The Older Generation
The ceremony in the rented hall (where it takes place owing to the physical limitations of the home) loses some of its dignity, however much it may have of warmth and affection. To the weddings come all the family, from the aged grandparents to the youngest grandchildren. Before the evening is over the babies are asleep in the arms of their parents or under the care of the old woman in attendance in the cloak-room.
At a typical wedding of twenty years ago the supper was spread in the basement of one of the public halls, and the incongruities were not more painfully obvious to us than to the delicate-minded bride. The rabbi chanted the blessings, and the “poet” sang old Jewish legends, weaving in stories of the families united that evening. We were moved almost to tears by the pathos of these exiles clinging to the poetic traditions of the past amid filthy surroundings; for the tables were encompassed by piles of beer kegs, with their suggestion of drink so foreign to the people gathered there; and men and women who were not guests came and went to the dressing-rooms that opened into the dining-hall. Every time we attended a wedding it shocked us anew that these sober and right-behaving people were obliged to use for their social functions the offensive halls over or behind saloons, because there were no others to be had.
An incident a few days after my coming to the East Side had first brought to my attention the question of meeting-places for the people. As usual in hard times, it was difficult for the unhappy, dissatisfied unemployed to find a place for the discussion of their troubles. Spontaneous gatherings were frequent that summer, and in one of them, described by the papers next morning as a street riot, I accidentally found myself.
It was no more than an attempt of men out of work to get together and talk over their situation. They had no money for the rent of a meeting-place, and having been driven by the police from the street corners, they tried to get into an unoccupied hall on Grand Street. Rough handling by the police stirred them to retaliation, and show of clubs was met by missiles—pieces of smoked fish snatched from a nearby stand kept by an old woman. Violence and ill-feeling might have been averted by the simple expedient of permitting them to meet unmolested. Instinctively I realized this, and felt for my purse, but I had come out with only sufficient carfare to carry me on my rounds, and an unknown, impecunious young woman in a nurse’s cotton dress was not in a position to speak convincingly on the subject of renting halls.
Later, when I visited London, I could understand the wisdom of non-interference with the well-known Hyde Park meetings. It is encouraging to note that common sense is touching the judgment of New York’s officials regarding the right of the people to meet and speak freely.
Other occurrences of those early days pointed to the need of some place of assemblage other than the unclean rooms connected with saloons. Walhalla Hall, on Orchard Street, famous long ago as a meeting-place for labor organizations, provided them with accommodations not more appropriate than those I have described. When from time to time a settlement resident helped to hide beer kegs with impromptu decorations, we pledged ourselves that whenever it came into our power we would provide a meeting-place for social functions and labor gatherings and a forum for public debate that would not sacrifice the dignity of those who used it. Our own settlement rooms were by that time in constant service for the neighborhood; but it was plain that even if we could have given them up entirely to such purposes, a place entirely free from “auspices” and to be rented—not given under favor—was required. Prince Kropotkin, then on a visit to America, urged upon me the wisdom of keeping a people free by allowing freedom of speech, and of respecting their assemblages by affording dignified accommodations for them.
It was curious, when one realized it, that recognition of the normal, wholesome impulse of young people to congregate should also have been left to the saloon-keeper, and the young lads who frequented undesirable places were often wholly unaware that they themselves were, to use their own diction, “easy marks.”