The Development of County Public Welfare Work in Missouri

ment had its beginning dates back to 1908. The Board of Pardons and Paroles of Kansas City, of which Mr. Halbert was secretary at that time, found that the conditions which affected the discharged offender needed to be supervised. In addition to this, there was a great deal of unemployment, and problems presented by the delinquent, dependent and defective classes came into the foreground. Because of this situation, Mayor T. T. Crittenden appointed a committee of three to study social and living conditions among these classes, and to draw up recommendations for improvement. This committee soon found that more was necessary. It recommended that the Mayor appoint a large representative committee which was to make a careful study of the city's responsibility toward the socially inadequate classes. This study was to be the basis of a constructive program. The committee was appointed, and after an intensive study it recommended the establishment of a Board of Public Welfare in Kansas City which was to have general supervision of all welfare work that was done among the socially inadequate classes. On April 11, 1910, an ordinance was passed which provided for the creation of this board. Three days later it was signed and became effective. Mr. Halbert was appointed as the first superintendent of the board. Shortly after Mr. Halbert had assumed his duties with this new board, he was invited to come to Topeka to outline at a public meeting a plan, whereby the principles that were inorpo ated in the Kansas City Board of Public Welfare might be applied in the smaller communities of Kansas.1 Following this, Mr. A. W. McAllister of the North Carolina Board of Public Welfare asked Mr. Halbert for

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