THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 305 COM v.4-5 SEBUM CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its renewal or its return to the library from which it was borrowed on or before the Latest Date stamped below. You may be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for each lost book. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result In dismissal from the University. TO RENEW CALL TELEPHONE CENTER, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN AUG061996 FEB 4 2005 When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. L162 r v r / NUMBER 34. MAY, 1899. THE COMMONS THE MAN WITH THE HOE. " God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.' BOWED by the weight of centuries, he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox ? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw ? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow ? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain ? Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land ; To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity ? Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns And pillared the blue firmament with light ? Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed More filled with signs and portents for tne soul More fraught with menace to the universe. What gulfs between him and the seraphim ! Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades ? What the long reaches of the peaks of song, The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose ? Through this dread shape the suffering ages look ; Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop ; Through this dread shape humanity, betrayed, Plundered, profaned, and disinherited, Cries protest to the Judges of the World, A protest that is also prophecy. O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ? How will you ever straighten up this shape ; Touch it again with immortality ; Give back the upward looking and the light ; Rebuild in it the music and the dream ; Make right the immemorial infamies ; Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes ? O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, How will the Future reckon with this Man ? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings With those who shaped him to the thing he is When th'S dumb Terror shall reply to God, After the silence of the centuries ? Ed-win Markham. FIFTY CENTS A YEAR. SINGLE COPIES, FIVE CENTS.' ENTCRCO AT CHICAGO P. O. AS StCOND CLASS MAIL (V4TTFH. THE COMMONS. [May, '99. WHY PAY VV I SUM SUMMER BOARD WHEN YOU CAN OWN A SUMMER HOME The Great Thing is to find a place easily reached by a short sail at a moderate fare. Then you want to be sure of LOW-PRICED LOTS. A pretty place, good air, good water, good people, and if you can add to that, good boating, good fishing, good sailing, and in the season, good hunting, coupled with easy access to the city and to all the necessaries of civilization, then you have the ideal place for your summer cottage. Such a place is waiting for you at MACATAWA PARK MICHIGAN One night's ride by boat from Chicago. Address for particulars, THE MACATAWA PARK COMPANY, HOLLAND, MICH. v 4- VOLUME IV. NO 1. THE COMMONS H flftontblv TRccovS ?Dcvotc& to Hapects of life ant> labor from tbc Social Settlement point of View. Whole Number 34. CHICAGO. MAY, 1899. [For THE COMMONS.] THE POTTERS' FIELD. BY EMMA PLAYTER SEABUBY. Everywhere over the land On Decoration Day, We flower with lavish hand The " graves of the blue and gray." We talk of the splendid fight, And we talk of the slave now free, And we talk of God and of right, From the mountains down to the sea. Close by the city's wall The graves are all o'ergrown. The grass is thick and the weeds are tall, And never a marking stone. Not a bud nor flower is near. And the cruel sun beats down, For the graves of the poor are here, The paupers who died in the town. We turn away from the sight, For flowers' love is too poor, And no one talks of the splendid fight Of these heroes who endure. The heroes of toil and pain, Who always have to yield, Of love and hope and of courage slain, In this dismal Potters' Field. For the rich the sculptured tomb, For the poor we heave a sigh, For the rich a mass of bloom. And the poor, we pass them by, In death as In life their part, No one to pity or save, Yet a woman is breaking her heart For that new-made pauper's grave. Everywhere over the land We talk of the blue and gray, But these fall unnoted on every hand, Beside us every day. And the dear Lord loves them best, The struggles unrevealed, And he gathers them close to his breast- The poor in the Potters' Field. AVhy Leave It to Servants? [Philadelphia Record.] The senatorial contest in West Virginia has caused a deadlock, and the same outcome is indicated in Nebraska and Delaware, if not in Pennsylvania. There are never any deadlocks when the people do their own voting. It is only when they turn the job over to their serv- ants that it is not attended to in a neat and workmanlike manner. THE SETTLEMENT AND SOCIALISM. BY MAUDE B. FOSTEK. No one can, for five years, associate himself with settlement work and study its purposes and methods, without frequently asking him- self the question, Is the settlement working to establish Socialism? The present attitude of most of the settlements, towards radical reform, the methods employed in the work, have given rise to this question. Upon its answer depends the permanency of settlement work, as one factor in the movement towards a higher civil- ization. The last Bibliography of College, Social and University Settlements gives the United States seventy-four settlements. In its introduction, it claims, for the settlement, a " part in the great modern movement toward Social Dem- ocracy. " There are those who question our right to a part in this great modern movement; even among our workers there are doubting Thomases, and the time has come for us to earnestly ask if this claim be a just one, and to consider the righteousness of some of the methods we are pursuing to bring about a new order of things. Of one fact we are assured: The great mod- ern movement, working to establish Socialism, is identical with the economic-industrial- political movement, which, primarily, de- mands a change of system. A careful reading of the Bibliography discloses the fact, that among the seventy-four American settlements, fifteen alone declare their . interest in these movements, while o change of system is hinted at or suggested only in a single case or in- stance. Let us hear what they say these settlements which make mention of the eco- nomic-industrial-political question: " We seek a positive and immediate improvement of the present industrial system. " " We are inter- ested in the social cause and believe in co- operation in the labor movement. " One settlement mildly suggests that it has " the beginnings of a social-economic discussion! " The settlement is an attempt to add the 509810 THE COMMONS. [May, social function to democracy. " " There is much interest in the labour movement. " " There has been local political participation." " An active part in municipal affairs. " " We seek to improve the social order. " In one settlement they have a Co-operative Union; and in another there has been a distinct effort towards reform along political lines. To the man or woman earnestly seeking a way out of the present system, convinced tbat a change, and not an improvement, of this sys- tem is the only means whereby we may usher in a new democracy, . these feeble messages from the settlements are not only unsatisfy- ing, but dispiriting and deadening in their effect. The few settlements that have boldly asserted themselves, declaring that they are vitally interested in industrial and municipal reform, are doing the greatest amount of per- manent good. That some of our methods are neither justi- fiable nor above criticism, is an indisputable fact. So long as the settlement is small, only aiming to carry into a homeless neighborhood the "home idea, " one need not stop to ques- tion its methods. But the moment a settle- ment enlarges its boundaries, drawing from its neighborhood hundreds of people of every nationality, then the time is ripe for the settle- ment to assume a higher function, and the ful- filling of this function is a matter of the gravest concern. How shall it accept the new relation- ship and answer the demand made upon it? And what is this demand? It is not a call for charity, nor an appeal to a more refined philan- thropy. It is an importunate cry, sometimes muffled, sometimes smothered, but always un- mistakable, and eager in its intensity. It is a cry for justice. From its inception, the settlement move- ment has been hampered. The old system of charity has clung to it like a barnacle; there are few if any settlements which are free from the stigma of "charity." If the settlement is to make for progress it must throw off the shackles of a worn-out system. The settle- ment is not the Mecca where the rich man goes to salve his conscience; nor a place where the " eyes of the blind " are to be temporarily half- opened. If some of the energy which the settlements are expending to conciliate the rich, might be spent in teaching them that the present economic system is wrong, the results, if not at once so satisfactory, would be far-reach- ing and ultimately of a higher and finer sort. Following in the footsteps of charitable or- ganizations and philanthropic corporations, the settlement has, in many instances, mini- mized the functions of municipality and state. Every charity-kindergarten, private-bath- house and private-library may be a protest against existing municipal conditions, but is it not equally a menace to municipal interest in this special direction in the settlement dis- trict? A visiting-nurse is as legitimate a part of a city's health department as the city physician, yet we know of but one settlement where the nurse's salary is paid by the city, and the fact that no precedent had been estab- lished, made it most difficult for this particu- lar settlement to convince "the City Fathers" that its demand deserved municipal recogni- tion. In each instance the municipality's function has been disregarded, ignored and minimized; for the only legitimate channel through which these interests, as well as many others, should enter the settlement is a public one. In districts where, too often, the police- officer, truant-master and " ward-heeler " represents to the people "the government," the most judicial and well-meaning of philan- thropists, should not be permitted to lessen the possibilities for better citizenship by de- tracting public interest from this special dis- trict. Any effort which stagnates public senti- ment in the settlement-neighborhood is illegiti- mate. It suggests patronage; and to minds, keen and open to the finer sentiments of civic life, it is full of evil possibilities and is a strongly deterrent factor in the settlement's progress. The highest duty of any settlement, which aims to be something more than a home, is that of a public functionary. Around this should gather men and women who seek to emphasize good citizenship, and who believe that good citizenship cannot exist until the causes of poverty are removed, not ameliorated. In the present scheme of working with the effects of poverty, rather than with its causes, they see much that is worse than useless; they see activities that are retarding evolu- tion. The future settlement-worker should de- mand a more progressive field for his service, and ask for a finer, medium between himself and his fellows. The humanitarian forces, at work among us, are pregnant with great re- sults, and are giving birth to ambition which the most advanced system of philanthropy cannot satisfy. To make way for social justice, by declaring for Socialism, is the only path now open to the settlements, if they hope to retain the confidences of either their " up- town" or "down-town" constituents. When it is a fully established fact that settlements 1899. J THE COMMONS. 5 stand for Socialism, then, and only then, will the full power of the work be apparent. Un- trammeled by all half-measures which aim at less than a radical change of our present system, unflinchingly, we make take our place in the "great modern movement toward Social Democracy. " The settlement which holds this position will offer, for years to come, sufficiently attractive work to the most ardent humanitarian, and satisfy the most faithful ad- vocate of Socialism. Los Angeles, Cal. RURAL SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS. BY JOHN P. GAVIT. Ordinarily, discussion- of the social settle- ment motive and method presupposes them applicable only to city locations and conditions. There have been few attempts none persever- ing to adapt the settlement idea to rural con- ditions. Yet the same needs which welcome the settlement to crowded city quarters prevail in rural villages and scattered populations. There is the same occasion (1) to exemplify higher family and intellectual ideals ; the same opportunity (2) to unify a community reft with schisms, social, racial, religious ; the same cry- ing absence of (3) a force to mediate the advan- tages of education and world-knowledge to those whose ill-paid labor has placed to their credit against society a large account of obli- gation ; the same absence to fill (4) of initiative to social action for the betterment of local and general conditions. It would be hard to choose between the stifling isolation of the individual or the family in the midst of an incomprehen- sible tenement Babel of foreign tongues, and that of a wilderness-bound household in an outlying farm. The unification of races and tongues and religions in heterogeneous city wards is a simple problem beside the assimila- tion of the cliques and the theological and family caste-feuds in a small village or agricul- tural community ! The socializing of education and culture is a rural as well as a city need, and the farming community, quite as much as the city center, pleads for the initiative of the resourceful in their social, political and indus- trial problem. If the city labor-stress needs an interpreter and a prophet, how much more cries out the cause of the groping, underpaid, hopeless farm-laborer ! A social settlement in a country district would be at once a simple and a complex problem ; easy at one point and all but in- superably difficult at the other. Leadership in such an enterprise would require an individual tact and adaptability of the first quality ; the patience of Job would be exhausted early in the siege, and the adaptability of Paul's all things to all men," would be tested to the limit. But the barren life of a rural community would make welcome almost any variety of intelligent provocation to social action. The simplicity of rural religious ideas would simplify accord- ingly the problem of method, at the same time that it provided both a devil and a deep-sea of theological discussion and prejudice. The slowly modifying limitations of social inter- course, in stormy and wintry weather, hub- deep mud and fence-high snowdrifts, must be met and overcome, and often the mountain must be taken to the Mahomet whom it fails to attract. Imagine a brave, resourceful minister in a country church, whose mind and heart the development of the social settlement movement has touched, determining to adapt the settle- ment idea to his church and his neighborhood. Imagine a young man, returning from his col- lege to his rural home, to devote his energies in the country district school or village academy to the neighbors of his boyhood ; to share with their intellectual deprivation his treasure of culture, for which he owes them so much. Imagine a versatile young couple, weary of city streets and dirt and artificiality, determining to transfuse their personal lives and culture and moral purpose into the life of a self-neglectful village and its contributing community. If anyone retort in searching truth, that I assume the economic ability of these, I evade the issue by returning to the already located minister or school principal. By the way, there is adefinite call in this very evasion for the minister or the teacher who could have an attractive city pulpit or school. Apply a settlement definition, now " A group of persons, or indeed an individual family or person, who voluntarily chooses to live where he seems to be needed, rather than where the community offers the most of social privilege or prestige." NOW FOR THE SETTLEMENT. Assuming the devoted leadership, imagining upon the ground the man or the group, ready to invest life, for better or worse, in the life of those condemned to the all but solitary confine- ment of the farm and the village, how shall the work begin, and in what shall it differ from the ordinary church, or school, the now com- monplace farmers' institute and county fair ? It would at least combine all of these. It THE COMMONS. [May, would be a definite, consecutive effort to unify the community. Like the settlement in the city ward, it would take for granted the good- ness, the aspiration, the self-saving power of the community, and would offer for these place and initiative for self-expression. It might be- gin with an effort to rescue the church building or the schoolhouse from exclusive use, and put it at the people's service. The main work might have to wait upon a patient campaign of educa- tion and a political struggle to gain control of the school board for the emancipation of the people's building from old fogyism and long- continued idleness. The preliminary battle won, the line of least resistance would then require patient, loving study. Whether to begin with a course of lectures, a boys' club, with games, stories, books, basket weaving, the urgent advertising of a traveling library, a series of summer ex- cursions, with lectures on the local geology, fauna, flora ; the organization of co-operative farming or dairying, these are questions to be answered after careful study in the light of local conditions. It might be that in a time of drouth or after the burning out of someone's house and barns, the proposal that the town gain possession of a hand-engine and hose for community use would offer opportunity to sug- gest the economy of co-operation. The same economic evolution which leads to the volun- tary organization by farmers, of corporations for private profit for the purchase of im- proved machinery, storage and transportation facilities, opens the door for a propaganda of co-operation in the same ways for public benefit. Let there be no suggestion of the difficulties it is worth while to overcome them. There ia no more pressing call to " consecrated wealth " in these days than that of the dwindling, despairing, self-abandoning farm community. Why should not the sleepless conscience of a Rockefeller or a Pearsons provoke the estab- lishment of a fund to send a brilliant, resource- ful group to the inspiration and salvation of some obscure country region, to set the example for the gradual uplift of rural communities throughout the land ? The isolation and imprisonment of human hearts and minds at the far end of impassible roads cries out for rescue. The idleness and insularity of long winter nights in tiny villages appeals for the leadership which shall supply the ever-presentneedof intellectual occupation and inspiration and of rational social inter- course and recreation. The narrow horizon of the farmer and his family, producing for the people the food which he cannot afford to eat, forces upon us an obligation to plead his cause for industrial justice and to open for him a world-vision. There needs to be now an evan- gelism to the socially and intellectually lost among the hills and valleys and on the prairies of this land. Let the work be called what it may, the social settlement, with its exemplifi- cation of happy, self-educating and resourceful home life ; its mediation of the world's thought- treasures to the ill-cultured and overworked ; its initiation and inspiration of political self- consciousness and community action ; its unification of reft social life in mutual ac- quaintance and helpfulness, has a mission and an example applicable to the rural district. THE BUFFALO CONFERENCE. Important Gathering of Reformers, to be Held June 25 to July 4. The National Social and Political Reform Conference to be held in Buffalo, June 25 to July 4, either will be a great success and result in a permanent strengthening of the awaken- ing conscience of this country, or will be a magnificent farce-comedy. The newspapers tried to make game of it by advertising it as an effort by Gov. Pingree, of Michigan, to organ- ize a new national political party! This was utter nonsense, of course, for the conference is called by a committee which begins with the name of Dr. Lyman Abbott and ends with that of Prof. Charles Zueblin, of the University of Chicago, and contains those of many of the leading men and women in reform movements of this country, but there are elements and theories enough represented to req.uire a mas- ter hand in management. Among the subjects to be discussed will be " The People vs. the Monopolies," " Political Reforms," " Expansion and Militarism," << Proportional Representa- tion," " Single Tax," " What Can the Parties Do ? " The underlying object of the confer- ence is to attempt to find a basis of harmony for future action. Admission to the confer- ence is upon invitation only, and credentials will be required, issued by Eltweed Pomeroy, Secretary, Newark, N. J. The first trust in Japan has just been organ- ized by four of the great spinning companies. Three more mills will be absorbed at once. The Labor World, Katayama's paper, issued at Kingsley Hall, Tokyo, says: " As the inevita- ble outcome of the more formation of trusts in the near future, it will hasten the growth of socialism in Japan." 1899. J THE COMMONS. $ Cbicago Commons. OUR BUILDING PROJECT. Working Out the Common Problem of Settlement and Church. The offer of a long ground-lease to the lot now occupied by the Tabernacle Church, rent free, has caused some change in the order of our procedure in trying to provide the settle- ment with a permanent building equipment. The decision to place this valuable lot under the control of the Chicago Commons Associa- tion was so unanimous upon the part both of the membership of the church and the direc- tors of the Chicago City Missionary Society that the settlement is constrained to undertake the fulfillment of the conditions upon which the offer is made. It involves the release of the City Missionary Society from further re- sponsibility for the oversight and financial as- sistance of the church; the maintenance of the autonomy of the church organization distinct from that of the settlement, and the erection of a building containing a large auditorium to be jointly occupied by the church and the set- tlement. The immediate need of replacing the dangerously dilapidated and ill-adapted church edifice by an effective building equipment at that most central point in our district is so much more imperative than the present neces- sity of securing the ownership and enlarge- ment of the property now occupied by The Commons, that we have decided to undertake the erection of the new building first, and later, before the expiration of our lease, to act upon the favorable option offered us for the posses- sion of our present site. This will be in fur- therance of our settled policy not to centralize all our equipment or concentrate all our workers at one point. For our ideal of settle- ment service is that of the Neighborhood Guild, involving smaller groups and scattered equipment, centering around one larger Guild House. The latter will be more favorably lo- cated on the new site, and warrants the invest- ment of $40,000. One-fourth of this sum is already either subscribed or in sight. The re- mainder should surely be secured this spring, in order to enable us to let our contracts for the new building at once, so that it may be ready for occupancy by Christmas. In the very heavy task of securing this great investment for tae application of the common faith to the social conditions of the common life we plead for the co-operation of all, near or far, who have any appreciation of the issues at stake which are so vital to the interests of our coun- try and the kingdom. All that moves us to undertake what may seem impossible is the profound conviction that it ought to be done, and that what ought to be can be, and should be attempted. LABOR AND POLITICS. Significant Discussion by Workliigmen at the Chicago Commous Tuesday Meeting. Around the red lamp the attendants upon the working people's economic discussion gathered for their monthly conversational social. The theme of the interview was the influence which organized labor and party politics have upon each other in Chicago. Frank, faithful and fraternal were the fears and hopes, the critical and constructive suggestions, and the sharp in- quiries which passed around the circle. The criticism centered far more about the central labor organizations of the city than upon the lo- cal unions of the trades. The satisfaction which some took in securing from the city adminis- tration appointive offices for labor men was repudiated by most of those present, who stoutly maintained that elective offices offered the only significant political positions for rep- resentatives of organized labor. The danger of debauchery in the policy of demanding for labor leaders appointive positions at the hands of successive city administrations was c- kuowledged. The contamination resulting from the close contacts with the sinister political influence of the saloon, due to the necessity of holding labor union meetings in beer halls, was deplored. The inconsistency of claiming that "to the victors belong the spoils in pol- itics^" and at the same time professing loyalty to the essential principles of trade unionism, was scathingly set forth. While the growing ability of the craft journals was a subject for congratulation, the need was urged of some more comprehensive and unifying labor paper, which could help secure more effective polit- ical action for the furtherance of the princi- ples underlying the broad labor movement. All agreed that instead of " reform " cries and parties, the need of the country and the times was for a formatory party or policy, with pos- itive principles and a positive program, upon which the majority of those committed to the cause of human progress, for which the labor movement stands could agree. COMMONS NOTES. . The settlement is under obligations to J. S. B. Andresses and the plumbing firm of Winchester & Barnes, for the gift of material and labor in the rearrangement of our hot water system, replacing the gas " water front" with a boiler connected with one of our furnaces. Boys in the manual training classes have maintained the keenest interest this spring in making miniature log-cabin and block-house to illustrate their historical studies at the Montefiore school. Several entire days in va- cation, from early till late, saw an indefatiga- ble group absorbed in this work. Mrs. Mary H. Ford, of Chicago, has been more than ordinarily kind to Chicago Com- mons folk during the past month, appearing before the Woman's Club with a paper on "The Holy Grail," April 14, and before the Shakes, peare Club and its friends the following even- ing with an address on " Hamlet." THE COMMONS. [May, THE COMMONS. H flDontbls 1RecorJ> H>evoteo to Bspects of Xife ant> labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see " Publisher's Corner " on last page. CHICAGO, MAY 15, 1899. EDITORIAL. SPECIAL NOTICE. [To Former Readers of the Kingdom.] Through the good offices of the Right Relationship League, of Chicago, an arrangement has been made by which THE COMMONS, co-operating with the Social Gospel, of Commonwealth, Ga., is to fill the unexpired subscrip- tions of the Kingdom, which suspended publication April 20. This issue of THE COMMONS is sent to all former read- ers of the Kingdom whose names are on the subscription list which has been furnished to us. Direct communication by mail will be used to learn the wishes of Kingdom readers about continuing as regular subscribers of THE COMMONS after their paid subscriptions to the Kingdom have expired. THE KINGDOM AND THE COMMONS. AFTER ten years of faithful and valiant serv- ice in the cause of free speech and social Christianity, the Kingdom, of Minneapolis, suspended publication with the issue of April 20. Directly, the publication was throttled by the sheer brute force of the United States court interpreting the law in favor of the corrupt and shameless book trust, whose methods the Kingdom had the presumption and the courage to assail. Its sources of income were seized under a receivership to satisfy the judgment which the verdict of the court awarded against the publishing company. With a magnificent parting shot at the victor, in the battle which, under handicap of most astonishing decisions by the court, it had been compelled to light, the valiant newspaper passed out of publication. Its passing marked a signal victory, not only over the book company, whose technical suc- cess was, in fact, a moral defeat, but most of all over institutional conservatism and inertia. What greater victory than to die at the end of a completed work, achieved in the face of in- superable obstacles ? When the Kingdom was founded a decade ago under the name of the Northwestern Congregationalist, it was practic- ally the only newspaper, religious or secular, to which those advocating the then new and rising emphasis upon the social interpretation of Christianity had access. There seemed all but a conspiracy on the part of the conven- tional press, East and West, to ignore this re- vival of apostolic intensity in social prophecy and service, which was finding tongue and in- carnation in spite of disapproval in high places of power. Herron, Gates, Coyle and others had small chance of a hearing or a reading, so far as the average publication then in existence was concerned. And for a long time the King- dom battled single-handed for the cause, and for fair play for those to whose message it gave circulation. Inch by inch was gained. In the spread of the social gospel during these last ten years, many voices and causes have had part. The increasing economic pressure of our day has made myriads of converts to the cause for which the Kingdom has stood, but of all volun- tary human agencies contributing to the pres- ent activity of the Christian church upon social lines, it is well within the truth to say that surely no single one has been more effec- tive than has the plain, modest, fearless, de- voted newspaper to which this article is a willing tribute of gratitude and affection. The work of the Kingdom, in one sense, was complete. Through misunderstanding, mis- representation, and indifference, it had fought its way to recognition and respect even to enthusiastic acceptance of its message, and there is a certain fitness in its laying down its sword and putting away its battle flag torn and tattered, but never dishonored nor fairly defeated. Upon the fighting line of its last great battle it yielded up its life. But the Kingdom is not dead, or, rather, being dead, it yet speaketh, and will speak. Two newspapers carry on its message and, so far as may be, its business. The Social Gospel, ' publication of the Christian communist colony at Commonwealth, Ga.,and THE COMMONS will seek to carry on the work which the Kingdom has laid down. And there seems no small sig- nificance even in the two new names under which the one old Message will go on. The Social Gospel, with its word of economic just- ice and equality, is in some sense the offspring of the Kingdom, in which were published the first letters and articles out of which the Com- monwealth colony was provoked into being. And on a new and better basis of actual living, the old appeal for " taking Jesus seriously " goes forth with new vigor and command to human hearts and lives. And THE COMMONS, entering in this issue upon its fourth volume, with a fresh zest and renewed enthusiasm, seeks to voice the other side of the same message: the title of the people THE COMMONS to their best and highest life. The Kingdom is no longer a vague, future prophecy, to be spoken of in hardly compre- hensible ecclesiastical terms, or requiring a special organ for its announcement. The King- 1899. J THE COMMONS. 9 dom of God, the religious institution of the future, is the Common Life of the Common People, redeemed unto God in right relation- ships of common men with common men. As we have said often of ourselves, so we say again, as our word of. testimony and reconse- cration for the coming year, THE COMMONS stands for the sharing of all of life with and for men of every class and station ; for the reservation of neutral spots of Mother Earth, from private ownership, as common meeting places where men may come to understand each other ; for the recognition, the inspira- tion, the expression of the self-conscious life and aspiration of the common humanity of which we desire to be both a part and a prophesying voice, that the redeemed Com- mons, through the exemplification of the Social Gospel in human flesh, may become at last the Kingdom of God for men ; of men for God. FEW greater poems exist in the English lan- guage, we venture to assert, than that of Edwin Markham, entitled, " The Man with the Hoe," written after seeing Millet's famous painting and reproduced, with a representation of the picture, this month in THE COMMONS. The illustration is reproduced, with acknowl- edgments to Braun, Clement & Co., New York. We are not aware where the poem was origin- ally published, but make acknowledgment to the Outlook, which printed in its issue of May 6 an authorized version, especially revised by the author for the purpose. From that publi- cation we take the text appearing now upon our cover. Not even excepting Kipling's "White Man's Burden," no poem of recent years has been more extensively nor more deservedly re- produced, in publications of all kinds, as this of Mr. Markham's. In no language and in no literary form is there a better or more impress- ive utterance of the appeal, the demand, the threat of the down-trodden mass of labor which is beginning to make itself heard above all other voices of humanity. THE shame of the " White Man's Burden " business is not that the Anglo-Saxon race is pursuing the course of its manifest destiny in taking possession of the islands of the sea, but that we attempt to deceive ourselves and each other by miscalling a campaign purely for commercial spoil a benevolent enterprise in the cause of freedom and true civilization. Its only real result is to brand us in the eyes of the keen-sighted world as the hypocrites we are. International robbery and extermination may indeed be in fulfillment of Survival of the Fittest, but it is not international brotherhood or humanitarianism ! The record of this gov- ernment in its dealings with its own Indian wards gives the lie direct to all our shameless protestations of benevolent intentions. The last of the Yaqui Indians was "benevolently assimilated " into his grave a few days ago ! THIS office has entirely exhausted its supply of the November and December issues of THE COMMONS (Nos. 31 and 32), being short even of its permanent files. Any reader of the paper willing to part with copies of these issues will receive the gratitude of the editor, who will be glad to remit postage, or even to pay a reasonable ransom for a limited number of copies. NOW that the War Department and its in- comparable head have had their second coat of whitewash, the most severe critic can suggest only one addition stripes! 9 motes ot tbe .*.*.*.*. J jt j, j, Social Settlements DISCUSSING THE SALOON. Federation of Chicago Settlements Elects Officerg and Has an Interesting: Discussion. The Federation of Chicago Settlements held the last session for the season April 22d, at Hull House. Kev. Dr. G. W. Gray, of the Forward Movement, was chosen president; Miss Elma Graves, of the Helen Heath House, vice-presi- dent; Miss Jennie Williamson, of the Girls' Mu. tual Benefit Settlement, secretary; and Harry F. Ward, of the Northwestern University Set- tlement, treasurer. Final arrangements for the conference of American Settlements, to be held in this city May 15-17, were fully dis- cussed. The investigation of the ethical substitutes for the saloon, being made by Koyal L. Me- lendy, of Chicago Commons, was briefly re- ported. It led to an interesting "experience meeting " on the aspects of the saloon from the settlement residents' point of view. Many bright and interesting things were said. One resident considered the saloon "a part of the neighborhood, which must change with the neighborhood." Another showed how it was hated even by its patrons who carried beer from it to their homes, but who had a contempt for those who drank in the saloon. Another disclosed the fact that saloons were being planted near the vegetable gardens to reap the 10 THE COMMONS. [May, new harvest of the family toil upon the soil. Its most sinister influence was shown to be in ward politics. There was a general concensus of conviction on tliree points, first, that the term " saloon " was too indiscriminately used as it compre- hends radically different agencies; second, that the worse saloons with which are allied the most vicious features should be discrimin- ated against and that the settlements should endeavor to see that illegal features should be suppressed; third, that only by substituting a better agency to fulfill the social function, un- fortunately left to the saloon to exercise, can its evil ever be done away with. CHICAGO FORWARD MOVEMENT. Periodical to Report Progress in the Social Settle- ment, Camp Work, Etc. An attractive booklet of 36 pages has been issued by the Forward Movement, of Chicago, to describe its work. The social settlement of the movement at 219 South Sangamon street has now ten resident workers, nine of whom devote their entire time to carrying out the purpose of the association, and about one hun- dred non-residents who co-operate with the resident workers by serving on committees under the direction of the association. At the social settlement the association has its head- quarters, and most of the work thus far accom- plished has been done at this center and along social settlement lines. The means and meth- ods of the association are intended to include : (i) Collecting and publishing statistics bear- ing on social and industrial conditions; (2) Es- tablishing radiating centers of personal influ- ence known as social settlements; (3) Promoting the application of the co-operative principle; (4) Giving such temporary aid as shall tend to make the beneficiaries self-sustaining and self- respecting; (5) Acquiring the use of suitably equipped buildings, halls, committee rooms and headquarters, not only for its own occu- pancy, but, under proper regulations, for the occupancy also of other organizations engaged in the same or kindred work; (6) Promoting, through appropriate committees, social, educa- tional, philanthropic and religious work; (7) Otherwise securing the application of practical Christianity as taught and illustrated by what Christ said and did to the individual in every relation of life. The new pamphlet, which is to be issued quarterly, is dated January 15, and is to be called The Forward Movement. There are sev- eral attractive illustrations of life at the sum- mer camps of the Movement. We are informed that a permanent camp and summer school will be established in Michigan on the east shore of Lake Michigan, and that adequate buildings and facilities for a large work in this line will shortly be available. SETTLEMENT NOTES. An article on " The Social Settlement," by Kev. Howard Macqueary, of Unity House, Min- neapolis, appeared in the January issue of the Minnesota Magazine. Hale House, Boston, reports its circulating library as now containing 750 volumes. A pic- ture loan exhibition is also a popular feature of Hale House work. The April issue of the Alumnce News, of New York, is devoted to the interests of the bazar held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel for the ben- efit of the Alumnae House Settlement. We regret to chronicle the discontinuance of the Delano Settlement, Evanston, 111. Certain evening appointments continue, but the work is now a mission," without residents. Sen Katayama, headworker of the Kingsley Hall Settlement, in Tokyo, Japan, is organizing workingmen's clubs in Tokyo, and heading a movement looking to the starting of co-opera- tive stores. Lincoln House, Boston, has just had a suc- cessful art exhibition and fair. The pictures were " loaned by artists and private owners," as the catalogue says, "with the simple hope that they would give pleasure and be of some profit." Toynbee Hall is interpreted to the French by Rene Claparede in a well-printed and illustrated pamphlet, published in Paris. The same writer refers at some length to Chicago Commons and Hull House in the " Kevue du Christianisme Social.'' The educational province and influence of the social settlements is enlarged upon by E. C. Moore, formerly of Hull House, in the University of California Magazine. Dr. Doro- thea Moore, Mr. Moore's wife, is head of the Manse Social Settlement at Oakland, Calif. Our good friend, J. Stitt Wilson, of the Social Crusade, has returned from his tour of social study in England. The successive issues of the Social Crusader contain his let- ters and impressions and other valuable mat- ter relating to the progress of the social move- ment. A copy of the Syracuse University Forum refers to a plan forming to establish a settle- ment under the University auspices, but as it was to be under the auspices of Prof. John K. Commons, whose views on trusts proved disa- greeably outspoken (the ubiquitous Standard Oil trust having a personal representative in the University management) to the point of the u 1899. J THE COMMONS. 11 requirement of his resignation, probably the settlement will at least be delayed in its start- ing. A new feature of Broad Plain House, Bristol, Eng., is their opening of the house during the dinner hour to the girls of a neighboring soap factory. A Sunday morning Bible school for men is expected to achieve good results. The report and prospectus for 1898-99 of the Stewart Avenue Universalist Church, Chicago, contains a report of the work of the Neighbor- hood House settlement under the auspices of the church, of which Rev. E. A. White is pas- tor. Mr. and Mrs. Vander Vaart are at the head of the settlement. We regret having overlooked until now the annual report of the " Neighborship " settle- ment, allied with Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, at Greenpoint in that city. An outline of the ex- cellent work of that settlement was given in the November issue of the Pratt Institute Monthly, that issue being the* " Neighborship number." John D. Rockefeller will provide, it is said, the funds for the erection of a large social set- tlement home for the Italian district in the east end of Cleveland, O. The building will be called the Alta House, in honor of Miss Alta Rockefeller, one of the prime movers of the kindergarten and day nursery work among the Italian children of that district, and will cost $78,000. Mr. Eockefeller will also provide an endowment fund to insure an income to run the building. GROWTH OF SOCIALISM. (Springfield Kepublican.) The slow but curiously steady growth of the socialist labor party in this state. Massachusetts and Rhode Island is beginning to attract notice. Hartford Courant. A matter more curious even than the steadi- ness of the socialist increase of voting power is the character of that increase, which in itself stands for a remarkable though quiet advance in the faith of socialism, not only with me- chanics and allied labor, but among hu- mane-minded men who think without regard to their interests. The community contains many more socialists than the election records show among such men, who still vote their old party ticket. But the true socialists are the mighty combiners of vast enterprises not simply in the sense that they are gathering to- gether the forces of life into monopolies which will be ready for the hands of the people whenever they shall choose to demand them, but in the further sense that they are quite sensible of the part they play and quite con- ceivers of the inevitableness of the outcome. Many a great exploiter of his fellow-man is frank to say to his friends that he and his sort are advance agents of socialism though he will not say so publicly. 