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THE JEWISH NEWS

How Social Agencies Serve
Those Who Are in Trouble

Harold Silver, Director of JSSB, Evaluates Importance of
Existing Social Service Agencies in His Review of Mrs.
Steiner's "Where Do People Take Their Troubles?"

WHERE DO PEOPLE TAKE THEIR TROUBLES? By Lee R. Steiner,
Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1945, 365 pp. $3.

Reviewed by HAROLD SILVER

Mrs. Steiner is a psychiatric three articles on the subject).

social worker with a record of ex-
perience in some of the best so-
cial agencies in the country. The
book is a critical examination of
what publishers call the "public
opiates" most common in our day.
She covers them all: from Mr.
Anthony of radio fame and news-
paper columns for the lovelorn,
through "social clubs" and mar-
riage brokers, through fake psy-
chologists and psychoanalysts, to
astrologers, numerologists and
mediums in trance. It is really
amazing how many kinds of "ad-
visors," "counsellors" and "heal-
ers" there are.
The author makes no attempt
to estimate the amount of money
the public spends on them, but
it must easily run - into many mil-
lions of dollars each year, and
all of it wasted in so far as any
real constructive help is concern-
ed.
Lack of Control
Why do people go to them?
There are two answers. One is
that the pressures of industrial
civilization and the standards of
our competitive society are un-
bearable for many people. Beset
by nervous tensions, anxieties,
frustrations, discontents of all
sorts, these harassed people look
for the nearest, or the best ad-
vertised panacea: Good Will
Courts, Dorothy Dix, Yoga, Fa-
ther Divine, Numerology of the
Qaballa, or the House of Ruben-
stein.
The other reason is that there
is no system of licensing or regis-
tration for any practitioners in
the field of counseling, psycholo-
gy or mental therapy. We license
doctors, attorneys, barbers and
plumbers, but we do not require
individuals who presume to han-
dle psychological or emotional
ills to establish their competence
before they embark on the ex-
tremely delicate task of advising
people what to do with their
lives. This criticism does not ap-
ply to ministers and social work-
ers, because, as Mrs. Steiner
points out, in their case the prof-
it motive is absent. In the case
of social workers there is the
additional protection that they
always work under supervision
and under communally sponsored
auspices.
Some Omissions
- The publishers describe t h e
book as "a study of the ways of
men in trouble--a constructive
study of the ways in which they
may best find help." The first
part of the description is amply
documented, the second part is
misleading. The author really
makes n o attempt t o indicate
sources where people may find
help except in the negative sense
of excluding the quacks and the
fakers. There is incidental men-
tion of psychiatrists, psychologists
and social workers, and a similar-
ly tangential consideration of
priests, ministers and rabbis, but
no real study.
Mrs. Steiner has performed a
real service by warning the pub-
lic against taking their troubles
to people who haven't the slight-
est qualification to do what they
pretend and whose sole interest
in the client is his pocketbook.
She could have done even more
by bringing to the attention of
her readers the ready availabili-
ty of competent professional ser-
vices in most of the larger com-
munities. This omission is the
more surprising because these
services are in Mrs. Steiner's own
field—social service. It is no long-
er true that social agencies serve
mainly the underprivileged. (For
example 90% of the people help-
ed by the Jewish Social Service
Bureau of Detroit do not receive
any financial assistance).
Social Agencies' Service
The extension of service t o
broader groups of the population
has recently been characterized
by the introduction of fee charg-
ing in family agencies. (The Sep-
tember 1945 issue of the Jewish
Social Service Quarterly contains

This phenomenon is only about
three years old, but even before
that the skilled services of case
workers in family agencies were
available to all—the poor and
well-to-do alike. Family frictions
and emotional tensions, like dis-
ease, are no respecters of eco-
nomic status, although, to be sure,
poverty can complicate them con-
siderably. The basic needs and
drives are exactly the same for
all people, even if their ways
of expression differ with the in-
dividual and his circumstances.
Because of the historical asso-
ciation of social agencies with
"the poor," middle class people
may be hesitant in taking their

Om- Deadline Is
At 2 p. m. Tuesday

It again becomes necessary for
us to call the attention of our
readers and contributors to the
regular deadline of The Jewish
News.
All copy must reach the editor
before 2 p. m. on Tuesday—pref-
erably in advance of this dead-
line.
Photographs must be submit-
ted for our consideration before
2 p. m. on Mondays.
Copy reaching us after the
deadline will be retained for use
the following week if it is con-
sidered timely.

troubles to family agencies. It
was this consideration, largely,
that prompted the board of the
Jewish Social Service Bureau last
February to approve fee charg-
ing in principle but to defei in-
troduction of it until the current
staff shortages are eliminated,
while continuing its program of
service to families on all income
levels.

Friday, November 23, 1945

Honor Mrs. Werbe
At Dinner Tuesday

Jew Killed, 10 Hurt
In Bucharest Rioting

Mrs. Edward D. Quint, chair-
man of the Jewish Community
Center's art committee, has an-
nounced that a dinner in honor of
Mrs. David B. Werbe will be held
at the Book Cadillac Hotel next
Tuesday evening.
Mrs. Morris Garvett is chair-
man of the dinner committee and
Mrs. Alexander Freeman is co-
chairman.
The program will be opened
with an invocation by Rabbi
Leon Fram. Greetings will be
extended by Miss Florence
Davies, Herman Jacobs and Isi-
dore Sobeloff.
Fred M. Butzel and Clyde Bur-
roughs of the Detroit Institute of
Art will be the principal speak-
ers. Reservations are being taken
by Mrs. Garvett.
The dinner is being held in
conjunction with the 25th an-
niversary art exhibition at the
Center. Walk-talks and receptions
are being sponsored by the fol-
lowing organizations: Sisterhood
of Zion Michrachi, Monday at 2

BUCHAREST, (JTA) — Minis-
ter of the Interior Teohari Geor-
gescu disclosed that one Jew was
killed and 10 injured during the
royalist demonstration in front
of the King's palace last week.
The victims did not partici-
pate in the demonstration, but
were attacked far from the Pal-
ace Square where the demonstra-
tion and the subsequent clashes
took place, the Minister said.

p. m.; Music Study Club, Wed-
nesday, at 2 p. m.; Detroit Fine
Arts Alliance, Tuesday, Dec. 4,
a 2 p. m.; Detroit Section Na-
tional Council Jewish Women,
Monday, Dec. 3, at 2 p. m.; In-
fants Service Group, Wednesday,
Dec. 5, at 1 p. m.; Senior Hadas-
sah, Sunday, Dec. 9, at 8 p. m.
Programs have already been
held by the Ladies Auxiliary of
the Jewish Home for the Aged,
Mothers Clubs of the Jewish
Center and the Pallette and
Brush Club.

for Today and Tomorrow

Always, Michigan industries have had the
know-how and even in the pit of depres-
sion— the courage to expand and prepare.
Hence, when war came Michigan could take
the lead and become the "Arsenal of De-
mocracy."

So, too, Michigan's electrical needs always
have been anticipated by The Detroit Edison
Company. Long before the war, orders had
been placed for two ioo,000-horsepower gen-

B"

erators. One was delivered and put in oper-
ation during the war. The second is being
installed and will be in operation sometime
in 1946. We expect that more current will
be used for peace than was needed for war.
There will be no "standing in line" for that
current.

The Detroit Edison Company is ready to
serve all the electrical needs of southeastern
Michigan today and tomorrow.

DETROIT EDISON co.

