WOLVES AS SOCIAL LEADERS
Because I found social service work unsuited to my talent does not mean
that I think such work unnecessary, or that I in any way disapprove of
it. Quite the contrary. While I deeply deplore the condition that makes
such work necessary, the condition exists, and should be met so long as
it does exist.
Social service workers are as necessary in the slums of New York City as
doctors and nurses in a pest-house. As I saw conditions, the social
service worker should always be a graduate nurse, a mature woman of wide
experience. Often she has the duties and obligations of a physician
thrust on her. Now, I make the above statement because of my experience.
Had I been a graduate nurse I would have been very much more valuable as
a social service worker—though perhaps not so keen an observer of
conditions. The efficient social service worker has to accept certain
conditions as well-nigh unalterable. She is a human being—there is a
limit to her strength, her power of endurance, her time, and also to the
amount of money she has to spend.
She must devote her mind as well as her time to the case in hand. She
cannot be running off at a tangent, untangling the affairs of an entire
tenement-house when her call is on one family—up in Harlem or under the
Brooklyn Bridge there are always other sufferers awaiting her attention.
As an instance, take the rear tenement on East Twenty-seventh Street,
where I found the floor of the street-level flat rotted away, and a pool
of slimy, filthy water. The back hall, the floor of which still
remained, or at least was not entirely rotted away, had been used as a
toilet—possibly by persons passing along the streets.
Entering that tenement, while looking for the janitor, I found a baby,
less than two years old, playing in that filth. Of course it had smeared
it over itself. It was horrible. Unspeakable!
A social service worker could have taken that baby to its mother and
given her a lecture on hygiene. I did not stop at that—while standing by
her to see that she gave the baby a proper scrubbing and clean clothes,
I not only got the history of her and her family, but I held over her
head the threat of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children. Once the baby was decently clean, I put the mother on
probation under the surveillance of the only dog-owner in the
house—there was no janitor.
At noon I spent practically the whole of my lunch-hour telephoning the
Tenement House Department and the owner of the house. To both I
described myself as a writer, and told them that unless they wished to
see a photograph of that street-level flat, with a description of that
baby as I had found it, in the Sunday papers, that floor must be fixed
and the house cleaned up at once.
As for that mother—I kept my hold on her for more than a year. Looking
back over my records I find that I had, first and last, eighteen mothers
in my district on such a probation. One was an Irishwoman living in a
filthy tenement across from the morgue. She knocked a child down in my
presence—a little emaciated boy of not more than six years.
When I remonstrated with her she told me that it was her child, and she
would treat it as she chose. When I started for a policeman she changed
her mind—began to slobber and shed crocodile tears while protesting her
love for the child. As long as I was working within walking distance, I
used to go once a week to see that she lived up to her agreement. At
first I used to make her strip the boy to make sure there were no
bruises on his body. Later I called once a month—never at the same hour
nor on the same day of the week.
One odd characteristic about those women, they always grew to like me.
Among my best friends in the tenements I number several women whom I, at
one time or another during my four years in the underbrush, threatened
to report to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. That
society, like the A. S. P. C. A., is known to every dweller in the slums
of the Greater City.
There were occasions when I did not stop at a threat. I went to the
nearest telephone and, calling up the society, reported the case. In
every instance my appeal was attended to immediately, and handled to my
satisfaction. The first time I had occasion to call on this organization
was in behalf of four young girls, sisters.
They were as beautiful children as I have ever seen in the same family.
It was because I remarked their surprising good looks that the janitor
of the house in which they lived, and in whose rooms I found them,
begged my protection for them.
She, that janitor, was tubercular, and ready, dressed, and waiting for
the ambulance to come and take her to Bellevue. Looking for dogs I
called at her flat. On learning her condition I expressed my sympathy,
then added:
“Yet how fortunate you are to have four such lovely daughters.”
“I would to God they were mine,” she replied, and both her voice and the
expression with which she looked at the children attested her sincerity.
“Mary, take the children into the kitchen. I wanter speak to the lady.”
Mary took the children into the kitchen, and the janitor told me their
story.
Their father was a Swede and their mother an Irishwoman. About a year
before I met with the children their father, a skilled machinist, had
been killed in the shop where he worked. Because of this accident his
wife received seventy-five dollars a month.
According to the janitor’s story, which was verified by three tenants in
the house, every month as soon as this woman received her check she went
on a drunk. Not satisfied with drinking, she would bring strange men to
her flat—men as drunk and degraded as herself. On such occasions the
children had taken refuge with the janitor.
