Various

“ Thus, in humility of heart, we pray for justice to our overstrained and blighted brothers who never catch up, who grind their lives into sieves of despair and deficit, each grist the harder because there is less of life to spare. Think upon the handicapped in body and in soul, for whose backwardness we are jointly responsible through our inefficiency. May we give them health and leisure and knowledge and so joy and inspiration so that, restored to themselves, they may in free good will repay them a hundredfold, in deeds of brotherly gratitude and justice to others, for thy sake. ”

“ Without a spirit of progressiveness, without co-operation between the officers and members of organizations, without harmony and co-operation between yourself and your superintendents, foremen and workers, it is useless to attempt a campaign for safety. We manufacturers of the United States of America have a reputation for ability, energy and initiative all over the world, and we cannot, we must not, fail to make good. ”

“ In 1910, when the last Census of Manufactures was taken, there were over 1,500,000 of these girls and women—factory workers in the United States.
In a large city at nightfall, when the lamps are lighted, have you ever observed the streams of girls flowing into the streets from the offices and great department stores? Again at night, have you seen the girls, waiting at the entrances of tenement houses or on the street corners for their “gentleman friends” who are to emancipate them for a few hours from their cramped and dingy environment? ”

“ The church must be a great, perennial fountain of spiritual and moral energy to the whole people in all the avenues of human interests. She must realize her obligation to champion the cause of the oppressed, whatever the cause and whoever the oppressor, whether in her fold or out of it. She must watch to prevent the rich from grinding the faces of the poor. She must when necessary provide for every legitimate desire of the people. If politics are corrupt, then she must enter aggressively into the field of politics, only for purity and not for party. ”

“ The most effective of all agencies in breaking down the strongholds of vice and in building up the national character is the church. For some reason unknown and unfathomable, some of my associates in this beneficent work who don’t go to church fight shy of discussing any enlistment of the churches everywhere. Not a few who have never had any personal interests in the church even stand ready to declare, with a distinguished head of our public libraries, that the church represents the largest outlay of capital for the smallest return in interest the world has ever seen. ”

“ But it takes no Socialist to understand that, if a family man’s expenses are $900 a year, and that working to the best of his ability he can earn only $700 to $800, and that if it costs a girl $8 a week to live, and she cannot earn that much, there must be discontent. It is time for the community to regulate such conditions.
The question of wages is so closely allied to the question of housing that a study of the latter involves some knowledge of the former. Cost of living and standard of living must be approached from a fact basis. ”

“ Back of the police incidents and the spreading of the revolutionary doctrines of the Industrial Socialists is a profound economic change involved in the introduction of the four loom system. This is not merely the substitution of machines for skilled men due to invention, but the supplanting of high-grade textile manufacture by low-grade output because of the greater profits in the cheap goods. It is as if a vineyard were giving way to a hay farm—a change which seriously affects the working population of Paterson. ”

“ A PRAYER FOR EFFICIENCY O God, as to an earthly father, we bring thee each our yearning confession of failure to realize to the full the powers thou hast given us as laborers in thy kingdom on earth. May we learn through this, our mutual prayer, to be charitable to one another’s shortcoming. Teach us, by love if it may be, by bitter rebellion, if it must be, that our prayer may be answered only as we are firm to lend a hand in mutual aid and sympathy to the less fortunate. Let each in strength supply his neighbors’ weakness, and build up in him the efficiency which is his birthright. ”

“ The specializing of industry and new machinery have made farmers independent of their neighbors. The community uses of the public school have fallen away.
The last few years have seen a rapid advance in the principles of Democracy through the initiative, referendum and recall, the presidential primaries and other measures; but the fundamental unit is still unorganized. The feet are still of miry clay. To secure the democratic control of the community or district is the greatest problem of our democracy. ”

“ What greater satisfaction could an engineer ask? And what may it not mean to the industrial world of tomorrow, as hundreds and hundreds of engineering and other students graduate from college with a new vision of their service opportunities, and a knowledge of how to help. In one college town through the entire winter, the son of a railway magnate, who has 25,000 men under him, taught a group of foreign laborers in one of the worst districts of the city. ”

“ Politics in our cities have been corrupt, because there have been no meetings of the community to discuss community affairs. The individual has often been reckless in conduct, because he was not acquainted in the section in which he lived and consequently had no social accountability to public opinion. Foreigners have come among us and drifted in and out of the city slum, bearing with them their racial antipathies to each other, and casting no anchor in the locality because at no time have they become a real part of a community. ”

“ He would learn that he was looking at one of the few experiments yet contrived for picking the right man for the right job. He might even be told that this was one of the wee beginnings of a new science which, by systematically placing the psychological experiment at the service of education and industry, may some day prevent the tragic waste of misfit starts in life and go far toward solving the problem of vocational guidance for the schools. ”

“ During the Middle Ages the synagogue was the heart of the secular as well as of the religious life of the community; it was a social center as well as a house of prayer. There the poor man found succor, the stranger acquaintances, the children their teachers, and the young people “their fates.” It would be almost impossible to list all the private and public interests which, clustering about the synagogue, bore witness to the vital part this institution played in medieval Jewish life. ”

“ The Railroad Trainman, organ of the brotherhood says:
“Today our men are asking for legislation that is no more of a departure from the beaten path than the safety device legislation of twenty years ago was. They have tried to regulate the car limit of trains and the number of men to be employed on them through their contracts. They have failed in the first instance altogether and for the most part in the other. They realize that, operated as trains are, freight train service is often performed under unsafe conditions. Two men for an unlimited number of cars is the rule for the most part. ”

