" 1 ZZVw* 
 
 CHARITABLE CO-WERATION 
 
 MARY E. RICHMOND 
 
 General Secretary of the Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity 
 
 Reprintedfrom the Report of the Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth National Conference 
 of Charities and Correction, iqoi 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 George H. Ellis, Printer, 272 Congress Street 
 1901 
 
CHARITABLE CO-OPERATION. 
 
 u 
 
 About the year 1880, it occurred to different groups of people in a 
 number of American cities to start a new charity. This was, in itself, 
 no unusual thing, but their reason was peculiar. They started a new 
 charity because there were so many already. Religious and secular 
 activity in philanthropy had created, in our large cities, many differ¬ 
 ent agencies. However well these may have been organized inter¬ 
 nally, they were not organized with reference to each other, and this 
 fact led to the formation of charity organization societies. 
 
 The seal of the New York society illustrates its chief object. The 
 seal represents a chain each link of which is some form of charitable 
 activity. The links are marked “ official and private relief,” 
 “churches and missions,” “relief societies,” “homes and asylums,” 
 “ hospitals and dispensaries,” “ friendly visitation,” “ provident schemes 
 and fresh air ” ; and then, binding these links together in a circle, is a 
 band inscribed “ Charity Organization Society of the City of New 
 York.” 
 
 This conception of co-operation would seem to be broad enough 
 and difficult enough of realization to satisfy any one, but it has been 
 immeasurably broadened by the charitable practice of every success¬ 
 ful charity organization society. Co-operation on the official side, as 
 it concerns the relations of charitable bodies, is still very important; 
 but co-operation as a working principle applicable to every act of the 
 charity worker is fundamental. It may be well, therefore, to con¬ 
 sider this daily habit of co-operation in some detail before turning to 
 the question of co-operation among charities. 
 
 I. Co-operation with the Poor and their Neighp,ors. 
 
 When one points out that the field of charitable co-operation is not 
 limited to charities alone, but extends to everything affecting the life 
 of the poor, and to the poor themselves, the proposition seems almost 
 
4 
 
 self-evident; but its hearty acceptance marks an important and com¬ 
 paratively recent change in charitable ways of thinking. 
 
 The success of this more personal conception of co-operation de¬ 
 pends upon the attitude of mind of the individual worker. That first 
 moment in which any applicant and any charity agent confront each 
 other is a solemn one, for the applicant’s future depends in no small 
 degree upon what the agent happens to think about the resources of 
 charity. The record of one such interview has been brought to my 
 attention, in which, after the usual names, ages, etc., the agent had 
 made this entry: “ Nothing unfavorable could be found out about 
 
 this family. Gave fifty cents.” That closed the record, but it led to 
 interesting speculations as to the worker’s point of view. 
 
 The series of circles on the following page, with the accompanying 
 list o^forces, is an attempt to picture, though in very crude fashion, 
 the resources of the modern charity worker in his efforts to befriend 
 families in distress. The family life is pictured by a circle at the 
 centre. Then surrounding this are circles representing, first, the per¬ 
 sonal forces that lie outside the family, but nearest to it,— the 
 neighborhood forces, the civic forces, the private charitable forces, 
 and, last, the public relief forces of the community. The resources of 
 which the untrained and unskilful exclusively think — the groceries, 
 fuel, clothing, and cash at the charity worker’s command — are only 
 a small part of his actual resources, of course; and even the list 
 given under this diagram is very incomplete. It may be indefinitely 
 extended for any given city. 
 
 The diagram assumes three things : First, that the charity worker 
 really knows the family he is trying to help. A painstaking investiga¬ 
 tion is supposed to have brought to light the resources mentioned in 
 the diagram in so far as they affect the given family. Second, that, 
 in choosing forces with which to co-operate, the worker will select 
 those that are nearest to the family and most natural for them rather 
 tjian the forces that lie nearest to and are most natural for him. 
 
 Third,— and may the day be hastened when this explanation is no 
 longer necessary ! — it is assumed that not for one moment has he 
 allowed the completion of his investigation or the drawing up of his 
 plan of co-operation to interfere with the prompt relief of urgent need. 
 
 All city families, rich and poor alike, are surrounded by the ^ 
 forces indicated within these circles ; and the failure of the four groups 
 
5 
 
 Diagram of Forces with which the Charity Worker may co 
 
 operate. 
 
