Citizenship in Philadelphia

Front matter

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Preface

There is visible everywhere in the United States an increasing interest in public welfare and in city govern¬ ment which has so much to do with securing it. The usual text-book in civics naturally gives fuller treatment of the national government, which is uniform for the whole country, than of state and city, which are every¬ where different. And even special texts in municipal government can give only a general survey of the field.

Each city needs a book of its own. • • -.~

Moreover, the belief is growing that the formal teach¬ ing of the structure and legal powers of government has had its day in our schools. In its place is coming the instruction which concerns itself chiefly with the func¬ tions of government; with what is done, and why;, with the ways in which we all may help, individually and in organized groups. There is need, accordingly, for books which emphasize the elements of public welfare, r | As a part of this new order of things there is coming a realization of the simple but important truth that the primary object of civic teaching is, after all, to make good citizens. It has well been said that good citizen¬ ship—the sort that is good for something—means effi¬ cient service in the community, be that community the city, the state, or the nation. There is need for books which give the sort of practical information about com¬ munity activities that awakens live interest and stimulates to good citizenship.

To try to satisfy these three needs has been the object

PREFACE of the authors of this book. It deals exclusively with Philadelphia, leaving to other texts the discussion of the state and federal governments; it dwells at length upon the collective activities ‘of the city; it aims to show in every case what are the further needs of the city and how good citizens may help to meet them.

The book is the outcome of several years of teaching community civics in the Philadelphia schools. When the new course in civics was first inaugurated the teach¬ ers were at a loss for material on city affairs. About them Was the complex machinery of the city govern¬ ment, but there seemed to be no way to understand it except by personal research. There was little in print and that little was fragmentary and out of date. Grad¬ ually, as a result of the collection of reports and news¬ paper articles, of repeated visits to City Hall, and of trips of investigation about the city, much information has been collected. And now that all the elementary .schools are to undertake instruction in city affairs it seems worth while to put in print the results of this research, to help the hundreds of teachers who will be attacking the problem for the first time, r The attempt has been made to write about the work of the city departments in a way that can be understood by the young citizen. But it is believed that this will not detract from the value of the book as a source of information for the adult citizen. At the present time there exists no other comprehensive study of the govern¬ ment of Philadelphia to satisfy the increasing interest in city affairs. In this book will be found a large body of reliable information along varied lines of civic activity, so arranged as to be readily accessible to clergymen,

PREFACE social workers, civic clubs, and all citizens interested in the public welfare.

Valuable aid in preparation has been secured from the Bureau of Municipal Research. The following mem¬ bers of the bureau have given of their time to writing special chapters, and they have also read and criticized some of the other chapters: Mr. Frederick P. Gruenberg, Dr. Neva R. Deardorff, Mr. William C. Beyer, Mr. Robert J. Patterson, Mr. Robert E. Tracy. Both in the writing of the book and in the collection of illustra¬ tive material most efficient help has been rendered by Miss Mary W. Stewart, Miss Anna C. Clauder, Miss Cleora Sutch, and Miss Mary E. Doheny of the Depart¬ ment of History and Civics of the William Penn High School. One chapter has been contributed by Mrs. J. Lynn Barnard, whose first-hand knowledge of the subject treated makes her contribution especially wel¬ come. The cordial and interested cooperation that has been extended by city officials and by executive secre¬ taries of private organizations engaged in public welfare work is also gratefully acknowledged.

J. Lynn Barnard.

Jessie C. Evans.

Philadelphia, August 1, 1918.

The authors wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to Mr. Will H. Johnston for his aid in making the revi¬ sions necessary because of the new city charter.

October, 1919.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

II. Health. 29

III. The Water Supply. 51

Chapter I

Two centuries ago Philadelphia was a small village on the edge of the Delaware, with only a few hundred inhabitants and with none of the big buildings or the paved streets or the parks and playgrounds or the libraries and museums that we see to-day.

As this httle village grew larger and larger, the necessity for the people to work together to meet common wants became ever more pressing. This chapter tells how various efforts were made to satisfy these wants. No attempt is made to sketch even a brief history of Phila¬ delphia, but only to trace its early growth along a few lines in order to illustrate the way in which this particular community developed civically from a village into a city.

One citizen will be discovered, the great Benjamin Franklin, who was so alive to civic needs, so clever in thinking out ways to meet them, and so enterprising in getting his ideas carried out, that he serves as the embodi¬ ment of civic spirit and civic achievement—as an ideal of the good citizen. As you read a brief story of his service to Philadelphia, you will understand why it is necessary for people to do things together as a com¬ munity. You will see, too, how important it is for all citizens to take an interest in public affairs, to pay their share willingly, and to do some things that may be per¬ sonally inconvenient in order that their community activities may be successful. Accordingly, his story will be told in some detail. And this introductory chapter will end at that point, for its purpose will have been fulfilled if the boys and girls who read it shall have gotten some idea of community growth and of the kind of citizenship that alone makes such growth possible.

THE VILLAGE OF PHILADELPHIA

The little stream at the left of the picture was Dock Creek, the present site of Dock Street. The little pond on the outskirts of the town was known as the Duck Pond. The location is now Fourth and Alarket. The main street running west from the river was called High Street, now Market Street. At the extreme left of the picture is Old Swedes’ Church.

The City of Penn.—In an interesting pamphlet pub¬ lished in 1685, Penn gives us a clear picture of his new city as it emerged from the “cave-dweller’’ epoch. He describes it as two miles long and a mile wide, with High Street (now Market) and Broad Street each a hun¬ dred feet in breadth, and with eight streets parallel to High Street and twenty cross-streets parallel to Broad

MARKET STREET NEAR SECOND Showing Christ Church about 1740.

of these names are still in use, though not always applied as in Penn’s time.

Thomas Holme, surveyor general of the province, who had come over in 1681 to lay out the city and locate building lots, gives us some additional information about the original plan. ^Hn the centre of the city is a square [now Penn Square] of ten acres; at each angle are to be houses for public affairs, as a Meeting House, Assembly

Stieet. And he adds that the names of these streets were ^‘mostly taken from the things that spontaneously grow in the country, as Vine, Mulberry, Chestnut, Walnut, Strawberry, Cranberry, Plum, Hickory, Pine, Oake, Beach, Ash, Poplar, Sassafras, and the like.” Many or State House, Market House, School House, and several other buildings for public concerns. There is also in each quarter of the city a square of eight acres to be for the like uses as the Moorfields in London.’^ And he further informs us that all the streets except High and Broad are fifty feet in width.

The Schuylkill River did not become as important commercially as Penn had thought it would; the town grew but slowly toward the west, and so Center Square’’ (now Penn Square) was too far away for a location for the houses for public affairs.” A meeting-house was finally erected near the square, Watson tells us in his Annals of Philadelphia,” but ^Tt was so far out of town that it was not used and so fell into decay.” The founders of the city built their homes mostly on Front Street, facing the Delaware; and for the first quartercentury a resident west of Seventh Street might well feel himself a suburbanite—if not a commuter”!

The earliest footways, we are told, were of brick and gravel, or gravel only, and the streets were invariably either muddy or dusty. The first paving of roadways was apparently of pebbles, which the inhabitants often voluntarily placed in front of their premises, from the kennel” (gutter) to the middle of the street. Not till the eighteenth century was half over was there united effort at paving, and then lotteries were made use of to pay for it. And throughout the century numerous “dirty places” were complained of by successive grand juries.

Watson assures us that for a few years after the found¬ ing of the city no public precautions were taken against fire. And the first act of the legislature with this in view strikes one as picturesque rather than effectual. House¬ holders were not to clean their chimneys by firing them, nor allow them to take fire, under penalty of forty shillings; each householder was to keep at hand a swab twelve to fourteen feet long, and a bucket or pail, under penalty of sixteen shillings; and, finally, no one was to smoke tobacco in the streets, night or day, under penalty of one shilling. The fines collected were to buy leather buckets, ladders, and engines.

In John Russell Young’s ^'Memorial History of Phila¬ delphia,” Vol. I, we read that education was begun in Philadelphia by the Council of the Colony on December 26, 1683. And the following quaint extract is given from the minutes of that date. ^^The Govr and Provll Council having taken into their Serious Consideration the great Necessity there is of a School Master for ye Instruction & Sober Education of Youth in the towne of Philadelphia, Sent for Enoch flower, an Inhabitant of the said Towne, who for twenty year past hath exercised in that care and Imployment in England to whom haveing Communicated their Minds, he Embraced it upon these following termes: to learne to read English 4s by the Quarter, to Learne to read and write 6s by ye Quarter, to learne to read. Write, and Cast accot 8s by Quarter; for Boarding a Scholler, that is to say, dyet. Washing, Lodging, & Scooling, Tenn pounds for one whole year.” How could education have had a more delightful start in the City of Penn?

