Lala Lajpat Rai, "The United States of America: A Hindu's Impressions and a Study" (1916) (Full Text)
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LALA LAJPAT RAI.
U. RAY & SONS. CALCUTTA.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A HINDU'S IMPRESSIONS AND A STUDY
BY
Lala Lajpat Rai,
AUTHOR OF "THE ARYA SAMAJ,"
"THE STORY OF MY DEPORTATION," &c.
ILLLUSTRATED
CALCUTTA
R. CHATTERJEE
210-3-1, CORNWALLIS STREET
PREFACE
My first trip to the United States was made in
1905, but it was a very short one, as I could
not spare more than three weeks for a stay in
the country. This time, however, I have travelled
almost all over the country, from Boston in the
North to New Orleans in the South, thence to Chicago
and then to the West. It is needless to say that
the trip has been extremely interesting as well as
instructive. The country is beautiful, grand, and
up-to-date, according to the best standards of
modern life. The buildings are magnificent and
everything else, too, is on the grandest possible
scale. In several respects the country is much more
interesting than any in Europe. But it is not the
describe either the
purpose of this volume to
natural or man-created beauty of the land, but to
embody the results of my studies in certain of its
problems. My selection of subjects for particular
study has been made with an eye to their practical
usefulness for our own development. In several
respects, the problems of the United States are very
similar to those that face us in India, and I have
thought that an account of them and of the manner
in which they have been dealt within the United States
might be of some help to us in India. The manus-
cript was completed, with the exception of two
chapters on the history of the United States a in June, 1915. At the time
of writing this preface I have not the manuscript
before me and do not propose to say anything more
on the subject matter of the book.
My chief duty now remains to express my in-
debtedness to those good friends and acquaintances
who made my path easy. It was quite suddenly
that I left England (in November 1914); consequently
I could not obtain very many letters of introduction
for the United States from friends there. But the
few letters given to me by my valued friend, Mr.
Sidney Webb, proved of incalculable value, for which
I am very grateful to him. One of these letters was
addressed to Professor Seligman of the Columbia
University, New York. Professor Seligman introduced
me not only to the members of the University Faculty,
but also to many other ladies and gentlemen,
prominent in the various departments of life in
New York, in the study of which I was particularly
interested. Throughout my stay in New York he
was my main stay. Through him I came to know
Professor H. R. Mussey, whose friendship I consider
to be one of the valuable fruits of my visit to the
United States. Similarly my acknowledgments are
due to Professor Felix Adler of the Ethical Union; to
Mr. John Quinn, attorney-at-law; to Mr. & Mrs. J.
Keir Hardie, Jr.; and to Mr. Walter Lippmann of the
New Republic, for their hospitality and help. In the
study of the charity organizations I was particularly
helped by Dr. Hart of the Russel Sage Foundation.
At Boston I received much help and kindness from
Professor J. Woods of the Harvard University and
Rev. Charles Wendte of the Unitarian Association ;
at Washington from Mr. W. L. Stoddard of the
Boston Transcript; at Chicago from Miss Edith
Phelps of the John Creinen Library. In the study
of the conditions and problems of the coloured
people in the United States, I was materially helped
with letters of introduction, from Dr. Dubois of
the Crisis and Miss Mary Ovington of New York.
At Atlanta, President Hope of the Morehouse
College and his wife showed us (I had a friend
travelling with me) great courtesy and kindness
and rendered material help in the study of the Negro
problem in its different phases, and so did Mr. &
Mrs. Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. My best
acknowledgments are also due to the heads of the
various departments of State in Washington and
other places for having smoothed my way to see
everything I wanted to see. Amongst these I may
specially mention Secretary Lane of the Interior
Department, General Macintyre of the Insular Office,
Assistant Secretary Mr. Smith of the State Depart-
ment, Mr. F. Lewis Post of the Labour Department,
Miss Julia Throp of the Children's Welfare Bureau,
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Commission-
er General of Education, and also the Director of the
Smithsonian Institute. Nowhere in the world have
I found officials of State so courteous and obliging
and so easily accessible to the public and the
traveler as in the United States. At Chicago our
stay was made pleasant by Mr. John Arnold of
the First National Bank of Chicago, and in California
by Prof. and Mrs. Rieber and Prof. and Mrs. Pope
of the University of California and by Prof. Morse
Stephens, who introduced me to President Wheeler.
I cannot speak sufficiently warmly of the friendship
and kindness of the Riebers and the Popes. I must
not omit to mention the help and courtesy which
I received from my own countrymen and country-
women everywhere I went, particularly from the
different chapters of the Hindusthanee Students'
Association and their American sympathisers. In
the end I have to acknowledge my thanks to Miss
Frieda Hauswirth, a graduate of the University
of Stanford, for having written for me the chapters
on the history of the United States and the woman
movement, and also for having generally helped me
in preparing the manuscript for the press. But my
greatest thanks are due to Babu Ramananda
Chatterjee, Editor of the Modern Review, Calcutta,
for reading all the proofs and seeing the 'book
through. But for him, perhaps the publication of
the book might have been delayed indefinitely.
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.
March 25, 1916.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Outlines of the History of the United States
of America
...
Education in the United States
Education in the United States, II
The Education of the Negro
The Negro in American Politics
Religion in the United States
Charity and Social Service Organisations
The Philippine Islands
Politics and Government in the United States
Some Observations on Civilisation
Woman in the United States
Caste in America
India in America
OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
When in the 14th century, the Osmanly Turks
began to blockade the Mediterranean path of the
occidental traders to the East, European nations had
to discover new paths to what was then vaguely
called "the Indies," or give up all thought of the
coveted treasures of the East. In 1492, Christoforo
Colombo, in the service of the court of Spain, under-
took to discover a westward route to "the Indies,"
China, Japan, India and the Far East. After a most
daring journey into the unknown wastes of the
Atlantic, he discovered the islands now known as the
West Indies, and took possession of them in the name
of Spain. The natives he met were savages of a
reddish skin and long, straight, black hair, living the
tribal life of hunters. He called them "Indians,"
firmly believing that he had discovered "the Indies."
From this and two succeeding journeys he failed to
bring back the expected treasures from the fabled
cities of gold and ivory of the East, fell into disgrace
at court, and died in misery, never knowing that he
was the discoverer of a new world. Amerigo Ves-
pucci, another Italian in Portuguese service, discover-
ed the large southern continent, named after him
America, a name that was soon extended to the
northern continent likewise.
Meanwhile the real Indies had been reached by
another sailor, a Portuguese, by way of the Cape of
Good Hope, who brought back the wealth Europe
coveted. This route took too long, however, and the
other European nations began to send their naviga-
tors to the New World, still hoping to find a strait
that would furnish them a shorter route to Asia.
They were after the fabulous wealth of Asia, not after
the wild tracts and tribes of America. These early
discoverers were fortune-hunters. While engaged in
this pursuit Spain conquered a confederacy of Indian
tribes in what is known as Mexico. These Aztecs
lived in communal houses and it is said that they
offered human sacrifices to their gods. In Mexico,
Peru, and in the islands of the Gulf of Mexico, the
Spaniards built up a great empire by the aid of slave
labor. They captured and brought tens of thousands
of negro slaves from Africa, and forced them to work
under the lash in the fields and in the silver and gold
mines which they discovered. For some time fabulous
wealth flowed into the treasury of Spain.
Up to the beginning of the 17th century, America
north of the Gulf of Mexico was still completely in the
hands of the Indians. When the nature of this land
became better known, it became evident that it would
have to be settled for agricultural purposes mainly.
This put an end to adventurous exploration and a
new type of men began to stream into America; men
willing to meet the hardship of turning wilderness
into cultivated and settled homes; men of a more
democratic, hardier type. Most sea-faring European
nations were eager to colonize. They fairly tumbled
over each other to grab land in the West. These
powers never dreamt of the possible right of the
native Indian to the land of his birth. Wherever
the white men had first come into contact with the
red man, he had been received with great friendliness,
but the treachery and cruel treatment with which he
treated the red man, soon turned the latter into his
bitter enemy. The Indian was far inferior to the
white man in warfare and culture, and existed for him
only to be brushed out of the way. The invaders
took no notice of the native except when their
advance forced them to meet and crush him in bloody
and unequal battles, or when they could use him as a
tool against rival nations. These powers never
scrupled to make alliances with him and to break
them according to their interest, and it is an undis-
puted fact that they whipped up rivalry and hatred
between the different tribes for the sole purpose of
having them fight and exterminate each other to
make the work of advance easier for the white man.
Sweden settled posts on the banks of the Dalaware ;
the Dutch settled on the shores of the Hudson River,
building the town of New Amsterdam; France took
possession of the St. Lawrence in the North and
of the Ohio and the Mississippi valleys further
south; Spain was master in Central America,
Florida and Peru; England settled on the eastern
coast of North America.
The English king gave charters to different
companies, granting them specified lands to settle
on. The London Company formed the "Virginia
Colony"; the Plymouth Company and the Massa-
chusetts Companies settled farther north, in the
The English
Colonies.
region called "New England." Fear-
ful hardships were encountered by
these early colonists. For instance,
in Virginia, the earliest English colony, the "starv-
a
ing time" of 1609-1610 reduced
total of
600 men in October to only 60 in the following June.
In 1619 this colony received a shipload of maidens
from the Home Company in England, to be sold to
the settlers as wives in exchange for tobacco. This
marked the foundation of the first English homes in
America. Two other important events marked this
same year: the first ship-load of negro slaves arrived
in the colony, and the first representative assembly
convened on American soil, -the foundation of slavery
and of democratic government.
On the coast settled by the Plymouth Company,
there landed in 1620 the "Pilgrims", men and women
who had separated from the Church of England
because they objected to its empty formalism and its
corruption. They fled from strong persecution in
England to seek freedom of worship in the New
World. They arrived without a charter and with-
out a right to the soil, pledged themselves to self-
government, and exercised
tremendous moral
a
influence on later American history through their
bravery and love of liberty.
of
The Massachusetts Company consisted
"Puritans", who likewise objected to the corruption
of the Church of England, but intended to purify it
from within. These Puritans, the "aristocracy of
righteousness", admitted only "free men" (members
of the Puritan churches) to a share in the Government
and to the vote. A curious British trait began to
manifest itself early: those who shortly before had
contended for their own freedom from religious
domination, began to deprive other colonists, who
did not conform to their demands, of their franchise
and their liberty. This naturally caused strong pro-
tests from the more liberal spirits and a new emigra-
tion of dissenters started, this time away from the
parts first colonized. These separatists formed new
settlements, and became remarkable for their spirit
of democracy and religious freedom. Government
was "held by free and voluntary consent of all the
free inhabitants." The Massachusetts colony, how-
ever, continued its reign of despotism and fanatic
cruelty against all dissenters, hanging Quakers and
women for witchcraft. In matters of government,
this colony, when king Charles I. entered on the
despotic period of his reign, quietly removed its
charter to America, and later refused to surrender it.
The colony disregarded the laws of the king, at one
time drove out his governor, ignored the collectors
of revenue, and by so doing finally lost its charter and
became a Royal Province.
The various colonies had little community of
interest and no concerted action. Thirteen colonies
altogether were formed under three different forms
of grant from the government : (1) Virginia and Mas-
sachusetts were corporate (later royal) colonies, -
charters given to companies of men under royally
appointed governors; (2) Self-governing colonies, -
the offshoots of Massachusetts colony, such as Rhode
Island and Connecticut; (3) Proprietorships,-land
granted to single men or small groups of men. In
the royal provinces the king himself, through his
Privy Council, appointed governors, established
courts, collected taxes and carried on the executive
government. In the self-governing colonies the people.
elected their own governors and other officers, both
civil and military, controlling them through the
democratic legislatures. In the proprietary provinces
the proprietors appointed the governors, esta-
blished the courts, collected taxes, but remained
always subject to the limitations imposed on them
by their charters.
The king's interference with and control over the
colonies steadily tended to increase until all were
on the verge of being turned into royal provinces.
Only two colonies escaped such control. England
held the firm belief that the colonies existed for the
advantage of the mother country. It forced Naviga-
tion Acts upon them, which seriously restricted their
trade by forbidding them to sell or buy directly in
the markets of Europe, and hampered their manufac-
ture by forbidding competition with the mother
country.
Learning was early and carefully fostered in New
England and the public school system was made
compulsory. Harvard University was established
as early as 1726 and before 1754 seven colleges were
founded. In 1690 the first newspaper appeared and
was immediately suppressed by the government,
but in 1734 the freedom of the press was guaranteed
by court decision. In 1710 the British postal service
was introduced into the colonies. It was not likely
that a liberty-loving people, enjoying such advan-
tages and feeling independent because of the great
distance separating them from the mother country,
would submit to much unfair treatment without
opposition.
As the colonies became more settled, social life
sprang up. In this, a marked contrast early develop-
ed between the southern and the northern colonies.
The southern colonies, remarkably adapted to cotton
growing, had almost from the very start followed the
Spanish example, in that African slaves worked on
large estates managed by the white master. This
condition, where neighbors lived far apart, created a
feudal order of society in which the few white owners
lived sumptuous, aristocratic, indifferent lives. The
South did not bother much about intellectual pursuits
and did not establish a public school system until the
latter part of the 18th century. The North, however,
settled by men who tilled their own soil and started
their manufacture and trade by the toil of their own
hands, tended to be frugal, bigoted and sturdy. These
manufacturing New England sections became much
more closely settled, a fact which tended to foster the
democratic spirit and intense interest in public mat-
ters and politics.
Conflicting Interests.
Early, therefore, it became apparent, that there
were great conflicting interests devel-
oping through the settlement of the
New World. (1) A struggle for possession was
certain between the different European nations; (2)
the interests of the colonies were clashing with the
demands of the mother country; (3) the northern
and southern colonies were developing antagonistic
types of civilization; (4) a never-ceasing warfare with
the native inhabitants was on.
The greed and aggressiveness of the European
powers soon broke loose. The
Clash between European Spaniards in the South early incited
the Indians to attack the English
Powers.
colonies. First, the Dutch forced the Swedish settle-
ments out of existence, and in 1664 the Duke of
York appeared in the Hudson with his fleet and
forced the surrender of the Dutch colony, whose
main town New Amsterdam, was re-named New
York. France made strong alliances with some of
the Indian tribes and established a chain of army
posts extending from the St. Lawrence River to the
Gulf of Mexico. France and England were the two
greatest rival powers for the possession of America.
The two powers were evenly matched for the coming
conflict. In 1689 the struggle broke out between
them, a struggle that was to last through seven
wars occupying 60 years, fought in Europe, in India,
and in America. The French in Canada incited the
Indians to raids of English settlements, and frightful
Indian massacres resulted. In the treaty of Utrecht,
Louis XIV was forced to cede the territory of Nova
Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay to England.
In 1745 the English colonists seized the fortress
guarding the mouth of the St. Lawrence. In 1749
both the French and the English moved to occupy
the Ohio valley, which became the centre of the
struggle. In 1763 peace was concluded in Paris, by
which France ceded to England all of Canada and the
region east of the Mississippi, and to Spain New
Orleans and the country west of the Mississippi.
England restored Havana and Manila to Spain. This
left the English colonies in power in North America
and strengthened their position in the impending
struggle with England.
The War of Inde-
pendence.
Two main reasons led up to this struggle: (1) the
trade relations, in which the colonies
were slighted and severely hampered;
(2) the question of representative
government, or the supremacy of Parliament over
the colonies. Parliament, steadily growing in power,
attempted to exercise it over the colonies; the colonies
on the other hand had come to look upon their own
assemblies as taking the place of Parliament and con-
sidered themselves subject only to the king.
Roosevelt, a later President, wrote that the American
Revolution was "a revolt against the whole mental
attitude of Britain in regard to America, rather than
against any one special act or set of acts."
As the colonies were not permitted to compete with
English manufactures, but sold raw products to
England and in turn had to buy the finished products
from England and at higher rates, and as their
trade with other nations was likewise restricted, only
illicit trade could furnish them with the money re-
quired to buy English manufactured goods. After
the French war was over, in order to help pay the
national debt, England decided to strictly enforce the
Navigation Acts, making illicit trade impossible. The
British Parliament in addition decided to levy a
stamp tax on the colonies. This taxation was in-
tended only to defray part of the expenses of a small
standing army in America. All the money raised by
the tax was to be spent in America; the measure in
itself was fair enough. The colonies, however, rose in
violent protest, denying the legality of any taxes but
such as were levied by their own assemblies. England
realized the seriousness of the spirit of revolt and re-
pealed the Stamp Act in less than a year. The next
Prime Minister, however, introduced measures which
increased English control in the colonies, and gave
orders to levy heavy duties on tea, lead, glass, paper,
and printer's colors imported into the colonies.
Boston answered by a boycott on British goods and
the government was forced to spend 200,000 pounds
to collect duties amounting to only 16,000 pounds
during three years, where it had confidently expected
to collect at least 120,000 pounds. The colonies sent
a circular letter of protest to the ministry, but were
answered by the dispatch of two British regiments to
Boston with intent to intimidate. Boston intensely
resented this and it came to conflicts between the
citizens and the soldiers. The governor was forced to
withdraw the troops and Parliament was cowed into
repealing these Townshend duties.
King George, however, insisted that a small tax
on tea should be kept for the sake of asserting the
right of Parliament to control the colonies. In order
to render this less objectionable, he allowed the East
India Company to sell its tea to America without
paying the heavy English duty. This enabled the
company to sell the tea, inclusive of the tax, to the
colonists at a lower rate than they were paying for
tea smuggled from Holland. The colonists, however,
refused to pay the tax in any form, standing firmly
on their principle of "no taxation without representa-
tion." They did not permit the tea-ships to land
in Philadelphia and New York, and in Boston a
number of prominent citizens disguised themselves
as Indians, boarded the ship and dumped the costly
tea into the harbor. For this "Boston Tea Party"
the king determined to punish the colonies. In 1774
Parliament passed the "Intolerable Acts," as measu-
res of punishment and revenge. The colonies called
"The First Continental Congress," which petitioned
the king to remedy 13 acts specified as violating
their rights. A Committee of Safety started to collect
ammunition, and when the Governor of Massa-
chusetts tried to seize these, the first clash between
British troops and colonial militia occurred at
Lexington.
A second Continental Congress met in 1775, as-
sumed temporary powers of a regular government,
and made formal declaration of war. George
Washington was made commander of the militia. On
July 4, 1776, a Declaration of Independence was
adopted and issued. This "declaration by the Repre-
sentatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled," stated :
"When in the course of human events it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds
which have connected them with another, and to as-
sume, among the powers of the earth, the separate
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of
nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to the separation. We
hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That, to secure these rights, governments are insti-
tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of
government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute a new government, laying its foundation
: on such principles, and organising its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness."
This document declared the English government
gailty of destroying those ends, enumerated 27 arbi-
trary and despotic acts against the liberty of the
colonies and declared that the colonies were "Free
and Independent States."
At first, the fortunes of war turned against the
colonists. Then the tables turned. When Britain
found herself forced at Saratoga to surrender 6000
men, it sent an embassy to the American Congress
conceding all the rights for which the colonies had
contended; but these were no longer after concessions,
but complete independence. England then attempted
to induce the South to secede from the alliance. Great
numbers of loyalists enlisted in the British army and
the fight in those colonies took on the character of a
civil war. France was supplying the colonists with
money and men. Volunteers from all over Europe
joined the rebels, sympathizing with their struggle for
freedom. Washington's army contained eleven
foreign major-generals.
On October 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered
to Washington at Yorktown,-a victory which ended
British claims in the colonies. All the territory east
of the Mississipi and south of the Great Lakes accrued
to the United States, and England acknowledged the
independence of the new republic.
The New Republic.
Thirteen years elapsed between the Declaration of
of Independence and the inauguration
of George Washington as the first
President of the United States. During this time, a
powerless Congress made an attempt to govern, but
between October 1788 to April 1789 there was absol-
utely no United States government. Anarchy was
imminent.
Finally a convention was called in Independence
Hall at Philadelphia in May 1787 to devise a
government for the United States. Delegates from
the different States submitted and discussed plans for
a new government, and the question was whether
it should be confederate or national, that is, a national
federation or a confederacy of States. The struggle
between the advocates of the differing views was
bitter and even led to rioting. It was finally decided
that there were to be three independent departments,
the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. The
government, therefore, was to be national, deriving
its power directly from the people of the nation at
large rather than a confederation, depending for its
existence on the will of the various state legislatures.
Each State, large or small, was to have an equal
number of delegates to preserve their equality of
representation in the upper House of Congress (the
Senate), while the members of the lower House (the
House of Representatives) were to be elected by the
people of the States, each State having a number of
representatives in proportion to its population. The
members of the lower house were to have control of
the public purse, with the sole right to raise a revenue
and to levy taxes. The President was made the sole
executive of the laws framed by Congress. Congress
might legislate on the regulation of currency and
coinage, the declaration of war and the direction of
military and naval forces, the control of territories
and public lands, the care of the Indians, etc.
Other matters, such as protection of life and property,
creation of town, city and county governments,
marriage and inheritance, education, punishment,
etc., were left to State governments. Every citizen,
therefore, was to live under two systems of law,
national and state. The constitution drawn up
for the new government was submitted to the
various states for ratification and accepted with
amendments guaranteeing free speech, a free press,
immunity from arbitrary arrest and the right to
be tried by a jury of one's peers after a public
hearing of witness on both sides.
All States that had Western claims surrendered
them to the United States, and all the lands between
the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi River
were made national domain. This land was organized
into the "Northwest Territory," placed under a
governor and three judges, slavery was excluded
from it, free public education introduced, political
and religious liberty granted, and provision made to
carve the land into States as soon as it should be
thickly enough populated. This territorial policy
was followed out with all territory acquired by the
United States in later years.
republic, two
advocates of
From the beginning of the new
factions were politically active, the
federal extension of power and the opponents of
"federal usurpation." The South was the slave-
holding section and opposed to federal power; the
North was free and in favor of the extension of federal
power. The South favored agriculture; the North
manufacture. The North advocated a union under
a strong centralized form of government; the South
a confederacy of independent states. These two
factions, standing for paternalistic and for democratic
government, assumed different designations at
different times, but the principles for which they
contended remained the same. A high protective
tariff imposed on foreign goods and intended to pay
the debts of the government, helped the North and
harmed the South.
After the war, the need for union and a centralized
form of government grew imperious and the
Federalists came into power and held the reigns of
the government until 1801. Since then, the two
factions alternately held sway. The Federalists
united the lately freed states, ordered the finances at
home by establishing national banks, restored the
credit abroad which had been lost during the
period of anarchy, encouraged domestic manu-
facture, and stimulated the foreign trade. The tariff
brought abundant revenue into the treasury. The
large territory of Louisiana, lately transferred by
Spain to Napoleon, was bought from him and
doubled the size of the United States. All this served
to increase enormously the power of the centralized
government.
European conditions began to affect the new
republic. France and England were
still at war. No decade of United
The War of 1812.
States history passed without new provocation of
some sort on the part of Great Britain. There was
a perpetual quarrel over the rights of fishing off the
Canadian coast and over boundary disputes between
Canada and the United States. This time, England
forbade all neutral vessels to trade with any country
under Napoleon's control unless such vessels first
touched at British ports. She seized all vessels that
violated this order. The French on the other hand
seized all that touched at British ports. This meant.
the annihilation of American trade. Congress also
found out that the British had been supplying the
Indians with ammunition and inciting them to raids
on the Americans. Feeling ran high against Britain
and war was declared in 1812. Great Britain repealed
the Orders in Council interfering with American trade
just at the moment when the President signed the
declaration of war, but news did not travel fast
enough in those days, and war was on, though
England was anxious to avoid it. On land the
United States first lost, but was signally victorious
at sea, capturing some 2000 British vessels before
the end of the war. Andrew Jackson, at New Orleans,
defeated the British in a battle of only twenty
minutes' duration, in which 2000 Britishers were laid
low on the field. In 1814 war ceased between England
and France and with this ceased the cause for war
between the United States and England.
Expansion.
An "era of good feeling" followed the war. A
strong national consciousness was
awakening. The sectional spirit lost
strength. National authority was asserted over
state authority in several Supreme Court decisions.
The country entered upon a period of great prosper-
ity. In her new sense of power, she thought of ex.
pansion in the South and West. She disputed the
claim of Spain to Florida and moved to occupy it. She
had no justification for doing so, but desired the
advantage of the coast. The seizure of Florida was
nothing less than robbery. At this time Spain also
lost her South American colonies (1807-1825). The
allied powers of Russia, Prussia, Austria and France
intended to aid Spain in restoring her sovereignty
over these colonies. President Monroe, eager to see
the weakening of European powers in America, re-
cognized these republics and incorporated the "Mon-
roe Doctrine" in the annual presidential message to
Congress. It declared that the continents of the
Western Hemisphere were "henceforth not to be con-
sidered as subject for future colonization by any Euro-
pean powers." It announced the intention of the U. S.
government to "consider any attempt on their part
to extend their system to any part of this hemis-
phere as dangerous to our peace and safety." The
United States thus checked the thought of increasing
their hold in America on the part of foreign powers.
At this time (1832) came the first great American
business "boom," which was to collapse, as so many
have done since then. It was a period of over-
confidence in the country's growth. "Wild-cat banks"
issued notes far beyond their real capital in gold and
silver and the fever of speculation reached its height
in the enormous purchase of Western lands. President
Jackson issued the "Specie Circular" demanding gold
and silver in payment to the Treasury for the sale of
public lands. The "wild-cat banks" did not have the
gold and silver to pay for the notes they had issued.
Land sales dropped tremendously and nine-tenths
of the factories were closed in the eastern states
in 1837.
The United States, however, continued in her ex-
pansion. Texas was a province of the new republic
Mexico. Americans were steadily crossing into Texas
until by 1830 there were nearly 20,000 of them in the
province. The intent of the Mexican government
was to stop American influence in Texas; that of
the United States to acquire Texas. Texas was
incited to revolt, and set up a republic. After
nine years it was annexed to the United States.
Over this annexation, war broke out with Mexico.
The city of Mexico was captured, California was
seized, and New Mexico was occupied by the United
1
States troops. Mexico was forced to cede California
and New Mexico to the States and to reco gnize the
Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas; an easy
triumph over a far weaker nation.
Between 1830-40, the age of steam dawned. Grain
reapers, coal mines, iron smelting, screw propellors
for ships, steam locomotives came into use in those
days and revolutionized every aspect of the industrial,
agricultural, and political world. Far distant places
were connected by a few days' travel, where formerly
months were required. The greatest hindrance to
Western development before the war of 1812 was the
lack of roads. It had been unprofitable to raise wheat
far from the banks of navigable rivers. Now railroad
building became imperative. At this time arose the
danger and grave import of letting the opportunity of
state erection and control of railways and canals
slip out of government's hands. The President
praised the spirit of New York State in completing
the Erie Canal, 1825; and tried to stimulate
Congress by this example to the "accomplishment of
works important to the whole country, to which
neither the authority nor the resources of any one
state could be adequate." But the country was too
much split up by sectional interests to prevent the
control of these public utilities from getting into
private control. Private corporations began to
build, own and manage the great railroad systems
under charters from the state governments.
After the war of 1812 a stream of immigrants
began to pour into the country from the countries of
northern Europe. They were of a hardy, fine stock.
In 1848, gold was discovered in California. The
product of these mines and washings was simply
fabulous. Five years after the discovery the gold
yield was $65,000,000 in a single year. In fifty
years over $2,000,000,000 was taken from the
mines. The immigration by sea and land raised the
population of the state in the single year of 1849
from 6000 to over 85,000. The West was rapidly
becoming settled, and the United States grew by
leaps and bounds in wealth and territory.
Political Parties.
The two great opposing political powers, termed
Democrats (South) and Republicans
(North) developed into concise party
machines at this time. Between 1830-40, the
national conventions for nominating the candidates
of each party for President and Vice-president, and
for publishing the declaration or "platform" of the
principles of the party took place. As a result of this,
officers became the tools of parties, and government
offices became the prizes of a war that was fought at
the polls. "To the victor belong the spoils" became
the ruling principle and government offices became
desired for what person al returns they might be made
to yield. This was known as the "spoils system."
At this time, 1833, a Labor Party made its first
appearance and formulated demands for higher
wages, shorter hours and more sanitary conditions
in shops and factories. This marked the beginning of
the struggle between capitalism and labor.
:
The manufacturing North, the wool-growing West,
Sectional interests.
and the cotton-raising South had
discovered that their interests were
on
quite antagonistic. The "era of good feeling" was
rapidly changing into a period of bitter sectional
strife. The rich manufacturers and merchants
the Northern Atlantic coast were consolidating power
in their hands. These had retained all the inherited
European ideas of distinctions of rank socially,
though not politically. A New England aristocracy
of merchants was opposed to a planter aristocracy
of the South, and the West opposed a rugged pioneer
democracy to both. There were about 75,000 large
planters in the South in 1850 out of a population
of about 5,000,000 whites. Their prosperity was
that of a ruling class confined to the few, and not
diffused through all classes as in the North. These
planters were constantly planting and selling more
cotton and buying more slaves and more land,
while the majority of the white inhabitants lived
in poverty and enforced idleness, seeing the labor
market daily more filled with slave labor. Of these
whites 15% were illiterate, as there was no free public
school system. These forms of civilization in the
North and South were irreconcilable. In the democra-
tic, industrial and commercial North, population was
rapidly increasing through immigration from Europe.
In the South it remained more stationary, though the
number of slaves steadily increased. Around 1840 the
conflict between the North and the South began to
overshadow all other problems of the times. The con-
flict came to a crisis on two issues; extension of slav-
ery into the newly acquired territories, and the tariff.
The tariff of 1824 averaged 36% and was purely
sectional. Without manufactures or the hope of such,
the South saw itself taxed by the tariff to support
the industries of the North. The increase in Northern
population constantly increased the majority of the
North in the House of Representatives. The South,
with but one-third of the votes of the house in its
hands, paid over two-thirds of the customs duties.
Agitation against slavery started from the begin-
ning of colonization. The British
Crown had vetoed colonial statutes
The Question of Slavery.
against slavery, and the British merchants and
capitalists were primarily responsible for the slave
traffic of the 18th century. Great Britain, at the
beginning of the 18th century, demanded as one of the
terms of peace with France the monopoly of the slave
trade between the African coast and the New World.
Queen Anne and her courtiers invested large sums of
money in the slave trade. At first slavery was legal
in all the colonies, but the Northern colonies soon
began to restrict it. The Continental Congress of
1774 and 1776 forbade the further importation of
slaves into the colonies, and the North-West territory
was made free territory. Already in Washington's
time petitions began to pour into Congress for the
abolition of slavery in the United States. These
continued until the close of the Civil War. An
attempt was made to re-colonize free Negreos and a
settlement, Liberia, was started on the western
coast of Africa. Between 1820-1860 this Society
spent almost $2,000,000 and colonized but 10,900
Negroes, less than were born in one month in the
United States. This was a well-meant, but most
ineffectual remedy, and the country was to pay more
dearly for the cruel injustices done to the enslaved
race.
It was the question of the growth of the West
which became most vitally connected with the
question of the extension of slavery. The South
needed more slave territory. The crisis over the
slavery issue arose not so much as a struggle between
the North and the South, but as a struggle of the
North and the South over the West. In the North,
abolitionist societies began to be formed, carrying
on an active anti-slavery propaganda. The South
tried to muzzle these through denial of free speech, an
attitude which increased greatly the number of op-
ponents. Public discussion brought slavery into
prominence from the moral aspect, instead of the
purely economic one.
For a time a compromise was reached between
Republicans and Democrats through the principle
of "squatter sovereignty," a plan of compromise :
each territory, when the time came for it to apply for
statehood, should decide for itself as to whether it
wished to come in as a free or slave state. The Free
Soilers, a small party, refused to compromise. The
struggle was to become local now. The Free Soilers
determined to colonize Kansas with abolitionists and
thus secure it as a future free state. The slave-holding
Missourians, the neighbor state, resented this attempt
and "invaded Kansas" at election times, fraudulently
securing the election of a pro-slavery legislature.
This led to bloody encounters, a massacre of pro-
slavery men on the Pottowatomie river by John
Brown; in revenge the sacking of Lawrence, the
capital of the Free Soilers in Kansas; and the as-
sault of a senator in the senate chamber. These three
attacks occurred between May 19-24,1856. A new
governor was sent to Kansas with authority to use
the U. S. troops; order was restored, and the politi-
cal parties awaited in an armed truce the next presi-
dential election, which would decide the issue. In
1860, the Republican Convention met, adopting a
platform distinctly opposed to slavery, and nominated
Abraham Lincoln. The legislature of South Carolina
was in session when the election was announced.
It decided to secede. Within six weeks the states of
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia,
and Texas severed their connection likewise.
The resources of the North exceeded those of the
South. It could furnish 5,000,000 men to only 1,500,000
of the latter. Civil war was on. The battle of Bull
Run, July 21, 1865, was the first great battle of the
war; the fall of Richmond, April 3, 1865, where
the Southern General, Lee, surrendered to the
Northern hero, Grant, terminated the war, after the
South had been brought to the point of actual desti-
tution. During this war, Great Britain had again
provoked ill-feeling by rendering assistance to the
South.
On New Year's Day 1863 Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation which liberated all the
slaves in the rebellious states. Lincoln's highest
desire was the preservation of the Union.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any
slave, I would do it; if I could save the Union by
freeing all the slaves, I would do it.
Whatever
I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because
I believe it helps save the Union."
He saved the Union and intended to deal most
leniently with the South. He planned to recognize
the government of any lately seceded state as legal
as soon as 10% of the voters of 1860 should form a
loyal government and accept the legislation of Con-
gress on the subject of slavery.
Under his lenient and wise care the South would
have recovered quickly. But in April 14, 1865, he was
assassinated while attending a play and the South
lost in him the best friend. Under his successors,
Congress deliberately forced Negro suffrage on the
South at the point of the bayonet, and permitted
unprincipled politicians to bleed and misrule the
stricken South in a manner which it has hardly
yet forgotten or forgiven.
The end of the war saw
Further Expansion and
Imperialism.
national supremacy
firmly established. In naval strength
the United States rose from the 12th
to the 5th position among the naval
powers. This marked the beginning of her colonizing
period. She occupied the Samoan Islands in the
Pacific ocean under a tripartite agreement between
Great Britain, Germany, and herself. In 1867,
Russia asked her to buy Alaska of her. The distant
arctic region seemed to have little value except for
its seal fisheries, and the United Sates paid
$7,200,000, only about two cents an acre for the
huge territory. It has proved immensely rich in its
coal and gold deposits. In the Hawaiian Islands
American residents first came as missionaries, then
as planters and merchants to exploit coffee and sugar
farms. The United States took advantage of the
revolt incited by a native queen, Liliuokalani, to send
a detachment of troops and declare the islands a
"protectorate" of the United States. Since then
Hawaii has been annexed as a fully organized terri-
tory with U. S. citizenship (1900). Cuba had
belonged to Spain ever since Columbus discovered
the island. In 1895-1898 an especially severe insur-
rection broke out in the island against the Spanish
government. The United States had previously
made offers to Spain to buy Cuba, but Spain refused.
In the Ostend Manifesto the United States had
announced the "right" to seize Cuba if Spain would
not sell it. Now the United States eagerly expressed
sympathy with the Cuban rebels and both houses in
1898 passed resolutions for the recognition of Cuban
independence. The battleship Maine in the harbor
of Havanna was blown up. After this provocation
the United States demanded the immediate with-
drawal of Spain from the island. In the ensuing
war between Spain and the United States, Admiral
Dewey won a victory over the Spanish fleet at
Manila and Admiral Sampson destroyed another
fleet in Santiago. This brought Spain to sue for terms.
She ceded Cuba, Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philip-
pine Islands. Cuba was organized into a republic
after the U. S. pattern and Congress established a
protectorate over the island. The United States
has done a great deal for the sanitation of Cuba,
spending over $10,000,000 for this purpose. In the
Philippines, the Filipinos had been in revolt against
the tyrannical Spanish government at the same time
as the Cubans and the Filipino troops had entered
Manila with the victorious Americans. Unlike Cuba,
they had a strong native leader, Aguinaldo, who
refused to be considered merely as the ally of the
Americans and organized a Filipino republic with
himself at the head. He prepared to defend it
against the Americans. For two years a guerilla
warfare was carried on to subjugate the Filipinos.
The warfare was unspeakably cruel and sickening.
Whole villages of natives were butchered, including
women and children. The anti-imperialists accused
the administration at Washington of having conver-
ted a war which began for the liberation of the
Cubans, into a despicable struggle for the enslave-
ment of the Filipino. In the Chinese Boxer rising of
1900, the United States troops aided the other
powers to capture Peking. There was no doubt but
that, in spite of severe opposition from anti-imperi-
alists, the United States too had entered upon the
struggle for colonial supremacy and world trade.
The Monroe doctrine, warning European powers
away for nearly a century from the Western Hemis-
phere, had been stretched to let the United States
seize possessions in the Eastern Hemisphere. The
Monroe doctrine has also been extended in the case of
Santo Domingo. Its treasury being bankrupt, in
order to satisfy European creditors, the President,
Roosevelt, appointed a receiver to manage its finan-
cial affairs. Between Great Britain and Venezuela
existed boundary disputes. Great Britain refused
the proffered arbitration of the United States govern-
ment. Congress then recommended that it take the
decision of the boundary between Guiana and
Venezuela into its own hands. The Prime Minister
gave way and the United States settled the dispute.
All this means, that if this policy be followed out
further, it must mean the virtual protectorate of the
United States over all the weaker republics of the
South. In the present Mexican revolution, the late
President Taft interfered by sending troops to the
border, and it is very likely that the United States
may ultimately interfere in a still more tangible
manner.
As regards the Indians, their frontier had disappear-
ed by 1890. The government had taken every means
to break up the tribal organization of the Indians.
With the stubborn resistance of the Sioux Indians
in Dakota in 1890, the Indian wars, which had lasted
since the beginning of American colonization, were
at an end, and the native race was almost wiped out.
Since then, government has tardily tried to atone
for this crime by taking care of the remaining Indians
on lands reserved for that purpose. How many
Indians originally inhabited North America will
never be known; at the present time only about
225,000 are left.
As far-seeing men had long before predicted, the
war-debt placed the U. S. Govern-
Trust and Politics. ment into the power of the moneyed
men. The mines, railroads, oil-fields, iron industry,
meat-packing houses had become concentrated in
the hands of a few powerful capitalists. J. Pierpont
Morgan, for instance, controlled railroads, indus-
tries, steamship lines and banks capitalized at about
$10,000,000,000. A clique of Wall Street bankers
practically governed the country during Grant's
presidency following the war. Since then, they in-
fluenced the legislation through their "coal senators"
of West Virginia, their "iron senators" of Alabama,
their "lumber senators" of Montana and the West,
their "sugar senators" of Louisiana, their "railroad
senators," etc., who were sent through the influence
of the trusts into Congress to "protect their inter-
ests." Their influence kept the tariff high (40@
average in 1913) to shut out European competition.
They received favors and immunities from Congress
at the expense of the nation at large, which has
made them fabulously rich. Their wealth made it
possible for them to influence the judiciary and to
secure the best legal talent in the form of "corpora-
tion lawyers." Altogether it seemed that govern-
ment was existing primarily for the purpose of
protecting the wealth of these trusts and giving
it a chance to grow. It was nothing uncommon for
Congressmen to accept large amounts of railroad
stock as "presents" from the trusts who desired
legislative favors for the roads. The importance of
the American industries may be judged from the
fact that by the end of the 19th century, the United
States mined 230,000,000 of the world's 720,000,000
tons of coal, 257,000 of its 470,000 tons of copper,
and 25,000,000 of its 79,000,000 tons of iron. By
1900 about 250 trusts had been formed with a
capitalization of over one-twentieth of the total
wealth of the United States.
The Republican party, in control after the Civil
War until 1884, had become absolutely corrupt and
was finally overthrown. Meanwhile the wide gulf
between the privileged rich of the country and the
laboring classes, between capital and labor, increased
enormously. While in government circles
a
wave
of reaction against corruption replaced the "spoils
system" by the "merit system" in civil service ap-
pointments through a system of competitive civil
service examinations, a strong movement for or-
ganization developed in laboring circles. The Knights
of Labor, organized in 1869 in Philadelphia, counted
over 700,000 members in 1886. It declared that "the
alarming development and aggression of great capital-
ists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably
lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation
of the toiling masses." Labor objected to the high
tariff which enriched the trusts and taxed the poor
in the necessaries of life. In 1886 President Cleveland
sent to Congress a special message, the first presi-
dential message concerning Labor in the United
States history. This Labor Problem had come to
the front, and the administration has had to face it
ever since. In 1894, the Pullman Palace Car Com-
pany discharged a number of employees and cut the
wages of the rest though it was paying 7%% dividends
at the time, and had accumulated a surplus of $25,
000,000 on a capital of $36,000,000. The employees
struck and prevented the trains from leaving the
yards in Chicago. Among these were mail trains
carrying Pullman cars. An injunction was issued
by the federal courts ordering the strikers to cease
obstructing the United States Mails. In answer,
riots broke out, and for the first time in the history
of the States, the federal troops fired upon American
citizens to preserve order. This has been repeated
since then in other strikes, and has marked the begin-
ning of the open clash between capitalism and labor.
The old party lines between Republicans and Demo-
crats are being obliterated rapidly, but the coming
struggle is that between socialism and capitalism.
The past ten or fifteen years have witnessed the
awakening of the American public to the immense
seriousness of the problem of monopoly and trust
control. A very strong movement has started for the
purification of politics and the checking of the influ-
ence of money power on government. This movement
found its climax in the administration of Colonel
Roosevelt. Colonel Roosevelt was a determined
opponent of the trusts, determined to curb them. He
fought for regulation by the government of all
trusts which monopolized the people's necessities of
life, such as beef, coal, oil, sugar, transportation.
He ordered his Attorney-General to commence over
forty suits against railroads or industrial corpora-
tions during his terms of eight years. The govern-
ment lost most of these suits, but the moral effect
was tremendous. During his presidency, when a
severe strike in the coalfields threatened to bring on a
famine of coal during winter, he called together
representatives of the organized miners and of the
owners of the coal fields, and persuaded them to sub-
mit to the arbitration of a commission appointed by
himself. This started the arbitration of disputes
between capital and labour, through government.
Roosevelt advocated trust regulation, labour legisla-
tion, direct primaries, an income tax, tariff revision,
national preservation. This expresses the tendency of
the times concerning government control. In his con-
servation policy, Congress authorized him t
withdraw large coalfields in Alaska from public
sale, also large timber-lands in the States, to be held
as national property. Through irrigation schemes he
turned great sandy waste in Arizona into rich farm-
land, adding tremendously to the national wealth.
He formed an Inter-State Railroad Commission
regulating rates for the public, and did a great deal
towards furthering government control and govern-
ment ownership of public utilities.
In his term of office, the building of the Panama
Canal came to the front. Roosevelt bought out the
French Panama Company which had gone into
bankruptcy. Then he tried to
negotiate with
Colombia concerning the construction of the canal.
Colombia, however, rejected the treaty offered. As a
result U. S. gun-boats were sent to the isthmus; a
"quiet uprising," induced by the U. S., took place
in Panama, and within a week after this the govern-
ment at Washington recognized the new republic of
Panama. From this it bought a ten mile strip of
land and went ahead with government construction
of the canal, completed in 1914. Its treatment of
Colombia in this matter was new proof of the
regard of the United States for the rights of the small
American republics.
The American government, state as well as
national, is growing more and more democratic;
many states have accepted the initiative, the
referendum and the recall, and the nation seems
determined to drive business-control out of politics.
Next to the Labor problem, the most vital and
interesting problem that faces the United States is
its immigration problem. Since the beginning an
endless stream of immigrants has flowed to its
shores. At first they came from Northern Europe.
Of late years they have started to come from
Southern and Eastern Europe, and also from China
and Japan, and even India. To this latter immigra-
tion tremendous opposition has been developing,
ending in the exclusion of the Chinese and the Hindoos
from the soil. Their competition in the labor market
is not desired. In the South the Negroes form about
half the population. The South needs the labor of
the Negro, but both the South and the North object
to Asiatic immigration. Altogether the country is
facing a race problem more serious than any other
nation in the world, and no solution has been found
as yet.
To sum up: the United States stands to-day with
the promise (or curse) of imperialism ahead of her,
with the tremendous problems of government owner-
ships of public utilities, with an imminent war between
capitalism and labor, with race problems, and with
the question of woman suffrage, the last of which
is referred to in another chapter. It is truly "the
melting pot" of the different nations of the world,
of its social, political, and economic problems, and
its past and future history is well worth the
watching.
3
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
I think one of the elementary tests by which the
civilization of a country should be judged is the
importance which it attaches to the national care
and education of its mothers and children. Most
of the modern States of the West, at least all of them
which are considered great now, recognise the
national value of the child as distinguished from the
value attached to it by the family and the parents,
Hence most of them are elaborating laws and framing
schemes to facilitate the birth of healthy babies and
their development on healthy and sound lines after
birth. There is nothing modern in the idea that the
child is the father of the man and the citizen. The idea
is as old as the world. All the ancient civilizations
of the world recognised it and the Hindu Smritis
(Law-codes) attached great importance to the care
and education of the child. The modern world is,
therefore, in this respect, at least, following the track
laid down for it by the older and more ancient nations
of the earth. In Europe and America, the idea is
of comparatively recent growth, and it cannot be
said that it has reached the height of development
it is capable of. In ancient civilizations the need of
education was based on religious and spiritual
grounds. In the modern it is based on economic
grounds. In the former case the guiding motive was
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 35
the care of the soul : in the latter that of the body,
individual and politic. In Europe the idea was first
materialised by compulsory school attendance laws.
The object was to increase the intelligence and
efficiency of the units of the body politic in the
material and national interests of the latter. Some
years ago the President of the British Association
of Science, in the course of his annual inaugural
address, remarked that national expenditure on
education was even more necessary than that on
the Army and the Navy. The safety and efficiency
of the nation depended as much if not more on the
former as on the latter. The school is the manu-
factory of a nation. A comparison of the expen-
diture incurred by the great nations of Europe on
education and on armaments will disclose that the
colossal growth of the latter has been followed by
proportionate growth of the former. One competi-
tion has led to the other and very properly too.
The object of an efficient Army and Navy is power
to acquire new territories and to defend those
already acquired. The ultimate object is wealth and
glory. Success in the struggle for wealth and glory
depends certainly as much on efficient and thorough
training of the mind of a nation as on the training
of its body and muscles. Hence the great nations
of the West have been vying with each other in their
provisions for national education. Germany was
the first in the field. Its compulsory school at-
tendance laws are more than a century old and at
the present moment it is easily first in its educational
activities and equipments. In Prussia more than
16.4 per cent of the population attend school. In all
important German cities more than 99 per cent of the
children (from 99.2 to 99.93) finish the eighth grade
course (i.e., eight years' school course). In the United
Kingdom, Scotland was the first in the field of com-
pulsory school attendance and it maintains its first
position in educational efficiency. Similarly much has
been done in England, Wales and Ireland also, to
bring them up to the level of Germany in educational
efficiency. The United States has followed suit and
to me it seems that the facilities for education in
America are perhaps even greater than in the United
Kingdom. The educational problem in the United
States is rather complicated by reason of the unceas-
ing flow of comparatively uneducated and illiterate
immigrants into the country. Yet the educational
achievements of America are monumental. In 1913
in a total population of about 97 millions, with an
estimated school-going population (of persons 5 to
18 years of age) of about 25½ millions, the number
actually in schools was a little over 18½ millions.
The development within the last 40 years may be
judged from the following figures.
1. In 1877 the population of the United States
of America was a little over 46 millions and the
number of students enrolled was about 9 millions.
In 1913, with a population of 97 millions, the
number enrolled was 182.
2. Complicated problem: The educational problem
in the United States is seriously affected by the
constant inflow of immigrants, by the Negro problem
and by the problem of the Indians. School at-
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 37
tendance is not yet compulsory in some Southern
States where the Negro problem is the largest. The
Negro publicists complain that the States do not
give them sufficient facilities for educating their
children; the schools are few; the school buildings
inadequate; the teachers underpaid and overworked :
the provision for higher and secondary education al-
most nil. Similarly the percentage of literacy among
the Indians is comparatively low, as they do not
take to schools kindly and easily. As for immigrants,
the number of immigrants admitted into the United
States has been never below 500,000 since 1870.
In 1914 it reached the colossal figure of 1,400,000.
In some schools in Boston (Massachussets), New
York, and Chicago the children of the immigrants
speak as many as 25 different languages. In certain
factories and workshops in these cities the number of
languages spoken is even larger. The workmen
employed do not understand each other except by
signs and signboards hung up in the premises as
warnings or for other purposes which are printed in
as many characters as the nationalities that are
represented in the factory. Consequently the percen-
tage of illiteracy in these big States is higher than in
some smaller States which are not so seriously
affected by the annual influx of immigrants; although
school attendance is compulsory in these States and
the amount of money spent by these States on Public
School education is enormous. The State of New
York alone, for example, maintains 11,642 Elemen-
tary Schools for a total population of about nine
million souls.
In 1913 altogether 564,460 teachers (not Pro-
fessors and Instructors in Colleges) were engaged in
the work of School education, of which 451,118
were women.
In 1913 the total expenditure incurred on school
education was over 534 million dollars, i.e., 1602
million rupees, or say 160 crores of rupees. This
is exclusive of expenditure on College education as
well as on education imparted in special or
professional or Vocational Schools. These figures
do not include schools maintained by private
agencies.
The exhibit of the United States Bureau of Educa-
tion at the Panama Pacific International Exposition,
San Francisco, puts the figure of expenditure on
education which is under the review of the Depart-
ment at 800 million dollars, i.e., 240 crores of rupees
a year.
There are twenty Universities in the country
which spend from a little over a million Dollars
(i.e., 30 lakhs of rupees) to about 41½ million
dollars (i.e., one crore & 35 lakhs of rupees)
each. The annual income of Harvard University
in round figures is about 4400 thousand dollars
and that of Columbia about 3800 thousand dollars.
The number of students who receive instruction
in these 20 Universities, omitting the minor ones,
ranges from 3225 in the Universities of Missouri
to 10884 in the Universities of Chicago. Three of
these 20 big Universities are situated in the State of
Illinois alone claiming between them over 21000
students. Similarly there are three big Universities
in the City of New York claiming between them over
17,000 students. The State of New York alone ad-
ministers 34 Universities and Colleges (exclusive of
Columbia and other privately endowed Universities).
These 20 big Universities in the country employ a
staff of from 242 to 716 Instructors and Professors
each. The privately endowed University of Harvard
provides for 1052 subject courses and the State Uni-
versity of Minnesota for 1622 subject courses. The
figures for higher education given above do not
necessarily include the Technological Institutes and
the other Vocational and Trade and Industrial
Schools maintained by private endowments and
private agencies which train and educate hundreds
and thousands of students besides those receiving
education in regular High Schools and Universities,
nor do the figures include the numerous proprietary
Colleges and Schools maintained by individuals or
Associations for profit.
4. Sources of funds for education : The funds for
educational purposes are derived from the following
sources-
(1) Federal Revenues.
(2) State Revenues.
(3) City Funds.
(4) Private Endowments.
(5) Fees.
The income from (4) in some places far exceeds the
amount spent by the first three sources. The Ameri-
cans are most lavish in making gifts and giving
donations for educational purposes, and their gifts
amount to millions of dollars.
5. The responsibility of the State: But what
impressed me most was the responsibility assumed
by the Government for the education of every child
born in the country, male or female. The co-opera-
tion of private agencies, individuals and corpora-
tions is welcomed, but that does not relieve the
Government of its duty and responsibility. The
facilities provided by private agencies only supple-
ment what is being done by the various State and
City Governments in the performance of their Govern-
mental duty. For example, there are numerous
private agencies in the country for child welfare.
Their work begins with the care of expectant mothers
and extends to taking care of the child till it reaches
children's
a
its majority. The State maintains
Bureau as an integral part of its Labour Department
whose duty is "to investigate and report upon all
matters pertaining to the welfare of children and
child life," among all classes of the American people,
and which specially investigates the questions of infant
mortality, the birth rate, orphanage, Juvenile Courts,
desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and
diseases of children, employment, and legislation
affecting children in the several States and Terri-
tories comprised in the U. S. A. "This Department
has nothing to do with the Health Department
which is separate. It is maintained by the Federal
Government as a Federal Establishment and is in
close touch with all child welfare agencies, public
or private, Governmental or Municipal in the
different States and Territories of the U. S. A. The
Federal Government maintains complete statistics
of all children in the country wherever born, with
particulars as to their "sex, age, race, nationality,
parentage and geographical distribution." The
child welfare agencies keep a complete record of
children born in their respective spheres of activity
and follow them from the date of their birth up to
the date of their entering life as adults. These
agencies provide for visits to expectant mothers,
giving advice and help when needed with a view to
the welfare of the child when born. Then after birth,
these agencies teach the mother how to take care
of the child. Lady visitors and nurses visit the homes
and give advice to mothers free, where the family
is not in a position to pay. In cases beyond the
capacity of the nurse, medical aid and advice of a
superior kind is also provided for. Where the
child suffers for want of sufficient food or
unhealthy surroundings means are found to remedy
both. A complete and full history of every child is
thus preserved and he is followed wherever he goes
and whatever he does till he becomes adult. Before
he arrives at school going age he is thus looked after
by vigilant eyes and every help is rendered to the
parents in looking after his health and in bringing
him up. Food, clothing, pure air, recreation, kinder-
garten lessons, health literature for the mother,
medical aid are looked after and provided for. The
State and the City recognise these efforts and wher-
ever needed or required supplement them. As soon
as the child reaches the school age the State assumes
the responsibility for his education. He must attend
a public school. The education given to him is free.
Some States and Cities find everything for him free
of cost, books, paper, ink, slate, even food in case
when he is insufficiently fed at home. During this
time the State and the private agencies spare no
effort to see that he receives proper education, is
properly fed, clothed and housed, and that his
physical and moral development is normal and
sound. In case of abnormal children, called defec-
tives, special arrangements are made both for their
treatment and education. Special agencies have been
provided by the State, co-operating with philanthro-
phic organisations to look after the moral welfare of
school going children. There are Inspectors invested
with legal powers to watch children in the streets, in
smoking and drinking saloons and in similar resorts.
When caught they are brought before juvenile courts
and treated as parents would treat recalcitrant
children. The object is not to punish but to reform.
The State makes laws against the employment of
children in certain trades and industries or beyond cer-
tain hours whenever such employment is considered to
be dangerous or detrimental to his healthy (physical
or moral) development. There are regularly or-
ganised Associations or Leagues whose constant
and sole duty is to watch the child labour laws.
They keep a vigilant watch over legislation affecting
child labour, suggesting measures or amendments
modifications in the interests of the children.
Similarly, a close watch is kept on child employment
agencies including such needy parents as benefit
from the labour of their children. Sometimes children
have to be protected from their parents, if the latter
or
would "sweat" them, or would maltreat them, as
for example, by employing them in dangerous trades
or in immoral vacations or for employing them for
a longer number of hours than the law allows or
when they neglect to feed or clothe them and so on.
As soon as the child completes his school educa-
tion he is looked after by the agencies which help
him in prosecuting his studies further, in fitting
him for some industry or profession, in providing
means for the continuance of his studies during
leisure hours; in short in placing facilities or oppor-
tunities within his reach by which he may further
his prospects, make the most and get the best out
of himself. Schools and colleges follow their alumni
in life and help them by advice and otherwise in
their careers throughout life.
All this is done by the State or by the State
aided Agencies or by Agencies which have the fullest
sympathy of the State. The State and the Com-
munity recognise that the children of the nation
are their best and most valuable asset and that in
the wise handling of that asset lies their prosperity;
that the State and the Community owe it to them-
selves that every child should have the best training
for the battle of life; that he should have the best
possible or the best available training to develop
on healthy and sound lines physically, intellectually
and morally; in short that he individually should
be able to make the most of his life and the State
and the Community should also get the best and
the most out of him; and that this should be
achieved independently of the means and resources
of his parents or of himself. The State and the Com-
munity recognise that it is the birthright of every
child born in the United States to receive all possible
help from them towards that end; that his obliga-
tions and duties as a citizen only begin after his
birthright has been conceded to him. This leads
us to Vocational education.
6.
Vocational Education : The people in the
United States are just now almost mad about
vacational education. The idea is to fit every child
for some special occupation or business in life. The
whole superstructure of education is being more
and more built up on that supposition. The pro-
perty and the wealth of a Community depend on
the producing power of its members. To provide
for the development and increase of this producing
power is then the business and duty of the State
and the Community. This is done in two ways, i.e.,
by mechanical improvements and by the improve-
ments of the brains of the nation and by training
every child to do the best he or she can in producing
wealth. The object is individual prosperity as well
as national prosperity. Every one must specialise
for some trade or vocation or business or profession.
He must definitely know his place in the national
machinery and he must fit himself to fill that place
to the best advantage for himself and the nation.
This is achieved in various ways. First, each child
must receive kindergarten instruction. Kindergarten
schools are provided for by the State and are free.
Then each child is given a certain amount of manual
training as a part of his general education. The legs
46 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
and hands must get as much training as his mind
or memory. Drawing and modelling is a necessary
part of each child's education. Then he must receive
his elementary instruction in some trade. It may
be carpentry, smithing, bookbinding shoe-making
or something of that kind in the case of boys;
sewing, cooking, domestic economy (including wash-
ing table plate, laundry, table laying, attending at
table, decorating a house, keeping rooms neat and
tidy) in the case of girls. Gardening is taught to
both. Mathematics is a part of general education.
After completing his eighth grade course every child
has to decide or those looking after his education
have to decide whether he will prosecute his general
studies in the High School and then in the College,
preparatory to his having special or technical
instruction in the business of his life or whether he
will go in at once for the latter. If he chooses the
latter course, then he must choose his vocation and
join an institution which gives instruction in that
vocation. Here he receives both kinds of education,
general and vocational, but with special emphasis
on the latter. A child entering life after his elemen-
tary course, i.e., after only eight years of school
life, must remain an unskilled laborer unless and until
he learns a particular trade or a particular vocation.
Formerly this was mostly done by apprenticeship in
different trades. Now it is being done in schools and
colleges. The best and the highest interests of the
nation demand that the number of children who enter
life immediately after finishing the elementary school
education should be the lowest possible and that
:
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 47
every child should be trained to be a skilled laborer,
or an artisan or a handicraftsman. Between the
Elementary School educated and unskilled laborer
and the highly finished product of Technological Insti-
tutes or Universities, there is another class of
educational institutions which give specialised
instruction to the majority of the nation's boys and
girls in different vocations. These are called Vocation,
Trade, Business, Industrial, or Agricultural Schools.
Every kind of conceivable industry or trade or
business is taught in these schools. The Agencies
engaged in this work are State, State-aided, and
Private. The Federal Government and the different
States are spending colossal sums of money in
furthering the cause of vocational education. Every-
thing possible is being done to fix it on the mind of
the nation. In the Educational Exhibit placed by the
Federal Department of Education in the Panama
Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, I
found the following exhibited in big capital letters as
indicating the mind of the United States Federal
Government on the subject :
(1) "The State that fails to educate dooms its
children to industrial subjugation to those States
that do educate. More than once have nations lost
their land for lack of education.
Shall we prepare our children to hold this land ?"
(2) "Shall we equip an Industrial Army ?
The School, the University, the Laboratory and
the Workshop are the battlefields of this new warfare.
The weapons which science places in the hands of
those who engage in great rivalries of commerce
48 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
leave those who are without them, however brave, as
badly off as were the Derweshes of Omdurman
against the Maxims of Lord Kitchener. Shall our
children be Industrial Durweshes ?"
In order to emphasise the need of vocational and
industrial education the Congress of the United
States has sanctioned the following scale of grants for
furthering the cause of vocational education in the
country from the Federal Revenues.
(1) Towards the salaries of Teachers and
Directors and Supervisors of Agricultural
Education in 1916.
$500,000
(2) Towards the training of teachers of
Agriculture, Trade, Industrial and
Home Economic Industries in 1916. $500,000
(3) Towards the salaries of Teachers of
Trade and Industrial Schools in
1916.
$500,000
In the case of (1) & (3) this grant is increased by
$250,000 every year till it reaches the figure of 3
millions in 1924. That figure then becomes an annual
recurring figure.
Similarly in the case of (2) the figure is raised to
one million in three years and is then to be maintain-
ed as an annual figure.
This is in addition to or besides what the States
and Cities are doing or are expected to do in the
coming years.
Too much of a good thing: Some people are so
alarmed at the growing popularity of the Vocational
Education as to consider it necessary to sound a note
of occasional warning lest too much of a good thing
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 49
in that line undermines the spirit of democracy which
underlies the educational system of the United States.
Only the other day Dr. Wheeler, the President of the
University of California, an eminent educationist and
a man of very great influence and position in the
American world made the following remarks in a
speech he delivered at the Convention in San Fran-
cisco of the State Teachers' Association. He said :
"I am wondering too, whether this most recent
zeal of 'vocational training' with all the possibilities
of good, may not respond to the spirit of caste and
minister to it. As such it surely bears within it the
seeds of sin and destruction. Does it propose that
the life occupation of a child shall be determined for
it early in life? That means that children shall
follow mainly the crafts of their parents. It is the
old device of monarchial-aristrocratic Europe for
committing the young to manual and industrial
pursuits. It is the old derailing switch which can be
relied upon to shunt the children of laboring classes
out into the labor field at the age of 12 and shut
them off from the open road to highest attainment,
even though they have the talent and the will for it.
That is not democracy. It is just the opposite.
Democracy is the matter of free opportunity, a fair
field and equal chance. The teaching of a vocation
to young children, furthermore, does not provide
them with an equipment which will be available
in the handicraft and industries of real life. It is
misleading in making them think it does. The
instruction of later years is another thing."
"At the very heart of present day belief in educa-
tion is our people's faith in the common schools.
They have developed pari passu with our democracy.
Our people are persuaded that the maintenance of
our peculiar institutions of popular government is
dependent upon their existence, and the full and
successful working of these ese institutions upon their
efficiency."
4
7. Some special features of the American system:
There are some special features of the American
system of education which require mention.
a
(1) In the United States there do not exist any
special schemes for the sons of the wealthy people.
In this country there is no aristrocracy of birth. I
mean, no recognised aristocracy. The United States
Government confers no titles. But it is not in the
nature of things that there should be no grades
among men. The United States have men, who are
possessed of fabulous wealth. Its Rockefellers,
Carnegies, and Morgans can purchase Empires. Yet
their sons are educated in the same schools in which
the sons of the ordinary day laborers learn their
ABC. The expression "public school" carries
different meaning in this country from what it does
in the United Kingdom. The English Public School
is meant for the sons of the aristocracy-meaning
thereby the aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy
of wealth. Etons, Harrows, and Rugbys are the
places reserved for the education of the sons of the
aristrocrats. Their expensiveness alone excludes the
possibility of a commoner's son receiving education
therein. In the United States a public school means
a school open to all classes of the public and main-
tained from public funds, where all grades of American
society receive their instruction in the three Rs.
The only special classes of schools are the schools
for the children of Negroes, for Indians, for Defectives
and the religious schools maintained by sectarian
organizations.
(2) Another special feature of the American
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 51
system is that a very large part of the school educa-
tion is in the hands of women. Most of the grammar
schools, i.e., the eighth grade Elementary Schools,
are almost exclusively staffed by women. Even in
the High Schools the women are on the whole in
a majority. Out of a total of 564,460 teachers em-
ployed in schools 451,118, or over four-fifths are
females. Some people object to this preponderance
of females in the teaching profession. A German
Professor at the University of Harvard thinks that
this is likely to affect the manhood of the nation.
He seems to think that large or almost exclusive
contact with women in the most impressionable part
of a boy's life is likely to make him softer than is
desirable in the larger interests of the nation. So
far there are no signs of any lack of sternness in the
manhood of the nation; on the other hand, signs of
sternness and vigour are clearly visible in the
womanhood of the country. There can be no
manner of doubt that the women are the best
teachers for young children. They know how to
win their affection and esteem. They enforce obe-
dience by love. The discipline maintained or enforced
mainly by fear of the rod brutalises as well as
degrades human nature. We find ample evidences of
that in India.
(3) The American boys and girls study in the
same schools and colleges from the kindergarten
upwards. This is again a matter on which there
is some difference of opinion among educational
experts. The preponderance of opinion, however,
is in its favor. At every University where I ha
a
been, I have made that a special point of investiga-
tion. I have been assured everywhere that the
mixing of girls and boys in the same classes tends to
refine the manners of the boys and adds to the dignity
of the girls; that it inculcates habits of self-control
in both; and that it adds to the pleasure of studies.
The United States perhaps stands alone in the great
countries of the West in the extent and the manner of
enforcing this practice and I do not think there is
any ground for saying that sexual relations are
more loose or undesirable in the United States than
in Great Britain or Germany. The United States
certainly turns out
larger number of lady
University graduates than any other country in the
West and the women of the country make a material
contribution to the wealth, prosperity, and the
culture of the country. In fact, so far as the last is
concerned, one begins to feel that the woman is the
greater contributor of the two. The social and
philanthrophic activities are mostly guided and
controlled by women. The head of the Government
Bureau for the Welfare of Children is a woman-a
very able and very sweet woman. Similarly, religious
and ethical activities are mostly in the hands of
women. Men are generally busy in making dollars.
The women also contribute their share in that
business, but religions, ethics, charity, social science,
and philanthropy are very largely dominated by
women. The founder of the Christian Science Church
is a woman and that church is very powerful and
influential in this country. Most of the heads of the
social settlements in New York, Chicago and other
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 53
a
places are women. In the Theosophical and Vedanta
movements also it is women who take great interest.
Among the writers on the question of the day one
finds a good number of women. In the libraries, in
lectures, and other centres of culture one finds
preponderance of women. The prohibition move-
ment owes a great deal to the influence of women
and so does the movement for the segregation of
prostitutes and the abolition of the "red light"
districts. In short the women play a great and a
noble part in the life of the country, and this in
spite of the fact that a very large number lead a
frivolous and a purely gay life. But in this respect
men are no better than women. That is due to
general social conditions.
