Yet some who live in palaces, and many bold charlatans of trade who use the name of philanthropy to guild their shady ways, will still cry, “Why don’t the out-of-work man help the farmer? Why don’t they go onto the land?” They certainly do not mean in the domain of the Hudson.
In talking with an editor, I once advanced the thought of the advantage of cultivating every acre of the ground from New York to Albany. The astonished editor replied, “Why, would you destroy the scenery of our American Rhine?”
Destroy the scenery! I could not but ask, surprisedly, “What is more beautiful than a cultivated vineyard, or a farm supporting an American home?” But this was what the search light revealed. The great estates of the greatest financiers in the world; the palaces of wealthy brewers; the castles of whiskey distillers; monasteries of the Church of England; Roman Catholic convents; orphans’ homes, reformatories for white slaves, States prisons, criminal insane asylums; United States War Schools; government store-houses for high explosives; miles of unsightly brick-yards (of the Brick Trust); acres of decaying old frame shacks; ice-houses (of the Ice Trust;) signs, “Don’t trespass” and “Beware of the dog”—and hundreds of hungry, starving men.
CHAPTER XXIII
Albany—In the Midst of the Fight
“As long as any man exists there is some need of him. Let him fight for his own.”—Emerson.
Between the hours of ten P. M. and midnight the next evening, I found myself (with another down-and-out worker) sitting in the smoking-room of the Albany depot. My momentary acquaintance was an Irishman. Presently another young fellow, whose appearance was indicative of having recently put off a good many meals, came in and sat down near us. The Irishman looked squarely and inquisitively at the new-comer (who was an Irish-American), and recognizing by some mutual instinct that he belonged to the army who must work and wander, abruptly said: “Who are you?”
“I am a tramp,” the young fellow replied.
“Then, I suppose,” continued the Irishman, “you have been in every State in the Union.”