“ As the people in brave and solemn silence moved out of the shattered and fire-swept centers of the city, relief societies were being formed within the city itself and in suburban towns, and citizens of places as distant as Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, hurried from the south and the north to distribute money and supplies. ”

“ What sum of money, in San Francisco, constituted an adequate monthly sum for the support of a needy family? If a semi-dependent, how much should have been spent before it could be proven whether the power of self-support was latent or was lacking? No one knew, as the community’s best practice furnished no guide. The Rehabilitation Committee and the Associated Charities acted on the general principle of granting such pensions as they felt they could afford. ”

“ 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 dual risk of giving to the sham refugee and of carrying the man who could help himself and who was inclined to lean on relief could only be avoided by careful investigation and treatment, even though both raged at the refusals of an “unjust” committee. The final argument is that no relief should be so generous as to dry up the normal sources of aid in a community. That aid is wisest which rouses all the neighborhood and civic sources of help into effective action. ”

“ Such conflict between the conceptions of the relief task was as inevitable as was the demand for relief itself, and furnished probably the amount of friction necessary to wear a deep bed along which later moved a great stream of rehabilitation. The story of the first efforts to form a compact, working relief body falls almost into dramatic form. The voice of authority one day is the civic servant’s, another day the people’s, a third the military commander’s, a fourth the expert charity worker’s. ”

“ Funds of generous proportions, capable army officers, the reorganized Red Cross, and an exceptional group of keen and broad-minded San Francisco business men,—the last a group which knew its own mind but was willing to take the advice and accept the assistance of experienced social workers,—constituted a force permeated by the spirit of modern philanthropy which wrought out the first large undertaking in rehabilitation in the United States. ”

“ One result of the disaster and of the use of the relief funds is the notably increased efficiency in relief work in San Francisco. Out of the widespread experience born of and bred by facing a large and varied round of relief problems, comes the first gain. While it is incorrect to say that San Francisco had no poverty in the days before the fire, it is true that the mass of those seeking aid were dependents because of unemployment and ill health, both due in many cases to ignorance or to vicious practices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only after the abortive effort to make political capital out of positions of relief administration had fallen flat could the work itself get into its steady swing. The lessons are clearly written, however, that there must of necessity be in any great sudden emergency the creation of public confidence in the administration of the relief, and that along with a force of persons trained from within and without to act quickly and with definiteness must be the voluntary services of men and women on whom the community itself has learned to rely. ”

“ It is not to be expected of those who have [204] done business on a cash basis all their lives, that, when the passing years have done their work of lessening initiative, they should cheerfully and confidently assume a burden of debt. It would seem to be the duty of a relief committee to recognize the handicap on those trying to earn their living through business who never possessed the initiative of the typical business man, have been robbed of it by age or ill health, or have been made conservative by domestic responsibilities. ”

“ The age of possible rehabilitation is 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. ”

“ The plan to aid applicants with small grants and loans was undoubtedly well conceived and effectively worked out. The machinery installed by the housing committee enabled it to reach the class of people whom it was most anxious to help, also to weed out a large number that it was thought unwise to aid. The great merit of the grant and loan policy was that it stimulated a large number to purchase lots and erect homes of their own who otherwise would probably never have seriously considered the possibility. ”

“ As conditions in San Francisco approach more and more nearly what they were before the fire, [158] it is to be hoped that the families can better see how to adjust their efforts so that business will yield at least a fair living. The details of many of these long-continued struggles of adjustment are striking, not to say dramatic, and it is to be regretted that the following pages must deal rather with the general features of the contest and, for sake of compactness, omit much that would serve to clothe the dry bones of statistics with living flesh. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is undeniable that the records show a certain number of persons to have been refused aid who seemed as entitled to help as some who by influence or persistence got at least a minimum. “Influence” is used with no invidious intention. In San Francisco as in every other community a certain number of wholly disinterested persons bear an enormous share of the burden of the charity work. When these asked aid for a case and gave their word that it was deserved, it was difficult, often impossible, to deny the aid. ”

“ The good social service work done by the employment agent in showing women in what way they could best serve the real welfare of their children and in bringing them in touch with the public and private sources of relief is an interesting and suggestive story, but it is not one that belongs to this Relief Survey, except in so far as it shows that the Associated Charities itself was enabled to do better work for its people after having passed through the ordeal of the rehabilitation work than before the disaster. ”

“ The problem of destitution involved in the care of this type of cases does not stimulate a worker to any such broad and aggressive social policies as those which he must meet when handling the cases of capable and nearly self-directing people whom circumstances alone, loss of occupation, insanitary conditions, new situations, force to seek aid and guidance. Add to this fact of greater experience, that the relief funds enabled the work to be carried by a staff of visitors more nearly adequate than before the fire to meet the demand for investigation and treatment. ”

