"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

“If you have been working steadily for six weeks in the fruit belt, I presume you have plenty of money to tide you over, and you will soon be in some place where you are needed?”

“No, we haven’t, that is the trouble, and we must walk or beat our way to Salt Lake, although we have been working every day possible. We were paid two dollars a day. It cost us a dollar a day to live. We lost a great many days by stormy weather. Peaches could be picked only at a certain degree of ripeness, and often on pleasant days we would be obliged to wait for the fruit to reach that state, to be accepted by the packers. So we haven’t much money left. Our clothes are worn out, and must be replaced. You can easily see how necessary it is for us to save the little left of our earnings.”

I knew every word this boy was telling was true, for the Fall before, I had picked fruit for two weeks near Grand Junction to satisfy myself what it meant to toil in an orchard,—to see what it meant to the orchard owner, and what it meant to the railroad in transporting that fruit. Thus, I knew, from personal experience, that the worker who garnered the harvest for the people, filled just as important a place as the orchard owner or the railroad company.

“Last night,” the boy continued, “I tell you we were tired and hungry when we reached here. We walked twenty-five miles yesterday and each of us fellows chipped in fifteen cents, and we bought three loaves of bread, a piece of meat, some vegetables and coffee. We went down by the railroad track just below town and made one of the finest ‘Mulligans’ you ever saw. Didn’t it smell good, that cooking ‘Mulligan’ and hot coffee! And it was almost done when a fly cop of the railroad company came along and shot our cans all full of holes and drove us away, declaring we were camped on ‘private property,’ the right-of-way of the railroad company. We were robbed with all the pitilessness that would be shown a hardened criminal!” His face took on a look of fierce, piercing hatred.

Those boys had been creating dividends for that railroad, and they knew it; and every one of them should have received free transportation to Denver, Salt Lake, or to some source of labor, instead of abuse and persecution.

I looked out of the window and saw my train coming into the town, and I ran to catch it, and left my little company of toilers waiting and watching for an opportunity to beat their way on a freight to the “City of Saints.”

After reaching Salt Lake, I looked down, from the window of a fashionable and exclusive hotel, in the heart of the beautiful city, upon Salt Lake’s shame,—down upon dens of vice and iniquity that would put to shame many cities who boast of no moral standing whatever.

I found the boy’s report was true. The city was filled with men idle after the summer and autumn work, which the early coming winter and sudden cold weather had closed down. I drifted around among these idle men and talked to a great many. I found a vast number temporarily homeless, and out of money, suffering. Why was it? Industry seemed to be at its height, a great deal of building was going on; in fact, there seemed to be work of every sort for everyone. The reason was very evident. Employment could not be obtained at any of the employment offices without money. It was the universal statement among the homeless penniless men that not one employer would stake a man to live until pay day.

In the evening I put on my worker’s outfit, and set out to look for a free bath and bed. I asked the first officer I met where the public bath house was, as I was “broke.” He looked at me in astonishment, and then replied, “I’ll tell you, Salt Lake is a little shy on free baths just now. You might go down to the Jordan River, but it’s pretty cold this time of the year.”

Then I began to look for a bed, and asked another policeman where the City Lodging House was, as I was in need of shelter. He raised his hand and pointed through the alley to a bright light, the City Jail. And so in this city, amidst the “Latter-Day Saints,” men are compelled to lose their self-respect, and seek shelter in a vermin-infested city jail, or else become a common “Moocher.”