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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Broken Homes, by Joanna C. Colcord
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Broken Homes
+       A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment
+
+Author: Joanna C. Colcord
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2005 [EBook #15420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROKEN HOMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the
+PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+_SOCIAL WORK SERIES_
+
+BROKEN HOMES
+
+A STUDY OF FAMILY DESERTION AND
+ITS SOCIAL TREATMENT
+
+_By_
+JOANNA C. COLCORD
+
+SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY
+OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
+
+NEW YORK
+RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
+1919
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
+THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
+
+WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+No less thoughtful a critic of men and manners than Joseph Conrad has
+remarked recently that a universal experience "is exactly the sort of
+thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in the individual
+instance." The saying might have been made the motto of this book, for
+in its pages Miss Colcord--with all the eagerness of the newer school of
+social workers, bent upon understanding, upon making allowances--seeks
+that just appraisal to which Conrad refers. Marital infelicities and
+broken homes are not universal, fortunately, but some of the human
+weaknesses which lead to them are very nearly so.
+
+To one who brings a long perspective to any theme in social work, Broken
+Homes suggests the successive stages through which the art of social
+case work has progressed. Twenty years ago the editor of this Series was
+responsible for the following sentences in an annual report: "One of our
+most difficult problems has been how to deal with deserted wives with
+children.... One good woman, whose husband had left her for the second
+time more than a year ago, declared often and emphatically that she
+would never let him come back. We rescued her furniture from the
+landlord, found her work, furnished needed relief, and befriended the
+children; but the drunken and lazy husband returned the other day, and
+is sitting in the chairs we rescued, while he warms his hands at the
+fire that we have kept burning."
+
+The passage belongs to the first and what might be termed the "muddling
+along" period of dealing with family desertion, but the fact that boards
+of directors actually were willing to print such frank statements about
+their own shortcomings was a sign that the period was drawing to a
+close.
+
+This first stage was succeeded by a disciplinary period, in which
+earnest attempts were made to enact laws that would punish the deserter
+and aid in his extradition whenever he took refuge across a state line.
+Laws of the strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a while the
+only possible solution.
+
+Then gradually, with the unfolding of a philosophy and a technique of
+helping people in and through their social relationships, a new way of
+dealing with this ancient and perplexing human failing was developed.
+This third way involved a more careful analysis of relationships and
+motives, a greater variety in approach, an increased flexibility in
+treatment, a new faith, perhaps, in the re-creative powers latent in
+human nature. But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon a point of view
+which these pages admirably illustrate. Desertion laws continue to serve
+a definite purpose, as Miss Colcord makes clear, but no longer are they
+either the first or the second resort of the skilful probation officer,
+family case worker, or child protective agent.
+
+Just after the Russell Sage Foundation published a treatise on Social
+Diagnosis two years ago, a number of letters came to the author urging
+that a volume on the treatment of social maladjustments in individual
+cases follow. But this second subject is not yet ready for the large
+general treatise. A topic so new as social case treatment must be
+developed aspect by aspect, preferably in small, practical volumes each
+written by a specialist. This is such a volume, and Miss Colcord breaks
+new ground, moreover, in that her book illustrates the whole present
+trend of social work as applied to individuals.
+
+Grateful acknowledgment should be made to the social case workers who
+have furnished valuable contributions to the body of data gathered for
+the present study. Miss Colcord wishes mention made of her especial
+indebtedness to Miss Betsey Libbey, Miss Helen Wallerstein and Miss
+Elizabeth Wood of Philadelphia; Mr. C.C. Carstens and Miss Elizabeth
+Holbrook of Boston; Mrs. A.B. Fox and Mr. J.C. Murphy of Buffalo; Miss
+Caroline Bedford of Minneapolis; Mr. Stockton Raymond of Columbus; Mrs.
+Helen Glenn Tyson of Pittsburgh; Mr. Arthur Towne of Brooklyn; Mr. E.J.
+Cooley, Mr. Charles Zunser, Mr. Hiram Myers, and Miss Mary B. Sayles of
+New York. Many others not here mentioned were untiring in answering
+questions and furnishing needed information.
+
+MARY E. RICHMOND
+_Editor of the Social Work Series_
+NEW YORK, May, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                    PAGE
+   I. INTRODUCTION                                     7
+  II. WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?               17
+ III. CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT                50
+  IV. FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND                   65
+   V. FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION              91
+  VI. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT                       106
+ VII. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (_Continued_)         125
+VIII. THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER                 149
+  IX. NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT             164
+   X. NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT             185
+INDEX                                                201
+
+
+
+
+BROKEN HOMES
+
+I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It has frequently been said that desertion is the poor man's divorce
+but, like many epigrams, this one hardly stands the test of experience.
+When examined closely it is neither illuminating nor, if the testimony
+of social case workers can be accepted, is it true. It is true, of
+course, that many of the causes of domestic infelicity which lead to
+divorce among the well-to-do may bring about desertion among the less
+fortunate, but the deserting man does not, as a rule, consider his
+absences from home as anything so final and definite as divorce.
+
+In a study of desertion made by the Philadelphia Society for Organizing
+Charity in 1902,[1] it was found that 87 per cent of the men studied
+had deserted more than once. The combined experience of social workers
+goes to show that a comparatively small number of first deserters make
+so complete a break in their marital relations that they are never heard
+from again, and that an even smaller number actually start new families
+elsewhere, although no statistical proof of this last statement is
+available. One social worker of experience says that in her judgment
+desertion, instead of being a poor man's divorce, comes nearer to being
+a poor man's vacation.
+
+    A man who had always been a good husband and father was discharged
+    from hospital after a long and exhausting illness and returned to
+    his family--wife and seven children--in their five-room tenement.
+    Ten days later he disappeared suddenly, but reappeared some two
+    weeks later in very much better health and ready to resume his
+    occupation and the care of his family. His explanation of his
+    apparent desertion was that he was unable to stand the confusion of
+    his home and "had needed rest." He had "beaten his way" to
+    Philadelphia and visited a friend there.
+
+The reporter of the foregoing remarks that it illustrates "unconscious
+self-therapy," and that the patient's disappearance might have been
+avoided if the services of a good medical-social department had been
+available at the hospital where the man was treated.
+
+It is more difficult to justify the thirst for experience of another
+deserting husband who came to the office of a family social agency after
+an absence of a few months, with effusive thanks for the care of his
+family and the explanation that he "had always wanted to see the West,
+and this had been the only way he could find of accomplishing it."
+
+In fact, case work has convinced social workers that there are few
+things less permanent than desertion. In itself this provisional quality
+tends to create irritation in the minds of many of the profession. It is
+upsetting to plan for a deserted family which stops being deserted, so
+to speak, overnight. But in their understandable despair social workers
+sometimes overlook essential facts about the nature of marriage. The
+_permanence_ of family life is one of the foundation stones of their
+professional faith; yet they may fail to recognize certain
+manifestations of this permanence as part and parcel of the end for
+which they are striving. They would see no point in the practice adopted
+by a certain social agency which deals with many cases of family
+desertion. This society, when it has had occasion to print copies of a
+deserter's photograph to use in seeking to discover his present
+whereabouts, often presents his wife with an enlargement of the picture
+suitable for framing. The procedure displays, nevertheless, a profound
+insight not only into human nature but into the human institution called
+marriage.
+
+In the next chapter will be considered some of the causes that make men
+leave their homes. To deal effectively with the situation created by
+desertion, however, we have need of a wider knowledge than this. Not
+only what takes men away but what keeps them from going, what brings
+them back, what leads to their being forgiven and received into their
+homes again, are matters that seriously concern the social case worker.
+What is it that makes this plant called marriage so tough of fiber and
+so difficult to eradicate from even the most unfriendly soil?
+
+It is fortunate (since the majority of case workers are unmarried) that
+simply to have been a member of a family gives one some understanding of
+these questions. The theorist who maintains that marriage is purely
+economic, or that it is entirely a question of sex, has either never
+belonged to a real family or has forgotten some of the lessons he
+learned there.
+
+Many volumes have been written upon the history of marriage, or rather
+of the family, since, as one historian justly puts it, "marriage has its
+source in the family rather than the family in marriage."[2] In all
+these studies the influence of law, of custom, of self-interest, and of
+economic pressure, is shown to have molded the institution of marriage
+into curious shapes and forms, some grievous to be borne. But is it not
+after all the crystallized and conventionalized records of past time
+which have had to be used as the source material of such studies, and
+could the spiritual values of the family in any period be found in its
+laws and learned discourses? We might rather expect to find students of
+these sources preoccupied with the outward aspects, the failures, the
+unusual instances. It is as true of human beings as of nations, that the
+happy find no chronicler. "Out of ... interest and joy in caring for
+children in their weakness and watching that weakness grow to strength,
+family life came into being and has persisted."[3] It is hardly
+conceivable that in any society, however primitive, there were not some
+real families--even when custom ran otherwise--in which marriage meant
+love and kindness and the mutual sharing of responsibilities. And these
+families, today as always, are the creators and preservers of the
+spiritual gains of the human race. It has been beautifully said of the
+family in such a form, that "it is greater than love itself, for it
+includes, ennobles, makes permanent, all that is best in love. The pain
+of life is hallowed by it, the drudgery sweetened, its pleasures
+consecrated. It is the great trysting-place of the generations, where
+past and future flash into the reality of the present. It is the great
+storehouse in which the hardly-earned treasures of the past, the
+inheritance of spirit and character from our ancestors, are guarded and
+preserved for our descendants. And it is the great discipline through
+which each generation learns anew the lesson of citizenship that no man
+can live for himself alone."[4] It follows that the most trying and
+discouraging feature of social work with deserted wives; namely, their
+determination to take worthless men back and back again for another
+trial, is often only a further manifestation of the extraordinary
+viability of the family.
+
+It is true that, into this enduring quality, many elements enter, some
+homely or merely material. A desire for support, or for a resumption of
+sex relations, may play a part in a wife's decision to forgive the
+wanderer. There are many other factors--use and wont; pride in being
+able to show a good front to the neighbors; a feeling that it is
+unnatural to be receiving support from other sources. Just the mere
+desire to have his clothes hanging on the wall and the smell of his pipe
+about, the hundreds of small details that go to make up the habit of
+living together, have each their separate pull on the woman whose
+instinct to be wife and mother to her erring man is urging her to give
+in; Home is, in both their minds,
+
+    " ... the place where when you have to go there
+    They have to take you in....
+    Something you somehow haven't to deserve."[5]
+
+A woman who had left her home town and found clerical work in a strange
+city, in order not to be near her syphilitic husband from whom she had
+determined to separate, said, "When you've been married to a man, you
+can't get over feeling your place is with him."
+
+However we may deplore the results in a given case, the spineless woman
+who takes her husband back many times may nevertheless be giving a
+demonstration of the thing we are most interested in conserving--the
+durability and persistence of the family. And so the social worker who
+is enabled by experience or imagination to enter into the real meaning
+of family life is neither scornful nor amused when Mrs. Finnegan is
+found, on the morning when her case against Finnegan is to come up in
+the domestic relations court, busily washing and ironing his other shirt
+in order that he may make a proper appearance and not disgrace the
+family before the judge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An attempt will be made in this small book to analyze some causal
+factors in the problem of the deserter, to touch upon recent changes in
+the attitude of social workers toward deserted families, to present
+illustrations from the best discoverable practice in the treatment of
+desertion, and to suggest certain possible next steps, both on the legal
+and on the social side. For lack of space, it will be impossible to
+consider the closely related problems of the deserting wife, the
+unmarried mother, or the divorced couple. It is assumed throughout that
+the reader is familiar with the general theory of modern case work; and
+no more is here attempted than to give a number of suggestions which
+will be found to be practical, it is hoped, when the social worker deals
+with the home marred and broken by desertion, or when he seeks to
+prevent this evil by such constructive measures as are now possible.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Society for
+Organizing Charity, p. 25.
+
+[2] Goodsell, Willystine: The Family as a Social and Educational
+Institution, p. 8. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1915.
+
+[3] Byington, Margaret F.: Article on "The Normal Family," _Annals of
+the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918.
+
+[4] Bosanquet, Helen: The Family, p. 342. London, Macmillan & Co., 1906.
+
+[5] Frost, Robert: North of Boston, p. 20. New York, Henry Holt & Co.,
+1915.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?
+
+
+"Before the deserter there was a broken man," said a district secretary
+who has had conspicuous success in dealing with such men. By this
+characterization she meant not necessarily a physical or mental wreck,
+but a man bankrupt for the time being in health, hopes, prospects, or in
+all three; a man who lacked the power or the will to dominate adverse
+conditions, who had allowed life to overcome him. Such an unfortunate
+may not be conscious of his own share in bringing about the difficulties
+in which he finds himself, but he is always aware that something has
+gone seriously wrong in his life. His grasp of this fact is the one sure
+ground upon which the social worker can meet him at the start.
+
+We should distinguish between the _causes_ that bring about a given
+desertion, and the _conscious motives in the mind of the deserter_. It
+is well for the social worker to make the latter the starting point in
+dealing with the man, accepting the most preposterous as at least worthy
+of discussion. The absconder is often too inarticulate and ill at ease
+to give a clear picture of what was in his mind when he went away. If he
+was out of work, it may have been a perfectly sincere belief that he
+would find work elsewhere, or perhaps only a speculative hope that he
+might. (These are not in the beginning genuine desertions, but often
+become so later on.) It is possible that, beset by irritations and
+perplexities, the thought of cutting his way out at one stroke from all
+his difficulties made an appeal too strong to be resisted. Or perhaps he
+flung out of the house and away, in a passion of anger and jealousy
+which later crystallized into cold dislike. The spell of an infatuation
+for another woman might well have been the cause; or he may have been
+mentally deranged through alcohol. Simple weariness of the burden which
+he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have
+assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or
+in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another.
+
+His temperamental instability may have been such that the desire for a
+change--the "wanderlust"--was driving him to distraction. Or perhaps,
+under the urge of his own subconscious feeling of failure, he may have
+convinced himself that if he could "shake" the old environment and all
+in it that hampered him, he could take a fresh start and make good. "If
+I could only get to California," sighed Patrick Donald,[6] "I have a
+feeling things would be different." With too much imagination to be
+content with the situation in which he found himself, Donald had not
+imagination enough to realize that he would have to take his old self
+with him wherever he went, and that he might better fight things out
+where he stood. Men of his sort yearn constantly for the future, not
+realizing that in its truest sense the present _is_ the future.
+
+Only in rare instances will the deserter accept the entire
+responsibility for his act. To try to find justification for doing what
+we want to do is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter is no
+exception. He attempts to "rationalize" his conduct and so regain his
+sense of self-approval and well-being by finding excuses and
+justifications in the conduct of others. Even when the fault is all his,
+he usually succeeds in making himself believe that his wife is more to
+blame than he for his having left home.[7] The social worker who
+attempts to deal with the situation the deserter creates should know
+this attitude in advance and be prepared, through some simple
+rule-of-thumb psychology, to attack the obsession and bring him, first
+of all, to see and face squarely his own responsibility.
+
+Many blanket theories have been developed to explain desertion--that it
+is due to economic pressure; that it is the result of bad housekeeping;
+that its causes can all be reduced to sex incompatibility. All these
+factors: undoubtedly have their bearing on the problem, but there is no
+one cause or group of causes underlying breakdowns in family morale. The
+ratio of desertions has been observed to decrease rather than to
+increase in "hard times";[8] moreover, it is a matter of common
+observation that not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted,
+and that many married couples in all walks of life whose sex
+relationships are unsatisfactory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of
+family life and support and bring up their children with an average
+degree of success. None of these three factors alone will serve,
+therefore, as a fundamental causation unit in desertion. Many
+statistical attempts have been made to study the causes of desertion,
+and to assign to each its mathematical percentage of influence. The
+report of a court of domestic relations gives such an analysis of over
+1,500 cases, listing 25 causes, and carefully calculating the percentage
+of cases due to each. A summary of these percentages grouped under five
+heads is as follows:
+
+                                           _Percentage_
+1. Distinct sex factors                           39.03
+2. Alcohol and narcotic drugs                     37.00
+3. Temperamental traits                           15.40
+4. Economic issues                                 6.27
+5. Mental and physical troubles                    2.30
+                                                 ------
+                                                 100.00
+
+It would be easy to criticize the foregoing on the score of grouping.
+Can alcoholism and drug addiction be separated from mental and physical
+disorders? And how distinguish infallibly between sex factors,
+temperamental traits, and mental disabilities? But the main defect in
+such statistical studies is that they assume in each case one cause, or
+at least one cause sufficiently dominant to dwarf the rest; and few of
+the causes listed are really fundamental. The mind instinctively begins
+to reach back after the causes of all these causes. The social worker
+who made the sweeping assertion that there are two great reasons for
+marital discord--"selfishness in men and peevishness in women,"--came a
+good deal nearer to an accurate statement of fact with infinitely less
+trouble.
+
+Looked at from the point of view of the social worker, desertion is
+itself only a symptom of some more deeply seated trouble in the family
+structure. The problem presented, if it could have been recognized in
+time, is not essentially different from what it would have been before
+the man's departure. Without attempting, therefore, any statistical
+analysis of the causes of desertion, we may nevertheless be able to
+examine one by one a number of possible _contributory factors_ in
+marital unhappiness and therefore in desertion. No attempt will be made
+in the list that follows to distinguish between primary and secondary
+causes, nor to arrange them in any order of importance. An effort to get
+from case workers lists so arranged resulted only in confusion, each
+person emphasizing a different set of factors. The groupings here given,
+therefore, are no more than a placing of the more obviously related
+factors together and a leading from past history up to the present.
+
+Considering first the personal as distinguished from the community
+factors in desertion, these may be listed as follows:
+
+
+CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE MAN AND WOMAN
+
+1. Actual Mental Deficiency.--Character weaknesses such as were spoken
+of earlier in this chapter grade down by degrees into real mental defect
+or disorder, and not even the psychiatrist can always draw the line.
+
+A physician connected with the Municipal Court in Boston gives as his
+opinion that while the percentage of actually insane or feeble-minded
+among deserters is no higher than among other offenders they are
+extremely likely to present some of the phenomena of psychopathic
+personality. Such people have to be studied by the social worker and the
+psychiatrist, and not from the behavior side only, but with a view to
+discovering what sort of equipment for life was handed down to them from
+their family stock.
+
+    The plan for the future of a fifteen-year-old boy which was made by
+    a society for family social work was markedly modified when it was
+    discovered that not only his father but his grandfather had been a
+    man of violent and abusive temper, who drank habitually and
+    neglected their family obligations. With this sort of heredity and
+    an ineffective mother, whom he was accustomed to seeing treated with
+    abuse and disrespect, it was felt important to remove the boy, who
+    showed some promise, to surroundings where he could be under firm
+    discipline and learn decent standards of family life.
+
+Feeble-mindedness, closely connected as it usually is with industrial
+inefficiency in the man, bad housekeeping in the woman, and lack of
+self-control in both, is of course, a potent factor in non-support and
+probably also in desertion.
+
+2. Faults in Early Training.--To low ideals of home life and of
+personal obligation, which were imbibed in youth, can be traced much
+family irresponsibility. It is by no means the rule, however, for
+children always to follow in the footsteps of weak or vicious parents;
+and it is the experience of social workers that such children, taught by
+observation to avoid the faults seen in their own homes, often make good
+parents themselves. Perhaps even more insidious in its effect on later
+marital history is the home in which no self-control is learned. The
+so-called "good homes" in which children are exposed to petting,
+coddling, and overindulgence--and these homes are not confined to the
+wealthy--produce adults who do not stand up to their responsibilities. A
+probation officer in Philadelphia tells of the mother of a young
+deserter who could not account for her son's delinquency. "He _ought_ to
+be a good boy," she complained; "I carried him up to bed myself every
+night till he was eleven years old."
+
+3. Differences in Background.--Even though both man and wife come from
+good homes, if those homes are widely different in standards and in
+cultural background strains may develop in later life between the
+couple. Differences in race, religion and age are recognized as having a
+causative relation to desertion. Miss Brandt[9] found that, in about 28
+per cent of the cases where these facts were ascertained, the husband
+and wife were of different nationality. "In the general population of
+the United States in 1900 only 8.5 per cent was of mixed parentage, and
+for New York City the proportion was less than 13 per cent.... A
+difference in nationality was more than twice as frequent among the
+cases of desertion as among the general population of the city where it
+is most common." Miss Brandt's figures for difference of religion are
+less significant, but it existed in 19 per cent of the total number of
+cases for which information on this point was available. In 27 per cent
+of the families where age-facts were learned, there were differences of
+over six years between the two; in 15 per cent the woman was older than
+the man.
+
+Other differences which should find mention under this heading are those
+that arise when the environment is changed by immigration. The man who
+precedes his wife by many years in coming to America has often outgrown
+her when she finally joins him, even if he has formed no other family
+ties. The handicap is not wholly overcome when the couple come to this
+country together, for the much greater opportunities of the man to
+learn American ways may drive a wedge between him and his wife. On the
+other hand it is a popular saying, particularly among young Italian
+immigrants, that girls who have been in America too long do not make
+good wives, that when a man wants to marry he had better send for a girl
+from the old country; and these marriages seem on the whole to turn out
+well.
+
+4. Wrong Basis of Marriage.--Included here should be hasty marriages,
+mercenary marriages, marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy
+had occurred, as well as marriages where coercion was a factor for other
+reasons.[10]
+
+When there have been sex relations before marriage, unless the custom of
+the community sanctions such intimacy, there are likely to develop
+jealousies, quarrels, and ill feeling. "He do be always castin' it up at
+me, but sure, 'twas himself was to blame" is one version of the age-old
+story.
+
+There should also be included here those irregular unions called
+"common law marriages," which are still permitted in many of our states.
+The protection supposed to be afforded to the woman by this institution
+is mainly fictitious, as it is practically impossible to secure
+conviction for bigamy if one of the marriages was of the common law
+variety. A common law husband who deserts, even if he admits his wife's
+legal claim upon him, does not feel morally bound; and this fact
+undoubtedly plays its part in the causation of such desertions.[11]
+
+5. Lack of Education.--More is included under this title than scanty
+"book-learning." Not only the morally undisciplined child but the
+mentally undisciplined youth is handicapped as spouse and parent.
+Ignorance of the physical and spiritual bases of married life is a
+potent cause of desertion. So also is a limited industrial equipment.
+Irregular school attendance, early "working papers," a dead-end job with
+no educational possibilities in it--these form a frequent background
+for later unsuccess in life and in marriage.
+
+    There seemed at first no good explanation for the desertion of
+    Alfred West. Both his record and his wife's were good, and their
+    mutual fondness for the children seemed a strong bond. They
+    constantly bickered, however, over the small income Alfred was able
+    to earn, and his wife and her relatives "looked down" upon him as
+    being lower than they in the social scale. Inquiry into past history
+    showed that he had grown up in a southern community where there were
+    no facilities for education, and that he could not even read and
+    write until after his marriage. Although of average capacity, he was
+    restricted by his early lack of training in his choice of a job; and
+    the mortification and sense of inferiority which his wife fostered
+    led to discouragement and indifference, which ended in desertion. A
+    thorough understanding of the two backgrounds involved enabled a
+    social worker to effect a real reconciliation, with the woman's eyes
+    opened to her ungenerous behavior and the man taking steps to
+    improve his education in a night school.
+
+6. Occupational Faults.--Closely allied to the foregoing, and in some
+respects growing out of it, are the shortcomings on the employment side
+that contribute to marital instability. Most of these can be referred
+back to lack of education or opportunity in youth, or to defects of
+character. Laziness, incompetence, lack of skill in any trade, lack of
+application, or, on the other hand, the possession by a man with no
+business "stake" in the community of a trade at which he can work
+wherever he takes a fancy to go, or of a trade which is seasonal and
+shifting--all these have a direct relation to desertion.
+
+The wife's competence and willingness to earn often seems to have a
+causal connection with the man's failure as "provider."[12]
+
+Corresponding to and complementing the man's industrial defects, and
+springing from the same causes, is the woman's failure in the business
+of being a housewife. The wife's laziness, incompetence, lack of
+interest, and lack of skill and knowledge create, as one case worker
+puts it, "the sort of home that tends to get itself deserted." These
+faults of the wife are responsible for as many desertions, probably, as
+are the faults of the husband. When the man and the wife are both
+industrial failures we get the extremity of family breakdown to be found
+in records of "chronic non-support" cases.
+
+7. Wanderlust.--As a cause of family desertion this has probably been
+overestimated. Some item of this sort appears in every list of causes of
+desertion which has ever been compiled, and there are more or less
+exceptional cases in which it probably plays a part. The boy who becomes
+a vagabond in childhood and early takes to the road does not, however,
+seem to be a marrying man; and the instances from case work in which it
+is clear that the thirst for adventure was at the bottom of desertion
+are rare. The man whose line of work before marriage led him from place
+to place seems, in fact, hardly to contribute his quota to the ranks of
+wife-deserters, and it is unusual to find sailors or other wanderers
+from force of circumstance figuring among them.
+
+8. Money Troubles.--As has already been said, it is impossible to show
+any direct relation between small incomes and desertion. The connection
+between low wage and non-support is of course a great deal closer. The
+inadequate income unquestionably acts indirectly to break down family
+morale in much the same way as does lowered physical vitality.
+
+But marital discord that springs from the _handling_ of the family
+finances is another matter, and it recurs regularly in the history of
+what went on prior to desertion. One deserter, traced to a southern
+city, returned voluntarily and begged the assistance of the social
+worker interested to reform his wife's spending habits. "I made good
+money and I never opened my pay envelope on her," said he, "but the
+week's wages was always gone by Thursday." Many men, however, who make a
+boast of turning over unbroken pay envelopes to their wives borrow back
+so much in daily advances that their net contribution is only a fraction
+of their wages.
+
+Some desertions brought about by financial difficulties are not,
+strictly speaking, marital problems at all. Debts resulting from his own
+extravagance or dishonesty may cause a man to leave home to escape
+prosecution or disgrace. One such man kept in touch with his family,
+sending money at irregular intervals for some years, but always moving
+on to another place before he could be found. It proved impossible to
+get in communication with him, and finally he stopped writing and
+disappeared.
+
+9. Ill Health: Physical Debility.--All social workers agree that
+physical condition plays a part, though usually only indirectly and
+secondarily, in causing desertion. In the man, it may lower his
+vitality, cause irregular work, and superinduce a condition of
+despondency and readiness to give in. In the woman, it brings about
+careless housekeeping, loss of attractiveness, and disinclination to
+marital intercourse--all factors which contribute directly to desertion.
+Continued ill health of the wife brings burdens, financial and other,
+which may help through discouragement to break down the husband's
+morale.
+
+There should be included here some consideration of one of the most
+puzzling types of abandonment--the "pregnancy desertion." Attempts have
+been made to explain it on the ground of the instinctive aversion of the
+male sex for domestic crises. But the impulse that causes the
+prosperous householder to move to his club when house-cleaning time
+arrives will hardly serve to explain such a custom, and as a matter of
+fact other domestic crises, such as illnesses of the children, do not
+have any such effect upon the man who habitually absents himself from
+home before the birth of each child. Other possible reasons for it are
+the well-known irritability and "difficulty" of women in this condition,
+and their aversion to sexual intercourse. Some pregnancy deserters take
+the step in the hope that their wives will bring about an abortion; but
+this is a modern and sophisticated development and the institution of
+"pregnancy desertion" is one of undoubted antiquity. Its prevalence
+among certain European immigrants would almost point to its being a
+racial tradition. Ethnologists who have studied strange marriage
+customs, such as the "couvade," ought to turn their attention to
+discovering the causes of this other and socially more important marital
+vagary.
+
+10. Temperamental Incompatibility.--It is difficult to catalogue and
+appraise the causal factors in desertion that lie in personality. They
+are closely related to differences in background and are intimately
+involved with the sex relations of the pair. We cannot, however, admit
+that they are identical with the latter, as some students of the subject
+claim; or that the only incompatibility in marriage is sex
+incompatibility. Indeed, two people may be so incompatible as to find in
+sex their only common ground.
+
+The commonest of these temperamental differences center about
+standards of right and wrong or proper and improper conduct.
+Especially is this manifested in the bringing up of the children.
+Extreme self-righteousness on the part of one or the other, nagging
+and petty criticism, unreasonable jealousy, "sulking spells," violent
+quarrels, are some of its manifestations. The idea of _possession_
+exercised by either of the couple, and especially a tendency to
+dominate or try to control on the part of the woman, may be a causal
+factor in desertion. The lack of a saving sense of humor in one or
+both is often a complicating factor. These comparatively minor
+differences take on a serious complexion in the minds of the couple;
+and it is surprising how often a deserting man will give promptly and
+with every appearance of feeling justified some cause for his
+desertion which falls clearly under this head. "People forgive each
+other the big things; it's the little things they can't forgive."
+
+
+11. Sex Incompatibility.--There comes under this heading a wide range
+of causative factors which play an important part in marital discord.
+Some of them are better understood by the social worker than was
+formerly the case; but many of them are obscure even to the practitioner
+of mental medicine, to whom their results come daily. Distasteful as the
+task may be, the social worker should familiarize herself, through
+reading or through instruction by a qualified physician, in the commoner
+forms of these maladjustments. This is not urged because it is part of
+the social worker's task to make detailed inquiry into such matters or
+to pass judgment upon them, but because they often clamor for attention
+and need to be recognized by the first responsible person to whose
+notice they are brought. Unless she knows, for instance, what
+constitutes excess in sex relations, a worker may misunderstand the
+situation described to her and condemn a man for being a selfish brute,
+when the trouble is really sexual anęsthesia in the wife. It is well
+known that this single cause operates disastrously to disrupt many
+marriages or else to render them insupportable. The warning should be
+added, however--and it cannot be added too emphatically--that the social
+worker must scrupulously refrain from making diagnoses in these cases,
+even tentatively; she must refer such data as come to her either to the
+general practitioner or to the psychiatrist, selecting one or the other
+as the symptoms presented may indicate.
+
+Less well understood by the lay worker are actual maladjustments, both
+physical and mental (or spiritual), which prevent the complete
+satisfaction of one or both. Some of these are curable by medical care,
+others by instruction and education. This instruction should be given,
+needless to say, by the physician and not by the case worker. If
+uncorrected such maladjustments are apt to result in marital shipwreck.
+
+No attempt can be made here to discuss actual sex perversions in their
+relation to desertion. Their effect is obvious; and the social worker
+should be sufficiently well informed, not only from a few standard books
+on the subject,[13] but from a knowledge of the phrases which are used
+in the tenements, to understand them, so that significant symptoms are
+not overlooked. So intimately are sex difficulties connected with the
+neuroses that the lay social worker should consult the psychiatrist
+freely wherever one is available, before attempting to deal with them.
+
+
+12. Vicious Habits.--Sexual immorality, through its degenerative
+effect on personality and the lowered ideals of marriage it induces, has
+a real effect in bringing about desertion. The "other man" and the
+"other woman" type of desertion, however, is often itself only a
+consequence of a previously existing state of temperamental or sexual
+incompatibility. If these underlying causes can be attacked and changed
+such a desertion may be "repairable."
+
+    A young man deserted his wife and three children and eloped with an
+    eighteen-year-old girl who had made his acquaintance in a street car
+    flirtation. He had been "an obedient boy with good principles," and
+    his later record showed steadiness and ability; but he and his wife
+    had been drifting apart--their marital relations had not been "quite
+    the same" as formerly. Arrested and brought back, he did not impute
+    any blame to her, however, but said he "must have been crazy." In
+    spite of the circumstances, the judge decided to give him six months
+    in the penitentiary; and a man visitor from the family social agency
+    interested began at once to try to secure an influence over him. On
+    his release the couple again went to housekeeping. The wife had been
+    cautioned on how to receive him; but things went badly at first, and
+    the man began again insisting that they were mismated. (He "had the
+    other girl still considerably on his conscience and heart.") Tangles
+    continually arose which the society's visitor was hard put to it to
+    straighten out. Once the wife found a letter from the girl; but
+    finally, after the charity organization society in the city where he
+    had left the girl reported that she was doing well and not breaking
+    her heart about him, the man decided to "cut out" the
+    correspondence. A little later the girl eliminated herself by
+    marrying. A year after the reconciliation the wife told the friendly
+    visitor that the trouble was gone between them, and "it was just
+    like a new life." For another year efforts were continued to
+    strengthen the attachment and make the home more attractive, at the
+    end of which time it was felt that the home was stable enough to
+    need no further supervision.
+
+For reasons of convenience we may include here the causal relations
+between venereal disease and desertion. In so far as syphilis brings
+about mental and physical deterioration, the relation between the two is
+obvious. The presence of the disease in the man, if known to his wife,
+may lead her to sever relations with him in self-protection, and this
+severance, in turn, may lead ultimately to desertion or complete
+separation. Often separation is desirable, but the syphilitic who is on
+the whole a good family man raises some of the most difficult questions
+with which the social worker has to deal. Whether to try to force him
+out of the home and thus make an unwilling deserter; whether to violate
+the diagnosis given in confidence by passing it on to the wife for her
+protection--these are only two of the puzzles that may arise.
+
+The relation of alcoholism to non-support and desertion is too well
+known to require discussion. The causative relation between alcohol and
+desertion is so direct that it probably ought not to be included under
+contributory causes at all. As it is an active poison to the cells of
+the nervous system, it may bring about deteriorations of mind and
+character that are directly to blame for such anti-social acts as
+desertion. The same is true in less degree of the use of narcotics;
+though drug habits are far less common in connection with desertion than
+alcoholism. What relation drugs and alcohol will hold to desertion after
+July 1, 1919, remains to be seen. Alcoholism in the woman is, however, a
+real contributory factor, and one frequently met with. The experience of
+social workers leads them to believe that alcohol is more devastating in
+its effects on character with women than with men, and that there is
+less hope of a cure. The great majority of so-called "justifiable
+deserters" are the husbands of alcoholic women.
+
+Gambling in its effect on family income will be discussed in connection
+with non-support, to which it bears a much more direct relation than to
+desertion. In its degenerative effect upon character it may have,
+however, a real causal relation to the latter.
+
+The habit of desertion itself is a degenerative one, not only upon the
+deserter but upon his home. The "intermittent husband" often weakens and
+demoralizes his wife in almost the same ratio as his own progress
+down-hill.
+
+
+CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE COMMUNITY
+
+1. Interference of Relatives.--The tendency of relatives to take sides
+against their "in-laws" is a matter of everyone's observation. It is
+frequently found as a serious factor in desertion. Many case stories
+which will be used in the following chapters to illustrate other points
+show also the harmful interference of relatives in what might otherwise
+have been a fairly stable home. Relatives can be a factor in marital
+discord without actively interfering. One high-tempered young couple
+formed what amounted to a habit of frequent quarrels and temporary
+separations simply because the parents of both stood ready to take them
+back whenever they chose to live apart. Relatives within the home as
+well as outside it may exercise an unfortunate influence on marital
+relations. The desertion of a middle-aged man who married a widow was
+found to be directly caused by the antagonism which grew up between him
+and his grown step-children.
+
+
+2. Racial Attitude toward Marriage.--The racial factor is important in
+desertion. Not only the individual's own background, but the attitude of
+the people whence he sprang toward the sanctity of marriage, toward the
+position of women, and toward the importance of restraint in sexual
+relations, will have an effect upon the desertion rate of a given racial
+group. A study was recently made of 480 deserters known to the New York
+Charity Organization Society in 1916-17 whose nationality was given. The
+results in percentage form are given for what they may be worth,
+compared with the same percentage in 2,987 families of known
+nationalities which were under care for all causes during the same year.
+
+NATIONALITY OR RACE
+
+                        |           |Per cent
+                        |Per cent   |among 2,987
+Race or place of birth  |among 480  |families under
+                        |deserters  |care for all
+                        |           |causes
+---------------------------------------------------
+United States--white    |  30.6     |  29.7
+United States--colored  |  11.2     |   5.6
+Irish                   |   9.7     |  14.7
+  Other British         |   5.0     |   4.7
+German                  |   6.2     |   6.2
+Italian                 |  20.2     |  28.0
+Austrian                |   5.5     |   4.8
+Russian                 |   2.8     |   1.0
+Polish                  |   3.3     |   1.2
+Other                   |   5.5     |   4.1
+----------------------------------------------------
+                        | 100.0     | 100.0
+
+3. Community Standards.--It cannot be too emphatically stated that any
+tendency in the community to belittle or ridicule the estate of
+matrimony has a definite cumulative effect on desertion. The "when a
+man's married" series in the comic supplements, certain comic films in
+the moving picture shows, the form of drama popularly called "bedroom
+farce" are examples of these destructive forces. Most of the people who
+laugh at them accept them as a humorous formula and are not seriously
+affected by them; but their educational effect on young people is bound
+to be bad and false to the last degree. In so far as they overemphasize
+romantic love and disparage conjugal love, the theater and the popular
+press do this generation great disservice.
+
+Another way in which the community may affect the popular conception of
+marriage is in the administration of civil marriage. Lack of care in
+enforcing the laws and lack of gravity in performing the ceremonies may
+have a decided reaction on respect for those laws and for the
+institution itself. Similarly, the administration of divorce laws may
+affect the popular conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood
+condoned the situation in which a deserted wife immediately went to live
+with another man, on the ground that "if they had been rich, they could
+have got a divorce."
+
+4. Lack of Proper Recreation.--This may seem a subject to be
+discussed under personal factors; but proper recreation, after all,
+depends in large measure upon what the community provides or makes
+available. The American tendency for the man to get his recreation apart
+from his family, in saloons and social clubs, is responsible for many
+family maladjustments. Any change in family habits of recreation which
+means that the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is a danger
+signal the seriousness of which is not always appreciated. Social
+workers are inclined to undervalue not only the influence of faulty
+recreation as a factor in family breakdown, but also the possibilities
+of good recreation as an aid in family reconstruction.
+
+
+5. Influence of Companions.--As a factor in desertion this is closely
+connected with the two just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as they
+affect individuals, are apt to be transmitted through the small group
+that stands nearest, and a man's companions have the freest opportunity
+to influence him during their common periods of recreation. The
+influence of companions is not often met as a force deliberately exerted
+to bring about desertion; but, on the other hand, a man's own mental
+contrast between his condition and that of his unmarried companions
+often plays a definite part in his decision to desert, if he has begun
+to yearn for freedom. The influence of companions is particularly
+connected with the "wanderlust" type of desertion.
+
+
+6. Expectation of Charitable Relief.--It used to be held that many men
+who would otherwise remain at home and support, might be encouraged to
+desert if they had reason to believe that their wives and families would
+be cared for in their absence. This was no doubt often the case before
+social workers had learned to discriminate in treatment between deserted
+wives and widows, or to press with vigor the search for deserting men.
+At present, it is the experience of social workers that few men
+deliberately reckon upon transferring the burden of their family's
+support to others, or are induced by these considerations to leave.[14]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In trying to determine the cause for any given desertion it is well to
+keep in mind from the beginning that there is probably more than one,
+and that the obvious causes that first appear are almost certain
+themselves to be the effects of more deeply underlying causes. A young
+vaudeville actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish girl, a cabaret
+singer, and took her home to live with his parents. Was his subsequent
+desertion to be ascribed to difference in nationality and religion, to
+interference of relatives, to irregular and unsettling occupation, or to
+a combination of all three? Would all marriages so handicapped turn out
+as badly? If not, what further factors entered to lower the threshold of
+resistance to disintegration in this particular case?
+
+This last question is after all the most important one of the foregoing
+series. It is one which the social case worker must never be content to
+leave unanswered.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] All names of deserters given throughout the text are pseudonyms.
+
+[7] For an excellent discussion of the process of rationalization see
+The Psychology of Insanity, Bernard Hart, Cambridge University Press,
+1914.
+
+[8] For a thoughtful discussion of this point see Eubank, E.E.: A Study
+of Family Desertion. Chicago Department of Public Welfare, 1916.
+
+[9] Brandt, Lilian: Family Desertion. The Charity Organization Society
+of New York City, 1905.
+
+[10] For a fuller discussion of forced marriages, see p. 92 sq.
+
+[11] See also p. 98.
+
+[12] See also p. 154.
+
+[13] Two books may be suggested: Forel on The Sexual Question and
+Havelock Ellis on Sex in Relation to Society (Vol. VI of Studies in the
+Psychology of Sex).
+
+[14] See p. 70 sq. for a discussion of collusive desertion.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT
+
+
+Unconsciously and imperceptibly, the point of view about the treatment
+of desertion has been changing during the past fifteen years. The case
+worker's attention used to be focussed on the danger of increasing the
+desertion rate by a policy of too sympathetic care for deserters'
+families. Little study was made of individual causes, and in so far as
+there was a general policy of treatment it was to insist, wherever a
+desertion law existed, that the deserted wife go at once to court and
+institute proceedings against her husband. He was often not seen by the
+social worker until he appeared in court. The policy toward the family
+meantime was to reduce its size by commitment of the children until
+their mother could support herself unaided; or, if relief was given, to
+give smaller amounts than to a widow or the wife of a man in hospital.
+As soon as the man had been placed under court order or had returned
+home, old records generally show that the social worker's efforts were
+relaxed, and often the final entry is, "Case closed--family
+self-supporting."
+
+There were excellent reasons underlying much of the practice. Few laws
+were at that time in existence or at all adequately enforced, and any
+man who desired was at liberty, so far as the community was concerned,
+to walk off and leave his family at any time. The multiplicity of
+sources of relief in the large communities and the absence of anything
+resembling investigation constituted almost an invitation to men to
+desert. It did not occur to the charitable public to draw any line
+between the widow and the deserted wife, or indeed to inquire which of
+these two a woman was, so long as she was a good mother and "seemed
+worthy." No wonder that the pioneering social agencies, busy forging
+tools out of the very ore, took a rigid stand on such a question of
+social policy as this. Although their deterrents failed to eradicate the
+evil of desertion or indeed to touch its sources, there is little doubt
+that they did lessen its volume by creating a wholesome respect for the
+power of the law in the mind of the would-be deserter and by fostering
+in his wife a disposition to stand up for her rights. The more lenient
+and more constructive policies now in force have been made possible in
+part by these changes of attitude. The very fact that the collusive
+desertion, once fairly common, is now seldom met with, illustrates the
+salutary effects of the earlier methods of treatment.
+
+But the fact remains that no marked change has been seen in the
+desertion rate, that successive desertions have not been prevented in
+individual cases. Hardly any statistical figure in the work of family
+social agencies shows so little fluctuation from year to year and
+between different cities, as the percentage of deserted families. It
+generally forms from ten to fifteen per cent of the work of any such
+society.
+
+Gradually, therefore, the repressive features of the earlier treatment
+have been abandoned, and there has come about a realization of the
+complexity of causes that bring about family breakdowns. In particular,
+the relation of sex maladjustments to failure in marriage have received
+the serious attention of the social worker. On the question of court
+intervention there has been almost a right-about face; the best social
+practitioners now say, unhesitatingly and unequivocally, that they take
+cases into court only as a matter of last resort, after case work
+methods have been tried and have failed. In no other case where court
+action is undertaken by one individual against another does the relation
+between them remain unchanged. One could not conceive of a business
+partnership failing to be annulled by one partner who brought suit
+against another; yet we expect the marriage relation to survive this. As
+a matter of fact, such is its vitality that it often does. But many
+times the result of court action is only to deaden once and for all the
+tiny spark from which marital happiness might have been rekindled. As
+long as it survives, both man and wife feel in their inmost hearts that,
+no matter what his offense, to "take him to court" is treason against
+the intangible bonds that still hold between them. No matter how far
+apart they have drifted, or how unforgivable has been the deserter's
+offense, something irrevocable does happen to the fabric of marriage, a
+few poor shreds of which may still exist between the two, when his wife
+appears in a court of law to make complaint against him. It is an
+instinctive realization that she is abandoning hope which underlies many
+a woman's reluctance to "take a stand against her husband." Many social
+workers (including some probation officers and court workers) now feel
+that such a stand should be urged only in the full conviction that the
+protection of the woman and children demands it, and that there is
+nothing else to be done.
+
+This must not, however, be interpreted as a criticism of the laws
+concerning desertion or of the courts which administer them. If they
+were not there in the background, ready to be taken advantage of when
+all else fails, the social worker's hands would be tied, and the
+possibility of a rich and flexible treatment of desertion problems would
+be lost to her. It is precisely because they had no such recourse that
+the case workers of an earlier day had to adopt a policy which now
+seems rigid. It is because they were instrumental in securing better
+laws and specialized courts that the latter day social worker can push
+forward her own technique of dealing with homes that are disintegrating.
+
+Another great change in emphasis has been upon the question of
+interviewing the man, and of being sure that his side, or what he thinks
+is his side, has been thoroughly understood. Social workers are under
+conviction of sin in the matter of dealing too exclusively with the
+woman of the family; in desertion cases it is more than desirable, it is
+vitally necessary to have dealings with the man. Many social workers
+feel that, at all events with a first desertion, they would rather take
+the risk of having the man vanish a second time after having been found,
+than have him arrested before an attempt to talk the matter out with
+him. More stringent measures, they believe, can be resorted to
+later--but the man must first be convinced that he will be listened to
+patiently and with the intent to deal fairly. The case worker knows that
+the power of the human mind to "rationalize" anti-social conduct is
+infinite; and that, besides the few "justifiable deserters," there are
+many who have succeeded in convincing themselves that their action is
+warrantable. A deserter who could allege nothing else against his wife,
+averred that he had placed under the bed two matches, crossed, and a
+week later found them in the same position, proving his contention that
+she was slovenly and did not keep the rooms clean.
+
+The man who, aided by a sore conscience, has worked himself into such a
+state of mind as this must be permitted to talk himself out before he
+can be made to see the true state of affairs. In the minds of both man
+and woman there is likely to be found a superstructure of suspicion,
+jealousy, misinterpretation and distrust, built upon the basic fact of
+their incompatibility, which has to be pulled down before the true
+causes can be probed. To arrest a man in this state of mind is in his
+eyes simply to "take sides" against him. Eventually he may have to be
+arrested, but, in the case worker's experience, the chances of success
+are ten to one if the man can be induced to take some voluntary step
+toward reconciliation without the intervention of the law. In many
+instances a real interview with the man, while not exonerating him,
+would have thrown new light on the woman's statements.
+
+    A family social work society writes: A young woman with her mother
+    and little boy were referred for aid by a medical social department
+    because her husband had deserted and she was unable to work. The
+    doctors feared that her breakdown would result in insanity, so they
+    asked that her wishes be respected in not seeing the man's family.
+    She recovered, but it was later found that her husband, while not
+    doing all that he might for her, had been living at home a good deal
+    of the time and did not know that his family was in receipt of aid.
+
+    Some years ago a charity organization society, which maintained a
+    special bureau for treatment of desertion cases, was asked by a Mrs.
+    Clara Williams to help her find her husband, John, who had left her
+    some years previously and was living with another woman, so that she
+    might force him to contribute to the support of herself and her two
+    children. Mrs. Williams was a motherly appearing person who kept a
+    clean, neat home, and seemed to take excellent care of her children.
+    She was voluble concerning her husband's misdeeds and very bitter
+    toward him, which seemed only natural. The fact of the other
+    household was corroborated from other sources, and Mr. Williams'
+    work references indicated that he had been quarrelsome and difficult
+    for his employers to get along with, although a competent workman.
+    The problem seemed to the desertion agent a perfectly clear and
+    uncomplicated one and he proceeded to handle it according to the
+    formula. Some very clever detective work followed, in the course of
+    which the man was traced from one suburban city to another, and his
+    present place of employment found in the city where his wife lived,
+    although he lived just across the border of another state. The
+    warrant was served upon the man as he stepped from the train on his
+    way to work, and he appeared in the domestic relations court. He did
+    not deny the desertion but made some attempt to bring counter
+    charges against his wife. When questioned about his present mode of
+    living he became silent and refused to testify further. He was
+    placed under bond, which was furnished by the relatives of the woman
+    with whom he was living, to pay his wife $6.00 a week. No probation
+    was thought necessary and the case was closed, both the court and
+    the charity organization society crediting themselves with a case
+    successfully handled and terminated.
+
+    About a year later Mrs. Williams again applied, stating that her
+    husband's bond had lapsed, his payment had ceased, and that she had
+    no knowledge of his whereabouts. Although her home and children were
+    still immaculate she failed to satisfy the social worker who this
+    time visited her home with the plausible story which she had told
+    before. The children's health was not good and they seemed
+    unnaturally repressed and unhappy. Ugly reports that Mrs. Williams
+    drank came to the society. The school teacher deplored the effect
+    which the morbid nature of Mrs. Williams was having on her youngest
+    child--a daughter just entering adolescence. The son, a boy a little
+    older, was listless and unsatisfactory at his work, and defiant and
+    secretive toward any attempt to get to know him better. He spent
+    many nights away from home and was evidently not on good terms with
+    his mother. As soon as Mrs. Williams saw that real information was
+    desired she began indulging in fits of rage in which she displayed
+    such an exaggerated ego as to cause some doubts as to her mentality.
+    Baffled at every turn the case worker decided to interview the man,
+    if possible, to see if through him any clue to the situation might
+    be gained. The first step was to gain the confidence of a former
+    fellow-workman and friend of his who now maintained his own small
+    shop. This was done after several visits, the deserting husband
+    consenting to an evening meeting in his friend's shop.
+
+    A most illuminating interview followed. Mr. Williams was found to be
+    an intelligent though melancholy and self-centered man. The couple
+    had married somewhat late in life, it being Mrs. Williams' second
+    marriage. She had been strongly influenced by her mother to marry
+    him and had never had any real affection for him. It became very
+    evident from his story that the strongly developed egotism of both
+    the husband and wife had made a real marriage impossible between
+    them, and the visitor became convinced of the genuineness of Mr.
+    Williams' protestations that he endured the constant abuse and
+    ill-treatment of his wife as long as it had been possible to do so.
+    As her drinking habits took more hold upon her and he had realized
+    that the break was coming he had endeavored to place the children in
+    homes, and had once had his wife taken into court. There her
+    plausible story and good appearance resulted in the case being
+    dismissed with a reprimand to the husband. He then left home, but
+    continued to send her money at intervals, although as he got older
+    he was able to earn less at his trade. Socialism was his religion,
+    and it was his preaching of this doctrine in season and out to his
+    fellow workmen which had earned him the ill-will of his employers.
+    He defended his present mode of living, vigorously putting up a
+    strong argument that it was a real marriage, whereas the other had
+    only been a sham. He spoke in terms of affection of the woman who
+    was giving him the only real home he had ever known, and only wished
+    that the state of public opinion would permit his taking his young
+    daughter into his home. The boy, he realized, had grown entirely
+    away from him and they could never mean anything to each other. It
+    was his habit to make frequent trips back to the region where his
+    family lived in order that he might stand on the corner and watch
+    his children go by. He gave readily much information about his own
+    and his wife's past connections, including the addresses of many of
+    her relatives whose existence she had denied, and he successfully
+    proved that her claims as to his lapsed payments were false by
+    producing the entire series of post office receipts covering his
+    remittances to her and extending down to the very week of the
+    interview.[15]
+
+There have been striking changes not only in the treatment of the
+deserter but in that of his family. Writing in 1910, Miss Breed[16]
+deprecates the habit of fostering the deserter's "easy-going conviction
+that his family will get along somehow without him" by giving relief.
+She approves offering full support in an institution, but is reluctant
+to recommend any form of aid in the home, even from relatives. It is
+better, she feels, to give entire support to some of the children in
+foster homes, leaving the mother only those she can care for.
+
+Much can be said for even so stringent a policy as this. An unstable
+home, with a worthless father an intermittent member of the household,
+is as bad an environment as children can have--its very fluctuations
+making for nervous instability and a wrong point of view later on.
+There is a possibility that other would-be deserters may be deterred by
+temporarily breaking up the home, and that an occasional absconding
+father may be brought back. But the fact remains that social workers
+have, in practice, departed far from this point of view. Out of more
+than twenty-five case workers of experience who were interviewed or
+written to in preparation for this book, only one believed there had not
+been a decided change toward a policy of more liberal relief.
+
+    One district secretary told of a woman who had more than once taken
+    back a disreputable husband whom she always professed to dislike.
+    Aid was given sparingly and intermittently during his absences; but
+    finally the woman in a burst of frankness told the secretary that
+    she had never felt confident the society would stand behind her.
+    Each time the man came back with money in his hand, she cheated
+    herself into believing that he meant "a new leaf." A budget was
+    worked out with her, and a promise given of an adequate income as
+    long as she kept her husband away. She has faithfully kept her side
+    of the bargain for over three years.
+
+The extension in many states of "state aid to mothers" to cover
+deserted wives is an indication of this changed view. In most states,
+however, some safeguards are set up; the wife must take out a warrant,
+and a given number of years must elapse during which the man shall not
+have been heard from, before state aid can be granted to the wife.
+
+Finally, it is more clearly recognized than formerly that the time to
+"close the case" is not just after the man's return.
+
+    A case supervisor speaks of "the strong temptation to close our
+    records as soon as relief becomes unnecessary. The man's return to
+    the family is often the critical point at which there is need of
+    skilful and sympathetic friendship. These cases cry out for
+    continued treatment. We need to think more humanely about all the
+    unsettling elements in our urban civilization and to see that all
+    the nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can make are
+    made. If the man's work gives him no opportunity for
+    self-expression, what attempt are we making to give him such
+    opportunities outside his work, to connect him with a trade union,
+    with clubs and with fraternities? How much are we thinking about
+    cures for inebriates, psychoanalysis, vocational guidance,
+    recreation?"
+
+Briefly, then, changes in the social worker's attitude toward treatment
+have meant less emphasis on punitive and repressive measures, more
+consideration of the man's point of view, less tendency to press court
+action, at least in the beginning, fewer commitments of children, a more
+liberal relief policy (partly as a preventive of "forced
+reconciliations"), and lastly, longer supervision after the man has
+resumed support of his family.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Adapted from the writer's article on "Desertion and Non-Support in
+Family Case Work," _The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social
+Science_, May, 1918, p. 98.
+
+[16] Breed, Mary: Eleventh New York State Conference, 1910, p. 76.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND
+
+
+A few years ago a young Jewish woman reported to the National Desertion
+Bureau[17] that her husband had left her and their children.
+
+    The couple had never got on well, and the man seemed to have been a
+    melancholy and impractical fellow. The usual methods of the Bureau
+    brought no results in finding the missing husband. Then the wife was
+    more carefully questioned, and urged to tell all that she could
+    recall or had heard about her husband's early life, his tastes and
+    peculiarities. Among other things the Bureau learned that the man's
+    father had died in America years ago, having come here to make a
+    home for the family left behind in Russia. The boy had grown up in
+    ignorance of the place of his father's death and burial, and, as the
+    eldest son, he felt it his duty to find his father's grave. Filled
+    with this idea he came to America as soon as he was grown and
+    landed in New York, but his few poor clues availed him little
+    against the difficulties of poverty and a new and complex
+    environment. In the end he gave up the search, married, and settled
+    down on the east side. After the sudden quarrel which led to his
+    leaving home, his wife thought it possible that his old obsession
+    might have reawakened. The Bureau, supplied with the clues in
+    question, had little difficulty in discovering the father's burial
+    place in St. Louis; and the cemetery authorities promised to send
+    word if the missing husband should appear. Sure enough, a short time
+    afterward he arrived, and, after visiting the grave, returned, not
+    unwillingly, and took up his family duties again under the
+    supervision of a probation officer.
+
+The flexibility of method and the readiness to see and utilize new
+resources which are displayed in the foregoing account are great assets
+to the one who must institute search for a missing husband and father.
+
+The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a class of peculiar
+technical difficulty for the case worker is not simply that the man is
+away from his family. There is no man to deal with in a widow's family,
+but widows' families present comparatively simple problems. The
+deserter, though absent, is still not only a potential but also a real
+factor in the family situation. The plans of the family are often made
+with one eye to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt obstacle
+to much that the social worker wants to accomplish. The children look
+forward to his reappearance with dread or with joy (for many deserters
+have a way with them, decidedly, and are welcome visitors to their
+children). In short, he is usually at the key point in the situation. No
+plan can safely be made that leaves him out, but--there's the rub!--you
+cannot include him at once for he is not to be reached, certainly not at
+the outset. The discovery of the deserter's whereabouts is not only the
+first but the most urgent of the problems that confront the worker who
+tries to deal with a deserted family. Unless he can be found the whole
+plan rests upon shifting sand.
+
+A prompt and vigorous effort to find the absentee is therefore a first
+requisite in dealing with family desertion. Unfortunately, many case
+workers, having started bravely and exhausted the first crop of clues,
+become discouraged and fall back on the supposition that the man is
+permanently out of the scene, and that it only remains to make plans for
+the family. Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom of this
+assumption. It is not making an extreme statement to say that, as long
+as the family remains under active care or until the missing man is
+proved to be dead, the effort to find him should not be abandoned. Mr.
+Carstens, in discussing this point, says:
+
+    To carry on this search persistently is the great safeguard. It is
+    rare when in the course of a few months the true state of affairs
+    will not have been revealed, though it may have been quite hidden at
+    the start.[18]
+
+This is not to say that time must be spent unprofitably in going over
+the same ground, or that out-of-town agencies must be badgered to
+reinvestigate old clues. But the frame of mind that pigeonholes the
+whole matter as having been attended to must be shunned by the social
+worker, who should be always on the alert for new clues and prompt to
+follow them up. An example of a vigorous and persistent search for a
+deserter is taken from the files of the National Desertion Bureau.[19]
+
+    Adolph R. deserted his wife and their six little children on
+    September 1, 1912. He was traced to Philadelphia, but had left there
+    the day before the tidings reached New York. Information was
+    obtained from fellow-employes which led to the belief that he had
+    gone to Tampa, Florida. Inquiry was directed to the rabbi in that
+    city, but again the information was disheartening, since it
+    disclosed the fact that once more R. had "left the day before." The
+    rabbi telegraphed that the deserter had evidently gone to Lakewood,
+    Florida, and that he could be found in that place. Immediately the
+    Bureau dispatched a telegram to its representative there, only to
+    find that R. had merely passed through Lakewood en route to Bartow,
+    Florida. When the inquiry reached Bartow it was learned that R. had
+    left a few days before, and that he was on his way to Memphis,
+    Tennessee. The Jewish Charities of Memphis made investigation at the
+    cigar factories of that city, but reported that no person bearing
+    the name of R. or resembling him had been seen in their city. No
+    further clue to his whereabouts could be secured.
+
+    Months later R. applied to the Jewish Charities of Louisville for
+    transportation to New York, making an entirely false statement about
+    his family.
+
+    This statement was telegraphed to the Bureau and no time was lost in
+    securing a warrant. Louisville was notified by wire to arrest, but
+    again a telegram came: "Adolph R. left city. Learned from
+    Cigarmakers' Union headquarters he went to Cincinnati. Wire Joe
+    Rapp, 1316 Walnut Street, Cincinnati Union Headquarters. Man said he
+    was going to Cincinnati or Indianapolis. Man joined union Richmond,
+    Va., November 19, 1911, and reports to union in all cities." The
+    Desertion Bureau immediately telegraphed to Cincinnati and
+    Indianapolis. The United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati working
+    together with the labor union lost little time in effecting his
+    arrest.
+
+Many theories about family desertion have suffered a change in recent
+years. One of these relates to the "collusive desertion." Social workers
+in training used formerly to be taught that the first place to look for
+the deserter was around the corner, where he could slip back into the
+house and partake of charitable bounty or, at the very least, keep close
+watch of his family and return if any serious danger threatened them.
+Although the collusive desertion seems to have been a frequent happening
+in the past, there is almost unanimous testimony from case workers at
+the present time that it is not common. "I don't come across an instance
+once a year," said one case worker.
+
+    Another, after searching her memory, recalled what seemed to her one
+    instance of real collusion. A woman, pregnant and seeming to be in
+    great destitution, applied to a family social work society in a
+    small city for help. Careful search did not discover the man's
+    whereabouts--he seemed to have disappeared without leaving a trace,
+    and his wife professed ignorance. Some two weeks after this the
+    visitor, calling late, met a man on the stairs who proved to be the
+    missing husband. Times were hard and he was out of a job, so he had
+    taken to the attic of their house, and had kept so strictly
+    _incommunicado_ that not only the society but the neighbors had been
+    deceived.
+
+Out of twenty or more case workers in different cities whose experience
+was sought on this point, nearly all felt that the warnings against
+possible collusion which used to be given to young workers no longer
+needed to be emphasized. Testimony in the other direction is, however,
+advanced by the National Desertion Bureau, which found that about 10 per
+cent of the applications made in 1910 to the United Hebrew Charities of
+New York for relief because of desertion were collusive.
+
+It should be said, however, that one form of collusion is common to the
+experience of case workers--that of the wife who knows where her
+husband is, or has a very good idea, but does not want him to return
+and so keeps her knowledge to herself. "In two of our regular allowance
+families," writes the case supervisor of a family agency, "we
+discovered--one quite incidentally, one after the allowance had been
+discontinued for other reasons--that the wife had had reports regarding
+the man which we might have followed up had we known of them earlier. It
+could hardly be called collusion--it was mere indifference." A probation
+officer writes:
+
+    "At the present time we have under investigation a family where the
+    man has been away from home for two years and his whereabouts during
+    the last year have been known to his wife. He has been living in a
+    suburb of the city and working steadily during that time. The woman
+    has received adequate aid from public and private organizations. She
+    has been content to accept that rather than notify the authorities
+    and have her husband required to meet the responsibility. The man on
+    his part was aware that his family was being supported, and while
+    there was no agreement between the parties regarding it,
+    nevertheless the arrangement apparently met with mutual approval."
+
+To guard against this and similar omissions on the woman's part, more
+than one agency which deals with family desertion requires the deserted
+wife to sign an affidavit that she has given all the information she
+possesses.
+
+Although in practice the possibility of a collusive desertion is not the
+first and most important thing to keep in mind, it is frequent enough
+not to be entirely forgotten. And for yet other reasons it is well to
+keep a watchful eye upon the neighborhood in which the family is living
+for reports about the man. Often obscure impulses seem to bring him
+back; jealousy of the wife or a desire to show himself in a spirit of
+bravado, or even sometimes a fugitive affection for the children he has
+abandoned may cause him to appear in the neighborhood. "The deserter,
+like the murderer, harks back to the scene of his misdeeds" was the
+generalization of one district secretary.
+
+Even when he does not appear in the flesh the deserter may seek news of
+his family. "One deserter was found through the Attendance Department
+[of the public school system] to which he wrote after a three years'
+absence asking the address of one of the children of whom he was
+especially fond."
+
+There is little in the literature of the subject covering methods of
+discovering deserters, nor do case workers generally appear to have
+developed a special technique. The decided reaction against detective
+methods which has been apparent in the profession during later years may
+help to explain this fact. Most social workers feel a subconscious sense
+of injustice in having to do this work at all, since it is properly a
+function of the police. Prosecutors and police officials generally take
+very little interest in following up deserters, and have little idea of
+giving any treatment to the deserter who has been found other than
+arraignment and conviction. It is difficult for the probation officer or
+the family case worker to hold up the machinery of the law, once it has
+been started, and to do this long enough to find out whether some other
+form of treatment best suits the case. For these reasons the social
+worker usually prefers to do or else is forced to do the work of the
+detective in desertion cases up to the point where arrest is in his
+judgment necessary.
+
+    A probation officer in D---- found that he could not work through
+    the local police in searching for a certain deserter, because the
+    missing man's political affiliations made them friendly to him. The
+    probation officer knew in a general way that the man was likely to
+    be in the city of S---- in the same state, so he secured a warrant
+    and sent it with such slight clues as were at hand, to a probation
+    officer of that city who was successful in the search. Avoiding the
+    usual procedure, the warrant was served by the police in S----.
+    "Several instances of this kind have occurred lately," writes the
+    probation officer at D----.
+
+The necessity of doing the detective's work raises at once the question
+of how far the social worker can afford to adopt the detective's
+methods. If reformation of the man is the end sought it would seem an
+axiom that he must be given from the first every reason to believe that
+the social worker will play fair. "We are very careful never to break a
+promise we have made to a man," says an agency which deals with many
+deserters. The same agency, as illustration of its own methods in
+seeking deserting men, instances the case of a man who was being
+shielded by his sister, but was discovered by an officer who scraped
+acquaintance with her little boy and asked innocently, "Where's your
+uncle Jack now?" In another case the officer learned of a man's
+whereabouts through his relatives by representing himself as a lawyer's
+clerk calling about a legacy which had been left the man. In still
+another case, reported by a different agency, a man who had deserted his
+family was known to be receiving mail through the general delivery of
+another city. It was ascertained that he was writing to a woman in his
+home town. A letter was sent to him in care of General Delivery asking
+him to meet the writer (who was represented to be the young woman with
+whom he was corresponding). The wife was sent to that city and she and
+the local probation officer met the man and served the warrant.
+
+There is, of course, something to be said in favor of the use of such
+methods. The protection of the weak and helpless may justify, in certain
+circumstances, any subterfuge. But the _detective_ who arrests the
+criminal in ways like these is seeking his punishment and nothing else.
+There is no thought in that case of establishing personal relations and
+effecting the long, slow process of reformation. When social workers use
+such methods it should be in the full realization that they are
+foregoing any future advantage of straight dealing with the man. To
+capture a man by a trick is to declare war on him; and, in his mind, the
+social worker and the policeman then stand in the same place, "I'd have
+him there to meet you," said a deserter's chum to a woman visitor, "if I
+wasn't sure, in spite of your straight talk, you'd have a bull waiting
+behind a tree."[20]
+
+If it is a first desertion, or if there is room for doubt whether an
+accident may have befallen the man, police and hospital records should
+be looked up.
+
+    A woman with four children applied to a charity organization
+    society, saying her husband had disappeared. There was a rumor that
+    someone had seen him fall off the dock while intoxicated, but no
+    attempt had been made to confirm this and the family was treated as
+    a deserted family for some months, until the man's body was found in
+    the river and identified.
+
+If there have been previous desertions, it is extremely important to
+secure their history. The reasons that moved the man once are likely to
+do so again, and he is apt to return to his former haunts and be seen by
+former friends and acquaintances.
+
+The deserting man, unless he elopes with another woman, generally goes
+to some cheap lodging house or, if of foreign birth, he may seek out the
+quarter where those of his nationality reside and become a lodger in a
+family in which his native tongue is spoken. Hence, a canvass of the
+lodging houses--armed with a photograph if possible--is a desirable
+first step. All of the social worker's casual acquaintance with the
+foreign quarters of his city comes into play in the search. If the man
+is in the city some "landsmann," some "paesano" has seen him, and knows
+where he is to be found. It may even narrow down to finding the
+particular house on the particular street where the immigrants from a
+particular village in Sicily or Galicia have their abode. The pool-rooms
+and saloons of the district can often be made to yield information,
+especially if a man visitor can canvass them. In dealing in this way
+with mere acquaintances of the man, it is usually not necessary for the
+social worker to tell who he himself is or to state the purpose of his
+inquiry. In talking with relatives or close friends, however, it is
+often best to lay all cards on the table and convince one's listener
+first of all that the man sought will have fair treatment and a chance
+to state his side of the case before any proceedings are begun against
+him.
+
+Even a relative who has never been seen may sometimes be induced to act
+effectively.
+
+    A man who deserted his wife and family was reported to have gone to
+    his brother in another city. Nothing definite was known of the
+    brother except that he was a telephone lineman. No address could be
+    secured through the company, but they agreed to forward a letter to
+    this relative. He never answered; shortly, however, the deserter
+    reappeared, having been persuaded to return voluntarily by the
+    brother to whom the letter had been addressed.
+
+During the war local draft boards were of the greatest assistance in
+finding deserting men. Election records too have been of real value in
+the case of men who were voters. Passports and immigration records may
+in some instances yield information helpful in establishing whereabouts.
+Where there is actually a warrant out for the man's arrest, the active
+co-operation of the postal authorities can sometimes be secured in
+furnishing return addresses on envelopes delivered to persons with whom
+the culprit is known to be in correspondence.
+
+Problems of family desertion involving men in service during the war
+were in the main handled by the Red Cross Home Service. Before the war,
+private case working agencies had learned that the regular Army and the
+Navy often seemed desirable havens to would-be family deserters. The
+difficulties of finding them there were great, owing to the fact that
+they often enlisted as single men under an assumed name. It has usually
+been possible to gain excellent co-operation from the military
+authorities if there are any clues whatever.
+
+    The desertion bureau of a family social work society learned that a
+    deserting man had expressed a desire long before he left his family
+    to enlist in the Army. Several letters were exchanged with the War
+    Department, and the man was finally found to be with a company
+    serving in the Canal Zone. As he had made misrepresentations when he
+    enlisted, the War Department was willing to transfer him from Panama
+    to a camp within the limits of the city where the desertion had
+    taken place and there discharge him. This brought the absconder
+    within the jurisdiction of the local courts and made it possible to
+    arrest him as soon as he was outside the bounds of the camp.
+
+It will repay the visitor to make not only a careful study of the
+deserting man's employment history but also to learn something about the
+trade he follows. A cloakmaker, for instance, who deserts in New York
+City is likely to be found in Cleveland, for these are the two centers
+of the cloak branch of the garment trade. Certain seasonal occupations
+give the periodical deserter a great opportunity. Among these are hop
+picking, berry picking, and lumbering. The amusement parks near the
+large cities also furnish occupation for the seasonal deserter. The case
+worker cannot be expected to have such knowledge at his finger-tips, but
+he can go to people who know about the fluctuations of particular
+trades--to employers, union officials or fellow-workmen who may throw
+light on a deserter's movements. The story of Adolph R.[21] is an
+excellent illustration of the help that may be obtained from trades
+unions and from fellow-workmen. A family welfare bureau in a western
+city writes:
+
+    "In one instance a blacksmith's union published the picture of the
+    deserting man in its official journal and asked that information
+    regarding him be sent to the local unit here. This proved
+    successful. In another instance a union gave us access to its books
+    and helped us to trace all the men of a given name listed there. By
+    this means we found the man we were looking for. One man, a
+    vaudeville performer, we traced through the _Bill Board_ (a trade
+    paper) by discovering the movements of the show with which he had
+    been connected."
+
+Another society succeeded in getting a certain trade union to post a
+description and photograph of a missing man on its bulletin boards. This
+aided in finding the man. Fraternal orders may be; used in the same way,
+though for many reasons they cannot be so helpful as the trades unions.
+
+Employment agencies should not be forgotten in seeking to trace a man
+through his industrial record. The extension of the federal employment
+service, with free inter-city communication, should be of assistance in
+getting upon the track of deserters.
+
+The co-operation of newspapers can be secured to good effect in tracing
+missing men.
+
+    Herbert McCann, who had been doing railway construction in Russia,
+    returned to this country and disappeared while en route from an
+    eastern city to his home in Canada. There was reason to think that
+    he might have left the train in an intoxicated condition at an
+    important junction point; and the family social agency of that city
+    was asked to trace him. No information was secured from the police,
+    lodging houses, employment agencies, etc., and finally the following
+    advertisement was inserted in the local paper: "_Information
+    Wanted_--Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Herbert McCann, Montreal,
+    who returned from Russia in June, will confer a favor upon his
+    family by notifying Social Service Building, 34 Grand Street." Six
+    days later a reply was received from a man in a nearby town, and
+    McCann was found at work in a factory there.
+
+More than upon any other method the National Desertion Bureau depends on
+the publication of pictures and short newspaper paragraphs. As this
+Bureau deals entirely with Jewish deserters, it works chiefly through
+the Yiddish newspapers. Its "Gallery of Missing Husbands" is a regular
+weekly feature in some of the better known of these journals, and
+attracts increasingly wide attention. The Bureau estimates that 70 per
+cent of the deserters which it finds are discovered through the
+publication of pictures. It should be remembered, however, that this
+Bureau is dealing with a selected group, who know a great deal about one
+another, live closely together, follow in the main only a few trades,
+and read only a limited number of foreign-language newspapers. Whether
+anything like the same results could be obtained by the same methods
+applied to deserting husbands of many different national and social
+backgrounds is open to question.
+
+Since most deserters leave the city, if not the state, the social worker
+who is dealing with the family problem is often not the same person to
+whom is delegated the task of finding the man. This fact makes necessary
+the most careful and sympathetic co-operation between the social workers
+or agencies, which must work together at long range upon the problem. In
+the case of Herbert McCann, just cited, not less than four family social
+work societies were concerned--three in the United States and one in
+Canada. This necessitated keeping in the closest touch, by letter and
+telegram, so that each was informed of the doings of the others. Such a
+piece of work calls for a common body of experience and technique among
+the workers concerned, amounting almost to an unwritten understanding
+as to how the work should be done. Nothing makes more fascinating
+reading than the record of a quick, touch-and-go investigation, such as
+is presented in the finding of a deserter conducted by skilled case
+workers who are accustomed to work together. Much can, under these
+circumstances, be taken for granted or left to the discretion of the
+worker or agency whose help is being sought. There are instances,
+however, where no such common understanding exists, and where the
+home-town agency has to work through people with little social training
+or with training of a type which definitely unfits them properly to
+approach the deserting man. It is a distressing experience to know that
+a man has slipped through one's fingers, been frightened off or
+alienated, by poor work at the other end. Are there any ways to reduce
+the number of these mischances?
+
+Even with the closest co-operation among case workers of ability in
+different cities the results are not always as favorable, for obvious
+reasons, as if the person who knows the family were the one to find and
+interview the man. More and more it is realized that money and time
+spent in going to nearby cities to do one's own investigating is well
+spent. There used to be a feeling on the part of the kindred society
+whose territory was thus invaded that this action argued lack of
+confidence in its work; but as the importance of the personal contact
+has been more widely recognized this feeling has disappeared. It may be
+said that a worker who goes to a strange city is handicapped by her lack
+of knowledge of local conditions. This is of course true, and it may
+easily be a question of how great an advantage will be gained by the
+journey. The worker from the man's home town can, however, go far toward
+overcoming the handicap of unfamiliarity with the place, as well as
+toward dispelling any sense of injury in the mind of a professional
+colleague, by calling first at the office of the local agency and
+talking the problem over thoroughly, consulting the map and getting what
+hints the local agency may be able to furnish. The first question to ask
+oneself, therefore, is "Will it not be worth while to go myself?"
+
+If for geographical or other reasons this is impracticable, the next
+thing that should receive careful consideration is the type of letter to
+be written. If the situation is very emergent (as in the case of Adolph
+R. cited earlier), the request may have to be sent by telegraph; but
+even in a telegram it is possible to convey some detail. To try to save
+money by confining oneself to ten words is unwise. If time admits, a
+letter is more desirable, and the principle of its construction is as
+simple as the Golden Rule--give the other person all the information you
+would like to have if you were receiving the letter. Where the
+correspondent is not a trained social worker, very specific suggestions
+and directions should be given as to how you wish the man dealt with if
+found.
