Issued May 5. 1915 ^evjL.er dCt\ frarH of Qlljurflj lITpJimtton to fnrk Qltt^ The Federation has produced a church a year, average, with properties aggregating over ^1,000,000; assisted at least 100 others with advice on special enquiries submitted to it, or with special visitors; and placed suggestions for neighborhood survey and service in the hands of over 1,000 churches. Expenditures of the city, aggregating over $20,000,000, have been influenced by the Federation. The population surveys published comprise over 2500 pages, and the answering of en- quiries concerning religious, racial and social conditions are a constant feature and duty of its office. mf orkSTf Jif raltnttof (EtfwrrljPB Organized May 13, 1895 Incorporated September 11, 1901 Endowed ? The good the churches do now, plus the added good complete co- operation would accomplish, is the good they ought to be doing. SOME ACHIEVEMENTS. Pioneering for Other Cities. This Federation started the present strong swing of American cities toward a cooperative Protestantism. It was the earli- est city federation in the nation. Over 100 have since been formed. At Atlantic City, in June, these organizations will hold an extension and efficiency conference. Twen- ty years hence every American city will have its federation. Producing a National Movement: The National Federation of Churches, formed in 1901, used the success of the New York work, then six years old, as an argument for a national organization. From the National Federation, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, representing 17,000,000 communicants, was developed in 1908. Helping the Census of the World’s Largest City: New York passed London July 4, 1908. In 1910 the Federal Census Bureau used the Federation’s nationality count of Manhattan-Bronx, by blocks^ to assign enumerators. In return it agreed to tabulate New York’s population in terms of 707 tracts instead of 77 districts. The Federation, in turn, agreed to map and measure the tracts, and, with the cooperation of the borough topographical bureaux, did so. The official maps of the city’s tracts, the basis of its census reporting throughout this century, are the Federation’s work. Freeing the State from a Ganrbling Trust: The Committee formed to cooperate with Governor Hughes, in 1908, to repeal the Percj'-Gray racing laws, was organized in the Federation’s office. Its Chairman was the Federation’s Executive Secretary. 364 churches in the city and over 1,000 in the State at large combined in this campaign. Its mottoes were: “The Constitutional Amendment of 1894, commanding the Legislature to pass laws adapted to pro- hibit pool-selling, book-making and every kind of gambling business, must be taken at face value;” and “The State can get along with slow horses better than with fast men.” The Agnew-Hart bills of 1908-1910, affirmative legislation, and the defeat of all 2 Ci)e gorfe Jfelieratton of 0I!)urct)es March 22-27, 1915. A WEEK^S WORK For Individuals; Churches; Institutions; Local Charities; the City; Evangelistic and Interdenominational Agencies; and State and National Organizations. FOR INDIVIDUALS. High-class professional man assisted with loan fund. Author of play dealing with drug habit requests reading of MS., and advice on its uses for social service. Physician returning from War Zone requests advice on entering social work as life profession. FOR CHURCHES. Washington Heights M.E. worker asks distribution, membership, seating capacity, character of population, etc., of neighborhood churches. A Fifth Avenue church worker asks for church distribution and char- acter of population on upper East Side and upper West Side of Man- hattan. Woodhaven Congregational requests Secretary’s lecture on “Four Days in a German Military Prison and Their Lessons.” Bethany Congregational receives second $200 from Federation’s $15,000 Unemployment-Relief Fund, for work-room for women. Labor Temple receives $150 for work-room for women. Clinton Ave. Congregational and associated churches receive $100 for unemployment-relief work of Prospect Hill Clergy and Laity League. Bohemian Presbyterian Church receives $100 for unemployment- relief among Bohemians. Union Settlement-American Parish receives $75 grant for work-room among Italian population. Over one hundred churches similarly assisted, irrespective of creed, to help the unemployed since February first. FOR INSTITUTIONS. Columbia University Belgian and Serbian Relief Committee asks help in advertising relief entertainment. New York University asks advice and map concerning political units, and their racial characteristics, in New York City. THE WEEK, March 22-27, 1915 Curtis High School requests information concerning churches of different communions in New York. FOR LOCAL CHARITIES. Charity Organization Society asks help in defeating vicious changes in tenement-house law, and assistance in enacting better criminal courts legislation. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor asks $1,000 from Federation’s Unemployment-Relief Fund. Newsboys’ Club Committee asks co-operation in ten-day campaign. FOR THE CITY. Board of Health requests acreage figures of census tracts for guid- ance in extending 40-acre unit for population tabulations over whole area of New York, and arranges co-operation with the Federation in meas- uring and certifying these areas for Federal Census Bureau. Charities Department receives set of Federation’s population maps for sub-division of the city into charity areas for records and reports. Department of Records, Board of Health, receives loan of Federa- tion’s tract population publication for scientific determination of mor- bidity and mortality rates. FOR EVANGELISTIC AND INTERDENOMINATIONAL AGENCIES. New York Evangelistic Committee asks assistance in scientifically determining communicants of religious bodies in New York City. Prospect West Interchurch League requests assistance in securing municipal study of economic effect of the saloon in the life of New York. Church Extension Committee receives assurance of Federation’s im- mediate preparation of official church distribution maps of New York. FOR STATE AND NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS. New York Child Labor Committee asks co-operation in defeating legislation impairing value of laws affecting economic conditions, whose passage in 1913 and 1914 was helped by Federation’s Law Enactment Department. National Reform Bureau requests Federation’s assistance in con- duct of its campaign against the “Mormon Kingdom.” “Flying Squadron” requests assistance in arranging meetings in month of May. National Abstainers* Union requests assistance in arranging public meeting in April. emasculating amendments, 1911-1913, re- sulted. The Anti - Racetrack - Gambling Committee has never dissolved, and is ready to defend the continuance of the mandatory anti-gambling provisions of the Constitu- tion. Providing New York City with Knowledge of Itself: From 1895 to 1907 the Federation made house-to-house canvasses of hundreds of thousands of fam- ilies in four of the five boroughs. The discovery of the city’s most populous block, north of 59th Street, was among the most potent arguments for the need of the Tenement House Department, which was created six years after the churches had classed the housing question as essentially religious, by including light, air, water- supply, bath and toilet facilities, rentals, room-crowding and acreage density in its district investigations. New York’s first public bath was opened in 1901 ; the Federation supplied informa- tion to locate its earliest successors, of which there are now a dozen. The old Rapid Transit Commission ap- plied to it for a district density map and voted down the “L” route in Delancey Street. The Federation furnished the facts which located De Witt Clinton Park. Since 1907 all district investigations have been conducted by district organizations, but the Federation has produced and per- fected the system which secures at govern- mental expense directive data needed by city departments for administrative meas- ures and records. The State Census of 1915 will use the same area units as the Federation induced the Federal Census Bureau to use in 1910, and the Federal Census has promised the Federation and the city Board of Health to use and improve the same system in 1920. The Board of Education owns the Fed- eration’s “Statistical Sources for Demo- graphic Studies of Greater New York,” two volumes, 770 pages, 17x27 inches, in which the Federation published the en- tire tabulation of the 1910 Census; the New York Public Library owns another copy; and the Board of Health is using an- other. The Department of Charities; the Pub- lic Service Commission ; the Recreation 3 Commission, and the Tenement House De- partment have all been purchasers of the Federation’s maps. The Public Service Commission decided to build the Fourth Avenue Subway, Brook- lyn, only after ascertaining from the Federa- tion the facts of the increase of congestion on Brooklyn’s West Side. The Bridge Commission, New York- New Jersey, and many other state-city pro- jects have used the Federation as the best center of New York’s knowledge of itself. The Metropolitan Sewerage Commission, laying out a sanitary system for the city for the next half century, has accepted the Federation’s estimate of New York’s popu- lation in 1940 as the basis of all its recom- mendations. Equipping Church Extension Socie- ties for Comity and Efficiency in Church Planting and Planning: The Big Seven” communions of Prot- estantism in New York, the Lutherans, Bap- tists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Pres- byterians, Protestant Episcopalians and Reformed habitually use the Federation’s data, apply