TRUSTED WITH BILLIONS, PAID IN MILLS
When discussing with my Y. W. C. A. friend my experiences at the Rodman
Hall, she said:
“Why don’t you give our employment department a trial? I believe you’d
have a wider choice. Besides, you might help the Association a
lot—reporting conditions at the places where you work.”
Semiphilanthropy again! was my mental exclamation. The department store
and Sea Foam were the property of philanthropists. The overdressed woman
and her “placement bureau” was a semiphilanthropic annex. St. Rose and
Rodman Hall! Now the Y. W. C. A. employment department.
Semiphilanthropies!
With a sigh so sincere that it seemed hypocrisy to suppress it, I
promised to be on time the following morning, go up to the seventh floor
and register. I took my leave and walked dejectedly back to the
rooming-house. There was no hope in me; my enthusiasm had passed away as
a thing that had never been. I was to have my faith in human nature
tried by another semiphilanthropy.
True to my word but expecting the worst, I arrived, was whisked to the
seventh floor by the elevator, registered, and promptly received two
shocks. First, not being charged a fee. Second, being assured that I was
not an unskilled worker. Far from it. The woman at the desk named so
many lines of work in which I would be received with open arms that it
made me dizzy—banks, brokers, insurance, real estate, and a half-hundred
more.
Then she asked which of the fields she had named especially appealed to
me.
“Well,” I hesitated, forced by her eyes and her business-like manner to
give some sort of an answer, “since you think I would fit in so many
holes, suppose you let me try one in which I will release a man for
service.”
She smiled and shook her head.
"That’s not much of a choice. In every vacancy I have named you will be
releasing a man—one who has enlisted or been drafted. Under normal
conditions none of these people would come to us. They’d apply to the Y.
M., or some agency making a specialty of educated men. Take the T. Z.
Trust Company, one of the largest banking institutions in the country.
If you go there you’ll be the first woman; heretofore they have employed
men exclusively.
“But what could I do in a bank? I’ve never been beyond the drawing and
deposit windows. That could not be called bank training.”
“Bank employees are not produced by training but by experience. Suppose
you go down and let them judge of your fitness. Besides bookkeepers and
stenographers they have openings for intelligent, educated women. I’ll
give you a card.”
And give me a card she did. Within an hour after entering the employment
rooms, without having spent a cent, I was on my way to see the treasurer
of one of the largest banking institutions in the Wall Street district.
Mr. Morton, the treasurer, being in the loan department, I was given a
chair beside his desk, and asked to wait.
“I dreamed I dwelt in marble halls,” I hummed to myself.
If I should be employed here I would certainly work in marble halls. The
bank, as far as I could see on that floor, was beautiful marble and
bronze. Wonderful! The huge flat-top desk beside me and the chair in
which I sat were both exquisitely grained mahogany. And there were five
other desks and numerous chairs just like them on the officers’ floor—at
the front of the bank and raised one step above the general floor level.
While I was busy studying the faces of the men at the other desk Mr.
Morton arrived without my being conscious of his approach. He spoke to
me, and looking up I beheld a long, tall man, with becomingly gray hair.
Now I like gray hair, and I also like eyes that meet mine calmly and as
a matter of course when the owner is talking to me. There’s a difference
in eyes—eyes that play hop, skip, and jump, trying to see everything,
look everywhere except into the eyes of the person addressing them; eyes
that stare at you as though wishing to jump out and snatch your eyes
bald-headed, and eyes that have a predisposition to study the toes of
shoes and the figures on the carpet, darting up once in a while to catch
you off your guard, and perhaps murder you.
My interview with Mr. Morton was encouraging. He felt sure, he said,
that if women of my “attainments” would offer their services they would
be gladly accepted by the banks and similar corporations. As he saw
conditions, if the war continued as long as persons in a position to
know appeared to expect it would, half of the work of the Trust Company
would have to be done by women.
“Everybody don’t agree with me,” he added. “Some think it unnecessary,
my employing women here. Some of our men enlisted, many were called in
the first draft, others will be caught in later drafts. The situation is
serious, and I want to meet it.”
