USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 29
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The outline of the history of the Young Men's Christian Association is something like this. On the evening of December 15, 1851, thirty- two young men, representing twenty churches, met in the organ loft of the Central Congregational Church on Winter Street. Charles De- mond was made chairman of the meeting and Henry Savage Chase, secretary. Captain Thomas V. Sullivan, the "father of the Boston As- sociation," presented a plan for organization, and Dr. George F. Bige- low, F. W. Smith, William Jameson and Pliny Nickerson, led in the
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discussion of the plan and were appointed the committee on organiza- tion. At a second meeting, held in the chapel of Old South Meeting House, William W. Mair, Joseph Storey, Deacon Simonds, James M. Gordon, H. E. Armington joined with the company, and Stephen G. Deblois, H. E. Armington, Edward G. Odiorne and J. M. Gordon were added to the original committee. The final meeting for organization was held on December 29, in the same chapel and a constitution adopted. The object of the association was stated to be, "the improvement of the spiritual and mental condition of young men." The first president of the society, elected January 5, 1852, was Francis O. Watts; the first sal- aried officer was W. S. Broughton. The first quarters were in "Gray's new granite building" at 228 Washington Street, being opened on March II, 1852, with 600 men present. Within five months the membership had increased to 1,200, and the original rooms were so quickly outgrown that, within a year, the association moved into Tremont Temple, where it remained for two decades. While still on the "firsts" it may be of interest to note, that during the first year the total expenditures of the new organization amounted to $6,856. The sources of income were $30 given by each of thirteen men, and $25 contributed by each of 112 others. One of the pleasant features of the 75th anniversary was the presence there of L. P. Rowland, now ninety years of age, the first general secre- tary of the association, although his official title was librarian.
The Civil War worked havoc with the Christian Associations of the country, their number being reduced from 240 to 60. The Boston Associa- tion survived but was brought to its lowest stage in its long history. It managed, however, to do some notable work during the conflict, and made a quick recovery afterward. The first building owned by the associa- tion was the one on the corner of Tremont and Eliot, now Stuart streets (1872-83.) The labors of Dwight L. Moody, once a member in Boston although then of Chicago, helped greatly to bring about the new acces- sion. The gymnasium became an important feature of the society. In 1875, the association's railroad branch was started, and three years later work was begun among the sailors which led to the formation of the Army and Navy Branch. The fourth home of the Y. M. C. A. was on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston streets, the buildings being erected in 1882 at a cost of $300,000. The boys' branch was one of the enlargements of the scope of Association efforts.
From 1887 to 1895, marks the development of many of the modern features of the body. The constitution was changed; the association Decame a young men's affair more than it ever had been; and the North- eastern University was founded. Arthur S. Johnson was made presi- dent in 1897 and has been reëlected regularly ever since. The present broad, aggressive, and highly successful policies of the organization are,
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to a great extent, the result of his capable and inspired leadership. George W. Mehaffey became general secretary in 1895, holding the position for a long period of years before being succeeded by the present incumbent, Wilman E. Adams. Frank Palmer Speare, now president of the North- eastern University, first became the educational director in 1896. To these two men, the carrying out of the policies on a large scale and well, is due.
Fire destroyed the Berkeley-Boylston plant, and, after a period in temporary quarters on Ashburton Place, the present central building on Huntington Avenue was erected, the first ground for which was turned on November 10, 19II.
Such in brief, has been the history of the Young Men's Christian As- sociation of Boston. Many great names could be given of citizens of the city and elsewhere who have labored to make it what it is. There have been many benefactors who have come to its aid in years of necessity, when buildings have been required. It is to be remembered that the association has been to a large extent self-supporting. Charles A. Vialle was one of the most generous of these many givers, his bene- factions totaling $467,000. The institution has seen many changes dur- ing its seventy-five years and more. Not only has it grown tremendous- ly, but its methods of work and policy are as unlike those of yesterday as Boston is unlike the city of 1851. Everything has been speeded up. Today, one lives in a constant whirl, and the demands made upon the human system mentally, morally and physically are heavier than those of the years when the organization first took form. Through all these changing years with their added burdens, the association has kept pace. Less than $7,000 was spent the first year. For 1927, the budget was $1,365,072; of this sum only $142,348 was supplied by public subscrip- tions. Starting in an organ loft, it now has plants valued at close to $2,000,000. And all these great totals are expended for the education of youth, not simply through books, but through his play, his sports, his companionships and his religion.
It would be difficult to conclude any chapter on the charitable and philanthropic activities of Boston without leaving the reader wondering why certain welfare activities were left unmentioned, and others of lesser importance given space. Perhaps an answer may be given by an attempt to outline a summary of these activities. The following, al- though based on figues for 1923, given by Robert W. Kelso, secretary of the Boston Council of Social Agencies, will show something of the size of the subject if no more. Boston is the oldest city in America in the history of social welfare, and, in the completeness of its program of social work lays claim to being the most progressive.
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"The extent of the welfare activities in Boston, private and public, is far greater than the public usually supposes. More than a tenth of the city and county appropriations go each year to sick aid, the housing of delinquents, the care of children and to charitable relief. This sum, totaling $4,551,894 in 1923, is divided into three parts. The Overseers of the Public Welfare spent $974,896 (net) in 1923 for mother's aid, the usual relief of poor persons, and in the conduct of the temporary home for women, and the Wayfarers' Lodge. The Institutions depart- ment expended $938,904 (net) for the maintenance of the almshouse, house of correction, jail, and the conduct of the division of child care, including overhead outlays; while the City Hospital, Boston Sanatorium and Health Department together cost $2,638,093. The public welfare service of the city is divided into three major enterprises : the care of the sick, maintenance of the dependent and the infirm in institutions; the relief of the dependent poor outside of the public infirmaries."
The care of the sick centers about the City Hospital, with its south department, west department, two relief stations, and convalescent home. Figures covering this institution have already been given. The second section institutional service for dependents and law breakers, covers the city almshouse, whose daily number of inmates average 800, of whom there averages daily 339 in hospital wards. An important part of this institutional department work is cared for in the Child Welfare Division which gave aid during the year to 813 children. The last larger feature of this department is the care and custody of law break- ers, the Deer Island House of Correction reporting 2,240 persons.
The third of Boston's major municipal welfare enterprises is em- bodied in the department of the Overseers of the Public Welfare. The city is surely the Hub of New England as far as being the headquarters for the tramps, wanderers and the unemployed, as well as those who flock there to reap the advantages of its charities, hospitals and the like. The department, which consists of a board of twelve unpaid citizens and a staff of forty-six paid employees, administers all the laws having to do with the relief of the city poor, all temporary aid, all the sick poor not at the almshouse, all mothers' aid and a large amount of private charitable service for which, as we have seen, it was incorporated as trustees of the olden gifts to the municipality. Reference to the para- graph quoted from Mr. Kelso's report, will show that nearly a million dollars was disbursed in 1923 for just mothers' aid. The Wayfarers' Lodge gave 13,635 lodgings. The Temporary Home lodged 901 women representing 3,068 lodgings, and 911 children representing 2,446 lodgings.
The public outlays in relief and allied charities are but the smaller part of the Boston benefactions. The State Welfare Department lists
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407 incorporated charitable agencies doing social work in the city. Many of these are inactive or relatively unimportant, but at least 250 may be listed as alive and vigorous. Forty-two of these aim to promote health, of which twenty-five are hospitals and eight are dispensaries. Together they give treatment yearly to about one-third of a million cases. The hospital service of Boston is adequate in most phases of the medical situation.
Societies interested in the question of child care number forty-four, thirty-eight of which are somewhat or wholly institutional in character. The other six are home finding, and child placing agencies. Probably 25,000 children are looked after yearly; the annual expenditures must amount to one and a quarter million dollars.
There are twenty-eight neighborhood organizations, which seek to cultivate higher standards of living and citizenship by creating centers for social activities. These organizations have a yearly outgo of a mil- lion and a half each year, more than half of which is paid in by the per- sons served. In 1920, these individuals numbered 67,000.
The fourth major section of the private social service agencies is that of family helping societies, which include all enterprises giving aid and service to the needy. Twenty-five incorporations come under this classification ; five for general aid; thirteen help racial or religious groups; four give small pensions or weekly allowances; the remaining six specialize on some one line of benevolence. Seven thousand fami- lies are reached by the societies each year, the individuals helped totaling 32,000, the amount expended reaching more than a half million dollars.
Of the more than 100 organizations not included in the above classi- fications, forty handle incorporated charity funds; eighteen are board- ing or lodging houses ; eight are adult rescue missions, and the remainder exercise a wide range of functions. The total expenditures of these 250 active social agencies was annually in excess of thirteen million dollars ; in 1927 this amount was estimated at fifteen million dollars. About twenty per cent. of the sum came from endowments; a quarter from benefactions by the public; and about half were reimbursements from those helped, or from one paying it for the aided. Taking the accounts for the four major divisions, as the hundred miscellaneous agencies are not included in the figures used, about seven million dollars is used yearly for service in excess of one 1,000,000 instances.
"The vast array of social service enterprises ally themselves with various church groups and coordinate their effort with those of public departments, city and State. They carry within themselves the leader- ship of the generous philanthropic effort to better conditions under which the people of Boston live, to make the home safer and happier.
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They represent the growth of three hundred years. In their ranks has been found the leadership which has advanced Massachusetts to the foremost place in the nation in welfare laws and in the enforcement of a consistent public welfare program. Within three years, the develop- ment of the Boston Council of Social Agencies, taking in public as well as private organizations, has inaugurated a new era of coordination. One hundred and thirty-one private agencies and all the departments of city and State, touching public welfare, have united for purposes of joint study of our social problems to the end that needless duplication of money and efforts may be reduced to a minimum and a clearer vision of the community needs may be had, and a better understanding gained as to the most practicable and effective means of meeting them."
CHAPTER XVIII. FRATERNAL ORDERS, SOCIETIES, AND CLUBS.
There seems to be something favorable in the atmosphere of Boston for the multiplication and vigorous growth of fraternal organizations and clubs. In proportion to its population, the city has more social or- ganizations, using that term in the broadest sense, than any other place of like size. It is only fair to remember that when one writes of the population of Boston, one refers to these numbers credited to it by the census for the Metropolis, and not for the Metropolitan District which is thrice as populous, and whose residents make up quite a part of the societies and clubs which are Boston's. Many of the secret societies either originated here, or had the first American lodge established in Boston. It is the American or New England headquarters for some of the larger and many of the smaller of these organizations.
Boston, a Club City-The city is also very much of a club town, al- though not as markedly so as during the closing years of the last cen- tury, when dining and political clubs flourished. There are clubs of almost every conceivable kind, clubs of the strictly social character, the hospitalities of which are enjoyed by men in the various walks of life, some exceedingly exclusive; some where good fellowship counts for more than family. There are professional and business clubs; literary, art and musical organizations; athletic, yacht, country, golf, and other clubs devoted to sports and the outdoor activities; and that thoroughly modern type of club, the Women's, in the formation of which the Bos- ton ladies have been pioneers, and whose organizations hold a foremost place in numbers, character and variety. The fraternal order and the club hold a very definite place in the life of Boston, and are typical of the best characteristics of the city. They give not merely an outlet for very normal impulses, but play a valued part in consolidating what is worthy in Metropolitan affairs, and are of a positive and permanent value in assimilating the various forces and folk which from time to time come to the city from the outside.
The Puritan Family as the Source of Fraternal Orders-When one tries to explain the rise and growth in Boston of the unusually large number of fraternal organizations, associations, societies and clubs, one is apt to seek the explanation in the Puritan origin of the place. The old time Puritan would, no doubt, repudiate such a notion with vigor not to mention horror. And yet the emphasis placed upon the family
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by our forefathers, the character of the organization which ruled the early colony, together with the geographical isolation of the town dur- ing the long formative period and the era of its greatest development, all were such as to make their successors fitted and ready for social and fraternal organizations. The family was the center around which all religious, civic and social activities gathered. A religious impulse brought the Puritan to Boston, and the church, when settlements grew and multiplied, was the nucleus of the town government.
The church society was but an enlargement of the family idea. As one recent writer declares: "The Puritan's belief was that each family was a church in itself, and the father of the family was capable of car- rying on religious service. This identity of religion with family was bound to have a lasting effect, even though in time the original reasons for it were forgotten." Sunday was, from the first, the day of the gath- ering of the clan. However much of religious flavor there was to this gathering, its roots were in sociability, and the clan consisted of all re- motely connected with the head of the house either by blood, friendship or service. The Sunday meeting in the home was the first club of the Puritan, although only in embryo. Even in quite modern times, the Sunday dinner was a regular and important family affair where two or three generations, with their friends, would meet for social inter- course. In the last decade or two, the Sunday dinner has stepped down from its high estate, and the family takes to the motor car and the coun- try club in its search for amusement. The get-together spirit still rules, however, but has broadened beyond the family and even the church; it manifests itself in all sorts of organizations where neighbors meet and join hands for definite purposes that concern all. It is the family spirit, the neighborliness of the Bostonian that makes for the multiplicity of social and other organizations.
The Taverns and the Social Organizations-Perhaps the cynical would trace the origin of fraternities to the desire to get away from home and family and religion, and point out that Boston's first clubs and social organizations were born in the taverns of the early days. The tavern came in with the church, and it was to this that our forefathers turned to find surcease from the weariness of the daily occupations and the monotony of their religion.
In 1651, John Vyall, of Boston, was given the "Libertie to keep a house of Common entertainment if the Countie Court Consent, provided he keep it near the new meeting-house." This ancient tavern, which Vyall kept for many years, was the "Ship Tavern" on the corner of the present North and Clark streets; the brick building in which it was in- stalled stood for more than two hundred years. It was not as "near
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to the new meeting-house" as most of the ordinaries of the day, and probably had less trade because of this. The Sabbath of the Puritan was somewhat depressing, the services lengthy and the church was without heat. There was a real need for cheer and warmth after a long morning spent in listening to the preacher. What more natural than that a "public" should be installed close to the meetinghouse and that it should do a good business on Sunday? One writer sums up the situation: "For three hours the minister preached hell-fire, after which the congregation headed by the minister and the elders, trooped across the green to thaw out before the open fire in the hostelry." Neither were potions for in- ward warmth lacking, nor their use frowned upon by the clergy.
The taverns of Boston, and they were many in the early days, had their cheerful public room with its cavernous fire-place and inviting bar ; a very pleasant meeting place for those who had put in a long day in fighting the land or the sea for a livelihood, and who had no place to go other than the crowded cabin, or none too palatial house. Then it was the place to which came the visitor, whether from abroad or from the neighboring parts of the colony. Here one heard the latest news, pub- lic affairs were discussed, market prices were quoted and made. The tavern keeper not only had a full supply of drinkables, but had the first choice of the food supplies brought into the town. When the stomach was full and the fire blazed, and the "flip" began to loosen the tongue, then ideas came thick and fast, and men were bold to state what they thought of things in general, and of politics in particular. The taverns were the meeting places of the patriots before the Revolution. Who can estimate what the tavern did to bring about the Revolution ?
Early Societies-There seems to have been little tendency on the part of the Puritans to organize in societies, clubs and the like. The setting up of the church and the establishing of a town and State in the face of opposition from abroad and disruption at home, was enough to ab- sorb all their powers of organization. When the Colony was made a Province with royal appointees as governors having headquarters in Boston, there was introduced a new type of society, one which did have their clubs, of a sort. These new-comers were not of Boston, nor did they think very highly of the Puritan settlers of the town. They had a get-together spirit, which gave them the advantage which unity al- ways gives, and this advantage was soon recognized by the natives who wanted to be rid of them, so that they could manage their affairs as they had before a king interfered. This was the period when the tavern came to be the center of the political life of the community. Par- ticularly was this true of the hostelries scattered throughout the Prov- ince way from Boston, for the Bostonian was more closely under the
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eye of the Governor, hence had to hatch his schemes elsewhere. Prior to the Revolution, societies were formed, such as the Sons of Liberty, of which Paul Revere was the one-time head, in some back room of a public. The Committee of Safety and the organized efforts of the patriots, pre- ceding revolt, were started in taverns. The country hostelries were the headquarters of the militia, and usually the recruiting place, the meeting place for the train company and the minute men, the green in front serving as the drill ground.
The oldest social organizations in Boston which have come down to the present day are the military ones, such as the Ancient and Hon- orable Artillery Company, chartered in 1638, or the First Corps of Cadets (1741), and others. Socially, they were nurtured by the taverns of their early days. Next came the benefit societies, or charitable organizations, other than those established as a part of the government of the town and colony. Of such was the "Scots Charitable Society," dating from 1637, formed supposedly in the Ships Tavern which has already been mentioned. It was not, however, until the few decades before the Revolu- tion that men created formal organizations for social purposes, and these were principally patriotic. The oldest of the modern fraternities, if we do not include trade and patriotic organizations, date mostly from the eighteenth century. And these were fathered, and often mothered by the old tavern which also supplied them with a home. Nor must this ancestry of the Masons, the Odd Fellows, and a few others be sneered at, for as has been indicated, the early caravanseries were, second only to the church, the most important, most educative, except the schools, and the most patriotic institutions of their day.
The Green Dragon Tavern-The Green Dragon Tavern in Union Street is the most famous of the early hostelries, a fame perpetuated, in later years, by the Masons. In the ancient days, it was the possession of Governor Stoughton, having been built just prior to 1700. It was a two-story brick building, with a rod projecting from it on which "crouched the fabled monster of antiquity." Another name by which it was known was the "Freemason's Arms," for it was the home of the first Grand Lodge of the Masons, which met regularly in the upper story. The tavern seems to have been the meeting place for organiza- tions of various characters, and more patriotic schemes than ever has been made known were hatched out in the room of the Masonic lodge. Paul Revere wrote that he was one of a body of thirty mechanics who "formed ourselves into a committee for the purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers and gaining every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings in the Green Dragon Tavern." The early meetings of the Massachusetts Charitable Associa-
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tion, organized in 1795, were also held in the hostelrie. The tavern was acquired by the St. Andrew's Lodge, about a decade before the Revolu- tion, remaining in its possession for more than a century. The old building was demolished in 1828, when the street had to be widened to accommodate the increasing travel to Charlestown.
The First Masonic Lodge-The St. Andrew's Lodge was not the first Masonic organization of Boston, it having been preceded by the St. John's Lodge by twenty years. This body is claimed by some to have been the first Masonic organization to be regularly established in America. The claim is disputed by Pennsylvania based on the statement, that "His Grace, the Duke of York, Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of England, deputed on June 5, 1730, Brother Daniel Coxe, a justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, as the 'Provincial Grand Master of the Province of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- vania in America.'" There does seem to have been some sort of a lodge which met irregularly in Philadelphia about 1730, or even before the appointment of Brother Coxe. Benjamin Franklin's "Gazette," of De- cember 8, 1730, has a reference in it to the "several lodges of Free Masons erected in this Province." Coxe is supposed to have issued a charter to one of the lodges of Philadelphia prior to 1733, so the palm of priority must be given to Pennsylvania, since the St. John's Lodge of Boston was not formed until that year. It is of interest to note that a Boston young man, Benjamin Franklin, was elected Provincial Grand Master at Philadelphia, in 1734, and that he was appointed to this office in 1749, by Thomas Oxnard, of Boston, then the Provincial Grand Mas- ter of America.
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