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 THE CHILDREN 
 IN THE SHADOW 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST K. COULTER 
 
 Formerly Clerk of the Children's Court, 
 
 New York 
 Founder of the Big Brother Movement 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 JACOB A, RIIS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 
 1918
 
 Copyright, 1913, by 
 McBride, Nast & Co. 
 
 Published, February, 1913
 
 TO 
 H. L. C.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ^TXrHEN a child is arraigned in Court, 
 * » there are always three delinquents, the 
 child, the parent and the community. And the 
 last is the worst sinner, for it let the slum grow, 
 that wrecked home and child alike." 
 
 That is the answer that comes from the Chil- 
 dren's Court to the cry, " What of the night? " 
 
 It is well for us all that we had so faithful a 
 watchman there. But Mr. Coulter does more 
 than give warning of disaster ; he knows the way 
 out and he points us to it. Long years ago, at 
 a gathering of serious men, when he had told of 
 the sights he saw daily and the shamed question 
 struggled to the surface : " Can nothing be 
 done?" he was ready with the answer. 
 
 " Yes, be the neighbor ! You are forty sitting 
 
 here. If each of you were to be neighbor, 
 
 brother, to one of these little ones and see him 
 
 through, forty would be saved from shipwreck. 
 
 It is not law the lad needs, but justice, the kind 
 
 ix
 
 x Introduction 
 
 of justice which only the brother can give — the 
 love, the friendship, for which his life has been 
 starving. All the rest will come on the trail of 
 that." And that night forty entered the lists for 
 the boy. 
 
 The forty have swelled into hundreds, and the 
 Big Brother and the Little Brother have made 
 the world a better place to live in. For they 
 have helped us understand that "neighbor" is 
 the pass-word that gets us over the hard places, 
 and that nothing else will ; not laws nor reforms, 
 nor political platforms and propagandas. They 
 are all ways of helping, but the way with the lad 
 is neighborly friendship. A hand laid in kind- 
 ness on his shoulder that shrunk just now from 
 the copper's vengeful grip is more potent for his 
 conversion than a term in the best reformatory 
 that was ever planned, if there is one deserving 
 of the name. 
 
 The man who has taught us this has a right to 
 be heard, and what he tells us in these pages is 
 well worth listening to. "No child is born 
 vicious." In his soul is the image of God which 
 the slum would crush out with "the environ-
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 ment that makes all for unrighteousness." 
 That at last we are bestirring ourselves to 
 mend that environment is the chief claim of our 
 day to be better than all that went before, and 
 in that the share of Ernest K. Coulter has been 
 no mean one. 
 
 Ju**^^
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This is the story of the three delinquents, the 
 child, the parent and the community, as it comes 
 from the new but greatest social clinics in the 
 world, the Children's Courts. In dealing with 
 the child we deal with fundamentals; there 
 is no mask, we get at real living conditions, the 
 causes that lead him and his elders into conflict 
 with society and the law. 
 
 It is often plain that the real culprit that 
 should be arraigned is not the child, but the con- 
 ditions that have brought him to court. We 
 have too long counted property rights more sa- 
 cred than human rights : " the tenements are 
 more carefully safeguarded than are the dwellers 
 in them, the traffic in the streets is more impor- 
 tant than the little child who plays there because 
 he has no other place." A century ago children 
 were still being hanged on Tyburn Hill for 
 larceny. Half a century ago we occasionally 
 hanged a child in this country for murder. 
 There were laws to protect the horse and the dog 
 
 xiii
 
 xiv Foreword 
 
 from cruelty before the child had any real meas- 
 ure of protection. A dog or a horse could be 
 sold, both had property value. But a man could 
 still beat his child into a state of insensibility 
 and thrust him into the streets to die while it 
 was criminal for him to strike inhumanly his 
 dumb brute. Until a good woman invaded a 
 Hell's Kitchen tenement less than four decades 
 ago and dragged to light a naked, half-dead little 
 creature whose body was covered with the marks 
 of the shears her guardians had used in tor- 
 turing her, the public had been too busy, too 
 selfish to think of laws for the prevention of 
 cruelty to children. Then it was that Henry 
 Bergh, who was the head of an animal society, 
 and Elbridge T. Gerry organized the first 
 society to protect children from cruelty. It is 
 little more than a decade too, since communities 
 generally ceased to arraign children in company 
 with the city's outcasts, thieves and thugs. In 
 the slow process of social evolution we are at last 
 beginning to realize something of the potentiali- 
 ties of the child of to-day in the affairs of to- 
 morrow.
 
 Foreword xv 
 
 The delinquent parent is a much more serious 
 problem than the delinquent child. Our Chil- 
 dren's Courts are proving that we can do with 
 the latter practically as we please. Unless he 
 is mentally defective it is chiefly a question of 
 the right surroundings. The delinquent parent, 
 however, is not of such plastic material. His 
 habits are fixed, but he, like the child, is largely 
 the product of environment. 
 
 And some of this environment we shall see. 
 Believing that pictures are more potent than 
 platitudes, the writer has frequently introduced 
 them and assures his readers they are all actual 
 scenes, a few of the thousands that have come 
 under his observation. He has endeavored to 
 make them as true as those of the photographer, 
 who went about in the guise of a peddler, his 
 street subjects all unconscious that concealed in 
 the box he carried was a camera. 
 
 The community is the most culpable of the 
 three delinquents; it is responsible for the en- 
 vironment. What has been set down here has 
 been in the hope of further hastening its present 
 rousing from its self-indulgent apathy.
 
 xvi Foreword 
 
 In the Children's Courts appear most clearly- 
 all the wrongs and inequalities whereby organ- 
 ized society, selfish and therefore ignorant, warps, 
 thwarts and denies the future citizen. If the 
 child is not to grow up to become a public charge, 
 to fill the charitable institutions, the hospitals, 
 the prisons, he must have light and air and space. 
 Every crowded, ill-ventilated tenement is a tax 
 upon the future. Each, too, is a breeding place 
 of parental as well as juvenile delinquency; for 
 each the community is responsible. It has the 
 right, the privilege, the power to correct these 
 evils, but it has not been attending to the conduct 
 of its own affairs. These matters, the massing 
 of the population, the regulation of immigration, 
 the hygienic conditions of the tenements, rents 
 and wages have been left in the hands of those, 
 who profiting by congestion and extortion, have 
 been blind to the rights of our neighbor and his 
 child. Our Children's Courts will do much to 
 help the new awakening. 
 
 The writer has watched a great, sorrowful 
 procession of one hundred thousand children 
 pass before a single tribunal, which he helped
 
 Foreword xvii 
 
 to organize and where for almost ten years he 
 served continuously as an official. This may 
 give him the right, perhaps, to record some 
 of his observations with authority — observations 
 of the three delinquents, the grist of the mills of 
 greed and an awakening social conscience 
 towards the children in the shadow. 
 
 For permission to use a few paragraphs from 
 articles by him which have appeared in The 
 North American Review, The Outlook and The 
 Delineator, the author wishes to make grateful 
 acknowledgment.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I THE PROCESSION 1 
 
 Chapteb II THE NEW LIFE-SAVING STATIONS . 25 
 
 Chapteb III CRADLES OF DELINQUENCY ... 41 
 
 Chapteb IV THE STOLEN HERITAGE .... 59 
 
 Chapteb V THE MILLS OF GREED 79 
 
 Chapteb VI THE HOPPERS 100 
 
 Chapteb VII THE STRANDED HOST 113 
 
 Chapteb VIII LABELING THE BUSINESS . ... 131 
 
 Chapteb IX THE DELINQUENT PARENT . . .154 
 
 Chapteb X THE CHILD OF BONDAGE .... 177 
 
 Chapteb XI THE NURSERY FOR LITTLE THIEVES 199 
 
 Chapteb XII THE MENTAL MISFITS 225 
 
 Chapteb XIII BIG BROTHERS AND BIG SISTERS 246 
 
 Chapteb XIV THE AWAKENING 271
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A Derelict Skillet Is His Ship ........ Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 This Pair Walked into the Children's Court and Asked 
 
 to be "Put Away" 2 
 
 Children of Six Different Nationalities 20 
 
 A Cast-off Barrel Must Serve as a Horse 36 
 
 A Tenement "Living" Room . . „ .. . . m ... . 54 
 
 Sleeping on the Pavement . . . . „ .,..,... 72 
 
 Children Doing Factory Work at Home 96 
 
 A Few of the Million Immigrants 110 
 
 Sleeping on Fire-escapes and Eoof3 126 
 
 A Tenement Court 146 
 
 The Pavements Are Their Only Green Fields .... 164 
 
 Burdens too Heavy for Childish Arms ....... 184 
 
 On the Way Home with the Task 184 
 
 A Typical Street Scene 204 
 
 The Babies Demand Her Attention „ . 228 
 
 Their Automobile Is a Trifle Crowded . . . . ,. . 228 
 
 "Dutch de Barrel Crook" 248 
 
 A Group of Big Brother Farm Boys 266
 
 THE CHILDREN 
 IN THE SHADOW
 
 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PROCESSION 
 
 rpWO little wanderers, ragged and forlorn, 
 ■*■ halted in front of a squat red brick build- 
 ing that stands at the entrance to the Bowery, 
 the great gray way of New York. They studied 
 its doors and windows, then climbed the stone 
 steps. They sat there a moment, their frowsy 
 heads together, in whispered conversation. 
 
 Suddenly they leaped to the middle of the side- 
 walk and began to pummel each other like mad. 
 They punched and pounded, giving little heed to 
 the gathering crowd; but they stopped now and 
 then to glance at those doors and windows. Ap- 
 parently no one on the inside was looking. They 
 went at it again and finally their entwined little 
 bodies went to the pavement in a squirming 
 lump. And still they battered and punched 
 until the nose of one was bloodied and the shirt 
 of the other was lacking a sleeve. A great hand
 
 2 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 was finally laid on the collar of each and they 
 were dragged to their feet and through the por- 
 tals of the old building. The policeman from the 
 sidewalk tried the usual police grilling. It was 
 answered with stolid silence. Then someone, 
 who belonged in the building, and who better un- 
 derstood, tried gentler persuasion. The tears 
 came and with them the story of cruelty and neg- 
 lect. 
 
 These boys were brothers. There was no 
 hatred between them. They had been driven 
 from the place which custom would call home, 
 by parents who wanted to be rid of them. They 
 had been threatened with death if they returned, 
 and the old marks of abuse that they bore on 
 their bodies were an earnest of the treatment 
 that awaited them if they went back. For three 
 weeks they had passed their days foraging over 
 the refuse heaps of the markets for food, their 
 nights had been spent in the areaways, huddled 
 close in an effort to keep warm. They could 
 have gone to the Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Children and had shelter, had they 
 known it.
 
 This pair walked into the Children's Court one 
 day and asked to be "put away." The father had 
 disappeared, the mother had died a week before 
 and they had been wandering the streets. They 
 were sent to a good home in the country
 
 The Procession 3 
 
 In their wanderings, some lad told them of a 
 place from which "bad" boys were sometimes 
 sent away to homes where they would have to 
 work hard, it was true, where they would have 
 to be in bed early every night and where there 
 was always someone watching them. But even 
 their confused little minds were able to work it 
 out that such a life would be much better than 
 the one they were living. They decided, there- 
 fore, that they would " get took," as they called 
 it. 
 
 But how to " get took " was the next question. 
 The older brother had suggested, as he after- 
 wards confessed, that "they hit a guy on de 
 block wid a brick." The younger brother pro- 
 tested that " de guy " had never done them any 
 harm. Which goes to show that even in the most 
 neglected child there is a spirit of fair play and 
 decency, a good material on which to work if the 
 community will get at it before it is crushed out. 
 
 The boys starved and shivered for two more 
 days and nights, and then the elder one sug- 
 gested that they smash a jeweler's window and 
 run away with a watch. But again the younger
 
 4 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 boy demurred, this time offering a remedy of his 
 own invention — that they go up under the very 
 nose of the Court and fight each other until the 
 police were forced to take them. 
 
 It is a pleasure to record that the parents of 
 those boys were " took " too. When the black 
 gowned Judge, who presided over the Children's 
 Court, ordered that the father pay to the State 
 exactly what it would cost to maintain these two 
 youngsters in the good home to which they were 
 sent or else go to prison, the man tore his beard 
 in his rage and the mother screamed hysterically 
 and had to be carried out of court. 
 
 This humane tribunal, one of the very recent 
 products of a newly awakening public con- 
 science, is one of the world's greatest centers of 
 human interest. It was not the first Children's 
 Court to be established, but it is the biggest. 
 About 10,000 children are dealt with here each 
 year, and here are revealed, as in no other way, 
 the city's real living conditions. The cruelties 
 of parents and of the community, the hopeful- 
 ness and responsiveness of the coming citizens,
 
 The Procession 5 
 
 still in the formative period, are disclosed with 
 startling vividness. 
 
 A little fellow, whose baggy trousers are held 
 over his diminutive nakedness by a single sus- 
 pender, his face chalky white and his eyes down- 
 cast, stands before the Judge, and he woefully 
 rubs his stomach. 
 
 "What's the matter, Beans?" kindly inquires 
 the Court. 
 
 Beans scarcely lifts his eyes and replies sadly : 
 
 " Me stumach's delirious, Mister." 
 
 When it is learned that Beans' sole diet for 
 the past three weeks has been stale buns and 
 water, the condition of his stomach is readily 
 understood. It is not Beans' fault, nor that of 
 his father; they were doing the best they could. 
 They could live with little food, but they had to 
 have a roof under which to do the sweatshop 
 work. Three cents, the father told me, was the 
 price he got for sewing satin linings in men's 
 overcoats. When he worked hard he could make 
 five dollars, and once in a great while when he 
 sat up late nights, he made six dollars a week.
 
 6 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 He used to make more when his wife and four 
 children helped him, but the white death had 
 taken her and all the children except Beans. 
 The Court sends Beans to a good home in the 
 country and the father goes back to his slavery. 
 
 " James Hennessy ! " calls the clerk. 
 
 A door at the side of the crowded court-room 
 opens. A little fellow, stunted and anaemic, 
 trots out. He mounts a platform in front of the 
 bench. He is scarcely able to keep his heavy eye- 
 lids open. Jimmy has been dragged out of a 
 dry-goods box sometime between midnight and 
 dawn by a big policeman who had found him 
 fast asleep there. A hand is raised as a sign 
 that the officer is to be sworn and Jimmy dodges. 
 That is instinct, he has been dodging all his life. 
 His whole existence has vibrated between hatred 
 and fear. 
 
 The story is told in the usual stolid, police- 
 man's way. There are a few formal phrases 
 about " exposed and neglected " and " improper 
 guardianship," all beyond Jimmy's ken. He is 
 simply a cornered, cowering young animal. 
 The gowned Judge in the big chair begins to talk
 
 The Procession 7 
 
 to him. The strange thing to Jimmy is, that he 
 is neither being cursed at nor reviled. This man 
 is speaking quietly, kindly. Jimmy knows lit- 
 tle of church, but this must be the priest. There 
 is a queer stirring within his stunted little being, 
 a new pucker comes to his pinched face. His 
 fists go suddenly to his eyes. Then, strangest of 
 all, his grimy, tear-bedewed hand is taken gently 
 by the gowned man. Jimmy looks fearfully into 
 the man's eyes. He suddenly sees something 
 there better than a bed, better even than the food 
 he craved, a something for which he had dumbly 
 starved, the first ray of human sympathy and 
 kindness he has ever had in his whole gray lit- 
 tle life. 
 
 And when James Hennessy, erstwhile of Cor- 
 lear's Hook, steps out of the court he, too, goes 
 into a good home and so is saved to the State. 
 Jimmy had not been arrested for any offense he 
 had committed; rather it was the offense of hia 
 parents who had deserted him months before and 
 left him to shift for himself. This story is one 
 of the commonest of the common stories of the 
 ten thousand that annually come into court.
 
 8 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 An Italian mother, an infant asleep on one 
 arm, leads Giacomo by an ear before the Court. 
 She takes the stand and after lifting her hand to 
 high heaven and taking the oath, through an in- 
 terpreter, volubly proceeds to swear her son's 
 liberties away. There is no charge too black for 
 Giacomo. She wants the boy railroaded to the 
 Collegio. Giacomo, the culprit, the malefactor, 
 stands patiently by. On a sudden the baby be- 
 gins to wail. Giacomo, the outcast, patiently 
 reaches into the pocket of his little jacket and 
 brings out a feeding bottle. He mounts the 
 stand, places the nipple in the crying infant's 
 mouth and steps back to his place while the tale 
 of his misdeeds flows swiftly on. The Justice 
 brings his gavel down with a whack. 
 
 " Stop ! " he commands, turning on the 
 mother. " I have learned all that is necessary 
 about Giacomo. I am convinced he is a good 
 boy; you are simply trying to get rid of him. 
 He will go home and you will take the best care 
 of him. You will be watched; Giacomo himself 
 will come back in two weeks and tell me how you 
 are treating him J "
 
 The Procession <) 
 
 ■ So Giaeomo, patient and long suffering, goes 
 back to his old job of nursing the baby, but under 
 new auspices. With the Court taking hold that 
 home will be straightened out, and the boy may 
 get the chance that has until now been denied 
 him. 
 
 A frightened urchin of ten, who had run off 
 with a pair of shoes that were hanging in front 
 of a store, climbs up before the bench. A worn, 
 anxious mother, who sees him now for the first 
 time since he was taken into custody, lays a 
 trembling hand on his arm. Care and the marks 
 of drudgery are on her face. She is a scrub- 
 woman and has a family of five that the father 
 has deserted. The little fellow's eyes fill. 
 
 "Judge, I took 'em for me little sister," he 
 quavers. 
 
 The sister is there, two years younger than the 
 defendant. She shows her sympathy by holding 
 his hand and patting him on the cheek. The 
 stolen shoes are produced and, sure enough, they 
 are about Emma's size and Emma's toes are 
 showing. From some unknown source the price 
 of those stolen shoes is dropped into the com-
 
 10 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 plainant's hand and lie leaves court, grumbling 
 in his beard. A member of one of the charitable 
 committees constantly in attendance at Court be- 
 comes interested and, following the boy's arrest 
 and arraignment, things will look up in that 
 home. In days before Children's Courts were 
 established and boys and girls of tender years 
 were still being tried at a bar with grown crim- 
 inals, this lad might have been hurried off to 
 a reformatory with the danger of being contam- 
 inated by hardened offenders or else turned into 
 an automaton. 
 
 Then comes one of that sleek, suave, well 
 groomed type, physically well-off but morally 
 ruined, a boy pickpocket. He is charged with 
 having taken her week's wages from the hand- 
 bag of a working girl. The plain clothes man 
 saw him open the clasp of the bag in crowded 
 Grand Street, and after getting the pay en- 
 velope, quickly pass it to a companion. The boy 
 stoutly denies his guilt and his ready tongue of- 
 fers a plausible story of how he was simply pass- 
 ing at the time and the detective got him by 
 mistake. He has already been in a reformatory
 
 The Procession ll 
 
 for a " larceny from the person " and the Judge 
 knows him and his class thoroughly. There is 
 nothing for it but to send the boy back to the 
 House of Refuge. There is little chance that he 
 will come out honest, for the pickpocket is the 
 one almost hopeless child. For the protection of 
 the community, however, and that of the other 
 boys of his neighborhood, it is necessary to isolate 
 him. Even though he knows he is to be sent 
 away he refuses absolutely to tell of the men who 
 have trained him and who have been profiting 
 even more than himself by his thievings. The de- 
 sire in the Children's Courts is not to send chil- 
 dren to institutions but to keep them with their 
 parents if that is at all possible. The commit- 
 ment of some children, however, is absolutely 
 necessary, to save them either from undesirable 
 homes or from themselves. So it is that only 
 about one-fifth of all the children arraigned in 
 the New York County Children's Court are sent 
 either to charitable or reformatory institutions. 
 A tawny haired, brazen faced, overgrown 
 girl of fourteen is called. A ragged band of 
 crepe has ostentatiously been tied to a sleeve of
 
 12 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 her jacket. The complaint reads that this girl 
 is in danger of becoming morally depraved. She 
 has been frequenting low dance halls and moving 
 picture places and has often been away from 
 home all night " without her parents' consent." 
 Not that this last would make much difference. 
 They are worthless people and have not even 
 taken sufficient interest to be in court. Lizzie, 
 the agent says, is a menace to the neighborhood. 
 There are so many menaces in her neighborhood 
 that it is doubtful if one more or less would 
 make a great deal of difference to the children 
 there. But Lizzie's own future is to be thought 
 of. When the agent finishes his story and after 
 the Judge has looked at the record, he turns to 
 the girl. 
 
 " I understand that you smoke cigarettes." 
 
 Lizzie is sullen and defiant. 
 
 " Show me your hand," demands the Court. 
 
 Lizzie readily puts up her left hand. 
 
 "No, your right is the one I want to see," 
 quietly observes the Judge. 
 
 The girl reluctantly holds forth her right hand 
 for inspection. The Judge carefully examines
 
 The Procession 13 
 
 the fingers. Yes, the tell-tale stains are there. 
 
 Now Lizzie is ready to talk. Here's a chance 
 for her imagination and the skilful deceit that 
 she has been employing so much of late. 
 
 " Say, Judge, do you know Mrs. Rose who lives 
 in our house?" 
 
 The Court has not the honor of Mrs. Rose's 
 acquaintance. 
 
 "Well," continues Lizzie, nothing discon- 
 certed, " Mrs. Rose, she fell down steps last week 
 and sprained her ankle and I had to paint it 
 with iodine." She has other explanations quite 
 as ingenious and ready when the Judge ques- 
 tions her about her misdeeds. The Court is 
 familiar with such stories and it all winds up, 
 at least for the present, with Lizzie's being sent 
 away to a reformatory for girls. The time is in- 
 definite but she will probably be out in a year 
 and a half or two years; then there will be an- 
 other chapter. The question is if it will do Liz- 
 zie any good. In the reformatory where she is 
 going there are many girls worse than herself. 
 There are no cottages, nor opportunity for segre- 
 gation by groups, a plan that is wisely being
 
 14 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 followed in the newer institutions. No matter 
 how rigid the discipline nor how persistent the 
 religious instruction there will be companion- 
 ship and conversation with other girls whose 
 knowledge of evil is wider than Lizzie's. She 
 has been a product of bad conditions; will the 
 new environment help her? 
 
 Another girl, a frail creature physically and 
 morally, the victim of a vicious mother, is ar- 
 raigned. The child wears silk stockings and 
 when the agent took her he found her cheeks 
 painted. There is no suggestion of that now, 
 for the tears have washed it off. As the weep- 
 ing child is led away she looks reproachfully 
 at her flashily dressed mother. 
 
 "Never mind, Florence," is the consolation 
 the mother calls back, " the lower you fall, the 
 higher you'll bounce." 
 
 Would there be any punishment too severe for 
 a parent like this? And yet this mother walks 
 out of court scot-free. There are laws dealing 
 with the impairment of the morals of children, 
 but they are totally inadequate as relating to 
 parents.
 
 The Procession 15 
 
 Two little girls whose fair faces, dainty 
 frocks, and be-ribboned braids mark them in 
 sharp contrast to the array of children still to 
 be called before the Judge, are arraigned for 
 breaking into a house and stealing a quantity 
 of jewelry. Were they adults the charge 
 against these two would be burglary. But in 
 the recent awakening to a consciousness of our 
 duty toward the child, and with the adoption 
 of saner methods of dealing with child offenders, 
 they are no longer branded as criminals in this 
 court. When they are under sixteen and the of- 
 fense is less than murder, they are charged with 
 juvenile delinquency; or, if they have not com- 
 mitted an actual offense themselves, but are in 
 court because they have been neglected or 
 cruelly treated by their parents, the charge is 
 improper guardianship. In broad daylight 
 these two little girls — they are all of twelve — 
 have climbed a fire escape to the sixth story 
 and with a poker forced an entrance to an 
 apartment. It develops that the window had 
 been very insecurely fastened, otherwise their 
 small strength would not have enabled them to
 
 16 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 open it. One had stood guard on the fire escape 
 while the other entered. This was really a need- 
 less precaution because they knew their neigh- 
 bors were gone for the day. The little girl who 
 entered passed through rooms with which she 
 was familiar — the people they were robbing 
 were friends of her family — and went directly 
 to a dresser drawer from which she took a jewel 
 box. She emptied the contents into a black bag 
 which the children had made especially for this 
 occasion. On returning to the fire escape she 
 passed the bag to her waiting companion, and 
 the latter ascended by the fire escape to the roof. 
 The little girl who had actually taken the jew- 
 elry remained behind to close the window and 
 cover the retreat, then the child burglars joined 
 forces on the housetop. They crept from chim- 
 ney to chimney, peeked over ledges, and made 
 their " get-away " apparently with all the care 
 of trained house breakers. They reached an 
 open scuttle through which they gained the 
 stairway and finally the street, some doors away 
 from the house they had robbed. Soon they 
 were distributing rings and trinkets to wonder-
 
 The Procession 17 
 
 ing playmates who gathered around them. 
 
 These little girls — these infants engaging in a 
 bold burglary that had been carried out after 
 most careful thought and preparation — had good 
 homes, apparently, and the whole affair was so 
 incongruous that it caused the Court to marvel. 
 The dramatic element was so conspicuous, and 
 the talk of the children so ingenuous that the 
 Court decided there must be a careful probing 
 to reach the inspiration of the plot. While the 
 children evinced actual pride in the details of 
 their burglary they were absolutely silent as to 
 how the notion was put into their small heads. 
 
 The two are finally remanded to the custody of 
 the Society until an investigation can be made. 
 After several days the agents discover that the 
 father of one of the little girls is, in addition 
 to his regular business, the silent partner in a 
 moving picture show, and that his daughter has 
 had free access to this exhibition. She has been 
 spending a large part of her out-of-school hours 
 there and has always taken the other little girl 
 with her. They have witnessed a picture drama 
 of the nickel novel type, called " The Great
 
 18 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 Diamond Robbery," until all its details have 
 taken firm hold on their receptive imaginations. 
 The actors in this criminal adventure have be- 
 come their heroes. It was the daughter of the 
 moving-picture man who proposed that they 
 plan and carry out a robbery of their own. The 
 desire has not been for gain, but to do something 
 dramatic and exciting — it was a form of play. 
 By a strange fate, it had been his own child 
 that the moving picture man was leading into 
 criminal acts, through the low class of pictures 
 showing in his place. Other children, too, had 
 doubtless come under the harmful influence. 
 
 The evil effects of the moving pictures in 
 which crime is shown are often apparent in the 
 Children's Courts. It has not been long since a 
 group of boys, who tried to wreck an express 
 train, confessed that the crime was suggested by 
 such exhibitions. As to the two little girls, 
 they are doing splendidly to-day; it is needless 
 to say that the father of the one has given up 
 the moving-picture business. The educational 
 value of moving pictures is fast being recognized, 
 but many communities are still strangely de-
 
 The Procession 19 
 
 linquent in not providing proper municipal 
 supervision for such places. 
 
 A smartly dressed youngster in knicker- 
 bockers, who wheeled up to the Court with his 
 father in a big red automobile, is charged with 
 having broken a street lamp. The boy was ar- 
 rested the evening before, but was released on 
 the father's promise to produce him the next 
 morning. By a wise provision of law, the par- 
 ent of any child who has been arrested for an 
 offense, which in an adult would not amount to 
 a felony, can thus obtain the child's release over 
 night pending his arraignment in the Children's 
 Court. The Judge, who in this common sense 
 court is prosecutor, judge and jury combined, 
 calls Robbie to him. The self-important father 
 thrusts out a card with a Murray Hill address 
 engraved upon it and would push past the at- 
 tendant to reach the Judge. The Judge mo- 
 tions to the officer to keep the father outside the 
 rail. 
 
 " Did you break the lamp? " asks the Court. 
 
 "Yes, sir," is the boy's straightforward re- 
 sponse, and it does the heart of the Court good.
 
 20 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 Bobbie's father fumes. The boy's honesty en- 
 rages him. Such truthfulness will never do for 
 Robbie in business! 
 
 " What do you say that for? You know you 
 did not do it!" 
 
 The Judge looks at Robbie's elder in disgust. 
 He has the boy removed from earshot, and or- 
 ders the father brought before him. The Court 
 does not wish to humiliate Robbie by the things 
 he is going to say. 
 
 " Your boy has been manly enough to tell the 
 truth, and yet you, his father, think so little of 
 him that you would have him come into a court 
 of law and tell a lie. The fact that he has acted 
 in such a manly way is solely to his own credit. 
 There will be a parole in this case, but it will 
 not be the boy who is on probation. Unless you 
 can do better for him it will be necessary for 
 the Court to take him away. Your boy is still 
 a splendid, manly fellow, but we must protect 
 him." 
 
 Robbie is again called before the Judge. The 
 lesson of the bigger the crowd, the less the 
 rights of the individual, is now explained to the
 
 The Procession 21 
 
 boy in terms he can understand — there must 
 be laws in crowded places, for the good of all, 
 that are not necessary in the country. The 
 street lamp was broken in a game of ball, there 
 was no malicious intent in the boy's mind, it 
 was an accident. The Court wishes there was 
 something like adequate play space for the city's 
 children. Very often does the Court express 
 this wish to the thousands of children brought 
 before it, upon like charges, the children to 
 whom the city in effect forbids the right even 
 to play. 
 
 A youngster, the single captive in a police 
 raid on a street game of " One-O'-Cat," was 
 brought to the Court in a state of terror. He 
 sat in a far corner of the detention room, his 
 face wet with tears and trembling like a leaf. 
 In the eyes of the other boys, most of them there 
 on charges far more serious, he was an object 
 of scorn. They called him a "Molly" and a 
 " dope." 
 
 He suddenly stopped crying, wiped his eyes 
 with his shirt sleeve, and then committed an un- 
 pardonable act — he slipped from the bench,
 
 22 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 fell on his knees, and, unmindful of all the lads 
 around him, started to pray: 
 
 " Please, O God, don't let them send me to 
 prison. I'll never play ball again ! " 
 
 What a sad, wretched pledge for a normal boy ! 
 
 And so the pathetic procession moves on. 
 These are but a few typical pictures that show 
 some of the ailments of the child, the parent, 
 and the community, as revealed in this greatest 
 of all social clinics. Through the sane and hu- 
 mane methods employed the vast majority of 
 the children brought into court are saved to use- 
 ful citizenship. A study of the figures for one 
 period of six years showed that only eight per 
 cent, of the children arraigned here came back a 
 second time. As has already been said, it has 
 been necessary to commit to institutions only 
 about one-fifth of those arraigned. The Chil- 
 dren's Courts have often been called the " Courts 
 of one more chance." The parole and probation 
 system, although yet in its infancy and still far 
 from perfect, has worked such excellent results 
 that rarely in any one year have more than ten 
 per cent, of the children released under its super-
 
 The Procession 23 
 
 vision failed to make such good progress that it 
 has been unnecessary finally to commit them to 
 institutions. 
 
 The litigation in most courts turns on money. 
 These child's tribunals concern themselves with 
 a prize of greater worth — the citizenship of to- 
 morrow. They are great life-saving stations. 
 
 And yet with all these good results there are 
 communities to-day still so blind, so selfish, that 
 they are locking up the children in company 
 with thugs and murderers. Only recently in 
 visiting a jail in a Southern city I found 
 a child of thirteen imprisoned in the same pen 
 with about thirty tramps, thieves and despera- 
 does. Here within the shadow of the gallows 
 — for looking out the grated window, we could 
 see its grim structure — this boy had been con- 
 fined for weeks because he had ridden off on an- 
 other lad's bicycle. There are many communi- 
 ties in which children of tender years are still 
 languishing in jail — this with all our boasted 
 Twentieth Century spirit of humanitarianism. 
 
 In addition to what Children's Courts are do- 
 ing directly for the child, they are destined to be
 
 24 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 of tremendous service in improving the social 
 conditions of the entire community. For here 
 daily loom up evils that must speedily be over- 
 come if we are to have regard for to-mor- 
 row's wholesome citizenship. In these Children's 
 Courts stand out most vividly the menace of the 
 further overcrowding of the already inhumanly 
 congested tenement districts, the wretchedness 
 growing out of a practically unregulated immi- 
 gration, the poverty and the public charges pro- 
 duced by the landlord's uncontrolled greed, the 
 human sacrifices to tenement speculation, the 
 wholesale desertion of families by irresponsible 
 parents, and all the forms of parental de- 
 linquency. There are crime, poverty, ignorance 
 and neglect on the one side, fostered by the 
 State's blind selfishness, and on the other to 
 combat them properly there must be a new 
 awakening to reason and humanity. There are 
 remedies at hand and we must use them.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NEW LIFE-SAVING STATIONS 
 
 f"\UR Children's Courts are laying bare as they 
 ^-^ were never revealed before those living con- 
 ditions that not only are contaminating the child, 
 but that too often transform our grown neighbor 
 into an enemy against society. The child here- 
 tofore has been amenable to the State; the day 
 is coming when the State will be amenable to the 
 child. The purpose here is not a technical dis- 
 cussion of the procedure of our Children's Courts 
 but rather a consideration of certain living con- 
 ditions revealed through them. As some read- 
 ers, perhaps, have but vague notions as to the 
 origin and functions of these tribunals for chil- 
 dren, a few words regarding their development 
 may not be amiss. 
 
 In the slow process of social evolution, the 
 rights of the child have been the last to be 
 recognized. We have been more concerned about 
 
 25
 
 26 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 property rights than we have about human rights. 
 The child being the weakest member of the com- 
 munity, has been the last to come into anything 
 like his own. A century ago, as we have seen, 
 they were still hanging children on Tyburn Hill 
 for larceny. In fact, in 1756, a child was be- 
 headed because he stole a shawl and his head was 
 set on a paling, as a warning to other children 
 not to steal. Lord Edward Thurlow, Lord Chan- 
 cellor of England, declared in the latter part of 
 the Eighteenth Century, that the child was the 
 ward of the State, but it was more then one hun- 
 dred years before that idea took hold to the ex- 
 tent of enabling child delinquents really to come 
 under Chancery jurisdiction. A half century ago 
 we still occasionally hanged a child for murder 
 in this country. How jealous our courts are of 
 their jurisdiction and what difficulties beset any 
 attempt to improve their archaic procedure! 
 Children who have offended against the law — 
 yes, and those whose only sin has been to have a 
 drunken or brutal parent — have until very 
 recent years been locked in jails and felons' 
 cells to await the State's disposition of their
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 27 
 
 cases. Men failed utterly to realize that these 
 children were usually the victims of bad en- 
 vironment; that they were a plastic material 
 whose future the community could mold as it 
 pleased. No, these children were herded with 
 murderers, thieves and tramps, and thus the 
 righteous community bred criminals. The State 
 of Massachusetts in 1863 did pass a law intended 
 to separate the child under the age of sixteen 
 years in court from the adult charged with crime. 
 But little or no attempt was made to enforce it, 
 and, after a time, it became a dead letter. 
 
