REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
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 elief and Aid §oc 
 
 TO THE 
 
 BROPLiE OF CHICAGO. 
 
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 CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois 
 
 http://archive.org/details/reportofchicagorOOchic 
 
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REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GO R 
 
 JJLJ 
 
 EFAND 
 
 OCIETY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF CHICAGO. 
 
 The great fire fund committed to the care of the Chicago 
 Eelief and Aid Society is exhausted, and in view of this fact, 
 and of its needs and duties in the future, its Directors desire to 
 lay before the citizens of Chicago a short report of the employ- 
 ment of that fund since the date of its last report, and of the 
 theory and methods of its work. 
 
 The Chicago Eelief and Aid Society, like most, if not all 
 the charities of Chicago, originated in the wants of the times, 
 and adapted its methods to the circumstances and emergencies 
 of the occasion. Up to 1850 there was comparatively little 
 demand for anything of the sort. The occasional cases of des- 
 titution were amply met by the county authorities, or private 
 charity. With the then population it was not difficult to ascer- 
 tain the merits or to relieve the wants of all the unfortunate and 
 distressed. Though the unparalleled growth of the city and 
 country attracted multitudes of all classes hither, there were but 
 comparatively few who were not anxious and able to be self-sup- 
 porting. We have never had a large proportion of the dependent 
 classes and scarcely any of the regular pauper element, — cer- 
 tainly none worth mentioning of the very lowest grade of pau- 
 perism so prominent in Eastern and European cities. Still, as 
 the population increases, the unfortunate and dependent classes 
 become more numerous, and the administration of relief grows 
 
more difficult, requiring the exercise of greater care and judg- 
 ment, because little can be learned of the antecedents or cir- 
 cumstances of many applicants beyond their own statements, or 
 what may appear upon the surface. 
 
 The county authorities have always made liberal provision 
 for the care of the poor in public institutions, such as the poor- 
 house or County Farm; the County Hospital; the Hospital for 
 Insane; and by what is commonly denominated "out-door relief," 
 — that is, furnishing more or less food, fuel, shoes, etc., to 
 families at their homes. 
 
 In the great financial crisis of 1857 there was much suffer- 
 ing everywhere among a large class of persons who had never 
 sought or accepted aid, and who were not embraced in any theo- 
 ries or plans of work for the permanently indigent. These were 
 mechanics, clerks, seamstresses and laborers, many of them with 
 large families or aged people depending upon them for support, 
 whose wants could hardly be met by the county, and some of 
 whom would have suffered in silence rather than apply to or 
 consent to accept help from the county or city authorities. 
 Appreciating these facts, a number of gentlemen organized in 
 that year the Chicago Belief and Aid Society for the express 
 purpose of relieving this class of cases with such delicate and 
 timely assistance as would not humiliate or lessen the self-respect 
 of the recipient, and by such aid and advice in procuring suit- 
 able employment as would enable them to again become self- 
 supporting. 
 
 It is a chartered body with an accountability to the city of 
 Chicago established by law. It is also subject to the visitorial 
 power and jurisdiction of the courts. It has during the last 
 twenty years received and disbursed materials and money 
 amounting to over six million dollars without any defalcation or 
 the loss of a dollar, and is able to-day to exhibit at its rooms, 
 vouchers for every cent expended. Its plan is to extend relief 
 to none but the temporarily disabled, and in no case to grant aid 
 of a permanent or continuing nature. The relief of persons and 
 families brought to want by sickness, accident, or the infirmities 
 of age, constitutes the bulk of its work. 
 
It lias a great number of cases on record, gathered, some 
 through the first years of its work, and many more during the 
 last twelve years. They form a most interesting history, show- 
 ing how many persons and families, with a little assistance, have 
 been tided over a temporary difficulty, and enabled to rise above 
 the need of help. 
 
 The following facts on this branch of the work are most 
 instructive. In the year 1874, the total number of cases relieved 
 was 9,719. Of this number, 6,632, or more than two-thirds, 
 received assistance but once, showing conclusively that there was 
 only one pressing time during that year in the history of these 
 6,632 people when they needed a helping hand. Nineteen hund- 
 red and fifty -one received help but twice, leaving but 1,112 out of 
 the 9,719 aided that asked for assistance more than twice. 
 
 In 1875, out of 5,984 persons and families relieved, 3,257 
 were aided only once, and 1,399 twice, leaving 1,328 receiving 
 assistance more than twice; many of those accepting aid but 
 three times. In 1879, out of 3,311 persons and families relieved, 
 1,003 received aid but once, 365 twice, leaving 1,943 receiving 
 assistance more than twice. In 1882, out of 3,938 cases relieved, 
 985 were relieved once, 550 twice, and 2,403 more than twice. 
 Of the Avhole number aided, forty-seven per cent, have been re- 
 lieved but once, eighteen per cent, twice, eleven per cent, three 
 times, and but twenty-four per cent, more than three times. 
 
 These facts invite reflection. They vindicate the character 
 of the work ; they show that relief was extended to applicants dis- 
 posed to aid themselves, and who, as soon as they Avere helped 
 over an emergency, relieved the Society of any further demand, 
 and they demonstrate the importance of an agency that can 
 extend aid at a time when misfortune or accident has made it 
 most needful. 
 
 From 1857 to 1871, the funds disbursed by this Society were 
 contributed from time to time by our citizens. At the time of the 
 great fire in 1871, it, because of its experience and established 
 methods, was selected by the mayor and citizens as their 
 agency for distributing the supplies and money sent from all 
 portions of the civilized world for our relief. In addition to the 
 
vast number of people (at one time over one hundred thousand) 
 needing relief becaiise of the fire, nearly all of the charitable 
 institutions of the city suffered largely by it. Some of them 
 were totally destroyed, leaving them with debts; all were more 
 or less crippled, and their friends and supporters deprived of the 
 means of assisting them. As much of the work must be done 
 through the hospitals, asylums and homes for the aged and 
 friendless, these institutions were more than ever indispensable 
 to the general public in this great emergency, and it was thought 
 both economical and wise to appropriate to them such amounts as 
 would help them to resume their work and assist the Society in 
 doing its through them, and so realize most practically and 
 efficiently the idea of associated charities or co-operation. The 
 results have justified this action, and the Society's relations have 
 ever been of the most intimate and cordial character with all of 
 the existing charities of the city. Though the fire fund as a fund 
 is exhausted, some of its resultant benefits thus remain: the 
 Society is still able to render extensive and valuable service to 
 the needy through these institutions, because of the aid thus 
 furnished them, and is at liberty to send applicants for relief to 
 the Chicago Home for the Friendless, the Old People's Home, 
 the Bethel Home, the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Uhlich 
 Orphan Asylum, the Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum, the 
 St. Joseph Orphan Asylum, the Women and Children's Hospital, 
 the Alexian Brothers' Hospital, the St. Joseph Hospital, St. 
 Luke's Hospital, the Mercy Hospital and the Hahnemann 
 Hospital. 
 
 In addition to several Special and Annual Reports the So- 
 ciety made a very full report of all receipts and disbursements 
 of money and supplies from October, 1871, to May 1st, 1871, 
 showing all the work of the different departments in detail. It 
 here again presents a brief synopsis of some of the leading facts 
 contained in that report, and with it a summary of the work done 
 since, the latter compiled from its annual reports to the Common 
 Council of the city, thus presenting a full and final report of the 
 Fire Fund and the amount and kind of work accomplished by it. 
 
 Stated in round numbers, nearly one million dollars was 
 
5 
 
 expended under the direction of the Shelter Committee in build- 
 ing and furnishing something over 9,000 houses; $250,000 was 
 expended for sewing machines, and tools for mechanics and 
 laborers; |300,000 was expended for fuel for families. Over 
 half a million was disbursed by the Medical Department and 
 the Committee on Charitable Institutions. 
 From October, 1871, to May, 1871, it 
 
 Received $4,996,782 74 
 
 Disbursed 4.415,454 08 
 
 Amount unexpended, May 1st, 1874 $581,328 6G 
 
 Over 5,000 persons have been cared for in Hospitals and 
 other Institutions on the order and at the expense of this Society, 
 averaging a term of four weeks to each person, which at the usual 
 charges for such care would amount to $125,000. 
 
 It has paid out in cash since May, 1874, $745,072.11, 
 making a grand total of disbursments $5,160,526.22, besides an 
 immense amount of all kinds of incidental service to applicants 
 which can not be represented by figures. Nor is it possible to 
 estimate the value of the services rendered where, examination 
 being made, aid was refused because the applicant was unworthy. 
 
