political hands. The fences and privileged thieves are given every protection, and the poor, weak hirelings are sent to our prisons in large flocks. Until the situation changes and those that are profiteering in crime are punished, I can see no relief." Warden Codding of Kansas says: "The floating mechanic and artisan who during hard times gets into places like this is not now coming. The adventurous criminal and crook . . . is in the army instead of the prison." New York state reports "a decrease in the population of the penal institutions, both for young and old." Minnesota reports: "There has been a large decrease in the population of the prison and the reformatory, perhaps to some extent due to restrictive liquor legislation, and to a larger extent to industrial conditions."

Though from Illinois comes the report of an unexplained decrease in the rate of increase of the insane, in New York and the east generally the opposite situation prevails, of which the following report from the Manhattan State Hospital may be regarded, perhaps, as typical: "Manhattan ... is now enormously overcrowded, due to the large admission rate, inadequate accommodation, the difficulty of obtaining attendants and nurses . . . the suspension of immigration which in normal times supplied the hospital's requirements of administrative help . . the large number of alien patients whose repatriation has been suspended." The problem of caring for soldiers and sailors who become insane from causes not incident to the service has, apparently, not yet become acute.

Juvenile Delinquency Increasing

Philadelphia, Washington, Des Moines, Kansas City, and Denver report no notable increase in juvenile delinquency. But Buffalo reports increased infractions of the schools attendance and labor laws, an "alarming number" of arraignments for stealing coal, and "many children brought into court as ungovernable or disorderly, especially among those who are employed." New York city reports a "slight increase" due "to the mothers going out to work." In Judge Hoffman's court, Cincinnati, the delinquency cases between April 1 and November 1, 1917, were 21 per cent, more than for the same period in 1916, but a material decrease in the number of divorce cases is noted. In Columbus, Ohio, delinquency cases among boys increased in 1914, and in 1917 the number was nearly 54 per cent, more than the average for the three preceding years. Detroit reports an increase of about 50 per cent, in the number of delinquency cases being handled monthly during the winter as compared with the same period last year. Jacksonville, also, reports a considerable increase in juvenile delinquency. Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and California juvenile reform schools report increases— some "marked," "unprecedented"—in the number of requests for admission thereto.

Social Hygiene

Public agencies and institutions in those states in which soldiers and sailors are being trained are undergoing severe strain. Virginia, for example, with eight training camps, having a total population of 200,000 men, reports increased delinquency among women and girls, invasion by hordes of questionable characters from other states, the breakdown of the jail system due mainly to the inability of local authorities to deal adequately with the venereally diseased prisoners.

Federal legislation for the protection of these men in training is the most advanced of any of the allied nations. The President and the Secretaries of War and the Navy are empowered and directed during the war to do everything they deem necessary to prevent the sale of intoxicants to soldiers and sailors and to suppress and prevent prostitution. The commissions on training camp activities of these two departments are one result, and the constructive work they are doing is a splendid omen of progress in the field of social hygiene, civilian as well as military.

Municipal and state authorities have co-operated with the federal government in meeting this situation. Legalized segregated districts in cities near soldiers and sailors in training have been closed. City ordinances have been enacted incorporating the principles of the "Mann White Slave Act," requiring the licensing of lodging houses and registry by true name in hotels and similar places. Since April 1, 1917, Connecticut, Kentucky, Mississippi, and South Carolina have passed injunction and abatement laws to deal with the property owner who allows his property to be used for immoral purposes. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have such a law now, and "a bill on this subject will probably be introduced in the Louisiana legislature" this month.6 South Carolina and Michigan have followed Massachusetts in requiring that certain venereally diseased persons shall be quarantined until cured. Minnesota has organized a department of its State Board of Health to which reports are made of venereal diseases and which is making a study of the whole problem with reference to proper and adequate treatment, prevention and constructive methods of control. In addition to Minnesota, Massachusetts and California have been especially active in efforts to control venereal disease, a movement that has taken on new life now that the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Army and Navy Departments have declared that a life of continence is compatible with health.

To care for the prostitute and to protect the girls in those states in which soldiers and sailors are training has taxed the available facilities, especially in the South. But detention homes have been opened in camp cities, and South Carolina's legislature of 1918 established an industrial school for girls and an institution for the feeble-minded with

•Major Bascom Johnson: Letter, April 27, 1918.
TFernald: Mental Hygiene, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 49.

appropriations of $40,000 and $60,000, respectively. The Committee on Protective Work for Girls, while under the chairmanship of Miss Maude E. Miner, secured $250,000 of federal funds to be supplemented equally by state funds, and to be used in assisting such states in providing institutional facilities for dealing with wayward girls and women.

Provision for Mental Defectives

The fact that investigations made by the Division of Psychology of the United States Army, directed by Major Robert M. Yerkes, have shown that approximately two per cent, of the drafted and enlisted men that have been mobilized are so inferior mentally as to be unfit for the regular military service, together with the recognition of the wide prevalence of mental defect among confirmed prostitutes, those, therefore, most likely to be venereally diseased,—these facts are stimulating the nation-wide movement for provision for the feeble-minded. While state care for this group of unfortunates increased 753 per cent, in the twentysix years ending January 1, 1916, still vastly more needs to be done.7 Since that date, new institutions involving appropriations and gifts totaling $550,000 have been created in Arkansas, California, Delaware, Louisiana (New Orleans), and South Carolina; New York appropriated over a million dollars last year for new buildings and additional equipment in existing institutions for the feeble-minded, and made provision for a permanent commission on the feeble-minded.

