The professional political economist of the old school, the school to which all but a handful belong, takes refuge in the census returns as the one reply to any arraignment of the present. Blind as a bat to any figures save his own, he answers all complaint with the formula: “In 1860 the property of this country, equally divided, would have given every man, woman, and child $514 each. In 1870 the share would have been $624; in 1880, $814. In 1886 returns are not in, but $900 and more would be the division per capita. What madness to talk of suffering when this flood of wealth pours through the land. Admitting that the lowest class suffer, it is chiefly crime, drunkenness, etc., that bring suffering. The majority are perfectly comfortable.”
Having read this statement in many letters and heard it in interviews as well, it seems plain that the conviction embodied in both has fastened itself upon that portion of the public whose thinking is done for them, and who range themselves by choice with that order who would not be convinced “even though one rose from the dead.” “The majority are perfectly comfortable.” Let us see how comfortable.
I turn first to the pair, a mother and daughter, a portion of whose experience found place in the chapter on “More Methods of Prosperous Firms.” Here, as in so many cases, there had been better days, and when these suddenly ended a period of bewildered helplessness, in which the widow felt that respectability like hers must know no compromise, and that any step that would involve her “being talked about” was a step toward destruction. She must live on a decent street, in a house where she need not be ashamed to have the relations come, and she did till brought face to face with the fact that there were no more dollars to spend upon respectability, and that her quarters must hereafter conform to her earnings. She had been a dweller in that curious triangle, the remnant of “Greenwich village,” the stronghold still of old New York, and she went at once to a region as unfamiliar to her conservative feet as Baxter or Hester, or any other street given over to evil. Far over toward the North River, in the first floor of a great tenement-house inhabited by the better class of Irish chiefly, she took two rooms, one a mere closet where the bed could stand; bestowed in them such furniture as remained, and at fifty, with no clew left that any friend could trace, began the fight for bread.
“It might have been better to go to the country,” she said. “But you see I wasn’t used to the country, and then any work I could get to do was right here. I’d always liked to sew, and so had Emeline, and we found we could get regular work on children’s suits, with skirts and such things in the dull seasons. It was good pay, and we were comfortable till prices began to fall. We made fifteen dollars a week sometimes, and could have got ahead if it hadn’t been for a little debt of my husband’s that I wanted to pay, for we’d never owed anybody a penny and I couldn’t let even that debt stand against his name. But when it was paid, somehow I came down with rheumatic fever, and I’ve never got back my full strength yet. And the prices kept going down. Emmy is an expert. I never knew her make a mistake, but working twelve and fourteen hours a day,—and it’s ’most often fourteen,—the most she has made for more than a year and a half is eighty-five cents a day, and on that we’ve managed. I suppose we couldn’t if I ever went out, but I’ve had no shoes in two years. I patch the ones I got then with one of my husband’s old coats, and keep along, but we never get ahead enough for me to have shoes, and Emmy too, and she’s the one that has to go out. How we live? It’s all in this little book. It’s foolish to put it down, and yet I always somehow liked to see how the money went, even when I had plenty, and it’s second nature to put down every cent. Take last month. It had twenty-seven working days: $22.95. Out of that we took first the ten dollars for rent. I’ve been here eleven years, and they’ve raised a dollar on me twice. That leaves $12.95 for provisions and coal and light and clothes. ’Tisn’t much for two people, is it? You wouldn’t think it could be done, would you? Well, it is, and here’s the expense for one week for what we eat:—
| Sugar, 23; Tomatoes, 7; Potatoes, 5 | $0.35 | |
| Tea, 15; Butter, 30; Bread, 12 | 0.57 | |
| Coal, 12; Milk, 15; Clams, 10 | 0.37 | |
| Oil, 15; Paper, 1; Clams, 10; Potatoes, 5 | 0.31 | |
| Cabbage, 5; Bread, 7; Flour, 15; Rolls, 3 | 0.30 | |
| Total | $1.90 |
“This week was an expensive one, for I got a pound of butter at once, but it will last into next week. And we had to have the scissors sharpened; that was five cents. There would have been five cents for wood, but you see they’re building down the street, and one of the boys upstairs brought me a basketful of bits. You see there’s no meat. We like it, but we only get a bit for Sundays sometimes. Emmy never wants much. Running a machine all day seems to take your appetite. But she likes clams; you see we had them twice, and I happened to read in the paper a good while ago that you could make soup of the water the cabbage was boiled in; a quart of the water and a cup of milk and a bit of butter and some flour to thicken. You wouldn’t think it could be good, but it is, and it goes a good way. The coal ought not to be in with the food, ought it, unless it stays because I have to use it cooking? We oughtn’t to spend so much on food, but I can’t seem to make it less. Really, when you take out the coal and oil and the paper,—and we do want to see a paper sometimes,—it’s only 1.62 for us both; eighty-one cents apiece; almost twelve cents a day, but I can’t well seem to make it less. I call it twelve cents a day apiece. For the month that makes $7.44, and so you see there’s $5.51 left. Then there are Emmy’s car-fares when she goes out, for sometimes she works down-town and only evenings at home. Last month it was sixty cents a week, $2.70 for the month, and so there was just $2.81 left, and $1.50 of that went for shoes for Emmy. The month before, my hands weren’t so stiff and I helped her a good deal, so we earned $26.70, and she got two remnants for $1.80 at Ehrich’s and I made her a dress that looks very well. But she’s nothing but patchwork underneath, and I’m the same, only worse. The coal is the trouble. By the scuttle it costs so much, and I try to get ahead and have a quarter of a ton at once, for there are places here to keep coal, but I never can. If it weren’t for Emmy’s missing me, it would be better for me to die, for I’m no use, you see, and times get no better, but worse. But I can’t, and we must get along somehow. Lord help us all!”
“How could twelve cents’ worth of coal do a week’s cooking?”
“It couldn’t. It didn’t. I’ve a little oil stove that just boils the kettle, and tea and bread and butter what we have mostly. A gallon of oil goes a long way, and I can cook small things over it, too. The washing takes coal, and you see I must have soap and all that. I don’t see how we could spend less. I’ve learned to manage even with what we get now, but there’s a woman next door that I know better than anybody in this house,—for here it always seemed to me best to keep quite to myself for many reasons, but the chief that I’m always hoping for a change and a chance for Emmy. But this woman is a nice German woman that fell on the ice and sprained her ankle last winter, and we saw to her well as we could till she got better. She won’t mind telling how she manages, but she’s in the top of the house. She’s a widow, and everybody dead belonging to her.”
This house was a grade below the last in cleanliness, and children swarmed on stairs and in hall. Up to the fourth floor back; a ten-feet-square room, with one window, where, in spite of a defective sink in the hall, the odor from which seemed to penetrate and saturate everything, spotless cleanliness was the expression of every inch of space.