IIIRESULTS

TABLE 122.—SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF SINGLE AND WIDOWED INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP, WHO DID NOT APPLY FOR REHABILITATION BY SEX

It is highly suggestive that a very large proportion of those who went to work or to friends or relatives left in January, 1908, when Ingleside was about to be closed and all the inmates removed to the Relief Home. When the final alternative was presented to go permanently to an institution or to find some other home, they were able to make the latter choice. Most of them belonged to the wandering labor classes which find no hardship so great as the monotonous, comfortable life of an orderly institution where thorough discipline is maintained. The Relief Home was, fortunately, located beyond the city a mile from any car line. It was far removed from the bustle and the sensational diversions which were so pleasantly accessible to the lazy and the semi-vicious at Ingleside. The mere limitation of the right to go in and out freely was so irksome that many chose to take their chance in the world again rather than go where they must ask for a pass.

Mention has already been made,page 325, of the fact that between 100 and 200 persons left the almshouse shortly after the fire, most of them presumably going to the camps and posing as refugees. Besides these there were 27 applicants for relief who, although not in the almshouse at the time of the fire, had been there one or more times, one of them 16 times, in the eight years previous. In most instances the Rehabilitation Committee hadno means of knowing that these people were former almshouse inmates, and the grants were made merely on the ground of old age. The more important details concerning this group of 27, none of whom were at Ingleside, are as follows:

To 13 persons relief was granted in sums ranging from $15 to $125, and six of these were believed to be non-dependent in 1909, while seven were in the Relief Home. Grants were refused to nine applicants; eight of these required such care and supervision as that provided in the Relief Home, and the ninth, who was an opium taker, was aided by a sister. Checks were canceled in three cases: one, because other relief was given; another, because the applicant was found to be a drunkard; and the third, because the money had been paid to the wrong person. In the two remaining cases of the 27 no action was taken.

It is surprising to find that the 13 cases in which relief was granted average ten years younger than the Ingleside cases. They were either persons who had gone in former years to the almshouse to convalesce after illness, as was customary with those discharged from the City and County hospital, or persons who had some physical or mental disability that made it difficult to keep employment. Most of the others who were not in the Relief Home in April, 1909, if they live will probably come back there. Of the 14 applicants who did not receive aid, nine were in the Relief Home three years after the disaster or had died there.

One last group of the aged and handicapped remains to be mentioned,—35 applicants who had been neither in the almshouse nor at Ingleside, but who arrived at the Relief Home between April, 1908, and April, 1909. These had been able to hold out until then against the ravages of age, disease, incapacity, and misfortune. A few, a very few, were again independent of relief three years after the grant was made, but of the remainder, 21 were still in the Relief Home or other charitable institutions, and nine had either left the city or had died.

Thefinal important question to be considered in this study of relief of the aged and infirm is: What proportion of the aged and infirm persons in the Relief Home in April, 1909, were there solely because of the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906? To answer this question one must know the proportion between the total population of San Francisco and the aged and infirm in the almshouse for some time previous to 1906.

TABLE 123.—PROPORTION OF ALMSHOUSE INMATES AND OF ALMSHOUSE ADMISSIONS TO TOTAL POPULATION, SAN FRANCISCO, 1890, 1900, 1905, AND 1909

[278]Estimated.

It seems fair to assume that the disaster was responsible, at least in part, for the increase of the proportion of almshouse inmates in the population from 2.3 per 1,000 in 1905 to 3.2 per 1,000 in 1909. The fact that in 1909 the number of admissions was not higher indicates that already as regards this class the abnormal conditions resulting from the fire were passing away. The high death rate would shortly reduce the Relief Home population almost to its normal proportion.[279]

[279]Between 1900 and 1905 the inmates of the almshouse went in and out much more freely than they do now at the Relief Home, but the effect on the average number present is impossible to calculate.

The increase, from 1904-05 to 1909, in the relative number of almshouse inmates in the population must not be attributed wholly to the disaster. The condemnation of the unsanitary City and County Hospital threw a part of the burden of its chronic cases on the Relief Home. The shock of the disaster to highly nervous and ill-balanced persons doubtless produced insanity in a number of cases. As the state insane hospitals were already overcrowded, the least troublesome found refuge in the Relief Home. But perhaps the most important factor in producing this charitable burden was the general disorganization of industry in the years 1907-08, due to a street-car strike in San Francisco and to the financial panic. The slow recovery of certain industries caused by the exorbitant cost of building was perceptibly checked. The result was that only young and able-bodied men could get work. Old and semi-able men who would in normal times have continued for several years to make a bare living, could find no work after the brick cleaning was done. This economic stagnation accounts for the failure of some who were given tools, or small grants to set up little shops or buy stock to peddle. The buying capacity of the laboring class, their prospective patrons, was greatly diminished.

Finally, the number of the aged and the infirm in the Relief Home was increased by those sent from a number of the private charities whose buildings were burned or whose funds were lessened. The private charitable agencies were the more inclined to disburden themselves as the new institution was so attractive. As one of the employes put it: “If the city furnishes clean steam-heated rooms, three hot meals a day, electric lights, and every convenience, the place will always be full. Lots of people in the Relief Home never had so much before.” The new institution at its dedication was advertised to set a high standard of care. The maintenance of this standard by the superintendent drew to it, undoubtedly, some who formerly would not have applied for admission.

Since the variations in the numbers of the old almshouse inmates registered the increase due to the industrial stagnation following the labor agitation and the panic of 1893, it is reasonable to conclude that the several circumstances described above hadincreased the number of the inmates in the Relief Home as much as had the disaster of April 18, 1906.

An interesting question, growing out of the coalescence in the Relief Home of the Ingleside refugee group with the old almshouse population, is the comparative social standing of the two groups. Were the Ingleside inmates potential almshouse inmates or were they such as would not have arrived there but for a great and wholly impersonal misfortune? The “refugees” maintained in the Relief Home a class identity and were particular to insist that they were not like “the old almshouse people.” It has been pointed out[280]that there was a group at Ingleside whose occupations and general history marked them as belonging to a somewhat more skilful and resourceful class than the rest. Such of these as went to the Relief Home continued to be superior and exceptional, but far the larger number were precisely of the same human stuff as the interminable procession that had for forty years been entering the almshouse. On this point the testimony of employes who were in charge at Ingleside and later at the Relief Home was nearly unanimous and quite conclusive. They agreed that three-fourths of these refugees were “almshouse types” and would have reached an almshouse in a few years; and that some of the others, of rather better education and character, would have been cared for in private charitable institutions, or by children and relatives who because of the fire were too poor to take them. It is pointed out that these last if they shared the poverty of their kindred would have been far less comfortable than in the Home.

[280]SeePart VI,p. 333.

One clear distinction between the almshouse people and the refugees is a difference of temper. During the relief period the refugees got the idea that there were “millions for relief,” in which they had a “just and equal share,” and that as the Relief Home was built for them they had exceptional rights in it as victims of misfortune. They were, therefore,—the women especially,—more exacting, lazy, and termagant than the old-time inmates. Ingleside has been described as “one long vacation picnic” where they had varied and abundant food, very little work and, to satisfy their gregarious instincts, continuous gossip. Those who had become accustomed to the freedom of the camps were consequentlymore incorrigible as well as more able-bodied than the almshouse inmates, and were never bound by such necessary rules of labor and discipline as existed there.

It has already been demonstrated[281]that so far as age, proportion of the sexes, marital condition, and nativity are concerned, at least four-fifths of the refugees at Ingleside did not differ essentially from the inmates of the San Francisco almshouse. Collateral information corroborates this conclusion. The rents they had paid and the wages they had received before the fire were rarely above those common to the unskilled laboring classes, while the streets they had lived in were in the districts familiar to charity visitor and settlement worker. It may be concluded upon these facts that not more than one-sixth of the Ingleside refugees, at most 200 persons, were of the more fortunate and resourceful sort who but for some extraordinary disaster would never have become dependent.

[281]SeeTables 114-116,pp. 329-331.

Before undertaking to estimate the work of the Rehabilitation Committee in relation to the aged and infirm it is imperative to make clear the characteristics of the different classes with which they had to deal. The problems of the helpless, the very old, and the very young, stand apart. But the destiny of old people cannot, like that of children, be determined solely by the will of others, for self-will increases rather than diminishes with the approach of senility. So long as the old are on their feet in the world, whatever plans are made, whatever relief is proposed, may be set at naught. They cannot be imprisoned unless positively vicious, nor be refused relief, because the humane standard requires that age, however unlovely, shall be kindly treated.

There were at Ingleside 70[282]unruly, immoral, drunken people, who had to be ejected but who returned again and again by way of the jail and the hospital to ask assistance. To such as these only food and shelter could safely be given. In the Relief Home they were relegated to “The Last Chance,” the name given by the residents to the building for senile incorrigibles. Some were in their second infancy and behaved like filthy animals, others had senile dementia and “imagined violence like children,” accusingthe nurses of stealing from them and of starving them, yet it would have been impossible to get them committed for insanity. Still others who came and went from Ingleside and who went in and out of the Relief Home as often as permitted, became insane with rage whenever they were crossed. Angry at some trifle, they would rave by the hour; but if locked up or deprived of some privilege they would gradually recover self-control and be quiet for weeks until crossed again. It would have been impossible for them to live in a family even of their own relatives. It was all but impossible to care for them in the institution until their vigor was depleted enough to make them stationary.

[282]SeePart VI,p. 325.

Another class is the wanderers, in all stages of senile dementia. Some were intelligent enough to apply for relief but wandered from Ingleside, could not be found by the visitors, and turned up later in the Relief Home. A few were promised grants but never claimed the checks. Those in the Relief Home got lost, could not remember where their rooms were, or now and then climbed the barbed-wire fence and ran away. Although for their proper care the same precautions were needed as at a prison, neither Ingleside Model Camp nor the Relief Home could be so organized. Every person had the legal right to come and go from the Relief Home at will. Some of the relatively able-bodied would go out to visit acquaintances or relatives, to beg a little, to work a little, or even to pawn their clothes, and after drinking up the money obtained, return exhausted or filthy to recuperate in the Home. The same may be said of the one-third of the inmates who were entered in the records as drinking or drunkards. Many of them combined with intemperance some other infirmity. For our purpose, however, it is immaterial whether they began to drink as a result of physical debility or whether they were sick because of drunkenness. In either case, it was very nearly hopeless to give them money for rehabilitation. A number are known to have wasted their grants in drink.

SeeFrontispiece“Portals of the Past”This beautiful arch was found practically uninjured in the midst of the ruins at the summit of Nob Hill. Mr. James D. Phelan had it removed to the banks of a little lake in Golden Gate Park, where it stands as a memorial to the devastated city.

SeeFrontispiece

“Portals of the Past”

This beautiful arch was found practically uninjured in the midst of the ruins at the summit of Nob Hill. Mr. James D. Phelan had it removed to the banks of a little lake in Golden Gate Park, where it stands as a memorial to the devastated city.

The Ingleside population affords a painful study in isolation. Among a thousand refugees over fifty years of age, a majority would be expected to have children or relatives and the hasty inference would be that family care should be given to a number that were in the Relief Home. Filial obligation is, indeed, toolittle emphasized; but frequent migration weakens the family tie. An examination of these cases does not show many in which the refugees were dependent because of wilful neglect by relatives. The superintendent of the Relief Home in the year 1909 carefully investigated all cases about which there was rumor of property concealed or relatives able to give support. The result was that only a very few of either were discovered. In the case of those who had hidden savings, or an inheritance, the city compelled the payment of $15 a month for board and lodging or the leaving of the institution. In the case of most children who had been well-to-do, a payment was agreed on rather than the return to relatives.

A cursory glance at the Ingleside records would give the impression that all the mutilated, semi-blind, deaf, rheumatic, and disabled old people in the countryside; the one-legged and one-armed men and the men with no legs at all; the partly paralyzed and otherwise crippled, had been gathered there,—a forlorn company more than half of whom added to other defects the slowness of old age. The problem was not merely the relief of the aged, but the relief of the handicapped. The crippled had been for the most part self-supporting before the fire; some were elevator men, some were watchmen, many had sold notions or papers on the streets or peddled goods in the country roundabout. The peddlers on the whole did very well with their grants, perhaps because a physical mutilation is an asset to a peddler, or because no definite patronage had to be regained. A person with a physical defect but accustomed to unusual or skilled occupation, as for instance, the printing and distributing of bill-heads or the repairing of musical instruments, is not debarred from self-support as is the man who belongs in the ranks of common labor.

The restoration to self-support of even the able-bodied elderly women was quite as difficult as the rehabilitation of the handicapped. There was after the fire, as always, a considerable demand for cheap general houseworkers. To the casual observer, these sturdy old women at Ingleside ought to have been able at least to earn their lodging and food. But if the observer had attempted to employ one in her own household she would have found it all but impossible to endure her personal peculiarities. Morethan half were born and had lived in foreign countries, and although to a degree Americanized, were relapsing into the peasant habits of childhood. In cleanliness and decorum a rising standard had left them far behind. To uncleanly and vulgar habits and lack of skill were added a tendency to misrepresent, even when truth-telling would be advantageous, and to be voluble on the subject of chronic grievances or ailments. Women of another type who were both cleanly and competent could not keep in work because they lacked initiative. Someone had to do their thinking for them. In the Relief Home where they had kindly supervision they became excellent helpers capable of earning small wages.

