Chapter III: Part 3

The records of the institution were looked up, and every man and woman who was thought to have had a connection with the needle at any time of his life, or who could operate a sewing machine, was singled out and the order to "cut off" was given. A few days later, men old and broken, sick and worn out women and consumptive girls, were thronging the halls of the institution. They cried and begged and showed handkerchiefs red with the blood of their wounded lungs. There they were with their swollen eyes and hands crippled from the toil of former years. But like the herd of cattle from the slaughter-house, serving only one purpose as far as the man with the long knife is concerned, so were they all, slowly but surely, driven upstairs to the employment office, from where they were escorted to the shops, to finish their days slaving at the machine to enrich the donors of the institution and help in the good work of starving into submission their brothers and sisters on strike for living wages.

When I protested and asked why this was done they said:

"Is this institution kept up by the poor, by the workingman, or by the donations of the rich manufacturers?" And then again I asked:

"But _for whom_ is it kept up?" to which I was answered by sneers and shrugs and laughter.

And the thousands of workers knew not from where these poor starved men came and they fought against them and blood was spilled--blood that otherwise trickled slowly away on the handkerchiefs, on the waste, and was wiped off the mouth with the linen from which garments were manufactured.

When the strike was at an end and the victorious workingmen returned to their places, the scabs were sent away. Again they were restored to the pension list or sent to the sanatorium, but in a few months, when the leaves began to fall from the trees, the list was reduced to half--men and women had gone to their graves.

But the charity institutions had their subscription list increased, for the rich had learned to know what a strong support they had in organised pity. Walk now through the clothing district of a city, and on each and every door you will see the white enamel sign, with black letters: "Members of the organised charities." It is written with blood--with the same red, bloody letters in which the sign of the house on the road is written:

"Ye poor of the land come and warm your bodies."

Only, instead of the stove, there is a sewing machine, a pressing iron, a drilling machine, and the devil laughs and laughs and shows his white teeth.

"Has ever man built a better place for me!"

SAVING HIM

In the waiting room I noticed a man who came a few days consecutively. Somehow he impressed me as outside the class of people that apply for charity. Though he had passed the basement ordeal and had to get through with the waiting room lesson there still was a look of independence in his eyes.

He never spoke to the other applicants; he never sat on the benches reserved for them. More than once the office boy and other employees had told him to sit down, in an imperative tone. At such an admonition he would retreat to a corner with a bitter smile on his lips and view the whole thing as a passing ordeal through which he had to go.

He impressed me with his indomitable look, with his high forehead and the deep serious lines carved on his face. He was also very much interested in the doings of the office and I often thought that he was trying to get the sense of this hustling and bustling around him.

One day he appeared to be very nervous. A look of desperate determination was in his eyes as he came in. Instead of going to the waiting room he sought to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Manager and get an explanation of some sort from him. Repeatedly he inquired of the boys how he could reach that high person. With a shrug of the shoulders the boys passed him by without replying to his questions. Others admonished him to go to the waiting room.

I approached him and asked him what he wanted.

"I want to see the Manager," he answered. "For the last five days I have been coming here. I have made an application eight days ago and have had no answer. Now," he said, "I have not applied to charity eight days before I needed it. It is my last resource. I can't find any work. I'm a tailor. During the season I have been sick, otherwise I would have saved up for slack times. My wife has borne me a child two weeks ago and my landlord threatens to put us out."

He used better English than the average workman and he was so dignified in his appeal, as if he considered that the charity owed him help when in distress. I told him that I would try to arrange that he see the Manager as soon as possible. I, so to speak, cleared the path for him. He was intercepted by Mr. Lawson, who in his cold voice asked him what he wanted. The man explained his situation. He did not cry; he did not whine. In simple words he said what he had to say. Mr. Lawson looked at him with his piercing grey eyes. He seemed very interested in the man. His dignity was so impressive, so manly. As he finished his tale Mr. Lawson put his hand on the man's shoulder and dismissed him with very kind words, saying that they would attend to it as soon as possible.

The man went away thanking him. I saw Mr. Lawson searching on his desk and soon he had the man's application. He studied it in all its details. All of a sudden he said to me: "You saw this man? I'm going to save him. I am sure that everything he told is true, and I'm going to save him. Such men should be saved. They are of a better kind and we are going to save him from the degradation of the waiting room and association with the derelicts--our regular customers."

"How much are you going to give him?" I asked, and at this moment I thought very highly of Mr. Lawson. For such is human nature--excuse all bad acts for a single good one.

