EDMUND deS. and MARY V. BRUNNER IRRIGATION AND RELIGION The top picture shows a little school at Silverado, in a dry-farming section of Orange County. Below is the splendid school at Tustin in the heart of the county's irrigated region. The center picture shows what makes contrasts like this possible the irrigation dam at La Grange COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS SURVEYS TOWN AND COUNTRY DEPARTMENT EDMUND DES. BRUNNER, Director IRRIGATION AND RELIGION/ A STUDY OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN TWO CALIFORNIA COUNTIES BY EDMUND DES. AND MARY V. BRUNNER WITH ILLUSTRATIONS MAPS AND CHARTS )/W~ NEW ^ST YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE THE Committee on Social and Religious Surveys was organ- ized in January, 1921. Its aim is to combine the scientific method with the religious motive. The Committee conducts and publishes studies and surveys and promotes conferences for their consideration. It cooperates with other social and religious agencies, but is itself an independent organization. The Committee is composed of: John R. Mott, Chairman; Ernest D. Burton, Secretary; Raymond B. Fosdick, Treasurer; James L. Barton and W. H. P. Faunce. Galen M. Fisher is Asso- ciate Executive Secretary. The offices are at in Fifth Avenue, New York City. In the field of town and country the Committee sought first of all to conserve some of the results of the surveys made by the Interchurch World Movement. In order to verify some of these surveys, it carried on field studies, described later, along regional lines worked out by Dr. Warren H. Wilson 1 and adopted by the Interchurch World Movement. These regions are : I. Colonial States: All of New England, New York, Pennsyl- vania and New Jersey. II. The South: All the States south of Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio River east of the Mississippi, including Louisiana. III. The Southern Highlands Section: This section comprises about 250 counties in "The back yards of eight Southern States." IV. The Middle West : The States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and northern Missouri. V. Northwest: Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and eastern Montana. VI. Prairie: Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. VII. Southwest : Southern Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. VIII. Range or Mountain: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colo- rado, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and western Montana. IX. Pacific : California, Oregon and Washington. 1 See Wilson, "Sectional Characteristics," Homelands, August, 1920. PREFACE Hundreds of people assisted in the survey process, but certain specific acknowledgments are due to those who assisted in the survey of the counties presented in this volume, Orange and Stanis- laus, California: The Director of the Town and Country Survey Department for the Interchurch World Movement was Edmund deS. Brunner. He is likewise the Director of this Department for the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys. The original surveys of these counties were under the direction of the Rev. J. Clarence Pinkerton, Secretary of the California State Federation of Churches. He was assisted in Stanislaus County by the Rev. W. P. Stanley and in Orange County by Mr. Arthur F. Torrance. The work in both these counties was done in 1919. The field workers of the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys were Rev. and Mrs. Edmund deS. Brunner. During the summer of 1921 they visited these counties and carried through practically a new survey, bringing up to date the information pre- viously obtained. They are also the authors of this report. In Stanislaus County they were assisted for several days by the Rev. Dr. David D. Montgomery, Secretary of Home Missions for the San Joaquin Presbytery, and the Rev. Jessie Marhoff, Sun- day School Missionary for the same Presbytery. In Orange County Miss F. Catherine Smiley, M.A., author of "An Educational Survey of Orange County, California," assisted with the field investigation. The statistical and graphical editor of this volume was Mr. A. H. Richardson, of the Chief Statistician's Division of the Ameri- can Telephone and Telegraph Company, formerly connected with the Russell Sage Foundation. The technical advisor was Mr. H. N. Morse of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, who was also associate director of the Town and Country Survey in the Interchurch World Movement. Valuable help was given by the Home Missions Council; by the Council of Women for Home Missions through their sub-Com- mittee on Town and Country, and by a Committee appointed jointly by the Home Missions Council and the Federal Council of Churches for the purpose of cooperating with the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys in endeavoring to translate the results of the survey into action. The members of this Joint Committee on Utilizing Surveys are: PREFACE Representing the Federal Council of Churches Anna Clark C. N. Lathrop Roy B. Guild U. L. Mackey A. E. Holt A. E. Roberts F. Ernst Johnson Fred B. Smith Charles E. Schaeffer Representing the Home Missions Council and the Council of Women for Home Missions L. C. Barnes, Chairman Rodney W. Roundy, Secretary Alfred W. Anthony Rolvix Harlan Mrs. Fred S. Bennett R. A. Hutchison C. A. Brooks Florence E. Quinlan C. E. Burton W. P. Shriver A. E. Cory Paul L. Vogt David D. Forsyth Warren H. Wilson CONTENTS PAGR THE POINT OF VIEW ..... .... n CHAPTER I INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES 15 II SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS ......... 26 III COUNTY-WIDE AGENCIES 33 IV THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN GENERAL 45 V CHURCH ^EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE 48 VI THE MINISTERS 60 VII CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 65 VIII THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES 76 IX THE JAPANESE PROBLEM 86 X THE SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS SITUATION AMONG OTHER FOREIGN-BORN GROUPS 92 XI OTHER RELIGIOUS WORK 99 XII CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 101 APPENDIX I: METHODOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS . . . 119 APPENDIX II : STATISTICAL TABLES 123 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 128 ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS AND CHARTS ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE RELIGION AND EDUCATION ARE VITALLY AFFECTED BY ECO- NOMIC DEVELOPMENT Frontispiece WHERE FARMING PAYS 17 ORANGE COUNTY'S GREAT INDUSTRIES 18 IN THE SUGAR BEET FIELDS 20 READY FOR THE EASTERN MARKET 25 BUILT WITH WATER 27 THE TEACHERAGE AT TUSTIN, ORANGE COUNTY ... 34 THE PRIZE SCHOOL OF ORANGE COUNTY 35 OFF TO SCHOOL 36 CROWS'S LANDING GRADE SCHOOL 37 STANISLAUS COUNTY'S PREMIER SCHOOL 37 A DEPARTURE FROM THE CONVENTIONAL ....... 48 A CITY CHURCH AND A TOWN CHURCH 49 HUNTINGTON BEACH METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH ... 51 THE CHURCH HOME OF A FOREIGN-SPEAKING GROUP ... 54 "HONOR KNIGHTS" 78 COMMUNITY CHURCH, PLACENTIA, ORANGE COUNTY ... 83 BUILT BY A BIBLE CLASS 84 A JAPANESE SCHOOL IN ORANGE COUNTY 88 OLD AND NEW 94~95 MEXICAN METHODISTS 97 THE OLDEST BUILDING IN CALIFORNIA 100 ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS AND CHARTS MAPS FACE CALIFORNIA: LOCATING THE Two COUNTIES 12 CHURCH AND COMMUNITY MAP OF STANISLAUS COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 71 CHURCH AND COMMUNITY MAP OF ORANGE COUNTY, CALI- FORNIA 74-75 CHARTS I EFFECT OF SYSTEM IN CHURCH FINANCE 53 II How THE CHURCH DOLLAR is RAISED 55 III How THE CHURCH DOLLAR is EXPENDED 56 IV PROTESTANT CHURCH MEMBERS IN POPULATION ... 65 V RESIDENCE AND ACTIVITY OF CHURCH MEMBERS ... 66 VI RELATION OF SIZE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP TO GAIN 69 vm IRRIGATION AND RELIGION IRRIGATION AND RELIGION THE POINT OF VIEW THIS book is a study of the work of town and country churches in two of California's richest counties. Its purpose is to show the effect of prosperity upon the life of the church by describing the interaction of the church upon these communities and of these communities upon the church. This survey, therefore* does not attempt to deal directly with the spiritual effect of any church upon the life of individuals or groups. Such results are not measurable by the foot rule of statistics or by survey methods. It is possible, however, to weigh the concrete accomplishments of churches. These actual achievements are their fruits and "by their fruits ye shall know them." The two counties studied in this book are Orange and Stanislaus, California. Many considerations entered into their choice. For one thing, it must be borne in mind that this book, while complete in itself, is also part of a larger whole. From among the one thousand county surveys completed or nearly completed by the Interchurch World Movement, twenty-six counties situated in the nine most representative rural regions of America were selected for intensive study. In this way it was hoped to obtain a bird's- eye view of the religious situation as it exists in the more rural areas of the United States. All the counties selected were chosen with the idea that they were fair specimens of what was to be found throughout the area of which they were a part. In selecting the counties an effort was made to discover those which were typical not merely from a statistical standpoint but also from the social and religious problems they represented. For example, the two California counties described in this pamphlet were chosen because they are representative of large sections along the Pacific Coast that have been made rich and fertile by irrigation. It is recognized that there are reasons why exceptions may be taken to the choice of counties. No area is completely typical 11 < 1 if ? K to Scale of Miles. CALIFORNIA : LOCATING THE TWO COUNTIES 12 THE POINT OF VIEW of every situation. A careful study of these counties, however, leads inevitably to the conclusion that they are fair specimens of the region they are intended to represent. All the studies have been made from the point of view of the Church, recognizing, however, that social and economic conditions affect the church life. For instance, it is evident that various racial groups affect church life differently. Germans and Swedes usually tend toward liturgical denominations ; the Scotch to non-liturgical. Again, if there is economic pressure and heavy debt, the Church faces spiritual handicaps and needs a peculiar type of ministry. Because of the importance of social and economic factors in the life of the Church the opening chapters of this book have been given over to a description of these factors. At the first glance some of these facts may appear irrelevant but upon closer observation will be found to have a bearing upon the main theme the problem of the Church. Naturally the greatest amount of time and study has been devoted to the churches themselves ; their history, equipment and finances; their members, services and church organizations; their Sunday schools, young people's societies and community programs have all been carefully investigated and evaluated. Intensive investigation has been limited to the distinctly rural areas and to those centers of population which have less than five thousand inhabitants. In the case of towns larger than this an effort has been made to measure the service of such towns to the surrounding countryside but not to study each church and com- munity in detail. The aim of the survey is practical. It is hoped that it will prove of value not only to the churches and communities surveyed and to church boards and societies operating therein, but also to social and educational agencies which are interested in rural work generally. It is also believed that the situations discovered and the problems emerging in each of the surveys will be found to bear sufficient resemblance to those in other counties within the same region, as to render the policies and programs proposed of definite value beyond the boundaries of the areas that have been intensively studied. 13 CHAPTER I INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES THE STATE CALIFORNIA is the country with a buried past. Seldom indeed does the traveller come across traces of the wild days of the gold seeker and the picturesque Spanish Mission Churches are the only relics of that far-off time when Franciscan friars sought to create a New Spain among the simple Indians of Southern California. Today California is attracting a new type of gold seeker. The wealth for which he strives is produced by the alchemy of irriga- tion. More than half of California's nearly $600,000,000 worth of agricultural products is grown on irrigated farms although these comprise less than one twentieth of the total land area of the state and but a third of all improved land in farms. 1 LOCATION OF COUNTIES The two counties selected for study well illustrate the changes that irrigation has brought and the prosperity that has come to those who have utilized its advantages. Stanislaus County lies toward the north of the San Joaquin Valley, one hundred and twelve miles southeast of San Francisco. The foothills of California's two mountain chains, the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevadas, rise along its western and eastern boundaries respectively. A little more than half of the county's 1450 square miles are subject to irrigation. Modesto is the county seat. Orange County is located immediately south of Los Angeles and within its 795 square miles is one of the most fertile sections in America. Santa Ana is its county seat In the eastern states there are some counties of the same name but theirs is a name that goes back to the history of the Old World and the days of the Orangemen. This county takes its name from the fruit which has made it famous and prosperous. Its western border is the Pacific ocean. On the east is the Coast range, some of the peaks of which rise to a mile or more above sea level. 1 Bulletins 1920 Census, "Agriculture : California" and "Irrigation : Cali- fornia." 15 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION HISTORY Stanislaus County is more typical of the history of California than Orange. Its first settlers were gold seekers, the metal having been discovered there in 1852. Three years later the county was incorporated. What is now its least prosperous section was then feverishly busy with the search for gold. Hamlets that today have but a few hundred inhabitants had then more than a thousand. It was from the gold camps in the foothills of the Sierras that the first settlers went down into the plains and began farming. Wheat was then the chief crop. Dry farming was necessary and individual holdings ran into hundreds and even thousands of acres. Irrigation came with the twentieth century and the population which had begun to decrease, rose at a phenomenal rate. The size of farms decreased, and now average twenty acres in the irrigated sections. New communities were founded. It was a boom and one which has created permanent values. What happened is well illustrated by Turlock. Fifteen or sixteen years ago it was a straggling little hamlet of 150 people. Today it is a city with paved streets, parks, churches, fine schools and a population of 3500 with twice as many more on the farms tributary to the town. The development, there- fore, is not over. It is of the present. Orange County has had a longer history and a less spectacular agricultural development. It was not always an agricultural El- dorado. The Spanish priests who first settled in its southwestern part saw a dreary desert of cactus and sage brush and only a few trees along the water courses. Such was the country in which, in 1776, that these priests founded a mission among the Indians at San Juan Capistranto. In the latter part of the same century and the early years of the next, a few Spanish soldiers also settled in the district. The only occupation was stock raising conducted upon great ranches. The county did not share in the gold rush of 1849. I n J 857 a colony of Germans settled in what is now Anaheim, where they had procured nearly two square miles. They constructed irrigation works and planted vineyards, but when their vines were destroyed by a root disease in the late eighties the attention of the growers was turned to citrus fruit. From then on the development was more rapid. Irrigation projects increased and at the same time drainage converted swamps into fertile fields. Products multiplied both in kind and in quantity. The region now known as Orange County was set off from Los Angeles County in 1889 and separately 16 INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES organized. Hardly a decade later the first oil was discovered. This industry has now grown until it is almost as important as that of agriculture. In some communities it has brought boom conditions. TRANSPORTATION Both counties have good transportation facilities. Automobile stages connect outlying points while steam or electric lines or both reach all the important centers. Automobile travel is easy, all the most important roads being hard surfaced. Both counties have spent millions on their highways. In the north the traveller speeds through fig or peach orchards, past alfalfa fields and vineyards. till '1 Jill . . WHERE FARMING PAYS This beautiful farm house in Orange County is sufficient testimony to what irrigation can do for the farmer Yonder he sees a splendid herd of pure bred, registered cattle. He passes a succession of small, intensively cultivated farms, good schools, trim compact villages. The homes of native and foreign born alike seem for the most part neat and well kept. His road parallels an irrigation ditch and he sees some land-owner in the process of flooding his acres with the wealth-bringing water. Great trucks come lumbering by loaded with melons of various kinds on their way to the cooperative packing house at the village center. He looks off in the distance. The heavily foliaged trees winding irregularly across the landscape mark the course of one of the rivers. Further away rise the foothills of the Sierras. He draws nearer to these and suddenly everything changes. Great fields stretch away before him. Hardly a house is to be seen. In the distance is a one- 17 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION room school house. The hamlet through which he passes, once the county seat with nearly 2000 inhabitants, has but a few houses, a garage, an ill-kept hotel and a deserted, dirty pool-room and soft drink parlor. Nearby are piles of rock, the sign of bygone dredging for gold. He is in the presence of the California that has gone and around him is the California that is passing, as irrigation redeems more and more acres from dry farming. He has discovered the forgotten past. In the southern county the aspect is much the same save that here there are orange and walnut groves and fields of lima beans ORANGE COUNTY'S GREAT INDUSTRIES An oil field and an orange grove or sugar beets. The villages and towns are larger and there are more of them. From the coast road may be seen the deep blue Pacific lazily breaking on the shore. Heading inland the traveller sees clusters of oil derricks, some rising out of the orange groves. Gradually he comes to the foothills, and enters some canyon where the rugged beauty of the mountains shuts out the work-a-day world below. In both counties the cities show they are but the service stations of the farmers. Their main industries are canneries, creameries, and packing houses. The attractiveness of many of the cooperative packing houses impresses anyone used to the dinginess of the average factory. 18 INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES Social and religious agencies have been faced in these counties with the comparatively sudden transition from the extensive type of farming with a small population to the irrigated type with smaller farms, an increased population and prosperity. What this has meant in concrete terms is shown by a consideration of a few of the outstanding facts relating to population and agriculture. POPULATION The population in both the counties under consideration has been increasing rapidly. Already the 1920 census figures are too small. At that time, Stanislaus County with its 43,557 persons had 28 per cent fewer inhabitants than Orange County, the popula- tion of which was 61,375. As the area of Orange County is little more than half as great as the other, the density of population is more than double, that of Stanislaus being seventy-eight persons to the square mile. 1 The varying development of the Far West is well illustrated here. Orange County has a high proportion more than 80 per cent of native born whites. Nearly half of its foreign born are of Mexican origin and furnish much of the farm labor, most of the remaining foreign born are from northern Europe. The earlier introduction of irrigation in Orange County, its settlement before the newer immigration had reached our shores, the specialized type of agricul- ture, the climate which attracted tourists who later became perma- nent residents, all these things have contributed to the high general level of intelligence of the people of Orange County and to the high proportion of native born. The only foreign group which has increased in the last decade in Orange County has been the Japanese. In Stanislaus County the situation is quite different. Thirty- seven per cent of the population were foreign born at the time of the 1920 census. Irrigation, developing late here, has attracted both northern and southern European immigration, especially Scan- dinavians and Portuguese. Many of the latter came from the Ha- waiian Islands but having settled, they have attracted others of their race from the old country. Armenians, Germans, Italians, Mexicans and Assyrians are also present. The problem of suc- cessfully assimilating these diverse groups into American community life has been a real one for church and school, but progress has been made. 1 See Appendix, Table I. IRRIGATION AND RELIGION AGRICULTURE 1 Varied indeed is the agriculture of these counties. They boast of fifty commercial crops which is more than many States. The aggregate value of farm products and of farm property runs into millions. 2 Roughly speaking Orange County is devoted to raising citrus fruits, sugar beets and walnuts, and Stanislaus County to dairying and to the cultivation of other than citrus fruits, ranging from strawberries to watermelons. There is more pure bred stock here than in any other county west of the Mississippi River. IN THE SUGAR BEET FIELDS Minor crops are produced with increasing diversity. As will be seen, the type of agriculture affects the life and to some extent the population of the area. These are among the most prosperous agricultural counties in the entire nation. Improved land in irri- gated regions ranges in price from $400 to $1,500 an acre. Returns on crops are large and the people are relatively prosperous. Dollar values bulk high. 1 See Appendix, Table II. 2 The total value of all farm property according to the 1920 census was $176,663,249 in Orange County and $110,595,497 in Stanislaus County. The average per farm was $42,183 in Orange County and $24,222 in Stanislaus County. The average per farm in New Jersey was $8,428, in Iowa $35,616, and in Kansas $17,122. Acreages were uniformly larger per farm in these states than in California. The gross farm income in Orange County was $6,096, in Stanislaus County $3,754. 20 INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES The size of an average farm in the irrigated sections is about twenty acres. Five out of every six farms have less than fifty acres. Including all the processes of cultivating, spraying, irrigat- ing, pruning and harvesting, the average fruit farmer goes over his orchards from eighteen to twenty-two times a year. Such careful attention is possible only on farms of small acreage but it brings a great return. Irrigation involves much labor and expense. Some of the irriga- tion projects are owned by commercial concerns engaged in the promotion of their holdings. Others are cooperative and for the most part supply water only to members. California now has a number of laws covering irrigation. The law provides for the or- ganization of districts and gives them the power to build dams and canals and issue bonds to finance operations. These "water district" bonds are secured by the lands within the districts. The estimated final cost per acre on projects completed or under way in 1920 is from $45 to $60 an acre. When the great increase in land values and products which follows irrigation is considered there can be no question as to the worth of such enterprises. The cost of upkeep is met by an acreage tax averaging between two and four dollars a year. ECONOMIC TRENDS One result of the success of the farming operations in both counties has been a rapidly diminishing proportion of tenant farm- ers. Almost four-fifths of the farms are owned, not rented. Farm owners are concentrated in the irrigated sections, as is shown by the fact that in Orange County the 82.5 per cent of the farms which are operated by owners include only 47 per cent of the total farm acreage of the county. Tenant farmers, numbering n.8 per cent of the total, operate twenty-six per cent of the land, while farms controlled by managers, though only 5.7 per cent of the total, contain 27 per cent of the acreage. Even in these highly developed agricultural coimtiesi where community life is probably better organized than in many rural areas, the foreign-born seem to have equal opportunity with the natives in the matter of land ownership. The ratio of foreign-born farm owners to the total number of foreign-born farmers is prac- tically the same as for the native born. A little more than three- quarters of both groups of farmers already own their farms. This is a fact of real social portent that needs to be considered in rela- 21 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION tion to the changes which the very presence of the foreign-born is bringing into some of the communities. The subjects of farm ownership and tenancy cannot be dis- cussed without a mention of a situation existing in Orange County. Almost the entire southern half of its area is laid out in enormous ranches on most of which there is little or no irrigation. The largest of these is the San Joaquin or Irvine ranch, which comprises 102,060 acres lying directly south of the irrigated portion of the county and extending from the coast on the west to the county line on the east. This one ranch with its more than 150 square miles comprises one-fifth of the total area of the county. It is worked by leasing land to tenants on a one-year term. The lease is drawn so as to safeguard the fertility of the soil. It stipulates the number of inches for plowing or sub-soiling of the different crops, gives exact days on which the harvesting and sacking of such crops must be finished, states the size of boxes that are to be used for beans and grain and the delivery points to which produce must be taken by the tenant, prohibits the tenant not only from using stubble or crop remnants remaining on his fields but also from pasturing any of his stock upon the land he rents, fixes the number of acres to be seeded for each crop, describes and provides for an even division of the produce between owner and tenant and a cash rental for the buildings on the land leased, and reserves among other rights for the owner the privilege of turning his cattle and horses on the tenant's land after a certain day without any responsibility for damage done after that date. The Irvine Company, which controls this vast acreage, does not sell land save under exceptional circum- stances and almost impossible conditions. Lying as it does, directly across the width of the county, this ranch is the greatest obstacle t;> further expansion and development in Orange County. Ap- proximately two-thirds of this immense holding could be brought under irrigation. This would mean a great intensive development and a rapid increase in population and of the institutions of com- munal life which are to be found in the irrigated section of the county to the north. The policy of the company can hardly be characterized as socially enlightened, except for the care it takes of soil fertility. What is said of this company is largely true of the other ranches. There is little opportunity for social life for the tenants. The towns of El Toro and even smaller centers are devoid of most of the societies that enter into the making of a satisfying community life. Any movement on the part of the tenants to better their conditions 22 INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES would receive small sympathy from the company unless it were to its economic advantage. The progress of Orange County will be permanently blocked until these half dozen holdings, comprising in all more than half of the area of the county, are broken up. The farmers of these counties are not overburdened with debt. Approximately half the farms are mortgaged to about 30 per cent of their value whereas in general farming counties in the Middle West it is not unusual to find one-half to four-fifths of the farms mortgaged to more than 50 per cent of their value. This compara- tive freedom from debt is one of the advantages enjoyed