orphan is denied aid by the county, upon a petition setting forth the facts in full as to the necessity of aid, verified by five reputable citizens of the county, city and county, city, or town, the mother of such child shall have the right of appeal direct to the State board of control for aid for her child, and should her appeal be sustained by said board payment must be made for the child as above provided. SEC. 2. Section 2285 of the Political Code of the State of California is hereby amended so as to read as follows: 2285. Books to be kept by institutions, cities, and counties.-Every institution, county, city and county, city, or town entitled to aid under this chapter must keep the following books, which at all times must be open to the State board of control or to any person appointed by them to examine the same, or to any committee of the legislature, or to any clerk or officer thereof duly authorized to make such examination: 1. A book in which must be entered the date of admission, name, age, sex, and place of birth of each and every orphan, half orphan, and abandoned child, who is or may hereafter be received or admitted into such institution, or to county aid, and the date of discharge of any such child, when such discharge is made, the parentage, if known; the estate, if any, to which the child is heir, and the insurance, if any, on the father's or mother's life; so far as can be ascertained, the place where either parent or both died, the nativity of the parents, where married, the marriage certificate, where recorded, when they came to California, place of residence in California, and habits of sobriety. 2. A book entitled "monthly accounts." In it must be entered on the debtor side, all the moneys received from any and all sources segregated under the proper heads; on the credit side must be entered all disbursements made, specifying for what purposes made, and the amount entered in detail so disbursed, segregated under their proper heads. 3. A pay roll of the employees, and the amounts disbursed to each. 4. A book in which must be entered in detail the amounts paid for the specific support of every orphan, half orphan, or abandoned child and the date of such payments. 5. A transcript of the books and pay roll, verified under oath by the manager or person in charge of such institution entitled to or claiming State aid under this chapter, must be made and forwarded to the State board of control at the time of making demand or presenting claim for State aid, covering the time for which such claim or demand for State aid is made. 6. A list of all the inmates other than employees or orphans supported wholly or in part by any institution presenting a claim for State aid under this chapter, must also be forwarded with such claim for aid. SEC. 3. Section 2286 of the Political Code of the State of California is hereby amended so as to read as follows: 2286. Supervision by board of control-Children's agents.-The State board of control is authorized, in behalf of the State, at any time to inquire, either in person or by authorized agent into the management of any such institution; and any institution refusing, upon due demand, to permit such inquiry or to comply with regulations established by said board for the proper maintenance and care of children receiving State aid must not thereafter receive any aid under this chapter until it has complied with all requirements. To carry out the provisions of this act, the State board of control may appoint three children's agents who shall, under the rules of said board, visit the homes and the institutions in which are children to whom State aid is being given or for whom aid is being asked, to obtain such information as the board may need in carrying out the provisions of this chapter. Such agents shall receive their necessary traveling expenses and a salary of one hundred and seventy-five dollars per - month, which salary shall be paid in the same manner and at the same time as the salaries of other State officers. All expenses incurred in visiting said asylums and homes, when there are no other available funds, may be audited and allowed by the State board of control out of the appropriation for support of orphans, half orphans, and abandoned children. In addition an advisory committee of three persons serving without pay or expense to the State may be appointed by the board of control, to act in any county in conjunction with the children's agents. SEC. 4. Section 2287 of the Political Code of the State of California is hereby -amended so as to read as follows: 2287. Regulations governing claims for State aid.—Every claim for aid under this chapter must be presented to and audited and allowed by the State board of control. Such claim must contain: 1. The name and location of the institution making the claim, or the name of the county. 2. The name of the person or persons having charge or control of the institution or of the child. 3. The number of orphans, half orphans, or abandoned children therein, in the case of an institution. 4. The date of admission and age of each child. 5. The amount, if any, that the institution is receiving for the specific support of any orphan, half orphan, or abandoned child therein. Such claim, and the statements therein contained, must be verified by the person or persons, or some of them, in charge of such institution, or in the case of counties, by the county officers in charge of the distribution of aid, and the State board of control may, in its discretion, require the production of the books of such institution or county in support of such claim. SEC. 5. Section 2289 of the Political Code of the State of California is hereby amended so as to read as follows: 2289. In order that the provisions of this chapter shall not be abused, it is hereby declared: 1. That no institution which has less than twenty inmates of either or all of the classes mentioned in section twenty-two hundred and eighty-three must be deemed an institution for the support and maintenance of minor orphans, half orphans, or abandoned children, within the intent and meaning of this chapter. 2. That no child over the age of fourteen years shall be deemed a minor orphan, half orphan, or abandoned child, within the intent and meaning of this chapter. 3. That no child for whose specific support there is paid to any such institution the sum of ten dollars or more per month shall be deemed a minor orphan, half orphan, or abandoned child within the intent and meaning of this chapter. 