"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

In New York I repeated my Chicago plan. I left the Waldorf-Astoria at ten o’clock, dressed in my blue jeans and with my cloak covering my outfit until I could reach unobserved a place to leave it. The police were courteous and directed me to New York City’s “House of God.”

Before entering I stepped back and looked at the wonderful building, beautifully illuminated. As I stood there with a heart full of thankfulness for this gift to those in need, I saw a young girl about fifteen years of age approach the woman’s entrance. Her manner indicated that this was her first appeal for help. She hesitated to enter and stood clinging to the side of the door for support. At my right was the long dark street leading to New York’s Great White Way; on my left the dark East River. I could see the lights of the boats and almost hear the splash of the water. As she raised her face and the light fell upon it, I read as plainly as though it were written there, those lines of Adelaide Procter’s:

“The night cries a sin to be living

And the river a sin to be dead.”

Then the door opened and I saw a motherly matron take the girl in her arms and disappear. This incident brought to me a startling revelation. This home was a haven between sin and suicide.

MUNICIPAL Lodging House, Department of Public Charities, New York City

The night I slept in New York’s Emergency Home I was told a mother, with seven children, one a babe in arms, at one o’clock in the morning, had sought shelter there. And as the door was opened to receive her, she said, in broken, trembling words, “My man’s killed himself—he’s out of work.”

Many men were seeking admission. I entered with the rest. At the office we gave a record of ourselves, who we were and where we were from, and what our calling was. Then we were taken into a large and spotless dining-room, where we were given a supper of soup, and it was real soup, too, soup that put health and strength into a man’s body and soul. We also had coffee with milk and sugar, hot milk, and delicious bread and butter, as much as anyone wanted of it. After supper we were shown to a disrobing-room, where our clothes were put into netted sanitary trays and sent to a disinfecting-room. In the morning they came to us sweet and clean, purified from all germ or disease. From the disrobing-room we went into the bathroom where were playing thirty beautiful shower-baths of any desired temperature, and each man was given a piece of pure Castile soap. As we entered the bath a man who sat at the door with a pail of something, gave each one of us on the head as we passed him, a paddle full of the stuff. I said to the attendant, “What is that for?” “That’s to kill every foe on you,” he said, with an emphasis that was convincing. As he was about to give me another dose, I protested. “That’s enough; I have only half my usual quantity tonight.” But I got another dab nevertheless.