The night before my visit this woman had returned, after an absence of
several days, with two men. Finding her eldest daughter, under thirteen
years of age, in their flat, she refused to allow her to leave, ordered
her to spend the night with one of the drunken men. The child had
escaped from the room in which her mother had locked her with the
drunken man by the fire-escape.
“I’d die happy if I only knew somebody would look after those little
girls, see that they come to no harm,” the janitor added, after telling
me their story.
This was during my first summer working in the tenements. How hot the
sun was that day! The cars on Twenty-third Street were not running,
because of a blockade. I did not know that there were such long blocks
in New York as those between First and Fourth Avenues seemed that day.
The ambulance from Bellevue might come for that janitor at any minute.
With her gone those little girls would be at the mercy of their drunken
mother and her beastly companions. Those three blocks seemed miles long.
And the sun! I was dripping with perspiration when I entered the offices
of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
It was Saturday and they were short-handed, the man in charge explained,
both of which facts I knew to be true. If it could go over until Monday
or later in the day. Planting myself in front of his desk, I stuck to my
point. It was an urgent case, it must be attended to at once.
He promised to do the best he could, and I left him trying to locate his
workers, to send them to the address. Back at the tenement, the cars
were still standing motionless in the middle of Twenty-third Street—I
found that the ambulance had not arrived. That gave me an idea—I would
appeal to Miss Wadley.
It was not a case for a hospital social service, I knew that. But I
realized that as a big stick the social service department of Bellevue
had considerable weight. Though I did not know that it would be needed
to make the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children function
promptly, I was determined to be on the safe side. I was not taking
chances with those girls and their drunken mother.
For a wonder Miss Wadley was out. The worker in charge of the office,
the only one who had not finished her work for that day, consented to do
all in her power. We had never seen each other before, but she took my
word for it, and telephoned urging the children’s society to prompt
action.
At one o’clock the wagon of the society stopped before the tenement, and
two agents went in. There was no need for me to follow them. The
ambulance from Bellevue had not come, so the janitor was there to report
conditions.
One of the hideous features of that case was that the mother, that woman
who had become no better than a beast, belonged to a respectable
family—all of them, excepting her, persons of refinement and education.
Another case that I reported to the children’s society was that of a man
who was breeding dogs in the presence of children. As soon as I struck
the block I was told about the man, a Polack, who was “shaming” the
neighborhood. When I said I would investigate the matter several women
begged me not to go near this man, or the houses of which he was the
janitor.
I went and I met a dog whose eyes were on a level with my own. It was
with this huge animal that he had terrorized the women and children on
the block. When he called the dog out he expected to see me beat a hasty
retreat.
He did not know what I had learned about myself, or rather about my
clothes—they had become so permeated with the scent of dogs that the
animals always sniffed me over and then proceeded to treat me as a
long-lost friend. This tall black-and-white giant of a dog rubbed his
muzzle against my shoulder, then taking his seat at my side, snuggled
his head under my hand.
The man was impressed, but not sufficiently to cause him to change his
mind. He had declared when I first entered his flat that he would not
get a license for either of his three dogs, and he dared me or anybody
in New York to try to make him. He was just one of the thousands and
tens of thousands of blustering immigrants of low mentality that come
into our country every day. He was a huge brute himself and imagined he
could cow everybody with whom he came in contact.
On finding the nearest telephone I reported him to the children’s
society for indecency in the presence of children. Then I reported the
filthy condition of his flat to the Health Department, and on meeting a
policeman farther along the block I told him of the whole performance.
Having been a member of the Woman’s Police Reserve about a year, I had
learned when to appeal to a brother cop.
The next morning as I passed along that block it seemed to me that
everybody in sight wore a broad grin. Their enemy had been routed. The
Health Department made him clean his flat, an agent of the children’s
society paid him a visit, and the officer on that beat had threatened to
take him to court if ever he caught his dogs on the street without a
license tag and a muzzle.
The second largest dog in my district lived in a wine-cellar on East
Twenty-ninth Street. A pencil scrawl came to me complaining that a dog
at that address had no license. The writer of the scrawl demanded to
know why an honest man like himself had to pay for a license while the
crooks in the cellar did not. Needless to say the honest man forgot to
sign his name.
It was late in the afternoon when I set out to investigate the
wine-cellar. I had deciphered the name and number and was starting down
the steps when, almost as if by magic, the pavement swarmed with
gesticulating women and children.
