The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-20
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, d. C.
OUT OF A JoB.

OUT OF A JOB.
New York City. Jan. 17-If it were
not for the new calendars on every
body's desk, you might easily suppose
we were living back in the year 1915.
The streets are filled with almost as
many unemployed as there were then;
the ark benches. which enjoyed such
a quiet. indolent existence during the
war, are once more doing duty as beds;
the hospital wards are again treating
starvation cases. and the bread-line-
a long. hungry bread-line-has re-
turned on the Bowery.
! In 1915. before the United States
| entered the war, according to Arson
C. Baker, secretary of the Bowery
Mission, 1000 men stood in the bread
line every night. During the war, the
number dropped to about IS, all of
whom could be accommodated inside
the mission. so that there was no
longer any necessity for a bread line.
| Meantime, the missions facilities for
feeding large numbers dwindled.
Hence, when just before Christmas
hundreds of hungry men started
crowding its doors every night, it was
! absolutely unprepared to take care of
them. Rolls and coffee were gradual
ly served to every one, but so grad
ually that it was usually midnight be-
fore the last man received his portion
since Christmas, many more hun
| dreds of employees have been released
turnout the city, and the situation has
| become much worse. st. Marks-in-
| the-Bouwerie, at Second Avenue and
Tenth street. has come nobly to the
rescue, however. opening its chapel as
public lodging house and turning the
church kitchen into soup station for
the unemployed. In addition. a SUBJ
| stant1al dinner is served by the church
every night at 8 o'clock. Between
them, the Bowery Mission and ST.
| Marks Chapel are feeding approx
mately 1900 men daily.
| I'VE used to be- criticised severely
Tor helping to pauperize the men,
said Mr.. Baker of the mission, in dis
cussing its activities. ut was said
that they would not work if they could
get free meals. This was disproved
during the war. when the attendance
at our evening lunches fell off. Those
who remained to take advantage of
the free food were aged. decrepit, or
acutely unfortunate in some respect.
We do not offer charity but hospitals
ity. Men do not stand in the bread
line except as last resource
Not Many Charity Cases,
The majority of these are not yet in
need of charity, or hospitality, as the
mission prefers to call it. There are
still the family savings to fall back
upon, and the children's earnings.
Children can often get jobs today when
their fathers and mothers can't-espe-
cially among the foreign-born popula-
ton, where only the children have re-
ceived an American common school
training. Thus, school authorities re-
port that thousands of children are
now abruptly leaving school to seek
work until their fathers are once more
employed at steady jobs.
Meantime, the fathers plod YEARLY
around the streets, pursuing forlorn
hopes raised in the help-wanted col
umns or haunting the numerous pros
porous commercial employment agen-
cies that occupy so much space along
the Bowery and Sixth avenue. Both
discouragingly futile tasks. The pay
agencies have recently raised their
commissions, but even so business is
slow. Much as they would like to,
under pT resent conditions. they cannot
themselves create the jobs The most
that the mission and st. Marks chapel
have been able to place in day is
fifteen, and they are rather proud OF
this record.
The New York employment bureau
lhas branch on West Forty-siXth
street, where jobs are supplied free of
charge when there are any to supply.
but the number of men placed by this
organization on the day the reporter
visited it was just three. Yet all day
| long, lines of men stood in patient ex-
ASPIRATION before the various sec
tons of the office, marked Hotel
and Restaurant skilled LABOR" and
| couragement. The demand for ex-
perienced clerks still exists in a feeble
way, one of the secretaries explaind,
| but the other two departments for the
past few weeks have had practically
nothing.
| what is your line?'' inquired a So
cial service worker of a tall, gaunt and
haggard-faced man, as he left the
waiting group and started for the
door.
! s'Drill press operator" he replied
duly.
He continued to answer the social
workers question in the same dull,
tired voice. Yes. he was married. he
said. Five children. One of them
| had iiphtheria His wife was out of
| something else, but the agency had
nothing They said they would let
| him know if a request came for a drill
press operator. In the meantime he
was serubbing floors in high school
at night. but it did not pay enough to
keep the family.
Unreliable Agencies.
| The social worker wrote something
OIL card and gave it to the man,
whose face then assumed a more
| hopeful expression, but as a loud dis
pute arose in the Hotel and Restau-
rant section of the office, at this crit
ical moment, the reporter was COM
PEELED to pass up the finale of this in
| cident.
| Nearby, a few minutes later. one
| 1ob-hunter was explaining to another
that he had tried every BAY agency
on Sixth avenue and that at last he
had discovered one that offered job
as truck driver. But the man in
charge wanted IS for the address of
| the job.
| so there was nothin' doin' on that"