AN INCIDENT OF THE WINTER OF 1910
One day Mrs. Kline, the wife of the Superintendent of the Gospel Mission, phoned me, “We have a man here so covered with vermin that I cannot let him into the house, yet he seems to be an educated man. [This was at the Industrial Department on Fourteenth Street, before we had our new building.] What shall I do now?” “Call Donavan, Hall and Happy, and take him to the woodshed and have a tub of warm water; let the men give him a thorough bath, barber him and wrap him in blankets, till we can get clothes for him.” That was done. We found Taylor an educated man, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the editor of a paper in a suburb of Philadelphia. He claimed that he had been “shanghaied,” that is, drugged and carried on board an oyster boat as a common laborer. He had gone to Baltimore to go on a drunk, hoping his friends would not find him out, but his Nemesis was there waiting for him.
He had been kept six weeks on the oyster boat, had been forced to bunk with negroes and common roustabouts. After he became sober, I fancy the owners of the boat saw that they had captured the wrong man, and would gladly have gotten rid of him. They did not dare approach land lest their entire crew escape; at last he was put aboard a passing boat and sent to Washington. He was over six feet high, of fine physique, about thirty-two years of age. We did not find it easy to get clothing suitable for such a person. The day came when he was able to attend the services at the Mission. He kneeled at the altar, and we hoped he was converted. We greatly wanted him to bring suit against the oyster men, but that would have made his case public, and he did not desire that. He readily secured a place on one of our city papers as the purveyor of automobile news, but when pay day came he got drunk and fell down the stairs and broke his arm. His system was in bad condition and he was obliged to go to the free ward of Providence Hospital. We now wrote to his family, and his mother came for him in a big touring car from Philadelphia and took him home, but the exposure and dissipation had done their perfect work, and he only lived a few months. He seemed, from all accounts, a truly penitent man, but only at the judgment day shall we know whether he entered into the rest prepared for the children of God only.
Another experience in the winter of 1911 gave us a still lower opinion of the oyster men of the lower Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Hall telephoned me, one cold slippery day, “Do come down at once, the oyster men are in. Mr. Kline is away, and the men are in bad condition.” I went at once. The halls were full of them; many had only overalls, shirt and shoes without stockings; they looked frozen. I ordered coffee and rolls at my expense till I could call help. I feared if I opened the clothing room they would raid it, so great were their needs.
It was too slippery for women to venture out, so I began phoning to members of the Lutheran Church whom I believed would come. One man in a bank said, “I am not a clerk. I can't go out this kind of weather for that class of men.” I replied, “I saw you at communion last Sunday, and I venture you promised your God to serve wherever you were needed; here is your first call.” “I shall come at once and bring three other members of the church with me.”
That winter the Luther Memorial Church, of Erie, Pa., had sent us a large box of men's clothing, every article mended, clean and in good condition, and just the week before a charitable organization, at Chevy Chase, Md., had sent us two large barrels of men's clothing, and a full half bushel of socks nicely darned and every article clean.
So we put trousers on one pile, coats on another, vests on another, underclothes on another, a churchman at each pile. I had charge of the socks, then Mr. Ifft, of the Luther Memorial Church, in the next room superintended the trying on, fitting and exchanging garments. As we handed each garment we said about this, “The ladies of the different churches send you these garments with their love and sympathy.” Many a poor fellow, all unused to blessing, said, “God bless the churches for remembering such as us.” In an hour's time we clothed over seventy-five men. A few did not need complete outfits. We never supposed we had that many garments on hand, but that day cleared out all we had in reserve.
Among these men were two Welsh boys, both Christians, not long in this country. They had not known the strength of American liquors (which were doubtless drugged); they were very contrite and were at once put to work, one as a furnaceman, the other in the wood yard. We hear the United States revenue cutters have been after the oyster men and shanghaiing is no longer a common crime.
When a friend looked in on that crowd of superior business men helping distribute clothing and saying words of consolation to the broken men, he said, “I believe in my soul you would order in the President of the United States to help at the Gospel Mission.” “Oh, no!” I replied, “President Taft, good man as he is, would not be permitted to drive so much as a tack at the Gospel Mission. He does not recognize Jesus as His Saviour; only orthodox Christians who can tell the sinner of the redeeming power of Jesus the Christ can successfully work in a rescue mission like this.”