In the second year of his residence Keith had a minor adventure that
shifted a portion of his activities to other fields. He was in
attendance at a council meeting, following the interests of certain
clients. The evening was warm, the proceedings dull. Opened windows let
in the sounds from the Plaza and a night air that occasionally flared
the smoky lamps. The clerk's voice was droning away at some routine
when the outer door opened and a most extraordinary quartette entered
the chamber. Three of these were the ordinary, ragged, discouraged,
emaciated, diseased "bums," only too common in that city. In early
California a man either succeeded or he failed into a dark abyss of
complete discouragement; the new civilization had little use for
weaklings. The fourth man can be no better described than in the words
of a chronicler of the period. Says the worthy diarist:
"He was a man of medium stature, slender but very graceful, with almost
effeminate hands and feet--the former scrupulously kept, the latter
neatly shod--and with a certain air of fragility; very soft blue eyes
with sleepy lids; a classically correct nose; short upper lip; rosy,
moist lips. His clothes: a claret-coloured coat, neither dress nor
frock, but mixed of both fashions, with a velvet collar and brass
buttons; a black vest, double breasted; iron-gray pantaloons; fresh,
well-starched, and very fine linen; plain black cravat, negligently
tied; a cambric handkerchief; and dark kid gloves. He wore gold
spectacles, and carried a malacca cane."
Instead of slipping into the seats provided for spectators, this
striking individual marched boldly to the open space before the mayor's
chair, followed, shamefaced and shambling, by the three bums.
"Your honours and gentlemen," he cried in a clear, ringing voice, to
the scandal of the interrupted legislators, "we are very sick and
hungry and helpless and wretched. If somebody does not do something for
us, we shall die; and that would be bad, considering how far we have
come, and how hard it was to get here, and how short a time we have
been here, and that we have not had a fair chance. All we ask is a fair
chance, and we say again, upon our honour, gentlemen, if somebody does
not do something for us, we shall die, or we shall be setting fire to
the town first and cutting all our throats."
He stood leaning lightly against his malacca cane, surveying them
through his sleepy blue eyes. The first astonishment over, they took up
a collection, after the customary careless, generous fashion. The young
man saluted with his cane, and herded his three exhibits out.
Keith, much struck, followed them, overtaking the quartette on the
street.
"My name is Keith," he said, "I should like to make your acquaintance."
"Mine is Krafft," replied the unknown, "and I am delighted to accept
your proffer."
He said nothing more until he had marshalled his charges, into a cheap
eating-house, ordered and paid for a supper, and divided the remainder
of the amount collected. Then he dusted his fingers daintily with a
fine handkerchief, and sauntered out into the street, swinging his
malacca cane.
"Incidents of that sort restore one's faith in the generosity of our
people," Keith remarked, in order to say something.
"Nobody has been generous," denied Krafft categorically, "and no
particular good has been accomplished. Filled their bellies for this
evening; given them a place to sleep for this night; that's all."
"That's something," ventured Keith. "It helps."
"The only way to help we have not undertaken. We have done nothing
toward finding out why there are such creatures--in a place like this.
That's the only way to help them: find out why they are, and then
remove the why."
This commonplace of modern charity was then a brand-new thought. Keith
had never heard it expressed, and he was much interested.
"I suppose there are always the weak and the useless," he said vaguely.
"If those men were wholly weak and useless, how did they get out here?"
countered Krafft. "To compass such a journey takes a certain energy, a
certain sum of money, a certain fund of hope. The money goes, the
energy drains, the hope fades. Why?"
They stopped at a corner.
"I live just near here," said Krafft. "If you will honour me."
He led the way down a narrow dark alley, along which they had fairly to
grope their way. It debouched, however, into the forgotten centre of
the square. All the edges had been built close with brick stores,
warehouses, and office buildings. But in the very middle had been left
a waste piece of ground, occupied only by a garden and a low one-room
abode, with a veranda and a red-tiled roof. Under the moonlight and the
black shadows from the modern buildings it slept amid its bright
flowers with the ancient air of another world. Krafft turned a key and
lighted a lamp. Keith found himself in a small, neat room, with heavy
beams, fireplace, and deep embrasured windows. An iron bed, two chairs,
a table, a screen, a shelf of books, and a wardrobe were its sole
furnishings. In the fireplace had been laid, but not lighted, a fire of
sagebrush roots.
Krafft touched a match to the roots, which instantly leaped into eager
and aromatic flames. From a shelf he took a new clay pipe which he
handed to Keith.
"Tobacco is in that jar," he said.
He himself filled and lighted a big porcelain pipe with wexelwood stem.
"What would you do about it?" asked Keith, continuing the discussion.
"What would you most want, if you were those poor men?" retorted
Krafft, blowing a huge cloud.
Keith laughed.
"Drink, food, clothes, bed," he stated succinctly.
"And work wherewith to get them," supplemented Krafft.
Keith laughed again.
"Not if I know their sort! Work is the one thing they _don't_ want."
Krafft leaned forward, and tapped the table with one of his long
forefingers.
"The lazy part of them, the earthen part of them, the dross of
them--yes, perhaps. But let us concede to them a spark that smoulders,
way down deep within them--a spark of which they think they are
ashamed, which they do not themselves realize the existence of except
occasionally. What is the deep need of them? It is to feel that they
are still of use, that they amount to something, that they are men.
That more than mere food and warmth. Is it not so?"
"I believe you're right," said Keith, impressed.
"Then," said Krafft triumphantly, "it _is_ work they want, work that is
useful and worth paying for."
"But there's plenty of work to be had," objected Keith, after a moment.
"In fact, there's more work in this town than there are men to do it."
"True, But it is the hard work these men have failed at. It is too
hard. They try; they are discouraged; they fall again, and perhaps they
never get up. Such men must be led, must be watched, must be stopped
within their strength."
"Who's there to do that sort of dry nursing of bums?" demanded Keith
with a half laugh.
"He who would help," said Krafft quietly.
They smoked for some time in silence; then Keith arose to go.
"It is a big idea; it requires thought," said he ruminatively. "You are
a recent arrival, Mr. Krafft? What is your line of activity?"
The slight, elegant little man smiled.
"I am one of the--what is it you called, them--bums of whom we talk. I
try to do what is within my power, within my strength-lest I, too,
become discouraged, lest I, too, fall again--and not get up."
"I have not seen you about anywhere," said Keith, puzzled by this
speech.
"I do not go anywhere; I should be eaten. You do not understand me, and
I am a poor host to talk in riddles. I am a philosopher, not a man of
action; egotist, not an egoist; one who cannot swim in your strong
waters. As I said, one of that same class whom your bounty helped this
evening."
"Good Lord, man!" cried Keith, looking about the little room. "You're
not in want?"
Krafft laughed gently.
"In your sense, no. I have my meals. Enough of me. Go, and think of
what I say."
Keith did so, and the result was the first organized charity in San
Francisco. Since 1849 men had always been exceptionally generous in
responding to appeals for money. Huge sums could easily be raised at
any time. Hospitals and almshouses dated from the first. But having
given, these pioneers invariably forgot. The erection of the buildings
cost more than they should, and management being venal, conditions soon
became disgraceful. Alms reached the professional pauper. The miner or
immigrant, diseased, discouraged, out of luck, more often died--either
actually or morally.
So much had this first interview caught his interest that Keith dropped
in on his new acquaintance quite often. It soon became evident that
Krafft lived in what might be called decent poverty. The one fine
rig-out in which he made his public appearances was most carefully
preserved. Indoors he always promptly assumed a dressing-gown, a skull
cap with a gold tassel, and his great porcelain pipe. His meals he
cooked for himself. Never did he leave his house until about three
o'clock. Then, spick and span, exquisitely appointed, he sauntered
forth swinging his malacca cane. After a promenade of several hours he
returned again to his dressing-gown, his porcelain pipe, and his books.
Keith enjoyed hugely his detached, reflective, philosophical,
spectator-of-life conversation. They talked on many subjects besides
sociology. At his fourth visit Krafft made a suggestion.
"You shall come with me and see," said he.
