available for the churches the present conditions among the immigrants in the State of Massachusetts. A study was made of the report of the Immigration Commission of Massachusetts; the pictures used in this report were secured from the Commission, slides made and a lecture prepared. This lecture and the slides have been duplicated and are now being used by the Young Men's Christian Association, the Social Service Commission of the Unitarian churches, as well as the Massachusetts Federa¬ tion of Churches. At the request of the Home Missionary Society the Secretary went to the Coeur d'Alene district in northern Idaho and made a detailed study of this region, where for a number of years we have had Congregational churches, but where, owing to the industrial and social conditions, the churches have not been successful. The preliminary report of this situation was made before the Executive Committee of the Home Missionary Society. The Secretary returns to this mining district in November to complete his labors, after which a full report will be made and a program mapped out for the churches located there. SURVEYS A community study was made of the parish of the Clinton Avenue Church, Brooklyn, under the direction of the Secretary of this Commission. At present a similar study is being made of the parish of the Eliot Church, Lowell, Mass. Besides these the Secretary has assisted in a number of surveys that have been conducted in other cities. SPECIAL CAMPAIGNS The Commission has helped in several special campaigns. A three days' campaign was held in connection with the Federated Churches of Philadelphia. In West Tampa a social study of the community was made with special attention to the cigar making industry and its relation to the social and church life of the community. In Tampa a series of social evangelistic services were held in First Church. A three days' campaign was conducted in Savannah in connection with the members of the colored Congregational church and the League on Urban Conditions among the Negroes. Out of this campaign was developed a program for social service for the local church. A similar campaign was conducted in New Orleans; programs developed were submitted to the officers of the American Missionary Association, endorsed by them and are now being operated in these cities. Thus the local negro church in each of these two cities is made the community social center, ministering to the needs of the colored people, which needs are now woefully and criminally neglected in most communities. Plans were set on foot for a school for social workers among the colored people. Two conferences have been held on this subject, but as yet nothing definite has been decided upon. It is probable that the school will be established in connection with some department of one of the negro colleges, if proper arrangements can be made. OTHER SECRETARIAL ACTIVITIES The Secretary represented the Commission at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections held in Memphis and also in the session held in Baltimore; the Southern Sociological Congress held in Memphis and in Houston; at the meeting of the American Federation of Labor at Philadelphia; the Southern Educational Association at Chattanooga; at the meetings of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and at meetings of other organizations less widely known. The Secretary has prepared social service comments on the Sunday School lessons which appear week by week in the Adult Bible Class Magazine of the Pilgrim Sunday School series; has written as much as time permitted for the labor papers, as well as for the religious press. A book "The Church and the People's Play" was also written by the Secretary and has been published by the Pilgrim Press. CO-OPERATION WITH OTHER DENOMINATIONS The Commission has kept in close touch with the Federal Council of the Churches and by vote of that organization the Secretary of this Commission was made Associate Secretary. Most of the work undertaken is of such a complicated nature and so bound up with the welfare of the whole community that one religious group can do but little. It takes co-operative action to get results and this is being secured splendidly through the Federal Council. PUBLICATIONS The following publications have been issued and distributed by the Commission: How to Organize the Men in the Local Church. The Business of Organized Men in the Local Church. Model Constitution. Passing Resolutions and Doing the Job. The Church for Brotherhood in Industry. Industrial Platform. Hymn of the New Crusade. The Least of These. What Every Church should Know about its Community Speakers' Bureau Leaflet. Research Bureau Leaflet. Social Service in the Young People's Society. Correspondence Course Leaflet. Lantern Slide Leaflet. The Social Service Commission and its Relationship to the Men's Work in the Congregational Churches. Social Service Catechism. The Church's Appeal in Behalf of Labor. The Church and Modern Industry. Report of the Industrial Situation at South Bethlehem, Pa. Report of the Industrial Situation at Muscatine, Iowa The Church and Industrial Warfare. The Open Forum. Modern Methods in the Country Church. Social Studies. Continuous Toil and Continuous Toilers. Report of Commission. By an arrangement with the Federal Council much of our material has been duplicated and is distributed through the Social Service Commissions of other denominations and through the Federal Council, and likewise the Commission serves as a distributing center for the literature of these other Commissions and the Federal Council. SOCIAL SERVICE Social service is that form of service for human betterment which seeks to uplift and transform man in his associated and community life. We have found that environment has much to do with character and therefore one of our great tasks is to put the proper environment around men and women so that they can develop in the best possible way. Social service not only ministers to obvious needs, but attempts to seek out and cure the causes of poverty and misery. The ultimate goal of all social service is social salvation, that the whole world of man and all his affairs may be changed and made a part of the Kingdom of God. In the picture of the last judgment it was those who had served humanity the best who received the Master's reward. The social demands of today present a definite challenge to the church of our generation; the challenge to lift from the shoulders of young children the burdens imposed by the industrial system; to give an opportunity for education to every child. It is a challenge to change the conditions that are breeding paupers, vice and misery, and to help make and administer such laws that society itself will produce the greatest degree of health and happiness for all citiIt is a challenge to make real the brotherhood of man. The flow of immigration has filled our cities with people, strangers to us and to whom our ways of life are strange zens. and new. The shifting of the population from country to city with the increasing number of farm tenants is developing a kind of new-world peasantry. Specialized industry and seasonal trades cause groups of employees to work beyond their strength for unreasonably long hours at certain periods and then throw them idle upon the community for even longer periods. The breaking down of old personal relations; the depersonalizing of industry; the changed conditions in the home, all of these things throw a new responsibility upon the community so that our lives are today more generally controlled by social forces than ever before in the history of the world. The question that we are all asked is this: "Is the Church able to meet the new demands upon it?" Your Commission is glad to report a splendid response on the part of our churches to the calls of this new day. The programs that have been formed have been widely adopted and are being made effective not only in State Conferences and local Associations, but in hundreds of local parishes as well. We reaffirm the principles contained in the Social Creed of the Churches, adopted by the Federal Council of the Churches in Chicago in December, 1912. "The Churches must stand: 1. For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. 2. For the protection of the family, by the single standard of purity, uniform divorce laws, proper regulation of marriage, and proper housing. 3. For the fullest possible development for every child, especially by the provision of proper education and recreation. 4. For the abolition of child labor. 5. For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. 6. For the abatement and prevention of poverty. 7. For the protection of the individual and society from the social, economic and moral waste of the liquor traffic. |