POVERTY POVERTY 
BY 
ROBERT PANTER 
Neto gorft 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
LONDON • MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1912 
All righti reurvtd Copyright, 1904, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1904. Reprinted 
February, April, May, June, August, 1905 ; January, March, May, 
1906 ; January, 1907 ; October, 1908 ; January, 1909 ; April, 1912. 
Nortoooh JPregg 
J. 8. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE 
The main objects of this volume are: To define 
poverty and to estimate its extent at the present 
time in the United States; to describe some of its 
evils, not only among the dependent and vicious 
classes, which constitute the social wreckage in the 
abysses of our cities, but also among the unskilled, 
underpaid, underfed, and poorly housed workers; 
furthermore, to point out certain remedial actions 
which society may wisely undertake; and, finally, to 
show that the evils of poverty are not barren, but 
procreative, and that the workers in poverty are, in 
spite of themselves, giving to the world a litter of 
miserables, whose degeneracy is so stubborn and 
fixed that reclamation is almost impossible, espe- 
cially when the only process of reclamation must 
consist in trying to force the pauper, vagrant, and 
weakling back into that struggle with poverty which 
is all of the time defeating stronger and better 
natures than theirs. In order to fulfil these pur- 
poses, the first chapter deals with poverty in gen- 
eral, with our ignorance of its extent, with our lack 
of information, and with the several reasons for 
believing that, in fairly prosperous times, no less 
than ten million persons in the United States are 
V VI 
PREFACE 
underfed, underclothed, and poorly housed. The 
Pauper and Vagrant are dealt with in other chap- 
ters as types of those who are beaten and who are 
sunk into a satisfied dependence from which they 
can only rarely be reclaimed. But especial attention 
is directed to the larger mass from which the de- 
pendent classes are mainly recruited. Although it 
comprises several million wage-workers, it is, strange 
to say, almost a forgotten class, confused on the one 
side with the vicious and dependent and on the 
other with the more highly paid workers. The chap- 
ters on The Sick, The Child, and The Immigrant 
deal with certain phases of this larger problem of 
poverty and with some of the reasons for its con- 
tinuance amongst us. 
It should be said that the book is not a scientific 
or exhaustive study, endeavoring to deal with all 
of the conditions, causes, and problems of poverty. 
Mr. Charles Booth in his study of London has ap- 
proached most nearly to such a work, and it required 
several large volumes to print the results. It is 
unnecessary to say that this book is a much more 
modest undertaking. It is first of all a personal 
narrative, telling of things seen while living among 
the poorest of the working people and among the 
most degraded elements in several cities of this 
country and abroad. It makes public certain notes 
concerning the misery, the wretchedness, the sorrow, 
and the hopelessness of old neighbors, many of 
whom are friends and acquaintances. It is not, PREFACE 
VII 
however, the result of any definite investigation or 
of inquiries and notes made for the purpose of 
writing a book. Whatever knowledge of the ques- 
tion is manifested herein comes largely from my 
work in a variety of movements intended either to 
diminish the number of dependents or to ameliorate 
the conditions of poverty. The facts drawn from 
books and official publications are such as seemed 
to me necessary to a rounded statement of that 
portion of the problem of poverty with which I am 
most familiar, or to support the generalizations which 
are here and there made in the various chapters 
concerning tendencies, causes, and remedies. It is 
perhaps unnecessary to remark that mere observa- 
tion cannot take the place of careful inquiry; and 
therefore wherever I could make use of material 
gained by the latter method, I have freely availed 
myself of it. Those who are looking to find in this 
book a thoroughgoing treatise on poverty will, for 
these several reasons, be disappointed. It has all 
the limitations of a book which, if not altogether 
personal, is at any rate based entirely upon facts 
gained by personal observation. 
The limitations are many. I shall mention but 
two of those which exist in my description of con- 
ditions. The poor of the rural districts have hardly 
been mentioned, and the working woman and the 
mother are left almost entirely out of consideration. 
I have been content to pass over these important 
problems because I have been less observant of VIII 
PREFACE 
these phases of poverty than of other phases, and I 
have kept to my original determination not to write 
of conditions with which I am not personally famil- 
iar. Similar limitations may be observed in my 
dealing with causes and remedies. I have purposely 
ignored individual causes, and I have mentioned 
among remedial measures only those for which I 
have worked or those which have been in certain 
places and at certain times tried and found of value. 
The more far-reaching and radical reforms proposed 
by the socialist, single taxer, and individualist have 
not been examined here, and therefore not con- 
demned or endorsed. In so far as possible condi- 
tions are described as seen; causes which have been 
watched and studied are mentioned, and remedies 
which have appealed to me as of immediate impor- 
tance have been urged. The book as a whole has 
one aim; namely, to show the grievous need of cer- 
tain social measures calculated to prevent the ruin 
and degradation of those working people who are 
on the verge of poverty. I am at a loss to under- 
stand why well-known and generally recognized 
poverty-breeding conditions, which are both unjust 
and unnecessary, are tolerated for an instant among 
a humane, not to say a professedly Christian people. 
I am happy to take advantage of this opportunity 
to express my sincere thanks to Professor Richard 
T. Ely, to Professor John R. Commons, and to my 
brother-in-law, Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes, for many 
criticisms and suggestions. They were interested PREFACE 
IX 
enough in the purpose of the book to take time 
from their many duties to read the entire manu- 
script. I am also indebted to Dr. William H. Max- 
well, Superintendent of Schools in New York City, 
to Dr. Herman Biggs, General Medical Officer of 
the Board of Health of New York City, to Mr. 
Frank P. Sargent, Commissioner General of Immi- 
gration, to Dr. Edward T. Devine, General Secretary 
of the Charity Organization Society of New York 
City, to Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary of the 
National Consumers' League, to Mr. James Forbes, 
the agent of the Mendicity Committee of the 
N. Y. C. O. S., and to Mr. English Walling for read- 
ing those chapters of the book which deal with 
problems in which they are practically interested 
specialists. Each of these friends has made criti- 
cisms and suggestions which have been most helpful. 
Most of all I am indebted to my wife, who has pa- 
tiently and painstakingly toiled through every page 
of the manuscript and proofs. 
Highland Farm, 
Noroton, Conn., 
September 15, 1904. CONTENTS 
CKAPTM rAG< 
I. Poverty 1 
II. The Pauper 66 
III. The Vagrant • ...... 106 
IV. The Sick 
V. The Child 190 
VI. The Immigrant 
VII. Conclusion 3l8 
Appendices 34* 
Authorities * • 3$* 
Index 373 
XI POVERTY 
CHAPTER I 
POVERTY 
William Dean Howells said to me recently, after 
I had told him of a visit to Tolstoy : " It is wonderful 
what Tolstoy has done. He could do no more. For 
a nobleman, with the most aristocratic ancestry, to 
refuse to be supported in idleness, to insist upon 
working with his own hands, and to share as much 
as possible the hardship and toil of a peasant class, 
which, but recently, was a slave class, is the greatest 
thing he could do. But it is impossible for him to 
share their poverty, for poverty is not the lack of 
things; it is the fear and the dread of want. That 
fear Tolstoy could not know." These remarks of 
Mr. Howells brought to mind the wonderful words 
of Thomas Carlyle: " It is not to die, or even to die 
of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men 
have died; all men must die. . . . But it is to live 
miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet 
gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, 
1 2 
POVERTY 
unrelated, girt in with a cold, universal Laissez-faire."* 
To live miserable we know not why, to have the 
dread of hunger, to work sore and yet gain noth* 
ing, - this is the essence of poverty. 
There are many people in the world who believe 
that the provisions of charity are in the present day 
so generous and varied that no one need suffer; but, 
even if this were true, it would not materially lessen 
the sorrow of the poor. To thousands and thousands 
of working-men the dread of public pauperism is the 
agony of their lives. The mass of working-men on 
the brink of poverty hate charity. Not only their 
words convey a knowledge of this fact, but their 
actions, when in distress, make it absolutely unde- 
niable. When the poor face the necessity of becom- 
ing paupers, when they must apply for charity if 
they are to live at all, many desert their families and 
enter the ranks of vagrancy; others drink themselves 
insensible; some go insane; and still others commit 
suicide. Recently a man who had been unable to 
find work and in despair committed suicide, left a 
note to his wife, saying: " I have gone forever; there 
is one less in the world to feed. Good-by. God help 
you to care for Tony; don't put her away." This is 
the fear and dread of pauperism; " don't put Tony 
away " is the last thought of the man whose misery 
caused him to take his own life. 
* Refer by page and number to the appendix on Authorities. POVERTY 
3 
These are the terrible alternatives which the work- 
ing people in poverty accept in preference to pauper- 
ism, and yet it is a curious fact, which psychology 
alone explains, that the very men who will suffer 
almost anything rather than become paupers are 
often the very ones who never care to be anything 
else when once they have become dependent upon 
alms. When a family once become dependent, the 
mental agony which they formerly had disappears. 
Paupers are not, as a rule, unhappy. They are not 
ashamed; they are not keen to become independent; 
they are not bitter or discontented. They have passed 
over the line which separates poverty from pauperism. 
This distinction between the poor and paupers may 
be seen everywhere. There are in all large cities in 
America and abroad, streets and courts and alleys 
where a class of people live who have lost all self- 
respect and ambition, who rarely, if ever, work, who 
are aimless and drifting, who like drink, who have no 
thought for their children, and who live more or less 
contentedly on rubbish and alms. Such districts are 
certain portions of Whitechapel and Spitalsfield, etc., 
in London, Kitrof Rynock in Moscow, parts of Ar- 
mour Avenue in Chicago, Rat Hollow in Cincinnati, 
and parts of Cherry Hill and the Minettas in New 
York City, and so on in all cities everywhere. The 
lowest level of humanity is reached in these districts. 
In our American cities Negroes, Whites, Chinese 4 
POVERTY 
Mexicans, Half-breeds, Americans, Irish, and others 
are indiscriminately housed together in the same 
tenements and even in the same rooms. The blind, 
the crippled, the consumptive, the aged, - the ragged 
ends of life; the babies, the children, the half- 
starved, underclad beginnings in life, all huddled 
together, waiting, drifting. This is pauperism. 
There is no mental agony here; they do not work 
sore; there is no dread; they live miserably, but 
they do not care. 
In the same cities and, indeed, everywhere, there 
are great districts of people who are up before dawn, 
who wash, dress, and eat breakfast, kiss wives and 
children, and hurry away to work or to seek work. 
The world rests upon their shoulders; it moves by 
their muscle; everything would stop if, for any reason, 
they should decide not to go into the fields and facto- 
ries and mines. But the world is so organized that 
they gain enough to live upon only when they work; 
should they cease, they are in destitution and hunger. 
The more fortunate of the laborers are but a few 
weeks from actual distress when the machines are 
stopped. Upon the unskilled masses want is con- 
stantly pressing. As soon as employment ceases, 
suffering stares them in the face. They are the 
actual producers of wealth, who have no home nor 
any bit of soil which they may call their own. They 
are the millions who possess no tools and can work POVERTY 
5 
only by permission of another. In the main, they 
live miserably, they know not why. They work sore, 
yet gain nothing. They know the meaning of hun- 
ger and the dread of want. They love their wives 
and children. They try to retain their self-respect. 
They have some ambition. They give to neighbors 
in need, yet they are themselves the actual children 
of poverty. 
It is with this latter class that this chapter deals. 
For the purpose of making the distinction perfectly 
clear between these two social classes, - for it is an 
important distinction to make, - definitions are neces- 
sary. A pauper is one who depends upon public or 
private charity for sustenance. A man may be in 
utter destitution and may even die of starvation, but 
he may not be called a pauper unless he applies for 
and receives charitable relief. Paupers must be in- 
cluded among those in poverty, but poverty is a much 
broader term than pauperism. Many, many thousand 
families, who are in no sense paupers, are in poverty. 
Those who are in poverty may be able to get a bare 
sustenance, but they are not able to obtain those nec- 
essaries which will permit them to maintain a state 
of physical efficiency} They are the large class in 
any industrial nation who are on the verge of dis- 
tress. Only the most miserable of them are starving 
or dependent upon charity, but all of them are receiv- 
ing too little of the common necessities to keep them- 6 
POVERTY 
selves at their best, physically. It would be difficult 
to over-estimate the importance of sufficient food, ad- 
equate clothing, and a sanitary home to those men, 
women, and children who must depend at all times 
upon their labor power and their physical efficiency, 
to produce an income sufficient to maintain them- 
selves in working order. There is a fundamental 
here. If they must work to live, they must have 
those necessities which will enable them to work. 
The necessities for maintaining physical efficiency 
are very different from those essential to mere living. 
A Hottentot, a Lazzarone, or a vagrant may live well 
enough on little or nothing, because he does not spend 
himself. The modern workman demands a far higher 
standard of living in order to keep pace with intense 
industrial life. Physical efficiency, not mere existence, 
is to him vital. His necessities are necessities ! It is 
a terrible word, for " Necessity's sharp pinch " is like 
that of a steel vise. There is no give to it. Neces- 
sity is like flint or granite. It is irresistible. It can- 
not be shuffled with nor altered. If physical efficiency 
is an absolute and vital necessity to the workman, so 
to him are certain necessities for maintaining that 
physical efficiency. The fundamental thing in all 
this is that every workman who is expected by soci- 
ety to remain independent of public relief and capa- 
ble of self-support must be guaranteed, in so far as 
that is possible, an opportunity for obtaining those POVERTY 
7 
necessaries essential to physical efficiency. Such a 
standard is the basis of almost everything; for, unless 
men can retain their physical efficiency, they must 
degenerate. To continue in poverty for any long 
period means in the end the loss of the power of 
doing work, and to be unable to work means in the 
end pauperism. A standard of physical efficiency is, 
of course, purely a materialistic standard; it does not 
include mental efficiency except as that is involved in 
physical well-being. It does not mean the mainte- 
nance of national efficiency. To live up to the stand- 
ard, or, in other words, to be above the poverty line, 
means no more than to have a sanitary dwelling and 
sufficient food and clothing to keep the body in work- 
ing order. It is precisely the same standard that a 
man would demand for his horses or slaves. Treat- 
ing man merely as the " repository of a certain sort 
of labor power,"1 it makes possible the utilization of 
that power to the fullest extent. No one will fail to 
realize how low such a standard is. It does not 
necessarily include any of the intellectual, aesthetic, 
moral, or social necessities; it is a purely physical 
standard, dividing those in poverty from those who 
may be said to be out of it. 
The necessaries for maintaining physical efficiency 
are not difficult to determine. Professor Alfred Mar- 
shall says : " The necessaries for the efficiency of an 
ordinary agricultural or of an unskilled town laborer 8 
POVERTY 
and his family, in England, in this generation, may 
be said to consist of a well-drained dwelling with 
several rooms, warm clothing, with some changes of 
underclothing, pure water, a plentiful supply of cereal 
food, with a moderate allowance of meat and milk, 
and a little tea, etc., some education, and some rec- 
reation, and lastly, sufficient freedom for his wife 
from other work to enable her to perform properly 
her maternal and her household duties. If in any 
district unskilled labor is deprived of any of these 
things, its efficiency will suffer in the same way as 
that of a horse that is not properly tended, or 
a steam engine that has an inadequate supply of 
coals."1 This standard is a reasonable one. A san- 
itary dwelling, a sufficient supply of food and cloth- 
ing, all having to do with physical well-being, is the 
very minimum which the laboring classes can demand. 
Anything less means the ruin of that very physical 
power which alone suffices to keep them from depend- 
ence upon public relief. It resolves itself into the 
necessity for " fair wages " and regular employment. 
Such a standard has been established naturally by 
every one in his treatment of animals; no one would 
think of supplying less to any man or beast for whom 
he was personally responsible. Serfs and slaves were 
always given at least enough to keep them physically 
well. But present-day society has ignored the wis- 
dom of this fair provision. Carlyle, even in his day. POVERTY 
9 
protested against this modern injustice of not making 
proper provision for the physical well-being of the 
working-classes. " Why, the four-footed worker," he 
exclaims, " has already got all that this two-handed 
one is clamoring for! How often must I remind 
you ? There is not a horse in England able and will- 
ing to work, but has due food and lodging; and goes 
about sleek-coated, satisfied in heart. And you say, 
it is impossible. Brothers, I answer, if for you it be 
impossible, what is to become of you ? It is impossi- 
ble for us to believe it to be impossible. The human 
brain, looking at these sleek English horses, refuses 
to believe in such impossibility for English men."1 To 
repeat again, poverty means the lack of "due food 
and lodging " and clothing. 
In England the economists and students of poverty 
have determined that in ordinary times from fifteen 
to eighteen shillings a week would enable an agricul- 
tural laborer to obtain for himself and family the 
necessaries of life, and about thirty shillings a week 
would enable a city workman to obtain the same 
necessaries.2 Mr. B. S. Rountree, in his study of the 
poverty of York, England, fixed a standard of twenty- 
one shillings eight pence a week as a necessary one 
for a family of ordinary size. Anything less than this 
amount would not enable a family to live without 
certain deprivations which would in time impair their 
physical efficiency. With this sum, as a weekly 10 
POVERTY 
income, the family could with care keep themselves 
above the poverty line. But Mr. Rountree says: 
" A family, living upon the scale allowed for in this 
estimate, must never spend a penny on railway fare 
or omnibus. They must never go into the country 
unless they walk. They must never purchase a half- 
penny newspaper or spend a penny to buy a ticket 
for a popular concert. They must write no letters to 
absent children, for they cannot afford to pay the 
postage. They must never contribute anything to 
their church or chapel, or give any help to a neigh- 
bour which costs them money. They cannot save, 
nor can they join sick club or Trade Union, because 
they cannot pay the necessary subscription. The 
children must have no pocket money for dolls, 
marbles, or sweets. The father must smoke no 
tobacco and must drink no beer. The mother must 
never buy any pretty clothes for herself or for her 
children, the character of the family wardrobe as 
for the family diet being governed by the regulation, 
' Nothing must be bought but that which is absolutely 
necessary for the maintenance of physical health, 
and what is bought must be of the plainest and most 
economical description.' Should a child fall ill, it 
must be attended by the parish doctor; should it 
die, it must be buried by the parish. Finally, the 
wage-earner must never be absent from his work 
for a single day."1 POVERTY 
11 
It would seem imperative that every nation should 
know the number of people in its dominions who, 
although using their best efforts, are failing to obtain 
sufficient necessaries for maintaining physical effi- 
ciency. How many people in this country are in 
poverty ? Is the number yearly growing larger ? 
Are there each year more and more of the unskilled 
classes, pursuing hopelessly the elusive phantom of 
self-support and independence ? Are they, as in a 
dream, working faster only the more swiftly to move 
backward ? Are there each year more and more 
hungry children, and more and more fathers whose 
utmost effort may not bring into the home as much 
energy in food as it takes out in industry? These 
are not fanciful questions, nor are they sentimental 
ones. I have not the slightest doubt that there are 
in the United States ten million persons in precisely 
these conditions of poverty, but I am largely guessing 
and there may be as many as fifteen or twenty mill- 
ion ! But ought we not to know? If poverty were due 
to purely individual causes, it would perhaps be fair 
to deny the moral necessity of national inquiries at 
periodic intervals into the condition of all the people 
and especially of the poor. But no one knowing the 
many active social causes of individual poverty and 
misery could deny this necessity in a democracy of 
professedly Christian people. To neglect even to 
inquire into our national distress is to be guilty of 12 
POVERTY 
the grossest moral insensitiveness. There are many 
who would demand not only inquiries, but reme- 
dies. A few men, such as Morris, Ruskin, and 
Emerson, hold up constantly the ideal of the great 
nation as the one wherein there may be no rich, but 
wherein there must be "as many as possible full- 
breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human 
creatures."1 And all great men have universally 
deplored that nation wherein "wealth accumulates 
and men decay." They are, of course, right; but 
until society manifests some desire to know the 
extent of the misery in which men decay-not until 
then may we hope for anything more than a petty 
individual dealing with a question mainly social. 
During the entire last century many of the best 
minds were engaged in the study of social and eco- 
nomic questions. At the beginning of this new century 
we are still asking "riddles about the starving." 
After many years of most elaborate investigations, 
printed in thousands of volumes issued by federal 
and state governments, we are almost as far from any 
definite knowledge concerning the extent of poverty 
as we have ever been. The United States spends 
more money than any other nation in the world upon 
statistical investigations, and yet we know less about 
the poverty of the people than almost any other great 
nation of the Western world. An immense sum is ex- 
pended yearly in taking the census and in maintain- POVERTY 
13 
ing the many bureaus in Washington to investigate the 
conditions of commerce, of labor, of agriculture, of 
railways, etc. Almost every state has local bureaus 
existing for the same purpose. After the existence 
of these bureaus for a period of from twenty to thirty 
years, no one can tell, or give anything like a fair 
estimate of, the number of people existing in the 
community unable to obtain a living wage or its 
equivalent; or, in other words, unable to obtain the 
necessaries for maintaining physical efficiency. We 
cannot now, in any very satisfactory way, tell the num- 
ber of unemployed, the number of unskilled workers or 
their wages; we do not know the number of underfed 
children, or even, and this seems most absurd of all, 
the number of persons dependent upon the public for 
support. We do not know the number of men killed 
by accidents in industry, or injured by dangerous 
trades. There are immense volumes of wage statis- 
tics containing averages so general, and confusing so 
skilfully all the different classes of labor, that it is 
next to impossible to make anything specific out of 
the material. Almost each new publication warns 
any one from trusting or basing any arguments upon 
material previously gathered and published. The ex- 
tent of poverty in the United States is absolutely un- 
known. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, who of all persons 
should be able to throw some light on this subject, is 
unable to quote any statistics whatever when writing 14 
POVERTY 
on the subject of poverty in his book. His chapter 
on poverty is in itself a restatement of well-known 
generalizations of questionable usefulness, and based 
largely upon the investigations and statements of 
Professor Amos G. Warner, who, largely as a result 
of private inquiry, produced an invaluable book upon 
"American Charities."1 With no figures whatever to 
bear out his statement, Mr. Wright takes occasion to 
speak of the assertion that the "rich are growing richer 
and the poor poorer" as "false in its premises and 
misleading in its influence."2 It is unnecessary to say 
that we might choose to take Mr. Wright's statement 
or choose to take his opponent's statement. It is 
largely a matter of temperament which side one takes 
in the matter, for in either case we have no facts to 
support our position. 
It is difficult without certain fundamental facts, if 
it is not indeed impossible, to make any worth-while 
estimate of poverty. This is proved most clearly 
by two examples - one in England and the other in 
Germany. A few years ago England did not know 
the extent of her own poverty. Economists and 
writers gave opinions of all kinds. Some said con- 
ditions were " bad," others said such statements were 
misleading; and here they were, tilting at each other, 
backward and forward, in the most ponderous and 
serious way until Mr. Booth, a business man, under- 
took to get at the facts. No one, not even the most POVERTY 
15 
radical economist, would have dared to have esti- 
mated the poverty of London as extending to 30 
per cent of the people. The extent of poverty - 
the number underfed, underclothed, and in insani- 
tary houses - was greater than could reasonably 
have been estimated. Another illustration may be 
taken from Germany. A few years ago no one in 
that country knew the number of accidents which 
occurred yearly in industry. There were various 
estimates. It was generally thought that there 
might be thirty or forty thousand injuries per year 
due to machinery. Mr. John Graham Brooks says: 
"The first investigation showed three times this 
number; when the investigation became more com- 
plete, six times the number."1 This shows how 
impossible it is, without carefully collected data, to 
make anything like a correct estimate of existing 
social conditions. In both of these cases the facts 
proved the actual conditions to be far worse than 
any one had dared to estimate them. We are at 
present in precisely this state of ignorance, in the 
United States, as to accidents, unemployment, pau- 
perism, wages, the number of unskilled, the number 
of underfed school children, etc., and, therefore, 
Ignorant of the extent of poverty. We do not know 
whether poverty is gaining or losing ground. We 
are uncertain whether or not the causes of poverty 
are more active now than they were in the past 16 
POVERTY 
We cannot be sure that we have less poverty than 
any other country. In the two above-mentioned 
instances, the conditions abroad proved to be far 
worse than the highest estimates. Whether this 
will be true of the United States also must, of 
course, remain unknown until careful inquiries are 
made. 
Although there are no facts treating of the extent 
of poverty, there are a great many books filled with 
descriptions and discussions and riddles. Charles 
B. Spahr, Walter A. Wyckoff, Mrs. John Van Vorst 
and Miss Marie Van Vorst, I. K. Friedman, and A. 
M. Simons have given us some idea of the conditions 
among the poorest class of laborers in various indus- 
trial centres over the country.1 Jacob A. Riis, Ernest 
Poole, and Mrs. Lillian Betts have given us most 
sympathetic descriptions of poverty among the people 
of the tenements.2 Flynt and others have given us 
impressionistic stories of tramps, vagrants, and men- 
dicants.3 They bring before our very eyes, through 
books and magazines, stories of needless deaths from 
insanitary conditions, of long hours of work, of low 
pay, of overcrowded sweatshops, of child labor, of 
street waifs, of vile tenements, of the hungry and 
the wretched. 
All these books and articles are extremely valuable 
and useful, but if anything is to be done about the 
matter, we should begin as soon as possible to know POVERTY 
17 
the extent of these conditions and the causes which 
bring such terribly serious misery and wretchedness 
into the world. Some few attempts of real impor- 
tance have been made to ascertain more detailed facts 
concerning the living and working conditions of the 
people, but they also are insufficient. The " Hull 
House Maps and Papers," Robert A. Wood's "The 
City Wilderness " and " The Americans in Process," 
and Dr. Peter Robert's " The Anthracite Coal Com- 
munities " are the most important contributions. 
The investigations of the Bureau of Labor into the 
conditions of the Italian laborers in Chicago and of 
the negroes in various cities are all efforts in the 
right direction, but that is about all that can be said 
of them. While men in Germany and England 
have been making exhaustive studies of the poverty 
and social misery in those countries, and have 
aroused the people to the grave necessity of social 
reform, the United States has made almost no prog- 
ress in obtaining exact knowledge of the condition 
of the working-classes. 
As has been said, it was not until Mr. Charles 
Booth published in 1891 the results of his exhaustive 
inquiries that the actual conditions of poverty in 
London became known. About 1,300,000 people, 
or about 30 per cent of the entire population of 
London, were found to be unable to obtain the neces- 
saries for a sound livelihood.1 They were in a state of 18 
POVERTY 
poverty, living in conditions, if not of actual misery, 
at any rate bordering upon it. In many districts con- 
siderably more than half of the population were either 
in distress or on the verge of distress. When these 
results were made public, the more conservative econ- 
omists gave it as their opinion that the conditions in 
London were, of course, exceptional and that it would 
be unsafe to make any generalizations for the whole 
of England on the basis of Mr. Booth's figures for 
London. About ten years later, Mr. B. S. Rountree, 
incited by the work of Mr. Booth, undertook a similar 
inquiry in his native town, York, a small provincial 
city in most ways typical of the smaller towns of 
England. In a large volume in which the results 
are published, it is shown that the poverty in York 
was only slightly less extensive than that of London. 
In the summary Mr. Rountree compares the condi- 
tions in London with those in York. His comments 
are as follows: "The proportions arrived at for the 
total population living in poverty in London and York 
respectively were as under: - 
London 30.7 per cent 
York 27.84 per cent 
"The proportion of the population living in pov- 
erty in York may be regarded as practically the same 
as in London, especially when we remember that 
Mr. Booth's information was gathered in 1887-1892, POVERTY 
19 
a period of only average trade prosperity, whilst the 
York figures were collected in 1899, when trade was 
unusually prosperous." 
He continues: " We have been accustomed to 
look upon the poverty in London as exceptional, but 
when the result of careful investigation shows that 
the proportion of poverty in London is practically 
equalled in what may be regarded as a typical pro- 
vincial town, we are faced by the startling probability 
that from 25 to 30 per cent of the town populations 
of the United Kingdom are living in poverty."1 The 
invaluable work of these two men, done at their own 
expense, has had the effect of making the poverty of 
England understood, and that is the beginning of 
any reform. 
It is, of course, deplorable that we have not made 
even a beginning in finding out the extent of poverty 
in America. As has been said, we have no facts 
which will enable us to make an exact comparison of 
our conditions with those abroad. There are, how- 
ever, certain fragments of information which may 
make us question the prevalent notion that all is 
well, and that " comparatively speaking," as an 
economist said to me recently, " we have no pov- 
erty." There is a general spirit of optimism, which 
is not unlike that which existed in England previous 
to the work of Mr. Booth and Mr. Rountree. It is 
an optimism which results from ignorance or from the 20 
POVERTY 
lack of any real concern. Such facts as we have are 
not sufficient to enable us to make any conclusive 
estimate, and they are used only for the purpose of 
serving as indications of the extent of poverty in this 
country. 
These fragments of information, indicative of a 
widespread poverty, fall under the following heads: 
Pauperism, the general distress, the number of evic- 
tions, the pauper burials; the overcrowding and 
insanitation due to improper housing; the death rate 
from tuberculosis; the amount of unemployment; 
and the number of accidents in certain trades. By 
means of such data as we have concerning these 
conditions, a partial, but of course a most imperfect, 
comparison can be made between the poverty of 
England and that of the United States. 
In the face of widespread poverty there have not 
been for over half a century in England so few 
paupers, either actually or proportionately, as there 
are now. The population of England has increased 
from about 18,000,000 persons in 1851 to 29,000,000 
in 1889.1 During this period the number of paupers 
actually fell off. It is said that London " has lost in 
pauper population fifteen times as fast as she has 
gained in general population."2 The total number of 
paupers in the United States in the year 1891 was 
about 3,000,000 according to the estimates of Pro- 
fessor Richard T. Ely and of Mr. Charles D. Kellogg, POVERTY 
21 
then secretary of the Charity Organization Society of 
New York City.1 The census figures are too incom- 
plete to be relied upon, but the returns from the 
almshouses show that the number of paupers 
increased almost as fast as population during the 
decade from 1880 to 1890.2 In Hartford, Connecticut, 
the number of paupers increased about 50 per cent 
during the same decade.3 An increase not less great 
took place in many other cities of the country. It is 
questionable whether the same increase occurred in 
the last decade. In two or three states a more 
economical administration of the poor-law funds, 
during the last decade, has diminished the number of 
persons dependent upon outdoor relief, although in 
several states the number of paupers has increased. 
But the figures of most of the states are too incom- 
plete to permit of an exact statement concerning the 
increase or decrease of pauperism. Only by means 
of an estimate, such as Professor Ely made in 1891, 
can we gain any idea of the number of dependent 
persons. Taking a similar basis to the one used by 
him, there is every indication that not less than 
4,000,000 persons are now dependent upon the public 
for relief. What relation, if any, pauperism bears to 
the poverty of this country has not been determined. 
The amount of pauperism in any community depends 
so much upon the way in which the poor law is 
administered that any comparison of the pauperism 22 
POVERTY 
in various cities, states, or countries would yield 
no trustworthy data concerning the extent of 
poverty. 
The general distress, as shown by the demands 
made upon both public and private charities, is a 
better test of the extent of poverty than that fur- 
nished by the numbers dependent upon the poor 
funds of the state alone. Mr. Jacob A. Riis, a few 
years ago, used some figures which showed that 
about one-third of the people of New York City were 
dependent upon charity at some time during the eight 
years previous to 1890.1 The report of the United 
Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows very similar condi- 
tions existing among the Jewish population of New 
York.2 But even more astonishing than all other 
facts we have are those furnished by the State Board 
of Charities. In 1897 the Board endeavored to 
collect figures of the number of persons assisted by 
both public and private charities. It was of course 
impossible to prevent duplications or to get returns 
from hundreds of the more personal sources of relief- 
giving, but it was a creditable and most useful piece 
of public work. Three years later the work was 
curtailed by decision of the Court of Appeals, and 
consequently the more complete figures are only 
available for the three years 1897, 1898, and 1899. I 
quote the following figures from a letter by Robert 
W. Hebberd, secretary of the State Board:8 - POVERTY 
23 
Year 
State 
Insti- 
tutions 
Hospi- 
tals 
Dispen- 
saries 
Outdoor Relief 
Total 
In Homes 
Homeless 
1897 
7720 
98,960 
1451.713 
266,431 
288,380 
2,113,204 
1898 
8272 
106,835 
1,052,177 
364,814 
368,101 
1,900,199 
1899 
8161 
114,199 
932.072 
395.632 
338,863 
1,788,927 
These figures unquestionably contain many duplica- 
tions. How many, it is impossible to say. It would 
not be reasonable to believe that 29 per cent of the 
people of New York found it necessary in the year 
1897, or 24 per cent in 1899, to apply for relief. And 
yet it should be said that these figures of the State 
Board do not include the relief given by the many 
small clubs, circles, committees, and Trade Unions; 
nor is the relief given by many benevolent individuals 
recorded. There must, of course, be many thousand 
cases of distress receiving relief regularly and solely 
from these personal or private sources. But even 
though the figures do not include all persons in dis- 
tress, it is reasonable to suppose that there are a large 
number of duplications and that they make the totals 
considerably larger than they should be. 
Excluding half the number of persons relieved by 
the dispensaries (in order to make some arbitrary 
allowance for duplications), even then the number of 
persons relieved would indicate that the poverty of 
New York State is enormous. In actual figures as 
reduced, the persons in distress in 1897 number POVERTY 
24 
i,387,348, or about 19 per cent of the people of New 
York, and in 1899 they number 1,322,891, or about 
18 per cent. 
It is possible to compare with these figures those 
for Boston just published by the city's official statis- 
tician. During the year 1903 over 136,000 persons 
were aided by the public authorities alone, or, estimat- 
ing the present population at 606,600, more than 20 
per cent of the entire population.1 It is estimated 
that 336,000 persons were aided in private hospitals, 
dispensaries, asylums, etc.; and these are, of course, 
not included, except by duplications, in the above 
figures, and the mere fact that such an estimate is 
made would indicate that the official figures do not 
measure the full extent of the distress. If the figures 
are correct as published, the persons in New York 
State in distress in 1897, and in Boston in 1903, 
would equal proportionately the number of those in 
poverty in London. 
The amount of actual distress in the community 
may be measured also by two additional sets of data. 
The number of evictions in any community is a fairly 
good measure of the minimum distress. In the year 
1903, 60,463 families in the borough of Manhattan 
were evicted from their homes.2 This is about 14 
per cent of the total number of families in the 
borough. As another indication, the number of 
pauper burials should be cited. Every one familiar POVERTY 
25 
with the poor knows how desperately they struggle 
to give a decent burial to their dead. A poor 
person will resort to almost any means in order to 
prevent a member of his or her family having a 
pauper burial, or, as they say, " lying in a pauper's 
grave." Even the poorest people have friends, poli- 
ticians or others, who save them, if possible, from 
this last disgrace. And yet one in every ten persons 
who die in New York is buried at public expense in 
Potter's Field.1 This is, without question, the lowest 
limit of misery. If observation counts for anything, 
I should say that the number of pauper burials cer- 
tainly does not represent half of the actual distress in 
any community. 
The results stated concisely are as follows: - 
1903 20 per cent of the people of Boston in distress. 
1897 19 per cent of the people of New York State in distress. 
1899 18 per cent of the people of New York State in distress. 
1903 14 per cent of the families of Manhattan evicted. 
Every 
year. 10 per cent (about) of those who die in Manhattan have 
pauper burials. 
On the basis of these figures it would seem fair to 
estimate that certainly not less than 14 per cent of 
the people, in prosperous times (1903), and probably 
not less than 20 per cent in bad times (1897), are in 
distress. The estimate is a conservative one, for 
despite all the imperfections which may be found in 
the data, and there are many, any allowance for the 26 
POVERTY 
persons who are given aid by sources not reporting 
to the State Board, or for those persons not aided by 
the authorities of Boston, or for those persons who, 
although in great distress, are not evicted, must 
counterbalance the duplications or errors which may 
exist in the figures either of distress or evictions. 
These figures, furthermore, represent only the dis- 
tress which manifests itself. There is no question 
but that only a part of those in poverty, in any com- 
munity, apply for charity. I think any one living in 
a Settlement will support me in saying that many 
families who are obviously poor - that is, underfed, 
underclothed, or badly housed - never ask for aid or 
suffer the social disgrace of eviction. Of course, no 
one could estimate the proportion of those who are 
evicted or of those who ask assistance to the total 
number in poverty; for whatever opinion one may 
have formed is based, not on actual knowledge, 
gained by inquiry, but on impressions, gained through 
friendly intercourse. My own opinion is that prob- 
ably not over half of those in poverty ever apply 
for charity, and certainly not more than that propor- 
tion are evicted from their homes. However, I 
should not wish an opinion of this sort to be used in 
estimating, from the figures of distress, etc., the 
number of those in poverty. And yet from the 
facts of distress, as given, and from opinions formed, 
both as a charity agent and as a Settlement worker, POVERTY 
27 
I should not be at all surprised if the number of 
those in poverty in New York, as well as in other 
large cities and industrial centres, rarely fell below 
25 per cent of all the people. 
Without now making any further efforts to estimate 
the extent, we will continue with the various indica- 
tions of poverty. The amount of unemployment is 
an excellent test. Here again our figures are too 
imperfect to enable us to compare them satisfactorily 
with those of England. The causes of unemploy- 
ment, however, appear to be more active here than in 
that country. Of course, the most serious interrup- 
tions to regular employment are industrial depres- 
sions, at which times great masses of men are thrown 
out of employment for long periods. Depressions, 
however, occur periodically in all industrial countries 
with much the same regularity. The other industrial 
causes of unemployment vary considerably in the 
different nations. The reorganization of industry 
into trusts, causing many thousands of men to lose 
temporarily their employment; the introduction of 
new machinery, having the same effect; the speeding 
up of the machines, which exhausts and displaces 
workmen at an early age; excessive hours in many 
trades and a too plentiful supply of labor in many 
industrial centres, obtained by artificially stimulated 
immigration, are all causes of unemployment which 
seem more active in this country than abroad. Even 28 
POVERTY 
the contract and sweating systems are more developed 
in this country. Englishmen visiting our industrial 
centres are amazed at the rapidity of the changes in 
industrial methods, from the changing of machines 
to the entire reorganization of an industry.1 Thou- 
sands of men are thrown out of employment when- 
ever these changes occur. However beneficial to 
society these revolutions in industrial methods are, 
they are unquestionably active causes of widespread 
unemployment or of irregular employment. Mr. Jack 
London, writing in the Atlantic Monthly on "The 
Scab," refers to the United States as a scab nation, 
and to the working-men of this country as scab work- 
men, because the workers in this country work more 
intensely, longer hours, and more cheaply than those 
of other great industrial nations.2 In other words, 
we are underbidding the other nations by a lower 
standard of work, and underselling them as a result, 
not of fair, but of scab methods. Without question, 
the causes, which produce on the one hand long 
hours and overemployment, result on the other hand 
in short periods of work, underemployment, or unem- 
ployment. 
The figures of unemployment, although very im- 
perfect, show that the evil is widespread, even in 
times of prosperity. The census of 1890 shows that 
3,523>73O, or 15-1 per cent of all of the workers over 
ten years of age, engaged in gainful occupations, POVERTY 
29 
were unemployed a part of the time during that 
year.1 These figures are, however, criticised by the 
census of 1900 as incomplete. In the last census 
the number found to be unemployed at some time 
during the year was 6,468,964, or 22.3 per cent of 
all the workers over ten years of age, engaged in 
gainful occupations.2 Thirty-nine per cent of the male 
workers unemployed, or 2,069,546 persons, were idle 
from four to six months of the year.3 These figures 
are for the country as a whole, and for all industries, 
including agriculture. In manufacturing alone the un- 
employment rose to 27.2 per cent of all of the workers. 
In the industrial states of the East and North the per- 
centage of unemployment is larger than for the coun- 
try as a whole. The Massachusetts census for 1895 
showed that 8339 workmen were unemployed con- 
tinuously during that year, and that 252,456 persons 
were irregularly employed.4 This means that over 27 
per cent of all persons covered by the inquiry were 
idle some portion of the year. That this is not excep- 
tional is shown by the Massachusetts census for 1885. 
At that time over 29 per cent of the workmen were 
irregularly employed. In other words, the annual 
wages of more than one workman in every four 
suffered considerable decrease by reason of a period 
of enforced idleness, extending in some cases over 
several months. In the industrial towns, such as 
Haverhill, New Bedford, and Fall River, the irregu- 30 
POVERTY 
larity of employment was even greater. In these 
towns from 39 to 62 per cent of the workmen were idle 
during some part of the year.1 Still another inves- 
tigation, made in 1897 in Massachusetts, showed 
that there were 100,000 workers in certain factories 
in that state who found employment when the fac- 
tories were most active, but who were unemployed 
when the factories were least active.2 This fluctua- 
tion of the number of employed means that about 30 
per cent of the maximum number employed in the 
busiest season are rendered idle during the slack 
seasons. This uncertainty of employment is not 
peculiar to Massachusetts. In every industrial com- 
munity, the same insecurity of livelihood, due to 
irregular employment, exists. It has been said that 
during the anthracite coal strike of 1902 the entire 
supply of mined coal was exhausted, but the excess 
of laborers in that district is so great that within a 
short time after the strike was settled a report was 
sent out on reliable authority that "intermittent labor 
is again the lot of anthracite employees. The col- 
lieries do not average more than two-thirds time."3 
Men employed in navigation on the Great Lakes 
are particularly subject to seasonal demands for their 
labor. During the three months, January, February, 
and March, one-third of all the workmen are unem- 
ployed.4 In the clothing trades of New York City 
it is very much the same. During the first seven POVERTY 
31 
months of the year 1903 there were never less than 
one-fifth of the men unemployed, and at times between 
one-third and one-fourth of all the workmen were 
without employment.1 In other words, during this 
time, from 20 to 30 per cent of the working people 
were in enforced idleness. The workers in these 
seasonal trades are compelled to have regularly 
recurring periods of poverty. The long seasons of 
idleness mean in many cases serious distress to large 
numbers of workmen and their families. 
With the exception of 1885 and 1895 none of the 
years for which figures have been quoted are to be 
considered as years of industrial depression. In these 
times of industrial crises, the number of unemployed 
men, who with their families are in poverty, reaches 
a point where the whole nation is moved to pity. In 
these times the lodging-houses of our cities are over- 
crowded with idle men. The vagrant class increases 
to large proportions, and the despair and wretchedness 
of the workless people cause the ruin of thousands. 
There is a very large increase in the number im- 
prisoned for vagrancy, petty crimes, and drunkenness. 
"Modern life," Mr. John Hobson has said, "has no 
more tragical figure than the gaunt, hungry laborer 
wandering about the crowded centres of industry and 
wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in that 
industry, and to contribute to that wealth ; asking in 
return, not the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, 32 
POVERTY 
but the rough food and shelter for himself and 
family, which would be practically secured to him in 
the rudest form of savage society." 1 
One is apt to forget the tragedies which result 
from unemployment. Not only are the better classes 
of labor pulled down to the very verge of poverty by 
irregular employment, but the poorer classes of 
unskilled labor are carried during a season of unem- 
ployment into conditions of actual poverty. The 
great mass of laborers must in all cases exercise 
economy, frugality, and good common sense in order 
to obtain for themselves those things necessary to 
maintain a standard of living which we proudly boast 
is American. For the lower classes of labor, the 
maintenance of an American standard, even under 
the most favorable conditions, is hardly possible, and 
by a period of unemployment, extending from one to 
three months in the year, their annual wage is invari- 
ably changed from a living one to a poverty one. That 
this happens, not only during industrial depressions, 
but at certain seasons every year, is, I think, without 
question. There is a fierce competition going on, 
especially in our cities, among various classes of immi- 
grants for work requiring no special skill. At best, 
this labor market is always oversupplied, unemploy- 
ment is greatest and wages are always at the lowest 
level. In consequence, there is a sort of devastation, 
due to constantly recurring poverty, which sadly afflicts 
this class of common laborers and their families. POVERTY 
33 
There are very few figures regarding the unem- 
ployment among unskilled workers; but an investi- 
gation into the condition of the Italians in Chicago 
makes one realize that it is far more extensive among 
the unskilled than among the skilled workers. The 
figures given above concern the unemployment of all 
classes of labor. The federal reports of this inquiry 
show that " of the 2663 employed in remunerative oc- 
cupations, 1517, or 56.97 per cent, were unemployed 
some part of the year .... and the average time un- 
employed for these 1517 persons was therefore over 
seven months." Two hundred and thirty-two persons 
were idle eight months of the year; 310 persons nine 
months; 161 ten months; 68 eleven months during 
the year.1 When it is realized that the average 
earnings, for all classes of work engaged in by the 
Italians, amounted to less than $6 a week, it is 
easy to realize the poverty and suffering which re- 
sult from unemployment.2 The Italians, for a time, 
try to do the heavy and intense work required of 
them here on the same poor diet which supplied 
their needs in Italy, and superstitiously hang small 
salt bags about their children's necks to drive away 
the devil of malnutrition and starvation. Nothing 
could show the misery resulting from unemployment 
and underfeeding more clearly than the physical con- 
dition of the Italians in this country. 
It is doubtful if one is warranted in considering 34 
POVERTY 
the above conditions to be the same among the un- 
skilled laborers of other foreign colonies. It may, 
however, be nearer the average for similar classes of 
laboring men than we imagine. The figures of the 
last federal census indicate this to be true. It 
states that 44.3 per cent of the unskilled workers 
were unemployed some part of the year.1 Common, 
observation also lends its support to this conclusion. 
Everywhere - in the anthracite coal district, in 
South Chicago, and in many other industrial com- 
munities of Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and 
Massachusetts - there are among unskilled laborers 
indications of extreme poverty. The Irish of " Archy 
Road," the Poles and Hungarians of the Stock Yards 
district, the Italians of New York and Chicago, and 
the Jews of the east side of New York, differ con- 
siderably in ability; but from all appearances it seems 
that very nearly the same amount of poverty exists 
among all those workers, of whatever nationality, 
whose labor is unskilled and irregular. The temper- 
ance and intelligence of the Jews save them from the 
worst miseries. The unskilled and unorganized Irish 
laborers, who have been unable to obtain city jobs by 
political influence, are, I dare say, as wretchedly 
poor as any other class of immigrants. It would, of 
course, be unwise to carry this comparison of the 
conditions among the unskilled workers of various 
nationalities too far. It is necessarily based largely POVERTY 
35 
upon observation, and that is always more or less 
limited and imperfect. But it is safe to conclude 
that employment is much more irregular among all 
classes of unskilled workers than among the workers 
in the skilled and organized trades. As the wages 
of unskilled workmen, as will be shown later, are in 
general only sufficient to keep them above the 
poverty line while they are at work, unemployment 
means for these classes underfeeding, insufficient 
clothing, and uncertain tenure of home. It is hardly 
too much to assume that in the larger industrial 
states, in ordinary times, 30 per cent of the unskilled 
workers are in poverty some part of the year as a 
result of unemployment. This, of course, is only one 
of many causes of poverty. Sickness and injuries 
are perhaps not less important, either as indications 
of poverty or as causes. 
The indications of poverty which lie in the figures 
of accidents, diseases, and casualties, resulting from 
industrial employments, are very significant, al- 
though the figures are most incomplete. It has 
been determined that nine out of every ten working- 
class families in Europe require charitable aid after 
injuries due to some industrial accident.1 Probably 
not so large a proportion in this country would, 
under the same circumstances, find it necessary to 
apply for charitable relief; but in nearly all cases 
where the breadwinner suffers permanent injury, or 36 
POVERTY 
is suddenly killed, the family must receive assistance 
of some sort, until other members of the family are 
able to assume the responsibility of its support. Mr. 
John Graham Brooks, in his recent book, "The 
Social Unrest," has called attention to " that frightful 
list of stricken laborers that are now thrown back 
upon themselves or their families with recompense so 
uncertain and niggardly as to shock the most primi- 
tive sense of social justice." 1 
Unfortunately the facts regarding these industrial 
causes of poverty are so incomplete as to make it 
impossible to estimate the amount of distress result- 
ing from them. Such facts as we have apply only 
to the industries of mining and railroading. The 
following table, taken from the reports of the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission, will fully illustrate how 
terribly dangerous is the work of a railway employee : 
Year 
Employees 
Passengers 
Other Persons 
Total 
Killed 
Injured 
Killed 
Injured 
Killed 
Injured 
Killed 
Injured 
1897 
1.693 
27,667 
222 
2,795 
4.522 
6,269 
6,437 
36.731 
1898 
1.958 
3I,76l 
221 
2,945 
4,680 
6,176 
6,859 
40,882 
1899 
2,210 
34.923 
239 
3,442 
4.674 
6,255 
7,123 
44,620 
1900 
2.550 
39.643 
249 
4,128 
5.o66 
6,549 
7,865 
50,320 
1901 
2,675 
41.142 
282 
4,988 
5.498 
7,209 
8,455 
53,339 
1902 
2,969 
50.524 
345 
6,683 
5.274 
7,455 
8,588 
64,662 
Railroad Accidents in the United States2 
These figures are frightful. In 1901 one out of every 
399 employees was killed and one out of every 26 POVERTY 
37 
was injured. The trainmen, such as engineers, fire- 
men, conductors, etc., are the greatest sufferers. One 
was killed for every 137 employed, and one was 
injured for every 11 employed. It is difficult to be- 
lieve that such slaughter is permitted to go on year 
after year. It would seem as if the owners of the 
railroads would make the safety of their workmen 
their first obligation; but, strange as it is, they 
resist powerfully every attempt made to have them 
adopt safety appliances. The energetic efforts 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission have been 
but partially successful in compelling the railroads to 
put on such appliances as are necessary in order to 
diminish the number of accidents and fatalities. Up 
to the present the Commission has not been success- 
ful in compelling the railroads to introduce the Block 
System, which would greatly diminish the number 
killed and injured. The railroads consider this 
system an " unwarranted luxury," just as a few 
years ago they considered the automatic coupler an 
" unwarranted luxury." Such increased expenses for 
the safety of the employees reduce profits, and 
with that only in view the railroads either forget, 
or have no concern for, the families whose bread- 
winners are lost or injured by this criminal policy 
of preferring murder to decreased dividends. The 
following are chosen merely as examples of the 
injuries:1 - 38 
POVERTY 
Back wrenched .... workman, age 24 
Leg cut off . . . . . workman, age 19 
Foot crushed .... workman, age 25 
Foot and hip injured . . . workman, age 35 
Foot cut off .... workman, age 27 
These injuries to railway workmen are more serious 
than at first appears, for very few of the men who 
are injured are over thirty-five, and most of them are 
in the twenties. This period - between twenty and 
thirty-five - is the most important period of a work- 
man's life. It is the time when he is of utmost value 
to his family, since the children are still too young to 
take up the support of the family. 
The responsibility of the railroads for poverty 
resulting from injuries or casualties is of three kinds 
at least. First: In many cases they overwork their 
employees. Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay says: 
" Emergencies frequently occur due to accidents or 
condition of weather when men may be required to 
work continuously from twenty to thirty hours, and, 
in exceptional cases, men have been continuously at 
work in train service for thirty-six hours."1 Second : 
Many railroad systems have resisted and violated the 
law compelling them to put on automatic couplers, 
and they are now fighting the introduction of the 
Block System, both of which improvements are 
designed to prevent accidents and injuries. Third: 
In case of accidents, " company " physicians and POVERTY 
39 
lawyers hasten immediately to the place of the 
accident, and, if possible, persuade the workmen to 
sign contracts by which they agree, for some small 
immediate compensation, to release the company 
from any further liability. I have known many, 
many cases where workmen have, for a few dollars, 
signed away their rights to sue when their injuries 
have been as serious as the loss of a leg or arm. 
In the seventeen years ending June 30, 1902, 103,320 
persons were killed and 587,028 injured by the rail- 
way industry. 
The returns of those killed and injured in the 
mining districts are less complete than the ones given 
for the railroads. Dr. Peter Roberts, who has for 
several years studied with great care the industrial 
and social conditions of the anthracite regions, states 
that in certain sections of that community the non- 
fatal injuries are more serious now than they were in 
past decades. He says that "nearly half the em- 
ployees have no provision for either the incapacitated 
through accident or for the maintenance of widows 
and orphans when death befalls those who provide 
for them in this hazardous calling. Many operators 
display generosity worthy of emulation ; others mani- 
fest criminal indifference to the sufferings of em- 
ployees and their families because of accident. . . . 
To leave these men to the mercy of overbearing 
operators in case of injury and death is unworthy of 40 
POVERTY 
the civilization of the century in which we live."1 It 
is impossible to say how much of the existing poverty 
is caused by accidents, injuries, and sickness, due to 
industrial processes and conditions ; but such facts as 
we have would indicate that these poverty-producing 
causes are more active in the United States than in 
any other great industrial nation. 
These various indications of poverty might be 
followed by many less significant ones.* The earlier 
age at which men are incapacitated in this country 
is but one of the more important. An inquiry 
made several years ago in New Jersey showed that 
workmen began to decline between the ages of thirty- 
five and forty-five, although in many cases they 
were not completely incapacitated until twenty years 
later.2 Dr. Roberts shows that the average age of the 
deceased in the anthracite district was 24 for the 
female and 24.8 for the male, although the average 
for the country as a whole was 35.2 years.3 But there 
are too many of such minor indications to be worthy 
of detailed examination. In lieu of definite, accurate 
figures concerning the extent of poverty, such figures 
as we have of distress, of insanitary housing condi- 
tions, of overcrowding, of deaths from tuberculosis, 
of unemployment and of accidents, indicate that the 
poverty in certain portions of this country is hardly 
less extensive than that of certain parts of England. 
* See Housing, Tuberculosis, and Accidents, Appendix A. POVERTY 
41 
From a different point of view, - from figures of 
the ownership of wealth in this country,-another in- 
dication of poverty may be considered. Wealth and 
poverty seem to be inevitably associated with each 
other. In the report of the Royal Commission on 
Labor, presented to the Houses of Parliament in 
1894, the following sentences, succeeding an account 
of the poverty and wretchedness existing in English 
towns, show the relation which these two things - 
poverty and wealth - bear toward each other. "It 
is impossible to refrain from connecting this de- 
plorable condition of the working class with the 
fact that two-thirds of the annual product of the 
community is absorbed by one-fourth of its members, 
and that the annual tribute of rents, royalties, and 
dividends levied upon the industry of the nation 
amounts to nearly 500,000,000 sterling."1 Here 
again our figures are deplorably deficient when com- 
pared with English ones. There is a general impres- 
sion that we have a widespread diffusion of property 
ownership. It is, of course, natural that, with great 
tracts of land opened within the last century to 
millions of individuals, there should be an extent of 
individual ownership of farms in this country far 
greater than that existing elsewhere. But neverthe- 
less, Mr. George K. Holmes, a cautious and conserva- 
tive investigator, shows, on the basis of the census 
figures for 1890, that over 34 per cent of our farmers 42 
POVERTY 
are renters and an additional 18.6 per cent have their 
farms mortgaged.1 All together there are over 
52 per cent of the farmers in this country who have 
only a partial ownership of their farms, or who are 
propertyless. 
The number of persons owning farms is an indica- 
tion of the ownership of property in the rural 
districts only; while the figures concerning the owner- 
ship of homes give us an indication of the number of 
persons in cities, towns, and agricultural districts, 
having no property interests. The census figures 
for 1900 show that 8,365,739, or considerably over 
half of the families in the United States, do not 
own the homes in which they live.2 In the cities 
the ownership of homes is much less common than in 
the smaller towns. Illustrations of this fact are seen 
in the following percentages of homes hired in 
various cities :3 - 
Boston 81.1 
Chicago 74.9 
Cincinnati 79.1 
Fall River 82. 
Holyoke . 80.6 
New York (Manhattan) 94.1 
Philadelphia 77.9 
The percentages show that of all the persons liv- 
ing in these cities a very large proportion do not own 
the homes in which they live. Probably no wage- POVERTY 
43 
earners in Manhattan own their homes, and in several 
other large cities probably 99 per cent of the wage- 
earners are propertyless. The significant thing in 
this lack of ownership lies in the fact that a very 
large majority, probably 90 per cent, of the work- 
men in the cities and industrial communities, are 
propertyless, and, furthermore, are involved in a 
weekly indebtedness for rent of from one-fifth to 
two-fifths of their earnings, regardless of whether 
they have work or not. 
The estimates of wealth and of the distribution of 
wealth, made by Mr. Holmes, are less reliable than 
the aforegoing figures of ownership, but they indi- 
cate, nevertheless, that there exists in this country 
" an enormous culture bed for poverty." The entire 
wealth of the country was estimated by the census 
of 1890 at $65,000,000,000. Mr. Holmes concludes, 
on the basis of his inquiries, that three-tenths of 
one per cent of the families in this country own 
one-fifth of this wealth, that is to say, 20 per 
cent of the wealth of the country. Nine per cent 
of the families in the country own 71 per cent of 
the total wealth.1 
Mr. Charles B. Spahr has estimated, with most 
painstaking care, the distribution of incomes in the 
United States. The results of his inquiries are very 
effectively set forth in the following tables and dia- 
grams : - 44 
POVERTY 
Estates 
Number 
Aggregate Wealth 
Average 
Wealth 
The Wealthy Classes 
$50,000 and over . . 
The Well-to-do Classes 
125,000 
$33,000,000,000 
$264,000 
$50,000 to $5,000. . 
The Middle Classes 
i,375,000 
23,000,000,000 
16,000 
$5,000 to $500 . . . 
The Poorer Classes 
5,500,000 
8,200,000,000 
1,500 
under $500 .... 
5,500,000 
800,000,000 
*5° 
Total 
12,500,000 
$65,000,000,000 
$5,200 
The United States 18901 
From this table Mr. Spahr concludes that less than 
half of the families in the United States are property- 
less ; nevertheless, seven-eighths of the families hold 
but one-eighth of the national wealth, while but one 
percent of the families hold more than the remaining 
ninety-nine per cent. 
Another table, based upon Mr. Spahr's inquiry, 
and accompanied by a diagram, is taken from Mr. 
John Graham Brooks' "The Social Unrest."2 
Distribution of Wealth in the United States 
Class 
Families 
Per 
Cent 
Average 
Wealth 
Aggregate 
Wealth 
Per 
Cent 
Rich . . 
125,000 
1.0 
$263,040 
$32,880,000,000 
54-8 
Middle. . 
1,362,500 
10.9 
14,180 
19,320,000,000 
32.2 
Poor . . 
4,762,500 
38.1 
1.639 
7,800,000,000 
13.O 
Very Poor. 
6,250,000 
50.0 
Total 
12,500,000 
100.0 
$4,800 
$60,000,000,000 
100.0 POVERTY 
45 
Diagrams showing, by Percentages, the Population and 
Wealth Distribution in the United States 
Rich, 1. 
Middle, 10.9 
Poor, 38,1 
Very 
Poor, 50. 
Richj 54.8 
Middle, 32.2 
Poor, 13. 
Mr. Brooks says regarding this latter table: " I do 
not personally believe that trustworthy statistical 
sources exist that enable one to make tables of this 
character that are more than mere guesses at the fact. 
