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class of persons whom I call philanthropists, I ought perhaps to define the class to which I refer. By philanthropists, in this article, I mean all persons who have devoted themselves in any systematic way to charitable or educational work, with the exception of those engaged in the work of education in the narrower sense. What I have to say applies more especially to those whose work, whether paid or unpaid, has made them familiar with the conditions under which the poorer members of the community live, those who know what their family life is, and who in their attempts to help people in distress have become familiar with the forces that are pushing them down and know something of the forces that are capable of giving them lasting help. I am speaking, more especially, that is to say, of people who, like the second passer-by in the parable which I have quoted, have come actually into contact with the difficulties that stand in the way of the unfortunate, and who, by running hard and frequently against these difficulties, know in a lively and feeling manner just what they are. Such a basis of experience is a safe foundation for the attainment of further knowledge, for special investigations into the exact nature of some of the causes of poverty and of lawbreaking, and into the question of remedies and antidotes. But when the knowledge which the philanthropist has gained by his own. experience is insufficient to guide him safely in the search for remedies, the question of finding a remedy is, nevertheless, still within his province as a person desiring to do systematic work and to make that work as effective as possible for the welfare of his fellowman. Where his own knowledge is insufficient, he should call in the professional men who have the special knowledge which he lacks. The position of the unpaid leaders of philanthropic enterprises is much like that of the directors in a business corporation. The best directors of railroads are not necessarily experts on the

building or management of cars or locomotives; they are men who know. how to employ experts and to combine their knowledge so as to produce results of which the experts themselves would have been entirely incapable.

Few of our philanthropists as yet realize their responsibility in the direction I have indicated. Few

probably are as yet ready to admit that such responsibilities exist, that the guidance of social legislation is any special business of theirs. Not but what there have been beginnings. Already, in many of our cities, those who have seen boys arrested and given their first lesson in a regular course of criminal instruction for the offence of playing ball in the street, have bethought them of the public gymnasium, of public playgrounds and open spaces, and have made a beginning of seeing that these things are provided; those also who have traced a muddy stream of disease and degradation to its source in the dark back room of the tenement house, have, in many instances, supported the remedial action of boards. of health, so that a few of the worst nuisances of this sort have been abated, and have secured such amendment to building laws that the indefinite repetition of some of the very worst forms of construction has been in some places prohibited. These and similar cases in which modern philanthropy has turned to legislative and other action on the part of the community for the attainment of its objects are certainly full of significance as to what is to be in the future. Springing up sporadically and without concert in different parts of the country, promoted by practical people, who by personal experience have been made to feel a pressing need, and who have been forced, rather in spite of their theories, to find the effective remedy, they show the logic of the facts and are sure indications of the trend of future activity. But, valuable as these instances are as showing

what can and ought to be done, they are insignificant when compared with the needs of the situation. They serve rather as a signboard showing us the direction in which we are to travel than as substantial advance along that road.

What deters our philanthropists from taking a more aggressive course is not a lack either of interest or of information. The trouble is not that they lack knowledge, nor that they lack zeal, but that they have not learned to apply their zeal and their knowledge in the direction of public affairs. In private enterprises for the good of the community or of individuals, there seems no limit to the amount of work that they are ready to do; in the matter of public action alone, and especially as regards legislation, they seem to be affected by a sort of aphasia or legislative paralysis, which prevents them from applying to any subject where the making or enforcement of a law is concerned the same intelligence or the same energy which they apply to other mat

ters.

The reason of this lack of effectiveness in the matter of legislative or other public action is partly in a lack of realization of the possibilities that lie in this direction, in a failure to appreciate the services such action might be made to perform in the way of the prevention of crime and pauperism, and in a still more general failure to appreciate the opportunities that lie before us, not merely for the prevention of evil, but for the building up of positive good. I believe that in a few years the greatness of the opportunity and the almost pitifully narrow extent to which we have as yet availed ourselves of it will have become apparent to all. If the possible effectiveness of preventive and progressive legislation could be once really brought home to us, if we could see in the warm coloring of real life the possibilities simply as they exist to-day with only our present degree of understanding of social laws-if,

for instance, the story which the educational sciences already have to impart could be told so that we could understand and realize its bearing upon the life and surroundings of our children in the cities, and in the country too, the existing influences for evil and the possible influences for good, I think that if some morning we were to awake and see these things as they are "the very stones of Rome would rise in mutiny" against all that stands in the way of our making such possibilities a reality.

But even if I am wrong in supposing the feasibility of great and radical social improvement through public action, even then the absence of this greater opportunity, in which I personally believe, does not absolve the philanthropist from his responsibility in the promotion and guidance of philanthropic legislation. His existing apathy in regard to legislative matters is not alone in regard to radical or far-reaching schemes. of a comparatively speculative description, but also characterizes his attitude in cases where the legislation needed consists in the adoption of an obvious cure for a pressing evil, cases in which the harm being done is something which he himself comes across daily in the course of his regular work. Zealous as they are to leave no stone unturned for the poor family that has already gone down hill, and zealous as they are beginning to be even in matters of prevention where the prevention is to be found in private action, our philanthropists are yet in the habit of permitting, almost without protest, the continuance of abuses the operation and effect of which they perfectly understand and which go far to undo all that they are striving to accomplish by their personal and individual work, wherever the remedy implies legislation or political action of any sort. Conscientious workers will give, week after week, hours of their time and will labor steadily for years in the effort to understand and to build up

the character of a single family, when at the same time they will grudge a single hour spent in attempting to secure legislation which would remove some one of the causes which have made this and a thousand other families poor. They will sit up all night with a periodic drunkard during his time of temptation-the work of true evangelist-but will do nothing to promote such laws, or such more. painstaking administration of existing laws, as shall confine the disease from which the man is suffering within narrower bounds. Our devoted and efficient child-helpers have accustomed themselves to stand meekly by and see the children for whom they have worked so hard passing from the healthy home which they have patiently striven to build up and hold together, or coming from the healthy country life which they had with such pains secured for them, back again under the influence of the dark, illventilated tenement house, the contaminated food supply, the open saloon, the unclean newspaper or periodical. They see them without access to playgrounds or to opportunities for wholesome amusement, without a fair chance to learn an honest trade. They see, and their experience enables them to perfectly understand these things; they have full opportunity to watch while their work is being systematically undone before their eyes, while the stream of healthy childhood is being steadily polluted by wholesale, efficient and well understood agencies. And yet they will not in any organized, permanent and systematic way resort to equally wholesale means of closing up these sources of pollution or of supplying their antidote.

Last year there was introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature, by the mayor of Boston, a bill which had for its object the creation of playgrounds for children upon some systematic plan. Of all the active charity workers in Boston (of whom there are one thousand in one society alone) striv

ing to help people whose lives have already become an open and recognized failure, not a single one attended the hearing by which in a great degree the fate of this most important measure of prevention was to be decided. And the case is typical. Our present charity worker, high as is his purpose and intelligent as is his work when it comes to the individual case, would seem, if one were to judge by his attitude toward legislation and public action of all sorts, to have paid no attention to the question of attacking the disease of pauperism as a whole or to the question of ultimate results. Judging by his legislative record alone, his motto would seem to be, "Millions for cure, but not a cent for prevention."

Not only have our philanthropists so far failed to rise to the situation in the amount of attention which they have devoted to the subject of legislation, but even when they have given attention to it they have failed altogether to go at the question in the right way. What attempts they have made have been spasmodic and occasional, of the hand-to-mouth order, and have been made with an apologetic air, as if there were something in seeking to promote the good of one's fellow-creatures by the most effective means of which they needed to feel ashamed. The work that is wanted is not of this sort. Our philanthropists must learn not merely to resort to legislation as one of the principal means of securing the objects they have in view, but to make a business of doing so. Their effort to mould the laws and their administration so as to produce the best attainable social results must be made deliberate, systematic and constant. They should not confine themselves to pushing a measure here and a measure there to meet a pressing need or to stamp out a crying abuse, but should make a thorough and constant study of existing laws, and of the possibilities of improvement in the light of existing needs, a part of their regular

work. Upon each subject-as that of the building laws, playgrounds, industrial education, the regulation of the liquor traffic, the cleaning of the streets, etc.-there should be made, by those most competent to deal with it, a thorough study of conditions and of the best way of meeting them, a careful consideration of what at any given time is politically possible, a steady and continuous education of public opinion which shall make possible in the future more than can be accomplished to-day; and finally there should be from time to time, as occasion is ripe, a judicious presentation before the Legislature of the bills which at the moment it seems wise to attempt to get passed. Neither time nor money should be spared in this work. Experts should be employed in studying the subject matter; builders and architects, sanitary engineers, teachers, doctors should be called in and where necessary should be paid for their services; and the best counsel should be employed in drafting the laws and (when thought best) in presenting the case to the Legislature.

