COMMUNICATIONS

To the Editor:

I thoroughly disagree with Porter R. Lee’s appraisal of the report of the Massachusetts commission on the children of widows, and regret that the report will be seen by only a part of your readers.[4]

Mr. Lee holds the commission’s conclusions to be of little value because derived “in almost every case from inadequate data.” Yet he adds later: “The report of the commission gives us much that suggests the fact of our failure to provide adequately or helpfully for the families of widows, a fact of which we had already become conscious. What we need, however, is not so much evidence of the fact of failure as a clear understanding of why we have failed.”

It might be honest to state that some of our figures are inaccurate and yet not dishonest to recommend legislation. Wholly accurate figures were never expected and not needed. The heads of the leading charitable organizations met us in conference to determine a method of investigation. The schedule method was recommended. Before the schedules were printed they were approved by several of these persons. Criticism began to appear when it seemed likely that legislation would be recommended. In June the appropriation could still have been saved. It was not saved because useful results were expected.

How inaccurate are the results? Mr. Tilley is cited as saying that a re-examination of one hundred cases disclosed “facts ... totally at variance with the reports.” Half of these records we already had discredited. Some cases resulted in reports closely like our own, sometimes lower, sometimes higher. The re-examination was in December, months after the first study. How absurd it is to suppose that the results would not be different! Everybody knows that the earnings of the poor fluctuate. Usually the overseers of the poor give special aid in winter. A page of our report explains Mr. Tilley’s one hundred cases; he makes only a blanket statement.

But again, how inaccurate are the results? The recommendations of our Minimum Wage Commission were accepted when it showed that $6 or $7 a week was the typical sum earned by an adult woman with a family which had also an adult male worker. Many such women received charity in addition. All of our widows received charity. From charity and wages together, our figures showed that they typically received $6 or $7 a week when there was not also an adult male worker and when several children had to be supported. It is not possible that our figures were so far wrong that these families were better off than the former group. And if they were so far wrong—what an indictment that would be of the accounting of the public and private charitable officers of Massachusetts!

No, the figures do not err so far. Our charities constantly protest that they have insufficient funds. Before me lies a circular of the Associated Charities of a city of 100,000 people, which has many well-to-do persons and few recent foreigners. The resources “to meet the needs of families in distress are wholly inadequate, as is well known to all familiar with the conditions.... We still use existing resources to the utmost.... Still we fall far short of being able to meet the demands upon us. Must we allow widows with young children to be overburdened and underfed,” etc? Are such stories untrue? Of course not! Most communities in Massachusetts have a poorer population and a weaker organized charity for dealing with the problem.

But, further, our opponents suggest an alternative bill, providing for “adequate” aid for all mothers with dependent children. If existing relief is adequate, this bill is a sham. The only alternative is to regard these opponents as agreeing that existing relief is inadequate.

The Legislature that gave us $1,000 hardly expected a wealth of figures. Mr. Lee does not in other matters rely on figures, I am happy to observe. “During recent years,” he says, “our enlarging conceptions of social treatment [not our figures—they are impotent] have condemned utterly much of our supposedly efficient work in family and individual reconstruction.” And for widows he grants: “There is a widespread conviction of sin in this matter and an earnest searching for the remedy.”

Our analogy (with its implications) of widowhood through industrial accident and through disease, Mr. Lee mistakenly, I believe, regards as disproved by ourselves. For, he says, we reject the principle of payment by way of indemnity for loss. We reject it as a determining principle; another principle is more fundamental. Workmen’s compensation measures, like sickness and old-age insurance, spring fundamentally from a desire to establish or maintain the conditions of efficient living. Nobody attempts really to measure the loss through death by accident. It cannot be done.

But a man’s wages can be studied to learn his standard of living, and then an expedient degree of comfort provided. The Washington act does not even relate the award to the dead man’s wages. Usually the award increases with the number of children. German statutes have all had the comfort of the survivors in view. No abstract desire to compensate for loss would ever secure legislation if, as a consequence, the efficiency and comfort of the population were to decrease.

Not only is Mr. Lee anxious to find whether relief is now adequate or not, but he wants to know where the flaw in the service is. Both questions are answered by our information as to the policies of the child-helping and relief-giving agencies. He doubts whether child-helping agencies are “competent witnesses” tothe causes for the removal of children. Are they likely then to remove children for competent cause? Persons incompetent to discern the presence of factors that make non-removal desirable will scarcely remove for proper cause only. The letters of these agencies would repay reading.

What these letters say about local relief resources is more than borne out by the reports of policy contained in the letters from the overseers. Most widows are in their hands. Our schedules, further, show that actually $2 to $2.50 a week per family is usually given. None of our critics attack these statements. There is a problem and present agents do not cope with it.

Suppose we had sent into the field experts to find out whether relief is adequate. We should again face the issue of standards. Responsible persons have not accepted Mr. Carstens’ interpretation of the Chicago plan. One of the visitors of the State Board of Charity whom Mr. Tilley sent to verify records reported one case: “Widow for nine months. Four children, fourteen to seven years.... Complains of work being slack and has not had a full week’s wages for a long time.... Is terribly overworked; there seems to be nothing but skin and bone to her. The standing on her feet all day in the shop is what kills her....Could stand a little more aid until the combined earnings of herself and daughter show a little increase.” A little more aid! Just how much more will be differently fixed by different people. Most widows’ families in Massachusetts are not within sight of Mrs. More’s and Mr. Chapin’s standards.

The conclusion remains that the overseers and many child societies are not working well. We have a thousand overseers, elected for short terms, and receiving little or no pay. Often they serve also in other capacities and carry on private affairs. If ordered by an expert commission to make specified payments to widows fit to bring up their children they might apply the standard to other cases. The commission would select its widows. Mr. Lee wholly misrepresents our intention when he notes “incidentally that the cause of a husband’s death is not always a satisfactory test of a wife’s moral habits.”

Mr. Lee objects that we offer nothing for the children of disabled fathers, etc. If a third of the charity problem—widows—were to come under the care of a new commission, that commission would be able to work out its specialized technique. Later, we might know better what to do about desertion and other problems. Meanwhile existing charities, having a lighter load, could deal better with their remaining cases.

Then as to our use of the word “worthy.” It is old-fashioned, but convenient. No person works long in charities who acts on the notion that one person is actually as good as another—else it would be folly to try to make a person better! Mr. Lee supposes us to regard the children of the disabled and similar groups as “unworthy.” Where such an implication is even suggested I cannot discover.

In conclusion, I suppose that Mr. Lee and I differ fundamentally in our approval of a proposed method of dealing with widows, and that his criticism is derived from his point of view.

Robert F. Foerster.

[Chairman Massachusetts Commission on the Dependent Children of Widowed Mothers.]

Cambridge.

I have read Professor Foerster’s letter with much interest. His last sentence: “I suppose that Mr. Lee and I differ fundamentally in our approval of a proposed method of dealing with widows and that his criticism is derived from his point of view,” a clear-cut statement of the possible reason for my criticism of the Massachusetts report, is not wholly accurate. The agitation for widows’ pensions has caught so large a measure of popular support that we begin to think that every person must be for pensions, against pensions, or on the fence ready to jump to one side or the other. Such a choice of alternatives has little attraction for any one who approaches the question out of thoughtful experience with relief problems and the long struggle to procure for the widow and others who live in misery adequate reinforcements—reinforcements of income, health, recreation, education for children and decent living conditions.

Those who have been most concerned to do justice to the widow with children have seen most clearly the failure of our relief measures. The indictment which they have brought again and again has rehearsed the fact of our failure which is suggested anew by the Massachusetts report.

But an indictment is not a remedy. The evidence behind it is not even valid always in the search for a remedy. What we need to know now is why have public and private relief failed. Professor Foerster mentions several statements of mine which do not seem to him successful arguments against widows’ pensions. I am not arguing against widows’ pensions. I merely recognize many considerations growing out of ten years’ experience in social work which make me both dissatisfied with what we are doing and suggest the need for the most careful study before we can be sure of a remedy.

I realize that many people grow impatient when the question of widows’ pensions is related to the problem of relief. Perhaps the movement, as some people hope, will be the entering wedge of a system of state endowment of motherhood. We cannot wisely, however, begin experiments for the sake of their expected future value with a total disregard of their certain present effect. Widows’ pensions as projected by the commission would be in fact a relief problem. The responsibility of the public outdoor relief machinery for their administration as proposed by the commission’s bill would indicate this even if there were no other indications, which there are.

I have found the Massachusetts report of thegreatest interest, but in my judgment it does not justify widows’ pensions. The figures and the expressions of opinion secured from various agencies are significant. They are significant of the need for a deeper probe, however, not for an extension of an unsatisfactory system of relief. A recommendation that this deeper probe be undertaken is the one recommendation to which it logically leads.

It is because states which regard Massachusetts precedents with respect are likely to consider this report as the long-needed scientific and comprehensive study of the status of outdoor relief that I have tried to estimate it from this point of view.

The commonwealth of Massachusetts gave Professor Foerster and his associates on the commission a tremendously difficult task and gave them hopelessly inadequate facilities with which to perform it. Under the circumstances, perhaps none of us could have done any better. But Massachusetts should have done better.

Porter R. Lee.

[Contributing Editor Family Rehabilitation.]

New York.

(From a personal letter to the editors of The Survey published with permission of the author.)

To the Editor:

Allow me to say that I absolutely endorse the article in a recent issue by Paul Kennaday entitled Big Business and Workmen’s Compensation.[5]I have been acting for the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, a body corresponding to your National Association of Manufacturers, but more highly organized and representing a much larger proportion of its constituency than the American body. In fact, we represent about 85 per cent of all the manufacturers of Canada. I say this to indicate the probability that the Canadian body would not adopt any policy without the most careful consideration and investigation. This body has adopted the same view as that expressed in the article and is devoting a large amount of energy and considerable money promoting a workmen’s compensation system of the type of the Washington system.

