money.”
“Why should I keep the money? You’ll have to explain anyhow. I can’t do
anything for you.”
“That is all right,” persists the other. “Keep it, anyhow. Don’t bother
me in the future. There!”
“No, we can’t do that. Money won’t help you. Just observe the
law--that’s all I want.”
“The law, the law,” repeats the other curiously. “That is right. I will
observe him.”
Such is one story--almost the whole story. This employer, so nervous in
his wrongdoings, so anxious to bribe, is but a little better off than
those who work for him.
In other tenements and rear buildings are other shops and factories,
but they all come under the same general description. Men, women and
children are daily making coats, vests, knee-pants and trousers.
There are side branches of overalls, cloaks, hats, caps, suspenders,
jerseys and blouses. Some make dresses and waists, underwear and
neckwear, waist bands, skirts, shirts and purses; still others, fur,
or fur trimmings, feathers and artificial flowers, umbrellas, and even
collars. It is all a great allied labor of needlework, needlework done
by machine and finishing work done by hand. The hundred thousand that
follow it are only those who are actually employed as supporters. All
those who are supported--the infants, school children, aged parents,
and physically disabled relatives--are left out. You may go throughout
New York and Brooklyn, and wherever you find a neighborhood poor enough
you will find these workers. They occupy the very worst of tumble-down
dwellings. Shrewd Italians, and others called padrones, sometimes lease
whole blocks from such men as William Waldorf Astor, and divide up each
natural apartment into two or three. Then these cubbyholes are leased
to the toilers, and the tenement crowding begins.
You will see by peculiar evidences that things have been pretty bad
with these tenements in the past. For instance, between every front
and back room you will find a small window, and between every back
room and the hall, another. The construction of these was compelled by
law, because the cutting up of a single apartment into two or three
involved the sealing up of the connecting door and the shutting off of
natural circulation. Hence the state decided that a window opening into
the hall would be some improvement, anyhow, and so this window-cutting
began. It has proved of no value, however. Nearly every such window is
most certainly sealed up by the tenants themselves.
In regard to some other matters, this cold enforcement of the present
law is, in most cases, a blessing, oppressive as it seems at times.
Men should not crowd and stifle and die in chambers where seven occupy
the natural space of one. Landlords should not compel them to, and
poverty ought to be stopped from driving them. Unless the law says
that the floor must be clean and the ceiling white, the occupants will
never find time to make them so. Unless the beds are removed from
the work-room and only one person allowed to work in one room, the
struggling “sweater” will never have less than five or six suffering
with him. Enforce such a law, and these workers, if they cannot work
unless they comply with these conditions, will comply with them, and
charge more for their labor, of course. Sweatshop manufacturers cannot
get even these to work for nothing, and landlords cannot get tenants
to rent their rooms unless they are clean enough for the law to allow
them to work in them. Hence the burden falls in a small measure on the
landlord, but not always.
The employer or boss of a little shop, who is so nervous in wrongdoing,
so anxious to bribe, is but a helpless agent in the hands of a greater
boss. He is no foul oppressor of his fellow man. The great clothing
concerns in Broadway and elsewhere are his superiors. What they give,
he pays, barring a small profit to himself. If these people are
compelled by law to work less or under more expensive conditions, they
must receive more or starve, and the great manufactories cannot let
them actually starve. They come as near to it now as ever, but they
will pay what is absolutely essential to keep them alive; hence we see
the value of the law.
To grow and succeed here, though, is something very different. Working,
as these people do, they have very little time for education. The great
struggle is for bread, and unless the families are closely watched,
children are constantly sent to work before they are twelve. I was
present in one necktie factory once where five of its employees were
ordered out for being without proof that they were fourteen years of
age. I have personally seen shops, up to a dozen, inspected in one
morning, and some struggling little underling ordered out from each.
“For why you come home?” is the puzzled inquiry of the parents at night.
“Da police maka me.”