On learning that he was a Princeton graduate, I decided to give him a
trial as a boss. Fortunately for me, he decided to give me a trial.
After taking the names of my references and some more general
conversation, he asked me to report for duty the next Monday morning.
On my return trip up-town I took stock of myself. Pat myself on the back
as I might, I was forced to admit that my clothes, in their present
condition, were not suited to a dweller in marble halls. Determined not
to take my trunks from storage, I was even more set on continuing to
live on my wages. What to do I did not know.
Being Friday I resolved to loaf until Monday. Leaving the surface car at
Store Beautiful, I proceeded to carry out my resolve—loaf. Perhaps while
doing so a solution of my problem might develop. But an hour spent in
roaming through the most beautiful department store in the world only
added to my conviction—the unfitness of my clothes to marble halls.
When I again faced the world on Broadway I was still struggling over the
puzzle—how to get a dress suited to marble halls. Wool was prohibitive
not only in price but because it was needed by our soldiers and the
destitute Belgians; silk was far above the contents of my pocket-book,
and cotton was winging its way upward so fast that I might be forced to
join an aviation corps to get enough of it for a frock.
There was Fourteenth Street to be investigated—Fourteenth Street has
solved many financial problems. So in and out of that wide street I
nosed, like a pointer dog hunting for game ardently wished for though
unscented. Finally down in a basement I came to a point—I actually
pointed.
“That piece of cloth over there—what’s the price of it?”
The saleswoman looked at the cloth, then back at me. Her expression was
of a person who had answered the same question many times.
“There’s only five yards, and we can’t get any more like it,” she told
me.
“What’s the price?”
“Oh, it’s cheap enough,” and taking the cloth from the shelf she spread
it before me on the counter. “One dollar for the piece. We could get
three times the money if there was enough of it for anything. It’s only
twenty-seven inches wide.”
“I’ll take it.”
On leaving that counter with the parcel in my hand I hurried to the
pattern department and there spent twenty cents. Fortunately, among the
riffraff left behind by Alice and the hat-trimmer there were remnants of
several spools of white cotton thread and a few inches of dark-brown
cotton poplin.
Early the next morning I trudged up to the Y. W. C. A. with all the
spool cotton and the scrap of poplin in my bag, and a neatly folded
parcel under my arm. When I quitted the sewing-room late that afternoon
I carried with me a dress in which at that time it would have been
equally appropriate to visit a tenement or dine in a palace. Besides
being patriotic it was also the height of fashion—cotton khaki, severely
tailored, with a long tie of dark brown.
Up to that time, aside from room-rent and food, my expenditures had been
limited to one pair of shoes, seven dollars; one union suit, fifty-nine
cents; one picture show, ten cents; two evenings at church, twenty-five
cents in the plate each time. I admit that such an existence of grinding
toil is only possible to a girl of character. Polly Preston is a girl of
character. So also were a large majority of those with whom I had
worked. Had such not been the case millions instead of thousands would
have fallen by the wayside, succumbing to the conditions amid which
women were forced to work before the entrance of our country into the
World War. At that time the life of a working woman was of no more value
than that of a dog. Yet had our working women ceased to be virtuous our
country must have perished.
Now I have come to one of the two most disagreeable experiences of my
four years. Perhaps the hardest for me to describe with equal justice to
myself and the people among whom I worked.
On reporting at the T. Z. Trust Company at the time appointed by Mr.
Morton, I learned that though he had not arrived he had instructed his
secretary how to dispose of me. When she told me that Mr. Morton had
decided to place me in the loan department, it was evident that she
expected me to be greatly pleased. I did my best not to disappoint her.
But to tell the truth the name meant as much to me as an inscription
over a Hindu temple. And I could have conducted services in a Hindu
temple as intelligently as I did the work in that department during my
first few days.
After passing through several gates opening into private compartments
fenced off by heavy bronze wire netting we entered the loan department.
