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242 THE CRISIS
blast and build bridges and make straight the roads of the world, and I am going to find that place—with you.”
  She smiled back trustfully at him. “Only keep true to your ideal, dearest,” she whispered, “and you will find the place. Your window faces the south, Louis. Look up and out of it all the while you are here, for it is there, in our own southland, that you will find the realization of your dream.”
DON FRANCISCO
By: CLARENCE BIXBY
For several years past, the natives, Americans and Europeans who drifted into the prosperous province of La Union to trade always returned to Manila with various sized tales of Don Francisco, who had “muchos caballos y era muy rico tambien,” without even once giving a hint that the Don was anything different from what the name might imply——a full fledged and unadulterated Castillano.
  During all of these years it was naturally supposed, from the title (beware of titles), that the Don was a loyal subject of the Spanish Crown ; perhaps a remnant of the Spanish army who had gone into the province during the late reign of the Dons and had acquired an undue share of the province’s wealth by methods that belong to the “Castillo’s” alone. But on my first visit to La Union a few months ago, much to my surprise and pleasure, I found, to the contrary, that the Don was not a Spaniard at all, but a swarthy son of Ham who had gone to the islands in 1899 as part and parcel of the Army of Uncle Sam, from which he was honorably separated in 1901.
  I found him happily located in the capital city of the province, San Fernando, living in splendid state in one of its baronial bungalows and owning some three or four others; a bachelor surrounded by luxuries and wealth, books, pianos, costly furniture and fixtures, a retinue of servants, some hundred head of horses, native and imported; mules, carabos; bull arts, wagons, carromatas, automobiles, boats, and last but not the least, he is the proud possessor of a bulldog.
  It is told that while the Don was yet a soldier he discovered the need of transportation in La Union and set about to fill the want by purchasing a carromata and horse, which he found profitable from the beginning, his principal customers being his fellow soldiers. This was the beginning of his fortune. To his one carromata and horse he added a condemned army mule and wagon, and opened up a “narrow gauged” between Camp Wallace and San Fernando, and so Don Francisco, and his transportation line “grew and grew.”
  He gathered and hauled to the post the wood, water and grass for the quartermaster’s department, hauled the soldiers to and from the post, as well as furnished transportation to the neighboring towns. As the years rolled by he gradually augmented his rolling stock until to-day he has an absolute corner on transportation, both land and water, for the entire province; for as yet there are no railroads in the province.
  Besides being master of the situation so far as transportation is concerned, Don Francisco has entered other fields. He conducts the only general merchandise store and owns the hotel to be found in the province. He operates a carpenter and blacksmith shop in connection with his establishment, and does a commission and brokerage business. 
  “Don Francisco” as he is known throughout La Union province, is none other than Frank Smit, Jr., a modest, young colored American, a native of the Buckeye State, who attached himself to the Army of Occupation, came to the Philippines and has resided in them ever since.
  Mr. Smith, through his thrift and energy, has amassed a considerable fortune, his wealth being estimated at $150,000. He contemplates opening a garage and establishing branch merchandise stores in Naguilan and Aringay, towns of the same province.
  If you ever visit the Philippines, go to the province of La Union, and ask for “Don Francisco.” You will neither regret the visit nor forget the acquaintance.

NATIONAL LEAGUE ON URBAN CONDITIONS AMONG NEGROES
  The improvement of conditions among rural Negores through the many agricultural institutions, extension courses and demonstration stations, the funds established for lengthening the school year and better teaching methods in the schools has been one of the achievement of recent decades. The slowness with which interested persons have been organized in cities for improving the conditions among urban Negroes is one of the many sad facts of urban life. Delayed reforms frequently are characterized by more energetic and effective action than the long, drawn-out campaign against the evils which seem to feed and thrive on the attacking measures, and also are greeted with quicker acceptance and more generous recognition than the older measures to which we have become so accustomed, that they fail to make the appeal to the need of our every-day life.
  When, during the spring of 1910, Mrs. William H. Baldwin, Jr., called representatives of the many social welfare organizations working among Negroes to a conference at her New York City home, to consider means of preventing duplication of effort and overlapping of work, of promoting cooperation among the agencies and of establishing new organization to improve neglected conditions, a new era was reached in the handling of the city problem as it affected the Negroes.
  From this meeting resulted the national League on Urban Conditions among Negroes, whose work of uplift is now being felt in ten cities, viz.: New York, Philadelphia, Pa., Norfolk, Va., Richmond, Va., Nashville, Tenn., Louisville, Ky., St. Louis, Mo., Savannah, Ga., Augusta, Ga., and Atlanta, Ga., whose budget has increased from $2,000 to $18,000 per year and whose staff of paid employees has increased from one full-time and three part-time employees to sixteen salaried persons in New York City, three in Nashville and two in Norfolk. In New York City the league has three offices with telephone connections, two in Manhattan, at 110 West 40th Street and 127 West 135th Street, and the third in
[[image of woman working at a desk labeled: MRS. W.H. BALDWIN, FOUNDER.]]
Brooklyn, at 185 Duffield Street, which is in charge of Paul F. Mowbray with Miss Carrietta V. Owens as his associate.
  The account of the activities of the Urban Leagues given below is concerned principally with New York City; yet it will serve more or less as a description of the work in other cities as the plans for movements in other cities are similar to those in New York, with proper allowance for the different local conditions.
  The problem of the city Negro is but the accentuated counterpart of the problem of all urban inhabitants. Segregation and the consequent congestion, the evils of bad housing conditions with their inevitable accompaniment of dangerous sanitation and loose morals, the lack of facilities for wholesome recreation and the ill-regulation picture shows and dance halls combine to make conditions which demand instant relief. Add to this a population constantly augmented by Negreos from Small towns or rural districts of the South, and the problem of the league is before you.
CO-OPERATION AND PREVENTION OF DUPLICATION.
  The most important achievement in the effort to prevent duplication of work and to inspire workers with a co-operative spirit was the consolidation of the National League