This experiment taught me more than it taught Tim. It made a better student of me. I had investigated the cases of a hundred men in that same bunk-house—their nationality, age and occupation—and I had tried to find out the cause of their failure. And my superficial inquiry led me to the conclusion that the use of intoxicating liquor was the chief cause.
The following table shows the trade, nationality and age of one of our Sunday audiences in the B—— bunk-house. The audience numbered 108, and were all well-known individually to the Lodging House Missionary.
| Nationality | |
| Germans | 52 |
| Americans | 19 |
| Irish | 22 |
| English | 4 |
| Swedish | 2 |
| Austrians | 2 |
| Scotch | 2 |
| Welsh | 1 |
| French | 2 |
| Greek | 1 |
| Cuban | 1 |
| Total | 108 |
| Age | |
| Between 20 and 30 | 21 |
| Between 30 and 40 | 30 |
| Between 40 and 50 | 29 |
| Between 50 and 60 | 20 |
| Between 60 and 70 | 8 |
| Total | 108 |
| Average age, 41 years | |
Despite my experience with Tim Grogan, I diagnosed the condition of these men as being entirely due to strong drink. I went back over the ground and investigated with a little more care the causes that led them to drink, and this was the more fruitful of the two investigations. I wondered why men would not even stick at a job when I got them work. A careful investigation led me to the belief that, when a man gets out of a job once, he loses just a little of the routine, the continuity, the habit of work, and it is just a little harder to apply himself when he begins again. If a man loses a job two or three times in a year, it is just as many times harder to go on with a regular job when it comes. Lack of regular employment is the cause not only of the physical disintegration, but of the moral disintegration also; so, these men who had been out of employment so often, actually could not stick at a job when they got it. They were disorganized. A few of them had the stamina to overcome this disorganization. I found the same to be true in morals. When a man made his first break, it was easier to make the second, and it was as easy for him to lose a good habit as to acquire a bad one.
The same thing holds good in what we call charity. A terrific soul-struggle goes on in every man and woman before the hand is put out for the first time. Self-respect is a tremendous asset, and people hold on to it as to their very souls; but when a hand is held out once and the community puts alms therein, the fabric of self-respect begins to totter, and the whole process of disintegration begins.