Once there I saw that it was at the rear of the bank, and that it had
two windows similar to those of a bank for the use of customers. In the
way of furniture there were two flat-topped desks, a large one and a
smaller, two bookkeeper’s desks, a large iron safe on wheels, a ticker
and its basket, and several chairs.
The loan clerk, Mr. Hartley, and his first assistant, Dennis Hoolagan,
sat facing each other at the larger of the two flat-topped desks. At the
smaller flat top, which was in one corner, sat a young man, Tom Turpin,
tall, blond, and carefully groomed. In an adjoining compartment, at a
large table, was a still younger man, Dick Ware. And in yet another
adjoining compartment was the stenographer and typist, whose name no one
considered worth mentioning. Mr. Hartley and Dick Ware, I soon learned,
were of American stock. Hoolagan was a son of Irish immigrants, while
Turpin’s parents had come as immigrants from that country from which
Americans get their coachmen and butlers, but never their cooks.
I have already stated how I chanced to go to the T. Z. Trust Company.
When I proposed to release a man for service I did not for a moment
imagine that I was doing anything remarkable. Indeed it seemed a very
small thing to offer my country my untrained services since all my
men-folks had enlisted and were prepared to give their lives. Because
the press and men and women in public life were urging American women to
follow the example of the women of England and France, step into the
working world and release men for service at the front, I did it. While
I did not expect to be commended, neither did I so much as dream that
any fellow employee would do his best to render my position unpleasant.
That is exactly what Tom Turpin and Dennis Hoolagan did attempt—to
render my position in the loan department of the T. Z. Trust Company
intolerable.
On that first day, the ceremony of introductions over, Mr. Hartley
explained that I was to learn to do the work done by Dick Ware and Tom
Turpin. These young men, Mr. Hartley informed me, had enlisted, and
might be called at any time. Hoolagan had been drafted, but because of a
physical defect would not be taken by the first draft. He, Mr. Hartley,
then placed a chair for me at Turpin’s elbow. I was to begin by learning
Turpin’s work.
Never in my life had I felt even a slight interest in stocks and bonds.
Now I found myself sitting cheek by jowl with a ticker. My chair was so
close to the thing that the tape got the habit of running down my collar
instead of into the basket. Any one can judge how much at home I felt.
Even that first day I had a feeling of discomfort that I had never
experienced in any of my former positions. My memory of the forenoon of
that, my first day, is of a blurred puzzle—there were so many things the
meaning of which I had not the faintest conception. On my return from
lunch I found only Turpin and Hoolagan in the office. My chair was
nowhere in sight. I placed my hand on Mr. Hartley’s chair.
“Better not do that!” Turpin cried. “Hart don’t like anybody to sit in
his chair.”
“Who has moved my chair?” I questioned. No answer. Both men appeared to
be too engrossed by their work to hear. After a few minutes, puzzled but
thinking perhaps it was intended as a joke, I asked: “Where am I to
sit?”
Another wait.
“There’s a stool,” Turpin told me, pointing over his shoulder to a high
stool at the bookkeeper’s desk in the far corner.
The stool was not an enticing seat, but not dreaming that any offense
was intended I never dreamed of taking offense. Going over I perched
myself on the stool and busied myself trying to learn how to manipulate
a little machine used to make out checks. This moving of my chair was
repeated the following day along with numerous other acts of petty
spite. Having always been cordially received I did not at all
understand.
It took days for me even to suspect that I was not a welcomed addition
to the department. Turpin was, of course, the man whose acts aroused
this suspicion. His method of instructing me had, from the first, seemed
to me peculiar. When pretending to show me how to make out the reports
sent from the loan department to various officers of the bank, he would
be laboriously adding or subtracting a few figures, then suddenly he
would throw himself back in his chair, heave a sigh of extreme
exasperation, and shout at me.
Though this puzzled and embarrassed me from the first, I did not for a
moment think it was done with malice aforethought. Being repeated so
often, I finally began to question myself—why should I, when not allowed
to take any part in the work in hand, be howled at? Now, I am not quite
a fool. It did not require a great length of time for me to discover
that Turpin’s fits of exasperation and loud talking only occurred when
Mr. Morton, Mr. Hartley, or some one of the vice-presidents of the bank
was in hearing.
