COMMUNICATIONS

To the Editor:

Your San Pedro correspondent[2]has got his figures on wages wrong and he leaves the expenses of business out of account. The 1910 Census bulletin of manufactures gives the figures thus, stated in thousands of dollars:

2. SeeThe Surveyof February 8, 1913, p. 653.

This balance is 10¹⁶⁄₂₀ per cent of the value of the product. Out of this interest on capital and wear and tear have to be met. The employees, in wages and salaries, get 21²⁄₂₀ per cent—just about twice what the manufacturers get. If 13 per cent were to be added to wages, as Mr. Deegan proposes, there would be a loss and business would not be done.

He may say charge more for the goods. But he complains of the high cost of living now. To increase it would be an injury—not a benefit.

My advice to all my labor friends would be to reduce the cost of production by making labor more efficient. Avoid strikes, settle differences by arbitration. If existing arbitration tribunals are inadequate, provide better, and remember that the real interests of labor and capital are identical. Labor would be fruitless, without factories and machinery. The men who invent or provide these are entitled to their share.

Everett P. Wheeler.

New York.

To the Editor:

Henry De Peyster’s article on Play Centers for the Poor inThe Surveyfor March 22 is interesting and illuminating. Evidently he has made a profound study of the question. But with regard to France I should like to add a few words to correct a false impression which Mr. De Peyster surely had no intention of giving.

As he says, the problem is different in France and Germany from that in other countries; but he does not mention (except tacitly by the picture on page 856) the admirable provision made by theMission Populaire(the McAll Mission) to meet the actual condition.

In all the larger stations of that mission both in Paris and in the provinces (Rouen, Nantes, Lille, etc.) the dailyEcole de Garde(supervised study and play hours) is an important feature. The children leave school at four—their parents reach home from work not much before half past six. Therefore the boys and girls within walking distance hasten to the McAll station. After a light lunch they are turned into the play-ground for an hour on the parallel bars and the other apparatus. At five they are collected in the mission rooms, where their preparation for the next day is supervised by volunteer teachers.

Mr. De Peyster evidently uses the word “religious proselytism” in the French, not the English, sense. The French word “proselyte” is nearly equivalent to the English “convert.” That theEcoles de Gardeof the McAll Mission do have a religious motive goes without saying. About ten minutes of religious instruction are given daily, but absolutely without proselyting intent. Most of the parents of these children are free thinkers or violently opposed to religion, a few are Roman Catholics, but never a word is said which could mar the influence of any religiously disposed parent. As for the others, the widely established fact that more children from the McAllEcoles de Gardepass their examinations than any others makes even anti-religious parents eager to have their children attend them. For in France the whole future of every child depends upon his school examinations.

Louise Seymour Houghton.

Washington, D. C.

To the Editor:

In a recent book review of a modern novel, the writer speaks of “episodes which violate the reserve that is bred in the bone of the English-speaking peoples.”

It is a serious matter, to my mind, that that reserve is being deliberately violated by a number of well-meaning people at this time in the campaign that is being carried on against certain diseases.

“It is necessary,” these people say, “to speak plainly. Great harm has been wrought by ignorance. The innocence of the child has been its weakness. Under plea of modesty fathers and mothers have been foolish and cowardly,” and so on. You hear and see it everywhere, and lectures are being delivered, to mixed audiences, on things which, the apostle said, it was a shame even to speak of.

Now I believe that the necessary information can, and should be, given to children from twelve to fifteen; but it is my positive belief that it should be done by the parents, or else by the use of carefully prepared printed matter. A short, modestly written pamphlet can tell all that is necessary. It can be placed in the hands of the child with instruction that it should beread and destroyed; also that the parent will give any further information required. I believe that oral instruction on these matters,to more than one child present at a time, is bad and harmful.

I feel deeply in the matter, for I feel that harm is being done when a strong, fine, racialtrait is being violated, in attempting a good work that can bebetterdone, in my opinion, when it is done in harmony with our best traditions.

Attempts at allegory, comparisons with plant life, and so on, are all best left aside. The child should be told what is right and what is wrong, and why. But it should not be told in company with others, and especially not in mixed audiences. The inbred reserve spoken of is too precious a possession to be thrown away, even in a good cause.

