"I know nothing about my father," said the boy to me. "My mother worked in the brick-yard not far from our cottage, where we lived together. I went to school for two years and learned to read and write, a little.
"Every evening I used to go to the bend in the road and meet my mother as she came home. She was always very tired—so tired! She carried clay on her head all day and it was heavy. I used to make the fire and boil the supper and run all the errands to the grocery.
"One evening at the bend of the road I waited for my mother until it was dark, but she did not come. Then I went home crying. I found my mother lying on the bed with her clothes on. She would not wake up. I shook her by the arm, I rolled her from one side to the other, but she would not speak; then, I got on my knees and I kissed her—and her face was very cold. I was scared. I went for the old woman who lived next door. She shook her; then she cried and told me that my mother was dead.
"My mother used to play with me at night and sometimes in the morning, too. When they told me she was dead, I wondered what I would do without her; but all the neighbours were so kind to me that I forgot a good deal about my mother until they put her in a box and carried her away. Then one of the neighbour women took me and said I must live with her; so I did. I sold papers, ran errands, dried the dishes, swept the floor for her; but after a long time she began to speak very crossly to me, and I often trembled with fear.
"One day I decided to run away. After I sold all my papers, I came to the cottage and slipped all the pennies under the door, and then ran away as fast as I could. I did not know where I was going, but I had heard so much about London that I thought it must be a very great place and that I could get papers to sell and do lots of other things; so, when a man found me sitting on the side of the road and asked me where I was going, I said, 'To London.' He laughed and said:
"'Whom do you know there?'
"'Nobody,' I replied, 'but there are lots of people there and lots of work, and I don't like the place where I live.' The man took me to his house and kept me all night and paid my carfare to London next day.
"Many days and many nights I had no food to eat, nor no place to sleep. I did not like to beg, notbecause I thought it wrong, but because I was afraid. I saw boys carrying packages along the street, found out how they got it to do, and imitated them, earning occasionally a few pennies. I saved up enough with these pennies to buy a stock of London papers. By saving these pennies and eating little food, I was able to buy a larger stock of these papers each day. I had good luck, and by economy I managed to live and save. In a few days I was able to pay thru'pence a night for a lodging. One night when I made a big venture in spending all my money on a big stock of papers, I had an accident in which they were all spoiled. I dropped them in a pool of water—and I was penniless again! That night, late, I went up the white stone steps of a big house in Westminster and went to sleep. I had saved a few of the driest papers and used them as a pillow.
"'Hi, little cove!' a policeman said, as he poked his baton under my armpit next morning. 'What are you doing here?' I began to whimper, and he took pity on me and showed me the way to Dr. Barnardo's Home; but when I got out of his sight, I went off in another direction, for I had heard that many boys got whipped down there. I got among a lot of boys on the banks of the river. They were diving for pennies. I thought it was a very hard way to earn money, but I did it too, and got about as much as the rest. I did not stay long on the river bank.The boys were sharper than I was and could cheat me out of my pennies.
"One night I slept under an arch. Next morning I heard the loud sound of factory whistles. Everybody was aroused. Some of the people lying around were going to work there; and I thought I might get a job also, so I followed them. On the way we came to a coffee stall, and as I was nearly fainting with hunger, I stood in front of it to get the smell of the coffee and fresh bread, for that does a fellow a heap of good when he's got nothing in his stomach. A man with a square paper hat on looked at me, and said:
"'What's up, little 'un?'
"I said nothing was up except that I was hungry. Then he stepped up to the coffee-man and gave him some money, and I got a bun and a mug of coffee. It seemed to me that I had never been so happy in all my life as with the feeling I got from that bun and coffee—but then, I had been a good many days without food.
"There was no work to be had at the factory near the bridge, so I went back to the docks. At night I slept with a lot of other fellows under a big canvas cover that kept the rain from some goods lying at the docks ready to be shipped. I think there must have been as many fellows under that big cover as there were piles of goods. It was while there that I thought for the first time very seriouslyabout my mother, and I began to cry. The other fellows heard me and kicked me from under the cover; but that did not help my crying, however. I smothered a good deal of it and walked up and down by the side of the river all night. My eyes were swollen, and I was feeling very badly when a sailor noticed me. He had been to sea and had just returned home. He talked a lot about life on a ship—said if he were a boy, he would not hang around the docks; he would go to sea.