by these California counties and means that they can afford to contribute liberally to social and religious progress. Irrigation alone cannot account for the agricultural situation which has been described. Three other factors have contributed to it, only one of which, the farm bureau, is shared equally by other regions. The two factors more or less peculiar to this region are the climate and to a lesser degree agricultural coopera- tion. Any Californian will admit that the climate is "unusual." The surveyor working in the San Joaquin Valley at no degrees in the shade is quite willing to believe it. In Stanislaus County there is a short, mild winter, with plenty of rain, and a long, dry summer described as "warm" or "hot," depending upon whether the question is discussed with a native or with an impartial outsider. Orange County boasts that it has never known frost. The growing season is practically twelve months a year. The breeze from the Pacific prevents the temperature from rising to quite the dizzy heights attained inland farther north. The farm bureau has also helped. It is organized in both counties and in each the staff consists of a farm agent and a man- ager. Neither county has a home demonstration agent. Both bureaus have local centers organized throughout their counties as well as such specialized enterprises as cow-testing associations. Apart from a large number of technical agricultural projects car- ried on under the advice and supervision of the agents, the bureaus have performed services of social value. One has organized effi- ciently for rural fire protection. In the other a law has been se- cured limiting the weight of loads that can be hauled over the highways. Constant educational work is done and some junior clubs have been organized. California farmers have shown the way in the matter of co- operative marketing. The movement is not as strong in Stanislaus County as it might be, but Orange County is the banner county of 23 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION the Coast, if not of the country. More than a score of cooperative exchanges handle practically all the commercial crops of the county. In the case of citrus exchanges there is a little competition among them to secure members, but all of them clear through the central exchange in Los Angeles and the principle of cooperation is strong. The orange growers were the first to organize and their coopera- tives have been in existence since 1895. Their organizations cover between 80 and 85 per cent of the citrus acreage. There are nine local associations for walnut growers, who also have their over- head marketing agency. Bean growers have organized and even the producers of beets despite strong opposition from sugar manu- facturers have now effected a beet growers' association with several local branches. Farmers raising prunes and apricots are marketing through a state-wide organization. Grain growers are discussing the erection of a cooperative grain elevator. Many poultry men are associated with the State Poultry Association. The smoothness and efficiency of the operations of the California fruit and nut exchanges have caused them to be held up as models for similar undertakings elsewhere. The plan followed is roughly as follows : The local association packs and crates the fruit and loads it on cars. The district exchange is responsible for selling fruit, with the aid of the central exchange. The fruit remains, however, the property of the district. The agent of the central office notifies the district manager of the best price obtainable, and the district exchange rejects or accepts the offer. The central organization exists merely to sell. It does not charge a fixed commission. It is the servant of the growers and all money is returned to them after selling cost is deducted. The central exchange has a contract with nearly 11,000 producers binding them to deliver all their products for a twenty-year period. The total cost of the selling and adver- tising done by the central exchange is equal to only i.i per cent out of every dollar received. The proportion of cost, as is nearly always the case with cooperatives, decreases as the value and volume of business increases. In five years out of every six the fruit growers have realized a price in excess of production costs. Most of the local exchanges are conducted on the one-man, one- vote plan, regardless of the amount that each grower may have in- vested. These local exchanges own large plants and equipment for crating and packing the fruit. Many of the buildings are most attractive and the working conditions are good. The efficiency and stability of these local cooperatives and the overhead machinery 24 INTRODUCING THE COUNTIES which they have built are largely responsible for the prosperity of the farmers in this area. In this respect the cooperative pioneers of Orange County have much to teach the American farmer of today. Some growers of certain crops, embarrassed because not yet paid for their last year's products, may feel that the cooperative movement has not saved them from the depression through which the country is passing. While the farmers of the San Joaquin Valley and of southern California have not found the last year as successful as its predecessors, they are relatively prosperous and far better situated than the farmers of the wheat, corn or cotton belts. READY FOR THE EASTERN MARKET One of the packing houses of the Fruit Growers' Exchange, Orange County For this they can thank cooperation. It is undoubtedly true also that the habit of cooperation and. the happy economic results that have been obtained have had an important bearing on the social well-being of the people. 1 In these counties, then, we have agriculture at high tide. Nature .has given them many gifts and the water which she withheld, man's ingenuity and toil have supplied. Irrigation has made possible a richer community life. Cooperation has brought economic sta- bility. The country is young. These are rich assets. 1 In an account of this compass many facts relative to the economic life of these counties must be omitted. For these see the manuscript copies on file at the office of the California State Federation of Churches, or books and pamphlets referred to in the bibliography. 25 CHAPTER II SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS THE last chapter indicated some of the influences that have played upon the changing social life of the two counties under consideration. In a word, irrigation is the explanation not only of agricultural prosperity but of many social characteristics as well. Irrigation has accomplished the breaking up of the large holdings into small tracts. The possibilities of intensive farming made any other type of agriculture unprofitable and unattractive. Neighbors no longer measure the distances between farms by miles but can almost talk over the back fence. The number of persons per square mile has risen rapidly and behind that census statement is the story of better schools, stores and churches made possible by a more closely knit community life. As communities have grown they have come nearer together. Their interests and their boundaries increasingly overlap. In the irrigated sections it is very difficult to tell where one community ends and the next one begins. The larger economic interests center upon the largest towns or cities. Within the trade areas of these towns are other centers each of which has all the machinery of com- munity life, but not as highly organized. There are also more satel- lite communities here than there are in an average rural county, that is, centers which have schools, churches, stores and other institu- tions but whose life is dominated by that of a nearby city. Com- munities are so close together and roads are so good that such overlapping is inevitable. Two instances may be given as typical. A fruit and walnut grower living midway between two of the cities in Orange County is an officer and member of the Walnut Exchange in one of these cities and of the Citrus Exchange in the other. In one village, located about twelve miles from Modesto, there is quite a group of people who regularly attend the church of their choice in that city. Just about as many leave Modesto to go to one of the churches within this same small village. Personal preference enters into the selection of shipping point, church and recreation center. Only the school boundaries are hard and fast This situation is paralleled by another, at least within the irri- 26 SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS gated areas. Small groups of people, usually a part of the same development or colony and so having common ties of ownership, have formed little neighborhood groups to care for one interest or another. Thus we find, for instance, the Prescott school district using its own little community hall for a Union Sunday School and the Wood colony owning its club house. In almost every such instance of this kind there is only one interest binding the people together, while the balance of their community life is so large, and their community center is relatively so near, that these groupings can hardly be called neighborhoods in the usual sense of that term. BUILT WITH WATER Patterson, Stanislaus County, is a typical community in the irrigated regions The community maps of these counties have, therefore, been drawn strictly according to the definition that a community is "That aggregation of people, the majority of whose local interests have a common center." So far as possible the surveyors have attempted to strike an average between communities in determining boundary lines. This means that the larger economic boundaries have been disregarded and that along with the social, educational and religious influences which entered into the fixing of the community boun- daries, the economic factor has been considered only from the point of view of the local interests of the majority. The same standard has also been applied to other features of communal life wherever it was found that any considerable group of people tended 27 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION to go away from the nearest center for the satisfaction of some need or desire. So defined there are forty-seven town or country and four city communities in these counties. Their population varies from 121 to over 10,000, including in each case the population of the entire community, and not merely of the political unit which lends its name to the area. Roughly speaking, these communities are of four kinds, the irrigated, the non-irrigated, the oil or mining communities and the resorts. The last mentioned are exclusively in Orange County. One of the most thickly populated farming sections in either of these counties surrounds Modesto city limits. It is all irrigated land. A house to house canvass of this territory was impossible, but a study of the population figures of Modesto city and township, in the light of the total figures of the county and the other com- munities within it, leads to the conclusion that there are at least 7,000 people in the Modesto rural community. In it there are, of course, a number of neighborhoods, such as Prescott and Wood Colony. There are no churches although there are two Union Sun- day Schools. One characteristic of the adolescent stage in which most of these communities are is their belief in themselves. Nor is this an un- fortunate quality, provided it does not result in a blind acceptance of the Tightness of the home town or the superiority of the home county over all other towns or counties. It is locally stated that of recent years there has been a visibly growing sense in the citizenship at large, and in the several munici- palities, of their interdependence and community of interests. The feeling between town and country is uniformly good. There is none of the antagonism that exists in some places. There may be mild irritations at times, but as a whole everything is harmonious. This is true largely because the towns exist as service stations for the "ranchers." Many of the industries of the towns depend upon the products of the groves, fields or orchards, and are controlled by the farmers' cooperatives. Furthermore, the American-born popula- tion is of high calibre. These facts coupled with the general pros- perity and well organized educational systems have brought town and country together. Their interests are one and they know it. Their cultural ideals are similar. Therefore there is mutual under- standing and goodwill. There were only four communities in these counties at the time of the survey where community spirit was not manifest to some degree. These four were all in the non-irrigated sections. Com- 28 SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS munity spirit is fostered by the chambers of commerce, the schools and the farm bureaus. It has overflowed the community now and to some extent has included the county. This is partly a western characteristic and partly it is due to the large number of cooperative enterprises, public and private, which are organized with the county as a unit. It is not uncommon to find individuals who will laud "old Stanislaus" or sing the praises of "fair Orange" with the inflections most people use only when speaking of their Alma Mater. This attitude may have its amusing side, but there are values Attached to it which are not to be gainsaid. One is not surprised to find, therefore, that almost without an exception the local people within the communities in these counties will claim that there is a resident leadership sufficient to spur the community toward ever further progress. Statements of this char- acter must be checked against the actual results which are apparent to the observer. It becomes clear immediately that the interests and abilities of these leaders vary. Except for the ministers mentioned, few of them are recognized as being markedly interested in the church or in moral welfare. Business men and farmers predomi- nate among the leaders. Not more than a quarter of the centers in these counties possess leadership that is broad in its scope and which sees the community as a whole. In one the church may be strong, in another the school, in a third the farm bureau. Far rarer are the cases where all these agencies are included by a group of leaders in their vision of the total social output of the community. In the second place it is evident that some of the welfare agencies at work in these counties have had difficulty in finding or developing the leadership adequate to their programs, for in most of these communities such agencies do not operate, especially in those which are less favored from an agricultural point of view. The contri- bution of these agencies and the place which they have in the social fabric is discussed in the following chapter. Even with all the agencies at work the social life is disappoint- ingly meagre. Pool rooms are present in every community. Moving- picture theatres are found in a dozen but of bands there are only five and of orchestras six. The schools are beginning to do more and should greatly expand their recreational and social efforts. Excluding the cities of over 5,000 inhabitants there are found to be nearly 4,000 members of fraternal orders in these two counties. Men make up 84 per cent of this total. The average attendance of men at their lodges is but one-quarter of the total membership, whereas the women's organizations report two-fifths of the member- 29 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION ship present at any average meeting. Women apparently, when interested, take lodge work more seriously than men. It is also evident that lodges are valued more for their insurance features than for the program of activities they furnish. They reach a smaller proportion of their membership at any stated meeting than the churches. The city lodges draw largely in both counties from the rural regions but their attendance records, so far as ascertain- able, would indicate only a slightly larger proportionate response on the part of the membership than for the town and village lodge organizations. Both counties are well supplied with newspapers which reflect, as might be imagined, the life and interests of the people. In some, oil is the main topic. The importance of every news item is meas- ured by its relation to wells that are being dug, that have begun to flow or that have failed. Other papers reflect the citrus influence. Most of the papers are small four to eight-page sheets, especially those in the village and towns. The Santa Ana Register is an exception, as is the Turlock Farmers' Journal. This latter is the only daily in the State of California owned and operated by farmers. It is a progressive organ, with a trained newspaper man as editor, and has an enlarging influence and a growing circulation. It is a splendid example of what a paper can become in a small community. The newspapers, as a whole, are alert to the best interests of their communities. They are capable of even greater use than the social agencies and churches make of them. They would welcome a well-defined policy of cooperation on the part of such institutions. The goal of social life is that measure of liberty and equality for satisfying the legitimate desires of life which will prevent the rise of unsocial or anti-social tendencies either in individuals or communities. The test of the adequacy of any social life lies largely therefore in the moral atmosphere which it creates. Admit- tedly the moral situation of any community is more difficult to analyze than almost any other factor of its life. Moral codes develop with different types of people, and the average citizen, if he knows the situation outside his own circle, probably knows it only in a superficial way. On the other hand, professional workers, special legal officers and physicians are under the temptation to look upon the darker side of the picture because their daily work throws them more into contact with those whose moral life is anti-social. Of the fifty-one communities x in these counties, the general testi- *This figure includes the cities. 30 SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS mony of those interviewed seemed to indicate that the moral tone is improving in thirty-six, while it is either stable or declining in fifteen others. It is interesting to note that of these fifteen, eleven are in the less favored agricultural sections where the churches are weak or non-existent and where social agencies have not yet come to offer their programs. The people who testified to the improve- ment in moral conditions assigned various causes for this improve- ment. In a majority of cases they felt that the coming of prohi- bition and the more stringent enforcement of prohibition laws were responsible for the moral progress. Closely following the school, the church is given second place among those institutions or factors which are influencing the situation, and it is true that in all the communities in which the church is mentioned there has been a growth in membership and in the investment in religion. Others attribute the improvement to new residents who are moving in, whose standards are higher and who are displacing the people whose lower standards once dominated the community. It is quite likely that all these factors and others enter into whatever improvement there has been. The testimony of the professional workers, however, tells a somewhat different story. The prosperity of the people, which gives them comparative freedom, and the climate, which makes possible outdoor recreation at almost any time of the year, espe- cially in Orange County, have combined to create a love of pleasure among the people so extravagant as to be unhealthy. It is un- healthy not so much because of its effect on adults as because of its effect upon the supervision which they would otherwise give to their children. The moving picture theatre has become a day nursery for adolescents. And in the pictures shown, the belittling of the officers of the law, the glorifying of the offender and the contempt shown for the school teacher and minister, all have a bad effect upon the children. In addition, as is well known, many of the plays are based on a sex motif, and the natural and legitimate desire of the adolescent for knowledge of life has been so over- stimulated that there is far more than the average old-time danger of such knowledge coming in an unhealthy way. A condition has been created among the young people which perhaps only school teachers, physicians and county officials really understand. It is not a situation which exists in these counties alone. Localized, how- ever, it is a state of affairs which demands attention from the parents, from the schools and from the churches. A consistent and fundamental improvement of the moral situation cannot be brought 31 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION about until the home, the school and the church face the situation co- operatively, assume their respective tasks in meeting the problem, and, specifically, in combating ignorance which is the twin sister of vice itself. Modesto, the county seat of Stanislaus County, has a particular problem with rural young people worth mentioning because it is typical of similar situations elsewhere. Its high school draws an increasing number of students from the surrounding countryside, many of whom spend the entire week in the city, returning to their homes only for the usual week-end holidays. While many of them stay at the homes of relatives, there are several hundred who must board and room in Modesto. Thus there is an appreciable number of young people in their middle teens, who are practically without home discipline or any chaperonage at all during the school year. Neither socially nor morally is this a desirable situation. Moreover, with the growth of the county and the corresponding growth of Modesto, this situation is quite likely to become more acute. 32 CHAPTER III COUNTY- WIDE AGENCIES AS the collective life of people becomes stabilized, institutions and agencies arise to meet social needs. Some of these agencies are of the kind that command public recognition and the support of all, such as those relating to government and educa- tion. Others are volunteer agencies depending, as do churches, upon the free-will gifts of those interested. The number of service agencies and the appropriations made to social welfare by the people themselves in any county are an index to its prosperity and to the level of its social thinking. There are counties content with the bare essentials necessary to a semblance of government. However, in the two counties under consideration there are an unusual number of agencies, public and private. Each county is governed by a Board of Supervisors, elected by the people, one from each of the five districts. Their term of office is four years. Each member is responsible for the affairs of his own district, and jointly with the others for those of the county. Besides the other usual elective officers, as judges, treasurer and so forth, there are a score or more appointed officers including a board of education, a forestry board, a county physician, engineer and farm adviser. The extent and importance of the county government's work and influence are indicated by the amount of money disbursed. For example, the total income of Orange County during the fiscal year preceding the survey amounted to $3,810,136.57. Of this sum two- thirds was raised by taxation, most of the balance by the sale of bonds and the rest from miscellaneous sources. Of the various public institutions the schools are of first impor- tance. 1 It happens that the school system in Orange County is slightly better organized than in Stanislaus. Education in Orange County will therefore be described in detail as furnishing an ade- quate picture of what is possible under favorable economic con- 1 The facts given in the description of Orange County schools have been taken by permission from "A School Survey of Orange County, California," by Frances Smiley. 33 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION ditions and as fairly representative of these counties and others like them. The county has fifty-three school districts. Only eight of these are one-teacher districts. Thirteen have two teachers each, nine have three, five have four and the remaining eighteen have five or more. In all the elementary schools have 375 teachers. Out of every hundred of these teachers sixty-eight are normal school graduates, eighteen are university or college and normal school graduates. Only two out of the 375 have no professional training. The average salary in one-teacher schools is $1,222.10 per year, while in rural schools with more than one teacher it is $1,352.61, and THE TEACHERAGE AT TUSTIN, ORANGE COUNTY in the city schools it is $1,501.03. Thirty-two teachers have inde- pendent incomes from some source, mostly from ranches. Seventy- four are married and are teaching to eke out the family income, for love of the work, or to fill in some vacancy. It will be seen there- fore that practically one-quarter of the teachers of the county have, if not some other occupation, at least some important outside inter- est which makes demands upon their time. In this respect the ministers make a better record. The teachers in the county find it unusually difficult to obtain adequate living quarters and this has resulted in a marked migratory tendency among them, as well as some non-residence. In the rural school districts thirty-six of the eighty-seven teachers or 41 per cent reside outside of the district in which they teach. Several of the communities have houses for their teachers which is a step in the right direction. 34 COUNTY-WIDE AGENCIES Enrollment in the elementary schools is 9,118 while average daily attendance is 8,194 or 89 per cent of the total number. The three cities and six of the towns or villages have kindergartens which all together enroll a total of 746 children and have an average at- tendance of 375. One-half of the students entering the first grade finish grammar school but less than one-sixth finish High School. Seven schools have equipment for teaching agriculture and twice as many have domestic science equipment. There are forty-two pianos or organs and fifteen phonographs in the elementary schools of the county. Most of the school buildings are very fine. Only two of the districts in the mountains in the southeastern part of the county THE PRIZE SCHOOL OF ORANGE COUNTY Part of the group of sixteen buildings which comprise Fullerton High School have the antiquated cross-lighted, one-room type of building. There are a few other one-room schools, but for the most part they are near cities or near union or consolidated district buildings. The school administration is sympathetic to a broad school program. Organized recreational activities are encouraged. The county association of grammar school principals meets twice a year, its chief interest lying in the direction of school athletics. The schools are divided into two athletic leagues north and south. Local contests and competitions are held and the winners of each league play each other for the county championship. All compe- tition except for such games as baseball is on grade basis so that every pupil adds his bit to the total school score, and the little first grade boy or girl who makes a good record may prove more valu- able in the competition than the grammar school lad who, while 35 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION naturally excelling the records of the little children, makes a rela- tively poorer showing. The high school athletic equipment is elabo- rate. Anaheim, for instance, has a gymnasium, nine outdoor tennis courts and six basketball courts, baseball and football fields, a track and in prospect an open air swimming pool. Fullerton's exceptionally fine schools may be taken as typical of the progress that has been made in the larger centers. This small town even supports a Junior College. On the High School campus of fifteen acres are sixteen school buildings, including a gymnasium and a special building for the Junior College. There is an open air theatre and the auditorium is equipped with a stage. There are OFF TO SCHOOL Fullerton High School is determined that its splendid buildings shall not be unoccupied. Eight buses collect the pupils and take them to and from school also three residences for teachers, a Botanical Garden and a large athletic field. The social attractions of the school include an annual musical festival, in which two girls' and two boys' glee clubs co- operate with the twenty- four piece orchestra. A number of plays are also given during the school year. The school transports rural pupils in eight automobile buses. The smaller schools share proportionately in this attention to athletics. They also have athletic teams for both sexes in various sports such as volley ball and tennis. Considerable attention is also given to music, and there are boys' and girls' glee clubs in a number of schools, and orchestras in ten. Practically every school has play- ground apparatus. In a number of the schools there are stereopti- cons or moving-picture machines. 