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 a 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

functions on the part of our legislatures at present leads to bad results, and still more fails to lead to the good results which otherwise might be attained, is in the absence of any one to represent the public, except in the few cases where public interests are obviously and vitally at stake. Except for these few cases, the public puts in no appearance, employs no counsel, and consequently gets no hearing before the General Court. It is at this point that the philanthropist has a function to fulfil the function of which I am speaking. The duty which lies before him is the duty of speaking for the public on those matters that come especially within his own knowledge and observation, and with which the public is not sufficiently acquainted, or upon which it is not suf ficiently awake, to speak for itself. He should consider himself responsible for seeing that at least in his own particular department, in the matters with which he is specially conversant, the people's side of the case shall get a hearing, instead of continuing as at present to go by default.

In short, the most important part in the legislative drama as presented in this country has not yet been assigned, the part, namely, of the real lawmaker. We have no person and no class of persons whose business it is to feel himself or themselves responsible for the guidance of our legislation, no one who lies awake nights trying to devise ways of making our laws more suitable to our conditions and more capable of enabling the people to fulfil their higher social aspirations. In primitive times this part was assigned to the king. Our ancestors took it away from him and gave it to the great barons. In England this power has gradually come into the hands of an hereditary aristocracy; for though their government is almost democratic in form, it is still by tradition practically carried on in great part by families whose sons are brought up to this profession and who

feel and acknowledge the responsibilities of their inherited position. In this country this function was at first exercised by the ministers of religion; but during the social revolution which began with the revolt against England and ended with the election of Thomas Jefferson, the ministers were deposed and the duty of guiding legislation was placed morally, where it had before been theoretically, in the hands of the Legislature. We have now virtually taken the further step of taking the essential lawmaking power away from the Legislature; we have practically taken from them the right to the exercise of this greatest attribute of sovereignty, and reduced them to the position of the sovereign's chief clerk, whose business is merely to record his wishes. The sovereign people have asserted their intention of hereafter attending to this business. of lawmaking for themselves. The trouble is that, having taken upon his own shoulders the direct work of legislating, King Demos has then proceeded to go about his own private business, exercising his sovereign power only on great occasions, and for the rest of the time leaving upon our hands that most dangerous article of furniture, a vacant throne. Our king feels, and justly feels, so strong in his power to take up the reins whenever he chooses to come back, that he has become careless as to who shall hold them in his absence. Private corporations and other persons with interested motives, and the paid lobbyists who represent them, have climbed into the vacant seat; sometimes, even, the throne is occupied by that most grotesque figure that ever played the ape with the royal insignia, the political boss. The wonder is, not that bad legislation occasionally results, but that our legislators have shown the virtue to resist temptation as generally as they have done, working as they do under such constant pressure from private interests and such general neglect on the part of the public as a whole. The duty of the