The indignities to which the poor are subjected in the offices of
charity and by the employés of these organisations are of such a nature
that it is my honest belief that criminals get more consideration in the
police station, before the judge or in prison. After all, what are the
poor guilty of? Is poverty a crime? Is it not the inevitable result of
the present organisation of society? Is it possible that in the present
industrial system there should be no poor and no helpless human beings?
I am sure that the people who contribute tens of thousands of dollars to
these institutions do it in order to help those whom they have in the
course of their lives and business despoiled of their right to life and
its necessities. A few scenes which I witnessed at the charities will
suffice to give an idea of what the applicants have to undergo at the
hands of the officers of the institutions, whether they get relief or
not.
The sweetest word they ever use in connection with the poor is
"derelict." A quotation made by a sister institution (A Free Loan
Association), will give the essence of what they think and in what
spirit they act towards the poor.
Says the President of this institution in his Twentieth Annual Report:
"The object of this Society is to loan money to those in need, instead
of giving alms, and thus assist respectable people, whose character and
self-respect will not permit them to receive alms, etc., etc."
So, none of the people who apply for charity are respectable people or
have any self-respect! This is the spirit of all the charity workers
toward an applicant. Once a man or a woman has applied for help he is no
longer respectable, he has lost his self-respect. He is a "derelict." It
speaks ill for humanity that there has not yet been one poor person who
has taken revenge for all the injustices and insults heaped upon his
brethren! It shows how degraded they are through hunger. Not that they
are inherently coarse. Oh, no! but weakness, physical weakness to which
all those who apply to charity are reduced before they ever come to the
office. Once in the mill they are ground. I will leave the investigators
for a while and show how the "derelicts" are treated in the office.
I must not forget to mention that they are frequently called to the
office at nine A. M. and left in the waiting-room until five P. M., when
they are again told to come to-morrow, as the committee before which
they were called to appear has departed. Meanwhile, they had to sit
there and hear the insults to which the others are subjected, and stay
without food. Mr. Cram once told me that this sitting in the
waiting-room was a very good "test" of real want, for it has happened
that many of them never came back when they were again called.
"Once they pass through the waiting-room they are easy to manage," he
assured me. "They get their education."
The waiting-room is the school. I wonder how many of those who could not
stand the "test" turned the gas jet on. How many of them jumped into the
river! How many went to the street. Too bad we cannot know all the
crimes of charity.
A woman, Bertha S., about thirty years old, still good looking, despite
the misery she has passed through, is called before the Manager. She has
two small children whom she has left with a neighbour. She has been
called for nine A. M. As it is her first experience with the charities
she is at the doors at eight-thirty A. M. When the doors swing open at
nine-ten she is almost frozen. She had been waiting a full half hour.
She shows her letter of admission and is allowed in the building. The
whole day, until four-thirty P. M., she stands in the waiting-room,
sometimes walking around and crying, at other times sitting nervously
twisting her hands in despair and calling the names of her two
children.
At four-thirty, she and all the other women were told that on account of
the cold weather the committee would not meet that day and they should
come the next day. The office boy who brought the news to them meanwhile
permitted himself a joke, saying "The show is off for to-night. If you
like it, tell your friends."
The next day the building was so overcrowded with applicants that more
than fifty had to stand the whole day. Bertha S. looked to be the most
unfortunate of all. Her nervousness was painful. At three-thirty P. M.,
the manager began to call the applicants into his room. Every time the
door swung open she hoped or feared that now was her turn, and when she
saw each time that another was called she became more and more nervous.
Finally, at five, she was called in. From a side door I entered the
room. With the Manager sat a few other men. They looked her up and down,
measuring her from her toes to her head, as though she had committed
some crime. Then one of the men, a well fed, red-faced, thick-bellied
brute, looked in a record purporting to be the investigator's report and
the third degree, the most inhuman one I have ever witnessed, started:
"How old are you?" he yelled at the woman without looking at her.
"Thirty."
"How many children have you?"
"Two."
"How old are they?"
"One six years and, one--"
"You lie--liars you all are--how old are your children?"
"One is six years old and one--"
"You liar, you shameless liar, six years old? Ha!" and so saying this
man jumped up from his chair. "Six years old, eh, and she goes around to
moving picture shows and stays out the whole night. Six years old?" He
approached the woman. "And what do you think, do you think we don't know
what _you_ do? We know all right."
"But, mister," the woman tried to speak.
"Keep quiet. Don't talk." This was another man's advice, whereupon the
first one continued.
"Here," showing her the record, "we have it in black and white--daughter
goes to one moving picture show and the mother to another one."
"But, mister," the woman tried again, but the man grew angry, his fat
body shook, his well-fed face flushed and he delivered himself of all
the venom there was in him.
"And you dare to apply for charity. A woman of your kind, an immoral
woman. And tell me and all these gentlemen here that your daughter is
six years old. You are a liar, a street woman, that's what you are."
At this point the woman cried out and fell headlong on the floor. One of
the other men looked in the record and remarked that Mr. W. who had
cross-examined the woman had made a mistake, as the record was not that
of Mrs. Bertha S., but another applicant's. I watched the whole scene
and thought: "Great God! How he will have to apologise now!" But no--not
a word of apology. She was only a poor woman, a "derelict." I wonder
what the "gentlemen" in question, or any other member of that committee
would have done to any one who would have dared to insult his wife or
sister or daughter in the same manner.
Mr. W. bent down, looked again in the record book, and after convincing
himself, said: "Yes, I made a mistake." Meanwhile, the woman kept on
sobbing bitterly.
The secretary munched at his cigar rather nervously.
"Give her five dollars," Mr. W. said to the Manager, and the poor woman
was led out, the price of her degradation in her hand. I followed her to
an elevated station. She sobbed bitterly the whole way. She never
appeared at the office again, but a few months later the following
notice appeared in the papers: