But I could walk alone and fairly well now. We turned up Michigan Avenue and followed it to the river, discussing, as we went, a plan of action. Clark was for going at once to the far North Side in search of employment at various iron-works and foundries there, of whose existence he had learned. I longed for the means of early relief from the reviving pangs of hunger through some chance job which I hoped that we might obtain. This was a new idea to Clark. He was a raw recruit in the army of the unemployed. That he might look for other work than that which was in the line of his trade had not yet presented itself to him as a possibility. He shrank from it with the instinctive dislike of a conservative for a new way. And all our early essays confirmed him in his aversion. We went from door to door of the great wholesale business houses at the head of Michigan Avenue. Large delivery trucks stood lined up along the curb on both sides, and there was the bustle across the pavement of much loading and unloading of wares. Workmen in leather aprons were handling packed boxes with the swiftness and dexterity of long practice. At half a score of houses we sought out an overseer or a superintendent and asked to be set to work; but, without a moment’s hesitation in a single case, we were told, with varying degrees of emphasis, that we were not needed, not even for some chance, exceptional demand.
It is difficult to describe the discouragement which results from such an experience. All about you is the tumultuous industry of a great city. You feel something of the splendid power of its ceaseless productivity; you guess at its vast consuming; and in the din of its noisy traffic you watch the swift shuttles which weave the varied fabric of its business. Its complexities and interdependencies bear down upon you with an inspiring sense of the volume of human life spent in ministering to life. Its multitudes throng you upon the streets, and you read in countless faces the story of unending struggle to keep abreast with pressing duty. Work? Everywhere about you there is work, stupendous, appalling, cumulative in its volume and intensity with the increasing momentum of a world-wide trade, which is driven by the natural forces of demand and supply and keenest competition. Men everywhere are staggering under burdens too grievous to be borne. And here are you idle, yet counting it the greatest boon if you might but add your strength to the mighty struggle.
Is there then no demand for labor? There is most importunate, insatiable demand for all work of finer skilfulness, for all men who can assume responsibility and give new efficiency to productive forces, or direct them into channels for the development of new wealth. But in the presence of this demand Clark and I stood asking hire for the potential physical energies of two hungry human bodies, and, standing so, we were but two units in a like multitude of unemployed.
When we reached the river I had difficulty in dissuading Clark from his confirmed resolve to pass on to the North Side in pursuit of his earlier plan. He had no thought of leaving me behind. He urged that a chance job was as probable along his route as any other. But he consented at last to another hour of search in the immediate vicinity.
We were in South Water Street; we walked west until we had crossed State and had come to the corner of Dearborn Street. Walking became increasingly difficult, for the pavements were piled high with boxes and barrels and crates full of all manner of fruits and vegetables, and wooden coops packed with live game and poultry. A narrow passage remained between the piles. Through this we picked our way, carefully avoiding empty boxes and hand-trucks and stray measures that lay strewn about. On each side of the street buildings of brick or stone, fairly uniform in height, rose four-storied and many windowed, with the monotony of their straight lines relieved by the curves of arched windows, each bearing a protruding keystone. Over the wide fronts of the shops sagged awnings in various stages of faded color and unrepair, their iron frames lying uncovered and unsightly against the fluted canvas. Along both curbs were backed continuous rows of drays and trucks and market-wagons. The two lines of horses stood blanketed in the cold, facing each other across a narrow opening down the stone-paved street, and more than anything else they resembled lines of picketed cavalry.
We soon felt the friction of the crowd as it steered its devious course along the littered pavement, brushing against groups of purchasers who stood examining sample wares, and against idlers leaning to the doorposts with hands in their trousers’ pockets, and through the cross currents of drivers and shopmen who busily took on or discharged the loads.
The very confusion and hurry of the scene, while they suggested the chance of work, were really an added embarrassment to our search. More than under other circumstances we shrank from asking employment from men hard driven by the “instant need of things.” And this instinctive feeling was fully justified in the course of the actual quest. Of common hands there was an abundance, and ours, held out for sale, were of the nature of a provocation to men cumbered by complex care. Occasionally we could not get access to an employer; and when we did, we sometimes received a civil “no,” but commonly an emphatic one in a vent of evil temper.
At one moment an old gentleman was looking up at us over the tops of his spectacles as we stood at the foot of his desk. There was much shrewdness in his eye, and his face was deeply lined, but his speech revealed the frankness of a courteous nature.
“No, I’m sorry,” he was saying, “I’m sorry that I can give you nothing to do. The fact is, I’ve got to lay off three men at the end of the week. My business don’t warrant my keeping them. I hope you’ll be more fortunate elsewhere.”
A minute later we were standing waiting for the attention of a square-shouldered, thick-necked dealer who was in angry dispute with a subordinate. His face was still distorted when he turned upon us, and his dilating eyes sought mine with an expression of growing impatience.