No district of any big city in the world has such a desolate miserable
look as the "charity blocks" in New York. They are grouped a little
everywhere. For this, New York is like the body of Job, with sores and
wounds all over.
Around all the gas houses near the river, north, south, east and west,
take any of the gay streets of the metropolis. Forty-second Street,
Thirty-fourth Street, Twenty-third and Fourteenth Streets. With what
dirt and misery they start on the west, how they get brighter and gayer
towards the middle, on Seventh Avenue, how they reach the climax at
Fifth Avenue, and how the Third Avenue elevated in the east and Ninth
Avenue elevated in the west cuts off the ugly part of the city, like the
butcher who trims around the meat. The cheap tallow for the poor and the
centre piece for the rich, and all comes from one and the same animal.
Just as the meat, in proportion to its nutrition, costs the poor dearer
than the rich, so do the apartments of the poor cost more than the Fifth
Avenue houses, taking into consideration the comfort of the latter. As
a matter of fact it is well known that Cherry, Henry, Monroe and Hester
Street properties are more profitable, proportionately to the money
invested, than Fifth Avenue apartments. No vacant house is to be seen
around the celebrated "lung blocks." The terrible stench coming from
across the river, where the garbage of the city is dumped, has killed
the sense of smell of the poor wretches living there. They wonder at you
when you keep handkerchief to your nose while passing. It is an ordeal
to pass along Avenue A between Twenty-fifth and Thirty-fourth Streets.
The poisonous gas combines with the stench of the slaughter house, and
the piled up garbage in the river. Still the streets are full of
children, playing, and God only knows why the poor have so many
children.
My work brought me into daily contact with the children. "The nutty
scribbler," they called me, the Italian boys pronouncing my title with
their peculiar accent; the Russian with theirs and the Jewish boys
translating it altogether into their idiom. Poor, underfed and oversmart
children; ready-witted and half-witted. Child and old man. Buying sour
pickles instead of bread when they get a penny, ready to do anything for
a puff from a cigarette. Their ideal is not to become a workingman. They
know too well where that leads. Kid Herman, Kid Twist and Red Larry are
their heroes, and in childish contradiction, the policeman is their
idol. How they swarm around a newspaper when there is "anything" in it.
An interesting murder case, a robbery, a street shooting, these are the
sensations of their lives. When the father comes home drunk they envy
him and will soon imitate him. They help the burglars hide, and chase
the pickpocket over the roofs, together with the detectives, giving
advice in turn to the hunted how to escape and to the policeman how to
catch him; rejoicing when the bad one has escaped and booing him along
the street when he is handcuffed. And every year their domain extends a
little further until it approaches the rich. A block from Riverside
drive and two from Fifth Avenue--extending continually, like a cankerous
wound.
One evening I visited a family that was pensioned by the charities. The
father had just been discharged from the consumptive hospital as cured
and I was instructed to see whether he was well enough to work. A plan
was on foot to open a soda water stand for him, to keep him outdoors,
lest he again become sick.
They had five children. The oldest, a girl, was twelve years old. It was
ten o'clock and I expressed wonder that the children were not in the
house. The mother's answer was not straight.
"They are playing, they are visiting neighbours, I sent them away,"
were her answers to my questions. I sensed a mystery and decided to wait
until they came home. I talked with the man and asked him his prospects
for the future, to which he hopefully answered that he was sure to get
his old place in the clothing factory as presser. I questioned him about
his life in the hospital and sought every way to prolong my visit. The
mother was very anxious to get rid of me, but I stuck to the job. About
half past ten the children came in, all pale and worn-out, hardly saying
good-night, but going straight to bed.
"From where do you all come so late?" I asked.
"From the street," the mother answered and pushed them into the other
room. I felt that it was useless to insist, so I retired. The street was
deserted. No child's play was going on and the children of the applicant
did not appear to be the sort who would stay until the last. I walked up
and down the block without meeting a child. At the corner, near the gas
house, on Fourteenth Street, I met a policeman and talked the matter
over with him.
"The street has turned good these last few weeks. Don't know what's the
matter," was his remark.
I did not agree with him and walked up and down the street until past
midnight, when I decided to continue my investigation the next morning.
A postcard advised the office that I would be busy the following morning
and could not report. At eight o'clock I was near the house of the
consumptive family. The children all went to school. Not to compromise
my work I stayed away until noon. The children came for lunch and
returned to school. It was early in the spring and a glorious day. I
could not help thinking of the beauty of the field and forest on such
days, when the green is shooting out from the soil in the gardens, when
the plough is carving out slices from mother earth and the birds are
singing in the trees. I could not help thinking how life has taken these
poor people out of their homes in the little villages of Russia, Poland,
Italy and Roumania and has crowded them, nay, herded them together in
what is called a tenement row, to sleep there and to work in a sweatshop
in the day. How do they feel when they think of their homes, when they
see a green leaf, when they hear the song of a bird? When one has colour
in his face they say that he still has the "home colour." When they
mention a feat of strength or endurance they add: "It was my first year
here you know."
At three P. M. I was back at my post. I watched the children come from
school. With their many-coloured dresses they looked from far away like
a swarm of butterflies, but as they approached they became less gay,
less expansive.
