Part 4

The children are out of school. The street has taken on life. Girls are jumping the rope and the boys have taken out their skates and glide gracefully up and down the sidewalk. Their faces are red, their eyes are brilliant and their arms swing to and fro to keep their balance. In an empty lot a group of Jewish boys fight it out with some Irish youngsters. On another lot another group of Irish and Jewish boys play base-ball.

I ring the bell of Mrs. B.'s home. No answer. I inquire of the neighbour. "Are the B.'s home?"

"The children are back from school and are probably out in the street, the little loafers." She closed up. I would like to speak with her further, so I knock at the door.

"Excuse me for inconveniencing you, madam, but could you tell me when Mrs. B. will be home--whether she is at home in the morning?"

"I could not tell you, sir."

"Does she go out to work?"

"I don't know--I don't care. Ask some one else. Every day another bother about the poor woman. I am tired of answering. The charity again?"

"No, no," I assured her. "I have some other business with her. I am an old friend from the time her husband was yet alive."

"She'll soon be in. She is probably talking with a neighbour. Wait; I'll go and ask the boy. He must be near the house."

Presently she put a shawl over her shoulders, gave a last look to the boiling pots, covered one, took another off, and was soon with me in the street. She looked to the right and left, asked the grocer and butcher, and finished by calling down the street: "Mike! Mike! Where are you, loafer?" She soon distinguished him among the other boys and pointed him out to me. He was standing with his back to us watching the other boys as they glided on their skates.

"Mike, Mike!" the woman called, but the boy was too engrossed to hear her. Together we walked up to him. "That gentleman wants to see your mother, you loafer," the woman introduced him, and went her way. A boy of twelve years old, who looked like one of eight by his physique, and like an old man by his wrinkled and worn-out look. Pale, stooping, with a little nervous twitch around the lips and a short tearing cough as he spoke. This told the tale of his misery.

"What do you want?" he asked me angrily.

"Come into the house," I answered, and putting a hand on his shoulder I signed him to follow me.

"I want to stay here," the boy said, and with a jerk he freed himself from my hand. "I want to watch the boys play--run on the skates," and he turned away to watch one particularly able boy as he made fancy figures with his feet.

"Where are your skates, Mike?" I questioned.

"I have none. What's it your business?"

From the empty lot flew a ball. Mike caught it and was about to throw it back when one of the boys called out:

"Hi, Hi, Mike--charity kid--hurry up. Throw the ball here. Hurry up."

Angry, Mike threw the ball in the opposite direction and flashed back a short sentence that gave his opinion about his insulter. A fist fight was the result and the poor lad would have gotten the worst of it had not his mother suddenly appeared from behind, and hitting the aggressor and the child she separated them and took her son home. He wriggled as though he wanted to go back to fight, but his mother had him well in hand. I followed them. At the entrance of the hall I waited a few minutes before knocking at the door, listening. The mother scolded, the boy cried and a little girl's voice pacified.

"Come in."

"Mrs. B.?" I inquired.

"Yes, sir," the woman answered, and as she spoke she removed her coat and rubbers.

About thirty, care-ploughed face, weak eyes, colourless lips, stooped, narrow, short of breath.

"What is it you want, sir?"

"Could we go into another room or would you send the children out so we can talk at our ease, Mrs. B.?"

The woman thought for awhile, then she beckoned to the children, who went into another room. I came straight to the point. I claimed that I was from the Gerry Society and that the children were not well taken care of.

"Where are you the whole day? You leave the children on the street, their shoes are torn, their clothes not suitable to the season--they are hungry, dirty."

The woman cried, whined. She was a poor widow. Charities gave her too little and all the rest of the story that I expected.

"But where are you the whole day long and late at night?" I insisted.

She gave a thousand explanations, none of which were true. The last one was that she went to neighbours in order to save coal. At this point the boy came out from the other room. He looked determined, and he had a little book folded in his hand.

"Mamma lies. She goes out for business. She sells laces and curtains."

"Shut up--shut up!" She sprang from her chair. I interfered. "Let the boy alone."

"Mamma lies," the boy continued, and showed me the bank book. I opened it and saw that the balance was almost five hundred dollars.

"What is this?" I asked. "Five hundred dollars in the bank and your children hungry and naked?"

The woman looked like a criminal before the bar. The boy explained.

"It's not her fault, Mister. It's the fault of the ladies from the charities. They come here and bother every day. She can't buy anything, not even meat every day. She has to put the money in the bank. She has promised that when we move out she will buy me a pair of skates like all the other boys and girls have. Now she has enough money. Let her move away from here to a place where nobody knows us. I don't want to be called 'charity kid' any longer. I want roller skates. I want to move, I want new pants, I want meat every day. I don't want to be called charity kid any longer, and that's all."