Something of the same purport may be said of the social evil now so freely discussed in the press and forming so large a part of the subjects written about in your issue of March 8. “Frankness” and “freedom” are excellent, but some things are too fine to be tarnished by careless use, and modesty is one of them.

Where we are getting to in this new movement to tear away the veil that has screened the family life of America can be seen in some of the new fiction. For instance, in Arnold Bennett’s Carlotta the hectic heroine thinks that truth demands that one should follow the dictates of animal instinct!

The logical result will be that morality, either ethical or religious, will be sent to the waste basket.

Joseph D. Holmes.

New York.

To the Editor:

In the March 8 issue ofThe Surveythere appeared an article by Paul Kennaday, entitled Big Business and Workmen’s Compensation. This article is full of inaccurate statements and should never, in justice to your readers, have been printed.

On page 809, in the first column, it is stated: “Seized upon with alacrity by reformers, fought at first at every step by the casualty insurance companies and employers, ‘elective’ acts are now cherished like a prodigal son,” etc. This statement is unqualifiedly untrue. Employers generally have been notoriously in favor of elective compensation laws. Of course, they have been far from unanimous, and their expert advisers have generally been in favor of compulsory laws, but anyone familiar with the attitude of employers in the movement for compensation can bear witness to the fact that the majority of employers have throughout entertained a preference for elective laws. On the other hand, the casualty insurance companies have not fought such laws, nor have they generally specifically favored them. There has been as much difference of opinion among the insurance men on this question as there has been among all other classes of people. But in general the representatives of the casualty insurance companies have favored any kind of a law which would substitute the liability for compensation in place of the liability for negligence.

Of course, the casualty insurance companies have objected to such elective compensation laws as the Ohio Act of 1911, for the reason that that act gave the state insurance office a monopoly of the compensation insurance. That left the casualty companies to deal with the old negligence liability with all its abuses and consequent unpopularity, while it gave them no opportunity to demonstrate their ability to administer compensation insurance better than the State Office and without the abuses incident to negligence insurance.

The statement on page 809 at the bottom of the first column and the top of the second, that the “club” features of the elective compensation law has a peculiar advantage from the casualty companies’ standpoint is also diametrically the opposite of the truth. What the casualty insurance companies most desire is that the compensation law shall be so framed as to induce all employers, or all large employers, pretty unanimously to adopt one course or the other; that is, en masse to elect the compensation features of the law, or, en masse to reject them. Otherwise the casualty companies have to do business under two different laws, providing for two different kinds of insurance, the consequent of which is to duplicate the work and a large part of the expenses of the insurance companies. They naturally do not want a law which will cause employers to jump back and forth from the compensation features to the negligence features and vice versa, and experiment, but rather one which will induce all to come permanently under the compensation features or to stay out permanently.

On page 809, in the second column, it is stated, referring to casualty companies: “With equal determination they stop, where they can, laws which give the employer no election, but compel him to insure.” That is a purely gratuitous misstatement of the facts. The casualty companies have not—whatever some few exceptional representatives of some companies may have done—tried to stop the enactment of compulsory compensation laws. They have, on the other hand, opposed the enactment of so-called compensation laws which would give a monopoly of the insurance business to political boards. In so doing they have adopted the natural attitude of protecting their own business; and have done no more than would the persons engaged in any other business if it were proposed to transfer their business to politicians.

On page 809 in the same column, it is stated: “Prospective annual profits in enormous amounts are at stake for the casualty insurance companies in this fight.” That statement is a pure figment of the imagination. The writer cannot point out anywhere on this earth where casualty insurance companies have made profits in enormous amounts. What is at stake for the casualty insurance companies is the total value of the machinery and good will of their business, which ill-advised enthusiasts, under the secret guidance of Socialist agitators, are trying to destroy. But more important, the employes of such companies have their bread and butter at stake; it being proposed to transfer their jobs to political appointees and to leave them out in the cold.

Lower down in the column it is stated that “casualty insurance companies are to be found advising, wherever workmen’s compensation is under discussion.” As a matter of fact, the casualty insurance companies have been very reluctant about advising except when called upon; but their actuaries have been in constant demand, and naturally should be, since they are about the only persons except the officials of the state insurance departments, who know anything about the business and the subject matter involved. The further statement that “At meetings of bar associations their attorneys have resolutions passed deprecating state insurance” is a gratuitous insult. No attorney for an insurance company would offer a resolution at a meeting of any bar association affecting the interests of his clients without stating that fact; and thereupon the resolution would be considered on its merits and would express the opinions of the members of the bar unaffected by the interests of the casualty insurance companies.

