“This present chapter passes from my hand in March, 1894, when special relief-work for the unemployed is being carried forward on a scale never before known or |HOMELESS CONSTANT FACTOR.| needed in this country.[[58]] It is therefore not possible to give the results of this emergency work.” * * * But the relief must be given. “The present chapter is concerned especially with the problem of the homeless poor as a constant factor in the administration of charities.[[59]] The question of how to deal with the tramp is said to be of special urgency in every locality in the United States with which I am at all acquainted. From Boston to San Francisco, and from St. Paul to New Orleans, complaints come of a number of tramps, which is alleged to be ‘especially’ large in each case.”[[60]]
In fact, Dr. Warner’s book of more than 400 pages is one that represents the saddest spectacle |TWO SISTERS OF INIQUITY.| of human misery on the largest scale. It treats all possible causes of the misery, excepting the main, and all-powerful, cause of all the minor causes, which I have named dividogenesure, because it is the sister of primogeniture, the one being as iniquitous for millions of families as the other.
As a universally pernicious principle, dividogenesure is always working in behalf of a few favorites. It has always been unjust to the employees, even when those |IMPLIES DEGREES OF INJUSTICE.| favorites commanded an equal number of places of employment to the number of the employees in a nation, because the latter have always been obliged to divide the results of their toil at an unjust rate of per cent with the former. The injustice of dividogenesure, however, intensifies as soon as the number of the employees becomes greater than the number of the places of employment, and this injustice grows especially intense when these employees appear to be the propertyless individuals. And when a nation has so many propertyless individuals as to outnumber by millions the places of employment, then, the great injustice of dividogenesure changes into the very foundation of iniquity. For its favorites, then, make all possible devices, like the blanks with tens of scrutinizing questions, and other humiliating devices for the purpose of selecting the most efficient applicants for employment at the cheapest possible rates of payment. Thus, the employed ones become harder and harder economic slaves of these favorites, while the unemployed are cast out of the sphere of the slavery without bread, etc., into the sphere of starvation and the public relief.
Further, dividogenesure is not a system of ordinary slavery, where the slaves are dependent upon their masters for living and dying. It is not the slavery that imposes a moral obligation upon the masters |IT IS NOT AN ORDINARY SLAVERY.| in favor of the slaves who are subject to them. No, no, dividogenesure has made millions of families absolutely dependent on its favorites, but it has removed from these favorites all moral obligations in favor of the modern economic slaves. The modern master of hundreds of the slaves can extort the last inch of labor energy from each of them, and yet can live in perfect peace under the shield of dividogenesure without responsibility and without the slightest remorse of conscience. He does not compel any of the slaves to make applications for employment, for working out his wealth and fortune. But he knows very well that there are invisible, omnipotent and omnipresent forces, |UNSEEN FORCES.| namely: Hunger and thirst, or the multiple expenditure in every individual case, which mightily push the slaves to his commanding mastership. And the only duty dividogenesure bids him to perform, is to choose the most efficient applicants for the lowest pay, as they would seem to be the most profitable for himself. As to the rejected ones, it is neither his business nor his duty to care whether they live or perish by fire, by cold, by disease, wither away or starve to death.
CHAPTER IV.
ABNORMITY OF THE SOCIAL SITUATION.
The preceding chapter has shown the differences between the conditions of life of the propertied |DIFFERENCES IN CONDITIONS OF LIFE.| and of the propertyless people. It has explained the multiple expenditures of the resourceless, and how they are obliged to labor under the principle of dividogenesure without ever being able to appropriate the full results of their labor to themselves. The present chapter will reveal the astonishing number of the propertyless in the United States, and the places where they are mostly to be found.
However, before proceeding to examine the investigations about the people without property, we must add here, that the propertyless |THE PROPERTYLESS PAY RENT OR ARE EXPELLED.| are those that occupy houses, or rooms, or simply little cells in the rentable properties of the propertied, paying rent for them. They are, therefore, regarded as the tenants of homes, and when occupying rentable farms, they are regarded as the tenants of farms. And as long as they are able to earn and to pay the rents on time, they are regarded as good people, good families and respectable persons, because they constitute the real sources of income to the owners of the rentable properties. But as soon as they cannot find a situation, cannot find employment, cannot find work, cannot find a job, cannot borrow money, cannot pawn anything, hence cannot pay rent at the well defined times, then they are gently or ruthlessly kicked out of the rooms, and regarded as “no good,” as degenerates.
Expelling them from the tenement houses or farms, some gentlemen or lady-proprietors sometimes even express sympathy or |CANNOT HELP THE SITUATION.| sorrow to lose their tenants; and sometimes they anticipate further sufferings and privations for their unfortunate roomers, etc., but cannot help them under the existing conditions. The expelled tenant then wanders about, suffers privations, humiliations, till he falls into prison, or she falls into prostitution, and into all the miseries of the world. And it is only at the point where these propertyless lose their real manhood and womanhood that they cease to be the sources of income for the propertied.
Now let us deal with the homeless and landless in the statistical accounts, where the tenants and mortgagors are described together, but with greater details in respect to the mortgagors than to the tenants. For the sake of clearness, therefore, I must prominently represent here the tenant families, as the propertyless, and must leave the mortgagor families for the next chapter.
The following census statistics represent only percentages of families occupying farms and homes in the United States, while I have supplied the figures implied in the relative percentages of these families.