He led the way to the water front under Telegraph Hill, the newest and
the most squalid part of town. The shallow water was in slow process of
being filled in by sand from the grading uptown and with all sorts of
miscellaneous debris, Pending solidity, this sketchy real estate
swarmed with squatters. There were lots sunken below the street level,
filled with stagnant water, discarded garments, old boxes, ashes, and
rubbish; houses huddled closely together with stale water beneath;
there were muddy alleys; murderous cheap saloons; cheaper gambling
joints; rickety, sagging tenements. The people corresponded to their
habitations. All the low elements lurked here, the thugs, strong-arm
men, the hold-ups, the heelers, the weaklings, the bums, the diseased.
In ordinary times they here dwelt in a twilight existence; but at
periods of excitement--as when the city burned--they swarmed out like
rats for plunder.
Krafft held his way steadily to the wharves. There he left the causeway
and descended to the level of the beach. Beneath the pilings, and above
the high-water mark, was a little hut. It was not over six feet square,
constructed of all sorts of old pieces of boxes, scraps of tin, or
remnants of canvas. Overhead rumbled continuously the heavy drays,
shaking down, through the cracks the dust of the roadway. Against one
outside wall of this crazy structure an old man sat, chair tilted in
the sun. Even the chair was a curiosity, miraculously held together by
wires. The man was very old, and very feeble, his knotted hands
clasping a short, black clay pipe. Inside the hut Keith, saw a rough
bunk on which lay jumbled a quilt and a piece of canvas.
"Well, John," greeted Krafft cheerfully, "I've brought a friend to see
you."
The old man turned on Keith a twinkling blue eye.
"Glad to see you," he said briefly.
"Getting on?" pursued Krafft.
"Fine."
"Here's a new kind of tobacco I want you to try. I should value your
opinion."
Keith's hand wandered toward his pocket, but stopped at a sharp look
from Krafft. After a moment's chat they withdrew.
"What a pathetic old figure! What utter misery!" cried Keith.
"No!" said Krafft positively. "There you are wrong. Old John is in no
need of us. He has his house and his bed, and he gets his food. How, I
do not know, but he gets it. The spark is burning clear and steady. He
has not lost his grip. He gets his living with confidence. Let him
alone."
"But he must be very miserable--especially when it rains," persisted
Keith.
Krafft shrugged his shoulders.
"As to that, I know not," he returned indifferently. "That does not
matter to the soul. I will now show you another man."
They retraced their steps. On a corner of Montgomery Street Krafft
stopped before a one-armed beggar, the stump exposed, a placard around
his neck.
"Now here's another John," said Krafft. "What he wants is work, and
somebody to see that he does it."
The one-armed beggar, who was fat, with a good-natured countenance,
evidently considered this a joke. He grinned cheerfully.
"Don't have to, guvenor," said he.
"How much did you take in yesterday, John?" asked Krafft; then,
catching the beggar's look of suspicion, he added, "This is a friend of
mine; he's all right."
"Twenty-two dollars," replied the beggar proudly. "Pretty good day's
wages!"
"I'm afraid the spark is about out with you, John," said Krafft
thoughtfully. He walked on a few steps, then turned back. "John," he
asked, "what is your contribution to society?"
The beggar stared, uncertain of this new chaff.
"The true theory of business, John, is that traffic which does not
result In reciprocal advantages to buyer and seller is illegitimate, or
at least abnormal."
They walked on, Keith laughing at the expression on the beggar's face.
"That was considerably over his head," he observed.
Nothing more was said for half a block.
"I wonder if it was over yours," then said Krafft, unexpectedly.
"Eh?" ejaculated Keith, bewildered.
These walks with Krafft finally resulted in the institution of a fund
which Keith raised and put into Krafft's hands for intelligent use. The
effects were so interesting that Keith, thoroughly fascinated, began to
pester his friends for positions for some of his protégés. As he was
well-liked and in earnest, these efforts were taken good-humouredly.
"Here comes Milt Keith," said John Webb to Bert Taylor. "Bet you a
beaver hat he's got a highly educated college professor that he wants a
job for."
"'A light job, not beyond his powers,'" quoted Taylor.
"Like cleaning genteel spittoons," supplemented Webb.
"The engine house is full of 'em polishing brass," complained Taylor.
"Well, he's a young felly, and I like him," concluded Webb heartily.
Of course many of the experiments failed, but fewer than might have
been anticipated. Part of Krafft's task was to keep in touch with the
men. His detached, philosophical method of encouragement and analysis
of the situation seemed just the thing they needed.