Kentucky has enacted legislation re-organizing its state institutions and appropriating $50,000 for new construction; bills to create institutions are pending in Arizona, the District of Columbia, and Utah; while state commissions are at work in Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, and Wisconsin.

Moreover, an increasing number of cities throughout the country are establishing special classes in public schools for mentally defective and backward children, and "Illinois is the first state in the Union to create by law the position of state criminologist."8 Mental clinics in connection with courts, prisons, and reformatories have been established in seventeen states, including California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington.9 Minnesota has enacted a law providing for the commitment of the feeble-minded to the care and custody of the State Board of Control, whether the alleged feeble-minded person or his relatives desire such commitment or not. The measure is designed to protect the community and to provide wise and human care for those who are mentally deficient. It recognizes the right of the state to compel custodial care, where the circumstances make it necessary.

Prison Labor.

On December 4, 1917, Senator Smith of Georgia introduced in the United States Senate a bill providing for the employment of convict labor

'Mental Hygiene, Vol. I, No. 3, p. 478.

•Nat. Com. Mental Hygiene: Letter, April 30, 1918.

in federal, naval, military, state, county, and municipal penal institutions, in the manufacture of war and other governmental supplies. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Mr. Booher. "The bill as introduced into the committee was drafted by the officers of the American Federation of Labor and the National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor with the approval of Secretary of Labor Wilson, and reshaped in conference by the representatives of these organizations, together with representatives duly appointed by the War Department, Navy Dpartment, and the Labor Department." 10 The legislation proposed in this bill had been previously approved by President Wilson. The bill, as redrafted and reported out by the House Committee February 22, authorizes the purchasing agents of the federal government to place orders with the heads of such penal institutions as are "willing to undertake the manufacture, production, and delivery of such supplies." Purchase of such supplies from "any person, partnership, or corporation using in the manufacture of such supplies the labor of persons convicted of crime and incarcerated in a penal or correctional institution" is forbidden, though it is provided "that all goods, wares, and merchandise manufactured, produced, or mined wholly or in part by prison labor, except paroled prisoners or in any prison or reformatory," when shipped in interstate commerce shall, upon arrival, except when sold to the federal government, be "subject to the operation and effect of the laws" of the state or territory to which shipped, just as though they had been manufactured therein.

The "Secretary of War is authorized and directed, in his discretion, to establish, equip, maintain, and operate in the United States Army Prison and Disciplinary Barracks, or its branches" factories to "manufacture equipment or supplies for the United States Government." The Secretary of the Navy is similarly authorized though not directed, to employ prisoners in the United States naval prisons. The use of army and navy prisoners in military road making is also authorized. The Attorney-General is "directed to establish, equip, maintain, and operate at the United States penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia, a factory or factories for the manufacture of textiles, mail sacks, tenting, and other equipment for the use of the United States Government;" at Leavenworth, Kansas, a factory to make "furniture and office equipment;" and at McNeill Island, Washington, "a pulp and paper mill for the manufacture of print and other kinds of paper." Purchase of the articles just named "from any source other than Governmental for the United States Government or any department, bureau, or other agency thereof" is forbidden after July 1, 1919, "unless the Attorney-General or his authorized agent shall certify that the same cannot be furnished by such prison factory or factories, unless otherwise provided by law."

Compensation and hours of labor of these convicts are to "be based upon the standard hours and wages prevailing in the vicinity" of the institution. The pro rata maintenance cost of each prisoner so employed is to be deducted from his compensation, the balance to be paid him under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Attorney-General may effectively prescribe.

One effect of this measure, if passed, will be to repeal, at least, "when an emergency exists, or when war is imminent," an executive order issued by President Roosevelt in 1905, by which both the Army and Navy Departments were forbidden to use prison made goods. Another effect will be the adoption by the Federal Government of the "state use" plan of prison labor. Further, the movement to compensate prisoners for their labor may receive a great impetus, and the federal government's condemnation of the contract lease system should help to banish that plan from all our states.

III. Concluding Considerations.

This survey of recent tendencies in state supervision and control, and of the effects of the war upon public agencies and institutions, suggests certain concluding considerations:

(1) A continuance of the present abnormal demands for trained social workers may be expected. The task presented to our social agencies is little less than the re-making of a world.

(2) Standards of institution administration must receive closer study to increase the efficiency of available employees, and to use the inmates more largely in employment that is at once healthful and vocational.

(3) Increased emphasis must be placed upon the prevention of juvenile delinquency and the furtherance of child welfare.

(4) Social construction must go forward at home. War has absorbed our interest, our thought, and our energy; unless a balance of effort and attention be maintained proportionate to the needs of the situation, our domestic social problems may be seriously affected. There is a second line of defense at home.

(5) The inelasticity of legal agencies and the need for greater accountability of non-legal agencies is being emphasized today. State boards, for example, because of limited funds and detailed laws are handicapped in capitalizing their experience and knowledge, through expansion, to play their part in training workers, and in meeting other emergency situations. The various social agencies operating within the bounds of a state should be co-ordinated around a state board or some other organization of state-wide scope. The home service work of the American Red Cross—becoming more and more decentralized, reaching into remote rural communities, setting new standards, emphasizing scientific case work as essential in any worth while relief work—is full of suggestion for the future. It is very significant that in this Conference at least four divisions are holding discussions as to what should be the unit in social administration.

(6) With the problem of administration assuming larger proportions, some plan ought to be evolved by which these various units will