CHARITIES IN MINNESOTA.*

BY DANIEL R. NOYES.

The development of a community, or a state, in the higher lines of organized effort, can hardly be better illustrated than in the record of its charities; for they spring from its best motives, and are sustained by the best men and women of any community. Where efficient and wide reaching charities are lacking, the community is surely backward and unintelligent. Where its charities are well organized and sustained, the community is as surely intelligent and large minded and consequently prosperous and progressive.

All early charities were more or less indiscriminate. Giving was impulsive, rather than thoughtful. While often necessary and always kindly, it was usually without system or reference to its effect, further than immediate relief. The science of relief, that is, of wise and helpful aid, promoting self-respect and personal effort of the receiver, as now taught and practiced, at least in our larger towns and cities, was unknown.

The purpose of the New Charity is to communicate strength and courage. Shall material aid be given with our sympathy? Yes, but under wise control. The defective and delinquent, as well as the dependent, are to receive aid; not the "worthy poor" alone, but also the unworthy poor. It is, however, to the children that we most hopefully look. They, as a rule, can be rescued from dependent poverty or delinquency. Child-helping is therefore a most important adjunct in social salvage.

In the past, little has been known of careful and systematic investigation and registration to prevent duplication of aid. There was no lack of good intention. Warm hearted, generous souls there were, just as indispensable then as now; but institutional charities,

*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, February 13, 1905.

asylums, hospitals, schools, and homes, were few and in some degree experimental. Great as has been our improvement in the administration of charity, enlarged as has been our view of this whole subject, we can hardly do more than to define and characterize this science of relief, which now, through the munificent gift of $250,000 by John Skinner, of New York, is to be taught in a school of philanthropy already in partial operation.

RELIEF WORK OF COUNTIES, TOWNS, AND CITIES.

From the organization of the state, and even before, relief for the destitute, unfortunate, and forsaken, has been a matter of public and private care. In the larger cities, municipal, church, and private charities existed. Organized charities followed as soon as organization was practicable. In our counties there were at least "poor houses" and "county boards;" in our larger towns, superintendents for the poor; and in our villages very practical charities, though unorganized. Always and everywhere our churches have engaged in charitable work, especially within their own lines. Throughout our state today these primitive forms of charity still exist.

In answer to many inquiries, I learn from mayors and town of ficers that Red Wing, Brainerd, St. James, Lake City, Shakopee, Farmington. Excelsior, and other large towns and small cities, have no organized charity societies, but depend on county boards, churches, and lodges, for this work. Besides these agencies for relief, Winona has a "poor commissioner," appointed by the Council, a city hospital, and a poor farm. Stillwater has a Bethel Home and the King's Daughters' Society. Mankato has two organized relief societies, Protestant and Catholic; Rochester, a Woman's Relief Association Owatonna, a Benevolent Society; Northfield, a Board of Relief, differing, as I understand, from the usual county board; Cannon Falls, a Ladies' Aid Society; Saint Cloud has St. Joseph's Home; and Moorhead levies a mill tax, yielding about $1,000 annually, and has a Ladies' Benevolent Society. The ladies, as you will have noted, frequently take the lead in charitable work; in Excelsior, "the police" are mentioned in this connection.

In our three largest cities, development of organized charity has been more rapid and far greater than elsewhere in the state.

Duluth has a board of control, as well as the county board, a superintendent of the poor, the Bethel Star of Hope Mission, and a Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and recently has organized, with great promise of usefulness, an Associated Charities Society. Here, as elsewhere, the churches, secret societies, etc., are abundant in relief work.

ST. PAUL CHARITIES.

The city of St. Paul has the earliest record of organized and systematic charitable work. Beginning with the usual county board. a superintendent of the poor, and the aid of the churches, there has been developed here a very complete system of organized charities, second to none in the West, and ranking with the best east or west. I am unable to state with certainty the earliest organized charity here. Among the earliest were St. Joseph's Hospital, established in 1854; the St. Vincent de Paul Society, in 1856; St. Luke's Hospital, in 1857; and the Young Men's Christian Association, in 1857-8, whose general relief work, however, only dates from 1868.

As the Young Men's Christian Association is unique in its attempt to do the relief work of this city, and in its history. I give it mention first and here. When it entered upon its general relief work, Rev. Mr. Chase was its missionary and relief agent. Mr. E. W. Chase, long known in relief work here, succeeded him as secretary. During the Civil War, this Association, whose rooms were then in the Ingersoll Block, worked efficiently with the United States Christian Commission.