On page 810, in the first column, it is argued that no doubt big business and the insurance companies would be glad to see the pending constitutional amendment defeated. That is a pure assumption. Inasmuch as said amendment goes infinitely farther than authorizing a compensation law, and generally repeals the Bill of Rights in application to the relation of employer and employe, there may be many conservative opinions opposed to its enactment. But big business, the casualty insurance companies and a host of conservative people have been most active in the movement for an amendment permitting the enactment of a compensation law in this state in such form as the judgment of the legislature might decide, without any restrictions in the interests of any party.

On the same page, near the top of the second column, it is objected to the insurance committee’s compensation bill now pending in the Legislature that it leaves the function of fixing rates in the State Insurance Department. Why not! Is the objection to that provision that the Insurance Department, being already constituted and being composed of officials expert in the subject of insurance, will fix rates properly and not use state-administered insurance as a political weapon? Why create a new body to deal with the technical subjects with which the Insurance Department is qualified to deal?

Further down it is stated, sneeringly, that “three constitutional objections to one bill is good measure.” The objections are then stated. Now as a matter of fact three constitutional objections to one bill don’t amount to much unless these objections are valid. All the objections recited in this paragraph have been carefully considered and the overwhelming weight of opinion is that they are not valid.

It is then stated that a certain change in this bill from its earlier form has “in effect, turned the whole rich New York field over to the casualty companies.” And the reason for that conclusion is stated to be that the employers will do nothing until the casualty companies’ agents come to them, and will then do what the casualty insurance agents advise. That is nonsense. When the casualty insurance agents go to the employers under a law such as is proposed in this bill, they will go with a proposition involving an extremely large increase in rates. Employers throughout this state have been aroused over the subject of compensation and have studied the question of insurance sufficiently to turn out en masse against a proposition to give a state office the monopoly of insurance. Does it seem probable that when they are approached by the casualty insurance companies’ agents they will suddenly turn into fools and in effect submit to a monopoly by those companies? On the contrary, they will study the problem of mutual insurance very hard, and there will undoubtedly result many experiments in that line. Large establishments also will study out the problem of carrying their own insurance. It is also probable that a few employers may venture to experiment with state insurance. But the fact is, as the writer of this article knows, that no well informed and substantial employer will have anything to do with state insurance except as a last resource, or unless he is compelled.

Finally it is stated that no spokesman for the casualty insurance companies appears upon the field in New York. That is rather ridiculous. Officially, the two best informed persons upon casualty insurance in this state should be Mr. Hotchkiss, the former, and Mr. Emmet, the present, state insurance commissioner; and they both have spoken for, although not as the representatives of, the casualty companies of New York. At the same time, Frank E. Law, of the Fidelity and Casualty Company, and Edson S. Lott, of the United States Casualty Company, have made many addresses and published a considerable amount of literature on this subject. Naturally, the insurance companies have sought to avoid anything that would cause the false impression that any bill was in their particular interest. They have therefore rather confined themselves to opposing thoroughly bad measures than to advocating anything that they particularly desire or recommend.

The whole animus of this article is clearly betrayed in the opening words of the last paragraph, where the writer says, “while men are deliberately and openly planning the utter rout of the casualty companies....” Who are these men that are deliberately and openly planning the utter rout of the casualty companies? The writer is among them. They are those who seek to destroy private business in all its forms and to substitute state management and control in its place. Their activities in the present campaign have nothing to do with the particular merits or demerits of the compensation measures in question. Their whole attitude is false, in that they do not admit their motives, and besides wantonly misstate facts as to their adversaries.

F. Robertson Jones.

[Secretary-Treasurer Workmen’s Compensation Publicity Bureau.]New York.

[Secretary-Treasurer Workmen’s Compensation Publicity Bureau.]

New York.

MOTHERHOOD AND PENSIONS

To the Editor:

After all, the discussion of State Funds to Mothers has not left us breathless. Even after the clear statements of two opposing social points of view inThe Surveyof March 1, and the summing up by Dr. Devine it seems to me that there still remains another point of view—that of the mother.