An unusual feature of this writhing crowd was that no one made a sound.
Not one word did they speak. But they made it plain that I was not to go
down to that cellar.
“Why not?” I halted on the second step and demanded of a woman near me.
“Why not?”
“Sicilians,” she whispered, indicating the cellar. “Black Hand.” And
laying hold of my sleeve she tried to pull me back.
“I don’t care a whoop,” I told her. “I’m an American.” And down the
steps I went and into the wine-shop.
Having entered every saloon in my district I literally did not care a
whoop about a place in which only wine was sold. It proved to be larger
than I had expected—wide, deep, and so dark that the faces of the men
seated at the farthest tables made me think of the flame of a lamp when
seen through a chimney black with smoke.
So far as I could make out in one quick glance around there were a
number of small, round tables at each of which were seated several men.
All of these men appeared to be drinking, and many of them playing some
game.
“Is there anybody here who can speak American?” I demanded, as I came to
a halt about two feet within the door.
Pandemonium! My entrance had not been noticed. At the sound of my voice
it seemed to me that every man in the cellar sprang to his feet. Several
chairs were overturned, and at least one table. In that moment I
understood why Italians are called guineas. Those men sounded for all
the world like a flock of guinea-hens when threatened by a hawk.
They swarmed about me gesticulating and potter-racking. It was so much
like a scene in an Italian opera that I forgot to be afraid and became
cross with them for appearing so stagy.
“Now, don’t try to start any monkey black-hand business,” I warned them
crossly. “This is New York, and I’m in a hurry. Your dog’s been
complained about, and I’ve got to see its license.”
“Oh, dog!” a voice at my elbow exclaimed, and there stepped from behind
a curtain that I had not noticed a person whom I still believe to be the
handsomest woman I have ever laid eyes on.
In that underground half-light she was superb. Nearly if not fully six
feet tall, her figure reminded me of a perfectly proportioned pine
sapling—as graceful and as natural. Her dress was of some black-gray
filmy stuff that, falling in soft straight folds, accentuated her height
and blended with the duskiness surrounding her. Her face was a long
oval, her slumbrous eyes were as soft as black velvet, her nose slightly
Roman, and her lips a delicately chiselled cupid’s bow.
She ordered the men to stand back, and with a wave of her hand signalled
to them to right the overturned table and chairs. Then drawing aside the
dark curtain from behind which she had made her sudden appearance, she
called the dog. It came bounding out, a great black beast, its head
almost on a level with my shoulders.
It was then I noticed for the first time that I possessed an unusual
attraction for dogs. This ferocious-looking animal, in spite of the
orders of its mistress, insisted on sniffing me over. This ceremony
finished, to the surprise of the woman and the men looking on, the dog
rubbed against me and tried to lick my hand.
When I took my seat at a near-by table—the woman urged me to have a
glass of wine with her—the dog stretched itself out beside me and rested
its head on my knees.
“You must be good to dogs,” the most beautiful woman in New York City
told me, speaking with a soft lisping accent, after she had tried in
vain to coax the dog to return to its bed behind the curtain. “I never
saw Dante do like that with a stranger.”
“Named for your great poet?” I questioned, for the sake of leading her
thoughts into other channels. Though I had not at that time the remotest
idea of what ailed the dog, I saw that its show of confidence pleased
her and awed the men. I had no intention of acknowledging my ignorance.
“You read his poems!” she exclaimed, bending eagerly across the little
table. What wonderful eyes she had! and teeth like evenly matched
pearls.
Had I been a social service worker I could not have spent so much time
sipping indifferent red wine and chattering about Italian poetry even
with the most beautiful woman I ever saw. With Mr. Horton it was all
right—I induced the woman to license her dog. It would take a brave,
thrice brave social worker to report such an incident to her committee.
All social workers, so far as I was able to learn, are guided by a
committee—the power behind the throne, or perhaps I might say the ball
and chain attached to the foot of every social worker.
Of course no committee intentionally renders null and void about fifty
per cent of a worker’s accomplishment. Neither do I imagine that a ball
and chain intentionally trips up a convict at every other step. A ball
and chain is insensate metal, it cannot learn. The members of the
average committee supervising philanthropic work in New York City differ
from a ball and chain in that they _will_ not learn.