+
+There might also be laid down a Golden Rule for recipients of requests
+from out-of-town that missing men be traced. "Give the request
+right-of-way over your regular work, and send back as prompt and as full
+a reply as you would wish yourself" might adequately cover the case. A
+reply which contains a history of actual steps taken as well as results
+gained, is more satisfactory than one which does not. Good case workers
+believe in reciprocity and treat their neighbor's problem as their own.
+"We heard that a man we were interested in was in the vicinity of a
+certain city, and in the effort to trace him wrote to the charity
+organization society in that place, but without success. Several months
+later the charity organization society saw an item in a newspaper to the
+effect that the man had been interned as an enemy alien, and notified
+us. (This shows no cleverness on our part, but good work by the other
+society.)"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] The National Desertion Bureau, 356 Second Avenue, New York, acts in
+a legal advisory capacity to Jewish organizations in matters of domestic
+relations; it also seeks out Jewish family deserters, with a view to
+assuring their rehabilitation or, failing this, their punishment.
+
+[18] C.C. Carstens, Proceedings of the Fifth New York State Conference
+of Charities and Correction, 1904, p. 196.
+
+[19] See p. 65, footnote.
+
+[20] This paragraph was submitted to the two agencies which furnished
+the illustrations. Their replies are in part as follows:
+
+_Agency A._--"Your criticism ... is purely theoretical and has no basis
+in fact. The deserter is a knowing violator of the law, and while he
+does not welcome it, he regards his arrest as only a question of time.
+He is playing the game of 'hide and seek,' and he is applying every
+trick and subterfuge to avoid detection. He is not disturbed if he has
+been caught in a police trap. Our experience has been that in such cases
+where he has tried to outwit the police, and the police finally have
+'beaten him to the game,' he compliments his captor. This is a common
+characteristic of the criminal, a sort of negative bravado, When the
+deserter is arrested, all he can hope for and expect is a fair deal."
+
+What are some concrete suggestions, developed from the experience of
+case workers, as to how to proceed in searching for deserting men? A
+full and careful talk with the wife is the first requisite, supplemented
+by equally thorough interviews with any near relatives who can be
+reached. The case worker should be familiar with the Questionnaire on
+the Deserted Family in Mary E. Richmond's Social Diagnosis. A
+description and if possible a photograph of the man should be procured.
+Where several out-of-town clues are to be followed, copies of the
+photograph can be cheaply made, and at least one bureau for dealing with
+desertion cases makes this part of its routine procedure.
+
+_Agency B._--"I have seen very few individuals in the course of my
+experience who could not be brought to see the right viewpoint if they
+were intelligently approached, even though the probation officer had
+considerable to do with their arrest. It is in my opinion not altogether
+important what occurs before the man's arrest but how he is treated
+after he comes within the jurisdiction of the probation officials."
+
+[21] See p. 69.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION
+
+
+It is evident that the need of finding the man strongly influences the
+course of this type of investigation, especially in the early stages.
+Are there other considerations, however, that modify the technique of
+inquiry into these desertion cases?
+
+There is one crisis in the lives of deserted families which is not
+duplicated in the history of any other group suffering from social
+disability. This crisis is the period of the first desertion. "If we
+could learn what preceded and what immediately followed the first
+desertion, we should know much more than we do now about how to deal
+with the problem," said a case worker who has studied many court
+records.
+
+The _number_ of subsequent desertions may be both interesting and
+significant, but the circumstances attending them are not nearly so well
+worth study as are those connected with the critical first break. We
+should go back to that spot and probe for causes. The common practice of
+recording carefully what led up to a chronic deserter's last desertion
+before his family applied, and of passing over his earlier desertions
+with a mere mention of their number and dates, puts the emphasis in the
+wrong place.
+
+We must, however, go further back than the first desertion for a working
+fund of knowledge. The importance of knowing what were the influences
+surrounding the man and woman in childhood and youth has already been
+dwelt upon and is so generally conceded as to need no elaboration here.
+Of especial value also is careful inquiry into the period of courtship,
+the circumstances of the marriage, and the history of the earlier
+married life. "We should seek to know what first drew them together, as
+well as what forced them apart," said a thoughtful district secretary.
+The notorious unhappiness of "forced marriages" leads case workers to
+scrutinize the relation between the date of marriage and the date of
+the birth of the first child. It should be remembered, however, that not
+all marriages which are entered into during pregnancy are forced
+marriages. Studies of forced marriages, so-called, have not always taken
+this fact into consideration.
+
+The superintendent of a state department for aid to widows made a study
+of the vital statistics of 500 families chosen at random. She states
+that "out of these 500 mothers 96, or 19.2 per cent, had conceived out
+of wedlock--or rather before wedlock--judging by the date of marriage
+and that of the first child's birth. All these women were hard working;
+several of good standing in the neighborhood and the mothers of large
+families of children." This group of homes represents by no means an
+unstable segment of the community, since in most instances the couples
+had lived together in reasonable harmony up to the time of the man's
+death. But do the 96 represent forced marriages as ordinarily thought of
+by the social worker? The study just quoted has no facts bearing upon
+this point. The likelihood is that a large number of these marriages,
+termed forced, were in reality not brought about by outside pressure at
+all, but that the couple were intending to be married at the time the
+pregnancy occurred and that the circumstances were condoned by public
+opinion in the community where the marriage took place.
+
+The Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, however, has made a study
+of 89 forced marriages which were brought about in connection with
+bastardy proceedings. In this study there is no attempt to differentiate
+as to the _amount_ of unwillingness that had had to be overcome on the
+part of either the man or the woman. Fifty-three of the women said that
+the marriage had been entered into willingly on their part. Sixty of
+them stated that they were well treated by their husbands, and only five
+complained of abuse or unkindness. Out of the 89 marriages brought about
+after proceedings were instituted 69 of the couples were still living
+together from one to two years later, although 20, or nearly one in
+five, had separated before the two-year period was over.[22]
+
+    A young woman with four small children was given advice by an
+    associated charities about her approaching confinement, and no
+    further inquiry was made at that time. She was living apart from her
+    husband, who was contributing a small amount regularly. The income
+    was inadequate and it was decided to push the matter further.
+    Efforts to verify the marriage failed. Finally, a tactful worker was
+    able to learn that the ceremony had not taken place until after the
+    birth of the first three children, that the couple had had sexual
+    relations since the woman was a girl of fifteen, and that her
+    relatives had never known the true state of affairs. The man's
+    mother finally interfered, and urged her son not to live with his
+    wife. After much careful work, and with the assistance of a
+    co-operating priest, a plan was worked out which brought the couple
+    together and induced them to move away from the region in which the
+    man's parents lived.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A probation department tells of a case where, although the man was
+    unwilling to marry, a court marriage was brought about; the man made
+    his payments promptly and observed the other conditions of his
+    probation faithfully. The woman, however, was indifferent to any
+    efforts to bring about a reconciliation. It was finally discovered
+    that she was immoral. The case culminated in the securing of a
+    divorce by the man, who was granted the custody of the children.
+
+    The same department submits a story where good results were obtained
+    in subsequently reconciling, after a desertion, a couple whose
+    marriage had been of the forced description. The probation
+    department arranged for the couple to live apart in the early stage
+    of probationary treatment. A careful study was made of each of the
+    individuals, and in their sincere attachment a basis was discovered
+    for re-establishment of the home under the supervision of the
+    probation officer. Five years later the man was found to be at work
+    at the same position originally obtained for him by the probation
+    officer, his salary had been increased, the family had grown in
+    number and were getting on extremely well.
+
+Although the term "forced marriage" has come to have the meaning given
+above, unions can be really forced where there has been no sex relation
+before marriage. In one unhappy marriage which came finally to a court
+of domestic relations, the wife was a weak and timid woman who married
+her husband because of her fear that he would carry out his threat and
+kill her and himself if she refused him. Another, an Italian girl, was
+married at fourteen by her parents against her inclinations to a
+well-to-do man, much older than she, who was a lodger in the family. As
+she grew to womanhood their incompatibility increased; finally, after
+four children had been born, the family was broken up and the children
+committed to institutions.
+
+There are compulsions and false motives, operating to bring about
+marriages, which spring from within not without; and the discovery of
+any motive for the marriage except mutual inclination has significance
+to the case worker. Light was thrown on the troubles of one young couple
+when the girl confessed that she had married a youth for whom she had no
+particular affection, in order to "spite" her relatives and assert her
+right to do as she chose. And the unfortunate young woman who married a
+street evangelist in a fit of religious enthusiasm, and because of his
+promise that they would travel about the world saving souls together,
+had a married life both short and stormy. The so-called "slacker
+marriages" of the few months preceding the first draft in 1917
+illustrate this point. The wreckage of these marriages is already
+drifting in increasing amount to the courts of domestic relations.
+
+One of the most important items in desertion cases, and one far too
+often neglected, is the verification of the marriage. Much seeming
+indifference and confusion on this point is probably caused by the
+quasi-legality in many states of common law marriages. The case worker
+should not forget, however, that a common law union is often only a
+device on the part of one or the other of the two to avoid prosecution
+for bigamy. When it is established that the marriage is a common law
+union, a strong suspicion should be set up in the worker's mind that
+there may be some legal barrier to a ceremony, and careful inquiry
+should be directed along this line. Not only does the verification of a
+marriage give the worker a sound basis on which to proceed to court
+action if necessary, but the copy of the actual marriage record, where
+that can be procured, gives much valuable information as to dates,
+addresses, and names of relatives and witnesses. A transcript of the
+record will usually be furnished by the registrar of vital statistics
+in the city where the marriage took place (if in the United States) for
+a nominal fee of fifty cents.
+
+It is much more difficult to verify marriages which took place in other
+countries, and social workers are often appalled by the prevalence of
+the so-called "American marriage" among immigrant deserters, who trust
+to our happy-go-lucky methods for protection against a prosecution for
+bigamy.
+
+    Such was the case of Orfeo Pelligrini, who came to this country and
+    took a new wife when his children in Italy were nearly grown. His
+    Italian family came to America through their own efforts a few years
+    later, and Orfeo found that he had underestimated the character of
+    his eldest son, who traced his father, had him arrested and taken to
+    the city where his original family was living. Orfeo, now forcibly
+    reunited to the wife of his bosom, walks softly under the threat of
+    bigamy proceedings, while the "American" wife refuses to take any
+    action on the ground that "he didn't go away from me of his own
+    wish, and why should I put him behind the bars?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Of an altogether more simple mental make-up was the Slovak laborer
+    who brought his pregnant "American wife" and two children to the
+    district office of a charity organization society, saying that the
+    relatives in Europe of Anna, his first wife, had sent Anna to this
+    country, and she was on the point of arriving. He added that, as
+    manifestly it was not possible to support two families on his wages,
+    he would like to provide for his second wife through "the Charity."
+
+A district secretary who has worked for many years with Italians is
+authority for the statement that marriages in Italy are always
+registered at the man's legal residence, no matter where the marriage
+took place. "Careful Italian parents, if they cannot get reliable
+information in other ways, write to the 'paese' of a suitor for
+information in regard to his conjugal condition. A marriage which takes
+place in America is customarily registered with the consul for
+transmission to the home town in Italy."
+
+In some countries of Latin America great confusion may be caused by the
+fact that a marriage performed in church is not legal in the eyes of the
+state unless a second ceremony is gone through before the civil
+authorities. A Guatemalan woman, deserted in this country, had no
+recourse in law because she had had only the church ceremony in her
+country. Her claim to the status of common law wife was invalidated by
+the man's producing proof that he was already married at the time the
+religious ceremony was performed.
+
+Having established the fact that a legal marriage has taken place, the
+case worker must keep in mind the possibility that it may have been
+later dissolved. It is not at all uncommon to find that a deserter who
+has gone off with another woman has started proceedings to get a divorce
+by "publication." This can happen when the two have gone to a state
+where such unfair divorce procedure is permitted. Publication in these
+cases takes place in local newspapers which there is little or no chance
+of the wife seeing; and she may later find herself a divorced woman with
+no legal claim for support for herself or children, and suffering under
+charges of misconduct without having had a chance of being heard. The
+National Desertion Bureau found this proceeding so common an abuse that
+it established a clearing bureau in its central office, and its local
+representatives in different parts of the country notify this bureau as
+soon as any action for divorce is started by a man with a Jewish name
+against a wife whose "address is unknown."[23]
+
+What are some of the other points at which the investigation of cases of
+desertion may differ from the technique generally accepted? The
+superintendent of a desertion bureau, in answer to this question, said
+that he emphasized "neighborhood references" more than in the ordinary
+case. Social workers have become very wary, of course, of much inquiry
+among present neighbors; but where the protection of the woman or the
+children is involved it is often necessary to procure the testimony of
+people who live nearby or in the same house. A deserted family is
+usually so much a center of neighborhood interest or sympathy, or both,
+that it is easier than in some other types of cases to secure
+information from neighbors, tradesmen, and so on, without augmenting
+neighborhood gossip.
+
+Probably the most difficult part of the necessary information to be
+secured in desertion cases is an adequate picture of the sex
+relationship between man and wife. The part which sex plays in the
+causation of desertion has been touched upon in Chapter II.[24] In
+getting the information from the people concerned, the case worker needs
+no elaborate equipment as a psycho-analyst; but she should know enough
+about sex psychology to recognize a pathological problem when she meets
+it, and to be able to call on the psycho-analyst or psychiatrist for
+specialized service.
+
+The securing of an adequate picture of the sex life of the couple may
+have to be delegated, however, to some volunteer whose own sex,
+profession, or marital experience makes him or her a suitable person to
+secure it.
+
+    "The majority of social case workers are unmarried women under
+    forty, and in this particular respect they frequently find
+    themselves handicapped by the natural reluctance of the deserter to
+    discuss his conceptions of the marital relation in such a way as to
+    be enlightening to them, as well as by the chivalrous attitude which
+    the woman of the tenements often adopts toward her unmarried
+    visitor. The decisive statement, 'You have never been married, so
+    you can't understand,' often proves at least a temporary barrier in
+    dealing with deserted wives, just as the similar statement, 'You
+    have never been a mother so you cannot know the feelings of one,' is
+    used to block her efforts in another direction. If it is found
+    impossible to carry on the necessary discussions rationally and
+    without too serious embarrassment, it is often possible to call upon
+    the socially-minded physician or clergyman for help along this
+    line."[25]
+
+To sum up, the interviews with the family and the supplementary visits
+and letters of inquiry should furnish the social worker if possible
+with:
+
+1. A clear picture of the home in which the two adult members of the
+family grew up, and the factors in their early training which
+contributed to their failure as husband or wife; or which can be
+utilized as assets in the future plan.
+
+2. A history of how the couple met; the events of their courtship and
+marriage, including sex relations prior to marriage with spouse or
+others; also previous marriages. Records of marriage, death of previous
+spouse, etc., are very important and should be secured if in existence.
+
+3. A picture of the family and its individual members in their other
+social relationships--with employers, medical agencies, teachers, their
+church, their friends, their relatives. Knowledge of their habits,
+tastes, and characteristics, with special attention to period of first
+desertion. Analysis of factors leading to the desertion.
+
+4. History of first reconciliation (unless the present is the first
+break). History of subsequent desertions. Court record, if any.
+
+A prerequisite to some of the above information is an interview or
+interviews with the man. Where this cannot be had as part of the first
+investigation, the investigation should leave the worker in possession
+of some good clues, at least, to the man's whereabouts.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Bowen, Louise de K.: A Study of Bastardy Cases. Juvenile Protective
+Association of Chicago, 1914.
+
+[23] It is the policy of the Bureau, when such a case is discovered, to
+help the wife get competent legal advice in the city where action is
+being brought, and either to contest the case or start a counter suit.
+Where necessary the woman is sent on to appear in person.
+
+[24] See p. 37 sq.
+
+[25] J.C. Colcord in _The Annals of the American Academy of Political
+and Social Science_, May, 1918, p. 97.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT
+
+
+As in all other problems faced by the case worker, it is impossible to
+lay down general rules for the treatment of desertion. There may be
+general considerations, however, which it is well to keep in mind, some
+of which have been advanced in the last chapter.[26]
+
+On questions of investigation there is closer agreement among social
+workers than on questions of treatment. Personal factors here play a
+much larger part, and it may very well be that two case workers who
+differ in personality but are of equal ability, will choose very
+different plans of treatment in a given case and yet each bring it to a
+successful issue. It is with a good deal of hesitancy, therefore, that
+a case worker ventures upon the discussion of anything so flexible as
+treatment. In preparation for this study many consultations were had
+with practising social case workers in the fields of family work,
+probation, medical-social service, and child welfare. Differences of
+opinion were found and this chapter will attempt to express the
+composite opinion on how to treat the deserter and his family in the
+different situations which confront them.
+
+
+1. Man's Whereabouts Unknown but Desertion of Recent Date.--It is
+better in this case to make no very definite plans for the family.
+Emergent plans, both as to relief and medical or other care should, of
+course, be prompt and adequate. Now is the time, if it can be done, to
+win the confidence and co-operation of the wife. We should, however,
+make no promises for the sake of "buying" co-operation, and give no
+premature advice either as to prosecution or reconciliation. Everything
+possible should be done to strengthen such ties with church, relatives,
+and friends as may be helpful, but the social worker should be slow to
+encourage the family to form new ties with other social agencies at this
+time. She should avoid the possibility of judging the woman harshly in a
+period of stress, but be watchful for signs of deterioration and
+resourceful to combat them. This is the stage, of course, when all
+energies should be bent toward finding the man.
+
+In this as in the other situations about to be discussed, the question
+of whether or not the home should be broken up and the children
+committed should be decided on other grounds than on the desertion
+alone. Under many circumstances, it is the best thing to do. The woman,
+worn out with anxiety or abuse, may be unequal to their physical care
+for the present; or they may be running wild and in danger of becoming
+delinquent. The mother may be morally an unfit guardian, and the
+desertion may furnish the long-sought opportunity to interfere for the
+children's protection. Commitment may have to be planned, and the
+mother's consent won, to save the children from the return of a brutal
+father, against whom she cannot protect them. Or she may desire a
+temporary commitment in order to give her husband a severe lesson. The
+main consideration, however, ought to be what is going, in the long run,
+to be best for the children concerned.
+
+
+2. Man's Whereabouts Unknown, Desertion of Long Standing.--A very
+different problem from the preceding may be presented in the family of a
+man who disappeared some time ago. Where the desertion is bona fide and
+has persisted over a period of years, it is often possible to treat the
+family as if the man were dead, and, if other circumstances make this
+advisable, to plan comprehensively for the future. There is always the
+chance, however, that, until the man's death is established, he may turn
+up unexpectedly. If living, he usually manages to hear now and again
+about his family and is often able to find them at will. A man who had
+neither seen nor communicated with his family during the ten years they
+had been maintained by a private family agency, nevertheless sent
+promptly for his wife and eldest son by a messenger who knew exactly
+where to find them (although they had moved in the interval several
+times), when he lay dying of alcoholic excess in the city hospital.
+
+The laws of many states contain a provision that the marriage of a
+person who has completely disappeared and not been heard from in a
+period of years can be set aside by the proper authorities. This makes
+legal the remarriage of the spouse. In nearly all of the states divorce
+can be obtained on the ground of long continued desertion.[27] The
+wisdom of advising such a divorce, however, should receive careful
+individual consideration, particularly in relation to the religious
+faith of the client and the attitude of that faith toward divorce.
+
+3. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Unwilling to Return or Support.--Many
+types of deserting men are included under this catch-all heading--the
+so-called "justifiable deserter;" the man who has fled to escape his
+creditors or is a fugitive from justice; the man who has elected to try
+life with another mate; the wandering hobo who means to come back some
+sweet day but not now; the cowardly pregnancy deserter; the low-grade
+irresponsible--a motley crew. They are grouped together here for
+convenience, since they constitute those with whom coercive measures
+have most often to be used.
+
+    A good example of the "justifiable deserter" is found in the story
+    of Williams.[28] This man, when home conditions became intolerable,
+    tried to secure his children's safety through the courts but did not
+    obtain a hearing. He left home feeling that he was fully justified.
+    The lame point in his self-defense was his failure to support his
+    children, and it took a court order to rectify this in part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Joseph Mellor is in a more logical situation in his refusal to
+    provide for his wife, since he is paying the board of his child in a
+    good institution. He makes no charge against her character, but
+    insists that her quarrelsome and dictatorial disposition makes her
+    impossible to live with. She had haled him so many times into court
+    and lost him so many positions that Mellor, who earns a good salary,
+    will deal with her only through his lawyer, who keeps his client's
+    whereabouts secret and will not trust the social worker interested
+    even to the extent of arranging an interview.
+
+It is generally impossible in cases of such deep-seated antagonism to
+make any plans looking toward reconciliation. The "justifiable deserter"
+can usually be reasoned with, and once he understands and admits his
+responsibilities, can often be made to live up to them without judicial
+process.
+
+    A ship steward deserted his wife, who was both alcoholic and
+    paretic, taking with him his only child whom he placed with his
+    relatives. The woman was devoted to the boy and broken in spirit
+    because she was not allowed to see him. The steward claimed,
+    probably correctly, that he was not responsible for the woman's
+    syphilitic condition. The following extract from the record of the
+    first interview with the man is quoted to show the lines of argument
+    which were effective with him:
+
+    "Man at District Office--Visitor started in immediately with the
+    subject in hand, thinking he was the sort that would respond to
+    absolutely direct dealing. Explained to him that we had been given
+    to understand his wife was ill, not only from alcoholism but also
+    from other complications; that it was suspected there might be some
+    difficulty with her blood and that we had been advised that her
+    mental condition was not now as strong as it had been previously.
+    Explained to him that he was absolutely responsible for his wife,
+    for her support, and for her care and protection, and that no matter
+    how far he traveled, his responsibility remained the same; that he
+    had assumed this when he married her. Said that he felt no
+    responsibility for her whatsoever, that he had done all he ever
+    would do for her and intended to devote his efforts toward his
+    child. Visitor explained to him that woman's intemperance might
+    perfectly well be a disease over which it would be very difficult
+    for her to have control; that, moreover, if she were suffering also
+    from a blood condition, this should have treatment. Explained that
+    he would more nearly meet his responsibilities were he to have her
+    examined and send her where she could procure the treatment
+    required, even if it meant commitment to an institution. At this
+    point man seemed more interested, particularly as visitor told him
+    that Arthur would grow up and would want to know where his mother
+    was and what had become of her; and if man had left her sick and
+    alone, at the mercy of strangers, he would not be able to give an
+    adequate accounting to his son. Man's reaction was not what visitor
+    had expected--he would be glad to put her away where she could not
+    trouble him any more but he did not intend to expend any more money.
+    Said he was under too heavy expenses with Arthur. Claimed he was
+    making $70 a month, and visitor forced him to add that he got in
+    addition his board and lodging on the ship, so that he was under no
+    expense except when on shore leave. Visitor repeated that as a
+    husband he was required to pay for woman's care, that that was the
+    right thing to do; that one way he would be a husband deserting his
+    wife, liable to arrest for non-support and desertion, and the other
+    way a husband with a sick wife for whom he was willing to provide
+    the medical attention and care that every sick person has a right to
+    have. He said if it was a question of a few dollars a week, he
+    supposed he would be willing to do it, and visitor felt he really
+    was willing to do the right thing if he only could be assured that
+    woman would not interfere with Arthur. Said he would never let woman
+    see the child, but finally admitted, if she were not drunk and was
+    in the hospital and it would do any good, he supposed she could."
+
+With persistent or recalcitrant deserters as a group, court action has
+very often to be invoked. Procedure in this direction differs so much in
+different communities that only general observations can be offered
+here. If the man has left his home but not the town and is still within
+the jurisdiction of the local court, the magistrate will usually issue a
+summons (which in many cities the wife is expected to serve) calling on
+the man to appear at court on the date set for the hearing. If he fails
+to appear a warrant for his arrest is issued. If he has left the city
+but not the state, local courts may issue warrants, which can be mailed
+to the city to which the man has gone and served by the police there; or
+an officer may be sent from the home town with a warrant to arrest the
+man and bring him back.
+
+Prior to his arraignment, the best court practice calls for an
+investigation by the probation officer, so that the judge may have
+substantiated facts before him when the case comes up. Whether this is
+done or not here is the time and place for the social worker who already
+knows the family to get his knowledge in usable fashion before the
+court. How best to do this varies greatly in different communities.
+Sometimes the social worker is permitted to talk the matter over with
+the judge personally, sometimes with the probation officer, clerk or
+other court official. Sometimes a written report is required, to be
+attached to the probation officer's report. Occasionally the social
+worker gets no chance to be heard unless he is present to testify in
+open court. In the last two contingencies, care must be taken to
+safeguard information given in confidence, even by the deserter. Letters
+marked "confidential" should not ordinarily be submitted in court except
+by consent of the writer, as some judges hold that material so submitted
+becomes a matter of public record.
+
+The approach to the court, therefore, is governed by local conditions. A
+very important part of co-operation in any community is to see that this
+channel is kept free from obstruction. In general, the probation officer
+should be the best friend of the other social workers, since he knows
+their language. Indeed, many social workers themselves combine the
+office of probation officer with their other duties.
+
+After the institution of court proceedings the outside social worker has
+usually little chance to affect the disposition of the case. This is
+made by the judge on the basis of the testimony he elicits in court, and
+on that of any preliminary investigation he may have caused to be made.
+Disposition may be:
+
+    1. In rare instances, to dismiss the complaint altogether.
+
+    2. To remand for a later hearing.
+
+    3. To induce the woman to drop her complaint and give the man
+    another chance.[29]
+
+    4. To place the man under court order to stay away from home and pay
+    his wife a stated amount weekly. Custom differs in different places
+    as to whether payment shall be direct to the wife, through the
+    probation officer or clerk of court, or through public or private
+    charities.
+
+    5. To order the man to return home and contribute a stated amount.
+
+    6. To place on probation (together with either 4 or 5).
+
+    7. Commitment--usually to jail or workhouse, and for a period of not
+    over six months. May be longer for violation of probation or for
+    aggravated offense.
+
+When the deserting man has gone without the borders of the state, there
+is the added problem of securing his extradition, which is often a
+difficult one. Wife desertion is in most states only a misdemeanor (in
+New York it is even less serious and constitutes in the eye of the law
+only disorderly conduct). Since extradition between states has to be
+acted upon by the governors of the states, it is unusual (though not
+impossible[30]) to secure extradition for a misdemeanor. The reluctance
+of the authorities is understandable, however, when it is realized that
+to extradite for wife desertion would be to create a precedent for
+extradition for any sort of misdemeanor. There is in most states a law
+which makes the abandonment of a minor child or children a felony,
+punishable by a long term in state prison, and it is this law which is
+generally invoked when the man has been traced to another state.
+Complaint then has to be made to the district (or county) attorney, the
+matter taken before the grand jury and an indictment secured before
+extradition papers can be granted. The man, if captured, must usually be
+tried in a higher court than the domestic relations court; if convicted
+he is likely to be more severely punished. Extradition means expense to
+the state; it is usually difficult, moreover, to get an active interest
+taken in extraditing a family deserter who, to the legal eye, has
+committed an offense neither against the person nor against property,
+and cannot therefore be a serious offender!
+
+If extradition for family desertion is difficult between states, with
+other countries it is impossible, as no treaties exist even with
+contiguous countries like Canada and Mexico.[31] By special arrangement
+with the Canadian authorities, states which touch the Canadian border
+can sometimes obtain the person of a deserter without actual
+extradition. Information is submitted to the police of the Canadian town
+where the man is known to be, who thereupon arrest him as an
+"undesirable citizen" and arrange for his deportation. The neighboring
+state is notified, and an officer with a warrant meets the Canadian
+officer and the prisoner at the boundary, arresting the latter as soon
+as he sets foot across the state line.
+
+The testimony of social workers is, in the main, in favor of probation
+as against long prison sentence for men of this type. "We have found a
+shortened penitentiary sentence, with release on probation, very
+successful in a number of instances." "Sometimes the probation has been
+more effective by its being a sort of double probation; that is, having
+the case pending in juvenile court as well as municipal or district
+court. The fear of having his children permanently taken from him if he
+again fails to support them has, in one or two instances, had much more
+effect with the deserter than the threat of a prison sentence."
+"Probation works very well and occasionally a prison sentence; but
+probation is better." These statements come from cities where probation
+work is well organized. From another city where the probation officers
+are notoriously overworked, comes a pessimistic note: "The theory of
+probation is fine, but the practice is poor because the officers have
+entirely too much to do."
+
+Probation is simply case work with the added "punch" of the law behind
+it; so that when it is at all well done it should have the more lasting
+results. Probation officers and other social workers agree, however,
+that for certain deserters of the complacent type, an unexpected prison
+sentence is sometimes a very salutary dash of cold water.
+
+    After having tried one or two short absences, ostensibly to look for
+    work and finding that nothing serious happened to him, Andreas
+    Gorokhoff walked out one day and did not come back for five years.
+    During that time his wife's relatives and the community's family
+    agency took care of his family while he led the life of a care-free
+    vagabond. He was ready upon his return to settle down again for a
+    time; but the family agency and the probation department thought
+    differently, and succeeded in having him sent to state prison for an
+    indeterminate sentence of not more than two years. He was released
+    on parole for good conduct, returned home, went to work, and, during
+    the four years which have since elapsed, all has gone well.
+
+Good results may, and probably more often do, follow shorter prison
+sentences.
+
+    A man on probation for intemperance, broke it and deserted. On
+    account of the children's keen feeling about the consequent
+    disgrace, the wife made no move until urged thereto by the social
+    worker interested. Her husband was then arrested in a nearby city
+    and brought back, much surprised at the firm stand his wife had
+    taken. He was sentenced to four months, served two, and was released
+    on parole. Since his return he has not been drinking and has been
+    contributing satisfactorily toward the support of his family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The first step taken by Harvey Brand when released from the
+    workhouse after a short prison sentence, was to stop in at a
+    furniture store and order a green plush parlor "suit" on the
+    instalment plan. Harvey had never been conspicuously interested in
+    his home before, and the district secretary and her committee were
+    aghast at this new evidence of his irresponsibility. The green plush
+    was, however, the outward sign of an inner burgeoning, and it warmed
+    the heart of Mrs. Harvey as nothing else could have done. From that
+    time, Harvey, with judicious encouragement over a few hard spots,
+    has become a good family man and a regular provider.
+
+The particular problem involved in the treatment of the family during
+the trial and imprisonment of the deserter is that of encouraging the
+woman to stick to her guns. If she withdraws her complaint or secures
+his release before his time is up, she not only convinces him of her
+lack of firmness but the entry in the court record seriously prejudices
+her case should she make complaint there again. Unless the social worker
+is convinced, therefore, that the sentence has been unduly severe, the
+wife should be encouraged in every way to let her husband serve out his
+time. If a policy of relief has been necessary, care should be taken
+that it be adequate, so that economic pressure will not induce her to
+ask for his release. If the home has been broken up and the children
+committed, the mother's loneliness and desire to have her home back is
+likely to work in the same way. The hope of making her husband kinder
+when he returns often leads a woman to ask for his release. The pressure
+of relatives and friends, and sometimes of her church is likely to be
+exerted in the same direction and unknown to the social worker.
+Chaplains of correctional institutions, interested entirely in the man
+and with no knowledge of the family situation, are also likely to appear
+in the case; and it is well to acquaint them, in the beginning, of our
+interest and our hope that no step will be taken without a consultation.
+If it is hoped or expected that the man will return to his home after
+imprisonment, he should be earnestly cultivated by the social worker
+while he is serving his time. Visits and letters will go far toward
+breaking down his resentment at the part the worker is likely to have
+played in "putting him behind the bars." Now is an excellent time to
+introduce a man as volunteer visitor to the prisoner, if he is to be off
+probation when released. If imprisonment or: "stay-away probation" does
+not have the desired effect of making the deserter willing and anxious
+to return to his family and take care of them, or if for any reason
+return is permanently undesirable, the advisability of obtaining a legal
+separation[32] should be considered at this point. If, on the other
+hand, the man evinces eagerness to return home and support his family,
+he comes automatically (though belatedly) into the class to be
+considered in the next chapter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] The Questionnaire on the Deserted Family (see p. 395 sq. of
+Richmond's Social Diagnosis) has already been mentioned as suggesting
+lines of investigation. It will also be found useful at the stage of
+summing up knowledge gained and seeing in what direction it points.
+
+[27] The state of New York is an exception, as it grants only limited
+divorce for desertion.
+
+[28] See p. 57.
+
+[29] See p. 132 sq. concerning court reconciliations.
+
+[30] See Baldwin, Wm. H.: "The Most Effective Methods of Dealing with
+Cases of Desertion and Non-support," _Journal American Institute of
+Criminal Law and Criminology_, November, 1917.
+
+[31] See p. 169 sq.
+
+[32] See p. 127.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (Continued)
+
+
+There remains a fourth classification under treatment, of cases which
+demand even more individualized care and therefore more extended comment
+than those just considered.
+
+
+4. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Willing to Return.--Here the question
+to determine is whether it is going to be a desirable thing for the man
+to re-enter the home and, if so, when. This does not always lie within
+the power of the case worker to decide; the couple may and often do
+resolve their differences for the time being without reference to her
+opinion. But she can often hasten, defer, or even prevent the
+reconciliation. Careful consideration must be given the elements
+involved: What causes probably operated to bring about the rupture in
+family relations? If there have been other desertions what does their
+history show? Is the man's willingness to return a sign of real change
+of heart and purpose, or is he merely afraid of punishment? Are his
+habits such as to make him a fit inmate of the home? Is he capable of
+supporting the family? Can any adjustment of temperaments be made which
+will lessen incompatibility? Is the wife willing to have him return?
+What are her motives? Has she enough firmness of character to carry out
+a plan to which she has agreed? These are only a few of the questions to
+which the social worker needs to know the answer, if the decision is to
+be a wise one.
+
+If none of the elements is present in the home out of which family life
+can be reconstructed, if the man's self-indulgence and cruelty have been
+proved beyond any doubt, or if affection is dead or never existed, then
+the decision may have to be that no reconciliation be attempted. In many
+cases the question then is how best to protect the woman and children
+against the man's forcing his way upon them. Court intervention is
+usually necessary here, if it has not already taken place; and a first
+step is to have the husband placed under a court order to give separate
+support and to stay away from his home.[33] The wife should be armed
+with a warrant for his arrest, which can be served by the policeman on
+the beat if the man appears. Such a man usually considers that his
+proprietorship of the home and the family is not affected by his absence
+or even by court orders, and when fortified by liquor he is likely to
+force his entrance into the home and perhaps do harm. The protection of
+the warrant is not absolute; in such cases as this it ought later to be
+reinforced by a legal separation. Social workers avail themselves of
+this resource far less than they should. It controverts the principles
+of no religious sect and gives all the protection of absolute divorce
+(including the payment of alimony) to the woman and children. To the
+children it is likely to give more protection than divorce; for in the
+event of the divorced husband's remarriage the children of the second
+wife have prior rights over those of the first, and legal separation
+makes this impossible by preventing the remarriage of either party.
+Proceedings for a legal separation cannot usually be started if a man is
+on probation, but may be while he is undergoing imprisonment. It should
+be said that, after a separation, claims for non-payment of alimony
+cannot, in many states, be pressed in a court of domestic relations but
+must go to a civil court. This is usually more expensive and less
+satisfactory.[34]
+
+Some social workers even advance the heretical doctrine that support
+secured through the court from a cruel and dangerous husband does not
+make up for the harm he may do and the anxiety he causes. If to force
+him into periodical payments means that he will be continually excited
+into seeking out and "beating up" his offending wife, the support she is
+able to extort from him comes high. It is sometimes necessary to move a
+family to new quarters and actually help them to hide from the pursuit
+of one of these insistent gentry. Even if we have some doubt that the
+wife's protestations of fear or aversion are genuine, we should hardly
+take the risk of revealing her address if she wishes it kept secret.
+This precaution applies not only to the man but to anyone whom we
+suspect of being interested on his behalf. A district secretary
+continued to refuse the address of his family to a dangerous epileptic
+deserter who threatened the secretary's life and, in the opinion of
+physicians who examined him, was likely to carry out his threat.
+
+    The committee on difficult cases in a family social agency voted to
+    refuse to accept voluntary payments from a thoroughly worthless
+    deserter and transmit them to his wife whose address he was seeking
+    to learn, on the theory that it was better for her and her children
+    to be entirely quit of him, and that nothing would make him realize
+    the finality of the decision more than to refuse his money. The
+    agency, it was felt, would be in better position to protect the wife
+    and children if it refused to act as post office for the man.
+
+The same consideration might apply in questions of extradition. When the
+whereabouts of a deserter of this type has been discovered in another
+city a safe distance away, it may be wiser to sacrifice the money he
+might be forced to contribute than to have him brought within arm's
+length of his wife and family.
+
+A prime difficulty in dealing with the undesirable husband who is
+willing to come home is often the attitude of the wife. Some of the
+causes at work when a woman takes her husband back have been discussed
+earlier.[35] Unfortunately, hopelessly bad husbands profit by them as
+well as hopeful ones. The policy of niggardly relief to a deserted wife
+has undoubtedly been responsible for many of these unfortunate attempts
+to patch up a life together. "She was worn down by her efforts to keep
+the household going, and, when the faint chance of her husband's
+supporting her appeared, she took it" is the explanation given by a case
+worker of one unpromising reconciliation, and she goes on to say of this
+and another similar story: "With both of these it seems that enough
+money put into the household to enable these mothers to be with their
+children more and to keep up a reasonable standard of health for
+themselves might have resulted in their refusing to take back their
+husbands.... Our records seem to show that inadequate relief, making
+life fairly hard for the deserted mother, does not tend to keep the man
+from returning or others from deserting."
+
+    The story of Mrs. Francis shows the effect of adequate relief in
+    strengthening her decision not to take her husband back. He had been
+    a chronic deserter for years, had drank heavily, been foul-mouthed
+    and abusive, while failing to support the family when at home, so
+    that Mrs. Francis had only a little harder time when he was away.
+    His last desertion took place when she was near confinement. Owing
+    to her condition, the church and a family agency co-operated in an
+    unusually generous relief policy. This was in a state which gave
+    mother's aid to deserted wives. After about a year this was secured
+    for her, and the health of woman and children was built up and the
+    home improved. Then Mr. Francis sent ambassadors in the form of
+    relatives, with whom Mrs. Francis refused to treat. He later
+    appeared himself, but she would not consider taking him back. He
+    escaped before he could be brought into court. As he has now been
+    gone over two years, it seems that her stand is a genuine one.
+
+On the other hand, when the man has been found and interviewed, he may
+show signs of repentance, and the earlier history, together with the
+opinion which the social worker has been able to form about the
+character of man and woman may make it seem that a reconciliation should
+be encouraged. A further question then arises: Shall the man return to
+his home at once or first undergo a probationary period?
+
+The quick reconciliation has been a feature of the work in domestic
+relations courts from the beginning of the movement. In connection with
+some courts there are special officers whose duty it is to prevail upon
+couples who come to the court to patch up their differences and give
+each other another trial. This would be an admirable procedure if the
+couples to receive such treatment were selected by a process of careful
+investigation, and if probationary supervision were continued long
+enough to ascertain whether permanent results could be secured. As it
+actually works out it is a little like expecting a wound to heal "by
+first intention" when it has not been cleaned out thoroughly, and when
+no attention is being paid to subsequent dressings.
+
+    "The wholesale attempt to patch the tattered fabric of family life
+    in a series of hurried interviews held in the court room, and
+    without any information about the problem except what can be gained
+    from the two people concerned, can hardly be of permanent value in
+    most cases. It is natural that case workers, keenly aware as they
+    are of the slow and difficult processes involved in
+    character-rebuilding, look askance at the court-made
+    reconciliations. With the best will in the world, the people who
+    attempt this delicate service very often have neither the time nor
+    the facts about the particular case in question to give the skilful
+    and devoted personal service necessary to reconstruction. As a
+    result many weak-willed wrong-doers are encouraged to take a pledge
+    of good conduct which they will not, or cannot, keep; and other
+    individuals who feel themselves deeply wronged go away with an
+    additional sense of those wrongs having been underestimated and of
+    having received no redress. The results are written in
+    discouragement and in repeated failures to live in harmony, each of
+    which makes a permanent solution more and more difficult. The case
+    worker to whom the results of the externally imposed reconciliation
+    come back again and again has reason to be confirmed in a distrust
+    of short-cut methods."[36]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A probation officer writes: "Superficial reconciliations invariably
+    result unsatisfactorily. In one case a reconciliation was effected
+    before the husband was released on probation. This was done
+    apparently in the hope that it would influence the court in the
+    disposition of the case. After a study of the situation had been
+    made by the probation officer, it was found that the wife was
+    totally incompetent as a housekeeper, that she possessed an
+    antagonistic disposition, had a violent temper, and that no sincere
+    attachment for each other existed between the couple. Before any
+    constructive measures could be carried out by the probation officer
+    to remedy this situation they separated, and it was not possible
+    thereafter to adjust the differences with any degree of
+    satisfaction.
+
+    "On another occasion a man who had a previous prison record and had
+    displayed criminal tendencies was arrested for desertion. His wife,
+    a feeble-minded woman with one child, was being maintained at a
+    private institution at county expense. Through the efforts of the
+    district attorney a reconciliation was effected before the case was
+    disposed of in court, and the man was placed on probation upon the
+    recommendation of the prosecutor without the usual preliminary
+    investigation by the probation department. The couple began to live
+    together contrary to the advice of the probation officer. About two
+    months later the man was arrested for committing a series of
+    burglaries and the woman was found to be pregnant. Efforts which had
+    been made by the probation department to determine her mentality
+    disclosed her to be feeble-minded; later she was committed to a
+    custodial institution for feeble-minded women of child-bearing age.
+    The man was committed to a state prison."
+
+However, when youth and high temper seem to have caused the trouble and
+there is real affection to build upon, a speedy resumption of life
+together is usually the best thing.
+
+    A young woman with one baby said that her husband had got drunk and
+    threatened her with a knife. They quarreled and he went to relatives
+    in another city. Neighbors testified how devoted the couple had been
+    to each other, describing the young man as handy about the house
+    though "lazy about finding work." He was visited by the family
+    social agency in the city to which he had gone, and wrote a penitent
+    letter asking to come home. The wife agreed; the man immediately
+    returned, got work, and succeeded in overcoming his incipient bad
+    habits. The death of the baby soon after his return seemed only to
+    draw the couple more closely together. The case was soon after
+    closed; nothing has been heard in the three years since to indicate
+    that any further trouble has developed.
+
+A study recently made under the auspices of the Philadelphia Court of
+Domestic Relations seems to show somewhat better results from court
+reconciliations than might have been expected. One thousand and two
+couples who were reconciled in court during the year 1916 were visited
+from six to eighteen months later. Three hundred and ten had separated
+or had had further differences which brought them to court; 87 could not
+be found, and 605, or about 60 per cent, were found to be still living
+together, though with a varying degree of marital happiness, as the
+report somewhat drily states.[37]
+
+It should be said that many of these families were probably under the
+supervision of a probation officer for a longer or shorter period after
+the reconciliation took place. There is no statement as to the number of
+repeated deserters among the men, and we cannot estimate how many of the
+605 fell within the group which might chance to have the proper basis
+for reconciliation.
+
+The practice of the Desertion Bureau maintained by the New York
+Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor is as a rule not to
+advise reconciliations without a definite preliminary period during
+which the man shall contribute regularly and show that he means
+business. "The kind of reconciliation that lasts is the one that is
+effected with some difficulty to the man," its secretary remarked. The
+same probation department which furnished the stories of hasty and
+unsuccessful reconciliations,[38] contributes this remarkable account of
+the restoration of a family through slow and careful character
+rebuilding:
+
+    George Latham had shamefully neglected his wife and children for
+    several years. He drank to excess, gambled considerably, and
+    associated with women of loose character. He came from good stock,
+    however, and his early training had been excellent. The differences
+    between man and wife seemed impossible to adjust. After the man's
+    release on probation, the co-operation of relatives was secured and
+    through the aid of his new found employer efforts were made toward a
+    reconciliation. The man was gradually led away from his old harmful
+    pursuits and tendencies, these being replaced by wholesome
+    activities. He was induced to join a fraternal organization, to take
+    out insurance for his wife and child, was encouraged to attend
+    church regularly, and to open a bank account. When his sincerity was
+    appreciated by the wife, she agreed to resume housekeeping. Under
+    the direction of the probation officer, new furniture was purchased
+    and the home re-established. This man today holds a responsible
+    position under the employer who aided in his rehabilitation, and
+    occupies a respected place in the community.
+
+Very many processes are indicated in such a story. To bring about the
+conviction of wrong-doing, to awaken desire and supply an incentive, to
+keep the hope of attainment alive, to encourage weakened nerves in a new
+and persistent effort, and all the while to build and strengthen and
+develop faculties and powers that had been dormant and well-nigh
+destroyed, is a task that demands a high order of skill and
+resourcefulness.
+
+The story just told emphasizes the work which was done with the husband.
+Equally careful work had undoubtedly to be done with the wife to carry
+her along with the plan. The period of "stay-away probation" for the man
+is a difficult time for the woman. Neighbors and friends know that he is
+taking steps in the direction of reformation, and often hold the
+attitude that it is her duty to let bygones be bygones and receive him
+again. The promptings of her own heart are often in the same direction;
+and affection not outlived combines with custom, religious precept, and
+economic pressure to make it almost impossible to hold to her decision.
+The social worker can sometimes slip some of the burden of the decision
+off the woman's shoulders to her own by exacting a promise from the two
+that they will not try living together until the man has "shown what he
+can do" for a certain definite time. The economic pressure can be eased
+by a wise policy of relief; but most of all such a woman needs continued
+encouragement from a person whose judgment and kindliness she has
+learned to trust. This is another good point at which to introduce the
+right kind of volunteer visitor, one who will already have established
+friendly relations with both when the time of readjustment comes, and
+who can help bridge over that difficult period. In some cases it might
+be possible and desirable to procure as volunteer visitors to a couple
+whose marital relations have come to shipwreck, another married couple
+who have learned how to live together successfully.
+
+The use of carefully chosen volunteers in effecting reconciliations by
+the case work method has been singularly little developed. In this
+respect modern theory and practice have both fallen behind.[39]
+Especially is it an opportunity to enlist the service of men, whom it is
+easy to interest in a problem that seems to focus about the man of the
+family. A man volunteer can search for a deserter in places where a
+woman, by being conspicuous, would defeat her own end. "Located man by
+mingling with longshoremen on the docks where he usually worked" could
+hardly be the entry of a woman visitor. A man can also be very useful in
+court cases, to counteract the prejudice that sometimes exists in court
+rooms against the testimony of social workers who are women. In the more
+subtle processes of winning the man's confidence and helping him to
+regenerate his life and recover his home there is no preponderance of
+testimony in favor of the man visitor. Sex lines vanish here; the good
+case worker, man or woman, volunteer or professional, is the person
+needed.
+
+Sometimes the difficulty is not to deter the wife from prematurely
+taking her husband back but to induce her to relent when the proper time
+comes.
+
+    Martin Long was intemperate, his wife was high-tempered; her
+    relatives advised her to leave him and he deserted, leaving the
+    relatives to provide for her and the three children. He was away two
+    years; then, becoming homesick and wanting to re-establish his home
+    if possible, he returned. The wife caused his arrest when he was
+    seeking an interview with her. The probation officer in whose care
+    he was released became convinced of his genuine sincerity and
+    regret, but the wife, still on the advice of her relatives, refused
+    to see him. He persisted in his hope of a reconciliation and made
+    extraordinary efforts during a winter of industrial depression,
+    putting his pride in his pocket and taking laborer's work, which he
+    had never done before. He finally got a good position and saved
+    money enough to begin housekeeping. The probation officer kept in
+    touch with the wife, first persuading her to receive a letter from
+    Mr. Long and answer it through the probation office. He interested
+    her in the details of her husband's struggle, and finally, after a
+    whole year of probation and with the help of her pastor, he induced
+    her to return. The probation officer kept in close touch with the
+    family for some months and reports: "Three years have elapsed since
+    that time; the family is now in a nearby city where they are living
+    harmoniously and in comfortable circumstances."
+
+A case worker who is remarkable for her success in the treatment of
+estranged couples, when asked how she did it answered laconically,
+"talks and talks and talks." A study of her case records, however, shows
+certain points that recur again and again in her treatment.
+
+She encourages man and wife, separately, to talk out their grievances
+thoroughly and get everything out of their systems. She then proceeds
+(with a lavish expenditure of time, as indicated in her phrase) to
+convince each that she is a friend, but an impartial friend. She does
+not push for an immediate reconciliation, is much more likely to
+recommend a temporary separation until tempers cool down and the true
+facts appear. She always advises strongly against "argument" and
+"casting up" the past, and tells the couple to come back to her if they
+want to discuss their grievances further. Above all, they are not to
+retail their troubles to relatives and friends. If either or both are
+out of the city during their separation she keeps in close touch with
+them by letter. She is quick to utilize their interest in their children
+as a means of reawakening their interest in each other. The following
+letters illustrate her method. The first was written to a young man who
+was serving a six months' sentence for desertion; the others to the same
+young man after he had begun a manful struggle to "come back," working
+in a munitions plant in another state and later sending money regularly
+to the wife, who still obdurately refused to forgive him. (The letters
+are part of a series of 27 which were written to him during a ten
+months' period.)
+
+    _My dear Mr. Andrews:_
+
+    I was ever so glad to get your letter this week and I am sorry that
+    no one has been over [to the workhouse] to see you recently. I will
+    surely be over within the next two weeks. I know you are anxious and
+    you should have had a letter telling you about the children. They
+    are both all right now and the baby is out of the hospital.
+
+    We have had a nice talk with your aunt and she is very anxious to
+    come over and see you. We will all get together and try and plan
+    what is the right thing to do when you come out. I will arrange it
+    so we can have a little longer talk this time if possible.
+
+    Very truly yours,
+    DISTRICT SECRETARY.
+
+
+    _My dear Mr. Andrews:_
+
+    Your long letter has just arrived. I read it with a great deal of
+    interest and pleasure. It is fine to know you have already arrived
+    and have started out to make good on your promises.
+
+    I got your cards during the week, which brought the news of your
+    journey. Also on Tuesday morning came your last letter, expressing
+    your appreciation for all we had tried to do for you and enclosing
+    two more thrift stamps for the children. I put these in their books.
+
+    Yesterday I had a nice long letter from your father, enclosing one
+    for me to give to you. I am sending it on just as it is. I was very
+    much tempted to read it but have not done so. The reason I was
+    tempted was that I know it must be full of happiness to think you
+    have made such a good start. At least that was the tone of the
+    letter he wrote to me.
+
+    During the past years I have worked for this society I have seen
+    many people "come back" strong, and always it has been because they
+    had some big motive in life and reason for making good. But I have
+    seldom known a fellow that had so many reasons why he should make
+    good. You have the confidence of your father and your aunt. You have
+    the children for whom you will do right. You have Clara, whom you
+    have wronged and whom you will have to teach all over again to trust
+    you. Surely all these things added to your own firm will to try and
+    undo all the unhappiness you have given people, ought to help you
+    every day as you prove the good stuff that is in you.
+
+    I, of course, telephoned Clara of your starting off and yesterday
+    she came to the office and we had a long talk. She is only sorry
+    that you did not see the baby and says she will be only too glad to
+    have special pictures taken of the children to send you. This was
+    after I suggested that she let me take a snapshot of them to send
+    you.
+
+    Be sure and write to your father and aunt often. And please remember
+    my last instructions, which were to let me know fully about
+    yourself. When you write, tell me all about the camp life; how they
+    arrange the living; how long hours you have to work; what they give
+    you for recreation, etc. Pick out for your friends men who can help
+    you, not hinder you, in your good determinations, and hope there
+    will be at least one man there in whom you can trust and to whom you
+    can go for advice.
+
+    I will let you know about the children all the time. Clara says
+    Nellie [the small daughter] was expecting to see you again. Don't
+    worry, she will never forget you.
+
+    With all good wishes,
+    Sincerely yours,
+    DISTRICT SECRETARY.
+
+
+    _My dear Mr. Andrews:_
+
+    I received your long letter this morning and was very glad to hear
+    all the details of camp life. It is too bad that your surroundings
+    are not more comfortable, but I am sure you can stick it out for
+    awhile. If you can raise yourself to be foreman, will you then have
+    to live in the same uncomfortable quarters? Although I don't know
+    the details, I should think it would be well if you did sign up for
+    the six months. It is too bad that your throat is still hoarse.
+
+    Thank you for letting me see your father's letter. I am enclosing
+    it. I hope you are keeping in touch with him.
+
+    You asked especially about Clara and whether she asked for you. Of
+    course she did, and she wants me to say if there is anything you
+    want to say to her you can send the letter here and she will write
+    you. She thinks that your ambition and determination to make good is
+    fine, and she will try and help you in every way. She has not been
+    in this week and I have been very busy, but I shall make it my
+    business to see her early next week, and if she has not had the
+    pictures of the children taken, I will get that attended to myself.
+
+    So far as I can see there is absolutely nothing for you to worry
+    about from this end of the line. Clara is at last, I think, as fully
+    self-convinced as I am that you are making a splendid effort, and
+    she is perfectly willing to be fair in waiting until you have a
+    chance to get turned around financially and in making first payment
+    for the children.
+
+    Next week I am going to send you down a book to read. It is one I
+    have enjoyed myself, and perhaps some evenings when you are not too
+    tired you will get a chance to glance over it. It is small and you
+    can put it in your pocket. Be very sure I have not forgotten the
+    very satisfactory talks we had and the splendid way you have grimly
+    started out to make good. If you can help the Government do their
+    work, even down there, give it a good try out. Never mind the
+    different nationalities you have to mix with. You have already
+    knocked around the world so much that you can just consider this
+    another opportunity of getting to know a great variety of people.
+    You might even learn to talk Italian and Greek! There is no
+    experience in life we have to go through but can be a source of
+    great education to us. You are sure to win out and get the respect
+    of everybody, your fellow-workmen as well as your superior officers,
+    if you continuously day in and day out simply refuse to get
+    discouraged and keep up your work and do as you are told. Stick by.
+
+    With all good wishes,
+    Sincerely yours,
+    DISTRICT SECRETARY.
+
+
+But when all is said and done, there are no unbreakable rules about
+treatment. A form of treatment is sometimes to do nothing at all.
+
+    Charles Morgan, a middle-aged machinist with a wife, a comfortable
+    home, and seven children (the two eldest grown), picked up his tools
+    and disappeared, after a quarrel over his wife's extravagance. He
+    had been earning $50 a week in a shop where he had worked for
+    eighteen years and he would not endure having his wages garnisheed
+    for debt.
+
+    An experienced case worker to whom furious Mrs. Morgan made her
+    complaint, decided, after studying Mr. Morgan's record, that he
+    ought not to be prosecuted, and refused to be party to it. As he was
+    a man of domestic habits, search was made in a nearby city where he
+    had relatives. He was easily traced. Mr. Morgan was both proud and
+    reticent, so the case worker made no attempt to approach him, but
+    told the woman she must devise some way to get him back, preferably
+    to write him and say she was sorry. This she refused to do and on
+    her own responsibility adopted the clumsy device of wiring him that
+    a favorite child was sick. This brought him "on the run," and, being
+    back, he stayed. _The case worker has never seen Mr. M._, nor has
+    his wife been encouraged to come any more to the office, although
+    reports have been received from time to time through the son and
+    daughter that things at home continue to go well.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] See p. 179 regarding equity powers of the courts.
+
+[34] Massachusetts social workers succeeded in 1917 in securing the
+passage of a law which permits the ordinary non-support law to be
+invoked in case of the man's failure to pay the amount ordered after a
+legal separation.
+
+[35] See p. 13 sq.
+
+[36] Colcord, J.C.: Article on "Desertion and Non-support." _Annals of
+the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918, p. 95.
+
+[37] Philadelphia Municipal Court, Report for 1916, p. 64.
+
+[38] See p. 133.
+
+[39] Miss Richmond, writing in 1895, says: "We would rather have a
+hundred visitors, patient, intelligent and resourceful, to deal with the
+married vagabonds of our city, than the best law ever framed, if, in
+order to get such a law, we must lose the visitors."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER
+
+
+Many of the case workers consulted in gathering material for this book
+urged that a discussion of the treatment of the non-supporter who had
+not deserted be included in its pages. In so far as non-support is a
+pre-desertion symptom and the non-supporter a potential deserter, much
+that has been said applies also to him. But are the two groups
+co-terminous, or do they only partially overlap?
+
+The law makes little difference in its treatment of the two, the fact of
+failure to support being the chief ground of its interest.[40] Indeed,
+in Massachusetts, the law under which deserters are extradited for
+abandonment is habitually spoken of as the "non-support law."
+
+No study of which the results are available has been made to learn what
+difference, if any, exists between the non-supporter who leaves home and
+the one who does not. Miss Breed, in making the point that the true
+analogy of the deserted family is with the non-supported family and not
+with the widow and her children, says: "The deserting husband is at home
+the non-supporting husband."[41]
+
+    A case reader of experience writes: "When I look back over the many
+    records I have read and studied, it seems to me that it is very
+    difficult to draw a line between desertion and non-support cases,
+    either in the kind of problem they present, or in the treatment of
+    them. Do we know enough about non-supporters who later become
+    deserters; and isn't it possible that every non-support case,
+    certainly every beginning non-support case, is a potential desertion
+    case?"
+
+There is no doubt that the two groups grade imperceptibly into each
+other; but of the twenty or more case workers who were consulted in the
+preparation of this material, nearly all felt that the out-and-out
+deserter, if he can be got hold of, is more promising material to work
+with than the man who sits about the home and lets others maintain it.
+They all recognize a common middle ground where the two groups merge
+into each other; but they see decided differences in the two "wings" so
+to speak, outside of this common ground.
+
+Seen through their eyes, the non-supporter has less courage, initiative
+and aggressiveness than the deserter. "He is less deliberately
+cruel--for at least he 'sticks around.'" He has not the roving
+disposition, but is apt to be intemperate and industrially inefficient
+as compared with the deserter. Often the married vagabond, as he has
+been called, is a "home-loving man who simply shirks responsibility and
+dislikes effort." He may "sometimes feel parental responsibility even
+though he does not support," and he is likely to have less physical and
+mental stamina than the deserter. That phrase in which the psychiatrists
+take refuge, "constitutional inferiority," is more likely to describe
+the stay-at-home than the wanderer. However, one social worker
+(non-medical) says "a mental twist more often enters into the problem of
+the deserter than into that of the non-supporter, from my experience."
+
+The head of a large probation department writes: "Many of the deserters
+with whom we have dealt were non-supporters before coming to our
+attention. Among the men convicted of abandonment, however, is a group
+which is above the average in intelligence--skilled workers or men in
+professional occupations."
+
+If this concurrence of observation is sound the reason for the social
+worker's preference for the deserter as material with which to work is
+not far to seek. With the deserter as described, the problem is chiefly
+to alter his point of view; with the non-supporter it is, in addition,
+to stiffen his will and to increase his capacity--a far more complicated
+task.
+
+"The deserter is likely to have less justification than the
+non-supporter," says an observer of long experience. Studies which have
+been made of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters and of
+non-supporters seem to agree that the latter have the weaker characters
+and are less competent and successful workers. A comment made upon one
+such study points out the impossibility of sound conclusions, if both
+chronic and incipient cases are included in the two groups. The
+progressive demoralization in the family of the "intermittent husband"
+makes such a study of little value unless this distinction is taken into
+account.
+
+The influence of ill-kept homes in the manufacture of non-supporting
+husbands has been widely recognized.
+
+    A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a decent home, married a
+    young man who soon began to drink too. Luckily, the young couple
+    were brought in touch with a volunteer visitor who, on finding that
+    the wife possessed only two kitchen utensils, a teakettle and a
+    "frypan," and actually did not know the names of any others,
+    undertook to give her lessons in home management. She proved
+    teachable, and her husband stopped drinking and braced up. Some
+    years later the visitor was able to report a well established home,
+    although the family refused to move out of the poor neighborhood in
+    which they lived because the husband had been elected councilman for
+    that district.
+
+If the inefficient wife contributes her share to this form of family
+breakdown so also does the overefficient one. Many a non-supporter got
+his first impulse in that direction when his wife became a wage-earner
+in some domestic crisis. "There's only one rule for women who want to
+have decent homes for their children and themselves," advised a wise
+neighbor. "If your husband comes home crying, and says he can't find any
+work, sit down on the other side of the fire and cry until he
+_does_."[42]
+
+One case worker comments on the relation that often exists between an
+inefficient husband and an unusually competent wife, made up of a
+motherly toleration on her side and a tacit acceptance on his that he is
+not expected to be the provider. "Sort of a landlady's husband" was the
+apt description of one such man, the speaker having in mind the "silent
+partner" who does odd jobs around his wife's furnished-room house. The
+lovable old rascal portrayed by Frank Bacon in his play "Lightnin'" is
+typical of this kind of husband.
+
+There is no ground for outside interference in such an arrangement as
+long as both are satisfied and the family as a unit is self-supporting.
+It is often a serious problem to the case worker, however, to know how
+to treat such a family if the breadwinner-wife becomes incapacitated.
+Such was the case when Mrs. Laflin fell ill with tuberculosis. Her
+relatives described her husband as "that little nonentity of a man." He
+had no bad habits and was pathetically eager to work, but though only a
+little over fifty he was prematurely aged and incapable. The solution
+had finally to be institutional care for the entire family, Mrs. Laflin
+in a hospital for incurables, Mr. Laflin in a home for the aged, and
+their two young daughters, through the interest of a former employer, in
+a good convent school. "Uncomplicated" non-support, as in the case of
+Mr. Laflin, is, however, rare in the experience of the social worker.
+
+Out of a group of 51 non-supporters selected at random from the records
+of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society in 1917, 46 showed some
+serious moral fault other than non-support. Alcoholism is probably the
+commonest of these complications; and, as has been pointed out in the
+previous chapter, is probably a primary cause as well. It will be a
+matter of great interest to social workers whether the "non-support
+rate" is reduced after July 1, 1919. Grounds for hope that it may be are
+found in the fact that some remarkable results have been obtained by
+moving alcoholic non-supporters and their families from "wet" into "dry"
+territory.
+
+Another vice that has a direct relation to non-support (much more direct
+than to desertion) is gambling. The gambler carries no signs of his vice
+upon his person as does the inebriate, and it is therefore hard to
+detect. It undoubtedly does not appear in social case records as
+frequently as it should. Case workers should have it in mind as a
+possible explanation, whenever there is a marked discrepancy between
+what a non-supporter earns and what he contributes to the home.
+
+With the non-supporters rather than with the deserters should be put
+the group of men whose wives tire of supporting them and either put them
+out or leave them. These men are often not only morally, but mentally
+and physically, so handicapped that there is nothing to be gained by
+constantly pursuing and arresting them, although some wives extract the
+sweets of revenge from doing just this. Few courts of domestic relations
+are without some wives as regular patrons who pursue their husbands not
+for gain but for sport. For the most part, however, the wives of such
+men are philosophical. "I only wash for meself now," said one of them.
+
+These men, and the unreclaimed deserters, doubtless make up a large part
+of the floating population of homeless men in our large cities. How
+large a part it is impossible to say, for they are likely to give
+assumed names and deny the possession of families. Mrs. Solenberger[43]
+has noted, however, that if they are asked, not "Are you married?" but a
+less direct question such as "Where is your wife now?" a story of
+unfortunate married life will often be elicited. Until we have some
+better method of inter-city registration of homeless men, many of these
+who otherwise might be identified and in suitable cases brought back,
+will continue to slip through our fingers.
+
+With non-support in an incipient stage,[44] it is sometimes possible to
+deal so suddenly and effectively that the man is shocked into a better
+realization of his responsibilities.
+
+    A young Irish rigger, with a capable wife and two pretty babies,
+    lost his job after a quarrel with his boss rigger. He was a genial,
+    popular chap, always "the life of the party" in his circle; and his
+    companions encouraged him to feel that he was a much injured man.
+    They also helped him to fill his enforced leisure with too much
+    beer. When the family received a dispossess notice the wife's
+    patience was at an end, and acting on the advice of a society
+    engaged in family case work, she put the furniture in storage and
+    went to a shelter where she could leave her children in the daytime,
+    while she was at work, and have them with her at night. The man was
+    told to shift for himself until he could get together sufficient
+    money to re-establish the home. The arrangement continued for nearly
+    two months, during which the man lived in lodging houses, had an
+    attack of stomach trouble, and was altogether thoroughly miserable.
+    Every night he waited for a word with his wife on a corner that she
+    had to pass in coming from work. Finally, when it seemed to the
+    social worker and to the wife that his lesson had gone far enough,
+    the home was re-established, with only a small amount of help from
+    the society. During the five years since that time, no recurrence of
+    the trouble has come to the attention of the agency interested.
+
+This experiment was realized to be a ticklish one, as a man less
+sincerely attached to his home might have been turned into a vagabond by
+such treatment.
+
+In general, it may be said that, as there is less to work on
+constructively with the non-supporter, court action has more often to be
+invoked. If the non-supporter is a "chronic," his path must not be
+allowed to be too easy. "Sometimes you just have to keep pestering him"
+was the way one social worker put it. A Red Cross Home Service worker
+successfully shocked one elderly non-supporter into going to work, as
+described in one of the Red Cross publications:
+
+    "Well, Mr. Gage," I said, "I see you're not working yet."
+
+    "No, Mrs. Cox, the coal company promised to send for me."
+
+    "Well," I said, "I think you've been pretty fair with that company.
+    You've waited on it for three months now. If I had the offer of
+    another job I'd feel perfectly free to take it, if I were you."
+
+    "Yes," he said, "I think I should."
+
+    "All right, I have a job for you," said I. "My husband wants a man
+    now at his garage, to clean automobiles. The hours are from 6 p.m.
+    to 6 a.m., and you'll earn $15 a week."
+
+    His paper fell from his hands to the floor; his jaw dropped, and he
+    just looked at me. Then he tried to crawl out of it and began to
+    make excuses.
+
+    "I haven't time to argue with you, Mr. Gage," I said. "I'll keep the
+    job open till seven o'clock tonight and you can let me know then
+    whether you'll take it or not."
+
+    At seven he came to say he'd take the job.[45]
+
+If in desertion cases the interest centers very vividly about the absent
+man, in non-support cases the reverse is likely to be true, because he
+is often not very interesting per se, and because, moreover, he is
+always on the spot and does not have to be searched for. Familiarity
+certainly breeds contempt for the non-supporter. Consequently the social
+worker may easily fall into the danger of disregarding the human factors
+he presents, and either treating the family as if he did not exist or
+expending no further effort on him than to see that he "puts in" six
+months of every year in jail if possible (since the law usually secures
+to him the privilege of loafing the other six). It is not safe, however,
+to regard even the most leisurely of non-supporters as beyond the
+possibility of awakening. One district secretary who had thus given a
+man up had the experience of seeing him transformed into a steady worker
+after a few months of intensive effort by a first-year student in a
+school of social science, whose only equipment for the job was
+personality and enthusiasm. So remarkable are some of the reclamations
+that have been brought about with seemingly hopeless non-supporters that
+all possible measures should be tried before giving one of them up.
+
+    His Scotch ancestry, a good wife, luck, and a friend with insight
+    and skill, pulled Aleck Gray out of that bottomless pit, the
+    gutter. Aleck had been a bookkeeper; but he didn't get on well with
+    his employers, lost his job, got to drinking, and went so far
+    downhill that his wife had to take their two children and go home to
+    her people several hundred miles away. Aleck finally drifted into a
+    bureau for homeless men, where the agent became interested in him
+    and worked with him for six months, getting him job after job, which
+    he always lost through drink or temper. He seemed incapable of
+    taking directions or working with other people. In all that time the
+    agent felt that he was getting no nearer the root of Aleck's
+    trouble, though he came back after each dismissal and doggedly took
+    whatever was offered. Finally, the agent's patience wore thin, and
+    when Aleck had been more than usually dour and aggravating it went
+    entirely to pieces. Aleck listened to his outburst apparently
+    unmoved; then said, "Very well, if you want to know what would make
+    me stop drinking, I'll tell you. If I could see any ray of hope that
+    I was on the way to getting my home and family back, I'd stop and
+    stop quick." On the agent's desk there happened to be a letter from
+    a friend who wanted a tenant farmer. He thrust it into Aleck's hand
+    saying, "There's your chance if you mean what you say." The man's
+    reply was to ask when he could get a train. At the end of several
+    weeks Aleck wrote that he had not drunk a drop and was making good,
+    which was enthusiastically confirmed by his employer. He begged the
+    agent to intercede with his wife, and a letter went to her which
+    brought the telegraphic reply, "Starting tomorrow."
+
+    How they got through the first winter the agent never knew exactly.
+    But they pulled through and the next year was easy, as country-born
+    Aleck's skill came back. Six years later, during which time the
+    agent heard from them once or twice a year, Aleck was still keeping
+    straight, the children were doing well in school, and the family,
+    prosperous and happy, had bought a farm of their own in another
+    state.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] The deserter who does not fail to support is usually safe from
+punishment no matter how aggravated his offense. A man living with his
+wife and five-year-old boy in an eastern city eloped with another woman
+to a city in the Middle West. The couple kidnapped the boy and took him
+with them; and the distracted woman, bereft of both her husband and
+child, had no recourse in any court, since the father was continuing to
+provide for his son.
+
+[41] Proceedings of the New York State Conference of Charities and
+Correction, 1910, p. 76.
+
+[42] Loane, M.: The Queen's Poor, p. 102. London, Edward Arnold, 1905.
+
+[43] Solenberger, Alice Willard: One Thousand Homeless Men, p. 22. New
+York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911.
+
+[44] For a consideration of possible lines of treatment for the
+non-supporter and his family, the reader is referred to Chapter VII,
+where is discussed the treatment of the deserter who is willing to
+return.
+
+[45] Behind the Service Flag, pamphlet ARC 211, American Red Cross,
+Department of Civilian Relief.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT
+
+
+Any discussion of laws, their application, and enforcement, must
+perforce be very general, since the different states vary greatly in
+laws governing desertion and in equipment for their enforcement.
+Suggestions for a uniform federal desertion law are not considered here;
+the term "next steps" should be read as meaning not plans in actual
+prospect but rather the increase in legal facilities desirable from the
+social worker's point of view. In communities where no such facilities
+exist, social workers are in a good position to collect illustrative
+material and push for desirable changes in law and law enforcement.
+Especially advantageous is the position of the legal social agencies
+such as legal aid societies and special bureaus and committees for
+increasing the efficiency of the courts, many of which are affiliated
+with or maintained by the large family work societies.
+
+
+1. Measures for the Discovery, Extradition or Deportation of the
+Deserter.--The nation-wide registration of males between certain ages,
+under the Selective Service Act, was widely utilized by social workers
+in finding deserting men, with the hearty co-operation usually of the
+draft boards. This fact forms no argument for universal registration as
+it was carried on in Germany before the war; no system which meant such
+cumbersome machinery or so much interference with the freedom of the
+individual ought to be advocated for a moment if it were solely for the
+purpose of keeping track of the small percentage of citizens who wish to
+evade their responsibilities, marital and other. Even such a
+non-military device as that which obligates every person to register
+successive changes of address with the postal authorities to facilitate
+delivery of mail would be contrary to the American spirit and easily
+evaded by people interested in concealing their whereabouts, unless
+enforced with all the rigor of the European police system. But though
+we can advocate no system of manhood registration, we can avail
+ourselves of the incidental benefits of any that may be in force.
+
+The Federal Employment Service offers a promising means of help in
+discovering the movements of deserters whose trade and probable
+destination are known. It should be entirely possible to work out a
+system by which the managers of the local employment bureaus should be
+furnished with name, description, copy of photograph, and so on, of a
+deserter who is being sought, so that the man if recognized could be
+traced or quickly apprehended if a warrant is already in the hands of
+the local police authorities. It may even be possible, under the federal
+employment service, to develop the long wished for national registration
+of casual and migratory labor. Need for some such system has been felt
+by all agencies trying to deal constructively with vagrants and homeless
+men. Little track can be kept not only of the individual wanderer but of
+the ebb and flow of the tides of "casual labor" without some system of
+this sort. If employment bureaus were required to forward to a central
+registry the names and some identifying particulars of every
+non-resident who applied for employment, the problem of finding the
+deserter would be rendered ten times easier than it is now.
+
+One present obstacle to this and other improvements is the attitude of
+authorities--city, state, and federal--toward wife desertion. We have
+already mentioned the way in which the task of tracing the deserter has
+been thrust back upon the wife and the social worker, as if he were not
+an offender against the community as well as against his wife and
+children. Almost as widespread is the reluctance of the proper
+authorities to arrest the deserter and bring him back after he has been
+found. A general atmosphere of indifference and despair of accomplishing
+anything worth while surrounds any attempt to push the prosecution of a
+man who has taken refuge outside the community. Hope for the future lies
+in socializing the point of view of court officials, police, and
+district attorneys--a process in which the social worker must play a
+large part. No chance should be lost to drive home the social and
+economic waste involved, by using the illustrative material which
+abounds in the files of most case work agencies.
+
+The pernicious system by which the wife is required to serve summons and
+warrant upon the offending husband who is still in the same city, should
+be done away with entirely. The social agency, public or private, which
+has had to support or assist the man's family ought to be able to prefer
+a charge for non-support, and to take out a summons or a warrant and
+serve it without the wife's being present. The agency should in this
+case protect itself by securing from the wife a signed affidavit and
+authorization to act in her behalf. It may seem unimportant whether the
+wife makes such complaint in the court or to a private society. The
+psychological effect upon the man is, however, very different. If his
+wife initiates the complaint in court, his resentment is directed toward
+her--a fact which renders reconciliation more difficult if this is later
+attempted. In other cases, for the wife to make the complaint puts her
+in actual physical danger from the vindictive husband. If he is brought
+into court on the complaint of a social agency, part of that resentment
+at least is transferred to the intrusive social worker, who is not
+usually seriously troubled thereby and is far better able to bear the
+weight of the husband's displeasure than is his poor wife.
+
+The absence of any treaty with Great Britain by which family deserters
+can be extradited to or from Canada makes the Dominion a place of refuge
+for many American evaders of family responsibilities. The National
+Conference of Charities and Correction,[46] at its meeting in Cleveland
+in 1912, passed a resolution on the need for such a treaty. As a result,
+largely through the efforts of Mr. William H. Baldwin, the treaty was
+signed and sent to the Senate for ratification in December, 1916. It was
+referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where it met with
+objection and has remained without action up to the present. The
+National Conference of Jewish Charities, at its meeting in Kansas City
+in May, 1918, sent urgent representations to the Senate Committee, which
+it is hoped may result in ratification after the pressure of war-time
+legislation is relaxed.
+
+We should not stop when reciprocal extradition with Canada has been
+secured; there is a similar situation on our southern border in states
+from which escape into Mexico is easy. While American deserters are not
+likely to go to other more remote countries than these two, immigration
+into America from other countries creates desertion problems in other
+places and presents us with a class of undesirables with whom it is
+difficult to deal under existing immigration laws. In 1912 a report was
+submitted to the Glasgow Parish Council showing the alarming amount of
+dependency created in that one city by the emigration to America and the
+Colonies of men without their families, and who subsequently drifted
+into the status of deserters. This report makes the interesting
+suggestion that no married man be permitted to emigrate without his
+family unless he presents a "written sanction of the Parish Council or
+other local authority," and further, that he be bound, under penalty of
+deportation, to report himself to some authority in the country of his
+destination, which would satisfy itself as to his conduct and insure
+that he did his duty by wife and family.[47] Such a provision would of
+course involve the revision of our own immigration laws, making wife and
+family desertion a crime thereunder.
+
+At present the law provides deportation only within five years after
+entry, and for "persons who have been convicted of or admit having
+committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral
+turpitude," or who are sentenced to a term of one year or more in this
+country, within five years of entry, for such crime (or who may suffer a
+second conviction at any time after entry). This would clearly cover
+bigamy committed within five years after entry; whether it could be
+stretched to cover lesser forms of marital irresponsibility remains to
+be determined. (It should be remembered that a man who brings in as his
+wife, or later sends for, a woman to whom he is not married, can be
+deported under quite other sections of the immigration law.)
+
+2. Improvements in Court Procedure.--A sore point with the social
+worker is the often ridiculously inadequate amounts that unwilling
+husbands are put under court order to pay. They accuse the courts,
+whether rightly or wrongly, of considering first what part of the man's
+alleged earnings will be needed for him to live upon comfortably, and
+then of making the order for whatever may be left over.
+
+    Onofrio Mancini was under court order to stay away from home and pay
+    his wife $6.00 a week for the support of their two children, He
+    drove a two-horse truck, and, at that time, must have been earning
+    not less than $16.00 a week. Mrs. Mancini fell ill, whereupon
+    Onofrio promptly ceased all payments. The social agency interested
+    was permitted to make a complaint on producing a doctors certificate
+    that Mrs. Mancini could not appear in court; but Onofrio, when he
+    appeared, put up such a hard luck tale of earning only $8.00 a week
+    that the judge, without investigation, cut the order down to $4.00 a
+    week and _ordered Onofrio to return home to live_.
+
+A bulletin issued by the Seybert Institution of Philadelphia gives a
+very interesting set of diagrams showing the relation (or lack of
+relation) between the amount of man's income, size of family, and the
+court order issued in the Philadelphia Municipal Court.[48]
+
+This report gives a series of illustrations, where glaring
+inconsistencies between the man's earnings and the court order were
+observed by visitors to the court. A sample of the reports made by these
+visitors is as follows:
+
+    "Man earning $30 to $40 a week at ammunition factory. Can earn $20
+    with no overtime. Has been sending woman $10 a week but has
+    threatened to leave town. Judge said: 'You can't keep up $10 a
+    week--how much can you give?' Finally ordered $8 a week. Woman said
+    she couldn't live on that and Judge told her she had to go to work
+    herself then; that they should live together anyway. Woman says she
+    is unable to work--is ill. When man stated he was giving $10 great
+    consternation seemed to take hold of the entire court force. He did
+    not say he couldn't pay $10; the judge simply told him he couldn't
+    keep that up."
+
+The practice of assigning less than half the man's weekly earnings to
+the wife and children has been defended on the ground that if he is
+forced to live too economically, he will disappear and the family will
+be left with nothing. This would seem to be a self-confession on the
+part of the court that it cannot enforce its reasonable requirements. It
+would appear that the first thing to be considered is the minimum needs
+of the wife and children, taking into consideration whether the wife can
+be expected to contribute anything toward her own support or whether all
+her time is needed for her children. This amount should be cut down only
+when there is actually not enough left for the man to live on; and his
+wife and children should not be pinched for necessities in order that he
+may have luxuries or indulge in vices. The habit some judges have of
+accepting the man's own statement on oath as to what his earnings are is
+responsible for many unjust orders. A man who does not want to
+contribute to his family's support is almost sure to understate his
+earnings, oath or no oath; and the confirmation of his employer (or when
+the employer is suspected of being in league with him, the inspection of
+the employer's books by the probation officer) is often needed. Probably
+the most difficult form of evasion to combat is that of the man who
+deliberately takes a lower salary than he is capable of earning, so as
+to have less to give his wife. Surprising as it may seem, this is a
+common practice; but skilful probation work can nevertheless find a
+remedy.
+
+In cases of suspended sentence, payments ought always to be made through
+the court and not handed by the man to his wife. It is better to have
+the amount received and transmitted by some bureau attached to the
+court, and so managed that the man can send the money in without
+"knocking off work" to bring it and that the woman can receive it by
+mail. The probation officer should not be bothered with the actual
+handling of the money, but he should be promptly notified of any
+delinquency in the payments.
+
+Whether the man under court order is on probation or not, the cessation
+of payments should automatically reopen the case. At present, in most
+courts, the order goes by default until the wife comes in to make
+another charge. This, through discouragement or fear of a beating from
+the man, she often neglects; with the result that the orders of the
+court mean little in the eyes of the men, and that arrears, once allowed
+to mount up, are never cleared off.
+
+This statement applies as well to long term orders for separate support
+where the circumstances are such that no reconciliation is contemplated.
+These orders are now made for a definite period of months, at the end of
+which time the case drops unless the wife renews charges. A case of this
+sort ought not to be terminable without a reinvestigation and final
+hearing in court. Indeed it would seem, in such cases, that the children
+involved should have at least as much protection as the children in
+bastardy proceedings, and that the order should be made to cover the
+term of years until the oldest child becomes of working age.
+
+The most important step in advance with regard to payments is
+undoubtedly the law which has been tried with signal success in the
+District of Columbia and in the states of Ohio and Massachusetts,
+requiring men serving prison sentences for non-support and abandonment
+to be made to work, and a sum of money, representing their earnings, to
+be turned over to their families.
+
+In an interesting paper in the _Survey_ for November 20, 1909, entitled
+"Making the Deserter Pay the Piper," Mr. William H. Baldwin discusses in
+detail how this plan was made to work successfully in the District of
+Columbia.
+
+The movement for special courts to consider cases of juvenile
+delinquency and marital relations has gained such headway that no word
+needs to be said here in its favor. In communities where the volume of
+court business permits such courts to be separately organized, they are
+generally accepted as the only means of handling these matters. In
+smaller communities the need may be met by setting aside regular
+sessions of the magistrates' courts for this purpose.
+
+Juvenile courts and domestic relations courts having proved a success
+separately, there is a strong movement on foot to combine them into one
+court, for which the name Family Court has been proposed.
+
+A leader in this movement is Judge Hoffman of the Family Court of
+Cincinnati, which he describes thus:
+
+    "The Court of Cincinnati was organized for the purpose of dealing
+    with the family as a unit and to ascertain possibly the cause of its
+    disruption. It has exclusive jurisdiction in all divorce and alimony
+    cases, and all matters coming under the Juvenile Court Act. It also
+    has jurisdiction in cases of failure to provide. The ideal court
+    would include in connection with the foregoing functions, adoption
+    of children, the issuing of marriage licenses, and bastardy
+    cases."[49]
+
+One advantage of this plan is the economy it effects in the time of
+probation officers. It is generally admitted that in children's court
+cases it is the parents rather than the children who are really on
+probation; and with two courts and two separate probation systems, we
+may even have the anomaly of the same family being under the care of
+two probation officers at once. Specialization can no further go! Other
+leaders in the domestic relations court movement see little merit in the
+proposal for a one-part family court. They think that, in the large
+cities at least, the need would be better served by having the domestic
+relations and juvenile courts under one roof, but as two separate and
+distinct parts of the same court. All are agreed, however, that the
+powers of one or the other of the two special courts should be enlarged
+to cover bastardy cases, where this is not now done.
+
+The domestic relations court, whether separate or as part of a family
+court, ought to have equity powers, so that the usual rules of evidence
+need not be so closely adhered to and more latitude could be allowed the
+magistrate in disposing of cases, not necessarily according to ruling
+and precedent but according to the social needs disclosed. A
+constitutional amendment now pending in New York is a model for this
+sort of legislation. It is in part as follows:
+
+    "The legislature may establish children's courts and courts of
+    domestic relations as separate courts or parts of existing courts,
+    or courts hereafter to be created, and may confer upon them such
+    equity and other jurisdiction as may be necessary for the
+    correction, protection, guardianship and disposition of delinquent,
+    neglected or dependent minors, and for the punishment and correction
+    of adults responsible for or contributing to such delinquency,
+    neglect or dependency, and to compel the support of a wife, child or
+    poor relative by persons legally chargeable therewith who abandon or
+    neglect to support any of them."[50]
+
+Many courts of domestic relations which now exercise equity powers, such
+as ordering that a man remain away from home or that a wife allow her
+husband to see his children at stated times, do so without actual legal
+warrant and subject at any time to appeal of counsel. The conferring of
+equity powers on courts of domestic relations is a form of protection
+both to the court and to its clients which social workers should stand
+ready to work for.
+
+Juvenile courts have in the main outstripped the domestic relations
+courts in the use of physicians and psychiatrists. The best examples of
+both these courts have, however, facilities for the making of physical
+examinations and mental tests, where necessary, before adjudication.
+Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many cases in courts of
+domestic relations disclose abnormal or perverted sex habits, makes
+important the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to diagnosing these
+conditions.[51]
+
+In most states the jurisdiction of the courts of domestic relations
+should be extended and co-ordinated. Few states escape some glaring
+inconsistencies in the laws governing desertion and abandonment. There
+is, for instance, much confusion between states as to whether a woman
+whose husband brings her to a strange city and there deserts her must
+prosecute him in the city where their home is or where the desertion
+took place. Under certain circumstances the woman is forced to travel to
+the city where her husband has gone, and bring action against him there,
+if the courts in that place will entertain a suit. In New York state
+there is no law which covers the case of a man who abandons his wife
+while she is pregnant, if there is no other living child. To constitute
+an extraditable crime there must have been abandonment of a child _in
+esse_ not merely _in posse_.
+
+But no institution, however carefully established by law, is any more
+effective than the people who run it; and the usefulness of the domestic
+relations court in any community depends entirely upon the
+social-mindedness and freedom from political entanglement of the judge
+and the amount and quality of probation service. From a social point of
+view, the latter is more important than the former; for a bad decision
+of the court can be mitigated by good case work later on, while a poor
+probation officer may nullify the effects of the wisest judicial
+decision ever made.
+
+The importance of having enough probation officers to handle the work of
+the court has already been touched upon. An overworked officer is
+perforce an inefficient officer. He has usually to spend at least half
+his time in the court and attending to the clerical end of his job. From
+50 to 60 cases is probably all that one probation officer can be
+expected to handle thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped, he is
+required to make careful preliminary investigations to be presented to
+the judge _before_ the trial.
+
+In training and in equipment for the job, probation officers should be
+the equals of case workers in private agencies. Examinations for
+probation officers ought to be conducted by social workers of skill and
+high standards. A few months of cramming at a civil service school, or a
+few weeks of volunteer visiting with some case working agency, should
+not suffice to enable candidates to pass the examinations. The standards
+should be high enough and the salaries sufficiently attractive to draw
+into this field people who have successfully completed their
+apprenticeship in the art of case work. Only then can the status of the
+probation officer be raised to what it should be in the court itself.
+The relation of the probation officer to the judge ought to be exactly
+like the relation of the medical social worker to the physician--that of
+a person acting under his direction in a general way, but with a special
+contribution to make to the treatment of the case and with a recognized
+standing as an expert in his own particular field.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] Now changed to The National Conference of Social Work.
+
+[47] Motion, J.R.: Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a
+Contributory Cause. Glasgow Parish Council, 1912.
+
+[48] Handling of Cases by the Juvenile Court and Court of Domestic
+Relations of the Philadelphia Municipal Court. Bulletin 2, Bureau for
+Social Research, the Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, 1918.
+
+[49] Hoffman, Charles W.: The Domestic Relations Court and Divorce, _The
+Delinquent_, February, 1917.
+
+[50] For a fuller discussion of equity powers see an article by Judge
+C.F. Collins in the _Legal Aid Review_ for January, 1919.
+
+[51] Hoffman, Charles W.: Domestic Relations Courts and Divorce. _The
+Delinquent_, February, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT
+
+
+At this time of writing it is too soon after the signing of the
+armistice to make predictions as to what the Great War may do to
+marriage. Whether desertion and divorce will increase or decrease it is
+impossible to say, and the experience of Europe is beside the mark. The
+war will leave traces on this generation--no doubt about that; but our
+losses have not been heavy enough seriously to disturb the balance of
+the sexes. The war, which has been to the common people of our country a
+war of service and ideals, has erased much that was petty and selfish;
+it has also caused nervous shocks and strains incalculable and
+unimagined. Years from now we may be able to strike the balance, but
+today this cannot be done. It is impossible also to say whether the
+growing irresponsibility that was generally recognized to be
+threatening married life in the years before the war is still operating
+with like effect, or whether the full tide of emotion in which the world
+has been lately submerged may have swept at least a part of it away.
+
+We are dealing here, however, not so much with modifications in the
+spirit of the times, as with prevention in the individual case.
+
+One very fundamental claim can be made concerning marital shipwrecks;
+namely, that the way to prevent many of them would have been to see that
+the marriage never was allowed to take place. Marriage laws and their
+enforcement form a whole subject in themselves which is now receiving
+careful study, the results of which should be available shortly.[52]
+This fact precludes any discussion of the subject here, though the
+relation of our marriage laws to marital discord is so obvious that some
+mention of the matter is necessary.
+
+It was formerly the belief of students of family desertion that the
+best way to prevent desertions was to punish them quickly and severely.
+It should be said that this plan has never received a fair trial on a
+large scale, for legal equipment has always lagged behind knowledge. It
+may be true that just as a community can, within limits, regulate its
+death rate by what it is willing to pay, so it can by repressive
+measures regulate its desertion rate. But measures that keep the
+would-be deserter in the home which constantly grows less of a home,
+simply through fear of consequences if he left it, seem hardly a
+desirable form of prevention from the social point of view. It would be
+much better to catch the disintegrating family in whatever form of
+social drag-net could be devised, and deal with it individually and
+constructively along the lines which case work has laid down.
+
+Is it possible, however, to recognize a "pre-desertion state?" And if
+so, what are the danger signals? One case worker answers this question
+sententiously: "Any influences which tend to destroy family solidarity
+are possible signs of desertion." Another writes: "We have sometimes
+found it possible to recognize a 'pre-desertion state' in the
+intermittent deserter, where we know the conditions which previously led
+to desertion, but I doubt whether we have very often been able to note
+it in the case of first desertions. In general, I should say a growing
+carelessness or a growing despondency as to his ability to care for his
+family are danger signals in the man, of which it is well to keep
+track."
+
+The conditions listed in Chapter II as "contributory factors" might in
+certain combinations be decided danger signals of impending desertion.
+Non-support itself is, indeed, one of the most common of such signals,
+though a man who has dealt with hundreds of desertion cases maintained
+recently that the best and most hopeful type of deserter is the one who
+supports his family adequately up to the time of leaving home.
+
+In the following case the items that led the case worker to suspect an
+approaching desertion are set down in the order stated by her. The
+couple were Irish; the man had never deserted before.
+
+    (1) He had spoken with eagerness of the wages that were being earned
+    in munition plants in a city a few hours away--said he would like to
+    go to some of those munition places and see what he could make.
+
+    (2) He was an intermittent drinker.
+
+    (3) His work record was poor; employers said he was irregular and
+    unreliable.
+
+    (4) Visitor felt he had never earned as much as he was easily
+    capable of earning and was rather indifferent to the needs of his
+    family.
+
+    (5) The woman was willing to work--had applied for day nursery care,
+    but visitor had persuaded the nursery not to accept the children.
+
+After the visitor had stated the first two of the above items she
+stopped, and did not add the more significant three that followed until
+reminded that many workmen who drank intermittently were at that time
+thinking enviously of munition factory wages; and that these hardly
+constituted danger signals. The cumulative effect of all five items
+cannot, however, be denied.
+
+Another statement, similarly obtained, concerns a colored couple,
+married about two years and with two children, the youngest less than a
+month old. Man had been out of work and family had gone to live with
+relatives.
+
+    (1) Man earns $20 a week but refuses to start housekeeping again,
+    although they are seriously overcrowded--seven adults and five
+    children in five rooms.
+
+    (2) Woman says he makes her sleep on chairs so that he can get
+    better rest.
+
+    (3) He is seeing a good deal of another woman, a friend of the wife
+    (wife's statement only).
+
+    (4) Woman had applied for nursery care for both children so that she
+    might go to work.
+
+    (5) It transpires that she lived with him before marriage, and that
+    the first child was a month old when the marriage took place. He
+    "holds it over her."
+
+    (6) Man had been married before and divorced.
+
+    (7) The family's habits of recreation are changed; the man no longer
+    "takes her out."
+
+Such attempts to foretell the future are not infallible, of course; but
+a listing process is a valuable aid to diagnosis, and, by its help, a
+situation may be uncovered which tends toward complete family breakdown.
+This may be taken in time and prevented; or, if separation is inevitable
+it can be prepared for in advance, the necessary legal arrangements can
+be made to protect the family, and the anxiety, suspense, and useless
+effort avoided which a sudden and downright abandonment would cause.
+
+But the trouble is that the problem seldom comes to the case worker
+until matters have progressed farther than this. The real question
+is--not how to recognize pre-desertion symptoms, but how to get hold of
+families when these symptoms are in the incipient stage.
+
+Mr. Hiram Myers, manager of the Desertion Bureau of the New York
+Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, who has made a
+close study of the subject, holds the theory that the real period of
+stress in marital adjustment comes not during the "critical first year,"
+about which we have been told so much, but at a later period, which he
+sets roughly at from the third to the fifth year after marriage. By this
+time there are usually one or two babies, the wife's girlish charm has
+gone, and the romance of the first attraction has vanished, while the
+steady force of conjugal affection which should smooth their path
+through the years ahead has not come to take its place. It is in this
+middle period that longings for the delights of his care-free youth
+begin to come back to a man; if he ever had the wandering foot, it
+begins again to twitch for the road; of else his fancy is captured by
+some other girl not tied down at home by children. It is at this time,
+too, that endless discords and misunderstandings arise--that the last
+bit of gilt crumbles off the gingerbread.
+
+As a result of his observations, Mr. Myers feels sure that the majority
+of first desertions take place somewhere from the third to the fifth
+year after marriage. Miss Brandt's[53] careful statistical study of 574
+deserted families shows that in nearly 46 per cent of the families the
+first desertion took place before the fifth year of married life. Of
+course the jars that may come in the earlier months of marriage are
+seldom brought to the attention of social agencies, as it is usually the
+presence of children in the family and the consequent burden upon the
+wife which make such agencies acquainted with her.
+
+It is to be hoped that further study will be made upon these points. It
+is well known and accepted that the majority of first deserters are
+young men; but if certain danger periods in married life can be
+definitely recognized, many new possibilities in prevention and
+treatment will be opened up.
+
+A number of experiments and suggestions have lately been made which may
+prove to be the means of recognizing marital troubles early. The
+probation department of the Chicago Court of Domestic Relations some
+years ago established a consultation bureau to which people might come
+or be sent for advice on difficult matrimonial situations, and without
+any court record being made. The Department of Public Charities of New
+York City maintains a similar bureau which is, however, so closely
+connected with the court that its clients make little distinction
+between them.
+
+In addition to such conscious efforts to reach out after marital tangles
+in the pre-court stage, there has recently been an interesting though
+accidental development in the city of Cleveland. During the thrift
+campaign of 1918, several savings banks of that city conceived the idea
+that their depositors could be induced and helped to save more money if
+the banks opened a bureau for free advice to their patrons on household
+management. This bureau is still in the experimental stage but it has
+had an increasing clientele so far. One thing that has astonished its
+management--but which causes no surprise in the mind of a social
+worker--has been the great variety of problems other than those
+connected with the family budget that have come to light in the bureau's
+consultations. Particularly is this true of marital discord centering
+about money affairs.
+
+If such bureaus prove their usefulness there is no reason why they might
+not be greatly extended, and why other agencies than banks (insurance
+companies, for example) might not be eager thus to serve their
+customers. This opens a new field for the home economist, but
+incidentally it would appear that, in order to function successfully,
+such bureaus would need to have access to the services of agencies
+employing highly skilled social case workers. It is conceivable that, if
+there are developed in our large cities consultation facilities under
+social auspices for people who feel their marriages going wrong, and
+want help and advice in righting them, such bureaus as those described
+above would be excellent "feeders" for this new form of social service.
+
+Family social agencies have been distinctly backward in some of their
+approaches to the fundamental problems of family life. The failure of
+most of them, for instance, to study or seek improvements in the laws
+governing marriage or in their administration, is difficult of
+explanation. Such a consultation service as that suggested does,
+however, indicate a new point of departure in dealing with marital
+relations which would seem to fall distinctly within the field of the
+family case work agencies. It is time that these agencies began to find
+means of dealing, not with the dependent family alone but with the
+family in danger of becoming dependent--not with the family broken and
+estranged only, but with the one whose bonds, even if cracking and
+ill-adjusted, still hold.
+
+Concretely, why should not family agencies establish such consultation
+bureaus as have just been mentioned, distinct from their regular
+activities and hampered by no suggestion in their title of association
+with problems of dependency? Dr. William Healy of Boston ascribes much
+of his success in getting the parents of defective and backward children
+to bring them voluntarily for examination to the fact that the name of
+his organization (the Judge Baker Foundation) conveys no hint of stigma
+or inferiority. Here is a valuable lesson in right publicity.
+
+A bureau of family advice such as has been suggested should be under
+unimpeachable auspices from the point of view of medicine and
+psychiatry; it should have the services not only of expert social
+workers and experts in household management, but of doctors and
+psychiatrists as well. If it could be run as a joint-stock enterprise,
+in which courts and social agencies might be equally interested, so much
+the better. Its investigations should be searching enough to discourage
+applications from curiosity-mongers; but its services, like those of any
+clinic, should be given for whatever the patient is able to pay. Its
+relations, needless to say, should be entirely confidential, and as
+privileged in the eyes of the law as are those of doctor, lawyer, and
+priest.
+
+It may be objected that people guard their marital infelicities too
+jealously and are too loath to discuss them to come willingly to such a
+place; that the idea involves a presumptuous interference in the private
+lives of individuals. But neurologists know that people in increasing
+numbers feel the need, under conditions of modern stress, for a safe
+outlet and a chance to discuss their perplexities and find counsel.
+
+Fifty years ago the interest now taken by the social and medical
+professions in the question of whether mothers are rearing their infants
+properly could not have been foreseen. The establishment of baby health
+stations, or the activities of the Children's Bureau, would have been
+looked upon as unwarranted interference between the child and its
+mother, whose natural instincts could be depended upon to teach her how
+to nourish it. This point of view is no longer held; and the community's
+duty to take an interest in the upbringing of its children is never
+questioned. Is it not conceivable that, before another half century has
+rolled around, the community may take the same intelligent interest in
+the conservation of the family, and that definite efforts, which are now
+almost entirely lacking, may be made to stabilize and protect it?
+
+Educational propaganda would, of course, have to be a definite part of
+the work of such bureaus. By this is meant not such modern specialties
+as "birth control," "sex hygiene," _et al._, though we may by that time
+have enough authoritative information about sex psychology in marriage
+to be able to afford some help along these lines. Instruction in the
+_ethics_ of married life and parenthood is of even more fundamental
+importance. The prevailing cynicism, the present low concepts of
+marriage, should be vigorously combatted by such an organization.
+Religious instruction would be, of course, beyond its scope; but it
+should be able to work sympathetically with all creeds, supplementing
+their teachings without seeking to duplicate them.
+
+The services of such a bureau could not, of course, be forced upon
+anyone who did not wish to avail himself or herself of them; but
+definite though tactful efforts could be made to reach all young couples
+(just as are now being made to reach young mothers) with information as
+to where advice could be obtained.
+
+No trustworthy figures exist as to the number of families broken by
+desertion or divorce in the United States, or as to the burden of actual
+dependency caused. Courts, probation officers, psychiatrists, and family
+case workers are all dissatisfied with our efforts to patch up the
+families which are already disintegrating. One of the three groups
+mentioned is likely before long to attempt some more dynamic attack upon
+the problem in its inception. If any suggestions herein contained find
+use in that program, the labor of compiling them will have been indeed
+well spent.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] See, for example, American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects--a
+preliminary study by the Russell Sage Foundation, June, 1919.
+
+[53] Brandt, Lilian: 574 Deserters and their Families, p. 23. Charity
+Organization Society of New York, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Adolph R.: case story of, 69-70, 83
+
+Age: relation of differences in, 27
+
+Agencies: N.Y. Charity Organization Society, 44;
+  National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 71. 101;
+  United Hebrew Charities, 71;
+  co-operative methods, 72-78, 84, 86-90;
+  opinions on methods of arrest, 77, 78;
+  N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, 136;
+  social problems and consultation bureaus, 195-199
+
+Alcoholism: statistics on, 22;
+  devastating effects of, 42;
+  case story of woman, 57-61;
+  and justifiable deserters, 111-114;
+  relation to non-support, 156
+
+_American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects_, study by Russell Sage
+    Foundation, 186
+
+Apparent desertions: illustrated, 8, 9
+
+
+Baldwin, Wm. H., 169, 177
+
+_Bastardy Cases, A Study of_ Louise de K. Bowen, 95
+
+Bastardy, see _Forced marriages_
+
+_Behind the Service Flag_, Red Cross pamphlet, 160
+
+Bigamy: and common law marriages, 98;
+  immigrant deserters, 99
+
+Bosanquet, Helen, 13
+
+Bowen, Louise de K., 95
+
+Brand, Harvey: case story of, 122
+
+Brandt, Lilian, 26, 27, 192
+
+Breed, Mary, 61, 150
+
+Buffalo Charity Organization Society: non-support records, 156
+
+Bureaus: National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 101;
+  for consultation, 193-199;
+  Court of Domestic Relations, Chicago, 193;
+  Department of Public Charities, New York, 193;
+  Children's Bureau, 197;
+  importance of educational, 198-199.
+  See also _Agencies_
+
+Byington, Margaret F., 12
+
+
+Canada: extradition treaties sought, 119, 169
+
+Carstens, C.C., 68
+
+Case illustrations: of apparent desertion, 8;
+  mental deficiency, 24;
+  reconciliation through education, 30;
+  incompatibility and the "other woman," 40;
+  interviewing the man essential, 57-61;
+  liberal relief policy, 62;
+  agency co-operation, 69, 75, 82, 83, 84;
+  accident case, 79;
+  traced through letter, 81;
+  reconciliation after court marriage, 95;
+  "American" marriages, 99;
+  justifiable desertion, 111, 112-114;
+  antagonism, 111-112;
+  prison sentences helpful, 121, 122;
+  adequate relief rids wife of chronic deserter, 131;
+  adjustment impossible, 134;
+  real affection a basis of reconciliation, 135;
+  rehabilitation of a deserter, 137;
+  wife reluctant to return to man who reformed, 141;
+  non-support and ill-kept homes, 153;
+  re-establishing non-supporters' homes, 158, 160, 161-163;
+  inadequate court orders, 172, 173
+
+Case work, see _Social workers_
+
+Causal factors: analysis of study, 10, 15;
+  motives and theories, 17-49;
+  rationalization discussed, 17-22;
+  summary of statistics, 21-22, 26-27, 45;
+  feeble-mindedness, 24-25;
+  training and self-control, 25-26;
+  nationality, 26-27;
+  religion, 27;
+  age, 27;
+  environment, 27-28;
+  wrong basis of marriage, 28;
+  common law marriage, 29;
+  ignorance, 29;
+  incompetence, 31;
+  wanderlust, 32;
+  inadequate income, 32;
+  financial mismanagement, 33;
+  physical condition, 34-35;
+  temperamental differences, 36;
+  sex incompatibility, 37-39;
+  vice and disease, 39-43;
+  relatives, interference of, 43-44;
+  racial studies, 44-45;
+  community standards, 45-46;
+  recreation, 47;
+  companions, influence of, 48;
+  shifting responsibility, 48;
+  underlying causes, 49;
+  seeking a working basis, 91-105
+
+Charitable relief: desertion in expectation of, 48, 61;
+  Mary Breed on, 61;
+  immigrant's interpretation of, 99-100.
+  See also _Collusion_
+
+Chicago Court of Domestic Relations, bureau for marital advice, 193
+
+Chicago Juvenile Protective Association: study of forced
+marriages by, 94-95
+
+Children's Bureau, 197
+
+Closing the case: extended treatment recommended, 63
+
+Colcord, J.C., 61, 104, 133
+
+Collins, C.F., 180
+
+Collusion: infrequency of, 52, 70;
+  case stories of, 71, 72;
+  statistics of National Desertion Bureau, 71;
+  preventive measures, 73-80
+
+Common law marriages: legal protection under, 29;
+  confusion of state laws, 98
+
+Community ideals, see _Standards_
+
+Companions: influence, and wanderlust, 47-48;
+  aid in finding deserters, 77, 80
+
+Co-operation of agencies, 68-78, 84, 86-90;
+  suggested methods of finding deserters, 78-90;
+  probation officers, 116, 122-124
+
+Corrective treatment: legislative recommendations, 164-184;
+  military systems aid in tracing deserters, 165-166;
+  obstacles, 167;
+  serving a warrant or summons, 168;
+  extradition treaties recommended, 169;
+  dependency through emigration, report on, 170;
+  deportation laws, 171;
+  court orders to pay, Seybert Institution report on, 172-177;
+  special courts for juvenile delinquents, 177, 178, 179;
+  Family Court of Cincinnati, 178;
+  domestic relations court, 178, 179-180, 181-182;
+  probation officers, 182-184
+
+Court intervention: policy of treatment in past, 50-51;
+  reasons, and laxity of laws, 51-52;
+  social agency statistics, 52;
+  a last resort, 53-54;
+  effect of, 55, 95;
+  for persistent deserters, 114-117;
+  extradition, 117-119;
+  probation, 119-124;
+  warrant served by wife, 127;
+  effecting reconciliations, 132-140;
+  domestic relation courts effect reconciliations, 132;
+  volunteers, 139-140;
+  inadequacy of orders, 172-177;
+  for juvenile delinquents, 178, 181;
+  domestic relations, 179-182, 193
+
+
+Department of Public Charities, New York City, bureau of domestic
+    relations, 193
+
+_Deserters and their Families_, 574.
+  Lilian Brandt, 192
+
+_Desertion and Non-Support in Family Case Work._ Joanna C. Colcord,
+    61, 104, 133
+
+Detectives: methods objectionable, 74, 77
+
+Disease: statistical analysis, 22;
+  and psychiatry, 24;
+  effects of physical debility, 34;
+  venereal disease, 41;
+  alcoholism, 42.
+  See also _Medical-Social work_
+
+District of Columbia: non-support laws, 177
+
+Divorce: relation to desertion, 7, 8;
+  not considered, 16;
+  administration of laws, and respect for, 46;
+  by publication, 101;
+  clearing bureau for, 101-102;
+  for long continued desertion, 110;
+  legal separation to protect wife, 127;
+  bureaus might prevent, 193-199
+
+Domestic relations courts: to combine with juvenile, 178, 179;
+  Family Court of Cincinnati, 178;
+  equity powers for, 179, 180;
+  amendment pending, 179;
+  facilities, 181
+
+_Domestic Relations Court and Divorce._ C.W. Hoffman, 178, 181
+
+Donald, Patrick: case story of, 19
+
+Drug addiction, see _Narcotics_
+
+
+Early influences: and self-control, 25-26;
+  educational, 29, 30, 46, 92, 153, 198
+
+Economics: ratio of desertions in "hard times," 21, 32;
+  family finances, 33;
+  service bureaus, 194
+
+Education: social studies of family life, 11-14;
+  early training and delinquency, 26;
+  background for failures, 29-30;
+  destructive forces, 46;
+  suggestions for case workers, 63;
+  Attendance Department traces deserters, 73;
+  non-support and inefficiency eliminated by, 153;
+  propaganda, 198
+
+Ellis, Havelock, 39
+
+Environment: and immigration, 27-28;
+  neighborhood standards, 46, 102
+
+Equity powers, of domestic relations courts, 179, 180
+
+Eubank, E.E., 21
+
+Extradition: state problems, 117-119;
+  for dangerous men, 129-130;
+  non-support law, 150;
+  treaties essential, ratification pending, 169, 170;
+  N.Y. state law, 182
+
+Extravagance: family finances, 33
+
+
+_Family as a Social and Educational Institution, The._ Willystine
+    Goodsell, 11
+
+Family Court of Cincinnati, 178
+
+_Family Desertion._ Lilian Brandt, 26
+
+_Family Desertion, A Study of._ E.E. Eubank, 21
+
+Family life: permanence of, 9, 11-15;
+  spiritual values of, 12, 29;
+  consultation service to solve problems of, 195-199
+
+_Family, The._ Helen Bosanquet, 13
+
+Fear of bodily harm from dangerous deserters, 128-129
+
+Federal Employment Service, 166
+
+Finding deserters, 65-90;
+  National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 71;
+  urgency of finding the man, 67;
+  C.C. Carstens quoted, 68;
+  example of, 69-70;
+  collusion, instances of, 70-73;
+  literature lacking, 74;
+  detective methods, illustration of, 74-77;
+  suggestions for, 78-80;
+  through military authorities, 81-82;
+  trade places, 82-83;
+  publications, 83, 84, 85;
+  bulletin boards, 84;
+  employment agencies, 84;
+  agency co-operation, 86-90
+
+First desertions: temporary character of, 8;
+  medical-social work a preventive, 9;
+  accident records aid in tracing, 79;
+  critical nature of, 91;
+  when apt to occur, 191-192
+
+First problem in desertion, 67, 91
+
+Forced marriages: irregular unions, 28;
+  investigation of, and statistics, 92-96;
+  study by Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, 94;
+  case illustrations, 95-96
+
+Forel, August, 39
+
+Francis, Mrs.: case story of, 131
+
+Frost, Robert, 14
+
+
+Gambling: effect upon character, 43;
+  relation to non-support, 156
+
+Glasgow Parish Council, report on dependency, 170-171
+
+Goodsell, Willystine, 11
+
+Gorokhoff, Andreas: case story of, 121
+
+Gray, Aleck: case story of, 161-163
+
+
+Hart, Bernard, 20
+
+Healy, Dr. William, 196
+
+Heredity: psychopathic personality, 24;
+  feeble-mindedness, 25;
+  racial differences, 26-28
+
+Hoffman, Charles W., 178, 181
+
+
+Illustrations, see _Case illustrations_
+
+Immorality, see _Sex factors_
+
+Inadequate relief: legal separation, and the law, 128;
+  wife's attitude, 130;
+  illustrated, 131;
+  court orders, inconsistency of, 172-176;
+  recent legislation to correct, 177.
+  See also _Non-support_
+
+Income: economic issues, 21, 22, 30;
+  wages and non-support, 32-33
+
+Incompatibility: temperamental differences, 36;
+  sex relations, 37-39, 40
+
+Industrial deficiency: in husband and wife, 25, 31;
+  national registration to correct, 166
+
+Insanity: study of defectives, 20, 24
+
+_Insanity, The Psychology of._ Bernard Hart, 20
+
+Instability: forms of, mental and physical, 17-22;
+  factors that induce, 24-43, 47-49
+
+"Intermittent husbands," 43, 153
+
+Interviewing the man: importance of, 55-57, 105;
+  case story, 57-61
+
+Italy: marriage registration in, 100
+
+
+Judge Baker Foundation, of Boston, 196
+
+Justifiable deserters: and alcoholism, 42;
+  case illustration, 57-61, 111;
+  procedure with, 112
+
+Justification: thirst for experience, 9, 19;
+  process of rationalization, 20;
+  venereal disease and separation, 41;
+  alcohol, and "justifiable deserters," 42;
+  Williams case illustrates, 57-61, 111;
+  and the non-supporter, 152-154
+
+Juvenile courts: movement for special, 177, 178;
+  Juvenile Court Act, 178;
+  combine with domestic relation courts, 178;
+  Family Court of Cincinnati, 178;
+  facilities, 181
+
+
+Laflin, Mrs.: case story of, 155
+
+Latham, George: case story of, 137
+
+Legal separation to protect wife, 127-129
+
+Legislation: irregular unions, 29, 98;
+  pioneering methods, 50-52;
+  state aid to mothers, 63;
+  common law unions, legality of, 98, 101;
+  Italian, 100;
+  divorce for permanent desertion, 110;
+  for justifiable deserters, 111-112;
+  court action for persistent deserters, 114-117;
+  extradition, 117-119, 129;
+  probation, 120-124;
+  legal facilities to promote efficiency, 164-184;
+  serving a warrant, 168;
+  extradition treaties, 169-170;
+  deportation, 171;
+  court procedure, 172-177;
+  juvenile delinquency, 177, 178, 180;
+  domestic relations, and special courts, 177, 178, 179, 180-182;
+  marriage laws, 186, 195
+
+Loane, M., 154
+
+Long, Martin: case story of, 141
+
+
+_Making the Deserter Pay the Piper._ W.H. Baldwin, 177
+
+Mancini, Onofrio: case story of, 172
+
+Marital vagaries: possible reasons for, 35
+
+Marriage: spiritual values of, 11, 12, 29;
+  homelier elements in, 13-15;
+  wrong bases of, 28;
+  common law unions, 29;
+  disparagement of ideals condemned, 45-46, 198;
+  verification, and state legislation, 98-100;
+  registration in Italy, 100;
+  American marriage laws, 186
+
+McCann, Herbert: case story of, 84-85, 86
+
+Medical-social work: preventing desertion, 9;
+  summary of case analyses, 22;
+  psychiatry and mental deficiency, 24;
+  physical debility, 34;
+  "pregnancy desertion," 34-35;
+  sex incompatibility, 37-39;
+  bureaus of advice recommended, 193-196.
+  See also _Psychology_
+
+Mellor, Joseph: case story of, 111
+
+Mentality: irresponsible agents, 17-20;
+  psychology of insanity, 20, 24;
+  educational handicaps, 29
+
+Mexico: and extradition, 119, 170
+
+Morgan, Charles: case story of, 147-148
+
+Motion, J.R., 171
+
+Myers, Hiram, 191, 192
+
+
+Narcotics: percentage of influence, 22, 42
+
+Nationality: statistical facts about difference in, 26-27, 44-45;
+  racial attitude, and percentages of deserters, 44-45;
+  case problem, 49;
+  Jewish desertion bureau, 65, 69, 71, 101-102
+
+National Conference of Jewish Charities, seeks extradition treaty, 169
+
+National Conference of Social Work, extradition treaty urged, 169
+
+National Desertion Bureau, Jewish legal aid, 65;
+  story of tracing a deserter, 69-70;
+  collusive desertion cases, 71;
+  clearing bureau established, 101-102
+
+Neighborhood influence, see _Standards_
+
+Newspapers, see _Publicity_
+
+New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor: practice
+    of Desertion Bureau, 136
+
+New York Charity Organization Society: study of racial groups, and
+    percentages, 44-45
+
+New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings, on
+    non-supporters, 150
+
+Non-supporters: as potential deserters, 149-163;
+  legal treatment of, 149-150;
+  analogous to deserters, 150-153, 188;
+  characteristics, 151, 189, 190;
+  wife's influence a factor, 152-154;
+  illustrations, 155, 158, 160;
+  reclamation, illustrated, 161-163;
+  approach to desertion, 188-191
+
+Non-support Law: in Massachusetts, 149-150
+
+_Normal Family, The._ Margaret F. Byington, 12
+
+_North of Boston._ Robert Frost, 14
+
+
+_One Thousand Homeless Men._ Alice W. Solenberger, 157
+
+Overindulgence: teaching self-control, 25-26;
+  wage-earning wives, 154
+
+
+Pelligrini, Orfeo: case story of, 99
+
+Permanence of family life, 9, 11-15
+
+Permanent desertions, see _Divorce_
+
+Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, report on reconciliations, 135-136
+
+Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity: report of, 7
+
+Photographs of deserters: society presents to wife, 10;
+  tracing out-of-town clues, 78, 84, 85
+
+Physical condition: ill health, 34;
+  "difficulty" of pregnant women, 35;
+  maladjustments, 38;
+  recreation essential, 47;
+  recommendations, 196-199
+
+"Pregnancy desertion": how explained, 34-35
+
+Preventive treatment: past opinions, 187;
+  non-support leading to desertion, 188-192;
+  for first desertions, 192-193;
+  bureaus for advice and consultation, 193-199;
+  suggestions for, 196-199
+
+Probation: testimony of social workers, 119-120;
+  and imprisonment, 121-124;
+  legal separation proceedings during, 128;
+  officers effect reconciliation, 132;
+  illustrations, 133-134, 137, 141;
+  "stay-away" probation, 138;
+  economy plan for officers, 178;
+  number and efficiency of officers, 182-184;
+  consultation bureau, 193
+
+Provisional quality of desertions, 9
+
+Psychoanalysis: mental deficients, and heredity, 24;
+  incompatibility and sex perversion, 37-39.
+  See also _Sex factors_
+
+Psychology: rationalization process, 20;
+  mental defectives, 24;
+  sex incompatibility, 37-39;
+  studies on, 39;
+  knowledge of, essential, 103
+
+Publicity: photographs a medium of, 10, 78, 84, 85;
+  agencies and newspapers, 84-90;
+  divorce by "publication," 101;
+  illustration, 196
+
+
+_Queen's Poor, The._ M. Loane, 154
+
+Questionnaires: liberal relief policy, 62;
+  searching for deserters, 78;
+  treatment of desertion, 106
+
+
+Ratio of desertions: economic factors, 21, 31, 32-33
+
+Reconciliation: factors that prompt, 13-14;
+  and the "other woman," 40-41;
+  following court marriage, 95-96;
+  after prison term, 121-122;
+  considerations involved, 125-132;
+  unwillingness of wife, illustrated, 131;
+  criminal tendencies prevent, 134;
+  affection a safe basis of, 135;
+  practice of N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, 136-137;
+  volunteer visitors helpful, 139-140;
+  case worker's success in effecting, illustrated, 142-148;
+  bureaus to promote, 193-199
+
+Recreation: why essential, 47
+
+Red Cross Home Service, 81, 159, 160
+
+Relatives: interference of, 43-44, 49
+
+Religion: differences in, a study of, 26, 27
+
+Repeated desertions: frequency of, 8;
+  "intermittent husbands," 43, 153;
+  suggestions for tracing the man, 79;
+  relative nature of, 92
+
+Responsibility: self-therapy illustrated, 8;
+  deserters disclaim, 19-20;
+  essentials of early training, 25-26;
+  education promotes, 29, 198;
+  and charitable relief, 48, 100;
+  wage-earning wives, and non-supporters, 154
+
+Richmond, Mary E.: on volunteers in case work, 78, 106, 140
+
+Ridicule: of matrimony, by press and films, 45-46
+
+Russell Sage Foundation, study, American marriage laws, 186
+
+
+Selective Service Act, 165
+
+Sex factors: determine forgiveness, 13-14;
+  statistical summary, 21-22;
+  "pregnancy desertion," 34-35;
+  incompatibility, 37-40;
+  immorality, 39, 96;
+  knowledge of sex psychology essential, 103
+
+_Sex in Relation to Society._ Havelock Ellis, 39
+
+_Sexual Question, The._ A. Forel, 39
+
+Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, on relation of income to court order, 173
+
+Slacker marriages, 97
+
+Social workers: opinions of, 7-8;
+  appreciative faculties of, 11;
+  knowledge of sex relations imperative, 37-38;
+  diagnoses referred to specialists, 38;
+  undervalue recreation, 47;
+  questionnaires on treatment, 62, 78, 106;
+  detective methods, 68-90;
+  agency co-operation, 78-90;
+  sex problems, 103;
+  necessary information for, summarized, 104-105;
+  protection of legal separation, 127;
+  successful case records, 142-148
+
+Solenberger, Alice W., 157
+
+Spiritual values: of family life, 11-12, 29
+
+Standards: and temperamental differences, 36;
+  community concepts, 45-46;
+  neighborhood influence, 47, 102
+
+State aid to mothers, 63;
+  vital statistics, 93
+
+
+Temporary desertions: report of Philadelphia Society, 7-8;
+  domestic crises and vagaries, 34-35.
+  See also _Reconciliation_
+
+Theories to explain desertion, 20.
+  See also _Causal factors_
+
+Treatment of desertion: policy, past and present, 50-64;
+  court intervention, 50-54;
+  interviewing the man, 55-60, 105;
+  relief to families, 61;
+  opinions of case workers, 62;
+  case story, 62;
+  state aid, 63;
+  closing the case, time for, 63;
+  changes in worker's attitudes, 64;
+  whereabouts known, willing to return, 125-148;
+  Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, study by, 135-136;
+  N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, practice of, 136;
+  family restoration illustrated, 137;
+  volunteers recommended, 139-140;
+  wife relents, illustration of reconciliation, 141;
+  study of successful worker's records, 142-148
+
+
+United Hebrew Charities, 71
+
+
+Vagaries: marital, 34-35
+
+Venereal disease: relation to desertion, 41
+
+Verification: of marriage, 98-99;
+  in Italy, 100;
+  Latin-American custom, 100
+
+Volunteers: service valuable for effecting reconciliation, 139-140
+
+
+Wanderlust: instability of temperament, 19;
+  relation to desertion, 32
+
+Warrant for arrest: protection afforded wife, 127;
+  system inadequate, 168
+
+West, Alfred: case story of, 30
+
+_Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a Contributory Cause._ J.R.
+    Motion, 171
+
+Wife who deserts, not considered, 15
+
+Williams, Mrs. Clara: case story of, 57-60, 111
+
+
+
+SOCIAL WORK SERIES
+
+EDITED BY MARY E. RICHMOND
+
+
+Many people have general views in these days upon almost any matter
+which affects social welfare; we all know how easily such views find
+expression. On the other hand, only a few have the patience and the
+insight to gather the specific facts and find out what they mean. Still
+fewer--having done so much as this--can explain the meaning lucidly and
+in brief compass.
+
+It is the ambition of the Social Work Series to embody, in the field of
+social service at least, the message of a representative group of these
+few. The first three volumes are as follows:
+
+Disasters and the American Red Cross in Disaster Relief. By J. Byron
+Deacon.
+
+Household Management. By Florence Nesbitt.
+
+Broken Homes. By Joanna C. Colcord.
+
+Price, Cloth, 75 cents each. Other volumes in preparation.
+
+Write for announcements to be forwarded as these books are issued.
+
+PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT, RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
+
+130 E. 22d ST., NEW YORK CITY
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Broken Homes, by Joanna C. Colcord
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Broken Homes, by Joanna C. Colcord
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Broken Homes
+       A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment
+
+Author: Joanna C. Colcord
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2005 [EBook #15420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROKEN HOMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the
+PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+<h3><i>SOCIAL WORK SERIES</i></h3>
+
+<h1>BROKEN HOMES</h1>
+
+<h2>A STUDY OF FAMILY DESERTION AND<br />
+ITS SOCIAL TREATMENT</h2>
+
+<h3><i>By</i></h3>
+<h2>JOANNA C. COLCORD</h2>
+
+<h3>SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY<br />
+OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 55%;" />
+<p class="center">NEW YORK<br />
+RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION<br />
+1919
+</p>
+<div><br /></div>
+<div><br /></div>
+
+<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY<br />
+THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION</p>
+<div><br /></div>
+<div><br /></div>
+
+<p class="center">WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS<br />
+PHILADELPHIA
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE" /></p>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+<p><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></p>
+
+
+<p>No less thoughtful a critic of men and manners
+than Joseph Conrad has remarked recently that
+a universal experience &quot;is exactly the sort of thing which
+is most difficult to appraise justly in the individual instance.&quot;
+The saying might have been made the motto
+of this book, for in its pages Miss Colcord&mdash;with all the
+eagerness of the newer school of social workers, bent
+upon understanding, upon making allowances&mdash;seeks
+that just appraisal to which Conrad refers. Marital
+infelicities and broken homes are not universal, fortunately,
+but some of the human weaknesses which lead
+to them are very nearly so.</p>
+
+<p>To one who brings a long perspective to any theme
+in social work, Broken Homes suggests the successive
+stages through which the art of social case work has
+progressed. Twenty years ago the editor of this Series
+was responsible for the following sentences in an annual
+report: &quot;One of our most difficult problems has been
+how to deal with deserted wives with children....
+One good woman, whose husband had left her for the
+second time more than a year ago, declared often and
+emphatically that she would never let him come back.
+We rescued her furniture from the landlord, found her
+work, furnished needed relief, and befriended the children;<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>
+but the drunken and lazy husband returned the
+other day, and is sitting in the chairs we rescued, while
+he warms his hands at the fire that we have kept burning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The passage belongs to the first and what might be
+termed the &quot;muddling along&quot; period of dealing with
+family desertion, but the fact that boards of directors
+actually were willing to print such frank statements
+about their own shortcomings was a sign that the period
+was drawing to a close.</p>
+
+<p>This first stage was succeeded by a disciplinary period,
+in which earnest attempts were made to enact laws that
+would punish the deserter and aid in his extradition
+whenever he took refuge across a state line. Laws of
+the strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a while
+the only possible solution.</p>
+
+<p>Then gradually, with the unfolding of a philosophy
+and a technique of helping people in and through their
+social relationships, a new way of dealing with this
+ancient and perplexing human failing was developed.
+This third way involved a more careful analysis of
+relationships and motives, a greater variety in approach,
+an increased flexibility in treatment, a new faith, perhaps,
+in the re-creative powers latent in human nature.
+But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon a point of view
+which these pages admirably illustrate. Desertion laws
+continue to serve a definite purpose, as Miss Colcord
+makes clear, but no longer are they either the first or the
+second resort of the skilful probation officer, family case
+worker, or child protective agent.</p>
+
+<p>Just after the Russell Sage Foundation published a<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>
+treatise on Social Diagnosis two years ago, a number of
+letters came to the author urging that a volume on the
+treatment of social maladjustments in individual cases
+follow. But this second subject is not yet ready for the
+large general treatise. A topic so new as social case
+treatment must be developed aspect by aspect, preferably
+in small, practical volumes each written by a specialist.
+This is such a volume, and Miss Colcord breaks
+new ground, moreover, in that her book illustrates the
+whole present trend of social work as applied to individuals.</p>
+
+<p>Grateful acknowledgment should be made to the social
+case workers who have furnished valuable contributions
+to the body of data gathered for the present study.
+Miss Colcord wishes mention made of her especial indebtedness
+to Miss Betsey Libbey, Miss Helen Wallerstein
+and Miss Elizabeth Wood of Philadelphia; Mr. C.C.
+Carstens and Miss Elizabeth Holbrook of Boston;
+Mrs. A.B. Fox and Mr. J.C. Murphy of Buffalo; Miss
+Caroline Bedford of Minneapolis; Mr. Stockton Raymond
+of Columbus; Mrs. Helen Glenn Tyson of Pittsburgh;
+Mr. Arthur Towne of Brooklyn; Mr. E.J.
+Cooley, Mr. Charles Zunser, Mr. Hiram Myers, and
+Miss Mary B. Sayles of New York. Many others not
+here mentioned were untiring in answering questions
+and furnishing needed information.</p>
+
+<p>
+MARY E. RICHMOND<br />
+<i>Editor of the Social Work Series</i><br />
+NEW YORK, May, 1919.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS" /><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='left'><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a></td><td align='right'></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><a href="#I">INTRODUCTION</a></td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><a href="#II">WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?</a></td><td align='right'>17</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><a href="#III">CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT</a></td><td align='right'>50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#IV">FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND</a></td><td align='right'>65</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><a href="#V">FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION</a></td><td align='right'>91</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><a href="#VI">THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT</a></td><td align='right'>106</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#VII">THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (<i>Continued</i>)</a></td><td align='right'>125</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#VIII">THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER</a></td><td align='right'>149</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><a href="#IX">NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT</a></td><td align='right'>164</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><a href="#X">NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT</a></td><td align='right'>185</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='left'><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td><td align='right'>201</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>BROKEN HOMES</h2>
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I" />I</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></p>
+
+
+<p>It has frequently been said that desertion is
+the poor man's divorce but, like many epigrams,
+this one hardly stands the test of experience.
+When examined closely it is neither
+illuminating nor, if the testimony of social case
+workers can be accepted, is it true. It is true,
+of course, that many of the causes of domestic
+infelicity which lead to divorce among the well-to-do
+may bring about desertion among the less
+fortunate, but the deserting man does not, as a
+rule, consider his absences from home as anything
+so final and definite as divorce.</p>
+
+<p>In a study of desertion made by the Philadelphia
+Society for Organizing Charity in 1902,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> it
+<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>was found that 87 per cent of the men studied
+had deserted more than once. The combined
+experience of social workers goes to show that a
+comparatively small number of first deserters
+make so complete a break in their marital relations
+that they are never heard from again, and
+that an even smaller number actually start new
+families elsewhere, although no statistical proof
+of this last statement is available. One social
+worker of experience says that in her judgment
+desertion, instead of being a poor man's divorce,
+comes nearer to being a poor man's vacation.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A man who had always been a good husband and
+father was discharged from hospital after a long and
+exhausting illness and returned to his family&mdash;wife and
+seven children&mdash;in their five-room tenement. Ten days
+later he disappeared suddenly, but reappeared some two
+weeks later in very much better health and ready to resume
+his occupation and the care of his family. His
+explanation of his apparent desertion was that he was
+unable to stand the confusion of his home and &quot;had
+needed rest.&quot; He had &quot;beaten his way&quot; to Philadelphia
+and visited a friend there.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The reporter of the foregoing remarks that it
+illustrates &quot;unconscious self-therapy,&quot; and that
+<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>the patient's disappearance might have been
+avoided if the services of a good medical-social
+department had been available at the hospital
+where the man was treated.</p>
+
+<p>It is more difficult to justify the thirst for
+experience of another deserting husband who
+came to the office of a family social agency
+after an absence of a few months, with effusive
+thanks for the care of his family and the explanation
+that he &quot;had always wanted to see the
+West, and this had been the only way he could
+find of accomplishing it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In fact, case work has convinced social workers
+that there are few things less permanent
+than desertion. In itself this provisional quality
+tends to create irritation in the minds of many
+of the profession. It is upsetting to plan for a
+deserted family which stops being deserted, so
+to speak, overnight. But in their understandable
+despair social workers sometimes overlook
+essential facts about the nature of marriage.
+The <i>permanence</i> of family life is one of the foundation
+stones of their professional faith; yet
+they may fail to recognize certain manifestations
+<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>of this permanence as part and parcel of the end
+for which they are striving. They would see no
+point in the practice adopted by a certain social
+agency which deals with many cases of family
+desertion. This society, when it has had occasion
+to print copies of a deserter's photograph
+to use in seeking to discover his present whereabouts,
+often presents his wife with an enlargement
+of the picture suitable for framing. The
+procedure displays, nevertheless, a profound insight
+not only into human nature but into the
+human institution called marriage.</p>
+
+<p>In the next chapter will be considered some of
+the causes that make men leave their homes.
+To deal effectively with the situation created by
+desertion, however, we have need of a wider
+knowledge than this. Not only what takes men
+away but what keeps them from going, what
+brings them back, what leads to their being forgiven
+and received into their homes again, are
+matters that seriously concern the social case
+worker. What is it that makes this plant called
+marriage so tough of fiber and so difficult to
+eradicate from even the most unfriendly soil?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>It is fortunate (since the majority of case
+workers are unmarried) that simply to have
+been a member of a family gives one some understanding
+of these questions. The theorist who
+maintains that marriage is purely economic, or
+that it is entirely a question of sex, has either
+never belonged to a real family or has forgotten
+some of the lessons he learned there.</p>
+
+<p>Many volumes have been written upon the
+history of marriage, or rather of the family,
+since, as one historian justly puts it, &quot;marriage
+has its source in the family rather than the
+family in marriage.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In all these studies the
+influence of law, of custom, of self-interest, and
+of economic pressure, is shown to have molded
+the institution of marriage into curious shapes
+and forms, some grievous to be borne. But is
+it not after all the crystallized and conventionalized
+records of past time which have had to
+be used as the source material of such studies,
+and could the spiritual values of the family in
+<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>any period be found in its laws and learned discourses?
+We might rather expect to find students
+of these sources preoccupied with the outward
+aspects, the failures, the unusual instances.
+It is as true of human beings as of nations, that
+the happy find no chronicler. &quot;Out of ...
+interest and joy in caring for children in their
+weakness and watching that weakness grow to
+strength, family life came into being and has
+persisted.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It is hardly conceivable that in
+any society, however primitive, there were not
+some real families&mdash;even when custom ran otherwise&mdash;in
+which marriage meant love and kindness
+and the mutual sharing of responsibilities.
+And these families, today as always, are the creators
+and preservers of the spiritual gains of the
+human race. It has been beautifully said of the
+family in such a form, that &quot;it is greater than
+love itself, for it includes, ennobles, makes permanent,
+all that is best in love. The pain of life is
+hallowed by it, the drudgery sweetened, its pleas<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>ures
+consecrated. It is the great trysting-place
+of the generations, where past and future flash
+into the reality of the present. It is the great
+storehouse in which the hardly-earned treasures
+of the past, the inheritance of spirit and character
+from our ancestors, are guarded and preserved
+for our descendants. And it is the great
+discipline through which each generation learns
+anew the lesson of citizenship that no man can
+live for himself alone.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It follows that the
+most trying and discouraging feature of social
+work with deserted wives; namely, their determination
+to take worthless men back and back
+again for another trial, is often only a further
+manifestation of the extraordinary viability of
+the family.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that, into this enduring quality, many
+elements enter, some homely or merely material.
+A desire for support, or for a resumption of
+sex relations, may play a part in a wife's decision
+to forgive the wanderer. There are many
+other factors&mdash;use and wont; pride in being
+<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>able to show a good front to the neighbors; a
+feeling that it is unnatural to be receiving support
+from other sources. Just the mere desire
+to have his clothes hanging on the wall and
+the smell of his pipe about, the hundreds of
+small details that go to make up the habit of
+living together, have each their separate pull on
+the woman whose instinct to be wife and mother
+to her erring man is urging her to give in; Home
+is, in both their minds,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot; ... the place where when you have to go there<br /></span>
+<span>They have to take you in....<br /></span>
+<span>Something you somehow haven't to deserve.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A woman who had left her home town and
+found clerical work in a strange city, in order
+not to be near her syphilitic husband from whom
+she had determined to separate, said, &quot;When
+you've been married to a man, you can't get
+over feeling your place is with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>However we may deplore the results in a
+given case, the spineless woman who takes her
+<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>husband back many times may nevertheless be
+giving a demonstration of the thing we are
+most interested in conserving&mdash;the durability
+and persistence of the family. And so the social
+worker who is enabled by experience or imagination
+to enter into the real meaning of family
+life is neither scornful nor amused when Mrs.
+Finnegan is found, on the morning when her
+case against Finnegan is to come up in the
+domestic relations court, busily washing and
+ironing his other shirt in order that he may
+make a proper appearance and not disgrace the
+family before the judge.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An attempt will be made in this small book
+to analyze some causal factors in the problem of
+the deserter, to touch upon recent changes in the
+attitude of social workers toward deserted families,
+to present illustrations from the best discoverable
+practice in the treatment of desertion, and
+to suggest certain possible next steps, both on the
+legal and on the social side. For lack of space, it
+will be impossible to consider the closely related
+problems of the deserting wife, the unmarried
+<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>mother, or the divorced couple. It is assumed
+throughout that the reader is familiar with the
+general theory of modern case work; and no more
+is here attempted than to give a number of suggestions
+which will be found to be practical, it
+is hoped, when the social worker deals with the
+home marred and broken by desertion, or when
+he seeks to prevent this evil by such constructive
+measures as are now possible.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia
+Society for Organizing Charity, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Goodsell, Willystine: The Family as a Social and Educational
+Institution, p. 8. New York, The Macmillan Co.,
+1915.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Byington, Margaret F.: Article on &quot;The Normal
+Family,&quot; <i>Annals of the American Academy of Political
+and Social Science</i>, May, 1918.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Bosanquet, Helen: The Family, p. 342. London,
+Macmillan &amp; Co., 1906.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Frost, Robert: North of Boston, p. 20. New York,
+Henry Holt &amp; Co., 1915.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II" /><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>II</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?</b></p>
+
+
+<p>&quot;Before the deserter there was a broken
+man,&quot; said a district secretary who has
+had conspicuous success in dealing with such men.
+By this characterization she meant not necessarily
+a physical or mental wreck, but a man bankrupt
+for the time being in health, hopes, prospects,
+or in all three; a man who lacked the power or
+the will to dominate adverse conditions, who had
+allowed life to overcome him. Such an unfortunate
+may not be conscious of his own share in
+bringing about the difficulties in which he finds
+himself, but he is always aware that something
+has gone seriously wrong in his life. His grasp of
+this fact is the one sure ground upon which the
+social worker can meet him at the start.</p>
+
+<p>We should distinguish between the <i>causes</i>
+that bring about a given desertion, and the
+<i>conscious motives in the mind of the deserter</i>. It
+<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>is well for the social worker to make the latter
+the starting point in dealing with the man, accepting
+the most preposterous as at least worthy
+of discussion. The absconder is often too inarticulate
+and ill at ease to give a clear picture
+of what was in his mind when he went away.
+If he was out of work, it may have been a perfectly
+sincere belief that he would find work
+elsewhere, or perhaps only a speculative hope
+that he might. (These are not in the beginning
+genuine desertions, but often become so later
+on.) It is possible that, beset by irritations and
+perplexities, the thought of cutting his way out
+at one stroke from all his difficulties made an
+appeal too strong to be resisted. Or perhaps
+he flung out of the house and away, in a passion
+of anger and jealousy which later crystallized
+into cold dislike. The spell of an infatuation
+for another woman might well have been the
+cause; or he may have been mentally deranged
+through alcohol. Simple weariness of the burden
+which he has not strength of body or mind
+to carry and ought never to have assumed is
+one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure
+<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>to realize or in his heart accept the binding
+nature of his obligations is another.</p>
+
+<p>His temperamental instability may have been
+such that the desire for a change&mdash;the &quot;wanderlust&quot;&mdash;was
+driving him to distraction. Or
+perhaps, under the urge of his own subconscious
+feeling of failure, he may have convinced
+himself that if he could &quot;shake&quot; the old environment
+and all in it that hampered him, he could
+take a fresh start and make good. &quot;If I could
+only get to California,&quot; sighed Patrick Donald,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>
+&quot;I have a feeling things would be different.&quot;
+With too much imagination to be content with
+the situation in which he found himself, Donald
+had not imagination enough to realize that he
+would have to take his old self with him wherever
+he went, and that he might better fight
+things out where he stood. Men of his sort
+yearn constantly for the future, not realizing
+that in its truest sense the present <i>is</i> the future.</p>
+
+<p>Only in rare instances will the deserter accept
+the entire responsibility for his act. To try to
+<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>find justification for doing what we want to do
+is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter
+is no exception. He attempts to &quot;rationalize&quot;
+his conduct and so regain his sense of
+self-approval and well-being by finding excuses
+and justifications in the conduct of others.
+Even when the fault is all his, he usually succeeds
+in making himself believe that his wife
+is more to blame than he for his having left
+home.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The social worker who attempts to
+deal with the situation the deserter creates
+should know this attitude in advance and be
+prepared, through some simple rule-of-thumb
+psychology, to attack the obsession and bring
+him, first of all, to see and face squarely his
+own responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>Many blanket theories have been developed
+to explain desertion&mdash;that it is due to economic
+pressure; that it is the result of bad housekeeping;
+that its causes can all be reduced to
+sex incompatibility. All these factors: undoubt<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>edly
+have their bearing on the problem, but
+there is no one cause or group of causes underlying
+breakdowns in family morale. The ratio
+of desertions has been observed to decrease
+rather than to increase in &quot;hard times&quot;;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> moreover,
+it is a matter of common observation that
+not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted,
+and that many married couples in all
+walks of life whose sex relationships are unsatisfactory,
+nevertheless maintain the fabric of
+family life and support and bring up their children
+with an average degree of success. None
+of these three factors alone will serve, therefore,
+as a fundamental causation unit in desertion.
+Many statistical attempts have been made to
+study the causes of desertion, and to assign to
+each its mathematical percentage of influence.
+The report of a court of domestic relations gives
+such an analysis of over 1,500 cases, listing 25
+causes, and carefully calculating the percentage
+of cases due to each. A summary of these
+<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>percentages grouped under five heads is as follows:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='left'><i>Percentage</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1.</td><td align='left'>Distinct sex factors</td><td align='right'>39.03</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>2.</td><td align='left'>Alcohol and narcotic drugs</td><td align='right'>37.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>3.</td><td align='left'>Temperamental traits</td><td align='right'>15.40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>4.</td><td align='left'>Economic issues</td><td align='right'>6.27</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>5.</td><td align='left'>Mental and physical troubles</td><td align='right'>2.30</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>100.00</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>It would be easy to criticize the foregoing on
+the score of grouping. Can alcoholism and drug
+addiction be separated from mental and physical
+disorders? And how distinguish infallibly between
+sex factors, temperamental traits, and mental
+disabilities? But the main defect in such
+statistical studies is that they assume in each case
+one cause, or at least one cause sufficiently dominant
+to dwarf the rest; and few of the causes
+listed are really fundamental. The mind instinctively
+begins to reach back after the causes of all
+these causes. The social worker who made the
+sweeping assertion that there are two great reasons
+for marital discord&mdash;&quot;selfishness in men and
+peevishness in women,&quot;&mdash;came a good deal nearer
+<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>to an accurate statement of fact with infinitely
+less trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Looked at from the point of view of the social
+worker, desertion is itself only a symptom of some
+more deeply seated trouble in the family structure.
+The problem presented, if it could have
+been recognized in time, is not essentially different
+from what it would have been before the
+man's departure. Without attempting, therefore,
+any statistical analysis of the causes of desertion,
+we may nevertheless be able to examine one by
+one a number of possible <i>contributory factors</i> in
+marital unhappiness and therefore in desertion.
+No attempt will be made in the list that follows
+to distinguish between primary and secondary
+causes, nor to arrange them in any order of
+importance. An effort to get from case workers
+lists so arranged resulted only in confusion, each
+person emphasizing a different set of factors.
+The groupings here given, therefore, are no more
+than a placing of the more obviously related
+factors together and a leading from past history
+up to the present.</p>
+
+<p>Considering first the personal as distinguished
+<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>from the community factors in desertion, these
+may be listed as follows:</p>
+
+<div><br /></div>
+<p><b>CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE MAN AND WOMAN</b></p>
+
+<p><b>1. Actual Mental Deficiency.</b>&mdash;Character weaknesses
+such as were spoken of earlier in this
+chapter grade down by degrees into real mental
+defect or disorder, and not even the psychiatrist
+can always draw the line.</p>
+
+<p>A physician connected with the Municipal
+Court in Boston gives as his opinion that while
+the percentage of actually insane or feeble-minded
+among deserters is no higher than among
+other offenders they are extremely likely to
+present some of the phenomena of psychopathic
+personality. Such people have to be studied by
+the social worker and the psychiatrist, and not
+from the behavior side only, but with a view to
+discovering what sort of equipment for life was
+handed down to them from their family stock.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The plan for the future of a fifteen-year-old boy which
+was made by a society for family social work was markedly
+modified when it was discovered that not only his
+<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>father but his grandfather had been a man of violent and
+abusive temper, who drank habitually and neglected their
+family obligations. With this sort of heredity and an
+ineffective mother, whom he was accustomed to seeing
+treated with abuse and disrespect, it was felt important
+to remove the boy, who showed some promise, to surroundings
+where he could be under firm discipline and
+learn decent standards of family life.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Feeble-mindedness, closely connected as it usually
+is with industrial inefficiency in the man, bad
+housekeeping in the woman, and lack of self-control
+in both, is of course, a potent factor in
+non-support and probably also in desertion.</p>
+
+<p><b>2. Faults in Early Training.</b>&mdash;To low ideals of
+home life and of personal obligation, which
+were imbibed in youth, can be traced much
+family irresponsibility. It is by no means the
+rule, however, for children always to follow in
+the footsteps of weak or vicious parents; and
+it is the experience of social workers that such
+children, taught by observation to avoid the
+faults seen in their own homes, often make good
+parents themselves. Perhaps even more insidious
+in its effect on later marital history is
+<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>the home in which no self-control is learned.
+The so-called &quot;good homes&quot; in which children
+are exposed to petting, coddling, and overindulgence&mdash;and
+these homes are not confined to the
+wealthy&mdash;produce adults who do not stand up
+to their responsibilities. A probation officer in
+Philadelphia tells of the mother of a young
+deserter who could not account for her son's
+delinquency. &quot;He <i>ought</i> to be a good boy,&quot; she
+complained; &quot;I carried him up to bed myself
+every night till he was eleven years old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><b>3. Differences in Background.</b>&mdash;Even though both
+man and wife come from good homes, if those
+homes are widely different in standards and in
+cultural background strains may develop in later
+life between the couple. Differences in race, religion
+and age are recognized as having a causative
+relation to desertion. Miss Brandt<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> found
+that, in about 28 per cent of the cases where
+these facts were ascertained, the husband and
+wife were of different nationality. &quot;In the
+<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>general population of the United States in 1900
+only 8.5 per cent was of mixed parentage, and
+for New York City the proportion was less than
+13 per cent.... A difference in nationality
+was more than twice as frequent among the
+cases of desertion as among the general population
+of the city where it is most common.&quot;
+Miss Brandt's figures for difference of religion
+are less significant, but it existed in 19 per cent
+of the total number of cases for which information
+on this point was available. In 27 per cent of
+the families where age-facts were learned, there
+were differences of over six years between the
+two; in 15 per cent the woman was older than
+the man.</p>
+
+<p>Other differences which should find mention
+under this heading are those that arise when
+the environment is changed by immigration.
+The man who precedes his wife by many years
+in coming to America has often outgrown her
+when she finally joins him, even if he has formed
+no other family ties. The handicap is not
+wholly overcome when the couple come to this
+country together, for the much greater oppor<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>tunities
+of the man to learn American ways may
+drive a wedge between him and his wife. On
+the other hand it is a popular saying, particularly
+among young Italian immigrants, that girls who
+have been in America too long do not make good
+wives, that when a man wants to marry he had
+better send for a girl from the old country; and
+these marriages seem on the whole to turn out
+well.</p>
+
+<p><b>4. Wrong Basis of Marriage.</b>&mdash;Included here
+should be hasty marriages, mercenary marriages,
+marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy
+had occurred, as well as marriages where
+coercion was a factor for other reasons.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>When there have been sex relations before
+marriage, unless the custom of the community
+sanctions such intimacy, there are likely to develop
+jealousies, quarrels, and ill feeling. &quot;He
+do be always castin' it up at me, but sure, 'twas
+himself was to blame&quot; is one version of the age-old
+story.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>There should also be included here those irregular
+unions called &quot;common law marriages,&quot;
+which are still permitted in many of our states.
+The protection supposed to be afforded to the
+woman by this institution is mainly fictitious, as
+it is practically impossible to secure conviction
+for bigamy if one of the marriages was of the
+common law variety. A common law husband
+who deserts, even if he admits his wife's legal
+claim upon him, does not feel morally bound;
+and this fact undoubtedly plays its part in the
+causation of such desertions.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p><b>5. Lack of Education.</b>&mdash;More is included under
+this title than scanty &quot;book-learning.&quot; Not only
+the morally undisciplined child but the mentally
+undisciplined youth is handicapped as spouse and
+parent. Ignorance of the physical and spiritual
+bases of married life is a potent cause of desertion.
+So also is a limited industrial equipment. Irregular
+school attendance, early &quot;working papers,&quot;
+a dead-end job with no educational possibilities
+<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>in it&mdash;these form a frequent background for later
+unsuccess in life and in marriage.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>There seemed at first no good explanation for the
+desertion of Alfred West. Both his record and his wife's
+were good, and their mutual fondness for the children
+seemed a strong bond. They constantly bickered, however,
+over the small income Alfred was able to earn, and
+his wife and her relatives &quot;looked down&quot; upon him as
+being lower than they in the social scale. Inquiry into
+past history showed that he had grown up in a southern
+community where there were no facilities for education,
+and that he could not even read and write until after his
+marriage. Although of average capacity, he was restricted
+by his early lack of training in his choice of a job;
+and the mortification and sense of inferiority which his
+wife fostered led to discouragement and indifference,
+which ended in desertion. A thorough understanding of
+the two backgrounds involved enabled a social worker to
+effect a real reconciliation, with the woman's eyes opened
+to her ungenerous behavior and the man taking steps to
+improve his education in a night school.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>6. Occupational Faults.</b>&mdash;Closely allied to the
+foregoing, and in some respects growing out of
+it, are the shortcomings on the employment
+side that contribute to marital instability. Most
+of these can be referred back to lack of education
+or opportunity in youth, or to defects of char<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>acter.
+Laziness, incompetence, lack of skill in
+any trade, lack of application, or, on the other
+hand, the possession by a man with no business
+&quot;stake&quot; in the community of a trade at which
+he can work wherever he takes a fancy to go,
+or of a trade which is seasonal and shifting&mdash;all
+these have a direct relation to desertion.</p>
+
+<p>The wife's competence and willingness to earn
+often seems to have a causal connection with
+the man's failure as &quot;provider.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>Corresponding to and complementing the
+man's industrial defects, and springing from the
+same causes, is the woman's failure in the business
+of being a housewife. The wife's laziness,
+incompetence, lack of interest, and lack of skill
+and knowledge create, as one case worker puts
+it, &quot;the sort of home that tends to get itself
+deserted.&quot; These faults of the wife are responsible
+for as many desertions, probably, as are the
+faults of the husband. When the man and the
+wife are both industrial failures we get the
+extremity of family breakdown to be found in
+records of &quot;chronic non-support&quot; cases.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a><b>7. Wanderlust.</b>&mdash;As a cause of family desertion
+this has probably been overestimated. Some
+item of this sort appears in every list of causes
+of desertion which has ever been compiled, and
+there are more or less exceptional cases in which
+it probably plays a part. The boy who becomes
+a vagabond in childhood and early takes to the
+road does not, however, seem to be a marrying
+man; and the instances from case work in
+which it is clear that the thirst for adventure
+was at the bottom of desertion are rare. The
+man whose line of work before marriage led
+him from place to place seems, in fact, hardly
+to contribute his quota to the ranks of wife-deserters,
+and it is unusual to find sailors or
+other wanderers from force of circumstance figuring
+among them.</p>
+
+<p><b>8. Money Troubles.</b>&mdash;As has already been said,
+it is impossible to show any direct relation between
+small incomes and desertion. The connection
+between low wage and non-support is
+of course a great deal closer. The inadequate
+income unquestionably acts indirectly to break
+<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>down family morale in much the same way as
+does lowered physical vitality.</p>
+
+<p>But marital discord that springs from the
+<i>handling</i> of the family finances is another matter,
+and it recurs regularly in the history of
+what went on prior to desertion. One deserter,
+traced to a southern city, returned voluntarily
+and begged the assistance of the social worker
+interested to reform his wife's spending habits.