36 COUNTY-WIDE AGENCIES CROW S LANDING GRADE SCHOOL The splendid buildings of this school in Stanislaus County are the more remarkable because the community they serve numbers not more than five or six hundred people STANISLAUS COUNTY S PREMIER SCHOOL Patterson Union High School 37 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION Special days are observed throughout the schools of the county. At Christmas, Thanksgiving, commencement, Halloween and on Valentine's Day, there are elaborate programs and special exercises and decorations by the art, music and reading classes. Beautifying the school grounds is customary on Arbor Day. National holidays furnish the motif for patriotic study in various classes. There is an annual exhibit of school work. The children of the schools are organized in the Junior Red Cross and the activities include the sending of jellies to the naval hospitals, clothing to needy children in Europe as well as in the county, the installing of improvements of hygienic nature in the school, health education and the use of motion pictures where the school has a machine. The interest in health has extended in cer- tain communities beyond what little the Red Cross can do. The government peace program of the Children's Bureau is followed in a few districts. It includes both health games and instruction. Others employ nurses on full or part time. It is in the broader social program that the schools of Stanislaus County have a larger contribution to make in the future. As in the southern county practically all of the 421 elementary and high school teachers are college or normal school graduates. This fact places in every community men and women who have the training and, presumably, the ability to become community leaders. This asset has been too little used, possibly because the administration authori- ties have held very closely to strictly educational work and have not encouraged other activities. On the other hand, these activities have not been discouraged, and there has been cordial cooperation with social work begun under local initiative such as the Americaniza- tion program at Hughson. The state appropriates approximately $323,000 a year to the schools of Orange County, about four-fifths of which goes to the elementary schools. This amount is duplicated by the county. All of the school districts raise money for the schools by special taxa- tion and twenty-four districts have used school bonds at least once, to a total of more than $2,000,000. The appropriations for schools increased 450 per cent in the decade between 1910 and 1920. The county spends about one-third of its income on education. The average annual expenditure per pupil in the kindergartens is $25.13, in the grades, $37.70, and in the high schools, $98.29. The Americans and Japanese in Orange County present no out- standing problems from the point of view of the schools. They attend well except for illness. The Mexican situation is entirely 38 COUNTY-WIDE AGENCIES different, but this will be discussed in connection with the chapter on Mexican work. Both the counties now have county-wide library systems. Whereas the system in Orange County is in its first year that in Stanislaus County is ten years old and is one of the best in America. The Stanislaus County Free Library was established in 1911 by the Board of Supervisors, with the idea of securing for rural residents the same library privileges enjoyed by the people living in the cities. The nucleus of the system was the fine McHenry Library in Modesto, the county seat. Including it and the five Carnegie Libraries in other incorporated centers, there are sixty-three dis- tributing points in the county. Twenty-seven of these are com- munity branches and thirty-six are school branches. Of the com- munity branches six have buildings and fifteen have reading rooms while the remainder use private residences or other convenient centers as distributing points for the books. Including the three at headquarters, there are sixty-six workers on the staff. With the exception of the custodians in small neighborhoods, all these are trained workers, although not all give their entire time to the work. The service thus rendered is greatly appreciated. The total circulation of books during the last year was almost a quarter of a million. Registered borrowers number 17,808, or approximately forty per cent of the people in the county. Considering the high proportion of foreign-speaking people and the number unable to read, this record is remarkably good. Any branch can procure any book desired by the borrower, either through the Library at the county seat or the State Library. The County Library also supplies many of the smaller schools with maps, charts, pictures and victrola records. In addition to these there are other welfare agencies either con- trolled or subsidized by the county such as anti-tuberculosis leagues, destitution homes, hospitals, the juvenile court and the public wel- fare department. Both counties employ probation officers who work in cooperation with the courts and the schools. They are also charged to cooperate with the State in carrying out legislation in regard to orphans, widows and families, that for one reason or another, need aid. In Stanislaus County this work is under a county welfare department. California has an elaborate code of laws dealing with the care of the unfortunate and the State Board of Control has a policy which is in line with present-day standards. The family is recognized as the normal unit and in the state as a whole, the number of children receiving aid in institutions dropped 39 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION almost 80 per cent between 1904 and 1918, while during the same period the number aided in families increased nearly 200 per cent. The Public Welfare Department is closely linked with the adminis- tration of the Probation Officer, and it has power to call upon the services of all county agencies. The welfare budgets of these two counties reflect something of the social and economic condition of the people. They total $227,316.53. This represents $2.68 per capita in Stanislaus and $1.45 in Orange County. 1 There are some significant omissions from the list. Neither county, for instance, has a county public health nurse. It is claimed that much of the aid extended goes either to the foreign-born or to those who have come from other parts of America in search of health. There are no poor in these counties, especially in the southern one, in the sense in which that term is understood elsewhere. Wealth seems to be comparatively well distributed. For instance, in Orange County in 1921 one family in five reported taxable personal property. The standard of living is therefore high. Forty-six out of every 100 dwellings have telephones and to every eleven houses there are ten automobiles. The activities of these county governments indicate that the people have come to regard the county as a larger community. The library systems, reaching into every corner of the county, show how thoroughly society of itself can organize to meet a need. For some of these neighborhoods and hamlets the branch of the county library is almost the only agency which brings the touch of the outside social and cultural world to the people. No other agency, religious or social, is nearly as successful in covering the area of the county. It will be seen from this review that in both social and economic affairs the county has been accepted as a working unit. A number of voluntary social and religious agencies also adopt this unit. Each county has an unusual number of these, seven being common to both. Of them all the Red Cross enlists the largest membership. It is undertaking to serve hot lunches in the schools of several communities. It supports public health nurses in the two county seats. Its other activities center upon the nor- mal program of the organization and include aid for ex-service men and their families, raising funds for European relief and similar projects. The county-wide Y.M.C.A. organizations employ four secretaries and enroll 1,100 boys in sixty-five groups, sixteen of these groups being high school clubs. The programs include athletics, socials, *This figure is on the basis of estimated 1921 population. 40 COUNTY-WIDE AGENCIES father and son banquets, educational and social hygiene talks, pic- nics, hikes, conferences, camping features. Every group has a Bible class. Last year there were sixty-eight decisions for the Christian life among the Y.M.C.A. boys. The combined budgets in the two counties slightly exceed $17,000. Another organization concerned with the welfare of boys which is operating in both counties is the Boy Scouts. In each there is a full-time scout executive. The regular scout program is carried out including hikes and camping trips. Nearly one thousand boys, divided almost equally between the two counties are enrolled. Most of the work is in the cities. An analysis of the points at which the Y.M.C.A. and Boy Scouts are operating shows that these agencies have devoted themselves largely to the irrigated and more favored sections. This results in their appealing to the same constituency in certain places. There may be work enough for both organizations in some of the larger centers but not in village or open country communities. The pres- ent policies of the organizations do not succeed in meeting the total need. In one of the counties, for instance, there are five thousand boys in the elementary and high school grades. Even assuming that half of these are in the fifth grade or lower, and therefore below scout age, the fact that the combined memberships of the Association groups and the scout troops is barely one thousand in each county shows the need for expansion. The scout program is one which can be adopted and used by any organization such as church, school or association. It is a fair question as to whether or not it is socially the best policy for this organization to erect county-wide organizations, at least where others were first in the field. Theoretically, the Boy Scouts work through existing agencies. Its executive secures a leader in a church, club or school. Practically, there are all the possibilities for competition. In one county for instance, one organization has a camp site. The other is about to buy one. There is cooperation between the Y.M.C.A. and the Boy Scouts, but it is a cooperation based on splendid personalities and not on a definitely coordinated policy. Both appeal largely to the same financial constituency. In a time of depression, therefore, the work of both would suffer. If there could be a coordinated policy and a combined budget the boys of every community and hamlet in the county could be reached with a smaller expenditure. As it is, approximately one-third of the communities are untouched by either agency. These sugges- tions are not intended to be an exact solution for the problem. 41 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION The contribution of both agencies to boy life is valuable. In many ways they supplement each other but from the standpoint of general social efficiency it is proper to point out the weaknesses of the present situation. The anti-tuberculosis organizations cooperate with the county officials. Among a number of special achievements one county has made a health survey and the other through the sale of its stamps has secured funds to employ a county nurse for one year and hopes to make the service permanent. In Stanislaus County, Community Service, Inc., is also at work and had, at the time of the survey, a full-time executive. The bulk of the work has thus far been done at Modesto along lines of dramatics, community sings, recreation, play and activities for girls. Some work has been accomplished in the rural districts, especially those contiguous to Modesto but also in Salida, Keyes and Oakdale. These points have formed a dramatic league. Community Service has also supervised the playground work in Modesto, and cooperated in such special enterprises as "Girls' Week" and "Music Week." The plans now under way include county adult athletics and the formation of Mothers' Clubs. ** County Sunday School Associations exist in both counties. In Orange County there had been a salaried secretary giving his entire time to the work of the association. He helped especially the smaller Sunday Schools and gave some religious service to neglected portions of the county. In certain communities in cooperation with the public schools Bible tests were given to grade and high school pupils. Both associations held district and workers' conferences. In the northern county the work is entirely on a volunteer basis and successful to the measure of the loyalty and service given by its officers. In the south the total budget was a little over $3,000, of which a disproportionate share, $1,300, went to the state Sunday School Association. It was this last fact which was largely re- sponsible for the difficulties in which this otherwise successful and promising agency found itself in the summer of 1921. Another county-wide religious organization is the Clerical Club of Orange County. In effect, this is a county ministerial association meeting quarterly or oftener if needed. Its secretary is the execu- tive secretary of the County Young Men's Christian Association. It has stood for Sabbath observance, introduced speakers on live topics, brought pressure to bear on beach officials to enforce decency and investigated the subject of week-day religious instruction. 42 COUNTY-WIDE AGENCIES About 80 per cent of the ministers of the county are members of the club. Two other agencies peculiar to Orange County remain to be described. These are the Social Service League and the federated Parent Teachers' Association. Formerly a volunteer agency, the League was taken under county supervision in the spring of 1921. At present it is specializing on the employment question, investigating the family situation of possible workers, finding those who are fit for occupation and then securing for them practical work. The relief as such is negligible. The prosperity of the county is shared by the great majority of the people, although there is a certain amount of confidential relief work when situations of sudden stress arise. Non-interest bearing loans are then made. Churches and clubs such as the Rotary, Elk and Kiwanis are enlisted in efforts to take care of children. The League has a child-welfare department and seeks to examine chil- dren of pre-school age. There is a clinic in charge of the county director and records are kept according to the standards of the Russell Sage Foundation. This department of the League is the distribution center for the government bulletins covering prenatal and child care. The Parent-Teachers' Associations grew out of the County Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the thirty- four local associations within the county are now affiliated with the California Congress of Mothers' and Parent Teachers' Associations. The total membership is over 2,600. There have been lectures on child welfare and the activities and educational work of the associations locally and collectively are responsible for the employment of five community nurses, for putting the county free library system into operation, for building teacherages, for creating sentiment for the enforcement of the state cigarette law, for financing summer play- grounds, for receptions to the teachers, for community Christmas trees and for entertainment for both native and alien children. In addition to all this, Americanization work has been done in several of the Mexican schools, school bonds and other school legislation have been supported, vocational conferences held and $2,000 has been raised to purchase playground apparatus, four phonographs, two moving-picture machines and other needed equipment for one or more of the schools. Even this array does not entirely exhaust the list of organiza- tions operating, if not on a county basis, at least throughout the county. Of these the American Legion is one. All the more im- 43 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION portant agencies from a religious and social point of view have, however, been noted. It will be seen that vigorous efforts have been put forth to meet social needs. There is no lack of organiza- tions, and while there is some overlapping of effort, there is a cor- dial spirit of cooperation among the executives of most of these agencies. At the same time, no attempt at anything more than informal conference has as yet been made. Each organization pro- ceeds along its own line. There is no council of agencies. The time is coming, however, when the growth of these counties and the pressure of unmet needs will demand greater coordination. Today, the foreigner, especially the Mexican, is the greatest problem the welfare agencies must face. The prospects of a rapid increase in the general population will lay added burdens upon all of the social and religious institutions. A county council of agencies would probably be most useful in correlating the work of the various bodies, in crystallizing the social sentiment of each county on any issue and in making effective the joint programs of certain of the agencies. Certainly if there is not a council of agencies there should be quarterly conferences including all interests, both social and religious, and both public and private. At the present time, with the situation so cooperative and friendly as it is, the need for this may not be apparent, but it would be well for the leaders in each county to take advantage of the present opportunity to organize so that a less fortunate state of affairs may not arise. 44 CHAPTER IV THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN GENERAL ONE hundred and twenty thousand people, agricultural in their interests, living in a land that was young when New England was aging, prosperous above the average, and all believing in the future of their country, this is the opportunity of the Church of Christ in these two California counties. Within half a century, there has been built a life which in many respects represents the farthest reach toward a fully satisfying rural existence that any group of American farmers has yet attained. The rapidity of the development that has occurred has, however, thrown upon every social institution the burden of increasing its equipment and its service with equal celerity in order to keep pace. This is especially true of the churches, for they, together with the schools, are the only institutions which have seriously attempted in the past to reach entire population groups. At first glance, there is much to indicate satisfactory progress on the part of the religious forces. The 1906 Federal religious census reported a total of 11,646 church members in these two counties and that of 1916 found 27,980, an increase of 131 per cent. Church membership is, therefore, increasing more rapidly than the population which in the last census period gained slightly less than 90 per cent. The Protestant and non-evangelical groups have alike shared in this gain, though the Roman Catholics have made a larger proportionate advance, due very largely to the Portuguese immigra- tion into Stanislaus County. These figures, of course, include both the city and the town and country churches. In this survey, as previously stated, city churches have been excluded from the study. For purposes of definition, incorporated places with five thousand or more inhabitants have been classified as cities. 1 Those churches which have been studied have been divided into three groups, town, village and country. Towns have 1 California law permits the incorporation of cities of six classes. Waterford, for instance, with a population of 500 is a city of the sixth class. In this treatise, for the sake of uniformity and clarity, the divisions used in similar surveys and noted above have been retained. 45 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION been defined as incorporated centers with from 2,501 to 5,000 in- habitants. Villages include all places with from 251 to 2,500. Hamlets of 250 or less and open country communities are counted as country. The following chapters discuss the evangelical churches of the English-speaking population. Later chapters describe the Mexican Protestant and non-evangelical work. In these two coun- ties there are fifteen town, forty-nine village and twenty country churches. These are distributed among the following denomina- tions : Denomination Churches Methodist Episcopal ...................................... 19 Presbyterian, U. S. A ....................................... 1 1 Baptist ................................................... 7 Church of the Brethren ................................... 5 Seven Day Adventists ..................................... 5 Congregational ........................................... 5 Lutheran (various synods) ............................... 5 Methodist Episcopal South ................................ 4 Friends .................................................. 4 Disciples ................................................... 4 Free Methodist ........................................... 3 Church of the Nazarene .................................. 3 Church of Christ ......................................... 2 Swedish Covenant ........................................ 2 Protestant Episcopal ...................................... 2 Swedish Baptist .......................................... i Swedish Free Baptist .................................... I Advent Christian ......................................... i In addition to these congregations there are several branches of certain sects which, though non-Catholic, can hardly be classified as evangelical. Small, separate groups, without influence, they live upon superstition . and emotionalism. They keep no records and are not a constructive influence. The total membership of the six or seven such organizations does not exceed two hundred members and is probably considerably less. Though investigated, the pro- gram and organization of these so-called churches is not compar- able with that of the regular denominational congregations and they are therefore excluded from this discussion. There are a number of abandoned or inactive churches in both counties. Most of these are in the dry farming areas where people are few and leadership scarce. These regions constitute a real problem which will be discussed later. Two churches have been given up because of their failure to live in overchurched communi- ties. In four other cases the death of an organization did not mean the ending of religious work. The population of certain communi- 46 THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN GENERAL ties shifted. New groups moved in which either racially or his- torically were totally unaccustomed to the church which had been ministering to the field. In three instances the buildings have been turned over to the new organizations formed either by or for the new population. 47 CHAPTER V CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE CALIFORNIA has developed a distinct type of dwelling the bungalow. The influence of the bungalow and of the Spanish mission type of architecture, while clearly evidenced in many of the schools, has not extended to the town and country churches. A DEPARTURE FROM THE CONVENTIONAL The First Baptist Church at Turlock, Stanislaus County, is successful in getting away from the conventional style of architecture. For the most part they are the same sort of conventional oblong buildings which may be seen anywhere in rural America. Wood is the prevailing building material, having been used in seventy of the eighty-two church buildings. 1 The buildings are for 1 Two congregations worship in rented halls, hence the difference between the number of congregations and the number of buildings. 48 CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE A CITY CHURCH AND A TOWN CHURCH These two fine Methodist churches are situated respectively at Anaheim and at Oakdale 49 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION the most part of good size. Only twenty-four of the entire number are the conventional one-room building. Thirty-four have from two to five rooms each, fourteen from six to ten, and ten churches enjoy from eleven to twenty-three rooms each. The total seating capacity of these churches averages 301, and that of the main audi- toriums, 215, an indication that the extra rooms are usually so arranged that they can be thrown into the main auditorium when necessary. A comparison of church buildings by town, village and country yields the results that would be expected. Town buildings are the most costly, with the village and country following in that order. The average value for all the buildings is a little over $6,000 but the range is from $1,000 to $25,000. The average in the towns alone is $16,342 as against $4,207 for the villages and $2,510 for the country. Two-fifths of the church buildings are valued at less than $3,000. It is interesting to note that whereas the town churches in these California counties are considerably more valuable than those in two prosperous eastern counties selected for comparison, Salem County, N. J., and Clay County, Iowa, the average value of all church buildings is one-third lower than in Salem County and only slightly in excess of Clay County. The economic advantages of the California counties are not reflected in the type of church buildings except in the towns. Another comparison can be made within the counties themselves between the value of church buildings located in irrigated sections, in the less favored agricultural areas and in communities where oil is the predominating economic asset. The highest values are to be found in the oil communities. If their average valuation is represented by ten, the average valuation of the church buildings in the more favored agricultural communities would be represented by eight and in the less favored by four. Social equipment is strangely lacking in most of the churches and even those that have many rooms use them chiefly for religious education rather than for both educational and social purposes. The kitchen, of course, is to be found in practically all the buildings that have more than one room. Eleven churches own stereopticons and one has a moving-picture machine which is used every Sunday evening. In other ways the equipment is modern, nine-tenths of the churches, for instance, having electric lights. The churches, too, are usually in good condition, only four being classed as "poor" condition and but seventeen as "fair." Fifty-six of the churches in the counties supply parsonages for 50 CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE their ministers, a high proportion including two-thirds of the village and country congregations and four-fifths of the town churches. With but few exceptions these parsonages are in good condition. Their values range from $1,000 to $7,000 but average just under $3,000. HUNTINGTON BEACH METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH Vacationists and oil are jointly responsible for making this community one of the most prosperous in Orange County FINANCE The 8,000 active members of the evangelical churches raise every year more than $250,000. This is the outstanding fact in the finan- cial situation. It means more than thirty-one dollars per member and more than $3,000 per congregation. The prosperity of the people is undoubtedly reflected in the financial condition of their churches. Whether this giving is proportionately as great as the wealth represented in these counties, is a subject for further study, but however viewed these totals are impressive. Of the entire amount raised Stanislaus County with 60 per cent of the combined active membership contributes a little more than 51 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION fifty per cent. The following table gives the comparative financial situation : CONTRIBUTIONS BY CONGREGATIONS TABLE A. Average Total Raised By Town Churches Village Churches Country Churches County Average Orange County . . . .$7401.34 $3189.05 $1468.58 $3053.13 Stanislaus Countv . . "UOQ.32 2423.50 1866.80 3104.40 TABLE B. Average Per Capita Contributions Town Village Country County Churches Churches Churches Average Orange County $34-22 $39.39 $36.29 $37.29 Stanislaus County 25.48 34.64 19.79 28.02 One explanation of the difference between the two lies in the fact that the average gross income per farm in Orange County is $6,096 as against $3,754 in Stanislaus County. As nearly as can be determined from government census figures, which at this writing are not entirely complete, the difference in net income is even more in favor of the southern county. The towns are so largely depen- dent upon the farmers for their prosperity that these figures assume a significance for every type of community. Another reason for the difference probably lies in the fact that the churches of Orange County have been more ready to try some of the more modern systems of church finance. Here all but three of the churches use the budget system and all but ten have the envelope system and every member canvass. Every one of the town churches falls into the last class. As a result their average per capita contributions are $34.23 ; in the villages of Orange County the per capita contribution of the churches with a budget system and an every member canvass is $44.79 ; of those churches without such financial system, $28.93. The advantage is most decidedly with the churches using the most efficient system. The ranges in per capita contributions are interesting because they show the vary- ing response of the membership to the church and its program. In town, the highest record for per capita giving is $48.43 per member, and the lowest is $23.66. In villages, the highest record is $160.52 per member, and the lowest is $10.04; while in country churches, the highest is $45.81 per member and the lowest is $8.96. 