That which some cities attempt to secure through coördinated private activities, the City of Los Angeles, California, now undertakes as a municipal experiment in its newly created Municipal Charities Commission. This Commission, established by city ordinance, “aims not only to protect the public in its expenditure of money, but to prevent the overlapping and misdirection of philanthropic endeavor. That this is made possible is due to the broad power conferred on the Commission and to the appointment of members who are familiar with all phases of social work.” Two women are members of this Commission. It will be watched with interest: hopefully by those who believe in a thorough public correlation of overlapping agencies; somewhat despairingly by those who fear political influence and the reëstablishment of the old system of relief. The skillful organization of private charity and its success in gathering financial support has led to a comparison of state, county and municipal charitable institutions with those under private management. This comparison has generally revealed an astonishing disproportion in values; in Pennsylvania, for instance, it was shown, “that a single hospital under private management had received a larger subsidy from the legislature than the Eastern Penitentiary, with an average of 1,400 convicts; that of $16,000,000 which had been appropriated at the last session to charitable and correctional institutions nearly half had gone to 273 agencies under private management, and that 263 of these were local in sphere and yet received over $6,000,000; and that there was almost no coördination or articulation among the state, county, municipal and private agencies that have been multiplying of late, some of which were declared to be utterly superfluous; the need was felt for some strong standardizing influence that should bring order out of the chaos, put the state’s care of its wards on a non-political and scientific basis and act as the originator of new and modern ways of fighting poverty, degeneracy and crime.”[35] To meet this situation men and women came together and formed the Public Charities Association of Pennsylvania. Private support will still be necessary but its aim will be to secure united support for a state-wide plan of charitable distribution. Pennsylvania needs, it is claimed, a woman’s reformatory, an institution for feeble-minded women, one for inebriates, and more extensive provision for the insane. This Association hopes to keep the public informed of these and similar needs. The organizing committee which becomes the first board of managers includes Martha P. Falconer, Mrs. Louise C. Madeira, Mrs. Edward Biddle and Mrs. Sarah Rauh. The board will organize county committees in the cities of Pennsylvania.