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 AMELIORATION 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ^- 

 
 CITY LIFE AND 
 ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE SHARP 
 
 BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED, TORONTO
 
 (copyright, 1915, by Richard G. Badger 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Thb Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
 
 
 r 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This little book is not so ambitious as its title 
 might imply. Its affirmations are founded, for 
 the most part, upon observations and experiences 
 of the author during an aggregate period of twen- 
 ty years spent in many of our large cities from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific. After a discussion of the 
 limitations of life in the city, suggestions are made 
 looking to the amelioration of the harsh condi- 
 tions of that life. It is hoped that in some slight 
 degree the effort may help to usher in that better 
 day for which patient humanity ever longs. For 
 the rest let the book speak for itself. 
 
 George Sharp. 
 
 Boston, January, 19 15.
 
 CONTENTS 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Preliminary Considerations 9 
 
 II. What is it to Live? 23 
 
 III. Superficiality and Frivolity 36 
 
 IV. Childhood in the City 51 
 
 V. Public Manners 68 
 
 VI. Publicity: Good and Bad 86 
 
 VII. Fellowship 102
 
 CITY LIFE AND ITS AMELIORATION
 
 CITY LIFE AND ITS 
 AMELIORATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Preliminary Considerations 
 
 OUR cities have grown so rapidly, the 
 methods of doing business in them have 
 changed so radically, and the gulf be- 
 tween the rich and the poor has wid- 
 ened so far, that our old-time Jelifersonian ideas of 
 the proper limits of governmental activity are be- 
 ing abandoned, or, at least. greatly modified. We 
 are realizing (to use a hackneyed expression) that 
 it is "a condition and not a theory that confronts 
 us;" that the city, the State, the general govern- 
 ment, as organisms, must evolve and exercise pow- 
 ers undreamed of in our earlier history. 
 
 Now the policy we have been pursuing, both in 
 national and city affairs, has been paradoxical. 
 Professing dislike and even fear of governmental 
 aggression, we have nevertheless enacted a wilder- 
 ness of laws. Mr. Bryce, in his learned work, 
 "The American Commonwealth," has devoted a 
 short chapter to the doctrine of laisscz faire as 
 practised in America. With his usual breadth of 
 view he is careful, after remarking on the dominant 
 
 9
 
 lo CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 desire of the American "to be let alone, to do as 
 he pleases, Indulge his Impulses, follow out his 
 projects," — to call attention to some Institutional 
 laws, State and Federal, which, he declares, go 
 quite as far In the direction of state action as do 
 the laws of the Old World countries. What Mr. 
 Bryce Is pleased to denominate one of the five 
 "ground Ideas," or dogmas, that prevail In the 
 United States, he sets forth In the following felici- 
 tous words: "The less of government the better; 
 that Is to say, the fewer occasions for Interfering 
 with the Individual citizens are allowed to officials, 
 and the less time citizens have to spend In looking 
 after their officials, so much the more will the citi- 
 zens and the community prosper. The functions 
 of government must be kept at their minimum." 
 To this statement of the American's attitude 
 toward his government no exception, It seems to 
 me, can be taken, for It Is both comprehensive and 
 just; although It was more true twenty-five years 
 ago when Mr. Bryce wrote his book than It Is now. 
 It is when this learned expositor of our Institutions 
 seeks to show the other side of the picture, to pre- 
 sent evidence of a great curtailment by governmen- 
 tal action of this Individual, this e very-man- for- 
 hlmself policy, that his success Is more apparent 
 than real. He classifies Intervention under the fol- 
 lowing heads : — 
 
 "Prohibition to Individuals to do acts which are 
 not, In the ordinary sense of the word, criminal (e. 
 g. to sell intoxicating liquors, to employ a laborer
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ii 
 
 for more than so many hours in a day) . 
 
 "Directions to individuals to do things which it 
 is not obviously wrong to omit (e. g. to provide 
 seats for shop-women, to publish the accounts of a 
 railway company). 
 
 "Interferences with the ordinary course of law 
 in order to protect individuals from the conse- 
 quences of their own acts (e. g. the annulment of 
 contracts between employer and workmen making 
 the former not liable for accidental injuries to the 
 latter, the exemption of homesteads, or of a cer- 
 tain amount of personal property, from the claims 
 of creditors, the prohibition of more than a cer- 
 tain rate of interest on money). 
 