 The figures of a few of the articles issued up to the present • 
 time may be of interest: 
 
 Total No. of pieces of Men's wear to date 150,000 
 
 " " " " Women and children's wear to date. . 280,000 
 
 " " pairs of blankets to date 82,000 
 
 " " comforts to date 12,000 
 
 " " pairs of shoes to date 102,000 
 
 " " R. R. tickets to invalids and parts of families to 
 
 enable them to reach their friends 20,000 
 
 " " Interments 2,000 
 
 " " yards of wool flannel 125,000 
 
 " " " " canton " 92,000 
 
 " " " " muslin 180,000 
 
 " " " " dress goods 15,000 
 
 " " " calico 210,000 
 
 Lodgings for single men 75,000 
 
 Meals " " '• 35,000 
 
 Hereafter its work must be restricted to the purposes for 
 which it was formed, as indicated in the Act of Incorporation, 
 
6 
 
 namely: to afford temporary relief to the destitute. This includes 
 timely counsel and assistance to deserving indigent persons. It 
 will discriminate in favor of those in whom habits of temperance, 
 industry and thrift give promise of permanent benefit from the 
 aid furnished, and will not embrace in the sphere of its opera- 
 tions such persons as are proper subjects for the poor-house or 
 for the action of the county officers. It does not attempt to deal 
 directly with the strictly pauper class, nor with impoverished 
 strangers sent to Chicago from other cities to be here supported 
 by alms. We have a board of County Commissioners and a 
 County agent who have assumed this work, and who have ample 
 facilities and experience therefor, and with whom it is in frequent 
 consultation. In extraordinary emergencies it becomes neces- 
 sary for this Society and the County agent to co-operate. 
 
 It should be remembered that our circumstances are pecu- 
 liar in another respect, namely: The tenement house system so 
 adapted to harboring and breeding paupers is hardly known 
 among us. Dr. DeWolf, Commissioner of Health, has furnished 
 us with the following official report of Inspectors of tenement 
 houses made within the last few months: "The field sheets are 
 taken at random from Barber St., 11 houses; Bradley St., 9; 
 Burlington St., 7; Canal St., 21; Noble St., 32; Wade St., 26; 
 Newton Place, 11; Sloan St., 8; and give us a total of 165 houses 
 containing 1,673 rooms, 592 families, and 2.682 persons." This 
 averages little less than three rooms to a family, and two persons 
 to a room, and is in remarkable contrast to the reports of other 
 cities, which show that families of four to six persons, and often 
 more, are crowded in one room, sometimes two or three families 
 crowded into less quarters than those occupied by one of even 
 the poorest families in Chicago. By far the largest proportion 
 of even our very poor have decent rooms in buildings not occupied 
 by more than three or four families, and many of them have little 
 cottages by themselves. For these reasons, there are few cases 
 of obscure wretchedness in cellars and garrets, and the necessity 
 of employing detectives to prosecute frauds and imposition, 
 needful perhaps in other cities, is unnecessary among us. 
 
 The charities of this city are well known to its citizens, or 
 
can at least be easily ascertained by all who care to inform them- 
 selves; there is therefore little clanger of worthy sufferers being 
 overlooked. There is more danger in the multiplication of free 
 lodging and soup houses, and the increase of homes for special 
 classes, employment agencies, dispensaries and other societies, 
 duplicating the work of those already established, and so increas- 
 ing expenses and furnishing opportunities, if not inducements, 
 for the unscrupulous to practice imposition, than there is of really 
 needy cases being neglected, or worthy ones denied. 
 
 As long as the present condition of society remains, there 
 will be a large proportion of honest struggling poor people who 
 find it hard to make ends meet under the most favorable circum- 
 stances. Mechanics and laborers with large families of small 
 children, and in many cases with aged parents dependent upon 
 them, can hardly lay up much for a rainy day, and when unusual 
 sickness or a specially dull season, or an extraordinary emergency 
 overtakes them, they are compelled to seek relief; and it is still 
 more difficult for widows with small children requiring food and 
 clothing, but all of them too young to work, and when the mother 
 cannot earn to exceed two or three dollars a week at washing or 
 scrubbing, and less for sewing at the prices usually paid. There 
 is another and larger class than either of these, and far more 
 pitiable, where the man spends all he earns for drink, doing little 
 or nothing for the support of his family, and increasing the bur- 
 den of his suffering wife and children by his abuse. The most 
 embarrassing question that this Society has to meet in its work 
 is how and how much it can help such a family without encourag- 
 ing the man in his viciousness, and how much the family should 
 be left to suffer on his account. 
 
