We might have alluded to the “Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers,” founded by that arch-proselytizer, the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, which during seven years disposed of 7,580 “little wanderers” of this city, in an unsectarian manner; but want of space forbids our doing so. But the animus pervading this and other unsectarian institutions is exhibited to us now in the fact, that this reverend has transferred the field of his labors from the Five Points to the city of Rome, the centre and headquarters of Catholicity. He has there established a mission and home for the little Romans. We do not stand alone in our opinion that such institutions are nuisances for Catholic children, and we quote the closing words of a letter recently addressed to the Rev. Mr. Van Meter by the editor of the Voce della Verita, at Rome:
“Now, dear sir, excuse me if I remind you, that although a very ignorant person, ‘when I was a little boy,’ I also went to school, and learned a few things about your country. I remember to have heard it said that misery and ignorance abounded there, and that many hundreds of thousands of your compatriots knew of no other God than the almighty dollar. Why do you not go back and teach in Nebraska or Texas, and leave us alone? You might positively do some good there—now you are a—well, let me tell the truth—a nuisance. By your homeward voyage, you will benefit both your own country and ours.”[8]
Another complaint that we make against our semi-governmental charities relates to the violation of the rights of parents and children, in the sale of these children at the West. This pernicious practice of exiling and transporting children from New York to the West is still in full vigor amongst these institutions. How can we boast of our charities, when their main feature consists in shifting the burden from our own shoulders to those of others, and they are strangers? It is in vain that we claim these children as the wards and protégés of society and of our city, if we repudiate the duties and responsibilities of our guardianship. Against this cruelty and injustice we protest in the names of civilization and Christianity. The institutions whose reports we have referred to not only admit, but they boast of this outrage upon the rights of parents and of children. One of them, the Children’s Aid Society, refers to this branch of operations, “its Emigration System,” as the “crown” of all its works. The number of children thus exiled from the state by this society and transported to distant regions, during the year of the report referred to, was 3,386; the whole number since 1854 was 25,215. More than half the 3,386 were sent to Ohio, and to the distant states of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Of one little boy thus exiled, who was separated from his parents at the age of eight years, the Western agent reports: “I think his mother would scarcely know him.” He reports that the mistress to whom another was “disposed of” writes of him: “Indeed, I don’t know what I should do without him, for he saves me a great many steps. I wish we could find out about his brother and sister, he often cries about them.”
Exile and transportation of children is also practised by the Five Points House of Industry. They have obtained extraordinary powers for this purpose from the Legislature. For while the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction, a purely governmental institution, possess the power of indenturing children to citizens of the state of New York and adjoining states only, the Five Points House of Industry has received the power to send them anywhere and everywhere. But the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction send the poor children they get into their power to the most remote states in violation of the express law of the case. For instead of confining their indentures to citizens of New York and the adjoining states, as the law directs, they send them indiscriminately to every state, even the most distant. We ask those public servants by what fiction of law they make California and Texas adjoin New York?
The New York Juvenile Asylum has also a “regular agency at Chicago, by which the work of indenturing children at the West is conducted.”[9] The total number of children sent West during fifteen years, from 1857 to 1871 inclusive, is 2,206, and the annual average, 147-1/15 (p. 47).
The extent to which this crowning cruelty of our non-sectarian institutions is carried, is appalling. We have only cited the cases of the three whose reports happened to be before us. But we have been informed, unofficially, and we think the statement can be made good, that there are in the city of New York no less than twenty-eight charitable institutions engaged in this cruel practice of transporting our New York children to the West and other remote parts, and the average number of these little exiles per week is about two hundred, making about ten thousand every year. What untold abuses and hardships must result from this barbarous practice! However noble, generous, and philanthropic may be the motives of the citizen-managers of these institutions, they cannot attend in person to the details or even the general management of their work. Not only are their houses in the city confided to the management of hired and salaried agents and servants, but the work of transporting children to the West is confided generally to the same class of agents, and we intend to show how this charitable function is discharged. They are actuated by no higher motives than usually actuate their class. The love of God, and of man for God’s sake, is not the spirit that inspires their labors and guides their steps. Corruption and infidelity to duty have stalked brazenly into the public service everywhere; what reason have we for claiming an exemption in favor of those who find profitable employment in the administration of public charities?
But, as the Christian Union demands further proof than is accessible to the public, we will produce some additional evidence, although we think we have already shown enough to condemn this system; and the tone of that journal’s article leads us to believe that if an angel from heaven disclosed to its view the same corruption and oppression which we see in this branch of public administration, it would still cling to its idols.
Now we have before us a letter, dated September 23, 1872, addressed by a clergyman at Tiffin, Ohio, to a clergyman in the East, from which we quote:
“In answer to your request concerning those children brought on some four or five years ago from the East to be disposed of, I might say with prudence, that to several counties of Ohio had been brought car-loads of children from three years on to twelve and thirteen years old, and offered to the public to take one or more; for they who offered the children said those who would take them had to pay the expenses of bringing them to the place. For some children the man said the expense would be fifteen dollars, for others more, others less. This is the way the affair was carried on for some time.”
The gentleman to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, and who sent it to us, gives also his own testimony on this public traffic in innocent human beings. His letter is dated September 25, 1872, and reads as follows: