MR. THOMAS H. QUINN, PRESIDENT OF THE COMMERCIAL CLUB, FARIBAULT. Ladies and Gentlemen: I have to apologize for being late to this meeting this evening. Your coming falls on the first day of our term of court, and I have been somewhat busy and delayed. I am glad to meet you as visitors to the city of Faribault, and feel very highly honored at holding the position of President of the Commercial Club, in order to greet you on behalf of the club. The Commercial Club is a purely business institution of the city of Faribault. Its whole endeavors are devoted to the building up of the city, for the encouragement of industries in the city, and the better feeling among the people of the city. We have relatively a very large club, composed of something upwards of two hundred members, embracing the leading gentlemen of the city, and it is maintained very wel indeed. It has been able to accomplish quite a good deal for the city. The chairman has suggested that possibly someone might want to know about the operation of a club like this, and I might state it generally. We have been able, since the organization of this club, by getting the people to work together, not only to bring about a better feeling among the business men of Faribault, a better acquaintance with each other, but also to add to the city's material wealth at least three very good industries, all paying out a large amount of money to laborers, and turning out quite a large product, which they send throughout the country. The club has also, in addition to this, nourished other industries which were already in existence in the city, but which needed some assistance. and when Beside this business aspect, ladies and gentlemen, the club undertakes to further the friendship among the people as far as it can anybody visits us from the outside, it extends a general invitation to them to come to its rooms and make themselves at home there and enjoy its hospitality. And now, on behalf of the Commercial Club, ladies and gentlemen, I invite you all to visit its rooms, use them as freely as you see fit, and enjoy yourselves with anything you find there to entertain you while you are in Faribault. I thank you. (Applause.) H ARIBAULI this evening and I isitors to the p On behalf 1 of ther ap of the better r large bracing ed. Its "wan ratios DR. THOMAS CHALMERS CLARK, COUNTY PHYSICIAN, WASHINGTON COUNTY. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am a late recruit picked up on the train to occupy the position of the gentleman who was placed upon the programme, but I assure you it is a pleasure, even if unexpected, to respond to the hearty and gracious greeting which the Conference has received at Faribault. We did not expect anything else. It is a city which contains within its borders the State Institutions which provide for its poor unfortunates, and those magnificent schools connected in your minds and ours with the name of one who belonged not only to your town, but also to the State and to the Englishspeaking world, the late lamented, beloved Bishop Whipple. I remember thirty years ago, while visiting in a little town in Vermont, a little girl said to me, "Mr. Clark, do you know Bishop Whipple of Minnesota?" "Yes, my dear, I know him; I have the honor to count him my personal friend." "Well," she said, "he is my Godfather," and she evidently loved the Bishop, as every one did who ever came in contact with him. I know there are some here who are acquainted with the purposes of this association, by attendance upon its sessions year after year. I know all who are present from amongst your citizens will be interested, for you have shown your interest so far by your very cordial welcome, by the very complete arrangements that you have made for our comfort and enjoyment, and on behalf of the Conference I thank you. We expect while we are here, to look through the State Institutions, some of them in any event, for we are greatly interested in what is being done here, for the sadly afflicted. We probably shall look into the state of your lockup; you might not expect that, you may not be so ready for us there; if not, that is another reason why we should find out whether that institution is conducted along the lines of modern sanitary science. The proper conduct of lockups is a subject to be considered tomorrow, and is one requiring large attention, because it is considered in many places that the lockup is a place to dump the poor unfortunate until disposed of in some other way, without much attention to his physical or moral welfare. America at the present time is occupying the attention of the world to an extent heretofore unknown. Scientists, students and others are coming over here and trying to find out the secret of America's greatness and progress. Some of them will catch the spirit, some will not; but they will" not catch the true spirit of America's progress and present position in the world's affairs unless they grasp the spirit which animates an associati like this. The gathering of a body of men and women yearly to disc questions relating to the care of the criminal, the defective, the depende the diseased and the afflicted, in most cases paying their own expense. giving up and devoting their time to the study of those great question. hoping thereby to ameliorate and improve the conditions surrounding thes different classes, is one of the foundation stones upon which America's greatness is reared. That philanthropy which actuates the hearts of thos who gather here for such a purpose is one of the reasons why America assuming the position she is in the world's affairs. Why, the countries of Europe are looking to our own President to take the initiative towards inducing peace; they are looking to our country and our government to lead in those things which pertain to the world's welfare. And so I say, that those students who come to visit us, while they investigate our schools, while they study the power and freedom of the press, when they visit our industrial and our scientific institutions and study the processes of manufacture and our commercial ways, I say, unless they grasp that spirit which animates the true American citizen, which leads him to think, not only of his material prosperity and welfare, but also of those of his less fortunate brothers and sisters, they will not catch the true underlying principle of American progress and American greatness. It has been my good fortune to attend many of these meetings in the past, and my misfortune to miss some of them, and I am sure that in your beautiful city, beautiful in its homes, beautiful in the institutions here erected, beautiful in the gracious hospitality which we know exists here, we shall have a session which will prove profitable to us and interesting to you; and again, on behalf of the Conference I wish to extend to you hearty congratulations on the efforts you have made for our welfare and our thanks for what you have done for us already, and what we know you will do for us later. (Applause.) PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS. THE