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The landscape where there are 60,000 people to the square mile.

lot, choose to live, for our own and others' sake, where seem to be most needed, rather than where the neighborhood is supposed to offer the most of social privilege or prestige. We are here to be all we can to the people and to receive all they are to us as friends and neighbors. We assume the full obligations and claim all the rights of citizenship in a community with whose interests we identify ourselves, whose conditions we share and for whose home happiness, material welfare, political freedom and social privilege and progress we try to do our part. When in order to be entrusted with and legally hold the tenure of a building and its equipment for neighborhood service, a few friends of the settlement and its community were incorporated under the laws of Illinois into the very informally organized Chicago Commons Association, its purpose was formulated for the articles of incorporation thus: "The object for which it is formed is to provide a center of a higher civic and social life, to initiate and maintain religious, educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago."

But in the fellowship of its work Chicago Commons is as little of an organization and as much of a personal relationship as it can be made. It seeks to unify and help all other organizations and people in the neighborhood that make for righteousness and brotherhood. It is not a church, but is a helper of all the churches and is in active co-operation with the only English speaking congregation among them. It is not a charity, but aids in the organization and mutual helpfulness of all charitable agencies. It is not a school, but it is in tributary sympathy and action with the public schools to which it will give up any part of its work that they will take up. It is nonpartisan, but has been a rallying point whence the balance of political power has been effectively wielded in aldermanic and legislative elections for nearly a decade. It is not an exclusive social circle, but aspires to be a center and source of the best social life and the highest civic patriotism. It is not a "class conscious" group, but refusing to be classified, strives to interpret classes to each other and to mediate for a just industrial peace.

Long before there was any organization or any property or equipment to require it, the Chicago Commons household became a center for the simple and natural interchange of personal values. Representatives of most of the twenty or more nationalities constituting the very cosmopolitan population, for the

Where parks are needed. first time met on common ground, and found in each other so much to interest, respect and attract, that a new bond of neighborly relationship and co-operation was naturally formed. For ten years this good fellowship has deepened and spread. Parents were re-introduced both to their children and to each other, and, from the natural "freemasonry" of their boys and girls, became "hale fellows well met." A new neighborliness spon

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ber of those, differing from each other in circumstances, in views and in personal interests, were here interpreted to one another. Employers and employees, suburban residents and tenement dwellers, radicals and conservatives, partisans and sectarians, exclusives and common folk came to be to each other by turns nothing more nor less than men and women. And so fellow citizens became friends.

Out of these personal affiliations there gradually arose a series of social clubs with varying aims and methods. Their educational value has always been real and designed. But the educational purpose and method have always been held secondary, and even incidental, to their primary and most effective social aim. While the Choral Club, for instance, has steadily raised its standard of musical taste and achievement, it has grown up around the rare spirit of fraternity and service which characterizes it. Its "Guild of Song for the Suffering" co-operating with the work of the district visiting nurse, makes music a medium

of higher worth than the study of it for its own sake could ever be. The programs of the Woman's Club have intellectually developed every one of its many members who have participated in them, but the glorious good fellowship of its membership, and its enlistment of personal interest and help in an ever widening range of neighborhood, civic and social co-operation has far more developed the nature, broadened the life and increased the practical efficiency of every woman. While the results of educational effort. could not be more direct than those attained in the manual training and in the domestic science departments, for instance, yet the reflective influence of settlement life and service is educationally as effective and even wider reaching. Here students of neighboring universities and professional schools have found such valuable first-hand contact with life that Chicago Commons has come to be an interacademic center whose advantages are so widely sought that a waiting list of applicants for residence affords us a wider range of choice. A settlement fellowship has been maintained here by the students and professors of the University of Michigan for the past eight years. The Fellow of the College Settlements Association is now in residence. Whole classes, with their instructors, are frequently in attendance upon regular or special occasions. Initiative was given by this settlement to the Institute of Social Science and Arts, the training school for philanthropic and social service, which has recently been established in this city by the cooperation of experts at the head of specialized agencies with the University of Chicago. In addition to directing these departments of instruction at the University of Chicago, the Chicago Theological Seminary and the settlement, the warden during the ten years of his residence has so constantly responded to widely scattered calls for popular teaching that an extension lectureship has informally developed with more regularly recurring opportunities for brief courses at educational and other centers throughout the country than can possibly be taken advantage of. By a more direct medium of exchange than money, industrial values have interchanged at Chicago Commons. Without fear or favor men have expressed themselves, and have been interpreted to each other across the lines of industrial cleavage and class antagonism. Extreme radicalism has well nigh disappeared through the safety valve of free speech. The "free-floor" discussions, having fulfilled their function in establishing respect for individual convictions and freedom of personal expression, have been superseded by a club of neighborhood men, for social fellowship in the study and practice of good citizenship. Such has been the confidence inspired by the sometimes costly impartiality of the settlement's independent attitude, that the services of its warden are sought for the arbitration of industrial disputes.