 A. — Family Forces. 
 
 Capacity of each member for 
 
 Affection. 
 
 T raining. 
 
 Endeavor. 
 
 Social development. 
 
 B. —Personal Forces. 
 
 Kindred. 
 
 Friends. 
 
 C. —Neigh borh ood Forces. 
 
 Neighbors, landlords, tradesmen. 
 
 Former and present employers. 
 
 Clergymen, Sunday-school teach¬ 
 ers, fellow church members. 
 
 Doctors. 
 
 Trade-unions, fraternal and bene¬ 
 fit societies, social clubs, fel¬ 
 low-workmen. 
 
 Libraries, educational clubs, 
 cjasses, settlements, etc. 
 
 Thrift agencies, savings-banks, 
 stamp-savings, building and 
 loan associations. 
 
 D. — Civic Forces. 
 
 School-teachers, truant officers. 
 
 Police, police magistrates, pro¬ 
 bation officers, reformatories. 
 
 Health department, sanitary in 
 spectors, factory inspectors. 
 
 Postmen. 
 
 Parks, baths, etc. 
 
 E. — Private Charitable Forces. 
 
 Charity organization society. 
 
 Church of denomination to which 
 family belongs. 
 
 Benevolent individuals. 
 
 National, special, and general 
 relief societies. 
 
 Charitable employment agencies 
 and work-rooms. 
 
 Fresh-air society, children’s aid 
 society, society for protection 
 of children, children’s homes, 
 etc. 
 
 District nurses, sick-diet kitch¬ 
 ens, dispensaries, hospitals, etc. 
 
 Society for suppression of vice, 
 prisoner’s aid society, etc. 
 
 F. — Public Relief Forces. 
 
 Almshouses. 
 
 Outdoor poor department. 
 
 Public hospitals and dispensaries. 
 
6 
 
 of forces — family, personal, neighborhood, and civic — to resist the 
 downward pull of gravitation would render any family dependent. 
 In every family asking charitable aid, therefore, the natural resources 
 have so far failed as to send its members crashing down through 
 circles B, C, D, to E, the circle of private charity. The problem of 
 charity is to get them back into A again by rallying the forces that 
 lie between. It has sometimes seemed worth while, in puzzling 
 cases, to advise the charity agent to go to work as deliberately as 
 this : Taking the list of forces in each circle, to check off each one 
 that has been tried, and then make a note of ways in which to use 
 the others. The device is mechanical; but, when a family continues 
 long in E, the football of circumstance, helped “ a little ” by many 
 agencies and individuals, and taught to believe that a wretched 
 appearance and dependent attitude will make the most effective ap¬ 
 peal, then any device seems justified that will help to restore the 
 family to independence and self-respect. 
 
 Let us consider the contents of these circles, bearing in mind that 
 the best force to use, other things being equal, is the force that lies 
 nearest the family. 
 
 Circle A , Family Forces . — The first resource of charity, and the 
 one most commonly overlooked, is within the needy family itself. 
 The charity worker’s first question should be : What powers of self- 
 help are'there here that may at once take the place of charitable 
 relief, or else may be developed by charity to take its place hereafter ? 
 What is the capacity of each member for endeavor, for training, for 
 social development, for affection ? Is any one able-bodied ? If so, 
 the able-bodiedness is, in itself, a resource to be developed. Can 
 any one be taught to earn more or to earn ? Can any one here be 
 helped to more effective living by a social pleasure that I can throw 
 in his way ? Is there 1 any affection latent here that I can appeal to, 
 and so put new heart into a discouraged worker ? 
 
 In other words, what the family can do, what it can learn, what it 
 can enjoy, what it can feel,—these are the important things. In these 
 we have the greatest resource of charity and the most important field 
 of co-operation. The charity worker with the co-operative spirit is 
 always thinking of things he can do together with the family, and 
 the worker who lacks this spirit can think only of things to do for 
 them. 
 
 The development of aids to this department of co-operation should 
 
7 
 
 be encouraged in every possible way. We need more manual train 
 ing, more social clubs, more charities with the thought of education 
 in them ; and, above all, we need to have the family idea emphasized 
 in all such work. The old cry of “ Save the children ! ” must be super¬ 
 seded by the new cry of “ Save the family! ” for we cannot save the 
 one without the other. 
 
 Circle B, Personal Forces .— All who have established relations 
 with the family that are genuinely personal, though they may be 
 classified in the diagram under neighborhood or civic or charitable 
 forces, deserve to be included in this circl'e. The church, for 
 instance, may become a personal force of the greatest potency, touch¬ 
 ing the life of the family more nearly than any save the nearest 
 kindred; but, too often, it allows itself to drop to circle E, where it is 
 regarded by the poor as merely a source of supplies. 
 
 This circle of personal forces is the strategic point in charity work, 
 but charities may be prevented from entering it by two lacks,— lack 
 of personal knowledge of the poor and lack of personal interest. 
 We have all been the victims of the official who protects himself by 
 a highly impersonal manner; and, even when we have understood, 
 we have been offended. The poor, who do not understand, are 
 doubly offended when the charity worker’s attitude is impersonal. It 
 is possible, of course, to let our insistence upon personal service 
 degenerate into cant. Not all personal service is effective: it may 
 be unquestionably personal and also very mischievous. But, after 
 making due allowance for the note of exaggeration, what impersonal 
 service can ever be effective in dependent families ? There may be 
 whole classes of dependents whose lot could be bettered by wholesale 
 measures. But family problems are so complex, they demand such 
 careful manipulation; and that charity will be most successful in deal¬ 
 ing with them which so arranges its work as to avoid overcrowding 
 any one worker with too many details. The most successful con¬ 
 tinuous work will usually be done by volunteers acting under intelli¬ 
 gent leadership and with a trained paid agent. 
 
 The Boston Associated Charities regards one hundred and twenty- 
 five new families a year as the limit that can be successfully cared for 
 by one trained agent working with a group of volunteers. Charitable 
 work so arranged and done in the right spirit becomes a personal 
 force in the lives of the poor. Placed securely in circle B, it is in a 
 position to co-operate effectively with the family and with its friends 
 and neighbors. 
 
8 
 
 Relatives sometimes lose sight of their less fortunate kindred 
 through no deliberate neglect; and kindred should always be turned 
 to, not only for relief, but for information and advice. Their sug¬ 
 gestions are often most useful. 
 
 The Fulham Committee of the London Charity Organization So¬ 
 ciety made an interesting analysis, a few years ago, of the sources of 
 relief in pension cases. It was found that 29 per cent, of the pension 
 money administered by them was obtained from charitable individuals 
 who were strangers to the pensioners, 22 per cent, came from old 
 employers, 16 per cent, from charities, 13 per cent, from friends, 12 
 per cent, from relatives, 6 per cent, from clubs, and 2 per cent, from 
 the clergy. The large percentages from relatives, friends, and old 
 employers are very striking; but we must remember, in comparing this 
 work with our own, that many ties of kindred are severed in this 
 country by the sweep of the Atlantic Ocean, and that the relations of 
 employer, neighbor, and fellow-workman are all rendered less perma¬ 
 nent by our migratory habits. English charity can develop the re¬ 
 sources of neighborhood and of kindred more easily. It is well to 
 note, however, that England has also furnished us with some striking 
 examples of a perverted charitable practice in this regard. Just be¬ 
 fore the reform of the English poor law the following bill was 
 presented by an overseer to be paid out of the rates: — 
 
 To Elizabeth W., a present for her kindness to her father.5^. o d. 
 
 To Lucy A., for looking after her mother when ill.3^. 6d. 
 
 To Mary A., for sitting up at night with her father. 2 s. o d. 
 
 Let local conditions be what they may, they can always be made 
 worse by a charity official with such views as these. 
 
 Circle C, Neighborhood Forces .— Families often receive a great 
 deal of neighborly help before becoming applicants for charity. The 
 local tradesmen and landlords, especially those who sublet, have 
 given credit, neighbors have been kind and helpful; and these local 
 resources have been more or less exhausted before the aid of charity 
 has been called in. On the other hand, the neighborhood feeling 
 seems to die out in sections of the city in which charitable relief is 
 most obtainable. During the blizzard of 1899 charity workers in 
 Baltimore found three times as many cases of absolute destitution on 
 the side of the city in which were situated most of the well-to-do 
 residences and rich churches. 
 
9 
 
 With sophisticated people the pressure of social influence, regulat¬ 
 ing their standard of life and conduct, comes not so much from the 
 immediate neighborhood in which they live as from a wider circle of 
 friendship and acquaintance. But the unsophisticated are still very 
 sensitive to neighborhood influences. The social settlement is one of 
 
 * the forces that have recognized and made good use of this fact. 
 
 A wise use of neighborhood forces is also the basis of success in 
 the district plan adopted by our larger charity organization societies. 
 
 * The district agent and district committee that know best the normal 
 life of their district will deal most wisely with its abnormal conditions. 
 A good background of experience of the normal life of poor people 
 is a district agent’s best safeguard against mistake. Then, too, the 
 friendly acquaintance with doctors and employers and tradesmen, the 
 quiet coming and going about one’s daily work, bring with it the best 
 possible co-operation of an unofficial kind. The good agent reads 
 the interplay of social forces within his district as from an open book, 
 and no impatience with the mischievous and evil tendencies working 
 therein can blind him to the human and hopeful side. 
 
 Circle Z>, Civic Forces .— The civic representatives within the dis¬ 
 trict are important neighborhood forces. For better or worse, they 
 wield an influence that no charity equals,— for better, because good 
 teachers, good policemen, all good city officials coming in contact 
 with the poor, are doing a quiet and effective service in their behalf 
 that many charitable people have no conception of; for worse, be¬ 
 cause the poor are so entirely at the mercy of bad officials. A district 
 agent will need all his courage and faith when he finds that policy- 
 shops, “ speak-easies,” and immoral houses are receiving in his dis¬ 
 trict the protection of the police and of the magistrates. Sometimes 
 he is fairly overwhelmed by a sense of the shamelessness of civic 
 power so used against the most helpless class of citizens, and nothing 
 seems worth while until all these agents of corruption can be swept 
 away by a general uprising of good people. But the worst thing about 
 good people is their unwillingness to work hard at small tasks, and 
 district work is made up of a multiplicity of small tasks. The cor- 
 
 * rupt politician’s success is due to the fact that he has worked hard at 
 the weary details of building up a district plan of his own. The 
 ward worker needs no diagrams to explain to him a method of co- 
 
 * operation with which he has long been familiar. It is time that the 
 charitable took a leaf from their book, and used for a good purpose 
 
10 
 
 the neighborhood forces that these self-seekers have employed with 
 such energy and persistence. 
 
 But individual officials are often better than the system under which 
 they work. The reformer loses nothing by recognizing this fact. In 
 a sense, they are victims, too ; and no one of them can be too insignifi¬ 
 cant to be worth winning over to wise views about charitable relief. 
 One of the most helpful neighborhood workers that the writer ever 
 met was a Tammany truant officer, and a part of his helpfulness could 
 be traced to the patience and tact of the charity organization agent 
 in his district. 
 
 Circle F, Private Charitable Forces .— The relation of the forces „ 
 within circle E to each other is so important a part of this subject 
 that its treatment is reserved for a separate section. The question 
 that most concerns us here is the order in which charitable agencies 
 ^should be used in the care of needy families. Some of the best work 
 can be done with applicants that have asked for charitable aid for the 
 first time, if the agency appealed to is careful to protect these from 
 contact with many charities, and secure the needed aid from the most 
 natural sources. But in another and large class of families natural 
 sources are insufficient; and the family’s own capacities can be devel¬ 
 oped, if af all, only very slowly and with great patience. These fam¬ 
 ilies must be given relief, and in some cases for a long while. And 
 here we have one of the most important problems of co-operation; 
 for the way in which this help is given,— its source, its amount, 
 its degree of flexibility, its greater or less association with friendly 
 influences, its insistence upon or neglect of possible self-help,— all 
 these things decide whether the relief shall be a strong lever to uplift 
 the family or a dead weight to drag it down. The unintelligent ad¬ 
 ministration of private relief has drawn many a family into permanent 
 dependence in circle F upon public relief. 
 
 When, therefore, a choice of sources of help must be made, it can¬ 
 not be too often repeated that we should choose the charitable sources 
 best adapted to deal adequately with the particular need, and not the 
 sources that we ourselves happen to like or find it easiest to use. 
 Charity workers get into the habit of using certain combinations of 
 agencies that come readily to mind or that give them little trouble. 
 For any given family there is only one best possible combination, 
 there are a dozen second bests. It is our duty to find the best. 
 