Even in matters that are not within the scope of what is ordinarily classed as philanthropy, the philanthropist can perform a great service by stirring up those within the range of whose professional knowledge such matters do come to organize for the purpose of systematic study and agitation for progressive action on the part of the community. He can, for instance, induce the architects to combine in the interests of the more beautiful laying out and decoration of our cities and public grounds, for better sculpture and better sites for it, for mural painting in our public buildings that shall express a civic pride, for an architecture in our state and other public buildings that shall be noble, dignified and worthy of a people that believes in itself and in its mission. They can induce the doctors to combine for better sanitary laws, and perhaps some day they can

aid the medical profession to secure the suppression of advertisements whose aim is to work upon sensitive minds for the production of the diseases for which they undertake to prescribe a cure.

And our philanthropists in their seeking for legislation must learn not to be apologetic. They have no right to be so. There is a point beyond which modesty ceases to be a virtue. When it is made an excuse for not standing up for what our experience shows us, or is capable of showing us, to be the right thing, it is only a soft name for cowardice. Our philanthropists understand well enough what ought to be done-well enough, that is, to show them in what direction the remedy is to be looked for, and to enable them, with a little additional study and with the help of paid assistants to understand (as well as things .can be understood beforehand in this world) what form the remedy should take. It is they, more than anybody else, who, because of their opportunities, are responsible when the needed thing does not get done, and for the evil and suffering that inevitably result in consequence. If any apology is necessary under such circumstances, it is for failing to speak.

The assumption is constantly made. by the chronic opponents of legislation as such, that they represent hardheaded, practical sagacity, as opposed to the dreams of theorists. But the facts are, as a rule, rather the other way. The opponents of progressive legislation are, it is true, largely to be found among so-called practical men, among business men and lawyersalthough I think they are still more frequently found among those who, with a knowledge of their own inexperience, blindly worship the business. man and the lawyer, believe in their infallibility, and repeat their words of wisdom. But it is to be remembered that, in questions of philanthropy, it is not the philanthropist, but the business man and the lawyer, who is the dilettante and the theorist. In mat

ters of business and of law, the business man and the lawyer have undoubtedly superior knowledge, and many of them superior understanding; but in matters of philanthropy they very frequently speak upon a slender foundation of experience, and usually as the result of very little study or thought. The philanthropist should not allow himself to be frightened or taught to distrust his own conclusions, based upon study and experience, because they are not concurred in by persons speaking without experience upon this subject, however wise those persons may be in matters which they do understand.

Of one thing we may be very sure: if those interested in philanthropy do not see to it that the needed philanthropic legislation is brought forward, nobody will. If they do not introduce and press the passage of the measures of which they see the need, the measures will not get introduced and passed. Our legislatures of to-day, whatever they may be in theory, are not in practice complete lawmaking organs. They do not originate measures; they hardly consider it their business to do so. I believe there are many of our legislators who would think it almost unconstitutional for a committee-say a committee on railroads, or a committee on taxationto look over the subject with which they had to deal for the purpose of considering what laws ought to be passed bearing on that subject, and to report such laws to the whole legislative body. Our legislators do not lie awake at night trying to devise remedies for existing abuses or laws which may promote our further progress. In other words, our legislatures no longer consider themselves lawmaking bodies with the power of initiative, but rather as registering machines, as bodies of men got together simply to register the popular will. Where the people as a whole are really interested in a measure, this conception of the Legislature's function works well enough; the people

decide what is to be done and the Legislature does it. But in ninetynine cases out of a hundred the people as a whole are not interested; they know nothing about the bills that are introduced, and express no wish upon. the subject. In these ninety-nine cases, the registering machine, not having the popular will to go by, is guided by the next strongest influence, namely, by the strongest pressure brought by private individuals. Not that in their decision of these ninetynine cases our lawmakers are unpatriotic; some experience as an amateur lobbyist with the Massachusetts Legislature has convinced me that as a body they are at least as publicspirited as the rest of us, and better informed. Where the average legislator sees that the public interest is clearly involved, he votes in accordance with that interest; and as a rule the bills passed under private pressure are not actively harmful. The trouble is not that our legislators actively legislate contrary to the public interest, but that they do not originate legislation nor positively modify proposed legislation in accordance with that interest. The trouble is that they consider it none of their business to make an original study of needs and conditions, either for the purpose of devising legislation or for the purpose of testing legislation that is presented to them for their consideration. Their important sins (the incessant talk to the contrary notwithstanding) are those of omission; they consider it somebody's else business both to suggest new laws and to give the reasons for and against them. In other words, the American Legislature regards itself literally as a "General Court," as a body with judicial rather than with deliberative functions.

The necessary corollary to this theory is that, inasmuch as the Legislature is a court, any cause, to get itself heard, must be brought before it by outside parties. A court implies plaintiff and counsel. The point where this prevailing theory of their

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