"'Where's yer folks?' he said to me.
"'Ain't got none,' I said.
"'Where d'ye live, then?'
"'I don't live nowheres.'
"'Shiver my timbers,' he said, 'ye must have an anchorage in some of these parts? Where d'ye sleep nights?'
"'Wherever I be when night comes on,' I told him.
"The sailor laughed, and said I was a lucky dog to be at home anywheres.
"'See here, young 'un,' the sailor said, 'I've been up agin it in these parts myself when I was a kid, and up agin it stiff, too; and there ain't nothing around here for the likes of ye. Take my advice and get out o' here. There's a big ship down here by the docks—Helvetia. Sneak aboard, get into a scupper or a barrel or something, and ship for America.'
"The idea of 'sneaking aboard' got very big in my mind, and I went to Woolwich where the ship was lying; and I met a lot of other boys who were trying to sneak aboard, too. I thought my chances were slim, but I was going to have a try, anyway. These boys that were thinking of the same thing, tried to get me to do a lot of things that I knew were not right. There was stuff to steal and they knew how I could get it. There were kind-hearted people around, and they wanted me to beg. When they said the ship was going to sail, I got aboard and hid on the lower deck.
"Two days after that I thought the ship was going to the bottom of the sea, and I didn't care very much, for I had been vomiting, and it seemed as if my heart was breaking, and I was sick—so sick that I didn't care whether I was dead or alive. One of the sailors heard me groaning and pulled me out by the leg. Then he looked at me and swore; caught me by the neck and dragged me before the captain. I was so sick I could not stand; but the captain was not angry. He was very funny, for he laughed very loudly, and said:
"'Put the kid to work, and if he doesn't do it, put a ten-inch hose on him!'
"Four of us altogether had stowed away on that ship. The other boys laughed a good deal at me because I got the easiest job of them all. When I was able to stand on my feet, they made me cleana little brass cannon. I could clean it sitting down, and I liked the job when I was not sick. Every one was good to me, and I had a happy time the last few days of the voyage. Then I came to New York and met you."
This, in briefest outline, is the story of Johnnie Walker. I met him at a mission on the edge of the North River, and was as touched by his story as others had been before me. So I took him to my home, introduced him to the bathroom and to a new suit of clothes, and Johnnie entered upon the happiest days of his life. After a few weeks I handed him over to the Children's Aid Society, and they sent him out West. He has always called me "father."
One evening I asked him what he knew about Jesus and he replied, "Ain't 'ee th' bloke as they swears about?"
His ideas of prayer were also dim, but he made an attempt. He wrote a letter to God and read it on his knees before going to bed.
He is now a prosperous farmer in the far West, living on a quarter section of land given to him by the Government, and on which he has made good his claim to American citizenship.
A sharp contrast to this waif of the street is the case of a statesman under a cloud. I was sitting on a bench near the bunk-house one day at twilight, when I noticed a profile silhouetted against the window. I had seen only one profile like that in my life, and that was when I was a boy. I moved closer. The man sat like a statue. His face was very pale and he was gazing vacantly at the walls in the rear of the building. Finally, I went over and sat down beside him.
"Good evening," he said quietly, in answer to my salutation. I looked into his face—a face I knew when a boy, a face familiar to the law-makers of Victoria for a quarter of a century. I called him by name. At the sound of his own name, his paleness turned to an ashy yellow.
"In Heaven's name," I said, "what are you doing here?" He looked at me with an expression of excruciating pain on his face, and said:
"I have travelled some thousands of miles in order to be alone; if you have any kindness, any pity, leave me."
"Pardon me," I said, "for intruding."
That night the Ex-Club invited him to take part in their deliberations. He refused, and his manner showed that he considered the invitation an insult. I had known this man as a brilliant orator, a religious leader, the champion of a sect. In a city across the sea I had sat as a barelegged boy on an upturned barrel, part of an immense crowd, listening to the flow of his oratory. Next day he left the bunk-house. Some weeks afterward I found him on a curbstone, preaching to whoever of the pedestrians would listen.
