It was not a “square deal.” And right there I saw one instance of its demoralizing tendency. In the room where I was at work a young boy was dressing himself. He looked up at a coat and hat which hung by the door, and asked me, with an innocent look:
“Whose hat is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s a tramp’s?”
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t take it if I were you.”
After a moment’s thought he said:
“I’ve got a job this morning if I can get there, but I can’t stay here for two hours and get it.”
In a few minutes I noticed that the boy and hat were both gone. I suppose he thought it a fair exchange since he had been compelled to leave his own in the office, and who will say it was not?
The floors were filthy, the beds rotten. The blankets were stiff and the sheets ragged; they were both contaminated with all the filth of diseased and unwashed men. I don’t believe the blankets had been changed for years or the sheets for weeks.
It seemed to be the custom of the superintendent of this place to keep up a show of cleanliness by making the men and boys do the scrubbing for nothing. When a bed is to be looked at by a “charitably inclined” visitor, clean pillow slips and sheets are put on, but they are for exhibition purposes only. As for the beds that are actually in use, they are well worth the immediate attention of the Kansas City health authorities.