of him. He came to his senses, quit his drinking so he said in a letter, legged forgiveness and the opportunity to reunite with his family. Mrs. T. brought the letter to the visitor who had carried the anxieties all the months. She was now assistant secretary and had developed wisdom beyond her years. She advised Mrs. T. not to answer the letter. Strange phychology I thought, for it seemed to me here was a chance forthwith to get away from an excessive and prolonged burden. And the woman did not answer the letter. Then in a few weeks another one came. Again the advice was given-"do not answer.'' Where do woman get their intuitive knowledge of men? For here was a young woman advising a married woman just how to proceed to get her husband back without intimating that it was even desirable. The third letter arrived hot on the trail of the others. Then and not till then did the young woman advise an answer and the answer must be very guarded, no enthusiasm, just a mere statement of conditions, no promise of reunion. The letter was written in our office and carefully edited.

By this time, three months having elapsed, Mr. T. was wild to have his family restcred to him, but he did not dare to return to Des Moines. I think he believed the social workers would be as terrible to him as they had been kind and sympathetic and constructively helpful to his family His guess was right. He did however go to the Associated Charities of the city where he was living and state his case. He asked that he be investigated. This was done. A favorable report was received. A check for transportation was enclosed.

It would fill you all with joy to witness a scene such as we witnessed the night of the departure. Here was a loving mother restored to health and six of her seven children properly clothed, strong, active, intelligent, bound for the new home, a reunion, new opportunities. With them the children took from the public schools reccrds which would make any parents swell with pride. The only pathetic incident was that the one girl had to remain at St Monica's.

What was done in this case is being done in thousands of cases throughout the land. Juvenile courts, child placing agencies, hospital social workers and others are adcpting the case work methods of family welfare organizations; and these plans are certain to result in greater good than the haphazard impulsive social work of the past.

Newell Dwight Hillis portrays in words a picture by an Italian artist. A child is laughing and dancing in the sunlight. Near it is a precipice. A guardian angel rolls an apple of Paradise along the way attracting and saving the little one.

I am sure there is nothing more noble for men and women than to be guardian angels of these our little citizens who need our help, our strength, our mind, our heart, that they may have the opportunities for the full and abundant life which most of us have and want to share with others.

THE NEGRO'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR COMMONWEALTH

Mrs. S. Joe Brown, Chairman Citizenship Department, National Asscciation of Colored Women, Des Moines, Iowa.

I am not unmindful of the compliment paid to the group of citizens which I represent by the invitation extended to me to appear before this your quarterly ccnference of the heads of state institutions under the Board of Control of State Institutions and I therefore desire to express my gratitude, especially to the chairman of your program committee for this opportunity; and since, as I understand it your conference is made up of representatives of the fifteen institutions of our state under the supervision of our board of control, in some of which institutions there are a limited number of the members of the group I represent, while the heads of these institutions are all members of the more favcred race; and since the very nature of these institutions gives you a knowledge of the lives and characters of only the criminally inclined and otherwise unfortunate members of our group, I felt that it might not be out of place here for me to bring you a few facts that might throw some light upon the other side of negro life which I have chosen to call, The Negro's Contribution to the Development of Our Commonwealth".

And that you may know that I am in position to be in a measure familiar with these facts, permit me to say, that for more than twenty-five years I have been engaged almost constantly and without compensation of any kind, in either local, state or national organizations, some composed of members of our group only, and some comprising men and women of both races; some of them social, some religious, some fraternal, and some political; but all of them having as their object the lifting to a higher plane the social, the moral and the civic life of our citizens and in which work I have necessarily made a careful survey of conditions along these various lines throughout both the state and nation with special reference to the part being contributed by the members of the group I represent.

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As most of you are doubtless aware, of the one hundred twenty-five million inhabitants of cur country, there are about twelve or fourteen million of African descent or as we prefer to style ourselves, American Negroes'', and that from the very beginning of our history in this country, we have always had cur churches, the notion being quite general among our group, that in crder to be a good citizen one should be a member of some church, hence the Federal census report shows that the negroes of America have erected and are today maintaining more than forty-three thousand

churches, about seventy-five of them in Iowa, where we have a population of less than twenty thousand, and that these forty-three thousand churches are valued at more than ninety millions of dollars and have a total of more than five million communicants with forty-six thousand Sunday Schools with more than two million pupils.

This same census report shows that about a million negroes in this country own their own homes, which of course vary in character from log huts to palatial mansions, some of the latter costing as high as a quarter of a million dollars.

In our own state with our small negro population and in spite of the fact that the men of our group are for the most part employed in the mcst menial positions and are the most poorly paid, we find hundreds of them owning homes ranging in value from five hundred to ten thousand dollars.

In the southland where the bulk of our group is still to be found, statistics show that there are nearly a million negro farmers and that of this number about one in four own the farms they operate, while in Icwa, where the bulk of the negro population is to be found in the cities and in the mining communities, the census report shows that we have never. the-less one hundred eighty-seven farms owned by members of our group, with an aggregate value of more than a million dollars; and we are also to be found in the various lines of business and professions commensurate with the amount of wealth we possess along other lines.

In the southland, where negroes are not permitted to attend the same schools and colleges with cther citizens and where the educational facilities afforded them by the several states are very meager, we have built and are today operating more than five hundred private colleges and other institutions for higher education, and these together with the public schools of the southland have an enrollment of about two million pupils and a combined teaching force of abcut fifty thousand, most of them, members of our group.

