No district of any big city in the world has such a desolate miserable look as the "charity blocks" in New York. They are grouped a little everywhere. For this, New York is like the body of Job, with sores and wounds all over.
Around all the gas houses near the river, north, south, east and west, take any of the gay streets of the metropolis. Forty-second Street, Thirty-fourth Street, Twenty-third and Fourteenth Streets. With what dirt and misery they start on the west, how they get brighter and gayer towards the middle, on Seventh Avenue, how they reach the climax at Fifth Avenue, and how the Third Avenue elevated in the east and Ninth Avenue elevated in the west cuts off the ugly part of the city, like the butcher who trims around the meat. The cheap tallow for the poor and the centre piece for the rich, and all comes from one and the same animal. Just as the meat, in proportion to its nutrition, costs the poor dearer than the rich, so do the apartments of the poor cost more than the Fifth Avenue houses, taking intoconsideration the comfort of the latter. As a matter of fact it is well known that Cherry, Henry, Monroe and Hester Street properties are more profitable, proportionately to the money invested, than Fifth Avenue apartments. No vacant house is to be seen around the celebrated "lung blocks." The terrible stench coming from across the river, where the garbage of the city is dumped, has killed the sense of smell of the poor wretches living there. They wonder at you when you keep handkerchief to your nose while passing. It is an ordeal to pass along Avenue A between Twenty-fifth and Thirty-fourth Streets. The poisonous gas combines with the stench of the slaughter house, and the piled up garbage in the river. Still the streets are full of children, playing, and God only knows why the poor have so many children.
My work brought me into daily contact with the children. "The nutty scribbler," they called me, the Italian boys pronouncing my title with their peculiar accent; the Russian with theirs and the Jewish boys translating it altogether into their idiom. Poor, underfed and oversmart children; ready-witted and half-witted. Child and old man. Buying sour pickles instead of bread when they get a penny, ready to do anything for a puff from a cigarette. Their ideal is not to become a workingman. They know too well where that leads. Kid Herman, Kid Twist and Red Larry are theirheroes, and in childish contradiction, the policeman is their idol. How they swarm around a newspaper when there is "anything" in it. An interesting murder case, a robbery, a street shooting, these are the sensations of their lives. When the father comes home drunk they envy him and will soon imitate him. They help the burglars hide, and chase the pickpocket over the roofs, together with the detectives, giving advice in turn to the hunted how to escape and to the policeman how to catch him; rejoicing when the bad one has escaped and booing him along the street when he is handcuffed. And every year their domain extends a little further until it approaches the rich. A block from Riverside drive and two from Fifth Avenue—extending continually, like a cankerous wound.
One evening I visited a family that was pensioned by the charities. The father had just been discharged from the consumptive hospital as cured and I was instructed to see whether he was well enough to work. A plan was on foot to open a soda water stand for him, to keep him outdoors, lest he again become sick.
They had five children. The oldest, a girl, was twelve years old. It was ten o'clock and I expressed wonder that the children were not in the house. The mother's answer was not straight.
"They are playing, they are visiting neighbours, I sent them away," were her answers to my questions. I sensed a mystery and decided to wait until they came home. I talked with the man and asked him his prospects for the future, to which he hopefully answered that he was sure to get his old place in the clothing factory as presser. I questioned him about his life in the hospital and sought every way to prolong my visit. The mother was very anxious to get rid of me, but I stuck to the job. About half past ten the children came in, all pale and worn-out, hardly saying good-night, but going straight to bed.
"From where do you all come so late?" I asked.
"From the street," the mother answered and pushed them into the other room. I felt that it was useless to insist, so I retired. The street was deserted. No child's play was going on and the children of the applicant did not appear to be the sort who would stay until the last. I walked up and down the block without meeting a child. At the corner, near the gas house, on Fourteenth Street, I met a policeman and talked the matter over with him.
"The street has turned good these last few weeks. Don't know what's the matter," was his remark.
I did not agree with him and walked up anddown the street until past midnight, when I decided to continue my investigation the next morning.
A postcard advised the office that I would be busy the following morning and could not report. At eight o'clock I was near the house of the consumptive family. The children all went to school. Not to compromise my work I stayed away until noon. The children came for lunch and returned to school. It was early in the spring and a glorious day. I could not help thinking of the beauty of the field and forest on such days, when the green is shooting out from the soil in the gardens, when the plough is carving out slices from mother earth and the birds are singing in the trees. I could not help thinking how life has taken these poor people out of their homes in the little villages of Russia, Poland, Italy and Roumania and has crowded them, nay, herded them together in what is called a tenement row, to sleep there and to work in a sweatshop in the day. How do they feel when they think of their homes, when they see a green leaf, when they hear the song of a bird? When one has colour in his face they say that he still has the "home colour." When they mention a feat of strength or endurance they add: "It was my first year here you know."
At threeP. M.I was back at my post. Iwatched the children come from school. With their many-coloured dresses they looked from far away like a swarm of butterflies, but as they approached they became less gay, less expansive.
Talk about the influence of home on children! Among a group of children I spied the oldest girl of the consumptive man. She walked more slowly than the others, as though she wanted to retard something that waited for her at home. Finally she took leave of the others and entered the hall. By and bye the other sisters and two brothers came. I waited outside. A quarter of an hour later the oldest girl and the second brother, about nine years old, came out, still chewing the piece of bread they had for tea. They walked hand in hand, and I followed them. They turned the corner and entered a tenement house near Fourteenth Street. I intended to follow them upstairs when I observed many other children of about the same age coming. Some were as young as six and seven, however. Some were biting apples, others, boys of nine to twelve years, throwing away the last bit of the butt of a cigarette, with the regretful gesture of the workingman before the factory door closes on him and the bell rings.