At the close of his address, I introduced myself again. He took me to his new lodging, and I put the questions that filled my mind. For answer he gave me the House of Commons Blue Book, which explained the charge hanging over him. Almost daily, for weeks, I heard him on his knees proclaim his innocence of the unmentionable crime with which he was charged. After some weeks of daily association, he said to me:
"I believe you are sent of God to guide me, and I am prepared to take your advice."
My advice was ready. He turned pale as I told him to pack his trunk and take the next ship for England.
"Face the storm like a man!" I urged, and he said:
"It will kill me, but I will do it."
He did it, and it swept him to prison, to shame, and to oblivion.
Nothing in the life of the bunk-house was more noticeable than the way men of intelligence grouped themselves together. Besides the Judge, there were an ex-lawyer, an ex-soldier of Victoria and a German Graf. I named them the "Ex-Club." Every morning they separated as though forever. Every night they returned and looked at one another in surprise.
At election-time both political parties had access to the register, and every lodger was the recipient of two letters. Between elections a letter was always a matter of sensational interest; it lay on the clerk's table, waiting to be claimed, and every lodger inspected it as he passed. Scores of men who never expected a letter would pick it up, handle it in a wistful and affectionate manner, and regretfully lay it down again. I have often wished I could analyze the thoughts of these men as they tenderly handled these rare visitors conducted by Uncle Sam into the bunk-house.
It was a big letter with red seals and an aristocratic monogram that first drew attention to a new-comer who had signed himself "Hans Schwanen." "One-eyed Dutchy" had whispered to some of his friends that the recipient of the letter was a real German Graf.
He was about sixty years of age, short, rotund,corpulent. His head was bullet-shaped and set well down on his shoulders. His clothes were baggy and threadbare, his linen soiled and shabby. He had blue eyes, harsh red hair, and a florid complexion. When he arrived, he brought three valises. Everybody wondered what he could have in them.
The bouncer was consumed with a desire to examine the contents, and, as bouncer and general floor-manager of the house, expected that they would naturally be placed under his care. When, however, it was announced that the newcomer had engaged "One-eyed Dutchy" as his valet, the bouncer swore, and said "he might go to ——."
There was something peculiar and mysterious in a ten-cent guest of the Bismarck hiring a valet. The Germans called him Graf von Habernichts. He kept aloof from the crowd. He had no friends and would permit no one to establish any intercourse with him.
His valet informed an intimate friend that the Graf received a check from Germany every three months. While it lasted, it was the valet's duty to order, pay for, and keep a record of all food and refreshment. When the bouncer told me of these things, I tried very hard to persuade the Graf to dine at my house; but he declined without even the formality of thanks. After a few months, the revenue of the mysterious stranger dried up and "One-eyed Dutchy" was discharged.
A snowstorm found the old Graf with an attack of rheumatism, and helpless. Then he was forced to relinquish his ten-cent cot and move upstairs to a seven-cent bunk. When he was able to get out again, he came back dragging up the rickety old stairs a scissors-grinder. Several of the guests offered a hand, but he spurned them all, and stuck to his job until he got it up.
Another snowstorm brought back his rheumatism; he got permission to sit indoors. The old wheel lay idle in the corner; he was hungry and his pipe had been empty for a day and a night; but still he sat bolt upright, in pain, alone, with starvation staring him in the face. The third day of his voluntary fast he got a letter. It contained a one-dollar bill. The sender was watching at a safe distance and he recorded that the Graf's puzzled look almost developed into a smile. He gathered himself together and hobbled out to a nearby German saloon. Next day came the first sign of surrender. He accepted a commission to take a census of the house. This at last helped to thaw him out, but it didn't last long.
His rheumatism prevented him from pushing his wheel through the streets and I secured him a corner in a locksmith's basement. He had not been there many weeks when he disappeared. The locksmith told a story which seemed incredible. He said the old Graf had sold his wheel and given theproceeds to an Irishwoman to help defray the funeral expenses of her child.
Some months later, the clerk of the bunk-house got a postal card from "One-eyed Dutchy." He was on the Island, and the Graf and he were working together on the ash gang. I secured his release from the Island.
When he returned to the bunk-house, every one who had ever seen him noted a marked change. He no longer lived in a shell. He had become a human, and took an interest in what was going on. One night when a few of the Ex-Club were exchanging reminiscences, he was prevailed upon to tell his story. He asked us to keep it a secret for ten years. The time is up, and I am the only one of that group alive.
"In 1849 it was; my brother and I, students, were in Heidelberg. Then broke out the Revolution. Two years less of age was I, so to him was due my father's title and most of the estate. 'What is Revolution?' five of us students asked. 'We know not; we will study,' we all said, and we did. For King and Fatherland our study make us jealous, but my brother was not so.
"'I am revolutionist!' he says, and we are mad to make him different.
"'The King is one,' he said, 'and the people are many, and they are oppressed.'
"I hate my brother, and curse him, till in our room he weeps for sorrow. I curse him until he leaves.
"By and by in the barricades he finds himself fighting against the King. In the fight the rebels are defeated and my brother escapes. Many are condemned and shot. Not knowing my heart, my mother writes me that my brother is at home.
"I lie in my bed, thinking—thinking. Many students have been shot for treason. Love of King and Fatherland and desire to be Graf, are two thoughts in my heart.
"I inform. My brother is arrested, and in fortress is he put to be shot.
"Four of us students of patriotism go to see. My heart sinks to see my brother, so white is he and fearless. His eyes are bright like fire, and he stands so cool and straight.
"'I have nothing but love,' he says; 'I love the cause of truth and justice. To kill me is not to kill the truth; where you spill my blood will Revolution grow as flowers grow by water. I forgive.'
"Then he sees me. 'Hans!' he says, 'Hans!' He holds out his arms. 'I want to kiss my brother,' he says. The General he says, 'All right.'
"But I love the King. 'No! I have no brother! I will not a traitor kiss!'
"My Gott! how my brother looks! He looks already dead—so full of sorrow is he.
"A sharp crack of guns! They chill my heart, and down dead falls my brother.
"I go away, outside glad, but in my heart I feelburn the fires of hell. Father and mother in one year die for sorrow. Then I am Graf.
"I desire to be of society, but society will not—it is cold. Guests do not come to my table. Servants do not stay. They tell that they hear my mother weep for sorrow in the night. I laugh at them, but in my heart I know them true. Peasants in the village hide from me as I come to them.
"But my mind is worse. Every night I hear the crack of the rifles—the sound of the volley that was my brother's death. Soldiers I get, men of the devil-dare kind, to stay with me. They do not come back; they tell that they hear tramp, tramp, tramp of soldiers' feet.
"One night, with the soldiers, I take much wine, for I say, 'I shall be drunk and not hear the guns at night.'
"We drink in our noble hall. Heavy doors are chained, windows barred, draperies close arranged, and the great lamp burns dim. We drink, we sing, we curse God und das Gesindel. 'We ourselves,' we say, 'are gods.'
"Then creeps close the hour for the guns. My tongue is fast and cannot move; my brow is wet and frozen is my blood.
"Boom! go the guns; then thunder shakes the castle, lightning flashes through the draperies, and I fall as dead.
"Was I in a dream? I know not. I did notbelieve in God; I did not believe in heaven or in hell; yet do I see my past life go past me in pictures—pictures of light in frames of fire: Two boys, first—Max, my brother, and I, playing as children; then my mother weeping for great sorrow; then the black walls of the great fortress—my brother with arms outstretched. Again my blood is frozen, again creeps my skin, and I hear the volley and see him fall to death. I fear. I scream loud that I love the King, but in my ear comes a voice like iron—'Liar!' A little girl, then, with hair so golden, comes and wipes the stain of blood from my brow. I see her plain.
"Then I awake. I am alone; the light is out; blood is on my face. I am paralyzed with fear, so I cannot stand. When I can walk, I leave, for I think maybe that only in Germany do I hear the guns. For twenty years I live in Spain. Still do I hear the guns.
