly suc¬ 
 cessful in eliminating democracy from American political 
 parties, and which has lent itself so neatly to communist 
 dictatorship in Russia, is preferred to any plan which gives 
 direct control either to givers or to the agencies. The board 
 of trustees, thus chosen by “representatives” who are in turn 
 chosen by a self-constituted gathering of contributors, exer¬ 
 cises executive powers, conducts the business, holds and con¬ 
 trols the property, and apportions and disburses the funds of 
 the federation. It determines the qualifications of applicants 
 for financial assistance and prescribes the conditions on which 
 it shall be granted. Other federations which are on the 
 representative system may also elect their trustees indirectly 
 but the delegates to the general meeting in those cases are 
 chosen by the agencies. 
 
 It may be objected that the constitution of the federation 
 provides for a council of social agencies and that this may 
 
HOW NOT TO DO IT 
 
 11 
 
 supply the democratic element which had seemed lacking. 
 Quite true. There Is to be a council consisting of one dele¬ 
 gate from each association approved by the board of trustees. 
 It may discuss, devise, and recommend. It is its duty to 
 furnish information and advice upon request of the represen¬ 
 tatives or the trustees. It even nominates 20 per cent, not 
 of the trustees, but of the representatives who are to elect 
 the trustees, and the contributors are expected to elect these 
 nominees unless ‘‘the said contributors for reasons satisfactory 
 to themselves shall decide otherwise.” 
 
 No one who “receives pecuniary compensation from any 
 social agency or association” is eligible to the board of trus¬ 
 tees. That is to say, no one who is professionally engaged in 
 social work is competent to sit on the board of managers of 
 the welfare federation of the city. What would be said of a 
 federation for the financing of the higher institutions of 
 learning of the board of managers of which no university 
 president was eligible; or of a combination of banks or 
 railways in which all paid officials were ineligible? Would 
 it not be to deprive the united effort in either case of its 
 natural leadership? With all due respect to the big men 
 who have created the welfare federation and who financed 
 the war appeals, are not the natural leaders in the welfare 
 work of Philadelphia to be found among the executives of its 
 social agencies? Are not Prentice Murphy, Karl de 
 Schweinitz, Edwin Solenberger, Kenneth Pray, Anna Pratt 
 and Katherine Tucker and their like among the people who 
 should be on the board of managers of any welfare federation 
 if it is to perform any such functions as its constitution an¬ 
 nounces : the promotion, co-ordination and financial assistance 
 of associations for civic and charitable work, the elimination 
 of waste In effort and expenditure, and the scientific applica- 
 
12 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 tion to social conditions of principles, plans and methods 
 approved by study and experience? 
 
 The inauguration of the plan in Philadelphia has not been 
 made conditional upon any official action by ‘‘the associations 
 for civic and charitable work/' They appear to have noth¬ 
 ing to do except to qualify as beneficiaries and if approved by 
 the board of trustees to choose a delegate at a convenient time 
 to serve on the council. They will be expected in due course 
 to submit their budgets^ with such supporting data as the 
 trustees may demand. 
 
 The welfare federation, as conceived and brought to frui¬ 
 tion in Philadelphia, may prove to be a solution for the par¬ 
 ticular evils which the investigation of the Chamber of Com¬ 
 merce brought to light. It may and probably will increase 
 the number of givers, broaden the support of the social 
 agencies, widen the interest of individual givers, encourage 
 larger donations by those who have a large surplus, eliminate 
 some waste, and enable the approved societies to make their 
 plans with greater confidence that the income required to 
 carry them out will be supplied. These results, if they are 
 achieved, will be important. The council of social agencies, 
 notwithstanding its purely advisory character, notwithstand¬ 
 ing that its very membership depends on the approval of 
 another body to which the executive officers of its members 
 are not eligible, may become, as the promoters of the welfare 
 federation hope that it will, a very dynamic and integral part 
 of the scheme. It may even do as well as any of the existing 
 councils of social agencies. If it has at its disposal the 
 services of a qualified paid secretary and staff its usefulness 
 may be very great. The federation has secured as its execu¬ 
 tive Sherman C. Kingsley, formerly director of the Cleveland 
 Welfare Federation, a leader of proved statesmanship and 
 democratic spirit. This appointment may reasonably be con- 
 
HOW NOT TO DO IT 
 
 13 
 
 sidered conclusive evidence that the attitude of the pro¬ 
 moters of the Philadelphia Federation is not clearly reflected 
 in their formal organization. It may be predicted that the 
 essentially undemocratic character of the original constitution 
 will be modified in due time, either expressly or tacitly. 
 
 The important thing is that in the interest of clear thinking 
 the Philadelphia plan should be understood as it is and that 
 from its success or failure no unwarranted inferences should 
 be drawn in regard to the general movement for federa¬ 
 tion. It is an attempt by an influential and substantial group 
 of citizens to bring order out of chaos, to offer a plan which 
 the associations of civic and charitable work will be bound 
 by self-interest to accept, under which they will turn over 
 to this group the raising of their budgets in common, on 
 condition that they will allow this self-constituted, however 
 widely representative, group through its board of directors 
 to ‘‘prescribe the conditions.’’ Any particular federation of 
 social agencies may be defective or ineffective. But those 
 who are striving for a council which shall be representative, 
 inclusive, and effective are headed in the right direction. A 
 chamber of commerce which is earnestly and open-mindedly 
 studying the problem of community needs as a whole and 
 the best way of meeting them is more to be praised than 
 a family welfare society which stubbornly opposes the effort 
 to find any such comprehensive plan^ or the national body 
 which refuses to submit its policies as far as they affect a 
 particular locality to the common judgment of those who 
 are concerned with the same problems in that locality. 
 
 A good life for the individual, a civic ideal for the city— 
 nothing less should command the highest loyalty and en¬ 
 thusiasm of the citizen. The chamber of commerce cannot 
 secure these things or even strive for them intelligently 
 without the organized co-operation of churches, labor unions, 
 
14 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 and other social agencies. It is a truism that each association 
 to fulfill its ends needs the understanding and sympathy of the 
 others. The difficulty is that those which are most flourish¬ 
 ing, most dominant, most secure in the affection and loyalty 
 of their own constituencies, are subject to the peculiar tempta¬ 
 tion of thinking that they can impose their own program as a 
 preliminary condition of co-operation. They act like the 
 Great Powers at the Paris Conference with their progres¬ 
 sively diminishing council of ten and four and three, or 
 rather, as the one great power is supposed to have been 
 intending to act if the victory had gone the other way, and 
 as the Third International of Moscow is acting in its rela¬ 
 tion with the Socialist parties of the world. That is not the 
 kind of democracy which Lowell described as a society in 
 which each may respect himself because he has first re¬ 
 spected others. A democratic federation is not, of course, on 
 all fours with the political state, but it resembles it in its 
 detestation of privilege. Good ideas may come from humble 
 sources. 
 
II 
 
 THE MID-WEST SPIRIT: 
 LOUISVILLE 
 
 T he apprehensions of those who saw a big-stick 
 threat in the movement for financial federation on 
 the initiative of chambers of commerce or other 
 groups of financiers and business men had some theo¬ 
 retical basis. Open-minded observation of the operation 
 of the federations in which funds are raised jointly will be 
 likely to convince the observer that the objections are 
 academic and that the spirit of control is in fact conspicuously 
 absent. This may be in part because of their geographical 
 location. The Middle West is the stronghold of old-fash¬ 
 ioned American democracy, and the congenial habitat of the 
 federation idea thus far is there. 
 
 With a few exceptions, the flourishing federations are to 
 be found between the Canadian border and the Ohio, be¬ 
 tween the Niagara and the Missouri. Until the recent 
 development in Philadelphia, no city of more than a million 
 had created a general financial federation, although Jewish 
 institutions have found the principle applicable even in the 
 larger cities. Some of the most extraordinary results have 
 indeed been secured in towns of very moderate size. Elyria, 
 Ohio, for example, with a population of only twenty-four 
 thousand, claims to have been the first city to adopt the com¬ 
 munity chest plan. Middletown, another Ohio town of the 
 same size as Elyria, but at the other end of the state, has a 
 remarkable achievement to record. Over a million dollars 
 was raised there by the Middletown Chamber of Commerce 
 
16 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 for a civic fund from nine thousand contributors, an average 
 of about two givers from each family in town. Not all of 
 this was for current work and half of it came from the large 
 industrial establishments. These are cited merely as interest¬ 
 ing variations, but in fact variation is almost the only char¬ 
 acteristic which can be asserted with confidence of the entire 
 movement. Nothing could be more absurd than to repre¬ 
 sent it as an effort to impose a rigidly uniform type of money 
 raising on all communities. 
 