 If a family has held membership in a church for a long while and 
 
I 
 
 has regarded the church as a part of its normal life, then that church 
 becomes a perfectly natural and neighborly source of help when the 
 family is in distress. But, where all church connection has lapsed, a 
 church of the denomination to which one or both heads of the family 
 formerly belonged is a more natural source of help than a general re¬ 
 lief society. The national organizations for relief also take pre¬ 
 cedence of general relief societies. And better than either (though 
 this is still a disputed question) is relief procured from a charitable 
 stranger, who will contribute a sum for a specific purpose, and take 
 an interest in the result of its expenditure. 
 
 Circle F, Public Relief Forces .— Public relief is the best possible 
 form of relief for some classes of dependants; but there are many rea¬ 
 sons, into which it is impossible to enter here, for believing that pub¬ 
 lic relief to families (public outdoor relief, as it is usually called) is, of 
 all forms of relief, the most difficult to use as an incentive to self- 
 help and independence. A number of our larger cities have abolished 
 public outdoor relief, and others are trying to do so; but, wherever it 
 still exists, the charity worker should strive to keep poor families “ off 
 the overseers’ books ” and out of circle F. 
 
 Those who have labored long in charitable work may be inclined to 
 question a classification of social forces that places charity so low in 
 the scale. But this diagram takes no account of the large classes of 
 dependants and defectives not living in families. To most of these 
 charity must be, so far as we can now see, the only resource. The 
 hopeful thing about family life is that it is surrounded by so many re¬ 
 sources besides those that can be described as charitable. The recog¬ 
 nition of this fact, while it imposes upon charity a more delicate and 
 self-effacing task, greatly enlarges the field and the importance of its 
 operations. So far from belittling charity, this view would seem to 
 strengthen its claim to recognition as a great social force. 
 
 From the charity worker who reported of a family, “ Nothing unfa¬ 
 vorable ; gave fifty cents,” up to the best modern type of profes¬ 
 sional worker, who patiently strives to develop, by co-operation, all 
 possibilities of help within .and without the family, is a far cry. One 
 wonders how long the charitable public will tolerate paid agents of the 
 first type, who are nothing but dispensers of ineffectual doles, when it 
 is now possible to secure the services of devoted and well-trained men 
 and women, whose treatment of distress would be helpful and thor¬ 
 ough. One wonders, too, how long the work of a charitable society 
 
will be measured by the number of tons, pounds, or yards of stuff that 
 it has dispensed. The only test of charitable work in families is the 
 test suggested in this analysis of charity’s resources; namely, the 
 number of families lifted out of circle E and placed beyond the need 
 of charity in a normal family life. 
 
 II. —Co-operation among Charities. 
 
 To say that the charities of a community should work together har¬ 
 moniously is to make a statement so obvious that it sounds almost 
 foolish, but to bring about this harmonious relation is a task so 
 stupendous that only workers of large faith and tireless patience can 
 succeed in it. Heart-sick must the charity worker often be who is 
 striving with all his might to make dependent families independent, 
 for he must find himself thwarted at many a turn by a philanthropic 
 activity that is as irresponsible and mischievous as it is well-meaning. 
 
 Let us suppose that he has just succeeded, after repeated failures, 
 in persuading the heads of a begging family to take honest work, 
 when at the critical moment a new charitable sewing circle or an 
 aid society discovers the family, lavishes supplies upon them, and the 
 old speculative fever is rekindled. Or suppose he has secured a 
 place for the eldest girl, where she will not earn at once, but where 
 she will learn a good trade; and then the leading relief society sud¬ 
 denly decides to make aid conditional upon this child’s earning some¬ 
 thing immediately at work in which there is no future for her. Or 
 suppose the curly-headed boy, who has been kept from school and 
 sent out to beg, has been so successful in winning money from 
 thoughtless passers-by that he has fallen into bad ways, and the 
 charity worker feels that the boy’s salvation depends upon a complete 
 change; but at this juncture the magistrate and the church visitor, 
 touched by the tears of his mother, who needs “ his earnings,” help 
 to get him off, and the family fortunes continue to drift. But one 
 does not have to suppose such things: they are occurring all around 
 us every day. They are not so bad (as they were,— the tide has 
 turned; but they are still bad enough. 
 