 Great prudence should be exercised in the administration of 
 charitable work, lest through its agency barriers be erected against 
 the operation of wholesome and natural laws, and people be shel- 
 tered from the punishment which the welfare of the community 
 requires shall be visited upon idleness and crime. Yet it is 
 none the less the fact that any theory for the suppression of 
 pauperism and the discouragement of relief is radically defective 
 that does not recognize the truth that thousands of innocent 
 
helpless women and children, in a city of the size of Chicago, by 
 no fault of their own, are oftentimes on the very verge of starva- 
 tion, and never decently clothed. There is no danger of pauper- 
 izing such with timely and judicious help, and the chances of 
 their becoming paupers and possibly criminals, if they are not 
 treated with some measure of intelligent sympathy and material 
 aid, cannot be questioned. 
 
 But adventurers, tramps and vagrants infest every large city, 
 who are not proper subjects for relief by this Society and ought 
 not to be embraced in any plans for the improvement of the poor, 
 and in this connection we wish to emphasize the fact that indis- 
 criminate giving to beggars in the street is always a crime against 
 society, and an injury to the individual. The only way to prevent 
 it is to give nothing to any person whom you do not know to be 
 needy and worthy, and not then if aid is being received from 
 other sources. With all the well-known agencies and institutions 
 of every kind in this city for the care of the poor and sick: 
 the churches, most of which look after their -own poor, the frater- 
 nities and societies of different trades and nationalities pledged 
 to help their own members, the visiting clergy, physicians, 
 nurses and neighbors, there is little danger of any worthy 
 persons suffering or failing to receive either needful assistance, 
 or direction to the proper channel -of relief. It is to be presumed 
 that every society engaged in this work will promptly investigate, 
 through experienced agents, all cases referred to it, by visitation 
 and by reference to employers and others capable of giving 
 information. With proper scrutiny, there is little danger of 
 imposition. 
 
 The prevention of pauperism is unquestionably one of the 
 great social problems of our time, but that other question, 
 inseparably connected with it, is of equal importance, namely, 
 how to afford timely and proper relief to the worthy suffering 
 poor. All who care for the best interests of society, will take 
 equal interest in both, but as every one cannot take the time to 
 persqnally investigate each case that may come to his notice, the 
 Society respectfully requests that all applicants be sent to it, to 
 the end that it, with its records, and its accumulated skill and 
 
9 
 
 experience, may step in between the giver and the applicant, and 
 still leave the satisfaction that a benevolent deed will be done 
 and that it will be done with judgment and without waste. 
 
 In all cases where so desired, it will report the result of its 
 investigation. Its rooms and books are open to the public, and 
 it invites all interested to inspect its methods and work. 
 
 One word more as to the method of the work. This is con- 
 ducted through a system of friendly intercourse with all other 
 charities in Chicago, and by a personal visitation, that two things 
 may be ascertained: first, the actual condition of the applicant: 
 second, what assistance, if any, such applicant is receiving from 
 other sources. In its efforts to obtain reliable information, the 
 Society has the advantage of its relations, before stated, with the 
 various charities named, and of its own reports, showing the 
 history, situation and surroundings of a large proportion of the 
 poor of this city, not only those who have been aided but also 
 many thousands of those to whom aid has been refused, so 
 systematized that any individual case can be referred to at once. 
 It is confiden»t that this plan of work, which has been perfected 
 by many years of experience, prevents duplication of relief so far as 
 it is possible, and gives at the same time a valuable record of the 
 condition of our needy classes. 
 
 The Board of Directors whose names are appended believe 
 that this Society with its records, experience and established 
 relations with other charities, is a valuable agency to the city of 
 Chicago, and ask you to make such contributions towards its work 
 for the winter of 1883 and 1884 as it seems to you its import- 
 ance deserves. 
 
 C. G. HAMMOND, E. B. McCAGG, 
 
 T. W. HARVEY, HENRY W. KING. 
 
 C. H. CASE, ABIJAH KEITH. 
 
 R. T. CRANE, WIRT DEXTER, 
 
 J. HARLEY BRADLEY. HENRY FIELD, 
 
 C. H. S. MIXER, H. A. JOHNSON, M.D. 
 
 J. MASON LOOMIS, W. C. LARNED, 
 
 JULIUS ROSENTHAL, WM. H. BRADLEY. 
 
 A. A. SPRAGUE, C. F. GATES, 
 
 0. W. POTTER, C. L. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 A. C. BARTLETT. 
 
 Hon. CARTER HARRISON, Mayor, ex-officio. 
 
 Chicago, January 1, 1884. 
 
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