"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

Our train was late, and would not reach Pittsburgh until noon.

The porter had given me a pillow, and while we were sliding smoothly down that great tongue of land between the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, where in 1754 stood an old French fort, and where to-day stands Pittsburg, the greatest industrial city of our nation with its population of 750,000 souls, I fell into a half wakeful reverie. I was thinking of its steel, and its iron, its glass, its coal, and its oil, of the mighty fortunes created there by the sweat of the working masses; of the few who had made those great fortunes, of the struggle, the worry, until the treasures of the earth were theirs, until they possessed gold and silver, and houses and lands, through the exploitation of those who must toil. We think or used to think of men who from poverty had achieved great wealth, that they were self-made and worthy of great honor, but that idea seems to be growing less significant nowadays. I thought of the scandals that are rife, and that have come to us from time to time from the great Iron City, and I saw that achievement had left in many cases, indelible marks in a wreckage of mutilated homes and lives. Then my dream changed to the blue jeans, to the great industrial army of bread winners who filled just as great a place of import in the building up of the city, and of its great fortunes, as did the few who exploit them. I thought, too, of their battles of the past for equity and justice, and of the one at that time going on at McKee’s Rocks; I thought of the lives sacrificed in such battles, of the contention and agony, of the suffering of body and mind for life’s simple necessities, and all to keep together humble homes, to protect the manhood of honorable American citizens, and to insure the safety of little children, to make a living wage possible.

We were nearing the city. Surely, I thought, this great city, with its vast wealth, must abound in privileges to labor. I have heard that people who achieve great wealth do not always forget. My first impulse was to pass right through without trying to investigate conditions in Pittsburg, for I had received many wounds of late from those in charge of “charitable” institutions. I had been misunderstood and severely criticised, called a seeker after notoriety, and my motives had been questioned. All because I dared to prove to the world that the institution maintained and assisted by private charity, especially the methods of the charity organization society, cannot stand the test of an honest and impartial investigation.

I was weary in mind and body, and had almost lost sight of what had stood out before me as duty. The silent voice which had been leading me on was scarcely perceptible. I had been reading Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” and I held in my hand this great masterpiece. Aroused from my lethargy I opened the volume and read, “A man should not recoil from the good he may be able to do.” I looked, and my wounds were healed, and thus I stopped in Pittsburg.

I found a neat room in a respectable neighborhood, where a man in working clothes could walk in and out without comment. Soon I was on the street, an unemployed, destitute workingman, except, as I discovered afterwards, that I had in one of the pockets of my overalls a penny. My first object was to look for work. Inquiring I found that it was estimated, on good authority, that there were 50,000 unemployed men in Pittsburg and its environs at that time. At McKee’s Rocks alone there were 8,000.

I went first to Pittsburgh’s Street Railway Company, where I found one hundred and fifty young men in line putting in their applications for work at twenty-four cents an hour. If those applications were accepted, the men were obliged, and were willing, to work one whole week for nothing to become qualified. I did not file an application.

I picked up a paper and read: “Ten men wanted as supers at a theater. Apply at the stage door entrance.” I went to the place, and found fifty men waiting, although it was an hour before the appointed time. There were men of all ages and types, from some scarcely more than boys to old men of seventy. I talked with a dozen who had prospective work in sight and were willing to do anything to tide themselves over until their positions were secured. One man said, “I have a place in a wholesale grocery open for me the first of next week, and although this work will only pay fifty cents a performance, it will buy me enough to eat, and I can sleep any place until I get my job. I hope they will choose me.” Then the manager came out and chose his ten men, the largest, roughest of the lot. I was not among them, and the boy who was going to work in the wholesale grocery was still on the street. The men selected were as pleased as though they had received a Christmas gift that would not wear out, and one big, rough, tough looking fellow, with almost tears of joy in his eyes, said, “Who would have tought dey would have taken me wid dis front on?” as he looked down at his soiled and ragged clothes; and another just as happy replied, “What do ye tink dey want? A fellow with balloons on his legs and a cane? Naw, dey want a feller that can do somethin’.”

I then drifted around among the employment offices, and found a little army looking for, and getting, shipments to work. As I strolled about, I found a carpenter’s rule, which I picked up and slipped in the upper side pocket of my jumper. Strolling along a little further I saw on the sidewalk a bright new nail. I don’t know why I did it, but I picked it up also, and put it into the lower pocket on the other side. The night was coming down and I was very tired and hungry. I began, as an indigent man, to look for a place of rest and a meal, the latter a thing I never missed on these investigations, but often had to postpone for long periods. I was perfectly willing to work for that privilege if I could find such a place.

I was compelled to try the so-called “Christian Missions,” and they made a good starting point for my investigations,—investigations which proved to me that they prey upon the gullible with a pretense of helping the homeless.

I went first to the Salvation Army and asked for a bed. The attendant told me he could not give me one as their lodging house was run for profit and not for charity.