On my inquiring, quite casually, one day of Turpin what he thought of
Mr. Morton’s idea of putting women in the positions left vacant by men
going to the front, I got what he would have called “a line” on his
behavior.
“We all know that business has got to make out with women somehow,” he
replied patronizingly. “This bank along with the rest. What we complain
about is Morton’s giving us an untrained woman. You’ve never had any
office training.”
“None,” I agreed. “I told Mr. Morton I had had no experience in office
work. He thought that being a college woman——”
“College!” he exclaimed contemptuously. “What’s that good for? I’d have
gone to college if I hadn’t known it would be throwing away time. As
soon as I finished the high school—graduated, of course—I came here.”
“How long have you been in the loan department?” I inquired.
“More than two years. You can take it from me it’s a man-size job. No
woman, much less an untrained woman, can swing it.”
“The work is very hard,” I agreed, with a deep and insincere sigh. I
thought then, and I have never changed my opinion, that a conscientious
girl of sixteen could do all that I ever saw him attempt.
“You bet it’s hard!” he agreed with a beaming smile.
“The bank will miss you,” I assured him, doing my best to make my eyes
look round and innocent.
“Miss me!” he cried with enthusiasm. “They’ll know when I’m gone; you
see if they don’t.”
From then on I followed that young man’s lead so successfully that I am
convinced that the loan clerk was amazed to find after Turpin and Ware
left that I actually knew that two and two made four. Turpin taught me
nothing. He would not even tell me how he got the figures for making out
the daily report of business done in the department.
To Mr. Morton, to Mr. Hartley, and two courteous men in the bookkeeping
department I owe all that I know about the inside of a bank and the
world of finance. Mr. Morton explained the how and why of a bank
balance. By teaching me to read the ticker-tape he interested me in
stocks and bonds, and the part played by the Wall Street market in the
business of the country.
The two bookkeepers showed me from which of their books Turpin got the
figures about which he had made such a mystery. It was as easy as
rolling off a log—making out the reports over which Turpin used to sweat
and swear—once I had learned from which books to get the figures. A
ten-year-old child could have done all the subtracting and adding—that’s
all it was, simple addition and subtraction. A man-size job!
To Mr. Hartley I am indebted for much more. He not only taught me enough
to enable me to swing my job, but he revolutionized my ideas of men—men
in general, business men in particular.
Strange as it now seems, before going to work in the T. Z. I had
believed that every business man spent the best part of his time while
down-town loafing—in a gentlemanly way, of course, but loafing. Such
ideas came to me direct from the wives of the men. Among my circle of
intimate acquaintances there are about fifty young married women. The
husband of each of these women works to support his family. Of the whole
fifty I do not believe there is one who does not suspect her husband of
loafing, or having a sort of good time generally during the period known
as business hours.
Let any one of them wish to go out of an evening and she proceeds to
make her arrangements—always including her husband. If he demurs,
expresses a wish to remain at home, she reminds him that it has been a
week, or perhaps as much as a month, since they have spent an evening
away from home. It’s all very well for him, going to his office every
day, but how about her, looking after the children and directing the
servants? She must have some sort of recreation, take some rest. It is a
one-sided argument, and always ends the same way—the husband takes his
wife out.
This is not selfishness on the part of these women. It is because they
really do not know that business is another name for work, hard work. I
did not know until I went to the T. Z. And how hard those men did work!
All day long, and when stocks went off, far into the night. Never a
murmur, never a complaint. The hardest worker of them all was Mr.
Hartley.
For a short time after Turpin departed I enjoyed my work in spite of the
fact that it was a great nervous strain, and a greater tax on my
eyes—continually reading such small figures under electric lights. Then
Mr. Hartley went off for a short vacation, and Hoolagan got his chance
to fight a woman, who in his stupidity he imagined had her “eye” on his
job.