 Another law was passed some years later, 
 which provided that juvenile offenders should be 
 tried separately from adults charged with crime 
 " at suitable times which shall be designated 
 therefore by the Police District and Municipal 
 Courts, and shall be called the session for 
 juvenile offenders for which a separate docket 
 and record shall be kept." This law, except as it 
 was applied in Boston, was not enforced until 
 within a very few years. 
 
 Women have forced most of our steps toward 
 humanitarian progress. Possibly this is because
 
 28 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 the men are so busy with the bread winning that 
 they do not have time to think of these things. 
 The organization of the first society for the 
 prevention of cruelty to children was due to the 
 efforts of a good woman, who saw that children 
 were often being beaten, starved and outraged 
 by cruel parents and guardians, while the State 
 looked on with apathy. It was a fortunate day 
 for suffering childhood the world over, when 
 Mrs. Etta A. Wheeler went into a Hell's Kitchen 
 tenement in New York in 1874, to minister to 
 a woman who was dying of tuberculosis. The 
 sound of blows and a child's cries came from 
 the room adjoining that in which the dying 
 woman lay. The sufferer turned to her visitor : 
 
 " You cannot save me but you can save that 
 child and that will give me a peaceful death." 
 
 Mrs. Wheeler tried to go to the rescue, but her 
 way was barred and her pleas were answered 
 with curses. She went to the police ; they turned 
 a deaf ear. The magistrates to whom she ap- 
 plied shook their heads. They were sorry but 
 they could issue no warrant unless there were 
 eye witnesses to the assaults. She turned to
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 29 
 
 some of the leading citizens, so called. They 
 threw up their hands aghast. The idea of inter- 
 ference between parent and child ! — it was not 
 to be heard of. That, too, reflected the attitude 
 of the world as late as 1874. But the cries of 
 that child rang in the ears of Mrs. Wheeler ; she 
 could not sleep. She had heard of Henry Bergh, 
 who had organized a society for the prevention 
 of cruelty to animals. In desperation she turned 
 to him. 
 
 Mr. Bergh consulted with Elbridge T. 
 Gerry, who was counsel for that society, and 
 together they scanned the statutes for a law un- 
 der which it was possible to proceed. They 
 searched in vain. They finally decided that if 
 the law did not give the child the protection that 
 God intended for every human being, they would 
 give the child the protection the law accorded 
 the brute. The child belonged in the animal 
 kingdom, and on that broad construction they 
 were about to send an officer of the animals' 
 society into the tenement, when Mr. Gerry suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining from a Supreme Court Judge 
 in chambers a writ of habeas corpus. When the
 
 30 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 door of the miserable tenement room was forced, 
 an eight-year-old girl was found shrinking and 
 shivering in a corner. She was naked except for 
 the rags of a tattered calico skirt. Her wan, 
 pinched face was a mass of unhealed cuts and 
 bruises. The scars which covered her arms and 
 body told of repeated assaults. On her legs were 
 long abrasions still fresh which had been in- 
 flicted with a pair of heavy scissors. 
 
 Mary Ellen was the child's name, and that 
 name is to-day famous in humanitarian history. 
 She had been abandoned by her parents, was 
 cared for by a charity society for a time, and 
 then adopted by a family of the name of Con- 
 nolly. She w r as never allowed to play with other 
 children. Her only food was scraps from a 
 scanty table. Her foster mother was in the 
 habit of beating her every day, either with a 
 twisted rawhide whip or the shears, and for no 
 reason other than a perverted satisfaction she got 
 from seeing the child suffer. For lack of other 
 clothing, the officer wrapped Mary Ellen in a 
 horse blanket and then carried her to a waiting 
 carriage.
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 31 
 
 A great public clamor started when the child 
 was laid before the judge in court. Jacob A. 
 Riis, who was one of the pioneers in the work for 
 the betterment of children, and who with his 
 masterful pen and untired labors has perhaps 
 done more for humanitarian progress than any- 
 other one man, was there that day. The reader 
 has perhaps followed him in one of his own books 
 through that dramatic scene in court. Men 
 looked on that bruised, beaten body of the half- 
 starved child and wondered that they had been 
 so long blind. They realized that there had been 
 thousands of Mary Ellens, yes, hundreds of 
 thousands of them. Elbridge T. Gerry, Henry 
 Bergh and John D. Wright, the Quaker philan- 
 thropist, at once began the organization of the 
 first society for the prevention of cruelty to 
 children. A law drafted by Mr. Gerry was en- 
 acted in 1875, which gave this society the right 
 to prefer complaints before any court or magis- 
 trate in any matter relating to or affecting chil- 
 dren. Two years later came another law which 
 prohibited that any child under the age of sixteen 
 who was under restraint or conviction, should
 
 32 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 be locked up with adults charged with or con- 
 victed of crime. Some States, as we have seen, 
 are still permitting this. The parent society in 
 thirty-eight years of its existence handled in 
 New York City alone, cases of 218,715 children. 
 There is scarcely a civilized community of con- 
 siderable size in the world to-day that does not 
 have a similar organization. 
 
 Three pictures hang in the directors' room of 
 the New York Society to-day, one of Mary Ellen, 
 as she was when rescued from the Hell's Kitchen 
 tenement, the other of her to-day, surrounded by 
 a happy family of her own, for she became the 
 wife of a prosperous up-State farmer, and the 
 third, that serene face of Etta A. Wheeler, the 
 savior of not only Mary Ellen but of multitudes 
 of other children who would have suffered end- 
 less brutality and even death, but for her insist- 
 ence that the child, too, had some rights. 
 
 Really effective laws establishing separate 
 tribunals for children came as the result of a 
 much later awakening to a new consciousness 
 of the community's duty to the child. Now that 
 the Children's Courts movement has become so
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 33 
 
 widespread, several cities have laid claim to 
 credit for their origin. Judge Ben B. Lindsey, 
 who has been in the forefront in the fight for 
 children's rights and who took up his great work 
 in Denver in 1901, has frequently been called the 
 " father of the Children's Court." He disclaims 
 that distinction and says : " So much through so 
 many earnest souls has gone to make up our 
 present system of children's laws that no single 
 individual can well be so credited." 
 
 It is an institution that has developed from the 
 tardy workings of many minds along new lines. 
 In my investigations of the subject I have 
 learned that there were a number of humane and 
 sensible magistrates and judges who, without the 
 authority of any special statute, but guided 
 solely by their sense of the fitness of things, held 
 the hearings of children brought before them 
 separate from adults at least ten years before 
 the first separate courts for children were estab- 
 lished by law. This is true of some of the magis- 
 trates in the smaller cities of New England and 
 particularly in Connecticut. 
 
 While larger cities have been busy claiming
 
 34 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 credit for the first effective Children's Court 
 laws, the modest little city of Providence, R. I., 
 seems to have been hiding its light under a 
 bushel. The Grand Jury in the County of Provi- 
 dence, R. I., in October, 1896, found that several 
 children had been locked in the county jail for 
 weeks during the summer recess of court. One 
 of them, a small boy, was there because he had 
 stolen something from a bakery, probably a pie. 
 He and other children, who were merely wit- 
 nesses, had been herded behind the bars with the 
 lowest types of criminals. The Grand Jury, 
 when this was reported by James Snow, Jr., 
 Michael J. Harson and others of its members, 
 awakened with a start. They presented a me- 
 morial to the Common Pleas Division of the Su- 
 preme Court, in the course of which they said: 
 
 We have had several cases before us in which the 
 parties charged with crime were very young persons and 
 in which the witnesses were very young also. We believe 
 that great and permanent injury may be done to the future 
 of young boys and girls by dragging them before a Grand 
 Jury in the same docket with a large number of serious and 
 grave crimes, committed in many instances by notorious
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 35 
 
 criminals. We further believe that the ends of justice are 
 not best served by bringing such young persons for trial 
 before an ordinary session of the Court under similar con- 
 ditions of association with crime and criminals. We be- 
 lieve such a course can result only in the gravest injury to 
 their whole future lives. 
 
 We therefore beg this Honorable Court to recommend 
 to the Legislature that some provision be made for the 
 separation of juvenile cases from adult cases ; that the 
 former be brought before the Grand Jury in special session, 
 and further that such cases be tried before a special 
 session of the Court to be known as a Juvenile Court, for 
 the trial of such offenders. 
 
 This Court, like all other human institutions 
 since the beginning, hesitated at any radical de- 
 parture from the deeply worn rut of procedure. 
 The presiding Justice in responding to the memo- 
 rial, spoke of the impropriety of the Court volun- 
 teering advice to a coordinate branch of the Gov- 
 ernment. The Court and the legislature bowed 
 and scraped back and forth for about two years, 
 while the herding of children with criminals con- 
 tinued. But women took up the fight and they, 
 after enlisting the aid of a number of prominent 
 men, won the legislature over in 1898 to passing
 
 36 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 a law providing for the separate arraignment 
 and trial of children in the Counties of Provi- 
 dence and Newport, and, as they had been named 
 in the old Massachusetts law, designated the 
 separate sessions as the " Sessions for juvenile 
 offenders." 
 
 The law also provided for a separation of 
 children from adults in custody. An amendment 
 passed the following year that extended this law 
 to every county in the State. 
 
 The proposition to create a special court for 
 children in Chicago in 1899 was derided as the 
 " foolishness of a lot of women and other long- 
 haired cranks." The same cry has been set up 
 against most steps for human betterment. It 
 was heard when someone first dared to denounce 
 the hanging of children on Tyburn Hill for 
 crimes against property. It has been used ef- 
 fectively in blocking legislation by those who 
 have thrived on child labor. Practically all of 
 the laws for the regulation and restriction of 
 child labor have been enacted since the National 
 Child Labor Committee was organized, and that 
 is within the past decade. But "sentimental-
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 37 
 
 ity" prevailed and Chicago got its Children's 
 Court. 
 
 There were two preludes to the actual estab- 
 lishment of separate courts for children in New 
 York. The first, in 1893, when Joseph M. Deuel, 
 then a magistrate, decided on his own initiative 
 to hold all hearings of children's cases in a room 
 apart from the police court. But jurisdictional 
 barriers were met that could not be overcome 
 and the plan was finally abandoned. Thomas 
 Murphy, a Buffalo magistrate, on his own re- 
 sponsibility opened a court for children in 1899, 
 in a building occupied in part by the county 
 morgue. That was the only place, so the city 
 declared, that was available, but Judge Murphy 
 decided that the atmosphere of a morgue was not 
 as dangerous to children as that of the ordinary 
 police court. The District Attorney of New 
 York County and a cohort of defenders, went fly- 
 ing to Albany in 1901 to guard the sacred rights 
 of the State constitution against invasion, when 
 a bill drafted by Judge Deuel was introduced in 
 the legislature, to provide for a separate court for 
 children in New York City. Among the oppo-
 
 38 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 nents to the bill were men who were regarded as 
 able jurists, but the women saved the day again 
 and with the result that the court was opened 
 in the following year. 
 
 The branding of an eight-year-old girl as a 
 " Protege of Crime " and the fact that she was 
 sentenced to an institution where she came into 
 contact with older persons steeped in immoral- 
 ity, set the women of Philadelphia to work, under 
 the leadership of Mrs. Hanna Kent Schoff, to 
 bring about a different condition. The child in 
 this particular case had been motherless since 
 she was two' years old, was an inmate of an or- 
 phanage, and later a drudge in a boarding house, 
 with no companionship, except that of ignorant 
 servants. She set fire to a house, and when she 
 was asked why she did it, replied : " To see the 
 engines run." This child was tried in a criminal 
 court with all the formality that would have at- 
 tended the trial of an adult murderer. After 
 the girl had been committed to a reformatory 
 where there were older girls who had been con- 
 victed of all sorts of offenses, Mrs. Schoff remon- 
 strated with the Judge. He said there was no
 
 New Life-Saving Stations 39 
 
 other place to send her and that " they did not 
 want her there because of the character of her 
 offense." The child was finally removed from 
 the reformatory — rescued we might properly 
 say — and placed in a good, private home. Some 
 years ago I knew that she had developed into a 
 sweet, attractive girl, who was loved by all who 
 came into contact with her. To make sure that 
 the " hopeless little criminal," as she had been 
 called when first taken into custody, was still 
 filling a useful place, I wrote to Mrs. Schoff re- 
 cently and asked for the subsequent record. Her 
 reply is as follows: 
 
 " The girl who was considered hopeless is to-day a grad- 
 uate of one of our State normal schools, Assistant Princi- 
 pal of a large school, took the prize in Bible study, and is 
 in every way a useful and good woman." 
 
 Five hundred children ranging in age from six 
 to sixteen years had been confined in the Phila- 
 delphia County Prison in the enlightened year 
 of our Lord 1900. The original Children's Court 
 law that the Philadelphia women succeeded in 
 having passed, was declared unconstitutional.
 
 40 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 But another law that passed later has with- 
 stood all attacks. 
 
 To take up the history of each Children's 
 Court in turn would be impracticable, for within 
 the past few years all of the larger cities have es- 
 tablished these tribunals which are based on hu- 
 manity and common sense. A sketch of the de- 
 velopment of the Children's Court in Indianapolis 
 under Judge Stubbs would, for instance, furnish 
 material for a chapter in itself. And as we said 
 in the beginning, the intention here is not to dis- 
 cuss Children's Courts in themselves, but rather 
 the living conditions that they reveal. 
 
 Each court has its own methods suited to the 
 particular needs of the community in which it is 
 established. No Children's Court is perfect as no 
 individual and no human institution can be per- 
 fect. These courts are in their infancy, and there 
 is no city that yet has an ideal Children's Court. 
 That is for the future, but, as we shall see, they 
 are already beginning to be great factors in 
 educating the community to new responsibilities 
 to our neighbor and his child.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CRADLES OP DELINQUENCY 
 
 "A body that don't get started right when he's young 
 ain't got no show."— Mark Twain in " Huckleberry Finn." 
 
 TN your journeyings up and down the city did 
 you ever leave the beaten track and look in 
 on some of our neighbors? Unless we have we 
 know nothing of the causes of the delinquency. 
 Reading about poverty and congestion in books 
 is one thing, seeing it face to face is another. 
 Unless we see for ourselves how in the densely 
 packed districts, the community robs children 
 and parents of the elemental things, light, air, 
 space, we have neglected our duty as citizens. 
 
 Nature intended every child to have a fair 
 start. No child is born vicious and at birth 
 nearly all are physically sound. The sensibilities 
 of society have been touched of late by the idea 
 of exposing its members to tuberculosis. But 
 there are other destructive forces which sap the 
 
 41
 
 42 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 community's moral vitality quite as surely as 
 tuberculosis undermines its physical strength and 
 to which the dwellers in the tenements are in- 
 evitably exposed. We are just beginning to 
 realize that "in caring for all its children the 
 State is simply caring for itself." In other 
 words, we are beginning to rouse from our social 
 irresponsibility. We may have self-indulgently 
 lulled ourselves into a complacent belief that 
 there is a great separation between ourselves and 
 our neighbors of the tenements. The only bar- 
 rier between us in truth is that built by our own 
 ignorance, which, perhaps, should be spelled — 
 selfishness. If the " emptiness of ages " does sit 
 on our neighbor's face, if the life of his child is 
 early snuffed out, or, surviving malnutrition and 
 neglect, his child reaches criminal ways, the re- 
 sponsibility is chiefly ours. Why? you ask; be- 
 cause we do not see to it that our neighbor gets 
 his opportunity for life, the opportunity to which 
 all are entitled. 
 
 A puny culprit, who had forced and entered a 
 store at night, stood before the Judge in the 
 .Children's Court. When the case of The People
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 43 
 
 was proved beyond doubt, the Judge turned to 
 the lad. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of God? " he asked. 
 
 The prisoner thought hard, then faltered: 
 
 " I've heard me mudder and de boys in de 
 street." 
 
 The name of the Supreme Being he had heard 
 only in blasphemy. 
 
 The mother of this boy, it was later learned, had 
 once poured a teakettle full of boiling water 
 on his bare legs. That was but one of the many 
 cruelties he had suffered and the marks of which 
 he carried on his thin body. The home of the boy 
 was in " The Ink Pot," a black habitation in one 
 of the packed districts. With such environment 
 there was little wonder that this lad was in a 
 fair way of becoming a criminal. That was sev- 
 eral years ago and, thanks to the Court's efforts 
 and the wholesome surroundings into which the 
 boy was transplanted, he has developed into a 
 useful young man. Just as long as it tolerates 
 the " Ink Pots " and the thousands of other black 
 and miserable holes that serve for human dwell- 
 ings, so long will society be responsible for chil-
 
 44 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 dren who go wrong. The vast majority of hur 
 man beings, whether children or grown-ups, nat- 
 urally possess kindly, lovable, and decent tend- 
 encies. It is the thwarting of these by the com- 
 munity's neglect that leads to so many arraign- 
 ments in the Children's Courts. 
 
 No matter how vicious and depraved are his 
 parents, when a child enters the world he is pure 
 and innocent. In bad surroundings physical 
 deterioration manifests itself at once. Before 
 there can be any effect morally the child must for 
 a time have survived these physical conditions. 
 He must have attained to some degree of under- 
 standing before moral contamination can touch 
 him. The child is no more responsible when bad 
 surroundings do begin to take effect than he is 
 for the anaemia he suffers because of malnutri- 
 tion and physical neglect. One English author- 
 ity, who made an extensive investigation in the 
 tenements, in connection with the Inter-Depart- 
 mental Committee on Physical Deterioration, de- 
 clares that whatever the antecedent condition of 
 the parents, ninety per cent, of the children are 
 healthy when born. Eminent obstetricians in
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 45 
 
 this and other countries give the same testimony. 
 But life is correspondence with environment. 
 The influence of heredity has long served as a 
 thought of refuge for many respectable persons 
 who want to shirk responsibility to their neigh- 
 bors. It has been so easy to say : " Oh, well, his 
 father was bad ; what could you expect ? " And it 
 is fortunate we are at last learning that a boy 
 need not necessarily be vicious because his father 
 or mother did not have a spotless record. What 
 a hopeless world it w T ould be if that theory held 
 good ! A great humorist once declared that if we 
 all went far enough back we would find a gallows 
 rampant in the family tree. 
 
 To-day we are even regarding that frayed-out 
 old case in criminology, the Jukes case, in a new 
 light. Had there been a sane method of dealing 
 with the first generation of Jukes the State 
 would have been spared that million and a quar- 
 ter of dollars spent in seventy-five years for the 
 punishment of criminals and the maintenance of 
 paupers all belonging to this family, and it also 
 would have escaped all the volumes of pessimism 
 of which they formed the subject. The old con-
 
 46 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 struction placed on the case was that merely be* 
 cause the original stock was criminal, all the suc- 
 ceeding branches were criminal also. But we 
 now see that the source of all this line of law 
 breakers and paupers did not lie in criminality 
 but in feeble-mindedness. It is feeble-minded- 
 ness that is hereditary and not criminality. On 
 the other hand defectiveness often leads to crim- 
 inality. Had there, for instance, been some spe- 
 cial institution where Max Jukes, the progenitor 
 of that family of 900 persons, could have received 
 special medical attention and care there would 
 not have been the widespread mental, moral, and 
 physical disaster that this degenerate family 
 caused. The ratio of pauperism among them 
 was nearly eight times as great as in the whole 
 population. 
 
 But the vast majority of delinquent children 
 are not mentally defective; their delinquency is 
 due for the most part to their surroundings, and 
 for that the community is responsible. In look- 
 ing back over the ranks of the children that I 
 have seen pass through the Children's Court 
 there are few — except the mentally defective — -
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 47 
 
 who stand out as showing that a vicious parent 
 necessarily means a vicious child. But there are 
 cases without number going to prove that while 
 a child's antecedents have been vicious and de- 
 praved in the extreme, the boy or girl can, with 
 proper help, rise superior to the line and be 
 safely set upon the road to useful citizenship. 
 
 Into a sodden, smoke-clouded room in the rear 
 of an East Side saloon there staggered, early 
 one morning some years ago, a drunken mother, 
 leading her shrinking thirteen-year-old daughter. 
 They had been dispossessed from their one room 
 and had been tramping the streets. The mother 
 dragged the child from table to table in the 
 saloon. 
 
 " Ain't she a fine young 'un? " she inquired as 
 she passed from group to group. 
 
 Some of the men set down their glasses and 
 reviled the pair for disturbing them and some 
 gazed evilly at the child who was comely despite 
 lack of food and sleep. The mother finally 
 climbed upon a table and hanging to a post to 
 steady herself began to auction off her daughter. 
 " I'm going to sell her to the highest bidder," she
 
 48 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 declared; the girl tugged at her skirts and the 
 mother struck her a blow in the face. 
 
 " I can't have her tagging around with me, but 
 she's a good 'un and worth twenty dollars if she 
 is worth a cent. Who'll make the first bid?" 
 One loafer attempted to embrace the girl. She 
 twisted out of his arms and ran to the street, 
 followed by the man and her mother, who had 
 been helped from the floor where she had 
 fallen. She was now cursing wildly. A police- 
 man took the pair into custody, the daughter to 
 the Society and the mother to a police station. 
 
 This child was afterwards placed in a good 
 home. Here everything was strange to her, but 
 the good people who adopted her made all due 
 allowance and with patience and love they 
 trained her. To-day she is the greatest pride 
 of her foster parents and her splendid young 
 womanhood compels the admiration of all her 
 associates. So much for what wholesome en- 
 vironment will do for the illegitimate daughter 
 of a prostitute and beggar. 
 
 One of the most useful men I know to-day saw 
 his father murder his mother in cold blood in
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 49 
 
 the tenement cellar where they lived. The 
 father had come to this country as a fugitive 
 after having feloniously assaulted a woman in his 
 native land. After he had been here a year or 
 two he sent for his wife and child, not because 
 of any love for them but because he wanted their 
 earnings. His wife failed to turn over enough 
 money to satisfy him one day and he killed her. 
 The child, being the sole witness, was detained 
 by the authorities pending trial. The youngster 
 attracted the attention of an official, who in the 
 preparation of the murder case had occasion to 
 question the boy. Through legal technicalities 
 the father escaped with a conviction of murder 
 in the second instead of the first degree and was 
 sentenced to life imprisonment. The official who 
 had been interested in the boy took him into his 
 own home where he was treated as a son. The 
 father had been in prison only a short time when 
 in a fit of passion he killed a fellow convict. 
 The boy's friend then legally adopted the lad 
 and sent him through the public schools and to 
 college. To-day this man is a great power for 
 social good. The United States Government,
 
 50 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 recognizing his ability, once sent him abroad on 
 an important mission. On his return he re- 
 ceived an offer of a place that would pay him 
 three times the salary he was receiving for his 
 social betterment work. " No," he replied, " I 
 can do more good for the largest number where I 
 am and the place where I can do the most good is 
 the place for me.'' Had this man not been re- 
 moved from his old surroundings and had he 
 later wound up in state's prison or an alms- 
 house some sociologist who hit upon his history 
 would probably have pointed to it as another 
 demonstration of that over-worked theory of 
 heredity. 
 
 A noble woman who is the head of one of the 
 best known private schools for young ladies in 
 New York has at various times legally adopted 
 little girls to the number of nine, all of whom 
 were born in poverty. Most of them she has 
 taken when they were still so young that they re- 
 membered little of their first homes. She has 
 placed them in good surroundings and attended 
 faithfully to their training and education. Un- 
 der these good influences each of the nine girls
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 51 
 
 has developed into a useful member of society. 
 Several of them now have fine homes of their 
 own. 
 
 We often hear it said that it is difficult to do 
 anything for delinquent girls. It was the 
 writer's privilege recently to look in on a " re- 
 ception " given by a club of half a hundred 
 young women, each of whom at one time or an- 
 other had been arraigned in the Children's 
 Court. They had been there on all sorts of 
 charges, from improper guardianship to bur- 
 glary — at least some would have been charged 
 with burglary had they been over the age of six- 
 teen at the time of arrest. The fact, however, 
 that they had been in the Children's Court or 
 ever in serious trouble was unknown to most 
 of those present; the girls themselves had 
 evidently forgotten all about it. To look at 
 that spotlessly gowned, radiant faced com- 
 pany that danced and laughed so happily 
 was to find it difficult to believe. Big enough 
 in heart and understanding to know that a girl 
 no less than a boy, who had been worsted by 
 bad environment was not a vicious creature to
 
 52 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 be spurned and denied a further chance, the 
 good woman who was responsible for this club 
 had given the girls opportunities that each had 
 used so well. Yes, as we shall see, the Big 
 Sisters can do just as effective work as the Big 
 Brothers. 
 
 But let us make a little pilgrimage if we are 
 to observe some of the commonest conditions 
 that cause not only juvenile but adult delin- 
 quency. 
 
 Leaving the great city's highway of commerce 
 or its avenue of fashion we push east with the 
 throng for a few blocks, then turn into one of 
 those narrow, tenement-banked streets crowded 
 with pushcarts and humanity, where between 
 bawling hucksters, the shrill cries of children, 
 the mixture of alien speech, we have come into 
 a veritable bedlam. As we are jostled and 
 crowded along we wonder how the children here 
 ever get a chance to play. Just ahead of us, 
 however, if our eyes be sharp, we may see a game 
 in progress, not a wholesome one, but one that 
 shows how some of the youngsters of this dis- 
 trict, where humanity is packed in at the rate
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 53 
 
 of 1,600 to the acre, are finding an outlet for 
 their energies. Two alert lads are pushing close 
 to an Italian woman who carries a market 
 basket on one arm and a handbag on the other. 
 One has opened the clasp on the bag and is 
 feeling about for the money, "sounding," these 
 little thieves call it. Then comes a cry : " Here, 
 Nell ! " the warning from a third boy stationed 
 somewhere in the crowd that the police are 
 near, and instantly the other two dart off in 
 different directions through the crowd and are 
 gone. The child pickpocket, as we shall see 
 later, is an almost hopeless problem. For him 
 also the community that permits all this con- 
 gestion and fails to provide the children of 
 these districts with adequate -play space is more 
 or less responsible. 
 
 The life of the crowded .streets with the thou- 
 sands of things to attract his attention and 
 sharpen his wits, the hard struggle that the 
 tenement boy sees on every hand, often give the 
 child of the crowded districts a surprising pre- 
 cocity. The example of his parents and their 
 neighbors who must desperately struggle for
 
 54 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 survival, mature his mind. Unfortunately for 
 the child, the happenings from which he draws 
 his premature philosophy of existence are not 
 such as to tend to good moral development. A 
 vast army of immigrants is herded into the al- 
 ready over congested tenement districts of New 
 York City each year. The majority of aliens on 
 arrival are robust, otherwise they would not 
 pass the examination at Ellis Island. But 
 after they have been crowded into the un- 
 sanitary tenements, deprived of light and air 
 and forced to slave through all the waking hours 
 for meagerest pittances, physical deterioration 
 occurs quickly enough among many. How can 
 we wonder at moral deterioration? 
 
 Let us walk a little farther along the streets 
 and see for ourselves what it is to live in one of 
 the tenements. Above us rattle the trains of 
 the elevated road. We walk past a moving 
 picture theater gay with crude presentments of 
 what your ten cents will afford you within — 
 on this side a stout lady simpers rosily on a 
 green background and on the other a miracu- 
 lous fire department, an elopement, battle, mur-
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 55 
 
 der and sudden death all in three pictures. 
 When, we wonder, will the general public realize 
 that the amusements offered to the children are 
 of as much importance as any other form of 
 education. 
 
 Then we turn into the street beyond. The 
 doorway before which we stop is full of children 
 trying to play upon the doorstep. The hall is 
 very dark and ill-smelling; although we cannot 
 see as we mount the creaking stairs, there is 
 the evidence of other senses to tell us it is far 
 from clean. As we go on there wells up to us 
 that odor which is made up of many odors, 
 which Galsworthy has called the smell of pov- 
 erty itself, a part of the very life that is lived 
 here. We knock at last at the top door in the 
 rear; there is a pause, a shuffling step and it is 
 opened by a woman. Life has laid so heavy a 
 hand upon her that it counts for twice her years. 
 The things she has endured have all left their 
 mark — long hours and light pay, the ache in 
 back and eyes that comes with monotonous and 
 heavy toil; and fear, the endless fear for the 
 rent and the dwindling coal in the box, the
 
 56 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 lessening loaf in the cupboard, these have drawn 
 heavy lines, have dulled her eyes and bent her 
 shoulders. And in her one room in which she 
 buys so high the dear privilege of life, in which 
 she brings up and feeds her four small children, 
 we see behind her a great pile of unfinished cloth.- 
 ing. It is practically all of the furniture in the 
 room as it is practically all of the family living. 
 There are besides two rag covered mattresses on 
 the floor and a little rusty stove. The chance 
 to put food upon the stove, the right to lie down 
 upon the pallets with a roof above their heads, 
 these the family must win, stitch by stitch, from 
 the great pile of clothing. It is the only re- 
 source which they have. 
 
 When she finds that we are neither inspectors 
 nor Society officers the woman talks a little. 
 She tells us that she and her family are working 
 on piece work from the sweatshops and that be- 
 tween them they are able to make about eight 
 dollars a week. The children are out of school 
 a large part of the time — how can she help it? 
 It is better for them to be out of school than to 
 starve. And as she pulls them forward one
 
 The Cradles of Delinquency 57 
 
 after the other, they do not look as if starvation 
 was far away. 
 
 What is the use of inspectors, of talk of sanita- 
 tion, education, health laws, in a room where 
 living is reduced to terms like these — the terri- 
 ble, great pile of ill paid work? Bad environ- 
 ment of course is not purely a matter of physical 
 conditions nor is it confined to the tenements. 
 It is present in luxury and waste and idle self- 
 ishness, as we know, as well as in poverty and 
 overwork. The wonder is only that under the 
 evil living conditions which society tolerates 
 and practically forces on many of its members 
 there are not more law breakers both young and 
 old. 
 
 What is the use of inspectors, of talk of sanita- 
 recent investigation showed that eleven hundred 
 million dollars were spent in one year in penal 
 institutions and as the result of crime, and this 
 was five hundred millions more than were spent 
 in schools, churches, hospitals, colleges and all 
 forms of betterment, religious and educational 
 work in the United States. Then we are to con- 
 sider that seventy-one per cent, of the inmates
 
 ^8 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 of penal institutions are under voting age. Is 
 it not time that we were employing some of that 
 eleven hundred million for prevention — in the 
 improvement of conditions — rather than in 
 punishment? Irrespective of moral economy it 
 can require no argument to show how much 
 more profitable it is to cultivate producers in- 
 stead of parasites — the inmates of workhouses 
 and jails. 
 
 Life is correspondence with environment and 
 we propose to show further what bad environ- 
 ment is doing for our children and the com- 
 munity.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE STOLEN HERITAGE 
 
 TT is the sins of the city against the children 
 that stand out most startlingly in the Chil- 
 dren's Courts. The community robs the child 
 in the congested districts of everything a grow- 
 ing human being needs for health of mind and 
 body — and then it would punish him when his 
 efforts to win these chances for himself bring 
 him sharply against the law of a grown-up 
 world. Were there anything like a rational 
 distribution of population, were the dwellers 
 in the tenements not deprived of light and 
 space, were the tenement children not desper- 
 ately put to it for anything like normal play, 
 there would be a great falling off in the num- 
 bers that pass into the Children's Courts, the 
 charitable, reformatory and the penal institu- 
 tions. Until the millennium there will be 
 
 some crime, but that fact does not excuse the 
 
 59
 
 60 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 community from its responsibility for three- 
 fourths of the present criminals. 
 
 It is in indulging the God-given play instinct 
 under proper supervision that the child best de- 
 velops his physical, mental and moral sides. 
 When we force him to dodge about the garbage 
 cans for his game of tag, push him into black, 
 ill-smelling stairways for his hide-and-seek, how 
 can the community complain when he does not 
 develop into a good citizen? 
 
 Arraigned for the heinous crime of playing 
 ball in the street, a half-clad lad was asked 
 recently : 
 
 " What are the streets for? " 
 The culprit, whose head barely reached tne 
 bench, thought hard. He was white from starva- 
 tion and fear. 
 
 "Automobiles, sir," he finally faltered. The 
 Judge straightway sent him home. 
 
 In one of the crowded districts last summer I 
 saw a little girl cry and flee in terror from a 
 fluttering butterfly that by some strange chance 
 had been blown across from the Jersey meadows. 
 The only fields she had known were the cobbles
 
 The Stolen Heritage 6l 
 
 and asphalt, her only brooks were the gutter 
 floods when the sweepers occasionally turned on 
 the fire hydrant to flush the dirty pavements in 
 her block. 
 
 In one group of thirty Children's Court boys, 
 sent by the Big Brother Movement for a 
 glimpse of nature into a camp maintained by 
 Groton School in the New Hampshire hills 
 recently, there were eight who had never been 
 off Manhattan Island. 
 
 " Hey, what is dat? " demanded one youngster 
 who was having his first glimpse of nature. He 
 was pointing in wonder to an ordinary field 
 daisy. 
 
 " Dat's a flower," weightily explained a com- 
 panion who had been given two weeks in the 
 country by a mission the previous summer. 
 "An'," he added with evident pride in his wis- 
 dom, "it's got a name." 
 
 " Wat is it den, if you're so smart? " inquired 
 the first boy skeptically. 
 
 "Well," replied the botanist, thinking hard, 
 " dat's a cock-eyed Susie ! " And " cock-eyed 
 Susie " it remained during the rest of the camp.
 
 62 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 It is little wonder that when some occasional 
 charity takes a handful of children to the coun- 
 try for a week, children who have always lived 
 in the city's din, there are those who cry : " It's 
 so still it makes my ears hurt," and who beg to 
 be taken home. But so-called charity barely 
 touches the remotest edge of the problem. Real 
 zeal for service, the sort that will set men to 
 taking serious thought for their neighbors, that 
 will give them decent housing, reasonable condi- 
 tions, playgrounds, a chance in life, and not 
 charity of the futile sort whose chief function 
 seems to lie in paying salaries, that is what we 
 need. How many respected citizens feel that 
 they have accomplished the alpha and omega of 
 all charitable requirements by periodically sign- 
 ing a subscription list and making out a check. 
 The barrier between the people of the wretched 
 homes and ourselves is not a vital difference; it 
 is chiefly the product of selfishness. 
 
 Forced to spend much of their time in the 
 surging, teeming streets, the children of the 
 tenements are exposed to influences that do not 
 make for good citizenship. One of the great
 
 The Stolen Heritage 63 
 
 needs of the big cities is for more play space, 
 as we have seen. And the cities are awaken- 
 ing to it ; there are to-day about 300 municipali- 
 ties of more than 5,000 population that are 
 doing something toward providing supervised 
 recreation for their coming citizens. But 
 New York, which needs playgrounds most, is 
 sadly behind. When the streets below Four- 
 teenth Street were laid out, there was little 
 thought that one day, on the site of the 
 old Bowery Farm, the densest population 
 in the civilized world would be massed. The 
 real home, on whose doorstep the mother 
 once sat in the early evening with watchful eye 
 on her brood playing in the opposite lot, is now 
 a wretched tenement, darkened by its towering 
 new neighbors, cross-hatched with fire-escapes, 
 upon each side. The common has gone, there 
 is no longer even a back yard, but the children 
 have increased till there are myriads of them 
 — and where, in all this swarming world, is 
 there a chance to play? The congestion that 
 was once confined below Fourteenth Street has 
 spread and spread until even above the Harlem
 
 64 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 there are canons of streets, packed with hu- 
 manity, some of whose warrens offer less sun- 
 light and air than did the habitations of the 
 cave dwellers. 
 
