"Broke," The Man Without the Dime

by Edwin A. Brown

“Yes, every State,” answered the young fellow. “Well,” said the Irishman, “I’ll bet you have never been in the state of matrimony.”

“Yes,” quickly answered the man, “I have been in Utah, too.”

“How about the state of intoxication?”

“Do you mean the State of New York, or a personal experience with John Barleycorn? If you mean the latter, I can honestly say, I have never been drunk.”

Thus we laughed and joked and then talked seriously for an extended time. These two men were on their way to the hop fields of New York for work. The younger of the two, when he had reached the age to fully comprehend, found himself in an Orphan Asylum. At fourteen he had been given to a farmer for whom he did the work of a man. When he was sixteen the family was broken up and the farm sold. He had been taught no trade and had received very little book knowledge. With the non-existence of this farm home, he became (to use the soubriquet of disrespect which is often put upon the forced migratory wage-slave) a floater.

There were only a few men in the smoking-room. Weary, almost beyond endurance, we lay down on the empty seats and fell asleep. Suddenly we were awakened by a depot official saying, “This is no lodging house.” We were roughly asked many questions,—who we were, where we were going, whether we had a ticket or the price of a ticket. When our answers proved unsatisfactory we were violently thrust into the street. I wondered at the time why we were not jailed, but I soon learned that their local prisons were full, and that the fact that they knew we had no money was a good reason,—in fact our protection from arrest.

Undaunted, I stepped up to a policeman who was standing a little way off talking to a man, and asked him for Albany’s Municipal Emergency Home. This officer, surprised at my question, hesitated to answer. The man to whom he was talking, said, “Go to the Baptist Home. Tell them you are penniless and they will take care of you. Here is my card. The address is on it.”

We went to the home but found it closed and dark. To our ringing and knocking there was no response. I learned afterwards that even if the institution had been open, we would have found no welcome as it was house-cleaning time. We next sought out the Salvation Army. It was not house-cleaning time with them but the place was much darker, more securely sealed against the homeless, hopeless wayfarer, than the Baptist Home.

A man on the street gave the two hop pickers the price of a supper, a breakfast and a place to rest, and very soon I was curled down on the cushions of an early morning train, riding the velvet into Rochester.

When, on this early Fall morning, I reached Rochester it was again God’s day of rest. A number of workingmen were grouped a little way down the street, and with assumed indifference I joined them. Their conversation was on the possibility of getting work. All of them seemed to be idle. There was no prospect in sight in the city, and they had decided to go into the apple orchards of the surrounding country. In response to my inquiry as to whether there was any public place where a fellow who was broke could get a meal with or without working for it, one of them replied, “I, too, am up against it, pal, or I would help you. The only place I have heard of is the Sunshine Rescue Mission on Front Street.”