The chief elements in the failure of these old people, men and women, to recover their independence, were lack of adaptability, lack of speed, and poor judgment in business matters. Those who had maintained themselves for years, could not get back into their narrow familiar groove nor find another into which to fit themselves. An old man who was probably as good a cabinet maker as any other in the city, could do barely half the work in a day expected by employers, because of over-conscientiousness and slowness. In a thousand ways the inefficiency due to ignorance, lack of skill, and poor judgment, predestined the refugees of Ingleside to failure, whether they received grants or not, and whether the aid given was great or small.

In some cases the grants seem pitifully inadequate and it may be questioned whether the individuals had a fair chance to re-establish themselves. Remembering the high rents, the cost of materials, the cost of transportation, the dearth of employment, and the lessened consumption, larger sums than those given would seem to have been necessary to afford a prospect of permanent rehabilitation. But the Corporation could not anticipate panic nor exceptional lack of employment. A large proportion of these cases, moreover, had to be decided in August, 1906,[283]when the grants were discontinued or made in small amounts. In the cases of those who received $150 or more, there was no higher proportion of success than where smaller amounts were given. It is impossibleto determine from the information we have whether the later dependence of one-third to one-half of the Ingleside refugees was due to the industrial situation or to the deficiencies of the individuals themselves or to inadequate relief. One conclusion we may safely set down: no case of failure was due to any one of these causes alone.

[283]SeePart I,p. 99ff.

Turning from the discussion of these qualifying circumstances to estimate the results of the relief of the aged, the infirm, and the handicapped at Ingleside and in the Relief Home, certain things emerge very definitely. For convenience and clearness they may be set down categorically.

1.The speculative characterof relief after disaster, especially in the case of persons over fifty years of age, should be recognized and too much must not be expected from the issue. The recuperative power of aged persons is relatively small under ordinary conditions of life, but when they are thrown out of the groove of years, subjected to shock and hardship, and made to begin over again, it is infinitely smaller. For this reason the element of uncertainty should be reduced to a minimum by the use of records, by the employment of trained investigators, and by the consultation with camp commanders or others who have observed the applicants for some time. During the earlier part of the relief work in San Francisco grants were made after investigation, in lump sums which in a considerable number of cases were squandered or used unwisely. After the Model Camp at Ingleside had been in operation for some months and the camp commander had had time to observe the inmates, the recommendations of visitors were often modified at his suggestion; in some cases the money was placed in the hands of a visitor to be expended for the applicant, and in many others it was given in care of the Associated Charities. These later grants lasted longer and were of more avail in relieving the recipient than those made on less information and with fewer precautions.

2.The value of charity recordsas a basis for determining the kind and amount of relief that should be given in an emergency cannot be over-emphasized. The case records of the Associated Charities, of the several benevolent societies of the different nationalities, and of the Catholics and the Hebrews, and the records of the almshouse, all should have afforded a quick means of learningthe former dependent or independent position of many applicants. Unfortunately in San Francisco, before the fire, most of these agencies did not sufficiently understand the value of permanent detailed records. The result was that a number of people who previously had been more or less dependent were assisted on the assumption that they were as likely to become self-supporting as those who had never applied for aid. Elderly indigents rarely resort to an alias and they might have been easily identified if the records had been reasonably complete and had been available in one central bureau. Since the disaster, the exchange of case information among the principal charitable agencies is proving invaluable in preventing duplication of relief and in developing unity of plans for constructive charity.

3.The value of trained investigatorsis distinctly apparent in a comparison of their recommendations with those of amateurs in the Ingleside cases. The inexperienced visitor, “taken in” by some plausible old person, would recommend a grant of several hundred dollars; the committee, mindful of many applicants yet to come and suspicious of the excessive enthusiasm of the visitor, would give half as much carefully guarded. The trained visitor, on the other hand, seized upon the hopeful points as well as the limitations of capacity and formed a balanced judgment which the committee usually accepted in substance and which was generally justified by the subsequent history of the applicant. The business of an investigator is not to harden his sympathies and expose imposture, but to become a trained and sympathetic expert in human nature. Especially in emergency relief, therefore, his judgment should be of the highest value.

