Omaha daily bee., 1910-07-23
HEART THROBS or NEW YORK
Not os stony ns IL IN Pictured when
the Struggling Needs a
Hand.

| Fifteen millions of dollars annually are
spent in New York city in the interest of
poor young men and women who pass
ing through the red sea of their initial
destiny, to keep the tides of poverty, dis
! sipation, commercial greed and benighted
! ignorance from engulfing them. AS one
millionaire put Il bluntly: "A young man
who goes hungry in New York proves that
he may be either criminal or FOOL that
he is without education proves that he is
both"
| 1t was Emerson who said that man owed
his fellow men something besides his purse
and his counsel; he owed him himself. And
today few people realize how many highly
! educated and otherwise busy men of the
upper walks of life give UP a portion of
their time to the betterment of young men,
personally instructing them, personally in
Quiring into their needs, not patronzing,
nor making them feel the gap between
the patrcian and the proletary, as 1t were
but from a profound Emersonian sense of
duty man to man and a deep conviction
that we are indeed in a measure our
brothers keepers. These are devoting not
alone money but service in the cause of
higher citizenship and loftier manhood.
Come, with me and we will continue
| this conversation at our leisure" said a
famous lawyer to newspaper man who
was interviewing him at the University
club one snowbound winter night last win
ter. Taking a carriage, the pair were
driven down to a boys club on the lower
East Side There the eminent authority,
whose legal opinions were worth 500 an
hour, delivered lecture on medical jurls-
prudence to forty young men of the dis
trict all evening students of law, who
worked by day as clerks and laborers for
low wages, some of them even supporting
parents and educating brothers and sisters
their pittances.
And yet in the same institution there
are thrice a week seven equally distin-
guished gentlemen who are doing the same
educational work without money or price,
and above ALL without flourish of trum-
pets or newspaper spread heads 1t is that
sort of helpfulness rendered to the stranger
that tells nightly in the making OF our
future metropolitan, whom a city and Oft
times nation delights to honor.
Sociologists affirm that the most I'M
portant period of young strangers metro
politan career is the first few months. 1t
Is then that fresh and impressonable mind
of the neophyte takes in the chief charac-
terlstics of great aggregation of archi-
! tectural effects, as well as divers races
and conditions OF men. New York is
vast panorama, a perennial show place,
where there are thousands of diversions
of every kind, as many or more varied
occupations interests, scores of languages,
religious beliefs and customs peculiar to
every climate and country Of the world
1t is noN wonder that youth is impressed
by its vastness, its staggering activity, its
multiplicity of conditions, resources and ad-
vantages in whatever department
One thing must be borne in mind by the
, young stranger at the very outset. Making
, application for assistance, at any of these
welcoming institutions in no wise compro-
misses his pride. He is nowise regarded
| as an object of charity, In accepting help
he still retains just as much of his self
: respect as II, being a member of great
fraternal order, he felt entitled to enter a
lodge wherever he might chance to be on
the broad earth, In approaching them he
3 must cast aside all thought Of being re-
3 garded as weakling and an incompetent,
4 or an object for eleemosynary considera-
= ton the part OF his betters. He is not
;. 50 looked upon or patronzed. Wise and
wealthy men have placed IN competent
hands great advantages for his use and
n Improvement They are just as much his
to enjoy as the parks. the recreation
y piers. hospitals. and the hundred other in
I situations which Father Knickerbocker has
thrown open to the world without monsy
or price.
year or two ago young man found
5 himself homeless and penniless on a sleet
. blown March night in the neighboThood of
I Madison square. He was at that point of
5 mental anguish and despair when men
, commit petty crimes and suffer imprison-
ment just for food and shelter. He was
casting his eye abe ut for a loose stone with
n which TO smash a window when a hand
r was upon him. After his story was heard
: the policeman directed the youth to First
' avenue and Twenty third street. the NUM-
), cipal lodging house. Here he was ques-
toned, given a bowl OF coffee and half a
loaf of black bread, led up to a shower
bath, then up to clean, sweet bed in one
' OF the upper dormitories. He slept soundly
y BY morning his clothes had been
! fumigated. brushed and laid out he
. was given good breakfast. and
the superintendent, seeing that he
was a man of no ordinary breeding, sent
him out to a department store, where he
found work. Today he is receiving S4OOC
yearly salary there and seldom misses a
month that he does not call at the NUM-
cipa lodging house to inquire II there be
: not some deserving young man whC
has found himself in the terribl,
plight as he found himself on the bittel
night in March. when II was the toss o.
m bad penny whether he went to Sing SInl
ID or was saved to useful citizenship through
y. kindly hand at a crisis in his career
r Father Knickerbocker is not altogethe
a. unselfish in his provision. For Is il no
To- wiser, more humane and cheaper To affor,
n such a one a few days meals and lodging
e, TO tide over bitter crisis than To send hin
~ to prison and pay his maintenance for
term Of years ?-Cleveland Plain Dealer.
All II vou have anvthtns 10 sau or t-s5