THE WELCOME IN THE CITY BEAUTIFUL TO ITS BUILDERS
"_And the gates of the city shall not be shut at all by day: for
there shall be no night there._"--REV. 21:25.
On a bitter winter night, when the very air seemed congealed into
piercing needles, as I was hurrying down Seventeenth Street in the
City of Denver--the City Beautiful, the City of Lights and Wealth,--a
young man about eighteen years of age stopped me, and asked in a rather
hesitating manner for the price of a meal. At a glance I took in his
desperate condition. His shoes gaped at the toes and were run down
at the heels; his old suit of clothes was full of chinks soiled and
threadbare, frazzled at ankle and wrist; his faded blue shirt was open
at the neck, where a button was missing, and where the pin had slipped
out that had supplied its place. His face and throat were fair, and he
was straight and sound in body and limb.
[Illustration: _A Familiar Scene in a Western City. The Boy Is "Broke"
But Not Willing to Give Up_]
"You look strong and well," I said to him, "why must you beg? Can't
you work for what you eat? I have to."
His big, honest eyes took on a dull, desperate stare, as though all
hope was crushed.
"This is the first time I have ever asked something for nothing," he
said, "and I don't like to do it now, but I have been in Denver two
days and I can't find a job. I am hungry." The last words trembled and
he turned as though about to leave me. I stopped him.
"Wait a moment; I did not intend to turn you down. I am hungry myself;
let us go across the street to the restaurant and get our dinner."
I had made up my mind to study this strong, able-bodied boy, who was
workless, homeless, penniless, and suffering in our city beautiful,
which is famous for its spirit of Western hospitality and even displays
it as soon as you enter its gate by a great sign, "WELCOME."
As we sat at the table he told me that his home was on a farm back
East, that he and his stepmother didn't get along very well, that his
own mother died when he was ten years old and his stepmother had not
been kind to him, but that he and dad were always great friends and had
continued so up to the time he went away.
"I promised myself," he continued, as his hunger was appeased, "that
as soon as I was old enough I would go West. I thought there were
great chances for a young fellow like me out here, and so I worked
and beat my way, and here I am to-day without a cent in my pocket. I
have five dollars to my credit in the bank back in the old town near
our farm, and if I knew anybody here I could get that money, pay my
employment-office and shipment fee, go down to some works in Nebraska,
and be at a job to-morrow," and he looked down in deep dejection.
"Well my lad," I said, "cheer up; all life is before you. Meet me
to-morrow and we will see what can be done." On the following day I
took him to my bank, signed a bit of paper, and the banker gave him the
five dollars. As we left the bank and started down the street, he took
an old brass watch out of his pocket and offered it to me.
"I want to give you something to show my appreciation of your kindness
to me," he said. "Here is a watch the pawnshop man wouldn't give me
anything on, but it keeps good time, and you are welcome to it if you
will take it."
"No, I will not take it; you will need it when you get down on the
works," I said. "Where did you sleep the night before I met you?" His
face flushed and he hung his head. "Was it not in the city jail?"
"Yes, and it was the first time I was ever in a jail in my life."
I did not question him further, but to-day I can not quite understand
why he was not detained there the usual thirty days for the
unforgivable crime of being homeless, as that was the way Denver had
of treating her destitute visitors.
Then he looked up with the true spirit of conquest in his eyes. "I'll
tell you what I am going to do the first thing; I am going to get a
clean, new suit of underclothing, then I am going to take a bath, and
then get my shipment."
"Come on, my boy," I replied, and took him to a cheap store to buy his
clean underwear. Afterward we went into a barber shop where he took his
bath. Denver did not then have its public bath--the beautiful public
bath later built through the efforts of the Denver Woman's Club. I
waited to go with him to the employment office to get his shipment.
When this was accomplished, we shook hands in a good-bye, and I wished
him God-speed.
Two weeks later I received a letter in which he said: "I have a place
to work here on a farm at big wages, with one of the best men in the
world, and I am going to stay and work and save my money to help dad
back on the old farm to pay off the mortgage. It is nearly paid off now
and the farm will be mine some day."
After that incident I was haunted. The picture of that boy freezing
and starving so far from home was constantly with me, and yet, I
thought, how much more pitifully helpless a woman or girl placed in
the same position. I fell to wondering about the many other boys and
men and women who were homeless, and of what becomes of the homeless
unemployed in our city. I knew I was not alone in this incidental help
I had begun; there were hundreds of men and women helping cases just
like this case of my boy. And thus I set out on my crusade.
