Part 10

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. The mother 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"?

WHY THEY GIVE

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 were to 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 use a 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 them SIXTEEN hours 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 to _help the poor_, the suffering, and not the manufacturers."

"Yes," I was answered, "but this institution exists through the bounty of the _rich_ and 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 in reducing 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 charitable organisation 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 the _high 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 reason for 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.

THE KITCHEN

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 other better 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 little sweatshop 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 fill their 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 are _for the rich_. Kitchens! A place where the spiders spread their web to catch the hungry flies--to suck their blood.

CHOCOLATE

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 10 A. 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 ten per 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!

OUT OF THEIR CLUTCHES

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 arms and 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.

"THE HOME"

The husband dead and she left with four small children, the woman had to apply to charity. An investigator was sent and she found the family on the verge of starvation. As she was speaking to the applicant an old man, with grey beard and bent shoulders, came in.

"Who is he?"

"My father," the widow answered.

Further questions brought out the fact that the old man had lived in his daughter's house since his wife died; that he was too weak and old to earn his living and consequently fed on his daughter's fare. The investigator insinuated that the old man would have to be placed in a "Home." The widow cried and vowed that she would never part with her father, and the children surrounded their grandfather as though he was in actual danger of his life. The result was to be foreseen. A week's hunger brought the widow to the office, where she agreed to part with her father, so that her children might live.

The old man took no active part in the controversy concerning his future. Apathetic, he would sit near the open window and read the Psalms. He said no word when his daughter announced to him what the outcome was. A few minutes later he asked: "When am I to go?" Then he packed his belongings, the "Tefilin" prayer books, and was ready.

Thus are the people of woe ready to wander. He has been in many lands and many a time he has had to leave his abode, go from east to west, north to south.

That very night he slept in the "Home."

Home! the most horrible word for the poor. Home! The whole world calls home the place where one lives. For the poor, the old ones who cannot work any longer, "the Home" is the place where they die. It's the place that stamps them, brands them as eternal paupers. It's the crowning glory of a life of work, manual work. I know you will say: "What else could we do with the poor, incapable of earning their living?" But now come with me down to a few "homes." Don't become ecstatic over the beauty of the lawn in front of the house, nor admire the cleanliness of the kitchen. Come down to look at the men. Do you see this old man there? The one with flowing white beard and bushy eyebrows? That old Jew has made chairs and tables all his life, has made your chair, too, and his neighbour there--the one with trembling hands--he has worked on coats and overcoats, enough for thousands. Look at his hands now. They tremble. Look at your coat. The seam is straight, you want a straight seam. He is here now, in a Home. Look at them all. They have worked all their lives long.

"Come here, old man. What is your trade?"

"A furrier."

"Old man, what is your trade?"

"A tinsmith."

"And yours? and yours? and yours?"

"Tailor, dressmaker, machinist"--every trade is represented.

The veterans of industry. The temple of Invalids.

The widow's father lived there only two months. I saw him buried in the cold ground. An old man from the Home stood near the grave.

"I wish to be buried right here," he said.

"Why?"

"I got used to him--we were neighbours. His bed was next to mine."

"What was the matter with the old Baruch?" I asked.

"The servants did not like him," he answered.

"Was he ill? I mean old Baruch."

"No, the servants did not like him."

"But that's no reason for a man to die!"

The old man looked at me from under his bushy eyebrows. His look said plainly: "You stupid ass." Then he turned away from me and mingled with the other people. He avoided me when I approached him.