In the boiler factories they submit the boiler to a test of resistance.
The engine is subjected to a pressure three or four times stronger than
the one it will have to withstand in the ordinary run of work. If
successful it is sent out to the market guaranteed by the factory. If
not, it is made over. The weak points are strengthened, and in most
cases it is put away to be entirely recast.
For boilers and engines this may be a good system of control, though
many an engineer maintains that the over-pressure weakens the machine
for ordinary use.
To use such a system with men, women and children is barbarous, to say
the least. The Inquisition had such a system--the Question Chamber. It
is a well-known fact that persons put to the "Question" often admitted
things which in reality they had never said or done. Most of the time
they, the tortured ones, knew that to admit these things meant death,
the hangman or the auto da fé. Still, when they confessed, the torture
ceased for the moment. This they called "The Test." Not one in a
thousand could maintain his will power when the test was applied. It
went on in crescendo as the hours passed by and the man or woman did not
"respond." It was up to the man doing the work to devise such means as
would loosen the tongue, break the will. The hangman himself was
punished for not getting at the truth, or was praised by his superior
for his success. Torquemada called a particular man from Madrid to
accompany him to Grenada, as he alone knew how to apply the "Test" to
the glory of the Almighty and of Jesus Christ. This man had perfected
himself in the art of torturing. I am not certain whether this is the
man who is spoken of in connection with the "Question" of a certain
gentleman which had to be put off because the "_real one_" at the bench
had a terrible toothache that day.
But the "Test" is applied to-day. Applied to the poor by organised
charity. Applied systematically, methodically and in crescendo; and like
the "real one" wanted by Torquemada there are real ones in the offices
of the Charity Institutions.
This is how it is done.
A family is pensioned by the organisation. Three or four years the
family has received regularly two dollars a week and the rent and coals
for the winter. Then all at once, generally early in the winter, the
order to apply the "Test" is given. The family is visited three or four
times in a week. The children are followed to and from their work. The
neighbours are adroitly asked about the family. Every one visiting the
family and surprised by the investigator is questioned: "Are you the
brother of Mrs. B.?" "Are you her husband? Are you her boarder?" If this
does not bring results the coal is cut off, to see whether the family
cannot succeed in raising money for coal. If this is not successful the
allowance is discontinued for a few weeks. This naturally brings the
woman to the office. She is not allowed to see the Manager. For several
days this is continued, then the question is put: What is she doing at
night? Where does she go during the day? Whence does she get the
necessary additional money? If she is a stubborn subject and resists all
this, then the rent is cut off. The landlord waits a few days. The woman
runs to the office. "What shall I do?" "We have no money; help
yourself," she is told. In a few days the "furniture," two broken
chairs, a limping table and a mattress, are put out in the street. In
the cold, in the snow, the children are huddled up in rags, between the
table and the stove and the picture of Washington. On top of the bundle
of bedding is a saucer in which some passersby have thrown a few cents.
Sometimes, in a case like this, some distant, poor relative, or some one
with whom the family had connections, steps in and gives them a helping
hand. Then, the test being successful, the woman is cut off the pension
list. She has helped herself.
At other times, there being no one to help, the applicant makes such a
row that he is restored to the list with a cross after his name denoting
bad behaviour. On another occasion he will again be tried.
Sometimes the woman comes running and begs that her rent be paid. She
will attend to the rest. She will sell newspapers, matches. She will
scrub floors. She will send her twelve year old daughter to work.
"You can't do that. She is not of age."
"Yes, she is."
"According to our records she is only twelve years old."
"I lied, then. She is fourteen. Only pay my rent. I can't stay in the
street."
The "Test" has been partially successful. Pension and coal supply is cut
off. Only the rent is paid. A little girl is sent to an early grave.
I remember one case where the coalman, an old Italian, had pity and gave
the coal on credit. When the investigator asked him why he did so he
answered angrily, "Not your business." A report was made in regard to
the immoral relations between the poor widow and the old Italian. It was
but natural that a certain friendship should be established between the
widow and her benefactor. She repaired his clothes, and when the
allowance was cut off he divided his bread with her. No amount of
explanation could convince the investigator that the woman was not
proven to be immoral by this fact.
"Why is she so friendly with the coalman?"
"Because she is cold and he gives her coals."
"Why does he give her coals?"
"Because you don't send her any."
Then the investigator would answer triumphantly:
"If she were an honest woman she would stand the test. She would suffer
cold and hunger." Then she would remember that last summer the woman had
a new dress that she could not account for and once there was a piece of
chicken in her pot. She evidently got it from the butcher for her good
offices. The poor have no business to eat chicken. It is the old
question of the Southern negro. He is not allowed to engage in other
trades than cooking and shoe shining, and when you discuss this with a
Southern gentleman he proves to you that the negro is an inferior being
from the fact that he does not work at anything but these trades. You
cut off the supply of coal in the dead of winter, and when the woman
obtains it from the coalman it is a proof that she is dishonest--that
they are "all alike." It is true that many of them would give their
bodies for a bucket of coal or a piece of meat when they are hungry and
cold. Many of them have admitted crimes that they have never committed
under stress. But what does that prove?
