On Sunday morning I attended the First Congregational Church. It was not the regular service but a sort of joint meeting with the Foreign Missionary Commission. The minister preached thirty minutes about how much he pitied the poor little dwarfed soul. I heard not a single word about trying to save the soul (and the body) of the hundreds of shelterless and hungry men in the city of Portland who were searching for the possibility of carving out an existence for themselves and those dependent upon them. In its neglect to care for these, the church seemed an accessory to death rather than to the uplift of unfortunate men and women.
During my entire work, I have been honored only once by being called upon by a minister and asked to speak in his church. “The Every Day Church,” it is called, situated far out, almost in the suburbs, on the east side of Portland. Its pastor, Rev. James Diamond Corby, will surely be heard from in the near future. He is one of the men of the hour in that city. The Oregonian, the leading newspaper of Portland, which has been the bell sheep of Oregon for a great many years, and which thinks the jails and prisons of our country are too attractive and should be made less so, did advocate the establishment of a Municipal Emergency Home when I first went to Portland. On Easter Sunday morning, however, they crucified my idea and cartooned the Municipal Emergency Home, as the hairy hand of socialism tearing down the American flag!
Shortly after leaving Portland I received the following letter which speaks for itself. Do not fail to read the postscript.
“Mr. Brown I read a artical of yours in the Sunday Oregonian on the Down and outs, belonging to that club I thought it might interest you to read this and therein you might solve the question, (what makes a tramp). I was born in Creston, Lancashire, Eng on the 27 of Nov 1876 my mother & father both died before I was four years old, and I was brought up with a family who we boarded with, my new mother was an angel, but her husband was a brute to me, but he was all right to his own children, but anytime I done wrong there was always that old song we ought to have sent you to the workhouse instead of trying to raise you to be a man. Notice what chance I had. At 10 years old I was put to work in one of those dreaded cotton mills, a half a day to school and a half a day in hell to work till I was 13 years old and then I went in on full time. 3 more years of this slaving and I got a chance to come too U. S. and I jumped at the chance, a cousin of mine paying my fare too Woonsocket where some more of those hell holes of cotton mills are, and so again in too the cotton mills I went, but a little over a year of such wrongs, I seeked new fields. I run away and went to boston, mass, where one night finding myself stranded I went to the Municipal lodgins, and get a poor bed and some soup. God only knows what it was made of and the next morning I was out and hustling and having a natural love for a horse, around the sales stables I went and I found out a man could always pick up a piece of change runing horses up and down the streets and taking them down to depot, and geting warmed up one day and having no other clothes I caught cold which turned into pneumonia and I went to the city hospital. the treatment there was fine and I never will forget the face of my nurse. when I came out I was weak and scaled about 90. having no money that night I had to go to the Municipal loding, and I told the officer in charge about coming out of the hospital that morning and he asked me to show him my discharge papers and I handed them out to him and he looked at them and tore them up right in front of my face, and said you — — — — your working the hospitals are you, and then he kicked me all the way down to the bath room and said he see that I sawed enough of wood in the morning, and he was there and after working a while I fell from weakness and the brute kicked me while I lay helpless and one lodger said something to him and he was promptly hustled inside and the patrol came down and took him away but I noticed he did not send me to see the judge. No, instead he told me to get out and never show my face again, which I never have. A few days after I got picked up on the street one night kind of late and took a front of the judge the next morning, the first time I was ever in a court room and charged with being Idle and Disorderly and was sent to the Reformatory at Concord and was for the next 13 months known as 9510. having no friends on the outside and having to have a position before they let you out some skeeming had to be done. but anyway I got out in 13 months and I was just as bad off as I went in but I was supplied with a lot of the knowledge of crooks. With the $5 they gave me I started for New York. I got stranded in a town called Portchester and the next day me and another Down and out started to walk to white plains and it was there I begged my first meal and it cost me 6 months in jail. White plains is a wealthy town and that night I asked to sleep in the police station and in the morning they had the man of the house where I asked for something to eat in the office and they brought me out to have him identify me and then the judge says 6 months, never give me a chance to say a word. why, because it was Graft, they shipped me through 2 other counties to the Kings County, Pen. and them having a Jail of their own in there County. I then thought it was as cheap to steal because I was just as poor when I come out, and so I started in on a life of crime. I committed a few small acts around new York and raised a little money on the proceed, and so I started back toward Boston but I fell in New London, and had to wait 3 months for trial and then on account of my youth and me pleading guilty (which they could never have proved if I have been an Old timer) they let me off with a year in Gail. When I come out they gave me 3 dollars and says start a new life, well I went to boston again and I got work around horses at the race track and in the fall I lost my position through the horses being sent home and so again I started to ramble this time towards the west, but I got as far as Buffalo and being broke one evning I made a raid on a wholesale grocey and got about 15$ and a wheel. I spent the 15$ around the Tenderloin in about as many hours and then I tried to sell the wheel but the jew would only give me 2 Dollars and I wanted 5$ and a policeman happened to come along and he settled the proceedings by taking me to the station, and after waiting about 2 months for a trial the judge says 9 months, the reason I got such a small sentence was because I turned the trick off right in front of station No. 1 in Broad-day-light. Why as I got through the window after breaking it I looked out into the street and saw a half Dozen big policemen sitting on the steps right across the street and it made me laugh every once in a while. While in the Buffalo pen I swore I would quit stealing for a living and to this day I kept that promise which is about 8 years ago because it aint right and jails made me a thief. I come west working on stock ranches, race tracks, rail-road camps, logging camps and all kinds of general work. But there is one question I would like to ask you before I end this letter. Every once in a while I find myself broke and out of a job and forced to beg on the streets to get the necessitys of life, and so I must conclude by cutting this letter short as I have no more writing paper and of course no money. but I am going out on the street and see cant I dig up a few old rusty dimes and now Good-bye—hoping you succeed in your undertaking of trying to get Municipal lodings such as new york as got because I have been there and no it is allright but the main point is to have decent officers in those places an not Brutes like Boston got. But the question (Why does a tramp keep tramping)
P. S. I have just come down from the free Employment office and there is a big sign on the window Dont loafe in front of this building come inside, and when you get inside there is another sign entilted Dont loaf in this office.
Nobody in this part of the country knows my right name because I have about a dozen or maybe more but if you care to write you can address John Murphy in care of Peoples institute corner of 4 and Burnside sts. Portl Ore”