Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/cityyoutlisafeOObowericli SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH AT WORK AND AT PLAY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY mW YOKK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FHANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited tONDON • BOUBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMH-LAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH AT WORK AND AT PLAY BY LOUISE DE KOVEN BOWEN WITH A PREFACE BY JANE ADDAMS .» • e • THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 AU rights reserved r r'^f Copyright, igi4 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and clectrotyped. Published November, igi4* TO THE DIRECTORS, THE SUPERINTENDENT, THE ATTORNEY AND THE OFFICERS OF THE JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CHICAGO WHO HAVE WORKED SO UNTIRINGLY FOR THE PROTECTION OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND WHO HAVE SO LOYALLY SUPPORTED EVERY EFFORT OF THEIR PRESIDENT % 341173 PREFACE The following pages give a graphic description of the sordid and careless conditions under which thou- sands of young people habitually live, and of the vaUant efforts of a small group of citizens to enlist public agencies, state, county and city, to provide at least a minimum of protection. Although the observations and experiences here recorded are confined to Chicago, the book is perhaps chiefly valuable because of the unforgettable impres- sion it makes upon the mind of the reader that the huge commercial cities of our day exhibit so little con- cern for the morale of the next generation. This is perhaps not surprising, when we realize that cities containing millions of people are, after all, so new a thing upon the face of the earth that they are not yet equipped with such fundamentals as park spaces and efficient transportation. Conscious of this, groups of pubhc-spirited citizens in Chicago and elsewhere have organized City Plan- ning Committees to consider the development of the modern city upon a large scale. They have become convinced that the undirected self-interest of the in- vii viii PREFACE dividual citizen cannot be counted upon to bring order and beauty out of the mass of hastily planned build- ings and haphazard streets. In the same spirit other groups have come to feel the need of a wide-spread agency which should survey the city as a whole in order to study conditions as they affect the morals of the young and to provide adequate public safeguards for the children and youth — in Chicago they number 882,000, a huge city in themselves — whose protection has not yet been considered a matter of civic obliga- tion. The present disordered situation demonstrates that adequate protection is not secured through the solic- itude of parents, the sectional activity of educators, the self-interest of employers nor through the profit- seeking of pleasure purveyors. To consider moral needs from a city wide point of view the Juvenile Pro- tective Association was organized in Chicago. Its prosaic beginnings are somewhat analogous to the City Planning movement which while it does not con- sist in the regulation of tenement houses and the pro- visions for sanitary alleys cannot succeed in a city where these have not been obtained nor can it spring out of a public opinion unmindful of them. Although Beauty expressed in architectural order, wide green spaces and gracious water fronts was the final out- come of the City Planning movement, the first appeal PREFACE ix was of necessity to the more primitive instinct of self-preservation; the most prosaic laws regulating the height of buildings, the abatement of the smoke nuisance and the collection of refuse which were the outcome of such an appeal, finally bore a distinct re- lation to Beauty itself. The first years of the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion were devoted to securing that groundwork of legal and civic protection in which American cities are so sadly lacking, but the safeguards urged by the author of this book bear a direct relation to the spirit- ual powers of the future citizens of Chicago. She in- sists that the basic safety of youthful health and morals must be secured by the civic authorities unless all the efforts of Education and Philanthropy, so constantly undertaken on behalf of city youth, are to be brought to nought. That however well-considered these efforts, they cannot be successful with young people who are already morally debauched. The reader of this book will find the record of va- rious municipal and social experiments and the sugges- tions for many others but the author constantly insists that their promoters have a right to pre-suppose a well-administered system of civic protection. She does not claim, for instance, that women police and the careful regulation of dance halls, which she recommends, will in themselves supply adequate X PREFACE pleasure for the 86,000 young people who nightly at- tend public dances in Chicago, but she does contend that we may thus remove the basest temptations, the unforgivable surroundings and the most flagrant out- rages against decency, so that the multitude of young people innocently craving the amusement to which their scanty years entitle them, may secure it with a certain degree of safety. The Association ever depending upon fresh knowl- edge and new experience has endeavored to equip itself with a wide and familiar acquaintance with the young people of Chicago and their needs and to work out methods apphcable to each new situation which confronts it. Each phase of its activity raises anew the question: How have we let it happen that care for the moral safety of the oncoming generation is the latest of all our civic undertakings? That public effort on behalf of schools and libraries to stimulate the intelligence, on behalf of health measures to control the diseases of childhood, absorbed the attention and activity of the community for so long a time before we were even aware of youth's moral need for the most elementary pubhc safeguards? The book is further valuable in that the author has presented the significance and implications of the dis- coveries made by the Association of which she has so PREFACE Xi long been president, with an interpretation singularly free from the morbid and sentimental. She gives a sense of reality to the movement represented by such agencies as the Juvenile Protective Association and in a measure she prepares the temper of that public opinion upon which the success of any movement de- pends. For unfortunately we have no other phrase save "public opinion" for that outlook on the world which marks each age for what it is — the summary of its experiences, knowledge and affections in which are found the very roots of social existence. Yet pubhc opinion has a curious trick of suddenly regarding as a living moral issue, vital and unappeasable, some old situation concerning which society has been indifferent for many years. The newly morahzed issue almost as if by accident, suddenly takes fire and sets whole com- munities in a blaze, lighting up human relationships and public duty with a new meaning, in the end trans- forming an abstract social ideal into a political demand for new legal enactments. When that blaze actually starts, when the theme is heated, molten as it were with human passion and de- sire, it is found that there are many mature men and women of moral purpose and specialized knowledge who have become efficient unto life. Among them are those who have long felt a compunction in regard to the ill-adjustment of which society has become con- XU PREFACE scious and are eager to contribute to the pattern of juster human relations. Perhaps because the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion has embodied this new compunction in regard to the civic protection of youth, it has been able from the start to count upon the cooperation of public- spirited women, when, true to its origin of a voluntary committee supplementing the work of a public court, it has continually induced public authorities to as- sume new obligations. The members of the Association, as many other public-spirited citizens who have advocated sorely needed social changes, who have made volunteer ex- periments as to their practicability and who have finally created public sentiment in their favor, know only too well that social reforms are never embodied in law until long after the need of them has been universally admitted; that such laws are only enacted years after the victims of existing conditions have passed through great suffering and even then always in the teeth of opposition from those who profit by the existing status. They have learned that only political pressure will finally set in motion the heavy machinery through which the written statute may be changed. The Association therefore welcomed as a reinforce- ment to all of its aims the vote of a quarter million women, so newly granted in Chicago, confident ••• PREFACE xm that the women's vote would hasten the day when just dealing and "the issue of things" should go together. The following record of a finely sustained social effort has been made by the president of the Associa- tion who gave most generously of her time, money and ability during every day for seven years. She brought to the perplexing task a clear mind and a spirit both ardent and generous. Every page of this book is warmed by her personal devotion and great concern. The studies given here of conditions, af- fecting the development of city youth, are a distinct contribution to that organized effort which is des- tined to be more imperative and far reaching than the movement for City Planning. It is indeed the spiritual supplement of that move- ment, without which City Planning must always re- main meaningless and cities themselves become an ever increasing menace to the highest hopes of civil- ization. Jane Addams Hull-House CmcAGO CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction i II. Civic Protection in Recreation 12 III. Legal Protection in Industry 52 IV. Legal Protection for Delinquents 94 V. Legal Safeguards for the Dependent .... 128 VI. Protection against Illegal Discrimination . . 160 VII. Need of Further Protection 202 Index 231 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH AT WORK AND AT PLAY SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION During the last few years, there have been great j changes all over the world among educators and \ philanthropists in regard to the treatment of chil- dren. The emphasis has gradually been shifted from j punishment to prevention and from prevention to/ vital welfare. This changed attitude toward children was slow to register itself in legal machinery, but in 1899 the first Juvenile Court Law in the United States was passed by the IlHnois legislature and be- came effective the first day of July in that year when a Juvenile Court was established in Chicago. The law provided for the organization of the Court and for the probation system, but because it failed to provide for the salaries of the probation officers, a few public- spirited citizens organized a Juvenile Court Com- mittee and for eight years paid the salaries of the probation officers. In order to keep the children out of the police stations, this same Committee also I ,2^ , ,, * SAFEGUAkpS FOR CITY YOUTH maintained, with intermittent help from the city and county, a detention home through which about twenty-six hundred children passed yearly. For eight years therefore the members of this Committee had every opportimity to know the children who were annually brought into the Juvenile Court of Chicago. /~:>rhe Committee discovered that they were all or- dinary, everyday children, some neglected and abused, some disorderly and immanageable, some runaways and vagrants, some mentally deficient and some only mischievous. Almost all were underfed and poorly nourished and possessed some chronic physical defect, evinced by their pinched faces, their stooping shoulders and narrow chests, their weak eyes and twitching mouths. The Committee found that these children were taken into court for all kinds of offenses, baiting peddlers, throwing stones, breaking windows, running away from school, fighting, playing craps or baseball on the street, or gathering coal as it fell from the trains passing through the coalyards. To these coal- yards little girls were often sent by their mothers as late, or rather as early, as three o'clock in the morning. Of the children brought into court for more serious offenses, such as petty larceny, the Committee learned that sometimes a child, having had only coffee and bread for many days, had stolen food in order to satisfy INTRODUCTION 3 his appetite; or a boy whose father regularly kept his wages had revolted and taken what he considered his own earnings; or a little girl, given only the barest necessities of life, had pilfered the finery her heart cravgd; or an adventurous youth had stolen money from his employer in order to bet upon the races or to invest in a get-rich-quick concern. The Committee also learned to know the nearly hve hundred girls who were brought in each year on the charge of immorality. Whether these girls hsid^ been taken from the streets, the disreputable dance halls or theatres, they all told the same story, that they had been in search of amusement. I recall a thin and wretched child, brought into the court one day, who held in her arms what I thought must be her doll until I saw that it was a baby, the child's own baby. She was not quite fourteen years old and she had forgotten even the name of the father of her child. Sometimes the souls of the Committee were tried with the senseless complaints brought against inno- cent children; one woman had a boy arrested be- cause he persistently climbed upon her piazza and made faces at her, although upon inquiry it developed that the first time he had climbed upon her porch to get a ball which he had inadvertently tossed there, she had thrown hot water upon him; another woman 4 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH who kept chickens had a small boy arrested be- cause every time he met her on the street he would flap his arms and crow like a rooster, which hurt her feelings. The members of the Juvenile Court Comn||ttee gradually discovered that the city was full of dan- gerous spots for children. The disreputable dance halls, poolrooms and saloons never closed their doors. They were always open and the children were always tempted. The demand for amusement was insistent, the supply of facilities for innocent recreation was inadequate, and so year after year the same thing took place and a straggUng procession of children, Kving under the same conditions, exposed to the same temptations, wended its way in and out of the Court. The Committee gradually awakened to the fact that although pubUc-spirited citizens had been instru- mental in the past in establishing institutions for the care of delinquent children and in studying the proc- esses by which criminals are punished, they had paid much less attention to the processes by which crim- inals are produced. kThey had been trying to sweep . back a river of crime, but they had done very Httle to / build the preventive dams across the tiny streams which continually swelled the volume of that river, much less had they been concerned to purify the fountain heads from which the streams arose, i INTRODUCTION 5 When in 1907 the Committee secured the legislation which placed probation officers on the pay roll of the county and when the Juvenile Court was housed in a new building which contained also the detention ,, home, the members of the Committee were ready to organize themselves into an Association which should make a determined attempt to minimize the wretched conditions which constantly demoralized children. Thoroughly convinced by their experience that there are certain environments which the normal child can- not withstand and to which society has obviously no right to expose him, they organized a Juvenile Pro- tective Association, although at that moment they scarcely knew where the work of protection should begin. They only felt that something must be done to build a fence at the top of the cliff in order to cheat the ambulance, symbolized by the Juvenile Court, waiting at the bottom of the precipice to rescue the /^childish victims.) The Committee was determined to reduce the number of children who day after day and year after year were being brought into the Juvenile Court. The Association stated in one of its earliest publications: ''Each year between 3,000 and 4,000 children pass through the Juvenile Court of this city and about 1 1 ,000 other young persons between the ages of sixteen and twenty pass through the other €«arts. AI ii«&t art ameceedtd tkt f#ll«wifig yeaJ by 6 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH another 15,000 children inheriting the same tenden- cies, exposed to the same temptations, surrounded by the same dreary environment, often physically and mentally enfeebled by neglect. [ " One fact is well established, a large proportion of these children are innocent victims of vicious and un- lawful neighborhood influences. Progress demands that the procession of 15,000 children which moves yearly through our courts, be shortened. This Asso- ciation wants to get at the child before he goes down, to remove temptations, to better conditions in his neighborhood, to keep him from committing the mis- demeanors and crimes that take him into the courts — to use formative rather than reformative measures." It was obviously necessary to divide the city into districts and gradually fourteen of these were organ- ized. In each one a paid officer was placed whose first duty it was to prevent can-rushing and cocaine selling, to keep the children out of disreputable dance halls, questionable ice cream parlors, candy stores and photograph galleries, and to try in every way to protect and safeguard them. In each one of these districts there was also a local league of interested citizens, whose duty it was to know their own neighborhoods; to know how many saloon keepers or tobacconists were selling liquor or tobacco to young boys, how many poolroom keepers INTRODUCTION 7 were harboring minors, how many disreputable houses were enticing young girls and how many im- properly conducted dance halls there were in their leighborhoods. It was also the business of these citizens to know how many vacant lots might be turned into gardens or playgrounds, how many churches have rooms that might be opened for reading rooms or for recreational purposes, and how many schools might be used as social centres^ Each League developed methods fitted to its own neighborhood. For example, in one district there were a large number of factories. It was found that the girl employees had no place to go to luncheon except a saloon where, in order to get something to eat, they were obliged to take something to drink. In that dis- trict the League opened a rest and lunch room for factory girls. In another district it was found that there were several notorious gangs of boys, one of which had its headquarters in the vaults of an old, disused brewery, where the boys kept their booty and from time to time added to it through successful "hold-ups." A very young man was put on as an officer in that dis- trict. He obtained the confidence of one of the gangs and, becoming very friendly with them, he finally in- duced them to visit the small park of the district where he organized them into teams and put them 8 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH into athletic competitions, pitting them against each other. In another district where several young girls were assaulted upon the street at night, it was found that restaurants, bakeries and all-night lunch rooms were in the habit of giving away broken scraps of food between the hours of two and four in the morning and needy families were sending their children for this food. An ofl&cer from the League visited 148 of these places and secured from the proprietors a promise that they would change the hour of distribution to seven in the morning. An investigation made three or four months later showed that 147 out of the 148 proprietors had kept their promises. The Association receives every year about 6000 complaints in regard to children. Some of these complaints are in the form of anonymous letters call- ing the attention of the Association to conditions which are demoralizing children, or to children who are going wrong because of some vicious environ- ment, and it is from these cases that the Associa- tion learns in what part of the city their activity should be immediately applied. Their seven years of experience have made it increasingly clear that it is impossible to obtain any proper standards of public morals unless there are well-considered legal provi- sions. It is of course obvious that in many instances the laws designed to safeguard young people are INTRODUCTION g t/ tally inadequate. They are often wretchedly en- rced and even designedly ignored by the very offi- cials responsible for them. In spite of this, however, the members of the Association have become con- vinced that the modern city must not only continue to enact laws to control and to regulate certain public social and industrial activities, but that trained and disinterested officials must be secured for their enforcement. Sometimes the dangers to which young people were carelessly subjected were obvious, and again they were only revealed as the results of careful investigation. In seven years* experience as President of the Juvenile Protective Association, I have been almost equally impressed by the increasing bulk of its activ- ity and its constantly varied character. During this time, new causes for delinquency have been contin- ually disclosed, as have unsuspected methods used by depraved women and dissolute men to decoy youth to its undoing. When at the Board Meetings of the Association a report has been given of so-called ''house parties", arranged for the purpose of entangling boys and girls in evil relations, although the guests might have ac- cepted the invitations quite innocently and even with the permission of their unsuspecting parents, or when a report was given of Httle girls who were decoyed into lO SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH a photograph gallery in which the Association after- ward discovered and destroyed forty thousand inde- cent pictures, the members of the Board in all humil- ity have often confessed to one another their chagrin that well-meaning adults like themselves should have remained ignorant of such conditions, allowing im- mature young people to struggle with them as best they might. Whenever the Association has had cause to suspect wide-spread conditions which made for juvenile delinquency, an investigation has been made with the double view of securing publicity and of sug- gesting remedies. Often only a more vigorous en- forcement of existing laws was needed; in many other cases the enactment of new laws was recommended and in time secured. After the investigators had sub- mitted their material to the superintendent of the Association, it was put into pamphlet form under the direction of a small committee from the Board of Directors. As President of the Association, much ab- sorbed in its ever widening usefulness, I have myself with a few exceptions written the text of these various investigations. In presenting them to the public in the form of a book, I am not only assembling the material written during the last few years, but I have endeavored to show how one sincere effort of the Association inevitably merged into another. I ven- ture to hope that the book may present to the reader !\ INTRODUCTION II not only the information acquired through careful in- vestigators but will make clear that the knowledge thus secured inevitably became the driving force for serious moral effort to the end that the untoward con- ditions of city life might be ameUorated. While these undertakings of the Association have been classified into chapters on the basis of underly- ing trends, in the main a chronological order of our experiences has been followed. It is inevitable that in such elusive and difficult undertakings, the results should often have been baf- fling and disappointing, but it is hoped that a sincere recital of the work of a pioneer organization during the first seven years of its existence may be of value to the many Juvenile Protective Associations which have been founded during the past few years in va- rious parts of the United States and whose very exist- ence shows that, as a nation, we are beginning to reaUze that we have a solemn obUgatiosLto protect ja^ niuIHtude of young people who have hitherto been defenceless. CHAPTER n CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION From the very beginning it was obvious that the majority of children fell into diflSculties through their search for recreation. In all of our towns and cities hundreds of young people, weary from their monot- onous work in shop or factory, walk the streets in the evening imperiously asserting their right to pleasure. Business enterprise has taken advantage of this natural desire for recreation, and commercialized amusements have sprung up everywhere, prepared to cater to every taste of this childish multitude. Penny arcades, slot machines, moving picture shows, cheap theatres, amusement parks and dance halls are all attempting to attract children with every device known to modern advertising. Young people with- out protection are thus exposed to temptation at the very moment when they are least able to withstand it. One of the first cases brought to the attention of the Association was that of a young girl, arrested on the charge of stealing jewelry, who had closely imi- tated what she had seen in a moving picture theatre. 12 CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 13 The film showed a woman going into a jewelry store and asking to see some rings. She was chewing gum and, when an opportunity came, she took a ring and placed it in the gum which she had previously stuck underneath the counter. The ring of course was missed and a search made for it, but it was not found and the woman left the store. Shortly after a boy came and when he left he took with him the gum within which the ring was concealed. The spectator had naturally said, "How easy!" but when the girl who was brought to the Association had tried it, she had been almost immediately arrested. For several years the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion struggled with such individual cases of wrong- doing connected directly and indirectly with the the- atres, but early in 1909 it undertook an investigation of all the theatres and moving picture shows of the city. There were at that time in Chicago 41 first class the- atres, 405 five and ten cent theatres, seating 93,000 people. It was estimated that approximately 32,000 children attended these theatres daily. In order to ascertain the conditions existing in the theatres, the officers of the Juvenile Protective Association made 1,156 visits to them. Part of this investigation was made in two evenings when all the officers of the Association and 120 volunteers visited 298 cheap the- atres. This investigation showed a demoralized con- 14 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH dition of affairs and 216 violations of the law were re- ported to the police, the building and fire departments and the state factory inspector. The observation of the investigators was that outside the theatres there was always a crowd of children who were attracted by the lurid advertisements and sensational posters and these crowds were frequented by evil-minded men who are generally to be found where little girls con- gregate. The boys and men in such crowds often speak to the girls and invite them to see the show and there is an unwritten code that such courtesy shall be paid for later by the girls. In most of the theatres, these crowds remained until a late hour because the management ofifered at the close of the evening three admissions for ten cents or sometimes two for five cents and the children pilfered or begged in order to obtain the price of admission. Inside the theatres the ventilation was bad, the air vitiated, the exits were inadequate and the darkness afforded a cover for familiarity and sometimes even for immorality. The buildings frequently did not comply with the building and fire ordinances. The motion pictures thrown upon the screens were demor- alizing. The imagination of the boy who attended these shows was fired by what he saw of the gentle- manly burglar, the expert safe-blower, the daring train robber, the reckless scout, all filling his ideas oi CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 1 5 what a hero ought to be. At one time, after a set of. pictures had been shown which depicted the hero as a burglar a large number of boys were brought into Court, all of whom had in their possession house- breakers' tools, and they all stated that they had invested in these implements because they had seen these pictures and they were anxious to become ^'gentlemen burglars." At that time the pictures in Chicago not only sj showed crime of all kinds but scenes of brutality and • revenge calculated to arouse coarse and brutal 'emo- tions. One set of pictures, for example, showing Indians on the warpath, detailed with great accu- racy the horrible" scenes of torturing and burning attendant upon a massacre. Another set called the ''Gypsies' Revenge" represented a band of gypsies robbing a man and then, because he resisted, they bound him and hung him by a rope over a precipice. As the picture vividly showed the body dangling be- tween heaven and earth and being plucked at by vul- tures the shudder of horror which passed over the audience was quite obvious. Such pictures could not fail to have an injurious effect upon young people. When the Juvenile Protective Association would re- port a film of this kind to the Chief of Police, he .would remove it at once, but it would reappear shortly in another part of the city, to be again reported. The l6 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Association, feeling that it was necessary to take some decisive step in the matter, found that an ordi- nance had been passed previously which provided that a censorship committee should be appointed by the ' Chief of Police and that every film should be passed on by this committee and signed by the Chief before it could be shown in a theatre; also that a license to show the film should be posted in the theatre. Representatives of the Association and of the City Club went to the Chief of Police and urged that this ordinance be put in force. Since this was done the de- partment has cut out approximately 126 miles of objectionable films. The censorship committee does not allow scenes of murder or robbing or abduction to be shown upon the screens, and in consequence the motion picture shows of Chicago are now very decent. With the theatres which show plays it is more diffi- cult to deal, for it is hard to draw the line between the legitimate drama arjd the plays suggesting to boys and girls theft and murder. At one theatre a play showed a brutal father who struck his wife, and in revenge was §hqt by the son. At the close of the evening when the actors appeared before the curtain the son was wildly applauded, while the father was hissed. A boy in the audience who saw the play was so much impressed by it that the following day when his father, a hardworking man out of work, in a mo- CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 1 7 ment of irritation raised his hand against the mother the boy shot and killed his father and was much as- tonished to find that he was not regarded 2ls a hero by the police or the public. In the smaller theatres there was little or no pro- tection for children. In one theatre the proprietor, an old man of seventy-five, enticed little girls into the theatre by showing them stage costumes and machin- ery. He was arrested and accused of disorderly conduct with small children. In another theatre a jug- gler attracted to the theatre a little girl and, by prom- ising to show her some of his magic arts, took her to a cheap hotel. He was found guilty and punished. After the first investigation of the theatres the Ju- venile Protective Association reported constantly to the building department, the department of health, the Chief of Police and the state factory inspector the conditions of the theatres which did not meet the requirements of the law. In consequence there was a great improvement in the physical condition of the theatres, especially in the exits and the ventila- tion. Late in 1909 the licenses of the smaller theatres were raised from one hundred dollars to two hundred dollars and the number of five and ten cent theatres was thereby reduced from 425 to 335. In addition to the temptations of the theatre itself / l8 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH the Association found many children and young people who had fallen into serious difficulties through their efforts to obtain money with which to buy tickets for the "show." Some of these efforts were singularly absurd, perhaps none more so than the case involving two young girls who were sisters. Freda and Hilda were the children of well-to-do German people who lived in a remote portion of the city in a small house which was slowly being paid for by the united efforts of all the members of the family. The girls worked in a candy factory at a weekly wage of $5.00 which they were obliged to turn over in their unopened pay envelopes to their thrifty mother every Saturday night. After the hard day's work Hilda and Freda were al- ways tired and complained bitterly that they were not allowed to go to dance halls or theatres; their too- careful mother would not even allow their young friends to visit them, for that interfered with the housework and sewing which she expected them to do. One visitor however was permitted — a cousin em- ployed in the office of a dentist, who came to dinner every Sunday when she would relate funny stories about the patients and their sufferings. She also told fabulous tales of the amount of gold used in the manu- facture of artificial teeth and how very valuable these crowns must be since the dentist charged such enor- CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION I9 mous prices for them, one tooth sometimes costing $40.00. All day Sunday the talk would centre about the dentist, the enormously valuable stuff with which he worked and the rich people downtown who could buy gold teeth at pleasure. On their way to and from the factory Hilda and Freda would often stop and gaze longingly in the shop windows where were displayed the pretty things which they could not have, bitterly resenting the plain clothing their mother provided for them; or they would read the fascinating posters which described the de- lights of the theatre they had no money to enter. One momentous day they decided that their gray lives were unendurable and that in one way or another they must get the money with which to buy theatre tickets. Their cousin, the dentist's assistant, was their one Hnk with the gay world and they remembered that she had often told them in case of toothache to come to her kind employer, for she was very sure that he would be willing to treat free any member of her family. Around this offer the girls evolved a scheme that the next Saturday afternoon after work one of them would pretend to have a bad toothache; that they would go to the dentist and ask to have the tooth pulled and that while the dentist was thus engaged the sister would steal all the gold crowns she could lay her hands on. Some discussion then arose as to 20 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH whose tooth should come out and when it was decided to draw lots for it, the dubious opportunity fell to Hilda. The next Saturday afternoon the girls set out for the dentist's office, Hilda a trifle lugubrious, Freda quite cheerful. When they arrived at the office, Hilda explained to the dentist that her tooth had been ach- ing so badly that she wanted it pulled at once. The dentist placed her in the chair, examined the tooth, and said he did not think it at all necessary that it should come out, although Hilda insisted that she could not stand the terrible pain another moment. While the doctor was examining the tooth, Freda managed to steal a package of gold foil, also a few crowns which were evidently prepared for immediate use. The impatient dentist at last drew the tooth and the two girls left the office and made their way directly to a pawnshop in order to turn the gold and crowns into fabulous sums of money. An officer of the Juve- nile Protective Association saw them enter the shop, followed them, and when the pawnbroker hesitated to accept such unusual pledges, she persuaded the girls to come with her and was able to extract the entire story from them, the sisters by this time having become rather frightened, Hilda possibly nervously upset by her recent experience. Because of the imme- diate return of the stolen goods to the dentist's office CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 21 and the intervention of the distracted cousin, the dentist kindly consented to overlook the theft. It was really easier to release the girls from the rigors of the law than from the rigors of family discipline. It required many visits to the mother in order to per- suade her that she must permit the sisters to have some recreation and must provide them with money to that end. When a girl is willing to endure the tor- ture of having a sound tooth extracted in order to go to a theatre, it is certainly a revelation of youth's claim to pleasure, which will not be denied. In the late winter of 191 1 the Juvenile Protective Association undertook another investigation of the Chicago theatres when an encouraging general im- provement was found. Yet one difficulty was ap- parently insuperable, that many of them are situ- ated in undesirable localities and although the theatre itself may be well managed, it nevertheless attracts a number of young girls and boys into a neighbor- hood to which they would otherwise have no oc- casion to go. The theatre itself is often situated next door to a saloon or transient rooming house. In fact, it is so often in the same building with the latter that the phrase '^A Five Cent Theatre Hotel" has become current. It seems quite impossible to control the location of these five cent theatres. There are, however, many improvements which could be made. 22 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH We need, first, an ordinance which would require a theatre to obtain a license for the place and not for the person who operates it. If this were done it would prevent a repetition of the following incident: Some time ago at a theatre on the North Side the proprietor was in the habit of enticing little girls into the theatre, promising if they would do a little work, such as dust- ing or sweeping, he would give them tickets for the even- ing performance. Under this pretense he assaulted 14 little girls. He was arrested and prosecuted by the Juvenile Protective Association, which had many wit- nesses to testify against him. Because the man had great political influence the case was continued from time to time and finally the jury disagreed. A year and a half elapsed before it again came to trial, the proprietor in the meantime being out on $6,000 bail. Although he was forbidden by the judge to go inside his theatre he was repeatedly seen in the neighborhood, by officers of the Association, conversing with young girls, until he was finally sent to the penitentiary for seven years. After his first arrest the license for the theatre was revoked at the request of the Juvenile Protective Association, but a few days later was is- sued to his wife, who connived at his immoralities. If a place, not a person, were licensed, it would be im- possible after the revocation of a license to have it taken out again by a friend or relative. CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 23 Second, the amateur nights, which were very pop- ular and which are occasionally to be found in the five cent theatres, should be abolished. Girls in their craving for excitement are only too anxious to appear in public. They give the little stunts which they have learned and, if they please the audience, are sometimes rewarded by pennies which are thrown to them. If they fail to please, they are pulled off the stage by a large hook. The amateur nights are often coarse and vulgar. The theatres should not be permitted to allow the children to appear. Third, the strain on the eyes in the cheap theatres from watching the motion pictures is bad. They should be shown in well-lighted halls. This is per- fectly possible now owing to the invention of a new device, which if it were put into use would do away with many opportunities for familiarity now afforded by the darkness. Fourth, all posters and advertisements shown out- side theatres, or advertisements of plays, musical performances or operas, should be passed upon by the censorship committee and signed by the Chief of Police before being shown or posted in any part of the city. The theatre is a permanent institution which plays a large part in the social life of every city. It should be encouraged and supported, freed from all objection- able features; it should be made an agency for whole- 24 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH some recreation, culture and education rather than for vice, disorder and delinquency. In all of our large cities the two agencies selling pleasure which draw the largest number of young people are the theatre and the dance hall. It is esti- mated that the dance halls in Chicago attract some evenings as many as 86,000 young people. Young girls go to these dances because they crave the ex- citement of the dance. It is an outlet for their emo- tions, it affords a forgetfulness of fatigue, and it is a safety valve for their surplus energy. The Juvenile Protective Association received so many complaints regarding dance halls from mothers whose children were attending these halls, or from neighbors who knew about the conditions existing there, that they determined upon an extensive inves- tigation. The burden of the work was borne by two women and their husbands who visited practically all the public dance halls in Chicago. The four investiga- tors mingled with the men and girls, sat in the saloons, danced in the halls, talked with managers, employers and patrons, and openly flirted with each other. Their observations were carefully noted on cards pre- pared for the purpose and filed daily at the office of the Association. The work was done between Novem- ber 13, 1910, and March 9, 191 1. Within that period each hall was visited from one to seven times and CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 25 328 halls were inspected. The results of this investiga- tion show that the public dance halls of Chicago are largely controlled by the saloon and vice interests. The recreation of thousands of young people has been commercialized and, as a result, hundreds of young girls are annually started on the road to ruin, for the saloon keepers and dance hall owners, many of whom are brewing companies, have only one end in view and that is profit. The conditions existing in the dance halls and in the adjoining saloons transform the innocent desire for dancing and for social enjoyment into drunkenness, vice and debauchery. Bar-keepers and prostitutes are in many cases the only chaperons and in a majority of places even the young girls and boys fresh from school are plied with alcohol and with suggestions of vice until dancing ceases to be recreation and becomes flagrant immorality. At 158 dances there were police present, but out of the 202 policemen found on duty, at only 17 dances did they render good service. At the remaining dances they idly witnessed all gradations of vice from the incipient Uberties of the young and immature to the grossest sensuaHty of the vice-ridden "rounder.*' In 134 halls, they failed to interfere when the grossest and most dangerous forms of ''tough" dancing were being practiced. 26 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH If one of our newly arrived immigrant mothers wanted recreation for her children, might she not con- sider that our licensed dance halls opened under city regulations and protected by city police would be a safe place for them? Unfortunately the majority of dance halls do not offer safe or wholesome amuse- ment for young people. They are, in fact, a disgrace to our cities and too often feeders for the underworld. In the majority of these halls the state laws and the dty ordinances are broken. Minors are not only ad- mitted unaccompanied by their parents, but in 146 of these places investigation showed that liquor was sold openly to them. All the laws of common decency are violated and dance halls are resorted to by evil- minded men and women seeking victims. The pro- prietors of these places either connive at or participate in this use of their halls and no effort whatever is made to protect the young people. It is not difl&cult to know, when one is in the neigh- borhood of a dance hall, as the doorways, dark pas- sages and alleyways of the vicinity are filled with young men and girls in couples, and outside the halls there are always girls waiting to ask men who are leaving for their return checks. Dances are advertised by posters on telegraph poles or in saloon windows and by "pluggers," bright colored cards with the dance announcement on one CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 2^ side and a popular song, often indecent, on the other. These are distributed in the halls and carefully pre- served by the boys and girls. In one district the "pluggers" announcing the Sunday dances were given tc people as they were leaving the churches. The dances may be divided into two classes: those" given by the management or proprietors of the halls and those given by clubs and societies. At the former the dangers are more subtle. The halls are cleaner and better order is preserved. Drinks are higher priced but more intoxicating. The patrons are better dressed and there is an assumption of decency. But these halls serve as a rendezvous for immoral men and women, and crowds of young men attend with the sole aim of meeting girls for immoral purposes. While many of the club dances are well conducted, the majority of them are marked by extreme disorder and open indecency. The men outnumber the women at all dances. Out of 86,000 people found by the investigators in 278 dances, in the majority of the halls the boys were between the ages of 16 and 18 and the girls between 14 and 16, the very age at which pleasure is most eagerly demanded as one of the prerogatives of youth. One condition is general,— most of the dance halls exist for the sale of liquor, not for the purpose of 28 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH dancing which is of only secondary importance; 190 halls had saloons opening into them and liquor was sold in 240 out of the 328 halls and in the others, ex- cept in rare instances, return checks were given to facilitate the use of the neighboring saloons. At the halls where liquor was sold, practically all the boys showed signs of intoxication by twelve o'clock, pos- sibly because it is almost impossible to get a drink of water in these halls. The waiters and employees of the dance halls are only too ready to give information regarding the loca- tion of disreputable lodging houses, which in 77 cases were in close proximity to the halls, and in many cases the use of the dance hall premises for immoral pur- poses was connived at by the management. In these halls newcomers are treated with great attention; old men are polite to young girls but their first effort is to get the girl intoxicated. In one case the investiga- tor saw a young girl held while four boys poured whiskey from a flask down her throat, she protesting half-laughingly all the time that she had never had anything to drink before. A half hour later, her re- sistance gone, she was seen sitting on a boy's knees. Older women — sometimes prostitutes — treat young country boys in the same manner. In one hall a young boy, evidently new to the city, was seen looking for a partner. He found one, a prostitute, who, after drink- CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 29 ing with him all the evening, persuaded him to give up his job. At the end of a week she induced him to go with her to St. Louis as a procurer for a disorderly house. In 187 of the halls immoral dancing and open embracing were indulged in. At one hall it was found that a cash prize of one hundred dollars had been offered to the girl who at the end of the month had the largest number of drinks placed to her credit. The greatest dangers are to be found in connection with masquerade and fancy dress balls, where the costumes often permit the most indecent dressing and where prizes are awarded for the best costumes. These prizes consist of cheap jewelry, perfume, cigars, and liquor, donated by the neighboring tradesmen. A barrel of beer is usually awarded to the best group of men and a dozen bottles of wine to the best group of girls. A quart of whiskey is the usual prize for a single character. The saloon keeper lives and thrives by the sale of liquor, consequently the dances are short— four to five minutes; the intermissions are long— fifteen to twenty minutes, thus giving ample opportunity for drinking. In the halls where liquor is not sold the . intermissions are short and the dances long. Is not this an argument for divorcing the sale of liquor from the dance hall? 30 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH In these same halls obscene language is permitted, and even the girls among the habitues carry on inde- cent conversation, using much profanity, while the less sophisticated girls stand around listening, scan- dalized but fascinated. There is an almost universal custom among the girls of keeping their powder puffs in the top of their stockings, from which they are os- tentatiously taken and used whenever girls wish to attract the attention of young men. Many of the halls are poorly lighted — 172 belong to this class. There is very little protection in case of fire — 97 halls are deficient in this respect, and the over-crowding renders unsafe even those which meet the requirements of the building department. In 139 halls the toilet rooms for men are reached only by going through the bar, and there is an un- written code that the man who avails himself of this privilege must spend money for a drink. In 233 halls the floors were covered with expectoration and littered with cards and handbills. There is but little ventilation — 170 halls being de-^s ficient in this way. In some cases the windows were boarded up, apparently on the theory that the hotter it was, the more thirst would be superinduced and the more liquor would be sold. Even in the halls where the windows were open the odor of the over-heated people mingled with the tobacco smoke and the fumes CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 3 1 from the spilled liquor on the floor, tables and chairs made the air unbearable. The dust arising from the floor, caused by the moving feet and the swirling skirts of the dancers, was so thick that it made breath- ing both difiicult and dangerous. Girls frequently fainted and were carried out or laid upon the floor, their clothing torn open and cold water thrown upon their chests. The case of a decent young girl who went to the Dearborn Hall is typical. At the end of the evening, finding herself worn out from dancing and her head heavy from the liquor to which she was unaccustomed, she said to her partner: "Let us go somewhere and rest." Fortunately the young man was a decent fellow and took her home to her mother, who, fright- ened by the danger which the girl had so narrowly escaped, came the next day to the Juvenile Protective Association to complain of the hall, where liquor was sold to minors. In the winter of 191 2 the Association kept six in- vestigators visiting the dance halls and began a cam- paign against the proprietors, bringing many of them into court and charging them with the sale of liquor to minors. We have in Chicago an iniquity which seems to be pecuUar to our city and that is the special bar permit. If a number of young men want to give a dance they 32 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH form themselves into a so-called club. They rent a \ dance hall for the evening, and the proprietor who has a government license for which he pays $25.00 a year, goes with them to the City Hall* where they take out this special bar permit, which costs $6.00 and which allows the sale of liquor from three o'clock in the afternoon to three o'clock the next morning. The saloons are obliged to close at one o'clock and if there are any disreputable people in the neighbor- hood who want liquor after that hour they go to the dance halls for it, and it is between these hours one and three a. m. that the danger to young people is most apparent. When a man is running for alderman in the City of Chicago he is asked by the United Societies to sign a pledge which states that if he is elected to the City Council he will not interfere with "personal liberty" — that phrase so dear to the United Societies — nor will he try to enforce the Blue Laws or the Sunday Closing ordinance, nor yet try to do away with the special' bar permit. Some men who run for aldermen will not sign this pledge but the majority, I am sorry to say, do sign it. Our city ordinances provide that no club shall take out more than six special bar permits in one year, yet the Juvenile Protective Association has evi- dence in several cases of more being taken out — one club was known to take out 32! The ordinance also CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 33 provides that every club shall be investigated, but this is not done. We have a state law which provides that no minors shall be admitted to a hall where liquor is sold, but this law is practically a dead letter and is seldom en- forced. We should have a law providing that no liquor shall be sold in any dance hall. Young people do not need liquor in order to make them have a good time. Detroit has recently passed an ordinance forbidding the sale of liquor in any place of amusement. In San Francisco they are trying the experiment of danc- ing on the streets, roping off a block where the pave- ment is good and providing chaperonage, lights and music. The cUmate of San Francisco is better adapted to open air dancing than that of Chicago, but I should very much like to see the experiment tried in the summer months. On the other hand, much could be done by the dance-hall proprietors under the existing laws if they were but thoroughly aroused to a sense of obligation for the protection of their young patrons, as our own experience testifies. At one time the proprietor of a disreputable dance hall came to the office of the Association, saying that he had seen some of its pubhshed reports in regard to the dance halls and that he felt sure he was not con- ducting a proper place for young people, because owing to the sale of liquor and the excessive drinking 34 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH many young girls were in great danger. He asked the Association for advice as to the best method of nmning his hall. He was told that he must close his saloon, abandon his wine-room, separate the toilet rooms for men from those for women and put in drinking foun- tains. This he agreed to do and did, but he came to the office of the Association a few months later saying that he still felt that his hall was not respectable, as at the dances given there liquor was sold under a special bar permit and girls and boys were drinking too much. He asked if the Association could not send some one to look after his hall and said that he would be very glad to pay the salary of such an official. The Asso- ciation gladly complied with this request, and placed a social worker in this hall who has been paid by the dance-hall keeper. This social worker became friendly with the people and with the members of the dubs of the neighborhood. He has two good policemen under his direction, to assist him and they are genuinely interested in the welfare of the young people who at- tend the hall. Under the social worker's supervision the dances which have been conducted there during the past two years have been thoroughly respectable. Some time ago this dance-hall keeper came to the office of the Association, and laying down his check for the salary of the worker, said: **It pays to be re- CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 35 spectable, for I am now renting my hall more than I ever did before and I have no difficulty in disposing of it on Sundays to nice people, and besides I can sleep nights when I think of the girls." Kansas City has established a department of pub- lic welfare, and part of the business of this department is to supervise the dance halls of the city and see that they comply with the regulations established for their conduct. Cleveland recently has passed a re- vised dance-hall ordinance which, if properly enforced, will eliminate from the dance halls all objectionable features and provide decent amusement for its patrons. A department of recreation is now being planned in ,. JiMilwaukee. In Cleveland dance halls are required to close at half past twelve o'clock, but it does not seem best to limit the hours of pleasure for the working people any more than for those who can afford to entertain in and patronize the best hotels. Neither does it seem wise to bar the girl under sixteen years of age from attend- ance at dances unaccompanied by parent or guardian, because the two years after leaving school, i. e., be- tween the ages of fourteen and sixteen, are often the years when the monotony of the factory or the store makes her most eager for the excitement furnished by the dance. If there could be established in Chicago a depart- 36 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH ment of Recreation and if we could secure the passage^ of a city ordinance properly regulating the dance halls, they would cease to be places where decent young people are too often decoyed into evil and where their search for pleasure may so easily lead into disgrace, disease and crime. The Association has had other experiences of gratify- ing cooperation from the very men who were profiting from existing conditions. In the efifort to do away with the obscene postal cards exhibited in so many of the drug stores and stationers' shops, the Association destroyed about two million and a half of these cards and in one year prosecuted eighty men for selling them. In this we had the help of the Retail Druggists' Asso- ciation who warned all of their members that they would not permit them to show or to sell these cards and when we reported to the Druggists' Association a member who was breaking this rule, they either ex- pelled him or prosecuted him themselves. In an effort to prevent the sale of cigarettes to minors, we had the help of the Retail Fruit Dealers* Association, who tried to help us prevent the small fruit dealers from selling cigarettes to children. We also had a somewhat similar experience when the Association first tried to prohibit the sale of liquor to minors, although of course this is a very large under- taking, involving the antagonism of many powerful CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 37 interests. The Association warned every saloon keeper in the city that it was against the law to sell hquor to minors. We printed cards in the language of the foreign community in which the saloon was situated, calling attention to this law. We had them signed by the Chief of Police and they were hung up in every saloon. In this we had the help of the Liquor Dealers' Protective Association who warned their seven thou- sand members that they would not permit them to violate this law and also that if prosecuted by our Committee they would not be helped or upheld by them. We found that this made a great difference to the saloon keeper in regard to violating the law, al- though in one year we prosecuted 239 saloon keepers for selling liquor to minors. The Secretary of the Liquor Dealers' Protective As- sociation, himself the owner of a saloon, was much in- terested in our efforts to enforce the law and, at one time, invited me to address the saloon keepers of the city. This was an interesting experience, as the large audience of men, although somewhat hostile at first, warmly responded to a plea for fair play and promised cooperation in the protection of children. My recep- tion from them was in marked contrast to that ac- corded me by the executive committee of the United Societies whom I was later invited to address on the subject of selling liquor in dance halls. Whether it was 38 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH because the brewers are more directly involved finan- cially or because I was asking them to abandon a lucrative business or possibly because they did not come into direct contact with the situation involved as did the saloon keepers, I cannot tell, but certainly it was a most unpleasant and futile meeting. I left the room, not only with no assurance of cooperation but with a distinct impression that the committee had no wish to make any changes which might interfere with their profits. O While this attempt at cooperation with business interests was unsuccessful, the Association in another instance discovered that such interests would yield if sufiicient public opinion was brought to bear upon them. The Juvenile Protective Association, after an investigation made three years ago discovered that the large excursion boats which were crossing Lake Michigan and carrying sometimes as many as five thousand people were violating many of our laws. Gambling machines and devices of every sort were run openly upon the boats; liquor was sold to minors, while staterooms were rented over and over again during the night. These boats were largely patronized by young people who sometimes became abominably drunk and indulged in orgies impossible to describe. These young people were often the children of well- to-do families, whose parents assumed that a boat \ CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 39 excursion in the daytime was a safe and harmless out- ing. The so-called day boats however frequently did not land until after midnight; sometimes not until four or five o'clock in the morning. The Association called the attention of the managers of the boats to these conditions, insisting that with a crowd of several thousand pleasure seekers on land, a squad of police- men would be in attendance, while on the boat in most cases only one man was detailed for such service and even he often connived at most irregular proceedings. The decks of these boats, which were rarely well lighted, lent themselves to the grossest immorality. The contention of some of the owners that liquor was sold only in original packages and that therefore there was less temptation to drink made matters even worse, as a small group would buy a bottle of whiskey and not stop drinking until the entire amount was con- sumed. The management of the boats felt no re- sponsibility when their young patrons opened their dress suit cases full of liquor and consumed it on the open deck. For such law breaking it was impossible to secure a conviction, under the Contributing to Delin- quency Act, which would have been easily done had like conditions existed on land. The city ordinances were enforcible for only two miles out from shore. The boat then reached waters under the jurisdiction of the state of Illinois until the middle of the Lake was 4© SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH reached when it sailed into the Michigan territory and two miles before landing was under the ordinances of its approaching port. Without the help of the officers of the boat, our investigators of course were unable to say exactly where any given ofifense had been committed. Because the Association did not want to deprive young people of the legitimate pleasure of Lake excur- sions, we were unwilling to have any newspaper pub- licity in the matter. When, however, the owners who promised over and over again to start reforms made no adequate changes, the Association asked the officers of the Political Action Committee of the Union League Club, one of the leading men's clubs of the city, to take up the matter. These gentlemen invited some of the stockholders of these boats to lunch with them and laid the matter before them so forcibly, even men- tioning the possibility of indictment before the Grand Jury, that with astonishing rapidity radical changes took place. These stockholders unhappily did not immediately enjoy the rewards of well-doing, for the first boat which was cleaned up, having had all its staterooms removed, the bar minimized and put in charge of a new type of **barkeep," the police super- vision increased and the decks well lighted, promptly went to the bottom of the Lake, much to the discour- agement of the newly moralized management. CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 4I Although the conditions of the boats have improved, lapses into old conditions are constantly being reported by our investigators. At the present moment the Political Action Committee of the Union League Club is employing distinguished legal talent to discover, if possible, some method by which legal prosecutions may be made. It seems reasonable that the federal government should extend its jurisdiction and enforce laws on all Lake steamers. Better cooperation with the ownership involved, was secured by the Association in our attempt to regulate the attendance of minors at the poolrooms. In the first investigation made by the Association we found thousands of boys frequenting the poolrooms, 145 boys being found in one room, although a city ordinance forbids the presence of any boy under eighteen in a pubUc poolroom. In order to save boys from the over- whelming temptation to gamble the Association suc- cessfully prosecuted a number of poolroom keepers for harboring minors. At the end of a year the Secre- tary of the Association representing the poolroom in- terests came to the office of the Juvenile Protective Association saying that they felt the need of a social secretary in order to keep their poolrooms respectable and asking the Association to make recommendations. The very able young man who was given the position cooperates with the Juvenile Protective Association. 42 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH He has placed in every poolroom in the city a notice in various languages calling the attention of the pool- room keeper, as well as his patrons, to the law. It is a perfectly natural thing for young boys be- tween sixteen and twenty years old to seek their rec- reation in poolrooms and it is as impossible as it is undesirable to do away with them. Their number in Chicago is increasing every year. At present there are 1,535 poolrooms as over against 21 open club rooms for boys. It is therefore most necessary that the pool- rooms should be made safe and decent for young men and boys. The Juvenile Protective Association has tried to take out all the slot machines that were patronized by children. At first we did not think these machines were injurious until it was found that in one large public school, attended mostly by foreigners, nearly all of the children had lost their school books and an investigation showed that they had pawned or sold these books in order to have money with which to play the machines. Little children, with their eyes glistening and their cheeks flushed with excite- ment, were eagerly staking their scanty all on these gambling devices. Young children throughout the city are systemat- ically trained to gamble in hundreds of candy stores and stationery shops. The devices are many and the CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 43 amounts involved are not large. Usually the entrance fee for a game is a penny, sometimes more, but what- ever the amount the method and purposes of the scheme are the same as those used in regular gambling houses, and in both places the game is conducted by the proprietors. This form of gambling is profit- able to the small shopkeeper for every machine is said to be worth from six dollars to ten dollars a week to the owner or lessee. The chewing gum slot machines are the most popular but other devices are widely used. One of the most popular is a modern raflfle scheme which consists of a large cardboard, with numbers concealed under round labels. The child chooses a number, ranging from one to twenty. The number uncovered indicates the amount to be paid, which varies from one to twenty cents. The name of the purchaser is written on the number chosen and when all the numbers have been sold a disc at the top of the board is removed. The number under the disc indicates the winner, the prize is usually a box of candy worth anywhere from sixty cents to a dollar. The winner may have won the candy with the investment of a penny or on the other hand, he may have spent twenty cents. The storekeeper's return is $2.10 and for him there is no hazard. The device most usual is some form of slot machine. The child deposits a penny and gets in return a stick of 44 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH gum, of a cheap variety and altogether inferior to that sold in the market for the same price. There is a chance, however, of winning five sticks, ten sticks or even twenty-five sticks of gum. Other slot ma- chines are so arranged that the dropping of a penny gives a chance of winning five cents' worth of candy. A small block of chocolate is the inducement to which the gamble is added. During the Lenten season Easter eggs were offered as prizes. Children certainly acquire bad habits from these gambling devices. A wrong attitude is developed and the desire to get something for nothing is stimulated. The machines are immensely popular. In many neighborhoods, inmiediately after school, the shops where gambling is conducted are thronged with crowds of eager children anxiously watching the progress of the game. f Healthful, normal play and exercise in the open air I are forgotten. In their places are planted the seeds of \ gambling which may grow and in later years develop \ into a ruling passion. ^-The Association asked to have these slot machines removed but at first the Chief of PoUce refused to do so, and the Association removed 748 of them on search warrants. Later a case was carried to the Superior Court and the decision was rendered that the slot machines were gambling devices. The Chief of Police now takes them out whenever reported and many of CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 45 them are destroyed, a difficult undertaking, as they are made largely of cast iron. Others, upon the first complaint are removed by the renting company and sent to other cities. Unwarranted dangers to young people seeking rec- reation are found in the amusement parks. In the first place the gates of every park are surrounded by saloons and many of the men are half intoxicated be- fore they enter the park itself. Almost all of the absurd "amusements" offered require a separate en- trance fee and young girls stand about unconsciously offering their chastity in order to be invited to see "the fat folks' convention," the "Kansas cyclone," or the "human roulette wheel" for the man who treats them too often demands a return later in the evening. Our investigators invariably found the worst conditions in July and August at the very time when people arc driven by the heat from their un- comfortable homes. It is impossible to over-estimate the eagerness of the children to try the absurd giant swings, the chutes and double whirls. The following case is fairly t)^ical: A httle girl who had been a drudge in her own family of five, after the death of her father and mother, was sent to an orphanage in Chicago and from there was adopted by a family in which there were seven children younger than she. As soon as she was fourteen and had her school cer- 46 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH tificate, she was put to work in a pickle factory pasting labels on bottles. For two years, she conscientiously turned in her pay envelope unopened, dressing in the clothes obtained for her at the Salvation Army stores by her foster father. She was a pathetic look- ing little object in the ill-fitting clothes and she longed for pretty things and for some amusement. One day she was sent from the pickle factory with $2.50 to buy some stamps at the nearest post office. On the way she met a friend who asked her to go to one of the large amusement parks. She started to say that she had no money but, looking down in her grimy little hand, she saw the $2.50. The temptation was too great; she went to the amusement park and spent there a long and happy day and evening. She cried all night when she thought of what she had done and the next day returned to the pickle factory telling truthfully of her theft and offering to work for nothing, if they would only forgive her. This she was allowed to do and at the end of the week she cheerfully took the beating which her foster father gave her for not bringing home her week's wages. AH students of municipal affairs agree that every large city should have morales police, of whom a cer- tain number should be women, if it would properly protect young girls for whose unwary feet so many pitfalls are spread, if it would deal adequately with CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 47 prostitution, that grave menace to health and morals, if it would treat even decently the women who are arrested for some shght offense, brought into the poHce courts and there too often treated with con- tumely and contempt. We need women police in the theatres and dance ^ halls of every city to watch the girls who attend these entertainments and who accept from young men in- vitations offered with disreputable intentions. Women police should be stationed on pleasure boats and bathing beaches and should ever be on the alert for conditions which demoralize children. We need women police in our amusement parks to mingle with the crowds at the gates and to protect young girls. We need women police in such places to follow girls who are seen going to lonely parts of the parks ac- companied by young men. In fact, we need women police to chaperon the girls in all public places where the danger to young people is great. We should have in our station houses women police in whose charge the girls should be placed. Women police should accompany the girls to their trials and stand up with them when they are subjected to the harassing questions so frequently put to them by at- torneys, and women poHce should take the giris to the institutions to which they are committed by the Court. 48 SAFEGUAIUDS FOR CITY YOUTH The work of the woman police officer would not be very different from that of the woman probation offi- cer. The Juvenile Court officers have been in the habit of investigating the homes in their neighbor- hoods and of watching their wards to see that they attend school or are at work, taking charge of the children after they have become delinquents. It thus would be only one more step to have women police who would lessen the work of the probation officers by " carefully watching for those causes which lead children into the courts by reporting these cases to the proper authorities, and by carefully supervising all places of amusement. Women truant officers, attached to the compulsory education department, the women adult probation officers attached to the Municipal Courts, the women factory inspectors, the women sanitary inspectors of the health department, the women school nurses, the women supplied by the Travelers' Aid Association, the officers of the Immigrants' Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, and all other officers paid by private organizations are doing valiant work for the young people of our cities, but we need the *^oUce power which the city might vest in women ^ trained for the work, giving them the authority to cope with certain dangerous situations with which private organizations have tried in vain to deal. CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 49 Women police are not needed to handle crowds, to regulate street traffic, to arrest drunkards and crim- inals, but they are sorely needed in order that they may adequately protect the thousands of children and young people who every day are exposed to the dangers of unsupervised and disreputable places of amusement and for whose safety and welfare the city is responsible. Chicago now has 20 women police, recently ap-\ pointed, who have been assigned to the dance halb, amusement parks and bathing beaches. Through their efforts the dance halls have been much improved and the dangers to young people in them greatly lessened. Happily we have in Chicago our fifteen magnificem) field houses connected with the small parks and in the , districts where these are situated delinquency has decreased from 24 to 70 per cent. We need more parks and playgrounds, swimming pools, athletic fields and gymnasiums; we need to make over the gangs, in the interests of better citizenship, for at present the boy who is the successful gang leader to- day, is in training for the political boss of to-morrow. As to the working girl who goes back at night affer a long day in the shop or the factory ^to the place that she calls home, shall we say to her, "Think only of your work, stifle your desire for pleasure or else takq 50 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH that which is bad; " or shall we say to her, "Laugh and dance and sing, and be merry, for joy is the heritage of youth, and the city, the protector of her children, has opened for you many avenues of pleasure, any one of which you may safely enter?" We have 291 public schools in Chicago and 166 parochial schools, yet last winter only 25 of these schools were opened two evenings a week by the Board of Education for purposes of public recreation. The other schools are open only for five hours a day, five days in the week, and our forty-miUion-dollar plant is therefore only used for 1,100 hours a year, while the children for whom these schools are intended, spend their time and secure their recreation in nearby dance / halls and saloons. Professor Patten, in his "Basis of ^ I Civilization," says that "we have been trying to sup- \ press vices when we should have been releasing vir- /l tues;" and if this be true, out of the streets and con- / gested centres will be bom the parks and the play- grounds, and from the five cent theatre will be evolved one that will educate as well as entertain, and from the disreputable dance halls will come a decent place of amusement where boys and girls can meet together to enjoy clean wholesome pleasures. One may easily be reminded of the old story of the Argonauts, who took Orpheus with them on their long journey across the sea because they knew that they CIVIC PROTECTION IN RECREATION 51 must pass the islands where the sirens sang so charm- ingly that many sailors had been lured to their de- struction. The plan was successful; Orpheus with his lyre made such beautiful music that it soared above the voices of the sirens, and the sailors went on their way happy and contented. CHAPTER in LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY The attention of the Association was first called to the moral conditions in the department stores through the complaints of the dangers found in the waiting rooms, especially to out-of-work girls who were prone to gather there. An investigation disclosed large numbers of young girls in the waiting rooms of the State Street stores who came every day to read the morning papers and look for *' Want" advertisements. After they went out to answer these **Want ads" in the morning papers, they would come back again at noon to read the afternoon papers, thus spending most of the day there. We found that many men and women went to these waiting rooms for evil purposes. They would get into conversation with the girls by offering a newspaper or other small courtesy and some- times they would extend an invitation to luncheon. One young Hungarian girl who went out to luncheon with a young man the first time s^e met hinvin one of these waiting rooms was 'Rescued from a disrep- utable house a month later. In three weeks' time our officer who made this in- 52 LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 53 vestigation arrested and convicted 17 men and 3 women who were plying their trade in department store waiting rooms. The Association conferred with the managers of all the stores who were of course most anxious to cooperate and to stop this practice. They adopted our recommendations in almost every in- stance, putting on more matrons of a type capable of exercising some kind of chaperonage. Through the effort of the Eleanor Association a free employ- ment bureau for girls was afterwards opened down- town with large waiting rooms where the girls could sit and read the newspapers and through which situa- tions could be obtained for them. During this investigation of the waiting rooms, it was found that the girls regularly employed in the department store itself were surrounded by many dangers. At the time of the investigation, the ten- hour law for women had not yet been passed in Illmois and the excessive fatigue induced by overwork, coupled with the minimum of time for leisure and recreation, often makes it difficult for girls to with- stand the temptations which press hard upon them, and which lead to a moral as well as a physical break- down. This is doubly true in the department stores where girls work surrounded by the luxuries which they all crave and where they receive a wage, in- adequate for a life of decency and respectability. 54 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH There are 15,000 women employed in the down- town department stores of Chicago and approximately 10,000 more in the outlying neighborhood depart- ment stores. The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago was desirous of getting at the working and living conditions of such girls, and in February, 1910, employed a woman investigator who was to make acquaintance with, and, if possible, learn the stories of 200 department store girls, provided these stories could be procured in such a way that the girls would not know they were being interviewed. As far as possible a general outline was followed in each inter- view, including questions about hours of work, wages, physical and mental strain, home conditions, and op- portunities for study and recreation. The 200 girls interviewed worked in 30 department stores, 12 in the downtown district, 18 in other parts of the city; the girls were almost all American born, the average age being 19 years; 82 of these girls will- ingly gave their names and addresses. They were al- most without exception nice girls, good-looking and well dressed, for the rules of the department stores are strict in this respect and require that the employees shall be "clean and neat in appearance and avoid ex- travagance or display." Every woman knows that simplicity is costly and if a girl must appear each morning neat and well dressed, she must spend her LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 55 Sundays at least, and very often her evenings, in carefully cleaning, pressing, washing and mending her clothes, which means of course that she is not able to devote her leisure time to cultivation or recreation. Perhaps one of the most interesting things devel- oped by the investigation was that 173 of the girls lived at home, and of these 126 paid their entire wages every week into the family exchequer; of those re- maining 36 paid from $2.50 to $6.00 per week for their home board and only 11 had the entire use of their own money. The salaries of the girls varied from $2.50 to $11.00 a week; 7 of the girls received $3.50 per week and less; 33 received $4.00 to $5.50; 54 received $6.00; 68 re- ceived $6.50 to $8.00; 19 received from $8.50 to $10.00 and one received $11.00; the balance were paid on a commission basis. It has been estimated that if a girl does not live at home she cannot live on less than $8.00 per week, for she must pay $1.50 to $2.00 a week for her room, $3.00 for her board, 60 cents for her carfare and 90 cents for luncheons; this leaves her only $1.50 or $2.00 for clothes, doctors, dentists, Hterature and recreation. The girl who Hves at home and who gives her wages to her mother, is of course protected in that she is sheltered and fed, but the girl who is not living at home is obliged to rent the cheapest room she can 56 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH find from a landlady who is utilizing every possible inch of space for lodgers; the girl is able to rent only a small hall bedroom, badly lighted, inadequately ventilated and poorly furnished, and it is only a short time before impure air and improperly cooked food produce an anaemic condition which offers a fertile field for all disease. A few of the large department stores have a Sick Benefit Association, which, docking twenty-five to thirty-five cents per month from the clerks' wages for sick benefits, entitles the employees to half-pay if ill for a short time. No one is eligible for this Associa- tion unless she has been in the employ of the store for one year. Almost all of the stores dock the full pay when the girls are off duty. The majority of the stores require their girls to be on duty at 8:00 a. m.; this means that the girl must rise at 6:30; the average time for luncheon is three- quarters of an hour; the usual time for leaving in the larger stores is 6:00, sometimes 6:30 p. m. From the downtown stores the average length of time required to reach home is one to one and a half hours; the girl clerk works from 9 to 10 hours a day, but the ride in the trolley often makes a day of ten and a half to eleven and a half hours. The long hours and constant standing of the depart- ment store girl make nourishing food a necessity, but LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 57 this she cannot always procure. The majority of these girls spend from ten to fifteen cents a day for luncheon, which usually consists of coffee and dough- nuts, or coffee and pie, or something similar. One in- vestigator, for a period of a month, attempted to eat the same luncheon which she saw being taken by the department store girls, but at the end of that time she was obliged to discontinue, as her digestion was upset and she felt the need of more nourishing food. Yet out of her modest income the department store girl cannot afford to spend than more ten or fifteen cents for her noonday meal. One young girl who did not speak English very well was engaged as a bundle wrapper in a department store at $2.50 per week; she was obliged to support herself and when found by the Protective Association was paying $1.50 for a hall bedroom, walking to and from her work to save carfare, in shoes literally with- out soles and endeavoring to satisfy her hunger on the remaining dollar and with the food given away at demonstration counters. The department store girl is much more subject to temptation than is the girl who works in the factory, for the latter is more protected, during her working hours coming in contact only with her fellow workers, while the department store girl meets a large number of other people and is constantly surrounded by the 58 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH articles which are so dear to the feminine heart. She sees passing and repassing all day women who are gorgeously arrayed in the very kind of clothes that she naturally covets and she encounters at least three obvious dangers. First, she may be accosted and tempted by a well- dressed good-looking woman, keeper of a disreputable house who will engage her in conversation and prob- ably invite her to her house. As illustrating this first danger, a young girl working in the cloak department of one of our large department stores waited upon a well-dressed woman who was apparently accompanied by her daughter. She purchased a cloak and engaged the young clerk in conversation, telling her that she looked hot and tired and asked her if she would not like to go out to luncheon. The girl, seeing no harm, accepted the invitation. A few days later the two women appeared again and, saying that they had taken a fancy to the young girl invited her to spend Sunday with them at their apartment. They prom- ised to call for her when the store closed and take her to their home. Needless to say, the so-called home was a disreputable house. Second, the girl is often at the mercy of the man who is recruiting for a disreputable house. He may purchase articles from her and make insulting re- marks, while at the same time he makes up his mind LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 59 as to whether he will be able to pursuade her to enter an immoral life. It frequently happens that if a girl refuses to have any conversation with the man outside of business communication, he reports her as impertinent to the manager or floorwalker and many of the girls say that in a number of stores, as the re- sult of such a charge, they are often dismissed without a chance to even give the other side of the story. As an illustration of this second danger, a young girl employed at the ribbon counter in one of the depart- ment stores was accosted by a young man who pur- chased several yards of ribbon and then invited her to lunch with him, telling her that if she had a friend he would bring his chum and they would have a party of four. The girl, starved for pleasure and anxious for some excitement to relieve the monotony of her day, found a girl friend and they both accepted the invitation. The girls lunched with the young men several times a week for three months, and then they were also invited out to dinner; finally, one night the two couples became separated and the girls, who had drunk too much wine, found themselves later on ruined and deserted. The outlying or neighborhood department stores are located all over the city, several miles from the large stores on South State Street; many of them are in districts settled by foreigners, where women find 6o SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH it easy to shop in their own neighborhoods, thus saving carfare and where they can negotiate their purchases in their own language. These stores supply every want for the famiUes in the neighborhood, from stoves and furniture to clothing and musical instruments; girls who live in the neighborhood become the sales- women and are usually required to know one other language besides English. Many of the women do their shopping in the evening, leaving their husbands to look after the children, and in these stores when the investigation was made the girls were working from 8:00 a. m. to 9:00 p. m. three nights in the week, from 8:00 a. m. to 10:00 p. m. or 11:00 p. m. on Saturday and 8 :oo a. m. to 6 :oo p. m. two days in the week, thus giving them only two free evenings; they also often work all or part of Sunday. It was found, however, that almost without exception girls pre- ferred to work in these outlying stores, because they could live in the neighborhood and avoid the long street car rides, and they agreed that to be packed into a street car an hour every morning and night, seldom finding a seat and if one were found, having people hanging over them and leaning against them, was much more tiring than the work of the entire day. Another reason given for preferring the smaller stores was that it was possible to get home for luncheon and supper, also that in the small department stores LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 6 1 the customer would almost invariably explain why she was making the purchase and this information with other friendly conversation would add interest and excitement to the sale of a kind which was lacking in the downtown stores. The practice of keeping these stores open in the evening is due more to competition than to the real needs of the customers. In several districts where the stores had all agreed .to close on a Sunday or on a cer- tain night in the week, the managers stated that there had been no loss of trade, for the neighborhood had learned to adapt itself to the change. With these long hours of work, it is not surprising that 173 of the girls complained that they were always tired. Many of them stated that their backs ached from the constant standing, as they were not encour- aged to sit down even when seats were provided; that they were often obHged to slip off their shoes and that it was almost impossible to get them on again at night because of their swollen feet; that many of them had to sit with their feet in hot water after they reached home and that they were almost always too tired to read, too tired to eat and sometimes even too tired to sleep. A girl of twenty-two who had worked for ten years in a large department store, first as cash girl, and later as clerk, gave up her position because 62 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH she could endure it no longer; she earned $7.00 a week, on which she helped support her mother and two younger children; she said that none of her money went for shows, dances, ice creams, or anything frivo- lous; she knew the value of a dollar because she worked hard enough to earn it; she never read, as she was always **too tired" — so tired that when she went home at night she felt as though she must scream. She had always hoped to marry and have a home of her own, but she felt that she couldn't stand the work much longer; she must have some amusement; she never had even her Sundays, as she had to spend the entire day cleaning up her wardrobe; her greatest pleasure was to go to an occasional dance, although she could not afford to go unless invited, and was con- scious that she was not meeting the best type of young man in the pubUc dance halls. The following is a typical story of a girl who lived with her family in Wisconsin. When her mother and father died, the girl was obliged to leave high school and to go to work; there was nothing to be found in the httle country town where she lived and she came to Chicago and secured work at $5.50 per -week in the tinware department in the basement of a large de- partment store on South State Street; coming from the outdoor hfe of the country, she found it very diffi- cult to work where the air was bad and where there LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 63 was only electric light. "The easiest thing I do," she said, "is to wait on the trade, but, my! it is hard to haul down and lift the tinware, move the pots and kettles, take them down from shelves and put them back again, move them from one stand to an- other and get ready for sales days; they make the girls do all this lifting and it is really terrible how we do have to work down in this basement. I have been here in Chicago a year and have only met one family of nice people. I do not have time to make acquaint- ances. I love to read, but I have no chance to get library books; all I see is an occasional paper. I get home so late that I am too tired to go out at night and, besides, I have to wash and mend my clothes. I wish people would just come and live in this basement and they would see that Ufe down here is not very pleas- ant." In many of the department stores, especially during the holiday season, the girls are required to work all the evening, often working 13 hours a day or more for the two weeks before Christmas. For this no extra wage is paid, except that they receive from 25 to 50 cents supper money in the larger stores. All of the stores make large profits at the holiday season, but they are made at the expense of thousands of employees, whose weary feet and aching backs are ihe result of the mad rush on the part of thousands of 64 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Christian people who are thus seeking to express the kindliness and goodwill which our Christmas com- memorates ! One Christmas Eve, at eleven o'clock, when a street car was full of young shop giris who had been on their feet all day, those who could not find seats sat down on the floor and to the remonstrance of the conductor replied that they were "too dead to stand another minute. " The women clerks in the department stores are always glad when they find that Christmas comes on a Saturday or Monday so that they will have a chance to " stay in bed for two days and rest up." Some of the larger stores allow their employees who have been with them more than a year a vacation with pay for one or two weeks, but the majority allow no pay whatever for the time off. Of the 200 girls seen, 94 stated that they had no such thing in their Uves as recreation, no dances, no concerts, not even a five cent theatre! 58 of them acknowledged that they sometimes went to dances, although many of them said that they were really too tired to enjoy dancing. We know that the unfortunate girl who goes to the unchaperoned public dance hall in a state of exhaustion is in a dangerous position, for she craves the stimulants which are always offered to her and which frequently lead to further excesses; .48 of the LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 65 girls stated that they attended 5 and 10 cent theatres, but not one girl was found who patronized those which were higher priced, and the majority stated that they could not ajfford to go at all unless they were invited. Only two of the girls were found who took books from the public library; only one bought magazines; 36 bought penny newspapers; 43 did some miscellaneous reading, usually novels borrowed from friends; while 118 claimed that they never had time to read any- thing, even a newspaper. One girl said that her great- est pleasure was to buy an occasional apple to eat while reading a book and to try and make the apple last as long as possible. A young girl of twenty-four, who had been for three years in a large department store, earned $6.00 a week. She " doesn't mind the work so much, al- though selling notions is very trying because people are so fussy.'' She said her feet were giving out, how- ever, and it was all she could do to get home at night; she found that the draughts from the doors, blowing constantly on her, gave her repeated colds, and the dust caused by so many people passing hurt her throat; she was tired and ''wished she was dead." All through the interviews with the 200 girls the investigator heard the wistful expression: '' If we only had some time during the week when we could get a 66 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH little rest; when we could get caught up; when we could have a little recreation." Everywhere the need was felt for a half-day off. Four of the better depart- ment stores close Saturday afternoons regularly during July and August, and it is to be regretted that the other large stores are not willing to curtail their profits in order to give their employees a half holiday each week. If the shopping public would remember that the weary girls need rest, and on Saturday after- noons would keep away from the big stores, then there would be no incentive to keep open. When we remember that all work and no play is injurious to health as well as to morals, and that even when the hard work is done it is not re- warded by a living wage, we can readily understand the report of the Vice Commission of Chicago, which, emphasizing that wretched economic conditions make for prostitution, states that in an investigation of 1 19 women who were found leading immoral lives, 18 came from department stores and that 38 insisted that they had entered the career because of their need for money. Some had entered it for the barest necessities of life, as in the following instance: A young widow with a small child, finding it impos- sible to obtain a situation, finally took a position in a downtown lunch room in a department store and re- ceived $3.50 a week; out of this she paid $2.00 a week LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 67 for a furnished room, in which she lived with her four- year-old boy. She locked him in during the day and fed him out of the remaining $1.50 left over from her wages. She herself lunched on what was left on the plates in the department store; her supper consisted of rolls which she managed to take home in her pocket. She was pretty and attractive and began to receive invitations to dine out with men. These she accepted because she was "so hungry" that she felt that she must have a good meal now and then. One man with whom she dined saw the temptations before her and went to the United Charities saying that the woman needed a friend and that unless something was done for her she would be forced into an immoral life. Thousands of shop girls live on $6.00 a week in Chicago, but they do not have nourishing food, ade- quate shelter, warm clothing or any recreation. Ac- cording to a census taken by the Woman's Trade / Union League of Chicago 25 to 30 per cent of the women employed in the department stores of Chicago are not receiving a living wage; they may earn a living but not enough to secure fullness of life and when a girl wearies of it she quickly learns of the possibilities of a career which seems to ojffer luxurious living with abundance of recreation. In response to a number of complaints, the Juvenile Protective Association in the winter of 191 2 made an 68 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH investigation of fifty hotels with a view of ascertain- ing the temptations which surround many of the young foreign girls who work in hotels and the treat- ment accorded them by the managers. The investi- gator visited 13 first class, 16 second class, 9 third class and 12 very low class hotels. In all of these places the investigator endeavored to learn the conditions under which the girls worked, where they slept, what they ate, the wages they were paid, their hours of work and the temptations to which they were exposed. It was found that in the first class hotels the chambermaids were Irish and German and in some of the low class hotels they were Americans, colored or white, of the "down and out" type, but in all hotels the kitchen and laundry work was done by foreign girls, mostly Polish. These girls do not speak English and therefore cannot go into domestic service, but in hotels they are chosen for the following reasons: first, because they come from strong peasant stock and can accomplish a large amount of work; second, they are very thorough in what they do; third, they are willing to take very low wages; fourth, they are very submissive, that is they never protest; fifth, they are ignorant of the laws of this country and are easily imposed upon; sixth, they never betray their superiors, no matter what they see. The wages paid vary with the nature of the work. LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 69 Chambermaids and expert ironers are paid the larg- est wages while the scrubwomen are paid the lowest. The highest wages paid to a chambermaid, to a laundry or kitchen girl in a first class hotel amount to $18.00 a month and the lowest, in a low class hotel, $14.00 a month, both including board and lodging. Without board and lodging the highest wages paid to a chambermaid is $30.00 a month and the lowest $20.00 a month. The hotel managers trouble themselves very little about the food and sleeping accommodations provided for their employees. In many hotels the food served is not only poor but unwholesome. In some hotels the employees are obhged to eat the " come-backs'* from the guests' meals. In others the food is served in such an unappetizing manner that the disgusted girls are not able to eat it. Many times they have no dining room and eat in a storeroom or cellar. Of the fifty hotels visited, only six provided good food for their employees; eight fed them fairly well, while in the other places no particular attention was paid to the quality of the food. The following reports are typical : "The girl employees ate in a room just under the kitchen, which looked more hke a storeroom than a dining room. It was directly opposite the boilers and the heat was intense. The room was dark and uninvit- ing. The food was cold and poor. The tables were yo SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH covered with old greasy blue oilcloth. The noise of the machinery, the dark entrance, and the lack of fresh air were enough to take away appetite." "The dining room for the women employees was in a basement where odors of by-gone meals mingled with the damp smell of the basement. Against the wall was a * hang- table' and down the centre of the room was another long table covered with greasy oilcloth. Around the table were rough wooden benches. Here waitresses, chambermaids, scrubwomen, pantry girls, and other women employees were supposed to eat. On the stove was a pot of stew continually boiling. There was a bowl of cold boiled potatoes on the table and a long ladle in the stew to which the women helped themselves. One cup of black coffee was al- lowed to each one.** The sleeping accommodations for the girls were most inadequate in the majority of the hotels visited. Weak and exhausted women, after a hard day's work, are crowded into poorly ventilated rooms. Most of these hotels violate the State Board of Health ordi- nance which requires 400 cubic feet of air for each oc- cupant of a room. Many of the rooms assigned to these hotel employees have very little light and a few have no windows. In many cases the investigator de- scribed the girl employees as looking "as though they could never stand it all day," and added that "most LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 71 of the girls are absolutely colorless, plainly showing lack of fresh air." Only in three hotels did the in- vestigator report that the sleeping accommodations were good. In 14 they were only fair while in all of the others the girls complained of the crowded small rooms, of the poor ventilation and of the lack of bare necessities. In 16 hotels, from four to six girls slept in a small room originally designed for one bed. In one of these rooms the only furniture except the beds was a soap box. There was not even space for a chair. In most hotels two girls were made to sleep in the same bed; although one girl may possess superior habits of cleanliness, no attention is paid to the protests she may make nor to her demands for privacy and de- cency. Out of the fifty hotels investigated, only in three did the women employees express satisfaction with the treatment received at the hands of the man- agers. In all the other places where the investigator interviewed the girls, their reproaches and complaints were most distressing. In many instances the women were forced to work longer than the ten hour law permits. This was es- pecially true in the hotels where the employees were foreigners. They themselves did not know of the Illinois ten hour law and they had been warned not to speak to anyone about their work under penalty of dismissal. They were therefore afraid to tell the 72 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH truth to the investigator; they could only murmur to her that they worked very long hours. Many of the forewomen admitted that some of their employees often worked overtime without extra pay. Almost without exception the girls interviewed in the various hotels complained of the excessive hard work and the constant fatigue. Many of them stated that they were so tired after the day's work that they did not care where they slept if they could only secure a bed on which to throw themselves. Others confessed to being so tired that they did not take the trouble to undress. The physical hardships which were endured by these girls are nothing compared to the moral dangers to which they are exposed. The girls who go to work in the hotels are for the most part decent and honest. They know that they will have to work hard and that their wages will be rather low, but they take the posi- tions because they wish to earn an honest living. They are generally ignorant of the dangers in the hotels, and yet, according to the testimony gathered by the in- vestigator from the housekeepers, very few of these originally honest girls come safely through the dangers to which they are constantly exposed. The method employed by the investigator when visiting a hotel was to say to the housekeeper that she wanted to find a position for a young girl in whom she LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 73 was interested and almost without exception the housekeeper would say, "I would not advise you to put a young girl in a hotel. There are too many temptations and the girls are not able to resist them." The following are some of the remarks made by the housekeepers: "Unless a girl pays no attention to the remarks of the traveUing men, she will certainly go wrong." "I know of no occupation a girl can follow where she has the temptations which surround her in a hotel." "The temptations in a hotel are more than one can imagine. I do not like to see a young girl led into them." One elderly woman who had been a housekeeper for many years advised the investigator not to get a position for a young girl in any place where she could not stay home at night. "The ma- jority of girls who work in hotels go wrong sooner or later," said one housekeeper. Another said, "Now take it from me and don't send any young girl to work in a hotel in this neighborhood. If only some of the women who write for the magazines knew half of the awful temptation which surround girls in hotels, they would have something real to write about." The majority of the managers of the hotels connive at the irregular conduct of their guests. One house- keeper said that she knew for a positive fact that some of the chambermaids had been led into immoraHty by guests of the hotel. Another said a girl when off 74 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH duty could come and go as she pleased; no one took any interest in her; no one cared whether or not she was immoral. Another said no attention was ever paid to any complaint in regard to the immorality of the employees. One chambermaid said in answer to a question put by the investigator that the reason she had not complained to the manager of an outrageous insult she had received from one of the guests was: "Because I have two little children to support and if we don't like the insults we get, they tell us to clear out.'* In the majority of the hotels, there seems to be al- most a conspiracy to tempt the girl from the straight path. In the first place almost everything in her en- vironment is bad. One housekeeper said that she knew of many girls who met bad people in the hotel; another said, "If the chambermaids are at all attrac- tive, they receive all kinds of invitations from guests." "The kitchen girls come into contact with the waiters who do their utmost to spoil them." "Unless a girl makes up her mind to refuse every invitation, she will almost surely go wrong." In many of the hotels there seems to be almost a premium put upon immoraHty and there is no inducement to remain moral. After a hard day's work when a girl's muscles are fatigued and her nerves tense, she needs relaxation and rest to build her up for the next day's work. There is no op- portimity for wholesome recreation or even rest. LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 75 Some of the girls complain and protest against this injustice. Said one chambermaid, " K a girl is straight, there is nothing for her but bitter drudgery and no pleasure at all." "If a girl is good and refuses to go out, there is absolutely nothing for her to do." "There is nothing for a girl in a hotel but work and sleep." In some of the hotels the regulations ahnost drive the girl to an immoral Hfe. In many hotels the sep- arate exits for the employees lead to dark alleys. Suspicious characters loiter in these places and the girl who wishes to leave the hotel in the evening is afraid to go out alone. She is obliged to seek the pro- tection of an escort and oftentimes this escort is a man who is persecuting her with his attentions. In many hotels the manager makes no attempt to prose- cute the man employee who is responsible for the ruin of the girl employee. One housekeeper told of a girl who from the effects of an illegal operation died at the Cook County hospital in great agony. The manager of the hotel knew perfectly well the man who was responsible for this tragedy, but no action was taken. Another Polish girl only fifteen years old was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd where her child was bom. The bellboy, who was the father of her child, was allowed to disappear and no trace of him could be found. Many of these girls are perfectly innocent when they enter a hotel and the shortness of the y6 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH period between the beginning of their service and the time of their downfall shows the terrible lack of moral standards in these places. The greatest grievance of the majority of the girls is the excessively hard work. Not only the scrub- women, the kitchen girls and the laundry workers are worked to the limit of their endurance, but in many cases even the chambermaids are overtaxed, as they often take care of thirty rooms. In one hotel the fore- woman of the laundry admitted that the force was not nearly large enough for a hotel of that size, and that the girls were therefore overworked. The bitter cry of all the workers is, "I am tired out all the time." ''My back gets so tired." "I am so tired from back- ache that I can't stand up straight." "My feet hurt so I can scarcely stand." From the facts which have been -gathered it may reasonably be concluded that a large proportion of girls go wrong in hotels, first, because of lack of whole- some recreation, second, because of immoral surround- ings, third, because of their lonely condition and the indifference of people towards them, and fourth, be- cause the hard work leaves them so tired that they are willing to take anything that is offered. One chamber- maid said to the investigator, "Oh, if the social workers would only make some plan to instruct the foreign born girls about the awful holes they are going LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 77 into when they take positions in hotels, there might be something doing." We can but regret that young girls who come to the city take positions in hotels where there is no one to look after them. They are ignorant of our standards and are easily persuaded that judgment for a moral lapse is less severe in America than it is in the old country. Too late they find themselves disgraced and are forced to enter a disreputable Hfe in order to sup- port themselves. Many factories and mercantile establishments em- ploy social secretaries or welfare secretaries, as they are sometimes called, whose duty it is to look after the physical and moral welfare of their employees. It would seem even more necessary to have welfare secretaries in the hotels which are not only places of employment but where the girls spend much of their leisure time as well. Such secretaries, understand- ing the life of the girls and their peculiar temptations, would be able to offer them friendly help and sym- pathetic counsel for both leisure and work. They would naturally know the opportunities for whole- some recreation afforded by the hotel neighbor- hood and could also connect the girls with educational institutions when possible. If the neighborhood were barren of clean and decent recreational facilities, the social secretary might provide them and in many ways 78 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH make life more possible for these overworked girls who have not as yet appealed to any philanthropy. The life of a girl who takes a position as waitress in a restaurant is ahnost as hard as that of a girl who works in a hotel. An investigator from the Juvenile Protective Association visited 72 restaurants in Chicago and interviewed girls in each of these places with a view to finding out the number of hours they worked, the wages paid them, the treatment accorded them by employers and customers, and the tempta- tions by which they were surrounded. The majority of the girls who become waitresses have received approximately the same schooling as the average working woman. They usually live in furnished rooms, as they get their meals in the res- taurants where they are employed. They go into the work because it has a certain amount of excitement and brings them in contact with a large number of people. The following are some of the replies' to the question, "Why did you become a waitress?" "Didn't know anything but waiting on table." "The only thing I could do and be sure of three meals a day in addition to my wages." "Only thing I could get." "The only nice thing about work of this kind is that I get all kinds of invitations to go out and that helps some." There is much complaint that the work is very hard LEGAL PROTECTION EST INDUSTRY 79 and that the girls can only stand it for a few years. The carrying of heavy trays and constant standing and walking causes ill-health and trouble with the feet. Only comparatively few of the restaurants employing women as waitresses serve Hquor to patrons. The waitresses who work in restaurants where Hquor is sold are regarded as low class by the other waitresses, and the excuse given by the former is that they receive larger tips where Hquor is sold. The manager often regards a pretty girl in the light of an attraction for his restaurant. In one place the pretty girls were put downstairs, where the men were served, and the plainer girls were put upstairs, in the room reserved for women customers. The investigation disclosed that many of the girls come from homes where they had no training; others had left their homes because they could not "get on'* with their famiHes; others because they had lived in the country and wanted to come to the city where they felt there would be more recreation. Some of these girls, coming to know their own Hmitations and having no hope for a bright future, realize that they can ex- pect but Httle in the way of wages and are therefore bent on having as good a time as possible while their youth and attractiveness lasts. When a girl, as the investigator discovered, reaches this point of view, she yields readily to temptation. 8o SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Owing to the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court affirming the Illinois ten-hour law for women, the restaurants are compelled by law not to work their women employees longer than ten hours a day. The waitresses are divided into steady workers — that is, those who work all day and are called "three- meal" girls, and those who work for part of the day and are called "one" or "two-meal" girls. Out of the 72 restaurants investigated it was found that 12 disregarded the ten-hour law. One worked its women employees 13 hours, five worked them 12 hours, two worked them 11 hours, and four worked them 10 /^ hours. Thirty-four restaurants where steady workers were employed obeyed the ten-hour law. Twenty- seven of these gave their employees three hours off every afternoon, usually from 2 to 5 o'clock. The usual working hours are from 7 a. m. to 2 p. m. and from 5 p. m. to 8 p. m. The waitresses are therefore away from their homes from about six in the morning until nine in the evening, allowing an hour to go to and from their work. It may readily be seen, there- fore, what a very long and fatiguing day they have and how little opportunity is given them for recrea- tion or for the care of their clothes. The greatest number of hours worked by these "full time" waitresses was found to be 13, the lowest 6. In 16 restaurants they were obliged to work on LEGAL PROTECnON IN INDUSTRY Sl\ Sundays. In one place they worked every other Sunday and in another half a day on Sunday. Of the 72 restaurants investigated 28 employed "part time" workers, or "one-meal" girls. Three restaurants em- ployed girls five hours a day. In four the girls worked four and a half hours a day. Fifteen demanded five hours' work. Six took three and a half of the wait- resses' time. The longest period worked by these "part time" workers was five hours and the shortest three and a half hours. The most noticeable fact in connection with the living conditions of these girls is the large number without homes. A large proportion of the waitresses, who do live at home are engaged as "one-meal" girls. In many cases they are married women, and when their children are at school and their husbands away at work they use the time to earn money for themselves. Many of the managers say that all of their waitresses belong to this class of women. One mother who was working as a "rush hour" waitress was in the habit of leaving her baby at home on a folded quilt in the bathtub. In regard to wages it was found that in 72 restaurants the steady workers were paid from $5.00 to $9.00 a week; the latter wage however was found only in two places while 36 restaurants paid their girls $7.00 a week. The wages paid to "part time" workers were found to be from $3.00 to $5.50 a week, 82 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH although the larger number paid $3.90 a week. In most of the places there are few or no tips. Ninety per cent of the waitresses when asked about their work had complaints to make, the chief was ill-health brought about from being on their feet too long. Of bad treatment by the public the following are specimen complaints: ** People think they can say almost anything to a waitress." **Take any hfe but that of a waitress. They certainly get some hard knocks." "There is more to contend with in the life of a waitress than hard work." The other ten per cent who did not complain said that the managers treated them decently or that they belonged to the Trades Union or that the hours of work were not longer than six to eight. The ideas of the better class of waitresses may be learned from their remarks to the investiga- tor. One girl said, "If I took all the men said to me the way they meant it, I wouldn't be here long." Another said that she would rather not take the tips than have to listen to the remarks of the young men who gave them. Waitresses in a restaurant are apt to become "bold " in a short time, as can be seen by the remarks of the girls who evidently supplement their wages with the help of what they call a "gentleman friend," such as the following: "If I did not have a man I couldn't get along on my wages." "Some of the girls bat LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 83 around and make nice money in other ways. I don't blame them, for they have to live." The experiences told the investigator are even more illuminating. One girl said, ^'A man who came to my restaurant asked me if I would not prefer to go to another posi- tion, where I would have more time and could wear pretty clothes." Another one said, "If I accepted all the invitations I get I wouldn't have time to sleep or eat." "Some of the girls never come back for the money that is owing them after accepting one of these invitations." The investigator saw two young fellows who were served by a pretty girl trying to flirt with her. Before they left one of the men handed the girl a bill and said something. She shook her head and her face turned scarlet; the investigator heard the man say, "Oh, well, if you feel that way about it." Another said that a well-to-do business man had that day given her to understand that if she wanted a good time he would see to it that she had it. In another place the investigator saw a man put his arm around a young waitress in a suggestive manner. She looked appealingly at the manager but no protest was made. Among the part time workers there are many who do something else besides serving as waitresses. Some study in the evening either music, stenography or telephone operating. A few fill two positions as wait- 84 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH resses. By working in one place for dinner and another for supper, they are able to obtain a few hours between these two meals for themselves. They make more money working in two different places. For instance, one manager would pay $3.90 a week for the luncheon hour and the same for the supper hour, while a girl working in one place for both these meals would receive only $6.00. Then again working at two places in one day breaks the monotony of the long day's work. Where the waitress is working at something else in the evening, such as stenography, she is away from home the entire day and evening. Those girls who are not married and do not live at home, who work for only a part of the day have a hard time. One girl when asked how she managed to live said, "I live on $3.90? Well, I don't and I'm not going to kill myself standing on my feet ten hours a day even to earn more." One young girl had begun work at the age of four- teen as a cash girl. She had had very little schooling and consequently was not promoted in the department store where she worked although she remained with the firm for four years. One day while talking to some waitresses who were shopping at the counter behind which she was temporarily serving she was led to believe that she could better herself by securing a place as waitress. She took such a position, working LEGAL PROTECTION EST INDUSTRY 85 between the hours of eleven and two and between six and nine. For this work she received six dollars a week and, as this was the sum she had been earning in the department store where she had worked from eight in the morning until six at night, she felt that she was bettering herself, as she now had much more leisure. Her money, as before, had to be turned into the family exchequer and she soon fell into the habit of staying downtown during her off hours instead of going home, as she could not afford the carfare. She strolled about the streets day after day, looking into the shop windows, but she had no money and after the novelty of having so much leisure wore off, she found this method of spending her time very stupid. An unscrupulous head waiter in the place where she was employed often invited her to go to the theatre with him after her hard day's work was over, and he finally succeeded in accompHshing her ruin. From this it was only a step to accepting the advances from men who patronized the restaurant where she worked. She continued to give her mother her pay envelope unopened, but the extra money which she earned in an illicit manner she kept for herself. It was not long before her mother's suspicions were aroused, and after watching the girl she soon found out her mode of life. Reproaches followed and the girl, feeHng her inde- pendence and resenting her mother's interference, I 86 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH left her home and soon drifted into the ranks of the professional prostitute. From the investigation of these waitresses it would appear that the girls are off in the afternoon between the hours of 2 and 5 o'clock. If they remain in the restaurant where they work they cannot rest, as they are expected to do some kind of work ; it is not always waiting, but often cleaning. Many times they are so tired that they put pads on the tables and lie on them. It is too far for them to go to their homes, as they cannot afford the carfare, and an hour or more is con- sumed in going and coming. At the best they go shopping, or look into the shop windows or go into nickel shows if they can find some one to invite them. Many young men loiter outside the restaurants to pick up an acquaintance with the waitresses during their leisure time. In order to provide a place where these girls can rest for the three hours they are "off'* duty, the Junior League of Chicago established a room, comfortably furnished, with a matron in charge, where the girls rest, read or sew as they may desire; classes in domestic science, sewing or other subjects are formed for the girls who care for them. The Wait- resses' Union, which maintains a small room in the same building, has readily cooperated in the plan. The imion would regulate for its members, not only the matter of hours and wages, but it would protect LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 87 them from insults. If publicity could be given to the improper attentions which the girls receive, evil men would doubtless be more careful in their treatment of waitresses and public opinion would in time become a natural safeguard and protection. The giving of tips should be abolished because of their pernicious effect. A young girl who under any other circumstances would not dream of accepting money from a man, will accept it in the guise of a tip. In the hands of a vicious man this tip establishes between him and the girl a relation of subserviency and patronage which may easily be made the begin- ning of improper attentions. The most conscientious girl dependent upon tips to eke out her slender wage, finds it difficult to determine just where the line of propriety is crossed. Thus, in addition to the other dangers surrounding the girls employed in hotels and restaurants, they encounter that lack of respect which curiously attaches itself to one who accepts a gratuity. The entire investigation revealed once more the hideous risks of the excessively fatigued and over- worked girl who is able to obtain the rest and com- fort she craves only through illicit channels. All such testimony reveals the dangers in which many young girls are placed. The same kind-hearted people who, in great concern, would quickly gather around 88 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH the victim of a street accident, carelessly eat food placed before them by a frail girl almost fainting with fatigue or heedlessly walk through a hotel corridor lately scrubbed by a Polish woman who has spent ten hours upon her hands and knees. They do not in the least realize that the loss of vitaUty and life itself in the latter cases, is quite as harrowing as in the former. * Only when the public learns to know the effects of protracted labor upon women engaged in hotels and restaurants, will adequate measures be taken for their rehef . The ten-hour law for the labor of women recently ^passed by the Illinois legislature has been of great benefit to these girls. A test case was taken up to the Supreme Court by hotel men on the ground that the labor of hotel and restaurant employees was domestic labor, but fortunately the court sustained the law and it continues to protect these hard driven women. lUinois has not been so fortunate in regard to its minimum wage legislation although a legislative com- mittee two years ago sat in Chicago for many weeks to inquire into the wages paid to the working women of our city and endeavored to find out how far low wages were responsible for the white slave traffic. It hardly seemed necessary to investigate further the wages paid to Chicago working women since the report of the LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 89 commissioner of labor on "Conditions of Women and Child Wage Earners in the United States" shows that the commissioner was successful in obtaining from the pay rolls of eight of the leading department stores of Chicago the yearly earnings of the 13,160 women and girls they employ; that out of that number over one- half, or 7,033, earned less than eight dollars a week. This report also states that a very large number of the women employed in the various shops and indus- tries of Chicago earn less than five dollars a week; that 13% of the women working in the retail stores, 29% of those in the clothing trades, 27% of those in the candy trades, 17% of those working in the box factories, 5% of those working in corset factories, and 29% of those working in the stockyards earn less than five dollars a week. It is always argued by employers that they employ only girls who live at home, but my experience has been that since girls know this requirement they always say that they are living at home or with rela- tives in order to secure the positions. The argument at the best is worthless, for this same report shows that 81% of the total number of factory women in Chicago and 78% of those working in department stores who five at home contribute their entire earn- ings to the family exchequer, many of them, espe- ciaUy the young girls, bringing home their pay en- 90 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH velopes unopened and turning them over to their parents. I cannot but deplore the general inference that is being made at the present time that large numbers of girls are being driven into a disreputable Ufe because they receive an insufficient wage. While it is true that girls who are inadequately fed, badly housed and poorly clothed sometimes do yield to temptation in order that they may live more comfortably, yet on the other hand, there is an enormous number and of course by far the larger part of them who not only resist temptation but, true to their tradi- tions and innate convictions, turn indignantly from it. It is said that in Chicago it costs a girl eight dollars a week to live. Possibly she may be able to secure unattractive lodgings, unpalatable food and ugly clothes for this sum, but she has nothing left with which to get some enjoyment out of life. Working in a department store all day is intensely fatiguing. Work in a modern factory is nerve racking. Pasting labels, dipping candy, putting eyelets into shoes, and stitching endless seams is deadly monotonous and starves the imagination. The ** speeding up" so constantly demanded in a factory robs the girl of her youth, steals her vitality and often makes her a nervous wreck imless she has a certain amount of LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 91 recreation. How is she going to get it on eight dollars a week? When we consider that there are five million work- ing women in the United States, one-half of them under twenty-four years of age, and that one-fifth of them earn less than $200 a year, or four dollars a week, and 'that three-fifths of them earn less than $325 a year or about six dollars a week, we realize how important it is that some measures be taken which will give the working girl an income sufficient to enable her to live respectably and have some margin for emergencies and recreation. Only a short time ago a working girl in Chicago committed suicide. She left behind a little note saying that while she received a salary of $8.00 a week — what we in that city consider a living wage — she could not make both ends meet and so, tired and discouraged, she left it all behind her. Among her effects a memorandum was found: room, $2.50; board, $3.00; carfare, $0.60; washing, $1.00. This left her $0.90 for clothes, recreation, doctor, dentist, and incidentals. A third of the 5,000,000 working women in the United States five away from their homes. Ahnost all of these women are making a fight for life and the wonder of it is, not that so many of them succumb to temptation, but that so many resist and struggle 92 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH through the dreary grind. Through long dull days of sickening fatigue, unbroken by any pleasure, they are constantly harassed by the effort to live on an inade- quate wage. As difficult as the situation is for the working girl, perhaps the consequences are even more grave when the woman working for such small pay is the mother of a family. Overwork and underpay of parents is re- sponsible for much neglect of children. Scott Nearing says that three-fourths of the men in American indus- try cannot provide decently for more than three children; one-half cannot provide for more than two children and one-fourth cannot make adequate pro- vision for one child. When the father is working for an inadequate wage and the mother is supplementing the family income by going out to work, the home is inevitably unsan- itary and untidy and the children are underfed. An estimate based upon the number of American school children who never get beyond the grammar grades claims that o ne-ten th of the school children in this country are seriously underfed; and that four-, fifths of the whole are put to work too early. The courts in the United States are rapidly sus- taining legislation for the protection of women. Within thirty days during February and March of this current year, the Supreme Court of Oregon by a LEGAL PROTECTION IN INDUSTRY 93 unanimous decision sustained the minimum wage law; the Supreme Court of the United States in an Ohio case sustained the 54-hour week, the lo-hour day and the 6-day week, and by the vote of Congress 8 hours for women workers was established in the District of Columbia. It would seem as if the first duty of society were to protect the ever increasing throng of working women who are entering the industrial world by demanding for them a shorter working day and an adequate wage and by giving them ample opportunities for recreation. Only when we guard working girls from industrial overstrain and from dullness during their leisure hours, will they be able to resist temptation and to properly fulfil the functions which belong to them. When minimum wage boards are estabhshed in every state it may be made clear to the community that the economic status may be responsible for the moral and physical dangers to which overworked, underfed and underpaid girls are subjected. J CHAPTER IV LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS Many interesting cases of adventurous boys have been brought to the attention of the Association, but perhaps none more entertaining than that of a lad of* fifteen who had long been very anxious to go west and be a cowboy. This his mother would not allow him to do because she needed his earnings for her support. He spent his spare time hanging around a riding acad- emy holding horses and occasionally getting a short ride through the kindness of an obliging employee. Late one Saturday afternoon on his way from work he saw a horse and buggy standing by the sidewalk. He jumped hito the buggy, hastily drove to another part of the city, sold the vehicle and with the proceeds bought a saddle and bridle, a Mexican sombrero, a dirk and a lasso. Donning the garments and mounted upon the horse, he set out for the wild west but could not resist the desire to ride to the house of one of his friends in order to say good-bye and perhaps also to show his fine feathers. He was seen and arrested by an unsympathetic policeman and brought into the Juvenile Court where the incident was treated with 94 LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 95 gravity of course but in marked contrast to the punish- ment he would have received a quarter of a century earlier. A hundred years ago the boy who thus took a horse and buggy was hanged; twenty years ago he was charged, treated and convicted as a horse thief, sent to jail and confined in the same cell with confirmed criminals. To-day under the Juvenile Court system he is taken to a detention home, put under the care of ^ trained teacher, examined by a medical man for physical defects and studied by a psychologist. His case is then heard by a sympathetic judge and if the boy is a first offender, he is sent home under the care of a probation officer. The Juvenile Court rests upon two great principles: first, the valuation of the child, resulting in the belief *^ that if he is surrounded by a safe environment and protected from evil associations, he will become a con- tributor to the wealth, prosperity and goo(J|govem- ment of the state, but that if he is neglected, he will become a burden on the community and a danger to society. Second, the abandonment of retributive punishment, for the Juvenile Court does not regard ^ a child under seventeen as a criminal, and its aim is not to punish but to bring about such changes in the child's life, either through the home or through care in an institution, as will fit him for respectable citizen- ship. 96 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Approximately 55,000 children have passed through the Juvenile Court of Chicago since its establishment fifteen years ago. The majority of these children were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years. There are 84,000 children of this age in the entire city of Chicago. We all know that increase in juvenile delinquency cannot be prevented until we have the cooperation of citizens in removing the untoward con- ditions which have brought approximately 55,000 of our children into the Juvenile Court of Chicago and until we can devise constructive measures which will surround our 84,000 minors between the ages of 14 and 16 years with a decent environment. Many develop- ments of the Juvenile Court itself during this period have tended to reduce the number of children brought into court. The probation department which must always represent the most important function of the Juvenile Court, is divided into three sections, one for dependent children, one for delinquent boys, and one for delinquent girls. The dependent children are ex- amined by a medical man, which was found necessary as it has been estimated that 81% of the children brought into the Chicago Court are handicapped by some physical disability and throughout the United States the average percentage of children, not normal, who are brought into the Juvenile Court is 75%. There were other children, however, constantly brought LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 97 to the attention of the Association who, although they had passed the tests of a regular physician, were so ob- viously abnormal, as to need the care of an aUenist. I recall a young girl who came one day to the Asso- ciation to ask for protection. She seemed very worried and frightened and said that she had been an appren- tice in a dressmaker's estabUshment in New York where she had lived with a girl friend in a boarding house. She told of meeting a man one day on the street who had apparently been struck by her appear- ance — she was very pretty — and had followed her to her lodging, pressing upon her his attentions, tell- ing he would give her all kinds of luxuries if she would give up her work to go with him and "live like a lady." He thus pursued her day after day and finally, to avoid him, she and her friend had come to Chicago where they had obtained a situation in a department store. She was horrified the day before she came to the Association to meet the same man upon the street. He told her that he had followed her from New York and he again renewed his importunities. Very much frightened, she had come to the Juvenile Protective Association for protection. Her description of the man and the place of meeting was most detailed, but all the efforts of the officers of the Association, aided by a city detective, failed to find him. They did dis- cover, however, that the girl was Hving with her 98 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH mother in South Chicago, that she had never been in New York, nor away from home for a single night. The situation was so astonishing that the Association sent the girl to a well-known alienist who pronounced her a victim of delusions. This case similar to dozens of others, in which the imsupported testimony of the child had led the Association to the inevitable conclusion that the story was either one of pure ro- mance or of abnormal delusion convinced us that many of the children should have a careful psycho- pathic examination. Through the initiative and generosity of one of the members of the board of the Juvenile Protective Association a psychopathic clinic was established in connection with the Juvenile Court, in charge of a well-known physician who had long spe- cialized as an alienist. At the end of five years, this psychopathic laboratory was taken over by the county and it has become an established procedure of the Court that all ''repeaters" should be subjected to a psychopathic examination. The physician looks up the family history and makes every effort to ascertain any nervous disabilities which may have led to the child's delinquency. In the first two thousand chil- dren examined he found that 7.7% were suffering from epilepsy, a fact which had not developed at the medi- cal examination. The Fund to Parents Act was passed by the Hh- LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 99 nois legislature in 191 1 because the judge felt very strongly that poverty alone should never be a suffi- cient reason for separating parent and child, but that he should have the discretion of paying to the mother of a child the ten dollars which the county would otherwise pay into an industrial school, if the Court decided that the mother could not adequately care for the child. The Widows' Pension Act, as it is familiarly called, gives to the judge of the Juvenile Court the power to provide a maintenance, not to ex- ceed ten dollars a month, for every child whose parent or parents are unable to properly care for it; 890 families have applied for pensions to this department, during the past year. The appHcations have all been investigated and pensions have been granted to 185 famihes. In these families there are 629 children. The average pension granted to a family is $27.61 per month; the average amount per child is $8.12. The number of families increases every year, of course, as new ones are added, and the total number of families now receiving pensions from this department is 358 and the number of children receiving this fund is 1,108. There is a dietitian connected with this pension de- partment, a woman of large experience who visits the homes of the women receiving pensions, showing them how to expend their money advantageously and how to buy the most nourishing foods at the least cost. lOO SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Some amendments to the Juvenile Court Law were recently passed which provide that the families of ahens shall not receive relief and in consequence 219 families have been dropped from the county pension list, this number including 703 children. The pen- sions recalled amounted to $5,730.50 per month. The total amount spent in pensions this past year was $140,000 and the feeling is strong in this department that every family should be given adequate relief. A cheerful fact connected with this matter is that out of all the children in families receiving pensions during the past year, only two children have been brought back into court, one as a truant and one as a delin- quent; surely a strong argument that the better care of children reduces delinquency. Closely allied to the mothers' pensions is legisla- tion designed to secure the earnings of prisoners for their families. Many children from such families are brought into court and, at the present moment, the economic burden of imprisonment falls not upon the prisoner, who is sheltered, clothed and fed by the state, but upon the prisoner's family, who are de- prived of their bread-winner. It is said that in the United States approximately 150,000 men are put be- hind prison bars each year. Assuming that one-third of these are married men, each with a wife and three children, it means that annually 200,000 women LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS " lOl' and children become dependent upon their own exertions, or charity, through no fault of their own. A man confined in prison for a year or more is apt to find his family broken up in his absence, as his wife is often unable to keep her children and they are sent to charitable institutions. Thus the home, the convict's sheet anchor, is destroyed. As I write I have before me a summary of laws bear- ing on assistance to prisoners' families, and I cannot see that any state, save California, makes adequate provision for these unfortunate people. In the other states the law provides that from five to ten per cent of the day's earnings, or that the wages for overtime be turned over to the prisoner's family, but as the convict's wage is so small, this amounts to a pittance only. In the District of Columbia fifty cents a day is allowed to the prisoner's family, but this is natu- rally not an adequate provision. In the most liberal prisons, the prisoner's earnings for overtime do not average more than three dollars a month and in most prisons he earns nothing. In addition to the abject poverty in which the disgraced prisoner frequently finds his family, he often brings disease to them. Forty to skty per cent of the deaths in prisons are due to tuberculosis, while the average percentage out- side is only fourteen. The average sentence of pris- oners is said to be less than five years, so that in I02 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH the course of this period most of the prisoners find their way back to the outside world where they too often carry the disease which they have contracted in prison. The Juvenile Protective Association dealt with so many pitiful cases of children whose fathers were in the city prison that an arrangement was finally made with the very enUghtened superintendent of that in- stitution that when the Association reported to him that a prisoner's children were suffering, the prisoner might be paroled to the Association, and allowed his freedom, so long as his wages were regularly turned in to his family. This arrangement in many of the cases was so satisfactory that the men were not returned to the city prison while others of the discharged men proved very difficult. The situation was the more ex- asperating in that the profits from the labor of the prisoners employed in the House of Correction went into the pockets of the prison contractors. The Chicago Efficiency Committee reported that in 1 910 the Chicago Leather Company employed at the bridewell, the city prison of Chicago, from 60 to 100 men, for which they paid from 25 to 35 cents a day each. No charge was made for factory space nor for light and power. In addition the unpaid prisoners loaded and unloaded the cars and as for this service no charge was made, the company thus secured a large amount of labor free. Other companies had LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 103 sibilar concessions. If only those men who made bricks, for example, had been employed at 50 cents a day by the city, in one year $16,577 would have been available for their famihes. The Association there- fore rejoiced when the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance rectifying this injustice, for under the present arrangement, at least a minimum of support is given to prisoners^ families. Another interesting development of the Juvenile Court has been the estabhshment of separate cham- bers for the hearing of the girls' cases by a woman who acts as an assistant to the judge. Out of the girls* cases heard by Miss Mary Bartelme, in 1913, 290 girls have been placed on probation, only 16 of whom have been brought back into court, a fact which ar- gues well for the probation system. Another new department of the Juvenile Court which has been lately developed is the complaint de- partment. There were received here in 1913, 3,605 complaints. Of this number 2,755 were handled out of court and only 850 were brought into court. Pre- viously no record had been kept of the cases that were settled out of court but now a record is made of every such case, together with a list of the agencies which have assisted in its adjustment. These records in time should afford valuable suggestions as to the pre- vention of juvenile dehnquency. I04 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH There is of course but a narrow line between the boy who has reached the maxunum age for treatment in the Juvenile Court and the boy who, because he has already passed his seventeenth birthday is re- garded as a criminal. Because so many cases of the latter were brought to the attention of the Association, an investigation was made of the police stations in con- nection with the young boys and girls who were con- fined there. Some of the police stations in Chicago were found to be indescribably bad, the cells were in the basements, which are dingy, damp and unsanitary, and generally unfit for human habitation. Many of the cells are not only filthy but breeding places for contagious diseases. In one station there are eight cells in a row, five for men and three for women: there is a trough running through these cells which, according to the attendant, "works very badly." This lack of proper provision for prisoners is not only a public nui- sance, according to the Chicago code, and a crime against those incarcerated in the cells, but a menace to the community at large. According to the Police Department report for the year 191 1, 81,648 persons were locked up in the police stations that year. The larger part of this number were kept in the cells over Saturday and Sunday nights, these nights being in the words of the police "the busiest evenings of the week." Of this number LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 10$ 9,840 were women and 1,380 young girls. Under the above conditions one can realize the utter degrada- tion of a '4ock-up" overnight in one of these stations. To appreciate fully the danger thqse cells are to the community, it must be remembered that a large number of innocent people are confined there. Out of the 81,648 people arrested in 191 1, 49,934 were discharged by the Municipal Court when their cases came up for trial because they were presumably in- nocent. Such inefficiency would not be tolerated in other enterprises, public or private. Out of one hundred cases investigated by the Juvenile Protective Association, ten boys complained of poHce abuse; six said that their arrest had not been reported to their parents, one mother only learning of the arrest of her child through the newspapers. There were many serious charges against the police officers: one boy was beaten with a billy and sand bag, knocked down three times and kicked — all in an endeavor to make him confess to something he had not done. Another was taken by the throat, choked, hit on the mouth and one of his teeth was knocked out. Another was taken into a small room and beaten with a billy, in an effort to secure information against other boys; another had cold water poured over him with the threat that if he did not confess he would be treated the same way with hot water. Such methods Io6 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH are sure to arouse hatred and opposition and will certainly never increase the boys' respect for the law. Another injustice in the police stations is the "mug- ging" system. When a boy or man is arrested and held to the Grand Jury by the Municipal Court, his photograph and measurements are taken, an impres- sion of his thumb made and these are placed in the *' Rogues' Gallery." The captain of the Identification Bureau stated that in 191 1, 5,398 men and boys were brought to this Bureau for photographs and descrip- tion. Out of this number 2,383 were found guilty and sentenced to some penal mstitution; the other 2,955 were discharged, presumably innocent, but their pic- tures and descriptions remained in the "Rogues' Gal- lery." It also appeared that the poorer prisoners who were unable to secure bail were "mugged" while wait- ing trial in the Criminal Court, and those able to find some one to go on their bond were not subjected to this disgrace. Are we so proud of our criminal records that we must add to their number by putting a stigma on innocent people from which they can never escape? The same unjust conditions in regard to arrest and detention apply equally to boys who are confined in the county jail and even in many so-called reform schools and in penitentiaries. Through the efforts of the Association the officials of the Identification LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 107 Bureau now return to a boy his photograph and meas- urements if he has been found "not guilty." Less than two years ago Chicago was horrified by a very brutal murder committed by six young men and boys, apparently without any object, even that of petty theft, as the truck gardener whom they killed early one morning as he was driving into the city, had in his possession but a few dollars which he vainly offered in exchange for his life. Four of the young men suffered the extreme penalty of the law, capital punishment. Two of them, broth- ers, were 24 and 21 years old and another was less than 19. Two other boys, both under 17 years of age, who were associated with the crime were sent to the State Penitentiary. The boys confessed to the revolt- ing crime which was apparently without mitigating circumstances and throughout the trial bore them- selves with unbroken bravado; until confronted by the death sentence, they exhibited no remorse. Although a protest was made by many citizens against the brutalizing effect upon the community of such a wholesale execution and although these citi- zens added to the usual arguments against capital punishment the plea that many states had abolished it for minors even when retaining it for adults, it was evident that pubHc sentiment as a whole upheld the drastic punishment. Io8 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH "^ At that time, however, the whole subject of the "juvenile offender" came up for discussion in Chicago and many conditions were discovered which stirred a careless city to a new sense of compunction. When an experienced settlement worker visited the homes of all the young men and boys involved in the crime, she discovered that all but one of them had been born in the old country and brought to America when quite young; the parents were laboring people without education or privilege; the fathers were ab- sorbed in the dreary grind of earning food and shelter for their large families in this new land where work is none too plentiful and where there are so many prob- lems for the immigrant; the mothers were absorbed in the care of their younger children. One mother said, "I have had fourteen children and have had no life outside my kitchen. You see how that is. How could I see where my boy was going?" All of the mothers admitted that they asked no questions about the work their boys were doing nor the conditions under which it was done, whether they found the work congenial or distasteful. The only question was, "How much money on Saturday?" The father of two of the boys said, less than a week before the day set for the execution, "I don't care what they do with them; they may hang them or shoot them; it is noth- ing to me." On being asked how he, the father, could LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS lOQ speak so brutally of his own sons, he answered with a shrug of his shoulders, ''Neither of those boys ever brought home a penny." In one of the other homes where eleven people lived in two dark, unsanitary, rear basement rooms, the old father, a rag picker by profession, recounting the cir- cumstances of the crime, told how the other boys had urged his son Phihp to go out with them on the night of the murder. The boy left the house saying he would return soon. In the morning the old father, coming from the bedroom into the kitchen, "looked all around on the floor, but Philip was not there," an uncon- scious commentary upon Philip's sleeping accommoda- tions. The mother of the youngest boy, crying over the tub as she bent to the family washing, said that he had "always been a good boy at home." She was much distressed that his little sister, twelve years old and suffering from tuberculosis, had become so ex- cited over the news of her brother's fate that she had had a hemorrhage and would probably die. When asked where her boy had spent his evening, she replied, "Maybe at the corner over there; how should I know? He never tells me." The reasoning of these parents was not altogether illogical— that if their boys were old and wise enough to find work for themselves and could go off to another part of the city of which their parents knew nothing, no SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH they were also old enough and wise enough to find their own amusement in their hours out of work and, at least, it was utterly useless for the parents to inter- fere. They had all been brought up in Chicago's most congested area. Nearly ninety per cent of the boys in the County Jail come from the congested districts of the city, where the neighborhood conditions are very bad and the boys are surrounded on every side by evil in- fluences. The home is bad, saloons line the streets, and at the back doors are the railroad tracks and dumping grounds. In a study of lOo cases made by the Association, of boys between the ages of 17 and 21 confined in the County Jail, we derived the following facts in regard to their occupations. That because they are forced to enter the industrial world early without any trade, such boys work at any odd job they can get. These jobs they *'hold down" on the average time of three months, then they change, not only to another place, but in many cases to another kind of work, in one in- stance from messenger boy to dishwasher in a res- taurant. Naturally such a lad grows up without a steady trade or skill in any one occupation. According to the government reports, the wages of the unskilled laborer who leaves school before he is 14 years of age increase slowly until he is 21 years old — from $3.00 to LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS III $10.00 per week — remain stationary until he is forty years old, when his earning capacity begins to decline. From the statistics obtained by the Juvenile Protective Association officers in regard to the 100 boys investi- gated, we learned that only three per cent had a trade; the rest were without any preparation for earning a livelihood; further, only six per cent worked at an occu- pation they liked and all the others were obliged to do anything that came their way. Of 19 boys who had an ambition to become machinists, 4 worked as wagon boys, I as a farmer, 3 as errand boys, i as an office boy, 4 as laborers, 2 as grocery clerks, 3 as store boys and I as a chauffeur. Out of the 100 cases, only 9 came from homes con- sidered good in the opinion of the investigator. Of the 9 offenders who had good homes, 8 were intoxi- cated when they committed the crime. This is an eloquent comment on the saloon regulation in our city, for all these offenders were minors, hence each case was an instance of violation of the law forbidding the sale of liquor to minors. Not only did these lads get what they wanted, but in several cases it was discovered later that the saloon keepers were in league with the would-be criminals. Thus, one boy had been urged to commit a robbery by a friend of the saloon keeper; another boy ''had to drink to keep up his courage.'^ In commenting on this, the investigator says, "The 112 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH heavy Kcense imposed upon saloon keepers and the graft which is ahnost inseparable from this business, make the saloon keepers nearly desperate in their anxiety to cover their considerable expenses and, as they put it, "they are forced to break the laws in every way they possibly can without being caught.'* The experience of the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion with boys in the Cook County Jail has led them to believe that in addition to the Juvenile Court we need to still further specialize and have a court for the juvenile adult — the term the English use for the boy between the ages of 17 and 21, the boy who is too old for the Juvenile Court, but not old enough to vote and therefore not old enough to be measured by the same standards as those we apply to an adult. A large number of the boys who are arrested as first offenders are full of the spirit of adventure; many of them, with a recklessness arising from the new sense of freedom and absence of parental control, frequently get into difficulty and perpetrate some forbidden act which may be technically classified as a crime although it is quite free from vicious intent. Physicians assert that the boy at this age is still in his later adolescent period; these years are his forma- tive ones and yet at this time we so often apply puni- tive measures of the severest type. One of the most painful cases of this sort was brought to the attention LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 1 13 of the Association by the mother of a boy who came with a letter written in a state penitentiary in In- diana. Her son had made no effort at the time of his trial to communicate with his family, but after eight- een months in prison he wrote to his mother telUng her how sorry he was for all the trouble and disgrace he had brought upon the family and ended his letter by saying: ''I am counting every day until I can go home. Give my love to father and my brothers and sisters and the dear old dog if he is still Uving, and cheer up, Mother dear, it will be only eighteen and a half more years before I shall see you." His mother gave us the details of the pitiful story. Her son John when he was ten years old, lost his father. She had married again and the stepfather was not very kind to the little boy, who was an imaginative child and often in trouble because he preferred to read rather than to work on the farm. When John was fourteen years old he ran away from home to the nearest large city where he joined the Naval Reserves. He swore that he was sixteen years old and as he was large and well grown for his years this statement was not questioned. He served in the Reserves for two years but was very homesick and at the end of this term he made up his mind to return home, a distance of about two hundred miles. He had no money, but for an ener- 114 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH getic boy the distance had no terrors and by doing odd jobs for the farmers' wives he earned his food and shel- ter. It was late in the fall when one night after a long tramp he found himself near a little village. He asked at several houses for food and shelter, but was rather roughly refused. He was both cold and hungry and as he approached the outskirts of the village he saw a small grocery store. No one seemed near and he raised a window, entered the shop and began to eat some crackers that he found on a shelf. He was seen by the village watchman who hastily shot him in the shoulder. He was then arrested, tried and convicted of robbery and sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary. He protested against this sentence, saying that he was only sixteen years old, and too young to be sent to the penitentiary, but as he had sworn two years earlier, when entering the Naval Reserves, that he was then sixteen, he was not believed and the sentence was carried out. When John reached the prison, he was put to work in the machine shop, but being still weak from the wound in his shoulder caused by the watchman's shot, he fell against the machinery and had the fingers of his left hand taken off. Upon the advice of the Associ- ation the mother, in order to prove that he was under legal age when convicted and sent to the penitentiary, secured from the little village in the east where he lis- \ LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS II5 was born his baptismal certificate and the Association went with it to the Governor of the state where he was imprisoned. His parole was recommended by the Governor and he was paroled by the State Board of Pardons. His release however came too late, for he had contracted tuberculosis in the prison where the » death rate for that disease is always so high and, after a brave fight for Hfe, he died at a sanitarium. While not all arrests of adolescents end so dis- astrously, it is evident that our whole system of deal- ing with the youthful criminal is wrong. At present he is arrested and thrown into a cell at a police station, often with habitual criminals; then he is brought be- fore a municipal judge who knows nothing about him except the evidence that is brought out at the pre- Hminary hearing and, if this is convincing, he is held to the Grand Jury and in the meantime confined in the County Jail, where he frequently remains from three weeks to three months before he is brought to trial. An outrageous case of this sort came to the at- tention of the Association a year ago. John and George Loomis were brothers. John lived at home in the southern part of Chicago and worked long hours in a steel mill. George was a janitor and lived away from home, only returning occasion- ally to see his family. John hurried home from work every night to take Il6 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH care of some pigeons which he kept in a dovecote built of old lumber on the top of the house. These birds were not only a great delight to their young owner, but were fast becoming a source of revenue. A saloon keeper in the neighborhood who also kept pigeons found one day that some of them had disap- peared and hastily came to the conclusion that, be- cause young John Loomis was so enthusiastic over his flourishing flock, be must be the thief. He excit- edly made a specific charge to the pohceman on that beat who inmiediately went to the Loomis home and, without a search warrant, overhauled the dovecote where he claimed he found some pigeons which bore the mark which the saloon keeper described as his. The officer, again without a warrant, arrested George who had just come home to see his mother and who had no interest in the pigeons whatever and denied having had anything to do with a possible theft. The next day the officer went to the steel mill and arrested John while at work, although the boy pro- tested his innocence. John said that he knew of no mark other than that he had always used for his own birds and that he had none marked with the ring which the saloon keeper claimed was his mark. In spite of the boys' persistent denials of the theft they were taken to the police station and because the saloon keeper kept his birds in a shed in his back yard LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS I17 and insisted that they had been stolen from there, the two boys were charged with burglary. At the preHminary hearing the poHceman testified that he had found the pigeons in the dovecote on the top of the Loomis house. The judge looked at George, who was rather unattractive in appearance and small for his age, and said, ''If I had to select the thief, I'd pick out this one." In reply to the challenge, "Would your honor call a boy a thief because of his appearance?" the judge replied, ''In this case I would." The boys were then held to the Grand Jury and sent to the County Jail to await their trial. When the Grand Jury met, the policeman again gave his testimony. The Grand Jury found a true bill and the boys were held for trial. They were unable to furnish bond, which was placed at $i,ooo each and were therefore confined for six weeks in the County Jail to wait until their case should be brought up in the criminal court. George was placed with the older criminals and both boys, although accustomed to hard work, had no exercise during their confinement in the jail save walking in the corridors, and for the companionship of the pigeons was substituted the company of old and experienced criminals. When their trial was finally held, the officer tried to bring out stories of the boys' previous misconduct. Il8 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH He was however unable to prove his charges and the judge refused to admit it as testimony. It was obvi- ous that the entire evidence was both insufficient and flimsy and the boys were found not guilty and dis- charged. It would be difficult to describe the state of mind of the two boys on their return to their home in South Chicago where they hved; they felt both disgraced and defiant, and were smarting under a keen sense of in- justice. It is too soon to tell whether these two honest, hardworking boys have been permanently ruined by their experience. These and similar instances drew the attention of the Juvenile Protective Association to the large nimi- ber of juvenile adults who were confined in the County Jail. In addition to the one hundred boys referred to earlier in this chapter, the Association through another investigation found that in the year 191 1 1,328 boys imder 21 years of age were confined there; 599 of these boys were first offenders who had never before been arrested. The Association found that the conditions under which these boys were confined were most injurious both morally and physically. They are kept in their cells all day with the exception of 4 hours out of the 24. During this time they are put in a large room where they are crowded together, LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 1 19 sometimes as many as 83 at a time. The boys who are unused to confinement suffer from lack of fresh air and their idleness and association with professional criminals in the jail frequently give them their first lessons in crime and inevitably lower their moral standards. It was found that many of these boys were confined in jail for a long time, sometimes for three months. If the boy had no lawyer to defend him, one was of course assigned to him by the judge, but frequently the lawyer would take no interest in the case and perhaps would not go into it until a day or two before the boy would appear for trial; or would make no effort to secure the evidence which would have cleared the boy. A victim of such carelessness was a boy who wanted to go fishing and with his fishing rod in his hand boarded a freight train. Unfortunately the train did not stop at the lake where he intended to fish, so he pulled the air brakes in order that he might get off. He was seen doing this, was arrested and charged with train-wrecking and would have been sent to the peni- tentiary had not the Juvenile Protective Association put in a plea on his behalf. In many cases boys are confined for a long time in jail because the witnesses concerned in the case are out of town. A case of this kind was that of a boy I20 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH who had come from the west to Chicago to find work. He had used up all his money and was obUged to walk the last fifty miles. As he reached the outskirts of the city, he joined a band of boys gathered around a bonfire where they were trying to bum some goods they had stolen. When the entire gang was arrested the western boy was taken with them, even although the gang said that he had nothing to do with the mat- ter. He was in prison for three months before he was brought to trial. The Juvenile Protective Association decided that it would be an excellent plan to place one of its officers at the jail to interrogate the boys brought there, to find out their stories and then through an investiga- tion of their homes to discover how far their state- ments were correct. This was done in cooperation with the reform department of the Chicago Woman's Club. The representative of the Association interviewed all the boys in the jail and afterwards investigators were sent to the boys' homes to find out how far the stories were correct. In seven months 500 boys in the jail were interviewed, and it was found that 89% told the truth about themselves. Investigation developed the fact that if, at the time of the arrest of the 218 boys held to the Grand Jury, investigators could have been sent to their homes so that the Municipal Court judge might have had information concerning the LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 121 facts, 107 of the 218 boys could have been tried in the Municipal Court. Our whole system of dealing with the youthful criminal is wrong. If, when the boy is first arrested, viR investigation could be made of his case by some impartial body so that the judge might have all the facts before him at the first hearing, it is estimated that fifty per cent of the boys who are confined in the County Jail need not be sent there, as their cases would be settled in the lower courts. Unfortunately, our laws provide the same punish- ment for every person who has committed the same forbidden act — only the term of the punishment vary- ing at the discretion of the judge. The law does not take into account whether the prisoner is young or old, whether it is his first offense or whether he is a hard- ened criminal. It does not provide any means through which the judge can learn his previous history, his heredity or environment. It is exactly, some one has said, as if a physician administered the same medicine to every patient whose temperature rose to a certain height, without making any inquiry as to symptoms, previous history or the cause of the illness. Many of the boys interviewed by our officer were quite as childish and unformed as the younger boys who are brought into the Juvenile Court. One boy was arrested on a charge of burglary; it was claimed 122 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH that he had stolen an automobile. He was held to the Grand Jury, and for over two months was confined in the County Jail. Fortunately for the boy, the Ju- venile Protective Association investigated his case; the evidence disclosed the fact that the boy came to Chi- cago in order to improve a certain apparatus for auto- mobile speeding. With a hundred dollars in his posses- sion, he rented a little shop and worked continually upon his invention. According to the testimony of the neighbors, he worked day and night. While thus occu- pied he came upon a certain part of the regular auto- mobile machinery which was a mystery to him. He did not understand its operation, and the only way he could find out was to see a machine of that type in working order. He went from his shop and took the first automobile he could find that had this contriv- ance. He brought the machine to his shop, took it to pieces and studied it carefully. He was arrested while working upon it. The boy had in his shop all kinds of drawings pertaining to automobiles which he had made himself. There was no doubt about his mechanical abihty and it was clear that he did not mean to keep the automobile. The Juvenile Protective Association presented these facts to the presiding judge, who gave a light sentence of three months in the city prison. Another country boy had come to Chicago to find work. With his grip in his hand he walked along the LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 1 23 Streets looking into the shop windows and incidentally for a place to board. As he stopped for a moment in front of a shoe store, two boys came up behind him, broke the glass in a show case in front of the store and took some of the goods displayed there. The irate pro- prietor rushed out, collared the country boy and ac- cused him of abetting the theft. A policeman was called, the boy was arrested, arraigned in the Mu- nicipal Court and, on testimony of the store prop^^* - etor and the policeman, held to the Grand Jury. ?-7l spent several weeks in jail, at the end of which time the Grand Jury found no bill. During 1913, 12,151 boys between the ages of 16 and 20 years had been arrested in the city of Chicago : about half of this number were first offenders. In 19 13 1,261 boys were confined in the County Jail and of this number 804 were first offenders; 166 had been ar- rested for the second time; 47 for the third time; 22 the fourth time; 7 the fifth time and 14 innumerable times. Most of these first offenders were not criminals at heart or by choice, but boys who were filled with the spirit of adventure. Many of them had yielded to some sudden and overwhelming temptation; but it was believed that if put under wise probational guidance and their environment readjusted they might become good citizens. In jail they become embittered and grow "wise." It has been well said that the jails of 124 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH our country furnish a post-graduate course in crime in a school maintained by the government with a com- pulsory attendance. Chicago is fortunate in having at the head of its Municipal Courts a Chief Justice who has already specialized and sociaUzed the courts of Chicago, and who, convinced by the arguments and perhaps more so by the material accumulated by the Association, ."^ larch, 1Q14, established a branch of the Municipal Court of Chicago, to be known as the Boys' Court. He almost immediately founded a psychopathic lab- oratory in connection with the Court. While we all anticipated that a certain number of the boys would be sub-normal, we were hardly prepared for the first figures. During the first three weeks after the estab- lishment of the laboratory, 95 boys brought into the court were found to be sub-normal; many of them with the intelligence of a little child, although with the body and passions of a man. One boy who had mur- dered his employer and also his employer's wife and daughter responded to the mental tests of a child of eight and a half years; in addition this huge fellow was discovered to be suffering with a serious valvular difficulty of the heart, a brain lesion, and dementia precox. He had been hired to a farmer and was ex- pected to do a man's full work. For a year he had been scolded and driven by his employer and when the LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 1 25 latter, in a moment of exasperation, threatened him with an axe, the boy was seized with one of the un- reasoning rages of childhood and, in a bUnd fury, killed every human being on the farm, although when he rode a horse into town afterwards, he was much dis- tressed because he feared the animal had become over- heated. He stood in court, as bewildered and fright- ened as any child eight years old might have been. Had his stature attained only the growth of his mind he would have lacked the strength to have accom- plished a murder and his outbreak would have been regarded with the leniency we accord to the tantrums of a child. Is not society under obligations to place such a boy in a school fitted to his intelligence, to keep him there during his life, with a self-supporting occupation, that he may not be a source of danger to the community? The Association is at present making a careful study of sub-normal children, of whom it is estimated that there are about 6,000 in Chicago. Approximately only one-tenth of this number can be received at the one State Institution for the Feeble-Minded in Illi- nois. The so-called ''teachables" numbering about 900 are in the ungraded rooms of the public schools, where such instruction is given them as they are capable of receiving, but the greatest difficulty is found when they have passed the a§e of compulsory 126 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH attendance at school and, at the age of 14, obtain their working certificates. A teacher in one of these rooms investigated 500 of these children and found that 80% of them had been totally imable to hold a position. One characteristic of such children is lack of ability to make a continuous efifort. These children therefore tend to be constantly on the street, either when they are ostensibly in search of work or when they are permanently out of a job. One of the teachers estimated that in her room, of 22 children who had re- cently taken out their working certificates, 14 were a definite menace to the community. Some of the most horrible cases brought to the attention of the Associa- tion have been those connected with sub-normal chil- dren. A large number of children are excluded from school as unteachable because they are too deficient even for sub-normal rooms. There is no detention school for these children and no place to which they can be sent, other than the always over-crowded State School for the Feeble-Minded. No attempt is made either by the school or civic authorities to follow them up. Ex- cluded from the schools and unable to secure employ- ment, they now walk our streets and many of them will in later years fill our jails. Authority should be given to the judge of the Ju- venile Court to commit to some public institution any LEGAL PROTECTION FOR DELINQUENTS 127 child SO sub-normal as to be unteachable or who is pronounced to be a menace to the community by the psychopathic cHnic connected with that Court. The successful treatment of dehnquent children, whether of Juvenile Court age or older, evidently im- plies many modifications not only in court procedure but radical changes in the methods of education, condi- tions of employment and facihties for recreation. Per- haps our sole claim to betterment at the present moment lies in the fact that pubUc attention has been during the last few years successfully focused upon the problems of the juvenile delinquent. Miss Julia C. Lathrop, head of the Federal Chil- dren's Bureau, once wrote, "Important as are the immediate services of a Juvenile Court to the children who are daily brought before it for protection and guidance; painstaking as are the Court's methods of ascertaining the facts which account for the child's trouble, his family history, his own physical and men- tal state; hopeful as are the results of probation, yet the great primary service of the Court is that it lifts up the truth and compels us to see that wastage of human life, whose sign is the child in Court. Here- tofore the kindly but hurried public never saw as a whole what it cannot now avoid seeing— the sad pro- cession of Httle children and older brothers and sisters who for various reasons cannot keep step with the great company of normal, orderly, protected children." CHAPTER V LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT In addition to the legal cases concerning children and young people, the Juvenile Protective Association has dealt every year with approximately three thou- sand cases of parents who were Hable to prosecution under the law designated as Contributing to Delin- quency and Dependency of Children. As such parents were taken into first one Municipal Court and then another, it was found that the various judges had no concerted plan of treatment and that there was no uniformity of action; one man would perhaps be sent to the city prison and another, guilty of the same of- fense, would be put on probation, and still another dismissed with a reprimand. The executive committee of the Association, having gradually accumulated statistics on this matter, many times consulted with the Chief Justice as to the estabhshment of a separate court where all cases involving domestic relations could be tried. With his usual open mind and with characteristic desire to add to the efficiency of Chicago courts, the Chief Justice has designated a branch of 128 LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 1 29 the Municipal Court known as the Court of Domestic Relations to which all such cases are brought for trial. The Court of Domestic Relations received 1,756 cases during the first nine months of its existence. Of that number, 154 were discharged by the court, 7 by the jury, 102 were dismissed on account of insufficient evidence, and 302 were dismissed at the request of the wives, who were the plaintiffs. Out of 102 cases which were dismissed for insufficient evidence, more than half showed upon investigation that the domestic conditions involved had changed for the better. Out of the total number of the 1,756 defendants only 166 were imprisoned. All but 300 of the men charged with abandonment, bastardy, delinquency and dependency were more than 25 years old. Of the 26 nationahties, the largest number were found to be Americans, Ger- many came second, and Russia third. In the first nine months, $20,077 was collected through the Court of Domestic Relations and almost twice as much was paid directly to the famihes. This means that over sixty thousand dollars has been col- lected which in all probability would not have been available for the plaintiffs and their families were it not for the Court of Domestic Relations with its ex- cellent system of "follow-up" work and its poHcy of cooperation with the volunteer organizations through- out the city. 130 SAPEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH In the dependency cases, the court has found that in about 90% the unsatisfactory condition is caused through the drinking habits of one or both parents. The records of the Juvenile Protective Association show that in all of their cases filed under the head of "family cases" 83.9% involved habits of drink. Be- fore an average of this kind is taken on its face value, however, the interdependence of poverty, en- tailing insuflScient food and uncomfortable housing, with the desire for drink, should always be borne in mind. It is often a matter of doubt in a given case whether to diagnose poverty or drink as the super- inducing cause. As the Court of Domestic Relations deals with all ofifenses against the mother and the child, the unfortunate woman first tells her story to one of the social secretaries to the judge. Both these secretaries are women who are often able to adjust cases without bringing them into court. The first social secretary, in one year, with the coopera- tion of other agencies in the city, settled 2,776 cases out of court, thus saving much trouble and mortifica- tion to a large number of people. The women who come to this court are often obhged to bring their children with them. These children are looked after by a trained nurse in a comfortable nursery, that the mother with a free mind may devote her time and at- tention to presenting her case. LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 131 Some of the more piteous cases brought into court are those filed under the head of "bastardy," a type of case in which the Juvenile Protective Association is much interested for it is obliged to deal constantly with young girls — some of them only thirteen and fourteen years old — who are the mothers of illegit- imate children. In so many instances the baby had been "disposed of," so often the description of the process was inadequate not to say mysterious and baffling, that three years ago the Association re- solved to make a study concerning the disposition of illegitimate children in Chicago; at least of the three thousand children born each year in the registered hospitals and maternity homes. As a result of this investigation, it was discovered that at least a third of these children were so abso- lutely lost that it was impossible to find any trace of them, even to know whether they were living or dead. Of the many other illegitimate, children born each year in the so-called "private" hospitals, and even in less reputable places, or of those children whose very existence was concealed by distracted mothers, trusted physicians and midwives, there was, of course, no record to be found, the absolutely inadequate system of birth registration enforced in Illinois easily lending itself to such concealment. In the effort to find these lost children when both 132 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH parents were bent upon concealing their identity and when the child itself had been caught into a veritable system for hiding its existence, the difficulties encoun- tered in a third of the cases — approximately a thou- sand — were absolutely insurmountable. The natural assumption was that many of these children had died, although their deaths are not included in the regular reports. In spite of the fact that the registered maternity homes and hospitals professed great care in placing out children, most of them proved to be crim- inally careless. The head of one said, **We always ask a man his occupation before we permit him to take a baby;" another, in reply to the question, **What shall we bring to get a baby?" answered, "Oh, bring a shawl." The clerk of one hospital made this statement: "The illegitimate children are given away, you should see the grand people who come here in automobiles," while a frank doctor in another admitted, "We never let a mother see her child, for when she does she is not so wilHng to part from it." The superintendent of a hospital which cares for more than 100 maternity cases per year, put the whole situation in high relief when he said, "We cannot be at all sure that babies are not murdered as soon as they are taken away from the institution, for we find that practically all names and addresses of persons who LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 133 take children away are false." "Giving a child out," therefore, in the words of an investigator, is like open- ing the window and hurling him out — out into the vortex of the world and no one knows whither he has been whirled or what his fate. This is not only legally and morally criminal but furthermore an economic waste; Professor Irving Fisher of Yale puts the poten- tial value of every child at $4,000.00. Upon this esti- mate, annually in Chicago $4,000,000 are being tossed out of sight. The conservation of these millions will never be accomplished unless some one quite outside of the immediate circle of relationship takes a hand. The babies obviously cannot help themselves, the mothers are powerless. The well-meaning hospitals cannot always prevent the mothers from making arrange- ments for disposing of their children, because even the worthy people who wish to secure a child for adoption are harassed by a desire for secrecy, which easily lends itself to the mothers' wish for conceal- ment. The doctors have no safe method, and more- over do not consider it their business to oversee the disposition of the children. In spite of advancing legislation in America founded upon the excellent system in operation in Leipsic and upon the recommendations offered by the Child Wel- fare Department of the Russell Sage Foundation and by the American Association for the Prevention of 134 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Infant Mortality, Chicago like other great cities con- tinues to afford all too easy facilities for the girl who wishes to be delivered of her child in secret and to quietly dispose of it afterwards. The Juvenile Protective Association, after the Court of Domestic Relations was established in Chicago, gradually came to the conclusion that, with notable exceptions, the best protection to the child was ob- tained when the cases involving the birth of illegiti- mate children were taken into court. When a charge of bastardy is made by an unmarried woman against the man whom she claims is the father of her child, she has at least the courage to bring the situation into the open and proclaim her readiness to acknowledge her child. While the bastardy trial is a sorry substitute for a marriage ceremony, it at least performs one of the functions for which the pubhc registration of marriage is designed, that of making the paternity of the child a matter of court record. The girl who takes her case into court also puts be- hind her any possibility of future concealment even although her child should be stillborn, for, according to the lUinois law, "any woman who endeavors in any way to conceal the death of a child which, if bom alive, would be bastard, whether it shall have been murdered or not, shall be confined in the Coimty Jail not exceeding one year." The girls who take their LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 135 cases into court, on the whole, have more character and intelligence than those other unfortunate women who are chiefly concerned in conceahng the situation, and whose bewilderment and desperation are revealed by the pathetic figures which show that mental dis-x orders in the mother follow illegitimate births twice as frequently as they follow legitimate. The child in- volved in a court case also has a better chance for survival than the child involved in a case of successful concealment. The death rate among illegitimate children is twice as high as that among legitimate children. If the un- married mother is a domestic servant or a factory worker, in her haste to return to her employment in order that she may earn money, her child is placed in a baby farm when it is scarcely two weeks old and has but a poor chance to survive the indifferent care it re- ceives. In the court cases, the situation having been openly faced, the mother more often retains her child or it is cared for by her relatives. It is clearly impossible to estimate the number of children born each year in Chicago out of wedlock, but it is obvious that but a minority of cases are brought into court. Last year the total number of bastardy cases tried in the Court of Domestic Relations was 469, less than a sixth of the number of illegitimate chil- dren born in the registered hospitals alone. 136 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH The Juvenile Protective Association made a second investigation of the disposition of illegitimate children a year ago, restricting it to five hundred cases taken from this court. In the study of these so-called bastardy cases, the investigators were at least able to start with the real names of the fathers and mothers. The investigation attempted to trace the fate of the children and also to discover what had befallen the mothers. Of these court cases, 81 were incomplete, that is, the child was not yet born; of the remaining 419, the investigators were absolutely unable to locate 256; so that the final study outside of the court records was based upon 163 cases. Of the 163 cases carefully traced, 114 of the babies were living with their mothers; the rest had been adopted or were with friends, and but 35 had died, although in certain cases two years had elapsed since the court proceedings. It was a matter of surprise that the investigators were unable to trace so large a number of cases; doubtless this was due to the fact that in many in- stances several months had elapsed since the date of the trial and that often the woman had purposely left her own surroundings and had deliberately concealed her new address. The 163 cases that the investigators were able to LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 137 trace were doubtless the most intelligent and well placed of the 500. The cases brought into court represented the women whose friends had the in- telligence to afford them at least this measure of pro- tection, as over against the many cases of poor and ignorant girls who did not even know of the existence of such a court. There was another sifting among the court cases themselves. The fairly comfortable status of those located was shown by the housing rec- ord of the 163 cases: the condition of the neighbor- hood was pronounced good in 75 cases, fair in 47 and bad only in 41. The location of the apartment also seemed above the average standard, as in only 16 per cent did the family Hve in basements and nearly 50 per cent of the apartments were in *'the front." The matter of con- gestion and of the presence of lodgers, which so often leads to immorality, was also fairly good. The average number of rooms per apartment was 4.41 and the number of occupants per apartment was 5.6. Only 22.7 per cent of the families took lodgers. The same was true of the size of the families; a large number of children is often given as an excuse when a mother fails to guard her daughter from wrong- doing, but this study did not seem to bear out such a contention. It was found that the girl involved was 138 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH an only child in 39 instances and was one of three chil- dren or less in 79 cases. The other argument of a broken family life was also not clearly demonstrated, although in so small a number of cases it is difficult to draw conclusions. Both parents were alive in 94 cases, in nearly a fourth of these, however, the parents were still in the old country; both parents were dead in twenty cases, the family was broken by the death of one parent in 48 cases and there was desertion by the father in only one case. The fair average was continued when a study was made of the work and wages of the girls' fathers. Seventeen were unskilled, with wages of $50 and more a month, twenty of them repre- sented skilled labor with wages at $60 a month and more, and five each received more than $100 a month. Of the 140 mothers of the girls who were living, 113 were housewives, presumably giving their attention to the care of their famihes; only 17 of the mothers were working outside of their homes, 3 of these worked as laundresses, 4 as charwomen, and 2 at farm work. The largest amount earned by these working mothers was that by a tailoress, who at piece work made from $1 .75 to $2.25 a day. The lowest paid were a clerk and a waitress, each of whom made $5.00 per week. Only one of these mothers was known to be immoral. The LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 139 parents of the girls were found to be legally married in all but lo instances. Occasionally the dreary records, in which the fam- ilies involved seemed to feel only chagrin and disgrace, are illuminated by a straightforward parent who re- fuses to be stampeded, and ignoring the social stigma, considers first the moral development of the child. The case of Stella is an example of this. She was prevented from marrying her lover because the par- ents on both sides objected to differences of religion, but her mother is sending her to a business college that she may be able to earn enough money to pay board for the baby and herself. In the meantime, Stella takes care of the bafey by night and her mother takes care of it by day. The baby is a charming child, much beloved by all the family, and evidently the dis- ciphne and responsibility are working wonders for Stella. Another mother exacts from her daughter seven dollars each week as board for the baby and herself, although Elizabeth earns only eight dollars a week in a cigar factory and is expected to buy clothing for two out of her remaining dollar. She says it is "hard going," but evidently has no notion of rebelling against her mother's authority. Her baby was born in a free ward of a hospital and she has never had any money from its father. I40 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH One stem parent insisted that his boy, who was himself unable to meet the payment ordered by the court, serve two months in jail, although at the end of that time the father arranged to make the pay- ments. The parents of the young man, who are good people, stated that their one objection to the marriage was the difference in reHgion and also the fact that such a girl could not make a "worthy wife." The young man himself had procured a license and had been eager for the marriage. The investigator could not find the girl or the child, although the girl had been working for several months in a cheap depart- ment store as a married woman. Her fellow clerks said she had been very unhappy and there was a rumor among them that she had taken poison and died a few months previously. This report could not be sub- stantiated, neither could the girl be found. Because of the recent spirited discussion in Illinois concerning the minimum wage law and the wide- spread belief that inadequate wages are in many in- stances indirectly responsible for a girl's downfall, the Juvenile Protective Association was much interested in the court records in regard to wages in the 419 com- pleted cases, as well as in the more detailed study made concerning the wages of the 163 girls who were found by the investigators. From the court records of the occupations of 419 of the girls, 32% were house- LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 141 workers; 19% were factory workers; 10.8% were hotel workers; 10% were in the sewing trades; 6% were laundresses, others were in scattering occupa- tions. There were 9 girls not working and i school girl. The court records reported the wages on only 216 cases. Of these less than 3% received over $1 2 a week ; 77% received less than $9 a week. The average wage among these girls was approximately $6.75 a week. One girl received $2; 4 received between $2 and $3 and 12 received between $4 and $5 a week. The court records in 172 cases give the ages at which the girl started to work. Of this number there were 44 of the girls at work by the time they were 13 years old and 141 at the age of 16 years, or 81% of the total. Out of the entire number, 71 girls were ilUterate. In the 163 cases more carefully investigated, two of the girls were receiving less than $3 a week; the largest number were receiving between $6 and $7 a week and but one was receiving more than $12. It was impos- sible to obtain a report upon 8, but the approximate average wage in the remaining 132 cases was $7.70, slightly higher than the average wage of the court records, which was $6.75 a week and higher than the average wage given by the U. S. Government Report on the Working Girls in Chicago, which is a little more than $6.00 a week. 142 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Comparing the ages of the giris with the ages of the men involved, we find that 42% of the girls were under 21 years as against 12% of the men; and 87% of the girls were under 25 years, as against 50% of the men. In regard to the nativity and parentage of the girls in the 419 cases, it was found that 51 were born in the United States of American parents; 186 were born in the United States of foreign parents, among whom German parents take the lead. Of the girls bom abroad, there are 19 nationahties with Germany again in the lead; 91% of the girls were unmarried. It was found that 47% were Uving at the home of one or both parents, 21% with friends or relatives and 32% were boarding or alone. An effort was made in connection with the family status to find whether "any other member of the family had ever been in the same trouble," with an affirmative reply in 7% of the cases, but of course there was no way of knowing how many of the others were hiding a family skeleton. It was rather difficult to discover how far the girls had been ostracized by their famihes and thrown out from their circle of friends by their "trouble." One hundred and ten insisted that they had not suffered socially, at least to the extent of being ostracized by their former friends. Some of the others were be- LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 143 wildered by the question, but claimed that the diffi- culty had ''blown over" and that they were now rein- stated. Some of the most pathetic cases were those of girls who Uved at home. One young girl, a Russian Jewess, less than i6 years old when her baby was bom, was trying to care for a sick father, as well as to aid in his support. The father of her child was a friend of her brother and the price of his lodging helped pay the rent. The girl's mother was dead and her two sisters were married, leaving her the only woman in the house. She had had no instruction or guidance and believed what the boy told her. The boy was first arrested on the charge of rape, but disappeared before the baby was born. The married brothers and sisters who helped with the support of the father would do nothing for the baby, and it was given out for adoption. The girl is heartbroken over her experience and longs con- stantly for her baby. Her sick father, although abso- lutely dependent upon her for his care, has never for- given her for the disgrace. Although she seems to have no affection for the father of her child, she longs for his return in the hope that he will marry her and that, free from family opprobrium, she may at least have her baby with her. In reply to the question on recreational possibilities it was discovered that 64% of the girls had some form 144 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH of amusement; that 23% had little or no amusement and that 13% said that they were not allowed to leave home. Naturally the number of those who preferred dances to any other form of amusement, led the list. It is perhaps a striking fact that among the 163 girls none so far as could be ascertained, were in the habit of finding recreation at the social centres in the public schools, the small parks, the settlements, or the girls' clubs. It clearly demonstrates that in spite of much effort to supply proper recreation to working girls, they are still largely dependent upon the com- mercial amusements which are run solely for profit in the interest of the proprietor. It is another argument, if one were needed, for the proper regulation and super- vision of all pubHc places of amusement. Many of the defendants in these cases were evi- dently well-meaning young men who doubtless would have behaved honorably and would have willingly as- sumed the obligations of family hfe had they lived in smaller communities where social standards were well- estabhshed and guarded by an operative pubhc opin- ion. Apparently, however, they had no place of meet- ing young girls, save in saloon dance halls, and often under the influence of liquor they easily accepted the evil standards of other men in those places. One such young man, aged 18 years, married to a young girl by the judge in the court room, was apparently chagrined LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 145 and remorseful for his own part in the affair. He is very fond of the child, and his wife is an attractive woman and an extremely good housekeeper. Beyond the fact that there is a quarrel every week when he demands one dollar from his wage envelope for his own spending money, their married life is not unlike that of thousands of young people who are ambitious to save and ''give their children a chance." They are certainly far from the saloon dance hall standard. It was possible to ascertain the place in which a girl first met the father of her child from the court records, and it is perhaps characteristic of the lack of social organizations which our city presents that the largest number of girls, gave the reply, "Casual acquaint- ance" and could not remember where the first meeting took place. In almost equal percentages was given "boarding place," "home," "dance hall," "place of employment." Next came "picnics," and "amuse- ment parks." The home and boarding house in their failure to make provision for a proper place in which young people may meet each other are but an epitome of the city itself and practically all of the young people, wherever they first met, seemed to have carried on much of their courtship on the city streets. In reply to the question, "Did you know the con- sequences of your act?" and "Were you ever taught the facts of sex life? " put to 163 of the girls, the replies 146 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH were somewhat mystifying. More than one-half of the girls openly admitted that they did know, either through questions they had put to their mothers or to elder women, and one-fourth insisted that they had never been taught, either directly or indirectly, any of the facts of sex. Among the latter were several sub-normal girls. In only three of the cases was the woman married at the time her case was brought into court, but since the complaints were made 89 women have been mar- ried, all but four to the men against whom they made the complaint. Of this number 69 are living with their husbands, 60 of whom say that they are very well treated. Of the 20 women who do not live with their husbands, half of them alleged ill-treatment; the other half separated from their husbands under the general claim of ^'incompatibility" which is perhaps a small number considering the circumstances under which the marriages took place. The husbands as a whole are fairly prosperous, rep- resenting 35 different occupations, teamsters, con- ductors, clerks; the largest number in one occupation are laborers. Of the 94 women who had not married or were not Kving with their husbands, 41 were living at home, 12 were domestics, living at their place of employ- ment, 12 others lived with relatives, 8 were boarding, LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 147 14 reported themselves as living alone, 3 were in in- stitutions, and only in 4 cases was it impossible to obtain a definite report. It would seem on the whole that in spite of this disastrous experience that the 163 women had been able to reinstate themselves and had attained an average social standing. No court record is made of a bastardy case until the child is born, even then if it is stillborn the woman has no case. Many of the girls who file complaints never return again and the court has no way of know- ing whether a Hving child has been bom. The failure to reappear in court is due to many causes. In the cases investigated in which suit was withdrawn the answer was varied: ''Thought I could do no better in court," ''Didn't want Jim to go to jail," "Did not want to testify," " Did not want to bother." There is no doubt whatever that in many cases when the girl has filed a suit in court and has been told to go home to await the birth of her child, she does not understand her directions. This is due some- times to the fact that, bewildered and mortified, she does not hear what is said to her and is only anxious to get away from the court room; at other times she does not understand the technical language used by the court. Often she is approached out of court and persuaded to drop the suit by the attorney and friends of the man against whom she has brought the charge. 148 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH For many months the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion detailed one of its officers, who is a trained nurse, to the Court of Domestic Relations that she might befriend and advise the girls who made the complaints, and that she might explain to them their rights in the case before they left the building. She also advised them many times in regard to prenatal care and the free hospital service which they might later secure. This oflBicer has lately been taken over by the State's Attorney's oflBce as an official investigator and her salary is paid from the public funds. When the girl's charge is sustained and the man is found guilty, but is too poor to pay the sum required by the court, he is then sent to jail to serve out a sen- tence. In the jail there is naturally no opportunity for him to earn anything, for as has been well said, "Jails are places where the idle are encouraged in their idleness and where the industrious are deprived of occupation." The man serves his sentence among the other occupants of the jail, many of whom are criminals, and at the end of his term he emerges, not so strong in health or morals as when he went in. His punishment has been of no benefit whatever to the girl and has only made him feel bitterly toward her, in most cases making a future marriage between them quite out of the question. In certain cases, however, the man after a few LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 149 weeks — or even a longer time— spent in jail will con- sent to marry the girl and strange as it may seem these marriages are apparently successful. Of one such marriage, a relative reported to the investigator that at first they were not happy but are now getting along nicely, and that "the husband likes the baby awfully well/' In one of the cases studied, the con- victed man who remained in jail six months was a married man and his detention there not only failed to provide for Dora, but his own family were also deprived of his earnings. The case was further com- plicated because Dora was irresponsible and doubt- less will repeat the experience although she is devoted to her child and seems able to take care of it fairly well, earning a living for both by scrubbing. In another case in which the man was sent to jail for six months in default of payment, Maria borrowed $150 from her parents at the time the baby was born. With this she secured proper care for herself and child, and paid the money back in installments. She lived with her brother's family, earning $10.50 a week. Her baby, in spite of her excellent care, died a year ago. She has since married a widower with seven children and is apparently very happy. She presents an un- usual record of self-reliance, but she had the advantage of being 28 years of age and had learned confidence in her own earning capacity. 150 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH The court records give some interesting data in re- gard to the men involved in each case. In nationality the court records of the 419 cases show that the native Americans supply the largest number, with 50 white and 28 colored men, Austria- Poland comes next with 45, followed by Russia with 38. Germany and Austria lead in the list of 28 other nationaUties. The investigation in 163 cases showed the same be- wildering social standards among the men as that among the girls. One man honorably engaged to marry a girl with no objections on the part of either family, induced her to elope with him a few weeks before the wedding. She romantically insisted on having the elopement take place at night and when he told her it was too late to take the boat to Michigan as they had planned, she went with him to a wine room and remembered nothing further until she awoke the next morning to find herself alone in a disreputable hotel. One of the older men seduced a southern girl who had come to Chicago on an excursion. The court or- dered him to pay $550; the girl has remained in the north, not daring to go home nor to let her people know of her disgrace. She has taken good care of her baby and is now engaged to marry another man. A young Italian man has done everything possible LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 15I to make restitution to the girl he wronged. As the girl's own parents are in Italy she lives with her hus- band's people during his absence from the city and he does all that he can to make her life conform to the most rigid of ItaHan conventions. Out of 163 cases, the men involved in 126 of them were readily located and only in 29 cases had the man absolutely disappeared; 24 cases were satisfac- torily settled out of court. Out of the same number of cases, 63 never came to trial and no order for payments was entered. Four cases were dismissed, 8 were found not guilty, and 40 were married in court. Of the re- mainder for whom a verdict was obtained, 8 spent six months in jail and the remainder were ordered to pay specified sums. Although the IHinois law provides that if a charge of bastardy is proven, the man can be made to pay $100 for the first year of the child's Hfe, and $50 a year for each succeeding nine years, amounting to $550 in all, yet out of the 163 cases studied, the maximum pay- ment of $550 was ordered in only 17 cases, and in but 12 cases was it lived up to. In four others the men had eluded payment, and concerning one case there was no report. In reply to the question "Did you think your trial a fair one?" the majority of the answers were in the affirmative, although in 20 cases it was impossible to 152 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH obtain a report. The lawyers' fees had varied from $5 to $125, the largest number of cKents having paid $25 and 6 of them having paid nothing at all. A former judge of the Court of Domestic Relations recommends that bastardy, which is now only a civil action, be made a misdemeanor and extraditable, and that the court shall have the power to direct the de- fendant, if found guilty, to pay a certain sum for a period not exceeding i8 years, to the mother of the child, or to a guardian appointed by the court for the support and education of the child; the defendant to give a bond to this effect and the bond to be renewed every two years. He also recommends that the mother shall not have the power to settle unless with the consent of the court, because the money sometimes paid by the defendant is in one sum, and as the mother often expends it un- wisely the child receives little good from it. It would be a most excellent plan if both the plaintiff and the defendant in a bastardy case could be put on probation to the court — not only that the mother and father could be kept under some supervision but that the interests of the child might be watched and safe- guarded. After a careful study of the bastardy cases brought into the Court of Domestic Relations, it is quite im- possible to reach the old-fashioned conclusion that the LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 1 53 man is always the aggressor and the villain. In sev- eral of these cases the man was very young and be- came involved with a girl who was already the mother of illegitimate children, or with a girl who showed every symptom of sub-normality and degeneracy. The judge of the Court of Domestic Relations has wisely concluded that nothing is to be gained by send- ing a decent boy who has become involved with a dis- reputable girl, to jail for six months. There is no doubt that dislike to such procedure is one evidence of the tendency to look at the entire question of *' im- morality " from the point of view of safeguarding boys as well as girls. As yet comparatively little has been done for the boy who comes as a stranger to the city, although the Travelers' Aid attempts to meet country girls at the station and further efforts are made to sup- ply the working girls with clubs and boarding places; there is also coming to be a public concern for her wages and standards of living. We have yet to learn that an unformed boy is also in need of safeguards and may be totally unable to protect himself from the evils of the city. It is almost impossible to protect a young boy by law from the machinations of profes- sional prostitutes. Such cases as come into the Court of Domestic Relations will have to be cared for through the safeguards which civic and philanthropic agencies can provide; or better still, "moral equiv- 154 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH alents" may be discovered as substitutes for the barbaric and morbid expression of their energies to which the city so often lures young men. As our courts are becoming specialized and social- ized, the notion of justice is less abstract and more carefully adapted to the individual. The treatment of the juvenile offender is slowly being determined by the understanding of the boy and girl quite as the advanced educator founds his educational system upon a study of the children under his care. In 419 cases studied, more than three-fourths of the girls and half of the men were under 25 years of age — the very period of life when human energy and desires, even lust itself, may most easily be turned either into good or evil expression. During our years of experience in the Juvenile Pro- tective Association, it became increasingly evident that there was a certain steady, although perhaps un- conscious discrimination against the women who are daily brought into the court; this in spite of the senti- mentality which often makes it impossible to convict women of murder or of equally serious crimes. Our law courts have long been regarded as places where justice is dealt out by men to men only, where men are arrested by policemen, interrogated by men captains or sergeants, guarded in prison by men jailers, brought into court by men bailiffs, tried by juries of men, sen- LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 1 55 tenced by men judges, paroled to men probation offi- cers and cared for by men in the institution to which they are committed. We have apparently forgotten the thousands of un- fortunate women who are brought into our courts, for whose comfort and special needs no provision is made. According to the report of the chief matron of the Police Department there were 12,641 women arrested in Chicago in 191 2; 1,851 of them were young girls. In addition 2,318 women were arrested only to be held as witnesses and yet, in spite of these numbers and their great need for special care, our legal ma- chinery is still all in the hands of men. Fortunately many eminent lawyers and jurists are beginning to express the need of woman's sympathy in dealing with other women. From the time of the arrest of a woman to the final disposition of her case she is handicapped by being in the charge of men and surrounded by men, who nat- urally cannot be expected to be as sympathetic and understanding as one of her own sex. In the police station she is at a disadvantage, for such places of de- tention in most of our large cities as in Chicago are dark and unsanitary. The women are herded to- gether, the innocent with the guilty, the clean with the unclean, the young girl with the prostitute. The sleeping accommodations are vile; there are cots for 156 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH the women, but the bedding is not often changed and is filled with vermin. There are few facilities for washing. When the woman appears for her preliminary hear- ing, she is tousled and untidy as the result of having been without proper toilet accommodations, and is therefore apt to create an unfavorable impression. In all police stations separate rooms or cells should be provided, with plenty of light and air and with sleep- ing and toilet acconmiodations for the women. Young girls are frequently arrested by policemen, sometimes without even a warrant, as the law gives the policeman this power if he has reasonable grounds for beheving that the person arrested has committed a crime. I recall the case of two young girls who had come from the country to find work in Chicago and who were living with their sister. They were un- able to secure work and, meeting an acquaintance upon the street one night, they went with him to a restaurant for dinner. Returning with them he tried to enter their room and they were obliged to forcibly bar the door against him. In revenge he told a police- man that they were disreputable characters. They were arrested in their room at four o'clock the same morning by the policeman, who broke down the door as they were afraid to open it; they were taken to the police station where they were put into a cell with a LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 157 prostitute. Arrests of young women should be made, when possible, by women police and women prisoners placed under the supervision of a poHce matron. When the time comes for their trial, they should be accompanied to the court room by women who can explain the legal procedure to them and stand beside them when they are subjected to the harassing ques- tions which the attorneys so often put to them. Chicago is making a great effort to reclaim and en- courage its unfortunate women. The old police courts have been done away with and in their places Munic- ipal Courts, with judges elected by the people, have been substituted. Under the able leadership of the present Chief Justice in Chicago, these courts have been carefully specialized. The judge at the head of each special court is thus given an opportunity to make a study of the one class of crime for which men and women are brought into his court, and to collect material which may suggest methods of reformation and prevention. In the Morales Court of Chicago an effort is made to find out the reason for the downfall of the women brought there and, if possible, through advice, en- couragement and employment, to give them another chance to lead a decent life. In addition to the adult probation officer, there is a woman physician con- nected with the court. The Juvenile Protective Asso- 158 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH ciation maintains a woman ofl&cer in the criminal court to advise and assist the women who are brought there as witnesses or as prisoners. The officer is allowed to accompany the women when they are brought before the Grand Jury. In all cases pertaining to women and children, women should sit as jurors, as they do in Norway and Sweden and if the prisoners are found guilty and sen- tenced to a reformatory, they should certainly be conducted there by women. It is hoped that in time there will be an opportunity in these reformatory institutions for some kind of voca- tional training for the women, so that when they are released they will find it much easier to obtain a situa- tion. The majority of girls at present find it almost impossible to secure work after leaving a reformatory and many of them drift back into the old life. Since we have found that such a large percentage of the women in our reformatory institutions are mentally deficient, it makes us realize more and more that these women should be protected from the fate which now so often awaits them. In a recent inquiry made by the Russell Sage Foundation of seven correctional institutions in the United States, it was found that the percentage of mental deficiency among women is far greater than among men. Bedford Reformatory for Women gives LEGAL SAFEGUARDS FOR THE DEPENDENT 1 59 the estimate of 37% of the inmates as mentally defi- cient. The Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster, Mass., gives 50%, and the Maryland Industrial School for Girls at Baltimore puts it as high as 60%, while three reformatories for men and boys in New York, New Jersey and IlHnois give respectively 37%, 33% and 20%; an average of 30% for the three men and boys' reformatories against 49% for the three re- formatories for women and girls. If women commit crimes because of mental defi- ciency, it would seem most necessary to have arrested women examined by a psychopathic expert and com- mitted, not to prisons but to such reformatories as Bedford. Scientific treatment and humane care have made it one of the few hopeful spots in our wretched prison system. Two hnes of progress are encouraging; first, the appointment of women officials in various capacities attached to the courts in which they are able to be of service to women prisoners; second, the estabhshment of psychopathic clinics for the study of criminal women which will in the end affect them and their dependent children. CHAPTER VI PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION A GREAT many cases reported to the Juvenile Pro- tective Association have been those involving the children of immigrant parents and the most serious of the community problems facing our officers have tbeen found in immigrant colonies. In one of the early years, out of 2,593 complaints of children going wrong, 2,329 were the children of immigrants. It is a well-known fact that juvenile delinquency increases with centralization of population, and the resulting injurious eiBFect of city life. Prof. Commons asserts that the tendency to criminality on the part of the children of the foreign born is twice as great as that among the children of native parents, while among adults the reverse is true, crime among the native born being twice as great as among the foreign born. The reports of juvenile asylums all over the United States show that over 50% of the inmates come from parents of foreign birth, most of whom cannot speak English. This tendency to crime is almost wholly the result 160 PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION l6l of city life, for as soon as the immigrant reaches America, in order to guard his resources, and perhaps pooling them with those of another family, he is forced to rent unsanitary quarters, that have been dis- carded by other immigrants who have been able to climb a rung higher in the social ladder. So his children live in the worst tenements, in attics or cellars, in rooms badly hghted, where brokendown stairways, rotten woodwork, defective plumbing, and over- flowing garbage boxes all teach a disregard for laws that are not enforced. The children are underfed and poorly nourished, therefore anaemic. The father, perhaps, is an unskilled laborer, and takes what work he can get, often paying the greater part of his first month's salary to the employment bureau that has found him his position. Consequently the family is under a pecuniary pressure most of the time. When the father is ill or out of work, the mother takes in washing, goes out to scrub by day or to clean office buildings at night. In both cases the parents come home, tired from their unaccustomed work in close places, confused by their new experiences and indif- ferent to the children who are in the streets finding amusements of a sort which tend to become quickly demoraHzing. Then the children easily acquire the language of the country, and despise their parents because they l62 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH are unable to master it. They are often ashamed of the parents and unwilling to be seen with them, and on the other hand the parents do not know what their children are doing, or why they are in trouble. I re- member a Bohemian family in which neither parent spoke English and although they had been here for 1 6 years, the mother still wore the peasant costimie. Their boy of nine was brought into the Juvenile Court, charged with being unmanageable and dis- respectful to his parents; since then, he has been brought in many times on more serious charges. In another Bohemian family, who did not speak Eng- lish although they had been in this country for thirty years, the boy was always disrespectful and insulting to his parents; after being brought several times into court, he ran away and joined the navy. The son of a Russian family of hardworking, respectable people, was first brought into court for stealing $i.oo from his father; the parents did not understand him, and continually taunted him with being arrested. The public schools further separate the children from the parents because they teach subjects imknown to the parents and the children, in consequence, feel superior and try to assume control. When this is resented by the parents, all discipline and respect are at an end; the child easily becomes a truant, possibly because he is idle, possibly because he dis- PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 63 likes school, the path from truancy to delinquency is a short one and the child soon lands in the Juve- nile Court. The records of this court show that the majority of the children brought into court are the children of foreigners, that between the ages of ii and 12 the most truants are produced, that the largest number of delinquents are brought in between the ages of 15 and i6, that the majority of boys are brought in for larceny and the majority of girls for incorrigibility, which usually means immorality, but is not always recorded as such by the officers. The delinquent children of immigrants may be divided into two classes, the children who go wrong in order to get a desired result, and the children who go wrong because of the desire for excitement. Under the first class, I would put the boy who steals iron or brass from the cars standing on the railroad tracks and sells his booty to the junk dealer in order to get money for some amusement, and the girl who steals from the department store in order that she may dress well enough to attract the young boys of her acquaintance, because, as a young girl told me the other day, the boys care only for those who are "dressy enough to be seen." I recall a young Bohemian girl who stole $7.00 worth of artificial flowers in order that she might have a new spring hat, and who then spent one whole 164 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH night in the cellar of her home crying because she was a thief. An examination of the records of 300 boys brought into the Juvenile Court, shows that 81 were brought in for stealing from cars and railroads, the articles stolen covering a wide range, including coal, grain, canned goods, watermelon, mincemeat, furniture, whiskey, tobacco, cabbages, soap, apples and wine. A large munber were brought in for steaUng grain with which to feed their chickens, and still a larger number for stealing coal, for the newly arrived immi- grants do not know that they are making their chil- dren break the law when they send them out to pick up the family fuel on the railroad tracks. I remember a Dutch family; the parents spoke no English and felt very bitterly about their boy who was arrested for stealing coal in the railroad yards: as the railroad detective said the boy had no home nor family, he was sent by the court to a farm, and his parents did not find him for several months. Under the second class are the boys who break windows, flip cars, bum boxes, and fences, stone peddlers, and burglarize stores for the excitement and pleasure of the thing, and to show that they won't be "bossed" by "old country" parents and relatives, and the girl who desperately longs for better sur- roundings than her immigrant parents can give her. PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 165 An Italian girl of 15 lived with her family in a base- ment so damp that in order to reach the house, it was necessary to walk over a pool of water. Nine people lived in two rooms and slept in two beds. The girl who was pretty and attractive, worked in a factory and envied her friends who lived in better houses than she did. To complete her hardships her father would not allow her to go out evenings into the street, fearing she would get into trouble. There was nothing the least attractive in the house, and she longed for the "parlors and pianos" of her more fortunate friends. She saved up her "overtime" money un- til she had $7.00, ran away from home, and rented a room for a week on a respectable thoroughfare. The room was prettily furnished and contained a piano. All this to satisfy a longing for clean and attractive surroundings. At the end of that week, she was quite willing to go back to her old life, but needless to say this period of freedom led to her downfall. Frequently we find that the immigrants are ignorant of our laws. They do not understand, for instance, our compulsory education law or our child labor law, because they have thought of America, as a country where they might enjoy Hfe and where they might live on the earnings of their children, whose duty it was to support them. l66 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Sometimes young immigrant girls are imposed upon because they are ignorant of our laws. A Polish girl of 17 was offered marriage soon after her arrival here, and was told that the legal ceremony consisted in appearing before the license clerk. This she did, and was easily persuaded to forego the rehgious ceremony. After a month the man deserted her, and she drifted into a disreputable life in order to support her child. The police attitude towards children, especially boys, is too often all wrong; the children of the immi- grant, instead of looking upon the policeman as a friend, whom they should respect, regard him as their natural enemy and try to get even with him by all sorts of petty law-breaking. Recently in Chicago, a pohceman arrested a boy who was running, lodged him in a cell and when he was released the next day, as there was no charge against him, advised him not to try running again. A girl coming from a dance hall, ran away from a man who was trying to force her into a cheap hotel. The girl was arrested by a policeman and lodged in a cell, charged with disorderly conduct; when a friend endeavored to have her released, saying that she was trying to escape from the man, and that bringing her into court would brand her as a delinquent, the police lieutenant repUed, that he felt sure she was already a delinquent, that he wanted her brought PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 167 into court, so that hereafter she might be known by every police officer in that district and picked up whenever she was found on the streets. The same criticism can be applied to the special detectives, employed by the large houses and manu- facturing concerns. They will pounce upon the boy who has stolen, regardless of the circumstances which led to the theft, they will if possible put him in the penitentiary, quite forgetting that in so doing they may lose the chance of making a good citizen, A boy had been at work in a large department store for four years, during which time his father had taken every cent of his wages, allowing him only money for carfare. Finally the desire to possess something of his own became so strong, that the boy stole a camera, a baseball bat, and a boxing glove. He was arrested by the firm's detective and as the value of the goods stolen was over $15.00, the detec- tive announced his intention of putting the boy into the penitentiary. Had it not been for outside interfer- ence, he would have succeeded in doing so. A new place of employment was found for the boy, his father was persuaded to let him keep his wages, and he has turned out an honest man. An Italian girl was kept at home by her parents and never allowed to go to any place of amusement. This life seemed to her so confined and so unrelieved, l68 SAPEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH that in a fit of despondency she banged her head against the wall, doing it so many times that her life was in danger, saying, ''I might as well be dead as shut up here with only grown people." Many Greek boys are brought to this country by older men. There are no women among them, no home life of any kind; they are free from all restraint and board together, fifteen or twenty in a group with no one in authority. This is also true of the Bulgarians who are coming without their families. Very often groups of PoUsh girls are found in large cities living together; perhaps one of the girls has a brother and he brings other men to board ; there is no older woman to warn them of the danger; they forget the things they have been so carefully taught by their mothers; they lose, in their confined quarters, their sense of what is decent and proper, and soon become demoral- ized. One such girl living under these conditions said that they had been so mixed up together that she had quite forgotten that certain things were wrong. A group of Russian girls were living together; several of them tried to commit suicide and one suc- ceeded. Another who failed gave as her reason that there was nothing of interest in this country, no great issues at stake, that we were too commercial and only cared for money, that no one thought of patriotism, PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 169 that we were not bound together by any historic mem- ories, that we knew nothing about European affairs, either poUtical or reKgious, that Kfe in America was nothing but one great economic struggle unreheved by Kterature or art. She had come directly from the absorbing activities of the Russian revolution and, while her experience was exaggerated, in a measure it typified that of a large army of people who enter the United States annually, seeking escape from economic wrongs or political persecution, and spurred on by the magic word America, which has been in- terpreted to them as meaning "freedom and pros- perity." As these immigrants land at Ellis Island, their faces are full of eagerness and expectation, the hardships of the long voyage are forgotten, the discomforts are ignored, and they submit without a sign of impatience to the medical examination, and wait with almost pitiful eagerness for their discharge. They have, per- haps, looked forward for years to this change of home and dreamed of golden opportunities which are open for them and their children. America has stood to them as an ideal country, an asylum for the oppressed, where they might enjoy religious Kberty and freedom from persecution, where the price of living was low, work plentiful and wages high, and where they could secure for their children the training lyo SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH and education that should make them happy and independent. And so with tickets fastened to their coats and shawls, the newly arrived inunigrants pass through the gate of hope into the new worid of their choice, and become our fellow citizens. Most of these immigrants have come from an agri- cultural community, and the rigors of the long voyage have not dimmed the sunburn on their cheeks nor the brightness of their eyes. They look full of health and vigor, with plenty of good red blood, eager and anx- ious to begin Ufe in this new land, and hopeful for the future. These immigrants settling in the already over- crowded cities which they still further congest, create new and perplexing problems for the municipal au- thorities, one of which is proper provision for the health and well-being of their children. Not only is the first generation born in America less stalwart and rosy than their parents, but freed from the well- established public opinion of older and smaller com- munities, they are exposed to peculiar social tempta- tions. The dependence of young people upon the social restraints of their own neighborhoods, was further made clear to the Juvenile Protective Association in the course of an investigation concerning the condi- PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 17I tion of boys in the County Jail. The Association was much startled by the disproportionate number of colored boys and young men; for although the colored people of Chicago approximate one-fortieth of the entire population, one-eighth of the boys and young men and nearly one-third of the girls and young women who had been confined in the jail during the year were negroes. The Association had previously been impressed with the fact that most of the maids employed in houses ot prostitution were colored girls and that many employ- ment agencies quite openly sent them there, although they would not take the risk of sending a white girl to a place where, if she was forced into a life of prosti- tution, the agency would be liable to a charge of pandering. In an attempt to ascertain the causes which would account for so large an amount of delinquency among the colored boys and the public opinion which would so carelessly place the virtue of a colored girl in jeopardy, the Juvenile Protective Association found itself in- volved in a study of the industrial and social status of the colored people of Chicago. While the moraHty of every young person is closely bound up with that of his family and his immediate environment, this is especially true of the sons and daughters of colored families who, because they con- 172 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH tinually find the door of opportunity shut in their faces, are more easily forced back into their early en- vironment however vicious it may have been. The enterprising young people in immigrant families who have passed through the public schools and are earning good wages, continually succeed in moving their entire households into more prosperous neighborhoods where they gradually lose all trace of their tenement-house experiences. On the contrary, the colored young peo- ple, however ambitious, find it extremely difficult to move their families or even themselves into desirable pa rts of the city and to make friends in these surround- ings. Because the fate of the young people was thus so in- extricably a part of the life of the colored people in Chicago, the investigators found themselves studying the entire history of the negro on the shores of Lake Michigan, following it to the very beginning where it is said the first cabin was built in 1779, by a negro from San Domingo. They found that the policy toward colored people had always been a liberal one. In 1854 Stephen A. Douglas was hooted off a Chicago platform when he tried to speak for his pro-slavery resolution in the Senate. From that day Chicago took a leading place in the anti-slavery fight, but it was not until 1872 that all laws discriminating against the colored people were PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 173 taken off the Illinois statute books and in the next year, 1873, the colored children were by statute allowed to attend the public schools of the city. Although no separate schools have ever been estab- lished in Chicago, it was found that many colored young people become discouraged in regard to a "high school education " because of the tendency of the em- ployers who use colored persons at all in their business, to assign them to the most menial labor. Many a case on record in the Juvenile Protective Association tells the tale of an educated young negro who failed to find employment as a stenographer, bookkeeper, or clerk. One rather pathetic story is of a boy graduated from a technical high school last spring. He was sent with other graduates of his class to a big electric company where, in the presence of his classmates he was told that "niggers are not wanted here.'' The Association has on record another instance where the graduate of a business college was refused a position under similar circumstances. This young man in response to an advertisement went to a large firm to ask for a position as clerk. "We take colored help only as laborers,*' he was told by the manager of a firm supposed to be friendly to the negroes. All the leading business colleges in Chicago, except one, frankly discriminate against negro students. The one friendly school at present among twelve hundred 174 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH white students has only two colored students, but its records show as many as thirty colored students in the past. The manager, however, claims that his business has suffered in consequence of his friendliness to the negro. Even the superintendent of the Illinois Industrial School for Boys at St. Charles complains that it is not worth while to teach trades to the colored boys in his institution, because it is so very difficult for a skilled colored man to secure employment. This reaction against education is one of the indirect results of the difficulties which young colored people encounter in their efforts to find work. The investi- gators considered this difficulty one of the gravest features in the entire situation, affecting alike most disastrously all of the colored people in Chicago. From the interviews with all the boys in the jail it was clear that the lack of congenial and remunerative employment had been a determining factor in their tendency to criminaUty, but because the colored boys suffered under an additional handicap and because the opportunities for work are the essentials for all eco- nomic progress, the entire investigation had much to do with the basic question of employment. The colored man believes that the labor unions dis- criminate against him, either openly or secretly; a few of the organizations have a clause in their constitu- tions stating that whites alone are eligible to member- PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 75 ship, but most of them allow the colored man to pay his initiation fee and become a member; they, however, take no pains to secure him a place, and when he finds it difficult to find work because the contractor and his fellow workmen discriminate against him and he gets a job only here and there, he is frequently tempted to work with "scabs," and after several fines for this in- fringement of rules he drops out of the union. The investigators found that this experience was not the exception, but the rule. Mechanics who are members of the building trades do not complain because they have been refused membership in the unions, but be- cause they are discriminated against when it comes to securing work, although this discrimination is not extended to the unskilled colored man. There- fore, while many colored mechanics who come to Chicago for work return to the south, where there are fewer unions and white men more willingly work with colored men, this return to the south ahnost never occurs among the unskilled. The colored people them- selves beheve that their difficulty in finding work is often due to the objection of the employers to treating the colored man with the respect which a skilled mechanic would command. Evidently the colored man is continually driven to lower kinds of occupa- tion which are gradually being discarded by the white man. 176 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH The investigators found that the great corpora- tions, for one reason or another, refused to employ negroes. Department stores, express companies, and the public utility companies employ very few colored people. Out of the 3,795 men employed in Chicago by the eight leading express companies, only 21 were colored men. Fifteen of these were porters. The investigators found no colored men in Chicago employed as boot and shoe makers, glove makers, bindery workers, garment workers' trades in factories, cigar box makers, elevated railroad employ- ees, neckwear trades, suspender makers and printers. No colored women are employed in dressmaking, cap making, lingerie or corset making. The two reasons given for this non-employment by the employers are, first, the refusal of the white employees to work with the colored people; second, that the "colored help" is slower and not so efficient as the white. Some em- ployers solve the second difficulty by paying the colored people less. In the laimdries, for instance, where colored people do the Scime work as the white, the latter average a dollar a week more. The effects of these restrictions upon the negroes are, first, that they are crowded into undesirable and under- paid occupations. As an example, about 12% of the colored men in Chicago work in saloons and poolrooms. Second, there is a greater competition in a limited field PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 77 with a consequent tendency to lower the already low wages. Third, the colored women are forced to go to work to help earn the family living; this occurs so universally as to affect the entire family and social life of the negro colony. A large number of negroes are employed on the rail- roads, largely due to the influence of the Pullman Palace Car Company. There is a tradition among colored people that Mr. Pullman inserted a clause in his will urging the company to employ colored men on the trains whenever possible, but while the in- vestigators found 1,849 Pulhnan porters living in Chicago, they counted 7,625 colored men working in saloons and poolrooms. There is also a high per- centage of them employed in the theatres; more than one-fourth of all the employees in the leading theatres of Chicago are colored men. The Federal Government has always been a large employer of colored labor; 9 per cent of the force in all the Federal departments are negroes. In Chicago the percentage of colored men is higher. Out of a total of 8,012 men, 755 or 10.61 per cent of the whole are colored, approximately their just proportion to the population. The negroes, however, do not fare so well in local government. A study made of the city de- partments in Chicago showed the percentage of colored employees to be 1.87 per cent, in Cook County to be 1 78 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH 1.88 per cent. Three colored men have also been elected as County Commissioners and there is said to be no instance on record in Chicago of a negro office holder having betrayed his trust. The investigators found, in regard to the colored man in business: first, that the greater number of their enterprises are the outgrowth of domestic and per- sonal service occupations; second, that they are in branches of business which call for small amounts of capital and very little previous experience. There are at present in the city of Chicago twenty-three manu- facturing establishments of various kinds, managed by colored men. In the colored belt on the South Side of Chicago there are a number of business houses managed by colored people and patronized exclusively by mem- bers of their own race. There is also one bank located in a fine building of which a colored man is president and 80% of the depositors white. According to the evidence confirmed by the figures of the United States census, however, there is little possibility for a colored business man to make a living solely from the patron- age of his own people. The census report holds that he succeeds in business only when two-thirds of his customers are white. This affords one explanation of the fact that most of his business is of such a character that a white man is willing to patronize it — barber" \ PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 79 shops, expressing, restaurants, and other business sug- gesting personal service. In a mile on State Street, from No. 3000 to 3900, the investigators found 108 colored men in business, who employed 270 colored men. Of these business imder- takings, 12 were saloons and six were poolrooms, only- one of which has survived so long as five years, while eleven others have changed proprietors recently. This may be partly owing to the fact that it requires very Kttle money to run either, since both the breweries and the poolroom manufacturers readily accommo- date their salesmen with their goods and other fittings, and many young colored men, who have been em- ployed in them, are ambitious themselves to become proprietors. While in a measure the decency of such a place depends upon the proprietor, he usually responds to the pressure of the large concern who is his creditor. The total amount of capital invested in the mile by the 108 colored men was found to be $15,750. There is a large proportion of real estate dealers among colored men, many of whom do business with white people, the negro dealer often becoming the agent for houses which the white dealers refuse to handle. Colored people are very eager to own their own homes and many of them are buying small houses, divided into two flats, living in one and collecting rent from the other. The contract system prevails in l8o SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Chicago, making it possible for a man with two or three hundred dollars for the first payment to enter into a contract for the purchase of a piece of property, the deed bein^ held by the real estate man imtil the purchaser pays the amount stipulated in the contract. As was ascertained in a careful study of the housing conditions of colored people made by the students of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, there are four well-defined districts in which colored people have resided for a number of years — one at Englewood, one at 55th Street and Lake Avenue, one on the West Side, and the largest known as the "Black Belt" which includes the old 22nd Street segregated \ice district. In this so-called "belt" the number of children is re- markably small, forming only a little more than one- tenth of the population, while the lodgers constitute 37% of the population. The investigation made by the School of Civics showed that only 26% of the houses on the South Side and 36% of the houses in the West Side colored district were in good repair. Col- ored tenants reported that they found it impossible to persuade their landlords either to make the neces- sary repairs or to release them from their contracts, but that it was so hard to find places in which to live that they were forced to endure unsanitary conditions. The investigation confirmed the general impression that the rent paid by a negro is appreciably higher PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION l8l than that paid by any other tenant. In a flat build- ing formerly occupied by white people, the white families paid a rent of $12 for a six-room apartment for which a negro family are now paying $16. A white family paid $17 for an apartment of seven rooms for which negroes are now paying $20. The negro real estate dealer frequently offers to the owner of an apartment house, which is no longer rent- ing advantageously to white tenants, cash payment for a year's lease on the property, thus guaranteeing the owner against loss, and he then fills the building with colored tenants. It is said, however, that the agent does not put out the white tenants unless he can. get 10% more from the colored people. By this method the negroes now occupy many large apart- ment buildings, but the negro real estate agents obtain the reputation of exploiting their own race. High rents among the colored people, as every- where else, force the families to take in lodgers. Nearly one-third of the population in the district investigated on the South Side and nearly one-seventh of the population in the district investigated on the West Side were lodgers. While this practice is always found dangerous to family Hfe, it is particularly so to the boys and girls of colored families, who are often obliged to live near the vice districts. To quote from the report, ''The history of the social evil in Chicago l82 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH is intimately connected with the colored population. Invariably the larger vice districts have been created within or near the settlements of colored people. In the past history of the city neariy every time a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side, the colored families within the district moved in just ahead of the prostitutes." When it becomes possible for the colored people of a better class to buy property in a good neighborhood, so that they may take care of their children and live respectably, there are often protest meetings among the white people in the vicinity and sometimes even riots. A striking example of the latter occurred within the past three years on the West Side of Chicago: a colored woman bought a lot near a small park, upon which she built a cottage. It was not until she moved into the completed house that the neighbors discovered that a colored family had ac- quired property there. They immediately began a crusade of insults and threats. When this brought no results, a "night raid" company was organized. In the middle of the night a masked band broke into the house, told the family to keep quiet or they would be murdered; they then tore down the newly built house, destroying everything in it. This is, of course, an extreme instance, but there have been many similar to it. Quite recently in a suburb of Chicago, animosity PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 83 against negro residents resulted in the organization of an anti-negro committee which requested the dis- missal of all negroes who were employed in the town as gardeners or janitors, because the necessity of housing their families depressed real estate values. The Juvenile Protective Association, as a supple- ment to the previous housing investigations, studied the conditions of fifty of the better homes occupied by the colored people of C'^cago: those in the so-called ''Black Belt" in the city, those in a suburban district, and other houses situated in blocks in which only one or two colored families lived. The size of the houses varied from five to fourteen rooms, averaging eight rooms each; the conditions of the houses inside and out compared favorably with similar houses occupied by white families. Classified according to occupation, the heads of the household in 9 cases were railroad porters; the next largest number were janitors, then waiters, and among them were found lawyers, physi- cians, and clergymen. In only four instances was the woman of the house working outside the home. Only 4 of the homes took in lodgers, and children were found in only 15 of the 50 