+&quot;I made good money and I never opened my
+pay envelope on her,&quot; said he, &quot;but the week's
+wages was always gone by Thursday.&quot; Many
+men, however, who make a boast of turning over
+unbroken pay envelopes to their wives borrow
+back so much in daily advances that their net
+contribution is only a fraction of their wages.</p>
+
+<p>Some desertions brought about by financial
+difficulties are not, strictly speaking, marital
+problems at all. Debts resulting from his own
+extravagance or dishonesty may cause a man to
+leave home to escape prosecution or disgrace.
+One such man kept in touch with his family,
+sending money at irregular intervals for some
+years, but always moving on to another place
+<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>before he could be found. It proved impossible
+to get in communication with him, and finally
+he stopped writing and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p><b>9. Ill Health: Physical Debility.</b>&mdash;All social workers
+agree that physical condition plays a part,
+though usually only indirectly and secondarily,
+in causing desertion. In the man, it may lower
+his vitality, cause irregular work, and superinduce
+a condition of despondency and readiness
+to give in. In the woman, it brings about careless
+housekeeping, loss of attractiveness, and disinclination
+to marital intercourse&mdash;all factors
+which contribute directly to desertion. Continued
+ill health of the wife brings burdens,
+financial and other, which may help through
+discouragement to break down the husband's
+morale.</p>
+
+<p>There should be included here some consideration
+of one of the most puzzling types of
+abandonment&mdash;the &quot;pregnancy desertion.&quot; Attempts
+have been made to explain it on the
+ground of the instinctive aversion of the male
+sex for domestic crises. But the impulse that
+<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>causes the prosperous householder to move to
+his club when house-cleaning time arrives will
+hardly serve to explain such a custom, and as a
+matter of fact other domestic crises, such as
+illnesses of the children, do not have any such
+effect upon the man who habitually absents
+himself from home before the birth of each
+child. Other possible reasons for it are the
+well-known irritability and &quot;difficulty&quot; of women
+in this condition, and their aversion to sexual
+intercourse. Some pregnancy deserters take
+the step in the hope that their wives will bring
+about an abortion; but this is a modern and
+sophisticated development and the institution of
+&quot;pregnancy desertion&quot; is one of undoubted
+antiquity. Its prevalence among certain European
+immigrants would almost point to its
+being a racial tradition. Ethnologists who have
+studied strange marriage customs, such as the
+&quot;couvade,&quot; ought to turn their attention to
+discovering the causes of this other and socially
+more important marital vagary.</p>
+
+<p><b>10. Temperamental Incompatibility.</b>&mdash;It is diffi<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>cult
+to catalogue and appraise the causal factors
+in desertion that lie in personality. They are
+closely related to differences in background and
+are intimately involved with the sex relations of
+the pair. We cannot, however, admit that they
+are identical with the latter, as some students
+of the subject claim; or that the only incompatibility
+in marriage is sex incompatibility.
+Indeed, two people may be so incompatible as
+to find in sex their only common ground.</p>
+
+<p>The commonest of these temperamental differences
+center about standards of right and
+wrong or proper and improper conduct. Especially
+is this manifested in the bringing up of
+the children. Extreme self-righteousness on the
+part of one or the other, nagging and petty
+criticism, unreasonable jealousy, &quot;sulking spells,&quot;
+violent quarrels, are some of its manifestations.
+The idea of <i>possession</i> exercised by either of the
+couple, and especially a tendency to dominate
+or try to control on the part of the woman, may
+be a causal factor in desertion. The lack of a
+saving sense of humor in one or both is often
+a complicating factor. These comparatively
+<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>minor differences take on a serious complexion
+in the minds of the couple; and it is surprising
+how often a deserting man will give promptly
+and with every appearance of feeling justified
+some cause for his desertion which falls clearly
+under this head. &quot;People forgive each other
+the big things; it's the little things they can't
+forgive.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p><b>11. Sex Incompatibility.</b>&mdash;There comes under
+this heading a wide range of causative factors
+which play an important part in marital discord.
+Some of them are better understood by
+the social worker than was formerly the case;
+but many of them are obscure even to the practitioner
+of mental medicine, to whom their results
+come daily. Distasteful as the task may
+be, the social worker should familiarize herself,
+through reading or through instruction by a
+qualified physician, in the commoner forms of
+these maladjustments. This is not urged because
+it is part of the social worker's task to
+make detailed inquiry into such matters or to
+pass judgment upon them, but because they
+<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>often clamor for attention and need to be recognized
+by the first responsible person to whose
+notice they are brought. Unless she knows,
+for instance, what constitutes excess in sex relations,
+a worker may misunderstand the situation
+described to her and condemn a man for
+being a selfish brute, when the trouble is really
+sexual an&aelig;sthesia in the wife. It is well known
+that this single cause operates disastrously to
+disrupt many marriages or else to render them
+insupportable. The warning should be added,
+however&mdash;and it cannot be added too emphatically&mdash;that
+the social worker must scrupulously
+refrain from making diagnoses in these cases,
+even tentatively; she must refer such data as
+come to her either to the general practitioner
+or to the psychiatrist, selecting one or the other
+as the symptoms presented may indicate.</p>
+
+<p>Less well understood by the lay worker are
+actual maladjustments, both physical and mental
+(or spiritual), which prevent the complete
+satisfaction of one or both. Some of these are
+curable by medical care, others by instruction
+and education. This instruction should be
+<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>given, needless to say, by the physician and not
+by the case worker. If uncorrected such maladjustments
+are apt to result in marital shipwreck.</p>
+
+<p>No attempt can be made here to discuss actual
+sex perversions in their relation to desertion.
+Their effect is obvious; and the social worker
+should be sufficiently well informed, not only
+from a few standard books on the subject,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>
+but from a knowledge of the phrases which are
+used in the tenements, to understand them, so
+that significant symptoms are not overlooked.
+So intimately are sex difficulties connected with
+the neuroses that the lay social worker should
+consult the psychiatrist freely wherever one is
+available, before attempting to deal with them.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>12. Vicious Habits.</b>&mdash;Sexual immorality, through
+its degenerative effect on personality and the
+lowered ideals of marriage it induces, has a real
+effect in bringing about desertion. The &quot;other
+<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>man&quot; and the &quot;other woman&quot; type of desertion,
+however, is often itself only a consequence
+of a previously existing state of temperamental
+or sexual incompatibility. If these underlying
+causes can be attacked and changed such a desertion
+may be &quot;repairable.&quot;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A young man deserted his wife and three children and
+eloped with an eighteen-year-old girl who had made his
+acquaintance in a street car flirtation. He had been &quot;an
+obedient boy with good principles,&quot; and his later record
+showed steadiness and ability; but he and his wife had
+been drifting apart&mdash;their marital relations had not been
+&quot;quite the same&quot; as formerly. Arrested and brought
+back, he did not impute any blame to her, however, but
+said he &quot;must have been crazy.&quot; In spite of the circumstances,
+the judge decided to give him six months in the
+penitentiary; and a man visitor from the family social
+agency interested began at once to try to secure an
+influence over him. On his release the couple again went
+to housekeeping. The wife had been cautioned on how to
+receive him; but things went badly at first, and the man
+began again insisting that they were mismated. (He
+&quot;had the other girl still considerably on his conscience
+and heart.&quot;) Tangles continually arose which the
+society's visitor was hard put to it to straighten out. Once
+the wife found a letter from the girl; but finally, after the
+charity organization society in the city where he had
+left the girl reported that she was doing well and not
+<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>breaking her heart about him, the man decided to &quot;cut
+out&quot; the correspondence. A little later the girl eliminated
+herself by marrying. A year after the reconciliation the
+wife told the friendly visitor that the trouble was gone
+between them, and &quot;it was just like a new life.&quot; For
+another year efforts were continued to strengthen the
+attachment and make the home more attractive, at the
+end of which time it was felt that the home was stable
+enough to need no further supervision.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>For reasons of convenience we may include
+here the causal relations between venereal disease
+and desertion. In so far as syphilis brings
+about mental and physical deterioration, the
+relation between the two is obvious. The presence
+of the disease in the man, if known to his
+wife, may lead her to sever relations with him
+in self-protection, and this severance, in turn,
+may lead ultimately to desertion or complete
+separation. Often separation is desirable, but the
+syphilitic who is on the whole a good family man
+raises some of the most difficult questions with
+which the social worker has to deal. Whether
+to try to force him out of the home and thus
+make an unwilling deserter; whether to violate
+the diagnosis given in confidence by passing it
+<a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>on to the wife for her protection&mdash;these are only
+two of the puzzles that may arise.</p>
+
+<p>The relation of alcoholism to non-support and
+desertion is too well known to require discussion.
+The causative relation between alcohol and desertion
+is so direct that it probably ought not
+to be included under contributory causes at all.
+As it is an active poison to the cells of the nervous
+system, it may bring about deteriorations
+of mind and character that are directly to blame
+for such anti-social acts as desertion. The same
+is true in less degree of the use of narcotics;
+though drug habits are far less common in connection
+with desertion than alcoholism. What
+relation drugs and alcohol will hold to desertion
+after July 1, 1919, remains to be seen.
+Alcoholism in the woman is, however, a real
+contributory factor, and one frequently met
+with. The experience of social workers leads
+them to believe that alcohol is more devastating
+in its effects on character with women than with
+men, and that there is less hope of a cure. The
+great majority of so-called &quot;justifiable deserters&quot;
+are the husbands of alcoholic women.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>Gambling in its effect on family income will
+be discussed in connection with non-support, to
+which it bears a much more direct relation than
+to desertion. In its degenerative effect upon
+character it may have, however, a real causal
+relation to the latter.</p>
+
+<p>The habit of desertion itself is a degenerative
+one, not only upon the deserter but upon his
+home. The &quot;intermittent husband&quot; often
+weakens and demoralizes his wife in almost the
+same ratio as his own progress down-hill.</p>
+
+<div><br /></div>
+<p><b>CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE COMMUNITY</b></p>
+
+<p><b>1. Interference of Relatives.</b>&mdash;The tendency of
+relatives to take sides against their &quot;in-laws&quot;
+is a matter of everyone's observation. It is
+frequently found as a serious factor in desertion.
+Many case stories which will be used in the following
+chapters to illustrate other points show
+also the harmful interference of relatives in what
+might otherwise have been a fairly stable home.
+Relatives can be a factor in marital discord
+without actively interfering. One high-tempered
+<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>young couple formed what amounted to a habit
+of frequent quarrels and temporary separations
+simply because the parents of both stood ready
+to take them back whenever they chose to live
+apart. Relatives within the home as well as
+outside it may exercise an unfortunate influence
+on marital relations. The desertion of a middle-aged
+man who married a widow was found to be
+directly caused by the antagonism which grew
+up between him and his grown step-children.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>2. Racial Attitude toward Marriage.</b>&mdash;The racial
+factor is important in desertion. Not only the
+individual's own background, but the attitude
+of the people whence he sprang toward the sanctity
+of marriage, toward the position of women,
+and toward the importance of restraint in sexual
+relations, will have an effect upon the desertion
+rate of a given racial group. A study was recently
+made of 480 deserters known to the New
+York Charity Organization Society in 1916-17
+whose nationality was given. The results in
+percentage form are given for what they may be
+worth, compared with the same percentage in<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>
+2,987 families of known nationalities which were
+under care for all causes during the same year.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>NATIONALITY OR RACE</b></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Race Attitude Toward Marriage">
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Race or place of birth&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</b></td><td align='right'><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Per cent among 480 deserters</b></td><td align='right'><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Per cent among 2,987 families under care for all causes</b></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>United States&mdash;white</td><td align='right'>30.6</td><td align='right'>29.7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>United States&mdash;colored</td><td align='right'>11.2</td><td align='right'>5.6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Irish</td><td align='right'>9.7</td><td align='right'>14.7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Other British</td><td align='right'>5.0</td><td align='right'>4.7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>German</td><td align='right'>6.2</td><td align='right'>6.2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Italian</td><td align='right'>20.2</td><td align='right'>28.0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Austrian</td><td align='right'>5.5</td><td align='right'>4.8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Russian</td><td align='right'>2.8</td><td align='right'>1.0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Polish</td><td align='right'>3.3</td><td align='right'>1.2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Other</td><td align='right'>5.5</td><td align='right'>4.1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>100.0</td><td align='right'>100.0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><b>3. Community Standards.</b>&mdash;It cannot be too
+emphatically stated that any tendency in the
+community to belittle or ridicule the estate of
+matrimony has a definite cumulative effect on
+desertion. The &quot;when a man's married&quot; series
+in the comic supplements, certain comic films
+<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>in the moving picture shows, the form of drama
+popularly called &quot;bedroom farce&quot; are examples
+of these destructive forces. Most of the people
+who laugh at them accept them as a humorous
+formula and are not seriously affected by them;
+but their educational effect on young people is
+bound to be bad and false to the last degree.
+In so far as they overemphasize romantic love
+and disparage conjugal love, the theater and the
+popular press do this generation great disservice.</p>
+
+<p>Another way in which the community may
+affect the popular conception of marriage is in
+the administration of civil marriage. Lack of
+care in enforcing the laws and lack of gravity
+in performing the ceremonies may have a decided
+reaction on respect for those laws and for
+the institution itself. Similarly, the administration
+of divorce laws may affect the popular
+conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood
+condoned the situation in which a deserted
+wife immediately went to live with another man,
+on the ground that &quot;if they had been rich, they
+could have got a divorce.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a><b>4. Lack of Proper Recreation.</b>&mdash;This may seem a
+subject to be discussed under personal factors;
+but proper recreation, after all, depends in large
+measure upon what the community provides or
+makes available. The American tendency for the
+man to get his recreation apart from his family,
+in saloons and social clubs, is responsible for
+many family maladjustments. Any change in
+family habits of recreation which means that
+the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is
+a danger signal the seriousness of which is not
+always appreciated. Social workers are inclined
+to undervalue not only the influence of faulty
+recreation as a factor in family breakdown, but
+also the possibilities of good recreation as an
+aid in family reconstruction.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>5. Influence of Companions.</b>&mdash;As a factor in desertion
+this is closely connected with the two
+just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as
+they affect individuals, are apt to be transmitted
+through the small group that stands
+nearest, and a man's companions have the freest
+opportunity to influence him during their com<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>mon
+periods of recreation. The influence of
+companions is not often met as a force deliberately
+exerted to bring about desertion; but, on
+the other hand, a man's own mental contrast
+between his condition and that of his unmarried
+companions often plays a definite part in
+his decision to desert, if he has begun to yearn
+for freedom. The influence of companions is
+particularly connected with the &quot;wanderlust&quot;
+type of desertion.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>6. Expectation of Charitable Relief.</b>&mdash;It used to
+be held that many men who would otherwise
+remain at home and support, might be encouraged
+to desert if they had reason to believe
+that their wives and families would be cared
+for in their absence. This was no doubt often
+the case before social workers had learned to
+discriminate in treatment between deserted
+wives and widows, or to press with vigor the
+search for deserting men. At present, it is the
+experience of social workers that few men deliberately
+reckon upon transferring the burden
+<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>of their family's support to others, or are induced
+by these considerations to leave.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In trying to determine the cause for any given
+desertion it is well to keep in mind from the beginning
+that there is probably more than one,
+and that the obvious causes that first appear are
+almost certain themselves to be the effects of
+more deeply underlying causes. A young vaudeville
+actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish
+girl, a cabaret singer, and took her home to
+live with his parents. Was his subsequent desertion
+to be ascribed to difference in nationality
+and religion, to interference of relatives, to
+irregular and unsettling occupation, or to a
+combination of all three? Would all marriages
+so handicapped turn out as badly? If not, what
+further factors entered to lower the threshold of
+resistance to disintegration in this particular case?</p>
+
+<p>This last question is after all the most important
+one of the foregoing series. It is one
+which the social case worker must never be
+content to leave unanswered.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> All names of deserters given throughout the text are
+pseudonyms.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> For an excellent discussion of the process of rationalization
+see The Psychology of Insanity, Bernard Hart,
+Cambridge University Press, 1914.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> For a thoughtful discussion of this point see Eubank,
+E.E.: A Study of Family Desertion. Chicago Department
+of Public Welfare, 1916.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Brandt, Lilian: Family Desertion. The Charity Organization
+Society of New York City, 1905.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> For a fuller discussion of forced marriages, <a href="#Page_92">see p. 92 sq.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <a href="#Page_98">See also p. 98.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <a href="#Page_154">See also p. 154.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Two books may be suggested: Forel on The Sexual
+Question and Havelock Ellis on Sex in Relation to Society
+(Vol. VI of Studies in the Psychology of Sex).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <a href="#Page_70">See p. 70 sq. </a>for a discussion of collusive desertion.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III" /><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>III</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT</b></p>
+
+
+<p>Unconsciously and imperceptibly, the
+point of view about the treatment of desertion
+has been changing during the past fifteen
+years. The case worker's attention used to be
+focussed on the danger of increasing the desertion
+rate by a policy of too sympathetic care
+for deserters' families. Little study was made
+of individual causes, and in so far as there was
+a general policy of treatment it was to insist,
+wherever a desertion law existed, that the deserted
+wife go at once to court and institute
+proceedings against her husband. He was often
+not seen by the social worker until he appeared
+in court. The policy toward the family meantime
+was to reduce its size by commitment of
+the children until their mother could support
+herself unaided; or, if relief was given, to give
+smaller amounts than to a widow or the wife
+<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>of a man in hospital. As soon as the man had
+been placed under court order or had returned
+home, old records generally show that the social
+worker's efforts were relaxed, and often the final
+entry is, &quot;Case closed&mdash;family self-supporting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There were excellent reasons underlying much
+of the practice. Few laws were at that time in
+existence or at all adequately enforced, and any
+man who desired was at liberty, so far as the
+community was concerned, to walk off and leave
+his family at any time. The multiplicity of
+sources of relief in the large communities and
+the absence of anything resembling investigation
+constituted almost an invitation to men to
+desert. It did not occur to the charitable public
+to draw any line between the widow and the
+deserted wife, or indeed to inquire which of
+these two a woman was, so long as she was a
+good mother and &quot;seemed worthy.&quot; No wonder
+that the pioneering social agencies, busy
+forging tools out of the very ore, took a rigid
+stand on such a question of social policy as this.
+Although their deterrents failed to eradicate the
+evil of desertion or indeed to touch its sources,
+<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>there is little doubt that they did lessen its
+volume by creating a wholesome respect for the
+power of the law in the mind of the would-be
+deserter and by fostering in his wife a disposition
+to stand up for her rights. The more
+lenient and more constructive policies now in
+force have been made possible in part by these
+changes of attitude. The very fact that the
+collusive desertion, once fairly common, is now
+seldom met with, illustrates the salutary effects
+of the earlier methods of treatment.</p>
+
+<p>But the fact remains that no marked change
+has been seen in the desertion rate, that successive
+desertions have not been prevented in
+individual cases. Hardly any statistical figure
+in the work of family social agencies shows so
+little fluctuation from year to year and between
+different cities, as the percentage of deserted
+families. It generally forms from ten to fifteen
+per cent of the work of any such society.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, therefore, the repressive features
+of the earlier treatment have been abandoned,
+and there has come about a realization of the
+complexity of causes that bring about family
+<a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>breakdowns. In particular, the relation of sex
+maladjustments to failure in marriage have received
+the serious attention of the social worker.
+On the question of court intervention there has
+been almost a right-about face; the best social
+practitioners now say, unhesitatingly and unequivocally,
+that they take cases into court only
+as a matter of last resort, after case work methods
+have been tried and have failed. In no other
+case where court action is undertaken by one
+individual against another does the relation between
+them remain unchanged. One could not
+conceive of a business partnership failing to be
+annulled by one partner who brought suit
+against another; yet we expect the marriage
+relation to survive this. As a matter of fact,
+such is its vitality that it often does. But many
+times the result of court action is only to deaden
+once and for all the tiny spark from which
+marital happiness might have been rekindled.
+As long as it survives, both man and wife feel
+in their inmost hearts that, no matter what his
+offense, to &quot;take him to court&quot; is treason against
+the intangible bonds that still hold between
+<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>them. No matter how far apart they have
+drifted, or how unforgivable has been the deserter's
+offense, something irrevocable does happen
+to the fabric of marriage, a few poor shreds
+of which may still exist between the two, when
+his wife appears in a court of law to make complaint
+against him. It is an instinctive realization
+that she is abandoning hope which underlies
+many a woman's reluctance to &quot;take a
+stand against her husband.&quot; Many social workers
+(including some probation officers and court
+workers) now feel that such a stand should be
+urged only in the full conviction that the protection
+of the woman and children demands it,
+and that there is nothing else to be done.</p>
+
+<p>This must not, however, be interpreted as a
+criticism of the laws concerning desertion or of
+the courts which administer them. If they
+were not there in the background, ready to be
+taken advantage of when all else fails, the social
+worker's hands would be tied, and the possibility
+of a rich and flexible treatment of desertion
+problems would be lost to her. It is precisely
+because they had no such recourse that the case
+<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>workers of an earlier day had to adopt a policy
+which now seems rigid. It is because they were
+instrumental in securing better laws and specialized
+courts that the latter day social worker
+can push forward her own technique of dealing
+with homes that are disintegrating.</p>
+
+<p>Another great change in emphasis has been
+upon the question of interviewing the man, and
+of being sure that his side, or what he thinks is
+his side, has been thoroughly understood. Social
+workers are under conviction of sin in the matter
+of dealing too exclusively with the woman of
+the family; in desertion cases it is more than
+desirable, it is vitally necessary to have dealings
+with the man. Many social workers feel
+that, at all events with a first desertion, they
+would rather take the risk of having the man
+vanish a second time after having been found,
+than have him arrested before an attempt to
+talk the matter out with him. More stringent
+measures, they believe, can be resorted to later&mdash;but
+the man must first be convinced that he
+will be listened to patiently and with the intent
+to deal fairly. The case worker knows that the
+<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>power of the human mind to &quot;rationalize&quot;
+anti-social conduct is infinite; and that, besides
+the few &quot;justifiable deserters,&quot; there are many
+who have succeeded in convincing themselves
+that their action is warrantable. A deserter who
+could allege nothing else against his wife, averred
+that he had placed under the bed two matches,
+crossed, and a week later found them in the
+same position, proving his contention that she
+was slovenly and did not keep the rooms clean.</p>
+
+<p>The man who, aided by a sore conscience,
+has worked himself into such a state of mind
+as this must be permitted to talk himself out
+before he can be made to see the true state of
+affairs. In the minds of both man and woman
+there is likely to be found a superstructure of
+suspicion, jealousy, misinterpretation and distrust,
+built upon the basic fact of their incompatibility,
+which has to be pulled down before
+the true causes can be probed. To arrest a man
+in this state of mind is in his eyes simply to
+&quot;take sides&quot; against him. Eventually he may
+have to be arrested, but, in the case worker's
+experience, the chances of success are ten to
+<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>one if the man can be induced to take some
+voluntary step toward reconciliation without
+the intervention of the law. In many instances
+a real interview with the man, while not exonerating
+him, would have thrown new light on the
+woman's statements.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A family social work society writes: A young woman
+with her mother and little boy were referred for aid by
+a medical social department because her husband had
+deserted and she was unable to work. The doctors
+feared that her breakdown would result in insanity, so
+they asked that her wishes be respected in not seeing the
+man's family. She recovered, but it was later found
+that her husband, while not doing all that he might for
+her, had been living at home a good deal of the time and
+did not know that his family was in receipt of aid.</p>
+
+<p>Some years ago a charity organization society, which
+maintained a special bureau for treatment of desertion
+cases, was asked by a Mrs. Clara Williams to help her
+find her husband, John, who had left her some years
+previously and was living with another woman, so that
+she might force him to contribute to the support of herself
+and her two children. Mrs. Williams was a motherly
+appearing person who kept a clean, neat home, and
+seemed to take excellent care of her children. She was
+voluble concerning her husband's misdeeds and very
+bitter toward him, which seemed only natural. The fact
+of the other household was corroborated from other
+<a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>sources, and Mr. Williams' work references indicated that
+he had been quarrelsome and difficult for his employers
+to get along with, although a competent workman. The
+problem seemed to the desertion agent a perfectly clear
+and uncomplicated one and he proceeded to handle it
+according to the formula. Some very clever detective
+work followed, in the course of which the man was traced
+from one suburban city to another, and his present place
+of employment found in the city where his wife lived,
+although he lived just across the border of another state.
+The warrant was served upon the man as he stepped from
+the train on his way to work, and he appeared in the
+domestic relations court. He did not deny the desertion
+but made some attempt to bring counter charges against
+his wife. When questioned about his present mode of
+living he became silent and refused to testify further.
+He was placed under bond, which was furnished by the
+relatives of the woman with whom he was living, to pay
+his wife $6.00 a week. No probation was thought necessary
+and the case was closed, both the court and the
+charity organization society crediting themselves with a
+case successfully handled and terminated.</p>
+
+<p>About a year later Mrs. Williams again applied, stating
+that her husband's bond had lapsed, his payment had
+ceased, and that she had no knowledge of his whereabouts.
+Although her home and children were still immaculate
+she failed to satisfy the social worker who this time
+visited her home with the plausible story which she had
+told before. The children's health was not good and
+they seemed unnaturally repressed and unhappy. Ugly
+<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>reports that Mrs. Williams drank came to the society.
+The school teacher deplored the effect which the
+morbid nature of Mrs. Williams was having on her
+youngest child&mdash;a daughter just entering adolescence.
+The son, a boy a little older, was listless and unsatisfactory
+at his work, and defiant and secretive toward any
+attempt to get to know him better. He spent many
+nights away from home and was evidently not on good
+terms with his mother. As soon as Mrs. Williams saw
+that real information was desired she began indulging in
+fits of rage in which she displayed such an exaggerated
+ego as to cause some doubts as to her mentality. Baffled
+at every turn the case worker decided to interview the
+man, if possible, to see if through him any clue to the
+situation might be gained. The first step was to gain
+the confidence of a former fellow-workman and friend of
+his who now maintained his own small shop. This was
+done after several visits, the deserting husband consenting
+to an evening meeting in his friend's shop.</p>
+
+<p>A most illuminating interview followed. Mr. Williams
+was found to be an intelligent though melancholy and
+self-centered man. The couple had married somewhat
+late in life, it being Mrs. Williams' second marriage.
+She had been strongly influenced by her mother to
+marry him and had never had any real affection for
+him. It became very evident from his story that the
+strongly developed egotism of both the husband and
+wife had made a real marriage impossible between them,
+and the visitor became convinced of the genuineness of
+Mr. Williams' protestations that he endured the constant
+<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>abuse and ill-treatment of his wife as long as it had been
+possible to do so. As her drinking habits took more hold
+upon her and he had realized that the break was coming
+he had endeavored to place the children in homes, and
+had once had his wife taken into court. There her
+plausible story and good appearance resulted in the case
+being dismissed with a reprimand to the husband. He
+then left home, but continued to send her money at intervals,
+although as he got older he was able to earn less at
+his trade. Socialism was his religion, and it was his
+preaching of this doctrine in season and out to his fellow
+workmen which had earned him the ill-will of his employers.
+He defended his present mode of living, vigorously
+putting up a strong argument that it was a real marriage,
+whereas the other had only been a sham. He spoke in
+terms of affection of the woman who was giving him the
+only real home he had ever known, and only wished that
+the state of public opinion would permit his taking his
+young daughter into his home. The boy, he realized, had
+grown entirely away from him and they could never mean
+anything to each other. It was his habit to make frequent
+trips back to the region where his family lived in
+order that he might stand on the corner and watch his
+children go by. He gave readily much information about
+his own and his wife's past connections, including the
+addresses of many of her relatives whose existence she had
+denied, and he successfully proved that her claims as to
+his lapsed payments were false by producing the entire
+series of post office receipts covering his remittances to
+<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>her and extending down to the very week of the interview.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There have been striking changes not only in
+the treatment of the deserter but in that of his
+family. Writing in 1910, Miss Breed<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> deprecates
+the habit of fostering the deserter's &quot;easy-going
+conviction that his family will get along somehow
+without him&quot; by giving relief. She approves
+offering full support in an institution,
+but is reluctant to recommend any form of aid
+in the home, even from relatives. It is better,
+she feels, to give entire support to some of the
+children in foster homes, leaving the mother
+only those she can care for.</p>
+
+<p>Much can be said for even so stringent a
+policy as this. An unstable home, with a worthless
+father an intermittent member of the household,
+is as bad an environment as children can
+have&mdash;its very fluctuations making for nervous
+<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>instability and a wrong point of view later on.
+There is a possibility that other would-be deserters
+may be deterred by temporarily breaking
+up the home, and that an occasional absconding
+father may be brought back. But the fact remains
+that social workers have, in practice, departed
+far from this point of view. Out of more
+than twenty-five case workers of experience who
+were interviewed or written to in preparation for
+this book, only one believed there had not been
+a decided change toward a policy of more liberal
+relief.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>One district secretary told of a woman who had more
+than once taken back a disreputable husband whom she
+always professed to dislike. Aid was given sparingly and
+intermittently during his absences; but finally the
+woman in a burst of frankness told the secretary that she
+had never felt confident the society would stand behind
+her. Each time the man came back with money in his
+hand, she cheated herself into believing that he meant
+&quot;a new leaf.&quot; A budget was worked out with her, and a
+promise given of an adequate income as long as she kept
+her husband away. She has faithfully kept her side of
+the bargain for over three years.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The extension in many states of &quot;state aid to
+<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>mothers&quot; to cover deserted wives is an indication
+of this changed view. In most states, however,
+some safeguards are set up; the wife must
+take out a warrant, and a given number of years
+must elapse during which the man shall not
+have been heard from, before state aid can be
+granted to the wife.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, it is more clearly recognized than
+formerly that the time to &quot;close the case&quot; is
+not just after the man's return.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A case supervisor speaks of &quot;the strong temptation to
+close our records as soon as relief becomes unnecessary.
+The man's return to the family is often the critical point
+at which there is need of skilful and sympathetic friendship.
+These cases cry out for continued treatment. We
+need to think more humanely about all the unsettling
+elements in our urban civilization and to see that all the
+nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can
+make are made. If the man's work gives him no opportunity
+for self-expression, what attempt are we making to
+give him such opportunities outside his work, to connect
+him with a trade union, with clubs and with fraternities?
+How much are we thinking about cures for inebriates,
+psychoanalysis, vocational guidance, recreation?&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Briefly, then, changes in the social worker's
+attitude toward treatment have meant less
+<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>emphasis on punitive and repressive measures,
+more consideration of the man's point of view,
+less tendency to press court action, at least in
+the beginning, fewer commitments of children,
+a more liberal relief policy (partly as a preventive
+of &quot;forced reconciliations&quot;), and lastly,
+longer supervision after the man has resumed
+support of his family.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Adapted from the writer's article on &quot;Desertion and
+Non-Support in Family Case Work,&quot; <i>The Annals of the
+Academy of Political and Social Science</i>, May, 1918, p. 98.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Breed, Mary: Eleventh New York State Conference,
+1910, p. 76.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV" /><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND</b></p>
+
+
+<p>A few years ago a young Jewish woman reported
+to the National Desertion Bureau<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>
+that her husband had left her and their children.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The couple had never got on well, and the man seemed
+to have been a melancholy and impractical fellow. The
+usual methods of the Bureau brought no results in finding
+the missing husband. Then the wife was more carefully
+questioned, and urged to tell all that she could recall or
+had heard about her husband's early life, his tastes and
+peculiarities. Among other things the Bureau learned
+that the man's father had died in America years ago, having
+come here to make a home for the family left behind
+in Russia. The boy had grown up in ignorance of the
+place of his father's death and burial, and, as the eldest
+son, he felt it his duty to find his father's grave. Filled
+with this idea he came to America as soon as he was
+<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>grown and landed in New York, but his few poor clues
+availed him little against the difficulties of poverty and a
+new and complex environment. In the end he gave up
+the search, married, and settled down on the east side.
+After the sudden quarrel which led to his leaving home,
+his wife thought it possible that his old obsession might
+have reawakened. The Bureau, supplied with the clues
+in question, had little difficulty in discovering the father's
+burial place in St. Louis; and the cemetery authorities
+promised to send word if the missing husband should
+appear. Sure enough, a short time afterward he arrived,
+and, after visiting the grave, returned, not unwillingly,
+and took up his family duties again under the supervision
+of a probation officer.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The flexibility of method and the readiness to
+see and utilize new resources which are displayed
+in the foregoing account are great assets
+to the one who must institute search for a missing
+husband and father.</p>
+
+<p>The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a
+class of peculiar technical difficulty for the case
+worker is not simply that the man is away
+from his family. There is no man to deal with
+in a widow's family, but widows' families present
+comparatively simple problems. The deserter,
+though absent, is still not only a potential but
+<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>also a real factor in the family situation. The
+plans of the family are often made with one eye
+to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt
+obstacle to much that the social worker wants
+to accomplish. The children look forward to
+his reappearance with dread or with joy (for
+many deserters have a way with them, decidedly,
+and are welcome visitors to their children). In
+short, he is usually at the key point in the situation.
+No plan can safely be made that leaves
+him out, but&mdash;there's the rub!&mdash;you cannot include
+him at once for he is not to be reached,
+certainly not at the outset. The discovery of
+the deserter's whereabouts is not only the first
+but the most urgent of the problems that confront
+the worker who tries to deal with a deserted
+family. Unless he can be found the whole
+plan rests upon shifting sand.</p>
+
+<p>A prompt and vigorous effort to find the
+absentee is therefore a first requisite in dealing
+with family desertion. Unfortunately, many
+case workers, having started bravely and exhausted
+the first crop of clues, become discouraged
+and fall back on the supposition that the
+<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>man is permanently out of the scene, and that
+it only remains to make plans for the family.
+Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom
+of this assumption. It is not making an extreme
+statement to say that, as long as the family
+remains under active care or until the missing
+man is proved to be dead, the effort to find him
+should not be abandoned. Mr. Carstens, in
+discussing this point, says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>To carry on this search persistently is the great safeguard.
+It is rare when in the course of a few months the
+true state of affairs will not have been revealed, though it
+may have been quite hidden at the start.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is not to say that time must be spent
+unprofitably in going over the same ground, or
+that out-of-town agencies must be badgered to
+reinvestigate old clues. But the frame of mind
+that pigeonholes the whole matter as having
+been attended to must be shunned by the social
+worker, who should be always on the alert for
+new clues and prompt to follow them up. An
+example of a vigorous and persistent search for
+<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>a deserter is taken from the files of the National
+Desertion Bureau.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Adolph R. deserted his wife and their six little children
+on September 1, 1912. He was traced to Philadelphia,
+but had left there the day before the tidings reached New
+York. Information was obtained from fellow-employes
+which led to the belief that he had gone to Tampa,
+Florida. Inquiry was directed to the rabbi in that city,
+but again the information was disheartening, since it disclosed
+the fact that once more R. had &quot;left the day
+before.&quot; The rabbi telegraphed that the deserter had
+evidently gone to Lakewood, Florida, and that he could
+be found in that place. Immediately the Bureau dispatched
+a telegram to its representative there, only to
+find that R. had merely passed through Lakewood en
+route to Bartow, Florida. When the inquiry reached
+Bartow it was learned that R. had left a few days before,
+and that he was on his way to Memphis, Tennessee. The
+Jewish Charities of Memphis made investigation at the
+cigar factories of that city, but reported that no person
+bearing the name of R. or resembling him had been seen
+in their city. No further clue to his whereabouts could
+be secured.</p>
+
+<p>Months later R. applied to the Jewish Charities of
+Louisville for transportation to New York, making an
+entirely false statement about his family.</p>
+
+<p>This statement was telegraphed to the Bureau and no
+time was lost in securing a warrant. Louisville was noti<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>fied
+by wire to arrest, but again a telegram came: &quot;Adolph
+R. left city. Learned from Cigarmakers' Union headquarters
+he went to Cincinnati. Wire Joe Rapp, 1316
+Walnut Street, Cincinnati Union Headquarters. Man
+said he was going to Cincinnati or Indianapolis. Man
+joined union Richmond, Va., November 19, 1911, and
+reports to union in all cities.&quot; The Desertion Bureau
+immediately telegraphed to Cincinnati and Indianapolis.
+The United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati working together
+with the labor union lost little time in effecting his
+arrest.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Many theories about family desertion have
+suffered a change in recent years. One of these
+relates to the &quot;collusive desertion.&quot; Social
+workers in training used formerly to be taught
+that the first place to look for the deserter
+was around the corner, where he could slip
+back into the house and partake of charitable
+bounty or, at the very least, keep close watch
+of his family and return if any serious danger
+threatened them. Although the collusive desertion
+seems to have been a frequent happening in
+the past, there is almost unanimous testimony
+from case workers at the present time that it
+is not common. &quot;I don't come across an instance
+once a year,&quot; said one case worker.<a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Another, after searching her memory, recalled what
+seemed to her one instance of real collusion. A woman,
+pregnant and seeming to be in great destitution, applied
+to a family social work society in a small city for help.
+Careful search did not discover the man's whereabouts&mdash;he
+seemed to have disappeared without leaving a trace,
+and his wife professed ignorance. Some two weeks after
+this the visitor, calling late, met a man on the stairs who
+proved to be the missing husband. Times were hard and
+he was out of a job, so he had taken to the attic of their
+house, and had kept so strictly <i>incommunicado</i> that not
+only the society but the neighbors had been deceived.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Out of twenty or more case workers in different
+cities whose experience was sought on
+this point, nearly all felt that the warnings
+against possible collusion which used to be given
+to young workers no longer needed to be emphasized.
+Testimony in the other direction is,
+however, advanced by the National Desertion
+Bureau, which found that about 10 per cent of
+the applications made in 1910 to the United
+Hebrew Charities of New York for relief because
+of desertion were collusive.</p>
+
+<p>It should be said, however, that one form of
+collusion is common to the experience of case
+workers&mdash;that of the wife who knows where her
+<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>husband is, or has a very good idea, but does
+not want him to return and so keeps her knowledge
+to herself. &quot;In two of our regular allowance
+families,&quot; writes the case supervisor of a
+family agency, &quot;we discovered&mdash;one quite incidentally,
+one after the allowance had been discontinued
+for other reasons&mdash;that the wife had
+had reports regarding the man which we might
+have followed up had we known of them earlier.
+It could hardly be called collusion&mdash;it was mere
+indifference.&quot; A probation officer writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;At the present time we have under investigation a
+family where the man has been away from home for two
+years and his whereabouts during the last year have been
+known to his wife. He has been living in a suburb of the
+city and working steadily during that time. The woman
+has received adequate aid from public and private organizations.
+She has been content to accept that rather than
+notify the authorities and have her husband required to
+meet the responsibility. The man on his part was aware
+that his family was being supported, and while there was
+no agreement between the parties regarding it, nevertheless
+the arrangement apparently met with mutual
+approval.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To guard against this and similar omissions
+on the woman's part, more than one agency
+<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>which deals with family desertion requires the
+deserted wife to sign an affidavit that she has
+given all the information she possesses.</p>
+
+<p>Although in practice the possibility of a collusive
+desertion is not the first and most important
+thing to keep in mind, it is frequent
+enough not to be entirely forgotten. And for
+yet other reasons it is well to keep a watchful
+eye upon the neighborhood in which the family
+is living for reports about the man. Often obscure
+impulses seem to bring him back; jealousy
+of the wife or a desire to show himself in a
+spirit of bravado, or even sometimes a fugitive
+affection for the children he has abandoned may
+cause him to appear in the neighborhood. &quot;The
+deserter, like the murderer, harks back to the
+scene of his misdeeds&quot; was the generalization of
+one district secretary.</p>
+
+<p>Even when he does not appear in the flesh
+the deserter may seek news of his family. &quot;One
+deserter was found through the Attendance
+Department [of the public school system] to
+which he wrote after a three years' absence ask<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>ing
+the address of one of the children of whom
+he was especially fond.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There is little in the literature of the subject
+covering methods of discovering deserters, nor
+do case workers generally appear to have developed
+a special technique. The decided reaction
+against detective methods which has been apparent
+in the profession during later years may
+help to explain this fact. Most social workers
+feel a subconscious sense of injustice in having
+to do this work at all, since it is properly a
+function of the police. Prosecutors and police
+officials generally take very little interest in
+following up deserters, and have little idea of
+giving any treatment to the deserter who has
+been found other than arraignment and conviction.
+It is difficult for the probation officer or
+the family case worker to hold up the machinery
+of the law, once it has been started, and to do
+this long enough to find out whether some other
+form of treatment best suits the case. For
+these reasons the social worker usually prefers
+to do or else is forced to do the work of the
+<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>detective in desertion cases up to the point
+where arrest is in his judgment necessary.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A probation officer in D&mdash;&mdash; found that he could not
+work through the local police in searching for a certain
+deserter, because the missing man's political affiliations
+made them friendly to him. The probation officer knew
+in a general way that the man was likely to be in the city
+of S&mdash;&mdash; in the same state, so he secured a warrant and
+sent it with such slight clues as were at hand, to a probation
+officer of that city who was successful in the
+search. Avoiding the usual procedure, the warrant was
+served by the police in S&mdash;&mdash;. &quot;Several instances of
+this kind have occurred lately,&quot; writes the probation
+officer at D&mdash;&mdash;.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The necessity of doing the detective's work
+raises at once the question of how far the social
+worker can afford to adopt the detective's
+methods. If reformation of the man is the end
+sought it would seem an axiom that he must be
+given from the first every reason to believe that
+the social worker will play fair. &quot;We are very
+careful never to break a promise we have made
+to a man,&quot; says an agency which deals with
+many deserters. The same agency, as illustration
+of its own methods in seeking deserting
+<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>men, instances the case of a man who was being
+shielded by his sister, but was discovered by an
+officer who scraped acquaintance with her little
+boy and asked innocently, &quot;Where's your uncle
+Jack now?&quot; In another case the officer learned
+of a man's whereabouts through his relatives by
+representing himself as a lawyer's clerk calling
+about a legacy which had been left the man.
+In still another case, reported by a different
+agency, a man who had deserted his family was
+known to be receiving mail through the general
+delivery of another city. It was ascertained that
+he was writing to a woman in his home town.
+A letter was sent to him in care of General
+Delivery asking him to meet the writer (who was
+represented to be the young woman with whom
+he was corresponding). The wife was sent to
+that city and she and the local probation officer
+met the man and served the warrant.</p>
+
+<p>There is, of course, something to be said in
+favor of the use of such methods. The protection
+of the weak and helpless may justify, in
+certain circumstances, any subterfuge. But the
+<i>detective</i> who arrests the criminal in ways like
+<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>these is seeking his punishment and nothing else.
+There is no thought in that case of establishing
+personal relations and effecting the long, slow
+process of reformation. When social workers use
+such methods it should be in the full realization
+that they are foregoing any future advantage of
+straight dealing with the man. To capture a
+man by a trick is to declare war on him; and,
+in his mind, the social worker and the policeman
+then stand in the same place, &quot;I'd have
+him there to meet you,&quot; said a deserter's chum
+to a woman visitor, &quot;if I wasn't sure, in spite
+of your straight talk, you'd have a bull waiting
+behind a tree.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>If it is a first desertion, or if there is room for
+doubt whether an accident may have befallen
+the man, police and hospital records should be
+looked up.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A woman with four children applied to a charity
+organization society, saying her husband had disappeared.
+There was a rumor that someone had seen him fall off the
+dock while intoxicated, but no attempt had been made to
+confirm this and the family was treated as a deserted
+family for some months, until the man's body was found
+in the river and identified.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>If there have been previous desertions, it is
+extremely important to secure their history.
+The reasons that moved the man once are
+likely to do so again, and he is apt to return
+to his former haunts and be seen by former
+friends and acquaintances.</p>
+
+<p>The deserting man, unless he elopes with another
+woman, generally goes to some cheap
+lodging house or, if of foreign birth, he may
+seek out the quarter where those of his nationality
+reside and become a lodger in a family in
+which his native tongue is spoken. Hence, a
+canvass of the lodging houses&mdash;armed with a
+<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>photograph if possible&mdash;is a desirable first step.
+All of the social worker's casual acquaintance
+with the foreign quarters of his city comes into
+play in the search. If the man is in the city
+some &quot;landsmann,&quot; some &quot;paesano&quot; has seen
+him, and knows where he is to be found. It
+may even narrow down to finding the particular
+house on the particular street where the immigrants
+from a particular village in Sicily or
+Galicia have their abode. The pool-rooms and
+saloons of the district can often be made to
+yield information, especially if a man visitor
+can canvass them. In dealing in this way with
+mere acquaintances of the man, it is usually not
+necessary for the social worker to tell who he
+himself is or to state the purpose of his inquiry.
+In talking with relatives or close friends, however,
+it is often best to lay all cards on the table
+and convince one's listener first of all that the
+man sought will have fair treatment and a
+chance to state his side of the case before any
+proceedings are begun against him.</p>
+
+<p>Even a relative who has never been seen may
+sometimes be induced to act effectively.<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A man who deserted his wife and family was reported
+to have gone to his brother in another city. Nothing
+definite was known of the brother except that he was a
+telephone lineman. No address could be secured through
+the company, but they agreed to forward a letter to this
+relative. He never answered; shortly, however, the
+deserter reappeared, having been persuaded to return
+voluntarily by the brother to whom the letter had been
+addressed.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>During the war local draft boards were of the
+greatest assistance in finding deserting men.
+Election records too have been of real value in
+the case of men who were voters. Passports
+and immigration records may in some instances
+yield information helpful in establishing whereabouts.
+Where there is actually a warrant out
+for the man's arrest, the active co-operation of
+the postal authorities can sometimes be secured
+in furnishing return addresses on envelopes delivered
+to persons with whom the culprit is
+known to be in correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>Problems of family desertion involving men
+in service during the war were in the main
+handled by the Red Cross Home Service. Before
+the war, private case working agencies had
+<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>learned that the regular Army and the Navy
+often seemed desirable havens to would-be
+family deserters. The difficulties of finding
+them there were great, owing to the fact that
+they often enlisted as single men under an assumed
+name. It has usually been possible to
+gain excellent co-operation from the military
+authorities if there are any clues whatever.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The desertion bureau of a family social work society
+learned that a deserting man had expressed a desire long
+before he left his family to enlist in the Army. Several
+letters were exchanged with the War Department, and
+the man was finally found to be with a company serving in
+the Canal Zone. As he had made misrepresentations
+when he enlisted, the War Department was willing to
+transfer him from Panama to a camp within the limits of
+the city where the desertion had taken place and there
+discharge him. This brought the absconder within the
+jurisdiction of the local courts and made it possible to
+arrest him as soon as he was outside the bounds of the
+camp.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It will repay the visitor to make not only a
+careful study of the deserting man's employment
+history but also to learn something about the
+trade he follows. A cloakmaker, for instance,
+<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>who deserts in New York City is likely to be
+found in Cleveland, for these are the two centers
+of the cloak branch of the garment trade. Certain
+seasonal occupations give the periodical deserter
+a great opportunity. Among these are
+hop picking, berry picking, and lumbering. The
+amusement parks near the large cities also furnish
+occupation for the seasonal deserter. The
+case worker cannot be expected to have such
+knowledge at his finger-tips, but he can go to
+people who know about the fluctuations of particular
+trades&mdash;to employers, union officials or
+fellow-workmen who may throw light on a deserter's
+movements. The story of Adolph R.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> is
+an excellent illustration of the help that may be
+obtained from trades unions and from fellow-workmen.
+A family welfare bureau in a western
+city writes:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;In one instance a blacksmith's union published the
+picture of the deserting man in its official journal and
+asked that information regarding him be sent to the local
+unit here. This proved successful. In another instance
+a union gave us access to its books and helped us to trace
+<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>all the men of a given name listed there. By this means
+we found the man we were looking for. One man, a
+vaudeville performer, we traced through the <i>Bill Board</i>
+(a trade paper) by discovering the movements of the show
+with which he had been connected.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another society succeeded in getting a certain
+trade union to post a description and photograph
+of a missing man on its bulletin boards.
+This aided in finding the man. Fraternal orders
+may be; used in the same way, though for many
+reasons they cannot be so helpful as the trades
+unions.</p>
+
+<p>Employment agencies should not be forgotten
+in seeking to trace a man through his industrial
+record. The extension of the federal employment
+service, with free inter-city communication,
+should be of assistance in getting upon the
+track of deserters.</p>
+
+<p>The co-operation of newspapers can be secured
+to good effect in tracing missing men.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Herbert McCann, who had been doing railway construction
+in Russia, returned to this country and disappeared
+while en route from an eastern city to his home
+in Canada. There was reason to think that he might
+have left the train in an intoxicated condition at an
+<a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>important junction point; and the family social agency of
+that city was asked to trace him. No information was
+secured from the police, lodging houses, employment
+agencies, etc., and finally the following advertisement was
+inserted in the local paper: &quot;<i>Information Wanted</i>&mdash;Anyone
+knowing the whereabouts of Herbert McCann, Montreal,
+who returned from Russia in June, will confer a
+favor upon his family by notifying Social Service Building,
+34 Grand Street.&quot; Six days later a reply was
+received from a man in a nearby town, and McCann was
+found at work in a factory there.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>More than upon any other method the National
+Desertion Bureau depends on the publication
+of pictures and short newspaper paragraphs.
+As this Bureau deals entirely with
+Jewish deserters, it works chiefly through the
+Yiddish newspapers. Its &quot;Gallery of Missing
+Husbands&quot; is a regular weekly feature in some
+of the better known of these journals, and attracts
+increasingly wide attention. The Bureau
+estimates that 70 per cent of the deserters which
+it finds are discovered through the publication
+of pictures. It should be remembered, however,
+that this Bureau is dealing with a selected
+group, who know a great deal about one an<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>other,
+live closely together, follow in the main
+only a few trades, and read only a limited number
+of foreign-language newspapers. Whether
+anything like the same results could be obtained
+by the same methods applied to deserting husbands
+of many different national and social
+backgrounds is open to question.</p>
+
+<p>Since most deserters leave the city, if not the
+state, the social worker who is dealing with the
+family problem is often not the same person to
+whom is delegated the task of finding the man.
+This fact makes necessary the most careful and
+sympathetic co-operation between the social
+workers or agencies, which must work together
+at long range upon the problem. In the case
+of Herbert McCann, just cited, not less than
+four family social work societies were concerned&mdash;three
+in the United States and one in Canada.
+This necessitated keeping in the closest touch,
+by letter and telegram, so that each was informed
+of the doings of the others. Such a
+piece of work calls for a common body of experience
+and technique among the workers concerned,
+amounting almost to an unwritten under<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>standing
+as to how the work should be done.
+Nothing makes more fascinating reading than
+the record of a quick, touch-and-go investigation,
+such as is presented in the finding of a
+deserter conducted by skilled case workers who
+are accustomed to work together. Much can,
+under these circumstances, be taken for granted
+or left to the discretion of the worker or agency
+whose help is being sought. There are instances,
+however, where no such common understanding
+exists, and where the home-town agency
+has to work through people with little social
+training or with training of a type which definitely
+unfits them properly to approach the deserting
+man. It is a distressing experience to
+know that a man has slipped through one's
+fingers, been frightened off or alienated, by
+poor work at the other end. Are there any
+ways to reduce the number of these mischances?</p>
+
+<p>Even with the closest co-operation among case
+workers of ability in different cities the results
+are not always as favorable, for obvious reasons,
+as if the person who knows the family were the
+one to find and interview the man. More and
+<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>more it is realized that money and time spent
+in going to nearby cities to do one's own investigating
+is well spent. There used to be a feeling
+on the part of the kindred society whose territory
+was thus invaded that this action argued
+lack of confidence in its work; but as the importance
+of the personal contact has been more
+widely recognized this feeling has disappeared.
+It may be said that a worker who goes to a
+strange city is handicapped by her lack of knowledge
+of local conditions. This is of course true,
+and it may easily be a question of how great an
+advantage will be gained by the journey. The
+worker from the man's home town can, however,
+go far toward overcoming the handicap of unfamiliarity
+with the place, as well as toward dispelling
+any sense of injury in the mind of a professional
+colleague, by calling first at the office of
+the local agency and talking the problem over
+thoroughly, consulting the map and getting what
+hints the local agency may be able to furnish.
+The first question to ask oneself, therefore, is
+&quot;Will it not be worth while to go myself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>If for geographical or other reasons this is
+<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>impracticable, the next thing that should receive
+careful consideration is the type of letter to be
+written. If the situation is very emergent (as
+in the case of Adolph R. cited earlier), the request
+may have to be sent by telegraph; but even in
+a telegram it is possible to convey some detail.
+To try to save money by confining oneself to
+ten words is unwise. If time admits, a letter is
+more desirable, and the principle of its construction
+is as simple as the Golden Rule&mdash;give the
+other person all the information you would like
+to have if you were receiving the letter. Where
+the correspondent is not a trained social worker,
+very specific suggestions and directions should
+be given as to how you wish the man dealt with
+if found.</p>
+
+<p>There might also be laid down a Golden Rule
+for recipients of requests from out-of-town that
+missing men be traced. &quot;Give the request right-of-way
+over your regular work, and send back
+as prompt and as full a reply as you would wish
+yourself&quot; might adequately cover the case. A
+reply which contains a history of actual steps
+taken as well as results gained, is more satis<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>factory
+than one which does not. Good case
+workers believe in reciprocity and treat their
+neighbor's problem as their own. &quot;We heard
+that a man we were interested in was in the
+vicinity of a certain city, and in the effort to
+trace him wrote to the charity organization
+society in that place, but without success. Several
+months later the charity organization
+society saw an item in a newspaper to the effect
+that the man had been interned as an enemy
+alien, and notified us. (This shows no cleverness
+on our part, but good work by the other
+society.)&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The National Desertion Bureau, 356 Second Avenue,
+New York, acts in a legal advisory capacity to Jewish
+organizations in matters of domestic relations; it also
+seeks out Jewish family deserters, with a view to assuring
+their rehabilitation or, failing this, their punishment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> C.C. Carstens, Proceedings of the Fifth New York
+State Conference of Charities and Correction, 1904, p. 196.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See p. 65, footnote.
+[Transcriber's Note: Footnote 17, above, in the e-book version]</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> This paragraph was submitted to the two agencies
+which furnished the illustrations. Their replies are in part
+as follows:
+</p><p>
+<i>Agency A.</i>&mdash;&quot;Your criticism ... is purely theoretical
+and has no basis in fact. The deserter is a knowing
+violator of the law, and while he does not welcome it, he
+regards his arrest as only a question of time. He is playing
+the game of 'hide and seek,' and he is applying every trick
+and subterfuge to avoid detection. He is not disturbed if
+he has been caught in a police trap. Our experience has
+been that in such cases where he has tried to outwit the
+police, and the police finally have 'beaten him to the game,'
+he compliments his captor. This is a common characteristic
+of the criminal, a sort of negative bravado, When the
+deserter is arrested, all he can hope for and expect is a fair
+deal.&quot;
+</p><p>
+What are some concrete suggestions, developed
+from the experience of case workers, as to
+how to proceed in searching for deserting men?
+A full and careful talk with the wife is the first
+requisite, supplemented by equally thorough
+interviews with any near relatives who can be
+reached. The case worker should be familiar
+with the Questionnaire on the Deserted Family
+in Mary E. Richmond's Social Diagnosis. A
+description and if possible a photograph of the
+man should be procured. Where several out-of-town
+clues are to be followed, copies of the
+photograph can be cheaply made, and at least
+one bureau for dealing with desertion cases
+makes this part of its routine procedure.
+</p><p>
+<i>Agency B.</i>&mdash;&quot;I have seen very few individuals in the
+course of my experience who could not be brought to see
+the right viewpoint if they were intelligently approached,
+even though the probation officer had considerable to do
+with their arrest. It is in my opinion not altogether important
+what occurs before the man's arrest but how he is
+treated after he comes within the jurisdiction of the probation
+officials.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <a href="#Page_69">See p. 69.</a></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V" /><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>V</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION</b></p>
+
+
+<p>It is evident that the need of finding the man
+strongly influences the course of this type of
+investigation, especially in the early stages. Are
+there other considerations, however, that modify
+the technique of inquiry into these desertion
+cases?</p>
+
+<p>There is one crisis in the lives of deserted
+families which is not duplicated in the history
+of any other group suffering from social disability.
+This crisis is the period of the first
+desertion. &quot;If we could learn what preceded
+and what immediately followed the first desertion,
+we should know much more than we do
+now about how to deal with the problem,&quot;
+said a case worker who has studied many court
+records.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>number</i> of subsequent desertions may be
+<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>both interesting and significant, but the circumstances
+attending them are not nearly so well
+worth study as are those connected with the
+critical first break. We should go back to that
+spot and probe for causes. The common practice
+of recording carefully what led up to a
+chronic deserter's last desertion before his family
+applied, and of passing over his earlier desertions
+with a mere mention of their number and
+dates, puts the emphasis in the wrong place.</p>
+
+<p>We must, however, go further back than the
+first desertion for a working fund of knowledge.
+The importance of knowing what were the influences
+surrounding the man and woman in
+childhood and youth has already been dwelt
+upon and is so generally conceded as to need
+no elaboration here. Of especial value also is
+careful inquiry into the period of courtship, the
+circumstances of the marriage, and the history
+of the earlier married life. &quot;We should seek to
+know what first drew them together, as well as
+what forced them apart,&quot; said a thoughtful district
+secretary. The notorious unhappiness of
+&quot;forced marriages&quot; leads case workers to scruti<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>nize
+the relation between the date of marriage
+and the date of the birth of the first child. It
+should be remembered, however, that not all
+marriages which are entered into during pregnancy
+are forced marriages. Studies of forced
+marriages, so-called, have not always taken this
+fact into consideration.</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent of a state department for
+aid to widows made a study of the vital statistics
+of 500 families chosen at random. She states
+that &quot;out of these 500 mothers 96, or 19.2 per
+cent, had conceived out of wedlock&mdash;or rather
+before wedlock&mdash;judging by the date of marriage
+and that of the first child's birth. All
+these women were hard working; several of
+good standing in the neighborhood and the mothers
+of large families of children.&quot; This group of
+homes represents by no means an unstable segment
+of the community, since in most instances
+the couples had lived together in reasonable harmony
+up to the time of the man's death. But
+do the 96 represent forced marriages as ordinarily
+thought of by the social worker? The
+study just quoted has no facts bearing upon
+<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>this point. The likelihood is that a large number
+of these marriages, termed forced, were in
+reality not brought about by outside pressure at
+all, but that the couple were intending to be
+married at the time the pregnancy occurred and
+that the circumstances were condoned by public
+opinion in the community where the marriage
+took place.</p>
+
+<p>The Chicago Juvenile Protective Association,
+however, has made a study of 89 forced marriages
+which were brought about in connection
+with bastardy proceedings. In this study there
+is no attempt to differentiate as to the <i>amount</i>
+of unwillingness that had had to be overcome
+on the part of either the man or the woman.
+Fifty-three of the women said that the marriage
+had been entered into willingly on their part.
+Sixty of them stated that they were well treated
+by their husbands, and only five complained of
+abuse or unkindness. Out of the 89 marriages
+brought about after proceedings were instituted
+69 of the couples were still living together from
+one to two years later, although 20, or nearly
+<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>one in five, had separated before the two-year
+period was over.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A young woman with four small children was given
+advice by an associated charities about her approaching
+confinement, and no further inquiry was made at that
+time. She was living apart from her husband, who was
+contributing a small amount regularly. The income was
+inadequate and it was decided to push the matter further.
+Efforts to verify the marriage failed. Finally, a tactful
+worker was able to learn that the ceremony had not
+taken place until after the birth of the first three children,
+that the couple had had sexual relations since the
+woman was a girl of fifteen, and that her relatives had
+never known the true state of affairs. The man's mother
+finally interfered, and urged her son not to live with
+his wife. After much careful work, and with the assistance
+of a co-operating priest, a plan was worked out
+which brought the couple together and induced them to
+move away from the region in which the man's parents
+lived.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A probation department tells of a case where, although
+the man was unwilling to marry, a court marriage was
+brought about; the man made his payments promptly
+and observed the other conditions of his probation faithfully.
+The woman, however, was indifferent to any efforts
+to bring about a reconciliation. It was finally discovered
+<a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>that she was immoral. The case culminated in the securing
+of a divorce by the man, who was granted the custody
+of the children.</p>
+
+<p>The same department submits a story where good
+results were obtained in subsequently reconciling, after a
+desertion, a couple whose marriage had been of the forced
+description. The probation department arranged for the
+couple to live apart in the early stage of probationary
+treatment. A careful study was made of each of the
+individuals, and in their sincere attachment a basis was
+discovered for re-establishment of the home under the
+supervision of the probation officer. Five years later the
+man was found to be at work at the same position originally
+obtained for him by the probation officer, his
+salary had been increased, the family had grown in number
+and were getting on extremely well.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Although the term &quot;forced marriage&quot; has
+come to have the meaning given above, unions
+can be really forced where there has been no sex
+relation before marriage. In one unhappy marriage
+which came finally to a court of domestic
+relations, the wife was a weak and timid woman
+who married her husband because of her fear
+that he would carry out his threat and kill her
+and himself if she refused him. Another, an
+Italian girl, was married at fourteen by her
+parents against her inclinations to a well-to-do
+<a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>man, much older than she, who was a lodger in
+the family. As she grew to womanhood their
+incompatibility increased; finally, after four
+children had been born, the family was broken
+up and the children committed to institutions.</p>
+
+<p>There are compulsions and false motives,
+operating to bring about marriages, which spring
+from within not without; and the discovery of
+any motive for the marriage except mutual inclination
+has significance to the case worker.
+Light was thrown on the troubles of one young
+couple when the girl confessed that she had
+married a youth for whom she had no particular
+affection, in order to &quot;spite&quot; her relatives and
+assert her right to do as she chose. And the
+unfortunate young woman who married a street
+evangelist in a fit of religious enthusiasm, and
+because of his promise that they would travel
+about the world saving souls together, had a
+married life both short and stormy. The so-called
+&quot;slacker marriages&quot; of the few months
+preceding the first draft in 1917 illustrate this
+point. The wreckage of these marriages is
+<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>already drifting in increasing amount to the
+courts of domestic relations.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most important items in desertion
+cases, and one far too often neglected, is the
+verification of the marriage. Much seeming indifference
+and confusion on this point is probably
+caused by the quasi-legality in many states
+of common law marriages. The case worker
+should not forget, however, that a common law
+union is often only a device on the part of one
+or the other of the two to avoid prosecution for
+bigamy. When it is established that the marriage
+is a common law union, a strong suspicion
+should be set up in the worker's mind that there
+may be some legal barrier to a ceremony, and
+careful inquiry should be directed along this
+line. Not only does the verification of a marriage
+give the worker a sound basis on which to
+proceed to court action if necessary, but the copy
+of the actual marriage record, where that can be
+procured, gives much valuable information as to
+dates, addresses, and names of relatives and witnesses.
+A transcript of the record will usually
+be furnished by the registrar of vital statistics
+<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>in the city where the marriage took place (if in
+the United States) for a nominal fee of fifty
+cents.</p>
+
+<p>It is much more difficult to verify marriages
+which took place in other countries, and social
+workers are often appalled by the prevalence of
+the so-called &quot;American marriage&quot; among immigrant
+deserters, who trust to our happy-go-lucky
+methods for protection against a prosecution
+for bigamy.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Such was the case of Orfeo Pelligrini, who came to this
+country and took a new wife when his children in Italy
+were nearly grown. His Italian family came to America
+through their own efforts a few years later, and Orfeo
+found that he had underestimated the character of his
+eldest son, who traced his father, had him arrested and
+taken to the city where his original family was living.
+Orfeo, now forcibly reunited to the wife of his bosom,
+walks softly under the threat of bigamy proceedings,
+while the &quot;American&quot; wife refuses to take any action on
+the ground that &quot;he didn't go away from me of his own
+wish, and why should I put him behind the bars?&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Of an altogether more simple mental make-up was the
+Slovak laborer who brought his pregnant &quot;American
+wife&quot; and two children to the district office of a charity
+organization society, saying that the relatives in Europe
+<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>of Anna, his first wife, had sent Anna to this country, and
+she was on the point of arriving. He added that, as
+manifestly it was not possible to support two families on
+his wages, he would like to provide for his second wife
+through &quot;the Charity.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A district secretary who has worked for many
+years with Italians is authority for the statement
+that marriages in Italy are always registered
+at the man's legal residence, no matter
+where the marriage took place. &quot;Careful Italian
+parents, if they cannot get reliable information
+in other ways, write to the 'paese' of a suitor for
+information in regard to his conjugal condition.
+A marriage which takes place in America is customarily
+registered with the consul for transmission
+to the home town in Italy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In some countries of Latin America great confusion
+may be caused by the fact that a marriage
+performed in church is not legal in the eyes
+of the state unless a second ceremony is gone
+through before the civil authorities. A Guatemalan
+woman, deserted in this country, had no
+recourse in law because she had had only the
+church ceremony in her country. Her claim to
+<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>the status of common law wife was invalidated
+by the man's producing proof that he was already
+married at the time the religious ceremony was
+performed.</p>
+
+<p>Having established the fact that a legal marriage
+has taken place, the case worker must keep
+in mind the possibility that it may have been
+later dissolved. It is not at all uncommon to
+find that a deserter who has gone off with another
+woman has started proceedings to get a
+divorce by &quot;publication.&quot; This can happen
+when the two have gone to a state where such
+unfair divorce procedure is permitted. Publication
+in these cases takes place in local newspapers
+which there is little or no chance of the
+wife seeing; and she may later find herself a
+divorced woman with no legal claim for support
+for herself or children, and suffering under
+charges of misconduct without having had a
+chance of being heard. The National Desertion
+Bureau found this proceeding so common an
+abuse that it established a clearing bureau in
+its central office, and its local representatives in
+different parts of the country notify this bureau
+<a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>as soon as any action for divorce is started by a
+man with a Jewish name against a wife whose
+&quot;address is unknown.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>What are some of the other points at which
+the investigation of cases of desertion may differ
+from the technique generally accepted? The
+superintendent of a desertion bureau, in answer
+to this question, said that he emphasized &quot;neighborhood
+references&quot; more than in the ordinary
+case. Social workers have become very wary,
+of course, of much inquiry among present neighbors;
+but where the protection of the woman or
+the children is involved it is often necessary to
+procure the testimony of people who live nearby
+or in the same house. A deserted family is
+usually so much a center of neighborhood interest
+or sympathy, or both, that it is easier than
+in some other types of cases to secure information
+from neighbors, tradesmen, and so on, without
+augmenting neighborhood gossip.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>Probably the most difficult part of the necessary
+information to be secured in desertion cases
+is an adequate picture of the sex relationship
+between man and wife. The part which sex
+plays in the causation of desertion has been
+touched upon in Chapter II.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> In getting the
+information from the people concerned, the case
+worker needs no elaborate equipment as a
+psycho-analyst; but she should know enough
+about sex psychology to recognize a pathological
+problem when she meets it, and to be able to
+call on the psycho-analyst or psychiatrist for
+specialized service.</p>
+
+<p>The securing of an adequate picture of the
+sex life of the couple may have to be delegated,
+however, to some volunteer whose own sex, profession,
+or marital experience makes him or her
+a suitable person to secure it.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The majority of social case workers are unmarried
+women under forty, and in this particular respect they
+frequently find themselves handicapped by the natural
+reluctance of the deserter to discuss his conceptions of the
+marital relation in such a way as to be enlightening to
+them, as well as by the chivalrous attitude which the
+<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>woman of the tenements often adopts toward her unmarried
+visitor. The decisive statement, 'You have
+never been married, so you can't understand,' often
+proves at least a temporary barrier in dealing with
+deserted wives, just as the similar statement, 'You have
+never been a mother so you cannot know the feelings of
+one,' is used to block her efforts in another direction. If
+it is found impossible to carry on the necessary discussions
+rationally and without too serious embarrassment, it is
+often possible to call upon the socially-minded physician
+or clergyman for help along this line.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To sum up, the interviews with the family
+and the supplementary visits and letters of inquiry
+should furnish the social worker if possible
+with:</p>
+
+<p>1. A clear picture of the home in which the
+two adult members of the family grew up, and
+the factors in their early training which contributed
+to their failure as husband or wife; or
+which can be utilized as assets in the future
+plan.</p>
+
+<p>2. A history of how the couple met; the
+events of their courtship and marriage, including
+<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>sex relations prior to marriage with spouse or
+others; also previous marriages. Records of
+marriage, death of previous spouse, etc., are
+very important and should be secured if in
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>3. A picture of the family and its individual
+members in their other social relationships&mdash;with
+employers, medical agencies, teachers, their
+church, their friends, their relatives. Knowledge
+of their habits, tastes, and characteristics, with
+special attention to period of first desertion.
+Analysis of factors leading to the desertion.</p>
+
+<p>4. History of first reconciliation (unless the
+present is the first break). History of subsequent
+desertions. Court record, if any.</p>
+
+<p>A prerequisite to some of the above information
+is an interview or interviews with the man.
+Where this cannot be had as part of the first
+investigation, the investigation should leave the
+worker in possession of some good clues, at least,
+to the man's whereabouts.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Bowen, Louise de K.: A Study of Bastardy Cases.
+Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1914.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It is the policy of the Bureau, when such a case is discovered,
+to help the wife get competent legal advice in the
+city where action is being brought, and either to contest
+the case or start a counter suit. Where necessary the
+woman is sent on to appear in person.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <a href="#Page_37">See p. 37 sq.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> J.C. Colcord in <i>The Annals of the American Academy
+of Political and Social Science</i>, May, 1918, p. 97.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI" /><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT</b></p>
+
+
+<p>As in all other problems faced by the case
+worker, it is impossible to lay down general
+rules for the treatment of desertion. There may
+be general considerations, however, which it is
+well to keep in mind, some of which have been
+advanced in the last chapter.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>On questions of investigation there is closer
+agreement among social workers than on questions
+of treatment. Personal factors here play
+a much larger part, and it may very well be
+that two case workers who differ in personality
+but are of equal ability, will choose very different
+plans of treatment in a given case and yet each
+bring it to a successful issue. It is with a good
+<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>deal of hesitancy, therefore, that a case worker
+ventures upon the discussion of anything so
+flexible as treatment. In preparation for this
+study many consultations were had with practising
+social case workers in the fields of family
+work, probation, medical-social service, and child
+welfare. Differences of opinion were found and
+this chapter will attempt to express the composite
+opinion on how to treat the deserter and his
+family in the different situations which confront
+them.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>1. Man's Whereabouts Unknown but Desertion of
+Recent Date.</b>&mdash;It is better in this case to make no
+very definite plans for the family. Emergent
+plans, both as to relief and medical or other
+care should, of course, be prompt and adequate.
+Now is the time, if it can be done, to win the
+confidence and co-operation of the wife. We
+should, however, make no promises for the sake
+of &quot;buying&quot; co-operation, and give no premature
+advice either as to prosecution or reconciliation.
+Everything possible should be done to strengthen
+such ties with church, relatives, and friends as
+<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>may be helpful, but the social worker should be
+slow to encourage the family to form new ties
+with other social agencies at this time. She
+should avoid the possibility of judging the
+woman harshly in a period of stress, but be
+watchful for signs of deterioration and resourceful
+to combat them. This is the stage, of course,
+when all energies should be bent toward finding
+the man.</p>
+
+<p>In this as in the other situations about to be
+discussed, the question of whether or not the
+home should be broken up and the children
+committed should be decided on other grounds
+than on the desertion alone. Under many circumstances,
+it is the best thing to do. The
+woman, worn out with anxiety or abuse, may be
+unequal to their physical care for the present;
+or they may be running wild and in danger of
+becoming delinquent. The mother may be
+morally an unfit guardian, and the desertion
+may furnish the long-sought opportunity to
+interfere for the children's protection. Commitment
+may have to be planned, and the
+mother's consent won, to save the children from
+<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>the return of a brutal father, against whom she
+cannot protect them. Or she may desire a
+temporary commitment in order to give her
+husband a severe lesson. The main consideration,
+however, ought to be what is going, in
+the long run, to be best for the children concerned.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>2. Man's Whereabouts Unknown, Desertion of
+Long Standing.</b>&mdash;A very different problem from
+the preceding may be presented in the family
+of a man who disappeared some time ago. Where
+the desertion is bona fide and has persisted over
+a period of years, it is often possible to treat
+the family as if the man were dead, and, if other
+circumstances make this advisable, to plan comprehensively
+for the future. There is always the
+chance, however, that, until the man's death is
+established, he may turn up unexpectedly. If
+living, he usually manages to hear now and
+again about his family and is often able to find
+them at will. A man who had neither seen nor
+communicated with his family during the ten
+years they had been maintained by a private
+<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>family agency, nevertheless sent promptly for
+his wife and eldest son by a messenger who
+knew exactly where to find them (although they
+had moved in the interval several times), when
+he lay dying of alcoholic excess in the city
+hospital.</p>
+
+<p>The laws of many states contain a provision
+that the marriage of a person who has completely
+disappeared and not been heard from in a period
+of years can be set aside by the proper authorities.
+This makes legal the remarriage of the
+spouse. In nearly all of the states divorce can
+be obtained on the ground of long continued
+desertion.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The wisdom of advising such a divorce,
+however, should receive careful individual
+consideration, particularly in relation to the religious
+faith of the client and the attitude of
+that faith toward divorce.</p>
+
+<p><b>3. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Unwilling to
+Return or Support.</b>&mdash;Many types of deserting men
+are included under this catch-all heading&mdash;the
+<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>so-called &quot;justifiable deserter;&quot; the man who
+has fled to escape his creditors or is a fugitive
+from justice; the man who has elected to try
+life with another mate; the wandering hobo who
+means to come back some sweet day but not
+now; the cowardly pregnancy deserter; the low-grade
+irresponsible&mdash;a motley crew. They are
+grouped together here for convenience, since
+they constitute those with whom coercive measures
+have most often to be used.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A good example of the &quot;justifiable deserter&quot; is found
+in the story of Williams.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> This man, when home conditions
+became intolerable, tried to secure his children's
+safety through the courts but did not obtain a hearing.
+He left home feeling that he was fully justified. The
+lame point in his self-defense was his failure to support
+his children, and it took a court order to rectify this in
+part.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Joseph Mellor is in a more logical situation in his
+refusal to provide for his wife, since he is paying the
+board of his child in a good institution. He makes no
+charge against her character, but insists that her quarrelsome
+and dictatorial disposition makes her impossible
+to live with. She had haled him so many times into
+<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>court and lost him so many positions that Mellor, who
+earns a good salary, will deal with her only through his
+lawyer, who keeps his client's whereabouts secret and
+will not trust the social worker interested even to the
+extent of arranging an interview.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is generally impossible in cases of such
+deep-seated antagonism to make any plans looking
+toward reconciliation. The &quot;justifiable deserter&quot;
+can usually be reasoned with, and once
+he understands and admits his responsibilities,
+can often be made to live up to them without
+judicial process.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A ship steward deserted his wife, who was both alcoholic
+and paretic, taking with him his only child whom
+he placed with his relatives. The woman was devoted
+to the boy and broken in spirit because she was not allowed
+to see him. The steward claimed, probably correctly,
+that he was not responsible for the woman's
+syphilitic condition. The following extract from the
+record of the first interview with the man is quoted to
+show the lines of argument which were effective with
+him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Man at District Office&mdash;Visitor started in immediately
+with the subject in hand, thinking he was the
+sort that would respond to absolutely direct dealing.
+Explained to him that we had been given to understand
+his wife was ill, not only from alcoholism but also
+<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>from other complications; that it was suspected there
+might be some difficulty with her blood and that we had
+been advised that her mental condition was not now as
+strong as it had been previously. Explained to him that
+he was absolutely responsible for his wife, for her support,
+and for her care and protection, and that no matter
+how far he traveled, his responsibility remained the same;
+that he had assumed this when he married her. Said
+that he felt no responsibility for her whatsoever, that
+he had done all he ever would do for her and intended
+to devote his efforts toward his child. Visitor explained
+to him that woman's intemperance might perfectly well
+be a disease over which it would be very difficult for
+her to have control; that, moreover, if she were suffering
+also from a blood condition, this should have treatment.
+Explained that he would more nearly meet his
+responsibilities were he to have her examined and send
+her where she could procure the treatment required, even
+if it meant commitment to an institution. At this
+point man seemed more interested, particularly as visitor
+told him that Arthur would grow up and would want
+to know where his mother was and what had become of
+her; and if man had left her sick and alone, at the
+mercy of strangers, he would not be able to give an
+adequate accounting to his son. Man's reaction was not
+what visitor had expected&mdash;he would be glad to put her
+away where she could not trouble him any more but he
+did not intend to expend any more money. Said he was
+under too heavy expenses with Arthur. Claimed he
+was making $70 a month, and visitor forced him to add
+<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>that he got in addition his board and lodging on the
+ship, so that he was under no expense except when on
+shore leave. Visitor repeated that as a husband he was
+required to pay for woman's care, that that was the
+right thing to do; that one way he would be a husband
+deserting his wife, liable to arrest for non-support and
+desertion, and the other way a husband with a sick wife
+for whom he was willing to provide the medical attention
+and care that every sick person has a right to have.
+He said if it was a question of a few dollars a week, he
+supposed he would be willing to do it, and visitor felt
+he really was willing to do the right thing if he only
+could be assured that woman would not interfere with
+Arthur. Said he would never let woman see the child,
+but finally admitted, if she were not drunk and was in
+the hospital and it would do any good, he supposed she
+could.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With persistent or recalcitrant deserters as a
+group, court action has very often to be invoked.
+Procedure in this direction differs so
+much in different communities that only general
+observations can be offered here. If the
+man has left his home but not the town and is
+still within the jurisdiction of the local court, the
+magistrate will usually issue a summons (which
+in many cities the wife is expected to serve)
+calling on the man to appear at court on the
+<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>date set for the hearing. If he fails to appear a
+warrant for his arrest is issued. If he has left
+the city but not the state, local courts may issue
+warrants, which can be mailed to the city to
+which the man has gone and served by the
+police there; or an officer may be sent from the
+home town with a warrant to arrest the man
+and bring him back.</p>
+
+<p>Prior to his arraignment, the best court practice
+calls for an investigation by the probation
+officer, so that the judge may have substantiated
+facts before him when the case comes up.
+Whether this is done or not here is the time
+and place for the social worker who already
+knows the family to get his knowledge in usable
+fashion before the court. How best to do this
+varies greatly in different communities. Sometimes
+the social worker is permitted to talk
+the matter over with the judge personally, sometimes
+with the probation officer, clerk or other
+court official. Sometimes a written report is
+required, to be attached to the probation officer's
+report. Occasionally the social worker
+gets no chance to be heard unless he is present
+<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>to testify in open court. In the last two contingencies,
+care must be taken to safeguard information
+given in confidence, even by the deserter.
+Letters marked &quot;confidential&quot; should
+not ordinarily be submitted in court except by
+consent of the writer, as some judges hold that
+material so submitted becomes a matter of
+public record.</p>
+
+<p>The approach to the court, therefore, is governed
+by local conditions. A very important
+part of co-operation in any community is to
+see that this channel is kept free from obstruction.
+In general, the probation officer should
+be the best friend of the other social workers,
+since he knows their language. Indeed, many
+social workers themselves combine the office of
+probation officer with their other duties.</p>
+
+<p>After the institution of court proceedings the
+outside social worker has usually little chance to
+affect the disposition of the case. This is made
+by the judge on the basis of the testimony he
+elicits in court, and on that of any preliminary
+investigation he may have caused to be made.
+Disposition may be:<a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>1. In rare instances, to dismiss the complaint altogether.</p>
+
+<p>2. To remand for a later hearing.</p>
+
+<p>3. To induce the woman to drop her complaint and
+give the man another chance.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>4. To place the man under court order to stay away
+from home and pay his wife a stated amount weekly.
+Custom differs in different places as to whether payment
+shall be direct to the wife, through the probation officer
+or clerk of court, or through public or private charities.</p>
+
+<p>5. To order the man to return home and contribute a
+stated amount.</p>
+
+<p>6. To place on probation (together with either 4 or 5).</p>
+
+<p>7. Commitment&mdash;usually to jail or workhouse, and
+for a period of not over six months. May be longer for
+violation of probation or for aggravated offense.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When the deserting man has gone without
+the borders of the state, there is the added
+problem of securing his extradition, which is
+often a difficult one. Wife desertion is in most
+states only a misdemeanor (in New York it is
+even less serious and constitutes in the eye of
+the law only disorderly conduct). Since extradition
+between states has to be acted upon by
+the governors of the states, it is unusual (though
+<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>not impossible<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>) to secure extradition for a misdemeanor.
+The reluctance of the authorities is
+understandable, however, when it is realized
+that to extradite for wife desertion would be to
+create a precedent for extradition for any sort
+of misdemeanor. There is in most states a law
+which makes the abandonment of a minor child
+or children a felony, punishable by a long term
+in state prison, and it is this law which is generally
+invoked when the man has been traced
+to another state. Complaint then has to be
+made to the district (or county) attorney, the
+matter taken before the grand jury and an indictment
+secured before extradition papers can be
+granted. The man, if captured, must usually
+be tried in a higher court than the domestic
+relations court; if convicted he is likely to be
+more severely punished. Extradition means
+expense to the state; it is usually difficult,
+moreover, to get an active interest taken in
+<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>extraditing a family deserter who, to the legal
+eye, has committed an offense neither against
+the person nor against property, and cannot
+therefore be a serious offender!</p>
+
+<p>If extradition for family desertion is difficult
+between states, with other countries it is impossible,
+as no treaties exist even with contiguous
+countries like Canada and Mexico.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> By
+special arrangement with the Canadian authorities,
+states which touch the Canadian border can
+sometimes obtain the person of a deserter without
+actual extradition. Information is submitted
+to the police of the Canadian town where
+the man is known to be, who thereupon arrest
+him as an &quot;undesirable citizen&quot; and arrange for
+his deportation. The neighboring state is notified,
+and an officer with a warrant meets the
+Canadian officer and the prisoner at the boundary,
+arresting the latter as soon as he sets foot
+across the state line.</p>
+
+<p>The testimony of social workers is, in the main,
+in favor of probation as against long prison sentence
+for men of this type. &quot;We have found a
+<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>shortened penitentiary sentence, with release on
+probation, very successful in a number of instances.&quot;
+&quot;Sometimes the probation has been
+more effective by its being a sort of double probation;
+that is, having the case pending in
+juvenile court as well as municipal or district
+court. The fear of having his children permanently
+taken from him if he again fails to
+support them has, in one or two instances, had
+much more effect with the deserter than the
+threat of a prison sentence.&quot; &quot;Probation works
+very well and occasionally a prison sentence;
+but probation is better.&quot; These statements
+come from cities where probation work is well
+organized. From another city where the probation
+officers are notoriously overworked, comes
+a pessimistic note: &quot;The theory of probation is
+fine, but the practice is poor because the officers
+have entirely too much to do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Probation is simply case work with the added
+&quot;punch&quot; of the law behind it; so that when it
+is at all well done it should have the more lasting
+results. Probation officers and other social
+workers agree, however, that for certain deserters
+<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>of the complacent type, an unexpected prison
+sentence is sometimes a very salutary dash of
+cold water.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>After having tried one or two short absences, ostensibly
+to look for work and finding that nothing serious
+happened to him, Andreas Gorokhoff walked out one
+day and did not come back for five years. During that
+time his wife's relatives and the community's family
+agency took care of his family while he led the life of a
+care-free vagabond. He was ready upon his return to
+settle down again for a time; but the family agency and
+the probation department thought differently, and succeeded
+in having him sent to state prison for an indeterminate
+sentence of not more than two years. He was
+released on parole for good conduct, returned home,
+went to work, and, during the four years which have
+since elapsed, all has gone well.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Good results may, and probably more often
+do, follow shorter prison sentences.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A man on probation for intemperance, broke it and
+deserted. On account of the children's keen feeling
+about the consequent disgrace, the wife made no move
+until urged thereto by the social worker interested. Her
+husband was then arrested in a nearby city and brought
+back, much surprised at the firm stand his wife had
+taken. He was sentenced to four months, served two,
+and was released on parole. Since his return he has not
+<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>been drinking and has been contributing satisfactorily
+toward the support of his family.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The first step taken by Harvey Brand when released
+from the workhouse after a short prison sentence, was
+to stop in at a furniture store and order a green plush
+parlor &quot;suit&quot; on the instalment plan. Harvey had never
+been conspicuously interested in his home before, and
+the district secretary and her committee were aghast at
+this new evidence of his irresponsibility. The green plush
+was, however, the outward sign of an inner burgeoning,
+and it warmed the heart of Mrs. Harvey as nothing else
+could have done. From that time, Harvey, with judicious
+encouragement over a few hard spots, has become
+a good family man and a regular provider.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The particular problem involved in the treatment
+of the family during the trial and imprisonment
+of the deserter is that of encouraging
+the woman to stick to her guns. If she withdraws
+her complaint or secures his release before
+his time is up, she not only convinces him of her
+lack of firmness but the entry in the court
+record seriously prejudices her case should she
+make complaint there again. Unless the social
+worker is convinced, therefore, that the sentence
+has been unduly severe, the wife should be encouraged
+in every way to let her husband serve
+<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>out his time. If a policy of relief has been
+necessary, care should be taken that it be
+adequate, so that economic pressure will not
+induce her to ask for his release. If the home
+has been broken up and the children committed,
+the mother's loneliness and desire to have her
+home back is likely to work in the same way.
+The hope of making her husband kinder when
+he returns often leads a woman to ask for his
+release. The pressure of relatives and friends,
+and sometimes of her church is likely to be
+exerted in the same direction and unknown to
+the social worker. Chaplains of correctional
+institutions, interested entirely in the man and
+with no knowledge of the family situation, are
+also likely to appear in the case; and it is well
+to acquaint them, in the beginning, of our interest
+and our hope that no step will be taken
+without a consultation. If it is hoped or expected
+that the man will return to his home
+after imprisonment, he should be earnestly cultivated
+by the social worker while he is serving
+his time. Visits and letters will go far toward
+breaking down his resentment at the part the
+<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>worker is likely to have played in &quot;putting him
+behind the bars.&quot; Now is an excellent time to
+introduce a man as volunteer visitor to the
+prisoner, if he is to be off probation when released.
+If imprisonment or: &quot;stay-away probation&quot;
+does not have the desired effect of making
+the deserter willing and anxious to return to his
+family and take care of them, or if for any
+reason return is permanently undesirable, the
+advisability of obtaining a legal separation<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>
+should be considered at this point. If, on the
+other hand, the man evinces eagerness to return
+home and support his family, he comes automatically
+(though belatedly) into the class to be
+considered in the next chapter.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The Questionnaire on the Deserted Family (see p. 395
+sq. of Richmond's Social Diagnosis) has already been mentioned
+as suggesting lines of investigation. It will also be
+found useful at the stage of summing up knowledge gained
+and seeing in what direction it points.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The state of New York is an exception, as it grants
+only limited divorce for desertion.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <a href="#Page_57">See p. 57.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <a href="#Page_132">See p. 132 sq.</a> concerning court reconciliations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> See Baldwin, Wm. H.: &quot;The Most Effective Methods
+of Dealing with Cases of Desertion and Non-support,&quot;
+<i>Journal American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology</i>,
+November, 1917.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <a href="#Page_169">See p. 169 sq.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <a href="#Page_127">See p. 127.</a></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII" /><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (Continued)</b></p>
+
+
+<p>There remains a fourth classification under
+treatment, of cases which demand even more
+individualized care and therefore more extended
+comment than those just considered.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>4. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Willing to
+Return.</b>&mdash;Here the question to determine is
+whether it is going to be a desirable thing for
+the man to re-enter the home and, if so, when.
+This does not always lie within the power of
+the case worker to decide; the couple may and
+often do resolve their differences for the time
+being without reference to her opinion. But
+she can often hasten, defer, or even prevent the
+reconciliation. Careful consideration must be
+given the elements involved: What causes probably
+operated to bring about the rupture in
+family relations? If there have been other de<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>sertions
+what does their history show? Is the
+man's willingness to return a sign of real change
+of heart and purpose, or is he merely afraid of
+punishment? Are his habits such as to make
+him a fit inmate of the home? Is he capable of
+supporting the family? Can any adjustment of
+temperaments be made which will lessen incompatibility?
+Is the wife willing to have him return?
+What are her motives? Has she enough
+firmness of character to carry out a plan to
+which she has agreed? These are only a few of
+the questions to which the social worker needs
+to know the answer, if the decision is to be a
+wise one.</p>
+
+<p>If none of the elements is present in the home
+out of which family life can be reconstructed,
+if the man's self-indulgence and cruelty have
+been proved beyond any doubt, or if affection
+is dead or never existed, then the decision may
+have to be that no reconciliation be attempted.
+In many cases the question then is how best to
+protect the woman and children against the
+man's forcing his way upon them. Court intervention
+is usually necessary here, if it has not
+<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>already taken place; and a first step is to have
+the husband placed under a court order to give
+separate support and to stay away from his
+home.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> The wife should be armed with a warrant
+for his arrest, which can be served by the
+policeman on the beat if the man appears. Such
+a man usually considers that his proprietorship
+of the home and the family is not affected by his
+absence or even by court orders, and when fortified
+by liquor he is likely to force his entrance
+into the home and perhaps do harm. The protection
+of the warrant is not absolute; in such
+cases as this it ought later to be reinforced by a
+legal separation. Social workers avail themselves
+of this resource far less than they should. It
+controverts the principles of no religious sect
+and gives all the protection of absolute divorce
+(including the payment of alimony) to the
+woman and children. To the children it is likely
+to give more protection than divorce; for in the
+event of the divorced husband's remarriage the
+children of the second wife have prior rights over
+those of the first, and legal separation makes this
+<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>impossible by preventing the remarriage of either
+party. Proceedings for a legal separation cannot
+usually be started if a man is on probation,
+but may be while he is undergoing imprisonment.
+It should be said that, after a separation, claims
+for non-payment of alimony cannot, in many
+states, be pressed in a court of domestic relations
+but must go to a civil court. This is usually
+more expensive and less satisfactory.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>Some social workers even advance the heretical
+doctrine that support secured through the court
+from a cruel and dangerous husband does not
+make up for the harm he may do and the anxiety
+he causes. If to force him into periodical payments
+means that he will be continually excited
+into seeking out and &quot;beating up&quot; his offending
+wife, the support she is able to extort from him
+comes high. It is sometimes necessary to move
+a family to new quarters and actually help them
+to hide from the pursuit of one of these insistent
+<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>gentry. Even if we have some doubt that the
+wife's protestations of fear or aversion are genuine,
+we should hardly take the risk of revealing
+her address if she wishes it kept secret. This
+precaution applies not only to the man but to
+anyone whom we suspect of being interested on
+his behalf. A district secretary continued to
+refuse the address of his family to a dangerous
+epileptic deserter who threatened the secretary's
+life and, in the opinion of physicians who examined
+him, was likely to carry out his threat.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The committee on difficult cases in a family social
+agency voted to refuse to accept voluntary payments
+from a thoroughly worthless deserter and transmit them
+to his wife whose address he was seeking to learn, on the
+theory that it was better for her and her children to be
+entirely quit of him, and that nothing would make him
+realize the finality of the decision more than to refuse
+his money. The agency, it was felt, would be in better
+position to protect the wife and children if it refused to
+act as post office for the man.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same consideration might apply in questions
+of extradition. When the whereabouts of
+a deserter of this type has been discovered in
+another city a safe distance away, it may be
+<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>wiser to sacrifice the money he might be forced
+to contribute than to have him brought within
+arm's length of his wife and family.</p>
+
+<p>A prime difficulty in dealing with the undesirable
+husband who is willing to come home is
+often the attitude of the wife. Some of the
+causes at work when a woman takes her husband
+back have been discussed earlier.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Unfortunately,
+hopelessly bad husbands profit by them
+as well as hopeful ones. The policy of niggardly
+relief to a deserted wife has undoubtedly been
+responsible for many of these unfortunate attempts
+to patch up a life together. &quot;She was
+worn down by her efforts to keep the household
+going, and, when the faint chance of her husband's
+supporting her appeared, she took it&quot; is
+the explanation given by a case worker of one
+unpromising reconciliation, and she goes on to
+say of this and another similar story: &quot;With
+both of these it seems that enough money put
+into the household to enable these mothers to
+be with their children more and to keep up a
+reasonable standard of health for themselves
+<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>might have resulted in their refusing to take
+back their husbands.... Our records seem
+to show that inadequate relief, making life fairly
+hard for the deserted mother, does not tend to
+keep the man from returning or others from
+deserting.&quot;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The story of Mrs. Francis shows the effect of adequate
+relief in strengthening her decision not to take her husband
+back. He had been a chronic deserter for years,
+had drank heavily, been foul-mouthed and abusive, while
+failing to support the family when at home, so that Mrs.
+Francis had only a little harder time when he was away.
+His last desertion took place when she was near confinement.
+Owing to her condition, the church and a family
+agency co-operated in an unusually generous relief policy.
+This was in a state which gave mother's aid to deserted
+wives. After about a year this was secured for her, and
+the health of woman and children was built up and the
+home improved. Then Mr. Francis sent ambassadors in
+the form of relatives, with whom Mrs. Francis refused to
+treat. He later appeared himself, but she would not
+consider taking him back. He escaped before he could
+be brought into court. As he has now been gone over
+two years, it seems that her stand is a genuine one.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On the other hand, when the man has been
+found and interviewed, he may show signs of
+<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>repentance, and the earlier history, together
+with the opinion which the social worker has
+been able to form about the character of man
+and woman may make it seem that a reconciliation
+should be encouraged. A further question
+then arises: Shall the man return to his home
+at once or first undergo a probationary period?</p>
+
+<p>The quick reconciliation has been a feature
+of the work in domestic relations courts from
+the beginning of the movement. In connection
+with some courts there are special officers whose
+duty it is to prevail upon couples who come to
+the court to patch up their differences and give
+each other another trial. This would be an
+admirable procedure if the couples to receive
+such treatment were selected by a process of
+careful investigation, and if probationary supervision
+were continued long enough to ascertain
+whether permanent results could be secured. As
+it actually works out it is a little like expecting
+a wound to heal &quot;by first intention&quot; when it
+has not been cleaned out thoroughly, and when
+no attention is being paid to subsequent dressings.<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The wholesale attempt to patch the tattered fabric
+of family life in a series of hurried interviews held in the
+court room, and without any information about the problem
+except what can be gained from the two people concerned,
+can hardly be of permanent value in most cases.
+It is natural that case workers, keenly aware as they are
+of the slow and difficult processes involved in character-rebuilding,
+look askance at the court-made reconciliations.
+With the best will in the world, the people who
+attempt this delicate service very often have neither the
+time nor the facts about the particular case in question
+to give the skilful and devoted personal service necessary
+to reconstruction. As a result many weak-willed wrong-doers
+are encouraged to take a pledge of good conduct
+which they will not, or cannot, keep; and other individuals
+who feel themselves deeply wronged go away
+with an additional sense of those wrongs having been
+underestimated and of having received no redress. The
+results are written in discouragement and in repeated
+failures to live in harmony, each of which makes a permanent
+solution more and more difficult. The case
+worker to whom the results of the externally imposed
+reconciliation come back again and again has reason to
+be confirmed in a distrust of short-cut methods.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A probation officer writes: &quot;Superficial reconciliations
+invariably result unsatisfactorily. In one case a recon<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>ciliation
+was effected before the husband was released on
+probation. This was done apparently in the hope that
+it would influence the court in the disposition of the case.
+After a study of the situation had been made by the probation
+officer, it was found that the wife was totally
+incompetent as a housekeeper, that she possessed an
+antagonistic disposition, had a violent temper, and that
+no sincere attachment for each other existed between the
+couple. Before any constructive measures could be carried
+out by the probation officer to remedy this situation
+they separated, and it was not possible thereafter to
+adjust the differences with any degree of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On another occasion a man who had a previous
+prison record and had displayed criminal tendencies was
+arrested for desertion. His wife, a feeble-minded woman
+with one child, was being maintained at a private institution
+at county expense. Through the efforts of the
+district attorney a reconciliation was effected before the
+case was disposed of in court, and the man was placed
+on probation upon the recommendation of the prosecutor
+without the usual preliminary investigation by the probation
+department. The couple began to live together
+contrary to the advice of the probation officer. About
+two months later the man was arrested for committing
+a series of burglaries and the woman was found to be
+pregnant. Efforts which had been made by the probation
+department to determine her mentality disclosed
+her to be feeble-minded; later she was committed to a
+custodial institution for feeble-minded women of
+child-bearing age. The man was committed to a state prison.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>However, when youth and high temper seem
+to have caused the trouble and there is real
+affection to build upon, a speedy resumption of
+life together is usually the best thing.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A young woman with one baby said that her husband
+had got drunk and threatened her with a knife. They
+quarreled and he went to relatives in another city.
+Neighbors testified how devoted the couple had been to
+each other, describing the young man as handy about
+the house though &quot;lazy about finding work.&quot; He was
+visited by the family social agency in the city to which
+he had gone, and wrote a penitent letter asking to come
+home. The wife agreed; the man immediately returned,
+got work, and succeeded in overcoming his incipient bad
+habits. The death of the baby soon after his return
+seemed only to draw the couple more closely together.
+The case was soon after closed; nothing has been heard
+in the three years since to indicate that any further
+trouble has developed.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A study recently made under the auspices of
+the Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations
+seems to show somewhat better results from
+court reconciliations than might have been expected.
+One thousand and two couples who
+were reconciled in court during the year 1916
+were visited from six to eighteen months later.<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>
+Three hundred and ten had separated or had
+had further differences which brought them to
+court; 87 could not be found, and 605, or about
+60 per cent, were found to be still living together,
+though with a varying degree of marital happiness,
+as the report somewhat drily states.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>It should be said that many of these families
+were probably under the supervision of a probation
+officer for a longer or shorter period after
+the reconciliation took place. There is no statement
+as to the number of repeated deserters
+among the men, and we cannot estimate how
+many of the 605 fell within the group which
+might chance to have the proper basis for reconciliation.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of the Desertion Bureau maintained
+by the New York Association for Improving
+the Condition of the Poor is as a rule
+not to advise reconciliations without a definite
+preliminary period during which the man shall
+contribute regularly and show that he means
+business. &quot;The kind of reconciliation that lasts
+is the one that is effected with some difficulty
+<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>to the man,&quot; its secretary remarked. The same
+probation department which furnished the stories
+of hasty and unsuccessful reconciliations,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> contributes
+this remarkable account of the restoration
+of a family through slow and careful character
+rebuilding:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>George Latham had shamefully neglected his wife and
+children for several years. He drank to excess, gambled
+considerably, and associated with women of loose character.
+He came from good stock, however, and his early
+training had been excellent. The differences between
+man and wife seemed impossible to adjust. After the
+man's release on probation, the co-operation of relatives
+was secured and through the aid of his new found employer
+efforts were made toward a reconciliation. The
+man was gradually led away from his old harmful pursuits
+and tendencies, these being replaced by wholesome
+activities. He was induced to join a fraternal organization,
+to take out insurance for his wife and child, was
+encouraged to attend church regularly, and to open a
+bank account. When his sincerity was appreciated by
+the wife, she agreed to resume housekeeping. Under
+the direction of the probation officer, new furniture was
+purchased and the home re-established. This man today
+holds a responsible position under the employer who
+aided in his rehabilitation, and occupies a respected place
+in the community.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>Very many processes are indicated in such a
+story. To bring about the conviction of wrong-doing,
+to awaken desire and supply an incentive,
+to keep the hope of attainment alive, to
+encourage weakened nerves in a new and persistent
+effort, and all the while to build and
+strengthen and develop faculties and powers
+that had been dormant and well-nigh destroyed,
+is a task that demands a high order of skill and
+resourcefulness.</p>
+
+<p>The story just told emphasizes the work which
+was done with the husband. Equally careful
+work had undoubtedly to be done with the wife
+to carry her along with the plan. The period of
+&quot;stay-away probation&quot; for the man is a difficult
+time for the woman. Neighbors and friends
+know that he is taking steps in the direction of
+reformation, and often hold the attitude that it
+is her duty to let bygones be bygones and receive
+him again. The promptings of her own heart
+are often in the same direction; and affection
+not outlived combines with custom, religious
+precept, and economic pressure to make it
+almost impossible to hold to her decision. The
+<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>social worker can sometimes slip some of the
+burden of the decision off the woman's shoulders
+to her own by exacting a promise from the two
+that they will not try living together until the
+man has &quot;shown what he can do&quot; for a certain
+definite time. The economic pressure can be
+eased by a wise policy of relief; but most of all
+such a woman needs continued encouragement
+from a person whose judgment and kindliness
+she has learned to trust. This is another good
+point at which to introduce the right kind of
+volunteer visitor, one who will already have
+established friendly relations with both when the
+time of readjustment comes, and who can help
+bridge over that difficult period. In some cases
+it might be possible and desirable to procure as
+volunteer visitors to a couple whose marital relations
+have come to shipwreck, another married
+couple who have learned how to live together
+successfully.</p>
+
+<p>The use of carefully chosen volunteers in
+effecting reconciliations by the case work method
+has been singularly little developed. In this
+respect modern theory and practice have both
+<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>fallen behind.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Especially is it an opportunity
+to enlist the service of men, whom it is easy to
+interest in a problem that seems to focus about
+the man of the family. A man volunteer can
+search for a deserter in places where a woman,
+by being conspicuous, would defeat her own end.
+&quot;Located man by mingling with longshoremen
+on the docks where he usually worked&quot; could
+hardly be the entry of a woman visitor. A man
+can also be very useful in court cases, to counteract
+the prejudice that sometimes exists in court
+rooms against the testimony of social workers
+who are women. In the more subtle processes
+of winning the man's confidence and helping
+him to regenerate his life and recover his home
+there is no preponderance of testimony in favor
+of the man visitor. Sex lines vanish here;
+the good case worker, man or woman, volunteer
+or professional, is the person needed.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the difficulty is not to deter the
+<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>wife from prematurely taking her husband back
+but to induce her to relent when the proper
+time comes.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Martin Long was intemperate, his wife was high-tempered;
+her relatives advised her to leave him and he
+deserted, leaving the relatives to provide for her and the
+three children. He was away two years; then, becoming
+homesick and wanting to re-establish his home if possible,
+he returned. The wife caused his arrest when he
+was seeking an interview with her. The probation officer
+in whose care he was released became convinced of his
+genuine sincerity and regret, but the wife, still on the
+advice of her relatives, refused to see him. He persisted
+in his hope of a reconciliation and made extraordinary
+efforts during a winter of industrial depression, putting
+his pride in his pocket and taking laborer's work, which
+he had never done before. He finally got a good position
+and saved money enough to begin housekeeping. The
+probation officer kept in touch with the wife, first persuading
+her to receive a letter from Mr. Long and answer
+it through the probation office. He interested her in the
+details of her husband's struggle, and finally, after a
+whole year of probation and with the help of her pastor,
+he induced her to return. The probation officer kept in
+close touch with the family for some months and reports:
+&quot;Three years have elapsed since that time; the family
+is now in a nearby city where they are living harmoniously
+and in comfortable circumstances.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A case worker who is remarkable for her suc<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>cess
+in the treatment of estranged couples, when
+asked how she did it answered laconically,
+&quot;talks and talks and talks.&quot; A study of her
+case records, however, shows certain points that
+recur again and again in her treatment.</p>
+
+<p>She encourages man and wife, separately, to
+talk out their grievances thoroughly and get
+everything out of their systems. She then proceeds
+(with a lavish expenditure of time, as indicated
+in her phrase) to convince each that she
+is a friend, but an impartial friend. She does
+not push for an immediate reconciliation, is
+much more likely to recommend a temporary
+separation until tempers cool down and the
+true facts appear. She always advises strongly
+against &quot;argument&quot; and &quot;casting up&quot; the past,
+and tells the couple to come back to her if they
+want to discuss their grievances further. Above
+all, they are not to retail their troubles to relatives
+and friends. If either or both are out of the
+city during their separation she keeps in close
+touch with them by letter. She is quick to
+utilize their interest in their children as a means
+of reawakening their interest in each other. The
+<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>following letters illustrate her method. The
+first was written to a young man who was serving
+a six months' sentence for desertion; the others
+to the same young man after he had begun a
+manful struggle to &quot;come back,&quot; working in a
+munitions plant in another state and later sending
+money regularly to the wife, who still obdurately
+refused to forgive him. (The letters are
+part of a series of 27 which were written to him
+during a ten months' period.)</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>My dear Mr. Andrews:</i></p>
+
+<p>I was ever so glad to get your letter this week and I
+am sorry that no one has been over [to the workhouse]
+to see you recently. I will surely be over within the
+next two weeks. I know you are anxious and you should
+have had a letter telling you about the children. They
+are both all right now and the baby is out of the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>We have had a nice talk with your aunt and she is
+very anxious to come over and see you. We will all get
+together and try and plan what is the right thing to do
+when you come out. I will arrange it so we can have a
+little longer talk this time if possible.</p>
+
+<p>Very truly yours,</p>
+
+<p>DISTRICT SECRETARY.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<p><i>My dear Mr. Andrews:</i></p>
+
+<p>Your long letter has just arrived. I read it with a
+great deal of interest and pleasure. It is fine to know
+<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>you have already arrived and have started out to make
+good on your promises.</p>
+
+<p>I got your cards during the week, which brought the
+news of your journey. Also on Tuesday morning came
+your last letter, expressing your appreciation for all we
+had tried to do for you and enclosing two more thrift
+stamps for the children. I put these in their books.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday I had a nice long letter from your father,
+enclosing one for me to give to you. I am sending it
+on just as it is. I was very much tempted to read it
+but have not done so. The reason I was tempted was
+that I know it must be full of happiness to think you
+have made such a good start. At least that was the
+tone of the letter he wrote to me.</p>
+
+<p>During the past years I have worked for this society
+I have seen many people &quot;come back&quot; strong, and
+always it has been because they had some big motive in
+life and reason for making good. But I have seldom
+known a fellow that had so many reasons why he should
+make good. You have the confidence of your father and
+your aunt. You have the children for whom you will
+do right. You have Clara, whom you have wronged
+and whom you will have to teach all over again to trust
+you. Surely all these things added to your own firm will
+to try and undo all the unhappiness you have given
+people, ought to help you every day as you prove the
+good stuff that is in you.</p>
+
+<p>I, of course, telephoned Clara of your starting off and
+yesterday she came to the office and we had a long talk.
+She is only sorry that you did not see the baby and says
+<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>she will be only too glad to have special pictures taken
+of the children to send you. This was after I suggested
+that she let me take a snapshot of them to send you.</p>
+
+<p>Be sure and write to your father and aunt often.
+And please remember my last instructions, which were
+to let me know fully about yourself. When you write,
+tell me all about the camp life; how they arrange the
+living; how long hours you have to work; what they
+give you for recreation, etc. Pick out for your friends
+men who can help you, not hinder you, in your good
+determinations, and hope there will be at least one man
+there in whom you can trust and to whom you can go
+for advice.</p>
+
+<p>I will let you know about the children all the time.
+Clara says Nellie [the small daughter] was expecting to
+see you again. Don't worry, she will never forget you.</p>
+
+<p>With all good wishes,</p>
+
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+<p>DISTRICT SECRETARY.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><i>My dear Mr. Andrews:</i></p>
+
+<p>I received your long letter this morning and was very
+glad to hear all the details of camp life. It is too bad
+that your surroundings are not more comfortable, but I
+am sure you can stick it out for awhile. If you can
+raise yourself to be foreman, will you then have to live
+in the same uncomfortable quarters? Although I don't
+know the details, I should think it would be well if you
+did sign up for the six months. It is too bad that your
+throat is still hoarse.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>Thank you for letting me see your father's letter.
+I am enclosing it. I hope you are keeping in touch with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>You asked especially about Clara and whether she
+asked for you. Of course she did, and she wants me to
+say if there is anything you want to say to her you can
+send the letter here and she will write you. She thinks
+that your ambition and determination to make good is
+fine, and she will try and help you in every way. She
+has not been in this week and I have been very busy,
+but I shall make it my business to see her early next
+week, and if she has not had the pictures of the children
+taken, I will get that attended to myself.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I can see there is absolutely nothing for you
+to worry about from this end of the line. Clara is at
+last, I think, as fully self-convinced as I am that you are
+making a splendid effort, and she is perfectly willing to
+be fair in waiting until you have a chance to get turned
+around financially and in making first payment for the
+children.</p>
+
+<p>Next week I am going to send you down a book to
+read. It is one I have enjoyed myself, and perhaps some
+evenings when you are not too tired you will get a chance
+to glance over it. It is small and you can put it in your
+pocket. Be very sure I have not forgotten the very satisfactory
+talks we had and the splendid way you have
+grimly started out to make good. If you can help the
+Government do their work, even down there, give it a
+good try out. Never mind the different nationalities
+you have to mix with. You have already knocked
+<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>around the world so much that you can just consider
+this another opportunity of getting to know a great
+variety of people. You might even learn to talk Italian
+and Greek! There is no experience in life we have to go
+through but can be a source of great education to us.
+You are sure to win out and get the respect of everybody,
+your fellow-workmen as well as your superior
+officers, if you continuously day in and day out simply
+refuse to get discouraged and keep up your work and
+do as you are told. Stick by.</p>
+
+<p>With all good wishes,</p>
+
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p>DISTRICT SECRETARY.</p></blockquote>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>But when all is said and done, there are no
+unbreakable rules about treatment. A form of
+treatment is sometimes to do nothing at all.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Charles Morgan, a middle-aged machinist with a wife,
+a comfortable home, and seven children (the two eldest
+grown), picked up his tools and disappeared, after a
+quarrel over his wife's extravagance. He had been earning
+$50 a week in a shop where he had worked for eighteen
+years and he would not endure having his wages
+garnisheed for debt.</p>
+
+<p>An experienced case worker to whom furious Mrs.
+Morgan made her complaint, decided, after studying
+Mr. Morgan's record, that he ought not to be prosecuted,
+and refused to be party to it. As he was a man of domestic
+habits, search was made in a nearby city where he had
+<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>relatives. He was easily traced. Mr. Morgan was both
+proud and reticent, so the case worker made no attempt
+to approach him, but told the woman she must devise
+some way to get him back, preferably to write him and
+say she was sorry. This she refused to do and on her
+own responsibility adopted the clumsy device of wiring
+him that a favorite child was sick. This brought him
+&quot;on the run,&quot; and, being back, he stayed. <i>The case
+worker has never seen Mr. M.</i>, nor has his wife been encouraged
+to come any more to the office, although reports
+have been received from time to time through the son
+and daughter that things at home continue to go well.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <a href="#Page_179">See p. 179</a> regarding equity powers of the courts.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Massachusetts social workers succeeded in 1917 in
+securing the passage of a law which permits the ordinary
+non-support law to be invoked in case of the man's failure
+to pay the amount ordered after a legal separation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <a href="#Page_13">See p. 13 sq.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Colcord, J.C.: Article on &quot;Desertion and Non-support.&quot;
+<i>Annals of the American Academy of Political and
+Social Science</i>, May, 1918, p. 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Philadelphia Municipal Court, Report for 1916, p. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <a href="#Page_133">See p. 133.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Miss Richmond, writing in 1895, says: &quot;We would
+rather have a hundred visitors, patient, intelligent and
+resourceful, to deal with the married vagabonds of our
+city, than the best law ever framed, if, in order to get such
+a law, we must lose the visitors.&quot;</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII" /><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER</b></p>
+
+
+<p>Many of the case workers consulted in gathering
+material for this book urged that a
+discussion of the treatment of the non-supporter
+who had not deserted be included in its pages.
+In so far as non-support is a pre-desertion symptom
+and the non-supporter a potential deserter,
+much that has been said applies also to him.
+But are the two groups co-terminous, or do they
+only partially overlap?</p>
+
+<p>The law makes little difference in its treatment
+of the two, the fact of failure to support being
+the chief ground of its interest.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> Indeed, in
+Massachusetts, the law under which deserters
+<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>are extradited for abandonment is habitually
+spoken of as the &quot;non-support law.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>No study of which the results are available
+has been made to learn what difference, if any,
+exists between the non-supporter who leaves
+home and the one who does not. Miss Breed,
+in making the point that the true analogy of the
+deserted family is with the non-supported family
+and not with the widow and her children, says:
+&quot;The deserting husband is at home the non-supporting
+husband.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A case reader of experience writes: &quot;When I look
+back over the many records I have read and studied, it
+seems to me that it is very difficult to draw a line between
+desertion and non-support cases, either in the kind of
+problem they present, or in the treatment of them. Do
+we know enough about non-supporters who later become
+deserters; and isn't it possible that every non-support
+case, certainly every beginning non-support case, is a
+potential desertion case?&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that the two groups grade
+imperceptibly into each other; but of the twenty
+or more case workers who were consulted in the
+<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>preparation of this material, nearly all felt that
+the out-and-out deserter, if he can be got hold
+of, is more promising material to work with
+than the man who sits about the home and lets
+others maintain it. They all recognize a common
+middle ground where the two groups merge
+into each other; but they see decided differences
+in the two &quot;wings&quot; so to speak, outside of this
+common ground.</p>
+
+<p>Seen through their eyes, the non-supporter
+has less courage, initiative and aggressiveness
+than the deserter. &quot;He is less deliberately
+cruel&mdash;for at least he 'sticks around.'&quot; He has
+not the roving disposition, but is apt to be intemperate
+and industrially inefficient as compared
+with the deserter. Often the married
+vagabond, as he has been called, is a &quot;home-loving
+man who simply shirks responsibility and
+dislikes effort.&quot; He may &quot;sometimes feel parental
+responsibility even though he does not
+support,&quot; and he is likely to have less physical
+and mental stamina than the deserter. That
+phrase in which the psychiatrists take refuge,
+&quot;constitutional inferiority,&quot; is more likely to
+<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>describe the stay-at-home than the wanderer.
+However, one social worker (non-medical) says
+&quot;a mental twist more often enters into the problem
+of the deserter than into that of the non-supporter,
+from my experience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The head of a large probation department
+writes: &quot;Many of the deserters with whom we
+have dealt were non-supporters before coming to
+our attention. Among the men convicted of
+abandonment, however, is a group which is
+above the average in intelligence&mdash;skilled workers
+or men in professional occupations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>If this concurrence of observation is sound
+the reason for the social worker's preference for
+the deserter as material with which to work is
+not far to seek. With the deserter as described,
+the problem is chiefly to alter his point of view;
+with the non-supporter it is, in addition, to
+stiffen his will and to increase his capacity&mdash;a
+far more complicated task.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The deserter is likely to have less justification
+than the non-supporter,&quot; says an observer of
+long experience. Studies which have been made
+of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters
+<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>and of non-supporters seem to agree that the
+latter have the weaker characters and are less
+competent and successful workers. A comment
+made upon one such study points out the impossibility
+of sound conclusions, if both chronic
+and incipient cases are included in the two
+groups. The progressive demoralization in the
+family of the &quot;intermittent husband&quot; makes
+such a study of little value unless this distinction
+is taken into account.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of ill-kept homes in the manufacture
+of non-supporting husbands has been
+widely recognized.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a decent
+home, married a young man who soon began to
+drink too. Luckily, the young couple were brought in
+touch with a volunteer visitor who, on finding that the
+wife possessed only two kitchen utensils, a teakettle and
+a &quot;frypan,&quot; and actually did not know the names of any
+others, undertook to give her lessons in home management.
+She proved teachable, and her husband stopped
+drinking and braced up. Some years later the visitor
+was able to report a well established home, although the
+family refused to move out of the poor neighborhood in
+which they lived because the husband had been elected
+councilman for that district.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>If the inefficient wife contributes her share to
+this form of family breakdown so also does the
+overefficient one. Many a non-supporter got
+his first impulse in that direction when his wife
+became a wage-earner in some domestic crisis.
+&quot;There's only one rule for women who want to
+have decent homes for their children and themselves,&quot;
+advised a wise neighbor. &quot;If your husband
+comes home crying, and says he can't find
+any work, sit down on the other side of the fire
+and cry until he <i>does</i>.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p>One case worker comments on the relation
+that often exists between an inefficient husband
+and an unusually competent wife, made up of a
+motherly toleration on her side and a tacit acceptance
+on his that he is not expected to be
+the provider. &quot;Sort of a landlady's husband&quot;
+was the apt description of one such man, the
+speaker having in mind the &quot;silent partner&quot;
+who does odd jobs around his wife's furnished-room
+house. The lovable old rascal portrayed
+<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>by Frank Bacon in his play &quot;Lightnin'&quot; is
+typical of this kind of husband.</p>
+
+<p>There is no ground for outside interference in
+such an arrangement as long as both are satisfied
+and the family as a unit is self-supporting.
+It is often a serious problem to the case worker,
+however, to know how to treat such a family
+if the breadwinner-wife becomes incapacitated.
+Such was the case when Mrs. Laflin fell ill with
+tuberculosis. Her relatives described her husband
+as &quot;that little nonentity of a man.&quot; He
+had no bad habits and was pathetically eager to
+work, but though only a little over fifty he was
+prematurely aged and incapable. The solution
+had finally to be institutional care for the entire
+family, Mrs. Laflin in a hospital for incurables,
+Mr. Laflin in a home for the aged, and their
+two young daughters, through the interest of
+a former employer, in a good convent school.
+&quot;Uncomplicated&quot; non-support, as in the case
+of Mr. Laflin, is, however, rare in the experience
+of the social worker.</p>
+
+<p>Out of a group of 51 non-supporters selected
+at random from the records of the Buffalo<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>
+Charity Organization Society in 1917, 46 showed
+some serious moral fault other than non-support.
+Alcoholism is probably the commonest of these
+complications; and, as has been pointed out in
+the previous chapter, is probably a primary cause
+as well. It will be a matter of great interest to
+social workers whether the &quot;non-support rate&quot;
+is reduced after July 1, 1919. Grounds for hope
+that it may be are found in the fact that some
+remarkable results have been obtained by moving
+alcoholic non-supporters and their families
+from &quot;wet&quot; into &quot;dry&quot; territory.</p>
+
+<p>Another vice that has a direct relation to non-support
+(much more direct than to desertion) is
+gambling. The gambler carries no signs of his
+vice upon his person as does the inebriate, and
+it is therefore hard to detect. It undoubtedly
+does not appear in social case records as frequently
+as it should. Case workers should have
+it in mind as a possible explanation, whenever
+there is a marked discrepancy between what a
+non-supporter earns and what he contributes to
+the home.</p>
+
+<p>With the non-supporters rather than with the
+<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>deserters should be put the group of men whose
+wives tire of supporting them and either put
+them out or leave them. These men are often
+not only morally, but mentally and physically,
+so handicapped that there is nothing to be gained
+by constantly pursuing and arresting them, although
+some wives extract the sweets of revenge
+from doing just this. Few courts of domestic
+relations are without some wives as regular
+patrons who pursue their husbands not for gain
+but for sport. For the most part, however, the
+wives of such men are philosophical. &quot;I only
+wash for meself now,&quot; said one of them.</p>
+
+<p>These men, and the unreclaimed deserters,
+doubtless make up a large part of the floating
+population of homeless men in our large cities.
+How large a part it is impossible to say, for
+they are likely to give assumed names and deny
+the possession of families. Mrs. Solenberger<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>
+has noted, however, that if they are asked, not
+&quot;Are you married?&quot; but a less direct question
+such as &quot;Where is your wife now?&quot; a story of
+<a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>unfortunate married life will often be elicited.
+Until we have some better method of inter-city
+registration of homeless men, many of these who
+otherwise might be identified and in suitable
+cases brought back, will continue to slip through
+our fingers.</p>
+
+<p>With non-support in an incipient stage,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> it is
+sometimes possible to deal so suddenly and
+effectively that the man is shocked into a better
+realization of his responsibilities.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>A young Irish rigger, with a capable wife and two
+pretty babies, lost his job after a quarrel with his boss
+rigger. He was a genial, popular chap, always &quot;the life
+of the party&quot; in his circle; and his companions encouraged
+him to feel that he was a much injured man. They
+also helped him to fill his enforced leisure with too much
+beer. When the family received a dispossess notice the
+wife's patience was at an end, and acting on the advice
+of a society engaged in family case work, she put the
+furniture in storage and went to a shelter where she
+could leave her children in the daytime, while she was
+at work, and have them with her at night. The man
+was told to shift for himself until he could get together
+<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>sufficient money to re-establish the home. The arrangement
+continued for nearly two months, during which the
+man lived in lodging houses, had an attack of stomach
+trouble, and was altogether thoroughly miserable. Every
+night he waited for a word with his wife on a corner
+that she had to pass in coming from work. Finally,
+when it seemed to the social worker and to the wife that
+his lesson had gone far enough, the home was re-established,
+with only a small amount of help from the society.
+During the five years since that time, no recurrence of
+the trouble has come to the attention of the agency interested.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This experiment was realized to be a ticklish
+one, as a man less sincerely attached to his home
+might have been turned into a vagabond by
+such treatment.</p>
+
+<p>In general, it may be said that, as there is
+less to work on constructively with the non-supporter,
+court action has more often to be
+invoked. If the non-supporter is a &quot;chronic,&quot;
+his path must not be allowed to be too easy.
+&quot;Sometimes you just have to keep pestering him&quot;
+was the way one social worker put it. A Red
+Cross Home Service worker successfully shocked
+one elderly non-supporter into going to work, as
+described in one of the Red Cross publications:<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;Well, Mr. Gage,&quot; I said, &quot;I see you're not working
+yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Mrs. Cox, the coal company promised to send
+for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;I think you've been pretty fair with
+that company. You've waited on it for three months
+now. If I had the offer of another job I'd feel perfectly
+free to take it, if I were you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;I think I should.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, I have a job for you,&quot; said I. &quot;My husband
+wants a man now at his garage, to clean automobiles.
+The hours are from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and you'll
+earn $15 a week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His paper fell from his hands to the floor; his jaw
+dropped, and he just looked at me. Then he tried to
+crawl out of it and began to make excuses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I haven't time to argue with you, Mr. Gage,&quot; I said.
+&quot;I'll keep the job open till seven o'clock tonight and
+you can let me know then whether you'll take it or not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At seven he came to say he'd take the job.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>If in desertion cases the interest centers very
+vividly about the absent man, in non-support
+cases the reverse is likely to be true, because he
+is often not very interesting per se, and because,
+moreover, he is always on the spot and does
+<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>not have to be searched for. Familiarity certainly
+breeds contempt for the non-supporter.
+Consequently the social worker may easily fall
+into the danger of disregarding the human factors
+he presents, and either treating the family as if
+he did not exist or expending no further effort
+on him than to see that he &quot;puts in&quot; six months
+of every year in jail if possible (since the law
+usually secures to him the privilege of loafing
+the other six). It is not safe, however, to regard
+even the most leisurely of non-supporters as
+beyond the possibility of awakening. One district
+secretary who had thus given a man up
+had the experience of seeing him transformed
+into a steady worker after a few months of intensive
+effort by a first-year student in a school
+of social science, whose only equipment for the
+job was personality and enthusiasm. So remarkable
+are some of the reclamations that have
+been brought about with seemingly hopeless non-supporters
+that all possible measures should be
+tried before giving one of them up.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>His Scotch ancestry, a good wife, luck, and a friend
+with insight and skill, pulled Aleck Gray out of that
+<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>bottomless pit, the gutter. Aleck had been a bookkeeper;
+but he didn't get on well with his employers, lost his
+job, got to drinking, and went so far downhill that his
+wife had to take their two children and go home to her
+people several hundred miles away. Aleck finally drifted
+into a bureau for homeless men, where the agent became
+interested in him and worked with him for six months,
+getting him job after job, which he always lost through
+drink or temper. He seemed incapable of taking directions
+or working with other people. In all that time the
+agent felt that he was getting no nearer the root of
+Aleck's trouble, though he came back after each dismissal
+and doggedly took whatever was offered. Finally, the
+agent's patience wore thin, and when Aleck had been
+more than usually dour and aggravating it went entirely
+to pieces. Aleck listened to his outburst apparently unmoved;
+then said, &quot;Very well, if you want to know what
+would make me stop drinking, I'll tell you. If I could
+see any ray of hope that I was on the way to getting my
+home and family back, I'd stop and stop quick.&quot; On the
+agent's desk there happened to be a letter from a friend
+who wanted a tenant farmer. He thrust it into Aleck's
+hand saying, &quot;There's your chance if you mean what
+you say.&quot; The man's reply was to ask when he could
+get a train. At the end of several weeks Aleck wrote
+that he had not drunk a drop and was making good,
+which was enthusiastically confirmed by his employer.
+He begged the agent to intercede with his wife, and a
+letter went to her which brought the telegraphic reply,
+&quot;Starting tomorrow.&quot;<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a></p>
+
+<p>How they got through the first winter the agent never
+knew exactly. But they pulled through and the next
+year was easy, as country-born Aleck's skill came back.
+Six years later, during which time the agent heard from
+them once or twice a year, Aleck was still keeping
+straight, the children were doing well in school, and the
+family, prosperous and happy, had bought a farm of
+their own in another state.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The deserter who does not fail to support is usually
+safe from punishment no matter how aggravated his
+offense. A man living with his wife and five-year-old boy
+in an eastern city eloped with another woman to a city in
+the Middle West. The couple kidnapped the boy and
+took him with them; and the distracted woman, bereft of
+both her husband and child, had no recourse in any court,
+since the father was continuing to provide for his son.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Proceedings of the New York State Conference of
+Charities and Correction, 1910, p. 76.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Loane, M.: The Queen's Poor, p. 102. London,
+Edward Arnold, 1905.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Solenberger, Alice Willard: One Thousand Homeless
+Men, p. 22. New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> For a consideration of possible lines of treatment for
+the non-supporter and his family, the reader is referred to
+Chapter VII, where is discussed the treatment of the deserter
+who is willing to return.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Behind the Service Flag, pamphlet ARC 211, American
+Red Cross, Department of Civilian Relief.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX" /><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT</b></p>
+
+
+<p>Any discussion of laws, their application,
+and enforcement, must perforce be very
+general, since the different states vary greatly in
+laws governing desertion and in equipment for
+their enforcement. Suggestions for a uniform
+federal desertion law are not considered here;
+the term &quot;next steps&quot; should be read as meaning
+not plans in actual prospect but rather the
+increase in legal facilities desirable from the
+social worker's point of view. In communities
+where no such facilities exist, social workers are
+in a good position to collect illustrative material
+and push for desirable changes in law and law
+enforcement. Especially advantageous is the
+position of the legal social agencies such as legal
+aid societies and special bureaus and committees
+for increasing the efficiency of the courts, many
+<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>of which are affiliated with or maintained by the
+large family work societies.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>1. Measures for the Discovery, Extradition or Deportation
+of the Deserter.</b>&mdash;The nation-wide registration
+of males between certain ages, under the
+Selective Service Act, was widely utilized by
+social workers in finding deserting men, with the
+hearty co-operation usually of the draft boards.
+This fact forms no argument for universal registration
+as it was carried on in Germany before
+the war; no system which meant such cumbersome
+machinery or so much interference with
+the freedom of the individual ought to be advocated
+for a moment if it were solely for the purpose
+of keeping track of the small percentage of
+citizens who wish to evade their responsibilities,
+marital and other. Even such a non-military
+device as that which obligates every person to
+register successive changes of address with the
+postal authorities to facilitate delivery of mail
+would be contrary to the American spirit and
+easily evaded by people interested in concealing
+their whereabouts, unless enforced with all the
+<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>rigor of the European police system. But
+though we can advocate no system of manhood
+registration, we can avail ourselves of the incidental
+benefits of any that may be in force.</p>
+
+<p>The Federal Employment Service offers a
+promising means of help in discovering the movements
+of deserters whose trade and probable
+destination are known. It should be entirely
+possible to work out a system by which the
+managers of the local employment bureaus
+should be furnished with name, description,
+copy of photograph, and so on, of a deserter
+who is being sought, so that the man if recognized
+could be traced or quickly apprehended if
+a warrant is already in the hands of the local
+police authorities. It may even be possible,
+under the federal employment service, to develop
+the long wished for national registration of casual
+and migratory labor. Need for some such system
+has been felt by all agencies trying to deal constructively
+with vagrants and homeless men.
+Little track can be kept not only of the individual
+wanderer but of the ebb and flow of the
+tides of &quot;casual labor&quot; without some system of
+<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>this sort. If employment bureaus were required
+to forward to a central registry the names and
+some identifying particulars of every non-resident
+who applied for employment, the problem
+of finding the deserter would be rendered ten
+times easier than it is now.</p>
+
+<p>One present obstacle to this and other improvements
+is the attitude of authorities&mdash;city,
+state, and federal&mdash;toward wife desertion. We
+have already mentioned the way in which the
+task of tracing the deserter has been thrust
+back upon the wife and the social worker, as if
+he were not an offender against the community
+as well as against his wife and children. Almost
+as widespread is the reluctance of the proper
+authorities to arrest the deserter and bring him
+back after he has been found. A general atmosphere
+of indifference and despair of accomplishing
+anything worth while surrounds any attempt
+to push the prosecution of a man who has taken
+refuge outside the community. Hope for the
+future lies in socializing the point of view of
+court officials, police, and district attorneys&mdash;a
+process in which the social worker must play a
+<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>large part. No chance should be lost to drive
+home the social and economic waste involved,
+by using the illustrative material which abounds
+in the files of most case work agencies.</p>
+
+<p>The pernicious system by which the wife is
+required to serve summons and warrant upon
+the offending husband who is still in the same
+city, should be done away with entirely. The
+social agency, public or private, which has had
+to support or assist the man's family ought to
+be able to prefer a charge for non-support, and
+to take out a summons or a warrant and serve
+it without the wife's being present. The agency
+should in this case protect itself by securing
+from the wife a signed affidavit and authorization
+to act in her behalf. It may seem unimportant
+whether the wife makes such complaint in the
+court or to a private society. The psychological
+effect upon the man is, however, very different.
+If his wife initiates the complaint in court, his
+resentment is directed toward her&mdash;a fact which
+renders reconciliation more difficult if this is later
+attempted. In other cases, for the wife to make
+the complaint puts her in actual physical danger
+<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>from the vindictive husband. If he is brought
+into court on the complaint of a social agency,
+part of that resentment at least is transferred to
+the intrusive social worker, who is not usually
+seriously troubled thereby and is far better able
+to bear the weight of the husband's displeasure
+than is his poor wife.</p>
+
+<p>The absence of any treaty with Great Britain
+by which family deserters can be extradited to
+or from Canada makes the Dominion a place of
+refuge for many American evaders of family
+responsibilities. The National Conference of
+Charities and Correction,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> at its meeting in
+Cleveland in 1912, passed a resolution on the
+need for such a treaty. As a result, largely
+through the efforts of Mr. William H. Baldwin,
+the treaty was signed and sent to the Senate
+for ratification in December, 1916. It was referred
+to the Committee on Foreign Relations,
+where it met with objection and has remained
+without action up to the present. The National
+Conference of Jewish Charities, at its meeting
+<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>in Kansas City in May, 1918, sent urgent representations
+to the Senate Committee, which it is
+hoped may result in ratification after the pressure
+of war-time legislation is relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>We should not stop when reciprocal extradition
+with Canada has been secured; there is a
+similar situation on our southern border in
+states from which escape into Mexico is easy.
+While American deserters are not likely to go
+to other more remote countries than these two,
+immigration into America from other countries
+creates desertion problems in other places and
+presents us with a class of undesirables with
+whom it is difficult to deal under existing immigration
+laws. In 1912 a report was submitted
+to the Glasgow Parish Council showing the
+alarming amount of dependency created in that
+one city by the emigration to America and the
+Colonies of men without their families, and who
+subsequently drifted into the status of deserters.
+This report makes the interesting suggestion
+that no married man be permitted to emigrate
+without his family unless he presents a &quot;written
+sanction of the Parish Council or other local
+<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>authority,&quot; and further, that he be bound, under
+penalty of deportation, to report himself to
+some authority in the country of his destination,
+which would satisfy itself as to his conduct and
+insure that he did his duty by wife and family.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>
+Such a provision would of course involve the
+revision of our own immigration laws, making
+wife and family desertion a crime thereunder.</p>
+
+<p>At present the law provides deportation only
+within five years after entry, and for &quot;persons
+who have been convicted of or admit having
+committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor
+involving moral turpitude,&quot; or who are
+sentenced to a term of one year or more in this
+country, within five years of entry, for such
+crime (or who may suffer a second conviction
+at any time after entry). This would clearly
+cover bigamy committed within five years after
+entry; whether it could be stretched to cover
+lesser forms of marital irresponsibility remains
+to be determined. (It should be remembered
+<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>that a man who brings in as his wife, or later
+sends for, a woman to whom he is not married,
+can be deported under quite other sections of
+the immigration law.)</p>
+
+<p><b>2. Improvements in Court Procedure.</b>&mdash;A sore
+point with the social worker is the often ridiculously
+inadequate amounts that unwilling husbands
+are put under court order to pay. They
+accuse the courts, whether rightly or wrongly,
+of considering first what part of the man's
+alleged earnings will be needed for him to live
+upon comfortably, and then of making the order
+for whatever may be left over.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Onofrio Mancini was under court order to stay away
+from home and pay his wife $6.00 a week for the support
+of their two children, He drove a two-horse truck, and,
+at that time, must have been earning not less than $16.00
+a week. Mrs. Mancini fell ill, whereupon Onofrio
+promptly ceased all payments. The social agency interested
+was permitted to make a complaint on producing
+a doctors certificate that Mrs. Mancini could not
+appear in court; but Onofrio, when he appeared, put up
+such a hard luck tale of earning only $8.00 a week that
+the judge, without investigation, cut the order down to
+$4.00 a week and <i>ordered Onofrio to return home to live</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>A bulletin issued by the Seybert Institution
+of Philadelphia gives a very interesting set of
+diagrams showing the relation (or lack of relation)
+between the amount of man's income, size
+of family, and the court order issued in the
+Philadelphia Municipal Court.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p>
+
+<p>This report gives a series of illustrations,
+where glaring inconsistencies between the man's
+earnings and the court order were observed by
+visitors to the court. A sample of the reports
+made by these visitors is as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;Man earning $30 to $40 a week at ammunition factory.
+Can earn $20 with no overtime. Has been sending
+woman $10 a week but has threatened to leave town.
+Judge said: 'You can't keep up $10 a week&mdash;how much
+can you give?' Finally ordered $8 a week. Woman
+said she couldn't live on that and Judge told her she
+had to go to work herself then; that they should live
+together anyway. Woman says she is unable to work&mdash;is
+ill. When man stated he was giving $10 great consternation
+seemed to take hold of the entire court force. He
+<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>did not say he couldn't pay $10; the judge simply told
+him he couldn't keep that up.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The practice of assigning less than half the
+man's weekly earnings to the wife and children
+has been defended on the ground that if he is
+forced to live too economically, he will disappear
+and the family will be left with nothing. This
+would seem to be a self-confession on the part
+of the court that it cannot enforce its reasonable
+requirements. It would appear that the first
+thing to be considered is the minimum needs of
+the wife and children, taking into consideration
+whether the wife can be expected to contribute
+anything toward her own support or whether
+all her time is needed for her children. This
+amount should be cut down only when there
+is actually not enough left for the man to live
+on; and his wife and children should not be
+pinched for necessities in order that he may
+have luxuries or indulge in vices. The habit
+some judges have of accepting the man's own
+statement on oath as to what his earnings are
+is responsible for many unjust orders. A man
+who does not want to contribute to his family's
+<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>support is almost sure to understate his earnings,
+oath or no oath; and the confirmation of
+his employer (or when the employer is suspected
+of being in league with him, the inspection of
+the employer's books by the probation officer) is
+often needed. Probably the most difficult form
+of evasion to combat is that of the man who
+deliberately takes a lower salary than he is
+capable of earning, so as to have less to give
+his wife. Surprising as it may seem, this is a
+common practice; but skilful probation work
+can nevertheless find a remedy.</p>
+
+<p>In cases of suspended sentence, payments
+ought always to be made through the court and
+not handed by the man to his wife. It is better
+to have the amount received and transmitted
+by some bureau attached to the court, and so
+managed that the man can send the money in
+without &quot;knocking off work&quot; to bring it and
+that the woman can receive it by mail. The
+probation officer should not be bothered with
+the actual handling of the money, but he should
+be promptly notified of any delinquency in the
+payments.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>Whether the man under court order is on
+probation or not, the cessation of payments
+should automatically reopen the case. At present,
+in most courts, the order goes by default
+until the wife comes in to make another charge.
+This, through discouragement or fear of a beating
+from the man, she often neglects; with the
+result that the orders of the court mean little
+in the eyes of the men, and that arrears, once
+allowed to mount up, are never cleared off.</p>
+
+<p>This statement applies as well to long term
+orders for separate support where the circumstances
+are such that no reconciliation is contemplated.
+These orders are now made for a
+definite period of months, at the end of which
+time the case drops unless the wife renews
+charges. A case of this sort ought not to be
+terminable without a reinvestigation and final
+hearing in court. Indeed it would seem, in such
+cases, that the children involved should have
+at least as much protection as the children in
+bastardy proceedings, and that the order should
+be made to cover the term of years until the
+oldest child becomes of working age.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>The most important step in advance with
+regard to payments is undoubtedly the law
+which has been tried with signal success in the
+District of Columbia and in the states of Ohio
+and Massachusetts, requiring men serving prison
+sentences for non-support and abandonment to
+be made to work, and a sum of money, representing
+their earnings, to be turned over to their
+families.</p>
+
+<p>In an interesting paper in the <i>Survey</i> for
+November 20, 1909, entitled &quot;Making the Deserter
+Pay the Piper,&quot; Mr. William H. Baldwin
+discusses in detail how this plan was made to
+work successfully in the District of Columbia.</p>
+
+<p>The movement for special courts to consider
+cases of juvenile delinquency and marital relations
+has gained such headway that no word
+needs to be said here in its favor. In communities
+where the volume of court business permits
+such courts to be separately organized, they are
+generally accepted as the only means of handling
+these matters. In smaller communities the need
+may be met by setting aside regular sessions of
+the magistrates' courts for this purpose.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>Juvenile courts and domestic relations courts
+having proved a success separately, there is a
+strong movement on foot to combine them into
+one court, for which the name Family Court has
+been proposed.</p>
+
+<p>A leader in this movement is Judge Hoffman
+of the Family Court of Cincinnati, which he
+describes thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The Court of Cincinnati was organized for the purpose
+of dealing with the family as a unit and to ascertain
+possibly the cause of its disruption. It has exclusive
+jurisdiction in all divorce and alimony cases, and all
+matters coming under the Juvenile Court Act. It also
+has jurisdiction in cases of failure to provide. The ideal
+court would include in connection with the foregoing
+functions, adoption of children, the issuing of marriage
+licenses, and bastardy cases.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>One advantage of this plan is the economy
+it effects in the time of probation officers. It is
+generally admitted that in children's court cases
+it is the parents rather than the children who
+are really on probation; and with two courts
+and two separate probation systems, we may
+<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>even have the anomaly of the same family being
+under the care of two probation officers at once.
+Specialization can no further go! Other leaders
+in the domestic relations court movement see
+little merit in the proposal for a one-part family
+court. They think that, in the large cities at
+least, the need would be better served by having
+the domestic relations and juvenile courts under
+one roof, but as two separate and distinct parts
+of the same court. All are agreed, however,
+that the powers of one or the other of the two
+special courts should be enlarged to cover bastardy
+cases, where this is not now done.</p>
+
+<p>The domestic relations court, whether separate
+or as part of a family court, ought to have
+equity powers, so that the usual rules of evidence
+need not be so closely adhered to and
+more latitude could be allowed the magistrate
+in disposing of cases, not necessarily according
+to ruling and precedent but according to the
+social needs disclosed. A constitutional amendment
+now pending in New York is a model for
+this sort of legislation. It is in part as follows:<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The legislature may establish children's courts and
+courts of domestic relations as separate courts or parts of
+existing courts, or courts hereafter to be created, and
+may confer upon them such equity and other jurisdiction
+as may be necessary for the correction, protection, guardianship
+and disposition of delinquent, neglected or dependent
+minors, and for the punishment and correction
+of adults responsible for or contributing to such delinquency,
+neglect or dependency, and to compel the support
+of a wife, child or poor relative by persons legally
+chargeable therewith who abandon or neglect to support
+any of them.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Many courts of domestic relations which now
+exercise equity powers, such as ordering that a
+man remain away from home or that a wife
+allow her husband to see his children at stated
+times, do so without actual legal warrant and
+subject at any time to appeal of counsel. The
+conferring of equity powers on courts of domestic
+relations is a form of protection both to the
+court and to its clients which social workers
+should stand ready to work for.</p>
+
+<p>Juvenile courts have in the main outstripped
+<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>the domestic relations courts in the use of physicians
+and psychiatrists. The best examples of
+both these courts have, however, facilities for
+the making of physical examinations and mental
+tests, where necessary, before adjudication.
+Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many
+cases in courts of domestic relations disclose abnormal
+or perverted sex habits, makes important
+the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to
+diagnosing these conditions.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>
+
+<p>In most states the jurisdiction of the courts
+of domestic relations should be extended and
+co-ordinated. Few states escape some glaring
+inconsistencies in the laws governing desertion
+and abandonment. There is, for instance, much
+confusion between states as to whether a woman
+whose husband brings her to a strange city and
+there deserts her must prosecute him in the city
+where their home is or where the desertion took
+place. Under certain circumstances the woman
+is forced to travel to the city where her husband
+has gone, and bring action against him there,
+<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>if the courts in that place will entertain a suit.
+In New York state there is no law which covers
+the case of a man who abandons his wife while
+she is pregnant, if there is no other living child.
+To constitute an extraditable crime there must
+have been abandonment of a child <i>in esse</i> not
+merely <i>in posse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But no institution, however carefully established
+by law, is any more effective than the
+people who run it; and the usefulness of the
+domestic relations court in any community depends
+entirely upon the social-mindedness and
+freedom from political entanglement of the
+judge and the amount and quality of probation
+service. From a social point of view, the latter
+is more important than the former; for a bad
+decision of the court can be mitigated by good
+case work later on, while a poor probation
+officer may nullify the effects of the wisest
+judicial decision ever made.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of having enough probation
+officers to handle the work of the court has
+already been touched upon. An overworked
+officer is perforce an inefficient officer. He has
+<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>usually to spend at least half his time in the
+court and attending to the clerical end of his
+job. From 50 to 60 cases is probably all that
+one probation officer can be expected to handle
+thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped,
+he is required to make careful preliminary investigations
+to be presented to the judge <i>before</i>
+the trial.</p>
+
+<p>In training and in equipment for the job, probation
+officers should be the equals of case workers
+in private agencies. Examinations for probation
+officers ought to be conducted by social
+workers of skill and high standards. A few
+months of cramming at a civil service school, or
+a few weeks of volunteer visiting with some case
+working agency, should not suffice to enable
+candidates to pass the examinations. The standards
+should be high enough and the salaries
+sufficiently attractive to draw into this field
+people who have successfully completed their
+apprenticeship in the art of case work. Only
+then can the status of the probation officer be
+raised to what it should be in the court itself.
+The relation of the probation officer to the judge
+<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>ought to be exactly like the relation of the medical
+social worker to the physician&mdash;that of a
+person acting under his direction in a general
+way, but with a special contribution to make to
+the treatment of the case and with a recognized
+standing as an expert in his own particular field.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Now changed to The National Conference of Social
+Work.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Motion, J.R.: Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration
+as a Contributory Cause. Glasgow Parish Council,
+1912.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Handling of Cases by the Juvenile Court and Court of
+Domestic Relations of the Philadelphia Municipal Court.
+Bulletin 2, Bureau for Social Research, the Seybert Institution,
+Philadelphia, 1918.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Hoffman, Charles W.: The Domestic Relations Court
+and Divorce, <i>The Delinquent</i>, February, 1917.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> For a fuller discussion of equity powers see an article
+by Judge C.F. Collins in the <i>Legal Aid Review</i> for January,
+1919.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Hoffman, Charles W.: Domestic Relations Courts
+and Divorce. <i>The Delinquent</i>, February, 1917.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="X" id="X" /><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>X</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT</b></p>
+
+
+<p>At this time of writing it is too soon after
+the signing of the armistice to make predictions
+as to what the Great War may do to marriage.
+Whether desertion and divorce will increase
+or decrease it is impossible to say, and
+the experience of Europe is beside the mark.
+The war will leave traces on this generation&mdash;no
+doubt about that; but our losses have not
+been heavy enough seriously to disturb the balance
+of the sexes. The war, which has been
+to the common people of our country a war of
+service and ideals, has erased much that was
+petty and selfish; it has also caused nervous
+shocks and strains incalculable and unimagined.
+Years from now we may be able to strike the
+balance, but today this cannot be done. It is
+impossible also to say whether the growing
+<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>irresponsibility that was generally recognized to
+be threatening married life in the years before
+the war is still operating with like effect, or
+whether the full tide of emotion in which the
+world has been lately submerged may have swept
+at least a part of it away.</p>
+
+<p>We are dealing here, however, not so much
+with modifications in the spirit of the times, as
+with prevention in the individual case.</p>
+
+<p>One very fundamental claim can be made
+concerning marital shipwrecks; namely, that
+the way to prevent many of them would have
+been to see that the marriage never was allowed
+to take place. Marriage laws and their enforcement
+form a whole subject in themselves which
+is now receiving careful study, the results of
+which should be available shortly.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> This fact
+precludes any discussion of the subject here,
+though the relation of our marriage laws to
+marital discord is so obvious that some mention
+of the matter is necessary.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>It was formerly the belief of students of
+family desertion that the best way to prevent
+desertions was to punish them quickly and
+severely. It should be said that this plan has
+never received a fair trial on a large scale, for
+legal equipment has always lagged behind knowledge.
+It may be true that just as a community
+can, within limits, regulate its death rate by
+what it is willing to pay, so it can by repressive
+measures regulate its desertion rate. But measures
+that keep the would-be deserter in the home
+which constantly grows less of a home, simply
+through fear of consequences if he left it, seem
+hardly a desirable form of prevention from the
+social point of view. It would be much better
+to catch the disintegrating family in whatever
+form of social drag-net could be devised, and
+deal with it individually and constructively
+along the lines which case work has laid down.</p>
+
+<p>Is it possible, however, to recognize a &quot;pre-desertion
+state?&quot; And if so, what are the danger
+signals? One case worker answers this question
+sententiously: &quot;Any influences which tend
+to destroy family solidarity are possible signs of
+<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>desertion.&quot; Another writes: &quot;We have sometimes
+found it possible to recognize a 'pre-desertion
+state' in the intermittent deserter, where
+we know the conditions which previously led to
+desertion, but I doubt whether we have very
+often been able to note it in the case of first
+desertions. In general, I should say a growing
+carelessness or a growing despondency as to his
+ability to care for his family are danger signals
+in the man, of which it is well to keep track.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The conditions listed in Chapter II as &quot;contributory
+factors&quot; might in certain combinations
+be decided danger signals of impending desertion.
