The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-07-04
The farm colony on Staten
Island.

\ 1EW YORK has o new secre.
Y tary Of its Municipal Bureau
= of Social Investigation. AMI
his name is Alexander NJ. Wilson. He
was born in Newcastle. Pa. in 1873
and was graduated from Princeton
University with the class Of ~. While
in Princeton he distinguished himself
in high jumping, wherefore he made
the varsity track team
Now he has leaped again-this time
into the job OF looking after Father
Knickerbocker's un~fortunates who
need help sorely at times-and hence.
forth his Job and that OF his assist
ants will be to and means whereby
dire poverty will be accompanied by
less distress and mental anguish thar.
in the past.
For a long time New York city has
had a Department of Charities, which
has been looking after the sick ami
needy in an official way with results
that were not fruitless by any means.
Yet. OF recent years. other cities hav"
sounded a new note in this kind OF
work. They have gone ahead on tho
assumption that a municipality is no
doing its full duty by my means
when 4, merely cares for q sick parent
or helpless child temporarily, in a
hospital or. an asylum; that IL has
much more to do than merely pro-
viding a few nights shelter and a few
meals for the man or the woman who
is down and out and on the streets.
New York at last has decided to
enter upon this broad. Humanitarian
policy. Each year it receives appli'
cations for help to the number OF not
,ess than 100000. 1t has been doing
all it could do under the old system
Now, IL is expected. much more vii
be accomplished. or this great army
Of unfortunatcs the Bureau OF Socia'
Investigation has about 1000 persons
to look after who are inmates OF hos
pitals, almshouses, infirma-ies FOR the
aged and sick. the crippled. The oea'
and the blind. and others who are IN
some form or another physically OF
mentally unbalanced. The institu-
lions for Migrants and for mentally
defective children also are included
in the Department of Charities.
In addition to these pubic institu'
tons the city cares for a large num-
Der Of dependents at various private
Institutions. In fact New York spends
more than $4,000, 900 a year for the
care and custody OF various groups
Of unfortunates in these private in
st!tutions. The Department OF Chari-
ties is striving to compel private In
s,itutions which receive money from
the city to live up to the same !
Standards and ideals which 1t is en-
dcavoring to set for its " institu-
tons.
Following are some OF the reasons
urged in favor OF the organization OF
the new social service work. First,
that the city may extend its work
~ rehabilitation to families as well
as to individuals. Heretofore the city
has looked at the problem OF poverty
entirely on the basis OF the individual
unit rather than the family unit. II
the city found a man suffering from
tuberculosis. for example. 1t perfume
torily committed him to a hospita.
or s~anitarium without regard to what
became OF the rest Of the family.
The basic idea behind the new
bureau Of investigation is not to
confne it's help to the individual mi
but to look at the problem OF poverty
from the standpoint OF the whole
family.
A second important reason fon the
establishment Of the bureau OF social
Investigation Is that the Department
OF Charities may have definite ma
'n!nery with which to carry on pre-
ventive as we'll as palliative work.
When Mayor Mitchell appointed John
y. kingsbury as Commissioner OF
'harities he expressly directed that
MI kingsbury should turn his ef-
forts not only toward the relief OF
IN" distressed poor but toward an in
vestlgation Of the causes and con-
oItlons which create poverty. and 50
TAR as possible toward the elimination
ana prevention Of those conditions.
The Bureau Of Social Investigation