Los Angeles herald., 1905-09-17
D. ". BARTLETT
FRIEND Of POOR
COFFEE HOUSE FOR MEN A
FEATURE
BOYS HAVE A SWIMMING TANK
Leader Of Bethlehem Church Tells Of
His Work Among the Foreign
Element and Needy People
Of Los Angeles
BOYS HAVE A SWIMMING TANK

afternoon last week, the men much be-
whiskered, clad in heavy oyercoats, and
the one woman, her head wrapped in a
shawl, carrying baby. They looked
miserable, forlorn and out of place,
even in that cosmopolitan region
strangely so.
"Why are we here?"
The Rev. DR.. Dana w. Bartlett, sit
ting in the Coffee club rooms of Beth
lehem Institutional church, across the
way, at the corner of Ducommun
street, answering by repetition a
question just put to him, gazed at the
forlorn, foreign group and found his
reply.
"That is the answer-that Is one rea-
son." said he. ITO help those people.
About 100 families of them are in Los
Angeles now and we are aiding them.
In US they have found friends, More
are coming.
"They are not the only ones we are
helping; not by any means. But the
fact that we can aid them when they
are in an alien land is sufficient reason
for us, if we had no ether.
Teaching Citizenship
"what are we doing for them?
Teaching them to be citizens OF Amer
ioa-good citizens. We are teaching
them to understand our liberty-founded
institutions, to care for themselves in
our ways, in this, to them, strange land
We are helping them to bring more of
their countrymen over here. They come
from Tifis and other regions, where
Mussulmen and Armenians are Staying
one another and the Cossacks are kill
ing both.
They are somewhat similar to the
Doukhobers up north. One of the lat
ter, tired of that rigorous climate.
drifted in here, liked it, and told the
rest. So they are here.
"Some of them will go to Mexico and
become citizens there; the most will stay
here. Those who can get jobs in town
will secure them; the others will take
to farming They will stay; they will
never go back. If not cared for they
might be a bad element in Los An
geles' population; we expect to make
them useful citizens. I spoke to a room
full of them the other night through an
Interpreter and explained to them how
to take out their naturalization papers.
They are learning fast"
Doing Great Good
Dana w. Bartlett and his Bethlehem
church constitute an unique institution
and he is as much of an institution as
is the church with its correlated organ
izations Short, Of mild appearance,
with wide blue eyes and iron gray hair,
almost gone on top of his head and
thinning on the sides, he seems at frs.
glance to be a business man, perhaps
of small caliber. He bears none of the
earmarks of the preacher; he lacks
especially the cant of those accustomed
always to dealing with the Sub
merged" There is nothing about him
denoting the missionary, and he rather
prides himself Of the fact He does
not claim to be missionary; rather, he
resents it; and he declares that his In
stitution is not a mission.
mot that missions are not all right
in their way" says he, but you cannot
do the work that we have been doing In
that way. A mission conveys the idea
of someone sent downtown, 1 say
to people, in a patronizing fashion, a
sort of pitying strain, 1t may be all
right for big rich churches that can do
nothing else to send missionaries to
the poor, just as they do for the
heather, but we are not of that sort.
We are of these people, not sent down
10 them at ALL"
Only Church in District
This is literally true. For ten years
Dana Bartlett has been one of the
eighth warders. Down in that little
stretch of the city between the gas
works with it's ugly red tanks and it's
poison -belching chimney on one side
and the Alameda street railroad tracks
on the other are 1000 souls, and his Is
the only church there. For about
fifteen years it has been proving to
these people that there is God, and
that some people are trying to walk
the way he traced when on earth. For
two-thirds of that time DR.. Bartlett
has been the active head of the work.
He and his family of five girls and
his good wife live and move and have
their being right there in the Bethle-
hem settlement, and are part of Its
family life. Even as he talked the
music of a piano sounded from the
rooms above, and later inspection
showed that one of his daughters was
at her music lesson there. This is their
home; its atmosphere is shed over the
whole place; there is decided absence
of the air of enforced religiosity which
those to whom the average mission
supposedly appeals resent so bitterly.
I'VE have an atmosphere all of our
own" said he, when asked about it.