“ Thus, quietly but rapidly, without undue advertising has been advancing a great movement, broad in scope, submerging creed and class in altruistic service; deep in influence, reaching to the very heart of many vital industrial problems of the day. ”

“ No human being can tell any other human being what he or she “should say” to a third person on any subject at any given time. Each of us has to give of his knowledge which is fed by his experience and modified by his temperament. We give this knowledge (if we are wise) to whomsoever happens to need it in such language as shall appeal to his knowledge, apply to his experience and adapt itself to his temperament. We can not learn how to do that at any lecture or set of lectures, and just as long as we expect it on this or any other subject, we are sure to be disappointed. ”

“ The National Association of Manufacturers, in its work for compensation and prevention of industrial accidents, started out with the theory that the first essential requirement to the furtherance of equitable conditions is a knowledge of the facts—all the facts, for half knowledge leads to wrong conclusions. ”

“ What, then, is the specific program for the church? First, of all, she must not abate but rather increase her dependence upon God. She must never yield to temptation to abandon the one really valuable quality she possesses by relegating to the background the living fountains of inspiration she holds in God’s word, for a mere mundane horizontal social Gospel which makes a religion of the human activities which are but its appropriate outward expression. First a glance upward, then outward to God for the life, and to the human arena for the sphere in which the life must be manifested. ”

“ Let me say in conclusion that I do not share the prevailing pessimism as to the industrial outlook in the United States. I repeat that there has been an awakening in recent years. Social legislation has made rapid progress. We need to maintain and increase our attention to these matters. Employer, employe and the public need to get closer together and this can be best brought about by a thorough knowledge of industrial conditions and publicity without fear or favor to any class. ”

“ Almost every bearing of the menace on family and social life is brought out in a way well calculated to meet prejudice due to indifference, ignorance or tradition, and to create a conviction that here is a scourge to be conquered by publicity. ”

“ The great importance of a right knowledge of sex is borne in upon social workers daily, often hourly, on account of the many people they meet whose lives are exposed to dangers which with either wrong or incomplete knowledge they are not fitted to meet safely. It is frequently the duty of the social worker either to supply the knowledge or help in the situation brought about by lack of it. Often they feel unequal to the task and become morbid over the sorrows brought about by ignorance and their own inability to help matters. ”

“ Theoretically, of course, the best, being the most human, is above no one’s head. But even practically, no genuine heterogeneous crowd of “street-bred people” trails from the dark places on a hot night—carrying or wheeling babies, with small children tugging at the skirts or clamoring to be carried—to hear such things as are above its head. ”

“ Every European nation has a number of such safety museums where can be found on exhibition safety devices for the protection of working men in every field, not only for accident but for sickness. A national safety museum in Washington would materially stimulate the safety movement and it would be a fitting monument to the spirit of the times. ”

“ They alone can guarantee perpetuity of effort.
“In utilizing the church, the minister must be the organizer and leader of his people. A new relationship between pastor and layman will ensue, and laymen, once drawn into a local work, will soon branch out into all forms of civic work for the weal of the community. Again, the churches possess the community buildings so much needed. The only other similar institution capable of a similar co-operation on a large scale is the public school which, while valuable and necessary in this movement, has not the independence and lacks the great inspiration. ”

“ For the young girl in a strange city, earning moderate wages, no manner of life is so capable of approaching that of the home as the organized boarding house. Scattered throughout the United States are a number of these houses, but the supply can in no way approach the demand. In many cases they are too expensive for the poorer girl to afford. Few of these houses aim to be self-supporting, which fact also deters many self-respecting girls. The girl rightfully wishes to be a customer at the boarding house, and not an object of charity. ”

“ In the first place, young people know very little about themselves and their abilities. When the day comes on which they discover their real strong points and their weaknesses, it is often too late. They have usually been drawn into the current of a particular vocation, and have given too much energy to the preparation for a specific achievement to change the whole life-plan once more. The entire scheme of education gives to the individual little chance to find himself. ”

“ It must be solved by bringing his or her own experience of life, plus specific knowledge, plus sympathy, plus common sense, to bear on each problem and so to adapt it to the understanding of the person in question that it will help the existing need. ”

“ Its neglect is simply a matter of ignorance, rather than indifference, on the part of many men who regularly pay their opera and symphony subscriptions, and who have watched with interest the efforts of several organizations to bring the price of concert tickets down to a low figure. But this philanthropic effort does not strike at the root of the matter. Ideally, music should not have to be offered to the people as a commodity, nor as a charity, nor, primarily, as an education. ”

“ Seeing how easy it is for them to get plenty to eat, pretty clothes to wear, and to have “good times,” what temptations are placed in the way of such girls living in houses with immoral women!
While a landlady may prove to be a girl’s best friend, giving her advice, trusting her when she is unable to pay, even lending her money, in the majority of cases the girl has no supervision at all. With the exception of houses in Philadelphia, where the wage earner’s standard of respectability demands a sitting room, few houses can afford to have one. ”

“ The whole family—men, women, and children—are engaged in the same industry in which every other family in their community is engaged. They have their own churches and their own schools, in many cases furnished by the mill owners. They live, with few exceptions, in houses owned by the mill company. They buy their provisions, in many cases, from the company store. The cotton mill is the center of their lives. Their present and their future are bounded by it. In less isolated industrial communities there is always the prospect of working into some other and higher industrial 110group. ”