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The Commoner.
VOLUME 8, NUMBER
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The "Full Dinner Pail" in a Great City
See Chicag
In Its issue of April 19, tlio Chicago Tribune
printed an interesting editorial entitled "Tlio dis
tribution of incomes." Following is tlio closing
paragraph from tho editorial:
"President Wright of Clarke college has giv
en it as his opinion that In America tlio ques
tion," Are tho rich growing richer and the poor
poorer?" probably may bo answered thus: ino
rich are growing richer, many more are growing
rich, and tho poor are growing better off. ihis
refors to Amorican conditions."
But in tho same issue of the Tribune in
which this editorial appeared wo find an article
entitled "Men starvo in South Chicago; sleep in
barns and sheds." That article was as follows:
Tho shadow of starvation is hovering over
1,000 aliens in South Chicago. In tho vicinity
of tho Illinois steel mills, on tho Strand, Green
Bay avenue, and Buffalo avenue there are close
to 5,000 men out of work. About 4,000 of the
total number still have somo money, some have
credit with their friends, neighbors, and labor
agents, and manage to get along somehow. They
llvo on 8 cents, and a great many on live cents,
a day. But they live. They have at least
enough money with which to buy a loaf of
bread overy day. This bread, with water and
salt, and occasionally an onion or piece of garlic,
makes a meal at breakfast dinner and supper
are cut out.
Thoro are 1,000 or thereabouts who have no
monoy and no credit. They live on a slice of
broad which they got from one friend or another.
Not Infrequently that friend himself is penni
less. The slice of bread which ho gives away
spoils his meal and leaves him half hungry.
But ho gives it away, anyhow. He will not eat
bread to satloty when his friend Is famished.
CANNOT PAY ROOM RENT
Rent, of course, these 1,000 men .cannot ''
pay; But tho boarding house keepeiaoTten
willing to let them stay. He qpuld'malce no use
of the room where the--sloop. There are no
-ltt. jQiawsr-A-o ;oo 1iad. Still, several board
ing houso keepers have ejected numerous of
their former patrons. And this resulted in the
turning of alley woodsheds and barns into lodg
ing houses. Incidentally, too, this resulted in
somo of these wakeful lodgers becoming desper
ate and laying hands on whatever came within
their reach.
The largo number of out of work people
has affected the business of that district. Cloth
ing stores do not make one-third the sales they
made last year at this time. Even grocers and
butchers have had their business slashed in
half- People have no money and they don't buy.
Tho barber shops in the neighborhood which
generally aro kept busy, are empty now from
morning until evening. Sometimes a couple of
inen, badly in need of a shave, come in. But
they do not shave. They merely come in to play
a game of cards with the barber, who perhaps
is a fellow-countryman of theirs. They come in
also to find out from tho barber what the papers
say about work, for the barber is generally con
sidered to bo a worldly man who reads the
papors.
HARD LINES FOR THE LANDLORD
Tho greatest sufferers next to the men who
Are starving aro somo of tho boarding house
keepers. They suffer with the men. When the
inon have monoy and have plenty to eat the
keeper of tho boarding house is prosperous.
When the boarders face starvation the board
ing houso keeper is facing bankruptcy. He is
more or less responsible for his boarders re
sponsible in dollars and cents to tho butcher
the baker, tho grocer where ho bought the pro
visions for his boarders "on the hook," and the
bills ho is now unable to meet.
"Tho boarding house keeper," one agent de
clared, "has more at stake than tho other of
our workpeople. I know here several men who
kept these boarding houses and arc now nearly
$2,000 behind. Tho owner of a boarding house
generally keeps men who come from the same
village with him. He is not afraid of them.
Ho trusts them. Now, however, when the board
ers are unable to pay their bills, it is ho who is
responsible. He is the loser. Several boarding
houso keepers went to their respective consuls
tho other day to ask aid, but they failed to get
any satisfaction.
"Many, in fact, most of tho people would
gladly go back to the old country if they had
money to go with. But they have not. Nearly
every one of them, too, has somo debts to pay
off, debts which have accumulated during the
llvo months of out of work. Many immigrants
who had money have loft for the old world
in tho last few days."
TALKING ALWAYS OF WORK
A visit to some of these boarding houses
revealed scenes of wretchedness, of mental and
physical agony, as well as of fortitude and noble
ness of heart of which only men who have still
retained their tribal ties and instincts are ca
pable. In one houso about twenty men were
sitting in a room and talking, talking always
about one thing how to get work. Every now
and then one man would come in and another
would go out. The man who came in from the
labor agent's office, bringing the news that there
was no sign of work. The man who left went to
the agent's office. He knew, of course, that ho
would not find work. But he went to sniff the
air of the office, as it were, to get into the atmo
sphere where work is spoken of, where work is
sometimes gotten.
"Tell them," a boarding house keeper said
when he learned tho visitor's mission, "tell them
that the men will take work at any price under
any conditions. They will work even if the pay
1b small. If tho wages will only suffice them to
buy food they will work for it. I have been
completely ruined this winter. All these men
owe me money. They owe me more than a
thousand dollars. They will, of course, pay. it
back. I know them all. They are good people.
But until thoy get ready to pay it back I will
havo to go begging.
"The grocer won't trust me any more. l'
owe him a great deal as it is. To the butcher I
have not gone for a long time. We are glad if
fve- novo 'enough bread. Many of the people
' around here have not even bread. They simply
aro famished. They walk about the streets or
go Into a saloon. But here they are not wel
come. Their credit, if they ever, had any credit
there, long, since has been exhausted. If the
people around here don't get work I don't know
what we will do."