(4) That the American educational institutions
are centres of social life. School buildings are freely
used for social functions and public recreations, and
the various States and City Councils take special
interest in developing such a use of school and
college buildings. The school gymnasiums and play
grounds are open to the public on certain terms and
under certain conditions such as may not interfere
with their use by the school children. The halls and
other parts of the buildings are freely lent for lec-
tures, recitations, concerts, dances and other similar
functions. The provision for public recreations is
considered to be an important duty of the Education
Department and it is expected to report on the pro-
gress of the social movement from year to year. I
intend to describe in detail what is being done
in that respect in one city as an instance of the
54 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
interest that is being done in the matter by public
bodies.
(5) The games which are most popular in Ame-
rican schools and colleges are even more risky and
dangerous than those prevailing in England. Some
of them resemble very much the games that were
popular in rural Punjab in pre-British days. Inter-
school and inter-collegiate games and competitions
constitute a very important item of American life
and attract hundreds of thousands of spectators,
may be millions, at times.
(6) The American schools and colleges give every
possible encouragement to self-supporting boys and
girls. The authorities take interest in them and
allow them to complete their education by instal-
ments. For example, a student may work for six
months to earn money in order to enable him to study
the next six months and so on. Thus a very large
number of students prosecute their studies, who, other-
wise, would never have been educated. The students
are given jobs in the schools and colleges to earn
their board and tuition fees, where the latter is
charged; they are paid for work done in workshops;
they attend at table at dinner time; they sweep and
clean rooms; they work on playgrounds and in the
garden, etc. The best part of this is that such stu-
dents are not looked down upon either by the staff or
by their fellow students. The fact of their doing some
menial jobs in order to earn their tuition fees, in no
way interferes with their activities in the school, on
the playground or in social functions. Their posi-
tion among their fellow students depends solely on
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES
55
their personal merits and not on the position of their
parents.
(7) But the very best part of the American Edu-
cational System is the government of the students.
All schools and colleges are little republics in which
the internal affairs of the student community are
governed and administered by officers selected by
themselves. Every year the students of each Depart-
ment elect their officers and also a council which
regulates all matters relating to discipline. All com-
plaints of misconduct or misbehaviour are reported
to them and their decisions are reported to the head
of the Department for necessary action. Theore-
tically, the Head of the Department may or
may not act on the recommendation of the students'
council but in practice he must. The President of a
University or a College can interfere with a decision
of the students' committee no more than the King of
England can with the decision of the Cabinet. As I
am writing, an instance of this kind has just happen-
ed in the University of California. The Students'
Committee has convicted a student of an attempt to
steal and has recommended his expulsion. The stu-
dent has appealed to the President for a re-hearing.
The President has told him to put in his appeal.
Several Professors told me that the President can
not set aside the decision of the Committee. He,
however, in consultation with the faculty which
consists of the whole body of Professors and Assist-
ant Professors in the Department, may recommend
a rehearing, if he thinks that the case deserves a
reconsideration.
(8) Another special feature of American institu-
tions consists in the personnel of the Controlling
Agencies. Every University is controlled by a whole-
time President, who is a paid officer and attends
college just as other Professors do. The University is
managed by him in consultation with the faculty but
in most matters his decision is final. He in his turn
is controlled by a Board of Council of Trustees in the
case of private institutions and by a Board of
Management in the case of the State institutions.
The Presidents of the American Universities wield the
greatest possible influence on the public life of the
country. The present President of the United States
is a late President of Princeton University.
Under the University President are Deans of the
different faculties and the Heads of Departments.
Most of the Deans are whole-time officers who do no
teaching; the Heads of Departments, however, take
classes. Each subject constitutes a separate depart-
ment, for example, the Department of Political
Science, the Department of Sociology, the Depart-
ment of Chemistry, of Agriculture, of Mining and so
on. The Heads of schools are called Principals.
Very few Principals, if any at all, do teaching work.
The whole of their time is devoted to personal rela-
tions with the teachers, and the students, to co-
operation with the parents in looking after and ad-
vancing the interests of the students both in and out
of school, to seeing visitors, to creating interest in
the school in the community and to general adminis-
tration.
A typical Recreation Department: I propose to
1
:
1
:
EDUCATIΟΝ ΙΝ ΤHE UNITED STATES 57
close this chapter by an account of the activities of
the Recreation Department of the City of Oakland,
California. This will show what interest the State
takes in the physical development of its citizens and
its children.
Recreation Department, City of Oakland, Califor-
nia: Oakland is known as a city of homes, schools,
churches, factories and commerce, but when the day's
work is done her citizens may turn to abundant
opportunities for pleasure and recreation.
The average adult has from six to eight hours per
day of leisure time. That is, one-fourth to one-third
of one's lifetime. A large part of this time is given
over to amusement, recreation and play of various
sorts. Children spend an even greater part of their
time in this way.
Healthy and normal play and recreation make for
better and more efficient citizenship. Play is the im-
portant and vital part of a child's development, and
some form of recreation is also necessary to the adult
if he is to achieve his maximum power. Even the
old horse when turned out to pasture, plays and
frolics and returns to work with renewed ginger.
Oakland may well be called the City of Play-
grounds. The Oakland Recreation Department main-
tains thirty-eight playgrounds and recreation centers
the year round. Thirty of these are school yard
playgrounds and eight are large park recreation
centers. In addition to the playgrounds for children,
many sports and pastimes are provided for the
adults. The recreation grounds are becoming more
popular every day. Tennis, baseball, football, volley
58 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ball and folk dancing are the favorite sports for
grown-ups. Social center buildings are available for
club meetings, lectures, entertainments and dancing.
Each recreation center or playground is in charge of
trained supervisors whose duties are to lead and
protect the children in their play and to promote and
organise games, sports and other activities for all
patrons of the grounds.
All of these opportunities are under the manage-
ment of the Board of Playground Directors and are
free to the public. Good behaviour is the only pass-
word. The following are some of the principal
activities to be found in the recreation grounds:
Athletics: Both informal and organized athletic
games of all kinds are provided on the playgrounds.
A number of baseball leagues are conducted and any
boy who wishes to may engage in the national game.
There are ten public courts in Oakland, which receive
constant use during the leisure hours of the people.
The courts are frequently used for exhibition and
match games by expert players.
Several basketball courts are provided at each
playground and leagues organized in which as many
as five or six teams are entered from a single play-
ground. Volleyball is a new game but during the
past year has become very popular, During the fall
season football is given much attention.
Field and track meets are frequently held during
the spring season. Classifications, and events, are
provided in the above sports so that any amateur
may enter, regardless of age.
The following is the yearly athletic schedule of the
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 59
Oakland playgrounds. Participation in these events
is open and free to all :
Section 1. The games, sports and athletic events
on the playgrounds shall be classified as follows:
(a) Major Sports-Baseball, track and field
meets, soccer football, swimming, tennis, volley ball,
German bat ball, hand ball.
(b) Minor Sports-Basketball, rugby football.
Contestants in the minor sports shall be classified
according to weight; while contestants in major
sports shall be classified as follows:
12 years of age; 4 ft., 10 in. in height.
13 years of age; 5 ft., in height.
Bantams:
Midgets:
Intermediates: 15 years of age; 5 ft., 5 in. in height.
Juniors :
Seniors :
17 years of age; 5 ft., 10 in. in height.
Under 21 years and no height qualifi-
cations, or older by agreement.
Section 2. Playground games, sports and athletic
events, in accordance with the seasons, shall be play-
ed as follows:
1. Spring sports shall start the 15th of March
and end with the close of school, and shall include:
Baseball: To begin the first Saturday in April.
Individual athletic tests: to be conducted from
March 15th until the holding of the track meet.
Track meet: to be held in the latter part of April.
2. Summer sports shall start with the beginning
of the summer vacation and end with the opening of
school.
Baseball.
Tennis tournament.
3. Fall sports shall start with the opening of
60 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
school and close with the beginning of the Christmas
vacation.
Swimming meet-Last Saturday in August.
Handball tournament-September 1st.
Rugby football-September 1st.
Basketball-For the 80, 95, 110 and 120 pound
classes to start October 15th.
4. Winter sports shall start with the Christmas
vacation and end March 15th.
Soccer football.
Basketball for the 130, 145 and unlimited classes.
This schedule applies to the large formal leagues
only. Literally hundreds of other varieties of games
are played all the year round.
Gymnasium. Outdoor gymnasium apparatus is
provided on nearly all the playgrounds. Here the
supervisors instruct on the rings, bars and in tumbl-
ing, wrestling, etc.
Manual Training. On several of the recreation
grounds opportunities for boys' and girls' occupation
work are offered. Model building, clay modelling,
basketry and raffia are the principal branches taught.
Small Children's Department. Supervisors are re-
quired to teach a great number of circle, singing and
running games for the benefit of small children com-
ing to the playgrounds. Story-telling hours are
occasionally held when professional story-tellers from
the Oakland Library Department come and entertain
the children with tales of adventure, fairies, and folk-
lore. The sand box is always in evidence and is well
patronized by the little tots.
Folk Dancing. Folk dancing is an important
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 61
department for girls and small children. Almost
every day on each playground classes are held and
the children learn to dance the folk dances of the old
and new world.
Clubs. A favorable method for handling groups
on the recreation grounds is by organizing them
into clubs for various purposes. There are outdoor
women's clubs for the mothers, older sisters and
friends of the children, groups of Campfire Girls
for girls between twelve and eighteen years of age,
Blue Bird groups for girls under twelve, boys' clubs
formed for numerous purposes, and dramatic clubs.
The clubs are organized with a president, secretary
and various committees and are responsible for their
own activities with such assistance as may be given
them by the supervisors.
Any person may join a club by vote of the
members, or new club may be organized when a
large enough group is formed.
Field Houses. The field houses on the various
playgrounds are equipped with shower baths,
dressing rooms, toilets, lavatories and lockers.
Clean towels are supplied for the shower baths.
There is also maintained on each playground a
supply of athletic materials, such as baseballs,
footballs, basketballs, bats and games. These
supplies are issued to the patrons very much in the
same manner as books are issued from the Public
Library, except that all supplies must be used on
the playground and must be returned before closing
time each day. All these facilities are free to the
public.
62 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Recreation Center Buildings. Several recreation
center buildings are maintained by the department
and are equipped with halls, game rooms, committee
meeting rooms and dressing rooms. These buildings
are used for club meetings, dramatics, entertainments,
games and social purposes. Free permits for the
use of these buildings may be obtained by any
responsible organization which will comply with
the rules and regulations.
In the six months of the year 1915 this depart-
ment maintained 38 grounds, and spent about one
lakh and thirty thousand rupees in the maintenance
of these grounds and about a lakh of rupees on
their improvements. During these six months well
nigh seven lakhs of persons attended these play-
grounds. The City of Oakland is by no means one
of the biggest cities of the United States. Its popula-
tion is a little over 200,000.
The ideal aimed at can be gathered from the
following standard laid down for each locality by
the Federal Bureau of Child Welfare and exhibited
at the Exposition.
Public play and recreation demand four centers.
(1) Play Retreats for each city block for mothers
and children under 7.
(2) Play Centers around grade schools of boys
and girls.
(3) Athletic and Game Centers under Public
Recreation Department for older boys and girls.
(4) Social Recreation Centers for evening recrea-
tion of older people.
Every Government in Europe and America insists
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 63
on States and cities making ample provision for
public playgrounds and recreation centers. The
smallest school has a playground and a gymnasium.
Public parks, public baths and public swimming
tanks abound in every part of the most crowded
cities like London, Berlin, Paris, New York, Chicago,
etc. and the Cities and States have spent millions
of pounds and dollars in making them and keeping
them in good condition, but a Public Recreation
Department is perhaps a special feature of American
life.
A WARNING.
The preceding account of education in the United
States might lead my readers to suppose that
America must be a paradise on earth, entirely free
from sin, poverty, squalour, immorality and physical
degeneration. By no means so. So far as sin and
immorality are concerned, America has as much of
it as any of the community on the face of the earth;
poverty and squalour perhaps she has less; physical
degeneration perhaps the least. The fact is that
considering the elements which make up her popula-
tion she might be very much worse but for the care
she takes in looking after the education, and moral
and physical welfare of her children. Her education-
al system is her saving and well might the other
communities of the world take a leaf out of her book
if they want to improve the intelligence, the morals
and the physique of their people. The children of a
nation are her capital and in the proper investment
of that capital consists her prosperity and life.
64 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
There is at least one State in the United
States where they have abolished examinations
altogether. Students are promoted and transferred
from grade to grade, from school to school and from
school to University on the certificates of teachers.
No examinations are held. Certificates of graduation
are, however, issued. I have omitted from this
article all mention of education among the Negroes,
education among the Indians and education in
dependencies. These I propose to deal with in
separate chapters.
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: II
In the last Chapter, I have given some facts and
figures for the whole country. In this I propose to
supplement the information by a few additional
facts and figures for the whole country and then
give an account of the educational activities of the
City of New York. What is being done for educa-
tion in the City of New York is with some slight
variations being done in all the principal cities of
the United States. My object in giving this informa-
tion is to provide data for the guidance of those
engaged in furthering the cause of education in our
big cities.
Some more general facts and figures :-
I have before me a publication containing the
results of a comparative study of Public School
systems in the 48 States of the Union up to 1910.
The first diagram shows the number of children of
school age in public schools, in private schools, not
in any school, in each State. School age in the
United States, is the period between 5 and 18 years.
The diagram shows that in some States over 90
per cent of the children of school age attend school.
There is only one State in which the figures fall
below 60, viz., 55. There are six States where the
figure is less than 70.
5
66 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The next diagram shows the school revenues of
each State. The maximum figure is of over 16 crores
of rupees raised and spent in the State of New York.
There are only 5 States, mostly in the extreme
South, where the revenues are less than 30 lakhs of
rupees, though nowhere is it less than 17 lakhs of
rupees. That was in 1910. Since then much progress
has been made in the Southern States as well.
The compiler of the report remarks: "Our expen-
ditures for public education have more than doubled
in the past ten years, no other investment produces
so large a return. More money means better schools.
Better schools mean more efficient citizens. More
efficient citizens produce more money." Again he
adds: "A free common school education is the com-
mon birth right of every American child and this is
provided for by the taxation of property without
reference to whether the owner has children to be
educated or not. American experience shows that
school tax legislation should provide
(a) Sufficient local taxation to encourage local pride
and initiative,
(b) Sufficient State taxation (provincial revenue)
to equalise educational advantages by aiding
poorer communities,
(c) A distribution of school funds based both on
the number of teachers employed and the aggre-
gate days of attendance of the school children,
(b) The stimulation of progress through additional
grants to communities providing such advan-
tages as continuation schools, evening schools,
playgrounds, medical inspection.
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES : II 67
The third diagram shows the comparative invest-
ment made by each State in school plant. This varies
from 345 Rs. per child in Massachusets to Rs. 12 per
child in Mississippi. The Southern states containing
the bulk of the Negroes again show a bad record.
There are not more than 10 States altogether where
the expenditure per child on school plant is less than
50 Rs. The figure is arrived at by taking the total
value of the public schools of a State together with
their sites and equipment and dividing that sum by
the number of children of school age in that State. So
the value of school plant shown in the diagram does
not represent per child in school. That would
necessarily be higher in States where the number of
children of school age, not in school, is the largest.
Then comes the expenditure per child of school
age. Again note, it is not the actual expenditure per
child in school, that would be higher. At the head
of the diagram is a State that spends 90 Rs. per child
of school age within its borders. At the low end is
one which spends 9 Rs. per child.
Then comes information about compulsory edu-
cation legislation. At present 36 States of the
Union have passed laws in favour of compulsory
education. In six others education is compulsory
only in parts. There are only six States which have
made no laws at all.
There are some States which spend from 2 to 4
per cent of their total wealth (estimated total value
of all real personal property in the State) on
education.
The average annual salary paid to public school
68 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
teachers in the United States as a whole is 485
dollars, i.e., about 1500 Rs. There are hardly any
teachers that get much less than 450 Rs. a
year, but as compared with the average wages of
a skilled and unskilled labourer, these figures are
very low.
In 1910 there were only 77 in a thousand illiter-
ates in the United States among persons of 10 years
of age or more. In some States the figure is as low
as 1.7 or 2 or 3 in a hundred. Only in one State
is it higher than 25, i.e. 29. Only in 4 is it higher
than 20.
In 1910 there were 12 States that supplied free
Free Text Books.
text books throughout their public
elementary schools and in most cases
in their high schools. In 15 States the laws provide
for free books in all except certain districts of the
State.
Medical inspection of school children in the
United States was begun in Boston in 1894. So
rapidly and convincingly did the movement establish
itself that it was soon provided for by laws in the
more progressive States. Seven States have passed
mandatory laws, ten have passed permissive laws
and in two States and in the District of Columbia
Medical inspection is carried on under regulations
having the force of laws.
The movement for the medical inspection of school
children is a world-wide movement. Laws provid-
ing for medical inspection are needed because ex-
tended experience has demonstrated that efficient
medical inspection betters health conditions among
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES : II 69
school children, safeguards them from disease
and renders them healthier, happier and more
vigorous.
Every such law makes provision for frequent in-
spection of children by duly qualified school physi-
cians (a) to detect and exclude cases of contagious
disease, (b) to detect any physical defects which
may prevent the children from receiving the full
benefit of their school work or which require that
the work be modified to avoid injury to the child.
It empowers school physicians to examine teachers
and servants and inspect buildings, premises, and
drinking water to insure their sanitary condition.
In addition school nurses are provided, because they
are the most valuable adjunct of medical inspection
and the most efficient link between the schools and
the homes.
The main ideas that underlie all this educational
activity are thus briefly summarised :
(a) People are more important than things. The
merchant, the artisan and the farmer are more
important than the store, the tool, and the
plough. So is education more important than
any mere pecuniary interest or industry.
(b) In the school of the future, compulsory educa-
tion will spell compulsory health.
(c) All children should be trained for, not away
from, the economic age in which we live.
(d) The object of education is to develop physical
health, enhance economic efficiency and increase
intellectual vigour.
Education in the City of New York (1913).
(a)
In 1913 the city had a population of about 54
lakhs. It had a population of 13 lakhs between 5
and 18 years of age, 61.11 per cent of which was
enrolled in the schools. To what extent the city is
growing may be gathered from the fact that in one
year its population increased by two lakhs. But
while the increase in population was only 3.86 per
cent, the increase in Public Schools was 14.97 per
cent. The total enrolment in the year was 8 lakhs.
Attendance on register for boys 89.77, for girls 89.13
per cent.
(b)
School attendance (not enrolment) according to
grades.
Kindergartens
Elementary Schools
High Schools
Training Schools
Vocational Schools
31,396
6,29,999
45,059
1932
985
On the 30th June 1913 there were, besides the
above, 81,495 pupils receiving part-time education.
Besides the whole-time and the part-time schools,
there are 123 evening schools with an enrolment of
1½ lakhs of pupils and 1988 teachers. Then there
are 3 summer evening schools for foreigners with
4703 pupils; 33 vacation schools with average daily
attendance of 26898. Besides these the department
of public instruction has 217 vacation playgrounds
and 56 Evening Recreation centres. The aggregate
attendance at the former stood at 60% lakhs with
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: II 71
an average daily attendance of 133,035 pupils and
1853 teachers. At the latter, about 25 lakhs attend-
ed with an average daily attendance of 21,399 pupils
and 265 teachers.
:
The Department organised 5398 lectures at 172
centers which were attended by about 112 lakhs city
of persons. The Elementary School Libraries in the
of New York alone, have 5,13,300 volumes in Class
Libraries and 148,219 in Reference Libraries, over
and above 93,234 volumes in High School Libraries.
The superintending and the teaching staff is ás
below :-
MEN. WOMEN. TOTAL.
Superintendents
33
2
35
Directors of Special Branches
5
4
9
Assistant Directors of Special
Branches
3
6
9
Inspectors and Asstt. Inspectors 3
6
9
High School Principals
20
0
20
High School Teachers
869
921
1,790
Training School Principals,
2
1
3
Training School Teachers,
23
86
109
Vacation School Principals
and Teachers
11
10
21
Elementary School Principals
217
196
413
Not engaged in teaching
Asstt. Principals,
18
441
459
Elementary school teachers 1,133 14,151 15,284
Special teachers of special
branches,
148 341 489
Kindergarten
0
848
848
Total 2,485 17,013 19,498
72 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
At the end of the year, 20,128 were engaged in the
work of teaching in the City of New York.
Notes-Superintendents, Directors, Asstt. Directors,
Principals and Asstt. Principals do no teaching work.
The State of New York alone, awards 750 scholar-
ships for Collegiate studies, on the results of High
School examinations which are tenable for four years.
Medical inspection of school children is at present
conducted by the Health Department, but it is under
consideration to establish a separate Department of
School Hygiene with a full complement of physicians
and nurses. In connection with evening schools
special lunch rooms and kitchen facilities have been
opened to provide cheap suppers for pupils who come
to evening schools for their occupations without
having time to go to their homes for an evening
meal. Social and recreation centers are maintained
in connection with evening schools.
Classes for Defectives.
Special classes are maintained for the training of
children who are mentally or physically defective.
These include Mental defectives, Cripples, Blind,
Deaf & Dumb, Anæmic and those suffering from
Tuberculosis and infectious Eye Diseases. 140 such
classes existed in the city of New York in the year
1912-13.
I have already said that school buildings and
school gymnasiums are open to the use of the public
through social centres, and recreation centres. The
following facts and figures will show how and to
what extent it is done in the city of New York.
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES : II 73
Playgrounds are kept open during the summer
months when the regular schools are closed.
In 1912-13, 111 schools allowed their indoor play-
grounds to be used in the summer months. Over 37
lakhs of attendances were recorded. Seventy schools
were used by mothers and babies. The aggregate
attendances figured to over 11 lakhs. Sixteen schools
had open-air playgrounds open to the public. Aggre-
gate attendance came to over 3 lakhs. In six Kin-
dergartens the aggregate attendance was 44513 and
in 14 evening Roof playgrounds 834,801. In 56
evening recreation centres the aggregate attendance
was about 25 lakhs.
What is a Social Centre.
The social centre is managed chiefly by committees
of citizens who are not officially connected with the
schools, while the recreation centre is exclusively
under the jurisdiction of teachers. The recreation
centre with its games, athletics, study rooms, gym-
nastics, folk dancing, etc., appeals chiefly to young
people, while the social centre appeals to persons of
all tastes and all ages.
Among the many activities of these social centers
in 1912-13 were the organisation and training of
orchestras, musical clubs, social dancing, the holding
of political meetings by all political parties, the
delivery of lectures to parents on social and economic
subjects, the giving of popular concerts, amateur
dramatics, the holding of exhibitions and the
organisation of all sorts and conditions of clubs for
social, intellectual and recreation purposes.
The State also maintains a nautical school for
training in navigation. The School was established
on board the Saint Mary, a ship owned by the
"National Government." Several members of the
staff of instructors were detached for the purpose by
the Secretary for the Navy. Tuition was free, the
only expenses to the students being for necessary
clothing at the time of admission. The total
number of students on roster in 1912 was 102.
Expenditure on Public Education in the City
of New York in 1912-13.
The total amount spent was 12 crores (in rupees).
The average cost per capita from General and Special
Funds (not including the Bond account) based on
average daily attendance was 155 Rs., i.e.. about
13 Rs. per child per month. The average cost in
Elementary Schools was 115, in High Schools 315,
in Training Schools 468 and in Vocational Schools
279 per pupil.
Note-The per capita cost of supplies alone
in the High Schools was Rs. 30
in Training Schools over
36
"
The per capita cost of a pupil
in vocational schools over,,
260
Per capita cost in a Trade School
for girls was
336
"
in the nautical school was
3000
"
"
"
in the evening schools
Elementary
36
"
High Schools
90
"
Vacation Schools
9
"
Vacation playgrounds
3
"
Evening Roof
"
212
Evening recreation centers
"
132
Truant Schools
609
"
EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES : II 75
Conclusion.
The information given above relates only to
Public Schools. Private denominational schools are
not included in it, nor are the Colleges and Universi-
ties, of which there are a large number in the city
both for boys and girls. It would be seen how vital
a part of civic life the Public Schools of New York
are and what huge amounts of money are spent
on them. If one were to include all that is done
for education by the State, the charitable endow-
ments and private benefactions in the city of New
York alone, the total cost of education in the city
of New York might well nigh come up to very near
25 crores of rupees per year, if not more.
Colleges & Universities-General Statistics.
The total number of Universities, Colleges and Tech-
nological Schools in the United States in 1913
was 596.
The total number of Instructors and Professors en-
gaged in them were, men 24,982, women 5,913.
The total number of Students in 1913-men 216,626,
women 118593.
Total receipts for educational
purposes exclusive of addi-
93,545,381
dollars
tion to Endowments
or say about 38
crores in Rupees.
The Libraries in these insti-
tutions contained
17211649
bound volumes
The buildings were valued at 260,353,851 dollars
i.e., over 78 crores in rupees.
Value of scientific apparatus
and machinery was esti-
mated at
Productive funds in endow-
ments figured at
64,204,619
dollars
or say roughly about
20 crores in rupees.
350,038,287
i.e., over 105 crores in rupees.
To this were added benefactions of 16045474
dollars, i.e., roughly speaking of the value of a little
less than 55 crores of rupees in the year 1912.
Over seventy-five of these Universities or Colleges
are State institutions on which the States spend
millions of dollars every year. Some are maintained
out of city funds; others are private or denomina-
tional institutions. The total income (from all
sources) of the University of Columbia, which is a
private institution, is a little over 67 lakhs of
dollars (or over 2 crores of rupees), that of Harvard,
another private University, is about 90 lakhs of
rupees. The University of Wisconsin, a State
University, has a similar income. The University of
Chicago, another private University, has an income
of over a crore a year, and the University, of Illinois,
a State institution, above 85 lakhs. Both of these
Universities are situated in the same State.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
One of the things that prompted me to pay a
second visit to the United States of America, was
my desire to study the Negro problem on the spot
and to acquaint myself with the methods that are
being adopted for the education and uplift of the
Negro population of these States.
The Negro is the PARIAH of America. There is
some analogy between the Negro problem in the
United States of America and the problem of the
depressed classes in India. The two cases are not
on all fours with each other, but there is a great
deal common in both. The social problem in the
United States is in some of its phases very similar
to the social problem in India. Hence my desire to
study it in all its bearings on the spot and to come
into contact with the Negro leaders in these States,
so as to know their point of view by first-hand
knowledge.
In this chapter I do not propose to discuss all the
phases of the social problem in the United States of
America, nor even those relating to or affecting the
Negro. For the present I intend to confine myself to
the education of the Negro and to the efforts that
are being put forth by Negroes as well as such among
the white people as are favourably disposed towards
78 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the race. I propose to give a brief sketch of the his-
tory of education among the Negroes of the United
States of America.
It should be remembered that the vast bulk of
the Negroes that are to be found in the U. S. A.,
were brought here as slaves, or, to be more accurate,
their ancestors, who originally came to this country,
were slaves. It was after the civil war of 1860
that they were freed and slavery was abolished for
good from all the States of the Union. During the
period of slavery, literacy among the slaves was
systematically discouraged; nay, in some cases it was
positively prohibited. For example, in the state
of Alabama, the law of 1832 provided that "any
person or persons that shall attempt to teach any
free person of colour, or slave, to spell, read, or
write, shall upon conviction thereof by indict-
ment be fined in a sum of not less than $250
(equivalent to 750 rupees) & not more than $500."
Similarly in 1833, "the mayor and aldermen
of the city of Mobile were authorized by law to
grant licence to such persons as they might deem
suitable to instruct for limited periods the free
colored creole children within the city, and in the
counties of Mobile and Baldwin, who were the
descendants of colored Creoles residing in said city
and counties in April 1803, provided that such
children first receive permission to be taught from
the mayor and aldermen and have their names
recorded in a book kept for the purpose." This
signifies that other Negroes besides the Creoles
mentioned above were not permitted to receive any
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
79
sort of education. This exception was made in
favor of the Creoles, as set forth in the preamble of
the law, because there were many colored there,
whose ancestors under the treaty between France
and the United States in 1803, had the rights and
privileges of the citizens of the United States
secured to them.
In Georgia, the following law was enacted in
1829: "If any slave Negro, or free person of color, or
any white person, shall teach any other slave Negro,
or free person of color to read or write either written
or printed characters, the said free person of color,
or slave, shall be punished by fine and whipping, or
fine or whipping, at the discretion of the court; and
if a white person so offend, he, she, or they, shall be
punished with a fine not exceeding $500 (1500
rupees) and imprisonment in the common jail, at
the discretion of the court." In 1833, the city of
Savannah adopted an ordinance "that if any person
shall teach or cause to be taught any slave or free *
person of color to read or write within the city, or
shall keep a school for that purpose, he or she shall
be fined in a sum not exceeding $100 (300 rupees)
for each and every such offence, and if the offender
be a slave or a free person of color, he or she may
also be whipped not exceeding thirty-nine lashes."
Even before the emancipation that came about between
1860 and 1865 A. D., there were some Negroes that were free.
At that time the colored population consisted of the following
classes: (a) Negro slaves, (b) freed Negroes, (c) colored persons
who were the offsprings of white people from Negro women,
either freed or slaves; these were called Mulattoes (from mule)
or colored persons.
In 1828, the State of Florida passed an act to
provide for the establishment of common schools,
but white children only of a specified age were
entitled to school privileges.
In the State of Delaware a law was passed in
1863 against all assemblages for the instruction of
colored people.
In Kentucky, the school system was established
in 1830. In this provision the property of colored
people was included in the basis of taxation, but
they were excluded from school privileges.
By an act of January 1813, the legislature of
Mississippi provided that the meeting of slaves and
Mulattoes above the number of five at any place or
public resort or meeting house in the night, or at
any school house for teaching, reading, or writing
in the day or night, was to be considered an unlaw-
ful assembly.
The legislature of Missouri in 1847 provided that
no person should teach any schools for Negroes or
Mulattoes.
In 1740 South Carolina enacted "that all and any
person or persons whatsoever, who shall hereafter
teach or cause any person of color, slave or slaves,
to be taught, or shall use or employ any slaves as
scribe in any manner of writing whatever, hereafter
taught to write, every such person or persons shall
for every such offence forfeit the sum of £100
(1500 rupees) current money." In 1800 free colored
people were included in this provision. In 1836 it
was provided that "if any person shall hereafter
teach any slave to read or write, or cause or procure
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
81
any slave to be taught to read or write, such person,
if a free white person, upon conviction thereof shall,
for each and every offence against this act, be fined
not exceeding $100 and (suffer) imprisonment not
exceeding six months; or if a free person of color,
shall be whipped not exceeding 50 lashes."
Similar punishment was also provided for all free
persons of color or slaves keeping schools or places
of instruction for teaching any free person of color
or slave to read or write.
Similarly the general assembly of Virginia, in
1831, declared that "all meetings of free Negroes or
Mulattoes at any schoolhouse, church, meetinghouse,
or other place for teaching them reading or writing
either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext,
shall be deemed an unlawful assembly."
I have picked out a few of the typical Southern
States, where slavery existed until the war of eman-
cipation abolished it. In the Free States of the
North, the Negro had a "more picturesque and ex-
citing educational experience. The Northern States
did not expressly forbid the education of colored
persons, but the hostility to such movements is
attested by many a local outbreak."
"It was amid such dangers and difficulties," conti-
nues Dean Kelly Miller of the Harvard University
in his book of Race Adjustment, "that the Negro
began his educational career. It must not be
for a moment supposed, however, that the laws
above referred to were rigidly enforced. It is
known that the pious and generous slaveholders
quite generally taught their favorite slaves to
6
read, regardless of the inexorable provisions of law.
Quite a goodly number also learned the art of
letters somewhat after the furtive method of Frederick
Douglass; in the cities, schools for Negroes were
conducted in avoidance, connivance, or defiance of
ordinances and enactments." The account of how
Douglass learnt the art of letters is so interesting
that I cannot resist the temptation of giving
the following long quotation from his autobio-
graphy. He says :
"The most interesting feature of my stay here (in
Baltimore) was my learning to read and write
under somewhat marked disadvantage.
My
mistress, checked in her benevolent designs towards
me, not only ceased instructing me herself, but set
her face as a flint against my learning to read by
any means.
a
"She would rush to me with the utmost fury and
snatch the book or paper from my hand with some-
thing of the wrath and consternation which
traitor might be supposed to feel on being dis-
covered in a plot by some dangerous spy. The convic-
tion once thoroughly established in her mind, that
education and slavery were incompatible with each
other, I was most narrowly watched in my move-
ments. If I remained in a separate room from the
family for a considerable time, I was sure to
be suspected of having a book and was at once
called to give an account of myself...
"The plan which I mainly adopted... was that
of using my white playmates, with whom I met
in the streets, as my teachers. I used to carry almost
constantly a copy of Webster's spelling book in my
pocket and when sent on errands or when playtime
was allowed me, I would step aside with my young
friends and take a lesson in spelling."
The following will explain how he learnt to write :
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
83
was
"I was much in the shipyard, and observed
that the carpenters after hewing and getting ready a
piece of timber to use, wrote on it the initials of the
name of that part of the ship for which it
intended. When for instance a piece of timber was
ready for the starboard side, it was marked with
a capital S; a piece for larboard was marked L;
larboard aft was marked L.A; starboard aft S.A;
starboard forward S.F. I soon learned these letters
and for what they were placed on the timbers. My
work now was to keep fire under the steambox and
to watch the ship yard while the carpenters had
gone to dinner. This interval gave me a fine opportu-
nity to copy the letters named... With playmates
for my teachers, fences and pavements for my copy-
books and chalk for my pen and ink, I learned to
write."
The reader will thus observe the educational
difficulties and restrictions under which the Negro
laboured before the Civil War. In the face of these
difficulties it is very creditable to the race that in
1850, 32,627 of them were attending schools in both
free and slave States, and in 1865, when emancipa-
tion came, "there was to be found in every Southern
community a goodly sprinkling of colored men and
women who had previously learned how to read
and write."
But in the language of Dean Miller, broadly
speaking, it might be said that fifty years ago the
systematic education of the Negro race in the United
States began near the absolute zero point of
ignorance. "The real intellectual awakening of the
race," adds he, "began with the overthrow of
slavery. When the smoke of war had blown away,
when the cessation of strife proclaimed the end
of the great American conflict...there emerged from
the wreck and ruin of war 4,000,000 of human
chattels, who were transformed, as if by magic in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye from slavery
to freedom, from bondage to liberty, from death unto
life. These people were absolutely ignorant and
destitute. They had not tasted of the tree of
knowledge... Ignorance, poverty and vice, the trinity
of human wretchedness, brooded over this degraded
mass and made it pregnant............. At that time not
only the policy, but the possibility of educating the
Negro was in the bonds of dialectic doubt and denial.
It was the generally accepted dogma of that day
that the Negro was not amenable to the intellectual
and moral regime applicable to the white child. The
institution of slavery made requisition upon the
Negro's physical faculties alone, and therefore the
higher susceptibilities of his nature were ingeniously
denied and prudently suppressed. Ordained intell-
ectual and moral inferiority is the only valid justifica-
tion of political and social subordination. Hence,
this became the ultimate dogma of the pro-slavery
propaganda...... It was deemed dangerous to commu-
nicate to the despised Negro the mystic symbols of
knowledge which reveal all the hidden secrets of
civilization. This policy was based upon the well-
founded fear of primitive jealousy "lest he should
stretch forth his hand and partake of the tree of
knowledge and become as one of us." All this was
however doomed, when the law put the Negro on an
equal footing with his hitherto master, the white
man. The emancipation brought him equality and
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
85
liberty and his desire for the acquisition of knowledge
which was so long suppressed, found an outlet and
opportunity in the schools and colleges established
by the religious and benevolent associations of those
who had won liberty for him, viz., the people of the
Northern States. "The missionaries who first came
down from the North," says Dean Miller, "were not
generally educators according to the requirements of
the modern education. They brought the technical
terms of knowledge in their left hand. In their right
hand they brought religion, culture, civilization."
Almost all the institutions for higher education,
high schools and colleges, that exist in the South for
the education of the Negro were founded by these
religious and missionary organizations or by other
benevolent associations of the North. According
to Dean Miller, "if we should subtract from the
development of Negro life the influence contributed
and attributable to these much berated Negro col-
leges and universities, the remainder would be
niggardly indeed."
The educational facilities open to the Negro at
the present moment may be summarized as below :-
In the North, all the universities, high schools
and common schools are open to the Negro and he
has the same facilities for education as other child-
ren have.
In the South, the ordinary colleges and schools
maintained by the State for the white children are
not open to the Negro. White children are not
allowed to mix with colored.
The colleges which impart university education
to the Negro on the Arts side are generally denomina-
tional institutions maintained and managed by
denominational organizations. They are in some
cases aided by the States, in others not. The Howard
University at Washington is one of the state-aided
universities, where about 1800 Negro students,
male and female, receive high education.
Similarly the Atlanta University for colored
people used to be a State-aided institution until the
grant made to it by the State was stopped on the
ground that it admitted white students also. The
story may be briefly told as follows: Some years ago
when the State committee came to inspect the uni-
versity, they found that among the students were
two or three white children. The committee called
upon the principal to refuse admission to white
children as they disliked white children being brought
up along with the Negroes. The principal refused to
agree to this proposition and the State Committee
recommended a discontinuance of the State grant,
which was accordingly done.
At Atlanta, there is another university for the
higher education of Negroes called the Morehouse
College, and presided over by a very able graduate of
Harvard, himself a colored person. This is a purely
unaided institution. Similar institutions founded
and maintained principally by Northern philanthropy
or denominational organizations are to be found in
almost every important city in the South, but the
States do little for the higher education of the
Negroes as compared with the provision they make
for the higher education of the white children.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
87
This is due to the reaction that followed the boom
of the emancipation days. For some years the
Southern States have been actively engaged in
disenfranchising the Negro and reducing his influence
on the elections. In some States educational quali-
fications have been fixed so high as to exclude most
educated Negroes from the register.
In 1911, the Atlanta University published a book
containing the results of an investigation made by
them into the educational position of the Negroes in
the United States. On the strength of the evidence
collected in this book, the following conclusions were
then drawn and laid before a conference of Negro
leaders, who passed resolutions recalling the atten-
tion of the authorities to the facts elicited by this
investigation:
1. That the overwhelming majority of Negro
children of school age are not in school.
2. That the chief reason for this is the lack of
school facilities; and a further reason is the poverty
and ignorance of parents.
3. That those Negro children who are in school
are as a rule poorly taught by half-prepared and
poorly paid teachers and through short terms of
three to six months a year.
4. That the schoolhouses and equipment for
Negro schools are for the most part wretched and
inadequate.
5. That the Negro schools as a rule receive little
or no helpful superintendence from the school author-
ities.
6. That the result and apparently one of the
objects of disfranchisement has been to cut down the
Negro school fund, bar out competent teachers, lower
the grade and efficiency of the course and study and
employ as teachers in the Negro schools those willing
tools who do not and will not protest or complain.
7. That in the attempt to introduce much needed
and valuable manual and industrial training there
has been introduced into the curriculum of the Negro
common school a mass of ill-considered, unrelated
work which has over-burdened the teacher and
pushed into the background the vital studies of read-
ing, writing and arithmetic. In a large measure this
has been done with the avowed object of
training Negroes as menials and laborers and of
cutting them off from the higher avenues
life.
of
8. That the forward movement in education in
the South during the last ten years has been openly
confined almost entirely to white people. The move-
ment for local school taxes, better high schools, con-
solidation of schools and transportation of children
has with small exception been encouraged and made
possible among the whites and not among the
Negroes. In many cases the Negroes have been taxed
for the improvement of white school facilities, while
their own schools have not been allowed to share in
these improvements.
9. That along with this curtailment of element-
ary public education for Negroes has gone a tendency
to decry the work of those schools which are devoted
to the higher training of the Negro youth, to lower
their curricula, to cut off northern benevolence and to
MAJOR J. B. RAMSEY
Commandant, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
i
}
:
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
89
decrease the supply of intellectual leaders for the
Negro race.
Yet in spite of these complaints I am of opinion
that, generally speaking, the Negro has better and
larger facilities for education than the Indians have
in their own country. Dean Miller, so often quoted
in this paper, has thus summarized the results of the
last fifty years of Negro education:
(1)-"In the first place," he says, "it has settled
for all times the Negro's capacity to comprehend the
rudiments, as well as the higher reaches, of know-
ledge and apply them to the tasks of life.
(2)-"In the second place, the colleges and univer-
sities have furnished the teachers, doctors, lawyers,
editors, and general leaders, who are now directing
the activities of the Negro people and stimulating
them to higher and nobler modes of life."
(3)--"In the third place, the illiteracy of the race
has been cut down to 45 per cent., which marks the
most marvellous advance in the technical elements
of knowledge in the annals of human progress."
There is another feature of the education of the
Negro which puts an Indian to indescribable shame,
viz., the education of the Negro women. The facilities
which exist in this country for the higher education
of Negro women, are decidedly larger, better, and
more liberal than those that exist in India for the
education of Indian women. Firstly, most of the
Negro colleges and high schools are open to the
girls. In some, the girls are actually in the majority.
Secondly, there are special schools for girls which
are even better equipped than similar schools for
90 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
boys. I saw one such school at Atlanta, called the
Spellman School. This school covers an area of
twenty acres of land with a number of magnificent
buildings for teaching and residential purposes.
Ten brick buildings provide ample room for the
boarding department, the literary and the industrial
work. Reynolds Cottage is the residence of the
president of the institution. In Rockefeller Hall are
the office, the high school department, and a chapel
with a seating capacity of a thousand. Mac Vicar
Hospital is modern and completely equipped, with
a fine operating room, a ward each for surgical and
medical patients, and a lecture room for nurses in
training. The Nurses Home contains eleven bed-
rooms and a reception hall. Giles Hall was planned
especially with reference to normal work. It con-
tains two spacious assembly rooms, with twenty
recitation rooms for the practice school, besides
study and class rooms for student teachers, and a
gymnasium. Four other halls, viz., Morgan, Packard,
Morehouse and Rockefeller, furnish accommodation
for three hundred boarders. A large library and
reading room containing about four thousand
volumes, and a hundred current periodicals, occupies
the lower floor of one wing of Packard Hall. In
its basement are commodious rooms for classes in
domestic science and dressmaking. A building in
the rear contains the printing office and music rooms.
In the laundry are eighty-five porcelain tubs, each
with hot and cold water attachment. There are
also drying and ironing rooms. A steam and electric
plant furnishes heat and light for the whole establish-
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
91
ment. In 1913 the school had 703 students on
its rolls with 13 in the college department, 205 in
the high school, 25 in the teacher's professional
department, and 379 in the normal practice school.
In the Atlanta University in the same city, more
than one half of the students are girls. There are
two other high schools in the same city where girls
read along with the boys and form the bulk of the
school population. Similarly in the Howard Uni-
versity at Washington, with a population of about
1500 students, about half are girl students. What
has been said of Atlanta and Washington, is
true of every important city having a decent popula-
tion of Negroes.
But what is of still more significance, is the prov-
ision made by States and private beneficence for
the industrial education of Negro boys and girls,
throughout the country. The question of industrial
education has been receiving considerable attention
in the U.S.A., more than twenty years, and the cry
for "vocational" education is every day increasing
both in volume and intensity. In the case of the
Negroes, however, this cry has a special significance.
The enemies of the Negro race have from the first
deprecated the idea of educating the Negro. The
Southern white hates the philanthropy of the North,
which started educating the Negro and placed
facilities for high education within his reach. He
characterises this philanthropy as mischievous,
misplaced, and calculated to embitter the racial
feeling even to a greater extent than it was before
the Negro was educated. The Negro owes not only
92 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
his emancipation, but also his education to the
North, and is naturally grateful to the same for all
it has done for his welfare. The South has always
resented this "meddlesome interference of the North
in their affairs." The South considers the Negro
question a local issue, and "has stubbornly and
sullenly insisted that it alone possessed the requisite
knowledge and experience" to deal with the problem.
"The fact that the colored race has followed the
guidance of the white man of the North has given
rise to deep and bitter complaint. Ever since the
Negro has begun to animadvert upon his own
condition, the North and South have seemed to him
to be as wide apart as the poles on questions
touching his welfare. In the momentous conflict
of thought and conscience which preceded the
arbitration of arms, the North stood for liberty,
the South for slavery. At countless cost of blood
and treasure, the North broke his chains against
the equally strenuous endeavour of the South to
rivet them more tightly....... Northern statesmanship
placed legislation upon the statute books recog-
nising the equality of all men before the law, every
line of which met with strenuous opposition and
obstruction on the part of the South. Northern
philanthropists have given their substance and their
service for the intellectual and moral betterment
of the black man, while the South has for the most
part looked on with icy indifference and often with
ill-concealed disapproval. The South knew the Negro
as docile, obedient, submissive, unprotesting, and
contented with whatever was given to him by way
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
93
of food and clothes. He never could think of a time
when the Negro would be otherwise and claim
equality with him. This has however happened,
mostly as the result of the meddlesome interference
of the North and the education which the Negro
has received principally through the instrumentality
of the North. The South, therefore, and very natu-
rally, lays all his racial troubles at the door of the
North and the education which the Negro has
received. He maintains that it was a mistake to
educate the Negro; but to give him higher edu-
cation was even a greater mistake. He com-
plains that after 25 years of higher education
"the race problem has become rather intensified
than abated in acuteness"; and that the unpractical
literary education imparted to the Negro has only
produced so many swelled heads, with impossible
aspirations and unreasonable demands of absolute
equality. This attitude of the Southern white
towards the higher education of the Negro has
received a certain amount of support from that
class of educational philosophers who decry high
education and extoll "vocational education," as
they call it. These philosophers have no use for
the "mere theorists" produced by high liberal
education unrelated to the needs of life. They want
only such education as would raise the efficiency
of the nation's workers as producers and distributors
of wealth, and as pursuers of vocations which add
to the material prosperity and material comforts
of the nation. They estimate education by the
amount of dollars it brings to the educated and the
94 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
contribution which it makes to the wealth of the
nation, and its efficiency as a wealth-producing
community.
This change in educational values has affected the
question of Negro education also, and just now that
party seems to be in ascendancy, which champions
the cause of industrial education among the Negroes
as against high liberal education. Dean Miller
complains that "our whole educational activities are
under the thrall of this retrograde spirit. We are
marking time rather than moving forward," and
that "whenever the higher education of the Negro
is broached, industrial training is always suggested
as a counter-irritant." The Negroes as well as their
well-wishers are thus divided into two camps, one
who stands for the industrial training of the Negro,
and the other who stands for his higher education.
The advocates of higher education insinuate that
those who champion the industrial training of the
Negro at the cost of facilities for higher liberal
education, do so with the motive of keeping him
down. Their ideal of an educated Negro is an
efficient servant, an industrious and intelligent
mechanic, or carpenter, or mason. They do not
want Negro thinkers, or writers, or publicists; nor
do they want the Negro in the higher professions,
which produce politicians and leaders. They are
prepared to educate him according to his present
position in life, to improve his earning capacity up
to a certain limit; to increase his efficiency and
value as an economic factor of the lower order; to
enable him to live a clean, contented life on the
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
95
lower rungs of the ladder. They do not want him
to be so highly educated as to claim perfect equality
with the white in all the departments of life,
political, intellectual, religious, moral, and economic.
Intellectual equipment of a high order leads to
aspirations which are inconvenient to the ruling
class and they, therefore, are anxious to dry up the
very fountains from which these aspirations spring.
The Negro leader complains that this interested
view of Negro education has reduced the facilities
for higher education which were heretofore open to
the Negro youth. Northern philanthropists are
changing the direction of their philanthropy not
only by directing it, in the future, to the industrial
training of the Negro, but even by withdrawing
their aid from the colleges and institutions that
have so far provided intellectual fare of a higher
order for the Negro boy and girl.
This has frightened the Negro leaders, and they
are protesting as well as making appeals for the
continuance and multiplication of facilities for
imparting high education to the Negro. Dean
Miller has expressed these fears and sentiments of
the Negro leaders in two articles, one called "Educa-
tion for Manhood," and the other "A Brief for
Higher Education." I propose to make rather
lengthy quotations from these two articles in order
to give my readers a clear idea of what the Negro
leaders in the United States think of the conflicting
claims of higher liberal education and industrial
education.
"Education," says Dean Miller, "has two clearly
96 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
differentiable functions, (1) to develop and perfect
the human qualities of the individual, as a perso-
nality, and (2) to render him a willing and compe-
tent participant, as an instrumentality, in the
federation of the world's work. The one interferes
in the nature of man and is conditioned only by the
innate economy of human nature; the other is
responsive to contemporary social demands. The
one is independent of time, place and circumstances;
the other is adjustable to these various elements.
The one represents a pedagogical constant; the
other presents the widest margin of variation. The
one is generic in its embracement of all mankind;
the other is specific in its application to the
peculiar needs and requirements of each individual."
"Education," he adds, "is not an end in itself, but
is conditioned upon the nature of man and upon
his place in the social scheme; it is not an indepen-
dent and self-sustained entity, but is conducive to
the fulfilment of ulterior aims."
After comparing the old idea of education, accord-
ing to the old conceptions of human personality,
with the modern ideas of education based upon
the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest,
and the modern requirements, Dean Miller remarks :
"There is a constant duel between the process of
machinery and the spirit of democracy-the one
tending to subordinate the human element to the
mechanical process; the other insisting upon the
higher rights and powers of man. Democracy
banishes distinction between classes, and gives all
men the same right to develop and exploit the
higher powers and susceptibilities with which they
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
97
may be endowed. Our educational system to-day
is between the upper and nether stress of these
conflicting influences.... The essential immediate
aim of industrial education is to develop man as an
instrumentality. The chief end of the so-called
liberal education is to develop man as a personality.
.
The advocates of industrial training would
claim that their ultimate aim is the development of
man as a personality through instrumentality. The
higher education persumes instrumentality as a
corollary of personality.
Under any present
dispensation most men must devote the larger part
of their powers to processes of producing and distri-
buting wealth, while a smaller number, either
through natural or artificial selection are set apart
to the higher intellectual, moral, and spiritual tasks;
but however exacting the present necessities may
be, it is incumbent upon each individual to have in
view his best development as a personality. *
"The highest decree of the Godhead was-'Let us
make man.' The true end of education is to develop
man, the average man, as a self-conscious perso-
nality. This can be done not by imparting informa-
tion to the mind or facility to the fingers, but
felicity to the feelings and inspiration to the soul.
Develop the man; the rest will follow. The final,
expression of education is not in terms of discipline,
culture, efficiency, service, or special virtues, but
in terms of MANHOOD which is the substance
and summation of all.
When the manhood has
.....
been quickened, it may may express itself in terms of
character, efficiency, initiative, service, or enjoyment
that occasion may require. None of these things re-
present final values in themselves, but are incidental
manifestations of manhood from which they are
derived and to which they conduce."
After laying down these general propositions
and explaining them at some length, Dean Miller
* In my opinion this was true in all times. It was this idea
which formed the basis of the original Hindu idea of the castes.
7
98 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
applies them to the Negro race in the U. S. A. and
observes:
"The traditional relation of the American Negro
to the society of which he forms a part is too well
known to need extensive treatment in this connec-
tion. The African slave was introduced into this
country as a pure animal instrumentality to perform
the rougher work under dominion of his white lord
and master. There was not the remotest thought
of his human personality. No more account was
taken of his higher qualities than of the higher sus-
ceptibilities of lower animals. His mission
considered to be as purely mechanical as that of the
ox which pulls the plough. Indeed his human
capabilities were emphatically denied. It was stoutly
contended that he did not possess a soul to be saved.
Under
was
Nor a mind to be enlightened.
the dominion of this dogma education was absolutely
forbidden him. It became a crime to educate this
tertium quid."
"Then came the anti-slavery campaign which was
based on the idea that the Negro was a human being
endowed with heart and mind and conscience like
other human beings. The anti-slavery philan-
thropists believed in the essential manhood of the
Negro. Upon this foundation they not only broke the
Negro's chains, but clothed him with political and
civic prerogative as an American citizen. They
established schools and colleges and universities for
him because they believed in his higher susceptibili-
ties.
They projected a scheme of education
comparable with the standards set up for the choicest
European youth for a race which had hitherto been
submerged below the zero point of intelligence.
These schools and colleges, founded and fostered on
this basis, were the beginning of the best that there
is in the race, and the highest which it can hope to
be. But alas, the passion engendered by the war
grew w weaker and weaker, the corresponding belief in
the Negro has also declined and the old dogma con-
cerning his mission as a human tool has begun to
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
99
Few indeed
reassert itself.
are left who have the intensity of belief and the in-
trepidity of spirit to defend the higher pretensions of
the Negro without apology or equivocation. The
old form of appeal has become insipid and unin-
spiring.
Where now is heard the tocsin call
whose keynote a generation ago resounded from the
highlands of Kentucky and Tennesee to the plains of
Carolina, calling the black youth, whose hopes ran
high within their bosoms, to rise and make for higher
things? This clarion note, though still for the nonce,
shall not become a lost chord. Its inspiring tones must
again appeal to the youth to rise to their higher as-
sertion and exertion. If you wish to reach and inspire
the life of the people, the approach must be made not
to the intellect, nor yet to the feelings as the final
basis of appeal, but to the manhood that lies at
the back of these. That education of the youth,
especially of the suppressed class, that does not
make insistent and incessant appeals to the smother-
ed manhood (I had almost said Godhood) within,
will prove to be but vanity and vexation of
spirit. What boots a few chapters in chemistry,
or pages in history, or paragraphs in philosophy,
unless they result in an enlarged appreciation of
one's own manhood ? Those who are to stand in
the high places of intellectual, spiritual, and moral
leadership of such a people in such a time must be
made to feel deep down in their own souls their
own essential manhood. They must believe that
they are created in the image of God and that
nothing clothed in human guise is a more faithful
likeness of that original. This must be the domi-
nant note in the education of the Negro. The
Negro must learn in school what the white boy
learns from association and environment. The
American white man in his ordinary state is
supremely conscious of his manhood prerogative.
He may be ignorant or poor or vicious, yet he
never forgets that he is a man. But every feature of
our civilization is calculated to impress upon the
Negro a sense of his inferiority and to make him feel
•
100 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A
and believe that he is good for nothing but to be
cast out and trodden under foot of other men.
race, like an individual, that compromises its own
self-respect, paralizes and enfeebles its own energies...
The old theologians used to insist upon the freedom
of the will, but the demand of the Negro to-day is
freedom and independence of his own spirit. Destroy
this and all is lost; preserve it and though political
rights, civic privileges, industrial opportunities be
taken away for the time, they will all be regained...
....The Negro must develop courage and self-
confidence......... The educated Negro must learn to
state his own case before the bar of public opinion...
......The educated Negro to-day represents the first
generation grown to the fulness of the stature of
manhood under the influence and power of education
......... The hope of the race is focused in them. They
are the headlight to direct the pathway through the
dangers and vicissitudes of the wilderness. For
want of vision people perish. For want of wise
direction, they stumble and fall."
The following incidental reference to India would,
I am sure, be read with even greater interest there :
"The highest call of the civilization of the world
to-day is to the educated young men of the belated
races. The educated young manhood of Japan,
China, India, Egypt, Turkey, must lift their own
people up to the level of their own high conception."
The article is wound up with the following appeal:
"The white race is fast loosing faith in the Negro
as an efficient and suitable factor in the equation of
our civilization. Curtailment of political, civil
and religious privileges and opportunities is but
the outward expression of this apostacy. As the
white man's faith decreases, our faith in ourselves
must increase. Every Negro in America should
utter his prayer with his face turned towards the light,
'Lord, I believe in my own inherent manhood; help
Thou my unbelief.' The educated Negro must express
his manhood in terms of courage, in the active as well
!
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:
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1
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
101
as the passive voice; courage to do as well as to
endure; courage to contend for the right while
suffering wrong; the courage of self-belief that is
always commensurate with the imposed task.
The world believes in a race that believes in itself,
but justly despises the self-bemeaned."
It is thus that the Negro leader protests against
the growing opportunism of the friends of his race
in their tendency to foster the industrial training
of the Negro at the cost of higher liberal education
among them. I have thought it best to let him
speak for himself as there is always a danger in one's
reproducing other people's thoughts in language
other than their own. I need not say that, although
I may not agree with everything said by Dean
Miller, I am in full accord with most of the principles
enunciated by him, and I wish my countrymen to
know his view of them. I could not put them in
better, more forcible, and more spirited language
than he has done and that alone should be sufficient
to justify the labours of those who have educated the
Negro. There are hundreds of educated Negroes
in the U. S. A., who can think and write as lucidly
and vigorously as Dean Miller. Some of them
perhaps do better, but in any case Dean Miller re-
presents a fairly high water-mark of Negro ability
and intelligence in this country, and he is perhaps
one of those who have the least white blood in their
veins, it any at all. In his other article, called "A
Brief for the Higher Education of the Negro," Dean
Miller examines the matter from a different point of
view and says:
"Indeed, one of the strongest claims for the
102 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
higher education of the Negro is that it will stimulate
the dormant industrial activities of the race. The
surest way to incite a people to meet the material
demands of life is to teach them that life is more than
meat. The unimaginative laborer pursues the routine
rounds of his task, spurred on only by the immediate
necessities of life and the task-master's stern
command. To him it is only time and the hour that
run through the whole day. The Negro lacks
enlightened imagination. He needs prospects and
vista
If you would perpetuate the
industrial incapacity of the Negro, then confine him
to the low grounds of drudgery and toil and prevent
him from casting his eyes into the hills whence come
inspiration and promise. The man with the hoe is
of all men the most miserable, unless, forsooth, he has
a hope. But if imbued with hope and sustained by
an ideal, he can consecrate the hoe as well as any
other instrument of service, as a means of fulfilling the
promise within him....... The most effective prayer
that can be uttered for the Negro is 'Lord, open Thou
his eyes.' He cannot see beyond the momentary
gratification of appetite and passion. He does not
look before and after. Such stimulating influence can
be brought to bear upon the race only through the
inspiration of the higher culture. It requires men
of sound knowledge to conceive and execute plans
for the industrial education of the masses. The great
apostles of industrial education for the Negro have
been men of academic training or of its cultural equival-
ent. The work of Hampton and Tuskegee is carried
on by men and women of a high degree of mental
cultivation. Dr. Booker T. Washington (note the
title) is the most influential Negro that the race
under freedom has produced. He is the great
apostle of industrial training. His great success
is but the legitimate outcome of his earnestness and
enthusiasm. And yet there is no more striking
illustration of the necessity of wise, judicious, and
cultivated leadership as a means of stimulating the
dormant activity of the masses, than he who hails
from Tuskegee....... Mr. Washington possesses an en-
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 103
lightened mind to discern the masses, executive tact
to put his plans in effective operation, and persuasive
ability to convince others as to the expediency of
his policies. He possesses no trade or handicraft...
Tuskegee has been built on intellect and oratory."
About the need of special colleges for the Negro,
Dean Miller says :
"The white college does not contemplate the
special needs of the Negro race. American ideals
could not be fostered in the white youth of our
land by sending them to Oxford or Berlin for tuition.
No more can the Negro gain racial inspiration from
Harvard and Yale. And yet they need the benefit
of contact and comparison and the zeal for know-
ledge and truth which these great institutions
impart. The Negro college and the Northern insti-
tutions will serve to preserve a balance between
undue elation for want of sober comparison, and
barren culture for lack of inspirational contact with
the masses."
To the charge that higher education lifts the
Negro above the needs of his race or, in other words,
denationalizes him, Dean Miller replies :
...
"The thousands of graduates of Negro schools
and colleges all over the land are a living refutation
of this charge. After the mind has been stored with
knowledge, it is transmitted to the place where
the need is greatest and the call is loudest and
transmitted into whatever mode of energy may be
necessary to accomplish the imposed task.
No one can be too learned or too profound in whose
hands are entrusted the temporal and eternal
destiny of a human soul. Even if the educated Negro
desired to flee from his race, he soon learns by
bitter experience that he will be thrown back upon
himself by the expulsive power of prejudice. He
soon learns that the Newtonian formula has
social application. 'The force of attraction varies
directly as the mass."
a
104 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
I have given these long quotations for another
reason besides the one stated above. Our own edu-
cational problem in India is so difficult and complex,
so full of anomalies and inconsistencies, that I would
like my people to know the views of people engaged in
the solution of similar problems in a different part of
the world. Our problem differs from the problems of
the Negro in the U. S. in important points. The Negro
is not indigenous to the soil; he has no past, nor a
language of his own, other than the language given
to him by his erstwhile masters; he has no country
to look to, other than the United States; and last
but not least, he fears no competition except that of
his own countrymen. Yet he belongs to a submerged
race, whom enlightened, advanced, well-educated
and well-supported neighbours threaten to elbow
out of existence if he would not look up and fit him-
self and his people with the knowledge necessary to
compete with them in the struggle for life and
progress both individual and social. The objections
advanced against the higher education of the Negro
are very similar to those raised in our country by the
Imperialist Jingo, with whom fall in, sometimes,
well-meaning friends and short-sighted Indians,
against the higher education of the Indians. Yet we
cannot fail to notice that the absence of sufficient
facilities for the industrial and commercial training
of the Indians has been and is more harmful to
India, than similar neglect in the case of the Negro
would be to America. The industrial competition in
the U.S.A. is more inter-racial than international, at
least so far as the question affects the Negro, but in
PROFESSOR G. N. CARVER.
Head of Department of Research, Experiment Station, and Consulting
Chemist, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 105
India it is different. In both cases it is as necessary
as higher education in letters, but perhaps it is
even more necessary in India from an economic point
of view. The economic pressure from the outside
has ruined the industrial population of India and
driven them to unskilled labour either in fields or in
factories, detrimentally affecting both their physique
and their morals. On the other hand it has narrow-
ed the spheres of educated people's economic activity.
The Negro was on the lowest rungs of industrial
labour when his education began. His education
has raised him immensely, opening out better and
nobler careers for him. He is now to be found in
every walk of life, though in the higher callings and
in the professions signifying higher mental calibre
he is not in sufficient numbers in proportion to the
numerical strength of his race. No one can maintain
that the Negro has overcrowded these professions.
His strength in these callings is not sufficient even
for the requirements of his own race. The objection
against his higher education is not that there are too
many of them in the higher walks of life but that
they ought not to be there at all. The white man
does not want his competition in these higher call-
ings. He wants to keep for himself even the Negro
clientele. He objects to the Negro's claim for equal
treatment; he objects to his political aspirations;
he denounces his cultural pretensions; and he wants
to shut the doors of knowledge against him; but he
does not object to take his money. In fact he wants
as much of it as he can get, by hook or by crook. He
wants his labour, his service, and his industry, but
106 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
he does not want his leadership; nor does he want
him to lead his own people, because that necessarily
deprives him of the opportunities of exploitation
which he otherwise has.
On the other hand there are well-meaning friends
of the Negro, both white and of his own class, who
think that the Negro cannot maintain his own in the
racial struggle and economic competition unless he
is industrially fit to occupy the higher rungs of the
industrial ladder. It will not do for him to remain
contented with unskilled labour and the pittance
which he gets thereby. They say that his progress
must proceed from below. He must be fitted to take
the next step in the industrial and economic march.
I am not prepared to say that they are wholly
wrong; nor can I say either that the champions of
the higher liberal education of the Negro are wrong.
I feel, however, that this stimulus to industrial uplift
might not have come, or might not have come so
soon, without the higher education which produced
thinkers and leaders, who have brought it into exist-
ence and are pushing it on with such remarkable suc-
cess. I am confident that the ideas of the Negro leaders
on education and their application of them in solving
the difficulties which face them in their racial struggle,
would be of more than academic interest to Indian
patriots and nationalists. That is my excuse for
giving them at some length and in their own language.
It is my duty now to present to my readers the
case of the advocates of industrial training among
the Negroes, and this, I think, I cannot do better
than by giving extracts from the publications that
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 107
were very kindly given to me by Dr. Booker T.
Washington of Tuskegee. I do not propose to say
here much about Dr. Washington and his ideas.
These I reserve for another occasion. But the ex-
tracts I propose to give below fairly represent his
views about the mission of the institute at Tuskegee,
of which he is the founder and leader at the same time.
THE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE
AT TUSKEGEE.
This institution owes its origin to the initiative of
the Federal Government, but its phenomenal success
is entirely due to the energy, enthusiasm, spirit, and
tact of Dr. Washington. Mr. Arthur M. Evans, an
American journalist, is of opinion that Dr. Washing-
ton and this institute are doing for the Negro people
what the University of Wisconsin is doing for its
state. Public service is the fundamental ideal of both.
"Both are striving to get into close touch
with the people and to exert an influence on
the affairs of every day life; to teach the farmer how
to raise larger crops and better herds; to instruct
the housewife in domestic arts; to improve the
home; to raise the standard of living; to develop
raw labour into skilled labour; in short-to improve
conditions of society in the mass."
"Tuskegee is not a school, in the ordinary sense of
the word. It's a city in itself, a community that
dominates a whole county. It's a great industrial
plant with forty trades and industries, that consumes
all its own products, that erects its own buildings
(first making its own bricks), that grows its own
food, makes its own clothes, writes and prints its
own text-books, all by way of education."
It is a mammoth laboratory in which a race
108 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
problem is being worked out. The object of Tuskegee
is to train its students to serve society by doing some
useful thing with skill, to give them a three-phased
education of "the head, the heart, the hand," to use
the alliterative phrase of the Tuskegee teachers, and
then to send them out to teach others what they
have learnt-education by the endless chain system.
Intelligent thrift, training in the activities open to
the masses of the Negro race in the South, industry,
self-reliance, self-respect, cleanliness, system, courtesy,
these are the things Tuskegee is teaching. Its principles
are epitomized by Emmet J. Scott, executive secretary
of the Institute in "Tuskegee and its People."
"There can be no liberty without intelligence; no
independence without industry, and no power
for
man and no charm for woman, without
character."
The institution was established by the legislature
of 1880 appropriating two thousand dollars to be
used to pay the salaries of the teachers. The
school was opened for its first session, July 4, 1881,
in a rented shanty church, with thirty pupils and
but one teacher. No provision was made by the
legislature for a building. In 1884 the appropriation
was increased to three thousand dollars, and in 1893
the institution was incorporated under the name of
the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. During
the first session, the present location, consisting at
that time of one hundred acres, with three small
buildings thereon, was purchased by Northern
friends.