Yet if it were known what the possessions of the one 
hundred and twenty-six thousand richest families in 
the United States are, the result would be all that 
any agitator need ask." How many liberties have 
been taken with Mr. Spahr's figures in order to con- 
struct this latter table I do not know; it can be said, 
however, that while neither his figures nor those of 
Mr. Holmes have escaped criticism, the critics have 
not, thus far, been able to make out a case against 
them which necessitates any material alteration 
either of the handling of the data, or of the con- 
clusions finally drawn.1 Without committing our- 
selves implicitly to them, we must acknowledge that 46 
POVERTY 
they indicate an inequality of wealth distribution 
which should have before now received exhaustive 
investigation by our official statisticians. 
A propertyless person is one without any economic 
reserve power. He is in no position to ward off the 
sufferings which must frequently come to most per- 
sons depending wholly upon their ability to labor 
and upon the demand, in the community, for their 
services. In an industrial crisis, for instance, a per- 
son without any property which he may convert, if 
necessary, into the means of sustenance, is unable to 
keep off distress until economic conditions revive 
sufficiently to require his labor. His family must 
suffer in case of his being unemployed or incapaci- 
tated or killed, unless there should be some one else 
in the family able to take his place as breadwinner. 
The loss of profits or earnings from property is a 
serious loss to thousands of families more or less 
dependent upon incomes from that source; but the 
classes who possess no property, not even a home 
from which they may not be evicted, must of neces- 
sity pursue that precarious livelihood which depends 
solely upon health and strength and upon economic 
conditions, which may, or may not, at any time, 
require the services of the worker. Security of 
livelihood in the present state of society comes 
only with the possession of property; and the large 
masses of people, whom this short summary of POVERTY 
47 
wealth distribution indicates to be propertyless, have 
no assurance whatever that they may not be at any 
time, if indeed they are not already, in poverty. 
Before summarizing the facts dwelt upon in the 
aforegoing pages as indicative of widespread poverty, 
let us consider one other important method of meas- 
uring its extent; namely, the number of persons, so 
far as that can be determined, who are not receiving 
an income sufficient to enable them to maintain a 
state of physical efficiency. There are many, many 
thousand families who receive an income adequate 
enough to supply the necessities of physical life, but 
who, for one reason or another,-drink, ignorance, 
sickness, extravagance, misfortune, or weakness,- 
do not manage to obtain the essentials for maintain- 
ing physical efficiency. There are also many, many 
thousand families who receive wages so inadequate 
that no care in spending, however wise it may be, 
will make them suffice for the family needs. If every 
penny were spent judiciously, the income would not 
be sufficient to provide enough of the necessaries 
to maintain in efficient working order the various 
members of the family. Such wages are neither 
"fair" nor "living" wages : they are poverty wages. 
It is obvious enough that it is impossible to deter- 
mine a sum which may be called a "fair" or "living" 
wage, and which will apply with equal justice to the 
various parts of the country. There are at; least two 48 
POVERTY 
reasons for this. First, the prices of commodities 
differ greatly in so large and varied a country. The 
cost of necessaries is much lower in the South than 
in the North, and lower in Boston than in New York, 
and lower in Fort Wayne than in Chicago. When the 
cost of living in rural and urban districts is compared, it 
will be found that rents are perhaps responsible for the 
most considerable difference, and the prices of food 
and fuel also vary. This variation in the cost of liv- 
ing renders any fixed estimate of a necessary wage 
for the whole country practically valueless. There is 
a second element which is sometimes suggested as 
important when making estimates of the necessary 
cost of living. If it were indeed an important 
element, it would make any computation of a neces- 
sary income in this country almost impossible. The 
foreign peoples represented among our working 
classes are said to require various standards of liv- 
ing. The Jews, for instance, seem to thrive in the 
most insanitary tenements, despite poor food and 
insufficient clothing. The Italians and Hungarians 
seem to do as well as the Irish on a much more 
limited diet. The Jews, who are most saving and 
economical in their ways of living, do unquestionably 
manage to live better on a smaller income than many 
other races ; and in so far as this is true of any race, 
that race, of course, will be able to live better than 
another which is less wise in its economies. The POVERTY 
49 
same thing is true of different families. But 
the income of any family must increase with the 
increase of physical expenditure. And for all races 
the increase of physical expenditure in the industrial 
life of America, over what they were formerly 
required to make in their native countries, is the 
principal reason for an increased standard of living, 
and consequently for an increased income. The 
element of the exhaustion of the physical energies 
by work must enter into all calculations concerning a 
required income. It is therefore very doubtful if the 
Italian and other of the recent immigrants will be 
able to do as much hard, sustained, and intense work 
as the American or the Americanized Irishman or 
German, without a meat diet or, at least, without a 
much more ample vegetarian diet than that which the 
Italian, for instance, has been in the habit of having 
in the milder climate of Italy, doing a lighter and 
easier and a less sustained kind of work.1 It is well 
known that immigrants are at first very easily ex- 
hausted in trying to keep pace with the intense, 
ceaseless rush of the American methods of work. 
Nowhere abroad is seen the same intense working 
activity which is customary in the United States. 
The breathless and exhausting pace required in 
the workshops of this country is not seen in the 
workshops of Europe. For instance, the Jew in the 
Russian Ghettos runs a sewing machine as one would 50 
POVERTY 
expect a human being to run a machine, intermit- 
tently, with brief periods of rest; not as a sweated, 
starving creature in New York or Chicago runs 
one, never easing the twisted spine, never rising 
to fill the half-closed lungs. In Russia a man 
runs a machine in competition with other men, 
and not in competition with the tireless, bodi- 
less, and soulless power of steam or electricity. 
The Italian, in a sunny climate, in the vineyards and 
olive fields, needs little more to fit him for his work 
than a limited vegetarian diet, a small supply of 
clothes, and an indifferent house. But the Italian, 
the Jew, or the Hungarian will need good food, 
warm clothing, and a sanitary tenement, if he is 
to be paced by the swiftest workman, and rushed by 
a machine, which must be tended and cannot be 
stopped to permit a full breath or a moment's rest 
until the day's labor is done. The present industrial 
life " takes it out of a man," as the saying is, and it 
must be put back into a man, or the human machine 
depreciates and degenerates. It is hardly to be 
doubted that nearly all men, exhausting themselves 
at the same rate, require very much the same 
necessities to keep them in working order.1 For 
these reasons I do not consider that there should 
be different wage standards established for the 
different nationalities, although, unquestionably, the 
standards for the varying parts of the country POVERTY 
51 
should vary in relation to the varying cost of com- 
modities, etc. 
Without regard to these apparent differences in 
the standards of living required by different races 
and the varying costs of commodities, there are, 
nevertheless, a number of opinions concerning the 
necessary income for a family of average size. It 
was shown by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics 
that it takes $754 a year for a family of five persons 
to live on.1 John Mitchell has said that a minimum 
wage of $600 a year is necessary in the anthracite 
district for a worker with a family of ordinary 
size.2 The New York Bureau of Labor considers 
that $10 a week or $520 a year is inadequate for city 
workmen.3 A prominent official of one of the 
largest charities in New York City thinks that $2 
a day, or about $624 a year, is necessary for a family 
of five in that city. Granting that these estimates 
are above the amount necessary to supply only the 
strictest necessities for useful, efficient living, they 
are, nevertheless, the opinions of well-informed 
persons as to a fair wage. It is unnecessary to say 
that, if any one of these estimates were taken as 
the standard necessary wage, an enormous number 
of working people, practically all of the unskilled 
and a considerable percentage of the skilled, would 
fall under the poverty line. However desirable and 
however socially valuable an income of $754 a 52 
POVERTY 
year for each family would be, it is unquestionably 
too high for a fair estimate of the minimum neces- 
sary one. While $624 a year is probably not 
too much for New York City, in view of the ex- 
cessive rents (consuming in some cases 40 per cent 
of the income) and other almost inevitable expenses 
such as car fare, etc., it is, nevertheless, an estimate 
which could not apply, with equal fairness, to all of 
the industrial states of the North. When one gets 
below these figures, however, every dollar cut off may 
mean depriving a family of a necessity of life, in 
times of health even, and unquestionably in times 
of sickness.* But to estimate in the most conserva- 
tive way possible, let us take more or less arbitrarily 
$460 a year as essential to defray the expenses 
of an average family, - a father, a mother, and 
three children, - in the cities and industrial com- 
munities of the New England states, of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. In the 
cities the amount ought to be placed higher and 
in the smaller towns the estimate would naturally 
be lower, but on the whole the average seems a 
fair one. In the South about $300 a year would 
probably cover the cost of like necessaries. This 
estimate of $300 for a family of average size in 
the South, and of $460 for a family of average size 
in the industrial states of the North, would approach 
* See Appendix B. POVERTY 
53 
very nearly a fair standard for the poverty line; that 
is to say, if any working-class family should be 
unable to obtain this wage, they would in all likeli- 
hood be unable to obtain the necessaries for main- 
taining physical efficiency. 
Even if all were agreed upon these amounts, as 
fair estimates of necessary yearly wages in the 
North and South, there is still an obstacle in the 
way of measuring the extent of poverty by this 
method. This obstacle consists in the inadequacy of 
our wage statistics. It is hardly to be doubted that 
the mass of unskilled workers in the North receive 
less than $460 a year, or that the same class of 
laborers in the South receive less than $300.* But, 
unfortunately, that cannot be proved by any statistics 
obtainable. There are, however, some figures which 
show that a very large number of workmen are 
unable to obtain for themselves and families an 
average income equal to these standards. Testi- 
mony was given before the Industrial Commission 
showing that the 150,000 track hands, working on 
the railroads of the United States, received wages 
ranging from 47^ cents a day, in the South, to $1.25 
a day in the North.1 About half of these men are 
not employed in the winter, so that their yearly 
wages are further reduced by a period of idleness. 
But, leaving that out of account, the sum received 
* See Appendix C. 54 
POVERTY 
in the South would amount to less than $150 a 
year, and the yearly wage in the North would 
amount to less than $375. The same witness 
testified that these wages were also paid to the 
carmen and shopmen in the North and South. 
There were 200,000 men employed in these latter 
trades.1 Before the same Commission testimony 
was given concerning the wages of the street-car 
employees. For these workers the wages ranged 
from $320 a year to ^460.2 Mr. Elsas, of the Geor- 
gia cotton mills, confessed that the average wage 
paid his employees was $234 a year. Even men 
were given only from 75 to 90 cents a day for 
twelve hours' work.3 Dr. Peter Roberts says that 
the average yearly wage in the anthracite district 
is less than $500, and that about 60 per cent of 
the workers do not receive $450? According to the 
United States census for 1900, 11 per cent of the 
male workers over sixteen years of age, employed in 
the New England cotton mills, received a rate of pay 
amounting to less than $6 per week, or, in other 
words, about $300 a year.6 This is the most they 
could have earned if they had worked every day in 
the year, which of course they were not able to do.* 
In the Middle states nearly one-third of all the 
* Since the census was taken there have been two wage reduc- 
tions in the cotton mills, one of io per cent in 1903, and a later one 
of I2| per cent in 1904. POVERTY 
55 
workers are receiving a rate of wages less than $6 
per week, that is to say again, less than $300 a year; 
and in the Southern states 59 per cent are receiving 
less than this amount. This, it must be remembered, 
is what the census terms the rate of pay, and will 
only be received if employment is continuous through- 
out the year. An inquiry made in Massachusetts 
showed that the average number of months during 
which the cotton operatives in Fall River were 
employed was 9.38.1 If this proportion would apply 
to the above operatives, whose wages were investi- 
gated by the United States census, their wages 
would be reduced nearly one-fourth; in other words, 
their wages would fall to about $225 a year. 
In the shoe-making industry 51 per cent of the 
unskilled workers receive less than $300 a year. 
In the Central states 80.3 per cent, and in the 
Middle states 87 per cent of these workers receive 
less than $3OO.2 It is unfortunate that we are 
unable to determine the total number oi workmen 
in the country who do not receive the minimum 
wage of $460 in the North and $300 in the South, 
because in this way, if the standards were fair 
ones, we should be able to obtain a very accurate 
idea of the extent of poverty. 
While the above figures are altogether too inade- 
quate to permit us to base upon them any estimate 
as to the extent of poverty, it seems reasonable to 56 
POVERTY 
assume that the wages of the unskilled laborers in 
this country rarely rise above the poverty line. A 
certain percentage are doubtless able to maintain 
a state of physical efficiency while they have work, 
but when unemployment comes, and their wages 
cease, a great mass of the unskilled workers find 
themselves almost immediately in poverty, if not 
indeed in actual distress. 
It can be assumed, therefore, fairly, I think, that 
the problem of poverty in this country is in ordi- 
nary times confined to a certain percentage of the 
unskilled laborers who have employment, to most 
unskilled laborers without employment, and to many 
unemployed skilled workers. In addition to these 
workers in poverty, there are those who are weak, 
infirm, unfortunate, the widows, the families of the 
sick or the injured, and those who are too incompe- 
tent, drunken, or vicious, etc., to be reliable workmen. 
These are, in the main, the classes of persons in 
poverty in this country. 
It is safe to say that a large number of workers, 
the mass of unskilled and some skilled workmen 
with their families, fall beneath the poverty line at 
least three times during their lives, - during child- 
hood, in the prime of life, and at old age. Mr. 
Rountree, as a result of his inquiries in York, has 
made the following diagram which illustrates this 
fact:1 -• POVERTY 
57 
MARRIES 
CHILDREN BEGIN 
TO EARN 
CHILDREN MARRY 
* L£^V£_HOM£ 
LABOURER 
PAST WORK 
The ordinary increase of family numbers, and 
the increase or decrease in the family ot the ca- 
pacity for earning, forces the ordinary working- 
class family above and beneath this line at certain 
periods, despite their will. Some families may 
always remain beneath the line by reason of in- 
dividual or social causes. The curve may at any 
moment drop to the bottom by reason of unem- 
ployment, infirmity, sickness, exhaustion, or acci- 
dent. There are many observations of fundamental 
social importance that might be made upon the 
significance of this diagram. The things of real 
significance are, however, that the laborer in child- 
hood, when he most needs upbuilding, is in pov- 
erty ; the wife, when she is bearing children, - 
a time when she most needs good food and relief 
from want and worries, - is in poverty; the aged, 
when they should be in peace and comfort, are in 
poverty. The reason for this is that the wages 
of the ordinary unskilled workman are sufficient to 
support him and his wife, and perhaps one or two 
children. As more children arrive, the income 58 
POVERTY 
gradually becomes less and less adequate to meet 
their needs. The family drops below the poverty 
line. They are unable to get sufficient necessa- 
ries. They drop lower and lower as the children 
grow and larger supplies of food and clothing and 
more house-room are needed. Then as the chil- 
dren begin to earn, the family rises out of poverty 
again, but it remains above the poverty line only 
until the children leave home or marry, or for 
some other reason may not continue to aid in the 
support of the family. At about this time the 
father's earnings are likely to drop off through 
age or infirmity, and again the parents are in pov- 
erty. In this way laborers of the poorest class 
pass backward and forward over the poverty line. 
The coming of children, the leaving of children, 
the periods of employment and of unemployment, 
the days of health, the days of sickness, the com- 
ing of infirmity, the hour of death, - all of these 
things either force the workers of this class back- 
ward, or carry them forward over the poverty line. 
A large immigration, insanitary tenements, danger- 
ous trades, industrial changes, panics and bankrupt- 
cies- in a word, the slightest economic disturbance 
or rearrangement - may precipitate them into 
misery. The margin of life upon which many of 
them live is so narrow that they must toil every 
possible hour of working time, and the slightest POVERTY 
59 
economic change registers its effect upon this class 
of workers. 
Any one going carefully through the figures which 
have been given will agree that poverty is wide- 
spread in this country. While it is possible that 
New York State has more poverty than other states, 
it is doubtful if its poverty is much greater pro- 
portionately than that of most of the industrial 
states. Twelve years ago I made what was prac- 
tically a personal canvass of the poor in a small 
town of Indiana. There were no tenements, but 
the river banks were lined with small cabins and 
shanties, inhabited by the poorest and most miser- 
able people I have almost ever seen. About the 
mills and factories were other wretched little com- 
munities of working people. All together the dis- 
tress extended to but slightly less than 14 per cent 
of the population, and the poverty extended to not 
less than 20 per cent of the people. I cannot say 
how typical this town is of other Indiana towns, 
but I have always been under the impression that 
conditions were rather better there than in other 
towns of the same size. In Chicago the conditions 
of poverty are certainly worse, if anything, than in 
the smaller towns, and that is also true of the 
poverty of New York City. On the whole, it 
seems to me that the most conservative estimate 
that can fairly be made of the distress existing in 60 
POVERTY 
the industrial states is 14 per cent of the total 
population; while in all probability no less than 
20 per cent of the people in these states, in or- 
dinarily prosperous years, are in poverty. This 
brings us to the conclusion that one-fifth, or 
6,600,000 persons in the states of New York, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan are in 
poverty.1 Taking half of this percentage and apply- 
ing it to the other states, many of which have 
important industrial communities, as, for instance, 
Wisconsin, Colorado, California, Rhode Island, etc., 
the conclusion is that not less than 10,000,000 
persons in the United States are in poverty.* This 
includes, of course, the 4,000,000 persons who are 
estimated to be dependent upon some form of pub- 
lic relief. While the estimate is unquestionably a 
conservative one, it may be thought that, although 
the percentage, as applied to the industrial states, 
is fair, half of that percentage, as applied to the 
states largely agricultural, is too high. I think, 
however, that the figures concerning the number 
of farms rented and mortgaged would warrant the 
use of this percentage, if, indeed, there were not 
many other facts to warrant an assumption of 
that amount of poverty. Professor C. S. Walker 
said in 1897, in a discussion before the American 
* See Appendix D for other estimates. POVERTY 
61 
Economic Association, " By using all available sta- 
tistics, it becomes evident again and again that, 
deducting rent and interest, the American farmer 
receives less for his exertions than does the laborer 
in the factory or the hired man on his farm."1 
However, there can be no question but that the 
estimate is within the mark. The fact that over 
2,000,000 male wage earners in the United States 
were unemployed from four to six months during 
the year 1900 would alone warrant the estimate that 
10,000,000 persons are in poverty. 
The conclusion that about 10,000,000 persons in 
the United States are in poverty is, of course, largely 
based upon the figures of distress and of unem- 
ployment which have been given ; and it would be 
warranted, were there no other indications of wide- 
spread poverty. However, many indications lend 
themselves to the support of this conclusion. A very 
large proportion of the working classes are property- 
less; a very large mass of people, not only in our 
largest cities, but in all industrial communities as 
well, live in most insanitary conditions; there is a 
high death-rate from tuberculosis in most of our 
states; a large proportion of the unskilled workers 
receive, even when employed, wages insufficient to 
obtain the necessaries for maintaining physical effi- 
ciency; from all indications, the number injured and 
killed in dangerous trades is enormous; and, lastly, 62 
POVERTY 
there is uncertainty of employment for all classes of 
workers. About 30 per cent of the workers in the 
industrial states are employed only a part of each 
year, and, in consequence, suffer a serious decrease 
in their yearly wages, which, in the case of the 
unskilled, at least, means to suffer poverty. Never- 
theless, the estimate that somewhat over 10,000,000 
persons in this country are in poverty does not indi- 
cate that our poverty is as great proportionately as 
that of England. But it should be said that a careful 
examination would, in all probability, disclose a greater 
poverty than the estimate indicates. 
These figures of poverty have the weakness of all 
estimates. But even if it were possible to prove that 
the estimate herein given, of the extent of poverty, is 
in error, the fact for which I contend is not disproved. 
Poverty is already widespread in this new country, 
and knowing this to be true, it seems the height of 
folly that the nation should disregard so absolutely 
this enormous problem of misery that not even an 
inquiry is made as to its extent or as to the causes 
which add to its volume. Many people give as a 
reason for this apathy of the fortunate classes that 
poverty is irremedial. Did not the Lord say, 
" The poor always ye have with you " ? But those 
who say this fail to distinguish between the poor, 
who are poor because of their own folly and vice, 
and the poor who are poor as a result of social wrongs. POVERTY 
63 
The sins of men should bring their own punishment, 
and the poverty which punishes the vicious and the 
sinful is good and necessary. Social or industrial 
institutions that save men from the painful conse- 
quences of vice or folly are not productive of the 
greatest good. There is unquestionably a poverty 
which men deserve, and by such poverty men are 
perhaps taught needful lessons. It would be unwise 
to legislate out of existence, even were it possible to 
do so, that poverty which penalizes the voluntarily idle 
and vicious. In other words, there are individual 
causes of poverty which should be eradicated by the 
individual himself, with such help as his family, the 
teachers, and the preachers may give him. For him 
society may be able to do little or nothing. The 
poor which are always to be with us, are, it seems to 
me, in poverty of their own making. 
But as surely as this is true, there are also the poor 
which we must not have always with us. The poor 
of this latter class are, it seems to me, the mass of 
the poor; they are bred of miserable and unjust social 
conditions, which punish the good and the pure, the 
faithful and industrious, the slothful and vicious, all 
alike. We may not, by going into the homes of the 
poor, be able to determine which ones are in poverty 
because of individual causes, or which are in poverty 
because of social wrongs; but we can see, by looking 
about us, that men are brought into misery by the 64 
POVERTY 
action of social and economic forces. And the wrong- 
ful action of such social and economic forces is a pre- 
ventable thing. For instance, to mention but a few, 
the factories, the mines, the workshops, and the rail- 
roads must be forced to cease killing the father or 
the boy or the girl whose wages alone suffice to keep 
the family from poverty; or, if the workers must be 
injured and killed, then the family must at least be 
fairly compensated, in so far as that be possible. 
Tenements may be made sanitary by the action of 
the community, and thereby much of this breeding of 
wretched souls and ruined bodies stopped. A broader 
education may be provided for the masses, so that the 
street child may be saved from idleness, crime, and 
vagrancy, and the working child saved from ruinous 
labor. Immigration may be regulated constructively 
rather than negatively, if not, for a time, restricted 
to narrower limits. Employment may be made less 
irregular and fairer wages assured. These are, of 
course, but a few of the many things which can be 
done to make less unjust and miserable the conditions 
in which about 10,000,000 of our people live. 
Among the many inexplicable things in life there 
is probably nothing more out of reason than our dis- 
regard for preventive measures and our apparent 
willingness to provide almshouses, prisons, asylums, 
hospitals, homes, etc., for the victims of our neglect. 
Poverty is a culture bed for criminals, paupers, va- POVERTY 
65 
grants, and for such diseases as inebriety, insanity, 
and imbecility; and yet we endlessly go on in our 
unconcern, or in our blindness, heedless of its sources, 
believing all the time that we are merciful in admin- 
istering to its unfortunate results. Those in poverty 
are fighting a losing struggle, because of unneces- 
sary burdens which we might lift from their shoul- 
ders ; but not until they go to pieces and become 
drunken, vagrant, criminal, diseased, and suppliant, 
do we consider mercy necessary. But in that day 
reclamation is almost impossible, the degeneracy of 
the adults infects the children, and the foulest of our 
social miseries is thus perpetuated from generation 
to generation. From the millions struggling with 
poverty come the millions who have lost all self-re- 
spect and ambition, who hardly, if ever, work, who 
are aimless and drifting, who like drink, who have 
no thought for their children, and who live contentedly 
on rubbish and alms. But a short time before many 
of them were of that great, splendid mass of pro- 
ducers upon which the material welfare of the nation 
rests. They were in poverty, but they were self- 
respecting ; they were hard-pressed, but they were 
ambitious, determined, and hard-working. They 
were also underfed, underclothed, and miserably 
housed, - the fear and dread of want possessed 
them, they worked sore, but gained nothing, they 
were isolated, heart-worn, and weary. CHAPTER II 
THE PAUPER 
It is hardly too much to say, in view of the 
foregoing chapter, that certain influences in society 
cast each year a large number of people into the 
most distressing poverty; and then, by an injudicious 
system of relief, miscalled charity, the poor are 
pauperized. The very administrators of the ruin- 
ous relief then become alarmed at the abject de- 
pendence of the poor and their repeated demands 
for assistance, and, while not permitting them to 
starve, endeavor as far as possible to withdraw all 
relief in order to prevent pauperism. This seems 
at first glance an intemperate criticism of both 
society and philanthropy. It has been made, how- 
ever, after many years of work in this field of 
social effort and not without careful consideration. 
In the first place it is obvious to inquiring persons 
that society, as a result of its industries, its tene- 
ments, its policy of almost unrestricted immigra- 
tion and its system of education, ill-adapted in so 
many ways to the needs of the people, causes a 
large part of the poverty which exists amongst us. 
66 THE PAUPER 
67 
For instance, the aged, after years of honest and 
exacting toil, may find themselves at last thrown 
out of work, propertyless, and sometimes penniless. 
Dangerous trades cripple the bodies and under- 
mine the health of large numbers of workmen, and 
almost unrestricted immigration helps to increase 
an already too intense competition for wages in 
the underpaid, unskilled trades, with the result 
that the whole mass is more or less in poverty 
all of the time, and a certain percentage finds it 
necessary actually to apply periodically for charita- 
ble relief. The greed for profits on the part of 
owners of tenement-house property has so inter- 
fered with the enactment and enforcement of laws 
establishing certain minimum sanitary standards 
that a considerable number of working people 
have their labor power diminished or destroyed by 
tuberculosis and other diseases. It would be im- 
possible to question the responsibility of society 
for such common and widespread causes of pov- 
erty. After the economic independence of the 
family has been destroyed, so-called charity under- 
mines the character of the poor either by private 
alms or by public outdoor relief. Charity has 
meant to be kind; private charity in particular 
uses every effort to prevent pauperism, but in the 
great mass of cases where relief is given it results 
in the degradation of the family and in the loss 68 
POVERTY 
of self-respect. It is difficult to realize how much 
the loss of self-respect means. With it gone, there 
is little or no hope for the family to be anything 
but paupers for the rest of their days. Having 
come to this state, the pauper, if indeed he be 
not called undeserving, is given as little relief as 
possible, and the givers of relief endeavor to bring 
to bear upon him every agent of repression for 
the purpose of making pauperism intolerable to 
him.1 
It is the pauper and the making of the pauper 
which interest us in this chapter. The pauper 
must be clearly distinguished from the poor. He 
is destitute not only of the necessaries for main- 
taining physical efficiency, but also of the neces- 
saries for sustaining life, and must depend upon 
relief to supply them. There is no need now of 
speaking of professional paupers and vagrants who 
plead destitution for purposes of dishonest gain, and 
who constitute a special class in the great mass of 
paupers. In a legal sense a pauper is one who 
depends upon public charity for support, but pau- 
perism, in its accepted sense, is a far more wide- 
spread and subtle thing than that expressed by 
these words. Men or women, who have the ability 
to obtain for themselves the necessaries of life and 
yet who, from some social or other cause, cannot 
do so, are often enticed into pauperism by relief THE PAUPER 
69 
given them during a time of temporary need. In 
nearly all cases, he who continually asks aid be- 
comes a craven, abject creature with a lust for 
gratuitous maintenance. And he who becomes an 
habitual pauper undergoes a kind of degeneration. 
He loses his self-respect, the backbone of charac- 
ter; he develops a fawning and solicitous manner. 
In some cases he becomes almost incapable of self- 
support ; he loses all capacity for sustained effort. 
As Mr. R. L. Dugdale has said, " The ideal pauper 
is the idiotic adult unable to help himself, who 
may be justly called a living embodiment of death."1 
Avoiding any useful effort, he becomes skilled in 
those activities which enable him the more per- 
fectly to retain his state of dependence. 
Pauperism, as the word has come to be used in 
Sociology, is analogous to parasitism in biological 
science. It is a disease of character; but, never- 
theless, as is shown in " The Vagrant" on page 128 
and also in the studies of the Jukes and Ishmaels, 
it may even result in certain forms of physical 
degeneration.2 It is perhaps the most terrible out- 
come of poverty and its present treatment. 
While poverty unquestionably is the soil, as it 
were, in which pauperism may most readily grow, 
pauperism itself is not peculiar to the poor; it is 
also a disease of the rich. Mr. C. S. Loch, the 
ablest student of this subject in England, considers 70 
POVERTY 
that pauperism is a moral and not an economic 
question, and the first it unquestionably is. An 
important book written by two professors of the 
University of Brussels on " Parasitism, Organic and 
Social " gives instances of widespread pauperism 
or parasitism existing in all classes of society. The 
people of tropical countries have often been called 
the " Paupers of Nature " because life has been 
made easy for them, and means of livelihood have 
been supplied them at certain times and places 
without any effort on their part. The idle rich 
have also been called paupers. Professor Emile Van- 
dervelde has given the following examples of pro- 
prietary parasites, " From the moment when you 
become a proprietor of the land, of houses, or of 
the machinery of production, you may, as Henry 
George says, sit down and smoke your pipe, you 
may lie about like the lazzaroni of Naples or the 
lepers of Mexico, you may go up in a balloon or 
dig a hole in the ground, and all the time, with- 
out any act of yours, the rent of house and farm, 
and the interest on your other capital, will keep 
dropping steadily into your hands."1 There are, 
of course, many other forms of parasitism or pau- 
perism, if one may so call it, existing among the 
rich. 
Augustine Birrell says somewhere, " You may live 
like a gentleman for a twelvemonth on Hazlitt's THE PAUPER 
71 
ideas." I suppose that is a kind of intellectual 
pauperism. In the case of the rich, pauperism is 
at least a possible alternative. One may choose 
between a self-supporting existence and an idle life 
upon an unearned income; but for the great mass of 
the poor there is no alternative; they must at times 
become paupers in the legal sense at least. When 
eviction or hunger stares them in the face, they must 
seek aid. I have known men to weep like children 
when that hour came. After every other resource 
had been exhausted, after all the clothing that could 
be spared was sold, and at last the wedding-ring 
pawned, after friends and relatives and neighbors 
had lent all they were willing to lend, after food had 
been reduced to the minimum, leaving only tea and 
bread perhaps, the hour had come, and charity had to 
be applied for. It takes a long time to exhaust the 
reservoir of kindness and true charity which exists 
among the poor, for, as Maurice Hewlett says: - 
u Only the poor love the poor, 
And only they who have little to eat 
Give to them who have less." 
But it is exhausted in time. The decision to apply 
for public aid is perhaps the greatest crisis in the 
life of the poor. Hundreds and hundreds of men at 
such times leave their families and become vagrants. 
It is always the woman who comes to ask for aid. 72 
POVERTY 
Rarely can the man be induced to do it. The fact 
that the givers of relief are likely to favor the de- 
serted woman is perhaps the most important reason 
why so many men at such times desert their families. 
But this is not the whole reason. I have known 
many men to whom the ignominy and disgrace of 
receiving public charity were worse than death. 
When this crisis comes, the workless wage-earner " 
may choose one of two ways to avoid starvation: he 
may become a pauper or a criminal. Mr. R. L. 
Dugdale, the most careful and thorough student of 
pauperism, and, perhaps, of crime, that we have had 
in this country, shows, in his study of the Jukes, that 
the more vigorous men and women become criminals, 
while the weaker ones become paupers. He clearly 
demonstrates that the pauper is of a less aggressive 
temperament than the criminal.1 It is a common 
observation that during an industrial crisis, when 
great masses of men are unemployed, the number 
of crimes increases greatly in all large centres of 
population. 
The study of the criminal, however, is somewhat 
afield. The thing which interests us here is the 
number of persons who must, at such times, become 
paupers. It was estimated in the previous chapter 
that not less than four million persons in the United 
States are dependent upon state or city relief funds 
for sustenance. This estimate does not include THE PAUPER 
73 
many thousands who are relieved by private charity 
only. In the cities pauperism is very much greater 
than in the rural sections of the country. To convey 
some idea of this city pauperism it is perhaps unnec- 
essary to say anything more than what Mr. Riis has 
said in " How the Other Half Lives." It is almost 
impossible to believe the figures of distress which he 
places before you. "The reader who has followed 
with me the fate of the Other Half thus far, may not 
experience much of a shock at being told that in 
eight years 135,595 families in New York were 
registered as asking or receiving charity. Per- 
haps, however, the intelligence will rouse him that 
for five years past one person in every ten who died 
in this city was buried in the Potter's Field. These 
facts tell a terrible story. The first means that in a 
population of a million and a half, very nearly if not 
quite half a million persons were driven, or chose, to 
beg for food, or to accept it in charity at some period 
of the eight years, if not during the whole of it." 
The charitable societies " estimate upon the basis of 
their everyday experience that, allowing for those who 
have died, moved away, or become for the time being 
at least self-supporting, eighty-five per cent of the 
registry are still within, or lingering upon, the borders 
of dependence." This is worse than the " submerged 
tenth " of London; it is even worse than the statis- 
tics of Poverty prepared by Booth and Rountree for POVERTY 
74 
England. Nothing is more astonishing than the num- 
ber of pauper burials; for, as Mr. Riis says, " the 
Potter's Field stands ever for utter, hopeless surren- 
der. The last the poor will let go, however miserable 
their lot in life, is the hope of a decent burial."1 
A few years after this was written the dependents 
became even more numerous and the conditions in 
New York grew even worse. During the depres- 
sion of 1893, besides the chronic cases of want and 
begging considered above, there was an increasing 
number of families, before that year independent of 
charity, who had reached the end of their resources; 
all their small savings had gone ; there was nothing 
more to pawn, and the suffering of wife and children 
compelled the disclosure of need. These are almost 
the words of the report of the Charity Organization 
Society for 1894.2 The United Hebrew Charities, in 
its report for 1901, declared that from 75,000 to 
100,000 members of the New York Jewish com- 
munity were unable to supply themselves with the 
immediate necessaries of life, and for this reason 
were dependent in some way upon the public purse.8 
The amount of pauperism in certain parts of the 
city is graphically shown by the Poverty Map pre- 
pared by Mr. Lawrence Veiller for the Tenement 
House Commission of 1900.4 
Each dot represents five families who have applied 
for charity in five years either to the Charity Organi' THE PAUPER 
75 
zation Society or to the United Hebrew Charities. 
Mr. Veiller says, " It seems beyond belief, yet it is 
a fact, that there was hardly one tenement-house in 
the entire city that did not contain a number of 
these dots, and many contained as many as fifteen 
of them." 
Now let us see what this pauperism means. A 
great number of reports have been made by various 
societies showing the kind of disposition which should 
be made of these cases of suffering. The United 
Hebrew Charities say that the poverty among their 
people is due largely to the inability to find oppor- 
tunities to become self-supporting.1 The Charity 
Organization Society shows that from 43 to 52 per 
cent of all applicants need work rather than relief. 
Nor is this peculiar to New York.2 It applies equally 
well to Chicago and to some other cities. The thing 
most evident in these facts is that poverty, due to 
industrial derangement, is not a problem which 
charitable organizations are fitted to solve. They 
can, of course, relieve the distress which results from 
inability to find work, but the relief is almost sure to 
result in injury to the applicants. If half of the per- 
sons applying for aid need work rather than relief, 
then society must itself provide a solution of the 
problem. It is absurd for charitable societies even 
to accept such a burden, not because of inadequate 
funds for the purpose, but because support in idle- 76 
POVERTY 
ness and dependence does an additional injury to a 
class already unfairly treated by society. The ques- 
tion of unemployment should be met by the state 
frankly and fairly. 
For the purpose of determining how far charitable 
agencies are fitted to deal with dependents, the fol- 
lowing table is introduced. It is not an exhaustive 
classification, but it is an attempt to show briefly the 
classes of persons appealing for aid and how the 
relief of each class must vary. It is, of course, need- 
less to say that the classification is not a rigid one. 
Some of the insane can be cured, and in many cases 
crippled men and children may be made partially, if 
not entirely, self-supporting. The deaf, dumb, and 
blind can be made productive by proper education. 
The table is introduced merely to show that there are 
various kinds of treatment which must be applied to 
the different classes of dependents both by society 
and by philanthropy if any real progress is to be 
made in the treatment of pauperism. 
DEPENDENTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
I. ABSOLUTE DEPENDENTS 
The Aged. 
The Children. 
The Crippled (incapable of work). 
The Incurable. 
The Blind. 
The Deaf and Dumb. 
The Insane. 
The Epileptic. 
The Imbecile, Idiot, Feeble-minded. 
TREATMENT 
Proper care continued 
as long as may be neces- 
sary in institutions oi 
elsewhere. THE PAUPER 
77 
II. DEPENDENTS CAPABLE OF SELF- 
SUPPORT 
The Professional Vagrant. 
The Professional Beggar. 
The Morally Insane. 
TREATMENT 
Industrial education, 
repression, confinement 
for protection of society. 
III. TEMPORARY DEPENDENTS LIKELY 
TO BECOME CHRONIC 
The Convalescent. 
The Consumptive. 
The Inebriate. 
Those addicted to drugs, etc. 
Complete cure in proper 
institutions to prevent in- 
firmity of a permanent 
character. 
The Sick; 
especially 
IV. TEMPORARY DEPENDENTS 
The Unemployed. 
Widows with children. 
To supply an economic 
existence free from any 
taint of pauperism. 
For the sake of obtaining a clearer idea of what is 
now done for the various classes of dependents, we 
must trace hastily the history of the Poor Law sys- 
tem. It is part of our political inheritance from 
England. Dating back to the time of Elizabeth, it 
has remained unaltered in principle during every 
subsequent change of industrial or social life.1 It 
began at the end of the feudal system, and it survived 
the industrial revolution in which steam, electricity, 
and the large factory displaced the hand-tool and the 
domestic workshop. It clings persistently even to 
the present day. In its method of relieving it has 
varied but little, although the weight of responsibility 
for poverty has been shifted very largely from the 
individual to society. In the early days of this coun- 78 
POVERTY 
try, when the pauper was himself largely responsible 
for his own misery or degradation, because then, if 
ever, equal opportunities existed for all men, the same 
system prevailed which exists to-day, when but few 
men can be held entirely responsible for their own 
misery. This inherited system of poor relief con- 
sists of two institutions : the almshouse or Indoor 
Relief, and the relief of the poor in their homes, the 
latter called Outdoor Relief. 
This bipartite system exists almost everywhere in 
America. In early days all the classes of dependents 
introduced in the foregoing table were cared for in- 
discriminately in almshouses, or, if it was necessary 
or cheaper, by doles to the poor in their homes. It 
has only been in recent years that the poor have 
been classified in any way. In 1868, the poor- 
houses of New York State did not in every instance 
separate the sexes in their sleeping apartments. 
The aged, the children, the sick, the insane, the 
epileptic, the idiotic, the blind, the able-bodied 
vagrant, and the debased " mingled freely with each 
other." A state report, speaking of this indiscrimi- 
nate herding, says, "This, it hardly need be stated, 
served to sink the depraved still lower, and tended 
also to break down self-respect in the better class, 
who, from sickness or other misfortunes, were com- 
pelled to seek public aid." 1 New York has made 
great progress in its treatment of the poor since that THE PAUPER 
79 
day, but in various other parts of the country con- 
ditions are much the same as they were here forty 
years ago. Generally, however, there are now, in 
the most advanced states, separate institutions for 
the children, the deaf, dumb, and blind, the insane, 
the feeble-minded, and the sick, and, of course, the 
sexes are separated. The condition of the Ulster 
County poorhouse of New York, recently under in- 
vestigation, shows, however, that careful supervision 
is still needed in order to prevent most outrageous 
treatment of helpless dependents.1 There are now 
colonies in several states for the proper treatment of 
epilepsy, and Massachusetts has a state hospital for 
the treatment of inebriety. These various specialized 
institutions have only gradually been established as 
some grave necessity or abuse has manifested itself. 
There is now everywhere a strong tendency to give 
special treatment to those classes of paupers who 
injure others, as well as to those classes who are 
themselves injured by indiscriminate herding in 
almshouses. The physical necessities of the depend- 
ents have perhaps been more generously dealt with 
in the development of specialized care than the moral 
necessities. Boston has, however, a special alms- 
house for the aged in which the self-respecting poor 
are properly cared for. 
The indoor treatment of the poor is a much less 
difficult matter than the treatment of the poor in 80 
POVERTY 
their homes. Outdoor relief is the only public 
provision made for the various classes of poor 
who may not best be cared for in institutions. In 
most states it means a weekly sum or a dole of 
supplies given to some poor family by a township 
or county official. This part of the system of poor 
relief has itself come into such ill repute during 
recent years that, with the exception of some effort 
in Massachusetts, comparatively little has been done 
to improve it. Great efforts have been made to 
abolish it.1 There is no question but that the gravest 
abuses have resulted from this method of relieving 
the poor. The Jukes and Ishmaels, two large fami- 
lies of paupers, were brought to their depraved con- 
dition largely by this system of public relief. It is 
estimated that the Jukes cost the state of New York 
not less than $1,225,000. This family numbered 
several hundred degenerates, most of whom were 
cared for, more or less, all of the time, by public 
funds. The tribe of Ishmael, an Indiana product, 
numbered over five thousand individuals, all of whom, 
like the Jukes, were paupers, criminals, drunkards, or 
prostitutes.2 Mr. F. C. Montague has spoken of out- 
door relief in the following words, " A legislation, 
inspired by just and humane feelings, yet more harm- 
ful than many of the worst enactments of selfish 
power; a legislation which aimed at assuaging mis- 
ery, yet chiefly served to make it more inveterate, THE PAUPER 
81 
hereditary, hopeless; a legislation which, in many 
instances, proved almost ruinous to the employer, 
whilst it everywhere depressed the wages of the 
workmen ; a legislation which turned the peasant, for 
whose good it was designed, into a wretched depend* 
ent, too often into a lawless ruffian; a legislation 
directed to save the weak from overwhelming temp- 
tation, which filled the country with paupers and 
prostitutes."1 It seems rather strong language, per- 
haps too strong, to use against the system, but there 
are times when it seems warranted by American as 
well as by English experience. 
A few years ago, on one of the coldest morn- 
ings of winter, I saw a long line of shivering, 
half-clothed, hungry-looking men and women stand- 
ing in front of the Cook County Outdoor Relief 
Department. They had come with bags and 
baskets to receive the doles of supplies. They 
were the public paupers gathered from the most 
wretched homes and districts of Chicago. Some 
were shamefaced, silent, and cowed; some were 
swearing, scolding, and quarrelsome; others were 
fearful, anxious, and hesitating; and some few gave 
evidence of decency, still holding fast to their self- 
respect. It was almost like a chain-gang marching 
under public gaze. Whatever there was of igno- 
miny fell upon these unfortunates whose only crime 
was poverty. It is needless to point out the degrad 82 
POVERTY 
ing, the levelling influence which this gathering to- 
gether of the miserable exercises upon the more 
sensitive and respectable of the poor. It is this 
public system of indiscriminate doles which, nearly 
every one is agreed, had better be abolished. It is 
the only public relief given to the poor who must 
be cared for in their homes. It is a common, 
wholesale, degrading treatment of the poor which 
ends by destroying their self-respect and in many 
cases condemns forever the unfortunate applicants 
to a position of disrepute in the community. This 
is not true charity: it is brutality. 
In this system of public relief, consisting on the 
one side of institutional care, and on the other of 
outdoor relief, there is too little variation in the 
treatment of the poor either on lines of character 
or on the lines classified heretofore. In conse- 
quence, a private system of charity has grown up 
in the last fifty or sixty years which has endeavored 
to lay down new principles of treatment. Whatever 
reforms have been made in the treatment of the poor 
result mainly from this voluntary movement; and yet, 
after all, the United States, as a whole, has by no 
means reached a high standard in the treatment 
of the first class of paupers, and, with the excep- 
tion of the persons who are sick with acute ill- 
nesses, it has failed utterly to care for the other 
classes adequately. Those of the first group are THE PAUPER 
83 
obviously dependent. Almost every one in this 
class must be cared for either by relatives, by pri- 
vate charity, or by some form of public relief. 
Although a distinctly charitable problem, the re- 
ports of both public and private charities in all 
cities yearly appeal for larger funds and endow- 
ments to care for the needy of this class. This is 
true even of the East. The West and South are 
cruelly backward in the elemental humanity of 
providing fully for this class of unfortunates. 
Having taken this brief survey of the history 
and workings of the Poor Law, let us now examine 
in detail the care of the dependents classified on 
pages 76-77. In almost every city the blind must 
be permitted to beg because there is no adequate 
public provision made for them. The incurable 
and crippled, wretched in their helplessness, are 
numerous in all large communities. In many places 
the epileptic and the feeble-minded are still left to 
the care of friends and relatives, however poor 
they may be. The aged poor, the most numerous 
of all, are insufficiently cared for in all cities - 
Boston possibly excepted. 
" Scrubs " and " harpies " are the bitter names 
applied to the aged women who frequent the poor- 
est furnished rooms of certain low sections of New 
York. For this class, the only provision made by 
the state is the almshouse. In this institution the 84 
POVERTY 
worthy, temperate, and respectable poor may be 
compelled to associate intimately with the feeble- 
minded, the drunken, the fallen women, the 
consumptive, and the imbecile. A man entirely 
responsible for his own ills, after a vicious life, 
depraved in character and diseased in body, may 
be the associate, the room-mate even, of a man 
who has led an upright, honorable life of cease- 
less industry, but who is compelled nevertheless in 
old age to accept public relief. As a consequence, 
it is to the credit of the aged poor that they would 
often rather die of starvation than go to the poor- 
house. I have known old people to live almost 
wholly on tea and bread, to be half clothed and 
in poor, wretched rooms, and yet I dared not men- 
tion to them the poorhouse. I have known them 
to be slowly but surely starving, but if they were 
to be relieved it was only by means of some pri- 
vate pension, which can usually be obtained only 
with great difficulty. For this wholly dependent 
class, which we should most love to care for, the 
class of poor which should preeminently appeal to 
us, there is in many places inadequate provision. 
It is interesting, even at the risk of diversion, to 
contrast with our common neglect the apparent 
stoicism with which certain savage tribes treat their 
aged, and the noble way in which the aged accept 
their fate. A well-informed writer gives the follow THE PAUPER 
85 
ing account: " When a ' savage ' feels that he is a 
burden to his tribe; when every morning his share 
of food is taken from the mouths of the children - 
and the little ones are not so stoical as their fathers : 
they cry when they are hungry; when every day he 
has to be carried across the stony beach or the virgin 
forest on the shoulders of younger people ... he 
begins to repeat what the old Russian peasants say 
until nowaday: . . . 'I live other people's life: it 
is time to retire! ' And he retires. . . . The old 
man asks himself to die; he himself insists upon this 
last duty towards the community, and obtains the 
consent of the tribe; he digs out his grave; he in- 
vites his kinsfolk to the last parting meal. His 
father has done so, it is now his turn; and he parts 
with his kinsfolk with marks of affection."1 It is a 
noble way for the aged to face death; a burden to 
the tribe, they die for the benefit of all, pretty much 
as the older bees leave their hive for the benefit of 
the younger. It is a necessity in these savage tribes 
where food is scant and want constantly pressing. 
But it is not necessary for a rich and civilized people 
to leave their helpless ones to die from lack of care. 
At this moment in America, thousands of the aged - 
and not only the aged, but the crippled, the incurable, 
and the consumptive as well - are beggars on the 
streets, half-starving, half-clothed, in utter misery. 
There is no need of their suffering through neglect; 86 
POVERTY 
we can easily afford to care generously and tenderly 
for the helpless and the destitute. They need not 
die for the benefit of the tribe or of the community; 
no other members of the community need suffer in 
order that kindly and adequate provision may be 
made for this class; no one would have to economize. 
The price of a few luxuries would cover the expense 
of all these dependents, wholly unable to care for 
themselves, and yet all about us is the suffering, the 
misery, the degradation of these pathetically depend- 
ent individuals. Some people find it difficult to 
understand how the savage tribes can leave their 
aged behind to die of starvation, but the " savage," 
it is said, is utterly unable to understand the cruelty 
of those " civilized " persons who live in luxury while 
neighbors and fellow-citizens die in want. " Consider 
whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury would be 
desired by any of us if we saw clearly at our sides 
the suffering which accompanies it in the world. . . . 
Luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the igno- 
rant; the crudest man living could not sit at his 
feast unless he sat blindfold."1 This is what John 
Ruskin once said. 
Generally speaking, the aged poor beg more rarely 
than other dependents. Of the first class, the blind, 
or those who suffer from some other infirmity, are 
most commonly found begging. The crippled are 
incorrigible beggars. Every one has seen hundreds THE PAUPER 
87 
of them crawling about the streets, or sitting on the 
cold pavements, on winter nights, with outstretched, 
appealing hands. I shall not soon forget one wretched 
little lad, whose legs had both been cut off by a 
railway train, sitting with his body in a pool of ice- 
water, forming from the slush of melting snow. He 
was begging from the working people as they came 
out of one of the cheaper theatres. He is a sample 
of many who endeavor to make more pitiable their 
condition in order to make more emphatic their plea 
to the givers of alms. The working people always 
give generously to such pitiable cases, but for those 
who have been trained in the modern ideas of relief- 
giving, there is consolation to their conscience, when 
withholding alms, in the belief that, for the sake of 
some vice, the beggar prefers to seek alms rather 
than to be properly cared for in some public insti- 
tution. It is true that many of the crippled adult 
beggars seek alms solely that they may gratify their 
vices. A few years ago, at two o'clock in the morn- 
ing I stopped in at one of the lowest dives, in one of 
the lowest districts, of Chicago. It was a " barrel 
house," corresponding to the stale-beer dives of New 
York. It was notorious as the resort of crippled 
beggars. The place was pandemonium with drunken 
men, all crippled in some way; bandaged, maimed, 
diseased, they were prostrate on the floor, lying 
across tables, asleep in chairs, standing at the bar, 88 
POVERTY 
yelling and howling. I have never seen a more fiend- 
ish sight. But what is the cripple to do ? What 
can he hope to be ? He is maimed for life. The 
only alternative to a life of begging and vagrancy 
which is offered him is an almshouse, the most 
dreary, terrible place for a sane man that one can 
imagine. I know nothing more depressing than a 
crowded mass of idle men, of almost every national- 
ity, black and white, helpless through disease or vice, 
or suffering from some injury or infirmity. Because 
a man has lost his legs or his arms, the prospect for 
him of an entire life in such surroundings is no more 
tolerable than it would be to any of us. 
This entire class of dependents must be cared for 
in some way. The responsibility cannot be escaped. 
In fact, in almost every state of the Union there is 
neglect to the degree of actual cruelty. I should 
think we could hardly, with easy conscience, be liberal 
in state grants or private gifts for benevolent pur- 
poses, such as libraries or even the higher schools of 
learning, until we had done our duty to the aged 
parents of our people, to the weak and to the helpless 
ones of our household. 
Class two is so fully treated in the third chapter 
that nothing further need be said here. Those of 
the third class are mostly capable of being made 
valuable members of the community. I think it will 
be generally agreed that in the treatment of the con- THE PAUPER 
89 
valescent out of hospital care, the consumptive, and 
the inebriate, there is little else now done by the state 
than to confirm them in pauperism. A prominent 
physician of New York told me the other day, what I 
have observed scores of times both in New York and 
Chicago, that the hospitals are so crowded that there 
is always the tendency to turn patients out before 
they are cured, and that permanent injury doubtless 
results, in many cases, from exposure and lack of 
care in the convalescent period. So far as I know, 
the same is true of every city in the country. This is 
a most serious defect in benevolent provision, accom- 
panied by painful consequences to the poor who are 
underfed, underclothed, and forced by necessity to 
work as soon as possible. It means in many cases 
that they are never entirely cured and remain weak 
all their lives. 
The same inadequate care is at present about all 
that is supplied the consumptive. There are several 
sanatoria supported by private funds, and Massachu- 
setts has an excellent state hospital; but there is at 
present far too little provision. It is now generally 
recognized that our failure to care properly for the 
consumptive is the cause of thousands of needless 
deaths and a great proportion of poverty. The vic- 
tim of this curable disease is only beginning to be 
considered by philanthropy.1 It is a disease of the 
masses, and is usually closely related to poverty; it 90 
POVERTY 
is infectious. In certain blocks and houses in the 
poorer quarters it is epidemic. It is a long, lingering 
illness which fast exhausts the resources of a wage- 
earning family, and, when the bread-winner is the 
sufferer, it almost invariably results in poverty for 
the family. For the individual family to bear the 
responsibility and cost of a disease which is distinctly 
social, and for which the family may in no wise be 
responsible, is the very height of social injustice. 
As a matter of fact, the resources of few working- 
class families are adequate to meet the heavy burden 
laid upon them by this illness. Instead of the state 
bearing itself, or compelling the industries to bear, 
the cost of this tremendous burden of the working 
class and endeavoring to save the lives of the work- 
ingmen for further productive uses and their families 
from pauperism, it supplies merely a place in which 
they may die, and cares for their families in such 
a way as to confirm them in pauperism. The worst 
of it, perhaps, is the decimation and degradation of 
families which, under fair conditions, might have 
become of precious value to the community. Any 
state will, in the end, suffer which overlooks the 
necessity of stamping out as soon as possible an 
infectious disease which afflicts such large masses 
of people. 
In this same class of dependents, most of whom 
might be saved from pauperism by proper treatment, THE PAUPER 
91 
are the alcoholics or inebriates. The treatment of 
inebriety is a charitable problem rather than a crimi- 
nal one. It is a disease which, in advanced stages, 
is very similar to insanity. While drunkenness is 
seldom treated as a crime, most drunkards are 
arrested sooner or later for disturbing the peace or 
for disorderly conduct. They are then punished by 
imprisonment. There are instances in almost every 
state of men and women who have been arrested and 
committed to various penal institutions, from a hun- 
dred to two hundred times. Alcoholics, in the most 
pronounced state, are thus periodically incarcerated 
and put to hard labor, and meanwhile, through 
neglect of proper treatment, their disease is becoming 
increasingly difficult of cure, and perhaps other even 
worse diseases are developing unobserved and un- 
heeded. The jails to which inebriates are committed 
are not in the least fitted to give the medical or diet- 
ary treatment necessary for cure or even for improve- 
ment, nor do they pretend to do so. The inebriate, 
at the end of his period of imprisonment, comes out 
with an uncontrollable appetite for drink which he 
satisfies as soon as possible. This treatment of the 
inebriate, as a criminal instead of as a sick person, is 
bringing ruin to the homes of thousands and thou- 
sands of families. The root of pauperism in these 
families is the alcoholic. So long as the state fails 
to use its power in curing him and its resources in 92 
POVERTY 
providing hospitals for his care, just so long will the 
private charities be powerless to save the family from 
degradation. The mind of the inebriate may be 
slowly degenerating, and his industrial usefulness 
fast disappearing, as a result of the disease. The 
woman may be bringing children into the world who 
will be debilitated, alcoholic, idiots, and imbeciles, as 
a result of their heritage.1 Despite this making of 
paupers, there is at present little effort being made 
anywhere to obtain on a sufficient scale the proper 
medical treatment of inebriety. It is said by an 
expert in this matter, that "the patient must be 
placed in an insane asylum, or better, in a hospital 
for inebriates, where total abstinence can be enforced. 
Patients with delirium tremens especially need the 
most careful hospital treatment. The principal direc- 
tions are conservation of strength and cerebral quiet, 
strong unirritating diet, and mild laxatives, etc. 
Such in general is considered to be the best medical 
treatment."2 While special provision is frequently 
made in public hospitals for treatment of the acute 
phases of alcoholism, the state of Massachusetts is, I 
believe, alone in maintaining a public hospital exclu- 
sively for the treatment of this disease. 
Drunkenness and sickness, according to studies 
which the Charity Organization Societies have 
made of the causes of pauperism, are responsible 
for the distress of from 35 to 50 per cent of all THE PAUPER 
93 
the applicants for charity.1 Both of these causes 
are in a great measure preventable and curable. 
In no other field of social effort is there promise 
of more satisfactory results than in the prevention 
and cure of inebriety and of such diseases as 
tuberculosis. 
There are no more important problems than those 
presented by (Class IV) the unemployed and 
widows with children - two groups of the poor for 
which there is, at present, in the main no other 
provision than doles, public or private. It reflects 
very grievously upon the justice of our social system 
that so many men, willing to work, should be un- 
able to find work to do. The history of the world 
has perhaps never shown more abject victims of 
chance than the modern propertyless workmen. 
A man possessing his own tools or land may always 
employ himself, and, although it may at times be 
necessary for him to sell his products for a very 
low price, he need not, except in extraordinary 
times, become dependent upon others for relief. 
The tools of the modern workman are the machine; 
both it and the land are owned by others. He can- 
not work on the land or at the machine except by 
permission of another. If the owner does not find 
it profitable to employ him, the workman must re- 
main idle. At certain seasons of the year this 
idleness is compulsory to workmen by the tens of 94 
POVERTY 
thousands, and at times of business depression by 
the hundreds of thousands. Without savings 
adequate to supply his needs, and with his income 
wholly dependent upon an intermittent demand 
for his labor, circumstances are apt to arise sooner 
or later that will force him either to commit crime 
against property or to depend upon public relief 
for sustenance. If the state of dependence con- 
tinues long, habitual pauperism or vagrancy is 
quite likely to result. In other words, these out- 
casts from industry have before them the choice of 
three evils, - starvation, crime, or relief by charity. 
Some persons will doubtless maintain that the 
workers have the choice of saving enough to pre- 
vent themselves and families from depending upon 
charity. This, however, is by no means true. 
There is a large class of workmen who must spend 
every penny they earn if they are to have the 
necessaries of life. This is particularly true of un- 
skilled workmen, who, I do not doubt, rarely average 
in wages more than $460 a year, and there are 
official studies to show that wages fall, for this 
class of workmen, even to $300 a year. But even 
supposing that a workman, with a family of 
ordinary size, received regularly $600 a year, - 
even then he could hardly be expected to plan 
deliberately, in spite of the rightful demands of his 
children for education and other advantages, as we THE PAUPER 
95 
call them, to save enough to protect his family in 
case he is killed by an accident, acquires an incur- 
able disease, or is thrown for a long period out of em- 
ployment. We may grant that a man should save 
for the period of old age, - most men do provide 
for it in some way, - but in the main they cannot 
provide for calamities of a sudden or unexpected 
nature such as the above. That is impossible on 
the wages which unskilled workmen at present 
receive. In regard to widows with children, it is 
now generally agreed, by all charity organizationists, 
that a pension should be provided for those who 
are unable to support themselves until the children 
have reached the age when they may properly be 
employed. The funds at the disposal of private 
charities, however, are so inadequate that it is 
usually quite impossible for them to carry this 
principle into effect. For those who are unem- 
ployed and in distress, some honest and useful 
work must be provided if justice is to be done. 
For them to depend upon charity is degrad- 
ing and pauperizing, but, as work cannot be ob- 
tained by charitable societies for more than very 
few of this class of workmen, and then, often, only 
by pull and special favor and sometimes at the 
expense of a better laborer who might have secured 
the work unaided, there is no possibility under pres- 
ent conditions of being just to the unemployed 96 
POVERTY 
workers. There is no possibility because the prob- 
lem of the unemployed is at present left to the 
charitable societies to solve, and they are wholly 
unable to cope with conditions of distress reaching 
such immense proportions at certain seasons. 
A brief summary of the treatment of the various 
classes of poor will show how inadequate the chari- 
table provision is. The dependents of the first class 
have not as yet, by any means, been properly cared 
for, although it includes only the helplessly dependent, 
the aged, the children, the incurable, the crippled, 
incapable of work, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the 
insane, the epileptic, the imbecile, the idiot, and the 
feeble-minded. The treatment of the second class - 
the professional beggars, vagrants, and morally insane 
- is perhaps rather a police question than a chari- 
table one. As yet it has been given only local atten- 
tion of an intermittent and spasmodic character. 
