Addams discusses the problems that charity workers face when they bring middle-class assumptions about the poor to their efforts to practically help them.
A 28-page illustrated pamphlet outlining the work and social conditions of newsboys and newsgirls, based on a two-day intensive investigation. In it the Committee proposes revisions in child labor laws to curb the worst excesses.
Addams describes the poverty of the Hull-House neighborhood in the early days of her work there. She discusses the lack of security and loneliness of the elderly, as well as child labor.
The author sympathizes with the McNamara brothers, who bombed the Los Angeles Times building in California in October 1910, because they were insane but criticizes the Chicago newspapers for responding with bigotry against the Irish community.
Addams offers praise of John Dewey' and his work for social welfare, criminal justice reform, education, and peace. The speech was given on October 19, as part of a seventieth birthday celebration in New York and published in the Survey.
