Strong Chests

Newton D. Baker, onetime Secretary of War, addressed the closing session of a Washington conference of the Association of Community Chests and Councils. He said: "Private philanthropy should not undertake anything which the State can do as well. . . ."

Other speakers pointed out that corporations should contribute to solve the social problems which they create in local communities. Said Colonel William Cooper Procter, President of Procter & Gamble, Ivory Soap makers, chairman of the conference: "Corporate gifts to community chests should be . . . among the legitimate expenditures of the corporation. . . ."

Doubtless it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, and doubtless the consciousness of this fact causes many a miser, waddling slowly homeward, to ease his crusted conscience by tossing a dime for a beggar to waste in drink and debauchery. Such philanthropy is pleasant but it is not blessed by efficiency. No more efficient is indiscriminate philanthropy conducted on a larger scale. The purpose of the Community Chest is to lessen the indiscrimination and waste of large-scale philanthropy by simple and effective cooperation. Thus, instead of several separate and slipshod campaigns for charitable financing, a city in which a Community Chest functions has one concerted campaign, lessening advertising expenses, increasing the net result. A board of directors, made up of the officials of the various welfare organizations, sees to it that budgets are properly distributed.

The history of Community Chests is lengthy, evolutionary, and increasingly notable. In 320 U. S. cities, Community Chests now function; the Association of Community Chests and Councils exists merely as a clearing house to inform communities how they may put Community Chests into effect in a purely local connection. Philadelphia is the largest U. S. city to have a Community Chest; in Cleveland, (which in 1913 organized a federation for charity and philanthropy generally regarded as the beginning of the modern Community Chest movement), Denver, Detroit and elsewhere they work with eminent success. Cincinnati's Community Chest, organized as such in 1915, and greatly aided by the donations of Colonel Procter, is one of the oldest and most flourishing in the U. S.