Such repressive efforts as have been used in dealing 
with vagrants have doubtless in no wise diminished 
their number. They have simply been driven from 
place to place. The third class - the convalescent, 
the consumptive, and the inebriate, etc. - are given 
very little, if any, consideration in certain portions of 
the country. For the inebriate and the consumptive 
as paupers very large sums of money are at present 
spent from public funds, but, with two or three excep- 
tions, not for the purpose of curing their disease, and THE PAUPER 
97 
unfortunately with the result of rendering chronic and 
incurable a condition which might have been only a 
temporary disability. The fourth class, including the 
unemployed, widows with children, and others in tem- 
porary need, reach enormous proportions at certain 
seasons and especially in years of depression. As 
in the previous class, everything here depends upon 
treatment. This class, in particular, suffer poverty 
as a result of misfortune. Relief given them as 
paupers may do them infinite injury. They have, 
on the whole, the qualities of good manhood and 
womanhood. In the treatment of this class there is 
need of a social rather than a charitable policy. 
They are most unnatural paupers. Justice will not 
be done until the state supplies them an economic 
existence during the period when they are now 
necessarily dependent upon charity, and as soon 
as possible reestablishes them in normal social re- 
lations. These, then, are some of the distressing 
social diseases and baffling problems which the chari- 
table agencies, with their feeble powers, are called 
upon to face. 
It seems an almost hopeless outlook; and it would 
be if there were not means at hand to meet some of 
these stern facts, other than those offered by the 
ordinary charitable activities. In the first place, 
there are many social reform measures which promise 
far-reaching results. The problem may be stated as 98 
POVERTY 
follows: If it be essential to the progress of society 
that these paupers be made, that every year great 
numbers of men be crippled, others afflicted with con- 
sumption, and so on - if this be inevitable, if every 
year so many poor must result from the present com- 
petitive strife, then the problem of the poor becomes 
merely a question of caring for the unfortunates in 
the most humane way possible; then it is merely a 
question of giving as generously as one can to private 
charities and of helping to develop public charities to 
relieve certain forms of distress. But it is not essen- 
tial to society that paupers be made, nor is the only 
obligation one of caring for the injured as best one 
may. The poverty of to-day is in great measure 
unnecessary. It is due, in no small degree, to certain 
social evils which must be remedied and certain social 
wrongs which must be put right. The necessity of 
going back of the pauper and of attacking the causes 
which create him was once made unmistakably clear 
to me. 
Several years ago I was living in a district of work- 
ing people, numbering many thousand, employed in 
one of the largest industries of the country. They 
were all poor, all on the verge of suffering all of the 
time. The employer, one of the rich men of the 
country, was profusely generous in his gifts to charity. 
Those who knew him personally said that no one was 
more kindly or more humane than he. To the poor, THE PAUPER 
99 
known to him, he sent regular and generous gifts. 
When he died, there were columns of the papers 
devoted to his public philanthropies. To me the man 
was never a philanthropist. I knew him as an em- 
ployer of men. Hundreds of his work people came 
to me for aid because their wages were insufficient to 
support them. I knew girls whose health had been 
broken down for life in the insanitary workrooms of 
his factory. Bread-winners of large families had 
acquired incurable rheumatism and consumption in 
the needlessly bad conditions in which they worked. 
In a way, this man personifies modern society. For 
society is inhumane, careless and thoughtless of the 
conditions which bring ruin into the homes of hun- 
dreds of thousands of people; heedless amid pro- 
tests, apparently blind even to the existence of the 
destructive causes. But when ruin comes and the 
families become suppliant and ask for mercy and 
charity, relief is often given with generous hand. 
The hopeful thing in present-day charitable work 
is the effort being made to attack the causes and to 
stop the carnage. The Charity Organization Society 
of New York has within the last few years carried 
through an important reform in the treatment of the 
housing problem, and more recently it has undertaken 
an effective crusade for the prevention of tuber- 
culosis. The Child Labor Committees in various 
states are endeavoring to prevent those injuries to 100 
POVERTY 
childhood which result from premature work. It will 
not be long until there are other movements along 
purely reform lines to do away with still other social 
causes of poverty. Shorter hours and higher wages, 
steadier employment, improved sanitary conditions in 
workshops, and protection in dangerous trades are 
reforms which, in time, will materially decrease the 
amount of pauperism. It will doubtless be some 
time before it is possible to obtain for all workmen 
wages high enough to enable them to bear out of 
their own resources the cost of the suffering which 
results to them in modern industry. Professor Ed- 
ward D. Jones says, the necessity for higher wages 
" is based upon the observation that, in the purchase 
and sale of labor upon the market, all the necessary 
and legitimate costs of producing labor are not pro- 
vided for in the wages received. Such transactions 
are not complete economically, and do not meet the 
claims of social justice. Fair wages must include 
more than enough to support the laborer while work- 
ing, and must cover compensation for seasons of idle- 
ness due to sickness, old age, youth, lack of work, or 
other causes beyond the control of the laborer. Skill 
must be so paid for as to cover the expense of educa- 
tion and the risk of failure. The wages of those who 
work should include enough to support that propor- 
tion of every normal society of human beings which 
cannot or ought not to be earning wages. When one THE PAUPER 
101 
pays for a vase he pays not merely for the one given 
him, but for a part of those which have been ruined 
in the making or broken in handling. So the cost of 
labor should include the expense of those who die in 
youth or who, in age, live to be a charge upon others. 
As the vase in fashion must pay for a part of a super- 
seded stock, so wages must take account of super- 
seded skill. If these elements in the social cost of 
labor are not provided for directly by wage payments, 
they must be surreptitiously added as public or private 
charity. If withheld entirely, the deterioration of 
the society concerned is certain."1 
Perhaps the most important step in the direction 
of supplying some compensation to cover seasons of 
idleness, due to sickness, old age, lack of work, or 
other causes beyond the control of the workman, 
has been taken in the development of the Insurance 
Systems of European countries.2 The German 
system of compulsory insurance is perhaps the most 
interesting and the most far-reaching in its results. 
In the United States the individual workman, how- 
ever blameless, must bear so far as possible the 
entire responsibility for whatever misfortune may 
befall him. If he is unable to bear it, he is classed 
as a pauper and becomes a public burden. 
It is hardly humane, to say the least, for us to 
call a man a pauper who has grown old and vener- 
able by a life of vigorous, honest toil. It is brutal POVERTY 
102 
to call that man a pauper who has lost his labor 
power, in the form of limbs or eyes or health, while 
producing wealth for the world, and who must of 
necessity, after sustaining the loss, ask relief and 
respite until death. He has been exhausted in the 
service, and to call him a pauper is similar to calling 
a veteran a deserter when the latter has no more 
strength to march on; to call the unemployed, will- 
ing to work, actually seeking work and unable to 
find it, paupers is quite as unjust as; to call widows 
with many children by the same term. The reason 
for our doing it to-day is not because we actually 
believe these men and women to be paupers or that 
we believe we are treating them justly when we offer 
them the choice between starvation and public pau- 
perism. It is, I firmly believe, because we have never 
clearly established in our minds when the responsibil- 
ity for poverty should rest upon the individual and 
when upon society. There is a variety of opinions, 
but no students of poverty have yet definitely shown 
exactly what persons are responsible for their own 
misery and what class or classes are in no wise 
responsible for theirs. In the German system of 
insurance there is an effort made to find out who is 
responsible for the poverty and to demand from him 
compensation for the injured. It is, of course, impos- 
sible to fix the responsibility for each case of poverty, 
but it is possible to fix the responsibility for poverty THE PAUPER 
103 
resulting from certain causes. Germany, as a result 
of statistics gathered in consequence of its system of 
insurance for old age, sickness, infirmity, and accident, 
has fixed upon society, and not upon the individual, 
the responsibility for a great mass of its poverty. 
It has been shown, for instance, that 80 per cent of 
all accidents in industry are due to the " professional 
risks " of industry itself, and that consequently, 
by this system of insurance, the industries of Ger- 
many and not the workmen must bear the cost of 
these accidents.1 It is, of course, impossible to 
prevent all accidents, and in Germany the workman 
must still, when necessary, sacrifice his body; but he 
or his family need not, as a result, become paupers. 
In addition to this fixing of responsibility in the 
case of accidents, the state has discovered that it is 
cheaper to save life than it is to lose it; or, in other 
words, it is more economical to preserve the pro- 
ductive forces wherever possible than it is to lose 
them. It is cheaper promptly and thoroughly to 
cure diseases which, if uncared for, may become a 
permanent infirmity to the workmen. It has dis- 
covered how really economical preventive measures 
are. A most significant thing in the system is the 
large sum spent each year in curing the consump- 
tive, in building baths and model tenements, and in 
developing more sanitary conditions in homes and 
factories. Several millions of marks have been 104 
POVERTY 
spent for the establishment of sanatoria for consump- 
tives. Fifty-two million marks have been spent in 
improving and building new tenements. Thirty-six 
million marks have been spent for hospitals, conva- 
lescent homes, etc.1 In addition to all these preven- 
tive measures, there has been a national museum 
established containing the various dangerous ma- 
chines and showing appliances which will protect 
the workmen from injury. Scientists and investi- 
gators are now employed by the National Govern- 
ment to make mechanical inventions and to determine 
sanitary measures for the purpose of saving the lives 
of workmen in industry. The insurance already 
provides for the sick, the aged, the infirm, and those 
suffering injuries from accidents, and the plan will 
doubtless soon be extended to cover widows and 
orphans. The German Reichstag has even recently 
recommended the formation of a special commission 
to perfect some plan for the solution of the problem 
of the unemployed.2 The crowning success effected 
by the insurance scheme has been to afford to work- 
men an economic existence when poverty has resulted 
from purely social causes. In consequence, it has 
relieved charity of a heavy burden and saved the 
self-respect of the workmen.3 The whole system is 
administered by employers and workmen organized 
in groups. 
This system of insurance is a palliative for much THE PAUPER 
105 
of the most distressing misery resulting from this 
social problem. It encourages thrift, it involves 
no revolution in society nor in industry, and yet 
it is a beginning in justice. It does away, in part 
at least, with the abominable system and hypocrisy 
of making paupers on the one hand and of giving 
for their relief on the other. It relieves the chari- 
ties of an unmanageable mass of distress which, 
in spite of their efforts, however generous, sincere, 
and kind, cannot be prevented from degenerating 
into pauperism. The retainment to this day for 
all classes of poor of a seventeenth-century system 
of relief, which degrades all alike without discrimi- 
nation, is manifestly unjust. Its existence blinds 
us to the need of a broad and just social policy. 
It would be the height of folly to suppose that all 
poverty can be prevented by a social policy how- 
ever wise, for no collective action can, or should, 
save men from the consequences of individual immor- 
ality ; but that poverty which is clearly due to social 
injustice, and not to the individual shortcomings of 
the miserable, can be in great measure prevented. I 
am not so pessimistic in regard to the moral state of 
our nation as to believe we shall much longer make the 
wage-earner bear upon his own shoulders the heaviest 
costs of progress and, in the painful struggle, become 
uncomplainingly the despised vagrant, pauper, prosti- 
tute, or criminal. CHAPTER HI 
THE VAGRANT 
The vagrant is the modern nomad, drifting about, 
without aim or ambition. He emigrates to the coun- 
try on the coming of spring. He returns, with the 
coming of winter, to the large centres of population 
and takes up a shifting residence in the various 
lodging-houses. In all cities there are special dis- 
tricts in which most of the nomadic vagrants as well 
as the habitual "town bums " are to be found. They 
usually furnish a considerable element to the flotsam 
and jetsam which constitute a large portion of the 
population in the districts of vice. New York has, 
among other such districts, the Tenderloin and the 
Bowery. Chicago has South Clark Street, Dearborn 
Street, and West Madison; Philadelphia, St. Louis, 
San Francisco, Denver, have similar districts, and 
so have all European cities. It is also significant 
that many cities, if not all, have districts of vice 
distinguished from each other on monetary lines; 
there is vice for the well-to-do, and there is vice for 
the poor. In the well-to-do districts are to be found 
hotels for transients, gamblers, perverts, and the 
106 THE VAGRANT 
107 
sporty elements, and in the poorer districts lodging- 
houses for the vagrant population. In these districts 
the honest wayfarer seeking work, the clerk trying to 
live cheaply, and the young man from the country 
seeking employment in the city, become vicious and 
vagrant. Vices are added to their poverty. 
Such districts have so large a population in certain 
cities, and wield so powerful a political influence, that 
the public officials have openly said at times that the 
vices of these districts could not be controlled. The 
mayor of one of the largest cities in this country 
said a few years ago that special privileges must be 
granted the people of these districts; they should 
not be governed by the more moral sections of the 
community; they should govern themselves in their 
own way. He was bold to say what other officials 
have, with rare exceptions, practised in their lax en- 
forcement of the law. The mayor who made this 
declaration knows much more intimately than most 
people the grave and baffling problems presented by 
the slums. 
The average American knows little of either the 
virtues or vices of any class in the community out- 
side of his own clique of friends and associates. The 
well-to-do American may receive rents from those 
who might be called the entrepreneurs of the dis- 
trict ; he may occasionally plan a " slumming tour," 
but it is very likely he will return to his clique with 108 
POVERTY 
ideas even more erroneous, if possible, than before. 
Perhaps the most egregious error is the belief, which 
exists in the minds of many, that the slum popula- 
tion and the working people are the same. It is true, 
unfortunately, in many of the large cities that a cer- 
tain number of the more poorly paid working people, 
especially the ignorant and poverty-stricken immi- 
grant, is obliged to occupy tenements and dwellings 
inhabited at the same time by the vicious classes. 
But the working people living in the slums, in most 
cities, are comparatively few in number, and it is 
rarely true that their association with the distinctly 
slum population is more intimate than is absolutely 
necessary. While the adults may become tainted and 
their children contaminated by the vicious neighbor- 
hood, the real denizens of the slums can hardly be 
classed as workers in any sense. Both the immi- 
grant and the large class of floating laborers - the 
accidental vagrants - must be kept distinct from the 
vicious classes which constitute the life of the slums.* 
If one were to classify the population of the slums 
as broadly as possible, there would be the two groups, 
- single men and single women. There is no family 
life in the slums except that of the immigrant, and 
* I try to use the word " slum " only in the sense of a vicious dis- 
trict. It has always seemed to me a great injustice to use it when 
referring to working-class districts or to poverty-stricken districts free 
relatively from vice. THE VAGRANT 
109 
he is there by necessity, not by choice. Except 
those of the immigrant, the children are in most 
cases illegitimate. Men and women are there who 
have shirked, by means of divorce or even more 
commonly by desertion, all family responsibility. 
They are now, to all appearances, single men and 
single women. The men crowd the saloons and 
lodging-houses; the women crowd the dance halls 
and brothels. 
The vagrant is only one element in the population 
of the district. Every type of the needy individual, 
from the professional vagrant up to the wayfarer 
honestly seeking employment, can be found in the 
lodging-houses. Here is the debauched son of a 
good family (as he never fails to state), whose thin 
white hands and frayed coat of superior cloth reen- 
force his story. The cigarette, morphine, and opium 
fiends are here. The dipsomaniac shares at night 
the floor of the "barrel-house" with the working- 
man, who, by chance, is overcome with liquor; here 
are also the hobo, the dull-witted, the negro, and 
the petty sneak thief. The slender, youthful, well- 
dressed lover, whose sweetheart is supporting him 
by the wages of sin, waits about the poolrooms. 
The morally insane are here. Thousands are here 
who fail utterly in conceiving a single thought which 
is not vile, or an image which is not unspeakable. 
The man of every crime is here. The man of every 110 
POVERTY 
vice is here also. The free lover, devoid of any 
philosophy on the subject, finds ample scope for his 
practice within the laws of the state. The bigamist 
and even polygamist tell stories to show how easily 
the marriage laws are evaded. In this social abyss, 
which exists in New York, Boston, Chicago, San 
Francisco, Denver, and other large cities, lives a 
great mass of single men and a great mass of women 
who avoid every social responsibility and yield them- 
selves to every animal passion. 
The food, the drink, the amusements, the inter- 
ests, the flagrant vices, are unmistakable signs 
which indicate the characteristics of the popula- 
tion. In Chicago the district consists mainly of 
lodging-houses and brothels. Cheap restaurants, 
street stands with hot lunches, " barrel-houses " 
with free whiskey, saloons with free hot lunches, 
make up a large part of the business activity of the 
district. Five and ten cent museums with highly 
colored pictures, of an immoral sort, or illustrative 
of some horrible monstrosity, seem necessary to 
arouse the intelligence and interest of the jaded, 
callous, and deadened denizens and visitors of the 
district. Opium dens or hop-joints are hidden away 
behind Chinese laundries or in dark and appar- 
ently empty basement rooms under the pavements. 
Billiard rooms, run in connection with saloons, are 
extensively patronized. Shooting galleries are, for THE VAGRANT 
111 
some reason, always a successful part of the busi- 
ness of the district. The books and papers sold 
reflect the mind of the community. They consist 
almost entirely of blood-and-thunder stories of rob- 
bers, detectives, wars, pirates, and the outlaws of 
the West. Sprinkled in with these stories of daring 
are novels of a most degrading and immoral kind. 
The latter, and the lewd pictures, which are sold in 
packages and exhibited on the walls of saloons and 
bawdry houses, minister to the vicious tastes of the 
neighborhood. 
One should not neglect to mention a class of 
people, living in the district and supported by 
serving the men and women, who are either "run- 
ning " the dives, or who otherwise participate in the 
showy life of "the Levee," - negro errand boys, 
children selling gum and cosmetics, young fellows 
selling jewelry or millinery and ready-made garments 
to the women, messenger boys running to and from 
the brothels, the " Hot Wiener " man who begins 
peddling at eleven or twelve o'clock at night and 
continues on until morning. Most pathetic of 
all are the laundresses and scrub women of the dis- 
trict. Their work is hard and disagreeable; they are 
the servants of a class to which they are morally 
superior. They live in a community where their 
morality is abnormal and not respected. They bring 
up their children with their own beliefs, to see them 112 
POVERTY 
at last resign themselves to the popular vices of the 
society about them. No less to be deplored is the 
life of the newly arrived immigrant. He moves 
into a street adjoining "the Levee" and rents rooms 
as soon as they are abandoned by the denizens. 
Rents are cheapest there. He shares the same 
house with immoral women who corrupt his chil- 
dren. He crowds his rooms to their utmost ca- 
pacity ; he is content with a basement room where 
the sun never enters; he is happy for rooms in a 
rear tenement. Nothing is too bad. 
No description of the district would be complete 
without some mention of the politicians. To begin 
with, they have important property interests. They 
rent to the Chinese the house which he uses as an 
opium den ; they own the finest houses of vice in 
the district; their saloons are loafing places for the 
boys. Competing saloon keepers are not foes, they 
are warm personal friends; even those who are not 
in politics themselves receive protection from the 
politicians. They are often given city jobs which 
involve no work, but which yield good salaries. In 
these districts the politician is king. Not only is a 
policeman not permitted to stop law-breaking when 
he sees it, he is even supposed not to see it. In 
certain cities he does not dare to enter places which 
exist in violation of the law. He would lose his job 
instantly if he were to do a policeman's duty - THE VAGRANT 
113 
without having definite orders from his superior. 
In a few cities the head of the police dares exercise 
but little more authority than the patrolman. He 
receives his orders from the Boss, and it is not with- 
out proof that the mayor receives orders also from 
the same source. The title "The Boss" is less 
ornamental than many others; but the Boss is 
the most powerful person in the municipal life of 
America. 
The saloon-keeping politician is a feudal lord 
among his " boys." Among the " Franchise grab- 
bers" he does a turn as Robin Hood, but in his 
district he is lord and master of his thousands. 
The habitual vagrants are an important part of his 
constituents. They eat at his bar and drink as his 
guests ; they have a " corpse reviver " or an " eye- 
opener" every morning, - a "schooner" of beer or 
a glass of whiskey. What they beg, steal, or earn 
they spend with him. They vote as he says. In 
return he cares for them. If they are arrested on 
a petty charge, he has the court dismiss the case. 
If the charge is too serious, he arranges to have 
them sent to a jail instead of a penitentiary. In 
certain cities, when he chooses to do so, he has 
the mayor issue a pardon. He sends the sick to 
hospitals, obtains jobs, gets railroad passes; in short, 
in so far as he can, he does everything his drunken, 
diseased constituents ask. In return he asks but one 114 
POVERTY 
thing - power to do more for them; power which 
they alone can give. 
It is in these slum districts that many of the 
vagrant unemployed find lodging. Wayfarers seek- 
ing work, many of whom have temporarily left wives 
and children, doubtless have as little as possible to do 
with the vicious element which constitutes the life of 
these sections of our cities, but they cannot fail to 
come in frequent contact with it. However much 
the more self-respecting classes of unemployed keep 
themselves for a time from sharing in the vice, they 
are, nevertheless, contaminated by its sensualism 
and debauch. There are few lonely, disheartened 
seekers of work who altogether withstand the tempta- 
tions of good-fellowship, the attractions of drink and 
vice, which dominate the life of a community in which 
no one seems to work and every one lives for pleasure. 
The lodging-houses of the largest cities are nu- 
merous and most varied in their sanitary condition. 
There are small hotels here and there which accom- 
modate, on the whole, decently, men and women, 
many of whom have regular work. There are the 
meeting rooms of the Salvation Army and the Vol- 
unteers of America, where men are sometimes per- 
mitted to sleep on chairs and on the floors. These 
religious organizations have also regular lodging- 
houses, where hundreds of men are fed and sheltered. 
There are the lodging-houses conducted for special THE VAGRANT 
115 
religious, dietetic, or sanitary reasons. There are the 
police stations in some cities gathering in swarms of 
the most wretched and destitute vagrants, and saloons, 
such as " Hinkey Dink's," " Bath-house John's," and 
" Fink's," the gravitating centres of Chicago's home- 
less army. There are lodging-houses for women and 
assignation houses for unmarried couples. In addi- 
tion to the large and extensive lodging-houses "down- 
town," where hundreds, and in some cities thousands, 
congregate, there is a vast number of smaller tran- 
sient homes in various parts of the city, as well as of 
"furnished rooms" in tenement houses, which accom- 
modate a nightly gathering of transients and boarders, 
in this manner often endangering domestic privacy 
and decency. 
The larger houses, often, as in Chicago, with a 
thousand lodgers nightly, have an extensive range 
in the matter of cleanliness, decency, and comfort. 
Some of the better ones, which charge 25, 35, and 
50 cents a night, usually accommodate, with fair 
comfort, a class of clerks and other workmen who 
get a reduced rate as continuous lodgers. The Mills 
Hotels of New York City are of this kind. In the 
ordinary lodging-houses of the better class there is 
a separate apartment for each person, and often a 
separate locker for valuables. There is a common 
lavatory on each floor. The air is generally good 
and the conditions sanitary. 116 
POVERTY 
The next lower grades are the 15 and 20 cent 
houses, followed close by even cheaper grades. 
Each floor, in these lodging-houses, consists of several 
rooms, which are little more than small boxes made 
by partitions. Lines are hung across the rooms to 
support the clothes of the lodgers. Across the top 
are wire screens to prevent a pillaging neighbor from 
" lifting " a suit of clothes in the night. On each 
floor there is usually a lavatory. The ventilation is 
nearly always bad, although it is, of course, much 
worse in the poorer grades of houses. The worst 
aspect of these places, however, is in the general 
lounging room. On almost any night one may find 
in the large houses of this class, one or two hundred 
men, sitting about the room in groups, talking, smok- 
ing, spitting tobacco juice, playing cards, etc. 
In the better class of lodging-houses the men show 
by their appearance that they are capable of doing 
hard work. They are mainly wayfarers who are 
seeking employment during the day. They are, in 
many instances, taking their first step toward 
vagrancy. Whether the men are employed or un- 
employed, the lodging-house life is bad, devoid as 
it must be of the wholesome restraints of the home. 
I think it was Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell who spoke, 
a few years ago, of the evils inherent alike in the 
lodging-houses and in the uptown clubs, - both en- 
couraging the vices of an irresponsible and unnatural THE VAGRANT 
117 
single life. The same criticism has often been made 
of the Rowton houses of London. These "models" 
have been called the " Houses of the Gray Lives." I 
was told recently, by one who knows, that about the 
lowest type of man in New York is the well-dressed, 
unambitious habitu^ of the Mills Hotels, whose aims 
in life are satisfied by 50 cents a day. 
These, however, are the better lodging-houses. 
The one adjoining may be lower in tone and in price. 
There is the same room crowded with men, some 
joking and laughing, others swearing, some telling 
vile stories, others nodding in drunken heaviness. 
The men here are not only not employed, they are 
mostly habitual idlers, and they show evident signs of 
degeneration. Some are old, with faces showing the 
ravage of dissipated lives; others are broken-down 
laborers, who refuse to stay in the almshouses 
because of habits of drink and vice too pleasant to 
give up. The whole aspect is worse than that of the 
former lodging-house. There one saw the beginning 
in the irresponsible life of single men; here one sees 
the evil effect of a life divorced from every restraint. 
There is a class of lodgers even below this, - the 
vagrants sleeping on the floors of police stations or 
in and about saloons and " flop-houses." These con- 
ditions are rarely permitted now in the larger Eastern 
cities. I shall never forget a " flop-house " which I 
inspected a few years ago in Chicago, and in which 118 
POVERTY 
I witnessed the most despicable animalism I have 
ever seen. It was a large, four-story building, for- 
merly used as a warehouse. The sign over the door 
read "Lodgings, io, 15, & 20 cents," but I found on 
entering that the prices were 2, 3, and 5 cents. 
On the first floor there were certainly a hundred 
men sleeping on the floor itself, without mattresses 
or bedclothes. They had taken off their shoes and 
rolled them in their coats to make a bundle which 
they then used for a pillow. They were sleeping on 
newspapers which they had spread on the floor, and 
were without any covering whatever. There was a 
stove in the middle of the room blazing away, send- 
ing out a sickening heat, hardly sufficient, however, 
to keep warm the men sleeping in the corners of 
the room. The price of these "beds" was 3 cents. 
Just before the stairway was a small lad huddled on a 
box, doubtless for the purpose of keeping free from 
the vermin which infested the floor. The second and 
third floors were partitioned off into small rooms not 
more than half as large as a stateroom on a small 
lake steamer. The beds were covered with rags 
and dirty, ill-smelling quilts. Beds 5 cents. On the 
fourth floor, having to economize floor space, broad 
shelves, fifteen feet wide, had been built from each 
wall. There were two shelves on each side, one 
above the other, running out almost to the middle of 
the room, with an aisle crossing from end to end of THE VAGRANT 
119 
the room. There were certainly not less than two 
hundred men sleeping as close as possible to each 
other on these shelves and on the floor. The shelves 
had been introduced merely for the sake of adding, as 
it were, to the floor space, and the men slept on the 
bare boards without covering. Beds 2 cents. 
The air throughout the entire lodging-house was 
indescribably bad, but in this last room it was foul 
and suffocating. I made a thorough search for a 
place to sleep, but, not being successful in finding an 
unoccupied spot, I decided not to remain for the 
night. The air made me faint and weak, and I hardly 
had strength to pick my way out of the room. As I 
passed a large stove, red with heat, the thought of 
fire struck me. What a trampling to death of some 
for the safety of others would inevitably result! 
Only men who had made themselves drunk, by stale 
beer and by the poisoned stuff sold for whiskey in 
these districts, could have found it possible to sleep 
in such a pest-house. The animalism and despicable 
foulness and filth made one almost despair of man- 
kind. It is impossible to describe adequately the 
depths to which this submerged class descend. This 
lodging-house was not the only one that presented 
the problem of vagrancy and of unemployment; there 
were a hundred others filled with men ; the police 
stations were full of men; the prisons full of men ; 
the poorhouses overcrowded with men; the poor 120 
POVERTY 
authorities rushed with applicants; the private 
charities caring for thousands. More men than the 
inhabitants of a large city, workless, vagrant, mendi- 
cant, drifting about from place to place, drunken, 
petty criminals, and beggars! These men could be 
of great value to the world as producers, as employed 
workmen. But as it is, not one of them gives form 
to a single piece of raw material. They eat, sleep, 
drink their idle lives into oblivion. It would be 
impossible to make any one, who has not seen with 
their own eyes these conditions, realize the utter 
waste of life, as I realized it, when I closed the door 
of this lodging-house and stepped into the cold, fresh 
air of that winter's night. 
It is a prevalent impression that vagrants are 
usually criminal. Of the class just described that 
is not true. In fact, there are very few criminals of 
a really predatory type in the poorest lodging-houses. 
Of course, every one steals when he has a good 
chance, but the habitud organizes no plans or 
schemes to accomplish theft. These vagrants are 
now and then petty thieves and hold-up men, of an 
occasional sort, but there is rarely a burglar or 
skilled thief among them. A frequenter of the 
lowest lodging-houses may occasionally, when desper- 
ate, take a gun and hold up some one; but it is not 
in him to plan or outline a successful burglary, a 
daring theft, or an unusual bit of pocket picking. THE VAGRANT 
121 
One must be a person of considerable capacity to 
be a successful rogue, and no one expects to find in 
the lowest lodging-houses of America men who are 
in condition to make a success of anything. Occa- 
sionally one finds in these great hotels men who 
have had capacity of a high sort. I remember a man 
who had occupied the first position with a large and 
first-class publishing house. The books of some of 
the best American writers received his approval 
before they were published. To-day he is a pitiable 
wreck. Except for common laborers and a few 
skilled mechanics, one seldom finds in lodging-houses 
of this class men who could now be relied upon for 
much of anything. They are cowards; they steal 
because opportunities for stealing something without 
being caught are plentiful. They have no originality 
and no capacity. They have vices, and live to satisfy 
them. They steal each other's clothes; they rob a 
guttered drunkard. They would rob their bene- 
factor; they would steal a newsboy's earnings or rob 
a chewing-gum girl of her returns as readily and 
greedily as they would sip stale beer from the keg. 
They are wrecks, they are cranks, they are loafers, 
they are drunkards, but they are seldom, if ever, 
criminals that any one need fear. 
Nor can it be said that all vagrants are absolutely 
unemployed. Those who obtain their information 
concerning vagrants from Puck or Judge are likely 122 
POVERTY 
to believe that they never, under any consideration, 
work. A vagrant once exclaimed to a friend of 
mine: "Work? Work? I have no time to work. 
I've got to hustle around in order to get enough to 
eat." This is the typical vagrant, as we think of 
him. But despite our jokes, the tramp has a large 
number of petty occupations - so many, in fact, that 
one cannot begin to enumerate them. These em- 
ployments have, as a usual thing, one characteristic - 
they do not compel early rising and one can "knock 
off " work at pleasure. An important field of casual 
employment is the doing of odd jobs about private 
houses, cheap hotels, and restaurants. The putting 
in of coal, the cleaning of steps, the washing of 
dishes, the peeling of potatoes, the raking of grass, 
the cleaning off of snow, etc., are a few of the 
various odd jobs which a tramp relies on in an hour 
of dire need. 
A large number of business firms who sell novel- 
ties of all sorts employ a semi-vagrant element living 
in the lodging-houses to sell wares on commission. 
There are probably thousands of acknowledged 
vagrants who are employed in this fashion as 
"fakirs" or pedlers. The "Mush Fakir," one of 
this class, is in many ways the most interesting 
of all vagrants. He relies upon a ready wit for his 
success. A tramp friend of mine once said of the 
Mush Fakir: "He is like Autolycus in 'A Winter's THE VAGRANT 
123 
Tale' - his 'revenue is the silly cheat.' He is 
eminently 'a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles,' as 
Shakespeare says." If opportunity offers, he may 
steal something; if you are sympathetic, he will 
permit you, after he has told a pathetic story, to 
give him money. If you are poor and need many 
things, he will sell you something absolutely worth- 
less and take your pennies ; perhaps you may buy a 
combination of muriatic acid, white crocus and chalk 
to clean silver, and after he has gone you remember 
that you haven't any silver. The "Mush Fakir" is 
by nature a psychologist of no mean order. He 
doesn't much care what he sells, provided only that 
it brings a good price and has no value. He can sell 
to a woman, who never makes calls, a package of 
calling cards. He will fascinate a poor washer- 
woman into the disastrous purchase of an easel, 
although she may have no use whatever for it and 
may never have possessed a picture. 
One can hardly explain such transactions, yet they 
frequently occur. Whether or not it is the desire 
on the part of poor people to treat kindly a gentle- 
man who has troubled to talk so long and so inter- 
estingly, it is difficult to say. One rather thinks it 
may be the overwhelming desire which all people 
have to possess a luxury or two, something which is 
above the dead, dull level of things. For a poor 
person to wish for something which doesn't go into 124 
POVERTY 
a hungry stomach, or which is not " kicked out on 
the children's feet," or which is not given to the land- 
lord, is a worthy ambition. The poor are saved 
much unhappiness by not having time to look about 
the shops or to read bargain advertisements. But 
the "Mush Fakir" brings the shop to the home, and 
the poor housewife has a sorry time in resisting her 
temptations. Mostly she does not succeed, and 
fancy driven, she purchases whatever useless thing 
he chooses to have her buy. 
There are still other employments which occasion- 
ally engage the vagrant. Even confirmed mendicants 
have been known to work as common laborers, and 
some work in the skilled trades. But it is spasmodic 
with them. The very considerable class of acci- 
dental vagrants work whenever possible, but they 
are not, as a rule, included in any of the descriptions 
of the vagrant which have preceded. They would be 
classed better under the head of Unemployed, as it 
is force of circumstances alone which prevents them 
from rising above this occasional vagrancy. The 
true vagrant, on the contrary, is compelled at times, 
by force of circumstances, to rise into the class of 
casual laborers. 
It must be said, however, that when vagrants work 
they are as parasitic as when they beg. It is even 
probable that they do more harm to society as casual 
laborers than as beggars. They are satisfied with THE VAGRANT 
125 
very little, and they are, as a rule, well able to supply 
their needs and gratify their vices upon the alms 
which people give them. As drones and idlers they 
are an injurious class in society, who do more harm 
negatively than positively ; but as casual laborers their 
injury is positive, and more or less serious according 
as work is plentiful or scarce and their numbers great 
or small. During an industrial panic, when laborers 
are plentiful and work places few, the fact that 
several thousand vagrants will accept work for a 
period of a few days is a serious detriment to bona 
fide laborers with families. At all times their influ- 
ence is felt, however imperceptibly, upon wages. 
Even in good times employers, who find it advan- 
tageous to have a short working season, take advan- 
tage of the over supply of laborers and reduce the 
season to the shortest possible working space and 
lengthen the hours as much as human endurance 
will permit. Mr. R. M. Easley of the National Civic 
Federation was once told by a superintendent, "It is 
true, the way we have to rush things now makes it 
necessary for us to get in a batch of men, work them 
out, and then get a fresh batch." The habits of the 
vagrant are often suited to the requirements of these 
employers. The tramp wants a short period of em- 
ployment, and finds it therefore easy to supplement, 
and in part displace, the laboring men in those trades 
which are subject to seasons of great and small activity 126 
POVERTY 
Vagrants injure the bona fide workmen in at least 
two other ways. I saw two vagrants, not long since, 
who gave me an account of how they worked in 
a gang which went about the country for the pur- 
pose of breaking strikes. They said proudly that 
they were "professional strike breakers." A crimi- 
nal, lately out of a Colorado prison, convicted of an 
unspeakable crime, told me the other day that he 
and " two hobos " had made " good money " by 
"scabbing" in several recent strikes. It may sur- 
prise most people to learn that vagrants were en- 
listed as members of the Coal and Iron Police during 
the recent strike in Pennsylvania. Men were actu- 
ally taken from the Bowery lodging-houses and sent 
to the anthracite mines for the purpose of policing 
those properties. It is largely due to this vagrant 
element that there is so much destruction of prop- 
erty and loss of life in some of the most prolonged 
and bitterly fought battles between employer and 
employee. Both the scabbing and the violence do 
serious injury to the genuine workmen. These are 
also examples of the curious and interesting fact 
that vagrants often do more harm to society by their 
employment than by their vagrancy. 
There is a class of vagrants who never work. It 
is with them a matter of principle. They take 
vagrancy seriously; it is a profession, having its 
own peculiar code of ethics, and work is not men- THE VAGRANT 
127 
tioned in any of its sections. This vagrant has as 
much ability as the " Mush Fakir," but he has no 
inclination to peddle and no commercial ambitions. 
He is often interesting. He may know Shake- 
speare by heart; he may be a good companion ; 
he may delight us with delicious wit; he may be 
gentlemanly and clever, but he is a parasite, and 
for this kind of an idler there are few apologists. 
He may have a fondness for the country and speak 
of the smell of the earth in springtime and the 
odor of new-mown hay. He may say, as one said 
to me once : " There is no time like the spring. 
Ugh! I hate cities, honest I do, and like to feel 
the road under my feet and hear the brook bab- 
bling along at my side. I like the noonday of 
summer and the long, restful sleep at a river's edge 
under the shadow of a tree." He is the most 
interesting of his kind, valiant and sturdy as he is ; 
but we have no respect for him, and look upon 
him as we look upon the idle rich. He takes to 
himself always; he gives nothing. To have a 
good stomach is not a sufficient equipment for 
manhood. 
Habitual vagrants, to which those who work even 
occasionally are often exceptions, show a variety of 
traits which result from their peculiar life. What 
productive and creative work has done for man it 
would be difficult to say, but what the lack of work 128 
POVERTY 
does for a man is a thing every one may observe. 
E. Ray Lancaster, writing on "Degeneration," says, 
" Any set of conditions occurring to an animal 
which renders his food and safety very easily ob- 
tained, seems to lead, as a rule, to degeneration."1 
Certain physical signs of degeneration strike one, 
as one sees even casually, as I have, night after 
night in the Chicago Municipal Lodging House, 
several hundred vagrants taking spray baths. They 
are pot-bellied and pigeon-breasted; they have asym- 
metrical shoulders, often curvature of the spine, 
flabby muscles, and a generally poor muscular devel- 
opment ; their legs are thin with blue veins, their 
finger nails are long, soft, and dirty, and their hands 
long and sweaty; their hair is often deficient. One 
can readily see the meaning of these physical char- 
acteristics. They are the result of lack of work and 
of purpose. They are the effects of sensualism and 
debauch. The tramp, instead of developing him- 
self by struggle to overcome the obstacles of pov- 
erty, has evaded responsibilities and duties, and has 
travelled the line of the least resistance. Whatever 
he may have been at first, he is now one who dis- 
likes regular work; he is physically incapable of 
sustained effort; he has a misdirected and almost 
childlike love of petty adventure; he possesses no 
energy; his will is gone. His physique would be 
proof enough of these mental deficiencies if there THE VAGRANT 
129 
were no other means of recognizing them. Per- 
haps the most fundamental of the morbid mental 
states common to vagrants is the absence of inhibi- 
tory power. It is sometimes tragic to see vagrants 
promising to use self-control; dreaming dreams of 
a more respectable livelihood, yearning to overcome 
a vice and to attain a virtue, but as unable to carry 
out the programme as an insane person is unable 
to will himself sane. The habitual vagrant has 
gone beyond the point where self-recovery is 
possible. 
Intellectually, tramps manifest a variety of char- 
acteristics which bear a striking resemblance to those 
of the savage.1 They possess no foresight; they are 
rarely retrospective. Dreams of the future they 
sometimes have, maudlin and remorseful glances 
into the past they permit themselves; but beyond 
this they never go. To-morrow must take care of 
itself. It is characteristic. They live for the pres- 
ent ; their associations are ever shifting; their habit 
is ever to move on; they have a passion for fields 
ever new. They rarely argue from a rounded experi- 
ence ; their habits of living rob them of systematic 
memory. As much as possible they leave the past 
to the past. They have learned from it but two 
things: how to avoid danger and how to live without 
work. However facile mentally, they are erratic. 
Their mind is " reminiscent only, not constructive." 130 
POVERTY 
They sometimes have a flow of superficial ideas. 
They love to tell stories. But one is baffled when 
one tries to have them construct a statement, how- 
ever simple and crude, of their philosophy of life. 
Their minds are strikingly concrete; most of them 
cannot grasp an abstract idea. To test them, I have 
read to those vagrants with whom I have been most 
friendly, some simple generalization or abstraction in 
the study of their own lives, but they seemed never 
to grasp the meaning. I have had vagrant friends 
who have cooperated with me in my effort to learn 
of the life of their class. They told me everything 
they could concerning their lives, but a collected 
reasoning, a generalization, an abstract statement, 
was not only never given me, but never appreciated, 
when, as formulated by students such as Flynt or 
Wyckoff, I gave it to them. Abstraction, further- 
more, wearied them ; they were unable to concentrate 
their thought. Vagrants have in certain matters a 
very keen power of observation. As the Nomads of 
uncivilized days learned the physical aspects of the 
earth which were favorable to their lives, so the No- 
mads of the present learn quickly the things which 
are to-day favorable to them. Beggars know just 
when, how, and whom to ask for alms. Marks on 
the gate posts are but crude indications. They learn 
by continued experience to distinguish the person 
who will give alms from the person who will refuse. THE VAGRANT 
131 
The vagrant learns this, as Browning's Lippo Lippi 
did when a waif of the street by " watching folk's 
faces to know who will fling the bit of half-stripped 
grape-bunch he desires and who will curse or kick 
him for his pains." But beyond these mental judg- 
ments, which are drilled into their lives by necessity, 
they possess little discrimination or critical capacity. 
It is as true of the tramps as it is of the savage Aus- 
tralians, " they are incapable of anything like perse- 
vering labor." 
I have made no attempt in this description of the 
vagrant to follow any classification. I have purposely 
dwelt upon the degenerate and habitual vagrants, to 
the exclusion almost of those vagrants who may be, 
for one reason or another, merely temporary vaga- 
bonds. There is an enormous number of such hope- 
less, drifting persons. When the unemployed become, 
through vice or drink, unemployable, when they 
associate for long time with this lowest element in 
the abyss, they degenerate into the fixed status of 
an habitual mendicant. They never rise out of it. 
Every student of the unemployed, whose works I have 
seen, emphasizes the fact that degeneracy, physical 
and moral, follows unemployment more often than it 
precedes it. There is a down-draught drawing the 
unemployed class into a chronic condition of depend- 
ence, making them lazzaroni incapable of regaining 
their manhood. The power of the down-draught is 132 
POVERTY 
conditioned by the number of persons in any commu* 
nity to whom vagrancy presents an infinitely easier 
course than the bitter, hopeless struggle to keep 
alive the manly qualities of independence and in- 
dustry, when as workless workers those qualities are 
valueless. Positive proof of this suction force tug- 
ging at the unemployed could be established beyond 
any question if any careful statistical study had ever 
been made of the numerical rise and fall of the 
vagrant class. The nearest approach to a study of 
this kind is the work of Professor J. J. M'Cook of 
Hartford, Connecticut. He shows from the returns of 
the tramps in Massachusetts that " the figures leap 
forward by almost their own length," in the two years 
of industrial depressions, in 1873 and 1893.1 Va- 
grancy maintains, as a rule, a definite relation to 
unemployment. The figures continue to grow until 
the industrial machine gets back into working order. 
The exciting cause then disappears, and the figures 
remain stationary or decrease. But a very large pro- 
portion of the vagrants made during these crises are 
not again absorbed into industry. They go on as 
professional vagrants until the end of their days. 
An English investigator, Mr. Geoffrey Drage, 
has observed the same tendency ^.mong the casual 
workers and unemployed of Great Britain. He 
says in his book on "The Unemployed": "The 
hopeless, hand-to-mouth kind of existence into which THE VAGRANT 
133 
they thus tend to drift is of all things least condu- 
cive to thrift; self-reliance is weakened, and habits 
of idleness, unsteadiness, and intemperance formed. 
It has been said that in many trades the prevalence 
of drunkenness is in direct proportion to the extent 
of the irregularity of employment. The effects of 
such casual work are even more marked in the next 
generation. Apart from inherited tendencies, the 
children of this class grow up without any training, 
technical or moral, such as would fit them to enter 
a trade, or, if they entered it, to remain in it. They 
are forced to join the ranks of unskilled and casual 
labor, and thus, under the same influences which 
beset their parents, they not only become inca- 
pable of regular work, but cease to desire it, pre- 
ferring to pick up a precarious living by means of 
odd jobs and charity."1 The habitual vagrant is the 
result of this process. To confuse the evils which 
are associated with that result, with the causes 
which produce it, is a common error of judgment. 
Our eyes deceive us as to the true causes of 
vagrancy when we look for them in the vagrant. 
Our first thought is that vice and drink have 
brought him into misery. This judgment is made 
because the vagrant, at the time when we see him, 
is vicious and drunken. But such a conclusion 
may be in fundamental error. Go back to the unem- 
ployed, and the sources of the evil stand out in un- 134 
POVERTY 
mistakable clearness. The unemployed, from which 
the vagrant class is so largely recruited, are 
brought into existence by many other causes than 
the occasional depressions in business. There is 
at all times a reserve of labor which may in the 
nature of the case be only casually employed. 
Charles Booth is but one of many students to 
observe that " the modern system of industry 
will not work without some unemployed margin, 
some reserve of labor."1 The cost to society of this 
unemployed or casually employed reserve is vagrancy 
and its accompanying vices. The cost to the men 
who make up this reserve, and to their wives and 
children, is not a thing one wishes to contemplate. 
Until some social remedy is found which will 
make it profitable for industry to absorb this reserve 
of labor, vagrancy must continue to be an important 
and distressing social problem. It is idle to expect 
the charitable societies to accomplish any funda- 
mental reform in the conditions which create 
vagrancy. But even their efforts might be directed 
to an end which would aid much in clarifying the 
problem. 
There has been a great deal said abroad about 
the process of "social dredging," by which means 
the vicious, criminal, and unemployed vagrants may 
be drawn out of the cities and forced into colonies. 
John Burns, a member of Parliament and a labor THE VAGRANT 
135 
leader, indicated the necessity for some such under- 
taking, when he said a few years ago: " In spite of 
what some advocates of work for the unemployed 
may say, I contend, as a Socialist, basing my 
belief on an unequalled experience of the largest 
meetings of unemployed that have ever been held, 
and as spokesman on every occasion for deputations 
on this subject to Government departments in the 
past ten years, that until the differentiation of the 
laborer from the loafer takes place, the unemployed 
question can never be properly discussed and dealt 
with. Till the tramp, thief, or ne'er-do-well, how- 
ever pitiable he may be, is dealt with distinctly 
from the genuine worker, no permanent benefit 
will result to any of them. The gentleman who 
gets up to look for work at midday, and prays that 
he may not find it, is undeserving of pity."1 In 
this work of discrimination the charities have a field 
of immediate usefulness. In order merely to point 
out a possible beginning in this work, a classification 
of vagrants is necessary. 
A large mass of vagrants may be classed as Indi- 
gent and Infirm. They are an unemployable and 
dependent class, incapable of ever being restored 
to industrial usefulness or economic independence. 
A second group could be classed as Professional or 
Voluntary Vagrants, and a third group, including at 
times in the United States several hundred thousand 136 
POVERTY 
men, may be classed as Accidental or Involuntary 
Vagrants. 
The first class presents a purely charitable problem 
very similar to that of the first class of paupers. It 
includes the aged, the defective of all classes, the 
incurable sick, the dipsomaniac, the morally insane, 
in so far as they are not curable, and the per- 
manently infirm, etc. They are the invalids of labor 
and the outcasts of industry; they are the invalids 
of vice and the victims of heredity and of evil home 
environment. The second class includes the profes- 
sional vagrant, who is not infirm, and has no physical 
or mental weaknesses which excuse his dependence. 
He is willing to be a vagrant. He prefers vagrancy 
to work. He is not ashamed to think of mendicancy 
as a profession. He is a " Moocher," a "Jocker," a 
"Mush Fakir," and will be in the end, very probably, 
a " Tomato-can Vag " ; but it is a matter of choice 
so far as one can determine. In this country the 
vagrants of this class are largely English, American, 
and Irish. They are above working, so they say, 
with the dagoes and other foreign laborers. 
These two classes of vagrants, - the dependent, 
inebriate and defective, etc., and the mendicant, 
loafer, semi-criminal, etc., are particularly the ones 
who should be dredged out of the slums. A large 
number go to the almshouses in the coldest weather, 
but in the spring they issue forth to join again the THE VAGRANT 
137 
vicious elements of our cities. It is not possible to 
accomplish anything by the ordinary repressive meas- 
ures. Even if these vagrants could be forced back, 
by such means, into the working class, they would 
only augment the distress which always exists in the 
mass which makes up the reserve of labor, - the 
casually employed margin. But they cannot be 
forced back into this or any other wholly or par- 
tially self-dependent class. Repressive measures 
merely drive them from state to state. As some 
one has said, it is like sitting down on the edge of a 
cushion; they have the same effect upon the tramps 
that sitting down has on the feathers. They are 
useful in driving them from any particular spot, but 
that is all. They probably do not diminish vagrancy 
in the least. In the cities any action which can be 
taken to prevent men from sleeping on the floors of 
saloons, and from having free lunches, will have the 
same repressive effect. The poorest and most insani- 
tary lodging-houses should, of course, not only for 
repressive, but for other reasons as well, be closed 
by the State or City Boards of Health. All lodging- 
houses should be under sanitary supervision. Beggars 
should, of course, be arrested, but they should be 
placed in some agricultural colony where they will 
be compelled, whenever possible, to support them- 
selves. The present method of arresting vagrants 
and putting them at hard, useless labor is cruel and 138 
POVERTY 
abortive. It acts in precisely the same way as " that 
monstrous folly of sending men (inebriates) over and 
over again, fifty, seventy-five, a hundred and twenty- 
five times to a jail where there is not a single reforma- 
tory influence." Nor is there, it may be added, a 
single curative or medical influence. These vagrants 
are at present being supported by private alms, or by 
state funds; * and it is inhumane, unreasonable, and 
uneconomical that they should be thus maintained in 
vice and idleness when reform and cure are possible. 
In those cases where reform and cure are impossible, 
they should be segregated in self-supporting colonies. 
The accidental vagrants are the floating element 
of "the reserve of labor," or, in other words, of the 
unemployed classes. They are waiting to be used 
by the employer. Their vagrancy consists of a 
restless, agonizing search for employment. The 
class is a very large one. Upon the basis of the 
statistics gathered in the census of 1890, Dr. 
Washington Gladden estimates that " there must 
have been an average of 1,139,672 persons unem- 
ployed during the whole of the year ending 
May 31, 1890."1 The census of 1900, as before 
stated, shows the number unemployed some part of 
the year to have been 6,468,964. Over 2,069,546 
* Professor M'Cook estimates that there were in 1895 in the United 
States, 85,768 such vagrants, supported by the community at a cost of 
#17,000,000 a year.2 THE VAGRANT 
139 
males were unemployed from four to six months, 
and about half a million males were unemployed 
practically the entire year.1 If one were able to 
determine the proportion of these unemployed per- 
sons, who find it necessary to go about from city 
to city in search of employment, it would show the 
total number of accidental vagrants. The number 
changes from year to year in direct relation to 
the activity of industry. 
So long as the wages of certain classes of work- 
men are only sufficient to keep them during the 
period when they are employed, so long as there 
is an ebb and flow of industrial activity, so long 
as certain trades employ men at certain seasons 
only, so long as those who close the factories 
continue to have no responsibility for the outcast 
workers, so long as the laws of competitive in- 
dustry make industrial depressions necessary, and 
so long as the system of industry demands a surplus 
of labor which may be but casually employed, so 
long, indeed, as there is such a thing as enforced 
unemployment, - just so long will the sources of 
vagrancy be ever active. Neither artificial employ- 
ments nor charitable provision can remedy the evil. 
The worker is himself helpless. He is a wastrel, 
begging to be used in a competitive industrial sys- 
tem which in its present form requires his continued 
existence. CHAPTER IV 
THE SICK 
Only in times of severe epidemics, when nearly 
all lives are threatened, do we realize the mean- 
ing of sickness. At such times our conception of 
sickness becomes a social one. We are forced to 
rise above ourselves and to give our hearts and 
minds to the sorrow of others, - the thousands, 
outside of our own family, or circle of friends, who 
are in distress of mind and in agony of body. In 
ordinary times sickness is an individual thing re- 
lated to some one whom we know and love. The 
sick no longer gather together in public places as 
they did at the pool of Bethesda. The " great 
multitude of impotent folk, the blind, halt, with- 
ered," are still amongst us, but they are in their 
homes and in the hospitals, and no longer awaken 
public compassion by an assembled presence. Oc- 
casionally, as for instance when the great Austrian 
surgeon came to America, they come into public 
view again. It was thought that one hundred 
crippled children would seek relief. Two thousand 
made application, and over eight thousand were 
140 THE SICK 
141 
brought to light in one city.1 For the time we for- 
got individual sickness, and eight thousand homes, 
each with its crippled child, passed before our 
eyes. 
But sickness is so multiform that only an incom- 
plete and partial conception of what it means in 
any great city is possible. It is so terrible in its 
worst forms that the mere mention of the names 
by which these more distressing diseases are known 
is abhorrent. The ills which deform, wither, and 
disfigure the human form, which paralyze and crip- 
ple the body, which consume with internal fires 
helpless children and strongest men, are painful 
even to contemplate. It is more than enough to 
know in one's own family the dreadful suffering 
which attends disease, without making the addi- 
tional effort to conceive sickness en masse. But 
the sickness of one's self or of one's family is only 
as a wave in an ocean of waves. The long, weary 
night of anxiety and care is the night of many, 
many thousand troubled hearts. To-night-half a 
million people in this great city are either themselves 
sick or are anxious in mind about some dear one 
who is sick.2 Many are to watch and care the 
whole night through. Nearly two hundred of the 
sick are to die before another nightfall. Twenty 
or thirty thousand are to linger on, to grow weaker 
and weaker, coughing and choking, night after night, POVERTY 
142 
until breath refuses to come. In the great houses 
of pain, with doctors and nurses and long rows 
of white beds filled with bandaged bodies and writh- 
ing forms, eighty thousand sick souls will pray 
for relief before the year is gone. Nearly a million 
more will pass through the doors of the dispensaries 
to have pains allayed and bodies healed. 
The homes also have their burdens of the sick. 
All together in New York City - in the mansions, 
tenements, and hovels there are constantly a quarter 
of a million who are sick, and two-thirds that 
number are absolutely disabled.* In the home of 
the rich a child lies burning up with fever. All 
are watchful and awake the whole night through. 
Doctors, nurses, servants, with a thousand appliances, 
make every effort to ease and comfort that little life. 
In the big tenement a light burns all night, and a 
tired workman watches every movement and listens 
for every breath of his hot, restless little one. At 
dawn he goes to his work. He kisses the feverish 
lips. It may be for the last time, - he knows not; 
and all day long his heart is heavy and anxious. In 
the filthy hovel, a drunken woman becomes sober, 
and her flushed face white - when the doctor 
shakes his head over the starved baby in the bundle 
* William Farr estimates that to one annual death two persons are 
on the average constantly suffering from severe sickness and three per- 
sons are ill enough to require some medical relief. " Vital Statistics," 
pp. 512-513. THE SICK 
143 
of rags. These are but three homes - imagine a 
quarter of a million. This sickness, which, as Emerson 
says, " eats up all the life and youth it can lay hold 
of," comes with its message of pain and destruction 
to every home, and for every one visit to the man- 
sion it comes twice to the tenement and thrice to 
the hovel. 
Source as it is of so much pain and of so much 
else that racks the poor old body of humanity, sick- 
ness forces upon thousands and thousands of strug- 
gling families an almost greater misery - poverty. 
But poverty is both a cause and a result of sickness. 
No one knows how many thousand families of work- 
ingmen, through this cause alone, are brought to 
distressing poverty and even to miserable pauperism. 
The charitable organizations say that about one-fourth 
of the distress which manifests itself is caused by 
sickness.1 It is a fertile and lively cause of poverty, 
constantly active and supremely powerful. When 
it afflicts a wage-earner, it stops earnings, and lays 
at the same time heavier burdens of expense upon 
the home. How often one hears a workman say, " I 
am all right so long as I keep well and have work." 
A man may be a drunkard and yet able to earn 
something; but unemployment and disabling sick- 
ness may shatter every assurance the workman has 
of food and shelter for himself and family, and for 
these things he may be in no wise responsible. Upon POVERTY 
144 
the chance of the bread-winner's remaining well and 
having work depends the livelihood of several million 
people in this country. The insecurity, the chance, 
the day by day uncertainty of livelihood among the 
wage-earning classes encourage many workingmen, 
half truthfully and half cynically, to call themselves 
wage-slaves whose owners have been freed from caring 
for them when sick or unemployed. At any rate, the 
workman, even when sick or unemployed, must now 
care for himself and family. The insecurity of live- 
lihood caused by sickness increases with the increase 
of poverty. The highest classes of workmen have 
less sickness than the next highest, and so on down 
to the poorest, among whom sickness, in one form or 
another, is almost universal. Among 10,000,000 well- 
to-do persons the number of yearly deaths is probably 
not more than 100,000; among the highest class of 
wage-earners the number is probably not less than 
150,000 ; and among the poorest, or those in poverty, 
the number is probably not less than 350,000? These 
are rough estimates for the purpose of indicating how 
widespread sickness is among those in poverty, what 
heavy burdens it lays upon those who can least afford 
to bear them, and how much of the sickness of the 
poor is excessive and unnecessary. Poverty and 
sickness form a vicious partnership, each helping 
the other to add to the miseries of the most unfortu- 
nate of mankind. THE SICK 
145 
This close relationship between poverty and sick- 
ness helps to make sickness in the tenements a 
misery which the more fortunate cannot understand. 
The sorrow which accompanies disease and death is 
a sorrow which almost any human being can under- 
stand. Both of these ills of mankind all men must 
some time suffer. The rich may escape some of the 
miseries which accompany all sickness in the tene- 
ments, but the sorrow and the pain all men must 
some time know. The well-to-do may have the best 
medical attention and nurses; they may be free from 
crowding and from hunger; they may escape from 
irritation and noises and street disturbances; they 
may cease work and need not return to it until they 
are quite well; they may have a change of climate 
and all other things that money can buy, and these 
things are much, but they can neither escape illness 
nor avoid death. The poor of the tenements must 
be sick oftener; they must die earlier ; more of them 
must die in youth and in their prime. To the poor 
sickness means more than illness. It means misery 
of the severest kind. From those who have already 
sacrificed too much, new sacrifices are demanded. I 
have known mothers working in the sweatshops who 
have been " on their feet " for over one hundred hours, 
watching over the sick-bed, sewing and watching, sew- 
ing and watching. I have been through the tenements 
in the "dog days" of summer when the "infant 146 
POVERTY 
torches " go out. " Be quiet," a woman said to me 
one day, as she tiptoed along a tenement hall; " there 
is a sick child in there; I think it's dying." All 
people are not thoughtless of others in the tene- 
ments ; but in the days of summer, when the win- 
dows are open, no amount of consideration and 
thoughtfulness can prevent annoyances. The crowd 
on the streets, the yelling, the shouting of pedlers, 
the continuous hum, the odors, the lack of con- 
veniences, the noise and the bang, the flies, the heat, 
and the overcrowded rooms, make sickness in the 
tenements a hellish thing. 