 More than half of the children who come into 
 the Children's Court of New York County, each 
 year, are there through the thwarted desire for 
 play. The street boy who breaks the law does 
 not start as a bad boy. The street may be a 
 great developer of self-reliance, initiative and 
 courage. But too often there is no opportunity 
 for the exercise of these very qualities except in 
 criminal adventure. It is usually in the adven- 
 turous spirit that the boy consents to " lay kiggy 
 for de cop," that is to serve as lookout for 
 the policeman when his companions are prying 
 open a window. It doesn't occur to him that he 
 is doing wrong, his one thought has been ad- 
 venture, play. 
 
 But the children of the streets must find vent 
 for their energies in some direction and too of- 
 ten the only one left open to them is that which 
 is criminal in the eyes of the law. It is little 
 wonder that the pickpocket Bosses, commonly;
 
 The Stolen Heritage 65 
 
 called Fagins, have small trouble in getting re- 
 cruits to their bands. The human creature is 
 naturally gregarious, whether man, woman or 
 child; he cannot be prevented from associating 
 with his kind. If the man lives on Fifth Avenue 
 his association may be called a club; if he lives 
 in Minetta Lane it may be called a gang. It is 
 merely a difference in pocketbook, education and 
 surroundings. The underlying principle is the 
 same. 
 
 The children of the streets, too, develop a 
 wonderful philosophy, resourcefulness and read- 
 iness of speech. In one hot period there had 
 seemed to be an unusually large number of 
 juvenile offenders coming from one of the Hell's 
 Kitchen precincts to the Children's Court. To 
 learn something of the causes of this local out- 
 break of juvenile delinquency I arranged to 
 meet a plain clothes man from Police Headquar- 
 ters in front of the Times Building one midnight. 
 I was to go with him on a tour of one of the 
 precincts. 
 
 After our first greetings we noticed a bare- 
 legged, grimy faced youngster in ragged jump-
 
 66 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 ers on the busy corner with a great bundle of 
 newspapers under his arm. The law says that 
 no child under the age of fourteen years shall 
 be permitted to sell newspapers without a badge 
 from the Department of Education showing that 
 he has completed a certain amount of schooling. 
 In fact all children are prohibited from selling 
 newspapers after ten o'clock at night. The of- 
 ficer was willing to overlook the hour, but de- 
 manded of the industrious newsy: 
 
 " Where's your badge? " 
 
 Quick as a flash the youngster, who was about 
 as big as a peanut, looked up into the big of- 
 ficer's face and replied in the blandest manner: 
 
 " Say, Mister, I left me badge home on de 
 piano." 
 
 Once I told this story before a number of 
 " students of sociology." One turned to a com- 
 panion and solemnly but audibly whispered: 
 " Why, they don't have pianos in such homes, 
 do they? " It was just such a class as this that 
 would turn to Page 728 in the " Manual of 
 Philanthropy " to discover how to distribute a 
 hod of coal.
 
 The Stolen Heritage 67 
 
 My plain clothes friend led the way over to 
 Eleventh Avenue. The night was so hot that 
 the people had been driven out from their ovens 
 of rooms, and the roofs, the fire escapes, the 
 pavements were littered with men, women and 
 children. The officer pointed to a large com- 
 pany of boys on the opposite side of the street, 
 who were still up and active. He drew me into 
 a dark hallway with the remark: 
 
 " Boys are never quite natural when they 
 know they are being watched." The same obser- 
 vation, I find, holds good about girls — yes, and 
 men and women. 
 
 The youngsters made an attempt at a game of 
 "cops and robbers," but it was too hot, too 
 strenuous. They were standing idly by when 
 their leader caught sight of one of those black, 
 somber, dead horse wagons that go around on 
 summer nights gathering up the carcasses of 
 animals that have been stricken by the day's 
 sun. 
 
 " Hats off ! " commanded the leader, and he 
 whipped off his cap and held it to his left breast. 
 Without another word the crowd of youngsters
 
 68 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 formed a platoon, doffed their caps and in per- 
 fect line swung up to the curb with military 
 precision. There they stood with bared heads 
 solemnly bowed, caps to their breasts, while the 
 dead horse wagon rumbled slowly by. 
 
 It was another example of the quick-witted- 
 ness of the street boys and of their saving gift 
 of humor. Some great criminologists have told 
 us that no really hardened criminal has any 
 sense of humor. It may not be true in every 
 case, but this very appreciation of the ridiculous 
 by our children of the streets, who are so ac- 
 customed to bumping against sharp corners, is 
 one of the most hopeful signs. 
 
 But if these same boys had been helping one 
 another over the fanlights of grocery stores, 
 committing what would have been burglary for 
 their elders, it could not have been wondered at. 
 Forced to the streets on such a night, what was 
 there for them to do? It was these very condi- 
 tions — the lack of space to live and breathe and 
 play — that were making such heavy police re- 
 turns from the precinct at that time. Are the 
 children who are forced to spend a large part
 
 The Stolen Heritage 69 
 
 of their lives in the street with the crowding, 
 the dirt, the noisy, sleepless nights of the quar- 
 ter to be judged in the same way as those who 
 have always had comfortable homes and the 
 chance to lead normal, healthy lives? Notice 
 their pitiful attempts to indulge the God-given 
 instinct to play, the little girls sprawled flat on 
 the pavements scratching marks with charred 
 sticks in the criss-cross game, the boys trying 
 to " skin the cat " on the basement rails, knocking 
 a battered can with a crooked stick and (in- 
 cidentally this is a violation of the law) playing 
 craps or tormenting the push-cart peddlers. 
 What a blessing is the grind-piano when it oc- 
 casionally comes this way, what happiness it 
 brings to the hearts, what activity to the feet 
 of the half-clad troops of children as they prance 
 back and forth over the uneven pavements in 
 time to its crazy tunes! 
 
 But once in a while a boy with an ingenious 
 mind finds a new method of diversion. For in- 
 stance, there was " It's-A-Lemon," a substitute 
 invented by his fellows for his real name, which 
 was Isaac Lemon, or " Itzig " in the Jewish di-
 
 70 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 minutive. The Lemon let himself down into an 
 area-way one day and after lying comfortably in 
 a corner wailed loudly and piteously : 
 
 "I'm dead, I'm kilt!" The crowd came 
 quickly and naturally thought that the lad had 
 fallen and fractured several bones. Soon an 
 ambulance came clanging down the street. 
 The Lemon was placed on a stretcher and ten- 
 derly lifted to the sidewalk. As he was borne 
 swiftly away his cries ceased, the clatter of the 
 gong was music in his ears, he was having his 
 first ride in an automobile. Hurried to the 
 emergency ward he was carefully examined. 
 Nothing was broken, except the Third Com- 
 mandment, and that by the surgeon when he 
 found the boy as sound as a dollar. The Lemon 
 was sent home in no very ceremonious fashion. 
 But he had had a ride, a ride with histrionic 
 accompaniments that made him a five-minute 
 hero. The Lemon got such keen enjoyment 
 out of this that he carried his operations into 
 other districts with such persistency that the 
 hospital authorities, who finally complained 
 against him in the Children's Court, declared
 
 The Stolen Heritage 71 
 
 that he had ridden in nearly every ambulance in 
 the county. 
 
 Someone has said that about the only grassy 
 place most of the children would ever reach was 
 the burying ground. Even this is not alto- 
 gether true, for one great burial place for chil- 
 dren on the outskirts of New York, which I 
 visited recently, was found to be absolutely bar- 
 ren of grass. The writer has often wondered 
 why some of the old, unused burying grounds in 
 the crowded sections of the town should not be 
 opened up as play spaces for the children; for 
 one live boy is worth a hundred dead men. 
 When the community has been so strangely re- 
 miss in providing recreation spots it seems in- 
 consistent that taxpayers should complain of 
 heavy budgets for courts, reformatories, hos- 
 pitals and institutions into which delinquents 
 and dependents finally drift and where they 
 have to be maintained at public expense. In 
 the district below Fourteenth Street on Man- 
 hattan Island, into whose narrow area are 
 crowded practically a million people, all the lit- 
 tle make-believe parks put together aggregate
 
 72 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 less than eighty acres. Here lives a population 
 equal to that of Buffalo and Pittsburg combined, 
 with only one-eighteenth the area and about 
 one-twentieth the park space of those two cities. 
 And many are not even pleasant open places of 
 trees, grass and flowers; they are mere patches 
 of asphalt and gravel from which the houses 
 have grudgingly been pushed back a trifle. In 
 all of New York City there are now about thirty 
 playgrounds which are maintained by the De- 
 partment of Parks throughout the year. The 
 city, a few years ago, bought a number of 
 lots in the crowded districts for park and 
 playground purposes and stopped at that, 
 although some of the land was paid for at the 
 rate of more than $1,000,000 an acre. Official 
 red tape and delay kept the space idle for years 
 after its purchase, but much of it is now 
 being developed. One day we shall recognize 
 that playgrounds are quite as important as 
 schools for our children. The supervising of 
 the child's play, too, will be held to be of great 
 importance, in the training not only of muscles 
 but of character.
 
 The Stolen Heritage 73 
 
 A lad from Little Italy got over into Central 
 Park one day on a tour of discovery. It was a 
 sultry morning and as he neared one of the little 
 lakes the lure of the water was too strong for 
 him. He had been accustomed to jumping off 
 the pier down in his neighborhood. He peeled 
 off his jumpers and clad solely in nature's 
 simple garb, dived in. All this was in full view 
 of one of the busiest drives. It was not long be- 
 fore a crowd collected and a perspiring police- 
 man came rushing to the scene. As the police- 
 man neared the bank, Tony struck out for the 
 middle, and to the delight of the crowd disported 
 himself like a young porpoise. The policeman 
 yelled, shook his fist at Tony, and ordered him 
 to come out. Tony merely rolled over on his 
 back, put his fingers to his nose, and wiggled 
 them vigorously. The policeman ran around 
 one edge of the lake and Tony circled to the 
 other. Lap after lap the boy kept that fat po- 
 liceman going until it seemed that he would 
 drop of apoplexy, but in time Tony tired of his 
 sport and condescended to paddle to shore. The 
 policeman grabbed him by the ear and as he
 
 74 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 hustled him over to the spot where Tony had 
 dropped his jumpers, he said unkind things to 
 him. Tony was taken directly to the Court. 
 There was no need of his going to the Society 
 for a bath — he had had that. With outraged 
 feelings the policeman poured out his complaint 
 to the Judge. His Honor finally turned to 
 Tony and asked him how it all happened. 
 
 Puckers indicative of deep thought came to 
 Tony's freckled forehead. Then his face bright- 
 ened. 
 
 "You see it jest happen like dis. Me an' 
 anuder feller was play in' on de edge o' de bank 
 an' I tumbled into de water. Now, Judge, I got 
 all wet an' I was afraid to go home like dat fer 
 I was afraid me mudder would lick me. So — " 
 the story halted just an instant while Tony stole 
 a glance at his maternal parent who hovered 
 portentously near — " So I t'inks, t'inks I, I'll 
 take off me clothes an' lay 'em on de bank in de 
 sun to dry. Now, Judge, I leaves it to you, I 
 couldn't stand dere like dat, could I? I had 
 to get into de water ! " This last was delivered 
 with an inflection of voice and sweep of hand in-
 
 The Stolen Heritage 75 
 
 tended to clinch this appeal to judicial wisdom. 
 
 But the Court was not easily deceived. The 
 Judge conferred with the mother, a large, cap- 
 able, kindly-eyed woman from Sicily. Tony had 
 not been in his home for two whole weeks. He 
 had been on " de hook," as the mother declared. 
 
 " Tony, you didn't get that licking, did you? " 
 inquired the Judge. 
 
 The culprit hung his head in silence. 
 
 " We now propose," continued the Court, 
 " that you have an interview with your mother ; 
 you can step right upstairs with her and if she 
 cannot conduct this interview without heat of 
 temper there are other capable persons here who 
 will be able to manage it. One of the officers of 
 the Court will be present. When it is finished 
 you can come back and we shall talk over the 
 matter again." 
 
 Tony reappeared in the court room ten 
 minutes later, tearful and penitent. He prom- 
 ised the Judge solemnly he would never tell a 
 lie again, he would go to school every day when 
 the term opened, his report card would show 
 " Excellent " weekly in each column, in fact, he
 
 76 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 would be a paragon of virtue. The boy was re- 
 leased on probation and we are glad to record 
 that so far as was humanly possible he made 
 good on every promise. 
 
 It is refreshing in this connection to note that 
 there are sensible Judges in some of our Chil- 
 dren's Courts who, in exceptional cases, believe 
 in the efficacy of a good old-fashioned spanking. 
 While the law does not usually give them power 
 to order this treatment they can sometimes bring 
 the parent by a few wise hints to volunteer his 
 services, and the rite is performed under the 
 watchful eye of someone connected with the 
 Court. It is an interesting fact, too, that of 
 the boys thus treated rarely if ever does one get 
 back for a subsequent offense. While corporal 
 punishment is by no means to be recommended 
 generally, there are occasional cases when it is 
 the best, if not the only way, to work a cure. 
 
 There are many vacant lots in the cities whose 
 owners would gladly turn them over to the pub- 
 lic as playgrounds, free of rent, if the city would 
 pay the trifling cost of supervision. Park and 
 playground associations have provided private
 
 The Stolen Heritage 77 
 
 funds for a little of the work. But these or- 
 ganizations are merely paving the way, it is too 
 big a proposition for them, to manage alone. 
 Under present laws, some cities cannot pay an 
 employ^ for work on private grounds. A 
 simple way to overcome this difficulty would be 
 to lease the ground from its owners at a nominal 
 rent of a dollar a year. There might then be 
 money for supervision and the children could 
 have their play. 
 
 There should not be a schoolhouse in a large 
 city that does not have a playground or a play 
 roof. One well-known physician, an expert in 
 hygiene who has carefully studied the situation, 
 has declared : " Better a playground without 
 a schoolhouse than a schoolhouse without a 
 playground." This expert knows that aside 
 from having a weak physique the play-starved 
 child lacks spirit and a sense of fairness. He 
 is a warped little creature, learning with diffi- 
 culty perhaps, by rote, but unfit to go out into 
 the world and make a living for himself. Aside 
 from the physical advantages of games, the 
 child on supervised recreation grounds gains,
 
 78 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 best of all, the spirit of fair play. There is no 
 place where the idea of honor is better taught. 
 Here the boy learns the folly of cheating and 
 the wisdom of square dealing. 
 
 Those who oppose appropriations for play 
 spaces have yet to learn that the most economic 
 scheme for the handling of poverty is that which 
 prevents it. The child stunted in mind and 
 body is likely to become a permanent charge on 
 the community. It is he who keeps the police- 
 men, the courts, the charity departments busy 
 and fills the State's institutions. By giving the 
 future citizen something like a fair start, a 
 chance to develop his capacities, we are insuring 
 ourselves against his crime and dependency. 
 He is not only thus prevented from becoming a 
 public charge but he develops into a contributor 
 to the public good. 
 
 The results in future citizenship will pay the 
 community a hundredfold for every dollar ex- 
 pended toward giving the children of the pent-in 
 districts proper exercise for their bodies and 
 their imaginations.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MILLS OF GREED 
 
 There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to 
 one who is striking at the root — Henry Thoreau. 
 
 npHE mills of greed grind fast in the packed 
 *■ districts of the great cities. The greater 
 the herding, the harder they grind. The im- 
 migrants form most of the grist, the steamship 
 lines are the hoppers and the tenement and 
 sweatshop owners the main wheels. The result 
 of the relentless grinding is a devitalized prod- 
 uct, difficult for the city to assimilate and af- 
 fecting its moral and physical health. That 
 much of this product finds its way into charity 
 departments, courts, public institutions and into 
 premature and pauper graves is not the fault of 
 the struggling men and women of tenements, but 
 is due to the community's self-indulgent apathy. 
 To too many citizens no method of making 
 
 money is wrong unless it has violated a section 
 
 79
 
 80 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 in the penal laws and they are caught. The 
 community's chief weakness lies in its large num- 
 ber of members who do not care particularly 
 what happens as long as nothing uncomfortable 
 happens to them. 
 
 There are brutal truths regarding living con- 
 ditions in our great cities to which it were 
 criminal to continue longer to close our eyes. 
 They cry for immediate attention and must re- 
 ceive it, even though we have never before en- 
 tered earnestly and sympathetically into the life 
 of the community. The effects of inhuman con- 
 gestion and the greed that preys on it are per- 
 haps more immediately apparent in New York 
 than elsewhere. There is no intention here, 
 however, to picture that metropolis as vicious 
 above all other cities. We speak of New York 
 here merely as an illustration. While each city 
 has its own problems many of these problems 
 are due to congestion. There is always to be 
 considered in connection with New York the pe- 
 culiar shape and position of its land, its size 
 and its heterogeneous population. Providence 
 has indeed been good to it in the matter of nat-
 
 The Mills of Greed 81 
 
 ural advantages, water on every side and the 
 fresh winds that blow in from the sea, otherwise 
 its death rate which is now about three points 
 higher than that of London would be much 
 greater still. Nowhere, however, is there such 
 herding of human beings into dark, disease-breed- 
 ing tenements, and nowhere such opportunity to 
 cure the evils of congestion and housing would 
 men but take hold. 
 
 Does it mean anything to you that in the 
 Metropolis an army of about one-half million 
 men, women and children, has been packed each 
 night into 200,000 living rooms having no win- 
 dows, no direct light or ventilation, or not le- 
 gally lighted? Of this number 50,000 rooms 
 are totally dark. The Tenement Department 
 has recently been busy chopping holes into some 
 of the dark cells of brick at the rate of 4,000 a 
 month but it will never master the situation 
 until the community has roused itself. The 
 present Commissioner, too, has with commend- 
 able activity been ripping school sinks out of the 
 malodorous courts, and he now declares there is 
 not a school sink on occupied premises on
 
 82 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 Manhattan Island. There are 10,000 deaths a 
 year in New York City from tuberculosis alone 
 and 28,000 new cases of the " white plague " de- 
 velop every twelve months. Tuberculosis, too, is 
 a preventable disease. Two-thirds of our con- 
 sumption is bred in the tenements, much of it in 
 those same black rooms. 
 
 If, year after year, in one little district 10,000 
 men were killed in battle and 28,000 more were 
 cruelly wounded, the world would arise and 
 stop it. But because these 10,000 men, women 
 and children, go out quietly in their little black 
 holes and there are no dramatic features, the 
 community sits supinely by. Of all the child 
 cripples in New York more than ninety per cent, 
 owe their affliction to bone tuberculosis. It is 
 nobody's business, at least it is not sufficiently 
 the community's business, to insist on living 
 conditions that would put an end to the white 
 death. 
 
 Oh, yes, there are sanitaria, church roof 
 camps, free dispensaries, but all these begin at 
 the wrong end of the problem — they are puny 
 palliatives and barely touch the edges — they
 
 The Mills of Greed 83 
 
 usually begin after the damage is done. Such 
 futile methods will never reach the real cause. 
 There are other ailments, physical and moral, 
 which sap the city's vitality and which in the ag- 
 gregate are much more deadly than tuberculo- 
 sis. The startling thing is, it is not illegal to 
 have conditions which produce them. These 
 diseases, physical and moral, could be effectively 
 prevented if the community would but insist on 
 it. 
 
 The crowding of Manhattan Island is two- 
 thirds greater than that in any European city 
 and this condition is rapidly being carried into 
 the Bronx. The real estate speculators are 
 quietly, but effectively, forcing their legal right 
 to kill off men, women and children in the out- 
 lying districts in the same way that they have 
 in Manhattan. They quite naturally point out 
 that for speculative purposes this sort of murder 
 has been legalized below the Bronx and ask why 
 that right should not be extended. There are 
 areas on Manhattan Island where human beings 
 are massed in at the rate of 1,400 to the acre. 
 In the lower part of the Bronx there is an area
 
 84 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 which has a population of more than 1,000 
 to the acre. One new house there, according to 
 a statement of the Tenement House Commis- 
 sioner, has seventeen families on a floor. 
 
 Private interests are fast spreading this rate 
 of congestion, for the greater the crowd the 
 higher the rents. That is the reason a block 
 of tenement property in the congested districts 
 of Manhattan Island is worth a million and a 
 half of dollars. One day we shall cease to put 
 these things — murder, starvation, and disease 
 
 — in terms of dollars and cents, and we shall 
 translate them into terms of men, women and 
 children. But perhaps these statements, even 
 though they deal with life and death, do not ap- 
 peal as would a concrete instance. 
 
 A hollow-eyed mother on whom is the pallor 
 of the white death steps weakly to the little plat- 
 form in front of the Judge's bench in the Child- 
 ren's Court. She leads the father, who is nearly 
 blind from tuberculosis. The five children of 
 the pair — there is no race suicide in this class 
 
 — are already standing within the rail. As 
 they see the mother they set up a joyous clamor
 
 The Mills of Greed 85 
 
 and one little girl proudly extends a foot to 
 show a new pair of shoes with which her bare 
 feet were shod at the Society's rooms. All 
 there had been between this four-year-old and 
 absolute nakedness, when the officer visited the 
 hole in Mulberry Street in which they lived, was 
 a pair of torn gingham jumpers. The clothing 
 of the four boys, who range in age from three to 
 eleven, had been quite as scant. 
 
 The mother grasps the little girl and Gui- 
 seppe, the culprit, in a single embrace. She 
 grows suddenly faint, the effort is too much. It 
 was Guiseppe's theft of copper wire that brought 
 the plight of this family to official attention. It 
 is the kindest thing that happens to some chil- 
 dren to get arrested. A clerk in the offices on 
 the top floor of Police Headquarters had seen 
 the boy on an adjoining roof cutting telephone 
 lines. Within a few minutes detectives pounced 
 down on him and he was on his way to the 
 Society. 
 
 The officer who went to Mulberry Street to 
 notify the parents, found the family of seven 
 starving in two black, foul rooms — but not too
 
 86 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 black nor too foul to prevent the landlord from 
 extracting eleven dollars a month for rent as 
 long as the mother could keep her frail fingers 
 going at sweatshop sewing. But finally her 
 fingers failed her. The father's affliction, due 
 to the tenement, had long kept him from work. 
 He had come here a strong, sturdy, farm laborer 
 from a vine-clad cottage in Sicily. Guiseppe 
 was the only child whose help counted for much. 
 He sold newspapers and sewed on buttons far 
 into the night. It is true that the seven- and 
 five-year-old boys had helped with the bastings 
 of the piece work often until they were no longer 
 able to hold up their heavy heads. Yes, even 
 children of three are often forced into this 
 slavery. The blood rents, the wage pittances, 
 force parents thus to use their children. 
 
 The sweatshop owners taking advantage of 
 the over-supply of labor, of the poverty, the 
 sharp need of the people in the crowded dis- 
 tricts, are absolute dictators as to wages. 
 Sometimes they pay twelve cents a pair for fin- 
 ishing men's pants, sometimes they pay four 
 cents a dozen pairs for finishing boys' pants.
 
 The Mills of Greed 87 
 
 There is no wage too low for them to offer and 
 usually no wage too low to be accepted. That 
 the sweatshop goods often go germ-laden out of 
 these homes to the public does not concern the 
 sweatshop owner. He gets the work cheap. 
 
 When the janitor's call for the rent was but 
 ten days off Guiseppe was sent first to pawn his 
 mother's shawl, then the two-year-old's dress. 
 The quilts and blankets went last, for in the ab- 
 sence of other clothing and fire, the month be- 
 ing March, the children could be kept in bed. 
 On his last trip to the pawnshop Guiseppe 
 thought of the copper wire and determined to 
 save the family. It is easy to moralize about 
 the thief, but what about ourselves had we been 
 in Guiseppe's place? 
 
 Instead of charging Guiseppe with theft a 
 complaint of improper guardianship was drawn 
 in which all the children were included. It was 
 an improper guardianship that the parents 
 could not help, it was the community's improper 
 guardianship. For the State is the ultimate 
 parent of the child. 
 
 The Court explained in as kindly a way as
 
 88 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 possible that it was not because Guiseppe had 
 stolen the wire that the children were to be sent 
 to an institution in the country, but because the 
 parents, with their afflictions, were not able to 
 care for them. As the Court's order was inter- 
 preted and bore in on the pair, the mother arose, 
 flung out her arms and with a scream sank back 
 fainting into her chair. The blind father grop- 
 ingly tried to help her. 
 
 That scream is heard often in the Children's 
 Courts. It is a pity that it cannot also be 
 heard in the legislative halls, or that it does not 
 echo in the uptown drawing-rooms of some of 
 the tenement owners. 
 
 There is nothing cheap in many of the tene- 
 ments except human life. Light, air, water, heat, 
 the elemental things cost blood money. Their in- 
 habitants are forced to pay far more proportion- 
 ately than the middle class or those who live in 
 luxurious homes. The average rent in the 
 congested districts is five dollars a month 
 for a room in these over-packed barracks. 
 For the thousands that fall into the clutches 
 of the sweatshop owner this rental means
 
 The Mills of Greed 89 
 
 not only the crowding in of the family, the 
 taking of lodgers to the peril of the children, 
 but also midnight labor, pain, suffering, and 
 perhaps death. Counted by the cost at which 
 they are won, the dollars of the poor are price- 
 less. In return what do they and their chil- 
 dren get? 
 
 A family whose scant belongings a city 
 marshal has dumped into the street for non- 
 payment of rent is brought to the Children's 
 Court. The father, mother and three younger 
 children had been found seated on the rickety 
 furniture in the rain. They were afraid to leave 
 it lest it be stolen. An older boy and girl had 
 gone into another block to beg and there were 
 arrested. This family has been forced to pay 
 $13.50 a month for two rooms in an " improved 
 apartment." The rent has been increased five 
 dollars a month in two years, the last increase 
 having been made when the flats were " im- 
 proved." Work in the sweatshops had grown 
 slack, the tailor's scanty wages had stopped and 
 the wife had been ill. In company with an of- 
 ficer I went down into Forsyth Street to see
 
 90 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 what manner of improvements these were. 
 The " To-Let " sign outside advertised : " Hand- 
 somely Decorated, Toilet and Bath in Each 
 Apartment." A smear of gaudy paint over 
 years' accumulation of dirt in the narrow en- 
 trance constituted the handsome decorations. 
 The hall was so black that before we reached the 
 stairs the beauties of the vivid decorations were 
 lost. We groped for the rickety banister in the 
 Stygian darkness. The grinding of dirt under 
 our feet told of the conditions of the steps. 
 The law says that light must burn in these hall- 
 ways but gas costs money and the tenement 
 landlord believed in economy. That we might 
 see one of these " improved apartments " in- 
 habited we knocked at a door. 
 
 A ragged little girl with bare feet and tousled 
 red hair opened the door, peered out into the 
 darkness and called shrilly: 
 
 "What yer want?" 
 
 We could see her plainly enough, for at the 
 back of the room which served the double duty 
 of sleeping place and kitchen there was a win- 
 dow which actually let in daylight. At once it
 
 The Mills of Greed 91 
 
 was apparent where a part of that $13.50 went 
 — this flat was exactly like the one from which 
 the unfortunate family had been evicted. There 
 were two shake-downs on the floor. An over- 
 powering steamy odor of cabbage came from a 
 pot on the stove. 
 
 The officer explained that we wanted to see 
 the apartment. The little girl was glad of the 
 opportunity to show all of the " improvements." 
 Evidently they had lived in a much worse place 
 before. 
 
 " It's a grand house we live in now," she said 
 proudly. We asked to see the bathroom. 
 
 " There ain't no bathroom, but there's the 
 bath," and she pointed at the kitchen tub. 
 
 " But that's a wash tub," we replied. 
 
 " Yes, and it's a bath tub too," she answered, 
 plainly showing her injured feelings. She 
 mounted a chair and pulled out a wooden parti- 
 tion that divided the tub. A lot of dirty clothes 
 were in soak. 
 
 " Ye see, when yer wants to take a bath ye 
 pulls de board out and den ye steps inter de 
 tub just likes dis," and she nimbly climbed in
 
 92 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 and pranced about on the wet clothes. " Ye 
 gets lots of room dis way. Gee, I takes a bath 
 pretty near every month now." Remember, this 
 was an " improved " apartment. 
 
 The toilet was found to be a cubby-hole be- 
 tween the kitchen, which was really the light 
 room, and the " parlor " which had no light save 
 that which came from a little porthole that 
 opened on a narrow court. The toilet was out 
 of order and the officer told me that the land- 
 lord of this house, who owned considerable other 
 tenement property, had been arrested recently 
 when it was found that the ventilating pipes of 
 the toilets in his buildings, instead of leading 
 to the roofs and the open air, had in each closet 
 simply been carried to the dead wall. It is a 
 common thing for such " improvements " to be 
 made in tenement property and this always 
 brings an increase in rent. There are only 250 
 inspectors in the Tenement House Department 
 of New York City with 103,000 tenements to be 
 inspected. So the number of blind ventilating 
 pipes and fake improvements that may go un- 
 discovered is great.
 
 The Mills of Greed 93 
 
 The red-headed little girl in answer to a ques- 
 tion as to how many lodgers there were sud- 
 denly grew cautious. 
 
 " Ye ain't inspectors, are ye? " 
 
 Keassured on that point she told us that besides 
 her father, mother and three children three men 
 slept in the two rooms at night, that is, four per- 
 sons in a room. That is not nearly so bad as the 
 situation in many homes. The law as it stands 
 to-day allows three persons to live in one room. 
 
 There came to mind the case of a little girl 
 not much larger than our hostess of that day, who 
 was brought into Court after she had strangled 
 her newly born baby of which one of the lodgers 
 had been the father. Yes, and the case of another 
 child who had contracted an incurable disease 
 from one of the lodgers that her family had been 
 forced to harbor to help in meeting the monthly 
 rent. Cases growing out of the defilement of 
 innocent children by lodgers are common in the 
 Children's Courts and these form another fearful 
 count against the community which permits the 
 inhuman herding in the tenements. It was with 
 such thoughts that we descended the black stairs
 
 94 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 and left the " improved apartments " of the 
 Forsyth Street house. 
 
 So often visitors at the Children's Courts, look- 
 ing over the dirty, dull, hopeless, careworn par- 
 ents, who flock there each day because their chil- 
 dren have been arrested, observe : " There's no ex- 
 cuse for their being dirty; soap and water are 
 cheap." In answer to this the visitors have been 
 asked: "Do you know the real tenements?" 
 The reply as a rule is to the effect that they 
 have read about them, or once visited a Bowery 
 mission or have ridden through Chinatown on 
 top of a sight-seeing bus. It may be that one of 
 the visitors has had a friend, a settlement worker, 
 who lived in a " model tenement." It is always 
 a source of wonder to the writer why so few 
 " model tenements " house the people for whose 
 benefit they are supposed to have been built. 
 The tenants, for the most part, are would-be Bo- 
 hemians or settlement workers who are faddists 
 and who love to write home to the folks in Il- 
 linois and tell them that in their heroic efforts 
 for human uplift they have gone to live " right in 
 the slums." Some of their " slum " flats, how-
 
 The Mills of Greed 95 
 
 ever, possess an atmosphere that would hardly 
 encourage the free visiting of real tenement 
 neighbors. 
 
 As to cleanliness in the tenements, how many 
 of us would long be particular about the ap- 
 pearance of our linen if we had to sleep in our 
 clothing night after night? Would we regularly 
 scour our faces and scrub our teeth if, to get a 
 drop of water, we had to wait long in a bucket- 
 bearing brigade at a common sink in a public 
 hall, each morning, when every second counted 
 on the sweatshop piece work and a minute lost 
 might mean eviction or starvation for our chil- 
 dren? No, in such a grind there is little chance 
 for cleanliness and there is ever an enforced dis- 
 regard of self-respect. 
 
 A little colored boy, as black as African night, 
 stood in the hallway of the Children's Court one 
 day waiting for his case to be called. He had 
 an expansive smile and his white teeth attracted 
 my attention. I stopped and asked his name. 
 
 " Walter Scott," he replied, with pride. 
 
 "What are you laughing about?" I asked. 
 
 It was then discovered that he stuttered.
 
 96 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 " De fun-fun-fun-funniest thing hap-hap-hap- 
 pened to me, Mist-Mist-Mister," he managed to 
 say, his bright smile never failing. " Dey took 
 me up to de Ger-Ger-Gerries (a name that many 
 children have for the Society) and dey give me a 
 ba-ba-ba-bath. An' I blush-blush blush-blushed, 
 all over ma face." 
 
 And I verily believe that the little colored boy 
 did blanch, if not blush, at this, his first bath, as 
 he confessed to me it was. It should be said 
 here, however, that the tenements occupied by the 
 colored people are usually much better kept than 
 those of the alien whites. 
 
 The question is frequently asked, by people 
 who do not know the real conditions, why 
 the foreigners do not move on to the open places 
 and avoid the congestion and the extortionate 
 rents. They would had they the means. The 
 trouble is that thousands, yes, and hundreds of 
 thousands, do not bring enough money to carry 
 them beyond New York. No immigrant is al- 
 lowed to remain in a Canadian city unless he can 
 show the immigrant inspectors of that Domin- 
 ion at least fifty dollars. It would be wise were
 
 C C 
 
 £ E 
 
 o 1> 
 
 c 
 
 o 4J 
 M ?» 
 
 .5 <-» 
 
 3 " 
 
 
 \3 m 
 ?. '5. 
 
 T3 ^ 
 
 X
 
 The Mills of Greed 97 
 
 such a law enacted here. And yet, what a clamor 
 of protest arose against the Commissioner at 
 Ellis Island because he arbitrarily set twenty-five 
 dollars as the amount which each newly arrived 
 alien must bring with him. 
 
 Often their own countrymen prey on the help- 
 less immigrants and are the hardest landlords 
 and employers. As illustrating this, the very 
 day these lines were written a woman came into 
 Court to complain that she was no longer able 
 to care for her children because her husband's 
 employer, who came from their same province 
 in Italy, would not pay him more than $5.50 a 
 week for twelve hours' work each day. Her hus- 
 band was an able-bodied man, but because of the 
 over-supply of labor was unable to get work else- 
 where. 
 
 That the community has denied the right of the 
 people in the congested districts to have children 
 is apparent from the brutal but frank statement 
 which appears in a recent annual report of the 
 Association For Improving The Condition Of The 
 Poor. 
 
 " The birth of a child," it is stated, " is a
 
 98 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 serious menace to the prosperity of the ordinary 
 laborer's family, and in the case of the unskilled 
 poor in our great cities the birth of a second or 
 third child, even in prosperous times, usually 
 brings disaster to the home." 
 
 This is a fact that is not yet comprehended 
 by the great mass of immigrants. They still 
 believe that children are blessings and in 
 this are more human than some of their richer 
 neighbors. Our citizens of to-morrow being 
 for the most part reenforced from this poor 
 class, the State as the ultimate parent owes them 
 a chance for work and a decent dwelling place. 
 
 Less than 200,000 persons own all the real es- 
 tate of New York City. There are eight owners 
 alone whose holdings aggregate in value about 
 $150,000,000, the total area of these holdings be- 
 ing 264.8 acres. The mortality and crime rates in 
 any district vary directly with the density of the 
 population just as it has been proved that the 
 size and weight of children at a given age are in 
 direct relation to the number living in a room. 
 The fewer in a room the taller and healthier they 
 are.
 
 The Mills of Greed 99 
 
 It is axiomatic that dark rooms are never kept 
 clean and there can be no wonder that they breed 
 disease and crime. One expert who was before 
 the recent Congestion Commission has declared 
 that not even in St. Petersburg, in heathen Can- 
 ton, or Bombay, was there such great congestion, 
 nor did the poor suffer so much from excessive 
 rents as in our metropolis.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HOPPERS 
 
 A BOUT one million human beings are shuttled 
 **■ *• into the country each year by the steamships. 
 Thousands of them congest in the nation's gate- 
 way. By the gateway New York is meant, for, 
 unfortunately, most immigrants are led to believe 
 this the only entrance to the country. It is eas- 
 iest for the transatlantic companies to unload 
 the human freight in this port. It is a stimu- 
 lated, artificial immigration that is over-crowd- 
 ing the great cities, particularly New York and 
 its municipal near neighbors. This congestion 
 is greatly responsible for the poverty, crime, 
 wretchedness and needless mortality in these 
 communities. 
 
 The new arrivals come here expecting to find 
 an asylum from race and religious persecution, 
 a refuge from poverty and famine, or a chance to 
 better their condition. Notaries, postmasters, 
 
 IOO
 
 The Hoppers 10 1 
 
 school mistresses, any who have persuasive power 
 and some following, act as agents to sell steam- 
 ship tickets — for they get a commission. They 
 often induce the families to mortgage their little 
 possessions and to start for this country with 
 funds insufficient to carry them beyond Ellis Is- 
 land. More than half a million immigrants 
 brought with them, in the year which ended 
 June 30th, 1909, less than twenty-five dollars a 
 head. The Commissioner at Ellis Island has 
 since laid down the wise rule that each arriving 
 immigrant must show not less than twenty-five 
 dollars. A great cry has gone up over this re- 
 quirement and yet it is not enough; for those 
 who expect to remain in the cities the amount 
 should be doubled. 
 
 Having no means to reach the open places 
 where they are really needed, many thousands 
 of the incoming horde are stranded in the gate- 
 way each year, and are forced into a bitter slav- 
 ery. The immigrant has been exploited from 
 the moment he first began to deal with the agent 
 on the other side, and here, unable to get beyond 
 the metropolis, he is crushed between the wheels,
 
 102 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 on the one hand the extortionate landlord, on 
 the other the greed of the sweatshop manager 
 or the padrone. The result is the heaping up 
 of a devitalized product that is unwholesome for 
 municipality or nation. 
 
 But, someone will say, many immigrants do 
 make money, they do better themselves. Yes, 
 otherwise three hundred million dollars of our 
 country's money would not be sent back to Eu- 
 rope each year. But even though the dollar 
 blinds our eyes, that is no excuse for indiffer- 
 ence to the cruelty that meets the weaker ones 
 of the insweeping flood. How hypocritical the 
 magnanimity of our much vaunted open door 
 when we sit quietly by while the robbing of these 
 victims, helplessly stalled in our gateway, goes 
 relentlessly on. 
 
 What right have we to complain that so much 
 of our country's money, a large part of it earned 
 by blood sweat, is sent back to Europe each year 
 and that so many of the successful immigrants 
 refuse to become American citizens? America 
 has always boasted herself as a refuge for the 
 oppressed. But as we have grown, our increased
 
 The Hoppers 103 
 
 responsibilities to the new arrivals have been 
 wholly disregarded. 
 
 There is no argument here against the open 
 door; but instead of just one door many should 
 be used and the immigrants, instead of being al- 
 lowed to congest in the big cities, should be moved 
 on to the open country that really needs them 
 and where they would have a fairer chance. 
 
 The call of the West : " Homes for the home- 
 less; food for the hungry; work for the unem- 
 ployed; land for the landless; gold for the penni- 
 less; freedom for the enslaved and room for all," 
 may tingle the blood; but when the immigrants 
 find themselves huddled into an East Side cellar 
 or into the back room of a rear tenement, already 
 crowded, their dreams turn to a despair that is 
 not productive of good citizenship. They may 
 have to live for weeks on the charity of relations 
 and friends before any work is found. Then 
 there are no wages too low for them to grasp. 
 In the fierce struggle for existence both father and 
 mother must fight in the bread-winning. Tired 
 eyes, empty stomachs and harassed souls do not 
 usually go with the best parental care. Too
 
 104 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 often the children are forced to drudgery or else 
 run wild in the streets. 
 
 There is no place where the effects of all this 
 are more apparent than in the Children's Courts 
 and the Charities Departments. The crushing 
 conditions of the new environment have in thou- 
 sands of cases rendered the parents helpless in 
 the upbringing of their children. To the struggle 
 for existence, relentless everywhere, are added 
 the difficulties of new laws, new customs and 
 a strange language, great handicaps in them- 
 selves. 
 
 A common tongue is the strongest bond of the 
 alien colonies. The parents have reached a 
 mental stage where it is difficult to learn a new 
 language. It frequently happens that parents 
 come into court who have lived here fifteen or 
 twenty years and who yet will not trust them- 
 selves to speak a word of their adopted country's 
 language. Children, on the other hand, quickly 
 take up the new tongue and adapt themselves to 
 new conditions.- They are the interpreters and 
 too often the dictators in their families and come 
 to feel a superiority to the bewildered parents.
 
 The Hoppers 105 
 
 The boy finds he can impose on his father who 
 perhaps was a czar in his own household back 
 in Kussia, the girl sees that she can readily de- 
 ceive her mother who was so watchful of her 
 morals in the old home. Their elders' strict no- 
 tions of filial respect, of correct conduct, from 
 which the children would not have dared depart 
 in their native country, are flouted. The boy's 
 new companions of the dark stairways, mal- 
 odorous courts and teeming streets too often 
 teach him to evade the truant officer. They also 
 bring him to believe that the " cop " is his worst 
 enemy. The girls are constantly exposed 
 through contact with the men lodgers whom the 
 family is forced for the rent's sake to huddle into 
 their narrow rooms at night. The inexorable 
 struggle for bread has so filled, every working 
 moment of the parents that they, perhaps, have 
 not seen the danger until it was too late. 
 
 Again, the hard usage to which they have been 
 subjected sometimes blunts the moral sensibilities 
 of the parent. The struggle for bread has been 
 so fierce that they often value their .offspring 
 solely for the child's money making ability. If
 
 106 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 the State insists on making Guiseppi go to school 
 and will not allow him to work until he is four- 
 teen, then they argue that the State should take 
 care of him until that time. Until recently, it 
 has been a common practice for such parents to 
 try to rid themselves of their children by sending 
 them to the " weissenhaus " or the " college." 
 Any institution, charitable or reformatory, was 
 known to a certain class as a " college." When, 
 on trumped up cases against their own offspring, 
 they had succeeded in having them sent to a re- 
 formatory, they were as proud as more fortunate 
 parents would have been in having placed a son 
 at Harvard or Yale. The children were fed and 
 clothed in the public institutions and when they 
 came out had some knowledge of a trade. 
 
 Laws have been passed in some States which 
 give the Justices in the Children's Courts the 
 right to place, at discretion, the father of any 
 child committed under an order to pay to the 
 State what the child's maintenance costs in 
 the institution. This has put a check on the 
 trumped-up stories. 
 
 Let it be said here in justice to the immigrants
 
 The Hoppers 107 
 
 that the majority of parents in the alien colonies 
 are anxious to do the best they can for their 
 children. Considering the living conditions into 
 which they are forced the great wonder is that 
 they do so well. In these dense colonies, where 
 a common foreign tongue is spoken, barriers are 
 built about the people that are not easily pene- 
 trated by our ideas of well-being and good cit- 
 izenship. 
 
 A swarthy Sicilian applied at the Children's 
 Court recently for "a ticket." 
 
 "What sort of a ticket?" demanded a clerk. 
 
 " Me want to killa man," was his bland reply. 
 
 To fathom the mental operation prompting this 
 request required an interpreter. A neighbor and 
 fellow countryman, it seemed, had taunted him 
 to a point of frenzy. He had determined on 
 blood vengeance. But he wanted to proceed 
 strictly in accordance with his notion of Ameri- 
 can law. Somewhere he had heard that judges 
 could issue revolver permits. If official permis- 
 sion to carry a pistol was to be obtained, he rea- 
 soned, certainly there went with it the legal right 
 to use the weapon. This prospective citizen, on
 
 108 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 legal murder bent, had been in the country three 
 years, all of which had been spent in Little Italy. 
 It took a lot of persuasion to convince him that 
 under the circumstances no judge would be in- 
 clined to grant him permission to carry a weapon 
 and even were that permission given no right 
 could go with it to shoot down one of his fellows. 
 But far more serious than the distorted notions 
 which these crowded people of the alien colonies 
 get as to American citizenship, is the fearful 
 slavery into which hordes of them are forced. 
 The landlord and sweatshop owner each knows 
 that the greater the crowd the higher will be the 
 rents and the lower the wages — each in his own 
 way reaps profit, The owner of the chattel 
 slave was looking only to his own interest when 
 he saw that his black property had a comfortable 
 bed in which to sleep at night, a weather-proof 
 roof over his head and wholesome, sustaining 
 food. The men who drive the immigrant slave 
 do not worry about these things ; they know that 
 for every man, woman or child that drops out 
 through starvation or exhaustion there are thou- 
 sands to step into the place.
 
 The Hoppers 109 
 
 On the side of dollars and cents, it is estimated 
 that although $800 is the minimum amount upon 
 which a man can support himself, a wife and 
 three children under working age in Manhattan 
 and the Bronx, a recent investigation has shown 
 that the average wage of 339,221 workers in these 
 two boroughs is only $543. The average wages of 
 101,995 heads of families in Brooklyn was $519. 
 The economic loss from 1905 to 1908 through 
 deaths from preventable disease in New York 
 City alone was $160,000,000. With the contin- 
 uance of the immigration flood and the further 
 crowding in of thousands of newly arrived aliens 
 in New York the wages will fall lower and lower, 
 while the economic loss to the community will go 
 mounting up. 
 
 There is no scruple in the methods of agents 
 who sell tickets in driving a contract for pas- 
 sage. The writer has seen copies of mortgages 
 given on the other side that would tie up the 
 prospective immigrant's wages for years and bind 
 him to a lifelong slavery here. The Commis- 
 sioner General of Immigration protests vigor- 
 ously in his annual reports against the flagrant
 
 no The Children in the Shadow 
 
 stimulation of immigration for profit. He says, 
 for instance : 
 
 The truth of the matter is that the peasants have for a 
 number of years supplied a rich harvest to the promoters 
 of immigration. The promoter is usually a steamship ticket 
 agent employed on a commission basis, or a professional 
 money lender or a combination of the two. . . . The more 
 aliens they bring over the more there are to be carried 
 back if failure meets the tentative immigrant and the more 
 likely to follow later if success is his lot. Whatever the 
 outcome it is a good commercial proposition for the steam- 
 ship line. 
 
 It is only in the years of slumps in third-class 
 passenger traffic that the big lines pass dividends. 
 One of the largest English companies which did 
 not pay a dividend in April, 1909, explained in 
 its report : " The number of third-class passengers 
 landed in the United States in 1908 was much 
 smaller than in 1907." The directors of one of 
 the biggest German companies explained, in that 
 same year, that the great drop in profits shown 
 by the annual balance sheet was due to " the un- 
 paralleled reduction in the number of steerage 
 passengers carried" which was about 185,000
 
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 The Hoppers ill 
 
 less than in the previous year. But in normal 
 times, in which there are brought to us about 1,- 
 000,000 immigrants annually, the transatlantic 
 lines make big profits from the steerage. 
 
 With the Commissioner General of Immigra- 
 tion protesting year after year, why are not some 
 of these evils remedied? The answer is simple — 
 his protests are not allowed to go far. In a re- 
 cent report he said: 
 
 Money lenders and other sharks have joined hands for 
 the purpose of exploiting prospective passengers, providing 
 them with passage money under a credit system which 
 amounted almost to robbery ; and insuring themselves 
 against loss by taking mortgages and joint notes. 
 
 They have issued circulars and advertisements and 
 made use of extensive correspondence through their own 
 agents in this country and in Europe, some of it spurious in 
 character, to impress the peasants with the belief that em- 
 ployment could be secured on landing in the United States. 
 
 How many of these reports reached the 
 public? In answer to a letter addressed to 
 the Commissioner General the reply has been 
 that just 5,000 reports are annually printed 
 and distributed. And yet at the last presi-
 
 112 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 dential election there were about 15,000,000 
 voters who were supposed to have exercised their 
 franchise with intelligence. Why is it that more 
 of them were not made familiar with the facts? 
 That New York is really no longer able to cope 
 with the flood is evidenced when such men as 
 Jacob H. Schiff, who perhaps has done more to 
 help the oppressed in the land of his fathers 
 than any one American, said recently to a gath- 
 ering of newly arrived immigrants: 
 
 We feel that we have already reached the limit of ab- 
 sorption. We must set you recent immigrants to thinking 
 and you must advise your friends at home. You must do 
 this for your own good, for your health and prosperity 
 and for the future of your children. Help us to solve the 
 problem of distribution. The problem of immigration to-day 
 is not what it was thirty years ago. Experience has taught 
 us that there is a limit to this city's absorbing capacity. We 
 must continue to take in the immigrant, but we must make 
 him go to some other part of the United States.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE STRANDED HOST 
 
 f INHERE are powerful influences operating 
 against the Americanization of our im- 
 migrants. The ticket agents and the foreign 
 banking concerns which have branches here as 
 well as the private " bankers " usually encourage 
 the retention of citizenship in the fatherland. 
 They know that as long as the immigrant does 
 not become an American citizen he will send his 
 savings back to his native country, or if he is 
 unable to save he will return home and that 
 means the sale of another passage. The Ameri- 
 can branches of the foreign banks often advertise 
 extensively that they are authorized by the home 
 Governments to take care of the savings of their 
 countrymen here and transport them back to 
 Europe. The ignorant depositors, knowing 
 
 nothing of our State and national banks, are 
 
 113
 
 114 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 easily persuaded that their own banks are 
 the safest. Newspapers teaching old country 
 doctrines and influencing the aliens to retain 
 their native citizenship are printed by these 
 foreign and private banks and the ticket 
 agencies. The slower depositors are in becom- 
 ing American citizens the longer the private 
 banks will handle their money. The fact that 
 518,215 aliens returned home in the year that 
 ended June 30, 1911, was largely due to these 
 influences. Of that number 295,666 were emi- 
 grant aliens, that is departing aliens whose resi- 
 dence had been in the United States but who in- 
 tended to live permanently abroad. There were 
 also 222,549 non-emigrant aliens, that is aliens 
 who resided abroad and who returned to their 
 homes after a temporary trip to the United 
 States. The net gain in population by immigra- 
 tion in that one year then was 512,085, as com- 
 pared with 817,619 for the fiscal year 1910. The 
 vast majority of those returning, unfortunately, 
 were not from the congested districts of New 
 York. 
 
 Of the coalition of immigrant bankers and
 
 The Stranded Host 115 
 
 other "interests" one Congressional Commis- 
 sion has said: 
 
 By constant appeal to the prejudice and patriotism of 
 the immigrant his Americanization is not only retarded but 
 deliberately combated in order that he may be held as a 
 source of income to those whom he trusts. 
 
 An investigation in 1907 showed there were 
 2,625 concerns in the United States doing an im- 
 migrant banking business. They had not then 
 spread west of the Mississippi river. The num- 
 ber has greatly increased since. A government 
 report at that time described these banks as " en- 
 tirely irresponsible." It has been estimated that 
 more than 100,000 persons are now engaged in 
 the immigrant banking, ticket agency and pa- 
 drone business. 
 
 The disasters to their helpless clients through 
 the stealings and failures of so-called private 
 bankers are frequent and leave a long trail of 
 wretchedness and poverty. Many cases come to 
 light in the Children's Courts and in the Chari- 
 ties Departments where the families' misfortunes 
 have been caused by the dishonest collapse of
 
 n6 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 these institutions. Perhaps after years of hardest 
 toil it has been possible to put aside a few dollars 
 with the " banker." He has always been trusted, 
 too, to transmit money to Europe to pay off the 
 obligations there. Then the banker has disap- 
 peared over-night and his doors have closed. He 
 has appropriated the money and there is no re- 
 dress. In one year, the amount stolen from alien 
 depositors in New York alone by such bogus in- 
 stitutions was a million and a half. One banker, 
 bonded for $15,000, failed with obligations out- 
 standing for $600,000. 
 
 An investigation showed that eighty per cent, 
 of these banks easily violated a ridiculous law 
 that, regardless of the amount of deposits, they 
 should be bonded for $15,000. Other States 
 have laws quite as lax. One banker who had 
 branches in Pittsburg and Connellsville as well 
 as New York, went into the hands of a receiver 
 lately with liabilities of nearly $1,000,000. A 
 Congressional Commission was appointed to in- 
 vestigate, but most commissions bring little 
 action. This particular Commission, however, 
 reported regarding this case:
 
 The Stranded Host 117 
 
 This banker is a national and religious leader among 
 his people having organized and headed a national Slovak 
 society in this country. He issues a daily, a weekly, a 
 humorous monthly, a yearly almanac, and from time to time 
 other publications. Although he has renounced allegiance to 
 Hungary, severed all political ties with that country and has 
 become an American citizen, he does not advise the Slovak 
 countrymen to do the same, but, instead, preaches in all his 
 publications a militant and enthusiastic Pan-Slovakism. So 
 long as the Slovaks remain Slovaks and can be filled with 
 Slovak patriotism and enthusiasm by such agitation, just so 
 long will they remain a source of profit to the banker. 
 
 "Prior to the recent industrial depression this man was 
 accustomed to transmit abroad on behalf of his patrons, 
 from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000 annually and to sell 6,000 
 steamship tickets per year. 
 
 A recent statute enacted in New York requir- 
 ing of each private banker a deposit in cash of 
 |10,000 and a bond of from $10,000 to $100,000 — 
 to be fixed in proportion to the amount of busi- 
 ness done — may possibly be of some help in this 
 State. There are of course reliable private 
 bankers, and they have been urging that it 
 would be much safer to compel these concerns 
 to invest only in first-class mortgages at no 
 more than sixty per cent, valuation, making it 
 a crime to invest otherwise. They say the new
 
 n8 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 law subjects them to the exactions of surety com- 
 panies that "tie them hand and foot." If pri- 
 vate banks are permitted to handle immigrant 
 money at all they should be subjected to just as 
 strict supervisions as our native banking institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Many of the bankers and ticket agents are pa- 
 drones, placing aliens at work where and under 
 what conditions they choose. Immigrants who 
 finally get beyond New York, are often first 
 herded into boarding houses, whose keepers are 
 the steamship agents or padrones themselves or 
 who work hand in hand with them. One private 
 banker, whose operations recently received offi- 
 cial attention, had handled immigrants by the 
 hundred. Taking advantage of their ignorance 
 he agreed to pay his countrymen seventy-five 
 cents a day for their labor. He housed them, 
 pending the placing of them with big contractors, 
 charged his own prices for food and lodging and 
 when the new arrivals finally went to work there 
 were substantial bills hanging over them. He 
 hired the men out at f 1.50 a day, and at times in 
 hundred-men lots. He not only made one hun-
 
 The Stranded Host 119 
 
 dred per cent, on their wages, but profited fifty 
 per cent, on what he forced from them for food 
 and lodging. 
 
 Between 150,000 and 200,000 farm laborers 
 and farmers are admitted to the United States 
 each year, men whose help is badly needed for 
 our rapidly deteriorating agriculture. They 
 were anxious to go to the land, to do a man's 
 work, for certainly the tillage of the soil is one 
 of man's most desirable occupations. A vast 
 number of them get no nearer to a farm than 
 a pushcart or a sweatshop on the East Side. 
 Others are shuttled into the mines or on con- 
 tract labor jobs to slave for the padrones. 
 
 When the immigrant has enough money to get 
 past New York, he is often forced to pay about as 
 much, for his transportation as if he were buy- 
 ing a first-class ticket. The General Passenger 
 Traffic Manager of one of the biggest roads in the 
 country admitted recently, at a hearing before 
 a special examiner for the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission, that the immigrants on some lines 
 were forced to pay practically as much for their 
 transportation as if accommodations and privi-
 
 120 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 leges offered had been first-class. The first-class 
 ticket was unlimited, the immigrant's ticket was 
 limited to two days. The immigrant could ride 
 only in a smoking car or on an immigrant train, 
 the cars of which in many instances did not have 
 washstands. There were no porters or brake- 
 men to assist the women or children. 
 
 It also went on record at this hearing that the 
 immigrants who paid full passenger rates were 
 often kept huddled together for hours at various 
 terminals. Our prospective citizens did not ex- 
 pect plush cushions or leather couches, nor had 
 they been led to believe when they left their 
 homes on the other side that they would be forced 
 to pay for first-class accommodations and fare 
 badly. It frequently happened that the cars in 
 which they were hauled were hitched on to 
 freight trains. This investigation did result in 
 some improvement in accommodations but there 
 still remains much to be done. 
 
 Owners of mines and of company stores are 
 no less greedy and relentless than the padrones, 
 and the tenement and sweatshop owners. An in- 
 tensive study of the households of 2,371 miners
 
 The Stranded Host 121 
 
 made by Government agents shows an average 
 of $37.50 per month as the earnings of the heads 
 of families. Practically all of these men are for- 
 eigners. Often the miner sees little cash in pay- 
 ment for his services, for the script, store-order 
 or check system is common. If he has not 
 mortgaged his prospective wages too heavily be- 
 fore quitting the agent's office in his own country 
 he may in time be able to start a meager bank ac- 
 count. Then slack times come and another 
 designing agent, usually of his own nationality, 
 may persuade him that it is best for him to go 
 home until the situation has improved here. 
 This means another commission. 
 
 There are traps without number into which the 
 community, by its selfish quiescence, permits our 
 new arrivals to fall. A few immigrant societies 
 are trying to stop some of these abuses, taking up 
 in a small way a task that is too big for them 
 and which should be handled by the Government 
 itself. But the " interests " prevent that. The 
 abuses in connection with naturalization, only 
 one of the many counts against the Government, 
 have been a burning scandal. The Mayor of
 
 122 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 New York City, in a recent letter to the United 
 States Attorney General, said: "When men 
 cannot get naturalized without paying corrup- 
 tion money for it, they cannot be expected to 
 feel otherwise than that the Government is cor- 
 rupt throughout." 
 
 This criticism was in connection with the ex- 
 posure of extortion from prospective citizens who 
 applied for their papers at the Naturalization 
 Bureau. For years applicants had commonly 
 been forced to give money to get ahead in the 
 waiting line in the Federal Building. After 
 losing days of work the applicant who did not 
 pay found himself further down the line than 
 when he first applied. The men who have con- 
 ducted this traffic have not been government offi- 
 cials, but outsiders who have taken advantage 
 of the Government's inadequate facilities for 
 handling the business. Abuse after abuse has 
 been exposed in this connection and a few extra 
 clerks were put on while the matter was being 
 " stirred up." 
 
 As one writer said in an editorial when a nat- 
 uralization bribe-taker was arrested : " The chief
 
 The Stranded Host 123 
 
 offender is the United States. By not providing 
 proper facilities for naturalization the Govern- 
 ment flouts its own laws." 
 
 The placing of immigrants on farms is one of 
 the greatest needs of the day. The over-popula- 
 tion in the cities means heavy loss from preventa- 
 ble disease, and endless drain on the resources 
 of the municipality in attempting to relieve the 
 distress of the stranded armies of immigrants. 
 A bureau has been organized within the past few 
 years whose purpose was bravely announced to 
 be the moving on of newly arrived aliens to the 
 places where their labor is really needed. How 
 little has been accomplished is apparent from the 
 figures of a report by the Commissioner General 
 which shows that of the 878,587 aliens admitted 
 for the year which ended June 30, 1911, only 
 30,657 applicants received any information from 
 this new Division of Information, and only 5,176 
 went direct to the place upon they were em- 
 ployed. 
 
 This division should be made one of the most 
 important in the immigration service. Its chief 
 is most anxious to do this but is not receiving the
 
 124 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 support he should have from the Government. 
 Its growth will have to be rapid to make any im- 
 pression on the incoming armies. The head of 
 the Division says officially : 
 
 Able, healthy, willing workers have anxiously scanned 
 the records of opportunities presented to them by the Divi- 
 sion of Information only to turn away disappointed, for 
 the most alluring of them lay at points hopelessly beyond 
 their grasp because of financial inability to reach the 
 destination. The Division of Information could have di- 
 rected thousands of people to places where they could have 
 secured employment on land were it not for the lack of 
 means on the part ot applicants to pay traveling expenses. 
 
 A manager of one of the biggest fruit com- 
 panies on the Pacific coast, a concern that em- 
 ployed 25,000 persons, told the writer that the 
 greatest difficulty was experienced in obtaining 
 sufficient labor. Seven months in the year the 
 workers received $2.50 a day and for the other 
 five $1.25 a day. Many thousands of the farm 
 workers who land in New York are Southern Eu- 
 ropeans who are good fruit growers, but, like 
 other immigrants, they often do not have on ar- 
 rival more than the necessary twenty-five dollars. 
 New York is a long way from the Pacific coast.
 
 The Stranded Host 125 
 
 Their little capital is quickly gone and they are 
 lucky if they have been able to hang on to the 
 skirts of some half-legitimate occupation. Were 
 they helped to reach the farm lands that lie idle 
 beyond the gateway, even in the Eastern States, 
 what powerful factors they would be in redeem- 
 ing barren acres. Farming in New York State 
 alone has decreased in value fl68,000,000 since 
 1880. Some of the railroads are now taking up 
 the matter of the redemption of farm lands pri- 
 vately, but this too, is a work for the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Someone will say : " Why, I know of an immi- 
 grant who went to a farm and stayed there only 
 a month, then he was back in the city ; what's the 
 use?" But when we get at the real facts we 
 usually find that the immigrant had no one about 
 him who spoke his own language and that his 
 employer, taking advantage of his ignorance and 
 helplessness, drove him early and late and at the 
 most meager wages. Little effort has been made 
 by State or Government to place the immigrant 
 where there is economic attraction. Groups of 
 immigrants from the same country, when placed
 
 126 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 on neighboring farms where cooperation was 
 possible, granted that they knew anything at all 
 about farming, or had any practical supervision, 
 have invariably been successful. 
 
 And here it is important to correct a popular 
 notion that it is useless to try to interest the 
 Jews in agriculture. It is commonly said that 
 they will never make farmers, that they prefer 
 towns where there is more use for their wits and 
 less for their hands. Such a statement is usually 
 born of gross ignorance and bigotry and, in 
 spite of experimental failures in other countries, 
 needs great qualification. It is an assumption, 
 based upon the past, rather than a fact, opera- 
 tive for the future. For the Jew had for cen- 
 turies been dispossessed, he has forcibly been 
 herded into towns and forbidden the land in 
 many countries. 
 
 Take, for instance, the situation of the Kus- 
 sian Jew as we learn it from the immigrant. In 
 line with other cruelties, its pogroms, its relent- 
 less persecutions and slaughters, the Russian 
 Government will not permit Jews to buy, lease or 
 manage real property except in the towns and
 
 
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 The Stranded Host 127 
 
 cities within the Pale of Settlement. The Pale 
 consists of fifteen provinces, a twenty-third part 
 of the Empire. Here practically all the Jewish 
 population, between five and six millions in num- 
 ber, is forced to live. There are only 200,000 
 Jews in Russia to-day who are tilling the soil. A 
 movement to give the Jews in Russia a chance at 
 the land, which began in the eighties, started 
 them in this work. But this movement was com- 
 paratively short-lived, for the recent May laws 
 have made it impossible for Jews further to de- 
 velop established agricultural colonies or to start 
 new ones within the limits of the Russian Em- 
 pire. While Jewish artisans may live in almost 
 all parts of Russia, they are prohibited from ac- 
 quiring real estate outside the towns or cities 
 of the Pale. The artisan's son, who lives outside, 
 if he be not fortunate enough to have acquired 
 the legal right of residence, must, on coming of 
 age, go to the Pale. Many of their callings that 
 were formerly classed as artisan are now declared 
 to be non-artisan and the workers in these have 
 been forced back to the Ghetto. This explains 
 then why there are so few Jewish farmers and
 
 128 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 why the vocations in which Eussian Jews engage 
 are seemingly limited to trading — they have 
 been shut out of practically everything else in 
 their native land. 
 
 That the Jews are successful when given a 
 chance at the land is shown by the experiences of 
 the Industrial Removal Office in New York which 
 has transplanted a sufficiently large number of 
 East Side workers to farms to show that they 
 make most successful tillers of the soil. Many 
 fresh arrivals are being sent to the hills of New 
 England and to the valleys of Texas and to the 
 nearer fields of New Jersey by the Removal Of- 
 fice and by other Jewish immigrant societies. 
 Whenever they go to the farms in cooperative 
 companies they are successful. In nine years the 
 Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Society 
 loaned $648,921 for the purpose of establishing 
 Jews on farms, and already more than $200,000 
 has been repaid. With the loans secured at le- 
 gal rates of interest have gone advice and assist- 
 ance of every sort. Social needs have been con- 
 sidered in this plan, as it is fully recognized that 
 the isolated immigrant farmer suffers social
 
 The Stranded Host 129 
 
 death. To-day, wits as well as hands are needed 
 for the successful farmer and the Jew enjoys the 
 employment of both. An agricultural paper is 
 published in Yiddish, and in these colonies, the 
 Jewish farmer has the companionship of his co- 
 religionists. By these and other means he is 
 secured from that starvation of the mind which 
 is to him the most dreaded of all fates. 
 
 Before me at this moment is a letter from an 
 East Side young man, a Jew, who is studying ag- 
 riculture at the Woodbine (N. J.) colony, in 
 which he says: — 
 
 Our studies are those needed by the practical farmer 
 to help him make his farm a success. The time spent here 
 is worth while. My highest ambition in life is to possess 
 a homestead on a farm run on a successful basis. My hopes 
 and spirits are high. If it is possible for one man to work 
 his way through college, it is also possible for another, 
 and I am going to have that farm. 
 
 But while meager hundreds of men are dis- 
 tributed by these societies, hundreds of thou- 
 sands are ceaselessly pouring in and are tramp- 
 ling out one another's life in the gateway. 
 
 How important then that the Government
 
 130 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 should take up the distribution question in ear- 
 nest and relieve the congestion of the cities with 
 all the poverty, the extortion, the slavery, the 
 death which it entails. The crowding in our 
 dense alien colonies is making compulsory para- 
 sites of people who would be able helpers if given 
 a chance in the open. Of the gain in population 
 in the past ten years seventy-three per cent, was 
 in cities of 25,000 and over, this while our farm- 
 ing country continues to be depopulated and our 
 agricultural consumption seriously threatens to 
 exceed our production. The head of one great 
 railroad has said that we shall not see these 
 things until starvation drives us to it.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LABELING THE BUSINESS 
 
 rilHERE is little virtue in dwelling on evil liv- 
 **• ing conditions unless effective remedies are 
 offered. Such remedies there are, but public 
 apathy or ignorance on the one hand, and private 
 interests on the other have thus far hindered 
 their use. It is said that the total number of un- 
 necessary deaths in London is as great each year 
 as the total number of deaths in the English 
 army during the three years of the Boer war. 
 And yet the death rate for New York has aver- 
 aged for the past five years about three points 
 higher than that of London. The Health Com- 
 missioner of New York has declared that if medi- 
 cal science were enabled to-day to put into effect 
 what it knows regarding hygiene and sanitation, 
 the death rate could be cut in half. The tearing 
 down of old houses in a certain section of Glas- 
 gow a few years ago, and the building of new 
 
 131
 
 132 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 tenements to replace them reduced the death rate 
 in that district from fifty-five per thousand to a 
 little over fourteen. There are rookeries in 
 some of our great American cities, quite as bad 
 as any that ever existed in Glasgow. 
 
 The homes we have thus far visited in the 
 crowded districts are those whose troubles have 
 been due to poverty and all that poverty brings 
 with it. But there are other things to be reck- 
 oned with in all this inhuman herding; the 
 drunkenness among many of our native popula- 
 tion, the constant spectacles of vice that pass be- 
 fore the children's eyes and are about them upon 
 every side. There are homes, not those of newly 
 arrived immigrants but of older residents, whose 
 squalid surroundings foster amazing viciousness. 
 That these crime-breeding places should be per- 
 mitted to stand for a day shows a serious lack of 
 authority in health, tenement, building and po- 
 lice departments. Let us look into a home of 
 this type. 
 
 The presence of two children in a horror hole 
 in Water Street came to the attention of the au- 
 thorities recently quite by accident. For nine
 
 Labeling the Business 133 
 
 months the brother and sister had been living 
 there in company with seventy professional 
 women beggars. They had been sleeping in a lit- 
 tle compartment no bigger and no lighter than a 
 coal bin. With lanterns and candles the officers 
 had gone in early one morning to the rescue. 
 The pitiful story in Court of the anaemic two 
 whose faces belied their age by a dozen years 
 led the writer to visit the place in company with 
 a Society officer on the day following the raid. 
 The premises were two dilapidated two-story and 
 attic frame houses connected by a shed at the 
 rear. These crazy structures were a relic of the 
 wooden age in tenements, but by law they were 
 permitted to stand. Crudely painted figures on 
 little blocks of wood askew over the tilted door 
 frames marked, the police told me, the storm cen- 
 ter of more ambulance and patrol wagon calls 
 than any other house in that precinct. 
 
 To knock, we found, was a needless ceremony. 
 In a little vestibule boarded off from the front 
 room sat three ragged crones, evidently waiting 
 to engage a bed for the night. One grinned at 
 sight of us, revealing two yellow tusks little more
 
 134 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 unpleasant than her other features and, to our as- 
 tonishment, she dropped a mock courtesy. 
 
 " Please, kind sirs," she wheedled, " will you 
 not cross a lady's palm with silver? " And she 
 stretched out a gaunt, grimy hand. 
 