 Not so many years ago the charitable situation was like this: 
 Conceive of twenty doctors dosing the same case at the same time, 
 without consultation and each in his own way. Our medical code of 
 ethics forbids such a state of things, but its results could be no more 
 
13 
 
 disastrous among the sick than were our charitable practices among 
 the poor. In none of the large cities was there any charitable code 
 of ethics,— in some there is none to-day,— and a sort of philan¬ 
 thropic free riot prevailed. Figures may give us some conception of 
 the magnitude of the danger. New York’s new directory of charities 
 
 ♦ describes, for Manhattan and the Bronx, nearly twenty-three hundred 
 separate agencies, and for Brooklyn another thousand. Boston has 
 a thousand, Baltimore about nine hundred, Philadelphia about twenty - 
 
 * four hundred. If, in these cities, each charity continued to do that 
 which was right in its own eyes, and recognized no obligation to 
 others working in the same field, the poor would suffer cruelly. All 
 other arguments for charitable co-operation sink into insignificance 
 beside this one, that our unwillingness to pull together causes such 
 unnecessary suffering among the poor. 
 
 Fortunately, the tide has turned. Every city having a live charity 
 organization society is supplied with an agency that will gladly serve 
 as a means of communication among charities. No one has any 
 excuse now for working in the dark, for the facts may be had. Only 
 those who know intimately the history of earlier years can realize 
 what this has accomplished. To young workers, just joining the 
 ranks, many things must still seem disheartening; and it is a pity 
 that they cannot grasp at once the significance of these slow changes, 
 for the long view would be cheering. In nothing would the change 
 seem so marked as in our willingness to co-operate with the poor 
 themselves and with their neighbors. 
 
 The writer has been tempted to change the series of circles illus¬ 
 trating the forces with which we may co-operate into a second 
 diagram, showing the view of a charity director of the old unco¬ 
 operative type. In the second figure the central circle of the series 
 would be occupied by the director himself; the next would contain 
 his charitable society; the next, the subscribers to the same; the 
 next, the big figures that make such an impression on the subscribers ; 
 and, last of all, somewhere on the remote circumference — little 
 known and little understood — would appear the poor people, the 
 \ beneficiaries of his charity. 
 
 Now the secret of effective co-operation is to bring about a revo¬ 
 lution in this attitude of mind. The attitude is not so common as it 
 t used to be; but, wherever it still exists, there is no more effective bar 
 
 to co-operation. It is not enough for charities to refrain from saying 
 
H 
 
 disagreeable things about each other; it is not enough for them to 
 make commercial contracts, dividing the burdens of investigation or 
 relief. Real co-operation implies the hearty working together of 
 those who are striving, with convictions held in common, toward some 
 definite object. We have already seen that this definite object 
 should be the restoration of as many poor families as possible to a 
 position of independence. Some one has said that the greatest dis¬ 
 covery of modern education is the child. We might paraphrase this 
 by saying that the greatest discovery of modern charity is the poor 
 family. That Scriptural lesson in proportion points the way for us,— 
 “ Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all 
 these things shall be added unto you.” When charities seek first the 
 restoration of the dependant with energy and devotion, all the details 
 of co-operation, falling easily and naturally into their right places, 
 shall be added unto them. 
 
 If the highest co-operation is based upon agreement as to princi¬ 
 ples, such agreement is still a matter of slow growth. We must not 
 expect people to change suddenly their whole theory with regard to 
 poverty and its relief, because it does not happen to agree with ours. 
 But out of a sincere interest in the poor, and a working together over 
 individual problems, may come this higher co-operation if we take 
 pains to make our treatment of every individual family a means to 
 this end. Thoroughly efficient case work becomes our best stepping- 
 stone. The patient unravelling of each individual problem, the 
 quiet avoidance of showy schemes and boastful talk, the willingness 
 to serve both the co-operative and the unco-operative, will surely win 
 not only respect, but fellowship in the long run. It is best to say 
 very little to other charitable bodies about co-operating until the habit 
 is well established in our own daily practice; and, even then, the less 
 formally we begin, the better. 
 
 “ We are willing enough,” says Mrs. Dunn Gardner, writing of her 
 London fellow-workers, “ to have a try to organize some large institu¬ 
 tion, or local charity, or parish meeting, or benevolent society; but, 
 when it becomes a question of organizing individuals,— that is to say, 
 of convincing them, one by one, that our principles are true, and of 
 inducing them to guide their action by these principles,— we are 
 most of us inclined to shirk the task. I believe myself that the 
 wholesale system of doing things is as false when applied to organiza¬ 
 tion as when applied to relief, and that important bodies can only be 
 
won over to our side by carefully and thoroughly dealing with the 
 individuals who compose them.” 
 
