"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

CO-OPERATION OF THE CITY.

All public departments, especially the Health Department, Public Works, Legal Department, Labor Department, should co-operate with the Municipal Emergency Home. The Health Department should look after the physical welfare of the city’s guests, the Department of Public Works should aid by giving all able-bodied, willing workers plenty of work on all municipal undertakings, and by paying them the prevailing scale of union wages in the respective industries. The Legal Department should care for and protect against the private exploitation of the homeless men and women, and above all else, shield them from the undue interference of the police.

EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC.

As to the co-operation of the great public itself, honest investigators must find the overwhelming advantages in every respect on the side of municipal management. If a city maintains and manages a modern Municipal Emergency Home, charitably-inclined private doners can be cheerfully advised to leave the entire problem to the city. Thus the great many charitable and quasi-charitable institutions that have failed to give relief where relief was most needed will fail to find support. This is exactly the purpose of all municipal and governmental undertakings,—firmly and scientifically to undertake the management of all public affairs, taking it out of the hands of superficial private organizations whose inadequate system, instead of doing good to the needy, does much moral harm.

It is most desirable that the great public be aroused and educated to see that the homeless, wandering citizen needs special treatment,—that he must, if necessary, be the object of expert, scientifically-trained solicitude, and that the public must provide that scientific service. When the public can be so educated, all applicants for shelter, food, or work (whether they come from the so-called “tramp,” “bum,” or “hobo,” at the back door, or from the man on the street who begs a dime, or from the Salvation Army representative on the street corner, or from others who promiscuously ask donations for so-called “Lodging Houses”) may safely be referred to the Municipal Emergency Home where the expert work of the community is being done, and the task of uplifting humanity and of elevating the community itself is being carried forward in the right way.

THE PROBLEM IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

It is quite remarkable that the Poor Law in England had its origin in an attempt to meet the problems of the homeless, wandering wage-earner. Yet there, as here, the homeless are rather on the increase, because of unjust social and industrial conditions.

Nicholl quotes the following, purely utilitarian statement:

“The usual restraints which are sufficient for the well-fed, are often useless in checking the demands of the hungry stomachs.... Under such circumstances, it might be considered cheaper to fill empty stomachs to the point of ready obedience than to compel starving wretches to respect the roast-beef of their more industrious neighbors. It might be expedient, from a mere economical point of view, to supply gratuitously the wants of able-bodied persons, if it could be done without creating crowds of additional applicants.”

This rudimentary economic advice has not been intelligently understood either in England or in our country. The people of our cities still look on while a group of men eat the cold roast beef of their more fortunate neighbors—calmly look on and take no action.