"I go to France, but yet every night at the same hour freezes my blood and I hear the death volley.
"I come to America, which I have hated, yet never a night is missed. It is at the same hour. What I hate comes to me. Whatever I fear is mine. To run away from something is for me to meet it. My estate is gone; money I have not. I sink like a man in a quicksand, down, down, down. I come here. Lower I cannot.
"One day in 'the Bend', where das Gesindel live, I see the little girl—she of the golden hair who wiped my stain away.
"But she is dead. I know for sure the face. What it means I know not. Again I fall as dead.
"I have one thing in the world left—only one; it is my scissors-grinder. I sell it and give all the money to bury her. It is the first—it is the only good I ever did. Then, an outcast, I go out into the world where no pity is. I sit me down in a dark alley; strange is my heart, and new.
"It is time for the guns—yet is my blood warm! I wait. The volley comes not!
"The hour is past!
"'My Gott, my Gott!' I say. 'Can this be true?' I wait one, two, three minutes; it comes not. I scream for joy—I scream loud! I feel an iron hand on me. I am put in prison. Yet is the prison filled with light—yet am I in heaven. The guns are silent!"
One day a big letter with several patches of red sealing-wax and an aristocratic monogram arrived at the bunk-house. Nearly two hundred men handled it and stood around until the Graf arrived. Every one felt a personal interest in the contents. It was "One-eyed Dutchy," who handed it to the owner, and stood there watching out of his single eye the face of his former master. The old man smiled as he folded the letter and put it into his pocket,saying as he did so: "By next ship I leave for Hamburg to take life up where I laid it down."
The only man now living of those bunk-house days is Thomas J. Callahan. He has been attached for many years to Yale University and doing the work of a janitor. Many Yale men will never forget how "Doc" cared for Dwight Hall. He is now in charge of Yale Hall. The circumstances under which I met Doc were rather peculiar.
"Say, bub," said Gar, the bouncer, to me one day, "what ungodly hour of the mornin' d'ye git up?"
"At the godly hour of necessity," I replied.
"Wal, I hev a pal I want ter interjooce to ye at six."
I met the bouncer and his "pal" at the corner of Broome Street and the Bowery next morning at the appointed hour.
"Dat's Doc!" said Gar, as he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.
His friend bowed low and in faultless English, said: "I am more than pleased to meet you."
"I can give you a pointer on Doc," the big fellow continued. "If ye tuk a peaner to th' top av a mountain an' let her go down the side sorter ez she pleases, 'e c'u'd pick up the remains an' put thim together so's ye w'u'dn't know they'd been apart. Yes, sir; that's no song an' dance, an' 'e c'u'd play any chune iver invented on it."
Doc laughed and made some explanations. Theyhad a wheezy old organ in Halloran's dive, and Doc kept it in repair and played occasionally for them. Doc had a Rip Van Winkle look. His hair hung down his back, and his clothes were threadbare and green with age. His shoes were tied to his feet with wire, and stockings he had none. Doc had studied in a Medical College until the eve of his graduation. Then he slipped a cog and went down, down, down, until he landed at Halloran's dive. For twelve years he had been selling penny song-sheets on the streets and in saloons. He was usually in rags, but a score of the wildest inhabitants of that dive told me that Doc was their "good angel." He could play the songs of their childhood, he was kind and gentle, and men couldn't be vulgar in his presence.
I saw in Doc an unusual man, and was able to persuade him to go home with me. In a week he was a new man, clothed and in his right mind. He became librarian of a big church library, and our volunteer organist at all the Sunday meetings.
After two years of uninterrupted service as librarian, during which time Doc had been of great service in the bunk-house, I lost him. Five years later, crossing Brooklyn Bridge on a car, I passed Doc who was walking in the same direction. At the end of the bridge I planted myself in front of him. "Doc," I said, "you will never get away from me again." I took him to New Haven, where he has been ever since.
