f UC-NRLF HN 7^ B 3 13D 3^3 GIFT OF =^ J>er>r' rr/-/^^a^ n^7^/<- 5 Consisting of CENTRE ^ BLAIR CLEARFIELD HUNTINGDON BEDFORD JUNIATA and MIFFLIN COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA 3 3 i , , MADE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION OF THE BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A. 'I Rev. Charles Stelzle, Superintendent G. B. St. John, Investigator UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE HUNTINGDON PRESBYTERY 19 10 ^^'^^3\'C' \ 404086 ■ "If ^^^ .^^Ah^^ - ^ I >'-~-^ ^l4^^>m State of Pennsylvania, Showing Huntingdon Presbytery Outlined in Red. ,' ' ' 1 , , > , > > i O 3 1 '5 > 1 1 > > > > ^uru^g 0f ||mttttigb0n pr^Hhgterg PURPOSE OF THE SURVEY Among the several problems confronting the Huntingdon Pres- bytery is that of the foreign population within its bounds. The Presbytery felt that a special investigation of the entire area should be made, and an invitation was extended to the Department of Immigration of the Board of Home Missions to conduct a careful and scientific survey of the field. The territory ofifers an opportunity for a number of special investi- gations. The growth and decline of many country churches; the influence of the movement cityward ; the buying up of farms from the native born American by either foreign born or those born of foreign parents and its great influence on the country church; the replacing in the soft coal mines of the American and Irish miner of twenty or thirty years ago, by the Slav and the Italian, and its influence on the social and economic life of the Presbytery as a whole, all would have furnished excellent material for exhaustive studies, and even in a specific study of the foreign problem, these factors must not be lost sight of, as they have a direct bearing upon this question. Interest- ing studies might be made of counties separately, ascertaining the causes of the decrease of population in certain counties within the past ten years and the growth in others. Many extensive studies might be also made of this section of Pennsylvania regarding such subjects as are being discussed by the Federation of Churches of Mifflin County, — as, for instance. Child Labor ; Women in Industry ; the Temperance Alovement ; Sabbath Observance; Recreation and Amusements, but it is with the foreign population within the bounds of this Presbytery, their social and religious life, their economic conditions and standards of living, their attitude toward America and things American, and the attitude in turn of the Americans toward them that this special investigation has directly to deal. 3 • • • .• I SOURCfi^g »F' INFORMATION ft *^ c t It was 'p.v-siol^ to^fiiM^ip. ^He'.G^risus reports of 1900, the foreign population of the different counties, the percentage of foreign born and those born of foreign parents, but nowhere could information be found concerning the religious and social life of the foreigner, or facts regarding the percentage of those using such social agencies as we have been studying, — the Church, the school, the theatre, the saloon, the Labor Union, the library, the club, the Lodge, the pool- room and the dance hall. Facts concerning schools in this section of the country have been gathered, their admission requirements, their attendances, their night schools, their trade schools for Americans and foreigners. We have gathered reports on vital statistics, on factory inspection, on private and public charities, and we have investigated the influence of social forces upon the foreigners in the Presbytery. As a result of this study, the Home Missions Committee will have on file information regarding Huntingdon Presbytery that will be available to all the ministers in the Presbytery; information that can be used in church work, in Sunday School work and in all social work of the church in connection with the foreign population of the Presbytery. Files have been arranged where all records and reports of location of foreigners, work done for and by foreigners in the Presbytery, may be kept, and these are so tabulated that they may be kept up to date, both by questionnaire sent to the different churches and ministers from time to time and by reports sent to this central information bureau by those in any way connected with the work among foreigners in the Presbytery. Every available agency was interviewed in the gathering together of facts in this investigation, — Government reports, city officials, newspapers. Churches, schools, courts, Labor Unions, Government officials, Boards of Health, Salvation Army, charities, both public and private. Young Men's Christian Associations, manufacturers, mining companies, including superintendents, bosses, and coal dig- gers, farmers and towns people in general. THE FIELD Huntingdon Presbytery is composed of 7 counties, viz : Clearfield (excluding the northwest corner), Centre, Blair, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata and Bedford, covering an area of 3,553,920 acres, or 5,553 square miles, about one-eighth of the entire State of Pennsylvania. Square Miles Acres Bedford 1,003 641,920 Blair 510 326,400 Centre 1,127 785,280 Clearfield 1,130 723,200 Huntingdon 899 575,360 Juniata 407 260,480 MifBin Z77 241,280 The surface of this section of Pennsylvania is exceedingly varied, embracing much of the rugged mountains of Pennsylvania, as well as some of the finest and most fertile valleys in the entire state. The country is rich in bituminous coal and the quarry produc- tions rank very high. In the coal mines and the quarries, the brick yards and the furnaces, most of the foreigners are to be found. The rich farming lands along the rivers and in the big valleys are occupied either by native born Americans or by an older German immigration. The organization of newer German Lutheran Churches in the rural communities, and the steady maintenance of the older German churches, the closing up altogether, or the gradual diminu- tion of Presbyterian churches, go to prove that the farms once held by American Presbyterians are passing into the hands of a German population which is apt to remain permanently rural. BEDFORD COUNTY The southernmost county in the Presbytery is broken by numerous ranges of mountains which form part of the Appalachian system. The soil is fertile in the valleys and the county is largely an agri- cultural one. Bedford County, however, has a considerable amount of mineral in the northern part about the Broad Top Region, as it is called, including Six Mile Run, Kearney and other places, where coal was mined as far back as 1760. BLAIR COUNTY While one of the smaller counties, Blair has the greatest density of population and contains the largest city in the Presbytery, Altoona. Here are located the car shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad, employ- ing, when running full, about 15,000. Here also are to be found the largest number of foreigners in the smallest area. Along the Eastern section of the county, in the vicinity of Williamsburg, are to be 5 found large stone quarries. Further north, along the same line in the vicinity of Union Furnace and Tyrone Forges, are also extensive quarries. Many of the brick works, employing as they did Italians and Slavs, have shut down in different parts of the county and the foreigners have gone elsewhere. This is the greatest industrial county of the Presbytery and here we find the greatest numbers of people who are dependent upon economic conditions. CENTRE COUNTY Centre County is the largest county in the Presbytery and is largely an agricultural section. Situated in fertile valleys, its farm products are large. Lime and stone are quarried in the vicinity of Bellefonte and at the extreme western part of the county in the vicinity of Winburne, Munson, Peale and Clarence are to be found extensive soft coal mines. CLEARFIELD COUNTY Next in area to that of Centre County, Clearfield has a mixed output of natural products, — soft coal and farm produce. Situated in the mountainous region of the State, the hills at the eastern sec- tion of the county, joining the western section of Centre County, yield a large output of bituminous coal and it is in these regions that we find large groups of foreigners. In the extreme north- western section, in the vicinity of Du Bois, the largest number of foreigners in the county are living, but as this is without the bounds of the Presbytery, our investigation does not include them nor does it discuss their influence on the rest of the county. Coal is mined in considerable quantities in the vicinity of Ramey, Madera, Smoke Run, Blain City, Coalport, Osceola and Sandy Ridge. In the vicinity of Curwensville, brick yards and tanneries furnish occupation to a number of men, both native and foreign. HUNTINGDON COUNTY Huntingdon County occupies the centre of the Presbytery and fur- nishes as products both coal and farm produce. The Juniata River runs through the centre of the county and some excellent farming country is to be found here. The coal mines are in the extreme south of the county in the vicinity of Robertsdale, Woodvale, Broad Top City, Dudley. A number of furnaces that formerly gave em- ployment to several thousand men have been closed in recent years. Broad Top Mountain in Huntingdon, Bradford and Fulton counties, contains an eastern or outlying basin of coal of 80 square miles in extent. The coal has been known to exist in this part of the country since 1800 and has been worked more or less since. JUNIATA COUNTY One of the smallest counties in the Presbytery, Juniata County is given over almost entirely to agricultural pursuits. i\bout ten miles wide by about fifty long, it stretches in a gentle curve between the Tuscarora and Shade Mountains from the Susquehanna River to the bend of the Juniata River below Newton Hamilton on the Huntingdon County line. No minerals to speak of are obtained in Juniata County, but, as has been stated, the county is strictly agri- cultural. MIFFLIN COUNTY Situated in the mountains and valleys, Mifflin County, the small- est in the entire Presbytery, is largely agricultural. Limestone for blast furnaces is quarried at Naginey. The Standard Steel Works, and the Logan Steel Works at Burnham, give employment to some 4.000 or 5,000 men when they are running full time. The "Big A'alley" in this county has some of the finest farms and the best stock in the entire State of Pennsylvania. Extensive tracts are held by the Amish in this Big Valley and a careful study of these people and their influence would be of great interest. RACES The figures for the Government Census of 1910 are not yet avail- able, but a study of the different counties for the past thirty years is of significant interest : 1870 1880 1890 1900 Bedford Blair Centre Clearfield Huntingdon Juniata Mifflin 29.635 38,740 34,418 25.741 31.251 17,390 17,508 34.929 52,740 37.922 43,408 33.954 18,227 19,577 38.644 70.866 43,269 69,565 35.751 16,655 19,996 39.468 85.099 42.894 80,614 34.650 16.054 23,160 DENSITY The total population for the Presbytery according to the Census of 1900 was 321,939, a density of 58 persons per square mile. The density of population for the entire State is 156.8. The death rate for the State of Pennsylvania as a whole for the native population according to the latest report was 14.3 per 1,000. The death rate per 1,000 of the foreign population was 22.6. The death rate per 1,000 of whites was 16.1 ; of blacks, 28.2. No figures for emigration can be obtained, but the general report is that there is a great movement among the young people, young men especially, from the farms to the large cities in the East, or to farms or the railroads of the West. There has been no great recent influx of foreigners into the Pres- bytery. Much of the foreign population, especially among the Slavs, has been here for a number of years. The Italian immigration is a recent one, but it is a transient one in many trades. The chief causes of the aggregation of foreigners hold true here as in most other parts of the country, viz : commercial, construction, and manufacturing enterprises. Very few foreigners settle in the strictly rural communities, but are found almost wholly around the soft coal mines, the furnaces, brick yards, tanneries and stone and lime works. Although in the largest manufacturing centers — Al- toona, with its Pennsylvania Railroad shops, employing when the works are running full about 15,000 men, and at Burnham, at the Logan and the Standard Steel Works, employing about 5,000 men — few foreigners are to be found. The predominance of men over women among the foreigners is very large. A great percentage of the men are unmarried, but many of the married foreigners who are in this country are here without their families, so that the problem to be met is practically that of the homeless man in a strange land. 'fe' The following nationalities are found in considerable numbers ^t5 throughout the Presbytery : English, German, German-Austrian, Swedish, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Belgian, Italian, Slav, including many divisions, Hungarian. Native, born of Native Parents (White) 248,702 Native, born of Foreign Parents (White) 37,169 Foreign Born (White) 23,481 8 COUNTRY OF BIRTH FOREIGN BORN County n o i "53 m 3 elgium olland S a •a a 1 "3 o rt a S 1) & M S 3 1 V o ■a a nS u 1) N 3 a 1j "(5 It I o ui 3 < X. w O 3 a o n 1 .Si '3 S' -^ 3 c/} O 3 •a □ rt o •a T3 H < < m ffi « W 179 fe fe o K P3 ?. H 45 69 'A 1 a. a. O.U' « P< tj-. 1/, O Bedford 748 107 61 1 8 1.57 9 2 S8 1 27 43 9 Blair 5,636 7 377 4 3 13 493' 3 28 2,262 319 8 64 25 982 316 4 80 3 68 2 254 87 73 55 4 87 Centre 2.156 237 3 . . 