HOMELESS--IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
"_What is strange, there never was in any man sufficient faith in
the power of rectitude, to inspire him with the broad design of
renovating the state on the principle of right and love._"
--EMERSON.
It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at the Nation's Capital,
and rode to my hotel between tiers of newly erected seats, and banners
and flags and festooned arches, and myriads of many-colored lights
which soon were to burst forth in royal splendor. Already the prodigal
display, costing half a million dollars, to inaugurate a president,
was nearing completion. Already people were coming from far and near,
spending five million more.
[Illustration: _Municipal Lodging House, New York City Registering
Applicants_]
The New Willard hotel had assumed that air of distinction it always
does just before a happening of some national import. In the faces
of the handsome men I saw and read the character of decision and
intellect, and the many beautiful ladies, gowned in fabrics of
priceless value, made an exceedingly pleasant study; and with this
vision before me I was proud to be an American. But I had not
come to study this side; it was "the other half" I wanted to know. I
wanted to learn how our Capital helps its poor, how a man out of work,
penniless, and homeless, is cared for in Washington.
At about ten o'clock I went to my room to change my evening clothes for
my workingman's outfit. Walking down the stairs and slipping out a side
door, I was not noticed, and was soon lost in the avalanche of humanity
on the streets.
I asked of the first policeman I met where I could get a free bed, and
he looked at me seemingly in surprise and said, "A free bed?" then
continued, "Go to the Union Mission." I asked, "Do they charge for a
bed there?" and he replied, "Yes, 10 or 15 cents." "But I haven't even
that tonight," I answered.
Then he seemed to remember that Washington had a municipal lodging
house, and told me I would find it on Twelfth Street, next to the
police station. I asked two other policemen with similar results, and
started in search of my desired object. I looked down Pennsylvania
Avenue, a blaze of lights, and for one mile I could see and read
guiding signs of theaters, breweries, hotels, and cafés.
Presently I came to Twelfth Street, dark and gloomy, but there was no
sign as in Chicago to guide the homeless man or woman, boy or girl, to
the door of the free home. It was with difficulty I found it. There was
a three-cornered box over the door, intended for a light, but it was
not illuminated. Through smoke-dimmed windows there came a feeble light
by which I could just discern the words, "Municipal Lodging House," and
on the door the inscription, "To the Office."
Before entering I stepped back into the street and looked up at the
building. It was an old three-story brick building, with no sign of
a fire escape. I entered and found myself in a low and very narrow
passageway. I applied to the "office" through a small window-door for
my bed. There was an honest-faced, comfortably dressed young man just
ahead of me, who gave his occupation as machinist, received his bed
check, and passed on.
When I stepped to the window and asked for a bed, I received no word of
welcome from a woman seated at her desk, her demeanor being decidedly
unwelcome. Abruptly a man's voice asked from within, "Are you willing
to work for it?" I replied earnestly that I was. The woman then
snatched up a pen and asked, "Were you ever here before? Where were you
born? Where do you live? What is your business?"
My answers apparently being satisfactory, she thrust me a bed check,
and said something about a light and something else which I did not
understand, and slammed the door in my face. I stepped along and
found myself in the woodyard among piles of wood, saws, sawbucks, and
sawdust. I tried several doors, and finally found one that admitted
me. A narrow flight of stairs let me to a bathroom, where a number of
men were already trying to get a bath. There were two attendants, one
who was working for his bed and breakfast, and the other, I judged a
paid attendant. I was told to go into a closet and strip, and to hang
on a hook all of my clothes except my shoes and stockings and hat.
Having done this, I stepped out into the bathroom. It was heated by a
stove, which emitted no heat, however, as the fire was almost dead.
There were two bathtubs, and six of us were standing nude in that cold
room waiting each for his turn. The boy working for his bed made a
pretense with a mop of cleaning the tubs after each bather, but left
them nasty and unsanitary. I got into about six inches of water, and
hurriedly took my bath, because of the others waiting. I did not want
to wash my head, so omitted that, but just as I got out of the tub the
Superintendent came in and said, "You haven't washed your head yet; get
back in there and wash your head." I immediately and meekly complied.
Shivering with the cold, I got out, was given a towel to dry myself,
and then a little old cotton nightshirt with no buttons on it. Several
of us being ready, we were led by the Superintendent up another flight
of narrow stairs, through another long hall, and up two more series of
steps to a small dormitory. I would have suffered with the cold if I
had not seized an extra blanket from an unoccupied bed, and I slept
very little. I was afraid to go to sleep, for if the building had taken
fire not one man could have escaped. So I lay and took mental notes and
soul thoughts of my companions and surroundings, and of all I had seen
and heard since I left Denver.
I heard one boy say to another, "I tell you, I'm hungry. I could eat a
mule and chase the rider up hill. Did you have any supper to-night?"
And the other boy replied, "A policeman gave me a dime. What do you
think of that? And I got two scoops of beer and the biggest free lunch
you ever saw, and I feel fine."
