FAITH OF JUNGLE-MOTHERS
“How did the war affect the tenement-dwellers?”
That question has been asked me dozens of times.
The happiest persons I met during the war were in the tenements. Also, I
will add, the most unreasonably unhappy and discontented person I met
during that period was in the tenements.
Shortly after eight-thirty one sunshiny morning, with just enough nip in
the air, I was hurrying along East Twenty-sixth Street sorting over a
handful of complaints when a hand clutched my arm. Glancing up as I was
brought to a halt my eyes stared into as discontented and unhappy a face
as I had ever seen.
“Where are you going?” the woman whose hand still clutched my shoulder
demanded, and the movement of her lips breaking up the expression of
discontent somewhat, I recognized one of the best known of American
women novelists.
“How do you happen to be out so early?” I countered. “I remember your
telling me that you never allowed anything to break into your
mornings—that you always worked until noon.”
“Work!” she exclaimed, throwing out her hand in a gesture of despair.
“What’s the use of work? I can’t sell a line—not one line. They only
want war, war, nothing but war. War! I’m sick of it. Why will people
read about the war?”
“Because we’ve all got somebody at the front, I reckon—sons, brothers,
husbands, sweethearts, or at least a friend,” I replied, trying to make
my tone pleasant.
There could be no doubt about the woman’s harassed state of mind,
whatever the cause. There were deep furrows between her brows, and the
lines at the corners of her eyes looked more like turkey feet than those
of a crow.
“I have not,” she exulted. “Not one drop of my blood is in this war. My
family don’t believe in war. We——”
“I’ve always noticed,” I cut in, “that you conscientious objectors to
war are damned careful to live and own property in a country that does
believe in war.”
My cheeks burned, and I have an idea that I closely resembled a spitting
wildcat. But I had listened to all of that sort of talk I was going to
swallow from Hildegarde Hook and her “we villagers” ilk.
“My dear!” she exclaimed, and I saw that my one poor little cuss word
had shocked her. “I had no idea that you felt so—so keenly about—about
the matter. If I had, of course——”
“Well, I do feel keenly about this war. I feel keenly with every drop of
blood in my body. There’s no use discussing it. You were speaking of
your work. If you’d do publicity work——”
“Publicity work? I’d be only too glad to, but they say I’ve no
training.”
No training! A woman who had written a half-score of popular novels, a
number of short stories, and a multitude of articles!—no training!
“But did they know who you are? Did you give your name?” I asked—the
idea that this woman did not have sufficient training as a writer to do
publicity work seemed the height of absurdity.
She shook her head. She had tried every organization, she assured me. At
the beginning of hostilities she might have gotten a position in
Washington City, but the salary seemed too small. Now she regretted
having refused that—if she had only known that the war would last so
long, and that people would continue to read only war stories!
She was over her head in debt, she told me. Every piece of property she
possessed had been mortgaged up to the hilt. If the war continued she
would be on the street, without even a roof to cover her. What must she
do?
Yet when I told her what I was doing I saw the surprise in her eyes
change to contempt. It was all right to go through the tenements, even
to live in them, for the sake of getting material. To live there for the
sake of making both ends meet, to make my living, or even to take money
for my work! That was another matter—put me quite beyond the pale of her
respect.
When I assured her that, beginning at one dollar a day, I had worked my
way up to ninety dollars a month, I saw that the last amount sounded
good to her. And I also saw that even as the salary offered by the
government had not been large enough to get her to work for her country,
ninety dollars was not sufficient to cause her to forget her “position”
as a novelist. It was a case of debt rather than dishonor.
Suddenly she discovered a reason to take a hurried departure. I felt no
inclination to detain her. While working my way from a dollar a day to
ninety the month I had learned
“I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
The chiefest of many reasons why tenement-dwellers appeared happily
content during the war were: First, those who had sons, brothers,
husbands, uncles, sweethearts, or cousins to the remotest degree in the
service felt that they were doing their duty, a proud duty, to their
country; second, workers were receiving a living wage, a vast majority
living decently for the first time in their lives; third, they believed,
they sincerely believed, that they were helping to “make the world safe
for democracy.”
They were convinced that the United States had entered the war, taken
their sons across the Atlantic “that government of the people, by the
people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” They believed
it as they believed in God, as they believed in their own existence.
The older ones, those who had come to the country as immigrants,
believed that America had actually become the wonderful Promised Land of
their dreams. For hadn’t they lived to see their own sons march down
Fifth Avenue shoulder to shoulder with the sons of money kings? Didn’t
their daughters, on coming home nights, tell of the daughter of yet
another money king working in the same room, actually taking orders from
her?
