Social and Religious Conditions in Leading American Cities
THE Men and Religion Forward Movement has just completed a “survey” of seventy-five North American cities with a combined population of twenty million people. The facts brought to light as a result of this investigation are worthy of study. In the United Presbyterian of April 25, 1912, Dr. Charles Stelzle contributes an article giving valuable data. Of the attendance of men and women at Sunday services, he says:— Of those who attend the Sabbath morning services in the Protestant churches, 65 per cent are women, and the morning attendance at all the churches is 65 per cent of the total attendance of the day. More people unite with the church at the age of fourteen than at any other time, and there is a sharp decline in church accession after twenty-one. Forty-one per cent of the churches have organized movements to greet strangers. It is claimed that every member in fully one third of the churches contributes regularly to missions. However, 73 per cent of all the contributions of the Protestant churches in these seventy-five cities for the last fiscal year was used for congregational purposes, and only 7.7 per cent for foreign missions. During the last decade .5 of 1 per cent of men in the churches actually went out from the churches as missionaries to mission fields in the United States or foreign countries, and .2 of 1 per cent, it is claimed, of the men in these churches purpose to become missionaries. The following figures give the relative attendance at Sunday-schools:— Of the enrolment in the Sabbath-schools, 57.2 per cent are women and girls, and 42.8 per cent men and boys; and of the enrolment in the Bible classes, 62 per cent are boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen, while 38 per cent are men. Of the teachers of men’s Bible classes in the Sabbath-schools, 23.7 per cent are clergymen, 36.5 per cent are business men, 11.4 per cent are women, 17.3 per cent are professional men; whereas the teachers of the boys’ classes in the Sabbath-schools are 5.3 per cent clergymen, 7.9 per cent professional men, 8.8 per cent male school-teachers, 19.4 per cent business men, 19.5 per cent men of other classes, 7.5 per cent women under twenty, and 31.6 per cent women over twenty years of age. The following figures and facts are presented relative to crimes and arrests in the seventy-five cities surveyed:— The crimes and arrests indicate that of those arrested 83.9 per cent were men, 9.1 per cent women, 6 per cent boys, and 1 per cent girls. Forty and eight-tenths per cent of the arrests were due to drunkenness, 15.9 per cent to disorderly conduct, 8.2 per cent to disturbance of the peace, 7.8 per cent to vagrancy, 6.1 per cent to assault, 4.8 per cent to larceny, 3.5 per cent to gambling, 5.1 per cent to social evils. The juvenile court records show that 25.4 per cent of the boys committed were guilty of larceny, 26.3 per cent of incorrigibility, 8.2 per cent of truancy, 6.1 per cent of disorderly conduct, 2.2 per cent of assault, and 31.8 per cent of other crimes. The parents of these boys were 52.3 per cent American born, 7.6 per cent German, 5.8 per cent Irish, 5.1 per cent Italian, 2.2 per cent Russian, and 27 per cent were of other nationalities.