little in constructively dealing with the problem of transferring unprogressing adults and youths from hopeless to hopeful places in the industrial field. Ah! anyone of us could write an extensive list right now.

For that reason every good family worker has a vision of endless possibilities for energizing helpfulness which in its results upon communities would be the best sort of business. But these can only be even distantly and progressively approached by obtaining at any given time the largest possible support of a public department, through the tax rate; the largest possible support of a great family planning agency, privately supported; the finest encouragement of any worthwhile smaller groups; the largest possible use of trained salaried service; the largest possible increase in number of volunteer workers; in everything the fullest possible expression of the spirit and soul of a community unhampered by any restrictions, by any constrictions, by any centralizations, by anything excepting the discouragement of any expressions of that soul and spirit in unprogressive, isolated nonadvancing work which is opposing constructive planning.

This is no field of hard and set bounds, it is a new field of human exploration and effort of which no man knows the possible bounds. A field in which the imaginations of men can be deeply and intensely cultivated, their latent vigor deeply and intensely aroused into activity. Before the steadily increasing stream of individual interest which the work is calling into being, no measures and bounds, no formal restrictions, no hampering theories of centralization, can long withstand the presIn this great democracy, no bit of helpfulness shall remain quiescent because somehow or in some manner the right call for that helpfulness was smothered. All efforts to hamper helpfulness are doomed to be overwhelmed by the onward trend of this inspiring crusade against all the handicaps and crampings which are crushing and crippling the lives of individual family groups.

sure.

THE CHAIRMAN: The discussion of Mr. McLean's paper will be opened by Mr. Charles P. Austin, Commissioner of Charities of the City of Binghamton.

MR. CHARLES P. AUSTIN: I am glad to have a chance to open the discussion on this subject, for to my mind it is the most important part of our charities work.

We have as an Associated Charities, here in this city, a wonderfully efficient organization in the hands of Mr. Koerbel, which takes the place of the large private charities referred to by the speaker. We work on the best of terms. First of all, there is the investigation to get the facts. That is a hard thing to do, I find, and to get those facts truly we employ various methods. In our department we have an investigator, a man who goes to the family and fills out certain blanks containing all pertinent facts. We then try to get in personal touch with that family, and then I have a lady make a supplementary investigation. That gives me three points of view on each family in every case where possible to get them.

We make a strong effort to avoid the necessity of breaking up families. It is often easier for the Commissioner of Charities. in any town to break up a family and commit the children to an institution and then simply once a year see if the children are there all right, pay $3.50 a week for each child, and let the institution take care of them. We don't believe in that; we use every means possible to keep the children in the home if there is a good mother, and in most homes there is a good mother. I don't know how it is in all your counties, but in this county the Commissioner audits the bill for the care of a child committed to an institution and it is passed on to the County Treasurer who pays the bill and then it is charged back to the city; so it doesn't show in the Commissioner's budget. Our budget is about eighteen thousand dollars; of that amount ten thousand is spent for outside relief. Now, I venture to say that about one person out of five hundred in this town knows that we spend about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for running our charities. That is divided, of course, into various sections. In this city, our one big hospital is maintained by the city. We spend ten thousand dollars, we will say, for home relief, and one hundred and fifteen thousand besides, most of which goes in a hidden way so that the taxpayers don't know it is happening; if that money came all

eighty-three children in our local institutions. At the prese time we have 141 children. That shows 42 children less these institutions today than two years ago. Now, that partly to the credit of the Department of Charities, partly to t credit of the Humane Society, represented by Mr. Koerbel; we bend every effort to get the children out and place them private families. We found it economically right and we kno it is the best thing for the child. Of the families assisted outsid we have about 112. We have made and have on file a writte report showing the investigation of something over one thousan cases in the last year in this little town of fifty thousand peopl We have had more than one thousand people ask for assistance some have received it and a great many have not.

