maintain the standards of civic conduct which are essential to their perpetuity, we recognize no difference in race or creed-we stand united, a contented people rejoicing in the privileges and determined to meet the responsibilities of American citizenship.

XIII.

Address at the Charity Organization Society, Carnegie Hall, New York City, November 19, 1907.

It is a great pleasure to join in the welldeserved congratulations that are appropriate to this occasion. In the extraordinary development of our country during the past twentyfive years, nothing has been more marked than the growth, in extent and intelligence, of philanthropic endeavor. And in taking account of these efforts there is probably no one agency to which higher praise should be accorded than to the Charity Organization Society.

Its ministry of relief has had a wide scope. It would be difficult indeed to measure the value of its direct beneficence. Upon a large scale it has been a distributor of alms. In countless cases it has brought succor to the distressed. It has helped men to help themselves. It has been unremitting in its work of

investigating cases of need and of providing suitable measures of relief.

But in a larger view, its greater service has consisted in its organization of effort and its employment for philanthropic purposes of the scientific method. It has sought to minimize the waste incident to indiscriminate almsgiving, and to correlate the forces of benevolence so as to secure the maximum results. How much good purpose fails of important result through lack of relation! And if we are to accomplish anything of permanent value in our efforts to uplift our fellow men it must be wrought through such organized, systematic, and well-directed effort as has characterized this Society.

It is significant that this anniversary should be made the occasion of a conference on The Betterment of Living Conditions. This implies no departure from the Society's aim. We have too long dealt with effects, leaving baleful causes to operate unchecked. This Society is a thorough agent of democracy, seeking not merely to apply balm to the bruises of life, but to eliminate the causes of unnecessary injury.

For we have but little of the true democratic spirit if we seek merely freedom of

opportunity that we may aggrandize ourselves, and are not keenly zealous for the welfare of all, in which indeed lies the true interest of each one. They who think they may dwell secure in citadels fortified by the gains of selfish effort, live in a fool's paradise. Our ultimate security must be found in the wellbeing of the people as a whole, and patriotic sentiment will not tolerate the continuance of unnecessary and remediable conditions to which may be traced poverty, vice, and crime.

We can not but realize that a large portion of our brethren are the helpless victims of an environment from which they cannot escape, and through which they are destined to physical misery, moral impoverishment, and economic inefficiency. It is our duty patiently to consider what can be done not merely to afford temporary relief to immediate sufferers, but to change the improper environment and promote a healthier life.

Nor do we ask for the impossible or cherish any Utopian dream of altering, through changes in externals, our human nature, with its mingled elements of strength and weakness.

We desire that men should work under conditions which will permit a man to do a normal man's work. We desire the abatement

of nuisances and such housing of men, women, and children that they may live in decency and with proper sanitary safeguards against the spread of communicable disease. We do not wish to see productive energy sapped by excessive toil or by labor under improper conditions. We want men protected from avoidable danger to life and limb, and to see a diminution in the shocking number of preventable casualities in our industrial employments which, it is not too much to say, in the light of comparative statistics, constitute a disgrace to the country. We want to see the lives and health of our children protected, and by suitable restrictions upon child labor to prevent vitality from being weakened during the period of growth, and an opportunity afforded for proper education and preparation for the work of life. We seek the dissemination of information with regard to the practical conduct of life, so as to remove the ills which are due to simple ignorance.

We wish to brighten and to purify the social side of life, to provide means for recreation, and to diffuse the opportunities for the refreshment of those who are bearing heavy burdens of daily toil.