One young widow with a two year old child when submitted to the test
twice in one year was taken in by a "Madame" of a house of ill-fame in
the neighbourhood. She left the few broken chairs and the table on the
sidewalk and went there in the capacity of cook. I found her there. She
was glad of the change. "But it is an immoral house," I argued. "It's
better than to be at the mercy of the investigator and the office," was
her answer. A few weeks later she had given away her child and was a
regular inmate of the house, and still glad of the change, and thankful
to the woman who had taken her in. But the report of the investigator,
both to the charity institution and the Sisterhood, reads: "Mrs. K.
always led a life of shame and all my work was unsuccessful. When put to
the test she went to a disreputable house and has of late abandoned her
own child." The Sisterhood used their influence and had the house raided
a few times and all the women arrested, Mrs. K. among them. The
"madame" was expressly told that she was being persecuted on account of
the woman she had taken in. When Mrs. K. had finished her sentence in
prison she found the door of the house closed to her. Fourteenth Street
is free. I spoke to her. She is still glad of the change. Such are the
results of the "Test."
It is not those who do not receive charity--the poor who have to go
without--who are to be pitied, but those who are in the clutches of
charity. They should be helped, saved. They are the greatest sufferers.
Under the cloak of charity men and women are tortured. Each piece of
bread is scalded with tears and pains, and if another Napoleon should
arise there is a job waiting for him--to burn down the modern
Inquisition, destroy the torture chamber, abolish the "Question," the
"Test," to save the poor from organised charity.
No wonder that the situation is such a horrible one, when you consider
the general mentality of the people supposed to work for the
amelioration of the suffering poor. Who are they? Have they the interest
of the poor at heart, or do they consider first their own job? Does any
one of them start his daily work with a thought of the poor, with a
charitable thought? Not at all. His only occupation is how to please
his superior, how to show a good record, so that his own bread is
assured. The poor are stepping stones, a climbing ladder towards
promotion, social influence, recognition. Incidentally some of the
applicants get a few dollars a week, but they are not the real objective
point.
It reminds me of Colonel Sellers in Mark Twain's story. He proposes a
partnership to a young man for the manufacture of a certain eye-water, a
special preparation to heal sore eyes, and when the young man becomes
enthusiastic about it--he will heal sores!--Colonel Sellers tells him:
"This is not the object, my boy. From the first fifty thousand bottles
we sell we open another branch in Calcutta or Bombay--there are millions
of sufferers there." Again the young man thinks of the good work, but
Colonel Sellers continues: "And from there we establish warehouses in
Alexandria, Smyrna and Buenos Ayres, twenty million bottles a year is
our output, with a net profit of two hundred thousand dollars a year."
By this time the young man too has been influenced to look away from the
real object, the sick, the sufferers. Two hundred thousand dollars a
year is a good prize. But Twain had something in his sleeve and Colonel
Sellers delivers his last blow.
"Do you think that a man like me would be satisfied with a paltry two
hundred thousand dollars a year? There's millions in it, my dear boy."
The real business now only begins. "We will form a stock company with a
capital of twenty-five million dollars, etc., etc."
This was the real business. The sick and poor and the medicine were only
an incident, a necessary ingredient to the whole scheme to give it an
appearance of something. There are enough Colonel Sellers in the charity
institutions. They are there only for a fraction of time before they get
the real thing--before they form the stock company. Incidentally the
sore eye preparation, namely, the poor, play a rôle.
The charity institution--it is the Stock Exchange of suffering.
I have just described one form of the "Test." When I once spoke about it
to some one who has been connected with another one of these
institutions for years, expecting him to be horrified, he simply took a
note of the details in his book. "And how does it work?" he asked me. I
explained that a good many, driven to the brink, have squirmed out by
some by-path, while others shift for themselves as best they can.
"Well, well," he thought aloud, "I'll have to try it myself." And
incidentally I learned a good many other tricks of the trade, as he
called them, from him.
"There was one particular woman," he told me, "whose mouth I had to
open with my fist so that she would tell us where her boy was. He had
run away from the place we had found for him. We wanted him to learn a
trade and a glassblower gave him a chance. But the boy would not stay
with his boss. I argued and argued and argued. He did not like the
trade, he told me, but in reality it was work he did not like. The last
time he ran away I decided that it was about time to show my authority
and I found a reason to have him arrested. The mother having told me
that he had not given her his pay I wanted her to get a warrant issued
and put him away for a few months in a house of correction, just to
teach him a good lesson, but the mother would not tell me where he was.
When I saw that I could not make her say anything by persuasion--well, I
had to use force."
"What of the boy?" I inquired.
"He was no good. He was six months in the house of correction, but it
did not help. He is now a gang leader of very bad reputation," he
finished, with devout eyes. This stupid ass in charge of the poor, _who
walks six miles to get a certain brand of cigar, would not understand
that a boy may not like one trade and be very willing to learn another_.
This spiritual hog wanted to show his authority by compelling a mother
to give up her child to gaolers--used force to do it--to the Glory of
the Almighty and Jesus Christ. And he wondered that his "case" had
become a gang leader! I wonder that the boy did not repay him for his
splendid service to humanity.