The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1914-02-24
hi POVERTY AND HOPE co HAND IN HAND
u.,,sands, in Chicago Cattle Yards, With Faces
i lnO ',+ smiles Daily Risk Lives to Reach Homes
in Saturday Globe.


rattle of the moving freight cars. The
last car clears the street.
Then, like a flood breaking through
a dam, come 1000 men and women
swarming over the railroad tracks
close behind the last car.
High up on the load of apples I'M
der his Pickering torch the Jewish
peddler begins to scream his wares.
"Yabki! Yabki! Yabki" The push
cart men are yelling. The thin news
boy cries his papers shrilly through
his nose: "Jennick Cchicagowski!
Chicagowski!" But they are all lost
and drowned in the rush and dull
roar of the homeward bound thous-
ands filling the street from building
to builing.
Big, heavily built men, with the
bowed shoulders and the slow, long
step of farm laborers used to walk
ing in the furrow. Row alter row
of girls and women, walking three
and four abreast, arms entwinedi
white handkerchiefs over their heads.
Here man with piece of timber IL
feeta long on his back, bent and
staggering under the load. Tall
young fellows, straight and stalwart,
swinging their dinner pals, carrying
half a dozen loose planks on their
shoulders.
Poles, Lithuanians, Bohemians,
Slovaks, here and there a negro OF
couple of lonely Italians, young.
strong, unsophisticated, used to hard
labor, eager to make money and 10
get ahead in this new and wonderful
country. Fifty per cent of the work
men employed in the yards earn SO
or less a week.
One looks in vain through all that
swiftly moving crowd, filling the
dimly lighted street, for a smiling
face. Most of the men are dark and
frowning, plainly tired and puzzled,
pushing on for home and a nights
rest.
Only the faces of the young peas
ant women are calm and placid under
their white scarfs. Some of them
have been working all day in rooms
where the thermometer stands at So
degrees above zero; some busy VITA
the bottling of grape juice and tho
making of the flavoring extracts;
some with the offal of cattle and
swine.
The work leaves them in a weary
daze, but has left no mark yet on
their strong young bodies or smooth
round faces. By twos and threes
they march quickly, talking in low
voices under the roar, bound for
homes where one may rent half
bed in a room shared with three
other girls for a dollar or two
month
The switch engine backs its train
relentlessly down through the crowd,
shutting off the exit from the yards
High up or the side of the almost I'M
used runway hangs a sign in Eng
lish: Danger! Don't cross the rail-
road tracks. Use the v1aduct." Per-
haps one in hundred can read it.
The swarm on the street disappears
in the shadows. A thin dribble flows
down the high stairs. With series
of convulsive snorts the switch en-
CINE backs its train off the crossing
again.
Another thousand massed behind
the moving cars is discharged over
the tracks. Men and women OF half
a dozen nations, speaking as many
strange tongues, wearing strange
clothes, weary after hard labor, are
I hound for their homes "back of the
yards"
For an hour the way Is alternately
blocked and opened, damming UP
and expelling in sudden jets the walt
ing thousands from their days work.
Signs that the fire is beginning to
burn under the melting pot are not
lacking. Here and there is girl
who has "gone American" wearing
huge and hideous picture hat, IN
sad contrast with the neat white or
blue handkerchief which covers the
smooth hair of the newer immigrant
at her side.
And high up on the side of the
telephone pole, under the glare OF an
arc light, hangs sign which seems
to make a common bond between the
palaces on the Lake Shore drive ana
the novels "back of the yards"
The Sweeneys! :.
Real Tango Dance. +;
Come On, Boys!
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