The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-03-24
The Trustees OF Charitable Societies
and the Experts in Professional
Charity.

The Trustees OF Charitable Societies
and the Experts in Professional
Charity.
The President and Trustees Of the Children's
Aid Society have issued card. which we
gladly publish in to-day's HERALD, testifying
to the fidelity with which they discharge the
duties they have taken upon themselves in
supervising the work Of the society, in visiting
the schools and lodging houses, in examining
expenditures and accounts, fixing salaries and
investigating the security and productiveness
of investments. The Trustees further certify
to the righteousness and experience of the
agents. under care of whom children are sent
to homes in the West, and express the ''fullest
confidence" in Mr.. Charles Brace, ''who has
the experience Of twenty-one years devoted to
the cause" and under whose constant atten-
ton and supervision the ''whole work of the
society is performed.
No person has ever doubted that the Trus-
tees of the Children's Aid Society discharge
their duties as faithfully and as intelligently
as such duties can be discharged. The names
of Mr.. William A. Booth, Theodore Roose-
Welt, Howard Potter, D. Willis James-in
fact all the names, are sufficient guarantee
of the excellent intentions and capacity of the
Board. These gentlemen are identified with
number of philanthropic and charitable en-
terprises and are, besides, active business
men. The difficulty is that the excellent citi-
zens who accept positions as trustees of such
institutions as the Children's Aid Society have
too many calls on their time to be expected to
do more than receive the reports Of the active
officer of the society and to accept his figures
and explanations as satisfactory Of course
they have "full confidence in the manage
ment of any institution of which they are
trustees. They would not otherwise allow
their names to be associated with it. But
having this confidence they are too apt to
leave ''the whole work Of the society" to the
constant attention and supervision" of pro-
fessional philanthropist, with ''twenty-one
years experience" during which he has not
only made handsome income out of the
handling of charity funds, but has become an
expert in the art of inspiring confidence in
unsuspecting Trustees.
The fact that the Children's Aid Society is
one of those charitable institutions which con-
sumo in expenses a large percentage Of the
charity funds received before they reach the
poor, is unanswered by the trustees. Now, if
Mr.. Brace and the rest Of the professional
philanthropists who fatten on these funds
were paid by the trustees, and did not eat
into the charity money, the people would
have no right to find fault. But the Chill
dren's Aid Society is public, not q private
institution, for it receives, we believe, some
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars q
year out of the public treasury, and the people
have, therefore, a right to insist that none of
this money shall 60 to support sturdy sex
perts' in charity. There is "close corpora
ton" air about the affairs of the society which
should not exist. Nothing should be more
clear, explicit and above. board than the
accounting for the use Of charity funds. The
Trustees Of the society may be satisfied with
the details with which their Secretary supplies
them, but these details ought to be given to
the public, especially as the society is public
expense. In fact, all such institutions receiv-
ing the peoples money ought to be subject to
strict scrutiny and investigation, outside of
their trustees. In most instances, persons re-
ceiving money in trust for charitable purposes
deem it due to themselves as we'll as the COM
munity to furnish the details Of its expenditure
to the last dollar Now, Mr.. Brace boosted in
February that he had been for some time
receiving five hundred dollars o day
in charitable subscriptions, as mark of
public confidence in his honesty and in
tegrity. In March he published letter in
which he stated that the money had been
carefully used' for exceedingly unfor-
tunate and HELPLESS cases in tenement houses;