52 CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE The average per capita contribution for the churches of this entire county, as noted above, is $37.29. This is more than double the record made in the eastern county selected for comparison, though the gross income per farm in Orange County is but little more than 10 per cent above that of the eastern county. The average is 40 per cent higher than that of the middle western county mentioned. While differences in average gross farm income between these two counties and Orange County are small they are markedly different in several other particulars. In EFFECT OF SYSTEM IN CHURCH FINANCE IN VILLAGE CHURCHES Annual Amount Contributed per Active Member $44.79 $28.93 Without Efficient* With Efficient Financial System Financial System *A budget for all money raised and an every member canvass. CHART I Orange County, for instance, six-sevenths of the farmers are owner- operators as against two-thirds in the eastern and less than half in the middle western county. In these two latter counties approxi- mately 60 per cent of the farms are mortgaged to about one-half their value, whereas in Orange County only a little more than 40 per cent of the farms are mortgaged to about one-quarter of their value. While these economic factors do not condition giving they probably do affect it to a considerable degree. In considering these figures it should be remembered that in the last decade school appropriations have increased five times as rapidly as the population and are now 450 per cent higher than in 1910. Bank deposits in the same period also increased 400 per cent. 53 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION Church membership more than doubled. It would be reasonable to expect a high rate of giving. It was not possible to secure com- plete satisfactory financial records for all churches for ten years ago. Such records as were available would seem to indicate that church contributions have not kept pace proportionately with school appropriations. It would furnish interesting and valuable material for any church with accurate records to compare its own gains in THE CHURCH HOME OF A FOREIGN-SPEAKING GROUP This fine Swedish Church at Turlock, Stanislaus County, contains twenty-one rooms membership, per capita giving and total receipts with the records of the county schools and welfare agencies. Special conditions make the figures in Stanislaus County as high as they are. There are a number of Seventh Day Adventist churches in the county whose members tithe their incomes. Two congregations during the year covered by the survey held successful building campaigns which materially increased their averages. The ranges in per capita giving are greater in this county than in the other. One town church averages $123.25 and one small country church $156.00. Payment on a debt accounted for 76 per cent of 54 CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE the money raised in one of these churches and in the other, half the budget was contributed by one man. The largest and most valuable church buildings in the two counties are the property of the Swedish congregations. To them belong 16 per cent of the churches as well as 27 per cent of the active members in Stanislaus County. The per capita contributions for their town churches is $27.80, and for their village churches, $50.46. The average for all their seven churches is $31.07. Thus they exceed the average for their county. All but one of their churches belong to the liturgical denominations. None of them are more than fifteen years old. This group of people and their churches are an inspiring witness to what can happen in rural America when any group properly led and inspired sets out to HOW THE CHURCH DOLLAR 15 RAISED TOWN VILLAGE COUNTRY CHURCHES CHURCHES CHURCHES OTHER METH k ^^ ^^ COULEC UB5CRIPTK3N CHART II found new institutions. They have prospered materially and spiritually, though they still have many problems to solve. In Stanislaus County religious work in the less favored agricul- tural sections is, as will be shown subsequently, almost non-existent. This is not the case in Orange County where churches are still at work in such sections. Here there are some communities which economically are entirely or predominatingly supported by the oil industry. Attention has been drawn to the fact that these com- munities have a slightly larger average investment in church build- ings than the others. A comparison of per capita giving by types of communities is instructive. The church members in the best agricultural regions average $41.69 per year, those in the oil com- munities $35.18 and those in the less fertile sections, $23.76. Since 55 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION the oil communities pay a higher salary to their pastors by about $200, it follows that the churches in the irrigated sections are con- tributing by far the largest proportion to benevolences. The mis- sionary appeal needs to be stressed always but especially in these oil centers. Most of the money of the churches is raised by subscription. Of every dollar, seventy cents comes in this way, seventeen cents from collection and thirteen cents from other methods. Town churches raise eighty cents of each dollar in this way. 1 An analysis of the distribution of the church dollar indicates that it is divided almost equally under three heads : salaries, benevo- lences and all other purposes. Town, village and country churches HOW THE CHURCH DOLLAR 15 EXPENDED TOWN VILLAGE COUNTRY CHURCHES CHURCHES CHURCHES MISSION: & >^ BENtVOLRNCE BENEVOLENCES bENEVOLENCES aes CHART III spend thirty-eight, twenty-seven and thirty-three cents respectively for benevolences. 2 These proportions mean that the average member of the town churches of Orange County gives $15.57 a vear f r missions and benevolences or nearly twice as much as he contributes for his pastor's salary. A still further comparison is possible. The city churches in Orange County have been surveyed. While one city church with more than 200 members reaches the high per capita contribution of $71.25, the average per capita of the city churches is $20.78, 46 per cent of which goes to missions and benevolences. The city churches of Orange County are very strong. A number of them 1 See Appendix, Tables V and VI. 2 See Appendix, Table VII. 56 CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE have more than 500 members, several exceed 1,000. Their per capita contributions, however, are barely half that of the village churches in the same county and are only 55 per cent of the average per capita contribution of all the town and country churches of this county. This is too often the case in counties like this. Larger churches can maintain a comparatively high level of expenditure on relatively small per capita gifts. Thus when memberships are large there is not the struggle to sustain the organization nor is there quite the incentive to give for local purposes that exists in the average village or country church. There can be no doubt that the city churches, splendid as their benevolence record is, could very materially increase their contribution. This becomes the more clear when the record of these churches is compared with those in a typical frontier county in northeastern Washington where agri- cultural life is just taking root, where conditions of sacrifice and great hardship still prevail, and where land costs ten times as much to clear as to buy. Even under these circumstances the members of the country churches in this county, debt burdened as they are, give $36.53 per capita. The entire county averages $24.98 per capita. Considering their resources, such figures make the giving in the California counties look small indeed. One fact which runs all through these figures on giving is the high proportion of the total budget which goes for missions and benevolences. Before the war it was the exceptional rural church which gave as much as 25 per cent of its income to causes related to the larger interests of the Kingdom. Today it is no uncommon thing to find whole counties making this record. The possibilities of missionary giving have not, however, been exhausted by any means. An analysis of the individual records of the churches shows that of the eighty-four churches only thirty-six or 43 per cent reached the 25 per cent level. HOME MISSION AID At first sight it would appear that little home mission aid was needed in these counties. They are well able to care for their own religious needs, at least from the point of view of their total re- sources and their total unmet needs. Home mission aid, however, is seldom distributed from this point of view. Thus it is that one- third of the town and country churches in Orange County and one- quarter of those in Stanislaus County are sustained by grants of home mission money, totalling $4,615 per year. This is exclusive, 57 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION of course, of sums granted for the Mexican or Japanese work. Of this sum, Orange County receives approximately one-third, $1,000 of which goes to nine churches which are the only ones in their communities. Such aid can be justified. In Stanislaus County the situation is quite different. Eighty per cent of the total appropriations made to the churches within this county goes to overchurched communities. Three of the churches so aided are in a community served by six Protestant bodies. These three are allowed $1,220. One of them with a membership of less than fifty receives $720 a year. Two other aided churches divide a field with five more self-supporting congre- gations. One of these has just had its grant increased to $40 a month. All recent grants of aid and all increases in aid to churches within this county have been given to churches in communities in which there were already strong self-supporting churches with resident pastors. On the other hand, in the only community where home mission aid has been discontinued the church so assisted was the only one at work. It has not only been helped to self-support but has also been led to do one of the best pieces of work in the county. Among other things it has established a Daily Vacation Bible School which enrolls as many children of the foreign-born as of the American- born, English-speaking parents. In the last decade $15,470 has been poured into these competitive congregations, some of which have had help for thirty years. Since the beginning of the last decade the sum has been steadily increased until it is double what it then was, amounting now to $2,550 a year. With hardly an exception the churches which have been aided to sustain their life in a competitive struggle have failed to show any material advance in members or influence. One of the succeeding chapters will show that there is a great deal of untouched territory in Stanislaus County. There are several communities in the dry farming areas that have church buildings but which, lacking aid, have been unable to sustain religious services. These are left to the tender mercies of an overworked Sunday school missionary whose territory covers seven counties and who visits them once a quarter. An ordained man, equipped with a car, could be employed to reach these points with the money that is now wasted in com- petitive theological armaments. Similarly, in Orange County, $1,000 a year missionary aid is extended to five small city churches, the average membership of which is forty-two and all of which must compete with strong churches with large plants and hundreds 58 CHURCH EQUIPMENT AND FINANCE of members. Taking city and country together, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that $4,100 of the home mission aid granted to these two wealthy counties is allotted to churches in communities that are adequately cared for without them. These funds are being spent, therefore, not so much for missions, for telling the good news where it is not known, for extending the influence and power of the Church of Christ in needy sections, as for sustaining denomina- tional organizations for the sake of a comparatively small and de- creasing group of people and the glory of the annual reports. Granted the right of people to give for such a purpose if they desire, they should cease from degrading the high meaning of the term by calling funds so spent "missionary money," when untouched fields lie directly adjoining those which are over-cultivated. CHAPTER VI THE MINISTERS THESE Californian counties have drawn their population from all over the world. Occident and Orient meet here. Nearly every state in the Union is represented. The task of welding these people into harmonious, mutually respecting groups, of mar- shalling the constructive forces for social progress, of infusing spiritual aims and motives into the struggle for an ever more satis- fying life, all this and more is the task of the Church, and pre- eminently the success of the task depends upon her individual leaders, the ministers. There is an unusually high proportion of ministers to churches in these counties. Indeed, this is a characteristic of the Pacific Coast, where the average number of churches to each minister is only one and three-tenths. The counties here considered better even this record. At the time of the survey seventy-four ministers were serving eighty churches. Four churches were pastorless. For any two counties to show a record such as this, practically one church to a minister, is worthy of commendation. It is a situation that ought to exist everywhere but it is too rarely found. It gives to the churches of these counties an unusual advantage. The people believe in having the whole of a man for one whole church. They are convinced that part of a man cannot do a whole man's job. It is the more to be regretted, therefore, that the distribution of the churches and ministers is that which was described in the last chapter under the analysis of home mission aid. The counties have both the resources and the men to reach every last community and family if they were differently distributed. Sixty-nine of the seventy-five ministers give their entire time to the work of the church and sixty-seven or 84 per cent of them are resident within the parishes of their churches. This record is nearly two and one-half times above the average for the Pacific Coast. Six ministers have other occupations in addition to their task of church leadership. This is only 8 per cent as against 13 per cent for the Pacific Coast region. Those pastors who do not live with their people are not far away, and the few who have 60 THE MINISTERS circuits do not have to travel far. One man comes from without the county, a distance of fifty miles, to serve one church in Stanis- laus County, but this is the exception. Apart from that instance only three pastors travel more than ten miles and with such excellent roads such a distance is not a serious matter. One factor in keeping a resident pastor is an adequate parson- age. To expect a minister to meet the housing problem in every new field is to expect the impossible, yet too often the rural church furnishes no manse. In these counties, of the eighty-two churches owning their buildings only fifty have parsonages. This is a low figure, unworthy of the resources of the churches and the more sur- prising when it is remembered that sixty-seven of these churches command the entire time of their pastors. Seventy-one per cent of the communities have each at least one minister in residence, whereas the average for the Pacific Coast is only 24 per cent. Next to a resident minister the greatest asset that a church can have is one who sticks to his job. Too many ministers are becoming migrant laborers. The last years have seen a rapid decrease, all over the country, in the average length of pastorate, even at a time when denominations which moved their men frequently were be- ginning to recognize the desirability of lengthening the period of service given to any one church. In this respect there is a marked difference between the two countries. Orange County has fourteen churches which have made either no change or only one in minis- terial leadership during the last decade. This is 35 per cent of the total number. In Stanislaus County only six churches or 14 per cent have made this record while one-third have changed every two years or oftener. Considering all the ministers we find that they have been in the service an average of nineteen and one-half years but that they have been in their present charges -but three and one- third years. A long time in the ministry but a short time in their present fields would characterize the experience of the great ma- jority. Always a handicap to effective work, this situation is doubly unfortunate in counties which are changing and growing as rapidly as are these. To a new minister all the people are new. He can- not differentiate between his church members and the newcomers in the community. He must spend time getting acquainted with his members, some of which might otherwise be utilized in visiting newcomers. This situation is one of the chief reasons why people coming to Stanislaus County, who formerly were members of churches, so often do not affiliate with the local churches. Business concerns assume that executives in responsible positions 61 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION will need from one to several years of training in order to gather experience necessary before they can do their most efficient work. The Church deals in the most serious and important business of making men and communities Christian. A minister is an execu- tive of an organization and expected to use the highest degree of insight and sympathy in dealing with human beings, and of social statesmanship in dealing with communities. It takes time for the minister to win the confidence of his people. It is possible that the difference between the two counties in the length of ministerial residence finds its partial explanation in a difference that exists in the salaries paid. This can best be shown in the two tables following: THE MINISTERIAL PAY ROLL TABLE C. Number of Ministers Giving Full Time Range of Salaries Stanislaus County Orange County No specified Salary 2 o $ 500 or less i o 501 to 750 I o 751 to 1,000 2 2 i,ooi to 1,250 10 2 1,251 to 1,500 ii 7 1,501 to 1,750 5 9 1,751 to 2,000 o 6 Over $2,000 5 5 37 31 Salaries may be further classified as follows : TABLE D. Stanislaus Orange Full time Part time Ministers Ministers With one With one Church Church Full time Part time Ministers Ministers With one With one Church Church .$2350 $1000 . 750 970 . 1486 990 $2650 $1980 770 950 1690 1552 Maximum salary paid Minimum " Average " The figures in both the above tables arbitrarily include $250 added to the cash income reported wherever the minister had free parsonage privileges, as representing the estimated cash value of the parsonage. The modal average (i.e. the salary most frequently paid) for the whole of Orange County is between $1,750 and $1,800. In Stanislaus County it is between $1,200 and $1,500, which is no 62 THE MINISTERS higher than the average of many counties in the Middle West and East. In considering the advantage which the southern county has over the other it must be remembered that the average value of its farms is almost twice as great, that the average value of an acre of farm land is likewise much larger, and that in this county also there are fewer churches for a larger number of people, though not, as we shall see, for a larger number of actual members. The differences in salary are only what would be expected, furthermore, from the differences in per capita giving. The twenty-eight pastors of the city churches in Orange County who give their entire time to the ministry receive from $750 to $3,000 a year with a mathe- matical average of $1,702 and a modal average of from $2,400 to $2,700. City ministers are, therefore, better paid than those in town and country. The ministry is, however, more remunerative than school teaching, especially in Orange County, though, of course, most clergymen have greater expense and are required to work more months in a year. The training of the ministers is a point of interest. Judged by accepted standards, the record of these two counties is not what might be expected, although slightly better than the average for the Pacific Coast. In the twenty-six counties studied in this region one-third of the ministers were found to have had college and semi- nary training and 38 per cent had received no professional prepara- tion for their life-work. In these two counties 36 per cent have had the full, traditional training and 30 per cent have had no special preparation. The others have) attended either college or Bible school. Many of the untrained and partially trained clergymen are doing splendid work, but in several respects those with the longer preparation have an advantage. The college and seminary trained ministers are also serving the larger churches. They have a slight advantage in salary, averaging about two hundred dollars a year. Other differences will develop as we proceed. Every minister interviewed by the field investigators was asked to express himself on the future of his field and on its special prob- lems. A great majority, representing sixty-four of the seventy- seven congregations whose ministers were thus questioned, charac- terized the future in optimistic terms. "Bright," "good," "very good," "excellent," "quite fair," were the terms constantly used. Only seven churches seem to have an uncertain future. Six fear the years ahead will bring definite loss and perhaps death to their organizations. The problems faced by the ministers in Stanislaus County were of the kind met everywhere. The young people con- 63 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION cerned some, the lack of equipment others. Dearth of leaders was a handicap and the indifference of the multitude was always felt. In some communities the pushing in of the Portuguese and the de- parture of the English-speaking population have brought real prob- lems to the churches. Orange County pastors faced most of these problems, but for them they are intensified by the necessity of three shifts per day, seven days per week in the oil fields and most of all by the proximity of the beach resorts and the canyons which ever tempt people away from church and into the open. One pastor summed up the situation in this pungent sentence : "Chief prob- lems? To make the people love the Lord as they do the climate." 64 CHAPTER VII CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OUT of a total estimated population of 120,000, the evangelical churches have approximately 20,085 members. 1 This figure, of course, covers city and country and includes all classes of membership, active, inactive and non-resident. The town and country churches account for 9,442 of this total of whom 7,951 are PROTESTANT CHURCH MEMBERS IN POPULATION CHART IV active members. In this survey an active member is defined as one who attends church at least occasionally and who contributes to its support. Thus defined 84 per cent of the membership are in the active class. The resident church membership amounts to n per cent of the total rural population. Thus these counties exceed the rural regional average for the Pacific Coast which is approximately 7 per cent. They make, however, a poorer record than every other section of America except the Rocky Mountain States. Although Orange County has the larger population its church 1 This figure is obtained by adding sufficiently to the Federal Religious Census total for 1916 to coyer growth, and assumes that growth has been on the same ratio to population in the five years following this census as in the ten years preceding. 65 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION membership is much the smaller. Its active membership roll con- tains 3,205 names as against 4,746 in Stanislaus County. The total is 7>9S I - 1 addition there are 515 resident but inactive members and 976 non-residents. Thus the grand total is 9442. 1 Males comprise 43 per cent of the total membership, females 57 per cent. Young people under twenty-one account for a little more than one-quarter of the members, girls having a slight advantage over boys in this group. RESIDENCE AND ACTIVITY OF CHURCH MEMBERS 84 PROTESTANT CHURCHES WITH ENROLLMENT OF 9442 10.3% Non-Resident 5.5% In- Active 84.2% Active ^89.7 % of Total Roll are Resident *An Inactive member is one who does not attend church or contribute ro its support. CHART V The average active membership per church is 108 in Stanislaus County and eighty in Orange. The difference is largely in the country churches where the figures for the two are ninety-one and forty. Town churches average 213 and village churches, seventy- one active members per congregation. GAIN AND LOSS In the light of these general facts and remembering that in the aggregate the combined city and country church membership is 1 See Appendix, Table VIII. 66 CHURCH MEMBERSHIP increasing more rapidly than the population the growth and decline of the churches may be analyzed. Forty-eight or 57 per cent of the churches of these counties made a net gain in membership during the year preceding the survey. Of the remainder twenty or 24 per cent lost ground and sixteen or 19 per cent showed no change. The total gross gain of all churches was 1,374 or 21 per cent of the former net active membership of all churches. The total loss in membership was 594. Thus there was a net gain of 780 or 12 per cent of the active membership. This is a very good record compared to the average for a normal area or for a denomination. Anything less than this, however, would be almost a confession of failure in counties like these in which popula- tion and resources are increasing so rapidly. As it is, only a few more than half the churches showed a net gain. Thirty-four of the forty-eight churches which showed a net increase added more than ten per cent of their former membership. Their gains totaled 901 members or two-thirds of the total gross gain made by all churches. The combined gain of all churches through letter from other churches was 707, slightly more than half the total. The evangelistic return through confession of faith or confirmation was 667 and exceeded by only seventy-three, or less than one person per church, the aggregate loss from all sources. In Orange County the evan- gelistic gain was more than 100 less than the total loss. It is natural under the circumstances that the accessions by letter should be considerable, but the fact that the membership figures in the more populous county show a net loss without such accessions is an unhealthy sign. Orange and Stanislaus counties are far from the pioneer stage and the evangelistic return should far exceed the losses, and this indeed it more than does in the younger county to the north. It is in Orange County, the older and more populous of the two, that the serious discrepancy between these two figures occurs. One proof that these counties have passed from the pioneer stages is to be found in a study of the relation of size of congrega- tion to growth. In a rapidly developing, new country, most churches are small and most of them are growing regardless of size ; but as life becomes stable the small church, with its poorer equip- ment and its inability to retain a resident minister on full time, begins to decline both actually and relatively. This is now the situation in these counties. It can be visualized in the following table which gives the record for the year preceding the survey 67 ' I- 2S . 17 26- so . 15 5I-IOO 19 IOI-I50 13 Over iso . 2O IRRIGATION AND RELIGION GAINS IN MEMBERSHIP BY SIZE OF CONGREGATIONS (One Year Period) TABLE E. Churches with Net Active Number Number Percent Membership of Congregations Gaining Gaining 5 294 5 33-3 13 68.4 9 69.2 16 80. When a church with less than fifty members fails to gain the future for that church begins to look dubious. Twenty of the thirty-two churches in this class are up against a real fight for life. A few of them could well be spared. Others ought by all means to be sustained. It should be stated, however, that with only thirty-two out of eighty-four churches or 38 per cent having less than fifty members these two counties are more fortunate than the average. Every region but one of those studied has shown 50 per cent or more of its churches in this class and the exception has 45 per cent. Among the rural Pacific Coast counties the average number of churches in this class is 55 per cent of the total. It must be admitted that an analysis on the basis of one year does not always do justice to every church. One of the largest churches, for instance, had but recently subjected its membership roll to a vigorous pruning. All but nine of the churches have membership records going back at least five years. A study of these but confirms the conclusions reached above. The table below gives a concrete view of the situation on the basis of a five-year member- ship record. GROWTH AND DECLINE OF CHURCHES (Five Year Period) TABLE F. Churches with Present Total Active Member Number of Number Per cent Number Number ship of Churches Growing Growing Stationary Declining i to 50 24 8 33.3 7 9 Si to iso . "?O 2S 83.3 I 4 Over 150 . . . . 21 18 85.7 I 2 Totals 7S Si 67 9 15 68 CHURCH MEMBERSHIP The small church, often a divisive element in the community, is the least successful. It is to such churches in Stanislaus County and in the cities of Orange County that most of the home mission aid is extended. OCCUPATION OF CHURCH MEMBERS Of the town and country church members, 2,358 are gainfully employed and of this number 1,699 are farmers. The distribution of these is interesting and here the facts of Orange County may be taken as typical because in this county we have the advantage of a RELATION OF SIZE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP TO GAIN OF 24 CHURCHES OF 51 CHURCHES with memberships of less thn 50 with memberships of 50 or more J33 '/. gained 67%, did not gafn SMALL CHURCHES LARGE CHURCHES (Durinq past five year period) CHART VI survey of the city churches. There are 647 farmers on the rolls of its town and country churches. Of these farmers 108 are re- tired and 462 are owners. Of the owners only seventy-nine are identified with country churches, 265 belong to village churches and 118 to town churches. There are only thirty-six farm tenants on the church roll and forty-one farm laborers and here again the larger proportion belongs to town or village churches. Turning to the records of the city churches, it is found that their membership includes 949 farmers of whom 170 are retired. Of the operating farmers 675 are owners and 104 are tenants. The city churches, therefore, have considerably more operating farmers in their mem- bership than all the town, village and country churches combined. Analyzing these figures we find that a little less than one-third of the farm owners are church members while of the native white 69 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION tenants one-half belong to some church. Of the 3,869 native white farm owners, managers and tenants, 1,277 are church members or exactly 33 per cent. Farmers seem to prefer the trained pastor. In Orange County an average of thirteen farm owners belong to the city, town or village church whose pastor has not completed the full traditional training of a minister, whereas thirty-eight farm owners on the average are affiliated with each of the city, town and village churches which has a college and seminary graduate for pastor. In Stanis- laus County also the college and seminary graduate leads by a three-to-two ratio. CHURCH PARISHES As in so many counties in which the roads are good and in which the communities are not only heavily populated but close together, church parish boundaries are difficult to determine because the personal choice of the people enters to a large degree in their selection of a church. Within the irrigated and good road area of both counties the majority of the people can reach more than one Protestant church and often more than one of their own denomina- tion in less time than the average church member in a large city can get to his downtown church. The parish boundaries, therefore, have been drawn to show the average area covered by the church and exceptional instances have been eliminated as far as possible. The procedure used was to follow down each road leading to the church and locate the home of the last regular attendant living within a reasonable distance. The outside points on each road were then connected by straight lines. The aspect of the two counties differs considerably. In Orange County practically all the area except in the large ranch section is covered by the churches but the proportion of membership to popu- lation is low. In Stanislaus County there is a considerable portion of the county that is not reached by the church, despite the fact that its church membership is larger than that of the southern county. Much of the neglected area is, however, sparsely settled. A comparison of the county engineer's map, which locates every farm, and the church parish maps shows that in all there are 440 homes not included within parish boundaries. The only areas that are populated to any extent and which the church has not yet reached lie between Riverbank and Oakdale and along the San Joaquin River. The area to the extreme north is also somewhat 70 CHURCH AND COMMUNITY MAP OF STANISLAUS COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 71 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION neglected. Of course, not nearly all the homes within the parish boundaries are reached by the church as the total membership fig- ures show. Assuming that there are 2,200 people in the 440 homes outside of church parishes, there are still only 17.6 per cent of the population ivithin these parishes who are affiliated with the churches. Another religious problem in this county is that of the rural area surrounding Modesto in which are at least 7,000 people. Modesto city churches have approximately 1,200 members in this area. Making liberal allowance for Roman Catholic members and for children, a conservative estimate shows that there are 1,800 people, over fifteen years of age, not members of any church, Protestant or Catholic. With the rapid growth of Modesto 9,241 in 1920, from 12,000 to 15,000 today and 20,000 in prospect by the end of 1923, it is impossible for the city ministers to reach out into con- tiguous territory or to do more than take care of their own mem- bers. Developments are too rapid for the Church to keep pace under the present methods of administration. Yet here is a great group of people, probably larger than estimated, outside the fold of the Church and at the very threshold of the city. It is a tremen- dous opportunity. In Stanislaus County churches founded in the non-irrigated sections have practically ceased to function. La Grange, Knight's Ferry, Westley, these communities on the east, which are small and weak in comparison with those in the rest of the county, now receive practically no religious attention. In both counties there are overlapping parish boundaries. This is only to be expected, especially in the more populous centers where there is work for all the stronger organizations. Most of the city churches have pushed their parishes considerably beyond their city limits. They are in no sense narrowly urban as was indicated in the occupation analysis of their membership. Some of the parishes extend for as much as ten miles in either direction from the city and thus include the parishes of other churches of the same de- nomination within the county. In this situation is to be noticed an example of the lack of strategy among and within evangelical bodies. Despite this fact there are in Orange County only 372 families belonging to city churches who live more than two miles from their church. It is to be remembered that the town and country churches are reaching only about 10 per cent of the total rural population of the county. Even supposing that every mem- ber in these families belongs to a church it still appears that 72 CHURCH MEMBERSHIP there is a considerable field of intensive cultivation falling between the churches within the cities and those without. The fact that there are approximately 4,000 Roman Catholics in the county does not alter this situation. The Catholics are concen- trated mainly in the cities and what rural membership they have is largely Mexican. Making all due allowances, therefore, and taking the most conservative estimate of the population of Orange County, there are at least 8,000 families in the county not affiliated with any church. Probably 2,000 of these at least are operating farmers, either owners or tenants. Despite the comparatively small number of operating farmers on church membership rolls, it appears that the churches have made better relative progress in reaching this Hfroup than in reaching other occupational groups, since of the total town and country population within the county only about 10 per cent are affiliated with an evangelical church whereas one-third of the operating farmers have such connection. It is possible to press these figures a little further by analyzing the impact of the church in Orange County upon the various types of communities, such as the more and less favored agricultural, the oil and the resort. In the first named, the degree of evangelization by communities ranges from 5 to 26 per cent with only three below 10 per cent and with a group average of 12.7 per cent. Those communities which are predominantly or entirely oil in their eco- nomic life range from 6 to 20 and average n per cent. One center, partly oil and partly resort, lifts the whole average for this class. The pure resort communities average 6.8 per cent, but the average for the less favored agricultural areas is only 3.2 per cent. There are only 167 members in seven of the twelve communities in this group which together have a population of 5,130. These figures include the Mexican and Japanese Protestant membership. On the basis of such an analysis, it is perfectly possible to deter- mine the areas of greatest need. Intensively and extensively the fields are white to the harvest. 73 ^ Community Boundary "-Ni.ghborhood Boundary Parh Boundorif Por,,h Church CoxMKtloj Circuit f Pftor KEY AND SYMBOLS Ham lit *,!., Town -ov,r 5.000 O Church -Whrtt B Church -Colored Church - Wh,t with Paitort Rmd*nc 6 Church- Co lor.d. with Ptor'j RlKinc A Poster* Ridic without Churth-irMi 4 Poitor'j Rf j,d.nc witK.ut Church-Calorid Abandoned Church. CJ In&Ctire Church SI Sunday ScKcl without Church -Whit* 8 Sunday School ittii.t Church -CI<-W Church u,n 9 co..l Bid, CHURCH AND COMMUNITY MAP 74 OF ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 75 CHAPTER VIII THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES IN a sense everything that a church does is a part of its program. Its services and its finances are elements of prime importance but they do not exhaust its responsibility. The important question is "In what do its services of worship eventuate?" And, further, how does the church serve its constituency? How does it educate those who know too little of its history and purpose, both within and without its organization? How does it exert its influ- ence in the larger concerns of the community and the common- wealth? What in short does the church do? Of first importance is the program of religious education. The chief agency of this is the Sunday school. Eighty-one schools in the two counties enroll a total of 10,676, three churches only being without Sunday schools. Stanislaus County leads in enrollment as it does in church membership though by a narrow margin. In most essential particulars the schools of the two counties are about on a par. 1 The average enrollment in the town schools is 274, in the village schools 135, and in the country schools eighty-three while for all the schools together it is 131. The average attendance averages about 70 per cent of the enroll- ment. The best attendance record is made by the country schools of Orange County with three-fourths of the enrolled pupils regu- larly in attendance, which exceeds the attendance record of the county's city church schools and approximates that of its country public schools. One of the most hopeful features of the whole religious situa- tion is the fact that the total Sunday school enrollment exceeds the total active church membership by 2,725 or more than one-third. In the villages the Sunday schools have a 35 per cent larger member- ship than the churches and in the towns 42 per cent larger. Thirty of the thirty-nine Sunday schools in Orange County have larger membership rolls than the churches with which they are connected. The Sunday schools of both counties, therefore, offer an unparal- leled opportunity for evangelistic cultivation. It is to the Sunday 1 See Appendix, Tables X and XL 76 THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES school above all other religious organizations that the tenant, the newcomer and all whose place in the life of the community is least well established first turn. Through it the first contacts with the church can be made if the church is only keen to follow up by visita- tion and pastoral care the opportunity thus presented. The number of rooms available for the work of the various schools corresponds closely to the number of rooms in their re- spective church buildings. Despite all the weakness of our methods of religious educational work churches have given it a place in their activities only second to worship. Rooms have been added to many buildings to insure to the classes privacy and quiet during the in- struction period. The mistake is that rooms obtained at consider- able cost are usually used but half an hour a week. They should be designed so as to be available for community service and recrea- tion during the week. Of the eighty-one schools, thirty-two have regular mission study, either weekly or monthly, while seventy-three send missionary offer- ings regularly to their denominational boards. This is an excep- tional record but there is an even greater distinction. Forty-nine workers have gone from twenty schools into some form of profes- sional Christian service in the last decade. These recruits have come from town, village and country churches, and from all de- nominations. The rural schools, as is often the case, somewhat excel those of the city in this respect. Only fourteen schools conduct classes to prepare pupils for church membership. All told the schools of these counties sent 390 pupils into the church membership last year, two-thirds of them in Stanislaus County. Thus the Sunday schools supplied more than one-half of all the accessions to church membership through con- firmation or confession of faith, although only a little more than half the schools shared in this total. One school contributed a fourth of the accessions from this source in its county as the result of a very carefully worked up Decision Day. Of the other schools observing this day, just half report results. Practically all the addi- tions to church membership from Sunday school ranks are reported from schools which either have a class to prepare for church mem- bership or observe Decision Day or both. Obviously, the best re- sults are attained where there is the best cultivation. Forty-four schools have a total of 178 young people who are attending institutions of learning above the high school grade. Two-thirds of these are from Stanislaus County. Orange County's share of these is less than half the enrollment of its junior colleges. 77 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION The schools have clearly not been very successful in retaining the interest of this age. There is too little social life reported from the schools of these counties. About three-fourths hold an annual picnic. A scant third have class socials. Thirteen schools report other activities which include orchestras, junior choirs, boys' clubs or scouts, volley ball teams, a group of camp fire girls and one summer camp. Com- mendable as are these activities, it is surprising there are not more on the program when the consuming interest of the people in recrea- tion is considered. The groups in the Sunday schools are not utilized largely for social events. "HONOR KNIGHTS" The boys' Sunday School class of the Christian Church at Brea, California As to the other activities, twenty-four schools have teacher- training classes. Graded lessons are used by thirty-five. All schools are open the entire year. Twenty-four have organized classes, forty-seven have cradle rolls and twenty-eight have home departments. All but six distribute Sunday school papers. Twenty- four have libraries. ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CHURCH OTHER THAN SUNDAY SCHOOLS While a well-organized Sunday school can supply many of the necessary week-day activities of any church, the usual tendency is to develop many separate organizations. The ability of a church to reach all its constituency is often measured by the number of 78 THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES organizations it has for the different age and sex groups. The churches of these counties are weak in this particular, except in the matter of women's societies. Orange County has twice as many organizations for boys and girls as Stanislaus County but only half as many for young people. In this latter particular the record is so far below the average as to be a matter of grave concern. The situation for the two areas is shown in the aggregate in the following table: ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CHURCH OTHER THAN SUNDAY SCHOOL TABLE G. In churches located in r \i ^ Town Village Country Entire Area ik v K S V W V k w 2 so ^1 > A 2 i? s s "-*. 5 S s - s 5 5 V O S ,_^ fc. ** ^ 2 ^ s ^ S v 3 ^> s i^ 3 ^> O' 2; oO **, ^ ^^ fej'&O ^^^ ^ fe;*3[ Men 2 CO 2 AQ o o oo Women 2O o w 8,12 A2 T-i? I008 II 216 7-1 yy 2036 Boys 4 60 1 1 ** 8 87 I 18 / o 165 Girls 3 00 4 73 o o 7 Both Sexes / Older People . o o o I 60 I 60 Young People .17 609 33 976 10 450 60 1995 Juniors . . . . o o o o o o O O Where membership was not obtainable with perfect accuracy it has been estimated very conservatively. It is probable that the memberships of the women's and young people's societies are slightly larger than the figures given. The women's societies are nearly equally divided between the Ladies' Aid and Missionary Clubs. The boys' organizations are equally divided between clubs and scout troops, while the girls' are divided between clubs and Camp Fire. The young people's socie- ties are, with three exceptions, entirely of the Christian Endeavor type. Seventeen of the sixty are for either junior or intermediate ages. Forty-two churches have absolutely no organization for their young people. In this matter, the city churches have by far the richer program. This is illustrated in Orange County where out of twenty-eight city churches, six have men's clubs of some kind with an average membership of nearly forty and there are thirty- six women's organizations with nearly 2,300 members, ten boys' 79 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION and six girls' clubs, and thirteen mixed societies for young people. Even this is a low record for young people's organizations. GENERAL CHURCH PROGRAM As would be expected from the high proportion of ministers to churches, there is an abundance of public services of worship. Sixty-one churches have the usual morning and evening services. Eighteen other churches have at least one service each Sunday, though some of these are in the afternoon. Two only have worship every other Sunday while but one reports services at irregular inter- vals. These figures of course exclude the inactive churches which have services only when a Sunday school missionary visits them. The record as it stands is remarkable. Few rural areas can boast that more than nine-tenths of their churches are open every Lord's Day. Thirty of the churches join in union services. Two-thirds of these are in Stanislaus County. The other activities of these churches are few compared to the resources in pastoral leadership and membership. Forty-two unite in local charitable work when it is necessary. Twenty-four have special missionary services, support a worker on the foreign field or contribute in other ways than the simple giving of offerings to support the missionary enterprise. Twenty assist in civic work in their neighborhoods and nine of these are interested in the industrial and agricultural life around them. Thirty of the churches con- tribute something to the social and recreational life of the people, although in too many cases this contribution is limited to picnics and socials. Sixteen have lectures or study classes. Ten churches conduct special activities for their young people in addition to the usual young people's societies. Twenty-four churches definitely co- operate with other religious bodies and ten with non-religious bodies. Varied as is this program it includes only two-thirds of the churches, which means that twenty-eight congregations have no recreational, social, cultural or educational activities of any kind. SEPARATE SUNDAY SCHOOLS There are a number of separate Sunday schools in these counties, eleven or twelve in all with a total enrollment of about 550. Some of these are union schools, others are assisted by the Presbyterian missionary. One or two others are in missions of city churches. Almost all of these points have occasional preaching services and one has a Union Intermediate Society of Christian Endeavor. 80 THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES THE PAR STANDARD It is possible to gain a total impression of all the facts that have been recorded by analyzing them according to a common standard which embodies the best available consensus of opinion as to what equipment and program is possible for the average town and country. Such a measuring rod is provided in the so-called Par Standard for Country Churches which was one of the develop- ments of the Interchurch World Movement. This standard was worked out and approved by the Town and Country Committee of the Home Missions Council and was submitted to a large group of the survey workers of the Interchurch World Movement repre- senting every state in the Union. These men had all done field survey work and were familiar with the varying conditions existing in America. In addition to their investigational experience, they had been country ministers and therefore knew intimately the problems of the rural parish. There was unanimous agreement that this par standard should be placed before the country churches of America, not as an ideal far beyond their accomplishment but as a goal which a church might in all reasonableness expect to attain. Since that time, one denomination and the home missions departments of two others have adopted the par standard with slight adaptations for their own purposes. It should be stated that no attempt has been made to give com- parative value to the points in this standard. So far as the table shows, a resident pastor on full-time counts no more than horse- sheds or parking space. This is because the table was drawn up, not for the purposes of comparative evaluation, but to suggest mini- mum measurable achievements for an average strong country congregation. The points covered in this standard are given in the following table. The figures in parenthesis refer to the total number of churches out of the eighty-four in these counties which qualify on each point covered by the schedules used in this survey. A CHURCH MEASURING ROD TABLE H. Adequate Physical Equipment Up-to-date Parsonage (56) Adequate Church Auditorium Space (81) Social and Recreational Equipment (54) Well-Equipped Kitchen Organ or Piano Sunday School Room (59) L Stereopticon or Motion-Picture Machine (12) 81 Pastor Physical Equipment Finance Meetings Parish Religious Education Program of Work IRRIGATION AND RELIGION rResident Pastor (65) I Full-time Pastor (6d) ] Service Every Sunday (79) [Minimum Salary of $1200 (52) fSanitary Toilets -j Horse-sheds or Parking Space (23) (.Property in Good Repair and Condition (72) ("Annual Church Budget Adopted Annually (59) i Every-member Canvass (52) [Benevolences Equal to 25% Current Expenses (36) /Cooperation with Other Churches in Community (30) \Systematic Evangelism Church Serves all Racial and Occupational Groups {Sunday School Held Entire Year (79) Sunday School Enrollment Equal to Church Membership (57) Attempt to Bring Pupils into Church (46) Special Instruction for Church Membership (16) Teacher Training or Normal Class (12) Provision for Leadership Training (8) [Organized Activities for all Age and Sex Groups (8) Cooperation with Boards and Denominational Agencies (50) -| Program Adopted Annually, 25% of Membership Partici- pating [Church Reaching Entire Community An analysis has been made of the twenty churches having the highest score. It shows that all of these churches rank very close together, the highest having twenty-two points, the next twenty and the third nineteen. The remainder have each from sixteen to eighteen points. Each county has seven churches, which grade below ten points. The scoring of the city churches in Orange County according to this same standard brings practically an identical result. The first ten range from seventeen to twenty points. It is interesting to note that while town, village and country churches are all represented in the twenty leading churches, every- one of these churches is located in the more favored agricultural or oil sections. The inability of the church, at least in these two counties, to rise above the economic situation is unfortunate but it indicates anew the vital concern of the church in the material progress of the people it serves. Everyone of the fourteen churches scoring below ten points is located either in a less favored agricul- tural community or in one adequately churched without the addi- tion of a weak and struggling organization. Twenty-three points out of the thirty on the standard have been scored. Out of a possible 1,012 points, Stanislaus County's forty- four churches reach a total score of 593 or 58.6 per cent. Out 82 THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES of a possible 920 points the forty churches of Orange County score 528 or 57.4 per cent. A study of the table itself will show just what is the situation on any given point of the standard. It is possible to gain further insight into the situation by analyz- ing the result by the outstanding divisions of the standard : GRADING THE COUNTIES TABLE I. Division Physical Equipment Number of Per cent Points Stanislaus 7 681 Per cent Orange 7? Q Total 7n o The Minister 4 76 7 81 9 7O T Finance T =16 608 <&t Religious Education 6 AS, 41 2 A1 2 Service and Cooperation 1 41 7 TC ?o Total 58.6 574 This showing seems to indicate that these counties while making a better record than the average, are not utilizing to the full their assets in equipment, resources and pastoral leadership. COMMUNITY CHURCH, PLACENTIA, ORANGE COUNTY This church is the center of an admirable work carried on by the Presbyterians There are two churches which are doing a work worthy of note. They are selected for mention not as the best, for as a matter of fact one has an equipment which is very inadequate, but because the work which they have done is within the range of every one 83 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION of the average churches in these counties. One of these scores twenty points and the other seventeen with two more points soon to be added. The first is located in a community whose basic economic asset is oil. It has an up-to-date parsonage and a resident pastor on full time, an efficient financial system, a stereopticon, a cordial spirit of cooperation with other churches in the community, and a teacher and leadership training class. Its distinctive work, however, is in connection with the young people of whom its mem- bership lists a considerable number. It has several young people's organizations, which include, besides the senior society of Christian Endeavor, an intermediate organization with fifty members, two BUILT BY A BIBLE CLASS The "Honor Knights" of the Christian Church, at Brea, Orange County, built this cabin for themselves in 1921. The boys are all of the "teen" ages junior societies with a membership of fifty-four and class organiza- tions in the Sunday school. To aid its program this church has erected a small building or cabin which can be used as a "hut." Foundation, floor and chinking are of cement. The roof is of old- fashioned split shakes. Chimney and fireplace are of cobblestone. Bookcases and desk are built in on either side of the fireplace. The cabin is sixteen by twenty-four, well lighted and cheery. Outside, a basketball court flooded with electric light enables boys (and girls too) to play at night. The cabin and court are a rendezvous for the boys. Here they read, study their lessons, hold conferences, entertain in social ways, play and enjoy themselves together under 84 THE PROGRAM OF THE CHURCHES the supervision of the church leaders. Boy Scouts use the cabin one night a week. This work is thoroughly geared into the program of the church and the pastor reports no difficulty in handling the moral situation and no fear of any competition from dance halls. The other church is located in one of the richest citrus-growing sections of the county, which has, however, now been invaded by the oil industry. According to the pastor, the church does little, but its influence and the leadership of its minister and those who cooperate with him have certainly been responsible for a very unusual piece of work. With two exceptions relating to adminis- tration which will soon be changed, this church has all the assets of the first church mentioned and in addition has a better building. Not only are the boys, girls and young people organized but the church is influential in the community through the medium of its pastor who is president of the Chamber of Commerce. Health clinics are held in the church and are conducted in such a manner as to examine not only into the physical and mental but also the spiritual welfare of the child. The contact with the mothers in discussing their offspring is tremendously valuable, not only to them but to the church. This health work is not limited to infants but takes in older children. This church has through its ability to turn to the proper county and state officials utilized public agencies for materially improving the health and housing situation in the com- munity, which formerly was absolutely dangerous and still is far from what it ought to be. Through the influence of the minister, also a Community Council has been formed so that there is no overlapping of the several local agencies. This Council constitutes the machinery for meeting any social need that arises and for assigning to every one of the six or eight cooperating agencies its proper portion of any task. 85 CHAPTER IX THE JAPANESE PROBLEM THE Japanese represent only about 2 per cent of the total population of California. Numerically they are a compara- tively negligible group. In the whole State they control by ownership or lease only about half a million acres or a little more than the total area of Orange County. 