The contrast between the politics of the ward and its representatives in the City Council before and after the balance of political power began to be wielded by its independent vote, emphasizes as nothing else can the value of such centers for promoting and perpetuating good citizenship. For years this ward regularly furnished its full quota to the "gang" majority in the council chamber, which numbered fifty-eight over against an honest minority of only ten. After eight years of struggle, in which the Community Club became the live-wire of the Municipal Voter's League, its aldermen have been among the ablest and most aggressive constituents of an honest majority of fifty-five, easily controlling the remnant of fifteen "gray wolves" still surviving the killing-off of the pack. The judge presiding over the election commissioners declares that in as many years of service he has never known the voters of a district better to understand the election law and more fearlessly and independently to enforce it. The citizens, thus emancipated, take more intelligent interest in the departments of city administration and their work in the ward, in the progress of the schools over whose public occasions their aldermen now preside, and in the municipal policy with reference to street railways and other questions of common

concern.

These wider aspects of the settlement work, although of most interest to the general reader, do not even indicate the influence

of the house as a neighborhood center upon individual character, home life, and the social relationships of the community. The few pictures, to which limited space confines our description, can only faintly suggest the ways in which personal ideals are lifted, tastes are cultivated, pleasures are purified, labor is lightened, friendships are deepened as they are formed about higher interests, and the religion of relationship to the divine and the human is realized.

The intellectual, manual, recreative, civic, ethical and religious work with the multitude of small groups, centering at and managed by the house, indoors, on playground, in park, museum and "Camp Commons," by no means measures its influence. For, outside organizations using its facilities in their own or neighborhood interests are as effective as anything attempted by the residents. The gymnasium is at the daily disposal of the neighboring Montefiore public school, whose building is pitifully inadequate for the neediest children to be found in the city. Alumni associations of three public schools regularly meet here, as does the "Sisters" School Club of St. Stephen's Roman Catholic parish. The Armenian colony unites its diverse interests under our roof; the nationalists, the old Gregorian church and the Protestant mission, meeting separately and sometimes together. The alumni and other associations of Lutheran churches, and also a Catholic temperance order are equally at home on this common ground. Pleasure clubs, athletic associations, private musical and elocution classes share the hospitality of the house.

The telephone exchange girls through a self-governing club. supply other settlement organizations with entertainment programs and assist in other features of the work.

Public school teachers and district nurses come to it for their noon day rest. The Chicago Daily News free public lecture course, for the adult constituency of the school district, is held in our auditorium. All political parties hold their mass meetings there. The Tabernacle Church has the use of the whole new building reared on its old corner for its services, Sundayschool, Children's church and weekly appointments, which are independent of and distinct from settlement occasions.

The fire-light-story evening in the club room, the Saturday night socials around the open-hearth of the neighborhood parlor, and the "family resort" provided at the Pleasant Sunday Afternoons in the auditorium cheerily round out the equipment for household pleasure and profit which is added to every home by this neighborhood house. The response of the neighbors to the advantage thus offered is partly measured by the numbers using the house, and by the share they bear of the cost of maintenance. The permanent settlement groups include 2,500 regular attendants. The weekly attendance in the Tabernacle Church groups numbers over 800. The total number of those thus regularly coming to the house is over 3,200. Some weeks the outside groups and special occasions add from 500 to 1,000 more people using the building.