+Non-support itself is, indeed, one of the
+most common of such signals, though a man
+who has dealt with hundreds of desertion cases
+maintained recently that the best and most
+hopeful type of deserter is the one who supports
+his family adequately up to the time of leaving
+home.</p>
+
+<p>In the following case the items that led the
+case worker to suspect an approaching desertion
+are set down in the order stated by her. The
+<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>couple were Irish; the man had never deserted
+before.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>(1) He had spoken with eagerness of the wages that
+were being earned in munition plants in a city a few
+hours away&mdash;said he would like to go to some of those
+munition places and see what he could make.</p>
+
+<p>(2) He was an intermittent drinker.</p>
+
+<p>(3) His work record was poor; employers said he was
+irregular and unreliable.</p>
+
+<p>(4) Visitor felt he had never earned as much as he
+was easily capable of earning and was rather indifferent
+to the needs of his family.</p>
+
+<p>(5) The woman was willing to work&mdash;had applied for
+day nursery care, but visitor had persuaded the nursery
+not to accept the children.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>After the visitor had stated the first two of
+the above items she stopped, and did not add
+the more significant three that followed until
+reminded that many workmen who drank intermittently
+were at that time thinking enviously
+of munition factory wages; and that these
+hardly constituted danger signals. The cumulative
+effect of all five items cannot, however, be
+denied.</p>
+
+<p>Another statement, similarly obtained, con<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>cerns
+a colored couple, married about two years
+and with two children, the youngest less than a
+month old. Man had been out of work and
+family had gone to live with relatives.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>(1) Man earns $20 a week but refuses to start housekeeping
+again, although they are seriously overcrowded&mdash;seven
+adults and five children in five rooms.</p>
+
+<p>(2) Woman says he makes her sleep on chairs so that
+he can get better rest.</p>
+
+<p>(3) He is seeing a good deal of another woman, a
+friend of the wife (wife's statement only).</p>
+
+<p>(4) Woman had applied for nursery care for both children
+so that she might go to work.</p>
+
+<p>(5) It transpires that she lived with him before marriage,
+and that the first child was a month old when the
+marriage took place. He &quot;holds it over her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>(6) Man had been married before and divorced.</p>
+
+<p>(7) The family's habits of recreation are changed;
+the man no longer &quot;takes her out.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Such attempts to foretell the future are not
+infallible, of course; but a listing process is a
+valuable aid to diagnosis, and, by its help, a
+situation may be uncovered which tends toward
+complete family breakdown. This may be taken
+in time and prevented; or, if separation is inevitable
+it can be prepared for in advance, the
+<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>necessary legal arrangements can be made to
+protect the family, and the anxiety, suspense,
+and useless effort avoided which a sudden and
+downright abandonment would cause.</p>
+
+<p>But the trouble is that the problem seldom
+comes to the case worker until matters have
+progressed farther than this. The real question
+is&mdash;not how to recognize pre-desertion symptoms,
+but how to get hold of families when
+these symptoms are in the incipient stage.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hiram Myers, manager of the Desertion
+Bureau of the New York Association for Improving
+the Condition of the Poor, who has
+made a close study of the subject, holds the
+theory that the real period of stress in marital
+adjustment comes not during the &quot;critical first
+year,&quot; about which we have been told so much,
+but at a later period, which he sets roughly at
+from the third to the fifth year after marriage.
+By this time there are usually one or two babies,
+the wife's girlish charm has gone, and the romance
+of the first attraction has vanished, while
+the steady force of conjugal affection which
+should smooth their path through the years
+<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>ahead has not come to take its place. It is in
+this middle period that longings for the delights
+of his care-free youth begin to come back to a
+man; if he ever had the wandering foot, it begins
+again to twitch for the road; of else his
+fancy is captured by some other girl not tied
+down at home by children. It is at this time,
+too, that endless discords and misunderstandings
+arise&mdash;that the last bit of gilt crumbles off
+the gingerbread.</p>
+
+<p>As a result of his observations, Mr. Myers
+feels sure that the majority of first desertions
+take place somewhere from the third to the fifth
+year after marriage. Miss Brandt's<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> careful
+statistical study of 574 deserted families shows
+that in nearly 46 per cent of the families the
+first desertion took place before the fifth year
+of married life. Of course the jars that may
+come in the earlier months of marriage are seldom
+brought to the attention of social agencies,
+as it is usually the presence of children in the
+family and the consequent burden upon the
+<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>wife which make such agencies acquainted with
+her.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped that further study will be
+made upon these points. It is well known and
+accepted that the majority of first deserters are
+young men; but if certain danger periods in
+married life can be definitely recognized, many
+new possibilities in prevention and treatment
+will be opened up.</p>
+
+<p>A number of experiments and suggestions
+have lately been made which may prove to be
+the means of recognizing marital troubles early.
+The probation department of the Chicago Court
+of Domestic Relations some years ago established
+a consultation bureau to which people might
+come or be sent for advice on difficult matrimonial
+situations, and without any court record
+being made. The Department of Public Charities
+of New York City maintains a similar bureau
+which is, however, so closely connected with the
+court that its clients make little distinction between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to such conscious efforts to reach
+out after marital tangles in the pre-court stage,
+<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>there has recently been an interesting though
+accidental development in the city of Cleveland.
+During the thrift campaign of 1918, several savings
+banks of that city conceived the idea that
+their depositors could be induced and helped to
+save more money if the banks opened a bureau
+for free advice to their patrons on household
+management. This bureau is still in the experimental
+stage but it has had an increasing clientele
+so far. One thing that has astonished its management&mdash;but
+which causes no surprise in the
+mind of a social worker&mdash;has been the great
+variety of problems other than those connected
+with the family budget that have come to light
+in the bureau's consultations. Particularly is
+this true of marital discord centering about
+money affairs.</p>
+
+<p>If such bureaus prove their usefulness there
+is no reason why they might not be greatly extended,
+and why other agencies than banks (insurance
+companies, for example) might not be
+eager thus to serve their customers. This opens
+a new field for the home economist, but incidentally
+it would appear that, in order to func<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>tion
+successfully, such bureaus would need to
+have access to the services of agencies employing
+highly skilled social case workers. It is conceivable
+that, if there are developed in our large
+cities consultation facilities under social auspices
+for people who feel their marriages going wrong,
+and want help and advice in righting them, such
+bureaus as those described above would be excellent
+&quot;feeders&quot; for this new form of social service.</p>
+
+<p>Family social agencies have been distinctly
+backward in some of their approaches to the
+fundamental problems of family life. The failure
+of most of them, for instance, to study or seek
+improvements in the laws governing marriage
+or in their administration, is difficult of explanation.
+Such a consultation service as that suggested
+does, however, indicate a new point of
+departure in dealing with marital relations
+which would seem to fall distinctly within the
+field of the family case work agencies. It is
+time that these agencies began to find means
+of dealing, not with the dependent family alone
+but with the family in danger of becoming dependent&mdash;not
+with the family broken and
+<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>estranged only, but with the one whose bonds,
+even if cracking and ill-adjusted, still hold.</p>
+
+<p>Concretely, why should not family agencies
+establish such consultation bureaus as have
+just been mentioned, distinct from their regular
+activities and hampered by no suggestion in
+their title of association with problems of dependency?
+Dr. William Healy of Boston ascribes
+much of his success in getting the parents of
+defective and backward children to bring them
+voluntarily for examination to the fact that the
+name of his organization (the Judge Baker
+Foundation) conveys no hint of stigma or inferiority.
+Here is a valuable lesson in right
+publicity.</p>
+
+<p>A bureau of family advice such as has been suggested
+should be under unimpeachable auspices
+from the point of view of medicine and psychiatry;
+it should have the services not only of
+expert social workers and experts in household
+management, but of doctors and psychiatrists
+as well. If it could be run as a joint-stock enterprise,
+in which courts and social agencies might
+be equally interested, so much the better. Its
+<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>investigations should be searching enough to
+discourage applications from curiosity-mongers;
+but its services, like those of any clinic, should
+be given for whatever the patient is able to pay.
+Its relations, needless to say, should be entirely
+confidential, and as privileged in the eyes of the
+law as are those of doctor, lawyer, and priest.</p>
+
+<p>It may be objected that people guard their
+marital infelicities too jealously and are too
+loath to discuss them to come willingly to such
+a place; that the idea involves a presumptuous
+interference in the private lives of individuals.
+But neurologists know that people in increasing
+numbers feel the need, under conditions of modern
+stress, for a safe outlet and a chance to discuss
+their perplexities and find counsel.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty years ago the interest now taken by the
+social and medical professions in the question
+of whether mothers are rearing their infants
+properly could not have been foreseen. The
+establishment of baby health stations, or the
+activities of the Children's Bureau, would have
+been looked upon as unwarranted interference
+between the child and its mother, whose natural
+<a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>instincts could be depended upon to teach her
+how to nourish it. This point of view is no
+longer held; and the community's duty to take
+an interest in the upbringing of its children is
+never questioned. Is it not conceivable that,
+before another half century has rolled around,
+the community may take the same intelligent
+interest in the conservation of the family, and
+that definite efforts, which are now almost
+entirely lacking, may be made to stabilize and
+protect it?</p>
+
+<p>Educational propaganda would, of course,
+have to be a definite part of the work of such
+bureaus. By this is meant not such modern
+specialties as &quot;birth control,&quot; &quot;sex hygiene,&quot;
+<i>et al.</i>, though we may by that time have enough
+authoritative information about sex psychology
+in marriage to be able to afford some help along
+these lines. Instruction in the <i>ethics</i> of married
+life and parenthood is of even more fundamental
+importance. The prevailing cynicism, the present
+low concepts of marriage, should be vigorously
+combatted by such an organization. Religious
+instruction would be, of course, beyond its
+<a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>scope; but it should be able to work sympathetically
+with all creeds, supplementing their teachings
+without seeking to duplicate them.</p>
+
+<p>The services of such a bureau could not, of
+course, be forced upon anyone who did not wish
+to avail himself or herself of them; but definite
+though tactful efforts could be made to reach
+all young couples (just as are now being made
+to reach young mothers) with information as to
+where advice could be obtained.</p>
+
+<p>No trustworthy figures exist as to the number
+of families broken by desertion or divorce in the
+United States, or as to the burden of actual dependency
+caused. Courts, probation officers,
+psychiatrists, and family case workers are all
+dissatisfied with our efforts to patch up the
+families which are already disintegrating. One
+of the three groups mentioned is likely before
+long to attempt some more dynamic attack
+upon the problem in its inception. If any suggestions
+herein contained find use in that program,
+the labor of compiling them will have
+been indeed well spent.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> See, for example, American Marriage Laws in their
+Social Aspects&mdash;a preliminary study by the Russell Sage
+Foundation, June, 1919.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Brandt, Lilian: 574 Deserters and their Families, p.
+23. Charity Organization Society of New York, 1905.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX" /><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p>
+Adolph R.: case story of, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br />
+<br />
+Age: relation of differences in, <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br />
+<br />
+Agencies: N.Y. Charity Organization Society, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">National Desertion Bureau, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>. <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">United Hebrew Charities, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">co-operative methods, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>-<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinions on methods of arrest, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social problems and consultation bureaus, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Alcoholism: statistics on, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">devastating effects of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case story of woman, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and justifiable deserters, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to non-support, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects</i>, study by Russell Sage Foundation, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br />
+<br />
+Apparent desertions: illustrated, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Baldwin, Wm. H., <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Bastardy Cases, A Study of</i> Louise de K. Bowen, <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br />
+<br />
+Bastardy, see <i>Forced marriages</i><br />
+<br />
+<i>Behind the Service Flag</i>, Red Cross pamphlet, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+<br />
+Bigamy: and common law marriages, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">immigrant deserters, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bosanquet, Helen, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Bowen, Louise de K., <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br />
+<br />
+Brand, Harvey: case story of, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br />
+<br />
+Brandt, Lilian, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br />
+<br />
+Breed, Mary, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+<br />
+Buffalo Charity Organization Society: non-support records, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br />
+<br />
+Bureaus: National Desertion Bureau, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for consultation, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Court of Domestic Relations, Chicago, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Department of Public Charities, New York, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Children's Bureau, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">importance of educational, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Agencies</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Byington, Margaret F., <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Canada: extradition treaties sought, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br />
+<br />
+Carstens, C.C., <a href="#Page_68">68</a><br />
+<br />
+Case illustrations: of apparent desertion, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mental deficiency, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reconciliation through education, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incompatibility and the &quot;other woman,&quot; <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interviewing the man essential, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">liberal relief policy, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agency co-operation, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accident case, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">traced through letter, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reconciliation after court marriage, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;American&quot; marriages, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">justifiable desertion, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">antagonism, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prison sentences helpful, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">adequate relief rids wife of chronic deserter, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">adjustment impossible, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">real affection a basis of reconciliation, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br /><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rehabilitation of a deserter, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wife reluctant to return to man who reformed, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">non-support and ill-kept homes, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">re-establishing non-supporters' homes, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>-<a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inadequate court orders, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Case work, see <i>Social workers</i><br />
+<br />
+Causal factors: analysis of study, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">motives and theories, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rationalization discussed, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">summary of statistics, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeble-mindedness, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>-<a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">training and self-control, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nationality, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religion, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">age, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">environment, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wrong basis of marriage, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">common law marriage, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ignorance, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incompetence, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wanderlust, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inadequate income, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">financial mismanagement, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical condition, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">temperamental differences, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sex incompatibility, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vice and disease, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relatives, interference of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>-<a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">racial studies, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">community standards, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recreation, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">companions, influence of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">shifting responsibility, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">underlying causes, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seeking a working basis, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>-<a href="#Page_105">105</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Charitable relief: desertion in expectation of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mary Breed on, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">immigrant's interpretation of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>-<a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Collusion</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Chicago Court of Domestic Relations, bureau for marital advice, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+<br />
+Chicago Juvenile Protective Association: study of forced<br />
+marriages by, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_95">95</a><br />
+<br />
+Children's Bureau, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br />
+<br />
+Closing the case: extended treatment recommended, <a href="#Page_63">63</a><br />
+<br />
+Colcord, J.C., <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br />
+<br />
+Collins, C.F., <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+<br />
+Collusion: infrequency of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case stories of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistics of National Desertion Bureau, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">preventive measures, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>-<a href="#Page_80">80</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Common law marriages: legal protection under, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">confusion of state laws, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Community ideals, see <i>Standards</i><br />
+<br />
+Companions: influence, and wanderlust, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>-<a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aid in finding deserters, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Co-operation of agencies, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>-<a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggested methods of finding deserters, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">probation officers, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Corrective treatment: legislative recommendations, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">military systems aid in tracing deserters, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>-<a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">obstacles, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">serving a warrant or summons, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extradition treaties recommended, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dependency through emigration, report on, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deportation laws, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">court orders to pay, Seybert Institution report on, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">special courts for juvenile delinquents, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Family Court of Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic relations court, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">probation officers, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Court intervention: policy of treatment in past, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reasons, and laxity of laws, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>-<a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social agency statistics, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a last resort, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for persistent deserters, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extradition, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">probation, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">warrant served by wife, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effecting reconciliations, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic relation courts effect reconciliations, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">volunteers, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">inadequacy of orders, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for juvenile delinquents, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic relations, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br /><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>
+Department of Public Charities, New York City, bureau of domestic relations, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Deserters and their Families,</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lilian Brandt, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Desertion and Non-Support in Family Case Work.</i> Joanna C. Colcord, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br />
+<br />
+Detectives: methods objectionable, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a><br />
+<br />
+Disease: statistical analysis, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and psychiatry, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of physical debility, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">venereal disease, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">alcoholism, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Medical-Social work</i></span><br />
+<br />
+District of Columbia: non-support laws, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br />
+<br />
+Divorce: relation to desertion, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">not considered, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">administration of laws, and respect for, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by publication, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clearing bureau for, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for long continued desertion, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal separation to protect wife, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bureaus might prevent, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Domestic relations courts: to combine with juvenile, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Family Court of Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">equity powers for, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amendment pending, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facilities, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Domestic Relations Court and Divorce.</i> C.W. Hoffman, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+<br />
+Donald, Patrick: case story of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a><br />
+<br />
+Drug addiction, see <i>Narcotics</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Early influences: and self-control, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">educational, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Economics: ratio of desertions in &quot;hard times,&quot; <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">family finances, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">service bureaus, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Education: social studies of family life, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early training and delinquency, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">background for failures, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">destructive forces, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggestions for case workers, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Attendance Department traces deserters, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">non-support and inefficiency eliminated by, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">propaganda, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Ellis, Havelock, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+Environment: and immigration, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">neighborhood standards, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Equity powers, of domestic relations courts, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+<br />
+Eubank, E.E., <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br />
+<br />
+Extradition: state problems, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for dangerous men, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>-<a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">non-support law, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">treaties essential, ratification pending, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">N.Y. state law, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Extravagance: family finances, <a href="#Page_33">33</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Family as a Social and Educational Institution, The.</i> Willystine Goodsell, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br />
+<br />
+Family Court of Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Family Desertion.</i> Lilian Brandt, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Family Desertion, A Study of.</i> E.E. Eubank,<a href="#Page_21">21</a><br />
+<br />
+Family life: permanence of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>-<a href="#Page_15">15</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spiritual values of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consultation service to solve problems of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Family, The.</i> Helen Bosanquet, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Fear of bodily harm from dangerous deserters, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a><br />
+<br />
+Federal Employment Service, <a href="#Page_166">166</a><br />
+<br />
+Finding deserters, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">National Desertion Bureau, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">urgency of finding the man, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">C.C. Carstens quoted, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">example of, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">collusion, instances of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>-<a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">literature lacking, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">detective methods, illustration of, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>-<a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggestions for, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">through military authorities, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trade places, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>-<a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">publications, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bulletin boards, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">employment agencies, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agency co-operation, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a></span><br />
+<br />
+First desertions: temporary character of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">medical-social work a preventive, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accident records aid in tracing, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">critical nature of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">when apt to occur, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>-<a href="#Page_192">192</a></span><br />
+<br />
+First problem in desertion, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br />
+<br />
+Forced marriages: irregular unions, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">investigation of, and statistics, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">study by Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case illustrations, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Forel, August, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+Francis, Mrs.: case story of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br />
+<br />
+Frost, Robert, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Gambling: effect upon character, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to non-support, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Glasgow Parish Council, report on dependency, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>-<a href="#Page_171">171</a><br />
+<br />
+Goodsell, Willystine, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br />
+<br />
+Gorokhoff, Andreas: case story of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br />
+<br />
+Gray, Aleck: case story of, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>-<a href="#Page_163">163</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Hart, Bernard, <a href="#Page_20">20</a><br />
+<br />
+Healy, Dr. William, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+<br />
+Heredity: psychopathic personality, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeble-mindedness, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">racial differences, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hoffman, Charles W., <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Illustrations, see <i>Case illustrations</i><br />
+<br />
+Immorality, see <i>Sex factors</i><br />
+<br />
+Inadequate relief: legal separation, and the law, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wife's attitude, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illustrated, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">court orders, inconsistency of, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recent legislation to correct, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Non-support</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Income: economic issues, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wages and non-support, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>-<a href="#Page_33">33</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Incompatibility: temperamental differences, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sex relations, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Industrial deficiency: in husband and wife, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">national registration to correct, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Insanity: study of defectives, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Insanity, The Psychology of.</i> Bernard Hart, <a href="#Page_20">20</a><br />
+<br />
+Instability: forms of, mental and physical, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">factors that induce, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>-<a href="#Page_49">49</a></span><br />
+<br />
+&quot;Intermittent husbands,&quot; <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br />
+<br />
+Interviewing the man: importance of, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case story, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Italy: marriage registration in, <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Judge Baker Foundation, of Boston, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+<br />
+Justifiable deserters: and alcoholism, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case illustration, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">procedure with, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Justification: thirst for experience, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">process of rationalization, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">venereal disease and separation, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">alcohol, and &quot;justifiable deserters,&quot; <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Williams case illustrates, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the non-supporter, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_154">154</a></span><br />
+<br /><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>
+Juvenile courts: movement for special, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Juvenile Court Act, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">combine with domestic relation courts, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Family Court of Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facilities, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Laflin, Mrs.: case story of, <a href="#Page_155">155</a><br />
+<br />
+Latham, George: case story of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br />
+<br />
+Legal separation to protect wife, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>-<a href="#Page_129">129</a><br />
+<br />
+Legislation: irregular unions, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pioneering methods, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">state aid to mothers, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">common law unions, legality of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italian, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">divorce for permanent desertion, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for justifiable deserters, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">court action for persistent deserters, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extradition, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">probation, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal facilities to promote efficiency, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">serving a warrant, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extradition treaties, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>-<a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deportation, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">court procedure, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">juvenile delinquency, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic relations, and special courts, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage laws, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Loane, M., <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br />
+<br />
+Long, Martin: case story of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Making the Deserter Pay the Piper.</i> W.H. Baldwin, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br />
+<br />
+Mancini, Onofrio: case story of, <a href="#Page_172">172</a><br />
+<br />
+Marital vagaries: possible reasons for, <a href="#Page_35">35</a><br />
+<br />
+Marriage: spiritual values of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">homelier elements in, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>-<a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wrong bases of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">common law unions, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disparagement of ideals condemned, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">verification, and state legislation, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>-<a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">registration in Italy, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American marriage laws, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></span><br />
+<br />
+McCann, Herbert: case story of, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+<br />
+Medical-social work: preventing desertion, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">summary of case analyses, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">psychiatry and mental deficiency, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical debility, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;pregnancy desertion,&quot; <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sex incompatibility, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bureaus of advice recommended, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Psychology</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Mellor, Joseph: case story of, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br />
+<br />
+Mentality: irresponsible agents, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_20">20</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">psychology of insanity, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">educational handicaps, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mexico: and extradition, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+<br />
+Morgan, Charles: case story of, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a><br />
+<br />
+Motion, J.R., <a href="#Page_171">171</a><br />
+<br />
+Myers, Hiram, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Narcotics: percentage of influence, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br />
+<br />
+Nationality: statistical facts about difference in, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_45">45</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">racial attitude, and percentages of deserters, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case problem, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jewish desertion bureau, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a></span><br />
+<br />
+National Conference of Jewish Charities, seeks extradition treaty, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br />
+<br />
+National Conference of Social Work, extradition treaty urged, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br />
+<br />
+National Desertion Bureau, Jewish legal aid, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">story of tracing a deserter, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">collusive desertion cases, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clearing bureau established, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Neighborhood influence, see <i>Standards</i><br />
+<br />
+Newspapers, see <i>Publicity</i><br />
+<br /><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a><a href="#Page_206">206</a>
+New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor: practice of Desertion Bureau, <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br />
+<br />
+New York Charity Organization Society: study of racial groups, and percentages, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_45">45</a><br />
+<br />
+New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings, on non-supporters, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+<br />
+Non-supporters: as potential deserters, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_163">163</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal treatment of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">analogous to deserters, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>-<a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">characteristics, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wife's influence a factor, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illustrations, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reclamation, illustrated, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>-<a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">approach to desertion, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>-<a href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Non-support Law: in Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Normal Family, The.</i> Margaret F. Byington, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>North of Boston.</i> Robert Frost, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>One Thousand Homeless Men.</i> Alice W. Solenberger, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+Overindulgence: teaching self-control, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wage-earning wives, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Pelligrini, Orfeo: case story of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br />
+<br />
+Permanence of family life, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>-<a href="#Page_15">15</a><br />
+<br />
+Permanent desertions, see <i>Divorce</i><br />
+<br />
+Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, report on reconciliations, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a><br />
+<br />
+Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity: report of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a><br />
+<br />
+Photographs of deserters: society presents to wife, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tracing out-of-town clues, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Physical condition: ill health, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;difficulty&quot; of pregnant women, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">maladjustments, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recreation essential, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recommendations, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+&quot;Pregnancy desertion&quot;: how explained, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a><br />
+<br />
+Preventive treatment: past opinions, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">non-support leading to desertion, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>-<a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for first desertions, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>-<a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bureaus for advice and consultation, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggestions for, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Probation: testimony of social workers, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and imprisonment, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal separation proceedings during, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">officers effect reconciliation, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illustrations, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;stay-away&quot; probation, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">economy plan for officers, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number and efficiency of officers, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>-<a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consultation bureau, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Provisional quality of desertions, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Psychoanalysis: mental deficients, and heredity, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incompatibility and sex perversion, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Sex factors</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Psychology: rationalization process, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mental defectives, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sex incompatibility, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">studies on, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">knowledge of, essential, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Publicity: photographs a medium of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agencies and newspapers, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">divorce by &quot;publication,&quot; <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illustration, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Queen's Poor, The.</i> M. Loane, <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br />
+<br />
+Questionnaires: liberal relief policy, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">searching for deserters, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">treatment of desertion, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></span><br />
+<br /><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>
+<br />
+Ratio of desertions: economic factors, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>-<a href="#Page_33">33</a><br />
+<br />
+Reconciliation: factors that prompt, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the &quot;other woman,&quot; <a href="#Page_40">40</a>-<a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">following court marriage, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">after prison term, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">considerations involved, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unwillingness of wife, illustrated, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criminal tendencies prevent, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">affection a safe basis of, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">practice of N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>-<a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">volunteer visitors helpful, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case worker's success in effecting, illustrated, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bureaus to promote, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Recreation: why essential, <a href="#Page_47">47</a><br />
+<br />
+Red Cross Home Service, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+<br />
+Relatives: interference of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>-<a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a><br />
+<br />
+Religion: differences in, a study of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br />
+<br />
+Repeated desertions: frequency of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;intermittent husbands,&quot; <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggestions for tracing the man, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relative nature of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Responsibility: self-therapy illustrated, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deserters disclaim, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>-<a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">essentials of early training, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">education promotes, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and charitable relief, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wage-earning wives, and non-supporters, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Richmond, Mary E.: on volunteers in case work, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+<br />
+Ridicule: of matrimony, by press and films, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a><br />
+<br />
+Russell Sage Foundation, study, American marriage laws, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Selective Service Act, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br />
+<br />
+Sex factors: determine forgiveness, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistical summary, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;pregnancy desertion,&quot; <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incompatibility, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">immorality, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">knowledge of sex psychology essential, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Sex in Relation to Society.</i> Havelock Ellis, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Sexual Question, The.</i> A. Forel, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, on relation of income to court order, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br />
+<br />
+Slacker marriages, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br />
+<br />
+Social workers: opinions of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>-<a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appreciative faculties of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">knowledge of sex relations imperative, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diagnoses referred to specialists, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">undervalue recreation, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">questionnaires on treatment, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">detective methods, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agency co-operation, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>-<a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sex problems, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">necessary information for, summarized, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>-<a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protection of legal separation, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">successful case records, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Solenberger, Alice W., <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+Spiritual values: of family life, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>-<a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a><br />
+<br />
+Standards: and temperamental differences, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">community concepts, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>-<a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">neighborhood influence, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></span><br />
+<br />
+State aid to mothers, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vital statistics, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Temporary desertions: report of Philadelphia Society, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>-<a href="#Page_8">8</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic crises and vagaries, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Reconciliation</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Theories to explain desertion, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See also <i>Causal factors</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Treatment of desertion: policy, past and present, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_64">64</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">court intervention, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br /><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interviewing the man, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relief to families, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinions of case workers, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">case story, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">state aid, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">closing the case, time for, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">changes in worker's attitudes, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">whereabouts known, willing to return, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, study by, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, practice of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">family restoration illustrated, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">volunteers recommended, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wife relents, illustration of reconciliation, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">study of successful worker's records, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+United Hebrew Charities, <a href="#Page_71">71</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Vagaries: marital, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a><br />
+<br />
+Venereal disease: relation to desertion, <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+Verification: of marriage, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>-<a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Italy, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Latin-American custom, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Volunteers: service valuable for effecting reconciliation, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Wanderlust: instability of temperament, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to desertion, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Warrant for arrest: protection afforded wife, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">system inadequate, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></span><br />
+<br />
+West, Alfred: case story of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a Contributory Cause.</i> J.R. Motion, <a href="#Page_171">171</a><br />
+<br />
+Wife who deserts, not considered, <a href="#Page_15">15</a><br />
+<br />
+Williams, Mrs. Clara: case story of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a></p>
+<h2>SOCIAL WORK SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>EDITED BY MARY E. RICHMOND</h3>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">
+<p>Many people have general views in these days
+upon almost any matter which affects social
+welfare; we all know how easily such views find
+expression. On the other hand, only a few have
+the patience and the insight to gather the specific
+facts and find out what they mean. Still fewer&mdash;having
+done so much as this&mdash;can explain the
+meaning lucidly and in brief compass.</p>
+
+<p>It is the ambition of the Social Work Series to
+embody, in the field of social service at least, the
+message of a representative group of these few.
+The first three volumes are as follows:</p>
+
+<p><b>Disasters</b> and the American Red Cross in Disaster
+Relief. By J. Byron Deacon.</p>
+
+<p><b>Household Management.</b> By Florence Nesbitt.</p>
+
+<p><b>Broken Homes.</b> By Joanna C. Colcord.</p>
+
+<p>Price, Cloth, 75 cents each.
+Other volumes in preparation.</p>
+
+<p>Write for announcements to be forwarded as
+these books are issued.</p>
+
+<p><b>PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT, RUSSELL SAGE
+FOUNDATION</b></p>
+
+<p><b>130 E. 22d ST., NEW YORK CITY</b></p>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
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diff --git a/15420.txt b/15420.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/15420.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5121 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Broken Homes, by Joanna C. Colcord
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Broken Homes
+       A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment
+
+Author: Joanna C. Colcord
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2005 [EBook #15420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROKEN HOMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the
+PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_SOCIAL WORK SERIES_
+
+BROKEN HOMES
+
+A STUDY OF FAMILY DESERTION AND
+ITS SOCIAL TREATMENT
+
+_By_
+JOANNA C. COLCORD
+
+SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY
+OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
+
+NEW YORK
+RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
+1919
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
+THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
+
+WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+No less thoughtful a critic of men and manners than Joseph Conrad has
+remarked recently that a universal experience "is exactly the sort of
+thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in the individual
+instance." The saying might have been made the motto of this book, for
+in its pages Miss Colcord--with all the eagerness of the newer school of
+social workers, bent upon understanding, upon making allowances--seeks
+that just appraisal to which Conrad refers. Marital infelicities and
+broken homes are not universal, fortunately, but some of the human
+weaknesses which lead to them are very nearly so.
+
+To one who brings a long perspective to any theme in social work, Broken
+Homes suggests the successive stages through which the art of social
+case work has progressed. Twenty years ago the editor of this Series was
+responsible for the following sentences in an annual report: "One of our
+most difficult problems has been how to deal with deserted wives with
+children.... One good woman, whose husband had left her for the second
+time more than a year ago, declared often and emphatically that she
+would never let him come back. We rescued her furniture from the
+landlord, found her work, furnished needed relief, and befriended the
+children; but the drunken and lazy husband returned the other day, and
+is sitting in the chairs we rescued, while he warms his hands at the
+fire that we have kept burning."
+
+The passage belongs to the first and what might be termed the "muddling
+along" period of dealing with family desertion, but the fact that boards
+of directors actually were willing to print such frank statements about
+their own shortcomings was a sign that the period was drawing to a
+close.
+
+This first stage was succeeded by a disciplinary period, in which
+earnest attempts were made to enact laws that would punish the deserter
+and aid in his extradition whenever he took refuge across a state line.
+Laws of the strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a while the
+only possible solution.
+
+Then gradually, with the unfolding of a philosophy and a technique of
+helping people in and through their social relationships, a new way of
+dealing with this ancient and perplexing human failing was developed.
+This third way involved a more careful analysis of relationships and
+motives, a greater variety in approach, an increased flexibility in
+treatment, a new faith, perhaps, in the re-creative powers latent in
+human nature. But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon a point of view
+which these pages admirably illustrate. Desertion laws continue to serve
+a definite purpose, as Miss Colcord makes clear, but no longer are they
+either the first or the second resort of the skilful probation officer,
+family case worker, or child protective agent.
+
+Just after the Russell Sage Foundation published a treatise on Social
+Diagnosis two years ago, a number of letters came to the author urging
+that a volume on the treatment of social maladjustments in individual
+cases follow. But this second subject is not yet ready for the large
+general treatise. A topic so new as social case treatment must be
+developed aspect by aspect, preferably in small, practical volumes each
+written by a specialist. This is such a volume, and Miss Colcord breaks
+new ground, moreover, in that her book illustrates the whole present
+trend of social work as applied to individuals.
+
+Grateful acknowledgment should be made to the social case workers who
+have furnished valuable contributions to the body of data gathered for
+the present study. Miss Colcord wishes mention made of her especial
+indebtedness to Miss Betsey Libbey, Miss Helen Wallerstein and Miss
+Elizabeth Wood of Philadelphia; Mr. C.C. Carstens and Miss Elizabeth
+Holbrook of Boston; Mrs. A.B. Fox and Mr. J.C. Murphy of Buffalo; Miss
+Caroline Bedford of Minneapolis; Mr. Stockton Raymond of Columbus; Mrs.
+Helen Glenn Tyson of Pittsburgh; Mr. Arthur Towne of Brooklyn; Mr. E.J.
+Cooley, Mr. Charles Zunser, Mr. Hiram Myers, and Miss Mary B. Sayles of
+New York. Many others not here mentioned were untiring in answering
+questions and furnishing needed information.
+
+MARY E. RICHMOND
+_Editor of the Social Work Series_
+NEW YORK, May, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                    PAGE
+   I. INTRODUCTION                                     7
+  II. WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?               17
+ III. CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT                50
+  IV. FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND                   65
+   V. FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION              91
+  VI. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT                       106
+ VII. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (_Continued_)         125
+VIII. THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER                 149
+  IX. NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT             164
+   X. NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT             185
+INDEX                                                201
+
+
+
+
+BROKEN HOMES
+
+I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It has frequently been said that desertion is the poor man's divorce
+but, like many epigrams, this one hardly stands the test of experience.
+When examined closely it is neither illuminating nor, if the testimony
+of social case workers can be accepted, is it true. It is true, of
+course, that many of the causes of domestic infelicity which lead to
+divorce among the well-to-do may bring about desertion among the less
+fortunate, but the deserting man does not, as a rule, consider his
+absences from home as anything so final and definite as divorce.
+
+In a study of desertion made by the Philadelphia Society for Organizing
+Charity in 1902,[1] it was found that 87 per cent of the men studied
+had deserted more than once. The combined experience of social workers
+goes to show that a comparatively small number of first deserters make
+so complete a break in their marital relations that they are never heard
+from again, and that an even smaller number actually start new families
+elsewhere, although no statistical proof of this last statement is
+available. One social worker of experience says that in her judgment
+desertion, instead of being a poor man's divorce, comes nearer to being
+a poor man's vacation.
+
+    A man who had always been a good husband and father was discharged
+    from hospital after a long and exhausting illness and returned to
+    his family--wife and seven children--in their five-room tenement.
+    Ten days later he disappeared suddenly, but reappeared some two
+    weeks later in very much better health and ready to resume his
+    occupation and the care of his family. His explanation of his
+    apparent desertion was that he was unable to stand the confusion of
+    his home and "had needed rest." He had "beaten his way" to
+    Philadelphia and visited a friend there.
+
+The reporter of the foregoing remarks that it illustrates "unconscious
+self-therapy," and that the patient's disappearance might have been
+avoided if the services of a good medical-social department had been
+available at the hospital where the man was treated.
+
+It is more difficult to justify the thirst for experience of another
+deserting husband who came to the office of a family social agency after
+an absence of a few months, with effusive thanks for the care of his
+family and the explanation that he "had always wanted to see the West,
+and this had been the only way he could find of accomplishing it."
+
+In fact, case work has convinced social workers that there are few
+things less permanent than desertion. In itself this provisional quality
+tends to create irritation in the minds of many of the profession. It is
+upsetting to plan for a deserted family which stops being deserted, so
+to speak, overnight. But in their understandable despair social workers
+sometimes overlook essential facts about the nature of marriage. The
+_permanence_ of family life is one of the foundation stones of their
+professional faith; yet they may fail to recognize certain
+manifestations of this permanence as part and parcel of the end for
+which they are striving. They would see no point in the practice adopted
+by a certain social agency which deals with many cases of family
+desertion. This society, when it has had occasion to print copies of a
+deserter's photograph to use in seeking to discover his present
+whereabouts, often presents his wife with an enlargement of the picture
+suitable for framing. The procedure displays, nevertheless, a profound
+insight not only into human nature but into the human institution called
+marriage.
+
+In the next chapter will be considered some of the causes that make men
+leave their homes. To deal effectively with the situation created by
+desertion, however, we have need of a wider knowledge than this. Not
+only what takes men away but what keeps them from going, what brings
+them back, what leads to their being forgiven and received into their
+homes again, are matters that seriously concern the social case worker.
+What is it that makes this plant called marriage so tough of fiber and
+so difficult to eradicate from even the most unfriendly soil?
+
+It is fortunate (since the majority of case workers are unmarried) that
+simply to have been a member of a family gives one some understanding of
+these questions. The theorist who maintains that marriage is purely
+economic, or that it is entirely a question of sex, has either never
+belonged to a real family or has forgotten some of the lessons he
+learned there.
+
+Many volumes have been written upon the history of marriage, or rather
+of the family, since, as one historian justly puts it, "marriage has its
+source in the family rather than the family in marriage."[2] In all
+these studies the influence of law, of custom, of self-interest, and of
+economic pressure, is shown to have molded the institution of marriage
+into curious shapes and forms, some grievous to be borne. But is it not
+after all the crystallized and conventionalized records of past time
+which have had to be used as the source material of such studies, and
+could the spiritual values of the family in any period be found in its
+laws and learned discourses? We might rather expect to find students of
+these sources preoccupied with the outward aspects, the failures, the
+unusual instances. It is as true of human beings as of nations, that the
+happy find no chronicler. "Out of ... interest and joy in caring for
+children in their weakness and watching that weakness grow to strength,
+family life came into being and has persisted."[3] It is hardly
+conceivable that in any society, however primitive, there were not some
+real families--even when custom ran otherwise--in which marriage meant
+love and kindness and the mutual sharing of responsibilities. And these
+families, today as always, are the creators and preservers of the
+spiritual gains of the human race. It has been beautifully said of the
+family in such a form, that "it is greater than love itself, for it
+includes, ennobles, makes permanent, all that is best in love. The pain
+of life is hallowed by it, the drudgery sweetened, its pleasures
+consecrated. It is the great trysting-place of the generations, where
+past and future flash into the reality of the present. It is the great
+storehouse in which the hardly-earned treasures of the past, the
+inheritance of spirit and character from our ancestors, are guarded and
+preserved for our descendants. And it is the great discipline through
+which each generation learns anew the lesson of citizenship that no man
+can live for himself alone."[4] It follows that the most trying and
+discouraging feature of social work with deserted wives; namely, their
+determination to take worthless men back and back again for another
+trial, is often only a further manifestation of the extraordinary
+viability of the family.
+
+It is true that, into this enduring quality, many elements enter, some
+homely or merely material. A desire for support, or for a resumption of
+sex relations, may play a part in a wife's decision to forgive the
+wanderer. There are many other factors--use and wont; pride in being
+able to show a good front to the neighbors; a feeling that it is
+unnatural to be receiving support from other sources. Just the mere
+desire to have his clothes hanging on the wall and the smell of his pipe
+about, the hundreds of small details that go to make up the habit of
+living together, have each their separate pull on the woman whose
+instinct to be wife and mother to her erring man is urging her to give
+in; Home is, in both their minds,
+
+    " ... the place where when you have to go there
+    They have to take you in....
+    Something you somehow haven't to deserve."[5]
+
+A woman who had left her home town and found clerical work in a strange
+city, in order not to be near her syphilitic husband from whom she had
+determined to separate, said, "When you've been married to a man, you
+can't get over feeling your place is with him."
+
+However we may deplore the results in a given case, the spineless woman
+who takes her husband back many times may nevertheless be giving a
+demonstration of the thing we are most interested in conserving--the
+durability and persistence of the family. And so the social worker who
+is enabled by experience or imagination to enter into the real meaning
+of family life is neither scornful nor amused when Mrs. Finnegan is
+found, on the morning when her case against Finnegan is to come up in
+the domestic relations court, busily washing and ironing his other shirt
+in order that he may make a proper appearance and not disgrace the
+family before the judge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An attempt will be made in this small book to analyze some causal
+factors in the problem of the deserter, to touch upon recent changes in
+the attitude of social workers toward deserted families, to present
+illustrations from the best discoverable practice in the treatment of
+desertion, and to suggest certain possible next steps, both on the legal
+and on the social side. For lack of space, it will be impossible to
+consider the closely related problems of the deserting wife, the
+unmarried mother, or the divorced couple. It is assumed throughout that
+the reader is familiar with the general theory of modern case work; and
+no more is here attempted than to give a number of suggestions which
+will be found to be practical, it is hoped, when the social worker deals
+with the home marred and broken by desertion, or when he seeks to
+prevent this evil by such constructive measures as are now possible.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Society for
+Organizing Charity, p. 25.
+
+[2] Goodsell, Willystine: The Family as a Social and Educational
+Institution, p. 8. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1915.
+
+[3] Byington, Margaret F.: Article on "The Normal Family," _Annals of
+the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918.
+
+[4] Bosanquet, Helen: The Family, p. 342. London, Macmillan & Co., 1906.
+
+[5] Frost, Robert: North of Boston, p. 20. New York, Henry Holt & Co.,
+1915.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?
+
+
+"Before the deserter there was a broken man," said a district secretary
+who has had conspicuous success in dealing with such men. By this
+characterization she meant not necessarily a physical or mental wreck,
+but a man bankrupt for the time being in health, hopes, prospects, or in
+all three; a man who lacked the power or the will to dominate adverse
+conditions, who had allowed life to overcome him. Such an unfortunate
+may not be conscious of his own share in bringing about the difficulties
+in which he finds himself, but he is always aware that something has
+gone seriously wrong in his life. His grasp of this fact is the one sure
+ground upon which the social worker can meet him at the start.
+
+We should distinguish between the _causes_ that bring about a given
+desertion, and the _conscious motives in the mind of the deserter_. It
+is well for the social worker to make the latter the starting point in
+dealing with the man, accepting the most preposterous as at least worthy
+of discussion. The absconder is often too inarticulate and ill at ease
+to give a clear picture of what was in his mind when he went away. If he
+was out of work, it may have been a perfectly sincere belief that he
+would find work elsewhere, or perhaps only a speculative hope that he
+might. (These are not in the beginning genuine desertions, but often
+become so later on.) It is possible that, beset by irritations and
+perplexities, the thought of cutting his way out at one stroke from all
+his difficulties made an appeal too strong to be resisted. Or perhaps he
+flung out of the house and away, in a passion of anger and jealousy
+which later crystallized into cold dislike. The spell of an infatuation
+for another woman might well have been the cause; or he may have been
+mentally deranged through alcohol. Simple weariness of the burden which
+he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have
+assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or
+in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another.
+
+His temperamental instability may have been such that the desire for a
+change--the "wanderlust"--was driving him to distraction. Or perhaps,
+under the urge of his own subconscious feeling of failure, he may have
+convinced himself that if he could "shake" the old environment and all
+in it that hampered him, he could take a fresh start and make good. "If
+I could only get to California," sighed Patrick Donald,[6] "I have a
+feeling things would be different." With too much imagination to be
+content with the situation in which he found himself, Donald had not
+imagination enough to realize that he would have to take his old self
+with him wherever he went, and that he might better fight things out
+where he stood. Men of his sort yearn constantly for the future, not
+realizing that in its truest sense the present _is_ the future.
+
+Only in rare instances will the deserter accept the entire
+responsibility for his act. To try to find justification for doing what
+we want to do is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter is no
+exception. He attempts to "rationalize" his conduct and so regain his
+sense of self-approval and well-being by finding excuses and
+justifications in the conduct of others. Even when the fault is all his,
+he usually succeeds in making himself believe that his wife is more to
+blame than he for his having left home.[7] The social worker who
+attempts to deal with the situation the deserter creates should know
+this attitude in advance and be prepared, through some simple
+rule-of-thumb psychology, to attack the obsession and bring him, first
+of all, to see and face squarely his own responsibility.
+
+Many blanket theories have been developed to explain desertion--that it
+is due to economic pressure; that it is the result of bad housekeeping;
+that its causes can all be reduced to sex incompatibility. All these
+factors: undoubtedly have their bearing on the problem, but there is no
+one cause or group of causes underlying breakdowns in family morale. The
+ratio of desertions has been observed to decrease rather than to
+increase in "hard times";[8] moreover, it is a matter of common
+observation that not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted,
+and that many married couples in all walks of life whose sex
+relationships are unsatisfactory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of
+family life and support and bring up their children with an average
+degree of success. None of these three factors alone will serve,
+therefore, as a fundamental causation unit in desertion. Many
+statistical attempts have been made to study the causes of desertion,
+and to assign to each its mathematical percentage of influence. The
+report of a court of domestic relations gives such an analysis of over
+1,500 cases, listing 25 causes, and carefully calculating the percentage
+of cases due to each. A summary of these percentages grouped under five
+heads is as follows:
+
+                                           _Percentage_
+1. Distinct sex factors                           39.03
+2. Alcohol and narcotic drugs                     37.00
+3. Temperamental traits                           15.40
+4. Economic issues                                 6.27
+5. Mental and physical troubles                    2.30
+                                                 ------
+                                                 100.00
+
+It would be easy to criticize the foregoing on the score of grouping.
+Can alcoholism and drug addiction be separated from mental and physical
+disorders? And how distinguish infallibly between sex factors,
+temperamental traits, and mental disabilities? But the main defect in
+such statistical studies is that they assume in each case one cause, or
+at least one cause sufficiently dominant to dwarf the rest; and few of
+the causes listed are really fundamental. The mind instinctively begins
+to reach back after the causes of all these causes. The social worker
+who made the sweeping assertion that there are two great reasons for
+marital discord--"selfishness in men and peevishness in women,"--came a
+good deal nearer to an accurate statement of fact with infinitely less
+trouble.
+
+Looked at from the point of view of the social worker, desertion is
+itself only a symptom of some more deeply seated trouble in the family
+structure. The problem presented, if it could have been recognized in
+time, is not essentially different from what it would have been before
+the man's departure. Without attempting, therefore, any statistical
+analysis of the causes of desertion, we may nevertheless be able to
+examine one by one a number of possible _contributory factors_ in
+marital unhappiness and therefore in desertion. No attempt will be made
+in the list that follows to distinguish between primary and secondary
+causes, nor to arrange them in any order of importance. An effort to get
+from case workers lists so arranged resulted only in confusion, each
+person emphasizing a different set of factors. The groupings here given,
+therefore, are no more than a placing of the more obviously related
+factors together and a leading from past history up to the present.
+
+Considering first the personal as distinguished from the community
+factors in desertion, these may be listed as follows:
+
+
+CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE MAN AND WOMAN
+
+1. Actual Mental Deficiency.--Character weaknesses such as were spoken
+of earlier in this chapter grade down by degrees into real mental defect
+or disorder, and not even the psychiatrist can always draw the line.
+
+A physician connected with the Municipal Court in Boston gives as his
+opinion that while the percentage of actually insane or feeble-minded
+among deserters is no higher than among other offenders they are
+extremely likely to present some of the phenomena of psychopathic
+personality. Such people have to be studied by the social worker and the
+psychiatrist, and not from the behavior side only, but with a view to
+discovering what sort of equipment for life was handed down to them from
+their family stock.
+
+    The plan for the future of a fifteen-year-old boy which was made by
+    a society for family social work was markedly modified when it was
+    discovered that not only his father but his grandfather had been a
+    man of violent and abusive temper, who drank habitually and
+    neglected their family obligations. With this sort of heredity and
+    an ineffective mother, whom he was accustomed to seeing treated with
+    abuse and disrespect, it was felt important to remove the boy, who
+    showed some promise, to surroundings where he could be under firm
+    discipline and learn decent standards of family life.
+
+Feeble-mindedness, closely connected as it usually is with industrial
+inefficiency in the man, bad housekeeping in the woman, and lack of
+self-control in both, is of course, a potent factor in non-support and
+probably also in desertion.
+
+2. Faults in Early Training.--To low ideals of home life and of
+personal obligation, which were imbibed in youth, can be traced much
+family irresponsibility. It is by no means the rule, however, for
+children always to follow in the footsteps of weak or vicious parents;
+and it is the experience of social workers that such children, taught by
+observation to avoid the faults seen in their own homes, often make good
+parents themselves. Perhaps even more insidious in its effect on later
+marital history is the home in which no self-control is learned. The
+so-called "good homes" in which children are exposed to petting,
+coddling, and overindulgence--and these homes are not confined to the
+wealthy--produce adults who do not stand up to their responsibilities. A
+probation officer in Philadelphia tells of the mother of a young
+deserter who could not account for her son's delinquency. "He _ought_ to
+be a good boy," she complained; "I carried him up to bed myself every
+night till he was eleven years old."
+
+3. Differences in Background.--Even though both man and wife come from
+good homes, if those homes are widely different in standards and in
+cultural background strains may develop in later life between the
+couple. Differences in race, religion and age are recognized as having a
+causative relation to desertion. Miss Brandt[9] found that, in about 28
+per cent of the cases where these facts were ascertained, the husband
+and wife were of different nationality. "In the general population of
+the United States in 1900 only 8.5 per cent was of mixed parentage, and
+for New York City the proportion was less than 13 per cent.... A
+difference in nationality was more than twice as frequent among the
+cases of desertion as among the general population of the city where it
+is most common." Miss Brandt's figures for difference of religion are
+less significant, but it existed in 19 per cent of the total number of
+cases for which information on this point was available. In 27 per cent
+of the families where age-facts were learned, there were differences of
+over six years between the two; in 15 per cent the woman was older than
+the man.
+
+Other differences which should find mention under this heading are those
+that arise when the environment is changed by immigration. The man who
+precedes his wife by many years in coming to America has often outgrown
+her when she finally joins him, even if he has formed no other family
+ties. The handicap is not wholly overcome when the couple come to this
+country together, for the much greater opportunities of the man to
+learn American ways may drive a wedge between him and his wife. On the
+other hand it is a popular saying, particularly among young Italian
+immigrants, that girls who have been in America too long do not make
+good wives, that when a man wants to marry he had better send for a girl
+from the old country; and these marriages seem on the whole to turn out
+well.
+
+4. Wrong Basis of Marriage.--Included here should be hasty marriages,
+mercenary marriages, marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy
+had occurred, as well as marriages where coercion was a factor for other
+reasons.[10]
+
+When there have been sex relations before marriage, unless the custom of
+the community sanctions such intimacy, there are likely to develop
+jealousies, quarrels, and ill feeling. "He do be always castin' it up at
+me, but sure, 'twas himself was to blame" is one version of the age-old
+story.
+
+There should also be included here those irregular unions called
+"common law marriages," which are still permitted in many of our states.
+The protection supposed to be afforded to the woman by this institution
+is mainly fictitious, as it is practically impossible to secure
+conviction for bigamy if one of the marriages was of the common law
+variety. A common law husband who deserts, even if he admits his wife's
+legal claim upon him, does not feel morally bound; and this fact
+undoubtedly plays its part in the causation of such desertions.[11]
+
+5. Lack of Education.--More is included under this title than scanty
+"book-learning." Not only the morally undisciplined child but the
+mentally undisciplined youth is handicapped as spouse and parent.
+Ignorance of the physical and spiritual bases of married life is a
+potent cause of desertion. So also is a limited industrial equipment.
+Irregular school attendance, early "working papers," a dead-end job with
+no educational possibilities in it--these form a frequent background
+for later unsuccess in life and in marriage.
+
+    There seemed at first no good explanation for the desertion of
+    Alfred West. Both his record and his wife's were good, and their
+    mutual fondness for the children seemed a strong bond. They
+    constantly bickered, however, over the small income Alfred was able
+    to earn, and his wife and her relatives "looked down" upon him as
+    being lower than they in the social scale. Inquiry into past history
+    showed that he had grown up in a southern community where there were
+    no facilities for education, and that he could not even read and
+    write until after his marriage. Although of average capacity, he was
+    restricted by his early lack of training in his choice of a job; and
+    the mortification and sense of inferiority which his wife fostered
+    led to discouragement and indifference, which ended in desertion. A
+    thorough understanding of the two backgrounds involved enabled a
+    social worker to effect a real reconciliation, with the woman's eyes
+    opened to her ungenerous behavior and the man taking steps to
+    improve his education in a night school.
+
+6. Occupational Faults.--Closely allied to the foregoing, and in some
+respects growing out of it, are the shortcomings on the employment side
+that contribute to marital instability. Most of these can be referred
+back to lack of education or opportunity in youth, or to defects of
+character. Laziness, incompetence, lack of skill in any trade, lack of
+application, or, on the other hand, the possession by a man with no
+business "stake" in the community of a trade at which he can work
+wherever he takes a fancy to go, or of a trade which is seasonal and
+shifting--all these have a direct relation to desertion.
+
+The wife's competence and willingness to earn often seems to have a
+causal connection with the man's failure as "provider."[12]
+
+Corresponding to and complementing the man's industrial defects, and
+springing from the same causes, is the woman's failure in the business
+of being a housewife. The wife's laziness, incompetence, lack of
+interest, and lack of skill and knowledge create, as one case worker
+puts it, "the sort of home that tends to get itself deserted." These
+faults of the wife are responsible for as many desertions, probably, as
+are the faults of the husband. When the man and the wife are both
+industrial failures we get the extremity of family breakdown to be found
+in records of "chronic non-support" cases.
+
+7. Wanderlust.--As a cause of family desertion this has probably been
+overestimated. Some item of this sort appears in every list of causes of
+desertion which has ever been compiled, and there are more or less
+exceptional cases in which it probably plays a part. The boy who becomes
+a vagabond in childhood and early takes to the road does not, however,
+seem to be a marrying man; and the instances from case work in which it
+is clear that the thirst for adventure was at the bottom of desertion
+are rare. The man whose line of work before marriage led him from place
+to place seems, in fact, hardly to contribute his quota to the ranks of
+wife-deserters, and it is unusual to find sailors or other wanderers
+from force of circumstance figuring among them.
+
+8. Money Troubles.--As has already been said, it is impossible to show
+any direct relation between small incomes and desertion. The connection
+between low wage and non-support is of course a great deal closer. The
+inadequate income unquestionably acts indirectly to break down family
+morale in much the same way as does lowered physical vitality.
+
+But marital discord that springs from the _handling_ of the family
+finances is another matter, and it recurs regularly in the history of
+what went on prior to desertion. One deserter, traced to a southern
+city, returned voluntarily and begged the assistance of the social
+worker interested to reform his wife's spending habits. "I made good
+money and I never opened my pay envelope on her," said he, "but the
+week's wages was always gone by Thursday." Many men, however, who make a
+boast of turning over unbroken pay envelopes to their wives borrow back
+so much in daily advances that their net contribution is only a fraction
+of their wages.
+
+Some desertions brought about by financial difficulties are not,
+strictly speaking, marital problems at all. Debts resulting from his own
+extravagance or dishonesty may cause a man to leave home to escape
+prosecution or disgrace. One such man kept in touch with his family,
+sending money at irregular intervals for some years, but always moving
+on to another place before he could be found. It proved impossible to
+get in communication with him, and finally he stopped writing and
+disappeared.
+
+9. Ill Health: Physical Debility.--All social workers agree that
+physical condition plays a part, though usually only indirectly and
+secondarily, in causing desertion. In the man, it may lower his
+vitality, cause irregular work, and superinduce a condition of
+despondency and readiness to give in. In the woman, it brings about
+careless housekeeping, loss of attractiveness, and disinclination to
+marital intercourse--all factors which contribute directly to desertion.
+Continued ill health of the wife brings burdens, financial and other,
+which may help through discouragement to break down the husband's
+morale.
+
+There should be included here some consideration of one of the most
+puzzling types of abandonment--the "pregnancy desertion." Attempts have
+been made to explain it on the ground of the instinctive aversion of the
+male sex for domestic crises. But the impulse that causes the
+prosperous householder to move to his club when house-cleaning time
+arrives will hardly serve to explain such a custom, and as a matter of
+fact other domestic crises, such as illnesses of the children, do not
+have any such effect upon the man who habitually absents himself from
+home before the birth of each child. Other possible reasons for it are
+the well-known irritability and "difficulty" of women in this condition,
+and their aversion to sexual intercourse. Some pregnancy deserters take
+the step in the hope that their wives will bring about an abortion; but
+this is a modern and sophisticated development and the institution of
+"pregnancy desertion" is one of undoubted antiquity. Its prevalence
+among certain European immigrants would almost point to its being a
+racial tradition. Ethnologists who have studied strange marriage
+customs, such as the "couvade," ought to turn their attention to
+discovering the causes of this other and socially more important marital
+vagary.
+
+10. Temperamental Incompatibility.--It is difficult to catalogue and
+appraise the causal factors in desertion that lie in personality. They
+are closely related to differences in background and are intimately
+involved with the sex relations of the pair. We cannot, however, admit
+that they are identical with the latter, as some students of the subject
+claim; or that the only incompatibility in marriage is sex
+incompatibility. Indeed, two people may be so incompatible as to find in
+sex their only common ground.
+
+The commonest of these temperamental differences center about
+standards of right and wrong or proper and improper conduct.
+Especially is this manifested in the bringing up of the children.
+Extreme self-righteousness on the part of one or the other, nagging
+and petty criticism, unreasonable jealousy, "sulking spells," violent
+quarrels, are some of its manifestations. The idea of _possession_
+exercised by either of the couple, and especially a tendency to
+dominate or try to control on the part of the woman, may be a causal
+factor in desertion. The lack of a saving sense of humor in one or
+both is often a complicating factor. These comparatively minor
+differences take on a serious complexion in the minds of the couple;
+and it is surprising how often a deserting man will give promptly and
+with every appearance of feeling justified some cause for his
+desertion which falls clearly under this head. "People forgive each
+other the big things; it's the little things they can't forgive."
+
+
+11. Sex Incompatibility.--There comes under this heading a wide range
+of causative factors which play an important part in marital discord.
+Some of them are better understood by the social worker than was
+formerly the case; but many of them are obscure even to the practitioner
+of mental medicine, to whom their results come daily. Distasteful as the
+task may be, the social worker should familiarize herself, through
+reading or through instruction by a qualified physician, in the commoner
+forms of these maladjustments. This is not urged because it is part of
+the social worker's task to make detailed inquiry into such matters or
+to pass judgment upon them, but because they often clamor for attention
+and need to be recognized by the first responsible person to whose
+notice they are brought. Unless she knows, for instance, what
+constitutes excess in sex relations, a worker may misunderstand the
+situation described to her and condemn a man for being a selfish brute,
+when the trouble is really sexual anaesthesia in the wife. It is well
+known that this single cause operates disastrously to disrupt many
+marriages or else to render them insupportable. The warning should be
+added, however--and it cannot be added too emphatically--that the social
+worker must scrupulously refrain from making diagnoses in these cases,
+even tentatively; she must refer such data as come to her either to the
+general practitioner or to the psychiatrist, selecting one or the other
+as the symptoms presented may indicate.
+
+Less well understood by the lay worker are actual maladjustments, both
+physical and mental (or spiritual), which prevent the complete
+satisfaction of one or both. Some of these are curable by medical care,
+others by instruction and education. This instruction should be given,
+needless to say, by the physician and not by the case worker. If
+uncorrected such maladjustments are apt to result in marital shipwreck.
+
+No attempt can be made here to discuss actual sex perversions in their
+relation to desertion. Their effect is obvious; and the social worker
+should be sufficiently well informed, not only from a few standard books
+on the subject,[13] but from a knowledge of the phrases which are used
+in the tenements, to understand them, so that significant symptoms are
+not overlooked. So intimately are sex difficulties connected with the
+neuroses that the lay social worker should consult the psychiatrist
+freely wherever one is available, before attempting to deal with them.
+
+
+12. Vicious Habits.--Sexual immorality, through its degenerative
+effect on personality and the lowered ideals of marriage it induces, has
+a real effect in bringing about desertion. The "other man" and the
+"other woman" type of desertion, however, is often itself only a
+consequence of a previously existing state of temperamental or sexual
+incompatibility. If these underlying causes can be attacked and changed
+such a desertion may be "repairable."
+
+    A young man deserted his wife and three children and eloped with an
+    eighteen-year-old girl who had made his acquaintance in a street car
+    flirtation. He had been "an obedient boy with good principles," and
+    his later record showed steadiness and ability; but he and his wife
+    had been drifting apart--their marital relations had not been "quite
+    the same" as formerly. Arrested and brought back, he did not impute
+    any blame to her, however, but said he "must have been crazy." In
+    spite of the circumstances, the judge decided to give him six months
+    in the penitentiary; and a man visitor from the family social agency
+    interested began at once to try to secure an influence over him. On
+    his release the couple again went to housekeeping. The wife had been
+    cautioned on how to receive him; but things went badly at first, and
+    the man began again insisting that they were mismated. (He "had the
+    other girl still considerably on his conscience and heart.") Tangles
+    continually arose which the society's visitor was hard put to it to
+    straighten out. Once the wife found a letter from the girl; but
+    finally, after the charity organization society in the city where he
+    had left the girl reported that she was doing well and not breaking
+    her heart about him, the man decided to "cut out" the
+    correspondence. A little later the girl eliminated herself by
+    marrying. A year after the reconciliation the wife told the friendly
+    visitor that the trouble was gone between them, and "it was just
+    like a new life." For another year efforts were continued to
+    strengthen the attachment and make the home more attractive, at the
+    end of which time it was felt that the home was stable enough to
+    need no further supervision.
+
+For reasons of convenience we may include here the causal relations
+between venereal disease and desertion. In so far as syphilis brings
+about mental and physical deterioration, the relation between the two is
+obvious. The presence of the disease in the man, if known to his wife,
+may lead her to sever relations with him in self-protection, and this
+severance, in turn, may lead ultimately to desertion or complete
+separation. Often separation is desirable, but the syphilitic who is on
+the whole a good family man raises some of the most difficult questions
+with which the social worker has to deal. Whether to try to force him
+out of the home and thus make an unwilling deserter; whether to violate
+the diagnosis given in confidence by passing it on to the wife for her
+protection--these are only two of the puzzles that may arise.
+
+The relation of alcoholism to non-support and desertion is too well
+known to require discussion. The causative relation between alcohol and
+desertion is so direct that it probably ought not to be included under
+contributory causes at all. As it is an active poison to the cells of
+the nervous system, it may bring about deteriorations of mind and
+character that are directly to blame for such anti-social acts as
+desertion. The same is true in less degree of the use of narcotics;
+though drug habits are far less common in connection with desertion than
+alcoholism. What relation drugs and alcohol will hold to desertion after
+July 1, 1919, remains to be seen. Alcoholism in the woman is, however, a
+real contributory factor, and one frequently met with. The experience of
+social workers leads them to believe that alcohol is more devastating in
+its effects on character with women than with men, and that there is
+less hope of a cure. The great majority of so-called "justifiable
+deserters" are the husbands of alcoholic women.
+
+Gambling in its effect on family income will be discussed in connection
+with non-support, to which it bears a much more direct relation than to
+desertion. In its degenerative effect upon character it may have,
+however, a real causal relation to the latter.
+
+The habit of desertion itself is a degenerative one, not only upon the
+deserter but upon his home. The "intermittent husband" often weakens and
+demoralizes his wife in almost the same ratio as his own progress
+down-hill.
+
+
+CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE COMMUNITY
+
+1. Interference of Relatives.--The tendency of relatives to take sides
+against their "in-laws" is a matter of everyone's observation. It is
+frequently found as a serious factor in desertion. Many case stories
+which will be used in the following chapters to illustrate other points
+show also the harmful interference of relatives in what might otherwise
+have been a fairly stable home. Relatives can be a factor in marital
+discord without actively interfering. One high-tempered young couple
+formed what amounted to a habit of frequent quarrels and temporary
+separations simply because the parents of both stood ready to take them
+back whenever they chose to live apart. Relatives within the home as
+well as outside it may exercise an unfortunate influence on marital
+relations. The desertion of a middle-aged man who married a widow was
+found to be directly caused by the antagonism which grew up between him
+and his grown step-children.
+
+
+2. Racial Attitude toward Marriage.--The racial factor is important in
+desertion. Not only the individual's own background, but the attitude of
+the people whence he sprang toward the sanctity of marriage, toward the
+position of women, and toward the importance of restraint in sexual
+relations, will have an effect upon the desertion rate of a given racial
+group. A study was recently made of 480 deserters known to the New York
+Charity Organization Society in 1916-17 whose nationality was given. The
+results in percentage form are given for what they may be worth,
+compared with the same percentage in 2,987 families of known
+nationalities which were under care for all causes during the same year.
+
+NATIONALITY OR RACE
+
+                        |           |Per cent
+                        |Per cent   |among 2,987
+Race or place of birth  |among 480  |families under
+                        |deserters  |care for all
+                        |           |causes
+---------------------------------------------------
+United States--white    |  30.6     |  29.7
+United States--colored  |  11.2     |   5.6
+Irish                   |   9.7     |  14.7
+  Other British         |   5.0     |   4.7
+German                  |   6.2     |   6.2
+Italian                 |  20.2     |  28.0
+Austrian                |   5.5     |   4.8
+Russian                 |   2.8     |   1.0
+Polish                  |   3.3     |   1.2
+Other                   |   5.5     |   4.1
+----------------------------------------------------
+                        | 100.0     | 100.0
+
+3. Community Standards.--It cannot be too emphatically stated that any
+tendency in the community to belittle or ridicule the estate of
+matrimony has a definite cumulative effect on desertion. The "when a
+man's married" series in the comic supplements, certain comic films in
+the moving picture shows, the form of drama popularly called "bedroom
+farce" are examples of these destructive forces. Most of the people who
+laugh at them accept them as a humorous formula and are not seriously
+affected by them; but their educational effect on young people is bound
+to be bad and false to the last degree. In so far as they overemphasize
+romantic love and disparage conjugal love, the theater and the popular
+press do this generation great disservice.
+
+Another way in which the community may affect the popular conception of
+marriage is in the administration of civil marriage. Lack of care in
+enforcing the laws and lack of gravity in performing the ceremonies may
+have a decided reaction on respect for those laws and for the
+institution itself. Similarly, the administration of divorce laws may
+affect the popular conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood
+condoned the situation in which a deserted wife immediately went to live
+with another man, on the ground that "if they had been rich, they could
+have got a divorce."
+
+4. Lack of Proper Recreation.--This may seem a subject to be
+discussed under personal factors; but proper recreation, after all,
+depends in large measure upon what the community provides or makes
+available. The American tendency for the man to get his recreation apart
+from his family, in saloons and social clubs, is responsible for many
+family maladjustments. Any change in family habits of recreation which
+means that the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is a danger
+signal the seriousness of which is not always appreciated. Social
+workers are inclined to undervalue not only the influence of faulty
+recreation as a factor in family breakdown, but also the possibilities
+of good recreation as an aid in family reconstruction.
+
+
+5. Influence of Companions.--As a factor in desertion this is closely
+connected with the two just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as they
+affect individuals, are apt to be transmitted through the small group
+that stands nearest, and a man's companions have the freest opportunity
+to influence him during their common periods of recreation. The
+influence of companions is not often met as a force deliberately exerted
+to bring about desertion; but, on the other hand, a man's own mental
+contrast between his condition and that of his unmarried companions
+often plays a definite part in his decision to desert, if he has begun
+to yearn for freedom. The influence of companions is particularly
+connected with the "wanderlust" type of desertion.
+
+
+6. Expectation of Charitable Relief.--It used to be held that many men
+who would otherwise remain at home and support, might be encouraged to
+desert if they had reason to believe that their wives and families would
+be cared for in their absence. This was no doubt often the case before
+social workers had learned to discriminate in treatment between deserted
+wives and widows, or to press with vigor the search for deserting men.
+At present, it is the experience of social workers that few men
+deliberately reckon upon transferring the burden of their family's
+support to others, or are induced by these considerations to leave.[14]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In trying to determine the cause for any given desertion it is well to
+keep in mind from the beginning that there is probably more than one,
+and that the obvious causes that first appear are almost certain
+themselves to be the effects of more deeply underlying causes. A young
+vaudeville actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish girl, a cabaret
+singer, and took her home to live with his parents. Was his subsequent
+desertion to be ascribed to difference in nationality and religion, to
+interference of relatives, to irregular and unsettling occupation, or to
+a combination of all three? Would all marriages so handicapped turn out
+as badly? If not, what further factors entered to lower the threshold of
+resistance to disintegration in this particular case?
+
+This last question is after all the most important one of the foregoing
+series. It is one which the social case worker must never be content to
+leave unanswered.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] All names of deserters given throughout the text are pseudonyms.
+
+[7] For an excellent discussion of the process of rationalization see
+The Psychology of Insanity, Bernard Hart, Cambridge University Press,
+1914.
+
+[8] For a thoughtful discussion of this point see Eubank, E.E.: A Study
+of Family Desertion. Chicago Department of Public Welfare, 1916.
+
+[9] Brandt, Lilian: Family Desertion. The Charity Organization Society
+of New York City, 1905.
+
+[10] For a fuller discussion of forced marriages, see p. 92 sq.
+
+[11] See also p. 98.
+
+[12] See also p. 154.
+
+[13] Two books may be suggested: Forel on The Sexual Question and
+Havelock Ellis on Sex in Relation to Society (Vol. VI of Studies in the
+Psychology of Sex).
+
+[14] See p. 70 sq. for a discussion of collusive desertion.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT
+
+
+Unconsciously and imperceptibly, the point of view about the treatment
+of desertion has been changing during the past fifteen years. The case
+worker's attention used to be focussed on the danger of increasing the
+desertion rate by a policy of too sympathetic care for deserters'
+families. Little study was made of individual causes, and in so far as
+there was a general policy of treatment it was to insist, wherever a
+desertion law existed, that the deserted wife go at once to court and
+institute proceedings against her husband. He was often not seen by the
+social worker until he appeared in court. The policy toward the family
+meantime was to reduce its size by commitment of the children until
+their mother could support herself unaided; or, if relief was given, to
+give smaller amounts than to a widow or the wife of a man in hospital.
+As soon as the man had been placed under court order or had returned
+home, old records generally show that the social worker's efforts were
+relaxed, and often the final entry is, "Case closed--family
+self-supporting."
+
+There were excellent reasons underlying much of the practice. Few laws
+were at that time in existence or at all adequately enforced, and any
+man who desired was at liberty, so far as the community was concerned,
+to walk off and leave his family at any time. The multiplicity of
+sources of relief in the large communities and the absence of anything
+resembling investigation constituted almost an invitation to men to
+desert. It did not occur to the charitable public to draw any line
+between the widow and the deserted wife, or indeed to inquire which of
+these two a woman was, so long as she was a good mother and "seemed
+worthy." No wonder that the pioneering social agencies, busy forging
+tools out of the very ore, took a rigid stand on such a question of
+social policy as this. Although their deterrents failed to eradicate the
+evil of desertion or indeed to touch its sources, there is little doubt
+that they did lessen its volume by creating a wholesome respect for the
+power of the law in the mind of the would-be deserter and by fostering
+in his wife a disposition to stand up for her rights. The more lenient
+and more constructive policies now in force have been made possible in
+part by these changes of attitude. The very fact that the collusive
+desertion, once fairly common, is now seldom met with, illustrates the
+salutary effects of the earlier methods of treatment.
+
+But the fact remains that no marked change has been seen in the
+desertion rate, that successive desertions have not been prevented in
+individual cases. Hardly any statistical figure in the work of family
+social agencies shows so little fluctuation from year to year and
+between different cities, as the percentage of deserted families. It
+generally forms from ten to fifteen per cent of the work of any such
+society.
+
+Gradually, therefore, the repressive features of the earlier treatment
+have been abandoned, and there has come about a realization of the
+complexity of causes that bring about family breakdowns. In particular,
+the relation of sex maladjustments to failure in marriage have received
+the serious attention of the social worker. On the question of court
+intervention there has been almost a right-about face; the best social
+practitioners now say, unhesitatingly and unequivocally, that they take
+cases into court only as a matter of last resort, after case work
+methods have been tried and have failed. In no other case where court
+action is undertaken by one individual against another does the relation
+between them remain unchanged. One could not conceive of a business
+partnership failing to be annulled by one partner who brought suit
+against another; yet we expect the marriage relation to survive this. As
+a matter of fact, such is its vitality that it often does. But many
+times the result of court action is only to deaden once and for all the
+tiny spark from which marital happiness might have been rekindled. As
+long as it survives, both man and wife feel in their inmost hearts that,
+no matter what his offense, to "take him to court" is treason against
+the intangible bonds that still hold between them. No matter how far
+apart they have drifted, or how unforgivable has been the deserter's
+offense, something irrevocable does happen to the fabric of marriage, a
+few poor shreds of which may still exist between the two, when his wife
+appears in a court of law to make complaint against him. It is an
+instinctive realization that she is abandoning hope which underlies many
+a woman's reluctance to "take a stand against her husband." Many social
+workers (including some probation officers and court workers) now feel
+that such a stand should be urged only in the full conviction that the
+protection of the woman and children demands it, and that there is
+nothing else to be done.
+
+This must not, however, be interpreted as a criticism of the laws
+concerning desertion or of the courts which administer them. If they
+were not there in the background, ready to be taken advantage of when
+all else fails, the social worker's hands would be tied, and the
+possibility of a rich and flexible treatment of desertion problems would
+be lost to her. It is precisely because they had no such recourse that
+the case workers of an earlier day had to adopt a policy which now
+seems rigid. It is because they were instrumental in securing better
+laws and specialized courts that the latter day social worker can push
+forward her own technique of dealing with homes that are disintegrating.
+
+Another great change in emphasis has been upon the question of
+interviewing the man, and of being sure that his side, or what he thinks
+is his side, has been thoroughly understood. Social workers are under
+conviction of sin in the matter of dealing too exclusively with the
+woman of the family; in desertion cases it is more than desirable, it is
+vitally necessary to have dealings with the man. Many social workers
+feel that, at all events with a first desertion, they would rather take
+the risk of having the man vanish a second time after having been found,
+than have him arrested before an attempt to talk the matter out with
+him. More stringent measures, they believe, can be resorted to
+later--but the man must first be convinced that he will be listened to
+patiently and with the intent to deal fairly. The case worker knows that
+the power of the human mind to "rationalize" anti-social conduct is
+infinite; and that, besides the few "justifiable deserters," there are
+many who have succeeded in convincing themselves that their action is
+warrantable. A deserter who could allege nothing else against his wife,
+averred that he had placed under the bed two matches, crossed, and a
+week later found them in the same position, proving his contention that
+she was slovenly and did not keep the rooms clean.
+
+The man who, aided by a sore conscience, has worked himself into such a
+state of mind as this must be permitted to talk himself out before he
+can be made to see the true state of affairs. In the minds of both man
+and woman there is likely to be found a superstructure of suspicion,
+jealousy, misinterpretation and distrust, built upon the basic fact of
+their incompatibility, which has to be pulled down before the true
+causes can be probed. To arrest a man in this state of mind is in his
+eyes simply to "take sides" against him. Eventually he may have to be
+arrested, but, in the case worker's experience, the chances of success
+are ten to one if the man can be induced to take some voluntary step
+toward reconciliation without the intervention of the law. In many
+instances a real interview with the man, while not exonerating him,
+would have thrown new light on the woman's statements.
+
+    A family social work society writes: A young woman with her mother
+    and little boy were referred for aid by a medical social department
+    because her husband had deserted and she was unable to work. The
+    doctors feared that her breakdown would result in insanity, so they
+    asked that her wishes be respected in not seeing the man's family.
+    She recovered, but it was later found that her husband, while not
+    doing all that he might for her, had been living at home a good deal
+    of the time and did not know that his family was in receipt of aid.
+
+    Some years ago a charity organization society, which maintained a
+    special bureau for treatment of desertion cases, was asked by a Mrs.
+    Clara Williams to help her find her husband, John, who had left her
+    some years previously and was living with another woman, so that she
+    might force him to contribute to the support of herself and her two
+    children. Mrs. Williams was a motherly appearing person who kept a
+    clean, neat home, and seemed to take excellent care of her children.