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that such a system is the only satisfactory solution ultimate or even temporary to the problem. This view is of course opposed by the liability insurance interests who are conducting a carefully planned and well financed campaign against “state insurance.”

Time and again we have had to deal with the representatives of these insurance interests in connection with the investigation in Ontario preliminary to the drafting of a Workmen’s Compensation Act for that province, and I am glad to state that, generally speaking, the motives and arguments (perfectly legitimate perhaps) of the insurance interests are understood and rated at their proper value. I think I have a pretty broad view of the situation in the United States and I am sorry to say that the true position of affairs does not appear to be generally appreciated by either the politicians or the leaders of labor and industry. I should think it might well be one of the functions ofThe Surveyto open up this matter.

F. W. Wegenast.

[Counsel Canadian Manufacturers’ Association.]

Toronto.

To the Editor:

In his letter toThe Surveyon the subject of fixing wages by law, James Deegan says: “The report of the United States Bureau of Commerce and Labor for 1910 states how labor received only 20 per cent of the value of the product which it served to create.”

Considering carefully this rather surprising statement, I came to the conclusion that the writer referred to the report of the Census Bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor, presenting the results of the manufacturers census of 1910. To be sure, this report does not make any such statement as that which Mr. Deegan attributes to it nor could the statement be properly based upon the statistics which it publishes. On the contrary, the census figures conclusively disprove this statement, showing it to be a gross perversion of the facts.

It is true that the total value of products reported by the census of manufacturing industries was a little over $20,000,000,000, while the amount paid out for wages and salaries was a trifle over $4,000,000,000, so that the latter amount was about 20 per cent of the former.

If Mr. Deegan had stated that the amount paid to labor employed in manufacturing industries represented 20 per cent of the total value of the products turned out by these industries, the statement would have been formally accurate, although it probably would be misleading even then. The statement is, however, that labor received only 20 per cent of the value of the product which it served to create.

Even with a superficial knowledge of economics and industrial processes one ought to perceive that the laborers employed in manufacturing industries by no means create the full value of the products which these industries place upon the market. The laborer in the factory does not create the raw material which the factory uses; labor on the farm, in the mine or in the forest entered into that.

Now the report of the census shows that while the value of the product produced by the manufacturing industries of the United States was $20,700,000,000, the cost of the materials consumed in the manufacture of these products was $12,200,000,000 and that the value of the products, less cost of materials, was therefore about $8,500,000,000. The value created by the laborers employed in these industries could not possibly exceed this sum and would be considerably less than this if any allowance were made for wear and tear or depreciation of plant and machinery or fuel consumed or for other expenses which enter into the value of the final product.

If, however, we credit laborers with having produced the full value represented by the differencebetween the cost of materials and the final value of products it follows that the $4,000,000,000 which they received represented not 20 per cent but about 50 per cent of the value which they created.

If we deduct from the final value not only the materials purchased but also the miscellaneous expenses reported by the census, none of which represent values created in these industries, the proportion received by the laborers advances to about 65 per cent. And still no allowance is made for replacement of capital.

Mr. Deegan’s proposition for regulating wages proposes to award the laborers a minimum of 33⅓ per cent. It is evident that they are much better off than this under the present regime and without any state regulation of wages.

Mr. Deegan further states that the report referred to “also shows that after all expenses and charges are levied, there still remains over $2,000,000,000 surplus to be divided as profits among the employers.” It is true that after deducting from the value of the products reported by the census, the aggregate of all reported expenses, the remainder is a little over $2,000,000,000; but the census report is careful to point out that this difference can not be regarded as representing profits for the simple reason that the expenses reported by the census did not include all the expenses incidental to the process of manufacture. Among the expenses left out of account is the important item of depreciation.

If Mr. Deegan had consulted the census report itself, such statements as he made would be reprehensible as well as inexcusable; but I presume that he got his information at second hand from some newspaper paragraph or article originating no one knows how or where.

ButThe Survey, however, ought not to be made the agency for the further promulgation of such misinformation. It might be said, perhaps, that such gross misstatements do not deceive thinking and well-informed people; but even well-informed people do not always know the facts which refute such statements; and thinking people do not have time to think about everything.

More than that it seems to me that some consideration should be shown for the unthinking people that they may not be deceived or misled.

Some of them have a vote.

Joseph A. Hill.

[Bureau of the Census.]

Washington.

FOOTNOTES:[4]The report is for free distribution and may be had by writing to the Commission to Study the Question of the Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers, State House, Boston, Mass.[5]SeeThe Surveyfor March 8, page 809.

[4]The report is for free distribution and may be had by writing to the Commission to Study the Question of the Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers, State House, Boston, Mass.

[5]SeeThe Surveyfor March 8, page 809.

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