I heard a man say to the one next to him, "Do you think this place will
be pulled to-night?" and the other answered, "Why, no; what makes you
think so?" The first one said, "They pulled the Union Mission one night
for vags, but I don't think they will pull this place, because it's a
city lodging house." Comforted by that thought, they both fell asleep.
During the night a frail boy, with no clothing except the thin
nightshirt, went to the toilet, down the long cold halls and stairways,
into the still more cold woodyard. When he returned he had a chill, and
as he lay down I heard him groan. I said, "What is the matter, boy?"
and he replied, "I have such a pain in my side."
Just at daylight we were called, went down into a cheerless room, and
were given our clothes, then on down to the cramped dining-room, with
scarcely any fire, where we were huddled together, thirty of us, whites
and blacks. Here we waited one hour for breakfast, and then we were
driven out into the woodyard for some reason we could not find out, and
waited another half-hour until breakfast was called. During that long
wait almost the entire conversation was about work and where it could
be found.
We went in to breakfast and sat down to a stew of turnips and carrots,
in which there was a little meat. In mine there were three pieces of
meat about as big as the end of one's thumb. There was some colored
sweetened water called "coffee," and some bread. I did not care for
mine, but the other men and boys ate ravenously. When the boy on my
right had finished his, I said, "Ask for some more." He replied, "It
wouldn't do no good; they only allow one dish." Then a hollow-eyed,
thin-handed man on my left said, "Are you going to eat yours?" I said,
"No," and he eagerly asked if he could have it. I said, "You most
certainly can," and then he asked me if I was not well. It was the
first word of kindness I had received. He took the dish and emptied it
all into his, but glancing up I caught the appealing look of the boy
opposite. He took the boy's empty dish, putting part of it into his
dish, and the boy ate as though he had had nothing before.
Having finished breakfast, and while we were waiting to be assigned to
our work, the door between our room and the inner room was left open
for a moment, and we saw the Superintendent seated at a well-appointed
table with flowers upon it, a colored man waiting upon him. One of the
boys looking in said, "Oh, gee, look at the beefsteak," and then
another boy looked at me, and said, "You see how Washington treats
the out-of-work, and this place is self-supporting, or more than
half-supporting." And then a boy who had come early and worked his two
hours for that bed and that breakfast, gave us a cheerful good-bye and
started off to walk seven miles to begin work on a farm, a place he had
secured the day before.
We waited to be assigned to our work. I wanted to saw wood, the wood
looked so clean and inviting, and, too, I had sawed wood when I was a
boy on the farm, and knew how; but I was not allowed to do so, and was
given the task of making the beds. It was rather repellant to me at
first, but I thought of those far down through the years of the past,
a great deal more worthy than I, who had done things much more humble
for humanity's sake. I can assure the honest man and boy who slept
beneath those coverings that night that I had tried my best to make
them comfortable, although the linen was not changed, nor the blankets
aired.
Some of the men scrubbed, and some swept the floors and stairs; some
worked about the dining-room; others sawed wood.
While waiting in the woodyard for breakfast, I jokingly said, as we
looked at the wood, "What's the matter of getting out of here? Then we
won't have to work." And one replied, "We can't, we are locked in."
To prove if this was true I stepped to the door and found it as he
said. We were locked in and could not have escaped in case of fire or
accident if we had tried.
There is a sign, sometimes seen to-day in the dance halls of our
Western camps, "Don't shoot the pianist, he is doing the best he can,"
and so with the Superintendent of Washington's Municipal Lodging
House, under the conditions he may be doing the best he can. Work
is always a grand thing. The floors and stairs were clean, also our
food and dishes. He impressed me as being the right man in the right
kind of a place. But the Washington Federal Lodging House is only a
suggestion of such an institution. As the house now stands it is the
lodger, the workless man and boy, who keeps the floors and stairs and
windows clean. They do it willingly, but they should be treated fairly
for their labor. Not one should be allowed to go to bed hungry. He
should be given a clean, warm bed to sleep in, and a good wholesome
breakfast, and all he can eat. He should be given a pleasant welcome,
an encouraging word, and a cheerful farewell,--it means so much, and
costs nothing.
I did not stay to see the inauguration. Somehow Washington had lost
its brightness, and the grand men and beautiful women their interest. I
had read almost every week for a number of years of "T. R.," and of his
democratic way of walking on Sunday morning to church, and then I fell
to wondering why he never walked to a few other places in Washington,
which were only a stone's throw from his home. But one with great cares
cannot be blamed for thoughtlessness in "little things." I did not go
to church as I intended. I spent the morning asking the press to appeal
to the city of Washington, where Lincoln and Washington lived, thought,
and acted, the city of love, charity and freedom, not to let another
day pass until they had started a movement and sent a delegation to
inspect and to copy the Municipal Lodging House of New York, that they,
too, might build one, to be the example of our country.