The mother looked at her son and cried. The little girl hid in a corner. The boy had finished. His nerves gave out and he too cried. A few moments I looked at them and thought again of the poor wretches who are in the clutches of organised charity, the mother that starved her children because she dared not buy meat, because she dared not dress them. In four years she had saved five hundred dollars. Just the price of meat for every day of the year. A little more bread and fruit. She certainly had saved with an object in view. To save herself. And all the time the children knew that she had the price of food. The boy, longing for childish pleasures, roller skates, which the mother dared not buy because of the investigator's "Where did you get the money?" The bad neighbour, for whom the poor woman may not have wanted to wash the floor, would call in the "Lady" and tell her: "They have meat every day. The children have pennies, and now they have skates too." And the "Lady" would question, torture, menace, call names, insult. Ah! I knew the whole game now. Knew it only too well. That little room at the top of which is the sign "Investigator." I knew how they went in there. Knew how they came out. No, it was not her fault.

"Here, Mrs. B.--your bank book. I am not from the Gerry Society. I am from the charities."

The woman trembled. The boy looked at me.

"When does your month finish here?"

"On the first."

"Move away from here, woman, move away. It's your last chance to save yourself. Move away and earn your living. You will not get a cent from the charities, and that boy must not be touched. You are to let him alone or I will take him away from you. Good-night."

I ran out. At home a party of friends awaited me. We were to go and hear music. I could not. I wanted to drink. I stayed at home and drank brandy until I fell asleep. I drank and swore until I slept.

The next morning when I had to make out my report I excused myself, saying that I had to continue my investigation as I had more information to gather. In reality it was to give me time to think out what to say and what not to say. The next day I made out a report, simply saying that I had found out the woman Mrs. B. had five hundred dollars in the German Bank, Book No. 8..., that she does business in curtains; and advised them to cut her off immediately. The Manager did not believe what I said and consequently 'phoned to the bank, which corroborated my statement. Immediately the investigators were called in, and in firm tones the Manager lectured them on their tender-heartedness with applicants. He told them that they must make their investigations in a more thorough manner, otherwise they would lose their positions. Stupid fool that I was. Whenever I wanted to do good I only made the poor suffer more.

Promptly on the first of the next month I was in 124th Street. Mrs. B. had moved a few days before. Through the Express Company I got her address, way up in the Bronx. I went there, on Washington Avenue. I saw the boy and girl in new clothes and on roller skates.

"Hullo," I greeted them. They both became pale.

"Where do you live now, children?"

The boy thought a moment and then he hissed out between his teeth: "What in hell is it your business, now? We don't get any more money from you. What do you come to bother us here for? We don't want you. We have got enough of your dirty business."

"Listen," I told him: "I don't want to bother you any more, but tell me, have you bread and meat every day now?"

"Meat and candies and butter and everything, and mamma has a million in the bank and that's all, and don't come to bother us. We are no more 'charity kids.' For God's sake can't you leave us alone?"

"Good luck to you." I turned around and disappeared as quickly as possible.

THE TEST

In the boiler factories they submit the boiler to a test of resistance. The engine is subjected to a pressure three or four times stronger than the one it will have to withstand in the ordinary run of work. If successful it is sent out to the market guaranteed by the factory. If not, it is made over. The weak points are strengthened, and in most cases it is put away to be entirely recast.

For boilers and engines this may be a good system of control, though many an engineer maintains that the over-pressure weakens the machine for ordinary use.

To use such a system with men, women and children is barbarous, to say the least. The Inquisition had such a system--the Question Chamber. It is a well-known fact that persons put to the "Question" often admitted things which in reality they had never said or done. Most of the time they, the tortured ones, knew that to admit these things meant death, the hangman or the auto da fé. Still, when they confessed, the torture ceased for the moment. This they called "The Test." Not one in a thousand could maintain his will power when the test was applied. It went on in crescendo as the hours passed by and the man or woman did not "respond." It was up to the man doing the work to devise such means as would loosen the tongue, break the will. The hangman himself was punished for not getting at the truth, or was praised by his superior for his success. Torquemada called a particular man from Madrid to accompany him to Grenada, as he alone knew how to apply the "Test" to the glory of the Almighty and of Jesus Christ. This man had perfected himself in the art of torturing. I am not certain whether this is the man who is spoken of in connection with the "Question" of a certain gentleman which had to be put off because the "_real one_" at the bench had a terrible toothache that day.

But the "Test" is applied to-day. Applied to the poor by organised charity. Applied systematically, methodically and in crescendo; and like the "real one" wanted by Torquemada there are real ones in the offices of the Charity Institutions.

This is how it is done.