9 ^literature anfc f SOCIAL LITERATURE. RECENT BOOKS OF THE SETTLEMENT AND REFORM MOVEMENT. Professor Herron's Last Book Herr Zenker Seeks the Truth About Anarchism Friendly Visiting Among tlie Poor Literary Notes. " Between Caesar and Jesus " the whole issue of the social significance of Christianity is stated in the title of Professor George D. Her- ron's last book. The eternal conflict between God and Mammon; the interchange of terms between essential Christianity and the indus- trial and economic problems of our modern life; the inevitable necessity upon the Chris- tian to choose between Caesar and Jesus even today all these mighty and eternal world- questions are stated with startling vigor in this volume of eight lectures. Whatever one may think of Professor Herron, and of the re- vival in these days of the apostolic seriousness in treating the social idea of Christianity, this book must be answered it cannot be evaded. It is Professor Herron's most finished work. In it he has gone to the uttermost in the logic of his position. He has seen the issue plainly, and has not evaded it. In the sixth lecture, on " The Conflict of Christ with Christianity," he has stated his own position; he has not shrunk from the clear issue between his own past and his own future. He squarely sets foot against the ecclesiasticism of this day, and throws down the gage of battle to the mighty ones within the church which hitherto has furnished both his shelter and his status. These eight lectures were delivered in Wil- lard Hall, Chicago, on Monday noons in Octo- "AMERICAN CO-OPERflTlVE NEWS" Organ of the Co-Operative Union of America. Subscription Price - 50 Cents a Year. Club rate, when ordered with " The Commons." Both Magazines, one year, 75 cents. 12 THE COMMONS. [May, ber, November and December, 1898, and were repeated upon a very emphatic popular request in Central Music Hall on Sunday evenings in February, March and April, before very large and enthusiastic audiences. The most striking of the lectures are the first two, for they draw with startling vividness the picture of the divine tragedy of conscience in the ethical dilemma of the Christian's position in modern society. " The Ethical Tragedy of the Economic Problem " is strikingly compre- hensive; no other man in our time has so clearly depicted, bare of false coverings and divested of casuistry, the paradox of human life and conscience to which we find ourselves shut up. The absolute right that we would do is an ab- solute wrong in the light of our human rela- tionships. "The economic system denies the right of the sincerest and most sympathetic to keep their hands out of the blood of their brothers. We may not go to our rest at night, or waken to our work in the morning, without bearing the burden of the communal guilt; without being ourselves creators and causes of the wrongs we seek to bear away. At every step, when we would do good, evil is present with us, and exacts its tribute from the very citadel of the soul. If we stay at our posts, in order that we may change the system, we are on the backs of our brothers; if we desert our posts, in order that we may get off our brothers' backs, we take the bread from their mouths, from the mouths of their children and add to the army of the workless and hopeless. Upon the con- science which enthrones Christ, civilization forces this dilemma: seek extrication and peace for yourself, at the risk of losing your soul through the supreme selfishness of living to save it; or else remain in the thick of the wrong, enduring the ethical strain, the tragedy of soul, the moral suffering unspeakable, in order that you. may help to bear the wrong away from the necks and souls of your broth- ers, and millions are denied even the right to this dilemma. The hard conditions of stupefy- ing toil under which the vast majority of hu- man beings live, even in Christendon, destroys moral desire, or denies opportunity where de- sire exists, and converts man into a mere crea- ture of profit, a beast of work." And of the truth of this description of the situation, no one with keen ethical sense or knowledge of present-day human affairs can have a doubt. The second lecture elaborates this dilemma, and under the significant title, " The Social Sacrifice of Conscience," presents the strenu- ous claim of the human need upon the finest consecration of uttermost divinity in manhood. He who, sinless, became sin for us, is the eter- nal Type of the sacrifice of conscience, and there could be no more stirring appeal to the hero-blood in men than that of Professor Her- ron to the truly Christian manhood of this day. " Who is sufficient for this martyrdom of the soul ? Where are the saviors who will lose their own souls that they may save the soul of the race ? Let them arise and come quickly ! For them wait the captives and captains of in- dustry alike ; for them wait the heart of God and the destiny of the world." Howells says economic inequality is the sum of almost all the sins and shames that ever were. With unerring certainty and force, Her- ron points out the impossibility of moral re- sponsibility 'without economic freedom We deny the people moral rights and then demand of them that they be morally right ! " he jibes at us, and none can gainsay it. And his rem- edy follows logically "the public ownership of the sources and means of production is the sole answer to the social question, and the sole basis of spiritual liberty." Professor Herron's contention that the uni- form teaching of the Christian church, save when it has been dominated by pagan influ- ences, has been in favor of individual poverty and commonwealth, we shall give wider space at another time. He draws liberally upon the writings and teachings of the church in all times to prove that the approval of individual wealth has been the exception, not the rule. Christ's conflict with what we call " civiliza- tion," in politics and economics, and with pagan ecclesiasticism under the name of Chris- tianity, is the subject of two strong lectures. It was in the seventh lecture, on " Indubtrial Facts and Social Ideals," that Dr. Herron dis- counted many guesses and accusations as to his own classification of himself among the schools and creeds of social reform. " I have steadily refused to be classified," says he, "whether as socialist, single taxer, Tolstoyan rudely and inadequately as I interpret him, I prefer to stand before you simply as an inter- preter of Jesus, as an advocate of his ideal of human relations. * * * Following this ideal as our social vision, we shall find ourselves at last in the universal communism and liberty which are the outcome of obedience to the law of love. With this confession of faith, there- fore, with Christ's kingdom of heaven as the only social goal I can see, I am yet ready to follow any man, or to work with any program, or to march in any camp that will take but the blindest single step toward making way for the 1899. j THE COMMONS. 13 organizing and evolving power of the peace of good will among men." We are aware of no presentation in literature, equally clear, of the magnificent failure unto victory of the life of Jesus, or of the over- whelming victory out of failure, as that of Pro- fessor Herron in the final chapter of the book, " The Victory of Failure." None who heard it as a verbal address, either before the combined religious societies of Harvard University in 1895, or in either of the Chicago presentations during the past winter, could have failed to be moved to his spiritual depths by this ringing appeal for courage unto victorious failure. It is the truest and most Christian note that Dr. Herron has ever sounded. It is the lesson the Christian conscience of our country most needs today that sacrifice is " not so much the lay- ing down as the taking up of life, * * * the denial of self as the center of individual inter- est and effort * * * by sacrifice the things of life are sanctified through right and social usage." Nothing more true could be said than is said in the ringing appeal with which this address and the book come to their close " As the Father sent Jesus, so sends he each of us to bear away the sins of the world, and become completest worldly failures, that the social order of his kingdom may appear amidst the wrecks of organized selfishness. * * * Do not suffer things and prejudices to rob you of your fellowship, for that is your life. Rise to the noblest that is in you, and dare to trust it. * * * And in the conquest of your fears you will conquer yourself ; and the God in you will conquer the world for love and liberty." TRUTH ABOUT ANARCHISM. Herr Zenker's Books Candidly Kxamines the Kadical Theory and History. Of all the serio-:'omic things done in the name of the despotic buffoonery which Europe calls " government," nothing was funnier than the recent conference to devise measures against Anarchists, following the murder in Switzer- land of the Empress of Austria by the half-crazy fanatic now in solitary confinement for life. With much mysterious nodding and winking and tiptoeing these solemn delegates came to- gether in secret session, held conclave for sev- eral days or weeks and when they finally adjourned it appeared that they had brought forth nothing. It leaked out that the essential trouble was the difficulty of recognizing an " Anarchist" when you should meet him! No two members of this ridiculous group had the same definition of the class they were seeking to extirpate. And the measures proposed were equally multiform, varying from disfran- chisement and exile to physical torture, brand- ing, and even extermination. The fact is there is no satisfactory definition of " Anarchist " or " Anarchism." It depends on the point of view of the definer as toward the defined. There are almost as many schools of radicals, moderate and ultra, as there are sects of Christendom, and even the self-avowed An- archists vary all the way from indolent laissez- faire individualism to the destructive need- propagandism of Bakounin; from the inevitable revolutionary Russian nihilism, stopping not short of dynamite, to the inoffensive nonresist- ance of Tolstoy. The philosophy which opposes governmental control of personal action in- cludes with equal propriety Herbert Spencer, the consummate philosopher of human science, and the ex-aristocrat Prince Peter Kropotkin, the gentle and scholarly apostle of Anarchist- communism. The further fact is that in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, the blood-curdling An- archist "conspiracies" of which the censorized European dispatches tell us when wars and ru- mors of wars are lacking to keep the attention of the people diverted from their affairs and from the various gangs of bandits who loot their prop- erty have no existence save in the imagination of the police. Take notice that the " infernal machines " found, and sometimes exploded, in public, and especially in police buildings in European cities, seldom or never injure any policemen! And that they are usually found in very dull times when ordinary police busi- ness is slack. Even the famous Chicago Hay- market bomb "conspiracy" had small exist- ence outside the fertile and unscrupulous im- agination of a notorious inspector of police, remembered most vividly for his own invention of "evidence" in other criminal cases. It isonly the bare truth that the Anarchism over which the civilized, world has occasional hysterics is largely a nursery-maid's bogey of the dignity and actuality which usually attaches to buga- boos. Moreover, it is becoming the fashion nowa- days to cry " Anarchist !" at every man who presumes to press the claims of common human rights and duties upon those who have profited by their violation. It is coming to be emi- nently respectable to be an " Anarchist " now- adays! The name implies a degree of progres- sive thought, and a notion that a man is more than the dollars he has or has not. It was high time, then, that somebody with a 14 THE COMMONS. ("May, cool head and a dispassionate earnestness of inquiry, should undertake to capture this ter- rorizing ghost which has been stalking about among the tombs of human liberty in the European graveyard and scaring (small won- der!) the red-handed butchers who have filled the graves. " Anarchism, a Criticism and History of the Anarchistic Theory," by E. V. Zenker, is the first serious attempt, outside the original lit- erature of the movement itself, so far as the writer of this review is aware, to look boldly into the face of this Fearful Presence, and pull out and examine the straw and excelsior with which the Dreadful Thing is stuffed. It is published, strange to say, by a reputable pub. lishing house none more so that of G. P. Putnam's Sons, of New York and London, and we earnestly recommend it to the frank and fearless attention of our fair-minded readers. Mr. Zenker, himself hostile to the Anarchistic theory, examines it and its history with entire and discriminating fairness, reviewing the early stages and precursory growth of the An- archist movement, in the middle ages and dur- ing the French Revolution, and setting forth clearly its political and economic assumptions. The prophets and preachers of Anarchism he reports with biography and analysis Proud- hon, in France ; Stirner, Faucher, Hess, Gri'm, Marr, in Germany; Bakounin, Netzajew, Brouese, Kropotkin and the rest in Russia; and the Kropotkin school, today in the ascendant, with Prince Kropotkin and the scholarly Reclus in the foreground. The modern movement in Germany, France and America he traces, and devotes the last part of the work to examina- tion of the relation of Anarchism to science and politics. One thing remains vividly clear after any candid study of Anarchism: that it is the in- evitable offspring of tyranny. One could thrill with horror and pity at the useless, cow- ardly and insane butchery of the poor old Empress of Austria without forgetting for a moment that the royal House of Hapsburg, which she represented, deserves at the hands of humanity nothing save scorn and hatred, for it is a House whose foundations and super- structure are sodden with human blood ; every stone of it cries out to God and man with cries of agony and oppression. Anarchism is essentially an exotic on this soil ; it is the antiphon of despotism, and its appearance in America is ominous, not so much on its own account as because it never could grow in a free soil. The aggression of government in the hands of monopoly is the cause of the growth of radicalism in the United States, and if Anarchism, or any other form of protest against tyranny ever should become aggressive in this country, it will be because that against which it is a protest has become unbearable. Note our author's closing words : " Anarchism may be defined etiologi- cally as disbelief in the suitability of consti- tuted society. With such views there would be only one way in which we could cut the ground from under the Anarchists' feet. So- ciety must anxiously watch that no one should have reason to doubt its intention of letting justice have free sway, but must raise up the despairing, and by all means in its power lead them back to tueir lost faith in society. A movement like Anarchism cannot be conquered by force and injustice, but only by justice and freedom." J. P. G. In a recent issue (Dec. 8, 1898) of the Inde- pendent, Prof. Cesare Lombroso, the famous alienist, writing of " Anarchistic Crimes and Their Causes," says : " If any one thinks that killing the Anarchists is going to conquer An- archy, just so much the more does he give them satisfaction, because they are in large measure merely people disposed to indirect suicide. But if one will remember that the root of the evil is not in the individual .... the matter is plain. If the microbe of Anarchy keeps on multiplying itself because the atmosphere of infelicity and of violence is favorable to it, it is not to the destruction of one or two of the individuals that we must trust for our remedy, but to the thorough purgation of the air about us." FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR. Handbook for Charity Workers by Mi.*8 Mary E. Richmond of Baltimore. 11 Friendly Visiting Among the Poor, a Hand- book for Charity Workers," by Mary E. Rich- mond, general secretary of the Charity Organi- zation Society of Baltimore, is a much-needed book. " The reader that I tried to keep in mind," says the author in a personal letter to THE COMMONS, < 'was the average, inexperienced church worker, with certain prejudices and certain very good intentions. You will find it milk for babes, but not unwholesome diet, I hope." In that paragraph Miss Richmond has char- acterized her book. It is a wholesome, clean, unmorbid treatment of the practical aspects of 1899. J THE COMMONS. 15 the work of the well-meaning, well-to-do " friendly visitor " to the families of the very poor. To a large extent it waives the question of social remedies, and presupposes conditions as they are, altho there are scattered thro the book many keen and healthy reflections upon questions of social and economic relationship. Especially to be admired are the unfailing recognition of the human rights of the poor family to self-respect and consideration, the strong emphasis upon constructive relation- ship with the family. Milk-and-water aristo- cratic effeminacy in dealing with poverty with gloved finger-tips will find little comfort in Miss Richmond's earnest pages. The most wholesome thing of all is the ur- gency with which the author presses the claim of the neighborhood for self-helpfulness, for the visitor's non-interference with the spon- taneous impulses of neighborly fellowship. " The ties of neighborliness and mutual de- pendence among the poor can be weakened by a charity that leaves such natural and health- ful relations out of account. The poor in rich neighborhoods, or in neighborhoods where alms are lavishly given, are less kind to each other, and the whole tone of the neighborhood can be lowered, mistrust and jealousy being substituted for neighborly helpfulness, by indiscriminating doles from those whose kindly but condescending attitude has quite blinded them to the every-day facts of the neighbor- hood life." Suggestive of the scope and value of the work are the chapter headings "The Bread- winner," " The Breadwinner at Home," " The Homemaker," " The Children," " Health," " Spending and Saving," " Recreation," "Re- lief," " The Church," " The Friendly Visitor." Each chapter is enriched by a selection of col- lateral readings, and the index is thoro and searching. (The MacMillan Company, New York, $1.00.) AGAINST IMPERIALISM. The most searching, fearless and convincing array of argument, presentation and invective against the imperialistic insanity which has reddened our hands with the blood of Filipinos is the pamphlet " Anti-Imperialism," by Mor- rison T. Swift, editor of the Public Ownership Review of Los Angeles, Cal. Its arraignment of the Anglo-Saxon race, of the policy of colo- nization and brutal foreign conquest, especially as exemplified by the Sirdar Kitchener in the Soudan, and more particularly of our own na- tional administration, must be answered. It cannot be laughed, sneered or bullied out of court. (Public Ownership Review, publishers, Los Angeles, 10 cents.) ANOTHER SETTLEMENT BOOK. From Mansfield House, London, comes an- other of the good works on social matters which are accumulating into a settlement literature. We shall have occasion to review at some length later " University and Social Settle- ments " is the title, and it is published by Nethven & Co., in the < Social Questions of the Day " series. It is edited by Will Reason, who for six years was colleague of Percy Alden in the Mansfield House management. There are articles by Sir Walter Besant, Canon Barnett, Rev. J. Scott Lidgett, Will Reason, Percy Alden, and others. The appendices give ac- count of exceptional institutions and societies in connection with some of the houses, and a bibliography of English and Scotch settlements adds value to the book. "Pointed Paragraphs for Thoughtful People" is a little pocket-size volume of disjointed re- flections by James Guy Burr, published by Charles H. Kerr, & Co., Chicago. The para- graphs cover a wide range of subjects. Some are very clever and pointed; most of them are interesting. One of the most stirring pamphlets we have seen on the subject of railway corruption and the question of national ownership is that of F. G. R. Gordon, of Manchester, N. H. It is replete with convincing facts and figures. Published by Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago, at five cents per copy. The most interesting feature of the publica- tion No. 57 of the Christian Social Union, is the display of the correspondence in a case of industrial dispute between certain pressmen and their employers in New York, arbitrated by Seth Low. It is highly significant and sug- gestive of the possibilities in all industrial dis- agreements. The Labour Prophet, which for several years has been the monthly organ of the Labor Church movement in England, has given place to the Labour Church Record, to be published quarterly for free distribution. John Trevor will be editor, and the office of publication will be at Horsted Kynes, Sussex, Eng. The termination of publication of the Aew Time has in no way affected the business of Charles H. Kerr & Co., in the publication of books of social reform. A loner and valuable list of radical works is available at low price. THE COMMONS will be glad to furnish a cata- logue of these books upon application, or it may be obtained directly of Charles H. Kerr A- Company, 56 Fifth avenue, Chicago. 16 THE COMMONS. [May, '99. J THE COMMONS "Recorfc Jevote& to aspects of Xife an& Xabor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOR. Published on the 15th day of each month at CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, III. PUBLISHER'S CORNEK. A red or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above s-cent denominations AT OUR RISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to Ihe contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. SAY BITTER ENGRAVING Co 65-67 WASHINGTON SJ CHICAGO ILL MDNDN ROUTE Q)) (HICAOO.|NDIANAPOUSfr[OUISVIU.I ft All WAY ^~ TUB HETWEKX Chicago Indianapolis Cincinnati Lafayette Louisville AND ALL POINTS SOUTH THROUGH SLEEPERS TO CINCINNATI AND WASHINGTON DAILY FRANK J. REED, G. P. A. CITY TICKET OFFICE, 232 CLARK ST. CHICAGO. Practical WORK By Social Workers of Experience in Settlements and Clubs. EDITORS: WILLIAM A. CLARK, Lincoln House, Boston. JOHN P. GAVIT, Editor of "The Commons." To be published during 1899 and 1900. AMONG THE SUBJECTS TREATED WILL BE: Games and Flays. Boys' Clubs. A Scheme of Handicraft Playwork for Clubs. Men's Clubs. Summer Camps and Industrial Farms for Boys. Theatricals for Clubs. Art in Settlements. The Place of Music In Clubs and Settlements. Nature Work in Clubs. Personal Equipment of the Club Worker. Etc., etc. First Monograph, on "Games and Plays,'' Now Ready. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: The First Series (6) 5Oc. Full Series (12) 75c. Single Copies lOc. Order of either Editor. Mention The Commons. OF IHf UNIVERSITY of ILUNOIS 3? flDtosummer IRumber CHICAGO IN SUMMER No. 35. CHICAGO. July t J899. \VHERETHECHILDRKNPLAY THE TWO BATTLES CONTRASTED. Ay, that is a story that takes one's breath, How the men rode out in the face of death. Bode as calmly as fishermen may Who haul their nets at the break of day. But never was fish net hauled in the weather That rifle and cannon and fchell together Rained on those sailors, who drew from its bed The wise sea serpent and crushed its head. Heroes of war are they! Song and story Shall add their names to the list of glory; But where is the story and where is the song For heroes of peace and martyrs of wrong? They fight their battles in shop and mine; They die at their posts and make no sign, And the living envy the fortunate dead As they fight for a pittance of butterless bread. + They herd like beasts in a slaughter pen; They live like cattle and suffer like men. Why, set by the horrors of such a life. Like a merry-go-round seems the battle's strife. And the open sea. and the open boat, And the deadly cannon with bellowing throat, Oh, what are they all, with death thrown in, To the life that has nothing to lose or win The life that has nothing to hope or gain. But ill- paid labor and beds of pain? Etta Wheeler Wilcox. STRENUOUSNESS-AND FAIR PLAY. BY JOHN P. GAVIT. P)OOE of the blood must he be whose heart I does not bound at sight of a brave deed! Ev- ery man whose veins circulate anything above the temperature of cold tea loves to see, or next best to hear of, an Achievement. He that can read without a thrill the tales of the heroes of the race, whether in the deeds of war or the endurances of peace, is a poor specimen of manhood. It is something mightily more and better than mere brutality that stirs the heart of a nation with interest and enthusiasm over the heroisms of even serio-comic wars, or the honest contests of manly sport even the prize fights, which everybody ostentatiously exe- crates in public and reads about on the sly! That which men love and honor in success, even the sordid and sometimes ignoble success of the market, is the inference of obstacles overcome by self-denial, industry, pluck and energy, of opponents vanquished in fair and open battle upon even terms. Recently there have come into sight and hearing a hero and a poet of what one of them has called "Strenuousness." Not without reason have Theodore Koosevelt and Eudyard Kipling caught the imagination of the Ameri- can people. To the heart of Anglo-Saxondom at its best appeals the dominant note of Dar- ing and Doing which tones in their acts and speeches and writings. In the one, who has incarnated his creed in courageous deed whose genuineness none may question, we see all that is essential of the fire and devotion that brought the Fathers, defiant of tyranny, across the wa- ter to conquer a pathless wilderness, to throw off with heroic violence the shackles of op- pression, and to build up a nation devoted, by their intention at least, to the freedom of Man. The other in his virile song and story calls into sympathy the latent heroism of viking and patriot solved in the blood of American manhood. These two men are sounding notes true to qualities inherent in man. And yet, in the inharmony of the social chords now playing, the notes they sound are false BO false that the men themselves are all but false in sound- ing them. For the one, with blood of heroes and revolutionists in his body, men say, has surrendered himself for a promise of political pottage, and marches in shackles at the wheel of the most corrupt, even if most respectable, political machine to which this nation ever has paid tribute. The other, writing out his soul by measure for hire at the bidding of publishers of cheap fiction, truckles more and more to public favor and declines toward rap- idly-nearing vanishment. What is the matter with the note they sound? Wherein is it false? Is the day of brave deeds done? Has the blood of the men who died for freedom on the field of revolution thinned out and lost its color and its heat? Has the race of the Pilgrim Fathers degenerated into a frail and sapless breed of Mammon-worshiping lick- spittles? Has patriotism given way to bunting- worshipV Have we come at last to the Apothe- osis of the Milk-sop V Far, very far from it ! The best proof we have in these days of the inherent nobility, truthfulness and heroism of manhood is the fact that permanent enthusiasm cannot be gal- vanized by cheap or fictitious appeals to 2 [38] THE COMMONS. [July, ejnpty and purposeless motives; that it makes but small and evanescent response to bun- combe, and has only temporary interest in the tawdry and dishonest twaddle that passes now for "patriotism." Verily, there is more nobil- ity of character, more hope of the inherent Quality of the human race in the disreputable mob that applauds a fair fight in the prize- ring than in a countless succession of so- called " patriotic " assemblies to ratify the ex- termination of a home-loving race in far-away islands in a war that reduces liberty to a ghastly, canting phrase and prostitutes the priceless heritage of American history for a "market." The men who sound this note of "Strenu- ousness" have forgotten, or do not know, that Fair Play the one indispensable condition that distinguishes honest battle from the squabbling of jackals over dead men's bones, and redeems Achievement from the shame of being mere tyranny over weakness is wanting. No man with a soul above that of a hyena has real joy or enthusiasm in a battle in which only one outcome can be possible, or a game in which the stakes go by foregone conclusion to the most skillful cheat. None but a race of cowards could raise a cheer for a victory over a hopelessly outclassed foe. Even the drunken bully of a mining town will hesitate to shoot an unarmed man. Those who assure us that Brotherhood is a dream and Altruism a denial of Nature's First Law, that the Strong will always win, that hu- man interference with Survival of the Fittest can make only mischief, forget that the condi- tions of the modern industrial conflict have abolished fair play from the field. The indi- vidual man, coming to the fray with bare hands and an honest heart, ready to battle with all the energy and " strenuousness " that the hero and the poet are crying for, finds himself in hopeless defeat before intrenched monopoly. The Strong are depending no longer on their strength. Cunning backed by force is taking the place of honest labor and fair competition, and those who hold the earth have hedged themselves about with special privileges. Government and law, theoretically intended to even-up conditions and offset life's handicap to some extent, to protect the Weak against the Strong, have been turned about and now pro- tect the Strong against the Weak ! This is the reason why the honest man can find little joy in the battle of life, why the true-hearted business man, not yet spoiled of his manhood, conducts his business for mere existence and with waning self-respect, and why success is so often tainted with the suspi- cion nay, with all but the certainty of Foul Play. Let it be granted, if you will, that the skillful player has a right to have and to use to his utmost the high cards that Fate and Heredity have dealt into his hand why now does he demand also an extra ace, or a whole pack in his sleeve indeed, in plain and shame- less sight upon the table! and more than that, why does he insist upon the gun of Law with which to compel his helpless and unarmed op- ponent to hand over the stakes, regardless of the naked merits and skill of the players of the game? Small wonder that the man with a soul has little zest for a conflict from which fair play is excluded and in which success requires methods to which a shell-game fakir at a coun- try fair would shame to stoop! Mr. Koosevelt, Mr. Kipling, there are men watching you both to see if something will not turn you now to plead and battle for Fair Play. The American people respect you both, and believe in you yet. The note you have sung, and that one of you has carried with dauntless courage on a field of battle is one that men will always love. But it is a false note now. The God of battles, the God of Man waits to see whether you shall exhaust your- selves in Talk and die out as good men have done before you, or whether you will see your divine opportunity and join in Manhood's real and ultimate struggle for Fair Play, equality of opportunity, and a chance to let the Best Man win on his merits by "strenuousness " in battle without handicap or favor. THIS ISSUE OF "THE COMMONS." THIS issue of THE COMMONS is reduced in size, in accordance with what we expect to make our custom for the vacation months, when so many of our readers are away from home. It affords us a valuable opportunity of economy, and enables us to reserve strength for superior issues in the winter. We ask our friends to accept this greeting of midsummer, which we have sought to make vigorous and earnest in quality if not large in size, with our promise of return to our regular size of issue in the fall. A goodly budget of notes from the settle- ments all over the world awaits the larger space of the September issue. A "movement" is a curious thing. It begins in hopelessness, thrives in opposition, lives by ridicule, matures by apathy, succeeds un- noticed, and then something quite simple hap- pens as the result of years and years of appar- ently unproductive agitation, and the " move- ment" comes to a triumphal conclusion. An Oxford 8. A. 1899. J THE COMMONS. L39] 3 HfieR). THE new interest in social ethics awakened in the Christian Endeavor Convention at Detroit by the appearance and " Practical Con- ferences " of Rev. Charles M. Sheldon is cheer- ing evidence that the churches are at last com- ing to be stirred by the ethical tragedy which has agitated the labor world for more than a quarter of a century. The sale in England of three million copies of his simple little tale, " In His Steps," is forcing church-people there to answer the question " What would Jesus do?" not only by word but in deed. For example, a pending evangelistic campaign in a great city is said to be imperiled by the fact that the nobleman in the lead publicly denies that as a Christian he is obliged to treat his employes any better than the common law requires. But the people persist in asking " What would Jesus do ? " A KEEN social observer, not predisposed to- ward distinctively Christian forms of so- cial effort, expressed surprise that in New York so many church people are taking such efficient interest in movements for social betterment, and that so many in the ranks of organized labor are speaking of them as their best friends. Another authority on the social signs of the times a literary and economic writer widely conversant with the facts of the industrial sit- uation there and throughout the country re- cently made a significant remark at the Chicago Commons vespers. "Five years ago," he said, " I was almost anti-church, because so discour- aged at the lack of interest and activity in so- cial affairs upon the part of church people. Now," he added, "I hope more from the church than from any other source, because so many of the best workers in city politics and social movements come from church quarters." THE press continues to teem with books on the Christian aspects of social issues. In Pike's "Divine Drama" theology is powerfully shown to be in the process of being socialized. Root's " The Profit of the Many " is an essay on the biblical doctrine and ethics of wealth. Halstead's " Christ in the Industries " more popularly than profoundly attempts to survey the industrial field from the standpoint of the Christian believer. The second volume of Dennis' " Christian Missions and Social Prog- ress" treats as thoroughly "the dawn of a Sociological Era in Missions," and "the contri- bution of Christian Missions to Social Prog- ress" as his first volume did "the Sociological Scope of Christian Missions " and " Christian- ity the Social Hope of the Nations." THE lecture courses at the Summer quarter of Chicago University, under the general title " Legalized and Non-Legalized Ethics," by Miss Jane Addams on " Contemporary So- cial Ethics," and Mrs. Florence Kelley on " Ethical Gain Through Legislation," are a de- served recognition of Hull House and an in- centive toward higher settlement service else- where. The decision of the faculty of the University of Michigan to give grade-credit to the incum- bents of their settlement fellowship at Chi- cago Commons for original investigation of social conditions, is another tie between aca- demic life and the social service of the people. GRAHAM TAYLOR. BUILDING PROGRESS, Before the August number of THE COMMONS reaches our readers it is likely that work will have begun on the Morgan street wing of the new building, altho as we go to press $1,275 are lacking of the $16,000 demanded by the first contracts to be let, and $8,OOU of the $24,000 re- quired to inclose this most needed half of the building before winter. Only a little more co- operation with us will assure the new plant. SUMMER AT THE COMMONS. The four young women at work in the kin- dergarten have their hands full with the influx of the children. The amount of this work that could be done with larger force has no limit but that of our accommodations. A delightful picnic outing was given to one hundred of our neighborhood mothers and children by the Noyes Street Mothers' Club of Evanston. One of the pleasantest social occasions the settlement has had in many months was the party given by the Girls' Progressive Club to the mothers of the children in the summer kindergarten. Two parties of forty girls each have been en- joying the privileges of Camp Good Will at Elgin, during July. The first of August a like- sized party of boys succeeds them, and a sec- ond party will be there the last fortnight of the month. A detail from our force unusual but with no less satisfaction is that of Mr. F. E. Dannen- berg, this year's University of Michigan Fel- low, to have temporary charge of "the other " Camp Good Will at Oak Park, maintained by the people of that suburb with the cooperation of the West Side District Bureau of Associated Charities for fresh air parties from the crowded parts of Chicago [40] THE COMMONS. [July, '99.] /Eontbty 1Recor& t'cvotct' to Hspects of life ant> labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOR. Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. PUBLISHER'S COKNEK. A red or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above s-cent denominations AT OUR RISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to the contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. Often in the morning there comes a feeling of weariness, indescribable ; not exactly ill, nor fit to work, but too near w*ell to remain idle. A Ripans Tabule. taken at night, before retiring, or just after dinner, has been known to drive away that weariness for months. tor. f f , _. iand testimonial* will b mailed to any'add'ress for~5 ceuts,~rorwartTed to"the 10 Sprue* St., Nw York. IHL UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS MIDSUMMER NUMBER AUGUST. THE COMMONS B flbontblv TRccorfc S>evotea to Hspects of life ant> labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. Whole Number 3J>. ^~j CHICAGO. AUGUST, 1899. [For THE COMMONS ] "NO WORK." BY ABIIIE W. Got u>. I walked the street for many a day, To seek for work at any price. I sought to drive the fiend away, Who held my loved in clutch-like vise. I asked of this " boss," and of that, Until my face familiar grew, And yet I heard each morning said, ' We have no work to give to you. " I walked again, and pondered much, That I, who held a place so long, When laid aside, I could not touch The cords of help, to hold me strong ; I saw that strangers from abroad Could get the places held in view, And yet my asking, said each " lord," " We have no work to give to you." No work for head, no work for hands, When wife and children fainting cry, With gold and silver, fruitful lands, And men must eat, or men must die; Or men must beg a pittance small, And thus their pride and manhood sue, For ever do the Fates " still call, " We have no work to give to you, We have no work to give to you," Oh, Christos! who the people fed, And gave to all with bounteous hand, Where has the brotherhood e'er led, To follow Thee in any land? My house, my wife, my children dear, Shall have all blessings that's their due, But have my way 'tis very clear, " We have no work to give to you, We have no work to give to you." The day is long, but GoG is just, And recompenses each to each. And take His "fiat" each man must, As he did practice, not did preach ; And some day when the poor of earth In Heaven's joys shall life renew. They will not hear in higher birth, " We have no work to give to you, We have no work to give to you." Moline, 111., Jan., 1899. " There is hardly as yet anywhere in America that neighborhood life which made it easy for the weavers of llochdale and the shoemakers of Kettering, who had known each other almost from childhood, to get together." Henry D. Lloyd in "Labor Co-Parlnership." WORKINGMAN AND MERCHANT Dramatic Scene at a Meeting in Chicago Commons, Concentration of Distribution Interpreted from the Mechanic's Point of View Right Relationship League. THE sands of time are strewn with the wreck, age of efforts by men, singly or in groups, sometimes in whole communities and nations, to ignore, to stem or to divert the tide of human development. They have been religious, polit- ical, social, economic ; they have taken the form of edicts, laws, revolts and voluntary organizations. From the day of King Canute, bidding the advancing waves to cease and go back, or of the fabled sweeper who sought to force cessation and retreat with a broom, even until now and beyond into the future, this pro- cession of well-meaning but futile attempts to command the eternal laws of destiny, is with- out break or halt. Force, manifesto, law, edu- cation and voluntary association, save in the line of and in accordance with the immutable interplay of physical and social facts and forces, alike fail and will fail. A DRAMATIC scene in the Chicago Commons Tuesday meeting, not long ago, illustrated and emphasized the situation. A representative of the Chicago Retail Merchants' Association was speaking on the Department Store question, which just then was particularly under public notice. He drew a tragic picture of the de- struction of the small trader under the giant force of concentrated competition, and pointed to the fact of the 7,000 and more of vacant stores in Chicago, formerly occupied by small merchants who commanded neighborhood trade. " We appeal to you, workingmen," he cried, "by all that is sacred in the brotherhood of sympathy, by the memory of the long, cold winters of unemployment during which the corner grocer has given you credit without which you and your family would have starved; THE COMMONS. August, to you as neighbors, friends, fellow-men, by your influence, your votes, your trade, your co-operation to help the retail merchant in his battle to the death with the forces of concen- trated greed ! " IT WAS a pathetic and eloquent appeal, stir- ring every hearer with a new sense of the des- perateness of the situation. A gray-headed workingman arose in the back of the room, still grimy with the smoke and oil of his day's work, from which he had come without his supper, eager to discuss these questions so vitally in- volving his life and the life of his class. Said he : " This is a stirring appeal, before which a harder heart than mine might melt. Our brother from the retail grocery has not over- stated the situation. But he forgets one im- portant thing. My friend, twenty five, thirty, forty years ago, the concentration of capital in machinery began to crowd down and eat up men of my class. Then we mechanics of every grade and class cried out to you to help us in our plight. The tools that we owned were supplanted by machinery, of which we did not and could not own or control so much as a screw. Our skill, our experience, our faithful- ness, counted for nothing against the process of cutting down cost of manufacture, throwing out men because one could do what ten had done. Women, girls, and even little children took our places in the shops. We pleaded with you just as you plead now with us, for help, by voice and influence and trade and votes. And you laughed at us, and told us it was Progress and Economic Law and Survival of the Fittest which had overtaken us ! You bade us be in- dustrious and sober and thrifty, and to find other employment ! And you were right, though you little knew how truly right you were. We organized against the thing, and sought legislation, and boycotted it, and fought it with influence, and with pleadings, and sometimes with shotguns. It was all in vain." " Now, SIR, it is your turn," cried the work- ingman, with rising voice and pointing index finger. " Progress and Economic Law and Sur- vival of the Fittest have overtaken you, and your appeals and protests and battle-cries will be alike in vain. As the old-fashioned epitaph used to say : Look on me as you pass by As you are now so once was I. As I am now so you must be ; Prepare for death and follow me ! " We bear you no malice, Mr. Merchant, but we understand perfectly whither you are head- ed. And there is no help for you. Now, to prove our good will, I am going to introduce a resolution in your behalf. Mr. Chairman, I move the adoption of the following resolution : Whereas, Misery loves company, therefore, Resolved, That we welcome the retail merchant to the ranks of the unemployed. MOKE and more clearly is it coming to be understood on all hands that the Process so graphically depicted by the workingman, quoted above, is inevitable, pitiless, unceas- ing, and that before its onward march nothing human can stand. And as men more clearly see the futility of resistance, they are adapting themselves to the state of things with varying emphasis according to their bent of mind. Some, fortunate in the blind dealing of the cards of success, and tender-hearted at sight of the destruction of life, organize to help the less fortunate to " make the best of things as they are," to pick up the maimed, comfort the dying, and bury the dead in the frightful strife of monopolistic development which fills the camp, the roadway, the battle line with vic- tims, young and old. Still others, learning wisdom by study of the battle itself, are pre- paring to use the enginery of the Destroyer to defeat him. Recognizing that economic or- ganization and co-operation are the means by which monopoly has been created and now rules, these wiser ones are preparing to fight the Devil with his own fire." UPON this basis is founded the Eight Eela- tionship League, recently incorporated in Chi- cago, " to teach and promote the practice of co-operation." Perceiving that a ghastly sem- blance of economic brotherhood, approximate equality, and mutual helpfulness for selfish ends of private profit has come to be not only successful but profoundly indispensable to any business survival at all, the League pro- poses to test at onca the economic success value of actual brotherhood, and the actual brotherhood value of the present development of economic evolution taken in good faith and with a motive, essentially religious, of bring- ing men into not better, but EIGHT relation- ships. Assuming that the chaos in the dis- tributive system is slowly taking on a sem- blance of order at the behest of selfishness for private gain, the League proposes to make use of the chaos and the process developing unto a false order for the bringing about of a true order in the righteousness of real brotherhood. SPACE is not available in this issue of THE COMMONS for a detailed description of the 1899.] THE COMMONS. [43] 3 League's basis of appeal or its plans for taking possession of distribution in the name of Brotherhood. We shall have occasion, from time to time, to dwell upon various aspects and developments of the plan. Its flrst and most striking application (though by no means is the League's program thus confined) is to the country store, and the writer of this pres- ent article is most impressed with that aspect of the League's plan, because it would have seemed that the rural district would be the last and most hopeless of awakening. In the cities, with their augmenting intensity of economic strife, the sense of the need of reor- ganization of industry and distribution is widely spread and deeply felt, and moreover, the very organization itself is well under way. To our mind, the possibility now of educating and organizing whole rural communities at once at small expense and with wide-spread advantage to all concerned, is not only attract- ive, but exceedingly plausible. We cordially refer our readers to the League headquarters* for literature and information in detail, re- questing correspondents in writing to the League, to mention this article. The League has just held at Mackinac Islands a conference of retail storekeepers, which dis- cussed, among others, the following subjects : Question" Advantages of co-operative or united wholesale buying ; the plan of the As- sociated Merchants U. S. A.' ; also other ex- amples." Question "Effect of co-operative distribu- tion ; Can co-operative stores render better service, with less expense, than privately owned competitively conducted stores ? " Ex- ample : "Right Belationship League" plan; also " Rochdale " plan. Question Storekeeping a public function ; Ethical and economic possibilities of public ownership and operation as contrasted with some of the wasteful practices and immoral consequences of private and corporate owner- ship of retail stores. There was a satisfactory attendance and earn- est interest was displayed in the discussion of the organization of co-operative stores. A gen- eral conference is talked of, to be held present- ly in one of the large cities. The League has reprinted in leaflet form one of the best of Mayor S. M. Jones' addresses, under the title, " Equal Opportunites for All, Special Privileges for None." It is an unus- ually valuable address, and in size handy to enclose in letters. The League furnishes them on application for a two-cent stamp, or ten copies for ten cents. We were in error in saying that Dr. Dorothea Moore was head of the Manse Settlement at Oakland, Cal. Dr. Moore is head of the South Park Settlement in San Francisco. Under her vigorous leadership the settlement thrives, and now has boys' club, two large buildings, shops, a gymnasium, etc. Chicago settlement folk remember Dr. Moore as one of the most effi- cient workers at Hull House. *Right Relationship League Headquarters are in Medinah Temple Jackson boulevard and Fifth avenue, Rooms 905 and 907, 237 Fifth avenue, Chicago. MIDSUMMER JOTTINGS. Many Items From Many Sources About Many Things. Current Note and Comment. Christodora House, New York, has a girls' " shirt-waist class." The Philadelphia College Settlement has military drill in two of its clubs. The aggregate attendance at Hartley House, New Yorf, during the past year was 66,050. Hale House, Boston, is having many " natu- ral history trips " this summer with its clubs. The Hiram House (Cleveland) paper, Hiram House Life, refers to the city playground ques- tion none too urgently as "A Question of Life and Death." Orchestrion Hall, Racine, Wis., has issued an attractive little " Souvenir Annual," illus- trated nwith views of interior and exterior of the building. Welcome Hall, Buffalo, played a considerable part in the recent dock laborers' strike, seeing clearly the right of the strikers in the contest and having the unbounded confidence of the men. The Cambridge House Magazine for June gives a list of five summer camps of which resi- dents of Cambridge House are in charge, and still others are referred to as under the influ- ence of this settlement. Dr. Max West, a former resident of Chicago Commons, now attached to the division of sta- tistics of the United States Department of Ag- riculture, has written a valuable monograph on " ) he Public Domain of the United States." The report of the Visiting Nurse Association shows a good year's work done. This is one of the most useful and unobtrusive charities in Chicago. Copies of the report can be obtained at the rooms of the association, 907 Masonic Temple. Mrs. Mary E. Sly, for five years head of the Northwestern University Settlement in Chica- go, was presented with a loving-cup by friends in the neighborhood before she left the settle- ment. She is now at work in the Hull House playground. " The common practice of commercial busi- ness is to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. The Leeds directors followed the better rule of buying in the best market and supplying the poorest member with the best quality of food." One of the keenest and most comprehensive studies of the social settlement from within is that of Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chi- cago, under the title "A Function of the Social Settlement." The paper was first published by the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and has since been printed in sepa- rate form. The price of the article separate is 25 cents, and it can be obtained by addressing the Academy at Philadelphia. THE COMMONS. [August, '99.] THE COMMONS B flDontbly 1Recor& J>evotct> to aspects of life an5 labor from tbe Social Settlement point of IDiew. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOR. * Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. PUBLISHER'S CORNER. A red or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above s-cent denominations AT OUR BISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to he contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers receive desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. Often in the morning there comes a feeling of weariness, indescribable ; not exactly ill, nor fit to work, but too near well to remain idle. A Ripans Tabule taken at night, before retiring, or just after dinner, has been known to drive away that weariness for months. WANTED. A case of bad health that R'l'P-A'N'B will not benefit. They banish pain and prolong life. One gives relief. Note the word R-I'P-A'N'S on t ' * ,- ackage and accept no suostituu). K-I'P-I'NIB, 10 for 5 cents or twelve packet* tor 48 cents, may be I,. ,1 at any drug store. Ten samples and one thou- sand testimonial* will be mailed ttr any address for 5 cents, forwarded to the Ripans Chemical Co., No. 10 Spruce B t. New York. Of IHI UNIVEHSITY ui' ILLINOIS THE COMMONS H flDontbls IRecoro H>ex>ote5 to Hspecte of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. Whole Number 38.* CHICAGO. SEPTEMBER, 1899. THE BETTER PART. Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare ! ' Christ," some one says, " was human as we are ; No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan ; We live no more when we have done our span." " Well, then, for Christ," thou au'swerest, "who can care? From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear? Live we like brutes, our life without a plan! " So answerest thou ; but why not rather say, " Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high! Sits there no judge in Heaven our sins to see? More strictly than the inward judge obey ! Was Christ a man like us? Ah ! let us try If we then, too, can be such men as he ! " Matthew Arnold. TRUST CONFERENCE. NOTES ON THE SEPTEMBER GATHERING IN CHICAGO. General Impressions of the Meeting Character- istic Groups Cochran and Bryan Contrasted. [BY PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOB.] THE partisan aspects of the Trust Problem on the eve of a Presidential campaign made it inevitable that the motive in holding such a conference would be widely suspected. From the inner circle of its management, however, its educational purpose was obviously the idea which determined its scope and dominated its initiatory action. The Civic Federation, in accordance with its policy of holding national conferences on urgent issues, decided to add to those on Expansion and the Monetary issue another on the Trust. Whatever the per- sonal and partisan motives of its individual promoters may have been, the writer, as one of a committee of seven to whom the details of convening the conference were intrusted, attests the fairness and representative charac- ter of that executive body. From the determi- nation to have all sides of the complicated question discussed by speakers satisfactory to those holding the variant views, the committee *NOTJE. Owing to an oversight, the August issue was numbered 3d. It should be 37. never swerved. Even after the conference passed from its control to that of the delegates, the committee successfully resisted the per- sonal attempts to restrict discussion and to deny a hearing to some phases of the subject. PREJUDICE and political partisanship, of course, were in evidence from the begin- ning, and increasingly as the result of counsel bid fair to be formulated in resolutions. When the delegates convened, their suspicion and caution were such as to make them unwilling to have the Civic Federation turn the confer- ence over to its own management. But wisely the local conveners refused to be responsible for more than the first day's proceedings. Fiercely the many conflicting interests con- tended behind the scenes for every point of advantage and against any possibility of being disadvantaged in the debate. But the assur- ance of fair play seemed to satisfy the conten- tions of all save the self-seekers. A MOKE varied and representative personnel could hardly have been secured. Thirty-six states were represented by delegates appointed by their governors. Every section of the country and well-nigh every interest of the people had someone accredited to speak for it. The political group included noted state, national and party officials and politicians. 'The legislative aspect of the subject was dis- cussed by attorney-generals, by the ablest legal talent the trusts could command, the shrewdest anti-trust advocates and the defend- ers of the Texas and Delaware laws. The great commercial and class interests most vitally involved had their chosen champions on hand, the railroads and the farmers, the industrial combinations and the traveling men, the chambers of commerce, boards of trade, syndi- cates of capital and the national organizations of labor, social theorists as widely divergent as anarchists, socialists and single taxers, and last, but by no means least, the university departments of economics. THE labor group included Gompers of the Federation of Labor, Hayes of the Knights of 2 [46] THE COMMONS. Labor, White of the Garment-Makers, Garland of the Amalgamated Steel-Workers, Dowe of the Commercial Travelers, Jones of the National Grange. Ben Tucker, of New York, representing the philosophy of Anarchism in one of the ablest papers presented at the conference, despite the general dissent from his view received overwhelming evidence of the appreciation of its strength of thought and scientific precision of expression. Socialism was admirably presented in a telling speech by its local pioneer, Thomas J. Morgan, in the absence of Lucien Saniel of New York, who had been invited to represent the Socialistic Labor Party. THE academic group was brilliant, fearless, and widely representative of state and other universities. From the East, Professor J. B. Clark of Columbia, John Graham Brooks, formerly of Harvard, and J. W. Jenks, of Cor- nell, fittingly represented New York and New England. Professors Adams of Michigan, Ely of Wisconsin, Folwell of Minnesota^ Kinley of Illinois, and others from the state universities, took prominent parts. Professors Bemis and Commons of the newly-organized Bureau of Economic Kesearch (born of the Buffalo Con- ference) made most creditable participation in the proceedings, Prof. Bemis' paper being one of the best presented. The government experts, Prof. Jenks, statistician of the Indus- trial Commission, and Prof. Adams of the Interstate Commerce Commission, rendered conspicuously valuable service in stating the question fairly and fully at the introductory sessions of the conference. WHILE unable to agree upon formal res- olutions, the delegates very generally fa- vored a far more strict regulation of the corporations doing interstate business by a federal commission with power to compel publicity of accounts and conformity to law by revocation of licenses. It was creditable to the many speakers that the principle of the combination, both in capital and labor, was so generally recognized to be inevitable to progress and therefore not to be indiscrimin- ately attacked. Those who lacked this dis- crimination failed to realize the danger of retrograding into the industrial hell of unre- stricted competition from which, through a generation of blood and tears, we are just emerging. On the other hand, those who claimed legislative immunity, if not discrim- inatory power, for the trusts were all but laughed out of court. THE absence of grasp and breadth of view in the domain of economics upon the part of all but a very few was disheartening. The papers by the trades-unionists delegates were disappoint- ingly weak in this respect. Those by the more radical social theorists, though far stronger, were too narrowly restricted to the specific view-point to be of scientific value. Even the academic view was open to the same criticism in lacking sufficient recognition of the facts of life, especially the facts of the life of the pro- ducing, manufacturing and consuming masses. THE inchoate state of public opinion on the complex matter was reflected in the answers to the inquiries widely made by the Civic Feder- ation throughout the country as to the effects and treatment of combinations. Surprisingly few of the thousands of men inquired of made .response at all. The replies, tabulated by Professor Kinley, show prevailing indefinite- ness and indecision. Sixty, for example, twenty-four of whom were lawyers, advocated a " let alone " policy, while as many vaguely referred to " legislation " as the remedy, and as many more would prevent " over-capitaliza- tion." THE value of the conference, however, lies less in its direct than in its indirect influence. Public interest has been quickened by it all over the country. Emphasis has been laid heavily upon the many-sidedness of the dis- cussion necessary to arrive at the truth. Liberty of thought, freedom of speech and interchange of view have all received decided recognition as prime conditions of any real progress toward a solution of this greatest issue of modern times. IMPRESSIONS FROM THE CONFERENCE. [BY KEV. S. G. LINDHOLM.] EVEN in this great assembly, where the best thinkers and closest observers had gath- ered to give the people the benefit of their wisdom, one could not avoid seeing how strongly the conditions among which the indi- vidual grows up color his thinking. The representatives of the South, where the in- dustrial methods are still undeveloped, retain the economic philosophy of the last century. The " drummer," hard hit by the consolidation of the corporations which gave him employ- ment, was unable to see the slightest advantage in this consolidation. The lawyer who draws his revenue from the new conditions was un- sparing in their praise. Only a few were able to rise above the plane of self-interest to judge 1899. J THE COMMONS. of the whole question upon its own merits. Even the academic teacher savored too much of the study and not enough of the factory or the counting-room. WHILE the anti-trust faction wanted to ex- terminate trusts altogether, the advocates of centralization admitted the necessity of erect- ing safeguards for its development. Legisla- tion was the means by which all this should be accomplished. Is it because this remedy lies so close at hand and can so readily be suggested as the panacea of all evil that every would-be reformer imme- diately grasps at it ? Or do the speakers not clearly understand the forces at work in this rapid evolution of our industries that they all believe that smaller or greater doses of this patent medicine would suffice ? Some wanted legislation to prevent absolute monopoly; some'to prohibit the public car- riers from granting discriminating rebates. Many wanted tariffs removed. Almost all acknowledged that legislatures and courts are becoming the servants of trusts and wanted further legislation to prevent that. The Con- stitution should be amended, new commissions should be appointed. One able speaker, see- ing the necessity of trusts but apprehensive of the interests of the laborer, wanted legislation to fix the hours of work, the wages paid and the number of men employed. Wherever a danger arose, preventive legislation should be enacted. One clear-headed thinker saw, however, that the new industrial system is too much a part of the life and functions of society to be thus treated. The trusts themselves had their voice to give in all this legislation, and this voice, already so strong as to control both legislature and court, would not acquiesce in any attempts to completely choke it. But this sensible utterance was entirely ignored by those who neither had the willingness nor ability to peer beneath the surface to find the forces, whether good or evil, that give the life to the present industrial and commercial system. Like a quack who, ignorant of the nature of the human organism, nevertheless tampers with the system, so the capitalist reformers pro- posed to patch all ills with legislative bills. And the people applauded, not only those who profit by the present system, but even those who by their labor create those profits. A few sophisms, a few flights of sentimental oratory, and the laborer walks hand in hand with the capitalist up to the polls, cheerfully depositing the same ballot, and is content to have perpetuated the system by which the one can thrive upon the other's toil. " The trust has come to stay." There was a certain victorious ring in the way that phrase was uttered. All the economic advantages of the centralization of capital were apparent. A great saving of profit in the pockets of the men inside the trusts, and possibly also to the con- sumer, would result. But aside from the very problematic gain as consumers, the great wage- earning producing class could hope for noth- ing. Not one advocate of the 'trusts could advance a single argument to show where the attempt of saving of wages would stop. This was the strong point for the anti-trust men. Manhood would deteriorate. But not even they remembered the fact that this very tendency to crush labor has existed and must exist under all capitalistic production. The only man who at all had sounded the vexed problem to its depths and had the courage to state his convictions was the representative of Socialism, when he declared that the bane of the present civilization was the private control of productive property. The applause that cheered his statement that " the logical sequence of private property is that all prop- erty will be organized into trusts, and you will not be in it," was more than the ripple of excitement following a forcible period, but expressed in many cases involuntarily a con- viction of truth. ONE noticeable similarity in many of the papers presented by the professors of economic science was the aloofness of the scholar from the life he tried to picture. The presentations were scholarly, the deductions from the premises assumed logical, but to this hearer, who lives amidst the conditions in question, it seemed as if the data were taken second- hand, from books and ready-made statistics. There was an absence of that reality that only a close contact with the industrial life itself can give the true perception of data upon which alone you can base true deductions. The contributions of Profs. Bemis, Clark and Brooks were, however, in great measure, exempt from this criticism and showed a close study of facts and apprehension of the issues involved. , THE papers presented by the spokesman of organized labor were rather disappointing. It may be that lack of those advantages of educa- tion that as a rule belong only to the richer classes accounts for it ; but other men sprung 4 [48] THE COMMONS. [September, from the same class displayed a keenness of mind and facility of expression that were sec- ond to none at the whole convention. They all took a weak, vacillating position, advocat- ing and apologizing for the trusts, altho there was no attempt to show that the trusts brought any beneficiary results to] the labor organiza- tions. On the contrary , they admitted that trusts were as inimical to the interests of labor as were private employers and had more power to crush labor. These representatives of the labor unions displayed no large grasp of the issues involved. They evidently failed to comprehend the philosophy of the industrial system, arguing on the behalf of the interests they represented a greater consideration of the part of the employer, trust or corporation, for the demands of labor ; or taking the optimistic position that " organized labor is so confident of its cause that it does not fear trusts." IN SHARP contrast to the platitudes of the officers of labor unions was the clear, forcible exposition of Thomas J. Morgan, of the socialistic philosophy concerning the indus- trial development. Having listened to the apprehensions of some of the speakers for the welfare of the people in the hands of the trusts, Mr. Morgan exclaimed that it was an absurdity to believe that the propertied class preserved the popular liberty or the happiness of the laborer. He then, in an impressive way, arraigned the capitalists for the way they always had taken advantage of the weakness of labor to oppress it. " Now, when the employer himself is becoming squeezed, he cries out against the same oppression he has inflicted upon others ! " The only remedy he could see for the exist- ing evils was the Great Trust, when all private property shall have been organized into one gi- gantic monopoly, but with the people on the inside, in full possession. " COMBINATION of Wealth and Federation of Labor go hand in hand." This phrase seems to be the keynote of many of the speakers, and the general applause indicates that the people are illuded to believe that the laboring class will be happy to see the combination of wealth in the capitalized class, as long as the laborer has the right to form defensive labor unions. THE "preparedness" of the speakers was noticeable the same introductions, the same walking around the subject before approach- ing it. Few showed the flexibility of thought to catch the point of discussion and go on with- out traveling over the ground already trampled by others. A FINE sentence of Mr. Foulke : "Compe- tition has been the handmaid of civilization. It has produced the mighty aggregates of capi- tal ; but it has reached its limit. The good of it has-been accomplished." COCHRAN AND BRYAN. [BY JOHN P. GAVIT.] A DOZEN years ago, as a legislative reporter at Albany, I heard Bourke Cochran, before the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly, as- sail the principle of the secret ballot. And listening to the ready flow of eloquence, wit, satire, story and argument, I found myself hypnotized and convinced against my reason. Pulling myself together at last, I succeeded in disenchanting my mind of the magnetism and spell of the speaker, sufficiently to analyze the process. The Bourke Cochran who spoke in the trust conference as the champion (more or less avowedly) of the " laissez faire " school, was the same fellow, and his process was pre- cisely the same. For he began with an adroit fling of the sop to those who might be expected to oppose his view. He paid a high compli- ment at once to the grasp which he said the representatives of organized labor who had spoken had upon the economic problem. The audience responded with a tremendous burst of applause, forgetting that that grasp was ex- actly what the said labor representatives had most conspicuously lacked. And so he went on. All the qualities which have conspired to make the Irishman the proverbial orator of An- glo-Saxondom wit, good-humor, vocabulary, facility of expression, fertility of imagination, poetry, an inimitable flow of illustration and anecdote he had them all with him. And under the charm of his speech, with its scarcely per- ceptible brogue, the wits of the great audience were fairly stolen away, so that they applauded to the echo fascinating phrases which, when not wholly untrue or at best evasions or dis- tortions of the truth, had no meaning at all ! THE process was, after all, a very simple one, and varied only by modification. In a word, it was this : The speaker, with skill and direct- ness, states clearly and forcibly a premise, elaborating with facts and illustrations to sat- isfy the mind of the most exacting. He follows with a minor premise, equally clear and direct, or, if defective, mending with clever rhetoric 1899. J THE COMMONS. [-49] 5 and charm of speech and manner any lack of facts or deviation from the truth. Now for the conclusion from the premises but instead, he tells a story, or quotes a saying, or puts an illustration (which may illustrate, or may not) at any rate the audience goes off into a roar of laughter or applause, and under the cover of the diversion, Mr. Cochran lands in his con- clusion, and in nine cases out of ten the ma- jority of the audience fails to see that from his premises that conclusion does not follow at all ! When he varies this plan, it is only by changing the place of the laugh so as to cover an equally appalling discrepancy in one or both of the premises. FOB instance, Labor (says he) can never change or increase its share in the product, for if some workingmen should get a larger share than they are entitled to, it would rob a host of other workingmen, concerned in the process at some of its more or less remote stages. Economic law cannot be tamptred with (says he) . And so plausible is all this, and so touched up and befogged with humor, pathos and persiflage, that we almost forget to notice that he is taking it for granted that the share of the capitalist in the product must be fixed by the laws of economics, and by no means to be considered as subject to modittca- tiou at all ! And before we have time to notice this stupendous begging of the Avhole ques- tion, he has us in a roar with a quaint illustra- tion, or in a tempest of applause at a period made up largely of joke and gesture. The consolation of it all is that men like Cochran cannot long deceive people, for while his address is tremendously catching at the time, its force is gone as soon as one passes out from the magnetism of his presence. The man who sat by me, and who applauded and cheered almost continuously, said to me as he went out : " Alter "all, when you come to think it over, it's hard to remember anything except his jokes." And another beside him said, " I never in my life heard another speaker so mag- nificently say Nothing." AGAINST Cochran, in a manner, was pitted Col. William Jennings Bryan, who spoke the next morning. The essential difference be- tween the two was that while Mr. Cochran evidently sins against light that he has he knows, and is not honest Mr. Bryan is trans- parently sincere he is honest, but he does not know. His speech was characterized by all the sincerity and dignity that Cochran's lacked, but it was sadly disappointing. For Mr. Bryan is and has been essentially a reactionary. So far as one may judge by his speeches, he would (if he could !) solve the economic problems of our. day by going back to the past day out of which tlie problems have come to us. But the man who can lead the American people forth into the future in safety and peace must have his eyes fixed forward, not backward. Evolution takes no retrograde steps, and it was dishearten- ing at this conference to hear no word from any man large in the public view which gave promise or indication of a grasp of the facts of economic relationship. Mr. Cochran stood in a fog of fascinating words not boldly or honestly, yet stood, for those who care nothing about the next step beyond, if only they may gather their grapes and reap a harvest before the Deluge; Mr. Bryan stood, bravely and hon- estly and frankly for those who would avert the Deluge with an umbrella worn out in the storms of the past. There was no sign of a man to whom the people will listen in large degree with anything to suggest save more law for the law-made, law-supported and law- entrenched trusts to purchase and enforce to their own ends. " How came you to l>e civilized ? " The liPiitliPD wept, wept lie, And eke replied : "The Christian He got the drop on me! '' Di trrtit Journal. " The first condition of co-operative success is mutual confidence; and that is a plant of slow growth and one of almost impossible growth where people have no opportunity to knoAV each other." Henry D. Lloyd. " If your municipality, the Xtt Jmi'< any more stores than th< r< >< /><>nf<>j}ici-t< f The Right Relationship League is a National organization for social service. Members pay $1.00 annually. Better join you'll flnd your- self in good company. RIGHT RELATIONSHIP LEAG.UE, Rooms 903, 905 and 907, 237 Fifth Ave., Chicago. 6 [50] THE COMMONS. [September, 9 motes of tbe ^ & * * & j* ^ Social Settlements 4 WESTMINSTER HOUSE REPORT. Buffalo Settlement Shows a Year of Satisfactory Progress ami I>evelopmeit " Children's Hour." Sixty pages make up the interesting report of Westminster House, Buffalo, for 1898-99, and the concisely written and interesting contents show a year of good work and steady progress. The schedule of appointments includes upward of thirty occasions in the week, including the " children's hour " and the open library on Sun- day afternoon. Fifty-five persons have staid at the settlement for periods varying from one day to one year, twenty remaining a month or more. During the year the residents have re- ceived upward of four thousand calls. It has been found necessary to add another cottage to the four already in use, and eight persons have been kept in residence since last year. We have spoken before of the " Children's Hour " appointment on Sunday, which contains one answer to the common settlement question " What to do on Sunday." This report says " It is not a Sunday School or a substitute for it ; it is simply one more way to spend the Sab- bath and to increase the children's love for the day. It relieves the mother of the care of her little ones, and gives her a chance perhaps her only one to rest quietly. . . . The variable program for this short period depends upon the number and restlessness of the chil- dren and the originality of those in charge. The enjoyment of the children is increased by the part they perform. The kind of influence exerted depends upon the motive of the direc- tor. Opportunities come to those who seek them. For the Christian, a story, or even a game, may be an opportunity to teach a spirit- ual truth or ethical lesson." ALDEN-PEARCE. Marriage of the Warden of 31ansfleld House and the Physician of the Women's Settlement. The most interesting event of the year in set- tlement circles is the marraige, just announced, of Percy Alden, M. A., warden of Mansfield House, Canning Town, London, E., and L>r. Margaret Pearce, until now a resident of the Women's Settlement connected with Mansfield House. The marriage occurred September 14, and the bride and groom will be " at home " at Mansfield House October 11 and 20, an an- nouncement which will make settlement resi- dents smile, knowing full well, as they do per- force, that a settlement worker (and in es- pecial particular Mr. Alden. \vho knows nothing of rest or of times or seasons in that matter) are, perforce, always " at home," whether they like it or not ! The printed announcement of the marriage, contains, in accordance with the English cus- tom, a bit of poetry, these lines from Whitman's " Song of the Open Eoad :" Allons! after the great Companions and to belong to them! They too are on the road they are the swift and majestic men they are the greatest women Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless, To undergo much, trumps of days, rests of nights. To merge all in the travel they lend to, and the days and nights they tend to. Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, To see nothing anywhere hut what you may reach it and pass it, To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it. To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits fo; you. . To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls. All parts away for the progress of souls Of the progress of souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and substance Allons! the road is before us! .... Comerado. I give you my hand! The hosts of those in America who know Mr. Alden well and favorably by reputation are joined with the many of us who know and love him well through personal contact in extend- ing the sincere congratulations and well-wish- ings of the A merican settlements to Mr. and Dr. Alden and to their colleagues of tbe Mans- field House settlement communities. NOTES OF THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS. Hale House, Boston, had a successful vacation school within its walls this summer. Unity House, Minneapolis, anticipates a good year's work under the direction of Mrs. Bates. St. Stephen's House, St. Louis, maintained a playroom all summer, which was frequented by seventy-five or eighty children daily. A kin- dergartner was in charge. Another year, it is likely that a roof-garden will afford the larger room needed. Mr. Charles M. Holt, formerly connected with Lincoln House, Boston, with the financial backing of a Minneapolis resident whose name is not at present made known, is- organizing a settlement work in the south of Minneapolis. The boys' club work is already flourishing. The News o/ the College Settlement, Phila- delphia, the third issue of which is in hand, gives a breezy picture of settlement life there in the dead of summer. " Summer Kesideut " contributes a vivid record, simple in style and diction but strikingly suggestive of the life, of one hour (3 to 4 A. M.) in the slum streets, on a night too hot for sleep. 1899.] THE COMMONS. [51] 7 THE-'jANE CLVB" HVLL MOV5E CHICAGO + * POND 5 POMD AKCMITECT5 ..VDITOR.IVM, AMD COFFEE HOV5E AT'HVLL HOV5C' AR,CHITECT5 CHICAGO NEW BUILDINGS AT HULL HOUSE. ATTRACTIVE HOME OF THE JANE CLUB OF WORKING GIRLS AUDITORIUM AND COFFEE HOUSE. [52] THE COMMONS. [September, THE COMMONS. H /IDontbly 1Rccor& E>evoteJ> to aspects of fcife ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of IDiew. For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc. see " Publisher's Corner " on last page. CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER, 1899. EDITORIAL. THE next issue of THE COMMONS will con- tain a department of notes on the labor situation, including events of the summer in this and other countries. IN THE meanwhile, one of the few men in the United States who seems not to have lost all sense of humor and of proportion, and to have escaped the prevailing Dewey-mania, is Admiral George Dewey ! More power to his good sense ! AFTEK all is said pro and contra, criticisms of the Social Settlements, from within and from without, have sufficient truth in them to move us all to earnest efforts to make this winter's work truer, deeper and more genuine than in any past year. EXPEKIENCE in Chicago Commons and in other settlements in which the experi- ment has been earnestly tried, leave no doubt of the value of a daily meeting of the residents in a settlement. Whatever its form may be, there is inspiration and balance in a daily con- ference compensating for more than the incon- venience and sacrifice that may be involved in it. THE KINGDOM WITHIN. EVIDENTLY there is still a deeply rooted belief among men that the Almighty lives at Sinai, or in some o.ther more or less restricted locality, whither those must go who would see and learn of Him. Even those who profess belief in the teachings of Jesus show few evidences of having taken seriously his declaration, stated in so many various ways during his preaching and ministry, that the Kingdom of God is within the human heart an inward state, rather than a geographically bounded or statute-governed place. The illu- sion of the mind hardest to banish, it would seem, is that which leads us to believe that righteousness may be installed by Act of Par- liament and enforced by the police. And the persistent characteristic of this mad search for the Place, the Law, and the Enforcer is that it invariably assumes that the changes to ensue, the laws to be enfprced, the errors to be expelled, concern Someone Else. If only we could compel the Other Fellow to do this, or stop doing that, all would be well ! And at the same moment, the Other Fellow is planning ways and means for reforming Us ! Yet the commonest source of the disappoint- ment that comes to enthusiastic souls when they do eventually learn that tJe Ideal is not the Eeal is the conviction that slowly grows upon them, if they are honest with themselves, that in their own hearts are the deep-planted roots of all the social, problems and per- versities. After all, it doesn't make very much difference what the name may be of the man at the top or of the man at the bottom of the social turmoil. Could you change their places, the conditions would remain the same. Whether Jones or Brown or Kobinson be tramp or millionaire is immaterial ; the im- portant facts are that while from one point of view we find that the processes of the present stage of social evolution produce, of necessity, the millionaire and the tramp ; from the other point of view (at which this present considera- tion is undertaken) these extremes are devel- oped out of an interplay of personality and environment, and the qualities of personality thus given material means and expression are confined to neither one extreme nor the other. The laziness, indolence, shiftless neglect of time and opportunity, and the like, which characterize the proverbial vagabond of the story-book and the newspaper, burst nowhere into more vivid and unmistakable bloom than in the person of many a rich man's wife, who but for the money which enables her to pur- chase efficient housekeeping ability would dwell in ill-smelling squalor in an alley tene- ment; or in the life of some magnate's son, spending his time in the adornment and indul- gence of his useless carcass or the amusement of his empty mind. On the other hand, the greed, the grasping disregard of elementary rights of fellowmen, the clutch after the tawdry brass buttons which make up the out- ward show of "wealth" (so miscalled) is as finely and unquestionably displayed among poor people as among rich. One need have but the most superficial acquaintance with the men and women who make up the r/ank and file of radical agitators, always at the front in meetings for the discussion of social and 1899. J THE COMMONS. [53] 9 economic subjects, to be assured, with sadness not unmixed with amusement, that among these are to be found rampant all the qualities which have turned the world into a hell. Allow all you will for the social conditions of environment which have put a premium upon tiger-qualities and compelled men to be greedy beasts in order to stay on earth at all, there remains the equally evident fact that there did lie more or less dormant in character the tiger-qualities and the beastly greed which came to the surface at the first opportunity. However true may be that old saying that " You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," it is also equally true that no sow's ear ever was made out of a silk purse ! The fundamental struggle in each man's own experience is with himself. If he fail to find God in his own heart, he never will find Him at Sinai. A man's Life consisteth not in the abundance of things "which he possesseth, and he who, with however good excuse, permits his poverty to turn him into a beast of prey, is by no whit better as social material than the other man who did the like to protect his " owner- ship" in twenty thousand tons of brass but- tons. By what we want and strenuously try to do are we developed or destroyed ; not by our accomplishments, which any one of a thousand circumstances, beyond our control, might have prospered or prevented. The Kingdom, if anywhere, is within, and it will never be anywhere else. Be his fortuitous circumstances what they may, he who truly seeks to find that Kingdom and its King within himself, will have solved, so far as he can, the social problem, and will be in some degree worthy to be a savior and leader of his fellow- men. O UBTLE indeed, at this point, is the opera- O ation of the process of self-mastery. For the first thing a man does when the desire of repentance and righteousness seizes upon him is to "reform " himself in some particular, and the curious fact is that the particular is usual- ly a conspicuous one ! I will do this or stop doing that, says such an one, and then he com- placently wonders how his Doing or cessation of Doing will impress people ! The truth is that what most of us need is not " reform " at the surface, but "revolution" at the heart. The conspicuous things that need to be done or undone are the faithful expression of heart conditions. The doings and neglects that theology vaguely calls "sins" are the mere surface indications of deep-running forces, and many a "reformation' 1 consists of the substi- tution of a worse, because secret, form of ex- pression for one less dangerous because more open. With most of us, the process needed is a revolution far down and deep within, whose doing and undoing none but ourselves would know. For the tap-root of "sin" is usually some fact of character whicli we are ashamed to confess even to ourselves. The revolution in the forms and relation- ships of society is coming fast, and in spite of us. World-forces (over which man exerts actually no conscious control, and very little directive power let his theoretical ability to these ends be what ttiey may) are hastening changes for better or worse which no mind can more than vaguely forecast, which no legislation can prevent, and no scheming divert. Resolutions and "speechifying" are comparatively futile, save as safety valves for energy and opportunities for vanity. The real power and place of reform so far as the indi- vidual is concerned lies nowhere else, or at any rate nowhere nearer, than in the old struggle on the battlefield of Self, for wisdom and command. The best definition Froebel could find for the, power and purpose of educa- tion was "through self-knowledge to attain self-control." And it is the Keynote of social service as well as of personal life. The stream can rise no higher than its source. A bad man cannot set good forces in motion in society. WE MAKE no attempt at a report of the Chicago Trust Conference. But, in re- sponse to repeated requests from readers of THE COMMONS, we have devoted considerable space in this issue to impressions of the Conference from men who represent neither class, party nor business interest, but are in a position to see clearly and impartially. MANY of the same people who lash them- selves into tine rage over the demorali- zation of prison convicts thro idleness in prison seem to have comparatively little inter- est in the matter of the equal demoralization of honest workingmen thro the same cause. Uncle Sam: "Don't you think I'm getting more like you every day ? " John Bull : " You are, my , boy, and 1 am only afraid of one thing." " What's that V " " We may grow so much alike that we will love the same things." Chicago Journal. Crimes cannot, either in law or morals, be established by judicial falsehood. Susan B. Anthony. 