Transcriber's Note
Certain typographical features, such as italic font, cannot be
reproduced in this version of the text. Any italicized font is
delimited with the underscore character as _italic_. Any "small cap"
text is shifted to all uppercase.
There are two footnotes, which have been repositioned to follow
the paragraph in which they are referenced.
Illustrations, of course, cannot be provided here, but their
approximate positions in the text are indicated as:
[Illustration: caption]
Please consult the more detailed notes at the end of this text for
the resolution of any other issues that were encountered.
"BROKE"
_THE MAN WITHOUT THE DIME_
[Illustration: _As Himself_]
[Illustration: "_Broke_" _THE AUTHOR_]
"BROKE"
_THE MAN WITHOUT THE DIME_
BY
EDWIN A. BROWN
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
_Copyright in England_
_All rights reserved_
PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER, 1913
THE · PLIMPTON · PRESS
NORWOOD · MASS · U·S·A
TO
THAT VAST ARMY, WHO, WITHOUT
ARMS OF BURNISHED STEEL, FIGHT
WITH BARE HANDS FOR EXISTENCE
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
_What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;.
That to the height of this argument
I may assert eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to men._
--MILTON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY xi
I MY ITINERARY AND WORKING PLAN 3
II THE WELCOME IN THE CITY BEAUTIFUL TO ITS BUILDERS 8
III CHICAGO--A LANDLORD FOR ITS HOMELESS WORKERS 28
IV THE MERCIFUL AWAKENING OF NEW YORK 42
V HOMELESS--IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 48
VI LITTLE PITTSBURG OF THE WEST AND ITS GREAT WRONG 57
VII "LATTER-DAY SAINTS" WHO SIN AGAINST SOCIETY 62
VIII KANSAS CITY AND ITS HEAVY LADEN 71
IX THE NEW ENGLAND "CONSCIENCE" 82
X PHILADELPHIA'S "BROTHERLY LOVE" 95
XI PITTSBURG AND THE WOLF 104
XII OMAHA AND HER HOMELESS 117
XIII SAN FRANCISCO--THE MISSION, THE PRISON, AND
THE HOMELESS 123
XIV EXPERIENCES IN LOS ANGELES 136
XV IN PORTLAND 144
XVI TACOMA 160
XVII IN SEATTLE 164
XVIII SPOKANE 172
XIX MINNEAPOLIS 178
XX IN THE GREAT CITY OF NEW YORK 183
XXI NEW YORK STATE--THE OPEN FIELDS 197
XXII THE LABORER THE FARMER'S GREATEST ASSET 207
XXIII ALBANY--IN THE MIDST OF THE FIGHT 218
XXIV CLEVELAND--THE CRIME OF NEGLECT 223
XXV CINCINNATI--NECESSITY'S BRUTAL CHAINS 244
XXVI LOUISVILLE AND THE SOUTH 256
XXVII MEMPHIS--A CITY'S FAULT AND A NATION'S WRONG 279
XXVIII HOUSTON--THE CHURCH AND THE CITY'S SIN AGAINST
SOCIETY 288
XXIX SAN ANTONIO--WHOSE VERY NAME IS MUSIC 296
XXX MILWAUKEE--WILL THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIALISM
END POVERTY? 305
XXXI TOLEDO--THE "GOLDEN RULE" CITY 310
XXXII SPOTLESS DETROIT 314
XXXIII CONCLUSION 318
XXXIV VISIONS 328
APPENDIX 339
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Author--As Himself and "Broke" _Frontispiece_
PAGE
A half-frozen young outcast sleeping in a wagon-bed. He
was beaten senseless by the police a few minutes after
the picture was taken 3
A familiar scene in a Western city. The boy is "broke"
but not willing to give up 8
A Municipal Lodging House. An average of seventy men
slept each night in the brick ovens during the cold
weather 16
At a Denver Employment Office. Many of these men slept
in the brick ovens the night before 24
"Stepping up a little nearer to me he drew more closely his
tattered rag of a coat" 32
Huddled on a stringer in zero weather 32
Just before Thanksgiving, 1911, leaving the Public Library,
Chicago, after being ejected because of the clothes I wore 40
Municipal Lodging House, Department of Public Charities,
New York City 42
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Registering Applicants 48
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Physicians'
Examination Room 64
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: "Now for a good
night's rest" 64
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Favorite Corner,
Female Dormitory 80
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Men's Shower
Baths 96
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Female Showers
and Wash Room 96
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Men's Dining
Room 112
"The small dark door leads down under the sidewalk and
saloon." San Francisco Free Flop of Whosoever Will
Mission 128
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Women's and
Children's Dining Room 144
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Male Dormitory 184
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Female Dormitory 184
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Fumigating
Chambers--loading up 192
Municipal Lodging House, New York City: Fumigating
Chambers--sealed up 192
"I would have continued to ride on the top as less dangerous,
if I had not been brutally forced on to the rods" 268
"I finally reached a point where I was hanging onto the corner
of the car by my fingers and toes" 268
Riding a Standard Oil car 272
"After becoming almost helpless from numbness by coming
in contact with the frozen steel shelf of the car I stood
up and clung to the tank" 272
A sick and homeless boy with his dog on guard. He is sleeping
on a bed of refuse thrown from a stable, with an old
man lying near him 288
Waiting to crawl into a cellar for a free bed, unfed,
unwashed. Fully clothed they spend the night on board
bunks, crowded like animals 320
_INTRODUCTORY_
_I was born on the 28th day of April, 1857, in the village of Port
Byron, Rock Island County, Illinois. The waves of the grand old
Mississippi sang my lullaby through a long and joyful childhood. So
near at hand was the stream that I learned to swim and skate almost
before I was out of kilts. My father, A. J. Brown, at that time was the
leading merchant and banker in the town. We were an exceedingly happy
and prosperous family of six._
_My father died when I was seven years of age. My mother, a woman of
exceptionally brilliant intellect and lovable character, has been with
or near me almost all my life. She died in 1909 at the ripe age of
eighty-four._
_When a boy in my teens I attended school in Boston, where I spent
four years. In the early eighties I moved to Colorado and have lived
there ever since. In 1897 I was married, and the intense interest and
sympathy my wife has shown in my crusade for the homeless has been one
of my greatest encouragements. With no children for company, it has
meant a great sacrifice on her part, for it broke up our home and
voluntarily separated us for nearly two years._
_I have often wondered why I should have been the one to make this
crusade, for all my life I have loved solitude, and have always been
over-sensitive to the criticism and opinions of others. My mission
is not based upon any personal virtue of goodness, but I have been
inspired with the feeling that I had taken up a just and righteous
cause, and the incentive of all my efforts has ever been that of
compassion--not to question whether a hungry man has sinned against
society, but to ask why he is not supplied with the necessities of
existence._[A]
[A] The author asks forbearance for the direct personalities
contained in the Introductory, which has nothing to do with the
writer's appeal, and it is simply given as a reply to many
inquiries.
_I am trying to solve these questions: Are our efforts to help the
unfortunate through the medium of our "Charities," our "Missions," and
our churches all failures? Why is crime rampant in our cities? Why
are our hospitals, almshouses, our jails, and our prisons crowded to
overflowing? And these questions have resolved themselves for me into
one mighty problem: Why is there destitution at all,--why is there
poverty and suffering amidst abundance and plenty?_
_I am convinced that poverty is not a part of the great Eternal plan.
It is a cancerous growth that human conventions have created and
maintained. I believe it was intended that every human being should
have food and shelter. Therefore I have not only asked "Why?" but I
have tried to find the remedy. My crusade has been constructive and not
destructive._
_My mission is not to censure but to disclose facts. I am without
political or economic bias._
_I shall ask my reader to go with me and see for himself the
conditions existing in our great cities,--to view the plight of the
homeless, penniless wayfarer, who, because of the shortsightedness
of our municipalities, is denied his right to decent, wholesome food
and to sanitary shelter for a night. And my concern is not only the
homeless man, but the homeless woman, for there are many such who
walk our streets, and often with helpless babes at their breasts and
little children at their sides. And after my reader has comprehended
the condition that I shall reveal to him, I shall ask him to enlist
himself in the cause of a Twentieth Century Free Municipal Emergency
Home in every city, that shall prove our claims to righteousness and
enlightenment._
_To-day there is everywhere a growing sense of and demand for
political, social, and economic justice; there is a more general and
definite aim to elevate the condition of the less fortunate of our
fellow-citizens; there are united efforts of scientific investigators
to discover and create a firm foundation for practical reforms. I
am simply trying to show the way to one reform that is practical,
feasible, and--since the test of everything is the dollar--good
business._
_If I can succeed in showing that old things are often old only because
they are traditional; that in evolution of new things lies social
salvation; that the "submerged tenth" is submerged because of ignorance
and low wages; and that the community abounds in latent ability only
awaiting the opportunity for development,--then this volume will have
accomplished its purpose._
_I am determined to create a systematic and popular sympathy for the
great mass of unfortunate wage-earners, who are compelled by our system
of social maladjustment to be without food, clothing, and shelter. I
am determined our city governments shall recognize the necessity for
relief._
_Let me not be misunderstood as handing out a bone, for an oppressive
system. "It is more Godly to prevent than to cure."_
_In these pages I shall undertake to show by many actual cases that the
so-called "hobo," "bum," "tramp," "vagrant," "floater," "vagabond,"
"idler," "shirker," "mendicant,"--all of which terms are applied
indiscriminately to the temporarily out-of-work man,--the wandering
citizen in general, and even many so-called criminals, are not what
they are by choice any more than you or I are what we are socially,
politically, and economically, from choice._
_I shall call attention to the nature and immensity of the problem of
the unemployed and the wandering wage-earner, as such problem confronts
and affects every municipality._
_We find the migratory wage-earner, the wandering citizen, at certain
seasons traveling in large numbers to and from industrial centers in
search of work. Most of these wandering wage-earners have exhausted
their resources when they arrive at their destination, and are
penniless--"broke." Because of the lack of the price to obtain a
night's lodging, or food, or clothing, they are compelled to shift as
best they may, and some are forced to beg, and others to steal._
_For the protection and good morals of society in general, for the
safety of property, it is necessary that every municipality maintain
its own Municipal Emergency Home, in which the migratory worker, the
wandering citizen, can obtain pure and wholesome food to strengthen his
body, enliven his spirit, and imbue him with new energy for the next
day's task in his hunt for work. It is necessary that in such Municipal
Emergency Home the wanderer shall receive not only food and shelter,
but it is of vital importance that he shall be enabled to put himself
into presentable condition before leaving._
_The purpose of each Municipal Emergency Home, as advocated in
this volume, is to remove all excuse for beggary and other petty
misdemeanors that follow in the wake of the homeless man. The Twentieth
Century Municipal Emergency Home must afford such food and lodging
as to restore the health and courage and self-respect of every needy
applicant, free medical service, advice, moral and legal, and help
to employment; clothing, given whenever necessary, loaned when the
applicant needs only to have his own washed; and free transportation
to destination wherever employment is offered. The public will then be
thoroughly protected. The homeless man will be kept clean, healthy,
and free from mental and physical suffering. The naturally honest but
weak man will not be driven into crime. Suffering and want, crime and
poverty will be reduced to a minimum._
_In looking over the field of social betterment, we find that America
is far behind the rest of the civilized world in recognizing the
problems of modern social adjustment. We find that England, Germany,
Austria, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway, and other nations have
progressed wonderfully in their system of protecting their wandering
citizens. All these nations have provided their wage earners with
old-age pensions, out-of-work funds, labor colonies, insurance against
sickness, labor exchanges, and municipal lodging houses._
_Because of the manifest tendency to extend the political activities
of society and government to the point where every citizen is provided
by law with what is actually necessary to maintain existence, I
advocate a divorce between religious, private, and public charities,
and sincerely believe that it is the duty of the community, and of
society as a whole, to administer to the needs of its less fortunate
fellow-citizens. Experience with the various charitable activities of
the city, State, and nation, has proven conclusively to me that every
endeavor to ameliorate existing conditions ought to be, and rightly is,
a governmental function, just as any other department in government,
such as police, health, etc. The individual cannot respect society
and its laws, if society does not in return respect and recognize the
emergency needs of its less fortunate individuals. Popular opinion,
sentiment, prejudice, and even superstitions, are often influential
in maintaining the present-day hypocritical custom of indiscriminate
alms giving, which makes possible our deplorable system of street
mendicancy._
_The object of the personal investigation and experiences presented in
this volume is to lay down principles and rules for the guidance and
conduct of the institution which it advocates._
_The reader has a right to ask: How does this array of facts show to
us the way to a more economical use of private and public gifts to the
needy? Are there any basic rules which will help to solve the problem
of mitigating the economic worth of the temporary dependent? I shall
give ample answers to these queries._
_In the hope that the facts here presented may bring to my reader a
sense of the great work waiting to be done, and may move him to become
an individual influence in the movement for building and conducting
Twentieth Century Municipal Emergency Homes throughout our land, I
offer this volume in a spirit of good-will and civic fellowship._
_E. A. B._
_Denver, September, 1913._
[Illustration: _A Half-frozen Young Outcast Sleeping in a Wagon Bed.
He Was Beaten Senseless by the Police a Few Minutes
after the Picture Was Taken_]
"_Broke_"
CHAPTER I
MY ITINERARY AND WORKING PLAN
"_The heart discovers and reveals a social wrong, and then demands
that reason step in and solve the problem._"
It was in the Winter of 1908-9 that a voice in the night prompted me to
take the initiative for the relief of a great social wrong--to start on
what to me was a great constructive social reform.
As mysterious as life itself was the following of that voice for three
years. I realized fully the importance of actually putting myself in
the place of the penniless man to gain the knowledge and fully grasp
all that life meant to him. It came clearly to me that the shaking of
hands through prison bars, and the regulation charity inquisition and
investigation was idle and useless. Overcoming a sensitive dread of
being looked upon as an eccentric poseur, I purchased a workingman's
suit of blue jeans, coarse shoes, and slouch hat, costing about four
dollars, and became a voluntary wandering student in the haunts of the
homeless and penniless.
I did not intend at first to investigate further than my own home city,
Denver, but the demand reaching out, I felt compelled in the months of
February and March, 1909, to visit Chicago, New York, and Washington.
My visit to those cities being made exceedingly prominent by the
Associated Press I received on my return home over one thousand letters
from all parts of the country, and not a few from the Old World. I
awakened to the fact that my plea for a Municipal Emergency Home for
the city of Denver had become a national--yes, a world wide--issue.
Many of these letters,--from the North, the East, the South and the
West,--bore invitations to come and investigate the condition of the
homeless among them. With such appeals I could not throw off the
responsibilities which I had assumed, in trying to make the world a
little better for having lived in it.
As the importance of my project grew upon me, my first thought was to
obtain aid from influential institutions or individuals as a speedy way
of realizing my dreams; but on second thought I realized fully that
that was not in accord with my plan, for my institution was to be a
governmental institution, and was to be created and maintained through
that paternal medium. However, as an investigator I determined to test
the heads of the great foundations, and the mighty masters of finance,
to feel their attitude toward unemployment and governmental ownership
and agencies for the betterment of social conditions. There were many
champions of the crusade against tuberculosis and the white slave
traffic, educational promoters, but the homeless, exposed, suffering,
and penniless man or woman, boy or girl, standing ready to be employed,
found no recognition nor were considered in their well-intentioned
schemes. They could not see, or would not see, beyond their own
useless, wasted efforts in meeting our problem of destitution.
My plan was brought to the notice of the Interstate Commerce
Commission, which recognized my work as coming within the bounds of the
law to the extent of granting me free railroad transportation, but left
it optional with the railroads to give it or not. In my demands the
New York Central absolutely ignored my request. The Pennsylvania--with
smooth abuse--slapped me on the back and wished me good luck and
God-speed, but could not think of carrying me for nothing. The Gould
and Harriman lines were always generous, and a number of other roads
occasionally.
It was a one-man, shoulder-to-shoulder battle. I carried no
credentials. My plan of procedure was to go first to the leading hotel
of each city I visited, because, after my investigations, I wanted to
meet the leading people of that city. Arriving at my hotel I would don
my emblems of honest toil--the blue jeans--and would make my study of
the status of the homeless workingman of that particular city,--a study
which held a message, and a message which usually startled the city.
If an extended study, I usually lived at a workingman's neat boarding
or lodging house, where one in workingman's clothes could walk in and
out without comment. Armed with the array of facts I had collected,
carrying my appeal for the Emergency Home, I would meet the various
progressive civic societies of the city, and as far as possible leave
something tangible in the minds of the members of "emergency home
committees." This plan I always carried out to the letter except, as
described in my narrative, in my Hudson River study and in Cleveland,
as well as my study from Cleveland to Memphis, Tenn.
Yet after all, while I might enter in the life of the penniless and
endure temporarily their privations, I could only assume on my part
for I knew that at a moment's notice, in case of accident or sickness,
by revealing my identity every care and comfort would be given me.
Consequently I was free from that mental suffering which is even
greater than the physical suffering only those can understand who toil
alone, homeless, penniless, and friendless in the world.
After my first visit to Chicago, New York, and Washington in 1909,
I made a visit in the same year to Pueblo, Kansas City, Boston,
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Omaha, and Salt Lake City; and in the Winter
of 1910, I visited San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Tacoma,
Seattle, Spokane, and Minneapolis. This was followed by investigations
through the South, which really ended my crusade in the Spring of 1911,
although I made a brief study of conditions in Milwaukee, Toledo, and
Detroit during the following Winter of 1911-12.