 By far the best answer that I have heard to the appre¬ 
 hension that federations may exercise some kind of indirect 
 or subtle control over the policies of the institutions comes 
 from Father Le Blond, the director of Catholic Charities in 
 Cleveland. He had mentioned in conversation some appre¬ 
 hensions which he had at the beginning but which had 
 been wholly laid at rest by experience. I then asked him 
 whether he thought there was any ground for the apprehen¬ 
 sion which I had frequently heard expressed, that, even if 
 federations were entirely successful financially, and even if 
 the managers and budget committees had every desire to be 
 fair and just in their dealings, nevertheless there might be 
 some degree of unconscious control by the money-raising and 
 appropriating body over the internal policies, the actual 
 operations of the various agencies. His reply was quick and 
 wholly unexpected. “Yes,” he said, “1 think there is some 
 probability of that and I think it is a very good thing.” 
 Further discussion made it clear that this extraordinary 
 clergyman saw the full implications of his remark, and that 
 he meant just what he said. His view is of course based on 
 the assumption that the money-raising agency is a federation, 
 really representing the money-spending agencies. What it 
 comes to then is simply that the whole is greater and prob¬ 
 ably better than the part; that the community as a whole 
 
THE MID-WEST SPIRIT 
 
 17 
 
 corrects the undue provincialism or excessive institutionalism 
 of a particular agency. It is just the unconscious pressure 
 which the sense of the common welfare exercises under nor¬ 
 mal conditions over the idiosyncracies of individuals. Varia¬ 
 tions are welcome but extreme or erratic deviations make the 
 neighbors uncomfortable, and this is not a matter for regret 
 but for congratulation. Control must not of course be arbi¬ 
 trary or unlimited but that degree of influence which the 
 social agencies of the community as a whole may exercise 
 through federation on the Y. M. C. A., the Red Cross, the 
 Associated Charities, or a Catholic, Jewish or Protestant 
 hospital, is in the interests of progress and a rational con¬ 
 servatism. 
 
 In the summary report of the meeting of the federations 
 in New Orleans a year ago, it is recorded that ‘^it was gen¬ 
 erally agreed that the democratic form of organization is 
 desirable and that at least the member agencies and the 
 givers should be represented on the governing board.” 
 Opinions differed as to whether the chambers of commerce 
 should have representatives. The sentiment of those present 
 was in favor of “an annual campaign” with, however, the 
 greatest attention to the preliminary work and to the organiz¬ 
 ing of personnel, and inspiring the necessary enthusiasm and 
 sense of responsibility. The “quota” idea should not be 
 carried in actual solicitation to the point of an insistence 
 which might cause resentment. It was agreed that local 
 partnerships and firms should be exempt from solicitation, 
 emphasis being placed on individual gifts. There was much 
 difference of opinion as to the advisability and possibility of 
 securing gifts from corporations with absentee ownership. 
 While it was generally felt that such corporations had an 
 obligation to the communities in which they do business, suf¬ 
 ficient knowledge was not available as to the degree of success 
 
18 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 in obtaining such gifts and as to the feeling of the corpora¬ 
 tions themselves to justify any final conclusion. It was gen¬ 
 erally agreed that the support of industrial (i. e., labor) 
 groups should be sought and that labor should be brought to 
 participate and to feel that the organization is a community 
 affair. House to house canvass by volunteer solicitors was 
 favored, with assignment of districts for the encouragement 
 of fair competition and with careful arrangements to avoid 
 irritation from unavoidable duplication because of solicitation 
 according to business and industrial divisions. 
 
 A professional campaign manager is not usually em¬ 
 ployed, the recent experience in Minneapolis where the full 
 amount desired was not obtained being an exception which 
 seems not to disprove the soundness of the policy. Campaign 
 cost has in many instances been kept below 1 per cent and 
 has been met by interest on deposits. Educational work 
 must be carried on the year round to supplement the cam¬ 
 paigns. Designation of particular agencies by givers is not 
 generally encouraged, but in Cincinnati the council has 
 adopted the policy of encouraging if not practically urging 
 designations and about 85 per cent of its contributions are 
 ‘‘designated.*’ 
 
 The policy of appointing “functional committees” com¬ 
 posed largely of laymen was approved. Their purpose is to 
 bring the agencies into closer relationship with one another, 
 to establish standards, and gradually to work out a well de¬ 
 fined and co-ordinated community program. 
 
 The budget committee, which is the pivot of federation, is 
 constituted differently in different cities. In Cleveland the 
 committee consists of thirty-five persons appointed by the 
 president of the federation with the approval of the trustees. 
 In Grand Rapids the budget committee consists of fifteen 
 members, seven of whom are elected by the agencies, seven 
 
THE MID-WEST SPIRIT 
 
 19 
 
 by the contributors and one by the city Association of Com¬ 
 merce. The sine qua non of a successful federation is a com¬ 
 petent, well organized, active budget conunittee. Careful 
 study and scrutiny of the individual budgets is essential. Fair 
 dealing and mutual confidence are insured by working out 
 final budgets in round table discussion and not by arbitrary 
 and unexplained final action on the part of a budget com¬ 
 mittee. Care should be exercised to prevent ‘‘log rolling,’’ 
 but it was the general experience that the member organiza¬ 
 tions are usually sincere in the preparation of their budgets 
 and reasonable in accepting criticism of them. 
 
 These conclusions are presented as indicative of the under¬ 
 lying spirit of the federations as they appear at work in the 
 Middle West and elsewhere. They are not a product of the 
 war chests—although in several places the success of the war 
 drives gave an impetus to the federation plan. Generally 
 speaking, it may be said that under the federation plan much 
 larger funds have been raised than were collected by the 
 agencies acting independently. 
 
 Their remarkable financial success has been discounted in 
 some quarters by the irrelevant and fallacious observation 
 that they have not been able to get away from the “drive” 
 method and that “drives” are becoming unpopular. It is pre¬ 
 dicted that as we get farther away from the war the “drive,” 
 i. e., the united intensive financial campaign in which all are 
 asked to give once in the year but to give enough for all, will 
 become increasingly unpopular. This seems likely to prove 
 a hasty prediction. The raising of money may be made 
 educational, as those who favor separate and numerous ap¬ 
 peals themselves insist; and the educational publicity of the 
 federations compares very favorably thus far with the numer¬ 
 ous separate appeals. This publicity moreover is not limited 
 to the campaign week or to financial needs. The strongest 
 
20 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 argument in favor of federation is precisely the remarkable 
 increase in the amount of intelligent public discussion to 
 which it gives rise. The columns of the newspapers, public 
 meetings, and private conversation all bear evidence to this; 
 but the final test is the number of well informed citizens who 
 show that they take an interest in the public and private 
 welfare activities. Any individual observer may easily be 
 misled in such comparisons, but for whatever it may be 
 worth the writer records his owm opinion that in this respect 
 Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and other fed¬ 
 eration cities compare most favorably with cities of similar 
 rank in which federation has not taken place. 
 
 Hostile critics of federation are always especially quick to 
 point out any failure to secure from a joint campaign the 
 full amount that the managers have set for their goal in 
 that particular campaign. It is said that since the federation 
 is financial, it must succeed at this point or it is a complete 
 failure. This is obviously unfair even in the case of a 
 “community chest.” The comparison should obviously be 
 with the amounts raised prior to federation; or better, if 
 there is any basis for estimate, with the amounts which could 
 be raised by independent appeals. There may be general 
 conditions which affect the giving capacity or disposition 
 which are wholly independent of the method of appeal. 
 Minneapolis failed to raise the full amount for which the 
 council asked for the present year largely because the cam¬ 
 paign, planned of course long in advance, happened to coincide 
 with a calamitous fall in the price of wheat. The question 
 is whether separate appeals would have done better. All 
 campaigns this year will suffer from the general industrial 
 depression. The question is which will suffer more, the 
 agencies which are in federations or those which are not. 
 There is no peculiar and exclusive obligation on federations 
 
THE MID-WEST SPIRIT 
 
 21 
 
 to succeed in their efforts. That obligation rests equally on 
 all welfare agencies. They must raise the money which they 
 require or else abandon or restrict their work. St. Louis 
 has no federation but its Provident Association is finding it 
 exceedingly difficult to raise its budget. New York has no 
 federation but the Charity Organization Society of New 
 York has announced the closing of its Bronx district office, 
 I have yet to hear of any similar confession of failure in a 
 federation city. 
 
 Louisville, a city of a little less than a quarter of a million, 
 may be taken as an instructive example of the kind of fed¬ 
 eration which is neither limited to a ‘‘community chest^^ nor 
 yet deprived of the backbone which the financial function 
 seems to supply. 
 