4. That no child whose parent or parents have not resided in this State for at least three years prior to the application for aid, or whose parent or parents have not become citizens of this State shall be deemed a minor orphan, half orphan or abandoned child within the intent and meaning of this chapter. 5. That no child maintained in an institution for whom a bona fide offer of a proper home has been made shall be considered eligible for further State aid: It is further provided, however, That no institution shall be required to surrender a child to any person of religious faith different from that of the child or the parents of the child. Approved May 26, 1913. In effect August 10, 1913. AID TO MOTHERS IN SAN FRANCISCO. Prior to the passage of this act, aid had been given mothers for the support of dependent minor children in their own homes by the juvenile courts of Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties and to a small extent elsewhere under a liberal interpretation of section 21 of the juvenile court act of 1909, amended 1911, which provides that: "Any order providing for the custody of a dependent or delinquent person may provide that the expense of maintaining such person shall be paid by the parent or parents or guardian of such person, and in such case shall state the amount to be so paid. * * * If it be found, however, that the parent or parents or guardian of a dependent or delinquent person is unable to pay the whole expense of maintaining such person, the court may, in the order providing for the custody of such person, direct such additional amount as may be necessary to support such person to be paid from the county treasury of the county for the support of such person, the amount so ordered to be paid from the treasury of said county not to exceed, in case of any one person, the sum of eleven dollars per month: Provided, further, That no order for the payment of all or part of the expense of support and maintenance of a dependent or delinquent person from the county treasury shall be effective for more than six months, unless a new order is secured at the expiration of that period. The court may thereafter set aside, change or modify any order herein provided for." [Laws 1911, p. 671.] In San Francisco this aid was given by the juvenile court through the medium of the child-placing agencies which, while accepting commitment and responsibility for the children, left them in their own homes. In such cases the home and family were supervised and visited regularly by representatives of the society who reported to the court from time to time upon the character of the home conditions. The amounts ordered paid were secured by the charitable society upon its demand for service rendered in providing care for the children and then were turned over by it to the parent or parents. Semiannually the county made demand on the State for the amount expended in behalf of dependent orphans, half orphans, or abandoned children. In June, 1912, the Children's Agency of the San Francisco Associated Charities had under its care 201 children who had been committed by the court and were being boarded with parents or relatives. (As against 181 in 1911.) In its annual report for 1912 the society explained its refusal to accept other commitments urged upon it on the ground that the State allowance-$6.25 a month for each half orphan-was inadequate, unless supplemented from other sources, to maintain a proper standard of life for the family, without requiring the mother to go out to work during the hours that her children were at home, thus defeating the main purpose of the aid. To carry out the provisions of the new law San Francisco opened a widows' pension bureau in the city hall in September, 1913. Two hundred and twentythree widowed mothers who had been receiving aid through the juvenile court were transferred to the new bureau but continued to receive help through the juvenile court pending reinvestigation and the procuring of evidence necessary to obtain State aid under the new law. Of these 223 cases, 114 were found to be entitled to aid from the pension bureau. One hundred and nine could not be considered for the following reasons: 47 parents not citizens; 20 improper homes; 7 desertion cases; 3 not living with mother; 24 self-supporting; 5 married a second time; 3 not living in county. These 223 cases were handled by the juvenile court at a total expense of $4,506.20. The 114 cases accepted by the pension bureau are being cared for at a total expense of $2,432.25 ($1,762.50 State, plus $669.75 county) per month. The juvenile court is continuing to pay in the cases where the parents are not citizens, to the amount of $975.50 per month, pending further action on this question by the board of supervisors. Up to August 2, 1913, the State advanced $6.25 for each half orphan in need of such aid, but in keeping with paragraph 4 of section 5 of Laws of 1913, chapter 323, the attorney general of the State has decided that from that date on the State would assume no further responsibility in any cases where citizenship of parents could not be proven. This decision involves also children in institutions and under the care of the various agencies whose parents were never naturalized. These children have, in nearly all cases, been cared for jointly by the city and county and by the State ($6.25 State and $4.75 county) and should the county now have to assume the whole cost, this will materially diminish the amount of money that will be available this year for aiding widows out of the general fun of $200,000 appropriated by the city and county for the care of all dependent and delinquent children. Up to January 1, 1914, 545 (328 new applications) had applied for aid. For further discussion of the situation in San Francisco see Notes on widows' pensions act as administered in San Francisco," by Margaret C. Nesfield, director of the widows' pension bureau, San Francisco. 66 COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE MOTHERS' PENSIONS. Various proposals for "mothers' pension" legislation were before the California Legislature in the session of 1913. In order to have at hand more exact information on the subject than was available at that time, the legislature passed the following law providing for a commission to study the question of mothers' pensions (as well as that of old-age pensions) and report at the next regular session in 1915. [Laws 1913, chap. 681.] An Act Authorizing the governor to appoint a commission to investigate and report at the forty-first session of the legislature concerning the adoption of a system of old-age insurance and pensions, and mothers' pensions, and making an appropriation therefor. The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. Duties of commission-Membership-Report.-The governor of California is hereby authorized and requested to appoint a commission' consisting of five persons, citizens of this State, one of whom shall be a member of the State board of control, to investigate and consider the various systems of old-age insurance, old-age pensions or annuities, also mothers' pensions or mothers' compenations now in use in different counties of this or other States, and as may be proposed or as are now in operation in other States of this country or elsewhere abroad, and to make a full and complete report of its findings with all data so obtained, properly tabulated, to the legislature at its next regular session. Said commission shall report also statistics showing the probable expense to the State of various systems, or of any system that it may recommend for adoption together with any bills of its own relating to this subject that may be deemed expedient. SEC. 2. Appropriation.—There is hereby appropriated out of the general fund not otherwise appropriated, and the controller is herewith authorized and directed to issue his warrants for same from time to time, and the treasurer is likewise authorized and directed to pay the same on presentation of said warrants, the sum of three thousand dollars or any portion thereof, as may in the judgment of the commission be required to complete its work under the provisions of this act. Approved June 16, 1913. In effect August 10, 1913. COLORADO. [Laws 1913, pp. 694-696. Passed by popular vote, November 5, 1912.] An Act To amend an act entitled "An act concerning dependent and neglected children, approved April 2, 1907." " Be it enacted by the people of the State of Colorado: SECTION 1. That section 7 of an act entitled “An act concerning dependent and neglected children, approved April 2, 1907," be and the same is hereby amended so as to read as follows: SECTION 7. Any dependent child committed to the State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children shall, as to its care and disposition by said home, be 1 Commission not yet appointed (Feb. 24, 1914). 2 For the discussion of the provisions of this act see article by Judge Lindsey in the Survey, Feb. 15, 1913. 38076°-14- -2 subject to any special order of the court making such commitment, provided such order be made at the time of such commitment. If the parent or parents of such dependent or neglected child are poor and unable to properly care for such child, but otherwise are proper guardians, and it is for the welfare of such child to remain at home, the court may enter an order finding such facts and fixing the amount of money necessary to enable the parent or parents to properly care for such child, and thereupon it shall be the duty of the board of county commissioners, and in those cities and counties operating under Article XX of the constitution it shall be the duty of the department and authority performing that part of the functions of a board of county commissioners, or vested with power for the relief of the poor, to pay such parent or parents, or, if it seems for the best interest of the child, to some other person designated by the court for that purpose, at such times as said order may designate, the amount so specified, or when so ordered by the court, its equivalent in supplies and assistance, for the care of such dependent or neglected child until the further order of the court. The juvenile court in counties of over 100,000 population, and the county court in all other counties, shall appoint proper persons for the purpose of investigation, visitation, the keeping of records and the making of reports in cases requiring relief under this act. The details as to the number of such investigators, their rights, duties and powers in addition to that of investigators of such cases, their compensation, the limitations thereon and the authority of the county or city and county required to provide for such compensation shall be as provided by law for the employment of probation officers in such juvenile and county courts. It shall be the duty of the clerk of such juvenile or county courts, on or before December 1, 1912, and on or before the first day of July of each year thereafter, to submit to such county board or other proper authority a report of all cases receiving relief under this act, and an estimate of the sum necessary to be placed at its disposal for complying with the provisions of this act. A copy of such report shall be filed with the State board of charities and corrections. If the State home is unable to provide any child with a family home through voluntary adoption within six months from the time of its commitment, then as far as possible and if for the best interest of the child it shall be its duty to provide for the boarding out of said child in a suitable family home until such time as it may be adopted or shall have reached the age of sixteen years. Petitions and commitments under this act shall state the religious belief of parents, if known, and if not known the court shall endeavor to ascertain such fact, and family homes to which children are committed shall, as far as practicable, conform to such religious belief. On or before December 1, 1912, and on each July 1st next thereafter, before the convening of the succeeding general assembly, it shall be the duty of the superintendent of said home to submit to the governor and the State board of charities and corrections a detailed report of such boarding out of said children in family homes and an estimate as near as may be of the annual sum necessary for the maintenance of said boarding-out system and visitation officers employed by said State home in connection therewith. The governor shall transmit such estimate to such succeeding general assembly, which is hereby directed by the people of this State to appropriate from the State treasury a sum sufficient for the boarding out and visitation of said children, and otherwise carrying into effect the provisions of this act. Any of said courts enforcing the provisions hereof shall have the right to proceed as for contempt of court against officials who willfully refuse to comply with its orders directing their compliance with the provisions hereof; provided the sums paid out under this act shall not exceed |