At the close of the school term, May 28, 1814, it
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 109
had registered a total enrollment of 1,527-896 men
and 631 women-who came from 32 States and
territories and 17 foreign countries, or colonies of
foreign countries. In addition to the attendance in
the Institute proper, the average attendance at the
Children's House, the Training School, was 201;
the average attendance during the Agricultural Short
Course was 275, and the average attendance during
the Summer School last year was 412. There are
about 200 teachers, male and female, resident in the
Institute, some with their wives living in separate
houses built by them at their own cost on plots of
land sold to them by the Institute; others living and
messing with the students. In 1912, the educational
plant consisted of 2345 acres of land; 107 buildings,
large and small, used for dwellings, dormitories,
class rooms, shops and barns, which together with
the equipment, stock-in-trade, live stock and personal
property, is valued at $ 1,295,213. This did not
include 19,910 acres of public land remaining unsold
from 25,500 acres granted by act of Congress, and
valued at $ 250,000,00 nor the Endowment fund.
In his report for the year ending in May 1914, the
Principal made the following observation about
improvements and extensions:
"The most important permanent improvements
that the school has ever undertaken are now under
construction. These improvements when completed
will cover the following: Power distribution and
fire protection system, including wiring of buildings
and grounds; buildings for new power plant;
boilers, chimney, engines, generators, electric wiring,
transformers, etc.; power piping and steam con-
110 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
com-
duits; sewerage system and disposal plant; ice plant;
cold storage plant; railroad extension. The water
supply and fire prevention system has been
pleted, but must soon be enlarged. Work is now
going forward on the remaining portions of the
general plan, but at least two years will probably
be required to complete the whole."
FINANCIAL: The year's budget provided $
250,957, i.e., over 7½ lakhs of rupees, for current
needs and about $20,000, i.e. 60,000 rupees, for
improvements and equipment. The total receipts
for the year amounted to $473,766, i.e., about 14 lakhs
of rupees. In May 1914, the permanent endowment
fund stood at $ 1,962,112, i.e., in rough figures about
60 lakhs of rupees. The bulk of this amount has
been contributed by wealthy white Americans to
whom the ideals and the methods of the Institute
have appealed and who appreciate Dr. Washington's
spirit. The educational work of the school may be
gathered from the following extracts from another
article of Mr. Evans.
"All the students are required to take academic
studies, and the effort is made to correlate all the
studies with the industrial training. In English,
for example, the boys and girls write essays on their
work in the shops. At commencement time, instead
of delivering orations on "Over the Alps" or "Stand-
ing on the Threshold of Life," the graduating class
shows how a meal should be served or how a horse
should be shod. It is a practical demonstration of
what has been learned, a clinic on industrial
education."
The students in the academic department are
divided into day and night classes, about one-third
of the students being in the night school, which
!
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 111
is designed for those who are unable to pay the
small charges made by the day school. When a
poor student arrives he works during the day and
studies at night, and whatever he earns in excess of
his board is placed to his credit in the bank.
As soon as he has saved enough, he enters the
day school. The pupils in the day school attend
class room exercises three days a week, and the
other three days they spend in the shops. The
expenses of day students above the cost of clothing
and what can be earned is about $ 45 or $ 50 for the
nine months' term. Many of the pupils earn all their
expenses. The teaching in the academic department,
which is about as advanced in work as the second
year of a Northern high school minus the languages,
is done by a faculty of fifty college graduates, many
of them from leading universities of the country. The
male pupils form two battalions, one of four com-
panies of ninety men each containing the night
students, the other of five companies of ninety men
each made up from the day students. Drills and
inspections take place every day in the week, the
day students being divided into two squads, which
drill on alternate days. An officers' court passes
judgment upon all breaches of discipline not serious
enough to be referred to the principal.
The industries are grouped into three depart-
ments, the school of agriculture, the industries for
girls and the department of mechanical industries.
The courses in agriculture are given in Milbank Hall,
a modern building erected in 1909 at a cost of $
26,000. Farming was the first industry started at
112 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the Institute, and the school farm in thirty years has
grown until it embraces 2,300 acres. Of this, eighty
acres form a truck garden on which is raised produce
for the school, eighty acres constitute an orchard,
840 acres form the tract for general farming, while
1,300 acres comprise an area given over to pastures
and woodland.
The dairy herd contains 227 head of cattle, breed-
ers, yearlings and calves, with 105 milk cows "at
the pail." The farm also has 562 hogs, and 145
horses, mules and colts, while the poultry yard con-
tains 3,000 fowls. The farm work is carried on by
288 students, forty hired men and eighteen in-
structors.
Last year 632 tons of ensilage, 12,000 bushels of
sweet potatoes, 3,500 bushels of corn and 3,650
bushels of oats were grown on the general farm,
while the truck garden yielded 115,453 pounds of
greens, 1,116 dozen bunches of lettuce, 465 bushels
of onions, 3576 water-melons, 358 bushels of beans,
fifty-three bushels of beets, 783 bushels of tomatoes,
321 bushels of rutabagas, 3150 dozen ears of green
corn, 2,064 melons and cantaloupes, fifty-seven bush-
els of white potatoes, and 258 bushels of peas- this
enumeration being given as an indication of the
variety of the table at Tuskegee and the manner in
which the pupils are being saturated in one of the
many ideas of Tuskegee that one indication of civi-
lization is variety of food production.
✔'One of God's objects in surrounding us with vege.
tables, with grain, berries and flowers,' says Booker
Washington, 'is to help us to make our bodies better
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 113
fitted for the uses of life, to make our bodies stronger,
to make them more healthful. When I go to church
and hear people preach for hours on all kinds of
subjects, especially in country districts, where the
soil is fitted for growing all kinds of vegetables, all
kinds of fowl, how much I wish the minister would
take a few hours and teach the people how to fill
their bodies with some of the beautiful things with
which nature has surrounded them.' "
Discipline: Industry is the spirit of Tuskegee and
military discipline is its system of government.
From the moment the rising whistle blows at 5
o'clock until the "lights out" bell sounds at night,
every moment of the time is occupied ; work is in the
atmosphere; industry is made a habit-the great aim
of the school. At Tuskegee refractory students are
punished, not by setting them at extra tasks but by
giving them no work to do. The great idea of the
Institute is to drill into the students the principle
that labor is a privilege, hence work is never pres-
cribed as a punishment, for that would be an in-
consistency. Enforced idleness proves penalty
enough, and after less than a day of lounging, a
misfit in a busy community, a drone among the
workers, the disobedient student generally goes to
the Commandant and begs to be put to work.
The discipline is admirable. Ever since the
opening of the school the students have been on a
military system of some sort. The first day the
student body assembled thirty years ago it marched
to chapel, and it has been doing so ever since, drilling
in the morning, marching to dinner after a review
8
114 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
at noon, marching to chapel at night, marching
back to the dormitories after a review procession
before the faculty on the platform, assembling on
dress parade every Sunday morning and on alternate
mornings during the week, marching and drilling and
becoming impregnated with the idea of order,
system, obedience, and discipline. It is a sight
never to be forgotten to see 1700 students
march into the great dining hall at
said to be the largest dining room in the country,
and stand at attention until grace is sung. Then
the silence is broken, chairs are pulled out and con-
versation starts up with such a roar that the band
is kept playing in the balcony to drown the noise.
There is nothing boisterous, but 1700 voices engag-
ed in simultaneous talk make rather a cataract of
sound.
noon
Visitors rarely fail to comment upon the table
manners of the students. At Tuskegee table
manners are as much a part of the curriculum as is
work in the shops or recitation in the class rooms.
The man at the head of the table does the serving,
assisted by a student on each side. There is none of
the grabbing, none of the meat spearing and the
bread harpooning that is far from the unusual
feature of the life in the boarding clubs of many
a Northern college. The students are served and
the rule of the school is that each shall eat every
thing that is placed upon his plate without
passing remarks upon the cooking, if indeed, such
adverse remarks could be made. The food comes
fresh from the institute farm raised by the students,
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 115
cooked by the students, and eaten by the students,
and the variety of edibles placed on the table serves
as another object lesson of the benefits derived from
skilful labor on the soil."
Dr. Washington's principles, on which the educa-
tion of the boys and girls in this Institute is based,
may be gathered from the following report of a
sermon he gave one night to the students assembled
in the chapel :
"One of the best lessons in civilization you can
teach anybody, is to be uneasy and unhappy when a
door-knob is even loose. In spite of all its antiquated,
and, in some cases, almost heathenish methods, it
is hard to free ourselves from the slavery of the old-
time book education. Every good citizen, whether
he be teacher or is engaged in any other occupation,
has something, should have something, to do with
the education that is going on in his community.
Whether you get an opportunity to exert the
slightest influence, see to it that the house in which
the teachers and children are assembled is made
clean inside, clean outside; floors well swept,
everything thoroughly dusted. See to it that every
piece of furniture is put in the very best repair; see
to it that, wherever it can be done, the paintbrush
or whitewash brush is used on the inside.
"A great many people are content to put up a
house and let it stand without paint, its weather-
boards cracking and warping, a symbol of sloven-
liness. The whitewash brush and the paintpot are
indexes of civilization. When you leave here, see
to it that your homes and your farm buildings and
your schools are fit to live in. If you can't afford
paint, use whitewash. When you go into a school
as a teacher, take a week's time to clean up. See
to it that the yard is cleaned up, every piece of
paper picked up, every paling put where it should be
on the fence; that the gate hinges are all right, and
all the broken window glasses are put in. Then
116 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
begin using the whitewash brush or the paintbrush
around the schoolhouse on the building, on the
fence, on the gate, everywhere, to make the school-
room an inviting, beautiful place, one that is fit for
human beings to live and work in. Teach your
pupils to be unhappy when one window pane gets
a little cracked, and if a window pane is out, dismiss
the school if necessary until that window pane is
put in its place.
"After you go away from here I want to see you
keep up this same thought, this same idea of activity
and of keeping all your surroundings at all times
and under all circumstances in good repair. See to it
that you are not farmers unless the house in which
you live is whitewashed or painted. See to it that
when it begins to get a little out of repair, when the
whitewash or the paint begins to get off, a little dull,
see to it that a new whitewash, a new paint takes its
place. See to it that everything you touch, every
point in life that you touch, you keep in good repair,
beginning with your own bodies, with your own
dress, then with your surroundings in school and
out of school. Be sure that you try to keep in good
repair, in good shape, and then you will feel vigorous,
you will feel that you can overcome difficulties.
"I don't believe it is possible for a person to be a
good Christian with one suspender off, going around
the country trying to wear one suspender. It lops
him all over. He is one-sided from the time he gets
up in the morning until he goes to bed at night.
There is something wrong. He cannot act straight,
he cannot think straight. There is something out
of order all the time. A person does not indicate
that he has the highest training, the highest civiliza-
tion, who is satisfied to let a single button be off
his clothes.
"Keep the grease spots off your clothes. I
remember I had occasion some time ago to call
a doctor in-and it was not a doctor here, I am
glad to say, or anywhere near here-but I noticed
he had a button off and he had two or three grease
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
117
spots on his clothes. I do not know how much
medicine he knew, but that button oft and those
grease spots perfectly disgusted me in reference to
that man. Keep the grease spots off your clothes, keep
the buttons on, because no person who has the
highest idea of civilization can go through life with-
out being in proper repair in these respects.
"Make a study of the preparation of food. See to
it that a certain ceremony, a certain importance, be
attached to the partaking of the food, a certain time
when each meal is to be served; then see to it that
the food is not only prepared in the most tempting
way, but that it is served in the most attractive
and beautiful way. In most cases, as you know, the
place where the food is taken is the most dismal, the
most gloomy place in the whole house and people
want to get out of it just as soon as possible. See
to it that when you build your own home that the
dining-room is the most beautiful, the most con-
venient, the most tempting room in the whole
house."
Net result: In the thirty years of its existence
the Institute has given two years of training to ap-
proximately 9,000 persons. The average earnings
of persons trained at Tuskegee is $ 700 a year.
Before attending Tuskegee they earned on an aver-
age about $100 a year. Thus the Institute has
increased by about 600% the earnings of all who
have taken its courses. The earnings of the average
Negro is placed at about $ 300 a year.
The economic value of the Institute to the entire
South has been estimated. The average length of
time the 9,000 students have been out of school is
fourteen years, during which time their earnings
have been $88,200,000, it is estimated. Without
the industrial training the 9,000 would have earned
118 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
in the fourteen years only $ 12,6000,000. So that
the South, where most of the 9,000 are located, has
had the advantage of an increase of $ 75,600,000
in the economic value of the 9,000 alone, to say noth-
ing of what Tuskegee has done in improving the
condition of the Negro outside the school walls by
teaching the dignity of labour and by influencing
the colored people of the South to sobriety, discipline,
order, a better family life, a higher standard of
living in general, all items of economic value.
PRACTICAL WORK AT TUSKEEGEE.
Tüskegee, Alabama, April 25.-Macon County
affords a tangible illustration of the way Tuskegee is
constantly expanding its zone of influence. For
years the work of the Institute has reached far be-
yond the schoolgrounds, each year bringing new
ramifications, until to-day Tuskegee is conducting an
extension work of twenty-six varieties that has two
general aims-to change public opinion and direct
attention to lines of industry that offer most oppor-
tunities for the colored people of the South and to edu-
cate the people in better methods of farming and so in-
duce the children of Negro farmers to remain on the soil.
An idea of the scope of this work may best be
given by a list of the extension activities, with the
dates of establishment :
1884-Teachers' Institute.
1891-Annual Tuskegee Negro Conference.
1892-The Hospital, Greenwood Village.
1893-The Ministers' Night School.
1894-Tuskegee Town Mothers' Meeting.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 119
1895-Building and Loan Association.
1896-The Town Night School.
1897-The Town Library and Reading room;
Town Cooking Class; Russel Plantation
Work; Farmers' Institute; Mothers' Clubs.
1891-The County Fair; The Town Y.M.C.A. ;
The Town Sunday School.
1900-The National Negro Business League.
1901-New Hospital Building-treatment of out-
side patients becomes a regular feature at
Tuskegee.
1902-Village Improvement Association.
1904-The Jail work; the Farmers' Short Course;
Rural School Improvement.
1905-The Weekly Farm Paper; The Ministers'
Institute; The Circulating Library.
1906-The Jesup Agricultural Wagon-an agricul-
tural school on wheels.
1907-Farmers' Co-operative Demonstration Work.
Macon County, in which Tuskegee is located,
is one of the most prosperous and law-abiding in the
South. It contains about 600 square miles and has
a population of about 26,000, of which about 24,000
are Negroes. It is constantly growing, owing to the
attractions afforded by its schools and by the assist-
ance in farming methods given by Tuskegee Insti-
tute. The influence of the school is seen everywhere,
particularly in the well-to-do condition of the Negro
farmers. Macon county is said to have a larger area
of land held by Negroes than any other county in the
South. In 1910 Negroes owned 61,689 acres in
Macon County. In Liberty County, Georgia, the
120 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
next largest in Negro land holdings, the area was
55,048, while in Louisa County, Virginia, the third
county in this respect, the colored population owned
about 53,268 acres.
In Macon County there is no race problem-
the Negro population, through the industrial educa-
tion of Tuskegee, has become self-reliant. The county
has fifty-seven colored public schools, of which
forty-seven have been built through the aid and
assistance of Tuskegee Institute, and the Negro
patrons have paid for building, and taken advantage
of this fact by influencing nearly every church com-
munity in Macon County to become a modern
school community.
In various ways the school is teaching the
farmers to increase the productivity of their lands,
the principle underlying the system identical with
the one that is the basis of the Tuskegee's labor-
learning and teaching by doing and seeing. The
Annual Negro Conference was started eighteen years
ago, when Dr. Washington sent out invitations to
seventy-five representative Negroes in Macon Coun-
ty; farmers, mechanics, school teachers and minis-
ters. Instead of about seventy-five, above 400,
most of them farmers, responded to the invitation,
and the conference met with such success that it
was made an annual feature. Negro farmers from
all parts of the South attending. The school em-
ploys a conference agent, who organizes local con-
ference in all parts of the state. The growth of this
work is seen in the fact that 105 of these branch
organizations have been established. Eight years
SOME TUSKEGEE STUDENTS.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 121
ago a short course in agriculture was started with
a view of giving farmers in the neighboring territory
the advantage of two weeks' study of the work at
the school farm. The first year there were eleven
students, most of them older men; in 1911 there
were 1,900, about 1,000 of them being young men
and women.
A year after the short course had been established,
the school launched a movement to take agricul-
tural training to the farmers by means of a school
on wheels, the Jesup agricultural wagon. The
practical demonstrations given right on the farms
by the men in charge of the wagons has been of
great value in raising the standard of farming in
Macon County. In 1907 the demonstration farm-
ing experiment, a work carried on by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture at Washington, was started.
Under this plan a number of farmers in a county,
farm a small portion of their land under the direc-
tion of the department, using seed furnished by the
department. Of the six Negro demonstration
agents in Alabama, four were trained at Tuskegee, as
was also the district agent who has charge of the
work among the Negroes in Alabama, Mississippi,
Oklahoma and Louisiana.
An idea of what the demonstration agents have
done for the Negro farmer may be seen from the
fact that in 1909 the average yield of corn per acre
for the Negro farmers was less than eight bushels.
Last year Negro demonstration farmers in Macon
County grew an average of fifty-four bushels to the
acre. In 1911 the average yield of cotton in
122 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alabama was about 600 pounds per acre. The
highest average yield made on farms managed
under a Negro demonstration agent was in Lee
County, where an average of 1,867 pounds of cotton
to the acre was raised. This was more than 1200
pounds per acre in excess of what was grown on the
average farm of the State.
The last census figures gave an indication
of how the influence of Tuskegee ramifies beyond
the school gates. The census showed that while
the counties in the black belt were losing in
population, Macon county had made an increase of
more than 10 per cent. New Negro families are
continually coming into Macon-in five years fifty
families bought $49,000 worth of land, in 1910
Negro farmers in the county bought 1,450 acres at a
cost of $ 21,335, an indication of the prosperity.
Macon County to-day is not only prosperous but it
has so little crime that the sheriff complains of
enforced idleness; it has no mob violence, no race
problem; the white population co-operates with
Tuskegee and with the Negro farmers in the develop-
ment of agricultural methods, and the county is
regarded as a model. The movement of the Southern
Negro to the soil is evidenced in the fact that in the
last ten years the colored people bought 4,000
additional farms in Virginia, 4,000 in Tennesee,
16,000 in Arkansas, 16,000 in Alabama, 35,000
in Mississippi, and 45,000 in Georgia.
No account of Tuskegee would be complete that
did not mention the music at the school, the wonder-
ful singing in the chapel, in which the student body
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
123
is led by a choir of 150 voices, pipe organ, a piano
and an orchestra of twenty-five pieces. Special
effort is made to preserve the old Negro hymns and
plantation melodies, orchestration for which have
been made with great skill by the bandmaster,
Captain N. C. Smith, who for nearly twenty years
was leader of the Eighth Regiment Band in Chicago.
Forty-seven students are in the band, which furnishes
music for all occasions, and the surprising phase of
the playing is the manner in which the students
render classic music from the great operas. The
leader drills the players in the story of the opera,
telling them what every musical phrase means, before
rehearsals are started, and with this as an inspira-
tion the Tuskegee band plays almost as if it were
composed of virtuosi.
Ambitions of the Principal: In his last report
Dr. Washington remarks that "in the form of a
temporary or permanent endowment we ought to
add at least 3 million dollars, i.e., 90 lakhs of
rupees, to our present endowment," and he details
only some of the present and most urgent needs of
the institution as below:
1.-$ 50 a year for annual scholarships for tuition
for one student, the student himself providing for his
own board and other personal expenses in labor and
cash.
2.-$ 12,000 for permanent scholarships.
3.-Money for operating expenses in any amounts,
however small.
4.-$ 15,000 each for teachers' cottages.
5.-$ 40,000 for a building for religious purposes.
124 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
6.-$ 16,000 to complete the Boys' Trades
Building.
7.-$ 50,000 for a Boys' Dormitory.
8.-$ 50,000 for a Girls' Dormitory.
9.-An addition to our Endowment Fund of at
least $ 3,000,000.
Such, in brief outline, is the famous Institute of
Tuskegee, started by the Federal State with an
appropriation of $ 2000 a year towards the salaries
of the teachers in 1881, worked and organized and
brought to its present state by the genius and
devotion of Booker T. Washington, with the sinews
of war supplied in response to his appeal by generous-
minded, wealthy Americans. The head that has
planned and the hand that has reared up this magni-
ficent structure are those of the Negro leader, while
the food that has made it what it is, has been
supplied by the white philanthropists of the country.
It is no wonder then that out of the nineteen Trustees,
sixteen are white people and only three Negroes or
colored people. The staff, however, is almost exclu-
sively colored.
I have seen the institution in working order; the
academic teaching, the industrial training, the
military drill, the midday parade, the work on the
farms, in stables, in creamery, in shops. I have dined
in company with the staff in the dining hall below
and I have seen the student body taking their meals
in the hall above and can say that the account given
above gives a fair and accurate idea of the actual
working of the Institute. The features that struck
me most were the following:
EMMETT J. SCOTT,
Secretary, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
125
(1) The general neatness of the girls as well as
of the boys;
(2) Their demeanor and bearing, which was at
once respectful and dignified;
(3) The general air of cheerfulness that pervad-
ed the institution throughout in all its depart-
ments;
(4) The earnestness that characterized the work-
ers in shops, factories, and farms;
(5) The morning drill;
(6) The midday parade;
(7) The physique of the inmates. I hardly came
across any boy or girl who looked pale or sickly.
Most of them were in robust health, and all ap-
peared to be in normal health.
a
To me it seemed that Tuskegee was
beehive where there were no drones and all were
queens.
The Principal lives on the campus in a spacious
house specially built for him, and lives on the income
of a fund of six hundred thousand dollars specially
gifted for the purpose by Mr. Carnegie. Two of
his sons help him in his work; one as a teacher in the
institute and the other as the travelling secretary
of his father. His wife superintends the women's
department and has a noble personality. Dr.
Washington keeps a private poultry farm which he
looks after personally, feeding his birds and pigs, and
gathering the eggs himself. On the whole, I enjoyed
my visit considerably and learned a good many
practical lessons therefrom, but what the visit
principally did for me was to raise the D. A. V.
126 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
College of Lahore and its first Principal, and the
Gurukula of Kangri and its first Governor, at least
100 times more in my estimation than before. In
endowments, in actual expenditure, in buildings, in
grounds, in the extensiveness of its operations, the
vastness of its industrial and educational activities,
the Normal and Industrial Institute at the Tuskegee
is far, far ahead of and very much larger than either
of the Arya Samajic institutions in the Punjab. In
fact, in these respects, there is no comparison
between it and them. But in the solitary fact that
the two institutions of the Aryas have been conceived,
built, reared, provided for, by Hindus exclusively and
that in so far they have been managed and staffed by
them only, they stand on a higher level than the
Negro Institute at Tuskegee. I say this in no spirit
of carping criticism, nor do I mean it as a disparage-
ment of Booker T. Washington's work. In the cir-
cumstances in which Dr. Washington's community is
placed in these States, his work and success are
grand, inspiring and unique. His community could
not supply him the necessary sinews of war simply
because they had them not. Yet the fact that he
managed to get them from the white community
which hates the Negro, stands to his everlasting
credit. The glory of the D. A. V. College and the
Gurukula, however, rests on a different footing.
They represent the spiritual loftiness and grandeur of
the ancient Aryas. They are the living testimony of
that spirit. Though smouldering, it is still there and
with one touch of a mighty soul like that of Daya-
nand, can be made to burst into a blaze. It is some-
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
127
thing, nay, it is a mighty good thing to be proud of,
to have a Hansraj living all his life with a family of
wife and children, on 50 Rupees a month, and a
Munshi Ram, giving all his substance to the Guru-
kula, himself living on bread and milk,
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS
Slavery and bondage are unnatural as well as
inhuman. They degrade and debase both the master
and the slave. The former they turn into a brute,
a bully, and a monster of greed and lust; the latter
into a parasite, a hypocrite, and a mere animal.
The institution of slavery saps the manhood of
both. It kills the germs of humanity, generosity,
and fellow-feeling in one, amd those of self-respect,
confidence, frankness, and manliness in the other.
Slavery is of several grades and kinds. The worst
form is that where a man owns a man, body and
soul; where he is sold and bought like a chattel, a
block of wood, or a vegetable; where he has no
choice of life, of profession, of work; where he
subordinates for life his will to the will of another
and where his body, his brain, and his soul, all,
are at the bidding of another. In this state, even
a conception of individuality ceases and the slave
becomes a mere machine, worked, maintained, and
exploited by another. Then there is political
bondage, where one nation rules over another, holds
it under complete sway, exploits and uses it as it
suits her. The world has agreed to condemn the
former, but not the latter. Civilization not only
does not condemn, but in a way admires and
glorifies the latter. It is an object which excites
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 129
jealousy and rivalry among the "best" and the
"most civilized" of the race.
Human foresight cannot see any time when the
struggle between might and right, between force and
fairness, between the strong and the weak, the oppres-
sor and the oppressed, the mighty and the mightless,
shall cease. Two-thirds of human history is made
up of these struggles. That is what interests man-
kind the most, and a nation that ignores it is con-
demned by civilization as lacking in historical sense-
a verdict which is often passed against the Aryans
of India, the ancestors of the present-day Hindus.
Considering that these struggles are a permanent
feature of human life and human activity, they are
of permanent and absorbing interest to humanity at
large and must forever continue to interest mankind.
Indeed, from that standpoint, the history of the
emancipation of the American Negro is of abiding
interest to my countrymen, and I sketch it below as
briefly as is possible in conformity with the scope of
this book. Negro slavery in America is as old as
America itself-not the land which we call America
but the America conquered and owned by the white
people. The first batch of twenty African slaves
landed in America in what is now the State of Vir-
ginia in the year 1619, but there were Nego slaves in
the country even before that. When the Spanish ex-
plorers and adventureres came to America, they
brought with them many Spanish Negroes as ser-
vants and as slaves. It is probable that a few
Negroes were sent out to the West Indies as early
as 1501 A.D. At the beginning of the 19th century
9
130 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
England held in all her colonies in the New World
800,000 slaves, France 250,000, Denmark 26,000,
Spain and Portugal 600,000, Holland 50,000, Sweden
600. There were about 900,000 slaves in the United
States and about 2,000,000 in Brazil. Mr. Booker
T. Washington thinks that "from the time America
was discovered down to 1860 A.D. the number of
white people that" had "immigrated from Europe
to North and South America was less than the
number of black people, who were brought over
in slave ships during the same period."* In pass-
ing, it would be interesting to observe that in the
early days of American settlement, slavery was not
confined to the American Indian and the Negro.
There were other human beings besides them,
that were "bought and sold" and "in other respects
treated as property" in America. The historian
Bancroft says that "conditional servitude under in-
dentures or covenants had from the first existed in
Virginia" and that "white servants" were "an article
of regular traffic. They were sold in England to be
transported and in Virginia were sold to the highest
bidder; like Negroes, they were to be purchased on
shipboard as men buy horses at a fair." "It was
surprising to me to learn," says Mr. Washington,
"that a little more than 200 years ago Englishmen
"The Story of the Negro" by Booker T. Washington, volume
I, page 106.
† Diving into the remote past, we learn that centuries ago
there had been white slaves in England and that "Pope Gregory,
seeing some beautiful English slaves exposed for sale in the Forum
at Rome, was so impressed by their sad conditon that he deter-
mined to undertake the conversion of Britain."
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 131
sold the prisoners taken in their civil wars in much
the same way that the African people captured
and sold people of their own race." At first the
condition of the Negro slave was not in most
respects unlike that of the white servants, but
gradually the sentiment that "blood is thicker than
water" asserted itself. "The condition of the white
servants was continually improved, but that of
the black slave grew steadily worse" until it
became unbearable and resulted in occasional re-
volts. Very stringent laws were made to keep
the Negro down, to prevent his escape, to secure
his recapture after escapes, to assure the master
a complete dominion over him. In 1829, when a
master was indicted for beating a slave, the
Supreme Court of North Carolina acquitted the
former and "affirmed the master's right to inflict
any kind of punishment upon his slave short of
death." It was a mistake, the decision continued
to say, that the relations of the master and slave
were like that of parent and child. The object of the
parent in training his son was to render him fit to
live the life of a free man and as a means to that
end, he gave him moral and intellectual instruction.
With the case of a slave it was different. Chief
Justice Ruffin summed up his opinion upon this
point in these words:
"The end is the profit of the master, his security,
and the public safety; the subject one doomed in his
own person and his posterity to live without
knowledge and without capacity to make
thing his own and to toil that another may
reap the fruits...... Such service can only be expected
any-
132 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
from one who has no will of his own, who surrenders
his will in implicit obedience to that of another.
Such obedience is the consequence only of uncon-
trolled authority over the body...... The power of
the master must be absolute to render the sub-
mission of the slave perfect."
The treatment which the Negro received at the
hands of his master under the above conditions of
law may better be imagined than described. It would
be small wonder then that even before the great
American Revolution that took place in 1776, some-
thing like 25 insurrections of the slaves should have
taken place in the United States. These did not
include the outbreaks that occurred in Louisiana (as
it was not a part of the United States at the time of
the Revolution) and in the other Spanish, French,
and English colonies in the West Indies. But it
would be quite wrong to conclude that these insur-
rections and revolts were due to the ill-treatment of
those that revolted. The history of these outbreak
leaves no doubt in the mind of the reader that they
were in the main inspired by the human love of liber-
ty and by the love which individuals cherish for
their race and their community. We will narrate a
few select events :
In 1800 two Negroes were the leaders of an
attempted revolt in Virginia. The plot was dis-
covered before the attempt could be inade, and the
leaders were caught and executed.
Twenty-two years later, an extensive conspiracy
was organized by a free Negro, Denmak Vesey.
Vesey's plot failed. He was caught, tried, and with
thirty-four others put to death.
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 133
In 1831 came the outbreak under Nat Turner, a
very remarkable Negro who believed that he had a
mission to free the Negroes.
"He grew up to be a silent, dreamy kind of man,
going, whenever he could, to the caves of the moun-
tains, to brood over the condition of slaves.
On August 31, 1831, with the belief that he was exe-
cuting the will of God, Nat Turner started forth
with six companions who were soon joined by others,
making a force of 60 men."
Eventually the troops were called out and after
more than 100 of the insurgents were killed, the up-
rising was crushed. Nat Turner was convicted and
hanged.
John Brown was a white man who championed
the cause of the Negro and organized a revolt in
1859. He had a number of colored men in his hand.
A great Negro leader, Frederick Douglass, says
in his narrative published in 1845 that when he was
a slave in Maryland on the shores of Chesapeake
Bay, he often watched the ships as they sailed by
and as they passed, he addressed them in this way:
"You are loosed from your moorings, and are
free. I am fast in my chains and am a slave! You
move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly
before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-
winged angels that fly around the world, I am
confined in bonds of iron. O that I were free! O
that I were one of your gallant decks and under
your protecting wing!"
II.
The final abolition of slavery and the emancipa-
tion of the slaves did not come until 1865, as a
result of the Civil War between the North and the
134 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
South. But before that there was a fairly large
number of free Negroes in the United States. The
emancipation of the Negro had practically begun
with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The
Colony of Vermont adopted a constitution in 1777
abolishing slavery, Massachusetts in 1780, New
Hampshire in 1783; Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut passed gradual abolition laws in
1799 and 1800. The South, however, was always
opposed to the relaxation of property rights in
slaves and passed law after law checking and limit-
ing their emancipation. Yet the number of free
Negroes continued to increase in the Southern States
as well as the Northern in spite of these laws. Some
persons during their lifetime voluntarily granted
freedom to their slaves; others liberated their slaves
by will. In other cases freedom was purchased by
the slave first for himself and then for his family,
by paying a price to the slaveholder. In addition to
this, a large number ran away from their masters
and settled in free colonies and countries. "In this
and other ways," says Booker T. Washington, "there
were at this time something like 30,000 fugitives in
Canada, the number of free Negroes in the United
States increased from 59466 in 1790 to 434,495 in
1860." It appears that for some time the free
Negroes exercised about the same rights under the
law that other free persons had, but gradually when
their number began to increase, State after State
began to impose restrictions and make discrimina-
tions.
Between 1792 and 1834, the four bordering States
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 135
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky denied
suffrage to the Negro. In 1835 North Carolina ex-
cluded them from the suffrage. New Jersey took
away the suffrage of the Negro in 1807, Connecticut
in 1814, and Pennsylvania in 1838. "These changes,"
says Booker T. Washington, "were all evidences of
the steady growth in the United States both North
and South, of a caste system which excluded the
Negro from the ordinary privileges of citizenship
exclusively upon the ground of his color. In 1802
Ohio demanded a bond of $500 for Negroes who came
into the State. A Negro, even though a free man,
could not at that time testify in a case in which a
white man was a party, and Negroes were not ad-
mitted to the public schools." Similar provisions
were made in other States. In 1833 it was judicially
decided that a free Negro was a person and not a
citizen.
"In some States they were forbidden to sell
drugs, in others they might not sell wheat and to-
bacco, and in still others, to peddle market produce
or own a boat was against the law. In several
States it was against the law for a free Negro to
cross the State line; in others a slave who was eman-
cipated was compelled to immediately leave the
State."
One good came out of all these restrictions
and limitations and that consisted in the Negro com-
ing to realize the value of co-operation and organiza-
tion for common purposes. A remarkable instance
of such organization was the "Underground Rail-
road", an account of the origin of which we take
from a work called "The Negro in American History"
136 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
compiled by a Negro professor of the Atlanta Univer-
sity. In Appendix E* of his work he says:
"The abolition of slavery in Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, New York and other States in the
North was followed by unceasing attempts of the
slave in the South to escape from bondage. He could
not always use the well-established routes of travel,
the public stage, the steamboat or, later, the rail-
road, for this would have invited attention and
facilitated detection and apprehension to be followed
by a return to more oppressive forms of bondage."
In the first administration of President Washing-
ton, in 1793, a Fugitive Slave Law was passed which
"empowered the owner, his agent or attorney, to
seize the fugitive and take him before a United States
Circuit or District Judge within the county in which
the seizure occurs."
But this law was ineffectual, for slaves in increas-
ing number continued to escape to the North and to
Canada. The time of their departure, and the route
were not only not within the public eye, but beyond
detection. The route was as much a secret as though
underground, hence the term "Underground Rail-
road" was understood to include all the agencies and
instrumentalities by which the slave received the
direction and aid that enabled him to obtain his free-
dom.
The number aided and escaping by means of the
Underground Railroad has been placed as high as
fifty thousand by Rev. W. M. Mitchell, one who was
an active agent in this work, author of "The Under-
• John W. Cromwell, "The Negro in American History," Ap-
pendix E, pages 246-247.
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 137
ground Railroad"; and J. H. F. Claiborne, biograph-
er of John A. Quitman, placed the number as high as
one hundred thousand.
A full and comprehensive history of this movement
has now been published and reads like a romance.
It narrates in the words of the fugitives themselves
the difficulties, sufferings, fears of runaway slaves,
and of the various devices which they used to escape
from bondage to freedom. The man who preserved
this record speaks of his own motives for keeping
this record in the following words :
"Thousands of escapes, harrowing separations,
dreadful longings, dark gropings after lost parents,
brothers, sisters, and identities, seemed ever to be
pressing on my mind. While I knew the danger of
keeping strict records, and while I did not then
dream that in my day slavery would be blotted out,
or that the time would come when I could publish
these records, it used to afford me great satisfac-
tion to take them down, fresh from the lips of fugi-
tives on the way to freedom, and to preserve them
as they had given them." *
We give the following lengthy quotation from
Booker T. Washington's book called the "The Story
of the Negro," to illustrate the methods adopted by
"The Underground Railroad" in helping fugitive
Negroes:
"Sometimes these fugitives reached free soil packed
in boxes, shipped as merchandise by rail or by steam-
ship, from some of the nearby Southern ports. This
was the case of Henry Box Brown, who was shipped
from Richmond, Va., by James A. Smith, a shoe
dealer, to William H. Johnson, Arch Street, Phila-
• B. T, Washington, "The Story of the Negro," Vol. I, pages
216-217.
138 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
delphia. Though the box was marked "This side
up," in the course of his journey, Mr. Brown was
compelled to ride many miles standing on his head.
When the box arrived at the anti-slavery office, there
was the greatest apprehension lest, in the course of
the journey, the fugitive had perished and the society
would find itself with a corpse upon its hands. Mr.
Still described, in the following words, the scene
when this box was opened in the presence of a num-
ber of prominent members of the Anti-slavery
Society:
"All was quiet. The door had been safely locked.
The proceedings commenced. Mr. J. Miller McKim,
Secretary of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society,
rapped quietly on the lid of the box and called out,
'All right.' Instantly came the answer from within,
'All right, sir.'
"The witnesses will never forget that moment.
Saw and hatchet quickly had the five hickory hoops
cut and the lid off, and the marvellous resurrection
of Brown ensued. Rising up in his box, he reached
out his hand, saying, "How do you do,
gentlemen?" The little assemblage hardly knew
what to think or do at the moment. He was about
as wet as if he had come up out of the Delaware.
Very soon he remarked that, before leaving Rich-
mond, he had selected for his arrival-hymn (if he
lived) the psalm beginning with these words: 'I
waited patiently for the Lord, and He heard my
prayer.' And most touchingly did he sing the psalm,
much to his own relief, as well as to the delight of
his small audience. He was then christened Henry
Box Brown, and soon afterwards was sent to the
hospitable residence of James Mott and E. M. Davis,
on Ninth Street, where, it is needless to say, he met a
cordial reception from Mrs. Lucretia Mott and her
household.
"Other attempts were made after that time to ship
fugitive slaves out of the South as express packages.
In 1857, a young woman was shipped from Balti-
more to Philadelphia in a box of freight. After
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 139
reaching Philadelphia, this box with its living
freight, after having been turned upside down
several times, was left standing nearly all of one
night at the freight shed, and it was not secured by
the persons to whom it was consigned until ten
o'clock the next day. When the box was opened
the young woman inside was unconscious and could
not speak for some time. She recovered, however,
and eventually escaped to Canada. Samuel A. Smith,
who shipped Henry Box Brown from Richmond to
Philadelphia, attempted, shortly after this success-
ful venture to send two other slaves by express to
the anti-slavery office. The deceit, however, was
discovered and Smith was arrested, convicted, and
sentenced to eight years in prison, and served out
his time in the penitentiary.
"Frequently fugitives were secreted upon steam-
ships and sailing vessels. There was usually a
colored steward on these vessels who was willing
to run the risk of assisting a fugitive to escape.
Men dressed themselves as women, and women
dressed themselves as men in order to escape from
slavery. Sometimes fugitives travelled hundreds of
miles in skiffs in order to reach free soil." *
III.
The final emancipation of the Negro, however,
was due to the exertion of the Northern States.
Principle, philanthrophy, the Christian teaching
of the brotherhood of man, combined with expedi-
ency to pave the way for the reform. "The over-
throw of slavery," says Dean Kelly Miller, "was
due to economic as well as to moral and philan-
thropic causes." The free labour of the North
was the first to awake to consciousness of the fact
that he was made the competitor of slave labor, a
* B. T. Washington, Vol. 1, pages 217 to 219.
140 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
condition which he resented and resisted to the
bitter end. It is impossible to relegate the Negro
to any status without at the same time affecting a
sufficient number of white men to make up the full
quota of that status. Any degradation placed upon
the Negro laborer must react upon the white
workman of the same grade.
The presidential election of 1860 was fought on
this issue and resulted in the victory of the North.
Then came the civil war. The white laborer had
virtually been reduced to the position of the Negro,
and his emancipation was as much an issue in the
war as that of the Negro. On April 16, 1862, slavery
was abolished in the district of Columbia by the pay-
ment of about a million dollars to the slave owners.
On January first, 1863, President Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves
in the United States "henceforth and forever free."
"Slavery," said Lincoln, "must be always and
everywhere hostile to the principles of republican
government. Justice and the national safety demand
ter and complete extirpation from the soil of
the Republic."
"The assassination of President Lincoln, April
15, 1865, following so closely upon the Fall of
Richmond and the Surrender of Lee at Appomattox,
precipitated a long and bitter conflict between
Congress and Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor
in office. April 9, 1866, a Civil Rights Law was
enacted, conferring certain fundamental rights upon
the emancipated race-the right to sue and be sued,
to hold property, and to testify in the courts. The
States lately in rebellion passed vagrant acts which
virtually re-enacted many of the objectionable
features of the Slave Code, and Congress decided to
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 141
protect by legislation and constitutional enactments
those freed by the sword. The Thirteenth Amend-
ment, constitutionally legalizing emancipation, be-
came a part of the Constitution, December 18, 1865;
the Fourteenth Amendment, defining citizenship and
declaring all Negroes to be citizens of the United
States and of the States in which they reside, became
incorporated in the Constitution, July 18, 1868.
The right of franchise was given the Negro, first in
the States that were engaged in rebellion by the
Reconstruction Act organizing the seceded States,
which passed March 2, 1867 and through the
Fifteenth Amendment, preventing any denial of the
right of suffrage on account of race, color or previous
condition of servitude. This amendment was ratified
March 30, 1870, and applied to the entire country.
With its embodiment in the fundamental law and
the restoration of all the States lately in rebellion to
their constitutional rights and representation within
the Union, the work of reconstruction was supposed
to be complete."*
IV.
Then came the aftermath. The Negro was em-
ancipated. Slavery was gone; but the free Negro
was an even greater problem than the slave Negro.
The emancipation of the Negro had been obtained at
the point of the bayonet. The South had never
agreed to it and had resisted it to the bitter end.
The Republican North had attempted it by force.
The questions that confronted the party in power
were twofold: (1) what to do with the freed Negro:
how to float him in the world. He was penniless
and houseless, with nothing to eat, nothing to clothe
himself with, no shelter from rain and sun, and no
* Cromwell: "The Negro in American History," page 23-24.
142 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
work to earn his livelihood by, even if he would. The
white Southerner was sour and dour; the war had
ruined him politically as well as economically. (2)
The reconstruction and reorganisation of the South
on the principles which had won the war.
The war had resulted in an extreme exhaustion of
the South. It had impoverished the Southerner,
dethroned the planter, enfranchised the poor white,
emancipated the Negro, and had thus altered the
whole basis of government and society in the south.
The logic of facts made co-operation between the
North and the South in the work of reconstruction
extremely difficult, if not impossible. The Northern-
ers believed they had been right. Did not their
victory show that? The South had seceded and had
by her rebellion and contumacy brought on the war.
"Should she not be punished for it or at least forced
to acknowledge that she had been wrong and com-
pelled to take step that would prevent the recurrence
of that wrong?" Then the assassination of Lincoln
intensified this feeling a hundredfold and the North
began to insist upon "punishment" and revenge.
The Southerner on the other hand saw that "his
estates were ruined, his fortune gone; he saw North-
ern soldiers quartered on the poverty-stricken and
exhausted country and knew that, whatever legal
excuse was offered, they were "conquerors" and held
him and his in subjection. Then the Negro and the
poor white whom he had despised and ruled,
were also thorns at his side. The war had raised the
Negro to the level of both. He resented the interfer-
ence of the North in his affairs and was not willing
to co-operate in the work of reconstruction except on
his own terms. The moment he got that chance, he
showed his terms by actual conduct and by a policy
of resentment and reaction. "The resentment and
reaction of the South," says Mr. Usher in his book
called "The Rise of the American People", "caused
the insertion of clauses in the New Constitution deny-
ing with vehemence the equality of the white and
the black races and affirming that Negroes could not
be citizens of the United States. To coerce the
Negroes into working "vagrancy", Acts were passed
in several States in the fall of 1865 which declared it
an offence for Negroes over 18 years old to be with-
out "lawful employment or business" or to be found
"unlawfully assembling themselves together either in
the day or night time." Negroes under 18 years of age,
"orphans or the children of parents who could not or
would not support them" were to be apprenticed un-
til 21 years old by the clerk of the Probate Court at
his discretion, preferably to the former owner.
Mississippi made a similar provision for Negroes
who did not pay their taxes, and then levied a poll
tax of one dollar a head on all Negroes "for the sup-
port of the poor." The criminal statutes provided fines
and compulsory work to be done by the criminal for
the man who would pay in return for the shortest
period of service in such elastic offences as "malicious
mischief," "insulting gestures," "seditious speeches,"
"or any other misdemeanor." These acts created
an impression in the North that the Southerners in-
tended to restore actual slavery under the guise
of apprenticeship or as a punishment for debt or
were
crime and, to hasten and facilitate the completion
of the process, had put Acts on the statute book de-
fining proverty and crime in broad and inclusive terms
which ipso facto made every Negro guilty. They
had provided compulsory work for Negroes in debt
and had then passed laws which instantly put
every Negro in debt. The South, besides, very
naturally proceeded to elect those very men as
senators and representatives of the United States
Congress who had been prominent in the administra-
tive and military service of the Confederacy and
organized a State militia in whose ranks
naturally to be found a large proportion of confede-
rate veterans who had fought in the war on their
side. All this raised the suspicion of the North.
They thought that everything gained by the war
was likely to be lost if they were not vigilant; the
South was still in rebellion and would do everything
possible to reduce the Negro to the old conditions of
slavery. There commenced the tug of war between
the Republican Congress and the South which was
to humiliate the South and place the power in the
hands of those who accepted in full the principles
of the North.
The Negro had in the meantime been put under
the protection of an official bureau called the
Freedmen's Bureau, whose duty it was "to care for
the blacks and their interests, to shield them from
the speculation and sharpers, white and black,
already imposing on their inexperience and to allot
to them the abandoned plantations and furnish
enough tools and seeds to start them on the new
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 145
life." To facilitate the work, jurisdiction was
given the bureau over all controversies to which
a Negro was a party, including family relations and
marriage. In particular, the bureau was to take
cognizance of all the means and methods by which
the whites sought to secure the labour of the
freedmen and was to guarantee them against con-
tracts which should be the equivalent of slavery for
life.
To the Southerner, the Bureau was a dia-
bolical device to perpetuate the military conquest of
the South and humiliate the whites before the Negro,
a method of compelling by force recognition of the
social equality with the blacks which the whites were
determined not to concede." When the tug of war
recommenced between the Congress and the South
over the reactionary measures enacted by the latter,
the first measures were intended to increase the
power of the Freedmen's Bureau. The first step was
to ensure the continuance of the republican parties'
regime that had won the war, for sufficient time to
enable them to crush the South and enforce their
measures. These measures were calculated "to
secure to the Negro full equality in civic rights and
before the courts; to define the term 'Citizen of the
U. S.' and include the Negro
to repudiate
forever all claims to indemnification for loss by
reason of the emancipation of the slaves; and to
disqualify all confederates (those who had taken part
in the war on the side of the South) for election to
Federal office. Above all it was intended to prevent
Southern States, when re-organized, from taking
advantage of the increase in representation" to
10
146 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
...
which they were entitled under the amended consti-
tution, "without enfranchising the Negro. .." In
the States where the Negroes equalled or outnum-
bered the whites, the effect of the amendment was
materially to decrease the old representation of the
State in the House of Representatives and thus to
ensure the control of that body by the Republicans,
for any increase could be obtained only by the
enfranchisement of the Negroes who could be depen-
ded upon to vote for the Republicans.
Thus the white Republicans of the North sided
with the white Republicans of the South and the
Negroes to frustrate the designs of the Southern
slave-holders against the party in power. The result
was what are called "Negro Governments" in the
South. In South Carolina the majority of the
legislature and of the most important officers were
Negroes and the rest were, in the words of Usher,
"rascally whites from the Northern or even more
unsavory characters from the South." The tables
were thus turned on the whites.
By 1871, the valuation of property held by the
whites had decreased 40%, the taxes had risen 500%
and the state debt increased 400%. The taxes were
often levied by the Negroes, of whom scarcely 20,
had any property at all and of whom 80% were
illiterate, and were paid by the whites, the vast
majority of whom were disfranchised for participa-
tion in the war. To protect themselves against the
alleged excesses of the Negroes, elated by this sud-
den accession of power, the whites set up secret
organizations which meted out summary punishment
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 147
to the offending Negroes. This tug of war continued
until, in 1870, the Freedmen's Bureau was abolished,
the corps of the army were soon after withdrawn,
and the artificial support of the Negroes disappeared.
Gradually, too, the whites who had been disqualified
for participation in the war, were qualifying as
voters, and, as the Negroes were in the numerical
majority in only three States, it was clear that the
whites would control the other States as soon as
they could be re-instated. How the Negro majorities
were reduced in these three States has been described
by Usher.
The methods resorted to for reducing the Negro
majorities have since been persistently followed to
practically disfranchise the Negro population alto-
gether. To-day the Negro is politically as much
a zero in the South as he was before the emancipa-
tion. The present political position of the Negro
in the United States may be stated in the words
of another American writer, Mr. Paul Leland
Haworth:
"The provisions of the fifteenth amendment
prohibiting the denial to citizens of the right to
vote 'on account of race, color, or previous condi-
tion of servitude" would seemingly stand in the
way of any legal discrimination against the Negro's
political rights; but, as everybody knows, ways
have been found for evading the constitutional
prohibition. Following the downfall of the
Re-construction governments the Negroes in the
Southern States were virtually disfranchised by
force or fraud, but in 1890 Mississippi evolved a
plan whereby the end sought could be attained in a
quasi-legal manner. To-day every one of the former
Confederate States, except Florida, Arkansas,
148 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Tennessee and Texas, have suffrage requirements
which practically eliminate the Negro from politics,
while even in the four States named as exceptions
he is not much of a factor. By educational or pro-
perty tests the mass of ignorant and poor Negro
voters are excluded, while loopholes are provided
for ignorant and poor whites in the shape of
"Grandfather clauses," or "Understanding clauses,"
which last white registration officers can apply rigidly
to Negroes and leniently to whites. The avowed
purpose of these "suffrage amendments" was to
eliminate the Negro from politics and, in spirit,
they certainly violate the fifteenth amendment and
also lay the States which have adopted them liable
to that section of the fourteenth amendment which
provides for a reduction in representation in propor-
tion to the number of citizens excluded from the
suffrage; but the Supreme Court has always care-
fully evaded the constitutional issue, while Congress
has not seen fit to reduce the representation of any
State. In view of the existing political situation it
is improbable that anything will be done to nullify
the suffrage requirements."
But that is not all. In addition to disfranchising
the Negro and eliminating him from politics "by
force or fraud," the Southern legislatures have
passed numerous discriminating laws against him.
In 1910, 26 States (out of 52 ) either by statute or
constitution forbade the inter-marriage of Negroes
with whites. Such mixed alliances are declared
void, while the contracting parties are held guilty
of a "misdemeanor" in some States, of "felony" in
others, and of "infamous crime" in yet others. The
punishment varies from imprisonment for ten years
at one extreme in certain Southern States to a
minimum fine of $ 50 in one and to no penalty on
the Negro participant in another.
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 149
"A few States impose heavier penalties for illicit
relations between whites and blacks than for such
offences between persons of the same color. In
Alabama, for example, a Negro and a Caucasian
convicted of living together for one day with intent
to continue the relation are liable to the same
penalty as for intermarriage, namely, imprisonment
in the penitentiary for not less than two nor more
than seven years. In Florida and Nevada the
penalties may be no heavier than a simple fine, but
Louisiana has a more drastic statute, passed in
1908, which provides that concubinage between a
Negro and a white person is a felony, punishable with
imprisonment of from one month to one year."
* “
Besides these, "Jim Crow laws" are in force in all
the former slave States providing for separate ac-
commodation for the races on railways and (in some
States) on steam boats and street cars. Separation
in waiting rooms and railroad dining rooms is also
the general rule. Separate cars are usually provided,
but on street cars the white passengers are usually
assigned to the front seats and colored passengers to
the rear seats. It is usually impossible for a Negro
passenger, however rich, to obtain a sleeping berth
on railroads, and in case such a passenger, in Illi-
nois for example, crosses the Ohio river into Ken-
tucky, he must give up his berth and retire to the
colored coach. Too often also, the railway com-
panies provide better accommodation for white pas-
sengers than for their colored ones, even though they
both pay the same fare.
No Southern State permits colored and white
children to attend the same public schools and some
* Haworth, "America in Ferment," page 131-132.
150 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
States extend the provision to private schools also.
One State only recently enacted a law forbidding
white persons to teach in colored schools or vice versa.
Legal distinctions and discriminations are mostly
confined to the South, but race prejudice is to be
found practically throughout the United States.
Negroes are excluded from hotels, Young Women's
Christian Associations, Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciations, theaters, saloons, and are even refused inter-
ment in white cemeteries-in some cases in direct
violation of local laws. In the absence of legal regu-
lations, public sentiment results in the Negro attend-
ing separate churches and registering at separate
hotels, confines him to special seats in the theaters,
segregates him in cities and even in country places
and tends to keep him apart from white people in all
relations of life. The Negro is the pariah of the
United States.
Race prejudice frequently prevents colored men
from obtaining justice and causes white men to wink
at and condone flagrant impositions on him. The
practice of peonage was broken up by federal courts
but in more than one Southern State the laws regard-
ing contracts and leases are so drawn up that the
Negro is virtually at the mercy of unscrupulous white
men.
The worst form taken by this race prejudiee is the
"lynching" of Negroes accused or suspected of crimes
against white people, before they have been tried and
adjudged guilty by any court of justice. The extent
to which it has been indulged in and the alleged
causes which furnished occasion for it will appear
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 151
from the following figures reproduced from a tract
on the subject issued by the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People :
NOTES ON LYNCHING:
1. Statistics.
COLOURED MEN LYNCHED WITHOUT TRIAL.
1885
.......
78
1901
107
......
1886
71
1902
86
......
......
1887
80
1903
86
......
......
1888
95
1904
83
......
......
1889
95
1905
61
......
......
1890
90
1906
64
......
......
1891
121
1907
60
......
......
1892
155
1908
93
......
......
1893
154
1909
73
......
......
1894
134
1910
65
......
......
1895
112
1911
63
......
......
1896
80
1912
63
......
......
1897
122
1913
79
......
......
1898
102
1914
69
......
......
1899
84
......
1900
107
......
Total
......
Number of Crimes.
The alleged causes for 1914 were :
2,732
Murder
By rioters and nightriders
Personal assaults
р. с.
30
44
......
13
19
......
10
14
..
......
......
......
8521
112
2112
....
Rape, attempts to rape, and presence
in women's rooms
Robbery and theft
Arson
Resistance to search
We give the figures above from the Chicago Tribune.
152 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"The Crisis" (the organ of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People) believes that
at least 100 colored people were lynched during the
year 1911, and that the number given by the Tribune
is estimated too low.
2. ILLUSTRATIVE MATTER, 1911.
THE CRIME OF BEING A NEGRO
ACCUSED OF KNOCKING A WHITE MAN DOWN
October 20, Manchester, Ga.-Because he was
accused of knocking down a white man last night,
Jerry Lovelace, a Negro, was taken from jail at
2 o'clock this morning and lynched. There were
about thirty men in the mob.
WOMAN AND CHILD HANGED.
May 26, Okemah, Oklahama.-A colored woman
accused of having shot a sheriff was taken by a mob
and, together with her fourteen-year-old son, was
hanged from a bridge. The woman was raped before
she was hanged.
A NEGRO A DAY KILLED,
November 2, Birmingham, Alabama.--Four miles
north of Birmingham a reign of terror exists. Six
white men and eleven Negroes have been assassinated
within the past eighteen months. Six of the Negroes
have been killed within the past six days, an aver-
age of one a day since last Saturday.
FIVE INNOCENT MEN LYNCHED.
May 20, Lake City, Fla.-Six men were taken
from jail and lynched "for complicity in the murder
of a prominent citizen." The lynchers came in auto-
mobiles and showed the sheriff's young son, who
had been left in charge of the jail, a forged telegram
purporting to come from the governor and ordering
that the prisoners be given up On investigation it
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 153
was found that only one of the six men murdered
was even accused of a crime. A quarrel between a
white man and a colored man had been brought up
before a local court and the colored man had been
exonerated. Immediately afterward the white man
went into the colored man's yard with a gun. Shots
were exchanged and the white man was killed. The
colored man gave himself up at once and the five men
with him were being held merely as witnesses.
WOUNDED NEGRO BURNED TO DEΑΤΗ.
August 13, Coatesville, Pa.-There is no need to
repeat the story of the Coatesville horror. You all
remember the man who was taken from a bed in the
hospital and burned alive for having shot a watch-
man when drunk. His writhing body was poked
back into the flames as he tried to drag himself
away. His teeth and charred bones were kept for
souvenirs. All arrested for this frolic have been
ACQUITTED.
WHAT A JUDGE SAID.
July, Lawrenceville, Ga.-Judge Charles H. Brand
of Lawrenceville, Ga., refused to call for troops to
protect two Negroes who came before him for trial,
one on a charge of an alleged attack on a white
woman; the other for "loitering in a suspicious
manner."
They were lynched, one was taken from a train
where he was in charge of two officers (the train
stopping while the passengers saw the lynching);
the other was dragged out of jail by a mob several
hundred strong.
Judge Brand defended his failure to secure a safe-
guard for the prisoners, saying:
"I don't propose to be the engine of sacrificing
any white man's life for all such Negro criminals in
the country.... I am in perfect accord with my con-
science and my God. I would not imperil the life of
one white man to save the lives of a hundred such
Negroes."
154 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WHAT GOVERNOR BLEASE SAYS.
November 11, Honeapath, S.C.-Governor Blease
of South Carolina says, in regard to a recent lynch-
ing in his State, that rather than use the power of
his office in deterring white men from "punishing that
Nigger brute," he "would have resigned his office
and come to Honeapath and led the mob."
The above facts have, I presume, given the
reader some idea of the magnitude of the problem of
the Negro in the United States of America. Both the
parties to the question, the whites as well as the
blacks, are conscious of the gravity of the situation.
There is a great deal of conflict of the rights and
wrongs of the actual state of things and about the
future. The whites themselves are divided into three
classes: first, those who have nothing but con-
demnation for the prejudice; second, those who
condemn the prejudice, but palliate it on the ground
that there is such a distance between the white man
and the Negro that it is impossible for the former
to treat the latter as an equal. These people would
discriminate in favour of the better class of Negroes,
the educated and the cultured among them; last,
but not least, is the class which condemns the
Negroes on racial grounds and would under no
circumstances have any sort of social relations with
them. This class believes that "no amount of edu-
cation of any kind, industrial, classical, or religious,
can make out of a Negro a white man or bridge the
chasm which separates him from the white man in
the evolution of human history."
Among the Negroes themselves there is unanimity
only up to a certain point. The prevalence of crime,
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 155
ignorance, superstition, laziness, thriftlessness, are
all ascribed to environments and circumstances.
"The Negroes were brought to America as dejected
and expatriated individuals. The imported slaves
represented the conquered and subdued, the despised
and outcast of their own country and race." In
America, during the period of slavery, they were
denied freedom of education, freedom of motion,
means of intercommunication and the privilege of
unrestrained assemblage. Generally speaking, every-
thing which tends to civilize a man was denied to
him. The master was bound by no law or morality
in his treatment of the slave, man or woman, and
to-day a large number of colored men in America
are the standing proof of the immoral lawlessness
of their former white masters. Under the institution
of slavery the Negro was suppressed below the
level of self-respect. The black woman often felt
her superior importance by becoming the mother of
a tawny child. The white master or overseer felt
no legal, social, or conscientious constraint in
victimizing the female chattel. "The Negro in this
country," says Dean Miller, "is the sacrificial race.
He is the burden bearer of the white race. He con-
stitutes the meek sill of society and suffers the ills
of that lowly place. He performs the rough work
of society. He suffers the affliction and even commits
the crimes which always fall to the lot of his status."
In another place the same writer says:
"The Negro woman has been made to bear the
brunt of the evil passions of all the races of men
living or sojourning in this country. Within the veins
of the so-called Negro race there course traces of the
156 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
blood of every known variety or sub-variety of the
human family. Not only within the limits of the race
itself, but even within the veins of the same indivi-
duals, the strains of blood are mingled and blended in
inextricable confusion."
Under the circumstances, Dean Miller claims that
the advancement of the race during the past fifty
years since the emancipation, has been marvellous.
Fifty years is entirely too short a time to measure the
potency and promise of the race. "In the economy of
racial life a half century is scarcely more than a
single year in the experience of an individual." Yet
the following facts show that the progress made by
the Negro in America within the last fifty years is a
marvel.
Judged by the standard of physical persistence,
the 412 million slaves of 1860 have doubled their
number under the strain and stress of conditions
that would have caused any of the weaker breeds of
men to pine away and die.
Coming to the test of literacy and education, in a
period of 50 years a considerable majority of its
members have learned the use of letters.
"The accumulation of houses and lands and mate-
rial goods on the part of the Negro has been com-
mendable and encouraging. If his landed possessions
could be formed into one continuous area, it would
make a territory larger than many a far famed prin-
cipality in ancient and modern annals.
"In industry he has pushed his way into every
line of listed occupation and contributes his full share
to the nation's industrial equation.
"He has developed a professional class who sprang
into existence suddenly like Melchisedeck of old,
without antecedent or beginning of days. This pro-
fessional class must stand in the high places of leader-
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 157
ship and guidance of the masses and direct them
aright amid the stress and strain of a strenuous civi-
lization. It is easy to predict the speedy undoing of
a race that fails to produce its own competent
leaders, but a people that can produce safe and saga-
cious leadership can never be undone.
"In religion, the race has developed a priesthood
whose increasing power and piety will enable them
to hold this vast Christian constituency in definite
organic relation to the great religious movements
of the age.
"In morals, manners, social customs and habits
he conforms to the prevailing standards, with no
greater variation than grows out of his status in the
general scheme. The Negro shows his near kinship
to the great body of white Americans by speaking
the same language, worshipping the same God,
striving after the same ideals, longing for the same
destiny. None but the most confirmed pessimist can
say that that past half century has not given a satis-
factory indication that he will be able to meet every
exaction that the coming years may impose upon
him."*
Nor is the record of the Negro from the point of
view of eminent Negroes, in any way such as to
prove the inherent intellectual inferiority of the
race. Several lists of distinguished Negroes have
been prepared and are in existence and a race which
can produce a Booker T. Washington and a Du Bois
need not be ashamed of its intellectual capacity.
So far, all parties among the Negroes are agreed,
and so are they on the question of race prejudice.
When it, however, comes to a question of remedies,
they differ.
"Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought
the old attitude of adjustment and submission; but
Kelly Miller : "Out of the House of Bondage," pp. 37-38.
158 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his
programme unique. This is an age of unusual
economic development, and Mr. Washington's
programme naturally takes an economic cast,
becoming a gospel of Work and Money to such an
extent as apparently almost completely to over-
shadow the higher aims of life. Moreover, this is an
age when the more advanced races are coming into
closer contact with the less developed races, and
the race-feeling is, therefore, intensified; and Mr.
Washington's programme practically accepts the
alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our
own land, the reaction from the sentiment of war
time has given impetus to race-prejudice against
Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of
the high demands of Negroes as men and American
citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all
the Negro's tendency to self-assertion has been
called forth; at this period a policy of submission
is advocated. In the history of nearly all other
races and peoples the doctrine preached at such
crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more
than lands and houses, and that a people who
voluntarily surrender such respect or cease striving
for it, are not worth civilizing.
"In answer to this, it has been claimed that the
Negro can survive only through submission. Mr.
Washington distinctly asks that black people give
up, at least for the present, three things,-
"First, political power,
"Second, insistence on civic rights,
"Third, higher education of Negro youth,-
and concentrate all their energies on industrial educa-
tion, the accumulation of wealth, and the concilia-
tion of the South. This policy has been courageously
and insistently advocated for over fifteen years,
and has been triumphant for perhaps ten years.
As a result of this tender of the palm branch, what
has been the return? In these years there have
occurred :
1. The disfranchisement of the Negro.
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 159
2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil
inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institu-
tions for the higher training of the Negro.
"These movements are not, to be sure, direct
results of Mr. Washington's teachings; but his pro-
paganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped
their speedier accomplishment. The question then
comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine mil-
lions of men can make effective progress in economic
lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a
servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre
chance for developing their exceptional men? If
history and reason give any distinct answer to these
questions, it is an emphatic NO. And Mr. Washing-
ton thus faces the triple paradox of his career :
1. He is striving nobly to make Negro artisans,
business men, and property owners; but it is utterly
impossible, under modern competitive methods, for
workingmen and property-owners to defend their
rights and exist without the right of suftrage.
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the
same time counsels a silent submission to civic infe-
riority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any
race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial
training; but neither the Negro common-schools nor
Tuskegee itself, could remain open a day were it not
for teachers trained in Negro colleges, or trained by
their graduates.
"This triple paradox in Mr. Washington's posi-
tion is the object of criticism by two classes of colored
Americans. One class is spiritually descended from
Toussaint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and
Turner, and they represent the attitude of revolt and
revenge; they hate the white South blindly and
distrust the white race generally, and so far as they
agree on definite action, think that the Negro's only
hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the
160 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
seem
United States. And yet, by the irony of fate, nothing
has more effectually made this programme
hopeless than the recent course of the United States
towards weaker and darker people in the West
Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines, -for where in
the world may we go and be safe from lying and
brute force?
"The other class of Negroes who cannot agree
with Mr. Washington has hitherto said little aloud.
They deprecate the sight of scattered counsels, of
internal disagreement and especially they dislike
making their just criticism of a useful and earnest
man an excuse for a general discharge of venom from
small-minded opponents. Nevertheless, the questions
involved are so fundamental and serious that it is
difficult to see how men like the Grimkes, Kelly
Miller, J. W. E. Bowen, and other representatives
of this group, can much longer be silent. Such men
feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three
things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.