1 They operate between one- tenth and one-seventh of all the irrigated land. This situation is due to the effort of the State to prevent further immigration from Japan and to hamper the economic progress of the Japanese who have already come. It is this very effort that has led to some of the happenings that today are cited as showing the danger of Japanese land-holding. Many Farm Bureaus and Chambers of Commerce in Orange, Stanislaus and other counties have passed resolutions of which the following is typical : "The Orange County Farm Bureau declares the Japanese to be an unassimilable element in the popula- tion and advocates the cancellation of the gentlemen's agreement, exclusion of picture brides, rigorous exclusion of Japanese immi- grants and the amendment to the Federal Constitution to provide that no child born in the United States of foreign parentage shall be considered an American citizen unless both parents are of a race that is eligible to citizenship." Is it not surprising to find that few Japanese affiliate with these organizations. They have their own local associations, fifty-five in all the State, which are con- stituent members of the Japanese Agricultural Association. This body is connected with the Japanese Association of America in California, which raises from dues and spends for the advancement of the educational, agricultural and financial interests of the Jap- anese, about $135,000 a year. In 1918 the Japanese Agricultural Association stated that 5,800 farms in California were operated by Japanese and that apart from the 7,000 persons thus engaged in agricultural enterprises, there 1 It is recognized that the facts on the total situation are debatable. For a statement of all sides the reader is referred to The Annals of the Academy of Political Science, Jan., 1921. The facts here given have been submitted to authorities within and without California. They have been taken largely from Governor Stephen's letter. (See bibliography.) The authors are re- sponsible, however, only for the data concerning the counties studied. 86 THE JAPANESE PROBLEM were 11,000 farm laborers. The Association estimated the total wealth of the rural Japanese to be $25,000,000 and the value of their annual products to range between $65,000,000 and $70,000,000 of which 35 per cent was turned back to white land owners as rent. Forty-five per cent went to labor. Chief among these products were berries, onions, celery, rice and green vegetables, sugar beets and cantaloupes. It is certain that any sudden removal of the Japanese from their present agricultural pursuits in California would seri- ously affect the food supply of the entire State. From a farm labor point of view the Japanese, being a race of short people, seem willing to engage in those lines of agricultural work which call for "squat" or "stoop and pick" labor, and they have entered fields of farming largely shunned by white farmers. Others say they have monopolized these fields. Taken together, the two counties illustrate very well the rural aspects of the Japanese problem. In Orange County this race has increased with great rapidity in the last twenty years. But three were reported in the census of 1900. Ten years later the number had risen to 641 and today there are 1,491. The proportion of Japanese to the total population in this county is double in the ratio for the State as a whole. Only 169 of the Japanese lease farms. The County Farm Bureau has, however, taken an official stand for the limitation both of the number of Japanese and of their privileges. On the other hand, the Japanese are desired as farm laborers because they are quiet, peaceful, steady and rapid. If they could be kept in the farm labor class California would be satisfied. The difficulty is that because of their thriftiness and their slightly lower standard of living they soon become economi- cally independent, and acquire and operate their own land. The situation is, however, not acute in Orange County despite the in- crease in population, because the Japanese devote themselves to types of agriculture in which they do not enter into active com- petition with the whites to any appreciable degree. So quiet and industrious are they that a superficial observer would not realize that there are as many Orientals in the county as there are. The social workers of the county are unanimous in their testimony that the Japanese is socially a desirable citizen. It is exceptional indeed for any of these workers to have to deal in a corrective or legal way with Japanese. Stanislaus County presents a different situation. Here the Japanese are numerically an inconsiderable group, numbering only a little more than 500, but they compete with both the American 87 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION farm operator and with the farm laborer. While the survey of the county was in process the so-called Turlock deportations took place. Masked men visited the lodging houses of the Japanese, ordered them to pack, placed them on a truck, drove them to Keyes, a neigh- borhood of the Ceres community, and placed them on a passing train with orders not to return. In this way from eighty to a hundred melon pickers were deported at the height of the season. At some points signs reading, "No Japanese wanted" could be seen. Incidents of this sort are symptomatic of the entire situation. The problem is not racial in the sense in which that term is generally used. It is economic. The Turlock deportation incident A JAPANESE SCHOOL IN ORANGE COUNTY is a case in point. An outsider, knowing of such resolutions as have been quoted, would have been amazed at the vehemence with which the action of the mob was denounced by some business men and employers. Their attitude was taken because the Japanese came into the Turlock district and offered to pick melons for 25 per cent less than the rate paid to organized white labor. The deportation was engineered by those who suffered from this under- cutting of their wage. On the other hand, when a Japanese has accumulated sufficient capital to lease a ranch of his own, and settles down to compete with white operators, the anti-Japanese cry is raised from another quarter. The white farm laborer does not, however, object to working for a Japanese boss. In fact, there are more white laborers working for Oriental farmers than there are Oriental laborers working for American farmers. THE JAPANESE PROBLEM It is apparent, therefore, that the issue is primarily an economic one. The white farm laborer will not stand with the white farm operator against the Japanese when it is to his advantage not to do so. Nor will the white farmer employ white labor if he can secure Japanese labor at a lower rate. Both classes, however, white farmer and white laborer, for good reasons dread direct competition with the Japanese. This does not make the problem any easier of solution. In some ways it renders it more difficult. It is not for this book to attempt a full discussion of this complicated problem. The present concern is simply with the religious implications of this situation. From that point of view the facts themselves are clear enough. Since California cannot immediately do without the Japanese, it is for California to make room for them in her social and economic fabric and to treat them with the Christian considera- tion any race has a right to expect from America. Concretely, this is the problem of Stanislaus County, for five or six hundred Japanese form part of its population, and make their contribution to its total wealth. How this problem in applied Christianity may be solved is shown, to a certain extent, in the community of Livingston, Cali- fornia, in Merced County. This is just over the line from Stanis- laus County but is included in the work of its County Sunday School Association. There is a Japanese colony here of some years standing with a total population of 258. The Japanese con- trol 2,325 acres which are distributed among forty owners. The average productive acreage per farm is forty. Their chief products are raisins, dry peaches, table grapes and fruit for canning. Of the population sixty adult men, forty-three women and ninety-four children are classed as permanent. Sixty-one adults, fifty-nine of them men, are temporary residents employed as laborers. There is an interdenominational church, established four years ago, with a membership of seventy-seven and an average attendance of seventy-five. There is a Japanese pastor with an assistant. The total budget for the last year was over $2,000. The church has been entirely independent financially ever since its organization. There are forty little children in the Sunday school. The younger children who cannot understand English are taught by Japanese teachers, and the older ones who understand English are taught by an American teacher. All of the scout age children, about thirty in all, attend Sunday school at the American church in town, in order that they may associate with the American children 89 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION and with the American Christian community. Ninety-eight per cent of the children of the Japanese colony attend Sunday school, either at the Japanese or the American churches. There is a kindergarten attached to the church, which aims to help the children to learn English so that they may enter the grade school and do the same work as the American children and also to train them spiritually and morally in the principles of good citizenship. Twelve children are enrolled in this kindergarten and the expenses including salary are $1,100. A night school has been organized among the adults and about twenty-eight are studying English twice a week under one Japanese and two American teachers. The Japanese feel the necessity of knowing English both for business reasons and because they are meeting the same problem that confronts other immigrants when the children become Americanized and learn to cooperate with American institutions which the parents do not understand. The Japanese Christian young people in the community are organized into the Young Men's Christian Association which also helps in the Americanization and church work. The white people living in the town also have a church with a resident pastor. It is Methodist Episcopal in affiliation and organ- ization but the people of all denominations attend. The program is broad, including worship, evangelism, religious education and com- munity service. The pastor expects that when the Japanese chil- dren are old enough and when the Japanese adults understand English the two churches will be consolidated. The Japanese com- prise about one-half the population. The American leaders testify that they are clean, intelligent, thoroughly honest and easy to work with. Livingston is an example of how the Japanese problem in California can be solved. Orange County needs a Livingston, several in fact, for while there are a few special schools for Japanese in the county there is nothing from a religious point of view which corresponds to the work at Livingston. The Protestant churches are doing a little work among them at three points, but it is very little indeed, and it is not fair to measure it by the same statistical standard as that employed in the study of other churches. The three churches are under a Japanese pastor and have a membership of about fifty. There are two Sunday schools with forty-eight members. One of these churches is located at Santa Ana. The growing Japanese group, now approaching 2,000, is largely located in a comparatively 90 THE JAPANESE PROBLEM small area between Santa Ana and the coast. Any such group in a city would receive considerable attention. For several years the Committee on Orientals of the Home Mis- sion Council has called attention to the serious overlapping of de- nominational efforts in this field, especially in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Oriental community in the latter city "has received a larger amount of missionary money than any similar spot on the globe." Such competition, never justifiable, is especially unfortunate in the field of Oriental missions. Whatever its reac- tion in the field on which the money is being spent, such competi- tion always results in neglect elsewhere, as witness the situation in Orange County. A tithe of the money now allotted to Los Angeles or San Francisco, if spent in Orange County under proper leader- ship and direction, would so strengthen the present work as to make possible a rural demonstration in Japanese missionary endeavor which would be of great value to the local field and to the larger cause. 91 CHAPTER X THE SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS SITUATION AMONG OTHER FOREIGN-BORN GROUPS IN Stanislaus County more than one-third of the total population is foreign-born. The proportion among the farm owners and the farm tenants is about the same. In Orange County the foreign-born are but fourteen per cent and the only large group is the Mexican. California has been a Mecca for farmers of all races and the foreigners especially have been victimized in land transactions. Poor soil was sold to unsuspecting buyers, the price all the higher because of the large commissions. The counties covered in this investiga- tion escaped most of these abuses. Stanislaus County was opened largely after the passage of the Wright Law. California now has a Commission on Immigration and Housing. In cooperation with the agricultural department of the state university, it gives general information regarding land, and if the prospective settler will give sufficient particulars this agency will investigate any particular tract and make a free report on its agricultural possibilities, accessibility of markets and the wisdom of buying the land. This service, open to all alike, is particularly helpful to the settler from a foreign land. What is the effect of this situation so unusual in our rural life ? The question can best be answered from the data on Stanislaus County. The most significant surface fact patent to an observer is that the New Americans live in its most prosperous parts. They have not, apparently, hampered progress in the matter of good roads and schools. This conclusion is confirmed by those who know the county best. These people, with the initiative to come more than 6,000 miles from their native lands, are not the kind to balk at any- thing that will benefit the land of their adoption and their own situation within it. The most numerous group is Scandinavian, located chiefly in the southern part of the county and centering in Turlock. From the point of view of membership and per capita giving, the Swedish churches are, as indicated elsewhere, among the strongest in the county. Although clannish and in local community affairs a little 92 OTHER FOREIGN-BORN GROUPS suspicious, the Scandinavians represent that northern European immigration which is assimilated into the social fabric of an Ameri- can community without serious difficulty. About one-half of them are farmers, a very large proportion of whom own their land. Many of their churches conduct services in the native tongue though only one such church has a full-term day school, and the children are thoroughly American. The Scandinavians are a steady, reliable, important element in the population of the county. The second largest group in Stanislaus County is the Portu- guese, and they represent the bulk of the southern European immi- gration. Many of them came, however, from Hawaii. There is little or no prejudice against them. For the most part, they are farm tenants, but the more prosperous are rapidly acquiring titles to their land. They are a tireless people and willing to work longer and more days than are the American farmers. For this reason they are gradually taking over the dairying industry in certain sections of the county, since they do not mind the long hours and the seven-day toil which this type of farming entails. The Portu- guese have come in such numbers as to present a real problem. Their standard of living is lower than the American, and where they have supplanted the native born, communities are changing in character and American institutions are languishing. This is espe- cially true in Newman, and, to some extent, in Patterson, Hughson and Crows Landing. From these centers the Portuguese are gradu- ally spreading all over the county. They move faster than their own church can move, and consequently there are some localities' where no religious work at all is carried on for them Catholic or Protestant. Three or four of the evangelical churches have made a start at ministering to them, the Daily Vacation Bible School at Crows Landing enrolling about 50 per cent Portuguese children. Twenty-four church members and fifty odd Sunday school scholars represent the total impact of the Church thus far on this southern European immigration. It remained for one young woman who saw the need and fol- lowed her vision to show the way to reach them. Giving up her position, she began by herself and at her own expense carried on a work which has become a noteworthy demonstration in Ameri- canization, not only for the county but also for other sections of the state and country. Commenced in her own home town of Hughson, her work has now been put under the auspices of the local high school and has spread to Crows Landing and Newman, where night classes are carried on. The Hughson program is 93 OLD The village slum and the al fresco slum, the Mexican occupants of which nevertheless "drive their own car" 94 AND NEW Above: Farm laborers' houses built by an enlightened land-owner for his Mexican workers to take the place of the slums depicted on the opposite page. Below: A scene at Wintersburg showing how an American-born racial pastor takes the pulpit to the pool room and competes successfully for the attention of the Mexican habitues 95 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION varied. It follows mainly the line of speaking, reading and writing the English language with courses in the constitutional history of the state and nation for scholars more advanced. The work is carried on in both home and school. Best of all, it is not confined to these two places if a need arises for its being carried outside. The per- sonal touch is not lacking, and with true Christian neighborliness the director assists in cases of illness and in matters of business and litigation. The work is now supported by local and county officials. But it is due to the courage of Miss Bernice Wood and to her per- sistence in keeping at the task in its initial stage that the work has survived and is now growing. Much remains to be done. In the last dozen years only, 347 persons have been naturalized in Stanis- laus County, an average of twenty-nine a year. The highest number ever recorded for a single year was forty-eight in 1921. These figures include both the northern and southern immigration. California has a law which permits Board of school trustees of any school district or city boards of education to employ teachers to be known as ''home teachers," not exceeding one such home teacher for every 500 units of average daily attendance in the com- mon schools of the district, as shown by the report of the county superintendent of schools for the preceding school year. These home teachers are to work in the homes of the pupils, instructing children and adults in matters relating to school attendance, in sani- tation, the English language, household duties, such as purchase, preparation, and use of food, clothing, and in the fundamental prin- ciples of the American system of government and the rights and duties of citizenship. The provision limiting the service to one teacher for every 500 units of grade school attendance prevents it from being of value to most rural communities. It should be ex- tended to meet such needs as are evident in Stanislaus County. In Orange County the Mexican is the greatest problem in many ways. To the county probation officer, he presents a most difficult problem. Emotional, stubborn, often illiterate and handicapped by generations of inefficient living, the Mexican is difficult to handle and hard to teach. The county has separate schools for Mexican children up to, and including, the sixth grade, largely for the reason that it has been found impossible to deal with the Mexican along with the American educationally and be fair to both races. How important the problem is, the last census revealed. It showed that there were more people of Mexican or Spanish origin than any other foreign-born group in California. They constitute 35 per cent of all the foreigners in the state. Orange County has, 96 OTHER FOREIGN-BORN GROUPS therefore, more than the average proportionate number, since Mexi- cans constitute 42 per cent of the total of the foreign-born popula- tion. They are scattered all through the county, especially in the cities, and seven communities may be classed as almost entirely Mexican. Even in the more rural communities, the Mexican is inclined to live in the village rather than in the country. For those who can read, there are several Spanish newspapers circulating in the county. The Mexicans have little constructive social opportunity, but the pool room and dance hall attract them. The schools are perhaps . .' MEXICAN METHODISTS The congregation of the A. Y. Kittle Memorial Bungalow Church grouped in front of their church home at Anaheim the greatest influence for progress among them, but it is difficult to lift their general level. This will take long years. Almost all the cases of rape within the county are reported from the Mexican ele- ment. There are, however, signs that the moral situation is im- proving. Housing conditions are not good, although they show progress. The Mexican is quite content to live in a shack or tent and most frequently lives thus. Modern sanitary standards are hard to maintain, although good work has been done in some com- munities such as Placentia, and some employers of Mexican labor have helped the situation by erecting attractive houses which they may rent. 97 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION The Mexican problem is complicated by the shifting population. Many of them are migrant workers, although they may not travel far from the county and may return to it when it reaches the peak of its demand for extra labor. In only one of the communities, however, are more than one-fifth of the Mexicans reported to have lived there for as long as five years. They are working in the oil fields to some extent, on the citrus ranches and in the sugar beet section. Nominally, the Mexican is a Roman Catholic, but this church reaches by no means all of them. The total membership of the Roman Catholic Church is slightly less than the total number of Mexicans in the county, and includes many Americans. The evangelical work among this race is largely under the super- vision of the Methodist Episcopal denomination which maintains four circuits with a total of eleven points. Only three of these points possess church buildings, eight using either churches of other denominations as at Placentia or public halls. The total church membership is 216, with seventy-seven others in the preparatory membership class, a total of 293. This total does not include bap- tized children or adherents. The nine Sunday schools in connection with these churches have a total enrollment of 281. This work is financed largely through home mission appropriations and it would, of course, be impossible to carry it on in any other way at the present time. Members did, however, contribute during the last fiscal year a total of $688, of which $454 was for benevolent pur- poses. On the basis of the full active membership, this represents a contribution of $3.13 per capita. The program of church work consists not only in worship and religious education, but also in community service. Certain of the churches among the Mexicans have classes in English, music and sewing, and conduct clubs through which social and recreational work is done. Substantial results are being achieved in individual lives, and more slowly in social standards. Five sons of one Mexican have become Sunday school superintendents. The children of another evangelical Mexi- can home have become life work recruits. 98 CHAPTER XI OTHER RELIGIOUS WORK OTHER religious work in the two counties divides itself, at least outside of the four cities, into three classes: Roman Catholic, Christian Science and nondescript. The last-named group is strongest in Turlock. This town has more churches than many whole counties, though less than half belong to recog- nized evangelical bodies. No one knows just how many churches Turlock has. They multiply like the amoeba. At the time the survey was in process one such church, itself born of dissension, was in the throes of dividing again. Three instead of one was thus the outcome of the efforts of one cult, the Russellites. The Home of Truth, The Church of Christ Loyal and a number of others make up Turlock's allotment of religious organizations, with a total of twenty-five in all. The leader of one of these sects claimed to have converted "thousands of Mexicans" when a missionary in Mexico. He at- tributed his success, despite his inability to speak Spanish, to "the gift of tongues." The evangelical denominations can hardly stoop to own such work. Ignorance and credulity, emotionalism and superstition are its tools and assets. There are four Christian Science churches, two in each county with a combined membership of approximately one hundred. The Roman Catholic work is strong, especially in the cities. In Anaheim, for instance, this church has an elaborate equipment, including a school and orphanage. In all there are eight churches and nine missions served by thirteen priests. There are two schools, both in Orange County, with sixteen sisters in charge and 320 pupils. The orphanage alluded to has 150 boys and a staff of twenty-three sisters. All these figures include the cities. The total membership of the town and country churches is hard to determine. It is doubtful if the Catholic churches themselves have thoroughly accu- rate records. Many of their people are on the move about the country or along the whole coast. One priest stated that his mem- bership included "200 Americans and the Lord only knows how many Mexicans." These churches vary in character from that at' 99 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION Newman, with about 500 members, to the little chapel at La Grange where services are held at irregular intervals averaging once or twice a month. The total membership for the town and country churches of the two counties is approximately 7,700. THE OLDEST BUILDING IN CALIFORNIA San Juan Capistrano, Catholic Mission The Catholic Church has, at San Juan Capistrano, one of the oldest historical sites in the southern part of California. Here the Franciscan Brotherhood began work in the early days of No- vember, 1776. A great church was erected, the construction of which was begun early in 1797. Nine years of constant toil on the part of unskilled workmen were required to lay the sun-dried bricks and complete the work. It was planned to make the dedi- cation a great event, and runners were dispatched throughout the neighborhood and to far-away regions to invite the people to the ceremony. It is said that 10,000 Indians gathered for the occasion, but, during the week of the festivities, the great dome surrounding the vestry and cloisters fell with a crash. The mission has never been restored, though some of it is still standing and services are held in a chapel. Many legends cluster about the place, which is visited by hundreds of tourists during the course of the year. 100 CHAPTER XII NO one can study the social and religious life of these counties without receiving a number of very definite impressions. The data here presented are open to interpretation by all those who have to do with the counties or who read what has been set down. In this chapter the surveyors give simply their own con- clusions and impressions. They do not have the task of executing any program. That is for the local people through their churches and social agencies, acting in cooperation with their state officers. It is hoped, however, that this chapter may prove suggestive par- ticularly to the local leaders. I. ASSETS Foremost among the impressions that one gathers is the sense of the self-sufficiency of these counties. They have enormous assets. Their products stamp them as the most prosperous of our rural counties. The soil is fertile and aided by irrigation. The climate gives both health and wealth. Roads and transportation facilities are excellent. Farms are operated largely by owners and economic cooperation is far advanced, especially in Orange County. The counties are new ; they are growing, and while perhaps social consciousness is still in the adolescent stage, it is unhampered by century-old traditions and can blaze its own way toward greater efficiency. Schools are good and in the irrigated sections they are among the best. There is a strong community spirit in the great majority of places and, what is more rare, there is county spirit. Church membership is increasing and almost half of the member- ship is made up of men. Per capita contributions, benevolence offerings, and congregational budgets are all high. Ministers live with their people to an exceptional degree and, judged by prevailing standards, are fairly well-paid. The churches have given largely of their young people to professional Christian service. All this in a country barely half a century old is encouraging. It must be said, however, that there are also many social and religious needs that have not yet been met, many problems not yet solved. The leaders 101 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION would probably be the first to admit this. There is no reason why the onward march should be stayed because it has gone as far as it has. It is largely with the progressive solution of these problems that the following conclusions deal. 2. STRONGER ECONOMIC AGENCIES There can be no doubt that the agencies devoted to developing the economic prosperity of these counties have been successful, especially in Orange County, where the cooperative movement is at its best. The chambers of commerce and farm bureaus are of high grade. It is to be hoped that the latter organization in each county will soon add a home demonstration agent to the staff. She would greatly assist farm women and would be a considerable factor in Americanization work. Stanislaus County should learn from Orange some of the les- sons of cooperation. Most of the products are still being marketed in the old way and cooperation would save the farmers of the San Joaquin Valley many thousands of dollars in the long run. It would probably also end the indefensible lack of cooperation between the Farmers' Union and the Farm Bureau. The objectives of these two organizations are basically similar though methods differ. Nationally or locally friction between farmers' organizations weak- ens and discredits their cause. 