for special information re- peatedly, and co-operations and comity are increasing among them. The efficiency task of the Federation affects over $200,000,000 of church property. “Redistribution” is the word of the future for many millions of it ; “Neighborhood service” the word of the hour for all of it. Official church maps of 38 borough sub-divisions of the five boroughs, based on tax-exemption records of 1914-1915, are now in preparation for the common use of all religious bodies. These maps are correlated with the tract population data which the Federation has induced the nation to tabulate. In the autumn of 1915 the Federation plans to publish a year book of churches and chari- ties, arranged by tracts, with memberships and listings of work for foreign-born groups. When some far-sighted citizen will give it $50,000 for a “Neighborhood Welfare and Church Efficiency Survey and Exhibit,” it can largely increase the divi- dend of the churches’ usefulness, in Ameri- canizing aliens, toning up neighborhoods, protecting homes, and purifying lives. Locating Needed Churches in Neglected Districts: 98% of New York s Protestant churches have 4 been located, since 1626, by denomina- tional action alone; 2%, located by the inter- church recommendation of the Federation, since 1895, are a product of the co-operative policy upon which even the operative suc- cess of the churches of the future must be built. These churches belong to five of the “Big Seven” Protestant communions. One is Moravian, Twenty years from now the locations of at least 25% of the Protestant churches of Greater New York should be the result of inter-denominational agreement. Organizing the Churches for Visita- tion and Vigilance : The tabulation tracts of the Federal Census supply a basis for the division of the cky into responsibility districts, and during the last twelve months it has been found feasible, all over New York, to obtain the assent of the churches to print and distribute co-operative advertising and exercise neighborhood vigilance. Whenever a department store’s adver- tising begins to announce the location and goods of a competitor, the conclusion is inevitable that competitors have become partners. Where the Federation has in- troduced the responsibility district system, each church distributes the announcements of all others in a “United Invitation” folder. Religion is announced thereby as co-operative, a cement of society, not a wedge. The Federation initiated co-operative ad- vertising in 1897, experimented with it fur- ther in 1899, introduced it in six neighbor- hoods in 1914, and has standardized it for universal use, with printing forms so attrac- tive and economical as to be available for any neighborhood. Acquainting the Charities of the City with their task: The Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities have both bought the publications of the Federation, and the former society has recast its visitors’ dis- tricts to agree with groups of Federation tracts. The Bureau of Charities is at the present moment using the Federation’s maps to recast the boundaries of the city’s own social service districts. Locating Branch Libraries: “The true university is a collection of books.” The Federation has helped many neighbor- 5 hoods to university conditions by giving^ branches of the Public Library a knowledge of the neighborhood nationalities, to deter- mine the contents of the library shelves. Locating Model Tenements; The first model tenement for negroes in America was built on a paragraph of the Federation’s second publication, and over $400,000 have been spent on model tenements for negroes as the result. It supplied the rental data for the first operation of the City and Suburban Homes Company’s splendid work. Pioneering the Vacation Bible School Movement as a Co-operative Protestant Enterprise; The Federation in 1905 instituted church vacation schools as a federative movement, and for eleven years has gathered the children of the tenements in cool churches and given them the good cheer and culture of companionship with college men and women. In the summer of 1915 this work is more necessary than for several years past, because there will be no public vacation schools in the city this year. This move- ment is now nationalized. Acquainting the Clergy of the City with one another; The Clerical Con- ference of the Federation was instituted in 1910. Its enrollment comprises over 400 of the pastors of the city and immediate neighborhood. Men with a message of the highest rank, whose presence could hardly be commandedby denominational gatherings, have gladly embraced the opportunity to ad- dress this Conference’ s meetings, and it has furnished a centre, dignified and appropriate, to honor such servants of the kingdom of God as Viscount Bryce, Dr. Siegmund-Schultze, Dr. John Clifford, Baron de Neufville, Thomas Mott