"They acknowledge Mr. Washington's invaluable
service in counselling patience and courtesy in such
demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men
vote when ignorant whites are debarred, or that
any reasonable restrictions in the suffrage should
not be applied; they know that the low social level
of the race is responsible for much discrimination
against it, but they also know, and the nation
knows, that relentless color-prejudice is more often
a cause than a result of the Negro's degradation;
they seek the abatement of this relic of barbarism,
and not its systematic encouragement and pampering
by all agencies of social power from the Associated
Press to the Church of Christ. They advocate,
with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro
common schools supplemented by a thorough in-
dustrial training; but they are surprised that a
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 161.
man of Mr. Washington's insight cannot see that
no such educational system ever has rested or can
rest on any other basis than that of the well-
equipped college or university, and they insist that
there is a demand for a few such institutions
throughout the South to train the best of the Negro
youth as teachers, professional men, and leaders.
"This group of men honor Mr. Washington for
his attitude of conciliation toward the white South;
they accept the 'Atlanta Compromise' in its
broadest interpretation; they recognize, with him,
many signs of promise, many men of high purpose
and fair judgment, in this section; they know that
no easy task has been laid upon a region already
tottering under heavy burdens. But, nevertheless,
they insist that the way to truth and right lies in a
straightforward honesty, not in indiscriminate
flattery; in praising those of the South who do
well and criticising uncompromisingly those
who do ill; in taking advantage of the oppor-
tunities at hand and urging their fellows to do
the same, but at the same time in remembering that
only a firm adherence to their higher ideals and
aspirations will ever keep those ideals within the
realm of possibility. They do not expect that the
free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be
educated, will come in a moment; they do not
expect to see the bias and prejudices of years
disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are
absolutely certain that the way for a people to gain
their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throw-
ing them away and insisting that they do not want
them; that the way for a people to gain respect is
not by continually belittling and ridiculing them-
selves; that, on the contrary, Negroes must insist
continually, in season and out of season, that voting
is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimi-
nation is barbarism, and that black boys need
education as well as white boys." *
W. E. B. Du Bois: "The Souls of Black Folk," pp. 50-55.
11
NEGRO ORGANIZATION.
To-day, throughout the length and breadth of the
country, there is a vast network of organizations for
the protection of the interests of the Negroes. One
of the principal organizations of that kind is the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People. A copy of its treasurer's report for the year
1914 will give an idea of its resources. The Associa-
tion has an organ of its own, called "The Crisis,"
which had a circulation of over 30,000 copies in
December, 1914.
REPORT OF THE TREASURER.
N. A. A. C. P. Revenue and Expense Account, 1914.
EXPENSES.
...
$ 7,395.34
2,606:15
"
...
"
1,613-53
879-51
...
"
Salaries
General expenses
Printing
Travelling expense
Postage
...
Depreciation on furniture
...
Net gain
REVENUE
868-88
96.80
$ 13,460-16
570-54
$ 14,030.70
Membership
...
$ 5,661-19
Donations
...
8,334-81
Literature sold
...
18.70
"
Profit on pins sold
16.00
"
$ 14,030-70
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 163
BALANCE SHEET, DECEMBER 31, 1914.
ASSETS
Cash in banks
Petty cash fund
Due from "Crisis"
Pins on hand
Furniture and fixtures
...
$ 1,374′04
25.00
...
"
...
9.30
... "
...
130.92
876-65
"
LIABILITIES
Special funds reserved :
Maclean Memorial
Fed. Aid Educational
...
$ 2,415-91
$ 302.90
195.63
"
$ 498-53
Net worth 1,917-38
$ 2,415.91
It is gratifying to note that the Association can
report itself out of debt with a substantial balance
in bank. Its net gain for the year is almost $600
and its net worth over $1,900,
An analysis of the membership list shows that
eighty per cent. are colored and twenty per cent.
white.
The preceeding financial report by a certified public
accountant shows expense and revenue only. It is
interesting to note in this connection that since the
Association's books were opened in May, 1911, its
income has been as follows, that for 1914 being
within about $ 300 of that of the previous year
despite the financial depression :
1912
...
$ 11,815-15
1913
...
"
15,526-85
1914
...
"
15,237.98
164 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A fair idea as to the scope of the work done by
the association can be obtained from the following
extracts from the report of the secretary as to the
activities of some of the various branches of the as-
sociation during the year 1914.
The Boston branch persuaded the Boston School
Committee to withdraw from the schools a book
entitled "Forty Best Songs" which contained
words objectionable to colored people.
The Northern California branch was successful
in having discriminating signs removed from cheap
restaurants.
The Cleveland branch took the initiative in
getting two colored people on the General Welfare
Council of the city.
The Detroit branch smothered an anti-inter-
marriage bill in the Michigan Legislature in
February, and secured the appointment of two
colored detectives to the police force.
The District of Columbia branch work resulted
in: The reinstatement of a colored government
employee who had been dismissed; successful agita-
tion to compel the commencement of work on the
new colored high school; the checking of discrimina-
tion in the restaurant of one of the large department
stores; securing assurances from the Board of Educa-
tion that moving pictures on educational topics for
the public schools should be enjoyed by colored pupils.
The Harrisburg branch won an encourag-
ing victory over a local moving picture theatre.
According to witnesses, the proprietor of this theater
had the following notice posted at the ticket office:
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 165
"The balcony of this theatre is provided for our
colored patrons. If you do not wish to sit in the
balcony, do not purchase tickets, as they will not be
honored in any other section of the theatre."
In giving his decision in the case, the judge ruled
that to reserve a certain section of a public amuse-
ment house for the special accommodation of the
white race and to deprive colored patrons of the right
to occupy that particular section, is a discrimination
against the colored race and a violation of the
criminal statute and punishable by a fine. This
decision is the first of its kind rendered in Dauphin
County.
The Howard branch was the first college chapter
chartered. As a student organization, it has devoted
itself especially to the study of the race question and
to spreading the propaganda of the N. A. А. С. Р.
by sending speakers to other colleges, by correspond-
ence, and by distributing literature broadcast. The
dispatch with which briefs protesting against the
Afro-Exclusion amendment to the Immigration Bill
were distributed to members of Congress was largely
due to the energy of the students of the Howard
Chapter.
Kansas City branch was successful in its agi-
tation against segregation and Jim Crow street
cars and successfully contested state bills against
intermarriage.
The Providence, R. I. branch made a success-
ful protest against color discrimination in the
Y. M. C. A.
The St. Paul, Minn., checked discrimination in
a private circulating library and in a school of
166 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
shorthand and also prevented the introduction of
an anti-intermarriage bill into the legislature.
The chairman, Board of Directors of the Associa-
tion, closes his report for 1914, as follows :
"The record of the American people on the race
question now stands as follows. During the year
just passed some seventy colored men and women
were lynched without trial and in many cases with
barbaric torture. Segregation ordinances restricting
the property rights of colored people have passed or
are pending in some of our largest cities, including
Baltimore, Richmond, Louisville, and St. Louis.
Legislation opposed to the interests of colored
people has been introduced into the legislature of
nearly every state in the Union during the last few
years. Farm segregation is being agitated in the
South. It is not unfair to say that at this very
moment an orgy of Negro baiting is going on in
Congress. Out of eleven million people, including
1,600,000 men of voting age who can read and
write, only 550,000 were permitted to vote at the
last Presidential election. The Supreme Court of
the United States has virtually declared that the
colored man has no civic rights, and has refused
redress on one ground or another in every case that
has come before it. All this does not take account
of the daily humiliations, persecutions, and wrongs
to which the American Negro is subjected, or the
political, economic and social opportunities which
are withheld from him.
Our task like that of the
old Abolitionists is to 'alter public opinion.'
We fight side by side with men whom we know to
be 'essentially like ourselves.' Our weapon is 'not
only the old idealism but the new science. We
know....that race is but historical opportunity,
and nationality but funded ideals."
...
Besides the above-mentioned activities of the M.Α.
A.C.P., the Negroes hold many periodical conventions
where they discuss their affairs and decide the line of
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 167
action to be followed by the community as a whole.
They have their own philanthropic, industrial and
financial organizations, such as banks, insurance
companies, stores, real estate companies, Brother-
hoods, Friendly Societies, etc.
There are 30,000
Negro religious organizations
reporting over
3,600,000 communicants. The value of property
involved amounts to 56,000,000 dollars. In the
larger cities there are splendid church buildings
ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 dollars in value,
with an annual fiscal budget of from 5000 to 20,000
dollars.
"THE LAST WORD IN CASTE."
The situation as it stands today has been stated
by Dr. Du Bois in his essay, bearing the above title,
and in his "Immediate Program of the American
Negro." Concerning economic discrimination against
the Negro, he states:
"So far as work is concerned we again find the
barriers up and not tending to fall. The attempt
to establish a strict caste of occupations in the
South has not been successful, but it has been
possible to keep the majority of Negroes in the
most disagreeable and poorest-paid occupations,
and in the lowest positions of most occupations."
"Just as soon as the Negro city labourer, working
on a wage scale lower than that of any other
single group of people, saved out of his meagre
earnings enough to move out of the alleys and
slums to the front streets, there immediately arose
the question as to who should bear the economic
cost of race prejudice."
The whites insisted that "it is largely a social
matter," and "let the Negroes develop their own
168 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
settlements," and out of this attitude developed the
city segregation movement. A further argument was
brought forward :
a
"Let the Negro stop crowding into the cities.
Here they have in the country and in the South
wonderful chance for development. They can get
hold of land; they know how to raise a great staple
crop and many auxiliary crops. Here is an open
economic field; let them take advantage of it."
Tuskegee's insistence on industrial training
of the Negro and the movement fathered by the
late Morris K. Jessup, along with other causes,
strongly enforced these arguments. Consequently
the movement toward farm life among Negroes in
the last decade has been phenomenal. While
farms conducted by white farmers have in-
creased 9½ per cent. between 1900 and 1910,
farms conducted by colored farmers have increased
nearly 20 per cent. There were 7½ per cent. more
white farmers conducting their farms in 1910 than
in 1900, but there were 17 per cent. more colored
owners conducting their farms. The land in Negro
farms increased from 42,000,000 to 47,000,000 acres
in that time, and the land in the hands of Negro farm
owners from 16,000,000 to 19,000,000 acres. To-
day 29 per cent. of the farms in the South are con-
ducted by colored men, not counting the vast number
of farms conducted by white men with colored
labor. The value of the farm property owned by
Negroes between 1900 and 1910 increased from
$108,000,000 to $410,000,000, or 145 per cent.
Negro land ownership has increased from about
3,000,000 acres in 1875 to 6,000,000 acres in 1880,
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 169
to 8,000,000 acres in 1890, to 15,000,000 in 1900,
and nearly 20,000,000 in 1910.
"We find on the part of the dominant South not
only absence of all enthusiasm for this increase of
Negro agricultural well being, but a distinct air of
disappointment and something worse. Indeed, this
air of disappointment is so widespread that one can
not help wondering if the Negro has not been urged
to take advantage of Southern agriculture just
because some Southerners were convinced that he
could not take such advantage, and that in the
country districts of the South he could be held in his
place politically, socially, and economically."
The Negro was asked to give up his political
rights for the sake of economic advance.
"He finds that with the giving up of his political
rights his educational rights are curtailed, the right
to work is increased but inadequately, his right to
hold property in cities is being questioned, and now
finally, there is a movement in the South to curtail
his right to own agricultural land."
The cry "The South for the White Race!"
is rising and gaining in volume. Various means
are sought to accomplish this end: (1) It is sugges-
ted that 'Jim Crow' laws be put into effect in
the rural districts, and that Negroes buy land
adjoining and settle in communities to them-
selves; (2) that laws be enacted prohibiting
future sale of land to them in white communities.
"Atlanta has just passed a law saying that
majority of property owners in a city block can say
that in future no land shall be sold to a person of
a different race from them, why not pass laws
giving similar privilege to country people?" writes
Mr. Clarence Poe, editor of the Progressive
a
170 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Farmer, as quoted by Du Bois. Mr. Poe goes on to
say:
"We report that if our people make up their minds
that segregation is a good and necessary thing,
they will find a way to put it into effect just as
they did in the case of Negro disfranchisement
despite an iron-bound amendment specifically
designed to prevent it."
Mr. Dubois concludes his article on "The Last
Word in Caste" as follows:
"The South says here: We despise the Negro
because he is down and yet we connot allow him
to rise; we cannot educate him lest he grow in-
telligent, we cannot allow him in industry lest he
compete with us and save money; we cannot allow
him to buy property because he will be independent
and live beside us; we cannot let him live by himselt
because we want his labor, and because we dare
not give him political power enough to establish
and protect his own segregated communities.
"The South is not wholly to blame for this logic.
The North shares the blame. The high and only ten-
able ground of the past was: Educate the Negro,
give him work and wages, give him civic rights, give
him a vote and let him make his own way as a free
man.
"This ground the North has joined the South in
undermining; they have half ruined his schools, they
have curtailed his work and lowered his wages, they
have made him a legal pariah and social outcast, and
now they are cooly proposing to steal the bits of
property which by the sweat of his face he has
saved.
"For stealing it is. Everybody knows that segre-
gation is confiscation. Have we not the shameful
treatment of the Indian (American) to prove this ?
"How fine a program of solving the race problem
this is which, after twenty-five years of trumpeting
and advertising, lands us right in the same black
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN POLITICS 171
slough of despond out of which we are just starting
to raise the robbed and raped Indian. Fine states-
manship for the twentieth century-fine cowardice
for the land of the free."
In his article on "The Immediate Program of the
American Negro," Du Bois names three "shackles"
of which the Negro must rid himself: (1) He must
be free from the political tyranny of white folk, and
must have the right to vote; (2) he must have a
voice in the new industrial democracy; (3) he must
have the right to social intercourse with his fellows.
"What now are the practical steps which must be
taken to accomplish these ends ?"
..
we
"First, we must fight obstructions;
must make American courts either build up a body
of decisions which will protect the plain legal rights
of American citizens or else make them tear down
the civil and political rights of all citizens in order to
oppress a few."
"We must secondly seek in legislature and Congress
remedial legislation."
"Third, the human contact of human beings must
be increased
closer contact and mutual
knowledge" of "the white and black people of this
land."
"Fourth," the "publication of the truth repeatedly
and incisively and uncompromisingly" to "secure
that change in public opinion which will correct
these awful lies."
"Such is the program of work against obstruc-
tions. Let us now turn to constructive effort. This
may be summed up under (1) economic co-operation
(2) a revival of art and literature (3) political ac-
tion (4) education and (5) organization."
we must
"Under economic co-operation
seek not simply home ownership, small land-holding
and saving accounts, but also all forms of co-opera-
172 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
tion, both in production and distribution, profit
sharing, building and loan associations, systematic
charity for definite, practical ends, systematic migra-
tion from mob rule and robbery to freedom and en-
franchisement, the emancipation of women and the
abolition of child labor."
"In art and literature we should try to loose the
tremenduous emotional wealth of the Negro and
the dramatic strength of his problem through
writing, the stage, pageantry and other forms of
art. We should resurrect forgotten ancient Negro
art and history, and we should set the black man
before the world as both a creative artist and a
strong subject for artistic treatment."
"In education we must seek to give colored
children free public school training. We must watch
with grave suspicion the attempt of those who,
under the guise of vocational training, would fasten
ignorance and menial service on the Negro for
another generation."
"For the accomplishment of all these ends we
must organize. Organization among us has already
gone far but it must go much further and higher.
Organization is sacrifice. It is sacrifice of opinions,
of time, of work, and of money, but it is, after all, the
cheapest way of buying the most priceless of gifts-
freedom and efficiency. I thank God that most of the
money that supports the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People comes from black
hands; a still larger proportion must so come, and
we must not only support but control this and
similar organizations and hold them unwaveringly
to our objects, our aims and our ideals."
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES.
If one were to judge of the religious life of the
Americans by the number of churches, chapels,
religious societies and organizations and the amount
of money spent on home and foreign missions, one
would think that America is intensely religious. On
the other hand, if one were to judge of Americans
by the number of saloons and cabarets that exist
in American cities, by the commercial spirit that
dominates all American activities, by the materializa-
tion of American life and the utter lack of spirituality
in the vision of the average American, one would
pronounce America to be thoroughly irreligious.
Yet neither is the whole truth.
If religion means devotion to a principle, material
or spiritual, America has plenty of it. There is
enough of single-mindedness in American life. The
average American is devoted to the acquisition of
wealth, the Dollar is his God, because the Dollar
brings him power and pleasure, the two things for
which he cares and lives. He will devote a whole life
to the discovery of a new mechanical contrivance or
a scientific truth which, when put in the market, will
bring him enough money to live well and wield that
power over men and the State which money secures
in this conntry or, for the matter of that, in all the
countries of the West. The average man seems to
have no time for any other idea. He will occa-
174 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
sionally take a holiday to recruit his health. He
lives to have a good time after a hard day's work;
he cares for all sorts of pleasures and enjoys a good
drink, a hearty laugh, an exciting show, and a jolly
company; but the ruling idea of his life is to be rich.
He puts forth the best of his mind and brain in
that pursuit. He is affected by a sort of money
mania. Thanks to his education, he has aesthetic
tastes, as well as a liking for manly games, but his
mission in life is to make money, become a millionaire
and then have pleasure and wield power.
This trait of American characteris so predominant
that a foreigner takes no time to find it out. Even
the best and the most lofty side of American life is
more or less affected by this dominating note. Yet
it will be unjust and unfair to conclude that there is
nothing beyond it. It is true that the commercially
minded American-a mixture of a Jew, a German
and a Saxon-is perhaps devoid of God-conscious-
ness, still more of Christ-consciousness; that he
has no use for ethics or morality that does not help
in, or that stands in the way of, acquiring wealth;
or that he thinks he can make his peace with God,
or purchase immunity for his sins of omission and
commission by lavish gifts of money to churches and
charities after he has become rich. It is equally true
that the American generally leaves religion or the
cultivation of higher or spiritual life to his women-
folk pending his accumulation of the good things of
the world; he considers it to be a fair division of
labor that he should create wealth and that his
wife should look after their souls.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
175
Sometimes one is inclined to think that the
American's faith in profitable investment leads him
to believe that he can well provide for his soul by
giving large sums of money for the conversion of the
heathen and by making it possible for a number of
men and women missionaries to devote their lives
to ministering to the religious wants of other people.
He thinks that is his spiritual investment. His
religious advisors (professionals) have evidently
led him to think that wise. It is a significant
feature of American life that while a horde of
missionaries (men and women, some of them high
class persons of lofty motives and high-minded )
are sent abroad and millions (or perhaps billions)
of dollars are spent every year in the maintenance
and endowment of foreign missions, Christianity
and church-going is on
steady decline in
the States or for the matter of that in all
Christian countries. "The Alarming Leakage in
the Churches" was the subject of a series of lectures
by Reverend George Duncan, D. D., pastor of Zion
Church, London, not long ago. "It is an alarming
sign of the times," the leakage of the churches, says
he, and "a sad reflection" on them which may
indicate something wrong in their doctrines or
spirit or form or methods of life. He states his
position in a series of obvious and simple proposi-
tions which we give below :
a
I. THAT THERE IS A WIDE-SPREAD DEFECTION
FROM ALL OUR CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATIONS.
That is the stern and even appalling fact which
confronts us. There is no exception in any church,
176 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
for if there be no actual report of decrease in
numbers, the numbers in no case are proportionate
to the increase in the population and are very far
from being what the efforts put forth give us a
reasonable right to expect. The facts are patent to
all who care to look at them.
Churches seem
to be waning powers in the land, and that fact
in every way is a most deplorable one.
II. THAT THIS WIDE-SPREAD DEFECTION
IS ON THE INCREASE.
It is no temporary lull in the tide of prosperity,
no mere local defection while generally the work
goes forward. No, each year has a more dark state
to record and deplore. This has continued now for
some years and all the signs of the times indicate
that no change for the better need be expected. The
power of Christian organizations has waned much
and is waning still more.
III. THAT THIS WIDE-SPREAD DEFECTION
SEEMS TO BE IRREVOCABLE.
The various churches have braced themselves for
the occasions. They have had on the subject-
Committee meetings.
Conference.
Books, pamphlets, sermons.
Missions, door to door appeals, but all of little
avail.
The chureh either does not know her duty in the
matter, or else she cannot or will not do it, and so
she is face to face with the fact that in an avowedly
Christian land she finds those outside her organiza-
tions and who resolutely mean to remain there
vastly more numerous than those within her borders.
Not one-third of the people identify themselves with
Christian organizations though they know that
those very organizations exist for the sole purpose of
doing good to every one who will accept good at
their hands. That is a marvellous moral problem
which surely demands an earnest and effective
solution.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
177.
IV. THAT THIS WIDESPREAD DEFECTION IS BASED
ON VARIOUS MANIFEST GROUNDS.
The obvious reasons are, -
Spiritual indifference,
Thorough worldliness,
Slavery to vice,
Evil companions,
A hateful environment,
Doubt, infidelity,
* Discontent with Christian teaching,
◆ Contempt for the average character of Chris-
tians.
The reverend father thinks further, -
"V. That infidelity has but little attraction for
those who have forsaken the Christian Church.
VI. That this wide defection is often a departure
not from Christ himself, but from the churches only.
VII. That one cause of this wide defection iş
accounted for by the fact that an enormous number
of men can no longer believe some of the dogmas
which we preach, and
VIII. That surely we can do something more and
something better for those that have deserted us on
doctrinal grounds, than we have thus far done."
At this stage we are not concerned with the reme-
dies suggested by him. We may consider them later
on. For the present we intend to cite some more
testimonies on the subject of the decline in the in-
fluence of the churches in Christian countries.
Dr. Newman Smythe, another great divine, says:-
"For a hundred years we have been breaking up
creeds rather than making them ... The Protestant
faith is losing mastery over the controlling forces of
modern life It has lost the old authority of the
church. It has lost it in its own families It has
lost it in the state I am not speaking of the causes
for this; I am facing the facts. What do they mean?
...
...
...
12
178 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
What is the significance of the failure of the Protest-
ant ages but this-the new age is coming? 'I see',
said the last Bampton lecturer in the pulpit of St.
Mary's, at Oxford, -'I see the signs of a new reli-
gious order, the greatest that the world has ever
known, drawn from all the nations and all classes
and, what seems stranger yet, from all the churches.'
(Dr. Newman Smythe in a Christmas sermon.)
A writer (Julian K. Smythe by name) in the New
Church Review of October, 1914, remarks :-
"A crisis in the Christian world has certainly come.
There is hardly a minister but feels it. The layman
feels it just as truly...... The complaint goes up from
nearly every quarter that the churches have lost their
power. The masses, it is said, are not reached.
They have lost faith in the church. The Christian
pulpit, it is said over and over again, has lost its
prestige. It no longer speaks with the power of a
great conviction. 'The trite criticism,' exclaims an
earnest man, 'that while Peter converted three thou-
sand men with one sermon, it now takes, according
to the painful figures of the denominational year
books, almost three thousand sermons to convert
one man, is hurled at preachers who are already
humiliated by their apparent lack of effectiveness.'
The churches in self-defence sometimes declare that
the blame is to be laid to 'the hard and uncircum-
cised heart' of our twentieth century civilization;
that the age is material in its aims; that it lacks high
aspirations, and is ungodly in the extreme; that it is
'full of pleasure-seekers and social agitators who, in
their different ways, have done much to draw away
the attention of thousands of people from the Chris-
tian Church.'
"The more thoughtful recognize that the churches
in Protestantism have lost their teaching power.
They stand before the world today without any
generally accepted theology. Where some declare
that men are tired of theology and wish for none of
it, others see that the Church, as a teacher of spiri-
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
179
tual truth, has no clearly defined doctrine to im-
part."
Another observer is quoted to have remarked that
"its course reminds one of a mighty shell fired by an
enormous charge. While it held together its momen-
tum was terrific; but as it broke into fragments each
fragment possessed less energy. When these in suc-
cession subdivided, their potential energy became still
feebler. The explosive power which impelled it ori-
ginally was the sense of individual liberty-liberty of
conscience, liberty of thought, liberty of action."
And yet liberty is a dangerous spirit to raise unless
controlled by Truth. And here the various parts of
protestantism hesitate and fumble. In the words of
one of its leaders :
"A century ago each had a confession, or a system
of truth which satisfied it. It had a message,
which, whether true or faulty, it could deliver when
challenged. But now the very spirit of intellectual
freedom which was invoked has examined these doc-
trinal structures, and in the name of truth has con-
demned them."
"Even the Bible," continues Mr. Julian Smythe,
"has lost its authority, and some of its fundamental
teachings, such as the Divine incarnation of Jesus
Christ and the unique character of His Divinity, are
being not only challenged, but openly discarded. As
a result, Protestantism today is uncertain and hesi-
tating in its message; its rivalries and consequent
wastefulness tend to render it feeble; it has lost the
controlling position it once held in schools, colleges
and universities; the laboring classes have largely
drifted beyond the sound of its voice; the middle
classes are less and less keeping holy its Sabbath
day."
The following is from an address delivered by Pro-
180 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
fessor Hamack to the Prussian clergy on the religious
situation in Germany:
"Never before were so many men filled with such
longings as today for firm and consistent convic-
tions. Men are ready today to give anything for a
conviction that is a real conviction-for a belief that
really is believed in. The demand is for a faith in
which there is a real faith; men require convictions
as to the meaning of life."
The following is a passage of an English author
who is widely read :
The
"Men long for a basis of life which shall be as
credible to the intellect as it is inspiring to the soul.
They want a religion into which their whole
manhood can go. And this is what at present they
have failed to find. The Church, they say, feeds
the heart at the expense of the brain.
disaster that has happened to it is that people
have come to repeat its creed in a quite different
sense from that in which they repeat the creed of
electricity or mechanics. This last is actual belief,
a belief by which they run trains or build bridges.
The other is, in part at least, make-believe.
The Church offers peace at the expense of truth. And
this at a time when the world, by its training in
science, is beginning to appreciate truth as never
before, as among the highest of all possible goods, as
the first essential of the soul's prosperity." (Brierly,
"Our City of God," pp. 106 et seq.)
Having given these quotations from church
sources, the writer of the article in the New Church
Review concludes by giving one from a financial
journal. He says:
"These quotations are from church sources. Have
we any right to suppose that the secular world
cares anything about a lack of spiritual conviction?
Does it ever enter the mind of the financial world, for
instance, to question whether the decline of faith
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 181
could have the slightest interest or significance to it ?
Let me quote these words from an editorial in a well-
known New York financial journal. The writer is
wise enough to see and to say that if there has been
a decline in religious faith, especially Faith in the
Future Life, that fact 'alters the basic conditions of
civilization,' it 'changes the standards and affects
the value of things,' it 'becomes a factor in the
markets,' and concerns the immediate interests of
those who never had such a faith almost as much as
it does the lives of those who have had the faith and
lost it."
And then it speaks out as follows:
"The question, therefore, of immediate, practical,
and tremendous importance to Wall Street quite as
much as to any other part of the world, is, has there
been a decline in the faith, in a future life, and if so,
to what extent is this responsible for the special
phenomena of our time-the eager pursuit of sudden
the growth of greed,
the
social unrests, the spread of demagogy, the appeal to
bitter class hatred."
wealth,
•
The conclusion is thus given :
"The supreme need of the hour is not elastic
currency or sounder banking or better protection
against panics, or bigger navies or more equitable
tariffs, but a revival of faith, a return to a morality
which recognizes a basis in religion and the establish-
ment of a workable and working theory of life that
views man as something more than a mere lump of
matter." (Wall Street Journal, quoted in Literary
Digest, Feb. 2, 1907).
These quotations give the reader some idea of the
unrest and disquietude that prevails in the religious
circles of Christian lands. The war has accentuated
the feeling even more intensely. The cry has risen
almost from all quarters and all classes of thoughtful
persons, that Christianity has failed and that the
182 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
church has collapsed. In the first months of the
war, a hot controversy raged in the press, (secular
as well as religious) as to the proper attitude of
tolerant Christians toward war; and as to the effect
of war on Christianity. The religious leaders of each
country decided that it was a part of their religion
to fight for their respective countries and that their
respective countries were right in fighting what each
believed to be a righteous war. Some of them joined
the fighting ranks and exchanged the pulpit for the
trenches. The British schools of theology and the
bishops have since refused to ordain candidates of
military age. The pulpit and the religious platform
have been freely used to encourage enlistment and to
exhort Christians to go and fight for their respective
countries. In sermons and in articles it has been
freely remarked that the Christian religion does not
prohibit war and that Christianity demands war in
a righteous cause. Did not the Lord say, it is
argued, that he had come with a sword in his hand?
Some contended that the war had established the
greater need of Christianity and the churches and
religion. Others said that the war was not due to a
failure of Christianity, but to the material spirit of
the modern civilization, though this is a practical
confession that materialization has triumphed over
Christianity and the latter has failed.
The Christian theologian is not prepared to admit
as much because that deprives him of an argument
which he has often very effectively used in his efforts
to convert the heathen. He has so often pointed to
the glories of the modern civilization as a proof of
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
183
the excellence and superiority of Christianity as
against and over the other religions. All this,
however, is hardly convincing, and thoughtful people
in all countries are agreed that the present war,
its dimensions, its cruelties, and its incidental
happenings, are proof positive that there is some-
thing wrong with the churches. A Christian writer,
a follower of Swedenborg, has explained the war in
a rather ingenious way. Starting with the remark
that the war has caused great disappointment in the
Hague conferences and that "Christianity itself has
been put on trial as a failure and asked to show how
it can account for such a condition of Christian na-
tions who profess to be disciples of the Prince of Peace,"
he explains how rulers and nations were hurried on
into bloody battles by "Great and Hidden Spiritual
Forces, without any personal guilt, when the time
was ripe for the great spiritual battles of religion
of the Christian church, to be ultimated by corres-
pondence-to burst forth in the wars of nations."
In his opinion it was "necessary for the salvation
of humanity that a great crisis of judgment should
take place in the spiritual world and the power of
ultimates could be operated only by means of this
great war in the natural world." It had to be,
continues he, in order that the lesson of hell in the
spiritual world might be so powerfully set forth on
earth that a new impetus of religion should be given,
a mighty reaction of good against evil which should
bring new victories of the former over the latter,
overturn all institutions of the past, the fruits
of form of the Christian religion which had
184 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
become perverted and is now brought to judg-
ment.
But one of the best (and at the same time quite
moderate in its views and tone) articles I have read
on the subject was the one that appeared in the
Century Magazine for February 1, 1915, under the
heading "Has The Church Collapsed?" To the
article is prefixed a note from the editor to the effect
that "while the Century is not in accord with many
of the ideas presented in this article, it has, with
thinking people in general, a very keen realization of
the fact that all is not well with the Christian
church." The article begins with the significance of
the grounds on which the bombardment of the
Rheims Cathedral by the Germans was denounced by
the world. The cry that went up from the enlighten-
ed lands was that "a work of art had been destroy-
ed," and not that "a house of God" had suffered
disaster. The beauty of the nave, he says, has out-
lasted the religion of the altar.
"Apollo has triumphed over Christ. All this has
come about as naturally as ripe fruit falls from a
bough. For no one imagines that it is the sudden
shock, the excitement of war, that has diverted
attention from the church. That which we have
witnessed is simply a unique registering of an ancient
fact. For, as we all know, it was during years of
peace that the spirit of the church was bombarded."
A little later he adds:-
a
"While never before, probably, was such
tribute paid to art in its general character, it is the
profound change which this indicates in the
Christian world which surprises us most, not be-
cause we were not aware that a profound change
had taken place, but because now for the first time
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 185
we are face to face with the thing that registers
infallibly the full ebb of the tide. And very clearly
it is not an ebb from one shore, with a correspond-
ing flow upon another, as it invariably is with
the movements of the ocean, but an ebb complete
and world-wide."
Then he traces the different stages through which
the Christian church has passed in its development
and points out how in each development the creed
or the outward manifestation of it, in philosophy
or art, usurped the place of religion, how "wine
or bread or cups or altars or buildings" were con-
founded with the real teachings of Christ, and finally
concludes as below :
"Is it any wonder that the tide has gone out and
left the church utterly powerless; that the whole
vesture of Caesarism with which she once overawed
the millions has been stripped off piece by piece;
that art has become art, still capable of arousing
men to its defence; that philosophy has become
philosophy, honorably installed in our educational
system; that organization is still active in politics
and industry; and that the church is nothing? Is it
not a comment upon the hollowness of her preten-
sions that as civilization has advanced the church
has receded and that annually her remaining
millions ooze away and are lost in secular
aftairs?
"All this would be of little moment and would
merit the unconcern with which it is popularly
regarded were there not a tremendously serious
side to the matter. For nineteen centuries society
has left in the hands of the church the direction of
the moral forces of the world. And now, after
all these centuries, we find ourselves falling into the
same moral vacuum into which the Roman Empire
fell. After eighteen hundred years it is as easy for
men to thrust bayonets into one another as it was
186 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
in the heathen world. Is it not apparent that the
church has collapsed?"
We have selected these expressions of opinions
from within the church itself avoiding the stern
judgment of the rationalists, naturalists, and free
thinkers. Yet, as I said in the opening, the religious
activities of the United States both at home and
abroad are on a collossal scale.
According to the returns of 1906, the population
of the United States was about 92 millions. The
last enumeration of religious bodies relating to the
year 1906 showed a total of nearly 33 million com-
municants or members, of whom 20 millions were
Protestants and 12 millions Roman Catholics. In
the "World Almanac" for 1915, the number of
communicants or members is given as 38 millions,
of churches 223,735 and of ministers 176,624. It
will be thus seen that the American people maintain
an army of over one hundred thousands and three
quarters of ministers (full time, regularly paid) for
the salvation of their souls. The total number
given in the Almanac, i.e., 176,624, included some
non-Christian ministers also, but if you put the
figure of Christian ministers at 175,000, you will
not be erring on the side of overestimation. If you
add an equal figure for those who are not ordained
ministers, but connected with religious organiza-
tions and regularly paid for work connected with
the religious organizations, you will get some
general idea of the enormous army of religious
preachers and ministers that administer to the
religious wants of the people of the United States
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
187
and are regularly paid for by fixed salaries for the
services rendered by them. Counting by main
heads, the number of Christian denominations having
churches and organizations stands very near half a
hundred, but if you count the various subsections
into which they are subdivided, it will come to very
near 200, and if you count the still minor subdivi-
sions, it will come to several hundreds.
FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF
CHRIST IN AMERICA.
The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in
America alone represents thirty Protestant deno-
minations, with a membership of over 16 million
communicants, 101,552 ministers and 138,155
churches.
According to the constitution of this council, it
has no authority over the constituent bodies
adhering to it, and its province is limited to the
expression of its counsel and the recommendation
of a course of action in matters of common interest
to the churches, local councils and individual
Christians. It has no authority to draw up a
common creed or form of government or of worship,
or in any way to limit the full autonomy of the
Christian bodies adhering to it. The following
details about the organization may not be without
interest :
The Federal Council meets quadrennially and
consists of about four hundred qualified delegates
officially elected by the various denominational
assemblies or other constituted authorities.
Its Executive Committee consists of about
ninety of these delegates and acts for the Council
during the Quadrennium between its sessions, hold-
ing regular meetings.
The Executive Committee has an Administrative
Committee holding regular monthly meetings, which
acts for the Executive Committee between its
sessions.
The national office and its executives, under the
Administrative Committee, carrry on the continu-
ous work of the Council.
The united work undertaken by the Council is
indicated by the titles of its Commissions.
These Commissions are as follows: State and
Local Federations, Foreign Missions, Home Mis-
sions, Christian Education, Social Service, Evange-
lism, Family Life, Sunday observance, Temperance,
and Peace and Arbitration, The Commission of
the Church and Social Service.
The Commission of the Church and Social
Service has been, up to this time, the most effective-
ly organized, because its work seemed to offer the
larger immediate field for common action. This
Commission also has a Committee on the Church
and Country Life. The Commission on Peace and
Arbitration and Evangelism also have offices and
executive secretaries.
Other special Commissions, such as the Joint
Commission on Theological Seminaries, on In-
terdenominational Movements and on International
Relations, are appointed from time to time to take
up special activities calling for action upon the
part of the churches.
The Council has a whole time secretary and more
than one assistant secretary with a staff of clerks
to carry on their work.
The budget figures for 1914 provided Rs. 75,000
for special commissions.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
189
SOME OF THE MODERN SCHOOLS OF RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.
America is the land of fads. We in India have
been accustomed to think that we had a monopoly
of credulity and superstition. Travelling abroad,
I have learnt that we are by no means the most
credulous people on earth; that want of education
and illiteracy is not the sole cause of credulousness.
The number of teachers of religion in America is
perhaps as large as in India. Anyone can set up a
school of thought of his own. Any one may found
a sect or a seminary or a college and may give
lessons in anything. He is sure to find some
followers and some admirers. He must know how
to advertise and must invest some money in hand-
bills and what are called "circulars" and "schedules"
in this country.
Mysticism particularly appeals to the imagina-
tion of the occident most intensely. Anything
mystic is bound to attract a following. Hence the
great charm that oriental systems of thought have
for the people of America. The oriental religious
thought has deeply affected the thought of the
West and many a modern religious sect could be
traced to some idea borrowed from Buddhism or
Vedanta. Even the new schools of Christianity
bear the marks of contact with the East.
Bahaism is as much in vogue as Buddhism or
Vedanta. Of this an Oriental may well be proud,
But over and above this, many a fraud is being
practised in the name of the Orient by unscrupulous
persons. The parties most culpable among the
190 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
latter are Americans themselves. Many an American
uses oriental names, oriental signs and mystic
symbols, as aids to advertising. Sometimes he gets
hold of a needy Oriental, a Hindu, a Muslim, or a
Chinaman, makes a tool of him, uses his name,
keeps him in the background, credits him with occult
powers, advertises his holiness and achievements
and carries on a roaring trade. Sometimes books
or treatises, written by Americans, are published
over Oriental names and sold largely under false
pretenses. "Professor" is a most misused term in
this country and so is "doctor". Professors and
doctors are as common as blackberries. It is a pity
that it should be so, because a large number of profes-
sors in the universities and holders of the degree
of doctor are learned men well deserving the title
of a professor or a doctor. The title carries a social
status with it which is being exploited by unscru-
pulous adventurers. A young Hindu told me how
an American tried to use his name for his own
purposes. He wanted to publish books in his name
and to advertise him as a savant of high order and
mystic powers. An American lady told me of a
similar attempt having been made in relation to
another Indian. That some of these attempts bring
a certain amount of success both in disciples and in
money is proof enough of a widespread desire to
probe into the inner meaning of life and a hankering
after things beyond the reach of the intellect, and
of the failure of the prevailing forms of religion to
satisfy this hankering. I am of opinion that this
hankering is not altogether unintelligent, though
!
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 191
to me it looks as if even the more serious develop-
ments of religious thought in America exact a great
deal of ready faith, not necessarily based on reason,
on the part of those who believe in these develop-
ments and adopt them for their guidance and
enlightenment. In the following paragraphs I pro-
pose to notice a few of these developments briefly.
MORMONISM.
Mormonism, or The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, is an offshoot of Christianity.
It was founded by one Joseph Smith on the 6th day
of April, 1830, in the town of Fayette, Seneca County,
State of New York. The founder claimed a special
dispensation from God himself, beginning with "a
vision and revelation, given in answer to his earnest
prayer to know which of the religions was true and
which of the contending sects was the acknowledged
Church of Christ that he might know which to
join." The answer of the Lord was :-"He must join
none; they were all wrong; their creeds were an
abomination in His sight; the professors thereof
were corrupt; they drew near to their Lord with
their lips, but their hearts were far from Him," and
ending "with divine appointment and commission"
"to organize the Church and teach the true Gospel of
Jesus Christ to all the world." The principal
doctrines of Mormonism may be given in their own
language* :
• Mormonism, Its Origin and History, an authorized bro-
chure issued by the Church, pp. 9 & 10.
192 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"I. WE BELIEVE IN GOD, THE ETERNAL FATHER,
AND IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, AND IN
THE HOLY GHOST.
Of this it should be said that while the church
preaches that these three divine persons constitute
the God-head, the one creative and governing power
in heaven and earth, she also teaches that each
person of the God-head is distinct from the others.
That is, each person is a distinct individual. She
teaches that the Father and the Son are personages
of tabernacle, personages of flesh and bone; and
that their bodies are as tangible as man's; while
the Holy Ghost is a personage of Spirit. In Mormon
theology the "oneness" of the God-head consists
not in the absolute identity of the substance of the
three persons, but in the absolute agreement of mind
and purpose and will subsisting among them; by
which the mind of the one is also the mind of the
others; they are also one in wisdom and holi-
ness; and so in all qualities and attributes of
mind; but are distinct persons or individuals.
God, the Father, then according to "Mormon"
theology, is the Father of the spirits of all men;
not in a mystical sense, but actually-the spirit of
men is really the offspring of Deity. Hence God's
interest in man is everywhere proclaimed in the
appointments and economy of the earth. The church
also teaches that from the Fatherhood of God, as
pertaining to the spirits of men, arises the brother-
hood of man-not a mere sentiment more or less
pretty and conventional, but a reality, resting upon
the actual fatherhood of God; that the spirit of
man had a pre-existent estate, that is that he
existed, as a spiritual personage, * the offspring of God
before he tabernacled in the flesh; that the earth was
created, and a temporal existence provided for man
wherein he would be allowed a probation in the
midst of conditions which would give him an
experience necessary to his eternal progress.
*
The Italics are mine.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
193
2. We believe that men will be punished for
their own sins, and for Adam's transgression.
3. We believe that, through the atonement
of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience
to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.
4. We believe that the first principles and ordi-
nances of the gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism
by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth,
Laying on of Hands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
5. We believe that a man must be called of God,
by "prophecy" and by "the laying on of hands," by
those who are in authority, to preach the gospel
and to administer in the ordinances thereof.
6. We believe in the same organization that
existed in the primitive church, namely, apostles,
prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc.
7. We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy,
revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues,
etc.
This belief in the continuance of the spiritual
gifts of the gospel is one of the chief characteristics
of Mormonism, and one of the things which most
clearly distinguish it from all the Christian sects.
Mormonism holds that all the spiritual powers
ever attendant upon true religion-the gospel of
Jesus Christ-belong to it now; that whatever the
gospel of Christ is, and in whatever age it is found,
there also will be the power of God as well as the
forms of godliness; that the spiritual gifts and
graces of the gospel of Christ are as inseparable
from it as warmth and brightness are inseparable
from the sun; and it is a miserable blunder and
the apology of apostate churches, or the excuse of
false religions, to say that the powers of godliness
as manifested in the spiritual gifts of the gospel
enumerated in the scriptures are to be separated
from the religion of Jesus Christ, as things transitory
and to be done away.
13
194 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God,
as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe
the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
It has been alleged that Mormons do not believe
in the Bible; that they discard it, and substitute for
it the Book of Mormon, often spoken of as the
"Mormon Bible." The Latterday Saints, however,
believe the Bible, the Jewish scriptures-the Old and
New Testaments, to be the word of God; to it they
appeal in support of their doctrine; it is an autho-
rity with them in matters of faith and morals and
church government; but they do not overlook the
fact that there are errors and inaccuracies of transla-
tion in the English versions. Moreover they cannot
help but know that there are omissions of whole
books of scripture from the collection of books
called the Bible; books written by prophets, seers
and apostles. Direct reference is made to such books
in some parts of the Bible. The inaccuracies growing
out of errors of translation on the one hand, and
the omission of whole books of scripture from
the collection on the other, with here and there
parts of the sacred text designedly mutilated for
sectarian purposes, render it necessary to say, in
expressing their belief in the Bible, that they accept
it as the word of God as far as it is a collection of
sacred books, its texts uncorrupted, and its trans-
lations accurate. In saying that "they also believe
the Book of Mormon to be the word of God" the
Saints, of course, mean that it is a volume of scrip.
ture of equal authority with the Bible. Modern
Christendom would have the world believe that
the Bible alone contains all the revelations of God.
But it is evident that not only the Eastern hemi-
sphere, but the western hemisphere also was peopled
by the children of God, although the existence of
the people of the western hemisphere was unknown
to Europeans until a little over four hundred years
ago.
9. We believe all that God has revealed, all
that he does now reveal, and we believe that he
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 195
will yet reveal many great and important things
pertaining to the kingdom of God.
10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel,
and in the Restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion
will be built upon this (the American) continent;
that Christ will reign personally upon the earth;
and that the earth will be renewed and receive its
paradiseacal glory."
Besides these, there are some additional doctrines
which form the distinguishing features of Mormonism.
One of them is a provision for the salvation of the
dead by "attending to outward ordinances-
baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings and
sealings-all being appointed by revelation and
direction of the Lord, and all sealed and ratified by
the power of the priesthood of God which binds on
earth and in heaven."
The other is their marriage system, which has
drawn so much attention to them. They claim that
their doctrine on marriage was revealed to their
prophet, Joseph Smith, by which the Saints learned
that-
"In celestial spheres the marriage relation exists
eternally; and that the pleasing joys of family ties
and associations, coupled with the power of endless
increase, contributes to the happiness, power
and dominion of those who attain to the
celestial glory. Instead of the God-given power of
procreation being one of the things to pass away,
it is one of the chief means of man's exaltation and
glory in eternity. Through it men attain to the
glory of an endless increase of eternal lives, and the
right of presiding as priest and patriarch, king and
lord, over his ever-increasing posterity. Instead of
the commandment 'Multiply and replenish the
earth' being an unrighteous law, to be regarded
askance and as something evil, it is one by which
196 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the race of man is to be eternally perpetuated; and
it is as holy and pure as the commandment 'Repent
and be baptized.' The new marriage system, then,
or, rather, the old marriage system of the patriarchs
restored to earth through this revelation, consists in
the eternity of the marriage covenant; that is, the
marriage covenant between a man and his wife is
made for time and all eternity, and being sealed by
that power of the priest-hood 'which binds in earth
and in heaven,' the covenant holds good in heaven
as well as on earth; in eternity as well as on earth;
in time; after as well as before the resurrection from
the dead; and by reason of it men will have a claim
upon their wives and wives upon their husbands
throughout eternity."
"Celestial marriage also includes under certain
conditions, restrictions and obligations, a plurality
of wives. Such prominence indeed has been given to
this feature of the marriage system of the Church that
to a great extent it has obscured the grandeur and
importance of the principle of the eternity of the
marriage covenant. Plurality of wives, of course,
was a great innovation in the marriage system
of the world as marriage for eternity was. It
comes in conflict, too, not only with the education
and traditions of the modern world, but in conflict
with the prejudices of the Saints themselves; yet
God had commanded its introduction into the world,
and though the prejudices of the Saints revolted
against it, the faithful to whom it was revealed
resolved to obey it, and in the introduction of this
principle of the marriage system of the Church,
the prophet Joseph Smith himself led the way.
Its introduction into the Church originally was
confined within a small circle of the faithful brethren
and sisters; and it was not until the Church had
settled in the Rocky Mountain valleys of Utah, that
it was publicly proclaimed as a doctrine of the
Church unto the world. The practice of it was then
* He had a large number
*
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
197
made public. The whole Church-and at that time
(1852) the members of the Church comprised
nearly the whole community of Utah-approving the
principle, which was at once recognized as a proper
religious institution."
"For ten years the practice in Utah of this
system of marriage met with no opposition from the
United States Government. But in 1862 a law was
enacted by Congress to punish and prevent the
practice of 'polygamy' in the territories of the
United States. The penalties affixed were a fine, not
to exceed five hundred dollars, and imprisonment
not to exceed five years. For twenty years, how-
ever, this law remained practically a dead letter....
In 1882, however, the law enacted twenty years
before was supplemented by what is known as the
Edmunds Law.' In addition to defining the
crime of 'polygamy'-for which it retained the same
penalties as the law of 1862-the 'Edmunds Law'
also made the cohabiting with more than one woman
a crime, punishable by a fine not to exceed three
hundred dollars, and by imprisonment not to exceed
six months. This law also rendered persons who
were living in 'polygamy', or who believed in its
rightfulness, incompetent to act as grand or petit
jurors: and also disqualified all polygamists for
voting or holding office. This law of 1882 was
again supplemented by the 'Edmunds-Tucker Law
-enacted in 1887-which made the legal wife or
husband, in cases of polygamy or unlawful cohabita-
tion, a competent witness, provided the accused
consented thereto; it also enlarged the powers of
the United States commissioners and marshals, and
required certificates of all marriages to be filed in the
office of the probate court. The penalty for the
violation of this last provision was a fine of one
thousand dollars, and imprisonment for two years.
The law disincorporated the Church, and ordered
the supreme court to wind up its affairs, and take
possession of the escheated property."
"The laws were rigorously enforced by the
198 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
United States officials, special appropriations being
made by Congress to enable them to carry on a
judicial crusade against the Saints. The prominent
Church officials were driven into retirement; others
into exile. Homes were disrupted; family ties were
rent asunder. Upwards of a thousand men endured
fines and imprisonment in the penitentiary rather
than be untrue to their families. Every effort of
the government to deprive the Saints of their religi-
ous liberty was stubbornly contested in the courts
until the decision of the supreme court of the United
States was obtained. While some of the proceedings
of the courts in Utah in enforcing the anti-polygamy
laws were condemned, the laws themselves were
sustained as constitutional. The court also held
that the first amendment to the Constitution, which
provides that Congress shall not prohibit the free
exercise of religion, cannot be invoked against legis-
lation for the punishment of plural marriages.
Meantime government was relentless, and still more
stringent measures than those already enacted were
threatened. In the midst of these afflictions and
threatening portents, President Wilford Woodruff
besought the Lord in prayer, and the Lord inspired
him to issue the manifesto which discontinued the
practice of plural marriage. And the semi-annual
conference in October following, the action of Pre-
sident Woodruft was sustained by unanimous vote
of the conference, and plural marriages were discon-
tinued in the Church."
The following figures taken from one of the
authorized publications of the Church give the
present status of the Church :-
"The Church was organized on the 6th day of
April, 1830, with six members; in six months it had
increased its membership to about seventy; it now
(1902) has a membership in the organized stakes
of Zion of several hundred thousands, and more than
fifty thousand in the various missions. In the stakes
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 199
of Zion are eighty-five thousand children under
eight years of age.
"The latest reports concerning the number of men
holding the Priesthood in the Church show that
there are three of the First Presidency; twelve
Apostles; two hundred Patriarchs; 6,800 High
Priests; 9,730 Seventies; 20,000 Elders, a total
who bear the Melchisedek Priesthood of 36,745;
while 25,700 bear the Lesser Priesthood, making
a
grand total of those who hold the Priesthood
of 62,445.
"In the auxiliary organizations of the Church
there are 30,150 members of the Relief Society;
10,000 officers and 115,000 members in the Sunday
Schools; 28,000 members of the Young Men's Mutual
Improvement Associations; 36,000 of the Young
Ladies' Improvement Associations, with about
20,000 who belong to the Religion Classes; making
a total of 264,150 belonging to these auxiliary
organizations.
"As a people the Saints are thriving and prosper-
ous, and are continually extending their settlements
throughout the inter-mountain region from the
Province of Alberta, Cananda, in the North, to the
northern states of Old Mexico. They have 20,000
farms, 18,000 of which are free from mortgages and
encumbrances; and ninety per cent of the whole
Church membership own their own homes, while the
average number of people who own their homes
in the United States is something like five per cent."
In the census returns their numbers are given as
below :-
Ministers 3560,
Churches 1520,
Members 356,000.
In its early history, the Church underwent a
great deal of persecution at the hands of the ortho-
dox Christians. Originally established in a town
of the State of New York, they soon transferred
200 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
was
themselves to Missouri State and formed a consi-
derable settlement there. In November, 1833, they
were practically turned out of that State. An
organized mob assembled, burned their houses,
"tarred, feathered, and whipped" many of their
adherents and "finally drove them from their habita-
tions." It is stated that this proceeding
winked at by the government and although they
had warranted deeds for their lands, no redress was
given. The next settlement was formed in Clay
County, where they remained for three years,
to be eventually turned out as before. They then
settled in Caldwell and Daviess Counties. Here
again in 1838 they were attacked by mobs, an ex-
terminating order was issued by Governor Baggs,
and under the sanction of law, an organized
banditti ranged throughout the country, which
robbed their followers of cattle, sheep, horses, hogs,
etc. The authorized account adds:-
"Many of our people were murdered in cold blood.
the chastity of our women was violated, and we
were forced to sign away our property at the point
of the sword and after enduring every indignity that
could be heaped upon us...
were driven from our
firesides" and deprived of lands and houses.
The next settlement was formed in the State of
Illinios where, in 1844, the prophet and his brother
were arrested on a charge of treason. But before
the trial could be held, they were 'ruthlessly murder-
ed' by a mob on June 27, 1844. Within two years
of this event the community was chased out of the
boundaries of the United States and forced to migrate
westwards. Crossing the Mississippi and the Rocky
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
201
Mountains, they settled in what is now known as
the Utah State and founded a city called the "Salt
Lake City" where now they have their principal
temple and the headquarters of their Church. Utah
now forms part of the United States and is a flour-
ishing state of the Union. About one half of the
population of Salt Lake City is Mormon and the
Church and the community own considerable pro-
perty in the city and the state. They have consider-
able influence in the civil life of the state and are
generally prosperous and contented. The Christian
world still looks on them with contempt and calls
them 'infidels,' 'renegades,' or 'heretics.' Their
temple is closed to the public; nor do they admit
strangers to their ceremonies. But their grounds
and offices and halls are open to visitors and are
shown by an official guide who answers all questions
about the Church and its history and its organisa-
tion.
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH.
The Unitarian Church is perhaps one of the oldest
of the reformed churches in the West. Its position
in Christianity is very much like that of our own
Brahmo Samaj in Hinduism. The Unitarians do
not believe in the Divinity of Christ nor in the in-
infallibility of the Bible. They believe in God and
stand for the greatest possible freedom and tolerance
in religious thought and practice. Their principal
organization is located at 25 Beacon Street, Boston,
Massachusetts, and is known as the American
202 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Unitarian Association. The Association has
whole time paid staff of
1 President,
1 Secretary,
1 Treasurer,
1 Assistant Secretary,
4 Departmental Secretaries,
3 Field Secretaries, and so on.
a
Their activities may be judged from the following
facts gleaned from their report for 1914 :-
"The Publication Department printed and circul-
ated during the year 1913-14
400,000 tracts,
Seventy new books, including the New Hymn and
Service book and the new Ministers' Hand Book,
45,000 Word and Work,
52,000 copies of the "Calendar,"
360,000 copies of The Beacon, a weekly organ),
and 19,443 manuals, service books, etc, for Sunday
Schools were sold.
Aid has been granted by the Directors to some
ninety-six churches and missions in all parts of the
United States and Canada.
Five new churches have been organized.
New churches, parish houses, and parsonages
have been built, and considerable changes and im-
provements have been made in fifteen other churches.
The Association has purchased lots for new
churches in four places.
Officers and representatives of the Association
have personally visited practically all the aided
churches and the new missions, and in their journeys
have covered the whole country.
Work has been carried forward among the Ice-
landers in Manitoba, where seven Icelandic societies
are organized in the Icelandic Unitarian Conference,
among the Swedes and Norwegians in Minnesota,
among the Finns in Minnesota and Montana, and a
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
203
new work inaugurated among the Italians in New
York and Philadelphia.
The Church of the Messiah, among the colored
people in Greater Boston, has had a successful year.
Free tracts are published in German, French,
Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Spanish.
The Association has carried forward the work in
Japan under the direction of Mr. MacCauley and his
fellow-workers.
Support has been given to the Unitarian work in
Hungary, Denmark, Germany, and in Bulgaria.
The work of the Association of Free Believers in
Italy has been developed and sustained.
A successful session of the International Congress
was held in Paris last summer, and a missionary
Conference was held in Boston in November.
Plans have been formulated for a series of confer-
ences in India, China, Japan, to be held when pos-
sible. The arrangements for these meetings have
been forwarded by the journey of Dr. Sunderland, as
Billings Lecturer, around the world."
The report of the Treasurer of the Association for
the year ending April 30, 1914, has in it many inter-
esting figures. The table of Income and Expendi-
ture for immediate use shows receipts and payments
of about $ 200,000, i. e., 6 lakhs of rupees. The gifts
and bequests added to permanent funds show re-
ceipts of $ 158,000, i. e., more than 4½ lakhs of
rupees in the year.
The writer has been the recipient of kindness and
hospitality from Unitarians all over the United
States and has spoken at several of their meetings.
THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY.
As a sample of the huge scale on which work is
done by some of the Christian agencies of America,
204 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
we give below the figures relating to the work of the
American Bible Society.
The total issues of the Bible during the year
(1914) amounted to 5,251,176 volumes. The total
issues of the Society in the 98 years of its existence
amount to 103,519,891 volumes.
The trust funds of the Society amount to
$ 2,461,652, i. e., close to about 75 lakhs of rupees.
During the year the trust funds increased by over 24
lakhs of rupees.
The last receipts of the year 1914 are given
below:
From individuals
28,409 dollars
churches
"
78,701
"
auxiliaries
"
22,695
"
Legacies
42,258
"
161,923
The income from trust funds, etc., was $ 120,969,
i. e., very nearly 6 lakhs of rupees, bringing the total
income for current expenses up to $ 282,992.
The Bible Society makes it a point to introduce
copies of the Bible to persons of all classes and con-
ditions whom it can reach. As seen from the picture
facing this page, it is even reaching immigrants in
their own tongues soon after their arrival in the Uni-
ted States. It is a question if the Hindu laborers in
the United States as represented in this picture make
any use of the Bibles given to them.
THE NEW CHURCH OF JERUSALEM OR
SWEDENBORGIANISM.
Before giving an account of its fundamental
teachings, I would state in the words of the
CUTA
PRI
DEVELO
HINDUS IN OREGON
There Poor Laborers are given the Bible in their own tongue.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 205
authorized publications of the church what it is
not:-
"It is not one of the many sects of Christendom.
Presbyterianism means the authority of the pres-
bytery, the equality of the ministry, and the doctrine
of the Divine decrees. Episcopalianism means a
graded ministry, deriving its authority from the
apostles. Catholicism means the authority of the
Bishop of Rome. Methodism emphasises the Divine
grace aud upholds human freedom in spiritual
matters. The Baptists stand mainly for a certain
form of baptism. The Second Adventists hold that
Christ is yet to come into the world in person. But
all these, and the many others which are based upon
the Bible, rest upon the same general foundation,
the same underlying scheme of essential doctrines,
believed to be taught by the Bible, and revealed by
Jesus Christ in His advent of 1800 years ago.
No considerable sect believes that God has revealed
Himself since the last book of the Bible was written,
except to individual souls. All the Christian bodies
are but different branches from the same stock, and
are divided only on nonessential questions.
"Swedenborgianism, on the other hand, stands
for a belief that the Lord Jesus has fulfilled his
promise, made in the Bible, to come a second time.
It is not a phase of the old Christianity, but a new
Christianity, spoken of in our text, and predicted in
the last two chapters of the Bible, where the city,
New Jerusalem, is described, descending from
heaven.
"Now, underlying doctrines of Swedenborgianism
-the foundations, walls, and bulworks of its Holy
City:
I. The first and most central truth of Sweden-
borgianism-that is to say, of the Lord's New
Church-is that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
in His glorified nature, is the one and only God,-the
object of our supreme love and worship. In its
earliest days, Christianity seems to have believed
206 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
this, or to have believed nothing contrary to it;
but since then, Christ has become a subordinate and
separate Person; and the purpose for which He
came, which originally was understood to be to
save men from their sins (Matthew i. 21), finally
came to be understood to be to save men from the
just wrath of a superior Divinity, through a vicari-
ous atonement.
II. The next great and new truth of Sweden-
borgianism, or the Lord's New Church, is its doctrine
of Sacred Scripture, or the Bible. The Bible is the
Word of God, and, as the Word of God, must con-
tain a Divine spirit and Divine and infinite meanings.
'The words that I speak unto you,' said Jesus,
'they are spirit, and they are life.' The New Church
doctrines present to us the idea of the Bible as the
'language of God in the language of men.' From
its infinite origin in the 'light inaccessible' of the
Divine love and wisdom, it descends according to the
law of creation, by being clothed upon in lower
planes or atmospheres with forms of truth adapting
it to the different planes of human life. It dwells in
heaven among the angels. It comes down to men
of different degrees of spiritual life, even to the
lowest and most sensual; and on the surface it
presents ideas suitable to those who are 'of the
earth, earthy.'
III. The third great truth of Swedenborgianism is
that respecting a good life. Religion is a life in
accord with God's commandments. There is no
instantaneous salvation, no sudden and miraculous
transformation of human nature, although there
may be a sudden revelation of the truth which
awakens a desire for a higher life. There is no
entrance into heaven through God's immediate
mercy, although God's yearning love for man would
save every man if man would consent to live in
heaven and would be happy there. But unregener-
ate and wilful men would only be wretched if co
pelled to live among the unselfish in heaven.
Religion is a life. Regeneration is a development of
com-
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
207
character along the line of Divine truths or laws
revealed in the Word, and now unfolded rationally
in the New Church doctrines. According to the
quality of these truths is the quality of heavenly
life or character. In the Father's house are many
mansions,' according to the grade of Divine truths
which have been followed as the highest laws of life
during our abode in this world. And the new truths,
revealed from out of the World to-day, must lead
inevitably to a higher life than the truths which
have been held hitherto, for they awaken new and
higher motives or purposes, and these constitute
character.
A man may keep God's commandments merely
for the sake of a good reputation, or for fear of
suffering the loss of some earthly good. There is
no heaven in such a life.
IV. And the final great truth of Swedenborgian-
ism of which I shall speak is that respecting our
future life. This, like all the other fundamental
teachings of the New Church, is new. It was a new
thing for a human being to be openly admitted to
the scenes of the other life, to converse with spirits
and angels, to live in both worlds at the same time,
to pass from the natural to the spiritual state at
pleasure. It is a new thing to learn from a human
eye-witness of what we shall be and what kind of a
world we shall live in hereafter. It is a new thought
that the spiritual world is a real, substantial world,
filled with forms and things that are familiar, but
capable of indefinite development. It is new that we
shall be real men and women hereafter, preserving
our identity, our individuality, our ruling desires and
affections, which we have chosen here. It is new
that our cast off material bodies are cast off forever,
and will be needed by us no more, because we shall
be raised up immediately after death in our spiritual
bodies. It is a new thing that the judgment follows
death, and consists in bringing to light our ruling
love, our interior and hidden life, good or evil, which
we have chosen during our earthly probation. It is
208 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
a new idea that no one is cast into hell by the Lord,
but that it is the freely chosen home of all who enter
there."
This is Swedenborgianism,-"new truth revealed
for new age; new truth revealed for a new church
or dispensation now beginning; a new Christianity"
revealed by Swedenborg.
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
'Through the agency of Madame Blavatsky, a
westernized form of eastern thought and belief has
been introduced into America in 1875. Madame
Blavatsky, born in Russia, had studied Buddhism in
India. In New York she found a considerable num-
ber of adherents who formed the Theosophical
Society. Soon afterward, a split divided this society
into different sections. The most important one has
since located at Point Loma, California, under the
direction of a Mrs. Tingley. They have there
estalished a very flourishing co-operative community
and school on land owned by the society.
The members of the society gradate themselves in-
to eso- and exoteric degrees. They accept the authori-
ty of their leader as absolute, considering such leader
to be the direct agent through whom unseen masters
guide their destiny. The leader receives instruction
by means of supernatural revelation.
This movement, never very extensive, does not
seem to be gaining greatly in adherence, for
Americans, as a rule, do not like to place themselves
under the sway of personality such as this form of
religious organization permits of.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 209
SPIRITUALISM.
Spiritualism, the belief in physically inexplicable
phenomena and in communion with the spirits of
deceased people, is quite prevalent in America. The
movement started with two mediums, the Fox
sisters, New York, who about the middle of the 19th
century claimed the establishment of communion
with lost relatives and eminent deceased men and
women. It is claimed that such communication with
the dead reveals matters of great spiritual signi-
ficance, and therefore spiritualism has been elevated
to the position of a religion by a great many of its
adherents.
There is hardly a town in America which does not
possess its "spirit-circles," which always attract old
believers and newly curious inquirers. Many of these
meetings have developed a definite form of worship,
if so it may be called. They open with the singing
of some hymn or song, a short lecture or reading.
Then the lights are turned out and the members
present sit in semi-circles with joined hands. Through
the agency of a medium present, single members will
then call for communication with certain relatives,
ask them questions, and receive some answer
through the lips of the medium. At other times
spirits are supposed to materialize before the very
eyes of the audience as luminous, veiled forms, ask
for certain persons present and transmit to them
their message. These messages are usually of the
tritest kind and it is surprising to notice with what
seriousness they are received.
The writer was present at one of these meetings
14
210 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
when a number of departed spirits "materialized."
One of these called for the writer, wishing to trans-
mit the message. Nothing remains to be said but
that the handclasp of this particular spirit was most
physical, and little calculated to transmit spiritual
knowledge.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OR THE Church of
CHRIST, SCIENTIST.
Thirty-six years ago, in Boston, Massachusetts,
a woman, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, together with a
group of her students, founded "The Church of
Christ, Scientist." This church, formed in the spring
of the year 1879, was reorganised in 1892, renamed
"The First Church of Christ, Scientist," and Mrs.
Eddy accepted the call to become pastor of the new
church. Under her guidance and incessant efforts,
this church soon gained numerous adherents not
only in Mas sachusetts, but throughout the whole
United States, spreading even to most foreign coun-
tries, and forming to-day one of the most influential
religions of America. One tenet of its by-laws for-
bids absolutely the publishing of the membership of
the Christian Science Church, but one may arrive at
an estimate of its great strength by looking through
the pages of its official organ, "The Christian
Science Journal." The number for July 1915 lists
about 1200 established branch churches and societies
-an average of over thirty newly established
churches per year. The service in these churches is
conducted by "first and second readers" (ministers)
and, judging from the number of churches, there are
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 211
about 2500 "readers" conducting services to-day.
About 6000 officially recognized "healers" and about
100 nurses are listed, besides fourteen societies at
universities and colleges.
Mrs. Eddy writes :
"In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science
or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named
my discovery Christian Science. * * * The term
Christian Science was introduced
to designate
the scientific system of divine healing. The revelation
consists of two parts :
"1. The discovery of this divine Science of Mind-
healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures
and through the teachings of the Comforter, as pro-
mised by the Master.