 With a cackle she exhibited the coins to her 
 envious companions. We passed the partitions 
 to a cramped compartment and gradually made 
 out, in the dim light of a smoky lamp, a dozen 
 creatures with hideous faces, squatted about on 
 shakedowns. There was a little stove on which 
 a pot was boiling. A few of the hags shrank 
 away, evidently thinking it was the police again, 
 and two, whose faces had been deeply cut and 
 bruised, retreated, cursing, to a stairway. One 
 , of the seated company volunteered in a concilia- 
 tory way: 
 
 " We just got back from work and are restin' 
 a bit. There ain't nothing wrong about that? " 
 
 " They're always resting a bit when they are 
 not fighting," remarked the agent. 
 
 Most of the company, however, showed little 
 interest in the call and when we asked how it 
 went with them, one arose, fork in hand, and, as
 
 Labeling the Business 135 
 
 she tried the potatoes, replied : " Everything 
 is all right. God is good to us." 
 
 The rickety stairs were so steep that it was a 
 matter of pulling ourselves up rather than of 
 walking. The wonder was how they managed it 
 when they were drunk. On the landing at the 
 top, and under a window most of whose glass 
 had been replaced by rags and paper, lay a girl 
 of not more than twenty in a besotted sleep. 
 Degradation had worked fast, but it had not yet 
 destroyed every good feature. A little more 
 time, however, and that face would be as hide- 
 ous as the others. The room just off the land- 
 ing was divided into little black pens ; each, how- 
 ever, rented as a " room " for two dollars a 
 week. It was in one of those holes that the 
 children had been found huddled with their fa- 
 ther and three hags. The father, we learned, 
 worked in a Fulton Street fish market and out 
 of his wages of six dollars had paid something 
 each week for the maintenance of the little boy 
 and girl. The mother had disappeared about 
 a year before. In another " room " we found 
 the landlady trying to rouse the occupant of a
 
 136 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 cot who was sleeping off the effects of " third 
 rail " whiskey, famous in that neighborhood. 
 The sleeper finally raised herself on an elbow, 
 looked dazedly at the visitors and sighed: 
 
 " I wish I was married." 
 
 " Umph, is that all that's a-troubling ye, 
 Sadie?" remarked the landlady. 
 
 " Yes, it's awful lonesome livin' this way," 
 and the lonesome lady sank back on the cot into 
 sleep and snores again while we interviewed 
 the hostess. The latter was sixty, sober, and 
 business-like. Her only concern was lest we 
 had come to arrest Sadie and take her away be- 
 fore she had paid for her lodgings. 
 
 The business of the harboring the women was 
 quite profitable, we learned, and the landlady 
 had a good sized bank account. The ordinary 
 lodgers paid ten cents a night. This, with the 
 money that came from the " roomers," gave her a 
 nice profit, although she was obliged to pay 
 seventy dollars a month for rent. The landlady 
 finally produced a key and led us to her room. 
 It was luxurious by way of contrast. There was 
 a carpet, a bed with white spread and pillow
 
 Labeling the Business 137 
 
 shams, some faded prints and a crucifix on the 
 walls. The lodgers, she told us, were never ad- 
 mitted here; we were privileged visitors. And 
 yet one lodger did penetrate into her sanctuary 
 one night some weeks after our visit and 
 stabbed the landlady through the heart as she 
 slept, gathered up the week's receipts and fled 
 out into the night. 
 
 Some of her " girls," as the landlady told us, 
 made snug sums from their infirmities, faked or 
 real, and their street corner pleas for charity. 
 The " third-rail joints," she admitted, got most 
 of it. 
 
 As we descended the perilous stairs we were 
 stopped by a weazened woman with a beard on 
 her chin. She had begged fifteen cents from us 
 a little while before " for tobacco," but she had 
 a flask and was dancing now "to show how 
 young " she was. 
 
 " They're just getting tuned up for the night," 
 observed the officer. " It will not be long before 
 they are dragging one another around by the 
 hair." 
 
 As we stepped out into the open and breathed
 
 138 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 in the cold air it all seemed to have been a hor- 
 rible dream. But this was the home of the two 
 pitiful children and it will be long before the 
 memories of the orgies, the brutalities of the 
 place will be effaced from their impressionable 
 minds. 
 
 As has been stated it was only by accident 
 that the case of these two little unfortunates 
 came to the attention of the authorities. It is 
 true that a place like this of the beggars is ex- 
 ceptional and it was torn down sometime after 
 our visit, yet we cannot but wonder how many 
 more children are living in conditions just as 
 horrible that no accident has yet revealed to the 
 courts. There are thousands of them in cellars 
 in New York who do not figure in the police or 
 society records, but who do figure big in the mor- 
 tality reports. Their parents and guardians are 
 not drunkards. In fact there is comparatively 
 little drunkenness in the dense alien colonies; 
 that is chiefly the vice of native Americans. The 
 trouble is not with inefficient or corrupt officials, 
 but with a sleeping public. New York to-day 
 has a most capable and conservative Tenement 

 
 Labeling the Business 139 
 
 House Commissioner who is doing all within his 
 power to remedy conditions but his power is not 
 big enough. 
 
 A recent report of the Tenement House De- 
 partment showed that there were in New York 
 City 25,387 basement or cellar tenements. Of 
 these cellar homes 14,791 were in Manhattan 
 alone. The law contains no restriction as to 
 the number of cellar " apartments " which may 
 exist in a tenement erected prior to April 10, 
 1901. As illustrating something of the condi- 
 tions the Committee on the Congestion of Popu- 
 lation recently cited a cellar in a block bounded 
 by Catherine, Monroe, Market and Hamilton 
 Streets where twenty families lived. 
 
 The mother of one of these families was in 
 the Children's Court not long ago pleading for 
 the release of one of her five children, an eleven- 
 year-old boy, who had been arrested for selling 
 newspapers on the street at midnight. None of 
 her children had been able to get enough school- 
 ing to entitle him to a badge from the Depart- 
 ment of Education permitting him to sell papers. 
 But within one year there had been eight ar-
 
 140 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 rests of her children for selling newspapers 
 without permits and in prohibited hours. 
 
 "What can I do?" pleaded the poor woman. 
 " We have not enough money to pay the rent." 
 
 The father and grandfather had a little 
 butcher shop in the neighborhood. The rent 
 for their shop and the cellar hole where they 
 lived aggregated thirty-eight dollars a month. 
 The biggest profit they had made in any one 
 week in two years was eleven dollars. An aged 
 grandmother was trying to help by finishing 
 men]s pants. She told me with some little pride 
 that they were "policemen's pants" and that 
 she got twelve cents a pair for them. That was 
 a good price, as such work goes. The rate paid 
 usually depends on the condition of the labor 
 market and the hunger in the stomachs of 
 the workers; and as overcrowding of popula- 
 tion means a market always over-supplied the 
 prices are always correspondingly meager. The 
 grandmother, favored as she might be by the 
 higher rate of compensation, was never able to 
 finish more than five pairs a day. Her bent 
 shoulders, worn hands, and dull eyes told better
 
 Labeling the Business 141 
 
 than her words how hard was her drudgery. 
 The family of nine, including the grandparents, 
 was not able to live on the combined earnings 
 of the shop and those of the grandmother. The 
 butcher business did not even pay the rent of the 
 cellar and the shop. So there was little wonder 
 the children were sent into the streets to sell 
 newspapers, even though it was against the law. 
 It was that or starvation. 
 
 The bad air of the cellar is certain to lead to 
 the illness of some member of that family be- 
 fore long. Then they will be forced to visit the 
 Charity Department. And in many cases after 
 the first application for public aid there is a 
 final weakening of whatever self-respect the 
 mills of greed have not ground out, and, giv- 
 ing up the fight, the family become willing 
 paupers. 
 
 The death rate of the second generation of for- 
 eigners in the congested districts of New York, 
 as shown by Health Department investigations, 
 is much higher than the death rate of their par- 
 ents. In one square block, inhabited chiefly by 
 Italians, it was found in 1906 that the children
 
 142 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 under the age of five years were dying off at the 
 rate of 92.2 per thousand. In another square 
 block it was 87.03 per thousand. There is a 
 wide difference in the mortality and death rates 
 among children of different nationalities. The 
 Jewish children withstand disease better than 
 the children of Italian parents. The Italians 
 have a mortality from measles almost five times 
 greater than that of the children of any other 
 nationality. The death rate from bronco-pneu- 
 monia among Italian children reaches more than 
 seven and one-half times the rate among children 
 of American parents. Experts have long been 
 warning us that the death rate in the crowded 
 districts will go mounting up unless we let more 
 light and air into the tenements. They tell us 
 that in every building there should be at least 
 400 cubic feet for every adult and 300 cubic feet 
 for every child under twelve years of age. The 
 provision of 300 cubic feet of air space for each 
 tenement dweller is all that is required now by 
 law, and we know that the law is commonly 
 violated. 
 
 How much better would be the building of 

 
 Labeling the Business 143 
 
 practical model tenements — those already 
 built often rent for sums far beyond the reach 
 of the people for whom they were meant — bet- 
 ter than the erection of libraries, and yes, I was 
 about to say even hospitals. For if we gave the 
 people of these districts better conditions we 
 would not need so many hospitals. This does 
 not for a moment mean that the people should 
 be pauperized. But if philanthropists would 
 provide houses that had light, air, and a chance 
 for cleanliness, and at a rent reasonable from 
 the standpoint of the tenant's earnings, what 
 enduring monuments they would be raising to 
 themselves. The proper housing of one human 
 being is a greater help to the community than 
 the monumental housing of a ton of books. 
 
 It has been demonstrated by Mrs. William K. 
 Vanderbilt through her recently erected East 
 River Homes, in which about 300 families are 
 housed, that it is possible to provide bright, airy, 
 sanitary apartments, equipped with electric 
 lights, steam heat and baths at rents that are no 
 higher than those charged for some of the old 
 cold-water, no-heat black room flats in the rook-
 
 144 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 eries. These houses were not built to make 
 money but were intended primarily as homes for 
 tuberculosis convalescents and their construction 
 had to meet peculiar requirements. To-day 
 there are convalescents in them who pay no rent. 
 The tenants who are able-bodied and work pay 
 as much perhaps as tenants elsewhere, but it is to 
 be remembered there are no coal nor light bills to 
 be met and they live comfortably in sanitary and 
 attractive surroundings. Further experience in 
 the building of this type of houses will undoubt- 
 edly make possible lower rents in them. 
 
 But, as we have tried to make plain, this is 
 not, after all, a proposition so much for private 
 philanthropy as for public service. It is for the 
 municipality itself to regulate the matter of the 
 tenements by adequate laws and their enforce- 
 ment. We may appoint investigating commis- 
 sions, organize civic study clubs, declare that it 
 is all shocking and forget about it next day, 
 and the same things — slavery and murder are 
 their real names — will go right on as long as 
 public conscience sleeps. 
 
 There is a pitiful lack of autonomy in the
 
 Labeling the Business 145 
 
 city departments that should be able to act 
 quickly and decisively on evil living conditions. 
 To illustrate we shall cite a case that was re- 
 cently brought to our attention. A family of 
 seven was found living in two small rooms 
 within a stone's throw of the Children's Court 
 and in a fearful condition of filth and squalor. 
 One of the five children was a seventeen-year- 
 old boy, an imbecile and paralytic from birth, 
 who lay in a tin bath tub which the parents had 
 provided. He was entirely helpless and had 
 not been moved from the tub, as the parents ad- 
 mitted, in weeks. Besides the human inhabi- 
 tants there were chickens and pigeons in the 
 small rooms. While the parents worked in a 
 neighboring pickle factory a girl thirteen years 
 old was supposed to look after the helpless im- 
 becile as well as to minister to the wants of the 
 smaller children. When we called there was a 
 red hot stove in the place and not a window 
 open. Holding our breath we stepped into the 
 rooms when a rooster coming from under a bed 
 flew to the edge of the tub in which the imbecile 
 lay and perching there an instant crowed lustily.
 
 146 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 A hen was pecking from a dish on the floor in 
 which there was a dirty mixture of bread and 
 milk, evidently intended as food for the unfor- 
 tunate boy. When we fled to the hallway for 
 air the agent told me that these conditions had 
 existed ever since the family moved in, six 
 months before. 
 
 The agent took all the children, except the un- 
 fortunate creature in the tub, to the Society 
 rooms on a charge of improper guardianship. 
 As the boy was over sixteen years old the agent 
 had no jurisdiction in his case. We asked the 
 neighbors why he had not been sent to a hos- 
 pital. They told us the parents feared hospitals 
 and would never consent to his being taken 
 away. We went to the pickle factory, found the 
 parents who resented deeply the interference of 
 the Society and declared they would never con- 
 sent to the boy's removal. They declared he 
 was receiving medical attention and when we 
 asked who the doctor was they gave us the name 
 of a veterinary. Here existed a flagrant menace 
 to the health of the other tenants in the house, 
 as well as to the entire neighborhood.
 
 Labeling the Business 147 
 
 The Charities Department was told of the 
 situation in detail. 
 
 "We can only place the boy in a hospital," 
 was the reply of that department, " if the par- 
 ents will consent ; otherwise we can do nothing." 
 
 To the Tenement House Department we 
 turned next. No, that department would do 
 nothing, it had no jurisdiction in such a case; 
 it probably belonged to the Department of 
 Charities, or the Department of Health. The 
 latter department was tried next. They listened 
 patiently, but their answer was discouraging. 
 
 " We can take out the pigeons and the chick- 
 ens, it is against the law to keep them in a flat." 
 The policeman on post declared that he had no 
 authority to move the boy unless the parents 
 agreed. They had gone back to the pickle fac- 
 tory. I never eat a pickle now without think- 
 ing of that house. 
 
 Failing to receive cooperation from any city 
 department we finally made bold to summon an 
 ambulance ourselves. Against the protests of 
 the surgeon the lad was finally taken to Belle- 
 vue Hospital. The authorities there said if the
 
 148 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 parents were so disposed they could take the boy 
 home as soon as they discovered his where- 
 abouts. Within twenty-four hours he was back 
 again in the tub, but at any rate he had had a 
 bath. The younger children were committed, 
 of course, to a proper institution, but so far 
 as the removal of the nuisance went, all our com- 
 plaints had accomplished was the eviction of 
 the pigeons and the chickens. Any one of the 
 departments mentioned should have had the au- 
 thority to have forced the immediate vacation 
 of the premises. It should be within their 
 power to close or demolish any house where a 
 condition is found to exist that is likely to cause 
 sickness or to render the place unfit for human 
 habitation. 
 
 What a furbishing, a re-building and activity 
 there would be in the tenement districts if a 
 plan recently brought forward by the Rev. Fa- 
 ther James Curry were placed upon the statute 
 books — that every owner should be forced to 
 place on his tenement a small sign giving his 
 name in plain letters! This was proposed to 
 the Congestion Commission and immediately
 
 Labeling the Business 149 
 
 some leading citizens were frightened to the 
 verge of prostration. No man wanted to see his 
 rickety, black, airless, cold-water death trap 
 stand out as a monument to his greed. To-day 
 he may hide behind the lessees — " leassors," as 
 their victims call them — the agents or dum- 
 mies. If the owners' names appear at all on 
 official records they are hidden deep under legal 
 verbiage and safe from the ordinary layman's 
 discovery. The tenant, more often than not, 
 knows nothing of the real owner's identity. 
 The only landlord he knows is the agent or jani- 
 tor, each steel-sheathed to any appeals. 
 
 " Why, think of the blackmail we'd be liable 
 to ! " exclaimed some of the owners when the 
 label proposition was broached. There is hu- 
 mor in this protest, in the unconsciousness of its 
 confession. These gentlemen were growing 
 fearful for their position in church, society or 
 profession. They were asked if their names did 
 not appear upon their business offices, and if 
 that fact laid them open to blackmail. Oh, no, 
 they answered — but of course with the tene- 
 ments it was different. Why? If a man's
 
 150 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 business and his goods are honest, why should 
 he be afraid to label them? 
 
 It was after one of these hearings that the 
 writer went to a luncheon given by a number 
 of avowed philanthropists and to consider some 
 charitable object. There he was buttonholed by 
 a tenement owner and " philanthropist," who 
 spoke with extreme feeling of the ill effects to 
 property owners of the proposed law and 
 begged that he use all his influence against it. 
 Perhaps this charitable gentleman kept his sense 
 of consistency, along with other valuables, in 
 safe deposit vaults; but as for the writer, if he 
 could have his way, the label law would go into 
 effect to-morrow. 
 
 There should be a law, too, limiting the num- 
 ber of sweatshops and factories which are 
 operated in a given area — especially places of 
 the type that deals with piece work done in the 
 home. The idea that workers should live in the 
 outskirts while their shops are in the crowded 
 districts may be good in theory, but it is almost 
 impossible in practice. When every penny and 
 every second counts, you cannot afford to spend
 
 Labeling the Business 151 
 
 five-cent pieces and half-hours traveling back 
 and forth between home and shop. The people 
 can move only when the shops move. Some 
 businesses have gone to the suburbs, the work- 
 ers with them, and almost invariably the in- 
 dustry as well as the workers has profited by the 
 change. The community has profited most of 
 all. 
 
 The seriousness of the problem of the conges- 
 tion of industries is apparent when it is stated 
 that in one assembly district in New York, the 
 Sixth, a little area of eighty-six acres, compris- 
 ing one and three-tenths per cent, of the total 
 area of Manhattan, there are found massed 
 twelve per cent, of all the factories on that is- 
 land and nearly twelve per cent, of the workers. 
 In a single block bounded by Prince, Crosby, 
 Broadway and East Houston Streets, with an 
 area of only three and three-tenths acres, there 
 were seventy-seven factories in 1908 with 4,007 
 workers, a density of more than 1,200 workers 
 to the acre. About half the buildings there 
 were twelve stories in height. Ninety-seven per 
 cent, of the area was covered with buildings and
 
 152 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 the land was worth more than one million dol- 
 lars an acre. 
 
 Why should not the factories and homes of 
 those workers be moved out where land is 
 cheaper and where there is more working and 
 living space? The verdict of physicians and ex- 
 perts who have studied the problem is that 500 
 cubic feet of air space should be provided for 
 every employe in a factory in the daytime, and 
 that each night worker should have not less than 
 600 cubic feet of air space. To-day, under the 
 factory law in New York, only 250 cubic feet of 
 air space are allowed for each worker. Space 
 has money value, but what a miserably cheap 
 appraisal our greed for money leads us to place 
 on a human life. Surely it is within the police 
 power of the State to adopt and enforce measures 
 for the protection of the health of its largest num- 
 bers. 
 
 The remedies already indicated, together with 
 others, to safeguard the health of families and 
 the morals of children were proposed to the leg- 
 islature in New York recently after the Conges- 
 tion Committee had spent many weeks taking
 
 Labeling the Business 153 
 
 testimony. But not one item for relief was per- 
 mitted to go on the statute books. The delin- 
 quent community slept while the real estate in- 
 terests and the professional politicians who did 
 their bidding strangled every measure submit- 
 ted. In the meantime the herding of human be- 
 ings into the black holes goes increasingly on, 
 with the consequent slavery, corruption of chil- 
 dren, pauperism and death.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DELINQUENT PARENT 
 
 TT is the delinquent child who is formally ar- 
 raigned before the judge, but often the real 
 offender is the parent. The varieties of paren- 
 tal delinquency as revealed in the Children's 
 Courts are endless, and it would seem that one 
 day there must be penal institutions and re- 
 formatories for delinquent parents. Drastic 
 treatment is required to work any change in 
 them for they are not the plastic material that 
 we find the children. And yet more often than 
 not it is again the community that is responsible. 
 The poverty and the oppressive conditions 
 fostered by congestion are, of course, large fac- 
 tors in producing helpless and vicious parents. 
 There is often parental love and sacrifice in the 
 tenements, however, far exceeding that known 
 in some luxurious homes. The majority of 
 poor parents do the best they can for their chil- 
 
 154
 
 The Delinquent Parent 155 
 
 dren in spite of the ceaseless grind that is their 
 lot. And, as is frequently shown in the Chil- 
 dren's Courts, not all the bad parents come from 
 the houses of poverty; numbers of them live in 
 the richest sections. 
 
 It is true that among the toilers many think 
 only of the day when the child may be put to 
 work. But there are parents just as selfish, 
 just as brutal among the rich. Here the father 
 is too much engrossed in money getting, the 
 mother too occupied with her social ambitions 
 to spend time in thinking of the children whose 
 entire care and training are left to paid em- 
 ployes. And once in a while, the child of this 
 up-bringing rebels, deserts his unsuccessful 
 home and winds up in the Children's Court. 
 
 The mother of one lad who had burglarized 
 six houses in as many weeks explained to the 
 Court that she had been so busy with social en- 
 gagements that she had no time left to look after 
 her son. The father of another boy who had 
 run away from his home on Riverside Drive ad- 
 mitted to the Judge that his son was gone three 
 days before the servants and the tutor thought
 
 156 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 it worth while to tell him. The mother was 
 spending the winter in a Florida hotel. Al- 
 though he slept under the same roof with the 
 boy, the father was often " so busy " he did not 
 see him for a week at a time. The growing lax- 
 ity of rich and poor in their regard for parental 
 responsibility demands serious thought. 
 
 While there are many parents in the alien 
 colonies who are anxious to railroad their chil- 
 dren off to institutions on trumped-up charges, 
 and thus shift to the State the burden of main- 
 tenance until the law permits them to work, 
 there is a corresponding class of wealthy parents 
 who are just as anxious to rid themselves of 
 the care of their progeny. The institution 
 chosen by this latter class of parents is of course 
 the boarding school. It is astonishing at what 
 an early age many of these socially busy 
 mothers are anxious to ship off their boys and 
 girls. There are many excellent boarding 
 schools that deservedly take high rank in the 
 educational system; the heads of many of them 
 do inestimable good; but the usefulness of 
 others has been estimated solely by the rate of
 
 The Delinquent Parent 157 
 
 tuition. The head of one such private school, 
 not far from New York, who allowed his boys 
 to have their own automobiles and to spend 
 their nights at the Haymarket instead of at 
 their books, when questioned recently, declared 
 that he was " not running a Sunday school." 
 He said that as long as the fathers paid the bills 
 — and in the absence of any explicit instruc- 
 tions from them — the boys could do as they 
 pleased. He added : " These boys haven't any 
 more comforts in their own homes than they 
 have right here. There isn't a single thing they 
 can't have if they want it." One cannot help 
 thinking that the charitable institution main- 
 tained by the State, the poor man's boarding 
 school, is a safer place for a boy's moral and 
 physical development than such a school as this 
 one. 
 
 A richly gowned woman led her sad and ab- 
 surdly dressed little girl into the Children's 
 Court recently. She wanted summonses — 
 summonses for a lot of her neighbor's children. 
 
 " They have insulted my angel," declared the 
 mother when she came before the Judge.
 
 158 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 " They've taunted her and taunted her about her 
 hair!" 
 
 The Court surveyed the sad little girl. 
 
 " Take off the child's hat," ordered the Judge. 
 
 Head-gear, years too old for the child, was re- 
 moved, and then, to the amazement of all, hair 
 once black, but now of straw color, was revealed. 
 The mother had bleached the hair of her eleven- 
 year-old daughter. 
 
 " I am sorry that the taunts of the neighbors' 
 children were not directed solely at you, Mad- 
 am," declared the Court ; " you are the one who 
 should suffer." 
 
 The Court continued with terse, emphatic 
 statements while the mother, summonsless, hur- 
 ried away with her angel. Her startled look as 
 she fled the building showed that her shallow 
 mind was working in a way entirely new. But 
 that was not the end of it; the Court had that 
 home, in an expensive apartment, investigated. 
 The parents were placed under supervision with 
 the result that to-day the child is getting some- 
 thing like a fair chance in life. 
 
 Much of the parental helplessness found in
 
 The Delinquent Parent 159 
 
 the alien colonies and the congested districts is 
 due to ignorance, to want and its attendant ills. 
 None of these excuses can be urged for the par- 
 ents in materially fortunate homes. But it was 
 neither ignorance nor poverty that led the 
 mother of Jakie recently to make a charge of 
 an " ungovernable child " against him. 
 
 As Jakie stood before the Judge his nose just 
 touched the rail of the bench. His mother, fat, 
 hatless, in dirty calico dress, a shawl over her 
 shoulders, and with big diamond earrings in 
 her ears, had volubly told on the stand all of 
 his grievous sins. Jakie would not go to 
 school, he often stayed out until two or three 
 o'clock in the morning, he was disobedient and 
 the mother declared he " was no good." An in- 
 vestigation of his school record showed that he 
 had been absent ninety-three days since the be- 
 ginning of the term. 
 
 "Why don't you go to school?" the Judge 
 asked. 
 
 As Jakie shook his head, the tip of his nose 
 rubbed back and forth on the rail. The Court 
 waited patiently. Jakie did not answer.
 
 160 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 " I do not want to send you away, but I'll have 
 to return you to the Society until you can make 
 up your mind to talk to me." 
 
 The defendant still rubbed his nose, back and 
 forth on the rail. This was a new sensation and 
 gave him profound amusement, to judge from 
 the expression of his face. 
 
 " Now, Jakie, this is your last chance to-day, 
 I have many cases waiting — are you going to 
 answer me or not?" 
 
 The vibration of Jakie's head did not cease at 
 once, but in a moment he cast a furtive glance at 
 the Court. That was sufficient, the Court was 
 not to be trifled with. Then he threw back his 
 head and declared desperately: 
 
 " The teacher says I stink ! " 
 
 The Court arose and took a more careful in- 
 ventory of Jakie. 
 
 "We had to soak and scrub that boy for two 
 hours when he was brought to the rooms this 
 morning," declared the Society's representative, 
 " and I don't believe we've got all the dirt off 
 yet." He pointed to a dark line beneath the 
 hair that had been close-cropped. " I guess it
 
 The Delinquent Parent 161 
 
 will take sandpaper before that job is finished," 
 was the agent's observation. 
 
 The Court in its thorough examination finally 
 discovered that the mother and father of this 
 boy were human leeches, " leassors," as they are 
 known to their poor tenement victims. They 
 were the lessees or extortion agents who ground 
 the rent out of the tenants of two big houses, one 
 in Rivington and the other in Clinton streets. 
 The real owner lived uptown in one of the fash- 
 ionable neighborhoods. The diamond earrings 
 of Jakie's mother attested the success with 
 which she and her husband carried on the busi- 
 ness. They were not satisfied, however, with 
 their income and it was the parents who were 
 responsible for the boy's being out so late each 
 night; they forced him to sell papers. They 
 cared little whether he went to school or not, 
 and because of the loss of sleep the boy found 
 school work so hard that he had been on "the 
 hook," as he confessed, most of the time. The 
 mother and father had absolutely no regard for 
 his physical condition and although the rooms 
 they occupied in Rivington Street were fairly
 
 162 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 comfortable and there was no dearth of water 
 in their apartment, such as existed throughout 
 the other flats in the house, Jakie could not re- 
 member when he had had a bath or even had his 
 face washed in his own home. It was little won- 
 der that his presence in class on the few days 
 that he did attend school was rather disconcert- 
 ing to the teacher and to the other pupils. The 
 truant officers had long been struggling with 
 these parents, and when they finally saw that it 
 would no longer be possible to profit from the 
 boy's sales of papers they decided to send him 
 away and rid themselves of his support. But 
 it did not work out quite as easily as they had 
 imagined. Not only Jakie, but his two brothers 
 and sister were committed to an institution be- 
 cause of improper guardianship. And to the 
 immense surprise and dismay of the parents an 
 order was entered by the Court against the fa- 
 ther to pay to the city $2.35 a week for the main- 
 tenance of each child, exactly what it costs the 
 city to keep them in the institutions to which 
 they were committed. 
 Another mother of this type when told by the
 
 The Delinquent Parent 163 
 
 Court that her boy had been absent from school 
 for one solid year and asked to explain, ex- 
 pressed mild surprise and replied with a shrug 
 of her shoulders: 
 
 " Does he vant to be a lawyer, does he vant 
 to be a doctor? " 
 
 Still another mother when informed that her 
 hopeful had been a truant for seven months of- 
 fered the excuse: 
 
 " Maybe he wasn't feeling good." 
 
 A great, hulking, six foot Austrian applied to 
 the Children's Court for a warrant for his son. 
 He declared that the boy would not go to school, 
 smoked cigarettes, and added with outraged 
 feelings : 
 
 " He makes bad talk at me." 
 
 To the Court's question as to the boy's age, 
 the father replied gravely that he was all of 
 eight. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me that a giant like you 
 can't handle an eight-year-old boy?" demanded 
 the Court. 
 
 The father calmly shook his head. 
 
 " Don't you ever punish him? "
 
 164 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 " Every time I go near that boy he threatens 
 to jump off the roof and kill himself," Was the 
 reply. 
 
 In such fear too, of his tiny son was this six- 
 footer that he would not undertake to bring him 
 to court but wanted an officer to go after him 
 with a warrant. The giant seemed to have lost 
 several inches in stature when the Court finished 
 with him. 
 
 Unbelievable as it may seem, there have been 
 mothers who admitted to the Court that they did 
 not know how many children they had. One 
 mother when asked as to the size of her family 
 answered : 
 
 " Me no know. I stop count when I got 
 'leven." Then, with a sniff she asked : 
 
 "Whatdedifif?" 
 
 It didn't seem to make much difference to her, 
 but it did to the State. An attempt to round up 
 the children of this family, fourteen in number, 
 led the investigators into pool rooms, which were 
 really Fagin schools, barrel dives, dance halls, 
 moving picture places and institutions — the nat- 
 ural results of being mothered only by the streets.
 
 The Delinquent Parent 165 
 
 Someone will say this is a proof of the law of 
 heredity. Not at all ; these children were victims 
 of an environment for which the parents were 
 chiefly responsible. It was not a blood taint 
 from within working out, but a contamination 
 from without working in. 
 
 The son of a religious teacher was arrested 
 for picking pockets. His skill was attained after 
 months of training. 
 
 " Didn't you know that your boy was spend- 
 ing most of his time with a gang of thieves?" 
 asked the Court. 
 
 " No, I am so busy with my teaching I didn't 
 have time to look after my boy," replied the 
 father. 
 
 Can there be any question about the need of a 
 penal institution for such parents as these? 
 
 And as rather a refreshing note in all the 
 tragedy we may add this letter from one of the 
 children anxious to supplement parental incom- 
 petence for his own benefit: 
 
 " Judge, please tell my mother to keep me in. 
 If she keeps me in I'll stay all right : I won't go 
 out, then I won't get in any more trouble."
 
 166 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 Often in the densely congested districts, and 
 particularly in the alien colonies, the father and 
 mother who have had a boy committed to an in- 
 stitution — regardless of the charge — are looked 
 upon with envy by their neighbors. Many a child 
 has unwittingly told of the collusion by which 
 his parents hoped to have him " put away." 
 Fortunately the laws have been amended in some 
 States so that the courts may, at their discretion, 
 place the father of a child sent to an institution 
 under an order to pay in whole or in part for his 
 maintenance. If the father is able to pay and 
 does not obey the order he may be sent to prison. 
 This legislation has done much to cut down the 
 number of false charges made by parents against 
 their own children. But even with these pre- 
 cautions, strange resourcefulness is at times dis- 
 played in efforts to force the State to care for 
 children until they have attained working age 
 and the parents can safely profit by the child's 
 earnings. 
 
 A woman with a seven-months-old baby in her 
 arms applied to one of the bureaus of the Chari- 
 ties Department for help and for the commitment
 
 The Delinquent Parent 167 
 
 of the infant. She told a story of a husband 
 dying at home of consumption, of everything 
 having been pawned to provide food and medi- 
 cine. If the city would take the child she would 
 be able to go out to work. An examiner was 
 sent hurrying down to the dingy tenement. 
 After climbing five flights of stairs he found the 
 dying consumptive, the woman and her baby 
 in a room that had been stripped of everything 
 except the bed in which the man lay, the covers 
 on it and a wooden leg conspicuously near. 
 Asked about the wooden leg the mother weep- 
 ingly told how her husband had met with a blast- 
 ing accident before the consumption had de- 
 veloped. The combination of misfortunes as 
 related by the woman made the examiner suspi- 
 cious. He lifted the covers at the foot of the bed. 
 Two legs were revealed, both just as sound as 
 legs on a consumptive in that stage of the dis- 
 ease could be. The consumptive was not the 
 husband of the woman, neither was he the father 
 of the child. He was a neighbor who had hired 
 out his services for the day. The wooden leg 
 belonged to a professional mendicant who lived
 
 168 The Children in the Sha3ow 
 
 in the next block. He had no use for it on this 
 particular day. In fact he used it only occa- 
 sionally on Sundays when he went for a day's 
 outing and stumped up and down the boardwalk 
 at Coney Island. All of his " working " time 
 was spent on a busy street corner with his 
 stump of a leg extended while he caught in his 
 hat the pennies of the sympathizing passers-by. 
 The mendicant had originally obtained the leg 
 from the city's charity. Nor had the plot to de- 
 ceive the city been the product of real poverty 
 in this case, for the father had steady employ- 
 ment at fair wages. 
 
 Desertion, carefully pre-arranged by parents 
 in order to get their children into the " collegio " 
 or the " waisenhaus," is a growing evil with 
 which the charities bureaus have to contend. As 
 has been said, the courts have some means of 
 dealing with those who try to shift the burden 
 of the child's maintenance upon the State. But 
 in these cases of family desertion coming before 
 the Charities Department there is no efficient 
 remedy. And it is another result of pernicious 
 living conditions and of poverty in the crowded
 
 The Delinquent Parent 169 
 
 districts. The family is unable to live on the 
 sweatshop wage or on the peddler's meager in- 
 come. The big family is a millstone about the 
 parental neck. The father disappears. The 
 mother and the children, perhaps a half-dozen or 
 more, apply at the end of the month to the Chil- 
 dren's Bureau of the Department of Charities. 
 She is about to be dispossessed, they are without 
 food. There is nothing to do but to send all the 
 children, save one, to charitable institutions, 
 there to be supported by the city. By an arbi- 
 trary rule of the Department an only child or the 
 last child will not be taken away from a mother. 
 Employment will be provided where she can take 
 this child. But the city has now relieved the 
 family of five children. Within another month 
 or two, perhaps the mother has disappeared. 
 She has known all along where her husband was 
 and probably he has been sending her money 
 through friends. He has changed his name and 
 perhaps has been working in a coal cellar or a 
 sweatshop in another colony of his own national- 
 ity. It may be he has gone to a near-by city. At 
 any rate the father and mother re-unite in time.
 
 170 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 They are rid of all but one of their children and 
 the city is forced to support the others for years 
 in one of its institutions. 
 