4.The pension and the direct grantwere both used in providing for two quite different classes of the aged and infirm. A number of feeble persons who had been decent and hardworking before the fire but who, very evidently, could never again be self-supporting, were given grants outright “till they should be able to work again”—as the committee kindly phrased it—or because they were “too nice to go to the almshouse.” A larger number of cases, where it was impossible to determine whether the applicants were still capable of self-support or in need of institutional care, were given the benefit of the doubt. This was, indeed, almost compulsorybecause institutional facilities were so meager. The intention of these grants must be wholly commended, but the history of the cases treated by the two methods indicates clearly that the money given in instalments in care of a visitor or of the Associated Charities had been much more effectively spent than that given to the applicant in a lump sum. If it be assumed—as it should be—that no decent person of this borderland class should be prematurely relegated to an institution, the results in San Francisco prove that a limited pension in the care of a friendly visitor is both wise and humane. It is, moreover, economical.

5.The age of possible rehabilitationis approximately defined by the results of these cases. The natural period of self-support is between sixteen and sixty; but the capacity of the unskilled laboring classes to keep the pace of modern industry often begins to decline at middle age. As regards health and ability to be self-supporting the decade between fifty and sixty is critical; and the number of those between sixty and seventy who, after such a disruption of their lives as that produced by the earthquake and fire, are able to re-establish themselves even with assistance, will be very small. To conserve the common self-respect and society’s humane instincts, as many as possible should be encouraged to try.

6.The lack of provision for certain classesin San Francisco was well known to charity workers before the fire, but it became a far more serious matter owing to the sudden increase and shifting of these classes of dependents. There were many people set down as “convalescents” at Ingleside who remained permanently in need of institutional care. The hospitals continued to discharge, at the earliest possible moment because of overcrowding, numbers of half-well people who had no homes and little or no resources. Even those who went back to poor homes frequently did not recover fully for want of proper care during the convalescent period. Those without homes must go to the Relief Home, and the increase of this class of inmates became a serious tax on the institution. The medical attention that must be given to the inmates of the Relief Home is greater than had to be given in the old almshouse. The increase in the number of the incurables, due in some measure to the shock and hardships of 1906, makesgreat demands upon the nursing staff. Although the number of admissions per thousand of the population is now no greater than before the disaster, the permanent burden of refugees will remain proportionately great for some years to come. Certain special classes—the convalescent, the incurable, the advanced tubercular, the chronic alcoholic, have never been adequately provided for in San Francisco. The transition from emergency to permanent provision affords the opportunity for developing the best methods and differentiating the kinds of charitable care.

SOME LESSONS OF THE SURVEY

What then are some of the lessons to be learned from this review of the San Francisco relief work that may be applied in other great disasters?

We see among other things:

1. The importance of postponing the appointment of sub-committees until a strong central committee has been able to determine general policies and methods of procedure.

2. The wisdom of reducing the bread line and the camp population as quickly as possible after the disaster so that the relief resources may be conserved to meet the primary need of rehabilitation.

3. The value of utilizing for emergency administration a body so highly organized and so efficient as the United States Army, to take charge of camps, and to bring to points of distribution the supplies required for those in need of food and clothing.

4. The necessity of utilizing the centers of emergency distribution for the later rehabilitation work of district committees and corps of visitors.

5. The need of establishing a central bureau of information to serve from the beginning of the relief work as a clearing house, to prevent confusion and waste through duplication of effort.

6. The importance of legal incorporation for any relief organization that has to deal with so large a disaster.

7. The importance of a strict audit of all relief in cash sent to a relief organization. The impossibility of an equally strict accounting for relief in kind, because of the many leaks and the difficulties attendant upon hurried distribution.

8. The desirability that contributions, especially those in kind, shall be sent without restrictions, as only the local organization is able to measure relative needs at different periods of the work.

9. The recognition of the American National Red Cross, with its permanent organization, its governmental status, and its direct accountability to Congress for all expenditures, as the proper national agency through which relief funds for great disasters should be collected and administered; thus securing unity of effort, certainty of policy, and a center about which all local relief agencies may rally.

We have to recognize:

1. The need, in at least the early stages of rehabilitation, of the district system, in order to facilitate application and investigation and to insure prompt committee action upon calls for assistance.

2. The need of a bureau of special relief from beginning to end of the rehabilitation work in order to meet the emergent and minor requirements of families and individuals without having to use the necessarily complicated slow-moving machinery of the rehabilitation organization itself.

3. The fact that even in a community where the residences of over half of the population have changed and the business section has been completely destroyed, it is possible to make individual investigations of family wants such as will generally mean the adding of the judgment of one outsider at least to that of the family.