"2. The proof, by present demonstration, that
the so-called miracles of Jesus did not specially be-
long to a dispensation now ended, but that they
illustrated an ever-operative divine Principle. The
operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of
the scientific order and continuity of being.
"In following these leadings of scientific revelation
the Bible was my only text-book.
"I know the Principle of all harmonious Mind-
action to be God, and that cures were produced in
primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith;
but I must know the Science of this healing, and I
won my way to absolute conclusions through divine
revelation, reason, and demonstration."
Mr. McCrackan, Christian Science Lecturer and
First Reader of the Mother Church in Boston, writes
in his pamphlet "Christian Science, Its Discovery
and Development":
"Christian Science teaches and proves by its
works that God is knowable through spiritual un-
derstanding, and that His relationship to man is
wholly normal and natural, and invariably good,
and so follows the course of His immutable law of
212 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
mercy." "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infi-
nite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."
* * * "Furthermore, Christian Science by its practice
proves that God, Principle, is available in every hour
of need, and so places within reach of every one the
interpretation of Christianity as a demonstrable
religion."
"Now the fact that Life, Truth, and Love act as
Principle, and through divine law heal the sick as
well as save the sinner-this fact constitutes a dis-
covery. It established spiritual healing as a science,
not dependent upon blind belief or upon mere hope
or expectation, but as capable of definite, precise,
and accurate demonstration."
"Thus Christian Science virtually exists as a con-
tinuation of primitive Christianity under modern
conditions."
Mr. McCrackan quotes Mrs. Eddy:
"The discovery came to pass this way. During
twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying
to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in
the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific cer-
tainty that all causation is Mind, and every effect a
mental phenomenon.
"My immediate recovery from the effects of an
injury caused by an accident, an injury that neither
medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling
apple that led me to the discovery how to be well
myself, and how to make others so."
It may be of interest to trace the life of this re-
markable woman. Her life and the movement she
built up have been filled with both strife and ever-
growing success. We shall, wherever possible, quote
the words of Mr. McCrackan from the above named
pamphlet:
"Mary Baker Eddy was born July 16, 1821, in
Bow, New Hampshire, * * descended from good New
England stock, members of the Congregational
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 213
**
church.
She studied with a brother moral
science, natural philosophy, Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew grammar. At an early age the question of
her joining the church presented itself, but she showed
opposition to the decree of predestination as taught
in the Congregational church. In spite of her stout
declaration of disbelief in this, she was nevertheless
admitted. She states: 'My connection with this
religious body was retained till I founded a church
of my own, built on the basis of Christian Science,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone'."
"In 1843 Mary Baker married George Washington
Glover. Mr. Glover had established himselt in
business in Charlestown, South Carolina, and
thither he took his young bride. Mary Baker
Glover first came into touch with slavery in the
South. Her husband owned some slaves and her
sense of right revolted against the practice. Hardly
a year had passed since her marriage when her
husband died." * * "Mrs. Glover set free her husband's
slaves" and returned "to her father's home, which
she had so lately left. A boy was born to her not
long after her return, and she named him after
her husband, George Washington Glover."
"In 1849 Mrs. Glover's mother died, and about a
year later her father remarried. There was a re-
arrangement of domestic affairs. Mrs. Glover's nurse
during her prolonged illness following childbirth
was to be married, and it was planned by the family
that Mrs. Glover's son George should go and live
with the nurse in her new home, as Mrs. Glover's
health was precarious, and she was about to move
into her sister's house, where her little son might
prove too great a charge. Against this plan Mrs.
Glover protested vigorously, and only gave up her
child when no escape from this necessity presented
itself."
"Mrs. Glover continued to write on the subject of
slavery, which was daily becoming a more and more
burning question and was soon to culminate in the
Civil War.* * * Her position of dependence upon
214 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
her family was at times exceedingly difficult to bear,
especially as she found herself moving farther and
farther away from their views on the vital questions
of the day. Her invalidism made her helpless to
resist the drift of her life into almost constant
confinement."
*
She gradually won her way to definite convic-
tions concerning spiritualism, mesmerism, and
animal magnetism (later called hypnotism), convic-
tions which she has recorded in her writings.
"In 1853 Mrs. Glover, after nine years of widow-
hood, contracted a second marriage. She married
Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist." She writes: 'My
dominant thought in marrying again was
get back my child, but after our marriage his step-
father was not willing he should have a home with
me.'
to
"* * Shortly after this, Mrs. Patterson's former
nurse and her husband moved to the west, taking
the boy with them. The bereaved mother writes: **
"A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The
family to whose care he was committed very soon
removed to what was then regarded as the Far
West. After his removal a letter was read to my little
son, informing him that his mother was dead and
buried. Without my knowledge a guardian was
appointed him and I was then informed that my
son was lost. Every means within my power was
employed to find him, but without success. We
never met again until he had reached the age of
thirty-four." * * *
"In the endeavor to regain her health, Mrs.
Patterson tried many experiments and followed
many systems. She strictly observed the laws of
hygiene, as then understood, subjecting herself to
a strict diet and to a regular system of bathing.
She likewise began the study of homeopathy, but
the acts of spiritual healing recorded in the
Scriptures were never altogether absent from her
thought."
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
215
About this time she became the patient and pupil
of a magnetic healer and teacher, Phineas P. Quimby,
of Portland, Maine. "Mrs. Patterson was cured
of physical ills of long standing by Quimby's
method." **
"For some years, from the time of her relief from
invalidism until her discovery of Christian Science
in 1866, she was apparently under the impression
that the solution of true mental healing long sought
by her was represented by Quimby's method. In
1862 and in 1864 Mrs. Patterson wrote down her
impressions of his system and turned over the
manuscripts to him. In view of their collaboration
Mr. Patterson signed Quimby's name to these manu-
scripts, and this gave rise in later times to the report
of Quimby manuscripts being in existence from
which Mrs. Patterson was assumed to have derived
Christian Science."
A heated controversy later arose as to whom the
honor of being the founder of Christian Science really
belonged, Mrs. Patterson, or Mr. Quimby, and
Christian Scientists are still quite touchy on this
subject and most eager to claim the honor for
Mrs. Eddy.
In 1864, "Mrs. Patterson was returning home one
evening from a meeting * * when she sustained an
accident which was to become memorable by reason
of its immediate results. * * * Of this accident and
her recovery Mrs. Eddy herself afterward published
the following :
*
"St. Paul writes: 'For to be carnally minded is
death; but to be spiritually minded is life and
peace. This knowledge came to me in an hour
of great need: and I give it to you as death-bed
testimony to the day-star that dawned on the
night of material sense. This knowledge is practical,
for it wrought my immediate recovery from an
injury caused by an accident, and pronounced
fatal by the physicians. On the third day there-
216 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
after, I called for my Bible and opened it at
Matthew, lx. 2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned
upon my senses: and the result was that I rose,
dressed myself and ever after was in better health
than I had before enjoyed. That short experience
included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since
tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and
of spirit; this Life being the sole reality of ex-
istence."
"Here indeed was the healing for which she had
always striven, which she felt must be at hand did
one only know how to realize its presence. Here at
last was the ideal towards which her whole life had
tended from her childhood's experiences, her stout
refusal to believe in a cruel God, her insistent convic-
tion that love is the liberator of mankind from all
Thereafter she could never be deceived
again, never in doubt as to what constituted the
healing of Bible times. Nor from the moment of her
discovery does she ever seem to have hesitated about
her manifest mission to give this truth to the world
and become the Founder as well as the Discoverer of
Christian Science." *
woe.
*
*
*
***
"Her experiences for the next ten years proved
inexpressibly hard"
there "followed Dr.
Patterson's desertion of his wife, and Mrs. Patterson
was obliged to secure a decree of divorce from him.
Her father and mother having passed away, she
might naturally have gone to the home of her sister
** but the sister made it a condition that she should
forsake her unconventional religious convictions,
and this Mary Baker was determined not to do.
*
*
She chose poverty rather than ease, and now
began a life of involuntary wandering from one home
to another, from one boarding place to another,
the life of a student searching the Scripturism,
nourishing her glorious discovery, applying it where
she was welcomed; sometimes loved and appre-
ciated, more often misunderstood and even
traduced; healing the sick, transforming charac-
ter, and always writing, writing that man-
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
217
kind at large might gain the spiritual revelation
which had come to her. * * * As time went on she
began to teach little classes of students. * * * In
1875, while residing in Lynn, Massachusetts, Mary
Baker finished her book "Science and Health" with
"Key to the Scriptures" (the text book of Christian
Science). * * * In that year also was made the first
beginning of a Christian Science church, when a
number of her students united in inviting her to
hold meetings and preach to them every Sunday, and
subscribed a weekly salary for her."
"In 1887 Mary Baker Glover was married to Mr.
Asa G. Eddy, who, being in bad health, had been
sent to her for treatment. She had healed him, had
taken him through one of her classes, and had learned
to trust him so thoroughly that she had placed
many of her affairs in his charge. Some of Mrs.
Eddy's students took umbrage at this transfer of
her interests and a period of singular unrest ensued,
culminating in mutual recriminations among them-
selves and even in lawsuits, and finally blossomed
forth into a veritable conspiracy against Mr. Eddy.
Her home with Mr. Eddy provided her an atmos-
phere of peace and security for her teaching and
healing work."
They
"The beginning of a Christian Science Church
made in 1875 had not survived the disaffections of
some of her students, but in 1876 the Christian
Science Association was formed, which fulfilled
the needs of the times. * * * In the spring of 1879,
a little band of earnest seekers after truth went into
deliberations over forming a church without creeds,
to be called the 'Church of Christ, Scientist.'
were members of evangelical churches and students
of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy in Christian Science, and
were known as Christian Scientists. Mrs. Eddy was
appointed on the committee to draw up the tenets of
this Mother Church, a charter was obtained, and
Mrs. Eddy accepted the call to become pastor of
the new church. * * * In 1881 Mrs. Eddy opened
218 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston.
'Under the seal of the Commonwealth,' a law relative
to colleges having been passed which enabled her to
get this institution chartered for medical purposes.
No charters were granted to Christian Scientists for
such institutions after 1883."
Every three years a course is given to a limited
number of thirty students in Metaphysical College,
and graduates may receive the degree of C.S.B.,
Bachelor of Christian Science, or that of C.S.D.,
Doctor of Christian Science. "This degree followed
by the word teacher designates one who has received
a certificate and is authorized to teach." "Author-
ized teachers hold but one class each year, with not
more than thirty pupils in a class." Students so
taught may then go out as Christian Science
"Healers", treating patients of all descriptions.
Their usual charge for a visit to and a "treatment"
of a patient is $ 2 (6 rupees). They also give "absent
treatments," in which case the patient may be miles
away, but is thought to receive the healing waves as
if present. There are also Christian Science nurses,
who attend the patient day or night or both ac-
cording to need. These nurses usually receive the
ordinary medical nurses' pay of $ 25 a week, (75
rupees) or more. Thus Christian Science healing
constitutes a quite well-paid profession.
Very early, Mrs. Eddy found herself opposed by a
strong public opinion against her doctrines and her
treatment of disease, and found herself also involved
in other personal quarrels. During the year 1883
"Mrs. Eddy found herself constrained to sue a former
student for the infringement of her copyright." She
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 219
edited many writings and started the Christian
Science Journal, the official organ. The copyrighted
books are expensively bound in leather and are sold
everywhere at high, uniform rates. Every member
is in possession of her writings. Mrs. Eddy realized
a huge fortune from the return of her works,-over
$ 2,000,000, (60 lakhs of rupees).
"In 1879 Mrs. Eddy's son, George Glover had
been located by her in Minnesota and upon her
request had come to Boston to visit her, but he did
not seem open to the reception of Christian Science
teaching. *** Mrs. Eddy conceived the idea of
adopting as her son Dr. Ebenezer J. Foster, a former
physician, who had become interested in Christian
Science, had received instruction in the college, and
who resided with other students in Mrs. Eddy's
household." These two sons later attacked her in a
suit to have her adjudged incapable of managing
her own affairs. This suit, intended to keep her for-
tune from going entirely to the church, dragged in
the courts for almost a year. After settling on each
of them $ 200,000, the suit was withdrawn by the
complainants.
***
"From 1892 to 1908 Mrs. Eddy resided at Plea-
sant view, * ** New Hampshire, * * * perfecting the
organization of the Christian Science church, super-
vising the various means
by which Christian
Science is placed before the public. She founded the
periodicals of the denomination," including the
Christian Science Monitor, a daily newspaper.
"Outrageous misrepresentations" became current
concerning her private life at Pleasant View and "it
220 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
was necessary for Mrs. Eddy to have a mass of
affidavits collected refuting these misrepresentations,
and to submit to an interview with some fifteen
newspaper men and women in the presence of her
banker, her lawyer, the Mayor of Concord, and
some members of the Mother Church. The news-
paper men were then taken all over the house and
were shown the evidences of her simple home life.
Mrs. Eddy died in the winter of 1910, perhaps
the most influential woman in America at the time.
The "deification" of Mrs. Eddy among her followers.
is a matter of constant ridicule on the side of the
opponents of Christian Science, the bitterest of whom
are to be found among medical men. Suits for
"malpractice" against Christian Science Healers are
nothing uncommon. In spite of this, the number of
adherents is on a steady, strong increase.
"The services of the Christian Science Church
are strikingly simple. Instead of a personal sermon,
a lesson-sermon is read which consists of verses from
the Scriptures, and correlative passages from the
Christian Science text-book, the pastor of the Chris-
tian Science church being the Bible and Science and
Health. There are two readers in every church.
Every branch church is self-governing and self-sup-
porting... One of the distinctive features of the Chris-
tian Science church is its Wednesday evening meet-
ings.
They give an opportunity for testimo-
nies and experiences as to the works of Christian
Science, *** the overcoming of all manner of sin,
sickness, calamity, and incapacity" out of the lives of
attending members. *** Each church maintains
***
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
221
a
a Christian Science reading room, where "the Bible
and Mrs. Eddy's works may be read free of charge, or
purchased if desired." Mrs. Eddy instituted
committee of publication in connection with the
Mother Church. Committees on publication exist in
the different states and in foreign countries, also a
board of lectureship, providing excellent speakers.
"NEW THOUGHT."
It is not easy to give an accurate description of
the extent or even the principles of the new strong
movement of "New Thought" which has swept over
the continent of America during the last half
century, especially the last twenty-five years, and
is steadily gaining in strength and adherence. A
great number of separate organizations, such as
the "Divine Science," "Home of Truth," "Truth
Center," "College of Divine Science," "Church of the
Unknown Disciple," "Essene Circle," "Practical
Christianity," "Unity Center," "Higher Thought
Center," "Progressive Brotherhood Center," "Church
of the New Civilization" and others are the offshoots
of this movement, which started everywhere and
nowhere.
Mrs. Annie Rix Militz, one of the leaders of The
Home of Truth, in "The Master Mind" for March
1915, makes the following statement which com-
prises the essence of the New Thought movement:
"A thought increases the heart-beats, stops or
gives great volume to the breath, jerks the muscles,
throws the body into strenuous activities, that may
be communicated to hordes of people who then
proceed to change the face of the earth, who can
measure the influence of a single thought?
222 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"These are some of the ideas that have received
the name New Thought:-that disease is of mental
origin instead of material: that right thinking
brings health to the body and prosperity to one's
affairs; that right thoughts about oneself heal
perverted appetites, like drunkeness, and sinful
living; that knowledge can conquer death; that
self-mastery gives one power to control the
elements; that God-love in the heart will destroy
all enmity on the part of people, animals and other
creatures; that there is no limit to thought and its
power except what thought puts upon itself.
"New thought is the forerunner of the New Age
educating humanity to be fit citizens for the kingdom
of heaven that is coming to the earth-that is
really here now but veiled to the eyes whose seeing
is not "single" to the All-God."
Members of this movement usually, if at all,
label themselves merely "Truth-Students" or "New
Thought Students." They build no churches, and
have no rigidly established organizations and no
recognized heads or leaders whose authority they
accept. They base most of their teaching upon the
Bible, although they accept in part the wisdom and
inspiration of the scriptures of all races and nations.
The different New Thought bodies meet in reading
rooms, lecture rooms and in private homes. There
they listen to special lecturers or to any member who
may be able to speak. A great feature of their work
is the healing of mental and physical disease. Once a
week or oftener, they hold healing meetings, and at
all times during the week healers will give individual
treatment, present or absent, to patients applying
for them. "Healers" do not derive their authority
to heal from any college or school, but claim to
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 223
derive it from the source of all power and wisdom,
from God, directly. The proof of anyone's possessing
healing power lies in the mere fact of some one's
turning to them successfully for help. In this and in
the fact that they demand no charge for these
treatments lies the great difference between these
"healers" and the "Christian Science Practitioners."
In the Master Mind for July 1914, not less than
131 separate New Thought centers are listed. This
is the nearest indication of the size of the movement.
How many members belong to each center it is
impossible even to guess. A great many persons
who avail themselves of the healing powers of the
New Thought healers never break their old church
affiliations, as there is nothing compelling them to
do so, but all of them refuse any longer to put their
confidence in medical science for the healing of
physical ills.
As a sample of the beliefs, and the method of
healing, and loose but nevertheless powerful, organi-
zation of these New Thought bodies, we shall quote
from the following brief account of "The Home of
Truth" publications :
"A presentation of Jesus Christ's teachings and
practice is offered to the world here that is believed
to be the primitive ministry of Christianity, which
was given to the world for man's healing or salva-
tion-body, mind, soul, and estate.
"The chief teacher and founder is Jesus Christ;
the great authority for our belief is the Holy Spirit
within each one; and the church is the whole body
of divine Humanity everywhere; the text-books are :
Firstly, the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, especially the words of Jesus Christ;
124 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
second, the remaining books of the Bible; and, third,
all other Scriptures and writings that have blessed
humanity visible and invisible, and we are all
brothers and sisters, with one Father and one
Mother whose name is God.
"Realizing that the church of Christ is that perfect
body of humanity that does not need to be organized
or held together by rules and strictures, the workers
of this presentation have formed no new Church or
creed, but have seen that the homes of the nation
are the spiritually natural places for worship and
the healing and teaching ministry. The true home
is the representation of heaven.
"Two or three souls consecrated with all the love
of heart, soul, mind, and strength to God the Good,
have been the starters of each of the Homes of Truth.
They believe that God the Good is All in All, and that
there is none to love or to be, to know or to work
for but this one in our neighbor, in our self, or in the
world, this being their interpretation of the greatest
of all the commandments.-Mark xii, 29, 30, 31.
"They believe that every good gift has been con-
ferred upon us freely by our heavenly Father, and
that knowledge of Truth and its application will
reveal to us eternal health, unchanging prosperity,
age-lasting life, and all the bliss of omniscient, omni-
present, and omnipotent Love.
are
"They believe that all men and women
innately good, and that all are alive whether visible
or invisible, and under the care and guidance of the
loving Father, who knows no failure but will present
Truth in all ways to His children until every one
shall come to himself and to the joy for which his
heart has been yearning.
"The public ministration has three departments :
healing, teaching, and worship.
"The healing ministry is the same as that of
Jesus Christ, who healed through knowledge and by
speaking the word of truth, both silently and
audibly. The Lord is the great physician with whom
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
225
all things are possible and to whom no disease is
incurable. "I am the Lord that healeth thee."
"No charge is made for any of the ministrations,
for all the gifts of God are free and we are all one
family, whose members in the heavenly state are
under the law of the realm of the Spirit. Love always
expresses itself in gifts, and in loving our neighbor as
ourselves we give freely even as the Spirit has given
to us freely. Therefore, nothing of the healing and
teaching is priced or sold, but all are love gifts.
The same privilege of free giving is accorded to
those who come to the Home or love its ministry,
and many give richly and generously to the work in
the form of money or other expressions of value.
"The support of the Home and its workers seems
unique in the eyes of the world, since there is no
subscription list, no fund, no charge for services, no
solicitations-all contributions being voluntary in
the truest sense of the word.
"The first of these Homes has been in existence
over twenty years, and the second almost as long,
and thousands can testify to the benefits in healing,
both physical and spiritual, conferred upon them by
the workers and healers there. Since their beginning
certain meetings have never ceased, such as the
Healing Meetings and the Sunday Services. Classes in
the first principles and for students more advanc-
ed are held continually, also Bible lessons, and
every evening there is a half hour of silent prayer and
meditation.
"The Sunday school for the children is an impor-
tant feature, and every principle is given to the
young that will defend them from the false sugges-
tions of mortality and encourage their individual
expressions of the true spiritual self that dwells
within.
"Each Home is independent of all the others finan-
cially and in methods of ministry, and yet are in
perfect harmony as to the main ideas. The desire
and aim of the workers is to maintain equality
15
226 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
among themselves and to esteem all the work equally
honorable, and this is accomplished by working for
God alone, and being unmoved by the opinions,
criticisms, and ingratitude of people. The Lord with-
in the people knows, and will finally be the only
one to speak and act in response to the love and
faith extended by the workers.
"There is a guest room in the Home where any one
in sympathy with its ministry and not an invalid
can reside for a time, according to the good judg-
ment of the household. Also any one who desires
to read or meditate in chapel or sitting-room is most
welcome to come in at any time that these rooms
are not being used for other purposes."
"INQUIRIES AND BRIEF REPLIES ABOUT HEALING."
"How do you Heal? By a certain knowledge of
man and his true being and its application in prayer,
either silent or audible; the same methods that Jesus
Christ used.
"Do you use Means? Nothing but the word of
truth. No material means or application of hands,
unless especially led to do so by the Holy Spirit.
"Is faith necessary? Enough faith to come for
treatment and to obey the directions of the healer.
"Can any disease be healed ? God is the real Healer
in every case, and nothing is incurable with Him."
DIRECTIONS FOR THOSE DESIRING HELP.
1. Look to the Supreme Mind only for help.
2. Put aside medicine and other material aids.
3. Take no treatment from other practitioners or
doctors.
4. Stop talking about disease and troubles, symp-
toms and pains.
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 227
5. Be grateful for all improvement and tell of it,
for that hastens the healing.
6. Do not hesitate to confess your faults or errors
of the past. Put "confidential" on the
envelope.
7. Keep your thoughts on pleasant things. Think
as little as possible of your condition.
8. Give everyone good kind thoughts. Carry no
bitterness in your heart.
9. Have no anxiety about anything.
10. Take lessons in the Science of Christ Healing
as soon as possible. Have at hand good
reading on these subjects all the time.
11. Have no doubt of your final restoration to
health, even though your case seems slow
in yielding.
12. Make your love-offering as though you were
giving it directly to Christ.
The Master Mind, a monthly publication, is their
official organ. The number for August, 1914, opens
with a quotation from the teachings of Buddha. Mrs.
Annie Rix Militz is one of the leaders of this school
and the editor of its official organ. The following
sentences from the opening article of the magazine
for August, 1915, read like Buddhism or Vedanta in
the English garb:
"It is one of the conclusions of science that matter
and energy are not things in themselves, that they
are but modes of thinking, a view of the universe.
This view is changeable according to our viewpoint
and matter has no fixed qualities to one who knows
the real substance, which is changeless, and determin-
ed in its qualities, which are altogether good; where
as the qualities that are ascribed to matter a
228 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
mixed, sometimes good and sometimes evil, at
times desirable and at others undesirable.
"It is possible for us to give to this appearance
called materiality what qualities we choose, for
we give those qualities by reflection and not as
actually belonging to the appearance. We see all
materiality as we would look in a mirror; we know
that the image in the mirror can be governed
by our knowledge of and power over the thing
reflected."
Or:-
"Spirit is the one substance, omnipresent, in and
through all things, changeless, perfect, good. Space,
limitations, forms, and dimensions are concepts of
this divine substance, and they are movable as
we know the Truth, and abide by it even in the
face of our senses."
The principal thing in connection with this school
which is attracting much attention is their healing
work. The two noted cases which are being adver-
tized freely are those of one Miss Dorothy Kerin
of Herne Hill, London, and of Miss Edith Ballard of
Cillingham, Kent. In the first case the patient was
said to be in the last stage of consumption and is
said to have been healed by the force of spiritual
faith. The particulars of the other case may be
gathered from the following statement of the patient
in The Master Mind for August 1914:-
"I was five years in bed and my limbs were bound
hard and fast like iron!
"On Sunday morning, the 2nd of November, 1911,
when I had come nigh to gates of death, a beauti-
ful light appeared over my head, and I heard some-
one distinctly say to me, 'Edith, you have borne
your suffering with great patience and fortitude!
Now arise and walk three times around your bed,
for five days, for the five years you have lain upon
it. And at the hour of six and nine you shall walk
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 229
again, after which you shall pass through another
fire (the fires were the frightful fits she was subject
to), then you shall be healed, for your time is not
yet.' Then my two hands were taken and folded
upon my breast, and then in this helpless position,
my legs were lifted gently out of bed, and then my
body lifted up and I stood upright, and then my
hand was lifted up above my head and grasped in
a warm and soft hand, and thus I was gently led
around my bed three times! I was then laid upon
my bed again and all my limbs became hard and
fast as before!
"My mother, who was present, of course spread
the wonderful story among our neighbours, and as
the time for the next walk was stated, a company
of them came in to witness the marvel. At the ap-
pointed time the same Light appeared, and the same
walk was taken in the presence of them all. These
"walks" were continued for twenty days and wit-
nessed by hundreds of all classes. In my last "walk"
the Light on this occasion was like the sun, while
the time before it was like moon, and overhead
there was a most beautiful rainbow, and this time
my two hands were taken and held above my head
while I walked, and this time all my limbs were set
free and I was made whole.""
How much reliance can be placed on these state-
ments, I am not in a position to say. Evidently
there are numerous centers of this school in England
as well as in America. Mr. Thomas Troward,
once a Divisional Judge in the Panjab, is said to be
connected with this school, and Swami Vivekananda
spent seven weeks in the Home of Truth, Alameda,
California, during one of his visits to the United
States. The New Thought Movement is considered
by many to be the most spiritual and promising
movement in America.
-
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
ORGANIZATIONS
Whatever else may be said of the people of America,
it cannot be said of them that they are not chari-
table. It rarely happens in the world that those
who have most, give most. America is, however,
an exception. Individuals and corporations have
made colossal fortunes. Some of the wealthiest
families and persons in the world belong to America.
A good many of them started with nothing except
their brains and are multi-millionaires today.
But if they have made millions and millions, they
have also given away millions in charity. The uni-
versities of America and the various charity organi-
zations are standing monuments of their generosity,
wisdom, and patriotism. In most cases these bene-
factions combine in them the desire for name and
fame, or the perpetuation of the memory of some one
dear or near to the benefactor, with highly useful
and commendable objects of humanitarian or nation-
al value. The country which gave them a chance
has every reason to be proud of them. They have
repaid what the country gave them, sometimes with
double or even treble interest.
But what is most instructive about the charities
of America is their thorough organization and the
scientific spirit which underlies them. The extent
and the scope of these charities is indeed very large,
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
231
but what is most interesting is the spirit in which
they are administered. Perhaps nowhere was the
need of organized charity so great as in the United
States of America. Perhaps nowhere was the prob-
lem so complex and intricate as here. With the
never-ending fluctuation in its population, the result
of the never-ceasing waves of immigration sweeping
over the land from year's end to year's end; with
the millions of people coming to its shores just for a
chance, among whom there is a large percentage of
those who are either moral or social wrecks, victims
of their own misdeeds or those of the society in which
they were born; with its thousands of refugees who
have run from tyranny and oppression of those mon-
sters in human form who rule over the destinies of
their native lands; with an ever-increasing army of
those who do not know who is responsible for hav-
ing brought them into this world, who have not
known the love of mother or father or the company
of brother or sister; hundreds of thousands of such
as have left father and mother behind and have no
one to think of them in times of distress or trouble ;
with millions of such as have no home in the proper
sense of the term and who have simply to live on
chance employment, America did really need the system
of charity and social help which has been organized
in the interests of humanity, in the interests of nation-
al efficiency and in the interests of social welfare, by
its sons and daughters, acting in the true spirit of
Christ, and in harmony with each other.
It some have given their money ungrudgingly;
others have given their lives, their time, their
232 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
energies and their talents. This is a land of ex-
tremes. While you find here perhaps the biggest
crowd of sharpers, cheats and scoundrels in the
world, men who have no scruples to rob or cheat
even the orphan, the widow and the helpless, you
come across perhaps the largest number of men and
women who have dedicated their lives to the service
of the Lord and Humanity. While the credal chains
are loosening, the broader interests of true charity
and true humanity are being strengthened. All this
is very creditable, stimulating and refreshing. But
what is even of greater value is the evolving of a
scientific spirit in the administering of charity and
the application of scientific methods in preventing
misery and removing poverty and distress.
Business methods and humanitarian instincts are
combined in making charity effective, not only in
the immediate relief of the sufferers, but also in pro-
viding a normal and a healthy future for him. The
object is immediate relief as well as future prevention
-individual help as well as national efficiency. The
thoroughness with which charity and social service
work is conducted in this country is amazing. It is
one of the biggest departments of human activity in
which the National government, the State, the City,
the Church, the private benefactor, the scientific
investigator, the scholar, and the business expert,
all co-operate. Its ramifications are widespread and
the persons engaged in this work constitute an
army which is larger in size than the United States
army or perhaps the army and navy combined. The
amount of money that is handled by these organiza-
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
233
tions must be many times more than the money that
is spent on the United States army and navy, and
the kind of service they do is surely better than
the other.
The bye-products are perhaps even more valuable
than the immediate results. The work of these
organizations, the investigations made by their
agency, the facts brought to light by them, the
experiments made by them in relieving and prevent-
ing distress, the knowledge gained by a study of
the needs of the different strata of society covered by
their activities, throw such a flood of light on
human problems and on social science as to form
a material help in the advance of civilization and
in the intelligent progress of humanity.
It is a poor world where there should be such
great need of charity; that there should be so much
distress, disease, suffering, privation, and poverty;
that there should be so many inequalities arising
from an unequal and unjust distribution of wealth
and denial of social and economic opportunities;
that there should be resources of charity and dis-
pensers of charity. Yes, it is a poor world that inflicts
so many wounds and then tries to heal them, that
first strikes and then consoles. Yet however we may
wish that society were so constituted as to delete
the idea and the necessity of charity, however
noble it may be to give charity, it is anything but
honorable to receive it or to be considered as deserv-
ing of it. While it perhaps raises the giver, if he acts
in a spirit of duty, it certainly lowers the one who
receives it. If men are brothers, sons of the same
234 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
father, there should be none who are forced to be
the recipients of other people's charity and the objec-
tives of other people's pity. Yes, all that is true, but
so long as the world is what it is, it is next best
that charity should be administered, not by indivi-
duals, but by organizations; that it should be ad-
ministered as a social obligation and a part of
national duty rather than simply as an outcome of
pity and sympathy; that the causes which make it
necessary for people to apply for relief should receive
a scientific probing into; and that steps should be
taken to remove those causes so that the repetition
of such applications either by the same individual or
by others becomes impossible or at any rate rare. A
study of the charity and social organizations of
America shows that the directors and leaders of these
organizations are alive to these principles and that
they are acting accordingly.
II.
I will now let them speak for themselves and in
giving an account of the charity organization of
America, profusely quote from their literature. But
before I start giving an account of the methods and
the work and the extent of organized charity in
America, I would like to give a brief account of
a charity foundation which has materially helped in
the evolution of the scientific methods spoken of
above.
The foundation known by the name of Russell
Sage Foundation, owes its origin to the genero-
sity of Mrs. Sage, who gave away ten million dollars
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
235
i.e., three crores of rupees, for the Foundation in 1907.
It began its work in two small offices in New York,
but is now occupying its own nine storied building
(absolutely fire-proof and made of solid stone and
iron)-a noble structure devoted to a noble purpose.
The purpose of the Foundation is "the improvement
of social and living conditions in the United States
by any means which shall seem expedient, including
research, publication, education, and the establish-
ment, aid, or maintenance of charitable or benevo-
lent activities or institutions. In her letter of April
19, 1907, which is her deed of gift, Mrs. Sage further
defines the scope of the Foundation, and makes plain
the wide vision of its usefulness that lay behind her
gift. In that letter she wrote:
"The scope of the foundation is not only national
but it is broad. It should, however, preferably not
undertake to do that which is now being done or
is likely to be effectively done by other individuals
or other agencies. It should be its aim to take up
the larger and more difficult problems, and to take
them up so far as possible in such a manner as to
secure co-operation and aid in their solution. In
some instances it may wisely initiate movements,
in the expectation of having them maintain them-
selves unaided after once being started. In other
instances it may start movements with the expecta-
tion of carrying them on itself."
The trustees at one of their earliest meetings de-
cided not to attempt to relieve individual or family
need, partly because the trustees did not wish to
free the philanthropic public of its responsibilities
toward unfortunate members, and partly because
they believed that the foundation could accomplish
more by attacking evil at its root and attempting
236 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
to remove the causes of poverty, pain, and suffering,
than in undertaking mere individual relief. It was
decided that grants should not be made to univer-
sities and colleges, because these institutions
were already provided for to a certain extent
by Mr. Rockefeller's General Education Board,
and incidentally through pensions by Mr. Car-
negie's Foundation for the Advancement of Teach-
ing. Aid to churches of all denominations was
also eliminated from the purposes of the Foun-
dation. "The Foundation" has ten direct divi-
sions, each with a department head and staff of
workers apart from its indirect work in co-operation
with a score of other altruistic movements. It is
in touch with 250 charity organization societies,
900 libraries, 900 mayors, and 800 school
superintendents in the forty-eight states; it dis-
tributes between 200,000 and 300,000 pieces of its
own printed matter annually, an average of a
thousand every working day in the year.
The ten direct agencies of the foundation
are the Charity Organization Department, the
Department of Child Helping, the Department of
Recreation, the Division of Education, the Division
of Remedial Loans, the Committee of Women's
Work, the Department of Surveys and Exhibits, the
Division of Statistics, the Southern Highland Division
and the library. As is entirely logical in the scheme
of an institution seeking permanent results, a great
part of the work of the Foundation is among
children-the men and women of the next generation.
As interesting and as important as any of the
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
237
work of the foundation is that of the Charity
Organization Department, directed by Miss Mary
E. Richmond. This department studies the work
of charity organizations in all parts of the country,
digests the information it obtains, and acts as a
clearing house of this information with the purpose
of raising the standards of charity work everywhere
it can. It seeks to eliminate duplications of ex-
penditure and time. It makes special studies in field
work on its own account and publishes its findings
on them. It makes a special effort to get the best
workers into the fields where they can be most
useful. Its labors and purposes and methods are
really at the root of all the work of the other
departments of the Foundation. It is teaching
thousands of people that the causes of dependency
are preventable ills, and how they may be prevented.
The Department of Surveys and Exhibits is doing
some of the most interesting and suggestive work
of recent years to bring about better conditions in
American cities. "For example a survey of the City of
Newburgh showed that the city had a typhoid death
rate twice that of the whole state. This led to an
immediate investigation of the watershed." The
pamphlet containing the report of the Newburgh
survey, each of its hundred pages crowded with con-
crete suggestion, without one instance of personal or
bitter criticism, indicates that the undertaking was
wholly constructive. The needs of Newburgh are
summarized thus: reorganization of financial methods;
a housing code; better financial and better organized
health work; more emphasis upon reformation, less
238 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
upon humiliation of prisoners; the employment of
a paid probation officer; more investigation and
further co-operation in charity work, with emphasis
upon prevention of dependency and family rehabili-
tation rather than the giving of alms; permanent
public playgrounds and recreation use of school
buildings; better enforcement of child labor laws
and a better understanding of the wage problem,
better physical conditions in older schools, better
provision for securing teaching efficiency; provision
for abnormal children and more attention to physi-
cal training.
The Department of Recreation originated in an
undertaking entered into by the Foundation, under
the name of the Playgrounds Extension Committee,
to further the establishment of children's playgrounds
and to give temporary aid to what has now become
a national movement-the Playground and Recrea-
tion Association of America. One of the leading
phases of the work of this department is in the
arousing of public sentiment to the demand that
playgrounds and breathing places for children shall
be established throughout the cities of the United
States. Careful playground work on a properly
organized, supervised, and directed playground is as
educational as going to school. When the Founda-
tion began to push the playground movement five
years ago, there were 90 American cities which had
playgrounds: to-day there are more than 800. The
Foundation has investigated playgrounds and
recreation undertakings in every part of the United
States and also in Europe; and this information
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
239
having been accumulated and digested, the resulting
conclusions are put at the service of any individuals
or committees that desire to know the best way,
under local conditions, to start and conduct any
form of public recreation. And this information is
kept up to date, new pamphlets and books on the
subject being issued whenever new ideas or new
accomplishments make their publication worth
while. In all this work the Department, although
not giving financial assistance, is co-operating with
the Playground and Recreation Association of
America.
Another division of the work of the Department of
Recreation, to which Mr. Clarence Arthur Perry, the
assistant director, devotes a great deal of attention,
is the development of the idea of using the school-
house as a social centre for adults as well as chil-
dren. Mr. Perry's books and pamphlets on the wider
use of the school plant (buildings, equipment, and
yards) are the result of five years of study on the
subject, and they describe all the activities and
how they are carried on after regular school hours,
from evening schools to social centres, in the public
school buildings of the entire country.
A movement that has been greatly extended by
this department of the Foundation is the "Safe and
Sane Fourth." The campaign was begun in 1909,
the number killed and wounded in fourth of July
celebrations in American cities in the preceeding year
being 5,623. Last year the killed and wounded num-
bered only 988, a reduction of 4,635. The Depart-
ment of Recreation writes directly to anyone asking
240 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
for information in any of its divisions, and gives
advice suitable to particular cases in different parts
of the country. Representatives of the Foundation
make personal visits whenever they can to cities,
towns and villages where the playground or social
centre situation may be under discussion, and give
talks and lectures and general assistance in perfecting
the scheme best adapted to local resources and
needs.
The sister division or the Department of Recrea-
tion is the Division of Education. This division
serves as a laboratory for the study of educational
problems. Its fundamental purpose is to discover,
formulate, and apply methods for illuminating and
clarifying the questions which confront workers in
the field of public education. The division takes the
difficulties which confront the school superintendent
and brings to bear upon them its fund of special
knowledge, the educational experience and scientific
training of its workers, the powerful organization
of its office machinery, and the solid financial backing
of the Foundation. Questions too large to be handled
by one city or one superintendent are taken over by
the division as its contribution towards the progress
of education in the United States. A few of the
special problems studied by the Division of Education
during the last few years are the medical inspection
of school children, open-air schools, the backward
child, the measurement of educational processes and
products, psychological tests in vocational guidance,
the effect of promotion rates on school efficiency, and
a comparative study of public schools systems in the
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
241
forty-eight states. The division aims not only to
discover facts, but to bring them to the attention
of educators in such a form and manner that
they can neither be misunderstood nor dis-
regarded.
Both the Department of Recreation and
the Division of Education lend lantern slides
illustrative of the various phases of their
work. They also publish bulletins from time to
time, in which the results of their studies are
reported.
In the Division of Remedial Loans, conducted by
Mr. Arthur H. Ham, concrete results are perhaps
more definitely shown than in any other department
of the Foundation. When, in 1909, Mr. Ham began
his crusade against the extortionate lenders on
salaries and chattel mortgages, they were at the
height of their prosperity. It was estimated that in
every city of the United States of more than 25,000
population, containing any appreciable number of
citizens dependent on fixed salaries or wages, there
were loan sharks in the proportion of one to 5,000,
and that one in every 20 voters was discounting two
days' labor for the price of one. To-day in 28 of the
states the people have risen against the sharks and
are driving them out of business by legislation that
permits the small loans traffic to be done on a
reputable basis. In 1909 the statute books of only
nine states contained laws tending to restrain the
rapacity of the loan sharks; to-day in 23 states their
teeth are being drawn, and in five more states
legislation is in progress for similar results. The
16
242 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
rapidity with which the movement for driving out
the extortioner has grown throughout the country
may not be better shown than in the records of the
National Federation of Remedial Loan Associations
which was organized in 1909. At that time semi-
philanthropic societies for the assistance of the small
borrower existed in twelve cities of the United States.
Since the organization of the National Federation it
has been joined by 17 new remedial loan societies,
and 8 more such societies are in process of formation.
The semi-philanthropic Chattel Loan Society of New
York, that was organized last year and has already
demonstrated the economic proposition that money
may be lent at a profit on household goods at 2 per
cent. a month plus a small investigation fee, is one
of the results of the work of the Division of Remedial
Loans.
The province of the Committee of Women's Work
is the gathering of data about the conditions
of the employment of women in New York
City, and to make the facts known as a basis
for sound, constructive legislation. Miss Van
Kleek has already published intensive studies of
the book-binding and artificial flower making
trades.
The Southern Highland Division, whose head-
quarters are at Asheville, N. C., and whose secretary
is Mr. John C. Campbell, has made careful studies
of social and living conditions in the Southern
mountains. It aims to promote co-operation and
co-ordination among all the forces of advance in the
mountain country. It aims also to stimulate in
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
243
other parts of the United States intelligent and
sympathetic understanding of the mountain people,
their problems and their needs. The division began
its studies in 1908 and has carried them steadily
forward. Extensive journeys have been made in
the mountains in Tennessee, Kentucky, the Virginias,
the Carolinas, and Georgia, the more remote
sections being reached by horseback or wagon.
Interviews have been held with teachers, physicians,
ministers, social workers, farmers, and other
mountain citizens, and the people and their life have
been sympathetically studied at first hand. Confer-
ences have been held with representatives of private
organizations and public departments that do
mountain work, not only to become familiar with
what is being done but to promote co-operation
and harmonious effort. Special studies have been
made of the racial characteristics of the moun-
taineers, problems of sanitation and health, the
influence and needs of schools and churches and the
best ways of developing industrial and agricultural
resources.
The Russel Sage Foundation Library is one of the
best working collections on sociological subjects in
the country. It contains about 10,000 volumes
and 15,000 pamphlets. Special classes of books in
which the library is particularly strong are city pro-
blems, charities and corrections, housing, recreation,
health and disease, vocational training, vagrancy,
church socialization, and labor conditions, with
special collections on child labor and women in
industry. Serial publications received include reports
244 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
of federal, state, and local institutions and associa-
tions, and are in many cases complete from the
beginning. There are specially valuable files of the
proceedings of national and international conferences.
The library receives 250 periodicals, and articles of
value on social subjects are clipped from the popular
magazines, filed, and indexed.
The library aims to serve the staff of Russel Sage
Foundation, the student of the New York School of
Philanthropy, and other social workers and investi-
gators. However, it is not content simply with
those who seek its help, but, like a business house,
endeavors to create demands for its services from
new sources. The Foundation is also a large pub-
lisher of authoritative books on social problems,
written from the original researches of its staff and
of other experts commissioned by it. These publica-
tions are among the foremost agencies in the Foun-
dation's work to give the widest publicity to the
most authentic date for the use of students of social
questions.
Among many other movements in which the
Foundation has taken an indirect part-that is,
wholly or in part outside of its own departments,
may be mentioned campaigns for the study and pre-
vention of tuberculosis, of blindness, and of infant
mortality, and movements for child welfare, better
schools, prevention of child labor, "placing out"
dependent children in homes, better organization of
juvenile court work, higher standards of probation,
children's school gardens, open-air schools, better
housing, town and city planning, more efficient
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERUICE
245
hospitals, better facilities for public recreation, and
better labor laws. The Foundation aided the re-
organization of the American Red Cross and the
development of better methods of relief work in
great disasters. It has aided schools of philanthropy
in New York, Chicago, Boston and St. Louis to con-
duct departments of social research and give more
thorough training to those preparing for social
work. It has aided financially in the preparations
for such important conferences at Washington as
the International Tuberculosis Congress in 1908,
the White House Conference on Dependent Children
in 1909, the International Prison Congress in 1910,
and the International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography last year.
Through these movements, through the develop-
ment of the exhibit idea as a means of reaching the
people, through publicity bureaus and newspapers,
through The Survey magazine, through its own
publications, and in a hundred other ways, the
Foundation has for six years been bringing social
facts to the attention of the people of the whole
country, awakening intelligent interest and en-
lightened opinion, and leading to serious study,
discussion, and effort toward national improve-
ment.
I have given a detailed account of the activities
of the Russel Sage Foundation in order to give our
social reformers an idea of the work that is needed
for an effective social reform programme. Mere
paper resolutions passed once a year in social con-
ferences are not sufficient.
246 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
III.
WHAT IS AN "ASSOCIATED CHARITIES" ?
There are societies in the United States known by
the name of "Associated Charities" or "Charity
Organizations." The following account of the Charity
Organization Society of New York will explain the
objects and scope of these societies. I copy below
the first two sections of the written constitution
of the society. The society is a legal corporation
incorporated by an act of the Legislature.
Section 1. This society shall be conducted upon
the following fundamental principles :
1. Every department of its work shall be
completely severed from all questions of religious
belief, politics and nationality.
2. No person representing the Society in any
capacity whatsoever shall use his or her position
for the purpose of proselytism.
3. The Society shall not give relief from its own
general funds, but may hold and apply any property
or money received by it for relief or special purposes.
Section 2. The objects of the Society shall be :
1. To be a center of intercommunication between
the various churches and charitable agencies in the
city. To foster harmonious co-operation between
them, and to check the evils of the overlapping of
relief.
2. To investigate thoroughly, and without
charge, the cases of all applicants for relief which
are referred to the society for inquiry, and to send
the persons having a legitimate interest in such
cases full reports of the result of investigations. To
provide visitors, who shall personally attend cases
needing counsel and advice.
JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL
From the bas-relief by Augustus Saint Gaudens.
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
247
3. To obtain from the proper charities and
charitable individuals adequate relief for suitable
cases.
4. To procure work for poor persons who are
capable of being wholly or partially self-supporting.
5. To repress mendicancy by the above means
and by the prosecution of impostors.
6. To promote the general welfare of the poor
by social and sanitary reforms, by the inculcation
of habits of providence and self-dependence, and
by the establishment and maintenance of any acti-
vities to these ends.
7. To provide philanthropic education and to
promote the training of practical workers in charity.
In every state in the Union there is a State Board
of Charities having representatives of the different
cities and other local areas in the State. In October
1881, one Mrs. Lowell, acting on behalf of the new
York City members of this Board, made a special
report to the Board "in relation to outdoor relief
societies in New York City." This report giving all
the information about the work of charity in the
city of New York which could be gathered, was the
basis of the action which resulted in the formation
of the Charity Organization Society of New York,
with the objects stated above.
For about four years the society carried on its
operations having charitable objects until in 1890
it was realized what an advantage it would be to
have a "charity building" for all the societies engaged
in the work of charity. In that year the scheme
was made possible by an offer of a lakh and a half
of rupees by one Mr. James Scrymser toward such
a building to be erected under the joint auspices of
248 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the Charity Organization Society and the Associa-
tion for Improving the Condition of the Poor, but
it was not materialized because the requisite amount
of 6 lakhs more, required for the building, could
not be raised at once. It fell short of a little over
3 lakhs. The immediate need, however, was met
by a capitalist offering to erect a United Charities
Building with a beneficial interest in favor of the
Charity Organization Society and the other societies
interested in the project.
It is in this building that the offices of the
numerous charitable societies and social service
organizations in New York are located. The very
first glance shows what a wise thing it was to do,
viz., to have all the charity societies in one building.
No wonder that the society's twenty-five years' report
issued in 1907 calls it one of the wisest and most
far-reaching benefactions of the period. The "very
lively personal intercourse among the leaders in the
different organizations which has sprung up could
hardly have developed to such proportions without
it; nor except for it could there be such effective
formal co-operation as there is in many ways. The
advantage it is to the poor, the discouragement it is
to the impostor, and the convenience it is to all the
social workers and contributors of the City and to
those of other cities in their visits to New York" are
obvious.
The United Charities Building in New York was
one of the first buildings visited by the writer on
this his second visit to that great city. Since then
he has seen similar buildings in the other cities of
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE 249
the United States. It is a typical American Institu-
tion well worthy of being copied by other countries.
The following summary of the activities and
achievements of the Charity Organization Society
of New York is taken from the 25 years' report of
the society issued in 1907:
SUMMARY OF 25 YEARS' WORK.
"The twenty-five years within which lies the
history of the Charity Organization Society have
been throughout the country a period of unprece-
dented progress in charitable methods, in resources
available for relief, and in the improvement of
social conditions.
"In 1882 almshouses and orphan asylums were
the principal relief agencies in the state of New York.
There were private homes for the aged, but then, as
now, more of the aged and infirm were in alms-
houses and with them were insane, feeble-minded
(called "idiots"), epileptic, blind, deafmute, and
children. There was in them little provision for the
sick, even for contagious diseases. Sanitary
arrangements were frequently unspeakable. Two-
thirds of the known insane of the state were in
country and city almshouses, and stocks, fetters, and
other restraining appliances were utllized, at least
in New York City, as attendants on the sick. There
was a large and increasing number of children in in-
stitutions and no definite means of supervising ex-
penditures from the public treasury for their support.
Fresh-air work was only beginning. Hospitals
and dispensaries were as yet only slightly
specialized. Such social and educational work as is
now carried on by clubs, settlements and other
agencies in infinite variety was represented only by
a number of "industrial schools" for poor children,
and the work of church visitors and missions. The
relief of poor families in their homes was accompli-
shed by the city's distribution of coal and by a
number of relief societies giving out doles indepe-
250 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
dently of one another. The State Board of Charities
and the State Charities Aid Association had brought
about important improvements, but their reports
indicate the feeling that their work was only begun.
"In the quarter of a century that has passed
since 1882 the almshouse has become a home for the
friendless aged and infirm; the defective classes have
been much better provided for in specialized institu-
tions, the care of the insane has been concentrated
under state management, and has become more
nearly adequate, more humane, and more remedial;
the administration of public charities has been
divorced from correction in New York City; and the
city no longer distributes coal. A uniform system
of accounting has been established in state institu-
tions, and the subsidies to private institutions have
been systematized on a basis of payment for
services. Contract prison labor has been abolished;
matrons have been supplied in the police stations;
reformatory methods have to a considerable extent
displaced punishment in correctional institutions;
and a decent probation system is being worked out.
Police station lodgings have disappeared, and in
their stead in New York City is a well conducted
municipal lodging house. All the progress that has
been made in protecting working women and
children, and in controlling the evils of the workshop,
has been made in this period. Provision for the
sick has increased enormously, and has become
greatly diversified; medical attendance and nursing
for the poor in their homes have developed, as well
as the educational and preventive work carried on by
the Department of Health. The improvement of the
dispensary and the increase of voluntary public
service by physicians have supplemented with great
social advantage the work of the hospitals and
Health Department. Dependent children are provid-
ed for in more natural ways; many are kept with
their own families; for others homes are found in
other families; and among the institutions there is
a tendency to re-organize on the cottage plan in a
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
251
country location, and greatly to improve the
curriculum. A separate bureau has been created for
dependent children in the Department of Public
Charities, and juvenile delinquents are treated in a
children's court. Families dependent on private
charity are cared for with no less sympathy, but with
more thoroughness, and resources are not only
more plentiful but are also better organized in their
behalf. The administrative, financial, and relief
methods of many private relief agencies have im-
proved so enormously as to amount to a revolution.
"There has been also marked improvement in the
environment of the poor, brought about by govern-
mental activity and private interest. Unchecked
competition in the building of tenements with its
abuses has been brought under control; playgrounds
and small parks have been opened in congested
districts, and on the water-front have been built
pavillion-piers for recreation and refreshment;
public baths have come into existence; recreation
centers, vacation schools and lectures are evidence
of the socializing of the public schools, which has
but recently begun. The settlement movement has
developed entirely within this period, and has made
its contribution of sweetness and light, as have the
many independant clubs and the 'institutional
work' of the churches, to the lives of working men
and women and boys and girls. Certain efforts for
improving conditions have assumed such proportions
and such definite organization that they have become
'movements', of which the most conspicuous exam-
ples are the movements to protect children from
premature and excessive employment and to diminish
tuberculosis. Others, which may develop similarly,
are now in their incipiency-for the control of all
kinds of preventable disease whose persistence
depends on social causes, for the mitigation of the
evils of congested population, for the protection of
purchasers of food, drugs, life insurance, and other
commodities, for the equitable adjustment of the
burden of industrial accidents.
252 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"There has come about also during the twenty-
five years a change in the conception of social work.
It has become a profession, with a literature, defined
standards, training schools, and powers of attracting
an increasing number of men and women in their
choice of a life work, and of retaining the most
competent. In the general characteristics of social
work the most notable development has been the
popularization of the method which has always
been pre-requisite to efficiency, the method which
bases action on a knowledge of facts. This method
may be said to have become the standard in the
treatment of social conditions. 'Investigation' of
families has lost its terror and is generally accepted
as an essential preliminary to real assistance. The
necessity for research into working and living condi-
tions has made itself felt by everyone who tries
to bring about any social improvement. 'The Russel
Sage Foundation, established this year, is not only
'the most nobly conceived benefaction of an age in
which many benefactions have been generously
conceived and executed'; it is also a response to the
insistent demand for knowledge which many chari-
table organizations, settlements, universities,
governmental departments, and private citizens have
been trying in fragmentary but earnest ways to
meet.
"These are advances which have been brought
about by conscious social effort, as distinguished
from the action of economic forces, and as distinguish-
ed from the action of the awakening social spirit of
the organization of industry and the conduct of
government.
"The specific help which the Charity Organization
Society has given in bringing about this advance has
been outlined in the foregoing pages. In indirect or
intangible ways it has been of perhaps greater
service. Through the successful accomplishment of
certain tasks; through the collection and presenta-
tion of facts about social conditions; through
vigilant interest in the action of the legislature and
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
253
other branches of government as it bears on the
welfare of the poor; through the participation of
its officers and members of its staff in national,
state, and special conferences, and in the emergency
relief work occasioned by great disasters; through
its own employes who have gone to social work in
other cities; through its cordial relations with
public officials and with other charitable agencies;
through its pioneer work in developing a course of
instruction for the training of social workers; and,
above all, through its publications, notably charities,
it has exerted an influence on the social work of the
city and the entire country.
"It has not been an easy path through these
twenty-five years, though the apparently obvious
course of this history may give that impression.
The next step has not always been clear to all.
Long, earnest, even heated discussions have occured
in the councils of the Society, and years of untired
effort have sometimes been necessary to convince an
opponent on the outside of the wisdom of the
Society's position and the disinterestedness of its
motives. Prejudice, false sentiment, the clash of
selfish interests, and the inherent difficulties of many
of the problems encountered, have taxed the judg-
ment and the patience of directors and workers.
"In spite of the evils of increased congestion, the
physical strain of overwork, and the numerous
forms of exploitation from which the poor suffer,
there has come about, through increased efficiency of
educational and philanthropic agencies, through
the adoption of better administrative methods, and
above all through the deepening sense of social
responsibility, a more just and more adequate
discharge of the obligations of charity. And yet
these obligations have not been fully met. Of the
work to be done not very much has as yet been
accomplished. An advance has been made, but there
is now the vision of far greater things, and there is
justified a confidence that is not an unattainable
vision, which comes from the success of past efforts
254 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
and from the sense of strength given by sympathy
and unity of purpose purpose among the forces working for
the common welfare.'
The constitution of the society :-The affairs of
the society are managed by a central council consist-
ing of 33 members, one-third retiring each year,
elected by the Society at its annual meeting, one
delegate member for each district committee and
certain ex-officio members. The ex-officio members
are the New York City Commissioner of the State
Board of Charities, a representative of the State
Charities Aid Association and of Columbia Univer-
sity, the United States Commissioner of Immigra-
tion, the Mayor of the City and the heads of those
departments most closely connected with the welfare
of the poor.
Then there are district committees and standing
committees. The district committees, which are
charged with the care of needy families in their
homes within their respective districts, in contradis-
tinction from the standing committees of the
Council, are independent and autonomous, electing
their members on their own initiative, subject only
to the approval of the Council, and conducting their
affairs in many respects independently.
The standing committees and the district com-
mittees have an aggregate membership at present of
over three hundred. The original members of the
district committees, one in each of the ten sections
into which the city is divided for the Society's
purposes, are appointed by the Council, but after
that each committee is self-perpetuating, its choice
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
255
to fill vacancies being, however, subject to the ap-
proval of the Council..
It is the function of the district committees to
"manage the work of the Society" within their own
boundaries, "subject to the control of the Council."
They "establish" the district offices; decide on the
treatment of the cases applying for assistance in
their part of the city; carry the responsibility for
developing co-operation with the Society by church-
es, other charitable agencies and residents of the
district; and take part, more or less actively as
their interests lead them, in carrying on the general
educational work of the Society. They have no
responsibility, as committees, in raising money for
their expenses. The finances of the society have been
centralized from the beginning. The paid employes
for the district work are appointed by authority of
the Central Council, subject to the approval of the
district committee to which they are assigned.
Through the standing committees, now number-
ing twenty, the Central Council carries on the rest of
the Society's work, and supervises the work of the
district committees. The Executive Committee,
consisting of not less than five members, all of
whom must be members of the Council, acts for the
Council in the interim of its sessions, and has charge
of the work of the Central Office. It holds weekly
meetings and it is the most important of all the
committees. For the convenient transaction of
business it may meet in two sections. The president
and the vice-president of the Council are ex-officio
members of all committees.
256 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
There is a standing committee in charge of each
distinctive branch of the work. Six of the nine
original standing committees are still continued, and
new ones have been added as the diversification of
the work has called for them. The chairman of each
is a member of the Council but the rest of the com-
mittee need not be. This freedom of choice has been
a source of strength, enabling the Society to unite
varied interests in a much more efficient prosecution
of new undertakings than would otherwise have
been possible.
The officers of the Central Council, elected by the
Council, are the officers of the Society. The execu-
tive officer of the Council, the general secretary, is
responsible to the Council for the management of the
Central Office, and for exercising a general supervi-
sion over all departments and districts, and is an
advisory member of both sections of the Executive
Committee and of all standing committees. The
director of the Department for the Improvment of
Social Conditions is responsible to the Council for
the conduct of that Department, with which has
been consolidated the established work of the
Committees on Mendicancy and the Preven-
tion of Tuberculosis and the Tenement House
Committee.
The work is organized in bureaus each with an
executive head designated by a variety of titles and
responsible directly to the general secretary or the
director of the Department for the Improvement of
Social Conditions. The School of Philanthropy,
Charities, the Wood Yard, the Laundry, and the
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE 257
Penny Provident Fund, are conducted by standing
committees responsible to the Council.
The Society is supported entirely by voluntary
contributions. It has never received appropriations
from the state or city. On one occasion an offer of
a thousand dollars made by the Board of Estimate
and Apportionment was declined. The contribu-
tions during the past year, amounting in the aggre-
gate to ninety-nine thousand dollars, i.e., three
lakhs of rupees, represented twenty-six hundred con-
tributors.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF Work.
It is as difficult to classify satisfactorily the work
which is now being carried on by the Charity
Organization Society as it is to divide the twenty-
five years into sharply demarcated periods, and for
the same reason. In each part of the work are
found the characteristics of the others. The care of
individual families is educational; the development
of co-operation is in the interests of the individual
poor; the industrial agencies give immediate help to
men and women in need, and also train some of
them to greater efficiency and promote the social
welfare by employing persons who would otherwise
be idle; the Tuberculosis Committee, primarily edu-
cational, directs the application of a relief fund,
maintains a "day camp," secures more sanitary
conditions in lodging-houses, and does many other
things both for individual consumptives and for
social conditions: the School and all the publications
are means for securing better relief methods and
promoting "social and sanitary reforms."
According to their predominating characteristics,
however, the different features of the work may be
classified in five groups, described in the language of
the constitution; (1) those which serve to establish
"a center of intercommunication" for charitable
17
258 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
agencies and individuals of the city and "to foster
harmonious co-operation between them"; (2) those
which deal directly with persons in need of help;
(3) the agencies designed "to procure work for poor
persons who are capable of being wholly or partially
self-supporting"; (4) the various specific undertak-
ings "to promote the general welfare of the poor";
(5) the educational activities for the training of
social workers and the diffusion of general informa-
tion about social work and social conditions.
The departments of the Society's work which are
primarily and specifically directed toward securing
the first object for which the Society was organized
are the Registration Bureau, the Reception Bureau,
and the Bureau of Advice and Information. In addi-
tion to this a series of monthly conferences with
charity workers is held during the winter; the heads
of departments act, to an ever-increasing extent, as
bureaus of information about their particular work;
and the district offices are, in varying degrees, centres
of consultation in their neighbourhoods. For the
poor themselves the Joint Application Bureau and
the district offices serve as bureaus of information;
and "harmonious co-operation" of all the social
forces of the city is fostered by the methods and the
policy of every department of the work.
THE REGISTRATION BUREAU.
Registration of dependent families and exchange
of reports regarding them was naturally the first
work undertaken by the Society, whose organization
it may be of interest to recall, was promptly hailed
by a morning newspaper as the outcome of its own
"advocacy of a sort of clearing house for the various
charitable societies of this city."
In the first year 53,886 reports were recorded,
relating, as nearly as could be ascertained, to 39,617
different cases.
THE BUREAU OF ADVICE AND INFORMATION.
One particular kind of inquiry has been so frequent
and persistent that it has led to the development of
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
259
an organized bureau. As early as June 30, 1882, the
organizing secretary stated that it was hoped "to
make this office a bureau of accurate intelligence
regarding the history, scope and conduct of all the
charities of the city"; and the first annual report of
the Society stated that inquiries were already fre-
quently made of it "concerning the standing and
work of the various charitable enterprises of the city
by those from whom they solicit contributions."
The need thus indicated was met in part by the
publication of the Charities Directory; but for many
purposes its necessarily formal and limited state-
ments were inadequate, and it contained no mention
of the pseudo-charitable and embryonic enterprises
which are the greatest embarrassment and the great-
est danger to the benevolent individuals of the city.
Soliciting contributions for a charity which does
not exist at all or exists only for the benefit of its
promoters, was a recognized form of mendicancy
when the Society was organized, and the suppression
of such fraudulent enterprises and the exposure of the
methods of the individuals concerned was under-
taken whenever the occasion demanded. Fraudulent
charities were, from the first, included with indivi-
dual impostors in the Cautionary Bulletin. Threats
of libel suits were not infrequently incurred in the
earlier years, but none was ever brought to an issue,
and many spurious collectors have been forced to
retire from their business in New York. This year a
a man who has obtained thousands of dollars in the
name of charity was arrested on the basis of dis-
coveries of his methods made by this bureau, and he
is now in the Tombs awaiting trial.
or
Public exposure of flagrant instances of deception
mismanagement is a relatively small part of the
work of the Bureau of Advice and Information. A
special bulletin is now issued, at intervals, of enter-
prises concerning which members of the Society are
urged to inquire before contributing to them, on
account of some well-founded criticism that their
methods have received. The Bureau is also ready to
260 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
put at the disposal of members facts about charitable
enterprises whose methods are not at all question-
able, such facts as put the possible contributor in a
position to decide intelligently whether or not the
undertaking is one which he wishes to support, or
which of several he prefers to help. Advice is fre-
quently sought, also, by charitable organizations
themselves, and the Bureau is thus able to bring
about improvements in their methods and ideals.
Still another kind of work done by this Bureau is the
investigation, at the request of members, of problems
connected with the charitable resources of the city
such as the studies made during the last year of the
adequacy of the provision for the aged and for
crippled children.
By influencing the direction which contributions
shall take, diverting them entirely from fraudulent
schemes, by improving the methods of existing
organizations, and by suggesting the best form for
new undertakings, the Bureau of Advice and In-
formation is an important factor in determining the
character of the charitable provision for the poor.
There are now on file records of investigations
that have been made in regard to 2,090 charitable
organizations. A thorough investigation is made
of the standing and methods of any institution or
society about which an inquiry is is received, and
supplementary information is added from time to
time. During the year 1032 reports, of which 911
were written, were made on 425 of these organiza-
tions. The report is not a statement of the Society's
impression of the organization with a recommend-
tion as to whether the solicited contribution should-
be granted or withheld; it is a statement, as long
as the circumstances may require, but as concise as
possible, of the facts which a business man needs as
a basis for forming his own judgment. The relative-
ly large number of organizations represented in the
inquiries indicate that the Bureau is used systemati-
cally by many members and not merely on the
occasion of a widely-circulated suspicious appeal,
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
261
MONTHLY CONFERENCES OF SOCIAL WORKERS.
Since 1888 the Central Auxiliary Committee of
Women has conducted annually a series of conferences
for the social workers of the city. Topics of common
interest are discussed and the meetings are pleasant
and profitable to all who attend. The general
subject of these conferences is the Evils of Pauperism;
the possibilities of religious and charitable organiza-
tions to overcome them. The program in 1907 was
as follows:
January 15. Causes of truancy: Clarence E.
Meleney, assistant superintendent of public schools;
Edgar S. Barney, principal of the Hebrew Technical
Institute; Mrs. P. J. O'Connell, superintendent of
the Alliance Employment Bureau.
February 19. Opportunities for the blind : Miss
Winifred Holt, secretary of the New York Associa-
tion for the Blind; Edgar P. Morford, state com-
missioner for the blind, 1906, superintendent of the
Industrial Home for Blind Men in Brooklyn.
March 19. Club work among boys and girls:
Ludwig B. Bernstein, superintendent of the Hebrew
Sheltering Guardian Society. The work of the
National Plant, Fruit and Flower Guild: Miss
A. L. Fairfield, secretary of the Guild.
April 16. Penny lunches for school children: Mrs.
A. D. Farnum, of Milwaukee. Playgrounds and
recreation centers: George B. Markham, principal
of one of the New York centers.
CASE WORK.