They know nothing about “those people,” yet they never hesitate to
advise the worker how to treat them, how much money to spend for them,
and where. In no case must the spending of so much as a nickel be
intrusted to “those people.” That is one of the chief duties of a social
worker, laying out the amount allowed by her committee on each specified
case.
On one case I was allowed twenty-five dollars. After buying comfortables
and several pieces of second-hand furniture there were a few dollars
left over, less than five. I consulted with an experienced worker—might
I not hand the amount to the mother of the family?
“My dear!” she exclaimed, her tone and manner as though I had suggested
setting fire to the hospital. “You mustn’t think of it. The committee
would not like it. Think how good they were to give you twenty-five
dollars for one family.”
Not to give money is, I admit, an excellent general rule. But how about
the worker’s judgment and knowledge of conditions? In this instance the
family were gentle people of good character. Besides the expense of
maintaining eight children under fourteen, the father had paid for two
long and expensive attacks on his wife—she had had both breasts removed
because of cancer. Almost immediately after her second operation the
family was stricken with influenza.
For the sake of spending those last few dollars judiciously I had to
follow that educated, refined, and half-sick woman around a shop—after
she selected articles, cheap bits of crockery, knives and forks, I paid
for them. There never was a sheep-killing dog that felt sneakier than I
did when we left that store.
This is only one of many, many such instances that come to every social
worker. What would have happened to my group of workers had we followed
the advice of the committee woman who wanted every man out of a job, or
who was working for low wages, sent to Hog Island, it is difficult to
imagine.
At every meeting of that committee it was: “Why don’t you send him to
Hog Island?” “Isn’t that a case for Hog Island?” or “He should go to Hog
Island. I’m reliably informed that they are offering a dollar an hour
and can’t get enough men.” I heard so much about Hog Island that I used
to be afraid I’d get to grunting.
The majority, if not all, of the men that particular committee member
wished shipped to Hog Island were the fathers of large families; several
the only surviving parent. Everybody who knows anything about social
work in New York City knows, or ought to know, that keeping a tenement
father of a numerous family on his job is one of the chiefest problems
of all philanthropic workers. He is only too willing to drop out of
sight, get a young wife, and leave his old wife and her dozen or so
children for the city to support. Ten to one such fathers are of the
desirable citizens who come to us via Ellis Island.
What committee members refuse to learn is that “those people” are human
beings, with hearts and sensibilities. They can love, and they can also
hate, “even as you and I.”
Now to compare a sympathetic gentlewoman, the bearer of a respectable
name and the mistress of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of
dollars, to a thief, the robber of a poor-box, may seem an exaggeration.
If so, it is in favor of the robber of the poor-box. He gets a few
pennies, a dime or so, and if caught is sent to prison as the most
contemptible of thieves.
She saves two or three or five hundred dollars annually, directs how
other persons’ money is to be spent for the needy, and gains the praise
and respect of a circle more extensive than her acquaintance. She
neglects, forgets—call it what you will—her dues as a committee member.
If she were to do such a thing in any club in New York City she would be
dropped from the list of members. She must pay her annual dues or get
out. As a member of a committee dispensing the funds of a philanthropy
she is pledged to pay a stipulated amount. That is the first condition
on which she is selected.
I made a point of cultivating the acquaintance of persons handling the
funds of five leading philanthropic organizations in New York City. All
five of these persons assured me that if the members of their committees
would pay their dues their organization would never have a shortage of
funds. One of these women told me that she intended to give up her
position because she was sick of working with such persons, devising
ways and means of making up the deficit when there should be no deficit.
Yet these persons have the supreme effrontery to sit with a committee
and dictate how money contributed by the public for the sick and needy
shall be spent. If they possessed unusual experience or a name of value
in drawing contributions they might be excused. So far as I could learn
not one of this class of human cooties possessed either—just a colossal
egoism and a contempt for “those people” by means of whose misfortune
they seek to climb to social or professional prominence.
Stealing from the poor of the slums of New York City means in the summer
sick men and women and little babies shut in stifling flats, drawing
into their system with every breath the stenches of sweltering weather,
their suffering and dying for lack of ice and fresh air. In the winter
it means the old, the sick, the helpless starving and freezing to death
for lack of food and a handful of coals.
During the war when philanthropic associations were popping up like
mushrooms and hanging out their signs at every street-corner and in
every vacant room, a means was found to protect the public and see to it
that our fighting men got what was intended for them. The men and women
who do not pay their dues as committee members of a philanthropic
organization have no right to a voice in administering its funds. They
are stealing from the poor and deceiving the public.