For the next half-century Philadelphia grew rapidly, and with this rapid growth in population there was increasing need for the town itself to look after all sorts of civic interests that could no longer be properly attended to by private citizens. Unfortunately, the town govern¬ ment proved unequal to the task. The legislative body, known as the “Common Council,” was unbusinesslike, and there was no efficient administrative department. Precious time was wasted, and such public works as were

THE STATE HOUSE (INDEPENDENCE HALL) IN 1778 From a drawing of that date by C. W. Peale.

found necessary were built extravagantly. Streets, police and fire protection, taxation, all alike suffered from lack of leadership and business ability.

Fortunate it was for Philadelphia that at the close of this period the city should have found itself possessed of a citizen of rare civic insight, who was beginning to see the need for collective action and who knew how to go about securing it. The story of this man^s remarkable civic activities will perhaps best illustrate how Phila¬ delphia came to realize itself as a ^‘Communityand to appreciate what it meant to be a “citizen. ’

Franklin, the Civic Statesman.—Philadelphia is to-day a proud city of a million and three-quarters of inhabitants and an area of 1293/2 square miles. It is hard for us to realize that in the days when the great Benjamin Franklin

walked its streets it wsis little more than a countrv village, where the government was weak and inefficient, and where each householder looked after his own interests and had not learned to cooperate with his neighbors for the common good. In fact, had it not been for their remarkable fellow-townsman, the citizens would have learned the community lesson later than they did. In. his Autobiography, which every school boy and girl ought to read, Franklin pictures the growth of public spirit in Philadelphia, and shows how one function after another came to be regarded as a matter of common con¬ cern in which all should cooperate. Suppose we let him tell us the story so far as possible in his own delightful fashion.

“And now [about 1730] I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred;' this was the mother of all the North American sub¬ scription libraries, now so numerous.” Thus was founded the present Philadelphia Library, now at Locust and Juniper Streets, with its 400,000 volumes, which.

while not a part of the free library system of the city, is a valuable adjunct to it.

And now a new want manifested itself to Franklin; the town had no adequate police force and no fire depart¬ ment. Hear his quaint description of the situation. ^^The city watch was one of the first things perceived to want regulation. It was managed by the constables of the respective wards in turn; the constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend, paid him six shillings a year to be excused, which was supposed to be for hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship a place of profit; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such ragmuffins about him as a watch, that respectable housekeepers did not chose to mix with. Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in tippling. ... I proposed as a more effectual watch the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in that business; and as a more equitable way of supporting the charge, the levying of a tax that should be proportioned to the property. This proposal paved the way for the law obtained a few years after. Such was the simple beginning of a police department.

Franklin next discussed publicly the question of fires and the need of their prevention; and soon afterwards, in 1736, he organized the Union Tire Company, which lasted for over fifty years. ^‘Our articles of agreement, he tells us, obliged every member to keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets for packing and transporting of goods, which were to be brought to every fire; and we agreed to meet once a month and spend a social evening together, in discoursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to us upon the subject of fires, as might be useful in our conduct on such occasions.’' The small fines paid by members absent from these

OLD ACADEMY BUILDINGS

The old academy buildings in Fourth Street, as originally constructed in 1744. This academy was the foundation from which grew the University of Pennsylvania.

monthly meetings were used for the purchase of fire¬ fighting apparatus, so that Franklin came to doubt whether there was a city in the world better equipped than Philadelphia. Thus began the system of volunteer fire companies, to be succeeded in time by a paid fire depart¬ ment splendidly equipped and disciplined.

It is not strange that Franklin should have turned his thoughts toward the education of youth, and have become the founder of an academy in 1749, a combination of pay and free school under private control. This academy was later developed into the University of Pennsylvania; and Franklin notes with pride, in later life, that he had been continued one of its trustees for forty years.

Library, police and fire departments. University— what a list of public enterprises for one man to help originate! But still his civic spirit and keen discern¬ ment of civic needs spurred him on to further accom¬ plishment. A close friend of his, a physician, had tried in vain to start a hospital for “poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers.’’ But not until the influential Franklin lent the project his aid was the hospital financed and incorporated.

Soon after this he determined to see what could be done about the streets in the way of paving, cleaning, and lighting. Franklin complains in his Autobiography that “in wet weather the wheels of heavy carriages plough’d them [the streets] into a quagmire, so that it was difficult to cross them; and in dry weather the dust was offensive.” And he goes on to tell us: “I had liv’d near what was called the Jersey Market, and saw with pain the inhabitants wading in mud while purchasing their provisions. A strip of ground down the middle of that market was at length pav’d with brick, so that, being once in the market, they had firm footing, but were often over shoes in dirt to get there. By talking and writing on the subject, I was at length instrumental in getting the street pav’d with stone between the market and the brick’d foot-pavement, that was on each side next the houses. This, for some time, gave an easy access to the market dry-shod; but, the rest of the street not being pav’d, whenever a carriage came out of the mud upon this pavement, it shook off and left its dirt upon it, and it was soon cover’d with mire, which was not remov’d, the city as yet having no scavengers.” This is what Franklin did about it.