Direct service to individuals and families in need
of help is now, as it has always been, the foundation
of the Society's work. It engages the exclusive
attention of nearly half of the Society's employes
and a corresponding proportion of the time of the
administrative officers, and is the primary interest of
some two-thirds of all the committee members. If it
has been less conspicuously before the public in recent
262 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
years this is not because it has in any way been
declining in importance, but because the new features
of the Society's work have attracted attention by
their novelty and because they have been of such
a nature that the degree of their success has depend-
ed largely on the publicity they could gain.
access
The work for individuals and the work for im-
proving social conditions have had a close inter-
relation. The impulse for each new undertaking has
come from a realization of some definite need,
gained from intimate acquaintance with the
circumstances of the poor; and in carrying it on
this intimate knowledge of the poor and
to them has been of great value. The new under-
takings, on the other hand, have in each case added
resources to be used in behalf of the individual
families with whom we come in contact; have
broadened the view of those who deal directly with
the poor; and have probably been more effective in
both these directions for the reason that district
agents and visitors have contributed to the success
of the educational work and sanitary improvements
and have felt them to be the work of their own
organization.
The work for the individual poor has, at any
rate, improved, with the expansion of the Society's
activities, with the development of the city's
resources, and with the experience of the years. It
is true beyond a doubt that mistakes are more
rarely made because of inadequate knowledge of
facts; that possible sources of assistance are more
thoroughly organized in the family's behalf; that
the aid given is better suited to the family's need
and more often adequate in amount, than at any
previous period in the twenty-five years.
The case-work is carried on by the Joint Appli-
cation Bureau, the Investigation Bureau and the
Districts. There are also several accessories, with
varied functions: the Committee on District Work,
the Committee on Appeals, the Provident Relief
Funds, and the Bureau of Statistics.
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
263
During 1906-07 the total number of cases under
care was 9456, distributed as follows:
In addition to these 9,456 who were actually
under care for a period of time, reports were made
or information received in regard to 1,898 others,
making a total of 11,354 cases to whom the Society
rendered service of some sort during the year. The
number of different persons or families, not "cases,"
who were assisted by advice in the various offices
during the year, cannot be ascertained, but such
advice was given in 4,797 instances in the Joint
Application Bureau alone.
THE SPECIAL EMPLOYMENT BUREAU FOR THE
HANDICAPPED
To study the abilities of persons handicapped
physically, mentally, or socially; to find work adap-
ted to their powers which would enable them to be
"wholly or partially self-supporting;" to persuade
employers to accept a responsibility toward them,
were the tasks which had to be faced in establishing
this Employment Bureau. There were no precedents
for method, as this was the first attempt of the
kind ever made, and the early months were
necessarily experimental.
Efforts were made at first to secure publicity,
through the daily papers and the trade magazines,
and to gain the co-operation of large employers, but
gradually it became clear that this was not the
most profitable way to work. Attention was then
centered on the smaller employers, who have been
found more ready to give the time and thought
which co-operation requires. Gradually, too, the
agencies which refer applicants have learned to
distinguish better than they did at first be-
tween those who are only handicapped and those
who are incapacitated for any kind of remunerative
work. The methods which are now being pursued
by the Bureau include keeping an accurate record
of each applicants's qualifications, frequently with
a physician's opinion as to what kinds of work are
permissible, and of the Bureau's experience with him;
patiently building up a list of employers whose
assistance can be counted on; finding among the
applicants persons who can fill positions offered,
actively seeking positions for the others; providing
training for some, and medical assistance for others
in order that they may become qualified for new
tasks.
9.40%
20.9%
Crippling diseases
هو
20.14%
Convalescents
Aged
Rilmonary tuberculosis
Partially blind
One hand lost
Meritally disea
Tubercular joint lesions
Circulatory disga
Nervous 'aid
rece
Inebriates
More than one
handisap
All other handicaps
4.49 3.36 2.852.85 12.68 2.682.18 1511340107707 2.52
5,54
B
Character of the handicaps among applicants to
the Special Employment Bureau.
15.770
During the winter an inspection was made of 107
recently installed out-door water-closets, at times
when the temperature was below freezing point.
The conditions which were found demonstrated
clearly the advisability of embodying in the law a
requirement that all toilet accommodations here-
after constructed for old tenement houses as well
as new be within the buildings. Another investiga-
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE 265
tion made during the year, of 200 two-family houses
erected since the passage of the Tenement House
Act, showed that thirty-six per cent of them were
subsequently occupied as tenements in spite of such
conditions as dark, interior bed-rooms, and inade-
quately lighted and ventilated toilets, and points to
the urgent necessity for action to prevent the conti-
nuance of this state of affairs.
In October 1906, a special number of Charities,
on the progress of the housing movement in America
and Europe, edited by the secretary of the Com-
mittee, was widely distributed. The Committee
acts as a bureau of information for those interested
in housing reform, placing at their service for con-
sultation its collection of literature on the housing
question, its photographs and investigation schedu-
les, and other reference material of all kinds.
THE COMMITTEE ON THE PREVENTION
OF TUBERCULOSIS
The efforts of the Society to check the spread of
tuberculosis and to improve the condition of in-
dividual consumptives cover a period which again
tempts to retrospect and review. At the end of
five years the Committee on the Prevention of
Tuberculosis counts as its important achievements
the program it has worked out for an effective edu-
cational propaganda and the opportunity it has
given to dispensaries to develop a comprehensive
district plan of dispensary treatment for poor
patients and to standardize such treatment.
The contributions to educational work have been
of two kinds. The Handbook and the Directory,
together with several pamphlet publications, are a
reference library of facts and principles which has
been of the greatest assistance to the pioneers in
tuberculosis work in other places, and has had a
direct influence in informing public opinion and
creating a general interest in preventive measures all
over the country. While in this way educating the
educators, the Committee has also been trying out
266 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
various plans for getting the essential information
before the general public and has arrived at a fairly
definite idea of the relative productivity of different
methods, and a fairly well crystallized equipment for
general educational work at the present time. The
"Don't card," evolved by much attrition from the
long circulars in unintelligible language which used
to be the principal instrument for imparting informa-
tion, has become the standard form of literature for
general use; the use of the daily newspaper has been
developed; and the travelling exhibit, administering
instruction in the guise of entertainment, has been
adopted as the best educational device, not only a
new method but also a means for enhancing the
efficacy of lecture and literature.
At the beginning of last year the Committee's
exhibit was being shown in Brooklyn by the
Brooklyn Committee on the Prevention of Tubercu-
losis, to whom it had been loaned in June. On its
return in January it was again put in circulation in
Manhattan, and was exhibited at fifteen places in
the nine months, to an aggregate audience of 70,495
persons. The fifteen places were five public libraries,
four public schools, one parochial school, one immi-
grant school, two settlements, and two branches of
the Young Men's Christian Association. The exhibit
consists of 249 framed photographs and charts,
thirteen models, and ten pathological specimens, all
packed and mounted in such a way that the exhibi-
tion can be set up or knocked down in a day. It is
widely advertised by hand-bills and local newspaper
notices, and once even in theater programs.
Thousands of circulars are distributed to the visitors,
evening lectures are arranged for adults; and the
children from the neighboring schools are sent to it
in charge of their teachers, as a part of their regular
work. The intelligent interest expressed by the
school children, and the knowledge they gain as
shown in the compositions they write about it, is
one of the most encouraging features.
Lectures were given at 12 places last year in ad
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
267
267
dition to those in connection with the exhibition.
Six of these were to factory-workers, in their fac-
tories, and 62 at labor union meetings; the other 61
at settlements, churches, lodges, and clubs. The
lectures given under the auspices of the Committee
during the five years have reached an audience of
nearly 150,000 persons. The growth of the audiences
in number and diversity is shown in the following
table:
Lectures, 1902-07.
Year.
Number of Lectures.
1902-02 70
1903-04 75*
1904-05 52
1905-06 49 at exhibitions
Attendance.
7,373
7,100*
8,842
40,264
26 at other places
1906-07 46 to adults at exhibitions 14,913
250 talks to schoolchildren
at exhibitions
45,077
6 in factories
352
62 at labour union
meetings
10,781
61 at other places
Aggregate audience 1902-1907
7,736 78,859
142,438
About 60,000 of the "Don't cards" have been
distributed during the year in the ordinary ways.
The distribution of 400,000 supplied by the Board of
Health is now under way. Every member of the
police force and of the National Guard in New York
City, and every employe of the Street Cleaning
Department and the Metropolitan Street Railway
Company has been given one, and orders for large
numbers of them have been received from merchants
and manufacturers to whom they have been offered
through the medium of a reply postal card. The
Board of Health is now preparing a catechism for
This figure, and those for the following years, do not in-
clude Board of Education lectures for which leeturers were recom-
mended by the Committee.
268 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
school children, modelled on the "Don't card," which
the Board of Education has given the Committee per-
mission to place in the hands of each of the 600,000
school children of the city. This is a typical illustra-
tion of the amount of co-operation involved in the
Committee's work.
are
There have been several novel features in the edu-
cational work of the past year. A press service has
been maintained by which newspaper copy has been
sent once a week, from January 1 to September 30,
to newspapers and magazines all over the state.
Starting with a list of 1,600 papers, those which did
not use the material were quickly eliminated and
the number reduced to about 250. The country
papers and several of the large city dailies
especially appreciative of this service. It will be kept
up until January, 1908, when the State Charities Aid
Association will take it over as part of its educa-
tional work through the state. Every Sunday since
January 1, 1907, the back of the transfer slips on all
the surface car lines of the city have been used for
short printed notices about tuberculosis. This has
been possible through the courtesy of the Siegel
Cooper Company, which has the advertising rights
on these transfer slips. It is estimated that the
circulation of each one of these issues reaches a
million.
The district dispensary system is an out-growth of
the special fund for the relief of consumptives. The
administration of the fund was placed in the hands
of a sub-committee composed of the chiefs of the
tuberculosis clinics of the city and several persons
familiar with the relief work of the Society.
RESEARCH AND EDUCATION.
It has been a cardinal principle of the Charity
Organization Society since its beginning that know-
ledge of its own work, based on a study of facts
rather than unverified impressions, is essential to
progress. Monthly reports have always been made
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERUICE
269
to the general secretary by all the departments,
showing statistically the amount and to a certain
extent the character of the work done, and the
general secretary has kept the Central Council in-
formed of the facts contained in them. The annual
reports of the Society have given to the public rather
more specific information about its work than is
usual in annual reports. The Society took part
vigorously in the movement to study characteristics
of dependent families, for the purposes of discovering
the causes of poverty, which originated in the
National Conference twenty years ago and took form
in the "national statistical blank."
SOCIAL RESEARCH.
A Committee on Statistics was appointed in 1893
to have charge of the studies of the Society's records
which should be made by Columbia students, and it
was succeeded by the Committee on Social Research,
appointed in January, 1905, whose primary object
is the interpretation of the Society's case-work.
Under this committee a Bureau of Statistics was
organized in the Central Office.
In the Bureau of Statistics is centralized inform-
ation about the current case-work of the Society.
Besides the continuous and systematic review of
the Society's work from year to year there have also
been made, from time to time, special studies of
certain social problems and of selected groups of
cases. The most important studies that have been
made, aside from the investigations undertaken by
CHARITIES and the School of Philanthropy, which
will be mentioned in their proper connection, are
the following:
Analysis of the records of five hundred homeless
cases, by the Committee on Statistics, Professor
Richmond Mayo-Smith chairman. Published in the
Fourteenth Annual Report.
Analysis of five hundred records of dependent
families, by the same Committee.
270 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Dispossessed tenants, by Harold K. Estabrook,
special agent employed to make this investigation.
Results of the investigation of twenty-five hundred
applications for city coal in 1898.
Lack of employment as a cause of distress, by the
Committee on Statistics.
Industrial displacement and unemployment: a
study of seven hundred and twenty case records by
Francis H. McLean.
Tenement house conditions and allied subjects.
Characteristics of beggars : much descriptive
statistical material in the annual reports of the
Reports of the Committees on Dependent Children.
Families under care of the Society during 1904-05
and 1905-06, by the Committee on Social Research.
Investigation in regard to the purchase and
management of food by one hundred tenement house
families, by Caroline Goodyear.
Five hundred and seventy four deserting husbands
and their families, by Lilian Brandt.
Social aspects of tuberculosis, by Lilian Brandt.
Tuberculosis among Negroes in New York,
Report to the Hospital Commission on tuberculosis,
Careful study of conditions, treatment, and results
in the two hundred and thirty cases treated in
1906 by the sub-committee on relief of the Committee
on the Prevention of Tuberculosis.
THE NEW YORK SCHOOL OF PHILANTHROPY
Not least among the Charity Organization
Society's contributions to social work is its pioneer
service in providing professional and technical train-
ing to those who wish to enter upon any form of
charitable or other social work.
It is no longer necessary to argue for the accep-
tance of the position that persons charged with the
delicate task of assisting in the difficulties of complex
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
271
human lives need all the knowledge they can gain of
the resources at their command and of the accumula-
ted experience of the years already spent in attempts
to solve the very problems with which they are
confronted. The advantage of professional training
to every one concerned, above all, to the poor-a
novel, and to some a distasteful idea ten years ago-
is now a commonplace.
The School aims to prepare its students to become
expert visitors for charity organization societies;
investigators of social conditions, factories, and
tenement houses; matrons and administrators in
institutions ; financial secretaries for charitable
societies; executive officers of educational and
philanthropic societies; private almoners; probation
officers ; head-workers and assistants in social settle-
ments, institutional churches, welfare departments of
manufacturing and mercantile establishments;
friendly visitors; members of boards of managers
and of committees ; employes of the state and muni-
cipal departments which deal especially with public
health, charities and correction; and to fill many
other highly specialized positions.
The full course requires the entire time of the
student for the academic year, October to May,
inclusive. The summer session, designed especially
for those already engaged in social work, lasts six
weeks, beginning the middle of June. Lectures, class-
room discussions, assigned reading, field work in the
way of visiting institutions and poor families, original
investigation, practice in office work, and the prepar-
ation of a thesis, constitute the year's work. The
lecturers are in nearly every case men and women
who are doing or have done, the work they discuss,
and are recognized to be experts.
The reference library of applied sociology, which
the Society has been accumulating since the first
year of its existence, is now housed in rooms adjoin-
ing the class-rooms of the School, and is administered
primarily for the School's convenience. It contains
now about five thousand bound volumes, an equa
272 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
number of pamphlets, and several hundred periodi-
cals. Students have free access also to the rich
libraries of Columbia University and to the many
special libraries in the city.
Students of the School of Philanthropy are admitted
without tuition fee to courses in Columbia University
including Columbia, Barnard, and Teachers' Colleges
and the graduate schools, and students of the
University are given reciprocal privileges in the
School of Philanthropy. The work of the School is
accepted by the University as the equivalent of one
minor subject for an advanced degree.
I have given copious extracts from the 25 years'
report of the Society in order to make clear to my
readers the methods of organized charity in the
United States. From another report (from 1882
to 1913) I make the following extracts showing the
nature of the Society's work for the improvement of
social conditions. This work was mainly done by
THE COMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL COURTS:
The tendency has been to lessen the chasm between
society and the criminal; to see him as an integral
part of the community and to recognize the economy
of restoring him to social usefulness. In dealing with
the minor offender, the trend is towards special
courts and judges as trained specialists; reformation
by the probation system, rather than deformation
through prison incarceration. The probation office
is attaining the dignity of a profession and high
grade men and women are being attracted to it by
prospects of better compensation, and the elimina-
tion of political appointments. The first offender is
coming into his own. Means of identification have
been provided for distinguishing the new or casual
offender from the "rounder." A separate court and
detention home for the use of all women offenders for
which the plans are now being drawn will permit an
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
273
insight into social problems heretofore impossible.
But the great advance of the year has been in the
treatment of the woman offender, in the steps taken
towards an intelligent grappling with the difficult
problem of the Social Evil.
The investigations of the Committee have resul
ted in many improvements being effected in the
personnel, constitutions and powers of the courts;
in alteration of laws, and in the awakening of the
national conscience resulting in new and reformed
institutions being founded to meet the evils pointed
out by social investigators.
I have given a rather full account of the history,
constitution, methods and scope of work of the
New York Charity Organization Society, as the
society is typical of other similar organizations
throughout the States. If the numerous charitable
and social organizations in a city be compared with
a body, the Central or Charity Organization Society,
sometimes also called by the name of "Associated
Charities" is the heart of the system. In some
cities, however, the work of the Information Bureau
is done by an organization called "The Confidential
Exchange," organized quite independently of an
"Organized Charity Association", but closely allied
with the same.
The Confidential Exchange is a card index ; but,
far from being a mere device, it grows out of and is
dependent upon a living spirit not often associated
with indexes. Skilfully manipulated by a group
of people believing profoundly in the principle of
of social co-operation, it can win gradually the
working together of a large group of social
18
274 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
agencies. Through its aid no one of these agencies
need take a step in any direction to benefit a human
being without being assured of the advice and ex-
perience of all the others that have ever known the
the same person or any of his kindred.
The Exchange that is the oldest in point of time,
though one of the youngest in spirit, is that conduc-
ted by the Boston Associated Charities, and the story
of its development throws an interesting light on
the present status of the movement for Ex-
changes.
Thirty-five years ago even Boston had few of the
modern types of philanthropic agencies now so
generally established. There were no children's aid
societies, no charity organization society, no
medical social service, no settlements. A few large
relief agencies existed, including the city out-door
relief department, and, in addition, there were
sewing circles and other small groups giving relief
with informal and kindly service to the poor. With
the increase in their number and with the beginning
of the foreign immigration, these agencies found it
more and more difficult to know the people they
helped and to know what the others were doing. So,
in 1876, a group of volunteer workers decided to
start a Registration bureau in which they could
enter the names of all the families being aided by
charity and the amount of relief that they were
receiving. Delegates from the various agencies
came together to discuss the plan and, after
expressing their approval, elected a committee to
carry on the work. A small amount of money was
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
275
raised and one of the volunteers interested undertook
to do the work for a nominal salary.
At first, the emphasis was largely on preventing
duplication of relief, and only secondarily on com-
bining knowledge of individual families. In the first
annual report of the Associated Charities in 1880 the
objects were given as follow:
Registration aims to accomplish Four Great Aims
by gathering up a Full True Record of Every Family
Receiving Relief.
1. To aid every private person to give alms
only to the worthy poor, or rather to give with
knowledge.
2. To lesson the labors of relieving agencies, by
giving to each the knowledge of the others.
3 To stop imposture, so that the occupation of
living on alms may cease. Registration notifies every
lazy tramp to quit Boston or go to work.
4. The main object is to make sure that relief is
adapted to the real needs. This will lessen relief
for the unworthy. But for the really worthy and
most suffering poor it should make relief more full
and prompt and tender.
Or again, its object is "to secure an interchange
of information and thereby to detect imposture,
discourge begging, distinguish the worthy from the
unworthy, and promote economy and efficiency in
the distribution of relief."
The Confidential Exchange, as it is now called,
is no longer an office where you record your know-
ledge of a person or family for the benefit of some one
else; it is rather a source through which you may
secure information that will be of definite value to
you in your own service to that particular client.
Societies now do not "register their cases with the
Associated Charities", but "inquire of the Con-
276 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
fidental Exchange." When an agency telephones
or otherwise refers the names of all the new families
applying to it that day, these are recorded in the
office as so many "inquiries," even though the family
may not previously have been registered in the
Exchange. Sometimes there is a good deal in a
name, especially as in this case, where a change of
name expressed a definite change in policy. The
Registration Bureau of other days is now a Con-
fidential Exchange of information among the societ-
ies of Boston, for which the Associated Charities
acts as an agent. The history of its growth marks
the direction of social service development in the
last thirty years.
The mechanism of the Exchange is an alphabeti-
cal index with a card for cach family or unattached
person known to any of the inquiring agencies.
This card gives the "identifying information," the
names, ages and occupations of the members of the
family group, names and addresses of relatives, and
the names of agencies interested, with the date on
which each inquired. No facts about family history
or treatment are included. When a co-operating
society becomes interested in a new family, or in any
of its members, it inquires at once whether the Con-
fidential Exchange knows the family or person.
This inquiry is made either by telephone or by mail
on printed slips furnished by the Exchange. The
Exchange looks up the family in the index, and then
reports to the inquiring agency the names of any
societies that have been previously interested and
the dates on which they have inquired. If the in-
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
277
formation given by the inquirer is not sufficient to
make identification possible, the agency is so noti-
fied with the request that it inform Exchange when
further facts are secured. The Children's Aid
Society, for example, inquires about Mrs. Mary
Jones, and is informed that the North End Mission
"inquired" in January, 1910, the S. P. C. C. in
December, 1910, and the Social Service Department
of the Massachusetts General Hospital in March,
1911. The Children's Aid Society then calls up,
or, better still, personally interviews all these
agencies, and secures directly from them what data
they have about Mrs. Jones and the story of their
relation with her. Experience has indicated that it
is wiser to have no information in regard to the
family pass through the office of the Exchange;
that it should give only the names of interested
societies.
On the next two pages we give two sample cards
of the filing system used in the work of the Exchange.
While its mechanism is simple, the success of the
Boston Exchange has depended in a measure on an
admirablea rrangement of cards and a filing system
which have made accurate and rapid identification
possible.
THE PRESENT INTEREST IN EXCHANGES:
As we contrast the present situation in social
work with 1879, when the first Registration
Bureau was started, we see a marked increase in
the number of agencies dealing with the family
either directly or through some one member whose
278 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Surname
Wom's first name
Names of Agencies
Harrington, Amanda
Man's first name
Arthur
Legal Aid 5-1-08
Mass. Gen. S.S. 4-6-09
Allas
School Vis. 2-1-11
S.W.
Milk Fund 2-10-11
Previous Marriages, Husb. or Wife
Stewart, John
Dist. Nurse 3-6-11
Birthplace Date
Occupation
1. England 1860
Waiter
2. Boston
1870
Laundress
Mental and Physical Defects
John blind in one eye.
Children Date
Birthplace
Mary
1890 Dedham
John
1905 Boston
Edw.
1909
Brookline
Emma
1911
Boston
Date
Address
1908 1819 Washington
1909 135 Tremont
1911 1627 Roxbury
Relatives
Jameson, Amanda
Date Address
Address Kin No.
1627 Roxbury St. mo. 2
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
279
Surname
Wom's first name
Cohen
Bessie
Man's first name
Abraham
Alias
S. W.
Previous Marriages, Husb. or Wife
Names or Agencies
Hebrew Ass'n 5-28-08
Mass. Inf. Asy. 6-27-08
St. Minor Wds, 10-16-08
Gwynne Home 3-3-09
Bos. Disp. SS. 11-17-08
Mass. Inf. Asy. 7-25-10
Birthplace Date Occupation
1. Russia
1874
Chdns. Mis'n 7-25-10
2. Russia
1878
Chdns. Friend 8-5-19
Mental and physical defects
Mass. Gen. SS. 8-5-10
Dist. Nurse 11-10-10
Children
Date
Birthplace
Benjamin 1900
New York
Morris
1903
"
Bessie
1904
Boston
Abraham
1907
"
Mary
1907
19
Jacob
1910
"
Date address
Everett
1908 1920 Dover
1908 1650 Washington
1908 1307 Warren Ave.
Date address
1910 6010 Charter St.
1908 1432 Dover
Relatives
Identification Card
(With names changed) of family
described in the Annual report of
the Social Service Department of
the Mass. General Hospital of
1910.
(see over)
address Kin No.
280 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
problem is nevertheless bound up with that of the
whole family group. Children's agencies are now
realizing the desirablility of keeping children in
their own homes whenever this is possible. Social
service departments of hospitals are seeking to
remove social handicaps to physical recovery. These
are but two instances of the general recognition of
home conditions to the welfare of individuals. This
interest in home life means that many more people
are visiting homes, and that the investigation of
home conditions is becoming more and more exten-
sive. It therefore follows that the Confidential
Exchange is growing to become more and
necessary; that the experience of any given agency
with a family is going to be utilized by an increasing
number of others. The constant interchange of
information, moreover, leads to a better under-
standing of one another's point of view.
more
1. MORE INTELLIGENT WORK WITH FAMILIES.-AS
our standards of investigation are raised, we must
see to it that a family shall not have to answer the
necessary questions more than once. In justifying
a careful investigation, the charity organization
society has always claimed that a family need never
be so investigated more than once, since records
keep the most important facts of family history
permanently. But when a number of agencies in
one city have quite as high a standard of investiga-
tion as the charity organization society, or a better
one, we can never be assured unless we have a Con-
fidential Exchange, that the family may not have
to tell its story repeatedly.
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
281
This is not only true of past history. Each agency
now dealing with a family sees the present situation
from a different angle and makes its own contribu-
tion toward the complete picture which is often
needed. The success of future treatment depends,
however, upon joint plans, in which each agency
has a definite part assigned to it. The Confidential
Exchange is the center through which such co-
ordination is most easily effected.
2. HELP IN MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS.-Especially are
physicians coming to realize the value of social
evidence in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
The following story shows how the accumulated
experiences of several non-medical societies in dealing
with a case finally pointed the way to a mental
diagnosis:
A Mrs. W. applied to the Associated Charities,
saying that she had been married a year before, and
that, as her husband was now ill and she was soon
to be confined, she needed help. Through the Con-
fidential Exchange the visitor learned that a reform
school for girls had inquired about her some years
earlier. The school stated that the girl was below
par mentally, had been unruly and untruthful, and
had already had one illegitimate child. Every
effort was made by the Associated Charities to keep
the girl straight, but without success. During the
next two years six agencies inquired of the Exchange
in regard to her, the last a hospital to which she
was applying for care during confinement. It had
intended to admit her, but, on hearing her record,
decided to send her to the almshouse infirmary, with
the request that she be placed under observation
for commitment to an institution for the feeble-
minded. Each agency that had known her contri-
buted some facts that helped to reveal her mental
282 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
condition. She is now under careful medical super-
vision.
3. FINANCIAL SAVING.-Lastly, we may refer to
an important argument for the Exchange-to its
saving of time for each society using it. A children's
society in a large city estimated that by eliminating
unnecessary investigations the Exchage had saved
them the equivalent of one worker's time-no mean
item in a crowded budget. In addition, the know-
ledge secured from other agencies had reduced the time
and money expended in trying out wrong plans for
bettering family situations.
SUMMARY OF ONE YEAR'S WORK OF A CITY
EXCHANGE :
June 1, 1010 to May 31, 1911.
Number of
Agencies
38 Children's Agencies......8,367
33 Medical
27 Relief
"
58 Miscellaneous,,
..
37 Religious
(267 private individuals) 343
95 Agencies in other cities ...479
Total 288....
.65,436
Inquiries &
Reports recieved
Reports sent
4,698
...8,944
4,113
......21,153
4,959
.25,794
17,650
....356
162
76
135
31,793
Total number of NEW NAMES during the
Total
"
"
names previously indexed
upon which a report or inquiry has been
received during the year
SETTLEMENTS.
Another agency for social service are the settle-
ments, which are to be found in almost all the large
year 13,440
6,321
19,761
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
283
cities in the States. Every Settlement has a habita-
tion of its own consisting of a big building or a
group of buildings. Often the buildings have been
specially erected for the settlement by subscriptions
or donations raised by the settlement workers. In
some cases the work of the settlement is done in
ordinary residential houses either gifted or rented
for the purpose. I had the privilege of visiting
two such settlements in New York. Both had
been founded and are governed by ladies.
The settlements are "centres for social, educa-
tional and civic improvements". The object is to
render social service to the neighborhood by (a) per-
sons resident in the settlement, and (b) such as are
employed for the purpose or are occasional visitors.
Permanent residents are called members of the house-
hold; others as resident visitors or co-operating
members.
The following extracts from the report of the
Director of one of these settlements, an American
lady married to a Russian who is a professor in the
Local University, should give my readers an idea of
the work of the settlement.
The settlement is called
Greenwich House and is situated in one of the
Italian quarters of the city.
"Our work is naturally divided into two parts:
the activities of the House and our social work in the
neighborhood. Among the activities of the House
foremost place must be given to our clubs. The pur-
pose of our CLUBS, which are organized together in
a self-governing Club Council, is to develop sociabi-
lity and self-government. These clubs are an impor-
tant factor in building up that community conscious-
284 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ness without which the realization of democracy is
impossible. Each group has a loyalty of its own,
but this is subordinate to the loyalty to the House
and through it to the larger unities, the City, the
State, and the Nation. The purpose of the CLASSES
is to prepare for life and to enrich its content; to
attempt in a small way to offer to the young people
of this neighborhood the same cultural and artistic
advantages which are open to groups with more
money at their command. The result of the club and
class work are dependent for their success upon an
intimate knowledge of the home life of their members,
and this NEIGHBOURHOOD VISITING lies at the founda-
tion of all work of the settlement. It is an essential
part of the life of every resident worker. As an
ever-increasing number of Italians is coming into
the neighbourhood, knowledge of the Italian lan-
guage is essential.
The socical work of the House finds its outward
expression in PLAYS, pageants, concerts, entertain-
ments of many kinds and in DANCING. To keep these
entertainments on a high level, and yet to make
them entirely acceptable, is the problem. Local life
expressing itself without outside suggestion in social
forms has in it many values, but it is well to have
a constant interplay of suggestion which can come
only from a combination of local talents and ideas
with those from the larger life of the whole commu-
nity. It is indeed in this constant interplay of local
life with the life of the city that those mutual advan-
tages are obtained which make the settlement an
important force.
Personal help is also an integral part of the life
of the Settlement. SCHOLARSHIPS are granted to
enable gifted children to continue in school who
would otherwise have to enter industry too early.
Temporary RELIEF is often furnished, but never with-
out consultation with others for whom this is a pri-
mary task.
A District Nurse and an Obstetrical Nurse from the
Nurses' Settlement are stationed at Greenwich
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
285
House. As in past years, we have sent away to the
country during the summer many of our neighbours.
We take children to dispensary and hospital. During
the past summer we maintained a CAMP at King's
Park, Long Island, where our boys for a small sum
could enjoy a short outing. We co-operated with
the New York World and the Babies' Welfare Asso-
ciation in holding a BETTER BABIES CONTEST at
Greenwich House, offering prizes for the best baby.
The real value of these contests, of course, will come
later when the Improvement Contest takes place.
THR NEIGHBORHOOD.-A report of progress in the
neighborhood ought to begin with a recognition of
the facts that an ever larger spirit of co-operation
exists in the district. The library authorities have
been most numerous in their use of the hall in Hudson
Park Library. Many of the Association of Neighbor-
hood Workers' Conferences were held there during
the past winter; meetings of the Schools and Civic
League, organized by Greenwich House, often take
place in the library hall; our Christmas play was
held there. We have used the public gymnasium for
many of our larger social dances.
The class for anaemic school children on the roof
of the Carmine Street Bath was made happy by the
presentation by the city, at our request, of an awn-
ing for the roof. On the petition of Greenwich House
a late class for delinquents was established by the
Department of Education in Public School No. 95.
This PROBATION CLASS was started in June as an ex-
periment. It has worked out successfully, and the
idea could be profitably applied, we believe, to other
parts of the city.
The needs of the LONGSHOREMEN of this district
have been the special subject of attention during the
past season by the civicand charitable societies of this
neighbourhood. Meetings have been held at Green-
wich House during the summer for the purpose of
organizing an additional longshoremen's Rest for
this section.
A very interesting and successful social center was
::
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SDRVICE
287
Loeb and to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, brought immediate
ways and means to create the Settlement. Miss
Mary Brewster and I, both graduates of the New
York Hospital Training School, established ourselves
on the top floor of a tenement house near by. We
charged ourselves with creating a visiting nursing
service, on the terms most considerate of the dignity
and independence of the patients, free from denomi-
national or political influence, and under any doctor,
paid or unpaid, who might be treating them, and
also with contributing our citizenship in an indus-
trial neighborhood.
LAYING THE FOUNDATION.
The first two years were experimental, and the
founders on their top floor had many opportunities
of becoming acquainted with the problems of their
neighborhood. In quick succession they were invited
into conference by trade unionists, by workers in
philanthropy, by the clergymen and the orthodox
rabbis. The unemployed, the anxious parents, the
girls in distress, the troublesome boys, came as indi-
viduals to see them, but no formal organization was
effected until they moved into the first house, No. 265
Henry Street, which was purchased for their use by
Mr. Schiff in 1895.
We believed that we possessed an organic relation-
ship to the neighborhood, which was of importance
for opening up a deeper knowledge of the social con-
ditions about us, and from the first we asserted our
desire to be identified in every way with the neigh-
borhood which we selected as our own. Gradually
an organized program of activities has been develop-
ed, related to the social, philanthropic and educa-
tional needs of the community, and fashioned out of
the experiences of the men and women who have been
a part of the Settlement during the twenty years of
its existence.
THE NURSING SERVICE.
The maps and charts indicate the progress of the
nurses' work. In 1913, 22,168 patients were treat-
286 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
developed during the year at Public School No. 41,
under the fostering care of Ascension Forum. It
is now, however, an entirely local, self-governing
group which is in the charge of the Center co-operat-
ing with the Department of Education. With this
Social Centre idea the Settlements are in full accord.
For years the settlements have been engaged in open-
ing the schools for an ever wider use. With every
effort for the introduction of recreation centres,
vacation schools, school lunches, visiting teachers,
the introduction of special classes, the better work-
ing out of the truancy problem, and the after-school
care of school children, the Settlements have been
identified. The special relationships which Green-
wich House has had with the schools in the district
have centred around the Downing Street School now
consolidated with the Clarkson Street School and
Public School No. 3; with the work of the School
and Civic League in this district we are intimately
associated. The teachers of these schools have help-
ed us quite as much if not more than we have helped
them, and our joint enterprises have worked out
most smoothly. As a development of this work, we
have now been granted the use by the Department of
Education of Public School No. 95 to be developed as
a social centre as fast as sufficient means and a local
demand 'render advisable."
The other settlement which I visited is the Henry
Street Settlement, situated in the Hebrew quarter of
the city. It has this year celebrated its twentieth
anniversary. The following extract from the founder
director, Miss Lilian D. Wald, will give some idea of
the origin, development and activities of the settle-
ment:
"The sight of a woman in a rear tenement, under
unspeakably distressing conditions, was the starting
point of the Settlement. The story, and its effect
upon the present Head Worker, told to Mrs. Betty
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SDRVICE
287
Loeb and to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, brought immediate
ways and means to create the Settlement. Miss
Mary Brewster and I, both graduates of the New
York Hospital Training School, established ourselves
on the top floor of a tenement house near by. We
charged ourselves with creating a visiting nursing
service, on the terms most considerate of the dignity
and independence of the patients, free from denomi-
national or political influence, and under any doctor,
paid or unpaid, who might be treating them, and
also with contributing our citizenship in an indus-
-trial neighborhood.
LAYING THE FOUNDATION.
The first two years were experimental, and the
founders on their top floor had many opportunities
of becoming acquainted with the problems of their
neighborhood. In quick succession they were invited
into conference by trade unionists, by workers in
philanthropy, by the clergymen and the orthodox
rabbis. The unemployed, the anxious parents, the
girls in distress, the troublesome boys, came as indi-
viduals to see them, but no formal organization was
effected until they moved into the first house, No. 265
Henry Street, which was purchased for their use by
Mr. Schiff in 1895.
We believed that we possessed an organic relation-
ship to the neighborhood, which was of importance
for opening up a deeper knowledge of the social con-
ditions about us, and from the first we asserted our
desire to be identified in every way with the neigh-
borhood which we selected as our own. Gradually
an organized program of activities has been develop-
ed, related to the social, philanthropic and educa-
tional needs of the community, and fashioned out of
the experiences of the men and women who have been
a part of the Settlement during the twenty years of
its existence.
THE NURSING SERVICE.
The maps and charts indicate the progress of the
nurses' work. In 1913, 22,168 patients were treat-
288 THE UNITED TSATES OF AMERICA
ed, to whom, in round numbers, 200,000 visits were
paid. A comparison of the numbers of patients
brought to the hospitals and to the visiting nursing
service is not entirely fair, since the character of the
diseases is not comparable, but it would indicate the
growth of the dependance upon the visiting nurse.
Mt. Sinai, Presbyterian and New York Hospitals
combined, admitted 21,120 patients during the year,
1,048 less than the number who called for the settle-
ment nurses. Children, concerning whose treatment
at home or in hospitals there has been much dis-
cussion, lend themselves to home treatment, parti-
cularly those suffering from pneumonia. The figures
give the patients with this disease in the three hos-
pitals as totalling 590. The number of pneumonias
cared for in the year by the visiting nurses was 3,909
and of these 3,377 were children.
There have been so many "campaigns of educa-
tion" upon questions of public health, that perhaps
the public is better informed than at any other period
of history, and the charts and statistics given will be
significant. The service of the visiting nurse, though
covering so wide a range, has been capable of control
and supervision. The division of it in the city can be
compared to a well organized and administered
hospital, with the classification of wards, a system
of bedside notes, observance of etiquette among
doctors, and, in addition, the enormous value of
strengthening the home, working there with such
tools and such equipment as the homes themselves
afford. Cases that can best be cared for in the hospi-
tals are sent there, the sifting process being accom-
plished by the doctors and the nurses working to-
gether. During the last year, 1,442 were dismissed
to hospitals.
Out of their experience with the sick, the nurses
organized for themselves a system of care for tuber-
culosis patients and instruction for their families,
long before the great work was started for the
municipality by Dr. Biggs. From their knowledge
of the children kept out of school because of sickness
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
239
has come the Settlement's share in the medical
inspection of the public schools, first the appoint-
ment of the doctors, and then, some years later, the
inauguration of the school nurse under municipal
control. Under Major Low's administration, Dr.
Lederle and Mr. Burlingham, combining with the
Settlement for children, municipalized the school
nurse, the first in the world so far as known.
TRAINING FOR SERVICE.
The Settlement has also been a training place for
other communities, both in this country and abroad,
where interest has been roused in the care of sick
people in their homes, and in forms of public health
nursing. As a natural corollary to the demands
upon the Settlement, educational opportunities
under academic auspices became necessary, and Mrs.
Helen Hartley Jenkins, one of the friends of the
Settlement, upon our advice, endowed at Teacher's
College a department to give this special post-
graduate training. More recently, at the suggestion
of the Settlement, the National Red Cross Society
has taken up the nursing of people in rural communi-
ties and small towns.
I mention these things as illustrating the com-
munity use of the experiences of the Settlement and
their application. When the nursing service was
first established, it was impossible to find any tools
that could be used, and the bag was invented for
the Settlement by Miss May Brown. It is a matter
of congratulation to us that in that way also we
have served the cause both here and abroad. If you
are familiar with it, you might recognize the bag in
China, Japan, Hawaii and places nearer home.
MILK STATION.
Side by side with the treatment of the sick in
their homes is the preventive work. The milk
station was established in 1903, when Mr. V. Everit
Macy began sending, from his private dairy, milk to
be used for convalescents and infants. From the
19
288 THE UNITED TSATFS
ED STATES OF AMERICA
ght the modification
145the hones, has taught
ed, to whom, in
paid. A compa
brought to the
service is not
diseases is no
growth of
Mt. Sinai.
combined
1,048 le
ment n
at ho
cussi
cula
giv
pit
ca
ar
t
1
wNrcement, following its principle of build-
Marauder two, and particularly those who
lowered vitality, are given the preference.
The milk is of extraordinary quality.
Drs Tunick and Bakst have from the first been the
wonsulting physicians, and conferences are held with
the mothers and babies twice a week. Out of 400
babies taken care of during the year 1913, only two
have died. The money made from the sale of the
milk is used to put nurses in the field. The quantity
s the same, but the net profit from
sent is not always
this source provides from t
two to four nurses.
STILLMAN HOUSE.
Though the Settlement has from its beginning
shown no discrimination between color, race or re-
colored people, and that has grown out of a re-
ligion, it has developed a special piece of work for the
portunity to serve her own people. This, told to
quest from a trained nurse, who wanted an op-
Mrs. Edward Harkness, brought about the establish-
her father, Mr. Thomas Stillman. A staff of four or
ment of the Stillman House, named to memorialize
five nurses work acceptably and by preference with
and capacity. Boys and girls are enrolled here in 27
their own race, giving an unusual quality of devotion
clubs and classes and there is a monthly attendance
at the House of over 1,200 people.
EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES.
It is an irresistible temptation to dwell upon the
attention and effort, and to it has been given both
money and unpaid service of priceless value.
But as the nursing work has rooted so deeply and
securely in the neighborhood, so also has the educa-
tional and social work of the Settlement. The rooms
bourhood uses. Three kindergartens and a Montes-
of the Settlement have been freely given for neigh-
sori class have possession in the morning, the latter
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
291
under the guidance of two gifted young women, (one
of them specially prepared by Dr. Montessori
herself,) who, in the true settlement spirit, are giving
their services to demonstrate, first for the neighbour-
hood and later for the community, the value of the
latest word in education. The carpentry shop,
sewing classes and art classes are referred to every-
where. Parties and dancing classes have been con-
ducted under Settlement auspices for many years.
We used to say that next to nursing a typhoid we
liked to give a ball!
Boys and young men to the number of 1,368 have
membership in the clubs and classes in the Henry
Street Houses, and children, girls and young women
to the number of 1,275. Last December there was a
total attendance of 25,000. The Men's Club, com-
posed of young men who have graduated into it
from the boys' clubs, is selft-supporting, and con-
tributes valuable leadership to the Settlement. Its
members are responsible for the weekly forum, where
present-day problems are presented by distinguished
speakers and discussed by the audience. The mothers
and other women have distinctive groups. One club
has a membership of one hundred and fifty, all of
them mothers, all interested in questions, public and
private, related to the welfare of their homes and
their families. A loan fund, underwritten by the
members of the club and the Settlement, is ably
administered. Other groups of people, both women
and men, come together for social purposes and to
consider the problems of their children and the
neighborhood.
I can give no picture of the life of the Settle-
ment and the spirit that animates it unless I
can make clear the part that the original group
of club leaders has played. They came first to the
Settlement with youth and courage. We have
grown together and I think we have kept young
together. This contribution is definite, continuous
and inspiring. The club and class work, interpreted
in another place, is taken seriously. The club leaders'
290 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
first, the Settlement, following its principle of build-
ing up in the homes, has taught the modification
there. The milk is of extraordinary quality.
Children under two, and particularly those who
show lowered vitality, are given the preference.
Drs. Tunick and Bakst have from the first been the
consulting physicians, and conferences are held with
the mothers and babies twice a week. Out of 400
babies taken care of during the year 1913, only two
have died. The money made from the sale of the
milk is used to put nurses in the field. The quantity
sent is not always the same, but the net profit from
this source provides from two to four nurses.
STILLMAN HOUSE.
Though the Settlement has from its beginning
shown no discrimination between color, race or re-
ligion, it has developed a special piece of work for the.
colored people, and that has grown out of a re-
quest from a trained nurse, who wanted an op-
portunity to serve her own people. This, told to
Mrs. Edward Harkness, brought about the establish-
ment of the Stillman House, named to memorialize
her father, Mr. Thomas Stillman. A staff of four or
five nurses work acceptably and by preference with
their own race, giving an unusual quality of devotion
and capacity. Boys and girls are enrolled here in 27
clubs and classes and there is a monthly attendance
at the House of over 1,200 people.
EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES.
It is an irresistible temptation to dwell upon the
nursing work, because upon it has focussed much
attention and effort, and to it has been given both
money and unpaid service of priceless value.
But as the nursing work has rooted so deeply and
securely in the neighborhood, so also has the educa-
tional and social work of the Settlement. The rooms
of the Settlement have been freely given for neigh-
bourhood uses. Three kindergartens and a Montes-
sori class have possession in the morning, the latter
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
291
under the guidance of two gifted young women, (one
of them specially prepared by Dr. Montessori
herself,) who, in the true settlement spirit, are giving
their services to demonstrate, first for the neighbour-
hood and later for the community, the value of the
latest word in education. The carpentry shop,
sewing classes and art classes are referred to every-
where. Parties and dancing classes have been con-
ducted under Settlement auspices for many years.
We used to say that next to nursing a typhoid we
liked to give a ball!
Boys and young men to the number of 1,368 have
membership in the clubs and classes in the Henry
Street Houses, and children, girls and young women
to the number of 1,275. Last December there was a
total attendance of 25,000. The Men's Club, com-
posed of young men who have graduated into it
from the boys' clubs, is selft-supporting, and con-
tributes valuable leadership to the Settlement. Its
members are responsible for the weekly forum, where
present-day problems are presented by distinguished
speakers and discussed by the audience. The mothers
and other women have distinctive groups. One club
has a membership of one hundred and fifty, all of
them mothers, all interested in questions, public and
private, related to the welfare of their homes and
their families. A loan fund, underwritten by the
members of the club and the Settlement, is ably
administered. Other groups of people, both women
and men, come together for social purposes and to
consider the problems of their children and the
neighborhood.
I can give no picture of the life of the Settle-
ment and the spirit that animates it unless I
can make clear the part that the original group
of club leaders has played. They came first to the
Settlement with youth and courage. We have
grown together and I think we have kept young
together. This contribution is definite, continuous
and inspiring. The club and class work, interpreted
in another place, is taken seriously. The club leaders'
292 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
meetings resemble faculty meetings, where the pro-
blems of the groups and the difficulties of the indivi-
dual are seriouly discussed, always with the realiza-
tion that in the Settlement, because of its elasticity,
we can do the things that are not possible to more
conventionalized forms of education."
CONCLUSION.
I cannot close this chapter without once more
laying emphasis on the idea briefly mentioned in the
opening paragraphs, that the world would be richer
and nobler if society could be so constituted and
organized as to make charity unnecessary.
In a society in which people are born rich or poor,
without any reference to their personal merits or
demerits; in which so much depends on opportuni-
ties, which some get and some do not get; in which
the rich grow richer and the poor poorer; in which
the rich have numerous opportunities, organised and
legalized, of exploiting the poor, however abler and
worthier the latter may be as compared with the
former; in which force, organized, unorgainsed, plays
such a decisive part; in which merit, ability, hard work
and high character sometimes fail even to bring com-
petence to the possessors of these virtues; it is really
adding insult to injury for people possessed of
wealth acquired under such conditions to pose as
dispensers of charity. It is only a shade different
from the conduct of a robber who robs and then
gives.
The Hindus explain these differences in the pecuni-
ary and social positions of people by the doctrine
of Karma, and whether that idea be right or wrong,
it is to their credit that they so organized society as
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE 293
to make charitable institutions unnecessary. Accord-
ing to the basic ideas of Hindu religion, a possession
is a trust. Every one possessed of more than he
needs is a master or a debtor. In giving away or in
feeding or clothing or helping others, he confers no
obligations on the latter; he simply discharges a
debt which he owes to society at large by taking
more than his share. I do not know if there is any
word in Sanskrit which exactly covers the same
meaning which the word charity carries in the Eng-
lish language, or its equivalents in other languages
of the West. "DHARMA ARTHA" is the expression used
for a charitable gift. Literally it means "for
dharma," i.e., in the performance of one's duty or
one's religion (though Dharma implies much more
than religion). Charity is a social duty. Social
duties according to the Hindus are debts to be dis-
charged or obligations to be fulfilled. The giving
for name or fame or for perpetuating one's
name or memory is entirely foreign to ancient
Hinduism. Consequently we find little or no
mention of organised charity in the history of
ancient Hinduism. Feeding the hungry, clothing
the needy, the care of the orphan, the crippled, the
blind, the aged, and the afflicted, was a part of every
Hindu householder's daily duties. He owed this as
a debt to the society and he considered himself
fortunate and privileged if he could pay off this
debt during his period of householdership. By
doing so he expected no return in gratitude; nor was
this any special merit. It was merit to deprive
himself to meet the wants of another; but to giv
294 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
out of the fulness of one's possessions what was be-
yond one's own needs was no merit. It was an act
of duty.
The Hindus too, alas! have lost that idea, and
long before the need of organised charity was felt
under the altered conditions of society in India, they
had adopted the semitic conception of charity. With
the breaking up of the joint family system, with
the influx of Western ideas, with the stimulus
which capitalism has received under Western
domination, with the displacement of cottage
and home industries by organized industries and
with the growth of huge cities with their unequal
distribution of wealth and collossal disparities of
life, organized charity has become a necessity. In
the world as it is, with its present social conditions,
the American method seems to be the best and the
most effective.
Not that every one in America who gives millions
is moved by the true spirit of Christ. Some are un-
doubtedly moved by that spirit. But there are
others who give because they think that is the best
way of keeping out socialism. They would give
doles to those whom they want to keep down, as
price of their silence and their acquiescence in the
existing order of things. Only the other day I was
told how in certain privately endowed universities,
socialistic ideas were tabooed and professors had to
keep within limits in discussing modern problems of
liberty. Yet this is the narrowness of human charac.
ter that even in dispensing charity it is actuated by
class considerations and class prejudices. The
CHARITY AND SOCIAL SERVICE
295
word charity has some very beautiful associations
with it, but personally I would see the word and
idea swept away. Let every human being stand on
his right and let every person do his duty. The
only right charity consists in not sitting in judg-
ment over others and in making allowances for
human weakness. Charity in the shape of doles
(whether of money, of food, or of clothes or any other
benefits) is a most degrading element which deserves
to be uprooted. But no long as it is not uprooted,
the method of dispensing it should be that developed
in America, and the spirit which should impel one
to acts of charity is the old Hindu conception of
discharging one's debt thereby.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
The Philippine islands are a group of islands in
the Asiatic waters of the Pacific coast. They have a
total land area of 127,853 square miles and a popul-
ation (according to the Census figures of 1910) of
about 9 million people. For a long time these
islands were included in the Spanish empire and were
under Spanish administration up to 1895. About
that time came the American-Spanish war resulting in
the success of the United States Government and the
occupation of the islands by the Americans in 1898.
It took the American Government two years to
establish order and during that period the country
was in charge of the Military. Civil Government in
the Philippine islands under American sovereignty
as distinguished from military administration dates
from the appointment by President Mckinley, in
March, 1900, of the Taft Commission.
From the very first there was a great difference of
opinion among the American politicians about the
advisability of taking possession of and occupying
the Philippine islands. The thinking and far-seeing
portions of the community saw in it the beginning
of an Imperial policy-a policy which inevitably leads
to the development of a ruling class, of social jeal-
ousies, of international quarrels and of eventual cur-
tailment of the democratic spirit at home. The very
idea of democracy excludes the idea of empires includ-
ing dependencies and possessions. All growing and
KITCHEN AND COOKING CLASS, PHILIPPINE NORMAL SCHOOL. MANILA.
Photograph by
Bureau of Education, Manila.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
297
prosperous nations have a tendency to become Im-
perial and it requires a constant and vigorous vigil-
ance on the part of the people opposed to Imperial-
ism to keep the nation out of it. The first step of
the United States Government towards Imperialism,
was the occupation of Cuba ; then came the occupa-
tion of the Phillipine Islands and this led to the
starting of an organised agitation against Imperial-
ism. In 1905, when I visited the United States for
the first time, I had a letter of introduction to the
Secretary of the Anti-Imperial League of America at
Boston and consequently came in touch with people
who felt very strongly in the matter. The organisa-
tion had not been started in 1905. It had existed
before and it was due to the efforts of those anti-
Imperial citizens that Cuba was given her independ-
ence. Those anti-Imperialists could not prevent the
occupation of the Philippine Islands by the United
States Government, but they have maintained a con-
tinuous agitation for the release of the islands from
American control. Their opposition to the United
States developing an Imperial policy is based on
broad humanitarian principles as well as self-interest.
In their opinion the adoption of an Imperial policy
by the United States is opposed to the letter as well
as the spirit of the Republic. In a deviation from
those principles and in the adoption of a policy of
empire-making they see a menace to their own liber-
ties and the eventual and sure involving of the
Republic in international wars. The general feeling
of the American people is opposed to Imperialism, but
there are ambitious persons among them, too, who
are in favour of extension of territories for purposes
of trade. So a constant agitation has to be kept up
against the United States Government embarking on
Imperial enterprise. As a result of that agitation
we find that within less than fifteen years, the Philip-
pine Islands have made wonderful progress politi-
cally and educationally. The policy which the
American Administration is following in the Island
has "for its sole object the preparation of the
Philippine peoples for popular Self-Government in
their own interests and not in the interests of the
United States." The capitals and italics are mine.
Only recently this object was repeated in the most
emphatic language in a bill that was introduced in
the Congress of 1914-15 relating to the Government
of the Philippines. The Preamble lays down the
object of the measure:
To declare the purpose of the people of the United
States as to the future political status of the people
of the Philippine Islands, and to provide a more auto-
nomous government for those Islands.
Whereas it was never the intention of the people
of the United States in the incipiency of War with
Spain to make it a war of conquest or for territorial
aggrandizement; and
Whereas it is, as it has always been, the purpose
of the people of the United States to withdraw their
sovereignity over the Philippine Islands and to recog-
nise their independence as soon as a stabler Govern-
ment can be established therein : and
Whereas for the speedy accomplishment of such
purpose it is desirable to place in the hands of the
Philippines as large a control of their domestic affairs
as can be given them without, in the meantime, im-
pairing the exercise of the rights of sovereignity by
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
299
the people of the United States, in order that, by
the use and exercise of popular franchise and govern-
mental powers, they may be the better prepared to
fully assume the responsibilities and enjoy all the
privileges of complete independence :
Therefore be it enacted," and so on.
In the discussion that followed the introduction
of the measure in the Congress as well as in the
Press, the principles underlying the Bill were univer-
sally accepted. The only difference that existed
among the political parties of the United States was
as to the fixing of the time when the United States
should withdraw from the islands. The consensus
of opinion among the Democrats was in favour of
an early withdrawal and also in favour of fixing a
time limit within which the withdrawal must take
place. The Republicans are opposed to this.
We will now briefly describe the constitution of
the Philippine Government as it now exists and will
start from the bottom. In order to enable the
reader to have a clear idea of the political progress
made by the Philippines under the United States
within the last fifteen years, it is necessary to com-
pare the existing conditions with those that existed
before the occupation of the islands by the Federal
Government. We will therefore first describe the
condition of things as they existed before the
American occupation.
The term "municipality" in the Philippines is used
to designate not only a town but the surrounding
rural territory. Thus there is no part of the country
not included in a municipality. The rural Filipinos
300 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
as a rule live in villages, and these subdivisions of a
municipality are called "barrios," the central one,
ordinarily bearing the name of the municipality,
being termed the "poblacion."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT UNDER THE
SPANISH REGIME.
The Maura Law promulgated in 1893 reorgan-.
ized the municipal governments excepting Manila,
Iloilo, and Cebu, in Luzon, and the Visayan Islands,
in towns where more than a thousand cedulas
personales (poll taxes) were paid. Each municipal
tribunal consisted of a captain and four lieutenants,
one called mayor, and the others having charge of
the police, cemeteries, and live stock. These municipal
officers and two substitutes were elected behind
closed doors by 12 electors belonging to the privi-
leged classes and selected by the principalia at a
meeting presided over by the Civil Governor, the
parish priest, and the municipal captain. As repre-
sentatives of the principalia, these 12 electors attend-
ed the sessions and joined in the discussion of mea-
sures coming before the municipal council. Muni-
cipal officers were elected for four years, their services
being obligatory and without compensation.
For the purpose of imposing taxes, holding elec-
tions, school inspection, and the preparation of the
budgets the presence of the parish priest was neces-
sary at the sitting of the board.
The Governor General and, in his absence, his
representative, the governor of the province, was
CALISTHENIC DRILL BY 3000 PUPILS FROM THE MANILA SCHOOLS, PLAYGROUND
Photograph by
Bureau of Education. Manila
DAY, CARNIVAL OF 1915.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
301
honorary or ex-officio president of each and every
municipal council.
Article 7 of the law provided: "By principalia
shall be understood the group of persons formed in
each town, of indeterminate number, consisting of
those formerly called petty governors (gobernador-
cillos), lieutenants of justice, of the cabezas de baran-
guay in active service or who may have filled the
office for 10 consecutive years without any unfavor-
able mention, of the past captains, the municipal
lieutenants who may have filled their offices during
the legal term without unfavourable mention, and
of the residents paying 50 pesos as territorial tax."
MUNICIPAL Government under the AMERICAN
OCCUPATION.
From the first, emphasis has been laid by the
American authorities upon extending to the munici-
palities the fullest extent of local self-government
compatible with securing even fairly good results for
the people themselves.
Under the military Government one of the most
important acts was the advance toward the in-
auguration of civil government in the municipalities
where the people were prepared for control over their
own local affairs.
The announcement prefixed to this order stated :
For the first time the Philippine people are to
exercise the right of suffrage in the election of muni-
cipal officers, a right only slightly restricted by
conditions which have been imposed for the
purpose of rewarding as well as encouraging the
people in their aspirations to become educated.
•
302 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Naturally it is impossible to frame legal provi-
sions which are perfect, but these are susceptible of
future improvement in order that they may meet the
future necessities and keep pace with the develop-
ment in political knowledge of the Philippine people,
with whom now rests the creation of municipalities
which shall faithfully administer their interests and
protect their rights and liberties.
In line with this policy the instructions of
President McKinley to the Philippine Commission
directed:
Without hampering them by too specific instruc-
tions, they should in general be enjoined, after
making themselves familiar with the conditions and
needs of the country, to devote their attention in
the first instance to the establishment of municipal
governments, in which the natives of the islands,
both in the cities and the rural communities, shall
be afforded the opportunities to manage their own
local affairs to the fullest extent of which they are
capable, and subject to the least degree of supervi-
sion and control which a careful study of their
capacities and observation of the workings of native
control show to be consistent with the maintenance
of law, order, and loyalty...
In the distribution of powers among the govern-
ments organized by the Commission, the presump-
tion is always to be in favor of the smaller subdivi-
sion, so that all the powers which can properly be
exercised by the municipal government shall be
vested in that government, and all the departmental
government shall be vested in that government, and
so that in the governmental system, which is the
result of the process, the central government of the
islands, following the example of the distribution of
the powers between the States and the National
Government of the United States, shall have
direct administration except of matters of purely
general concern, and shall have only such supervi-
sion and control over local governments as may
no
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
303
be necessary to secure and enforce faithful and
efficient administration by local officers.
In accordance with these instructions, there was
enacted the Municipal Code, providing that the
powers of each municipality were to be exercised by
a president, vice-president, and council, whose
members serve without pay for four years and are
ineligible to re-election until another four years have
elapsed.
QUALIFICATION OF VOTERS.
Every male person of twenty-three years of age or
over who has had a legal residence for a period of
six months immediately preceding the election in
the municipality in which he exercised the suffrage,
and who is not a citizen or subject of any foreign
power, and who is comprised within one of the
following three classes,
(a) Those, who, prior to the thirteenth of
August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, held the
office of municipal captain, gobernadorcillo, alcalde,
lieutenant, cabeza de barangay, or member of any
ayuntamiento;
(b) Those who own real property to the value
of five hundred pesos or who annually pay thirty
pesos or more of the established taxes;
(c) Those who speak, read, and write English or
Spanish shall be entitled to vote at all elections:
Provided, That officers, soldiers, sailors, or marines
of the Army or Navy of the United States shall not
be considered as having acquired legal residence
within the meaning of this section by reason of their
304 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
having been stationed in the municipalities for the
required six months.
The organized cities and towns of the Philippine
Islands, with the exception of the city of Manila,
the Moro Province, the settlements of the non-Chris-
tian tribes, and such other exceptions as may be
made by special-territory acts, are all governed by
this general law.
The municipalities are divided into four classes,
according to population, as follows :
First class, those having not less than 25,000
inhabitants.
Second class, those having 18,000 and less than
25,000.
Third class, those having 10,000 and less than
18,000.
Fourth class, those having less than 10,000 in-
habitants.
They are entitled, respectively, to 18, 14, 10, and
8 councillors.
The municipalities are divided into barrios or
wards, and these for administrative purposes are
grouped into as many districts as there are coun-
cillors, including the vice-president, each under the
supervision of the councillors.
On July 1, 1912, there were 725 such local self-
governments.
GENERAL POWERS OF THE MUNICIPALITIES.
The general powers of the municipalities in the
Philippines are substantially those which are exer-
cised by cities, towns, and villages in the several
SEWING CLASS AT WORK, PHILIPPINE NORMAL SCHOOL, TAFT AVENUE, MANILA.
Photograph by
Bureau of Education, Manila.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
305
States, which have like population and income. The
limitations and restrictions imposed by the muni-
cipal code relate principally to the amount of taxes
and to the severity of punishments which may be
imposed for violation of local ordinances.
ProvINCIAL GOVERNMENT.
Under the Spanish regime there was a great
diversity in the form of Government provided for the
numerous administrative divisions. Civil Provincial
Governments were found only in the island of Luzon.
In the Visayan islands no civil government was
established by the Spaniards.
Civil Governors of Provinces were of course
always Spaniards named and removed by virtue of
royal decrees.
In 1893 a royal decree sanctioned the formation of
provincial councils consisting of nine members, five
of whom, including the Provincial Governor, were
ex-officio members, and four others, who must be
residents of capitals of provinces, elected by the
captains of the various municipal tribunals of the
provinces.
The duties of the council consisted mainly of ins-
pection of the administration of the treasuries of the
pueblos, keeping accounts, and of consultation by
acting as advisory board to the provincial governor
and to the tribunals in the matters of approval of
elections, taxes, public works, suspension of mem-
bers, and filling vacancies of municipal tribunals,
questions of territorial or jurisdictional limits, conso-
lidation of towns, and in other cases where the gover-
nor deemed it wise. The Governor General exercised
jurisdiction over all provincial councils.
20
306 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
UNDER THE AMERICAN SYSTEM.
In each of the so-called Christian provinces there is
a provincial board, which determines the rates of
local taxes, makes appropriations for roads, schools,
etc., besides having some supervision over the ad-
ministration of the municipalities included in the
province. The boards are each composed of the
governor of the province, the treasurer, and a third
member. The governor and third member are elected
for four years, by qualified voters of the province.
The office of treasurer is a civil-service position, he
being appointed by the Governor General. In the
majority of the provinces the treasurer is an Ameri-
can, but in those where it has been possible to secure
a Filipino possessing the requisite qualifications,
he has been given preference and appointed. The
duties of the treasurer pertain chiefly to the collection
of the revenues, both municipal and provincial, their
safe handling, disbursement, and the necessary ac-
counting. There is also, except as otherwise specially
provided, a provincial fiscal or district attorney,
appointed by the Governor General. The fiscal acts
as the attorney and legal adviser of the governor and
other officials of the province and of municipal
officials, and he also performs the duties of the regis-
ter of deeds. In these provinces, outside of Manila,
none of the fiscals are Americans.
The plan of provincial government has been, in its
scope, increasingly of a popular nature. Under the
original provisions of the provincial code of 1901,
the government of the province-legislative and exe-
cutive-was under a provincial board, consisting of
a governor and treasurer and a supervisor of roads
and buildings. Other appointed officers were provid-
ed, as the prosecuting attorney and the secretary of
the province, who who did not sit on the provincial board.
The governor was originally elected by the council-
men of all the towns of the province assembled in
convention, they themselves having previously been
elected by the people. The treasurer and supervisor
were each selected and appointed under the rules
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
307
adopted in accordance with the merit system pro-
vided in a civil-service law, which was among the
first passed by the Commission.
One of the early difficulties in the maintenance of
an efficient government in the provinces was the
poverty of the provinces and the lack of taxable re-
sources to support any kind of a government at all.
It was soon found that the provincial supervisor,
who, it was hoped, might be an American engineer,
was too expensive a burden for the province to
carry. For a time the district superintendent of
education of the province was made the third member
of the provincial board instead of the supervisor,
whose office was abolished. This, however, did not
work well, because the time of the superintendent
was needed for his educational duties. Subsequently,
therefore, it was thought wise to provide a third
member of the board, who served with but little
compensation and who was elected as the governor
was elected. The system of electing the governor by
convention of councilmen of all the towns of the
province was changed, so that now the governor
and the third member of the board are elected by
direct popular vote.
In provinces inhabited by wild and primitive
tribes the form of government is more or less
patriarchal. All are alike in having an appointed
governor who in combination with one or more of
the other appointive officers forms the Provincial
Board. In some instances the organisation is based
on tribal organisations.
THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT,
The insular government is composed of the legisla-
tive, executive, and judicial branches. The Governor
General and heads of the four executive departments
are also members of the Commission, which is the
upper house of the Legislature and is the exclusive
308 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
legislative authority over the territory inhabited
chiefly by Moros and other non-Christians.
The Governor General as the executive head is as-
sisted by four secretaries of departments, each of
which has a number of bureaus, 21 in all, and four
minor offices or divisions.
Aside from these the City of Manila, not being a
part of any province, is considered as being under
the Governor General as are also the three executive
bureaus.
THE PHILIPPINE LEGISLATURE.
The Philippine Legislature consists of two houses,
the Philippine Commission and the Philippine As-
sembly. The Philippine Commission (equivalent to the
executive council of India) consists of 4 Americans
and 4 Filipinos. The members are appointed by
the President of the United States with the advice
and consent of the Senate. The Assembly mem-
bership must be at least 50 and not exceeding
100, apportioned according to population, but no
province to have less than one member. It is now
composed of 81 members.
The qualifications of electors voting for delegates
to the Assembly are the same as prescribed for
municipal electors.
The new Bill referred to above provides:
Sec. 12. That general legislative powers in the
Philippines, except as herein otherwise provided,
shall be vested in a legislature which shall consist
of two houses, one the senate and the other the
house of representatives, and the two houses shall
be designated "The Philippine Legislature": Pro-
vided, That, until the Philippine Legislature as here-
in provided shall have been organized, the existing
Philippine Legislature shall have all legislative
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
309
authority herein granted to the Government of the
Philippine Islands, except such as may now be
within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Philippine
Commission, which is so continued until the organi-
zation of the legislature herein provided for the
Philippines.
Sec. 13. That the members of the Senate of the
Philippines, except as herein provided, shall be elect-
ed for terms of six and three years, as herein-
after provided, by the qualified electors of the
Philippines. Each of the senatorial districts defined
as hereinafter provided shall have the right to elect
two senators. No person shall be an elective mem-
ber of the senate of the Philippines who is not a
qualified elector and over thirty years of age, and
who is not able to read and write either the Spanish
or English language, and who has not been a
resident of the Philippines for at least two consecu-
tive years and an actual resident of the senatorial
district from which chosen for a period of at least
one year immediately prior to his election.
Sec. 14. That the members of the house of re
presentatives shall, except as herein provided, be
elected triennially by the qualified electors of the
Philippines. Each of the representative districts
hereinafter ter provided for shall have the right to elect
one representative. No person shall be an elective
member of the house of representatives who is not a
qualified elector and over twenty-five years of age,
and who is not able to read and write the Spanish
or English language.
Sec. 15. That until otherwise provided by the
Philippine legislature herein provided for, the qualifica-
tions of voters for senators and representatives in
the Philippines and all officers elected by the people
shall be as follows:
court
Every male citizen of the Philippines twenty-one
years of age or over (except insane and feeble-
minded persons and those convicted in
of competent jurisdiction of an infamous offence
since the thirteenth day of August, eighteen
a
810 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
hundred and ninety-eight), who shall have been
a resident of the Philippines for one year and of the
municipality in which he shall offer to vote for six
months next preceding the day of voting, and who
is comprised within one of the following classes:
(a) Those who prior to the thirteenth day of
August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, held the
office of captain municipal, gobernadorcillo, alcalde,
tenientes, cabeza de barangay, or member of any
ayuntamiento.
(b) Those who own real property to the value
of five hundred pesos, or who annually pay thirty
pesos or more of the established taxes.
(c) Those who are able to read and write either
Spanish, English or a native language.
Section 16 divides the islands into twelve Senate
and ninety Representative districts for the purposes
of the first election. The section also provides that in
the territory not now represented in the Philippine
Assembly (equivalent to certain non-Regulation Dis-
tricts of India) there shall be established one Senate
and nine representative districts, thus giving com-
plete representation in both houses to all parts of the
Islands. Section 18 lays down that the Senate and
the House of Representatives respectively shall be
the sole judges of the elections, returns and qualifica-
tions of their elective members; each house to deter-
mine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members
for disorderly behaviour and with the concurrence of
two-thirds expel a member. Both houses are author-
ised to elect their own speakers, clerks and sergeants
at arms and such other officers and assistants as
may be required.
The restrictions on the power of the Legislature
are contained in section 3 which should be read with
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
311
interest in India, particularly the provisions italicised
by me :
Sec. 3. That no law shall be enacted in said
islands which shall deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law, or deny to
any person therein the equal protection of the laws.
Private property shall not be taken for public use
without just compensation.
That in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall
coun-
enjoy the right to be heard by himself and
sel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusa-
tion against him, to have a speedy and public trial,
to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have com-
pulsory process to compel the attendance of witness-
es in his behalf.
That no person shall be held to answer for a
criminal offence without due process of law; and no
person for the same offence shall be twice put in
jeopardy of punishment, nor shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself.
That all persons shall before conviction be bail-
able by sufficient sureties, except for capital offences.
That no law impairing the obligation of contracts
shall be enacted.
That no person shall be imprisoned for debt.
That the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of
rebellion, insurrection, or invasion the public safety
may require it, in either of which events the same
may be suspended by the President, or by the
governor general, wherever during such period the
necessity for such suspension shall exist.
That no ex post facto law or bill of attainder
shall be enacted nor shall the law of primogeniture
ever be in force in the Philippines.
That no law granting a title of nobility shall be
enacted, and no person holding any office of profit
or trust in said islands, shall, without the consent
of the Congress of the United States, accept any
312 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
present, emolument, office, or title of any kind what-
ever from any king, queen, prince, or foreign state.
That excessive bail shall not be required, nor
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual
punishment inflicted.
That the right to be secure against unreasonable
searches and seizures shall not be violated.
That slavery shall not exist in said islands; nor
shall involuntary servitude exist therein, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted.
That no law shall be passed abridging the freedom
of speech or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble and petition the government for redress of
grievances.
That no law shall be made respecting an estab-
lishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof, and that the free exercise and enjoyment of
religious profession and worship, without discrimin-
ation or preference, shall forever be allowed ; and no
religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil
or political rights. No public money or property
shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used,
directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support
of any sect, church, denomination, or system of reli-
gion, or for the use, benefit or support of any priest,
preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or
dignitary or sectarian institution as such. Polyga-
mous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.
That no money shall be paid out of the treasury
except in pursuance of an appropriation by law.
That the rule of taxation in said islands shall be
uniform.
That no bill which may be enacted into law shall
embrace more than one subject, and that subject
shall be expressed in the title of the bill.
That no warrant shall issue but upon probable
cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and parti-
cularly describing the place to be searched and the
persons or things to be seized.
That all money collected on any tax levied or as-
709-
INTERIOR OF MACHINE SHOP, PHILIPPINE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND
Photograph by
Bureau of Education, Manila.
TRADES, MANILA.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
313
-
sessed for a special purpose shall be treated as a
special fund in the treasury and paid out for such
purpose only.
JUDICIAL.
Coming to the judicial side three of the 7 Supreme
Court Justices have been and are Filipinos, and
one-half of the judges of the First Instance are
natives. Justices of Peace are all Filipinos.
The Attorney General of the Islands has for
several years been a Filipino.
At present the judges of the Supreme Court are
appointed by the President of the United States by
the advice and with the consent of the Senate of the
United States. According to the proposed law they
shall be appointed by the Governor-General by the
advice and with the consent of the elected Senate of
the Philippine Islands.
THE EXECUTIVE.
The Executive of the Islands consists of a Gover-
nor General and nine Commissioners all appointed by
the President of the United States by the advice and
with the consent of the Senate of the said States.
For several years five members of the commission
have been Americans and four Filipinos. At present,
due to a vacancy, there are 4 Americans and 4
Filipinos. Under the proposed law the only officer
to be appointed by the President of the United
States shall be the Governor General. All the other
executive heads of Departments shall be appointed
as provided for by the proposed Philippine Legisla-
ture.
314 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONCLUSION.
Under the circumstances, the claim made by the
Chief of the Bureau of the Insular Affairs correspond-
ing to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in
England that "the Filipino as distinguished from a
small class has been given more power in his govern-
ment than is exercised by any oriental people and
all the agencies which are supposed to work for the
advancement of a people in popular self-government
are being used to the greatest possible extent for the
Filipino," seems to be perfectly valid.
II.
Having described the constitution of the Govern-
ment of the Philippine Islands in the previous pages
it remains now to take a bird's eye view of the
general condition of things in the country.
Army & Police :-In connection with the United
States troops stationed in the islands, the most im-
portant fact to be noted is, that not a single cent of
the expenses of their maintenance or their salaries or
any incidental expenses in connection therewith is
paid out of the Revenues of the Islands. The only
military organisation maintained and paid for by
the Government of the Islands is the Police force.
The Director and four of the Assistants are officers
of the United States Army detailed for this duty.
While in detail, they have increased rank, the United
States paying only the salaries of their grades in the
Army and the difference being paid from the Reve
nues of the Islands.
On June 30, 1912, the actual strength of the cons-
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
315
tabulary was 323 officers and 4157 men. Three
times each year local examinations are held to deter-
mine the fitness of natives for appointment as
officers. Equal opportunities are offered within the
organisation for Americans and Filipinos and the
same standard of efficiency is required of both.
Taxation:-The Revenue of the Central Govern-
ment is derived from three general sources:
(a) Customs duties.
(b) Internal Revenue.
(c) Miscellaneous, including interest, rents, sales
of public lands, &c.
The land taxes accrue wholly to the provincial
and municipal governments. The provinces are re-
quired to levy a land tax of 18th of one per cent of the
assessed valuation, for ro ads and bridges, and muni
cipalities to levy 14th of one per cent for schools,
in addition each may lay a further tax of 14th of one
per cent for general purposes, the maximum that
may be imposed being ths of one per cent.
The income in 1912 from taxation was about 72
Rupees per capita including customs duties.
Agricultural Bank :-The islands have an "Agri-
cultural Bank of the Philippine Government" for
which a capital of 15 lakhs (in Rupees) was provided
from the general funds of the treasury. Loans are
made only for agricultural purposes and to persons
and corporations engaged in agricultural pursuits.
50 per cent of the capital is reserved exclusively for
small loans.
Trade:-The total value of imports in 1912 was
316 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
roughly about 18½ crores (in Rupees) in value
and that of exports of about 16½ crores.
In 1891 the exports were in excess of the imports,
but in 1912 the imports exceeded the exports by
about 2 crores of rupees.
III
EDUCATION.
Before the American Government took possession
of the Islands there were 2143 schools in the country,
about equally divided between boys and girls. But,
in the words of a great Spaniard himself, this was
"superficial only." While Schools were nominally
maintained for purposes of show, "at the same time
measures of all kinds were adopted to keep the
people submerged in ignorance."
This was, however, completely changed under the
American Government. The general purpose was
well indicated by one of the first reports of the
General Superintendent of Education.
"In reviewing the history of the islands for the
past three years, one is immediately struck by the
great emphasis placed upon public schools, first, by
officers of every rank of the United Sates Army who
administered this archipelago during the first two
years of American sovereignty, and subsequently by
the United States Philippine Commission and the
civil government of the islands. This emphasis upon
the public schools is undoubtedly the result of the
primary importance which they play in American
civilization and the supreme confidence which
Americans feel in the necessity to this and to every
aspiring people, of a democratic, secular and free
school system supported and directed by the State.
It has resulted that the school system of these islands
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
317
is the most typically American institution which our
Government has here established."
In 1901, i.e., within 3 years of the occupation of
the islands by the American Government, one
thousand Americans were selected from the United
States to organise the public schools in the
Philippines. What has been accomplished educa-
tionally in a dozen years may well give just ground
for statisfaction and pride to the Americans.
In 1912 there were about 700 American teachers
and 8500 Filipino teachers in the service of the
Bureau of Education.
The work includes the organization and con-
duct of-
(1) Primary schools, which offer a four-year
course, providing instruction in English, simple
arithmetic, geography, and at least the rudiments
of some useful occupation.
(2) Intermediate schools, which give three years'
additional instruction, and which throughout the
course lay great emphasis upon vocational training,
including a general course, a course as a preparation
for teaching primary grades, a course in farming, a
course in housekeeping and household arts, a trade
course, and a course for business.
(3) High schools, offering a regular secondary
course of four years, modified in outline in certain
special schools to conform to the aims of such institu-
tions as the Philippine Normal School, the Philippine
School of Commerce, and the Philippine School of
Arts and Trades.
All instruction is given in the English language.
318 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The bureau of education is devoting itself to the
problem of formulating and putting into operation
a program of industrial instruction which will be at
once logical in its sequence from grade to grade and
in close harmony with the industrial needs of the
community and which will prepare boys and girls in
a practical way for the industrial, commercial, and
domestic activities in which they are later to have
a part.
General statistics.
Population, excluding the Moro Province,
census of 19037,293,997
School population, one-sixth of total
population..
Average monthly enrollment,
1,215,666
1911-12.......395,075
The average monthly enrollment is 33 per cent of
the school population, or 5 per cent of the total
population,
Annual expenditures.
Fiscal year. Expenditures. Fiscal year. Expenditures.
1901......
* $233,411
1907......
$2,390,011
1902......
*
1,194,381
1908......
2,563,558
1903......
* 1,732,483
1909......
2,913,833
1904......
* 1,752,247
1910......
3,256,418
1905......
2,140,099
1911......
3,258,964
1906......
2,234,668
1912......
3,176,617
Figures incomplete or uncertain.
During the 12 years the number of schools has
risen from 2000 to 3685, that of teachers from 3928
to 8363 and that of scholars according to monthly
enrolment figures from 150,000 to 629,380,
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
Every pupil in the Primary and Intermediate
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
319
grade has to take an industrial course. The follow-
ing facts taken from the report of 1912, must prove
very interesting:
Pupils engaged in industrial work, primary and
Hand weaving
Loom weaving
intermediate courses.
...
...
...
...
...
Housekeeping and household arts
Manual training (wood)
Gardening and farming
Miscellaneous
..
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Actual number of pupils engaged
Enrollment for February, 1912
...
...
...
221,618
11,926
79,382
13,210
111,652
25,002
341,493
371,187
Thirteen trade schools are maintained in various
provinces; manual-training classes are conducted in
all provincial schools, in 150 intermediate schools,
and in 400 central primary schools. These schools
manufactured during the school year 1911-12
products to the value of $71,508.22. There are over
2,000 school gardens and nearly 25,000 home
gardens supervised by school authorities. Eighty-
three school nurseries have been established, and
during the year 1911-12 school children planted
363,183 trees, of which number 201,868 were living
at the close of the year. Five school farms are
operated.
At the Philippine Exposition held in February,
1913, the bureau of education placed on display
23,305 articles, the product of the industrial classes
of the public schools, valued at $28,591.62, of which
$20,056.76 worth were sold, or 70 per cent of the
exhibit. Of the amount sold, pupils received $17,
802.79 as their share, while the balance was return-
ed to the schools to pay for the material used.
320 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Cost or public instruction per capita of total popu-
lation in the Philippine Islands as compared
with other countries.
...
...
...
...
...
...
Philippine Islands
United States
...
...
Average in Europe
...
Japan
...
Russia
British India
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
$0.475
4.45
1.235
.275
.15
.02
The annual expenditure for each pupil based on
average monthly enrolment for the school year
1910-11 was $7.73 in the Philippine Islands.
Certain features have received emphasis.
INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION.
The figures as to industrial instruction, given
elsewhere in the statement, show that most favor-
able progress is being made. These figures must
stand for what they are worth. However, there is
one criterion by which the success of a system can
be judged and which can not find adequate place in
a summary of this kind, i.e., the place which the
industrial instruction of the public schools has in
the estimation of the people. The annual exhibits
of industrial work of the public schools for the past
few years have been a succession of surprises. The
last one, held during February, 1913, was successful
to such an extent as to guarantee the approval of
the public, official and non-official, both American
and Filipino.
As plans along these lines develop, the problems
to be solved assume more definite and tangible
form. The industrial product of the schools is not
Photograph by
Bureau of Education, Manila.
MANILA SCHOOL GARDEN.
:
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
321
the ultimate result of the work, not the end to be
attained, its scope is much broader. In industrial
instruction, as in every other subject, the schools
must serve as a medium of instruction only, and the
great problem now is to extend to the homes of the
people the industries now taught in the islands.
In line with this problem, and closely related to
it, are several others, viz., acquainting the producers
with the most profitable markets and prices their
handiwork should command; keeping those who
engage in such work in touch with demands of the
markets as to style, quality, etc., and the securing of
a uniform and standard production from all parts of
the islands. The bureau is now in a position to
undertake this solution intelligently.
THE SCHOOL OF Household INDUSTRIES.
In furtherance of the bureau's purpose to extend
industries to the home, the School of Household
Industries has been organized for the purpose of
training adult women in certain selected home
industries. At the end of the first six months'
period after this school was opened it was the
opinion of those who were familiar with its work
and had seen the variety and excellence of the hand-
work which the students did, that the school will
be instrumental in stimulating throughout the
Philippine Islands a widespread interest in and
appreciation of hand industries and lead to their
introduction into thousands of Filipino homes. The
physical and mental adaptability of the Filipino
women to work of this sort is universally recognized
21
322 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
and this institution is certain to have a very great
influence in its effect upon the economic welfare of
every community in the Islands.
EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
School year, 1911-1912.
University: College of liberal arts (with a course
in pharmacy), college of medicine and surgery, col-
lege of agriculture (with a school of forestry), college
of engineering, school of fine arts, college of veterin-
ary science, college of law
...
1
Normal school
1
...
Insular trade school
1
...
School of commerce
1
...
School for deaf and blind
1
...
Provincial trade and manual training
schools
...
Municipal manual training shops
...
35
200
High schools
...
38
Intermediate schools
283
...
Primary schools
...
3,36+
Total number of schools
...
Secondary students
...
Intermediate-school pupils
...
Primary-school pupils
...
...
3,685
*3,599
*24,458
*367,018
395,075
1
Director of education
Assistant directors
Division superintendents
Supervising teachers
American teachers
Filipino teachers
Average monthly enrolment for the year.
...
2
...
40
...
444
...
664
...
7,699
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
323
Expenditure for schools during fiscal
year 1911-12; insular, provincial
and municipal, exclusive of
special building appropriations
...
$3,176,617.04
Appropriation from insular
sources for secondary, interme-
diate and primary buildings, and
for trade and other special school
buildings since Dec. 6, 1901
...
2,121,500.00
Nearly 253,000 school pupils are engaged in some
kind of industrial work.
What is being done educationally in the Philippines
is well summarised by a noted teacher and student
of social conditions, who, on returning from a trip
around the world, told President Taft that the
Government is "doing the most interesting and
most promising piece of original work in education
now in progress anywhere in the world."
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION.
The American Government lays great stress on the
teaching of the English language, because in their
opinion the use of a common language is one of the
essential steps in the preparation of the Flipino
people for self-government.
At least 3,000,000 children have had instruction
in English. For many years English has been the
official language in all branches of the government
except the courts. This, however, does not mean
that the business of the government has not been very
largely conducted in Spanish and in the various
dialects. A recent executive order requires the use
of English, so far as possible, in the conduct of
administrative business in provinces and municipa-
324 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
case
lities. The purpose of this order was to encourage
its use by all who understand it; and provision was
made that officials affected might, upon request,
be granted permission to defer its use. Various
requests to this effect have been in every
granted; while, on the other hand, various indorse-
ments of the order have been received from Filipino
organizations of one kind or another throughout
the Archipelago. The aim, of course, is not to
impose a burden upon any, but rather to encourage
the use of English.
Until this time Spanish has been the official
language of the courts of the Philippines, under the
law English replacing it in January of this year.
Spanish has not been used universally; in fact,
scores of languages are used in the courts.
Acting Governor Gilbert said in his message to
the Legislature, in October, 1912:
one case.
I myself had the experience, while sitting on the
bench, of having six languages used in the trial of
I think this is not unusual. It is not
possible, of course, to use English or Spanish or any
other language exclusively in the courts. Many
lawyers of the Philippines are not able to use
English. Large numbers of justices of the peace
and a few judges of the courts can not speak
English. Younger men who are being appointed
to these positions now, as a rule, can do so. The
Filipino has a genius for languages and readily
acquires a new one when he chooses.
I therefore recommend, as earnestly as I may,
not that the law be repealed which makes English
the language of the courts and thereby postpone the
achievement of Philippine desire for more complete
nationalization (if I did this I should regard my
action as contrary to the desires of the majority of
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
325
Filipinos and should proclaim myself as an enemy of
Philippine autonomy), but that the law be amended
so that all safeguards may be provided so as to
permit the judge or lawyer or litigant to elect whether
in the particular case that is to be tried, the proceed-
ings, or any part thereof, shall be conducted in
Spanish. If this recommendation be adopted, the
steps already taken toward acquiring a common
tongue will not be useless; young men, educated in
the public and private schools of the Islands, will not
be disheartened: those who by reason of age or
disinclination have not acquired the new tongue
will not be discriminated against; justice will be
served in every particular, and the gradual adjust-
ment of the language used in the courts will take
place of its own force as fast and as fast only as the
people who have business to transact in the courts
are ready to adopt it.
In the account given by me of the Government of
the Philippines and of the progress made by the
Islands under the United States, I have made no
comparison with India. That I leave to my readers,
but there is one note which I would like to add, viz.,
that in the Philippines as in India there is a distinc-
tion between "advanced" and "backward" pro-
vinces. The backward parts of the Philippines,
comparatively very small in population as compared
with the advanced provinces, are, of course, treated
differently, though the proposed law contemplates
to give them ample and popular representations in
the new Legislature.
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN THE
UNITED STATES
Politics is the very breath of modern life in Europe
and America. Rich and poor, aged and young, man
and woman, even children are interested in it.
Nothing sways men and women so much, nothing
moves them so profoundly, nothing agitates them
so markedly, nothing interests them so thoroughly,
as politics. Every problem of life, domestic, social
or national, has its political aspect. Even religion
is not altogether outside the pale. Politics in this
country is all-covering and all-comprehensive and as
such every citizen is intimately interested in it. In
practice, if not in theory, life is one compact whole
and it is impossible to divide it into water-tight
compartments. In theory, the nature of politics is
much circumscribed, but when it comes to the
practical handling of problems professedly outside
politics, it is found that they are profoundly affect-
ed by politics.
It follows therefrom that government and the
machinery of government, the constitution and the
laws, are the concern of the whole nation and not
of one particular class or of classes. Comparatively
speaking, people are so keen over politics that they
would risk their liberty, their property, and even
their life in the dissemination of their political pro-
paganda and in the furtherance of what they con-
sider their cause.
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN U. S. A. 327
It would evoke a contemptuous laughter if any-
one were to say that religion and education have
nothing to do with politics and men engaged in
religious propaganda or in educational work should
not dabble in politics. What is the ultimate good
of a purely academic atmosphere if it does not help
people in solving the vital problems that immediate-
ly affect them and their society? Learning is judged
by its value both immediate and ultimate.
Every ultimate value has its immediate counterpart.
Ideals and theories are good or bad according as
they affect life. Consequently everything taught
and learned has an immediate value and what better
use of it could be made than by enabling men and
women to apply it to the improvement of their
condition and to the bringing about of desirable
changes in their environment ?
Politics are thus of paramount interest to every
human being already living or to be born. The
generations to be born are perhaps even more
vitally affected by political conditions existing at
the time of their birth. That is the Hindu idea of
law (of dharma shastra) and that is coming to be
the modern idea of law in the West.
The European critics of American politics and
American government speak very disparagingly of
both and even the most loyal American nationalist
cannot and does not deny that there is a great deal
of truth in their criticism. The American govern-
ment is perhaps the most complex government exist-
ing in the world to-day. At one time it was claimed
that it was the last word in democracy. If by a
328 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
popular government is meant a government elected
by the votes of the people, then surely there is hard-
ly any other government in the world which is
better entitled to that designation than the American
government. In no other republic on the face of the
earth are so many offices elected as in the United
States. No other country or constitution can show
so many checks designated to keep the different parts
of the governmental machinery independent of one
another and dependent on the will of the electorate.
Nowhere perhaps does the constitution provide for
so many safeguards against the monopoly or misuse
of authority by the component parts of the govern-
ment. The American constitution provides for a
complete separation between the executive, the legis-
lative, and the judicial. It professes to make each
independent of the other. The legislatures are of
course elected and so are the judges from the highest
to the lowest; but even the executive are elected.
It often happens that the president belongs to one
party and the majority in either house to another.
The same is true of the governors and legislatures of
the different states in the Union. In the states, not
only the governor is elected by the people, but also
the secretary of state, the state treasurer, auditor,
attorney general, and similarly the city and county
governments are independently elected by the people
and work independently of the state and the federal.
government.
All these governments are no doubt co-related,
but no one exercises anything like an effective con-
trol over the other.
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN U. S. A. 329
Under these circumstances it would rather seem
paradoxical that the constitution of the United
States should be considered by some Americans to be
"a reactionary document" framed by men "with
financial interests to subserve." Even President
Woodrow Wilson says that "the federal government
was not by intention a democratic government; that
in plan and structure it had been meant to check the
sweep and power of popular majorities"; and that
it had "in fact been originated upon the initiative
and primarily in the interest of the mercantile and
wealthy classes."
That as a fact it is in the hands of the mercantile
and wealthy classes no one who knows America
doubts. "The fact is notorious," says Mr. Haworth,
"that in many states and often in the national
government itself, public opinion and the officials
in power are not in accord and that the actual ruling
force is an oligarchy known as 'the invisibe govern-
ment' standing behind the political machine." Persons
who want to know exactly what this invisible
government is, how it works, and what influence it
has over the machinery of government, should read
the proceedings of the libel suit Barnes vs Roosevelt,
only lately decided by the supreme court of New
York. Winston Churchill, the great American novel-
ist, gives a graphic picture of it in his new story
called "The Far Country." This invisible govern-
ment is sometimes bossed by financial and indus-
trial magnates. Its methods and procedure are often
of the most corrupt kind.
It is this invisible government, this boss system,
330 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
which is the curse of the American government and
which brings about corruption in governmental
machinery. To this is ascribed the success which is
attained by the mediocrities in securing government
offices and in entering the congresses. The following
description of the government officials and the
senators and the representatives of the congress is
taken from a book by an American writer:
"Any one who comes in contact with public men
is often destined to a sad disillusionment. Many are
poorly educated, often are narrow in their views,
some are brutally vulgar in language and manners
and the proportion of efficient, broad-spirited states-
men among them is much too small."
Mr. James Bryce (now Lord Bryce) has remarked
in one of his books that "great men are rare in poli-
tics" and Mr. Leland Haworth supports him by
saying that "few of the able men, we have, enter
politics." One of the chief reasons assigned by him
and which is quite true is that no self-respecting man
can stoop to getting his nomination for public
offices "by cultivating the favour of a boss and, in
many localities, this is virtually the only thorough-
fare by which a man may reach in public life." Once
there, his constant and never-failing concern is to
stay there and get re-elected. Hence the necessity of
his keeping himself well with "bosses" and "Tamany
Halls." It is not the purpose of this book to des-
cribe the political system of the United States in
detail nor to discuss it. This much, however, may
be said in fairness to the Americans, that in my
humble judgment, everythin gconsidered, the American
system has been a great success. Success is after
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN U. S. A. 331
all a relative term and does not imply perfection.
The American system is defective in many res-
pects, yet its defects are the defects of its peculiar
conditions of life. Considering the constituent
elements of the American democracy-the races, the
nations and the countries from which it has been
recruited, and the circumstances under which a large
number of its would-be citizens come and stay at
first only to make money for a few years and go
back to their native homes, and last, but not the
least, the social strata from which they come,
the success of the American democracy is marvellous.
The success of a nation in these days is estimated by
the material prospects of its component parts.
Judged by that standard the American democracy
has been most successful. Even tested by intellec-
tual standards, by the spread of education, by the
progress of ideals of freedom, by the amount of
security of person and property enjoyed by the gener-
al mass of the people, America is behind no other
nation on the face of the globe. It is absurd to
compare the United States of America with Great
Britain or Germany or France. The circumstances
which complicate American politics do not exist in
any of these countries. Their population is more or
less homogeneous, fixed and determinate. The cross
currents in their social life are comparatively fewer.
Their institutions and their history give them a
fixity of standards and of life which go towards
stability and harmony. Looked at in this light
democracy has succeeded remarkably well in the
United States and deserves the admiration of the
332 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
world. It is an old weakness of mankind that every
one can discover the mote in another person's eye, but
can not see the beam in his own. It may be that
American public life is perhaps more corrupt than
public life in Great Britain or in Germany or in
France, but, when judged in the light of the con-
siderations set forth above, it would appear to an
impartial observer that public life in the best and
the most civilized countries of Europe is by no means
better than in America. The white are very fond of
criticising adversely and strongly the want of public
morality among the Asiatics, but when such criti-
cism is examined in the light of what is happening in
the most advanced countries of Europe and America
most of it loses its force. The truth is that under
democratic forms of Government a certain amount
of corruption is inevitable. The functions of the
Government being distributed over a wide area, it is
impossible to expect an equally high standard
of morality and purity from all. There are
greater chances of honest and pure government
under an efficient and well-controlled bureaucracy
than in the case of a Government chosen by demo-
cratic forms, but bureaucracy is a machine which
takes the life out of a nation. When the heads
of a bureaucracy are inclined to be corrupt and
dishonest then the whole system follows them to
such an extent and degree as to make life under that
Government intolerable. Under bureaucratic forms
of Government corruption and dishonesty reign for
long periods unless the patience of the people is
exhausted and they take the law into their own
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN U.S.A. 333
hands. This is well illustrated by the history of
Russia. But under democratic forms of government
corruption and dishonesty are soon found out and
checked. A certain amount of curruption and dis-
honesty is inherent in the very institution of
Government, but under despotic and bureaucratic
Governments the governed lose their soul, which
is a much greater loss than is inflicted by the
corruption and dishonesty of a few public officers
however appointed.
A discussion of the defects of the American Govern-
ment will not be of much use to my countrymen for
whom this book is principally meant, as they are yet
far from democracy; but this much I may say now
that a comparison of the morality and purity of pub-
lic life in India, such as is allowed under the present
conditions, with similar institutions in England,
France, the United States of America, and Japan has
convinced me that, man to man, the elected members
of the municipal institutions of India and of the
councils do not compare unfavourably with similar
public men in the west and in Japan. Perhaps they
are a little backward when compared with men in
the best of these countries, i.e., Great Britain, but
they are in no way inferior to the generality of men
of similar standing in the other countries named.
My travels have enabled me to take a more sensible
view of the faults of my countrymen in public offices
than I was disposed to do when at home. Most of
their faults and shortcomings are the faults of the
system than of themselves.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CIVILIZATION
Five hundred and ninety-three days ago I left my
home and my people on my way to England. Two
days later I sailed from Bombay and looked for the
last time on the shore, the trees, and the buildings
of my dear country. Since, I have travelled a good
deal in Great Britain, crossed the great Atlantic and
seen the United States. I have seen and lived at
times for months in some of the biggest cities of the
world, I have witnessed the highest achievements and
the biggest glories of what passes under the name of
modern civilization, I have met numerous men, good,
bad and indifferent-some of them the cream of the
modern world, its intellectual and political leaders,
professors, scholars, students, ministers, cabinet
ministers, secretaries of state, newspaper editors,
journalists, members of parliament, politicians,
authors of books, thinkers, lecturers, teachers,
merchants, bankers, poets, artists, orators, philan-
thropists, charity organizers, educationists, and
others; I have met many women, most of them good
women, leaders in their respective spheres; I have
read many books on all sorts of subjects-politics,
religion, sociology, history, economics, art, fiction,
and many a magazine and paper; I have gazed at
the achievements of modern science and modern man
with wonder and admiration. Yet all the time the
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CIVILIZATION 335
ruling note of my thoughts has been one of sadness
and helplessness. Looked at superficially and from
outside, the world (I mean the world I have seen in
this period) seems to be very happy, very gay, light-
The theaters, the
hearted, cheerful and hopeful.
moving picture palaces, the concerts and fairs are all
crowded, ringing with the laughter of men, women
and children; so are the saloons and restaurants,
dancing halls and billiard table places. In short, there
is no lack of play and pleasure. The resorts of pleasure
are always overcrowded, where men and women,
boys and girls, of all ages and of all classes, from the
richest to the poorest, jostle each other in their
pursuit of pleasure and in their desire to have a
"good time" and make the best of their lives. All
do their alloted work in their respective spheres of
activities in all earnestness and seriousness. The
idea of doing their duty and doing it well, seems to
be fairly common among modern men and women,
though the objective all the time is the pleasure
that is to follow, after the work is finished. At
times I have felt a sort of bewilderment at what the
genius of man has achieved in the West. I have
admiringly studied democracy and democratic in-
stitutions and have made myself conversant with all
the currents, undercurrents, and cross currents of
social and political life in the great cities of the
United States. The wealthy classes, the gentry, the
nobility and the rich among the middle classes live
in a constant whirlpool of pleasure and gaiety. The
social functions they organise and attend; the
pleasure engagements they make and keep; the time
336 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
they spend on personal adornments and on shop-
ping, hardly leave them any moments to devote
to the serious side of life. This they avoid as they
would avoid a ferocious, man-devouring beast. The
generality of them have neither time nor inclination
for the serious questions of life and death, of sin and
virtue, of duty and religion. They read a lot and
some even noble books. But the desire all the time
is to be able to amuse themselves as well as others;
to show off; to keep up and carry on interesting
talk; to entertain and be entertained. The poorer
middle classes and the workmen spend most of their
time in making the two ends meet, in earning
sufficient to live decently and to support those that
depend on them. But even in their case the desire
for pleasure and the hankering after the good
things of the world is the ruling passion of life.
They are discontented because they believe that
the wealthy classes enjoy at their cost and because
they have not sufficient opportunities of doing
so. The standard of general intelligence is fairly
high. The number of those engaged in intellectual
work and in stimulating thought is fairly large.
Yet the desire for pleasure and power is the domi-
nating passion of the western man and woman.
Serious thought and serious work is only a means to
an end-the acquisition and the accumulation of
power, power to possess, power to enjoy, power to
do good, power to serve. The desire for power and
pleasure absorbs the best thought and the best life of
the west and no one can deny that the western
people have had wonderful success in tapping all the
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CIVILIZATION 337
resources of humanity, physical and intellectual, to
gain these ends and that they are at the present
moment the masters of the world. The world rolls
at their feet. Even the elements obey their com-
mands and do their behest. Land, water and air are
all at their service. They make and unmake heat
and cold. They yoke and unyoke all material forces
to meet their wants and contribute to their pleasure
and power. Yes, I have seen all that, but at the
same time I have not been able to free myself from
the feeling that all is not well with the world. I
have found myself going in and going out, thinking
and trying to find a reply to the questions, "Are they
really happy"? "Has the modern civilization really
added substantially to the sum total of the happi-
ness of humanity"? "Has it brought humanity nearer
to perfection"? "Has it drawn the hearts of mankind
nearer to each other"? "Has it spread contentment"?
"Has it reduced misery and wretchedness"? "Is the
majority of mankind really happier and better to-
day than it was before the discovery of the steam-
power and the printing press?" "Is the lot of the
toiler, the unfortunate drawer of water and hewer of
wood, the miner, the farm labourer, the factory man
and the factory woman, the working boy and the
working girl, better and more endurable than it was
before?" "Does the pleasure that men and women,
boys and girls, derive from saloons, picture-shows,
and pleasure-resorts, sufficiently compensate for the
misery and the squalor that attend their labor in
the factory or the mine?" Even in the West in these
richest countries, which own the mines of the world,
១១
338 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
which possess most of its gold and silver, and which
control the destinies and the labours of the rest of
mankind, the number of those that have to live from
hand to mouth, that have to toil and labour, with-.
out the compensation of having the ordinary decen-
cies, not to speak of the finer pleasures, of life is enor-
mously large. The majority only live to provide for
the pleasures of the few, however large the number
of these few may be. But if to their numbers one
were to add the vast masses of humanity that are
kept down and exploited for the benefit of the fortu-
nate few in the ancient and the most populous coun-
tries of the world, in Asia, and in Africa, one can not
but feel extremely uneasy about the real nature of the
modern civilization. These vast masses of Europe
and America, of Asia and Africa form the bulk of
humanity. The socialist literature is full of bitter-
ness towards the few. The vast bulk of humanity in
the West is at war with the wealthy in possession,
and at times even with themselves. They are tho-
roughly discontented and rebellious. If one were to
believe all that is printed and published in their
name the majority of men and women in the West
must be very miserable and unhappy. They have
minds and bodies that require nourishment both
mental and physical. They also want happiness and
pleasure. What of their lives? Why is theirs an
unending struggle without a single ray of joy and
happiness in it, subjected to tyranny and oppression
of the worst sort, obliged to work under compulsion
for their lords and masters, for low wages or for the
ebnefit of the latter, constantly abused, insulted,
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CIVILIZATION 339
humiliated and sometimes even whipped and lashed;
always spoken of and treated with contempt, and
disposed of like chattel? A legion writers have told us
that mankind are equal; that all men are brothers;
that liberty is the birthright of every son of a
mother and so on. I have listened to many a sermon
and many a lecture on universal brotherhood, on the
philosophy of equality, liberty and fraternity. I
have heard of "the rights of man." But so far I
have failed to see them in life, in practice, either in
the East or in the West. Our respected leader, the
late Mr. G. K. Gokhale, used to say that when the
Europeans talk of the peace of the world, they mean
Europe, and when they talk of humanity they mean
"whitemanity"; but even in Europe and even in the
midst of whitemanity, one does not find many traces
of that equality, and liberty, which the modern
civilization boasts to have brought into the world.
In what does then lie the superiority of the modern
civilization? If it lies in the conquest of nature, in
the subjugation and harnessing of the forces of
nature, and in the application of the powers acquired
thereby for the benefit of the few, then the claim may
be admitted. If civilization consists in making life
more complex, in multiplying the needs of man, in
adding to the pleasures of the outer man, in concen-
trating power in the hands of the few, even then
the claims of modern civilization may well be
conceded.
But if civilization means a reign of truth, honesty,
brotherhood, justice, and equality; then what passes
under the name of modern civilization is not a ge
340 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
uine article. If civilization consists in securing peace
of mind to the bulk of humanity; or in giving equal
opportunities to mankind in general; or in estab-
lishing a reign of universal brotherhood, universal
justice and universal love all over the world (not the
European world only); then the modern civilization
has ignominiously failed. The world is still domin-
ated by merit; by power and by force-not even
benevolent force but aggressive force. Here in Japan,
where I am writing these lines, only 65 years before,
simplicity and domesticity held their sway. There
was neither a navy nor an army. The people had
fewer wants and they were easily satisfied. They
were a hermit nation who had practically no inter-
course with the outside world. No doubt, they often
quarreled among themselves and even then the mighty
and the wealthy ruled the weak and the poor. But
they were a self-contained people who had no politi-
cal, military or commercial ambition outside their
own island empire. About 60 years ago they were at
the point of the bayonet forced to open their doors.
They did open their doors and began to learn lessons
of modern civilization from those who had thus
forced them out of their seclusion. They are good
at learning and so they have learnt their lessons
well; in fact, so well that to-day they are a source
of embarrassment and anxiety and trouble to their
former masters and teachers. The progress of
Japan in the modern ways of life is remarkable.
They have a grand army and a formidable navy.
Their ships navigate all seas and their commerce is
worldwide.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CIVILIZATION 341
Yet it remains to be seen if the people are really
happier than they were under the old conditions.
Life in Japan is more strenuous, more exacting and
more agitated to-day than it was in the beginning
of the 19th Century. The country is groaning under
the millstone of military expenditure, which must go
on growing as the importance and the fears and
ambitions of the nation grow. They have won
their place in the comity of nations, won it with
iron and blood, won it honorably; they are proud
of it and anxious to increase their prestige; add to
their wealth and extend their dominions. Judging
from the modern point of view they are justified in
their ambition and it does not lie in the mouth of the
Western people to find fault with them. They are
simply following their example. Nay, they have to
do it in self-defence. But for their huge army and
their grand navy they might be attacked and
deprived of their national existence, any day. In
their case it is a choice of evils and if they have
chosen the one that is consistent with the current
political morality, no one can blame them. Yet the
question remains, if Japan is really on the path of
happiness and if the bulk of her people would be
happier under the altered conditions. We must wait
and see.
If on the other hand civilization means the
negation of the world, a negation of its reality, a
refusal to face it by renouncing it-a contentment
which might bring servility, and an idealism which
might end in political bondage, humiliation and
disgrace, even then I am unable to reconcile myself
342 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
to it. In fact if a choice were given to me between
the two I would rather choose the former than the
latter.
The ancient Aryans were a virile people. They
conquered the world and spread over and occupied the
East and the West. Even to-day the descendants of
those who settled in Europe are ruling the world.
The Hindus went down, because at a certain
stage of their developement they took to the
analytic way of looking at things. They proclaimed
"neti, neti" (neither this nor that). The Far Eastern
nations followed the Hindus and they also fell. Now
there is a reaction and the materialistic civilization
of the West is at their door. The choice lies
between extinction and Europeanisation, unless
they can find out a mean by which they may be
able to retain the best parts of both and evolve a
new and a more humane civilization of their
own. That is the problem before the East,
and on the solution of that problem depends
the future happiness of the world. When and
how it will be solved is in the womb of the
future.
Be that as it may, I see no justification for saying
that the world to-day is happier, morally better,
more righteous and more God-fearing than it was
2000 years ago. It may be perhaps that the
speculations of the Vedic Hindus about the world,
about spirit and matter, their solution of the social
problems, their ideals of life and society were nearer
the truth than those of the modern civilization; it
may be that the moderners are on the right road to
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CIVILIZATION 343
the evolution of a perfect ideal and civilization; or it
may be that human affairs move in a circle. In
any case I have not yet found a reply to the question
"What is real civilization ?"
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the most distinguished
and ablest French visitors to the United States of
America, wrote: "In the United States men seldom
compliment women, but they daily show how much
they esteem them. They constantly display an
entire confidence in the understanding of a wife, and
a profound respect for her freedom." In order to
understand this fundamentally true observation, it
is necessary to follow closely the development of
woman's life in the New World.
The so-called Western "Woman's Movement" in
the United States possesses several special features
which distinguish it from the development of woman
in European countries. It is an openly active force
of tremendous importance in every phase of
American life, and it is impossible to write justly of
anything American if the mention of her connection
with it is left out. We find her intimately connected
with the education of the youth of the United States;
with industry; a wage-earner as well as a home-
maker; a religious preacher as well as a politician.
In short, there is no large movement on foot in the
States with which she is not intimately connected,
and there is hardly a gainful occupation listed in the
census in which she can not be found.
In order to understand in any degree the present
status of woman it is necessary to trace her history
from the time the pioneers first landed in New
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 345
England to the present. We shall endeavor to do
this, wherever possible, in the words of accepted
authorities on the subject.
Wherever the early pioneer women went with
husband or children, with father or brothers, they
had to face the everpresent danger of violent death
at the hands of the Indians, the possibility of starva-
tion during the dread isolation of the long hard
winters, the great probability of being left without
male protection at any time to fight it out as best
they could with nature, sickness, and want. No
wonder that a strong sense of independence was
soon ingrained in these early frontier women and
their children by virtue of both inclination and
necessity. No wonder that the men beside whom
and for whose children they fought, suffered, and
worked, did not dream in those times of interfering
with the independence of their women, which was a
very necessity of life.
The following quotations are taken from H. Ad-
dington Bruce, who has written several works on
early American history:
"The American pioneer women were able to make
the American pioneer home a center from which
cheerfulness and sunshine unfailingly radiated.
This, it need scarcely be said, meant much to the
men, and so did the rugged, virile qualities which
their wives and sisters and daughters displayed in
times of great emergency."
"The picture of the Pilgrim mothers falling upon
their knees on the deck of the Mayflower to thank
God for a safe journey, and then going ashore to
wash clothes, is eloquently descriptive of the spirit
shown by all the women of early America. They
346 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
had come not for a life of ease, but to play their
part earnestly in the home-making for the men."
or un-
"There was no task, however difficult
pleasant, from which they shrank. When occasion
demanded, they willingly went into the fields to
break the ground, sow the seed, or aid in harvest-
ing the ripened grain. They lent a hand in the
actual building of the rude log cabins that sheltered
them; and... in burrowing out the caves in which
the Quaker pioneers took refuge along the banks of
the Delaware river."
"The severest demands were made on those
colonists who pressed forward from the settlements
by the sea into the lonely depths of the inland
forests. Here they were menaced not only by wild
beasts, but by the enmity of the native inhabitants,
who, friendly enough at first, soon began to resent
any further invasion of their ancestral lands. In face
of this double danger, the women showed them-
selves no less resolute and courageous than the
men."
"They learned the art of molding bullets and
loading muskets, and how to use all manner of
weapons of defence. Many of them became expert
shots. And when the Indians at last took the war-
path in earnest, and raged along the border with
torch and scalping knife, they met a brave resistance
from countless heroines. Nor did defeat, the slaught-
er of their loved ones, and their own captivity
break the spirit of the dauntless frontier women."
Many of these women, when bereft of their im-
mediate male protectors, were therewith entirely
cut off from relatives, such having remained in the
old world or on the settled sea-shore. It is thus
easy to understand why we find already at that
early time some women who engaged independently
in business and as wage-earners. There are records
of "acute ingenious gentlewomen" operating planta-
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 347
tions and cultivating farms. The founder of the
American indigo industry and of a silk industry was
a woman.
As society began to become a little more organis-
ed, many of the earliest pioneer-life characteristics
began to disappear, and in their place old-world
methods started rapidly to replace them. With
this, men assumed their "sole right" of governing
the new society. But these women, feeling them-
selves and being held solely responsible for the
business management of their affairs, felt that it
was also their right and privilege to represent
such in every way, shape or form; and so we find
early "suffrage protests" from some "against all
proceedings in this present (town) assembly (of men)
unless" they "be present and have a vote." These
women felt the attempt to restrict their interest in
all affairs of the community, in the up-building of
which they had had such a paramount share, as an
entirely artificial proceeding, and resented it
accordingly. In the Southern States, where the
greater part of the white women lived on large
plantations in comfort and plenty, and where there
was practically no community life, where slaves did
most of the hard labor and women had not as
intimate a share in the up-building of the new homes,
this assertion of political and social equality lay
dormant, and European political and economic sex-
distinctions easily asserted and fixed themselves.
In the North, however, where men and
built their own homes, tilled their own ground,
pushed forward shoulder to shoulder on horseback,
women
348 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on foot, in prairie schooners, into the unconquered
wilderness, where democracy was the very heart-
blood of the intense community life that sprang up
at the touch of their hands,-here the women never
lost sight of their inherent equality with men and
were quick to assert their opposition to the en-
croachment of the old-world ideas. Through all
American history we find the spirit of democracy
and the recognition of woman as an equal and
most trusted and respected help-mate of man,
strongest where the spread of the new civilization
was most recent. In the older sections of the
country, such as Boston and other Eastern cities,
society crystallized more readily under the influence
and pressure of old-world ideas. To the women
of the colonial times, before the outbreak of the
American Revolution, A. Bruce pays the following
tribute:
"For all her hardihood and energy, she remained
essentially womanly, finding her chief interest in
her home, her husband, and her children. It was
for these she toiled and sacrificed, directing her
every effort to the upbuilding and preservation of
a happy home life."
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
"The truth of this is strikingly shown by the
course she pursued during the great struggle which
ended with the complete separation of the colonies
from the mother country, and the establishment
of the free and independent United States of
America:
"From the first mutterings of the approaching
storm, women were quick to urge their husbands
and sons to oppose vigorously the slightest infringe-
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 349
ment of what they held to be their rights. Women
were enthusiastic supporters of the early measures
of resistance-non-importation agreements and the
like-by which it was hoped to convince the British
government of the folly of attempting to impose
on the colonists laws not of their own making and
contrary to their desire."
"In every colony, matrons and mails resumed the
old-fashioned industry of making home-spun cloth-
ing, and banded themselves into associations to
forego, at no matter what personal inconvenience,
the use of imported goods. "Liberty tea," brewed
of loosestrife, sage, ribwort, strawberry, currant,
raspberry, or plantation leaves, became a popular
beverage. No discomfort was too great for the
women of America to undergo in their effort to help
the men prove that England need not expect to do
business with her colonies so long as she dealt with
them unjustly and oppressively. And when this usu-
ally powerful argument of appeal to their purse fail-
ed, when England, instead of yielding gracefully and
meeting the colonists in a conciliatory spirit, chose
instead to send over troops to dragoon them into
submission-the wives and daughters of the "rebels"
were zealous as before in counselling resistance, if
need be to the death.
"Nor did they falter when the gage of battle was.
actually thrown down-when the news from Lexing-
ton......announced that war had at last become in-
evitable. With splendid promptness of decision,
they hastened to make ready their men for the fray,
to send them forth well-armed, well-clothed, and
strengthened by the knowledge that they were leav-
ing at home not weeping and despairing women, but
women whose greatest hope was that their loved
ones would indeed acquit themselves like men.
"Typical of the prevailing spirit is a letter written
by a Philladelphia lady in the first year of the war :
"I will tell you what I have done. My only
brother I have sent to the camp with my prayers
and blessings. I hope he will not disgrace me......and
350 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
had I twenty sons and brothers they should go. I
have retrenched every superfluous expense on my table
and family; ; tea I have not drunk since last Christ-
mas, nor bought a new cap or gown......and, what
I never did before, have learned to knit, and am now
making stockings of American wool for my servants ;
and this way do I throw in my mite to the public
good.
'I know this-that as free I can die but once,
but as a slave I shall not be worthy of life. I have
the pleasure to assure you that those are the senti-
ments of all my sister Americans. They have sacri-
ficed assemblies, parties of pleasure, tea-drinking
and finery, to that great spirit of patriotism, that
actuates all degrees of people throughout this exten-
sive continent. If these are the sentiments of females,
what must glow in the breasts of our husbands,
brothers, and sons! They are as with one heart
determined to die or to be free......'"
And truly women of "all degrees" worked in a
splendid spirit of unity throughout this whole period.
Lady Martha Washington, the wife of the great
general, was busy early and late providing comforts
for the wounded soldiers. Addington Bruce quotes
the interesting experience of a certain Mrs. Troupe,
who writes:
"Several of us thought we would visit Lady
Washington, and as she was said to be so grand a
lady we thought we must put on our best bibs and
bands. So we dressed ourselves in our most elegant
ruffles and silks and were introduced to her ladyship.
And don't you think! We found her knitting and
with a specked apron on! She received us very
graciously and easily, but after the compliments
were over she resumed her knitting. There we were
without a stitch of work and sitting in state, but
Governor Washington's lady with her own hands
was knitting stockings for herself and husband.
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
351
"And that was not all. In the afternoon her lady-
ship took occasion to say in the way that we could
not be offended at, that at this time it was very im-
portant that American ladies should be patterns of
industry to their countrywomen, because the separa-
tion from the mother country will dry up the sources
whence many of our comforts have been derived.
We must become independent by our determination
to do without what we can not ourselves make.
Whilst our husbands and brothers are examples of
patriotism, we must be patterns of industry."
We see thus how the social and national spirit
was awake from the beginning in American woman-
hood and continued steadily on the increase. Women
were acquainted with and keenly alive to national
problems involved in current events. In the crusade
against slavery, women again took an intensely
active part. The burning question of slavery
brought forth the first public speakers among
women in America. Two sisters, Sarah and Angelina
Grimke, did remarkable work in speaking and or-
ganizing. During the meeting a seething, angry
mob waited outside while the splinters of glass from
breaking windows flew about the hall, but Angelina
calmly and dauntlessly continued her address and
carried her audience to the highest pitch of enthusi-
asm.
Possibly the greatest single woman's achieve-
ment during the abolition campaign is Harriet
Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that most
gripping story of Negro life and suffering. Within
three weeks 80,000 copies were sold and 18 editions
were out before the close of one year. President
Lincoln, meeting her a few years later, remarked :
352 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"So this is the woman who brought on the civil
war."
The women organized anti-slavery fairs and
soldiers' aid funds through which they raised 50
lakhs of rupees, to be used for the army and the
support of sufferers left behind.
Women also did splendid work in caring for the
wounded and in making camp-life more bearable.
Inspiring stories of heroic service and devotion fill
the annals of this war. One of the most active
women was known as "Mother Bykerdyke." She did
not belong to any organization and had not been
sent by any one, but came and worked here and
there and everywhere on the battle-fields day and
night, administering food to the sick, bandaging
their wounds, comforting them. An officer found her
working thus and after observing her admiringly,
asked her: "Madam, you seem to combine in your-
self a sick-diet kitchen and a medical staff. May I
inquire under whose authority you are working?"
Never stopping in her work, she replied: "I have
received my authority from Lord God Almighty.
Have you anything that ranks higher than that?'א
Mother Bykerdyke was present at nineteen battles.
But by far the most effective work was done
through the sudden burst of organizing power which
the women developed. They soon realized that
separate societies for relief, no matter how successful
and efficient in their place, were not sufficient for a
speedy answer to the clamoring need of the times.
They decided to form a central organization. Bruce
writes concerning this movement :
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
353
"The woman's Central Association of Relief was
organized in New York, to guide and supervise the
labors of all local aid societies. After a time this
association became subsidiary to the Sanitary
Commission, with branches established in all the
larger cities and managed almost without exception
by women. When it is said that these branches and
the different minor organizations collected and
distributed money and supplies amounting in value
to more than fitty million dollars, the magnitude of
woman's work in the Civil War will be better
understood."
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
"In the whole course of the war, it has been
estimated, the Sanitary Commission furnished four
million five hundred thousand meals to sick and
wounded soldiers. And all this was rendered
possible through the tireless devotion of the women
of the Union."
"Even the aged and infirm vied in generrous
rivalry with the young and strong. In many barrels
of hospital clothing, socks were found having inscrip-
tions like the following: "The fortunate owner of
these socks is secretly informed that they are the one
hundred and ninety-first pair knit for our brave boys
by Mrs. Abner Bartlett, of Medford, Massachusetts,
now aged eighty-five years." A homespun blanket
was ticketed: "This blanket was carried by Milly
Aldrich, who is ninety-three years old, down-hill and
up-hill, one and a half miles, to be given to some
soldier."
From the moment that the woman's Central
Association of Relief was organized, it was flooded
with hundreds of applications from women of all
stations of life desiring to serve as nurses in the war.
American women of to-day recall with great satis-
faction that the task of selecting and sending out the
best fitted among these applicants was confided to
a woman by the government. This woman, Dorothea
23
354 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
L. Dix, had behind her a very active public life: early
intensely interested in the fate of the poor and out-
casts of society, she had toured the states, investiga-
ted prisons, alms-houses, asylums everywhere, and
through her agitation brought about much-needed
amelioration in legislation concerning these. But
her chief activity was in hospital work, both during
her intimate connection with the Sanitary Commis-
sion and afterwards. Altogether she founded thirty-
two hospitals.
The temporary impoverishment of the war and
the death of so many men again threw an increased
number of women into the field of wage-earners.
Then the steady stream of immigration into the free
United States steadily swelled the tide of women
workers. Like the early pioneers, these women came
usually with one or a few male relatives, leaving all
other family connections behind them, and thus were
often thrown entirely on their own resources. Most
of them entered the country poor, and most of them
came from agricultural districts in the old world.
While there was still free government land to be had
in the Eastern sections of the United States, close to
the landing ports of the immigrants, many of the
newcomers took up homesteads and made their
living in the building up of farms. But as the tide
kept on and free land was to be had only further
and further West, many of the newcomers possessed
no means to reach those distant places, and were
therefore forced to make their living as wage-earners
near their landing place. The rise of different indus-
tries fostered this, and instead of becoming land-
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
355
owners or farmers, the immigrants turned into
factory employees, necessity forcing the women tỏ
work alongside with the men.
But aside from the compelling hand of necessity,
many women, who had tasted the joy of economic
independence, preferred, even where there was no
immediate need of doing so, to earn some or all of
their living expenses to being dependent on the good
will of male relatives. Those American women,
whom necessity did not compell to accept any kind of
work offered, early turned to the acquirement of
higher education and professions, charity and public
organization work; the others filled skilled and un-
skilled trades. Thus the independence acquired in
pioneer times was never lost in the ranks of American
women. They also retained their sense of unity
acquired under the urging need of war times. This
sense of common interests soon began to express
itself in the formation of Women's Clubs, towards
the middle of the nineteenth century.
WOMEN'S CLUBS.
At first these clubs mainly occupied themselves
with cultural interests, art and literature. From the
first they met with a great deal of opposition and
ridicule. This was mainly due to the steady influx of
old-world ideas, and the opposition to club activity
was termed, and attacked as, "neglect of the home
and a most pernicious tentency," by both men and a d
number of women. The often quoted writer, Adding-
ton Bruce, writes :
"It has been charged that the club movement
among women involved neglect of home duties,
356 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
would increase frivolity, and meant the ultimate dis-
ruption of family life. However well-grounded those
objections may be in the case of other countries,
they are glaringly erroneous when applied to the
United States. Here the woman's club has developed
into a most valuable and powerful instrument for
social betterment."
In 1900, not less than 100 women's clubs formed
The General Federation of Women's Clubs, whose
watchword is: "The Home, Patriotism, and Good
Government,"
The G.F.W.C. alone, not counting the membership
of the non-affiliated clubs, has a membership of well
beyond one and one-half millions. The President of
the G.F.W.C. of Austin, Texas, Mrs. Pennybaker, in
an article on "Civic Activities of Women's Clubs"
writes in the November (1914) number of the Annals
of the Academy of Political and Social Science ;
"Very early the club women became unwilling to
discuss Dante and Browning over the tea-cups at a
meeting of their peers in some lady's drawing-room,
while unsightly heaps of rubbish flanked the paths
over which they had passed in their journeys thither.
They began to realize that the one calling in which
they were, as a body, proficient, that of housekeeping
and homemaking, had its out-door as well as in-door
application. They soon learned that art, in its best
and highest sense, was a thing of practical, everyday
life, and that wherever there were cleanliness and
symmetry and beauty, there was art in its best and
highest sense. They learned that well-kept lawns
were but the outer setting of well-kept houses, and
that back yards and back alleys had their places in
the great science of home-making. They learned that
tenement house* and factory conditions were but
* Tenement house :-poorly constructed, badly lighted, and
unventilated, fearfully overcrowded houses in the slum-sections of
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
357
places of the daily lives of other women; and that
juvenile courts and playgrounds and eleemosynary
institutions were determining factors in the character
of another woman's child." * * * "No single address
or magazine article can do justice to the civic acti-
vities of the club women ; it is a story in which each
community has its chapter, for these activities reach
from the lecture course of the small club in the rural
community to the many-sided work of the great
departmental club whose work is interwoven into
every good deed which the great city knows.
"Thousands of towns, cities and hamlets can bear
testimony to the work of these organized women :
there are more sanitary and better ventilated school
houses; there are more numerous parks and more
cleanly streets; there are district nurses who visit
the sick poor in their homes and give instruction in
the simple rules of wholesome living; there are sani-
tary drinking fountains for man and beast; there are
vacation schools and playgrounds; there are juvenile
courts and equal guardianship laws; there are
cleaner markets; there are many free public libraries
and thousands of travelling libraries; there is a
lessening of objectionable bill-board ornamentation;
there is a determined campaign, nation-wide, against
the housefly; there is a more intelligent knowledge
of the prevention and care of tuberculosis; in short,
there is scarcely any movement for the betterment of
living conditions or for the social and moral uplift of
the American people that has not received a helping
hand from the club woman.,"
In small towns or rural communities the women's
clubs usually consist of a study club. The best in-
formed women will hold classes of instruction in
civic and social conditions concerning the women
of that particular community and the women and
children of the nation at large. Where the commu-
the great American cities, where the poorest and most exploited
laborers live.
358 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
nity is large enough the club also concerns itself
with training and organizing workers for actual
work on the outside.
In larger towns and cities, where the demands
upon women are large and manifold, the clubs are
divided into departments, each department devoted
to some special subject, for instance, juvenile reform,
school conditions, lecturing committee, study class,
etc. Each department has its departmental head, its
regular committee and committee meetings accord-
ing to parliamentary rules. Each department has
as its aim to do its utmost to fit the woman success-
fully to fill her place as home-maker, wage-earner,
tax-payer, and citizen. The women feel that the more
highly organized society imperiously demands that
they should no longer confine themselves to their
immediate families. In earlier and more primitive
times, when agriculture was the sole occupation of
the population, and each family lived on land owned
by themselves and virtually formed a community by
themselves, it was not necessary that women looked
beyond their four walls. They could observe there as
much as was necessary to control the lives of their
children at all times. But in modern times, when
the school takes the child away from the home
for the greatest part of the day, when at every
turn new and powerful influences surround
it, mothers feel that it is not only their privi-
lege, but a part of their duty of motherhood to look
into all conditions affecting the life of children, and
to leave no effort untried to keep such conditions on
a high level or to better them where necessary. But
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 359.
aside from their actual or potential motherhood,
modern life makes it essentially necessary for woman
to consider herself, and train herself to be, a respon-
sible citizen.
As Addington Bruce puts it: "They began to
attack problems of importance to them not only
as women and mothers, but as residents of
the cities and towns in which they made their
homes."
When their interest broadened to include "muni-
cipal housekeeping and housecleaning", the women
soon found it essential to inquire into the industrial
system under which thousands of their sisters were
slowly being crushed through unhealthy conditions,
low wages and fierce competition. Therefore, in the
last number of years club-women have been active in
visiting and reporting conditions of women workers
in mills, factories, stores. Their aim is the protec-
tion of women wage-earners and the ultimate aboli-
tion of all child labor.
The industrial pressure and economic greed of big
interests has caused grave conditions of overwork
and underpay in most gainful occupations, and
women workers suffer under these equally with, if not
more than, the men. There is therefore great need
of energetic protest and organization among wage-
earning women, and aside from the work done by
club women, the women workers are organizing
themselves into strong labor organizations, and as
such, are more and more able to make their demands
concerning shorter hours, a living wage, and sani-
tary conditions heard and heeded. These working
360 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
women enjoy a great deal of the result of the work
of the organized club women.
The women's clubs have created many travelling
libraries and art galleries. They have also banded
together for special purposes in clubs solely devoted
to such, for instance, the National Woman's Christian
Temperance Union concerns itself solely with the aim
of suppressing the liqor traffic and with educating
the children in the effects of alcoholic beverages on
body and morals. They have succeeded in introduc-
ing instruction of an anti-alcoholic character into
most public schools and as an effect of their effort
18,000,000 children now receive such instruction.
They have also succeeded in causing many states to
"go dry", that is, in making all forms of liquor
traffic unlawful in such states.
Since their work extends over the whole length
and breadth of this continent, it is easily seen that
women's clubs have a very unifying effect. They
tend to an abolition of distinctions of place, station,
and religion among members, and have added their
generous share in making the South and the North
forget the bitter feelings that still lingered as an
aftermath from the civil war. "There is no East and
West, or North and South. We stand for a united
people", is their watchword.
We shall quote the opinions of two prominent
public men of the present day concerning women's
clubs and their work in the United States. Josiah
Strong, president of the American Institute for Social
Service announces the following conviction:
"Except in the United States Congress, I know of
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
361
no body of men or women representing so much of
intellect and heart, so much of culture and influence,
and so many of the highest hopes and noblest possi-
bilities of the American people as the General Federa-
tion of Women's Clubs."
Judge Ben Lindsey of Colorado, who has acquired
a nation-wide reputation and a nation's gratitude
for his splendid work in juvenile court reform,
asserts:
"For the past few years ers I have been actively
engaged in the interests of better laws for the pro-
tection of the home and children. In this behalf I
have visited some twenty States. I have found won-
derful progress, and scarcely without exception it
has been the members of the women's clubs who
have championed every good law and secured the
passage of nearly all the advanced legislation upон
the statute books for the protection of the home and
the children."
WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS.
It may be well to consider the several aspects of
woman's life and of her work and condition in so-
ciety separately. The first employment of women as
wage-earners in industries in the United States of
which we have a definite record, took place about
1820. In 1850, 225, 922 women were wage-earners.
According to the census of 1910, out of a total number
of women of ten years and over of 34,552,712, there
were 8,075,772 women employed in gainful occupa-
tions, that is, a little less than one-fourth of all the
women in U. S. A. are wage-earners. In 1900 these
women were scheduled in 295 out of 303 listed occu-
362 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
pations, but 86 of them were to be found in only 18
occupations. It is thus seen that certain types of
work attract the greatest number of women work-
ers.
About 65 per cent of these women are over
twenty-one years of age. In the November number
of the Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, a list is given of the occupations
mostly entered into by women. Each occupation
given contains one per cent. or more of the women
gainfully employed :
NUMBER OF WO-
MEN ENGAGED:
...
...
...
...
...
...
2,557,706
1,176,585
447,760
122,477
352,639
99,434
231,206
163,795
88,262
111,594
NAME OF OCCUPANTS:
Farmers
...
Farm Laborers (home farm)
Dressmakers and seamstresses
...
Millinery
Textile
...
Weavers in textile industries
...
Sewing
Tailoresses
Telephone operators
Clerks in stores
Saleswomen
Teachers
Teachers of music
...
84,478
Boarding and lodging house keepers
142,400
Housekeepers
..
173,333
Laundresses
:
...
520,004
Midwives and untrained nurses
...
117,117
Servants and waitresses
...
1,309,549
Book-keepers and accountants
...
187,155
Clerks (not in stores)
...
122,165
Stenographers and typewriters
...
263,315
...
...
257,720
478,027
TOTAL 6,707,191
Women are in many industries considered "better
adapted, cheaper, neater, and more reliable" than
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
363
male workers, according to many employers; in spite
of this, they receive uniformly lower wages. This is
considered an injustice by many women and also
men, and a strong agitation is going on against such
discrimination. Aside from the occupations listed,
the following may be of interest :
Women lawyers
Women physicians
...
...
1343
...
...
9015
WOMEN PHYSICIANS.
When half a century ago, women first took up the
study of medicine, they were met with bitter an-
tagonism and ridicule, and at times had to leave the
colleges on account of the unbearable persecution
persistently followed up by their male fellow-
students. In practice, also, women physicians met,
and to a certain extent still meet, with a great deal
of suspicion on the side of the public and with slights
from their male colleagues. But by now the woman
physician is rapidly becoming an accepted and wel-
comed factor and women patients begin to count it
a real blessing to have the privilege of being examin-
ed by a woman instead of by a man, and the work of
obstetrics and gynecology bids fair to be transferred
to the hands of women physicians. In the treatment
of women's and children's diseases lies the greatest
field for women physicians. A good many hospitals
and sanatoriums are established and conducted sole-
ly by women physicians throughout the States.
They are lending indefatigable aid in the sanitation of
the slums of large cities and in the care of the poor.
364 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WOMEN IN EDUCATION.
Out of a total of 619,285 teachers and professors
in colleges listed in the census of 1910, 484,115
are female. It can thus be seen that more than three
times as many women as men are engaged in teach-
ing the youth of the United States in both primary
and intermediate as well as academic education.
Among these women, some hold very high positions
in the educational world. The Superintendent of the
Chicago schools is a woman, very famous for her
innovations and splendid discharge of her duty. She
recieves $2400 a year (7200 Rupees). In cities of over
5000 population, 936 high school principals are women
(six of who receive 2500 dollars a year), likewise
285 high school assistant principals. There we find
also 824 women superintendents of schools. Women
teachers have been most active in bringing about the
playground work of the schools, insisting on the
need for children of play, air and sunshine.
PROSTITUTION.
"The double standard of morals" as applied to
men and women, is one of the most hotly debated
questions of the day. The tremenduous prevalence
of venerial disease among men; the "privilege of
men" who insist that their present and future wives
should be blameless in their moral character, while
they reserve for themselves almost unrestrained
freedom and never hesitate to stain the lives and
bodies of their wives and children with disease; the
ruthless economic exploitation in industries, which
forces so many women down into a life of shame;
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
365
all these questions agitate deeply the woman of
America to-day. Organized womanhood and single
workers are trying their best to stem the tide of
degeneration and to ameliorate or eradicate the
outer and preventible causes which in the ultimate
lead fellow-women into the underworld. The day is
long since past when the average woman considered
every prostitute as innately bad, and the day has
dawned when they are beginning to resent the fact of
any fellow-woman being pushed down a victim to
mere passion. America does not publish its deepest
shame in tangible numbers and it is not possible to
know how many women lead degenerate lives. But
the reports of the Vice Commission, which has
extensively investigated the conditions of prostitu-
tion in Chicago, give ample proof of the crying need
for immediate attention to this problem from the
side of the American women. Chicago alone is
reported to require yearly 5000 new girls to satisfy
the demands of prostitution in refilling the places of
such as dropped out through death and disease.
