As I made my way toward my destination I saw evidence of the brutal police system, so notoriously obvious throughout our entire country. I had seen a half-starved, homeless man knocked down on the streets of a Western city by an ignorant, rum-befouled bully of a policeman, simply because he stood a little too far out on the sidewalk, and with a desire to learn something of the spirit of the police force of Chicago, I made my way to the Desplains Street Police Station, although possessed with a foreboding that I might be arrested, and subjected to some insult or abuse.
With a thumping heart under a false air of complacency I entered and asked the Captain where I could find a free bed. He looked pleasantly enough upon me, and in words which held a tone of pride that he could do so, replied, “Why, yes, go to our Municipal Lodging House,” and turning to a subordinate, said, “Show this man the direction to North Union Street.” The under officer pointed out the proper course, and I was soon lost in a maze of brilliant, scintillating, cheap saloon, café, and playhouse signs along West Madison Street. The half-hidden, frost-covered windows of restaurants were filled with tempting, wholesome food. The sparkling bar-room signs were a guide to warmth and temporary shelter. I reached North Union Street, and looking down an almost black street with occasionally a dim distant light, I saw no sign guiding the homeless man or boy, woman or girl, to Chicago’s gift to its penniless toilers.
With fear and difficulty I found an old shell of a building. Arriving too late for a bed, I was allowed to lie down with sixty others, from boys of fifteen to old men of seventy, on the floor. In the foul air, unwashed, unfed, with my shoes for a pillow, with aching limbs, I endured, until daybreak, the sufferings which the temporarily homeless wanderer must suffer often many days until, if he does not find himself in some one of the other public institutions, he finds work and can again enjoy the comforts of a bed. And yet, how much this all meant to me! I did not sleep a moment of the night, yet above the dark side of it all, I caught the bright light of the golden thought behind this institution, for the establishment of which the City Homes Association, whose president was Mrs. Emmons Blaine, took the initiative, and which Raymond Robins worked into a tentative establishment.
Several years have passed since my first experience in Chicago. At that time I was deeply impressed with the fact that the city had not forgotten. My criticism was extremely friendly. The superintendent wrote, thanking me for my investigations, saying he believed it would help promote better things in Chicago in caring for its homeless workers. But I was disappointed. To-day you walk through West Madison Street to Union Street, to Chicago’s free “flop.” On your right you will notice a magnificent new railway station, which, its owners boast, cost twenty-five millions of dollars. Possibly at the very doorstep of this marvelous terminal, destitute men will ask you for help.
And a little further along, should you glance up at No. 623, you will read this sign, “The Salvation Army will occupy here a new six-story fireproof hotel, to be known as the Workingman’s Palace. Rates 15 cents to 30 cents per night, $1 to $2 per week.”
“Stepping Up a Little Nearer to Me He Drew More Closely
His Tattered Rag of a Coat”
