My fellow-philanthropists talked much of the “Settlement Idea.” Its
adherents maintained that the world had not yet seen any self-sacrifice
so beautiful as this attempt to share the lives of the poor by living
among them. On the other hand, members of old, thoroughly organized,
comfortable societies for doing good pronounced the new methods
extremely vague.
I wished to see for myself.
Before I had visited Barnet House, the settlement of university men in
Brand Street, a similar house was opened by young college women in the
West End.
The Altruist went with me to Barnet House on Wednesday afternoon, when
the residents always had a musicale or a reading for their friends in
the neighbourhood. As we drew near the house and saw the white curtains
and green plants in the window, shining out from among the dirt-begrimed
tenements, I said to myself (my mood being severe) that it looked
pretty, but sentimental. I tried to remember who had called this kind of
effort to elevate the slums “a philanthropic picnic in a wilderness of
sin.”
We were ushered by a tall young man into a great sunshiny room that was
full of easy chairs and books and pictures.
This was one of the residents, the Altruist said in introducing him. He
would doubtless be kind enough to tell me what I wished to know.
“The Settlement Idea is very simple,” said the Resident, in answer to my
questions. He spoke with an air of dignity that seemed too old for him.
“A number of people who wish to help the poor find a house, put it into
good sanitary condition, and go to live there together, doing some
independent work, and some work in common.”
“But what kind of work?” I asked. “Pardon me,—I can understand why you
come, but not what you do when you get here.”
The Resident apparently did not notice the touch of discourtesy in my
remark.
“The Settlement,” he said, looking hesitatingly toward the Altruist,
“serves two purposes. It is a station for philanthropic work, and also a
centre for social investigation.”
“What is social investigation?” I asked bluntly.
To my delight the young man laughed. “That is a quotation from an
article I am writing. It sounds rather bookish, doesn’t it?”
“It is a very good sentence,—for an article,” I admitted.
“Why, you see,” said the Resident, his eyes twinkling, “social
investigation means drains and foods and that kind of thing.”
“Yes?” I said inquiringly.
“And immorality and crime and amusements. Also wages and causes of
popular discontent. In fact, it embraces almost everything.”
The mingled audacity and shyness of the boy’s manner were very winning.
I was becoming interested, but the Altruist looked deeply pained by this
lightness of tone.
“How is this work carried on?” I asked.
“By visits,” said the Resident briefly, “and statistics.”
“You go out from here to make the visits upon the poor—”
“And then we make the statistics,” he interrupted, “and publish them.”
Suddenly he became grave, and in doing so made himself seem ten years
older.
“You look sceptical,” he said. “I am myself, sometimes. But, seriously,
I think that this thing is worth doing. We come because we are really
interested in these people. We are interested in all kinds of ways. One
man here is doing regular missionary work. Another is writing a book
about the reasons for unsanitary living in the slums, and is
investigating the condition of every tenement in the East End. There’s a
literary man here, looking for material. He goes around getting local
colour, but he helps, too, and isn’t so useless as he might seem to be.”
“Helps in what?” I asked.
“In the collective work done by the House,” said the Resident. “We have
all kinds of clubs,—literary, political, and scientific. You see, though
each man is doing his own private work, we have organized effort. It
isn’t all exploration. However, I believe I made our twofold object
clear in that opening sentence.
“Then there are art exhibitions and lectures. We invite our neighbours
to come to hear music, and to come to take baths. We charge five cents
for the baths. The music is free. We have dinner parties too, and
receptions. You ought to see the costumes that the East End can turn
out. A Brand Street swell in his evening dress is a sight for gods and
men.”
“I don’t see what you talk about,” I said. “Your guests must be hard to
entertain.”
“Oh, we talk about dime museums and Tammany and the things that happen
in the streets. That’s when we are adapting ourselves to our guests.
Then we show them pictures, and talk about high art and literature.
That’s when we are adapting our guests to us. It’s immensely elevating
for them, immensely, just to talk with us.”
I found that my objections to the Settlement Idea were vanishing rapidly
before this young man’s sense of humour.
“It really doesn’t do the people down here a great deal of harm,” he was
saying, “and it does us a great deal of good.”
“Is your interest in the practical or in the theoretical side of the
work?” I asked.
“In the latter. I am a student of economics, and have just taken my
Ph.D. degree. Lately,” he added, flushing, “I have become a Socialist.”
The Altruist looked pleased.
“The state of things down here has convinced me that an entire
reconstruction of our whole industrial system is the only thing that can
help the poor.”
I asked him if the misery of the poor had not been much exaggerated in
the sensational reform journals.
“It could not be exaggerated,” he said vehemently. “No, the half has not
been told.”
As he recounted tale after tale of the sin and suffering caused by
unrighteous laws of trade, I sat numb with that sense of personal hurt
that one feels on first knowing that these things are true.
But the Resident stopped, for the bell rang, and a “neighbour” entered.
The other residents came in; several more guests arrived, and the
Altruist, who had been unusually silent for the last fifteen minutes,
became the centre of a group of listeners.
One of the callers was a Salvation Army captain, whose regiment was
passing through the city. One was a street-car driver. He had half an
hour off, and had come to ask the time of a lecture to be given that
night. Mrs. Milligan, the washerwoman who lived next door, ran in with
her youngest boy. Then came a lady from Endicott Square, in a superb
Parisian gown.
We conversed most amicably in the intervals of the music. When this was
over, a domestic appeared with a tray, and the literary man made tea.
Before I left I had a few more words with the young Socialist.
“There’s no use talking,” he said earnestly. “However little direct
practical good we do, there is no doubt that our opportunity is great
for investigating. It is obviously better to study the working of
economic laws in society itself than in books. I am trying to get
acquainted with the working-people, and look at their grievances from
their point of view. Socialism has been treated entirely too much from
the standpoint of the scholar and the fanatic. I want to work in a more
practical way, getting at the new political economy in the making.”
I came away quite willing to allow any number of young men with Ph.D.
degrees, and honest enthusiasm, and a saving sense of fun, to live in
the slums.
But I did not admit this to the Altruist.