The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-04-07
CHICAGO'S MRS. THORPE
AItruistic Beliefs Held by the
Founder of Hull House.
Chicago's Most Celebrated Char
fty and Miss Jane Adams.
She is a Socialist But Believes in
Socialism Only When the Peo-
pie Are Ready to Under
stand Tt.
TFrom the chicago chronicle.l

IF'rom the Chicago Chronicle.1
Jane Adams has been for the last
eight years at the head of the Hull
House settlement and the Nineteenth
ward is not yet redeemed. 1t is still
the land of muddy and unpaved streets
the haunt of unpleasant people, the re-
giOn of tenement houses, the refuge OF
sweat shop workers. the playground OF
an iEnumerable brood Of factory emil
dren-
The point is not that Miss Adams
and the women and men who have sec
onded her efforts have failed in even
the smallest particular to do the things
that ought to be done 1t is simply that
a person of rather more than ordinary
attachments or more than common
strength Of character, has imnured her-
self in an environment quite unlike her.
quiet alien, quite foreign, has IN the
fullest meaning of the word made sac
rifice of herself, without apprec1ably
changing the condition that existed
there at the beginning
A teacher whose preceptS nave COM
manded the admiration of the world
and whose own life was miracle OF
self abnegation, once said TO ms tol-
lowers: Cast not your pearls before
swine" And something of that general
sense of manhood's interest in the ac-
tons of one necessarily much IN the
public eye warrants the student in the
Inquiry: Has Miss Adams contra
Has it paid2"
That is the question that was asked
Miss Adams.
Has it done any good? Are there
results enough to warrant the self-irn-
notation Of two or eight or twenty wo-
men of the best quality?"
You ask me if il has paid said Miss
Adams I'VE may as well challenge
life itself. What is the good of having
these things if we make no use OF
them2 Instead of feeling that might
make better use of languages I wish l
could speak III their tongue to Russian
Hebrews. wish knew Greek. have
too little-not too much.
We might as we'll go to the priests
over here at the cathedral and point
out to them that they have not redeem
ed the people who live in every direc-
ton around them; and in spite Of their
preaching and service and example Of
their own pure lives all manner of sin
still exists in their neighborhOOd in
some measure and among the very peo-
pie who are reached by them. They do
not think their work has been a failure.
They know they have not reformed a
man by speaking to him nor redeemed
a woman by simply placing the right
life before her.
They have done some good. That
is certain. They do good every day.
Their mission, then, has not been a. fail
ure- One might as wen challenge
them as challenge US One might as
Well challenge life itself as to say there
have been no sufficient results here be-
cause many old. conditions still exist.
The people here are better. They
are getting better every day. They will
grow better to the end. One may go
through the district and not be able to
see any great Improvement But it is
here. The number of young women who
have different ideas and different ideals
of life is vastly encouraging. The
number Of young men who view the
questions of morality and purity as you
view them and as I view them has
grown. It would not be easy to mass
this evidence 50 it would be convincing
to stranger, to one who simply looked
over the situation. But it is here. We
who live in it, and are part Of it,
know
There was no use of working among
students and the people who had pic
lures and music and all that in their
homes. These people had none Of it,
and we came here because they had
none Of it. 1t is just like the man who
was whole; he did not need a physi-
clan. And there is another thing. The
man that falls fainting on the street
VIII always be taken care of. The very
passers that never before saw him will
take up q collection. The very excess
of his misfortune commands help on
the spot, and he receives it.
But these people were neither equip |
ped for life nor were they at the edge |
of death. No one was paying any at |
tentton to them. And so we began. If |
1
that it had been profitable I would quit |
today. The fact that I am going on |
with it is the best proof can give that !
have faith in it.
Sometimes, said Miss Adams IT |
get discouraged and blue I suppose |
that comes in every ones life 1t seems |
that 1t is all wasted and that there is no |
help for them. But it is never for long.
Surely it does them good. Surely these /
years of study that many of them have |
taken, the years of contact with good |
things, the ideals inculcated. the new
habits formed, are something to life |
When get respondent have only to |
look at these who have come to depend |
on what they get here for their only re- |
lief from what is undesirable and IN
happy I know that they prize it, that /
II helps them, and so I am reassured' -
Some time Miss Adams believes /
there viii be a municipal ownership of (
street cars and of the telegraph and of /
the telephone and of the varied con |
Veniences of the public that are now in /
the hands of corporations. She does not
want 1t yet. She declares she believes
It would be the greatest of misfortunes
to place the control of these great in
dustries in the hands of the public as