MEMPHIS--A CITY'S FAULT AND A NATION'S WRONG
"_Society must necessarily look at these things because they are
created by it._"--HUGO.
On my arrival in Memphis I was greeted by a severe storm. Although
chilled and almost starving my first desire was to secure my baggage,
which I had sent on from Cleveland, and go to a hotel. But there were
the conditions of the homeless and needy of Memphis to be studied.
Under what more convincing and truthful conditions could I find need in
Memphis for the erection and maintenance of a Municipal Emergency Home?
So with renewed determination I decided to learn of what Memphis had to
offer to the homeless, hungry worker.
My brisk walk from the railroad yards to the heart of the city warmed
my thoroughly-numbed body. I realized that I must have food. I was at
my goal. Here was a chance to work for the government. I expected to be
shipped on the first boat. I know my personal appearance was decidedly
against me as I entered Memphis. Soiled, black, unshaven, unwashed, I
felt certain of arrest if seen by the police. Entering several hotels I
asked work for a meal, but was promptly denied. The good things glowed
in the dining-room windows. People seated at tables were eating all
and everything they wanted. Outside on the street, well-dressed people
hurried on to their homes. Must I beg, after all? No. Here, too, it was
against the city ordinance as well as against my contract. I decided
to try one more place. I entered one of the largest restaurants and
approaching the manager, I said,
"I am hungry. Can I do something for you for a little to eat?"
He looked me squarely in the eye with a merry twinkle in his own and
said,
"You look like the devil. Just drop in on a coal special?"
"No, a Standard Oil," I answered.
"Go back there," pointing toward the kitchen, "wash up, get some
supper. My silver man has not shown up yet. If he does not, help them
out in there."
What a feast that supper, for which I worked half an hour! What the
black cook did not give me was not in the restaurant. The silver man
came, and I was again on the street. I was growing so weary and felt
the need of sleep, but with a clean face and clean hands, and a brush
up, I had the courage to ask a policeman where I could get a free bed.
He replied,
"In the jungles, or the jail. But I advise you not to go to the jail
unless you have to."
At last, because forced to do so, I applied at the Y. M. C. A. They
could not think of giving a bath, meal or bed to a homeless man in
their beautiful palace, but gave me a ticket to the Gospel Union
Mission on Front Street. This was an old building partly destroyed by
fire, which had been condemned by the city,--a place fairly reeking
with filth, sewer gas, and vermin. The Y. M. C. A. of Memphis would
have committed a more Christian act to have literally kicked me into
the street or turned me over to the police. But what did they care? I
had been gotten rid of and was no longer a concern of theirs.
The old man at the Mission was reluctant to give me a bed for the night
even with an order from the Y. M. C. A. He would so much, rather have
had the ten cents. He told me I would have to saw wood the next morning
for the privilege of sleeping there, which I did. Water was an unknown
quantity, at least as far as a bath went, and no food was offered.
The horrible experience I went through at the Hope Rescue Mission of
Louisville did not exceed my experience in this awful place.
In the morning I hurried to the Post Office expecting letters and
money, but the letters had been delayed. I knew absolutely no one in
Memphis. I went to the office of the government works to see about my
shipment. The boat would not leave until the following day so I was
forced to spend another night in Memphis. As there was no other place,
I was obliged to spend that night in the jungles,--the dense woods and
willows which line the river bank. I had to do this if I wished to see
what it meant to be destitute in Memphis. I made my way to the jungle.
I was not alone. There were six other destitute men there. Four of
these men were skilled craftsmen, all were Americans. The other two
were unskilled laborers, one a German, the other a Swede. During the
wakeful moments of that long, cold night I learned from each of these
men that the reasons for his being there were just and honorable. All
of the men were on their way to work. None of them were over thirty
years of age. Two were not yet twenty-one. They called each other
"Pal." Four of the men had already received transportation on the
steamboat _Kate Adams_, to leave on the next day for Walnut Bend, where
they were to labor on the government works riprapping the river banks
with willows. They were to receive a dollar and twenty-five cents a
day with board if they remained over a week on the job. If not, they
were to receive but one dollar a day for ten hours' work. The German
and the Swede were on their way to a railroad camp where work awaited
them. Because they had no transportation they were compelled to work or
beat their way to their destination. Two of these men had just money
enough for a meager breakfast. It was a question in their minds whether
to go without the breakfast or a bed. They decided to deny themselves
the latter. The others were penniless and had to win their breakfasts
in some way or continue to starve. They were all comfortably clothed.
The Swede's suit seemed a particularly good one, but in the approaching
daylight it was discovered that, while lying too near the fire, he had
burned out one side of his coat and one trouser leg. Noticing this he
remarked, "Well, boys I must sneak out of town unseen, in a hurry, for
if the police see me now they will arrest me without question." He
and others expressed a fear that I also felt all through that awful
night--the fear of the Memphis police. I decided to postpone my study
of the government works.