 No one should be astonished to find that the method of dealing 
 thoroughly with each poor family, as it has been described in this 
 paper, applies equally well to our dealings with charities. To co¬ 
 operate with the poor, we must know them. This is the first step in 
 co-operating with a charity,— to know its history, its objects, and its 
 limitations. We reveal our lack of interest and sympathy when we 
 ask charities to do things that they were never intended to do. An 
 energetic young doctor once said to the writer, “ I just hated your 
 society when I was on our hospital staff, for it always fell to my lot 
 to visit the applicants for admission; and one of your agents, whose 
 district was at the other end of the city, was forever writing 
 about people whom I found to be in the last stages of some incurable 
 disease.” The agent in question had a thousand virtues; but the 
 ability to put herself in another’s place, to understand the limitations 
 of a poor family or of a charity, was not one of them. She had the 
 misfortune to be an insulator, and co-operation did not thrive in that 
 particular district until she had resigned. 
 
 If we were to formulate the experience acquired from working with 
 the poor into three maxims about working with the charitable, the 
 first maxim would be that we must know a charity before we can co¬ 
 operate with it. We must give ourselves up to a sympathetic appre¬ 
 ciation of whatever is best in it before we can hope to get the best 
 out of it. And the second maxim would grow naturally out of the 
 first. When we have turned over to another charity a task that is 
 clearly theirs, we must trust them to do it, and do it well. People 
 often get unduly nervous about their work, and want either to do it 
 all themselves or else to supervise it very closely. This state of 
 mind kills co-operation. We must trust others; and, in the third 
 place, we must teach them to trust us by a scrupulous care in keep¬ 
 ing our promises. If we have said that we will do a thing, it should 
 be known to be as good as done. 
 
 Humiliating to acknowledge, but beyond dispute, is the fact that 
 the charitable subscriber is a cause of strife. The subscriber himself 
 is not wholly without blame. In his efforts to escape from the 
 appeals of two agencies, whose work is more or less closely allied, he 
 has been known to say to each that he prefers to give to the other. 
 Then the charities (being, like the subscriber, distinctly human) have 
 
16 
 
 become imbittered against each other by these tactics. If their 
 directors would only reason the matter out, they must realize that 
 there is no fixed sum set aside by any community for charitable pur¬ 
 poses. The amount can be increased or decreased at any time. It 
 does not follow that, as the work of one charity becomes better and 
 more favorably known, the subscriptions to others will fall off. 
 Good work, well done and intelligently explained, wins financial sup¬ 
 port ; and it may be affirmed with equal certainty that an unfriendly 
 attitude among a city’s charities loses financial support to every one 
 of them. Such rivalry becomes a public scandal: all thoughtful 
 people are disgusted by it. Wherever the impression has got abroad 
 that the leading charities of a community will not co-operate with 
 each other, and that their work, in consequence, is antiquated in 
 method and unfortunate in result, the younger generation of givers 
 are rapidly becoming alienated from all charitable interests. They 
 are refusing to serve on charitable boards, and are withholding their 
 money from benevolent objects. To put the question on the lowest 
 possible plane, it pays charities to be co-operative. 
 
 Another bar to charitable co-operation, when we are foolish enough 
 to permit him to become such, is the applicant. Sometimes he is 
 stupid, and repeats messages incorrectly. Sometimes he is shrewd, 
 and seeks his own advantage in getting two agencies at loggerheads. 
 We should avoid sending an applicant from one charity office to 
 another. It is bad for him, in the first place ; and, when we send him 
 home instead, we can communicate directly with the agency, state our 
 reasons for so doing more clearly, and secure more intelligent action. 
 
 Turning from this more negative side of the subject, let us assume 
 that charities have so far developed a corporate conscience that they 
 are, for the most part, sincerely anxious to put poor people beyond 
 the need of charity. For the most part, they are anxious; but their 
 anxiety must make them jealously watchful of results before they will 
 discover that one of the obstacles to this end is a lack of systematic 
 communication among charities engaged in any form of relief work 
 in families. When they make this discovery, they will not be satisfied 
 that poor families shall escape from the dangers of duplicated and 
 unrelated relief by a happy accident. They will not be satisfied 
 until some means of confidential communication has been established 
 among charities, assuring to each agency a prompt report of what the 
 others are doing in each family. 
 