"How much are we going to give him?" the gentleman repeated in an astonished voice that had a tinge of sarcasm in it. "We are not going to give him _anything_. Such men must be saved from pauperism. If we should give him something he'd be lost. I want to save him; do you understand, _save him_. I will give orders not to let him in the hall at all the next time he comes."

As I went out I had in my mind a new interpretation of Christ's crucifixion. Pontius Pilate wanted to save humanity by crucifying the meek one.

"TOO GOOD TO THEM"

One afternoon there was a great commotion in the office. As soon as I entered I felt that something extraordinary had happened.

"Did you hear the news?" one of the employees asked me. "Something awful has happened."

"What is it?" I inquired curiously, as I knew that only something very important could stir these hardened "charity workers."

"Why!" the young lady burst out, with horror in her voice. "Imagine! an applicant, a mean, dirty applicant, a pauper, an immoral woman probably, has slapped Mr. Cram's face."

"Did she? Really?" I exclaimed, and not being able to contain my joy I laughed for the first time since I had crossed the door of the institution. The lady wondered at my joy.

"What are you laughing for?" she asked. "Do you think it is fun to be hit and insulted by an applicant? Mr. Cram is there the whole day listening to their lies. He is one of the best men in the institution, and along comes a dirty derelict, a pauper, and slaps him in the face. Do you think it's fun? It shows how mean the poor are, how ungrateful, impolite, criminal. You should not laugh about such things, Mr. Baer," she admonished reproachfully.

"But why did she do it?" I queried. "There must have been a reason. He must have provoked her badly. Cram insults them all, and who knows what terrible thing he said to this one!"

"No, no!" the young lady interrupted me, and her face took on an expression of contempt and every time she pronounced the word applicant, pauper, or any other characterisation of the poor who apply to charity, she hissed it out between closed teeth, as though it were disgusting and vile.

"No," she continued, "there is no reason strong enough to excuse her. To slap the face of the one to whom you stretch a begging hand. Why, that's the last rung of the ladder. It simply shows how unworthy they are of charity. The first requirement of an applicant is to be humble. I know whose fault it is," she insisted. "I know--" the last sentence conveyed the intimation that I should question her, and I did so.

"It's Mr. Cram's own fault," she said. "He is _too good to them_--that's the reason. I told him so," she finished, and sat down to her work.

Cram too good! Great God! If they call him _too good_, what about the others? What about they themselves? Have I not yet seen it all--is more horror to follow? All that I had witnessed in the basement presented itself before me. Cram with the pipe between his teeth, reading an application and putting his insolent questions, laughing in the applicant's face, calling them liars, lazy, immoral women, dirty, and all the rest of it.

"What happened next?" I asked the young lady. She had evidently felt that I was not in sympathy with Cram's misfortune, for she answered very brusquely:

"He had her arrested," and did not want to talk further. In vain I tried to obtain details. Further than that she would not go.

I felt that Cram must have outdone himself to have provoked one of those crushed souls to such an action. To tell the truth I had great admiration for the woman who had done it. It gave me greater hope in the redemption of humanity. I wanted to know all the details but could not get them in the office. Cram himself was looked upon as a martyr. Once when passing me he said: "You remember what I told you the other day? They are a bad lot--and to think that I am a red hot Socialist. I hope this will cure you of your soft heart," he added, as he walked away.

It took me three days before I learned the woman's address. I decided to go and see her. One evening I walked up five flights of stairs of a dingy tenement house. I knocked at the door and was soon allowed to enter. As it was very cold the gas was frozen. The room where I sat, the kitchen, was lighted by a candle stuck in an empty bottle. There was no fire in the stove. I did not see the children, but heard their voices from the adjoining room. "Mamma, bread. Mamma, who's there?" the little ones queried. I told the woman frankly the object of my visit, without telling her that I was employed by the charities. I only said that I had learned through a friend what had happened and was interested to know all about it from her own words. The children were continually disturbing us with their questions and the rooms were so cold that I could hardly stand it. I advised making a fire. Of course there was no coal. I gave her some money to go down and buy some, also some bread and butter and sugar. We were friends in a few minutes and she did not feel very ill at ease. When I gave her the few cents I had not yet seen her face, on account of the semi-darkness. Only her voice was so well-modulated that a few words sufficed to indicate the personality of the woman. Two big, sparkling eyes shone out from under her brows. She told the children that she was going to buy bread and coal and they clapped their little hands in joy, and as she closed the door one of them asked: "Did the gentleman give you money? Is he from the charities?"

"No," I answered, "I'm just a friend," and taking the candle I went into the adjoining room where they were in bed covered with all the pillows and clothes that the house afforded. There were two children. I gave them some chocolate that I had bought for my own children, and soon we became great friends.

"Have you any children?" the older child, about six years of age, asked me suddenly.

"Yes--I have."

"How many?"

"Three," I told him.

"Have they always had what to eat?" the younger one, about five years old, inquired.

"No," I said, in a voice choked with shame.

"No?" they both wondered, "and they have a papa. Mamma said all the children who have papas have what to eat!" said the older one. "Yes," philosophised the younger, "but he gives away to other children. He's a bad papa. Our papa was not a bad papa. He gave everything to his children. That's the kind of papa we had."

The mother soon returned with her purchases, the coalman behind her. Soon there was a fire in the stove. The tea kettle was set on the fire. The children were given bread, and the house became very friendly. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness I remarked that the rooms were kept very clean and orderly. Everything had its place. Some little pictures on the walls were placed with taste. One would never have suspected the actual want of bread on seeing the house. The quietness of the children soon told me that they were sleeping. I waited until the tea was ready. I casually learned that she was a country-woman of mine, coming from Roumania and also from the same town. I even remembered some of her relatives who were known as wealthy, as wealth goes in that country. I lit another candle. The tea was ready. We sat opposite one another to drink the beverage. The fact that we were from the same country had given rise to a feeling of friendship between us. Instead of talking about herself she inquired about my family and remembered my mother, brothers and grandfather.

I had almost forgotten the object of my visit, so busily were we engaged in questioning one another about relatives and acquaintances. All the misery she had suffered had not stamped out her dignity. Good breeding spoke from every line of her face, from every curve of her body. She must have been about thirty years old. She spoke of her poverty as of a misfortune that might happen to any one. She was not ashamed of it, as of a vice, as most of the poor are--as they are made to feel once they come under the influence of charity; and this made my mission a very easy one. As I write these lines her beautiful modulated voice still rings in my ears. Till late into the night we sat opposite each other. Everything that I had witnessed in the last few months passed before my mental vision. Every evil became accentuated, for I felt that the woman before me must have been shamefully insulted. A refined, even educated, woman of her temperament would not commit violence if she were decently treated. Without her story I knew that she was right, but the poison of mistrust had touched my heart also. I wanted to know, to question, to bruise, to delve into her heart. And with all the ability I had acquired as an investigator I brought her round to tell me her story; not merely how she came to hit Cram, but from the very beginning, since she married.

At first she refused, but I used such arguments that she at last acquiesced. With one of her children, who could not sleep on account of a headache, in her arms, in the half dark room, she told me her story of woe, simply and with dignity, and if here and there was a note of pathos or a tear she restrained it and went on bravely to the end. And this was her story:

"Eight years ago, in Roumania, I married the man of my choice. He was a dentist. Soon after our marriage a terrible persecution against the Jews started. Jews were killed on the slightest pretext and their murderers were never brought to justice. The parents of the murdered, fearing vengeance, never tried to prosecute the criminals. It went so far that killing a Jew became a kind of sport. We quit that cursed land and came here. My husband, not knowing English, could not pass the State Board examination and worked clandestinely until he was trapped by the County Medical Association. He paid his fine and was let go free, but he was afraid to work, and to hire out to others in this line is so poorly paid that he could not even think of it. Soon the little money we had was gone and to earn our bread he went to work in a tailor's factory as presser. A child was born. Not accustomed to manual work, and angry at what he considered his degradation, he fell sick. When he got better he took to drink. Oh! those nights when he came home unable to stand on his feet and crying. I would talk to him the next day--cry--and threaten to leave him. He would promise to reform and the next pay day he would come home drunk again.

"A second child was soon born. One day, at work, he spat blood. They brought him home. He went to bed and when the youngest child was six weeks old he died of consumption. This was five years ago. I was unable to do anything to earn my living. Some friends helped me out for a while but soon I was forgotten. On account of my small children I could not go out to work. I also knew no trade. A few months afterwards I applied to the charities for help. They wanted to take my children away to an orphanage. This I could not bear. They are my children--I cannot separate from them. Finally they agreed to pension me--two dollars and my rent. From such a small sum we could not live. I learned to do some work in the artificial flower business. I took work home, and in the season, working until midnight, I would average about three dollars a week. The investigator reported that I worked. One day she met me on the street. I had just put on a new dress I had bought. The next week my pension did not come. I went to the office and inquired.

"If you earn enough money to buy dresses you don't need charity," was their answer. I explained to them that my other dress was torn, that my new dress cost only two dollars, as I had made it myself, and offered to prove to them that I did not earn more than three dollars a week. My pension was resumed, but ever since the investigator has treated me very badly. She has forced me to move every two or three months. Here it was too dear, there too high, there too good, and so on. Last month she came to me at ten o'clock one night. As I was already in bed I did not let her in. She insisted and threatened that she would cut me off. This enraged me still further and I did not open the door for her. She stood in the hall more than half an hour, then she again knocked at the door, cursed and went away. The next week was rent week. I received no money, and the landlord, who knew that the charities pay my rent, came and told me that unless he received his cheque in two days he would put me out.

"I went to the charities to ask why they did not send the money. I was directed to a little room, on the door of which is written: 'Investigator.' Mr. Cram came in, and seating himself before me began the most insolent questioning one could imagine. How much did I spend at the grocery? How much at the butcher? How much for dresses? Then he began to question me about my friends. I told him that no friends came to my house. 'So,' he said, with an insolent twinkle in his eyes, 'and who is the gentleman who was in your room the night you did not open the door to Miss ----?' I felt my blood rush to my head. It was too much. I struck him in the face and would have killed him if I had had my way. They arrested me; the Judge freed me, and here I am."

As she finished, the words of the employé of the office who told me the story rang again in my ears:

"It's Cram's own fault, he is too good to them."

Great God! I felt so little when I went away. Here was a real heroine.

"Could you give me any money for my little ones?" she asked. Not a trace of the beggar in her attitude or voice. I humbly gave her what I could and considered myself happy to have shaken hands with a real human being.

ROBBERS OF THE PEACE

One of the greatest injustices to the poor is the right that the charities arrogate to themselves to visit them whenever they choose. Once you depend upon charity all privacy is gone. The sanctity of the home is destroyed. It is as though the family were living in some one else's--in the charities'--home. The investigator comes into the house unannounced any time of the day or night, questions anybody she finds in the house, criticises the meals, the curtains; goes around to the grocery, to the neighbours, looking for a "clue" that will give to the institution the right to cease helping the particular "case," to "cut her" as they say. This continual living in fear of the investigator, coupled with the attitude of the neighbours and merchants who have all been told that Mrs. D. is a charge of the charities, pauperises the poor to such an extent that most of them lose all sense of shame and pride. Mere rags they are, that try to fit themselves to surroundings, and the children, oh! the children of the poor! They are the greatest sufferers of all. They are continually cross-examined by the investigators. Never are they trusted, and the word "liar," is always on the lips of their torturers. They must not play like other children, and if they make an attempt to live their young lives, on the slightest childish quarrel with their playmates the fact that they are depending on charity is thrown in their face. "Charity kids," the other children call them. If they claim at the grocers that the bread is stale the fact that the mother depends on charity and consequently has no right to pride, is brought up, and though they pay actual money they are not given actual value for it. They must not play or stay in the hall. The janitor will scold them more than any of the other children. The "Why don't you go to work" is repeated every second. Their ages are always disputed. An applicant's child is always over fourteen (working age) in the eyes of the neighbours, janitor, groceryman, butcher, investigator and all the rest of the torturers.

A woman's pension has been discontinued _because her children looked too well_--they were "the picture of health," and as the investigator could not understand it the pension was discontinued. Another woman's pension, and many more before her and many more after her, was discontinued because she dressed too neatly. (By the way, the woman was a dressmaker by trade and as she had no sewing-machine she did it all by hand.) Like the sword of Damocles is the charity demon, hanging over its victims.

"Who visits her?"

"Does she receive men at night?"

"Does she go out in the evening?"

"Does she buy butter?"

"Don't you think she looks in the mirror a little too much? Where does she go?"

"Does she go to moving pictures?"

These are but a few of the questions that an investigator asks of the neighbours and dealers, and beware if she, the applicant, has ever quarrelled with them. But more than all this is the persecution of coming into the house without being announced, so that the poor woman might not be saved the pain of her friends (whom she does not want to enlighten) meeting the investigator.

The sanctity of the home is guaranteed by the Constitution of the land. It is a law. Are the laws different for rich and poor? In his own house one may refuse to receive when and whom he likes. This inhuman system of investigation is ruining the homes of the poor, driving away their boys, their daughters, and making their escape from pauperism impossible.

I know of a boy to whom his mother had given vinegar to drink because his cheeks were too red to please the investigator! I know of a woman who when her husband died did not know that she was pregnant. Two months later she knew it, but she had already told the investigator that she was not. In fear that the investigator would not believe that she did not know and would accuse her of immorality and cut off her pension, she performed a criminal operation, infected herself and died. Such is the dread of the "investigator," and almost all the applicants are women, and all the investigators are women--mothers--sisters, sweethearts--but their trade has hardened them so much that judging by their actions one would think them wild beasts. And still the Managers think that they are "too tender hearted." It is the whole system of organised charity that is criminal--debasing both the giver and he that receives, and this is not meant for the charities of this country alone. It is meant for the charities of the whole world over.

"He who giveth to the poor," is no more. A sum of money is given to men who make it their business to make the life of the one who needs so miserable that he should prefer starvation and the grave to their help; and these are the really worthy ones, while the successful applicant, the one who can stand the whole vile process, is generally the most miserable creature on earth, with no sentiment of pride or shame, and often is not really in need. To their everlasting shame charities, organised charity, has created a new type. The professional pauper. These professional paupers have a regular system of obtaining money. They know the names and locations of all charitable institutions, know what to say to one and what to another--bribe the janitor and silence the grocer and butcher. Borrow children from neighbours so as to make the family appear bigger, and sell to others, novices, their knowledge, or work on the basis of percentage. And for all this only Charity, criminal, organised Charity, is to blame.

If men feel that through their fault, or the system which they continue, their brothers and sisters suffer, that the children starve and perish, then let them give _personally_, with their own hands, and if they want to investigate the truth of what the poor have told them let them go and do it _personally_. If they do not want to go then they shall not.

But giving to the organised charities is worse than stealing the last crust of bread from the lost in the desert. Man's pride, his sense of shame is his last property, the only one he has that might help him in his struggle when he is down. Organised charity robs him of this last thing, robs him and his wife and his children and children's children. And this is the reason why those who have once applied to charities have remained their "regular customers."

THE SIGN AT THE DOOR

Amongst the "discontinued pensioners" I visited, I found a young Jewish woman with two children, one eight and one six years old. From the reports I learned that she came to New York five years ago from Russia, had worked some time in an embroidery factory and had been disabled in an accident--lost her right arm.

The report also spoke of a fruitless search made to find her husband, who, the woman claimed, had deserted her in Russia and was now in New York. The investigator claimed that this was all a tissue of lies, that Mrs. Baum's husband was a myth, as the children whom she had questioned admitted never having had a "papa."

A certain Jewish paper in New York publishes daily the pictures of men who desert their families, and other details about them. In the report it was stated that the investigator asked Mrs. Baum for a picture of her husband, but the woman refused it, saying that she did not want to brand the father of her children. The report ended with the remark that the whole thing was a tissue of lies and demanded closer examination. It is interesting to know that the report was made by a new investigator, working in a district formerly entrusted to a woman with whom this investigator was at dagger points, because of some love affair. Later on, the same investigator spoke about Mrs. Baum's severe illness and the temporary removal of the children to an orphan asylum.

The pension was kept up for eighteen more months, then suddenly discontinued. When I read this I tried to think out the reason for the discontinuance. Was the woman placed in a hospital for incurables? Had she fallen? Had she found her husband? The discontinuance dated eight months prior to my reading of the report, and although I knew how many times one can change his abode in New York, still I set out to hunt the woman up. For more than a week I spent every moment I could spare trying to trace her, but without success. In despair, I wrote ten letters, the first three to the addresses I knew and on the rest of them I just inscribed her name and the name of one of the lateral streets of the lower East Side. In the letter I wrote a few words asking for an appointment and giving my address and asking for hers. I hoped that the woman had notified the Post Office of her changed address, and placed not a little confidence in the searching qualities of the New York post office employés. To my great astonishment I had a reply the next day, and an address was given of a house I had passed twenty times in my search.

However, to the Montgomery Street house I directed my steps that evening. On the way I was overtaken by a heavy rain and looked more like a wet rat than a man when I knocked at the door. I confess that I thought more of getting dry than of the cause of my errand. Curious, but personal discomfort makes one forget all remote considerations; the whole man is taken possession of by the desire to get his bearings, to right himself--much like the swinging pendulum when an accident has crippled the machine that sets it in motion.

As soon as I entered Mrs. Baum's house and told who I was, I took off my coat, with her permission, and hung it on the back of a chair which I pushed near the kitchen stove, while I seated myself thereon and tried to regain my wits.

The woman was alone. The children were at some kind neighbours. Oh! how painful it was to see her at a little table near the window trying to make bunches of artificial flowers! How she twisted and turned the wires with one hand, with the left, while with the stump of the crippled right she kept the bunch on the table. She had encased the stump of her broken arm in a frame of wood so as to suffer less when working. She used her teeth, her chin, forehead, knees and armpits to help form a bunch, and the work went slowly, slowly. So little did she earn that she did not care to stop when a guest came, though I felt right along that she was consumed with curiosity. She lived in one room, which was kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom for her and the children, and also workroom. It did not take me very long to get dry, but it took less time for my coat to catch fire. Before I had time to put out the fire the whole back was gone. I had a hard time to keep the woman quiet on her chair. A cry of fire would have created a holocaust in that fire-trap.

When all was quiet again, I sent a neighbour's boy to my home to bring me another coat, while I seated myself near the table and began my questioning. But I had no luck. A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a matron who immediately asked me who I was. I answered her very politely that I had business of my own with the lady and was not obliged to answer to strangers.

"Who is that man?" was now the question put to the crippled woman, who was just twisting a rose with her stump.

"I don't know," she said, shrugging her shoulders.

"You don't know?" sarcastically. "You don't know who the man is who sits near you in his shirtsleeves?"

"Madame," I tried to explain, "I came here during the rain, hung my coat on the back of a chair. It caught fire, and here I am." But the matron would not hear my explanation. She slammed the door and went out, cursing, talking loudly and insultingly.

The woman was as pale as death. She looked from me to the door, and back again. It was my turn to ask a question.

"Who is that woman?"

"The investigator of an institution that pays my rent."

So saying, the woman's head sank on the table and she wept bitterly. She did not weep long. Real sorrow is deep and short. There is no time for artistic posing when the knife has pierced the heart.

The broken-down figure rose, brushed away some tears, and asked me:

"And now, sir, tell me, who are you and what do you want?"

She stood before me defiantly, as though to say: "Make it quick, you bird of evil."

"Madame," I began, "I am making a supplementary investigation on behalf of the charities, and I want to look into the reason of your discontinuance."

Hearing this she retreated, laid off her defiance, and sat down. I took out my notebook and started my questioning.

"Have you now an idea where your husband is?"

"Of course I have, and this started the whole trouble," she began with animation.

"How so?" I asked.

"For four years I looked and searched without any result. I hoped and hoped, and the charities helped me also. I did not want to publish his picture in the papers. Then I had that accident in the factory. Great God! what that woman, Mrs. Sol (an investigator) made me suffer! Never did she believe a word I said. Called me beggar, liar, crazy, and all the ugly names in the language. I stood it all because I hoped that one day I would get rid of them. Suddenly, one morning, while going to work, I saw _him_ going into a door on Greene Street. I ran after him and throwing my arms around him, cried: 'Chaim, Chaim.'"

Mrs. Baum sobbed again and repeated her husband's name, as though she again saw him. After a few moments she resumed her narrative.

"He looked at me, with strange eyes, as though he saw me for the first time. Meanwhile a crowd had collected. I still kept calling 'Chaim! don't you know me? Your wife, Leah?' 'What wife Leah?' he asked. 'Are you crazy?' Ah! my own husband; the father of my children, did not want to recognise me. The crowd grew. I kept at him. A policeman arrived and forced me to let him go. He quickly entered the door and I ran to the charities and told them my story and gave them the street and house number. I was told to come the next day, when some one would be sent with me--a special man they had for such errands. What a day and what a night I passed! The next morning, bright and early, I was at the office. A young man accompanied me and I led the way to the house. We entered and the man asked the bookkeeper if a Mr. Baum was not working there. He looked in all the books and could find no such name. On my advice the young man asked permission to visit the shop. We were allowed to go up. We looked--he was not there. Yet I was certain that I had seen him enter."

The investigator again treated me to such epithets as "crazy woman, liar, etc." Coming down, I begged the bookkeeper to look over the names of all the employés again. I thought perhaps he was working as a driver, clerk--or at some other job. To get rid of me he asked, 'How does he look?' I had his picture with me and I showed it to the man. He grew pale, and exclaimed: 'That's our boss, Mr. Ap.' All at once he realised what he had said and bent his head over his books. I was thunderstruck. Here he was, the boss of all this and his wife and children starving and begging. So that's the kind of a man he is? The investigator asked the bookkeeper:

"'Is Mr. Ap. here?'

"'No.'

"'When do you expect him?'

"'He is gone to Europe.'

"'When did he go?' I jumped up.

"'I don't know,' he answered, and we could get no more information from him. I cried and pleaded--it did not help.

"We returned to the office, where the Manager was told of all that had happened. He listened very patiently and then said: 'Give me the picture--we will attend to that now. Meanwhile, you keep quiet.' Some additional money was given to me and they said that I must not go to the factory. They would watch the place and if it was true that he had gone to Europe we would have to wait his return."

The woman's chest heaved, and cold sweat appeared on her brow and face and arms, as though her whole body were on the rack. She rested a few minutes, drank some water and resumed.

"I waited. True, I could not keep away from the place. Several times I walked past in the hope of getting a glimpse of him. I knew that if I could meet him quietly and talk to him he might relent. I might show him his children. Perhaps he had not recognised me. I had changed so much in the years that had passed since we had last seen one another.

"He was not to be seen, however. Yes, he has grown rich--very rich--he did not want me any longer. He has changed his name--perhaps he has married another woman. All these thoughts came to me. My God!" The woman sobbed again.

"For weeks and weeks my only occupation was to go from home to the charities, from there to Greene Street and back. The Manager of the office at the charities spoke to me several times and asked me details about our former life and condition when we married. I told him all. The truth as ever. One day as I walked down from the elevated on First Street and Third Avenue I saw him again, but this time he was not alone. A woman leaned on his arm. What I suffered! What I endured! I did not approach him. I feared he might again go away. I ran to the office, and told them that he was back. Again I was counselled to keep still. They would attend to it. The next and the third day I asked the Manager whether he had any results. 'No, he had not seen him.' Then on the fourth day he called me into his private room and told me that Mr. Ap. denied that he had ever married me.

"'Have you a marriage certificate?' he asked.

"I had none. We were married only religiously by a rabbi and had no certificate.

"'But,' I said, 'I have his children.'

"'He does not recognise them. He says he knew you in Russia, true enough, but that he never married you. When I told him your situation he agreed to give you enough money to go back to Russia.'

"You understand?" the woman exclaimed. "Send me away from here."

"Of course, I refused and asked the Manager to help me force him to recognise me and his children. I grew bitter, and wept and cried. He quieted me down and told me to go home. That he would see that all would be well.

"The next day and the next passed without result. The Manager was very gentle, very nice. Then on the following day, no, on the next after that, he told me that Mr. Ap. had agreed to give me one thousand dollars if I would go back to Russia immediately. Of course, I did not want to accept. He was my husband, the father of my children. He had to admit that, though I had no certificate. I looked about to find a man from our village, a man who knew him, a man who knew we were married. I found none. Then I went back to the office and asked for the photograph. But the Manager would not return it. Mr. Ap. had taken it. I cried, I menaced, but could not get my picture back. Not only did they not help me to legally force him to recognise me, to support me, but they took away the only weapon I had--the picture.

"The Manager kept on urging me to take the one thousand dollars and go to Russia. 'It's kind enough of him to do that. After all, I believe him more than you, and he says that he never married you.'

"So he told me, to my face, a week after that I was 'discontinued.' 'What is that?' I asked. 'Take the one thousand dollars and go away.'

"I was put out in the street in the dead of winter. My children almost froze. I ran to Greene Street. They would not let me in. I went to the charities. The Manager just told me: 'People that can get one thousand dollars need no charity.'

"Finally, a society paid my rent and I was again under a roof, but I was afraid to say anything about my husband, and when they asked me I answered that he was dead. How could I say otherwise? I had nothing to prove my case. My one piece of evidence was taken away. He had changed his name. I had no letters, no certificate. Now I will have more trouble, through you, with that woman who saw you."

"And what do you intend to do now?" I asked.

"I have my plans. I expect some one from my village who knows him and who knows that we were married. I am saving every cent I can for the steamship agency to buy a ticket."

She bent down over her work again. Meanwhile my coat was brought. I took leave, promised to look into the matter and went out.

In a few minutes I was in Greene Street. I looked up the number. Above the door hung a big sign, announcing the business of the firm, and on the door, near the knob, was nailed another little sign, with black letters on white enamel:

"Member of organised charity."

All was now clear why the woman was not helped in her fight, and why she was coerced through the "discontinuance." I remembered the Manager's answer:

"Who is supporting this institution? The poor or the rich?"

And of course they had to work for the ones that were supporting them.

WHAT IS DONE IN HIS NAME?

Again, thinking how charitable institutions shield those who support them, I must speak of a case which is similar to the one just described in more than one detail. The only difference is in the fact that it happened in another town, instead of in New York. I was present in the office of the Institution when the woman was advised to accept a certain amount of money and go to New York. The woman, after suffering hunger and cold with her children for a long time finally accepted the most shameful conditions ever imposed upon a woman, upon a mother. She was compelled to give her children to the other woman. I was present when the investigator, Mrs. G., herself a mother of children, explained to the woman that it would be best to accept five hundred dollars and give her children up.

"You will not bring them up as well as they will. They have money, and if you really love your children, sacrifice yourself for them." That was the substance of her argument, and when the woman cried and pointed out that she had another child coming from this unnatural father, the investigator insulted her most grossly, calling her a prostitute. In the end she advised her to keep it secret, because if the other woman, the new Mrs. Schneider, heard about it, heard that the man had not ceased his relations with his wife, she might "get sore on the whole thing," and though the woman had a good case of adultery and bigamy against her husband the Institution--so active in other emergencies, such as strikes, when they send out scabs--did not do the slightest thing to help the woman to get justice. She was destitute, a foreigner and was helpless alone. She haunted her husband's place of business, a restaurant, from where she was ejected by the ever-obliging policeman on the corner.

To quiet things the husband disappeared for a few weeks. The restaurant was running on the second woman's name. This legal nicety closed the doors to the poor mother.

Driven to desperation by the hunger of her children she sent them to the other woman a few times to ask for food. This was given to them, but not a morsel was sent to the mother. Meanwhile, the charities remained absolutely inactive. They even refused to pay the fare of the mother and children back to New York, on the ground that she could not say _how_ she would live there. Not a penny was given. "Accept the five hundred dollars," was their advice.

After a time she was trapped with a man in a hotel, and arrest for adultery hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles, the woman agreed to sign papers releasing the husband from any responsibility, was given a few dollars and a ticket to New York, and all ended here to the glory of organised charity the world over.

Shall I say that the whole trapping affair was engineered by the husband and the second woman? And yet I have suspicions of "another party" who helped. I am very anxious to find out whether, on the list of yearly contributors, the "gentleman" in the case has not increased his yearly gift to help the poor and needy and recognise the good offices of the institution in his own case. And if it is not on the list, some one has been privately favoured.

THE PICTURE

In the course of time I became very suspicious of every record in the Charity Institutions. Not one appeared to me truthful. I knew I could not trust them any more than I would trust police records that are made up not to give information but very often only to shield a particular policeman. They are coloured so as to give the impression that it was difficult to procure the information. Often the detective sent out to get the particulars spends the time in a saloon or gambling house, then on a few meagre details he makes up his report. When contradicted by the "case" he simply says the man lies. The same thing happens with the investigations of charitable institutions. Knowing this I suspected every record of being far from the facts. In my investigations I made it a rule not to take _anything_ for granted from the reports, but to look into the matter myself.

One rainy day I looked through the records and laid aside the ones I intended to work upon the next day. I decided to reinvestigate cases where the pension had been discontinued. By this time it was very difficult for me to work. The investigators feared me and had drilled their "customers" to so answer my questions as to conform to the report they had made on the case. Wherever I went, under whatever guise, I was anticipated. The people were on the qui-vive and I often had to give up my investigation without marked results.

At first I did not know to what to attribute my non-success and the Manager grew impatient and spurred me on. "Results, results. If you don't bring us extra information you are of no great use to us." Such was the tenor of his speech. They needed "extra information." Right or wrong, by hook or crook, but extra information to give an excuse for my pay envelope. But it did not take long before I learned the cause of my ill success. The people were warned.

I knew of several investigators who did it and I could have reported them and had them discharged, but I disliked to do so. So I reported to the Manager that some one had warned them and that I was working on a clue to find out who had done it, when I would report. Naturally this made them stop their interference. This subterfuge gave me time to do other work--investigate the "discontinued" cases. It was work for myself and I had no need for hurry, nor did I need to make a report of my findings.

I copied a few addresses and some other particulars and the next day I set out on my tour.

One of the cases that particularly interested me was the case of a young Irish lady, a widow with four children, who had been pensioned for four years. The report of the investigator was a continuous description of misery and misfortune. One of the children, at least, was always sick. At times there were three in bed and the mother too was in an "awful condition." This was so from 1908 to 1910, until the month of December of that year, the reports never being farther apart than two weeks. Then, all of a sudden, the report was discontinued for two months, until the end of February, and was then very much colder than usual. It simply mentioned that Mrs. G. was much better and the children well. The next one, made in April, contained an interesting item. The older child, nine years old, was selling papers. "The woman denied that she knew anything about it but I saw him myself," read the report. For May of the same year there were three reports, the last one speaking of a "pail of beer and cigarettes, in company with other men and women." It advises the application of the "test." Then, after that, one big word. "Discontinued."