and otherwise handicapped poor, collecting discarded articles which are refurbished and sold in stores throughout the city.
The Travelers' Aid Society functions in Portland as well as in other metropolitan areas. A legal aid committee of the Oregon Bar Association renders free legal assistance to indigent persons in Multnomah County, while the American Civil Liberties Union acts to safeguard constitutional rights of free speech and assembly.
The Multnomah County Health Unit provides skilled nursing in the home and conducts health education. Indigent soldiers in the county are provided for from the funds raised by a tax levy.
Fraternal orders have established many homes for their aged members in Portland. The Maccabees, the United Artisans, the Odd Fellows, Masonic Orders and the Eastern Star all maintain homes in the state. The Oregon- Washington Pythian Home also serves Oregon, though located at Vancouver, Washington. The Patton and the Mann Homes in Portland provide board and room and general care for men and women under 60. Grandma's Kitchen gives shelter to 300 homeless men and 50 indigent women, besides operating a salvage department and a working girls' home. The First Presbyterian Church Men's Resort in Portland maintains a free reading and writing room.
Operating in Portland are several agencies which give aid to different national groups. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is also active. The American National Red Cross has a number of county chapters in Oregon, the Multnomah County Chapter with 30,000 members being the largest and most active.
Oregon has the usual organizations classed as "character building" institutions including the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Young Women's Christian Association. The 4.H Clubs and the Future Farmers of America are active throughout the state. Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls and Girl Scouts have many active troops.
In the field of penology, Oregon suffers from the lack of a modern and more commodious penitentiary, although the treatment of prisoners is generally humane, and the commonwealth's efforts to rehabilitate criminals equals those of penologists in many other states. Oregon's first penitentiary was established by legislative act of the territorial government in 1851. First located at Portland, it was moved to Salem in 1866.
On January 24, 1939, it housed 1071 inmates, of whom 10 were women. Convicts labor in a prison flax plant, which has developed into an important establishment with the largest scutching plant in the
