"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

A model Municipal Emergency Home should not have an arbitrary time limit on the extension of its hospitality to the needy. The injustice of such limitation is manifest in instances such as that of a visitor suffering from a bruise, wound, broken arm, injured leg,—of one who is awaiting money from friends, or transportation home, or to a place where employment is offered, or for the coming of the first pay-day after being re-established in industry. Neither should any Municipal Emergency Home have that inhuman, wasteful, robbing work test. To argue or reason that because one hundred or more men and boys lined up in front of a desk at five o’clock in the morning are alike because of the fact of having received a night’s shelter and two meals and that, therefore, each alike should do three hours’ work on a wood pile, or in the city streets, is to say the least, not only unscientific, but inhuman exploitation. In every such group there will be found not only a wide difference in resources and needs, but a wider difference in men. In such a group will be capable, earnest, sober and willing workingmen displaced by industrial depression, disturbances or inventions; all classes of casual laborers, between jobs; boys seeking their fortunes; victims of child labor; disabled, sick and aged industrial and social waste; beats, and frequently strays from the higher walks of professional criminals. All these challenge intelligent and resourceful discrimination. Surely the true interest of the community as well as that of the unfortunate, wandering citizen, is best served by at once sending men, able and willing to work, to paid employment; separating the boys of tender ages from this human drift, and starting them home or to steady, profitable employment for the security of their future; directing the sick, infirm or aged to such institutions as will best minister to their needs.

The writer’s personal experiences and observations of the lump work test in operation, as he saw it in the various religious and charitable lodging houses throughout the country, seem to justify the following statement:

First. The worthy, average visitor to a Municipal Emergency Home will work diligently. Those chained by habits of vice will shirk. The crippled, sick and aged will simply “mark time.” This results in the most fit man in the group being exploited for the benefit of the least fit, and in putting upon the backs of those members of the community least able to bear this burden, part of the charitable charge for the incompetent and unworthy.

Second. There seems to be little foundation for the idea that a lump work test conserves a man’s self-respect. On the contrary the conditions of its application are such as must always be more or less degrading, and it invariably operates to hold together the good and bad elements of a group, to the inevitable injury of the good.

Third. Where the lump work test involves some financial benefit for the institution, the best of superintendents become less eager to re-establish his most fruitful, most capable, willing-to-work visitors in paid industry.

Fourth. As an indication of character, the work test is almost valueless. Men of ordinary sense see through the thin disguise of the claim that it helps to preserve their self-respect, and recognize its true lineaments as a subtle exploitation that deprives them of the opportunity of getting paid employment for that day, or as a penal service to prevent their frequent return.

Fifth. The quick deterioration of even fairly good workmen through getting used to a low standard of living by charitable contributions that lessen the economic pressure and seem to offer escape from the legitimate costs of life, is apparent to every thoughtful observer. Hard times, and an empty stomach, make it easy to submit to the kindly exploitation of a “Flop-house” wood-yard. The loss of self-respect is forgotten in relief from the necessity of trying to play a man’s part in the industrial order, until the man that was an independent, capable, willing, but unfortunate wage earner is transformed into a half-parasite,—an individual of a special character, a man whose face is familiar only to charity workers, and to the charitably-inclined public.

Summing up the effect of these two arbitrary lump restrictions it seems that they operate always to the injury of the service and are tolerated for one of three reasons. The first is that they provide some check upon the number and return of the visitors. The second is that they provide a subtle means of exploiting helpless men for the financial benefit of the institutions, and the third, that the institution thereby escapes the obligations of discriminating and effective distribution.

Mr. Raymond Robins, the first superintendent of the Chicago Municipal Lodging House, in substantiation of the above argument says:

“It may be well to say that the Chicago Municipal Lodging House began operations with both restrictions in force. A three nights’ limit and three hours’ work daily from each able-bodied lodger were required by the rules. Experience and observation of the results of the enforcement of these restrictions in Chicago and other cities convinced the administration that they were cruel and unjust. The substitution of an employment bureau, effective co-operation with other charitable and correctional agencies, and daily discriminating distribution, have enabled the Chicago Municipal Lodging House to abolish both restrictions entirely. Not only has this substitution not resulted in overcrowding the house or increasing the number of human parasites that seek its hospitality, but, on the contrary, the proportion of the worthy men has steadily risen under the new régime. The ‘Chicago System’ provides food, lodging, baths and distribution for a maximum of two hundred lodgers daily at an annual cost to the municipality of ten thousand dollars.”