Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-01-17
As ONE WOMAN SEES IT
When q Man Who Plans, a Man Who
Has the Data and . Man Who Has
- Experience Get Together, Welfare
Work VIII BE Boosted
Ry SARAH ID. LnWRIE
THERE is a well. defined plan in W

L ington to add another department to the
government and by that token a new officer
to the cabinet.
Two great interests are jockeying for
the department. The public educational in
terests Of the country wish, and wish very
logically, a department of public educa-
ton, and a secretary Of education with
cabinet status. The phlanthropic interests
cally, a department Of public welfare, and
a secretary Of public welfare with cabi-
net position. As IL Is quite unlikely two
new departments will be created there is
a move atoot to combine the two and have
a department Of public education and wei.
fare, with one secretary to represent both
In the cabinet.
II would take very various sort Of
secretary to do justice to both enthusiasms.
but the department heads under him could
specialize to their hearts content.
A good many national interests that have
to do with one or the other of these two,
viz, education or welfare, are now scat
tered through various departments where
they seem decidedly out Of place. These,
with other national interests along welfare
and educational lines that have had no
place for the sole of their feet in the capi-
tai, could be housed and looked after, and,
after perilous existence of suferance on
the outside rim of the lobby, be mobilized
for effective work.
TURIOUSLY enough in Pennsylvania the
~ city has got ahead Of the state in the
welfare idea, and we have in Philadelphia
n Department of Public Welfare and an
official representing it in the cabinet of the
Mayor, Mr.. Ernest Tustn.
I was regarding Mr.. Tustin the other
day with interest to see how he and the
welfare idea were getting on together. To
judge by his facc-and one can judge some
things by face after it has looked out on
life for fifty years-to judge by his face
hn fnnl hat htr0 ttxv xt-oll
but there Is room for considerable improve
ment. He looks capable, but not contented (;
successful, perhaps, but dissatisfied; which
interested me, because ten years ago when
he was kind to women about suffrage, but
not .verh optimistic, l rather, thought he
would settle into kind of .npenetrable
complacency, interested in welfare and
philanthropy and in various church busi-
ness on the side, but not as career, be.
cause politics had rather bitten him; and
that he would slip from. state senator to
congressman and so on with no appreciable
sacrifice of other demands on his capa-
bilities.
pUT now he has very great piece Of
- constructive work under his hand here
as director of public welfare. He can make
his mark on both his state and on the
country. He has a chance for originality
and for practically. He has to make or
to mar an organization which is focusing
great deal of attention, fresh and grave,
almost anxious attention. He has large
enough field for his authority and initiative
to give him scope and room to build solid
foundations. His mistakes cannot possibly
be as conspicuous as his successes, because
things cannot be much worse and every
little betterment shows for all II Is worth.
Philadelphia is very philanthropic city,
and a man who can put the municipal well
fare works on an up-to date footing will
be giving real pleasure and hearty satisfac-
tion to a great multitude of his fellow
citizens.
What is done we'll and far sightedly in
this department for Philadelphia can well
be used as an argument for a like Depart
ment Of Welfare for the state.
r DARE say Mr.. Tustin is up against
many obstacles to the clean rounding out
of his plans during his term of Office. He
has to 20 as slow as the slowest, rather than
as fast as the quickest of those he must
look to for appropriations and for removals
and for renewals, not to speak Of innova-
tions. There are always more cranks in
tcrested in other folks welfare than any
where else outside the patent office or the
hospital for the insane, and Mr.. Tustin has
the look of having met more than one crank
thnt proved q surprising obstacle, but lie
also looks as though he could get past or
over them.
T WAS talking last week with another
i man just as interested in welfare. whose
face on the contrary was entirely carefree,
and that was Kenneth l.. NJ. Pray, secre-
tRry of the Public Charities Association of
Pennsylvania. l concluded the main diff
ference between Mr.. Pray and Mr.. Tustin
was that Mr.. Pray suggests to other per.
sons how to get welfare over the top, and
the other man is up against doing it, in
spite of other persons.
Not that Mr.. pray's job is a bed of roses,
but he can be more optimistic. And even
when you are gathering data as to how
wrong n thing is, when YOU are not re-
sponsible to the public for the wrong or for
the work of righting it, you can have rather
q cordial eye for all suggestions. Locking
statistics into your desk and turning the
key of your office Is one thing. Placing
children in asylums and wards and having
to make sure they are rightly locker after
Is another.
TN THIS state there are upward of 20, 900
l. children who are deficient. deserted or
delinquent for whom the state is respon-
sible, but who are not supervised month
by month or even year by year by any one
commission or board or bureau or body OF
INSPECTORS responsible for their continued
welfare in the place to which they have been
originally committed.
There are q score Of state or county
agencies that can commit a deserted or
delinquent or defective child to state or
n private institution, or to the care of a
family or of an individual, but unlike Mas
sachusetts or New York. the state has no
adequate inspcctorship of its wards and no
appropriation Tor Keeping enectVe oversight
of them
This is just one OF the things state
welfare department would undertake. 1t
is to be hoped that Governor Sproul, who
could inaugurate the propaganda for such
a step in advance, and n man like Pray,
who has the data, and a man like Tustin,
who is having the experience, can get to-
gether and move their big public to see the
necessity of it and demand its accomplish
mcnt.
Mr. Taft has pointed out that the Ford
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