"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

I started as directed, down to Winter and Darian Streets, to the Galilee Mission. I had proceeded but a short distance when I saw standing on a corner one of the great army of workers. His appearance told me plainly what he was,—his hands were calloused, and his half-worn shoes were covered with a white viscous substance, and a dim mist of lime dust clouded his entire person. I stepped up to him and asked where I could get a free bed.

“Don’t know of such a place in the city, but you can get a bed at the Lombard Street woodyard by working three or four hours for it. But don’t go there unless you have to—they won’t treat you right.”

I thanked him and went on down to the Mission. As I approached it, one of the followers of the Mission, with a Bible or hymn-book under his arm, was at the door in an altercation with one of the great army of unfortunates. The man had an honest face, but the glazed eyes told he had been drinking. I heard the attendant say,

“Now, you get out of here or I’ll fix you! I’ll have an officer here in a minute, and he’ll land you in jail in pretty quick time.”

The man was at the drinking faucet at the side of the building.

“I haven’t done anything. All I’m doing is getting a drink of water.”

What the trouble was, I do not know, but what I saw was a seemingly peaceable man abused, thrown out on the street, with the threat hurled after him of police and prison.

I stepped around to another one of the attendants at the door, and I asked if I could get a free bed there. He said in a hard way, “No, you can’t.”

“I am willing to work for it.”

“Well, I don’t know whether there’s any left. If there is by half-past nine or ten you can have one, but you understand you’ll have to work for it.”

I said, “I am not very strong. Will the work be hard?”

“If you’re sick why don’t you go to the hospital?”

“I’m not sick enough for that.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, if you get a bed here you’ll have to work good and hard for it whether you’re sick or well.”

“Could I get anything to eat before going to bed?”

“No, you can’t,” he answered.

I then strolled down to the “Friendly Inn,” supposedly a shelter for destitute men, located on Ninth and Walnut Streets. I asked a pleasant looking young man behind the desk if I could get a free bed. He told me they had no free beds nor any work to do to pay for one, but added, “I have no authority, but if you will wait until half-past ten o’clock, the Manager will be here and he may give you one.”

Remembering my brief encounter with the workingman on the corner, I did not wait but started for the “Lombard Street woodyard.” After reaching Lombard Street I walked for half a mile, and for the entire distance the street was crowded with people, but I did not see a white person until I reached the woodyard. The thrift of the colored people of Philadelphia was markedly noticeable. Saloons were rare in the neighborhood. Their homes were comfortable, they were well dressed and seemingly happy.

I came to a large four-story substantial brick building with a small iron porch at its entrance. There was an iron balcony out from each window and over the entrance door, and on the rear a similar row of balconies, but no fire escape that I could discover. If the building had not been so large it could have been readily taken for a police station, there were so many policemen about the place.

I entered and found myself in the presence, except for the policemen, of the first white man I had seen on Lombard Street. A kindly appearing gentleman asked me a number of questions, and among them if I was sick. My answer apparently satisfactory, he said,

“You will have to work for your lodging here.”

I asked, “How long?”

He replied, “Three or four hours.”

I was then ordered to take a bath, which was compulsory, and was perfectly right and a good thing. Water, however, does not cost much. After the bath I was shown into a large dormitory, thoroughly ventilated and immaculately clean (made and kept so by homeless workers) containing fifty beds, of which thirty were occupied that night. The beds were very clean and comfortable, except the pillows, which were pretty thin and hard. I judged they were stuffed with cotton, and cotton gets into a lump sometimes. Some of the men coughed all night. At four o’clock, for some reason, one-half of the men were called, and why they were called at that hour I could not learn. At five o’clock the rest of us were called. I had slept in a clean ten-cent bed for six hours, and was then driven out. For the spirit to drive is also evident there. When we went into breakfast there was some bread and spoons on the table. We had no need of a knife and fork, as we had nothing to use them for. We were then given a plate of bean soup and a cup of stuff called coffee. The soup had a nasty taste, like rancid lard or strong butter, and the material called coffee was luke-warm, and nauseating. It had not the slightest flavor, taste, or strength, and we were not given sugar or milk. This was our breakfast. I could not eat or drink a mouthful, and I was not the only one, for there were others of the half-starved boys and men at that table who ate nothing, and those who did eat forced it down, and made faces while doing so.

Now, this was not because I was used to Bellevue-Stratford fare, for I have roughed it throughout the West in mining and cow camps, and know good coarse food from nasty coarse food.

We then went down in the reading-room, a sort of chapel, where there was a rostrum with an organ and a pulpit on which was a carved cross. The room was filled with chairs. At one end was a large table covered with old magazines and papers. Did you ever notice how charity people think old magazines are good enough for a poor man no matter how bright mentally he may be, or how much he loves to keep up with the times?

We were told we would have to wait until half-past six before going to work. I almost fainted from hunger, and was suffering terribly with a headache. I went down to the door and asked if I could go out, saying I would return. I was told, no, I could not. In this chapel I was virtually imprisoned, to be kept there and turned loose at the will of its superintendent. There were two big well-fed policemen sleeping on the chairs, and I fell to wondering what they were there for, and what they had had for breakfast. I wondered if they were there to watch us, and I said to one boy in a tentative way, “What’s the matter of us making a sneak?”

He replied, “No, I won’t, for I promised I would work, and if they catch you trying to make a sneak, they’ll throw you in jail.”

Then I wondered what the large kindly man at the desk, who did not have to wash or scrub floors or saw wood, had had for breakfast, and what the other big good-natured attendant had had, whose only business was to boss the “under dog.” I also wondered what the other members of the society of organized charities had had for breakfast, and if they were driven out of bed at four or five o’clock in the morning to eat it.

At six-thirty we were put to work. A number of us were sent to the woodyard and several of us were put to washing, cleaning, and scrubbing the floors and stairs.

I was set to washing, and I asked the “boss” attendant, “How long will I have to work?” He replied, “three or four hours,” the same as the attendant had told me at the door when I entered. However, after working from half-past six until twenty-five minutes to nine—kept in there just at the time when I ought to have been out looking for work—I was allowed to go.

As I was leaving I said to a boy about fifteen years of age, “Are you going now?” He said, referring to the attendant, “He’s not told me that I could go. These people treat a boy mighty mean here. They worked me from half-past six yesterday morning until four-thirty in the afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you leave after you had worked for your bed and breakfast?”

“Well, it was so near dinner time, and I won’t beg or steal, so I waited for the cheap dinner, and they worked me, as I told you, until four-thirty in the afternoon, but I am going to try to get a job to-day, if possible.”

Does Philadelphia need a Municipal Emergency Home? Philadelphians, you, too, send your delegation to New York and inspect their new Municipal Emergency Home, that you, too, may have one even surpassing that New York Home, or at least turn the one you have into a humane one, for you cannot afford to have New York surpass you in its humanitarian activities. Keep the great reputation you have of “Brotherly Love” and “Hospitality,” and if you do, your lives and your city will continue resplendent, and this new refuge will speak in wonderful language the praise of “The City of Homes.”

CHAPTER XI
Pittsburg and the Wolf

“I resolved that the wolf of poverty should be driven from my door.”—Andrew Carnegie.

Our train was late, and would not reach Pittsburgh until noon.

The porter had given me a pillow, and while we were sliding smoothly down that great tongue of land between the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, where in 1754 stood an old French fort, and where to-day stands Pittsburg, the greatest industrial city of our nation with its population of 750,000 souls, I fell into a half wakeful reverie. I was thinking of its steel, and its iron, its glass, its coal, and its oil, of the mighty fortunes created there by the sweat of the working masses; of the few who had made those great fortunes, of the struggle, the worry, until the treasures of the earth were theirs, until they possessed gold and silver, and houses and lands, through the exploitation of those who must toil. We think or used to think of men who from poverty had achieved great wealth, that they were self-made and worthy of great honor, but that idea seems to be growing less significant nowadays. I thought of the scandals that are rife, and that have come to us from time to time from the great Iron City, and I saw that achievement had left in many cases, indelible marks in a wreckage of mutilated homes and lives. Then my dream changed to the blue jeans, to the great industrial army of bread winners who filled just as great a place of import in the building up of the city, and of its great fortunes, as did the few who exploit them. I thought, too, of their battles of the past for equity and justice, and of the one at that time going on at McKee’s Rocks; I thought of the lives sacrificed in such battles, of the contention and agony, of the suffering of body and mind for life’s simple necessities, and all to keep together humble homes, to protect the manhood of honorable American citizens, and to insure the safety of little children, to make a living wage possible.

We were nearing the city. Surely, I thought, this great city, with its vast wealth, must abound in privileges to labor. I have heard that people who achieve great wealth do not always forget. My first impulse was to pass right through without trying to investigate conditions in Pittsburg, for I had received many wounds of late from those in charge of “charitable” institutions. I had been misunderstood and severely criticised, called a seeker after notoriety, and my motives had been questioned. All because I dared to prove to the world that the institution maintained and assisted by private charity, especially the methods of the charity organization society, cannot stand the test of an honest and impartial investigation.

I was weary in mind and body, and had almost lost sight of what had stood out before me as duty. The silent voice which had been leading me on was scarcely perceptible. I had been reading Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” and I held in my hand this great masterpiece. Aroused from my lethargy I opened the volume and read, “A man should not recoil from the good he may be able to do.” I looked, and my wounds were healed, and thus I stopped in Pittsburg.

I found a neat room in a respectable neighborhood, where a man in working clothes could walk in and out without comment. Soon I was on the street, an unemployed, destitute workingman, except, as I discovered afterwards, that I had in one of the pockets of my overalls a penny. My first object was to look for work. Inquiring I found that it was estimated, on good authority, that there were 50,000 unemployed men in Pittsburg and its environs at that time. At McKee’s Rocks alone there were 8,000.

I went first to Pittsburgh’s Street Railway Company, where I found one hundred and fifty young men in line putting in their applications for work at twenty-four cents an hour. If those applications were accepted, the men were obliged, and were willing, to work one whole week for nothing to become qualified. I did not file an application.

I picked up a paper and read: “Ten men wanted as supers at a theater. Apply at the stage door entrance.” I went to the place, and found fifty men waiting, although it was an hour before the appointed time. There were men of all ages and types, from some scarcely more than boys to old men of seventy. I talked with a dozen who had prospective work in sight and were willing to do anything to tide themselves over until their positions were secured. One man said, “I have a place in a wholesale grocery open for me the first of next week, and although this work will only pay fifty cents a performance, it will buy me enough to eat, and I can sleep any place until I get my job. I hope they will choose me.” Then the manager came out and chose his ten men, the largest, roughest of the lot. I was not among them, and the boy who was going to work in the wholesale grocery was still on the street. The men selected were as pleased as though they had received a Christmas gift that would not wear out, and one big, rough, tough looking fellow, with almost tears of joy in his eyes, said, “Who would have tought dey would have taken me wid dis front on?” as he looked down at his soiled and ragged clothes; and another just as happy replied, “What do ye tink dey want? A fellow with balloons on his legs and a cane? Naw, dey want a feller that can do somethin’.”

I then drifted around among the employment offices, and found a little army looking for, and getting, shipments to work. As I strolled about, I found a carpenter’s rule, which I picked up and slipped in the upper side pocket of my jumper. Strolling along a little further I saw on the sidewalk a bright new nail. I don’t know why I did it, but I picked it up also, and put it into the lower pocket on the other side. The night was coming down and I was very tired and hungry. I began, as an indigent man, to look for a place of rest and a meal, the latter a thing I never missed on these investigations, but often had to postpone for long periods. I was perfectly willing to work for that privilege if I could find such a place.

I was compelled to try the so-called “Christian Missions,” and they made a good starting point for my investigations,—investigations which proved to me that they prey upon the gullible with a pretense of helping the homeless.

I went first to the Salvation Army and asked for a bed. The attendant told me he could not give me one as their lodging house was run for profit and not for charity.

“I am willing to work for it. Have you no such place.”

“We have,” was the answer, “but it is closed.”

Then I went to the old Liberty Mission on Fourth Street and I read the following inscription over the door, “The man who belongs nowhere belongs here.” Prayers were being said on the inside, and the doorway was blocked by a desk behind which sat a negro. I asked if I could get a free bed. He answered, “You can for ten cents.”

Still on the street, I made my way to the Volunteers of America on Second Avenue, made an appeal for a bed, and was flatly denied that comfort unless I had twenty-five cents to pay for it.

So, touched by the lack of hospitality offered by “Christian” institutions in Pittsburg to an indigent man, I looked straight at this Volunteer, and said earnestly, “Is there no place in all this great city where a destitute man can find an asylum for only one night?” and started for the door. I think my ardent manner created a little suspicion, for he called me back and said, “You might ask the Captain; he is out there holding service in the street.”

I stepped out just as they concluded their service. I addressed one of the followers and asked for the Captain. “He has just gone,” was the answer, “but what do you want of him?”

“I am without means, and I wanted to know if he would give me a bed for the night.”

The follower said, “No, I don’t think we can, but I can give you work. Do you want work?”

“I do, where is it, and what is it?”

The work proved to be driving one of their wagons four miles out in the country.

“And what do they pay?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I said, “It is late and I am tired, and I want to be taken care of just for to-night. I may find work at my trade to-morrow. Do you see?”

He replied with a sneer, “Oh, yes I see,” and abruptly turned his back upon me and went in to pray. All that was left for me was the public park.

Pittsburg has no breathing spots, squares, or parks down in the city, although there is a large fine park, I am told, several miles out. Just across the Allegheny River in Allegheny City (Greater Pittsburg) is a beautiful park with many statues, fountains, flowers, and trees; but I must cross the bridge and the toll was one cent. I reached down in my jeans for my last penny, paid my toll, and went over. How lucky I was in having that one last penny! It was one of the places where “the penny counts.” I had been told during the day that one of the inducements offered to Allegheny City for coming into Pittsburg was that this toll, a mighty revenue, would be abolished, but as yet it still exists.

What a night of midsummer beauty it was! No singer ever sung, or artist ever portrayed, a fairer scene! I was very tired and hungry, and dropped down on a seat to rest. “And the cares that infest the day seem to fold up their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away.” I could have dropped to sleep and slept with the peace of a little child; with no covering but the boughs of the green trees, with no watcher but the stars in the sea of blue above me, with no company but the song of the night bird that could sing all night.

Many people were seated on the benches. Near me were two men. I drew a little nearer to them and engaged them in conversation.

“Are you out of a job, too?” one of them asked. “You can’t remain here all night, if you are thinking of sleeping in the park, for the police will drive you out. This would be a fine place to rest, wouldn’t it? We would like to remain here until daylight. We have work promised us at Homestead. We might as well walk out there to-night, and go before we are told to go.” The last words were to his partner. They turned to me again saying, “Good-night, old man, hope you’ll have luck,” and were gone.

I then walked a long way up the park, noticing that already it had been cleared of its weary ones, that they had been driven from these haunts of nature back into the black holes of the city. I saw but one old white-haired man sitting with his head in his hands, sound asleep.

I stepped up to him, and touching him, said, “Why don’t you lie down on the bench and sleep; you would rest so much more comfortably?”

He awoke with a startled look, and said, “I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

In a frightened manner he replied, “I don’t know.”

I knew he was afraid of the police.

“I don’t think anyone will trouble you.” He laid his old, exhausted, worn-out frame down upon the seat, and was almost immediately lost in the slumber he so needed. I had left him but a moment when I saw a policeman in the distance who stopped and viewed me closely, then turned and went in the direction of the old man. I was inclined to follow him, but I did not dare, nor could I wait to see the pathetic finish. I strolled back down the park and saw by a light in a distant tower that it was midnight. The park seemed utterly deserted but for a dog sleeping under a bush.

I went back to the gate by which I had entered, and sat down near it. Between there and the bridge was the part of the city given over to dens of vice, which are open all night, among them being scattered places of legitimate business which are open only in the light of day, and in the night afford a deeper shelter for crime and the criminal. I took a seat near the entrance thinking that I would wait until an officer came along, and get an actual example of his treatment to a man in my position.

The moon was setting behind the towers of the city. The shadows were lengthening; that part of the city near at hand looked grewsome. The park was silent and somber. As I waited I saw two men standing in the shadow just outside the park; from their manner, I knew they were discussing me. Presently they started through the entrance toward me, and as they did so one of the men put his hand in his lower coat pocket. Half protruding from the pocket I caught the gleam of a revolver. As they approached, my heart for a moment seemed to stand still. I did not dare to run or cry out. I simply arose and stood behind the bench. They walked rapidly and directly toward me. When they came near enough to observe me closely they stopped. Then one of them said in a disgusted manner, “I told you so; it’s only a hobo,” and they hurriedly turned and left me.

I had to get back to Pittsburg, and learn what it means to the fullest to be a homeless man in this great industrial center. It came to me that I had spent my last penny coming over. How could I get back? Surely it was the place where the penny counts! During the day I had been told that the only free crossing between Pittsburg and Allegheny was the railroad bridge, used by the railroad employees. I must find that. In spite of my startling experience, I was compelled to thread the gloom of this black part of the city to find the bridge.

I found it and started to walk the ties, fearing at any moment that the headlight of a fast approaching train might flash upon me. Suddenly I slipped on an oiled tie, falling. In the darkness I threw out my hand, clutching an iron rod. In my stumble I discovered for the first time that two planks had been laid on the side of the bridge where one could safely walk. With a feeling of relief and security, I quickly stepped upon them, and the rest of my walk upon the bridge was filled with a feeling of gratitude for my escape.

Shortly after crossing the bridge, I saw a policeman and asked him where I could get a free bed, or if I would be allowed to sleep in the park. He gave me a severe look and in a harsh manner said, “No, there is no free beds in this town, and you can’t sleep in the park, either.”

I said I knew some people on Fifth Avenue who, perhaps, would take me in, but I did not care to trouble them at that hour. I asked him the way to the Avenue and he directed me. I had gone scarcely half a block when he commanded me to stop.

He came up to me and said roughly, “Who are you, anyway? I don’t believe you have a place to go.”

I replied that I was an honest man.

“What is your business? What do you do?” were his next questions.

With no other thought, except that I must answer something, I told him that I was a carpenter. He started to search me and all he found was the carpenter’s rule and the nail which I had picked up the previous day.

After that process, which by the way was quite illegal, he softened toward me somewhat and said, “Well, you seem to be an honest man, and if you have no other place to go you can go to the city prison,” and pointing to a bright light some distance down an alley, added, “It is over there. They’ll give you a cell.”

With his eye upon me, in spite of some hesitation I had to go as he directed. I reached the prison and entered, and, as I had done in other cities, asked for a place to lie down until daylight.

I was asked no questions. The night sergeant simply said, “Come this way,” and he locked me in a cell which, although it was not of the bull-pen type, was little better than one in its general appearance and condition of uncleanliness. The only places in it where I could lie down were the floor or an iron slab which partly covered the lantine. I could hear the groanings of the unfortunate men and women who, for reasons of their own, were compelled to spend their nights in prison. I could hear other prisoners appealing to the jailers for medical aid, water, or release from their cells. One young fellow in a cell opposite mine, for about two hours hung in one position to the bars of his cell in an endeavor to attract some attention. Every little while I heard the crying of a young girl, one who had “forgotten her mother and her God.”

Never in any prison did I feel such oppression. I came near swooning. The thread of endurance as I lay on the stone floor snapped, and the darkness that came upon me brought forgetfullness.

My sleep was of short duration. Long before daylight I asked to be released. The jailer, who seemed to hold a spark of humanity, said, “I wouldn’t go out if I were you for the police are liable to pick you up.” Shortly after dawn I was released.

Taking my belongings from my lodging house I left for more comfortable quarters. After a refreshing bath and a restful sleep I interviewed the Mayor of Pittsburg and the members of the City Council, and gave an interview to the newspapers.

On the following morning, while passing by a newspaper office, I noticed on the bulletin board a headliner reading:

“Free beds for the homeless poor of Pittsburg.”

CHAPTER XII
Omaha and Her Homeless

“A good mayor is useful; a man should not recoil before the good he may be able to do.”—Hugo.

In the Antelope State, on the Big Muddy River, on a plateau rising from the west bank of the river is built the city of Omaha, the metropolis of the State, with a population of 150,000 people. Omaha was called the “Gate City” on account of its important commercial position when it was founded in 1854. It was one of the first to breathe of the mighty progress of civilization in our great West; and, like all of our growing Western cities, is eminently an industrial center—meat packing, breweries, smelters, machine shops, brick yards,—and it is an important railway center. Because of all of this, it continually beckons through its portals a vast number of the army of the seekers after work. Omaha, too, boasts of its culture and humanity, and of a social distinction around which cluster names which in the years to come will be intimately connected with the history of the country.

I reached Omaha on a Sunday morning in September. What a gloomy day for the penniless toiler this God’s day is, in the great city, when unwashed, unfed, and homeless, he walks the streets! All places for obtaining work are closed and he can simply drift until Monday morning, when industrial activity is resumed.

I found the city of Omaha spending thousands of dollars for the entertainment and amusement of visitors to the annual convention of a great fraternal organization. While its stores and blocks and public buildings had been placed on dress parade with gaudy decorations, and while the glad hand of hospitality was stretched out to these guests from thousands of its citizens, there was no welcome for the honest laborer who might happen to be homeless and penniless within its gates, and no provision for him but the filthy concrete floor of the huge steel cages, beneath the crumbling plastered walls of the city jail.

I walked down the darker streets in the lower part of the city where the out-of-work are forced to gather. In Boston I thought I had never seen such a gathering of human misery as I found on Boston Common, but nowhere have I found that condition so evident in a smaller way than in Omaha.

Approaching a policeman, I asked for the public baths. It was my first test to find out what our Western cities were doing to provide that great sanitary necessity. I was told there was “nothing doing,” and the policeman glanced significantly towards the “Big Muddy.” I do not know of a single public bath west of Chicago except in Denver.

I then decided to try for the first time the Young Men’s Christian Association, which poses as an institution assisting those needing help, and which is supported by benevolently inclined contributors and its income enhanced in the same way. When I applied at the Omaha Y. M. C. A. for a free bed and bath, a most affable, well-dressed, neat-looking clerk behind the desk assured me nothing would give him greater pleasure than to accommodate me, but their beds and rooms were fixed up “pretty nicely,” in fact, too nicely to be given away. Then I asked for a bath, and he assured me that was a member’s privilege only.

I then sought the Salvation Army. My answer there was to the effect that if they gave fellows like me free beds they would be overrun every night.

Next I went to the Union Gospel Mission on Douglas Street. The door to the lodging house upstairs was locked. Downstairs a gospel meeting was being held. I waited until the meeting was concluded. The dormitory was not open, there were bright lights there, and people were going to their beds. I approached the attendant, who was closing the door, and asked him if he would give me a bed. He kept right on closing the door in my face, meanwhile saying that he wished that he had a free bed himself, that he slept in the street when he hadn’t “the price.”