“After some inquiry, I found a poor, industrious man, who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the neighbors’ doors, for the sum of six¬ pence per month, to be paid by each house.” Thereupon Franklin wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages that would accrue to householder and store¬ keeper alike from keeping the streets clean, and followed this up with a successful house-to-house canvass. “All the inhabitants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness of the pavement that surrounded the market, it being a convenience to all, and this raised a general desire to have all the streets pav’d, and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose.”

Later Franklin drew up a bill for paving the city, and introduced it in the Assembly. This was passed, “with an additional provision for lighting as well as paving the streets, which was a great improvement.” 'To another citizen of Philadelphia Franklin gives credit for the lighting idea, reserving for himself only the credit of substituting ventilated four-sided lamps that would not smoke for the London type of globe lamp that would not do much of anything else. These new lamps “con¬ tinued bright till morning, and an accidental stroke would generally break but a single pane, easily repaired.”

While in England Franklin suggested to a friend of his a simple method of sweeping the London streets, and one phase of that plan will bear repetition for Philadelphia’s benefit now. It was simply this, that the streets should be swept before the shops and windows of houses are usually opened, when the scavengers, with close-covered carts, shall also carry it all away.” If alive to-day, Franklin would be insisting on the use of vacuum cleaners and air-tight carts, or else underground chutes into which all debris should be driven and by which it would be carried to the dumping grounds.

Oh, for a Franklin as Efficiency Engineer in each city of this land of ours! Safety, health, education, com¬ munication, public works—all the functions of a modern municipality were foreseen and foreshadowed by this one man. Always a generation or more in advance of his times, this many-sided citizen embodied in his own life the growth of Philadelphia as it took on one civic function after another, until it emerged as the largest and finest city in the American colonies.

Chapter II

Cities Create Health Problems.—So long as people lived out on farms, each family looked after the health of its own members and the community did not have to take a very active part. It was largely concerned in seeing that the quarantine was maintained against plague diseases like leprosy, smallpox, and cholera. But as soon as families begin to live in cities and towns, health matters become many-sided community problems. Con¬ tagious diseases are easily transmitted, a polluted water supply sickens not only one family but hundreds; flies, rats, and vermin carry diseases from house to house and from tenement to tenement; filth of all kinds accumulates rapidly; even the very air sometimes becomes offensive and laden with disease. Under date of September 23, 1800, Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Doctor Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia said, ^‘1 view great cities as pesti¬ lential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.^^ Many of these conditions are such that the individual citizen or the single family cannot possibly change them. If the bad conditions are to be improved, it must be by the action of the whole community.

Efforts to Secure Wholesome Food. —Everyone recog¬ nizes that good, clean, wholesome food is essential to health, but not everyone sees that city conditions often make it very hard to obtain, particularly for people of small income. The family on the farm very largely produced its own food. It kept cows and therefore produced its own milk, cream, butter, and cheese. It raised its own vegetables, fruits, and cereals. It got eggs and meat supply from its poultry, cattle, sheep, and hogs. Ail of its foods were fresh or were preserved in ways that did not harm the product. But the people who live in large cities cannot thus know about the source of their food supply. They do not know where the milk comes from that they use, or the butter, or the eggs, or the vegetables, or the meats. Very likely they come from all parts of the United States. In some cases milk is produced as far as a thousand miles from the city where it is used. The demand in the cities is so great and the price so high that it becomes a business to go out over the country collecting foods and bring them to the city for sale. This is usually called the commission” business.

Now one can readily see that in all these processes of shipping, handling, and selling two or three or more times, there are many opportunities for contamination of certain foods, for disposing of unhealthful products, for adulteration, and for various other kinds of dangers to creep in. Many of these dangers cannot be detected from the appearance of the food at the time it reaches the consumer.

People in Philadelphia first realized these dangers in connection with milk. Because it is used as food for babies, and therefore should never be adulterated, and because it is peculiarly liable to carry certain very serious diseases, the community has felt keenly its duty to see that the supply is as pure and wholesome as is possible.