I am going to read from one of the blanks we use here. took this out of our files and will read it to you without the name to show you the way we passed on this case, and would like to hear you discuss it and see whether we were right or wrong. W had a family consisting of a lady and one child three years old We have on our blanks the name, address, time in the State, the address for the last three years, and just the things we have to know to determine whether it is a case for our office or not, and under "remarks" we have a big blank, and there is where the real crux of the whole matter is. Our investigator finds out the conditions in the home and what we have got to do to get them on their feet. As Mr. McLean said in his address, it is a crime not to know of the conditions and not to have a definite plan of what you are going to do. In this particular family, the gentleman had a stroke of paralysis in 1917 and had been confined to his bed since that time; his wife could have worked had it not been necessary for her to stay at home and take care of him and we found since his sickness they had been without any income of any kind. Talk about the high price of food and all that sort of thing! These poor people have no income except what they get from the city, and spend 80 per cent. of it for food, and some of these rich people with incomes of four or five thousand

are clamoring against the high prices of food! The people we are dealing with in this town spend 80 per cent. of their money for food. This family hadn't asked for help before and I do not believe they would have if it were not actually necessary. They tell me they still have slightly over $100 in the bank, which rep-. resents all their possessions, except furniture; the house is well kept. We granted relief sufficient for them to get along nicely and they did get along nicely. That is the way we handle the outside relief in the town. I should like to hear some discussion on this matter. I don't want to see this go by default, but hear someone talk this over so we will get the view of the convention on this subject.

THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. McLean's paper and the general subject is now open for discussion and I hope you will avail yourselves of Mr. Austin's earnest invitation to discuss the matteer very freely.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

MR. ALMUS OLVER, General Secretary, Associated Charities, Syracuse I would like to ask a question if I may. If I am not mistaken, Mr. McLean said in his paper that there had been a decided increase in the giving of material relief by charity organization societies. Am I wrong in that?

MR. MCLEAN: You are right.

MR. OLVER: My observation has borne that out, as there is no charity organization society with which I am acquainted that has not materially increased the giving of material relief in the past few years, the last four or five years particularly, and I have had a good many people who are interested in charity organization work say to me that they felt when they first went into the work that the giving of material relief was one of the least important features of the constructive work we are doing, but that they have gradually come to the conclusion that it is one of the most important. Now, I have been hoping that at this conference we might have some light upon that particular problem, and I want to ask Mr. McLean, these facts being true, whether or

not he believes that our efforts in the past to keep down the material relief which we have given have been a mistake and whether or not the increased giving of material relief at the present time indicates a truer appreciation of its value in constructive work, or whether we are growing a little bit lazy and taking this means of getting out from under some of our problems. That's it in a nutshell.

MR. MCLEAN: We were both right and wrong so far as the past is concerned. We were right sometimes in limiting the relief, because we were not working on a sufficient basis and anything we were doing was so much in the dark that what relief we put in might be a very evil thing. There can be no question but that the increasing thoroughness in our work with families in enlarging the basis of fact upon which we work involves in itself a larger and larger amount of relief. As we grow more thorough, there will be larger increases in the future. At first, we were holding the things down because we did not have the basis of fact upon which we were working. We were right to that extent. That brings its very considerable responsibilities. As I said at the start, one can cover up lazy work by relief, though it is perfectly true, as I think all workers will agree, that the amounts given in the lazy way do not after all figure anywhere near as largely as a rule as the larger amounts which come as a result of a clear recognition and acceptance of the fullest responsibility. By reason of that fact, by reason of the necessity for increased relief, we realize the need of the participation of public departments more and more upon a social basis. There is no question that there must be large increments of relief-giving taken over by the public departments in fields where it is recognized by the whole community that relief is necessary. Take the home care in the tuberculosis field and the necessity for supplementing family allowances in many communities; the communities themselves are ready to accept that whole program, or at least a large part of it, as a part of the work of the public department whenever the public department is upon a social basis to undertake that work properly.