10 THE COMMONS. | September, Cbtcago Commons. CHICAGO COMMONS. 14O North Union Street, at Milwaukee Avenue. (Beached by all Milwaukee avenue cable and electric cars, or by Grand avenue or Halsted strpet electric cars, stopping at corner of Austin avenue and Halsted street, one block west of Union street.) CHICAGO COMMONS is a Social Settlement located on North Union street, two doors from the southwest cor- ner, of Milwaukee avenue and the crossing of Union street upon Milwaukee and Austin avenues. Object. As explained in the second clause of the Articles of Incorporation of the Chicago Commons Association, filed with the Secretary of the State of Illinois: "2. The object for which it is formed is to provide a center for a higher civic and social life to initiate and maintain religious, educa- tional and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve conditions In the industrial districts of Chicago." Or, as the explanatory circular of the settlement has ex- plained it: "As exemplified at Chicago Commons, the Social Settlement con- sists primarily of a group of people who choose to make their home In that part of the great city where they seem to be most needed, rather than where the neighborhood ofiers the most of privilege or social prestige." Support The work is supported in addition to what the residents are able to pay for rent of rooms, by the free-will gifts of those who believe in what the work stands for. The gift of any person is welcomed, and the contributions are both occasional and regular, the latter being paid in in- stallments, monthly, quarterly and annually, at the conven- ience of the giver. Visitors, singly or in groups, are welcome at any time, but the residents make especial effort to be at home on Tuesday afternoon and evening. Residence. All inquiries with reference to terms and conditions of residence, permanent or temporary, should be addressed to GRAHAM TAYLOR, Resident Warden. Form of Bequest " I give and bequeath to the Chi- cago Commons Association (incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois) Dollars, to be devoted to the social settlement purposes of that Association." THE NEW BUILDING. Results of the Summer's Campaign for Funds and Lease-hold The Tabernacle Abandoned Status of the Fund Prospects. By the time this issue of THE COMMONS reaches its readers, the Tabernacle congrega- tion will have met for the last time in the old church, its crumbling walls will have begun to disappear and the first contracts for the erection of the most needed Morgan street (auditorium) wing of the new building will have been let. This result stands for negotia- tions so manifold and complicated and a har- mony of action upon the part of distinct and sometimes differing interests so difficult to bring about that it took more of the entire summer's work to effect the gratuitous lease of the land than to raise the money for the build- ing. The corporate action of no less than sixty-seven members of five boards of trustees and the certified signatures of many of them had to be. secured. To clear the title defective records had to be corrected, and even a defunct organization resuscitated, in order to comply with the legal requirements, which so heavily taxed the time and patience of Messrs. Edwin Burritt Smith and David Fales to say nothing of that of Professor Taylor, upon whom the chief burden fell as to place the Chicago Commons under the greatest obligations to them for their unfailingly painstaking and arduously expert legal services, which they gratuitously contributed. We have secured to date (September 20) from forty-five contributors the subscription of $17,930, which warrants us in letting contracts for so much of the Morgan street wing as will include the completion ol the auditorium, and the additional expense of a temporary roof, if we should be obliged to stop at that point. The subscription of $6,000 more, payable before March 1, would enable us permanently to enclose and roof the entire wing, rough finishing the interior of the upper stories, biit affording us the immediate use of their accommodations. This we will do our utmost to accomplish, but after having devoted the past five months almost exclusively to the building campaign, the warden can give only incidental attention and occasional service to the further solicitation of funds, as the exact- ing demands of his professorial duties must have the right of way for the next eight months, and the additional care of the settle- ment and church work will demand the bal- ance of his time and energy. If, therefore, this most necessary building equipment is to be furnished the work of the Commons and the Tabernacle, the additional funds must be volunteered, and the co operation of many friends must be promptly offered. With grate- ful appreciation we mention the encouraging fact that a group of recent graduates of the Chicago Theological Seminary, without any suggestion from the settlement, issued to the Alumni of the institution an effective appeal for their personal and parish co-o/peration in the effort to complete the entire building as designed. If this end is accomplished, as we 1890.J THE COMMONS. [55] 11 liope it may bo within a year at least, there remains to be secured no less than $32,000, as the rise in the price of building material and wages of labor will raise the entire cost of the edifice to $5fl,i'00. This, however, is by no means an extravagant sum to invest in the pro- vision of the only center for the civic, social, moral and religious betterment of a population of ?5,000 souls. SETTLEMENT FINANCES. Need of Special Gifts to Offset the Drafts of the Building: Fund Good Summer Report. We looked forward to the past summer as a severe test to the constituency of our work, because the appeal for the new building seemed more than likely to divert the larger donations from the maintenance of the work. With a few exceptions it did so. But without special appeal, enough smaller contributions were received to meet not only the current ex- penses of the usual settlement service, but also the heavy additional cost of giving over 1,200 outings to our neighbors, and maintaining the boys' and girls' Camp Good Will at Elgin; so that we reached the first of -September with- out incurring debt of deficit. Pending the response of some former contributors, who have donated nothing to the work this year, we have been obliged to borrow $35d, but trust our friends to put their littles together to tide us over the autumn months until the subscrip- tions of the ensuing year are received in answer to our annual December appeal. REPORT ON SALOONS. Invaluable Investigation of Social Knterprises of All Sorts in Chicago by Mr. K. L,. Melendy. One of the best pieces of settlement work that Chicago Commons has ever contributed to the general social cause has been rendered this summer by Mr. K. L. Melendy, who for six months has been the incumbent of our Uni- versity of Michigan Fellowship. He was assigned to the work of investigating "Ethical Substitutes for the Social Function of the Saloon" in Chicago, undertaken by the settle- ment at the request of the "Committee of Fifty,' 1 which is conducting a thoroughly scientific and national investigation of the entire liquor problem, issuing a series of invaluable reports upon all its main aspects. To ascertain just what social function the saloon fulfils, Mr. Melendy devoted the first six weeks of his time to personal observation of saloon life. To this end he repeatedly visited all of the 167 saloons of our own ward, carefully noting the equipment and conduct of the business, aimed to meet the social demands of the neighborhoods. He extended this personal inquiry to many other districts and the saloons of all types and characters. Then, by extensive correspondence, personal interviews and experience in various ways, he ascertained what was being attempted by fra- ternal organizations, trades unions, culture clubs, public schools and educational institu- tions, pleasure and recreative associations, lodging houses, charity and philanthropical agencies, public libraries, social settlements, missions and churches to meet the same demands of the social instinct which create and perpetuate all the features of the saloon except the sale of liquor, and its pandering to gambling and prostitution. His report includes not only careful statisti- cal tabulation (in which he has had the assist- ance of the entire police force of the city, as as well as the officers of hundreds of organiza- tions), but also the most varied and vividly realistic descriptions of what he experienced and observed of the life and human relation- ships centering at the saloon. Copies of this report have been filed with the Committee of Fifty, the University of Michigan and at Chicago Commons. As it will be used only as the basis for the Committee's forthcoming volume of " The Ethical Aspects of the Liquor Problem," it is to be earnestly hoped that Chi- cago Commons will be furnished with the $150 necessary to publish the entire report as written, as a settlement publication. GUESTS OF THE COMMONS. Interesting Kvenings of tha Residents with Visitors to the Trust Conference. The Trust Conference brought to the Com- mons residents the delightful privilege of entertaining many distinguished guests. One evening Mr. Albert Shaw, of the Review of Re- views, Prof. Folwell, of the University of Min- nesota, and Profs. Bemis and Commons, of the new Bureau of Economic Research, recently established by the Buffalo Convention, added to our menu the spice of their bright inter- change of view, principally upon the policy of America toward other peoples. Another even- ing a typical settlement dinner party gathered guests such as seldom meet elsewhere, Around our board were gathered Profs. Henry C. Adams, of Michigan, Richard T. Ely, of Wisconsin Uni- versities, and Prof. John B. Clark, of Columbia; a group of socialists, including Mr. Thomas J. Morgan, long time a pioneer of socialism in Chicago; Mr. A. M. Simons, editor of the So- cialist Labor Party's new weekly paper, The 12 THE COMMONS. [September, Workers' Cull, himself a Wisconsin University graduate; Mr. Abram Bisno, a liussian Jew, who has long represented the struggle of the garment makers against the sweating system; Mr. N. O. Nelson, widely known as the profit- sharing manufacturer of St. Louis, and Dr. Washington Gladden. At the household ves- pers the conversation turned on the ethics of the labor movement, and was as remarkable for its incisive criticism and fearless frankness as it was for its good-fellowship. COMMONS NOTES. Educational classes will begin work with the week of October 1 J. The Woman's Club begins its regular meet- ings Friday Afternoon, October 6. The Girls' Progressive Club has not inter- rupted its regular meetings during the summer. Professor Taylor opens the "Tuesday Meet- ing," October 3, with a discussion of the Trust Conferences. Plans for the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon are well in hand, and the lirst occasion will be Sun- day, October, 15. " Blue Ticket Club " boys had their first rally September '21, and begin regular meetings the first Thursday in October. The first of the winter's socials is that given by the residents to some of the past and possi- ble non-resident workers, October 2. Illustrated magazines will be distributed in several of the clubs and meetings this winter, and almost any quantity can be used to advan- tage. The Kindergarten opens its regular sessions for the winter on Monday, October V; the girls' clubs, Wednesday eveniug, October 4; the -boys' clubs, Friday, October 8. 9 ^Literature anfc The best thing we have seen on the subject of games, from the philosophical point of view, is a pamphlet by Dr. Luther Gulick of Spring- field, Mass., entitled "Psychological, Pedagogi- cal and Religious Aspects of Group Gamt s." It is reprinted from the Pedagof/ical Seminary of March, 1899. We have waited for space in which to review the article, but now instead recommend our readers interested in the sub- ject to write to Dr. Gulick for a copy of it. Byron W. Holt, in his article in the June number of Municipal Affairs, maintains that ground rents are created by the public and that, therefore, they belong to the public and constitute a natural source of revenue for cities. He sees no reason why a city should not derive allot' its revenue from ground rents. NEW BOOK ON SETTLEMENTS. Competent Authors Contribute to Will Reason's Xew Work on the Subject. In a government of the people error can be safely tolerated while reason is left free to combat it. Thomas Jefferson. Several men and women of experience and ideas in settlement work contribute to Will Reason's new book "University and Social Set- tlements " (Methuen & Co., London) of which THE COMMONS already has made brief mention. Mr. Reason leads off his book with Sir Walter Besant's inaugural address given at the open- ing of the new residence of Mansfield House, December, 5. 1897, under the title " University Settlements;" second, is reprinted Canon Bar- nett's well-known Nineteenth Century paper on "University Settlements," Percy Alden, of Mansfield House (of which the editor, Mr. Rea- son, was long sub-warden) writes of " Settle- ments in relation to Local Admin istration;" Mr. Reason himself contributes two papers, respectively, concerning " Settlements and Ed- ucation " and " Settlements and Recreations." Rev. J. Scott Lidgett, warden of Bermondsey Settlement, London, treats of " Settlements and the Administration of the Poor Law." The paper on " Women's Settlements in Eng- land " is jointly by Miss Margeret A. Sewell, warden, and Miss Eleanor G. Powell, secretary of the Women's University Settlement. Miss Emmeline Pethick, of whose extraordin- arily successful working girls' club work in West London, we hope presently to speak in detail, furnishes one of the most valuable papers probably the most valuable in the book, on " Working Girls' Clubs." If there were only this one, settlement folk would find the book worth while. Arthur Sherwell makes practical suggestions in a strong paper on the "Relation of Settlements to the Labor Move- ment." Mr. Alden gives a brief review of the Settlement Movement in America. And last, but not least, there are valuable appendices, succinctly treating of "the Poor Man's Law- yer," the settlement hospital ot'_ the Canning Town (Mansfield House) Women's Settlement ; the Wave Lodging House of Mam-field House ; "Heath Cottage and its Guests," " Toynbee Hall Lectures and Classes." " Appendix F " is a list of the Federated Working Men's Clubs of London, with full addresses, names of delegates and days when open. The work concludes with a list of English Settlements, naturally later 1899. J THE COMMONS. [57] 13 and more reliable than that in the American Bibliography of Settlements. On the whole, it is not too much to say, that this is a handbook which should be in the possession of every set- tlement worker. VALUABLE LABOR REPORTS. Recent Contributions from the United States and Massachusetts Bureaus Unusually Useful. The thirteenth annual report of the United States Commissioner of Labor (1898) relates to a subject upon which there is a very great amount of popular discussion, and upon which reliable information is increasingly difficult to obtain that of the relation between hand and machine labor, and the displacement of the former by the latter. While the degree to which improved machinery is displacing the slower, even if intrinsically and artistically better methods of hand work, is sufficiently startling, even to those who have had some appreciation of the situation; the report, nev- ertheless, shows that machinery is far from having universal influence in this way, for there are still many industries in which hand work is in no sense supplanted, not a few in which it is supreme. As Commissioner Carroll D. Wright remarks in the preface, "the report presents a body of information which it would be impossible to secure a few years later. Hand methods are going out of use, and yet it is sur- prising to find in how many directions it has been possible to ascertain the facts in regard to obsolescent processes." As a whole, the report may be characterized as of great value, and students of every shade of economic theory will find the statistics exhaustive and well tabulated, ready for varied combinations and deductions from their many points of view. The Massachusetts Labor Bulletin for July contains a valuable analysis, "Certain Tene- ment Conditions in Boston," covering tenement house statistics and comparisons for 1891 and 1898, sanitary conditions, number of persons and proportion of overcrowding, and some ref- erence to park and other improvements. A postal card application to Horace G. Wodlin, Chief of Labor Department, Boston, will secure this Bulletin, in whose preparation, the intro- duction tells us, valuable assistance was ren- dered by Miss Helena S. Dudley, of Denison House, Boston. The bureau has just issued, also, under date of August 23, and as a part of its 29th annual report, a consideration of the matter of " Sun- day Labor " in Massachusetts, covering rail- roads, electric and steam, various kinds of traffic, telegraph and telephone companies, longshoremen anl stevedores, domestic and personal servants, etc., and public employes. It is an unusually useful and enlightening contribution to social information, and can be obtained on application. NEW LABOR BIBLIOGRAPHY. Handbook of Literature Sure to be Desired by all Social Students. A new book.which is sure to supply a want is the " Handbook of Labor Literature" compiled by Helen Marot and published (at $1.00) by the Free Library of Economics and Political Sci- ence, at 1315 Filbert street, Philadelphia, with which the author is connected. It is, in short, a very complete bibliography of the books and periodicals now available which deal with the labor problem. It seems well within the truth to say that the little work, while not perfect even within its sphere must become indispensa. ble to all students of the social problem, for, as the author says in her word of introduction, " whether the ones, of Toledo, upon the Position of Those Who Believe in Partisanship An Open Letter to Voters. Mayor Samuel M. Jones, of Toledo, Ohio, an old friend of THE COMMONS and its readers, now in a fair way to be elected governor of of Ohio on an absolutely non-partisan ticket, has dealt the position of those who still cling to partisanship a very severe blow in his "open letter to certain members of the ' Union Reform party,' " which assisted in his re-elec- tion last spring. The letter explains itself : " A number of earnest and thojightful mem- bers of the Union Keform party have written, criticising my attitude as a possible non-parti, san candidate for the office of governor. My belief in the good faith of the people who write these letters, and of the leaders of the Union Reform movement generally, leads me to write this open letter to undertake to make my position clear on the subject. "I did not make the declaration that 'I will never again claim political loyalty to anything less than the whole people ' until I had given the subject the most careful thought of which I am capable. I did not then see, nor am I able now to see, a single spot or place where I shall be debarred from exercising any function of good citizenship by reason of having made this declaration. PARTISAN POLITICS. "In partisan politics we have an expression of the worst evils of our competitive life. All of the ills that afflict our commercial, indus- trial, social and political life today can be charged directly to the evil of competition. I think the most careful analysis will convince all fair-minded persons of the justness of this charge. Men are brothers, not competitors, naturally loving, just and kind, and our aim should be to establish an order of life in which it is possible for us to live as brothers. To do this we must eliminate the competitive idea in every possible way that we can. Competi- tion is an acknowledged failure as a business system, and it is no longer practiced by any but common laborers and small traders. " Business men, professional men and skilled workmen c.ombine ; hence we have the trusts, the corporations, the labor unions, the bar associations, ministers' unions, etc. The com- petitive order may do for wild beasts ; it never was intended for human beings. As it has been abandoned as a business system and is rapidly going out of date in every department of commercial life, it is high time that it should be abandoned in our political life. I see no possible way of doing this by pursuing the methods of the old-party machines. A new party, using old machine methods of pre- cinct, ward, city and county committeemen, etc., of self-constituted committees, to select lists of delegates, will, in the end, produce the same old results that the old-party machines have produced. It will select the cunning and the wise and the unscrupulous, who will make merchandise out of the simple, the confiding and the unwary, and this result will continue so long as the competitive idea is our rule of life. DIKECT LEGISLATION. " I believe in direct legislation. I believe in it now, and am willing to begin to practice it now. I shall not be a candidate for the office of governor in this campaign, nor will I for any other office in any campaign to come, unless the people, through the initiative by petition, express their desire that I shall. I know of no more reasonable way to inaugurate the initiative than in the statement contained in my open letter in these words. Referring to the desire for a non-partisan candidate, I said : ' I invite those who feel that such a move should be made to write me for petitions of correct legal form 'apon which to secure sig- natures, petitioning the Secretary of State to place the name upon the ticket.' I have not since made, nor will I make, a single move to secure a name beyond merely sending out the blanks that have been asked for. If this is not submitting the question directly to the initia- tive of the people, then I do not understand the simplest words in the English language. NO ORGANIZATION. "It is charged that I am making a 'Jones party ' and an independent party. I reply, We have no form or semblance of organization or party as a result of the election in this city last spring. I believe in organization for edu- cational purposes, but not in organization of men drawn together by the hope of spoils (offices). When men and women assemble purely in the interest of education, we are then able to locate the people who are inspired by moral purpose, but when they organize for political purposes, for the capture of offices, it is impossible to tell who are inspired with a desire to benefit their fellow men and who are drawn to the movement by the hope of personal gain. " It has been asked howl could expect to put my theories into practice without a party pledged to enact them into law. I reply, Give the people the initiative and they will make their own laws, but the law will not represent any higher purpose than inspires the people who make it. Let them nominate every official from constable to governor by petition, and we shall at once get rid of the iniquitous delegate system by which the best man on earth can be beaten, as any one who is at all familiar with the methods of men who are trained in the business of politics very well knows. A SUFFICIENT PLATFORM. " It is charged that I lack a platform. I reply, The declaration that * I claim no privilege for myself or for my children that I am not ready to do my utmost to secure for all others on equal terms' is a platform that will satisfy every fair-minded man. The people of Ohio seem to be fairly well informed in regard to the platform upon which I made the campaign in this city last spring. I do not think the charge that I want to make a new party will be seriously considered. It was pretty well worked by the partisan press in this city dur- ing the last campaign, along with much other 1899. J THE COMMONS. 159] 15 ill-tempered abuse, all of which seemingly added to the strength of the independent movement ; and I very much fear that the ani- mus of the charge now made is found in the same partisan spirit that characterized the opposition last spring. A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. "In the operation of the Niles school law in Toledo, we have a practical demonstration of the truth that the people no longer need par- ties. The names of the candidates for the office of member of the Board of Education are all placed on one ticket, and the voter puts his cross opposite the name of the person of his choice. This principle is equally adaptable and applicable to every political office in the state of Ohio, and in my humble opinion, with all due respect to those who hold contrary beliefs, I think it is the plain duty of all patriots to urge the extension of this principle into our political life, until every office in the state shall be tilled according to the principle of direct legislation. Let the people select their candidates by petition without the aid or intervention of any caucus or committee, self- constituted or otherwise ; in this way we shall at once be relieved of party, party bosses and ward heelers, and the heresy of the divine right of parties will take its place with the divine right of kings in a dead and buried past. Freed from the curse of party rule, the people will own and govern themselves. I will join and co-operate with any organization that will announce as its purpose the education of the people upon the subject of direct legisla- tion and emancipation from the rule of bosses. S. M. JONES." I am a farmer located near Stony Brook, one of the most malarious districts in this State, and was bothered with malaria for years, at times so I could not work, and was always very constipated as well. For years I had .malaria so bad in the spring, when engaged in plowing, that I could do nothing but shake. I must have taken about a barrel of quinine pills besides dozens of other remedies, but never obtained any permanent benefit. Last fall, in peach time, I had a most serious attack of chills and then commenced to take Ripans Tabules, upon a friend's advice, and the first box made me all right and I have never been without them since. I take one Tabule each morning and night and sometimes when I feel more than usually exhausted 1 take three in a day. They have kept my stomach sweet, my bowels regular and I have not had the least touch of mal iria nor splitting headache since I commenced using them. I know also that I sleep better and wake up more refreshed than formerly. I don't know how many complaints Ripans Tabules will help, but I do know they will cure any one in the condition I was and I would not be without them at any price. I honestly consider them the cheapest-priced medicine in the world, as they are also the most beneficial and the most convenient to take. I am twenty-seven years of age and have worked hard all my life, the same as most farmers, both early and late and in all kinds of weather, and I have never enjoyed such good health as I have since last fall; in fact, my neighbors have all remarked my improved condition and have said, " Say, John, what are you doing to look so healthy ? " \\TANTED.-A case of bad health that R-1-P-A-N-S will u,,t benelil . They bullish puin ami prolong life. TT One gives relief. Note the word R rP'A'N'S ou the packitge and accept no substitute. RvP'A-N'S, < of baci health that R-rP'A'N-S will uot benrlii. ithewordR I'P'A'M'S ou the packnge am .- 10 for 5 cents or twelve packets for 48 cents, may be had at any dru store. Ten hamples and one thou- sand testimonials will be mailed to any address for 5 cents, forwarded to the Ripans Chemical Co., N J>evotel> to Bspecta of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOR. Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. PUIiLISHEK'S COKNEK. A red or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed sub'scription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above 5-cent denomination* AT OUR RISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made ouce in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to the contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, -which will be furnished upon applica- tion. DIRECT BETWEEN Cliicag'o Indianapolis Cincinnati Lafayette AND ALL POINTS i/ouisvi/le SOUTH THROUGH SLEEPERS TO WEST BADEN, FRENCH LICK ANO PAOLI SPRINGS EVERY NIGHT. FRANK J. REED, G. P. A. CITY TICKET OFFICE, 232 CLARK ST. CHICAGO. Pestalozzi=?rocbd indcrgawn Year Opens . October 2, 1899 . Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and Practice. A course in Home Making. Industrial and Social Development Emphasized. Also a Mothers' Class. INSTRUCTORS BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, . . . Theory and " Mother-Play " FREDERICA BEARD, . . Theory of Gifts and History of Education Miss P. H. DAVIS, Studies in Expression MARI RUEF HOFER, Music and Physical Culture MR. GEO. L. SCHREIBER, . . Drawing, Color Work and Design MRS. JOHN P. GAVIT, v . . . . Home Making and Occupations PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOR, Social Function of Education SPECIALISTS on Psychology and Nature Study There will be other LECTURES on Special Subjects during the year. For Circulars and particulars, address, BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, 140 North Union Street, CHICAGO Crammg School * ... at... Chicago Commons Of IH, of motes on tbe Social Settlements, <* # # ^ *> iprofeseor lfoerron'0 IResfgnation from Uowa College. A MONTHLY RECORD DEVOTED TO ASPECTS OF LIFE AND LABOR FROM THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT POINT OF VIEW. WHOLE NUMBER 39. CHICAGO. OCTOBER 3J, J899. PHASES OP L/IRE IN CROWDED CITY CENTERS PROGRESS OF MANY ENDEAVORS IN HUMAN SERVICE STUDIES OR THE LABOR MOVEMENT NEWS OR THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS SOCIAL WORK OF THE CHURCHES ROWTH OF THE IDEAL OF BROTHERHOOD AMON MEN PUOFESSOK GEORGE D. HEEBON. FIFTY CENTS A YEAR SINGLE COPIES, TEN CENTS. Entered in Chicago Pott-Office at Second-Clais Matter. Platform Adopted b\f Rnti* Imperialists (In Session at Chicago, Oct. 17-18, 1899) WE HOLD that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends towards militarism, an evil from which it has been our glory to be free. We regret that it has become necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We maintain that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We insist that the subjugation of any people is " criminal aggression " and open disloyalty to the distinctive prin- ciples of our government. WE EARNESTLY CONDEMN the policy of the present national administration in the Philippines. It seeks to extinguish the spirit of 1776 in those islands. We deplore the sacrifice of our soldiers and sailors, whose bravery deserves admiration even in an unjust war. We denounce the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless horror. We protest against the extension of American sovereignty by Spanish methods. WE DEMAND the immediate cessation of the war against liberty, begun by Spain and continued by us. We urge that congress be promptly convened to announce to the Filipinos our purpose to concede to them the independence for which they have so long fought and which of right is theirs. THE UNITED STATES have always protested against the doctrine of interna- tional law which permits the subjugation of the weak by the strong. A self-govern- ing state cannot accept sovereignty over an unwilling people. The United States cannot act upon the ancient heresy that Might makes Eight. IMPERIALISTS assume that with the destruction by American hands of self- government in the Philippines all opposition here will cease. This is a grievous error. Much as we abhor the war of " criminal aggression " in the Philippines, greatly as we regret that the blood of the Filipinos is on American hands, we more deeply resent the betrayal of American institutions at home. The real firing line is not in the suburbs of Manila. The foe is of our own household. The attempt of 1861 was to divide the Country. That of 1899 is to destroy its fundamental princi- ples and noblest ideals. WHETHEB the ruthless slaughter of the Filipinos shall end next month or next year is but an incident in a contest that must go on until the Declaration of Inde- pendence and the Constitution of the United States are rescued from the hands of their betrayers. Those who dispute about standards of value while the foundation of the republic is undermined will be listened to as little as those who would wrangle about the small economies of the household while the house is on fire. The training of a great people for a century, the aspiration for liberty of a vast immigratiou who have made their homes here, are forces that will hurl aside those who in the delirium of conquest seek to destroy the character of our institutions. WE DENT that the obligation of all citizens to support their government in times of grave national peril applies to the present situation. If an administration may with impunity ignore the issues upon which it was chosen, deliberately create a condition of war anywhere on the face of the globe, debauch the civil service for spoils to promote the adventure, organize a ' truth-suppressing censorship, and demand of all citizens a suspension of judgment and their unanimous support while it chooses to continue the fighting, representative government itself is imperiled. WE PROPOSE to contribute to the defeat of any person or party that stands for the forcible subjugation of any people. We shall oppose for re-election all who in the White House or in Congress betray American liberty in pursuit of un-American ends. We still' hope that both of our great political parties will support and defend the Declaration of Independence in the closing campaign of the century. WE HOLD, with Abraham Lincoln, that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government that is despotism. Our reliance is in love of liberty, which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. WE CORDIALLY INVITE the co-operation of all men and women who remain loyal to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. 2 [62] THE COMMONS H flDontbls 1Recort> JDevoteb to Hspects of life anfc labor from tbe Social Settlement point of Wew. Whole Number 39. CHICAGO. OCTOBER 31, 1899. THE BUGLER IN THE REAR. TO RUDYAKD KIPLING. Strong bugler, whose deep-chested strain Has cheered the march of man From Simla to the cost of Maine, From Cork to Kordofan, Oh, tell me, while your rhythmic flow Still fascinates my ear, Why is it that you choose to blow Your bugle in .the rear? For clarion notes like yours should sound The order to advance The prophet's thunder-words profound That voice the prophet's glance The prophet's giance that first beholds The new-born day appear: You spy not what the future holds, A-bugling in the rear. Your bugle-note is that which calls Barneses to the fight, Sculptured on Karnac's crumbling walls At twenty times his height. Again you blow his ancient horn, That pigmy tribes may fear, You're harking back to times out- worn, A-bugling in the rear. Like you, the narrow Jew looked down Upon the Gentile bands; Like you, proud Romans used to frown On broad, " barbarian " lands; And Attila and Genghis Khan Knew well your bugle bold; For pagan, Jew, and Mussulman Have heard its blare of old. And so the Norman, when he came Across the narrow wave, And made the Anglo-Saxon name The synonym for "slave;" And so the Corsican who hurled His bolts like hell unpent, And won the hatred of the world To soothe his banishment: These, all of these, from times remote, In every land and clime, Have heard your ancient bugle-note Of war and waste sublime; And ere man's footstep ever fell On mountain, plain, or shore, It echoed in the tiger's yell And in the lion's roar. Know, then, that man shall not return And seek the brutish past, The Jungle he has left to learn To scale the heights at last. And this shall ever be the sign To mark the leader true: The poet is the man divine Who tells us something new; The man who tells us something new, And points the road ahead; Whose tent is with the forward few, And not among the dead. Then come, strong bugler of the rear, And lead us in the van. And blow this blast, as pioneer, "The Brotherhood of Man!" Ernext H. Crosby, in the Coming Nation. THE SETTLEMENT'S BIRTHDAY. Fifth Anniversary of the Founding: of the Settle- ment Celebrated by the Chicago Commons Woman's Club Cordial Expressions by Members of the Club. A large gathering of the friends of Chicago Commons signalized the occasion of the fifth birthday of the settlement, celebrated by the Chicago Commons Woman's Club on the even- ing of Saturday, October 21. This has been a Woman's Club occasion for several years, and never has it been more enjoyable. An accept- able program of literary and musical features was given, and refreshments were served. The club presented to the settlement a handsome carved oak table for the parlor, about which our evening vesper circle has gathered ever since, and a fine carbon copy of the portrait of Queen Louise of Prussia. The cordial feeling of many of our neighbors toward the settlement may be inferred from the remarks of Mrs. James "Reoch, recording secre- tary of the club, and one of our first friends in both the settlement and the Tabernacle: " One look into our faces this evening will discover the best testimony that we can give our friends of the pleasure we feel at being here on this, to us, Red Letter Night. Instead of growing older with the Commons, we are [63] 4 [64] THE COMMONS. [October 31, growing younger with it. Outside wrinkles may belie that statement, but never mind our wrinkled faces, if we are not getting wrinkled hearts! Burns says, you know, ' the heart's aye the pairt, aye, that makes us richt or wrang.' We are glad, too, that our birthday party falls at this festive season, when words of welcome and kindly greeting have been the order of the day. When down on State street amidst the crowds of people looking at the beautiful decorations, I wondered, if we had decorated our Commons, what motto would we have displayed? Two little words, comprising only five letters, seemed to me most fitting - Use Me.' For we know that no greater pleas- ure can be given to each one of our friends at Chicago Commons than that they should be used by those who need them. " Hosts of friends have been brought to meet us here whom we could have met in no other way that we can think of, and with many of these rare friendships have been formed, which if taken from us now would leave our lives bare and desolate. These friends, who have had time and opportunity to study many things that we do not know, have come and shared with us, bringing to bear upon our lives new interests and influences, and giving us fresh courage to move onward and upward, better equipped for the greater work that we are sure awaits us in our new and larger home. But though looking forward with eagerness to this broader field, we are not to forget < to do the good that lies nighest, while we dream of this greatness afar,' when we remember this, < that glory shines always the highest that shines upon men as they are.' " Mrs. Charles B. Stuart, the club's treasurer, also one of the first friends of the settlement in the neighborhood, said in part: " Five years ago, when the Commons invited the people into a then rather uninviting place, where the squealing rats seemed to proclaim us intruders, we came with hesitation and some curiosity, little dreaming what the place and people would become in our lives. . . . One of the prettiest and most gratifying tributes ever paid to the club was that of one of our dear members, who, just before leaving for her future home in Norway, said: ' One of my greatest regrets in leaving America is that I will have to give up the Woman's Club at the Commons.' . . . Let me speak of one of the beautiful things about the Commons the free- dom of thought and speech. Here as nowhere else in the neighborhood, your right to think and tell what you think is never questioned. You are respected, even by those who disagree with you in religion, politics or whatever else, and are always welcome, for when you enter the doors of the Commons, all religious and political differences are forgotten, and you are made one of the great, happy family." Mrs. Stuart paid high tribute to the labors of Mrs. Luther Conant, of Oak Park, who has been for more than a year president of the club, and to the influence of woman's clubs in gen- eral. To these cordial words, and those of Mrs. Conant in the speeches of presentation, Pro- fessor Taylor in behalf of the settlement made a happy reply, and the occasion closed with a season of fellowship and social enjoyment. CRISIS OF OPPORTUNITY. Chicago Commons in the Climax of Its Five Years' Struggle The Present Emergency. The whole work of Chicago Commons is at its gravest crisis but the crisis of its op- portunity. The expiration of our lease on May 1st to the premises which we have occu- pied for the past five years has been a fore- warning all along, for the renewal of this lease to a dilapidated and at best inadequate old building, at the exorbitant not to say extortion- ate rental of over $1,900 per year, was not to be thought of. So the building project became a necessity. By the most strenuous effort and unremitting toil throughout the spring and summer, and thus far through this autumn, two results have been achieved. The lease of the Tabernacle property, without rental, for ninety-nine years was secured by the unanimous consent of all parties interested. This gave us the most centrally located site we could have secured, valued at $12,000. To this land a friend has added, at a cost of $2,000, the lot ad- joining it south on Morgan street, upon which it is hoped there may be built an annex to the auditorium and at least two flats for the fami- lies of resident workers, which will be a per- manent source of income for the support of the work. Toward the $50,000, which the en- tire building will cost, $18,107 have thus far been subscribed. Enough of this sum is imme- diately available to warrant the building com- mittee in letting the contracts for the first three floors of the most needed wing, which includes the auditorium, at a cost of $14,226. If the work upon the building is not to stop at this point and the unnecessary expense of a temporary roof is not to be incurred, $8,935 ad- ditional must be spent to complete the walls and permanent roof of the wing. Toward this 1899. I THE COMMONS. sum $2,708 are now available, leaving $6,227 to be subscribed before December 1st. The time element is the most serious em- barrassment of the situation. For there is scant time to complete the new structure be- fore May 1st, when we are likely to be dis- possessed of our present quarters. The time to secure this balance is also very brief, in view of the few hours which Prof. Taylor can take from his Seminary work for the solicita- tion of subscriptions. It is the time, therefore, for every friend of Chicago Commons to lend heart and hand in one of two things, either to help secure, di- rectly or through others, some part of this lacking balance in the building fund or to help tide over the temporary emergency in the current accounts of the settlement. For while so many of the Chicago friends are doing all they can toward the erection of the building, we must depend upon friends outside of the city to do more than usual for the maintenance of the work. Until this month we have been able to avoid deficit, but for the first time in two years have been compelled to borrow $350 to meet it. Only six weeks hence the annual subscriptions for the new year will begin to come in. To close the current year free from debt, we confidently appeal to our many friends for the $1,000 thus very urgently need- ed before December 31st. RESIDENTS OF THE SETTLEMENT. List in Full of the Commons Family for the Com- ing Winter. Residents of the settlement now expecting to spend the winter at Chicago Commons are as follows: Miss Jennie Bemiss, Miss Mabel L. Bosworth, of Hartford, Conn.; Mrs. Sarah B. Carr and Mr. George W. Carr, recently of Milwaukee; Misses Carrie M. Clawson, Alice B. Coggswell, and Marion Cookingham; Miss Helen P. Gavit, of Albany, N. Y.; Mr. and Mrs. John P. Gavit and infant son, Miss Maud I. Purnell, Professor and Mrs. Graham Taylor, Mr. -Graham Li. Tay- lor, Misses Helen D., Katharine and Lea D. Taylor, Miss Eleanor Temple, late of Milwau- kee; Miss Gertrude E. Thayer, Messrs, liobert E. Todd, C. E. Weeks and Nathan H. Weeks. Miss Henrietta E. Stone, now of Hartford, Conn., a former resident, (1897-8), is expected to come into residence after Christmas. (In the cases of permanent residents in the list above no former place of residence is given.) Chicago Commons CHICAGO COMMONS. 