And while I desire to give all honor to the Great Commonwealth of Iowa, for having gone on record as early as the year 1879 as being opposed to the exclusion of negro pupils from any school of the State supported by public funds as a result of which decision more than fifty negroes, of which my own husband happens to have been one of the first, have received degrees from our State University alone, during the past quarter of a century. During the school year just recently closed we had in our State University thirty-seven young men and twelve young women of our group, and about a dozen young men at our State College at Ames, with one or more in practically every college and university in the state, with hundreds in cur various High Schools and thousands in the grades. However I regret to be compelled to call your attention to the fact that in spite of this wonderful progress among the members of our group along educational lines, these young men and young women coming from the same institutions, holding the same degrees with your sons and

daughters, two of them during the past year having been admitted to the society of Phi Beta Kappa, for excellent scholarship, with a burning desire to serve not only their cwn but the human race; yet notwithstanding the fact that they qualify themselves as teachers, they are forced to leave this the state of their choice in order to engage in this their chosen profession, for negro teachers are not employed in Iowa; notwithstanding the fact that in Chicago alcne there are nearly a hundred, some of them educated in Iowa where they still own property and pay taxes. Likewise in Los Angeles, California, there are fifteen negro teachers in the public schools; in New York City more than three hundred with a proportionate number in other cities in the states of New York, Massachusetts, Michigan and other northern states, where we have real mixed schools as we are supposed to have in our own state, where we feel the same system should be in operation if we really believe in the declaration that all men are created equal. It is my opinion that not until this declaration is actually put into practice will there come an end to the racial conflicts which are threatening another world war.

Today the negroes of Iowa, like those of other states are maintaining many social and civic as well as fraternal and religious organizations, such as Y. M. C. A. 's, Y. W. C. A. 's, community centers, posts of the Amercan Legion, branches of the National Association for the Advanvement of Colored People, and a number of women's clubs comprising a state federation, which maintains a cottage at Iowa City, which serves as a dormitory for negro girls who are attending our State University, and which is made necessary because of the fact that there has never been room in the regular dormitory for any negro girl.

While as the name implies, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has as its purpose the advancement of colored people; yet its membership comprises prominent members of both races and has as its national president, Judge Morefield Story, of Boston, a former president of the American Bar Association, who like a number of other members of the dominant race in this organization believe that in keeping with the rule that no chain is stronger than its weakest link, so in proportion as the colored race advances, will the human race advance, thus making the entire country and the whole world a better place in which to live.

Now with reference to the work carried on in these institutions under our state Board of Control, I feel that our state is to be commended for the organization of this work, and more especially for this system of holding quarterly conferences where you may discuss topics and devise plans for the betterment of your work, in which I have been especially intersted since having visited the institution for girls at Mitchellville a few years ago and finding a number of our girls there.

About two weeks ago while attending the biennial session of the National Association of Colored Women in Chicago, I had the privilege of visiting the Training School for Girls at Geneva, about forty miles

from the city, and I found there an institution in physical appearance very much like ours at Mitchellville; but quite different in its plan of organization; for there I found that for the fifty-nine girls of our group there were five matrons and one supervisor of their own race, whereas we have at Mitchellville neither matron nor supervisor of our group, although we do have a separate cottage for colored girls.

Through the courtesy of this colored supervisor at Geneva, we were permitted to meet the entire student body and faculty in chapel where along with three other of the officers of our National Association of Colored Women, I had the privilege of addressing them briefly along lines that in our judgment might assist them in making better women of them. selves after they should be released from that institution.

I also told them how well our girls are being cared for in our institution at Mitchellville, self pride and respect for the land I love the best" restraining me from even referring to the fact that no woma of our group was entitled to share in this work here; but now that I am at home, and we are assembled here as members of a family circle, permit me to suggest, that while I have nothing but praise for the priceless service being rendered by those who have it in charge, I do feel that a greater service might be rendered the boys and girls of our group by the addition of some members of their group in the capacity cf matrons and home finding agents if not as supervisors; for the negro citizen is rapidly developing a community consciousness which gives him a desire to function in cooperation with the other groups in whatever community he happens to live.

He is asking not to be segregated or forced into a separate community or institution; but rather that in all matters where our interests are affected we be permitted to have our own representatives at the council table, since we are contributing our share to the general uplift of the entire community and bearing our share of the entire burden.

He is asking that we be given not social equality, but rather industrial opportunity, by which we mean an opportunity to earn a livelihood in whatever field we fit ourselves to cccupy, upon the same plane with the members of other races; and social opportunity, by which we mean the right to buy or rent a decent home in a respectable and healthful location, regardless of who might happen to own or rent the home next door, and finally political equality, by which we mean the right not only to vote, but to be voted for; to aspire to election or appointment to any civic or political office for which we are intellectually and temperamentally qualified, all of which we feel our remarkable progress of the last half century and our patriotic sacrifices in time of war have justified; and all of which we must have if we are to realize that for which we all hope and shall continue to pray, namely, interracial peace.

In conclusion, permit me to add that in this new day, at a time when the curriculum of our public schools is being revised so as to add a course in American Citizenship, we feel that it would unquestionably give rise to