It is needless to say that several years' work in the midst of such surroundings gives one a hopeless outlook for that kind of work. In 1891 a movement to establish a municipal lodging house was organized, and I became part of it. A committee composed largely of business men met in the office of Killaen Van Ransellaer, 56 Wall Street. In discussing the plan of a municipal lodging house, the "Wayfarers Lodge" in Boston, an institution of the character under discussion, was pointed out as a model, and it was decided to send a representative to Boston to investigate and make a report on it.
I was suspicious of the printed report of the Boston place. It spoke of the men getting clean bedding, clean sheets and good meals; and experience was teaching me that that kind of catering for the tramp would swamp any institution. Then, I knew something about the padding of charitable reports. I did not care to offer any objection to the sending of a representative, but I determined to go myself; so, dressed in an old cotton shirt with collar attached, a ragged coat, a battered hat and with exactly the railroad fare in my pocket, I went to Boston. I stopped a policeman on the street, told him I was homeless and hungry. "Go to the Police Station," he said, and knowing that at each Police Station tickets of admission were served, I presented myself to the Sergeant at the desk.
Furnished with a ticket, I went to No. 30 HawkinsStreet, and there fell in line with a crowd of the same kind of people I was working with and for on the Bowery. We had about an hour to wait. When it came my turn for examination, I was rather disturbed to find the representative of the committee sitting beside the superintendent, investigating the tramps as they passed. I knew he could not recognize me by my clothes, but I was not so certain about my voice, so I spoke in a low tone.
"Open your mouth," the superintendent said. "Where are you from?"
I kept my eyes on the ground and answered a little louder, "Ireland."
"You are lying," the superintendent said. "Where are you from?"
"Ireland," I answered again in the same tone.
Two kinds of checks lay on the table in front of him—one pile green, the other red. After answering the rest of the questions, I was given a red check and taken to a cell where a black man stripped me to the skin.
"Why did I get a red card while most of the others got a green card?" I asked.
"You're lousy, boss, dat's why."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"Steam 'em." So he tied my clothes in a bundle and put them under a pressure of two hundred and fifty pounds of steam, the coloured man remarking as he stowed them away: "What's left of 'em whenthey come out, boss, aint gwine to do no harm." Then I was marched, sockless, with my shoes on and a metal check strung around my neck, to the bath where I was taken charge of by another coloured man.
"Here!" he said, as he pointed to an empty tub. I bathed myself to his satisfaction and then looked for the clean towels of the "Annual Report," but found them not. Instead, there was a pile of towels already used—towels made of crash—and I was told to select the driest of them and dry myself.
"I was clean when I went into that tub," I said to the black man—"I am cleaner now; but if I dry myself with this sodden piece of crash, I will be dirtier than when I began." The black man proceeded to force me to do this and his attempt nearly ended the experiment, for I refused pointblank to do it. "No, thank you," I said, "I will walk up and down until I dry."
When the superintendent of that department was called into counsel, my use of English rather surprised him, and he let it go at that. Then we were marched upstairs to bed; there were one hundred and fifty beds in a big dormitory. I looked around for the linen of the "Annual Report," and was again disappointed. The cots were furnished with horse blankets.
The method of arousing the men in the early morning was rather unique. A man with a stick—a heavy stick that reminded me of an Irishflail—thumped the bare floor, and, to my astonishment, there was a rush of this savage-looking, naked crowd to the door. As I knew no reason for the excitement, I took my time.
I followed the men to the boiler-room, where, after calling out my number, I got the bundle corresponding to it, and it looked like a crow's nest. Everybody around me was hustling to get his clothes on, boiled or unboiled; and again I was mystified as to the hurry. When I arrived in the yard, I discovered the reason for this unusual activity of my parishioners. The first men out in the yard had a cord of wood each to saw, and it took twice as long to chop as it did to saw it. Those who were last had to chop. I took my axe and began my task. Soon the splinters were flying in all directions. The man next to me was rather put out by this activity and said that if he wanted to work like that he could do it outside.
"This ain't no place to work like that," he said; then he began to expectorate over my block and annoy me in that way. I tried a few words of gentle persuasion on him, but it made him worse. He bespattered my hands and the axe handle, and I took him by the neck and ran him to the other end of the yard and dumped him in a corner. Any kind of a fuss in that yard had usually a very serious ending; but this had not, for the yard superintendent took my part.