“ From the point of view of the Associated Charities, all persons applying for aid from June, 1907, to June, 1909, had an equal claim on its funds. Its power of realizing this aim of impartially meeting the needs of the applicants has been limited by the fact that as a society it was known by the public at large, as well as by the direct and indirect sufferers from the disaster, by their relatives, and by their friends, to be acting as the financial agent of a corporation that continued to have large sums of money to disburse. ”

“ The rigid standards of the best charity organization societies are none too rigid, when one realizes that while such a society may deal within a year with from 2000 to 6000 families, a committee such as the Rehabilitation Committee might have to deal with over 25,000. Another most important consideration is the need of impressing workers with an appreciation of the value of records and of the call for absolute accuracy. It should be realized that care with records does not mean red tape or loss of time, but added efficiency. ”

“ When the everyday citizen sets out to peddle, he must have a horse, a place to keep him, hay to feed him while he lives, and money enough to make a payment down on another if he dies. If the business is to be in a shop, it must be fairly well located, and decently equipped with fixtures and stock. He can go into debt for fixtures, but as a rule he can get little credit for stock, especially if it is a mixed stock, like that of a notion store, or perishable stock, such as food stuff. ”

“ The man elected, by a vote of six to four, was a politician with no previous experience in the relief work. A scrutiny of the records shows on the part of these local members of the Executive Commission no indication of effort to use their positions to further political ends, and one of the two returned to the Finance Committee the salary of $500 to which he was entitled as a member of the Commission. There is no record of lack of harmony, merely the indication of an ineptitude on their part to meet the needs of the distressed community. ”

“ Four or five thousand workingmen were said to be anxiously waiting to make use of a liberal offer to re-establish their homes on their own lots in the burned area. The number was over-estimated, for only 885 bonuses were granted, many to persons who owned their own business and were not workingmen on a daily wage. If such a large number ever made application for the bonus, they either did not possess sufficient savings or enjoy an income large enough to avail themselves of the Corporation’s offer. Capitalists were also anxious for rebuilding to begin as rapidly as possible ”

“ The applicants who had owned no property, possessed no savings, and whose standard of living was low, could offer little, if any, guarantee of a wise use of funds. Had a body of expert social workers been engaged to study each family individually and to plan its future home, superintending the purchase of a lot and the construction of a house,—in fact, teaching each to be a good householder,—a more liberal housing allowance could have been safely granted. ”

“ We believe that the erection of a special pavilion would be more economical and that it has the indirect advantage of enabling the city to secure an attractive modern public home for aged and infirm persons. The plan suggested, supplemented by the policy now in force of caring for the indigent sick in hospitals and the ordinary operation of the established charitable agencies of the city, will, it is believed, adequately and humanely shelter those who are actually destitute, and who, from lack of any earning capacity, must remain entirely dependent upon public relief. ”

“ It can never be reckoned what it meant to the devastated city that its own people as a welded body should have manifested under the shock of the great disaster that quality of the hero which lifts him, the psychic man, above the physical and leaves him freed from himself to be spiritually at one with his community. A witness who lives in Berkeley came to the city early on the morning of the earthquake and spent that and the following day in the thick of the refugees. ”

“ Nowhere along the fire lines was to be seen the least sign of panic. Women and children without a tear and with scarcely a murmur trudged weary miles, carrying handfuls of possessions, or stood silent to watch their homes destroyed. ”

“ Where competition is close it makes a very great difference whether the equipment is owned outright or whether considerable monthly cash instalments must be paid. It is true that in ordinary times clever persons can fit up rooming houses and rent all the rooms [201] at a fair profit. But ordinarily the small house at best offers a woman nothing more than an opportunity to be her own employer at very moderate wages; her fate depending, at each recurring crisis, on a cash reserve sufficient to carry her over a dull period, or to enable her to win in an endurance test with a nearby competitor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No specific data as to income are offered, because after some brief experimentation a study of income seemed futile. A person applying for aid may understate his income because he is humanly open to the temptation of trying to make as good a case for himself as possible, or may overstate it because he does not take into account the amount of irregularity to which he as a weekly or daily wage-earner is subject. In about 3000 of the cases in which income data were available for study, the potential earning power could have been in every case safely estimated by the occupations. ”

“ During the hours of urgent need men donated their goods, workmen gave their labor, and professional men, their services, who when later they saw the size of the relief funds could not resist the insidious craving to have a share of the big whole. There is the instance of men belonging to one of the building trades who did work for which they expected no pay but later were not satisfied to take the $4.00 a day offered as payment by the Finance Committee. ”

“ The effect on family life of the presence of drunken husbands is a monotonous tale, but it is cheering now and then to hear of a decent wife rescued from her fate. A drunken old peddler and his old wife recovering from illness were granted $100 for furniture and clothing. Before they left Ingleside the camp commander urged that the woman be sent to her relatives in Pennsylvania “to escape the brutality of her husband.” Upon the relatives agreeing to care for her, transportation and $50 were given to carry her to them. The peddler drifted to the Relief Home. ”

