The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-06-08
NEWYORK>>
Metropolis OF
HUNGER
Art icle 2.

said:
This sort Of food would mean
about is cents per man per day. 1t
would mean the use of evaporated
milk if the family menus are to in
clude any eggs, cheese, fish or meat.
1t is likely TO mean rnalnutrition
where people are not definitely ad
vised."
Jobless Herded in Slums.
Walk into any tenement on Mott,
Mulberry, Baxter, Hester, Elizabeth
Streets and see if you can find all
empty apartment. The accumulated
filth Of years in hole-in-the wall
flats is being hastily daubed over with
paint in preparation for the steady
stream of workers who are sinking
lower and lower into poverty
And what is happening within
those walls?
Mrs. DeG-- lives on Franklin
St. in two rooms. She and her hus-
band and a three-year old baby sleep
in one bed. A child of IA months
sleeps in a crib in the kitchen. In
the kitchen also sleeps a six-year old
boy on bed improvised from three
chairs and bedded down with an old
army blanket and his fathers coat.
A fourth child, nine years old sleeps
on thin mattress on the floor.
2 Families in l Home.
Mrs. F. on e. End Street has q
family of nine living in three rooms.
Two of her sons recently returned
from upstate institutions where they
were sent for their health. Her
married daughter who lives in the
house with a two-year old baby has
asked the Home Relief Bureau to
pay rent for flat in which she might
live with her husband and baby and
relieve the unbearable crowding in
Bureau has refused to do on the
grounds that there is no money to
pay any rents and that there is no
immediate emergency.
No Fuel or Light.
Gas, light and medical aid which
are part Of the responsibility of the
Home Relief Bureau are also source
of constant worry and fear to the
jobless. Mr., a cabinet maker on
the lower East Side has had his gas
turned of for more than a year.
During the summer he has the pros
pect Of watching his aging wife cook
meals on coal stove, the heat of
which turns the small, badly venti-
lated apartment into a little hell.
Indigestion and stomach ailments
of every variety are becoming daily
more common among the children OF
Home Relief Bureau clients as re-
suit of gas turn-offs.
If client of the Home Relief Blu
reau wants a doctor he must COM
municate with his investigator OF
with the bureau supervisor. If the
| bureau thinks the case is urgent
enough, it begins to unravel an end
less roll Of red tape out Of which g
doctor materializes about "a hour:
later. Because Of this many of the
overworked and underpaid investi'
gators often fail to provide doctor;
when they are asked for and many
clients refrain from asking for med
ical help except in extreme cases.
In the spring Of 1882 the Welfar'
Council Of New York City published
the results Of a survey conducted tx
show the mental effects Of unem.
ployment on its victims. The i'm
portant effects listed were:
Disbursement, fear, depression
desperation-often to the point O.
actual crime.
Mental and nervous disturbances
ranging from irritability and exces-
sive worry up to serious neurological
conditions.
Constant fear, even when agar
employed"
But what about the physical eff.
ects2
Even in Coolidge Prosperity" day.
there were eight cases Of starvation
in Bellevue Hospital alone. In 1885,
the number of hunger victims in.
creased to so. In 1881 three city hos
pitfalls reported the admission of IA;
starvation cases out Of which rs wert
fatal.
Death by Starvation.
Better Times" organ of the New
York Welfare Council declared las
year that malnutrition resulting from
lack of the right food or insufficient
food over long period of time !!
becoming steadily wider spread. Tit
article also declared that many per
sons died of diseases which need no
have been fatal if the victims hac
not been in starving condition wher
they contracted the disease.
These facts, figures, case historic!
are only the more grewsomely, col
ored fragments in the gigantic CAPT
talist-made misery on view in thu
richest city of the world. Here VIZ
have but vague outline Of the eco
nomic scenery in Mr.. Morgan's bacl
| yard.
There is only one bright spot in thu
picture. The growth Of the Unem
ployed Councils and the growing un
derstanding by the jobless that theiI
only escape from life based OF
starvation doles Is organized strug
gle for high relief standards, a figh
for the adoption of unemployment in