families studied. The total of 33 children found in the fifty homes averages but two-thirds of a child for each family and, but for one family, — a janitor living in a ten-room house and having eight children — the average would have been 184 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH but half a child for a family; confirming the statement often made that while the poorer colored people in the agricultural districts of the south, like the poor ItaHans in rural Italy, have very large families, when they move to the city and become more prosperous, the birth rate among colored people falls below that of the average prosperous American family . From the homes situated in white neighborhoods, only two reported "indignation meeting when they moved in" and added "quiet now"; one other re- ported "no afl&liation with white neighbors"; still another, "white neighbors visit in time of sickness," and the third was able to say "neighbors friendly." Of the ownership of the 50 homes, 35 were owned by colored men, 12 by white landlords, and the owner- ship of 3 was not ascertained; 34 of the houses were occupied by their owners. In addition to the 50 families living in comfortable houses, 100 more cases of fairly prosperous colored famihes were investigated. It was found that only six of the heads of these families had been bom in Chicago, that 77 had come from the south, all of the southern states being represented. Only 6 of the 92 men born outside of the state had been brought to Chicago as children, while 71 had come to the city between the ages of 16 and 26. They, as well as the older men, had come hoping for better conditions, PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 85 their reasons being variously put as "higher wages," "learning a trade," "to get a home," "to make big money," "to get a position," "for more freedom," "for more schooling," although in 19 cases the reason given was "curiosity," an attempt doubtless to for- mulate the desire for adventure. Of the men from the south every one had improved his condition. Those who said their conditions had not improved had been formerly working in the large cities of the east or north, where living expenses were less than in Chicago; only one received lower wages in Chicago. He had earned $16 a week before coming to the city and now earns $9.00; two said their condi- tion had not improved because they "had been led off by fast company." The incomes varied from $9.00 a month to $153.60 a month; the average wage was $67.32 a month. Sixteen of the men owned real estate and six others had liberal bank accounts. These re- sults probably compare favorably with one hundred white immigrants, but the colored man insists that the immigrant has the advantage for, when he learns the language of the country and adopts American ways, he gradually lives down any prejudice against him, while the colored man can never make himself acceptable to the white man and beHeves that he is often disliked in proportion to his prosperity. In contrast to these 100 cases of negro men who l86 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH were fairly successful, loo cases of colored families were taken from the files of the Juvenile Protec- tive Association representing, of course, as do the white families whose names are on the records of the Association, people who were unable to adequately protect their children. Of the occupations of the men, 45 were porters, i6 janitors, 13 laborers, the rest scattered in different kinds of work — teamsters, waiters, cooks, musicians. The striking difference between them and the more prosperous families lay in the fact that the women were obliged to work. Of the women in these families, only 14 stayed at home; of the others, 26 were day workers in households; 12 worked in laundries; 7 were prostitutes; the others worked at various occupations; 2 were hairdressers; I a music teacher. Of the 100 families, 30 were self-supporting; 16 did not support their families at all, while 54 received outside assistance. In regard to their family status, 66 Uved an unbroken family life; in 21 cases the husband and wife were separated; 7 women were deserted; there were 3 cases of illegal relationship. Out of the 100 cases, there were 7 inter- marriages; in two instances white men had married colored women; in 5 instances white women had married colored men. Out of the 100 poor famihes taken from the Juvenile Protective Association records, it was found that 86 PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 87 of the women went out to work and, while there is no doubt that this number is abnormally high, it is always easier for a colored woman to find work than it is for a colored man, partly because white people have the traditions of colored servants and partly because there is a steadier demand and a smaller supply of house- hold workers and charwomen than there is for the kind of unskilled work done by men. Even here colored people are discriminated against, and although many are employed in highly respectable families, there is a tendency to engage them in low class hotels and other places where white women do not care to go. No federal figures later than 1900 are available but in a governmental report made then, the colored women of Chicago constituted 42.5 per cent of the bread-winners of their race, slightly lower than the 43.2 per cent given in the census report for the entire United States. This is more than double the propor- tion of white women employed, which the census gives as 20.6% of the entire white population. As 60% of negro working women over 16 years of age are married, there is no doubt that many colored children are neglected. Investigators found from con- sultation with the principals of the schools largely at- tended by colored children that they are irregular in attendance and often tardy; that they are eager tQ l88 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH leave school at an early age, although in one school where there is a great deal of manual work this tend- ency is less pronounced. Colored children, more than any others, are kept at home to care for younger members of the family while the mother is away at work. A very persistent violation of the compulsory education law recently tried in the Municipal Court disclosed the fact that a colored brother and sister were alternately kept out of school to care for the younger children, who had been refused admittance in a day nursery; that the old woman who cared for the little household for twenty-five cents a day was ill and that the mother had been obliged to keep the older children at home in order to retain her place in a laundry. At the very best, the school attendance of the two children had been most unsatisfactory, for the mother left home every morning at half past six and the illiterate old woman took little interest in school. The lack of home discipline perhaps accounts for the indifference to all school interests on the part of many colored children, although this complaint is not made of those in the high schools who come from more prosperous families. The most striking differ- ence in the health of the colored children compared to that of the white children in the same neighborhood was the larger proportion of the cases of rickets, due, of course, to malnutrition and neglect. The colored PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 1 89 people themselves believe the school authorities are more interested in a school whose patronage is pre- dominantly white. It was found that young colored girls, hke the boys, often become desperately discouraged in their efforts to find employment. High school girls of refined appearance, after looking for weeks, will find nothing open to them in department stores, office buildings or manufacturing establishments, save a few positions as maids in the women's waiting rooms. Such girls find it continually assumed by the employ- ment agencies to whom they apply for positions that they are willing to serve as domestics in low class hotels and disreputable houses. Of course, the agency does not explain the character of the place to which the girl is sent, but on going to one address after another she finds that they are all of this kind. Quite recently an intelligent colored girl who had kept a careful record of her experiences with three employment agencies came to the office of the Ju- venile Protective Association to see what might be done to protect colored girls, less experienced and self-rehant than herself, against similar temptations. A young colored girl who, at the age of fifteen, had been sent to a house of prostitution by an employment agency, was rescued from the house by one of our officers, treated in a hospital and sent to her sister in a 190 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH western state. She there married a respectable man and is now living in a little home "almost paid for.'* The case of Eliza M., who has worked as a cook in a disreputable house for ten years, is that of a decent woman forced into vicious surroundings. In addition to her wages of $5.00 a week and food, which she is permitted to take home every evening to her family, she has been able to save her generous "tips" for the education of her three children, for whom she is very ambitious. Colored young women who are manicurists and hair dressers find it continually assimaed that they will be willing to go to hotels under compromising conditions and, when a decent girl refuses to go, she is told that that is all that she can expect. There is no doubt that the few colored girls who find positions as stenographers or bookkeepers are much more open to insult than white girls in similar positions. All these experiences tend to discourage the yoimg people from that "education" which their parents so eagerly desire for them and also makes it extremely diflScult for them to maintain their standards of self- respect. Chicago has a large number of fine negro profes- sional men; this is due largely to the number of schools and universities accessible to the negro's use. There are in Chicago 65 colored physicians, 4 of whom are PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 191 women; 25 lawyers; 18 dentists; 12 pharmacists, with many students in attendance at the universities and professional schools. One of the physicians is on the staff of St. Luke's Hospital and others are responsible for the fine medical work carried on at the Provident Hospital, the leading hospital for colored people in the United States. The colored people are justly proud of this hospital, founded in 1891, where there is no discrimination between white and colored people, on the staff of physicians and nurses, nor among the patients. Among the many colored musicians in Chicago are at least a score who may be called professionals; two of them direct orchestras; one is a pianist of local reputation; at least four of them singing in vaudeville are also composers of songs; two are young colored women who have extensively traveled as singers in Cuba and South America as well as in the United States. Every year several young people graduate at the various musical colleges, and a gifted young violin- ist is now studying in Paris. The Art Institute often has colored students, and there are a goodly number of colored people who write creditable poetry, chiefly words to songs which are set to music by their friends. Four newspapers edited in Chicago by colored men, as well as contributions to the "Crisis" and other magazines, give evidence of a marked ability for 192 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH writing. In addition to several clergymen and attor- neys of undoubted forensic ability, may be cited several lecturers, one of them a woman with a gift for public speaking, who years ago roused interest throughout England in the condition of colored people. The church among the colored people has always been the chief factor in their social Ufe. In Chicago there are 29 regularly organized churches in addition to various missions, with approximately twenty thou- sand members. This includes nearly half of the col- ored population of the city, a much larger proportion than the church membership among the white popula- tion. The churches own property to the amount of $600,000 although every church is carrying a debt. The church is a centre to the colored people for lectures, literary societies and civic meetings. The clergymen are, as a rule, men who have been educated in northern and southern theological seminaries, but they are inclined to be sectarian and to confine them- selves to the conventional church routine. The col- ored ministers of one denomination seldom meet with the colored ministers of another denomination and almost never with the white ministers of their own denomination. They complain that they meet with public approval when they work for the religious advancement of their own race, but are rebuffed PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION I93 when they enter into general movements for dvic betterment. A Young Men^s Christian Association building in Chicago represents the largest investment ever made by that association to be devoted to the interests of colored men and boys. Its entire cost approximates $195,000. It contains the standard equipment of gymnasiimi, restaurant, dormitories, and has a mem- bership of 2,000 although the annual fee is $io. Among the colored social workers of the city are Juvenile Court and adult probation officers, visiting nurses and many others. The standard of all these social workers is as high as the average, and several of them — notably two young women Uving at the Wendell Phillips Settlement, have taken the full course at the Chicago School of Civics and Philan- thropy. The colored people themselves feel that there is urgent need for more trained social workers. The clubs of colored women which are beginning to inves- tigate the social needs of their districts, urge their members to more serious study. There are four settlements in Chicago in or near the neighborhoods of colored people. The pioneer was the Frederick Douglas Center on the South Side of Chicago, founded to promote a better understanding between white and colored people and to help removey the arbitrary disabilities from which the latter suffer 194 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH in their civil, political and industrial life. The founder and head resident, who had for years been troubled by the increasing race antagonism against the colored people, beheves that much can be accompUshed by a frank discussion of the situation between the two races if it be carried on with justice and goodwill; cases of unusual discrimination are often arbitrated and adjusted. The Negro Fellowship League, founded as an outgrowth of the discussion following the Springfield riots when it was said that the diificulty arose from idle young men out of work, maintains a reading room, a lodging house, and an employment agency in the midst of the "Black Belt." The League performs many offices for the colored men who have newly ar- rived in Chicago similar to those of the League for the Protection of Immigrants; in fact, the needs of the two classes of people are similar in many respects, implying lack of adjustment rather than lack of abiHty. A day nursery for colored children was organized a year ago because several day nurseries refused to re- ceive colored children on the ground that "the other people objected to them." There are likewise five homes for colored dependent children; two were the outgrowth of apparent discrimination against colored children in two state industrial schools receiving public PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 195 funds. It is becoming a custom, on the part of many institutions, to refuse colored children, with the cryp- tic utterance, "We have no room." In spite of various efforts on the part of colored people, the care for de- pendent and semi-delinquent colored children is totally inadequate, a situation which is the more re- markable as the pubhc records all give a high percent- age of negro criminals; the Pohce Department give 7.7%; the Juvenile Court 6.5%; the County Jail 10%. To take one record from the files of the Associa- tion: George W. was a colored boy, 19 years old, who was born in Chicago and had attended the pubHc schools through one year at the high school. He lived with his mother and had worked steadily for three years as a porter in a large grocery store, until August 22, 191 2, when he was arrested on the charge of rape. On the late afternoon of that day an old woman was assaulted by a negro and was saved from the horrible attack only by the timely arrival of her daughter, who so frightened the assailant that he jumped out of a window. Two days later George was arrested, charged with the crime. At the police station he was not allowed to sleep; was beaten, cuffed and kicked, and finally, battered and frightened, he confessed that he had committed the crime. When he appeared in court, his lawyer advised him to plead guilty, although the boy explained that he had not 196 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH committed the crime, and had confessed simply be- cause he was forced to do so. The evidence against him was so flimsy that the judge referred to it as such in his instructions to the jury. The State's Attorney had failed to establish the ownership of the cap dropped by the fleeing assailant and the hour of the attempted act was changed during the testimony. Though the description given by the people who saw the colored man running away did not agree with George's ap- pearance, nevertheless the jury brought in a verdict of guilty and the judge sentenced the boy to fourteen years in the penitentiary. When one of the men who had seen the guilty man running from the old woman's house was asked why he did not make his testimony more explicit, he replied, "Oh, well, he's only a nigger anyway." The case was brought to the Juvenile Protective Association by the employer of George W., who, convinced of the boy's good character, felt that he had not had a fair trial. The Association found that the boy could absolutely prove an alibi at the time of the crime but, in spite of vigorous efforts, have been unable to get him out of the penitentiary. The reasons given by the leading colored men of Chicago for the large amount of crime among their people are curiously confirmed by the results of this investigation. They contend that first, the negroes in Chicago are so limited in the choice of employment PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION I97 that they underbid each other and are forced to work for the smallest wages. This obliges the wife and mother to go out to work and the consequent neglect of the children leads to truancy, incorrigibility and crime. Second, that the colored people of Chicago are obliged to pay such a high rental that a large number of families are forced to take in lodgers, which results in much immorahty and indecency among colored people who would otherwise remain respect- able. Third, that the colored people are forced to make their homes in and near the openly immoral dis- tricts of the city so that the only white people many colored children ever see are those frequenting the vice district. Fourth, the disproportionate number of negro criminals is due to the fact that their desire for the friendship and sympathy of the white people is often exploited by white criminals who wish to se- cure shelter from the police. Some obscure colored family, happy to render a service to a white man, hides a criminal sometimes for weeks or months, and he naturally influences the colored men with whom he associates. As remedies against the unjust discrimination against the colored man suspected of crime, a leading attorney of the race in Chicago suggests: general- izmg against the negro should cease; the fact that one negro is bad should not fix criminaUty upon the race. 198 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH The race should be judged by its best as well as by its worst types. The public press never associates the nationality of a criminal so markedly in its account of crime as in the case of a negro. This exception is most unjust and harmful, the negro should not be made the universal "scapegoat." When a crime is committed, the sHghtest pretext starts the rumor of a "negro suspect" and flaming headlines prejudice the pubUc mind long after the white criminal is found. The colored man complains of race prejudice ex- hibited, first, in the readiness to condemn the untried negro as a criminal; second, in the refusal to give him employment fitted to his skill and capacity; third, in crowding the colored population into the most un- desirable houses in the city. He does not resent social ostracism, but he does make a vigorous demand for his civil and economic rights. All colored people are especially fond of music, but almost the only outlet the young people find for their musical facility is in vaudeville shows, amusement parks and inferior types of theatres. That which should be a great source of inspiration tends to pull them down, as their love of pleasure, lacking innocent expression, draws them toward the vice district, where alone the color line disappears. An effort was recently made by some colored people in Chicago to start a model dance hall. The white PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION IQQ people of the vicinity, assuming that it would be an objectionable place, successfully opposed it as a public nuisance and this effort toward better recrea- tion facilities had to be abandoned. Even the waters of Lake Michigan are not available for colored children who are not welcomed by the white children at the bathing beaches; late last summer one little colored boy who attempted to bathe was mobbed and treated so roughly that the police were obliged to send in a riot call. The investigation explains the presence of so large a proportion of colored boys in the County Jail on the following grounds: First, the colored children are forced to live in the very worst neighborhoods in Chicago and even there the colored families are charged such high rents that the house is filled with "floaters" of a very undesirable class, so that the children witness all kinds of offenses against decency within the house as well as on the streets. Second, the fathers of the famihes, because they are so circumscribed in their Hues of occupation, work for very small wages, with the inevitable outcome that the mothers go out to work and neglect their children. As a result, the colored children are underfed, irregu- lar in school attendance, make slow progress in their studies and drop out of school at the earhest possible moment. 200 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH Third, there are not enough places in Chicago where negro children may find wholesome amusement. Of the fifteen small parks and playgrounds with field houses, only two are really utilized by colored children. They avoid the other parks because of the friction and difliculty which they constantly encounter with the white children. The commercial amusements found in the neighborhoods of colored people are of the lowest type of poolrooms and saloons, which are artificially numerous because so many young colored men find their first employment in these two occu- pations. Perhaps the greatest factor of all is the diffiailty which colored people have in finding employment; and after an ambitious boy has been refused employ- ment again and again in the larger mercantile and industrial establishments and comes to the conclusion that there is no use in trying to get a decent job, he is in a very dangerous state of mind. Idle and discour- aged, his neighborhood environment vicious, such a boy quickly shows the first symptoms of delinquency and the remedial agencies which should be prompt in his case are the very weakest at this point. Added to this is the conviction held by many colored boys and young men that "the police have it in for them and do not accord them fair treatment." In suggesting remedies for this state of affairs, the PROTECTION AGAINST ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION 201 broken family life, the surrounding of a vicious neigh- borhood, the dearth of adequate employment, the lack of preventive institutional care and proper rec- creation for negro youth, the Juvenile Protective Association found itself confronted with the situation stated at the beginning of the investigation, that the life of the colored boy and girl is so circumscribed on every hand by race limitations that they can be helped only in so far as the entire colored population in Chicago is understood and fairly treated. For many years Chicago, keeping to the tradition of its early history, had the reputation among colored people of according them fair treatment. Even now it is free from the outward signs of segregation, but unless the city realizes more fully than it does at present the great injustice which discrimination against any class of citizens entails, we shall suffer for our indifference by an ever increasing number of idle and criminal youth, which must eventually vitiate both the black and the white citizenship of Chicago. CHAPTER Vn NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION Year after year it becomes clearer to the Juvenile Protective Association that thousands of young people can be daily protected from moral and social dangers only through the faithful administration of well- considered laws. Because the electorate itself is ulti- mately responsible for the character of executive offi- cials as well as law-makers, it was a matter of great interest to the Association when in 19 13 a partial franchise was given to the women of Illinois. Inevitably a small number of women did not want it. They were either indifferent to public matters or they felt that the possession of the vote would make no difference in the final results, but a very large num- ber were eager for it, convinced that with it they could secure better protection for children, better conditions for wage-earning women and a general improvement in civic affairs. That the women in Chicago as a whole realized the responsibility of the vote was evidenced by the large number who registered and voted at the first municipal election for which they were eligible. There are in Chicago approximately 42o,ocx) women 202 NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 203 who may vote if they so desire and of this number 218,000 have registered, comparing favorably with the number of men who are registered. Chicago women have always been actively inter- ested in the welfare of women and children and they have been responsible for the starting of many ac- tivities, among them the kindergartens in the public schools, school nurses, the Juvenile Court, industrial schools for dependent children, matrons in the police stations, women police and a hundred other beneficent undertakings. Whatever men may believe in regard to the pro- priety of the vote for women, those with the ability to see the social changes which are daily going on about us, are almost unanimous in the opinion that it is highly proper for women to engage in philanthropy. Many men, however, fail to see that the distinguishing feature of present day philanthropy lies in the fact that many undertakings organized and first main- tained by disinterested citizens as private benefac- tions, when they have proved their social worth and utiHty are taken over by the city, county or state: that thereafter they are managed by pubhc officials and paid for out of pubUc funds. This can be easily illustrated by many examples. Several years ago in Chicago the Visiting Nurse Association— a board consisting entirely of women— 204 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH iindertook to extend the advantage of nursing to the children in the public schools in order that they might decrease truancy, that the spread of infection might be avoided and that the children might be cured of the many little ills to which neglected children are so subject. The Association did this work acceptably for two years, but when it was gradually taken over by the Public Health Department of the city the women, of course, lost its direct supervision. Any suggestion that one of the women who had initiated the work of the school nurses should be elected to the City Council which is directly responsible for the administration and financial appropriation of the Health Department was, of course, considered quite impossible; she could not even vote for a member of the City Council. There is a fine distinction, apparently logical to the masculine mind, that it is most ladylike and philanthropic to direct the work of the school nurses when paid for by a private association, but that it is most unwomanly and reprehensible to direct the work of school nurses when paid for by the dty! As an example in the county we might instance the probation officers connected with the Juvenile Court of Cook County who during the earlier years were paid for by a volunteer organization consisting of women. Seven years ago these probation officers — the majority NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 205 of them the same people who had been selected by the volunteer committee — were taken over by the county and their salaries paid from public funds when they continued to do the same work and were still re- sponsible for the dehcate task of reestablishing chil- dren who had been paroled to them by the Juvenile Court. They spent many hours talking to the mothers and teachers of such children, but they were account- able only to the county officials. Any suggestion that one of the public-spirited women so long responsible for the work of the probation officers should be elected a County ^Commissioner in order that she might con- tinue the good work which put the Chicago Court in advance of all the juvenile courts of the world, would have been received with horror; and this in spite of the fact that soon after the county assumed the obligation of the probation officers the Commissioners were so bungUng in their management — discharging good offi- cers in order to fill their vacancies with men and women who had political "pull" — that the efficiency of the Juvenile Court seriously deteriorated. To illustrate from the state: over and over again IlHnois women collected data for child labor legisla- tion, making a study of the children who worked in the stock yards, in box factories and sweat shops of Chicago. These women plead with one session of the legislature after another for adequate laws to protect 206 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH such children from the premature toil which was so surely fatal to the future citizenship of the state. It required fifteen years of unremitting effort to secure our present Child Labor Law and even now the women are obhged to defend it at every session of the legis- lature, when special interests such as the stage, the canneries and the glass factories, continue to make at- tacks upon it. Any suggestion that these women, who are actively interested in the children of working people and informed as to their needs, should cast a vote for the legislators upon whom the responsibility for such protective legislation is placed, was long consid- ered utterly preposterous! They may work for child labor legislation, which means the collecting of endless data, they may make speeches throughout the state, lobby at the capitol during dreary weeks, but they must not vote for it! They may persuade reluctant legislators but they must not cast a ballot for them ! Public-spirited women in a hundred different di- rections are employed at the present moment carrying on philanthropic activities in which they are permitted to engage and for which they are highly commended by men. When, however, these seK-same activities are carried on by officials who must be elected by the voter, women are excluded from participation be- cause the same activities are no longer considered philanthropies but politics. NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTIOIT 207 Women with a sense of responsibility for pubKc affairs naturally resent having the door shut in their faces when the work they have initiated and long maintained is taken over into the halls of state, but this is what happens so long as they are deprived of the franchise. And if women are to continue their work for the poor, the sick, the insane, the aged and the children, they must have some assurance that the work to which they have given the best years of their lives will not be cast into the jackpot of political spoils when it is taken over by the government. There are certain aspects of city life in which the woman voter will be inevitably interested. Statistics tell us that one baby out of every five dies before it is one year of age. Why is there such mortality? Why is it three times greater, for example, in the congested nineteenth ward of Chicago than on the Lake Shore Drive? One reason is that the milk is bad and the foreign women are not used to our ways. In the old country they have been accustomed to have the goats or cows milked before their doors so that they knew the milk was fresh, but in this country it is very dif- ferent. They do not know the best milkmen; they are obhged to buy from the corner grocery where milk teeming with bacteria is too often sold to them. We cannot always teach them where to buy, we cannot serve them all with good milk nor can we properly 208 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH take care of all the babies made sick by bad milk, but we can have laws which shall require that the dairy farms, not only of Illinois but of Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, shall be properly inspected. A short time ago there was no appropriation for the inspection of these farms and from a preliminary study it was estimated that 10,000 tubercular cows were supplying the city of Chicago with milk. If we had a few women sitting as aldermen, perhaps they would pass ordinances which would prohibit the sale of milk in Chicago from farms which had not been properly inspected, for they would appreciate more keenly than men, the necessity of clean milk for babies. Of a certain Chicago ward, it is said that one baby dies out of every three bom because that ward, owing to the antiquated way the dty disposes of its garbage, is made a breeding place for disease, and the flies carry it to the innocent and helpless children. If a woman insists that her own garbage be dispx)sed of in a proper way, would she not, if she had anything to do with city government, insist that the dty waste be so scientific- ally disposed of, that all children in the dty might be protected from disease and death. In Chicago where a spedal commission has been appointed to provide for the adequate disposal of the dty waste, the new women voters have had an opportunity to take hold of this vexed question most vigorously. NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 209 Organizations like the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion are anticipating much help from the women's vote in Chicago, in securing both the legal regulations protecting children and young people who have fallen into difficulties, and those amehorating the vicious environment which threatens the welfare of others. Out of our knowledge of general conditions and in connection with the six thousand cases we annually care for, have come certain impressions regarding the inadequacy of many of the state laws and municipal ordinances. The conviction has been forced upon us that some of them must be amended if we would afford protection to women and children sufficient even to conserve their health and their virtue. In almost every case the laws concerned are those in which women are specially interested. The Juvenile Protective Association in its dealing with children constantly sees the need of a uniform state birth registration law. We know how many immigrants land in our country each year; we know their age, sex, nationality and destination; we even know how much money each one brings, but we do not know how many children enter our states each year through birth. It is estimated that 300,000 children under one year of age die annually in this country- measured in terms of total population it is as if every ten years, every person in Chicago were swept out of 2IO SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH existence. A large number of these 300,000 deaths are preventable, for we are told that '' public health is purchasable," and that "a community can determine its own death rate." The lives of babies can doubtless be conserved through effective legislation, which can be intelh'gently enacted only when based upon public records showing when and where and under what con- ditions children are bom, and the causes responsible for an excessive death rate. Without such records it is impossible to set in motion the machinery which will check this useless sacrifice of infant life. The Federal Children's Bureau is constantly urging that uniform birth registration laws be adopted by all the states in the union. It is possible to illustrate the usefulness of the women's vote in the further advance of compulsory education and child labor legislation so much needed in Ilhnois. Our present law should be amended at many points at which for the past few years it has failed to serve the best interests of the children. The age at which the boy or girl may begin to work should be raised. Ohio has fixed the age for girls at 16 years and for boys at 15 years. Reports from all sources indicate that where children are allowed to work be- tween the ages of 14 and 16 these two years are wasted, and this misuse of boy and girl labor is one of the most prolific causes of poverty. Because these children, NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 211 having no preparation for work, are restless and im- patient, it is found that in the first year after entering industry they sometimes hold half a dozen or more positions, continually changing from one place to an- other. The person authorized to issue employment certificates should be obhged to examine, approve, and file a certificate signed by a physician ofiicially ap- pointed for this work, stating that the child holding the employment certificate has been examined by the physician and has reached the normal development of a child of his age, is sound physically and mentally and fit to work in any occupation in which a child be- tween 14 and 16 years of age may be legally em- ployed. . Again, we should require that the child stay in school until he has found a job. Our law provides that he must go to a school between the ages of 14 and 16 years, unless he is lawfully and necessarily em- ployed. But this is difficult to enforce. He should be kept in school until he has found a position which should be secured through an extension of the Voca- tional Bureau already established by the Chicago Board of Education. Our Child Labor Law provides that school certifi- cates shall certify that the child can read and write legibly simple sentences, altho these are not required to be in the EngUsh language; that when a minor can- 212 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH not do this, it shall certify that he or she is regularly attending a public or private evening school. The provision as to abiUty to read and write simple sentences in some language is practically unenforce- able. A large number of public school principals un- doubtedly refuse certificates to children in the lowest grades who can by pressure be kept in school longer; but others allow any child who asks for a certificate after his fourteenth birthday to leave school, no matter what his grade. Figures compiled by the Age and School Certificate Bureau for 191 2 show that age and school certificates from the Chicago public schools were granted to 27 children who were only in the first grade, 67 in the second grade, and 259 in the third grade. While it is possible that some of these children were immigrants who had some education before they came to this country and could "read and write simple sentences" in some other language, the majority unquestionably will be illiterate men and women. The provision in the law that illiterate children who are not granted certificates must attend evening school is not well enforced. There seems to be no means of following them up after they have been given certificates to find out whether or not they attend evening school. Our Illinois law should be more specific and should provide, as does the New NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 213 York law, that children shall have completed at least the sixth grade before they are allowed to enter in- dustry. Again, the provision which prescribes an eight- hour day for children between 14 and 16 years of age, and prohibits work at dangerous machinery is fre- quently evaded, and any child who is large for his age can easily get a position by asserting that he is sixteen years old. A better method should be devised for enforcing the eight-hour law for children between 14 and 16 years of age. There are many cases of violation of this provision, the most flagrant being those of errand boys sent by their employers on long errands perhaps fifteen minutes before the closing hour. The boy may need one or two hours for the errand and have a long distance to go home after- wards. Boys are also frequently told to deliver parcels on the way home and the place of delivery is very often far from the boy's lodging. If the hours of work were absolutely fixed and the working day for children between 14 and 16 years of age definitely placed, as in New York, between the hours of eight and five o'clock, it would be much easier to control the enforcement of the eight-hour provision. We should have a school for girls who are persistent truants, for at present there is no place to which such girls may be sent, and we should devise a system of 214 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH transfers from one school to another, that a child may not be lost sight of so easily as he is now. We should require that a child entered at one school must remain there until the end of the term, even although he becomes 14 years of age and is eager to go to work. We should have visiting teachers to go to the homes of children as interpreters between family and public school. Sometimes a bright child will not do well in school; the teacher, unacquainted with the family, may be ignorant of the cause of his slowness. A visit to the home may reveal the fact that the child is kept up too late at night or is put at some occupation which deprives him of the proper amount of sleep, or there may be some other contributing cause. I recall one boy who was made to do the family washing every evening and naturally did not do well in school; another boy who was bright and energetic went to sleep every afternoon over his desk. It was finally discovered that he had been put by his father to help in a saloon at the noon hour, a service for which he was given a luncheon, of beer and dry bread. The principals have power to excuse children from school, not only for physical ills but for mental incapacity. Many times a child is excused because he seems too weak to go to school but, as he is never followed up, he is often considered by his parents NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 215 Strong enough to go to work. Such children should be under the observation of school nurses. It has been, however, extremely difficult for women without the vote to secure legislation fitted with any detail and nicety to the needs of children. This difficulty may be illustrated by the efforts of Chicago women, extending over a decade, to secure legal protection for children engaged in street trades. A