I think it was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon when I finished my wood, and went in to get breakfast, which consisted of a bowl of gruel and two hard biscuits. One of these biscuits I kept hanging in my study for two years. After breakfast I marched into the office, and said to the superintendent:
"Brother, I want to ask you a few questions which belong to a domain—that mysterious domain that lies between the facts and your 'Annual Report.'"
"Are you a reporter?" was his first question.
Assuring him that I was not, I asked him the necessary questions, and, furnished with some real information, I returned to the Wall Street Conference.
I think John H. Finley of the City College was the representative, and he rendered his report. Then I stood up and told of my experience which differed vitally from the re-hash of the "Annual Report." The facts, as I found them, were all in favour of such an institution. A man would have to be mighty hard up to go to the Boston municipal lodging house; and that is exactly what was needed. The necessity for padding the "Annual Report" I could never find out.
The municipal lodging house agitated at that time is now a fact. It has been duplicated. On February 19th, 1893, in the Church of the Covenant on Park Avenue, I made the suggestion, and it was published in the papers the following day, thatthere was a splendid opportunity for a philanthropist to invest a few million dollars at five per cent. in a few lodging houses on a gigantic scale. What connection the Mills Hotels bear to that suggestion, I do not know, but they are the exact fulfilment of it.
A few years in that work gave me a terrific feeling of hopelessness, and I longed for some other form of church work where I could obviate some of the work of the Bowery. The best a man could do on the Bowery was to save a few old stranded wrecks; but the work among children appealed to me now with far greater force. I also saw the necessity of the preacher touching not only the spiritual side of a man, but the material side also. A preacher's function, as I understood it after these experiences, was to touch the whole round sphere of life.
About this time the old church of Sea and Land at the corner of Market and Henry streets was to be put up for auction. The New York Presbytery wanted to sell it and devote most of the money to the building up of uptown churches. I was sent there by the missionary society to hold the place until they got a good price for it. I gathered the trustees around me—a splendid band of devout men, mostly young men—and I did not need to tell them that it was a forlorn hope. They already knew it.
We outlined a plan of campaign to save the church for that community, and the result is that the church is there to-day. Of course, the district is largely Jewish, but there were enough Gentiles to fill a dozen churches.
It was inevitable that we should get in touch with the Jewish children. We had a kindergarten, but made it known to the Jewish community that we were not in the business of proselyting, and that they need have no hesitation in sending their children to our kindergarten, which was a great blessing to thewhole community. Sunday evenings in the spring and fall, I spoke to large congregations of Jewish people from the steps of the church, on the spirit of Jewish history—as to what it had done for the world and what it could still do.
I think it was in the early part of 1893 that I began my work there. It was the year of the panic, and the East Side was in a general state of stringency and starvation. A group of ministers of various denominations got together and devised a plan for a cheap restaurant in which we were to sell meals at cost.
Probably for the first time in the history of New York, a Roman Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist pastors sat down around a table to talk over the welfare of the people. A committee was formed, and I nominated the Catholic priest for chairman. He was elected. The restaurant did not last very long, and probably the chief good of the thing was the getting together of these men. Difficulties, of course, came thick and fast. Kosher meat for the Jews, fish for the Catholics on Friday, and any old thing for the Gentiles, were the smallest of the difficulties to be overcome.
I was supported in my church work by a band of young men and women, mostly from a distance, who gave their services freely, and in the course of a year or two, we managed to increase the church membership by a hundred or so, and occasionallywe filled the structure by serving out refreshments to the lodging-house men of the Bowery. I had an opportunity to touch the social needs of the community by coöperating with the University Settlement which was then in its infancy. I opened the church edifice for their lecture course which included Henry George, Father McGlyn, Thaddeus B. Wakeman, Daniel de Leon, Charles B. Spahr, and W.J. Sullivan. Sixteen years ago these men were the moving spirits in their respective lines in New York City. The New York Presbytery was not altogether pleased by this new departure in church work; but we had the lectures first, and asked permission afterward. Most of these men filled the church to overflowing. In the case of Father McGlyn, hundreds had to be turned away.
As I sat beside Father McGlyn in the pulpit, I said, "Father, how do you stand with the Pope, these days? What is the status of the case?"
"Well, Irvine," he said, "I can best explain it by a dream that I had some time ago. I dreamed that a young priest visited me with the intention of getting me to recant. 'McGlyn,' he said, 'if you don't recant, you'll be damned!' And I thought for a minute or two and then gave the only answer that a man with a conscience could give: 'Well, brother, I'll be damned if I do!'"
I found myself drifting quietly out of old methods of church work, and attempting, at least, to applyreligion to the conditions around me. Every aspect of social life was in need of remedial treatment. Of course, I did not neglect the religious teaching, but what the situation demanded was ethical teaching, and, without making any splurge about my change of view, I worked at whatever my hand found to do in that immediate neighbourhood.
Alexander IrvineAlexander IrvineFrom a sketch by Juliet ThompsonToList
Alexander IrvineFrom a sketch by Juliet ThompsonToList
The push-cart men and organ-grinders were terrorized by the policemen. I hired an organ-grinder one summer afternoon to play for several hours, so that the children of the neighbourhood might have a dance on the street. It was a joy to my soul to see these little bits of half-naked humanity dancing by the hundreds on the streets and sidewalks, most of them barefooted, hatless and coatless. It was on one of these occasions that I discovered the petty graft exercised on the organ-grinders. The push-cart men all paid toll to the policeman on the beat, and the captain of the precinct winked at it. The officers of the precinct looked upon the religious leaders as "easy marks"—every one of them. The detectives of the Society for Prevention of Crime went through my parish and discovered wholesale violations of excise laws and city ordinances by the existence of bawdy-houses and the selling of liquor in prohibited hours and on Sundays. The captain of the precinct came out with a public statement that these men were liars; that the law wasobserved and prostitution did not exist. As between Dr. Parkhurst and the captain of the precinct, the public was inclined to believe the captain.
One Sunday evening after service, I dressed in the clothes of a labourer, took several men with me and went through the parish. The first place we entered was the East River Hotel, a few blocks from my church. We purchased whiskey at the bar. I did not drink the whiskey, for under oath I could not tell whether it was whiskey or not; but my companions were not so hampered. After paying for the liquor, we were invited upstairs, and there we saw one of the ghastliest, most inhuman sights that can be found anywhere on earth outside of Port Said. We counted forty women on the first floor. We saw them and their stalls, surroundings and companions, and we beat a hasty retreat. A cry of alarm was raised, and the barkeeper jumped to the door. It was secured by two heavy chains. No explanation was made, but a straight demand that he open the door, which was done, and we passed out.
The grand jury, which at that time was hearing report and counter-report on the condition of the neighbourhood, had for a foreman a Tammany man who owned several saloons. We went into these saloons one after another, purchased liquor in bottles, and next morning appeared before the grand jury armed with affidavits, and the liquor. Dr. Parkhurst stood at the door of the jury room as I went in,and whispered to me as I passed him: "This thing cannot last forever."
The first few minutes of my testimony I was unconsciously assuming the position of a criminal myself, and apologizing for interfering with these gentlemen. The assistant district attorney, instead of representing the people and standing for the Law, was inquiring into my reasons for doing such an unusual thing. I objected to the foreman sitting on his own case.
"This man," I said, "is an habitual violator of the Law. I am here to testify to that; so are my companions. We have the evidence of his law-breaking here," and I pointed to the bottles that we had placed on the table.
They did not move, however, and I think they rather considered the whole thing a joke. We proceeded to describe the East River Hotel and similar resorts that a few days previously had been described as immaculately clean by the captain of the precinct. The result of all this was the sustaining of the testimony of Dr. Parkhurst's detectives. The petty graft among the organ-grinders and the push-cart men went right on. Complaints were jokes and were treated as such.
The change of seasons brought little change in the activities of a church centre like that. In the winter it was the provision of coal and clothes. In the summer it was fresh-air parties and doctors.