| CHARITIES A Review of Local and General Philanthropy | ||
| Published Every Saturday | Two Dollars a Year | |
| Vol. XIII | January 14, 1905 | No. 16 |
Congressional Legislation for the National Capital.After two years of work and waiting, a satisfactory bill providing for compulsory education has been presented to Congress by the district commissioners. A goodly number of organizations and individual workers have agreed to unite in urging the passage of this measure as the one and most fundamental most seriously needed in the National Capital.
President Roosevelt's incidental suggestion of a whipping post for wife-beaters has so occupied the public mind that his more important recommendations for constructive social legislation have been rather overshadowed. Social workers have been spending valuable time in combatting a whipping post bill recently introduced by Representative Adams, and already endorsed by two of the three district commissioners, who believe that the major objections are eliminated by the provision that the punishment shall be administered in private.
A bill is being strongly urged, providing for the regular establishment of a juvenile court with a judge and meeting place distinct from the local police courts, where separate sessions for children's cases are now held by the police judges, but only through their own voluntary agreement.
Eleven public playgrounds were so successfully conducted last summer by a committee of the Associated Charities that the commissioners are now asking Congress for $8,000 for the public equipment and maintenance of playgrounds on vacant ground controlled by the public authorities or loaned by private owners.
A child labor bill has been presented, referred to the district commissioners and returned by them to Congress with some modifications. Further, it is hoped that some Congressional action in the matter of family desertion and compulsory support may be inaugurated as a result of the notable study of remedial legislation along these lines recently completed by a member of the board of managers of the Associated Charities, William H. Baldwin of Washington.
Housing Legislation Held Up.The present "short session," however, with the order which has gone forth to cut down all appropriations, is not auspicious for prompt and generous legislation on progressive social lines. President Roosevelt's valuable suggestion of "a special commission on housing and health conditions in the National Capital" bids fair to receive no attention whatever this session, unless he himself should give further aid by asking some influential congressman to take up the proposition.
"The suspended animation of the proposed bill for the condemnation of insanitary dwellings," writes Charles F. Weller, secretary of the Associated Charities, "is a striking example of the fact that Washington city can not secure progressive legislation without converting the entire country to its cause." A single senator, from a distant state, is doggedly preventing any action whatever on a very satisfactory bill which is the third proposed to Congress within the last three years. The pending measure is modeled upon successful legislation which New York's highest courts have approved. It was prepared and recommended by the district commissioners, endorsed by the various citizens' organizations and advocated, in several special hearings at the Capitol, by Washington's leading citizens. Last spring this measure was reported in Charities as practically passed. It had been endorsed by both