We have to recognize further:

4. That the period of time elapsing between applications and grants will not be greatly altered if, after the early stages of rehabilitation, a centralized system is substituted for a district system.

5. That a flexible scheme of rehabilitation is furthered when no rigid limit is fixed for an individual grant and deliberation is required in each case where a grant of large amount is made.

6. That though rehabilitation may proceed generally along the line of fortifying each family in one particular direction, as for instance, in its business relations or housing accommodations, it will always be necessary to provide a considerable proportion of the families with subsidiary grants for other purposes.

7. That any centralized system which attempts to fix arbitrarily the different types of cases with which different committees shall deal will create a certain amount of confusion. If a centralized system seem desirable, the question is whether the committees in the central office should not have authority to consider cases according to geographical divisions rather than according to typical classes of applicants.

We learn, and the fact deserves to stand apart:

That when grants are made for the re-establishment in business of persons of little ability or experience, close supervision of plans and expenditures by agents of the relief committee is necessary to secure the best results.

We have to recognize:

1. That to provide but one form of housing rehabilitation is far from satisfactory.

2. That in a general way the three forms provided in San Francisco met the needs of the three general classes to be reached.

(a) With reference to the camp cottages it is too soon to say how successful the experiment will ultimately be of giving cottages for removal to other sites to those who may be classed as comparatively weak in resourcefulness and character. It is certain, however, that the permanent close grouping of the cottages in great numbers on open lots is a danger to be guarded against.

(b) With reference to the grant and loan houses, though it seems that in general the houses built by applicants were better than those built by the housing committee for the applicants, it by no means follows that direct grants of money if commonly adopted would always bring good results. Individual capabilities must be one determining factor. As to grants and loans, it may be said that a double standard is not practicable. A grant on one house and a loan on its neighbor lead to dissatisfaction and often failure on the part of the borrower to meet his debt.

3. That because of the highly specialized business abilityrequired, a separate department of the relief organization should have charge of all building and details of building.

4. That decisions upon housing applications and dealings with housing applicants should be centered in a rehabilitation department.

We are brought to see that:

1. The applications made to an emergency relief organization will not include all who, as a result of the disaster, will eventually be obliged to seek succor. It is demonstrated that some permanent agency must be prepared to help those who, fighting heroically to the very end of their resources, give up after the temporary relief organization has discontinued active work.

2. The number of sufferers who need after-care may be increased by families who have been attracted to the city by illusive expectations of work.

3. The problems of family relief after a great disaster are essentially those requiring the personal care and attention which are characteristic of the work of an associated charities under normal conditions. The number of families that have come to the San Francisco Associated Charities in the years since the Corporation turned over the relief work to it, has been far larger than before the fire. It follows that for some years after so tremendous a disaster there should be an increase in the force of trained workers proportionate to the increase in the applications for rehabilitation. The community must be prepared to pay the additional cost.

4. Grants of relief, when they must be given regularly and for a considerable period (in the form that is often described as pensions), should be sufficiently large to assure reasonable standards of living.

We see finally that:

1. A great disaster increases especially the number of the aged and infirm who become public charges.

2. One of the tasks of delicate readjustment is to remove from the almshouse the aged men and women who, merely throughthe rough chance of a great catastrophe, are thrown with those whose lifelong habits and disabilities lead to the almshouse.

3. A critical test of the quality of a community is how far the responsibility for the aged, infirm, and handicapped who, save for the disaster, would never have become dependent upon public relief, is resumed by relatives, friends, or others who in the ordinary course of events would have cared for them; how completely the standard of private and family care for them shall be as though the disaster had never occurred.

APPENDIX IDOCUMENTS AND ORDERS

APPENDIX I

Elected April 24 to represent the California Branch of the Red Cross:

Appointed later:

NOTE: At the meeting of April 30 Dr. E. E. Baker of Oakland was appointed to Finance Committee to represent Governor Pardee, at the latter’s request. Later in the same meeting it was arranged that, since Dr. Baker’s duties prevented him from attending meetings, he should be represented on the Finance Committee by F. S. Stratton. Mr. Stratton was from that date on a member of the Finance Committee, representing both the Governor and the Oakland Relief Committee.

Purchasing Committee(also called Purchasing Agents, appointed April 26)

Auditing Committee(appointed May 7)

Committee on Hospitals(appointed May 9)

Rehabilitation Committee(authorized May 5, appointed June 29)

Later appointments made by the Executive Committee were

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