11 362 8 243 552 11 5 . . 263 67 7 1 35 .... 2 67 137 50 49 56 Clearfield . . 13.411 54 1,354 152, 3 25 2,807 2 348 1,192 1,130 10 26 41880 400 78 107 95 362 20 523 1,200 1,900 449 1 289 Huntingdon 1,089 2 212 14 3 1181 20 194 17 4 152 229 4 7 26 17 16; 32 22 Juniata Mifflin 119 348 .__. 1 _ 22 1 1 48 98 25 48 i 17 68 i ii 1 10 I i H ::i::::;i:::i-i 70 10 2 3 1 3 22 Counties NATIVE WHITE Native Parents NATIVE WHITE Foreign Parents FOREIGN WHITE Colored Bedford Blair Male Female 18.285 18,235 36,520 92% 33,319 34,239 67,558—79% 18,536 18,459 36,995 86% 25,196 23,575 48,771—60% 15,704 15,836 31,540 90% 7,557 7,905 15,462 96% 10,913 10,943 21,856 95% Male Female 875 827 1,702—4% 5,423 5,701 11,124—13% 1,664 1,697 3,361 8% 9,314 8,900 18,214 23% 870 804 1,674—5% 172 130 302 2% 389 403 792 3% Male Female 494 252 746—3% 3,277 2,352 5,629 7% 1,353 802 2,155-5% 7,929 5,476 13,405 16% 771 311 1,082—4% 85 33 118—1% 214 132 346-1% 1% Centre Clearfield Huntingdon . . . Juniata Mifflin 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% Total 248,702 37,169 23,481 i BEDFORD COUNTY In Bedford County, with its present population between 40,000 and 50,000, the number of foreigners of a recent immigration is not large. The greater percentage of the foreigners in Bedford County are found in the northeast corner in the towns of Saxton, Riddlesburg, Kearney, Hopewell, Six Mile Run and vicinity. Included in the numbers, as shown in the table, of native whites of foreign parents are a large number of German and English. These are scattered throughout the county, but not in any large groupings by nation- alities. BLAIR COUNTY Blair County contains the largest numbers of the most recently arrived immigrants of any county in the Presbytery. Large numbers of Italians have recently come in, settling in and about Altoona, in the vicinity of Williamsburg and about Tyrone. Near Williamsburg and in Altoona, a recent Slavish immigration is found. The Italians who were at Hollidaysburg a short time ago have now gone. This moving about is a big problem in conducting mis- sion work for foreigners, especially among the Italians. They are in one quarry in one county to-day, and either in another county near by to-morrow, or out of the State altogether. The Germans and Slavs and Hungarians are much less mobile than the Italians. The foreign population of Altoona is rapidly increasing. Italians and Russian Jews furnish, by far, the largest percentage of this new influx. The large numbers of Germans and Irish are an older immigration, and these so rapidly assimilate that they soon lose their identity as foreigners. CENTRE and CLEARFIELD COUNTIES In the two counties of Centre and Clearfield together, we find the largest numbers of foreigners, but they consist principally of the older immigration. The greatest percentage of these is Slavish, Letts, Hungarians (Magyars), Poles and Bohemians, Slovaks, Ruthenians and other divisions coming from countries bordering the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Some Italians are found in these counties, but they seldom work underground. They are found in the quarries, tanneries, brick yards and on the railroads. Many of these Slavic families have been in the region of Winburne and Morrisdale Mines for twenty or thirty years. Their girls have grown up and married coal diggers and their boys are now in the coal banks learning to dig coal for a living. There is not much shifting around among these miners and many of them would own property if possible. The more ambitious, however, do manage to either leave the mines to engage in some other work altogether, or try to invest their savings in a home, if allowed to do so by the mining companies. 10 General Distribution of Slavs and Hungarians throughout the Presbytery. Each circle indicates one hundred. ^^., •^..- « '; li The coal mines claim the foreign workers, as usual, in these coun- ties. In the vicinity of Houtzdale, Madera, Smoke Run, Decarrea, Blain City, Coalport, Ramey and Osceola, we find the Slavs; near Philipsburg, Slavs and Italians. Within trolley connection of Phil- ipsburg, at and about Winburne, are to be found large numbers of Slavs, including the many branches of this people. Extending along the hills, as far as Peale and west to Morrisdale Mines, including Munson and Hawk Run and in the many mines in and about these places, there are about 4,000 or 5,000 Slavs. Snow Shoe or Clarence has about 500 Slavs, a large number of whom are Ruthenians. HUNTINGDON COUNTY Nearly one-third of the foreign population in Huntingdon County are German and English. The remaining portion are found largely in the southwestern part of the county in the Broad Top Region, embracing the towns of Robertsdale, Woodvale, Dudley, Jacobs, Rocky Ridge and the many small settlements along the mountains in and about the coal mine towns. In the northwest corner of the county, in the vicinity of Birmingham, are to be found in the stone quarries two or three hundred Slavs. These group themselves with the foreigners in Union Furnace, East Tyrone and vicinity, in "Blair County. Mount Union has a considerable number of foreigners in the tan- nery and the brick yards — 500 Roumanians, 50 Italians. The Rou- manians, mostly unmarried men or men without families, have been in Mount Union only from five to eight years. Some of them, how- ever, have sent for their families, as they have come to stay. The superintendent states that they are not only a most desirable class of citizens, but that they are good workers and are to be de- pended upon. JUNIATA COUNTY Juniata County is largely agricultural and hence has few foreign- ers of recent arrival. A scattering number of Italians working on the railroads, or here and there a group of four or five families, con- stitute the foreign problem in this county. The county is confronting the question of a decrease in population owing to the moving away from the farms to the large cities of the country. The former large families of native born whites are being replaced in many townships by former hired hands or tenants. U MIFFLIN COUNTY The people in this county are especially interesting on account of the Cosmopolitan character of their make-up. Up and down the Big Valley are the Amish, with their "Old School" and several varie- ties of "New Schools." About the quarry at Naginey is a gathering of Italians ; at the Steel Works at Burnham there are employed some 4,000 or 5,000 men, mostly native born Americans, who come from Lewistown, Reedsville, and as far away as Milroy. Many of them worked on farms years ago, or ran small enterprises about their native towns. A study of the influence of these many factors, on the social and economic progress of this county, would be most interesting; a study of the Amish with their various divisions of modernism and acceptance of newer modes of living and of dress should not be omitted from a more exhaustive study of the sociological conditions of the entire county and its social life. Present General Distribution of the Newer Immigration as Found by the Survey CLEARFIELD COUNTY gi^^^g Italians Jews Swedes Glen Ritchey and Vicinity. . . . 200 Curwensville and Vicinity. .. . 300 100 .. .. Philipsburg and Vicinity 400 Ramey 600 Madera 800 Smoke Run, Decarra & Vicin- ity 500 Blain City, Coalport & Vicin- ity 600 100 Osceola and Vicinity 300 100 Sandy Ridge 100 CENTRE COUNTY Munson and Hawk Run 1,000 Winburne 2,000 Morrisdale Mines 400 Peale— Pleasant Hill 500 Clarence 500 12 100 100 300 #rsrRlBUTION OF ITALIANS jtach circle indicates one hundred resident Italians. Many transient Italians are located on tli« Railroads throughout the Presbytery. These have not been indicated. BLAIR COUNTY siavs Tyrone ... 200 Union Furnace and Vicinity. . 100 Williamsburg— ^It. Etna 200 Carlim — Covedale 100 Franklin Forge 400 Canoe Creek — Clover Creek. . 400 Altoona 200 MIFFLIN COUNTY Naginey and Shraders HUNTINGDON COUNTY Robertsdale 100 Woodvale • . . Broad Top City and Vicinity. Dudley and Vicinity 100 Birmingham 100 Mt. Union 500 Rocky Ridge and Vicinity. . . . 100 BEDFORD COUNTY Saxton and Vicinity 100 Riddlesburg and Vicinity. . . . 200 Kearney and 100 Vicinity Italians 100 100 200 100 200 5,000 100 200 300 100 50 100 Jews Swedes 200 100 100 100 1,200 NATIVE AND FOREIGN BORN POPULATION By Counties County Native Born 1900 Bedford 38,720 Blair I 79,463 Centre ' 40,738 Clearfield 67,203 Huntingdon .... 33,561 Juniata 15,935 Mifflin ; 22,812 X890 37,815 64,989 40,586 55,795 34,638 16,522 19,609 1880 34,100 48,882 36,708 37,918 32,784 18,003 19,087 Foreign Born 1900 748 5,636 2,156 13,411 1,089 119 348 1890 829 5,877 2,683 13,770 1,113 133 387 1880 829 3.858 1,214 5,490 1,170 224 490 13 POPULATION OF TOWNS OVER 2,500, IN 1900 Town Populat'n Altoona 38,973 Bellefonte 4,216 Clearfield 5,081 Hollidaysburg 2,998 Huntingdon 6,053 Lewistown Philipsburg Tyrone . . . 4,451 3,266 5,847 Native Born 35,672 4,027 4,771 2,850 5,828 4,335 2,966 5,638 Foreign Born 3,301 189 310 148 225 116 300 209 Wliite 38,566 4,025 5,029 2,881 5,989 4,317 3,173 5,731 Negro 406 191 51 116 122 132 92 115 INCREASE IN POPULATION Counties 1900 1S90 Per Cent Bedford Blair 34,468 85,099 42,894 80,614 34,650 23,160 16,054 38,644 70,866 43,269 69,565 35,751 19,996 16,655 2.1 20 1 Centre Clearfield Huntingdon . . . Mifflin Juniata 0.9 Decrease 15.9 3.1 Decrease 15.8 3.6 Decrease NEGRO POPULATION Counties 1900 1890 1880 Bedford Blair 499 784 382 218 352 172 162 587 801 466 184 315 170 169 577 483 Centre Clearfield Huntingdon . . . Juniata Mifflin 348 121 280 261 215 14 -rOFUL/) TlO/i C0UMTIE5 aumd T — r — r~i — r — r — f — i — f — i — i mi/t I amf! tiumm OEomo muH mim 3 i.^ JO ^ jf~c ^ I ] COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORTA- TION In an old history of one of the counties, we find the following facts concerning transportation : "In almost any given region of territory, it will be found that the centres or chief seats of the past and present population has occupied practically the same ground, and so general is this rule that where a marked exception has occurred peculiar and potent causes may be looked for as its explanation. As a natural sequence to this truth that the centres of population of successive races have been generally one and the same, it follows that the highways of travel in the past and in the present most similarly coincide or approximate. The lines along which, with roar and rumble the iron horse now rushes with its mighty load, making an old-time day's journey in 60 minutes, are almost exactly coincident with the first rude wagon roads of the pioneers of a century and more ago and also with the paths and trails along the water courses and through the easiest mountain- passes trodden from time immemorial by the moccasined foot of the red man. In one respect then it is literally true that civilization has followed in the footsteps of barbarism ; that the skilled surveyor and engineer have followed with scientific instruments where the native found the easiest lines of transportation." Since this was written several trolley systems have been put into different parts of the Presbytery and though the author of years ago states that "it is literally true that civilization has followed in the footsteps of barbarism" it is a significant fact that along these lines of interurban transportation, as well as along the several railways in the Presbytery, may be seen housing and sanitary conditions that would far surpass in its lowness of standard the hut, shack, tepee or whatever might have been the home of the savage mentioned. The community is well supplied with railroad facilities — a few trolley systems, good roads, telegraphs, telephones, post-ofifices and rural free deliveries. There are plenty of agencies to agitate and put through the best methods of transportation; the quickest and cheapest modes of min- ing and quarrying and tanning, but the agencies for the study of better housing of the man in the coal bank and in the quarry, the most improved methods of getting water to the house of a miner that he may maintain a fairly decent standard of living, the establishment of social and economic agencies for the uplift of the stranger in the new country — these agencies are indeed few. 15 RELIGION Perhaps few communities of the same area could be found in this country where there are more rehgious denominations. The general attitude of the community toward religious work is very sym- pathetic. Following is a list of the principal denominations found in the Presbytery : 1. Presbyterian 12. Friends 2. Methodist 13. United Brethren 3. Baptist 14. Brethren 4. Amish 15. Evangelical 5. Congregational 16. Reformed Church 6. Episcopal 17. Seventh Day Adventists 7. Roman Catholic 18. Lutheran 8. Greek Catholic 19. Christian Science 9. Church of God 20. Methodist Protestant 10. Church of Christ 21. African Meth. Episcopal 11. United Presbyterian From one end of the Presbytery to the other, the same conditions in the smaller towns and cities were found in regard to the Protestant Churches. They are the social agency in the town; the village or in the country. To them the townspeople look for what regulated recreation they have. In many places the Church is absolutely the only place where people can give expression to their social tendencies and desires. To be sure, some towns have a dance hall or two, a number of saloons and pool rooms, but these do not attract the best people. In one town, the men at the brick yards stated that the only decent recreation for miles around was "Church