His first method was “correcting” my daily report of the business
transacted in our department and those of our branches. It was my duty
to make out this report, get it signed by the loan clerk, and into the
hands of a certain vice-president not later than eleven o’clock. When
Mr. Hartley was in the office I would place the report on his desk; he
would glance over it, make sure it was correct, and then sign it. I
would then hand it to a messenger who would deliver it to the
vice-president. It had become such a matter of routine that I used to
ring for the messenger on my way to Mr. Hartley’s desk.
Hoolagan stopped that. There was one day when he spoiled ten copies of
the same report, pretending that my figures needed correction. This
might have continued until Mr. Hartley’s return had it not been that the
bookkeepers discovered so many mistakes in Hoolagan’s figures that they
laughed him out of court.
The truth of the matter was that the man did not know how to add or
subtract correctly. Having always had kind, hard-working Mr. Hartley to
go over his figures and straighten out errors, he did not have
sufficient industry to learn—that is, if it was only industry that he
needed.
The day he had a half-million-dollar loan to Harris Marson hopping and
skipping over five columns of the day-book, I decided that he was a
mental defective and could not help making mistakes. I made out my
report, the bookkeepers balanced their accounts. Then lo, and behold!
the next time we had occasion to consult the day-book that half-million
loan had been transferred to another column. Of course our figures had
to be changed. When this happened four times the bookkeepers raised a
howl.
“For God’s sake, Dennis! What is that half-million? Where does it
belong?”
Somebody in our department put on their thinking-cap and recalled that
they had heard Hoolagan talking at the window with a Harris Marson
messenger about a street call. Even though that incident had escaped
Hoolagan, the rate of interest and a half-dozen other features of the
loan should have told a man familiar with the T. Z. the character of
that loan.
After that he stopped “correcting” my reports, and took to hiding the
day-book. When the head of the bookkeeping department put a stop to that
performance Hoolagan proceeded to hide himself. Just let him see me
coming toward his desk with a report and Hoolagan was up and away. If he
possibly could manage it, he remained away until a messenger sent from
the front would chase him down and make him sign my report. In a
business less vital to our country and humanity Hoolagan would have been
a joke. The T. Z. was an important factor in world finance.
The way all other men in that bank worked! I can never forget it. And
the little they got out of it! The average American business man, for
all his work and worry, gets a home in which to sleep, spend his Sundays
and an occasional holiday. In spite of this—perhaps because of it—he is
the most idealistic of God’s creatures.
Behind all his work, be it mad hustle or deadly grind, there is a
woman—his woman, the one woman in all the world to him. It is of her he
thinks, it is for her he slaves. His adored woman, that girl of his
dreams must have, shall have everything that he can win for her at any
cost to himself. I know, because at the T. Z. I studied the American
business man in his natural habitat—I talked with him, rubbed elbows
with him while he was hustling and when he was grinding his hardest.
How often did I see a man, when called to the telephone, pick up the
receiver with indifference. Then on hearing the voice at the other end
of the wire his face would brighten until it beamed, and his voice would
change from the resentful tone of having his work interrupted to a
loving purr. It was watching the men at work in the T. Z. that I
discovered the reason why our business men prefer musical comedy to
high-brow drama—it comes nearer visualizing their dreams.
God bless them!—American business men. That I worked among them only six
weeks was entirely my own fault, a fault for which I have often
reproached myself. Had it not been for Turpin and Hoolagan—or rather had
those two unworthies crossed my path later on during my four years’
experience, after I had acquired a greater amount of self-control—I
might not have gone to Mr. Morton before the end of my third week and
assured him that I did not like bank work, and never would like it.
Yet had I remained at the T. Z. until our soldiers returned from abroad
I would not have worked in the tenements of New York City. Without what
I saw and learned there my four years’ experience would hardly have been
worth writing. It was working in the tenements, living in the tenements
on my wages that showed me what the working man and woman are up
against—how they face their problems, and how they feel about
present-day conditions. It was there, too, that I realized the menace of
idle women to American ideals and institutions.