PUBLIC WELFARE PROGRESS
Published Monthly for Free Distribution by the North Carolina State Board of Charities
and Public Welfare
Vol. 5 RALEIGH, N. C, JANUARY, 1924 No. 1
IN 1923 STATE WELFARE BOARD
SPENT UNUSUALLY LIVELY YEAR
Most Successful and Most Eventful
Year in Board's History Was
The One Just Ended
PART IN PRISON DISCUSSION
MOST SENSATIONAL ACTIVITY
Mothers' Aid, Clinics for Crippled Children
and Standards for County Officers
Also Outstanding
In 1923 the State Board of Charities and
Public Welfare went through the liveliest
and the most successful year of its history.
It seems safe to say that many people in
North Carolina who never knew before that
there was a State Board of Charities and
Public Welfare not only knew during 1923
that one existed, hut knew also its stand on
prison reform at least, perhaps even some-thing
of its other activities. Of course, the
Board's position in the prison controversy
of last April-May was what the reporters call
the "most outstanding feature" of its year.
The Board's stand in the prison contro-versy
which raged in North Carolina for five
weeks last spring is too well known to need
recapitulation. Throughout this heated con-troversy
the Board maintained that thorough
investigation of the State Prison system
should be made, and was prepared to make
it in accordance with its lawfully constituted
powers. The abolition of corporal punish-ment
and the dark cells and the- adoption of
the indeterminate sentence for State pris-oners
with investigation of the county prison
systems by the solicitors at the instigation of
Governor Morrison was the result of the con-troversy.
Gets Mothers' Aid Law
But there were other high lights beside the
prison controversy for the Board of Charities
and Public Welfare during the year just
ended. The passage of the Mothers' Aid Law
by the General Assembly of 1923. and the 50
per cent increase in the Legislature's appro-priation
to the Board were two of them.
Supervision of the administration of the
Mothers' Aid Fund of $50,000 from the State
(Continued on page 6)
A BUILDING BOOM FOR
COUNTY INSTITUTIONS
Six Counties Built County Homes and
Ten Erected New Jails in 1923;
Others Plan to Do So
There was a boom in the building of county
homes and jails in North Carolina during
1923 according to Roy M. Brown, head of the
bureau of institutional supervision of the
State Board of Charities and Public Welfare.
Six counties have built new county homes
during the past year, and five others are
planning to build in the near future. Ten
counties have built new jails.
Counties in which new county homes have
been erected are : Rowan, Nash, Person, Cald-well,
Alamance, and Johnston. Those who
are planning to build are: Jackson, Robe-son.
Rutherford, Durham and Harnett. Clay
has purchased a farm and is using the dwell-ing-
house on it. In 1922, county homes were
built in Halifax, Chatham. Wayne, Vance,
Guilford. Watauga, Burke, Polk, and Ran-dolph.
In 1923, jails were built or begun in Polk,
Rutherford. McDowell, Cleveland. New Han-over,
Pender, Duplin. Wilson, Edgecombe,
and Nash.
Although none of the counties have yet
taken advantage of the law enacted by the
General Assembly of 1923 permitting several
counties to unite in the building of a district
hospital-home, Avery has "made arrangements
with Watauga to keep its poor in the Wa-tauga
institution.
This plan of the district hospital-home is
preferred to the county institution by the
State Board of Charities and Public Welfare.
In speaking in the same vein of the county
jails, Mr. Brown says
:
"I think we ought to so from a county
system to a district system. Some of these
small counties should not have to go to the
expense of building jails for a very small
number of inmates. Tyrrell did not have a
single inmate in either its jail or its county
home all last year. Dare went for six months
without any. Polk County has just been
(Continued on page 2)
COMMISSIONER EXPLAINS
JUVENILE COURT SYSTEM
Women Voters and Club Women of
State Studying Subject; Board
Has Prepared Questionnaire
Editor's Note :
—
The N. C. League of
Women Voters, with the cooperation of the
Social Service Department of the N. C. Feder-ation
of Women's Clubs is at present study-ing
the juvenile court system in North Caro-lina
with a view to giving it their intelligent
support. To aid them in this, the State Board
of Charities and Public Welfare has prepared,
and distributed a questionnaire on this system
which will be sent to any one who ivishes to
familiarize himself with the subject. A
committee composed of Mrs. Mary O. Cowper,
executive secretary of the N. C. League of
Women Voters, chairman; Mrs. Charles
Quintan, chairman of the Social Service De-partment
of the N. C. Federation of Women's
Clubs, and Mrs. Kate Burr Johnson, Com-missioner
of Public Welfare, is directing this
study.
BY KATE BURR JOHNSON
(In the Monthly Ncivs of the N. C. League
of Women Voters.)
The Juvenile Court movement in this coun-try
began in 1899, when a bill passed the
Illinois legislature creating a juvenile court
system for that state. In July of the same
year the Juvenile Court of Chicago was es-tablished,
mainly as a result of the efforts
of Chicago club women. Colorado followed
soon with Judge Ben Lindsey presiding over
the well-known court at Denver, and during
the intervening years the movement has
grown with great rapidity. It was twenty
years, however, after the passage of the Illi-nois
law before people in North Carolina be-gan
to see that something was radically
wrong with our methods of dealing with de-pendent,
neglected and delinquent children.
In 1919 the North Carolina General Assembly
passed a law providing for a state-wide sys-tem
of juvenile courts. This law has been the
subject of some criticism, much misunder-standing,
and a limited amount of apprecia-tion.
But before we go into a discussion of
our present juvenile court system let us see
what it supplanted.
(Continued on page 5)