In 1914 Philadelphia required that the general milk supply of the city should be pasteurized, that is, heated to a liigh temperature. This is considered a very important advance step because, if properly done, it insures that the milk for a certain period afterwards will be free from disease. Inspectors obtain samples of milk from stores and restaurants, from railroad and trolley pl.atforms, from wagons and bottling plants. These are tested at City Hall for bacteria. Bacteria are minute forms of vegetable life. Many kinds of bac¬ teria cause disease. Other inspectors spend their en¬ tire time at the pasteur¬ izing plants, noting the sanitary conditions of the places and whether or not the pasteurizing process is being properly carried out. Still other inspec¬ tors go about the city in¬ specting milk in the places where it is sold. They see that it is being kept at the proper temperature and that it has not been adulterated. They also inspect the stores themselves to see that they are clean. The power of these inspectors is backed by a state law requiring the licensing of all milk dealers and setting a standard for the quality of milk to be sold. If a dealer does not comply with the rules he is no longer permitted to carry on the milk business in this state.

Besides milk, the city also inspects meats to see that they carry no disease to consumers. To do this inspec-

(Courtesy of the Bureau of Health)

DIRTY SEDIMENT IN THE BOTTOM OF A BOTTLE OF MILK tions are made of the live animals ready for slaughter: certain rules are prescribed about the slaughtering process and the selling of meats, poultry, and fish; and inspectors see that these rules are observed. For this work the city employs a veterinarian and seven assistants. Four of the assistants inspect animals before and after they have been slaughtered. They have sixty-nine slaughter houses under their care. One inspector is stationed at the wholesale meat houses, another at the wholesale fish market, and the seventh has charge of the preparing plants and the chicken slaughter houses. It can readily be seen that more inspectors are needed to do all this work thoroughly. Now, almost all the hogs, sheep, and goats are killed without inspection. One of the proposed solutions of this problem is to have a municipal slaughter house which would take the place of the sixty-nine privately owned abattoirs. Inspection would be com¬ paratively easy at such a place.

A state law now requires a medical examination twice a year of people who handle food in hotels, dining cars, restaurants, and other public eating places, and also provides that “no dishes, receptacles, or utensils used in eating or drinking shall be furnished to patrons or cus¬ tomers of any such public eating place unless the same have been thoroughly cleansed since used by another individual.” As yet the city has no employees detailed to see that this law is carefully enforced.

In June, 1916, the lawmaking body, then composed of Select and Common Councils, passed an ordinance which prohibited certain practices in the selling of various other kinds of foods but did not provide any officers to see to its enforcement. Its principal aim was to prevent the exposure of foods to street dirt, flies, and other sources of contamination during the summer months.

The state and the national governments also have officers whose duty it is to see that national and state laws regarding the condition, handling, and labeling of foods offered for sale are enforced. The Pennsylvania Dairy and Food Commission has agents who inspect eggs, milk and cream, ice cream, cheese, butter, oleomar¬ garine, lard, meat, sausage, fruits, vegetables, spices, non-alcoholic drinks, vinegar, and fruit syrup to see that the Pure Food, Cold Storage, and other laws are enforced throughout the state. The full time of one inspector and half the time of another is devoted to inspection in Philadelphia. When it is found that the laws have been disobeyed, the food is stamped, ^^Not to be sold in Penn¬ sylvania.” The State Livestock Sanitary Board quaran¬ tines contagious diseases among livestock and inspects herds at dairies outside which send milk into the city.

The United States Bureau of Chemistry keeps two inspectors in Philadelphia to watch for violations of the Food and Drugs act, and the United States Bureau of Animal Industry has about sixty inspectors on duty here in the packing houses, slaughter houses, and butcher shops which sell fat for lard, oleo, etc. There are twelve abattoirs and forty-seven preparing plants under federal inspection. All of these federal officers can interfere only in businesses which are doing an interstate trade.

Water. —Elsewhere will be found a description of the water works of Philadelphia considered as a business undertaking. It must not be forgotten that the water supply has a very great deal to do with health. Typhoid fever, a disease that formerly caused the death of hundreds of persons each year and made ill many hundreds of others, was spread largely by the drinking water which was polluted with typhoid germs. Now that our water supply is filtered and treated with chlorine, typhoid has almost disappeared from the city.

Water is also important to health in other ways. There should always be an abundance for purposes of cleanliness, which is essential to health, and it should be clear and cool and appetizing. All doctors tell us that we should drink much more water than the average person now drinks. The supply, therefore, should be such as would not make it difficult or disagreeable to follow this advice.