In 1876 the St. Paul Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor, on the basis of the New York society, was formed to relieve the Y. M. C. A. from relief work and to enlarge and systematize it. Since then this society has been the most important factor in our general relief work, and has been known as the St. Paul' Society for the Relief of the Poor. It is still the only society here for general and applied relief. Further reference will be made to it.

As to municipal relief, our city Board of Control, organized in 1872, was, so far as known, the first of its kind. Possibly it is the only one where the appointment is made by the judges of the District Court; but originally it was not so here. It has in charge the City

and County Hospital, of which Dr. Arthur B. Ancker has long been the head physician. In 1903, the number of patients was 2,412; and for some parts of the year an average of about two hundred was reached daily. The expense item was about $65,000. Its contagious ward, a new building, is admirably adapted to the purposes of isolation.

The city alms house has about seventy-five inmates, and with it is connected a well managed poor farm. The amount expended annually is about $11,000.

In "out of door relief" about $8,000 was expended in 1903, and 1,871 cases were reported.

In connection with the City and County Hospital, a state department for crippled and deformed children was established in 1897, since which time 205 children have been treated. This work is under the care of the Board of Regents of the State University.

A state Detention Hospital for the insane was also here established in 1897, and is under the Board of Control. Thirteen cases were cared for, at the City Hospital, last year.

St. Luke's Hospital was chartered in 1857 as the Episcopal church hospital and orphans' home for Minnesota. It was reorganized and more fully established in 1873. After two removals, the hospital, as Saint Luke's, found a home at No. 43 Eighth street, and thence removed to its fine new building in October, 1892. It has accommodations for a hundred patients or more, and about 1,000 patients make use of it annually. Its staff and force have. been remarkable for devotion and efficiency, and its training school for nurses is very successful.

St. Joseph's Hospital, established in 1854, being, I think, our oldest organized charity, shows no loss of energy or ability. On the contrary, its last report, which is the 51st annual, is its best report. The number of patients treated in 1903-04 was 2,595. It was among the first to establish a training school for nurses, and to give them systematic instruction in materia medica. More than two hundred Catholic sisters and about fifty lay nurses are here employed.

Bethesda Hospital, founded in 1892, received and treated 819 patients in 1903. It is well equipped, and has an able staff. It has also deaconesses' and nurses' training classes.

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Luther Hospital, founded in 1904, received and treated 106 patients last year.

The Cobb Homœopathic Hospital is the only homœopathic hospital in the city. A hundred and six cases were treated last year. Eight assistants are employed.

Excellent as are many of our city charities, none are more nearly fundamental than the St. Paul Society for Relief of the Poor, already referred to. It was organized in 1876, and was incorporated in 1881, as the "St. Paul Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor." It was founded by Daniel R. Noyes. Henry M. Rice, H. R. Bigelow, and Alexander Ramsey, have been its presidents; E. W. Chase, Rev. Richard Hall, and Morgan L. Hutchins, its secretaries. Over 50,000 applications for relief have been received and acted upon. An average of nearly 1,000 annually have been aided. There were 908 cases last year, of which 394 were new. Besides the main work of general and applied relief, its loaning fund has proved of great value, and its loans have been generally paid. The charter legislation for a loaning bank has been secured. Its industrial school, the largest in the city, has about 350 girls in attendance, under the management of Mrs. T. L. Blood. This society owns its building, 141 East Ninth street, and has a small endowment fund, the gift of Judge Henry Hale. It has saved the city many thousands of dollars by its work, and the city last year contributed a small amount for its support. A much larger amount could be well used.

The "Associated Charities" was formed by Rev. Dr. Samuel G. Smith and others, largely connected with the Relief Society, after a failure some years before by others in the same line. It was formed to act as a bond of union between all the charities of the city. It investigates applicants for relief, and keeps a complete register of them and of their need as ascertained, for reference to prevent duplication of aid. It aims to promote information by public conferences. It conducts friendly visiting, and has a visiting and advisory nurse for needy cases. Its Provident Savings Fund for children in the public schools, and for others, has been successful. Although giving no direct or applied aid in money or material, its work is of the greatest value, and the association is a source of pride to St. Paul. The city Board of Control use this association for practically all their investigations.