"Where in heaven are you all going?" I asked a group of boys.
"None of your rotten business," was the reply in chorus. I withdrew and watched. One afteranother they went up the stairs until I had counted nearly a hundred. When I saw no more coming I went up the stairs, the dark, ill-smelling stairs, until I reached the third floor. It was a rear yard house. Dark, dirty, dingy. On the third floor I stopped and listened. A buzzing noise came from one of the apartments, as though a thousand hands were crushing silk paper between the fingers. Soon a door opened. A little girl came out. I did not speak to her. Interested, I entered the apartment without knocking at the door. In a room 10 x 15, were two long tables and on both sides sat the little boys and girls on benches. On the tables were piled up all sorts of candies and chocolates, which the children put in paper boxes that lay near them. So engrossed were they in their work that they hardly lifted an eye to see who had entered. A big burly Italian met me and asked what I wanted.
"Is Mr. Salvator Razaza living here?" I asked.
"No Razaza. What you want come here. Get out and shut up." And not very gently he pushed me out.
So this was where they all went. So this was what they were doing. Filling boxes with candy when they had no bread to eat. Here was the place where they buried their youth—the children of the poor!
Outside I saw an old man grinding a hand organ, but there were no children to dance around him on the sidewalk. The street was deserted.
"Rotten business," remarked the old fellow. "No children. Me not know what the matt. All the bambinos morte, sick? Sacre Madonna," the old man shook his head, packed up his organ and thoughtfully went away, carrying his music to other places, where the children are not packing candies in boxes while their stomachs are empty. No, no, old man. The children are not dead.Theynever die. "The children of the poor never die," as Mrs. Barker puts it. They pack candies, but the mystery was only half solved. The rest was easy to get at, late at night, when the children of the consumptive man came home. They had to unburden themselves. All five were working there—piece work, and they were making as much as forty cents a day, the five of them combined. More than a hundred were working in that factory, while many other hundreds of children worked in other factories which had of late started in the neighbourhood. Willow plumes, artificial flowers and packing candies were the chief trades, while the making of cigarettes and labelling of patent medicine bottles and boxes occupied a minor position. On close investigation I found that more than fifty per cent. of thepeople pensioned by charity had their children at work in these murderous shops.
Through a ruse I obtained entrance to several of them. It is so terrible, so unbelievable that I keep from describing it, knowing beforehand that you will say "exaggerated." One hundred children in one room, windows and doors tightly closed. So that the attention of people may not be attracted the children must not talk, must not sing. One little gas burner in the middle of the room is all the light there is. The toilet is almost always out of order. The piece work has so sharpened their ambition that their little fingers fly and they do not want to spare the time for personal necessities. The little girls and boys strong enough to keep back all these hours soon get bladder diseases—while the weaker ones—well, their clothes tell the tale. But the ladies want willow plumes and artificial flowers and Miss So and So has to be given a nice looking box of candy by her beau. The rich men have to get richer and give more money to the charity institutions, and hospitals must be endowed with millions and the sanatoriums for the poor consumptives and the cheap milk mission and the free doctor—all this must be kept up and costs money—and money must be made.
When I reported what I had found out I was told by the Manager not to report it to theFactory Inspectors, because it was so much better that the children should train themselves from early youth to shift for themselves and become self-supporting, and that ultimately they would have to go to work—what was the difference? I was told that I was not telling them anything new, only I should find out who the children were working for and how much they were earning, so that the pension could be reduced accordingly.
"But they are little tots," I argued.
"Well, they are all older than you think," I was answered, "and idleness is so very dangerous."
"But the places are unsanitary," I further insisted.
"They can't build special factories for them, it's too costly in the first place, and secondly it would make too much noise and they would not be permitted to work."
"They will all get sick—consumptive," I said.
"Well, well, it is not so terrible. They have a remarkable power of resistance, and if they do get sick—we will take care of them. That's what we are here for. Mr. Baer, you are an anarchist."
Thus ended my interview on behalf of the children of the poor. I did something on my own hook.
The result?
The factories were moved away to another place. They could easily do it. They did not build any special houses for the trade. Later on I learned that one of the biggest concerns in willow plumes did half of their work through outside contractors and that the price was so low that no woman could make a living at it. The head of this concern is one of the biggest philanthropists and contributors to charities. Still he might not know! Just as the young lady does not know from where her Christmas pleasure money comes—and distraction is absolutely needed.
There was a boy about fourteen years of age who would daily menace his widowed mother with denouncing her to the "office." He terrorised the poor woman to such an extent that she allowed him to do whatever he wanted. He never went to school, he smoked, he drank, he boxed, he went to all the moving picture shows, and all this money he obtained from his mother on the threat to tell the "office." The great sin the woman had committed was that she had remarried, a young man, and the groom had decamped with two hundred and fifty dollars that she had saved up in the seven or eight years widowhood and beggary. The whole affair was a secret to the institution, as the woman feared her two dollars weekly pension would be discontinued should they learn of the marriage.
I happened to visit the home one morning. The boy was pacing the room, almost naked, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his lower lip, his face enraged, his eyes red, and as he paced the room he cursed the mother, who was standing at the stove preparing the food. And thelanguage he used! I heard all the curses of the Bowery as I stood near the door.
"I'll fix you up, you old rag—cough up or I'll smash your ivory."
When I knocked at the door he greeted me with "What d'hell d'you want?"
He had his mouth set for another greeting of the same sort when I gently but firmly pushed his insolent face back and entered.
The woman knew me and the boy probably guessed my occupation, for he proceeded to coerce his mother, motioning and making faces, as though to say: "Yes, or I will tell!" The mother ignored his threats so he casually remarked: "Mrs. Carson!"
The woman made a sign that she would yield and the boy dressed in a hurry.
I busied myself with my notebook all the time, just throwing out a question once in a while. When the boy was all dressed up he beckoned to the mother to follow him into the other room. She did so. I heard a suppressed curse and a deep sigh. The boy came out first. As he passed my chair I stood up and seizing his wrists I asked: "Why don't you go to school?"
No answer.
"Why don't you go to work?"
No answer.
"How dare you insult your mother the way you do, you scoundrel?"
Instead of answering me he turned to his mother.
"You squeaked—ha? That's what you did! You old piece of rot."
Thus spoke a son to his mother. I felt the blood rushing to my head and I struck the blaspheming mouth. He tried to fight back and even took the pose, but I was too much for him. I pinned his arms.
The mother had not moved. If anything she was rather satisfied that the boy got his due. Again the boy twisted around, and looking daggers at his mother he said:
"You'll tell tales? Ha? and let this big stiff hit me? And you'll stay there like a lamp post? Ha! that's what you'll do? I'll croak you, I'll put you right—wait!"
"Do you know," he turned to me, "that—"
"George, George," the mother yelled and covered the boy's mouth with her open palm.
"I know it all," I interrupted. "I know that your mother's name is Mrs. Carson."
The poor mother looked as though she had been struck with an iron bar over the head.
"And now, my boy, give back the money you forced from your mother a while ago." Fromhis pocket the mother took out a dollar and some cents. I compelled the boy to go to school, menacing him with everything I thought would scare him, and obtained from him the promise that he would go the next morning. But when I turned to go, I saw the mother shivering as though in the clutches of fever. She motioned me not to go, then sat down and wept. Of course I knew the reason for her tears. She was afraid her pension would be cut off. She had lied to the institution. She had not told them of her unfortunate remarriage. She was afraid of her son. Why? Because, fearing that the investigator might question her son she had been compelled to lie to the boy and teach him to lie, and he grew up with the knowledge that he could obtain anything he wanted from his mother with the threat of telling the truth. The child grew up a blackmailer. The system of organised charity made him one.
And how many, how many similar occurrences have led to similar results? How many men in stripes could trace their downfall to the "question room" of the Investigator!
As to this particular boy—he went to school for a few weeks but his street habits corrupted the other children, and he was expelled. For a time he sold newspapers on the streets, then he gradually sank lower and lower and was later onsent to a reformatory to expiate a minor offence and from there he will be discharged a graduated criminal.
Webster says: "A university is an assemblage of colleges established in any place, with professors for instructing students in the sciences and other branches of learning, and where degrees are conferred. A university is properly a universal school, in which are taught all branches of learning, or the four faculties of theology, medicine, law, and the science and arts."
I know universities where the students are not instructed in the sciences and other branches of learning, and where degrees of a different kind are conferred on the students; a university where other objects than theology, medicine, law and the sciences and arts are taught.
Burglary, blackmailing, safe-blowing, murder and other applied sciences and arts are taught there.
The professors are incomparably superior to the ones in the colleges; they are men with great experience and they impart their knowledge to their pupils without charging fees. They do it for love.
In the underworld the Reformatory is called "the university." And one who knew, one day remarked to me: "If they (meaning the good citizens) had wanted to create a school wherecrime should be taught they could not have done better than by fixing up a Reformatory. They get a real training there, pass through a sound apprenticeship and are masters of their particular branch when they come out."
"And where does she go every day?"
"In town."
"Does she stay out late at night?"
"I don't know."
"Do men come often to the house?"
"Sometimes."
"Is she sometimes drunk? I mean, does she use whisky? Is there whisky in the house?"
"Not that I know of."
"Does she smoke cigarettes?"
"No."
"Is she visiting the moving picture houses?"
"No—never."
To whom are these questions put? To the children of the poor. The "she" referred to is the mother, and the child is often not older than eight years, and sometimes younger. And who puts the questions? The investigators, of course.
On the information of a neighbour that Mrs. S. "eats meat every day and goes to the moving pictures," a widow's pension was cut off and she was submitted to the test.
A few days later, when the mattress and brokenchairs were on the street the woman was in the office crying, tearing her hair and beating her heart. She begged the Manager, she begged the investigator—"Pity—pity—have pity on me and my children." But they turned a deaf ear. When the poor woman got beyond control the janitor was called to help and he made it short. He put her out.
For more than an hour she sat outside on the steps. Then suddenly she got up and disappeared. A half hour after she was back again, but not alone. She had brought her three children—a little boy of five and two girls, one seven and the other nine years old. She wanted to go in, but the janitor, acting on the orders given, did not let her pass the door. When she once had put her foot between sill and door he simply beat her off. Her screams and cries could have melted a heart of stone, but not that of a janitor of a charity institution. They are picked men, of a special brand.
I spoke to the investigator and tried to convince her that the test had gone far enough, but she was not satisfied.
"That woman," she said, "is acting—acting her part. I am not going to be taken in. No, she would not fool me."
Then suddenly she ran out and through the open door I saw how she literally tore away the threechildren from their mother's hands and when the mother wanted to follow her little ones the door was slammed and caught the fingers of the unfortunate woman. She screamed, the children screeched and all the other applicants ran to the door, wailing, crying—but the investigator ordered them all away. Only the janitor finally took pity and brought a wet towel to wrap around the injured hand. However, she was not let in. The investigator dragged the three little ones away to her room.
I don't know why I was under the impression of seeing a wolf carrying away three little chicks to his den.
She brought them to her room and when she saw me coming she slammed the door and remained alone with them. From outside I heard the children crying and the questioning intonation of their torturer. She changed her tactics every minute. First she was sweet and promising, then loud and menacing, then again persuading, convincing, suddenly threatening, intimidating—a real Scarpia in petticoats.
Meanwhile the mother stood outside, a wet towel on her arm, crying and beating with her head the heavy closed door. It was the hour when the "committee" was going home. An automobile stopped at the door and the Manager majestically descended the broad stone steps,seated himself comfortably on the cushioned seat, buttoned his coat and beckoned to the driver. A few seconds later he was enveloped in a cloud of dust.
After all, why not speak simply? From where all that money? Even if it is only from the salary, does it not prove that he is getting too much? Isn't that money destined to pay for other things than gasoline, and a liveried chauffeur? Has any one of those that bequeathed a certain amount of money to an institution written in his will that a proportion of the money shall go for gasoline, liveried chauffeurs and high salaries? Of course, a certain amount of money is necessary for expenses, but is there no reason to feel that there is "something rotten in Denmark" when A Little Mothers' Association gives out a report that around eighty per cent. of the total amount of money was spent on office work, salaries and investigators and only twenty per cent. went to the poor? The reason they give is that they prefer to spend fifty dollars on investigating before giving five dollars, for fear of giving to the undeserving, and that the large amount of money spent on salaries, etc., shows the good and thorough work of the institution. Then why not be consistent and spend the whole amount the same way? It will show still better work, greater efficiency. Why not put up a sign: "Thisinstitution is founded with the object not to give charity," or call it "The Society to Prevent Pauperisation of the Poor." But this does not pay. No fool will give money for such a purpose. I foresee a day when the poor will protest that their names and qualifications should not be used to obtain money under false pretences—a day when the poor will elect fromwhomthey want to receive charity.
But to come back to the wolf. After a quarter of an hour another young woman, usually at work at the desk, quit her chair and went into the room. She was all excited, as one might be before the curtain rises on the scene when the villain is killed. She moved around on her chair, bit her nails, squeezed her fingers, broke nibs—the wolf smelling a rabbit. She at last could not resist temptation, so she entered the room. And then I heard both their voices. Another investigator appeared. She was the oldest in the place, and reputed to be a marvel. (She afterwards obtained a position in the Juvenile Court—"the right place for the right woman.")
"What's the matter in there?" she asked the office boy.
"Clipping wings of little birds," he answered laconically.
It was the first time I had ever heard a sentence which so well characterised the work.
The old "maman" hardly had patience to throw off her coat when she rushed into the fray. After a short lull during which the three conferred probably, the old cove took charge of one of the little ones, and went into another room.
The whole thing lasted more than an hour and was given up as unsuccessful. The children were thrust out to the mother. She was ordered to come to-morrow.
The three women seated themselves together and the younger one, thinking of the great exploits of the police detectives, Sherlock Holmes stories, remarked:
"A regular third degree."
The janitor, very interested in charity affairs, asked: "Did you sweat them?"
The old "maman" thought deeply for a few moments then she exclaimed with feeling:
"Come to think of it, they refused my candy! Isn't that a sign that they had enough of it, that they get candy every day?"
"Of course," joined the two, "it certainly is so—children to refuse candy! Who ever heard of it?"
"When are they coming to-morrow?"
"In the morning."
"Well, I will try to help you in this affair. I don't think they are deserving."
As she went to write her report she kept on saying:
"A nice bunch—a nice bunch."
Presently the office boy approached, chewing gum.
"Confessed, condemned to the electric chair?" he asked.
I was ushered into the private room of the superintendent of the Orphan Home. After a few moments' introductory talk he brought me down to the kitchen—a large, spacious room with all the modern cooking paraphernalia. The cook presided over the stove, on which were a dozen pots. Three pale little girls were peeling potatoes.
From there we went to the dressmaking room, where half a dozen girls under the supervision of an expert were making dresses, shirts, sheets and all the other linen of the house. Though it was a beautiful spring day they had to use gas light, the room was so dark. The superintendent noticing my gaze fixed on the burning light, explained:
"It is not too dark here, but you can't make them understand that artificial light is bad for the eyes. It's a pity to waste money on gas, but you can't do everything just right."
From the dressmaking room he led me to the dining room, which was a very large, light room, with one big white marble table in the centre.Little girls were busy setting the table for the noon meal. Soon the bell rang and a hundred pair of tripping feet followed the call to lunch. In a few moments they were all sitting around the table. A big cauldron of soup was brought and the bowls filled with the steaming food. A hundred little mouths munched and chattered and whispered, the older girls supervising the younger ones, the stronger ones often getting the slice of bread belonging to the weaker.
One of the "old ones" approached the superintendent and told him: "Clara Morris does not eat."
"Why?" he asked.
"She cries, sir," the girl answered.
"Bring her to my office," he ordered.
Then he turned to me and explained: "The new ones don't assimilate readily. There is especial difficulty in the matter of food. Their taste has been spoiled with spicy food and they can't eat the simple, wholesome food we give them here. The first few days they don't eat at all, but when they get good and hungry they fall to it like the rest. And they eat—oh! they eat. If you could see the bills for food for a month you would gasp. A fortune is spent. The fruit bill alone is above three hundred dollars a month. They get all the fruits of the season, but they would prefer pickles and sour tomatoes. I tellyou for some of them it's lucky their parents died. I shudder to think what would have become of them." As he was speaking the office girl called him to the telephone. I went straight to the child who refused to eat and asked her why she refused the food. It was the child of an applicant and she knew me.
"I can't eat it—it tastes bad. See for yourself."
I took a spoonful of the supposed lentil soup and tasted. It smelt and tasted like dishwater. Of lentils it had only the colour and the name. Then I tasted the meat and the pudding, and understood why they had to be hungry for a few days before they could touch it. I looked at the faces of the children. All ghastly pale, with bent shoulders and fallen-in chests and toothpick legs—only the eyes were living, the feverish, longing eyes of the people of woe.
The children ate the bread, some chewed a bone, alternating with a bite from a quarter of an apple, the fruit of the season, and as an extra treat, because I was there, two dates were given to each. Once in a while a little tragedy would happen. A big one would take away a slice of bread from a small one, and the protests of the robbed were stilled with threats and pinches.
"When is your happiest time here?" I asked one of the girls.
"Every six weeks," she answered.
"Why so?"
"Because then I am in the kitchen for two days and can eat as much as I want."
Soon the superintendent came again, and as he insisted on my visiting the classes while at work he invited me to lunch with his family. I was introduced to the lady of the house—who in turn introduced me to their daughter, a young Miss of twenty, with round, healthy body and rosy cheeks and stupid eyes. Mr. Marcel talked all the time, explaining to me how ungrateful the children of the poor are. I was seated directly opposite him at table and had an opportunity of studying him at close range. For the first time I remarked his gluttonous lips and round, protruding belly. He followed every plate with his eyes and ceremoniously pushed his sleeves back before he carved, as though officiating at a holy rite. The more he ate the more he wanted, and seeing such a luncheon and the fruit at the table I quite believed that "The fruit bill alone was three hundred dollars a month."
I turned to the girl and asked:
"How do you like living here?"
"It's nice."
"She is practically born here," the mother explained.
"Then you went to school here," I asked.
"Oh, no—no—" all three, father, mother and daughter protested in chorus. "We would not place our child withthem," the mother said indignantly, while the father, who was so shocked that he stopped eating his pudding, said:
"One is willing to sacrifice his own life, but one has no right to do so with one's child."
After luncheon Mr. Marcel delivered himself of the following lecture.
"That's the big mistake of the people outside. They don't seem to realise that in an orphan home you have the scum of the population. The very fact that their parents died young and poor is a proof of the bad root they grow from. Most of the time the father or mother or both have been drunkards, sick and idle. Idleness is a disease and an hereditary one. Why are they poor? because they are degenerates. A healthy man is never poor. Why are they sick? Because they are careless and dirty. Why do they die young if it is not because they are degenerates and careless and dirty? We get their children. They all have bad habits, bad characters, are insolent and indolent, and they all long for the street, the free street. This desire for the free street is terrible. We have here a splendid garden—have a look through the window, sir—a splendid garden is it not? It's my greatest pleasure! They want the gutter. We have a tremendous work to do,and I am happy to be partially successful. We break them of their evil habits, curb their insolence and teach them order and submission, order and submission, order and submission," he repeated.
The heavy meal soon told on the gentleman and his speech lost its clarity and his tongue stuck in his mouth. He was soon dozing in his chair and I was saved from the awkward position by Mrs. Marcel who gave me the freedom of the place, while explaining that Mr. Marcel was working very hard and was always tired at that hour.
I went down to the garden. There wasn't a child there. One of the teachers sat on a bench reading a paper.
"Excuse me, madame, but why don't the children use the garden?"
"They are not allowed, sir."
I soon saw them pass out from the refectory to the classroom, like little mourners coming from the cemetery where their parents were buried. There are one hundred children, all girls, between the ages of seven and fourteen.In five hours' time I did not hear one laugh, did not see one smile.All have but one hope. To reach the age of fourteen and then be placed. It matters not where nor to what work! The main thing is to get out of the "box" as the children call it. But only six out of ten reach the age of fourteen. The hospital is the anteroom of the grave.
When I spoke of the great proportion of sick among the children and of the pallor of all, the superintendent explained:
"You must not forget that these are not normal children. They are the offspring of degenerates—of the poor."
In all the world, in all the charitable institutions, poverty is a crime. Thus are the children, the orphans, treated like little would-be criminals and every move is regarded with suspicion. Not half of the money given for their food is spent on food and not a half that is given for their clothing is spent for them. The whole institution is a shame and the man who thought he was performing a good deed when he left a bequest to shelter the children of the poor is cursed instead of being blessed.
And the devil sits on the stove and says: "This is the best place that man ever built for me."
This was a model Orphan Home. I have since visited other places and found everywhere the same situation, with little variations. The conditions in a Paris house are no better than those in Chicago, and the children are not more unhappy in Montreal than in Berlin. The children of the poor, the orphans, are everywhere little criminals that Mr. Levy, Monsieur Albert, Mr. Marcel or Herr Grun has to "tame and teachsubmission." The wish of all the children is to get rid in some way of the "box." (This word is used by all the orphans all over the world to designate their home. It is characteristic and shows how suffering is international and conveys to all the same designation of a certain evil.) The girls by getting married or becoming servants. Oh! They don't intend to stay married to the man the institution procures for them. Generally it is an old widower who applies for one, to "make happy a poor orphan." She will not stay with him and her vow is worth nothing—is a subterfuge to escape. And if she goes as a servant it is also only to get out into the world where she will soon fall a victim to the first snare, on account of her inexperience and broken spirit, and her fear of returning to the "box."
Never has the orphan house been described as well as Marguerite Audoux has done it in her "Marie Claire." There, too, you see what the children miss—bread and love—and that what they most want is freedom. The day one of the girls goes away all the others are sad—sad to live between those four walls. The friendship of the cook is one's greatest asset. One can get an extra piece of meat or an apple or a slice of bread. All the while tens of thousands of dollars are given, gardens are made where the children must not enter and food is prepared which thechildren do not eat. Holidays are celebrated and the children are tortured to learn some platitude which they must recite to please the ladies and gentlemen who come to honour the house with their presence. But down in their souls the children hate the whole game. They are not fooled—they know. And one girl confided to me the following:
"There are busts in clay and marble and paintings of all that have started and contributed to this institution. In the centre hall is a white stone plate with the names engraved in gold. Well, every morning I walk up to each and every one and tell him my opinion of his deed. I can hardly keep my fist back from the bust of the one who founded this 'box.' And to the plate, that plate with names engraved in gold—morning and night I say, 'Damn you all.' It's my prayer."
This voices the feeling of all the children.
My visit to the Orphan Asylum was due to the following fact.
Mrs. D., a widow, had two children, two girls, one seven and one ten. When her husband died she placed both children in the Orphan Home. After a few months the younger one died there and Mrs. D. took the other one home. All the charitable institutions did their utmost to get the child back to the institution, but in vain. Themother maintained that the death of her child was due to the negligence of the people in charge there. She said this openly, although she needed assistance. The child, too, would not return, and whenever the name of the institution was mentioned would cling to the mother's apron. The office was afraid that the reputation of the institution would be damaged and so they used every effort to combat the mother's decision. The whole officialdom was very nice and gentle to the widow. Help was freely given, and they even spoke of buying her a candy store, on condition that she free herself of the child. When this course did not produce the desired effect the Manager explained to her that the child would stand in the way of her remarriage, that she was young and had a right to live, etc., etc. When he wanted, the silken gentleman knew how to use unctuous language. But the mother instinct was stronger than the desire for money, for happiness—stronger than hunger.
Finally supplies were cut off. It was expected that hunger, "King Hunger," would settle everything. And "King Hunger" did settle it. Two months later two lines in a newspaper spoke about his success. She was found dead with her child lying near her. The gas-jet was open and the coroner is investigating whether it was an accident or suicide.
I give only the outlines of this miserable affair. It did not go as smoothly as it appears on paper. The visits of the mother, the change of tactics, the cries of the child whenever some one approached her. The horror of it all! And the talk of the people at the office. From the Manager to the janitor—cold-blooded murderers. And the threats and taunts and insults. And to-day, when I look back at it all, I think of my visit to this and all the other orphan houses, and I am of the opinion that this mother did not do a bad thing. She had more courage than many others. If they all knew, as this mother did, and if they all were as sincere and truthful to their children, Death would always be preferable to the wreck of what remains. Then, and only then, would the eyes of the world be opened. Then would everything be clear—clear—that no man could with one hand ruin health and spirit, through factory and workshop and adulterated food, dark and dirty tenement houses and Wall Street speculation, and with another hand give donations of a few dollars to palliate the evil he had created.
Or is this perhaps a new interpretation of Christ's words: "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth"?
Among the chief contributors to a charitable institution are two gentlemen manufacturers. One a Mr. W., the other a Mr. M. D.
In the clothing factory of Mr. W. about four hundred workers, men, women and children, are employed. There the lowest wages are paid and a task system, combined with subcontracting and piece work, compels the workers to start at five in the morning, and if you pass at midnight you will still see the lights burning and hear the heavy rolling of the machines.
In the Summer of 1913 the manufacturer took a trip to Europe, and when he returned in September he found a considerable financial depression. His men were employed only part of the time; many were discharged altogether. The average pay of the men was three dollars to four dollars per week, the women and girls one dollar and one dollar and fifty cents. The Jewish holy days approached and as all the workingmen, as well as their employers, were Jews, they were naturally very much worried how the holy days wereto be kept. Two weeks before the Day of Atonement Mr. W. called into his office a few of his men and delivered himself of the following:
"Boys, the holy days are coming. I am a Jew, a good Jew, and thought that you all must be very anxious to get some more money in your pay envelopes so that you may buy clothes for your women and children, and I have decided to see that you all have plenty of work during the following weeks."
The men cheered Mr. W.
"But," he continued, "on one condition, by reducing your prices fifteen per cent. Times are hard. I have had enormous expenses. The holy days are approaching. I have no doubt that all of you are good Jews and would not want to shame your faith, so I hope that all is agreeable to you and you can start to-morrow under the new condition."
Naturally the men refused and assembled in the halls of their union. The leaders of that organisation could not believe that Mr. W. had said what the men reported, though they knew the gentleman very well, and they went to the manufacturer to get an explanation. I was then the Secretary of a Tailor's Union. The result of the conference was that Mr. W. repeated what he had said to his men and added that he saw that this was the best opportunity to cut wages.
"They are all Jews—they will need money for the holy days, so they have to submit. It's my best chance."
It so happened that the men kept well together and did not return to work. They struck. Winter set in very early that cursed year, but the men and women stood hunger and cold rather than submit to such conditions. Weeks and weeks passed and Mr. W. made no effort to settle with his men. We knew he had plenty of work. We knew he was sending work to be done in the country places at ridiculously low prices. Still we knew that there was work he could not send out. None of the men returned to work; none of the other tailors worked there. We watched, and one day we got hold of a newly arrived immigrant with a letter in his hand.
"Where are you going?" one of the pickets asked him, and innocently the man showed his letter. A letter from the charity organisation to the manufacturer in which he was told that the man had just come over, "and will, let us hope, prove to be of the right kind."
The original is in the safe of Local 209 of the United Garment Workers of America.
And then we learned that daily the institution sent men to break the strike, to help the manufacturer who contributed a certain sum yearly to charity because it costs less to do this than to usea strike-breakers' agency. With the help of these institutions the men were beaten. For thirty weeks through the cruel winter of 1913 they remained on strike. When the temperature descended to thirty below zero men, women and children stood naked and hungry. Illness killed them by the dozen. Some of the young girls went on the streets, and the charity institution sent the incoming and ignorant immigrants to the manufacturer, who worked themSIXTEENhours a day for five dollars or six dollars a week.
"Men, what are you doing?" I asked the managers of the institution. "You are supposed tohelp the poor, the suffering, and not the manufacturers."
"Yes," I was answered, "but this institution exists through the bounty of therichand they are the first to be considered."
"Then this is a strike-breaking agency?"
"Call it what you will."
Then we went to the manufacturer.
"Have you no heart? You know that the cost of living is going up. How can you reduce wages?"
The answer was: "First I am a business man, and as such I must try to reduce the cost of production. I saw my opportunity. As to the high cost of living, I am convinced that the chief reason for this is the high cost of production, and inreducing the wages of the men I lower the cost of production." Of course with such brutes discussion is useless. But his parting words are interesting:
"Believe me, sir, I suffer to see my men in misery. You know I am a heavy contributor to charity."
It was too much for me.
One more point in regard to the outcome of the strike. A certain influential man of the city succeeded in bringing about a settlement through arbitration. The workers selected two men, the manufacturer another two and the editor of a Jewish newspaper presided. Mr. W. as well as the workers agreed to submit to whatever the arbitration committee should decide. On the third day a settlement was reached and the men sent back to work, but when they arrived at the shops hired toughs and detectives cruelly assaulted the starved tailors. Many were carried to hospitals and others were arrested. The manufacturer himself denied that he had ever agreed to submit to an arbitration committee, though he had given his signature to a typewritten agreement.
Mr. M. D., the other gentleman manufacturer mentioned, is one of the richest men in the country. He is a cigar manufacturer. For a long time he was the president of a charitableorganisation and is a heavy contributor to every form of charity.
In the teeth of winter, 1914, he reduced the wages of his workingmen twenty-five per cent. None of the English papers said a word, not a word in the Jewish one, because the gentleman took the precaution to be a shareholder in the publication. The result? A few more dead; a few more on the street; a few more in the hospital; a few more dollars to charity.
And that splendid gentleman, Mr. G., who put eight dollars in Amy's pay envelope, a girl seventeen years old, and when Amy returned the money, saying that only three dollars and sixty cents was due her he said: "Well, well, for the rest of the money I want a kiss," and he took it, and Amy is on the street now.
And Mr. G.? Ye poor of the land don't forget him in your daily prayers. He helps the widow and the orphan.
In a controversy about white slavery I maintained that the chief reason was the low wages paid to the girls, and this gentleman had the audacity to state publicly that the real reason was thehigh wage($3) paid to them; that they get used to luxury. A week after his statement a girl found in a house of ill fame and brought before the Judge frankly stated that she could not live on $3 per week and that this was the chief reasonfor her downfall. Did Mr. G. not himself pay $4.40 (the difference between $3.60 and $8.00) for a kiss? But that's why they give money to charities. To be shielded, to be helped in case of a strike, to procure a talisman.
There was no work to be had anywhere in the winter of 1913-14. The C. P. R. and G. T. R. had discharged men by the hundreds. Factories had shut down, stores closed. Hundreds, nay, thousands, were starving. What had happened? A financial depression! Over-valuation, speculation and other explanations could not still the hunger of the poor and their families. The cost of living and rent went up, and nature seemed to help the rich. What a winter!
Some good-hearted men started a campaign for a kitchen where the hungry could get a complete meal for 5 cents. No sooner was the campaign started and the necessary fund covered, the kitchen well started, when hundreds of men and women went there to satisfy their hunger. Naturally enough, among the chief contributors were the same Mr. W. and Mr. M. D. as well as other manufacturers. My suspicions were aroused. I found there men, newly arrived immigrants, that an Immigrants' Aid Society had sent to work at certain places. They naturally displaced otherbetter paid men, and ridiculously low wages were paid.
"And how do you live on two or three dollars per week?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't spend it all," I was answered. "I send a portion of my wages home to my wife and children to Russia," said one.
"How do you live, then?"
"We eat at the Folks' Kitchen," was the answer.
And there and then I found that nine men out of every ten eating there were employed by one of the other of the manufacturers who contributed to the fund of the kitchen. Any wonder the project immediately materialised? And not only have they given money but the rich send their wives and daughters to serve the poor.
In investigating the cases of those that applied for clothes for their children, the charities eliminated those whose fathers or mothers were on strike at the factories of W. or M. D.—"Fortunate he who can know the causes of things."
I took this kitchen as a sample. Those in other cities, cosmopolitan centres, are the same. Take the Baron de Rothschild kitchen in Paris. Aside from the fact that the food given there is rotten, that the potatoes served are alcoholised, the bread green with mould and the meat unspeakably odorous, aside from all this, a swarm of littlesweatshop keepers are continually around the kitchen where they engage cheap labour.
Cheap! Ye gods. I have tried it myself. They paid me 20 cents a day for fourteen hours' work in an umbrella and cane factory. I worked there a full week and was not the only one. Next to my bench, in front and across, all over, newly arrived men and boys were polishing the sticks, rubbing them so hard that the hands bled. A brother of the manufacturer was watching and driving.
"Come on, come on."
Then in the evening they all ran to the kitchen to get their meal. When they found out I was not green, I was immediately discharged. They wanted only ignorant men, newly arrived men.
Down in the painting room they employed girls. It was more a house of prostitution than a working room. The poor ignorant girls, harvested from the kitchen, were debauched while they painted canes and polished handles.
So many of these sweatshops grew around the kitchen that rent rose in the neighbourhood. Still a bookbinding concern found it convenient to abandon a lease of years and move the whole factory to where it was nearer the blessed spot. More than half of the men working around never received more than one dollar per day and when they went on strike it was an easy matter to filltheir places with the people of the dung hill.
In my presence a prospective manufacturer, discussing the merits of different localities for his plant, was willing to pay $80 per month more for one site than the other because it was in the neighbourhood of the kitchen. He would have cheaper labour. He did underbid all the other contractors and prospered and is an influential member of organised charity to-day.
The small manufacturer advises his men where to get cheap meals. At the kitchen. Cheap kitchens for the poor? Cheap kitchens arefor the rich. Kitchens! A place where the spiders spread their web to catch the hungry flies—to suck their blood.
Investigating in Paris (France) the conditions of charity institutions I was struck by one particularly funny custom which prevailed in one of them. After the applicant had been tortured and questioned until he would prefer death to a renewal of the ordeal he was given as many packages of chocolates as he had children, chocolate of the best kind, also a certain amount of meat and bread tickets. On the back of each ticket was written the stores where he could exchange it for meat or bread.
One of the investigators, having told me that "they" sold these tickets, especially the meat tickets, I decided to find out the reason for this. I stationed myself in a butcher's shop around the Place de la Bastile, whose name and address was on the back of a ticket. Until 10A. M.I had not seen a single ticket coming and I was already drawing certain conclusions when I saw a woman coming in. She laid down on the table five francs' worth of tickets and got two francs in exchange. Then another and another one came and all received forty per cent. of the value. Why?
The next day I obtained a few tickets myself, and going into another butcher shop whose address was also marked on the back of the ticket I ordered four pounds of meat. Politely the man served me, and when he had tied up the parcel nicely, I tendered him the tickets. The man got red with rage and brusquely snatched the parcel, put his meat back on the nails, then, still without speaking a word, only looking daggers at me, he proceeded to scrape together all the spoiled pieces and bones he could find. This he weighed, and wrapping it up in a piece of dirty paper he handed it to me with the remark: "That's good enough for you."
"But, sir," I said, "you get paid for meat and not for scraps and bones."
"Clear out, clear out, you pauper," he yelled. "What impudence—what impudence." And to a new customer who had just come in he explained, "These paupers are getting impossible to deal with."
He pushed me out and I had to get rid of my parcel at the gutter. The odour of it was sickening. But then I understood why they were exchanging tickets for forty per cent. of the face value. With the money thus obtained they could get a piece of meat elsewhere—a piece of meat that was eatable.
These tickets are paid to the butcher less tenper cent. every first of the month. Why are tickets given instead of money for meat, for bread? There must be a reason. There must be some one interested. They are quite abundantly given. Very little ready cash. Blankets, shoes, aprons, meat tickets, bread tickets. Then think of the little consideration shown the feelings of the poor. Why advertise him as a pauper everywhere, at the butcher's and baker's?
As to the chocolate, I learned that a certain rich lady had bequeathed a certain amount of money specially for this purpose, namely, that chocolate of a certain brand should be given to the children of the poor. The good old lady must have loved sweetmeats herself very much and she evidently thought that there was no greater misfortune than to miss the sweet bite. Bless her poor soul!
During the Lawrence strike, in the winter of 1911-12, the striking weavers deemed it proper to send away their children to comrades in other places. The men and women understood that the children should be kept away from the carnage then going on.
Arrangements were soon completed and the children sent away to New York in charge of a few reliable people. But on the second transport the charities took a hand in the proceedings and compelled the Mayor and the Sheriff to stop the exodus. The pretext was that the children were being taken away from their mothers, to whom they belonged, and who should take care of them. To intimidate the workers a few of the parents were arrested and kept under lock and key "to show an example."
No human being could forget the spectacle when the poor little ones arrived. Pale, haggard, starved, cold, naked, with shoes torn, bareheaded, they passed along Fifth Avenue. The ladies and gentlemen lined themselves on the edge of the sidewalk. A woman kept a pet dog in her armsand when she saw a little girl shivering she cuddled the animal to her body.
Could any one forget the first meal the children had. It looked as though they would eat up the spoons and forks. They were afterwards distributed to those who applied for them, to keep them until the strike was over.
It looks very reasonable, does it not? Not to organised charity. They, who insult and torture, got busy and investigated and reported to the Gerry Society. Got the papers busy on the subject and made life miserable for every one who had a Lawrence child. Were they afraid that the workers had wakened up to their own misery? Were they afraid organised charity was going out of business? Were they afraid to lose the fat positions, or was it simply the mania for investigating? Simply the desire to augment the quantity of records? The most pressing local cases were put aside. Everybody was employed getting the children of Lawrence into the clutches of organised charity. They met with very little success, but to me, who knew them thoroughly, their cant of "protect the children," was disgusting.
One of the boys was found alone in a working-man's home. The investigator got busy with so many questions and insinuations (he was Italian and the people keeping him were Jews) that the poor boy ran away, fearing his life was in danger.The Jews needed his blood! He wandered aimlessly on the street. A policeman noticed him, brought him to the station, the reporters got a story:
"The child ran away because he was ill treated." He was ill treated by the investigator who poisoned his soul. They wanted the children of the Lawrence strikers in their clutches, in the clutches of charity. Thank God, they were saved.