A family is pensioned by the organisation. Three or four years the family has received regularly two dollars a week and the rent and coals for the winter. Then all at once, generally early in the winter, the order to apply the "Test" is given. The family is visited three or four times in a week. The children are followed to and from their work. The neighbours are adroitly asked about the family. Every one visiting the family and surprised by the investigator is questioned: "Are you the brother of Mrs. B.?" "Are you her husband? Are you her boarder?" If this does not bring results the coal is cut off, to see whether the family cannot succeed in raising money for coal. If this is not successful the allowance is discontinued for a few weeks. This naturally brings the woman to the office. She is not allowed to see the Manager. For several days this is continued, then the question is put: What is she doing at night? Where does she go during the day? Whence does she get the necessary additional money? If she is a stubborn subject and resists all this, then the rent is cut off. The landlord waits a few days. The woman runs to the office. "What shall I do?" "We have no money; help yourself," she is told. In a few days the "furniture," two broken chairs, a limping table and a mattress, are put out in the street. In the cold, in the snow, the children are huddled up in rags, between the table and the stove and the picture of Washington. On top of the bundle of bedding is a saucer in which some passersby have thrown a few cents. Sometimes, in a case like this, some distant, poor relative, or some one with whom the family had connections, steps in and gives them a helping hand. Then, the test being successful, the woman is cut off the pension list. She has helped herself.

At other times, there being no one to help, the applicant makes such a row that he is restored to the list with a cross after his name denoting bad behaviour. On another occasion he will again be tried.

Sometimes the woman comes running and begs that her rent be paid. She will attend to the rest. She will sell newspapers, matches. She will scrub floors. She will send her twelve year old daughter to work.

"You can't do that. She is not of age."

"Yes, she is."

"According to our records she is only twelve years old."

"I lied, then. She is fourteen. Only pay my rent. I can't stay in the street."

The "Test" has been partially successful. Pension and coal supply is cut off. Only the rent is paid. A little girl is sent to an early grave.

I remember one case where the coalman, an old Italian, had pity and gave the coal on credit. When the investigator asked him why he did so he answered angrily, "Not your business." A report was made in regard to the immoral relations between the poor widow and the old Italian. It was but natural that a certain friendship should be established between the widow and her benefactor. She repaired his clothes, and when the allowance was cut off he divided his bread with her. No amount of explanation could convince the investigator that the woman was not proven to be immoral by this fact.

"Why is she so friendly with the coalman?"

"Because she is cold and he gives her coals."

"Why does he give her coals?"

"Because you don't send her any."

Then the investigator would answer triumphantly:

"If she were an honest woman she would stand the test. She would suffer cold and hunger." Then she would remember that last summer the woman had a new dress that she could not account for and once there was a piece of chicken in her pot. She evidently got it from the butcher for her good offices. The poor have no business to eat chicken. It is the old question of the Southern negro. He is not allowed to engage in other trades than cooking and shoe shining, and when you discuss this with a Southern gentleman he proves to you that the negro is an inferior being from the fact that he does not work at anything but these trades. You cut off the supply of coal in the dead of winter, and when the woman obtains it from the coalman it is a proof that she is dishonest--that they are "all alike." It is true that many of them would give their bodies for a bucket of coal or a piece of meat when they are hungry and cold. Many of them have admitted crimes that they have never committed under stress. But what does that prove?

One young widow with a two year old child when submitted to the test twice in one year was taken in by a "Madame" of a house of ill-fame in the neighbourhood. She left the few broken chairs and the table on the sidewalk and went there in the capacity of cook. I found her there. She was glad of the change. "But it is an immoral house," I argued. "It's better than to be at the mercy of the investigator and the office," was her answer. A few weeks later she had given away her child and was a regular inmate of the house, and still glad of the change, and thankful to the woman who had taken her in. But the report of the investigator, both to the charity institution and the Sisterhood, reads: "Mrs. K. always led a life of shame and all my work was unsuccessful. When put to the test she went to a disreputable house and has of late abandoned her own child." The Sisterhood used their influence and had the house raided a few times and all the women arrested, Mrs. K. among them. The "madame" was expressly told that she was being persecuted on account of the woman she had taken in. When Mrs. K. had finished her sentence in prison she found the door of the house closed to her. Fourteenth Street is free. I spoke to her. She is still glad of the change. Such are the results of the "Test."

It is not those who do not receive charity--the poor who have to go without--who are to be pitied, but those who are in the clutches of charity. They should be helped, saved. They are the greatest sufferers. Under the cloak of charity men and women are tortured. Each piece of bread is scalded with tears and pains, and if another Napoleon should arise there is a job waiting for him--to burn down the modern Inquisition, destroy the torture chamber, abolish the "Question," the "Test," to save the poor from organised charity.