17 
 
 Registration of relief, as it is called, has been highly developed in 
 a few cities, and with good results. The objections to it have proven, 
 in actual practice, to be unimportant or mistaken. In Boston, where 
 many agencies that held aloof at first have been induced to try it? 
 nearly forty thousand confidential reports were received last year. 
 
 * Writing of the results of this exchange, Miss Frances Morse says, 
 
 “ We find registration justifying the belief of its projectors that it 
 would afford positive information, would prevent the overlapping of 
 relief, would save waste of time and effort by enabling societies to 
 narrow their field and thus make their work more thorough, would 
 detect imposture, and would make it possible so to map out the city 
 that one could see what neighborhoods were most in need of improve¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 Another need that the co-operative spirit develops is a good direc¬ 
 tory of the charitable resources of the community. Such a book is 
 indispensable to good work in a large city; for, through it, agencies 
 may learn to avoid irritating blunders, and use each other more intel¬ 
 ligently. A directory of charities is useful in two other ways. It 
 brings to light needs that are not yet met by charity, so that existing 
 agencies may work together to keep these needs before charitable 
 testators and donors. It also shows in what direction the further 
 development of charity is unnecessary. Often out of the sincerest 
 desire to do good, and often, too, out of professional, denominational, 
 or social rivalry, agencies are created for which there is no real need. 
 People seem to have a passion for bringing charities into the world, 
 and then leaving them without support. The death-rate among these 
 weaklings is very heavy. Of all the charities established in Baltimore 
 in four years, it was discovered that fifty-five per cent, had died within 
 that time. The loss in money, time, and good temper that this im¬ 
 plies, would have justified the community in charging a large debit 
 against charity’s account. 
 
 The co-operative spirit at work is an eminently practical spirit. 
 Not satisfied with suppressing charities where they are not needed 
 and developing them where they are, it will plan a division of labor 
 among existing agencies upon the basis of allotting to each the part 
 that it is best fitted to take. We have all recognized a certain child¬ 
 like and engaging quality in Bottom’s cry, “ Let me play the lion, too.” 
 
 t But when we see charities engaged in combining a home for the aged 
 
 with an orphan asylum, or the feeding of the homeless with the 
 
8 
 
 placing-out of children, or every imaginable sort of work with the 
 relief of destitute families, we feel, like Peter Quince, that it is 
 “ enough to hang us all,” and would say with him, “You can play no 
 part but Pyramus.” Then, if we are wise, we shall add (for Quince 
 had the co-operative spirit), “ Pyramus is a sweet-faced man ; a proper 
 man as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely, gentlemanlike 
 man: therefore, you must needs play Pyramus.” This queer combi¬ 
 nation of unrelated work in one society is the survival of a cruder 
 stage of development. As our charity becomes more highly organ¬ 
 ized, it must disappear. 
 
 We have passed hastily in review some methods of charitable co¬ 
 operation,— co-operation with the poor, with the forces that surround 
 them; co-operation among charities in the treatment of the individual 
 case, in the registration of relief, in the development and repression 
 of charitable activity, and in the division of labor. We have seen 
 that the highest and best co-operation is based upon a hearty accept¬ 
 ance of certain principles underlying charitable action ; but, if two 
 charitids agree about anything, they can and should co-operate. It is 
 not necessary to wait until they agree about everything. By making 
 the most of their agreements and minimizing their differences, they 
 acquire the habit of co-operation ; and only after this habit has been 
 acquired can they hope to secure that basis of agreement upon which 
 large charitable and legislative reforms are founded. An improvised 
 co-operation is seldom effective, for the lack of real cohesion among 
 agencies hastily called together to ward off some legislative danger is 
 too apparent. But, when these same agencies have established the 
 habit of working together over smaller tasks, they march upon Al¬ 
 bany or Harrisburg or Springfield or Boston or Annapolis with 
 every chance of victory. The first larger fruits of the co-operative 
 spirit, as shown in better child-saving and better housing laws, give 
 promise of a more abundant yield in the future. 
 
 The fruit will not be sound, however, unless it spring from the 
 good ground of the individual case. We have had large crops of 
 legislative bad fruit from those who have insisted upon beginning at 
 the other end. Charitable co-operation begins and ends in an inti¬ 
 mate knowledge of the needs of individual poor people and in the 
 patient endeavor to make them permanently better off. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 072390476