One day I visited the family of a man who had 
been prostrated by heat while at work with a street- 
paving gang. They were a family of seven, living 
in a two-room apartment of a rear tenement. The 
day was in August, and the sun beat down uninter- 
mittently and without mercy. The husband had 
been brought home a few hours before. The wife, 
in a distracted but skilful way, found pathways 
among the clamoring children. The air was steamy 
with a half-finished washing, and remnants of the 
last meal were still upon the table. A crying baby 
and the sick husband occupied the only bed. I had 
known before of five people sleeping in one bed; 
but I learned here that the father and oldest child 
usually slept on the floor. As I watched the woman 
on that day I understood a little of what it meant to THE SICK 
147 
live in such contracted quarters. To cook and wash 
for seven, to nurse a crying baby broken out with 
heat, and to care for a delirious husband, to arrange 
a possible sleeping-place for seven, - to do all these 
things in two rooms which open upon an alley 
tremulous with heated odors and swarming with flies 
from the garbage and manure boxes, was something 
to tax the patience and strength of a Titan.1 
In this instance the man had broken down, and 
sickness is most serious when it attacks the bread- 
winner of a working-class family. The sickness of 
wife or child is far less terrifying. However painful 
the disease or distressing the consequences, the 
family's peace of mind is not shattered by the fear 
and dread of want. The man is not kept from his 
work, and his earnings, made more necessary by the 
sickness, may still supply the family's needs. The 
diseases which kill or undermine the health of the 
adults, especially the men, are the ones which 
strike terror to the heart of working-class families. 
Those which almost invariably cause death, - such 
as cancer, phthisis, Bright's disease, diabetes, - as 
well as those which permanently incapacitate a 
workman, - such as apoplexy, paralysis, etc., - the 
many accidents in industry, which cripple the body, 
and the diseases, arising from certain dangerous 
trades, which permanently undermine the health, are 
the forms of sickness which generally mean for 148 
POVERTY 
wage-earning families poverty and often pauperism. 
Such diseases affect the welfare of the whole family. 
They stop all earnings unless the wife is able, or one 
of the children old enough, to become a wage-earner. 
Sickness assumes a new and more terrible meaning 
when one realizes that the mass of wage-earning 
families are pathetically dependent upon some one 
person's health. Any one familiar with the poor 
knows with what grim determination half-sick work- 
men labor under this heavy responsibility. An 
Italian workman dying of consumption once said 
to a friend of mine, who was urging him as a last 
hope to quit work and go to a sanatorium, " No! 
No! Me die not yet at all! Me gotta bringa de 
grub to ma chil'." 
Wives suffer from the ordinary forms of sickness 
which afflict men, and, in addition, have to go through 
the serious trial, periodically occurring, of childbirth. 
The unnatural disease, puerperal fever, so often due 
to lack of care, insanitary conditions, and overcrowd- 
ing, is perhaps the greatest ill which the women in 
poverty have to suffer. The quack doctors and the 
untrained midwives, in the poorer districts, even more 
than the conditions of poverty, make this disease an 
ever menacing misery. The most terrible neglect is 
frequently observed during such critical periods. I 
have often tried to forget the story of one case of 
illness and death which came under my observation THE SICK 
149 
several years ago. The little girl and a " neighbor- 
woman " told it to me when they came to apply for 
enough money to bury the mother and the baby child. 
The mother, a recent widow, had finished a hard day 
of labor; she came home tired and ill. The little 
girl, used, even at her early age, to household cares, 
prepared the supper for herself and mother. During 
the night a baby child arrived. The little girl helped 
her mother as best she could, but hers was not the 
skill required. The mother and baby died. During 
the previous week they had been evicted from their 
former house, and the little girl knew no one in the 
new neighborhood. In fear and despair, she locked 
the door and sat with the dead mother and sister all 
that day. Again and again she kissed the mother's 
face, but, as the child told me, " she would not wake 
up." On the following day she went out, locked the 
door, and walked several miles to their former house 
and found there the neighbor-woman who brought the 
child to me. When we talked of burying the mother, 
the miserable little girl, who had, up to that time, 
seemed almost heartless, broke into sobs. For a long 
time she refused to give up the key to the rooms, and 
all the time she besought us not to take her mother 
away. It would not be possible to describe the 
misery and wretchedness which I have seen in the 
homes of the poor, and none is more painful to 
remember than the sickness of women. 150 
POVERTY 
And yet whatever the ills of mankind, they seem 
to weigh heaviest upon the children. The enormous 
number of deaths in certain parts of our largest 
cities has been referred to as the " Massacre of the 
Innocents." In certain rear tenements, in dark rooms 
and in the most insanitary portions of the " double- 
decker" tenements, and especially in certain insan- 
itary and pestilential blocks, the death rate of 
children under five years of age is a matter of 
public disgrace. The death rate of children under 
five years in those places where there were both 
front and rear tenements, ran up as high as 204 
per thousand. In other words, four or five times 
as many babies die in these houses as in the 
houses of the well-to-do districts. If this same 
rate were maintained among all the poor (which is 
not probable), of 1,000,000 babies under five years, 
200,000 would die annually; while of 1,000,000 babies 
in well-to-do districts only 50,000 would die.1 The 
Tenement House Committee of 1894 called these 
rear tenements "veritable slaughter-houses." 
Excessive death rates among children, as among 
men and women, are, of course, largely unnecessary 
and preventable. William Farr said many years 
ago, " When any city experiences a higher rate 
than the average, it should always be a matter of 
serious inquiry and concern to its citizens." 2 The 
same may be said of any one section of a city as THE SICK 
151 
compared with other sections of the same city. It is 
said that the number of unnecessary deaths in Lon- 
don is as great each year as the total number of deaths 
in the English army during the three years of the 
Boer War.1 The reduction in the year 1903 of the 
death rate in New York from 20 per thousand to 18.75 
per thousand meant the saving of 4500 lives and the 
prevention of about 10,000 cases of severe illness. It 
saved the work of one or two great hospitals; it 
saved some wives from being widows and some chil- 
dren from being fatherless, and it also saved some 
from poverty. This is the work of prevention. We 
shall never know whose lives were saved, but that 
4500 lives were saved - that we know. The same 
saving can be made again and again. This year, if 
perfect sanitary measures could be put into effect, 
probably 20,000 or 25,000 lives could be saved in New 
York City alone, and 40,000 or 50,000 cases of severe 
illness prevented. Many of the men, women, and 
children who are sick and who die unnecessarily, 
live in insanitary homes, and some of them work in 
insanitary mills, mines, offices, and factories, and the 
work of prevention lies in enforcing, in so far as is 
possible, a collective standard of cleanliness and sani- 
tation upon every home and workshop. 
So far as preventive measures are concerned, the 
greatest improvements of recent years have been 
those health measures compelling sanitary condi- 152 
POVERTY 
tions in homes; and these improvements strike 
at the root of many of the foregoing evils. It 
would not be possible, in limited space, to go into 
details concerning either the bad conditions which 
still exist, or the many wise and humane measures 
which have been undertaken, in many of our cities, 
to stamp out the worst evils in tenements and work- 
shops. A few years ago there existed a frightful 
death rate among the people of a certain section 
of Glasgow. The municipal authorities, after be- 
coming acquainted with the conditions, demolished 
the houses in that section and built new tenements 
to take their places. By this act the death rate 
was reduced from 55 per thousand to a little over 
14 per thousand. An adjoining slum still had 
a death rate of 53 per thousand. Here were 
two groups of houses, sheltering practically the 
same classes of people, one with a death rate of a 
little over 14 per thousand, the other with a death 
rate nearly four times as great.1 The discovery of 
similar conditions in all great cities, both in this 
country and abroad, has given a new impulse to 
the development of sanitary measures, in some 
cases involving the expenditure of millions of 
dollars. 
We are still very much behind European coun- 
tries both in our knowledge of the facts and in 
pur remedial measures. Our housing question has THE SICK 
153 
never been carefully studied in its relation to the 
death rate or in its relation to sickness and to 
various forms of debility and exhaustion. The 
Tenement House Committee of 1894 made an effort 
to get at the facts, and Dr. Roger S. Tracy's work 
was and still is of value; but the last Tenement 
House Commission of New York almost ignored 
the subject. Even a study of the death rates was 
not made, because of the difficulties involved.1 For 
this reason we cannot marshal the same array of 
facts in support of housing reform which give 
terrible force to the arguments of German, French, 
and English advocates of improved housing. It is 
also for this reason that we must use English data 
to indicate some of the worst evils of insanitary 
housing. There is, however, every reason to sup- 
pose that we should arrive at the same conclusions 
if a careful study of American conditions were 
made. 
The evils of overcrowding are perhaps the most 
important. The Royal Commission of 1884 gath- 
ered a great amount of facts and took extensive 
testimony on this subject. The general summary 
showed that pauperism, immorality, perverted sexu- 
ality, drunkenness, and many other forms of de- 
bauchery were caused in some instances, in others 
abetted, by the indecent overcrowding which existed. 
The testimony further showed most distressing physi- 154 
POVERTY 
cal results due to overcrowding. High death rates; 
a pitiful increase in infant mortality; terrible suf- 
fering among little children; scrofula and congeni- 
tal diseases; ophthalmia, due to dark, ill-ventilated, 
overcrowded rooms; sheer exhaustion and inability 
to work; encouragement of infectious diseases; a 
reduced physical stamina, causing consumption 
and diseases arising from general debility, were 
some of the evils of overcrowding.1 Similar, but 
less definite, conclusions regarding the evils of 
overcrowding were arrived at by the New York 
Tenement House Committee of 1894. The secre- 
tary, in his report, says that overcrowding has evil 
effects of various kinds, for example: " Keeping 
children up and out of doors until midnight in 
warm weather, because rooms are almost unen- 
durable ; making cleanliness of house and street 
difficult; filling the air with unwholesome emana- 
tions and foul odors of every kind; producing a 
state of nervous tension; interfering with the sepa- 
rateness and sacredness of home life; leading to a pro- 
miscuous mixing of all ages and sexes in a single room 
- thus breaking down the barriers of modesty and 
conducing to the corruption of the young, and 
occasionally to revolting crimes."2 The conclusions 
drawn by both commissions concerning the physi- 
cal, the mental, and the moral degeneration which 
results from overcrowding, constitute a most seri- THE SICK 
155 
ous indictment of the living conditions in which 
hundreds of thousands of working people live both 
in this country and abroad. Even if one ignored 
the cost to the community of disease and vice, the 
heavy burdens which these conditions force upon 
the individual families of the working people show 
the vital necessity of those preventive measures 
which society alone has the power to initiate. 
Probably no other city in the world has so many 
dark rooms and other insanitary conditions, which 
act as exciting causes for the spread of tuberculosis 
and similar diseases, resulting from broken vitality, 
as New York City. Light and sanitary homes are 
probably more necessary to our working people than 
to those of any other city or country. Recreation 
and recuperation are vital necessities to the man 
whose work is hard, intense, and spurred on by the 
feverish competitive spirit of American life. It is 
needless to point out that the particular insanitary 
conditions which prevail in the New York tenements 
are in many cases the very ones which most effectu- 
ally deny this needed recuperation.* It would be of 
great value to know to what extent the working 
classes suffer from debility and exhaustion due to 
these conditions of work and living. In addition to 
knowing more of the ordinary diseases resulting from 
occupations, contagions, and other causes of serious 
* See Appendix A. 156 
POVERTY 
illness, it would be well to know to what extent over- 
crowded and badly ventilated homes are responsible 
for broken vitality, debility, and exhaustion. Some 
light has been thrown on this matter by inquiries in 
England. The Earl of Shaftesbury said before the 
Royal Commission on Housing : " When we were at 
The Board of Health some years ago we instituted 
inquiries in these low and miserable neighborhoods 
to see what was the amount of labor lost in the year, 
not by illness, but by sheer exhaustion and inability 
to do the work. We found upon the lowest average 
that every workman or workwoman lost about twenty 
days in the year from sheer exhaustion "... and 
the wage thus lost "would go a great way toward 
paying an increased rent for a better house."1 
That deterioration in health which often does not 
figure in the death rates is one of the most seri- 
ous and least observed of the evil results of bad 
housing. 
While New York's conditions are worse than those 
of any other American city, the remedial efforts here 
have been the broadest and best. In many other 
cities also an awakening has taken place which 
promises to advance housing reform. However 
partial and ineffectual our efforts have been up to the 
present, we can look forward to a slow improve- 
ment in the living conditions of the people. But any 
advance in sanitary living conditions is, at best, but THE SICK 
157 
a partial advance. Improvement of conditions in 
which the people work should go hand in hand with 
the improvement of living conditions. In this field 
we have done almost nothing. There is no other 
nation, comparable industrially to the United States, 
which is so backward as this country in its knowledge, 
in its legislation, in its administrative machinery for 
dealing with the insanitary conditions in factories, 
mines, and workshops, and in preventing or regulating 
those dangerous processes in industry which are re- 
sponsible for a very large number of unnecessary dis- 
eases, accidents, and deaths. We have been limiting 
the power for harm which may be exercised by the indi- 
vidual landlord; but no other country has so much as 
our own permitted individuals to disregard, to a crim- 
inal extent, the health and welfare of employees. I 
dare say no other nation has so many needless deaths 
or so many cases of illness wholly due to preventable 
industrial causes as the United States of America. 
It is perhaps needless to repeat that these insanitary 
conditions of home and factory have a mighty bear- 
ing on the extent of poverty. The field is one which 
offers the greatest opportunity for humane and mer- 
ciful legislation. The workmen who are crushed, 
crippled, or killed, who contract incurable diseases, 
who are poisoned, or who are incapacitated by care- 
lessness, insanitary conditions, or dangerous machin- 
ery, are so numerous in this day that in a very few 158 
POVERTY 
decades we shall look back upon this period as one of 
downright barbarism. 
Social action is almost more necessary in order to 
improve the sanitary conditions in workshops than to 
improve those of the tenements. The individual work- 
man is powerless. He cannot bargain for a sanitary 
workshop. The best third of his life is spent at 
work. He must work in mine or factory however 
injurious to his health, however menacing and how- 
ever preventable the dangers of the employment. 
He usually accepts them without complaint. If 
there be poisons, or dangerous machinery, or disease- 
producing dusts which he must inhale, he may 
hope that he will escape injury, but he may not 
refuse to work. He may know that phossy jaw, 
plumbism, tuberculosis, rheumatism, palsy, or sudden 
death may at any time be his fate. But he must 
accept the conditions as they are if he wishes the 
work. He can, to a certain extent, choose his tene- 
ment, but he is, as an individual, almost powerless to 
choose his factory or a kind of employment which is 
without dangers. As Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb 
say in their book on Industrial Democracy:1 " The 
wage-earner sells to his employer, not merely so 
much muscular energy or mechanical ingenuity, but 
practically his whole existence during the working 
day. An overcrowded or badly ventilated workshop 
may exhaust his energies; sewer gas or poisonous THE SICK 
159 
material may undermine his health; a badly con- 
structed plant or imperfect machinery may maim 
him or even cut short his days; coarsening surround- 
ings may brutalize his life and degrade his character: 
yet, when he accepts employment, he tacitly under- 
takes to mind whatever machinery, use whatever 
materials, breathe whatever atmosphere, and endure 
whatever sights, sounds, and smells he may find in 
the employer's workshop, however inimical they may 
be to health or safety." 
Few realize that a very slight injury or breakdown 
may incapacitate certain workmen from further use- 
fulness in a trade for which they may have been 
especially trained. A hernia (or rupture) may ren- 
der a workman employed in moving heavy materials 
incapable of further usefulness in this employment. 
Continuous, intense, laborious work demands of the 
workman a strong constitution and good health. It 
often happens that one part of the body may be 
broken down by heavy lifting or over-exercise, and, 
while the general health of the laborer may not be 
impaired, such a breakdown, though apparently 
slight, may compel him to learn a new trade. As 
a matter of fact, excessive strains usually result in the 
breakdown of precisely those muscular organs by 
which a workman is enabled to earn his living in 
any specialized trade.1 Let us take a few examples. 
There are many well-known diseases which are 160 
POVERTY 
recognized as " marks of trade." Typesetters, 
telegraphers, tailors, writers, etc., suffer frequently 
from muscular cramps and similar afflictions. Such 
breakdowns may at first prevent only a free mus- 
cular action, but they are likely in the end to 
result in palsy and paralysis of the over-used mus- 
cles. The latter, for instance, happens very fre- 
quently to sewing-machine operatives. Shop girls 
are likely to suffer, as a result of their occupation, 
from a narrow, contracted pelvis. Varicose veins 
and ulcers result from continuous standing. Curva- 
ture of the spine results almost inevitably from cer- 
tain employments. These are but a few among 
many of the physical ills which result from certain 
specialized occupations. 
Even these comparatively slight afflictions are 
serious to the workman, because he must work or 
become a pauper. The more terrible and loath- 
some diseases of occupations, which utterly destroy 
the workman's health or which cause death, are too 
many to mention in detail. Those diseases which 
result from handling or coming in contact with the 
poisonous materials used in the chemical industries 
are the ones most generally known. Lead is a com- 
monly used poison. A very large number of work- 
men are employed in many different industries where 
they are subjected to the dangers of lead poisoning. 
The early symptoms of the disease are blue gums. THE SICK 
161 
followed by a loosening and coming out of the teeth; 
but blindness, paralysis, and death in convulsions 
finally result.1 Miscarriages, still-births, and convul- 
sions occur frequently to women lead-workers who 
are with child. This is one of the worst of the so- 
called poisonous trades. The dust-producing trades 
cause various respiratory diseases, such as miners' 
asthma, and consumption. Mining, street-sweeping, 
and file-grinding are the ones most generally known. 
Bakers, laundresses, tailors, and dressmakers are 
also subject to certain diseases, resulting from their 
work and from insanitary conditions, which cause 
repeated breakdowns and a high death rate. The 
dangers of work on the railroads have been spoken 
of elsewhere. 
These problems of unnecessary and preventable 
sickness, whether of home or of factory, cannot be 
solved by the individual. The individual who suf- 
fers is in the main powerless to alter conditions. On 
the other hand, the landlord and the manufacturer 
not only do not, as a rule, voluntarily improve the 
conditions, but they are at times even active in pre- 
venting humane legislation for bettering sanitary 
conditions. Dr. J. T. Arlidge, a great specialist on 
diseases of occupations, says : " When visiting manu- 
factories, the visitor is almost invariably informed 
that the particular manufacture therein pursued is a 
very healthy one. Even in cases where the con- 162 
POVERTY 
trary is a matter of general knowledge, and demon- 
strated by statistics, it is no uncommon thing to find 
the matter treated as of very little moment. If un- 
deniable, the evils are minimized, and the masters 
and managers are prone to close their eyes to con- 
ditions of labor that loudly call for a remedy, and 
cast the blame more or less upon the workpeople."1 
Again and again in England and Germany, where 
many studies of injurious employments have been 
made, the employing class casts all the blame for 
high death rates and excessive disease upon the 
workers, and the landlord class does likewise when 
opposing sanitary measures for the improvement of 
tenement-houses. Even in those industries where 
the workers are degenerating and would become 
extinct, were it not for new recruits, the employers 
manifest the same unconcern for their health and 
accept with great unwillingness any proposed sani- 
tary improvements. So far is the greed for profits 
carried. The deterioration of an entire people may 
result if this greed be not restrained.* From these 
facts alone it is fair to assume that, if the sanitary 
evils of home and factory are to be stamped out, it 
must not rest with the employers or landlords: it 
must be done by the community itself. 
Any one will realize how fragmentary and in- 
complete this brief survey is of preventable disease 
* See Appendix B, p. 347. THE SICK 
163 
and of preventive measures. We have hardly 
made a beginning in certain of the fields which 
have been mentioned. Within the last few years, 
however, a movement has developed which prom- 
ises to arouse our people to the wisdom of pre- 
ventive measures. Within the last decade there 
have been a multitude of societies formed for the 
purpose of stamping out the most serious disease 
which afflicts mankind. Tuberculosis is the great 
modern plague, more subtle and less generally 
feared, but far more deadly, than any other plague 
the world has known. 
There was once a Great Black Plague. It was 
the consternation of the people of the time when 
it grew and flourished. Those who were able to 
do so fled from the cities which it ravaged. It 
lived a year and caused the death of two or three 
million people. It was probably the result of filthy, 
undrained streets and vile tenements. "The Great 
White Plague " has lived for centuries and cen- 
turies ; it was known before the time of Christ. 
It has caused the death of millions and millions of 
people; it will this year cause the death of over 
one million more. One hundred and fifty thousand 
people in the United States alone will this year die 
of the disease. Within the next twelve months not 
less than fifteen thousand of the people of New 
York City, some of whom will be our neighbors, 164 
POVERTY 
friends, and even perhaps our relatives, will bow 
down before the Great White Plague. It is a 
needless plague, a preventable plague. It is one 
of the results of our inhumane tenements; it follows 
in the train of our inhumane sweatshops; it fastens 
itself upon children and young people because we 
forget that they need playgrounds and because 
we are selfish and niggardly in providing breath- 
ing spaces; it comes where the hours of labor are 
long and the wages small; it afflicts the children 
who are sent to labor when they should yet be in 
school; the plague goes to meet them. It is a 
brother to the anguish of poverty, and wherever 
food is scant and bodies half clothed and rooms 
dark, this hard and relentless brother of poverty 
finds a victim. It is more kind to the old, who 
have every reason for dying, than it is to the 
young, who have no reason for dying. It takes, as 
it were, an especial delight in mowing down the 
bread-winners of wage-earning families at the 
sweetest and most treasured period of their lives, 
- at the time when they are having the first joys 
of married life and bringing into the world their 
little ones. More than one-third of all deaths that 
occur between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five 
are due to the Great White Plague. It is a waste 
of youth prepared for life and labor, cut off by 
needless death as life and labor begin. For it is THE SICK 
165 
a wholly needless and preventable cause of death 
and of inestimable mourning and anguish among the 
widows and the fatherless. 
The extent of the White Plague is one of the best 
tests of a high or low state of society; in many 
ways it is the truest and most accurate of social 
tests. The number of its victims will indicate the 
districts in which sweatshops flourish, and the streets 
in which the double-decker tenement, the scourge of 
New York, is most often found. Where the death 
rate from the Plague is greatest there ignorance 
prevails; drunkenness is rife; poverty, hunger, and 
cold are the common misfortune. 
A prominent physician said a few years ago: 
" This is a disease which has claimed more victims 
than all the wars and all the plagues and scourges 
of the human race. Even in the few short years 
since Koch's discovery over two million persons on 
this continent have succumbed to its fatal infec- 
tion. . . . The annual tribute of the United States 
to this scourge is over one hundred thousand of its 
inhabitants. Each year the world yields up one 
million ninety-five thousand, each day three thou- 
sand, each minute two of its people, as a sacrifice 
to this plague. Of the seventy million individuals 
now peopling these United States, ten millions must 
inevitably die of this disease if the present ratio is 
kept up."1 166 
POVERTY 
Tuberculosis is more common in the cities than in 
the country. The death rate from this disease in 
the cities of over twenty-five thousand inhabitants is 
about twice that of the rural districts of the state. 
The tenement districts suffer much more from the 
disease than do the well-to-do districts. In Paris the 
death rate is three times as great in the poorest 
quarters as it is in the well-to-do quarters. In Ham- 
burg the proportion is almost the same. In the First 
Ward, near the Battery in New York City, fourteen 
times as many people die from tuberculosis, in pro- 
portion to population, as in a certain ward adjoining 
Central Park.1 Obviously it is a plague which exists 
much more among the poor than among the rich. 
Certain tenements become infected with the dis- 
ease. We have recently heard of the " Lung Block " 
with its frightful death rate. We have also heard of 
the "Ink Pot" with its many deaths from tuberculo- 
sis. Mr. Ernest Poole, in describing the conditions in 
this tenement, says : " It has front and rear tenements 
five floors high, with a foul, narrow court between. 
Here live one hundred and forty people. Twenty- 
three are babies. Here I found one man sick with 
the Plague in the front house, two more in the rear 
- and one of these had a young wife and four chil- 
dren. Here the Plague lives in darkness and filth - 
filth in halls, over walls and floors, in sinks and 
closets. Here in nine years alone twenty-six cases THE SICK 
167 
have been reported. How many besides these were 
kept secret ? And behind these nine years - how 
many cases more ? 
" Rooms here have held death ready and waiting 
for years. Up on the third floor, looking down into 
the court, is a room with two little closets behind it. 
In one of these a blind Scotchman slept and took the 
Plague in '94. His wife and his fifteen-year-old son 
both drank, and the home grew squalid as the tene- 
ment itself. He died in the hospital. Only a few 
months later the Plague fastened again. Slowly his 
little daughter grew used to the fever, the coughing, 
the long, sleepless nights. The foul court was her 
only outlook. At last she, too, died. The mother 
and son then moved away. But in this room the 
germs lived on. They might all have been killed in 
a day by sunlight; they can live two years in dark- 
ness. Here in darkness they lived, on grimy walls, 
in dusty nooks, on dirty floors. Then one year later, 
in October, a Jew rented this same room. He was 
taken, and died in the summer. This room was 
rented again in the autumn by a German and his 
wife. She had the Plague already, and died. Then 
an Irish family came in. The father was a hard, 
steady worker, and loved his children. The home 
this time was winning the fight. But six months 
later he took the Plague. He died in 1901. This is 
only the record of one room in seven years."1 Miss 168 
POVERTY 
Brandt of the New York Committee for the Preven. 
tion of Tuberculosis is authority for the statement 
that one house in Chinatown has a record of thirty- 
seven cases in nine years; another house has a 
record of twenty-five, and still another of nineteen.1 
A house in the Syrian quarter has had thirteen deaths 
from tuberculosis.2 In the " Lung Block " there have 
been two hundred and sixty-five cases of tuberculosis 
reported to the Board of Health in nine years. Mr. 
Ernest Poole, who knows the conditions in this block 
also, says that this is probably not more than half the 
actual number. In other words, there have probably 
been over five hundred cases of tuberculosis in this 
one block during the last nine years. The disease is 
one which affects especially residents of the tene- 
ments and the workers in certain trades, as, for in- 
stance, printers, tailors, bookkeepers, dressmakers, 
bakers, cigar-makers, potters, stone-cutters, file-grind- 
ers, dyers, wool-carders, etc.3 
To know why these classes of people are affected, 
let us for a moment consider how the disease is spread. 
A person having consumption can, it is said, expec- 
torate in a day seven billions of germs or bacilli. 
These germs or bacilli are the only cause of the dis- 
ease. The sputa or expectorations from the diseased 
lungs dry and afterward become a pulverized dust 
which is blown about through tenements, theatres, 
street cars, railway trains, offices, and factories. In THE SICK 
169 
fact, the infection is disseminated wherever tubercu- 
lous sputum becomes dry and pulverized. The germ 
is killed by sunlight and lives but a short time in the 
open air, but it will live for months in darkness or in 
places artificially lighted. Every consumptive, there- 
fore, who is careless about his sputa - and most 
consumptives are careless who have not been trained 
to discretion by having lived for some time in a sana- 
torium - becomes, in consequence, a centre of infec- 
tion. Those about him are very likely to contract 
the disease ; those living in the same rooms or work- 
ing in the same factory or office, are the ones most 
liable to the infection, especially when they are deli- 
cate, overworked, underfed, or underclad. 
Dr. Hermann Biggs, the General Medical Officer 
of the Board of Health, says that there are thirty 
thousand persons in New York City suffering from 
tuberculosis.1 There are therefore about thirty thou- 
sand centres in the city disseminating the infection. 
Where conditions are favorable, as, for instance, in 
certain offices, factories, sweatshops, and tenements, 
the disease is constantly spreading. As a result, there 
are " Lung Blocks," and, doubtless, if it were known, 
" lung factories " and " lung sweatshops " also. This 
dry, pulverized dust is the most important of the means 
of spreading tuberculosis throughout all parts of the 
city, so that, I do not doubt, a consumptive of the 
sweatshop, spraying the garments he sews by sneez- 170 
POVERTY 
ing or coughing, may convey to some delicate lad or 
girl in a far-distant part of the country or in a wealthy 
part of the city the disease which the sweatshop has 
given him. A virulent cause of consumption is the 
spray discharged from the nose, lungs, or mouth 
of the consumptive invalid. As before mentioned, 
those near the person suffering from tuberculosis 
are very likely to contract the disease. Children 
playing about on the floor, kissing or embracing the 
diseased mother or father, taking the milk from a 
tuberculous mother, so often contract the disease 
that the mass of people have an almost unshakable 
belief that it is inherited. Eminent physicians, how- 
ever, say that the disease is not inherited. Professor 
Koch, who twenty-two years ago discovered the cause 
of tuberculosis and thus opened the way for saving 
millions of lives, says in an instructive interview on 
the subject: " The last three or four weeks of life are 
the most deadly in the spread of infection. . . . 
His every cough, sneeze, or effort at speech sends 
forth a spray laden with bacilli in virulent form 
deadly to the poor wife and children around him. . . 
He speaks further of the dying consumptive who 
sets "this terrible spray in operation." In another 
place he says, " it is not cruelty to isolate these cases; 
it is the truest and highest kindness. . . . 
" In all other infectious diseases we attack infection 
at its source; cases of small-pox, of leprosy, of diph- THE SICK 
171 
theria, of plague, are isolated, but cases of tubercu- 
losis in their last stages, the most deadly stage of 
the most deadly disease of all, are still allowed 
throughout Europe to spread further infection broad- 
cast in the midst of their already destitute families. 
This fact does not yet seem to be learned. When 
it is, and when we have these homes for the hope- 
less cases adjoining every city, then tuberculosis will 
pass from the midst of us." 1 
Let us consider whether it is an economy on the 
part of society to ignore the spread of tuberculosis 
and to do little more than to furnish the consumptive 
with a place in which to die. The state has gone 
little farther than that in this country. We need 
not, for the moment, consider what is kind, what is 
humane, what would be doing unto others as we would 
have others do unto us if we had consumption. We 
need only consider cold figures and the economics 
of the disease. Dr. Hermann Biggs, who has spent 
a good part of his life in doing invaluable work for 
New York and is one of the few physicians of this 
country who have carefully studied the social con- 
sequences of individual diseases, has recently said in 
an important lecture on tuberculosis that the average 
cost to society of preparing a man for usefulness is 
$1500. This is in the nature of a grant from parents 
or state, which the child, when he becomes a man, is 
expected to return to the community by his labor. 172 
POVERTY 
Considering that 10,000 people every year die of 
tuberculosis in New York, the natural conclusion is 
that New York loses annually about $15,000,000. 
The cost of their nursing, food, medicines, attendance, 
as well as the loss of productive labor, adds a further 
loss to the municipality which Dr. Biggs estimates 
at $8,000,000. Upon the same basis it is estimated 
that the annual loss in the United States from tuber- 
culosis alone is $330,000,000? It should be noted 
that this is an annual loss. Each consumptive un- 
cared for infects some one near him; he passes his 
disease on to others; he leaves a legacy of death to 
friends and neighbors. The 120,000 consumptives 
who die this year yield 120,000 consumptives who 
are to die next year, and so on continuously. It is 
cheaper in every way to cure a consumptive in a 
sanatorium than it is to let him die in a hospital or 
in a public institution of some kind, but to let him 
die in a hospital or institution of whatever kind is 
cheaper than to let him die in his tenement. What 
we are doing now is just the wrong thing. As Dr. J. 
H. Pryor has said, " We must care for the consump- 
tive in the right place, in the right way, and at the 
right time, until he is cured; instead of, as now, in 
the wrong place, in the wrong way, at the wrong 
time, until he is dead." It is cheaper and it is 
infinitely more humane. 
It is unquestionably the duty of society to care for THE SICK 
173 
the victims of this disease. It is a social disease. 
Society is responsible for its continuance. If I con- 
tract the disease when in a theatre, a factory, or a 
public building or when riding in a street car, or if I 
move into a tenement which has just been vacated by 
a consumptive, or if I live in a tenement where a 
consumptive was permitted to spit on the floors in 
the hall, or if I am compelled by poverty to live in a 
dark, unventilated room, which the law should every- 
where prohibit, I know that society is to blame for 
my having contracted the disease, because society 
alone through its board of health and governmental 
agencies, can prohibit careless expectoration, can dis- 
infect tenements, can compel notification of diseases, 
can confiscate sweatshop garments. It alone can 
remove centres of infection by powers which it 
alone has. 
Many years ago I was engaged in taking into the 
country a great many small children from one of the 
poorest districts of one of our largest cities. The 
little ones were gay and active and could hardly 
be kept quiet or in hand during the journey. One 
little girl, in a condition of extreme anaemia, with 
bright eyes and a very delicate little frame, found 
herself so easily exhausted in play that she came to 
sit by me and talk. I discovered from my short con- 
versation with her that her father had been ill for 
several months, that he " coughed and coughed " 174 
POVERTY 
and lay in bed most of the day. She and another 
little one slept with the father; the mother and two 
babies slept in another bed in the same room. 
The mother earned the living, and in the evening 
when she came home, the little girl said, " she 
would just weep and weep." Upon my return I 
called upon the father and told him how he was 
endangering the lives of the children by remaining 
at home, and especially by his extreme carelessness 
in spitting about the room. I urged him to go to a 
hospital, but he refused, saying that, as he had to die, 
he was going to die with his family. The rooms 
were cold and dark and bare, and I knew what the 
result would be if he were left to continue at home. 
Failing in all efforts to persuade him, I urged the 
Board of Health to compel him; but the Health Board 
responded by saying that, according to the law, tuber- 
culosis was not an infectious disease and that therefore 
the man could not be forcibly removed. I remember 
with what despair I worked for two or three weeks in 
trying to persuade him to be just and fair to his family. 
Finally I left the city and was gone for somewhat 
over two years and a half. Upon my return, I in- 
quired concerning the family from a charity agent 
who had visited them frequently. She said they were 
no longer dependent upon charity: they were all 
dead. One seldom sees a more perfect, nor indeed 
a more terrible, example of the helplessness of the THE SICK 
175 
individual, and of the need of social action, to stop 
the spread of the disease. 
The following measures, if carried out in every 
part of this country, would stamp out the Plague in 
twenty years.* First, the disease should be declared 
in all states and in all cities "infectious." Second, 
there should be compulsory notification of all cases of 
tuberculosis. The necessity for this need not be 
argued. The reasons for it have been fully presented 
by Dr. Biggs and others, and a form of it is in operation 
in New York City, in Prussia, and in Norway.1 Third, 
the advanced cases should be given care in institutions 
suited to their need. Professor Koch says : " Let their 
days be made as pleasant as ingenuity can make 
them; let them in some airy ward, or in an open 
Liegehalle, receive visits from their friends, even in 
these last days ; but let them go to the grave with 
the consolation of knowing that they are not handing 
on a legacy of tragedy to those they leave behind."2 
Fourth, the establishment and maintenance of suffi- 
cient sanatoria and dispensaries for the treatment 
in the earlier stages of every case of consumption. 
Fifth, careful and complete disinfection of all houses 
and rooms in which consumptives have died and 
from which consumptives have been removed, etc., etc. 
* Professor Koch says that he sees " no reason why " in England 
and in Germany tuberculosis should not be banished " from our midst 
in, say, ten years . . . without any exorbitant outlay on the part of 
cither State." 176 
POVERTY 
Sixth, the construction of decent tenements, and 
the destruction, or satisfactory renovation, of every 
house known to be a source of infection, the demoli- 
tion of " Lung Blocks," and the establishment of 
breathing spaces in the poorer districts of the cities. 
Seventh, a crusade of hygienic education among all 
people and the punishment of promiscuous spitting. 
" The Great White Plague " is the result of our 
weakness, our ignorance, our selfishness, and our vices; 
there is no more need of its existence on the earth 
than of the existence of the Great Black Plague, the 
plague of typhus fever, the plague of dysentery, the 
plague of Asiatic cholera, the plague of leprosy, or 
the plague of small-pox. These other plagues have 
been driven from the western world, and so, too, will 
the Great White Plague have been, when the crusade 
against tuberculosis shall have enlisted a larger army 
of competent physicians, and of other public-spirited 
citizens who will give generously of their time and 
wealth to the prevention of this disease; or when, as 
in Germany, the state itself and the municipalities in 
the state provide the needed sanatoria for the care of 
its victims. It will be stamped out when the humane 
work of the Tenement House Department and the 
Health Department of this city, and of every other 
city, is victorious over opponents; when there is es- 
tablished in the mind of every one that vital principle 
of an advanced civilization, namely, that the profits of THE SICK 
177 
individuals are second in importance to the life, wel- 
fare, and prosperity of the great masses of people. It 
will disappear from that community which demands 
the destruction of an insanitary tenement regardless 
of inconvenience to individuals and which also de- 
mands that there shall be no dark and windowless 
rooms within its boundaries under any condition what- 
soever, as a result of any plea, or as a favor to private 
interests great or small. 
Tuberculosis has continued so long in the world 
because the individual man, and communities made 
up of men, thinking individually, cannot in their 
hearts appreciate the wickedness and the sorrow 
which are both cause and result of the White Plague. 
Ruskin truly says : " People would instantly care for 
others as well as themselves if only they could 
imagine others as well as themselves. Let a child 
fall into the river before the roughest man's eyes; 
he will usually do what he can to get it out, even at 
some risk to himself; and all the town will triumph 
in the saving of one little life. Let the same man 
be shown that hundreds of children are dying of 
fever for want of some sanitary measure which will 
cost him trouble to urge, and he will make no effort; 
and probably all the town would resist if he did." 
When we are told the following story by one who 
has worked among the consumptives of our largest 
city, and who knows that it is typical of hundreds 178 
POVERTY 
and thousands of wretched, poverty-stricken people, 
have we no incentive to do all that we can, individually 
and in association with others, to stamp out so devas- 
tating an affliction as that of the needless and pre- 
ventable Great White Plague ? 
"The Prayer of the Tenement1 
" ' Breath - breath - give me breath.' A Yiddish 
whisper, on a night in April, 1903, from the heart 
of the New York Ghetto. 
"At 18 Clinton Street, back in the rear tenement, 
a young Roumanian Jew lay dying of consumption. 
I had come in with a Jewish doctor. With every 
breath I felt the heavy, foul odor from poverty, igno- 
rance, filth, disease. In this room ten feet square 
six people lay on the floor packed close, rubbing 
the heavy sleep from tired eyes, and staring at us 
dumbly. Two small windows gave them air, from 
a noisome court - a pit twenty feet across and five 
floors deep. The other room was only a closet six 
feet by seven, with a grated window high up open- 
ing on an air-shaft eighteen inches wide. And in 
that closet four more were sleeping, three on a bed, 
one in a cradle. 
" ' Breath - breath - give me breath.' The man's 
disease was infectious; and yet for two long weeks 
he had lain here dying. From his soiled bed he 
could touch the one table where the two families THE SICK 
179 
ate; the cooking stove was but six feet from him; 
the cupboard, over his pillow; he could even reach 
one of the cradles, where his baby girl lay staring 
frightened at his strange position. For his wasted 
body was too feeble to rise; too choked, too tortured, 
to lie down. His young wife held him up while the 
sleepers stared silently on, and that Yiddish whisper 
came over and over again, but now with a new and 
more fearful meaning. ' Breath - breath - breath. 
Or kill me; oh, kill me ! ' 
"Two years ago this man had come to America - 
one of the four hundred and eighty-eight thousand in 
1901. He came young and well and hopeful, with 
his wife and their baby son. Two more had been 
born since then. It was to be a new country, a new 
home, a fresh start, a land to breathe in. ' Breath - 
breath - give me breath.' He had breathed no air 
here but the close, heavy air of the sweatshop from 
six in the morning until ten at night. Sometimes - 
he whispered - he worked on until eleven. He was 
not alone. In New York to-day and to-night are 
over fifty thousand like him working. And late in 
the night when he left the feverish labor, at the hour 
when other homes are sleeping, he had come in 
through the foul court and had sunk into restless 
sleep in the dark closet six feet by seven. There 
are three hundred and sixty-one thousand such closets 
in the city. And this was his home. 180 
POVERTY 
'"Luft-giebt mir luft.' He spoke only Yid- 
dish. The new country had given the Plague 
before the language. For the sweatshop and 
the closet had made him weak; his weakened 
body could make no fight; the Plague came in and 
fed swiftly. Still on through the winter he had 
worked over the machine in the sweatshop, infect- 
ing the garments he sewed - feverish, tired, fear- 
ful- to buy food and coal, to keep his 'home' alive. 
And now, on this last day of life, ten times he had 
whispered to his brother, begging him to care for 
the wife and the three little children. 
" The struggle now is ended. The home is scat- 
tered. The smothered whisper is forever hushed. 
' Breath - breath - give me breath.' It speaks the 
appeal of thousands." 
Unquestionably the responsibility, whether for the 
sanitary conditions of the tenements, the sanitary 
conditions of the workshops, or for the rendering of 
industrial processes less dangerous, is definitely a 
social one. The individual alone is powerless. 
Fevers and plagues will continue to afflict mankind 
until the community itself is aroused to demand 
wise and humane legislation, providing for the 
most thorough preventive measures. The indi- 
vidual cannot make laws for the community; he 
is very greatly dependent upon the common water 
supply; he is dependent upon the action of the THE SICK 
181 
community to insure to him and to others pure air, 
an abundance of light, cleanliness of streets and 
surroundings, the provision of good sewerage and 
efficient plumbing. Society must protect him from 
poisonous vapors and odors, arising from decompos- 
ing animal and vegetable matter and from offensive 
trades, such as slaughtering, etc.; he must depend 
upon the sanitary authorities to prevent adulteration 
and to guarantee to him and to others pure food. 
The sanitary authorities alone can prevent dangers 
to health from those insanitary conditions arising 
as a result of street excavations, privies, stables, 
accumulated garbage and dead animals. The com- 
munity alone has the power to compel an individual 
to keep the tenement he owns in a wholesome and 
sanitary condition; it alone can legislate and it 
alone can enforce sanitary conditions in mines, 
workshops, and factories. The individual of the 
present day is dependent upon society for all of 
these preventive, sanitary measures. Whatever may 
be the weaknesses in socialism as applied to indus- 
try, socialism is now demanded by every one to 
protect the health of the community and to make 
wise and far-reaching provisions for the physical 
welfare of all the people. 
There is now a pretty general realization of the 
necessity for social action to stamp out disease 
whenever it is epidemic and to employ preventive 182 
POVERTY 
measures whenever a disease threatens to become 
epidemic. Social action has already extinguished 
a long list of epidemic diseases which in former 
times caused a dreadful mortality. The great epi- 
demic diseases of the Middle Ages, which destroyed 
nations almost, have been exterminated. Cholera, 
typhus fever, small-pox, and dysentery have been 
so reduced that they now affect but small numbers 
of people. Even yellow fever has been reduced 
and can be practically stamped out by proper sani- 
tary measures. A reduction, within the last few 
decades, in the number of deaths due to tuber- 
culosis is one of the striking achievements of modern 
sanitary science. All of these diseases are conta- 
gious or infectious, and, perhaps for that reason 
more than for any other, the community has been 
spurred to lively and associated action. There is 
still, however, a formidable list of preventable dis- 
eases, such as scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, 
whooping-cough, and summer diarrhoea, which cause 
widespread sickness. In addition to the crusade 
against these forms of sickness, the prevention of 
accidents in industry and of certain diseases result- 
ing from dangerous trades and insanitary homes 
and work-places are fields of promise for the sani- 
tarian and for community action. These latter 
forms of sickness are, however, not as a rule con- 
tagious or infectious, and therefore reform moves 183 
THE SICK 
slowly, held back as it is by the many obstructions 
set in its path by selfish landlords and manufacturers. 
Such greed is plainly responsible for high death 
rates and for much sickness and poverty. 
Unnecessary disease and death are mainly active 
in bringing misery to the working classes and 
especially to those in poverty. The well-to-do 
classes are relatively free from preventable, dis- 
ease-producing conditions of work and of living. 
It is questionable whether, in the long run, the 
well-to-do classes, who own the tenements, the 
mines, and the factories, are really adding to their 
profits by resisting sanitary improvements, and by 
refusing, whenever possible, to remedy conditions 
which undermine the health and increase the death 
rate of the working people. To put it upon this 
criminally low commercial basis, even that is ques- 
tionable. An increase of population is profitable to 
the owners of tenements ; they see this very clearly 
when they support, as some of them do, unrestricted 
immigration. A large immigration means an increas- 
ing demand for tenements; but so does a decreased 
death rate. And yet, for the sake of profits, they 
often support unrestricted immigration and oppose 
measures for decreasing the death rate. The cost 
of sickness, now a loss to both landlord and tenant, 
might go toward an increased rental for a more 
sanitary tenement. The financial burden of sickness 184 
POVERTY 
is considerable even among well-to-do people. The 
workmen, with their smaller purses, must bear far 
heavier burdens. But the loss to the world of pro- 
ductive laborers, and the financial loss by sickness, 
are after all as nothing compared to the crime of 
unnecessarily and unconcernedly adding to the num- 
ber of widows and to the number of the fatherless. 
The entire matter sums itself up very easily. In the 
first place, we put property before human life; we 
unconsciously estimate it more highly and foster 
it more tenderly; we do it as individuals and we do 
it collectively. The railroads consider the Block 
System of signals and automatic couplers un- 
warranted luxuries because profits are valued more 
than the lives of the workmen. " The sanitary 
improvements which this law forces on us will ruin 
us," the landlords and manufacturers say, when a 
law is proposed to remedy the insanitary conditions 
of home and workshop. They will not, of course. 
Such laws never have, although many of the most 
important sanitary measures of the last hundred 
years have been opposed on these grounds. But 
suppose they did? Must we then withdraw our 
sanitary measure and continue to sacrifice certain 
human beings in order that other human beings 
may make profits ? A few years ago I urged that 
a certain tenement be destroyed because it was vile 
and insanitary and caused about eight unnecessary THE SICK 
185 
deaths every year. An officer answered my com- 
plaint in these words: "To demolish this tenement 
would do a great injury to the widow woman who 
owns it. It is her only property." Now murder 
is murder - whether the killing is done by a tene- 
ment or carbolic acid, whether in hatred and revenge 
or in cold blood, for a certain price or for profits, 
for the benefit of a rich man's purse or for the last 
crust which a widow may ever hope to have. As 
I understand it, thou shalt not kill admits of 
no exceptions. It applies to the man who makes 
profits by the killing as truly as it applies to the 
hold-up man. 
This evil, as indeed most evils, is rooted in the 
old, old sins and in the old, old crimes. They are 
merely in new guises. Murder, Adultery, and Thiev- 
ery have so disguised themselves that we do not 
recognize them. No one can help knowing that 
sickness is caused by vile tenements, by dangerous 
employments and insanitary workshops; every one 
must know also that much poverty and misery 
inevitably result from unnecessary sickness ; further- 
more, no one can fail to know that an excessive 
number of deaths occur among the work-people 
employed in certain industries and living in certain 
tenements. The cause and effect are clear. Then 
why does not the owner or employer remedy the 
cause of the sickness, poverty, and death ? "He 186 
POVERTY 
probably does not know it exists," is the ordinary 
answer. But it is no answer. Attempt to remedy 
the evils by legislation, or by enforcement of the 
laws, and then you begin to realize that you are in 
a fight, and that, for one reason or another, the 
landlords and employers are against you. Every 
movement you make is watched and attacked. 
Even bribery will be used to defeat sanitary meas- 
ures ; that is to say, measures to save life. Now 
the conclusion one is forced to draw from an experi- 
ence of that sort is not a pleasant one, but the logic 
by which one reaches the conclusion seems clear 
and certain. These men are murderers. 
Mr. Jacob A. Riis says, " You can kill a man 
with a tenement as easily as you can kill a man with 
an axe." But in the one case there is no concern. 
The newspapers do not mention the murder and no 
one is indicted or sent to prison. In the other case 
the whole town is more than likely to be in a fever 
of excitement. By preventing legislation, or by 
using influence or bribes to prevent enforcement, 
a man may kill thousands of human beings and still 
be considered perfectly respectable; he may remain 
a member of the best uptown clubs, and free to go 
on repeating his crimes; but Heaven help the man 
who uses the axe! We are deceived by the use of 
new methods in killing. One is a social method for 
the sake of profits; the other the use of individual THE SICK 
187 
physical force. It would seem as if we had arrived 
at the point where a social act may be understood. 
Almost every important act to-day is a social act and 
the most important crimes are social crimes. Ruskin 
has put the whole matter into powerful words : " A 
great nation, for instance, does not spend its entire 
national wits for a couple of months in weighing 
evidence of a single ruffian's having done a single 
murder; and for a couple of years, see its own 
children murder each other by their thousands or 
tens of thousands a day, considering only what the 
effect is likely to be on the price of cotton, and 
caring nowise to determine which side of battle is 
in the wrong. Neither does a great nation send 
its poor little boys to jail for stealing six walnuts and 
allow its bankrupts to steal their hundreds or thou- 
sands with a bow, and its bankers, rich with poor 
men's savings, to close their doors ' under circum- 
stances over which they have no control ' with a 
' by your leave '; and large landed estates to be 
bought by men who have made their money by 
going with armed steamers up and down the China 
Seas, selling opium at the cannon's mouth, and 
altering, for the benefit of the foreign nation, the 
common highwayman's demand of ' your money or 
your life,' into that of 'your money and your life.' 
Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its 
innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog 188 
POVERTY 
fever, and rotted out of them by dunghill plague, 
for the sake of sixpence a life extra per week to its 
landlords; and then debate, with drivelling tears, and 
diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously 
to save, and nursingly cherish, the lives of its mur- 
derers." 1 
These are terrible words, and we are just awakening 
to their awful truth. We ourselves, and especially 
our penal laws, put most things on an individualistic 
basis, because our thoughts, our moral principles, 
and our laws have been moulded in an individualistic 
society which has largely passed away. Only an 
individual man killing an individual man, or an in- 
dividual stealing from an individual, or an adulterer 
injuring an individual, is censured and punished. 
The injustice lies in the killing, the stealing, or the 
degradation of a human being, and not in the method 
by which it is done. The evils of gambling are not 
less evil because a " public service " corporation 
makes it possible, nor is killing less terrible because 
it happens in a Southern cotton-mill owned by 
Northern capital, or in a tenement owned, but per- 
haps never seen, by one of our wealthiest citizens. 
Public property obtained by grab-bills, or by bribery, 
is not less stolen property than the revenue of a 
pickpocket. A man who causes adultery by paying 
his working-girls starvation wages, which must be 
increased, if in no other way, by sin, is not less THE SICK 
189 
injurious to the community than the procuress. I do 
not believe that the mass of the men who are re- 
sponsible for these things know what they are doing. 
But most of our present-day social ills are due to 
these old sins and old crimes masquerading in unfa- 
miliar guise. 
This loss of life, so much of which is unnecessary, 
these heavy burdens which sickness lays upon the 
wage-earning classes in particular, and this bitter 
poverty of the widows and the fatherless, which fol- 
lows so often upon sickness,-these are things which 
point to terrible social crimes and also fortunately 
to remedies which are immediately at hand and 
obvious. CHAPTER V 
THE CHILD 
u Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 
This adversity is necessary to men. Difficulties 
and struggles, simple fare and simple living, are good 
for men; but poverty - the poverty of which we 
have been speaking - is without its jewel and is both 
unlovely and venomous. And this is more true of 
the child of poverty than it is of the man. How- 
ever sad and miserable that poverty is which under- 
mines the power and usefulness of men, it is a slight 
thing compared to that poverty which blights and 
ruins childhood. It will be recalled that in those 
streets and courts and alleys in which the inebriate, 
the blind, the crippled, the consumptive, and the 
aged - the ragged ends of life - live, there also live 
the half-starved, underclad beginnings in life. The 
poverty which kills, which makes terrible the end 
of life, is not so terrible as the poverty which 
blackens and stifles childhood and casts a shadow 
over all the after life. Poverty degrades all men 
190 THE CHILD 
191 
who struggle under its yoke, but the poverty which 
oppresses childhood is a monstrous and unnatural 
thing, for it denies the child growth, development, 
strength; it robs the child of the present and curses 
the man of the future. 
And yet wherever there is a man in poverty there 
are several children. There are more children than 
adults in the world, and the same holds true of those 
in poverty. If there are indeed ten million persons 
in this country underfed, underclothed, and badly 
housed, the great majority are children who have 
neither violated social laws nor committed any sin. 
There are children in every stage of poverty - from 
the lowest and most vicious, to the highest, most 
clean, and self-respecting. The child product of the 
lowest is the street Arab, the waif, or gamin, - the 
child who is stunted in body and crooked in mind. 
He belongs to a type which is almost universal, and, 
when Shaftesbury describes the London waif, or 
Hugo the gamin of Paris, we recognize in him the 
tramp-child of our own cities. " He lives in bands," 
Hugo says, "roams the streets, lodges in the open 
air, wears an old pair of trousers of his father's, 
which descend below his heels, an old hat of some 
other father, which descends below his ears, a single 
suspender of yellow listing; he runs, lies in wait, 
rummages about, wastes time, blackens pipes, swears 
like a convict, haunts the wine-shop, knows thieves, 192 
POVERTY 
calls gay women thou, talks slang, sings obscene 
songs, and has no evil in his heart." But these 
children are waifs, many of whom have severed their 
connection with home life. 
There are others, many above the waif and some 
perhaps even below him, the beaten, cowed, and 
starved child of the inebriate, for instance, - all of 
whom suffer the evils of poverty. It seems to me 
sometimes that all children from the tenements, and 
even from many apartment houses, should be classed 
in poverty, not because they are underfed, under- 
clothed, or badly housed, for the majority are not, 
but because they have been forgotten, their play- 
space has been taken up and no excuse made, nor 
has any substitute been supplied. When the city 
came to be the abode of men, the child was given 
the common to replace the fields; as the city grew 
in size, the child was pushed from the common into 
the small yard, and from the yard he has been thrust 
into the street. And now the street life is the most 
conspicuous and universal thing in the child life 
of New York City. There are not less than half 
a million children in Greater New York whose only 
playground is the street. As the most widespread 
evil of child life in the largest cities, and as a kind 
of poverty, - since play is a necessity to childhood, - 
let us consider what this lack of play-space means in 
the way of injury to the child. THE CHILD 
193 
There has been a great deal said in recent years 
about the importance of play as a powerful educative 
influence in the development of children. Not only, 
of course, is play recognized as a necessity to the 
child, but it has been proved, beyond reasonable 
doubt, that the child in play cultivates naturally 
his mental, moral, and physical life. The widest and 
most varied opportunities for play have surrounded 
the child for centuries in the country life. In the 
last century the growth of large cities has deprived 
the child of these opportunities. Except for a few 
parks and playgrounds, the street is all that is left 
to the playing child, and the street gang is his 
organization for purposes of play. This gang is 
the really vital influence in the life of most boys 
in the large cities. Every street and neighborhood 
in the tenement districts of New York has such a 
gang. Mr. Brewster Adams, formerly of the Uni- 
versity Settlement, has recently published a very 
instructive paper on "The Street Gang as a Factor 
in Politics." He points out the "Chrysties," the 
"City Halls," the "Cherry Hills," the " Elizabeths," 
the " Leonards," the " Mott Streets," the " Mulberry 
Bends," the "Catherines," the "Pearl Streets," and 
many other gangs with names which indicate their 
preempted playgrounds. They have no purpose 
except to play, and this means, with the children in 
these districts, to " steal, to destroy, even to stab or 194 
POVERTY 
shoot ... if done in a worthy (?) cause, in the name 
of the gang." To illustrate the type of children in 
these gangs, Mr. Adams says: " ' Little Spec,' who 
lives in a tenement down on James Street, has 
suffered violence at the hands of the ' Mott Streets,' 
the most dangerous gang of boys under fourteen 
in lower New York. ' Dere's a guiney over at de 
Points [Five Points] what cut me wid a knife,' he 
tells his friends on James Street. ' Us kids will 
get togedder and go over dere, and we won't do 
much but make circles around dat gang,' responds 
Hiteye, his friend, who lives in the next flat, and 
Hiteye leads the gang."1 
It is the life of the street, in a city which has for- 
gotten the child, that develops, as Mr. Jacob A. Riis 
says, " dislike of regular work, physical incapability 
of sustained effort, misdirected love of adventure, 
gambling propensities, absence of energy, and un- 
trained will, carelessness of the happiness of others." 
Dr. Elisha Harris referred to the same matter as 
early as 1866 when he said, before a New York Leg- 
islative Committee: " The younger criminals seem 
to come almost exclusively from the worst tenement- 
house districts. When the great riot occurred in 
1863, every hiding-place and nursery of crime dis- 
covered itself by immediate and active participation 
in the operations of the mob. Those very places 
and domiciles, and all that are like them, are to-day THE CHILD 
195 
nurseries of crime, and of the vices and disorderly- 
courses which lead to crime. By far the largest 
part, 80 per cent at least, of crimes against prop- 
erty and against the person are perpetrated by indi- 
viduals who have either lost connection with home 
life, or never had any, or whose homes have ceased 
to be sufficiently separate, decent, and desirable to 
afford what was regarded as ordinary wholesome 
influences of home and family." 
It is the great, homeless, yardless tenement - the 
nursery of crime, Dr. Harris has called it - which 
causes the greatest injury to city children. The 
collapse of home life in the vicious districts, and the 
necessity which compels both mother and father, 
among the poorest classes of working people, to work 
early and late, bereave the child of every good influ- 
ence except that of the school, or, by chance, that of 
the settlement. The little ones are left to range at 
will in the tenements and streets. This freedom 
can hardly be good for them; for in the crowded 
quarters of the yardless tenement the children suffer 
manifold restrictions and are in contact with condi- 
tions, physical and moral, which predispose them to 
criminality. Because of these and other reasons the 
extent of juvenile crime in these districts is enormous. 
Crowded in the tenements where the bedrooms are 
small and often dark, where the living-room is also a 
kitchen, a laundry, and often a garment-making shop 196 
POVERTY 
are the growing children whose bodies cry out for 
exercise and play. They are often an irritant to the 
busy mother, and likely as not the object of her carp- 
ing and scolding. The teeming tenements open their 
doors, and out into the dark passageways and courts, 
through foul alleys and over broken sidewalks, 
flow ever renewed streams of playing children. 
Under the feet of passing horses, under the wheels 
of passing street cars, jostled about by the pedestrian, 
driven on by the policeman, they annoy every one. 
They crowd about the music or drunken brawls in 
the saloons, they play hide-and-seek about the gar- 
bage boxes, they " shoot craps " in the alleys, they 
seek always and everywhere activity, movement, 
life.1 
This using of the main open spaces as playgrounds 
is critically called " the street habit." But both it 
and " the gang habit " are at first perfectly innocent 
and natural results of the crowded tenements and 
of the universal necessity for play. Now a healthy 
expression in play of the mental, physical, and moral 
faculties of the children of the tenements is at pres- 
ent almost impossible. In consequence they break 
windows, they ring door-bells, they steal, they espe- 
cially rejoice in " making it warm " for the unpopular 
neighbor who displeases them. They annoy every 
one because they are not reckoned with in the city's 
scheme of things. Only within the last few days one THE CHILD 
197 
child was crushed by a truck, another killed by 
an automobile, and still another child, while play- 
ing with her kitten on the roofs of some tenement 
houses, fell into a chimney and was buried alive. 
Every day brings its horrors because children must 
steal their play-space from a thoughtless and selfish 
community. 
The newspaper reports of crimes, immoralities, and 
death often bear with them evidence of how little 
provision is made to satisfy this play-hunger of child- 
hood. Our gardens are given a place apart; flowers 
and plants are tended and drawn out by wise hands, 
which supply unobtrusive and safe guidance; but the 
childhood of our city is without its place, without its 
tending, and without its guidance, and, in innocent 
play, tangles itself up in the shaftings and cogs of our 
business. 
In the failure to satisfy this need of the children 
with properly equipped municipal playgrounds, the 
street habit and the gang habit become the causes, 
not only of many unnecessary deaths, but also of a 
large percentage of juvenile crimes. Sneak-thievery 
and many other forms of vice and wickedness run 
their course in these gangs of the tenements with 
epidemic power; for to contagious diseases of all 
sorts, moral and physical, tenements furnish the line 
of least resistance. Without the saving influence of 
an attractive home or playground, whatever mental 198 
POVERTY 
and moral food they get, they obtain from the life of 
the streets. It impresses itself upon them, and they 
reproduce it all; gambling, drinking, the vaudeville, 
the fighting, the torchlight processions - whatever 
they see, good and bad alike, they imitate. 
It is in this spirit of play that the children commit 
most of their petty crimes. When one of them is 
caught stealing, he is brought to the Children's Court. 
He is taken away from father and mother and the 
tenement and sent to a Reform (?) School, where, in 
certain cities, he is put behind iron bars and uni- 
formed guards are placed over him just as if he were 
a wild animal. And this is often the innocent be- 
ginning of a life of crime. Sir Thomas More asked 
several centuries ago, " I pray you, what other thing 
do you than make thieves and then punish them ? " 
This was never so pertinent a question as now. The 
city child becomes criminal because it can almost be 
said that in these districts the only things to do 
worthy of a boy's spirit are those things which are 
against the law. At any rate, the victim of over- 
crowding sees little difference between the laws 
which prevent him from " flipping " on and off street 
cars or playing ball in the streets, and those which 
prohibit truancy, stealing, etc. He does see that 
whatever depends upon bravado, which all boys love, 
is looked down upon by the policeman. The causes 
of crime are many, but among the most important THE CHILD 
199 
ones are the evil associations of the tenement, the 
bad sanitary conditions, the collapse of home life, 
and lastly, the yardless tenement itself. 
These evils of child life are doubly serious and 
dangerous because the mass of people in poverty in 
our cities are immigrants. The children of immi- 
grants are a remarkable race of little ones. They 
are to become Americans, and through them, more 
than through any other agency, their own parents 
are being led into a knowledge of American ways 
and customs. All the statistics available prove that 
vice and crime are far more common among the 
children of immigrants than among the children of 
native parentage, and this is due no less to the yard- 
less tenement and the street playground than it is to 
widespread poverty.1 In a mass of cases the mother 
and father both work in that feverish, restless way 
of the new arrival, ambitious to get ahead. To over- 
come poverty they must neglect their children. 
Turned out of the small tenement rooms into the 
street, the child learns the street. Nothing escapes 
his sharp eyes, and, almost in the briefest conceiv- 
able time, he is an American ready to make his way 
by every known means, good and bad. To the 
child everything American is good and right. 
There comes a time when the parents cannot guide 
him or instruct him; he knows more than they; he 
looks upon their advice as of no value. If ever 200 
POVERTY 
there was a self-made man, that man is the son of 
the immigrant. But the street and the street gang 
have a great responsibility; they are making the 
children of a hundred various languages from every 
part of the world into American citizens. 
These present-day problems of the child - the 
cities, the coming of immigrants, the collapse of 
home life, the yardless tenement - are all due to 
one underlying cause. There has been an entire 
revolution in industry during the last century, and 
nearly all the social problems of child life have 
grown up as a result of this revolution. The best 
thought of this entire period has been given to 
industrial development, - to economy, wealth, profits, 
and wages. That the needs of the child have been 
overlooked, if not entirely forgotten, in the readjust- 
ment of society to the new conditions, cannot be 
questioned. At the risk of a slight interruption in 
the discussion of the problems of child life, perhaps 
it would be well to trace the recent changes in life 
which have occurred, for the purpose of showing 
their effect on the child and the present necessity 
of important readjustments of old institutions to 
these changes and of new social institutions to satisfy 
the needs of the child. 
A few decades ago in England and America, 
practically the entire life of parents and children 
- whether working, playing, or learning - was in THE CHILD 
201 
and about the home, and even now in certain back- 
ward industrial countries this is likewise true. The 
mass of people lived in small towns, or hamlets, as 
they might better be called, since that word in itself 
conveys the idea of home. There were a few large 
towns, but most of the population was grouped in 
these small rural communities. Nearly all work was 
done by hand, - manufacture. Horse-power, water- 
power, and hand-power were the bases of industry. 
The home fields raised the foodstuffs ; killing, brew- 
ing, cooking, baking, smithing, forging, spinning, 
and weaving were home occupations. The home had 
its own water supply; the home supplied its own 
defence; the home took precautions against disease 
and cared for the sick and even the insane. Social 
gatherings took place in the fields near the home or 
in the house itself. The children received practically 
their entire education either in the home or in the 
adjoining fields. Certainly in those days the child 
received his best education under the supervision of 
his own parents. The entire schooling, which was 
necessarily restricted to the teaching of the three 
R's, did not average in 1800 more than eighty-two 
days for each person.1 The children were nearly 
always in the sight of their parents. Both parents 
worked, and the children worked also; but the 
parents could stop in their work at any time for the 
purpose of instructing the children. In a word, 202 
POVERTY 
the home was the centre of the moral, educational, 
industrial, and social life. 
In most of the countries of western Europe and 
America this is now all changed. Except in a few 
belated industries, the domestic workshop no longer 
exists, even in the country; industrial processes, 
except, of course, agriculture, are now carried on by 
large, well-organized groups of employees, in offices, 
factories, mills, and mines, sometimes of enormous 
size. Steam and electricity have displaced hand-, 
water-, and horse-power as the motive forces of in- 
dustry. The individual workshop has given way to 
large cooperative methods of work. Hamlets have 
grown into factory towns, and the towns into cities. 
Millions of people in all parts of western Europe have 
emigrated from their homes and fields in the rural 
districts to the crowded centres of industry. We have 
now, on an enormous scale, cooperative production, 
a minutely organized division of labor and great 
aggregations of working people, laboring together in 
the houses of industry and dwelling together in the 
huge tenements of our cities. No revolution was ever 
before known that so completely and rapidly revo- 
lutionized the life and work of the people as this one 
of the last century. 
When this revolution brought into the world large 
cities and a new industrial life, it, at the same time, 
destroyed what has been described as the Home. THE CHILD 
203 
In our largest cities this home no longer exists. 
The economic development of the last hundred years 
has destroyed it and left in its stead a mere shadow 
of what once was the source of all things essential to 
the world. The mills, factories, abattoirs, breweries, 
and bakeries took from the home the various trades ; 
the state supplied the defence, and the city the water 
supply; the sanitarian, the surgeon, and the alienist 
took precaution against disease and replaced home 
remedies by skilled practice and medical science; 
the sick have hospital care, the schools undertake the 
instruction of the child, and the factory, etc., the 
technical training. The home is now a few rooms 
in a crowded tenement or apartment house. The 
fields have diminished to commons, the commons to 
yards, and the yards to courts and light shafts ; the 
tenement has become yardless. Little or nothing 
has replaced the social losses of the home, and the 
same may be said of the possibilities for recreation, 
which were lost with the fields and commons. A few 
settlements have endeavored to supply opportunities 
for keeping alive the neighborhood feeling; a few 
playgrounds have come to supply the recreative 
needs; but the losses have been serious and as yet 
there are no sufficient substitutes. The rapidity with 
which this revolution has occurred is almost unbe- 
lievable. There are men now living who have seen 
the working out of the whole industrial process. 204 
POVERTY 
Every one of these changes has had its effect upon 
the child. Although, in the working out of this 
process, the child was never once thought of, the 
revolution has vitally changed the environment and 
conditions of child life. We are in an era of great 
cities, and in a few years the mass of our population 
will live in cities. In these changes from the home 
to the factory, from the cottage to the tenement, and 
from the country to the city, the needs of childhood 
have been forgotten. Imagine a child in a great 
city, cities that are, as Ruskin has said, " mere 
crowded masses of store and warehouse and counter, 
and therefore to the rest of the world what the larder 
and cellar are to a private house; cities in which the 
object of men is not life, but labor; and in which all 
chief magnitude of edifice is to enclose machinery; 
cities in which the streets are not the avenues for 
the passing and procession of a happy people, but 
the drains for the discharge of a tormented mob, in 
which the only object in reaching any spot is to be 
transferred to another; in which existence becomes 
mere transition, and every creature is only one atom 
in a drift of human dust and current of interchanging 
particles, circulating here by tunnels underground, 
and there by tubes in the air."1 
In the scramble to readjust ourselves to the cities 
and to this new industrial life, built up as a result 
of steam and electricity, the child has been for- THE CHILD 
205 
gotten. To a very large extent he has been left 
to readjust himself, and the result is a series of 
really appalling problems. His father now leaves 
the home and goes to the factory; he may not 
watch his father at work or work with him-and 
it would not be good for him if he could - until 
he himself is old enough to become a laborer. He 
is in the city instead of in the country. He has 
lost the playgrounds which nature lavishly fur- 
nished, - the hills, valleys, and woodland, the thou- 
sand varieties of plants and animals, the streams, 
the blue sky over all, even the starry night. Bored 
by the homeless tenement, he finds himself on an 
asphalt pavement, in a crowded street, amid roars 
of excitement, - in a playground alive with busi- 
ness with which he must not interfere. But he 
plays; the street is interesting, garbage boxes and 
lamp-posts have a place in his games, and the child 
is happy, God bless him. 
These changes in the living and working condi- 
tions of the people and these changes in the envi- 
ronment of the child demand new agencies for 
the care of the child and a series of important re- 
adjustments of the social and educational institu- 
tions to the altered economic conditions. Certain 
social institutions have already readjusted them- 
selves, but the distinctly educational institutions 
have been slow to change. All institutions for 206 
POVERTY 
the common good undertaken by the community 
have developed more slowly than those institutions 
which have been initiated by individuals for the 
purpose of gaining profits. Parks, playgrounds, 
baths, recreation centres, athletic fields, gymnasia, 
social halls, play centres, creches, the social use 
of schools and school excursions to the country, 
have developed more slowly than saloons, theatres, 
public dance halls, rapid transit, etc., because there 
is no possibility of large profits in developing the 
former institutions, so necessary especially to the 
children. The great cities need social statesmen 
who, seeing the evils of child life, will bring about, 
through public agencies, the new institutions re- 
quired to save the rising generations from crime, 
street life, physical degeneration, and all the other 
evil results of the worst phases of city life. 
If the school were to assume a larger responsi- 
bility for the child, it would find it necessary to begin 
with nurseries to care for those smaller children 
whose parents must go out to work. One evening, 
in an effort to visit a blind man whom I knew, I felt 
my way up the stairs of an old tenement in one of 
the poorer districts of New York. Those to whom 
I spoke seemed not to know him, so I inquired from 
door to door. Finding a door open, on one of the 
upper floors, I walked in and lighted a match to see 
my way. Directly in front of me lay a small baby THE CHILD 
207 
half covered with rags. It startled me. No one was 
about, and the room was almost bare. I knocked 
at an adjoining door and inquired where the mother 
of the child was. A youngster of twelve years came 
to the door, and in answer to my question said, 
" Ah, de mudder of de kid cleans offices downtown, 
and me sister goes to de kid when it yells." " Where 
is your sister ? " I asked. " I dunno ! Say, mudder, 
where's Maime ? " cried the boy. " She's gone out 
for the evening," the mother responded. Nothing 
else is required to show the necessity. There are a 
thousand similar cases. 
In Paris the Ecoles Matemelles and the Classes de 
Garde have been formed for those children whose 
parents are employed during the day. In the latter 
the children are kept as long as necessary both day 
and night.1 However much we may deplore this 
annihilation of the home caused by both parents 
finding it necessary to become wage-earners, it is at 
present far too common among the poorest workers, 
and, until economic reform makes it unnecessary, the 
school must be looked to as the one social agency 
having power to save the children from the neglect 
which the poverty of the parents necessitates. 
Following upon these educational institutions for 
assisting in parental care, another development is 
necessary, - the furnishing of recreation, play, and 
social centres for all the children of the street 208 
POVERTY 
There has been a small and almost unworthy begin- 
ning in these developments of the social use of 
schools. This latter work has been pressed upon 
the authorities. It has not developed from a spirit 
within. The settlements, the women's clubs, and 
other organizations have been continuously holding 
up to the school its obligation to the child of the 
tenement. Even the proposals of Mr. Jacob A. Riis, 
supported by his knowledge of conditions in the 
poorer districts, have received too little consideration 
from the municipal authorities and even from the 
teachers themselves. The schools of New York City, 
the most important and vital instruments for advanc- 
ing social welfare, are closed from one-half to two- 
thirds of the time between eight in the morning and 
ten at night. Here is a social plant, owned by the 
people and valued at close to $60,000,000, which 
is out of use during a majority of the available time. 
It is the use of the schools during this idle time that 
is demanded by those interested in the street boys 
and their gangs in the tenement districts. It is abso- 
lutely necessary for the social losses of the home to 
be replaced by the school if the children are to be 
saved from the worst evils of city and street life. 
Let the municipal authorities who are responsible 
for the proper financial support of the schools bear 
in mind what the great educators have said about 
play as an educative influence in the development THE CHILD 
209 
of children. If what they say is true, it is inexcus- 
able to permit the schools to be closed when the 
children have time to play. If the schools will not 
guide the play, it is one of the ironies of city life 
that play will do more than they to educate the 
child. 
These problems of child life are school problems. 
They sum themselves up in the questions: Are we 
to have the school ignore this larger work of educa- 
tion and remain a sort of dispensary of learning - 
an inflexible missionary of the three R's ? Will it, 
because of financial embarrassment, be forced to give 
itself only half-heartedly and slovenly to these new 
problems of education, or is it to take, as its respon- 
sibility, the entire problem of child life and master 
it ? If the school does not assume this responsibility, 
how shall the work be done ? The reason for the 
present neglect of these vital matters is, it seems to 
me, ignorance rather than unconcern. The city 
fathers do not appreciate the new social needs, and 
the teachers, as a class, are lacking in a knowledge 
of industrial history and social evolution. They have 
not realized that the home is passing away and that, 
unless the school takes the child, he is left to the 
street. They have specialized in philosophy, peda- 
gogy, and psychology. They have isolated them- 
selves from contact with those in poverty. I could 
not wish for a better example of these facts than that 210 
POVERTY 
furnished by a principal, who said recently (accord- 
ing to the daily papers): " With all the play centres 
provided by the Board of Education, crime is on the 
increase. The parents are anxious for some agency 
to take their children day or night. Don't mistake 
this for love of education. It is parental selfishness 
that is throwing the burden, and the righteous burden, 
of the home upon the schools." It is almost incon- 
ceivable that a principal in our schools should know 
so little of the problems of the city child. He appar- 
ently does not know the tenement, - the yardless, 
homeless tenement, - and one fears that he may not 
know the rudiments of his obligations as an educator. 
But if he were the only one in ignorance, we should 
be fortunate indeed. As a matter of fact the Police 
Magistrates, the Board of Education, the Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment, as well as the teachers 
seem to be entirely unconscious of this industrial 
revolution which has entirely altered the conditions 
of child life, and they look upon these new problems 
as a result of parental selfishness, and upon the 
increase of juvenile crime as a result of parental 
neglect, and so on, never seeming to realize that the 
whole thing is a product of social evolution, and that 
the charge of neglect must rest upon the community 
and the school, and not, in most cases, upon the 
parent. 
There are many other illustrations which I could THE CHILD 
211 
give of this ignorance of the teachers concerning 
those problems of childhood which arise as a result 
of changed social conditions. One more will suffice. 
The problems of education differ widely in the vari- 
ous sections of our large cities. The education of 
the well-to-do children is a different problem from 
the education of the children of the poor. And 
a similar difference exists between the educational 
requirements of the native and the foreign children. 
The schools have not, however, made an effort to 
adapt themselves to the peculiar needs and abilities 
of the various classes and nationalities. At present 
the same system of instruction prevails for the 
Italian, the Irish, and the Jewish children. The his- 
torical background of their lives is given little or no 
consideration. To most members of public school 
boards all children are much the same; a child is a 
child; he is to have so much instruction of a certain 
kind, whether he be the result of the peculiar psychi- 
cal, social, or physical conditions of Italy, Roumania, 
Scandinavia, Russia, or Syria. One familiar with the 
homes abroad from which the immigrants have come, 
and familiar, as well, with the parents and the en- 
vironment of the child here, knows that the child of 
one of these races may be almost as unlike the child 
of another as Caliban is unlike Prosper. But, even if 
the school were able at present to adapt itself to the 
varying needs of the children of these many different 212 
POVERTY 
races, there would still be other adaptation needed. 
The environment of children living in different sec- 
tions of the city causes still other problems to be pre- 
sented to the schools. The child of good food, of 
happy and educative home surroundings, of adequate 
opportunities for recreation, of freedom from night 
work and from early morning toil before the opening 
of school, of relief from crowded streets and saloon 
brawls, is not the same child as the one born in the 
poorest tenement with its degraded environment. It 
does not seem possible that a child may be well 
educated by a system which does not take into con- 
sideration these racial differences and these varying 
conditions of environment. It is not enough for 
the teacher to know the child isolated from all else. 
However well he may be trained in school and col- 
lege in abstract pedagogy, the teacher must also be 
familiar with some of the social and industrial con- 
ditions out of which the child comes to receive his 
education in school and into which he must return 
when his education is finished. The isolation of the 
school administration and of the school teacher from 
the life of the people, from a vivifying knowledge of 
the whole child and his environment, is so great as to 
prevent a wise adaptation of our educational system 
to the needs of the child. Education should treat 
children as individuals, not as an indiscriminate mass 
who must be put through a certain routine, wholly THE CHILD 
213 
regardless of the past of the child, and with little 
regard for its present or future in the life of the 
world. There are no specifics arranged by educa- 
tional experts which will apply equally well to chil- 
dren of all nationalities, of varying home conditions, 
of varying prospects in life, of varying prospects of 
work, of varying material resources. There are 
probably no other people in the country, of equal 
importance to the country, who, as a class, need to 
be brought back to the people so much as do the 
teachers. 
I do not mean, of course, that one race or class of 
children should be given a quality of education inferior 
to that given another race or class of children. My 
point is that social position, past training, environment, 
and heredity have contributed to the development 
in different races and classes of certain aptitudes, 
manual and mental, artistic, mechanical, commer- 
cial, and administrative, which should be directed 
and cultivated by those who are responsible for the 
education of children. In other words, each race 
and class has, in more or less degree, a certain pecul- 
iar essence or flavor of mind, discoverable by a dis- 
cerning and wise teacher, which, if given its proper 
bent and lovingly cultivated, would yield to the world 
untold values in specially powerful aptitudes. This 
is an aspect of education which is peculiarly important 
to America with its mixture of races. An intensive 214 
POVERTY 
cultivation, of childhood would yield untold values. 
But, while this is true of the education of races and 
classes, it is even more important when applied to 
the training of individuals. The Italians might give 
to us more artists and the Poles more musicians than 
other races, but the individual child of whatever 
class or race should be given every opportunity to 
yield the best in any walk of life which his natural 
gifts make possible. 
These criticisms of the educational methods now in 
vogue are perhaps severe in view of the fact that the 
school authorities have had enormous burdens thrust 
upon them by the rapid growth of population and 
especially by immigration. As a matter of fact the 
schools have not only been unable to assume the new 
responsibilities; they have also to a certain extent 
been unable to fulfil their primary obligations. Un- 
fortunately no one knows to what extent. A careful 
estimate has been made for New York City show- 
ing that 14 per cent of all children of eleven and 
twelve years, considerably over one-fourth of all chil- 
dren of thirteen years, and more than one-half of all 
children of fourteen years of age are not in the public 
schools.1 I am informed by the Superintendent of 
Schools that about two hundred thousand children are 
in private and parochial schools, but, as their ages are 
unknown, the number of children who elude the truant 
officers cannot even be estimated. However, the en- THE CHILD 
215 
forcement of the present child-labor laws has brought 
out facts which show that a certain class of children, 
largely, doubtless, those of immigrants and poverty- 
stricken parents, receive a most inadequate education. 
Several hundred children in New York City of four- 
teen years of age have been refused working papers 
because they were unable to pass the simple literary 
requirements which a child of eleven or twelve years 
of age should be able to pass easily. A trade school 
in New York which accepts no children under fourteen 
years of age has found it necessary to teach almost 
every child how to spell and how to do simple sums. 
Even these beginnings in learning have not been 
acquired during the several years of training in the 
schools. These facts alone show that there is some- 
thing radically wrong. But I am sure that the fault 
does not lie altogether with the schools. There are, 
no doubt, faults in the curriculum. Some of the inef- 
ficiency may be due to overcrowded classes and to the 
part-time classes. But these faults and shortcomings 
will not alone explain the difficulty which the pub- 
lic schools here, and the public and church schools 
abroad, have in giving even the most elementary learn- 
ing and mental training to a certain class of children. 
These children come from those homes of poverty in 
which the irregular, hand-to-mouth existence of the 
parents exercises a blighting influence over the lives 
of the children. The effects of poverty are nowhere 216 
POVERTY 
else so clearly seen. Poverty's misery invariably falls 
heaviest upon the weakest. The poorest children are 
several inches smaller, considerably lighter, and in all 
ways less developed than the children of well-to-do 
parents. The half-starved, beaten, and neglected 
child of the inebriate, the physically weak child of 
the consumptive, - these are most to be pitied. But 
the poverty of any family is likely to be most serious 
at the very time when the children most need nur- 
ture, when they are most dependent, and when they 
are obtaining the only education which they are ever 
to receive.* Guidance and supervision of the parents 
are impossible because they must work ; the nurture 
is insufficient because there are too many hungry 
mouths to feed; learning is difficult because hungry 
stomachs and languid bodies and thin blood are not 
able to feed the brain. The lack of learning among 
so many poor children is certainly due, to an impor- 
tant extent, to this cause. There must be thousands 
- very likely sixty or seventy thousand children - in 
New York City alone who often arrive at school 
hungry and unfitted to do well the work required. 
This curse which poverty lays upon innocent children 
is an awful one, for it means that they may not grow, 
that they may not learn, and therefore that they may 
not be strong enough mentally or physically to over- 
come the cause of it all, - poverty. 
* See Chapter I., pp. 56-57. THE CHILD 
217 
Many cities in England, France, Germany, Swit- 
zerland, Belgium, and Italy have been for several 
years feeding at the schools the poorest children, 
because they have discovered that underfed children 
cannot be taught the simplest sums or the most 
elementary spelling. I have just been reading a 
large volume - an English report of several hun- 
dred pages - on "Underfed School Children."1 It 
is doubly sad reading to an American who knows 
that we have not even made inquiries in this country 
concerning this aspect of poverty. It is utter folly, 
from the point of view of learning, to have a compul- 
sory school law which compels children, in that weak 
physical and mental state which results from poverty, 
to drag themselves to school and to sit at their desks, 
day in and day out, for several years, learning little 
or nothing. If it is a matter of principle in demo- 
cratic America that every child shall be given a cer- 
tain amount of instruction, let us render it possible 
for them to receive it, as monarchial countries have 
done, by making full and adequate provision for the 
physical needs of the children who come from the 
homes of poverty. 
This child problem is the greatest of all problems. 
No manifestation of it is unimportant. No age and 
no nation has a greater responsibility nor a supremer 
duty than the training and education of the child. 
This is true even of Russia, ruled as it is by a 218 
POVERTY 
privileged class; but it is nowhere so true as here 
and now in this democracy. The masses must and 
will control a democracy. And the school must ever 
be one of the most important influences in moulding the 
masses. Is any man niggardly and miserly when it 
comes to the question, How shall I educate my child ? 
Does he seek to buy education in the cheapest market 
and have it supplied by machine methods ? The prob- 
lem of each individual parent is collectively the problem 
of the nation. " My child " becomes " our children " 
when we consider education socially. Is it then 
possible for a good and great nation to starve and 
beggar the schools, to be niggardly in the appropria- 
tions for their support and advancement ? President 
Eliot of Harvard has written a book called " More 
Money for the Public Schools," in which he shows 
the need for more ample funds to enable the school 
to do well the work it has now in hand. It will cost 
ten times as much as it costs now to do what must be 
done if the problems of child life, which arise as a 
result of the factory and the tenement house, are 
to be solved. There must be instead of a Board of 
Learning, such as we now have under another name, 
a Board of Education, which we do not have,- 
whatever our school authorities call themselves, - 
and the work of the new board will cost vastly more. 
But what difference can that possibly make ? What 
is of more worth than the work which it has to do ? THE CHILD 
219 
The instinct most to be treasured in men is the 
willingness to slave, to starve, and even to annihilate 
one's self for one's children. This is an individual 
virtue ripe for being socialized. As the earth - 
wealth, art, property, all - must, in a few years, be 
given over to these little ones, now learning their 
A-B-C's, may we not wisely use a large proportion 
of its income to make them worthier than ourselves to 
possess it ? Will learning alone make them worthier ? 
Poverty, the problem of city life, the homeless and 
yardless tenement, the street gang, and the many 
other influences outside of the school, are too power- 
ful to be overcome by a little learning. Nothing less 
than education is powerful enough to save the child. 
And " to prepare us for complete living is the function 
education has to discharge." The city child needs, 
as no child ever before needed, everything that edu- 
cation has to give, and all things that may wisely be 
included in the term. To make education synony- 
mous with learning is to rob the child of the sweet- 
est blessings of education. When we come to value 
education more than we value learning, the school 
will be the world of the child, whether working, play- 
ing, or learning.1 In the school he will be prepared 
to enter fitly the world of men. 
I have intentionally dwelt upon the lack of play- 
space in the modern city and upon the resultant evils, 
because " character," as Goethe says some place, " is 220 
POVERTY 
developed in the stream of life." This stream of life 
is for the child the field of play. Justice or injustice, 
patience or impatience, kindness or cruelty, generos- 
ity or meanness, humility or vanity, courtesy or bru- 
tality, selfishness or unselfishness, good or ill temper, 
sincerity or insincerity, - these roots of character and 
of the soul of man are first grown in the play of 
childhood. Put learning beside character, and how 
unimportant, in comparison, it becomes. But the 
roots of character, the foundations of society, are 
neglected by society, while for learning, millions are 
spent. The provision we have made for the lesser 
thing is a great American institution, - the school; 
for the infinitely greater thing, - the street, the gut- 
ter, and the garbage box. 
I would not, of course, have the community spend 
less for learning, - that is not the burden of my argu- 
ment,-but rather that this great American institution 
should be developed further, so as to become also a 
great social institution which will feed the children 
hungry for play, as well as lead them in this, and in 
many other ways, to become trained and useful men 
and women. In order that the school may be given 
larger funds to do this greater work of education, 
and in order that it may not do it partly, or weakly 
and ineffectually, the community must see that the 
street life of our great cities is not the result of 
parental neglect or of childish viciousness, but of THE CHILD 
221 
economic progress. I was standing one day watching 
some boys who were being driven from the only vacant 
lot in a thickly populated tenement district. The boys 
were protesting, and some were throwing stones at 
the man who was " firing 'em off " their last remnant 
of play-space. I spoke to a group of them gathered 
on the sidewalk to find out what the trouble was. 
" De'se goin' to put up a tenement, and den we ain't 
got no place to play ball," he said, and I noticed 
tears in his eyes. This was all very typical. Even 
the vacant lot, which is a great institution in most 
American cities, has disappeared from New York. 
The problems of the child which have arisen as a 
result of economic progress are problems for the 
school - the broader school for education - whose 
interests lie in the whole child, night and day, at 
work and at play. It is commonly said nowadays 
that the school is the one power which can save 
democracy. To destroy it may not be difficult, but 
to save it the school cannot ignore the new problems 
which were brought into the world by steam and 
electricity. 
There are in the common schools of this country 
sixteen million children - a young American nation 
- the great mass of whom are never to enter the 
higher schools.1 Considerably less than one per cent 
of our population will finally reach the university. 
The problem of the thorough training of these future 222 
POVERTY 
men and women is stupendous. The institutions, 
commerce, industry, statesmanship, - all things of the 
years immediately to follow, - will depend upon these 
little ones, now learning their A-B-C's, and forming 
their street gangs. The great and the nameless un- 
known, the rich and the poor, of the present genera- 
tion must make way at the advent to maturity of 
these children. The universities are great and pow- 
erful in their way; but how much greater and more 
powerful are these common schools, training the 
hearts and minds of these millions. The head of the 
greatest university in New York has five thousand 
students to make into men ; the head of the common 
schools of New York has nearly half a million chil- 
dren to make into citizens. If there be a great man 
in this country, let us put him at this task; let us then 
look up to him and support him, and call him our 
foremost man, for he and those of his profession 
are making the nation. 
The aforegoing evils of child life result, one likes 
to believe at any rate, not from any ill will, but from 
poverty and from the lack of adjustment of city life to 
the needs of the child. We have not realized that 
the little ones need the school not only for the hours 
of instruction but also for the hours of play. We 
have forgotten that there must be breathing spaces 
and trees and plants and flowers and gardens - for 
these too must come one day. In these things the THE CHILD 
223 
child has suffered through our neglect, and not 
through brutal or premeditated actions. 
The nation, however, is engaged in a traffic for the 
labor of children. By the introduction of the little 
ones into mines, factories, and mills, we do a direct 
evil for which we are definitely responsible. You 
cannot rob children of their play, any more than you 
can forget and neglect the children at their play, as 
we now do in the tenement districts, without at some 
time paying the penalty. When children are robbed 
of play time, they too often reassert their right to it 
in manhood, as vagabonds, criminals, and prostitutes. 
There is a time for work and there is a time for 
play. A well-known educator has said: " Play is 
the first and only occupation of our childhood and 
remains the pleasantest our whole life long. To toil 
like a beast of burden is the sad lot of the lowest, the 
most unfortunate, and the most numerous class of mor- 
tals, but this is contrary to the intent and wish of 
nature."1 Whether or not it is contrary to the intent 
and wish of nature, at this moment, after one hundred 
years of war has been waged for the abolition of 
child slavery, over 1,700,000 children under fifteen 
years of age are toiling in fields, factories, mines, and 
workshops.* 
These figures may mean little to most persons, for, 
as Margaret MacMillan has said, " You cannot put 
* For detailed figures see Appendix E. POVERTY 
224 
tired eyes, pallid cheeks, and languid little limbs into 
statistics; "1 and neither can any one, by any effort of 
the imagination, call up before the mind's eye the 
human units in census figures. But if our legis- 
lators could, by any means whatever, be brought to 
see clearly the meaning of these eight words, - 
one million seven hundred thousand child wage- 
earners, - the evil would once for all disappear 
from this country. But they are figures which we 
see, and not children, and figures come before the eye 
and are forgotten. We should never forget one 
sight of a hundred of these little ones if they were 
marched out of the mills, mines, and factories before 
our eyes, or if we saw them together toiling for ten or 
twelve hours a day or a night for a pittance of wage; 
but that we do not see, and we forget figures. New 
York City has not so many children; all the thou- 
sands of the streets are not so many as these chil- 
dren of the workshops; even the massed crowds in 
the evening at Brooklyn Bridge are few compared with 
this million seven hundred thousand working children. 
But it is all figures again, and not tired eyes, pallid 
cheeks, and languid little limbs, and we forget figures. 
This evil of child labor is a new evil. It was 
brought into existence by the factory system, as the 
street child was brought into existence by the 
tenement.* It is little more than one hundred 
* Child labor now beginning in Japan, see Appendix E, p. 357. THE CHILD 
225 
years old. I do not mean, of course, that children 
never worked before the factory made child labor an 
evil. Children have always worked; but their labor 
was not an evil, but rather it was a good thing, in 
the earlier days. When the race was young and the 
battle of life was directly with nature; when the 
world was poor and the securing of even the most 
meagre livelihood meant constant struggle; when 
there was no other method of doing the world's work 
but by hand and with the aid of the simplest instru- 
ments,- inexorable necessity forced man, woman, 
and child to labor in order that life might be main- 
tained. There was then need for child labor, a valid 
excuse for its existence. And even more than that, - 
for even extreme want would not have excused the 
child labor of that time if it had meant the ruin of 
the child, - the labor of the children in the days of the 
craftsman and artisan was educative, and the pro- 
cesses of learning how to weave, spin, and brew, to do 
the work in the fields or home, were not such as to 
overburden and break down the little workers. With 
the advent of the machine this period of harmless 
child labor passed away. And now in this day of 
steam and electrical power, when the mere force of 
one's hands is the most insignificant part of produc- 
tion, and when numberless machines are able to turn 
out a hundred and a thousand fold more than it was 
possible for men to do when aided only by the simple 226 
POVERTY 
hand-tools, child labor has become an evil, - superflu- 
ous and wicked, - a shame to our civilization and 
an inexpiable crime against humanity. 
Child labor has been synonymous with "child 
slavery" during the entire last century. Any one 
reading the literature of the previous centuries will 
see that child labor was never so thought of before. 
In the days of home industry it was a most natural 
and proper thing that the child should be a " little 
helper" to father and mother; " little brother" once 
meant that, I believe. In the home fields the child 
was learning how to do the work of the world, and 
there was both wisdom and kindness in teaching his 
little hands to master the simple industrial processes. 
The work was neither dangerous nor confining, 
neither a monotonous, uneducative routine, special- 
ized, as it now is, to a hundredth part of a man, nor 
was it injurious to those of tender years and tender 
bodies. It was the source of the child's real and 
vital education, and, as a little helper or apprentice, 
the child was given attention, direction, taught the 
uses and value of materials and skill of hands, so 
that, in a few years, he was graduated a craftsman 
with a joy-giving and dignified calling. The work- 
shop was his school, and it was a good school, with 
able and competent teachers. But what was a bless- 
ing in this age became a curse in the next. 
An old French writer gives us a picture of a THE CHILD 
227 
workman's cottage in the days of the home work- 
shop. After telling of the good brown bread, the 
milk and the honey, the wine, and the open fire on 
the hearth, he says the home " flock . . . clothed 
with its wool, now the women and now the chil- 
dren ; my aunt spun it, and spun also the hemp 
which made our under-dress; the children of our 
neighbours came to beat it with us in the evening by 
lamplight, (our own walnut trees giving us the oil,) 
and ... by the fireside, . . . while we heard 
the pot boiling with sweet chestnuts in it, our grand- 
mother would roast a quince under the ashes and 
divide it among us children."1 This was a home 
workshop of the eighteenth century, and these chil- 
dren, working with the wool, were the child labor- 
ers. Compare with this picture the prison-like 
factory of to-day, with great chimneys, and huge 
volumes of smoke blackening the sky, the walls 
trembling with the ceaseless, regular throbs of great 
and intricate machines, the maze of shaftings, 
pulleys, cogs, the humid artificial air, the odor of 
oil and perspiration, the yelling of one operative 
to another, which the din of steel jamming steel 
makes it impossible to hear, the alert, strained look 
of the working children, rushing from one machine 
to another, from lever to roll, back and forth, 
hour after hour for ten or twelve hours, day after 
day, from year's end to year's end. To this and 228 
POVERTY 
to a thousand other like factories gather in from 
the fields and streets, tens of thousands of children, 
strong and happy, or weak, underfed, and miser- 
able. Stop their play once for all, and put them 
out to labor for so many cents a day or night, 
and pace them with a tireless, lifeless piece of 
mechanism, for ten or twelve hours at a stretch, 
and you will have a present-day picture of child 
labor. One other thing is essential to a realization 
of the evil; the child must do one thing which is 
neither of educational value nor fitted to develop 
him, but on the contrary, much more likely to 
dwarf and brutalize him. A vagrant whom I 
once knew had for five years - from the day he 
was eleven until the day he was sixteen - made 
two movements of his hands each second, or 
23,760,000 mechanical movements each year, and 
was, at the time I knew him, at the age of thirty- 
five, broken down, drunken, and diseased; but he 
still remembered this period of slavery sufficiently 
well to tell me that he had " paid up " for all the 
sins he had ever committed "by those five years 
of hell." But there is yet one thing which must 
be added to the picture. Give the child a tenement 
for a home in the filthy and muddy streets of an 
ordinary factory town, with open spaces covered 
with tin cans, bottles, old shoes, garbage, and other 
waste, the gutters running sewers, and the air foul THE CHILD 
229 
with odors and black with factory smoke, and 
the picture is fairly complete. It is a dark picture, 
but hardly so dark as the reality, and if one were 
to describe " back of the yards " in Chicago, or 
certain mill towns or mining districts, the picture 
would be even darker than the one given. 
For several reasons child labor has become an 
evil. From a national point of view it is a waste of 
the nation's most valuable asset, - manhood. From 
an industrial point of view it would, if unrestricted, 
exhaust the industrial resources of the working 
people. Instead of being a way to develop a strong 
and powerful working class, capable and efficient 
in industry, it is the one most effective way of 
weakening and rendering impotent the working 
forces, of undermining their capacity, and of pro- 
ducing an inert, inefficient mass of laborers. To 
the child it is ruinous. The conditions of labor 
are neither healthful nor educative; the processes 
are not suited to the development of the child; 
on the contrary, they undermine his strength, stifle 
his mental growth, and narrow his natural versatility 
to routine mechanical actions. The present organ- 
ization of industry is not calculated to produce 
skilled workmen, but rapid, intense, and specialized 
toilers. Furthermore, the intensity of modern 
methods of work, made possible by the machine, 
sets a pace so fast and uninterrupted as to tax the 230 
POVERTY 
strength of the strongest men, and naturally, there- 
fore, to rack the weaker bodies of the children. 
Carlyle saw this half a century ago when he said 
to the owners of the cotton-mills, " Deliver me 
these rickety perishing souls of infants, and let 
your Cotton-trade take its chance."1 And lastly, 
child labor is now unnecessary; we are no longer 
a nation on the verge of famine, calling all hands 
to work; the industrial nations are too rich in 
wealth and in various forms of mechanical power 
to need the frail energies of the infants. 
But the profit-seeking forces are never satisfied, 
and a child, at a third of the wage, can take his 
father's place in many of our present-day specialized 
industries. The old cotton trade, which has murdered 
unknown thousands of rickety infants in the North 
and in England, has opened its mills in the South, 
and the whole tragedy is now being enacted all over 
again. The cotton trade is growing, the South is 
prosperous, and children of from five to fourteen 
years, who formerly ran wild in the fields, can now 
have ten, twelve, and fourteen hours of work and 
earn ten, fifteen, and twenty cents a day - in a cotton- 
mill ! England was once proud of this same business 
and talked much of how good it was for her children 
to be at work and how much the children liked it; 
but latterly she has become concerned about the 
physical deterioration of her people and has about THE CHILD 
231 
decided to weigh and measure every workman in 
England to see how far she has been ruined by her 
cotton and other trades. 
Not less than eighty thousand children, most of 
whom are little girls, are at present employed in the 
textile mills of this country.1 In the South there are 
now six times as many children at work as there were 
twenty years ago. Child labor is increasing yearly 
in that section of the country. Each year more 
little ones are brought in from the fields and hills 
to live in the degrading and demoralizing atmosphere 
of the mill towns. Each year more great mills are 
being built to reap the profits which these little hands 
make possible. In one Southern town there are five 
great mills and five settlements of workers - "pest- 
ridden, epidemic-filled, filthy " settlements " to be 
shunned like the plague "; each with its poverty- 
stricken, hungry-looking wage-slaves ; and each with 
its group of box-houses, looking all alike and built 
high above the malarial clay-mud. Tin cans, rubbish, 
filth, are strewn everywhere inside and outside the 
houses. The great mills shriek at 4.45. The men, 
women, and children turn out of bed or rise from 
mattresses on the floor, gulp down some handfuls of 
food, and leave the home for the mills. Sleepy, half- 
awake, frowsy girls, sleepy, yawning, half-dressed 
children, drowsy, heavy men and women, hurry 
along in crowds to be in time to begin their twelve or POVERTY 
232 
more hours of continuous work. " The day in winter 
is not born when they start their tasks; the night 
has fallen long before they cease. In summer they 
are worked far into the evenings." And after the 
day of labor " they are too tired to eat, and all they 
want to do is to turn their aching bones on to their 
miserable mattresses and sleep."1 
In the worst days of cotton-milling in England the 
conditions were hardly worse than those now existing 
in the South. Children - the tiniest and frailest - 
of five and six years of age rise in the morning and, 
like old men and women, go to the mills to do their 
day's labor; and when they return home, they wea- 
rily fling themselves on their beds, too tired to take 
off their clothes. Many children work all night - 
" in the maddening racket of the machinery, in an 
atmosphere insanitary and clouded with humidity and 
lint."2 It will be long before I forget the face of a 
little boy of six years, with his hands stretched for- 
ward to rearrange a bit of machinery, his pallid face 
and spare form showing already the physical effects 
of labor. This child, six years of age, was working 
twelve hours a day in a country which has estab- 
lished in many industries an eight-hour day for men. 
The twelve-hour day is almost universal in the South, 
and about twenty-five thousand children are now 
employed on twelve-hour shifts in the mills of the 
various Southern states. The wages of one of these THE CHILD 
233 
children, however large, could not compensate the 
child for the injury this monstrous and unnatural 
labor does him; but the pay which the child receives 
is not enough, in many instances, even to feed him 
properly. If the children fall ill, they are docked for 
loss of time. And if, "for indisposition or fatigue, 
they knock a day off, there is a man hired (by the 
mill) especially for this purpose, who rides from house 
to house to find out what is the matter with them, to 
urge them to rise, and, if they are not literally too sick 
to move, they are hounded out of their beds and back to 
their looms."1 The mill-hands confess that they hate 
the mills, and no one will wonder at it. A vagrant 
who had worked in a textile mill for sixteen years once 
said to a friend of mine: " I done that [and he made a 
motion with his hand] for sixteen years. At last I 
was sick in bed for two or three days with a fever, 
and when I crawled out, I made up my mind that I 
would rather go to hell than go back to that mill." 
These are in part the conditions in the South 
in 1903, - a half century after Lord Shaftesbury 
awakened England to the bitter wrongs of the 
children of the cotton-mills, and over one hundred 
years after Thomas Jefferson defined the principle 
of democracy as "equal rights to all and special 
privileges to none." The South is keeping this 
principle by sacrificing her children's rights and 
guaranteeing to Northern capital the special privi- 234 
POVERTY 
leges of cheap labor. The history of child labor, 
when written, will be a tragedy of toil in which 
the bodies of children are maimed and their minds 
dwarfed solely that we may have cheap labor, 
increased profits on our capital, and a slightly 
reduced cost of commodities. 
It is a curious fact that the people of any coun- 
try can be easily aroused to protest against atrocities 
existing in another country. Injustice abroad causes 
great indignation among many of the very people 
who are insensible and apathetic to the injustice 
and cruelty in their own state and country. Many 
readers of Dickens will remember Muggleton, that 
" ancient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous 
advocacy of Christian principles with a devoted 
attachment to commercial rights; in demonstration 
whereof, the mayor, corporation, and other inhabit- 
ants have presented, at divers times, no fewer 
than one thousand four hundred and twenty peti- 
tions against the continuance of negro slavery 
abroad, and an equal number against any inter- 
ference with the factory system at home."1 We 
have had many like instances in this country. 
When the people of the North learned a few 
years ago of the conditions of child labor in 
the South, there was a great expression of pub- 
lic indignation. But while it is only fair to say 
that the conditions in the South are undoubtedly THE CHILD 
235 
worse than those in the North, there are never- 
theless many conspicuous examples of child slavery 
of the worst kind in almost every section of the 
Union.* The South is not alone in its violation of 
the Jeffersonian principle. It is violated in the 
North, East, and West as well. 
In the mining districts of Pennsylvania children 
labor under conditions which are, if possible, even 
more injurious to them than the child labor of the 
cotton-mills is to the children of the South. In 
the mines, mills, and factories, before the furnaces, 
and in the sweatshops of Pennsylvania, that state 
of colossal industrial crimes, one hundred and 
twenty thousand little ones were, in the year 1900, 
sacrificing a part of their right to life, most of 
their right to liberty, and all of their right to hap- 
piness except perhaps of a bestial kind.1 The 
Commission appointed to settle the anthracite coal 
strike of 1902 heard the cases of Theresa McDer- 
mott and Rosa Zinka. These children represented, 
though unknown to them, seventeen thousand little 
girls under sixteen years of age, who were toiling 
in the great silk-mills and lace factories of the 
mining districts of Pennsylvania. The chairman 
could not repress his indignation when these two 
eleven-year-old children told the Commission how 
they left their homes to report at the factory at 
* See Appendix E. 236 
POVERTY 
half-past six in the evening and spent at work the 
long hours of the night until half-past six in the 
morning.1 
The girls go to the mills, the boys to the breakers. 
A year or two ago Mr. Francis H. Nichols said 
regarding these working children: " I saw four 
hundred lads working in the breakers. One of 
the children told me, 'We go to work at seven 
in the morning and stay until six in the evening.' " 
" Are there many in the breakers younger than you ? " 
he asked one of the children. " Why, sure, I'm one 
of the oldest; I'm making sixty cents. Most of 
them is eight and nine years old." Mr. Nichols then 
asked, " Did you ever go to school ? " " To school ? " 
the child echoed ; " Say, mister, you must be a green 
hand. Why, lads in the anthracite doesn't go to 
school; they works in the breakers ! "1 They do 
not go to school, but instead they are put to work 
as soon as they may be trusted not to fall into the 
machinery and be killed. There is hardly an employ- 
ment more demoralizing and physically injurious than 
this work in the breakers. For ten or eleven 
hours a day these children of ten and eleven years 
stoop over the chute and pick out the slate and 
other impurities from the coal as it moves past them. 
The air is black with coal dust, and the roar of the 
crushers, screens, and rushing mill-race of coal is 
deafening. Sometimes one of the children falls THE CHILD 
237 
into the machinery and is terribly mangled, or slips 
into the chute and is smothered to death. Many 
children are killed in this way. Many others, after 
a time, contract coal-miner's asthma and consumption, 
which gradually undermine their health. Breathing 
continually, day after day, the clouds of coal dust, 
their lungs become black and choked with small 
particles of anthracite. There are in the United 
States about twenty-four thousand children employed 
in and about the mines and quarries.1 
In New Jersey there is a great deal of child labor, 
for the reason that the law has been both inadequate 
and poorly enforced, if indeed not altogether ignored. 
The governor and others have been much aroused, 
in the last year or two, by numerous reports which 
have been made public concerning the extent of 
child labor. An appeal for state protection of the 
little ones, made public a short time ago, asserted 
that children of six years of age were employed in 
the glass factories. Great numbers of children 
worked all night. One factory alone, it was said, 
had two hundred and eighty workers, mostly children 
between ten and fourteen years of age. Over five 
thousand children are now employed as glass- 
workers in the United States, and most of these are 
at work in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In the 
textile mills and in the tobacco and cigar factories, 
of the latter state, many thousand children are 238 
POVERTY 
employed. Working in tobacco is one of the em- 
ployments most injurious to health. During the 
recent agitation against child labor in New Jersey, 
it was reported that many children working for the 
American Cigar Trust fell down with weakness after 
their day's labor. 
New York has prided herself at various times 
upon her laws restricting child labor. Two years 
ago, when we began the agitation for new and bet- 
ter legislation, we were attacked by many as being 
sentimentalists. Of all people, even the agent of 
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
felt called upon to denounce us and to say there 
was no child labor in the state; but our investiga- 
tions soon proved that many thousand children were 
working because there was no law to protect them, 
and many thousand others were working because 
the law was so defective as to make it impossible of 
enforcement. The new laws passed last year will 
protect at least ninety-three thousand children in the 
state of New York, and two hundred and thirty-one 
thousand more will be benefited by the additions to 
the compulsory school law. The little home-workers, 
those making artificial flowers and those of the sweat- 
ing trades, numbering many thousands in New York, 
are as yet untouched by legislation and probably will 
not be protected until the sweatshop system as a 
whole is abolished. The Census for 1900 gives the THE CHILD 
239 
number of children under fifteen years of age at 
work in New York State as nearly ninety-two thou- 
sand, but the result of our investigation three years 
later showed that these figures certainly did not 
include all of the working children. 
The messenger and delivery boys were, previous 
to 1903, unprotected by any law. Children of all 
ages from eight to sixteen years were found working 
almost unlimited hours at such occupations. Several 
boys, striking for a shorter " day," had been working 
from eighty to ninety hours a week. At the Christ- 
mas season their hours were longest. At the time 
of our inquiry a child was found frozen to death in a 
delivery wagon. He had worked far into the night 
and, being too tired to go home, lay down in his 
wagon to sleep until morning. There were hundreds 
of boys, under fourteen years of age, employed as 
messengers. Their work often had no apparent 
limit. Messengers were found who had been "on 
duty continuously for twenty, thirty, thirty-two, forty, 
and even seventy-two hours. The only rests during 
these long periods were snatches of sleep taken 
between messages on the wooden benches in the 
office." Almost as this is being written the news- 
paper headlines announce: " Paralyzed from work. 
Messenger boy lay unconscious in street for two 
hours. Frank Depold . . . was found unconscious 
. . . from overwork, his lower limbs temporarily POVERTY 
240 
paralyzed. . . Exhaustion, the physician said, was 
the cause of his condition. . . . The child thought 
he must have walked that day sixty miles." Our 
inquiries proved that the work of delivery and 
messenger boys was often as injurious physically as 
factory work, and morally it was much worse. The 
messengers of the "Tenderloin" district have small 
chance of becoming other than corrupt and vicious 
men. 
Besides these children, upwards of seven thou- 
sand boys and girls, employed in street-trading, boot- 
blackening, peddling newspapers, etc., were working 
under conditions which made it often impossible for 
them to resist temptations of vice and crime. Several 
hundred children, pursuing street occupations, were 
without question descending as fast as possible into 
the most degraded and dangerous class in the com- 
munity. Lord Shaftesbury, as a result of his inves- 
tigation of the street lads of London fifty-five years 
ago, said, " Many of them retire for the night, if 
they retire at all, to all manner of places - under 
dry arches of bridges and viaducts, under porticoes, 
sheds, and carts; to outhouses; in sawpits; on 
staircases; in the open air; and some in lodging- 
houses." 1 Last year, in New York, Buffalo, and 
Chicago, children were found in precisely the same 
conditions that existed in London over half a century 
ago. These lads suffered few, if any, of the evils THE CHILD 
241 
which result to the factory worker; but the tempta- 
tions surrounding them in their work were fast 
making of them petty thieves, loafers, and gamblers. 
They broke all home ties, refused to continue in 
school, and entered upon a street career which could 
end only in making them diseased, drunken, and 
shiftless vagrants and mendicants. 
It is not my purpose in this chapter to mention 
in detail the evil effects upon the child of exhaust- 
ing toil amid conditions injurious to him mentally, 
physically, or morally ; nor is it necessary or possible 
to describe the conditions which surround him while 
at work. Perhaps it would be well, however, to 
mention the numbers of children, under fifteen years 
of age, who are compelled to work in the various em- 
ployments that are generally recognized as being in 
themselves injurious.1 Over 7000 children in this 
country are working in laundries, some of which are 
in basements, and nearly all of which are insanitary 
and badly ventilated; nearly 2000 are working in 
bakeshops, and the conditions here, as in the laundries, 
are generally injurious to the health of adults as well 
as of children; 367 are employed in saloons as bar- 
tenders and in other ways, and over 138,000 work as 
waiters and servants in hotels and restaurants, in 
both of which trades the hours are long and the 
conditions often morally bad, especially for children; 
42,000 are employed as messengers, with work hours 242 
POVERTY 
often unlimited and the temptations to which they 
are exposed leading them often to immorality and 
vice; 20,000 are employed in stores. 
While these trades injure the child in many ways, 
there are others which so endanger the child's health 
as often to render him incapable of future usefulness. 
The best examples are perhaps the following: On 
the railroads about 2500 children are employed; over 
24,000 are working in mines and quarries; over 5000 
are working in the glass factories; about 10,000 are 
employed in saw-mills and in the wood-working 
industries; over 7500 are employed in the iron and 
steel mills, and over 11,000 are working in cigar and 
tobacco factories. As has been mentioned before, 
over 80,000 children are engaged in the textile in- 
dustry. Without exception all of these various em- 
ployments are physically injurious to childhood. But 
the child is injured in still another way. He has been 
cut off by his work from all further opportunities for 
learning. His days of schooling are over, and he has 
once for all begun a life of labor which may not end 
until he is rendered incapable of industrial useful- 
ness by age or some misfortune, such as injury or ill 
health. 
Any one can realize what must be the effect 
upon the child's plastic body and pliable mind of 
hard work in the stunting or vicious surroundings 
of the above-mentioned trades. But in addition THE CHILD 
243 
to such unavoidable evils connected with child 
labor, the above-mentioned dangerous trades cause 
yearly a great number of serious injuries and un- 
necessary deaths among the children. This coun- 
try, as has been fully shown elsewhere, is far behind 
European countries in provisions to protect the life 
and health of factory employees. There are thou- 
sands of unnecessary deaths in this country and 
tens of thousands of needless accidents for no other 
reason whatever but that the owners of factories are 
not compelled by law to protect the workers in dan- 
gerous trades. To the child these dangers are ever 
menacing in all the industrial employments. We 
again and again hear of children's hands being taken 
off in stamping factories. Unguarded machinery of 
various kinds is maiming little ones for life. Several 
years ago it was estimated that from fifty to sixty 
were killed or injured daily through accidents occur- 
ring by operating buzz-saws. The materials used in 
frame gilding, a common occupation of children, 
stiffen the fingers of the little workers. The hand- 
ling of poisonous paints and arsenical paper are 
employments which often result in injury or slow 
death. A woman factory inspector of Illinois 
recently said, " We find girls in the clothing trade 
contracting diseases from running machines by foot- 
power - diseases that mean a life-long martyrdom 
and the loss of the crown of a woman's life, the 244 
POVERTY 
power to bear healthy children."1 It has only been 
as a result of the last Illinois Child Labor Law that 
the younger children have been taken from the Stock 
Yards of Chicago. Mrs. Florence Kelly said, a few 
years ago, regarding the conditions there, "What 
could be more revolting than the presence of three 
hundred children in the Chicago Stock Yards, scores 
of them standing ankle-deep in blood and refuse, as 
they do the work of butchers ? " * 
These injuries which child labor inflicts upon the 
children are terrible; but they are, perhaps, no more im- 
portant than the injuries child labor inflicts on society. 
As a matter of fact, child labor often retards indus- 
trial progress. Through cheap labor, manufacturers 
are often able to retain and perpetuate methods of 
manufacture which are unnecessary and antiquated. 
The so-called belated industries, like the sweating sys- 
tem, are made possible only through the cheapness 
of child and woman labor. Greed for profits alone 
makes it necessary for children of six years to carry 
the newly blown glass bottles from hot ovens to a 
place for cooling. The same thing can be done by 
mechanical means. Mechanical ingenuity and in- 
ventive skill are enabled to lie dormant because the 
labor of children and women is cheap and plentiful. 
Mrs. Sidney Webb of England gives this illustrative 
fact, " When the employers in the woollen manufac- 
* See Appendix E, p. 356. THE CHILD 
245 
ture found themselves debarred from the employment 
of children, they invented the piecing machine."1 
And Professor Franklin H. Giddings speaks even 
more broadly when he says : " Modern civilization 
does not require, it does not need, the drudgery of 
needle-women or the crushing toil of men in a score 
of life-destroying occupations. If these wretched 
beings should drop out of existence and no others 
stood ready to fill their places, the economic activities 
of the world would not greatly suffer. A thousand 
devices latent in inventive brains would quickly make 
good any momentary loss."2 
Another evil of economic importance results from 
the well-known fact that the labor of children is con- 
stantly in competition with the labor of their elders. 
In most cases it means that the child displaces the 
adult. This year an employer, representing the dry- 
goods stores, came to me to ask that the Child Labor 
Committee repeal a certain section of the law which pro- 
hibits children under sixteen from working more than 
nine hours a day. He argued that, if we did not, the 
mercantile establishments would have to hire children 
over sixteen, and this he said would be a great injus- 
tice to those children, under that age, who were then 
at work. I asked him if the stores could procure the 
necessary number of children over sixteen years of age. 
" Oh, yes," he said; " there are enough children over 
sixteen, but the smaller ones would be unemployed." 246 
POVERTY 
I then asked him if it did not seem fairer to 
all concerned, if there were enough children over 
sixteen who could do the work required, that those 
children should be at work and not idle, and that the 
other smaller children should be at school and not at 
work. This is a good illustration of the way in which 
children displace older workers. The children dis- 
place the men, and the younger children displace the 
older children. This widespread economic effect of 
the employment of children is perhaps more impor- 
tant than any other. Child labor, wherever it exists, 
must be counted as one of the important causes of 
unemployment among adults. Of course, the lower 
wages at which children may be hired is the greatest 
inducement for their employment. The competition 
of children with adults in the labor market can hardly 
fail to have the effect of reducing the wages paid to 
the latter, and it has been found by actual investiga- 
tion that where child labor is most common the 
earnings of the children are at least partly offset by a 
corresponding loss in the earnings of the adults. 
Opponents of child-labor legislation, seeking any 
possible excuse for their opposition, and wishing to 
appear humane rather than self-seeking, make much 
of the alleged fact that the earnings of the children 
are necessary to the support of the family. Widowed 
mothers, it is said, would suffer serious poverty if 
their children under fourteen were not permitted to THE CHILD 
247 
work. Actual inquiry has shown, however, that 
these statements are rarely if ever justified. To 
begin with, there are very few widows who need to 
depend upon the earnings of children under fourteen 
years of age. Furthermore, the earnings of such 
children at best help but little, and in many cases 
their earnings are not sufficient to supply even them- 
selves with a subsistence. But even if children could 
support themselves or even partially support their 
widowed mothers, it would be unwise to allow them 
to handicap their productive power by labor begun 
too early, especially as the earnings of these children 
are likely to be, at a later age, the sole support of the 
mother. It is hardly wise to force children to early 
labor, at the risk of their health, at the risk, indeed, 
in many cases, of their losing entirely all productive 
power, when we know that by further education and 
training their labor will become of much greater 
value to their parents, to themselves, and to the 
community. 
Surely no one, except those selfishly interested, 
will maintain that the nation should any longer per- 
mit certain self-interested employers to benefit by the 
ruin of children. "Where there is only a cupidinous 
ravishment of the future, there, we think, is no true 
society," nor, it may be added, either a beneficial or a 
profitable industry.1 Industry must be made to sup- 
port its workers. This is its first duty, and anything 248 
POVERTY 
short of the accomplishment of this duty proves the 
industry injurious to society and insolvent. An in- 
dustry which does less is eating up more than its 
capital: it is destroying the source of capital. The 
industry which absorbs and burns up the energies of 
the little ones before their strength has had time to 
mature, and afterwards casts the wrecks of childhood 
upon public charity for support, very much as it 
would cast scrap-iron upon a rubbish heap, is a curse 
to any country. Those industries which coin into 
profits the vitality of childhood - and leave to the 
world, for its mercy to support, wrecks of manhood 
- rob the country of something which they can 
never return. They have contracted a debt to the 
child and to society which they can never repay. 
There is a debt to the child who must drag out a 
life of unproductive or half-productive manhood, and 
a debt to the nation which might have been enriched 
by his manhood's strength and by his matured mind. 
It is becoming general to call those industries parasitic 
that thrive only because of benefits accruing to them 
by reason of cheap labor.1 They live by the 
destruction of human life, not by supporting and 
enriching human life. In many cases the employers 
of cheap labor do not pay wages sufficiently large 
to support, even while at work, the women or chil- 
dren. As a rule they are not compelled to support 
themselves, and can therefore work for wages which THE CHILD 
249 
are hardly sufficient to buy their clothes or food. 
The husbands or fathers are ordinarily the ones who 
are burdened with the family's support, and the wages 
of women or children would be, in most cases, insuffi- 
cient to support the latter in independence. For the 
reason, therefore, that the employers do not as a rule 
pay the children living wages, and for the reason also 
that they are exhausting the immature energies of 
childhood, they are in a real sense parasites, injurious 
both to the child and to society. There is, to my 
mind, nothing more astonishing in modern society 
than the way in which the state seems ever willing to 
support, as paupers and at public expense, the men, 
women, and children who are brought into poverty 
and misery by the parasitic industries. In this coun- 
try the state has seldom demanded of such industries 
more care and humanity in their treatment of em- 
ployees. Instead of doing this, or of demanding that 
the needless waste of life be stopped altogether, the 
state has patiently built more almshouses and hos- 
pitals and free lodging-houses to care for the human 
waste which parasitic industries produce in their 
pursuit of profits. If any one is censured, it is the 
broken-down workman - for his improvidence. The 
national importance of the child-labor problem lies in 
the fact that the working people can be exhausted by 
parasitic employers in the same way that a coal mine 
is exhausted. 250 
POVERTY 
Many persons in England and France are con- 
cerned to know whether or not this very thing has 
actually happened in their country. If it has, or if 
we are at some time afflicted with a degenerate 
working class, it will demonstrate that the captains 
of industry have, with insatiable greed, failed to 
pay their just debts; that they have been suc- 
cessful, not as a result of wisdom, ability, or in- 
ventive genius, but because they were parasitic 
and skilful in their methods of forestalling the 
labor of childhood, and of exploiting, greedily and 
without fair compensation, what should have been 
the untouched reservoirs of labor power. 
All of this has a bearing on the present state of 
manufacturing art and its relation to the much-talked- 
of world's market. It is generally thought that the 
United States will dominate, in the near future, 
the commerce of the world. There will be few 
to question the important contribution which the 
working people of the United States have made 
to this marvellous industrial growth which enables 
us to take a prominent place in the world-wide 
commerce. This position of power is due to the 
superior ability and intelligence of American labor; 
in order to maintain it, we must as carefully guard 
the quality, ability, intelligence, and efficiency of 
labor as we now guard the security of capital. The 
whole country is alert to see that no laws are made THE CHILD 
251 
which will impair the value and power of capital. 
Ought it not to be still more alert to prevent any 
injury to labor, and especially to prevent that most 
serious injury - the labor of children? One em- 
ployer at least has taken this view of the matter. 
In a letter to the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor he 
says: " While our work is such that we can employ 
children to advantage, and for this reason it would 
be to our immediate interest to do so, we recognize 
the fact that early employment is not likely to result 
in the best class of men and women. This problem, 
therefore, involves the welfare not only of the chil- 
dren themselves, but of the state. It also seems to 
us that in the long run the interest of the employers 
lies in an efficient working class. Speaking from a 
purely business point of view, we should be glad 
enough to employ children, particularly at certain 
kinds of work. From the standpoint of society as 
a whole, we will say that a uniform law for all manu- 
facturing states, under which no child under fifteen 
could be employed, and which compelled school 
attendance up to this age, would be preferable to 
the present laws. If we are ever to reach the 
industrial supremacy predicted for us, it can only 
be because of a superior industrial class. Such 
a class can nowhere be had without the most careful 
bringing up."1 
This employer is, unfortunately, a very exceptional 252 
POVERTY 
one. Many of the employers of young children put 
forth any argument, however specious, in order to 
retain this or any other form of cheap labor. As 
a class they have always protested, usually under 
some humanitarian guise, against state protection of 
the children. The same arguments which were used 
against Joseph Hanway over one hundred years ago 
were used sixty years later against Lord Shaftesbury. 
The age of the children and the hours of their work 
did not alter the arguments of the employers one 
iota. The employers in Shaftesbury's day fought 
legislation to protect children of five and six years 
with even greater energy than employers now mani- 
fest against legislation to protect children of fourteen 
years. The employers of the South are saying pre- 
cisely the same things against those who are working 
at the present time for the liberation of the children 
of the South as the employers of England said years 
ago against Lord Shaftesbury. Even Cobden spoke 
scornfully of those who " talk sentiment over factory 
children."1 An English employer fifty years ago said, 
"this kind of legislation would bring us back to the 
barbarism of the Middle Ages."2 In the South they 
say " to the barbarism of the poor whites." And yet 
in Cobden's time the children from the English alms- 
houses were being sold into bondage as factory 
slaves. Children of all ages, with aching backs, 
inflamed ankles, and lacerated fingers, were beaten THE CHILD 
253 
and kicked to work by brutal overseers; the little 
slaves toiled from morning till night, and often slept 
by the machines until morning. Through " hunger, 
neglect, over-fatigue, and poisonous air, they died in 
terrible numbers, swept off by contagious fevers."1 
Had the legislators heeded the arguments of the 
employers of cheap labor, we should still have chil- 
dren of four and five years in the factories; we 
should still sell pauper children to the highest bidder 
among factory employers. 
This destruction of the little ones, now so unneces- 
sary and so obvious, is a kind of cannibalism. We 
no longer eat each other, but there can be no ques- 
tion that some of us live, and even win our pleasures 
and luxuries, by the ruin of others. A tailor who 
had spent many years of his life in a sweatshop said 
to me once, as we passed a poor, painted creature 
of the street: " The man who won pleasure by the 
degradation of that woman is a modern cannibal. 
No," he continued fiercely, " he is worse than a 
cannibal, for he not only destroyed her body, he ate 
her very soul." There is a good deal more of such 
cannibalism in our modern world than we realize. 
The bodies and souls of many men and women are 
destroyed by the selfishness of our present-day 
society; but if we are to use the word " cannibal " in 
this new sense, let us begin by applying it to those 
employers, in the parasitic industries, who go to our 254 
POVERTY 
legislative halls in order to defeat child-labor laws, 
using the argument that only by the toil of infants 
are they enabled to make profits. Is it possible that 
this is saying too much ? Perhaps it is - God 
knows. But I am not able to think as calmly as 
many of my friends, who discuss child labor as an 
academic question remote from human bodies and 
human souls, and who have never watched the chil- 
dren toiling in factories or mines or before the fur- 
naces, nor wondered how many of these women of 
the street, or how many of the vagrants (crippled, 
deformed, and degenerate wastrels of the lodging- 
houses) were robbed of something in childhood 
which they vainly tried to find again in their vagrant 
and vicious womanhood or manhood. It cannot be 
said that all of these wasted lives are due to modern 
cannibalism, but it must be said that the child who 
is robbed of his childhood and forced to become a 
bearer of burdens while yet in his infancy is the 
victim of the brute either in man or in society. I am 
not sure what William Vaughn Moody had in mind 
when he wrote his terrible poem, " The Brute," 
but it means for me the mill or the mine or the 
factory which absorbs the life and energies of the 
children: - 
u And they fling him, hour by hour, 
Limbs of men to give him power; 
Brains of men to give him cunning ; and for dainties to devour THE CHILD 
255 
Children's souls, the little worth; hearts of women, cheaply 
bought; 
He takes them and he breaks them, but he gives them scanty 
thought." 
There could hardly be a more serious problem 
than the one presented by the child of this machine- 
made and tenement-dwelling age. Place in juxtapo- 
sition the playing child of the street and the working 
child of the factory, and it seems at first glance as 
if there were, for the children of poverty at least, no 
solution to the problem. Play, that is so precious to 
the child of the country, and work, that was in the 
home of the olden days so educative and valuable, 
are now in our largest cities and factory towns either 
dangerous or ruinous. To think of this problem in 
part is to fall into error. When one has only in 
mind the working child, one's first thought is - he 
should be at play; when one has only the playing 
child in mind, the first thought is - he should have 
some occupation. It is a discouraging dilemma, facing 
equally the man interested in street gangs and the 
man interested in abolishing child labor. The brute 
on the one side; the Reform School on the other. The 
child is between the devil and the deep sea. The 
choice offered is a choice of evils. But no one is 
long in deciding which evil must be chosen. The 
brute and the devil must be fought even though it 
mean a swim for life in the deep sea. 256 
POVERTY 
But the dilemma is only a present one. We are in 
a transitional period in which the old individualistic 
ideas are still strong and the social ones as yet vague 
and groping. We are at present sufficiently devel- 
oped socially to demand that the state protect the 
little ones; but we are not yet strong in our convic- 
tion that the community should provide institutions 
fitted so far as possible to replace what the child has 
lost as a result of industrial progress - nature, home, 
educative work, and noble recreation. If we go so 
far as to free the child from the brute, we are then 
inclined to cease our efforts for the child, feeling that 
the home must find ways of engaging his idle time 
profitably. We forget that the home is, for the 
working people, a few rooms in a crowded, yardless 
tenement, and that the individual parent cannot save 
the child from the deadening and aimless play of the 
city's streets. He may not give him work with tools, 
for there is no room in the tenement where the child 
can work; the parent may not watch him at his play, 
for he is in a factory, and not in a home workshop or 
in the neighboring fields. In a word, the working- 
man cannot, as things now are, supervise the play of 
his child. We must therefore go farther than to 
liberate the child from slavery : we must see that his 
hours of freedom are utilized in those kinds of recrea- 
tion and occupation which shall most develop him. 
But it may be said that in the largest cities and THE CHILD 
257 
factory towns where the evils are greatest the thing 
will adjust itself and that in other parts of the coun- 
try there is no child problem. It is indeed a cause 
for rejoicing that relatively so few children are suf- 
fering from the evils herein mentioned. Many hun- 
dred thousand children are still living in the country 
and in villages, and about one million of the working 
children are at work on farms away from the evils 
of the factory, the mine, and the mill. These are 
indeed hopeful things, which should not be forgotten 
while considering the subject of poverty ; but neither 
should we overlook the alarming fact that we are 
only at the beginning of the industrial development 
which is the cause of these problems. We can be 
reasonably sure that under capitalism there will not 
be any automatic readjustment of affairs which will 
eradicate these evils. Indeed, it cannot be doubted 
that cities are to grow larger and more numerous; 
nor that city land is to become even more costly; nor 
that the homeless, yardless tenement and the factory 
are to multiply; nor that the home, as a place for 
social, educational, and recreational opportunities, is, 
for a time at least, in certain large cities to be a 
possession limited almost entirely to the wealthy. 
It cannot, therefore, be doubted that the child prob- 
lem is to grow year by year more and more serious. 
However alarming, it is nevertheless reasonable to 
think that we are only at the beginning of this prob< 258 
POVERTY 
lem of child life. In a general way two widely vary- 
ing solutions are advocated. The Tolstoyan and 
others, intense in their individualism and in their 
love for the old order of things, urge upon us a 
voluntary return to nature. They would have us 
abandon the great city and the factory, with its 
division of labor and its labor-saving mechanism. 
They advocate reinstituting the primitive home and 
the domestic workshop. In a word, we are to cure 
the evils of modern society by voluntarily returning 
to the extinct industrial order of previous centuries. 
The other solution is a contrary one. It has faith in 
the wisdom of our economic development, however 
much it may deplore the misery at present incident 
to it. It would build up the school and make known 
to it the necessity of providing for the child, whether 
working, playing, or learning. It would provide 
social institutions for his development; it would give 
him gardens, playgrounds, gymnasia, workshops, and 
whatever other institutions are necessary to replace 
the loss of the home workshop, and the fields of the 
old industrial era. If, in great cities, there were no 
other way of supplying these needs of the children 
than by utilizing the roofs of tenements and of all 
public buildings, it would be done. With proper 
building regulations there is no reason why a new 
Manhattan should not be created on the roofs of 
tenements and public buildings which should be for THE CHILD 
259 
the exclusive use of the children, who are the larger 
half of the population of the city. As was said 
before, some cities abroad have already arranged to 
feed the children who come from homes of poverty. 
Berlin sends to the country daily several thousand 
children who are physically weak or who are predis- 
posed to tuberculosis. In the most healthful sur- 
roundings they are then given special instruction 
and cared for by physicians and others until they are 
entirely well and strong. The development of these 
and similar social measures would soon solve many 
of the more serious of the problems of the city child. 
We are impatient and restless at the delay, but the 
time will come when an awakened social conscience 
will insist upon these necessary social measures. 
Those of the new social faith are growing in num- 
bers. To them the child is the world's supreme 
treasure. For it the world moves and has its being. 
Without the child the world were barren, riches but 
dust, and life joyless. With the child (not mine 
only nor yours, but every child born to man) the 
world is forever new, forever hopeful, and forever 
blessed. William Morris has said, in speaking of 
the transitional time between serfdom and the wage 
system of labor, " Ill would be the change were 
it not for the change beyond the change." And 
so may we think regarding the child evils incident 
to the city and to the industrial organization of the 260 
POVERTY 
present era. The world must ever change, and for 
the benefit of the child must come the change 
beyond the change. But, in order that the little 
one may be nobler than his father, one change is 
just now imperatively necessary and presses upon us. 
The factory in displacing the home workshop has 
made no provision for the proper manual and in- 
dustrial education of the child. The tenement in dis- 
placing the home and the common has made no 
provision for the child's play. The school must take 
upon itself these new responsibilities, both of which 
are educational problems, and both of which the 
school, more than any other public agency, is fitted 
to master. An awakening to the necessity of 
assuming the new duties should not be delayed, 
for the yardless tenement is multiplying, the children 
must be kept from the factory, and the little ones of 
the street may even now be counted by the million. CHAPTER VI 
THE IMMIGRANT 
In the poorest quarters of many great American 
cities and industrial communities one is struck by a 
most peculiar fact - the poor are almost entirely 
foreign born. Great colonies, foreign in language, 
customs, habits, and institutions, are separated from 
each other and from the distinctly American groups 
on national or racial lines. By crossing the Bowery 
one leaves behind him the great Jewish colony made 
up of Russians, Poles, and Roumanians and passes 
into Italy; to the northeast lies a little Germany; 
to the southwest a colony of Syrians; to the west 
lies an Irish community, a settlement of negroes, and 
a remnant of the old native American stock; to the 
south lie a Chinese and a Greek colony. On Man- 
hattan alone, either on the extreme west side or the 
extreme east side, there are other colonies of the 
Irish, the Jews, and the Italians, and, in addition, 
there is a large colony of Bohemians.1 In Chicago 
there are the same foreign poor. To my own knowl- 
edge there are four Italian colonies, two Polish, a 
261 262 
POVERTY 
Bohemian, an Irish, a Jewish, a German, a negro, a 
Chinese, a Greek, a Scandinavian, and other colonies.1 
So it is also in Boston and many other cities. In 
New York alone there are more persons of German 
descent than persons of native descent, and the 
German element is larger than in any city of Ger- 
many except Berlin. There are nearly twice as 
many Irish as in Dublin, about as many Jews as in 
Warsaw, and more Italians than in Naples or Venice.2 
No other great nation has a widespread poverty 
which is foreign to its own native people except in 
so far as it exists in distant colonies in foreign lands. 
Our foreign colonies are to an important extent in 
the cities of our own country. On a small scale we 
have Russia's poverty, Poland's poverty, Italy's pov- 
erty, Hungary's poverty, Bohemia's poverty - and 
what other nation's have we not ? England, France, 
Germany, or Italy may speak almost solely of her 
native poor, her only poor, the poor of her own 
blood. In those countries the rich and the poor 
may meet together, talk together, worship together. 
In addition to all the elemental bonds of union there 
are many others growing out of national life. In 
certain large cities of this country almost everything 
separates "the classes and the masses" except the 
feeling which inheres in the word " humanity." The 
rich and well-to-do are mostly Americans; the poor 
are mostly foreign, drawn from among the miserable THE IMMIGRANT 
263 
of every nation. The citizen and the slave of Greece 
were scarcely more effectually separated. 
To live in one of these foreign communities is 
actually to live on foreign soil. The thoughts, feel- 
ings, and traditions which belong to the mental life 
of the colony are often entirely alien to an American. 
The newspapers, the literature, the ideals, the pas- 
sions, the things which agitate the community, are 
unknown to us except in fragments. During the 
meat riots on the east side of New York City two 
years ago, I could understand nothing, as I stood 
among the mobs of rioters, except that heads were 
being broken, windows smashed, and that the people 
were in a frenzy. A few years ago, when living in 
Chicago in a colony of Bohemians and Hungarians 
who had been thrown out of employment by the clos- 
ing of a great industry, I went about among the 
groups clustered in the streets or gathered in the 
halls. I felt the unrest, the denunciation, the grow- 
ing brutality, but I was unable to discuss with them 
their grievances, to sympathize with them, or to 
oppose them. I was an utter stranger in my own 
city. A fire was started by some one; a few buildings 
were burned. I watched the embittered and angered 
faces light up with pleasure, but only by such expres- 
sions of feeling could I understand what agitated the 
people of this foreign land. In London, there is an 
English people; in Paris, a French people; in Mos- 264 
POVERTY 
cow, a Russian people. In all these countries there 
are the masters and the workmen; the rich and the 
poor, separated by wealth, by position, and by place 
of dwelling. But in the largest cities of America 
there are many other things which separate the rich 
and the poor. Language, institutions, customs, and 
even religion separate the native and the foreigner. 
It is this separation which makes the problem of 
poverty in America more difficult of solution than 
that of any other nation. 
The movement of the poor from one nation to 
another is one of the astonishing phenomena of mod- 
ern society. The poor of any country find it possible 
to move from one extreme of the world to another 
extreme in quest of better economic or social con- 
ditions. The French Canadians move backward 
and forward between this country and Canada. The 
poor Italian peasantry of Sicily and southern Italy 
are even able to come in great numbers from their 
country to work here during the summer, returning 
home again for the winter season. In 1898 sixty-six 
thousand Italian emigrants returned to the port of 
Genoa.1 The poorest of the Jews of Russia, the most 
oppressed peasantry of Asiatic countries, are able 
to come to the United States to be freed from op- 
pression, or in the hope that by so doing their 
material condition will be bettered. Rapid and 
cheap transportation has made possible these re- 265 
THE IMMIGRANT 
markable migrations. Nothing shows more clearly 
than this the change which has taken place in the 
status of the worker; he is no longer slave or serf, 
fixed to master or soil; he is free to go where he 
will, but he has far less security of livelihood than 
formerly; he is propertyless and proletarian. As 
a result of these migrations of working men and 
women national barriers have been beaten down, 
prejudices overcome, and an intermingling of races 
and nationalities has ensued in the same country, 
city, or village, which would have been inconceivable 
fifty years ago. 
While there is a great movement of population 
from all parts of the old world to all parts of the 
new, the migration to the United States is the 
largest and the most conspicuous. Literally speak- 
ing, millions of foreigners have established colonies 
in the very hearts of our urban and industrial com- 
munities. For reasons of poverty their colonies are 
usually established in the poorest, the most criminal, 
the most politically debauched, and the most vicious 
portions of our cities. These colonies often make 
up the main portion of our so-called " slums." In 
Baltimore 77 per cent of the total population of the 
slums was in the year 1894 of foreign birth or parent- 
age. In Chicago the foreign element was 90 per 
cent; in New York, 95 per cent; and in Philadelphia, 
91 per cent.1 In recent years the flow of immigrants 266 
POVERTY 
to the cities, where they are not needed, instead of to 
those parts of the country where they are needed, 
has been steadily increasing. Sixty-nine per cent of 
the present immigration avows itself as determined to 
settle either in the great cities or in certain communi- 
ties of the four great industrial states, Massachusetts, 
New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. According 
to their own statements, nearly 60 per cent of the 
Russian and Polish Jews intend to settle in the 
largest cities. As a matter of fact, those who actu- 
ally do settle in cities are even more numerous than 
this percentage indicates. As the class of immi- 
grants, drawn from eastern and southern Europe, 
Russia, and Asia, come in increasing numbers to the 
United States, the tendency to settle in cities like- 
wise increases. For many reasons the centripetal 
force of the foreign colonies seems irresistible. Al- 
ready these great foreign cities in our slums have 
become wildernesses of neglect, almost unexplored 
and almost unknown to us. Even the settlements 
touch but few of their vast number. The padrone, 
enslaving industrially the Italians, the politician, 
seeking selfish ends, the Jew sweater, and the owner, 
or agent, of insanitary tenements are the ones who 
teach the immigrant what America is and what it 
stands for. Each new shipload increases the profits 
of these classes, adds to the population of the great 
cities and colonies, and incidentally adds to its misery. THE IMMIGRANT 
267 
It is amazing to consider the extent of the foreign 
element in this country.1 Ireland and Scotland com- 
bined had in the year 1889 less than ten million peo- 
ple, and yet there were considerably over that number 
of foreigners in the United States in the year 1900. 
There were almost twenty-one millions of our popula- 
tion with both parents foreign born; that is to say, 
more than the population of Portugal, Sweden, Hol- 
land, and Belgium combined in the year 1890. 
Considerably over six millions of our population, over 
ten years of age, were illiterate - a population about 
equal to that of Belgium. Since the year 1821 
over twenty million immigrants have arrived in this 
country. Within the last twenty-three years con- 
siderably over half of this number, or upwards of 
ten million immigrants, have landed in the United 
States.2 The figures are really astounding. In 
many towns nearly one-half of the population is 
foreign. About 37 per cent of the people of New 
York City are foreign born, and over 80 per cent 
are either foreign born or of foreign parentage. 
In the latter sense about 80 per cent of the popu- 
lation of Chicago is foreign, in Milwaukee nearly 
85 per cent, in Fall River about the same per 
cent. In no less than thirty-three of our largest 
cities the foreign population is larger than the na- 
tive.3 A man prominent in philanthropic work 
among the Jews claims, as a result of an independent 268 
POVERTY 
census, that there are over half a million Jews foreign 
born and of foreign parentage in New York City. 
According to the United States Census, the immi- 
grants from Germany and Ireland make up the 
largest numbers; but they are now being fast out- 
stripped by those from eastern Europe. Assistant 
Commissioner of Immigration McSweeney said a 
couple of years ago, "A circle . . . including the 
sources of the present immigration to the United 
States would have its centre in Constantinople."1 
These facts and figures, even if there were nothing 
else to be said, would warrant the most serious con- 
sideration being given to the subject of immigration. 
The problem of a foreign poverty, the growth of 
great colonies preyed upon by the worst classes, the 
immense number yearly of newcomers and the fact 
that the recent immigration brings us fewer Teutons 
and vastly more southern Europeans, Slavs, and 
Asiatics, are facts which the serious citizen should 
care to consider. Only the student of those ethnic 
changes wrought by great migratory movements, 
such as the one we witness in our day, can have any 
idea of the racial modifications which are likely to 
result from the coming of these strange peoples from 
all parts of the world. Far-reaching changes in our 
national characteristics will result. The American 
type must change in response to these new racial 
influences. Until i860 the American was steadily THE IMMIGRANT 
269 
growing in stature. The recent immigration from 
eastern and southern Europe, however, will, it seems 
agreed, decrease the average stature of the Ameri- 
can. It is said that the skull will become shorter 
and broader.1 There will also be psychological 
changes resulting from the mixture of races. What 
the final man will be no one can foretell, but the very 
knowledge of the ethnic changes which must result 
increases tremendously the responsibility of the 
American people to this question of immigration. 
By act of legislation there can be a selection prac- 
tised which may result in infinite good to the people. 
Foreign countries, by reason of oppression, wars, and 
lack of education, have added greatly to their unfit 
and abnormal classes. The strong and selected have 
gone to war to be killed; the weak and mentally 
deficient have been left at home to increase popula- 
tion. According to the Commissioner of Immigra- 
tion these very classes of the unfit are at present 
coming to our shores in vast numbers to exercise 
their influence in these ethnic changes.2 At the 
same time the better classes of Italians are going to 
South America; large numbers of skilled workers 
from Germany and emigrants from other advanced 
nations are now going to South America, Aus- 
tralia and elsewhere in preference to America. The 
Honorable James Bryce, one of the most careful 
foreign observers of our social and political life. 270 
POVERTY 
said, about ten years ago : " Within the last decade 
new swarms of European immigrants have invaded 
America, drawn from their homes in the eastern 
parts of central Europe by the constant cheapening 
of ocean transit and by that more thorough drainage, 
so to speak, of the inland regions of Europe which 
is due to the extension of railways. These immi- 
grants, largely of Slavonic race, come from a lower 
stratum of civilization than the German immigrants 
of the past, and, since they speak foreign tongues, 
are less quickly amenable to American influences, 
and probably altogether less improvable than are 
the Irish. There seems to be a danger that if they 
continue to come in large numbers they may re- 
tain their own low standard of decency and com- 
fort, and menace the continuance among the working 
class generally of that far higher standard which 
has hitherto prevailed in all but a few spots in the 
country."1 It is not sufficient to answer the mani- 
fold questions presented by these problems in the 
ordinary way of Americans by saying that some of 
the recent immigrants become rich. Many, it may 
be as truly said, remain poor. Unrestricted immi- 
gration involves more than wealth-getting or poverty. 
Many of the most subtle, social, and ethnological 
questions are involved. Here, however, we must 
speak of immigration in its relation to poverty and 
therefore mainly in its economic aspects. THE IMMIGRANT 
271 
A striking fact in connection with the movement 
of population is the influence of the profit-seeking 
forces upon its volume. It is stimulated by certain 
economic forces consciously exercised. Generally 
speaking, immigration is promoted by two classes: 
large employers of labor, seeking always and every- 
where the cheapest form obtainable, and the owners 
of the transatlantic steamship companies. The for- 
mer are responsible for large numbers of contract 
laborers. Mr. Jacob A. Riis said very recently: 
" Scarce a Greek comes here, man or boy, who is 
not under contract. A hundred dollars a year is the 
price, so it is said by those who know, though the 
padrone's cunning has put the legal proof beyond 
their reach. And the Armenian and Syrian huck- 
sters are 'worked' by some peddling trust that 
traffics in human labor as do other merchants in 
foodstuffs and coal and oil."1 These foreign people 
do not come as the early immigrants came, over- 
coming many obstacles and strong to overcome 
them for the sake of a new chance in the 
new world; they are seduced into coming, 
enticed by every available means and by every 
known scheme of advertising. Bolton King, writ- 
ing on "Italy To-day,"2 says that in 1896 "there 
were over seven thousand emigration agents in the 
country (Italy), and too many of them have specu- 
lated on the peasant's ignorance, giving false in- 272 
POVERTY 
formation as to the labor market, sometimes cheat- 
ing him (the Italian) of the little hoard he had 
taken with him, or deliberately sending him to a 
different locality from that agreed upon." * These 
agencies in Europe are spread " like a vast network," 
having representatives in every town, village, and 
hamlet for the purpose of making the ignorant 
peasantry believe fabulous stories of wealth to be 
had in America.1 It is not difficult to deceive the 
illiterate and, consequently, they, in particular, are 
coming in larger and larger numbers. In fact, both 
the type and the nationality of the immigrants who 
come to America are very largely determined by the 
activity of these agents and by the ports from which 
the ships sail. If the steamship companies under- 
took to increase their business by opening a new 
port in the Baltic, we should have a great increase 
of immigrants from any Russian or Polish colony in 
which their agents worked. It is even said that a 
steamship company, in consideration of a certain 
number of yearly immigrants guaranteed by the 
government, has decided to open a new port in an 
eastern European country.2 The people who come 
do not expect to fight a hard industrial battle after 
they have arrived; they have been deceived by the 
foreign agents, trafficked in for profits, and looted 
by the unscrupulous. 
* The words in parentheses are interposed. THE IMMIGRANT 
273 
It should be realized that the forces promoting im- 
migration are selfish forces caring neither for the 
welfare of the country nor for the welfare of the im- 
migrant. Whenever a bill comes before Congress to 
restrict immigration, every effort is made by these 
private interests to prevent its passage. A few 
years ago the following letter was sent out by a 
general agent of the North German Lloyd Steam- 
ship Company to their many agencies in all parts 
of this country :1 - 
" Immigration bill comes up in the House Wednes- 
day. Wire your congressman, our expense, protest- 
ing against proposed exclusion and requesting bill 
be defeated, informing him that vote in favor means 
defeat next election. 
(Signed) 
" H. Claussenius & Co." 
Similar intimidating telegrams were sent to every 
newspaper in which the steamship companies adver- 
tised. Official testimony also shows that bribery, in 
the form of passes, given to the editors and pro- 
prietors of newspapers, has helped to create news- 
paper opposition to restrictive legislation. 
The class of large employers most active in pre- 
venting the restriction of immigration have usually 
been those paying the smallest wages. A repre- 274 
POVERTY 
sentative of the Southern Pacific Railroad, appearing 
before the Committee of the United States Senate 
on Immigration in 1902, for the purpose of opposing 
restriction, claimed that the railroad was unable to 
get sufficient workmen. The Commissioner General 
of Immigration, knowing well the wages and condi- 
tions of railway workmen, said, " Let it pay living 
wages and it will have laborers enough." The wages 
paid by the Southern Pacific, as shown before the 
same committee, were from $1.16 to $1.39 a day, 
or, in other terms, from $350 to $425 a year.1 Those 
employers who use every means, fair or foul, to 
obtain an over-supply of laborers, and, in this way, 
to force wages down to the lowest possible limit, 
should be classed among the dangerous elements 
of any country. This policy, pursued for many 
years in the anthracite mining districts of Pennsyl- 
vania, caused violent disturbances until the men were 
organized in unions for the purpose of limiting the 
supply of laborers and of increasing wages. In order 
to keep wages down and to prevent the growth of 
trade unions, many employers advocate unlimited 
immigration. The reports to the Industrial Com- 
mission show that in those districts where there is 
an over-supply of laborers of many different nation- 
alities, it is almost impossible to organize the workers 
until suffering makes the men realize the necessity 
of union, instead of competition, among themselves.2 THE IMMIGRANT 
275 
In this way the selfish interests create serious social 
problems by promoting excessive immigration. 
Curiously enough the only other class of Ameri- 
cans who are actively supporting a like policy of 
unlimited immigration are the revolutionary anar 
chists; the latter working consciously, and the former 
classes unconsciously, to bring about the same end. 
According to the anarchist theory, immigration is 
one of the active sources creating an intenser com- 
petition for bread, and, in consequence, a greater 
general poverty. In a miserable, half-lighted hall, 
I heard a few years ago a discussion of the subject 
by a group of revolutionary anarchists, mostly, I 
must say, foreigners. The speaker, a foreigner, 
using German and at times a broken English, said 
there was no hope of revolution in this country until 
conditions got worse. The immigrants were, how- 
ever, breaking down the standards of living, and in 
a few years the workers, enraged by hunger and 
poverty, would rise up with arms and dynamite to 
destroy their masters and to establish the anarchist 
state. I have before me an anarchist leaflet called 
" A Letter to Tramps, the Unemployed, the Dis- 
inherited, and the Miserable." After appealing to 
these classes to realize their wretched condition and 
the cause of it, namely, the robbers who live in their 
" voluptuous homes " and " engage themselves at 
wanton sports," the letter urges a petition which the 276 
POVERTY 
rich may read by the " red glare bursting from the 
cannon's mouth." It ends up with this significant 
phrase, in italics, " Learn the use of explosives." 
The anarchist knows there is no better school to 
prepare men for revolution than that of poverty. 
Anything which will make profits is favored by the 
steamship companies; anything which creates a 
greater supply of cheap labor is favored by certain 
employers; anything which makes poverty more 
general and more stinging is favored by revolutionary 
anarchists. This last body of men has no selfish 
interest in the present degradation of labor. Its 
position is based upon the principle that poverty, if 
severe enough, will bring a revolution. The other 
bodies of men have only in view their present selfish 
interests. Whatever difference there is in motive, 
the end they all seek is for the present precisely the 
same. 
These are the ones who favor unrestricted immi- 
gration. The actual conditions of the workers 
show, I think, that there is in many places in this 
country a large supply of labor which our indus- 
tries are not using-and, in fact, cannot use. The 
figures of unemployment mentioned in other places 
show this conclusively; but for further proof any 
one may visit these colonies at any time and see 
for himself the great numbers of idle men walk- 
ing the streets. This enforced idleness, due to THE IMMIGRANT 
277 
inability to find employment, is also shown by the 
figures gathered by the Department of Labor at 
Washington, in the investigation of the Italians 
in Chicago.1 During the year of the investigation 
the Italian workman was actually employed on an 
average but little more than four months out of the 
twelve. The other eight months were spent in 
idleness. The average wage of the Italian workman 
was less than $6 a week, and, in the most unskilled 
trades, it fell in one class to $5, and in another as 
low as $4.37.2 These wages, these long months of 
unemployment, mean wretched poverty. They mean 
starvation, insanity, and tuberculosis. Let any one 
look about in the colonies. The evidences of pov- 
erty are everywhere. The local doctor will tell you 
that there is a great prevalence of rickets among 
the Italian children, a disease due to malnutrition; 
the settlement worker will tell you that the child is 
taken from school at the earliest hour and sent 
to work; the woman is taken from her children 
and put to work; the neglected children are left to 
the vice and crime taught by the street gang; the 
policeman will tell you, if you ask, that the Italians 
of the poorest class obtain their food to a large ex- 
tent from the garbage boxes. He will also tell you 
that the fighting and the drunkenness result natu- 
rally from unwilling idleness. Mr. Jacob A. Riis, 
speaking of the Italians who swarm about the city 278 
POVERTY 
dumps, says, " Whenever the back of the sanitary 
police is turned, he will make his home in the filthy 
burrows where he works by day, sleeping and eating 
his meals under the dump, on the edge of slimy depths 
and amid surroundings full of unutterable horror." 
He adds, the city is content to board the Italian "so 
long as he can make the ash-barrels yield the food 
to keep him alive." 1 It would seem that our indus- 
tries fail to absorb some few at least of the new- 
comers. 
Since these facts and figures concerning the con- 
ditions of poverty in these Italian colonies were 
made public, several hundred thousand more Italians 
have immigrated. In the last five years over six 
hundred thousand Italians have arrived in this coun- 
try.2 Last year, 1903, almost three hundred thou- 
sand new immigrants were admitted to the Italian 
colonies of this country, to share with those already 
here whatever may be rescued from the city's gar- 
bage, or to fight with them, or against them, for a 
chance to work and for means of livelihood. The 
wages given above do not, however, represent the 
extent of their poverty. The padrone must get his 
commissions and profits out of these poverty-stricken 
people.8 By organization under a padrone, for the 
padrone's benefit, the men work for wages, the 
amount of which they often do not know; but when 
there is work, they get it, because the sort of slavery THE IMMIGRANT 
279 
which they are willing to suffer and the standard 
of life which they are willing to accept is most 
satisfactory to those contractors who desire to get 
labor at the cheapest possible rates. The padrone 
is a parasite. He lives and grows rich by fleecing 
ignorant immigrants from his own country. He 
helps the steamship companies to stimulate immi- 
gration. He gets his commission for bringing 
tenants to a vile tenement. He farms out laborers 
to railroad companies and other employers. When 
they are working, he supplies them with food at 
excessive prices. It is even said that he is sometimes 
the owner of the Italians, and that they are actually 
his slaves.1 
These conditions of poverty are not peculiar to the 
Italians. They are only worse with them. Among 
the Jews, who have been admitted in great numbers 
to this country, and who have settled almost entirely 
in the largest cities, distress and poverty are wide- 
spread. Not to speak from observation, but to quote 
only from published reports, there is more than 
enough to be said. The annual report of the United 
Hebrew Charities for 1901 says: "A condition of 
chronic poverty is developing in the Jewish commu- 
nity of New York that is appalling in its immensity. 
Forty-five per cent of our applicants, representing 
between twenty thousand and twenty-five thousand 
human beings, have been in the United States ovei 280 
POVERTY 
five years; have been given the opportunities for 
economic and industrial improvement which this 
country affords; yet, notwithstanding all this, have 
not managed to reach a position of economic inde- 
pendence." The same report says, " The statement 
can safely be made that during the year from seventy- 
five thousand to one hundred thousand members of 
the New York Jewish community are unable to 
supply themselves with the immediate necessaries 
of life."1 In the report of the same society for 1898 
the following passage occurs, " Those who are 
familiar with the crowded section on the lower east 
side know that vices are beginning to spring up 
which heretofore have been strangers to the Jewish 
people."2 In the report for 1901 this observation is 
confirmed and made more explicit, "The horrible 
congestion in which so many of our co-religionists 
live, the squalor and filth, the lack of air and sun- 
light, the absence, frequently, of even the most com- 
mon decencies, are too well known to require 
repetition at this writing." 
I do not know whether or not, all considered, the 
Italians have improved their lot by coming to 
America. Many of them have, doubtless, bettered 
themselves financially, but I do know that nothing 
in Polish Russia can compare with the conditions 
stated above concerning the Jewish community of 
New York City. From careful observation in both THE IMMIGRANT 
281 
places, I should say, offhand, that, except for advan- 
tages of education, the Jews of the Polish part of 
the Russian Pale are better off morally, physically, 
religiously, and perhaps even financially, than those 
of the east side of New York. It is never safe to 
make such a statement without searching inquiry, 
but, so far as my observation goes, it is true. 
Distressing as these conditions seem, many people 
will, doubtless, feel inclined to say that immigrants 
arriving in poverty would, very naturally, have to 
suffer some of these conditions for a few years at 
least. The fact is, however, that the competition of 
recent immigrants increases the poverty among the 
native as well as among the more or less American- 
ized working classes. The poverty of the Irish, and 
the degeneration which has resulted from it, is an 
excellent example. 
I think any one who has lived in the poorer quarters 
of any large city or industrial community will agree 
that the Irish-American has degenerated in recent 
years in the most astonishing way. Certain districts, 
formerly flourishing, in which the people were pros- 
perous, thrifty, and energetic, are at present the very 
worst pauperized and most criminal districts of our 
cities. For instance, the "Archy Road" section of 
Chicago, the home of Peter Dunne's " Mr. Dooley," 
was a few years ago a prosperous district of sober, 
self-respecting, working people. The Irish were at 282 
POVERTY 
that time doing almost all the common laboring work 
of the city, the unloading of barges on the river, the 
unskilled work in the railroad yards, the street-clean- 
ing work, and other common laboring jobs about the 
mills and factories. Little by little the padrones 
began to bargain on political lines with corrupt aider- 
men, and the Italians were put to work on city jobs. 
Johnnie Powers, whose district is largely an Italian 
one, could, at one time, it is said, "make the proud 
boast that he had two thousand six hundred people in 
his ward upon the public pay roll."1 The Poles 
and Hungarians have taken away much of the un- 
skilled work at the mills and at the stock yards; the 
Bohemians have monopolized the wood-working 
trades. As a result, the Irish have had either to rise 
to higher positions or to compete successfully with this 
poorer paid labor. They were unable to do the one 
and refused to do the other. In consequence, the 
homes are being mortgaged and lost; the young lads 
are becoming gamblers and drunkards and vagrants. 
I have recently seen a statement that crime is decreas- 
ing in Ireland; but in the larger cities of this country 
the Irish make up an undue proportion of vagrants, 
criminals, paupers, and defectives. Over 76 per cent 
of the paupers of foreign birth in Massachusetts a few 
years ago were Irish, although they constituted only 
46 per cent of the foreign born in that state.2 I do 
not believe that there are any qualities inherent in the THE IMMIGRANT 
283 
Irish to which may be attributed the cause for this 
degeneration. It seems difficult to explain it except 
on the ground of excessive competition among the 
workers. In the rural communities, where the com- 
petition of recent immigrants has not been felt, the 
Irish, on the whole, have developed into very excel- 
lent Americans. Nothing would be of greater value 
to one interested in the effects of immigration than a 
study showing the degeneration which results from 
this battle between the wage-earners of different 
nationalities, in the cities and in the industrial com- 
munities, for the means of livelihood. 
This general poverty which exists among the im- 
migrants brings us very naturally to the considera- 
tion of the actual burden which immigration places 
upon the state. This burden is principally borne by 
the benevolent, charitable, and penal institutions. 
The thing which most strikes one in a visit to the 
public institutions of the state is the great number 
of foreigners of all nationalities which one finds 
there. The only figures which exist of pauperism, 
in the United States as a whole, are those gathered 
by the Census Bureau. They are by no means com- 
plete ; the number of the poor supported in their 
homes is unknown. Nevertheless, the burden of the 
dependent foreign born is shown to be a very heavy 
one. It is well known that various societies in 
foreign countries have pursued the policy of send- 284 
POVERTY 
ing to us large numbers of paupers, imbeciles, and 
aged persons, as well as criminals and other dan- 
gerous persons. They have employed such means 
to evade the responsibility and expense of continuous 
support for these classes. This has been partially 
stopped by recent laws prohibiting the entrance of 
such persons. But it has not altogether ceased. 
During the month of September, 1903, three hundred 
and sixty-two persons were debarred on the ground 
that thay were likely to become public charges. 
During the year over three thousand immigrants 
were rejected because they were insane, idiots, 
afflicted with dangerous, contagious diseases, or 
likely to become paupers.1 Vigilance alone prevents 
the entry of those obviously unfit. There is, how- 
ever, no possibility of sifting out of the immense 
immigration of about one million persons annually 
all of the unfit persons. The inspection at best must 
be too cursory, and it is inconceivable that any agent 
of the Immigration Bureau should be skilled enough 
to determine unfitness by merely looking a person 
over. The Commissioner General has recently said 
that even those who have been rejected at the port 
of New York as unfit come over the borders else- 
where in large numbers.2 If this is true even those 
whom our laws recognize as unfit often succeed in 
making an entrance, and the immigrants who are 
generally undesirable because unintelligent, of low THE IMMIGRANT 
285 
vitality and of poor physique, are not even prohibited 
from coming. It is difficult to keep out the latter class. 
For instance, it is not an easy matter to discover, ex- 
cept as a result of most careful, painstaking exami- 
nations of all immigrants, incipient tuberculosis or 
insanity of a recurring character. In fact, it is esti- 
mated that twenty-three thousand consumptive immi- 
grants arrived in New York in 1902. It is well known 
that certain kinds of insanity are only temporarily 
cured. Furthermore, how is it possible to know at 
sight dangerous persons and criminals or the morally 
insane, who have been helped, by friends and relatives, 
to leave a foreign country? A case I came across 
recently in Switzerland is doubtless typical of the 
kind of dependents who come of their own will when 
they are not actually sent to us. An itinerant tailor, 
apparently strong, but afflicted with an incurable 
disease, was making his way through the mountains 
to Davos, where, he said, there was a hospital which 
he hoped would take him in. When he learned that 
we came from America, he exclaimed: "How I wish 
I could get there 1 The hospitals are free in your 
country." 
According to the Census of 1890 there were, 
in proportion to population, over twice as many 
foreign-born inmates of charitable and penal in- 
stitutions as there were native-born.1 Of paupers 
alone the foreign classes supply an even large/ 286 
POVERTY 
proportion. As long ago as 1887 there were 
in the city poorhouses of New York State over 
thirty-four thousand foreign born, while there were 
only eighteen thousand of the native born. Over 
44 per cent of the paupers of Massachusetts are 
of foreign birth.1 Taking an equal number of per- 
sons from the foreign element and the native 
element, the foreign element furnishes four times 
as many paupers. These figures represent most 
important facts and should be given careful con- 
sideration. In view of them it can hardly be ques- 
tioned that the recent immigrants were not all 
needed, for, granting that they came to the country 
in condition to be independent, self-supporting citi- 
zens, the wages they received were evidently not 
sufficient to prevent them from depending upon 
public relief for support. An interesting commen- 
tary upon what has been previously said concerning 
the Irish may be given here. By far the largest 
proportion of paupers in the almshouses are Irish. 
From observation, I should say that this is even 
more true of the paupers receiving outdoor relief, 
although there are no figures to be obtained on this 
matter. It must, however, be said that a large 
number of children of foreign parentage in chari- 
table institutions are not there solely because of 
poverty. A great many of the poorest and most 
ignorant foreigners desire to have their children sup- THE IMMIGRANT 
287 
ported in public institutions. They often refer to 
such places as the " college " to which they are send- 
ing their children. 
There has been no effort to determine the amount 
of money spent by the various states for the support 
of foreign-born paupers. It is reasonable, however, to 
suppose that it amounts to an immense sum yearly. 
The insane hospitals, to which the foreign element 
supply an unduly large proportion, are among the 
most expensive public institutions. Mr. Goodwin 
Brown, of the State Commission of Lunacy of New 
York, estimates that, in the course of ten years, 
about $50,000,000 are expended by the United States 
to care for the excess of foreign-born insane.1 The 
Italians show a very large proportion of insane in 
the asylums, hospitals, etc. Out of about twenty- 
four thousand insane persons in New York State, 
almost exactly one-half are foreign born, although 
only about one-fourth of the people of the state are 
foreign born. Mr. Brown says, in another place: 
"We know of instance after instance, in fact there 
are thousands of them, where they (the insane) have 
been only a few months out of a hospital on the 
other side. They are sane when they are admitted 
here - that is, they will pass the ordinary inspec- 
tion; they find difficulty in procuring employment; 
they get out of money; they are away from their 
friends, and, naturally, they soon go to pieces, and 288 
POVERTY 
then they are re-committed. . . . There are in- 
stances of persons who have been re-committed 
as many as fifteen or twenty times."1 
The number of crimes committed by the foreign 
bom is only slightly, if at all, above the due propor- 
tion. In the matter of intoxication and disorderly 
conduct, the foreign born furnish about three times 
as many offenders as the native born. For assault, 
burglary, larceny, and grand larceny, there is a 
slight predominance of foreign born.2 It is, however, 
among the children of foreign parentage that crimi- 
nals are found in greatest number.3 The most 
vicious, confirmed, incorrigible child criminal is the 
child of foreign parents. As a tough and outlaw 
he has few, if any, equals. In the chapter on 
" The Child " some of the reasons for this have 
been given. The tremendous struggle with pov- 
erty which the foreigner makes in order to survive 
in the competitive labor strife means, in a great 
many cases, the sacrifice of the child; in other 
words, the ruin of the Americanized foreigner. 
The parents, when they are illiterate or belong to 
Slavic, Balkan, or Mediterranean races, are rarely 
Americanized. Vice and crime, inconceivable to 
the adult immigrant, become habitual to the most 
neglected of the children of foreign parentage. 
It is really appalling to observe the extent of this 
ruin of childhood. Among all the foreign peoples, THE IMMIGRANT 
289 
and especially among the Jews and the Italians of 
New York and Chicago, many of the children are 
developing habits of vice which are revolting in 
the extreme. A Jewish society has recently pub- 
lished in one of its reports, " The vice and crime, the 
irreligiousness, lack of self-restraint, indifference to 
social conventions, indulgence of the most degraded 
and perverted appetites, . . . are daily growing more 
pronounced and more offensive."1 Out of every 
million of the voting population in Massachusetts, 
there were about nineteen thousand male criminals 
of foreign parents, while among the children of 
native parents there were only three thousand and 
ninety? In the five states where the recent immi- 
grant most often finds his home, his children sup- 
ply from two to six times as many criminals as the 
children of native parents. This is perhaps as 
strong an argument as any against excessive immi- 
gration. It not only illustrates clearly the fact that 
the recent immigrants must neglect their children 
in order to gain a livelihood, but also that the recent 
immigrants settle in the most degraded portions of 
our cities, and, while not themselves becoming in 
excessive numbers addicted to vice, bring up their 
children in surroundings which make them in large 
numbers vicious and criminally dangerous. 
It is unnecessary to speak here especially of the 
amount of illiteracy which exists by reason of re- 290 
POVERTY 
cent immigration. Despite the fact that it has 
been our national custom to spare no expense to 
educate our citizens, about half the foreigners in 
the slums are illiterate. And we are presented 
yearly with an enormous number of adults - this 
year there will be approximately one million immi- 
grants- a large proportion of whom are illiterate. 
When they arrive after their fourteenth year, it is 
very unlikely that they will ever become literate. 
In a political democracy, where it is of the utmost 
importance that every citizen should understand 
the institutions of his country, and should be pre- 
pared by reading for intelligent voting, the illit- 
eracy, which extends to over six millions of our 
population, should be a matter of concern. The 
relation of illiteracy to crime is not fully known, 
but some figures gathered in Massachusetts show 
that, with the increase of illiteracy, there is an 
increase in the number of commitments to penal 
institutions for every crime except that of drunk- 
enness.1 The immigrants from Austria, Poland, and 
Italy, being the most illiterate, were the most often 
committed to penal institutions. It is, however, 
only fair to repeat that the poor of the four 
great industrial states are largely foreign born or 
children of foreign parents. We should expect, 
therefore, that the foreign element would supply 
an excess of dependents. It is true of every coun- THE IMMIGRANT 
291 
try - it is true of purely American communities- 
that the poor supply an excess of criminals and 
dependents. It is one of the natural results of 
poverty. How far in excess the dependent foreign 
born and the criminals of foreign parentage are, 
it is not possible to determine from our present 
inadequate data. The facts, however, if they were 
known, would doubtless make a much less unfa- 
vorable showing for the foreign element than the 
proportions heretofore given indicate. It is not 
possible to give actual figures showing the cost to 
the state of almost unrestricted and indiscriminate 
immigration. That it is a great expense to the 
state and that it becomes increasingly large, be- 
cause of the neglected children of immigrants, there 
is no question. 
The heaviest burden of the immense immigration 
is, however, not borne by the state, which, after all, 
can, when necessary, afford to bear even larger bur- 
dens of this character. The real weight is borne by 
the poorest classes of our community (except those 
in the almshouses); namely, the unskilled workers. 
Unskilled labor is already too plentiful; nothing 
shows it more than the conditions which exist in 
many parts of the country; in those places where un- 
skilled laborers might profitably employ themselves, 
the recent immigrants refuse to go, and instead herd 
in factory and mining towns and in large cities, pull- 292 
POVERTY 
ing like a heavy weight upon that class of laborers 
which is already too plentiful there. In times of 
industrial depression, such as we are facing now, the 
amount of unskilled labor vastly over-supplies the 
demand for it, and the distress, by reason of unem- 
ployment at such periods, becomes a calamity of 
national importance. We have seen elsewhere how 
serious the problem of unemployment is at all times. 
It is nowhere so great as among the classes which 
are increased by recent immigration. A surplus of 
laborers enables the meanest employer to oppress his 
workmen to the very limit of endurance. If it is to 
his advantage to have short seasons, an over-supply 
of labor enables him to push through large contracts 
of work in short periods of time, leaving the work- 
men at other times unemployed and in poverty. In 
the same way that surplus labor enables the indi- 
vidual manufacturer to supply his market in a short 
period of time, leaving his plant and workmen idle 
at other times, all manufacturers are enabled by sur- 
plus labor to supply sufficient products for the mar- 
ket, in a few years of great business activity, thereby 
necessitating, periodically, a long season, sometimes 
extending over years, when both plant and men must 
be idle. Both the Honorable Carroll D. Wright and 
Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith have shown how 
important a factor this over-supply of labor is in 
creating industrial depressions. The relation of THE IMMIGRANT 
293 
immigration to the over-supply of labor, which, in 
part, causes industrial depressions, can be clearly 
seen. Even in times of increasing prosperity and of 
unusual industrial activity, the unskilled workers are 
not permitted to profit by the better times. Immi- 
gration instantly increases, the labor market is pro- 
gressively overcrowded, and the wages in unskilled 
trades are thereby reduced to the lowest limit. 
The unskilled workers are most largely drafted 
from the Chinese, Croatians, Greeks, Italians, Lithu- 
anians, Magyars, Poles, Portuguese, Ruthenians, and 
Slovaks. When the women come, they also com- 
monly work at such employments as they find open 
to them. I have seen hundreds of women employed 
in the stock yards, working in great tubs of blood 
and entrails, employed in this manner week in and 
week out, leaving their children at home uncared for 
in order to assist the men in their fight for livelihood. 
The assistance of the women has made the Italian a 
formidable competitor in any trade which he has 
undertaken. It happens, however, that women often 
become the competitors of their own husbands and 
sons, and, by their willingness to accept a lower wage, 
decrease the wage scale of all laborers. The fear of 
poverty intensifies the competition between the dif- 
ferent nationalities, between the native and the 
foreigner, between the women and the men, be- 
tween the adults and the children, so that it is 294 
POVERTY 
absolutely impossible for the unskilled classes to 
successfully resist oppression. They will work any 
hours, at any speed, and for almost any wages; 
they will suffer the direst poverty; they will under- 
feed their children and themselves; they will sleep 
in the most insanitary hovels of factory towns or in 
the darkest rooms of the worst tenements in the 
cities. The Italians are perhaps as successful as any, 
and succeed because they are willing to accept the low- 
est standard of living, the greatest poverty, and the 
highest mortality. It can almost be said that many 
who win in this competitive struggle win at death. 
It is a competition of standards, and the lowest 
standard prevails. Among the common laborers in 
coal mining and in the clothing and textile trades, 
this competition is always too intense. It amounts, 
at times, almost to a race war, so that the bitterest 
hatred often exists between the different nationalities. 
The recent pitched battle between fifty Italian laborers 
and seventy Irish rock-drillers in one of the Subway 
pits is an example of what often occurs between the 
conflicting races. In 1892 a visitor to the anthracite 
district of Pennsylvania was amazed at the heartless 
and cruel way in which the foreigners were treated 
by the Americans; but after remaining in the dis- 
trict some time, he began to excuse, if not to justify, 
the Americans, for he saw " a thousand idle Ameri- 
cans, and a like number of foreigners slaving for THE IMMIGRANT 
295 
eighty or ninety cents per day."1 Professor John R. 
Commons says, concerning the coal miners displaced 
by foreigners: " Many coal miners sought the west- 
ern and northern metal fields; others turned to farm- 
ing. In case migration is not available, the displaced 
workman may be able to rise on top of the immigrant 
and become his foreman, his boss, or the proprietor 
of his working place. On the other hand, the inferior 
individuals of the displaced classes, refusing to com- 
pete alongside the immigrant, and incapable or un- 
willing to rise and better their condition, fall into the 
class of hoodlums, tramps, and paupers."2 
The tragedy which results from this surplus of 
labor was strikingly shown in the work of a sculptor, 
exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago. It is the 
custom in some places, in England for instance, for 
the foremen of the great factories to go out in the 
morning to the gate where the workmen, seeking 
employment, are gathered, and to throw out tickets 
to the number of employees needed. The group 
represents an intense struggle to obtain one of these 
tickets. The man fortunate enough to get it is the 
central figure. He holds it high above his head, 
resistant, but looks with compassion upon the strug- 
gling ones about him. A withered old man clings to 
him, begging for the ticket; a youth behind is plot- 
ting to seize it; a woman with babe in arms, trampled 
under the feet of the others, strives to protect the 296 
POVERTY 
child; a tiny lad, with a wolfish hunger in his face, 
endeavors to clamber up on others in the hope of 
seizing the ticket. Let him, who will, go about the 
factory districts of the country and see this thing 
enacted in real life, not so obviously dramatical but 
with agony that is actual. It will then be easy for 
him to question a national policy of unrestricted im- 
migration. 
The political consequences are perhaps out of our 
province, although they are becoming more and more 
serious as the foreign colonies become an increasing 
source of power to corrupt politicians. The greater 
the poverty, the greater is the dependence of the 
foreigner upon either padrone or politician. It has 
been recently shown that naturalization papers can 
be had for $5 ; and a vote means a job.1 The 
present methods of naturalization outrage the prin- 
ciples and ideals which formerly underlay this legal 
process of initiating the foreigner into the full rights 
of American citizenship. At present it involves 
no qualifications on the part of the immigrant 
and becomes simply another method of encouraging 
venal voting. It is not easy to say to what extent 
the foreign elements are responsible for the political 
corruption in those sections in which they predomi- 
nate. Our own history is an unclean one. The 
native element is guilty of the most dangerous polit- 
ical corruption. The Americans are the ones prin- THE IMMIGRANT 
297 
cipally who buy up the state legislatures and city 
councils, who bribe the representatives of the people, 
and steal every privilege which yields a profit. The 
Irish-Americans are mainly responsible for bribe- 
taking because they are the successful politicians. 
The recently arrived immigrants are an unknown 
quality, but they are learning the game. Their igno- 
rance and poverty make them easy tools. It is 
undoubtedly true that they play, though perhaps 
innocently, into the hands of the politicians, and 
temporarily, at any rate, enhance their power. The 
conditions in certain sections of New York City and 
Chicago - and especially in certain sections of Penn- 
sylvania- prove this beyond question. Whether 
or not the dangers to democratic government, which 
reside in the present political corruption, can be as 
clearly demonstrated to these foreign elements as 
to the native element, and whether or not they will 
respond to the higher appeal, are momentous ques- 
tions. The personal power of ward politicians and 
saloon keepers and its appeal to the immediate 
selfishness of poor immigrants is a mighty political 
force, perhaps too mighty for the higher appeal to 
overcome until the mass of immigrants have been 
sufficiently educated and informed to be reached by 
the minority from which reform and revolt always 
emanate. The minority cannot build up a machine; 
they cannot gain their ends through personal power; 298 
POVERTY 
they are necessarily dependent to a large extent 
upon public appeals and literature to make evils 
known and to demonstrate clearly their proposed 
reforms. The love and devotion which many of 
the immigrants manifest for democracy is beau- 
tiful and pathetic; but their ignorance prevents 
them from knowing that their votes commonly sup- 
port the very men who are selling themselves and 
their country to the most sinister Enemies of the 
Repziblic. 
There are certain results of migratory movements 
which are even more important than those hitherto 
considered. It is generally thought that emigration 
has been of great value to Europe in that it has 
relieved a condition of over-population and conges- 
tion, thereby benefiting the poorer classes especially. 
It would seem, in support of this theory, that the 
twenty million persons who have emigrated to this 
country since 1820 must have left behind them less 
crowding and better industrial opportunities for the 
workers who remained at home. In other words, it 
is the popular belief that the migrations of the 
last century have worked a redistribution of popula- 
tion which has been of inestimable value both to 
foreign countries and to our own for the reason that 
additional workers have come here, where they have 
been needed for the development of the new country, 
and a less congested population left abroad, where THE IMMIGRANT 
299 
there is at all times a large surplus of unemployed 
and suffering workers. Upon the face of the matter 
this view seems a right one, but it fails to take any 
account whatever of the influence of migratory move- 
ments upon the birth-rate. It is obvious that if 
when large numbers of persons emigrate from a 
country, their places are soon filled by an increase in 
the number of births, the result will not be as 
imagined, but instead that emigrating races will 
greatly increase in numbers. There seems to be 
little question but that this does result from emigra- 
tion. It has been observed again and again that 
emigration from a country causes an increase in the 
number of children born in that country. William 
Farr noted that in Norfolk, England, emigration was 
followed by large families. Commenting upon this 
fact, he says that when the young people emigrate, 
the parents remaining at home " have on an average 
five children instead of two or three, or none." 1 In 
almost every country of Europe the same tendency 
has been observed. Ireland is perhaps the only 
exception, and certain very definite economic causes 
are responsible for its extremely low birth-rate.* 
Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith says : " Emigration 
does not threaten to depopulate the countries of 
Europe. Had there been no emigration during 
this century, it is not probable that the popu- 
* See Appendix F, p. 360. POVERTY 
300 
lation of Europe would have been any greater than 
it is. The probabilities are all the other way. 
Europe has never grown so fast as during the present 
century."1 These statements by two of the ablest 
students of vital statistics could be supported by 
facts from other writers if it were necessary. There 
is a strange and rather startling probability that the 
twenty million persons who have emigrated to this 
country have been replaced by twenty or so million 
persons who would not have been born had these 
emigrants remained at home. Their leaving 
Europe has simply meant more births. As para- 
doxical as it seems, the population of Europe has in 
all likelihood not been decreased at all by the leav- 
ing of the twenty million emigrants who have come 
to the United States. Economic conditions abroad 
have not been bettered for the reason that an in- 
creased number of children have been born to fill 
the places left vacant by the emigrating millions. 
Neither has the poverty nor the congestion abroad 
been diminished by emigration. 
It is also generally thought that immigration to 
the United States has increased the population of 
this country by some twenty million persons, and 
therefore has vastly aided in the growth of our 
industrial life. But this popular impression has also 
been called into question. Professor John R. 
Commons, who is now perhaps our foremost student THE IMMIGRANT 
301 
of the subject, says, in his study of Immigration for 
the Industrial Commission, " It is a hasty assump- 
tion which holds that immigration during the nine- 
teenth century has increased the total population 
in the United States."1 Professor Commons' state- 
ment is based upon the same principle of the growth 
of population which was considered in the previous 
paragraph. Immigration to this country has a strik- 
ing influence upon our birth-rate. As emigration 
tends to increase the number of births among those 
remaining at home, so immigration, it is thought, 
causes a decrease in the birth-rate of the persons 
already in the country to which immigrants come. 
The late President Francis A. Walker, who was the 
superintendent of the censuses of 1870 and 1880, and 
therefore at the fountainhead of information on the 
subject, vigorously maintained that had there been 
no immigration to this country during the last sev- 
enty years, the native element would have filled, by 
an increased number of births, "the places which 
the foreign element has usurped."2 According to 
his belief, had there been no immigration since 1830 
we should nevertheless have had as large a popula- 
tion (of native American stock) as we now have with 
the twenty million foreign immigrants. He claimed 
that the coming of the foreign element caused a great 
decrease in the birth-rate of the native Americans, 
and that in consequence the foreign peoples are 302 
POVERTY 
here in place of the native children who would have 
been born had there been no immigration during 
these years. This is one of the most important 
explanations of the much-discussed question of race- 
suicide, or, as one may choose to call it, the annihi- 
lation of the native American stock. 
To certain people this reasoning will seem absurd, 
and especially will it appear so to those who are 
not familiar with the economic forces which act and 
react upon the birth-rate. There are certain facts, 
however, concerning the annihilation of the native 
American stock which cannot be questioned. Dur- 
ing the last seventy years the birth-rate of the 
American element in certain sections of the United 
States has declined from one of the highest in the 
world to one of the lowest. Throughout the so- 
called civilized world the greatest decline in birth- 
rate, shown in the last century, is in Massachusetts.1 
The native population in this and in one or two other 
New England states is not increasing. A writer in 
The Quarterly Joiirnal of Economics concludes an 
instructive paper on the subject by saying that the 
native stock actually "seems to be diminishing."2 
In the northeastern division the native birth-rate 
has fallen so enormously that the annual increase of 
children of foreign white parents is ten times as 
great as the increase of the children of native parent- 
age.3 In the several states of Connecticut, Maine, THE IMMIGRANT 
303 
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and 
Vermont the annual death-rate in 1900 of the whites 
of native parentage exceeded the birth-rate by 1.5 per 
thousand, while among those of foreign white parents 
the birth-rate exceeded the death-rate by 44.5 per thou- 
sand)- In passing it is well to note that this birth- 
rate among the foreign whites is considerably greater 
than that of Hungary, which has the highest birth-rate 
in Europe, and this would go to prove that the birth- 
rate among immigrants is increased as a result of 
their migration, although it might be explained on the 
ground of the age distribution among the foreign ele- 
ment. The main conclusion, however, which is to be 
drawn from these facts, is that, if this decrease in the 
birth-rate of the native stock continues, the annihila- 
tion of the native element is only a matter of time. 
However, the question which many persons will 
ask is not answered by these facts. Granting that 
the native element is disappearing, can it be proved 
that immigration is responsible for the annihilation ? 
To account for the connection between immigration 
and the decreasing birth-rate, certain economic 
changes which have been found to affect the birth- 
rate must be considered. There is a great mass of 
collected data showing that the birth-rate is in all 
countries affected by economic changes. For in- 
stance, Farr in his "Vital Statistics" concludes that 
"war, abundance, dearth, high wages, periods of 304 
POVERTY 
speculation," etc., have a direct effect upon the birth- 
rate.1 Von Mayr and others have shown that the 
number of births fluctuates with a change in the 
market price of wheat or rye.2 Professor Richmond 
Mayo-Smith, in summing up a chapter on "Births" 
in his " Statistics and Sociology," says that where the 
number " decreases suddenly, it shows the effect of 
war or of commercial distress or of economic disaster. 
Where it increases, it is generally a sign of economic 
prosperity."3 Hadley, Marshall, Newsholme, and 
others (not to go back as far as Malthus) have all 
reviewed more or less the influence of economic 
conditions upon the birth-rate.4 It is not a matter 
of theory, it is an observed fact that economic dis- 
aster and similar influences operate to decrease the 
birth-rate, and that prosperity or any improvement 
in economic conditions operates to increase the 
birth-rate. On the basis of these well-established 
facts we should expect a decrease in the birth-rate of 
Americans as soon as the foreigners began to come 
in sufficiently large numbers to cause distress among 
the native working-men; we should also expect an 
increase in the birth-rate abroad because of a large 
emigration, for the reason that industrial opportuni- 
ties are temporarily improved; and lastly, we should 
expect an increase in the birth-rate of foreigners in 
this country for the reason that the better wages 
and conditions here represent to them prosperity. THE IMMIGRANT 
305 
It has been repeatedly mentioned in this chapter 
that the coming of foreign immigrants presents itself 
to the workers already in this country as the com- 
ing of an economic disaster.1 The conflicts which 
occurred between the foreigners who came to this 
country in the forties and fifties and the native 
element are too well known to require mentioning. 
Their coming was a terrible economic disaster to 
the native workers. The Irish and Germans came 
to compete, they had a lower standard of living, 
and they drove the American element out of 
certain classes of work. It was a bitter conflict, 
and on that level the foreigner won. The native 
rose above the foreigner, or fell below him and 
became vagrant or hoodlum. An effect upon the 
native birth-rate was noticed immediately. A lower 
rate of increase was to be observed wherever the 
foreigner came. It is not a theory but a fact that 
the decline in the rate of increase among the native 
element began in those very districts to which the 
foreigner came in considerable numbers. There was 
to be observed a remarkable correspondence between 
the number of immigrants arriving and the decrease 
in the growth of the native population. In other 
words immigration to this country means not an in- 
crease in population, but, as President Walker says, 
" the substitution of one kind of man for another." 
This position is very well stated by President 306 
POVERTY 
Walker in Volume II of his " Discussions in Eco- 
nomics and Statistics." "The population," he says, 
"of 1790 was almost wholly a native and wholly an 
acclimated population, and for forty years afterwards 
immigration remained at so low a rate as to be 
practically of no account; yet the people of the 
United States increased in numbers more rapidly 
than has ever elsewhere been known, in regard to 
any considerable population, over any considerable 
area, through any considerable period of time. Be- 
tween 1790 and 1830 the nation grew from less 
than four millions to nearly thirteen millions - an in- 
crease, in fact, of 227 per cent, a rate unparalleled in 
history. That increase was wholly out of the loins 
of our own people. Each decade had seen a growth 
of between 33 and 38 per cent, a doubling once in 
twenty-two or twenty-three years. During the thirty 
years which followed 1830, the conditions of life 
and reproduction in the United States were not 
less, but more, favorable than in the preceding 
period. Important changes relating to the practice 
of medicine, the food and clothing of people, the 
general habits of living, took place, which were of 
a nature to increase the vitality and reproductive 
capability of the American people. Throughout 
this period the standard of height, of weight, and 
of chest measurement was steadily rising, with the 
result that, of the men of all nationalities in the THE IMMIGRANT 
307 
giant army formed to suppress the slaveholders' 
rebellion, the native American bore off the palm in 
respect to physical stature. The decline of this 
rate of increase among Americans began at the 
very time when foreign immigration first assumed 
considerable proportions; it showed itself first and 
in the highest degree in those regions, in those 
states, and in the very counties into which the for- 
eigners most largely entered. It proceeded for a 
long time in such a way as absolutely to offset the 
foreign arrivals, so that in 1850, in spite of the 
incoming of two and a half millions of foreigners 
during thirty years, our population differed by less 
than ten thousand from the population which would 
have existed, according to the previous rate of in- 
crease, without reenforcement from abroad. These 
three facts, which might be shown by tables and 
diagrams, constitute a statistical demonstration such 
as is rarely attained in regard to the operation of 
any social or economic force. 
" But it may be asked, Is the proposition that the 
arrival of foreigners brought a check to the native 
increase a reasonable one ? Is the cause thus sug- 
gested one which has elsewhere appeared as compe- 
tent to produce such an effect ? I answer, yes. All 
human history shows that the principle of population 
is intensely sensitive to social and economic changes. 
Let social and economic conditions remain as they 308 
POVERTY 
were, and population will go on increasing from year 
to year, and from decade to decade, with a regularity 
little short of the marvellous. Let social and eco- 
nomic conditions change, and population instantly 
responds. The arrival in the United States, between 
1830 and 1840, and thereafter increasingly, of large 
numbers of degraded peasantry, created for the first 
time in this country distinct social classes, and pro- 
duced an alteration of economic relations which 
could not fail powerfully to affect population. The 
appearance of vast numbers of men, foreign in birth 
and often in language, with a poorer standard of 
living, with habits repellent to our native people, of 
an industrial grade suited only to the lowest kind 
of manual labor, was exactly such a cause as by any 
student of population would be expected to affect 
profoundly the growth of the native population. 
Americans shrank alike from the social contact and 
the economic competition thus created.* They be- 
came increasingly unwilling to bring forth sons and 
daughters who should be obliged to compete in the 
market for labor and in the walks of life with those 
whom they did not recognize as of their own grade 
and condition." 1 
There is another closely associated economic cause 
of the annihilation of the native stock. There are 
certain classes of the population who may be said to 
* See Appendix F. THE IMMIGRANT 
309 
be the main population-producing classes. It is a 
well-established fact that the wealthiest class in most 
countries is continually dying out - that is, the birth- 
rate is so low that were it not for accessions to the 
class from other classes in the community, it would 
disappear. Benjamin Kidd says: " The attempts 
which have been made in the past by the nobles 
and power-holding classes in almost every country 
to perpetuate the stock of the privileged classes to 
which they have belonged have invariably failed."1 
Galton, Lageneau, and others have shown that in 
both England and France the aristocratic families 
would entirely disappear were it not for recruits 
from below. This is well illustrated by the follow- 
ing table, prepared by Dr. J. Bertillon, and placed 
before the meeting of the International Statistical 
Institute held in St. Petersburg in 1897:2 - 
Births per 1000 Women per Annum 
Classification 
Paris 
Berlin 
Vienna 
London 
Very poor quarters .... 
108 
157 
200 
147 
Poor quarters 
95 
I29 
164 
140 
Comfortable quarters . . . 
72 
114 
155 
I07 
Very comfortable quarters 
65 
96 
153 
I07 
Rich quarters 
53 
63 
I07 
87 
Very rich quarters .... 
34 
47 
71 
63 
Average 
80 
102 
153 
I09 310 
POVERTY 
Certain things in this table have been criticised, 
perhaps quite properly, but it will serve as an illus- 
tration of the well-known fact that births are most 
numerous among the poorer classes. The deaths 
are also most numerous. The death-rate among 
the wealthier classes is low and varies little, while 
among the poorest it is often high but it varies 
much, - sometimes 100 per cent in two different 
blocks or wards.1 But it is true, notwithstanding the 
higher death-rate, that the poorer, if not the poorest, 
classes are the great population-producing classes. 
There are many reasons for this, some physiologi- 
cal, such as decreased fecundity due to excessive 
nervous or mental strain among the higher classes, 
some ethical, and others social. But the economic 
causes which affect a whole social or industrial class 
are the most powerful and far reaching. For in- 
stance, one is the desire which the propertied classes 
have of leaving their children a large income. 
"The fear of losing social standing," as President 
Hadley puts it,2 or, as Benjamin Kidd says, "the un- 
willingness of men ... to marry and bring up families 
in a state of life lower than that into which they them- 
selves were born " is one of the most powerful of the 
known influences working to restrict the birth-rate.3 
This cause alone is probably mainly responsible for 
the extremely low birth-rate in France. Professor 
Alfred Marshall says, "The birth-rate in France is THE IMMIGRANT 
311 
known to vary inversely with the predominance of 
small properties, being lowest in those departments 
in which the largest proportion of the agricultural 
population own land, and highest in those in which 
there are fewest peasant proprietors."1 There are 
other causes for a low birth-rate among the prop- 
ertied classes, such as the later age at which they 
marry, but the most important seems unquestionably 
to be this desire to retain or better the social stand- 
ing attained.2 A similar desire among the working 
classes operates toward producing a high birth-rate. 
Their highest wages are earned between the years 
of eighteen and thirty-five. They consequently 
marry early, and for this reason alone they would 
be likely to have larger families than other classes. 
But the main incentive which operates to increase 
the number of children is, it seems to me, the fear 
of becoming in old age dependent upon the public. 
To the poor, children are a form of old-age insur- 
ance. They are taught that they must care for their 
parents when they are old, and it is one of the com- 
monest of sayings among these classes that " a large 
'family' of boys is a good thing, for they will care 
for us when we are old." For several reasons, 
therefore, the great population-producing class is the 
wage-working class. 
It is a generally observed fact that the mass of 
laborers in certain parts of the United States are 312 
POVERTY 
either foreign born or of foreign parentage. To 
a remarkable extent the native born have risen out 
of this class, although a certain portion have evaded 
competition by emigrating to states having fewer 
immigrants, and not a few have been crushed be- 
neath the foreigners. In the manufacturing, me- 
chanical, and common laboring classes of several 
Eastern states the foreigners are three or four 
times as numerous as the natives.1 In other 
words, the natives of these states have been forced 
out of that class, which is known to be the great 
population-producing class. Those who have fallen 
below the foreign workers have been largely forced 
into the vicious classes, who fortunately never have a 
large birth-rate, and those natives who have been 
successful have, to a considerable extent, entered into 
the propertied and the professional classes, which 
always have relatively a small birth-rate. They 
were able to rise out of the lower class by marrying 
later and by having fewer children or none, and 
the desire to maintain the higher social position has 
been a continued incentive to limit the number of 
children. 
The process which is at work in this struggle of 
the races has, therefore, not only in the past 
lowered the birth-rate among the natives, but will 
continue to lower it as the natives leave the classes 
which have the higher birth-rate. It can hardly be THE IMMIGRANT 
313 
expected that any incentive toward the increase of 
population will become powerful enough to counter- 
act the forces which are increasingly diminishing the 
birth-rate of the native stock. In the South and 
West, where there are fewer immigrants, the native 
stock will probably remain dominant in the popula- 
tion groups, but in the northeastern division of the 
states the foreign element is fast becoming dominant.1 
The evils, therefore, of immigration, if they are 
to be called evils, are not temporary. The direct 
descendants of the people who fought for and 
founded the Republic, and who gave us a rich heri- 
tage of democratic institutions, are being displaced 
by the Slavic, Balkan, and Mediterranean peoples. 
This is the fact in the problem of immigration which 
is of greatest importance. Discussion of the problem 
should be elevated to a different plane from that 
which has been taken in the past. It involves too 
much socially and politically in the world's progress 
to be ignored or lightly considered. It is a question 
of babies and birth-rates, and whatever decision is 
made regarding immigration, it is perforce a decision 
concerning the kind of children that shall be born. 
The decision for Congress to make consciously and 
deliberately is simply whether or not it is better for 
the world that the children of native parents should 
be born instead of the children of foreign parents. 
The making of the decision cannot be avoided. It POVERTY 
314 
is made now, although unconsciously, and it is a 
decision against the children of native parents. Im- 
migration, therefore, means that, by permitting free 
and unlimited entry, we are stimulating the birth- 
rate both in this country and abroad of Italians, 
Hungarians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Croatians, and 
Polish, Roumanian, and Russian Jews. This increase 
means that the places of those who emigrate to this 
country are filled in a generation, and the misery and 
oppression, which emigration is supposed to relieve, 
continue unimproved, while in the United States the 
peasantry from other countries, degraded by foreign 
oppression, are supplanting the descendants of the 
original stock of this country. This is the race-suicide, 
the annihilation of our native stock, which unlimited 
immigration forces upon us, none the less powerfully 
because it is gradually and stealthily done. The 
native stock of America, possessed of rare advan- 
tages, freed by its own efforts from oppression and 
the miseries of oppression, might have peopled the 
United States with the seventy millions which now 
inhabit it. It has not done so for the reason that 
" we cannot welcome an indefinite number of immi- 
grants to our shores without forbidding the existence 
of an indefinite number of children of native parents 
who might have been born." 
Immigration presents for our serious consideration 
a formidable array of dangers. It is unnecessary to THE IMMIGRANT 
315 
summarize the facts and the arguments which have 
been given. These are the two things which, of all 
that have been stated, seem the most important: the 
likelihood of race annihilation and the possible degen- 
eration of even the succeeding American type. It 
seems unquestionable that the unfittest class of immi- 
grants that have ever come to our shores is increasing 
yearly in numbers. We may and should be willing 
to permit our native stock to be annihilated by a 
superior people; but it is inconceivable that we 
should knowingly promote, by conscious act, an 
intermarrying and intermingling of peoples, which 
will indefinitely lower the standard of American or 
any other manhood. If this is to result from an 
unrestricted and practically unselected immigration, 
that conscious act is taken at Ellis Island and at 
other ports of entry, after the legal decision com- 
pelling it has been made by Act of Congress. Our 
philanthropic institutions are yearly making larger 
provision for segregating the feeble-minded in order 
to prevent propagation. This is observing the neces- 
sity for exercising some selection, when it is possible, 
as to the kind of children that shall be born. There 
is extreme necessity in such cases, which does not 
exist in the case of immigration. In the latter case, 
however, selection may be powerfully exercised in 
deciding the class of immigrants that may land in 
America. The fathers and mothers of American 316 
POVERTY 
children can be chosen, and it is in the power of 
Congress to decide upon what merits. By wise 
regulation of immigration selection can be exercised 
so as to increase the number of strong-minded chil- 
dren, as it is used, in the former instance, to decrease 
the number of feeble-minded children. 
There are few questions which it would seem 
easier to decide upon purely moral grounds than 
this one of immigration. Whether or not we should 
restrict immigration is perhaps after all not so funda- 
mentally important as the fact that in deciding the 
question, as it is now decided, our governing bodies 
have not considered the welfare of the people, either 
immigrants or Americans. The decision has been 
made as a result of pressure brought to bear upon 
public officials by private and selfish interests. Our 
national characteristics may be changed; our love of 
freedom; our religion; our inventive faculties; our 
standard of life. All of the things, in fact, for which 
America has been more or less distinctive among the 
nations may be entirely altered. Our race may be 
supplanted by another, - by an Asiatic one, for in- 
stance, - and not because it is better so nor because 
it is for the world's good. On the contrary, it is in 
order that the individuals interested in steamships 
may be benefited and in order that the employers 
may have cheaper labor. These selfish forces may 
be disguised, but they are there and they are active. THE IMMIGRANT 
317 
One appalling social problem, which caused a terrible 
civil war and which still awaits solution, was forced 
upon us by the selfishness of the slave-traders, the 
ship-owners, and the southern land-owners. One 
entire race, the Negro, came for their profit. It 
almost ruined the South, and it is still problematical 
whether, in the face of race hatred, we shall be able 
to maintain in the South a political democracy. Like 
selfish forces are to-day at work creating new social 
problems which may be even more baffling to the 
future generations. CONCLUSION 
In the previous chapters I have only touched here 
and there upon the struggle with poverty which the 
poor themselves make. We are perhaps too prone 
to think of those in poverty as effortless beings, who 
make no fight for themselves and wait in misery 
until some one comes to assist them. Such an opinion 
is without any foundation. It is based upon knowl- 
edge gained by acquaintance with the pauper and 
vagrant, and is in no wise applicable to the workers 
in poverty. It is small wonder that workers who 
are underfed, underclothed, and poorly housed, are 
sometimes won from their hard and almost hopeless 
toil by sensual pleasures. Nor is it surprising that 
they are driven to despair by the brutal power of the 
economic forces which dominate their lives. Without 
the security which comes only with the ownership of 
property, without a home from which they may not 
be evicted, without any assurance of regular employ- 
ment, without tools with which they may employ 
themselves, they are pathetically dependent upon 
their physical efficiency, - their health and strength, 
and upon the activity of machinery, owned by others, 
318 CONCLUSION 
319 
and worked or left idle as the owners consider it wise 
or profitable. In their weak and unorganized condi- 
tion, they are unlike the skilled workers, made power- 
ful by their unions and by their methods of collective 
bargaining; they are fighting alone, each one against 
another. In watching during the last few years 
the struggle with poverty of this poorest class of 
workers I have again and again read the allegory 
with which Dante begins his great poem, each 
time feeling more and more how wonderfully it 
pictures this struggle. The bewildered traveller, 
weary and terrified, is toiling up a steep and un- 
certain path of a mountain. His eyes are lifted to 
the "rose of dawn," which sends to him a glow of 
hope and leads him on. As he laboriously toils 
upward, a leopard (significant of sensuality), bright 
and beautiful, almost irresistibly attracts him; and 
from time to time, as he wearily pauses for rest, 
" that fair creature with the spotted hide " fills him 
with sensations of pleasure. Suddenly his heart 
is filled with terror by a lion, fierce and terrible, 
which threatens to devour him; and from another 
quarter appears a lean and hungry she-wolf with 
"all ill-greed defiled." Losing all hope, he turns 
and flees from the dangers which beset his " life's 
course." 
It would be absurd to think that Dante meant to 
picture the problem of poverty. The statesman, the 320 
POVERTY 
theologian, the psychologist, has each made the alle- 
gory serve a purpose, according to the bias of his 
thought. And, in the same way, reading our own 
thought into the lines, there could hardly be a more 
powerful picture than this one of the dangers and 
difficulties which beset those of our people who are 
in poverty, or of the almost hopeless struggle which 
presents itself as life to those of our people who are 
underpaid, underfed, underclothed, badly housed, and 
overworked. 
To make the matter clear, a few words - and 
these, unfortunately, too much of a personal na- 
ture- are perhaps necessary. Having been drawn, 
about twelve years ago, to some interest in the 
problems of poverty, there happened to me the 
common experience of all those of like interests. 
The poor in the broader sense of that word were 
busily at work and trying rather to conceal than 
to make evidence of their poverty; while the beg- 
gars, vagrants, idlers, and dependents of all sorts 
were more or less always pressing forward their 
necessities. It was natural, therefore, for me to con- 
fuse the problem of poverty with that of pauper- 
ism and to take up with some enthusiasm the ideas 
which are a part of the propaganda of many use- 
ful charitable organizations. To the charitable 
workers these problems of vagrancy and pauper- 
ism seem possible of solution. Many reforms-• CONCLUSION 
321 
among which wise giving, friendly visiting, work- 
rooms, work-tests, model lodging-houses, rent-col- 
lecting, etc., are a few - were, in the early 
nineties, making rapid headway. They were, at 
that time, ranked first in importance in the cate- 
gory of organized movements for diminishing the 
evils of pauperism. Many committees were at work 
promoting these reforms, and in different cities I 
was able to help in their efforts. The result of 
their work was not discouraging, but in every 
instance they came hard up against one almost 
insurmountable obstacle. The pauper and the 
vagrant were not dissatisfied; they clamored for 
alms, but they did not wish to alter their way of 
living. Even those who possessed the capacity 
for industrial usefulness and who might have 
become self-supporting did not wish to go back 
again into the factories, mills, or mines. In fact, 
so far as one could see, they were as unwilling as 
the others to alter their ways of living. However 
miserable their lot seemed to those of us on the 
Committees, to them it seemed to be, on the 
whole, acceptable enough to bring a certain sort 
of content. However malarious and poisonous and 
undrained, they loved their valley of idleness and 
quiet; they hated the hill upon which they were 
constrained to toil; they shrank from its disap- 
pointments, its bruises, its weariness and bitterness, 322 
POVERTY 
while its meanness and ugliness of life were but 
slightly less mean and ugly than their own. The 
children, bred into the ways of pauperism, nearly 
always took up the vices of their parents. They 
were pleasure-loving, and whatever was toilsome 
seemed abhorrent to them. The girls took the 
easier path; it appeared unquestionably more 
desirable to their childish standards, and for a 
time at least it gave them more of everything, for 
which most human beings seem to hunger,-finery, 
leisure, and a kind of pleasure. The men and 
boys liked vagrancy, and those who were not at- 
tracted to these ways settled down into a satis- 
fied, imperturbable pauperism. They lived in God 
only knows what misery. They ate when there 
were things to eat; they starved when there was 
lack of food. But, on the whole, although they 
swore and beat each other and got drunk, they 
were more contented than any other class I have 
happened to know. It took a long time to under- 
stand them. Our Committees were busy from morn- 
ing until night in giving them opportunities to take 
up the fight again, and to become independent of 
relief. They always took what we gave them; 
they always promised to try; but as soon as we 
expected them to fulfil any promises, they gave 
up in despair, and either wept or looked ashamed, 
and took to misery and drink again, - almost, so it CONCLUSION 
323 
seemed to me at times, with a sense of relief. I am 
reminded now of a vagrant whom I knew well and 
for many years believed to be sincerely trying to 
become " a man," as we used to say. He has turned 
up wherever I have happened to be - in Chicago 
or New York. He has always looked me up, and 
together we have conspired to overcome his va- 
grant instincts. We have always failed, and after 
a few weeks' work Jerry disappears, and I know 
what has become of him. At last, in his case as 
in many others, I have become convinced that he 
is more satisfied and content with the life of a 
vagrant than with the miserable lot of an unskilled, 
underpaid workman. 
But as long as one works with, or observes only, 
the dependent classes, the true, or at least what 
seems to me the true, explanation of this apparent 
satisfaction of vagrants and paupers remains in the 
dark. It was not until I had lived for several years 
among the toilers in a great industrial community 
that the reason for the content of the dependent 
classes became clear to me. In this community of 
workers several thousand human beings were strug- 
gling fiercely against want. Day after day, year 
after year, they toiled with marvellous persistency 
and perseverance. Obnoxious as the simile is, they 
worked from dawn until nightfall, or from sunset 
until dawn, like galley slaves under the sting of want 324 
POVERTY 
and under the whip of hunger. On cold, rainy 
mornings, at the dusk of dawn, I have been awak- 
ened, two hours before my rising time, by the monot- 
onous clatter of hobnailed boots on the plank 
sidewalks, as the procession to the factory passed 
under my window. Heavy, brooding men, tired, 
anxious women, thinly dressed, unkempt little girls, 
and frail, joyless little lads passed along, half awake, 
not one uttering a word as they hurried to the great 
factory. From all directions thousands were entering 
the various gates,- children of every nation of Europe. 
Hundreds of others - obviously a hungrier, poorer 
lot than those entering the gates; some were most 
ragged and almost shoeless, but all with eager 
faces - waited in front of a closed gate until finally 
a great red-bearded man came out and selected 
twenty-three of the strongest, best-looking of the 
men. For these the gates were opened, and the 
others, with downcast eyes, marched off to seek em- 
ployment elsewhere or to sit at home, or in a saloon, 
or in a lodging-house, until the following morning, 
when they came wistfully again to some factory gate. 
In this community, the saddest in which I have ever 
lived, fully fifty thousand men, women, and children 
were all the time either in poverty or on the verge of 
poverty. It would not be possible to describe how 
they worked and starved and ached to rise out of it. 
They broke their health down; the men acquired in CONCLUSION 
325 
this particular trade a painful and disabling rheuma- 
tism, and consumption was very common. The girls 
and boys followed in the paths of their parents. 
The wages were so low that the men alone often 
could not support their families, and mothers with 
babies toiled in order to add to the income. They 
gave up all thought of joyful living, probably in the 
hope that by tremendous exertion they could over- 
come their poverty; but they gained while at work 
only enough to keep their bodies alive. Theirs was 
a sort of treadmill existence with no prospect of any- 
thing else in life but more treadmill. When they 
were not given work in the mill, they starved; and 
when they grew desperate, they came to my office 
and asked for charity. Here was a mass of men 
whose ways of living were violently opposed to those 
of the vagrant or the pauper. They were distorting 
themselves in the struggle to be independent of 
charity and to overcome poverty. That they hated 
charity must be taken without question. The testi- 
mony of scores of men is proof of it, even if, indeed, 
their very lives were not. But despite all their efforts 
they lived in houses but little, if any, better than those 
of the paupers ; they were almost as poorly dressed; 
they were hardly better fed. 
In other words, these men, women, and children 
were, to my mind, struggling up the face of a barren 
precipice,-not unlike that up which Dante toiled, 326 
POVERTY 
- sometimes in hope, sometimes in despair, yet bit- 
terly determined; the abyss of vice, crime, pauperism, 
and vagrancy was beneath them, a tiny ray of hope 
above them. Flitting before them was the leopard, 
persistently trying to win them from their almost 
hopeless task by charms of sensuality, debauch, and 
idleness. The lion, predatory and brutal, threatened 
to devour them; the she-wolf (Greed), hungry for 
them, enriched herself by their labors. Some were 
won from their toil by sensual pleasures, some were 
torn from their footholds by economic disorders, 
others were too weak and hungry to keep up the 
fight, and still others were rendered incapable of 
further struggle by diseases resulting from the un- 
necessary evils of work or of living. 
This may seem to many persons an overdrawn 
simile; so, at any rate, it would have seemed to me 
several years ago. But it is a true picture, and I am 
convinced a just simile of the conditions in which the 
mass of those workers live who are already defined 
as being in poverty. At any rate, two or three things 
seem clearer to me now, after arriving at the conclu- 
sion so well represented by Dante's picture. It is 
easier to understand the reason for the abhorrence 
which the pauper and the vagrant and the prostitute 
have for that terrible struggle with poverty, and only 
less easy is it to understand their apparent willing- 
ness to live on rubbish or alms. Furthermore, it is CONCLUSION 
327 
clear that the poverty which undermines the workers 
is the great and constantly active cause of the fixed 
states of degeneracy represented by the pauper, the 
vagrant, the inebriate, etc. In other words, when 
the working people, by reason of whatever misery 
poverty brings, once fall into the abyss, they so hate 
the life of their former struggles and disappointments 
and sorrows that almost no one, however well-inten- 
tioned or kindly, can induce them to take it up again. 
In the abyss they become merely breeders of children, 
who persist in the degeneration into which their 
fathers have fallen; and, like the tribe of Ishmael 
or the family of the Jukes, they have neither the 
willingness nor the capacity to respond to the efforts 
of those who would help, or force, them back again 
into the struggle. 
However merciful and kind and valuable the works 
of the charitable and the efforts of those who would 
raise up again the pauper and the vagrant, they are 
not remedial. In so far as the work of the charitable 
is devoted to reclamation and not to prevention, it is 
a failure. Not that any one could wish that less 
were done in the direction of reclamation. The fact 
only is important that effort is less powerful there 
than in overcoming the forces which undermine the 
workers and those who are struggling against insur- 
mountable difficulties. It is an almost hopeless task 
to regenerate the degenerate, especially when, if the 328 
POVERTY 
latter are to succeed, they must be made to take up 
again the battle with those very destructive forces 
which are all the time undermining stronger, more 
capable, and more self-reliant men than they. The 
all-necessary work to be done is not so much to 
reclaim a class which social forces are ever active in 
producing, as it is to battle with the social or eco- 
nomic forces which are continuously producing recruits 
to that class. The forces producing the miseries of 
pauperism and vagrancy are many, but none are so 
important as those conditions of work and of living 
which are so unjust and degrading that men are 
driven by them into degeneracy. When the uncer- 
tainties, hardships, trials, sorrows, and miseries of a 
self-supporting existence become so painful that good, 
strong, self-reliant men and women are forced into 
pauperism, then there is but little use in trying to 
force the paupers and the vagrants back into the 
struggle. 
It is not necessary to debate the relative impor- 
tance of individual or social forces, or of heredity or 
environment, upon the extent of poverty, in order to 
prove that social forces are constantly and every- 
where active in bringing poverty to a great mass of 
people. Leaving all such questions out of the dis- 
cussion, we can nevertheless be certain that obstacles 
can be too great for even the strongest of men to over- 
come. And this is almost precisely what happens to CONCLUSION 
329 
the masses in poverty. As a class they have the 
longest hours of work, they have the lowest pay - 
often not even living wages; they have competition 
of the severest kind to face - unskilled workers from 
every land come to seek their employment; they are 
oppressed by sweating methods, their employment is 
irregular; their tenements are the most insanitary, 
and their rents relatively the highest that any class 
pay; the prices for food and fuel are exorbitant, 
because they must buy in small quantities ; when 
they find it necessary to go into debt they are fleeced 
by loan sharks; they are most often ill; they bear 
the burden of more deaths than any other class; 
and being without savings, they are in actual dis- 
tress as soon as they are unable to work, or as soon 
as they are unemployed as a result of economic or 
other causes. Furthermore, the children are pre- 
vented from having fair opportunities to master the 
difficulties which ruined their fathers. Their health 
is imperilled and not seldom destroyed by insanitary 
homes; they are injured morally and otherwise by a 
necessary street life; their food is in many cases so 
poor that it will not feed the brain, and they are con- 
sequently unable to learn; they are early pressed to 
do a man's labor and are often ruined physically and 
blighted in other ways by this early and unnatural 
toil. With all of these and many other obstacles and 
disadvantages working their ruin, only the strongest 330 
POVERTY 
and most fortunate are able to put forth the struggle 
necessary to master their fate. For the others, their 
life's course lies up an almost baffling precipice. 
About a half-century ago there were so many 
persons in London becoming paupers, vagrants, 
mendicants, etc., that a group of people organized 
together to make the way of the pauper, vagrant, and 
mendicant so thorny and difficult that the workers, 
toiling up the precipice, would hold the abyss be- 
neath them in even greater aversion than it was 
thought they were in the habit of doing, and that the 
able-bodied dependents in the abyss would be forced 
to turn from their way and seek again the path of 
self-support. This may, in certain places and at 
certain times, be necessary; but would it not seem 
a more wholesome, not to say kindlier, policy to 
see that the obstacles - the unnecessary obstacles, 
now preventing the rise of those workers in 
poverty - be removed ? 
This, however, is not by any means easy of accom- 
plishment. The first difficulty lies in the complex 
nature of the problem itself. It is inextricably woven 
in with all other social and economic problems. If 
what Charles Booth says is true (and many econo- 
mists agree with him), that our "modern system of 
industry will not work without some unemployed 
margin, some reserve of labor "if it is necessary, as 
another economist has said, that "for long periods CONCLUSION 
331 
of time large stagnant pools of adult effective labor 
power must lie rotting in the bodies of their owners, 
unable to become productive of any form of wealth, 
because they cannot get access to the material of 
production "; and if at the same time " facing them 
in equal idleness are unemployed or under-employed 
masses of land and capital, mills, mines, etc., which, 
taken in conjunction with this labor power, are theo- 
retically competent to produce wealth for the satisfac- 
tion of human wants,"1-if these things are essential 
to our modern system of production, then the pov- 
erty of this large mass of workers must continue 
unrelieved until the system itself is reorganized. 
As a matter of fact, it would be useless to deny or 
ignore the fact that much of our poverty is directly 
due to a whole series of economic disorders which 
seem actually to make waste of human life neces- 
sary. And, in so far as poverty is a result of such 
deeply seated and fundamental economic disorders, 
due either to the method by which industry is organ- 
ized or to the present ownership of the means and ma- 
terials of production, it will, in all probability, find a 
solution only through struggles between the workers 
and the capitalists. No one who watches the trend 
of the times can doubt that these struggles, both in 
the industrial and in the political field, are growing 
more and more serious. Furthermore, in so far as 
poverty is a result of individual weaknesses, not them- 332 
POVERTY 
selves due to social causes, it can be dealt with only 
by moral and personal forces. But complex as the 
problem is, and varied as the remedies must be, 
we may be sure that poverty is, to a considerable 
extent, due to social causes which are clearly to be 
seen and which are possible of remedy. 
Besides the complexity of the problem, there is 
still another, perhaps an even greater, obstacle firmly 
set in the path of constructive reform. And this is 
a political difficulty; namely, the anarchic principle 
of state rights which divides this country into two 
score and more small legislative areas. National 
problems of the character herein dealt with cannot 
therefore be treated in a national way, as they are 
in most countries abroad. Legislation concerning 
child labor, tuberculosis, tenements, factories, dan- 
gerous trades, sanitation, etc., must be of a va- 
riety of kinds, often warring with each other, throw- 
ing industrial advantages now to this state and now 
to that. The child-labor laws which have been won 
in the Northern states by years of vigorous agi- 
tation give an advantage to the parasitic industries 
of the South. It is even likely that the textile indus- 
try may move to the South partly at least in order 
to have the privilege of employing little children. 
Manufacturers threaten the state legislatures (more 
often, to be sure, than they carry out the threat) that 
they will move into another state if any laws protect- CONCLUSION 
333 
ing the workmen are passed. There is perhaps a 
certain business justification for such protests, for, 
unquestionably, by reason of our legislative anarchy, 
a parasitic industry in one state may thrive while an 
industry in another state, shorn of its parasitic privi- 
leges by legislation, may remain at a standstill, if it 
does not actually lose its trade. For this reason social 
and industrial legislation is usually more difficult to 
obtain in America than in any other great industrial 
country. Our political machinery itself, therefore, 
seriously retards and perhaps renders impossible any 
national standard of education, of sanitation, of work- 
ing or of living conditions, etc. It is probable that 
there can be no national solution of some of these 
more remedial of the problems of poverty. 
Another obstacle stands in the way of justice. 
The selfish interests of capitalists and land-owners 
too often either prevent good legislation or vitiate, 
by their influence, its enforcement. One can under- 
stand the determined opposition of men to socialistic 
measures seriously changing or violating the so-called 
rights of property; but it is not so easy to understand 
opposition to measures which, while affecting property 
interests, do not destroy any rights which may be 
exercised without injury to another. When property 
rights become property wrongs by injuring others, 
especially when they cause the physical degeneration 
and the human misery represented in poverty, they 334 
POVERTY 
may for a time, but will surely not always, stand in 
the way of remedial action. The sense of justice 
may for a time be so warped and distorted as to 
value property more than human life, but only for 
a time. The real cause of our present errors of 
judgment in this matter lies in the corruption of 
our political institutions. The business and proper- 
tied interests have bought the bosses of our political 
machinery, and at present our laws are made and 
enforced in the interest of the owners. When the 
shame of our cities is notorious; when state and 
national governments are in the hands of corrupt 
politicians, owned by corporate interests; when " the 
laws which should preserve and enforce all rights 
are made and enforced by dollars; " when " it is 
possible . . . with dollars to ' steer ' the selection 
of the candidates of both the great parties for the 
highest office in our Republic, ... so that the 
people, as a matter of fact, must elect one of the 
' steered ' candidates; " when " it is possible to re- 
peat the operation in the selection of candidates for 
the executive and legislative conduct and control of 
every state and municipality in the United States, and 
with a sufficient number of dollars to 'steer ' the doings 
of the law-makers and law-enforcers of the national, 
state, and municipal governments of the people, and 
a sufficient proportion of the court decisions to make 
absolute any power created by such direction; " when CONCLUSION 
335 
the country is being daily betrayed by the " enemies 
of the republic," - it seems utopian to appeal to these 
powers to do justice to their workers.1 This may 
seem a dark view to take of our political institutions, 
but, considering the great mass of evidence accumu- 
lated in the last few years, it is surely warranted. 
So far as the problem of poverty is concerned, we 
can perhaps hope for little in the way of justice or 
reform during the next few years. For, by the help 
of this corruption, reform is fought at three stages: 
in the legislature, in the courts, and at the time of 
its enforcement. 
In consequence of this temporary perversion of 
our democratic institutions pessimism runs high. 
Professor Franklin H. Giddings, our most distin- 
guished sociologist, says : " We are witnessing to-day, 
beyond question, the decay - perhaps not perma- 
nent, but at any rate the decay - of republican insti- 
tutions. No man in his right mind can deny it." 2 A 
president of one of our greatest universities proph- 
esies that we shall have an emperor in the United 
States in twenty-five years. Charles Fourier may 
have been right when he prophesied one hundred 
years ago that "vast joint-stock companies, destined 
to monopolize and control all branches of industry, 
commerce, and finance, would establish an industrial 
or commercial feudalism that would control society 
by the power of capital, as did the old baronial or 336 
POVERTY 
military feudalism by the power of the sword " and 
"by the monopoly of the land."1 Or again we may 
have Mr. Ghent's "benevolent feudalism."2 If this 
be the tendency of the times, the poverty of the ten 
million people of this country will receive scant at- 
tention. Indeed, poverty will become wider spread 
and grow more distressing. Even the moderate pro- 
posals for reform made in this book will, if viewed 
solely from the standpoint of their effect upon prop- 
erty, seem radical, and, in so far as they affect prop- 
erty interests, unjust. This is not mere speculation. 
I could mention a score of incidents connected with 
efforts to get child-labor or tenement-house legis- 
lation in Illinois and New York to prove that this 
is even now true. Progress on these reform lines 
has been so slow in the last decade as to seem almost 
no progress. Much of the best legislation has been 
won only after a bitter fight with the propertied 
interests; and legislation, once secured, simply can- 
not, in most cases, be enforced because the political 
machine is owned by the propertied classes. Fur- 
thermore, when any so-called reform administration 
does enforce the laws, the corporate interests lump 
their campaign donations and punish the reformers 
with ignominious defeat. 
However, the difficulties which lie in the way of 
any progress along social reform lines are beside the 
purpose of this book. That purpose is largely satis- CONCLUSION 
337 
fled when the problem is stated, and, in so far as 
possible, I have summarized it in the following sen- 
tences. There are probably in fairly prosperous 
years no less than 10,000,000 persons in poverty; 
that is to say, underfed, underclothed, and poorly 
housed. Of these about 4,000,000 persons are public 
paupers. Over 2,000,000 working-men are unem- 
ployed from four to six months in the year. About 
500,000 male immigrants arrive yearly and seek work 
in the very districts where unemployment is greatest. 
Nearly half of the families in the country are prop- 
ertyless. Over 1,700,000 little children are forced to 
become wage-earners when they should still be in 
school. About 5,000,000 women find it necessary to 
work and about 2,000,000 are employed in factories, 
mills, etc. Probably no less than 1,000,000 workers 
are injured or killed each year while doing their 
work,* and about 10,000,000 of the persons now liv- 
ing will, if the present ratio is kept up, die of the pre- 
ventable disease, tuberculosis. We know that many 
workmen are overworked and underpaid. We know 
in a general way that unnecessary disease is far too 
prevalent. We know some of the insanitary evils of 
tenements and factories; we know of the neglect of 
the street child, the aged, the infirm, the crippled. 
Furthermore, we are beginning to realize the mon- 
strous injustice of compelling those who are unem- 
* See Appendix A, p. 344. 338 
POVERTY 
ployed, who are injured in industry, who have 
acquired diseases due to their occupation, or who 
have been made widows or orphans by industrial 
accidents, to become paupers in order that they may 
be housed, fed, and clothed. Something is known 
concerning these problems of poverty, and some of 
them at least are possible of remedy. 
To deal with these specific problems, I have else- 
where mentioned some reforms which seem to me 
preventive in their nature. They contemplate mainly 
such legislative action as may enforce upon the entire 
country certain minimum standards of working and 
of living conditions. They would make all tenements 
and factories sanitary; they would regulate the hours 
of work, especially for women and children; they 
would regulate and thoroughly supervise dangerous 
trades; they would institute all necessary measures 
to stamp out unnecessary disease and to prevent 
unnecessary death; they would prohibit entirely 
child labor; they would institute all necessary edu- 
cational and recreational institutions to replace the 
social and educational losses of the home and the 
domestic workshop; they would perfect, as far as 
possible, legislation and institutions to make industry 
pay the necessary and legitimate cost of producing 
and maintaining efficient laborers; they would insti- 
tute, on the lines of foreign experience, measures to 
compensate labor for enforced seasons of idleness, CONCLUSION 
339 
due to sickness, old age, lack of work, or other 
causes beyond the control of the workman; they 
would prevent parasitism on the part of either the 
consumer or the producer and charge up the full 
costs of labor in production to the beneficiary, in- 
stead of compelling the worker at certain times to 
enforce his demand for maintenance through the 
tax rate and by becoming a pauper; they would re- 
strict the power of employer and of ship-owner to 
stimulate for purely selfish ends an excessive immi- 
gration, and in this way to beat down wages and 
to increase unemployment. 
Reforms such as these are not ones which will 
destroy incentive, but rather they will increase in- 
centive by more nearly equalizing opportunity. They 
will make propertied interests less predatory, and 
sensuality, by contrast with misery, less attractive to 
the poor. Or, in the terms of our simile, the grey- 
hound- which Dante promised would one day come 
- will come to drive away the lion, the leopard, and 
the she-wolf. This does not mean that there is to 
be no struggle, - the mountain must still remain, - 
but rather that the life of the poorest toiler shall 
not be a hopeless thing from which many must turn 
in despair. In other words, the process of Justice is 
to lift stony barriers, against which the noblest beat 
their brains out, and from which the ignoble (but 
who shall say not more sensible?) turn away in 340 
POVERTY 
despair. Let it be this, rather than a barren relief 
system, administered by those who must stand by, 
watching the struggle, lifting no hand to aid the 
toilers, but ever succoring those who flee and those 
who are bruised and beaten. APPENDICES 
APPENDIX A 
HOUSING AND TUBERCULOSIS 
If there were no other evidence of poverty than that 
supplied by the insanitary housing conditions in which the 
mass of unskilled workers live, we should be warranted in 
believing that poverty is widespread in this country. The 
housing problem in the United States has attracted very 
little attention outside of the largest cities, and such facts 
as we have are almost solely those gathered in these larg- 
est cities. But the housing problem is by no means limited 
to the larger centres of population. Generally consid- 
ered, housing conditions may be classified under three 
heads: first, the tenement-house evils of the largest cities, 
and especially those insanitary evils which result from the 
most vicious of all tenements, the double-decker dumb-bell; 
second, the evils of those tenements which have been made 
by remodelling old abandoned private houses, stores, ware- 
houses, and even factories; and, third, the evils of those 
small houses, shanties, and cabins which are overcrowded 
and devoid of all sanitary conveniences and necessities. 
While New York has the worst conditions which result 
from the large block form of dwelling, this form of housing 
is increasing in all large cities. Nearly all of the cities 
and many of the small towns suffer from the last two evils. 
And many of the industrial towns of the manufacturing 
states are so insanitary from the last evil, and from lack 
341 342 
POVERTY 
of drainage, and of all housing and health regulation, as to 
rival the worst conditions of New York. 
The housing problem of New York City arises largely 
from the scarcity of land and from the wholly mischievous 
construction of the tenements. In addition to miserable 
living conditions, resulting from insanitary surroundings 
and overcrowded rooms, the tenants have been, in certain 
portions of the city, so deprived of light and air as to seri- 
ously endanger health. No other city in the world has so 
many dark and windowless rooms, or so many persons 
crowded on the acre, or so many families deprived of light 
and air. There are about 360,000 dark rooms in Greater 
New York. Although these evils are most serious, they 
are by no means all of the problem. In New York and 
in all other large cities there are houses so badly con* 
structed, so saturated with filth, and so infested with ver- 
min- in a word, so thoroughly insanitary - as to make 
demolition the only process worthy to be called a remedy. 
In the smaller towns, in every industrial community which 
I have happened to know, about the mines, mills, and 
about iron, steel, and glass works, along the inland rivers, 
and, in fact, wherever large masses of the poorest workers 
live, insanitary conditions and miserable and dilapidated 
homes are to be seen. In a few of the largest cities, the 
housing problem stands out distinctly from other sanitary 
problems because the latter have received considerable 
attention; but in these more neglected places the housing 
problem is all messed up with inadequate drainage or none, 
with an impure water supply, and with an utter lack of 
enforcement of health laws concerning privies or disposal 
of rubbish and decaying matter. One industrial town is, 
I venture to think, fairly typical of some of those which 
have most neglected all sanitary measures. The wood 
shanties of this settlement are built along the railroad, up 
a hillside and down into a swamp. The houses are built APPENDICES 
343 
of rough planks, roofed mainly with rusty scraps of tin. 
Some are unpainted, while others are worn of whatever 
paint once covered them. Those in the undrained swamp 
are built on piles or stilts above the foul, stagnant water 
and accumulated waste. There is no sewerage, and the 
wells are contaminated by natural drainage from the 
privies. I nearly always think of Dickens's description 
of a London street when seeing this or other of the 
wretched mill and mining towns: - 
" It is a street of perishing blind houses, with their eyes 
stoned out; without a pane of glass, without so much as a 
window frame, with the bare, blank shutters tumbling from 
their hinges, and falling asunder; the iron rails peeling 
away in flakes of rust; the chimneys sinking in ; the stone 
steps to every door (and every door might be Death's 
Door) turning stagnant green; the very crutches on 
which the ruins are propped decaying." 
I am convinced that when a careful inquiry is made into 
the housing conditions in which those who are in poverty 
in this country live, they will be shown to be as bad as, if 
not, indeed, worse than, the conditions abroad which have 
created great concern and been the subject of many official 
inquiries. 
Two other indications of poverty are important. Both 
are closely associated with evils of wretched living, long 
hours, and low pay. It has been observed in the cities of 
this country and abroad that the density of population and 
the death rate from tuberculosis increase with the increase 
of poverty. A careful investigation, made by a resident of 
the College Settlement of New York for the Tenement 
House Commission of 1894, showed that the density of 
population increased with the decrease in wages, and that 
overcrowding was greatest where wages were lowest. The 
overcrowding of the population on the acre in certain sec- 
tions of Chicago exceeds that of the densest portions of 344 
POVERTY 
London. In New York the conditions are three times as 
bad as they are in London. Unfortunately, we cannot 
compare the overcrowding in the rooms, for there are no 
figures for our cities. This, of course, is the better test. 
The oth^r indication of widespread poverty is the death 
rate from tuberculosis. An eminent German specialist, in 
speaking to me about tuberculosis, gave it as axiomatic 
almost that this disease is a sort of social yardstick by 
which one can measure social misery. It is not an abso- 
lute test, of course, because improved prophylactic meas- 
ures will reduce the death rate very greatly; but in the 
present state of preventive measures New York's rate can, 
I think, be fairly compared to that of London. An exces- 
sive death rate is invariably associated with poverty and 
the evils incident to poverty. The death rate from this 
disease in New York greatly exceeds that in London. And 
this is true in spite of the more favorable climate here. 
The Jewish population, among whom there is always a 
very low death rate from this disease, is much larger in 
New York than in London. This factor, therefore, is also 
in our favor, and yet the death rate here is in excess of 
that of London. 
THE NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS IN THE 
UNITED STATES 
The number of accidents occurring in the United States 
can only be estimated. I have asked Mr. Frederick L. 
Hoffman of The Prudential Insurance Company to pre- 
pare me an estimate upon the basis of such facts as he may 
have of the number of accidents occurring in this country. 
His assistant has very kindly sent me the following state- 
ment. " As nearly as we can judge from such facts as we 
have before us, the fatal accident rate in the United States 
as a whole is between 80 and 85 to every 100,000 of popu- APPENDICES 
345 
lation. . . . The percentage of fatal accidents to total 
accidents varies from 2.1 in factory labor to 40.2 % in 
accidents from boiler explosions. Probably it would be 
safe to say that from twenty to thirty persons are more or 
less seriously injured to every one killed. If we say that 
twenty-five are injured to every one killed and consider the 
population of the United States to be 80,000,000 and the 
fatal accident rate to be 80 in every 100,000, we have it 
that 1,664,000 persons are annually killed or more or less 
seriously injured in the United States. If all minor acci- 
dents were taken into consideration, it is probable that the 
ratio of non-fatal accidents to fatal accidents would be 
nearly 100 to one. In McNeill's book he treats of 
1000 consecutive accidents, and of this number only six 
were fatal. At the Convention of the National Associ- 
ation of Accident Underwriters in 1896, reporting on the 
statistical information of accidents among physicians in- 
sured for one year, there were five death claims and 965 
indemnity claims. It seems to be the experience of acci- 
dent insurance companies that the ratio of fatal to non-fatal 
claims is at least 100 non-fatal to one fatal." 
APPENDIX B 
A LIVING WAGE 
John Mitchell says, in his book on " Organized Labor ": 
" For the great mass of unskilled workingmen, . . . 
residing in towns and cities with a population of from five 
thousand to one hundred thousand, the fair wage, a wage 
consistent with American standards of living, should not 
be less than $600 a year. Less than this would, in my 
judgment, be insufficient to give to the workingman those 
necessaries and comforts and those small luxuries which 
are now considered essential." 346 
POVERTY 
The General Advisory Committee of the Chicago Bureau 
of Charities, on March 17, 1904, " agreed that no American 
family, or family of any other nationality whose standards 
of living are similar, could comfortably live on any less 
than $1 a week per capita at the present time, owing to 
high prices of foods."- Cooperation, March 26, 1904. 
Mr. Ernest Poole says, in an article on the meat strike, 
in The Independent, July 28, 1904: "Of the 60,000 men 
on strike, 40,000 are engaged in different kinds of un- 
skilled labor. Under the union's last annual agreement, 
these unskilled men received i8| cents per hour. A few 
received 19 cents, many others 17^ cents, but the largest 
number, like the 15,000 in Chicago, received i8| cents 
an hour. This wage is much lower than at first ap- 
pears, for as the men average but 40 hours' work a week 
throughout the year, 18^ cents per hour means only $7.40 
a week." 
Mary E. McDowell says in an article called "At the 
Heart of the Packingtown Strike" {The Commons, Sep- 
tember, 1900): " A Polish doctor in that district says: 
' Any man who has a family of little children here simply 
cannot keep it alive on the un-American wage of $6 or $7 
a week, especially since the cost of living is rising so high. 
. . . With no money for wholesome recreation, and with 
the home so overcrowded with boarders, it is natural 
enough that drinking is so heavy, and that in many cases 
immigrant wives and daughters grow inured to sexual im- 
morality- or rather unmorality. ... I have never had 
a child come to me for treatment who has not had enlarged 
glands of the neck. These glands are meant to absorb 
poisonous matter. These little children live in homes so 
foul and overcrowded, they take in so much poison that 
their glands are overworked. They suffer too from under- 
feeding, and hence anaemia. In the blood of a healthy 
person the ' count ' should be between 85 and 95. Among APPENDICES 
347 
my patients I rejoice at finding a count of 50. I have 
found it as low as 28? 
" The whole community says with a weary mother, ' We 
can't even live decently on eighteen cents an hour working 
but three days a week, and then, there's the sickness, and 
the deaths.' 
" Eighteen cents an hour, ten hours a day, four days a 
week, seven in a family - this is the economic problem 
that Packingtown is trying to solve, and the question that 
is stirring them at present is, What can bring a peace that 
will leave the community with a standard of living 
higher, not lower; with a self-respect strengthened, not 
weakened ? " 
Mr. Franklin H. Wentworth says in The Worker, Au- 
gust 28, 1904, under the head of " Stricken Fall River": 
"Fall River cannot compete with the child labor of the 
South without using skilled operatives and grinding out 
their very lives. Fall River is going steadily to ruin. 
That is the cause of the strike. The profit system in Fall 
River has worn itself out, and the future is dark and cold. 
The wages here for the past year average $7.24 a week. 
This isn't a living wage. Who would not strike at the 
proposal to reduce this wretched wage i2| per cent 
further ? " 
Dr. Peter Roberts says concerning the physical condi- 
tion of the poorer paid classes of workers in the anthracite 
district: "During the recent strike in these coal fields, 
Lieutenant J. P. Ryan, of the United States Navy, was 
sent here to recruit sailors for the navy, and then ordered 
to leave the regions for the following reason: One curious 
outcome of the recruiting was that very few of the strikers 
who applied for enlistment could pass the physical require- 
ments. Lieutenant Ryan found that nearly all of those 
who were willing to go into the navy are under size, weak- 
chested and round-shouldered, and physically undesirable 348 
POVERTY 
in nearly every way. This is attributed to going to work 
at an early age, lack of nourishment, and hard labor in un- 
sanitary surroundings." 
APPENDIX C 
RATES OF WAGES FOR MALE WORKERS OVER 
SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE 
PER CENT OF EMPLOYEES RECEIVING, IN 1900, UNDER 
$6.00 A WEEK 
Trade 
New 
England 
States 
Middle 
States 
Southern 
States 
Central 
States 
Total 
Cotton Mills: 
All occupations..... 
Cotton Mills: 
Spinners 
Woollen Mills: 
Bobbin hands, doffers, etc. . 
Woollen Mills: 
Card tenders...... 
Bakeries: 
General hands, helpers, etc.. 
Shoes: 
General hands and helpers . . 
IO.9 
13-4 
68.9 
36.6 
21.7 
22.6 
3i-5 
44-5 
90.5 
43-8 
87.2 
59-1 
60. 
55- 
80.3 
30.4 
32.8 
70.I 
48.9 
46.7 
Si- 
This table is adapted from the Census volume on Em- 
ployees and Wages, and includes in the main only data 
concerning unskilled laborers, although the first item is 
for all occupations. These workers can only hope to APPENDICES 
349 
receive $312 a year if they are employed every day in the 
year. 
The New York Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the 
following wages paid to the classes of workers designated 
(" Industrial Commission," Vol. XV, pp. 338-340): - 
Kind of Work Donk 
Wages 
1897 
1898 
Coat operators 
$277.49 
$ 
Easters •••••••• 
414.24 
Coat makers «•«•••• 
349-23 
344-80 
Pressers 
375-56 
3I7-36 
Vest makers 
375-85 
260.45 
Professor Commons, in his study of the Sweating 
Trades for the Industrial Commission, gives the following 
figures (Vol. XV, pp. 352-369): - 
Number of Establishment 
Wages for 
Basters 
Wages for 
Operators 
3 • • • • • • • • • 
£208.00 
£388.92 
4 * • • • • • • • • 
274-56 
274.56 
5 • • • • • • • • • 
242.32 
402.00 
6 • • • •••••• 
189.28 
156.OO 
8 . • • • • • • • • 
291.20 
201.76 
lie • • • • • • • • 
210.08 
390.00 
These two tables give the wages for certain classes of 
the poorest paid laborers. The first table is drawn from 
returns of the organized workers numbering altogether 
about 20,000; while the second table is made from a 
study of the unorganized workers numbering about 80,000. 350 
POVERTY 
APPENDIX D 
ESTIMATES ON EXTENT OF POVERTY 
I have endeavored to be as conservative as possible 
in my estimate of the extent of poverty, so as to have it 
remain absolutely unquestioned. It would probably be 
fairer to use the population of the following sixteen fore- 
most industrial states as a basis for an estimate. (See 
Census, 1900, Vol. on Occupations, p. 98.) 
Rhode Island 428,556 
Massachusetts 2,805,346 
Connecticut . . 908,420 
New Hampshire 411,588 
New Jersey 1,883,669 
New York 7,268,894 
Pennsylvania 6,302,115 
Delaware 184,735 
Maine 694,466 
Ohio 4J57.545 
Maryland ....... 1,188,044 
Vermont 343,641 
Illinois 4,821,550 
Wisconsin . 2,069,042 
Michigan 2,420,982 
Indiana 2,516,462 
38,405,055 
75,994,575 Total population of United States. 
38,405,055 Population of sixteen foremost industrial states. 
37,589,52° Population of other states. 
Ten per cent of the last number is 3,758,952, and 
twenty per cent of the population of the foremost indus- 
trial states is 7,681,011, making altogether a population 
of 11,439,963 in poverty. 
Still another method of working an estimate is as fol- 
lows (see Abstract of Census, 1900, p. 85): - APPENDICES 
351 
29,074.117 Total number of persons engaged in gainful occupations. 
11,640,504 Total number of persons engaged in agricultural and in 
professional pursuits. 
17,433,613 Total number of persons engaged in mechanical work, in 
trade, transportation, etc. 
The total population, 75,994,575, divided by persons 
engaged in gainful occupations, gives the number of de- 
pendent persons in proportion to each worker. The 
result is 2.6 persons. Assuming that each worker in 
trade, transportation, mechanical work, etc., has 2.6 per- 
sons dependent upon him, we may then estimate the 
"industrial" population at 45,427,391, and 20 per cent 
of this number gives the number in poverty - 9,085,- 
478. This leaves out any estimate of the number of per- 
sons in the agricultural districts who are in poverty. This, 
I feel sure, could, as I have said, be shown to be in many 
communities close on to 10 per cent of the population. 
APPENDIX E 
General Gobin, in his testimony before the Anthracite 
Coal Strike Commission, stated that the greatest wrong 
of the strike of 1902 was the lawlessness taught the 
youths of these regions. ... It was the custom for the 
family to teach the children the lessons of right and 
wrong, but it is so no more. This is not done by the 
public school, and the church cannot effectively do it by 
a few hours' teaching once a week, while there are many 
who never come within its influence. Is it astonishing 
that under such circumstances youths grow up without an 
intelligent sense of right and wrong? The results are 
ingratitude to parents, disregard to the rights of men and 
of property, insubordination to superiors, lack of respect 
for women, indulgence in sensuous enjoyments, lack of 352 
POVERTY 
truthfulness and honor, a contempt for civil authority that 
presages anarchy, and loss of faith in all save material 
realities. Society must suffer because of this, and it can 
only be remedied by establishing an efficient machinery 
for the instruction of the young in righteousness. 
... As far as our public schools are concerned, no 
systematic instruction is given in right and wrong, and 
the mass of our youths is suffering moral atrophy. Their 
moral faculties are undeveloped, and our system of in- 
struction assumes that moral conduct will take care of 
itself if only the common branches are taught. Need we 
wonder that harmless people are assaulted, women insulted, 
peaceful citizens maligned on the street, and our politics 
are corrupt ? - " Anthracite Coal Communities," by Peter 
Roberts, Ph.D. 
CHILD LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES 
(Census, 1900. Volume on Occupations) 
Occupations 
Total 
All occupations ....... 
1,752,187 
Agricultural pursuits 
1,062,251 
Agricultural laborers • 
1,054,700 
Dairymen and dairywomen 
301 
Lumbermen and raftsmen ...... 
571 
Stockraisers, herders, and drovers ..... 
4.247 
Turpentine farmers and laborers 
1,201 
Woodchoppers ........ 
IJ33 
Other agricultural pursuits ...... 
98 
Professional service 
2,95^ 
Actors, professional showmen, etc 
617 
Architects, designers, draftsmen, etc 
147 
Artists and teachers of art 
Electricians 
225 
550 APPENDICES 
353 
Occupations 
Total 
Engineers (civil) and surveyors 
60 
Musicians and teachers of music ..... 
712 
Teachers in colleges, etc. ...... 
453 
Other professional service 
192 
Domestic and personal service 
280,143 
Barbers and hairdressers ....... 
1,656 
Bartenders 
367 
Janitors and sextons 
218 
Laborers (not specified) 
128,890 
Launderers and laundresses 
Saloon keepers 
7,017 
Servants and waiters 
138,284 
Watchmen, policemen, firemen, etc. .... 
>5> 
Other domestic and personal service .... 
3,56o 
Trade and transportation . 
122,507 
Agents 
945 
Boatmen and sailors 
497 
Bookkeepers and accountants 
2,169 
Clerks and copyists ........ 
22,034 
Draymen, hackmen, teamsters, etc. ..... 
Foremen and overseers 
11,582 
Hostlers 
1,811 
Hucksters and pedlers 
2,277 
Merchants (except wholesale) ...... 
2,568 
Messenger and errand and office boys .... 
42,045 
Packers and shippers . 
4,611 
Porters and helpers (in stores, etc.) .... 
2,633 
Salesmen and saleswomen 
20,342 
Steam railroad employees 
2,480 
Stenographers and typewriters 
1,486 
Street railway employees . 
98 
Telegraph and telephone linemen ..... 
5> 
Telegraph and telephone operators ..... 
i,3i5 
Others in trade and transportation 
3,563 
Manufacturing and mechanical .... 
284,330 
Carpenters and joiners 
1,924 354 
POVERTY 
Occupations 
Total 
Masons (brick and stone) 
582 
Painters, glaziers, and varnishers 
3.253 
Paper hangers 
304 
Plasterers 
131 
Plumbers and gas and steam fitters ..... 
1,691 
Roofers and slaters 
62 
Mechanics (not otherwise specified) ..... 
85 
Oil well and oil works employees ..... 
208 
Other chemical workers ....... 
583 
Brick and tile makers, etc. ...... 
2,413 
Glassworkers ......... 
5.365 
Marble and stone cutters ....... 
338 
Potters • ••»?«'>«•• 
I.039 
Fishermen and oystermen ...... 
2,275 
Miners and quarrymen ....... 
24,217 
Bakers 
1,948 
Butchers 
1,382 
Butter and cheese makers ...... 
399 
Confectioners ......... 
2,056 
Millers .......... 
249 
Other food preparers ....... 
1,972 
Blacksmiths 
1.525 
Iron and steel workers ....... 
7.592 
Machinists ......... 
4,170 
Steam boiler makers ....... 
321 
Stove, furnace, and grate makers 
301 
Tool and cutlery makers ....... 
830 
Wheelwrights ......... 
in 
Wireworkers ......... 
842 
Boot and shoe makers and repairers .... 
8,235 
Harness and saddle makers ...... 
536 
Leather curriers and tanners ...... 
1,377 
Trunk and leather-case makers, etc. ..... 
866 
Bottlers and sodawater makers, etc. .... 
751 
Brewers and maltsters ....... 
532 
Distillers and rectifiers ....... 
24 
Cabinet makers .••••••• 
297 
Coopers ..•••••••• 
990 APPENDICES 
355 
Occupations 
Total 
Saw and planing mill employees 
4,925 
Other woodworkers ........ 
5,721 
Brassworkers ......... 
915 
Clock and watch makers 
617 
Gold and silver workers ....... 
1,408 
Tin plate and tinware makers ...... 
2,874 
Other metal workers ....... 
1,890 
Bookbinders 
1,965 
Boxmakers (paper) 
3,333 
Engravers 
268 
Paper and pulp mill operatives ..... 
i,557 
Printers, lithographers, and pressmen .... 
6,289 
Bleachery and dye works operatives .... 
803 
Carpet factory operatives 
1,319 
Cotton mill operatives ....... 
44,427 
Hosiery and knitting mill operatives .... 
8,267 
Silk mill operatives ........ 
8,938 
Woollen mill operatives ....... 
6,625 
Other textile mill operatives 
12,428 
Dressmakers 
6,709 
Hat and cap makers ....... 
980 
Milliners .......... 
3,227 
Seamstresses 
7,673 
Shirt, collar, and cuff makers 
3,635 
Tailors and tailoresses . 
10,927 
Other textile workers . 
1,961 
Broom and brush makers ....... 
639 
Charcoal, coke, and lime burners ..... 
505 
Engineers and firemen (not locomotive) .... 
848 
Glovemakers ......... 
826 
Manufacturers and officials, etc. ..... 
Model and pattern makers ...... 
"5 
Photographers . 
238 
Rubber factory operatives ...... 
1,039 
Tobacco and cigar factory operatives .... 
11,462 
Upholsterers 
724 
Other miscellaneous industries ..... 
36,477 356 
POVERTY 
Mr. A. M. Simons, writing of conditions in the Chicago 
stockyards, says, regarding the " benefits " of child labor ? 
" As the machinery grew more perfect and the newly- 
invented processes of canning and preserving taught the 
packers how to rob the rendering vat to feed the tables of 
the world, a new competitor was brought to the auction 
block. The woman and the child took the place of the 
husband and father, because they could live for less than 
the man. Some attempt has been made to restrict the 
employment of children, and this is one of the things com- 
plained of in the official statement of the packers. This 
precious document declares : - 
" ' The child-labor law has done more harm than good 
in the stockyards' industry. Before the enactment of the 
statute forbidding the employment of children under 16 
years of age, many of them obtained profitable work in 
the packing plants. Now they run at large in the neigh- 
borhood, for their parents will not keep them in school. 
As a matter of fact, a boy w'ho has not learned to work 
by the time he reaches 16 years of age, never will learn. 
He has, on the other hand, acquired habits that make him 
unfit for work. Many people hold that the best industrial 
condition is that in which all the members of a family who 
wish can find employment at the same place. This was 
the condition in the packing industry before the passage 
of recent laws.' 
" When it is remembered that these children were em- 
ployed in catching the blood that flowed from the slaugh- 
tered animals, cleansing intestines for sausage casings, 
etc., some idea of the elevating influences from which the 
child-labor law took them is gained." - " The Packingtown 
Strike," by A. M. Simons. 
" Fall River, Mass., March n. - Situated in the very 
centre of Fall River's wharf line and flush with the waters APPENDICES 
357 
of Mount Hope Bay is the mammoth plant of the Ameri- 
can Printing Company, the largest establishment of the 
kind in America, and the individual property of Matthew 
Chandler Durfee Borden, the millionnaire resident of New 
York. 
" Hundreds of small boys work for Mr. Borden, and 
many of them toil ten hours a day without a thread of 
clothing on their bodies. No one except employees is 
allowed to enter the works, and therefore when it was 
stated before a woman's club in New York, last week, that 
naked babies were at work in the Fall River mills, much 
interest was aroused. . . . 
" They work in the big tanks called ' lime keer,' in the 
bleach house, packing the cloth into the vats. 
" This lime keer holds 750 pieces of cloth, and it requires 
one hour and twenty minutes to fill it. During that time 
the lad must work inside, while his body is being soaked 
with whatever there is of chemicals which enter into the 
process of bleaching, of which lime is a prominent 
factor. 
" The naked bodies of the children who do this work 
day after day are never dry, and the same chemicals which 
effect the bleaching process of the gray cloth naturally 
bleach the skin of the operator, and after coming out of 
the vats the boys show the effects in the whiteness of their 
skins, which rivals the cotton cloth." - " The Child Labor 
Evil," by Hon. James F. Carey. 
Woman and Child Labor in Japan 
" The immensely rapid development of Japan from a feu- 
dal state, with its natural production, to a capitalistic 
modern state is well known. Hardly any other country in 
the world has passed through a similar evolution in such a 
short period of time; no other country has shown such 358 
POVERTY 
extraordinary adaptability to this process of development 
as Japan has. . . . 
" A black spot in Japan's industrial life is child labor. 
. . . The children live sometimes several thousands to- 
gether, with board and lodging in the factories. From the 
earliest age up, having been used to open air and play out- 
doors, they see themselves pressed into the low, dark 
rooms of the factories and mills, cut off from everything 
that was dear to them before. Some try to escape; many 
of them die before the contract is fulfilled, for also the 
children have to work at nights, at times fifteen to eighteen 
hours continuously."-The Worker, July 10, 1904. 
APPENDIX F 
Professor John R. Commons, writing on the effect of 
immigration on population, says: " It is, of course, impos- 
sible to measure the effect of immigration upon the popula- 
tion of the country, but at any rate it is a hasty assumption 
which holds that immigration during the nineteenth cen- 
tury has increased the total population. The late Francis 
A. Walker, superintendent of the censuses of 1870 and 
1880, maintained that had there been no immigration what- 
ever into this country during the past ninety years, ' the 
native element would long have filled the place the for- 
eigners have usurped.' President Walker's argument gains 
statistical plausibility from the estimates, which he quotes, 
made by Elkanah Watson, in 1815, of the future popula- 
tion of the United States, on the basis of the first three 
censuses. 
" Taking Watson's predictions and comparing them with 
the actual census returns (see table below), Walker found 
that in the censuses of 1820 and 1830, when immigration 
was so slight as to be negligible, the predictions were 
within four one-thousandths of the actual population; and APPENDICES 
359 
Year 
Population 
Watson's 
Estimate 
Watson's 
Error 
Foreign 
Immigration for 
Decade 
1790 
3,929,214 
- 
- 
- 
1800 
5,308,483 
- 
- 
50,000 
1810 
7,239,881 
-- 
* ■ 
70,000 
1820 
9,633,822 
9,625,734 
-8,088 
114,000 
1830 
12,866,020 
12,833,645 
-32,375 
143,439 
1840 
17,069,453 
17,116,526 
+47,073 
599,125 
1850 
23,191,876 
23,185,368 
-6,508 
1,713,251 
i860 
31,443,321 
31,753,824 
+310,503 
2,598,214 
1870 
38,558,371 
42,328,432 
+3,770,061 
2,314,824 
1880 
5oJ55,783 
56,450,241 
+6,294,458 
2,812,191 
1890 
62,622,250 
77,266,989 
+ 14,644,739 
5,246,613 
1900 
75,559,258 
100,235,985 
+ 24,676,727 
3,687,564 
again, in 1840 and 1850, with immigration amounting to 
599,125 in one decade, and 1,713,251 in the second decade, 
Watson's predictions were again as close as before. Speak- 
ing of these predictions, Walker says : ' Here we see that, 
in spite of the arrival of 599,000 foreigners during the 
period 1830-1840, four times as many as had arrived dur- 
ing any preceding decade, the figures of the census coin- 
cided closely with the estimate of Watson, based on the 
growth of population in the pre-immigration era, falling 
short of it only by 47,073 in 17,000,000 ; while in 1850 the 
actual population, in spite of the arrival of 1,713,000 more 
immigrants, exceeded Watson's estimate by only 6508 in 
a total of 23,000,000. Surely, if this correspondence 
between the increase of the foreign element and the rela- 
tive decline of the native element is a mere coincidence, it 
is one of the most astonishing in human history.'" - 
" Report of the Industrial Commission," Vol. XV, 
1901. 360 
POVERTY 
The effect of emigration upon the population of Ireland 
does not appear to be the same as its effects upon the 
population of other countries. There are probably many 
reasons for this, but the two following quotations from 
Thomas Lough's book partly explain it: - 
" In the ten years ending in 1881, the total number of 
emigrants was 630,000, but in the succeeding ten years 
this number increased to 770,000. This great company 
was made up of the bone and sinew of the island. No 
less than 85 per cent of the whole number were between 
the ages of ten and forty-five, only 5 per cent being above 
the latter age. Thus the old are left to die in Ireland, while 
those who should be the support and comfort of their 
declining years are forced to seek a shelter in other 
lands." 
" Dealing with the figures of deaths from famine or 
starvation, Mulhall shows that in the year 1879 there were 
312 deaths in England, 260 in France, 101 in London, and 
in Ireland no less than 3789, or 37.6 per thousand of the 
entire number of deaths." - " England's Wealth, Ireland's 
Poverty," by Thomas Lough, M.P., pp. 138 and 170. 
EMIGRATION FROM IRELAND AUTHORITIES 
CHAPTER I. POVERTY 
Page and Number 
2-1 Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle, p. 203. 
5-1 Principles of Economics, by Professor Alfred Mar- 
shall, Vol. I, Book II, pp. 119-12 2 and Poverty 
- A Study of Town Life, by B. S. Rountree, pp. 
86, 132 et. seq. 
7-1 John Ruskin - Social Reformer, by John A. Hob- 
son, p. 88. 
8-1 Marshall, op. cit., p. 121. 
9-1 Carlyle, op. cit., p. 23. 
2 Life and Labor in London, by Charles Booth, Vol. I, 
p. 33. Marshall, op. cit., p. 122, note. Rountree, 
op. cit., p. no. 
10-1 Rountree, op. cit., p. 133. 
12-1 Unto This Last, by John Ruskin, p. 177. 
14-1 Practical Sociology, by Carroll D. Wright, Chap. 
XVIII, and American Charities, by Dr. Amos G. 
Warner, Chap. II. 
2 Wright, op. cit., p. 344. 
15-1 The Social Unrest, by John Graham Brooks, p. 209. 
16-1 America's Working People, by Charles B. Spahr. 
The Workers, by Walter A. Wyckoff. The Woman 
Who Toils, by Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie 
Van Vorst. By Bread Alone, by I. K. Friedman. 
Packingtown, by A. M. Simons. 
2 How the Other Half Lives, The Battle with the Slum, 
361 362 
POVERTY 
Page and Number 
etc., by Jacob A. Riis. The Plague in Its Strong* 
hold, by Ernest Poole. The Leaven of a Great 
City, by Lillian W. Betts. 
3 Tramping with Tramps, etc., by Josiah Flynt. 
17-1 Booth, op. cit. Final volume, p. 9. 
19-1 Rountree, op. cit., pp. 299, 300, 301. 
20-1 The Dictionary of Statistics, by M. G. Mulhall, pp. 
439 and 444. 
2 Report of Special Committee on Outdoor Alms 
(Hartford), p. ix. 
21-1 North American Review, April, 1891. 
2 Census of 1890, Special Report. 
3 Hartford Report, op. cit., p. 6, Table V. 
22-1 How the Other Half Lives, by Jacob A. Riis, pp. 243 
et. seq. 
2 Report of United Hebrew Charities, 1901, p. 30. 
3 Annual Reports of New York State Board of 
Charities. Consult appendices. 
24-1 Bulletin of the Statistics Department, City of Boston, 
Vol. VI. Nos. 4 and 5, appendix, p. 95. 
2 Municipal Court Review, February, 1904, p. 20. 
25-1 Report of the Department of Corrections, New York, 
1902, p. 71. 
28-1 Report of the Mosely Industrial Commission, 1903. 
2 Atlantic Monthly, February, 1904. 
29-1 Census of 1900, Vol. on Occupations, pp. ccxxviii<?/seq, 
2 Idem, p. ccxxvi. 
3 Idem, p. ccxxxv. 
4 Census of Massachusetts, 1895, p. 105. 
30-1 Idem. 
3 Statistics and Economics, by Professor Richmond 
Mayo-Smith, p. 97. 
3 Anthracite Coal Communities, by Dr. Peter Roberts. 
4 Bulletin of the New York Department of Labor, Sep* 
tember, 1903, p. 260. AUTHORITIES 
363 
Page and Number 
31-1 Idem, p. 261. 
32-1 Problems of Poverty, by John A. Hobson, p. 17. 
33-1 Ninth Special Report of the Federal Bureau of 
Labor, p. 29. 
2 Idem, p. 28. 
34-1 Census of 1900, Vol. on Occupations, p. ccxxxii. 
35-1 Workingmen's Insurance, by W. F. Willoughby, p. 7. 
36-1 Brooks, op. cit., p. 209. 
2 Annual Reports of the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission. 
37-1 Bulletins of the Interstate Commerce Commission. 
38-1 Bulletin No. 37 of the Department of Labor, p. 1036. 
40-1 Roberts, op. cit., p. 273. 
2 Report of Bureau of Labor of New Jersey for 1884. 
3 Roberts, op. cit., p. 82. 
41-1 Fifth and Final Report of the Royal Commission on 
Labor, p. 128. 
42-1 Political Science Quarterly, Vol. VIII, 1893, p. 
591* 
2 Abstract of the Twelfth Census, p. 28. 
3 Idem, pp. 133-135. 
43-1 Political Science Quarterly, op. cit. 
44-1 Distribution of Wealth in the United States, by 
Charles B. Spahr, p. 56. 
2 Brooks, op. cit., p. 163. 
45-1 For criticisms, Statistics and Economics, by Rich- 
mond Mayo-Smith, pp. 431-437, and Evolution of 
Industrial Society, by Professor Richard T. Ely, 
pp. 264 et seq. 
49-1 Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, pp. 
309-311. Principles of Biology, by Herbert 
Spencer, Vol. II, § 368. 
51-1 Report of Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of 
Labor, Part III, 1901. 
2 Organized Labor, by John Mitchell, p. 118. 364 
POVERTY 
Page and Number 
3 Report of New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
1902, p. 72. 
53-1 Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. IV, p. 46. 
54-1 Idem, p. 47. 
2 Idem, Vol. VII, pp. 406, 414, 415. 
3 Idem, p. 574. 
4 Roberts, op. cit., p. 346. 
5 Census of 1900, Vol. on Employees and Wages, 
p. 616. 
55-1 Census of Massachusetts, 1885. 
2 Census of 1900, Vol. on Employees and Wages, pp. 
324-325. 
56-1 Rountree, op. cit., p. 136. 
60-1 Abstract of Twelfth Census, p. 32. 
61-1 American Economic Association Studies, 1897, p. 56. 
CHAPTER II. THE PAUPER 
68-1 General references: Proceedings C. O. S. Section of 
the National Conference of Charities and Correc- 
tions, 1880-1904. C. O. S. Occasional Papers 
(London). Charity Organization, by C. S. Loch. 
How to Help Cases in Distress (London). Hand- 
book of Charity Organization, by H. S. Gurteen. 
Tracts of the Boston Associated Charities and of 
the New York, Baltimore, and London Charity 
Organization Societies. 
69-1 The Jukes, by R. L. Dugdale, p. 47. 
2 The Tribe of Ishmael, by Oscar C. McCulloch. 
70-1 Parasitism, Organic and Social, by Massart and 
Vandervelde, p. 26. 
72-1 Dugdale, op. cit., pp. 48-49. 
74-1 How the Other Half Lives, by J. A. Riis, p. 243. 
2 Annual Report Charity Organization Society, New 
York, 1894. AUTHORITIES 
365 
Page and Number 
3 Report of United Hebrew Charities, 1901, p. 30. 
4 Tenement House Problem, by DeForest and Veiller, 
pp. 113-114. 
75-1 Report of United Hebrew Charities, 1901, p. 39. 
2 American Charities, by Amos G. Warner, p. 30. 
77-1 Report from His Majesty's Commissioners on the 
Poor Laws, 1834 (London). The Poor Law, by 
T. W. Fowle. History of the English Poor Law, 
by Sir G. Nicholls, 1898. State of the Poor, by 
Sir F. M. Eden, 3 vols., 1798. 
78-1 Report of New York State Board of Charities, 1877, 
pp. 18-19. 
79-1 Charities, weekly, of Charity Organization Society, 
XI, p. 441 (New York). 
80-1 Report of Standing Committee on Outdoor Relief, 
New York State Board of Charities, 1884. Out- 
door Relief, by Alexander Johnson. Ohio State 
Conference of Charities, 1893. Warner, op. cit., 
p. 162. 
2 McCulloch, op. cit. 
8x-i The Old Poor Law, by F. C. Montague, p. 9. 
85-1 Mutual Aid, by P. Kropotkin, pp. 103-104. 
86-1 Unto This Last, by John Ruskin, p. 226. 
89-1 See authorities, Chap. IV. 
92-1 Inebriety, by Norman Kerr. 
2 Abnormal Man, by Dr. Arthur McDonald. 
93-1 Warner, op. cit., p. 44. 
101-1 Economic Crises, by Edward D. Jones, pp. 100- 
101. 
2 Workingmen's Insurance, by W. F. Willoughby. 
Insurance of Workmen, Massachusetts Bureau of 
Labor, 1901. Compulsory Insurance in Ger- 
many, Washington, 1893. 
103-1 Workmen's Insurance Abroad, by Dr. Zacher, 1898, 
Berlin, p. 2. 366 
POVERTY 
Page and Number 
104-1 Idem, p. 6. 
2 Idem, p. 29. 
3 Idem, p. 7. 
CHAPTER III. THE VAGRANT 
128-1 Degeneration, by E. Ray Lancaster. 
129-1 Principles of Sociology, by Herbert Spencer, Vol. I, 
PP- 75, 76- 
132-1 The Tramp Problem, by J. J. McCook, p. 289 of 
Twenty-second Annual Conference of Charities 
and Corrections. 
133-1 The Unemployed, by Geoffrey Drage, p. 160. 
134-1 Life and Labour in London, by Charles Booth, 
Vol. I, p. 152. 
135-1 The Unemployed, by John Burns, M.P., Fabian 
Tract, No. 47, p. 8. 
138-1 Paper before Twenty-sixth Conference of Charities 
and Corrections, by Washington Gladden, p. 144. 
2 McCook, op. cit., p. 288. 
139-1 Census, Vol. on Occupations, p. ccxxxv. 
CHAPTER IV. THE SICK 
141-1 Report of Ohio Board of State Charities, 1902, p. 6. 
2 Vital Statistics, by William Farr, pp. 512-513. 
143-1 American Charities, by Amos G. Warner, p. 40. 
144-1 Tenement Conditions in Chicago, by Robert 
Hunter, p. 157. Report of New York Tenement 
House Committee of 1894, p. 33. 
147-1 Hunter, op. cit.,^. 63. 
150-1 Hunter, op. cit., pp. 156-157. Roberts, op. cit., p. 80. 
2 Farr, op. cit., p. 121. 
151-1 Britain's Homes, by George Haw, p. 30. London, 
1902. 367 
Page and Number 
i52-1 Idem, p. 28. 
153-1 See Advance Sheets of Report of New York Tene- 
ment House Commission, 1900, p. 72. 
154-1 Report of Royal Commission on The Housing of 
the Working Classes, Vol. I, pp. 13-14. 
2 New York Commission, op. cit., 1894, p. 12. 
156-1 Royal Commission, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 4. 
158-1 Industrial Democracy, by Sidney and Beatrice 
Webb, Vol. II, p. 354. 
159-1 The Diseases of,Occupations, by Dr. J. T. Arlidge, 
P- 553- 
161-1 Idem, p. 423. Dangerous Trades (Indianapolis), 
by W. English Walling. 
162-1 The Diseases of Occupations, by Dr. J. T. Arlidge, 
P- 5- 
165-1 Twenty-sixth Conference of Charities and Correc- 
tions, p. 120. 
166-1 Municipal Care of the Consumptive Poor, by S. A. 
Knopf, M.D., pp. 3-4. Boston. 
167-1 The Plague in Its Stronghold, by Ernest Poole, in 
A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis, 
P- 3°5- 
168-1 Social Aspects of Tuberculosis, by Lillian Brandt, 
in A Handbook, etc., pp. 88-92. 
2 Idem. 
3 Idem, pp. 66-68. 
169-1 A Handbook, etc., p. 167. 
171-1 Koch in Tuberculosis, monthly of the International 
Bureau, May, 1903, pp. 107-109. 
17 2-1 A Handbook, etc., pp. 166-167. 
175-1 Philadelphia Medical Journal, Dec. 1, 1900. 
2 Koch in op. cit., p. 107. 
178-1 Poole, op. cit. 
188-1 Sesame and Lilies, by John Ruskin, p. 55 . 
AUTHORITIES 368 
POVERTY 
CHAPTER V. THE CHILD 
Page and Number 
194-1 The Outlook, Aug. 22, 1903. 
196-1 Portions of this and following paragraphs have been 
taken from Tenement Conditions in Chicago, pp. 
150-152. 
199-1 Report of Industrial Commission on Immigration, 
Vol. XV, p. 288. 
201-1 Social Progress, by Josiah Strong, p. 151. 
204-1 On the Old Road, by John Ruskin, Vol. I, § 277. 
207-1 Municipal Government in Continental Europe, by 
Albert Shaw, pp. 119-122. 
214-1 Charities, May, 1903. 
217-1 Underfed Children Attending School, Report of 
Committee of School Board of London, 1898- 
1899. 
219-1 The School and Society, by John Dewey. 
221-1 Report of Commissioner of Education, July, 1903. 
223-1 Wieland, see p. 11 of The Child, A Study in the 
Evolution of Man, by A. F. Chamberlain. 
224-1 The First Years of Childhood, by Margaret Mac- 
Millan, Manchester. 
227-1 Fors Clavigera, by John Ruskin, Vol. I, p. 196. 
230-1 Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle, p. 255. 
231-1 Census, 1900. 
232-1 The Woman Who Toils, by Van Vorst, pp. 217, 240, 
252, 263. 
232-2 Child Life vs. Dividends, by Irene Ashby-Mac- 
Fadyen, American Federationalist, May, 1902. 
233-1 Van Vorst, op. cit., p. 240. 
234-1 Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens, p. 105. 
235-1 Census, 1900. 
236-1 Kellogg Durland's Report for the New York Evening 
Post. 
2 The Children of the Coal Shadow, McClure's, 1902. AUTHORITIES 
369 
Page and Number 
237-1 Census, 1900. 
240-1 Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 
Edwin Hodder, p. 400, London, 1893. 
241-1 Census, 1900. See, also, Social Progress, by Josiah 
Strong, p. 81. 
244-1 Mrs. Alzina P. Stevens, National Convention of 
Factory Inspectors, 1893, pp. 46-47. 
245-1 The Economics of Factory Legislation in The Case 
for the Factory Acts, ed. by Mrs. Sidney Webb. 
See several instances in Capital, by Karl Marx, 
Chapter XV, sec. 2, Vol. II, pp. 240, etc. 
2 Ethics of Social Progress, by Professor Franklin H. 
Giddings, in Philanthropy and Social Progress, 
p. 226, 1893. 
247-1 Letters of a Chinese Official, p. 8. 
248-1 Mrs. Sidney Webb, op. cit., pp. 18-35. 
251-1 Report of Factory Inspectors, Illinois, 1900, pp. 
12-13. 
252-1 Shaftesbury, op. cit., pp. 226-227, note. 
2 Idem, p. 235. 
253-1 Idem, p. 77. 
CHAPTER VI. THE IMMIGRANT 
261-1 Tenement House Problem, by DeForest and Veiller, 
Vol. II, pp. 67-89. 
262-1 Tenement House Conditions in Chicago, by Robert 
Hunter, p. 72. 
2 City Life, Crime, and Poverty, by Professor John R. 
Commons. Chautauquan, April, 1904. 
264-1 Italy To-day, by Bolton King and Thomas Okey, 
p. 312. 
265-1 Seventh Special Report of Commissioner of Labor, 
p. 44. 
267-1 Abstract of the Twelfth Census, 1900, p. 8. 370 
POVERTY 
Page and Number 
267-2 Immigration to the United States, 1820-1903, Wash- 
ington, p. 4336. 
3 Commons, op. tit., p. 117. 
268-1 Century, March, 1903, p. 675. 
269-1 Idem, p. 688. 
2 Report of the Commissioner of New York, p. 70. 
270-1 The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 862-963. 
271-1 Century, op. tit., p. 681. 
2 King and Okey, op. tit., p. 320. 
272-1 Report of the Commissioner-General, 1903, p. 85. 
Speech of Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, United 
States Senate, Jan. 11, 1898; Senate Document, 
No. 2119, p. 21. 
2 Daily Papers, April, 1904. 
273-1 Publications of the Immigration Restriction League, 
No. 22. 
274-1 Regulation of Immigration, Senate Report, No. 
2119, p. 473. 
2 Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, p. 311. 
277-1 Ninth Special Report of the Federal Bureau of 
Labor, p. 29. 
2 Idem, p. 28. 
278-1 How the Other Half Lives, by Jacob A. Riis, p. 52. 
2 Immigration into the United States, 1820-1903, 
Washington, p. 4348. 
3 Federal Bureau of Labor, op. cit., p. 49. 
279-1 Charities, Vol. VIII, p. 247. 
280-1 Report of United Hebrew Charities, 1901, p. 29. 
2 Idem, 1898, p. 21. 
282-1 Democracy and Social Progress, by Jane Addams, 
p. 234. 
2 Emigration and Immigration, by Professor Rich- 
mond Mayo-Smith, p. 159. 
284-1 Private Statement of the Commissioner-General. 
2 Senate Report, No. 2119, p. 243. AUTHORITIES 
371 
Page and Number 
285-1 Census of 1890, Crime, Pauperism, and Benevo- 
lence, p. 10. 
286-1 Emigration and Immigration, by Richmond Mayo- 
Smith, p. 159. 
287-1 Senate Report, No. 2119, p. 238. 
288-1 Idem, p. 236. 
2 Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, p. 288. 
3 Idem, p. 288. 
289-1 Report of United Hebrew Charities, 1901, p. 
3°- 
2 Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, p. 288. 
290-1 Publication of the Immigration Restriction League, 
No. 30, p. 9. 
295-1 Forum, Vol. XIV, September, 1892, p. 114. 
2 Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, p. 311. 
296-1 Burdens of Recent Immigration, by Frank H. Ains- 
worth. 
299-1 Vital Statistics, by William Farr, p. 62. 
300-1 Emigration and Immigration, by Richmond Mayo- 
Smith, p. 23. 
301-1 Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, p. 277. 
2 Discussions in Economics and Statistics, by Francis 
A. Walker, Vol. II, pp. 417-426. 
302-1 Vital Statistics, by A. Newsholme, p. 77. 
2 Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1901; 
February, 1902. 
3 Census of 1900, Vol. Ill, pp. li and lii. 
303-1 Idem. 
304-1 Farr, op. cit., p. 69. 
2 Statistics and Sociology, by Richmond Mayo-Smith, 
p. 74. 
3 Idem, p. 89. 
4 Newsholme, op. cit., Chap. IX. Principles of Eco- 
nomics, by Professor Alfred Marshall, Book IV, 
Chap. IV. Economics, by Arthur T. Hadley, 372 
POVERTY 
Pack and Number 
pp. 42-49. Principles of Sociology, by Franklin 
H. Giddings, pp. 367-369. 
305-1 The Slav Invasion, by F. G. Warne, pp. 80-83. 
Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, pp. 310-311. 
308-1 Walker, op. cit. 
309-1 Social Evolution, by Benjamin Kidd, p. 257. 
2 Newsholme, op. cit., p. 75. 
310-1 Britain's Homes, by George Haw, p. 28. 
2 Hadley, op. cit., p. 48. 
3 Kidd, op. cit., p. 260. 
311-1 Marshall, op. cit., p. 238. 
2 Journal of Royal Statistical Society, 1890. 
312-1 Census of 1900, Vol. on Occupations. Table 41, 
pp. 220-423. 
313-1 Census of 1900, Vol. Ill, p. Iff. 
CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSION 
33°-i Life and Labour in London, by Charles Booth, 
Vol. I, p. 152. 
331-1 The Social Problem, by John A. Hobson, pp. 8-9. 
335-1 The Shame of the Cities, by Lincoln Steffens. 
Frenzied Finance, by Thomas Lawson, Everybody's 
Magazine, 1904. 
The Enemies of the Republic, by Lincoln Steffens, 
McClure's Magazine, 1904. 
2 Address before the Nineteenth Century Club, by 
Professor Franklin H. Giddings. 
336-1 Theory of Social Organization, by Charles Fourier, 
p. 6. 
2 Benevolent Feudalism, by W. J. Ghent. 
Note. - In a few instances I have been unable to find the original 
sources of certain quotations and therefore have found it necessary to 
omit references. INDEX 
Accidents in industry, 35-40, 182, 
183. 
Adams, Brewster, 193, 194. 
Aged, treatment of the, among 
savages, 84, 85. 
Alcoholics, see Dependents. 
Almshouses, see Indoor relief. 
Anarchists, revolutionary, 275, 276. 
Anthracite coal strike (1902), 30, 
235» 35L 352. 
Anthracite mining, 39,40, 54, 294, 
295- 
Arlidge, Dr. J. T., 161, 162. 
Australia, 269. 
Austrians, 290. 
Authorities cited by author, 341- 
352. 
Baltimore, 265. 
Beggars, 86-88, 130, 137. 
Berlin, 259. 
Bertillon, Dr. J., 309. 
Biggs, Dr. Herman, General Medi- 
cal Officer, New York Board 
of Health, 169, 171, 172. 
Birrell, Augustine, 70, 71. 
Birth-rate, 303, 304, 309-313. 
Blind, the, see Dependents. 
Bohemians, 282. 
Booth, Charles, 14, 15, 17, 18, 73, 
134, 330. 
"Boss," the, 113. 
Boston - 
Aged poor, care of, 79, 83. 
Cost of living in, 48. 
Foreign population, 262. 
Homes in, percentage hired, 42. 
Poverty in, compared with that 
in New York, 24, 25, 26. 
Brandt, Miss, of New York Society 
for Prevention of Tubercu- 
losis, 168. 
Brooks, John Graham, 15, 36, 44, 
45- 
Brown, Goodwin, of New York 
State Commission of Lunacy, 
287, 288. 
Browning, Robert, 131. 
Bryce, Hon. James, 269. 
Buffalo, city of, 240, 241. 
Bureau of Labor, 17. 
Burns, John, M.P., 135. 
California, 60. 
Carlyle, Thomas, I, 2, 8, 9, 230. 
Charitable organizations, 75-77, 
82, 83, 96, 99, 100, 134. 
Charity, as a cause of poverty, 67, 
68. 
Charity Organization Society, New 
York City, 74. 
Chicago - 
Cost of living, 48. 
Child labor, 240, 241, 244. 
Foreign colonies, 261, 262, 263. 
Foreign population, 265, 267. 
Homes in, percentage hired, 
42. 
Hospital accommodations insuf- 
ficient, 89. 
Irish vs. other foreigners in, 281, 
282. 
373 374 
INDEX 
Chicago - 
Italian population, investigation 
of, 277. 
Jews and Italians, vice among, 289. 
Lodging-houses, 115. 
Outdoor relief, 81, 82. 
Pauper districts, 3. 
Political conditions, 297. 
Poverty, conditions as to, 59, 75. 
Slum districts, 110. 
Unemployment statistics, 33, 34. 
Vicious districts, 106. 
Child labor - 
Census (1900) statistics, 352-355. 
Conditions of, in several employ- 
ments, 356-358. 
Cotton mills, 230-234. 
Development of, 224-229. 
Evils of, 229. 
Extent of, in United States, 223. 
In competition with labor of 
elders, 245, 246. 
In injurious employments, 241- 
244. 
Injurious to society, 244. 
In New Jersey, 237, 238. 
In New York State, 238-240. 
In Pennsylvania, 235-237. 
Necessity for, considered, 246, 
247. 
Parasitic industries, in relation 
to, 247-250. 
Prevention of, in United States, 
251-255. 
See also Child, the. 
Child, the - 
Authorities cited, 348, 349. 
Crimes committed by, 198. 
Education of, 218-222. 
Evils affecting, 222-223. 
Industrial revolution, its effect 
on, 204, 205. 
New institutions needed for, 
205, 206. 
Of the immigrant, as a criminal, 
199. 
Play necessary for, 192, 193, 223. 
Poverty, its meaning to, 190- 
192. 
Present-day problems of, 209, 
210, 211. 
Protection of, measures for, dis- 
cussed, 256-260. 
Recreation, play, and social 
centres, 207. 
Society, its duty to, 256. 
Underfed, 216, 217. 
See also Child labor, 
Chinese, 293. 
Cincinnati, 3, 42. 
Colorado, 60. 
Commons, Professor John R., 295, 
301. 
Connecticut, 60, 302. 
Consumptives, see Dependents. 
Convalescent, the, see Dependents. 
Cost of living in United States, 48. 
Cotton-mill operatives, wage sta- 
tistics of, 54, 55. 
Cotton trade, the, and child labor, 
230-235. 
Crippled, the, see Dependents. 
Croatians, 293, 314. 
Dante, allegory of, 319, 320, 325, 
326, 339. 
Death-rate, 150, 151, 310. 
Denver, 106, no. 
Department of Labor, 277. 
Dependents - 
Absolute, care of, 76, 82, 83, 96. 
Capable of self-support, 96. 
See also Vagrant, the. 
Classes of, 76, 77. 
Foreign-born immigrants to 
United States, 282-291. 
Neglect of, in United States, 88. 
Temporary, 93, 94, 95, 97. INDEX 
375 
Dependents - 
Temporary, likely to become 
chronic, 88-93, 96-97. 
Diseases, see Sickness. 
Drage, Geoffrey, 132, 133. 
Dugdale, R. L., 69, 72. 
Easley, R. M., of National Civic 
Federation, 125. 
Education, 211-214, 218-222. 
Eliot, President, Harvard Univer- 
sity, 218. 
Ely, Professor Richard T., 20, 21. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 12, 143. 
Emigration, 299. 
England - 
Aristocratic families, 309. 
Child labor, 252, 253. 
Feeding of poor children at 
school, 217. 
Injurious employments, 162. 
Population, unity of, 262. 
Poverty in, 14, 15, 17, 62, 73, 
74- 
Status of, concerning injurious 
employments, 162. 
See also London, York. 
Epileptic, the, see Dependents. 
Europe, 35, 49, 50, 299, 300. 
Evictions in New York City, 24-26. 
Fall River, Mass., 29, 30, 42, 55, 
267. 
Farms in United States, ownership 
of, 41, 42. 
Farr, William, X42, 150, 151, 299, 
3°3> 304- 
Feeble-minded, the, see Depend- 
ents. 
Flop-houses, see Lodging-houses. 
Flynt, Josiah, 16. 
Foreign-born in the United States, 
the - 
Crime among, 288, 289. 
Economic condition of, 261, 262. 
Insane persons among, 287, 288. 
Fort Wayne, 48. 
Fourier, Charles, 335. 
France, 217, 262, 309, 310, 311. 
French Canadians, 264. 
Friedman, I. K., 16. 
George, Henry, 70. 
Germans, 49, 305. 
Germany - 
Accidents in industries, 15. 
Emigration from, 268, 269. 
Feeding of poor children in 
schools, 217. 
Injurious employments, condi- 
tions in, 162. 
Population, unity of, 262. 
Poverty in, 17. 
Giddings, Professor Franklin H., 
245, 335- 
Gladden, Dr. Washington, 138, 
139- 
Glasgow, 152. 
Great Black Plague, 163. 
Great Lakes, unemployment of 
labor on the, 30. 
"Great White Plague," the, see 
Tuberculosis. 
Greeks, 293. 
Hadley, President Arthur T^ 3 IO. 
Hamburg, 166. 
Hanway, Joseph, 252. 
Harris, Dr. Elisha, 194, 195. 
Hartford, Conn., 21. 
Haverhill, Mass., 29, 30. 
Hebberd, Robert W., Secretary of 
New York State Board of 
Charities, 22, 23. 
Hewlett, Maurice, 71. 
Hobson, John, 31, 32. 
Holmes, George K., 41, 42, 43, 45. 
Holyoke, Mass., 42. 376 
INDEX 
Home, the, discussed, 42, 43, 201- 
203. 
Hospital accommodations in Amer- 
ican cities, 89. 
Housing problem, the, 341-344. 
Howells, William Dean, 1. 
Hugo, Victor, 191, 192. 
" Hull House, Maps and Papers," 
J7« 
Hungarians, 48, 50, 282, 314. 
Hungary, 303. 
Illinois, 52, 60, 266. 
Child labor and tenement-house 
legislation in, 236, 244. 
Illiteracy of foreign slum popula- 
tion, 290. 
Inebriates, 90-92. 
See also Dependents. 
Immigrants - 
Authorities cited, 349-352. 
Children of, as criminals, 199,289. 
Concentration of, in great cities 
of United States, 266-268. 
In the slums, 112. 
Immigration - 
Birth-rate of United States af- 
fected by, 300-303. 
Burden placed by, upon the 
state, 283. 
To United States - 
Character of, 265-270, 272. 
Economic aspects of, 270. 
Evils, for United States, sum- 
mary of, 313. 
Extent of, 265-270. 
Labor market affected by, 
291-296, 305. 
National characteristics being 
changed by, 268, 269. 
Political consequences of, in 
United States, 296. 
Principal promoters of, and 
methods employed, 271-276. 
Income necessary for average fam- 
ily in United States, 51-53. 
Incurables, the, see Dependents. 
Indiana, 52, 59, 60. 
Indoor relief, 78. 
Industrial Commission (United 
States), 53, 54. 
Industrial depressions, 31, 32. 
Industries, parasitic, 247-250, 253, 
254. 
Industry, revolution in, discussed, 
200-203. 
Insurance for workingmen, see 
Workingmen's insurance. 
Interstate Commerce Commission, 
36, 37- 
Ireland, 268, 299, 360. 
Irish, 49, 281-283, 286, 305. 
Irish-Americans, 297. 
Ishmaels, the, 69, 80, 327. 
Italians, 33, 34, 48, 50, 264, 269, 
277-279, 280, 282, 287, 289, 
290, 293, 294, 314. 
Italy, 217. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 233. 
Jews, 48, 49, 50, 264, 266, 268, 
279-281, 289, 314. 
"Jocker," the, 136. 
Jones, Professor Edward D., 100, 
101. 
Jukes, the, 69, 72, 80, 327. 
Kellogg, Charles D., Secretary of 
Charity Organization Soci- 
ety of New York City, 21. 
Kelly, Mrs. Florence, 244. 
Kidd, Benjamin, 309, 310. 
King, Bolton, in his "Italy To- 
day," 271, 272. 
Koch, Professor, 170, 171, 157. 
Labor market, 291-296, 305. 
Lancaster, E. Ray, 128. INDEX 
377 
Lindsay, Dr. Samuel McCune, 38, 
39- 
Lithuanians, 293, 314. 
Loch, C. S., 69, 70. 
Lodging-houses of the largest 
cities, 114-120. 
London - 
Dependent classes, 330. 
Pauperism, 3, 73. 
Poverty, 17-19. 
Unnecessary deaths in, 151. 
London, Jack, 28. 
Lowell, Mrs. Charles Russell, 116. 
M'Cook, Professor J. J., 132,138. 
McDermott, Theresa, witness be- 
fore Anthracite Coal Strike 
Commission, 235, 236. 
McSweeney, Mr., the Assistant 
Commissioner of Immigra- 
tion, 268. 
Magyars, 293. 
Maine, 303. 
Manhattan, borough of, see New 
York City. 
"Marks of trade," 159-160. 
Marshall, Professor Alfred, 7, 8, 
31°, 3"- 
Massachusetts, 55, 60. 
Alcoholics, public hospital for, 
92. 
Birth-rate and death-rate, 302, 
3°3- 
Bureau of Statistics, 51. 
Consumptives, state hospital for, 
89. 
Crime among foreign-born, 289. 
Illiteracy and crime in, 290. 
Immigrants settling in, 266. 
Irish paupers of, 282. 
Outdoor relief in, 80. 
Paupers of foreign birth, 286. 
Unemployment statistics, 29, 
3°- 
Mayo-Smith, Professor Richard, 
292, 299, 300, 304. 
Michigan, 60. 
Mills Hotels, New York City, 115. 
Milwaukee, 267. 
Mining districts of Pennsylvania, 
child labor in, 235-237. 
Mitchell, John, 51. 
Montague, F. C., 80, 81. 
" Moocher," the, 136. 
Moody, William Vaughn, author 
of poem " The Brute," 254, 
255- 
More, Sir Thomas, 198. 
Morris, William, 12, 259. 
Moscow, 3. 
"Mush Fakir," the, 122-124, 127, 
136. 
Negro in the South, the, 317. 
New Bedford, Mass., 29, 30. 
New England States, 52, 302. 
New Hampshire, 303. 
New Jersey, 40, 60, 237, 238. 
New York Bureau of Labor, 51. 
New York City - 
Child labor in, 240, 241. 
Cost of living in, 48, 51, 52. 
Death-rate, 151. 
Evictions in, 24-26. 
Foreign population of, 261, 262, 
263, 265, 267. 
Homes in, percentage hired, 42, 
43* 
Hospital accommodations insuf- 
ficient, 89. 
Insane population, 287. 
Jewish population, conditions 
among, 279, 280. 
Jews and Italians, vice among, 
289. 
Pauperism in, 3, 25, 73. 
Playgrounds, lack of, 192, 193. 
Political conditions, 297. 378 
INDEX 
New York City - 
Poverty in, 22, 23, 26, 27, 59, 
74, 75- 
Schools of, 208, 209, 214, 215. 
Sickness in, 141-143. 
Tenement conditions in, 155,156, 
157. 
Tuberculosis in, 163, 164, 166, 
169. 
Underfed children in schools, 
216. 
Unemployed in clothing trades, 
3°, 3i. 
Vicious districts, 106, no. 
New York State, 52, 59, 60. 
Child labor in, 236, 238-240. 
Immigrants settling in, 266. 
Poorhouses of, 78, 79, 286. 
Poverty in, 22-24. 
Tenement-house legislation, 236. 
New York State Board of Char- 
ities, 22. 
New York Tenement-house Com- 
mittee (1894),150,153,154. 
Tenement House Commission 
(1900), Veiller Poverty Map 
of, 74, 75* 
Nichols, Francis H., 236. 
Norway, 175. 
Nurseries, for care of smaller chil- 
dren, 206,207. 
Ohio, 52, 60. 
Outdoor relief, 80-82. 
Padrone system, 266, 278, 279,282. 
Parasitic industries, see Industries, 
parasitic. 
Paris, 166, 207. 
Pauper, the - 
And the poor, distinction be- 
tween, 3-5. 
Authorities cited, 344-346. 
Beginning of the, 71, 72. 
Burials, 24, 25. 
Characteristics, essential of, 68. 
Contentment of, with his lot, 
320-323. 
Criminal, the, in relation to, 72. 
Definition of, 5. 
Foreign-born, support of, 287. 
Foreign population largely re- 
sponsible for, in the United 
States, 285, 286. 
In England, 20. 
See also Pauperism. 
Pauperism - 
And poverty, relation between, 
21, 22. 
Causes of, 
Charity, misdirected, 67, 68. 
Drunkenness, 92, 93. 
Inability to get work, 75. 
Industrial crises, 72. 
Sickness, 92, 93. 
Society, certain influences in, 
66, 67. 
In city and country, 73. 
Of the rich, 69-71. 
Prevention vs. cure, 98-101,103- 
105. 
Responsibility for, 101-103. 
Workingmen, their dread of, 
2,3* 
See also Pauper, the. 
Pennsylvania, 52,60,235-237,266, 
294, 297. 
Philadelphia, 42, 106. 
Physical efficiency, maintenance of, 
5-8, 47* 
Playgrounds, lack of, in large 
cities, 192, 193. 
Poles, 261, 282, 290, 293. 
Poole, Ernest, 16, 168. 
Poor - 
Aged, the, see Dependents. 
In United States, mostly foreign* 
born 261. INDEX 
379 
Poor - 
Migrations of, 264, 265, 298, 
299. 
Separation of, from native 
classes, 262-264. 
Struggle of, with poverty, 318- 
320, 323-327. 
Poor Law System, 77-83. 
Poor relief in America, see Indoor 
relief and Outdoor relief. 
Population - 
Of United States, changes in, 
306-308. 
Immigration, effect on, 358-359. 
Social classes, birth-rates of, 
3O9-3I3- 
Portuguese, 293. 
Poverty- 
Authorities cited, 341-344. 
Books treating of, 16, 17. 
Causes discussed, 63, 64, 327- 
335, 338-340. 
Charitable organizations, with 
relation to, 75-77. 
Children, effect on, 190, 191. 
Classes of United States in 
which greatest, 56. 
Concealment of, 26, 27. 
Crime, relation to, 291. 
Defined, 9. 
Effect on the child in the 
United States, 216. 
England and United States 
compared, 20, 21. 
England, investigations in, 14, 
15, 17, 18, 19. 
Essence of, the, 2. 
Evictions and pauper burials a 
measure of, 24, 25. 
Extent and progress, 20, 350- 
35 
Foreign colonies of American 
cities, evidences in, 277. 
General distress, as a test of, 22. 
Germany, in\ estigations in, 15, 
17- 
Line of, diagram and discussion, 
56-59- 
London, conditions in, 17, 19. 
Minor indications of, 40-47. 
Parasitic industries, as a cause 
of, 249, 250. 
Pauperism, its relation to, 20, 
21, 22. 
Preventive measures, failure to 
provide, 64, 65. 
Sickness and, 143, 144. 
United States, conditions as to, 
n-14, 15, 59-63. 
Working classes and variations 
in, 56-59. 
Propertyless, the, conditions 
among, 46, 47. 
Prussia, 175. 
Pryor, Dr. J. H., 172. 
Puerperal fever among women in 
poverty, 148, 149. 
Railroad accidents in United 
States, 36-39. 
Railroad employees, wage statistics 
of, 53, 54, 274- 
Republican institutions, threat- 
ened decay of, 334-336. 
Rhode Island, 60, 303. 
Riis, Jacob A., 16, 22, 73, 74, 186, 
194, 208, 271, 278. 
Roberts, Dr. Peter, 17, 39, 40, 54. 
Roofs, utilization of, 258, 259. 
Roumanians, 261. 
Rountree, B. S., 9, 10, 18, 19, 56, 
57, 73- 
Rowton houses, London, 117. 
Royal Commission (1884), 15 3. 
Royal Commission on Labor 
(1894), 41. 
Ruskin, John, 12, 86, 177, 187, 
188, 204. 380 
INDEX 
Russia, 50. 
Russians, 261. 
Ruthenians, 293, 314. 
St. Louis, 106. 
Salvation Army, 114. 
San Francisco, 106, no. 
Sanitary improvements for the 
poor, 183-185, 186, 187. 
Saving, on part of working classes, 
94, 95- 
Schools, 208, 209, 214, 215. 
See Education. 
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 156, 240, 252. 
Shoemaking industry, 55. 
Sickness - 
Authorities cited, 346, 347. 
Diseases, largely causative of, 
181, 182. 
Distress, proportion of, caused 
by, 143- 
Economics of, among the work- 
ing classes, 183-185. 
In United States, from prevent- 
able industrial causes, 157. 
Meaning and extent of, 140-143. 
Occupation as a cause of, 159- 
161, 182. 
Preventive measures, 151, 161, 
162. 
Puerperal fever, 148, 149. 
Working classes, the, conditions 
among, 144-148. 
See also Diseases. 
Simons, A. M., 16. 
Slovaks, 293. 
Slums - 
Foreign element in, 265, 290. 
Nursery of crime, a, 194-196. 
Political conditions, 112-114. 
Population, 108-110, 111-112. 
Social conditions, no, in. 
"Social dredging," 134, 135. 
South America, 269. 
Spahr, Charles B., 16, 43-46. 
Standards of living in the United 
States, 48, 49. 
State rights in the United States, 
332. 
Street-car employees, 54. 
Street gangs, 193, 194, 196, 197, 
200. 
Street life of children in large 
cities, 192, 193, 195-198. 
Switzerland, 217. 
Tenements - 
Insanitary conditions and results, 
155, 156. 
Overcrowding, evils of, 153-155. 
Sickness in, 145-147, 149. 
See also Housing problem, the. 
Tolstoy, Count, 1. 
Tracy, Dr. Roger S., 153. 
Tramp, the, see Vagrant, the. 
Tuberculosis - 
Economics, 171, 172. 
Eradication, 175, 177. 
Housing, its relation to, 341-344. 
Ravages, 163-166. 
Responsibility for, 180, 181. 
Spreading of, 168-173. 
Typical examples, 166-168, 178. 
Victims, treatment of, 172-174. 
Unemployment - 
Changes in industrial methods, a 
cause of, 28. 
In industrial depressions, 31, 32. 
Laboring classes, its effect on, 
32. 
Race and other conditions dis- 
cussed, 34, 35. 
Statistics, 28-31, 33-35. 
See also Dependents. 
United Hebrew Charities, New 
York City, 22, 74, 75, 279, 
280. INDEX 
381 
United States - 
Accidents in the, 344-345. 
And England, parts of, compared 
as to poverty, 40. 
Charitable aid necessary after 
industrial accidents, 35, 36. 
Child labor in, 223, 224, 250- 
256, 352-355- 
Classes in poverty, summary, 337, 
338. 
Commercial and industrial posi- 
tion of, 250. 
Cost of living in the, 47-49. 
European nations and, compari- 
son between as to dealing 
with sickness, 152, 153. 
Expenditures in, for foreign-born 
insane, 287, 288. 
For statistical investigations, 
and results, 12-14. 
Farms, ownership of, 41, 42. 
Foreign colonies in great cities 
of, 262, 264, 265-267. 
Illiteracy, 290. 
Population, extent, 267. 
Homes in cities, ownership of, 
42, 43- 
Immigration to, 265-270, 300- 
303. 313- 
Poor, mostly foreign-born, 261. 
Population, changes in.character 
of, 306. 
Poverty in, 59-63. 
Ignorance of, general, 15, 16, 
19, 20. 
Railroad accidents in, 36-39. 
Tuberculosis in, 165. 
Wage statistics, 53-56. 
Working pace of, 49, 50. 
Vagrant, the - 
Authorities cited, 346. 
Coexisting with present indus- 
trial conditions, 139. 
Contentment of, 320-323, 326. 
Criminality of, 120, 121. 
Habitual class, 126-129. 
Intellectual characteristics, 129. 
Movements and life, 106, 107, 
X09, 113, 114-120. 
Occupations of, 122-126. 
"Social dredging," applied to, 
134, 135- 
Temporary class, variations in, 
I3I-I34- 
Types, principal, discussed, 135- 
*39- 
See also Slums; Lodging-houses. 
Vandervelde, Professor Emile, 70. 
Van Mayr, on birth-rate, 304. 
Van Vorst, 16. 
Vermont, 303. 
Veiller, Poverty Map of New York 
City, 74, 75- 
Volunteers of America, the, 114. 
Wages, 9, 10, 53-56, 94, 95, 345- 
348, 349- 
Walker, Professor C. S., 60, 61. 
Walker, Francis A., 301, 305- 
308. 
Warner, Professor Amos G., author 
of "American Charities," 14. 
Wealth, distribution of- 
In England, 41. 
In United States, 41-46. 
Webb, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney, 158, 
B9- 
Webb, Mrs. Sidney, 244, 245. 
Widows with children, see Depend- 
ents. 
Wisconsin, 60. 
Wood, Robert A., author of " The 
City Wilderness" and of 
" The Americans in Pro- 
cess," 17. 
Working classes in United States, 
conditions among, 276. 382 
INDEX 
York, England, poverty in, 18, 
19. 
Zinka, Rosa, witness before An- 
thracite Coal Strike Com- 
mission, 235, 236. 
Workingmen's insurance, 101,102, 
103, 104, 105. 
Workshops, insanitary conditions 
in, 158, 159, 182. 
Wright, Carroll D., 13, 14, 292. 
Wyckoff, Walter A., 16.