3. COUNTY COUNCIL OF SOCIAL AGENCIES The unusual number of county-wide agencies of public and private character which these counties possess has been commented upon. The situation reveals the desire of the people for an adequate social life. Many of the volunteer agencies have salaried execu- tives giving their entire time to the work. Analysis of the situation showed/ however, that even with this assistance the entire possible field was not being reached, that agencies were operating in the same communities, that the less favored centers were being neglected. In one small community, for instance, there exist a Red Cross unit, a Women's Improvement Club and a committee of Community Service. The memberships of these three organizations in this local community are largely identical and while the last named theoreti- cally works through the other two, and while there is cooperation among all of them, it is impossible to avoid the impression of three 'See Chapter III. 102 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS organizations as, indeed, the local people consider them to be. Vol- unteer social agencies are being organized and developed in America today somewhat as denominations organized churches in the old days. These agencies seek out the "most strategic places." For denominations a strategic place was where it had a few members. For social agencies it is where there are people rich enough to support the program. They then organize and begin to work on "their program." It is a program which the local people have not formulated but which they accept and support because it meets, to a satisfactory degree, needs which they have come to recognize. A scientific study of the local situation rarely precedes the determi- nation of this program or prompts a given community to invite in any particular agency to meet ascertained needs. Other agencies follow the first one and the situation arises which may be found in either of these counties. These various agencies and their programs have much to com- mend them, nationally and locally. Cordial cooperation exists among their executives. It should be noted, however, that so far as the local people are willing to furnish funds and volunteer work- ers, agencies multiply with no attempt at correlation and with no attempt to discover whether local needs require all these agencies or only some of them, or perhaps an entirely different one which would effectively combine the locally valuable parts of many of the programs. Social agencies are in danger of repeating the very mis- take for which they have frequently and justifiably criticized the Church. As a result there is both overlapping and overlooking. The tax supported agencies also sometimes get in one another's way, largely because of the operation of state laws. Practically all of the volunteer organizations need to cooperate with those of the county and state. A county council of social agencies, perhaps meeting only quarterly, would serve as a clearing house of infor- mation and as a coordinating factor in the working out of the very good programs now in operation. In this way, too, larger results might be attained without added expense. 4. WIDER USE OF THE SCHOOL PLANT The County Superintendents of Schools and many of the school principals are sympathetic to efforts looking toward richer com- munity life. It is surprising to find, therefore, that wider use is not made of school plants, especially in Stanislaus County. Here in only 25 per cent of the communities of the county are they used 103 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION to any great extent outside of school hours. In some of the com- munities the school is the only available social center, and it would greatly enrich the life of the people if the school either of itself or by utilizing the agencies already at work could put on more of a social program which would include lectures, evening classes, musicales and social activities. In some communities this might very well be done in cooperation with progressive churches. 5- RELIGIOUS EDUCATION It is disappointing to find that the equipment of the church schools and the standards of religious education compare unfavor- ably with those of the day schools. Less than one- third of the Sunday schools use graded lessons. Only 12 or 14 per cent of the churches have stereopticons or motion-picture machines and far too little use is made of these in dealing with the young people. Religious education is as important as that received in the day schools. Where methods are modern and equipment is up-to-date in the day schools, religious education must suffer by comparison in the minds of the people. There is no reason why these counties with their strong churches and stronger Sunday schools, together with their efficient county Sunday school associations, could not reach considerably higher standards of equipment and curriculum. Another weakness in the religious educational life is the failure of all but six of the churches to make any provision for teacher or leadership training. With population and Sunday school enroll- ment alike growing, almost 60 per cent of the schools still depend upon chance for recruiting new teachers who may or may not have had previous experience or adequate training for the task. No department is more important. The Sunday schools of these coun- ties should not be content with average or traditional attainments when they have within their grasp the possibility of making a demon- stration the local value of which would be considerable in terms of deepened spiritual life and a more certain and thoroughgoing prod- uct in Christian living. In a national sense the results of some such program would be useful as a demonstration of methods and achievements. 6. EVANGELISM * Even omitting for the moment the population now outside of church parishes, the membership of the evangelical churches em- 1 See Chapter VII, Church Membership. 104 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS braces less than one-eighth of the population. Including the cities and adding the Roman Catholic membership, one finds less than one-quarter of the population affiliated with any church. When due allowance is made for children, this leaves a large task before the forces of religion. In the face of this task it is a distinct shock to find that the evangelistic gain of the churches for the last year barely equals the loss from death and removal, although the churches themselves in the aggregate did show a considerable gain. The churches are increasing because enough of the newcomers are sufficiently inter- ested in the church and religion to be prevailed upon to present their church letters and to unite with the congregation of their choice. This new population is of three kinds. First of all there is the rancher or farmer who is desirous of acquiring land, settling down and becoming a part of the life of the community. Second, there is the man who has been attracted by the oil development which is causing a second rush to parts of Orange County comparable in some measure to the gold rush of earlier years in Stanislaus. .The oil prospector is a different sort. Wealth and quick wealth is his objective. His psychology is competitive whereas that of the farmer is cooperative. His environment is industrial though the geographical surroundings may be rural. The third element con- sists of the racial groups. In their own way, the needs of each of these several groups pre- sent a challenge to the churches. Of course, the quickest way to reach them is through the conventional type of evangelistic cam- paign on a community basis with a tabernacle and an imported evan- gelist or perhaps through similar campaigns conducted in churches. This method has not, however, been successful to any marked de- gree, with perhaps one exception. This is especially true of Orange County. It is not pertinent to our recommendations to give a rea- son for this lack of success. The important thing is the fact itself which helps to make still clearer the vast opportunities of the church to reach out and evangelize. The problem is one of methods and forces and the location of the opportunity. For those sympathetic to religion the Sunday school is an effective approach. Its aggre- gate enrollment is 2,725 higher than the active membership of the town and country churches. 1 This means, of course, that the new- comers in the community are either turning first to the Sunday school or are being reached for the church first of all through the interest of Sunday school scholars in the children of their new 1 See Chapter VIII, page 76. 105 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION neighbors. An analysis of the Sunday school membership justifies the conclusion that a careful personal cultivation of the families represented would within a year or two net large gains for the churches. In view of this fact it is especially regrettable that the program of these schools is not more modern and broad. A second method 1 that is useful is to have classes in preparation for church membership either within or without the Sunday school. This has always been a custom of certain of the liturgical denomi- nations and, while it is open to the charge of formalism, neverthe- less it creates in the minds of the students a favorable presumption. Young people growing up in such a church have constantly brought to their attention that whatever the personal religious experience may be, it is only through such an avenue and only after such a course that young Christians are received into the organized church. The records from practically every church studied indicate that the churches having such classes make a larger net annual gain, other things being equal, than do the churches without such classes. In counties like these it would be particularly useful to build up a tradition and it is certain that such classes offer an unexcelled opportunity to the pastor. In view of the constantly changing conditions of the county a third recommendation is that in every community annual cooperative parish surveys be undertaken to locate the unchurched territory and homes and particularly the newcomers. These surveys should be undertaken cooperatively wherever there is more than one church, for whatever religious traditions may mean in the old and settled portions of America, they are far weaker here, and for such a study to be made as a basis for a competitive scramble for members in any given community would only defeat the chance of the church to reach the new people. With the information gathered from a cooperative parish survey there might well be organized by the churches a campaign of personal good will, evangelism and com- munity service extending over the year and conducted by the pastor and his leaders. This could hardly fail of success in drawing many into the organized churches. It has done so elsewhere. These methods are more difficult, less spectacular and slower in culmination than the brief evangelistic campaign, but they are also more certain because they are more continuing and because they call for greater consecration and determination on the part of the church workers. They mean that the whole church program for the entire year must be centered upon the one idea of bringing the spirits 1 See Chapter VIII, page 77. 106 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS of men into harmony with the Spirit of God and that all must con- tribute to that great end, which, after all, is the objective of the Church. So much for the evangelistic program where the Church is strong. What can be done where it is weaker or non-existent? Such situations divide themselves into three kinds, the populous irrigated sections, the dry farming areas and the oil centers. The most startling example of neglect of any given area by the churches, simply because growth in population has outstripped the ability of the Church to function, is to be found in Modesto rural community. Not all of the twelve hundred rural members of the Modesto churches live in this community adjacent to the city. It is prob- ably safe to say that of the population of approximately 7,000 people no more than 2,000 are members of any church, evangelical or Catholic. This area is growing with more celerity than any other agricultural section of these counties. To cultivate it adequately calls for cooperation between the various city churches, for Modesto itself is expanding so rapidly that it is difficult to say how the pas- tors without some assistants and without cooperation, could possibly meet the evangelistic opportunity which is awaiting them. In ad- dition, there are similar, though much smaller areas lying between Riverbank and Oakdale, and also east of Patterson and Newman along the San Joaquin river. (See map of Stanislaus County.) In the dry-farming or less favored agricultural areas of Stanis- laus County religious work has been all but discontinued. In Orange County it is still sustained but reaches less than 4 per cent of the population. 1 Many communities are totally without religious services of any kind and still more are without any evangelical services. The population affected is at the very least 7,500, more than 6 per cent of the total of the two counties. A missionary with a car and a moving-picture machine should be stationed in the center of the needy territory in each of these counties. He could reach most of the centers at least once every week, and with the good roads might do better. He could do house to house visiting and act also as a colporteur. He could initiate, with necessary modifi- cations because of the sparsely settled area, a program similar to that of the Y.M.C.A. It should be recalled that all through these areas there are enough people and children for day schools to be sustained. Wherever there is a group of that size it is legitimate to ask why the Church cannot do better than hold one service a quarter by a Sunday school 1 See Chapter VII, page 73. 107 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION missionary. Such a work could be financed by the home missionary money now being expended to sustain competitive organizations, or might be allocated to one denomination. Another plan would be for the counties themselves to forni some sort of organization to take care of this problem. It is, indeed, a local responsibility and the money to float the enterprise and perhaps to help to sustain it, could easily be contributed within each county. The people themselves would help. They do not need missionaries in the old sense of that term. They need a ministry, toward which, once it approved itself, they would be glad to contribute. There may be difficulties inherent in every one of these plans but surely a way can be found. Seventy-five hundred people are the opportunity. Will the Christian people of these counties and the denominational officials responsible let difficulties stand in the way? What can be done is illustrated in San Juan Capistrano. The farm lands in the neighborhood of this village have been changing hands rapidly in the last years and the population has become increasingly Protestant. Instead of neglecting this field or giving it but meagre attention one denomination has ministered to it and has constantly increased its ministry, so that today from what was once a little mission Sunday school has come a congregation strong enough to undertake the erection of an $8,000 modern village church building. The oil communities are perhaps the most difficult to handle. The population is constantly shifting. The spirit is materialistic in the extreme. The psychology is similar to that of a gold mining community in its prime. In Orange County the work in these cen- ters is complicated by the fact that oil has appeared both in the coast resorts and in the citrus communities. Especially in the former the churches must compete for their share of time investment on the part of the people. Methods must be varied accordingly. Advertisements in the newspapers, reprinted and distributed as modern tracts, would help. Most of the larger denominations have advertising experts who could advise on this point. Community work along Y.M.C.A. lines would help. A "hut" such as was described in Chapter VIII, enlarged to take in the whole community, would be an asset. The situation in an oil boom community, like that in the wartime industrial towns of a few years ago, cannot be satisfactorily handled except by cooperation and mutual under- standing. The lessons of successful work in these war centers in 1917, 1918, and 1919 might well be taken to heart here. Of course, in all these things, the emphasis must ring true with the great pur- pose of the Church. 108 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 7. RELATION OF CITY AND TOWN CHURCHES TO THE COUNTRYSIDE It will be recalled that in Orange County the city churches have considerably more farmer members than all the town, village and country churches combined. In Stanislaus County the city churches have almost as many as the town and country congregations. This places a great responsibility upon the city churches and calls for cooperation between all the churches of the county. It is very easy for the city pastor to assume that certain families are being cared for by the outlying churches and equally easy for those who minister to outlying churches to assume that a given home is cared for by the city. Furthermore, there is danger that the churches will com- pete for members in an unfortunate way. The churches cannot afford to get in one another's way in reaching any element of the population and least of all the farming element which is more re- sponsive to the Church than all the other occupational groups in these counties. This, too, is a subject closely related to evangelism. 8. HOME MISSION AID The situation in regard to the assistance granted needy churches has been described. 1 Slightly more than one-fourth of the churches in these rich counties are receiving such help, exclusive of appro- priations to Mexican and Oriental work. Nearly $4,100 a year goes to assist small, competitive churches. Denominational officials should examine into these grants and determine whether they can be justified, especially in view of the missionary opportunities in these two counties which are now being neglected. The time is here when men inside and outside the Church will judge it by the stand- ard of Jesus. The Church cannot retain the respect of its own intelligent membership, it cannot expect to demand cooperation and mutual understanding between employer and employee in industry and between nation and nation in world affairs while at the same time it continues wasteful competition and, partly as a result thereof, underpays its own leadership. 9. OVER-CHURCHING A glance at the maps will show that so far as parish lines are concerned, there is a considerable amount of overlapping of church parishes. This does not in every case necessarily mean over- 1 See Chapter V, page 57. 109 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION churching, for the average church memberships are high, reaching 216 in the towns and seventy-nine in the villages. Furthermore, these churches have a large potential field for development. Then, too, many of these situations are tolerated and can continue with impunity because the people are rich enough to support them. There are, however, certain situations which ought to be adjusted in the interest of better work, and these should be referred to the denomi- national officers for consideration. This is especially true in the cities and villages and concerns the aided churches which have already been discussed. Perhaps the most flagrant illustrations of lack of statesmanship between the city and country churches are shown where congregations of the same denominations compete for members. In Orange County there is to be found an illustra- tion of this in the Methodist Episcopal denomination. The splendid mother church at Santa Ana once fostered missions which are now self-supporting congregations, but the loyalty of some members gives it a parish that extends for many miles around and includes, in some instances, the total parish of other churches of the same denomination. The efforts under way in Methodism to do away with situations of this kind should be introduced here. IO. STEWARDSHIP The economic stability of the areas studied has been emphasized throughout this discussion. "Unto whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required." It is a fair question to ask these counties whether or not they have lived up to their stewardship. At first glance there appears to be no doubt that they have. An annual contribution of more than $31 from every communicant member, an average budget of more than $3,000 for every church, missionary offerings from one-quarter to one-half of the total budget of practically every group of churches, these things few counties can equal. The real question goes, however, deeper than this. It has been seen that church budgets have not risen as rapidly as school appropriations or bank deposits; that one-seventh of the churches averaged better than fifty dollars per member, four of this number exceeding one hundred dollars. Splendid as the record of missionary giving looks in the aggregate, the bulk of it comes from less than one-half of the churches. The foregoing statement is the more significant when it is remembered that almost all of the churches have resident ministers on full time. The half that are not giving are not weak churches which lack pastoral oversight. 110 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS There are so few of these in these two counties that they are neg- ligible. These figures simply mean that many of the Christians have not yet realized their obligations. The fact that the city churches give so much less per capita than those in the village points to the same conclusion. Where the Church is struggling as in the range states and in frontier regions, where resources are scanty and life is a battle for survival, from county after county records of per capita giving approximate the thirty-one dollar aver- age of these counties and sometimes exceed it. Does this indicate that we Americans want churches for what they are worth to us, to our communities, to our interests, and having them, forget to share what we have? Certainly it does show, as do the records of the leading twelve churches in these counties, that stewardship is neither understood nor practised by the majority of the churches and their members. A broad, intensive, persistent, compelling steward- ship campaign would seem to be a legitimate undertaking for most of the congregations. Each minister should compare the record of his church with the averages given. II. MISSIONARY INTEREST The last named recommendation gains added weight when the missionary interest is recalled. During the last ten years forty-nine people have entered definite Christian service. There is undoubt- edly an appreciable amount of deep and genuine missionary interest in these counties. Planted in such sympathetic soil, an annual co- operative county-wide campaign of mission study classes in the churches, followed by missionary educational institutes addressed by speakers of note, should bring forth much fruit. Such speakers could also be used through the high schools or at least the Y.M.C.A. high school groups, to enlist life work recruits. 12. COMMUNITY SERVICE The high responsibility of the Church is spiritual leadership but one of its functions, indeed one of its broadest and greatest duties is community service. By it the spirit of Christ is made to permeate every phase of human activity. In its highest form, spiritual leadership is community service but the phrase is here used technically to cover those activities by which the Church effectively reaches and helps, not only its membership, but all who come within its scope, and through which it establishes those contacts that often become the avenue to greater things. Ill IRRIGATION AND RELIGION In counties with social and economic interests so varied and important it is the more necessary for the Church to take an interest in all those things which interest the people. Only so may its power, its influence and its inspiration affect lives and institutions. Specifically, three of many possible items to which the churches could give their special attention are recreation, morals and special work for age and sex groups. These three are interrelated. Judged by its effectiveness in these directions, the general church program is weak. The people have exceptional opportunity to enjoy themselves. The Church should avail itself of this fact. Play has its moral values and its social and spiritual 'by-products. Those churches which have ventured along the line of organized recrea- tion have been successful in strengthening their hold upon their people and upon their community. 1 They have also been more successful, on the average, in meeting the moral problems. The Church needs to face frankly the implications of the new discoveries in psychology as related to morals. The Church places its holy sanction upon matrimony. It should make clear to its people that there is nothing unclean or dangerous in a proper understanding of the facts relating to sex and the origin of life. The freedom of life which young people enjoy in America, which, if properly used, is one of our most priceless treasures, together with, in Orange County, the close proximity of the Universal City and its moving- picture population, lays all the more heavily upon the social and religious agencies the task of bringing to young people properly and in time a knowledge of those facts. As it now is all probation officers state that their chief problems among juvenile offenders are petty thievery and immorality. As is often the case men, boys and girls have been neglected in special work among separate age and sex groups. Even for the young people less than half the churches in Orange County have a club or society. For the boys only one-seventh of the churches have such organizations, and only one church out of twelve has organized its girls, excepting of course the Sunday schools. The time to win boys and girls to the church for life is in their adolescent years. It is at this time that their activities are largely physical but their minds are forming the concepts which will govern their choice of life work and their ideals. Work for these ages is diffi- cult but it is tremendously important. Athletics, camping, hikes, vocational guidance, opportunities for self-expression and other activities related to the desires and the questions of these developing 'See Chapter VIII, page 84. 