+    She was voluble concerning her husband's misdeeds and very bitter
+    toward him, which seemed only natural. The fact of the other
+    household was corroborated from other sources, and Mr. Williams'
+    work references indicated that he had been quarrelsome and difficult
+    for his employers to get along with, although a competent workman.
+    The problem seemed to the desertion agent a perfectly clear and
+    uncomplicated one and he proceeded to handle it according to the
+    formula. Some very clever detective work followed, in the course of
+    which the man was traced from one suburban city to another, and his
+    present place of employment found in the city where his wife lived,
+    although he lived just across the border of another state. The
+    warrant was served upon the man as he stepped from the train on his
+    way to work, and he appeared in the domestic relations court. He did
+    not deny the desertion but made some attempt to bring counter
+    charges against his wife. When questioned about his present mode of
+    living he became silent and refused to testify further. He was
+    placed under bond, which was furnished by the relatives of the woman
+    with whom he was living, to pay his wife $6.00 a week. No probation
+    was thought necessary and the case was closed, both the court and
+    the charity organization society crediting themselves with a case
+    successfully handled and terminated.
+
+    About a year later Mrs. Williams again applied, stating that her
+    husband's bond had lapsed, his payment had ceased, and that she had
+    no knowledge of his whereabouts. Although her home and children were
+    still immaculate she failed to satisfy the social worker who this
+    time visited her home with the plausible story which she had told
+    before. The children's health was not good and they seemed
+    unnaturally repressed and unhappy. Ugly reports that Mrs. Williams
+    drank came to the society. The school teacher deplored the effect
+    which the morbid nature of Mrs. Williams was having on her youngest
+    child--a daughter just entering adolescence. The son, a boy a little
+    older, was listless and unsatisfactory at his work, and defiant and
+    secretive toward any attempt to get to know him better. He spent
+    many nights away from home and was evidently not on good terms with
+    his mother. As soon as Mrs. Williams saw that real information was
+    desired she began indulging in fits of rage in which she displayed
+    such an exaggerated ego as to cause some doubts as to her mentality.
+    Baffled at every turn the case worker decided to interview the man,
+    if possible, to see if through him any clue to the situation might
+    be gained. The first step was to gain the confidence of a former
+    fellow-workman and friend of his who now maintained his own small
+    shop. This was done after several visits, the deserting husband
+    consenting to an evening meeting in his friend's shop.
+
+    A most illuminating interview followed. Mr. Williams was found to be
+    an intelligent though melancholy and self-centered man. The couple
+    had married somewhat late in life, it being Mrs. Williams' second
+    marriage. She had been strongly influenced by her mother to marry
+    him and had never had any real affection for him. It became very
+    evident from his story that the strongly developed egotism of both
+    the husband and wife had made a real marriage impossible between
+    them, and the visitor became convinced of the genuineness of Mr.
+    Williams' protestations that he endured the constant abuse and
+    ill-treatment of his wife as long as it had been possible to do so.
+    As her drinking habits took more hold upon her and he had realized
+    that the break was coming he had endeavored to place the children in
+    homes, and had once had his wife taken into court. There her
+    plausible story and good appearance resulted in the case being
+    dismissed with a reprimand to the husband. He then left home, but
+    continued to send her money at intervals, although as he got older
+    he was able to earn less at his trade. Socialism was his religion,
+    and it was his preaching of this doctrine in season and out to his
+    fellow workmen which had earned him the ill-will of his employers.
+    He defended his present mode of living, vigorously putting up a
+    strong argument that it was a real marriage, whereas the other had
+    only been a sham. He spoke in terms of affection of the woman who
+    was giving him the only real home he had ever known, and only wished
+    that the state of public opinion would permit his taking his young
+    daughter into his home. The boy, he realized, had grown entirely
+    away from him and they could never mean anything to each other. It
+    was his habit to make frequent trips back to the region where his
+    family lived in order that he might stand on the corner and watch
+    his children go by. He gave readily much information about his own
+    and his wife's past connections, including the addresses of many of
+    her relatives whose existence she had denied, and he successfully
+    proved that her claims as to his lapsed payments were false by
+    producing the entire series of post office receipts covering his
+    remittances to her and extending down to the very week of the
+    interview.[15]
+
+There have been striking changes not only in the treatment of the
+deserter but in that of his family. Writing in 1910, Miss Breed[16]
+deprecates the habit of fostering the deserter's "easy-going conviction
+that his family will get along somehow without him" by giving relief.
+She approves offering full support in an institution, but is reluctant
+to recommend any form of aid in the home, even from relatives. It is
+better, she feels, to give entire support to some of the children in
+foster homes, leaving the mother only those she can care for.
+
+Much can be said for even so stringent a policy as this. An unstable
+home, with a worthless father an intermittent member of the household,
+is as bad an environment as children can have--its very fluctuations
+making for nervous instability and a wrong point of view later on.
+There is a possibility that other would-be deserters may be deterred by
+temporarily breaking up the home, and that an occasional absconding
+father may be brought back. But the fact remains that social workers
+have, in practice, departed far from this point of view. Out of more
+than twenty-five case workers of experience who were interviewed or
+written to in preparation for this book, only one believed there had not
+been a decided change toward a policy of more liberal relief.
+
+    One district secretary told of a woman who had more than once taken
+    back a disreputable husband whom she always professed to dislike.
+    Aid was given sparingly and intermittently during his absences; but
+    finally the woman in a burst of frankness told the secretary that
+    she had never felt confident the society would stand behind her.
+    Each time the man came back with money in his hand, she cheated
+    herself into believing that he meant "a new leaf." A budget was
+    worked out with her, and a promise given of an adequate income as
+    long as she kept her husband away. She has faithfully kept her side
+    of the bargain for over three years.
+
+The extension in many states of "state aid to mothers" to cover
+deserted wives is an indication of this changed view. In most states,
+however, some safeguards are set up; the wife must take out a warrant,
+and a given number of years must elapse during which the man shall not
+have been heard from, before state aid can be granted to the wife.
+
+Finally, it is more clearly recognized than formerly that the time to
+"close the case" is not just after the man's return.
+
+    A case supervisor speaks of "the strong temptation to close our
+    records as soon as relief becomes unnecessary. The man's return to
+    the family is often the critical point at which there is need of
+    skilful and sympathetic friendship. These cases cry out for
+    continued treatment. We need to think more humanely about all the
+    unsettling elements in our urban civilization and to see that all
+    the nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can make are
+    made. If the man's work gives him no opportunity for
+    self-expression, what attempt are we making to give him such
+    opportunities outside his work, to connect him with a trade union,
+    with clubs and with fraternities? How much are we thinking about
+    cures for inebriates, psychoanalysis, vocational guidance,
+    recreation?"
+
+Briefly, then, changes in the social worker's attitude toward treatment
+have meant less emphasis on punitive and repressive measures, more
+consideration of the man's point of view, less tendency to press court
+action, at least in the beginning, fewer commitments of children, a more
+liberal relief policy (partly as a preventive of "forced
+reconciliations"), and lastly, longer supervision after the man has
+resumed support of his family.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Adapted from the writer's article on "Desertion and Non-Support in
+Family Case Work," _The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social
+Science_, May, 1918, p. 98.
+
+[16] Breed, Mary: Eleventh New York State Conference, 1910, p. 76.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND
+
+
+A few years ago a young Jewish woman reported to the National Desertion
+Bureau[17] that her husband had left her and their children.
+
+    The couple had never got on well, and the man seemed to have been a
+    melancholy and impractical fellow. The usual methods of the Bureau
+    brought no results in finding the missing husband. Then the wife was
+    more carefully questioned, and urged to tell all that she could
+    recall or had heard about her husband's early life, his tastes and
+    peculiarities. Among other things the Bureau learned that the man's
+    father had died in America years ago, having come here to make a
+    home for the family left behind in Russia. The boy had grown up in
+    ignorance of the place of his father's death and burial, and, as the
+    eldest son, he felt it his duty to find his father's grave. Filled
+    with this idea he came to America as soon as he was grown and
+    landed in New York, but his few poor clues availed him little
+    against the difficulties of poverty and a new and complex
+    environment. In the end he gave up the search, married, and settled
+    down on the east side. After the sudden quarrel which led to his
+    leaving home, his wife thought it possible that his old obsession
+    might have reawakened. The Bureau, supplied with the clues in
+    question, had little difficulty in discovering the father's burial
+    place in St. Louis; and the cemetery authorities promised to send
+    word if the missing husband should appear. Sure enough, a short time
+    afterward he arrived, and, after visiting the grave, returned, not
+    unwillingly, and took up his family duties again under the
+    supervision of a probation officer.
+
+The flexibility of method and the readiness to see and utilize new
+resources which are displayed in the foregoing account are great assets
+to the one who must institute search for a missing husband and father.
+
+The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a class of peculiar
+technical difficulty for the case worker is not simply that the man is
+away from his family. There is no man to deal with in a widow's family,
+but widows' families present comparatively simple problems. The
+deserter, though absent, is still not only a potential but also a real
+factor in the family situation. The plans of the family are often made
+with one eye to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt obstacle
+to much that the social worker wants to accomplish. The children look
+forward to his reappearance with dread or with joy (for many deserters
+have a way with them, decidedly, and are welcome visitors to their
+children). In short, he is usually at the key point in the situation. No
+plan can safely be made that leaves him out, but--there's the rub!--you
+cannot include him at once for he is not to be reached, certainly not at
+the outset. The discovery of the deserter's whereabouts is not only the
+first but the most urgent of the problems that confront the worker who
+tries to deal with a deserted family. Unless he can be found the whole
+plan rests upon shifting sand.
+
+A prompt and vigorous effort to find the absentee is therefore a first
+requisite in dealing with family desertion. Unfortunately, many case
+workers, having started bravely and exhausted the first crop of clues,
+become discouraged and fall back on the supposition that the man is
+permanently out of the scene, and that it only remains to make plans for
+the family. Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom of this
+assumption. It is not making an extreme statement to say that, as long
+as the family remains under active care or until the missing man is
+proved to be dead, the effort to find him should not be abandoned. Mr.
+Carstens, in discussing this point, says:
+
+    To carry on this search persistently is the great safeguard. It is
+    rare when in the course of a few months the true state of affairs
+    will not have been revealed, though it may have been quite hidden at
+    the start.[18]
+
+This is not to say that time must be spent unprofitably in going over
+the same ground, or that out-of-town agencies must be badgered to
+reinvestigate old clues. But the frame of mind that pigeonholes the
+whole matter as having been attended to must be shunned by the social
+worker, who should be always on the alert for new clues and prompt to
+follow them up. An example of a vigorous and persistent search for a
+deserter is taken from the files of the National Desertion Bureau.[19]
+
+    Adolph R. deserted his wife and their six little children on
+    September 1, 1912. He was traced to Philadelphia, but had left there
+    the day before the tidings reached New York. Information was
+    obtained from fellow-employes which led to the belief that he had
+    gone to Tampa, Florida. Inquiry was directed to the rabbi in that
+    city, but again the information was disheartening, since it
+    disclosed the fact that once more R. had "left the day before." The
+    rabbi telegraphed that the deserter had evidently gone to Lakewood,
+    Florida, and that he could be found in that place. Immediately the
+    Bureau dispatched a telegram to its representative there, only to
+    find that R. had merely passed through Lakewood en route to Bartow,
+    Florida. When the inquiry reached Bartow it was learned that R. had
+    left a few days before, and that he was on his way to Memphis,
+    Tennessee. The Jewish Charities of Memphis made investigation at the
+    cigar factories of that city, but reported that no person bearing
+    the name of R. or resembling him had been seen in their city. No
+    further clue to his whereabouts could be secured.
+
+    Months later R. applied to the Jewish Charities of Louisville for
+    transportation to New York, making an entirely false statement about
+    his family.
+
+    This statement was telegraphed to the Bureau and no time was lost in
+    securing a warrant. Louisville was notified by wire to arrest, but
+    again a telegram came: "Adolph R. left city. Learned from
+    Cigarmakers' Union headquarters he went to Cincinnati. Wire Joe
+    Rapp, 1316 Walnut Street, Cincinnati Union Headquarters. Man said he
+    was going to Cincinnati or Indianapolis. Man joined union Richmond,
+    Va., November 19, 1911, and reports to union in all cities." The
+    Desertion Bureau immediately telegraphed to Cincinnati and
+    Indianapolis. The United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati working
+    together with the labor union lost little time in effecting his
+    arrest.
+
+Many theories about family desertion have suffered a change in recent
+years. One of these relates to the "collusive desertion." Social workers
+in training used formerly to be taught that the first place to look for
+the deserter was around the corner, where he could slip back into the
+house and partake of charitable bounty or, at the very least, keep close
+watch of his family and return if any serious danger threatened them.
+Although the collusive desertion seems to have been a frequent happening
+in the past, there is almost unanimous testimony from case workers at
+the present time that it is not common. "I don't come across an instance
+once a year," said one case worker.
+
+    Another, after searching her memory, recalled what seemed to her one
+    instance of real collusion. A woman, pregnant and seeming to be in
+    great destitution, applied to a family social work society in a
+    small city for help. Careful search did not discover the man's
+    whereabouts--he seemed to have disappeared without leaving a trace,
+    and his wife professed ignorance. Some two weeks after this the
+    visitor, calling late, met a man on the stairs who proved to be the
+    missing husband. Times were hard and he was out of a job, so he had
+    taken to the attic of their house, and had kept so strictly
+    _incommunicado_ that not only the society but the neighbors had been
+    deceived.
+
+Out of twenty or more case workers in different cities whose experience
+was sought on this point, nearly all felt that the warnings against
+possible collusion which used to be given to young workers no longer
+needed to be emphasized. Testimony in the other direction is, however,
+advanced by the National Desertion Bureau, which found that about 10 per
+cent of the applications made in 1910 to the United Hebrew Charities of
+New York for relief because of desertion were collusive.
+
+It should be said, however, that one form of collusion is common to the
+experience of case workers--that of the wife who knows where her
+husband is, or has a very good idea, but does not want him to return
+and so keeps her knowledge to herself. "In two of our regular allowance
+families," writes the case supervisor of a family agency, "we
+discovered--one quite incidentally, one after the allowance had been
+discontinued for other reasons--that the wife had had reports regarding
+the man which we might have followed up had we known of them earlier. It
+could hardly be called collusion--it was mere indifference." A probation
+officer writes:
+
+    "At the present time we have under investigation a family where the
+    man has been away from home for two years and his whereabouts during
+    the last year have been known to his wife. He has been living in a
+    suburb of the city and working steadily during that time. The woman
+    has received adequate aid from public and private organizations. She
+    has been content to accept that rather than notify the authorities
+    and have her husband required to meet the responsibility. The man on
+    his part was aware that his family was being supported, and while
+    there was no agreement between the parties regarding it,
+    nevertheless the arrangement apparently met with mutual approval."
+
+To guard against this and similar omissions on the woman's part, more
+than one agency which deals with family desertion requires the deserted
+wife to sign an affidavit that she has given all the information she
+possesses.
+
+Although in practice the possibility of a collusive desertion is not the
+first and most important thing to keep in mind, it is frequent enough
+not to be entirely forgotten. And for yet other reasons it is well to
+keep a watchful eye upon the neighborhood in which the family is living
+for reports about the man. Often obscure impulses seem to bring him
+back; jealousy of the wife or a desire to show himself in a spirit of
+bravado, or even sometimes a fugitive affection for the children he has
+abandoned may cause him to appear in the neighborhood. "The deserter,
+like the murderer, harks back to the scene of his misdeeds" was the
+generalization of one district secretary.
+
+Even when he does not appear in the flesh the deserter may seek news of
+his family. "One deserter was found through the Attendance Department
+[of the public school system] to which he wrote after a three years'
+absence asking the address of one of the children of whom he was
+especially fond."
+
+There is little in the literature of the subject covering methods of
+discovering deserters, nor do case workers generally appear to have
+developed a special technique. The decided reaction against detective
+methods which has been apparent in the profession during later years may
+help to explain this fact. Most social workers feel a subconscious sense
+of injustice in having to do this work at all, since it is properly a
+function of the police. Prosecutors and police officials generally take
+very little interest in following up deserters, and have little idea of
+giving any treatment to the deserter who has been found other than
+arraignment and conviction. It is difficult for the probation officer or
+the family case worker to hold up the machinery of the law, once it has
+been started, and to do this long enough to find out whether some other
+form of treatment best suits the case. For these reasons the social
+worker usually prefers to do or else is forced to do the work of the
+detective in desertion cases up to the point where arrest is in his
+judgment necessary.
+
+    A probation officer in D---- found that he could not work through
+    the local police in searching for a certain deserter, because the
+    missing man's political affiliations made them friendly to him. The
+    probation officer knew in a general way that the man was likely to
+    be in the city of S---- in the same state, so he secured a warrant
+    and sent it with such slight clues as were at hand, to a probation
+    officer of that city who was successful in the search. Avoiding the
+    usual procedure, the warrant was served by the police in S----.
+    "Several instances of this kind have occurred lately," writes the
+    probation officer at D----.
+
+The necessity of doing the detective's work raises at once the question
+of how far the social worker can afford to adopt the detective's
+methods. If reformation of the man is the end sought it would seem an
+axiom that he must be given from the first every reason to believe that
+the social worker will play fair. "We are very careful never to break a
+promise we have made to a man," says an agency which deals with many
+deserters. The same agency, as illustration of its own methods in
+seeking deserting men, instances the case of a man who was being
+shielded by his sister, but was discovered by an officer who scraped
+acquaintance with her little boy and asked innocently, "Where's your
+uncle Jack now?" In another case the officer learned of a man's
+whereabouts through his relatives by representing himself as a lawyer's
+clerk calling about a legacy which had been left the man. In still
+another case, reported by a different agency, a man who had deserted his
+family was known to be receiving mail through the general delivery of
+another city. It was ascertained that he was writing to a woman in his
+home town. A letter was sent to him in care of General Delivery asking
+him to meet the writer (who was represented to be the young woman with
+whom he was corresponding). The wife was sent to that city and she and
+the local probation officer met the man and served the warrant.
+
+There is, of course, something to be said in favor of the use of such
+methods. The protection of the weak and helpless may justify, in certain
+circumstances, any subterfuge. But the _detective_ who arrests the
+criminal in ways like these is seeking his punishment and nothing else.
+There is no thought in that case of establishing personal relations and
+effecting the long, slow process of reformation. When social workers use
+such methods it should be in the full realization that they are
+foregoing any future advantage of straight dealing with the man. To
+capture a man by a trick is to declare war on him; and, in his mind, the
+social worker and the policeman then stand in the same place, "I'd have
+him there to meet you," said a deserter's chum to a woman visitor, "if I
+wasn't sure, in spite of your straight talk, you'd have a bull waiting
+behind a tree."[20]
+
+If it is a first desertion, or if there is room for doubt whether an
+accident may have befallen the man, police and hospital records should
+be looked up.
+
+    A woman with four children applied to a charity organization
+    society, saying her husband had disappeared. There was a rumor that
+    someone had seen him fall off the dock while intoxicated, but no
+    attempt had been made to confirm this and the family was treated as
+    a deserted family for some months, until the man's body was found in
+    the river and identified.
+
+If there have been previous desertions, it is extremely important to
+secure their history. The reasons that moved the man once are likely to
+do so again, and he is apt to return to his former haunts and be seen by
+former friends and acquaintances.
+
+The deserting man, unless he elopes with another woman, generally goes
+to some cheap lodging house or, if of foreign birth, he may seek out the
+quarter where those of his nationality reside and become a lodger in a
+family in which his native tongue is spoken. Hence, a canvass of the
+lodging houses--armed with a photograph if possible--is a desirable
+first step. All of the social worker's casual acquaintance with the
+foreign quarters of his city comes into play in the search. If the man
+is in the city some "landsmann," some "paesano" has seen him, and knows
+where he is to be found. It may even narrow down to finding the
+particular house on the particular street where the immigrants from a
+particular village in Sicily or Galicia have their abode. The pool-rooms
+and saloons of the district can often be made to yield information,
+especially if a man visitor can canvass them. In dealing in this way
+with mere acquaintances of the man, it is usually not necessary for the
+social worker to tell who he himself is or to state the purpose of his
+inquiry. In talking with relatives or close friends, however, it is
+often best to lay all cards on the table and convince one's listener
+first of all that the man sought will have fair treatment and a chance
+to state his side of the case before any proceedings are begun against
+him.
+
+Even a relative who has never been seen may sometimes be induced to act
+effectively.
+
+    A man who deserted his wife and family was reported to have gone to
+    his brother in another city. Nothing definite was known of the
+    brother except that he was a telephone lineman. No address could be
+    secured through the company, but they agreed to forward a letter to
+    this relative. He never answered; shortly, however, the deserter
+    reappeared, having been persuaded to return voluntarily by the
+    brother to whom the letter had been addressed.
+
+During the war local draft boards were of the greatest assistance in
+finding deserting men. Election records too have been of real value in
+the case of men who were voters. Passports and immigration records may
+in some instances yield information helpful in establishing whereabouts.
+Where there is actually a warrant out for the man's arrest, the active
+co-operation of the postal authorities can sometimes be secured in
+furnishing return addresses on envelopes delivered to persons with whom
+the culprit is known to be in correspondence.
+
+Problems of family desertion involving men in service during the war
+were in the main handled by the Red Cross Home Service. Before the war,
+private case working agencies had learned that the regular Army and the
+Navy often seemed desirable havens to would-be family deserters. The
+difficulties of finding them there were great, owing to the fact that
+they often enlisted as single men under an assumed name. It has usually
+been possible to gain excellent co-operation from the military
+authorities if there are any clues whatever.
+
+    The desertion bureau of a family social work society learned that a
+    deserting man had expressed a desire long before he left his family
+    to enlist in the Army. Several letters were exchanged with the War
+    Department, and the man was finally found to be with a company
+    serving in the Canal Zone. As he had made misrepresentations when he
+    enlisted, the War Department was willing to transfer him from Panama
+    to a camp within the limits of the city where the desertion had
+    taken place and there discharge him. This brought the absconder
+    within the jurisdiction of the local courts and made it possible to
+    arrest him as soon as he was outside the bounds of the camp.
+
+It will repay the visitor to make not only a careful study of the
+deserting man's employment history but also to learn something about the
+trade he follows. A cloakmaker, for instance, who deserts in New York
+City is likely to be found in Cleveland, for these are the two centers
+of the cloak branch of the garment trade. Certain seasonal occupations
+give the periodical deserter a great opportunity. Among these are hop
+picking, berry picking, and lumbering. The amusement parks near the
+large cities also furnish occupation for the seasonal deserter. The case
+worker cannot be expected to have such knowledge at his finger-tips, but
+he can go to people who know about the fluctuations of particular
+trades--to employers, union officials or fellow-workmen who may throw
+light on a deserter's movements. The story of Adolph R.[21] is an
+excellent illustration of the help that may be obtained from trades
+unions and from fellow-workmen. A family welfare bureau in a western
+city writes:
+
+    "In one instance a blacksmith's union published the picture of the
+    deserting man in its official journal and asked that information
+    regarding him be sent to the local unit here. This proved
+    successful. In another instance a union gave us access to its books
+    and helped us to trace all the men of a given name listed there. By
+    this means we found the man we were looking for. One man, a
+    vaudeville performer, we traced through the _Bill Board_ (a trade
+    paper) by discovering the movements of the show with which he had
+    been connected."
+
+Another society succeeded in getting a certain trade union to post a
+description and photograph of a missing man on its bulletin boards. This
+aided in finding the man. Fraternal orders may be; used in the same way,
+though for many reasons they cannot be so helpful as the trades unions.
+
+Employment agencies should not be forgotten in seeking to trace a man
+through his industrial record. The extension of the federal employment
+service, with free inter-city communication, should be of assistance in
+getting upon the track of deserters.
+
+The co-operation of newspapers can be secured to good effect in tracing
+missing men.
+
+    Herbert McCann, who had been doing railway construction in Russia,
+    returned to this country and disappeared while en route from an
+    eastern city to his home in Canada. There was reason to think that
+    he might have left the train in an intoxicated condition at an
+    important junction point; and the family social agency of that city
+    was asked to trace him. No information was secured from the police,
+    lodging houses, employment agencies, etc., and finally the following
+    advertisement was inserted in the local paper: "_Information
+    Wanted_--Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Herbert McCann, Montreal,
+    who returned from Russia in June, will confer a favor upon his
+    family by notifying Social Service Building, 34 Grand Street." Six
+    days later a reply was received from a man in a nearby town, and
+    McCann was found at work in a factory there.
+
+More than upon any other method the National Desertion Bureau depends on
+the publication of pictures and short newspaper paragraphs. As this
+Bureau deals entirely with Jewish deserters, it works chiefly through
+the Yiddish newspapers. Its "Gallery of Missing Husbands" is a regular
+weekly feature in some of the better known of these journals, and
+attracts increasingly wide attention. The Bureau estimates that 70 per
+cent of the deserters which it finds are discovered through the
+publication of pictures. It should be remembered, however, that this
+Bureau is dealing with a selected group, who know a great deal about one
+another, live closely together, follow in the main only a few trades,
+and read only a limited number of foreign-language newspapers. Whether
+anything like the same results could be obtained by the same methods
+applied to deserting husbands of many different national and social
+backgrounds is open to question.
+
+Since most deserters leave the city, if not the state, the social worker
+who is dealing with the family problem is often not the same person to
+whom is delegated the task of finding the man. This fact makes necessary
+the most careful and sympathetic co-operation between the social workers
+or agencies, which must work together at long range upon the problem. In
+the case of Herbert McCann, just cited, not less than four family social
+work societies were concerned--three in the United States and one in
+Canada. This necessitated keeping in the closest touch, by letter and
+telegram, so that each was informed of the doings of the others. Such a
+piece of work calls for a common body of experience and technique among
+the workers concerned, amounting almost to an unwritten understanding
+as to how the work should be done. Nothing makes more fascinating
+reading than the record of a quick, touch-and-go investigation, such as
+is presented in the finding of a deserter conducted by skilled case
+workers who are accustomed to work together. Much can, under these
+circumstances, be taken for granted or left to the discretion of the
+worker or agency whose help is being sought. There are instances,
+however, where no such common understanding exists, and where the
+home-town agency has to work through people with little social training
+or with training of a type which definitely unfits them properly to
+approach the deserting man. It is a distressing experience to know that
+a man has slipped through one's fingers, been frightened off or
+alienated, by poor work at the other end. Are there any ways to reduce
+the number of these mischances?
+
+Even with the closest co-operation among case workers of ability in
+different cities the results are not always as favorable, for obvious
+reasons, as if the person who knows the family were the one to find and
+interview the man. More and more it is realized that money and time
+spent in going to nearby cities to do one's own investigating is well
+spent. There used to be a feeling on the part of the kindred society
+whose territory was thus invaded that this action argued lack of
+confidence in its work; but as the importance of the personal contact
+has been more widely recognized this feeling has disappeared. It may be
+said that a worker who goes to a strange city is handicapped by her lack
+of knowledge of local conditions. This is of course true, and it may
+easily be a question of how great an advantage will be gained by the
+journey. The worker from the man's home town can, however, go far toward
+overcoming the handicap of unfamiliarity with the place, as well as
+toward dispelling any sense of injury in the mind of a professional
+colleague, by calling first at the office of the local agency and
+talking the problem over thoroughly, consulting the map and getting what
+hints the local agency may be able to furnish. The first question to ask
+oneself, therefore, is "Will it not be worth while to go myself?"
+
+If for geographical or other reasons this is impracticable, the next
+thing that should receive careful consideration is the type of letter to
+be written. If the situation is very emergent (as in the case of Adolph
+R. cited earlier), the request may have to be sent by telegraph; but
+even in a telegram it is possible to convey some detail. To try to save
+money by confining oneself to ten words is unwise. If time admits, a
+letter is more desirable, and the principle of its construction is as
+simple as the Golden Rule--give the other person all the information you
+would like to have if you were receiving the letter. Where the
+correspondent is not a trained social worker, very specific suggestions
+and directions should be given as to how you wish the man dealt with if
+found.
+
+There might also be laid down a Golden Rule for recipients of requests
+from out-of-town that missing men be traced. "Give the request
+right-of-way over your regular work, and send back as prompt and as full
+a reply as you would wish yourself" might adequately cover the case. A
+reply which contains a history of actual steps taken as well as results
+gained, is more satisfactory than one which does not. Good case workers
+believe in reciprocity and treat their neighbor's problem as their own.
+"We heard that a man we were interested in was in the vicinity of a
+certain city, and in the effort to trace him wrote to the charity
+organization society in that place, but without success. Several months
+later the charity organization society saw an item in a newspaper to the
+effect that the man had been interned as an enemy alien, and notified
+us. (This shows no cleverness on our part, but good work by the other
+society.)"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] The National Desertion Bureau, 356 Second Avenue, New York, acts in
+a legal advisory capacity to Jewish organizations in matters of domestic
+relations; it also seeks out Jewish family deserters, with a view to
+assuring their rehabilitation or, failing this, their punishment.
+
+[18] C.C. Carstens, Proceedings of the Fifth New York State Conference
+of Charities and Correction, 1904, p. 196.
+
+[19] See p. 65, footnote.
+
+[20] This paragraph was submitted to the two agencies which furnished
+the illustrations. Their replies are in part as follows:
+
+_Agency A._--"Your criticism ... is purely theoretical and has no basis
+in fact. The deserter is a knowing violator of the law, and while he
+does not welcome it, he regards his arrest as only a question of time.
+He is playing the game of 'hide and seek,' and he is applying every
+trick and subterfuge to avoid detection. He is not disturbed if he has
+been caught in a police trap. Our experience has been that in such cases
+where he has tried to outwit the police, and the police finally have
+'beaten him to the game,' he compliments his captor. This is a common
+characteristic of the criminal, a sort of negative bravado, When the
+deserter is arrested, all he can hope for and expect is a fair deal."
+
+What are some concrete suggestions, developed from the experience of
+case workers, as to how to proceed in searching for deserting men? A
+full and careful talk with the wife is the first requisite, supplemented
+by equally thorough interviews with any near relatives who can be
+reached. The case worker should be familiar with the Questionnaire on
+the Deserted Family in Mary E. Richmond's Social Diagnosis. A
+description and if possible a photograph of the man should be procured.
+Where several out-of-town clues are to be followed, copies of the
+photograph can be cheaply made, and at least one bureau for dealing with
+desertion cases makes this part of its routine procedure.
+
+_Agency B._--"I have seen very few individuals in the course of my
+experience who could not be brought to see the right viewpoint if they
+were intelligently approached, even though the probation officer had
+considerable to do with their arrest. It is in my opinion not altogether
+important what occurs before the man's arrest but how he is treated
+after he comes within the jurisdiction of the probation officials."
+
+[21] See p. 69.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION
+
+
+It is evident that the need of finding the man strongly influences the
+course of this type of investigation, especially in the early stages.
+Are there other considerations, however, that modify the technique of
+inquiry into these desertion cases?
+
+There is one crisis in the lives of deserted families which is not
+duplicated in the history of any other group suffering from social
+disability. This crisis is the period of the first desertion. "If we
+could learn what preceded and what immediately followed the first
+desertion, we should know much more than we do now about how to deal
+with the problem," said a case worker who has studied many court
+records.
+
+The _number_ of subsequent desertions may be both interesting and
+significant, but the circumstances attending them are not nearly so well
+worth study as are those connected with the critical first break. We
+should go back to that spot and probe for causes. The common practice of
+recording carefully what led up to a chronic deserter's last desertion
+before his family applied, and of passing over his earlier desertions
+with a mere mention of their number and dates, puts the emphasis in the
+wrong place.
+
+We must, however, go further back than the first desertion for a working
+fund of knowledge. The importance of knowing what were the influences
+surrounding the man and woman in childhood and youth has already been
+dwelt upon and is so generally conceded as to need no elaboration here.
+Of especial value also is careful inquiry into the period of courtship,
+the circumstances of the marriage, and the history of the earlier
+married life. "We should seek to know what first drew them together, as
+well as what forced them apart," said a thoughtful district secretary.
+The notorious unhappiness of "forced marriages" leads case workers to
+scrutinize the relation between the date of marriage and the date of
+the birth of the first child. It should be remembered, however, that not
+all marriages which are entered into during pregnancy are forced
+marriages. Studies of forced marriages, so-called, have not always taken
+this fact into consideration.
+
+The superintendent of a state department for aid to widows made a study
+of the vital statistics of 500 families chosen at random. She states
+that "out of these 500 mothers 96, or 19.2 per cent, had conceived out
+of wedlock--or rather before wedlock--judging by the date of marriage
+and that of the first child's birth. All these women were hard working;
+several of good standing in the neighborhood and the mothers of large
+families of children." This group of homes represents by no means an
+unstable segment of the community, since in most instances the couples
+had lived together in reasonable harmony up to the time of the man's
+death. But do the 96 represent forced marriages as ordinarily thought of
+by the social worker? The study just quoted has no facts bearing upon
+this point. The likelihood is that a large number of these marriages,
+termed forced, were in reality not brought about by outside pressure at
+all, but that the couple were intending to be married at the time the
+pregnancy occurred and that the circumstances were condoned by public
+opinion in the community where the marriage took place.
+
+The Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, however, has made a study
+of 89 forced marriages which were brought about in connection with
+bastardy proceedings. In this study there is no attempt to differentiate
+as to the _amount_ of unwillingness that had had to be overcome on the
+part of either the man or the woman. Fifty-three of the women said that
+the marriage had been entered into willingly on their part. Sixty of
+them stated that they were well treated by their husbands, and only five
+complained of abuse or unkindness. Out of the 89 marriages brought about
+after proceedings were instituted 69 of the couples were still living
+together from one to two years later, although 20, or nearly one in
+five, had separated before the two-year period was over.[22]
+
+    A young woman with four small children was given advice by an
+    associated charities about her approaching confinement, and no
+    further inquiry was made at that time. She was living apart from her
+    husband, who was contributing a small amount regularly. The income
+    was inadequate and it was decided to push the matter further.
+    Efforts to verify the marriage failed. Finally, a tactful worker was
+    able to learn that the ceremony had not taken place until after the
+    birth of the first three children, that the couple had had sexual
+    relations since the woman was a girl of fifteen, and that her
+    relatives had never known the true state of affairs. The man's
+    mother finally interfered, and urged her son not to live with his
+    wife. After much careful work, and with the assistance of a
+    co-operating priest, a plan was worked out which brought the couple
+    together and induced them to move away from the region in which the
+    man's parents lived.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A probation department tells of a case where, although the man was
+    unwilling to marry, a court marriage was brought about; the man made
+    his payments promptly and observed the other conditions of his
+    probation faithfully. The woman, however, was indifferent to any
+    efforts to bring about a reconciliation. It was finally discovered
+    that she was immoral. The case culminated in the securing of a
+    divorce by the man, who was granted the custody of the children.
+
+    The same department submits a story where good results were obtained
+    in subsequently reconciling, after a desertion, a couple whose
+    marriage had been of the forced description. The probation
+    department arranged for the couple to live apart in the early stage
+    of probationary treatment. A careful study was made of each of the
+    individuals, and in their sincere attachment a basis was discovered
+    for re-establishment of the home under the supervision of the
+    probation officer. Five years later the man was found to be at work
+    at the same position originally obtained for him by the probation
+    officer, his salary had been increased, the family had grown in
+    number and were getting on extremely well.
+
+Although the term "forced marriage" has come to have the meaning given
+above, unions can be really forced where there has been no sex relation
+before marriage. In one unhappy marriage which came finally to a court
+of domestic relations, the wife was a weak and timid woman who married
+her husband because of her fear that he would carry out his threat and
+kill her and himself if she refused him. Another, an Italian girl, was
+married at fourteen by her parents against her inclinations to a
+well-to-do man, much older than she, who was a lodger in the family. As
+she grew to womanhood their incompatibility increased; finally, after
+four children had been born, the family was broken up and the children
+committed to institutions.
+
+There are compulsions and false motives, operating to bring about
+marriages, which spring from within not without; and the discovery of
+any motive for the marriage except mutual inclination has significance
+to the case worker. Light was thrown on the troubles of one young couple
+when the girl confessed that she had married a youth for whom she had no
+particular affection, in order to "spite" her relatives and assert her
+right to do as she chose. And the unfortunate young woman who married a
+street evangelist in a fit of religious enthusiasm, and because of his
+promise that they would travel about the world saving souls together,
+had a married life both short and stormy. The so-called "slacker
+marriages" of the few months preceding the first draft in 1917
+illustrate this point. The wreckage of these marriages is already
+drifting in increasing amount to the courts of domestic relations.
+
+One of the most important items in desertion cases, and one far too
+often neglected, is the verification of the marriage. Much seeming
+indifference and confusion on this point is probably caused by the
+quasi-legality in many states of common law marriages. The case worker
+should not forget, however, that a common law union is often only a
+device on the part of one or the other of the two to avoid prosecution
+for bigamy. When it is established that the marriage is a common law
+union, a strong suspicion should be set up in the worker's mind that
+there may be some legal barrier to a ceremony, and careful inquiry
+should be directed along this line. Not only does the verification of a
+marriage give the worker a sound basis on which to proceed to court
+action if necessary, but the copy of the actual marriage record, where
+that can be procured, gives much valuable information as to dates,
+addresses, and names of relatives and witnesses. A transcript of the
+record will usually be furnished by the registrar of vital statistics
+in the city where the marriage took place (if in the United States) for
+a nominal fee of fifty cents.
+
+It is much more difficult to verify marriages which took place in other
+countries, and social workers are often appalled by the prevalence of
+the so-called "American marriage" among immigrant deserters, who trust
+to our happy-go-lucky methods for protection against a prosecution for
+bigamy.
+
+    Such was the case of Orfeo Pelligrini, who came to this country and
+    took a new wife when his children in Italy were nearly grown. His
+    Italian family came to America through their own efforts a few years
+    later, and Orfeo found that he had underestimated the character of
+    his eldest son, who traced his father, had him arrested and taken to
+    the city where his original family was living. Orfeo, now forcibly
+    reunited to the wife of his bosom, walks softly under the threat of
+    bigamy proceedings, while the "American" wife refuses to take any
+    action on the ground that "he didn't go away from me of his own
+    wish, and why should I put him behind the bars?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Of an altogether more simple mental make-up was the Slovak laborer
+    who brought his pregnant "American wife" and two children to the
+    district office of a charity organization society, saying that the
+    relatives in Europe of Anna, his first wife, had sent Anna to this
+    country, and she was on the point of arriving. He added that, as
+    manifestly it was not possible to support two families on his wages,
+    he would like to provide for his second wife through "the Charity."
+
+A district secretary who has worked for many years with Italians is
+authority for the statement that marriages in Italy are always
+registered at the man's legal residence, no matter where the marriage
+took place. "Careful Italian parents, if they cannot get reliable
+information in other ways, write to the 'paese' of a suitor for
+information in regard to his conjugal condition. A marriage which takes
+place in America is customarily registered with the consul for
+transmission to the home town in Italy."
+
+In some countries of Latin America great confusion may be caused by the
+fact that a marriage performed in church is not legal in the eyes of the
+state unless a second ceremony is gone through before the civil
+authorities. A Guatemalan woman, deserted in this country, had no
+recourse in law because she had had only the church ceremony in her
+country. Her claim to the status of common law wife was invalidated by
+the man's producing proof that he was already married at the time the
+religious ceremony was performed.
+
+Having established the fact that a legal marriage has taken place, the
+case worker must keep in mind the possibility that it may have been
+later dissolved. It is not at all uncommon to find that a deserter who
+has gone off with another woman has started proceedings to get a divorce
+by "publication." This can happen when the two have gone to a state
+where such unfair divorce procedure is permitted. Publication in these
+cases takes place in local newspapers which there is little or no chance
+of the wife seeing; and she may later find herself a divorced woman with
+no legal claim for support for herself or children, and suffering under
+charges of misconduct without having had a chance of being heard. The
+National Desertion Bureau found this proceeding so common an abuse that
+it established a clearing bureau in its central office, and its local
+representatives in different parts of the country notify this bureau as
+soon as any action for divorce is started by a man with a Jewish name
+against a wife whose "address is unknown."[23]
+
+What are some of the other points at which the investigation of cases of
+desertion may differ from the technique generally accepted? The
+superintendent of a desertion bureau, in answer to this question, said
+that he emphasized "neighborhood references" more than in the ordinary
+case. Social workers have become very wary, of course, of much inquiry
+among present neighbors; but where the protection of the woman or the
+children is involved it is often necessary to procure the testimony of
+people who live nearby or in the same house. A deserted family is
+usually so much a center of neighborhood interest or sympathy, or both,
+that it is easier than in some other types of cases to secure
+information from neighbors, tradesmen, and so on, without augmenting
+neighborhood gossip.
+
+Probably the most difficult part of the necessary information to be
+secured in desertion cases is an adequate picture of the sex
+relationship between man and wife. The part which sex plays in the
+causation of desertion has been touched upon in Chapter II.[24] In
+getting the information from the people concerned, the case worker needs
+no elaborate equipment as a psycho-analyst; but she should know enough
+about sex psychology to recognize a pathological problem when she meets
+it, and to be able to call on the psycho-analyst or psychiatrist for
+specialized service.
+
+The securing of an adequate picture of the sex life of the couple may
+have to be delegated, however, to some volunteer whose own sex,
+profession, or marital experience makes him or her a suitable person to
+secure it.
+
+    "The majority of social case workers are unmarried women under
+    forty, and in this particular respect they frequently find
+    themselves handicapped by the natural reluctance of the deserter to
+    discuss his conceptions of the marital relation in such a way as to
+    be enlightening to them, as well as by the chivalrous attitude which
+    the woman of the tenements often adopts toward her unmarried
+    visitor. The decisive statement, 'You have never been married, so
+    you can't understand,' often proves at least a temporary barrier in
+    dealing with deserted wives, just as the similar statement, 'You
+    have never been a mother so you cannot know the feelings of one,' is
+    used to block her efforts in another direction. If it is found
+    impossible to carry on the necessary discussions rationally and
+    without too serious embarrassment, it is often possible to call upon
+    the socially-minded physician or clergyman for help along this
+    line."[25]
+
+To sum up, the interviews with the family and the supplementary visits
+and letters of inquiry should furnish the social worker if possible
+with:
+
+1. A clear picture of the home in which the two adult members of the
+family grew up, and the factors in their early training which
+contributed to their failure as husband or wife; or which can be
+utilized as assets in the future plan.
+
+2. A history of how the couple met; the events of their courtship and
+marriage, including sex relations prior to marriage with spouse or
+others; also previous marriages. Records of marriage, death of previous
+spouse, etc., are very important and should be secured if in existence.
+
+3. A picture of the family and its individual members in their other
+social relationships--with employers, medical agencies, teachers, their
+church, their friends, their relatives. Knowledge of their habits,
+tastes, and characteristics, with special attention to period of first
+desertion. Analysis of factors leading to the desertion.
+
+4. History of first reconciliation (unless the present is the first
+break). History of subsequent desertions. Court record, if any.
+
+A prerequisite to some of the above information is an interview or
+interviews with the man. Where this cannot be had as part of the first
+investigation, the investigation should leave the worker in possession
+of some good clues, at least, to the man's whereabouts.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Bowen, Louise de K.: A Study of Bastardy Cases. Juvenile Protective
+Association of Chicago, 1914.
+
+[23] It is the policy of the Bureau, when such a case is discovered, to
+help the wife get competent legal advice in the city where action is
+being brought, and either to contest the case or start a counter suit.
+Where necessary the woman is sent on to appear in person.
+
+[24] See p. 37 sq.
+
+[25] J.C. Colcord in _The Annals of the American Academy of Political
+and Social Science_, May, 1918, p. 97.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT
+
+
+As in all other problems faced by the case worker, it is impossible to
+lay down general rules for the treatment of desertion. There may be
+general considerations, however, which it is well to keep in mind, some
+of which have been advanced in the last chapter.[26]
+
+On questions of investigation there is closer agreement among social
+workers than on questions of treatment. Personal factors here play a
+much larger part, and it may very well be that two case workers who
+differ in personality but are of equal ability, will choose very
+different plans of treatment in a given case and yet each bring it to a
+successful issue. It is with a good deal of hesitancy, therefore, that
+a case worker ventures upon the discussion of anything so flexible as
+treatment. In preparation for this study many consultations were had
+with practising social case workers in the fields of family work,
+probation, medical-social service, and child welfare. Differences of
+opinion were found and this chapter will attempt to express the
+composite opinion on how to treat the deserter and his family in the
+different situations which confront them.
+
+
+1. Man's Whereabouts Unknown but Desertion of Recent Date.--It is
+better in this case to make no very definite plans for the family.
+Emergent plans, both as to relief and medical or other care should, of
+course, be prompt and adequate. Now is the time, if it can be done, to
+win the confidence and co-operation of the wife. We should, however,
+make no promises for the sake of "buying" co-operation, and give no
+premature advice either as to prosecution or reconciliation. Everything
+possible should be done to strengthen such ties with church, relatives,
+and friends as may be helpful, but the social worker should be slow to
+encourage the family to form new ties with other social agencies at this
+time. She should avoid the possibility of judging the woman harshly in a
+period of stress, but be watchful for signs of deterioration and
+resourceful to combat them. This is the stage, of course, when all
+energies should be bent toward finding the man.
+
+In this as in the other situations about to be discussed, the question
+of whether or not the home should be broken up and the children
+committed should be decided on other grounds than on the desertion
+alone. Under many circumstances, it is the best thing to do. The woman,
+worn out with anxiety or abuse, may be unequal to their physical care
+for the present; or they may be running wild and in danger of becoming
+delinquent. The mother may be morally an unfit guardian, and the
+desertion may furnish the long-sought opportunity to interfere for the
+children's protection. Commitment may have to be planned, and the
+mother's consent won, to save the children from the return of a brutal
+father, against whom she cannot protect them. Or she may desire a
+temporary commitment in order to give her husband a severe lesson. The
+main consideration, however, ought to be what is going, in the long run,
+to be best for the children concerned.
+
+
+2. Man's Whereabouts Unknown, Desertion of Long Standing.--A very
+different problem from the preceding may be presented in the family of a
+man who disappeared some time ago. Where the desertion is bona fide and
+has persisted over a period of years, it is often possible to treat the
+family as if the man were dead, and, if other circumstances make this
+advisable, to plan comprehensively for the future. There is always the
+chance, however, that, until the man's death is established, he may turn
+up unexpectedly. If living, he usually manages to hear now and again
+about his family and is often able to find them at will. A man who had
+neither seen nor communicated with his family during the ten years they
+had been maintained by a private family agency, nevertheless sent
+promptly for his wife and eldest son by a messenger who knew exactly
+where to find them (although they had moved in the interval several
+times), when he lay dying of alcoholic excess in the city hospital.
+
+The laws of many states contain a provision that the marriage of a
+person who has completely disappeared and not been heard from in a
+period of years can be set aside by the proper authorities. This makes
+legal the remarriage of the spouse. In nearly all of the states divorce
+can be obtained on the ground of long continued desertion.[27] The
+wisdom of advising such a divorce, however, should receive careful
+individual consideration, particularly in relation to the religious
+faith of the client and the attitude of that faith toward divorce.
+
+3. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Unwilling to Return or Support.--Many
+types of deserting men are included under this catch-all heading--the
+so-called "justifiable deserter;" the man who has fled to escape his
+creditors or is a fugitive from justice; the man who has elected to try
+life with another mate; the wandering hobo who means to come back some
+sweet day but not now; the cowardly pregnancy deserter; the low-grade
+irresponsible--a motley crew. They are grouped together here for
+convenience, since they constitute those with whom coercive measures
+have most often to be used.
+
+    A good example of the "justifiable deserter" is found in the story
+    of Williams.[28] This man, when home conditions became intolerable,
+    tried to secure his children's safety through the courts but did not
+    obtain a hearing. He left home feeling that he was fully justified.
+    The lame point in his self-defense was his failure to support his
+    children, and it took a court order to rectify this in part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Joseph Mellor is in a more logical situation in his refusal to
+    provide for his wife, since he is paying the board of his child in a
+    good institution. He makes no charge against her character, but
+    insists that her quarrelsome and dictatorial disposition makes her
+    impossible to live with. She had haled him so many times into court
+    and lost him so many positions that Mellor, who earns a good salary,
+    will deal with her only through his lawyer, who keeps his client's
+    whereabouts secret and will not trust the social worker interested
+    even to the extent of arranging an interview.
+
+It is generally impossible in cases of such deep-seated antagonism to
+make any plans looking toward reconciliation. The "justifiable deserter"
+can usually be reasoned with, and once he understands and admits his
+responsibilities, can often be made to live up to them without judicial
+process.
+
+    A ship steward deserted his wife, who was both alcoholic and
+    paretic, taking with him his only child whom he placed with his
+    relatives. The woman was devoted to the boy and broken in spirit
+    because she was not allowed to see him. The steward claimed,
+    probably correctly, that he was not responsible for the woman's
+    syphilitic condition. The following extract from the record of the
+    first interview with the man is quoted to show the lines of argument
+    which were effective with him:
+
+    "Man at District Office--Visitor started in immediately with the
+    subject in hand, thinking he was the sort that would respond to
+    absolutely direct dealing. Explained to him that we had been given
+    to understand his wife was ill, not only from alcoholism but also
+    from other complications; that it was suspected there might be some
+    difficulty with her blood and that we had been advised that her
+    mental condition was not now as strong as it had been previously.
+    Explained to him that he was absolutely responsible for his wife,
+    for her support, and for her care and protection, and that no matter
+    how far he traveled, his responsibility remained the same; that he
+    had assumed this when he married her. Said that he felt no
+    responsibility for her whatsoever, that he had done all he ever
+    would do for her and intended to devote his efforts toward his
+    child. Visitor explained to him that woman's intemperance might
+    perfectly well be a disease over which it would be very difficult
+    for her to have control; that, moreover, if she were suffering also
+    from a blood condition, this should have treatment. Explained that
+    he would more nearly meet his responsibilities were he to have her
+    examined and send her where she could procure the treatment
+    required, even if it meant commitment to an institution. At this
+    point man seemed more interested, particularly as visitor told him
+    that Arthur would grow up and would want to know where his mother
+    was and what had become of her; and if man had left her sick and
+    alone, at the mercy of strangers, he would not be able to give an
+    adequate accounting to his son. Man's reaction was not what visitor
+    had expected--he would be glad to put her away where she could not
+    trouble him any more but he did not intend to expend any more money.
+    Said he was under too heavy expenses with Arthur. Claimed he was
+    making $70 a month, and visitor forced him to add that he got in
+    addition his board and lodging on the ship, so that he was under no
+    expense except when on shore leave. Visitor repeated that as a
+    husband he was required to pay for woman's care, that that was the
+    right thing to do; that one way he would be a husband deserting his
+    wife, liable to arrest for non-support and desertion, and the other
+    way a husband with a sick wife for whom he was willing to provide
+    the medical attention and care that every sick person has a right to
+    have. He said if it was a question of a few dollars a week, he
+    supposed he would be willing to do it, and visitor felt he really
+    was willing to do the right thing if he only could be assured that
+    woman would not interfere with Arthur. Said he would never let woman
+    see the child, but finally admitted, if she were not drunk and was
+    in the hospital and it would do any good, he supposed she could."
+
+With persistent or recalcitrant deserters as a group, court action has
+very often to be invoked. Procedure in this direction differs so much in
+different communities that only general observations can be offered
+here. If the man has left his home but not the town and is still within
+the jurisdiction of the local court, the magistrate will usually issue a
+summons (which in many cities the wife is expected to serve) calling on
+the man to appear at court on the date set for the hearing. If he fails
+to appear a warrant for his arrest is issued. If he has left the city
+but not the state, local courts may issue warrants, which can be mailed
+to the city to which the man has gone and served by the police there; or
+an officer may be sent from the home town with a warrant to arrest the
+man and bring him back.
+
+Prior to his arraignment, the best court practice calls for an
+investigation by the probation officer, so that the judge may have
+substantiated facts before him when the case comes up. Whether this is
+done or not here is the time and place for the social worker who already
+knows the family to get his knowledge in usable fashion before the
+court. How best to do this varies greatly in different communities.
+Sometimes the social worker is permitted to talk the matter over with
+the judge personally, sometimes with the probation officer, clerk or
+other court official. Sometimes a written report is required, to be
+attached to the probation officer's report. Occasionally the social
+worker gets no chance to be heard unless he is present to testify in
+open court. In the last two contingencies, care must be taken to
+safeguard information given in confidence, even by the deserter. Letters
+marked "confidential" should not ordinarily be submitted in court except
+by consent of the writer, as some judges hold that material so submitted
+becomes a matter of public record.
+
+The approach to the court, therefore, is governed by local conditions. A
+very important part of co-operation in any community is to see that this
+channel is kept free from obstruction. In general, the probation officer
+should be the best friend of the other social workers, since he knows
+their language. Indeed, many social workers themselves combine the
+office of probation officer with their other duties.
+
+After the institution of court proceedings the outside social worker has
+usually little chance to affect the disposition of the case. This is
+made by the judge on the basis of the testimony he elicits in court, and
+on that of any preliminary investigation he may have caused to be made.
+Disposition may be:
+
+    1. In rare instances, to dismiss the complaint altogether.
+
+    2. To remand for a later hearing.
+
+    3. To induce the woman to drop her complaint and give the man
+    another chance.[29]
+
+    4. To place the man under court order to stay away from home and pay
+    his wife a stated amount weekly. Custom differs in different places
+    as to whether payment shall be direct to the wife, through the
+    probation officer or clerk of court, or through public or private
+    charities.
+
+    5. To order the man to return home and contribute a stated amount.
+
+    6. To place on probation (together with either 4 or 5).
+
+    7. Commitment--usually to jail or workhouse, and for a period of not
+    over six months. May be longer for violation of probation or for
+    aggravated offense.
+
+When the deserting man has gone without the borders of the state, there
+is the added problem of securing his extradition, which is often a
+difficult one. Wife desertion is in most states only a misdemeanor (in
+New York it is even less serious and constitutes in the eye of the law
+only disorderly conduct). Since extradition between states has to be
+acted upon by the governors of the states, it is unusual (though not
+impossible[30]) to secure extradition for a misdemeanor. The reluctance
+of the authorities is understandable, however, when it is realized that
+to extradite for wife desertion would be to create a precedent for
+extradition for any sort of misdemeanor. There is in most states a law
+which makes the abandonment of a minor child or children a felony,
+punishable by a long term in state prison, and it is this law which is
+generally invoked when the man has been traced to another state.
+Complaint then has to be made to the district (or county) attorney, the
+matter taken before the grand jury and an indictment secured before
+extradition papers can be granted. The man, if captured, must usually be
+tried in a higher court than the domestic relations court; if convicted
+he is likely to be more severely punished. Extradition means expense to
+the state; it is usually difficult, moreover, to get an active interest
+taken in extraditing a family deserter who, to the legal eye, has
+committed an offense neither against the person nor against property,
+and cannot therefore be a serious offender!
+
+If extradition for family desertion is difficult between states, with
+other countries it is impossible, as no treaties exist even with
+contiguous countries like Canada and Mexico.[31] By special arrangement
+with the Canadian authorities, states which touch the Canadian border
+can sometimes obtain the person of a deserter without actual
+extradition. Information is submitted to the police of the Canadian town
+where the man is known to be, who thereupon arrest him as an
+"undesirable citizen" and arrange for his deportation. The neighboring
+state is notified, and an officer with a warrant meets the Canadian
+officer and the prisoner at the boundary, arresting the latter as soon
+as he sets foot across the state line.
+
+The testimony of social workers is, in the main, in favor of probation
+as against long prison sentence for men of this type. "We have found a
+shortened penitentiary sentence, with release on probation, very
+successful in a number of instances." "Sometimes the probation has been
+more effective by its being a sort of double probation; that is, having
+the case pending in juvenile court as well as municipal or district
+court. The fear of having his children permanently taken from him if he
+again fails to support them has, in one or two instances, had much more
+effect with the deserter than the threat of a prison sentence."
+"Probation works very well and occasionally a prison sentence; but
+probation is better." These statements come from cities where probation
+work is well organized. From another city where the probation officers
+are notoriously overworked, comes a pessimistic note: "The theory of
+probation is fine, but the practice is poor because the officers have
+entirely too much to do."
+
+Probation is simply case work with the added "punch" of the law behind
+it; so that when it is at all well done it should have the more lasting
+results. Probation officers and other social workers agree, however,
+that for certain deserters of the complacent type, an unexpected prison
+sentence is sometimes a very salutary dash of cold water.
+
+    After having tried one or two short absences, ostensibly to look for
+    work and finding that nothing serious happened to him, Andreas
+    Gorokhoff walked out one day and did not come back for five years.
+    During that time his wife's relatives and the community's family
+    agency took care of his family while he led the life of a care-free
+    vagabond. He was ready upon his return to settle down again for a
+    time; but the family agency and the probation department thought
+    differently, and succeeded in having him sent to state prison for an
+    indeterminate sentence of not more than two years. He was released
+    on parole for good conduct, returned home, went to work, and, during
+    the four years which have since elapsed, all has gone well.
+
+Good results may, and probably more often do, follow shorter prison
+sentences.
+
+    A man on probation for intemperance, broke it and deserted. On
+    account of the children's keen feeling about the consequent
+    disgrace, the wife made no move until urged thereto by the social
+    worker interested. Her husband was then arrested in a nearby city
+    and brought back, much surprised at the firm stand his wife had
+    taken. He was sentenced to four months, served two, and was released
+    on parole. Since his return he has not been drinking and has been
+    contributing satisfactorily toward the support of his family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The first step taken by Harvey Brand when released from the
+    workhouse after a short prison sentence, was to stop in at a
+    furniture store and order a green plush parlor "suit" on the
+    instalment plan. Harvey had never been conspicuously interested in
+    his home before, and the district secretary and her committee were
+    aghast at this new evidence of his irresponsibility. The green plush
+    was, however, the outward sign of an inner burgeoning, and it warmed
+    the heart of Mrs. Harvey as nothing else could have done. From that
+    time, Harvey, with judicious encouragement over a few hard spots,
+    has become a good family man and a regular provider.
+
+The particular problem involved in the treatment of the family during
+the trial and imprisonment of the deserter is that of encouraging the
+woman to stick to her guns. If she withdraws her complaint or secures
+his release before his time is up, she not only convinces him of her
+lack of firmness but the entry in the court record seriously prejudices
+her case should she make complaint there again. Unless the social worker
+is convinced, therefore, that the sentence has been unduly severe, the
+wife should be encouraged in every way to let her husband serve out his
+time. If a policy of relief has been necessary, care should be taken
+that it be adequate, so that economic pressure will not induce her to
+ask for his release. If the home has been broken up and the children
+committed, the mother's loneliness and desire to have her home back is
+likely to work in the same way. The hope of making her husband kinder
+when he returns often leads a woman to ask for his release. The pressure
+of relatives and friends, and sometimes of her church is likely to be
+exerted in the same direction and unknown to the social worker.
+Chaplains of correctional institutions, interested entirely in the man
+and with no knowledge of the family situation, are also likely to appear
+in the case; and it is well to acquaint them, in the beginning, of our
+interest and our hope that no step will be taken without a consultation.
+If it is hoped or expected that the man will return to his home after
+imprisonment, he should be earnestly cultivated by the social worker
+while he is serving his time. Visits and letters will go far toward
+breaking down his resentment at the part the worker is likely to have
+played in "putting him behind the bars." Now is an excellent time to
+introduce a man as volunteer visitor to the prisoner, if he is to be off
+probation when released. If imprisonment or: "stay-away probation" does
+not have the desired effect of making the deserter willing and anxious
+to return to his family and take care of them, or if for any reason
+return is permanently undesirable, the advisability of obtaining a legal
+separation[32] should be considered at this point. If, on the other
+hand, the man evinces eagerness to return home and support his family,
+he comes automatically (though belatedly) into the class to be
+considered in the next chapter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] The Questionnaire on the Deserted Family (see p. 395 sq. of
+Richmond's Social Diagnosis) has already been mentioned as suggesting
+lines of investigation. It will also be found useful at the stage of
+summing up knowledge gained and seeing in what direction it points.
+
+[27] The state of New York is an exception, as it grants only limited
+divorce for desertion.
+
+[28] See p. 57.
+
+[29] See p. 132 sq. concerning court reconciliations.
+
+[30] See Baldwin, Wm. H.: "The Most Effective Methods of Dealing with
+Cases of Desertion and Non-support," _Journal American Institute of
+Criminal Law and Criminology_, November, 1917.
+
+[31] See p. 169 sq.
+
+[32] See p. 127.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (Continued)
+
+
+There remains a fourth classification under treatment, of cases which
+demand even more individualized care and therefore more extended comment
+than those just considered.
+
+
+4. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Willing to Return.--Here the question
+to determine is whether it is going to be a desirable thing for the man
+to re-enter the home and, if so, when. This does not always lie within
+the power of the case worker to decide; the couple may and often do
+resolve their differences for the time being without reference to her
+opinion. But she can often hasten, defer, or even prevent the
+reconciliation. Careful consideration must be given the elements
+involved: What causes probably operated to bring about the rupture in
+family relations? If there have been other desertions what does their
+history show? Is the man's willingness to return a sign of real change
+of heart and purpose, or is he merely afraid of punishment? Are his
+habits such as to make him a fit inmate of the home? Is he capable of
+supporting the family? Can any adjustment of temperaments be made which
+will lessen incompatibility? Is the wife willing to have him return?
+What are her motives? Has she enough firmness of character to carry out
+a plan to which she has agreed? These are only a few of the questions to
+which the social worker needs to know the answer, if the decision is to
+be a wise one.
+
+If none of the elements is present in the home out of which family life
+can be reconstructed, if the man's self-indulgence and cruelty have been
+proved beyond any doubt, or if affection is dead or never existed, then
+the decision may have to be that no reconciliation be attempted. In many
+cases the question then is how best to protect the woman and children
+against the man's forcing his way upon them. Court intervention is
+usually necessary here, if it has not already taken place; and a first
+step is to have the husband placed under a court order to give separate
+support and to stay away from his home.[33] The wife should be armed
+with a warrant for his arrest, which can be served by the policeman on
+the beat if the man appears. Such a man usually considers that his
+proprietorship of the home and the family is not affected by his absence
+or even by court orders, and when fortified by liquor he is likely to
+force his entrance into the home and perhaps do harm. The protection of
+the warrant is not absolute; in such cases as this it ought later to be
+reinforced by a legal separation. Social workers avail themselves of
+this resource far less than they should. It controverts the principles
+of no religious sect and gives all the protection of absolute divorce
+(including the payment of alimony) to the woman and children. To the
+children it is likely to give more protection than divorce; for in the
+event of the divorced husband's remarriage the children of the second
+wife have prior rights over those of the first, and legal separation
+makes this impossible by preventing the remarriage of either party.
+Proceedings for a legal separation cannot usually be started if a man is
+on probation, but may be while he is undergoing imprisonment. It should
+be said that, after a separation, claims for non-payment of alimony
+cannot, in many states, be pressed in a court of domestic relations but
+must go to a civil court. This is usually more expensive and less
+satisfactory.[34]
+
+Some social workers even advance the heretical doctrine that support
+secured through the court from a cruel and dangerous husband does not
+make up for the harm he may do and the anxiety he causes. If to force
+him into periodical payments means that he will be continually excited
+into seeking out and "beating up" his offending wife, the support she is
+able to extort from him comes high. It is sometimes necessary to move a
+family to new quarters and actually help them to hide from the pursuit
+of one of these insistent gentry. Even if we have some doubt that the
+wife's protestations of fear or aversion are genuine, we should hardly
+take the risk of revealing her address if she wishes it kept secret.
+This precaution applies not only to the man but to anyone whom we
+suspect of being interested on his behalf. A district secretary
+continued to refuse the address of his family to a dangerous epileptic
+deserter who threatened the secretary's life and, in the opinion of
+physicians who examined him, was likely to carry out his threat.
+
+    The committee on difficult cases in a family social agency voted to
+    refuse to accept voluntary payments from a thoroughly worthless
+    deserter and transmit them to his wife whose address he was seeking
+    to learn, on the theory that it was better for her and her children
+    to be entirely quit of him, and that nothing would make him realize
+    the finality of the decision more than to refuse his money. The
+    agency, it was felt, would be in better position to protect the wife
+    and children if it refused to act as post office for the man.
+
+The same consideration might apply in questions of extradition. When the
+whereabouts of a deserter of this type has been discovered in another
+city a safe distance away, it may be wiser to sacrifice the money he
+might be forced to contribute than to have him brought within arm's
+length of his wife and family.
+
+A prime difficulty in dealing with the undesirable husband who is
+willing to come home is often the attitude of the wife. Some of the
+causes at work when a woman takes her husband back have been discussed
+earlier.[35] Unfortunately, hopelessly bad husbands profit by them as
+well as hopeful ones. The policy of niggardly relief to a deserted wife
+has undoubtedly been responsible for many of these unfortunate attempts
+to patch up a life together. "She was worn down by her efforts to keep
+the household going, and, when the faint chance of her husband's
+supporting her appeared, she took it" is the explanation given by a case
+worker of one unpromising reconciliation, and she goes on to say of this
+and another similar story: "With both of these it seems that enough
+money put into the household to enable these mothers to be with their
+children more and to keep up a reasonable standard of health for
+themselves might have resulted in their refusing to take back their
+husbands.... Our records seem to show that inadequate relief, making
+life fairly hard for the deserted mother, does not tend to keep the man
+from returning or others from deserting."
+
+    The story of Mrs. Francis shows the effect of adequate relief in
+    strengthening her decision not to take her husband back. He had been
+    a chronic deserter for years, had drank heavily, been foul-mouthed
+    and abusive, while failing to support the family when at home, so
+    that Mrs. Francis had only a little harder time when he was away.
+    His last desertion took place when she was near confinement. Owing
+    to her condition, the church and a family agency co-operated in an
+    unusually generous relief policy. This was in a state which gave
+    mother's aid to deserted wives. After about a year this was secured
+    for her, and the health of woman and children was built up and the
+    home improved. Then Mr. Francis sent ambassadors in the form of
+    relatives, with whom Mrs. Francis refused to treat. He later
+    appeared himself, but she would not consider taking him back. He
+    escaped before he could be brought into court. As he has now been
+    gone over two years, it seems that her stand is a genuine one.
+
+On the other hand, when the man has been found and interviewed, he may
+show signs of repentance, and the earlier history, together with the
+opinion which the social worker has been able to form about the
+character of man and woman may make it seem that a reconciliation should
+be encouraged. A further question then arises: Shall the man return to
+his home at once or first undergo a probationary period?
+
+The quick reconciliation has been a feature of the work in domestic
+relations courts from the beginning of the movement. In connection with
+some courts there are special officers whose duty it is to prevail upon
+couples who come to the court to patch up their differences and give
+each other another trial. This would be an admirable procedure if the
+couples to receive such treatment were selected by a process of careful
+investigation, and if probationary supervision were continued long
+enough to ascertain whether permanent results could be secured. As it
+actually works out it is a little like expecting a wound to heal "by
+first intention" when it has not been cleaned out thoroughly, and when
+no attention is being paid to subsequent dressings.
+
+    "The wholesale attempt to patch the tattered fabric of family life
+    in a series of hurried interviews held in the court room, and
+    without any information about the problem except what can be gained
+    from the two people concerned, can hardly be of permanent value in
+    most cases. It is natural that case workers, keenly aware as they
+    are of the slow and difficult processes involved in
+    character-rebuilding, look askance at the court-made
+    reconciliations. With the best will in the world, the people who
+    attempt this delicate service very often have neither the time nor
+    the facts about the particular case in question to give the skilful
+    and devoted personal service necessary to reconstruction. As a
+    result many weak-willed wrong-doers are encouraged to take a pledge
+    of good conduct which they will not, or cannot, keep; and other
+    individuals who feel themselves deeply wronged go away with an
+    additional sense of those wrongs having been underestimated and of
+    having received no redress. The results are written in
+    discouragement and in repeated failures to live in harmony, each of
+    which makes a permanent solution more and more difficult. The case
+    worker to whom the results of the externally imposed reconciliation
+    come back again and again has reason to be confirmed in a distrust
+    of short-cut methods."[36]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A probation officer writes: "Superficial reconciliations invariably
+    result unsatisfactorily. In one case a reconciliation was effected
+    before the husband was released on probation. This was done
+    apparently in the hope that it would influence the court in the
+    disposition of the case. After a study of the situation had been
+    made by the probation officer, it was found that the wife was
+    totally incompetent as a housekeeper, that she possessed an
+    antagonistic disposition, had a violent temper, and that no sincere
+    attachment for each other existed between the couple. Before any
+    constructive measures could be carried out by the probation officer
+    to remedy this situation they separated, and it was not possible
+    thereafter to adjust the differences with any degree of
+    satisfaction.
+
+    "On another occasion a man who had a previous prison record and had
+    displayed criminal tendencies was arrested for desertion. His wife,
+    a feeble-minded woman with one child, was being maintained at a
+    private institution at county expense. Through the efforts of the
+    district attorney a reconciliation was effected before the case was
+    disposed of in court, and the man was placed on probation upon the
+    recommendation of the prosecutor without the usual preliminary
+    investigation by the probation department. The couple began to live
+    together contrary to the advice of the probation officer. About two
+    months later the man was arrested for committing a series of
+    burglaries and the woman was found to be pregnant. Efforts which had
+    been made by the probation department to determine her mentality
+    disclosed her to be feeble-minded; later she was committed to a
+    custodial institution for feeble-minded women of child-bearing age.
+    The man was committed to a state prison."
+
+However, when youth and high temper seem to have caused the trouble and
+there is real affection to build upon, a speedy resumption of life
+together is usually the best thing.
+
+    A young woman with one baby said that her husband had got drunk and
+    threatened her with a knife. They quarreled and he went to relatives
+    in another city. Neighbors testified how devoted the couple had been
+    to each other, describing the young man as handy about the house
+    though "lazy about finding work." He was visited by the family
+    social agency in the city to which he had gone, and wrote a penitent
+    letter asking to come home. The wife agreed; the man immediately
+    returned, got work, and succeeded in overcoming his incipient bad
+    habits. The death of the baby soon after his return seemed only to
+    draw the couple more closely together. The case was soon after
+    closed; nothing has been heard in the three years since to indicate
+    that any further trouble has developed.
+
+A study recently made under the auspices of the Philadelphia Court of
+Domestic Relations seems to show somewhat better results from court
+reconciliations than might have been expected. One thousand and two
+couples who were reconciled in court during the year 1916 were visited
+from six to eighteen months later. Three hundred and ten had separated
+or had had further differences which brought them to court; 87 could not
+be found, and 605, or about 60 per cent, were found to be still living
+together, though with a varying degree of marital happiness, as the
+report somewhat drily states.[37]
+
+It should be said that many of these families were probably under the
+supervision of a probation officer for a longer or shorter period after
+the reconciliation took place. There is no statement as to the number of
+repeated deserters among the men, and we cannot estimate how many of the
+605 fell within the group which might chance to have the proper basis
+for reconciliation.
+
+The practice of the Desertion Bureau maintained by the New York
+Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor is as a rule not to
+advise reconciliations without a definite preliminary period during
+which the man shall contribute regularly and show that he means
+business. "The kind of reconciliation that lasts is the one that is
+effected with some difficulty to the man," its secretary remarked. The
+same probation department which furnished the stories of hasty and
+unsuccessful reconciliations,[38] contributes this remarkable account of
+the restoration of a family through slow and careful character
+rebuilding:
+
+    George Latham had shamefully neglected his wife and children for
+    several years. He drank to excess, gambled considerably, and
+    associated with women of loose character. He came from good stock,
+    however, and his early training had been excellent. The differences
+    between man and wife seemed impossible to adjust. After the man's
+    release on probation, the co-operation of relatives was secured and
+    through the aid of his new found employer efforts were made toward a
+    reconciliation. The man was gradually led away from his old harmful
+    pursuits and tendencies, these being replaced by wholesome
+    activities. He was induced to join a fraternal organization, to take
+    out insurance for his wife and child, was encouraged to attend
+    church regularly, and to open a bank account. When his sincerity was
+    appreciated by the wife, she agreed to resume housekeeping. Under
+    the direction of the probation officer, new furniture was purchased
+    and the home re-established. This man today holds a responsible
+    position under the employer who aided in his rehabilitation, and
+    occupies a respected place in the community.
+
+Very many processes are indicated in such a story. To bring about the
+conviction of wrong-doing, to awaken desire and supply an incentive, to
+keep the hope of attainment alive, to encourage weakened nerves in a new
+and persistent effort, and all the while to build and strengthen and
+develop faculties and powers that had been dormant and well-nigh
+destroyed, is a task that demands a high order of skill and
+resourcefulness.
+
+The story just told emphasizes the work which was done with the husband.
+Equally careful work had undoubtedly to be done with the wife to carry
+her along with the plan. The period of "stay-away probation" for the man
+is a difficult time for the woman. Neighbors and friends know that he is
+taking steps in the direction of reformation, and often hold the
+attitude that it is her duty to let bygones be bygones and receive him
+again. The promptings of her own heart are often in the same direction;
+and affection not outlived combines with custom, religious precept, and
+economic pressure to make it almost impossible to hold to her decision.
+The social worker can sometimes slip some of the burden of the decision
+off the woman's shoulders to her own by exacting a promise from the two
+that they will not try living together until the man has "shown what he
+can do" for a certain definite time. The economic pressure can be eased
+by a wise policy of relief; but most of all such a woman needs continued
+encouragement from a person whose judgment and kindliness she has
+learned to trust. This is another good point at which to introduce the
+right kind of volunteer visitor, one who will already have established
+friendly relations with both when the time of readjustment comes, and
+who can help bridge over that difficult period. In some cases it might
+be possible and desirable to procure as volunteer visitors to a couple
+whose marital relations have come to shipwreck, another married couple
+who have learned how to live together successfully.
+
+The use of carefully chosen volunteers in effecting reconciliations by
+the case work method has been singularly little developed. In this
+respect modern theory and practice have both fallen behind.[39]
+Especially is it an opportunity to enlist the service of men, whom it is
+easy to interest in a problem that seems to focus about the man of the
+family. A man volunteer can search for a deserter in places where a
+woman, by being conspicuous, would defeat her own end. "Located man by
+mingling with longshoremen on the docks where he usually worked" could
+hardly be the entry of a woman visitor. A man can also be very useful in
+court cases, to counteract the prejudice that sometimes exists in court
+rooms against the testimony of social workers who are women. In the more
+subtle processes of winning the man's confidence and helping him to
+regenerate his life and recover his home there is no preponderance of
+testimony in favor of the man visitor. Sex lines vanish here; the good
+case worker, man or woman, volunteer or professional, is the person
+needed.
