The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1907-03-16

slum work | took up, With
some enthusiasm the propaganda OF
the many useful charitable organiza-
tons. To the charitable worker these
problems Of vagrancy and pauperism
seem possible of solution.
am almost sure to-day that: neither
taken together or even separately, is
there any solution Of their degradation
in the current charitable efforts. The
old methods, that is of friendly visit
ing of workroons. work tests, model
lodging houses. which i'll the early
nineties were eagerly taken UP rs 4
reform movement in the right direc-
ton. do not reach the distress OF the
worlds abyss.
The insurmountable obstacle that
confronts every student of the SUM
conditions in London, or Paris. or Ber-
lin. or New York, is the physical en-
vironment of the poor, half-starved
half-clothed, badly housed people who
are born III them and who are by the
heredity Of such conditions. unfit for
IN equal struggle With the world.
The slum environment in New York
is not as bad as in London. but places,
about equal 10 the worst conditions in
Paris. while the slums of Berlin are
not so bad us those of New York.
There are two classes in the abyss
in all large cities-the self-respecting
poor and the degenerate poor. The
latter have lost their grip physically
ind mentally through generations of
suffering and neglect.
The first class of these unfortunate
people work often fifteen hours day
ut nyihing-sometime for starvation
wages. They are physically weak. OF
they have lost a leg, or all arm. or an
eye. and that has incapacitated them
partly for well-paid labor.
They still have home ideals; they love
their children: they would not beg for
the world. But the wages are merely
Il tantalizing symbol OF starvation, and
gradually they are exhausted, and
sooner or later sink to the bottom Of
The pit among the second class-the
paupers. the actual dependents.
There is Il good deal of contentmelt
in this abyss. Notwithstanding. Its in
aabitants settle down to conditions that
ire less irksome than the severe
standards ot painful labor, honesty and
retrospect.
In the first class there is a. hopeless
ambition that things may be better; in
The second class there is an absolute
surrender 20 conditions
In this community of workers several
thousand human beings are struggling
Eercely against want.
Day after day, year after year. they
toiled with marvellous persistency and
perseverance. Obnoxious as the smile
Is. they worked from dawn until night
fall. OF from sunset until dawn, like
galley slaves, under the sting Of want
and under the whip of Hunger.
Theirs was a sort'of treadmill exist
ence, with no prospect of anything
else in life but more treadmill. When
they were not given work in the mill
they starved; and when they grew des-
perate they came to my office and
asked for charity
Here was mass Of men whose ways
of living We're violently opposed = to
those of the yagrant or pauper. They
were distortiIg themselves in the
struggle to be independent of charity
and to overcome poverty. ::
That they hated charity must be
taken without question.
The testimony Of scores of men is
proof of it, even if, indeed, their very
lives We're not. But, despite all their
efforts the lived in houses but little. if
any, better than those Of the paupers;
they were almost as poorly dressed;
they were hardly better fed.
In other words, these men, women
and children were, to my mind strug-
CLING up the face of barren precipice,
not unlike that up which Dante tojled.
sometimes in hope, sometimes in de-
spair, yet bitterly determined; the
abyss of vice, crime, pauperism and va
grancy was beneath them, tiny ray
Of hope above them.
Fitting before them was the leopard,
persistently trying to win them from
their almost hopeless task by charms
OF sensuality, debauchery and idleress.
The lion, predatory and brutal, threat
ened to devour them, enriched by their
Iabors.
Some were won from their toll by
senstal> pleas uEes, some were torn
from their footholds>by economic disor-
le:s; others were too weak and hungry
TO keep up the fight, and still others
were rendered incapable of: further
struggle by diseases resulting from
the UNNECESSARY evils of work OF; of
living. ~ -.
However merciful and kind and valu-
able the works of the charitable and
the efforts Of those who would raise
up again the pauper and the vagrant,
they are not remedial.
In so far as the work Of the charita-
BILE is devoted to reclamation, and not
to prevention, it is failure. - -:
Not that any one could wish that less
were done in the direction of recla ma
ton. The fact only is important that