14O North Union Street, at Milwaukee Avenue. Telephone, itlain 3551. (Reached by all Milwaukee avenue cable and electric cars, or by Grand avenue or Halsted street electric cars, stopping at corner of Austin avenue and Halsted street, one block west of Union street.) CHICAGO COMMONS is a Social Settlement located on North Union street, two doors from the southwest cor- ner of Milwaukee avenue and the crossing of Union street upon Milwaukee and Austin avenues. Object. As explained in the second clause of the Articles of Incorporation of the Chicago Commons Association, filed with the Secretary of the State of Illinois: "2. The object for which it is formed la to provide a center for higher civic and social life to Initiate and maintain religious, educa- tional and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve conditions in the Industrial districts of Chicago." Or, as the explanatory circular of the settlement has ex- plained it: "As exemplified at Chicago Commons, the Social Settlement con- sists primarily of a group of people who choose to make their home in that part of the great city where they seem to be most needed, rather than where the neighborhood offers the most of privilege or social prestige." Support The work is supported in addition to what the residents are able to pay for rent of rooms, by the free-will gifts of those who believe in what the work stands for. The gift of any person is welcomed, and the contributions are both occasional and regular, the latter being paid in in- stallments, monthly, quarterly and annually, at the conven- ience of the giver. Visitors, singly or in groups, are welcome at any time, but the residents make especial effort to be at home on Tuesday afternoon and evening. Residence. All inquiries with reference to terms and conditions of residence, permanent or temporary, should be addressed to GRAHAM TAYLOR, Resident Warden. Form of Bequest "I give and bequeath to the Chi- cago Commons Association (incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois) Dollars, to be devoted to the social settlement purposes of that Association." TUESDAY EVENING MEETING. Economic Discussions at Chicago Commons Re- sumed \Vil h Unabated Interest. The T uesday evening economic meeting at the Commons seems to have lost none of its vigor, interest or popularity. The first meeting of the year was addressed by Prof . Taylor, with a review and criticism of the trust conferences; the second was of a social character, during 6 [66] THE COMMONS. [October 31, which the conversation was led by Hon. Al- bert Spicer, M. P., of England; the third was addressed by Mr. Louis F. Post, editor of The Public, Chicago; the last meeting of October is at hand as THE COMMONS goes to press, Mr. Thomas J. Morgan scheduled to speak of " A Socialist's View of Competition," his address being in some sort an answer to Mr. Bourke Cochran's speech at the trust conference. Other speakers, scheduled for the near future, are Prof. W. D. Mackenzie, on the Transvaal War, Miss Voltairine de Cleyre, on " Evils of Impersonal Rule," Mr. Thomas I. Kidd, secre- tary of the International Woodworkers' Organi- zation, Mrs. Corinne S. Brown, on " Economic Independence of Woman." A printed program of the meetings for several weeks will be issued and may be obtained upon application in per- son or by mail. COMMONS NOTES. A Mothers' club has been organized from the women attending the mothers' meeting. Mrs. Hegner is president. The distribution of good magazines is com- ing to be a feature of many of the regular occa- sions at the settlement. Beginning with the first meeting in January, the Woman's Club will meet on Tuesday after- noons instead of Friday. We are planning for a rousing time in con- nection with the laying of the corner-stone of the new building. The date is not yet defi- nite. This winter, as for several years past, we are indebted to Mr. N. H. Carpenter, secretary of the Art Institute, for season tickets to the In- stitute. We have recently enjoyed a brief visit from our former fellow-resident, Mrs. Katharine Lente Stevenson, now president of the Massa- chusetts W. C. T. U. Two " Intermediate " clubs, of children just out of the kindergarten but younger than those of the ordinary children's clubs, meet in the afternoons, and more will be organized. A pleasant occasion was the residents' recep- tion to the teachers of the neighborhood pub- lic schools, on the afternoon of October 24. Assistant Superintendent W. W. Speer spoke and refreshments were served. Steps are already in mind to distribute steril- ized milk next summer, a ministry which has been most successful at the Northwestern Uni- versity settlement this year. Some form of co- operation with them may be possible. Old-time residents and friends of the Com- mons, especially those who attended the Tues- day meeting in the winters of '96-7 and '97-8, are shocked at the news of the death at San Francisco of Mr. John A. Ball, the aged man whose unwearying battle for the referendum was dearer to him than his own health or per- sonal interests. Mr. Franklin Hanson, killed in the shocking collapse and fire at the New England mills, West Lake street, near Union, was an old friend of the Commons and long-time a member and worker 6f the Tabernacle and its community. A committee of. the residents is considering the possibility of organizing a lunch-club in the neighborhood for the workers in the neigh- boring factories and business houses. The set- tlement is fairly surrounded by great establish- ments employing large numbers of young people. MR. HILL IN NEW YORK. Interesting; Fragment from a Letter from the Former Head of Neighborhood House. A private letter from Mr. Archibald A. Hill, formerly head of the Neighborhood House at Louisville, Ky., now in settlement work in New York City, is as usual breezy and vivid. The following extract reflects not only his own deep sympathy of heart and earnestness of life, but also something of the life in the midst of which he has settled : " My sister and I have been living in a huge tenement at 737 Tenth avenue, New York, cor- ner of Fiftieth street, ' upstairs over the saloon,' as I have been accustomed to saying to my friends who want to look me up. There are five entrances to the building and twelve families to each entrance, besides the ones who live in the stores. This way of living is limited, however, to Chinamen, Italians and undertak- ers. In the whole house there are about three hundred people. The worst of it is the rooms. They are very small, dark and close. The house is built up solid in this way : FRONT 1 2 3 3 2 1 BEAK " There are windows in the extreme front and rear rooms, but the rooms between are dark, save for the light that comes from the windows in the far end rooms. In these six little rooms that we have, seventeen people were living when we took them. By reason of the two series being in a row there is abso- lutely no chance of thorough ventilation. You can imagine the stifling heat. The rooms are so small that it is awful. How can there be any modesty when people live in such quarters ? After hot nights I have gotten up as soon as day came, and, in passing through the halls, could look into the rooms. I have seen almost grown boys and girls sleeping to- gether, and, on account of the heat, without any clothing. How can they be modest ? Then, too, how can there be any charm of family life when you are constantly sur- rounded by so many people in such crowded and cramped quarters ? No wonder, then, that there is a saloon for every 390 people in my district! One block has a saloon for every 223." 1899. J THE COMMONS. [67] 7 PROF. HERRON RESIGNS. Frank and Manly Letter to the Trustees of Iowa College The Long Controversy Reviewed Institutions and Free Thought Kami Endowment to Remain. The following letter of Prof. George D. Her- ron to the trustees of Iowa College is self- explanatory :* IOWA COLLEGE, GRINNELL, IA., October 13, 1899. To the Trustees of Iowa College: GENTLEMEN: In asking you to accept this my resignation from the Faculty of Iowa Col- lege, it is only just to you, and to all concerned, that it be accompanied by a brief explanation. The fact that the Chair of Applied Christianity was specially endowed for my occiapance, the fact that this chair has been the subject of so much public controversy for more than six years, and the fact that this resignation is voluntary, makes some recital of the history of our relations seem imperative. When the Department of Applied Christianity and its condition were accepted by you seven years ago next May, I frankly said to you that I felt sure my teachings and public utterances would bring attacks upon Iowa College. I also stated that I could make no promises or enter into no covenants, save to be true to the truth as I should understand it, at whatever cost. When you established this department, I came to it in all good faith, thinking you were pre- pared for whatever might come, and hoping that in time my academic work might take its normal and organic place among other depart- ments of the College, and I be held individually responsible for my public words, through books or from the platform. So far as the interior workings of the College are concerned, the end sought for has been achieved. The Department of Applied Chris- tianity has now a perfectly organic and even incidental place in the life of the College. It has not hindered the steady growth of the Col- lege, both in the number of its students and in the quality of its work. The number of stu- dents, and of the graduating class, is now larger than at any previous time. The num- ber of students in my own department is larger than in any preceding year. I know something of other colleges and universities, and I am free to say that I believe the college spirit of the student body of Iowa College to be un- equalod in moral tone and in intellectual seri- ousness. Nor can I conceive of a more har- monious or co-operative faculty a faculty made up of wholesome and self-sacrificing Christian men and women. I mention all this in order to suggest that the presence of the department has not prevented the interior de- velopment of the College in all that is best, though it may be that a large number of stu- dents have been kept away by the department's teachings. *As THE COMMONS goes to press it is announced that the resignation lias been accepted by the trustees. It will be noted that it is not to take effect before the close of the college year. ED. COMMONS. None tke less, your position as trustees is made more serious and difficult each year by the recurring demands for the removal of the Chair of Applied Christianity and its occupant. These demands come not only from the press and from public men who feel indignant at my teachings concerning property, but from old and sincere friends of the College, who feel that its well-being is being jeopardized be- cause of the lack of support from men of financial means and of influence among the churches. The self-sacrifice and devotion of these old friends of the College demand full and sympathetic consideration. Whether they be mistaken or not, it seems to be the now generally accepted opinion of your constitu- ency that men who have money will not give to the College while I remain in its faculty ; that the churches will not support the College because of my interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. The reports of the secretary and of the faculty committee, at the last annual meet- ing of the Board of Trustees, seem to verify this opinion. The College is outgrowing its equipment ; its needs are rapidly increasing ; yet the money to supply those needs cannot be had while I continue to teach in the College. At least this is what men of means almost uni- versally say when approached, and it is what you as trustees are given every reason to be- lieve. You are thus forced into the position of choosing between my retention as a teacher and the retention of the support and good-will of the financial and religious constituency of the College. I am well aware how serious and trying such a position is. You are not owners of the Col- lege, but trustees, holding it in trust for the constituency to which you are responsible. It is no question of personal opinion you have to pass upon, but a question of accounting for your trust to the supporters of the College. I sympathize so deeply with you in your difficult responsibility that I am unwilling to leave you in a position where you are forced to choose between my freedom to teach and the financial support upon which the College must depend for its growth. I am myself unwilling to retain a position in which I can remain only by being chargeable with a possible impoverishment of the College. While I feel that you have been mistaken in allowing this department to be officially dis- cussed, once you had accepted it, I also feel that during these years of controversy, you have met your trying position with the sincere purpose to do your whole duty to all. No amount of public clamor has induced you to take any official steps towards satisfying it. However you may have felt like disowning my teachings as individuals, you have sought to take patiently the official consequences of my remaining as a teacher. I am glad to relieve you of this responsibility, trusting that the constituency of the College will now amply and immediately respond to its pressing finan- cial needs. Let me say that I do this with no thought of its being a sacrifice. Not for a moment will I allow myself to be thought of as a martyr to the cause of free teaching. I shall defend the constituency and trustees of Iowa College in THE COMMONS. [October 31, their right to choose what they shall have taught. It is certainly true that the doctrines of property which I hold are subversive of the existing industrial and political order. I do believe that our system of private ownership of natural resources is a crime against God and man and nature ; that natural resources are not property, and cannot be so held without destroying the liberty of man and the basis of the religion of Christ. This common and equal right of all men to the earth and its resources, as their common inheritance from God, I expect to always and everywhere teach. The faith that it is true, and that it must ulti- mately be applied, is dearer to me than my bread or life. But I recognize that the con- stituency of this College is equally sincere in believing such teaching to be dangerous and untrue. I recognize fully the right of men to support only such freedom as they sincerely believe in, and I am unwilling to force them to even seem to support such freedom and teach- ing as they do not believe in. Furthermore, I am unwilling to have my brethren in the faculty involved, each year and commencement, in the controversy over my position. No words can express my gratitude for the noble tolerance and patient self-denial of these men. Each year has found my relation with them more cordial, and their sympathy and tolerance more brotherly. They do not know that I am writing this letter of resigna- tion, and such as I have talked with have ex- pressed themselves against such a step. But they have their own vastly important work, and ought not to be annually involved in a controversy about any one department. I feel that it is not right for them to be any longer kept in such a position. I have a right to make any sacrifice of myself I may think worth while, but I have no right to keep others in a position of sacrifice for that which is other than their chosen work. By the terms of the endowment, the Depart- ment of Applied Christianity can remain in the College only by my voluntary retirement from the chair, or by my removal by the three special trustees of the endowment. To this voluntary retirement Mrs. E. D. Hand has finally consented. I am entirely unwilling to take this endowment of $35,000 from the Col- lege, .and am happy to be able to leave it, through Mrs. Band's generosity. Upon my re- tirement, the endowment will be so changed as to be turned over to the College, without any conditions attached thereto. I would only ask that the faculty and trustees, in selecting my successor, give the gracious consideration due to Mrs. Rand's wishes in such a selection. I trust that, under more conservative teaching, the department may have a noble and abiding history in the minds and ideals of the genera- tions of students who shall come and go. And I pray that my nearly seven years' relation to Iowa College may count for something in the services and memories of the College. Out of justice to you as trustees. I feel that I ought to say to you that I am not sure but that those who refuse to support my presence and freedom to teach in the College may have a right to refuse such support. Anyhow, with- out regard to the right of either of us, contro- versy is not a good influence to be about a col- lege or university. And aside from contro- versy, I question whether an existing college or university is any place for the sort of work I am trying to do. I do not know that a present- day educational institution can rightly make place for the mere apostle of an ideal, whether he be right or wrong. Institutional education has chiefly to do with what has been said and done rather than with what is to be said and done in the future. Any proposed change of institutions, any ideal of a new mode of society or life or industry, has always been a subject of conflict and dispute. The truth is always rudely and imperfectly stated by its earlier apostles. The imperfection and conflict have been as unavoidable as the truth. But educa- tional institutions as now organized and sup- ported, dependent as they are on gifts of money from the existing social order, afford no place for the teaching of disturbing social ideals, though it cannot be that human truths that are new will always be outcast and vagabond upon the earth, even when rudely spoken, until ac- cepted and made a part of the past. As college education is now organized, however, I ques- tion any man's right to teach that which the college constituency does not want. He may as an individual teach the people who care to hear him, but not as a member of an educa- tional institution which he does not represent. In any case, I am as sure of the right of men of wealth, and of conservative political and re- ligious opinions, not to want me here, as I am of my right to want to stay. And though I cannot remain in Iowa College in peace, I leave it in peace, and my deepest love will abide with it. In whatever ways I may serve the College without injury, I trust I may be permitted to do so. I want to be counted as a devoted and abiding friend and defender of the College into which I have put no little of my life, and in which I have spoken words that are blood-red with conviction and suffering. I ask you, in conclusion, kindly to let me thank you for the responsibilities which you have borne in relation to the department from which I now resign. I would also express, through you, something of my debt towards President Gates for the great sacrifices which he has made, in his professional career as well as in his personal life, in order to be true to the freedom of this department to teach what it believed to be guiding principles for the future of society. How much this College owes to him, only the great Judge of us all can reveal. But I can be true to myself only by bearing this witness of his services. This resignation is not put forth tentatively, but is final. I desire that it now be accepted, to take effect at the close of this college year, and that with it you accept the endowment from Mrs. Band, and select my successor. Faithfully yours, GEOKGE D. HERBON. " Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seed of despotism at your own doors." Abraham Lincoln. 1899. J THE COMMONS. [69] IRotes of tbe ^ ^ ^ ^ j* j* j* Social Settlements I AM. I know not whence I came; I know not whither .1 go: But the facts stand clear that I am here In this world of pleasure and woe. And out of the mist and murk Another truth shines plain; It is in my power each day and hour To add to its joy or pain. I know that the earth exists; It is none of my business why. I cannot find out what it's all about; I would but waste time to try. My life is a brief, brief thing; I am here but a little space; And while I stay I would like, if I may, To brighten and better the place. The trouble, I think, with us all, Is the lack of a high conceit; If each man thought he was sent to this spot To make it a bit more sweet. How soon would he gladden the world, How easily right all wrong; If nobody shirked and each one worked To help his fellows along. Cease wondering why you came Stop looking for faults and flaws; Kise up to-day in your pride and say " I am part of the First Great Cause, However full the world. There is room for an honest man; It had need of m or I would not be ; I am here to strengthen the plan." Ella Wheeler Wilcox. TEN YEARS OF HULL HOUSE, Anniversary of the Most Noted American Settle* ment New Building: Opened Events of Anniversary Day. The tenth anniversary of the founding of Hull House, Chicago, was observed informally on Wednesday, October 25, by ceremonies whose informality only emphasized the notable history of which they were for the time being the climax. For not only -was there a simple and happy gathering of old-time friends in the settlement in the evening, but there was also the gratifying fact of the completion and more or less formal opening of the new building on Polk street, with theater and coifee-house, a picture of which was printed in the last issue of THE COMMONS. From the exceedingly satis- factory account of the occasion contributed by a resident of Hull House to the Chicago Tribune we summarize : The first evidence of the significance of the day was in the slightly elaborated program and luncheon of the Woman's Club in the afternoon. Last night the friends who have aided the efforts of Miss Addams and watched the growth of the movement met at an infor- mal reception, and listened to a brief address by Miss Addams. Visitors were there from the settlement district, who during their years of residence in the Nineteenth Ward had been constant witnesses of the many reforms which the transformation of the old Hull mansion of 1856 to its present uses had secured for the neighborhood. THE NEW BUILDING. The new building is expected to have far- reaching effect, and to this fact close attention was drawn. The lower floor has been made an extension of the coffee-house, recently built, and, as an initial step, is expected to supply the locality with a good, cheap restaurant. The auditorium on the Cupper floor, with its fully equipped stage, will bring about a great development of dramatic presentations at Hull House, and many companies for the pro- duction of good plays are now being formed by the resident teachers and Miss Addams. The hall will be used also for recitals and in con- nection with the university extension courses which have been outlined for the winter. The new building is 75 feet long and 29 feet wide, its construction being marked chiefly by the peculiar arrangement of the windows, which admit light and air to every nook of the big coffee-room. From it direct entrance is afforded to the coffee-bouse proper, with its stained rafters and its rows of china mugs. Seats for 300 people are provided in the audi- torium, which will relieve the gymnasium located above the old coffee-rooms of the handicap of conflicting entertainments which previously were accommodated here. The land on which the new building stands was donated by Miss Helen Culver and the con- struction expense of $25,000 was met by sub- scription. " ANNIVERSARY DAT.'' " Anniversary day " was characteristic of the every-day life of the settlement. The early morning brought the mothers and their chil- dren, the little ones being left to play about the little dining tables in the kindergarten. The coffee-house was as busy as ever at 7:30 o'clock. At 9 o'clock the nurses and workers hurried away to their duties as usual. The kindergarten training class of older boys and girls kept at its work in the afternoon, the children making for the play-grounds during the session of the Woman's Club of the settle- ment. Each of the 160 members of the latter organi- zation had invited a friend to hear the pro- gram of music and recitation. At the close there was a general meeting in the dining- 10 [70] THE COMMONS. [October 31, room and a half-hour's discussion and gossip over luncheon. In the outer court groups of men chatted on the benches and watched the cable cars jangle by, dodged by Halsted street shoppers. The evening reception brought the crowding of halls and rooms of all the settlement buildings. Aside from tracing the progress made by the settlement, Miss Addams was averse, as was Miss Starr, to discussing her own work. "Hull House," she said, "was started with the defi- nite idea that it should be a social settlement. It was opened on the theory that the depend- ence of classes on each other is reciprocal, that the social relatidh is essentially a recip- rocal relation. One of the motives constitut- ing pressure toward the establishment of such a settlement was the desire to make the entire social organism democratic. ' Bossism ' in politics causes scandal. Yet it goes on in society constantly without being challenged. Hull House has sought to relieve over- accumulation at one end of society and the destitution at the other. I believe there will be no wretched quarters in our cities when the conscience of each man is so touched that he prefers to live with the poorest of his brethren and not with the richest of them that his in- come will allow." " What Hull House has accomplished speaks for itself," said Miss Addams, and with this keynote little time was spent in eulogy of the ten years' work. FORWARD MOVEMENT. Good Reports of the Summer Camp and of the Chicago Settlement Work. The friends of the Forward Movement (219 S. Sangamon street, Chicago,) held the first of a series of social meetings at the Sherman House Saturday, October 21. Luncheon was served and the results of the summer's work discussed. The president, Mr. W. S. Harbert, of Evanston, spoke briefly on the summer camp at Sauga- tuck, Mich., and the scope of work there in the future. Kev. Dr. Geo. W. Gray enlarged on the theme of summer outings, and reported that about two thousand people had been bene- titted by the society during the summer. Dr. J. K. Richards spoke on the placing of children in country homes for the summer. There were, he said, two classes of children. Those from homes of poverty and those not so poor, who earned a little, yet not enough to provide them with a country holiday in the dull midsummer season. The people on farms and in country villages always welcome the first class with open arms and generously pro- vide food, clothing and delightful entertain- ment. But the second class, who came decent- ly clad and on a plane of independence, are not so warmly received by these good people, who felt they must give all or nothing. The coun- try home where the city child had a glimpse of domestic life on a broad plan, where a home was something more than a place to stay in, is undoubtedly the ideal summer resort. How- ever, until a change of heart comes to pass among the country friends, some means of summer entertainment must be found for wage- earning boys and girls. The Forward Movement Park at Saugatuck was planned for and did meet this need. Sixty acres of beautifully wooded hills and glens bordered by a quarter of a mile of hard, sandy beach of " singing sands" was the recreation park. A two-story-and-mansard frame building called Swift Cottage atford dining-room and dormitory, with an assembly hall. House- keeping is conducted on a co-operative plan, the visiting boys and girls assisting in the necessary work. Squads of about twenty were taken across the lake fortnightly to spend a two weeks' vacaticyi at the camp. These boys and girls were either school children from ten to sixteen years of age or were wage-earners at from two to five dollars per week and assisting in the family support. They paid their pass- age and earned board by working a set time daily. Many remained only the two weeks, others found work on the fruit farms and re- mained all summer. The citizens of the towns of Saugatuck and Douglas, Dr. Richards said, were unflagging in their hospitality. Two hundred children visited the camp at Saugatuck during the two summer months. The grounds were purchased, build- ings erected, paths made and running expenses paid with a total deficit of about $1,000, which, it is hoped, will be raised during the coming winter. The summer outings on farms were equally successful, many children being invited to re- turn at Christmas time and a few asked to re- main permanently. The Forward Movement is now planning for evening amusements for the throngs of young people who, having no at- tractions at home, spend the evenings on the street or in the cheap theaters and concert halls. The Forward Movement Settlement has a series of clubs meeting every night of the week, but these did not attract all classes, and 1899. J THE COMMONS. 11 other means of entertainment must be pro- vided. The workers and friends of the For- ward Movement intend meeting the third Sat- urday of each month to discuss ways and means and enjoy an afternoon socially. LENA M. SETTLEMENT WEDDING. Mansfield House Magazine's " Account of the Mar- riage of Mr. Alden and Dr. Pearse. Concerning the marriage of Percy Alden, M. A., head of Mansfield House, East London, and Dr. Margaret Pearse, of the Women's Settle- ment of Mansfield House, to which we made brief reference last month, the October issue of the Mansfield House Magazine, just at hand, says: " Trowbridge Congregational Church had been decorated for the occasion by kind friends, and quite a number of people came in the afternoon to see the ceremony. The morn- ing dawned dull, but soon after mid-day the sun came out to shine a welcome, and at 2 o'clock it was as bright and beautiful as any- one could wish. The service was conducted by the Rev. A. J. Pearse and the Rev. Will Reason. < Dr. Margaret Pearse was given away by her brother, Dr. Barnes Pearse, while the Warden, upon his side, was supported by F. W. Law- rence, who acted as best man. The bridal party left the church amid a shower of rice and confetti, and received the best wishes and hearty congratulations of all those who were present. After a friendly gathering at the house of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Pearse, Mr. and Mrs. Alden took their departure to spend two or three weeks' holiday in the pleasant country of Somerset and Devon." NEW SETTLEMENT IN MAINE. "Fraternity House" the Outgrowth of a Work Begun Twenty- five Years Ago in Portland, Me. " Fraternity House " is the name of a new settlement, the first, so far as we are aware, in Maine. The Portland Fraternity Association had been in existence for about twenty-five years, and ran very successfully an evening school, until the city took up that work about five years ago. Then the association hesitated in approximately suspended animation until the present year, when a social settlement was determined upon. Mrs. E. T. Barker is head worker of the new settlement, which is located in a fine old house just outside the ''worst" part of the city, at 75 Spring street. There are as yet no actual residents, in the technical sense of the term, though a family of colored people occupy a part of the house and act as care-takers. There is a daily kindergarten, a weekly sewing school of sixty children, several clubs, and dressmaking and millinery classes, a cooking school is being agitated, and a penny provident bank is under way, and Mrs. Barker writes that efforts are making to form boys' and men's and women's clubs, and to gather a library. The work is largely , among people of Irish and American birth, but some Jews are coming. GAD'S HILL SETTLEMENT. Newest of the Chicago Group Reports a Good Work and an Encouraging Outlook. The last of the Chicago group of settlements, that known as < Gad's Hill," is located at the corner of South Robey and Twenty-second streets, and in an attractive illustrated pam- phlet, recently issued, reports good progress. The work now includes educational classes, kindergarten, boys' and girls' clubs, a loyal temperance legion, vesper services on Sunday afternoons, and a varied home work, including much neighborhood calling. The settlement, starting modestly and without display, has grown into the confidence of its neighborhood, and is gaining a merited support. There is every reason to expect that it will become one of the best settlements in Chicago. SAN FRANCISCO SETTLEMENT. Important Social Investigation Begun by Residents and Co-operating Friends A Useful Year. The fifth annual report of the San Francisco Settlement Association of the work at South Park, San Francisco, is in most respects the best that Society has yet issued, both in point of interest in itself, and in the showing of work done or begun. This summer the first attempt at systematic study of the neighborhood was made, Prof. Fetter, of the Department of Eco- nomics of Stanford University, conducting an examination into the extent and influence of the various social agencies working in the dis- trict, the evidences of their benefits, the ex- tent of their co-operation, and the most urgent needs still unsupplied in the way of agencies of social uplift. And in January, a resident of the settlement spent some time at work in one of the city laundries. An active interest has 12 [72] THE COMMONS. [October 31, been shown in the formation of Mothers' clubs in connection with the public schools. Two visiting nurses were a part of the resident force. The work cost about $2,100. ST. LOUIS ETHICAL WORK. Interesting Facts From the Wage-Earners* Self- Culture Clubs Encouraging Showing. These are interesting facts concerning the work of the two Self-Culture Halls conducted by the Ethical Society in St. Louis, to whose etforts the Monthly Bulletin of the " Wage- Earners' Self-Culture Clubs" is devoted: There have been 175 men and 245 women en- rolled for class-work at the two halls. Up- wards of 300 persons have enjoyed the bath privileges at the North Side hall, with an aver- age of thirteen baths taken each day for the entire year. A circulating library containing 800 volumes in each of the two halls, has been open evenings and Sundays. There is a play- ground at the North Side Self-Culture Hall, open at special hours on certain days, for boys. Over 100 girls are depositors in the Penny Provident Bank from the three Domestic Economy Schools. Twelve concerts, under the auspices of the Union Musical Club, were given. The total attendance at all the branches of the work would be in the neighborhood of 30,- 000 for the season. NORTHWESTERN SETTLEMENT. Proposed New Building Features of a Useful Year- Probationary Court Officer. Circular No. 8, of the Northwestern Univer- sity Settlement, is notable for its illustration of the proposed new settlement residence, after a striking design by Mr. Dwight H. Per- kins, of Chicago. The house, for which lots have been selected in the neighborhood of the present location, will provide rooms for fifteen or more residents, and accommodations for clubs, classes, kindergarten, domestic science instruction, manual training, entertainments and other settlement activities. One of the most enjoyable features of the past year's life has been the custom of opening the house on Saturday evenings to all comers. "Usually," the report says, "a program of some sort has been offered, and light refresh- ments served by some one of the clubs. Dur- ing the winter a series of receptions were given to the various clubs of the settlement, and to our neighbors, by nationalities. These affairs were conducted by the various women's Greek letter societies of the University, and were very effectual in widening the circle of our friends." One of the residents is detailed to act unof- ficially as " probation officer " in connection with the neighboring police court, affording the court all assistance possible by reporting upon the past history, home life, and general circumstances of the accused, and in many cases of children the prisoner was paroled in the custody of the resident, who then gave personal care to helpful influence upon the home life and general conditions of the pro- bationer. Conference on Boys. A conference of persons interested in boys will be held in the club house of the Fall Kiver (Mass.) boys' club November. 17. Among the speakers will be George E. Johnson, superin- tendent of the Andover public schools, who has made a special study of plays and games ; William A. Clark, of Lincoln House Settle- ment, Boston, and William R.' George, founder of the George Junior Republic. It is stated in the preliminary announcement that the pro- ceedings of this conference will be published by subscription and in such detail as the funds warrant. The reports will be 25 cents each. For particulars, reports, etc., address Thomas Chew, superintendent of the Fall River boys' club. NOTES OF THE SETTLEMENTS. Boston Epworth Leagues gave $277.22 toward the support of the Epworth League settlement in Boston last year. Kingsley House (Pittsburg) Record for No- vember has an illustrated article descriptive of Goodrich House, Cleveland. The Normal College Allumnse settlement at 446 East Seventy-second street, New York, bids for more residents, for which it has now addi- tional accommodations. The Epworth League Settlement in Boston this year revives a Jewish class in Old Testa- ment which two years ago enrolled eighty- seven little Jewish girls. Colonel Waring was at the time of his death honorary president of the Fellow Citizenship Association of the East Side House Settlement in New York. " Individual Freedom Social Unity" is the motto of the Association, which has been holding a valuable series of social evenings Thursdays this ^ear. Notable among the subjects are " Trusts on Trial," "Trades Unions on Trial," "The Politics of the Lord's Prayer," " Wages, Wealth and Wall 1899.] THE COMMONS. [78] 13 Street," and " Abuses in Cigar Factories." Tlie East Side House estimates the Association as perhaps the most important branch of its work. The White Cross Visiting Nurse Association will conduct a " school of health " at the Mutual Benefit settlement, 531 West Superior street, Chicago, every Thursday evening this winter. The same association will maintain a dispensary in the settlement. The Sixth annual report of the Bunker Hill Boys' Club, in the Charlestown district of Bos- ton, indicates the incorporation of the club this year. Twenty-eight hundred dollars were spent last year. This is said to be one of the best boys' clubs in the country. The office is at No. 10 Wood street, Boston. The work of the Locust Point settlement in Baltimore was not closed with the departure of Mrs. J. S. Dinwoodie to Talladega. A brief re- port has just come to hand, dated October 1st, and showing an active work, past and pros- pective. Miss Mary Lamb is now resident in charge. The settlement is at 1409 Hull street. The Kindergarten Magazine (Chicago) says: " Miss Martha R. Spalding, who was the first resident in charge of the Elizabeth Peabody House, is now a resident in the Denison House, Boston, assistant headworker to Miss Dudley, who returned from Europe late in September. The kindergarten connected with Denison House is considered ideal.' " A scrap from a breezy letter from Miss Mary White Ovington, head of the Greenpoint Set. tlement in Brooklyn: " We have had such a pleasant thing happen to-night. A debating club of young men has been formed in Green- point, and the leader, a young lawyer, has asked if they may meet here. The club is made up of all sorts and conditions, and I am very happy to have them choose to come here." Mr. William Horace Noyes has resigned the leadership of the Henry Booth House Settle- ment of the Chicago Society for Ethical Culture, and will devote himself to manual training for the present, retaining classes therein at the settlement. The Ethical Society, in its publication the Cause, pays tribute to his work and expresses regret at his resignation. Mr. Noyes has been in charge of the school-yard playgrounds this summer. The appointment of Miss Mary McDowell, head of the University of Chicago Settlement in the stockyards district, to a place on the educational staff of the department of sociol- ogy, is a recognition of the profound move-* ments of the day. The same movement placed Jane Addains and Mrs. Florence Kelly in the teaching forces of the summer school of the university and gave to them the hearing which might well make the titled university men on the staff envious. Neither of these women has a place as yet among the titled professors. What matters as long as young men and women instinctively turn to them for life and guid- ance ? Unity. Sifce Sketches. ALL the essentials of a "sympathetic strike" are to be found in this little common- place story, told by Our Homes and Our Home- leas: " Here, boy,' let me have a paper." " Can't." " Why not? You've got them. I heard you crying them loud enough to be heard to the city hall." " Yes, but that was down t' other block, ye know, where I hollered." " What does that matter? Come, now, no fooling; hand me a paper; I'm in a hurry." " Couldn't sell you a paper on this here block, mister, 'cos it b'longs to Limpy. He's just up the furdest end now. You'll meet him." " And who is Limpy? And why does he have this block?" " 'Cos us other kids agreed to let him have it. You see, it's a good run on 'count of the offices all along, and the poor chap is that lame he can't git around lively like the rest of us, so we agreed that the first one caught sell- in' on his beat should be thrashed. See? " " Yes, I do see. So you have a sort of broth- erhood among yourselves? " " Well, we're goin' to look out for a little cove what's lame, anyhow." < There comes Limpy now. He's a fortunate boy to have such friends." The gentleman bought two papers of him, and he went on his way down-town, wondering how many men in business would refuse to sell their wares in order to give a weak, halting brother a chance in the field. ANTON GALGOWSKI, a Polish laborer, yester- day sacrificed his own life in order to save a number of his fellow workmen from death, says the Chicago Inter Ocean. Galgowski was em- ployed at the Peavey elevator, South Chicago. While working at the edge of the roof, seventy feet from the ground, he noticed that a piece of heavy timber which had just been hoisted into position swayed and threatened to fall. Realizing the danger to those below, and un- mindful of his own risk, he started down the long ladder in order to get within calling distance of the unconscious laborers beneath him. He succeeded in his errand, and the men sprang out of danger. Galgowski started back to a place of safety, and as he ascended the ladder the huge timber fell, bearing him with it. When picked up he was dead. An exami- nation of the bruised and misshapen body showed that almost every bone was broken by the fall. 14 THE COMMONS. [October 31, THE COMMONS. H flDcmtbls 1RecorJ> S)ex>oteo to aspects of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of tUiew. For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see "Publisher's Corner" on last page. CHICAGO, OCTOBER 31, 1899. EDITORIAL. IN THE death of Lawrence Gronlund, the cause of constructive socialism loses one of its most effective advocates. He was a Dane, and a graduate of the University of Copenha- gen. More .than 100,000 copies of his book, " The Co-operative Commonwealth," have been circulated, and his last work, "The New Economy," has attracted wide and increasing attention. THE establishment of a general juvenile court for the city of Chicago has im- mensely simplified the problem of disposing of accused and neglected children, and has relieved the police judges of the heart- breaking task. It has removed or at least reduced the danger of the children being contaminated by association with hardened criminals and otherwise vicious persons. Miss Edna Sheldrake, resident of Northwestern Uni- versity Settlement, is general probationary officer of the court, which, under Judge Tut- hill's painstaking, conscientious and generous- hearted administration, has come to be viewed with approval by all who have observed its workings. It is without doubt the least harm- ful of Chicago's police courts. EVEEY reader of THE COMMONS will be inter- ested in the letter in which Prof. George D. Herron resigns the chair of Applied Chris- tianity in Iowa College. By courtesy of Prof. Herron we were able to secure an advance copy so that our readers could have it in this issue. However one might fail to agree with Prof. Herron's attitude on many mooted points of social theory and concerning the interpreta- tion of the teachings of Jesus, we feel sure that none can fail to regard this letter as a most manly, brotherly and Christian utterance of a man whose position and whose experience of quite the opposite spirit in many brethren claiming superior wisdom would have justified an expression far less sweet and considerate in tone. By this letter Prof. Herron has confirm- ed the good opinion of a host 'of old friends and won not a few new ones. THE extraordinary pressure upon our col- umns this month, especially by the un- usually large quantity of settlement news, and Professor Herron's letter of resignation, com- pels the omission of most of the editorial mat- ter, literary and bibliographical notes and the labor notes promised last month. We trust, however, that the modified plans will be ac- ceptable to our readers, especially as most of the material left in type will be used in the succeeding issue. Circumstances Alter Cases. [Brotherhood, London.] When Armenians were being outraged and massacred, how marvelously forbearing we were with the unspeakable Turk. Now, when our prosperous kith and kin in the Transvaal are not outraged, not massacred, but pre- vented from voting themselves promptly into greater facilities for accumulating riches, some of us are in a hurry to sweep the obstruct- ing Boers away with a deluge of fire from our Maxim guns. Let Us Have Fair Play. [Chicago Chronicle.] It would be manifestly unfair to cast into outer darkness Roberts, who has only three wives, while extending the right hand of fel- lowship to our esteemed fellow-citizen and salaried official, Hadji Mohammed Wolomol Kiram [Sultan of the Sulu Islands], who has seventeen. The Prince of Wales was also promptly ad- vised of the receipt of the ultimatum, a course only adopted in cases of special .urgency. London cablegram. " Is Phelim O'Shaughnessey here? " demanded the Dook of Wellington on the mornin' of Wa- terloo. " He is," replied Gin'ral Blucher. "Thin," said the dook, pullin' out his soord, " let the battle begin." Chicago Chronicle. I think the best patriot is the man who wants his country to do right. Robert G. Ingersoll. Two hundred and twenty-four officers and 6,395 men represent the mortality which oc- curred in the armies of the United States be- tween May 1, 1898, and June 30, 1899. Underneath the pulpit justifications, both of the American invasion of the Philippines and now the English invasion of Africa, lies the unchristian assumption that violence can humanize and murder reform. Unity. In a Texas court once a prisoner against whom the evidence of horse-stealing was over- whelming when asked what defense he could make replied impressively : " Gentlemen, my heart beats warm for my country ! " Savannah News. 1899.] THE COMMONS. [76] 15 ' ' IfF YO UR municipality, the State, or the -* nation was responsible for the store-keep- ing in your town would it be necessary to have any more stores than there are postoffices ?" The Eight Relationship League is a National organization for social service. Members pay $1.00 annually. Better join you'll find your- self in good company. RIGHT RELATIONSHIP LEAGUE, Rooms 903, 905 and 907, 237 Fifth Ave., Chicago. P. F. PETTIBONE & Co. INCORPORATED PRINTERS STATIONERS BLANK BOOK MAKERS Chicago Manufacturers of PATENT FLEXIBLE FLAT OPENING BLANK BOOKS Commercial Lithographing 48 and 5O Jackson Street CHICAGO I am a farmer located near Stony Brook, one of the most malarious districts in this State, and was bothered with malaria for years, at times so I could not work, and was always very constipated as well. For years I had malaria so bad in the spring, when engaged in plowing, that I could do nothing but shake. I must have taken about a barrel of quinine pills besides dozens of other remedies, but never obtained any permanent benefit. Last fall, in peach time, I had a most serious attack of chills and then commenced to take Ripans Tabules, upon a friend's advice, and the first box made me all right and I have never been without them since. I take one Tabule each morning and night and sometimes when I feel more than usually exhausted 1 take three in a day. They have kept my stomach sweet, my bowels regular and I have not had the least touch of malaria nor splitting headache since I commenced using them. I know also that I sleep better and wake up more refreshed than formerly. I don't know how many complaints Ripans Tabules will help, but I do know they will cure any one in the condition I was and I would not be without them at any price. I honestly consider them the cheapest-priced medicine in the world, as they are also the most beneficial and the most convenient to take. 1 am twenty-seven years of age and have worked hard all my life, the same as most farmers, both early and late and in all kinds of weather, and I have never enjoyed such good health as I have since last fall; in fact, my neighbors have all remarked my improved condition and have said, " Say, John, what are you doing to look so healthy ? " WANTED. A case of bad health that R'1'P-A-N-S will not benefit. They banish pain and prolong life. One gives relief. Note the word RI'P'A'N-S on the package and accept no substitute. RTP'A'N'3, 10 for 5 cents or twelve packets for 48 cents, may be had at any drug store. Ten samples and one thou- sand testimonials will be mailed to any address for 5 cents, forwarded to the Ripans Chemical Co., Ntt 10 Spruce St., New York, 16 THE COMMONS. [October 31, '99.] THE COMMONS H flDontbls 1Recor6 J>evoteJ> to aspects of life an& labor from tbe Social Settlement point of IDfew. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOR. Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. PCBLISHER'S CORNKK. A red or blue mark In this space Indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter anoVpostage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above 5-cent denominations AT OUR RISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to the contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it Is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. MONON ROUTE DIRECT BETWEEN Chicago Indianapolis Cincinnati Lafayette AND ALL POINTS SOUTH THROUGH SLEEPERS TO WEST BADEN, FRENCH LICK AND PAOLI SPRINGS EVERY NIGHT. FRANK J. REED, G. P. A, CITY TICKET OFFICE, 232 CLARK ST. CHICAGO. Pestalozzi-froebel K indcrgawn training School * Ml Chicago Commons Year Opened . October 2, 1899 . Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and Practice. A course in Home Making. Industrial and Social Development Emphasized. Also a Mothers' Class. INSTRUCTORS BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, . . . Theory and " Mother-Play " FREDERICA BEARD, . .Theory of Gifts and History of Education Miss P. H. DAVIS, Studies in Expression MARI RUEF HOFER, Music and Physical Culture MR. GEO. L. SCHREIBER, . . Drawing, Color Work and Design MRS. JOHN P. GAVIT, .... Home Making and Occupations PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOR, Social Function of Education SPECIALISTS on Psychology and Nature Study There will be other LECTURES on Special Subjects during the year. For Circulars and particulars, address, BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, 140 North Union Street, CHICAGO I If o K * 00 . s z uD f- w O z: r o v_; O cr 3B ; ; $$ u'. .-..-- ! "i,. ,[ , ui tv j^pj^m^^H ' Jr.w i !Vi ; '- >-iaCl_rZ.--^y, i '.|. : Prt-*- 5 ^ Pti if ; '1- ; u E u w 2 [78] THE COMMONS. [Nov. 30, SCHEDULE OF OCCASIONS- LIST OF MEETINGS, CLASSES, CLUBS AND OTHER APPOINTMENTS OF THE WEEK AT CHICAGO COMMONS AND THE TABERNACLE. THE OOM1VLONS, 140 NORTH UNION STREET. DAILY All Day House open for neighbors and friends. 9:00-12:00 a. m. Free Kindergarten (except Saturday and Sunday). Mrs. Bertha Hofer Hegner, head kiudergartner; Miss Alice B. Coggswell, assistant. 2:00-5:00 p. m. Kindergarten Training Classes. 7:00 p. m: Family Vespers (except Saturday). SUNDAY 3:30 p. m. Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. MONDAY 4:00 p. m. Manual Training (Girls.) Mr. N. H. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Fenny Provident Bank. 8:00 p. m. Girls' Clubs. Misses Coggswell, Taylor and Purnell, Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Manning. Girls' Progressive Club (Young Women). Classes in Art, MissCushman; Embroidery, Mrs. Gavit; Greek Mythology, Mrs. Follett ; English History and Constitution, Miss Allen. Shakespere Class. Mr. Gavlt. TUESDAY 2:00 p. m. Woman's Club. 4:00 p. m. Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Cookinham. Manual Training. Mr. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Boys' Club. Mr. Weeks, Misses Alexander and Holdridge. French. Miss Sayer. Rhetoric. Mr. Wyatt. Stenography. Mr. Fisher. Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Thayer. 8:00 p. m. Choral Club. Miss Hofer aud Mr. C. E. Weeks. 8:15 p. m. "The Tuesday Meeting," for Economic Discussion. WEDNESDAY 4:00 p. m. Kindergarten Clubs (children). Miss Pur- nell and Abbott. Dressmaking Class (Girls) . Miss Temple. Piano. Miss Gavit. 7:00 p. m. Piano. Miss Bemiss. 7:30 p. m. Penny Provident Bank. Girls' Clubs. Misses Coggswell, Gavit, Bosworth, Bemiss, Etheridge. Boys' Club. Mr. Grant. Cooking Class (Young Women) . Miss Temple. THURSDAY 4:00 p. m Cooking Class (for Women). Miss Temple. Elocution. Miss Ellis. Manual Training (Girls). Mr. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Girls' Club. Miss Chandler. Good Will (" Blue Ticket ") Club. Mr. Weeks. Elocution. Miss Ellis. Grammar. Mr. Carr. Cooking (for Gitls). Miss Manning. Mothers' Club (Fortnightly). Seventeenth Ward Municipal Club (Monthly). FRIDAY 4:00 p. m. Manual Training (Boys'). Mr. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Penny Provident Bank. Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Manning. Boys' Clubs. Messrs. Burt. Carr, Crocker, Young, C. E. Weeks. N. H. Weeks. Dressmaking. Mrs. Strawbridge. SATURDAY 10:00 a. m. Manual Training (Boys). Mr. Weeks. 2:00 p. m. Manual Training (Boys). Mr. Weeks. 3:00 p. m. Piano Lessons. Miss Bemiss. 6:30 p. m. Residents' Meeting ((or residents only). Other Appointments, for Clubs, Study Classes, Social Gatherings, etc., are made from time to time and for special occasions. (Temporary Quarters, 209 Grand Avenue, North Side, just West of Carpenter Street.) PASTORS : GRAHAM TAYLOR, 140 North Union Street. - HENRY J. CONDIT, 291 West Ohio Street. DAILY 9:00-12:00 a. m. Free Kindergarten. SUNDAY 10:00 a. m. Sunday School. 11 :00 a. m. Family Service. 7:00 p. m. Children's Service. b:00 p. m. People's Hour. MONDAY 7:30 p. m. Boys' Club. 7:30 p. m. Young Mnn's Club. 8:00 p. m. (First and third Mondays), Men's Neigh- borhood League, TUESDAY 7:30 p. m. Girls' Club. WEDNESDAY 2:00 p. m. Mothers' Meeting. 8:00 p. m. Midweek Fellowship Meeting. THURSDAY 2:00 p m. Ladies' Missionary and Aid Society. FRII>AY 7:00 p m. Junior Christian Endeavor Society. Intermediate Christian Endeavor Society. 8:00 p. m. Young People's Christian Endeavor Society A THE CHICAGO COMMONS NUMBER-1899. THE COMMONS B Aontblv IRecorfc S>evote& to Hspccts of Site anb labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. ENTERED AT CHICAGO P. O . AS S F CON D - CLASS MAIL MATT en Whole Number 40. CHICAGO. NOVEMBER 30, 1899. [FOR THK COMMONS.] DOWN THE SHAFTS. Say, have you heard your brothers calling Out of the depths beneath your feet? Out of the blackness so appalling? Comrade, send them a message sweet. Down the shafts in their sin and sorrow, Cry they out for a gleam of light; Hope may spring in their hearts tomorrow, If you but lower a lamp tonight. Out of the light so far above them, Drops like music a word of cheer; Tell them God hath a heart to love them, Say you pity each falling tear. Drop and lower, my brother, trying To save the lost from a living grave, Christ came down to the weak and dying Into the shafts if you hope to save! Ann Arbor, Mich. Mrs. M. P: A. Crozier. "WHAT HA' YE DONE?" And they came to the gate within the wall, where Peter holds the keys, "Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die The good that ye did for the sake of men in Httle earth so lone!" And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain- washed bone. "This I have read In a book," he said, "and that was told to me, And this I have thought that another man thought of a prince in Muscovy " And Peter twirled the Jangling keys in weariness and wrath. " Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run: By the worth of the body that once ye had, trfcve an- swerwhat ha' ye donef" Rudyard Kinling. J894CHICAGO COMMONS 1900. After Five Years. Outline of the Past Year's Work. Functions of the Settlement. Influence, Civic and Gen- eral. New Building Assures Permanency. Local Aspects of the Work. The Sum Needed the Coin- ing Year. Appeal to Friends of the Settlement. with no small degree of grateful satisfaction upon a sixth year of residence and * ' endeavor in, with and for the densely populous and cosmopolitan Seventeenth Ward of Cki- cago, the residents of Chicago Commons, and those associated with them in the conduct and responsibility of the enterprise, feel surely justified in turning for support during the coming year to that increasing constituency which thus far has helped to make the work possible, with hope that some new friends, finding interest in the settlement and its effort, may be led also to contribute toward the moderate expense of its maintenance. Five years of faith and free will have these been, of struggle and patience and loyal fellowship, in the uncompelled attempt to live a normal life of human service "in that part of the great city where we seem to be most needed, rather than where the neighborhood seems to offer the most of social prestige or privilege." Omnipresent and unconquerable dirt and stifling smoke, cease- less din of traffic in crowded streets and nearby railroad yards, and always the pressing and depressing atmosphere of poverty, with its inevitably attendant miseries and inexorable degra- dation and destruction of precious human life these are the conditions of daily life that have 3 [79] 4 [80] THE COMMONS. [Nov. 30, been made endurable by the unstinting co-operation of those who have believed in us and in the ideal for which we have stood, enough to entrust us to administer sacrificial gifts, leaving us at the same time free to develop method out of experience ; and not less by the unreserving confi- dence and friendship of noble souls within our neighborhood, unspoiled by even hardest pressure in the merciless struggle for existence. Amid such conditions, and sustained by such co-opera- tion and encouragement as this, we have succeeded in maintaining a home and in gaining a recognized place in the community as friends, fellow-citizens, neighbors ; and our house has come, slowly but surely, to be a neighborhood center, a place of fellowship and sharing of per- sonal values ; amid the chaos of modern industrial conflict, an outpost, as it were, of human democracy and brotherhood. Settlement Several functions we have come to feel that the settlement performs more or less Functions, thoroughly, in addition to its more subjective aspect as a place and occasion for the investment of personal and family home-life in the service of the many and for the recognition of indebtedness on the part of each to all for culture, so-called, and educational privilege. Locally, it affords to individuals thro a more or less extensive and varied provision of classes, lectures, clubs, etc., opportunities to supply defects in the more formal education which early necessity of labor in self and home-support cuts off, in the average working-person's case, at the elements. Then, as a kind of neighborhood club-house, it gives opportunity and provocation for acquaintance sadly needed in districts like ours, where deadening isolation from wholesome con- tact with fellow-humans is hardly less common than in farthest rural districts. It seeks to sup- ply what in great regions of the cities is offered by the saloon alone but without the abiding perils of the saloon a common meeting-place, a neutral ground, without prejudice of race, creed, party or class, for acquaintance, social intercourse and recreation. What the public school offers for the children, and the ballot box and political occasion for the men, we have tried to supply for the whole family, that in the warmth of a frankly recognized community of interest without regard to age, sex or previous condition of antipathy or indifference, and in the growing con- sciousness of true fraternity, a homogeneous American citizenship might fuse and assimilate, and the congested masses of city population cease themselves to be, and turn about to solve, the problem of modern social development. influence, civic in the sphere of civic influence, we feel that the settlement has played a part. In and General. at ] eas t four ward elections we have afforded local habitation, and to some degree initiative, for the battle for honest aldermen and purer municipal administration, and none familiar with the situation can doubt that the group of sturdy citizens thus rallied, with the set- tlement as meeting-place, has come to control at least a balance of power in the ward. Out of this group has been organized during the past year, a " Seventeenth Ward Municipal Club " which it is hoped will come to be a force in behalf of local improvement and right use of the people's money and property. Highly as we may value our opportunities for direct influence in the local neighborhood, as high an estimate, if not higher, must be placed upon the opportunities for reflex influence upon the communities and individuals co-operating in the work, or even only hearing of its point of view and general progress. Thro the constant outgoing of residents of the settlement to address audiences in all paits of the middle West, and not infrequently into distant States, and thro the presentation of the general aspects of not only our own work, but those of other settlements, thro the columns of THE COMMONS, thousands of earnest men and women have gained new points of view and inspiration for service. 1899. J THE COMMONS. [811 5 The New The notable fact in our present situation, full of promise for the permanency and Building. effectiveness of our work, appears in the acquisition by the settlement, for a term of ninety-nine years without rental, of the strategically located site of the old Tabernacle (Congre- gational) church, at Grand avenue and North Morgan street, upon which an adequate and attrac- tive building is now in process of erection. This consummation is the outgrowth of the mani- festly natural and increasingly intimate cordiality maintained from the outset between the settlement, earnestly seeking to serve as a unifying influence in a community cleft with the racial and religious differences of more than a score of nationalities, and that only exclusively English-speaking church which for many years has sheltered truly an " Old Guard" in the social service of this vast industrial population. It was in the ertort to conserve and re-inspire this diminishing group of Christians, left stranded, so to speak, in the changing tides of population and church interest, and to reclaim and re-enlist its zeal and the valuable property in its control to the widest usefulness in the service of the common life of the community, that this arrange- ment was effected, by unanimous consent of all parties concerned, in ownership. The new build- ing will provide for joint occupancy by the two works, and for the fullest co-operation, without in material degree sacrificing the identity or limiting the activity of either. Funds at present in hand or pledged will enable us to enclose and permanently roof the Mor- gan-street wing, and make available for immediate use the ample auditorium. It is hoped that without undue delay (for we shall incur no debt) friends will appear to complete this wing includ- ing the desperately-needed gymnasium and baths, and the Grand-avenue wing also, in which will be located the settlement residence. An already generous donor has given us in addition the property next south on Morgan street, upon which we plan to build an annex, providing an exten- sion of the auditorium, increasing its seating capacity to 750, with a bowling alley in the base- ment and two suites of apartments for the residence of families affiliated with the settlement, the rental from which may be a permanent source of income for the work. Local Referring now to the more exclusively local aspects of our work, we can speak only in out- Aspects. ii n6j referring for elaboration to other literature emanating from the settlement from time to time, available upon application. About twenty-five resident and twice as many non-resident workers have been more or less constantly on the field, except during the midsummer months, when the work is always more informal, is kept as much out-of-doors as may be, and our effort is largely concentrated upon the attempt to get as many of our neighbors as possible away from the city for at least a time. The event of the summer was the highly successful boys' and girls' camp at Elgin, where nearly two hundred children had from ten days to eight weeks' vacation. The Commons continues to be characterized by the continuous residence of family groups, of which there are now three, and one of the sources of greatest satisfaction is in the continued will- ingness of men and women thus to consecrate even their family life, and all it involves, to the social service. More than that, there are not a few indications of the return of brave souls with their home life, from the suburban districts to reside in these congested neighborhoods. The distinctively religious phase of the Commons life is practically that which might char- acterize the relation of any avowedly Christian family in any community. As we have stated above, our relations with the Tabernacle are more than cordial. Professor Taylor for more than two years now has served gratuitously as pastor of the church, and many of our residents are actively identified with its work. Daily household vespers are always open to the neighbors, and the " Pleasant Sunday Afternoon," which we continue during the winter months, when out-of- afternoons at the parks are impracticable, affords with its music, select readings, helpful, 6 [82] THE COMMONS. [Nov. 30, hopeful speech and quiet moments for meditation, a restful retreat from the toils and sorrows of work-a-day life. Other features of the week at the settlement include Daily free kindergarten and classes of the Pestalozzi Froebel kindergarten training-school (affiliated with and located at the Commons). Educational classes daily, afternoons and evenings. Young Girls' Clubs, Monday evenings. Girls' Progressive Club, Monday evenings. Shakespeare Club, Monday evenings. " The Tuesday Meeting " for discussion of social, industrial and economic questions of the day. People's Choral Club, Tuesday evenings. Kindergarten Clubs, for little children, Wednesday afternoons. Girls' Clubs, Wednesday evenings. Mothers' Meetings, Thursday evenings. Woman's Club, Tuesday afternoons. Boys' Clubs, Friday evenings. Social Gatherings, Young Men's Club, Children's Choral Clubs, Penny Provident Bank, Pic- ture Loan Collection, Circulating Library, etc., etc. Much of the " Educational " work is truly social, and to the largest possible extent consists of groups of friends, in mutual interchange of advantage and personal values. These classes are as varied in subject, and as practical in application as possible, and are arranged in response to demand, rather than in an effort to compel our friends to fulfill some preconceived theory of what they may need. Most of the teachers are volunteers, and there are classes in music, vocal and instrumental ; art, embroidery ; English grammar and composition, and literature ; French, German, Latin ; mathematics, stenography ; elocution Delsarte, studies in expression ; domestic science cooking, sewing, dressmaking, millinery, industrial training basket weaving, chair caning, wood carving, manual training, and mechanical drawing. These classes are scattered thro the afternoons and evenings, and fill in the interstices of place and time in the busy week. Allowing all that the most severe critic could ask for the disheartening discrepancy between the ideal and the accomplishment of our settlement, and with keenest appreciation and acknowl- edgment of the innumerable opportunities that elude our vigilance or our devotion, we still firmly and sincerely believe that there can be no doubt of the utility of the settlement as an Influence for social uplift, and toward industrial justice and peace ; nor that within the recogni- tion of the neighborhood it has come to be in truth not only a place of neighborhood unity and interest, but a source of real inspiration and encouragement in family and community life ; a voice crying in the wilderness, no doubt, and feebly, but still crying with increasing hope and directness, and with more and more response of those to whom it is messenger, of the coming day of social unification and brotherhood. The Sum The sum needed to maintain the work during the year to come, at no less than its Needed. present degree of efficiency, is seven thousand dollars ($7,000). This amount will insure the residence and service on the field of upward of a score of workers, and the enlistment in some part of the service for at least one occasion weekly of perhaps twice as many non-resi- dent helpers. The estimate includes also our newly assumed obligation of $50 per month toward the salary of the associate pastor of the Tabernacle, now dependent entirely upon its own member- ship and friends, with the co-operation of the residents and constituency of Chicago Commons. We believe that the results justify the appeal for this money. And after all, why is it in 1899. J THE COMMONS. [83] 7 the nature of things more the duty of those who, with all free will, have given themselves thus to the service of the common life, than it is of those in whose stewardship the means are held, to sustain them in their work. Every hour consumed in otherwise unnecessary search for means of support is an hour subtracted from the direct service on the field. If personnel rallies with willing hearts to give self in this endeavor, surely it is not too much to ask those to whom the actual personal participation is impracticable to give this comparatively small sum of money! December, 1899. LATEST PLANS OF THE NEW BUILDING. (For Additional Flans see pages 8 and 0.) BASEMENT FLOOR PL/AN 8 184] THE COMMONS. Nov. 30, *** oner I gl CtvB KITCHEN SOCIAL ROOM) C,,RLicu,BJ I CUA $* Roo NV.S A 1 h ~T SECOND FLOOR ADMONITION. How wrought I yesterday?" Small moment, now, > To question with vain tears, or bitter moan, Since every word you wrote upon the sands Of yesterday hath hardened into stone. ' How work to-morrow?" 'Tis a clay unborn, To scan whose formless features is not granted. Ere the new morning dawns, soul, thou mayst wing '. Thy flight beyond to-morrows, disenchanted. How shall I work to-day?" O, soul of mine! To-day stands on her threshold, girt to lead Thy feet to life immortal; strive with fear; Deep pit-falls strew the way; take heed take heed! Augusta Moore. " He who helps a child helps humanity with a distinctness, with an immediateness, which no other help, given to human creatures in any other stage of their human life, can possibly give again." Phillips Brooks. Honor to those who have failed, And to those whose war vessels sank in the sea, And to those who sank themselves in the sea, And to all the unknown heroes, Equal to the greatest heroes known. Walt Whitman. 1899. THE COMMONS. [85] 9 FOURTH FLOOfl. PLAIN C O x U- u- CONCERNING THE BUILDING. DESIGN FOR THE NEW HOME OF COM- MONS AND TABERNACLE. Provision for the Little Children, for Girlhood, Womanhood and Motherhood, and to Supply the Needs of the Men and Boys. Where the Residents Will Live. Sources of the Money. The design of the new building which we, residents of the Chicago Commons, covet for our people's sake, speaks for itself. The re- sponse of every one, without exception, who has seen its hospitably homelike features has been an enthusiastic recognition of its happy adaptation to its purpose of being the social center of a great cosmopolitan population. A glance at the floor plans carries with it a con- viction of the human needs of such a neighbor- hood. Indeed the lines designating the uses to which the several apartments are to be put are simply traced over those common necessi- ties of human nature, without provision for which a community can scarcely be human, much more Christian. Certain changes, some of them of considera- ble importance, have been made in the plans since they were first published in the supple- ment to the issue of THE COMMONS for June, 1899, and no doubt others will be necessary THE COMMONS. [Nov. 30, before the building is complete. Those given in this issue are the latest, and were prepared especially for this publication. The general exterior design, given on the front page, while in all essentials unchanged from that first printed, is perfected in many details, and un- doubtedly improved in general drawing and artistic character. These plans show, also, the relation of the additional building pro- vided for by the gift of the lot at the south of the old Tabernacle site, including the exten- sion of the auditorium, and the club- room in the basement, in which, also, we expect to locate a bowling alley. As implied in the gen- eral statement with which this issue opens, it is expected to use the upper stories of this additional building for suites of apartments for families affiliated with the settlement, whose rental will afford a source of income for the work. FIRST FOR THE CHILDREN. At the base of the building, as of the city problem itself, is the provision for the " Chil- dren of the Street." The children whom the streets possess will soon possess the streets. To pre-ocoupy and pre-possess child life with the good that overcomes and crowds out evil, the kindergarten manual training and baths, to which the ground floors are devoted, are the basis of all effective efforts in co-operating with the parents and supplementing their all too inadequate homes. The littlest ones thus faced right only need to be kept moving toward the next best thing within their reach in order well nigh to assure their normal development Provision is, therefore, made for many small club and class-rooms, for the social, intellec- tual and moral culture of the successive growths of girls and boys. Thus small groups of them are brought into continuous contact with some friendly, inspiring, uplifting per- sonality whose progressive influence is the profoundest leverage and most potent force ever exerted upon growing life. FOR WOMANHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD. Overlying, and in many aspects underlying, childhood's needs are the wants of womanhood and motherhood. Ample accommodation for the Progressive Club of young women, the Woman's Ulub for the older women of many nationalities, the Mothers' Meeting and the Tabernacle Ladies' Aid are provided on the third floor of the Grand avenue wing, which is devoted to the exclusive and permanent use of these women's organizations. In a well- equipped Cooking School the young wife, the untrained housekeeper and the growing girl will be helped to lay that lowermost layer in the physical foundation of home life, viz., a. practical knowledge of the value and prepara- tion of foods. TO SUPPLY NEEDS OF THE MEN. For the men of the district, to whose social needs the 163 saloons and many more worse places of resort have been allowed to be the only ministrants, the whole of one floor and half of two others in the Morgan street wing are given over. The club rooms, containing separate apartments for reading, games, and meetings, and especially the gymnasium and shower baths, will supply the equipment we have always lacked, with which to add to the political and economic effect of our public dis- cussions that personal upbuilding and unify- ing influence upon the social and recreative life of individuals which we have found it im- possible effectively to exert without such apparatus. In the freest use of the gymnasium and baths the women and children will share at hours set apart for them. USES AWAITING THE AUDITORIUM. The larger social and religious demands of the community will be met by the spacious auditorium with its capacity of 500 seats. Th& main floor can be cleared so as to be available for public receptions and recreative purposes. Here on Sundays will be held the Tabernacle Family Service (which includes the Sunday School) and People's Hour, and the Com- mons' Pleasant Sunday Afternoons. On week- day evenings it will be the only assembly hall not connected with the saloons, to which a population of over thirty thousand souls can resort for th ir social, civic, and moral better- ment ; their economic political and religious co-operation ; their art exhibitions, musical festivals and neighborly fellowships. For not even their public schools have assembly halls, and soon the greater and needier part of the district seems likely to be deprived of its Protestant church buildings, which are even now for sale, although they stand in the midst of a predominantly Protestant popula- tion. WHERE THE RESIDENTS WILL LIVE. The soul of the social settlement is the home spirit at its center. To give this spirit a body in which to maintain, express and impress itself within the community, this building is designed. Its open-door yard, with a walk winding between lawns and flower beds from the street corner to the wide Dutch door, will 1899. J THE COMMONS. 187] 11 show the latch-string to be ever banging out. The cozy little reception-room and the spacious parlor, with its open fireplace, on either side of - the main entrance will meet and greet every incoming guest. The home life of the fifteen resident workers is provided for on the upper floors, with living and dining rooms, library, dormitories and kitchen, the rental for which, together with the financial co-operation of the Commons' clubs and the Tabernacle congrega- tion, will go far toward meeting the cost of maintenance. PROGRESS OF THE BUILDING. Morgan Street Wing Almost Under Cover. Planning for " Founding Day." Sources of the Money. An Unsectarian Fund. As this issue goes to press, the progress of work on the Morgan street wing is rapid and satisfactory, thanks to the almost uninterrupt- ed good weather, and the steady energy of the contractors, under the direction of the archi- tects, Messrs. Pond & Pond. The most grati- fying fact in the immediate foreground was the completion of the sum necessary to finish the Morgan street wing and avoid the wasteful ex- pense and delay of a temporary roof above the auditorium, with which we at one time feared we should have to be content. As it is now, we are able to enclose and permanently roof the entire wing, including also the completion ready for use of the auditorium, our greatest immediate need. PLANS FOB FOUNDING DAY. We are planning now for the celebration of "Dedication Day" with a public gathering in the new auditorium at the earliest possible moment. Owing to the risk of inclement weather, and the fact that the gratifyingly rapid work on the building covered up a place for a corner-stone before we could be ready for the formalities of " laying " one, we waived that more or less conventional ceremony, and plan now for a " field day " before long, when, with our friends, we shall rejoice in the prospect of at least the beginnings of having an adequate plant for our work. Due notice of the date and details of the celebration will be given. SOURCES OF SUBSCRIPTION-. At the date of going to press, about eighty subscribers have given or pledged a little less than $24,000. Of these there have been one subscription of $7,000, eight of $1,000, seven of $500, one of $300, seven of $250, three of $200, nine of $100, nine of $50, ana thirty odd of $25 or less. One-fifth of the entire amount contributed has been given by firms doing business in the neighborhood, while about twenty subscrip- tions, nearly $1,500, came from persons outside of Chicago and suburbs. AN UNSECTABIAN FUND. While the subscriptions were sought and' made quite irrespective of religious or denomi- national predilections, it is notable that the list of contributors represents many denomi- nations, as well as those of no church profes- sions or connection whatever. A little more than half of the amount given, and somewhat less than half of the number of givers, repre- sent Congregational sources. At least three of the subscribers are Roman Catholics, and one a Jew. PUBLIC NEEDS FIRST. But the Necessity of a Residence for the Settle- ment Group Becomes an Immediate and Pressing Problem. Concerning Moving. It will have been noticed that thus far it has been our first care to insure the quarters most imperatively needed for public use, especially in the way of an auditorium to shelter the church gatherings, about whose ears the old building was all but ready to fall, and now housed in the inadequate makeshift of a store a block west of the old site. But with the pro- vision of the essential portion of the Morgan street end of the building, the situation changes. The Grand avenue wing, as will be seen upon reference to the plans, is to include also quarters for the kindergarten, girls' and women's clubs, settlement office and reception room, etc. The five years' original lease of our present quarters in the old house on Union street will expire May 1, 1900, and as yet no provibion has been made to shelter the settle- ment's resident group. Precedence now must be given to provide shelter for the workers on the field, by the immediate erection of the Grand Avenue Wing of the new building, to finish which will cost $17,500, and by the rental of temporary quarters to house the work and workers meanwhile. Immensely preferable would it be to secure the present house, but it is not to be thought of that the tenure should be renewed at the excessive rental hitherto required. It has been our hope that we might retain the pres- ent building, and to use it as a center for 12 [88] THE COMMONS. [Nov. 30, purely local work, with a smaller resident de- tail, so as to conserve that neighborhood result which would be lost in any attempt to move it six blocks west to the new building, and to hold the field in this needy quarter of the ward where so long we have maintained our footing. The retention of the old building will depend upon the terms of rental or pur- chase upon which it can be secured. Failing that, we shall obtain other quarters in the neighborhood pending the completion of the residence portion ol the new building. A FINANCIAL STATEMENT, Some Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of the Settlement During Eleven Months of 1899. Effect of the Building Campaign. The remarkable fact in the fiscal affairs of Chicago Commons thus far during 1899 is, that the sum of nearly $24,000, has been raised for the special purpose of the new building from the friends of the settlement without seriously hampering the support of the general work. The report of the treasurer, dated No- vember 30, shows a deficit of $456.51, which may increase slightly for December, and which after all may be regarded as the whole amount chargeable as divertment from the support of the settlement because of the campaign for the building. This we regard as a notable indica- tion of the confidence of our friends, and as most promising for the future maintenance of the work. During the first eleven months of 1899 we re- ceived $5,656.74, or $91.84 less than during the corresponding months of the previous year. Of this amount $5,235.49 was contributed to- ward the general expenses of the settlement work, and expended in the maintenance of six residents, giving their time in return for sub- sistence, and for the rental, lighting, heat and care of the public rooms, repair and equip- ment of the building, printing, postage and other expenses incidental to the work. For specific purposes, named by the givers, we received $421.25. The kindergarten cost the settlement only $132.94, of which $27.75 were contributed especially for its support. The support of the head kindergartner, Mrs. Bertha Hofer Hegner, is no longer a charge to this fund, it being provided for by the self- supporting kindergarten training-school under her conduct, affiliated with and located at the settlement. To the neighborhood church account (ex- penditures through the settlement treasury in aid of the work at the Tabernacle church) is charged the receipt from one giver of $90, and the expenditure of the same. As remarked elsewhere the settlement has assumed the obli- gation of $50 a month toward the salary of the associate pastor of the church, which is now dependent entirely upon the resources of its own members and friends, with the co-opera- tion of Chicago Commons residents and asso- ciates. To the charity relief account we have given $68.60, of which $39.10 was emergency relief. Forty-one dollars was given specifially toward the work of the children's clubs, to whose account $26.25 thus far is charged. The boys' and girls' camp at Elgin cost $535.76, toward which $403.80 was raised specifically by especial appeal and for that particular pur- pose. For the manual training equipment and material we spent $24.80. The music fund from the children's concerts, etc., was $28, all of which was returned to the expenses of the musical work. For the art loan collection $110 was received and $'?4 spent, leaving a good balance for the development of that department of the work. A gift of $56 was received toward the mainte- nance of a trained nurse, but the change in the plan of the nurse expected left that money in our hands for other purposes as the giver shall elect. THE COMMONS publication is expected to become self-supporting, and this year only $73.25 has been given to it from the settlement treasury, including the sums diverted by direction of associate members, to pay their subscriptions to the paper. Last year $192.05 was thus expended thro the settlement treas- ury. It is but just to the residents to add that they pay half the expense of renting, lighting and heating the building, that is, a sum amounting to between $1,500 and $1,600 per annum. GIFTS FOR THE SETTLEMENT. As is noted elsewhere, the Chicago Commons Association is incorporated under the laws of Illinois, and is qualified to hold property. Hence, gifts and bequests are properly pro- tected under the law. FOKM OF BEQUEST. "I give and bequeath to the Chicago Com- mons Association (incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois), the sum of $ , to be devoted to the social settlement work of that Association." 1899. J THE COMMONS.' [89] 13 CHICAGO COMMONS ASSOCIATION. Incorporated Body to Hold the Settlement Property and Protect Its Financial Interests and Future. The Chicago Commons Association was in- corporated in 1895 with a Tiew of having a responsible body with legal status to hold the title to property which the settlement had or might receive. It was intended that the Board of Trustees should be as representative as pos- sible of the constituency in whose behalf the effort of the settlement was regarded as being made. The Board now consists of the follow- ing: David Fales, Esq. (Lake Forest), and Prof. H. M. Scott (West Side), represent the Chicago (Congregational) Theological Seminary board of directors aud faculty; Thomas P. Ballard stands for the Evanston affiliation of the set- tlement, and Charles H. Hulburd, of the Board of Trade (North Side), represents the City Mis- sionary Society's board of directors; John S. Field (Knickerbocker Ice Co.) and J. H. Strong (U. S. Life Insurance Co.), represent Plymouth Church; E. Burritt Smith, Esq. (South Side), is an officer in the University Church, and a prominent legal representative of the Civic Federation; Edward Payson(Oak Park) is treas- urer, and Graham Taylor (Professor of Chris- tian Sociology in Chicago Theological Semi- nary) is president of the Association and resident warden. Miss Jane Addams embodies the close and friendly encouragement which has been reciprocal between Hull House and the Commons since the latter's founding, and John P. Gavit represents the settlement resi- dents. The Apollo Club, of Chicago, will give the oratio of to aspects of life an& labor from tbe Social Settlement point of Wiew. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOR. Published monthly from CHICA.GO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street. Chicago. 111. PUBLISHER'S CORNER. A red or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, aud that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. Discontinuances Please notify us at once if for any reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In ac- cordance with custom, aud the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to the contrary. SUBSCRIPTION PRICK Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings. English; 2.50 francs French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one aildress for $2.50. Send check, draft. IS O. money order, cash or stamps, not above a-cent rte?im?intJt* AT OUR RISK. Changes of Address - Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. MDNDN ROUTE Tue DIRECT L/INB BETWEEN Chicago Indianapolis Cincinnati POINTS Jkouisvi/le THROUGH SLEEPERS TO WEST BADEN, FRENCH LICK AND PAOLI SPRINGS EVERY NIGHT. FRANK J. REED, G. P. A. CITY TICKET OFFICE, 232 CLARK ST. CHICAGO. Pcstalozzi'frocbcl K imkrgawn training School * Ml Chicago Commons Year Opened . October 2, 1899 . Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and Practice. A course in Home Making. Industrial and Social Development Emphasized. Also a Mothers' Class. INSTRUCTORS BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, . . . Theory and " Mother-Play " FREDERICA BEARD, . .Theory of Gifts and History of Education MARI RUEF HOFER, Music and Physical Culture MR. GEO. L. SCHREIBER, . . Drawing, Color Work and Design MRS. JOHN P. GAVIT Home Making and Occupations PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOR, Social Function of Education MR. HERMAN F. HEGNEU, Psychology SPECIALISTS in Nature Study For Circulars There will be other LECTURES on Special Subjects during the year. and particulars, address, BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, 140 North Union Street, CHICAGO LIBRARY Of IHt UNIVEKSI1Y wf ILLINOIS NUMBER FORTY=THREE S>e?otet> to Bspects of Xife anB labor from the Social Settlement point of Uiew. ELEVATION AND PLANS FOR TIIIO UMVKUSITY OF CHI('A, '. 1 4- u g E- 'l.s|^S J?!---1o^ |'^l^Ij S u >-i Q fl rj O CU TD ^" CUfvij^^"^ 1 -^ !~~! fl u-, ^ *C E in It J3 0) G . *H ^ rt O i | -^ , O "^^ rti LH O ^ ^ c "c S o tr | 2 o 0* Cu IH t) ~ 1 2So^i- ^"^f&a o-S.'- < 2H- S- | rj t> rf\ ^oPa) c H-l > " & HOW MATTERS STAND WITH CHICAGO COMMONS, ARD as it is to start such a social service as Chicago Commons stands for, iti assured success is a severer test of endurance. The gratifying subscription of tin building fund has rendered it more difficult to raise the support of the settleme S :i S: -o a co G -> 2 v- U = t s -j C 11 1 8 * t-i \ 5 rt 2 > > J -r 3 4 < J2 y been devoted to the same end. Our very success, "therefore, toward the permanei ' of the work places us in imminent danger of an embarrassing deficit in our curren >-i T3 U It IN "Z j>> '> rt 0) JS O a cu CL) J2 "o c CJ > rt X ^ T. "0 a .2 C Ui X Efl _CJ C =1 i-" rt CL) >, Efl '-fl "5 CD U C M rt V- '3 , *. C -J C. e c E c c, c 4- t-t- C > C C a. 6 c 5 u ^0 'mi X R T ! j; CJ z o T. = C. 13 -= > a ~ o ar entire work, both for our densely crowded neighborhood and for its only English inl Y $575 P er month, which includes the $700 expense of giving over 1,200 summ Girls' Camp at Elgin and elsewhere. Owing to the large proportion of gratuitou sonal expense of resident and non-resident workers, less than half of our monthly re ted to the support of the four of twenty-four residents whose entire time is required ious branches of the work. e larger wing of the New Commons will be ready for use and all paid for when "e umn invites us indoors to our house-warming. Into its larger and smaller assembly ternoon gatherings, the Neighborhood Men's League, the Tuesday evening ope e religious services and Bible school, the Commons Choral Society and the Orchest e club and class-rooms which they will occupy, all our neighborhood organizations ; ed savings. The whole community is most interestedly waiting to take posses: ter. t it will be seriously detrimental to the spirit of the whole work if the public or priv :or must be divorced for a whole winter from the personal influence and home-life ^ rery breath of their being. We must suffer the loss of setting the right type of s are enabled this summer to erect the Grand avenue wing of the new building which for the shelter and household life of the resident-workers. We dread to open the ft ) the home circle around the open-hearth of our neighborhood household. We app this summer, the entire plant (excepting the proposed annex on the new south lot), n time to finish it by next winter, we must be assured of this sum early in the build: as to hang the latch-string out? Who lends a hand now helps not only to equip art. For the rental of rooms to the resident-workers will turn back into the mainte i now paid private parties for the lease of their property. GRAHAM TA <^ 1 ! ^^ enterprise necessaril perpetuit} _^ a; t-c ^2 building: r ;' 5 - > as-s-ifli^3ggs5:'i-gs^-i o 's -~ * QM rt ^flj= rt m *> A ^.2-=^ S *S G - o >- vov w*S'S -4 -o - M M ^ i^"" - ^2^,c ^^^-5^.2 >e $> *-** ^0^^" ~-^o oaj-^ocufla>=cu S^MS^o .Sc^H^S a.^S^-o^-^x THE COMMONS B flDontbls IRecoro S>evotel> to Bspects of Xife ant> Uabor from tbe Social Settlement point of Uiew. Whole Number 43. CHICAGO. FEBRUARY 28, 1900. BLACK SHEEP. BY RICHABD BURTON. From their folded mates they wander far, Their ways seem harsh and wild: They follow the beck of a baleful star, Their paths are dream-beguiled. Yet haply they sought but a wider range, Some loftier mountain slope, And little recked of the country strange Beyond the gates of hope. And haply a bell with a luring call Summoned their feet to tread Midst the cruel rocks, where the deep pitfall And the luring snare are spread. Maybe, in spite of their tameless days Of outcast liberty, They're sick at heart for the homely ways Where their gathered brothers be. And oft at night, when the plains fall dark And the hills loom large and dim, For the Shepherd's voice they mutely hark, And their souls go out to him. Meanwhile, "Black sheep! Black sheep!" we cry, Safe in the inner fold: And maybe they hear, and wonder why, AiM marvel, out in the cold. From "Lyrics of Brotherhood," Boston, Small, Maynard tfc Co. OPPORTUNITY IN FACTORY TOWNS. BY JOHN P. GAVIT. FEW persons appreciate the ultimate moral effects of machine work upon the worker. In the long future someone may correctly esti- mate, but none is in a position to do so now, the damage done, temporarily at least, by "la- bor saving " machinery. The man or woman or child does not live who, without disastrous effect upon his soul, can work ten hours a day in "one time and two motions " at a special- ized machine, turning out some minor part of a mechanical product. The demoralization of the New England factory town, and the failure of its population to take advantage of the op- portunities scant enough at best for spirit- ual uplift and intellectual culture, is due less to the whiskey (blamed for many sins of other parentage), than to the monotony of meaning- less repetition in work at machines which de- stroy the laborer while they " save " his labor. Keferring again to the common notion that the social settlement idea is applicable only to crowded city sections, the present article is in- tended to enforce the plea that no more fitting place for its application exists than in the comr paratively small factory towns of New England or elsewhere. "Elsewhere!" there draws near the day of the repetition in the Southern states of this country of all but the worst of the factory conditions against which Lord Shaftesbury battled in England in the middle of the century, in his espousal of the cause of the children, rushed in half-con- scious hordes from the dormitory to the ma- chine and back again, so that between the "night shift," sleeping all day, and the "day shift," sleeping at night, the machines were never idle and the beds were never cold, and England's child-life was ground up into the blood-reeking product of England's industrial supremacy. At this very hour, children under ten years of age are working without protec- tion of the law, and at the mercy of commer- cial greed and under the strain of modern com- petition, in the factories of the South. And the movement of New England factories thither where child-labor legislation has not yet begun, is only in its initial stage. But this is beside the question. What has the social settlement idea, applied already to the great city and the rural district, to offer for the small factory town, whose entire popu- lation is devoted to the one industry, or set of industries, conducted by the " Company?" Analyze the situation: A town of 3,000 to 5,000 population, centered about a great industrial 3 [1271 4 [128] THE COMMONS. [No. 43 organization, employing the majority of the people. Six churches, a Young Men's Christian Association, a public library (possibly), four or five schools, and twenty saloons, more or less. All these agencies are of the average sort let the word " average" represent what the reader judges to be likely. The pastor of any one of the six churches will admit, if it suits his mood, that his membership of 200 to 300 does not include an appreciable proportion of. the factory " hands." The secretary of the Y. M. C. A. will confess that the association has not reached the men of the factory in large numbers, much to his regret. His Sunday afternoon meeting, excellent as it may be, at- tracts 40 to 150 men, most of whom, actually or potentially, are attendants upon the churches in the morning or evening; while the bulk of the male population of the town never cross the threshold of the association rooms. The library, nobly supplementing the work of the relatively excellent schools, has a more demo- cratic patronage, but is far from its full possi- bilities in the life of the people as a whole. The saloons they will not give you statistics, but except for ruinous competition among themselves (which characterizes also the churches, by the way) are getting along fairly well, thank you. But the saloons have not claimed the "average man." Now, as for this average man (and he is of both sexes and all ages, for the purposes of this article) his life is monotonously, continu- ously and hopelessly -dull. He stays in the town only a comparatively few t months and then moves to another just like it or worse ; he does not attend church, he hardly knows of the existence of the Y. M. C. A., he does not ordinarily patronize the library except per- haps for an occasional visit to the reading room for the illustrated papers and he does not support the saloons. Can the social settlement idea, adapted with due recognition of the peculiar local condi- tions, do anything to rescue the life of this average man, to inspire a higher social ideal, to unify a community in which local prejudice and petty feuds still further complicate racial, political and sectarian divisiveness? The great pity is that the existing agencies of good are not only mutually jealous but are collectively alert against any movement which threatens, or seems to threaten, their institu- tional integrity. The lesser pity is that the industrial circumstances are ordinarily preclu- sive at once of unification of community, in- spiration of social or individual life, and per- manency of personnel. But for a' that, these "pities" themselves constitute, not only the difficulty but the occasion and the call. If the problem were simple, it would be no problem. If the agencies for good were aligned in mutual service and collective labor for the commu- nity, they would meet the need of the situa- tion. Hereunto are we called, brethren! Now, as to methods, the answer is foolish and weak only the man or woman on the ground can tell what they should be. They cannot be known in advance. Three months' study, incognito if possible, might cover an in- vestigation of such points as these: Why have the churches failed to command the attention and loyalty of the average man? What is it that restricts the attendance upon the Y. M. C. A.? Do the schools afford the children of the Av- erage Man the fullest life-value for the time they can spare for school? Does the library meet the needs of the peo- ple? Is it socially, systematically, geographi- cally accessible? Why do the saloons attract the large num- bers? What do they offer in supply of legiti- mate needs of their patrons? Since all effort in their suppression or limitation thus far has practically failed, is there any way in which their useful service can be rivalled, their mis- chief starved out? What can be done to offset the deadening ef- fect of the monotonous machine labor, over- work at one season, idleness at another; to re- store tone and ambition to the community, to "strengthen the things that remain?" I suspect that a fair and unpremeditated answer to these questions, and others which would suggest themselves, would open a field of thought and widen a scope of activity which would be startling, to say the least. Kindergarten, children's clubs, manual training, gymnasia, baths, men's clubs and open meetings, woman's clubs, mothers' con- ferences for child-study and the like, lec- tures, debates, concerts, legitimate recrea- tions, civic inspirations any or all of these things and a host of others could be brought to bear in the life of such a town by wise, patient, tactful initiative and breadth of mind and vision. Narrow sectarianism would shrivel into insig- nificance before such a movement, however it might start. Wise will be that church which undertakes it in good faith. As always, it is first of all a problem of per- sonnel. No work worth doing can be done oth- erwise than by earnest, devoted, unselfish per- sonality. Scores of men and women await, with undrained stores of courage and conse- .No. 43 J THE COMMONS. [129] 5 cration, the call to work of this kind. And who shall call? Aye, there's the rub! Wise, again, \vere the church that would do it. Wiser, with a wisdom of the shrewdest sort, were the "Company" that should call to its aid help of this kind, to mitigate the evils of machine work, to encourage and develop the social life of its community, to recognize the cash value, if you please, of intelligence and cheerfulness and contented life among its em- ployes, to charge up to expense of manage- ment a charge for thought-force put into "the man behind the machine " which would surely be returned with blameless usury. I waive the question of economic reform. If any one find the place where he can go further, and anticipate the trend of events by modifications of relationship in the conduct of the factory, through committee conduct, as in the National Cash Kegister Works at Dayton, O.; through profit-sharing, as in Proctor & Gamble's Ivorydale enterprise, or the N. O. Nelson Company's village of Leclaire; or still further by some initiative of pure co-operation in industry, or even by an installation of un- limited communistic socialism God speed it! I plead for a beginning somehow, let it de- velop as fast and as far as it may. After all is said, one thing can be agreed upon, surely. Whatever the ultimate form of industrial organization, it is sure enough for practical purposes that there is before us a relatively long period of the existence of com- munities, large and small, grouped about cen- tralized industrial enterprises. Whoever con- tributes by the giving of true life-value to the uplift and unification of one or many of these enterprises, builds for the long future, lays true and sound foundations for the coming Kingdom of God in the peaceful Brotherhood of Man. A Place and a Book. In connection with what has been said above it is in order to note that a settlement of almost precisely this kind is that at Orange Valley, N. J., where the hat factories in a semi- rural district present the problem in various degress of intensity. Another point employers of labor will find much suggestion and food for reflection in the book recently issued by Houghton, Mifflin & Co " A Dividend to Labor " a study of em- ployers' welfare institutions, by Nicholas Paine Gilman, president of Johns Hopkins Univer- sity. In this work President Gilman describes many efforts by employers to ameliorate the conditions of their employes. It is profitable for study from even the more radical points of IRotes of tbe & & & & & & & * Social Settlements THE HUMAN TOUCH. BV RICHARD BURTON. High thoughts and noble in all lands Help me: my soul is fed by such. But all, the touch of lips and hands, The human touch ! Warm, vital, close, life's symbols dear, These need I most, and now, and here. From "Lyrics r>f Brotherhood. HIRAM HOUSE "WARMED/ Remarkable Growth of the Cleveland Settlement Deserved Tributes to Mr Geo. A. Bellamy. The settlement ideal, method, and spirit, have received a singularly emphatic at- testation in the rise and growth of Hiram House, Cleveland. The fact that les's than four years after-a young graduate from a Chris tian college came to Cleveland as an entire stranger and took up his residence in the Jew- ish quarter, the response of the neighborhood, and of the contributory constituency in the city was such as to make necessary and possi- ble the large and effective building equipment on Orange street, is most significant and en- couraging. A Jewish Rabbi and the Dean of the Christian cathedral vied with each other on the same platform at the house-warming in at- testing the direct and reflexive value of the work, and in bidding for its personal and finan- cial support. Nowhere else in the entire field of settlement operation do we know more of real settlement work having been done at less cost in money, and at more personal sacrifice. Upon their noteworthy achievement we con- gratulate the residents, and especially Mr. George A. Bellamy, who must look around him with wonder at what has been wrought since he entered that great and needy field with nothing but his bare hands and his full heart. COLLEGE SETTLEMENTS ASSOCIATION. Three Active Settlements Reported Upon in the 1899 Report. As usual, the annual report of the College Settlements Association is a budget of infor- mation as -well as an account of good work done, in the three settlements of the Associa- COTTAGE TO RENT. To Rent for the Season, 7-room cottage at Macatawa, Mich., on the lake beach. For particulars address Cot- tage, care THK COMMONS, HON. Union street, Chicago. 111. 6 [130] THE COMMONS. [No. 43 tion Denison House, Boston, Boston, Phila- delphia College Settlement, and New York College Settlement. Space is not at hand for a summary. The report thould be in every settlement worker's hand. An interesting event of the past year was the forced removal of the Philadelphia settlement on account of public improvements requiring the site. The settle- ment is now at 433 Christian street. The Philadelphia settlement, under date of March, 1900, issues the fourth number of its News. The headworker's introductory letter appeals for funds with which to complete the accessi- bility and usefulness of the new quarters, and a modest list of " Needs " appears as well. Two child-study sketches appears in under the title " Two Boys," by a resident of the settlement. SOCIAL STUDY HANDBOOK. Another Valuable Contribution in the Yearbook of the New York University Settlement. To the several valuable handbooks of which we have spoken as being embodied in the re- ports of several of the American settlements, must be added the yearbook of the University Settlement Society of New York. In addition to being a review of the many-sided work of settlement, introduced by a virile statement by Mr. James B. Reynolds, the veteran head- worker, it contains a number of special studies, indicated by the following titles: "Bowery Amusements," "-The Tenth Ward Home," " Social Life in the Street," "Back-yard Gar- dening," "East Side Benefit Societies," "So- cial Side of Synagogue Life," "The Saloons of the District," " Public Halls of the East Side," etc. These are by various residents. and work- ers in the settlement. Following these is the report, under special heads, of the depart- ments of settlement activity, and an account of the annual meeting of the society, at which Hon. Thomas B. Eeed delivered the address. SOCIAL WORK MONOGRAPHS. Explanation of the Delay in Completing: the Series. To be Resumed Shortly. Many readers of THE COMMONS will be inter- ested in the following extract from the Lincoln House Bulletin: " The Monographs on Social work topics, which Lincoln House undertook to publish last year in conjunction with Chicago Com- mons, have unfortunately been very much de- layed. Busy people were asked to write them, and they proved much more of an undertaking than at first thought. We can promise, with considerable degree of certainty, that they will come out during the year. We are more confident than ever that they will prove a val- uable addition to the literature of social work." A "Doorstep Club." Many settlements, puzzled about the summer evenings, when it is too hot for work indoors, will find a practical suggestion in the "Doorstep Club " of the New York Alumnse settlement at 446 East Seventy-second street. Its title ex- plains its place. Its proceedings include read- ing till it grows too dark, helpful chat, and sometimes a walk to the river, not far away. The third report of this settlement is illus- trated with attractive photographs of the house and some neighborhood groups, and contains the interesting news that the bazaar for the benefit of the settlement fund last April netted over $6,000. The work last year cost about $2,600. Mansfield House New Building. The interesting feature for American readers of the current report of the Mansfield House University Settlement is the picture of the new residence building at 89, 91 and 93 Barking Road, Canning Town, E., London. It is in unique style, and will be reproduced in a later issue of THE COMMONS. There are several photographs of the interior. The report is the ninth annual, and shuows an uninterrupted progress and a steady gain in hold upon the affections and confidence of the community. A chief aspect of Mansfield House work is in the civic activity, the part played by the House in local politics being very marked. The free picture exhibition was, as usual, suc- cessful. A pleasant incident recently at Christodora House, New York, was " Highland Evening," when, as would be expected, Scottish costumes, songs, etc., were features. Hon. Everett P. Wheeler, president of East Side House, New York, contributes to the News Letter of Johns Hopkins University, February 7, an article on " The University and the Set- tlement." Kingsley House Record (Pittsburg), pub- lishes in its April issue an article on South End House, Boston, by Robert A. Woods, head resident of the latter. It is one of a proposed series on various American settlements. In previous issues Denison House and Lincoln House, both in Boston, have been described in authorized articles by residents of the respec- tive settlements. No. 43] THE COMMONS. [131] 7 THE COMMONS. H /iDontbl? 1Recorl> 2>esoteS' to aspects of life an> Labor from tbe Social Settlement point of Uiew. For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see " Publisher's Corner on last page. EDITORIAL. ANNOUNCK MENT. John P. Gavit, who since the beginning of its publication has been managing editor of THE COMMONS, has resigned that position, and his connection with the Chicago Commons social settlement, and about May 15 will re- move to Wilmerding, Pa., to become general ^ecretary of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation at that point. Wilmerding is one of industrial suburbs of Pittsburg, being about eight miles southeast of that city. It is the site of the factories of the Westinghouse Air- Brake Company, whose nearly 3,000 employes constitute the major portion of the population of the town. The relations of this corporation with its employes have always been notably liberal and fraternal, and it is to these mutual interests that the work of the association is largely, tho by no means exclusively, devoted. Mr. Gavit came to Chicago in February, 1896, from Hartford, Conn., where he had been en- gaged, first, in daily newspaper work on the editorial staff of the Hartford Post, and later as superintendent of Warburton Chapel, an "east side" mission chapel, successfully em- ploying modern methods. To the Readers of The Commons: With inexpressible regret I have to announce that with the next issue of THE COMMONS (closing the fourth year and volume of its pub- lication) I must terminate my editorial man- agement of the paper, owing to personal and domestic considerations admitting of no choice. My four years of service in the work of Chi- cago Commons in associaion with Professor Taylor, and of attempt, thro the agency of THE COMMONS, to extend the fundamental idea and spirit of the social settlement, have been the happiest and may be the most useful years of my life. I take up a new form of service in the same spirit, with the same ideals, and with only so much of a change in the form of effort as is made necessary by essential conditions of niy life and of the new environments. For I hold the fundamental purposes of the social settlement the social service of those obli- gated by privilege, in mediation, unification, and inspiration to be sound and" permanent, and bespeak with all the influence within my power, the co-operation of those who believe the same in the service of those able to remain at this post. In surrendering to Professor Tay- lor the editorial management (tho I hope atill to be a frequent contributor to the columns) of THE COMMONS I do so with the assurance on the one hand of a continuance, unabated, of the es- sentials of its policy of free speech, fair play, and unreserving espousal of the cause of social jus- tice and human unification; and on the other hand of the continued support and encourage- ment, moral and financial, of those who have believed in the ultimate truth and rightness on the whole of the cause which it has been my pleasure and privilege to espouse in these col- umns. JOHN P. GAVIT. WITH utmost cordiality we bespeak every assistance within the power of the set- tlements to render for Mrs. Frank H. Montgom- ery, who is compiling the new edition of the College Settlements Association's " Bibliogra- phy of College,, Social and University Settle- ments." With the most unreserving labor on her part, the book cannot be made even ap- proximately correct- without the co-operation of the settlements. It is to a large extent a labor of love, to which we must, for our own sakes at least, contribute our best assistance when it is asked. MDNDN ROUTE e)) Q ||tA60 -h 0|AIevote& to aspects of lite ant labor from tbe Social Settlement point of IDiew. JOHN P. GAVIT, EDITOK. Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Uuioii Street, Chicago, 111. PCBLISHKR'S CORNER. A reel or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above s-cent denominations AT OUR KISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address, label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with eustom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, w continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to the contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers. at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. Often in the morning there comes a feeling of weariness, indescribable ; not exactly ill, nor fit to work, but too near well to remain idle. A Ripans Tabule taken at night, before retiring, or just after dinner, has been known to drive away that weariness for months. W * ^ 7t ack * r Y^ not ***e&t. They banish paJn and prolong life. AN ' 8ontt 'erackS!eandacceptnoBur)sUiuto. fe-ft k f&*? r W Oen j5' """^ be blld 8t an y *** 8tor - Ten samples and one t ailed to any address for 5 cento, forwarded to the Ripans Chemical Co^ * Or UNivtHsiTy -of tumors NUMBER FORTY-FOUR THE COMMONS E>ev3te& to aspects of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement f oint of WUw. THE QUADRANGLE IDEA SKETCHES FOR A DAVID SWING SETTLEMENT, CHICAGO. By POND & POND, Architects. IN THE COURT, LOOKING TOWARD FRONT. "LABEL! FIFTY CENTS A YEAR. SINGLE COPIES, FIVE CENTS. [134] THE COMMONS. [No. 44 SCHEDULE OF OCCASIONS LIST OF MEETINGS, CLASSES, CLUBS AND OTHER APPOINTMENTS OF THE WEEK AT CHICAGO COMMONS AND THE TABERNACLE DURING THE PAST WINTER. THE 140 NORTH UNION STREET. I>AILY All Day House open for neighbors and friends. 9:00-12:00 a. m. Free Kindergarten (except Saturday and Sunday). Mrs. Bertha Hofer Hegner, head kindergartner; Miss Alice B. Coggswell, assistant. 2:00-5:00 p. m. Kindergarten Training Classes. 7:00 p. m. Family Vespers (except Saturday). SUNDAY 3:30 p. m. Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. MONDAY 4:00 p. m. Manual Training (Girls.) Mr. N. H. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Fenny Provident Bank. 8:00 p. in. Girls' Clubs. Misses Coggsweil, Taylor and Purnell, Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Manning. Girls' Progressive Club (Young Women). Classes in Art, Miss Cushman; Embroidery, Mrs. Gavit; Greek Mythology, Mrs. Follett; English History and Constitution, Miss Allen. Shakespere Class. Mr. Gavit. TUESDAY 2:00 p. m. Woman's Club. 4:00 p. m. Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Cookinham. Manual Training. Mr. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Boys' Club. Mr. Weeks, Misses Alexander and Holdridge. French. Miss Sayer. Rhetoric. Mr. Wyatt. Stenography. Mr. Fisher. Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Thayer. 8:00 p. in. Choral Club. Miss Hofer aud Mr. C. E. Weeks. 8:15 p. m! "The Tuesday Meeting," for Economic Discussion. Mr. Weeks. Mr. Weeks. 3:00 p. m. Piano Lessons. Miss Bemiss. 6:30 p. m. Residents' Meeting (for residents only). Other Appointments, for Clubs, Study Classes, Social Gatherings, etc., are made from time to time and for special occasions. WEDNESDAY 4:00 p. m. Kindergarten Clubs (children). Miss Pur- nell and Abbott. Dressmaking Class (Girls) . Miss Temple. Piano. Miss Gavit. 7:00 p. m. Piano. Miss Bemiss. 7:30 p. in. Penny Provident Bank. Girls' Clubs. Misses Coggswell, Gavit, Bosworth, Bemiss, Etheridge. Boys' Club. Mr. Grant. Cooking Class (Young Women) . Miss Temple. THURSDAY 4:00 p. m. Cooking Class (for Women). Miss Temple. Elocution. Miss Ellis. Manual Training (Girls). Mr. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Girls' Club. Miss Chandler. Good Will ("Blue Ticket") Club. Mr. Weeks. Elocution. Miss Ellis. Grammar. Mr. Carr. Cooking (for Girls). Miss Manning. Mothers' Club (Fortnightly). Seventeenth Ward Municipal Club (Monthly) . FRIDAY 4:00 p. m. Manual Training (Boys'). Mr. Weeks. 7:30 p. m. Penny Provident Bank. Cooking Class (Girls). Miss Manning. Boys' Clubs. Messrs. Burt, Carr, Crocker, Young, C. E. Weeks. N. H. Weeks. Dressmaking. Mrs. Strawbridge. SATURDAY 10:00 a. m. Manual Training (Boys). 2:00 p. m. Manual Training (Boys). (Temporary Quarters, 209 Grand Avenue, North Side, just West of Carpenter Street.) PASTORS: GRAHAM TAYLOR, 140 North Union Street. - HENRY J. CONDIT, 291 West Ohio Street. DAILY 9:00-12:00 a. m. Free Kindergarten SUNDAY 10:00 a. m. Sunday School. 11:00 a. m. Family Service. 7:00 p. m. Children's Service. 8:00 p. m. People's Hour. MONDAY 7:30 p. m. Boys' Club. 7:30 p. m. Young Men's Club. 8:00 p. m. (First and third Mondays), Men's Neigh- borhood League, TUESDAY 7:30 p. m. Girls' Club. WEDNESDAY 2:00 p. m. Mothers' Meeting. 8:00 p. m. Midweek Fellowship Meeting. THURSDAY 2:00 p. m. Ladies' Missionary and Aid Society. FRIDAY 7:00 p. m. Junior Christian Endeavor Society. Intermediate Christian Endeavor Society. 8:00 p. m. Young People's Christian Endeavor Society. THE COMMONS H fl&ontbls IRecoro E>e votes to Hapects of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of View. Whole Number 44. CHICAGO. MARCH 3J, 1900. TWO POEMS. BY RICHAKD BURTON. (From "Lyrics of Brotherhood," Published by Small, May- nard & Co., Boston, 1000.) CHANGELESS. Love hath full many semblances: Now this Fair face doth lure, now yonder smile remakes A sorry world : now at a madcap kiss We build unstable dreams: the vision takes A myriad forms, and hath the charm thereof. But ever, in the background, soareth Love, One deathless creature poised beyond, above! THE POET TO THE CLOUD. Soft white cloud in the sky, Wise are you in your day: One side turned toward God on high, One toward the world alway. Soft white cloud, I too Would bear me like to you. So might I secrets learn From heaven, and tell to men: And so might their spirits beat and burn To make it their country then. Soft white cloud, make mine Such manner of life as thine. AN ASPECT OF THE HOUSING PROBLEM. BY PKOF. GRAHAM TAYLOR. More and more American workingmen en- gaged in the manufacturing industries are afraid to own their homes. They fear to risk their hard-earned savings not only, but their industrial liberty the more. Their fear is well founded in some disastrous economic tenden- cies of the times. One of these is the increas- ing precariousness of workingmen's tenure upon their jobs. This, of course, is due far more to the fluctuations of trade than to any reasons personal either to employe or employer. Both are sufferers from this chill and fever malady of the market, which none seem able to control and few profess even to understand. None the less it afflicts the wage-earning shop and factory hand with such a painful demoral- ization of his courage and confidence that he dares not discount the future, and feels obliged to live and hope only in and for the present. For he knows and hears of so many of his fel- lows, who have lost their little all by losing their jobs, after having invested the earn- ings of flush times in a building lot or a build- ing loan. But there is even a worse fear. For the highly specialized, skilled mechanic no longer owns his tools. Machine tools are so expensive that only combined capital can manufacture, own and maintain them. The irresistible tend- ency of machine-holding and using capital is to combine its holdings and concentrate its plants. Economy in the use of material and the subdivision of labor and in power and rent demands this concentration. From the view- point of profits, competition is the death of trade, and monoply is the instinct of increase and more and more of self-preservation. In the exercise of this instinct, capital feels war- ranted in closing even large and expensive plants at the less strategic points. Whole towns in some parts of the country have thus been deprived of the single or principal industry around which they have been built, and upon which practically all their inhabitants depend for livelihood. Deserted shops, silent ma- chinery, and cold chimneys, often standing in- tact and well cared for, are our most significant modern ruins. But more pathetically impressive should be the deserted houses and mortgaged homes. What have become of the inhabitants of these "manufacturing" villages, towns or city dis- tricts, where the soul has left the body? Those who were free to move followed their craft cen- ters and trade machinery as fast and as far as they needed to. But woe to the family which owned their little home! They could neither leave it nor sell it. Their only way of keeping it was to stay in it, even though by staying they lost their own " keep." Their plight would be almost as bad if the shop continued to run on the basis of a decreasing wage-scale. For, if the family were free to pursue their own interests, they might move where wages were higher. But if they own their homes, they may find themselves, like the old serfs, bound to the soil. Having thus denied themselves the "liberty 3 [135J 4 [136] THE COMMONS. [No. 44 of movement " which labor once struggled for as an inalienable right, but against which it is now vainly struggling as a dire necessity, the workers' family is constrained to accept a low- ering standard of life with the decreasing wages. Organized labor, clearly realizing that the liberty and the livelihood of the industrial classes are dependent upon their mobility, cautiously warns its members against fixing their status by owning their homes, and by the same token depriving themselves both of the power to protest against being reduced below a living wage and to seek whatever opportunity there may be elsewhere to better their condition. No one can fail to see what a hostage is given to the future when a family invests the slender surplus and sole dependence of its breadwin- ners in a little house and lot, the value of which depends upon the steadiness and wages of employment in the local shops. The house- holding working people have not the freedom to strike, which in too many situations is their last resort in the struggle for economic free- dom and a living wage. This pitiful plight, while by no means prev- alent over the working world, is yet frequently and severely enough suffered to make home- ownership all too often a menace instead of a guarantee to the future of the family. This fact is surely in evidence in the prostration of real estate interests in centers where indus- trial conditions are most unsettled and the in- dustrial classes are thereby compelled to be most transient and restless. MUNICIPAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOUSING HOME-LIFE. The industrial classes are therefore depend- ent for their houses, either upon private land- lords, the owners of tenement property, or in some instances upon the corporation which employs them. By no means always do the owners of rented houses seem to regard it to be to their financial interest to keep them in safe sanitary repair, or even to build and maintain them in a way which makes reasonable pro- vision for the necessities of a decent, not to say comfortable family life. Indeed, the houses which are often provided for "farm hands " in the country and " factory hands" in town or city are not only incompatible with, but de- structive of, any human ideal of the existence and social function of the family. Everywhere there; are to be seen " the housed yet homeless classes.'' Such elements of the population are not only a menace to themselves, but to the state and to the society which permits or much more fosters the conditions which produces and perpetuates them. No successor of Kobert Burns will arise to sing of a new "Cotter's Saturday Night " in these country or city slums; " From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs. That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." No new Patriot will be inspired, under the shadows of tenement piles, to hymn to heaven praise for his country's " Rocks and rills, woods and templed hills." And yet some of our youngest American cities are literally seeding down new slums in their failure to regulate the size of lots and the proportion of their area to be covered by build- ings. At the centers of rapidly growing towns there is an entire lack of legal provision for light, air, open spaces, not to speak of small parks and playgrounds. Our new cities are thus carefully cultivating conditions disas- trous to their health and homes, regardless of the fact that the older cities are in a life and death struggle to rid themselves of them. Chi- cago is awaking none too soon from its prepos- terous neglect of this rapidly growing menace to the necessity of providing better tenements not only, but of condemning to destruction tenement property as destructive of home life as fire traps and shaky walls are dangerous to property and person. TRANSPORTATION NOT FOR PROFIT. Hand and hand with this movement for the improved housing of the people in the more congested districts should go the intelligent and determined effort of our municipalities to control and cheapen their street railway trans- portation, so as to give more and more of their people the privilege of suburban residence and ownership. Indeed, cheap and rapid transpor- tation is becoming so much more of an ethical than a commercial value in great cities, that it is fair to raise the question whether it should longer be rightly regarded as a business for profit, and whether it should not be classified among the " corporations not for profit," but maintained at cost, like the water and post- office departments, for the safety and necessity of the whole population- The relation of the house to the home and of the home to the making of manhood is so vital as to give a religious emphasis to the economic aspect of the housing problem. Plans are making for the vacation school and playground work in Chicago this summer. The report of last summer's achievement shows good progress made toward the day of the pub- lic assumption of this purely public function. The depleted finances of the Board of Educa- tion will doubtless prevent even the favorable feeling of the Board from taking effect this year. No. 44] THE COMMONS. [137] 5 Bfielfc. THE struggle for improved housing condi- tions in Chicago, started two or three years ago by a very few generous hearts who were most deeply touched by what existing tendencies threatened to fasten upon the city for years to come, met with its first public recognition this spring. The Improved Hous- ing Association's first Tenement House Exhibit was held at the Art Institute in conjunction with the annual exhibit of the Chicago Archi- tectural Club, and attracted wide attention. It consisted of models, photographs, and charts, demonstrating different phases of the housing problems in Chicago, New York, Bos- ton and London. The exhibit was first dis. played in New York, and will form a part of the American section of the Paris Exposition. THE Conference, which was held in Fuller- ton Hall at the Art Institute, was successful, both in program and attendance, at all of its six sessions. Notable among the addresses given were those of Dr. E. R. L. Gould on " The Improved Housing Movement in Great Cities," which he is so effectively leading in New York; Mrs. Roland Lincoln of Boston, on " Improvement of Tenement Houses by Per- sonal Influence; " Mrs. Frederick P. Bagley o*f Chicago, on "A Model Tenement for tbe Poor- est Tenants; " and the stereopticon presenta- tions of " Tenement House Conditions in Chicago," by Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers; " Chi- cago Lodging Houses," by Mr. John H. Bogue; "Architecture in the Tenements," by Mr. Dwight H. Perkins; and "The Tenement Prob- lem and the Way Out," by Jacob' A. Riis of New York. NO FREER floor, or more of a social clear- ing house is maintained by any settle- ment than Mrs. Coonley-Ward has long made of her delightful home on the Lake Shore Drive. There for years extremes have met and mingled in a little Republic of Letters and a large social democratic spirit. Chicago Commons is deeply indebted to her and to the distinguished guests who have co-operated with her in pro- viding the delightful evenings this spring, proceeds of which are devoted to our building fund. Six interpretive readings have been rendered by our old friend, Mr. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, which have illumined and made more memorable the personalities and writings of Rudyard Kipling, Richard Realf, Edwin Mark- ham, William Watson, Edward Rowland Sill, Sidney Lanier, and Robert Browning. Musical settings of songs by these poets were given ar- tistically by other guests. A new series of three illustrated lectures, on April 17th, April iJ4th, and May 1st, will be given by Mrs. Charles W. Rhodes, on Paris and the Exposition," "Famous Castles and Chateaux of France," "Recollections of the Wagner Festival at Beyreuth." The stereopti- con views of the Paris Exposition show its latest developments, and, together with those of other scenes, are colored from their origi- nals. At the Wagner lecture musical illustra- tions will be given by members of the Chicago orchestra. TO THE support of the Journeyman Tailors' Union, No. 5, in their strike to secure the provision of work-shops by their employers, the merchant tailors in the custom trade, came the Illinois Branch of the Consumers' League. If the tailors succeed it will deal the first of the deadly blows needed to kill "the sweating system " in Chicago. One of the worst features of that infamy is to compel the journeymen to do their work wherever they can. A married man is forced to do it in the family living room he can afford, usually all too scant to make real home-life possible, and when turned into a shop, rendering family life that much more impossible. A single man is thus obliged to sleep, eat, wash, li ve, and work in his little single bedroom. It may surprise some of our readers to learu that even the finest and most expensive tailoring is produced under these dangerously unsanitary conditions. The custom tailors have established a union label, and seventeen of the principal merchant tailors in the down-town district alone have agreed to fulfill the conditions for which this label stands. Every garment to which it is at- tached is thus guaranteed to have been pro- duced under proper sanitary and wage stand- ards. It is high time that the public, the great third party to every issue between employers and working people, finds some way of render- ing and registering its decisive verdict in these disastrous disputes. The Consumers' League helps to poll the great jury of public opinion most effectively in outstanding industrial issues. The rousing meeting it recently held in Handel Hall ought to arouse the purchasing public to demand that goods be produced under conditions that will insure at least sanitary safety, a fair standard of life for the worker and his family, and the possibility of guaran- teeing these conditions by the official inspec- tion of the State, which the sweating system is intended to render impossible. 6 [138] THE COMMONS. [No. 44 THE COMMONS. H flDontblie tRecorb E>evoteJ> to Hspects of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of IDiew. For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see "Publisher's Corner" on last page. T EDITORIAL. HUE tolerance abides this one test: It is tolerant even of intolerance. IN THIS and succeeding issues we shall print illustrations of settlement and other social- work buildings, which will be suggestive to those contemplating new homes for their work. JUST about tbe whole, substance of the trust question, so far as the mind of the average consumer is concerned, is stated in these lines from Printers' Ink .- Does the phrase, " Not made by a trust," in- fluence customers? Would a purchaser pay two cents more for an article because it was "not made by a trust"' if he could purchase the one made by the trust at two cents less? " THE STANDARD OF LIVING. ECONOMIC history clearly demonstrates the fact that efforts to raise wages directly are, in the long run, almost entirely futile. It is nearly beyond dispute that in all classes of labor, the Pay, whether under the name of salary or of that of wages, is inexorably fixed by the Standard of Living. It is common to say that the average man spends as much as he gets, and a little more; it would be more true to say that under present economic operations the average man receives a little less than he spends. In other words, it is the Iron Law that wages are fixed, not by any man's demand or by any man's reluctance to pay, but by the standard of living within the class, or sub- class, of society to which the man in question belongs. This is true of the coolie in China, of the soldier in any army, of the general mana- ger of a great corporation, of the president of the Standard Oil Company, or of the Queen of England. Whether the individual's "labor" is altogether useful, purely ornamental, or altogether superfluous, the " wages of the job " are fixed (making due allowance, if you will, for a few individual exceptions) by the accepted notion of the standard of living for that class of functionary. For example, no effort on the part of organ- ized waiters, or hod-carriers, or scavengers, could raise their wages to $40.00 a day under existing conditions; not because their labor in itself is not worthy of so much, but because public opinion, which in the end would ratify or defeat their efforts, has no mind to allow those classes of labor the degree of reward in comforts and luxuries for which that daily wage would stand. The average mind laughed at the strike of the Homestead "puddlers" for higher wages, when they were already getting, it was said, $100 a week and more; but it was not esteemed ridiculous that General Manager Frick should have a salary of $25,000 a year, or maybe more than that. In a word, any number of illustrations will only add force to the contention that in any trade or profession, at any normal time, the average wage includes in purchasing power such things and privileges of every sort as will keep the worker at the normal degree of life and efficiency required for his work. The operation of the law is inexorable, and often results in lowering wages to such a point that the worker can keep alive, or at least efficient for only a comparatively short time the ple- thora in the labor market enabling the places of quickly-exhausted workers to be filled con- tinually with fresh recruits, who in their turn are as quickly worn out. Assuming the truth of these contentions, it appears that it is wiser, more sound in theory, and more direct in result to raise the public conception of a right standard of living than to try to raise wages by themselves. An aver- age discontent with existing conditions of life will more surely raise wages than will, a more or less aimless demand for more money. It would appear, then, that one of the most useful services within the power of the social settle- ment to render is its tendency to create a demand for a better standard of living. By teaching its neighborhood to demand better housing, better public facilities, better condi- tions of industry, more educational privileges, good books, lectures, music, art, recreation, indoors and out, means of cleanliness, public and private, leisure for these things, etc., etc., and by educating its outside constituency to see the righteousness and reasonableness of these demands any settlement is on a shorter road to human freedom and happiness than in fomenting demands for the raising of "pay," in individual cases or trades, above the "going wage." Discontent with a low level of existence is an effective of human progress, and that influ- ence which most eeffctively stirs people to de- sire and to demand a higher standard of indi- vidual living and social service, works most effectively for the uplift of humanity. No. 44J THE COMMONS. [139] 7 SETTLEMENT ARCHITECTURE. "VI r. D\vight H. Perkius'8 Note on the New Buildings for Social Service. In the Chicago Architectural Club's beauti- iul "Book of the Exhibition of 1900," Mr. Dwight H. Perkins has this to say about set- tlement architecture, prompted by the new buildings of Hull House, the University of Chicago Settlement, the Chicago Commons, and the Northwestern University Settlement: " Architecture, more than any other art, may reflect the changing and growing requirements -of a people. The effort for social service, known as the settlement movement, is an ex- pression of a need which has sprung into our civilization within the last fifteen or twenty years. " The settlement movement is generally un- derstood without being closely defined, and its aims and purposes are best met when least emphasis is placed upon its institutional as- pect. The housing of the various activities of these social centers presents to the archi- tect a problem, in the solution of which prece- dent can play but a small part. The require- ments are varied, and belong neither to individuals nor to a class, but include the social and educational well-being of all the people in the community. "Its demands are pre-eminently democratic and genuine, as contrasted with the luxury and whims which may find expression in other kinds of building. In addition to such variety of requirements as follow when the plans must include dwelling places with complete equip- ment, gymnasia, class-rooms, and even theaters, the means are invariably limited. In this re- ligious movement no money is put into the embellishment of an architectural monument to stand through the ages. The building is frankly and simply a means to a social end. Its very limitations, and the newness of the problems presented make the settlement build- ings more closely expressive of the life of the present than, for instance, the church edifice, with its ecclesiastical architecture handed down from previous ages. There is no prece- dent to govern their architectural expression these buildings must be designed as a direct response to definite needs. This, we believe, has ever been the starting point of good archi- tecture." We are indebted to Mr. Perkins for the frontis- piece of the last issue, and for several other designs to be published in succeeding is- IRotes of tbe .* j* ,# ,# * & * Social Settlements 9 &+!&9V*9tf&9*k9W<+> "fe* -fer* ^*^rb% A women's settlement is proposed in connec- tion with Cambridge House, Camberwell, S.-E., London. Dr. Edward Everett Hale contributes a cor- dial letter of commendation to the annual re- port of Hale House, Boston, named in his honor. We are glad to note that the work at Henry Booth House, the settlement of the Chicago Society of Ethical Culture, goes on well. Miss Tenney is in general charge. A leaflet from Casa de Castelar, Los Angeles, Gal., shows its work going on well. A move- ment is on foot to instal a resident head worker, and a new building is being talked of. The illness of Dr. W. B. Duttera, the new head of the Cincinnati University Settlement, reported in these columns last month, has de- layed its work, but in a personal letter to the editor he reports it well under way now. The fifth number of The Neighbor, published by the Northwestern University Settlement, is dated March, 1900. It continues interesting and timely, and should win its way among the local and outside friends of that settlement. Maxwell House Bulletin reports the good progress of that Brooklyn settlement from month to month. The settlement is conducted under the auspices of the Brooklyn Guild As- sociation at 245 Concord street, Brooklyn, N. Y. The third annual report of the Alumnae Set- tlement in New York is illustrated with vie~ws of the house, at 446 East Seventy-second street, and of some of the neighborhood groups. The kindergarten is an annex of the neighboring public school. "Across the Way" is the title of an interest- ing illustrated booklet describing the work under the auspices of Central Church, Topeka, Kas., of which Rev. C. M. Sheldon is pastor, in "Tennessee Town," so called, the colored dis- trict of Topeka. A timely paper on "The Institutional Church," by Kev. Harry F. Ward, head of Northwestern University Settlement, and asso- ciate pastor of the new " Open Church," in Wabash avenue, Chicago, as reported in the last issue of THE COMMONS, appears in the February issue of the Christian City (New York). It was read at the Methodist Church Congress in St. Louis, in November. The Trinity Chronicle, published by the Young People's Bible Class of Trinity (P. E.) Church, Chicago, reports two " settlements " in its list of parish activities the Rouse Settle- ment, 3213 Wallace street, and the Cottage Grove Settlement, ^734 Cottage Grove avenue. The Chronicle publishes (January 6) a spicy article reviewing the history and motive of set- tlements, and giving a short bibliography of reading on the subject. It is by Mrs. Caroline W. Montgomery, formerly president of the College Settlements Association. 8 [140J THE COMMONS. [No. 44 THE COMMONS. B /Bentblv IRtcoi^ EVvotcJ to aspects of life anb labor from the Social Settlement point of IDiew. Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago. 111. PUBLISHER'S CORNER. A red or blue mark In this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE. Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps accepted.) . Postpaid to auy State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above 5-cent denominations, AT OUR KISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to eacn address until notified to the contrary. Change of Address Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. The matron of a well known Masonic Home mentions one inmate* seventy years of age, who has been in the infirmary for three years, a great sufferer from indigestion, and has been taking Ripans Tab- ules about a year and a half and finds them so beneficial that he is never without them. He is willing that his name should be used in a testimonial, as it might be of use in persuading some other person to try them. A second old gentleman, in the same institution, eighty-four years of age, has had liver trouble for many years and finds that R'l'P'A'N'S help him very much. They also have two nurses there, one thirty years of age, the other forty-two; both suffer from indigestion, causing headache, depression of spirits and nerv- ousness. They take the Tabules and find them so useful that they always have a package in their pockets. The matron also states that she is forty-five years of age and at times suffers with indiges- tion, causing pain and paroxysms of belching, and finds that the Tabules are very good indeed and is perfectly willing to have her name used in a testimonial. > W ANTED : A rose of bad health that R-I-P'A-N'S will not benefit. They b&ntsh jn and prolong Bt*. On riYr relief NoU- t tie word R'l'P-A'N'S on the package aud accept no lubatitute. R'1-P-A-N'S, 10 for 6 con twelve packet* fr IS cpuls, may be had at . conbL * . , , any drug store. Ten samples and one thousand testimonial! will mailed to BUT adUixoS for 6 ceuU, forwarded to the Ripani Chemical Co., No. 10 Sprnce St., New York. , NUMBER FORTY-FIVE THE COMMONS B flfcontbiv 1Rci:ort JDevoteo to Hspects of life ano labor (torn tbe Social Settlement point of View. Whole Number 45. CHICAGO. APRIL 30, J900. ROAMING IN THOUGHT. OAMING in thought oner the Universe, I saw the little that is called Good steadily hastening to- ward immortality, And the rust all that i called Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead. UNKNOWN WORKMAN, AGAINST THE SKY! BY A PASSING SPECTATOB. [For THE COMMONS.] Hail, unknown workman, against the sky! Who are you, up there on the tall building? I cannot see your face, or look into your eyes. I pass by on the street far below and wonder who you are. One of many, are you, too, like me, the very center of the Universe? Does the sun shine and the breeze blow, es- pecially for you? Until now, I thought it was all for me. Are you thinking thoughts of your own up there, as you lay the bricks and flick away the mortar from the edges with ringing trowel? Have you a home, wife, children, whom you love? Have you books, flowers, hobbies, for the leisure hours? Is your heart full only of your own affairs what business have you with affairs of which I know nothing? Can it be that I am no more to you than you are to me not so much indeed? Nay, you have built a great building in which one day I may be sheltered. You yourself are this moment good for my soul am I any good for yours? What have I ever done for you? Hail, brother, look down in God's name and forgive my debt Unknown workman, far up there against the sky. You yourself so much now to me, while I am still nothing at all to you. J. P. G. BETWEEN THE LINES IN CHICAGO'S IN DUSTRIAL CIVIL WAR. BY GKAHAM TAYLOB. /"^ HICAGO is keeping her reputation good as \_s the storm center of American industrial life. In no place in the country, if in the industrial world, is the appeal from both sides quicker and readier to the force of sheer physical endur- ance and even to measures of violence. Long before the lines were drawn in this fateful con- flict a public-spirited effort was made upon the part of a few who knew the dreadful issues in- volved to enlist as conciliators some men who were in position to mediate. Their rough re- JOHN I'ALMKK GAY IT. THE COMMONS. [No. 45 ply was in effect, " It is none of the public's business. Let the contractors and the Build- ing Trades Council fight it out." War was soon declared, and "all's fair in war" has defined the " belligerents' rights " ever since. The dis- graceful situation, characterized by labor's "picket lines" and "slugging" details, and contractors' "barracks," "commissariat" and "police escorts" has dragged its weary length for three mortal months throughout the entire city and far beyond. THE APPEAL TO FORCE. To allow the elimination of the personal ele- ments of reason, conscience and heart, and to leave the human issues to be determined by the arbitrament of force is as disastrous as it is disgraceful to all parties concerned, most of all to the public. It is to distrust ourselves, our law, our moral sense and our religion. All too late the public is becoming conscious of the fact that it is the third and greatest party to the controversy, which foots the bills for police protection, damage suits and charity relief; pays the loss incurred by the long suspension of the greatest group of industries in the city, and suffers not only the incalculable personal losses en- tailed, but the irrevocable damage done to the industrial reputation of the whole city by the wide advertisement of the insecurity of labor and capital, of person and property, in Chi- cago. FEEBLE ASSERTION OF PUBLIC RIGHTS. Thus far the right of the public to interfere in the struggle has been very inconsequen- tially asserted and almost contemptuously ignored. The "Congressional Commission" happened along and took " testimony " that consisted in large part of violently expressed ex-parte opinion from both sides. The City Council appointed a committee of reconcilia- tion. This the Contractors' Association de- clined to meet, with a mild-mannered rebuke to well-meaning persons to whose " interfer- ence " the prolonging and intensity of the struggle were charged. The discussion of the situation in some of the influential clubs has been characterized, with a few notable excep- tions, by the special pleadings of those who were avowedly advocates of personal busi- ness interests immediately at stake in the con- test. The Grand Jury rightfully instituted its in- vestigation of the situation. Its power to in- dict was only another point of advantage to be struggled for or against, and it has had there- fore little or no judicial value in disclosing the real facts in the case. The State Board of Arbitration has been ig- nored. POLITICAL SUBSIDIZING OF LABOR. The city administration forfeited its supreme opportunity to render its greatest public ser- vice from the very beginning of its power by having an unmistakably partisan labor policy. It deliberately attempted to subsidize organized labor by distributing little appointive offices among the leaders of its allied trades unions. No more disastrous policy has ever paralyzed the power or menaced the future of organized labor in Chicago than that which tolerates the acceptance of these subsidies. Their incum- bents are really held as hostages for the de- livery of the labor vote, while boasting of the power of labor to eitort so many salaried posi- tions from the administration. If organized labor would really have and exercise political power, why does it not come out into the open to nominate and elect its own representatives to elective offices through which its principles can be carried into public policy by the enact- ment and administration of legislation? In lieu of this hard-earned but more effective political advantage, organi/ed labor has tamely sub- mitted to a policy which keeps even its best and most incorruptible officers under a cloud of suspicion; tempts its worse and weaker lead- ers to pervert both their labor leadership and their political offices to their own advantage; destroys the confidence not only of the public, but of its own rank and file in the integrity of the movement and shuts it out from such legitimate political influence as it has long occupied in England, quite as much to the public welfare as to the promotion of its own class interests. The educational influence upon non-union labor and public opinion of legiti- mate political campaigning is a vantage-point which has never been occupied by the Ameri- can labor movement, from the lack of which it is suffering more than from any other cause. No honest friend of organized labor, such as the writer may justify his claim to be, can de- fend the spirit and policy of the Building Trades Council as a whole, or deny the contrac- tors' charges that both they and the public have suffered from many unjust exactions at its hands. The resort to violence is not only in- defensible, but suiciiJal to the most vital inter- ests of union labor. It costs the movement not only the deeper alienation of non-union labor, which is its only source of growth and power, but also the support and even the fair hearing No. 45] THE COMMONS. of the public, which is the only hope of the ascendency of its principles. SOME INCONSISTENCIES ON THE OTHER SIDE. On the other hand, the Contractors' Associa- tion bears its full share of responsibility for the whole critical situation. It is conceded to have had many just causes of complaint and even exasperation, which surely should miti- gate too harsh judgment of its narrowness and mistakes. It has not been consistently public- spirited or free from class-conscious interests and tactics. While insisting upon the disband- ing of the Council, it resolutely insists upon maintaining its own association. While de- manding the cessation of the sympathetic strike, it busily organized a sympathetic lock- out. While vigorously, and in part very justly, protesting against the interference of organ- ized labor with the liberty of its contractors to purchase material from whom they pleased, it countenanced and abetted, if it -did not organ- ize, a boycott of building material producers against the employers of union labor allied with the Building Trades Council. Charging the men with refusing to keep their own agree- ment, in some instances at least, it locked them out for taking the Saturday half-holiday, which had been granted in their own agreement with them. While protesting against what may have been too great a limitation of the amount of daily work to be exacted, they failed suffi- ciently to recognize the complaint of the men against the "rusher" being allowed to set the pace for a fair day's work. While ostensibly, and perhaps conscientiously, waging this in- dustrial warfare, offensive and defensive, for " industrial liberty " and " free labor," the smaller contractors are yet to be heard to the contrary in defense of their own invaded inde- pendence and of the curtailed area for free competition remaining to those of them who do not wish to belong to the association. HOPE ONLY IN CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION. The one hope of a permanent solution of the present situation and of the prevention of simi- lar disastrous contests in the future, lies in the arousement and education of public sentiment to take its own mediating part and provide its own judicial measures for authoritatively settling these dangerously divisive issues by friendly conciliation, if possible, or by final arbitration, if necessary. In strong contrast with our belated appeal to force are the humanely enlightened procedures elsewhere. In France there are seventeen " Councils of Experts," before which 45,000 cases are annually brought, of which 66% are settled at a cost not exceeding six cents to each of the disputants. In England "The Trade Board," mainly through conciliation before strike or lockout, has in twenty-two years affected sixty wage revisions and in nine years has settled 850 cases at issue, only 18 of which required arbitration, and only four the decision of a referee. Massachusetts leads all our States in her provision for and success in conciliation and arbitration. In eight years her " Board of Arbitration " reports 216 cases referred to it, 105 of which were settled by its own decision, 55 through conciliation, 23 by the parties themselves, and 88 cases failed of adjustment. Bu,t in no case in which both sides asked the Board to arbitrate did its decision fail to stand. CONCILIATORY ADVICE UNHEEDED. The Commission appointed by President Cleveland to investigate the Pullman strike concluded its report with this exhortation in the interests of industrial peace, which, after six years, is seriously and sadly timely : " The Commission urges employers to recog- nize labor organizations ; that such organiza- tions be dealt with through representatives with special reference to conciliation and arbi- tration when difficulties are threatened or arise. It is satisfied that employers should come in closer touc'h with labor, and should recognize that while the interests of capital and labor are not identical, they are reciprocal. The Commission is satisfied that if employers everywhere will endeavor to act in concert with labor, that if when wages can be raised under economic conditions they be raised vol- untarily, and that if when there are reduc- tions, reasons be given for the reduction, much friction can be avoided. It is also satisfied that if employers will consider employes as thoroughly essential to industrial success as capital and thus take labor into consultation at proper times, much of the severity of strikes can be tempered and their number reduced." MORE LIGHT, LESS HEAT. To emphasize only or chiefly the personal animosities and class antagonisms as the causes of industrial differences is hopelessly to .misconceive and needlessly to embitter a situ- ation already so little understood and so com- plicated by bad blood as to be without any solution perhaps to the majority of men. The very first step toward solving this situation is to gain the frank acknowledgment that the dif- ferences which divide the industrial world are real. Those who, because they know too little of it, or who, because of personal experiences THE COMMONS. [No. 45 think they know too much, need to learn that present situations date farther back than yesterday's strike or lockout, and have further reaching causes than quarrelsome grievances of some men against others. We all need to learn what it is especially hard for those immediately involved in crises to realize, that these present situations are the outcome of long historical processes, and are due to widespread industrial conditions and deep-lying economic causes. Not then until the industrial differences are attributed in the public mind to other and higher causes than mere individual selfishness and personal antagonism will the movement to settle them rise higher than a more or less annoying quarrel. Incalculable will be the practical value of the common understanding of the historical antecedents, economic princi- ples, social conditions and industrial forces, which account for the division, if not for the specific form of each several issue, and which are the prime factors for the solution of the problem of industrial peace and progress. The justice and intelligence of our social judgments depend more than anything else upon what some one has called " the geologist's time-sense." POSTSCRIPTS. By official invitation the writer attended May 13 a convention " of all trades unions," con- sisting of 600 representatives of 190 labor organizations. The substance of the above article was used to lead up to the proposi- tion of an impartial investigation of the ob- stacles standing in the way of the settlement of the issues involved. Not only was the most respectful hearing given to the entire address, but even the severe criticism of the political corruption and other perversion of unionism was vigorously applauded. The unanimous action of the convention authorizing its chairman, together with the writer, to nominate the investigating commis- sion had an immediate and far-reaching result. The public became a third party to the contro- versy. The daily press became more concili- atory in tone, demanding from both sides con- cessions necessary to a settlement. Pressure, privately and publicly, has been exerted upon the central bodies to withdraw and leave the several trades unions and the contractors iu the respective trades face to face in conference for the adjustment of their differences. Pending the results of these efforts to take a shorter cut to a solution of the problem and awaiting the response of the contractors to the offer of the Real Estate Board to mediate, the investigation will be held in abeyance for a few days. But the appeal to reason will be promptly renewed and vigorously pressed, if the " flght-it-out " policy continues to be asserted. The public conscience will make short work of whatever either side may captiously or selfishly inter- pose to prevent or delay- the prompt and per- manent adjustment of an issue which is cost- ing 30,000 people their livelihood and incal- culable loss to the whole city. John Palmer Gavit. J* < THIS first personal allusion made in these columns to Mr. Gavit appears after his relinquishment of the control of THE COMMONS in accordance with his announcement in the issue for February. What he would never have said of himself, it is due the friends of Chicago Commons and the settlement movement, as well as the readers of this paper, that another should say of him. For no truer expression of the settlement spirit has been given by the whole resident personnel than he has embod- ied these nearly five years. Leaving an inde- pendent position and a pleasant suburban home in the East, Mrs. Gavit and he entered upon their residence at Chicago Commons at the crisis of its initiatory struggle, absolutely refusing to hold any one responsible even for maintenance. They not only risked but gave their all. With an abandon to the common cause from first to last they stood ready to do whatever needed to be done, from housekeep- ing to teaching and editing. Mrs. Gavit with rare ability and entire devotion has given her- self to the aid of Mrs. Hegner in the develop- ment and conduct of the Kindergarten Train- ing School, the Mothers' Meetings, and the readjustment of the Tabernacle Primary De- partment upon the kindergarten basis, the Girls' Progressive Club, and the whole round of settlement details, which annihilate leisure and leave little privacy for the home life. Arriving upon the scene when the work of Chicago Commons was crippled by the with- drawal of some residents and the illness of others, Mr. Gavit unreservedly assumed the burden of any and everything under which no one else stood. With strong inclination for literary leisure and cultivated tastes for intel- lectual pursuits, he has all these years, during which it was impossible for residents to spec- ialize, consented not only, but insisted upon being a mau-of-all-work in the settlement. In- terruptions were cheerfully accepted as the order of daily life, in which purposed consecu- tive effort has been the exception, filling in only the interstices of time. With no capital, excepting friendly credit at the printer's, and with little or no help, excepting such casual and occasional co-operation as the writer's already overcrowded life could now and then render, he bravely started and more bravely has sustained THE GAMMONS. Not only has he borne the sole financial responsibility and business care of the paper, but he has written himself almost every line in its four volumes not appearing under other signatures. To the No. 45J THE COMMONS. quality and value of his editorial work, for which he has an innate journalistic sense and an equipment assiduously acquired thro sev- eral years of service on the staff of five eastern papers, our correspondents bear witness in confessing with unconsciously common con- sent that it is "the only paper, every word of which they read." Much as we will miss this co operation in the work, even more will we feel the loss of the merry heart, the ready wit, and the deep spirit of consecration to the social betterment of the common life that have been so large a part of our settlement house- hold, and have entered so vitally into the com- panionship in which each life in our circle has been lived. The load seems lonelier without them. But again we are admonished to save our life by being willing to lose it. Thereunto is the set- tlement life called to build the community up out of itself. If at any cost Chicago Commons can thus contribute out of its own very life to the social unification and brotherly betterment of the terribly strained industrial relations of to-day, it will be content to decrease even to disappearance that fratricidal strife may cease, and the peace of justice and brotherhood may prevail. GRAHAM TAYLOR. Robert Browning Hall's Unique Features. * < < The fifth annual report of the Kobert Brown- ing Settlement in South London describes some unique features of settlement service. One of the most successful of its appointments seems to be the "Pleasant Tuesday Afternoon" for women. In addition to the educational and social features of a woman's club, much is made of the principle of co-operation. To purchase the necessaries of life in larger'quantities and at less price, the members have organized themselves into such co-operative groups as "The Coal Club," " The Clothing Club," "The Women's Goose Glob," the latter to obtain poultry and provisions for their family holiday dinners. A trained nurse is also employed to attend the sick of the membership. The popu- larity of this "Pleasant Tuesday Afternoon" movement among the women of South London is attested by the enrollment of 750 of them in its membership and an average weekly attend- ance of 450. Another distinctive emphasis in the work of this settlement is placed upon its effort for crippled children. No less than 73 of them are gathered weekly for instruction in elementary art and industrial work, and summer holidays are also secured for them in the country. Chicago Commons. CHICAGO" COMMONS. 14O North Union Street, at Milwaukee Avenue. Telephone, ivlain 3551. (Reached by all Milwaukee avenue cable and electric cars, or by Grand avenue or Halsted strpet electric cars, stopping at corner of Austin avenue and Halsted street, one block west of Union street.) Settlement Finances. & & jt Owing to the Warden's long preoccupation by his exacting professorial work and to the diversion to the building fund of the larger contributions toward the support of the settle- ment work, there is a deficit in current accounts of between $500 and $600 as we go to press. The situation is the more embarrassing in view of the imperative public duty laid upon Prof. Taylor by the critical industrial situation in Chicago. We do not see our way thro to raise enough to carry our work over the summer and at the same time solicit the $25,000 necessary to complete our new building before winter, unlesjs we can secure the personal co-operation of the friends of Chicago Commons in this struggle. Any suggestions that will facilitate our access to possible donors or any use that others may make of the printed statement of our financial situation, illustrated by the design and plans of the new building, will afford us great relief under the burden of our final emergency. Chicago Commons Items. < < < OUR best winter's season's work has just closed. WHILE we keenly feel and deeply regret the withdrawal of four of our residents, who have been longest and most efficient in the settle- ment service, we are grateful for the accession to our ranks of new residents who give every promise of having the old devotion to the so- THE COMMONS. [No. 45 cial service of the common life, and marked efficiency. Applications for residence next fall and winter are beginning to be made. THE young men have spontaneously organ- ized an orchestra of a dozen or more members, under most competent leadership. It has already participated in two neighborhood pub- lic occasions with much credit and more prominence. Its weekly rehearsals are at- tended by a growing and appreciative audience, and are likely to become our free concert night in the new building. A. NEW feature added to our work this spring by the beneficence of a friend of Chicago Com- mons, ia the Kitchen Garden class, composed of twenty-four little girls of ten years of age, who have been gathered from the neighboring public school, and have not hitherto been en- listed in any of our clubs and classes. The Kitchen Garden is under the direction of Miss Margaret Muir, who conducts two similar classes at other needy centers in the congested districts, which are sustained by the same con. siderate heart. OUR summer campaign is laid out on the old lines with some new features. The prepara- tions for Good Will Camp at Elgin and the usual outings are well in hand. We are glad that the all-too-scanty spaces about our own building are to be utilized as a playground for the children of our immediate neighborhood. Nothing touches the heart more than to see the use that has been made by the little folks of the street all these years of the approach to our residence. They take refuge like storm- driven birds from the whirl of the street for play in our little dooryard and for rest on our doorsteps. AMONG the many interesting guests whom we have had the opportunity of entertaining none have paid the settlement a more signifi- cant visit than two Japanese gentlemen who have recently been with us. They have been sent by the Buddhists of their country to in- vestigate the religious institutions of America and Europe, with special reference to the re- lation of the churches to the State, to the or- ganization for Christian work and to the economic and industrial problems of the times. One of them, Dr. J. Chikadzumi, is director of the Young Men's Buddhist Association (some- what corresponding to the Y. M. C. A.), and the other, Mr. E. Ikeyama, is a confidential counsellor to the Buddhist hierarchy. Their eager inquiries in English and German for facts, suggestions and literature, showed a high degree of intelligence and alertness. 9 ^literature anD The report for 1899 of the Chicago Bureau of Justice shows 4,618 persons given legal aid and advice during the year. This society is de- signed " to assist in procuring legal protection against injustice for those who are unable to protect themselves." We regard it as a com- mendable and practical form of philanthropy, and recommend co-operation by the settle- ments. Persecution is the only name applicable to punishment inflicted on an individual in con- sequence of his opinions. Shelley. Economics and Industrial History for Second- ary Schools, by HENRY W. THURSTON. Chi- cago: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1899. Professor Albion W. Small says exactly the right word in his introduction to Professor Thurston's work: "This book is precisely the kind of guide to elementary study of social facts that sociologists should recommend." Ever since the aspects of social life began to interest the average person' with the fascina- tion of a new discovery, there has been a place for a simple, vital, popular text-book such as Professor Thurston has supplied. So far as we know, it is the only book of its kind, with the possible exception of Small & Vincent's " In- troduction to the Study of Society." It is such a work as a leader of almost any kind of a group interested in the subject would find useful and inspiring. It awakens the conscience with a personal application to the fact that every- thing and every man are related to and inter- dependent with every other man and thing, and it directs the mind into ways of finding out how it happens so. It tells a good deal, but better than that, it puts the earnest stu- dent in a way to find out a great deal more for himself. In study groups, Bible classes, and the like, and for individuals, in the ministry, or like positions of leadership, it will cer- tainly find its way and prove its value to say nothing of its chiefly intended use in second- ary schools. Part I is devoted to the guidance and provo- cation of observation and interpretation of industrial and economic facts and forces, classification of utilities and utilizers, status and ownerships. Series of well-put questions here and throughout the work provoke inquiry and thought. Part II gives outlines of indus- trial history in England and the United States, and Part III analyzes elements of economic theory. Useful tables are given in the appen- dix, and there are a list of authorities and a food index. Lyrics of Brotherhood (poems), by KICHABD BURTON. Boston, Small, Maynard & Co., 1899. $1.00. Our quotations froiu Professor Burton's little book of verse attest our high estimate. The author is gaining in ethical tone and vision of brotherhood, and we look for further and greater work from his pen in time to come. No. 45] THE COMMONS. THE COMMONS. B flflontblv IRecoro S>voteJ> to Hspectg of life anl> labor from tbc Social Settlement point of IDiew. GRAHAM TAYLOR, EDITOR. For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see-" Publisher's Corner" on last page. i:il I old \l ANNOUNCEMENT. WITH this issue the sole responsibility for the conduct of THE COMMONS passes from the hands and heart of its founder to the editorial care of the only 'one in position to as- sume it. This paper has served the cause which the settlement stands for too widely and too well to be allowed to flag or fail for the lack of any sacrifice, which those enlisted in the movement can make to sustain its service and enlarge its circulation. In stepping into the breach it was with the assurance that others sharing this conviction would rally to its support. Friends advan- tageously located to observe the tendencies of the social movement in this country and abroad, readily promised to furnish notes. of their own observations to be used generally without sig- nature. Others of recognized authority in tbeir several specialties have agreed to pro- vide one or more articles during the year on points at issue in current economic, industrial, social and ethical relationships. Brief re- views of books on these lines will be prepared by specialists. Mr. Gavit will regularly con- tribute to our columns from his new point of view. These features may add variety to the paper, but the scope and spirit, which have characterized it heretofore, we will strive to maintain. The distinctiveness of THE COM- MONS, which justifies the struggle for its establishment and warrants whatever its de- velopment may cost, is its observation and promotion of the social movement from the set- tlement point of view. Its single aim is to spiritualize social life and to socialize spirit- ual life. Thus only may religion be brought to earth and human relationships be made divine. FIRST of the series of special articles, an- nounced above, will appear in the next issue of THE COMMONS. It has been gener- ously furnished by Professor Isaac A. Loos of the University of Iowa, and treats of The Ideal Republic." The suggestion of this theme was prompted by our high appreciation of his " Studies in the Politics of Aristotle and the Republic of Plato," by publishing which, as one of its bulletins, the University of Iowa has placed under lasting obligation not only all students of political science and sociology, but all who would be intelligently interested in public affairs, upon which these ancient authors continue to have such a timely bear- ing. 1-NlSCUSSION of the applicability of the I J Golden Rule to modern business in the Chicago Association of Congregational churches was noteworthy in the fact that ^none of the three "business men" who participated de- fended either the ethics or the permanency of the " competitive system," as the basis of a social order consistent with the Golden Rule. The transitional necessity of the principle of competition was admitted, but the enlarge- ment of the idea of self-interest by the inclu- sion of the purpose and practice in service was insisted upon as the saving clause. The eco- nomic basis of ethics was as clearly recognized as the ethical basis of economics. The hope of the ultimate consistency between the Golden Rule of our faith and the practice of our business was postulated even more upon the manifest destiny of economic evolution toward combination, than upon direct ethical or philanthropic effort to this end. A true self-interest from a business point of view, it was declared, would more and more involve the necessity of the unselfish service of others. MDNDN ROUTE DIRBOT L/INB Indianapolis Cincinnati L,afayetto AND ALL POINTS SOUTH THROUGH SLEEPERS TO WEST BADEN, FRENCH LICK AND PAOLI SPRINGS EVERY NIGHT. FRANK J. REED, G. P. A. CITY TICKET OFFICE, 232 CLARK ST. CHICAGO. THE COMMONS. [No. 45 H flDontbls 1Recorj> t>ex>ote> to Hspecta of life ano labor from tbe Social Settlement point of Wiew. Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. PUBLISHER'S COKNEU. A red or blue mark in this space indicates that your subscription has expired with this issue, and that you can best help THE COMMONS and the cause for which it stands by using the enclosed subscription blank to-day for renewal. This will save you the annoy- ance of a further reminder, and us the time and money that a letter and postage would cost, and that might better be used in the direct extension of our work. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs French foreign stamps accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above s-cent denomination* AT OUR RISK. Renewals The change in the date on the address label will ordinarily serve as receipt for renewals. These changes are made once in two months. In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified to the contrary. Changes of Address Please notify the publishers promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. Advertisements First-class advertisements desired at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- tion. , The matron of a well known Masonic Home mentions one inmate, seventy years of age, who has been in the infirmary for three years, a great sufferer from indigestion, and has been taking Ripans Tab- ules about a year and a half and finds them so beneficial that he is never without them. He is willing that his name should be used in a, testimonial, as it might be of use in persuading some other person to try them. A second old gentleman, in the same institution, eighty-four years of age, has had liver trouble for many years and finds that R'I'P'A'N'S help him very much. They also have two nurses there, one thirty years of age, the other forty-two; both suffer from indigestion, causing headache, depression of spirits and nerv- ousness. They take the Tabules and find them so useful that they always have a package in their pockets. The matron also states that she is forty-five years of age and at times suffers with indiges- tion, causing pain and paroxysms of belching, and finds that the Tabules are very good indeed and is perfectly willhfg to have her name used in a testimonial. \ -,- WANTED: A case of bad health that R-I-P'A'N'S will not benefit. They banteh pain and proton* Bte. OM Klres relief. Note the word R'l P-A'N 8 on the package and accept no otwtitnte. R-I-P-A-N-STlO for i luiujfc, er twelve packets for 18 cento, may be had at any drug more. Ten sample* and one thousand testimonial* via h* ailed to any address for & cent*, forwarded to the nir^" Chemical Co., No. 10 Spruce St., Mi