 The Louisville Board of Trade, which corresponds with 
 the chamber of commerce in many cities, has had for several 
 years a Charities Endorsement Committee. In Cleveland also 
 and in some other cities the endorsement plan preceded 
 federation, and in several cities, as in Memphis and Des 
 Moines, it is still the chambers of commerce themselves that 
 undertake through special departments to prevent fraudulent 
 soliciting and other recognized abuses by this and other means. 
 When the Welfare League, which is now in its third year, 
 was created in Louisville, primarily as a federation for the 
 raising of funds, the Charities Endorsement Committee was 
 continued, where it was already located, in the Board of 
 Trade. It was provided that no agency should be eligible 
 for membership in the league which did not have the endorse¬ 
 ment of the Board of Trade’s committee, but it did not 
 follow that all of the endorsed agencies would care to join 
 the league. The separation of these two functions, in fact 
 as well as in name, in this respect simplified the task of the 
 league. The latter has no occasion to make enemies by 
 
22 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 refusing admission to any charitable institution which desires 
 to join. The league may devote itself wholly to the specific 
 task of acquainting the community with the purposes and 
 needs of its constituent members and securing the funds 
 which they require. 
 
 The thirty-one agencies in the league have budgets for 1921 
 amounting to $536,012, of which there had to be raised by 
 gifts $344,009. In addition to this, the Welfare League in 
 the year 1920 had a deficit of $51,561, incurred because it 
 tried to get along without a financial campaign. This made 
 a total of $395,570 to be raised in contributions for 1921. 
 By May 15, $336,000 of this had been secured, leaving 
 $60,000 still to be found. By that time, however, it had 
 been clearly demonstrated that through the cordial co-opera¬ 
 tion of the member organizations in keeping down their 
 expenses at least $20,000 less than had been estimated would 
 be required to run the organizations during 1921, so that 
 their current expenses for the year will not be more than 
 $324,000 in contributions. This full sum has already been 
 subscribed, and $12,000 toward clearing off the deficit. Of¬ 
 ficers of the Welfare League declare that they are hopeful 
 of cutting the deficit in two in 1921, and expect to clear it off 
 entirely in the campaign for 1922, which has been set for the 
 week of November 15-22. 
 
 The league publishes an exceptionally interesting booklet 
 of eighty-eight pages. The following paragraphs deal with 
 its program for the year ahead: 
 
 During the year we shall work for the development of all 
 possible economies in the leagued organizations, through pro¬ 
 moting the increased use of the Central Purchasing Bureau 
 and of the Social Service Exchange; through a study of dieta¬ 
 ries with a view to getting the maximum food value for the 
 least expenditure; and through an attempt to standardize all 
 
THE MID-WEST SPIRIT 
 
 23 
 
 other supplies so far as possible, to get the best article for a 
 given purpose at the least cost. 
 
 We shall attempt to make our work as effective as possible, 
 through developing additional trained workers; through ap¬ 
 plying the highest possible standards of service to all our 
 work; through careful cooperation on individual cases of need 
 by all agencies concerned; and through cooperative action on 
 community problems by means of the Community Council’s 
 “functional committees.” 
 
 We shall attempt so far as possible to lessen the number 
 of people who require aid, through a disease-prevention and 
 health-promotion campaign to be carried on by the Louisville 
 Anti-Tuberculosis Association, now released from the burden 
 of supporting Hazelwood Sanitorium; through the extension 
 of the Public Health Nursing Association’s service on a pay 
 basis to families above the poverty line; through promoting the 
 use of the Psychological Clinic in detecting the feeble-minded; 
 through helping to keep in school until properly trained, chil¬ 
 dren who otherwise would go to work before their time and 
 never become anything but unskilled, low-paid workers; through 
 encouraging our settlements and other agencies which build 
 sturdy, self-reliant citizenship in people who have not yet come 
 to need charity or become delinquent; and through encouraging 
 people who have not yet come to actual need, and in whose 
 cases further difficulties can be avoided by prompt service, to 
 avail themselves of the advice on domestic problems offered 
 by such “case-work” agencies as the Associated Charities. 
 
 Just as soon as anything above the funds needed for carry¬ 
 ing on the leagued organizations on their present basis can be 
 raised, we should extend to the borders of Jefferson County 
 the services of the Associated Charities, the Public Health 
 Nursing Association and the Children’s Protective Association. 
 
 We should as soon as possible provide also an agency for 
 the care, training and vocational placement of crippled and 
 otherwise physically handicapped people. 
 
 We should develop a children’s bureau, to serve all the chil¬ 
 dren’s institutions in the city. It should ascertain the full facts 
 concerning all applicants for admission to these institutions; 
 keep in touch with their parents or guardians, if any, while 
 they are in these institutions; find family homes in which these 
 children may be boarded out or placed for adoption as soon as 
 possible . . . and supervise these family homes. 
 
 We should provide for unmarried colored mothers institu¬ 
 tional care of the same order as that now provided by the Sal- 
 
24 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 vation Army Susan Speed Davis Home and Hospital for white 
 
 mothers. 
 
 The league includes Jewish as well as Catholic and 
 Protestant agencies. Unlike Cleveland, it does not include 
 the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A._, and other national agencies, 
 or the funds for foreign relief; and there are several local 
 agencies which for one reason or another prefer to remain 
 outside the movement. Some of them may think that they 
 do better financially as free lances. More often, however, it 
 is because they are apprehensive that transferring the respon¬ 
 sibility for raising funds will mean that kind of control by 
 the money raisers—that limitation on their own sovereignty— 
 which we have already discussed. 
 
 From the financial point of view this is not a serious 
 handicap to the league or its members, but from the point 
 of view of community organization it presents a situation 
 which has been met by the creation of a larger and distinct 
 Community Council. In this body practically all of the 
 civic and charitable agencies, whether members of the league 
 or not, are welcome and are participating. It is financed by 
 the league, ju'^t as its other constituent members are, and is 
 thus free of the necessity of asking dues or contributions. 
 This council conducts certain service departments—a con¬ 
 fidential exchange, a psychological clinic, and a central pur¬ 
 chasing bureau. It has also numerous standing committees: 
 as for example, on child welfare, family welfare, neighbor¬ 
 hood work, health, housing and city planning, mental hygiene, 
 recreation, social hygiene, and county welfare problems 
 (i. e., outside the city limits). In these committees, directors, 
 officials, paid and volunteer workers in the numerous public 
 and voluntary agencies, consider their common problems, ex¬ 
 change experience, investigate new or current needs, and 
 in general promote the art of co-operation by practicing it. 
 
THE MID-WEST SPIRIT 
 
 25 
 
 Some of these committees may assume administrative duties, 
 such as securing volunteer entertaining ‘‘talent’^ for orphan¬ 
 ages, old folks’ homes and hospitals, or the enactment of a 
 new housing law. A committee like that on city planning 
 may have its own paid secretary. Other committees will be 
 content to recommend plans which existing agencies will 
 undertake to carry out. 
 
 The point of chief interest for the present inquiry lies in 
 the relation between the community council and the welfare 
 league. Even in Louisville the impression seems to prevail 
 that there is something anomalous—not quite orthodox and 
 regular—in the historical sequence of the founding of these 
 two bodies. The first attempt to create a council within 
 the league itself was not successful. The present council 
 appears to be working well. It succeeded in securing the 
 passage of an improved housing law and has undertaken 
 the ambitious task of working out a city planning pro¬ 
 gram. Its secretary, R. A. Hoyer, believes that the ideal 
 sequence is the reverse of that followed in Louisville; that a 
 city should “begin with a non-financial federation or council 
 and keep away from money raising until the various organi¬ 
 zations have become acquainted and have learned to work 
 together. Then the organizations that desire to raise money 
 jointly can do so, coming together just as the organizations 
 desiring to do child welfare work come together.” In 
 other words, “the money-raising function should be carried 
 on under a budget committee which should be much like any 
 other functional committee.” 
 
 Although this sounds reasonable and is in accord with the 
 procedure recommended by the highest authorities, there is 
 very little in the actual experience of federation cities to 
 support it. Minneapolis is one conspicuous example of the 
 transformation of a “functional” council of social agencies 
 
26 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 into a financial federation, or—if one prefers to put it that 
 way—of the development alongside other “functions” of that 
 of raising money by joint appeal. The earlier experience of 
 the secretary of the Minneapolis Council, Otto W. Davis, 
 lay in the field of family social work, improved housing, 
 etc., and he naturally regards it as fundamental “that money 
 raising should rest ultimately on the group which controls 
 the money spending. Otherwise it would become necessary 
 to educate each group separately and the results are less 
 satisfactory because of the mutually exclusive lines of expe¬ 
 rience.” He sees also, and in this he would have the sup¬ 
 port of the federations in general, that the agencies as a united 
 group should “be closely related to the money-raising efforts” 
 in order to secure “the most intelligent consideration of 
 the pros and cons with relation to increases of budgets, the 
 need of special studies, etc.” Cincinnati's Council of Social 
 Agencies also functioned in other directions for a year or two 
 before assuming the joint raising of funds. 
 
Ill 
 
 WHERE IT WORKS: 
 
 CLEVELAND AND DETROIT 
 
 ^ ■ ^HE sixty federations which appear in the informal 
 ■ directory of the American Association for Com- 
 fl munity Organization include several which are 
 very recent and others concerning which little information 
 is available. Some of the stronger ones, like Milwaukee, 
 Denver, Minneapolis and Baltimore, have had very instruc¬ 
 tive experiences. A few which have failed to profit by the 
 experience of others and have assumed that social agencies 
 may be financed by passing the hat have come to grief. 
 
 Because of the outstanding influence of the Cleveland Wel¬ 
 fare Federation it will do no harm to recall some of the 
 salient facts of its eight years’ history and its present organi¬ 
 zation. This history is roughly divisible into two periods 
 of about equal length—four years of the Federation for 
 Charity and Philanthropy of which Whiting Williams was 
 the executive, and four years of the Welfare Federation with 
 Sherman C. Kingsley as director. The change of name and 
 executive occurred shortly before America became involved 
 in the World War. The earlier federation was primarily 
 financial, laying stress however on the establishment of stand¬ 
 ards and co-operation. In the latter part of this period was 
 created a Welfare Council, which had no funds at its dis¬ 
 posal and did no active work on its own account, but held 
 meetings to discuss policies and to clarify opinion, with a 
 view to placing responsibility on particular private or public 
 agencies for doing things which were neglected. 
 
28 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 On the financial side this earlier federation achieved no 
 very extraordinary results. Some of the important agencies 
 like the Young Men’s Christian Association did not join it. 
 Some that did join were on the point of withdrawal because 
 they could not see that it brought any substantial advantage. 
 However it was making history in the movement for co¬ 
 operation. It did promote mutual understanding. It culti¬ 
 vated the practice of thinking in terms of the community. 
 The fact that in 1918 the seven great ‘‘morale-making 
 agencies” of the war united in a successful appeal throughout 
 the nation is directly due to the fact that Newton D. Baker 
 was secretary of war; and that he came from Cleveland, 
 where in strict continuation of the co-operative community 
 habit of mind several of these very agencies had already 
 united in their local appeal. To Mr. Williams and his asso¬ 
 ciates in the Cleveland Federation in these four years belongs 
 the credit of the pioneers, the distinction of having estab¬ 
 lished the model before the United States went into the war 
 and the war chests were created. 
 
 Opponents of financial federation often urge a “functional 
 council” as a “first step” after they recognize that the senti¬ 
 ment in favor of real federation has become so strong that 
 it cannot be ignored. Their hope is that the larger move¬ 
 ment may thus be shelved. I do not of course suggest that 
 there are not other and better reasons for councils of social 
 agencies like those in Boston and Columbus. Surely it is 
 significant that in Cleveland, where the experience now covers 
 a longer period than in any other city except Denver, the 
 early steps were in the path of financial federation and that 
 they did lead in the right direction of co-operation for the 
 general welfare and in later years to conspicuous financial 
 success. It is fair to recall that a democratic federation must 
 build itself from the materials at hand. The stream of as30- 
 
THE WAY IT WORKS 
 
 29 
 
 ciated good-will cannot rise higher than its sources in the 
 institutions and activities which the public spirit of the com¬ 
 munity is willing to maintain. The first settlements in 
 Cleveland and the reorganization of the associated charities 
 date from the beginning of the century. Federation has 
 contributed cohesion to social action and to progressive think¬ 
 ing in terms of community welfare, but well established 
 social agencies, a progressive chamber of commerce, and the 
 political impetus of such leadership as that of Tom Johnson 
 and Newton Baker are by no means unimportant elements 
 in the success of federation. 
 
 The Cleveland Welfare Federation in 1917 absorbed the 
 Welfare Council as well as the Federation for Charity and 
 Philanthropy. It had plans for immediate expansion in the 
 very directions which have since been carried out^ but the 
 war interfered with their immediate execution. A War 
 Council representing the Red Cross, the Mayor’s Defense 
 Council and other interests came into being. The Welfare 
 Federation was advised to make its usual appeal but not to 
 compete in a too active campaign with the war causes and 
 was assured, by a sort of gentlemen’s agreement, that any 
 deficit would be taken care of by the War Council. In ac¬ 
 cordance with this promise the Welfare Federation received 
 from the war chest in 1917 $80,000; in 1918, $110,000, and 
 in 1919, $186,000, a total of $376,000. In 1919 the com¬ 
 munity fund continued what was virtually the war chest and 
 financed for 1920 the agencies in the Welfare Federation, 
 the national agencies operating in Cleveland and the foreign 
 relief agencies. 
 
 On May 1, 1920, the community fund was reorganized 
 on a more permanent peace basis. Under the new plan 
 the management of the community fund was vested in a 
 board of forty members, twenty of whom were to be elected 
 
30 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 by the existing community fund (war chest), sixteen by the 
 Welfare Federation, two by the Cleveland Chamber of Com¬ 
 merce, and two to be ex officio, viz., the mayor and the direc¬ 
 tor of public welfare. After its first constitution the board 
 was to elect half of its own members (ten each year for a 
 two-year term) and the other half were to be chosen as above 
 indicated. Inasmuch as the Welfare Federation and its con¬ 
 stituent bodies were well represented in the existing com¬ 
 munity fund, and as the federation itself is a delegated, 
 representative body, this obviously gives complete control of 
 the entire money-raising function to the agencies in whose 
 behalf the funds are raised. 
 
 The Welfare Federation, although it has thus transferred 
 the conduct of the financial campaign to the community fund, 
 which also raises the funds required for the Jewish Federa¬ 
 tion and for the national and foreign relief agencies, is not 
 without direct financial responsibility even aside from the 
 facts that its executive is also executive secretary of the 
 community fund and that their permanent offices are common. 
 It is the Welfare Federation whose budget committee passes 
 upon the budgets of the agencies in the federation and also, 
 at the request of the community fund, on some although not 
 all of the additional appeals which are included in its 
 campaign. 
 
 The affairs of the Cleveland Welfare Federation are man¬ 
 aged by a general board composed of two representatives of 
 each of the agencies in its membership. The paid executive 
 of the association may be and is likely to be one of these 
 two representatives and the president or some other members 
 of the board the other. The general board elects a board of 
 trustees of twenty-four members, eight each year for a three- 
 year term. This board meets semi-monthly, appoints com- 
 
THE WAY IT WORKS 
 
 31 
 
 mittees and directs the work of the federation through the 
 director and his staff. 
 
 The budget committee—the very center and heart of the 
 whole federation—is in Cleveland appointed by the president 
 of the federation, subject to the approval of the trustees. In 
 some other cities this committee is elected by the trustees, or 
 even in part by the agencies. The Cleveland plan has worked 
 satisfactorily because great care has been taken to appoint a 
 committee which shall be both competent and acceptable to 
 the agencies. While some of its members are continued from 
 year to year to secure continuity of policy, others are changed 
 in order to distribute the very valuable educational expe¬ 
 rience incident to this service. While the Welfare Federa¬ 
 tion through its budget committee and its affiliation with the 
 community fund thus plays an essential part in financing the 
 charitable agencies, its most important achievements have 
 been in quite other directions, and especially in searching 
 study of the local problems with which these agencies deal. 
 
 The Community Union in Detroit corresponds to the Wel¬ 
 fare Federation of Cleveland. Like the latter it is allied 
 with a community fund or money-raising body by an over¬ 
 lapping directorate and staffs a common executive, and com¬ 
 mon headquarters. There are, however, some interesting 
 differences. The patriotic fund of the war period has 
 changed its name to community fund but it has not been 
 reorganized as in Cleveland. It is still in effect a self- 
 constituted body, although with a strong sense of trusteeship. 
 It appears to command the confidence of givers and of the 
 agencies but it is not a delegated body. The new Phila¬ 
 delphia Welfare Federation may therefore rightly claim that 
 it is following the conspicuously successful example of the 
 Detroit Community Fund if its aim is to serve only the pur¬ 
 pose which this collecting agency serves. 
 
32 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 Another difference between the Cleveland and the Detroit 
 history is that in Detroit the patriotic fund during the war 
 definitely undertook to finance the local agencies as well as 
 the Red Cross and other war activities. The Detroit Com¬ 
 munity Union did not make its own appeal as did the Cleve¬ 
 land Welfare Federation. The resemblances, however, are 
 far more striking. In Detroit as in Cleveland the Com¬ 
 munity Union is managed by a general board or council 
 made up of two delegates from each of the fifty-seven associa¬ 
 tions in its membership. This general council elects the 
 officers and board of directors. The budget after approval by 
 the budget committee is finally acted upon by the board of 
 directors. While the community fund, both in Detroit and 
 in Cleveland, might no doubt object to the budget submitted 
 on behalf of the agencies of their federation, it does not in 
 fact do so. The determination of the budget is regarded as 
 a highly specialized and responsible function and the group 
 which assumes responsibility for raising the combined bud¬ 
 gets, while giving attention to the demands of the activities 
 not in the federation, leaves to the latter the responsibility for 
 the decisions as to the federated agencies. 
 
 Federation in Detroit is perhaps less securely established 
 than in Cleveland. Some institutions remain outside. More 
 individuals are hostile even to the idea. There are more 
 independent solicitations. There are not so many who under¬ 
 stand the advantages of federation, and the inherent difficul¬ 
 ties to be overcome are greater. The city is larger but its 
 industries, centering in automobile manufacture, are less bal¬ 
 anced and stable, its social agencies are less developed. De¬ 
 velopments comparable to those of twenty years ago in Cleve¬ 
 land have been taking place within the last five years. Except 
 for the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., the denomi¬ 
 national activities and a few meagerly supported agencies, 
 
THE WAY IT WORKS 
 
 33 
 
 there was but little social work in Detroit at the time when, 
 the enormous growth of the automobile industry and the 
 war conditions precipitated an urgent need for social control 
 and social action. William J. Norton, the executive secre¬ 
 tary of the Community Union^ who is also the executive of 
 the community fund, is a person of ideas, of energy and 
 shrewd judgment of men. I am told that his caustic tongue 
 sometimes gives offense, but he is evidently at home among 
 men of affairs, able to hold his own in the give and take 
 of serious discussions and to take part on equal terms in the 
 making of decisions which affect the interests of the entire 
 community. He was able to stand for the principle of free 
 assembly and free speech at a time when they were jeopard¬ 
 ized, without becoming known as a dangerous revolutionary. 
 He is known to favor liberal policies in general even when 
 he has to be the spokesman for groups which the average 
 liberal would probably regard as reactionary, at least as to 
 such matters as the open shop and collective bargaining. 
 
 In certain circles it has become customary to assume that 
 the ^Mrive^’ as a means of raising money has become unpopu¬ 
 lar—that its day is over. They do not think so in Detroit. 
 They say that what is unpopular is multiplicity of drives and 
 certain kinds of drives; that the intensive campaign of one 
 week as a substitute for scores of independent appeals by 
 separate agencies is not unpopular but on the contrary very 
 much in favor. By accident I happened to be in Detroit 
 on the day when the captains of divisions held their first 
 meeting to “set up’’ the general plans for the campaign for 
 1922. The general secretary of the Y. M. C. A. was in 
 the chair. The president of the community fund and other 
 prominent and influential business men were among the nine 
 persons present. Three of the nine were paid executives such 
 as under the constitution of the Philadelphia Welfare Fed- 
 
34 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 eration would not even be allowed to serve on its board of 
 managers. 
 
 The question as to whether any other method than an 
 intensive campaign or “drive’’ would be used was not even 
 raised except by myself and in answer to a question I was 
 told that there was no objection, but on the contrary entire 
 agreement that this method was the most acceptable and the 
 most certain to be successful. 
 
 Thorough and intelligent consideration was given to the 
 filling of vacancies in the campaign body. What seemed to 
 me most remarkable and encouraging was that the strongest 
 and most successful organizers from the war period were 
 remaining at their posts, that what changes were made were 
 not because they were losing their best men but only or 
 mainly in order to enlist the very best men in the city whose 
 services had not already been fully utilized or who were now 
 free from some other even more pressing obligation. One 
 qualified man they were inclined not to press too hard be¬ 
 cause he was in charge of a new manufacturing enterprise 
 which was weathering a difficult period and actually de¬ 
 manded all his time, but this was exceptional. The general 
 idea was that no one was too busy or too important to be 
 called into this common service for the week of the cam¬ 
 paign and the fortnight or so of necessary preparation. The 
 relation of the Red Cross roll call to the campaign of the 
 community fund was most carefully and sympathetically con¬ 
 sidered. The president of the fund had just returned from 
 a personal conference in Washington with the director of 
 domestic operations. It was recognized that the fund would 
 have to be prepared to include the supplementary demands 
 of the Red Cross as well as its roll call and on the other 
 hand it was realized that full advantage should be taken 
 of the Red Cross plans and interest in the appeal and that 
 
THE WAY IT WORKS 
 
 35 
 
 the available resources latent in the active Red Cross mem¬ 
 bership should be fully utilized. This is typical of the gen¬ 
 eral attitude of these managers, who were thus carefully 
 laying out their campaign seven months in advance. 
 
 Detroit has made less use than Cleveland of collections 
 from workers in industrial plants. This is due in part, as far 
 as the recent campaign is concerned, to the falling off in 
 employment and the actual or prospective decrease of ability 
 to give on the part of wage-earners. It was felt that under 
 the circumstances it would be unfair to ask them to give, 
 or at least to appear to bring any pressure to bear on them 
 by the plan of plant solicitation. However the program of 
 1922 does not exclude the industrial appeals and whether or 
 not they will be made will no doubt depend on the general 
 industrial conditions in November. 
 
 The goal of the campaign of last November was 
 $2,560,000. The direct returns before the end of the year 
 were $2,454,000. The deficit of $106,000 for the current 
 year will be met without serious retrenchment. No city of 
 course has been more seriously affected by the industrial de¬ 
 pression than Detroit. Seventy-nine factories employing two- 
 thirds of the industrial population of Detroit had 25,000 
 employes in December as compared with 200,000 nine months 
 before. In other words seven-eighths of its workers were 
 unemployed. The Ford employes had their bonus and the 
 Dodge employes no doubt had some savings, but the large 
 number employed in the smaller establishments, as for 
 example in those which make automobile accessories, often 
 had no reserve resources. This was especially true of the 
 Negroes who had come to Detroit from the South or more 
 frequently from other northern cities, and of the Mexicans 
 who had come from Mexico to work in the sugar-beet fields. 
 As far as this became a relief problem it fell chiefly on the 
 
36 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 Department of Public Welfare, although the St. Vincent de 
 Paul Society, the Home Service of the Red Cross, and other 
 agencies in the Detroit community union, and the Housing 
 Bureau of the union itself, had their burdens substantially 
 increased. The Community Union had co-operated when 
 the need arose with the Department of Public Welfare, for 
 example, by supplying the services of a competent case 
 worker, and again with the courts by supplying a probation 
 officer. This emergency, however, was one which could be 
 met only by an appropriation of public funds in substantial 
 amount and the union worked with the city administration to 
 secure action by the council. Between January 1 and June 30 
 the city will have expended $1,100^000 for relief and it is 
 expected that the coming fall and winter will bring an even 
 more serious problem of unemploj^ment. The Department of 
 Public Welfare in April presented a scene of emergency ac¬ 
 tivity creditable to the officials and to the social workers 
 of the city. It was of course an emergency and the methods 
 were those appropriate to an emergency. It was amusing to 
 find that about one-fourth of the extra workers required were 
 recruited from the late lamented sociological department of 
 the Ford plant. The main thing is that the mayor, a former 
 partner in the Ford enterprise and a thoroughgoing reformer; 
 the commissioner of the Department of Public Welfare, who 
 is earnestly trying to square his departmental administration 
 with the mayor’s ideas; the director of the Social Service 
 Bureau in the department, who was formerly in the Com¬ 
 munity Union; the City Council; and the managers of the 
 Community Union, represented in this instance by our old 
 friend Fred R. Johnson, formerly secretary of the Associated 
 Charities of Boston—all recognized the acute character of 
 the relief problem presented by the trade depression. They 
 measured it, recognizing that it could be cured only by 
 
THE WAY IT WORKS 
 
 37 
 
 resumption in industry but that the consequences of it should 
 not fall too heavily on individuals; and they treated it as a 
 community responsibility. Other cities have done this more 
 or less. Detroit, where it fell most heavily, seems to me 
 to have done it surprisingly well and I think this may be 
 attributed in part to the existence of the Community Union 
 and the underlying sense of civic responsibility which this 
 both implies and encourages. 
 
IV 
 
 THE NATIONAL AGENCIES: 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 N ational agencies for the promotion of social 
 welfare have a common, although not altogether 
 identical, interest in the federation movement. The 
 very term “national agencies” covers activities which differ 
 not only, like the local agencies, in their specific aims, but, 
 even more widely than the local agencies, in their form of 
 organization and its relation to their means of financial sup¬ 
 port. The American Red Cross has its annual roll call in 
 which it desires to enlist as nearly as possible the whole body 
 of American citizens. The National Tuberculosis Associa¬ 
 tion has its seal sale, through which it desires to reach all 
 the people in order to keep alive their interest in the crusade 
 against the white plague. The Boy Scouts have a program 
 in which they wish to enlist all boys of appropriate age. 
 
 The Y. M. C. A. has perhaps the hardest question to settle 
 in connection with federation. It is national and interna¬ 
 tional, but its local branches are largely autonomous. It is 
 Protestant and evangelical but not sectarian. It is educa¬ 
 tional, recreational, and religious. Although difficult to clas¬ 
 sify, there is no doubt of its eligibility to membership in a 
 federation of social agencies. The difficulty arises in another 
 direction and is typical. The association has a large and 
 loyal constituency. It has critics also, but that is another 
 story and has nothing to do with the present one except that 
 hostility to any one agency may sometimes be so strong as to 
 become an appreciable factor in the general financial cam- 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 39 
 
 paign. These loyal constituents of the Y. M. C. A. provide 
 not only current funds but new buildings and equipment. 
 They are beginning to leave legacies. Probably the associa¬ 
 tion is a beneficiary in many wills already drawn, but subject 
 to change while the testators live. Can the Y. M. C. A. 
 afford to see this constituency transferred to a federation of 
 all the social agencies, secular and religious^ Protestant, Jew¬ 
 ish, and Catholic? Even if the federation furnishes the 
 amount required for present annual needs, is there any assur¬ 
 ance of permanency ? Is there a suitable margin for growth ? 
 Is there not a certainty of loss if the intense personal loyalty 
 to the association is merged in a more vague and diffused 
 interest in the community? These are serious considera¬ 
 tions. They may arise in the case of other agencies but 
 they have in fact arisen most persistently and have found most 
 articulate expression in the case of the association. 
 
 There are none who have seen more clearly than the gen¬ 
 eral secretaries of the Y. M. C. A. in the cities which, like 
 Cleveland and Detroit, have had most experience with joint 
 financial campaigns, that such considerations are relics of an 
 institutional partisanship, of a sectarian provincial view. The 
 institution exists to foster the general good. It should de¬ 
 fend its claims in a reasonable, fair, and public presentation, 
 and in comparison with claims for support from other 
 agencies which also exist for the good of society. When 
 the institution becomes the end instead of the instrument, 
 the final instead of the intermediate object of loyalty, devotion 
 and enthusiasm, it defeats its end. Associations for civic, 
 religious, and charitable purposes above all others need to 
 keep clearly before their members that individual welfare 
 and the common welfare are their only excuse for being. 
 They must therefore confer together and work together in 
 the interests of individuals and the interests of the common 
 
40 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 good; else they will waste their resources and may even 
 thwart other and perhaps better projects than their own. 
 If there is a conflict of loyalties, the larger loyalty, the one 
 which subordinates the particular institution or agency to the 
 central idea of a high standard of life in the community as a 
 whole, must prevail. 
 
 The National Consumers’ League and the National Child 
 Labor Committee present more simply one of the problems 
 which will have to be faced if the local welfare federations 
 are to continue to occupy the strong position which they 
 have attained in a few cities and if the movement is to become 
 general. These two and several other national associations 
 are dealing with controversial subjects. The evils which they 
 attack have apologists and defenders. The reforms which 
 they advocate cannot be carried through without angry op¬ 
 position. They are obliged to insist on the duty of the state 
 to protect certain workers from practices which are profitable 
 to individual employers, and even to parents. Their pro¬ 
 grams may run counter to the general philosophy of some 
 very good citizens who have no selfish private interest at 
 stake. Of course, these two bodies do not have identical 
 programs and either or both of them may include in their 
 activities certain objects which are generally popular. The 
 Y. W. C. A. has also of late attracted to itself the enviable 
 kind of hostility to which I refer and might equally be 
 chosen to point the issue. 
 
 Are the welfare federations to regard themselves as repre¬ 
 senting only the majority sentiment in deciding which or¬ 
 ganizations are to be included in their plans for the joint 
 raising of funds or should they make provision also for or¬ 
 ganizations which in the nature of the case would be sup¬ 
 ported only by a minority? The question may equally arise 
 in connection with some local agencies—as it did in Cin- 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 41 
 
 cinnati during the war in connection with an Americaniza¬ 
 tion house whose head worker was of foreign birth and was 
 for this reason, in the rather absurd opinion of some possible 
 contributors, disqualified to teach Americanization. The 
 Council of Social Agencies after investigation held that the 
 work of the settlement was such as to justify including it; but 
 in the more famous case of the Social Unit, the council de¬ 
 cided for exclusion^ having ample evidence that to include it 
 would endanger the whole campaign of the welfare agencies. 
 
 It would seem as if the only basis on which Jewish, 
 Catholic or Protestant institutions of social welfare can be 
 assured of permanent support in any plan of community 
 organization is that under which all recognized forms of 
 social work are included. If religious differences can thus 
 be reconciled for purposes of a joint appeal for philanthropic 
 activities—and experience has shown that this is quite pos¬ 
 sible—^why should permanent unity of community endeavor 
 be threatened by differences on economic or industrial ques¬ 
 tions? If any agencies are excluded for such reasons, they 
 will feel compelled not only to make their appeal indepen¬ 
 dently but to give as a reason for seeking independent sup¬ 
 port that the local federation, or the controlling element in 
 it, is opposed to their program. This might from the point 
 of view of an aggressive propagandist body become an actual 
 asset. It might advertise their cause, and give it a hearing. 
 From the point of view of those who believe that there is a 
 common civic concern for the social welfare to which appeal 
 can always be made, which needs only to be enlightened, 
 informed, aroused, and self-directed when thus alert and 
 informed, it would seem to be unfortunate. 
 
 Organizations that have legislative programs, and indeed 
 all that aim to modify public opinion, have need of mem¬ 
 bers, of a constituency, as well as of money. In the case of 
 
42 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 the Red Cross the Cleveland Welfare Federation adopted 
 the plan of enrolling all contributors in that body, consider¬ 
 ing the first dollar as given for Red Cross membership. This 
 may have corresponded fairly well to the wishes of con¬ 
 tributors at the time when the first joint appeal which in¬ 
 cluded the Red Cross was made; but it is obviously arbitrary 
 and indefensible whenever there are those who do not wish 
 to belong to the Red Cross or who prefer that this particular 
 contribution should be used for some other purpose—and it 
 is evidently not applicable to other organizations. Some con¬ 
 tributors give only one dollar; of five dollar gifts it is an 
 arbitrary assignment of 20 per cent. The Cincinnati policy 
 of encouraging designations—that is urging all contributors 
 to specify to what agencies their gifts are to be applied and 
 in what proportions—might solve this difficulty, provided 
 each agency is supplied with a list of those who have thus 
 expressed a desire to be regarded as contributing to its sup¬ 
 port, and provided contributors specify also the agencies 
 which they do not wish to help. 
 
 An unofficial consensus of opinion on the part of the 
 executive of a number of national, social and civic agencies 
 is found in a circular letter which at their request was sent 
 by the National Information Bureau in April of this year to 
 such of the federations as are members of the bureau. This 
 was summarized in two resolutions: 
 
 That a proposal be made to community funds and financial 
 federations that these funds and federations undertake to edu¬ 
 cate their citizens as to the claim of national agencies for 
 adequate local support. 
 
 That these federations be asked (a) to leave the way open 
 to national organizations having proper claims to get their 
 own support with the federations’ cordial cooperation; or (b) 
 to include adequate support in their own budgets for such na¬ 
 tional organizations as make application therefor. 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 43 
 
 These propositions are evidently only a starting point for 
 discussion. They seem to indicate that the national bodies 
 now recognize that the welfare federations must be dealt 
 with realistically as “going concerns.’’ They recognize the 
 wisdom if not the necessity of making a combined approach 
 to the federations on a basis of good faith and seeking their 
 co-operation. They imply an expectation that the spirit of 
 those who are managing the community fund is as national 
 as their own; that their public spirit is not exclusively local. 
 This is gratifying and on the whole justified, in spite of 
 the narrowness and abuse of power by local federations in a 
 few well established instances. 
 
 The welfare federations have thus far adopted no uniform 
 or general policy in the matter of including the national 
 agencies. Some support local agencies exclusively and these 
 usually include any local branches of national agencies which 
 function in the community where the federation exists. Some 
 federations, while not including the support of national 
 agencies in their appeal, have drawn upon a reserve or 
 undesignated fund to make a contribution which would 
 obviate the unwelcome alternative of an appeal to their con¬ 
 tributors. Still others have considered and passed upon the 
 appeal of certain national bodies, and included them in their 
 campaign on the same basis as if they were local agencies. 
 In this case the local federation has to consider of course 
 not only the merits of the cause, but also the question as to 
 what part of the burden of supporting it can properly be 
 apportioned to their own citizens. Still a different question 
 arises when an enterprise, such as a southern school for 
 Negroes or a western Indian mission, seeks support from a 
 federation in a distant city but does not profess to be 
 national in any other sense. 
 
 In deciding which national or non-resident agencies to 
 
44 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 include and for what amounts respectively, the welfare fed¬ 
 erations have naturally followed different procedures accord¬ 
 ing to their own notions of propriety. They have sometimes 
 allowed a local branch or affiliated body to include in its 
 budget some allowance for the national body with which it is 
 associated. They have sometimes, in the case of a national 
 body which does not have a local branch, asked that there 
 should be created some local group which could be held 
 responsible for the use of funds raised by the federation and 
 for co-operation in general. They have sometimes required 
 that the national body should furnish evidence of local 
 interest by first securing a certain sum of money or a list 
 of members in the community, after which an application for 
 inclusion in the common budget would be considered. Like 
 the informal resolutions of the national executives, all this 
 may be considered preliminary jockeying for position while 
 the time for deciding on some plan for permanent co-operation 
 is close at hand. 
 