 "In every one of these kinds of legislative inter- 
 ference the Americans, or at least the Western 
 States, seem to have gone further than the Eng- 
 lish Parliament. The restrictions on the liquor 
 traffic have been more sweeping; those upon the 
 labor of women and children, and of persons em- 
 ployed by the State, not less so. Moral duties are 
 more frequently enforced by legal penalties than 
 in England. Railroads, insurance and banking 
 companies, and other corporations are, in most 
 States, strictly regulated." 
 
 Certainly these specifications of laws enacted 
 would seem to give government in America a good 
 bill of character; and, to a reader unfamiliar with 
 the way "business" is done here, they might con- 
 vey the impression that the activity of the individ- 
 ual is very much hampered by the statutes. But it
 
 1 2 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 would be hard to imagine anything further from 
 the truth. The statutes, those legislative enact- 
 ments designed to supplement the old common law, 
 prolific as they are — the annual out-put being far 
 greater here than in Europe, as was pointed out in 
 a learned address by the Hon. Alton B. Parker be- 
 fore the American Bar Association — are, for the 
 most part, local laws; and the objection to them is 
 directed against their enactment by the legislature 
 instead of by the county and city departments 
 rather than against their intrinsic qualities. Laws 
 that have to do with the ministrant functions of 
 government, as distinguished from the constituent 
 functions, have been few enough. When contrast- 
 ed with the institutional laws that have given near- 
 ly every other civilized people on earth the own- 
 ership and operation of railroads, telegraphs, 
 tramways and express carriage, together with local 
 public utilities in general, the paucity here is 
 marked. In respect to such laws the attitude of 
 our "business man," the dominant force in Amer- 
 ica, is well expressed by Mr. N. P. Oilman when 
 he says in his "Socialism and the American Spirit:" 
 "The American is always ready to receive help 
 from the State in starting a railway or a steamship 
 line (the old flag and an appropriation), but he 
 is not at all inclined to consider the Government a 
 proper agent for the management or ownership of 
 either." 
 
 But quite aside from the consideration either 
 of the number or the kind of laws on the statute
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 13 
 
 bo(3ks as affecting the question how far govern- 
 ment has gone in America in restricting and re- 
 straining the individual, there is one consideration 
 which Mr. Bryce seems to have overlooked, at 
 least in his chapter on laissez faire, and which 
 throws a very different light on the whole subject. 
 I refer to the evasion and violation of the laws 
 by the individual and to their non-enforcement by 
 the government. In no respect more than in this 
 does the real situation reveal itself; in nothing is 
 it more effectually shown how slight has been the 
 governmental interference in our land, how com- 
 plete, on the contrary, has been the reign of the 
 individual. Mr. Bryce mentions our laws regu- 
 lating the sale of intoxicating beverages. But 
 what single law, excepting the one providing for 
 the payment of a license to do business, — what 
 single law in reference to the whole liquor traffic 
 — is complied with? From the adulteration of 
 the drink to its sale to minors, the law is every- 
 where trampled and spat upon. Some of our laws 
 do provide for an eight-hour work day on govern- 
 ment work. But recent investigation showed that 
 no pretense of a compliance with the law was ever 
 made by contractors with the government. It was 
 only after the most persistent demands by the la- 
 bor organizations that it was agreed and an- 
 nounced through a megaphone (just before an 
 election) that the law would be enforced. Again, 
 it is true we have laws prohibiting the charging of 
 excessive interest on money. Such laws have long
 
 14 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 been in existence in every State, but we all know 
 how impotent they are. Every money-lender 
 knows how to get around them. The recent ex- 
 posures of the inhumanity of the "loan-sharks" in 
 New York and Boston, in defiant violation of law, 
 causing, in many cases, nervous break-down and 
 even the suicide of their poor victims, show a state 
 of things that makes our boasted civilization look 
 like savage barbarism. We have laws, too, against 
 child labor; but they have been practically dead 
 letters. Every now and then the public is duly hor- 
 rified to learn that a million children are being un- 
 lawfully employed in the mines and factories of 
 our country. 
 