They had lived to see the stigma taken off work. A human soul was a
human soul, regardless of the “guinea’s stamp.”
Once the war was won they believed that condition would continue—that
the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful would continue to work
shoulder to shoulder with their own. They believed that the downfall of
German imperialism meant an end to human cootyism in the United States—a
government of the people, by the people, for the people.
How many times did I see the light that never was on sea or land shining
in the eyes of a tenement mother as she told me of her son sleeping
under the poppies in France.
“It ain’t as if he didn’t have to go some time. We all has to,” she
would tell me, with swimming eyes as her work-gnarled fingers twisted
her gingham apron. “He couldn’t have gone a better way—for his country.
He said that ’imself, when he was leavin’. ‘Mother,’ he says to me the
last time he was home from camp, ‘mother, I wants you to promise that
you won’t grieve none if—if I goes West. We all has to go some time, and
a fellow couldn’t go a better way than for his country. I wants you to
promise me, mother.’”
I believe two of the happiest persons I ever met were an old Jew and his
wife. Going through a tenement, a decently kept house, I was directed by
the janitor to a flat, second floor front, east, as containing the only
dog in her house without a license. A tousle-haired woman with a dirty
face and grouch opened the door.
“Naw, I ain’t got no dog,” she said, and she tried to shut the door in
my face. Being warned by the janitor I had put the toe of my shoe in.
“What do you call that behind you?—a horse?” I asked, as a
yellow-and-white mutt, almost as ill conditioned as the woman, jumped
down from the bed in the alcove and stood at her heels.
“Git out from here,” she railed at the dog as she aimed a kick at it
with a foot incased in an unlaced run-down shoe, without a stocking.
“’Tain’t mine. I wouldn’t tell you no lie. I’m too much of a lady to lie
about a dog. It belongs to my son; he brought the mutt home from camp
before they sent ’im away. I’m just keeping it for ’im.”
“Is your son in France?” I asked, for at that time having a soldier in
the family was the touch that made the whole world kin.
She shook her head. “They’ve sent ’im to another trainin’-camp down
South.” Then recognizing the note of sympathy in my voice, she threw
open the door and invited me in.
It was the dirtiest flat in a decently kept tenement-house that I had
ever entered. There was plenty of substantial furniture—chairs, a round
oak dining-table, a good deal table, and an abundance of cooking
utensils and crockery. Dirt! The floor was strewn with newspapers,
crusts of bread, potato-peel, dirt, and more dirt.
“Seems like they oughtn’t to make me pay license for my son’s dog an’
him a soldier?”
“That’s a nice dining-table,” I parried, for in spite of her dirt if her
son was her sole support I was willing to give her time to take out a
dog license.
Being Irish, at the mention of her table she began to boast. That was
not to be compared to the one in her front room. The furniture in her
front room was something grand. All the furniture in her flat was of the
best, she never having been a believer in “cheap John stuff.” She’d like
to show me her front room if it wasn’t that Dan’l, her husband, was such
a one for throwing things around.
On my asking if her soldier son were her only child, I learned that she
had one other living, a boy of twelve. Her husband “worked for the
city,” got thirty dollars a week. But what was that to support a family
on. Seemed like a rich city like New York oughter be able to pay better
wages. Also it seemed like the government oughter pay more to the family
of soldiers, to make up for taking them away. Her son, besides making
good money as a plumber, was “in politics” for weeks before and during
elections; he more than doubled his wages by working evenings.
As I was taking my leave she had the grace to apologize for her “things
bein’ strewed around.” She used to take pleasure in her flat, she
assured me, but now that the house had run down so there was no use
wearing herself out trying to keep things up.
“What caused the house to go down so?” I inquired, glancing around the
well-swept hall and stairs.
“Jews,” she replied, indicating the flat above her own. “I done let the
janitor know what I think of her, takin’ dirty Jews in the house with
decent Christians.”
Because of Eleanor I have a soft spot in my heart for Jews. Eleanor was
my desk-mate during my first two years in the high school. She was a few
years older than I, indeed I looked upon her as quite a young lady; but
I thought then, and I never have changed my mind, that she was one of
the loveliest and most beautiful girls I have ever known. No one could
object to living in the house with Eleanor.
Once when living in a New York hotel I had seen three persons,
unmistakably gentle people, turned away—told there were no rooms. After
they left, the room-clerk smirkingly remarked on the gall of “such
people,” thinking they’d slip in, when they knew that hotel never took
Jews. The Sea Foam, I was told by the head waiter, would let every room
stand empty before taking in Jews.
