"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

A PROTECTION TO SOCIETY.

For the present, the Municipal Emergency Home stands, or rather should stand, on the one hand as a link in the chain of governmental institutions, not only as a public policy and agency which supports the individual who either fails in life or is compelled to be one in the ranks of destitute men because of economic conditions, but as an institution wherein one may receive temporary relief under the rights of citizenship. On the other hand, it should stand for the protection of society from the degradations, annoyances and misdemeanors of the individual who would thus be a burden upon his fellows and upon society as a whole. In other words, the Municipal Emergency Home should be one maintained and conducted strictly by the municipality as a governmental institution. It should be the tiding-over place for the man or the woman without a job, a refuge to satisfy immediate needs, a hospital in certain cases of sickness, an asylum in case of destitution.