Doins." They said, however, in speaking of the Church picnics, that they are always small and clannish. The Methodist brothers and sisters did not care to have the Presbyterian crowd join them, and, of course, neither of them wanted to go to the Lutheran picnic or to go for a good time with the Baptists. "You see," said one young fellow, "the crowds are different, and a fellow, well, he just doesn't seem so awful wel- come, you know, in the other place, and a stranger ! — well, he — well ! I dunno !" This was in a town of about 1,500 or 1,600 inhab- itants. During the recent hard times many men were out of work in this town. There was no other agency in the place but the Church that could furnish relief for the actual suffering that was close at hand. Many of the men, when the yards shut down, had nothing; it being a bit hard to save up against a rainy day on $9, $10 or $12 16 a week, especially if the family happened to be large. The churches of this town came to the front and through the Y. P. S. C. E., the E. L. Societies and the Ladies' Aid Societies, they saw that no one in town really suffered from actual hunger or want. No city in the Presbytery, with the exception of Altoona, is really large enough for a Charity Organization Society, so the Church must take up this matter in as scientific a way as possible. In the Sociological Conference conducted by the Departments of Church and Labor and Immigration recently in New York City, Dr. Edward T. Devine, Secretary of the New York Charity Organization Society, in a paper on "The Church and Secular Agencies," said: "After severe self-examination and taking to heart the frank counsels of candid friends, the churches in the end are reassured and not perturbed as to their own right to be, as to the value of the goods they have to market, reassured as to the imperative need of the services that they alone are in position to give and of the fundamental methods which they have employed — that is to say, worship and prayers, administration of the Sacrament, exhortation, exposition and service. But although assured of the value of these things, they realize that there are new and large responsibilities and opportunities which are as yet unmet, that the churches, instead of concentrating their attention on the erection of a building and the filling of their pews and ministering to the spiritual needs of members, must lose their life in the larger life of the community that it may find it in the larger and higher life of that community to which the Church thus ministers." To be sure, in large cities, the churches have no efficient mechanism to deal with the many important problems which confront a city. There are other agencies for carrying on these lines, Charity Organ- izations, the Departments of Government, the Police Department, the Health Department, the Trades Unions, the philanthropic and char- itable societies that are carrying on a non-sectarian work for the general improvement of conditions. If these are understood by the Church and if there is a proper cooperation between the Church and them, each is helped in a way that cannot be measured. But in the small towns, in the villages, as we find them throughout this great Presbytery, these many agencies for the relief of poverty, for the correction of bad housing, for the probation of wayward boys and girls, for better sanitation, for decent recreation — for proper super- vision of amusements and for many other things, are not to be found. What agency, then, is to furnish the machinery for carrying on this 17 work which is really Christian ? Is it to be the school boards through- out the counties, hedged about as they are by politics — is it to be the companies operating the coal mines; the furnaces and the company- stores ; is it to be the local politician ? The people are not looking to these agencies. They never have looked to them to solve, for them, the problems that meet them in these small towns. They look to the Church, and what shall the Churches in the Presbytery do about it? As Dr. Devine says, the Churches realize that they have larger re- sponsibilities yet unmet and that they should not be too much con- cerned with the mere filling of pews. A Catholic priest in the northern part of the Presbytery had in his town, for his parishioners, a large number of Slavs. For twenty miles up the line, however, there stretched a series of mining camps operated by more Slavs. Many of them were living there with their families and the Church needed them. A special train was put on for Sundays, one coming down in the morning and going back at night. The people came to Church. No doubt the recreation did them good; the change of scene and the mingling together was pleasant, but what of the real good done, what of the life during the week in the forlorn little towns up the line; what of the condi- tions on the streets of the towns and camps that knew no street lights; what of the poor, unsanitary houses and the ignorance and sin and want? The general Ruthenian missionary of the Home Board said that when he went to the homes of many of the poor in the far away camps and towns of miners and ranchers; when the housewife in- vited him to dinner, he often asked to be allowed to cook the meal for himself and for the family. And they would watch with wonder the "Father," as they called him, prepare the simple dishes. They would watch and learn and admire. This was indeed a strange man who was able to teach them to live better, not only spiritually but physically. These people, then, came to the Catholic priest just mentioned and to his church — not he to them. And what about the standard and morals taught when they did reach the church? A man, one Sunday, after the service, stayed to drink beer in the basement room of this church, as was the custom. He drank too much and when his companions went away, they found him unable to walk and rolled him under a row of chairs at the side of the room. In the evening when the janitor came to lock up, he found the man still there. He picked him up, managed to get him to the front door, and pushed 18 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES BEDFORD CO. 1. Betiford 2. Cypher 3. Everett 4. Man's Choice 5. Saxttm 6. Schellsburg 2. BLAIR CO. 3. CLEARFIELD CO 1. Arch Spring 1 Ansonville O Altoona— l.-it 2. Bilger .1. Altooiia — -'iid 3 Boardnan 4. Altoona— 3rd 4. (~learfi,-l(i 5. Altonna— Broad St. t>. Coalport fi. Bell wood 6. Curvensville 7. Puncansville 7. Glen Hope «. HoUidaysbnrg 8. Glen Kichey 9. MartiiiHbnrg 9. Hoiit^dale 10 .Tuniata 10. Irvona 11. South Altoona 11. Hylertown 12. Tyrone 12. Kertnoor 13. Willianisbiirg 13. Madera ^ 14. Osfeola Mills ^ 1-5. Pine Grove J Ifi. 17. Philipsburg KiMiiey Jr • .rV- l.s. Wnibiinie CENTRE CO. HUNTINGDON CO. 1. Alexandria 1. •1. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Bellefonte BiiflFalo Run Center Hall Le Mont Moshannon Milesburg Peale Pine Grove Mills Port Matilda Spring Mills State College Union vi lie Walker JUNIATA CO. 1. .McAUisterville 2. MeCullock's Mills 3. Mitflintown 4. Port Koval 5. Peru Mills 6. Spruce Hill 7. Waterloo 7. 2. Birniinghaui 3! Cottage 4. Greysville .5. Huntingdon fi. McAlevey's Ft. 7. Mt. Union 8. Mapleton Depot 9. Orbisonia 10. Petersburg 11. Robertsdale 12. Shade Gap 1.3. Shirleysburg 14. Spruce Creek MIFFLIN CO. 1. Belleville 2. Burnham 3. Lewistown 4. Milroy 5. Mc\eyto\vn 6. Newton Hamilton 7. Keedtville 8. Vira him out. The man fell down the front steps of the church and broke his neck. We have reports from various localities where priests visit towns once a month or once in six weeks to conduct a service for the for- eigners found there. In Altoona, the Catholic priest is somewhat anxious lest there be too much proselyting on the part of the Presbyterian churches, among the Italians especially. The Methodist Church is conducting the only religious work for Italians in Altoona, tliough there are over 5,000 Italians in the city. The Christian Endeavor Societies of the city cooperate in the maintenance of a night school for Italians. They employ an experienced teacher, rent rooms and carry on the work of teaching English and giving ideas of citizenship to the Italian pupils. The two Sunshine Societies of Altoona cooperate with the Relief Department of the Salvation Army in looking after needy, worthy cases among the poor, visiting the sick, etc. This Alliance reported that very few requests for charity came from the foreigners of Altoona. There is a Railroad Young Men's Christian Association in Altoona, but, as the name would indicate, it is for the use of employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad and none others are allowed to join. There is a movement on foot toward the erection of a city Young ]\Ien's Christian Association as it is felt that there is a great need, among the town men and boys outside of the railroad employ, for the benefits that the Young Men's Christian Association has to offer. Even in Altoona, the largest city of this Presbytery where one might think there would be enough agencies outside of the Church to do the social work of the city, we find the burden shifted largely upon the 47 churches of 16 different denominations in the city. Local option for the country is being handled by the ministers' associations. Classes of young men studying civic questions, good government clubs, tennis clubs, are being conducted by the Church. Even night schools for foreigners have been put upon the churches of Altoona. In towns where social activities lack efficient leaders, what agency is so well fitted to take up these many problems as the Christian Church ? In Ex-President Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life a very important place is given to the Country Church. Among the ques- 19 tions included in a questionnaire sent by this Commission to repre- sentative men throughout the Presbytery was the following: 1. "What changes in Church methods are required to meet pres- ent conditions?"' A few answers to this question sent by the Commission to some of the men in the Presbytery, indicate their attitude of mind. '"Less stress on theology, creed and dogma — and more upon practi- cal religion ; take the Church to the people — meet them in homes and school districts ; better ministers ; the Church should be made a greater social center; more attention should be given to impressing the need of religion for the present life as well as for the next, and that "Faith without works is dead"; organization of more young people's societies; a more charitable and fraternal understanding of the social and financial conditions of the people by the ministers and ofificers of the Church; dying out of some churches, and withdrawal or federation of others." In many cases this question was left unanswered. The ministers or the County Superintendent of Schools, the merchant or the farmer who was answering the question evidently had no ideas on what changes in Church methods would be required to meet present con- ditions. Two other questions of special interest in this connection were : "What are the churches doing for the community life; its industrial, social, educational and recreational development?" "What more could and should they do in these lines?" To these questions, the answers were for the most part very unsat- isfactory. One man suggests that "they should encourage the very poor." Another suggests that the Church is now doing very good work along the lines mentioned. However, that some of those answering these questions realize what might be done is evidenced by such replies as : "More thorough organization is necessary — a closer touch with the real life of the people — more harmonious work." In this connection, a word about the splendid Church Federation of Mifflin County will show what this Federation is doing. The object of the Federation is: First. To express the unity and fellowship of the constituent churches in Jesus Christ as their Divine Lord and Saviour. Second. To bring the constituent Christian bodies into united ser- vice for Christ and the world. Third. To encourage devotional fellowship, mutual counsel, and 20 united effort, to promote the spiritual life and religious activities of the churches. Fourth. To secure and exercise a larger combined influence through the churches of Christ in all matters affecting the moral, civic, social, economic, and educational condition of the people, so as to promote the application of the law of Christ to every relation of human life. There are a number of committees having charge of the different phases of the religious and social work in the county. 1. An Executive Committee, having charge of matters pertaining to membership, business of general character, and all objects not specially assigned to other committees. 2. A Religious Extension Committee, having charge of the gen- eral condition and needs of the churches and of the non-churched of the community. 3. A Public Morals Committee having charge of matters pertain- ing to temperance, excise regulation, law and order, illegal sports and games, immoral plays, shows and advertisements and such other things as are likely to work moral harm in the community. 4. A Committee on Economic Problems dealing with all matters connected with the relations of labor and capital, the employment of children, the housing of the people, public parks and recreation, public sanitation and the best methods of securing the economic wel- fare of the community. The value of a Federation of this kind is obvious. The solving of the special problems which are discussed in these conferences are only possible by the getting together of those interested, of the assem- bling of all data and statistics to be had on any one given topic and by the combined attack against any given wrong. Duplication of work is avoided, overlapping of efforts and enterprises are done away with, ideas are exchanged, and men and agencies otherwise overlooked are swung into line in the forward movement for the betterment of the county. The other counties of the Presbytery might well fall into line with a movement of this kind. One or two of the churches in the Presbytery have opened their doors wide enough to let in a few foreigners — a very few to be sure. Some Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor have allowed three or four Slavs or Italians to join. In a few churches some of the foreign children have found a place in the pews with the other children, but where this has been allowed, the report comes that the 21 American children and young people do not really enjoy the presence of the alien and in some mysterious way the alien seems always to feel this separateness and soon learns to stay away. In a recent leaflet, "Volunteers Wanted," issued by the Department of Immigration, Charles Stelzle writes : "In view of this big foreign situation, the Department of Immigration of the Board of Home Missions is undertaking to enlist men and women for social, educa- tional and religious services among the foreign-speaking people of America, that they may avail themselves of an opportunity which is unparalleled in the history of the Church in this country. It is the purpose of the Department to have these volunteers for work among foreign-speaking people minister to those who are living in their own town or city, unless the way should open for work in some other field ; it is a movement for the rendering of an enlightened educated Christian service to those who are our neighbors. To this task, we must bring the finest devotion and consecration and it is worthy of the best we can give it. The problem has its romance and its socio- logical interest, but it has more than this — it requires a missionary spirit of the highest type." The foreigner in a new country where economic conditions are different from those at home, the farmer from Bohemia or Hungary, or Russia, suddenly transplanted into a coal mine of Pennsylvania — and a great percentage of our industrial workers came from the rural agricultural districts of Europe— has other things to think of than the Church. He is interested in living and trying to fit himself to his new life, but when he is to be married, or when he is in trouble, or when the new baby comes or is ready to be baptized, then it is that he turns to the Church. Using these opportunities as a wedge, the Church can push on into the life of the foreigner of this Pres- bytery in a very active way. Nearly all of the foreigners, when they arrive in America, are Catholic, but as a priest in New York recently said : "When they become Americanized, they seem to lose their Christianity." At any rate, given a chance to think out problems for themselves, profiting by the democratic education of their children, they often feel differ- ently toward the Church after a few years in this country and are apt to drift away from it altogether, and yet, as stated, when the special emergency in the family life comes, be it birth, marriage or death — for after all, these three are the big events in the simple life the foreigner is forced to live — he turns to the Church for help. If the Protestant Church can show that she can help, not only in the time 22 of greatest needs, but that she can help in the everyday hving, in conditions as they exist from week to week, then to her the foreigner will turn more and more. Times, by the way, have changed a great deal since "Years gone by,^' but in many of the churches the methods of that period used to preserve the church or the social center have not changed. From the pastor of one church in the Presbytery came the information that there was really no need for a social work for young men in his church, as there were few young men in the church, few young men in the town, in fact. A look at the street corners any night in the year, a glance in the poolrooms or at the bars throughout the town would have shown easily enough whether there were any young men in the town or not. One of the young men, quite "a man about town," states that no one really seemed to care what was done for the fellows of that town. A social agency or two had been tried, but owing to lack of efficient leadership had been forced to close. "No one seems to give a hang," he said. "A couple of weeks ago forty of us young fellows started a club of our own. We don't do much — shoot pool and have the magazines and have a place to go to — a whole lot better than hanging around the street corners, isn't it?" In another town, where the churches are absolutely the only social centers, there had been no church sociable for over a year. The church people do not want them, however much those outside may need them. The same church has not had a picnic for a still longer period. Such a tame thing as a church picnic, even the children do not care to attend. Small groups of people in the town get up picnics — the young women have theirs, the older women have theirs and the children can have one whenever and wherever they wish. It is felt that a Young Men's Christian Association could do a most efficient and telling work in this town. Every possible effort has been made by the Presbyterian pastor of this town to interest the people in such a work. Interest up to a certain extent is shown, but leadership among the people themselves is lacking. No one will assume the proper responsibility. Here, too, the young men hang about the street corners nights and the common interest, and the only common interest — and even that lacks leadership — is baseball. Everywhere the statement was met "even if the institutional church did not cost a lot of money, which it does, where would we get men and women who are efficient and who have a vision of this big work as a whole and are willing to take up such tasks as would have to be performed to make any work of that kind count." 23 While social activities in our big cities may be left to this or that agency while conditions,' economic or moral and social, may be made the work of special boards of investigation, while philanthropic insti- tutions or highly specialized bureaus may make intensive studies of poverty, or employment, or crime, of recreation or of school hygiene or municipal reform — it is impossible to think of these things in a rural community like the Huntingdon Presbytery through any agency other than the Church. The statement was indeed true that the Church, "ministering to the spiritual needs of its members, must lose its life in the larger life of the community, that it may find it in the larger life of that community to which the Church thus min- isters." EDUCATION It is not possible in a report of this kind to go into detail regarding the mental differences between the nationalities and races, their habits, emotional natures, imagination, judgment. No efficient work can be carried on, however, by a religious or social body that does not carefully study into this very phase of the work. Each worker should not only know absolutely his own field and territory and the agencies, good and bad, working for or against the uplift of the foreigners, but he must know his man as well — whether he is suspicious, credulous, whether his judgment is objec- tively determined or subjectively determined, whether the man to be reached is aggressive, or otherwise; whether creative or not — has everything to do in mapping out and carrying on any lasting or telling social work. LANGUAGES SPOKEN The languages that are spoken by any large number of people in the Presbytery are: English, German, Italian, Hungarian (Mag- yar), Lithuanian, and of the Slavic group particularly, Slovak, Bo- hemian, Polish, Ruthenian, and others. A large percentage of the people among the foreigners, however, are able to speak some English. The children attend the public school in the towns and rural communities, and there are no colonies of foreigners so large that they are able — as in the large cities and in isolated manufacturing and government works — to cut themselves off from intercourse with Americans from whom they must needs learn the English language. It was a revelation in walking along a country road in one of the 24 counties and come to the "Little Old Red School House by the Roadside" to find the greater percentage of the present day pupils Italians and Slavs. At their best, mining towns are not beautiful to look upon, and there are few centers where children have access to things artistic or aesthetic. The school-house ought to furnish, in the grey-drab ugliness of the life of a boy or girl belonging to a miner's town, a spot where at least reproductions of a few of the good things in the world can be seen and become acquainted with. In the sections of the Huntingdon Presbytery where most for- eigners are found, the dingy frame school-house seems to take on the general atmosphere of the surroundings, often on an ugly piece of ground, it stands grey and uncompromising in the minds of parents and children, a place where a certain few years must be spent till the boy or girl may get his or her working papers. Oftentimes, there is no plot of grass about the school — the rest of the towns have no plot of grass — why the school-house? The grey, soiled walls inside, often cracked and discolored, know no beautiful prints or pictures. Either there is no money for this sort of thing or indifference on the part of the teachers or principals may be put down as the cause of their throwing away the splendid opportunity of bringing cheer to the dreary life of the child. In the larger cities throughout the Presbytery most excellent and attractive schools are to be found. In some cases, attractive buildings have been erected near mines or other enterprises as the result of the influence of a mine superintendent or public-spirited citizens who have realized the true commercial value, if nothing more, of good school- houses. It is not necessary to enter into a discussion of the politics of the Pennsylvania school system. This is a matter of general public knowledge. One has only to visit a few schools to realize the ineffec- tiveness in a mining town of putting in charge of a large school, many of the pupils being boys 13, 14, 15 or 16 years old, a young, inex- perienced woman of between 18 and 23 years of age. There is no room in this report to discuss the immense value of vocational training in the form of trade schools — shop schools — or even manual training centers. This phase of the educational question is the main plank of the platform of all present-day educational dis- cussions and conventions ; vocational training and the finding for the graduate of such training schools, the place that he has been prepared to fill. 25 If, by chance, an ambitious boy from a mining camp or town manages to pass through High School, what is open to him at the other end ? He goes to the city — for there is nothing left for him at home but the mines — where he enters into competition with other boys also graduated from High School who have known the city and have influence there, whereas, if he had been properly trained, he might have found in his native town a place worthy of his ability. In Altoona, there has just been established an evening trade school in connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad shops. This will in- fluence very few of the foreigners in the vicinity, however. The Pennsylvania Reformatory at Huntingdon offers some of the best courses in trades in the country. The boys from ill-managed homes, which furnish the large percentage of inmates of the institution, are given a chance "when sent up" of learning a trade that they cannot possibly learn on the outside under the present educational system in two or three years, a trade whereby they may make an excellent living when released. Would that more boys could secure, at the expense of the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, an equally good industrial training, without being sent to the Reformatory. The teacher in any community ought to be of the greatest help to the minister of that community. If the teacher is going to conduct work with any degree of efficiency whatever, he or she must have as thorough a knowledge of his or her field as possible. He must not only know the individual pupil with his individual peculiarities and temperament, but he must know the general make-up of the com- munity, the economic, social and moral standards and conditions of the homes from which his pupils come. The greatest amount of cooperation between the ministers' asso- ciations and the school authorities should in every case be fostered and maintained. When economic conditions in any way permit, the foreign parents in this country are very ambitious for their children. The Jewish parents are no doubt the most ambitious of all, surpassing even the average American born parent. Of the nationality that is found in the foreign centers here, the Italian comes next, and the Slav, as a big division, last, though there are notable exceptions to this last classification. The Bohemians, for instance, and the Poles, in many cases, have shown a remarkable willingness to sacrifice much that their children may have the advantage that they did not have and strive to keep them in school as long as possible. In Altoona, out of 6,345 pupils in the public schools there are over 26 mtiTihmH mmm ILLITERffCV - RBTE - FIK-IOOO rwnVE WHITE nifflVE PflKflR flftTIVE riHIIE fflHEI&fl FflBEflTJ fOREI&fl IrtHlTE 250 Italians. The school authorities state that special care has been experienced in providing them with efficient teachers and giving them opportunity to mix with the American pupils. As the Italians have been bringing their families to this country for only the past six or eight years in Altoona and those children are usually small, none as yet have reached the High School. The Superintendent of Schools states, however, that in six or eight years there will no doubt be many Italians attending High School. No other one agency exerts such a large influence among our foreigners as the public schools. Life is dififerent in this country from that in Italy or Russia or Poland or Bohemia. The father who was wont to work at home and influence greatly the family life and thought, now works in the mine or the factory and is away from home long hours. The children receive from the public schools their ideas and ways American. Soon an air of superiority over the parent is assumed by the boy or girl of 12 or 14 years old. They know English. They can read and write. They are able to read to the parents at night the English books which they take home from school. They are Americans — the parents are apt to remain foreigners. The churches in this Presbytery should have a large part to play in seeing that these schools are efficient. Through their influence with school boards and city and town politics, they should endeavor to choose men and women to represent the people in educational matters who realize the vast influence that the schools and their general efficiency have in the community. TOTAL ILLITERATE TEN YEARS OF AGE AND OVER County Bedford . . Blair Centre . . . . Clearfield .. Huntingdon Juniata . . . Mifflin Total Populat'n 39,468 85,099 42.894 80,614 34,650 16.054 23,160 Native Native Aggreg'e White White Illiterate Native Foreign Parents Parents 2,154 1,729 84 3,156 1,747 196 1,478 1,082 82 4,214 1,021 303 1,288 831 60 481 431 15 580 518 18 Foreign White 1 225 ,150 244 ,869 347 23 19 27 VITAL FORCES Physicians in the Presbytery report that the death rate among for- eigners is very high, especially among children. While this, in a measure, is offset by an exceedingly high birth rate among these alien people, still the child of the foreigners here has as much right to live as has an other child. Ignorance on the part of mothers concerning the care of young children, improper and poorly cooked foods, superstitious beliefs and practices during times of sickness are often the cause of this high rate of mortality. When young girls and children have to carry heavy pails of water, five or six blocks, for the usages in the household ; when young boys leave school to work in mines when they are 10, 11, or 12 years old; when these same boys are found coming home at the end of the shift, smoking a corn-cob pipe or chewing tobacco — when a few facts like these are considered, it is not to be wondered at that in a few years the death rate of the children of these boys and girls will be high. A miner in Bedford County asked if it seemed queer that there was a lot of sickness when one stopped to think about the cold mornings when it was necessary to shovel the snow out of the bedrooms that had drifted in through the cracks of some of the company-houses. The wife of a miner asked if it was any wonder that the people of her town were sick when their only water supply was the creek that ran through the middle of the town. To be sure, the question has two sides. The superintendent of a large coal mine said that it was somewhat discouraging to fix up the houses in his town, which he was trying to do, and then during some Saturday night carousal to have a gang of Italians or Slavish miners shoot out all the windows and break up the place in general. This was in a "dry" town. Without doubt, this question of the vital forces in the foreign communities throughout the Presbytery is the most important one of the entire social problem; it is the end, really, of all the other forces at work, either for the upbuilding or the degradation of the foreigner and his life in this section of Pennsylvania. This is the measurable result of the housing conditions : of the educational sys- tem and to what extent it has been made to fit the needs of the community, of the social life of the people, their recreation, their amusements, their crimes, of their economic life and of their religious life. 28 STANDARD OF LIVING There is not space in this report to enter into a careful analysis of the quality and amount of foods used in the foreign families in this vicinity. One has only to make a few visits to typical homes to see that life is maintained on the simplest of foods. There is no money for luxuries nor unessentials in these households. Food in quantities sufficient to maintain the strength necessary for the hard labor they have to perform is the main point at issue. In New York State a careful study of standards of living was made recently and as a result a statement was issued that no average family of five members could maintain a decent standard of living under $700 a year. While the matter of rent is a less serious prob- lem here than in New York, as far as actual expenditure goes, the question of food is a more serious one and the majority of families live on incomes far below the sum mentioned. Plenty of instances are given throughout the Presbytery where families live on $5, $6, $8, or $10 a week. This is true not in the rural communities where a man may eke out a living for his family with a small garden, or where he owns land producing for him part of the family living, but in the mining sections where everything in the way of food and clothing is paid for from the weekly envelope or envelopes of the wage-earning members of the family. The population of the Presbytery is not now nor will it soon become homogeneous. The invaders and the invaded are separate, not only geographically, but by standards and customs that do not tend toward unity. The invaders are scattered in small concentrated groups throughout the different counties, which fact tends to make them hold to their own ideals of life and civic, religious and social stand- ards. The character of the population of the mining towns and camps has changed as the general population of the country has changed. The Irish and German immigration into this country has been dis- placed by the Italian, Hungarian, Russian and the character of the mine has also changed. The old immigrants who are left in the camps and small mining settlements are not holding to the standards of living maintained thirty years ago. The more ambitious and thrifty have emigrated or become leaders while the lazy or incompetent have remained, mixing with the newer immigration which is mentally in- ferior. This tends to lower the entire atmosphere of the sections where this state exists. The doctor in a mining camp reported that he had worked in the 29 slums and dark places of our big cities, that he had had years of experience in conditions good and bad, but that he never found condi- tions worse than in the little mining town where he now worked. He related a typical case of a Slavish family which had sent for him one night. He arrived at the house, opened the front door and found twelve people sleeping in the front room with the windows tightly shut — the father and mother and the children, along with several boarders. One of the boys of the family was upstairs in the loft, sick with typhoid. The windows of the room had not been opened for weeks and the boy had not had a bath since the fever overtook him. On the table in the same room, the oldest daughter, a girl of nineteen, was laid out, having died a day or so before of the fever. It was necessary for the doctor to cut a hole in the floor and lower her with the reins from his harness to the room below before he could attend to the sick lad above. He said that the girl need not have died. It is in such families as these that Huntingdon Presbytery should be more interested. In the case of single men or men whose families are in Europe and whose sole object in coming to America is to save every possible cent to send home, as many as eight or ten, or more, are to be found occupying one room. Many beds are occupied the entire twenty- four hours. When the day shift turns out of their beds, the night shift turns into them. A boarding house boss renting the four or five rooms available either in the single or the half of the double house finds accommoda- tions for from 18 to 35 men, but they must live under conditions unfavorable to the existence of human beings. In maintaining the standard of living, the native and Irish families find that the necessi- ties of life increase as does the income, while in foreign families, especially Italian, Austrian and Russian, the tendency is to save even though a very low standard of living is maintained. Most of the lodgers and boarders are to be found among this latter class, as are also the workers among the children. The large majority of them, however, live on the barest margin, and in case of sickness or enforced idleness at once become a charge either upon friends and relatives or upon the public. In the small settlements near Williamsburg, the foreigners are much isolated. Living in the prevailing dismal, cheerless company- houses in these little unattractive, unsanitary communities, the people are establishing in America a rural peasant class, that will be ex- tremely difficult to socialize in years to come. At Williamsburg, an 30 Italian Bank conducts business with the Italians and other foreigners, to some extent, in the vicinity. They state that a good business is carried on, as they also act as steamship agents and add that the foreigners in that section of the county have evidently come to stay. Many of the married men are sending for their families, or young fellows are sending back to the old country for wives in order to set up a home in this new country. How attractive a home this will be, or how healthful its surroundings, how good the water supply, how good and efficient the agencies for the prevention of crime, how good the educational advantages, how great his religious privileges, depend upon the people of Huntingdon Presbytery. HOUSING From one end of the Presbytery to the other, the housing conditions among the foreigners are nearly identical. They are company-houses, these homes of our foreign population, as well as the homes of many of the American miners. Rows upon rows of cheaply built, small single or double houses, built on piles, with the wind sweeping under them, they straggle up and down the cheerless hillsides near the mines or furnaces. The stumps of trees that have long since been sacrificed to commercial ends are the only decoration of the streets and yards in most places. In one of these cheap, single, unpainted, forlorn looking houses, or in the three or four rooms constituting one-half of the double house, also unpainted and dismal, we expect the newly arrived foreigner to conform to things and ideals American, to be a useful, intelligent citizen of the big "Commonwealth" — that great commonwealth that we see so largely written over the State covering the many features of the Government. It is ever "for the good of our great commonwealth" that this law is passed or that law is turned down. It is always for the good of the great commonwealth that this franchise is granted or refused, that this night industry for children, this permission given to women to work long hours at hard labor is allowed ; but perhaps these foreign- ers do not belong to this great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Per- haps the fact that many thousands of foreign coal miners do not pay taxes because they are not allowed to own property, perhaps owing to the fact that many of these coal diggers have lived in this country, fifteen, twenty, thirty years, without becoming citizens, simply because no one ever took the trouble to tell them how to go about it ; 31 perhaps because realizing that, somewhere high up, some place where influence and money and brains counted, something was radically wrong or conditions would not be what they are, and in some cases because others object to them because they are trying to work out some plan to better their condition, either by better pay or shorter hours or by a square deal — perhaps because of these things, these foreigners are not a part of the great commonwealth after all. In some sections no water is provided for the use of the occupants of the houses, not even a pump in the yard. Occupants of whole rows of houses find it necessary to carry water seven or eight hundred feet or more for use in the house. Is it any wonder that tired miners sometimes turn in at night with some of the grime of the mines still on them ? In the Winter, it was stated that snow could be melted for the water to be used in washing, etc., but the drinking water must be carried. To the women and girls is left this task. For these places of abode, the people pay from $5 to $8 per month, and in many places it is obligatory that they occupy company-houses. Not only do companies build the houses as unattractive, seemingly, as possible, but streets and alleys are arranged in towns often times in the worst way. Blocks are built one house deep ; the front door and front yards of one facing the back yards and objectionable buildings of the block in front of it. Coal bins are placed in many instances at one side of the front gate in order that delivery from the mines may be made as easy as possible. Civic pride is entirely unthought of here among the foreigner of the Presbytery. The houses do not belong to them — there is no in- centive for having attractive yards and clean streets even though there were time for such things and a knowledge of ways and means of producing such results. Housing reform agencies are not coming into a community having such a comparatively small problem as Huntingdon Presbytery pre- sents. No other agency is especially interested in this phase of the social life of the foreigner. There is no machinery by which any reform may be started other than the Church. Here again she has the opportunity to show her efficiency in a very live, tangible form. ECONOMIC LIFE It was difificult to obtain reliable facts regarding the political sym- pathies of the foreigners in the Presbytery. A general feeling of 32 unrest, however, is felt in most places. Something seems to be wrong somewhere with the general order of affairs. It does not seem natural to a miner that he should have to work day in and day out, month in and month out, and year in and year out, under conditions not only unlovely and depressing, unsanitary and unhealthful, but oftentimes dangerous and unsafe. When he sees nothing before him for himself or for his children, no economic security of any kind for a future day; no special joy in living for the present moment, is it any wonder that, when the labor agitator comes around or the political agitator, or in fact any one enough interested in them to inquire into their economic or social well-being, he stops to listen and to wonder whether this is really the way out of the difficulty? When the mines are running full time, the miner makes good wages — sometimes as high as $4 or $4.50 per day. Many of the mines are apt to be closed down, however, for several months in the year, or work only certain days during the week, thus making the average weekly wage low. In some sections of the soft coal region the farmer or the farmer's boys come to the mines to work during the Winter. They care nothing for the Union and work for smaller wages than the regular skilled miner. They can afford to do so owing to the fact that their entire living is not obtained from the mine. Toward this class of labor the regular miners feel very bitter. Among the coal miners, the hours of labor have been cut to eight hours a day. In many places, the day in the mines begins at 7 A. M., and by taking half an hour for lunch, the men are able to get away at 3.30 They are through work for the day and can go home, but oftentimes the home oft'ers no better attractions than those found in the mine. The tired wife and mother, taking care of the usual large family, is often ignorant of the most simple methods of housekeeping and so has little time and less strength to make the shack attractive for the men and boys. Work is hard enough at best, but amid the unpleasant surroundings of a mining town, as one finds it in certain sections of the Presbytery, the task of keeping clothes mended, of cooking meals and keeping things as clean as possible, is doubly hard. With the inevitable life following marriage to a miner, it is little wonder that so many of the American girls choose to go to the city to work in department stores and restaurants, rather than stay in the mining camp to follow in the footsteps of the women they have seen all their lives. It is different with the girls in foreign families. To them, marriage seems to be an accepted instit?ution. They marry young and as a rule have large families. To such as these, the 33 Church must come with whatever Christian cheer and helpfuhiess it can, to teach and advise, to instruct and counsel, to extend the helping hand and to act as the good neighbor. Among the Italians, who, as a class, are seldom to be found work- ing underground, the tendency is to save money in order that they may some day own property. In Altoona, where the largest number of Italians are to be found, the housing conditions in the foreign section are similar to those elsewhere. The Italian population is stretched along the street par- allel to the railroad tracks. Though they live in the smoke and dirt of the locality, in buildings old and black and cheerless, under condi- tions crowded and unsanitary, yet comparatively few cases of sickness are reported among them, and withal, they manage to save. Several large wholesale business houses have been started by the Italians, and not a few have branched out into mercantile trades. Many of them own property and have come to America to stay. They are never idle when there is work to be had. About politics, the foreigner in whom we are especially interested cares little or nothing. As has already been stated, he feels that somewhere there must be something wrong or he and his family would not have to slave out a colorless existence. Few realize that they can become a part of that government that causes, to a certain extent, their conditions. It is something strange — this having a voice in affairs — and few of them regard this privilege highly. Many are anxious to become citizens as soon as possible, but whether it is the keen desire to keep abreast of their children, or whether to better themselves, financially, is a question. That the rate of accidents in mines in America is higher than in any other civilized country is a well known fact. In the mines of Pennsylvania, the men in the coal banks work where there is a risk to life and limb. Little justice is shown to the injured foreigner or to the family of a coal digger killed in the mines. The employer feels no obligation to the family of a man killed, if that family happens to be in Italy or Austria or if they are in this country and cannot speak the language and do not know the American customs. For minor accidents and injuries, the foreign coal digger has no time to put through the courts. He is only interested in curing him- self as quickly as possible in order that he may get back to the coal bank to dig out a living for his family and himself. A one-eyed miner at a miner's boarding house said, one evening, while talking to the investigator : "Well, you see, we were working 34 on the bank together, the boy and me, and I had put down a charge of dynamite that didn't look hke it was going off. So I went up to take a look and off she went. The boy wasn't hurt a bit. They carried me out and put me on the train and took me thirty miles up the line to a hospital and took this eye out. Sure my face is all black from the powder, but gee ! I got one eye left, ain't I ? and I was back diggin' coal in the bank again in 17 days, just 17 days from the day the thing blew off in my face to the day I went back to work again." Lack of a knowledge of the English language is often the cause of industrial accidents in the mines. An order given by a mine boss which, if not obeyed, might mean serious injury or death, is often not understood by the foreigner, and in his excitement he is very apt to do the wrong thing resulting in injury to himself and others. Night classes in English, teaching a good working vocabulary to the foreigners in the Presbytery, where at all possible, would be of great value. These classes would need to be as interesting as possible and located directly in the midst of the men who were to benefit by them. Men who have worked eight or ten hours a day in a coal bank or on the streets, or the canal, are too tired to walk far to attend evening classes, especially if the classes are conducted by inexperi- enced teachers who do not understand or appreciate the special prob- lems which confront the foreigner and his life in a new country. The machinery ought to be set going, to bring about the establish- ment of such schools. Interested people should see that this work was either taken up by the school departments of the dift'erent coun- ties or should interest the companies employing large numbers of men in establishing such centers. Churches could conduct classes of this kind and solicit the voluntary help of the best people in the community in such an enterprise. RECREATION The foreigners of Huntingdon Presbytery have little time and less money to spend on amusements. To be sure, the moving-picture shows flourish in the cities and the small towns, where any consider- able number of foreigners are found, and the drinking of great quanti- ties of beer and general carousing- — if these may be classed under amusements — are indulged in to a great degree. Everywhere the 35 mine boss, or the quarry superintendent, never failed to tell of the great amount of drinking carried on by the men between Saturday night and Monday morning. "There is nothing else for them to do," said the superintendent of one mine. In the smaller towns throughout the Presbytery many of the pic- ture-shows that were flourishing a year or so ago have closed, owing to the fact that the people who were formerly attracted by this class of amusement do not have the nickels or dimes to spend in this way. In the larger cities and towns, the foreign element attend these shows, and in Altoona, the Superintendent of Schools reported that they were patronized by the school children after closing of school in the afternoon. So bad has this practice become that the ministers in Altoona have taken up the matter and have asked the parents to forbid their children from attending. In all work for foreigners, this phase of the work must by no means be overlooked. These people look to the Church, not only as the legitimate source of their amusements, but it is to her they turn in time of financial need. During the recent business depression many of the churches in this section formed themselves into Charity Organization Societies to render aid to the unemployed. It is to the foreigner on the margin of things that the Church appeals. In time of sickness, he turns to the Church ; when he is out of a job; when there is trouble in the family; when the older daugh- ter runs away from home or the boy is going to the bad ; it is at these times that he must find in the Church that religious and social and even economic help that at that moment he is needing. In these towns, that present an appearance far from sunny or sanitary, far from cheerful or bright, the people are concerned directly with the getting of bread and not with lovely sur- roundings and pleasant homes and fine views out over the beautiful hills upon which they live. Still, they have some leisure time, and it is this time that ought to be claimed by the pastor, or the social worker, or the layman who is interested in the foreigner and his problem. When his leisure time is used in a right way, when a man or woman has time to think about his surroundings, and when he has the proper suggestions, a change will naturally follow and not only will the spare time be used to better advantage but the living and working conditions will be better and more sanitary and more hopeful and liveable. Amusement in some form the for- eigner is going to have. Whether it be the moving-picture show, or 36 the cheap theatre^ the saloon or the dance hall, it often makes little difference to him. The Church here has a splendid opportunity to emphasize the play spirit about which much has been said and written by close students of the country church question. Dr. Luther Gulick, in speaking of recreation, says : "We have Young People's Societies and a variety of places which are good and wholesome which develop a wholesome religious life in young people. We have Young Men's Christian Associations and Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods. We have extended our genius for organization into religious institutions and we have left recreation and social life as absolutely unorganized as the others are organized. During my experience educational bodies, medical bodies, and almost every other body has taken more interest in public recreation than have the churches." People have to learn how to play. Even boys do not play baseball spontaneously; they have to learn how. Many think that in small towns and villages that young people can always find plenty to do by way of amusement. This is not true, how- ever. There is absolutely no leadership in most of the small towns and village communities of the leisure time of the people. Men and women, as well as boys and girls, in this community have their business hours, their working time, planned for them. The hours are regular and the duties fixed, but it is the leisure time that the churches of the Presbytery should claim. There seems to be no other one agency able to provide men and women who can make suggestions for and supervise these spare hours of the people. If they can furnish interesting, healthful things to do, they will be doing a great service. While the attitude of the Church ought to be a con- structive one rather than otherwise, still much can be done in the way of corrective work in many of the towns, which has almost direct bearing on this creative work. Towns containing large num- bers of young men and young women whose wholesome desire is to meet one another evenings ought to see that the streets are at least lit up. Many towns are in darkness now. If no other agency is willing or able to see that the proper authorities install street lights of some sort, why should not this be a good work for the Church to undertake ? There are many other phases of town evils, such as unattractive yards and streets, dirty alleys and vacant lots, that the Church must either remedy or be content to see left alone. Some of the village communities are very old and these reforms have not taken place yet, nor is there immediate prospect that they will. Politics has had an unsuccessful try at it for a long time. Let the Church step in now and see what she can accomplish. In Lewistown, we find some of the problems of a large city, al- though not the foreign problem. Already the question of congestion has come up, as the town, though small, is growing rapidly and the far-sighted social workers have already put on foot the movement of converting the old graveyard occupying the center of the town into a play-ground. The beautifying of the city has also been taken up by a Committee on Civic Betterment. SOCIAL LIFE No matter what race, color or creed, man is everywhere a social being, and a careful study of the leisure time in connection with his social life is most essential to the carrying on, by the Presbytery, of any religious or social work. The store, whether the company-store or the town-store, is the usual center of association. In cases of large numbers of unmarried foreigners in the same community, the boarding house is often the social center, or on Saturday night, if the town happens to be a "dry" town, after the beer train comes in, crowds of men go to the woods, taking the kegs of beer with them to spend the night and Sunday around a fire in social communion. While the investigation was going on in the Presbytery, just before Christmas, the following remarks were heard. It was part of a con- versation carried on by some young fellows who had come into town from the country near Huntingdon : "Well," said one of them, "I've been down to Pittsburg and when I was down there I saw Jeffries and two other prize fighters." Greatest interest was immediately shown by those who had heretofore been eating their dinners in stony silence. "Well, now," said one, "indeed that sure would have been a great pleasure to have seen one of them fellows and actually talked to him." Several young men in this town stated that there seemed to be no special interest for doing anything for them in the town. There are young men in this town, as in other towns throughout the Presbytery, who are left to organize their own clubs or societies if they have any at all. This leaving of a serious and difficult task alone is not to be by any means the solution of that problem. 38 ttrnwcMH rmmfffy - miiai nmtimnmmm CLthnFltLO M& romGii roruLBT/0/i of couHTiEy itO -/oFOFElCrIi mm C£t1T£n SSI5 BtOFcm i--':7iLti 'r-i.nmt.fj . ^.„,. ^ J51 B ^p Muneen of 6dLoofi6 //y ebch coonry ij In March of this year, four boys, ranging from 18 to 21 years of age, in Huntingdon spent an evening in certain saloons drinking. They were heard to say that they would burn down the town that night. They were in a high way to accomplish this, for before they had finished with their night's work, property valued at over $150,000 had been destroyed. The M. E. Church, costing over $40,000, was burned to the ground, and the Presbyterian Church damaged, two planing mills and seven dwellings were also burned. A loss of life was reported as the result of the fire. An investigation was started at once to ascertain who sold liquor to minors. Report came back that the boys had obtained a large bottle of whiskey from an Italian somewhere and that they had carried it around with them the entire night from the various widely separated points where they started the fires. These were, however, undoubt- edly not the facts in the case. Beyond a doubt the liquor was obtained in a local saloon. If arguments for a "dry" town are needed, if proofs that a well-conducted social work is wanted, none better than the history of this fire and a study of the leisure of these boys will present itself. In one county, local option is in the hands of the merchants. Hotels in small towns flourish, especially in the county seats, and many hotel- keepers state that they cannot make their houses pay unless a bar is run in connection with them. In a specific case in this county, a large clothing store and the leading hotel are owned by the same man. While he owned the hotel, the man would not vote for a "dry" county. As soon as the hotel is off his hands, and it is now on the market, then he will vote for a "dry" county, for he states that he can sell more goods, more clothes, when the county is "dry" than when it is "wet. Although Bedford County is not a "dry" county, there is no saloon in Williamsburg owing to the active part taken on the part of the pastors of the town. Before the town went "dry," on days when the men could not work in the quarries on account of rain many would come to town and hang out in and about the saloons, making it un- pleasant for the townspeople to walk on the streets near the saloons. This gave the impression that all foreigners were undesirable and a strong feeling of dislike has grown up among the native born inhab- itants of Williamsburg and vicinity for the foreigner and his children. Now that the town is "dry," beer is shipped in by the carload and distributed to the different quarries and settlements up and down the valley. 39 ETHICAL LIFE The mentality among the foreign population of the community is rather high. It does not seem to be the off-scouring of Southern Europe that has come to this part of the State, but a solid, keen- minded people. Superintendents of works say of them that they are a good lot of workers, law-abiding in most cases, and if given any possible chance, eager to seize any opportunity to advance themselves and their children. The Italian population is held in much less favor throughout the Presbytery than is the Hungarian and Austrian and Slavish. With the exception of Altoona and Woodvale and Robertsdale, there are no colonies where any considerable numbers of Italians are found, excepting along the railroad, and these are very mobile and transient. The foreigners are ambitious for their children and in the larger places, like Altoona, Tyrone, etc., in many cases, their children are in the High Schools. The strongest and best come to this country, as it is the strong who emigrate and the weak who stay at home. To speak of the ethical life of the foreigner may, in this section of the country seem to be somewhat of a misnomer. Of culture, of libraries, and art galleries and museums they know little or nothing. There is no time for such things here for him and no opportunity for him to make use of such things if he had the time. In our large cities, the art galleries on Sundays and holidays are well patronized by Italians and other foreigners. The museums are frequented by them, the public lecture centers are made use of. The East Side in New York City has its Grand Street; Chicago has its Halstead Street; Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other city immigra- tion centers all have their attractive streets, where crowds are found and lights and music and cheer and good-fellowship. In the mining camps and in most of the other foreign centers throughout the Pres- bytery, none of this life is found. No gay streets here, no libraries, no reading rooms where men can write letters and study and think and rest. There are few functions where even good manners are required in these towns. What is the Church going to do in the way of bringing to these people what they can of culture and a knowledge of better things, of higher ideals, of better manners? 40 SOCIAL W^ELFARE The social institutions chiefly prized by the foreigners in this Pres- bytery are the family and marriage; or at least this would be the case if they had much time to think about such things. The State means nothing to them ; this is America and that is enough, and they are interested chiefly in getting bread and butter and a few clothes and shelter. They have little time for the worship of the Church as such — they care nothing for the legal system of the country, or the political issues. What they must have is wages, a place to stay and enough to eat. Other things they may want and long for — the family life as they knew it in Russia or Austria or Hungary or Italy — but they must live. They are strong individualists. The well-being of the whole com- munity is all well and good, "but the company seems to have that in hand," says the miner. "Me? I am interested in my family, in myself." To be sure, they have their sick benefits and lodges, etc., and when an unfortunate is hurt or in special trouble, funds are forthcoming from the pockets of his countrymen. But it is a clannish feeling rather than a civic one. In a questionnaire sent to members of the Presbytery by the Home Board's investigator, one question read : "What is the feeling of the American toward the foreigner?" There were two types of answers — one coming from districts where there were very few foreigners, the other from the section containing the largest number of foreigners. In the former localities the replies state that owing to the fact that the foreigner is not a special prob- lem, the feeling toward him is either a very kindly one or one of indifference. In the latter case, however, the reports come back that toward the foreigner is a strong feeling of hostility and antagonism. A most interesting study, or studies might be made of such groups as are found in Mifflin and Huntingdon counties, including the Amish, both old school and the various new schools which have been formed, the Dunkards, the Mennonites and others. These groups have played a most important part in the religious, social, economic and political life of the valleys where they have large holdings of fine farms and some of the best stock in the entire State, but the Presbytery is not immediately concerned with these groups at present as they have no direct bearing on the present work of the Home Missions in the Presbytery. 41 In the scheme of things, as now found in the foreign sections, there seems to be no special end for which society exists. These people are not working for a community and its well-being. They are not especially interested in culture or personal development, either mental or physical. Their problem, as stated before, is so largely an eco- nomic one, that little else enters into the life of the man in the coal bank. The wife and younger children at home are trying to make, in some measure, homelike, the shack thrust upon them in lieu of a home. The boy of 14 years of age, or even younger if he is able to avoid the Child Labor Law, has gone into the mine or quarry to help swell the family budget. It is easy to avoid the Child Labor Law when a school superintendent, as was discovered in one coal town, signs up between 300 and 400 blank application certificates of age and fitness for work and gives them to the employers of children. This, however, happened outside of the bounds of Huntingdon Pres- bytery, but in a nearby county. CRIME Most of the crimes throughout the Presbytery for which foreigners are committed are such minor ones as drunkenness and fighting, or disorderly conduct. This is not to be wondered at when one stops to consider the quantities of liquor sold in the foreign communities and the great lack of any counteracting social agencies which are to be found. An attempt was made in Altoona to secure figures from the Police Department regarding what percentage of the whole number of arrests was foreign, but statistics in that Department are not kept on that subject. The Chief of Police stated, however, that little trouble with the foreigners of Altoona was experienced. Eight per cent, of all the inmates of the Pennsylvania Reformatory at Huntingdon come from Huntingdon Presbytery and a study was made to ascertain whether the problem of juvenile crime lay mostly with foreign born boys or with boys born in the United States whose parents were foreign born. Parents of boys committed . 58 % Native born ; 42 % Foreign born Boys committed 86>^ % Native born ; 13>4 % Foreign born These figures show that the problem is with the native born chil- dren of foreign born parents. 42 mnmm msdyrm -FEnnMmin mommy- HUHTIM(WO^ F/f: Qi>OFTHE d^y^ cofff mft m mrmooM m5Byrm. F/fJfErfTj OF Boyj co/f/f/rrfff I vjt e °/c ti F) T IV El. BO/fr^ I doys corrrfirrED I &(:, '/i o/a N B-T I V E^ a O /^ M The following table will show that in most cases where the per- centage of foreign population is high, the number of saloons is large : Counties Foreign Population Per Cent. Foreign Number of Saloons Clearfield 31,619 16.753 5,515 2,448 1,138 1,082 420 39. 20. 13. 7. 9. 4. 2. 85 Blair 87 Centre 35 Bedford 27 Huntingdon Mifflin Tuniata 9 dry 11 The home life is so different in this country from that in Europe, the parents are apt to be away so many hours that the home influence that used to play such an important part in the child life abroad is lacking under the newer influences. No better opportunity can be found for foreign missionary work than among the children of these foreigners who are to become the citizens of to-morrow. 