Some months ago I wrote of a phase of wretchedness in our great
cities, which I designated "Uninvited Poverty." I confined myself to
the examination of those who may be properly designated the helpless
victims of adverse fate. There are other phases of misery, however,
which result from sin, on the part of the immediate sufferers. In my
former paper I spoke of suffering where the wretchedness sprang from
sin at the head of the social fountain. But I now wish to notice
especially misery, degradation, and moral eclipse, resulting directly
from giant evils, which are tolerated in all our large cities, though
known to every thoughtful person, from judge to artisan, from
clergyman to sexton, from editor to reporter, from wealthy matron to
the humble sewing woman. Every earnest thinker knows that there are
evils feeding the furnaces of physical, mental, and moral destruction;
that there are flourishing nurseries, common schools, and universities
of crime, degradation, and death. Yet the great churches slumber on,
their melodious chimes call the self-satisfied to cushioned seats
where are heard expositions of ancient lore and legends of a vanished
past, with incidental and general reference to the conditions of
to-day, enabling the children of wealth, who vainly imagine they are
the disciples of Jesus, to spend a comfortable hour and perchance
contribute to carrying the Gospel to some nature-favored heathen land,
never as yet cursed by rum and other evils which flourish with
tropical luxuriance in all civilized countries, and which ever follow
with blighting, corroding, and life-destroying influence in the wake
of our boasted modern civilization. Two great evils confront every
thoughtful American citizen to-day. One the _oppression of the poor
and the unfortunate_; the other, _the omnipresent cancer spots in
metropolitan life_, the infection of which is reaching the highest
circles of Boulevard society and penetrating the cellars of the
tenement houses. Recently a little work has been published which deals
chiefly with what we may term the "cancer spots of social life" in one
of America's great cities.[5] It is prepared by an earnest Christian
gentleman, who has had a committee of conscientious men and women
investigating the actual conditions in the social cellar of Chicago.
The author states that his purpose is not to show that Chicago is an
exception to the general rule in regard to poverty, crime, or
degradation. He merely desires to indicate deplorable facts as they
exist in this great city to show how dire destitution is working havoc
with the children of men almost under the shadow of the palaces of
those who profess to be Christians. He cites as an illustration of the
extreme poverty in Chicago the fact that when the compulsory education
law went into effect, the inspectors found in the squalid region, a
great number of children so destitute, that they were absolutely unfit
to attend school; decency forbidding that the sexes in _far more than
semi-nude condition should mingle in the school-rooms_, and although a
number of noble-hearted ladies banded together and decently clothed
_three hundred of these almost naked boys and girls_, they were
compelled to admit the humiliating fact that they had only reached the
outskirts, while the great mass of poverty had not been touched. A
faint idea of the extent of poverty in this one city may be gained
from the following facts from the record of one of the city police
stations.
[5] Chicago's Dark Places.
On one night last February, _one hundred and twenty-four_ destitute
homeless men begged for shelter in the cells; of this number
_sixty-eight were native born Americans_. The station was so crowded,
that in _one cell, eight by nine and a half feet, fourteen men passed
the night_, some standing a part of the night, while others lay packed
like sardines. After a time, those on the floor exchanged places with
the poor creatures who had been standing. The following incident
related is as typical as it is pathetic: An old man, cold, homeless,
destitute, not knowing where to lay his head, was seen to take a
shovel and deliberately break a window in a store opposite a police
station. He was immediately arrested. "What did you do that for?"
demanded the officer. "'Cos I was hungry and cold and knew if you got
me I could have food and shelter." He was taken care of _after_ he had
broken the law. There is something radically wrong with social
conditions which compel men who find every avenue from exposure and
starvation closed, to become lawbreakers in order to live. Some months
ago, one of the Chicago dailies instituted an inquiry to find out as
nearly as possible the number of men out of work in that city; the
returns gave a total of 40,000 adults who had nothing to do. In
connection with this fact I quote from the author of "Chicago's Dark
Places":--
At a meeting of the Trades Association a motion was made to the
effect that the Association request the mayor of the city and the
director of the World's Fair to issue a proclamation declaring
that the city was flooded with idle men, and warning the
unemployed of other cities and districts not to come here as
there was not work for them.
The following morning a reporter waited upon the mayor and asked
him what he would do if the resolution were presented to him. His
immediate reply was to the effect that he would gladly issue such
a proclamation, especially mentioning the fact that there were
20,000 unemployed men in the city already.
Now look at the two statements, and you see the awfulness of the
fact, no matter which estimate is accepted as correct. Suppose
you strike a balance between the two (although the Trades
Association inclines to believe the _Globe's_ figures are the
more accurate), and you have the appalling assurance that 30,000
unemployed men are wandering through the streets of this city
seeking work. Even granted that the mayor's conservative estimate
is most correct, the fearful fact still remains that our peace is
menaced by twenty thousand men who have not the necessary work to
earn their daily bread.
These facts most conclusively refute the statements too often
made that "men won't work," and "there's work enough if men are
only willing to do it." Such is not the truth. I can find you
many instances where good, steady workmen have offered to the
foremen of certain establishments $10, $25, and even the whole of
the first month's wages if they would find them employment.
One laboring man being interrogated by one of the commissioners who
gathered the facts for the author of this work, replied to the
question, "What can you say for those who won't work, who are commonly
called the 'bums of society'?" in such a thoughtful and suggestive way
that I give his words verbatim.
"Let me ask, What is a bum? As a rule, you will find him to be a
creature degraded by circumstances and evil conditions. Let me
illustrate. A man loses his job by sickness or some other
unavoidable cause. He seeks work, and I have shown you how
difficult it is to find it. He fails time and time again. Is
there any wonder that he grows discouraged, and that, picking up
his meals at the free lunch counter, sleeping in the wretched
lodging houses, associating with the filthy and degraded, he,
step by step, drifts further away from the habits of integrity
and industry that used to be a part of himself? He sinks lower
and lower until, overcome by circumstances, he is at the bottom
of the social ladder,--at once a menace and a disgrace to the
city. Instead of blaming and condemning him, poor fellow, we
should look at the circumstances that made him what he is, and
endeavor to remedy them."
It is not, however, with the uninvited poverty which flourishes in
every great city of America that the work chiefly deals. It paints
most thrillingly the darker and more terrible side of social
conditions; where crime and debauchery mingle with poverty; where
every breath of air is heavy with moral contagion. I have only space
to notice briefly two of the great evils described,--the saloon and
the disreputable concert halls, as these seem to me the greatest
curses touched upon.