Down here, and all through this peculiar world, the police are
everything. They regulate the conduct, adjudicate the quarrels,
interfere with the evil-doers. The terror of them keeps many a child
studying in the school-room where otherwise it would be toiling in the
chamber at home or the shop outside. Still the struggle is against
them, and most of them grow up without any of those advantages so
common to others.
At the same time, there are many institutions established to reach
these people. One sees Hebrew and Legal Aid Societies in large and
imposing buildings. Outdoor recreation leagues, city playgrounds,
schools, and university settlements--all are here; and yet the
percentage of opportunity is not large. Parents have to struggle too
hard. Their ignorant influence upon the lives of the young ones is too
great.
I know a lawyer, though, of considerable local prestige, who has worked
his way out of these conditions; and Broadway from Thirty-fourth Street
south, to say nothing of many other streets, is lined with the signs
of those who have overcome the money difficulty of lives begun under
these conditions. Unfortunately the money problem, once solved, is not
the only thing in the world. Their lives, although they reach to the
place where they have gold signs, automobiles and considerable private
pleasures, are none the more beautiful. Too often, because of these
early conditions, they remain warped, oppressive, greedy and distorted
in every worthy mental sense by the great fight they have made to get
their money.
Nearly the only ideal that is set before these strugglers still toiling
in the area, is the one of getting money. A hundred thousand children,
the sons and daughters of working parents whose lives are as difficult
as that of the Hungarian portrayed and whose homes are as unlovely,
are inoculated in infancy with the doctrine that wealth is all,--the
shabbiest and most degrading doctrine that can be impressed upon
anyone.
THE END OF A VACATION
It was the close of summer. The great mountain and lake areas to the
north of New York were pouring down their thousands into the hot,
sun-parched city. Vast throngs were coming back on the steamboats
of the Hudson. Vaster throngs were crowding the hourly trains which
whirled and thundered past the long lane of villages which stretches
between Albany and New York City. The great station at Albany was
packed with a perspiring mass. The several fast expresses running
without stop to New York City were overwhelmed. Particularly was the
Empire State Express full. In the one leaving Albany at eight in the
evening passengers were standing in the aisles.
It was a little, dark, wolf of a man who fought his way and that of his
wife behind him to the car steps, and out of the scrambling, pushing
throng rescued a car seat. He put his back against those who were
behind and stood still until his wife could crowd in. Then he took his
place beside her and looked grimly around. For her part, she arranged
herself indifferently and looked wearily out of the window. She was
dark, piquant, petite, attractive.
[Illustration: The Close of Summer]
Behind these two there came another person, who seemed not so anxious
for a seat. While others were pushing eagerly he stepped to one
side, holding his place close to the little wolf man yet looking
indifferently about him. He was young, ruddy, stalwart, an artist’s
ideal of what a summer youth ought to be. And now and then he looked in
the direction of the wolf man’s wife. But there appeared to be nothing
of common understanding between them.
The train pulled out with a slow clacking sound. It gained in headway,
and lights of yard engines and those of other cars, as well as street
lamps and houses, flashed into view and out again. Then came the long
darkness of the open country and the river bank, and the people settled
to endure the several hours in such comfort as they could. Some read
newspapers, some books. The majority stared wearily out of the window,
not attempting to talk. They were tired. The joys of their vacations
were behind them. Why talk, with New York and early work ahead?
In the midst of these stood the young athlete, ruminating. In his seat
before him sat the wolf man, studying a notebook. Beside him, the
young wife, dark, piquant, nervously restless, kept her face to the
window, arranging her back hair now and then with a jeweled hand, and
occasionally turning her face inward to look at the car. It was as if
a vast gulf lay between her and her spouse, as if they were miles and
miles apart, and yet they were obviously married. You could see that by
the curt, gruff questions he addressed to her, by the quick, laconic,
uninterpretative replies. She was weary and so was he.
The train neared Poughkeepsie. For the twentieth or more time the
jeweled hand had felt the back of her dark piled-up hair. For the
fourth or fifth time the elbow had rested on the back of the seat,
the hand falling lazily toward her cheek. Just once it dropped full
length along the back ridge, safely above and beyond her husband’s
head and toward the hand of the standing athlete, who appeared totally
unconscious of the gesture. Then it was withdrawn. A stir of interest
seemed to go with it, a quick glance. There was something missing. The
athlete was not looking.
At Yonkers the crowd was already beginning to stir and pull itself
together. At Highbridge it was dragging satchels from the bundle racks
and from beneath the seats. The little wolf man was closing up his
notebook, looking darkly around. For the thirtieth time the jeweled
hand felt of the dark hair, the elbow rested on the seat-top, and
then for the second time the arm slipped out and rested full length,
the hand touching an elbow which was now resting wearily, holding the
shoulder and supporting the chin of the man who was standing. There was
the throb as of an electric contact. The elbow rose ever so slightly
and pressed the fingers. The eyes of the wolf’s wife met the eyes of
her summer ideal, and there stood revealed a whole summer romance,
bright sun-shades, lovely flowers, green grass, trysting-places,
a dark, dangerous romance, with a grim, unsuspecting wolf in the
background. The arm was withdrawn, the hair touched, the window turned
to wearily. All was over.
And yet you could see how it might continue, could feel that it would.
In the very mood of the two was indicated ways and means. But now
this summer contact was temporarily over. The train rolled into Grand
Central Station. The crowd arose. There was a determined shuffle
forward of the wolf man, with his wife close behind him, and both
were gone. The athlete followed respectfully after. He gave the wolf
man and his wife a wide berth. He followed, however, and looked and
thought--backward into the summer, no doubt, and forward.
THE TRACK WALKER
If you have nothing else to do some day when you are passing through
the vast network of subway or railway tracks of any of the great
railways running northward or westward or eastward out of New York,
give a thought to the man who walks them for you, the man on whom your
safety, in this particular place, so much depends.
He is a peculiar individual. His work is so very exceptional, so very
different from your own. While you are sitting in your seat placidly
wondering whether you are going to have a pleasant evening at the
theater or whether the business to which you are about to attend will
be as profitable as you desire, he is out on the long track over which
you are speeding, calmly examining the bolts that hold the shining
metals together. Neither rain nor sleet may deter him. The presence
of intense heat or intense cold or dirt or dust is not permitted to
interfere with his work. Day after day, at all hours and in all sorts
of weather, he may be seen quietly plodding these iron highways, his
wrench and sledge crossed over his shoulders, and if it be night, or
in the subway, a lantern over one arm, his eyes riveted on the rails,
carefully watching to see if any bolts are loose or any spikes sprung.
In the subway or the New York Central Tunnel, upward of two hundred
cannon-ball flyers rush by him each day, on what might be called a
four-track or ten-track bowling alley, and yet he dodges them all for
perhaps as little as any laborer is paid. If he were not watchful, if
he did not perform his work carefully and well, if he had a touch of
malice or a feeling of vengefulness, he could wreck your train, mangle
your body and send you praying and screaming to your Maker. There would
be no sure way of detecting him.
Death lurks on the path he travels--subway or railway. Here, if
anywhere, it may be said to be constantly lurking. What with the noise,
which, in some places, like the subway and the various tunnels, is a
perfect and continuous uproar, the smoke, which hangs like a thick,
gloomy pall over everything, and the weak, ineffective lights which
shine out on your near approach like will-o’-the-wisps, the chances of
hearing and seeing the approach of any particular train are small. Side
arches, or small pockets in the walls, in some places, are provided for
the protection of the men, but these are not always to be reached in
time when a train thunders out of the gloom. If you look sharp you may
sometimes see a figure crouching in one of these as you scurry past. He
is so close to the grinding wheels that the dust and soot of them are
flung over him like a spray.