About fifty per cent. of these girls are under seventeen,
hardly more than children. The fact that the age-
long cover is being ruthlessly torn from the face of
vice, is one of the pregnant signs of a rejuvenation of
moral conceptions in America. The ballot is being
used effectively to bring about legislation to amelio-
rate such conditions.
WOMAN-SUFFRAGE.
In the States, where woman suffrage obtains,
many beneficial protective laws have been enacted in
366 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
this and other matters in which women, girls and
children are concerned.
To-day, the women of the East of the U. S. A. are
waging a determined and hard struggle for the recog-
nition of their economic and political rights, while the
women of the West enjoy full equality with men. The
sweep of the westward-movement, broad and democra-
tic in the very esssence of its spirit, instead of burying
the Western woman under the Eastern and old-world
burden of political inequality, has swept her on to
the crest of its wave, has gladly recognized her
domestic, social and political equality. Wyoming
had granted suffrage to its women even before it
joined the Union as a State in 1860. In California,
where the question of equal suffrage came to a deci-
sion in 1911, the result was probably the most
significant among all testimonies of the attitude of
real American men towards their women. San
Francisco and the other large citics, where the liquor
interests and other large industrial interests unfavor-
able to woman suffrage were strong, went against
it, and on the eve of election day it seemed as if the
day was lost. The next day, however, the returns
came in from the outlying country districts, where
the memory of woman's heroic share in pioneer work
was freshest and most revered, and turned the tide
in favor of woman suffrage. Here, in the West of
the United States, we find a clear-eyed, free-limbed,
fearless type of woman, which promises fair to rear
the most distinctive type of Americans. It is to her
that her Eastern sisters are looking for assistance
and inspiration. During the present International
Votes for Women a Success
WASH.
The Map Proves It
13120
OREG IDAHO
MONT
N. DAK
MINN
S. DAK
WYO.
TOWA
NEY. UTAH
COL.
ΚΑΝ.
CAL
ARIZ
Alaska, 1913
IN. MEX
OKLA
TEXAS
PENN.
208
WAYA
KY
A.
TENN
NIC
TATRIKE
S.C.
MISS ALA
GA
FLA
WHITE STATES: Full Suffrage
SHADED STATES: Tasation, Bood or School Suffrize
DOTTED STATE: Presidential, Partial County and State, Municipal Suffrage BLACK STATES: No Suffrage
SUFFRAGE GRANTED
1869-WYOMING
1893-COLORADO
1896-UTAH
1896-IDAHO
1910-WASHINGTON
1911-CALIFORNIA
1912-OREGON
1912-ARIZONA
1912-KANSAS
:
1913-ILLINOIS
1913-ALASKA
1914-ΜΟΝΤΑΝΑ
1914-NEVADA
Would any of these States have adopted EQUAL SUFFRAGE
if it had been a failure just across the Border?
NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC
PUBLISHERS FOR THE
NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION
605 Fifth Avenue
• New York City
368 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Panama-Pacific Exposition, the women of the East
have specially petitioned the aid of the Western
sisters, nearly 4,000,000 of whom have vote in
national elections, to help them in securing an
amendment to the constitution granting nation-
wide suffrage.
The day does not seem far distant when the
American woman will be on a par with the American
man in every respect.
MARRIAGE.
Probably no other country on earth has ever
offered a richer field of observation of the relations
between the sexes than the United States. The great
free mixture of nationalities and to some extent even
the mixture of races, the new conditions of life, the
economic and social freedom of women, the compar-
ative ease with which homes can be founded, the
continual migration of the population from one end
of the continent to the other, all have tended to
develop new aspects of the eternal sex question.
The freedom of American social life permits the
girl from her earliest childhood to mix with the boys
in play and work. The public schools are co-
educational, so are most of the high schools and
colleges. Throughout her whole period of education,
the American girl therefore is closely thrown into
touch with the other sex. Those girls who do not pur-
sue higher schooling find ample chances in social life
or in working conditions to associate with comrades
of both sexes and of their own age. This, and the
further fact that the greater chances which a young
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
369
man without fortune have in the United States to pro-
vide for a family, has brought about a condition in
which most girls freely choose their own husbands
after more or less prolonged personal acquaintance,
and choose them for love's sake. It is true that the
fiercely competitive industrial system, under which
great numbers of young girls pine, has somewhat
affected the choice and motives of its victims. There
are many girls in the rank of the laboring class
whose main motive in marrying is that of securing
a good home and release from the struggle of
bread-winning, not that of love.
But it is fair to say that the greater part of
American marriages are love-marriages, in which
economic and other considerations play only a
secondary part.
As a rule, the newly married couple repair to a
home of their own, where they live alone instead
of living with parents or relatives. It is the
generally accepted fact that this is the best arrange-
ment under which to start their new life. Each
woman therefore becomes sole mistress over her
little kingdom at the time of her marriage, be this
in a mansion with a retinue of servants, or in the
tiniest two-room apartment in a city, or a ten by
twelve foot shack in the country.
Owing to the freedom of choice and the economic
independence of the women, the standard of quali-
fications for marriage is steadily rising. The
demand for an equal standard of morals for both
men and women is growing year by year. Women
are less and less willing to marry men unable to
24
370 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
provide a clean mental and physical inheritance to
their children. Eugenics is growing in adherence.
Ellen Key called this the Century of the Child, and
American women are truly endeavoring to make
it such. Along with the raised standard in
home and child life goes an increasing unwillingness
to retain a marriage bond that has proved itself to
be built upon destructive and inharmonious founda-
tions, and has lost its love and life.
The brilliant French writer, Montaigne, remarks:
"Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged
from the beginning of the world that such as are
in the institution wish to get out, and such as are
out wish to get in?" From all sides, from within and
without, severe criticism has been directed against the
"looseness" of the marriage relation in the States,
and such looseness, if it exists, is attributed by the
critics to the greater freedom and economic indepen-
dence of the American woman. It may be well
however, to investigate carefully before leaping to
conclusions.
With the exception of the polygamous marriages
of the Mormons in Utah, against which popular
sentiment all over the States was very bitter and
which have lately been suppressed by law, mono-
gamous marriages have always been the only legally
recognized marriages in the United States. Several
forms of monogamous marriage, however, obtain
or have obtained. Up to 1902, in the State of New
York, marriage was treated merely as a civil con-
tract not requiring legal forms, religious ceremonies,
nor any special mode of proof; and strict proof of
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 371
marriage was only required in prosecutions for
bigamy and in actions for criminal conversation.
Such a marriage was known as "common law"
marriage.
This form of marriage, however, did not prevail to
any extent. The most usual form is that of a legal
marriage contract, followed by a religious ceremony,
performed by the ministers of the church to which
the applicants belong or by a justice of the peace.
The contract must be signed by two witnesses and
filed with the town clerk within six months from the
date of marriage. There are differing laws concern-
ing marriage in the different States, but some general
requisitions hold good. For instance, fourteen in a
male, and twelve in a female, are everywhere the
lowest ages of legal consent. Some States have
raised the age of legal consent to 18 in a male and
16 in a female, and other States have raised it as
high as 21 and 18. Throughout the United States,
there is a movement on foot that aims to raise the
age of marriage. At present, the average age of
marriage falls between the years of 18 and 23.
The variance between the different State laws has
led to interesting phenomena. A very common
occurrence was and still is for affianced parties whose
plans are interdicted at the place of domicile, to go
to some district whose jurisdiction will permit their
marriage. A little hamlet in Ohio is thus cited.
This hamlet, called Aberdeen, turned a regular place
of pilgrimage for eloping parties because of the ease
with which the marriage knot could be tied there.
There was a blacksmith in Aberdeen, who was also
372 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
a justice of the peace. When couples came to him
from Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, he would lay
down his hammer or release a horse's hoof at any
time during the day, or get up in the middle of the
night to give his legal sanction to their marriage.
He required no license, made no inquiries, and gladly
accepted any fee that was offered him, from 25 cents
to 10 dollars. This blacksmith married all in all
over 5000 couples before changes in laws put a stop
to his practice.
The same confusion obtained until lately with
regard to divorce because of the differing State laws.
Reno, Nevada, required only a six months' residence
before anyone might go into the courts and apply
for a divorce, who had been unable to obtain such a
divorce at the place of his permanent domicile. Like
Aberdeen, Reno became a veritable place of pilgrim-
age for people dissatisfied with their marriage bonds.
The question of color has created a certain amount
of confusion. Some States forbid marriage
between members of the white and the black race,
and hold such marriages null and void, even when
contracted outside their boundaries.
No man or woman can be married against his or
her will in any part of the United States. If the
nominal or putative assent of either or both is
obtained by force or fraud, such marriage may at
any time be annulled by the aggrieved party.
In most states a woman may not marry persons
held by Canonical and Levitical laws to be incapable
of entering matrimonial relations. This excludes
marriages between near relatives.
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES
373
Many States forbid re-marriage to persons con-
victed of adultery in a divorce suit, and in Lousi-
ana the defendant may not marry the co-respondent.
MORMON POLYGAMY.
The marriage code of the Mormon church, men-
tioned above and now rendered legally invalid, was
the only institution in the United States which
recognized polygamy. With it, it recognized two
kinds of marriage as, the "temporal" and the
"spiritual"-the former for this world only, the
latter for eternity, -the first was a "joining,"
the second a "sealing" process. A woman could be
"sealed" to only one man, but that same man
might be "sealed" for eternity to as many women
as he desired and the church would allow. The
consent of the first wife to a later marriage had to
be asked, but if she refused, the husband was at
liberty to proceed against her will. The first wife
was expected to present the succeeding brides to her
husband at the marriage ceremonies.
The Book of Mormon, upon which the Mormon
church is based, forbids plural marriages, but their
Prophet, Joseph Smith, instituted polygamy in
obedience to a "divine revelation." To these men,
living in a mostly agricultural community, many
wives and children meant cheap labor and wealth
in addition to easy pleasure and ample satisfaction
of carnal desire. They instituted a regular recruiting
system all through the United States to obtain more
brides, and when opposition grew at home, they
even started sending their "missionaries" to Europe.
374 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In countries abroad, stringent government measures
were soon enacted against this Mormon recruiting
system. In the United States, women especially
sympathized with the suffering in which they pictur-
ed the Mormon women passing their days, and
in 1905 the head of the Mormon church was forced
by the pressure of anti-polygamy enactments of
Congress to make public another "revelation" pro-
hibiting polygamy. The United States women are
fully alive to the fact and smile at it, that "divine
revelations" on this subject given to men always
granted plurality of wives, but never plurality of
husbands.
BREACH OF PROMISE.
One of the fertile grounds for sensational journal-
ism, which never fails to be exploited by the perver-
ted taste of the American press, is the breach of
promise suit. When a man and a woman have
promised to marry each other and one of them
refuses to carry out the agreement, the other may
bring a suit for damages in the courts, as in case of
other contracts. Thus we have the unique spectacle
of people coming forward in public and rating their
love and hurt feelings in dollars and cents. Such
suits are by no means infrequent, most often against
rich men by women claimants, but at times we even
find men coming forward and demanding that a
woman should drop sweet balm on their bruised
love in the form of big sums of money. The San
Francisco Examiner, June 1915, brings on its front
page the following item :
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 375
PLASTERER SUES WIDOW FOR 50,000 dollars.
Breach of Promise Action Filed Against Mrs.
Edith Amos, Who Adopted 27-Year-Old Son.
-
Contractor Declares He Gave Up His Business on
Promise of Woman to Become His Wife.
Widow Denies Friendship for Cabaret Singer
Caused Her to Jilt Man Seeking Heart Balm.
BY INTERNATIONAL NEWS SERVICE.
Los Angeles, June 24.-Mrs. Edith Amos, a
wealthy widow, who legally adopted a 27-year-old
son several weeks ago, became the defenand to-day in d
a 50,000 dollar breach of promise suit, adding
another eventful chapter to a romantic career.
The complainant in the case is Louis A. Sullivan,
formerly a plastering contractor of Oakland, who
alleges that on the widow's promise to marry him
he gave up his business at Oakland.
Mrs. Amos admits there had been an engagement.
She declared that she broke it because Sullivan was
not the kind of man she thought he was. She denied
that her adoption of Alois Maiter, the cabaret sing-
er whose voice and presence charmed her into making
him her heir, was the cause of the break between her
and her former fiance.
NEVER HAD BUSINESS.
"It is a lie," she declared vehemently, "that Sulli-
van gave up his business at Oakland. He never had
any business. He was nothing but a plasterer. He
came here with me as my secretary. I provided
him with money and he squandered it. Alois, my
adopted son, had nothing to do with the matter.
I had fired Sullivan before the adoption."
376 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Attorneys Ford and Hammond filed the suit in
behalf of Sullivan.
The history of the eventful life of Mrs. Amos was
unrolled in a deposition which she made several days
ago before Attorney W. J. Ford in connection with a
suit which she had brought for the recovery of pro-
perty said to have been deeded to the man she was
to have married.
Whist parties and divorce courts figure prominent-
ly in the story.
It was at a whist party in Oakland that she
met Sullivan two years ago. Both were ardent
devotees of the game.
SHE HAD HUSBAND.
A mutual admiration for the other's expertness in
the game became successively a warm friendship and
then love. Each admits that. But marriage was
impossible at the time, as Mrs. Amos was not free
of a certain incumbrance in the form of a partially
divorced husband.
On June 13, 1914, Mrs. Amos, who was then Mrs.
Edith Davis, wife of Charles Davis of West Berkeley,
was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce and
given the right to resume her former name of Edith
Amos, acquired through marriage in Australia
nearly twenty years ago.
At the time she first met Sullivan, according to
the deposition, Mrs. Amos was not wealthy. A week
after she obtained her divorce from Davis her mother
died, leaving her a large fortune. Her mother was
the widow of Frank Burke of San Francisco, at one
time one of the leading realty operators in the West.
Mrs. Amos received her final decree from Davis
ten days ago. June 20 had been set as the date of
her marriage to Sullivan, but when he appeared for
the happy event, she spurned him.
The deposition made by Mrs. Amos also sets forth
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 377
that she came to Los Angeles, accompanied by Suli-
van, last August, and they occupied a home which
she purchased on West Vernon avenue and which
she is said to have deeded to him.
In the complaint Sullivan alleges that he had re-
ceived on June 15 last Mrs. Amos' definite promise
to wed him five days later, and that she immediate-
ly thereafter changed her mind. The damages of
50,000 dollars are asked because of the loss of his
business and the humiliation suffered by him.
These breach of promise suits are only one of many
proofs that marriage is regarded as a trade by many,
a condition brought about by the tremenduous social
and industrial revolutions of the last centuries.
Women have come to have a definite value as sale-
able goods subject to damage and therefore a lessen-
ing of value as a desirable ware in the marriage
market.
DIVORCE.
Divorce is a well defined and firmlyestablished
institutiou of the 19th century, -as firmly estab-
lished as that of marriage. Henry C. Whitney, Coun-
selor of the Supreme Court of the United States, in
"Marriage and Divorce" says :
"While it has always been known and practiced
since the era of organized society, it has attained its
highest development in this age of the greatest en-
lightenment, and in this land of the utmost freedom
of conscience and action."
"The names of people from every rank and grade
of society appear on our divorce dockets; and if
divorce be a necessary evil (which we do not believe),
it is one for which general society is responsible, and
indicated either the progress of humanity, or the
demoralization of the age."
There are only two institutions in the United
States which do not recognize divorce: the Roman
Catholic Church and the State of South Carolina.
The law of the State of South Carolina, however,
permits a man "to give or settle for the use and
benefit of said woman with whom he lives in
adultery, or of his bastard child or children
•
one fourth part" of the clear value of his estate,-
thereby making legal the institution of concubinage,
but denying redress and freedom to the husband or
wife injured.
The cry has risen that divorces are of an alarm-
ing, ever-increasing frequency, and pessimists foretell
the disruption of all family life. As a fact, according
to statistics, there is no calling or vocation listed
which human beings enter into which shows so
small a percentage of complete failures as marriage.
Of all marriages contracted, only one per cent. are
dissolved in the divorce court.
It would seem that the proper field for reformers
would be in the social world, and not in the legisla-
tive, in which latter are always to be found those
who would do away completely with the institution
of divorce. If the causes for divorce are eliminated
in society, divorce as a result will diminish of itself.
The greatest cause for divorce mentioned by author-
ities is that of the economic instability of homes
provided by the men. Only a very small percentage
of Americans own their own homes; by far the
greater part live in rented, crowded, shifting dwell-
ings, rarely knowing where they will be a few years
hence. Another great cause for divorce is the modern
business conditions which take the husband away
for the greatest part of the day and the greater
number of evenings and often for long periods at a
time, leaving a young wife at home alone and often
with insufficient interests to occupy her mind and
abilities in the little home. Henry C. Whitney,
quoted above, remarks: "However great may be
the evil of so many divorces, a much greater social
evil would supply its place if the causes for divorce
were suffered to continue, and the remedy of divorce
were withheld."
It is interesting to note that in the eyes of that
curious demi-god, law, a quiet and sane agreement
between husband and wife to be divorced consti-
tutes a complete bar to obtaining such divorce, when
discovered. The law forces them to drag every
pitiful detail of their private disagreements into
public light, and the newspapers rejoice over the
good copy which furnishes the greedy readers with
another day's sensationalism. Below is a summary
of the main causes for which women may obtain
divorce in courts.
Adultery,
natural impotence,
bigamy,
failure or neglect of husband to provide for family,
imprisonment for crime,
force or fraud,
marriage under age,
concealment of loathsome disease at marriage or
contraction of such after marriage,
incompatibility of temper,
desertion,
drunkenness,
disappearance,
insanity,
joining of religious sects during marriage,
living apart,
husband notoriously licentious before marriage.
The most frequent causes for divorce alleged by
women are cruelty, drunkenness, and desertion, while
the cause pleaded mostly by males is adultery.
ALIMONY.
A divorce naturally involves the settlement of
property matters and the question of the future
surport of the children, who are generally awarded
to the innocent party. As a rule, a woman obtain-
ing a divorce, asks for "alimony", that is, a monthly
allowance to defray her living expenses. The con-
dition and station in life of the husband decide the
amount he is to pay her; she is considered within
her right in asking to live in a style befitting the
husband's income and rank. There is no settled
rule as to how much or how little this amount is
to constitute. Most states grant what is generally
known as an "interlocutory decree of divorce,"
ranging from six to twelve months, which is then
followed by a final decree, if so desired by the com-
plaining party. This time is generally allowed in
favor of possible reconciliation. Alimony is payable
during this intervening time also.
PROPERTY RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
An unmarried woman may hold property and
carry on a business under the same conditions as a
man, with the difference that in some states she is
excluded in voting on questions which concern her
property interests, such as taxation, for instance.
A married woman may make a pre-nuptial contract
and by so doing, remain a separate-property holder
during her married life. If she fails to conclude such
a contract, then her property at marriage becomes
"community property" over which the husband has
main control and which becomes liable for all his
obligations. A woman's separate property is not
subject to her husband's control. She may use it
as she chooses without joining with or receiving the
consent of her husband. She may make separate
contracts which are considered as binding on her
separate property. She may bequeath such property
by an ordinary will without the husband's consent.
The number of pre-nuptial contracts arranging for
separate property seems to be on the increase.
In conclusion, let me say that through all the
effort towards obtaining greater economic, social
and political rights for women, there runs a newer,
higher valuation of motherhood and a deeper sense
of personal responsibility towards children. Equal
opportunity for physical, mental and spiritual
growth for every child before and after birth-that
is the highest goal of the present women's movement.
CHILD WAGE-EARNERS.
It is impossible to write of woman's work in the
United States without special reference to the aspect
relating itself to the children of the nation. The day
is rapidly passing when the type of motherhood is
admired which concerns itself only with the most
tender care, protection, and nursing of its own
physical offspring, and knows nothing of and cares
still less about the conditions in which other
women's children live.
Just as the stigma of "old maid," embittering so
many lives in Europe, is rapidly being lifted oft the
shoulders of single women in America, a prize is
being set upon not necessarily physical, but essen-
tially spiritual motherhood. The woman who looks
after the welfare of the greatest number of children is
considered the realest and best type of mother,
whether married or not. A woman like Miss
Addams of Hull House, Chicago, who has brought air
and sunshine into the dark lives of thousands of
children, is known and loved as a mother every-
where.
The tide of immigration, the industrial develop-
ment, and the economic conditions in America have
forced not less than 1,990,225 children between 10
and 15 years of age, (according to the census of
1910) into the wage-earning ranks. 637,086 of these
are girls, whose future potentiality of motherhood
and citizenship is seriously affected and lowered by
the warping effects of unwholesome forced labor. In
the cotton mills of the south, where the most un-
wholesome labor conditions exist, according to the
census of 1910, children under the age of ten are found
working for long hours each day. The age of the
youngest worker is reported as seven. The suffering
of such a childhood can only be imagined, not told,
and the ultimate loss to the nation can not be
calculated. Since the women of the nation have
begun to realize the terrible pity and haunting
shame of such child labor in a country where untold
wealth exists and where thousands of grown men
and women live idle, luxurious lives, they have not
rested in their endeavor to ameliorate and ultimately
abolish this condition. They are trying all avenues
open to them to bring about the end in view. They
work through charity organizations, churches, by
influencing public opinion and public men, and
through the ballot, where they have the use of
it. In the States where woman's suffrage has
not yet been granted, the hope of more successful
work in combating child labor through the
ballot forms one of the strongest incentives
in their effort to obtain the vote. The women
feel that the men have been too busy in their
struggle of opening up and developing a new
country to properly attend to this phase of pro-
tection of the children of the nation, and that
it remains with the mothers of the race to see
to it that the children of the race retain their
uninfringed birthright to a happy, wholesome
childhood. They have been largely instrumental
in creating the nation-wide movement which has
culminated in The National Child Labor Com-
mittee.
This committee has at present a membership of
8300 men and women. It is carrying on a most
active propaganda through the press and by lectur-
ing and aims mostly at the reform of laws. The
following "Vicious Circle" and the "Making of
Human Junk" are taken out of their Panama Pacific
International Exposition Handbook and are intend-
ed to illustrate their methods.
384 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
"THE VICIOUS CIRCLE."
"You all know how the circle goes: child labor,
illiteracy, industrial inefficiency, low wages, long
hours, low standards of living, bad housing, poor
food, unemployment, intemperance, disease, poverty,
child labor, illiteracy, industrial enefficiency, low
wages-but we are repeating. Where does it start
BAD HOUSING、
DISEASE
POVERTY
i
LOW WAGES
ILLITERACY
and where does is end? It is a vicious circle indeed.
If you put an American citizen at any point in this
circle it is likely to lead him to all the rest. The
little child working at the manufacturer's machine
is the one who becomes industrially inefficient."
The objects of the National Child Labor Com-
mittee are:
To promote the welfare of society with respect to
the unemployment of children in gainful occupations.
To investigate and report the facts concerning
child labor.
To raise the standard of public opinion and
parental responsibility with respect to the employ-
ment of children.
WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES 385
To assist in protecting children by suitable legisla-
tion against premature or otherwise injurious
employment, and thus to aid in securing for them an
opportunity for elementary education and physical
development sufficient for the demands of citizenship
and the requirements of industrial efficiency.
To aid in promoting the enforcement of laws
relating to child labor.
To co-ordinate, unify and supplement the work
of state or local child labor committees, and en-
courage the formation of such committees where
they do not exist.
The committee has drafted a uniform child labor
law which was adopted by the National Conference
of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1911,
and is now under consideration. They well illustrate
the attempts to legally regulate the emplyment of
children:
SECTION I. No child under fourteen years of age
shall be employed, permitted or suffered to work in,
about or in connection with any (1) mill, (2) factory,
(3) workshop, (4) mercantile or mechanical estab-
lishment, (5) tenement-house, manufactory or work-
shop, (6) store, (7) office, (8) office building, (9)
restaurant, (10) boarding-house, (11) bakery, (12)
barber shop, (13) hotel, (14) apartment house, (15)
bootblack stand or establishment, (16) public stable,
(17) garage, (18) laundry, (19) place of amusement,
(20) club, (21) or as driver, (22) or in any brick or
lumber yard, (23) or in the construction or repair of
buildings, (24) or in the distribution, transmission
or sale of merchandise, (25) or in the transmission
of messages.
This section, with some modifications, is now in
force in twenty-two States.
SECTION 2. It shall be unlawful for any person,
firm or corporation to employ, permit or suffer to
work any child under fourteen years of age in an
business or service whatever during any of the
hours when the public schools of the district in which
the child resides are in session.
This law is applied in slightly altered form in 14
States.
SECTION 23. No boy under the age of sixteen and
no girl under the age of eighteen years shall be
employed, permitted or suffered to work in, about or
in connection with any establishment or occupation
named in section 1 (1) for more than six days in any
one week, (2) nor more than forty-eight hours in any
week, (3) nor more than eight hours in any one day;
(4) or before the hour of seven o'clock in the morn-
ing or after the hour of six o'clock in the evening.
This section is enforced in 14 States.
The desire on the part of the best and most active
women not only to create the best home and social
conditions for their own children, but for all children
with whom their own may come into contact, is one
of the most broadening and promising movements
of the present time, and the best proof that the
modern woman of America is not losing her
"feminity" in the attempt to get "equal rights with
men", but is in reality only deepening and widening
her motherhood to embrace and protect and cheer
all that come into contact with her.
In India we are led to think that caste distinc-
tions are a peculiarity of Hinduism and are to be
found nowhere else in the world. It is true that the
caste system, as developed by Hinduism, is perhaps
unique. Nowhere has it been organized on such a
scale and to such an extent as in Hindu India. But
the principles and the reasons on which caste is
based in Hinduism are by no means entirely peculiar
to that system.
It is remarkable that the original Sanskrit term
denoting caste should be an equivalent of the
English word "color." The English word Caste
means "jat," which is not to be found in any
authoritative exposition of Hindu Law or Hindu
religion. These latter talk of "varna," but never
of "jat" or "jat dharma."
Similarly, speaking of what are practically caste
distinctions in America, American writers of all
classes and creeds speak of "color line" or "color
prejudice." The word caste also occurs frequently
in their writings, in fact more frequently than it
occurs either in ancient or in classical Sanskrit, but
not so markedly or so often as the "color line." This
leads one to think that the caste system in India
owed its origin to probably the same considera-
tions and causes as are to be found at the bottom
of the caste feeling in the United States of America.
In his chapter on "the color line," Mr. Haworth,
an American writer, remarks that if the subject be
considered in all its aspects, "it is hardly too much
to say that the problem of the color line is one of the
biggest problems of the ages."* That gifted Negro
writer, Dr. Du Bois, so often referred to in my
articles on the Negro problem in America, also re-
marks in rather striking language that the color
question is the problem of the twentieth century.
His book, "The Souls of Black Folk," is a most
forcible, pathetic and masterly exposition of the in-
iquity of the color distinctions in this country. The
best American writers are agreed that in beauty
of composition, grandeur of style and artistic
expression, the book stands unsurpassed in the
whole range of American literature. Yet such is the
strength of the color prejudice in this country that
this great writer (although fair in color) would not
be admitted into any restaurant, hotel, or theater,
in the capital of the Union Government. A Harvard
professor of economics told me how once, on the
occasion of a conference of the sociologists of the
United States, after the sitting of the conference was
over, he with other American (white) professors ex-
pressed a desire that they should in a body go to an
eating place and continue their talk, in reply to
which Dr. Du Bois remarked that the only eating
place open to him was the refreshment room of the
railway station, and how eventually all of them had
to go there in order to have the pleasure of Dr. Du
Bois' company.
Yet even a superficial observer of American life
takes no time to find out that "color" plays a very
subordinate part in the prejudice. The prejudice is
not even racial or political. There are thousands,
possibly hundreds of thousands of colored men in
the United States, having "white" blood in their
veins, who are as fair (if not even fairer in some
cases) as the purest blooded white American, to
whom the bar of color applies as rigidly as to the
blackest black, having no white blood at all. The
same may be said about the Chinese and the
Japanese. I am disposed to think that the preju-
dice is even less racial than economic and political.
Most Americans know that the Hindus come from
the same stock as the Europeans; yet they exclude
them from America even more rigorously than the
blacks of Africa. Again, it is not right to say the
white American hates the Negro for his color or for
his race. There are millions of white people in the
United States who place the most implicit faith in
the loyalty and reliability of the blacks; millions of
them employ them in the closest relations of life
as cooks, as general servants, as gate-keepers, as
attendants, even as guards. There are millions of
them who would prefer them over white servants
and would entrust them not only with the care of
their property, but even with the care and honor of
their women.
The same may be said of the Chinese and the
Japanese on the Pacific Coast, though possibly not
to the same extent and with the same force. The
prejudice only enters when the Negro begins to claim
political or civil equality.
It is again remarkable that, as in India, so in
America, the discrimination against people of
different color (between the Varnas of the Hindus)
should be manifested in almost identical ways, i.e.
over and above the political distinctions, color
should be a bar to interdining and inter-marriage.
Color also stands for different standards of justice
and education. The worst features of the code of
Manu find their parallel in American life. So far as
the former is concerned, perhaps they were the ideals
set up by a highly jealous and exclusive priesthood
to guard against the mixing and intermingling of
the different Varnas and against the possible low-
ering of their own status in society, but in
America they are actual facts observed in everyday
life and for which the whole body politic is respon-
sible.
Now let us see how it works. Of the political
and educational disqualifications of the Negro we
have already spoken in two previous chapters.
The Asiatics also partially share those disqualifica-
tions, more particularly on the Pacific Coast. Con-
ditions of justice and interdining, too, I have in-
cidentially mentioned. There are no Negro Judges.
The punishments meted out to Negroes are different,
severer, and more exacting than those ordinarily
administered to the white man for the same offences.
It hundreds of cases the Negro is judged by the
mob rather than by courts of justice. He is burnt
alive or hanged for suspected offences for which
the white would only receive a sentence of im-
prisonment, or in some cases only of fine.
Will Mr. Farquahar, who is so hard on Hinduism,
tell us in what respect this is different from the
punishments prescribed in the current code of Manu
for Sudras offending against the Brahmin?
Then, as regards interdining, no white would sit
on the same table with the colored man. On the
Pacific Coast they would not sit on the same table
with the Asiatic ; and this even if the Negro and the
Asiatic are Christians. (A Christian Negro is not
admitted into the churches of Christ maintained by
white congregations). Nay, they are not admitted
into the white man's restaurants, cafes, lunchrooms
and hotels. Then, once a Negro, always a Negro.
The disqualification can never cease, even if the
Negro becomes a minister of the Church of Christ or
obtains the doctor's degree of the most exacting of
American seats of learning. The worst is that even
the fusion of the white blood does not improve the
social position of the Negro. In India, the issue of
a
Sudra woman by a Brahmin father achieves
a higher social position than that of his mother.
In fact, there are some authorities on Hindu Law
who hold that the son of a Brahmin from a Sudra
woman is a Brahmin, The Hindu epics are full of
such instances. The great Veda Vyas, the compiler
of the Vedas, one of the greatest names in Hindu
literature, was treated as a Brahmin of the
highest order, though his mother was a
Sudra woman.
That is by no means
solitary instance. Dr. Du Bois, however, continues
to be a Negro and is being treated as a Negro. I
know of another gentleman, Dr. Hope, President of
the Morehouse College at Atlanta, who, like his
wife, is as fair-colored as any white man or woman
can be. Both are the children of white fathers. Both
are highly educated. Dr. Hope's father had to
bequeath his property to his children by name. The
law forbade his mentioning them as his sons or
daughters. Yet Dr. Hope has to occupy a back seat
in a street car and give up the front seats to the
most ignorant, dark-colored, white scoundrel. Neither
the fact of their fathers being white people, nor that
their own color is fair, nor their education and learn-
ing is of the slightest help to them so far as their
social and political status is concerned. It is a
standing comment on the doctrine of the equality of
men and of universal brotherhood preached by Chris-
tianity.
Christian laws forbid the Negro loving a white
girl and having issue by her, but they give a free
license to a white man having negro concubines. We
are told by Mr. Haworth (p. 138, America in Fer-
ment) that illicit relations are "decidedly more com-
mon between the male Caucasian and the female
Negro" and that "race prejudice does not prevent
illicit unions." "It is a strange paradox of human
nature", continues Mr. Haworth, "that men who
declaim most loudy against race equality will some-
times stoop to the most intimate relations with
colored women possible between human beings." He
illustrates this by a quotation from another writer,
Mr. Ray Staunard Baker, who has related the follow-
ing story in one of his books. "In one town I visited,"
says Mr. Baker, "I heard a white man expressing
with great bitterness his feeling against the Negro
race, arguing that the Negro must be kept down,
else it would lead to the mongrelization of the
white race. The next morning, as chance would have
it, another white man with whom I was walking,
pointed out to me a neat cottage, the home of the
Negro family of the white man who had talked with
me on the previous evening. And I saw this man's
colored children in the yard." According to the
census figures of 1910 no less than 29 per cent. of
the Negro population were mulattoes,* i.e., over two
millions.
To me it seems that the Hindu Aryans of India
never applied the color bar so rigidly as the
Christian whites of the United States of America
are doing today, in the 20th century of the Christian
era. Yet Christian writers who dare not raise their
voice against the color line in the U. S. A., have no
hesitation in sitting in judgment on Hindus and
denouncing them and their religious system for the
institution of caste. Of course, there are noble
exceptions among the white Americans, who are
ashamed of the color prejudice and there are some
states in the Union which have made some attempts
to give them equal treatment, but the very fact of
these exceptions proves the intensity and the
rigidity of the general rule.
Some time ago I had occasion to go to a moving
picture show where they were showing the play of
"Ku Klux Clansman," also called the Birth of a
Nation. This is a play in which the Negro is shown
in the worst possible colors. It professes to show
lite in the South in the years immediately following
the abolition of slavery. Every episode in the play
makes the most irresistible appeal to the passions of
the white people. The audience at times reaches the
highest pitch of race hatred. Wherever it is produced,
the show attracts the most crowded houses. Seats
are booked several days in advance. To me, this is a
better and surer index of Christian feeling in this
country than any number of books written by
Christian missionaries. Some of the best and the
wisest of American writers of fame deplore this
feeling, but they are helpless in the face of the
universal hold which the feeling has over the
country.
The subject has had a great fascination for me,
and wherever I have been in the course of my
ramblings in this country, I have tried to probe the
best minds on the point. At New York, I put a
direct question to the greatest sociologist of the
Columbia University as to how, in his opinion, the
problem was going to be solved. The reply was
very discouraging and depressing. The amalgama-
tion of the two races was, in his opinion, im-
possible. The intensity of the race prejudice might
or perhaps will lessen in course of time. In some
cases, the mention of the subject at the table or
in conversation at a social function was declared
to be bad taste. In two cases, my
hostesses, very kind to me personally and expressing
a great admiration for Hindus and Hinduism, flew
into a sort of temper at my even remotely suggest-
ing that the Negro was not having a fair and
square deal in this country. "Oh, Mr. Rai", said
one of them, "you do not know how wicked the
modern Negroes in this country are. The old genera-
tion was very good, even lovable. They knew
their place and were very faithful servants.
My father had a Negro gardener, and he was a
dear. We used to love him; but the new genera-
tion are so wicked that every time I went
out for a ride in Virginia, my father armed me
with a revolver lest a Negro might assault
me." The wife of a University professor in
one of the mid-Western states expressed similar
sentiments. All this is evidence of the deep-rooted
prejudice that defies all education and enlightenment.
To me the prospect of the disappearance of the
caste feeling in America, in the near future at least,
seems to be very meagre. And this in spite of the
fact that the best mind of the nation is engaged in
disproving the theory of inherent intellectual or
social inferiority in any race of men merely by reason
of their physical differences. One of the most advanc-
ed and respected thinkers of America, Professor
Royce of the Harvard University, had examined the
subject in a masterly essay, wherein, after summariz-
ing the scientific evidence on the question, he says:
"In brief, there is hardly any one thing that our
actual knowledge of the human mind enables us to
assert with any scientific exactness, regarding the
permanent, the hereditary, the unchangeable mental
characteristics which distinguish even the most widely
sundered physical varieties of mankind."* Later on
he concludes that "our so-called race problems are
merely the problems caused by our antipathies.”
These antipathies he considers to be "extremely capri-
cious and extremely suggestive mental phenomena"
which on closer examination are nothing but
"illusions." We all have illusions, says he, but let us
not hug them. Let us not sanctify them by the
name of science.
The color line, however, is not the only caste line in
the Western world, though that is the most obvious
and one that obtrudes itself rather too prominently
and too frequently. A century ago there were four
well known and well recognized castes in Europe,
viz., that of the serf, who had no freedom of action,
that of the ordinary labourer, who had some free-
dom, that of the trader, and that of the feudal lord.
The fifth was that of the priest. The priest and the
feudal lord were almost above the law. They were
the law-makers and they were the judges. The
social interchange between them was extremely cir-
cumscribed and the chances of one's rising higher
than the caste in which he was born were only
few and far between, though there was no such bar
as was till lately to be found in the Hindu system.
Under modern conditions, however, that has been
considerably changed; but the workmen, whether
skilled or unskilled, still constitute a caste, and so do
the hereditary nobility in England and Germany.
The liberal and the social writers often speak of the
governing class or classes. The most celebrated
writers of the West speak of the submerged caste.
The so-called labor unions are nothing more than
closed castes based on contract and mutual under-
standing, but not on birth. There are no rigid bars
to interdining and inter-marriage between these
castes, but the prejudice is so strong, para-
mount, well established and widespread that it
works as a practical bar. The love marriage of a
noble lord with a common girl is considered to be
romantic.
America is a ready market for financially embar-
rassed lords and barons of Europe, who readily ex-
change their titles for a substantial bank account
and a wife into the bargain. Marriages between
parties of unequal social position are still looked
at askance. Fallen women are the outcasts of
society and are denied all chances of regaining their
lost caste. The position of the factory laborer is
only a bit different from that of the old time serf.
The feudal system is gone, but the modern industrial
system is almost as cruel and crushing and demoral-
izing as the former. It is hard to distinguish the
modern industrial magnates from the old time feudal
lords except that a feudal lord could never set aside
his serfs and was bound to maintain them and give
them protection even when disabled either by age or
by accident, which the modern industrial lord is not
bound to do unless forced by law under certain
circumstances.
My readers will thus see that America is doubly
caste-ridden. It is ridiculous, therefore, to talk of the
existence of the caste system as a bar to political
advancement on the lines of the West; nor does it lie
in the mouth of the American missionary in India to
talk disparagingly of Hinduism for that reason.
This, however, does not justify caste. The rigid caste
system we have in India is, without doubt, a social
curse and cannot but be denounced in the most
unmeasured terms. The Indian social reformer is
quite justified in attacking the absurd and inhuman
rigidity of the Hindu caste system without necessari-
ly attacking Hinduism. The current ideas on caste
are not a necessary part of Hinduism or of the Hindu
religion. The ancient division was well suited to the
times and based on fundamentally right ideas. The
world has yet to produce a class of high-minded,
noble-spirited, self-denying and unselfish leaders of
society such as the ancient Brahmins of India were.
The democracies of the West know it to their cost
how hard it is to get laws made which would secure
them justice and protection against the blood-
sucking and soul-killing devices of the capitalist.
They have yet to discover that the legislators of a
nation should be men who have no interest in pro-
perty, in business, in trade, in capitalism, or in
industries. No comparison can be instituted
between the Brahmin legislators of ancient India
and the capitalist legislators of the modern world.
Both are liable to fall. After centuries of disinter-
ested and pure legislation, the Brahmins fell and
misused their power and influence in forging chains
of intellectual bondage for the bulk of the nation.
They gave themselves divine honors and pretended
to save the souls of men in exchange for pecuniary
offerings, i.e., like the Popes of Rome, but they did
not establish a soul-killing industrial system such as
the modern industrial Brahmins of the West have
done, I would at any time rather be ruled by a
Rabindranath Tagore than by a magnate of Wall
Street.
Yes, this is all true, but that does not in any way
lessen the paramount duty we educated Hindus owe
to our society and to our country of removing the
obnoxious caste barriers that stand in the way of
social consolidation, intellectual progress and
political advancement. We must do away with
them as soon as we can. Hence all honour to those
who are engaged in the work, particularly that
department of it which concerns the uplift of the
depressed classes and the untouchables. America
has its own untouchables, but their condition is in
some respects even better than that of the best edu-
cated and the most enlightened among the Indian
castes. This for reasons which I need not state.
For long I had cherished a desire to visit all
those parts of the world where there were a large
number of Indians either settled or temporarily
congregated for purposes of study or labor. When I
actually left my home in April 1914, I had no
intention of staying out longer than six months.
England and parts of Europe were the only places
I proposed to visit.
On reaching England,
however, and after the Komagata Maru incident,
the desire to visit the British dominions and colonies
grew stronger. When I met Mr. Henry Baurassa,
the Canadian statesman, in London, on the sugges-
tion of Mr. Charles Roberts, the Under Secretary of
State for India, I spoke to him ot my desire to visit
Canada and received encouraging promises of help
from him. About the same time I received an invita-
tion from one of the Sikh leaders in Canada. My
desire and intentions were beginning to take more
definite shape when the war broke out and I con-
sidered it expedient to postpone my visit to Canada
and other parts of the British Empire.
In November, however, after I had finished my
book on the Arya Samaj, I decided to pay my
second visit to the United States. The object was
to know more of that fascinating land, to study
the social and political conditions that prevail
there, to cultivate acquaintance with a few at least
of its intellectual leaders, to get first-hand knowledge
of its system of education and to find out what
opportunities we had of training our young men
there. Along with it went a strong desire of know-
ing as intimately as possible the conditions of
Indians that had settled in America, and also
why the American prejudice against Hindu
immigration had developed so strongly in recent
years.
The very first day I landed at New York, I saw
several Indian faces. They were Bengalee gentlemen
who had come to receive our distinguished country-
man Prof. J. C. Bose and his wife. During my
stay in New York I came across about two scores
or more of my countrymen, Bengalees, Panjabee,
Mahrattas, belonging to almost all the great com-
munities of India. I also had the pleasure of
meeting two of my countrywomen, one a Baroda
State scholar studying at one of the women's
colleges, and the other a Parsi lady. Then at Boston
I met about a dozen Indians coming from different
provinces and belonging to different religions. Most
of them were studying at Harvard. Here also I met
a Parsi lady who had been there for several years
with her husband. At Chicago I met about a dozen
or more Indian students coming from all provinces
and belonging to all communities. At the Illinois
University, Champaine, there were about fourteen or
fifteen students, mostly from Bengal and the Panjab,
including one Mahommedan gentleman. There are
a number of Indians at the Universities of Michigan,
Wisconsin, Ohio, Cornell, from whom I received
invitations which for want of time and for other
reasons I could not accept.
More or less, Indians are spread over all the
United States-or for the matter of that, all over the
continent of America. They are to be found as far
North as Alaska and as far South as Brazil,
Argentine, and Chili. There are large numbers of
them in Mexico, in Central America, and in British
Guiana. In North America, the area where they are
located in largest numbers, is the Pacific Coast
from Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, in the
North, to Panama in the South. The bulk of them
are Panjabees and Sikhs ; there are a few U. P. men
and a few Bombayites, a few Bengalee students and
a very few Madrasi students. It is impossible to
fix their exact numerical strength, but it runs into
thousands and in all probability their number ex-
ceeds ten thousand on the Pacific Coast alone. By
religion, they are Hindus or Sikhs, with a fair
sprinkling of Mahommedans. Our readers will thus
see that so far as numbers are concerned, India is
better represented in America than in Europe.
Now I will classify them :
(1) Intellectually or educationally at the top,
among those who are not actually studying at some
university, are the religious preachers, most of whom
belong to the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Mission.
They are called Swamis. There are some Swamis,
however, who are not connected with the Vivek-
anand Mission. There are some religious preachers
who are neither connected with the Vivekanand
Mission, nor are they Swamis, but their number is
exceedingly small. Vedanta centres are connected
with the Vivekananda Mission in almost all the most
important cities of America. I know of such centres
in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Los
Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco. I think there are
some at other places also. At New York, Boston,
and San Francisco they have buildings of their own.
Every centre has its own organisation and its own
funds. With the exception that they are all Vedanta
centres, there is apparently no other link connecting
them with one another. The great majority of their
constituents are women. Except at New York, all
the centres are reputed to be well off financially. The
centre at New York is financially in straightened
circumstances, due to no fault of the Swami who is
just now in charge of the centre. The Swamis do
not form a large class, but inspite of their limited
numbers they are a very important group.
(2) The class next in importance, though larger
in size, is that of the students. The students may be
divided into three classes :
(a) those who receive money from home or from
some public organisation or from some State. This
number is exceedingly small;
(b) those who receive some help from home and
are partially supporting themselves by work. They
also are few ;
(c) those who depend entirely upon their own
work. Their number is the largest.
The Indian student in America is a prodigy of
enterprise and industry and resourcefulness. The
story of his struggle against adverse circum-
stances reads like romance. It makes one proud of
the coming generation of one's countrymen. A good
many of these students left their homes without the
permission or against the will of their parents.
Some of them perhaps had no parents or other rela-
tives to advise them. Some had no funds in their
pockets when they left home, or just sufficient to
bring them to some seaport out of India, where they
could find work and earn enough to take them to
the next seaport, until they reached one of the
American ports with at least 150 or more Rupees in
their pockets.
I know of one young man, a Panjabee, who
walked on foot from New York to Chicago (a
distance of 1200 miles) without a single penny in
his pocket. He slept on roadsides and earned his
food by whatever work he could pick up in the
course of his journey. This young man had studied
in an Anglo-Sanskrit School in the Panjab up to
the Entrance Standard. I know another young
man, also a Panjabee, who did not know a word
of English when he reached this country about eight
years ago and who is now in the highest class at
the University of California in the Engineering
Department. His knowledge of English is still very
poor, but in his class he is among the best students
and the University honors him by appointing him
to mark the answer papers of the Junior students
in mathematics.
Some of those who left their homes with the
object of prosecuting their studies in America, gave
up all idea of university education when they reach-
ed here, and joined the ranks of their countrymen to
work on farms or ranches or wherever they conld get
work. I found one such (an old student of the High
Department of the Anglo-Sanskrit School Hushiar-
pur) working in an asparagus field in the State of
California. I found another (a vernacular middle
passed) doing the same work in another neighbor-
hood. I know of two Aggarwal youths of fairly
well-to-do families of a Panjab District, who left
their homes with very little money in their pockets,
worked their way to America and are now in a
fairly good position from a financial point of view.
One of them has graduated from a business college ;
the other is a domestic servant in an American
family near Los Angeles and hopes to join a univer-
sity after he has saved sufficient to put him through
the university. In the Panama Pacific Exposition
there are a number of Indians rolling wheel chairs.
In some cases the stories of their struggles are
heartrending. Picture to yourself an Aggarwal
young man of U. P., coming from a respectable
family, working on a railroad track under con-
struction, either cutting stones or doing other hard
work, sleeping on the ground at night and cooking
his food in tin cans thrown on the road by way-
farers. Some of the most brilliant university
students have to work as waiters or domestic
servants or fruit pickers or farm hands, or other-
wise to earn money in order to follow their course
when the university is in session. Others work for a
year and then read for a year and so on.
Among them, of course, are some black sheep who
occasionally cheat or defraud their own countrymen
or earn money in ways not quite honorable. For
example some give lectures under Christian auspices
and draw revolting pictures of the conditions of
things in their own country. They caricature their
people and thus win the sympathy of the public for
the various missions that employ them. Some pose
in photoplays and thus help the companies living on
sensational shows to caricature conditions in their
country. A few become the tools of that army of
adventurers who trade under the name of spiritualists,
clairvoyants, mind readers, professors of psychic
knowledge, astrologers, palmists, and so on. I have
heard that some even go to the length of fomenting
quarrels among their own countrymen so as to get
the chance of serving as interpreters when their
cases go to court. It is possible that some of these
stories are exaggerated or are the outcome of malice
or jealousy, but in any case the number of such black
sheep is very small and the motherland has every
reason to be proud of the hundreds of Indians who
have within the last fifteen years been educated in
America.
What pleases me most is their spirit of enterprise
and their industry. Here they are in a country
thousands of miles distant from their home, amid
strange people, with strange customs and manners,
with absolutely no organisation* to encourage them,
It is true that the Hindu students in America have
organised themselves into the Hindusthanee Students' Association
of America, but as it is, for lack of financial support the
Association cannot be of much practical use to them. The
to help them, in case of need, to watch their interests,
or to befriend them in any way whatsoever. Add to
this the volume of prejudice against which they have
to battle to get work. First, there is the color
prejudice; secondly, there is the race prejudice;
thirdly, there is the prejudice of religion; fourthly,
they have the powerful force of organized white
labor against them. Last but not least they are
absolutely new to the work. At home they could
not even think of ever doing such work. In school,
they received no training for it. What little educa-.
tion they received in Indian schools was purely liter-
ary and had unfitted them to use their hands in
manual labor. Yet they struggle against all these
forces and in the majority of cases come out success-
ful. At times perhaps they have to starve or to live
only on bread and water; at times some among
them have to pass a night under the shadow of a
tree or by concealing themselves in a railway car.
They do all this and cultivate a spirit of self-reliance
and self-confidence which they lacked so much when
they were at home.
In the university centers I have visited, I heard
university professors praising their industry and
Association keeps clear of politics and can be very useful if
properly financed. I think it is only due to the younger genera-
tion of Indians struggling for education against heavy odds in
this country, that some philanthropist should come to their
rescue and make some provision for the proper support of this
Association and for enabling the latter to help students in crises.
At times, as I have said above, our students get stranded and
find themselves in an awful situation.
sobriety. For some, the professors have genuine
praise, and as a class they have nothing against
them. At every university I found some in the pro-
fessorial staff who take special interest in Hindu
students, who welcome them to their homes and
take pleasure in befriending them in such ways as
they can. At every center there are some women
either among the wives of the professors or outside
the university who take motherly or sisterly interest
in Hindu students and give them every kind of en-
couragement. Now this could not be if the "Hindu"*
students in America were as a class undesirable.
On the whole I am proud of the "Hindu" students
in America and the country of their birth has no
reason to be ashamed of them. My complaint
against them is that on their return home they do
not display that spirit or that respect for labor
which pulled them through in this country.
(3) The third and the largest class of Indians to
be found in America are the laborers who have been
attracted by the high rates of wages that prevail in
this country. This is not the place to discuss or to
give a detailed account of the economic values of the
country, but this much may be stated that the wages
for unskilled labor range from one dollar (three
rupees) to three dollars a day. Two dollars a day,
i.e. six rupees, may be considered to be a fair aver-
age for a working day of nine to ten hours. Conse-
quently the cost of living, too, is very high, but the
Indian coolie, or peasant or farmer, is a proverbially
frugal person and can live on very little. As a rule
the Hindu laborer on the Pacific Coast cooks his own
food. Those who work in the fields or on farms
or on ranches can get any amount of vege-
tables or fruits in the fruit season for nothing.
For the rest, wheat flour does not cost more
here than in India. Milk, butter, and oils are
as cheap or as dear as at home. Meat no doubt
costs more, but not so eggs. The Indian laborer
cares little for meat; he does not smoke; nor does he
spend much money on coffee or tea. He however
drinks liquor and many a hard earned dollar goes
into the cash register of the saloon keeper. Yet every
one does not drink and those who do not drink save
considerable. Even those who indulge in strong
drinks save something for the rainy day.
As a worker, the Indian laborer is very conscien-
tious and efficient ; particularly on farms and ranches.
Judged from the output or from the standard of
efficiency, he is very much sought after, particularly
by the employers of agricultural labor. But for his
race and color, he would never be out of employment
and there would be room enough for hundreds and
thousands more. Ten or fifteen years ago, there was
no prejudice against him, but during this period the
volume of prejudice has grown thick and fast. The
reasons for this are various. I propose to examine
them one by one.
First, he is in most cases illiterate; but so are a
fair proportion of immigrants from Europe. On page
81 of his book "America in Ferment", Paul Leland
Haworth says:
"Most of the immigrants are poor and, much
more serious, most of them are ignorant. Of the
838,172 who came in 1912, over 177,000 were
unable either to read or write and comparatively
few were well educated."
Secondly, he can live very cheaply and his sur-
roundings are unclean, and his moral and civic
standards are low. Now so far as moral standards
are concerned, it is ridiculous to say that the moral
standard of the Indian is in any way inferior to that
of an average American or European of the same
class. It is in no way worse, if not better. As for
cheap living and unclean habits here again I do not
think there is much difference between the poor Euro-
pean immigrant and the Hindu laborer. Speaking
of the Slovaks from Hungary, Mr. Haworth, an
American writer already quoted, remarks that
"Their (i.e., the Slovaks') standard of living is
almost as low as that of the Chinese. They herd
promiscuously in any room, shed or cellar, with little
regard to sex or sanitation. Their demand for water
is but very limited for the use of the outer body as
well as the inner. They drink 'Slivovitz,' a sort of
brandy made from potatoes or prunes. They wear
sandals and caps and clothes of sheepskin, which
latter also serve as their bed. They are excessively
ignorant."
With a view to having a first-hand knowledge
about these matters, I have been to a few places
where the Sikh laborer on the Pacific Coast works
and lives. I have also been to places where the
European laborer works and lives. To me there
seems to be very little difference between the two,
except that the Sikh on account of his head dress and
color can be easily distinguished from the rest of the
laboring population, whether American or foreign,
while the different nationalities among the white
foreign laborer cannot be so easily made out. In the
matter of living and personal habits of cleanliness,
I am afriad, there is hardly anything to choose be-
tween the two; but if at all, the contrast would be
favourable to the Sikh in fifty cases out of a hundred.
The non-American white laborer cannot be easily
made out from his American fellow laborer and he
mixes with the latter on terms of equality. The
Sikhs who have removed their hair and put on hats
can easily pass as Spaniards or Mexicans or South
Americans. Similarly, in the matter of drinking
and kicking up rows when drunk, the Sikh has the
disadvantage of being immediately identified as such
-a disadvantage which the white laborer does not
share with him even if he is not American.
It would be thus easily seen that these objections
have nothing serious in them. The real objection
lies in a prejudice which has been accentuated by
economic considerations. The Hindu is a formidable
rival in the field of labor as well as trade. So is the
Jew. The Jew, however, has a white skin and has
adopted the habits and manners of the European.
He has been accepted to be as good as a European.
So neither the racial nor the color prejudice stands
in his way. The Hindu is also Caucasian by race, it
is true, but then his color and his habits and man-
ners are so different that the Europeans are not
prepared to acknowledge that his racial origin is the
same as theirs. So the consideration shown to the
Jew is not extended to the Hindu. More or less all
Asiatics share the prejudice which is shown against
the Hindu, but the political status of the Japanese
and the Chinese being higher at home gives them
advantage over the Hindu. The Jap has to be
tolerated because he is "a citizen of a country which
recently whipped one of the great powers."* Against
the Chinese, the Americans do not feel the same
bitterness as they display against the Jap or the
Hindu. The former they hate; the latter they hold
in scorn; but the Chinese they pity. China is
America's protege and the Chinaman in the United
States, though dreaded as a competitor in the labor
market and therefore now absolutely shut out by
law, is otherwise petted. The Sikh has intensified
the prejudice against him by his pagri (turban) and
by his long hair.
Personally I have nothing but praise for this
trait of his character. Go wherever he may, he
maintains his Indian character; he keeps his dis-
tinctive dress and cooks his own food. A vast
majority of them preserve their national prejudices
and sentiments. The uneducated Hindu and Sikh
laborer does not eat beef. I met a Brahmin of
Hushiarpur at Los Angeles, who, during the five
years he has been in this country, has never tasted
the American bread and has never even for once eaten
at any of the American restaurants. He is a strict
vegetarian as many others are. On the other hand it
is hard to come across a Hindu student who does not
take beef. I have so far met only two Mahommedan
students. One of them was strict in his religious
prejudices; the other partook as freely of pork as
the Hindus do of beef. The uneducated Mahommed-
ans, however, are strict in the matter of diet. They
do not take pork nor do they touch fat. I had the
honor of being entertained by them at a strictly
Indian dinner cooked by themselves.* Those
Mahommedans who can pass as Persians or
Turks or even as Egyptians, are better treated. The
Indians (called Hindus regardless of their creed) are
however universally despised in other than learned
or cultured circles, but from what I have seen of my
Hindu, Sikh, or Mahommedan countrymen of this
coast, I have nothing but respect for them. They
are as a rule warm and generous patriots, hospit-
able and courteous.
Among the Sikhs and Hindus liquor creates havoc.
The reason is obvious; they have no other diversion.
In the absence of female society, in the absence of
leaders to whom to look for guidance or example
or precept, in the absence of a superior social
strata to mix with even occasionally, in the absence
of any real recreation and amusement to forget the
hard toil of the day, they see no harm in burying
their fatigue and in purchasing temporary forgetful-
ness of the cares of the world in a draught of beer or
in a peg of whisky. Once in a saloon and once hav-
ing started, some of them forget where to leave oft
and have to be carried away to their rooms by their
comrades or shut up in the lock-up by the police.
* Some people are not disposed to attach much importance to
the question of what they eat, but I do. In my view the question
is one of stamina and character.
The Sikh in America, whether in Canada or in the
United States, must have donated hundreds of
thousands of dollars for the Panth, but the Panth
has done precious little for them. There are Sikh
Gurdwaras in both countries, where Sikh Scriptures
are kept and where Granthis are stationed and
maintained, but no class of human beings can live on
credal religion alone. Religion cannot fill all their
life outside work. The religious leaders have by
overzeal added to their difficulties. For example,
they brought nothing but ridicule on themselves by
insisting on singing Bhajans and doing Kirtans to.
the accompaniment of Sikh instruments of music,
like the Kartal, Dholki, etc., in the streets of Stockton.
I have not so far heard of any attempts having been
made to educate them, to create and encourage a
habit of reading among them, to establish social and
recreative centres for them and otherwise to cater to
their social and physical desires on wholesome lines.
The Sikh and the Hindu laborer on this coast
have been exploited in turns by the religious and the
political fanatic, but neither of them has done any-
thing for him in the way of supplying him intellec-
tual or social food or creating for him a healthy
social and mental atmosphere.
Oh how I wish that some worthy Indians were
to consecrate their lives to the service of these men,
cater to their intellectual and social wants and
guide them out of harm's way. Any one attempt-
ing to do that, will have a tough battle to fight
and can only succeed if in addition to disinterested
devotion to duty and love of his countrymen, he
gives not only his time free, but also finds
funds for his cause outside of America, for these
people have become extermely suspicious of those
who ask them to contribute. They have so often
been cheated and imposed upon, that they now
strongly resent being asked to pay either in the name
of patriotism or philanthropy or religion; yet both
the religious and the political movements are
financed by them.
Besides, for want of an organization to look
after their material interests, in the absence of
intellectual and business leaders, with none of their
class in the banking or trading circles, they do not
get the full value of their labour and are oftener
than not deceived and defrauded. Both Indian
and American sharpers victimize them. They are a
fine, good-looking, hard-working, simple-minded,
honest, warmhearted set of people, these "Hindu"
laborers (including Sikhs and Mahommedans) on
the Pacific Coast, and my heart goes forth to them
in love and sympathy. Except in one or two in-
stances, I have seen and studied them without
disclosing my identity. I have partaken of their
prasada (their bread and vegetable and meat)
without their knowing exactly who I was and
whence I had come and why I was there. Of course
they have their own hotels and eating places as
the American hotels and restaurants would not
receive them. The Chinese and some of the Japanese
hotels and restaurants are, however, open to them
and such of them as wear hats may even go to
American hotels and restaurants. In the South
and in the West of America, the position of the
Hindu is rather curious. In the South he is con-
founded with the Negro and the only way to
escape the indignities, that are heaped on the Negro
there, is to put on a turban. In the West, a
turban has to be scrupulously tabooed, because
with a turban you stand the chance of being ex-
cluded from hotels, restaurants and theaters and
of being looked down upon.
I am of opinion that public bodies in India
should find out some means of improving the lot
of the Hindu laborers on this coast. The immigra-
tion department admits no more Hindus into the
United States. There is no law forbidding their
entrance as such, but the laws and regulations are
so administered as to shut out and effectively ex-
clude the Hindu from entering America, unless he
comes on a short visit or for purposes of trade
with plenty of money in his pockets, or as a
student with sufficient evidence that he would be
supported from home. Those however, who are
already here, have no intentions of leaving the
country soon. It would be a good thing if some
way could be found to let them send for their
womenfolk.
THE SWAMIS.
The orthodox Christians of America and the
churches do not like the Hindu Swami or the Hindu
lecturer. They not only encroach upon their pre-
serves, and are considered as poachers, but they
help in disillusioning the people of America as to
the civil and religious conditions of that "heathen"
country. With the exception of a few high class Hindu
teachers of the class of Swami Vivekananda and
Swami Ram Tirtha, the general run of Swamis that
come to this country are not above criticism. Their
youth, their style of living, their lack of experience of
the world and other things create enemies for them. I
am afraid they are by no means the best representa-
tives of Hinduism. Inspite of misrepresentation and
misstatements made by missionaries, Hinduism in
the best circles of this country stands for high spirit-
uality, high ethics, mysticism, purity of life and high
morality. I have no reason to say that the Swamis
that come to this country are anything but good
men, but surely they are not the best representatives
of Hinduism. Oftener than not, their knowledge of
their own scriptures is poor; their age subjects them
to temptations which are fatal to their mission ;
their pretensions to high spirituality or yogic or
psychic powers place them on a level with American
dabblers in occultism and with professional clair-
voyants. The fact that they depend for their main-
tenance and wants and also for the maintenance of
their organization upon the support of Americans, also
brings in a spirit of greed and commercialism which
is alien to the true spirit of Hinduism and tends to
bring discredit sometimes. In fixing prices for admis-
sion to lectures or classes and in asking for offerings
at the end of lectures, they adopt the American spirit
of commercialism which jars on Hindu ears and
drags them down to the level of professional men.
At times in their eagerness to manage their affairs
well, and efficiently, they take lodgers in their build-
ings and deal with them on strictly business lines.
All this takes away from their character of places of
worship or places of "Dharma" and stamps upon
them the trade mark of American commercialism.
To me it seems absurd and quite opposed to the
spirit of the Hindu Shastras that a young man of 20
or 25 or 30 years of age should assume the position
of a religious teacher or preacher, especially when he
has not passed through the first three Ashramas and
has not undergone the discipline that is necessary for
the conquest of the senses and without which one
does not acquire the experience of human nature and
human weaknesses which is so essential for a suc-
cessful preacher. It is bad that modern religious
movements in India should have to act in opposition
to the spirit of the Hindu Shastras in this respect; but
it is worse that we should send mere beardless
youths to interpret Hinduism to the world at large.
I am afraid poor Hinduism has to suffer a great
deal from this mistake. Yet it is marvellous to what
a great extent Hinduism has influenced the religious
thought of America. Reincarnation and the previous
and future lives of the soul are accepted almost as
an axiomatic truth. "Karma" is a very common word
in religious phraseology. The Bible is being very labo-
riously overhauled to bring it into conformity with
modern religious thought, and many a Hindu idea is
being given out to the world in Biblical language
and Christian phraseology. A true Hindu has reason
to be mighty glad of it without cavilling at the use
which the Christian world is making of Hindu
INDIA IN AMERICA
419
thought without acknowledging the debt. In the learn-
ed circles there is nothing but respect for India's past
and India's culture. Tagore also has helped India
considerably in that line. Among the modern writ-
ers widely read and appreciated in really cultured
circles in this country, Rabindranath Tagore is
always to be found.
With all this, I think, India needs to be better
represented in the United States than it is at present.
The Ramakrishna Mission should depute some of its
senior men to interpret Vedanta to the Americans.
The men who come out as teachers should have no-
thing to do with the business side of the mission. The
Vedanta centres should, moreover, be open to poor
Hindus or to new arrivals from India in the country
from twenty-four to forty-eight hours without any
charge. It is un-Hindu to insist on the payment of
rent by everyone, even if he cannot afford to pay it
and does not know where else to go for shelter. The
teaching of religion should be absolutely separated
from the financial or the business side of the organi-
sation. I am of opinion that wealthy Indian
potentates like the Maharajas of India should
endow lectureships for foreign countries. Com-
petent Hindu lecturers should be sent abroad to give
lectures on Indian subjects.
Of India, Americans generally know very little;
perhaps not more than what they read in Kipling's
books or in the writings of their own missionaries.
A Hindu girl told me a story. She is a high school
pupil and the course of history prescribed for her
class includes Indian history. One day she asked
420 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
her teacher why the latter ignored that part of the
subject. The teacher's reply was, because the Indians
had done nothing to have a history; they were
a backward people having nothing to their credit.
The Hindu girl, of course, did not accept the reason
given by the teacher and gave a bit of her mind in
reply; but such is the colossal ignorance of educated
foreigners about India. My readers would laugh
if I were to recount the stories that I know of the
ignorance of even Englishmen about the geography
and history of India.
Here again, the Indians themselves are responsi-
ble for this ignorance and if they and their country
suffer thereby in the estimation of the world, the
fault is theirs. How many Indians are there who
feel that they owe a duty to their country to bring
it into the open forum of the world, so that it may
find its due recognition there by learning other
people's point of view and giving its own for the
benefit of others?
Some friends connected with the University of
California have constituted themselves into an India
Society for the purpose of studying Indian literature
and Indian questions and creating interest in India
among Americans. Professsor Pope of the Uni-
versity of California has been clected its first
President and Dr. David Starr Jordan, the great
scientist and scholar, Chancellor of Stanford Uni-
versity, Mr. Edwin Markham, the poet, Mr. Wins-
ton Churchill, the great novelist, have consented to
be its Vice-Presidents. It is hoped that the society
may stimulate interest in Indian matters in America
INDIA IN AMERICA
421
and be a source of friendly exchange of ideas between
these two great countries of the East and the West.
Indian publishers and Indian publicists would do
well to send them their publications for notice and
study.
THE END
Printed by A. C. Sarker,
Brahmo Mission Press, 211, Cornwallis Street, Calcutta.