DIFFICULTIES

        The first difficulty is the attitude of a great number of people who see in every public office created an extra burden to them as taxpayers and an easy berth for some one. It is usually, too, the individual who pays the smallest taxes and makes the least contribution to civic progress who speaks the loudest. Illustrating this was an incident that happened in a certain county. It had been advertised in the local papers that the Commissioner was to appear before the county authorities on a certain date to ask for the appointment of a local officer. The public was invited to express an opinion as to the appointment. The only organized opposition that was in evidence on the day the decision was to be made was led by a comparatively well to do, but illiterate farmer,

who had gathered together a number of people from different sections of the county, to protest against any increase in taxation. The majority of his followers could probably neither read nor write, obviously they could have little conception of what they were fighting, but they had a voice and they had a vote; they were entitled to a hearing, and their leader expressed himself emphatically. He took for his text, "The back of the farmer is broke with taxes." "What's your farm worth?" asked the county attorney. "Well, about ten or twelve thousand dollars," he replied. "If that's so," said the county attorney after figuring a little, "What we are planning to appropriate for welfare work in this county will cost you around eighty-three cents a year."

        But the story of the farmer is typical of a condition that is quite prevalent, and not confined by any means to the illiterate class. Frequently educated people are indifferent and really antagonistic to social work because they are uninformed as to the extent and seriousness of our social disabilities. To most social workers, and certainly those having experience in rural fields, such statements as these will sound familiar: "There aren't many weak-minded children in our community": "There isn't any child labor here because we haven't any cotton mills, and any way I always worked, and it didn't hurt me"; "All the children around here are in school that ought to be," etc. To overcome such an attitude it must be proven that the work is needed, and that it pays from an economical as well as a social viewpoint. Both are difficult, principally because they cannot be quickly done, and in the meantime an impatient public is demanding something for its money. In order to prove that the work is needed surveys must be made and statistics gathered that will bring to light the conditions as they actually exist, and that will give a basis for the requirements of the Board, and justify statements as to future probabilities.

        During the past year the Board has made a careful study of two families for the purpose of proving how much it cost the State not to do good social work. In these families the problems of mental defectives, dependency and crime all entered. The cost of these two families alone, which are but typical of others, is so enormous that "he who runs may read" how foolish it is to permit human wreckage, and then try to patch it up by remedial measures, rather than to stop the supply. A synopsis of one of these is included in this report (see Wake family), and the other which is very much more thorough and comprehensive will be published January 1st.

        Another difficulty to overcome is the necessity for shattering pleasant traditions, that have been carefully nurtured and extensively believed, if we are to be honest with the public and with our own convictions. The General Assembly is memorialized at each meeting to enlarge institutional facilities and build new institutions, and petitioners have a very comfortable feeling that if all could be gotten that was asked for,

many social problems would be solved, and individual responsibility relieved. As a matter of fact admission of the necessity for a correctional institution, particularly for children, is prima facie evidence that the home, the school, the church and the community have all failed in their jobs to some extent. Again we frequently hear people remark that "it's a pity more children couldn't be gotten into orphanages." It is a tragedy when any child in need of help and care fails to receive it, but the fundamental problem with which we should grapple is the one of keeping the family intact, rather than striving to provide institutional care for a fragment of it. So long as a child is considered a thing apart from the family environment, no material progress is made in reducing the number of dependents in the State.

        Then there is a minimum danger of too much centralization of power. Just how far the State should go in its efforts to carry out the constitutional mandate that all men shall have an opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and at the same time avoid lessening individual responsibility and discouraging initiative is a serious question. It is obvious that social progress will travel a very uneven road unless there is some general plan for the good of all, and some agency that has the power to supervise and execute to a limited extent. Rich and progressive counties where social leadership exists would have compulsory attendance laws, child labor laws, establish juvenile courts, give attention to the needs of the poor and defective; other counties or communities would be indifferent to all or many of these measures. We believe we are overcoming this difficulty to some extent in North Carolina through the plan of county units of public welfare. These have some definite responsibilities under the State law; they are required to send in certain reports and represent the State in certain instances, but they are largely left to their own wishes when it comes to promoting, correlating, and applying local ideas and efforts and using local agencies, the State acting in an advisory and assisting capacity only. No State program of public welfare should be made so inelastic in its general conception that it cannot conform to local conditions. We believe this can be done without endangering definite and integral policies that must be maintained by the State department.

        Another great handicap in organizing the public welfare work has been the wide gap between our progressive social legislation and our facilities for carrying out the same. When the juvenile court law was passed there were only two corrective institutions in the State for juveniles, the Jackson Training School for White Boys and the Caswell Training School for Mental Defectives. The institutions for the insane and epileptics were totally inadequate to care for the number of applications. Consequently it has been most discouraging for superintendents of public welfare and judges of the juvenile courts to have defective and delinquent persons in their charge for whom the State failed to provide

sufficient corrective institutional care. This is a condition that is being gradually overcome, and it is safe to say that better and increased facilities have come about as a result of the welfare work which has shown the pressing need for the same.

        The last difficulty to be mentioned is probably the most serious one of all--the need for trained workers to carry out the program and plan of the State department, and overcoming this difficulty will include to a large extent the solving of all others. That such workers are more successful if familiar with local conditions, and if they have a local background is also true. Then to take a highly trained worker, accustomed to city work, where adequate facilities are available to handle practically any social problem, and put him in a small town or a rural community where the worker has not only to solve the problems, but be ingenious enough to make the facilities, is exceedingly discouraging to the worker. It was evident then that trained leadership must largely be gotten from local material, and in order to meet this end not only in North Carolina, but in other southern states, the University of North Carolina established the School of Public Welfare (see report of Bureau of Promotion and Education).

