and self-denial are the principles upon which you build and because human uplift is the goal to which your energy and high moral purpose is directed.

I trust that you will have a pleasant and profitable stay in the land of Roger Williams. I trust, also, that from the associations you form here you will carry to your homes the most pleasant memories of Providence and her people. And more than that, I hope you will receive an inspiration here that will deepen in your hearts your faith and confidence in the work you are doing. An inspiration that will spur you on to greater and more effective accomplishments so that the results achieved in your Providence conference will add something to the peace, contentment and happiness of mankind.

Joseph H. Gainer, Mayor of Providence

In the name of the city of Providence, I extend to the National Conference of Social Work, its officers and its delegates generally, a very sincere and whole-hearted welcome.

I want you to realize at this your opening meeting that the selection of Providence for your forty-ninth annual gathering is pleasing and gratifying to this community. We have endeavored to make satisfactory arrangements for your accommodation. We are prepared to remedy any imperfections in those arrangements as they appear, so do not hesitate to make known to our committees your reasonable needs. Our object is to care for you so satisfactorily that when you depart you will have pleasant impressions of our people and of our community. We believe our city is ideally located and well equipped for the entertainment and accommodation of your convention. We trust when you leave us you will carry with you that same opinion.

I feel Providence is particularly fortunate in having this Conference of Social Work held here. The problems which are scheduled for treatment on your program are intensely interesting. The progress of your work in the past two decades has been marvelous. Its possibilities for the future are unlimited.

For a long time in the development of our country, we followed a program of individualism, a program in which property rights were sacredly guarded. I have nothing to say against this program as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was too narrow. We were taking it for granted that the weak, the helpless, and the unfortunate were able to care for themselves and that it was not necessary to give them any community protection. During the past few years there has come a great change. We have developed a social consciousness. We have begun to realize that we have a duty to the less fortunate of our brethren; a duty to give these weaker ones among us a fighting chance in the complicated scheme of modern life. States, cities, and private individuals banded together all over the country have entered the fray under the banner of Service. Laws have been passed which insure the wage-earner safe and healthy conditions in the shop and factory, which forbid child labor and which limit the working hours of women. The housing problem has been recognized as one which demands community attention. Cities are sending medical and dental inspectors, eye specialists and nurses into our schools to lead aright the citizens of the future along physical lines, recognizing the relation of bodily health to mental development. Recreation boards have been established which are planning for the leisure hours of the tenement house child. Preventive medicine has been established as of as great importance as the cure of the sick. The sustaining of family integrity and unity has been recognized as a

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Joseph H. Gainer, Mayor of Prøndenes

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A. GENERAL SESSIONS

ADDRESSES OF WELCOME

T. F. I. MacDonnell, Chairman, Local Committee of Arrangements, Providence

I consider it a very great privilege to have the honor, as chairman of the Providence committee of arrangements, to join with His Honor the Mayor, and the President of Brown University in extending to you a most cordial welcome to the city of Providence. It is always a great privilege to meet face to face serious-minded and sincere men and women whose energies and efforts are devoted to the promotion of the common good.

Tonight it seems to me that this privilege is the more impressive because in these days of social unrest, when there is an apparent lack of faith in our citizenship and a failure on the part of the individual to build on the time-honored principles of right and justice, you and such organizations as yours are alive to the gravity of the situation and are preparing to solve the difficulties that so seriously threaten the life of our nation.

We have, indeed, grave problems to face today; problems that will require all the ability, patience, and devotion to ideals which we possess if we are to bring order out of chaos and establish a permanent standard of right living for the people of our land. The call to duty has come to us all. The responsibility is ours. We cannot escape it.

I have been intensely interested to note the amount of time and discussion this conference is devoting to the questions involved in social and civic community life. I believe that the solution of those questions is vital and necessary because I believe that the proper standards of citizenship are the foundations upon which the integrity of the nation must be built. It is a well-known fact that the ordinary person takes little if any interest in civic affairs. He is lacking in public spirit. He fails to perform his public duties. He is willing that the affairs of state should be conducted by men of negative ability and often by men of a vicious type who have no motives except the plunder of public and private interests. The community in which such a condition exists is necessarily low in civic spirit because representation adequately reflects the citizenship of every community.

If the citizenship is indifferent and apathetic the representation will be lacking in ideals and prone to all the vices that temptation offers. But there is an augury of hope in the fact that you and other courageous and unselfish patriots who are fitted by intelligence, education, and experience have taken the initiative and are impressing upon your less virile neighbors the duties and responsibilities of citzenship in community, state, and nation. You will meet with great disappointments, but you must not be discouraged.

You should remember that the spirit of truth in the world is still a weakling and must be nourished and strengthened if it is to be a controlling influence upon the affairs of men. You must remember, too, that ideals in the end will win and that the disappointments are occasioned by the length of time it takes to establish them. Your work commands the respect and confidence of a grateful people because fidelity, sincerity,

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