putterings 096 < 097 > 098 index
It does not get anywhere.
The result is puttering work, such as I and others in this city have been and are connected with, whose influence depends wholly on some personality, varies in character with each person, and ends when the personality disappears. Puttering as is the work with which I have been personally connected, and in spite of excellent and sometimes devoted and self-denying work of the paid staff, the $100,000 or more which has been expended in endowment and support during the last twenty years has not yielded in units of uplift and Americanization anything like an adequate return for the outlay.
514
and —
I will fuss no more nor give another dollar to the aid of puttering work. It does not get anywhere.
516
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all of the above with regard to integration of immigrants (who come from cultures other than English-speaking white sources) into American society. Settlement houses are not viewed as cost-effective.
from Remarks by Edward F. Adams, in “Discussion of the Meeting” (512-24), Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California 14:13 “Immigration” (San Francisco, January 1920), that meeting devoted to immigration and Americanization and, here, “Immigration—Should It Be Restricted?”
followed by a speech (by invitation) delivered by James D. Phelan (1861-1930), whose slogan while running for re-election in the US Senate was “Keep California White” —
“Phelan consistently advocated for the Chinese Exclusion Act, the 1924 Immigration Act, and recommended the relocation of Japanese immigrants on multiple occasions (‘The Japanese Evil in California’).”
wikipedia
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Edward F. Adams was a farmer and businessman who settled in California. In California, he farmed in Santa Cruz County, was an organizer of farm cooperatives, and eventually agricultural editor and writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Commonwealth Club of California.
Frank Adams was a distinguished professor of irrigation at the University of California Berkeley and an international consultant on agriculture. He was key to the development, distribution, and use of water in the West.
Edward F. Adams, 1839-1929, by Frank Adams. (Berkeley, Calif., 1966) : from finding aid to Edward F. Adams collection, 1850-1958 (Bancroft Library)