The financial co-operation of the neighborhood groups yields about $1,800 per annum toward maintenance, to which all of them contribute something. But some of them give liberally to the common cause in ways not registered upon settlement ac

counts.

The values entering into individual lives and becoming a part of community interests transcend those which are to be calculated by the use of the center whence they emanate. Facts and figures, groups and occasions, cannot tell the whole story. For the larger and better part of it lies in the hidden history of human hearts, and in those pervasive influences which go forth not only directly, and through co-operation with the district nurse, the charity bureau, the department of health, the building and street inspectors, the juvenile court and the police station house, the aldermen of the ward, the public schools, the universities, the labor unions, employer's associations and the churches, but also by that more subtle uplift and unification of the common life imparted by the mere existence and success of such an effort.

Estimated by the cost of the building and its equipment, $72,000 (on which $9,175 remain to be paid), and the $10,650 required to maintain it and the work, the dividend declared, in the gratuitous service of the resident and non-resident workers and in the steadily rising personal, neighborhood, civic, and still wider social values rates the investment among preferred public securities.

PLEADS FOR JUVENILE COURTS

T. D. HURLEy deliverS FORCEFUL ADDRESS AT CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, MINNEAPOLIS, SUNDAY EVENING, DEC. 18th, 1904.

"I plead with you to arouse public sentiment to the point that the state must treat your boy as you would treat him. Make the child the ward of the court, and make it the court's duty to lift him up."

This was the keynote of the address of Judge T. D. Hurley of Chicago upon the necessity of a juvenile court law in Minnesota at the Church of the Redeemer last night.

Judge Hurley presented the advantages of the juvenile court system from the standpoint of humanity, economy, expediency and fairness. From each of these viewpoints he drew lessons which he left as seed for possible future legislation in Min

nesota.

He argued that the law which disposes of the case of a hardened criminal is not applicable and fit for child offenders as a class, and that the condition should be remedied. Then he used illustrations showing that the modern system is economical, that it has resulted in great savings in states where it has been operated; and. lastly that it is fair and effectual beyond comparison with other systems.

COOK COUNTY FIGURES.

"Speaking of the advantages of the juvenile court law in point of cost," said Judge Hurley, “I will give you some Denver figures. A total of 454 boys, taken care of in court by the usual criminal machinery, occasioned a cost of $105,475. Under the juvenile method 454 boys were handled at a cost of $14,648. These figures show a saving to Denver of $90,821. Since the new law has become effective the cost in the Criminal Court in Chicago, Ill., in child criminality has been reduced 20 per cent.

"Nobody," said Judge Hurley, "whether opposed, friendly or indifferent to the law can contend that it does not mean a saving in dollars and cents.

MORAL RESULTS.

"With reference to moral results, the figures are just as strongly in our favor. In Chicago we have fifteen districts, in each of which there is a special juvenile court officer. The officer is in most cases a woman, and what compensation she receives is paid by the women's club. The officers, by virtue of their positions, are the moral guardians of all children who are obliged to appear in court from their respective districts. "And right here begins the basic work of the law. The child is brought into court. The offense is named. Then the court, in conjunction with the guardian, decides upon the best method of procedure, with particular reference to that child. The idea is to start and keep the child going right, regardless of other considerations.

"In doing this it may be necessary to interest a priest, employers, parents, friends, neighbors, teachers or others. Sometimes all of them are used; sometimes a part; no rule is followed, and the immediate circumstances and conditions surrounding the case always inspire that particular method of treatment."

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"We talked to the youngster and persuaded him to go to his employer asking for another trial. As far as the boy knew he was solely upon his own resources when he asked to be reemployed. But we had a talk with the employer, consequently he got another chance. It was the boy's understanding that he was fighting it out alone, but we were helping him. There was a complex political system behind him, as there is behind all boys who are tried under the juvenile court law. Today the boy that was helped is the proprietor of the bootblacking stand in the Palmer house.

STOLEN SACK OF CORN.