Osborne, and others; and given opportunity to public servants like Mayors Gaynor and Mitchel, Secretary Bryan and Colonel Roosevelt, to acquaint the clergy with their ideas and ideals. Th is Conference, as a section of the clergy of the State, has just initiated a state Committee to combat Mormonism as a political menace. Associating the Churches with the Progress of Social Reform; The Law Enactment and Law Enforcement Bureau of the Federation, organized in 1909, has led the churches in asking One Day’s 6 Rest in Seven” legislation, improved housing and factory conditions, law enactment, and in advocating measures for health, recreational and educational improvement of multiform variety. The Federation’s church list, set up for its electric addressograph, enables it to com- municate with the churches in terms of assembly, senatorial, and congressional dis- tricts whenever it so desires, and it annually places in the hands of the churches a map list of assemblymen and senators, and for the current year has added thereto a list of delegates to the Constitutional Con- vention. Assisting Evangelism: The Evangelistic Committee of Greater New York made its first appeal in an eight page pamphlet, foui pages of which were written for it by the Federation’s office, and the Federation has continued to assist it and other evangelistic societies to meet the special religious needs of special classes of population. Teaching International Good Will and Racial Justice: In 1911 the Clerical Conference passed a resolution asking the Nation to abrogate its treaty with Russia until such time as Russia would honor all passports of American citizens without re- gard to race or creed. In the same year and sub^-^'acntly it passed resolutions committing the clergy of the city to co-operate with the Inter- national Peace Movement. In 1914 the Federation began to promote the interest of the churches in the formation of an International Court, adapted to ad- judge the differences between nations, and equipped to enforce its decisions. Throughout the winter of 1914-1915 nearly 100 addresses have been delivered in the churches of New York and neighbor- hood in this interest. Shouldering the Burden of Unem- ployment Conditions Resulting from the War: In the autumn of 1914 a group of social workers requested the Federation to organize the churches to meet and miti- gate the distress of increased unemployment then threatening the city. As early as June, 1914, before the Euro- pean War had broken out, the Economic Conditions Committee of the Federation was given the task of awakening the church- es to a sense of the waste and wretched- 7 ness occasioned by war. A special Inter- church Unemployment Committee to ad- minister relief rather than to educate opin- ion was formed in November. The district organizations of the Federation wherever existing were convened, and employment committees were created in several other districts. Before the Mayor’s Committee on Unemployment had convened, the churches were all co-operating to serve the needs of the unemployed. Funds for the Federation’s committee were raised or given by its own members, hut its secretary’s services were donated to the Mayor’s committee, and in turn the Mayor’s committee co-operated with it, with the happy result that the city itself, the Protestant churches, the Roman Catho- lic charities, and the Jewish synagogues, Orthodox and Reformed, all assisted one another to help New York’s needy unem- ployed. Colonel Roosevelt generously donated his lecture on his South American Travels to the committee, and a fund of over $15,000 has been disbursed through the churches and synagogues, to the Mayor’s committee, and through charities, with the special purpose of assisting those, not habitual charity seek- ers, but known to the churches to be in need rough the peculiar unemployment conditions ic 'king from the war. Nearly 150 churches and synagogues in the five boroughs have been assisted by this fund to keep heart of hope in their people. Churches of all nationalities shared in it — German, Austrian, Russian, Finnish, Ita- lian and Scandinavian, and the stimulus given them by the observance of Unemploy- ment Sunday, and the suggestions of service and neighborliness sent out by the com- mittee, produced such an outflow of activity among the churches as to compel the ad- miration and gratitude of hosts of the un- employed. The reports of this work, which closed May 1st, are not yet all in, but The New York Federation of Churches has proved its capacity as a co-operative centre by assist- ing churches of all the “Big Seven” com- munions of Greater New York, — Bap- tist, Congregational, Lutheran, Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Re- formed, as well as churches of the Dis- ciples and the Moravians, 25 Roman Catholic parishes, and nearly fifty syna- gogues, to meet a community need.