, 1892-03-19
LES M~ISERABLES.
CHICAGO AND HER FORTY THOU
SAND UNEMPLOYED.

Especial Correspondence.l
1t may be a great thing for a city to be
the site of a coming worlds industrial e1-
hibition. To be the central point toward
which some interest in every nation on
the globe will turn in 1898 is to occupy
apparently an enviable position. Some
must certainly profit by the great energy
and enterprise let loose by the circum-
stance-somebody be made happier than
people are elsewhere. Chicago for the
next year or two will no doubt be q
grand spot for all kinds of useful pro-
auctions, but a sorry haven for those
who produced them. 1t may be treason
to ''home interests" though it is patriot
ism on a broader basis, to say it, but
Chicago is not a good place for working
people-the useful members of society
to come to. Even the trades unions, from
some mistaken feeling of loyalty, hest
tate to publish the fact to their fellow
workmen. But universal fraternity is
better than local pride. The wealthy
classes are not likely to announce it, since
it is to their interests hat crowds of
workingmen should center here, COM
pete with ZACH other and thus lower their
own wages. But the daily papers, with
the fear of rival scoops" before their
eyes, are compelled to give, with more
or less accuracy, the actual news, the
facts as they occur each day, and this
daily chronicle portrays the real situa-
ton. There are more idle men in the
city than was ever before known. Rough
ly estimated there are between 10000
and $4,000. A ems has been called for
- t1a ,,a,,1,a1 tlAt .-o -~o. LOO
exactly how badly off the people of this
wealthy city are. Every day and every
night brings its ever increasing record of
b~urglaries, robberies, ~sandbagging, as
saults and murders; gambling runs riot;
drunkenness and ~"disorderly conduct"
are more common than sober respecta-
bility. The alarmed middle classes are
bowling at the chief and his police for
their "ineficiency, as though they could
turn all the outlaws into industrious.
honest citizens at will. McClaughry
aptly answers some of his fercest critics
when he says: well, we arrest these
Migrants and suspicious characters; they
get bail and go free or are sent to the
Bridewell for a term and are her let
loose on the community as needy, as idle,
ps desperate as before. All that lies
within our province to do will not solve
the question"
Every night the police stations are
besieged by homeless men, begging for
a spot on the stone pavement of a cell
on which to rest their weary bones.
Every ghost of a chance for employment
draws throngs of anxious looking men.
The County Relief cannot or does not
assist those In direct need fast enough
to save some of them from starving and
freezing to death. Private charity is
drawn upon to the utmost.
1t will not to do say, as one old labor
leader has, that none but the vicious
and shiftless suffer or sink into crime.
Trades unions do not and cannot care for
all skilled workmen out of employment,
not speaking Of the many who from lack
of a defined trade or from want of means,
OF because their particular trade has
never been properly organized, do not
belong to unions. These latter deserve
humane consideration as well as the
better classified workers. There are
thousands of respectable, willing, sober
men in this city who have not o cent In
their pockets and no claim except that
of common humanity on any organiza-
ton, society or individual here. What
is the natural course of men 80 situated
A few now and then will proudly and
silently walk the streets until they die;
some commit suicide; the larger number
hang on and hope against hope-get q
small job occasionally, sell something,
beg meals and pennies for lodging and
30 drift along, growing more hardened
or more despairing every day. Those
who feel the situation most keenly, who
grow most bitter and furious at their
lots, who are really strongest in char
acter since they must possess courage,
energy and decision to follow out the
course, finally commit crime and force
from some one what they are not allowed
honestly to earn. There are others, Of
course, whose whole lives have been 30
stepped in degradation, poverty and
misery that they take to crime as a duck
does to water and would not live honest
ly if they could; but the whole class of
unfortunates must not be judged by
these.
Some ministers nave discovered that
there is a darkest Chicago" Their
earnest, stirring sermons on the subject
will do much good, for they will arouse
thought, but their immediate remedies
are hardly applicable. They believe that
the misery is due to godlessness and in
fidelity among the miserable; that
missions and saving grace might change
all that terrible locality into a respect
able, industrious community.
But it will be found that something
more than a religious revival is neces-
sary. If every ~inhabitant of the noted
levee could be made willing to go to
work tomorrow and live honorably, what
would our missionaries do with them2
Unless put to work at fair a and
placed in decent dwellings where sani-
tary considerations had at least been
heard of, their simple resolves" would
not lift them one iota out of the depths.
And this the missionaries with all their
lofty aims and sincere religion cannot
do. Economic research and scientific
Investigation of causes must accompany
all efforts toward a permanent re-
demption-sentiment alone can accom-
plish nothing.
But aside from those deeper causes
that lie hidden SO far. back that they
may not be eradicated in this generation
are some immediate wrongs that might