And yet for all this, the money that is paid these men is beggarly
small. The work they do is not considered exceptionally valuable.
Thirty to thirty-five cents an hour is all they are paid, and this
for ten to twelve hours’ work every day. That their lives are in
constant danger is not a factor in the matter. They are supposed to
work willingly for this, and they do. Only when one is picked off,
his body mangled by a passing train, is the grimness of the sacrifice
emphasized, and then only for a moment. The space which such accidents
receive in the public prints is scarcely more than a line.
And now, what would you say of men who would do this work for so
little? What estimate would you put on their mental capacity? Would you
say that they are worth only what they can be made to work for? One of
these men, an intelligent type of laborer, not a drinker nor one who
even smoked, attracted my attention once by the punctuality with which
he crossed a given spot on his beat. He was a middle-aged man, married,
and had three children. Day after day, week after week, he used to
arrive at this particular spot, his eye alert, his step quick, and when
a train approached he seemed to become aware of it as if by instinct.
When finally asked by me why he did not get something better to do, he
said: “I have no trade. Where could I get more?”
This man was killed by a train. Sure as was his instinct and keen his
eye, he was nevertheless caught one evening, and at the very place
where he deemed himself most sure. His head was completely obliterated,
and he had to be identified by his clothes. When he was removed,
another eager applicant was given his place, and now he is walking the
same tunnel with a half-dozen others. If you question these men they
will all tell you the same story. They do not want to do what they are
doing, but it is better than nothing.
Rough necessity, a sense of duty, and behold, we are as bricks and
stones, to be put anywhere in the wall, at the bottom of the foundation
in the dark, or at the top in the light. And who chooses for us?
[Illustration]
THE REALIZATION OF AN IDEAL
Any quality to which the heart of man aspires it may attain.
Would you have virtue in the world, establish it yourself.
Would you have tenderness, be tender. It is only by acting
in the name of that which you deem to be an ideal that its
realization is brought to pass.
In the crowded section of the lower East Side of New York, where
poverty reigns most distressingly, there stands a church which is
a true representative of the religion of the poor. It is an humble
building, crowded in among the flats and tenements that make the homely
neighborhood homelier, and sends a crude and distorted spire soaring
significantly toward the sky. There is but little light inside, for
that which the crowded flat-buildings about does not shut out is
weakened by the dusty stained-glass windows through which it has to
pass. An arched and dark-angled ceiling lends a sense of dignity to it
and over it all broods the solemn atmosphere of simplicity and faith.
It is in this church (and no doubt others of a similar character
elsewhere) that is constantly recurring the miracle of earthly faith.
Here it is, hour after hour, that one sees entering out of the welter
and the din of the streets those humble examples of the poor and
ignorant, who come here out of the cares of many other states to
rest a while and pray.
[Illustration: The Realization of an Ideal]
Near the door, between two large, gloomy pillars, there is a huge
wooden cross, whereon is hung a life-size figure of the Christ. The
hands and feet are pierced with the customary large forty-penny weight
nails. The side is opened with an appalling gash, the forehead is
crowned with the undying crown of thorns, which is driven down until
the flesh is made to bleed.
Before this figure you may see kneeling, any day, not one but many
specimens of those by whom the world has dealt very poorly. Their
hands are rough, their faces worn and dull; on the gnarled and weary
bodies are hung clothes of which you and I would be ashamed. Some carry
bags, others huge bundles. With hands extended upward, their faces
bearing the imprint of unquestioning faith, they look into the soft,
pain-exhausted face of the Christ, imploring that aid and protection
which the ordinary organization of society does not and cannot afford.
It is in this church, as it seems to me, that the hour’s great lesson
of tenderness is given.
