Page images
PDF
EPUB

Both of these men are experts on the subject on which they spoke.

I recently paid a visit to the almshouse on Blackwell's Island in order to see for myself and to consider what kind of a home it is for aged persons. I found there a model almshouse, and at the head of it a competent Superintendent. I went there unofficially and without notice and found everything in the best order; everything was just as good as it could be arranged under the circumstances. I found there several buildings, and in them. there were rooms for men and rooms for women. You walked through a room and there would be a space about ten feet between the ends of two rows of beds. Alongside of each bed there was just room for a chair, so that the home which each aged person had was about three feet by nine, just space for sitting down and room for a bed, and yet so strong was the instinct of home and the desire for home life on the part of some of those poor people that little altars were erected between those beds, and that was the only touch of home there was about the whole institution the erection of this little altar with a statue on it.

There was in one of these beds I do not say this as a particular criticism on the institution, I use this only as a matter of illustration there was in one of these beds a woman whom we were told had been bedridden for about thirty years. She was lying there perfectly helpless, and yet the people alongside of her were sitting up and trying to get as much out of their narrow surroundings as they possibly could. From my point of view it was not right to have that woman there.

If we knew the daily lives of these people it seems to me it would be possible to make some better classification than was made there. What I saw there was probably good enough and maybe too good for some of the persons who were there, but we cannot claim that all the inmates of that almshouse or all the inmates of any almshouse are to blame for their condition. On the contrary, at this very meeting of the Superintendents of the Poor

[ocr errors]

there were two or three illustrations given of people who had been reduced by misfortune, and not at all by their own fault, to become inmates of almshouses. One has been mentioned here this morning the mother of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court being in an almshouse. At that Superintendents' meeting of which I have already spoken it was also said that a man who had been the richest man in Buffalo was so reduced by misfortune that he had to become an inmate of the almshouse.

Imagine a woman of refinement who has been deprived of her means of support, of her friends and of all those to whom she could look for help, being put in the almshouse on Blackwell's Island and having this space of three and one-half feet by nine feet, and having next to her probably somebody brought from the slums of New York.

It seems to me that in treating our aged poor we are just about one step removed from barbarians. It was their custom, I believe, to kill everybody who could not contribute to the support of the tribe or village. Well, we do not kill them, but we make their lives so uncomfortable and so unhappy that they look upon death as a boon.

When I was a visitor of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, I used to come across what we called "lone women "- women living by themselves in two rooms in a tenement-house and in common with some of my colleagues I used to advise those women that the best place for them was in the almshouse on Blackwell's Island where they would have splendid care and be constantly looked after, but they invariably fought against any s gestion as that, and until I began to consider this subje discussion it did not strike me so forcibly why they did so. because in their two little rooms in the tenement, which, by the way, were usually clean and carefully kept, there was home; there was privacy; there was liberty-something which they knew very well they could not get in an almshouse.

[ocr errors]

why,

Now as to the remedy for these matters. Of course, there are two ways of looking at it. One is that there should be more private homes for the aged. I understand that they are being founded every year more and more; and I think that the attention which our Conference here will draw to the matter will probably result in the founding of more of them, supported by charitable persons. But there is another remedy. I go as far as Mr. Blair goes in believing that the State itself should provide a better home for aged people than is to be found in an almshouse. I think that the system of classification which has already been carried to a great extent can be carried one step more. Up to a comparatively recent period, in the almshouses of the State there were dependent children; there were epileptics; there were insane people, all grouped together. We have succeeded in getting the dependent children, the insane, and, to a considerable extent, the epileptics out of the almshouses.

Let us try to get the respectable poor out of the almshouses. Give them what they need — give them a home. The objection to that is that if we once make it comfortable for the respectable poor, we will increase the number of respectable poor who will come to us looking for the comforts of home; but I think that we have here in New York a safeguard against any abuse in this matter. We have two notable watch-dogs of the treasury down here. One is the State Charities Aid Association and the other is the Charity Organization Society. Those societies are vigilant in looking up the circumstances of those parents who seek to place their children in institutions, and if they would extend that supervision to the candidates for homes for the aged, I think they would succeed in preventing the State or the city from being imposed upon by unworthy persons.

You can take either view you will. You can take these respectable poor and establish private homes for them or board them in charitable institutions managed by religious or seculars,

or you can have a public home in the State; but I hope that if this Conference results in nothing else it will result in emphasizing the fact that the respectable poor are not to be housed with the dissipated wrecks who are obliged to go to the almshouse.

Rev. HUGH MAGUIRE. For over four years I have been Chaplain to the workhouse, and from personal knowledge of the prisoners who have been sent there, for periods of from five days to six months, I can state that almost a majority of its inmates should be sent to the almshouse and cared for by the Department of Charities, and not by the Department of Correction. Old men and women from sixty to seventy years of age, friendless, penniless and homeless, apart from all consideration of what their past history may have been, should not be by law declared convicts and constrained to wear the stripes. Many ignorant of the laws of the State and the city, who can see no wrong in asking a penny from a charitably disposed person, are arrested and by the police courts sent to the workhouse and adjudged criminals. Our common humanity and our Christianity should try to discriminate between those who are by nature and career genuine convicts, and those who by misfortune, infirmity and by combination of circumstances for which they are not responsible, are bereft of a home and unable to earn a livelihood.

Mr. LETCHWORTH.- I would like to ask Commissioner Scanlan if the Chairman of the Committee of Finance of the Legislature should ask him, what appropriation he would recommend for the State to make for the provision for the respectable aged poor of this State?

Mr. SCANLAN. You mean the amount of the appropriation?

Mr. LETCHWORTH.- I mean what provision would you advise the State to make for the respectable poor. I am asking for information.

Mr. SCANLAN.- I do not think I could answer that question without taking a census, Mr. Letchworth. If a census of the almshouses in the State was taken, and if the reports of the superintendents of the poor and keepers of the almshouses were taken about that subject, I have no doubt that a sum could be arrived at which would be reasonable and proper for the State to appropriate.

At 12.45 the session adjourned.

THIRD SESSION.

Wednesday Afternoon, November 20, 1901, Assembly Hall.

The Third Session of the Conference was called to order at 3 p. m., with Mr. Rosendale in the chair. The first subject was the report of the Committee on the Care and Relief of Needy Families. in Their Own Homes, which was made by Mr. Frank Tucker, of New York, Chairman of the Committee, who presided throughout the session.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE CARE AND RELIEF OF NEEDY FAMILIES IN THEIR OWN HOMES.

The remarks I am about to address to you are not a report of the committee as it is usually understood. The papers upon the program deal with two conditions that are fundamental when we discuss that complex social problem which has been so wisely described as the care and relief of needy families in their homes. It is my purpose to present to you a preliminary outline of the questions to be discussed in the hope that it will make clear to you their close relationship and how important it is that we arrive at a mutual understanding that will mean progress. If, therefore, in the course of these remarks I should say anything to which you take exception, please visit your displeasure upon me committeemen are innocent.

[ocr errors]

my fellow

« PreviousContinue »