Taking my initiative step into the forced resorts of the homeless of
Denver, I one night drifted into one of the big beer dumps where they
sell drinks at five cents a glass which costs a dollar a barrel to
manufacture. Many men were in the place seeking shelter and a snack
from the free lunch counter. Twenty-five stood at the bar drinking
enormous schooners of chemicals and water under the name of beer
containing just enough cheap alcohol to momentarily dull and lighten
care. Not a few were drinking hot, strong drinks, which more quickly
glazed the eye, confused the brain, and loosened the tongue. A few
had already crept into the stifling odors of the dark rear rooms
and had dropped down in the shadowed corners with the hope of being
allowed to spend the night there. These rooms in earlier days had been
"wine-rooms," where the more "polite" and prosperous had gathered, but
who took the "wine-room" with them further up town as the city grew.
Among the many gathered around the big warm stove was a man whose
appearance told too plainly that the world was not dealing kindly with
him. Stepping up to him I said in a tentative way, "Have a drink?"
"No, I am not a drinker."
I then asked, "Can you tell a fellow who is broke where he can get a
free bed?"
He looked at me with an amused smile. "You are up against it, too, are
you, Jack? Well, I am broke, too, and the only free bed I know of is
the kind I am sleeping in, and that's an oven at the brick yards. A lot
of us boys go out there during these slack times."
"An oven at the brick yards!" I said in astonishment. "How do you get
there?"
"Well, you go out Larimer Street to Twenty-third, then you turn out
Twenty-third and cross Twenty-third Street viaduct. It's about two
miles. You'll know the kilns when you come to them; you can't miss
them. But don't go before eleven o'clock; the ovens are not cool enough
before that time."
"To-night I sleep in an oven at the brick yards," I said to myself,
with cast-iron determination.
It was a very cold night, but at eleven o'clock I started out Larimer
Street to find my free bed. Having crossed the Twenty-third Street
viaduct I was lost in darkness; there were no lights save in the far
distance. I stumbled along over the frozen ground, fearing at any
moment an attack, for Denver is not free from hold-ups. I could hear
men's voices, but could see nothing. It was not a pleasure-outing
except as the thrill caused by the swift approach of the unknown may
be pleasurably exciting. Finally the lights of the brick yard shone
upon me with its great, long rows of flaming kilns. I had arrived at my
novel dormitory. Stepping up to a stoker at work near the entrance, I
asked:
"Can you show a fellow where he can find a place to lie down out of the
cold?"
He raised his head and looked at me, and said, "I'll show you a place."
Leaning his shovel against the kiln, and picking up his lantern, he
said, "Come with me." He paused at a kiln. "Some of the boys are
sleeping in here to-night." I followed as he entered the low, narrow
opening of a kiln and raised his light. We were in a round oven or kiln
about forty feet in circumference. By the light of his lifted lantern I
counted _thirty men_.
"There are about seventy sleeping in the empty kilns to-night; I think
you will find a place to lie down there," he said, as he pointed to a
place between two men.
I at once lay down, and with a "Good-night" he left me to the darkness
and to the company of those homeless sleepers, who, in all our great
city, could find no other refuge from death.
The kiln was so desperately hot that I could not sleep, and habit had
not inured me to that kind of bed. Had I been half-starved, weak, and
exhausted, as were most of my companions, I, too, could have slept,
and perhaps would have wanted to sleep on forever. No one spoke to
me. I endured the night by going at intervals to the kiln's opening
for fresh air. It was then when I looked up into the deep, dark,
frozen sky, that I thought what a vast difference there is in being a
destitute man from choice and a destitute man from necessity. At four
o'clock the time for a fresh firing of the kilns, we were driven from
the great heat of that place out into the bitter cold of the winter
morning. Very few of the men had any kind of extra coat, but, thinly
clad as they were, they must walk the streets until six o'clock,
waiting for the saloons or some other public places to be opened. Their
suffering was pitiful. I afterward learned that many of these men,
from this exposure, contracted pneumonia, and from this and many other
exposures filled to overflowing the hospitals of the city.
During the entire week I followed up my investigations. I found men
sleeping in almost unthinkable places; in the sand-houses and the
round-houses of the railroad companies, when they had touched the
heart of the watchman.
I asked one of the railway men why the companies drove them away from
this bit of comfort and shelter.
"Because they steal," was his reply.
"What do they steal?" I asked.