+
+Sometimes the difficulty is not to deter the wife from prematurely
+taking her husband back but to induce her to relent when the proper time
+comes.
+
+    Martin Long was intemperate, his wife was high-tempered; her
+    relatives advised her to leave him and he deserted, leaving the
+    relatives to provide for her and the three children. He was away two
+    years; then, becoming homesick and wanting to re-establish his home
+    if possible, he returned. The wife caused his arrest when he was
+    seeking an interview with her. The probation officer in whose care
+    he was released became convinced of his genuine sincerity and
+    regret, but the wife, still on the advice of her relatives, refused
+    to see him. He persisted in his hope of a reconciliation and made
+    extraordinary efforts during a winter of industrial depression,
+    putting his pride in his pocket and taking laborer's work, which he
+    had never done before. He finally got a good position and saved
+    money enough to begin housekeeping. The probation officer kept in
+    touch with the wife, first persuading her to receive a letter from
+    Mr. Long and answer it through the probation office. He interested
+    her in the details of her husband's struggle, and finally, after a
+    whole year of probation and with the help of her pastor, he induced
+    her to return. The probation officer kept in close touch with the
+    family for some months and reports: "Three years have elapsed since
+    that time; the family is now in a nearby city where they are living
+    harmoniously and in comfortable circumstances."
+
+A case worker who is remarkable for her success in the treatment of
+estranged couples, when asked how she did it answered laconically,
+"talks and talks and talks." A study of her case records, however, shows
+certain points that recur again and again in her treatment.
+
+She encourages man and wife, separately, to talk out their grievances
+thoroughly and get everything out of their systems. She then proceeds
+(with a lavish expenditure of time, as indicated in her phrase) to
+convince each that she is a friend, but an impartial friend. She does
+not push for an immediate reconciliation, is much more likely to
+recommend a temporary separation until tempers cool down and the true
+facts appear. She always advises strongly against "argument" and
+"casting up" the past, and tells the couple to come back to her if they
+want to discuss their grievances further. Above all, they are not to
+retail their troubles to relatives and friends. If either or both are
+out of the city during their separation she keeps in close touch with
+them by letter. She is quick to utilize their interest in their children
+as a means of reawakening their interest in each other. The following
+letters illustrate her method. The first was written to a young man who
+was serving a six months' sentence for desertion; the others to the same
+young man after he had begun a manful struggle to "come back," working
+in a munitions plant in another state and later sending money regularly
+to the wife, who still obdurately refused to forgive him. (The letters
+are part of a series of 27 which were written to him during a ten
+months' period.)
+
+    _My dear Mr. Andrews:_
+
+    I was ever so glad to get your letter this week and I am sorry that
+    no one has been over [to the workhouse] to see you recently. I will
+    surely be over within the next two weeks. I know you are anxious and
+    you should have had a letter telling you about the children. They
+    are both all right now and the baby is out of the hospital.
+
+    We have had a nice talk with your aunt and she is very anxious to
+    come over and see you. We will all get together and try and plan
+    what is the right thing to do when you come out. I will arrange it
+    so we can have a little longer talk this time if possible.
+
+    Very truly yours,
+    DISTRICT SECRETARY.
+
+
+    _My dear Mr. Andrews:_
+
+    Your long letter has just arrived. I read it with a great deal of
+    interest and pleasure. It is fine to know you have already arrived
+    and have started out to make good on your promises.
+
+    I got your cards during the week, which brought the news of your
+    journey. Also on Tuesday morning came your last letter, expressing
+    your appreciation for all we had tried to do for you and enclosing
+    two more thrift stamps for the children. I put these in their books.
+
+    Yesterday I had a nice long letter from your father, enclosing one
+    for me to give to you. I am sending it on just as it is. I was very
+    much tempted to read it but have not done so. The reason I was
+    tempted was that I know it must be full of happiness to think you
+    have made such a good start. At least that was the tone of the
+    letter he wrote to me.
+
+    During the past years I have worked for this society I have seen
+    many people "come back" strong, and always it has been because they
+    had some big motive in life and reason for making good. But I have
+    seldom known a fellow that had so many reasons why he should make
+    good. You have the confidence of your father and your aunt. You have
+    the children for whom you will do right. You have Clara, whom you
+    have wronged and whom you will have to teach all over again to trust
+    you. Surely all these things added to your own firm will to try and
+    undo all the unhappiness you have given people, ought to help you
+    every day as you prove the good stuff that is in you.
+
+    I, of course, telephoned Clara of your starting off and yesterday
+    she came to the office and we had a long talk. She is only sorry
+    that you did not see the baby and says she will be only too glad to
+    have special pictures taken of the children to send you. This was
+    after I suggested that she let me take a snapshot of them to send
+    you.
+
+    Be sure and write to your father and aunt often. And please remember
+    my last instructions, which were to let me know fully about
+    yourself. When you write, tell me all about the camp life; how they
+    arrange the living; how long hours you have to work; what they give
+    you for recreation, etc. Pick out for your friends men who can help
+    you, not hinder you, in your good determinations, and hope there
+    will be at least one man there in whom you can trust and to whom you
+    can go for advice.
+
+    I will let you know about the children all the time. Clara says
+    Nellie [the small daughter] was expecting to see you again. Don't
+    worry, she will never forget you.
+
+    With all good wishes,
+    Sincerely yours,
+    DISTRICT SECRETARY.
+
+
+    _My dear Mr. Andrews:_
+
+    I received your long letter this morning and was very glad to hear
+    all the details of camp life. It is too bad that your surroundings
+    are not more comfortable, but I am sure you can stick it out for
+    awhile. If you can raise yourself to be foreman, will you then have
+    to live in the same uncomfortable quarters? Although I don't know
+    the details, I should think it would be well if you did sign up for
+    the six months. It is too bad that your throat is still hoarse.
+
+    Thank you for letting me see your father's letter. I am enclosing
+    it. I hope you are keeping in touch with him.
+
+    You asked especially about Clara and whether she asked for you. Of
+    course she did, and she wants me to say if there is anything you
+    want to say to her you can send the letter here and she will write
+    you. She thinks that your ambition and determination to make good is
+    fine, and she will try and help you in every way. She has not been
+    in this week and I have been very busy, but I shall make it my
+    business to see her early next week, and if she has not had the
+    pictures of the children taken, I will get that attended to myself.
+
+    So far as I can see there is absolutely nothing for you to worry
+    about from this end of the line. Clara is at last, I think, as fully
+    self-convinced as I am that you are making a splendid effort, and
+    she is perfectly willing to be fair in waiting until you have a
+    chance to get turned around financially and in making first payment
+    for the children.
+
+    Next week I am going to send you down a book to read. It is one I
+    have enjoyed myself, and perhaps some evenings when you are not too
+    tired you will get a chance to glance over it. It is small and you
+    can put it in your pocket. Be very sure I have not forgotten the
+    very satisfactory talks we had and the splendid way you have grimly
+    started out to make good. If you can help the Government do their
+    work, even down there, give it a good try out. Never mind the
+    different nationalities you have to mix with. You have already
+    knocked around the world so much that you can just consider this
+    another opportunity of getting to know a great variety of people.
+    You might even learn to talk Italian and Greek! There is no
+    experience in life we have to go through but can be a source of
+    great education to us. You are sure to win out and get the respect
+    of everybody, your fellow-workmen as well as your superior officers,
+    if you continuously day in and day out simply refuse to get
+    discouraged and keep up your work and do as you are told. Stick by.
+
+    With all good wishes,
+    Sincerely yours,
+    DISTRICT SECRETARY.
+
+
+But when all is said and done, there are no unbreakable rules about
+treatment. A form of treatment is sometimes to do nothing at all.
+
+    Charles Morgan, a middle-aged machinist with a wife, a comfortable
+    home, and seven children (the two eldest grown), picked up his tools
+    and disappeared, after a quarrel over his wife's extravagance. He
+    had been earning $50 a week in a shop where he had worked for
+    eighteen years and he would not endure having his wages garnisheed
+    for debt.
+
+    An experienced case worker to whom furious Mrs. Morgan made her
+    complaint, decided, after studying Mr. Morgan's record, that he
+    ought not to be prosecuted, and refused to be party to it. As he was
+    a man of domestic habits, search was made in a nearby city where he
+    had relatives. He was easily traced. Mr. Morgan was both proud and
+    reticent, so the case worker made no attempt to approach him, but
+    told the woman she must devise some way to get him back, preferably
+    to write him and say she was sorry. This she refused to do and on
+    her own responsibility adopted the clumsy device of wiring him that
+    a favorite child was sick. This brought him "on the run," and, being
+    back, he stayed. _The case worker has never seen Mr. M._, nor has
+    his wife been encouraged to come any more to the office, although
+    reports have been received from time to time through the son and
+    daughter that things at home continue to go well.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] See p. 179 regarding equity powers of the courts.
+
+[34] Massachusetts social workers succeeded in 1917 in securing the
+passage of a law which permits the ordinary non-support law to be
+invoked in case of the man's failure to pay the amount ordered after a
+legal separation.
+
+[35] See p. 13 sq.
+
+[36] Colcord, J.C.: Article on "Desertion and Non-support." _Annals of
+the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918, p. 95.
+
+[37] Philadelphia Municipal Court, Report for 1916, p. 64.
+
+[38] See p. 133.
+
+[39] Miss Richmond, writing in 1895, says: "We would rather have a
+hundred visitors, patient, intelligent and resourceful, to deal with the
+married vagabonds of our city, than the best law ever framed, if, in
+order to get such a law, we must lose the visitors."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER
+
+
+Many of the case workers consulted in gathering material for this book
+urged that a discussion of the treatment of the non-supporter who had
+not deserted be included in its pages. In so far as non-support is a
+pre-desertion symptom and the non-supporter a potential deserter, much
+that has been said applies also to him. But are the two groups
+co-terminous, or do they only partially overlap?
+
+The law makes little difference in its treatment of the two, the fact of
+failure to support being the chief ground of its interest.[40] Indeed,
+in Massachusetts, the law under which deserters are extradited for
+abandonment is habitually spoken of as the "non-support law."
+
+No study of which the results are available has been made to learn what
+difference, if any, exists between the non-supporter who leaves home and
+the one who does not. Miss Breed, in making the point that the true
+analogy of the deserted family is with the non-supported family and not
+with the widow and her children, says: "The deserting husband is at home
+the non-supporting husband."[41]
+
+    A case reader of experience writes: "When I look back over the many
+    records I have read and studied, it seems to me that it is very
+    difficult to draw a line between desertion and non-support cases,
+    either in the kind of problem they present, or in the treatment of
+    them. Do we know enough about non-supporters who later become
+    deserters; and isn't it possible that every non-support case,
+    certainly every beginning non-support case, is a potential desertion
+    case?"
+
+There is no doubt that the two groups grade imperceptibly into each
+other; but of the twenty or more case workers who were consulted in the
+preparation of this material, nearly all felt that the out-and-out
+deserter, if he can be got hold of, is more promising material to work
+with than the man who sits about the home and lets others maintain it.
+They all recognize a common middle ground where the two groups merge
+into each other; but they see decided differences in the two "wings" so
+to speak, outside of this common ground.
+
+Seen through their eyes, the non-supporter has less courage, initiative
+and aggressiveness than the deserter. "He is less deliberately
+cruel--for at least he 'sticks around.'" He has not the roving
+disposition, but is apt to be intemperate and industrially inefficient
+as compared with the deserter. Often the married vagabond, as he has
+been called, is a "home-loving man who simply shirks responsibility and
+dislikes effort." He may "sometimes feel parental responsibility even
+though he does not support," and he is likely to have less physical and
+mental stamina than the deserter. That phrase in which the psychiatrists
+take refuge, "constitutional inferiority," is more likely to describe
+the stay-at-home than the wanderer. However, one social worker
+(non-medical) says "a mental twist more often enters into the problem of
+the deserter than into that of the non-supporter, from my experience."
+
+The head of a large probation department writes: "Many of the deserters
+with whom we have dealt were non-supporters before coming to our
+attention. Among the men convicted of abandonment, however, is a group
+which is above the average in intelligence--skilled workers or men in
+professional occupations."
+
+If this concurrence of observation is sound the reason for the social
+worker's preference for the deserter as material with which to work is
+not far to seek. With the deserter as described, the problem is chiefly
+to alter his point of view; with the non-supporter it is, in addition,
+to stiffen his will and to increase his capacity--a far more complicated
+task.
+
+"The deserter is likely to have less justification than the
+non-supporter," says an observer of long experience. Studies which have
+been made of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters and of
+non-supporters seem to agree that the latter have the weaker characters
+and are less competent and successful workers. A comment made upon one
+such study points out the impossibility of sound conclusions, if both
+chronic and incipient cases are included in the two groups. The
+progressive demoralization in the family of the "intermittent husband"
+makes such a study of little value unless this distinction is taken into
+account.
+
+The influence of ill-kept homes in the manufacture of non-supporting
+husbands has been widely recognized.
+
+    A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a decent home, married a
+    young man who soon began to drink too. Luckily, the young couple
+    were brought in touch with a volunteer visitor who, on finding that
+    the wife possessed only two kitchen utensils, a teakettle and a
+    "frypan," and actually did not know the names of any others,
+    undertook to give her lessons in home management. She proved
+    teachable, and her husband stopped drinking and braced up. Some
+    years later the visitor was able to report a well established home,
+    although the family refused to move out of the poor neighborhood in
+    which they lived because the husband had been elected councilman for
+    that district.
+
+If the inefficient wife contributes her share to this form of family
+breakdown so also does the overefficient one. Many a non-supporter got
+his first impulse in that direction when his wife became a wage-earner
+in some domestic crisis. "There's only one rule for women who want to
+have decent homes for their children and themselves," advised a wise
+neighbor. "If your husband comes home crying, and says he can't find any
+work, sit down on the other side of the fire and cry until he
+_does_."[42]
+
+One case worker comments on the relation that often exists between an
+inefficient husband and an unusually competent wife, made up of a
+motherly toleration on her side and a tacit acceptance on his that he is
+not expected to be the provider. "Sort of a landlady's husband" was the
+apt description of one such man, the speaker having in mind the "silent
+partner" who does odd jobs around his wife's furnished-room house. The
+lovable old rascal portrayed by Frank Bacon in his play "Lightnin'" is
+typical of this kind of husband.
+
+There is no ground for outside interference in such an arrangement as
+long as both are satisfied and the family as a unit is self-supporting.
+It is often a serious problem to the case worker, however, to know how
+to treat such a family if the breadwinner-wife becomes incapacitated.
+Such was the case when Mrs. Laflin fell ill with tuberculosis. Her
+relatives described her husband as "that little nonentity of a man." He
+had no bad habits and was pathetically eager to work, but though only a
+little over fifty he was prematurely aged and incapable. The solution
+had finally to be institutional care for the entire family, Mrs. Laflin
+in a hospital for incurables, Mr. Laflin in a home for the aged, and
+their two young daughters, through the interest of a former employer, in
+a good convent school. "Uncomplicated" non-support, as in the case of
+Mr. Laflin, is, however, rare in the experience of the social worker.
+
+Out of a group of 51 non-supporters selected at random from the records
+of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society in 1917, 46 showed some
+serious moral fault other than non-support. Alcoholism is probably the
+commonest of these complications; and, as has been pointed out in the
+previous chapter, is probably a primary cause as well. It will be a
+matter of great interest to social workers whether the "non-support
+rate" is reduced after July 1, 1919. Grounds for hope that it may be are
+found in the fact that some remarkable results have been obtained by
+moving alcoholic non-supporters and their families from "wet" into "dry"
+territory.
+
+Another vice that has a direct relation to non-support (much more direct
+than to desertion) is gambling. The gambler carries no signs of his vice
+upon his person as does the inebriate, and it is therefore hard to
+detect. It undoubtedly does not appear in social case records as
+frequently as it should. Case workers should have it in mind as a
+possible explanation, whenever there is a marked discrepancy between
+what a non-supporter earns and what he contributes to the home.
+
+With the non-supporters rather than with the deserters should be put
+the group of men whose wives tire of supporting them and either put them
+out or leave them. These men are often not only morally, but mentally
+and physically, so handicapped that there is nothing to be gained by
+constantly pursuing and arresting them, although some wives extract the
+sweets of revenge from doing just this. Few courts of domestic relations
+are without some wives as regular patrons who pursue their husbands not
+for gain but for sport. For the most part, however, the wives of such
+men are philosophical. "I only wash for meself now," said one of them.
+
+These men, and the unreclaimed deserters, doubtless make up a large part
+of the floating population of homeless men in our large cities. How
+large a part it is impossible to say, for they are likely to give
+assumed names and deny the possession of families. Mrs. Solenberger[43]
+has noted, however, that if they are asked, not "Are you married?" but a
+less direct question such as "Where is your wife now?" a story of
+unfortunate married life will often be elicited. Until we have some
+better method of inter-city registration of homeless men, many of these
+who otherwise might be identified and in suitable cases brought back,
+will continue to slip through our fingers.
+
+With non-support in an incipient stage,[44] it is sometimes possible to
+deal so suddenly and effectively that the man is shocked into a better
+realization of his responsibilities.
+
+    A young Irish rigger, with a capable wife and two pretty babies,
+    lost his job after a quarrel with his boss rigger. He was a genial,
+    popular chap, always "the life of the party" in his circle; and his
+    companions encouraged him to feel that he was a much injured man.
+    They also helped him to fill his enforced leisure with too much
+    beer. When the family received a dispossess notice the wife's
+    patience was at an end, and acting on the advice of a society
+    engaged in family case work, she put the furniture in storage and
+    went to a shelter where she could leave her children in the daytime,
+    while she was at work, and have them with her at night. The man was
+    told to shift for himself until he could get together sufficient
+    money to re-establish the home. The arrangement continued for nearly
+    two months, during which the man lived in lodging houses, had an
+    attack of stomach trouble, and was altogether thoroughly miserable.
+    Every night he waited for a word with his wife on a corner that she
+    had to pass in coming from work. Finally, when it seemed to the
+    social worker and to the wife that his lesson had gone far enough,
+    the home was re-established, with only a small amount of help from
+    the society. During the five years since that time, no recurrence of
+    the trouble has come to the attention of the agency interested.
+
+This experiment was realized to be a ticklish one, as a man less
+sincerely attached to his home might have been turned into a vagabond by
+such treatment.
+
+In general, it may be said that, as there is less to work on
+constructively with the non-supporter, court action has more often to be
+invoked. If the non-supporter is a "chronic," his path must not be
+allowed to be too easy. "Sometimes you just have to keep pestering him"
+was the way one social worker put it. A Red Cross Home Service worker
+successfully shocked one elderly non-supporter into going to work, as
+described in one of the Red Cross publications:
+
+    "Well, Mr. Gage," I said, "I see you're not working yet."
+
+    "No, Mrs. Cox, the coal company promised to send for me."
+
+    "Well," I said, "I think you've been pretty fair with that company.
+    You've waited on it for three months now. If I had the offer of
+    another job I'd feel perfectly free to take it, if I were you."
+
+    "Yes," he said, "I think I should."
+
+    "All right, I have a job for you," said I. "My husband wants a man
+    now at his garage, to clean automobiles. The hours are from 6 p.m.
+    to 6 a.m., and you'll earn $15 a week."
+
+    His paper fell from his hands to the floor; his jaw dropped, and he
+    just looked at me. Then he tried to crawl out of it and began to
+    make excuses.
+
+    "I haven't time to argue with you, Mr. Gage," I said. "I'll keep the
+    job open till seven o'clock tonight and you can let me know then
+    whether you'll take it or not."
+
+    At seven he came to say he'd take the job.[45]
+
+If in desertion cases the interest centers very vividly about the absent
+man, in non-support cases the reverse is likely to be true, because he
+is often not very interesting per se, and because, moreover, he is
+always on the spot and does not have to be searched for. Familiarity
+certainly breeds contempt for the non-supporter. Consequently the social
+worker may easily fall into the danger of disregarding the human factors
+he presents, and either treating the family as if he did not exist or
+expending no further effort on him than to see that he "puts in" six
+months of every year in jail if possible (since the law usually secures
+to him the privilege of loafing the other six). It is not safe, however,
+to regard even the most leisurely of non-supporters as beyond the
+possibility of awakening. One district secretary who had thus given a
+man up had the experience of seeing him transformed into a steady worker
+after a few months of intensive effort by a first-year student in a
+school of social science, whose only equipment for the job was
+personality and enthusiasm. So remarkable are some of the reclamations
+that have been brought about with seemingly hopeless non-supporters that
+all possible measures should be tried before giving one of them up.
+
+    His Scotch ancestry, a good wife, luck, and a friend with insight
+    and skill, pulled Aleck Gray out of that bottomless pit, the
+    gutter. Aleck had been a bookkeeper; but he didn't get on well with
+    his employers, lost his job, got to drinking, and went so far
+    downhill that his wife had to take their two children and go home to
+    her people several hundred miles away. Aleck finally drifted into a
+    bureau for homeless men, where the agent became interested in him
+    and worked with him for six months, getting him job after job, which
+    he always lost through drink or temper. He seemed incapable of
+    taking directions or working with other people. In all that time the
+    agent felt that he was getting no nearer the root of Aleck's
+    trouble, though he came back after each dismissal and doggedly took
+    whatever was offered. Finally, the agent's patience wore thin, and
+    when Aleck had been more than usually dour and aggravating it went
+    entirely to pieces. Aleck listened to his outburst apparently
+    unmoved; then said, "Very well, if you want to know what would make
+    me stop drinking, I'll tell you. If I could see any ray of hope that
+    I was on the way to getting my home and family back, I'd stop and
+    stop quick." On the agent's desk there happened to be a letter from
+    a friend who wanted a tenant farmer. He thrust it into Aleck's hand
+    saying, "There's your chance if you mean what you say." The man's
+    reply was to ask when he could get a train. At the end of several
+    weeks Aleck wrote that he had not drunk a drop and was making good,
+    which was enthusiastically confirmed by his employer. He begged the
+    agent to intercede with his wife, and a letter went to her which
+    brought the telegraphic reply, "Starting tomorrow."
+
+    How they got through the first winter the agent never knew exactly.
+    But they pulled through and the next year was easy, as country-born
+    Aleck's skill came back. Six years later, during which time the
+    agent heard from them once or twice a year, Aleck was still keeping
+    straight, the children were doing well in school, and the family,
+    prosperous and happy, had bought a farm of their own in another
+    state.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] The deserter who does not fail to support is usually safe from
+punishment no matter how aggravated his offense. A man living with his
+wife and five-year-old boy in an eastern city eloped with another woman
+to a city in the Middle West. The couple kidnapped the boy and took him
+with them; and the distracted woman, bereft of both her husband and
+child, had no recourse in any court, since the father was continuing to
+provide for his son.
+
+[41] Proceedings of the New York State Conference of Charities and
+Correction, 1910, p. 76.
+
+[42] Loane, M.: The Queen's Poor, p. 102. London, Edward Arnold, 1905.
+
+[43] Solenberger, Alice Willard: One Thousand Homeless Men, p. 22. New
+York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911.
+
+[44] For a consideration of possible lines of treatment for the
+non-supporter and his family, the reader is referred to Chapter VII,
+where is discussed the treatment of the deserter who is willing to
+return.
+
+[45] Behind the Service Flag, pamphlet ARC 211, American Red Cross,
+Department of Civilian Relief.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT
+
+
+Any discussion of laws, their application, and enforcement, must
+perforce be very general, since the different states vary greatly in
+laws governing desertion and in equipment for their enforcement.
+Suggestions for a uniform federal desertion law are not considered here;
+the term "next steps" should be read as meaning not plans in actual
+prospect but rather the increase in legal facilities desirable from the
+social worker's point of view. In communities where no such facilities
+exist, social workers are in a good position to collect illustrative
+material and push for desirable changes in law and law enforcement.
+Especially advantageous is the position of the legal social agencies
+such as legal aid societies and special bureaus and committees for
+increasing the efficiency of the courts, many of which are affiliated
+with or maintained by the large family work societies.
+
+
+1. Measures for the Discovery, Extradition or Deportation of the
+Deserter.--The nation-wide registration of males between certain ages,
+under the Selective Service Act, was widely utilized by social workers
+in finding deserting men, with the hearty co-operation usually of the
+draft boards. This fact forms no argument for universal registration as
+it was carried on in Germany before the war; no system which meant such
+cumbersome machinery or so much interference with the freedom of the
+individual ought to be advocated for a moment if it were solely for the
+purpose of keeping track of the small percentage of citizens who wish to
+evade their responsibilities, marital and other. Even such a
+non-military device as that which obligates every person to register
+successive changes of address with the postal authorities to facilitate
+delivery of mail would be contrary to the American spirit and easily
+evaded by people interested in concealing their whereabouts, unless
+enforced with all the rigor of the European police system. But though
+we can advocate no system of manhood registration, we can avail
+ourselves of the incidental benefits of any that may be in force.
+
+The Federal Employment Service offers a promising means of help in
+discovering the movements of deserters whose trade and probable
+destination are known. It should be entirely possible to work out a
+system by which the managers of the local employment bureaus should be
+furnished with name, description, copy of photograph, and so on, of a
+deserter who is being sought, so that the man if recognized could be
+traced or quickly apprehended if a warrant is already in the hands of
+the local police authorities. It may even be possible, under the federal
+employment service, to develop the long wished for national registration
+of casual and migratory labor. Need for some such system has been felt
+by all agencies trying to deal constructively with vagrants and homeless
+men. Little track can be kept not only of the individual wanderer but of
+the ebb and flow of the tides of "casual labor" without some system of
+this sort. If employment bureaus were required to forward to a central
+registry the names and some identifying particulars of every
+non-resident who applied for employment, the problem of finding the
+deserter would be rendered ten times easier than it is now.
+
+One present obstacle to this and other improvements is the attitude of
+authorities--city, state, and federal--toward wife desertion. We have
+already mentioned the way in which the task of tracing the deserter has
+been thrust back upon the wife and the social worker, as if he were not
+an offender against the community as well as against his wife and
+children. Almost as widespread is the reluctance of the proper
+authorities to arrest the deserter and bring him back after he has been
+found. A general atmosphere of indifference and despair of accomplishing
+anything worth while surrounds any attempt to push the prosecution of a
+man who has taken refuge outside the community. Hope for the future lies
+in socializing the point of view of court officials, police, and
+district attorneys--a process in which the social worker must play a
+large part. No chance should be lost to drive home the social and
+economic waste involved, by using the illustrative material which
+abounds in the files of most case work agencies.
+
+The pernicious system by which the wife is required to serve summons and
+warrant upon the offending husband who is still in the same city, should
+be done away with entirely. The social agency, public or private, which
+has had to support or assist the man's family ought to be able to prefer
+a charge for non-support, and to take out a summons or a warrant and
+serve it without the wife's being present. The agency should in this
+case protect itself by securing from the wife a signed affidavit and
+authorization to act in her behalf. It may seem unimportant whether the
+wife makes such complaint in the court or to a private society. The
+psychological effect upon the man is, however, very different. If his
+wife initiates the complaint in court, his resentment is directed toward
+her--a fact which renders reconciliation more difficult if this is later
+attempted. In other cases, for the wife to make the complaint puts her
+in actual physical danger from the vindictive husband. If he is brought
+into court on the complaint of a social agency, part of that resentment
+at least is transferred to the intrusive social worker, who is not
+usually seriously troubled thereby and is far better able to bear the
+weight of the husband's displeasure than is his poor wife.
+
+The absence of any treaty with Great Britain by which family deserters
+can be extradited to or from Canada makes the Dominion a place of refuge
+for many American evaders of family responsibilities. The National
+Conference of Charities and Correction,[46] at its meeting in Cleveland
+in 1912, passed a resolution on the need for such a treaty. As a result,
+largely through the efforts of Mr. William H. Baldwin, the treaty was
+signed and sent to the Senate for ratification in December, 1916. It was
+referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where it met with
+objection and has remained without action up to the present. The
+National Conference of Jewish Charities, at its meeting in Kansas City
+in May, 1918, sent urgent representations to the Senate Committee, which
+it is hoped may result in ratification after the pressure of war-time
+legislation is relaxed.
+
+We should not stop when reciprocal extradition with Canada has been
+secured; there is a similar situation on our southern border in states
+from which escape into Mexico is easy. While American deserters are not
+likely to go to other more remote countries than these two, immigration
+into America from other countries creates desertion problems in other
+places and presents us with a class of undesirables with whom it is
+difficult to deal under existing immigration laws. In 1912 a report was
+submitted to the Glasgow Parish Council showing the alarming amount of
+dependency created in that one city by the emigration to America and the
+Colonies of men without their families, and who subsequently drifted
+into the status of deserters. This report makes the interesting
+suggestion that no married man be permitted to emigrate without his
+family unless he presents a "written sanction of the Parish Council or
+other local authority," and further, that he be bound, under penalty of
+deportation, to report himself to some authority in the country of his
+destination, which would satisfy itself as to his conduct and insure
+that he did his duty by wife and family.[47] Such a provision would of
+course involve the revision of our own immigration laws, making wife and
+family desertion a crime thereunder.
+
+At present the law provides deportation only within five years after
+entry, and for "persons who have been convicted of or admit having
+committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral
+turpitude," or who are sentenced to a term of one year or more in this
+country, within five years of entry, for such crime (or who may suffer a
+second conviction at any time after entry). This would clearly cover
+bigamy committed within five years after entry; whether it could be
+stretched to cover lesser forms of marital irresponsibility remains to
+be determined. (It should be remembered that a man who brings in as his
+wife, or later sends for, a woman to whom he is not married, can be
+deported under quite other sections of the immigration law.)
+
+2. Improvements in Court Procedure.--A sore point with the social
+worker is the often ridiculously inadequate amounts that unwilling
+husbands are put under court order to pay. They accuse the courts,
+whether rightly or wrongly, of considering first what part of the man's
+alleged earnings will be needed for him to live upon comfortably, and
+then of making the order for whatever may be left over.
+
+    Onofrio Mancini was under court order to stay away from home and pay
+    his wife $6.00 a week for the support of their two children, He
+    drove a two-horse truck, and, at that time, must have been earning
+    not less than $16.00 a week. Mrs. Mancini fell ill, whereupon
+    Onofrio promptly ceased all payments. The social agency interested
+    was permitted to make a complaint on producing a doctors certificate
+    that Mrs. Mancini could not appear in court; but Onofrio, when he
+    appeared, put up such a hard luck tale of earning only $8.00 a week
+    that the judge, without investigation, cut the order down to $4.00 a
+    week and _ordered Onofrio to return home to live_.
+
+A bulletin issued by the Seybert Institution of Philadelphia gives a
+very interesting set of diagrams showing the relation (or lack of
+relation) between the amount of man's income, size of family, and the
+court order issued in the Philadelphia Municipal Court.[48]
+
+This report gives a series of illustrations, where glaring
+inconsistencies between the man's earnings and the court order were
+observed by visitors to the court. A sample of the reports made by these
+visitors is as follows:
+
+    "Man earning $30 to $40 a week at ammunition factory. Can earn $20
+    with no overtime. Has been sending woman $10 a week but has
+    threatened to leave town. Judge said: 'You can't keep up $10 a
+    week--how much can you give?' Finally ordered $8 a week. Woman said
+    she couldn't live on that and Judge told her she had to go to work
+    herself then; that they should live together anyway. Woman says she
+    is unable to work--is ill. When man stated he was giving $10 great
+    consternation seemed to take hold of the entire court force. He did
+    not say he couldn't pay $10; the judge simply told him he couldn't
+    keep that up."
+
+The practice of assigning less than half the man's weekly earnings to
+the wife and children has been defended on the ground that if he is
+forced to live too economically, he will disappear and the family will
+be left with nothing. This would seem to be a self-confession on the
+part of the court that it cannot enforce its reasonable requirements. It
+would appear that the first thing to be considered is the minimum needs
+of the wife and children, taking into consideration whether the wife can
+be expected to contribute anything toward her own support or whether all
+her time is needed for her children. This amount should be cut down only
+when there is actually not enough left for the man to live on; and his
+wife and children should not be pinched for necessities in order that he
+may have luxuries or indulge in vices. The habit some judges have of
+accepting the man's own statement on oath as to what his earnings are is
+responsible for many unjust orders. A man who does not want to
+contribute to his family's support is almost sure to understate his
+earnings, oath or no oath; and the confirmation of his employer (or when
+the employer is suspected of being in league with him, the inspection of
+the employer's books by the probation officer) is often needed. Probably
+the most difficult form of evasion to combat is that of the man who
+deliberately takes a lower salary than he is capable of earning, so as
+to have less to give his wife. Surprising as it may seem, this is a
+common practice; but skilful probation work can nevertheless find a
+remedy.
+
+In cases of suspended sentence, payments ought always to be made through
+the court and not handed by the man to his wife. It is better to have
+the amount received and transmitted by some bureau attached to the
+court, and so managed that the man can send the money in without
+"knocking off work" to bring it and that the woman can receive it by
+mail. The probation officer should not be bothered with the actual
+handling of the money, but he should be promptly notified of any
+delinquency in the payments.
+
+Whether the man under court order is on probation or not, the cessation
+of payments should automatically reopen the case. At present, in most
+courts, the order goes by default until the wife comes in to make
+another charge. This, through discouragement or fear of a beating from
+the man, she often neglects; with the result that the orders of the
+court mean little in the eyes of the men, and that arrears, once allowed
+to mount up, are never cleared off.
+
+This statement applies as well to long term orders for separate support
+where the circumstances are such that no reconciliation is contemplated.
+These orders are now made for a definite period of months, at the end of
+which time the case drops unless the wife renews charges. A case of this
+sort ought not to be terminable without a reinvestigation and final
+hearing in court. Indeed it would seem, in such cases, that the children
+involved should have at least as much protection as the children in
+bastardy proceedings, and that the order should be made to cover the
+term of years until the oldest child becomes of working age.
+
+The most important step in advance with regard to payments is
+undoubtedly the law which has been tried with signal success in the
+District of Columbia and in the states of Ohio and Massachusetts,
+requiring men serving prison sentences for non-support and abandonment
+to be made to work, and a sum of money, representing their earnings, to
+be turned over to their families.
+
+In an interesting paper in the _Survey_ for November 20, 1909, entitled
+"Making the Deserter Pay the Piper," Mr. William H. Baldwin discusses in
+detail how this plan was made to work successfully in the District of
+Columbia.
+
+The movement for special courts to consider cases of juvenile
+delinquency and marital relations has gained such headway that no word
+needs to be said here in its favor. In communities where the volume of
+court business permits such courts to be separately organized, they are
+generally accepted as the only means of handling these matters. In
+smaller communities the need may be met by setting aside regular
+sessions of the magistrates' courts for this purpose.
+
+Juvenile courts and domestic relations courts having proved a success
+separately, there is a strong movement on foot to combine them into one
+court, for which the name Family Court has been proposed.
+
+A leader in this movement is Judge Hoffman of the Family Court of
+Cincinnati, which he describes thus:
+
+    "The Court of Cincinnati was organized for the purpose of dealing
+    with the family as a unit and to ascertain possibly the cause of its
+    disruption. It has exclusive jurisdiction in all divorce and alimony
+    cases, and all matters coming under the Juvenile Court Act. It also
+    has jurisdiction in cases of failure to provide. The ideal court
+    would include in connection with the foregoing functions, adoption
+    of children, the issuing of marriage licenses, and bastardy
+    cases."[49]
+
+One advantage of this plan is the economy it effects in the time of
+probation officers. It is generally admitted that in children's court
+cases it is the parents rather than the children who are really on
+probation; and with two courts and two separate probation systems, we
+may even have the anomaly of the same family being under the care of
+two probation officers at once. Specialization can no further go! Other
+leaders in the domestic relations court movement see little merit in the
+proposal for a one-part family court. They think that, in the large
+cities at least, the need would be better served by having the domestic
+relations and juvenile courts under one roof, but as two separate and
+distinct parts of the same court. All are agreed, however, that the
+powers of one or the other of the two special courts should be enlarged
+to cover bastardy cases, where this is not now done.
+
+The domestic relations court, whether separate or as part of a family
+court, ought to have equity powers, so that the usual rules of evidence
+need not be so closely adhered to and more latitude could be allowed the
+magistrate in disposing of cases, not necessarily according to ruling
+and precedent but according to the social needs disclosed. A
+constitutional amendment now pending in New York is a model for this
+sort of legislation. It is in part as follows:
+
+    "The legislature may establish children's courts and courts of
+    domestic relations as separate courts or parts of existing courts,
+    or courts hereafter to be created, and may confer upon them such
+    equity and other jurisdiction as may be necessary for the
+    correction, protection, guardianship and disposition of delinquent,
+    neglected or dependent minors, and for the punishment and correction
+    of adults responsible for or contributing to such delinquency,
+    neglect or dependency, and to compel the support of a wife, child or
+    poor relative by persons legally chargeable therewith who abandon or
+    neglect to support any of them."[50]
+
+Many courts of domestic relations which now exercise equity powers, such
+as ordering that a man remain away from home or that a wife allow her
+husband to see his children at stated times, do so without actual legal
+warrant and subject at any time to appeal of counsel. The conferring of
+equity powers on courts of domestic relations is a form of protection
+both to the court and to its clients which social workers should stand
+ready to work for.
+
+Juvenile courts have in the main outstripped the domestic relations
+courts in the use of physicians and psychiatrists. The best examples of
+both these courts have, however, facilities for the making of physical
+examinations and mental tests, where necessary, before adjudication.
+Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many cases in courts of
+domestic relations disclose abnormal or perverted sex habits, makes
+important the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to diagnosing these
+conditions.[51]
+
+In most states the jurisdiction of the courts of domestic relations
+should be extended and co-ordinated. Few states escape some glaring
+inconsistencies in the laws governing desertion and abandonment. There
+is, for instance, much confusion between states as to whether a woman
+whose husband brings her to a strange city and there deserts her must
+prosecute him in the city where their home is or where the desertion
+took place. Under certain circumstances the woman is forced to travel to
+the city where her husband has gone, and bring action against him there,
+if the courts in that place will entertain a suit. In New York state
+there is no law which covers the case of a man who abandons his wife
+while she is pregnant, if there is no other living child. To constitute
+an extraditable crime there must have been abandonment of a child _in
+esse_ not merely _in posse_.
+
+But no institution, however carefully established by law, is any more
+effective than the people who run it; and the usefulness of the domestic
+relations court in any community depends entirely upon the
+social-mindedness and freedom from political entanglement of the judge
+and the amount and quality of probation service. From a social point of
+view, the latter is more important than the former; for a bad decision
+of the court can be mitigated by good case work later on, while a poor
+probation officer may nullify the effects of the wisest judicial
+decision ever made.
+
+The importance of having enough probation officers to handle the work of
+the court has already been touched upon. An overworked officer is
+perforce an inefficient officer. He has usually to spend at least half
+his time in the court and attending to the clerical end of his job. From
+50 to 60 cases is probably all that one probation officer can be
+expected to handle thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped, he is
+required to make careful preliminary investigations to be presented to
+the judge _before_ the trial.
+
+In training and in equipment for the job, probation officers should be
+the equals of case workers in private agencies. Examinations for
+probation officers ought to be conducted by social workers of skill and
+high standards. A few months of cramming at a civil service school, or a
+few weeks of volunteer visiting with some case working agency, should
+not suffice to enable candidates to pass the examinations. The standards
+should be high enough and the salaries sufficiently attractive to draw
+into this field people who have successfully completed their
+apprenticeship in the art of case work. Only then can the status of the
+probation officer be raised to what it should be in the court itself.
+The relation of the probation officer to the judge ought to be exactly
+like the relation of the medical social worker to the physician--that of
+a person acting under his direction in a general way, but with a special
+contribution to make to the treatment of the case and with a recognized
+standing as an expert in his own particular field.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] Now changed to The National Conference of Social Work.
+
+[47] Motion, J.R.: Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a
+Contributory Cause. Glasgow Parish Council, 1912.
+
+[48] Handling of Cases by the Juvenile Court and Court of Domestic
+Relations of the Philadelphia Municipal Court. Bulletin 2, Bureau for
+Social Research, the Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, 1918.
+
+[49] Hoffman, Charles W.: The Domestic Relations Court and Divorce, _The
+Delinquent_, February, 1917.
+
+[50] For a fuller discussion of equity powers see an article by Judge
+C.F. Collins in the _Legal Aid Review_ for January, 1919.
+
+[51] Hoffman, Charles W.: Domestic Relations Courts and Divorce. _The
+Delinquent_, February, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT
+
+
+At this time of writing it is too soon after the signing of the
+armistice to make predictions as to what the Great War may do to
+marriage. Whether desertion and divorce will increase or decrease it is
+impossible to say, and the experience of Europe is beside the mark. The
+war will leave traces on this generation--no doubt about that; but our
+losses have not been heavy enough seriously to disturb the balance of
+the sexes. The war, which has been to the common people of our country a
+war of service and ideals, has erased much that was petty and selfish;
+it has also caused nervous shocks and strains incalculable and
+unimagined. Years from now we may be able to strike the balance, but
+today this cannot be done. It is impossible also to say whether the
+growing irresponsibility that was generally recognized to be
+threatening married life in the years before the war is still operating
+with like effect, or whether the full tide of emotion in which the world
+has been lately submerged may have swept at least a part of it away.
+
+We are dealing here, however, not so much with modifications in the
+spirit of the times, as with prevention in the individual case.
+
+One very fundamental claim can be made concerning marital shipwrecks;
+namely, that the way to prevent many of them would have been to see that
+the marriage never was allowed to take place. Marriage laws and their
+enforcement form a whole subject in themselves which is now receiving
+careful study, the results of which should be available shortly.[52]
+This fact precludes any discussion of the subject here, though the
+relation of our marriage laws to marital discord is so obvious that some
+mention of the matter is necessary.
+
+It was formerly the belief of students of family desertion that the
+best way to prevent desertions was to punish them quickly and severely.
+It should be said that this plan has never received a fair trial on a
+large scale, for legal equipment has always lagged behind knowledge. It
+may be true that just as a community can, within limits, regulate its
+death rate by what it is willing to pay, so it can by repressive
+measures regulate its desertion rate. But measures that keep the
+would-be deserter in the home which constantly grows less of a home,
+simply through fear of consequences if he left it, seem hardly a
+desirable form of prevention from the social point of view. It would be
+much better to catch the disintegrating family in whatever form of
+social drag-net could be devised, and deal with it individually and
+constructively along the lines which case work has laid down.
+
+Is it possible, however, to recognize a "pre-desertion state?" And if
+so, what are the danger signals? One case worker answers this question
+sententiously: "Any influences which tend to destroy family solidarity
+are possible signs of desertion." Another writes: "We have sometimes
+found it possible to recognize a 'pre-desertion state' in the
+intermittent deserter, where we know the conditions which previously led
+to desertion, but I doubt whether we have very often been able to note
+it in the case of first desertions. In general, I should say a growing
+carelessness or a growing despondency as to his ability to care for his
+family are danger signals in the man, of which it is well to keep
+track."
+
+The conditions listed in Chapter II as "contributory factors" might in
+certain combinations be decided danger signals of impending desertion.
+Non-support itself is, indeed, one of the most common of such signals,
+though a man who has dealt with hundreds of desertion cases maintained
+recently that the best and most hopeful type of deserter is the one who
+supports his family adequately up to the time of leaving home.
+
+In the following case the items that led the case worker to suspect an
+approaching desertion are set down in the order stated by her. The
+couple were Irish; the man had never deserted before.
+
+    (1) He had spoken with eagerness of the wages that were being earned
+    in munition plants in a city a few hours away--said he would like to
+    go to some of those munition places and see what he could make.
+
+    (2) He was an intermittent drinker.
+
+    (3) His work record was poor; employers said he was irregular and
+    unreliable.
+
+    (4) Visitor felt he had never earned as much as he was easily
+    capable of earning and was rather indifferent to the needs of his
+    family.
+
+    (5) The woman was willing to work--had applied for day nursery care,
+    but visitor had persuaded the nursery not to accept the children.
+
+After the visitor had stated the first two of the above items she
+stopped, and did not add the more significant three that followed until
+reminded that many workmen who drank intermittently were at that time
+thinking enviously of munition factory wages; and that these hardly
+constituted danger signals. The cumulative effect of all five items
+cannot, however, be denied.
+
+Another statement, similarly obtained, concerns a colored couple,
+married about two years and with two children, the youngest less than a
+month old. Man had been out of work and family had gone to live with
+relatives.
+
+    (1) Man earns $20 a week but refuses to start housekeeping again,
+    although they are seriously overcrowded--seven adults and five
+    children in five rooms.
+
+    (2) Woman says he makes her sleep on chairs so that he can get
+    better rest.
+
+    (3) He is seeing a good deal of another woman, a friend of the wife
+    (wife's statement only).
+
+    (4) Woman had applied for nursery care for both children so that she
+    might go to work.
+
+    (5) It transpires that she lived with him before marriage, and that
+    the first child was a month old when the marriage took place. He
+    "holds it over her."
+
+    (6) Man had been married before and divorced.
+
+    (7) The family's habits of recreation are changed; the man no longer
+    "takes her out."
+
+Such attempts to foretell the future are not infallible, of course; but
+a listing process is a valuable aid to diagnosis, and, by its help, a
+situation may be uncovered which tends toward complete family breakdown.
+This may be taken in time and prevented; or, if separation is inevitable
+it can be prepared for in advance, the necessary legal arrangements can
+be made to protect the family, and the anxiety, suspense, and useless
+effort avoided which a sudden and downright abandonment would cause.
+
+But the trouble is that the problem seldom comes to the case worker
+until matters have progressed farther than this. The real question
+is--not how to recognize pre-desertion symptoms, but how to get hold of
+families when these symptoms are in the incipient stage.
+
+Mr. Hiram Myers, manager of the Desertion Bureau of the New York
+Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, who has made a
+close study of the subject, holds the theory that the real period of
+stress in marital adjustment comes not during the "critical first year,"
+about which we have been told so much, but at a later period, which he
+sets roughly at from the third to the fifth year after marriage. By this
+time there are usually one or two babies, the wife's girlish charm has
+gone, and the romance of the first attraction has vanished, while the
+steady force of conjugal affection which should smooth their path
+through the years ahead has not come to take its place. It is in this
+middle period that longings for the delights of his care-free youth
+begin to come back to a man; if he ever had the wandering foot, it
+begins again to twitch for the road; of else his fancy is captured by
+some other girl not tied down at home by children. It is at this time,
+too, that endless discords and misunderstandings arise--that the last
+bit of gilt crumbles off the gingerbread.
+
+As a result of his observations, Mr. Myers feels sure that the majority
+of first desertions take place somewhere from the third to the fifth
+year after marriage. Miss Brandt's[53] careful statistical study of 574
+deserted families shows that in nearly 46 per cent of the families the
+first desertion took place before the fifth year of married life. Of
+course the jars that may come in the earlier months of marriage are
+seldom brought to the attention of social agencies, as it is usually the
+presence of children in the family and the consequent burden upon the
+wife which make such agencies acquainted with her.
+
+It is to be hoped that further study will be made upon these points. It
+is well known and accepted that the majority of first deserters are
+young men; but if certain danger periods in married life can be
+definitely recognized, many new possibilities in prevention and
+treatment will be opened up.
+
+A number of experiments and suggestions have lately been made which may
+prove to be the means of recognizing marital troubles early. The
+probation department of the Chicago Court of Domestic Relations some
+years ago established a consultation bureau to which people might come
+or be sent for advice on difficult matrimonial situations, and without
+any court record being made. The Department of Public Charities of New
+York City maintains a similar bureau which is, however, so closely
+connected with the court that its clients make little distinction
+between them.
+
+In addition to such conscious efforts to reach out after marital tangles
+in the pre-court stage, there has recently been an interesting though
+accidental development in the city of Cleveland. During the thrift
+campaign of 1918, several savings banks of that city conceived the idea
+that their depositors could be induced and helped to save more money if
+the banks opened a bureau for free advice to their patrons on household
+management. This bureau is still in the experimental stage but it has
+had an increasing clientele so far. One thing that has astonished its
+management--but which causes no surprise in the mind of a social
+worker--has been the great variety of problems other than those
+connected with the family budget that have come to light in the bureau's
+consultations. Particularly is this true of marital discord centering
+about money affairs.
+
+If such bureaus prove their usefulness there is no reason why they might
+not be greatly extended, and why other agencies than banks (insurance
+companies, for example) might not be eager thus to serve their
+customers. This opens a new field for the home economist, but
+incidentally it would appear that, in order to function successfully,
+such bureaus would need to have access to the services of agencies
+employing highly skilled social case workers. It is conceivable that, if
+there are developed in our large cities consultation facilities under
+social auspices for people who feel their marriages going wrong, and
+want help and advice in righting them, such bureaus as those described
+above would be excellent "feeders" for this new form of social service.
+
+Family social agencies have been distinctly backward in some of their
+approaches to the fundamental problems of family life. The failure of
+most of them, for instance, to study or seek improvements in the laws
+governing marriage or in their administration, is difficult of
+explanation. Such a consultation service as that suggested does,
+however, indicate a new point of departure in dealing with marital
+relations which would seem to fall distinctly within the field of the
+family case work agencies. It is time that these agencies began to find
+means of dealing, not with the dependent family alone but with the
+family in danger of becoming dependent--not with the family broken and
+estranged only, but with the one whose bonds, even if cracking and
+ill-adjusted, still hold.
+
+Concretely, why should not family agencies establish such consultation
+bureaus as have just been mentioned, distinct from their regular
+activities and hampered by no suggestion in their title of association
+with problems of dependency? Dr. William Healy of Boston ascribes much
+of his success in getting the parents of defective and backward children
+to bring them voluntarily for examination to the fact that the name of
+his organization (the Judge Baker Foundation) conveys no hint of stigma
+or inferiority. Here is a valuable lesson in right publicity.
+
+A bureau of family advice such as has been suggested should be under
+unimpeachable auspices from the point of view of medicine and
+psychiatry; it should have the services not only of expert social
+workers and experts in household management, but of doctors and
+psychiatrists as well. If it could be run as a joint-stock enterprise,
+in which courts and social agencies might be equally interested, so much
+the better. Its investigations should be searching enough to discourage
+applications from curiosity-mongers; but its services, like those of any
+clinic, should be given for whatever the patient is able to pay. Its
+relations, needless to say, should be entirely confidential, and as
+privileged in the eyes of the law as are those of doctor, lawyer, and
+priest.
+
+It may be objected that people guard their marital infelicities too
+jealously and are too loath to discuss them to come willingly to such a
+place; that the idea involves a presumptuous interference in the private
+lives of individuals. But neurologists know that people in increasing
+numbers feel the need, under conditions of modern stress, for a safe
+outlet and a chance to discuss their perplexities and find counsel.
+
+Fifty years ago the interest now taken by the social and medical
+professions in the question of whether mothers are rearing their infants
+properly could not have been foreseen. The establishment of baby health
+stations, or the activities of the Children's Bureau, would have been
+looked upon as unwarranted interference between the child and its
+mother, whose natural instincts could be depended upon to teach her how
+to nourish it. This point of view is no longer held; and the community's
+duty to take an interest in the upbringing of its children is never
+questioned. Is it not conceivable that, before another half century has
+rolled around, the community may take the same intelligent interest in
+the conservation of the family, and that definite efforts, which are now
+almost entirely lacking, may be made to stabilize and protect it?
+
+Educational propaganda would, of course, have to be a definite part of
+the work of such bureaus. By this is meant not such modern specialties
+as "birth control," "sex hygiene," _et al._, though we may by that time
+have enough authoritative information about sex psychology in marriage
+to be able to afford some help along these lines. Instruction in the
+_ethics_ of married life and parenthood is of even more fundamental
+importance. The prevailing cynicism, the present low concepts of
+marriage, should be vigorously combatted by such an organization.
+Religious instruction would be, of course, beyond its scope; but it
+should be able to work sympathetically with all creeds, supplementing
+their teachings without seeking to duplicate them.
+
+The services of such a bureau could not, of course, be forced upon
+anyone who did not wish to avail himself or herself of them; but
+definite though tactful efforts could be made to reach all young couples
+(just as are now being made to reach young mothers) with information as
+to where advice could be obtained.
+
+No trustworthy figures exist as to the number of families broken by
+desertion or divorce in the United States, or as to the burden of actual
+dependency caused. Courts, probation officers, psychiatrists, and family
+case workers are all dissatisfied with our efforts to patch up the
+families which are already disintegrating. One of the three groups
+mentioned is likely before long to attempt some more dynamic attack upon
+the problem in its inception. If any suggestions herein contained find
+use in that program, the labor of compiling them will have been indeed
+well spent.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] See, for example, American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects--a
+preliminary study by the Russell Sage Foundation, June, 1919.
+
+[53] Brandt, Lilian: 574 Deserters and their Families, p. 23. Charity
+Organization Society of New York, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Adolph R.: case story of, 69-70, 83
+
+Age: relation of differences in, 27
+
+Agencies: N.Y. Charity Organization Society, 44;
+  National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 71. 101;
+  United Hebrew Charities, 71;
+  co-operative methods, 72-78, 84, 86-90;
+  opinions on methods of arrest, 77, 78;
+  N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, 136;
+  social problems and consultation bureaus, 195-199
+
+Alcoholism: statistics on, 22;
+  devastating effects of, 42;
+  case story of woman, 57-61;
+  and justifiable deserters, 111-114;
+  relation to non-support, 156
+
+_American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects_, study by Russell Sage
+    Foundation, 186
+
+Apparent desertions: illustrated, 8, 9
+
+
+Baldwin, Wm. H., 169, 177
+
+_Bastardy Cases, A Study of_ Louise de K. Bowen, 95
+
+Bastardy, see _Forced marriages_
+
+_Behind the Service Flag_, Red Cross pamphlet, 160
+
+Bigamy: and common law marriages, 98;
+  immigrant deserters, 99
+
+Bosanquet, Helen, 13
+
+Bowen, Louise de K., 95
+
+Brand, Harvey: case story of, 122
+
+Brandt, Lilian, 26, 27, 192
+
+Breed, Mary, 61, 150
+
+Buffalo Charity Organization Society: non-support records, 156
+
+Bureaus: National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 101;
+  for consultation, 193-199;
+  Court of Domestic Relations, Chicago, 193;
+  Department of Public Charities, New York, 193;
+  Children's Bureau, 197;
+  importance of educational, 198-199.
+  See also _Agencies_
+
+Byington, Margaret F., 12
+
+
+Canada: extradition treaties sought, 119, 169
+
+Carstens, C.C., 68
+
+Case illustrations: of apparent desertion, 8;
+  mental deficiency, 24;
+  reconciliation through education, 30;
+  incompatibility and the "other woman," 40;
+  interviewing the man essential, 57-61;
+  liberal relief policy, 62;
+  agency co-operation, 69, 75, 82, 83, 84;
+  accident case, 79;
+  traced through letter, 81;
+  reconciliation after court marriage, 95;
+  "American" marriages, 99;
+  justifiable desertion, 111, 112-114;
+  antagonism, 111-112;
+  prison sentences helpful, 121, 122;
+  adequate relief rids wife of chronic deserter, 131;
+  adjustment impossible, 134;
+  real affection a basis of reconciliation, 135;
+  rehabilitation of a deserter, 137;
+  wife reluctant to return to man who reformed, 141;
+  non-support and ill-kept homes, 153;
+  re-establishing non-supporters' homes, 158, 160, 161-163;
+  inadequate court orders, 172, 173
+
+Case work, see _Social workers_
+
+Causal factors: analysis of study, 10, 15;
+  motives and theories, 17-49;
+  rationalization discussed, 17-22;
+  summary of statistics, 21-22, 26-27, 45;
+  feeble-mindedness, 24-25;
+  training and self-control, 25-26;
+  nationality, 26-27;
+  religion, 27;
+  age, 27;
+  environment, 27-28;
+  wrong basis of marriage, 28;
+  common law marriage, 29;
+  ignorance, 29;
+  incompetence, 31;
+  wanderlust, 32;
+  inadequate income, 32;
+  financial mismanagement, 33;
+  physical condition, 34-35;
+  temperamental differences, 36;
+  sex incompatibility, 37-39;
+  vice and disease, 39-43;
+  relatives, interference of, 43-44;
+  racial studies, 44-45;
+  community standards, 45-46;
+  recreation, 47;
+  companions, influence of, 48;
+  shifting responsibility, 48;
+  underlying causes, 49;
+  seeking a working basis, 91-105
+
+Charitable relief: desertion in expectation of, 48, 61;
+  Mary Breed on, 61;
+  immigrant's interpretation of, 99-100.
+  See also _Collusion_
+
+Chicago Court of Domestic Relations, bureau for marital advice, 193
+
+Chicago Juvenile Protective Association: study of forced
+marriages by, 94-95
+
+Children's Bureau, 197
+
+Closing the case: extended treatment recommended, 63
+
+Colcord, J.C., 61, 104, 133
+
+Collins, C.F., 180
+
+Collusion: infrequency of, 52, 70;
+  case stories of, 71, 72;
+  statistics of National Desertion Bureau, 71;
+  preventive measures, 73-80
+
+Common law marriages: legal protection under, 29;
+  confusion of state laws, 98
+
+Community ideals, see _Standards_
+
+Companions: influence, and wanderlust, 47-48;
+  aid in finding deserters, 77, 80
+
+Co-operation of agencies, 68-78, 84, 86-90;
+  suggested methods of finding deserters, 78-90;
+  probation officers, 116, 122-124
+
+Corrective treatment: legislative recommendations, 164-184;
+  military systems aid in tracing deserters, 165-166;
+  obstacles, 167;
+  serving a warrant or summons, 168;
+  extradition treaties recommended, 169;
+  dependency through emigration, report on, 170;
+  deportation laws, 171;
+  court orders to pay, Seybert Institution report on, 172-177;
+  special courts for juvenile delinquents, 177, 178, 179;
+  Family Court of Cincinnati, 178;
+  domestic relations court, 178, 179-180, 181-182;
+  probation officers, 182-184
+
+Court intervention: policy of treatment in past, 50-51;
+  reasons, and laxity of laws, 51-52;
+  social agency statistics, 52;
+  a last resort, 53-54;
+  effect of, 55, 95;
+  for persistent deserters, 114-117;
+  extradition, 117-119;
+  probation, 119-124;
+  warrant served by wife, 127;
+  effecting reconciliations, 132-140;
+  domestic relation courts effect reconciliations, 132;
+  volunteers, 139-140;
+  inadequacy of orders, 172-177;
+  for juvenile delinquents, 178, 181;
+  domestic relations, 179-182, 193
+
+
+Department of Public Charities, New York City, bureau of domestic
+    relations, 193
+
+_Deserters and their Families_, 574.
+  Lilian Brandt, 192
+
+_Desertion and Non-Support in Family Case Work._ Joanna C. Colcord,
+    61, 104, 133
+
+Detectives: methods objectionable, 74, 77
+
+Disease: statistical analysis, 22;
+  and psychiatry, 24;
+  effects of physical debility, 34;
+  venereal disease, 41;
+  alcoholism, 42.
+  See also _Medical-Social work_
+
+District of Columbia: non-support laws, 177
+
+Divorce: relation to desertion, 7, 8;
+  not considered, 16;
+  administration of laws, and respect for, 46;
+  by publication, 101;
+  clearing bureau for, 101-102;
+  for long continued desertion, 110;
+  legal separation to protect wife, 127;
+  bureaus might prevent, 193-199
+
+Domestic relations courts: to combine with juvenile, 178, 179;
+  Family Court of Cincinnati, 178;
+  equity powers for, 179, 180;
+  amendment pending, 179;
+  facilities, 181
+
+_Domestic Relations Court and Divorce._ C.W. Hoffman, 178, 181
+
+Donald, Patrick: case story of, 19
+
+Drug addiction, see _Narcotics_
+
+
+Early influences: and self-control, 25-26;
+  educational, 29, 30, 46, 92, 153, 198
+
+Economics: ratio of desertions in "hard times," 21, 32;
+  family finances, 33;
+  service bureaus, 194
+
+Education: social studies of family life, 11-14;
+  early training and delinquency, 26;
+  background for failures, 29-30;
+  destructive forces, 46;
+  suggestions for case workers, 63;
+  Attendance Department traces deserters, 73;
+  non-support and inefficiency eliminated by, 153;
+  propaganda, 198
+
+Ellis, Havelock, 39
+
+Environment: and immigration, 27-28;
+  neighborhood standards, 46, 102
+
+Equity powers, of domestic relations courts, 179, 180
+
+Eubank, E.E., 21
+
+Extradition: state problems, 117-119;
+  for dangerous men, 129-130;
+  non-support law, 150;
+  treaties essential, ratification pending, 169, 170;
+  N.Y. state law, 182
+
+Extravagance: family finances, 33
+
+
+_Family as a Social and Educational Institution, The._ Willystine
+    Goodsell, 11
+
+Family Court of Cincinnati, 178
+
+_Family Desertion._ Lilian Brandt, 26
+
+_Family Desertion, A Study of._ E.E. Eubank, 21
+
+Family life: permanence of, 9, 11-15;
+  spiritual values of, 12, 29;
+  consultation service to solve problems of, 195-199
+
+_Family, The._ Helen Bosanquet, 13
+
+Fear of bodily harm from dangerous deserters, 128-129
+
+Federal Employment Service, 166
+
+Finding deserters, 65-90;
+  National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 71;
+  urgency of finding the man, 67;
+  C.C. Carstens quoted, 68;
+  example of, 69-70;
+  collusion, instances of, 70-73;
+  literature lacking, 74;
+  detective methods, illustration of, 74-77;
+  suggestions for, 78-80;
+  through military authorities, 81-82;
+  trade places, 82-83;
+  publications, 83, 84, 85;
+  bulletin boards, 84;
+  employment agencies, 84;
+  agency co-operation, 86-90
+
+First desertions: temporary character of, 8;
+  medical-social work a preventive, 9;
+  accident records aid in tracing, 79;
+  critical nature of, 91;
+  when apt to occur, 191-192
+
+First problem in desertion, 67, 91
+
+Forced marriages: irregular unions, 28;
+  investigation of, and statistics, 92-96;
+  study by Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, 94;
+  case illustrations, 95-96
+
+Forel, August, 39
+
+Francis, Mrs.: case story of, 131
+
+Frost, Robert, 14
+
+
+Gambling: effect upon character, 43;
+  relation to non-support, 156
+
+Glasgow Parish Council, report on dependency, 170-171
+
+Goodsell, Willystine, 11
+
+Gorokhoff, Andreas: case story of, 121
+
+Gray, Aleck: case story of, 161-163
+
+
+Hart, Bernard, 20
+
+Healy, Dr. William, 196
+
+Heredity: psychopathic personality, 24;
+  feeble-mindedness, 25;
+  racial differences, 26-28
+
+Hoffman, Charles W., 178, 181
+
+
+Illustrations, see _Case illustrations_
+
+Immorality, see _Sex factors_
+
+Inadequate relief: legal separation, and the law, 128;
+  wife's attitude, 130;
+  illustrated, 131;
+  court orders, inconsistency of, 172-176;
+  recent legislation to correct, 177.
+  See also _Non-support_
+
+Income: economic issues, 21, 22, 30;
+  wages and non-support, 32-33
+
+Incompatibility: temperamental differences, 36;
+  sex relations, 37-39, 40
+
+Industrial deficiency: in husband and wife, 25, 31;
+  national registration to correct, 166
+
+Insanity: study of defectives, 20, 24
+
+_Insanity, The Psychology of._ Bernard Hart, 20
+
+Instability: forms of, mental and physical, 17-22;
+  factors that induce, 24-43, 47-49
+
+"Intermittent husbands," 43, 153
+
+Interviewing the man: importance of, 55-57, 105;
+  case story, 57-61
+
+Italy: marriage registration in, 100
+
+
+Judge Baker Foundation, of Boston, 196
+
+Justifiable deserters: and alcoholism, 42;
+  case illustration, 57-61, 111;
+  procedure with, 112
+
+Justification: thirst for experience, 9, 19;
+  process of rationalization, 20;
+  venereal disease and separation, 41;
+  alcohol, and "justifiable deserters," 42;
+  Williams case illustrates, 57-61, 111;
+  and the non-supporter, 152-154
+
+Juvenile courts: movement for special, 177, 178;
+  Juvenile Court Act, 178;
+  combine with domestic relation courts, 178;
+  Family Court of Cincinnati, 178;
+  facilities, 181
+
+
+Laflin, Mrs.: case story of, 155
+
+Latham, George: case story of, 137
+
+Legal separation to protect wife, 127-129
+
+Legislation: irregular unions, 29, 98;
+  pioneering methods, 50-52;
+  state aid to mothers, 63;
+  common law unions, legality of, 98, 101;
+  Italian, 100;
+  divorce for permanent desertion, 110;
+  for justifiable deserters, 111-112;
+  court action for persistent deserters, 114-117;
+  extradition, 117-119, 129;
+  probation, 120-124;
+  legal facilities to promote efficiency, 164-184;
+  serving a warrant, 168;
+  extradition treaties, 169-170;
+  deportation, 171;
+  court procedure, 172-177;
+  juvenile delinquency, 177, 178, 180;
+  domestic relations, and special courts, 177, 178, 179, 180-182;
+  marriage laws, 186, 195
+
+Loane, M., 154
+
+Long, Martin: case story of, 141
+
+
+_Making the Deserter Pay the Piper._ W.H. Baldwin, 177
+
+Mancini, Onofrio: case story of, 172
+
+Marital vagaries: possible reasons for, 35
+
+Marriage: spiritual values of, 11, 12, 29;
+  homelier elements in, 13-15;
+  wrong bases of, 28;
+  common law unions, 29;
+  disparagement of ideals condemned, 45-46, 198;
+  verification, and state legislation, 98-100;
+  registration in Italy, 100;
+  American marriage laws, 186
+
+McCann, Herbert: case story of, 84-85, 86
+
+Medical-social work: preventing desertion, 9;
+  summary of case analyses, 22;
+  psychiatry and mental deficiency, 24;
+  physical debility, 34;
+  "pregnancy desertion," 34-35;
+  sex incompatibility, 37-39;
+  bureaus of advice recommended, 193-196.
+  See also _Psychology_
+
+Mellor, Joseph: case story of, 111
+
+Mentality: irresponsible agents, 17-20;
+  psychology of insanity, 20, 24;
+  educational handicaps, 29
+
+Mexico: and extradition, 119, 170
+
+Morgan, Charles: case story of, 147-148
+
+Motion, J.R., 171
+
+Myers, Hiram, 191, 192
+
+
+Narcotics: percentage of influence, 22, 42
+
+Nationality: statistical facts about difference in, 26-27, 44-45;
+  racial attitude, and percentages of deserters, 44-45;
+  case problem, 49;
+  Jewish desertion bureau, 65, 69, 71, 101-102
+
+National Conference of Jewish Charities, seeks extradition treaty, 169
+
+National Conference of Social Work, extradition treaty urged, 169
+
+National Desertion Bureau, Jewish legal aid, 65;
+  story of tracing a deserter, 69-70;
+  collusive desertion cases, 71;
+  clearing bureau established, 101-102
+
+Neighborhood influence, see _Standards_
+
+Newspapers, see _Publicity_
+
+New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor: practice
+    of Desertion Bureau, 136
+
+New York Charity Organization Society: study of racial groups, and
+    percentages, 44-45
+
+New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings, on
+    non-supporters, 150
+
+Non-supporters: as potential deserters, 149-163;
+  legal treatment of, 149-150;
+  analogous to deserters, 150-153, 188;
+  characteristics, 151, 189, 190;
+  wife's influence a factor, 152-154;
+  illustrations, 155, 158, 160;
+  reclamation, illustrated, 161-163;
+  approach to desertion, 188-191
+
+Non-support Law: in Massachusetts, 149-150
+
+_Normal Family, The._ Margaret F. Byington, 12
+
+_North of Boston._ Robert Frost, 14
+
+
+_One Thousand Homeless Men._ Alice W. Solenberger, 157
+
+Overindulgence: teaching self-control, 25-26;
+  wage-earning wives, 154
+
+
+Pelligrini, Orfeo: case story of, 99
+
+Permanence of family life, 9, 11-15
+
+Permanent desertions, see _Divorce_
+
+Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, report on reconciliations, 135-136
+
+Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity: report of, 7
+
+Photographs of deserters: society presents to wife, 10;
+  tracing out-of-town clues, 78, 84, 85
+
+Physical condition: ill health, 34;
+  "difficulty" of pregnant women, 35;
+  maladjustments, 38;
+  recreation essential, 47;
+  recommendations, 196-199
+
+"Pregnancy desertion": how explained, 34-35
+
+Preventive treatment: past opinions, 187;
+  non-support leading to desertion, 188-192;
+  for first desertions, 192-193;
+  bureaus for advice and consultation, 193-199;
+  suggestions for, 196-199
+
+Probation: testimony of social workers, 119-120;
+  and imprisonment, 121-124;
+  legal separation proceedings during, 128;
+  officers effect reconciliation, 132;
+  illustrations, 133-134, 137, 141;
+  "stay-away" probation, 138;
+  economy plan for officers, 178;
+  number and efficiency of officers, 182-184;
+  consultation bureau, 193
+
+Provisional quality of desertions, 9
+
+Psychoanalysis: mental deficients, and heredity, 24;
+  incompatibility and sex perversion, 37-39.
+  See also _Sex factors_
+
+Psychology: rationalization process, 20;
+  mental defectives, 24;
+  sex incompatibility, 37-39;
+  studies on, 39;
+  knowledge of, essential, 103
+
+Publicity: photographs a medium of, 10, 78, 84, 85;
+  agencies and newspapers, 84-90;
+  divorce by "publication," 101;
+  illustration, 196
+
+
+_Queen's Poor, The._ M. Loane, 154
+
+Questionnaires: liberal relief policy, 62;
+  searching for deserters, 78;
+  treatment of desertion, 106
+
+
+Ratio of desertions: economic factors, 21, 31, 32-33
+
+Reconciliation: factors that prompt, 13-14;
+  and the "other woman," 40-41;
+  following court marriage, 95-96;
+  after prison term, 121-122;
+  considerations involved, 125-132;
+  unwillingness of wife, illustrated, 131;
+  criminal tendencies prevent, 134;
+  affection a safe basis of, 135;
+  practice of N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, 136-137;
+  volunteer visitors helpful, 139-140;
+  case worker's success in effecting, illustrated, 142-148;
+  bureaus to promote, 193-199
+
+Recreation: why essential, 47
+
+Red Cross Home Service, 81, 159, 160
+
+Relatives: interference of, 43-44, 49
+
+Religion: differences in, a study of, 26, 27
+
+Repeated desertions: frequency of, 8;
+  "intermittent husbands," 43, 153;
+  suggestions for tracing the man, 79;
+  relative nature of, 92
+
+Responsibility: self-therapy illustrated, 8;
+  deserters disclaim, 19-20;
+  essentials of early training, 25-26;
+  education promotes, 29, 198;
+  and charitable relief, 48, 100;
+  wage-earning wives, and non-supporters, 154
+
+Richmond, Mary E.: on volunteers in case work, 78, 106, 140
+
+Ridicule: of matrimony, by press and films, 45-46
+
+Russell Sage Foundation, study, American marriage laws, 186
+
+
+Selective Service Act, 165
+
+Sex factors: determine forgiveness, 13-14;
+  statistical summary, 21-22;
+  "pregnancy desertion," 34-35;
+  incompatibility, 37-40;
+  immorality, 39, 96;
+  knowledge of sex psychology essential, 103
+
+_Sex in Relation to Society._ Havelock Ellis, 39
+
+_Sexual Question, The._ A. Forel, 39
+
+Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, on relation of income to court order, 173
+
+Slacker marriages, 97
+
+Social workers: opinions of, 7-8;
+  appreciative faculties of, 11;
+  knowledge of sex relations imperative, 37-38;
+  diagnoses referred to specialists, 38;
+  undervalue recreation, 47;
+  questionnaires on treatment, 62, 78, 106;
+  detective methods, 68-90;
+  agency co-operation, 78-90;
+  sex problems, 103;
+  necessary information for, summarized, 104-105;
+  protection of legal separation, 127;
+  successful case records, 142-148
+
+Solenberger, Alice W., 157
+
+Spiritual values: of family life, 11-12, 29
+
+Standards: and temperamental differences, 36;
+  community concepts, 45-46;
+  neighborhood influence, 47, 102
+
+State aid to mothers, 63;
+  vital statistics, 93
+
+
+Temporary desertions: report of Philadelphia Society, 7-8;
+  domestic crises and vagaries, 34-35.
+  See also _Reconciliation_
+
+Theories to explain desertion, 20.
+  See also _Causal factors_
+
+Treatment of desertion: policy, past and present, 50-64;
+  court intervention, 50-54;
+  interviewing the man, 55-60, 105;
+  relief to families, 61;
+  opinions of case workers, 62;
+  case story, 62;
+  state aid, 63;
+  closing the case, time for, 63;
+  changes in worker's attitudes, 64;
+  whereabouts known, willing to return, 125-148;
+  Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, study by, 135-136;
+  N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, practice of, 136;
+  family restoration illustrated, 137;
+  volunteers recommended, 139-140;
+  wife relents, illustration of reconciliation, 141;
+  study of successful worker's records, 142-148
+
+
+United Hebrew Charities, 71
+
+
+Vagaries: marital, 34-35
+
+Venereal disease: relation to desertion, 41
+
+Verification: of marriage, 98-99;
+  in Italy, 100;
+  Latin-American custom, 100
+
+Volunteers: service valuable for effecting reconciliation, 139-140
+
+
+Wanderlust: instability of temperament, 19;
+  relation to desertion, 32
+
+Warrant for arrest: protection afforded wife, 127;
+  system inadequate, 168
+
+West, Alfred: case story of, 30
+
+_Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a Contributory Cause._ J.R.
+    Motion, 171
+
+Wife who deserts, not considered, 15
+
+Williams, Mrs. Clara: case story of, 57-60, 111
+
+
+
+SOCIAL WORK SERIES
+
+EDITED BY MARY E. RICHMOND
+
+
+Many people have general views in these days upon almost any matter
+which affects social welfare; we all know how easily such views find
+expression. On the other hand, only a few have the patience and the
+insight to gather the specific facts and find out what they mean. Still
+fewer--having done so much as this--can explain the meaning lucidly and
+in brief compass.
+
+It is the ambition of the Social Work Series to embody, in the field of
+social service at least, the message of a representative group of these
+few. The first three volumes are as follows:
+
+Disasters and the American Red Cross in Disaster Relief. By J. Byron
+Deacon.
+
+Household Management. By Florence Nesbitt.
+
+Broken Homes. By Joanna C. Colcord.
+
+Price, Cloth, 75 cents each. Other volumes in preparation.
+
+Write for announcements to be forwarded as these books are issued.
+
+PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT, RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
+
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+
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