Recalling all this I determined to see the Jew whose coming had caused
this tenement-house to deteriorate so hopelessly that a dirty-faced
Irishwoman should lose heart and ambition. Though the janitor had told
me that the dog on the third floor had a license, I climbed the stairs.
The man who opened the door might have stepped from the pages of an old
illustrated Bible. He was small, old, and slightly bent. He had a long
gray beard, wore a black skull-cap, and heavy horn-rimmed spectacles
rested on the bridge of his long hooked nose. The dressing-gown which he
wore over his coat had a purple lining.
On learning my business he invited me in—oh, I must come in and see
their dog, their grandson’s dog. The flat contained three rooms, an
alcove, and a tiny hall. In the front room, at the end of the tiny hall,
I found the old man’s mate, and like him she might have stepped fresh
from the pages of an ancient Bible.
She also wore her dressing-gown, more gaudily colored than her
husband’s, over her clothes. It was a chilly day, and unlike the
Irishwoman, who had a coal-fire roaring in her stove, they had no heat
excepting the sun shining in at their two front windows.
On a table at the old woman’s elbow sat a glass decanter about half full
of purple wine, two wine-glasses, and a plate of unusual-appearing small
cakes. Knowing it to be a Jewish holiday I fancied that I had
interrupted some religious rite, and was for beating a hasty retreat.
No, no, I must stay.
It was for their grandson. A stranger coming into their home so
opportunely and joining them would insure a blessing on their house.
Surely I wouldn’t refuse to join them in drinking to the health of their
grandson, an American soldier somewhere in France.
Then it all came out, the reason for their little celebration. They had
that morning been notified by the government that their grandson had
been cited for bravery. Yes, he had been wounded in battle.
Then there was a short silence and I guessed the thought, the fear, that
crossed their minds. It was not for long; they pushed it aside. It was
for his country, America.
While sipping their grape-juice and dividing my seed-cake with the
black-and-tan dog, the excuse for my visit, I learned bit by bit that
this grandson was all they had. Ever since the accident through which
the old man lost the sight of one eye this young man had been
practically their sole support.
On my suggesting that they must miss his wages, both husband and wife
quickly dissented. No, they had the government’s allotment. Besides,—the
old woman glanced at the alcove in which I saw a narrow bed piled high
with feather mattresses and pillows,—she kept a boarder. Yes, it was her
grandson’s room, and the boarder was her grandson’s friend—a good young
man, though not strong and handsome like the soldier who had been cited
for bravery.
Unwillingly they admitted that there had been a time, just at first,
when Uncle Sam was not so prompt as they had hoped he would be. Their
allotment was late. Yes, it was more than a month, but what could you
expect with so many soldiers on the pay-roll! The old grandmother had
applied to the Red Cross. Since then they had had no trouble.
That was the key to the situation in the tenements during the war—the
Red Cross. But for the Red Cross millions might have suffered, and
perhaps thousands actually starved. While Uncle Sam was occupied with
getting his fighting machine ready for action, the Red Cross stepped
into the breach and saw to it that the families of his fighting men did
not suffer.
A dozen times a day, during the war and after peace was declared, I
entered homes that had been kept together by the Red Cross. It is the
one philanthropic organization against which I heard no complaint, not
one.
Strange as it may seem, the one human being against whom I never heard a
word of censure was President Wilson. In spite of the abuse heaped on
him by the newspapers, and the continued faultfinding of their richer
fellow citizens, I never heard a tenement woman mention President
Wilson’s name, or refer to him, except in praise and gratitude. His
pictures in the tenements were almost as numerous as those of the Virgin
Mary.
To the tenement woman President Wilson was the man who won the war,
brought their sons back home, and stood for a continuation of Democratic
conditions as existing during the war. Hundreds of tenement women gave
me three reasons why they wished Mr. McAdoo in the White House.
The first was always because he was the President’s son-in-law—as Mr.
Wilson couldn’t have a third term they thought “they” ought to send his
daughter’s husband. Their two other reasons were: he had started the
raise in wages, and had been the means of lowering the price of coal.
After the nominations, when my talk with tenement women turned to
politics, I used to ask for an opinion of the nominees. Speaking of the
man chosen by the Democrats they would reply:
“Seems like they might’ve done better’n get a man who’d divorced the
mother of his children. Don’t look right to me.”
Political parties, take notice! The tenement woman has a vote.