43 RECOMMENDATIONS Everybody realizes the great need of bringing to these foreigners the Gospel of Spiritual Salvation, but many have overlooked the fact that the Church not only may, but ought to interest herself in the social well-being of the community as well as in the purely religious side of life. The recommendations which follow are the result of a careful study of experts on Church and Social problems. The field is a large one — the work to be done, a large work, but the spirit of this Presbytery is also large, and it is hoped that when the recommenda- tions and policies are accepted and put into practice the results will also be large. I. Specific 1. An efficient Presbyterial Superintendent is needed. This Superintendent would represent the Presbytery in the entire field, cooperating with the committees already appointed and any new committees or reconstruction of old ones. 2. Committee on Foreign-Speaking People. a. The members of this present Committee are so located as to be in touch with each other but not with the foreigners in this Presbytery. b. This Committee should be made up of ministers and lay- men living in the communities in which the foreigners are living. c. This Committee could profitably make more of the foreign work in the Presbytery. They could put it before the public by presenting definite forms of service along definite lines of work. FIELDS FOR WORK Italian In and about Robertsdale there is a splendid opportunity to do a Home Mission work with perhaps Robertsdale as a center. There is 44 no social agency in the city with the exception of the M. E. Church; which is open once or twice a month for preaching and every Sunday for S. S. and E. L. services. Last year, the Presbytery thought of selHng the Presbyterian Church at Robertsdale, which has not been used as a church for some time. A new superintendent of mines was about to go to Robertsdale. Mr. and Mrs. John Somerville, Jr., had lived in Win- burne and taken an active part in the foreign work there. Mr. John Somerville, Sr., was then on the Committee for Foreign-Speaking People and when the question of selling the Presbyterian Church at Robertsdale came up, Mr. Somerville said : "John is going to Roberts- dale — give him a year there and then if you want to sell the Pres- byterian Church, go ahead." It was much less than a year afterward that Robertsdale was in- vestigated by the Immigration Department. Robertsdale had always been known as "the Camp"' at the office of headquarters. It is now the town of "Robertsdale." Mr. and Airs. John Somerville's in- fluence has been at work. Street lights have been put up ; Mrs. Somerville has a sewing class for girls among the foreigners. Speak- ing two or three languages and having the social spirit, she visits the homes of the people ; she is the "friendly neighbor" of the town. A Presbyterian Sunday School of over sixty has been organized and the little Presbyterian Church is once more used on Sundays. There is a distinct need here of even more social work — a reading room might be opened in the church during the week for the Italians and Slavs if such a combination were possible. For a time the company at Union Furnace has given the people the use of a room for church purposes. The Methodist Episcopal Sunday School has occasionally conducted services there. The peo- ple seem interested in the work and would like to have a permanent work established. The store-keeper at Union Furnace, also post-master and an elder in the Presbyterian Church in Tyrone, has put tracts in the post- ofifice boxes for the Italians and states that when his supply was exhausted, the men came to him asking for more letters of the same kind, that they liked to read them and couldn't he get more for them. He also states that the Italian girls can be heard during the day going about their work singing snatches of Gospel songs. It is just such men as this man, who thoroughly know the economic side of the foreigner and his life in every phase, and who are inter- ested in his religious and social well-being, whom we wish to interest 45 in the Home Mission work of his own community. This also could be a part of the Italian circuit. Slavs Winburne needs a missionary who can organize work in several places, viz., Winburne, Munson, Morrisdale Mines, Philipsburg, Os- ceola, Peale, etc. This man should speak Austrian, Slovak, and Ruthenian in order to handle the different divisions of Slavs to be found in this locality. He should be under the direct supervision of that part of the Committee on Foreign-Speaking People nearest his work. He should report to them and expect to be closely supervised by them. No Protestant work with the exception of the Swedish Church which they themselves conduct, is being carried on by any denomina- tion, for the foreigners in this section. Winburne is the natural center for such an enterprise. When an efficient man is found, the entire field in this immediate vicinity could be covered by him, and with a carefully worked out plan of visitation and preaching, he ought to be a great factor for religious and social good to that entire region. Roumanians In Mt. Union there are about 500 Roumanians. The superinten- dent of the tannery, where most of the Roumanians work, states that there is a splendid opportunity for an active, aggressive Protestant work among these foreigners. These people have come to make America their home and when given the right opportunity make most desirable citizens. This might be made part of a circuit for work among Slavs. Social activities could be carried on by the local people of Mt. Union, while the preaching services could be conducted by a pastor whose duty it would be to give the necessary time to the field. FEDERATION There are many small communities of 75 or 100 people throughout the Presbytery that are entirely unreached by religious influence, and who would be glad of a chance to have some sort of a service — a preaching service, a Sunday School, a prayer-meeting, a Christian Endeavor. If each county could be gone over in a very accurate way and each 46 town put down with its inhabitants; if in such places as just men- tioned, some interested person could make a house-to-house religious survey, a circuit might be made where a man could be on the road most of the time, holding a prayer-meeting in one place, one night a Christian Endeavor meeting in the next town, etc. There is nearly always a school-house in every town, and this or the home of some interested person could be used for such services. In the three counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin and Juniata, especially, the Presbyterians are moving off the farms into town, and it is only by such a careful study of the entire field as a whole that many of these churches can even be held. A Federation of Churches in the entire Presbytery, or that section of the county where such a work is possible, should be most desirable. There is apt to be much jealousy and over-lapping of work; the starting of similar work on the same field and the subsequent giving it up by one or both, whereas, if the field has been carefully divided up and scientifically studied, greater efificiency would have resulted. GRANGE There should be the greatest possible cooperation between the Grange and the Farmers' Institute and the ministers of each county. The Grange has a place in the life of some communities that no other agency has. It not only deals with the economic life of the farmer, but with his social life as well. While the Farmers' Institute does not continue in any one place more than a few days, at the longest, during the year, still this splendid opportunity should not pass with- out being grasped by the pastors of that vicinity where the meetings are held to make the economic life of the farmer and his every-day problems of special concern to himself. SPECIAL WORK FOR CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SOCIETIES A young Hungarian at Curwensville, a Protestant, has joined Rev. Barber's Church and brings several fellow-countrymen to the Christian Endeavor meetings. He conducts services for the Protest- ant Hungarians in the community and is an active worker. He has been in this country four years and speaks English well. He is a careful student and says he would like to enter the ministry. At present, he is a shoemaker. We would suggest that the Christian Endeavor Societies in the entire Presbytery support him in school for three or four years, 47 where he could get a thorough training, spending all his summers in the Huntingdon Presbytery, working on the field. It would not only give the young people in the Presbytery a specific interest in the field, but get them a good man at the same time. II. General 1. The policy of the churches should be directed toward the causes of the churches' decay. These causes being ascertained, the Church should exert herself to remedy them, because the decay of the Church is an index of the decay and degeneration of the community. For this reason the Church should evangelize and Christianize the insti- tutions of the community. Just as the individual preacher has a du-ty to evangelize persons, so the Church has a duty to improve the schools, to reform the moving-picture shows and public recreation parks, to demand clean politics, and to abolish the saloon, and to in- fluence unto a Christian end all the institutions of the community. 2. The public schools, especially in the country, should be wholly reconstructed. Throughout the country districts the common schools are quite inadequate to the needs of the people. As compared to the schools in the towns, the country schools are a failure. The churches of Huntingdon Presbytery should undertake deliberately to demand, and, through a consistent, determined agitation, to secure, where practicable, centralized rural schools with graded instruction, ade- quate buildings, with a system of transportation for the pupils, and with industrial, manual and agricultural training for the children. This is not asking more than is provided for the children in the towns, and until such schools are provided in the country, it will be impossible to retain the best people in the country community. 3. The churches in Huntingdon Presbytery should undertake to promote public recreation. There is need of a Play-Ground Move- ment in this territory, especially in the smaller places and in the rural communities. The underlying principle of the Play-Ground Move- ment is the fact that recreation is ethical, and the play-ground is a field of moral training for the children and for working people. The churches should insist that public play-grounds be provided, and that those which are used should be governed by sensible and decent prin- ciples appropriate to the play spirit itself, and harmonious with the best interest of the community as a whole, and, if necessary, the churches should themselves promote recreation on high standards through the organizations of their young people. 48 The importance of the country school and the rural play-ground in close association with the Church is in the fact that the foreign population in Pennsylvania is so largely employed in such manner as to reside in the country. It is more difficult for a rural community to assimilate foreigners where the institutions of the community are weak. The tendency is for stiff and permanent social divisions to persist, and in order to assimilate the foreign population and to Americanize them, strong and aggressive institutions, such as a mod- ern educational system and a public play-ground well regulated, are necessary. This policy should be primarily a rural one, because both the farming population and the laboring population, the one native born and the other foreign born, should be retained in the country, and trained in the American way of life. 4. The churches in Huntingdon Presbytery should become the advocates in every public way of the social and spiritual welfare of the following people: Of the farmer, teaching him to understand his own life, to dignify agriculture with scientific knowledge and intelligent interest, and to realize that the future wealth and prosperity of the country is to be shared most largely by the modern intelligent farmer. Of the foreigner. The churches should promote the well-being of the foreigner by advocating improved housing in the foreign set- tlements, by publishing persistently the evil conditions which follow from the degraded life foreigners are obliged to live. The churches should advocate the foreigner's right and duty to become a citizen, to own property, and to obey the laws, and as a means of conciliating and winning the foreigner the churches should understand the na- tional customs brought by these people from foreign lands. It would be a wise thing for communities in which there are large settlements of certain nationalities to celebrate the holidays of these nationalities, especially the great national holiday, which is dear to the heart of that settlement of foreigners. This celebration should be dignified and artistic, the national characteristics and customs of the people who are being honored should be made much of, the folk- dances should be revived, and the children of the foreign population taught to honor the customs, the sentiments, and the religious ex- perience of iheir forefathers. Only by honoring the foreigner and understanding him can the churches of Huntingdon Presbytery win the foreigner to American citizenship and to a sympathy w^ith and honor for American Christianity. A "Church for the People'' campaign should be carried on through- 49 out the Presbytery, with a meeting in every church, ending at the conclusion of about three months with a Conservation Congress. The objective in this campaign should be the education of all the churches in a common religious propaganda, especially the enlistment of lay- men in intelligent support of a constructive program. 50 404086 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY