Crimes Of Charity - free ebook by Konrad Bercovici

CRIMES of CHARITY BY KONRAD BERCOVICI

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN REED NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF MCMXVII COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To my Naomi...

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INTRODUCTION

There is a literary power which might be called Russian—a style of bald narration which carries absolute conviction of human character, in simple words packed with atmosphere. Only the best writers have it; this book is full of it. I read the manuscript more than a year ago, and I remember it chiefly as a series of vivid pictures—a sort of epic of our City of Dreadful Day. Here we see and smell and hear the East Side; its crowded, gasping filth, the sour stench of its grinding poverty, the cries

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THE STOVE—A PARABLE

There was once a man with a merciful heart who had a large fortune, and when he died he left much gold to his brother to use as he wished, and an additional amount in trust, to succour the poor. In his will he wrote: "Build a big house and put therein a big stove and heat the stove well. On the door thou shalt put a sign in red letters that shall read: 'Ye poor of the land, come in and warm your bodies; ye hungry of the land, come and get a bowl of warm wine and a loaf of bread.' This will be my

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MY FIRST IMPRESSION

I was ushered into the private office of the Manager of the Charity Institution. He was writing at his desk with his back towards the door. He did not turn when we came in. My protector, Mr. B., who obtained this job for me as special investigator, coughed a few times to attract the Manager's attention. Finally the gentleman turned around. "Oh, how do you do? I did not know you were in the office at all! I am so busy, you see." I well knew that he was aware of our presence, because he had sent t

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THE SECOND DAY

On returning home I went to my bed without supper. The whole night through I heard Cram's questions and the answers of the poor applicants, and the whole world appeared to me to be like one huge, bleeding wound. And the question came again and again to my mind: "Was charity, organised charity, the salve to heal this wound?" I decided during the night not to accept my new job, but on the following morning I reconsidered the matter and went to work. "I will try to have this man Cram discharged," I

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AT WORK

The nearest address was in the lower part of Madison Street. Mary D——, a widow. The house was one of the typically dirty tenements of that section. As I entered the hall a strong odour of garlic and onions almost suffocated me. I rang the janitress' bell. She opened the door and as soon as I mentioned the name of Mary D. she knew I was from the charities, for she immediately began to tell me that the D.'s have no coal, that the charities have neglected them, that the woman is sick and the five c

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WATCH THEIR MAIL

One morning I received the following order: "Investigate Sokol, Monroe Street, No. ——. Night visit preferable." When I asked the Manager what he meant by night visit he told me between ten and eleven o'clock. Accordingly, at ten P. M. I knocked at the door of the above named family. In the few minutes that elapsed between the knocking and the opening of the door I heard a man groaning—as men groan under excruciating pain. The woman, Mrs. Sokol, opened the door for me, and inquired who I was. I w

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THE ROLLER SKATES

"Investigate Mrs. B., 124th Street, No. —. Investigator reports woman never home. Questions morality. Urgent. W. L." I found this slip on my desk one fine morning. An hour after I was at the given address. The door was locked. No one was at home. Inquiry at the neighbours informed me that I would have to wait until three o'clock when the children came from school. "And Mrs. B.? When does she come?" I asked. "When the children come from school," I was answered. Consequently I had to remain in the

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THE TEST

In the boiler factories they submit the boiler to a test of resistance. The engine is subjected to a pressure three or four times stronger than the one it will have to withstand in the ordinary run of work. If successful it is sent out to the market guaranteed by the factory. If not, it is made over. The weak points are strengthened, and in most cases it is put away to be entirely recast. For boilers and engines this may be a good system of control, though many an engineer maintains that the ove

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SCABS

In C—— in 1910 thousands of workers in the clothing industry struck for better wages. They were mostly newly-arrived immigrants, all of them skilled workingmen, and though the manufacturers were making millions and advertised that they employed only the best skilled labour, the workers, men and women, and their families, starved. A shameful system of task work was established, whereby contractors sublet their work to sub-contractors, and these to other contractors, and the workers were kept at p

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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 admoniti

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"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 M

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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 ne

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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 a

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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

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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 f

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THE PRICE OF LIFE

The indignities to which the poor are subjected in the offices of charity and by the employés of these organisations are of such a nature that it is my honest belief that criminals get more consideration in the police station, before the judge or in prison. After all, what are the poor guilty of? Is poverty a crime? Is it not the inevitable result of the present organisation of society? Is it possible that in the present industrial system there should be no poor and no helpless human beings? I a

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AIR—FROM FIFTH FLOOR TO BASEMENT

The head investigator, a woman who was once a socialist, and considers herself now a social worker, was announced to lecture. Her subject was "Advice to consumptives living in a large city." The subject was interesting and the lecturer an acquaintance of mine, so I decided to go and hear her. When the doors opened the hall was crowded with people. It was in her own district and she had decided to make a big show. All the poor depending on her were ordered to the lecture. Willy nilly, they had to

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THE INVESTIGATORS

Up to now I have said so much about the heartlessness of the investigators that naturally the question arises: "If they were good-hearted women, and if the men in charge of the charities were better men, would that solve the problem of charity?" No. It's not their fault. The system of organised charity is such that they must inevitably become as they are after a few months' work. Almost all of the women investigators and other employés of the institutions are recruited from the impoverished midd

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THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR

No district of any big city in the world has such a desolate miserable look as the "charity blocks" in New York. They are grouped a little everywhere. For this, New York is like the body of Job, with sores and wounds all over. Around all the gas houses near the river, north, south, east and west, take any of the gay streets of the metropolis. Forty-second Street, Thirty-fourth Street, Twenty-third and Fourteenth Streets. With what dirt and misery they start on the west, how they get brighter and

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MOTHER AND SON

There was a boy about fourteen years of age who would daily menace his widowed mother with denouncing her to the "office." He terrorised the poor woman to such an extent that she allowed him to do whatever he wanted. He never went to school, he smoked, he drank, he boxed, he went to all the moving picture shows, and all this money he obtained from his mother on the threat to tell the "office." The great sin the woman had committed was that she had remarried, a young man, and the groom had decamp

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CLIPPING WINGS OF LITTLE BIRDS

"And where does she go every day?" "In town." "Does she stay out late at night?" "I don't know." "Do men come often to the house?" "Sometimes." "Is she sometimes drunk? I mean, does she use whisky? Is there whisky in the house?" "Not that I know of." "Does she smoke cigarettes?" "No." "Is she visiting the moving picture houses?" "No—never." To whom are these questions put? To the children of the poor. The "she" referred to is the mother, and the child is often not older than eight years, and som

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THE ORPHAN HOME

I was ushered into the private room of the superintendent of the Orphan Home. After a few moments' introductory talk he brought me down to the kitchen—a large, spacious room with all the modern cooking paraphernalia. The cook presided over the stove, on which were a dozen pots. Three pale little girls were peeling potatoes. From there we went to the dressmaking room, where half a dozen girls under the supervision of an expert were making dresses, shirts, sheets and all the other linen of the hou

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WHY THEY GIVE

Among the chief contributors to a charitable institution are two gentlemen manufacturers. One a Mr. W., the other a Mr. M. D. In the clothing factory of Mr. W. about four hundred workers, men, women and children, are employed. There the lowest wages are paid and a task system, combined with subcontracting and piece work, compels the workers to start at five in the morning, and if you pass at midnight you will still see the lights burning and hear the heavy rolling of the machines. In the Summer

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THE KITCHEN

There was no work to be had anywhere in the winter of 1913-14. The C. P. R. and G. T. R. had discharged men by the hundreds. Factories had shut down, stores closed. Hundreds, nay, thousands, were starving. What had happened? A financial depression! Over-valuation, speculation and other explanations could not still the hunger of the poor and their families. The cost of living and rent went up, and nature seemed to help the rich. What a winter! Some good-hearted men started a campaign for a kitche

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CHOCOLATE

Investigating in Paris (France) the conditions of charity institutions I was struck by one particularly funny custom which prevailed in one of them. After the applicant had been tortured and questioned until he would prefer death to a renewal of the ordeal he was given as many packages of chocolates as he had children, chocolate of the best kind, also a certain amount of meat and bread tickets. On the back of each ticket was written the stores where he could exchange it for meat or bread. One of

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OUT OF THEIR CLUTCHES

During the Lawrence strike, in the winter of 1911-12, the striking weavers deemed it proper to send away their children to comrades in other places. The men and women understood that the children should be kept away from the carnage then going on. Arrangements were soon completed and the children sent away to New York in charge of a few reliable people. But on the second transport the charities took a hand in the proceedings and compelled the Mayor and the Sheriff to stop the exodus. The pretext

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"THE HOME"

The husband dead and she left with four small children, the woman had to apply to charity. An investigator was sent and she found the family on the verge of starvation. As she was speaking to the applicant an old man, with grey beard and bent shoulders, came in. "Who is he?" "My father," the widow answered. Further questions brought out the fact that the old man had lived in his daughter's house since his wife died; that he was too weak and old to earn his living and consequently fed on his daug

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"BISMARCK"

Amongst the people in the Home were two chums of olden days. Moise Hertz and "Bismarck." They knew one another from childhood, were born in the same village in Russia, had gone to the same school (cheder) and were both, later on, with their wives and children, driven from home. Once across the border they drifted apart. Moise Hertz with his family went to Germany and "Bismarck" with his wife and children went to England. Both men were tailors. Moise Hertz's two sons returned to Russia during the

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TWENTY-ONE CENTS AND A QUARTER

An old couple who had once seen better days and whose only son died of caisson disease after working two months on the laying of the pillars which support the Williamsburg Bridge between New York City and Brooklyn, was supported by organised charity. Rent, coal and three dollars a week for food. For two years they lived on this scant pension, when all at once they were told to give up the flat; two rooms in a basement. "You will be placed in Homes," was the explanation given. For fifty years the

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VISITING DAY

If you want to see the product of modern society all at once, have, so to say, a bird's-eye view of centralised misery, go to see a "Home" on visiting day. Look at the expectant faces of the inmates; the ones that have somebody "outside." Cripples, consumptives, idiots, diseased of all kinds pour in one after another. Some bring little bags of fruit and cakes. One interchange was especially interesting to me. In a greasy old newspaper a boy of twelve brought butts of cigarettes and cigars to his

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EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

In previous chapters I have spoken of the "Bureau," and how they procure "help" in time of trouble. The employment department of the charities procure help in time of peace, industrial peace, also. When a man or woman has applied for charity and the investigator judges the applicant fit for work, he is immediately sent upstairs to the Manager of the Bureau, who is telephonically notified about the "customer" and his peculiarities. "Mr. Gordon—Hello—give him a squeeze about his relations and how

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MY LAST WEEK IN THE WAITING ROOM

Monday. When the door is opened more than a hundred people stream in. They have all been waiting outside, some sitting on the stairs, others walking to and fro. Of course, every passer-by notices them and knows who they are, "Applicants for charity." I have heard that remark many a time when passing by. Fearing I might be taken for one of them I have decided always to wear a flower in the lapel of my coat. They will know that no man who applies for charity wears flowers. I also whistle and sing

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TUESDAY

Is there no way to finish it all? It's noon time now, and since nine o'clock this morning I have heard cries and screams and curses. I have seen tears, tears, tears. The investigators are worse than tigers to-day. They are all taking revenge on the poor for yesterday's occurrence, and Sam is surpassing himself. He spits again at one. I wish it happened that his "greeting" fell on me. I would beat him to within an inch of his life. Why does not one of the applicants twist that boy's neck! They ar

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WEDNESDAY

On arriving at the office I perceived signs that this is my last week here. I have criticised freely the whole system. Some one has certainly reported me. No work has been given me for the last few days. When they sent me anywhere it was only a pretence. As a matter of fact the re-investigation of Mrs. Erikson was also given to the "Terror." I will try to read her report. I passed my forenoon near Cram's desk, in the basement. Cram is in excellent spirits to-day, and though very gross in his rem

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AT NIGHT

Finished. The whole thing has weighed so heavily on me. All interest in the work has gone. I have seen every form of misery the human mind could imagine. The facts merely repeat themselves. Hunger, degradation, insults, epilepsy. The investigators, the janitor, the policeman and Sam. From morning until night the same thing. I got to be callous. Well, people get trained to tolerate the most deadly poisons. Thank God, my soul is not lost there. I cannot say that I come out unscathed. Oh, no. But I

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THURSDAY

What I vaguely guessed and knew and feared, has happened. The Erikson woman did agree to part with her children. Not only that but she seems to look upon their acceptance by the institution as a great favour. The manager saw his chance and is making difficulties. Now the woman begs that her children be taken away and she will attend to herself. If it had not been only yesterday that she seemed so determined not to part with them I would think that prospective matrimony is the cause of her change

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ONE OF OUR BIGGEST INDUSTRIES

According to the Census of 1910 the aggregate number of benevolent institutions in the United States was 5,408. Of these, 4,420 made reports of some kind to the Census; in other words 988 institutions failed to report at all. The number of institutions reporting receipts was 4,281; the amount reported for the year 1910 was $118,379,859; 1,127 institutions failed to report their receipts. The number of institutions reporting payments during the year was 4,287; amount reported $111,498,155; 1,121

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