A week later I met one of the "pals." He told me the food down on the
government works was good, for coarse food, and there was plenty of
it, but the sleeping accommodations were extremely bad. "I would have
stayed," he said, "although the work was such that I wore out clothes
faster than my wages would replace them, but the water made me ill.
Then, too, I saw a man drowned. After that I didn't care to stay."
Explaining the tragedy, he said, "You see it was this way. We were
working with the willows from a barge in the river. The boy lost his
balance and fell into the stream. The treacherous current instantly
swept him from the barge. He tried to swim back. God! I never saw such
a trial of strength for life. With the strong Indian overstroke, the
muscles stood out on his arms and neck like cords of rope, wrought to
such a tension it seemed as if the slightest blow would have snapped
them like glass. But the look of anguish on his face! If I could only
forget that! Almost exhausted, and seeing that his efforts to reach
the barge were in vain, he turned to swim down stream and toward
the shore, but a whirlpool caught him. For an instant he raised his
calloused hands above his head, and then--all was over. No sooner had
he disappeared than the boss demanded, with a violent oath, 'Bring on
the willows.'"
"Were there no means of rescue provided for such an emergency?" I asked
in horror.
His answer was nothing but the mention of the existence of so much red
tape that a boat could not be provided which might possibly have saved
that young man's life.
The man was so visibly affected while relating the incident that I was
led to inquire the cause. He replied, as he abruptly left me,
"He was our pal that night in the jungles--my pal."
After hearing of this tragedy, I definitely decided not to go at all to
the government works.
So filled was I with the obvious neglect by the city of Memphis of its
toilers, I decided to tell the people of that city something of their
thoughtlessness towards their homeless and needy workers, for whom they
failed to provide food and shelter. So I called on the mayor and other
influential citizens, telling them of my experiences and appealing to
them to make a Municipal Emergency Home possible. All were in hearty
sympathy with me. On invitation I met the City Club, an organization
made up of the progressive business men of the city. Following my
appeal to them, a Municipal Emergency Home Committee was appointed.
Leaving Memphis I went on to Birmingham, Alabama, that wonderfully
active city, which because of its industries calls thousands of
workingmen annually within its gate. My first effort here for the
worker without the dime was to try to get medical treatment. Finding
the dispensary closed at nine A. M., I was told it was open only one
hour in the day, from twelve to one o'clock. The same conditions
existed here in regard to the private charities as existed in other
cities. Late in the afternoon I met a bricklayer, who told me in a
casual way that a few weeks before, he had reached Birmingham, broke,
and had been taken care of in a "speak easy" near the Louisville and
Nashville Depot, which is filled with evil men and women. I had given
him the impression that I was down and out. "They'll treat you right
there," he said. "It is the only place I know of. Go there." Then he
added, "I'll bet you're hungry," and as he left he offered me a quarter.
Later in the evening, while I stood on a downtown corner, a
well-dressed, intelligent-looking man slapped me on the shoulder and
said,
"Beg pardon. Are you a railroad man?"
"In a way," I replied.
"Can you direct me to the round-house?"
"No. What is the matter, want a place to sleep?"
"That is just it. Here is my union card. I happened to hit town broke.
Don't know a soul, and don't know any of the boys. I know I could spend
the night at the round-house, if I could find it."
Even here the jail denied shelter and the Salvation Army had nothing
to offer a penniless man. I felt my going to Birmingham was at an
opportune time as the Alabama Federation of Women's Clubs was in
convention, and a beautiful, gracious lady, their State President,
Mrs. Ferris Columan, kindly granted me a hearing. When I left I was
conscious of the fact that I left a thought which would be carried to a
great many of the kind hearts of Alabama.
I went on down to Mobile, then to New Orleans. Wherever I went, all
through the South, I heard the cry in the night of cruel abuse and
neglect of the wage-slave just as I heard it all through the North.
I saw the blood drops of the peon, the broken, bruised and lacerated
bodies of human beings leased from the prison to the convict camp. I
heard the unceasing cry of woe from stone walls and iron bars, the mad
shrieks from dungeon cells and torture chambers and the terror-striking
bay of the bloodhound.
While what I have written of will remain an incurable wound, when I
carried the message of progress, of justice and love, a plea for an
institution for labor, for health, and for brotherly care, into the
labor councils, the progressive Business Men's Union, composed of three
hundred citizens, and the Women's Clubs (especially the Era Club),
the intense interest shown by all of these for the oppressed heralds
an illumined page in history and bespeaks a glorious victory for the
South.