"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

THE MORAL DUTY.

Let everybody then make it his duty to appeal to the civic pride of the women and men of the community. Let the people of the city instruct its Mayor and City Council, or else themselves elect a man or a woman to supervise the management and maintenance of a Municipal Emergency Home of integrity, of resource, a place of sagacious and scientific training. Then, and not until then, will the women of our cities be able to shut their doors, the men their pockets, and point with pride to the Municipal Emergency Home, which in every American city is as necessary and as fundamental an institution as a hospital itself. In fact it is a human psychological hospital, an economic betterment provider, within the gates and welcome arch of every city.

The name of the institution is significant,—Municipal Emergency Home. As the gate of the public system of institutions it should stand, always open and ready to receive the homeless, wandering wage-earner who may claim its hospitality. From it, he or she may go forth to renumerative industry, to economic, social and industrial betterment which is for the benefit of all humanity.