        Revealing the difficulties of the work of a State Board of Public Welfare presents the best argument for a state having a well organized department of public welfare. The ignorance and indifference of the public as to social disqualifications; a sentimental attitude rather than a scientific spirit; short-sighted economic policy in handling social problems; lack of facilities to train and treat defectives and delinquents; the lack of trained leadership. These are the problems that can only be overcome by a State Department of Public Welfare that functions for all classes and all sections. That progress is slow and frequently retarded need not be discouraging. Christian civilization is two thousand years old, and we are only beginning to recognize that the test of civilization is the care and protection afforded those who of themselves cannot function as assets to society.

COUNTY ORGANIZATION

        Forty-six counties have whole-time superintendents of public welfare, eleven counties have superintendents giving part of their time to the work, and forty-three counties are requiring the superintendent of public instruction to serve also as superintendent of public welfare.

        There is more work along the lines required of superintendents of public welfare in any one county than can be efficiently done by one person, therefore to require the superintendent of public instruction to add to his already manifold duties by undertaking any part of the welfare work is obviously unfair. It is also obviously unfair to deprive the children and the disadvantaged adults in a certain number of counties of the services that a superintendent of public welfare may render. There is no democracy in providing special care and protection for only a part of the people and neglecting the other part. The welfare work should be enlarged and strengthened to the extent that the enforcement of school attendance, child labor and probation service at least would be a state-wide social program. Then only can there be guaranteed to every child protection and education, and to this should be added recreation and such relief or charity as his condition requires.

        In organizing the work in the counties one of the most difficult things has been to get local officials to see that the "welfare officer," as he is frequently called, should be a person of education, high moral standards and social vision, and that the office is not to be filled by a political dependent. There is just as definite a technique in handling social problems as there is in practicing medicine or law. The social worker who does not understand this, and add to his inclination to do what's right for human beings, the knowledge of how to do what's right, is guilty of experimenting with human misery and need. Having said this much, we must go further and say that the majority of the superintendents of public welfare are doing excellent work in their respective counties. They are men and women who are doing the work because they love it and see the seriousness of our social problems, and frequently they do it at a financial sacrifice. If ever the history of North Carolina's great adventure in public welfare is written as it developed in the various counties it will be a story of the self-sacrifice, the heart-breaking labor, the devotion of a small group of men and women--"welfare officers"--who heard a voice that said, "Even as you do it unto the least of these."

        The State Board of Public Welfare has established a standard system of record-keeping for county officers, and requires monthly records to be submitted to the State Board. These reports keep the Board fairly well informed about the work in general in the various counties and furnish valuable statistics as to the number of persons or cases handled, the charges on which children are brought into court, the disposition of court cases, county poor, relief, etc.

        When the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Federal Child Labor Law unconstitutional, five federal inspectors were automatically removed from the State, and superintendents of public welfare, as local representatives of the State Child Welfare Commission, assumed the responsibility of enforcing the Child Labor Law. This put an extra burden on the time and resources of officials who were already taxed to the utmost in doing the work required of them, but with the help of the State Child Welfare Commission, which put some additional field agents to work, the situation has been satisfactorily handled. (See report of the Commission.) The time has now come when North Carolina should strengthen her laws relating to child labor in order to conform to national standards and make adequate provision for their enforcement. In this way only will we be forever relieved of any necessity for federal inspection and be in a position to say to the Federal government, "We can do our own job."

        As to the administrative machinery for enforcing child labor legislation, this is already provided in a State Child Welfare Commission, of which the Commissioner of Public Welfare is chairman, whose local agent is the County Superintendent of Public Welfare. Additional help should be given superintendents of public welfare in order that the law may be thoroughly and efficiently enforced, and it is but fair that this help should be provided through State funds that will supplement the funds appropriated by the counties. It would be advisable, we believe, for the State to require a certain group of the larger counties to have whole-time superintendents of public welfare with an assistant to be paid from State funds, another group to have whole-time superintendents, one-third of whose salary should be paid by the State, and still another group of rural and sparsely populated counties to put a limited sum for clerical assistance and traveling expenses in the office of the superintendent of public instruction. This plan of course should be worked out on a basis of population and manufacturing interests.

        At the present time $115,543.96 is being spent annually from public funds on county public welfare work. This includes the salaries of superintendents of public welfare, probation and school attendance officers, office help, office supplies, transportation, etc. In comparison with the work that is done and the various and serious responsibilities that are placed on the department of public welfare, this is an entirely inadequate sum to finance the work properly. The amount of $140,000 is spent annually in North Carolina from public funds for outdoor poor relief. In other words the "pauper lists" cost the State approximately $5,000 more each year than is spent for public welfare in both State and county work (the State Board gets $20,000 annually). The pauper lists are composed of persons who for different reasons cannot or will not be sent to the county home, and who appear before the county commissioners and ask for aid. Generally speaking no investigation is made to determine the applicant's real need, but on recommendation of

some one, usually a neighbor, enough is given to tide the applicant over from one month's misery to the next. Just as frequently as not the money is given unwisely and foolishly used. Indeed the pauper list in some counties is so large that it raises a question of whether or not its administration is not quite a political asset. Yet no question has ever been raised regarding this careless handling of public funds (there are some exceptions of course to the way outdoor relief is administered), but much has been said in the various counties about the cost of public welfare whose ultimate object is to decrease the State's dependents.