Speeches in a Mother’s Congress do not always give the right idea of the mother’s point of view. One must make allowance for fervour. A speaker of charm and imagination will be quoted, but the great body of mothers are as calm and collected in thinking on this subject as on any other domestic problem which comes to them for solution. For there is no doubt that the women, and above all, the mothers, will have something to do and say about the solution of this problem.

I belong to the class of mothers who would not usually speak in public except for an accident. The accident was that I discovered a woman trying to do the impossible and found that society seemed organized to ignore her. She was not very good, but she was not bad. No one tried to help her to be better. They said they had been observing her, and that they were not satisfied. She was a widow of thirty-five with eight children under the working age. The conditions under which that woman was struggling were absolutely impossible and I broke the boycott. Since then I have been interested in mothers with minor dependent children.

It seems to me that taking away the children from a mother, is like taking away her life, for the connection is so close and subtle. Many a mother would prefer a quick and sudden death to that slow and living one. It is like giving capital punishment for a trivial offense. Sometimes the offense is unintentional. It may be poverty.

There is a certain temporary relief gained, when children have been entirely dependent on the mother, and she has had no bread to give them. At first, when the relieving officer takes the children and she knows that at night they will be snug and warm and in the morning dressed and fed, there is a great wave of thankfulness and relief. But soon the mother asks herself, “why could not I have warmed and fed and dressed them, since I could have done it for less?” Even the simplest mothers have heard the whisper now. In their desperate loneliness they are gathering, by tens and by thousands, to ask for the custody of their own children.

This social revolution may be like the French revolution, but it is surely not like the burning of witches, unless the witches are the ones that stand by the cradles of neglected childhood.

How carefully Miss Richmond, appealing to our judgment and sound sense, figures out the seemingly fabulous sums that might have been saved to fight tuberculosis and feeble-mindedness, from the sums wasted in soldiers pensions. But why, I ask, is the whole country spell-bound, helpless and hopeless at the prospect of the mounting pension ladder? If we admit that the granting of pensions to disabled soldiers was right, why attack the principle instead of the abuse of the practise? Surely that could be helped. If a thing can be proven to be wrong and illogical by mathematics, as Miss Richmond has proved it to be, then it can be solved by mathematics. There is a leak somewhere.

In the same way, if there are more children with their mothers, after a certain law has been passed, and at the same time more in the institutions, it shows, surely, that the attention of the community has been called to a lot of children unknown before or that someone has blundered in counting them. A new law does not produce a spontaneous crop of children, under the Juvenile Court limit. Where were those children? These are the things that a mother naturally asks. They say that the soldiers are dying out. But unless the risks and dangers and lack of independence of the life deter women in the future, there will always be mothers.

But will there always be poor mothers? Have we not begun a war on poverty?

Why is not the prevention and cure of poverty as wide and noble a field as the cure of tuberculosis? Are we not studying to eliminate it in the same way by destroying its breeding places, by rescuing the child, by no longer considering poverty as “the curse of God?” Poverty and tuberculosis and other dark shapes go hand in hand. Why is not the prevention of needless poverty also a constructive health measure?

And why, if we are to be so very careful and scientific about it, is the question of non-support always confused with that of the death of the wage-earner? The man cannot take his responsibilities with him into the next life, whatever we say, and the poor cannot carry adequate insurance till we copy England or Germany.

Let us have “more individualized, more skillful, more thorough treatment of the widely diversified causes of dependence” by all means. But let us not forget that the fact of bearing and rearing a child in itself creates a certain, if variable, state of dependence for a woman. No amount of learned reasoning can change the fundamental fact that while the child is coming into the world and is young the mother must forfeit a certain amount of her independence to care for the child. What I do not have patience with is the preaching of that good old-fashioned dogma “the mother’s best place is in the home.” Nothing can be more valuable to the state than the mother’s contribution, but the home has no safeguards other than those which the man, with his willing or unwilling hands can give her.

It is the preachers and the social workers, I have thought to myself many times who have waked our sleeping “social conscience.” It may be a good genie that is waked but it wants something to do, and will not be put off with promises.

Clara Cahill Park.

[Secretary of the Commission to Study the Question of Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers.]Wollaston, Mass.

[Secretary of the Commission to Study the Question of Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers.]

Wollaston, Mass.

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