"Oh, the supper pail of the man who comes to work all night, an old
sack worth a nickel, a piece of brass or iron, or part of the equipment
from a Pullman car, or anything they can sell for enough to buy a
meal, or a bed, or a drink."
"Do they steal those little things because they are hungry?" I
questioned.
"Oh, I don't know," he said with a shrug. "They are often so successful
in not being detected, I expect that has made them bold. Some may have
been hungry," he said, after a thoughtful pause. "Work has been scarce
and hard to find, you know."
"Yes," I replied, "they have, no doubt, tramped the streets for many
a day, footsore, dirty, ragged, and penniless and worst of all,
discouraged and desperate. They must have clothing and food as well
as a place to sleep. Without this they must suffer and die. They are
haunted by this fear of death, knowing well what hunger and exposure
means and the utter impossibility of securing work with their ragged
appearance."
"Yes, I know," said the man, patiently listening to my growing
realization of their desperation. "When they become bolder and break
into a freight car to steal something, if not of much real value, or
something to eat, they are usually caught and thrown into jail. But
they can't stop to think of that, I suppose; the poor devils have got
to live. You mustn't give me away," he added confidentially, "but
I know a special agent for a big railroad company who made a boast
of the number of men he had sent to the reformatory and put in the
penitentiary the past year."
[Illustration: _A Municipal Lodging House. An Average of Seventy Men
Slept Each Night in the Denver Brick Ovens during the
Cold Weather_]
I slept, or rather endured, the next night, with thirteen men who
were sleeping in a box car on a bed of straw. Some were smoking. Is
it any wonder that many thousands of dollars' worth of property are
destroyed by fire in one night? I found men asleep in vacant houses
with old rags and paper for beds. They also smoked, and endangered not
only this house but the entire city; besides, they often robbed the
house of everything available, to satisfy their hunger. I found them
sleeping in the loft of barns, the only covering the hay under which
they crawled. I found them under platforms of warehouses with pieces of
dirty old gunnysacks, or a piece of old canvas for a covering. I found
them curled down in the tower of the switchmen, in empty cellars, in
vat-rooms in breweries, in hallways, driven from one to the other, and
some "carrying the banner"--walking the streets all night. I found them
in the rear-ways of saloons, on and beneath their tables, and last, but
not least, in that damnable, iniquitous hole, the bull-pen in the city
jail.
A few short years ago--the date and name is of no moment--a young man
eighteen years of age was shot to death by a policeman in Denver. I
went to the morgue and looked on the white, silent face of the murdered
boy. His mother wired, "Can't come to bury him; too poor." And so
he was laid in a pauper's grave; no, not a pauper's grave, but a
criminal's.
I have noticed in my investigations in all the police systems of
our various municipalities--I exempt none--that where someone has
been murdered, or a sick man has been thrown into jail and his life
taken there, or some other outrage has been committed by their wicked
policies, they always try to blanket the wrong by making a public
statement that the victim had "a record" and was well known to the
police.
According to the newspapers, this young man's diary showed that he had
been in the State seventy-four days and out of the seventy-four days
he had worked sixty-four; but--convincing proof of his outlawry--they
found on him a match-safe that a man declared had been stolen from him.
As I looked on that dead boy's face I seemed to read, above all else,
kindness. Had he been kind to someone; in return, had this match-safe
been given to him? Hundreds of times have I seen these tokens of
appreciation given: match-safes, knives, and even clothes from one
out-of-work man to another--even an old brass watch that the pawnshop
man considered of no value. The match-safe may have been given to this
young fellow by a hardened criminal with whom circumstances had forced
him to associate.
"He ran from the officer." If you, my reader, had ever been forced, as
a lodger or a suspect, to spend a night in a western city jail, you
would take the chances of getting away by running rather than face
that ordeal again.
I was so deeply impressed by the injustice of this legal murder that,
under a _nom de plume_, I wrote a letter of defense for the boy to his
mother, a copy of which I sent to the press. It reached the governing
powers of the city, but not the public. Almost immediately the officer
was arrested, tried,--and acquitted.
After my investigations in Denver had revealed such startling
conditions of those who must toil and suffer, my first impulse was to
fly to the Church. I thought I had reason to believe the Church stood
for compassion, mercy, and pity. I approached, therefore, several
of our leading clergymen. My first appeal was to the pastor of the
Christian Church, and his reply was:
"My friend, if you succeed in getting a free Municipal Emergency Home
for Denver, you will build a monument for yourself."
To this I answered: "I have no desire to build a monument; I want our
city to build a shelter for those who may be temporarily destitute
among us."
Another, a Baptist, asked if it were Christian. I turned from this
reverend gentleman with the belief that in his study of the Scriptures
he had omitted the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, in which,
I believe, the substitution of the word love for charity is conceded
correct by the highest authority.
To another, a Methodist, I said, "Won't you speak a word to your people
that an interest may be aroused to relieve the hardships of those who
toil, who happen to be without money, and have no place to rest?" With
a forced expression, he replied, "I don't believe in the homeless and
out-of-work. I have found them undeserving and dishonest." I could only
ask what our Savior meant by "the least of these," and reminded him
that the last words Christ spoke before His crucifixion were to a thief.
I then made my way to the home of the Presbyterian pastor of the
largest and most influential church in the city. I did not succeed in
seeing the leader of this ecclesiastical society, but as I passed, I
could look into the basement of the brightly lighted church, and I saw
approximately fifty Japanese being taught--aliens who did not want our
religion, but did want our language and modern ideas.
Going to the president of the Ministerial Alliance, I asked to be
heard, but they had no time to listen. I then went to the Y. M. C.
A. and the president said, "You can't expect every fellow to throw
up his hat for your concern." Paradoxical as it may seem, the only
three societies whom I asked for aid, who turned me down, were the
Ministerial Alliance, the Bartenders' Union, and the Y. M. C. A. Later,
the Women's Clubs, Labor Councils, and the Medical Societies were my
warmest friends.
I then went to those in authority in the administration of our city,
and among the many objections raised to my plea, the first was there
were other things that needed attention more. For instance, there were
overcrowded hospitals, which must be enlarged. The sick, I was told,
were lying on the floors, and several children were being placed in one
bed, just as they are doing in Chicago to-day.
Then it was declared we would pauperize the people; we would encourage
idleness instead of thrift. My investigations had taught me how useless
it is to talk ethics to a man with an empty stomach. The Municipal
Emergency Home I believed would encourage thrift instead of idleness.
And then our chief executive declared that something effectual should
be done to keep out of our State the army of consumptives who come to
Colorado. I could hardly see how that would be quite just or right. But
I could see, I thought, how the Municipal Emergency Home, rightly built
and conducted, with its sanitary measures would be a mighty influence
in our combat against the great white plague. Then the all-powerful
declared the city could not afford it--the old cry of every city
administration, where the political boss and machine politics rule,
when it comes to creating an institution that is not in tune with their
policies.
Being abruptly asked what I knew about Municipal Emergency Homes, I
was forced to confess that I had no knowledge whatever. I realized the
need of information. I did not even know there was in existence on this
whole earth of ours such an institution as I was asking Denver to build.
* * * * *
I have been greatly misunderstood in regard to the class and character
of the destitute for whom I am asking favor. That I can now clearly
explain, for what I found true in Denver in a small way I found true
in every other city I visited. I classify them in two groups,--the
unfortunate and the itinerant worker. Ninety per cent., taken as a
whole throughout our country, are of the latter. The former and smaller
percentage are chained by habits of vice, which our social system has
forced upon them, or are physically weak, made so, many of them, in
our prisons. And while, first, my plea is for the upright wage-earner,
I am broad enough to feel that if we have been criminally thoughtless
and negligent enough to allow social evils to exist and make derelicts
and dependents, we certainly ought to be honest enough to stand the
consequences and give them at least a place of shelter.
But the 4,000,000 homeless, honest toilers with us to-day affect the
welfare of every home in our nation. They are an important force and
factor in society. A moment's reflection will show us quickly hundreds
of good reasons why many of them at times should be moneyless and
shelterless. As I throw back the curtain on these stories of human
interest, I trust we may all of us catch forcibly the evident need of
not sitting idly by, supinely asking a good God to help us, but rather
of letting our petition in word and act be a living prayer in helping
Him.
The boy whom I met on our Denver street, whose condition I have
described, can justly go to the Lord and complain, as well as proclaim
to the world, that the City Beautiful held no welcome for him while in
need of life's direst necessities. It is not to be wondered at that
the so-called Christian people of the City and County of Denver have
forgotten that it is not enough to have a twenty-five thousand dollar
Welcome Arch of myriads of sparkling lights, heralding to the world its
hospitality to those entering its gate, and then forget their Christian
duty to their fellow-men in need, for the City and County of Denver has
been in a political turmoil and has been concerned not so much with
the preservation of human rights as with the preservation of property
rights. There is no other city in the region of the Rocky Mountains
that could better afford to give a real welcome to the wandering
citizen, the harvester and the builder, than Denver.
A city whose tax payers have permitted waste and extravagance to the
extent of hundreds of thousands of dollars, in the expenditure of the
tax payer's money, surely could afford to create and maintain an
institution where the wandering citizen, the homeless wage earner, may
find a Christian welcome and humane care.
If this boy should have attempted to go to the local charity
organization, and had not been told that the Society did not help
"floaters," as I have known men in other cities to be told, he would
undoubtedly have been informed, after going through a humiliating
inquisition, that his case would be investigated and if found worthy
relief afforded to him after such investigation. Imagine a hungry,
homeless, penniless man, who must have whatever help he can get
immediately, being told that his case will be investigated and relief
afforded at some later date! What is a man in this condition to do?
Did not the charity organization to whom the tax payers give money for
the express purpose of relieving the needy and distressed, compel this
very individual to beg, to accost the citizens on the streets who have
already subscribed for his relief, and to still continue to beg from
them? Does not such a charitable organization, by the acquiescence of
the citizens of the city, put a premium on this hungry, homeless man to
go and shift for himself as best he may, either by accosting citizens
who have already been burdened by his relief, or by stealing, robbing,
and if necessary demanding a life, to satisfy the needs whereby his
existence may be made possible?
[Illustration: _At a Denver Employment Office. Many of these Men Slept
in the Brick Ovens the Night before_]
It is time that the citizens of the City and County of Denver, and
for that matter, of all other municipalities of the United States,
shall awaken to the call of duty in their respective communities in
dealing rightly with those who are their wards, if they desire to
minimize instead of increase the evils of pauperism brought about by
indiscriminate alms-giving.
A great many times, through political intrigues, we find people at
the head of charity organizations in our cities that have no business
to be there. Their appointment to such places, in many instances, is
purely political, and they are, therefore, not competent to dispense
the money subscribed by the tax payers of the community. Very often
only those individuals can receive consideration at the hands of such
officials who bring a letter of introduction, or have some personal
political "pull," while an honest and deserving man, coming from some
other portion of the City or State, without any acquaintance whatsoever
in the community in which he finds himself stranded, may receive no
consideration whatever at the hands of such so-called administrators of
public charity.
It has been conclusively proven that the charitable endeavors of our
so-called charity organization societies are extremely unscientific,
wasteful, and have a detrimental and pauperizing effect in-so-far
as the work of the charitable is devoted to reclamation and not to
prevention, which is also one cause for its failure.
Consider a moment one startling fact evidencing the spirit shown by
organized charity in its effort so evidently to refrain from helping
the needy: I found during my personal investigations that the societies
keep _banking hours_ from nine to five o'clock, and are closed at
noon on Saturdays! From noon on Saturday to nine on Monday, is it not
possible that some needy one in distress may need help?
Readiness on the part of the private citizen to subordinate personal
interests to the public welfare is a sure sign of political health; and
readiness on the part of public officials to use public offices for
private gain is an equally sure sign of disease. Every municipality,
by reason of its organization, supported by all of its citizens, ought
to supply all communal needs, instead of permitting certain special
interests under the guise of "religious" and "charity" organizations to
administer to the needs of the less fortunate members of the community.
There are two very important facts that occupy the center of the stage
of our complex civilization, to which all other facts are tributary,
and which for good or ill are conceded to be of supreme importance.
They are the rise of scientific and democratic administration of all
the needs of the people, and the decline of private, special interests,
clinging to the preservation of property rights as against human
rights.
Determined is the demand of the people for a controlling voice in
their destinies. The disinherited classes are refusing to remain
disinherited. Every device within the wit of man has been sought to
keep them down, and all devices have come to naught. The efforts of the
people to throw off their oppressors have not always been wise, but
they have been noble, self-sacrificing.
The report of charities and corrections at Atlanta for 1903 states that
from among thirty of the leading cities of our nation, Denver is the
only city reported as being severe toward its toilers, particularly
toward that class which it is pleased to call "beggars" and "vagrants."
Personal observation, however, proved to me that many other cities
in the list were equally as cruel, and yet it is astounding to note
in this report that the arrests in Denver for the crime of being
poor--begging and vagrancy--which has undoubtedly correspondingly
increased with the city's growth in the following years, was 6763,
while New York City's for the corresponding crime, and same period
of time was, for begging, 430; for vagrancy, 523; and Chicago, for
begging, 338; for vagrancy, 523. This is approximately Denver's ratio
with all of the other cities in the report.