I then applied to members of the Volunteers of America. They could do nothing for me as they had no lodging house, but thought I might find shelter at the City Mission. I went there and found the place locked and dark. It was a reception about as cordial as that which I received once at Genoa where I went to visit the birthplace of Columbus. After standing on tiptoe reaching up and ringing the bell of that curious house for about five minutes a barber stepped out of the house next door and said in a mixture of Italian and broken English: “Eh, Miestro Colombo, eh not-a-to-home. No ring-a-de bell so damn-a loud. Miestro Colombo eh dead, all a-right dead,—yes-a-four hundred years!”

Later with two or three other “down and outs,” I lay down on the grass in Jefferson Park. Very soon a policeman came along and drove us out. “How many times have I got to tell you fellows to get out of here? Now, get out of here!”

A short time afterward I met another policeman and asked him where I could get a free bed, telling him I was broke. He looked at me rather savagely and said, “You can’t get nothing like that in this town.” Then he added, “You might go to the city jail, but it is chock full now that the car strike is on.”

By this time it was midnight. From down in the lower part of the city I saw a man standing listlessly on the curbing. In a moment he sat down. I strolled along and sat down beside him. He was penniless, starving, had eaten nothing since morning, and had no place to rest, but he was not hopeless. In fact, he was in a rather happy mood, for he had a place to work ten miles out in the country, on a farm for one dollar and a half a day and board, and if he made good it would be an all winter job. Soon after daybreak he was going to start out. When I told him I, too, was without a place to sleep, he told me I was welcome to his blankets which he had down in an old shed under the tracks where the owner had let him spread them down the night before. He doubted, however, whether I could stand it.

“I tried it last night, but if there was one I believe there were ten thousand rats infesting the place. I was fearful of losing myself for one minute for fear they might attack me, and so I spent the night just as I am spending this one. The farmer did not want me to come out until Monday morning, although I wanted to go out Saturday with him when he hired me.”

Thoroughly tired out, I bade my hopeful midnight acquaintance good-night, and sought my hotel. As I lay in my comfortable bed I thought of the homeless, moneyless ones who belonged to Omaha that night and who were shelterless and hungry.

The next day I visited the City Jail. There I found eight ten-by-ten cells, the bull-pens. Crowded into a single one of these, I counted fourteen men. The shocking closeness of the place was stifling, and I hurried out.

I saw, far up the street, a great mob pressing down, and as soon as I got within hearing and seeing distance, I made out two men driving a team of horses hitched to an old wagon partly filled with potatoes. The men were driving directly down the car track, hindering the traffic of the cars. Two policemen stood back of these men trying to get hold of the lines, and they were beating them or trying to beat them into insensibility. The men’s shirts were torn into shreds and the blood ran down over their faces and over their clothes to the bottom of the wagon. I did not find what the trouble was about, but it was as though I had caught a leaf from those other days of social unrest, when the poor of France cried for bread, and the thoughtless paid so dearly for their folly.

There was no place for a homeless man in Omaha that night—not even in the city jail. A strike was on.

CHAPTER XIII
San Francisco—The Mission, the Prison, and the Homeless

“Liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”—Isaiah 61:1.

Having received many letters from the Pacific Coast inviting me to come that way, and having heard what a Mecca for the itinerate worker it was, I felt impelled to investigate the “Commercial Emporium” of the Western shore. I had already made my appeal to Salt Lake City, so I went directly through from Denver to the “Golden Gate.” I arrived in San Francisco, one of the most wonderful and beautiful cities in all the world, on Monday, February 8, and began at once my serious study of the problem I had come to investigate—the problem of the man who works but who may be playing in hard luck; the penniless man temporarily out of a job; the unfortunate boy seeking work far from home.

I found the wheels of progress and industry in the city exceedingly active and bright; yet I found a great many men out of work. The employment offices were crowded to overflowing. I found the men at the head of these institutions perfectly willing to get a man a job at thirty dollars a month, for a fee of two dollars and a half, or fifteen dollars a month for a fee of one dollar and a half, but they refused point-blank to tide a man over, that is, to trust him for the fee until he drew his first pay.

I stood one morning in one of the employment offices in this great city and counted there two hundred workingmen, looking for work. By my side was a boy, hungry, homeless, penniless, who could not go to work because he had not the price to pay for that privilege. Until he could get the price, he must beg, steal, or continue to starve. His shelter two nights before had been divided between the doorway of a freight house and the city prison, and the previous night in a “free flop” mission.

“I am not clean,” he said, “I am soiled and ragged and no one wants me around,” and added, “God, if I could only get rid of the things that were given me last night, without money and without price.”

I said to him, “Go to the public bath,” and he asked with an expectant look on his face, “Where is it?” I replied, “I don’t know,” and he said, “Even though I took a bath, these are the only clothes I have, and they must be cleaned.”

I did just what ten thousands of the good citizens of San Francisco are doing every day, I helped the temporal needs of that boy; but it was a wasted effort, and I knew it, for the next night he may have fared doubly worse than this one.

The boy told me a bit of his life’s history and the reason for his condition. He told it in such a clear, straightforward way, he impressed me that he was telling the truth.

“My father is a merchant in Ohio and fairly well-to-do. I had a position in one of my home town banks as assistant teller and bookkeeper, getting seventy-five dollars a month. Although I am but eighteen years of age I felt I was capable and ought to be earning more money. The institution I was working for felt they could not afford to raise my wages, and having a friend coming West, and also having that dream for the West, all of us Eastern boys have, and having fine letters of merit, I thought I could better myself, and I left, coming directly through to San Francisco. My ticket, however, was good to Los Angeles.

“After spending ten days here, I found it was impossible to get work in my line of business even though I offered to take much less than I was getting at home. Realizing that my money was fast slipping away, I went on to Los Angeles, where I found even a more discouraging condition than here.