No wonder that the situation is such a horrible one, when you consider the general mentality of the people supposed to work for the amelioration of the suffering poor. Who are they? Have they the interest of the poor at heart, or do they consider first their own job? Does any one of them start his daily work with a thought of the poor, with a charitable thought? Not at all. His only occupation is how to please his superior, how to show a good record, so that his own bread is assured. The poor are stepping stones, a climbing ladder towards promotion, social influence, recognition. Incidentally some of the applicants get a few dollars a week, but they are not the real objective point.

It reminds me of Colonel Sellers in Mark Twain's story. He proposes a partnership to a young man for the manufacture of a certain eye-water, a special preparation to heal sore eyes, and when the young man becomes enthusiastic about it--he will heal sores!--Colonel Sellers tells him: "This is not the object, my boy. From the first fifty thousand bottles we sell we open another branch in Calcutta or Bombay--there are millions of sufferers there." Again the young man thinks of the good work, but Colonel Sellers continues: "And from there we establish warehouses in Alexandria, Smyrna and Buenos Ayres, twenty million bottles a year is our output, with a net profit of two hundred thousand dollars a year." By this time the young man too has been influenced to look away from the real object, the sick, the sufferers. Two hundred thousand dollars a year is a good prize. But Twain had something in his sleeve and Colonel Sellers delivers his last blow.

"Do you think that a man like me would be satisfied with a paltry two hundred thousand dollars a year? There's millions in it, my dear boy." The real business now only begins. "We will form a stock company with a capital of twenty-five million dollars, etc., etc."

This was the real business. The sick and poor and the medicine were only an incident, a necessary ingredient to the whole scheme to give it an appearance of something. There are enough Colonel Sellers in the charity institutions. They are there only for a fraction of time before they get the real thing--before they form the stock company. Incidentally the sore eye preparation, namely, the poor, play a rôle.

The charity institution--it is the Stock Exchange of suffering.

I have just described one form of the "Test." When I once spoke about it to some one who has been connected with another one of these institutions for years, expecting him to be horrified, he simply took a note of the details in his book. "And how does it work?" he asked me. I explained that a good many, driven to the brink, have squirmed out by some by-path, while others shift for themselves as best they can.

"Well, well," he thought aloud, "I'll have to try it myself." And incidentally I learned a good many other tricks of the trade, as he called them, from him.

"There was one particular woman," he told me, "whose mouth I had to open with my fist so that she would tell us where her boy was. He had run away from the place we had found for him. We wanted him to learn a trade and a glassblower gave him a chance. But the boy would not stay with his boss. I argued and argued and argued. He did not like the trade, he told me, but in reality it was work he did not like. The last time he ran away I decided that it was about time to show my authority and I found a reason to have him arrested. The mother having told me that he had not given her his pay I wanted her to get a warrant issued and put him away for a few months in a house of correction, just to teach him a good lesson, but the mother would not tell me where he was. When I saw that I could not make her say anything by persuasion--well, I had to use force."

"What of the boy?" I inquired.

"He was no good. He was six months in the house of correction, but it did not help. He is now a gang leader of very bad reputation," he finished, with devout eyes. This stupid ass in charge of the poor, _who walks six miles to get a certain brand of cigar, would not understand that a boy may not like one trade and be very willing to learn another_. This spiritual hog wanted to show his authority by compelling a mother to give up her child to gaolers--used force to do it--to the Glory of the Almighty and Jesus Christ. And he wondered that his "case" had become a gang leader! I wonder that the boy did not repay him for his splendid service to humanity.

SCABS

In C---- in 1910 thousands of workers in the clothing industry struck for better wages. They were mostly newly-arrived immigrants, all of them skilled workingmen, and though the manufacturers were making millions and advertised that they employed only the best skilled labour, the workers, men and women, and their families, starved.

A shameful system of task work was established, whereby contractors sublet their work to sub-contractors, and these to other contractors, and the workers were kept at piece work. Many of them worked from six A. M. until midnight, in dirty, dingy sweatshops and at the end of the week they received seven or eight dollars. Even this small sum was not assured. It happened more than once that the sub-contractor, for whom the men worked, simply disappeared with the pay of all the men. As they were not engaged by the firm they could not ask the manufacturer to pay them, and had to go hungry, they, their wives and their children.

Such conditions lasted a good many years, until at last, in 1910, the men organised and struck to abolish the sub-contracting system and the piece work which led to it. The men struck for a minimum wage, a fixed working hour and sanitary factory conditions. They also wanted to know for whom they were working. To obtain such necessary and elementary rights they were compelled to stay out several months, entailing great suffering from hunger and cold.