 There are numerous desertions of wives and 
 children, too, by fathers who are not considerate 
 enough to consult their wives about it first. The 
 desertion habit is growing so that the charity au- 
 thorities are alarmed at it. So effectively are 
 the deserters concealed in the mazes of crowded 
 colonies that it is seldom they are caught. The 
 cost to New York County alone for the mainte- 
 nance of children committed to its various public 
 institutions is considerably more than two mil- 
 lions a year. Ten thousand children are pro- 
 posed to the Children's Bureau of that one 
 county each year for commitment, and between 
 twenty-five and thirty per cent, of these cases 
 arise, according to the head of that Bureau, 
 from family desertion. It is added by the same 
 authority that twenty-five per cent, of those ap- 
 plying for the commitment of their children have 
 never taken the first steps toward becoming 
 citizens. 
 
 The readiness with which parents of the de-
 
 The Delinquent Parent 171 
 
 linquent type turn to an accommodating munic- 
 ipality to save them the trouble of controlling 
 their own children is shown by the following 
 letter recently addressed to the " Hon. Superin- 
 tendent of the Children's Courts " : 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I call your immediate attention in my child 12 years old 
 who was 18 months in your institute. He go no school and 
 give too much noise everybody. I beg you send a policeman 
 and send him again in Penitentiary. 
 With best regards, I am, 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 W G 
 
 The wording of this appeal may be unique 
 but its spirit is common. It is apparent from 
 the letter that this solicitous parent's son was 
 not more than ten and a half when he was first 
 sent to an institution. Sometimes such parents 
 haul six-year-old infants to court as incorrigi- 
 bles in the ingenuous belief that they are thus 
 going to be rid of them. It is such parents, too, 
 who do much toward bolstering up the birth 
 rate that Fifth Avenue fails to support. 
 
 There are occasional parents who lock their
 
 172 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 children in or tie them up when they are to be 
 away from home. Four forlorn little creatures 
 were discovered last summer locked in a flat 
 where they had been left for five days while the 
 father and mother were having a vacation at 
 Coney Island. The eldest child, a little girl of 
 eleven, had been ordered to do the cooking and 
 to take care of the house. Then there is the 
 more common class of parents who are so greedy 
 for money that they send their children to work 
 in violation of law and take every cent from 
 them at the end of the week. Working boys 
 have sometimes confessed that they have stolen 
 because their parents had not even allowed them 
 car-fare. It is against the law in New York for 
 children to peddle, and yet there is scarcely a 
 busy corner in the downtown sections where 
 children may not be seen daily offering various 
 wares for sale. The parents in nearly every 
 case know that these youngsters are peddling 
 and that it is in violation of law. It is the par- 
 ents, too, who usually get all the profits. 
 
 A father, one of whose sons had been sent to 
 an institution because of persistent peddling in
 
 The Delinquent Parent 173 
 
 violation of law, had a second son arrested for 
 a similar offense. 
 
 " And you are back here again after all I told 
 you? " exclaimed the Judge on seeing this parent. 
 " You were warned what would happen if you 
 sent your boys out to peddle." 
 
 " Yes, but that was the other boy. You sent 
 him away. This boy was never here before." 
 
 Then there are the parents who profit by the 
 stealings of their children. A majority of them, 
 perhaps, have not deliberately taught their chil- 
 dren to steal, but by accepting without question 
 the money that has been turned over to them 
 they are, of course, morally guilty. Occasionally 
 a boy is found who has confessed that his own 
 father and mother have instructed him in the 
 gentle art of grand larceny. But in the ma- 
 jority of cases the little pickpockets have been 
 trained by outsiders. 
 
 A woman appeared in the Children's Court 
 to complain that her son's boy companion had 
 stolen eight hundred and twenty-four dollars 
 from her. The money had in reality been stolen 
 by the two boys, who were skillful pickpockets,
 
 174 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 from the chatelaine bag of a lady walking 
 through Fourteenth Street. It happened that 
 the victim of the larceny was a woman of title 
 who was on a visit to New York; that possibly 
 accounts for the fact that she had so much 
 money in her purse at one time. The real trou- 
 ble in the mind of the mother who was the com- 
 plaining witness, was that she and her son had 
 not received a full share of the booty from the 
 other boy. She believed that if she threatened 
 him with arrest she would succeed in getting an 
 equal division. The complaining mother, of 
 course, did not say anything about the pocket 
 picking, evidently believing that as the other 
 boy was guilty too he would be afraid to mention 
 it. She simply alleged that the money had been 
 taken from her home by her son's companion. 
 It was a bold stroke but it failed, for after a 
 careful investigation the whole story came out. 
 Both boys were sent to reformatories, such of 
 the stolen money as was left was returned to 
 the owner and the complaining mother was sent to 
 prison. But this, of course, is one of the un- 
 common forms of parental crime. As to the 

 
 The Delinquent Parent 175 
 
 pickpockets, they form a study in themselves 
 and will be the subject of a later chapter. 
 
 Here have been set down just a few things 
 that may serve to shed a little light on parental 
 delinquency. 1 
 
 There are thousands of delinquent parents — 
 some selfish, some slothful, some neglectful, and 
 many of them not deserving of much sympathy. 
 The criticism is sometimes made that a too will- 
 ing State, in the profusion of its bureaucratic ac- 
 
 1 Among the instances of extreme cruelty this affidavit 
 sent to the Society needs no comment : " This is to certify 
 that I have this day made a physical examination of the 
 
 person of L D , aged 9 years, of Avenue A, 
 
 Manhattan, and found the following injuries: 
 
 Back: Six (6) contusions from 1" square to 2"x3" in 
 
 area. 
 Chest: Two (2) contusions 2" square. 
 Right Arm: One (1) contusion, f" square. 
 One (1) abrasion, \" square. 
 Left Arm : One ( 1 ) contusion extending from shoulder to 
 forearm 11" by 4" in area, made up of 
 many contusions interlacing. 
 Two (2) abrasions, \" square. 
 Right Leg: One (1) 2"x3" in area. 
 Left Leg: Thirteen (13) contusions from 1£" square to 
 
 2"x3" in area. 
 These injuries are about one week old and were caused, 
 in my opinion, by an assault with some weapon. 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 (Signed) W. Travers Gibb, 
 
 Examining Physician. 
 It was the mother who had used the weapon.
 
 176 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 tivities, is breaking down parental obligation. 
 But how, when such neglect and indifference as 
 we have described exists, can the State refuse to 
 step in? For, after all, our hope lies in the chil- 
 dren. The home is the place for the child, and the 
 father and mother should be his best guardians. 
 The home must be bad indeed not to be better 
 than the best institution ever created; it is the 
 natural growing place for the young human be- 
 ing. And yet present day living conditions 
 among rich and poor in the great cities do seem 
 to be breaking down much of the good, old-fash- 
 ioned notions of parental responsibilities.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CHILD OF BONDAGE 
 
 fTlHERE are more than two million children 
 A in this country whose future efficiency is be- 
 ing imperiled by the labor that is forced from 
 them before they are old enough to toil. The 
 exploitation of child labor in sweatshop, tene- 
 ment, factory and mine is a national crime. 
 The bones of these children are not yet hardened, 
 their muscles and their brains are still un- 
 formed ; yet they are forced to work at loom and 
 furnace, breaker and needle, sacrificing future 
 health and usefulness under the pressure of 
 man's greed. Fatigue results in muscular de- 
 generation, their minds are either stunted or 
 warped, and the result we too often see in the 
 adult is a dangerous revolt against society. 
 This vast army of pitiful child toilers suffers 
 from a triple affliction; the selfishness of em- 
 ployers, the ignorance of parents and the neglect 
 
 177
 
 178 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 of the State, for it is a subject with which the 
 State should deal. 
 
 From the shrimp packing houses of the Gulf 
 to the cotton mills of New England, these chil- 
 dren, many thousands of them hardly in their 
 teens, are having their growth stunted, their 
 bones made crooked, their backs bent, by toil 
 that belongs to men. One hundred years ago 
 England tried to build up a great industry on 
 the labor of little children through excessive 
 hours. She is still paying the price. The same 
 evil is here to-day and it is enfeebling national 
 vitality. 
 
 It is only within the past decade that any- 
 thing like a general movement has been started 
 for the regulation of child labor — and this by 
 private organizations. The National Child La- 
 bor Committee has made some impression on the 
 bulwarks set up by the industrial interests in 
 the various States. But to show how strongly 
 these interests are still intrenched we have but 
 to turn to the spectacle of Florida. Here a 
 child labor bill has been fought by the packing 
 industries who argued that the five- and six-
 
 The Child of Bondage 179 
 
 year-old children working in the shrimp and 
 oyster canneries needed no protection because 
 the work was not hard — besides, the children 
 were not Florida children, but were " little for- 
 eigners from Baltimore." These children, some 
 of them mere babies, have regularly been im- 
 ported into Florida at the opening of the pack- 
 ing season. The sharp oyster shells cut their 
 fingers, the acid or some secretion in the shrimp 
 ate away the skin and the tender flesh. And as 
 a great concession the packers offered an amend- 
 ment to the child labor bill — that instead of 
 protecting children under fourteen years, the age 
 limit should be made eight years for all indus- 
 tries. This, presumably, they thought would 
 serve to keep the agitators quiet. 
 
 In our great cities thousands of children are 
 being transformed into old men and women be- 
 fore they are out of their teens by the strain of 
 piece work done in the homes. The industry in 
 which the children of the tenements are chiefly 
 exploited is that of finishing ready-made gar- 
 ments. New York is the great garment making 
 center of the world. But there are many other
 
 180 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 lines in which the labor of children of tender 
 years is employed. 
 
 The manufacturers who profit by home labor 
 are ever ready to fight any proposition to upset 
 it. By the spreading of their factories through 
 innumerable bedrooms and kitchens they are 
 saving rent, light, heat and furnishings as well 
 as the cost of shop supervision. They are also 
 saving themselves from liability for employing 
 children under the legal working age. It is im- 
 possible for factory inspectors to invade the 
 homes and take away the little children em- 
 ployed there. Conviction cannot easily be 
 obtained against the contractor who has sent his 
 piece work into these bedrooms and kitchens. 
 His easy argument is that the work is intended 
 for the parents and that if they choose to enlist 
 the aid of their children it is their own affair: 
 and he is not responsible. 
 
 So it is that the home-work system has been 
 spreading until any observer going through the 
 crowded tenement streets may see in every block 
 women and children bearing great bundles be- 
 tween workshop and home. The evils of the sys-
 
 The Child of Bondage 181 
 
 tem are its life. The unrestricted hours of work 
 and the employment of children are the things 
 that make it profitable for the manufacturer. 
 There is a sliding scale of wages but they al- 
 ways slide downward. In proportion to the 
 urgency of the needs of the applicant for piece 
 work the wage is lowered. 
 
 A family of five was recently found huddled 
 in a hall bedroom binding roses into garlands 
 for ladies' hats ; they got ten cents for every 720 
 roses made into garlands. Were it possible for 
 the consumer to see under what conditions some 
 goods are made rushes at the bargain counters 
 would not be so frequent. 
 
 The making of willow plumes for a time was 
 an extensive tenement industry. This work con- 
 sists in tying to every strand of a good ostrich 
 feather two strands stripped from inferior 
 feathers and involves the tying of innumerable 
 delicate knots; it is paid for by the inch meas- 
 ured on the stem of the original feather. One 
 investigator of the National Child Labor Com- 
 mittee reported that the workers received one 
 cent for every forty-one of these delicate knots
 
 182 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 tied. It required from one and one-half to two 
 days to make an eighteen-inch feather. For 
 this the worker received about seventy-five cents. 
 In the stores such a feather costs from eight and 
 a half to twenty-five dollars according to the 
 quality of the material. 
 
 Children have frequently been found tucking 
 and putting together children's white dresses at 
 fifty cents a dozen. The retail price of these 
 same dresses in the stores has been found to be 
 $1.69 apiece. An official investigation recently 
 found that the average earnings of home-work- 
 ers' families in the clothing trade was $3.67 a 
 week, while the artificial flower makers earned 
 $2.07 a week. A Government report on the situ- 
 ation in New York says : " The compensation 
 which the home-workers receive for their labor 
 is, as a rule, such that they do not earn enough 
 to provide even the shelter, food and raiment es- 
 sential to maintain a moderate standard of phys- 
 ical efficiency." 
 
 The " finishing " on which many women and 
 children are employed in New York means what- 
 ever hand sewing is necessary to complete the
 
 The Child of Bondage 183 
 
 garment after the operating and basting have 
 been done. It consists usually in felling the lin- 
 ing to the cloth, where this has not already been 
 done by machine. When this work is done in the 
 homes it is called " home finishing." Coat fin- 
 ishing usually consists in felling the lining at 
 the arm holes, at the bottom and at the neck; 
 sometimes the part turned up at the bottom is 
 herring-boned; frequently the under collar is 
 also felled on and, on higher grade garments, 
 the collar is " stoted," a distinctive sort of fell- 
 ing. Frequently the finisher is required to pull 
 out the bastings also. 
 
 The finisher on pants has to line the pants at 
 the waist line, fell the lining at the top, tack it 
 at the pocket, and sometimes fell the pocket at 
 the seam ; put the rubber composition in the por- 
 tion of the leg which is turned up to form the 
 bottom — although the bottoms may be felled 
 by a separate shop hand. Frequently the home- 
 worker has to sew the buckles to the buckle 
 strap and sew on the buttons. 
 
 Many believe that home finishing is confined 
 to a cheap grade of garments or to such as are
 
 184 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 made by contractors. This notion is wrong. 
 It is resorted to by the makers of all grades of 
 ready-made clothing, by leading manufacturers 
 who maintain large inside shops as well as by 
 the small contractors. Even with firms that 
 advertise " No sweatshop goods. All goods 
 made in our own shops " much of the finishing, 
 according to a Government report, is done in 
 homes. 
 
 A friend of the writer one day followed an 
 Italian woman who was staggering along under 
 a load of unfinished clothing for blocks. She 
 was forced to stop now and then to get breath, 
 resting the load she carried on her head against 
 the side of a building. She did not dare lower 
 it to the sidewalk for fear she would not be able 
 again to get under the burden. She dragged 
 herself and her load up four flights of stairs of 
 a dark tenement. The man who had followed 
 her waited for a time and then knocked. There 
 was a commotion inside and when the door was 
 finally opened the visitor saw that an attempt 
 had been made to conceal the boys' pants on 
 which the woman and her five children were
 
 Burdens too heavy for childish arms. Their mothers 
 are at work in the sweatshops 
 
 On the way "home" with the task that will make old 
 men and women of little children
 
 The Child of Bondage 185 
 
 working. But it was impossible to hide them; 
 there was clothing everywhere. They feared it 
 was an inspector from the State Labor Depart- 
 ment. Keally there was little cause to look for 
 such an official, for when this was written there 
 were only fifteen in the entire State and there 
 are more than 13,000 licensed tenements — that 
 is, houses in which the law gives the right to 
 carry on home manufactures. The law calls for 
 two inspections each year and the Labor Com- 
 missioner frankly admits that it is impossible 
 to make more than one. 
 
 The mother, finally convinced that the visitor 
 was not an inspector, told how she and her 
 family, although they often worked far into the 
 night, never knew how the rent was to be met 
 nor where the next meal was coming from. 
 Her worn and wasted face, the weary pallor of 
 the children, told the story better than her 
 words. The husband was a peddler and his 
 earnings averaged about five dollars a week. 
 They had been in the country little more than 
 three years. None of the children could obtain 
 working papers. They had not been in school
 
 186 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 long enough. Every minute they were not in 
 school or sleeping, and sleep in these days was 
 curtailed, they were slaving. It was by the 
 hardest kind of driving that among them they 
 were able to finish twelve dozen pairs of boys' 
 pants in twenty-four hours. Frequently the 
 mother was forced to keep one or two children 
 out of school to do this. The truant officer had 
 been inquiring about Mike the week before. 
 
 " What will we do if they take Mike away? " 
 asked one of the older little girls anxiously. 
 " Mike is the quickest worker. If Mike was 
 sent away we couldn't live in this house." 
 
 That meant they would be put into the street, 
 for they couldn't well find a cheaper or more 
 miserable apartment. Mike, the reliable, was 
 at that minute felling a lining, his fingers mov- 
 ing with startling rapidity and more like a ma- 
 chine than anything that was human. He did 
 not even glance up. There was a sullen look in 
 the boy's face that made the visitor think he 
 might perhaps one day develop into a very dan- 
 gerous machine. And when the family had fin- 
 ished one dozen boys' pants how much do you
 
 The Child of Bondage 187 
 
 suppose they got for them? It seems almost un- 
 believable but is nevertheless true that the rate 
 of pay was eight cents a dozen pairs. In other 
 words, this mother labored from six or seven 
 o'clock in the morning until ten or eleven 
 o'clock at night, with the assistance of her five 
 children when they were not in school, and they 
 were able to make by this ceaseless effort ninety- 
 six cents a day. 
 
 In the days of black slavery it was to the ad- 
 vantage of the owner to see that his human 
 property was not overtaxed. If he had any re- 
 gard for his own interests he gave his slave 
 wholesome food and housing that was weather 
 proof. The slave masters of the tenements to- 
 day do not concern themselves over any such de- 
 tails. There is no need for them to bother 
 about human conservation. They know that 
 there is constantly pouring into the crowded dis- 
 tricts of the metropolis a fresh stream of human- 
 ity, a gift from the steerage, to replace the lives 
 that are being ground out, devitalized, wasted. 
 The waste of human life is the greatest of all 
 wastes in the country to-day. But in the case
 
 188 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 of this family, as in the case of thousands of 
 others, the fact that there was not enough money 
 left after the payment of rent to afford them suf- 
 ficient nourishment, that they were in reality 
 fast being worked and starved to death, was not 
 a matter of interest to the landlord or sweat- 
 shop owner. The one knew his rooms would 
 not be vacant an hour, the other that there were 
 thousands of other families in just as dire 
 straits, who would grasp at any pittance he 
 chose to offer. These are things that should 
 concern the community, but as long as we per- 
 mit the congestion, the exploitation of immigra- 
 tion and child labor they will continue. 
 
 In the Southern cotton mills illiterate ten- 
 year-old children are found working long hours 
 daily; in the glass factories of some northern 
 States we find children working all night. 
 Child labor in the cities is by no means confined 
 to the so-called " licensed " tenements. " Li- 
 censed " means that in these houses the blind- 
 ing of children, the stunting of them physically 
 and mentally by long hours of ceaseless toil, is 
 tacitly legalized. Certain industries may be
 
 The Child of Bondage 189 
 
 carried on here in the homes. The granting of 
 this authority to conduct these industries in the 
 homes while not setting forth, in so many words, 
 permission to employ children under fourteen 
 years, really opens the way; for how is it pos- 
 sible to prevent parents from using their four- 
 or five-year-old children to pull out bastings, or 
 to sort flowers, forced into it as they are by low 
 wages and high rents? There was an increase 
 of forty per cent, in the licensed tenements of 
 New York State from 1907 to 1910. About 
 ninety-five per cent, of the outstanding licenses 
 have been granted to tenements in Greater New 
 York. The existing law provides that a house 
 must be licensed by the Labor Department if the 
 tenants desire to make, alter or finish any of a 
 specified list of forty-one articles. But there 
 are more than sixty articles not mentioned in 
 the law that are now made in the tenements. 
 The condition surrounding the manufacture of 
 this latter class of articles is so bad that fre- 
 quently it is discovered that they are being 
 made in homes where there is infectious disease. 
 Although for the manufacture of the goods
 
 190 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 named in the license law the house must have a 
 clean record on the book of the local Board of 
 Health, violations frequently occur. In one 
 home recently where there was scarlet fever the 
 finishing of clothing was stopped. An inspector 
 who called two weeks later, however, found the 
 entire family, including two of the children who 
 were peeling, engaged in sorting coffee. The 
 sorting of coffee did not happen to be one of the 
 restricted activities. 
 
 When the danger was pointed out to the 
 mother she replied with a shrug of her shoul- 
 ders: 
 
 "Coffee? You boil him. What the diff?" 
 
 But even with that optimistic view one could 
 not but wonder through how many hands that 
 infected coffee would pass before it reached the 
 pot. 
 
 Some facts presented in a report just pub- 
 lished by the United States Bureau of Labor 
 after one of the most thorough child labor in- 
 vestigations ever made in any country do not 
 make pleasant reading, but they demand the at-
 
 The Child of Bondage 191 
 
 tention of the community, for they show graph- 
 ically how bad the conditions are. 
 
 " During this investigation," the report says, 
 " it was learned that sympathetic doctors who 
 will agree to conceal diseases from the Health 
 Department are the most popular with garment 
 workers. Agents of the Bureau found women 
 working on garments while children in the house 
 were suffering with contagious diseases. They 
 would put the garments down from time to time 
 to minister to or fondle such children. 
 
 " One home finisher visited had a little boy 
 suffering from whooping cough. When he had 
 a coughing spell the mother thrust her finger 
 down into his throat in an effort to relieve him. 
 This caused slight nausea and the mother wiped 
 her fingers, covered with mucus, on the pants 
 on which she was at work. 
 
 " In another case where a child's head and 
 face were covered with a loathsome rash, the 
 mother constantly stopped her work of finishing 
 pants and caressingly ran her hand over this 
 eruption, and then without washing them took
 
 192 The Children in the Shadow- 
 up the pants and continued her work. Asked 
 what was the matter with her child she Could 
 only say that the doctor told her it was some 
 'ketcha disease/ 
 
 " In practically all the homes of these work- 
 ers spitting on the floor was a conspicuous 
 custom. 
 
 " Many manufacturers contend that no mat- 
 ter what the condition of the homes may be 
 where garments are handled — no matter how 
 filthy, diseased, or vermin laden, that the press- 
 ing with a hot iron destroys all germs and ver- 
 min, and that the presser always has a bottle of 
 cleaning fluid to remove stains and dirt. But 
 no one would knowingly buy clothing that had 
 been vermin-infected or made in a home where 
 one of the family had a contagious disease, even 
 if assured and convinced that the garments 
 were to be pressed with a hot iron before de- 
 livery and cleansed with a cleansing fluid. The 
 presence of the garment in the shop before press- 
 ing is dangerous, not only to the presser, but to 
 all other workers and to wearers of other gar- 
 ments that may then be in process of manufac-
 
 The Child of Bondage 193 
 
 ture in the shop. The shop employes are liable 
 to transmit the diseases thus brought into the 
 factory as they ride in street cars or mingle 
 with crowds in streets, stores, or elsewhere. 
 
 " Not all home finishing is done under un- 
 sanitary or revolting conditions, yet the fact that 
 it can be done under such conditions and 
 that much of it is so done, forces the conclusion 
 that such a method of manufacture should be 
 abolished in the interest of public health. A 
 single case of typhoid, traceable to polluted 
 water or infected milk is sufficient to arouse a 
 community, but the danger to the public through 
 garments exposed to contagious or infectious 
 diseases is even greater. People can be warned 
 against the polluted water or infected milk once 
 it is discovered, but there is no means of reach- 
 ing those who are exposed to the infected 
 garments." 
 
 The invasion of the home with this work 
 means the lowering of the standards of living, 
 neglect of household duties, insufficient sleep, 
 irregularity of meals. The one dominant 
 thought is to get the job finished as quickly as
 
 194 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 possible and to secure more work from the fac- 
 tory. Two hundred Italian families were re- 
 cently taken as the subjects of an intensive study 
 of the willowing industry. One hundred of 
 these families, all living under similar housing 
 conditions, were engaged in feather work at 
 home. The other group of one hundred families 
 did no home-work. The school records of the 
 home-working children showed an average ab- 
 sence of twenty-nine days out of an eighty-nine 
 day school term, as against an average of ten 
 days' absence in the same term for those not do- 
 ing home-work. An investigation of the men's 
 ready-made clothing trade showed that fifteen 
 per cent, of the children in the families investi- 
 gated were unlawfully out of school. A similar 
 investigation of another group of families 
 showed more than twenty-one per cent, of the 
 children illegally absent from school. There 
 are many children under school age too, who are 
 kept almost constantly at work. It is not un- 
 common to find children three or four years of 
 age pulling bastings or sorting petals for arti- 
 ficial flowers. Thousands of the children whose
 
 The Child of Bondage 195 
 
 school attendance is forced by the truant of- 
 ficers appear in their class rooms day after day 
 physically exhausted by the labor forced upon 
 them in their homes. If these lag with their 
 lessons or are often unresponsive it is small 
 wonder. 
 
 Much of the work performed by the children 
 is done after the point of fatigue is reached. 
 Obviously the driving of these children after 
 that point, either at needle or lessons, must be 
 harmful in its effects. 
 
 There is frequent adverse criticism of the pub- 
 lic school system of our larger cities. And yet 
 with all the burdens placed upon it through im- 
 migration, congestion and the weakening of the 
 efficiency of pupils through child labor, it is 
 truly to be marveled at that the teachers make 
 the progress they do with their pupils. Under 
 the present system we are expecting too much 
 from pupils and teachers alike. As we have al- 
 ready seen, when the truant officer becomes too 
 insistent on the child's attendance at school, and 
 the parents realize that the child's contributions 
 to the income are to be reduced through the
 
 196 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 compulsory education law, they are willing par- 
 ties to his commitment to a truant school or 
 other public institution where he will be main* 
 tained at public expense until he has reached 
 the age where he can legally work and help sup- 
 port the family. 
 
 In such legislation as exists regarding the reg- 
 ulation of home industries the chief thought 
 seems to have been the safeguarding of the 
 health of the immediate consumer. There has 
 been little consideration of the more important 
 need, the safeguarding of the ultimate health 
 of the community. The result of prevalent 
 child labor, the weakening of the municipality's 
 vital resources through the soul and body de- 
 stroying burdens placed on the army of child 
 toilers is even a greater menace than the dis- 
 ease germs that may be communicated by goods 
 that have been handled by sick workers. This 
 is a matter that affects the future of the entire 
 community. A law was enacted in New York 
 in 1882 against the manufacture of cigars in 
 tenements. Three years later this law was de- 
 clared unconstitutional because the manufac-
 
 The Child of Bondage 197 
 
 ture of tobacco was not held to be a menace to 
 public health. The decision in this case which 
 has stood in the way of anything like adequate 
 legislation said in part: 
 
 " It cannot be perceived how the cigar-maker 
 is to be improved in his health or his morals 
 by forcing him from his home with its hallowed 
 associations and beneficent influences to ply his 
 trade elsewhere." 
 
 But nothing was said about the baneful ef- 
 fects of home labor on childhood. The labor 
 problem of the tenements was not in that day 
 what it is now with the increased congestion. 
 The decision is antiquated, but it still stands to- 
 day a barrier to anything like adequate legisla- 
 tion. And yet there are some who still point to 
 New York child labor laws as models. 
 
 It was shown by a recent national conserva- 
 tion commission that human beings, considered 
 as capitalized working power, are worth from 
 three to five times more than all our other capi- 
 tal, and that even at a very moderate estimate 
 the total waste of our national vitality amounts 
 to one and one-half billions of dollars a year.
 
 198 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 The children who should serve as the nation's 
 biggest asset for the future are being impov- 
 erished in mind and body by the slavery of their 
 infancy. That their normal growth is being 
 stopped, that their characters are being mal- 
 formed, that many of them will become charges 
 on the State if not a menace to it, is the result 
 of a stupid shortsightedness as well as a vicious 
 greed. Some day when we have learned more 
 of the cost we shall stop the shameful sacrifice 
 of a coming generation by the enactment and en- 
 forcement of laws that will emancipate the child 
 slaves of to-day and permit them to develop into 
 strong, useful citizens.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE NURSERY FOR LITTLE THIEVES 
 
 T N the matter of the people, on complaint of Po- 
 lice Officer Charles P. Lander against William 
 Thompson, who with two others is charged with 
 picking pockets and. who pleads guilty. 
 
 The Court: " I want you to make the state- 
 ment that you made to the officer." 
 
 The Defendant: " I give the statement that 
 I was with them. There is another one in it. 
 He follows me to school and all over and takes 
 me out with him. Now I was in the house read- 
 ing a book and he rings the bell and he comes up 
 for me. He is a thief. He says to me, ' Come 
 down,' and as soon as he sees me on the corner 
 he takes me around to break into two flat 
 houses." 
 
 The Court: "Did you follow him in? " 
 
 The Defendant: " He takes me in with him 
 
 199
 
 200 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 and he tells me to see if the lady is in upstairs, 
 and if she ain't he comes up with a big bunch of 
 keys and makes me help carry all the stuff and 
 he gives me a quarter and sends me to the 
 theater." 
 
 The Court: "How long has this been going 
 on?" 
 
 The Defendant: " Since two months ago. 
 He rings the bell and he comes up and he sends 
 me out." 
 
 The Court: " How old is he? " r 
 
 The Defendant: "He is about twenty-four. 
 The other two are twenty-six and twenty-three." 
 
 The Court: " Do they live together? " 
 
 The Defendant: " They got a furnished 
 room over in 109th Street. I live in 110th. 
 They get me away from home; last Tuesday 
 they get me away, they get me away all the time. 
 They come up to my house and they kid me and 
 tell me how good I am and knock it in my head. 
 This other one said he would kill me if I told on 
 him. He is the one that goes by the name of 
 'Kid Chester/ He's got chloroform in his 
 pocket. He told me he would take me over to
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 201 
 
 Brooklyn and chloroform the people over there 
 and take their money off them. He said he got 
 the chloroform from a doctor.'' 
 
 The Court: " The last time you were in this 
 court you were put on parole ; that was for pick- 
 ing pockets — had they sent you out then?" 
 
 The Defendant: "Yes, sir." 
 
 The Court: " So every time you have stolen 
 or gone wrong they always took you out?" 
 
 The Defendant: "Yes, sir. I would be 
 reading and they would ring the bell and I 
 would come down and I could not control my- 
 self; they used to get me so that I would go 
 down and go crazy over it and they would kid 
 me along and I wouldn't know what to do. They 
 took me up to their houses and showed me a lot 
 of things — jimmies — and I slept there." 
 
 The Court (to the officer) : " Can you find 
 this man that he speaks of?" 
 
 The Officer: " They are of a roaming disposi- 
 tion. It may take time to do it; they go from 
 one place to another." 
 
 The Defendant: " I know where to get him. 
 As soon as he knows I am free he will look for
 
 202 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 me. He goes into stores and carries a satchel; 
 he meets me in school and tells me all about 
 burglaries and how to open ladies' bags and 
 brings me with him. He will come up to me 
 again as soon as he knows I'm out." 
 
 These are the minutes of an actual case in the 
 Children's Court except that William Thomp- 
 son is a fictitious name and does not indicate 
 the boy's nationality. The case is typical; the 
 city lays William Thompson open to the ad- 
 vances of undesirable playmates, and with a 
 boy's natural love of adventure is it strange if 
 he follows down the byways into crime? 
 
 Great is the cost to the community. The ag- 
 gregate value of money and property stolen each 
 year by this kind of boy thief amounts to a large 
 sum. Of all forms of juvenile delinquency that 
 of the pickpocket is hardest to cure. Extraor- 
 dinary forces have gone into his making and 
 he is the one child whom it is most frequently 
 beyond the power of even the Children's Court 
 to help. 
 
 The pickpocket is not born but is made after 
 months of most painstaking tutoring and test-
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 203 
 
 ing. Frequently he is the exemplary pupil to 
 his school teacher who is in ignorance of an- 
 other kind of training of mind and hand that he 
 is receiving after school hours. A quick mind 
 and nimble fingers are the first essentials for a 
 successful pickpocket. Personality is impor- 
 tant too, and if he is led into this business by 
 trainers older than himself the lad who can 
 make a plausible, tearful plea if caught is al- 
 ways to be preferred to one whose tongue and 
 whose tear ducts work less readily when neces- 
 sity arises. 
 
 The Children's Court and the Society have 
 made what progress they could in driving out 
 trainers like " Kid Chester " and cleverer men 
 of his sort. But it is difficult to trap these fel- 
 lows for they never take actual part in " larceny 
 from the person " but are always across the 
 street or at a near-by corner when it occurs. 
 And the boys rarely divulge the names of the 
 men who have initiated them into the ways of 
 crime and thrived on their stealings. So deep 
 has been the terror of their brutal trainers in 
 which these lads have stood that I have seen
 
 204 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 them go away to reformatories rather than be- 
 tray their names. There are stories of boys who 
 " squealed " having their ears clipped and of the 
 sudden disappearance of others bold enough to 
 talk to the authorities. Yet when boys work for 
 Fagins they seldom get more than a crumb of 
 the booty and some have told in court of large 
 stealings in which their share has been but a 
 few cents. 
 
 If not taught to steal by the older thieves, the 
 children frequently get their first lesson in 
 " dipping " from other companions of the dark 
 hallways and the streets. And when once they 
 have become skilled in picking pockets the 
 money comes so easily that it is hard for them to 
 give it up. The skill involved and also the dan- 
 ger give the game a zest beside which honest en- 
 deavor seems tame. The police recently caught a 
 wealthy rug importer picking pockets. He had 
 learned the art as a boy and even after he had 
 established a big business that rated high on the 
 commercial lists the old desire for excitement and 
 a curiosity to know how much of his skill he re- 
 tained got the better of him and led him back to
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 205 
 
 stealing as a recreation. There are many other 
 cases of this kind on the police records. 
 
 The ways in which boys are led into picking 
 pockets are diverse and often so insidious that 
 the youngsters have developed into clever 
 thieves almost before realizing that they have 
 done wrong. It not infrequently happens that 
 a lad who is to be initiated into the thieves' fra- 
 ternity suddenly finds that an older boy who 
 wears better clothes than he and who has made 
 other boys envious by a display of spending 
 money, has taken a great interest in him. It is 
 human nature to be proud of the attention of 
 those who are apparently better off than our- 
 selves. After a visit to a moving picture show 
 that has been a revelation to the unconscious 
 candidate, his new friend may take him to a 
 candy shop where he meets other boys, who are 
 also better dressed than himself, and who buy 
 candy and cigarettes with amazing prodigality. 
 He, perhaps, has not had five cents spending 
 money in his whole gray, little life. His mother 
 and the children at home may not get much more 
 than five cents for finishing a dozen pieces of
 
 206 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 sweat-shop work. Then his new friends ex- 
 plain a game to him that seems to give them 
 rare amusement. One of them drops a twenty- 
 five cent piece into his own pocket and tells the 
 prospective recruit that he may have it if he 
 can get it without being caught. And after he 
 has seen others try and experienced the great 
 fun at their detection he is finally persuaded to 
 get into the game himself. The instructors are 
 conveniently blind for one or two trials and the 
 prospective thief has won and spent a half-dol- 
 lar; wealth heretofore beyond his dreams. So 
 step by step he is led along until with his newly 
 acquired desire for easy money he is helping the 
 other boys in the gang perhaps to play " stool to 
 the dip," that is to crowd the unsuspecting 
 pedestrian while the more expert " dip " goes 
 into the chatelaine bag or pocket. 
 
 The push cart crowds have always offered a 
 fertile field for the operations of this sort of 
 thief. The peddlers themselves are frequently 
 victims when the boys first set out to steal. 
 This is particularly true of the children who are 
 not working for Fagins but on their own ac-
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 207 
 
 count. They have neither the boldness nor the 
 skill at the start that has been acquired by the 
 instructed boys. Sometimes a half-dozen young 
 thieves work together. Two elbow their way 
 into the crowd while the others wait outside. 
 When they have agreed on a victim one will 
 jostle him and while his attention is thus dis- 
 tracted the other opens the handbag or goes 
 through a promising pocket. Usually the theft 
 is not discovered until the gang is far away. 
 But should the luckless victim discover that he 
 is being robbed, the accomplices on the edge of 
 the crowd rush in and the booty is rapidly passed 
 from one to the other. Sometimes the victim 
 attempts to hold the thief and is set upon by the 
 whole gang. If a policeman approaches some- 
 one sets up the cry : " Cheese it, the cop ! " and 
 the gang disappears to the four quarters of the 
 wind in a jiffy. 
 
 An old-time and rather crude method was for 
 two boys suddenly to set upon one another di- 
 rectly in front of a pedestrian whose wealth of 
 watch chain or bulge of pocket had attracted 
 them. Accomplices rushed into the pre-ar-
 
 208 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 ranged fray, the pedestrian was upset and badly 
 pnmmeled and after he had gained his feet and 
 the last of the gang was flying around the cor- 
 ner he discovered that his watch or wallet was 
 gone. 
 
 But usually the larceny is effected without 
 any violence and the victim is unable to tell just 
 how it happened. In company with a plain 
 clothes man whose specialty was boy pickpock- 
 ets I have watched members of these gangs go 
 into one pocket and bag after another and take 
 an inventory of the contents before finally at- 
 tempting a " lift." This investigating of bags 
 and pockets is called in pickpocket parlance, 
 " sounding." There are boys who under cover 
 of a proffered newspaper lift watches, others 
 who go through pockets in the darkness of mov- 
 ing picture shows, others who prey on the crowds 
 in street cars and the more important business 
 streets and still others who lie in wait for un- 
 suspecting immigrants at the Barge Office. 
 
 One young thief known as " Benuck " 
 brought much woe to the East Side through his 
 successful robberies of women by a novel method
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 209 
 
 of his own. With a keen-edged razor in his pos- 
 session, Benuck would worm his way through 
 a crowd and unobserved slip under a push cart. 
 Here he would wait until there came within 
 reach a woman that he thought might carry her 
 money in her stocking. It is said that he chose 
 the women with thick, unsensitive ankles in 
 searching for such depositories, thereby reduc- 
 ing the chance of getting caught. Once the hid- 
 ing place of the money was discovered he 
 brought his razor into play with the delicacy 
 of a surgeon, cut the stocking and while the 
 owner haggled with the peddler, extracted her 
 bank notes and slid away to other fields. This 
 fellow long baffled the police, for his whole 
 method was difficult to detect. 
 
 Before me at the moment is a letter from one 
 of the most skillful boy pickpockets in the coun- 
 try whose stealings in his thirteenth year, he 
 told me, sometimes amounted to more than 
 $1,000 a month. His real name will not be 
 given here because of the very remote possibility 
 that some day he may leave crooked ways. Re- 
 formatory institutions will never do it and the
 
 210 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 letter from which I shall quote was written 
 after able men had labored hard and patiently to 
 break him from stealing. He had been com- 
 mitted twice and was living in a good home 
 about an hour's ride from the city, in the em- 
 ploy of a man who had been very kind to him, 
 when he wrote this letter: 
 
 " I am still doing well and hope to keep it up 
 all the time. I am trying very hard to stop the 
 bad habits I had in New York and I am going 
 to see if I don't have better luck. I am going to 
 employ my mind better than I ever did and my 
 hands as well. I think my hands are the hard- 
 est." 
 
 When the time had come for Jacob's release 
 — let us call him Jacob for convenience — the 
 Superintendent of the second institution to 
 which he had been sent found work for him on 
 a Connecticut farm. He wanted to keep the 
 boy far away from his old companions of the 
 East Side. But here Jacob became so despond- 
 ent that the farmer for whom he worked asked 
 the Superintendent to take him back to the 
 Refuge. Jacob was glad to return. It had
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 211 
 
 been terribly lonesome in the country, he said, 
 " the quiet made his ears hurt." 
 
 " But I kept straight," he went on. " There 
 was a picnic one Sunday in a grove near the 
 house where I lived and they let me go. I guess 
 my boss wouldn't have let me if he'd known how 
 hard it was for me to keep my hands out of 
 other people's pockets. Those farmers and their 
 wives were the easiest crowd I ever saw. Not 
 much money, maybe, but it would have been 
 great fun. I had to shove my hands into my 
 own pockets and hold 'em so tight my fingers 
 ached." 
 
 So a place had been found for Jacob that was 
 a compromise between the lonesomeness of an 
 isolated farm and the crowds of the city and the 
 boy had been sent to the Long Island suburb. 
 Here his nimble fingers and alert mind were kept 
 constantly employed in a succession of whole- 
 some occupations. But the longing for the city 
 was keen in him and in the same letter in which 
 he told me of his good progress he said he was 
 trying to persuade the Superintendent of the In- 
 stitution that had released him on a parole to
 
 212 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 let him visit New York for just one day. Jacob's 
 father died about this time and he was allowed 
 to come to the East Side for the funeral. An 
 institution officer whose identity was known 
 only to Jacob and his employer accompanied 
 him. They had scarcely set foot on Manhat- 
 tan Island before the news spread that the 
 " thousand-dollar-grafter," as the boy was 
 known to his old associates, was in the city for 
 a day. Some of the old crowd contrived to get 
 a message to him. Jacob went back to Long Is- 
 land, but ran away within a fortnight. So far 
 as was known he had stolen absolutely nothing 
 while at his new home. But the old lure was 
 too strong for him. After several months' 
 search, an officer of the Refuge caught sight of 
 him through a car window on the subway plying 
 his old trade in a crowd at the Fourteenth 
 Street station. He captured Jacob after a hard 
 fight and he was taken back to Randall's Island. 
 Some weeks later while at work with other in- 
 mates of the institution on a pier he jumped into 
 the river and was picked up by a boat that evi- 
 dently was waiting for him. But he was over-
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 213 
 
 taken after an exciting chase and is still in the 
 Kefuge. 
 
 This boy's training in thievery was so thor- 
 ough, his proficiency so great, that it is doubt- 
 ful if the pickpocket virus in him ever will be 
 killed. The skill, the very risk involved, the 
 easy money, made " larceny from the person " 
 like the breath in his nostrils. His history 
 will serve, perhaps, to show the need of rooting 
 out the resorts where the young pickpockets get 
 their start and of dealing drastically with all the 
 influences to which so naturally they fell a prey. 
 For in Jacob's experience we have the meeting 
 of more than one of those hard conditions with 
 which we have had to do, chapter by chapter, in 
 the story of the Children's Court. 
 
 His father came here from Kussia to escape 
 persecution. He was a pious man with strict 
 ideas for his children, but quite unable to cope 
 with all the new, bewildering conditions of the 
 " free country." He had rented a push cart with 
 which there went the privilege of naturalization 
 papers along with the peddler's license, and upon 
 whose precarious business he and his family must
 
 214 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 subsist. They lived, the four of them, in one 
 room — which meant that if Jacob and his sis- 
 ter were not always to be under their elders' feet 
 they must take the streets for their playground. 
 Across Seward Park, locally known as Tageblatt 
 Square, Jacob went to school and here — it was 
 their headquarters at the time — the Fagins met 
 him. He was bright and quick — notably so in 
 school — a large-eyed, good-looking boy whose 
 patent qualities marked him out for their pur* 
 poses. They were very kind to him, these afflu- 
 ent, over-dressed young men; they gave him 
 money and showed him tricks and asked him if 
 he couldn't, uncaught, slip a parcel out of the old 
 lady's bag in front of them — just as a joke, she 
 was an aunt of theirs. They praised his quick- 
 ness, his deft, light hand ; they became the secret 
 zest and the reward in his cramped and colorless 
 life, and when finally the rewards of the game 
 had multiplied beyond even the child's powers of 
 credence, what had Jacob at the age of eight to 
 oppose to their lures? Jacob's stern old father 
 had all that he could righteously do to earn their 
 meager daily bread and shelter and nobody else
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 215 
 
 saw to it that Jacob had anything to interest him. 
 The basement poolroom, as we have seen, no 
 longer has a monopoly of this class of business 
 as the nursery of little thieves, though there are 
 many of them still serving as primary academies 
 of crime. With the loosening of the grip of the 
 Fagins through the efforts of the Court and with 
 the boys taking the business over into their own 
 control the favorite meeting places now are the 
 cheap candy shops, the coffee saloons and the 
 moving picture shows, all of which have been 
 springing up with mushroom rapidity in the past 
 few years. The price commonly charged in the 
 pool rooms was two and one-half cents a cue; 
 now, with all the rival attractions, it has dropped 
 to one cent. The cheap candy shops have spread 
 so rapidly that in some of the congested districts 
 they now outnumber the saloons. There is no in- 
 tention to make it appear that all cheap candy 
 shops are meeting places for young thieves, but 
 conducted as they are, on the face of it mainly 
 for the patronage of children, there is usually 
 little scruple as to how that patronage is obtained. 
 And the atmosphere often is not much better than
 
 216 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 that of the basement poolrooms. Flanked about 
 with cheap post cards often dealing with un- 
 wholesome subjects, " nickel libraries," and poor, 
 adulterated candy, the young thieves can easily 
 gather here to puff cigarettes and plan their next 
 adventure. 
 
 This class of cigarette traffic, by the way, would 
 make an interesting subject for government in- 
 vestigation. The price frequently charged to 
 children is one cent for two. Were they made 
 of pure materials the effects perhaps would not 
 be so vicious. But their manufacturers have hit 
 on a system of adulteration and treatment that 
 binds thousands of their boy patrons to them in 
 almost hopeless slavery. This is not the ranting 
 of an anti-cigarette crank — any prejudice that 
 the writer might hold, would naturally tend in the 
 other direction. But when an officer of a big 
 tobacco combination bewails the fact that chil- 
 dren are being injured mentally and physically 
 through the sale of these adulterated " coffin- 
 nail " cigarettes, it is time to think. This same 
 official would have the manufacture of such stuff 
 prohibited by law. He states — and for obvious
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 217 
 
 reasons I cannot give his name here — that in 
 some popular brands there is not ten per cent, of 
 pure tobacco. To use his own words : " The 
 other ninety per cent, is often treated alfalfa and 
 dope." Another of the permitted sins of greed. 
 
 But to return to our pickpockets. The police 
 and the Society officers in raids on thieves' hang- 
 outs used once to find lay figures with chatelaine 
 bags or with capacious pockets on which the pros- 
 pective artists in this business had practiced. A 
 bell-hung coat was one of the properties found, 
 in a Eidge Street resort. It took a lot of prac- 
 tice for a boy with even the quickest and lightest 
 touch to get anything out of a pocket that had 
 been delicately wired to alarm bells. 
 
 A lad in the Children's Court told of similar 
 paraphernalia in use in a First Avenue bird store 
 that was really the cover for a thieves' headquar- 
 ters. Behind this lad as he faced the Court 
 stood his brother, about thirty years old, who, 
 the Society report showed, had been in the House 
 of Refuge years before for picking pockets. Sus- 
 picion that he had been training the boy im- 
 mediately fell upon him, but the crushed and
 
 218 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 heart-sick appearance of the young man as he 
 stepped forward startled even the Court, used 
 as he was to such things. 
 
 " I've tried so hard to keep this kid straight," 
 he said. " I've tried to watch him every minute 
 I was not away at work, for I know what once 
 bein' a ' dip ' means. I've kept straight for the 
 past few years — as straight as I could. I've 
 been doing the closest thing I could get to hon- 
 est work — runnin' a gambling house. But I 
 wanted this boy to amount to something. He's 
 never known my business, he's never known I've 
 been sent up. But the crooks must have got him 
 when I wasn't at home. When was it? " he de- 
 manded fiercely. 
 
 But the boy hung his head and was silent. 
 
 " I used to give him a little spendin' money 
 now and then," the man went on, " so there 
 wouldn't be no need for him to go and steal it. I 
 guess he was gettin' a good deal more on the 
 outside. He used to come home once in a while 
 with a black eye and a lot of bruises. When I 
 asked him he always said he had a fight with a 
 bigger boy and got the worst of it. It was the
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 219 
 
 crooks beat him to make him steal or give up 
 the money he'd lifted." 
 
 He clenched his fist again. " I know I'll 
 never amount to nothin', but I did look for 
 things from that boy. And now, Judge, he's 
 gone. This settles it; he'll never amount to 
 nothin' neither ! " 
 
 He stood in utter dejection, a big, lolling, 
 broken figure. But suddenly he roused, he ham- 
 mered the rail with his sledge of a fist. " Oh, I 
 wish I could get at 'em ! " he sobbed. " I wish 
 I could get 'em ! " 
 
 One of the most prominent men in the Bar 
 Association while visiting the Children's Court 
 said to a pickpocket specialist from Central 
 Office : " I don't see how it is possible for a man of 
 alertness and intelligence to be robbed of his 
 watch or jewelry in broad daylight without the 
 thief being detected." 
 
 " That is hard to understand," replied the de- 
 tective. 
 
 A few minutes later the lawyer was amazed to 
 see his diamond scarf pin adorning the lapel of 
 the detective's coat.
 
 220 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 " When did you do it? " he demanded, stunned. 
 
 " Immediately after you spoke. I have been 
 watching the boy pickpockets so long that I 
 know a little about their business. And yet," the 
 detective added, " they would regard me as an 
 awkward novice." 
 
 " Say, Mister," spoke up an under-sized, thir- 
 teen-year-old culprit that this detective had just 
 brought in, " dat flatty " (the plain clothes man) 
 " was dead slow. If I wuz as tall as he wuz I'd 
 a had it and been lookin' over the crowds in 
 Grand Street by now." 
 
 This boy knew that he was to be sent away 
 and he was quite willing to boast of his triumphs. 
 All he wanted was a listener. 
 
 " Say, I've lifted ticks (watches) right in front 
 of de flatties' eyes. De're too slow for me. And 
 say, me and me fren's been all over de country," 
 and he raised his husky little voice and straight- 
 ened his narrow shoulders. " It wuz great trav- 
 elin\ We stopped off at Detroit, Cleveland and 
 Chicago. Then we hit Los Angeles and lived 
 good for two months. But say, Fourteenth 
 Street's good enough for me."
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 221 
 
 But soon Moses, taking on the look of an old 
 man, began to moralize. " There ain't nuttin' in 
 dis crookin' business. I'm goin' to straighten 
 out now and when I come out get into some good 
 business. You just watch me." 
 
 Moses needed watching. He ran away twice 
 in one year from the reformatory to which he 
 had been sent. The last time a new officer from 
 the institution, one they thought Moses would 
 not recognize, went to the old haunts of the boy 
 and after watching for several hours grabbed a 
 youngster who looked much like Moses and who 
 certainly wore the khaki suit in which he had 
 run away. The officer was sure of his quarry 
 for he had heard another boy call to him : " Come 
 here, Moses." Vigorous explanations were in 
 progress when the officer beheld the real Moses 
 across the street with his fingers wiggling vio- 
 lently at his nose. He didn't catch the right 
 Moses, who keenly enjoyed this ruse which was 
 all of his own devising, for several weeks. 
 
 Moses is different from the other boy pick- 
 pockets, in having a keen sense of humor. Some 
 criminologists will tell you that no delinquent
 
 222 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 or criminal who is beyond hope of reform has any 
 humor. Moses has, but it is very doubtful if even 
 he will ever straighten out. He is now in an- 
 other reformatory. 
 
 Boys of this sort undoubtedly work great harm 
 in many of the institutions to which they are 
 committed. They are bound to boast of their 
 criminal proficiency and to teach other boys to 
 steal. A most valuable feature of the cottage 
 system that is gradually being adopted by the 
 reformatory institutions is the separation of 
 boys such as this from others who could not but 
 suffer from contact with them. It would seem 
 that the isolation of such boys should begin even 
 earlier, in the detention rooms where they are 
 held pending a disposition of their cases in the 
 Children's Court. If much progress is to be 
 made in rooting out this evil among children 
 the rules of isolation and treatment will have to 
 be as rigid as those observed in handling small- 
 pox. 
 
 The insidious thing about the pickpocket germ 
 is that it seizes upon the child's imagination, his 
 natural impulse for adventure. And this brings
 
 The Nursery for Little Thieves 223 
 
 us to the point where so many of the offenses 
 that appear before the Children's Court have 
 brought us, to the thought of preventive meas- 
 ures rather than those that are curative. The 
 child learns through his amusements; they are 
 as much a part of healthy growth as sunshine 
 and they are all great educational factors. So- 
 ciety ought therefore to provide them as a part 
 of its educational system. If we do not there is 
 always someone who will take advantage of the 
 neglected opportunity, someone who will give 
 cheap " shows " and games, who will teach a boy 
 cleverly to take things from the pockets of his 
 " aunt." 
 
 " He gives me a quarter and sends me to the 
 theater," says William Thompson of the thief 
 who taught him — why can't the community 
 take a hint from " Kid Chester " and send the 
 boy to the theater itself? We have begun well 
 in playgrounds, in dancing at the public schools 
 — we ought to go much farther. There should 
 be many more recreation places of the sort al- 
 ready started. And why should we not add mov- 
 ing pictures to our opportunities for molding the
 
 224 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 citizens to come, a good, clean, straight, moving 
 picture place under proper municipal supervision 
 and not controlled by a private combination 
 whose sole thought is profit, where the boy could 
 be taught history and travel without knowing 
 it, where he could get the sense of adventure and 
 where there was nothing to betray his ready 
 imagination into crime before he knew the mean- 
 ing of it?
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MENTAL MISFITS 
 
 npHERE is another glaring sin of the eom- 
 A niunity against our neighbor's child which 
 demands attention. This is its failure to recog- 
 nize and to provide proper treatment for chil- 
 dren who are mentally irresponsible and who are 
 yet neither imbecile nor insane. Many of these 
 mentally defective and exceptional children nat- 
 urally come into the Children's Courts. 
 
 A lad with keel-shaped head, wandering eyes 
 set close together and a scant upper lip is ar- 
 raigned for stealing. 
 
 " He's been here five times and has been com- 
 mitted twice," despairingly declares the repre- 
 sentative of the Society. 
 
 The Court studies the forlorn and anaemic fig- 
 ure before him. Nature and the world have com- 
 bined against the boy. His equipment at the 
 
 start has been deficient and because of a conven- 
 
 225
 
 226 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 tional order of things with which he has con- 
 stantly been in conflict he has never had anything 
 like a chance for proper adjustment. The Super- 
 intendent of the refuge where the boy spent more 
 than eighteen months on his last commitment 
 declares that he does not want him returned 
 there. The refuge can do nothing with him, he 
 is a total misfit. 
 
 " What am I to do? " asks the Judge. To send 
 him back is to make him forever a criminal, to 
 release him is to work an injustice to society. 
 
 Here is a small cog that will not fit in the ma- 
 chinery of any existing institution. If the cog 
 is driven in, it is irreparably damaged, and the 
 machinery is thrown out of gear. 
 
 But the matter ends in this case as it does in 
 the cases of other defective delinquents — because 
 there is no other place to send him the boy is led 
 back rebellious and bitter to the very reforma- 
 tory that struggled vainly over him. He will be 
 put to the same tasks and into the same classes 
 with normal boys. Whether set to manual work 
 or study, tasks set him may be commenced, but 
 can never be performed. There is an excellent
 
 The Mental Misfits 227 
 
 school system in the institution but it has been 
 discovered that after his year and a half there 
 this boy cannot spell the words " cat " or " the." 
 To enable him to make any progress in the most 
 rudimentary branches individual attention and 
 the endless patience of specially trained teachers 
 would be required. Even in one of the more 
 modern reformatory institutions for ordinary de- 
 linquents conducted on the cottage plan there 
 could be no adequate care or treatment. What 
 is needed here is medical and mental treatment 
 by experts in a special institution. 
 
 The mental deficiencies of such children lead 
 them irresistibly to commit acts against the law. 
 They are the victims of environmental or con- 
 genital causes which predispose them to crime. 
 In its present method of treating children of this 
 type — or rather in its neglect of them — the 
 State is sowing a continuous crop for its prisons 
 and almshouses. 
 
 One of the chief causes of mental defectiveness 
 is the feeble mindedness of parents. In this case 
 the law of heredity cannot be gainsaid. There 
 is no possible doubt that mental defectiveness ia
 
 228 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 transmitted from father to son, from grand- 
 parents to grandchildren, and it has been esti- 
 mated that this type of family increases at twice 
 the rate of the general population. Without 
 the careful examination of a psychiatrist they 
 pass before the Court as normal children. Per- 
 haps they violate their parole or come back a 
 second and third time. Then they are sent to 
 the ordinary reformatory institution. It may 
 be that the absence of thyroid glands in these 
 children has brought about cretinism, there may 
 be a brain lesion due to hereditary syphilis, the 
 trouble may have been due to epilepsy, or in 
 simpler cases the presence of adenoids may re- 
 tard normal development and render the child 
 irritable and mentally lazy. Again prolonged 
 mal-nutrition may have been the seat of the 
 trouble. But plainly for none of these condi- 
 tions is a reformatory the proper place. 
 
 So lax is the present system of examination 
 for mental and physical defectiveness in our 
 public schools that the authorities themselves 
 admit they have no proper basis for conclusions. 
 When one physician, aside from looking after
 
 The babies demand her attention, so she cannot go 
 to school 
 
 Their automobile is a trifle crowded, but they have to 
 make the most of their opportunities
 
 The Mental Misfits 229 
 
 his regular practice, is supposed to examine 
 mentally and physically five thousand children 
 in a district, a situation that is within the 
 writer's knowledge, we at once see that there is 
 little of the sifting process possible. There are 
 some ungraded classes but it is only the flagrant 
 cases that get into them. 
 
 According to the report of a recent investiga- 
 tion of 42,750 children in Boston schools less 
 than fifty per cent, were physically normal. It 
 is only in the past few years that any study 
 has been given to these problems, but it would 
 seem that from ten to thirty per cent, of the 
 adult criminals are mentally defective and that 
 their mental defects are responsible for their 
 criminality. The superintendent of the Bedford 
 Keformatory recently reported that one-third of 
 the inmates of that institution were subnormal ; 
 and from the Elmira Keformatory it was stated 
 at the same time, that 335 of the inmates were 
 mentally defective while seventy per cent, were 
 physically defective. 
 
 Had we taken these defectives as children and 
 treated them as their conditions required, there
 
 230 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 would be to-day a notable decrease in the popu- 
 lation of our almshouses and prisons. Now 
 we do not pretend to say here that anything like 
 from ten to thirty per cent, of the children who 
 get into the juvenile courts are mentally defect- 
 ive. There are some fadists and sentimental- 
 ists who would pounce on every other child and 
 search his person for the stigmata of degenera- 
 tion. If the boy stole a pie, then on some por- 
 tion of his head, they, by the grace of their im- 
 aginations, a pair of calipers and perhaps a 
 spirit level, will find a pie bump. Did he hit 
 another boy in a stone fight? Then somewhere 
 in his brain convolutions they will find a kink 
 productive of cruelty. They would promptly 
 jimmy into the head of every boy who came be- 
 fore the court, tamp out the supposed twists in 
 his brain lobes, tack up the crevices and turn 
 him back to his parents, a paragon of virtue. 
 But after a near view of about 100,000 children 
 who have been charged with violation of the 
 law, I assert positively that the vast majority of 
 them are absolutely normal from the standpoint 
 of their surroundings. As we have seen, the en-
 
 The Mental Misfits 23 1 
 
 vironment which we permit for our neighbor's 
 child is intolerably bad. This is leading to the 
 great, growing crop of physically subnormal 
 children. It certainly must have some effect 
 mentally too. For poverty leads to alcoholism 
 and the spread of crime and disease. 
 
 More drunkenness is caused by poverty, than 
 poverty by drunkenness. It is the cruel grip 
 of poverty too, the awful monotony and drudgery 
 at pittances that enable a girl worker but half 
 to subsist that is the chief augmenting force 
 for the army of prostitution. If we consider the 
 wretched wages too . often paid to girls behind 
 counters, to seamstresses, to shopworkers, it is 
 readily apparent that many of them cannot be 
 expected to support themselves by this means 
 alone. What hypocrisy it is when the employ- 
 ers of such labor announce from time to time 
 gifts to various philanthropies! The real serv- 
 ice would be to give living wages and thus spare 
 the girls from bondage. But such " charity " is 
 not so cheap and does not command the same 
 amount of publicity. The relation of all this to 
 defectiveness may seem remote, but it is just
 
 232 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 such conditions that go far toward increasing the 
 number of the feeble minded. For poverty and 
 prostitution lead to the spread of disease and 
 certain of these diseases, whether alcoholism or 
 syphilis, are important factors in enfeebling 
 the minds of coming generations. 
 
 It has been estimated that those who are 
 called the " high grade," feeble-minded people 
 make up perhaps thirty per cent, of our crimi- 
 nals, a large percentage of our paupers and 
 a still larger percentage of our women of ill 
 fame. A recent investigation at the training 
 school at Vineland, New Jersey, an institution 
 for mentally defective children, those who need 
 special care and training, showed that one 
 feeble-minded man was the father of five feeble- 
 minded children and the grandfather of at least 
 nine feeble-minded grandchildren, only one of 
 whom was being cared for in an institution 
 where she could never become a mother. Faced 
 with such statistics, we realize that the problem 
 of crime, poverty and defectiveness can never be 
 solved until it is attacked at the source. This 
 institution at [Vineland, by the way, which is
 
 The Mental Misfits 233 
 
 caring for about 400 defectives, is supported by 
 private charity. The zeal of one man for whom 
 the problem of the feeble-minded had a personal 
 interest, led to its establishment. It is now 
 owned and controlled by an association of about 
 200 members. The property, which is worth a 
 quarter of a million, has all been contributed as 
 a free-will offering by a few persons who saw 
 and appreciated the need of such an institution. 
 There is not another exactly like it in the coun- 
 try, but one day when the community has 
 awakened to the importance of this problem 
 there will be at least one such institution in 
 each State and these supported by public in- 
 stead of private funds. 
 
 It sometimes happens that the defectives who 
 come into the Children's Court know that their 
 afflictions render them irresponsible. For in- 
 stance, a boy whose fiendish outbreaks of temper 
 made it impossible for his parents to manage 
 him was committed recently to a protectory. 
 On having a task assigned him there he balked 
 and fought with his teachers, declaring : " I did 
 not come here to work, but to get my nose cured.
 
 234 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 I'd be all right if they'd only cure my nose." It 
 was then discovered that he had growths in his 
 nose and throat that created nervousness and a 
 mental condition that incapacitated him from 
 work or study. 
 
 Within three months after his last release a 
 boy who had twice been in a protectory was 
 again twice arrested for stealing. His last of- 
 fense had been the larceny of twenty dollars 
 from his mother. Then he rallied a band of 
 younger boys about him, bought pistols, and 
 with the help of his companions, dug a cave far 
 from his home in the Bronx. Here he and his 
 band had their abode for several days until a 
 policeman lassoed the disappearing leg of the 
 chief as he dived back into his hole after ven- 
 turing forth to reconnoiter. It developed at 
 the hearing in the Children's Court that the boy 
 leader had in him a strange strain of cruelty. 
 He had taken particular delight in chopping off 
 a dog's tail. Several times he had hacked off 
 the legs of live chickens. His appearance indi- 
 cated mental deficiency and the Court sent him 
 to a psychiatrist for examination. The report
 
 The Mental Misfits 235 
 
 showed that the boy was a moral imbecile, but 
 there was no proper institution to which he 
 could be sent. 
 
 To illustrate further the hopelessness of send- 
 ing defectives into the ordinary institution I 
 shall cite here the case of a fifteen-year-old lad 
 arraigned in the Children's Court six times. 
 He had twice been committed to reformatories, 
 once for larceny and again for robbery — or 
 rather that is what his offenses would have 
 amounted to had he not been under the age of 
 sixteen and had he been taken to a court for 
 adults. The lad's sixth arraignment was for 
 stabbing another boy. Following his last re- 
 lease from an institution he had apparently 
 been making fine progress under the supervision 
 of his uncle, a lawyer, who took him into his of- 
 fice. The boy seemed to possess a very good 
 mind and went frequently into Court for the 
 lawyer uncle to answer the call of the calendar; 
 but children who lived near the boy knew he had 
 been in the House of Refuge and, in the thought- 
 less cruelty of childhood, sometimes taunted 
 him. He was on his way home one evening
 
 236 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 when a boy rode up on a bicycle and called teas- 
 ingly : 
 
 " When did you beat the Ref ? " 
 
 The boy flew into an old-time rage and kicked 
 the bicycle, upsetting the rider. His tormentor 
 scrambled to his feet and struck him; the latter 
 then drew a knife and repeatedly stabbed the 
 other. 
 
 When brought to the Children's Court the boy 
 tried to dash his brains out against a wall. 
 
 " I don't want to go back to the Island," he 
 cried, and it required three attendants to hold 
 him. 
 
 It developed shortly after this boy had been 
 committed the first time that he was a defect' 
 ive. Without provocation he suddenly at- 
 tacked another boy in the institution and almost 
 chewed off one of his ears. He subsequently at- 
 tempted to kill an officer while he was in the 
 " meditation division " where he was to stand 
 in isolated confinement as a punishment for his 
 first outbreak. The superintendent than sent 
 the boy to the psychopathic ward at Bellevue 
 Hospital for observation. The resident alienist
 
 The Mental Misfits 237 
 
 after a careful study of the case wrote the fol- 
 lowing report: 
 
 We are of the opinion that this is not a proper case 
 for care in one of our institutions (State insane asylums) 
 within the meaning of the statute. However, the boy shows 
 evidences of constitutional mental defects due to lack of 
 development. From your history as well as our examina- 
 tion of the boy it appears that he suffers from attacks prob- 
 ably of the nature of epilepsy. In these attacks these 
 patients are not responsible ; do not know what they are 
 doing. Although there is no doubt of his lack of mental 
 stability and of his defective development, he is not a 
 proper case for the care and custody of a State insane 
 asylum within the meaning of the statute. 
 
 With all these facts before it there was noth- 
 ing for the Court to do but to send the boy back 
 for the third time to the reformatory that could 
 only make him a confirmed criminal and whose 
 discipline would be disturbed by his pres- 
 ence. 
 
 The abnormally bright delinquents, those with 
 astute minds but without equilibrium, offer a 
 more interesting study. The record of a genius, 
 even though he be a criminal, is naturally more 
 interesting than that of a low order of defect- 
 ives. The diverting of this genius from crimj-
 
 238 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 nal into useful ways might be, even in a single 
 case, of inestimable value to the State. 
 
 A frank-faced youngster of fourteen, with the 
 air of a young Chesterfield, was arraigned in the 
 Children's Court a few years ago, charged with 
 having defrauded a department store of a con- 
 siderable sum of money by a series of clever for- 
 geries. His attractive face, polite speech and 
 quiet manner, his whole appearance, his im- 
 maculate turn-down collar set off by his neat 
 knickerbockers and patent ties, marked him out 
 in contrast to the motley throng of boys waiting 
 to go before the judge. It seemed incongruous 
 that such a lad could be charged with swindling. 
 Even the detective who took him into custody 
 was half inclined to ask that the complaint be 
 dismissed — he feared he had made a mistake. 
 But to the fatherly, keen-minded judge, who had 
 a long talk with the boy, he finally confessed 
 forging the checks on which the complaint was 
 based. This boy, who was from the West, had, 
 when he was eleven years of age, edited a news- 
 paper of which he was the founder. His father 
 was a poor printer. With no collateral other
 
 The Mental Misfits 239 
 
 than his unmitigated nerve he had traveled 
 through the country stopping at the best hotels. 
 He was living at the Waldorf-Astoria when ar- 
 rested. He had an interesting interview with 
 Russell Sage, and I am told that he even in- 
 duced the late financier to invest in one of his 
 Western schemes. This perhaps speaks more 
 for the boy's persuasive power, than anything I 
 could say. 
 
 Following the announcement of the boy's ar- 
 raignment in the Children's Court there came 
 a stream of letters from men and women who had 
 met him in parlor cars, in hotel lobbies, in restau- 
 rants, East and West. One level-headed priest 
 wrote that he had spent the greater part of a 
 day in conversation with the lad on a railway 
 train. He declared that, although he was quiet 
 in demeanor, the boy was chronically in a state 
 of mental exaltation. 
 
 When this young marvel was committed to a 
 reformatory, the officers of the institution were 
 urged for the boy's own good to keep him in the 
 background and away from visitors. About 
 three months later when I was one of hundreds of
 
 240 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 guests at a Washington Birthday celebration at 
 this same institution, what was my amazement to 
 see, in powdered queue and cocked hafy the 
 center of all attention, this very lad as George 
 Washington himself! The Court's commitment 
 had been indeterminate, and in an ordinary case 
 the shortest time for release would have been a 
 year and a half; he, however, in a few months 
 more, talked himself out of the institution and 
 into a Washington bank. His shrewd mind 
 quickly grasped enough details of that business 
 to enable him soon to disappear with a consider- 
 able sum of the bank's money. He was ar- 
 rested later in a Western State and sent to a 
 reformatory. He declared later that he would 
 never again commit a criminal act. On his re- 
 lease he obtained employment as a traveling 
 salesman. 
 
 Between midnight and dawn one morning, in 
 a Kansas City hotel, he turned on both jets of 
 gas in his room, and was dead when discovered. 
 Beside the body of the boy, who was then only 
 eighteen years old, was found this note: 
 
 " Worry, unhappiness, undeserved condemna-
 
 The Mental Misfits 241 
 
 tion, and hatred of doing wrong are the cause." 
 And so because of our lack of wisdom in these 
 matters, the lack of knowledge and of means for 
 expert treatment at the right time, all the splen- 
 did possibilities latent in the boy were lost to 
 the community. 
 
 Another lad whom the writer watched for 
 months was declared by a lunacy commission to 
 be irresponsible and sent to the prison for the 
 criminal insane at Matteawan. He was ap- 
 parently a splendid specimen of budding physi- 
 cal manhood, and through his politeness of man- 
 ner and agreeable personality was quick to make 
 friendly acquaintances. But from those for 
 whom he professed the greatest friendship he 
 did not hesitate to steal. His parents, unable 
 to keep him at home, had sent him from one 
 private school and military academy to the 
 other. He was dismissed from all. Broken- 
 hearted over his various misdeeds, his parents 
 finally had him committed to a semi-private in- 
 stitution. Twice he made his escape. He had 
 quite as agreeable a personality as did the crimi- 
 nal genius who committed suicide in the Kansas
 
 242 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 City Hotel. After his last larceny a commis- 
 sion appointed to inquire into his mental con- 
 dition found that he had degenerated into a 
 moral imbecile. One of our greatest alienists 
 has declared that, taken in time, this boy could 
 have been saved. It is a striking example of 
 mental defectiveness. 
 
 There have been exceptional children, a num- 
 ber of them girls, who, because of fancied griev- 
 ances, have attempted suicide. One sensitive 
 boy whose mental deficiencies and stuttering 
 were related lately attempted suicide because 
 his teacher in a moment of petty temper, 
 mimicked him — an act that should have barred 
 her forever from the schools but she is still 
 teaching. Some boys of the exceptional class 
 show morbid craving for sympathy and marvel- 
 ous genius for evolving out of thin air stories of 
 mothers murdered by fathers, of escapes from 
 atrocious cruelty at home, of strange travels and 
 adventures. One of these lads who had never 
 been off Manhattan Island told of the slaughter 
 of his parents in South Africa, of wandering 
 from city to city, and he told it with such cun-
 
 The Mental Misfits 243 
 
 ningly devised detail and plausibility that he kept 
 the Court wondering for a week. 
 
 There is indeed need of a general awakening 
 to the fact that a number of mentally defective 
 and exceptional children are arraigned in the 
 Children's Courts each year, and although they 
 are not responsible for their acts they are being 
 thrust, as we have seen, into ordinary reforma- 
 tory institutions. Here there is nothing for 
 them but acute suffering and in the end no re- 
 sult but habitual criminality or pauperism. 
 One exceptional child with criminal tendencies 
 — and it is to be remembered that he may be a 
 genius or near idiot — is often a potentiality for 
 tremendous evil. When the feeble-minded pro- 
 duce children, they are always certain to become 
 dependent, delinquent, or diseased, and these in 
 their turn produce offspring of a similar char- 
 acter. To illustrate: at Vineland there is a 
 feeble-minded boy who has as parents a normal 
 father and a feeble-minded mother. As a result 
 of this marriage there are seven feeble-minded 
 children living and five others who died in in- 
 fancy. And in following the family back as far
 
 244 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 as the grandparents the boy was the fourth child 
 of the strain in the institution. The studies of 
 Vineland have shown that sixty-five per cent, of 
 the feeble-minded are children of feeble-minded 
 parents. A recent investigation showed that 
 eight women in an almshouse had given birth to 
 feeble-minded children within six weeks of one 
 another. The superintendent of the same place 
 said that of 105 children born there within a 
 period of five years 102 were feeble-minded. 
 
 The feeble-minded too cannot become self-sup- 
 porting when subjected to present day competi- 
 tion. They are thus a drain upon private or 
 public charity or upon family strength and re- 
 sources. It costs the State $161.20 to support a 
 feeble-minded person in an institution, but the 
 cost of maintaining one at large is incalculably 
 greater. 
 
 But the plea that is made here is for those 
 mental defectives who are neither imbecile nor 
 insane but who have an irresistible predisposi- 
 tion to crime. There are children whose mental 
 deficiencies lead them irresistibly to steal, to 
 commit assaults, to torture or burn, but who are
 
 The Mental Misfits 245 
 
 not morally responsible when they commit these 
 acts. The feeble-minded are a growing danger 
 and burden to society, and in its gradual aban- 
 donment of antiquated method of treating child 
 offenders the State must recognize that the men- 
 tally defective and exceptional child requires a 
 social process of training. The State, in fact, 
 can ill afford to hesitate longer in providing 
 proper institutions for the segregation and spe- 
 cial treatment of its mental defectives, both in 
 justice to the defectives themselves and from the 
 standpoint of the community, thus meeting a 
 growing danger and burden to society. And 
 above all, the State must see to it that the 
 feeble-minded are not permitted to become 
 parents.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE BIG BROTHERS AND THE BIG SISTERS 
 
 'l^rE are hearing more to-day about the 
 ™ brotherhood of man than ever before. 
 That question about my brother's keeper was 
 asked some thousands of years ago. We are 
 just beginning to learn something of its signifi- 
 cance. Did we fully realize that our neighbor 
 is our brother and the responsibility is ours, we 
 would not permit many of the things which we 
 have seen happen to him. Our societies for 
 protection of child life, our Children's Courts, 
 our child labor committees, are all tardy, sur- 
 face croppings, which indicate a great underly- 
 ing belief in the brotherhood of man, would we 
 but go to it. 
 
 Another small but significant indication that 
 we are at last setting some store by the idea of 
 human brotherhood, is the way in which the Big 
 Brother and Big Sister Movements are appeal- 
 
 246
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 247 
 
 ing to ever widening circles of men and women 
 of good-will. There had been no intention at 
 the outset to include anything here about the 
 Big Brothers and the Big Sisters, as that was 
 regarded as all too incidental. The plan had 
 been to deal with that work in a subsequent book 
 on different lines. But so rapidly is the Big 
 Brother Movement spreading, and so firmly 
 does its appeal clinch human sympathy, that it 
 seems the writer cannot avoid at least making 
 some reference to it. 
 
 Let it be said at the outset, that there is no 
 reason why the work of the Big Brothers and the 
 Big Sisters should be confined to any one reli- 
 gion or creed, any more than it should be con- 
 fined to merely those boys and girls who have 
 come into conflict with the law. It is open to 
 men and women of good will in all creeds and 
 occupations, to boys and girls of all stations. 
 Its simplicity, its humanity, are the elements 
 which make its appeal universal. 
 
 The spark of human sympathy that kindled 
 in the hearts of the forty pioneer Big Brothers 
 as they sat that night eight years ago in the
 
 248 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 drawing room of the Rev. Dr. Wilton Merle- 
 Smith, in New York, and heard the call of their 
 little brothers, who were being submerged in the 
 hopeless environment which the community tol- 
 erated, has grown into a flame that has touched 
 the hearts of men and women to-day in more 
 than forty cities of this country. The work 
 seems to have sprung up almost spontaneously. 
 This will immediately be apparent when it is 
 known that up to the time these lines are writ- 
 ten there has been no national secretary, no na- 
 tional organization; but merely the spread of 
 the watch-word, Big Brother, Big Sister, has 
 set many men and women in various localities 
 into action for the rescue of their less fortunate 
 little neighbors. 
 
 The idea came into being at a gathering of a 
 men's church club. While this club had been 
 formed for the purpose of studying civic bet- 
 terment, it also had a desire to serve. It is as- 
 tonishing how many thousands, yes, and scores 
 of thousands there are of such organizations that 
 really should be great factors for social service, 
 that are content with merely studying and
 
 One of these boys is "Dutch de Barrel Crook." The 
 transformation of both began when they were sent 
 to the country.
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 249 
 
 discussing things. Perhaps the fault has been 
 in the past that there has not been enough con- 
 centration. It was Theodore Parker who said 
 that the church should lead the civilization of 
 the age: 
 
 " It should lead the way in all moral enter- 
 prises in every work that aims directly at the 
 welfare of men. Its sacraments should be 
 great works of reform. The one great end 
 should be the building of a State where there is 
 honorable work for every hand, bread for all 
 mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for all 
 minds, and love and faith in every heart." 
 
 Now the men of this particular club were not 
 content with theory and talk. They had the 
 energy and the desire to do practical good. All 
 were professional or business men of experience. 
 The thought was brought home to them that the 
 tenement child was their neighbor and some- 
 thing of the responsibility was theirs. Someone 
 asked : " Is there anything we can do? " 
 
 " Yes," was the answer. " If each man here 
 will take an interest in just one boy, who has 
 been the victim of bad environment, show him
 
 250 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 there is someone who cares, and will be a sort of 
 big brother to him, that will be real service." 
 
 These men saw it. They realized then that all 
 of us are largely creatures of environment and 
 that there were thousands of future citizens who 
 could be rescued, if someone would but extend a 
 helping hand. 
 
 A boy once defined a friend as : "A feller wot 
 knows all about yer and likes yer jest the same." 
 
 That was the kind of friendship that was to 
 grow up between these men and boys and the 
 thousands of others who later joined the 
 brotherhood. The men found before they had 
 gone very far that they had quite as many defi- 
 ciencies as the youngsters. These men had al- 
 ways slept in good, comfortable beds at night; 
 they had enjoyed three square meals every day 
 of their lives except when they were suffering 
 from indigestion; most of them had read about 
 poverty in books but few had seen it face to 
 face. The name of a boy who could profit by a 
 man's wholesome friendship was sent to each of 
 the original Big Brothers. Their missions took 
 them into unattractive streets where the chil-
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 251 
 
 dren played in the gutters, into dark hallways, 
 into ramshackle houses. When they climbed 
 the black, creaky stairs, a drunken voice some- 
 times answered their knock with a gruff: 
 " What yer want? " 
 
 It was all a brand new experience to them 
 and more than one man confided to me after- 
 wards that he went up those tenement stairs 
 with some misgivings. One was greeted at a 
 top landing by a disheveled, militant female who 
 when he asked for Johnnie produced a rusty 
 horse pistol. A belligerent lady thought it 
 was one of the " hookey " officers until the visi- 
 tor made plain the pacific character of his mis- 
 sion. Another was threatened with a deluge of 
 soapsuds when he inquired for Dick, the mother 
 having mistaken him for one of the dreaded 
 " Gerries," as the officers of the Society are fre- 
 quently called by those parents whose delin- 
 quencies run to drink and cruelty. But when 
 Mrs. O'Farrell came to understand that the Big 
 Brother had called to invite Dick to join a 
 gymnasium, her wrath thawed to the point 
 where she invited him to have a " sup " of beer
 
 252 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 out of the same can, a courtesy that was duly 
 appreciated. 
 
 One of the first visits was that of Mr. James 
 T. Britan, the assistant pastor of Dr. Merle- 
 Smith's church. When he went into a dark cel- 
 lar in the Hell's Kitchen district, he found the 
 boy who only a few days before had been in the 
 Children's Court, trembling with fright beside his 
 mother who was thought to be dying in the 
 clutches of the " white death." The boy had 
 been arrested for playing truant, and had been 
 released on probation on the promise that he 
 would go to school every day. When he saw the 
 minister's legs coming down those steps, he 
 thought it was the truant officer and he feared 
 he would be dragged away to the truant school. 
 The father was dead. The older brother was 
 out seeking work. They were out of food, fuel, 
 medicine, everything they needed. While the 
 boy had been there nursing the dying mother, 
 he technically had been a violation of the law. 
 
 The men had been warned against useless 
 money charity, about the parasites that would 
 probably prey on them were it discovered that
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 253 
 
 they did not know when and where to give. 
 But here was a case that demanded money relief 
 at once. As a result of that visit, the tuber- 
 cular mother and her small family were moved 
 into three bright, clean rooms. Work was ob- 
 tained for the older brother. The smaller boy 
 was placed back in school. The mother is alive 
 to-day and the " little brother " of that day has 
 developed into a splendid, manly fellow, with 
 considerable artistic ability, and occupies an 
 important place in the designing department of 
 one of the big stores. 
 
 The assignment of another Big Brother took 
 him over into an East Seventy-fifth Street tene- 
 ment late one night. It was long past the time 
 when all of the children should have been in 
 bed, but five of the ten he found standing about 
 the outside of the little store the family rented 
 on the ground floor. When the children were 
 asked why they were not asleep, they replied 
 that they " had to make room " for the others. 
 It was " their turn in bed " now. In fact, there 
 was not sufficient room in the two little cubby 
 holes this family used as a home and place of
 
 254 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 business for the entire brood to occupy it at one 
 time. This family was helped to get into larger, 
 brighter, airier quarters, too, with good results. 
 
 Then there was a youngster who had made a 
 tearful plea in court for the release of his lit- 
 tle sister who had stolen potatoes from a ped- 
 dler's wagon for his breakfast so that he could 
 go to work. The mother had died several years 
 before. The father had succumbed only re- 
 cently to consumption, but in his last breath he 
 had begged the boy " to be good to his little 
 sister." The two had been living for some 
 weeks together in miserable rooms for which 
 they paid $8.00 a month, while their combined 
 earnings were $4.50 a week. The little girl was 
 not committed as a thief but because of mal-nu- 
 trition and neglect. She was sent to an institu- 
 tion in the country, where she could get some 
 of the fresh air and wholesome food that she 
 needed to bring back the flesh and color to her 
 parchment covered face. 
 
 " Oh, Judge," the boy had pleaded, the tears 
 streaking his grimy face, " she ain't a bad girl ; 
 she won't steal again. Please let her go and
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 255 
 
 I'll take good care of her." It happened it was 
 the Judge himself who went to that home and 
 who became the Big Brother. It was Judge 
 Franklin C. Hoyt, one of the Children's Court 
 Judges of New York, and who hears twice as 
 many children's cases in one year as any other 
 Children's Court Judge in the world. But he 
 realized the value of the personal element in 
 such work. Yes, and so keen was his interest in 
 it that it was not long before he was one of the 
 leaders of the Big Brothers. 
 
 Wholesome food was obtained for the lad. 
 Decent clothes were put on his back and within 
 forty-eight hours he was working at a job 
 where he received twice as much pay as the com- 
 bined earnings of the two had been before. It 
 was not long before that boy had a little bank 
 account which he cherished and hoarded toward 
 the day when he was able to bring his little sis- 
 ter back to a neat home. And what a happy 
 day that was! 
 
 The call of another Big Brother took him into 
 a three-room tenement in West 53rd Street the 
 day before Christmas. It had been an act of
 
 256 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 boyish mischief that got Edward into court, and 
 as it turned out, his delmt there was probably 
 the luckiest happening of his life. His father 
 was dead and the family was frightfully poor. 
 As the Big Brother afterwards described the 
 visit : 
 
 " The mother, a stout, respectable Swedish 
 woman, was deep in the mysteries of preparing 
 a pie, the first, she confessed to me, they had 
 had in a year. The kitchen was full of neigh- 
 bors and neighbors' children, but she greeted 
 me with a hearty smile and a warm, damp 
 handshake. Yes, Eddie was a good boy — 
 most boys are paragons to their mothers if 
 they amount to anything — couldn't I get him a 
 'yob?' I told her I would try but I wanted 
 to get him a pair of shoes first, for I noticed 
 that Eddie wore a pair of men's shoes many 
 sizes too large for him, one of them split en- 
 tirely across the toe and both worn through un- 
 til his feet were practically on the ground. The 
 mother's gratitude was loud and voluble and 
 when I left she gave me a hearty pat on the back 
 that left a large imprint of a flour-covered palm,
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 257 
 
 and wished me all kinds of luck and a Merry 
 Christmas. She said Edward would meet me 
 that afternoon. 
 
 " It was quite cold when Edward reported at 
 my office. He was without an overcoat, but 
 wore a thin, light, summer suit, no vest, a torn 
 calico shirt without collar, and then those awful 
 shoes. He was indeed a picture of misery and 
 w r as conscious of his wretched, ludicrous appear- 
 ance. As I put on my warm overcoat to go with 
 him, I felt guilty and ashamed that I should be 
 so warmly clad when this poor little soul needed 
 so much. We first stopped to buy some socks, 
 for the boy had told me shamefacedly that his 
 socks were so full of holes, he would not like to 
 take his shoes off to have the new ones tried on. 
 
 " ' But say,' he suddenly suggested, seeking a 
 way out of the dilemma, ' just get a pair of shoes 
 about half as long as these I have got on and 
 they'll be all right. They won't have to see the 
 socks.' 
 
 " But no, I said, we would have the socks, and 
 we bought them. At the elevated station on the 
 way to the shoe store, Edward again showed his
 
 258 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 resourcefulness, for lie disappeared into the 
 waiting room and when he emerged, he wore a 
 wide smile and said, ' I've got them on all right.' 
 At the shoe store, the boy was quickly fitted and 
 when the salesman asked me whether we wished 
 to take the old ones home with us, I thought he 
 meant to be sarcastic and so with a benevolent 
 air, I replied, ' No, you may keep them.' Ed- 
 ward had many a collision as we walked up Sixth 
 Avenue, for he could not keep his eyes straight. 
 He was constantly watching those shoes. 
 
 " I did not have very much money myself but 
 another Big Brother had given me $5.00 to help 
 out and I bethought myself of a pawn shop over 
 on Tenth Avenue, where they had unredeemed 
 pledges. Soon Edward was fitted with a coat 
 and vest as good as new which originally must 
 have cost about $8.00, but I bargained with the 
 man until I got it down to $3.00. As I paid for 
 them, Edward heaved a sigh of relief. I had 
 noticed that he was getting nervous during the 
 bargaining, fearing the pawn-broker and myself 
 would not come to terms. It was more difficult 
 to find trousers for him, for his waist was so
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 259 
 
 slim and he had legs like a young colt, but we 
 finally got a pair for a dollar. As we again 
 walked up the avenue, Edward slipped his hand 
 into mine, and glanced up at me with sparkling 
 eyes; ' Gee, I'm a regular dude now/ 
 
 " When the boy called on me the next day, he 
 fairly danced about the room. It surely was 
 the happiest Christmas morning he had ever 
 known. He was transformed from a little 
 shivering starveling into a bright, happy boy, a 
 real boy conscious of his altered appearance. 
 The following Monday I was able to find work 
 for Edward, for he now made a good appear- 
 ance in his new outfit. All this for $0.75. 
 When Edward made good on his job and turned 
 his money over to his mother each week, I cer- 
 tainly concluded it had been a good investment. 
 And I still think so when I look at him to-day." 
 
 These were merely the starting incidents. 
 Chapters might be written about the visits into 
 the other tenements. There were some discour- 
 agements, of course, but most of the men real- 
 ized from the start that they have undertaken 
 a man's job and came to take a keen personal
 
 260 The Children in the Shadow- 
 pleasure in the progress they made with their 
 cases. It had been agreed at the start that there 
 was to be nothing of preaching or lecturing, 
 and above all no patronizing. It was to be sug- 
 gestion rather than platitude. Then, too, the 
 mention of Children's Court was tabooed. The 
 men apparently did not know there was such 
 a place. 
 
 Some months after most of the men had suc- 
 ceeded in establishing relations of confidence 
 with their Little Brothers, they decided to ex- 
 periment in bringing their boys together for a 
 little dinner. It was indeed a notable affair. 
 There was Mickey, and beside him his friend, a 
 well-known banker; Spike, who sat next to his 
 host, a famous architect; Chink, who graciously 
 accepted his Big Brother, although he did wear 
 the cloth, and other just as interesting person- 
 ages. The attempts that the boys had made to 
 appear good in the eyes of their Big Brothers 
 were interesting indeed. For instance, there 
 was a little fellow who could not afford the lux- 
 ury of a clean shirt, but whose mother at the last 
 moment had hastily washed and ironed a hand-
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 261 
 
 kerchief and pinned it across the place where 
 the shirt ought to be. Countenances had been 
 scoured until they shown. 
 
 One youngster came fairly redolent in the 
 luxury of cheap perfume. Noting my look of 
 surprise when I caught the odor, he tugged my 
 coat-sleeve and motioned me to a corner. When 
 we were safely out of the hearing of the crowd, 
 he eagerly asked: 
 
 "Ain't it great; I got it at de corner drug 
 store fer a nickel ! " 
 
 It was great I assure you. 
 
 These were all mighty good signs. It showed 
 that at least the first important step had been 
 taken toward the making of good citizens ; these 
 lads were developing self-respect. The boys had 
 been told that they would be expected to respond 
 to a toast and had selected a spokesman. He 
 had carefully written out a speech and tucked it 
 under his cup, whence I rescued it later and I 
 shall give part of it verbatim : 
 
 Gentlemen and Friends: — We cannot retaliate your 
 favors at present by inviting you to dinners, but we can by
 
 262 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 becoming men of whom you can look in the future and 
 say with pride: 'He used to be one of the boys of our 
 club.' As you know, I am not much of a speaker which 
 I do not pretend to be. I close with three cheers, one for 
 the men's club, one for the boys' club and one for our 
 country. 
 
 That boy afterwards occupied a position of 
 trust in a big bank, and to-day his Big Brother 
 has him in a most important post in his employ. 
 
 A work as productive as this was bound to 
 grow. It not only developed the boys, but it 
 broadened the men into better, bigger citizens. 
 Men in other church clubs, in alumni, business 
 and social organizations were anxious to have a 
 part in it. 
 
 The work has never been cumbered with 
 red tape, but it was necessary finally to have a 
 Board of Directors. When a man was accepted 
 as a Big Brother he was asked to pledge his word 
 that he would show the boy who was sent to him 
 that there really was someone who cared and 
 who was anxious to help him over the rough 
 places. So far as possible, an effort was always 
 made to find a boy who lived in a neighborhood
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 263 
 
 not too remote from the man, so it would not be 
 too difficult for them to visit back and forth. A 
 general secretary was employed and to him each 
 man was requested to report, at stated intervals, 
 regarding the progress of his case. Of course, 
 every boy did not develop into a paragon of vir- 
 tue. At best they were boys, not angels. But 
 it was found at the end of the first year that 
 only three per cent, of the lads who had Big 
 Brothers, again got back into the Children's 
 Court. The freedom from red tape, from set 
 rules, from big salary budgets and staffs of paid 
 philanthropists, all had much to do with develop- 
 ing this work to the great proportions it has as- 
 sumed to-day. It was necessary, of course, to 
 use discretion in selecting the individual man 
 for the individual boy. In time it was decided 
 that before a man could finally be accepted as a 
 Big Brother he should not only pass other pre- 
 liminary requirements, but should prove that 
 after three months' experience he was making 
 satisfactory progress with his boy. Promiscuous 
 charity giving has ever been discouraged, and 
 the rule has been for the Big Brother not
 
 264 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 to give financial aid to a boy, except for value 
 received. For instance, when money was given 
 to a lad for a new suit of clothes, frequently he 
 was told that he would be expected to repay this 
 by working after school or in vacation time. So 
 this lad's pride finally was not only in a new 
 suit, but in the fact that he had been able to earn 
 it through his own, honest work. 
 
 Wherever it has been possible, existing institu- 
 tions have been used to help in the Big Brother 
 work. It has not been necessary for the Big 
 Brothers to build big plants and put fortunes 
 into shells of brick and mortar. The feeling 
 has been that the existing agencies should be 
 more fully utilized. And so permission has been 
 obtained to use church and other gymnasiums 
 which otherwise would more often than not have 
 remained dark at night. This same plan has 
 been followed, too, in utilizing boys' camps in the 
 summer, to which those Little Brothers who were 
 in greatest need of good air, food and play space, 
 could be sent to banish some of the anaemia from 
 their stunted bodies. How successful this has 
 been is attested by the fact that the average gain
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 265 
 
 per boy in one camp last summer, was six 
 pounds. 
 
 To one of these camps " Dutch De Bar- 
 rel Crook " was sent with quite a company of 
 other Little Brothers last summer. Now, Dutch 
 perhaps did not need to get away from the city 
 streets for physical reasons, but he was about 
 ripe for a reformatory, and his Big Brother real- 
 ized that he was in critical need of a change 
 from the pavements. Dutch got his name from, 
 the wonderful facility with which he could send 
 an empty barrel spinning across a sidewalk from 
 in front of a fruit or vegetable stand. With one 
 dexterous twist of the wrist he would send a bar- 
 rel whirling on edge out into the street, when two 
 of his companions would come flying along, grab 
 it up and disappear around the corner with it 
 before the stand owner realized what had hap- 
 pened. These boys had barrels stacked high in a 
 vacant lot and were conducting a profitable busi- 
 ness when they were caught. It was by the nar- 
 rowest chance that Dutch escaped going to an in- 
 stitution and was given a chance on probation. 
 
 It was here that the Big Brother entered.
 
 266 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 Dutch had been quite a bruiser. In fact, in his 
 unregenerate days he would rather fight than 
 eat. His head and face bore many scars of past 
 battles. 
 
 The wonders of nature were all new to Dutch 
 when he got into the country. He was one of 
 the boys who had never before been off Manhat- 
 tan Island. Dutch's Big Brother took two 
 weeks of his vacation to accompany him to camp. 
 The boy came to him one day and exhibited a 
 trifling cut in his knee which to Dutch would 
 have amounted ordinarily to less than a pin 
 scratch : 
 
 " I got a bad cut, Mr. Brown," said Dutch. 
 Mr. Brown scarcely looked at it, not realizing the 
 psychological significance of the plea. 
 
 "Why, just sit down there," said the Big 
 Brother, "and take a feather and tickle that 
 scratch long enough and it will heal right up." 
 
 And Mr. Brown went hurrying off with a 
 crowd of boys for a tramp across the fields. 
 What was his astonishment when he returned 
 to see Dutch, the bruiser, sitting under a tree pa- 
 tiently, but industriously, tickling his scratched
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 267 
 
 knee with a feather. The boy had thus been 
 engaged for an hour. He saw the look of amused 
 wonder on the face of the Big Brother. He flew 
 into a rage : " You ain't been on the level wid me," 
 he exclaimed, " I t'ot you was on the square. 
 It's all off between me and you and I'm goin' 
 home." 
 
 It was a long time before that Big Brother 
 succeeded in straightening things out with 
 Dutch. It was the first time he had realized that 
 the " barrel crook " had taken his every word 
 as golden truth. The Big Brother had to make 
 profuse apologies, and even then it was several 
 days before the two got back to their old status. 
 
 Dutch is doing splendidly to-day. He has a 
 good job, is going to night school, and recently 
 he has taken to studying Shakespeare. He came 
 into my office not long ago with an essay on 
 Hamlet. I do not pretend to be a Shakespearean 
 scholar, but I do say that that essay would make 
 most Shakespearean scholars sit up and take no- 
 tice. I learned things about Hamlet that I had 
 never known before. 
 
 One big hearted Big Brother who has never
 
 268 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 revealed his name to the public recently gave a 
 farm to the Movement. It is a fertile and pic- 
 turesque tract of 230 acres on the slopes of the 
 Delaware Kiver at Stockton, N. J. Here some 
 of the boys who have no homes and have been 
 mothered only by the streets are sent. The 
 change that comes over them is almost miracu- 
 lous. The first group were stunted in mind and 
 body when sent to the country but in the whole- 
 some surroundings they are developing into 
 splendid young men. The neighbors had viewed 
 the " street gamins " with dread when they first 
 appeared in Stockton. To-day those boys are 
 the pride of the community. Nearly all are des- 
 tined to become successful farmers, artisans or 
 business men. 
 
 In all this work of the Big Brothers, personal 
 relationship has been the king-pin. Its whole 
 success has been due to the personal equation 
 as expressed between the man and the boy. How 
 successful this has been is attested by the fact 
 that the original Big Brother organization of 
 New York County last year looked after 2,883 
 boys, with the result that less than three per cent.
 
 Big Brothers and Big Sisters 269 
 
 of them again got back into the Children's Court. 
 There are other Big Brother organizations; in 
 New York the Jewish Big Brothers and the 
 Brooklyn Juvenile Probation Association that 
 are doing just as effective work. As was indi- 
 cated at the beginning of this chapter, this move- 
 ment has spread, until it is now being followed 
 in one way or another in more than forty cities 
 in this country. 
 
 But someone will say, what about the girls? 
 Well, the girls are being looked after too, for 
 within the past two years a similar work which is 
 known as the Big Sisters has been established 
 through the personal efforts and untiring de- 
 votion of Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt. The 
 women who are engaged in this work are giving 
 the same sort of personal attention and help to 
 the girls that have been extended to the boys, and 
 with results that have been equally good. For 
 that old notion that you cannot do anything for 
 a girl who has made a misstep, is being found 
 to be narrow, selfish and unjustified. It has been 
 ignorance and prejudice chiefly that have caused 
 men and women to look askance at the child, and
 
 270 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 especially the girl, who has been in trouble. We 
 are learning day by day that the chief trouble 
 has not been with the child, but with ourselves. 
 
 The chief tenet in the faith of the Big Broth- 
 ers and the Big Sisters, is that the condition of 
 the tenement child is not of his own making. 
 Whether he is to become a friend and helper, 
 or an enemy of the State, rests largely with his 
 neighbor. He is in a formative state and easily 
 molded. 
 
 If you believe that a child in the open is bet- 
 ter than a child in jail you are in sympathy with 
 the movement. If you believe that a child un- 
 aided cannot always overcome the tendency of 
 unfortunate environment or be happy and of use 
 without any of the things which make for happi- 
 ness and usefulness, you concur in the platform. 
 If you are willing to do something yourself to 
 help a child who needs it, and take some of life's 
 handicap off his underfed body and undeveloped 
 mind, you are doing a service worth while. 
 
 The profits of such a work run big to the chil- 
 dren, to the men and women who engage in it, 
 and to the future citizenship of the country.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 TN the rich and jeweled gloom of St. Mark's 
 A in Venice, there burns a perpetual light. It 
 is not that of votive candle set before some pic- 
 tured saint, nor the light which shows the pres- 
 ence of the Host, nor that of the seven lamps 
 which are the seven spirits of God always burn- 
 ing before the throne, but only the memorial to 
 a little child whose life was sacrificed by a com- 
 munity's mistake. 
 
 Beneath one of the windows looking toward 
 the sea the flickering remembrance has burned 
 four hundred years. A man was killed; evi- 
 dence pointed to a boy as his murderer and he 
 was quickly condemned and executed. After 
 death the child's innocence was proved and the 
 Venetians placed this light in the church for a 
 perpetual remembrance of the innocence it had 
 
 wronged, 
 
 271
 
 272 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 No long, dark past is ours and yet what inno- 
 cence have we too sacrificed by our social mis- 
 takes, what aspirations, what hopes, what 
 splendid possibilities have we not killed in our 
 dealings with the child. We can put up no lights 
 in warning or remembrance, we can only try for 
 reparation in our future work and in an ever- 
 tended and undying flame of zeal and devotion 
 to the children of to-day in our remorseless 
 streets. 
 
 It is one of the happy signs of the moment 
 that in our fiction and in our intercourse one 
 hears constantly the note of unrest caused by 
 the thought of other people's unhappiness. Our 
 imagination is being awakened and reaches be- 
 yond the physical to that moral suffering which 
 so often is far worse. Our divine discontent 
 comes not only from our own condition but also 
 from that of our neighbors ; and this, fortunately, 
 is being felt by the rich as well as the poor. We 
 are daily growing more impatient with pallia- 
 tives, with the little, tinkering methods which 
 may by good luck help Lizzie Jones out of her 
 difficulties to-day but which do nothing to make
 
 The Awakening 273 
 
 it impossible for the same conditions to entrap 
 all future Lizzies. It is convenient to have some 
 agency to which to refer the case of destitution 
 which comes to our door, but what are we do- 
 ing to make such poverty impossible? Our great 
 sin of the past has been social irresponsibility. 
 But we are becoming insistent now on something 
 more than philanthropy's sentimental side. We 
 want to reach to the roots of all the evils with 
 which our chapters have dealt. 
 
 We have seen that all sorts of reasons are 
 given why our neighbor and his child must live 
 in dark, unclean, exorbitantly costly tenements. 
 They may be summed up in one word — greed. 
 Some landlords ease their consciences by calling 
 it business. But we have seen what costly busi- 
 ness this is to the community. Those tenement 
 owners whose names appear on the subscription 
 lists of roof camps and sanitaria and who at 
 the same time support the lobby which defeats 
 legislation that would let air into their black 
 tenement rooms, now the chief recruiting places 
 for consumption, are at last beginning to feel 
 the inconsistency if not the shame of their po-
 
 274 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 sition. It has been these same owners who in 
 the past have fought hardest against having 
 their names placed over the doors of their rook- 
 eries. How hard it is to get away from the im- 
 mediate dollar mark! It was when the Master 
 of Men drove the money changers from the Tem- 
 ple that they began to talk of him as a dangerous 
 man. 
 
 Good tenements and fair living wages will 
 come when we as a community have determined 
 upon them. Then the children will have a fair 
 growing chance. A physician who has worked 
 much among the poor said to us recently : " The 
 scientist has solved his end of the problem — tu- 
 berculosis is entirely in the hands of the commun- 
 ity. It is wholly a question of air, diet and suffi- 
 cient rest. If the poor man has not these at 
 command, the choice is before the community to 
 see that he has them or to take the consequences. 
 For no man is imperiled alone." 
 
 The choice in every case is before the com- 
 munity. As we have followed the troubles that 
 come to the Children's Courts out to their source 
 we reach a very definite conclusion about reme-
 
 The Awakening 275 
 
 dies and what could so promptly be done were 
 we of one mind in the community. Our desire 
 and our determination are what count. The best 
 child labor laws in the world are for the child 
 but half the solution. Unless we give the parent 
 enough return for his labor to support his family 
 we have done little more in regulating the legal 
 age for labor than to say : " It is bad for the child 
 to use unformed muscles; therefore it is better 
 he should starve." 
 
 The community can see to it that supply 
 reaches demand, that the piracy that now inter- 
 venes between producer and consumer is wiped 
 out. The Government too can direct the immi- 
 grant stream, can see that the immigrant is in- 
 formed of actual conditions and that he moves on 
 to the places where there is opportunity for his 
 labor. Much is to be done for the conservation 
 of the health and lives of the workers. As one 
 great manufacturer and legislator, who has sud- 
 denly awakened, is now pointing out : " In the 
 factories we have failed to treat the human ele- 
 ment in production in the intelligent manner in 
 which the mechanical is treated." The machines
 
 276 The Children in the Shadow 
 
 have carefully been protected from dust but what 
 has been done to protect the operators from 
 tuberculosis? But social conscience is being 
 aroused in that direction, too. 
 
 Within the past ten years there have been 
 many profit sharing schemes. Some have sur- 
 vived and some are dead, yet this is one of the 
 opportunities of the future which cannot fail of 
 great development. Whatever may be said of 
 the value of capital and brains on the one side 
 and labor on the other, we are beginning to 
 realize that the present ratio of reward is mani- 
 festly unfair when we consider all the human 
 lives engaged in hard, unhealthy and often dan- 
 gerous occupations. 
 
 But the forces of good will are gradually com- 
 bining to stop human waste. The churches are 
 awakening to the truth that religion means re- 
 lationship, social service. The saving of bodies 
 and souls must go hand in hand. Tardily the 
 dry discussion of man-made dogma is being 
 abandoned and we are getting down to divine, 
 simple truths. There are few conceptions of 
 practical philanthropy not implicit in religion
 
 The Awakening 277 
 
 when we cease circling it and go to its heart. 
 
 When we look at the children dancing in the 
 little make-believe parks or on the occasional rec- 
 reation piers that have been opened to them at 
 night, and at their elders with the lines of care 
 momentarily lightened on their faces, we cannot 
 but realize what even a fragment of a chance 
 means to our neighbor and his child. This is of 
 happier promise than the light that was lit four 
 hundred years ago. We go away convinced that 
 every pier should have its music at night and ita 
 joyful, dancing little army. Surely lights are 
 being kindled to-day that will in time bring the 
 children out of the shadow. It is for us to tend 
 and feed the flame. 
 
 Perhaps Ellen Keys has best summed up our 
 feelings for our neighbor's child when she speaks 
 of the great future movement of liberty that 
 " shall bring the children's declaration of rights 
 and make an end of their spiritual and bodily 
 ill-treatment, which must appear to the future 
 as monstrous as negro slavery does to us."
 
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