WAITING AT THE LABOR BUREAU
The office of a labor agent on Ninetieth
street contained about forty people, all of whom
were anxiously waiting for some news of work.
Every letter that the agent opened was watched
by these men with breathless attention, as if
their lives hung on the contents of that letter.
As soon as the agent perused the letter and told
them that there was nothing there for them,
the crowd went out, and inside of ten minutes
another crowd of forty or fifty people were
waiting for further news and gossiping so as
to pass tho time away.
The faces of these men were a study for
both psychologist and artist. A Vereshagin
would find abundant material here for painting
of untold horrors. The horrors of war are in
a way mitigated by the excitement by the roar
of cannons and the din of drums. The horrors
of out of work have no background, no frame.
They are there in their massive ugliness, por
tentious and terrible. The furrowed faces, un
washed and unkempt heads, with the wild' and
sparkling eyes, excite as much pity as they do
apprehenson.
Slow as these people aro in getting the
news and doings of the country, they are alert
in matters pertaining to their own interest
to work. Thus a newspaper containing a state
ment that a certain corporation employing close
to 200,000 men, mostly immigrants, had decided
to employ Americans only henceforth, gained
circulation in South Chicago In almost no time
Crowds of people thronged the office of one of
tho labor agents and asked him to explain iust
what the paper said and meant. When the
agent was through explaining in Macedonian,
Servian, Bulgarian Montenegrin, and a dozen
or more kindred languages, the men asked to
see the paper. Each in their turn glanced n.t
the piece of news which was enclosed in a circle
by the agent's blue pencil. They trazeri S
gazed at the paper trying to look into the secret
to solve the puzzle which these words Stained:
HAD NOT EATEN ALL DAY
A man about 26, six feet tall and weich
Jng perhaps 175 pounds, was found standing
a street corner watching the flames leaping from
iol cony,erter f the steel mills. Hi!
looked like a piece of leather, it evidenUy had
o Trib
line
not seen soap for a long while. His clothes
were shabby in the extreme and the shoes wero
held together by "home made" patches and
stitches. When asked what troubled him ho re
plied faintly that he had no work.
Another minute's talk revealed that the man
had not eaten that day, although it was evening.
Ho explained that he had no one to borrow
from. He had borrowed from nearly every one
he knew in the last few months. Now his
friends are looking for some one from whom to
borrow a nickel or dime. He was waiting here,
he explained, for a man whom he knew but
slightly. That man was working and he hoped
to be able to borrow a few cents and buy bread.
The man was offered a dime. He could
hardly believe it at first. Then he took it,
gazed at the coin wistfully and after profuse
thanks ran off to tho nearby grocery, emerging
a minute later with a large loaf of black bread.
SHARE LAST PENNIES WITH NEIGHBOR
"Solid character is the only thing which
prevents many of the immigrants in this neigh
borhood from starving or else from becoming
criminals," said a business man living in that
district. "There are a thousand people here
now who are without means, without a cent
with which to buy their next day's bread. They
would have starved or been criminals long ago
if they had not lived in this congested neighbor
hood among their own people. Here they are
helped. They are given food. They are given
money, even if it is only two pennies, with 'which
to buy rolls.
"If they have no money to give to a poorer
friend or acquaintance, many of the people in
this neighborhood simply will give him a few
slices of bread. Nor is this charity. It simply
is necessity with them. They still adhere to
some of the primal customs and conceptions of
justice between man and his neighbor. I know
many men who are working and earning about
$9 a week. On this money they keep from two
to four of their friends who are out. of work."
BUSINESS FALLS OFF 50 PER CENT
The extent to which this large number of
out of work people has affected the business
men is seen in the statement of the proprietor
of a large grocery and meat market on Green
Bay avenue.
"Our business," the man said, "has fallen
off from 50 to 70 per cent and there Is no tell
ing how much more it will fall within the next
few weeks. During the winter months we kept
on selling groceries and meats on the hook, as
we always do. We hoped that In the spring,
when work started up, they would pay it up.
Now, however, spring has come and there is
little improvement. We were compelled there
fore to quit selling on credit. If we wero to
keep on we would simply go bankrupt.
"With the cutting down of credit the busi
ness has been cut down enormously. People
simply buy the bare necessities, such as bread,
salt and matches. A herring Is bought occa
sionally. But meat hardly is touched by a num
ber of my customers who used to call for large
meat orders daily. I don't know what it will
come to. But I simply will not sell on credit
to anyone. Credit at this time would put me
out of business on short notice."
INSTRUCTED DELEGATIONS
It is, perhaps, too much to expect the Mil
waukee Sentinel to be either fair or honest in
its editorial expressions when Mr. Bryan is
the subject of discussion. The Sentinel's inti
mation that Mr. Bryan has asked that delegates
be instructed for him is so utterly at variance
with the facts that one wonders that even tho
Sentinel would dare to print it. Mr. Bryan has
advised the instruction of delegates, not for him
self, but in accordance with the wishes of a
majority of the rank and file of the democratic
party in the various states. Delegates are sup
posed to voice the sentiments of the voters who
elect them, and a delegate ought not object to
receiving and acting upon instructions.
The Sentinel's references to "the Bryan
gasbag," and to "Mr. Bryan's self-spun fabric
of pretension to celestial virtue and oracular
wisdom" reveal clearly the very fair and impar
tial view the Sentinel takes of public questions,
and explains clearly why the Sentinel can not
be honest when referring editorially to Mr.
Bryan.
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