The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-03-06
Richest City
in the World"
BY GERsHoN EINBINDER

SATURDAY. The day comes beau
4 tiful and golden. The lower panes
Of the window in my little room are
bright with sun. want to lie a
little longer under the warm covers,
but a dark thought gnaws at me:
Thousands of hungry humans are in
the bread lines on the Bowery."
leave the house. Outside there
is sharp air. Cold stiff streets. Peo-
pie hurry to subways and elevated
trains. Another day of toll has risen
on New York.
Bright is the sun, but on other
streets Not on he Bowery. Here
everything is cloudy, dirty, an eter-
nal tiredness.
have known this Bowery for
years. And always it lies gazing at
me with dull, sleepy eyes.
An entire block caught in a chain
Of gray shadows. How can with
my wsrm coat go near this chain of
pale shadows? l am afraid. Even
so was I afraid as a child when
threw stone at frog near the river
and the frog did not jump back into
The water, but remained squatting
near the edge, moving its lips and
rolling its eyes as if cursing me for
my wickedness.
But they did not notice me. They
remained standing stiff against the
wall, waiting with a large patience
in which there was no thought. AS
Il stone had been left lying and
for~otten somewhere. and SO it lies
patiently, without thought, without
meaning.
And the happiest of all are not we
with our warm coats. who hurry by
casting one frightened glance that
soon forgets. The happiest are those
that stand close to the deaf, dumb
door.
The first in line seems to be en-
tirely frozen to the door, and think
that when they will omen at last, he
will fall in cold ard stiff, and he will
desire nothing. For he had come
when it was still night and he had
been the first to stiffen himself
AGAINST the door, so that after so
many long hours he has become ac-
"ustomed to this immovable waiting
and has almost forgotten the aim of
It all.
The cold is relentless, it pulls at
The flesh. And the people, like thin,
featherless little hens, have become
Obvious to the cold and allow it to
null them, bite them.
A great city, gigantic city. So
nnanv homes, so many beds and
'oaves of breakdown and hot and
GOOD to the tongue. And it seems
| to me that these desolate, ragged
neonle are not at all angry and bear
no bitterness against those that are
well-fed, that have homes and beds
and loaves Of bread They are not
onerv, Trey are ashamed. and they
+hink the fault is theirs-they are
n,isfits and dubs. Because from
childhood there has been drummed
into their heads that America, the
land in which there is so much pros
nerity, gives food and wealth to all
who are not law and are willing to
work. And only worthless, miser-
ab'e dubs can sink to such depths as
waiting III line for a piece of bread.
And I wanted to go to them and
tell them: fools, it isn't because you
are dubs It is because those near
70 you deceived you and betrayed you
IN YOUR youth. Your teachers, your
nrinsts. your newspapers that pre-
terdnd to be your friends, your
rai~hbors. even your own mother and
J father BETRAYED YOU with stories
about the virtues of the present sys-
tenn.
I went awav, and my heart burned
with anger at this rotten capitalist
system.
So many treasures of gold an&
oliver. of food-and here such DESC
lation, such darkness and hunger and
inhuran suffering on the faces of
these thousands Of wretched Bowery