TRAMP. READ BY MR. A. J. ECKSTEIN, NEW ULM, VICE PRESIDENT. The larger centers of population lay claim to possessing the difficult problems relating to the dependent and delinquent classes. In the nature of things it would seem that this must be so, especially with reference to dependents. But the tramp is an institution of the country quite as much, proportionally, as of the city; indeed the city people tell us that we, of the country, are much to blame for his existence. This subject has received the thoughtful consideration of the best minds of the enlightened world for a long time, and is recognized as a deep and abstruse problem. The reports. of the National Conference of Charities and Correction contain article after article dealing with the problem with great insight and learning. So it Students of this form of vagrancy are practically agreed as to its causes, healthough there is difference of opinion as to which is the chief cause. One Sea view of the tramp is that the desire for the primitive life, remaining in all of Peus, obtains the mastery in him. We all chafe under the restraints of the the on social harness; the tramp. a person more sensitive than the rest of us, cannot tolerate them, declares himself free and lives the free life. Another cause assigned for the tramp's ways of life is his love of nature. Then criminal tendencies are given as reasons for the wayfarer; so licentious habits and also insanity. Again the appetite for intoxicants is held by many to be a great cause, as is the weak sentimentality controlling some mission lodging houses in the larger cities, and the carelessness of the railroads in allowing them transportation. Of course free meals is set down as a cause, and still another one to be mentioned is laziness. Now these may all be contributory causes, although the sublime in nature will scarcely be considered by many to be a very powerful agent of corruption. Some criminals adopt the tramp life as a cloak, but my observation is that tramps are not generally criminals. Perhaps all of them spend all the money they get for whiskey, even if hungry for bread, but a craving for drink will not keep a man out in the country, where no liquor is to be had, for a month at a time. It would seem as if the controlling causes are his laziness and our willingness to support him in idleness. In dealing with the difficulty we should consider at least two things as worth attempting-easing the pain and effecting a cure. In temporary effort the work test is very valuable and helpful in the place where it is in force, but it does not touch the disease. Some social workers criticise the work test from every point of view, but the plans they suggest to take its place are open to more serious objection. Some years ago the villages in the county of Renville, this state, at the suggestion of the sheriff, enacted ordinances establishing work for tramps sufficient to pay for meals and lodgings. Tickets good for a chance to work and eat were given all the people in these communities; no meals, but a ticket only, for any tramp who called. In a month after the cold weather set in there were no tramps in Renville county, but there was no evidence that any of them had been cured of their social and moral sickness. But this is not to indicate that Renville county did not then do a wise and kind act. The action was proper and in the right direction. I am not informed as to whether these ordinances are still in force in that county or not. Dr. W. H. Allen, general agent of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, in an excellent study presented to the Atlanta National Conference of Charities and Correction said: "We know that there is a force outside the vagrant himself which propagates vagrancy.. If the vagrant were a mere parasite his removal would cause the extinction 12 of his kind. That his elimination fails to result thus demonstrates that is not the cause of the disease." The writer holds that the tramp is simp the evidence of disease in the social body. While we are not, as a rule, qu ready to admit this, most of us who consult our deeper experiences, fr that it is true. If this is the case, the effort to cure must be directed towards the quickening, enlightening and purifying of our social organization. Th tramp is "lazy, shiftless, sauntering, ill-conditioned." Much of what s done for him by the community at present is equally lazy, shiftless ani sauntering. The practice of giving him a meal when he applies for it atom: homes, and the police regulations which demand of him to "move on," ar: alike evidences of our carelessness and indifference-easy and cheap means of shirking work which is clearly ours to do. Coupled with our desire to get rid of the tramp with the least possible trouble to ourselves, is to fourd quite generally a maudlin sentimentality which is most difficult s eradication, but which must be remedied before we can reach the disease of vagrancy. More properly, when we have cured that, there will be little left of the tramp as an institution. People who feed the tramp may be roughly divided into two classes. Those who do not like to give to him and those who do like it. In sorrow the former give, chiefly because they are unable to see a better thing to do; the latter give from motives of selfishness. The tramp knows this sentimental class. Here "the vagrant accepts a donation with the conviction that he has brightened the day for his benefactor." These indiscriminate givers themselves know "that the vagrant is at the close of every transaction the creditor." "The real vagrancy is the vagrancy of thought and sympathy.” We are supporting ninety to one hundred thousand tramps in idleness in the United States all the time. From the standpoint of the cost these figures are appalling; but every one who thinks knows that it is not we but the tramps who are chiefly injured. We should have justice and charity enough in us to impel us to try to help the wayfarer instead of lazily or sentimentally making a vagrant of him. It is not a question of feeding ninety-nine tramps lest one good man should go hungry away, it is a question of doing positive harm ninety-nine times with the hope of doing good the hundredth time, and the man we injure most is the good hundredth man. If this While we are engaged in trying to remove the cause of vagrancy there are, as has been indicated, many things to be done which will lessen the evil. The most valuable of these is undoubtedly the work test. could be applied all over the United States, as it was in Renville county, it would produce a condition of things favorable to the cure of tramp life. We would then be in a position to work with reasonable hope of success. Of course we must never cease to urge people to stop feeding the tramp. A country community which has the reputation of being liberal in feeding tramps, and a city which has Mission, Municipal or other lodging houses so run as to attract tramps in winter are essentially vagrant in character. The tramp likes such places because he is related to them. In the country |