I call the world’s attention to this picture with the assurance that
this is the great, the beautiful, and the important lesson. If there
be those who do not see in the body-racked figure of Christ an honest
reiteration of an actual event, who cannot honestly admit that such a
thing could have reasonably occurred, there is still a lesson just as
impressive and just as binding as though it had. These people whom you
see kneeling here and lifting up their hands present an actuality of
faith which cannot be denied. This Christ, if to you and to me a myth,
is to them a reality. And in so far as He is real to them He implies an
ardent desire on the part of the whole human race for tenderness and
mercy which it may be as well not to let go unanswered. For if Christ
did not suffer, if His whole life-story was a fiction and a delusion,
then all the yearning and all the faith of endless millions of men, who
have lived believing and who died adoring, only furnishes proof that
the race really needs such an ideal--that it must have tenderness and
mercy to fly to or it could not exist.
Man is a hopeful animal. He lives by the belief that some good must
accrue to him or that his life is not worth the living. It is this
faith then, that in disaster or hours of all but unendurable misery
causes him to turn in supplication to a higher power, and unless these
prayers are in some measure answered, that faith can and will be
destroyed, and life will and does become a shambles indeed. Hence, if
one would balance peace against danger and death it becomes necessary
for each to act as though the ideals of the world are in some sense
real and that he in person is sponsor for them.
These prayers that are put up, and these supplications, if not
addressed to the actual Christ, are nevertheless sent to that sum of
human or eternal wisdom or sympathy as you will of which we are a part.
If you believe that hope is beautiful and that mercy is a virtue, if
you would have the world more lovely and its inhabitants more kind, if
you would have goodness triumph and sorrow laid aside, then you must
be ready to make good to such supplicants and supplications as fall to
you the virtues thus pathetically appealed to. You must act in the name
of tenderness. If you cannot or will not, by so much is the realization
of human ideals, the possibility of living this life at all decently by
any, made less.
THE PUSHCART MAN
One of the most appealing and interesting elements in city life,
particularly that metropolitan city life which characterizes New York,
is the pushcart man. This curious creature of modest intellect and
varying nationality infests all the highways of the great city without
actually dominating any of them except a few streets on the East Side.
He is as hard-working, in the main, as he is ubiquitous. His cart is so
shabby, his stock in trade so small. If he actually earns a reasonable
wage it is by dint of great energy and mere luck, for the officers of
the law in apparently every community find in the presence of this
person an alluring source of profit and he is picked and grafted upon
as is perhaps no other member of the commonplace brotherhood of trade.
I like to see them trundling their two-wheeled vehicles about the city,
and I like to watch the patience and the care with which they exercise
their barely tolerated profession of selling. You see them everywhere;
vendors of fruit, vegetables, chestnuts on the East Side, selling even
dry goods, hardware, furs and groceries; and elsewhere again the Greeks
selling neckwear, flowers and curios, the latter things at which an
ordinary man would look askance, but which the lower levels of society
somehow find useful.
I have seen them tramping in long files across Williamsburg Bridge at
one, two and three o’clock in the morning to the Wallabout Market in
Brooklyn. And I have seen them clambering over hucksters’ wagons there
and elsewhere searching for the choicest bits, which they hope to sell
quickly. The market men have small consideration for them and will as
lief strike or kick at them as to reach a bargain with them.
For one thing, I remember watching an old pushcart vendor one
sweltering afternoon in summer from one o’clock in the afternoon
to seven the same evening, and I was never more impressed with the
qualities which make for success in this world, qualities which are
rare in American life, or in any life, for that matter, for patience
and good nature and sturdy charitable endurance are not common
qualities anywhere.
He had his stand at Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, New York,
then the center of the shopping life of the city--or I had better
say that he attempted to keep it there, for he was not altogether
successful. He was a dark, gray-headed, grizzle-cheeked “guinea” or
“dago,” as he was scornfully dubbed by the Irish policeman who made his
life a burden. His eye was keen, his motion quick, his general bodily
make-up active, despite the fact that he was much over fifty years of
age.
“That’s a good one,” the Irish policeman observed to me in passing,
noting that I was looking at him. “He’s a fox. A fine time I have
keeping my eye on him.”