“I made up my mind I would endure anything before I would ask assistance from home, and so I filled my letters with tales of prosperity and wonderful prospects. But finally, my money was all gone as well as my personal effects, including two hundred dollars worth of fine clothes, which the pawnshops got for a few dollars. My chum had returned East, and then I began to look for anything to do. I started into the country. The hardships I have endured in trying to live and find work in the California cities would fill a book, but the hardest experience of all was at Santa Anna, where I was arrested and thrown into the Santa Anna jail for ten days, for illegally attaching myself to the Santa Fe Railway, and aimlessly wandering about with no visible means of support, and no objective place in view. I lost my hat the afternoon I was arrested in Santa Anna, and when I left the sheriff gave me this one. It was a pretty good ‘lid’ when he gave it to me. And so I made my way back here, and if I don’t strike something to do to-morrow I am going into the army. They will have to write Dad and get his consent. They will take care of me until they hear from him. Goodbye, old man, thanks to you, I am all right now until I hear from home.”

Here was a young man, strictly temperate, without one visible evil habit, a young man of brain, brawn, grit; just such boys as California wants, needs, and should help and keep, and it had no place for him!

The rest of that day I tramped the streets looking for work, and I inquired at a hundred places, I think, where work was going on, but all places seemed filled and no one seemed to want me—at least not that afternoon. At several restaurants they offered to let me help wash dishes for something to eat.

I could have begged, it is true, without being arrested, as the labor Mayor at that time was in every sense a humanitarian, and soon after taking office had issued a mandate to his police department to molest no one on the street asking alms. When remonstrated with, he said, “We may be imposed upon many times, but I would rather help twenty dishonest men than turn down one honest one.”

The spirit of alms-giving in San Francisco was markedly noticeable, and I asked a man whom I saw hand a dollar to a man who asked for aid, why that spirit was so active. He replied, “If you had been here and gone through the terrible earthquake with us, you would fully understand. We were all dependent on one another at that time. We have all realized what it means to be homeless. We have not forgotten.”

This observation seemed to apply only to the Mayor’s order and to the citizens in general as I met them on the street; for I found the religious bodies of an entirely different nature,—those at least, with which I came in contact, not being remarkably generous.

The night was coming down. It was exceedingly ominous to a destitute man. It had begun to storm, with a commingling of rain and snow, and a chilly blast from the ocean.

Myriads of lights came out like a burst of good cheer from the Ferry House to Golden Gate Park, but they held no warmth for the penniless, thinly clothed man. The restaurant windows seemed to glow with good things. I saw many, very many boys and men, and occasionally a poorly clad girl, stand and look longingly at the tempting viands. I saw one young fellow down on Third Street standing before a cheap but exceedingly clean restaurant, whose windows were filled with tempting, wholesome food. I stopped and watched him. Among the passing crowd was a workingman with a dinner pail. The young man reluctantly, it seemed to me, asked of him a dime. The workingman strode on, but had gone only a few steps when he turned back. Stepping up to the young fellow, he put his arm about his shoulder and said, “What would you do with the dime if I gave it to you?” The penniless man’s face beamed with joy and appreciation of the sympathy shown, as he said, “I would buy something to eat.” The workingman gave him a quarter, a part of his day’s wages, and the hungry man entered the restaurant, and ate as though he had been denied that blessing for a very long time. The workingman, as he went his way, I heard whistling far down the street.

In this incident I saw in imagination the spirit of San Francisco’s beautiful Municipal Lodging House, with its food, shelter, bath, and medical attention, building up of character, good citizenship, and making for good government. I felt that the spirit of kindness shown by that workingman would be the crowning virtue of this new and wonderful Home.

It was getting late. I was very tired, and knew I must find shelter from the storm. I would not ask of anyone on the street the price of a bed. Someone out of pity might give me money he actually needed for himself. I decided to seek first some of the Good Samaritan institutions which make a business of helping the needy. But where they were I could only find out by inquiring of the policeman. I must approach them with all that dread and terror excited by the expectation of evil which all destitute men in our American “cities of liberty” come to look for at the hands of the police.

I approached an officer and asked him, “Can you tell a fellow where he can get a free bed?”

He did not look at me suspiciously; he did not take the law in his own hands by questioning me on the street; he simply placed his hand on my shoulder in a kindly way and said, “Right here is Kerney Street. Keep right down Kerney until you come to Pacific,—you can’t miss Pacific Street,—and you will see the ‘Whosoever Will’ Mission. They have some kind of a ‘free flop’ there, but if they don’t take care of you, go to the city prison.”

It was eleven o’clock when I approached the "Whosoever Will" Mission. The meeting had just closed. I counted twenty men and boys standing on the street outside of the place. I slipped up to one of the boys and asked where the “free flop” was. He said, “About a block down the street.” I asked him, “What is the show for getting a free bed?” “Mighty poor,” he replied, “us fellows all got left. If you want a bed you have got to be here and go to the meeting and if you are lucky enough to get a ticket you can get a bed.”

Just then I glanced through the door and read an inscription, “He that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” In making a closer study of this institution, I found it in appearance a veritable Cleopatra’s Needle literally covered with quotations inside and out. I then asked where the lodging house was, and if he thought a man would stand any show of getting a bed without a ticket. He replied, “You might try,” and directed me to the “free flop” a block down the street on the corner. There I encountered about twenty more men standing idly about. Seeing a light through a door, I entered, believing I was entering the “free flop,” but found myself in a negro saloon frequented entirely by colored men. I went out again into the crowd, and stepped up to a thin, emaciated boy, a boy evidently dying with some lingering malady. I asked him where the “flop” was, and he pointed down to the sidewalk and said, “It is under here, the entrance is there at the corner.” I slipped over to it, and found a very narrow and almost precipitous stairway leading down under the sidewalk and into a basement under the saloon. This stairway was absolutely gorged with human beings seeking shelter. After seeing that the sick boy had entered last and that I might force him back into the night, I entered, and when it was discovered, before I had scarcely gotten into the place, that I had no ticket, a big bully violently thrust me toward the door and in a loud voice shouted, “Get out of here,” and almost threw me up the “golden stairs” and back into the street.

Here I found a number of boys and men who, like myself, lingered about ticketless and shelterless. I said to one of them, “What are we going to do for a bed?” He replied, “I’ll tell you; you can get in if you will drop down that manhole, and once in you’ll be mixed up with the crowd and won’t be noticed. I let three fellows in that way the other night. It’s mighty heavy but I’ll hold it up till you drop down if you want to try it. But, say, I want to tell you if you ain’t got nothing on you, and you don’t want nothing on you, you’d better try the lumber yard. It isn’t so warm as down there, but it’s a great deal cleaner. That’s where I’m going.”

I was determined, however, to see this one free lodging house of San Francisco, but I hesitated for just a moment. I wasn’t quite sure where I might land, and if I was discovered neither was I quite sure that I might not be murdered. But my fear quickly passed and I said, “All right, lift her up,” and down I went. I did not have far to drop, and found myself in that portion of the “heavenly flop” under the negro saloon where hell overhead was already making the night hideous. Between the cracks in the old board floor I could see the light of the saloon shining through. I made no attempt at trying to get a bed. All I wanted was to make a few notes and get out.

The room where I found myself was filled with double board bunks, the upper bunks coming so near the ceiling, or floor of the saloon above, that a man could just crawl into them. Some of these poor objects were making an attempt to get a bath from a shower in a corner, but even if they succeeded in getting this excuse for a bath, they were obliged to crawl back into their filthy clothes or onto the still more filthy bunks. Some men, under the sidewalk, I saw spread out old newspapers on the boards, and lie down unwashed and unfed in their wretchedness.

Slipping out as quickly as possible, unnoticed, I reached the street. The night air and open street was as a pleasant dream which follows the waking hours of one who suffers.

At the Salvation Army the attendant told me he was not authorized to give anything away, and all that was left me was the old city prison.

Threading up an alley, I found myself at the Old Bastile of San Francisco. The keeper at the door said he would allow me to lie down in the cell house, but first he must be assured I had neither knife, gun, or razor upon me. Satisfied I was not an escaped lunatic, or a desperado with an arsenal concealed about me, I was turned over to the turnkey, who led me to the chamber of horrors, a long room about sixty by thirty feet. In the center was a row of large cells, or “drunk tanks,” in which were being thrown the unfortunates of both sexes in all degrees of insanity, from the raving delirium tremens to the semi-idiots, the fighting drunks, the laughing drunks, the sick drunks and the sleeping drunks. The jailer pointing to a pile of blankets, said, “Take one of those and find a place to spread it down.” The lodgers were allowed to lie down on the stone floor in the narrow passage which surrounded this row of cells. The passage was so narrow that they had to lie in single file, which left just space enough to walk between them and the cells. I seized a blanket; there seemed to be just one space left.

If you have ever been in an insane asylum, or in a cell house of your States prison, where some unusual sound startles and terrifies the inmates, you can frame some idea of what it means to sleep around the “drunk tanks” in the city prison. Women with disarranged clothing, and disheveled hair, were pleading and babbling, and begging to be released, declaring they could not breathe, and in piercing tones crying that they were suffocating. Strange as it may seem, these women this night were more or less refined in voice and language, and the most vile and vulgar epithets hurled at them by the men derelicts in the adjoining cells met with no response. Men raved and fought, and cursed and groaned. The jailer was kept busy separating them. As he was forcing an aggressive prisoner from one cell to another, the toe of the unfortunate caught me in the side, which left me a sore and stinging remembrance of that awful night for several days.

When the call came to the lodgers to get out, it was like a voice from the immediate presence of God. We were each given a piece of bread and a cup of stuff called coffee. The jailer, George McLaughlin, was a man of cast-iron decision and gruffness, yet under the most trying circumstances his actions toward these troublesome unfortunates were exceedingly kind. As we drifted out of the Old Bastile, he gave us each a word of good luck and a cheerful farewell. It was a jail, yes, and no man can ever sleep in a jail and keep his self-respect, but we were welcome and not cast out.

San Francisco is at work. She has sent her delegation to New York City to inspect its beautiful and wonderful Municipal Lodging House. The delegates returned completely won over to the idea. San Francisco will soon have its Emergency Municipal Home.

CHAPTER XIV
Experiences in Los Angeles

“Ye are not of the night nor the darkness.”—I Thessalonians 5:5.

On one of Los Angeles’ perfect winter Sabbath mornings, I was idly strolling down the street, when a breezy, pleasant faced woman appeared, looked at me closely and then asked if I was homeless. The genial little lady urged me with a great deal of force to come to the institution in which she was interested, and where, she assured me, I would be well fed and sheltered as long as I chose to stay. So pleasant was the description of her home, her welcome so genuine, I rejoiced in the thought that here in hospitable Los Angeles was provided an emergency home for those with whom untoward circumstances had not dealt kindly.

I was interested at once in the invitation so kindly extended to me, and I asked the good woman how I would get to the “home.” She began by telling me which street-car to take. I said, “Just give me the street and number and I will walk." She answered, "I can not do that very well.” She explained to me that she would give me carfare but was not allowed to do so. There was another woman a little further down the street who could and would give me the required nickel. Walking on down the street, I was told by a man standing on the sidewalk that there had been several women on the corner urging men to come out to a free home, and giving out carfare, but they would not return until the next Sunday morning.

Following the woman’s directions, I took a car. After riding what I supposed to be about two miles, I asked the conductor if we were nearly there; he laughingly replied, “We haven’t started yet.” And then I found that this “home” was nearly four miles from the place where laborers congregated in the heart of the city. A four-mile walk—a pleasant prospect for a hunger-weakened man, perhaps ill as well!

On finally reaching the place, I found it an institution of some kind of religious enthusiasts. There were many there. It was one of their feast days, and the end of the dinner was near at hand. I was given a cordial welcome, and handed a plate of potatoes and beans. Tea, coffee, and meat I learned they regarded as sinful, smacking too much of the flesh.

This plate of potatoes and beans, the leader declared, was sanctified food. On this feast day there had been a shower of pies and cakes, but the sanctified pie had run out. We were invited to remain to a four-hour feast of religious worship, which would be followed by another feast of edibles. As this latter attraction was referred to many times, we had reason to believe a regular Belshazzar was in store for us. Out in a sort of shed, after four long hours of religious praise, in a din of sound of voice and song, beneath swinging collections of crutches and pipes and bottles, we were called to the promised supper. Back into the banquet hall? Oh, no! But we carried the backless benches in from the shed, and placed them in a row along by the back or kitchen door of the house. I noticed there were only about half seats enough for the guests, so that one half stood while they waited, and it was nearly an hour from the time we began to gather for the much heralded “full meal” before we were served.

The weather had changed. At the going down of the sun, in southern semi-tropical climes in midwinter, there is a penetrating chill in the air. Cold mist and rain is of frequent occurrence. With the fast falling night had come a chilling fog cloud. It was an appalling, an appealing, a heart-rending, cruel sight, this company of two hundred and fifty men. There were no women among them.

As these destitute men stood there, half-clothed, enveloped in the vapor of the coming night, I read, on almost every face, despair and hopeless grief. I judged that a great many of them were tubercular, or the thin emaciated faces may have been evidences of exposure and want. I, too, was suffering with the cold, and I turned to a strong, healthy young fellow near me and said to him, “That cup of hot coffee will receive a hearty welcome.” Just then an attendant came out of the kitchen with a very large pitcher and filled it with cold water from the hydrant. My interlocutor turned and laughingly remarked, “Jack, there is your hot coffee!” Then the chief leader of this spiritual beneficence appeared, rubbing his hands together, and said to a visiting brother as he glanced down the line, “Isn’t this glorious?”

After more prayer, they came to us bringing what they called sandwiches, one for each man. These “sandwiches” were two very thin slices of bread, between which they had put a touch of some sour sort of sauce, and with each one was given a cup of cold water. A gaunt, sunken-eyed man, with white trembling hands, said to me, “I am afraid there won’t be enough to go around and we won’t get any.” But we got ours, and he swallowed it almost in a mouthful. I held mine waiting for an excuse to give it to him, and soon he asked me, “Aren’t you going to eat yours?” I replied, “No, I do not like the sauce between the bread.” I shall never forget how eagerly the thin hand grasped the slice, as he exclaimed, “I would give a fortune, if I had it, for a cup of hot coffee!” And then some hungry wretch spoke up, saying, “If Christ was on earth today, I think he would have changed that cup of cold water, given in his name, to hot coffee.” I asked this starving man if he could not find work, and if he had no trade. “Yes,” he answered, “I am a lather, but since they use the steel laths it is hard for us to get the work we formerly did. Besides,” he continued, “I am not young any longer nor strong enough to keep steadily at work as I once could, even though I now had the work to do. I came down here believing I could get work, easy work, out-doors in the fruit and orange groves, which would be beneficial to my health, but the fruit trust hire all Japs because they can get them cheaper, and, even though I have offered to work as cheaply as they do, they will not hire me.”

The day was done and this little drift of the flotsam and jetsam of Los Angeles floated back to the city to buffet with chance and luck for a place to sleep.

When I first arrived at the “institution,” I asked for the privilege of staying until I could help myself. The attendant told me he would see me after the service. As nothing was said to me again nor any of us urged or asked to remain, and being obliged to find something to eat, I left. As we went away, each man was offered a nickel for carfare, and I said to the helper who doled out the nickels, “Will you give me another to come back on? I must go to the city to look for work.” But I found he couldn’t think of such a thing.

No doubt, on the minds of the gullible rich and charitably inclined who contribute to such institutions, the report of this feast day and of the great number "fed" must have made a great impression. These people were teaching Christ, too, as they understood or pretended to understand Him. On this day, if they had found one man of character strong enough to accept and follow the beautiful Christ Life, was it not worth while? From their standpoint, yes, but they overlooked utterly the sin of continuing the pauperization of those two hundred and fifty men, by their makeshift charity. During their four hours of praise and prayer and “testimony,” not one single word was said about the causes that compelled those men to be there. Nor a single remedy was mentioned to change conditions, nor a word uttered against the methods used by religious societies, missions, single and associated charities, prison associations, societies for the prevention of crime and mendicancy, in their dealings with mendicancy.

It was after dark when I again reached the city. The rain had ceased, and the myriads of scintillating lights filled the city with a glow of splendor. I began my testing of the generosity of the city of Los Angeles toward its destitute homeless. As in other cities, I met with rebuffs at all of those institutions and religious bodies ostensibly existing for the sole purpose of helping the homeless. I tried all that I had heard of or that the police knew anything about. Finally, as I had been in other cities, I was driven to the Municipal building provided for law-breakers and criminals. As I sat there waiting for the jailer to lock me in, I thought of the frightful night spent in the bullpens of other places,—of the nerve-racking night when I came so near swooning in the city prison of Pittsburg, and last but not least, of that madhouse, the Old Bastile of San Francisco. As I heard the clang of iron doors, and in the distance the cursing of men and the cry of lost women, I said to myself, “I don’t think it necessary for me to go through this terrible trial to bring before the good people of Los Angeles the need of a Municipal Emergency Home,” and I quietly crept away.

On the following Sunday, I addressed the Y. M. C. A., and I told them of my experiences in Los Angeles. I spoke of going first to one very prominent institution and of being denied any of its privileges for less than thirty cents, in real money. I did not give the name of the establishment and when I had finished, one of the officers of this body got up and said, “If Mr. Brown had come here he would have been taken care of.” I replied, “This was the first place I came to.” After they had caught their breath, he haltingly said, “But Mr. Brown, you did not see the right man.”

I found in Los Angeles, as in every other city that I visited, that the Y. M. C. A. is nothing more nor less than a rich men’s club. I found men worth a great many thousands of dollars rooming there. They paid from thirty to fifty dollars a month for their rooms. And I found boys on small salaries also living there but living on one and two meals a day, in order to be able to pay their paltry room rent.