"Another boy had stolen a sack of corn. The investigation showed that the other members of the family were sick and that the youngster was practically driven to it. A state Senator became interested in this case and I made him the personal guardian in the premises. He devoted time to the family. He

straightened out the boy, and helped the sick. This boy came out.all right. Nobody can argue that a system that causes men of ability and judgment to help in such cases is wrong. "In another case wherein two boys once out on probation, but later replaced in the John Worthy School, juvenile officers were sent to the home. They found filthy conditions there. The mother was a drunkard. The boys practically had no home. In some way or other the reform of the mother was accomplished. The home was cleaned up. Conditions that were wrong were changed. Attention was instantly diverted from the boys to the home itself and as a result both were reformed."

DO NOT GO BACK.

Denying statements that a large per cent of youngsters who are released from the house of juvenile detention in Cook county eventually find their way back there, Judge Hurley said: 'During the first two years of the operation of the law in County county approximately 1,200 boys were sent to the John Worthy school. Of about 1,100 of those released upon probation only twelve per cent were returned.

"Results like these are accomplished because the juvenile law goes further than the regular criminal law. The juvenile law contemplates the formation of the child. By means of its special officers, the men and women. employers, teachers, etc., who may have influence in the child's home, are sought out. Their influence is set to working. The child is made to feel a responsibility in his own behalf. He is put to work upon his own salvation. If the conditions surrounding him are wrong they are made right."

NO CONFLICT WITH LAWS.

Relative to the possible conflict of present laws with proposed juvenile laws, Judge Hurley said:

"No repeal or even revision of the present criminal laws is needed. The juvenile provisions are simply additional. There need be and is no confliction. While there is hope for the child, the juvenile law is used; where there is no hope, the criminal law is used as the last resort."

Judge Hurley said that there had been some difficulty in making provisions for the salary of the necessary officers, regardless of the fact that the total cost of children's care is reduced by his plan.

"In Illinois, for instance, private persons have interested themselves in a financial way, and the work in many senses is in the nature of a private enterprise.

"It is our effort to secure state help, and there is promise of success in several states. Eventually these obstacles will be removed. So plainly successful is the law that it cannot fail; it will become national in its effect."

WORK IN MINNESOTA.

Judge Hurley was asked as to the possibility for work along this line in Minnesota, pending desired legislation. He replied that as much could be done in Minneapolis as has been done in Chicago. He said that if individuals and societies here became enthusiastic to the degree that they would help in a monetary way, as Cook county people and organizations have helped, the work would go on here as it has there. He believes that there are indications that a movement in this direction is forthcoming.

He said that until the matter was taken up by the legislature it might be conducted privately without conflict whatever with state laws. He characterizes the juvenile effort as the most humane movement that has been undertaken in America, and believes that a similar opinion is held by a sufficient number of Minnesota people to warrant the launching of the plan in this state.

NOTHING COMPLEX.

"There is nothing complex about this law," he said. "It is simple. The child is taken as a child. He is not thrown with hardened criminals. The court regards him as a child rather than a man. The officers and guardians who are watching him regard him as a child. And briefly, his formation is sought rather than a useless and poisoning punishment."

Judge Hurley said that he hoped to return to Minneapolis in two or three years or earlier on a mission similar to the object of his present visit.-Minneapolis Times.

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TRAVELING TRIPLY SAFE.

Again the Chicago & Alton comes to the front. This time it is an improvement in operation. The new plan has just been put in effect, and with its adoption the Chicago & Alton becomes theoretically at least, the safest railway in the world. The innovation consists of three specific safeguards against accidents, namely--usual telegraphic train orders, automatic electric block signals and "station block" signals. Heretofore no railway has ever applied these three precautions simultaneously. Some railways run their trains by telegraphic train orders; some abandon train orders and trust wholly to block signals, while other lines have a combined plan of train orders and "station block." The Chicago & Alton now combines the triple precautions, and in addition to train orders and auto block signals, has established a complete system of "station blocks." These so-called "station blocks" are formed by a continuous service of telegraph operators-day and night shifts—at each station, providing by human power a system of signals which must corroborate the safety testimony of the automatic signals before the train may proceed. This trinity of precautions in train operation is so far in effect only upon the Chicago & Alton Railway, making that line, theoretically at least, the safest railway in the world.

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