"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.

WHAT A TWENTIETH CENTURY MUNICIPAL EMERGENCY HOME SHOULD BE

In the following pages, the author wishes to give in detail the chief aims, objects and principles upon which a model Twentieth Century Municipal Emergency Home should be maintained:

I. It should provide, free under humane and sanitary conditions, food, lodging and bath, with definite direction for such immediate relief as is needed for any man or boy, woman or girl, or even families, stranded in the city where located, as well as for the convalescent from the hospital. It should be able to give employment to able-bodied men and boys, women and girls, provide them with the necessaries of life, and make it possible for them to be economically independent of the future. This should be the chief aim, object and principle upon which the maintenance of a model Twentieth Century Municipal Emergency Home is based.

All consideration of causes, all efforts toward the enforcement of law or reform in legislation, are secondary to this first duty of providing a humane clearing-house for a scientific, systematic and intelligent distribution of the industrial, economic and social human waste, which gathers and disperses from season to season in the urban centers of America and tends constantly to fester into idleness, vice and crime. While the demands of this human clearing-house will be no small charge upon the respective municipalities, the Municipal Emergency Home will be primarily an institution of social service, collecting and regulating the entire human resource of the city for the mutual benefit of the community or those that serve it and of the individual that is served.

This idea of connecting, in the most direct fashion possible, the social strength of a community with the individual weakness of the stranded man or boy, woman or girl, will be the first purpose of a Twentieth Century Municipal Emergency Home. To further this end its location should be easily accessible to the lodging house district of the city. That the building should be sanitary and fireproof, the food wholesome and nourishing, the beds comfortable and clean, one man to a bed, not “double deckers,” are matters of course. An isolation ward for special cases such as men suffering from inebriety, insanity, venereal disorders, etc., is a prime requisite.

A system of registration by the card system ought to be in use, each card giving at a glance the significant facts such as name, age, birthplace, occupation, physical condition, reference, residence, nearest relative or friend, number of lodgings, disposition of the case, etc. This card should be filled out by the applicant himself, in order that the visitor may not be humiliated by an inquisition of a jail- or charity-like character. The registration clerk should be a man of good judgment, a man of honor, and with psychological training whose actions should always be guided by firm but just and human motives. Thorough physical investigation of each applicant, and the investigation of the capabilities of each applicant, should be in all cases intelligently conducted.