“ Another man, whose little store had been wrecked by the earthquake, he himself injured, and his wife and one child killed, was sent to his sister in Chicago, his other children having been provided for by a charitable organization. A woman suffering from cancer was taken to her sister in Brooklyn by a nurse who was also being assisted to reach her destination. It was not uncommon in the earlier days to find a woman so nervous that her physical condition was a menace to the prospects of her family. One such woman would not allow her husband to do any regular work ”

“ The wife, who kept a rooming house at first successfully but after his death less so, applied to the Associated Charities in 1908 for more aid. The visitor, who refused assistance because the woman still had money from the husband’s life insurance, made the note: “The woman is a fraud and a fortune teller, but ill and pathetic.” Two families of this group, although chronic charity cases before the disaster, were helped to buy small amounts of clothing and furniture and in one case a seventy-five dollar wooden leg. The surviving partners, as might be expected, are now in the Relief Home. ”

“ It is of course of fundamental importance that the relief [297] agent should know the total income of the families or individuals applying for aid. Only by learning what the income actually or approximately is can treatment be made to fit actual need. The record hurriedly written under pressure of work may fail to reveal the facts used by the investigator in determining treatment. The record may not, therefore, show the actual sum of knowledge held and used as the basis for treatment. The record, on the other hand, may be no more meager than was the investigation that it records. ”

“ The re-opened transportation cases are mainly those of persons who could not adapt themselves to life in other communities, and who returned to San Francisco and were given household furniture or business rehabilitation. Housing was a form of aid offered principally to self-supporting families; hence those whose first grant was for housing were usually wage-earners whose income sufficed not only to furnish the house, but to pay part of the expenses of building it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such business does not from the start necessarily include shelter for the family as is the case with a rooming house. It is often many months before the net income is sufficient adequately to support more than one person.
So much for the average citizen, starting business on his own capital, or given a lump sum by a relief committee and left, without supervision, to run the risk of making costly if not irretrievable mistakes. ”

“ We have become impatient of philanthropic endeavors that do not promise permanently to better conditions. In the field of relief we are discounting mere almsgiving and are fighting for constructive treatment and permanent betterment, which often involve larger relief expenditures. In serious disasters, from the Chicago fire to the San Francisco earthquake and conflagration, this spirit has more and more characterized the relief work. ”

“ Among the different fields of activity, housing stands distinctive as being the most highly specialized. On the other hand, business rehabilitation and general relief were so generally cared for by the first four committees that all of them might well claim joint tenancy of these fields.
During October the policy had been adopted of making no further grants to able-bodied single people, [120] to heads of families capable of supporting those dependent on them, or to applicants to start in a business that called for a special license or that had to be put under special police supervision. ”

“ INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP 1. HISTORY OF ITS ESTABLISHMENT Owing to the general confusion in the city, the emergency character of the relief, and the constant shifting and changing of the homeless population immediately after the earthquake and fire, the first grouping of the refugee camps was entirely accidental. No classification by age, condition, or special need was possible. But among the first naturally to be differentiated were the aged and the infirm, who must be cared for until friends or relatives could assume their support. ”

“ There are no such striking cases of retrenchment in business rent as appeared when families gave up housekeeping and went to board. Unless a man could resume business on a scale corresponding in some degree with the scale on which he had done business [182] before the fire, he often became a wage-earner. Where he did drop from a relatively high to a relatively low rent, his business usually suffered a corresponding decline. Many people evidently failed to secure advantageous locations, and though their actual rent was less than it had been, it was harder to meet. ”

“ Your attention is particularly called to the fact that a certain number of such persons could be given temporary employment by the Red Cross organization if the present guards and camp administrations of the Army were withdrawn. In short, the officers and men of the Army are now performing duties and rendering services which should be performed and rendered by the destitute men in San Francisco. I submit to your Committee whether it is advisable to favor a policy which thus discriminates against civilian labor because the work of the Army is done without expense to the Red Cross Funds. ”

“ A thousand and one special considerations and facts entered to make a classification of this group of cases a call for a digest of each case. Such a digest is not practicable in this limited Relief Survey. If made, it would be an index of the individualizing work done by the Rehabilitation Committee. It may be safely said that the Committee rarely erred on the side of generosity. The immediate lesson to be learned is that the presence or absence of resources is only a factor in rehabilitation. No generalizing policy of grants and refusals can be built upon it. ”

“ Not exceeding $500,000 will be used in making loans to those—whether owners or tenants—whose places of residence in San Francisco were burned in the fire, such loans to be used in building new dwellings anywhere in San Francisco on a lot owned by the person to whom such loan is made, such loan to equal one-third of the cost of the building, not, however, to exceed in any case $1,000, and no more than one loan is to be made to any one person or family. ”