 The National Child Labor Committee, like other agencies 
 which see both the difficulties and the opportunities involved, 
 has been giving this subject special attention. I quote some 
 paragraphs from its acting membership secretary, suggesting 
 a whole-hearted sort of co-operation which might take place 
 between a welfare federation and a national organization 
 which has no local chapters or committees: 
 
 In general, our attitude toward them should be one of closest 
 possible cooperation. The people of the city form their federa¬ 
 tion to avoid repeated appeals for money, and we should respect 
 absolutely their attempt at efficient giving. We should ap¬ 
 proach the federations with the feeling that we can help them 
 as well as with the hope that they will help us. 
 
 It is very important, however, that we shall approach them, 
 knowing that the time will come when the community budget 
 system of giving will be generally accepted. We must recog¬ 
 nize in doing this that ‘‘charity begins at home,” and that our 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 45 
 
 approach to them must necessarily be one of education along 
 the line of responsibility for nation-wide social activities. 
 
 Long before the local campaign begins we should present 
 our case in writing to the board of directors of the federation. 
 We should ask them for consideration when their budget is 
 framed, and should accompany our request with a comprehen¬ 
 sive statement of what our organization stands for, what it 
 has accomplished and what it hopes to accomplish in the future. 
 We should offer to send a staff representative, if necessary, to 
 present our work and our plan for cooperating with the federa¬ 
 tion at the time of their campaign. 
 
 If we want this sort of cooperation at all we should go into 
 it thoroughly. We should have a representative on the ground 
 during the entire week of the drive, presenting our work with 
 the same sort of enthusiasm and efficiency that the local organi¬ 
 zations are using. In my estimation the most important thing 
 in this connection is that we should closely conform with the 
 local methods of conducting the campaign. If the federation 
 begins the drive with a parade, each local organization pro¬ 
 viding a float, we should have some sort of float. If during 
 the whole week each local organization is given the oppor¬ 
 tunity to exhibit its work in the window of some store, we 
 should have some sort of display, and we should make every 
 possible attempt to make it as attractive and as inexpensive 
 as possible. 
 
 It seems to me the whole success of cooperation between the 
 national organizations and local federations depends upon the 
 contact during that week of the national social representative 
 with the people in the local federation. If I were the staff 
 representative I should want to do everything I possibly could 
 to make the whole campaign successful, making speeches when 
 called upon, working in the factories if they have an indus¬ 
 trial day, working in the offices of the executives when neces¬ 
 sary, and doing everything within my power to convince the 
 local people that the national agencies are making no attempt 
 to take from local charities what rightfully belongs there, but 
 that they are hoping to broaden the whole scheme of business¬ 
 like budget making and concentrated publicity to the extent 
 that they can easily give a splendid appropriation to national 
 work. 
 
 All of this would take a great deal of time, but I feel certain 
 that the results would warrant employing a staff member whose 
 full time, during the season when appropriations are made 
 and campaigns are waged, should be given to this work. 
 
46 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 John R. Shillady of the National Consumers’ League has 
 expressed the opinion that the time is ripe for an analysis of 
 the support of national agencies both by localities, looking to 
 a spreading of support over larger areas, and by sources, in¬ 
 dividual, federation, and foundation. Such a study might 
 include not only social and civic bodies but also educational 
 and religious institutions. The movement for community 
 trusts or foundations, such as already exist in many cities 
 as a means of consolidating legacies and other individual 
 gifts under a permanent community trust, and the plan for a 
 uniform public trust for charitable purposes, have already 
 attracted the lively, not to say alarmed interest of national 
 and international bodies which have been accustomed to 
 receive bequests from all parts of the country. There is 
 an intimate relation of a psychological kind between plans 
 for consolidating bequests in a fund which will benefit the 
 community in whatever way a representative board of trus¬ 
 tees from time to time may think most desirable, and the 
 federation plan, under which current activities of social 
 agencies are financed in the general interest of the com¬ 
 munity. In both cases there is a grave danger that national 
 and world interests may be unduly subordinated to the com¬ 
 munity interests which are thus emphasized. In both in¬ 
 stances the remedy is for those who have the national or 
 world view—and they are apt to be found among the leaders 
 in the community movements—to guard against this danger. 
 Safety is not to be found in blind opposition to community 
 organization, of which we have too little rather than too 
 much. The national bodies may wisely seek to sink their 
 roots deep in the fertile soil of local neighborhood respon¬ 
 sibility which the federation movement is cultivating and 
 watering and clearing of tares. The inquiry which Allen T. 
 Burns is about to undertake for the National Investigation 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 47 
 
 Bureau into the functioning of the national agencies in se¬ 
 lected cities will give an early opportunity to open up cer¬ 
 tain aspects of their financial support. 
 
 I am fully conscious of the omissions in this series, as I 
 bring it to a close: and, dealing with so elusive and con¬ 
 troversial a subject, I can hardly hope even that all its sins 
 are of that class. I have not explained, for example, why 
 my good friend Knowlton Mixer, who became secretary of 
 the Federated Charities in Baltimore on his return from 
 Red Cross service in France, remained for so short a time 
 in that position. I do not know. I am reasonably sure, 
 however, that the explanation that he was forced out arbi¬ 
 trarily by the Alliance of Charitable Agencies is far too 
 simple to fit the facts. I have not dealt with the religious 
 complications in Worcester. I have not gone into the serious 
 grievances of the Associated Charities of Erie, Pa., in regard 
 to the apparently arbitrary policies of the federation and 
 community chest in that city. It is alleged that the federa¬ 
 tion—which in Erie was formerly a combination of givers but 
 is now a federation of social agencies, mainly of the institu¬ 
 tional type—has attempted to interfere very seriously with the 
 proper organization and management of the work of the 
 Associated Charities; that the federation has issued orders 
 which the society has refused to carry out; that the federa¬ 
 tion has directed the society to lay off workers and for¬ 
 bidden it to make increases in salaries; that notwithstanding 
 increased demands for relief caused by unemployment, the 
 society’s budget, approved months before, has been decreed 
 to be unalterable. I have had no opportunity to investigate 
 these charges on the ground and refer to them only to say 
 that it is to be hoped that no federation will long endure 
 which practices such “strong-arm” methods. Whether they 
 have prevailed in Erie or not they are conceivable and are 
 
48 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 among the risks in any federation which assumes the financial 
 function. The constituent bodies are not without their de¬ 
 fenses^ as the experience of Erie itself shows. Even those 
 who find themselves in the minority, or standing alone, as 
 exponents of ideas which they can defend, can always carry 
 their appeal to the public. Federation creates a favorable 
 atmosphere for entertaining such appeals. 
 
 Of the two outstanding types—a federation of givers and 
 a federation of agencies—the latter is less likely to develop 
 the big stick attitude; but no form of organization will afford 
 complete security. Very much depends upon the standards 
 and the spirit of the agencies which are federated. If their 
 spirit is narrow and bourbon, if their morale is low, then 
 the spirit and morale of any central body which they create^— 
 whether it be a council of social agencies or a federation 
 exercising financial functions—will be likely to correspond. 
 Fortunately, the managers and officers of the leading federa¬ 
 tions have been showing increasing appreciation of trained 
 service, of adequate compensation for expert workers, of 
 standards objectively measured and tested, of searching 
 studies into the causes of poverty, of educational as distinct 
 from palliative relief, of an aroused and enlightened public 
 opinion as a constant support to the work of the social 
 agencies. The federations should be judged by their success 
 in attaining or approaching these and similar objectives, not 
 alone or mainly by their success in raising money. The actual 
 present form of organization of all the principal federations 
 has been greatly influenced if not determined by accident— 
 local and temporary—and it would be the height of folly for 
 a new community to copy any such accidental features as for 
 example the relation between the Community Union and 
 the Community Fund in Detroit. 
 
 Dayton, O., has something to teach other cities in regard 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 49 
 
 to the technique of publicity, as might be expected of the 
 city of the National Cash Register and the airplane. The 
 Dayton plan contemplates a trinity: financial federation; 
 council of social agencies; and community council. Seven 
 labor unions have joined the Bureau of Community Service, 
 which is the name of the federation in Dayton. It is the 
 “newspaper,’’ however, published at intervals to inform the 
 people about the work of the agencies, which most completely 
 reflects the unique Dayton spirit. 
 
 St. Paul, Minn., has a “Community Chest, Inc.” which 
 has certain merits although its form of organization is one 
 which can hardly be recommended to other cities. The re¬ 
 port of the joint committee of the St. Paul Association and 
 the Central Council of Welfare Agencies which led to the 
 creation of the Community Chest stated the problem so con¬ 
 vincingly that subsequent reports both in Philadelphia and 
 in Denver adopted portions of it, the latter with due 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 In St. Paul, as in Grand Rapids, the theory is that the 
 Community Chest should be equally representative of con¬ 
 tributors and of the social service agencies. The theory is, 
 however, differently applied. The St. Paul Association 
 (chamber of commerce) elects six of thirteen managers, the 
 social agencies six, and one is appointed by the mayor. It is 
 not surprising that the Trades and Labor Assembly, when 
 its president was elected to the board of managers, took up 
 the question as to whether it should thus indirectly endorse 
 the chest, and after an investigation by a special committee 
 and several debates, decided by a divided vote to withhold 
 endorsement. This meant not only that the president of the 
 Trades and Labor Assembly must decline to serve on the 
 board but also that the secretary should withdraw from the 
 budget committee on which he had been serving for several 
 
50 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 months. The merits and demerits of federation of welfare 
 agencies and of the chest plan of raising funds did not enter 
 as a determining factor into this decision. The reason for 
 the attitude of labor was that several members of the chest 
 were active in the Citizens’ Alliance, which is conducting 
 the ‘‘open shop” campaign. It would be extraordinary if a 
 board of thirteen members, six of whom are chosen by a 
 single commercial organization, even one as representative as 
 the St. Paul Association, should be satisfactory to labor, 
 especially in a time when there are such sharp conflicts of 
 interests and views as are revealed by the present “open 
 shop” movement. That the co-operation of labor was sought 
 reflects credit on the managers of the chest. If it had been 
 understood to be acting only for the agencies to be financed, 
 the effort would have been more likely to be successful. 
 There is no prohibition in the Articles of Incorporation 
 against paid social workers serving on the board of direc¬ 
 tors. 
 
 The St. Paul Chest takes pride in its low administrative 
 expenses, which for the first year amounted approximately 
 to $40,000 or little more than a dollar apiece for its 38,000 
 subscribers. Its auditing department is highly developed. 
 This embraces a regular financial audit of the various or¬ 
 ganizations for which it raises funds, following the usual 
 excellent practice of the financial federations. But in addi¬ 
 tion, each report analyzes rather more fully than is customary 
 the business operations of each department of the institu¬ 
 tions, arriving at such facts as per capita costs, amounts prop¬ 
 erly chargeable to overhead, losses in revenue producing de¬ 
 partments, etc. In nearly every agency examined, the audi¬ 
 tors have suggested improvements, not only in accounting 
 methods, but in business and administrative methods. This 
 at once suggests another danger with which social workers in 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 51 
 
 administrative positions have sufficient reason to be familiar. 
 Within their own province, auditors are most useful. When, 
 assuming a wisdom which they do not possess, they under¬ 
 take to legislate or to make executive decisions, they may 
 become an intolerable nuisance. When the executives of the 
 agencies assume that the auditors have such responsibilities 
 they are either shirking their own duties or exaggerating 
 those of the expert. 
 
 Probably the most obvious and serious of all our omis¬ 
 sions thus far has been in reference to the Cincinnati Council 
 of Social Agencies and its allied Community Chest, which 
 belong in effect with Cleveland and Detroit as most fully 
 illustrating the successful operation of the federation idea. It 
 is appropriate to end with Cincinnati, where under the most 
 adverse business conditions there has been brought to a close, 
 since these articles were begun, a typical and successful cam¬ 
 paign for $1,750,000. There are 60^000 contributors. Over 
 six thousand volunteer workers took part in the canvass. 
 Never before, even in war times, has the community respond¬ 
 ed more freely or with more enthusiasm than it responded 
 to this yearns appeal for the charitable work of the city and 
 county. The Cincinnati policy of encouraging specific desig¬ 
 nations has proved its soundness and wisdom at least for that 
 city. Practically all of the local organizations are now mem¬ 
 bers of the Community Chest. All of them appear to be not 
 only friendly but enthusiastic advocates of it. At the final 
 rally over one thousand people—all the hotel could accommo¬ 
 date—met at a banquet to receive final reports of the district 
 chairmen. Every team, to revert to war vocabulary, went 
 over the top. The various chairmen and their workers are 
 now perfecting a more permanent organization, having in 
 view not only financial support for the agencies but so co- 
 
52 
 
 WELFARE FEDERATIONS 
 
 ordinating and developing their activities as to promote the 
 general welfare of the community. 
 
 In Cleveland, partly because of Mr. Kingsley’s enthusiasm 
 for child welfare, the federation has especially emphasized 
 various aspects of child-caring. In Cincinnati, partly per¬ 
 haps because of the preoccupation of the Social Unit with 
 the subject while it was actively at work in the Mohawk- 
 Brighton district, but also because of Mr. Bookman’s appre¬ 
 ciation of its importance and because of the activity of several 
 public and voluntary local agencies, public health has been 
 in the forefront of the advance of recent years. However, 
 children’s agencies, recreational agencies, organizations deal¬ 
 ing with family standards of living and with the correction 
 of bad social conditions have made perceptible progress with 
 the enlarged resources and the more vigorous backing which 
 the Council of Social Agencies has supplied. There is an 
 obvious community consciousness in Cincinnati which during 
 the last winter showed itself in a satisfactory handling of the 
 difficult emergency presented by the lack of employment. 
 
 The Council of Social Agencies in St. Louis has appointed 
 as its new executive Elwood Street, until now secretary of 
 the Louisville Welfare League. The Chicago Council of 
 Social Agencies has secured funds for a full time executive 
 and is calling Wilfred S. Reynolds to the position. For 
 several months Boston has had such a council with Robert 
 Kelso as its secretary. New York alone among the larger 
 cities is wholly without either a council or a federation; either 
 a community fund or machinery for developing a community 
 program. 
 
 This study has not canvassed the work of the non-financial 
 councils in Boston, Chicago or St. Louis. The time during 
 which any council has had an executive and staff at its dis¬ 
 posal has been too short to permit much more than the formu- 
 
THE NATIONAL AGENCIES 
 
 53 
 
 lation of plans and ideas, and the present study has intended 
 to report achievement rather than programs; the analysis of 
 forms of organization has been from the point of view of their 
 practical working. That a democratic and educational spirit 
 is of more importance than administrative machinery is to 
 be taken for granted; but that machinery is also worthy of 
 consideration is evident from the recent history of welfare 
 federations. The ultimate test of a welfare federation is not 
 in the amount of money which it collects, nor in the number 
 of its contributors, nor in the degree of immunity which it 
 may give from annoying drives; but in the number of well 
 informed and well disposed citizens whom it discovers and 
 associates for the purpose of doing what they can to secure a 
 good life for themselves and their neighbors. 
 
Said of The Survey 
 
 From a Lawyer —I value the Survey because looking over 
 its pages I can learn something of the law in action as it 
 affects great masses of my fellow men and be enabled to 
 look at the law functionally as well as analytically and 
 historically.— Roscoe Pound, Dean of the Harvard Lavj 
 School. 
 
 From a Social Worker —The number of people who read 
 the Survey is to some extent an index to the social con¬ 
 sciousness of a community. I am trying to get more 
 readers for it in Bridgeport.— Clarence King, Secretary 
 of the Bridgeport Financial Federation. 
 
 From an Educator —The article in the last number of 
 Survey Graphic, The Faculty Loses the Ball, expresses ad¬ 
 mirably what has been in my mind about the big place 
 that football takes in modern American education. That 
 article alone is worth the whole year’s subscription.— 
 Frederic Perley Johnson, Principal of the Union High 
 School, Hayvjard, Calif. 
 
 From a Banker —It is a pleasure for me to renew my 
 contribution. I enclose my check with my very best wishes 
 for every success in your splendid enterprise.— Paul M. 
 Warburg, Chairman Board of International Acceptance 
 Bank, Ne<w York. 
 
 From a Government Official —The Children’s Bureau 
 has had the very cordial cooperation of the Survey in the 
 development of its work and in broadcasting its findings. 
 All the members of the bureau would, I am sure, be glad 
 to join with me in extending congratulations and best 
 wishes for the future.— Grace Abbott, Director Children's 
 Bureau, U. S. Dept, of Labor. 
 
The SUTiVer 
 
 twice-a-month, serves the fields of practical 
 welfare work through a staff of trained men 
 and women who are experienced workers as 
 well as competent writers. It keeps its 
 readers in touch with the new developments 
 and the new ideas in social work and com¬ 
 munity organization in all parts of the 
 United States with occasional excursions 
 abroad. It is accurate, painstaking, well 
 printed, freely illustrated. It is published 
 by a non-commercial membership organiza¬ 
 tion which does not pay—or earn—profits. 
 Sample copies will be sent free on request. 
 
 STAFF 
 
 Paul U. Kellogg, Editor 
 
 ASSOCIATE EDITORS 
 
 Haven Emerson, M.D., Health 
 Robert W. Bruere, Industry 
 Joseph K. Hart, Education 
 Geddes Smith, Communities 
 Neva R. Deardorff, Social Work 
 Bruno Lasker, Foreign Service 
 
 THE SURVEY 
 112 East 19 Street, New York