112 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS / personalities should be part of the church program. The boys' and girls' have a right to expect such attentions from the church. Where these things are furnished by the schools, the church has a respon- sibility to see that they are well furnished. The church may also call upon one of its allies, as the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, to take care of this part of the religious work program but having so called, it should back its helpers to the limit with finances and leadership. That only four churches have men's organizations is almost unbelievable and yet this is the case. If the men of the churches could be organized for religion as they have been organized for economic and social progress, a great, new, energizing factor would be thrust into the religious life of the county. Here again, the church should call upon the Young Men's Christian Association for assistance. One-half of the churches are without any of the items of such a program as has been discussed. They confine themselves exclu- sively to preaching and the usual offices that center upon worship and the activities of the Sunday school. These churches have no week-day activities for any age or sex group except women. They exercise no influence on community problems. In times like these the advocacy of a broad program needs no defense. It is the churches that fail to measure up to their full possibilities which in reality are on the defensive. In counties as new as these in which the population is increasing rapidly, and in which much of the popu- lation is foreign-born, a grave necessity exists for the Church to be alert, strong and purposeful throughout every day of the week, in order that the moral standards of the community may be sus- tained and the progressive work of schools and welfare agencies carried on, in a congenial and understanding atmosphere. 13. CHURCH EQUIPMENT One thing which the suggestions of the last paragraphs call for is better church equipment. For the most part the churches are ample in size. Half of them have three rooms or more, one-third have five or more. The type of building does not, however, do credit to the situation and the equipment of the churches is meagre in the extreme. The more modern educational material is found in the Sunday schools in only a few instances. Except for the kitchens, social material is almost entirely lacking. Only a few of the churches have buildings such as the hut described in Chapter 113 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION VIII or the community hall at La Habra. The extra rooms are used an hour a week in connection with the Sunday schools but hardly at all through the week when they might be turned over to clubs of various kinds. Though the land is available hardly a church has a playground. A great advance could be made in church equipment by 90 per cent of the churches. 14. THE MINISTERS The churches of these counties are served by a devoted group of ministers. The record of their labor and of that of their prede- cessors is given in these pages and speaks for itself. The sugges- tions thus far given are no reflection upon these men. The Church is just beginning to think in new terms, apply new standards of judgment, press forward to new levels of achievement. Judged by the standards of yesterday these men are among the most successful pastors in America, and in the face of handicaps. In Stanislaus County salaries are disgracefully and unreasonably low. To give their best service ministers must have enough to meet the expenses of living and bringing up a family. They must have enough to buy tools, namely, books, magazines, trips to conventions. They must have periods of rest for no work takes as much out of a man as spiritual leadership. They cannot have all this on $1,200 or $1,500 a year. And it should be remembered that though salaries in Orange County are higher on the average, the man who receives less than the average cannot buy butter and books on a theoretical average income. Church officers should further keep in mind the fact that, though the minister is the executive of an organization, he and not the or- ganization ordinarily pays its postage bills and that very often the minister contributes twenty-five or thirty dollars a month to the upkeep of an automobile which, though his, is used almost exclu- sively to enable him to do the work of the church. If church offi- cials were asked to contribute toward a delivery truck for their grocer they would object but they permit the minister to make just that type of contribution to the church month after month. This situation, coupled with the surprising lack of parsonages, only fifty of the eighty-two churches having them, accounts somewhat for the lamentable restlessness among the ministers in the northern county. 15. DECLINING CHURCH MEMBERSHIP With all the progress the county has made, and despite the rapidly increasing population and church membership, the fact 114 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS remains that in the year preceding the survey, the gain in church membership, while large, was shared in by only 57 per cent of the churches. Over a five-year period we find that of the twenty-four churches with less than fifty members, eight only made a gain. Such a condition raises squarely the question of the survival of such churches. Twenty of the thirty-two churches with less than fifty members cannot long survive unless conditions change. Most of them now have less than twenty-five members. The situation should be studied carefully in order that those which deserve strengthening may receive help, and that in the event of some of them ceasing finally to function their present constituencies will not be neglected. 1 6. THE FOREIGN-BORN Twenty-six thousand foreign-born live in these two counties. Not many areas in rural America have as high a proportion as is to be found in Stanislaus County. This calls for Americanization and, more important still, for Christianization. The Japanese and Mexicans will be dealt with below in separate paragraphs. Of the other groups the Portuguese present the greatest problem and what is said of this group applies in less degree to the other smaller racial groups as the Italian, Armenian and Greek. The work at Hughson has already been alluded to. Most of all, the foreigner needs education. The county is rich enough to follow the example of many cities and operate night schools for him, which should include agricultural education. The churches of the county must be friendly with the foreigner, especially until he is firmly estab- lished and has become acquainted with the customs of the country. They must be patient and learn to understand him as they expect him to learn and understand America. Daily Vacation Bible Schools would form a ready means of reaching the children of the foreign-born. Churches, schools and social agencies should aid in securing such amendments to the laws as would permit the employ- ment of "helping" teachers. 17. THE JAPANESE QUESTION He were a veritable seer who could suggest a solution to the involved Japanese problem. One little section of the near side of this problem exists in these counties. The Churches of Christ in America, associated in their Federal Council and in connection with the Disarmament Conference of 1921, declared in a "creed for 115 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION believers of a warless world" "We believe in the equality of race treatment." If this means anything at all, it means that where there is an acute racial problem, the churches must apply the principles of Christianity, and so inspire and lead their members, that regardless of personal sacrifice economic and racial difficulties shall be adjusted in accordance with the principles of the Prince of Peace. Such is the task for the congregations of American born. Mission Boards, on the other hand, should extend their activities among the for- eigners on a cooperative basis to include the rural sections. There should be no such situations as exist in Orange County. Here are more than 2,000 Orientals, for the most part an intelligent, law- abiding, useful group of people. Livingston, California, shows what can be done. Such work should be more generally and more energetically extended into the country where so large a proportion of the Japanese work and make their contacts with American life. l8. MEXICAN WORK The Mexican population, as has been indicated, is the biggest social problem Orange County faces in any given group. It is not possible to segregate the Mexican in any but the geographical sense and even this is not done as a matter of policy. In every other way, as a servant, as a laborer and as a member of the community, the Mexican comes in contact with the American. As noted, the Methodists have undertaken the bulk of the Mexican work in these counties. In certain communities this has brought about its prob- lems. For instance, one strong community church doing excellent community service among the Mexican population feels that it is estopped by the existing arrangement from dealing with the Mexi- cans spiritually. The Methodists use the building of this church for their services. This is an exceptional situation which can be worked out but it leads to a very definite conclusion, namely, that while the Mexican work may be administered by the Methodists, the Christianization of the Mexican is a problem of far wider con- cern to all who live within the county. The Methodists deserve the support, perhaps not in money, but certainly in service wherever necessary, of every American evangelical church and how this sup- port may be given is shown in the instance that has been mentioned. On the other hand there should be recognition of work done by others especially where, because of the lack of a resident minister or a building, the Methodist Church could not hope to carry on such work as is being accomplished. 116 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS IQ. COOPERATION AMONG CHURCHES There have been scores of facts and conclusions in the fore- going chapters that indicated the necessity for some sort of co- operation among the evangelical churches of each of these counties. Such cooperation is of two kinds, local and county- wide. A. Local There are several communities such as Turlock, Oakdale, Fuller- ton and the cities of both counties where local councils of churches might well be formed. This would require scarcely any budget as no office would have to be maintained or secretary employed. The organization would simply bring together both ministers and lay officials to face joint problems. Ministerial associations are in existence and do much but they are more for discussing the prob- lems and interests peculiar to the minister's profession. In mat- ters of law and order, morals and community-wide movements a local federation would be useful, or if not that, an interchurch committee. For one thing arrangements might be made for minis- ters and laymen to go into the neglected areas, especially from those communities where frequent union services are in vogue. B. County-Wide. It appears to the surveyors that the churches of these two counties are standing at the threshold of great possibilities. As the facts have been set down it has become increasingly clear that there are great tasks ahead of them, great opportunities to be seized, great needs to be met. Many of these tasks are falling between the churches. Others are but imperfectly accomplished. That this is so is due to the fact that the churches are not close enough together. A county Clerical Club or a County Ministerium does not meet the need. In one of these counties near a certain community which has three churches is a neglected community with a large number of foreign-born. Said the pastor of denomination A, "Yes, there's work being done there, by the B's I think." Said the minister of the B church, "Yes, I know about that problem. The people of the C church are at work down there if I'm not mis- taken." Hopefully the surveyors went to the clergyman in charge of the C church. Said he, "Why, no, we do nothing there. I am under the impression the A's are doing a little something." THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY IN WHICH ALL THE PROBLEMS OF THE CHURCH CAN BE SOLVED IN THESE COUNTIES AND THAT IS BY CO- OPERATION AND MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AND TRUST. 117 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION Such cooperation, actualized and made effective in a county council of churches, could undertake many important tasks in addi- tion to the care of the neglected areas. It could plan for parish and community surveys and the proper evangelistic follow-up; arrange for missionary institutes ; take over the county Sunday School Associations ; develop boys' and girls' work and bring about such a county-wide organization of young people's societies as is proving so valuable in other sections. It could focus the moral force of all the churches and present their united mind on any mat- ter of public interest, such as law enforcement or Americanization, and could act as a clearing house of information and as the medium through which the churches might cooperate with the social and economic agencies of the counties. Each county needs such an or- ganization. In Ohio, the state denominational executives have declared in favor of a county council of churches for every county in their state. In California, at least in these counties, the need for such bodies is far greater than in Ohio. A council of this kind might not have a salaried executive. There are a number of them in Ohio and Pennsylvania without such an officer, some of them, six or more years old, with substantial achievements behind them. But in these California counties, in the high tide of their development, with tasks so stupendous confronting them, a salaried executive would amply justify himself by working out some such cooperative program as has been outlined. These counties now support six secretaries at a cost of over $25,000 to look after eighty groups of boys with a total membership of 2,000. Why should they not each support an organization at a cost of not more than $5,000 per county to correlate the religious activities of 135 churches and 150 Sunday schools, in the interest of 50,000 people, and to bring their spiritual resources to the thousands yet outside the membership of the organized church? 118 APPENDIX I METHODOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS The method used in the Town and Country Surveys of the Interchurch World Movement and of the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys differs from the method of earlier surveys in this field chiefly in the following particulars: 1. "Rural" was defined as including all population living out- side of incorporated places of over 5,000. Previous surveys usually excluded all places of 2,500 population or over, which follows the United States Census definition of "rural." 2. The local unit for the assembling of material was the com- munity, regarded, usually, as the trade area of a town or village center. Previous surveys usually took the minor civil division as the local unit. The disadvantage of the community unit is that census and other statistical data are seldom available on that basis, thus increasing both the labor involved and the possibility of error. The great advantage is that it presents its results assembled on the basis of units which have real social significance, which the minor civil division seldom has. This advantage is considered as more than compensating for the disadvantage. 3. The actual service area of each church as indicated by the residences of its members and adherents was mapped and studied. This was an entirely new departure in rural surveys. Four chief processes were involved in the actual field work of these surveys: 1. The determination of the community units and of any sub- sidiary neighborhood units included within them. The community boundaries were ascertained by noting the location of the last family on each road leading out from a given center who regularly traded at that center. These points, indicated on a map, were connected with each other by straight lines. The area about the given center thus enclosed was regarded as the community. 2. The study of the economic, social and institutional life of each community as thus defined. 3. The location of each church in the county, the determination of its parish area and the detailed study of its equipment, finance, membership, organization, program and leadership. 119 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION 4. The preparation of a map showing in addition to the usual physical features, the boundaries of each community, the location, parish area and circuit connections of each church and the residence of each minister. The following are the more important definitions used in the making of these surveys and the preparation of the reports : GEOGRAPHICAL City a center of over 5,000 population. Not included within the scope of these surveys except as specifically noted. Town a center with a population of from 2,501 to 5,000. Village a center with a population of from 251 to 2,500. Hamlet any clustered group of people not living on farms whose numbers do not exceed 250. Open Country the farming area, excluding hamlets and other centers. Country used in a three-fold division of population included in scope of survey into Town, Village and Country. Includes Hamlets and Open Country. Town and Country the whole area covered by these surveys, i.e., all population living outside of cities. Rural used interchangeably with Town and Country. Community that unit of territory and of population charac- terized by common social and economic interests and experiences; an "aggregation of people the majority of whose interests have a common center." Usually ascertained by determining the normal trade area of each given center. The primary social grouping of sufficient size and diversity of interests to be practically self-sufficing in ordinary affairs of business, civil and social life. Neutral Territory any area not definitely included within the area of one community. Usually an area between two or more centers and somewhat influenced by each but whose interests are so scattered that it cannot definitely be assigned to the sphere of influence of any one center. Neighborhood a recognizable social grouping having certain interests in common but dependent for certain elemental needs upon some adjacent center within the community area of which it is located. Rural Industrial pertaining to any industry other than farming within the Town and Country area. 120 APPENDIX I POPULATION Foreigner refers to foreign-born and native-born of foreign parentage. New American usually includes foreign-born and native-born of foreign or mixed parentage, but sometimes refers only to more recent immigration. In each case the exact meaning is clear from the context. THE CHURCH Parish the area within which the members and regular at- tendants of a given church live. Circuit two or more churches combined under the direction of one minister. Resident Pastor a church whose minister lives within its parish area is said to have a resident pastor. Full-time Resident Pastor a church with a resident pastor who serves no other church and follows no other occupation than the ministry is said to have a full-time resident pastor. Part-time Pastor a church whose minister either serves another church also or devotes part of his time to some regular occupation other than the ministry or both is said to have a part-time minister. Non-resident Member one carried on the rolls of a given church but living too far away to permit regular attendance; generally, any member living outside the community in which the church is located unless he is a regular attendant. Inactive Member- a person on the church roll who resides within the parish area of the church but who neither attends its services nor contributes to its support. Net Active Membership the resultant membership of a given church after the number of non-resident and inactive members is deducted from the total on the church roll. Per Capita Contributions or Expenditures the total amount contributed or expended divided by the number of the net active membership. Budget System a church which at the beginning of the fiscal year makes an itemized forecast of the entire amount of money required for its maintenance during the year as a basis for a canvass of its membership for funds is said to operate on a budget system with respect to its local finances. If amounts to be raised for denominational or other benevolences are included in the fore- 121 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION cast and canvass, it is said to operate on a budget system for all moneys raised. Adequate Financial System three chief elements are recognized in an adequate financial system and budget system, an annual every member canvass and the use of envelopes for the weekly payment of subscriptions. Receipts receipts have been divided under three heads : a. Subscriptions, that is moneys received in payment of annual pledges. b. Collections, that is money received from free will offer- ings at public services. c. All other sources of revenue, chiefly proceeds of enter- tainments and interest on endowments. Salary of Minister inasmuch as some ministers receive in addition to their cash salary the free use of a house while others do not, a comparison of the cash salaries paid is misleading. In all salary comparisons, therefore, the cash value of a free parsonage is arbitrarily stated as $250 a year and that amount is added to the cash salary of each minister with free parsonage privileges. Thus an average salary stated as $1,450 is equivalent to $1,200 cash and the free use of a house. 122 APPENDIX II STATISTICAL TABLES TABLE I. POPULATION BY CENSUS PERIODS OF STANISLAUS AND ORANGE COUNTIES Stanislaus 1920 43,557 per cent increase 93.4 1910 22,522 per cent increase 135.8 1900 9,550 per cent decrease 4.9 1890 10,040 Orange 1920 61,375 per cent increase 78.2 1910 34,436 per cent increase 74.8 1900 19,696 per cent increase 44.9 189013,589 TABLE II. ECONOMIC FACTS 1920 CENSUS Orange County Square Miles, 795 ; Acres, 508,800 4,188 325,703 200,945 82.5% 11.8% 88.2% 7.7% 85.1% 8.6% $25,528,947 $6,096 Item Area Number of Farms Acreage in Farms Improved Acreage Per Cent. Owners Per Cent. Tenants Per Cent. Owners among For- eign Born Farmers Per Cent. Tenants among For- eign Born Farmers Per Cent. Owners among Na- tive Born Farmers Per Cent. Tenants among Na- tive Born Farmers Total Value of all Farm Products Average Value of Products per Farm Stanislaus County Square Miles, 1450; Acres, 928,000 4,566 748,678 477.871 76.3% 22.1% 76.2% 23% 20% $22,758,641 $3,754 123 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION TABLE III. VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY ORANGE COUNTY Churches Located in Entire Town Village Country Rural City Area Church Buildings : Number 4 23 13 40 Total Value $69,000 $95,800 $31,850 $196,650 Average Value 17,250 4,165.22 2,450 4.916.25 $14,659 Parsonages : Number 4 15 10 29 Total Value 16,000 49,600 18,400 84,000 Average Value 4,000 3.305.66 1,840 2,896.55 5,043 Other Buildings : Number i 6 i 8 Total Value 2,500 4,225 3,ooo 9,725 Average Value 2,500 704.16 3,000 1,215.63 3,075 TABLE IV. VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY STANISLAUS COUNTY Churches Located in Town Church Buildings : Number 11 Total Value $176,135 Average Value 16,012 Parsonage : Number 8 Total Value 39-3CO Average Value 4,912.50 Other Buildings : Number I Total Value 2,500 Average Value 2,500 Entire Village Country County 24 $101,925 4,247 7 2,621 42 $296.410 7,057 33,625 2,241.67 4 5,400 1,350 27 78,025 2,890 3 3,100 4 5,600 i,033 o 1,400 TABLE V. HOW THE CHURCH DOLLAR IS RAISED ORANGE AND STANIS- LAUS COUNTIES Amount Raised By subscription . . By collection By other methods Toivn $ .80 $1.00 124 Churches Located in Entire Village Country County $ .67 $ .64 $ .70 .21 .275 .17 .12 .085 .13 $1.00 $1.00 APPENDIX II TABLE VI. HOW THE CHURCH DOLLAR IS SPENT ORANGE AND STANIS- LAUS COUNTIES Expended for Salaries of ministers Missions and benevolences All other purposes Town $ -275 .38 345 $1.00 Churches Located in Village $.38 .265 355 $1.00 Country $ .48 33 .19 $1.00 Entire County $ .36 32 32 $1.00 TABLE VII. PER CAPITA GIVING ORANGE AND STANISLAUS COUNTIES A. Orange County Disbursed for Town Salaries of ministers ... $ 8.90 Missions and benevolences . . . 15.37 All other expenses 9.95 City $ 578 9.58 542 Totals $34-22 $39.49 $36.29 $37.54 $20.78 Churches Located in Entire Village Country Rural Area $19.73 $14-27 6.12 10.80 10.44 12.47 $15-24 9.98 14.27 B. Stanislaus County Disbursed for Town Salaries of ministers $ 7.15 Missions and benevolences 7.54 All other expenses 9.60 Churches Located in Entire Village Country Rural Area $12.28 $ 84.1 $ 9.23 9.22 9.61 8.45 11.43 1.77 9-23 Totals $24.29 $32.93 $19.79 $26.91 TABLE VIII. ANALYSIS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP ORANGE COUNTY Toivn Non-resident 80 Inactive 127 Active 865 Total 1072 Churches Located in Village Country 54 48 332 145 1815 2292 525 627 Total 466 320 3205 3991 125 IRRIGATION AND RELIGION TABLE IX. ANALYSIS OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP STANISLAUS COUNTY Non-resident 235 Inactive 39 Active 2335 Churches Located in Town Village Country 196 79 79 77 1771 640 Total 2609 2046 796 5451 TABLE X. ANALYSIS OF SUNDAY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND ATTENDANCE STANISLAUS COUNTY Located in Town .... Village . . . Country . . Total Enrollment Number Average of. All per Schools Schools School i i 2258 205 25 2487 99 6 839 104 5584 134 Attendance Average Per cent All per Schools School 1666 131 1722 69 604 101 3992 95 all Schools 74 69 72 TABLE XI. ANALYSIS OF SUNDAY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND ATTENDANCE ORANGE COUNTY Located in Town Village . . . Country . . Total Enrollment Attendance Number Average Average Per cent of All per All per all Schools Schools School Schools School Schools 4 1098 274 636 159 57-9 23 3102 135 2190 95 70.6 12 892 74 662 55 74-2 39 5092 3488 89 68.5 126 APPENDIX II TABLE XII. SUNDAY SCHOOL STATISTICS. Orange County Stanislaus County Number of schools connected with churches 39 42 Total enrollment 5,092 5,584 Average attendance 3,488 3,992 Number of members living on farms 1,825 2,463 Number of schools with : Efforts to increase attendance 14 18 Organized classes 22 12 Graded lessons 8 23 Departments organized 1 1 19 Cradle Roll 12 26 Home department 9 15 Provision for leadership training 3 5 Teacher training class 2 12 Sunday school papers 36 39 Library 1 1 13 Regular mission study II 19 Missionary offerings 33 40 Decision day 16 10 Sessions the whole year 37 42 Picnic 31 33 Special organizations 7 6 Classes holding socials 19 18 Social times as a whole 9 7 Class to prepare for church membership 5 9 Number of pupils joining church in year.. 123, from 18 266, from 24 schools schools Number of pupils entering Christian work in past five years 15, from 9 17, from 1 1 schools schools Number of pupils entering Christian work in past ten years 21, from 10 28, from 15 schools schools 127 BIBLIOGRAPHY CENSUS BUREAU BULLETINS 1920 CENSUS POPULATION : CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE : CALIFORNIA IRRIGATION : CALIFORNIA FEDERAL CENSUS 1910 ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA Gunn REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 1919-20 FEDERAL RELIGIOUS CENSUS 1916 THE STORY OF STANISLAUS COUNTY BOARD OF TRADE ORANGE COUNTY, BY F. W. SLEBAUGH, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, ORANGE COUNTY REPORT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PANAMA EXPOSITION COMMISSION REPORTS OF ORGANIZATIONS AND AGENCIES NEWSPAPER FILES CALIFORNIA AND THE JAPANESE, by K. Kanzaki A SCHOOL SURVEY OF ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, by Frances Smiley THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE "Present Day Immigration, with Special Reference to the Japanese" January, 1921 No. 182, Volume XVIII. 128 UNIQUE STUDIES OF RURAL AMERICA TOWN AND COUNTRY SERIES TWELVE VOLUMES MADE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF EDMUND DE S. BRUNNER, PH.D. What the Protestant Churches Are Doing and Can Do for Rural America The Results of Twenty- Six Intensive County Surveys Description Publication Date (1) Church and Community Survey of Salem County, N. J Ready (2) Church and Community Survey of Pend Oreille County, Washing- ton Ready (3) Church and Community Survey of Sedgwick County, Kansas Ready (4) Religion in the Old and New South. About Aug. 10 (5) The Old and New Immigrant on the Land, as seen in two Wiscon- sin Counties About June 15 (6) Rural Religious Tendencies in the Middle West About June 10 (7) Outstanding Problems in the North- ern Colonial Area About June 7 (8) Irrigation and Religion, a study of two prosperous California coun- ties Ready (9) The Church on the Changing Fron- tier About June 15 (10) The Rural Church Before and Af- ter the War. Comparative Studies of Two Surveys About July 25 (n) Social Groups and the Country Church About June 10 (12) The Town and Country Church in the United States About Nov. 30 "They are fine pieces of work and examples of what we need to have done on a large scale." Dr. Charles A. Ellwood, Dept. of Sociology, University of Missouri. "I am heartily appreciative of these splendid results." Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, Genl. Secy., Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, New York FOR COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS SURVEYS III FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482 A 000 892 143 9