Talk about the influence of home on children! Among a group of children
I spied the oldest girl of the consumptive man. She walked more slowly
than the others, as though she wanted to retard something that waited
for her at home. Finally she took leave of the others and entered the
hall. By and bye the other sisters and two brothers came. I waited
outside. A quarter of an hour later the oldest girl and the second
brother, about nine years old, came out, still chewing the piece of
bread they had for tea. They walked hand in hand, and I followed them.
They turned the corner and entered a tenement house near Fourteenth
Street. I intended to follow them upstairs when I observed many other
children of about the same age coming. Some were as young as six and
seven, however. Some were biting apples, others, boys of nine to twelve
years, throwing away the last bit of the butt of a cigarette, with the
regretful gesture of the workingman before the factory door closes on
him and the bell rings.
"Where in heaven are you all going?" I asked a group of boys.
"None of your rotten business," was the reply in chorus. I withdrew and
watched. One after another they went up the stairs until I had counted
nearly a hundred. When I saw no more coming I went up the stairs, the
dark, ill-smelling stairs, until I reached the third floor. It was a
rear yard house. Dark, dirty, dingy. On the third floor I stopped and
listened. A buzzing noise came from one of the apartments, as though a
thousand hands were crushing silk paper between the fingers. Soon a door
opened. A little girl came out. I did not speak to her. Interested, I
entered the apartment without knocking at the door. In a room 10 x 15,
were two long tables and on both sides sat the little boys and girls on
benches. On the tables were piled up all sorts of candies and
chocolates, which the children put in paper boxes that lay near them. So
engrossed were they in their work that they hardly lifted an eye to see
who had entered. A big burly Italian met me and asked what I wanted.
"Is Mr. Salvator Razaza living here?" I asked.
"No Razaza. What you want come here. Get out and shut up." And not very
gently he pushed me out.
So this was where they all went. So this was what they were doing.
Filling boxes with candy when they had no bread to eat. Here was the
place where they buried their youth--the children of the poor!
Outside I saw an old man grinding a hand organ, but there were no
children to dance around him on the sidewalk. The street was deserted.
"Rotten business," remarked the old fellow. "No children. Me not know
what the matt. All the bambinos morte, sick? Sacre Madonna," the old man
shook his head, packed up his organ and thoughtfully went away, carrying
his music to other places, where the children are not packing candies in
boxes while their stomachs are empty. No, no, old man. The children are
not dead. _They_ never die. "The children of the poor never die," as
Mrs. Barker puts it. They pack candies, but the mystery was only half
solved. The rest was easy to get at, late at night, when the children of
the consumptive man came home. They had to unburden themselves. All five
were working there--piece work, and they were making as much as forty
cents a day, the five of them combined. More than a hundred were working
in that factory, while many other hundreds of children worked in other
factories which had of late started in the neighbourhood. Willow plumes,
artificial flowers and packing candies were the chief trades, while the
making of cigarettes and labelling of patent medicine bottles and boxes
occupied a minor position. On close investigation I found that more than
fifty per cent. of the people pensioned by charity had their children
at work in these murderous shops.
Through a ruse I obtained entrance to several of them. It is so
terrible, so unbelievable that I keep from describing it, knowing
beforehand that you will say "exaggerated." One hundred children in one
room, windows and doors tightly closed. So that the attention of people
may not be attracted the children must not talk, must not sing. One
little gas burner in the middle of the room is all the light there is.
The toilet is almost always out of order. The piece work has so
sharpened their ambition that their little fingers fly and they do not
want to spare the time for personal necessities. The little girls and
boys strong enough to keep back all these hours soon get bladder
diseases--while the weaker ones--well, their clothes tell the tale. But
the ladies want willow plumes and artificial flowers and Miss So and So
has to be given a nice looking box of candy by her beau. The rich men
have to get richer and give more money to the charity institutions, and
hospitals must be endowed with millions and the sanatoriums for the poor
consumptives and the cheap milk mission and the free doctor--all this
must be kept up and costs money--and money must be made.
When I reported what I had found out I was told by the Manager not to
report it to the Factory Inspectors, because it was so much better that
the children should train themselves from early youth to shift for
themselves and become self-supporting, and that ultimately they would
have to go to work--what was the difference? I was told that I was not
telling them anything new, only I should find out who the children were
working for and how much they were earning, so that the pension could be
reduced accordingly.
"But they are little tots," I argued.
"Well, they are all older than you think," I was answered, "and idleness
is so very dangerous."
"But the places are unsanitary," I further insisted.
"They can't build special factories for them, it's too costly in the
first place, and secondly it would make too much noise and they would
not be permitted to work."
"They will all get sick--consumptive," I said.
"Well, well, it is not so terrible. They have a remarkable power of
resistance, and if they do get sick--we will take care of them. That's
what we are here for. Mr. Baer, you are an anarchist."
Thus ended my interview on behalf of the children of the poor. I did
something on my own hook.
The result?
The factories were moved away to another place. They could easily do it.
They did not build any special houses for the trade. Later on I learned
that one of the biggest concerns in willow plumes did half of their work
through outside contractors and that the price was so low that no woman
could make a living at it. The head of this concern is one of the
biggest philanthropists and contributors to charities. Still he might
not know! Just as the young lady does not know from where her Christmas
pleasure money comes--and distraction is absolutely needed.