serious defect in the Illinois Child Labor Law is the lack of protection for children who, because they are defined as " merchants," are therefore permitted to sell gum, merchandise, candy or newspapers upon the streets at any hour of the day or night. In several instances children have even been allowed to act upon the stage when they could prove that they were stockholders in the company and therefore, in a sense, not employed. For many years the Consumers' League of Illinois made unremitting efforts to induce the legislature to extend the provisions of the Child Labor Law to the children on the streets. All such efforts were defeated largely by those who claimed that in removing the children from the streets, we were taking the support from many widowed mothers absolutely dependent upon their children's help. To ascertain the facts the Juvenile Protective Association had its officers follow home 86 children who were found selling on the streets 2l6 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH and out of this number it was learned that, only in six cases, was the money earned necessary for the sup- port of the families. Many of the people whose chil- dren were thus acting as "merchants" were pros- perous, some of them owned their own houses, and one father had seven thousand dollars in the bank. Investigation also made clear the evil effects of street trading upon children. Physically it is bad for the child because of excessive fatigue, exposure to bad weather, loss of sleep and irregularity of meals. Morally it is. bad because of the encouragement to truancy, it induces defiance of parental control, creates a liking for the excitement of the streets, and makes children acquainted with all aspects of crime. Economically it is bad because it results in a distaste for regular employment, it allows small chance of acquiring a trade and it permits the child to drift into the large class of casual laborers. We have many cases on record where little girls who have sold news- papers in saloons or gum in the segregated districts have become so familiar with the life of the underworld that they have lost their standards and become in- mates of disreputable houses at a very early age. We also have on record many cases of boys who, through their work as newsboys or messengers, have become acquainted with the inmates of houses of prostitution NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 217 and have in this way contracted diseases or become depraved through such acquaintances. As we were unable through the legislature to obtain an amendment to the state Child Labor Law, a vigor- ous attempt was made by the Juvenile Protective As- sociation to secure a city ordinance which should pro- tect street children. For several years our efforts were frustrated through the influence of the newspapers, although one conference after another was held with the managing editors of the great dailies to induce them to give up the employment of children, at least those who were under twelve years of age. With one exception, the great journals of Chicago, at that time, did not feel that they could run their business without the help of these small children. I vividly recall a dinner given by Miss Jane Addams and myself at a downtown hotel to the managers and circulating editors of the great dailies in Chicago. From six o'clock until midnight the subject of the newsboy was vigorously discussed. Most of the men seemed reason- able on the subject, but one circulation manager be- came so truculent at any sign of yielding on the part of his colleagues, that the subject was finally left in the most unsettled and unsatisfactory condition. As we came out of the hotel at quarter to one, we ahnost ran over a very small boy carrying on his bent shoulders a great bundle of newspapers. In reply to the obvious 2l8 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH remark that here was a refutation of their assertions that practically no papers were sold on the street after ten o'clock at night, the newspaper men calmly re- plied, "Oh, of course, the bulldog edition must be taken care of." The Association gathered a great deal of material on the subject which, however, was printed by only one newspaper, to the effect that a recent report of the United States Government on Juvenile Delin- quency in its Relation to Employment states that a very large percentage (23.81%) of delinquents are children who have been engaged in street trades. This is borne out by the records of all the reforma- tories in the country. In New York, for example: at one time in the Hart's Island Reformatory 63 per cent of the inmates had been newsboys: in the Cath- olic Protectory, 40 per cent had been newsboys; in the House of Refuge 30 per cent of the younger boys had been engaged in this occupation and at Randall's Island, 70 per cent of the older boys had been news- boys. At Glenns Mill, Pennsylvania — a large reform school — the percentage is even higher, being 77 per cent. The Association continually pointed out that Chicago was far behind other great cities in the pro- tection of its street children. In England there have been laws regulating the employment of children on the street for thirteen years; and in this country in NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 219 New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, San Francisco, Milwaukee and other cities there are either state laws or municipal ordinances. When through the cooperation of many public-spirited so- cieties, the aldermen were finally convinced that their constituents were demanding some regulation as to the hours and ages of children on the streets, a final interview held with the mayor, the representatives of the newspapers and the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion resulted in the passage of a city ordinance which went into effect July, 191 2. This provides that no boy under fourteen years of age shall sell upon the streets after eight o'clock in the evening or before five o'clock in the morning, and that no girl under eight- een years of age shall sell anything at any time upon the streets. This ordinance, however, was at first so poorly enforced that the executive of the city finally gave the Juvenile Protective Association the services of two policemen whose sole business it was to enforce it. Largely through their efforts and through coopera- tion with all the philanthropic agencies whose officers are much upon the streets, the desired result was fi- nally accomplished. There is still, however, a lack of adequate protec- tion for messenger boys. An investigation disclosed approximately 1,100 messenger boys employed by the two leading telegraph companies in Chicago. One 220 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH company made an effort to safeguard the boys, to provide them with occasional recreation and with an opportunity to study telegraphy. This company did not permit any boy under i6 to deliver messages to a questionable resort or answer a call coming from a saloon. It is obvious, however, that boys over i6 are even more susceptible to such evil in- fluences. According to the statement of a manager of one large company, the average time messengers remain in the service is less than two months. Many resign after two or three weeks, and some of them after the first pay day. The investigator found the home condi- tions of at least 7 boys out of every 10, discouraging and depressing. Ninety per cent of the messenger service in Chicago at the time of the investigation was recruited from foreign families. The average age of the telegraph and messenger boys was slightly under fifteen years. Following the examples set by New York, other states should forbid boys under 21 years of age to act as night messengers. Until this is done we must expect that those whose business keeps them constantly on the street will continue to swell the ranks of the delinquents. At the present moment many women are much concerned for a better supervision of employment agencies. It is not uncommon for employment NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 221 bureaus to send women as domestic servants to dis- reputable houses. Only recently a young colored girl came to the Association and said that she had made application at such an agency for the position of lady's maid. She was told that the employment bureau had no such position, but that she could be sent as maid into a "sporting'' house. She objected at first to going there but was told that the wages were high and the work light, and she was strongly urged to take the position. If such employment agencies could be regularly inspected, and if the law were en- forced requiring them to give the names of girls for whom they had found employment and of the places to which the girls had been sent, no doubt a large number of young women would be protected. The State Employment Bureaus, of which we have three in Illinois, are all poorly equipped and compete against one another. We should have one good State Em- ployment Bureau which should be well equipped to compete with private agencies. There should be a Ju- venile Department with a trained person at the head to cooperate with the Board of Education Vocational Bureau, and this department should also be author- ized to cooperate with similar agencies in other states. All such improvements in existing agencies should be urged until such time as the United States establishes a thorough system of Labor Exchanges, such as are 222 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH already well under way in England and on the Con- tinent. Our Illinois law regulating the loaning of money provides that loan agents shall not charge more than 7% interest, and yet we find in Chicago, as well as in all other large cities, hundreds of loan sharks who demand not only their legal rate of 7%, but often exact an interest rate of 120% per year. It is exceed- ingly difficult to stop this practice as there is no pen- alty for charging an exorbitant rate save that the agent can be made to lose his interest and be repaid only his principal. It is, therefore, a gamble on his part as he may win a very large sum and, if he loses, it is only his interest and not his principal. The game, there- fore, is one frequently played by imscrupulous men and sometimes by women, who prey upon the credul- ity and fears of their victims. The last legislature enacted a law which provides that corporations may be organized with a capital of not less than $25,000 in all cities for the purpose of lending money on wage assignments, but in no case shall the amount loaned to one person exceed the sum of $250.00. Another section of this act provides that such corporations may lend money and take and hold as security for the payment of the same an assignment of the wages of the borrower, and may charge and collect not to exceed 3% per month as interest or compensation NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 223 for the use of such money. No further charge of any kind whatsoever or upon any pretext shall be made. Recently a young girl came to the notice of the Association who was employed as a stenographer in a reputable firm. She had had illness in her family and, in order to pay the doctor and nurses borrowed one hundred and fifty dollars from a loan agent, agree- ing to repay the amount with interest at the rate of 10% per month, or 120% a year. She kept up this payment for several months, and then because one month she was not able to furnish the required sum the threat was made that her employers would be told and that she would be arrested and imprisoned. When she appHed for help to the Juvenile Protective Associa- tion she had already paid $107.00 in interest alone, and it was only through our intervention that the pay- ment of an additional $43.00 cancelled her indebted- ness. Nothing, however, could be done to punish the loan shark who is still in business exploiting victims. We need in Chicago some sort of Federal regulation which shall provide for the large number of young immigrant girls who come to this country and for whom government responsibility ceases when they leave Ellis Island. They should be put upon the railroad train under the care of some official instead of being left, as at present, to the mercy of any white slave trader who may board the train, and can induce 224 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH the girl to leave it, or of the expressman who takes the unprotected immigrant and her luggage, whether she will or no, to any place he chooses. The Immi- grants' Protective League has many such sad cases upon its records. A new Federal station for immi- grants will soon be opened in Chicago, and all immi- grants arriving at the different railroad stations will be taken care of at this central point and kept until their friends can be communicated with. The Juvenile Protective Association also sees the inadequacy of many laws affecting even graver mat- ters, such as the age of consent. By our statutes a girl becomes legally of age when she is eighteen years old, and until that time we do not give her the right to dispose of her property, but we fix sixteen — two years earlier — as the age when she may consent to her own ruin. In seven states this age of consent is eighteen years; in others it is fourteen years; in several it is as low as ten years. Certainly legislation raising the age of consent would secure the cooperation of all right-minded women voters. One of the saddest incidents in the records of the Juvenile Protective Association is the following story of a young Bohemian girl, betrayed by her employer, for whom she had worked for a year. After he had urged her in vain to make away with her unborn child he turned her out of doors and for months she strug- NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 225 gled to support herself honestly. At the moment of her confinement she was staying in the house of a friend, and one morning when the family were all away at work and the girl was alone in the house, the baby was born. The frightened girl, wishing to take the baby to its father but fearing to be seen leaving the house with it, wrapped it up in one of her skirts and placed it on the sill of the open window of the first floor flat. When she went outside to get the child she found that it had fallen off the window sill into the snow. Half crazed by her experience and not knowing whether or not the child was dead, or even whether it had been born alive, she took it in her arms and left it at the door of its father's house. As she left the flat she was seen by some boys; they followed her and on their evidence she was arrested and charged with murder. Such an outcome would be impossible if we had a state law similar to the law in Norway which provides that the father of an illegitimate child must pay for the care of the mother before and after childbirth; also that he must give her a portion of his wages to keep both mother and child decently. This Norwe- gian law further provides that if several men are im- plicated in a girl's downfall and if the paternity of the child is therefore doubtful, all the men involved are taxed for the support of the child. 226 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH From dealing with many cases the Juvenile Pro- tective Association has become convinced that an amendment to our Marriage Law should provide for a period of ten days or two weeks between the issuing of the marriage license and the performance of the ceremony. The Juvenile Protective Association has had several cases involving a boy and girl who had hastily taken out a license and had been married at once. If some time had elapsed between the taking out of the license and the performance of the ceremony their parents and guardians would have known of their intentions through the publication of the Hcenses and would have been able to interfere, while in other cases the young people themselves would have recon- sidered. The girl should be required to appear in person to testify to her own age when application is made for a marriage license, as is the law in New York. Some time ago a young couple appeared at the office of the Juvenile Protective Association and told a pathetic story of poverty and incompatibility. The man had been out of work since his marriage; he was in poor health and unable to support his wife and child. It appeared that in the previous year, the girl — then only seventeen years of age — had taken a walk one day with the boy who afterwards became her husband. In a spirit of bravado the boy asked the girl to marry him. She replied that she would but NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 227 that his collar was too dirty. He then said that he wotdd see if he had enough money to buy a new one and, counting up, found that he had enough for the marriage Hcense and the justice's fee and would then have just five cents left. With this he bought a clean collar, which he immediately donned, the couple secured a license and were married only to bitterly repent their rash act in a few days. Women and children undoubtedly would be helped by a state law which should require not only a mar- riage hcense but a medical certificate showing that the contracting parties were free from disease. By this means thousands of children would be protected, for insanity, a high infant mortaUty and a large pro- portion of bUndness at birth are caused by com- municable diseases from which women and children are the innocent sufferers. One of the most pathetic sights in Chicago is the venereal disease ward for children in the County Hospital. In twenty-seven months, 600 children under twelve years of age passed through this ward — 60% of them had contracted the disease accidentally; 20% of them had inherited it and another 20% had been criminally assaulted by diseased persons. A state law in Illinois at present provides that no hotel shall harbor a girl under eighteen years of age who is unaccompanied by parent or guardian and that 228 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH any agent or hotel keeper who permits girls under eighteen years to remain in a house where prostitu- tion is permitted shall be liable to arrest. The owner, however, can be held only if it can be shown that he had personal knowledge that the girl was allowed in the hotel by his employees. The Juvenile Protective Association has many cases on record of young girls who have gone to such hotels. In one case, where the rule of the hotel was that the couple should have some baggage, a large number of suit cases were kept in a neighboring room in order that they might be lent to. boys and girls applying for admission to the hotel, thus keeping within the rule. Fourteen nations of the civilized world have pro- hibited all-night work for women employed in manu- facture, but the United States lags far behind in this respect. Physicians and economists have found that night work for women, with its loss of sleep and sun- light, is dangerous to health and militates against morals, necessitating the woman's enforced absence from home in the evening — the only time when the wage-earning family can be together. Industrial overstrain, for which this abnormal night work is responsible, frequently results in a ** lessened birth- rate, a heightened infant mortality and an impaired second generation." Night work for women in factories is prohibited, NEED OF FURTHER PROTECTION 229 and a fixed evening closing hour established by law in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ne- braska, and Indiana. Illinois has not only no law of this kind, but even lacks the mercantile half-holiday which pubhc sentiment has enforced in several other states. Illinois has no legal provision for one day's rest in seven and permits a ten-hour day and a seventy-hour week for women. For want of a legal closing hour, factory inspectors find it difficult to discover when the ten-hour law is violated. Night work for women should be prohibited in Illinois, and a fifty-four hour week and a legal closing hour established. Every woman needs a half -holiday in which to do her laundry work, mending and shopping, and thus be able to keep Sunday for church, for the parks, and for her friends. The ten-hour law for women at present operative in Illinois should be amended to include the above features. The need of a minimum wage law has already been discussed in Chapter III. There are many other suggestions arising from our experience. Certainly the woman voter has always been ready to defend the home from drunkenness and her cooperation could be depended upon to secure an ordinance making it unlawful to permit minors under sixteen years of age to enter or remain in saloons or dram shops and for minors to be employed to sell 230 SAFEGUARDS FOR CITY YOUTH or serve intoxicating liquors in any place whatso- ever. There is no doubt that Illinois must in time make more adequate provision for the treatment of inebriety and for the care of alcoholic repeaters by the establish- ment of hospital and farm colonies so arranged that every inebriate will receive proper treatment and custodial care, as is planned in Massachusetts; such as (a) a hospital colony for chronic drunkards who would enter voluntarily; (b) cases committed by judges or magistrates; (c) young drunkards placed by the court on probation on condition that they spend their probation period at this hospital; and (d) a de- tention colony for incurable non-criminal inebriates. ^^ The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago is \ confident that through the cooperation of the womagij voters in Illinois, intelligent civic action will be se- cured, which shall do away with many wretched con- ditions which so dearly lead to the immorality of hundreds of young people. Only by careful study of existing conditions and a sympathetic understanding of individual cases can we hope to minimize the dan- gers at present menacing children and young people in every large city. . ^ INDEX Abnormal children, percentage of, among those brought into the Juvenile Court, 96; an illus- trative case, 97-98. Adventure, spirit of, in boys, as a cause of delinquency, 94, 112, 163-164. Advertisements of theatrical pro- ductions, censorship of, recom- mended, 23. Age of consent, need of raising, in Illinois, 224. Ages of girls involved in bastardy cases, 142. Amateur nights at theatres, argu- ment for abolition of, 23. Amusement parks, dangers to young people from, 45-46; women police needed at, 47. Amusements^ commercialized, 12 ff. Argonauts and Orpheus, a lesson from story of, 50-51. Athletic fields, need of greater number of, 49. B Bartelme, Mary, hearing of girls' cases by, in Juvenile Court, 103. Bastardy cases, brought into Court of Domestic Relations, 131; disposal of babies in, 131- ^33i 134, 136; number of, tried in Court of Domestic Rela- tions, 135; results of study of, by Juvenile Protective Asso- ciation, 136 ff.; conditions lead- ing to, 136-138; occupations of mothers of girls involved, 138; wages of girls, 140- 141; ages of girls as compared with those of men, 142; nativity and parent- age of girls, 142; treatment of girls by parents and friends, 142-143; recreational possibili- ties of girls, 143-144; the men involved, 144-145; places of first meeting between parties, 145; knowledge of girls as to consequences of their act, 145- 146; ptmishment of men, by imprisonment, 148-149; court records concerning men, 150- 152; recommendations as to improved treatment of, 152. Bastardy laws in Norway, 225. Bathing beaches, women police needed at, 47; objection to colored children at, 199. Bedford Reformatory, percent- age of the mentally deficient among inmates of, 158-159. 331 232 INDEX Birth registration law, need of a uniform, and prospect of securing through women's votes, 209-210. Box factories, wages of women workers in, 89. Boys, safeguarding of, when new to cities, 153-154- Boys' Court, estabUshment' of, in Chicago, 124. Business colleges, discrimination against colored students in, 173-174- Business men of negro race in Chicago, 178-179. Candy, raffling for, by children, 43-44. Candy trades, wages of women workers in, 89. Capital punishment for juvenile adults, a case of, 107. Censorship committee, for passing on moving picture films, 16. Chewing-gum slot machines, a form of gambling device, 43. Chicago Leather Company, ex- ploitation of prisoners by, 102. Child labor legislation, part taken by women in securing, 205-206; advance of, to be secured from voting power of women, 210. Children, in Juvenile Court, Chi- cago, 2 S. ; number of, who may be decently provided for in American families, 92; treat- ment of, by Juvenile Court, 96; number who have p>assed through Juvenile Court, 96; ex- amination of dependent, by a medical man, 96; average of, not normal, 96-97; indifferent attitude of many parents toward, 108 fiF.; cases of sub- normal, 124-127; losing of illegitimate, 131- 133; high death rate among illegitimate, 135; delinquency among immi- grants', 160-170; needed ad- vance in labor legislation con- cerning, 210-213. Christmas season in the depart- ment stores, 63-64. Cigarette selling to minors, stop- ping of, 36. Cleveland, regulation of dance halls in, 35. Clinical treatment, of Juvenile Court cases, 98; of criminal women, 159. Clothing trades, wages of women workers in, 89. Clubs, for giving dances, 37.^^ Colored people, large percentage of jail inmates composed of, 170-171; industrial and social status of, in Chicago, 171 fiF.; early liberal policy toward, 172- 173; present tendency to em- ploy, only as laborers, 173; dis- crimination against, in busi- ness colleges, 173-174; reaction against education among, 174; discrimination against, in labor unions, 174-175; downward trend of, to lower kinds of occu- pation, 175; refusal of great cor- porations, department stores, INDEX 233 express companies, etc., to em- ploy, 176; employment of, on Pullman cars, but still more in saloons and poolrooms, 177; employment of, by Federal but not by local government, 177- 178; conditions as to colored men in business, 178-179; large proportion of real estate dealers among colored men, 179-180; housing conditions among, 180- 181; residence of, near vice dis- tricts, and resultant dangers, 181-182; opposition to resi- dence of, in white neighbor- hoods, 182-183; study of hous- ing conditions, occupations, etc., of, by Juvenile Protective Association, 183; percentage of women who are breadwinners, 187; irregular attendance of children at school, 187-188; discrimination against girls by employers, 189-190; profes- sional men among, 190-192; the church the chief factor in social life of, 192-193; Y. M. C. A. building devoted to in- terests of, 193; as social work- ers, 193; settlements in or near neighborhoods of, 193-194; day nurseries and homes for de- pendent children, 194-195; in- adequate provision for care of dependent and semi-delinquent children, 195-196; reasons given by leading colored men for crime among, 196-197; reme- dies suggested for unjust dis- crimination against members of, suspected of crime, 197-198; conclusions as to reasons for delinquency and crime among, 199-200; remedy to be found in removal of unjust discrimi- nation against, 201. Compulsory education, useful- ness of women's votes in fur- thering, 210. Corset factories, wages of women workers in, 89. Criminals, mistakes in our system of dealing with youthful, 115- 124. Dance halls, disreputable, as danger spots for children, 4; number of young people who attend, 24; investigation of, by Juvenile Protective Associa- tion, 24-25; disgraceful condi- tions in, 25 fif.; selling of Uquor to minors in, 26, 31, 33; sale of liquor the main object of, 27- 28; use of, for immoral pur- poses, 28-29; prostitutes at, 28-29; dangers from masquer- ade and fancy dress balls at, 29; desirability of divorcing sale of liquor from, 29; obscene lan- guage and indecent conduct in, 30; lack of light and ventila- tion, 30-31; evils of special bar permits, 31-33; dancing on the streets as an offset to, 33; supervision of, in other cities, 35; means suggested for reme- dying evils of, in Chicago, 35- 234 INDEX 36; women police needed in, 47. Day nursery for colored children, 194. Death rate among illegitimate children, 135. Delinquency, causes of, 5-11; spirit of adventure and, 94, 112, 163-164; among immigrants' children, 160-170; among col- ored boys and girls, 170 B., 199-201; resulting from street trading by children, 218. Delinquents, legal protection for, 94 fiF.; principles underlying treatment of, by Juvenile Court, 95; number of, to pass through Juvenile Court of Chicago, 96; percentage of, not normal, 96-97; establish- ment of separate court for girls' cases, 103; complaint department and out-of-court work of Juvenile Court, 103; cases of juvenile adults, 104; bad treatment of, by police oflScers, 105-106; injustice in regard to "mugging," 106-107; a case of capital punishment for juvenile adults, 107; parents and home conditions of, 108- iio; saloon keepers in league with, 111-112; courts advo- cated for juvenile adults, 112; our wrong system of dealing with youthful criminals, 115- 124; subnormal boys as, 124- 127; wherein lies successful treatment of, 127. Department stores, moral condi- tions in waiting rooms of, 52- 53; conditions of women em- ployees in, S3 ff-; salaries paid girls in, 55, 89; living conditions of girls in, 55-56; hours of work in, 56; openness of girls to temptation, 57-59; conditions in outlying or neighborhood stores, 59-61; stories of girls in, 61-63; horrors of the Christmas season in the, 63-64; vacation system in, 64; crying need of more lebure for girl employees, 65-66. Dependency cases, disposal of, in Court of Domestic Relations, 128-129; percentage of, due to drinking habits of parents, 130. Dependent children, medical ex- amination of, 96. Detention home, Chicago, main- tained by Juvenile Court Com- mittee, 2; the new, 5. Detroit, ordinance forbidding sale of liquor in places of amuse- ment m, 33. Dietitian connected with Widows' Pension department, 99. District of Columbia, restriction of hours of labor for women in, 93- District system, establishment of, in Chicago, 6-7. Domestic Relations, Court of, 128-129; disposal of cases in, during first nine months, 129; out-of-court work of judge's social secretaries, 130; bas- tardy cases brought into, 131. Drinking, dependency and, 130. INDEX 235 Eight-hour day for children, eva- sion of law concerning, 213. Eleanor Association, the, 53. Employment agencies, treatment of colored girls by, 171, 189; demand for better supervision of, 220-222. Epilepsy among delinquent chil- dren, 98. Evening schools, law concerning attendance of, by illiterate chil- dren not enforced, 212-213. Excursion boats, progress in reme- dying bad conditions on, 38-41 ; women police needed on, 47. Factory women, wages of, 89; pro- hibition of night work for, ad- vocated, 228-229. Field houses connected with small parks in Chicago, 49. Fisher, Irving, cited as to poten- tial value of a child, 133. Franchise, granting of a partial, to women in Illinois, 202; num- ber of women to avail them- selves of the, 202-203; just claim of women to the, 203- 208; lines for proving useful- ness of, 208-230. Frederick Douglass Center, settle- ment to promote better under- standing between white and colored people, 193-194. Fund to Parents Act, passage and provisions of, 98-99. Gambling devices, use of, by chil- dren, 42-45. Gangs, boys', 7-8; importance of making over the, 49. Garbage disposal, interest of women in question of, 208. Girls, separate chambers pro- vided in Juvenile Court, for hearing cases of, 103; concerned in bastardy cases, 131-146; school needed for truant, 213; need of Federal supervision of immigrant, 223-224. Gymnasiums, demand for greater number of, 49. Hospitals, disposal of illegitimate children from, 131-133. Hotels, conditions of working women in, 67-78; class of girls who work in, 68; wages paid in, 68-69; food of employees, 69- 70; sleeping accommodations, 70-71; long hours of work, 71- 72; excessively hard work in, 76; moral dangers to which women are exposed, 72-76; harboring of girls by, 227-228. Houses of prostitution, colored girls as maids in, 171, 189. Illegitimate children, losing of, 131-133; high death rate among, 135. See Bastardy cases. 236 INDEX Immigrants, need of Federal care of girls among, 223-224. Immigrants' children, crime among, 160; tracing causes of delinquency of, 160-161; con- tempt and disregard of, for their parents, 161-163; classi- fication of delinquents among, 163; ignorance of law by the parents, 165; attitude of police toward, 166-167; reason for exposure of, to peculiar social temptations, 169-170. ImmoraUty, not found to be the necessary consequence of in- adequate wages, 90. Industrial schools for dependent children, started by women, 203. Inebriety, needed provision for treatment of, 230. Jails, conditions in, 1 18-124. Junior League of Chicago, estab- lishment of rest room for waitresses by, 86. Jurors, women as, at trials of women, 158. Juvenile adults, court needed for, 112. Juvenile Court, establishment of, in Chicago, i; two great prin- ciples of, the valuation of the child and the abandonment of retributive punishment, 95; number of children who have passed through, 96; abnormal children to appear in the, 96; psychopathic clinic established in connection with, 98; ad- ministration of Widows* Pen- sion Act by, 99; establishment of separate chambers for the hearing of girls' cases, 103; complaint department and out- of-court work of, 103; responsi- bility of women for starting of, 203. Juvenile Court Law, passage of the first, by the Illinois legisla- ture, I. Juvenile Protective Association, organization of the, 5; aims of the, to remedy conditions re- sponsible for Juvenile Court cases, 5-6; establishment of a district system, 6-7; methods and activities of the, 7-9; in- vestigation of conditions in theatres and moving picture shows by, 13-17; investigation of public dance halls by, 24-25; efforts of, to do away with sale of obscene postal cards, 36; stopping of sale of cigarettes to minors, 36; progress of, in remedying bad conditions on excursion boats, 38-41; regula- tion of attendance of minors at poolrooms, 41-42; doing away with slot machines and gam- bling devices by, 42-45; investi- gation of dangers of amusement parks, 45-46; investigation of waiting rooms of department stores, 52-53; study of living and working conditions of girls in department stores by, 53-66; INDEX 237 investigation of conditions in hotels by, 67-78; investigation of conditions of waitresses in eating places, 78-88; arrange- ments made by, for providing for prisoners' families, 102; in- terviewing of boys in jail by, 120-124; Court of Domestic Relations set up through efforts of, 128-129; study of disposal of illegitimate children, 131- ^33> 134 ff-5 study of cause of large percentage of delinquency among colored people, 170-201; help anticipated by, from pos- session of vote by women, 209. Kansas City, supervision of dance halls in, 35. Kindergartens in Chicago public schools, started by women, 203. Labor exchanges, a Federal sys- tem of, required, 221-222. Labor unions, discrimination against colored men by, 174- 175- Lake steamers, efforts to rem- edy evil conditions on, 38-41; women police needed on, 47. Lancaster Industrial School, per- centage of mentally deficient among inmates of, 159. Lathrop, Julia C, quoted on serv- ice of the Juvenile Court, in re- vealing the wastage of human life, 127. Licenses of theatres, raising of prices of, 17; should be issued for the theatre and not for the person who operates it, 22. Liquor Dealers' Protective Asso- ciation, help of, in prevention of sale of Hquor to minors, 37. Liquor problem, provisions needed in regard to the, 229- 230. Liquor selling to minors, in dance halls, 26, 27-28, 29, 30, 31, 33; efforts of Juvenile Protective Association to prevent, by saloon keepers, 36-38. Loan sharks, legislative action needed concerning, 222-223. Lodgers, immoraUty resulting from presence of, 137. Loomis brothers, story of the, 115-118. M Marriage license regulations, rec- ommendations as to, 226-227. Maryland Industrial School, per- centage of mentally deficient among inmates of, 159. Medical certificates before mar- riage, need of, 227. Mental deficiency among women, as compared with men, 158- 159- Messenger boys, conditions re- garding, 219-220. Milk, question of securing pure, 207-208. 238 INDEX Milwaukee, Department of Rec- reation planned in, 35. Minimum wage legislation, 88; support of, by United States courts, 92-93. Morales Court, Chicago, treat- ment of fallen women in, 157- 158. Moving picture theatres, wrong- doing connected with, 12 fif.; investigation of, by Juvenile Protective Association, 13-17. "Mugging" of prisoners, injus- tice in connection with, 106- 107. N Nationality of men involved in bastardy cases, 150. Nearing, Scott, cited as to num- ber of children who may be decently provided for by Amer- ican fathers, 92. Negroes. See Colored people. Negro Fellowship League, the, 194. Neighborhood department stores, conditions in, 59-61. Newsboys, efforts for protection of, 217-218; percentage of in- mates of reformatories who have been, 218; ordinances passed relative to, 219. Night work for women in manu- facture, prohibition of, 228- 229. Norway, women juries to try women in, 158; law concerning illegitimate children in, 225. Obscene postal cards, prevention of sale of, 36. Ohio, restriction of hours of labor for women in, 93. Oregon, minimum wage law in, 92-93- Out-of-court work, carried on in connection with Juvenile Court, 103; in dependency cases brought before Court of Domes- tic Relations, 130. Parks and playgrounds, need of greater number of, 49; small number utilized by colored children, 200. Patten, "Basis of Civilization," quoted, 50. "Pluggers," for advertising dance halls, 26-27. Police; abuse of young prisoners by, 105-106; ill-treatment of colored boy by, 105-106; gen- eral attitude of, toward chil- dren, 166-167. Police stations, women police needed in, 47; bad conditions in, in Chicago, 104-106; the "mugging" system, 106-107; movement for matrons in, started by women, 203. Polish girls, employed in hotels, 68; large groups of, found living together without older women, 168. Poolrooms, dangers to children INDEX 239 from, 4; regulation of attend- ance of minors at, 41-42; em- ployment of colored men in, 176, 177. Posters, theatre, censorship of, 23- Prison contracting system, injus- tice of the, 102-103. Prisoners' families, provision for, 100-102. Probation officers of Juvenile Court, salaries paid by citizens, I ; taking over of, by the county, 5, 204-205. Prostitution, economic conditions leading to, 66. Psychopathic clinic, estabhshed in connection with Juvenile Court, 98; for study of criminal women, 159. Public Welfare Department, work of, in Kansas City, 35. Pullman cars, employment of colored men on, 177. Real estate dealers, colored men as, 179-182. Recreation, the search for, a cause of juvenile delinquency, 12. Restaurants, conditions surroimd- ing women employees in, 78-88. Retail Druggists' Association, help of, in doing away with obscene postal cards, 36. Retail Fruit Dealers' Association, help of, in preventing sale of cigarettes to children, 36. Retributive punishment, aban- donment of, one of the princi- ples of the Juvenile Court, 95. Rogues' Gallery, pictures of the innocent in, 106-107. Salaries of girls in department stores, 55, 89. See Wages. Saloon keepers, league between young criminals and, 111-112. Saloons, dangers to children from, 4; run in connection with dance halls, 25-29; employment of colored men in, 176, 177. San Francisco, experiment in, of dancing on the streets, 33. School buildings, waste in the use of, 50. School certificates, needed changes in requirements and methods for obtaining, 210- 213. School nurses, responsibility of public- spirited women for, 203; taking over of work, by city Public Health Department, 204. Shop girls. See Department stores. Sick Benefit Associations in de- partment stores, 56. Slot machines, gambling by chil- dren in connection with, 42- 45- Social secretaries, for looking after working girls, 77-78; work of, in connection with Court of Domestic Relations, 130. 240 INDEX Social workers, colored people as, 193- Special bar permits, iniquity of, 31-33. State Employment Bureau, need of a good, 221. Stockyards, wages of women workers in the, 89. Street children, demand for pro- tection for, 215-219; delin- quents found among, 218; city ordinances passed relative to, 219. Sub-normal children, as delin- quents, 124-125; treatment of, 125-127. Sweden, women juries in, 158 Swimming pools, need of more, 49. Ten-hour law for labor of women, in Illinois, 71, 80; benefits of, to hotel and restaurant women workers, 88; amendments of, needed, 229. Theatres, investigation of condi- tions in, by Juvenile Protective Association, 13-17; improve- ment in physical condition of, 17; story of theft by girls to obtain money to attend, 18-21; improvement needed in method of licensing, 22; ill effects of strain on the eyes and of dark- ness in, 23 ; censorship of posters and advertisements of, recom- mended, 23; abolition of ama- teur nights urged, 23; impor- tant functions of, when freed from objectionable features, 23-24; women police needed in, 47. Tipping of waitresses, abolition of, recommended, 87. Uniform birth regbtration laws, need of, 209-210. United Societies, lack of ooj^ra- tion by, in prevention of sale of liquor in dance halls, 37-38. Vacation system in department stores, 64. Ventilation of dance halls, 30- 31. Vbiting teachers, importance of need for, 214. Vocational Bureau, securing of Ix>sitions for children through the, 211. Vocational training of women in reformatories, 158. Vote, granting of the, to women in Illinois, 202. See Franchise. W Wages, paid to women in hotels, 68-69; of waitresses in restau- rants, 81-82; report of Conmiis- sioner of Labor on, 88-89; of women in department stores, 89; of unskilled laborers, iio- II I ; of girls involved in bas- INDEX 241 tardy cases, 141; of colored laborers, 185. Waiting rooms of department stores, dangers lurking in, 5 2-53 . Waitresses in restaurants, condi- tion of, 78-88; three-meal, two- meal, and one-meal, 80; long hours of labor for full time, 80- 81; large number of, without homes, 81; wages of, 81-82; nature of complaints by, 82; reason for becoming bold, 82- 83; avocations of, 83-84; rest- ing- time employments of, 86; efforts of Junior League of Chicago and of Waitresses' Union to help condition of, 86- 87; abolition of tipping of, recommended, 87. Waitresses' Union, efforts of, in behalf of members, 86-87. Welfare secretaries, employment of, to care for working girls, 77-78. Widows' Pension Act (Fund to Parents Act), 98-99; effects of amendment that families of aliens shall not receive relief, 100. Women, wages of, 89; living away from homes by, 89, 91-92; poor pay of, does not lead to dis- reputable method of living in greater proportion of cases, 90; minimum wage and limitation of hours of labor for, 92-93; higher percentage of mental deficiency among, than among men, 158-159; psychopathic study of criminal, 159; granting of a partial franchise to, in Illinois, 202; constant interest of, in welfare of women and children, and activities started by, 203; undertakings organized and at first maintained by, taken over by city, county, or state, 203-206; prohibition of night work by, in factories, 228- 229. Women jurors at trials of women, 158. Women poUce, need for, in large cities, 46-48; analogy between work of, and that of other women officers, 48; work being done by present force of, in Chicago, 49; increasing demand for, for protection of women prisoners, 154-157; movement for, started by women, 203. Working age for children, raising of, 210. Working day for children, non- enforcement of law regarding, 213. Young Men's Christian Associa- tion building, in Chicago, for colored men and boys, 193. 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