 There has been quite as marked a contrast be- 
 tween the law and its observance in the case of 
 some of the railroad , insurance, and banking com- 
 panies, — institutions the magnitude of whose bus- 
 iness in this country dwarfs the total fiscal opera- 
 tions of many of the governments of the earth. 
 Railroads, by means of discriminating rates and 
 service have torn down the fortunes of one man 
 and built up those of another, and have even built 
 up one city at the expense of another; while out of 
 the public lands unlawfully appropriated by them 
 a State could be formed, so far as the extent of 
 domain is concerned. We have seen the oflicials 
 of insurance and banking companies creating out 
 of the policy holders' money "yellow dog" funds 
 (presumably because the law was silent on the sub- 
 ject of yellow dogs) and with them corrupting
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 15 
 
 legislatures and contributing campaign funds to a 
 political party with which to debauch elections. 
 How many more kinds of irregularities, to put it 
 mildly, the officers of these and other corporations 
 have indulged in, first and last, will never be 
 known. It is said that nine-tenths of an ice-berg 
 is under water, and therefore never seen; so it 
 may be with the operations of the railroad, insur- 
 ance and banking companies. Thus we have an 
 explanation of the paradox of large personal lib- 
 erty in a network of law. If the reader insists 
 that the word liberty as here used should have 
 quotation marks around it, that, in fact, it means 
 license, I will not quarrel with him, for I am of the 
 same opinion. 
 
 What are we doing about it? That in law en- 
 forcement and progressive legislation lie the safe- 
 ty and well-being of society the people are begin- 
 ning to realize. Just now the echoes of righteous 
 complaints, stifled some years ago, are causing a 
 stir in the land. Every reader of the newspapers 
 knows this, though it is a pity he has not felt the 
 good effects as yet in his market-basket, in the hon- 
 esty of the goods he buys, in shorter hours of la- 
 bor, and in some other things that have to do with 
 his existence. 
 
 Whether this movement for better conditions is 
 an awakening, as some enthusiastic people believe, 
 or merely a turning over in our sleep, time will 
 tell. We had an experience similar in many re- 
 spects to the present more than a generation ago.
 
 1 6 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 At that time the air was thick with scandals grow- 
 ing out of eight years of malfeasance in office. 
 Then, as now, the people were aroused, and by 
 a great popular majority they chose a reformer to 
 be their president. But a thimblerigging Elector- 
 al Commission, wholly unauthorized by the Con- 
 stitution, counted him out of office, and the people 
 were deprived of a chance to have a house-clean- 
 ing. 
 
 Let us hope there will be no relapse in the move- 
 ment now in progress. There is at least a show 
 of earnestness about it. Men high in official posi- 
 tion, — governors, congressmen, mayors and pros- 
 ecutors, who in the past were never suspected of 
 being disloyal to the "interests" that put them in 
 office, are just now doing strange things, remind- 
 ing one of the rat-killing feat of the Pied Piper. 
 And after each act they stride across the stage of 
 public notice, acknowledging with bows and smiles 
 the plaudits of the people for sticking their spears 
 into the Trust Dragons. We even have the amus- 
 ing spectacle of constables and councilmen shaking 
 their fists (through press interviews) at John D. 
 Rockefeller. Occasionally a promoter of the 
 trusts themselves, a federal judge, whose decisions 
 have provoked resentment, a prominent lawyer, 
 whose business it has been to defend employers 
 against their employees, kick up their heels and 
 announce their purpose to serve the people hence- 
 forth. At a meeting of governors in New Jersey 
 approval was given to doctrines and measures
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 17 
 
 which a few years ago were looked upon as the 
 wild-eyed vagaries of irresponsible agitators, which 
 no man high in office would have dared to cham- 
 pion, even if he had bothered his head about them. 
 
 Quite as noticeable is the change in the tone of 
 our periodicals. Twenty-five years ago magazines 
 were few, compared with the present number, and 
 were published for the educated and leisure classes. 
 They were transcendental rather than empirical; 
 mundane matters were viewed at arm's length; to 
 get down into the "mire of politics" was in bad 
 form. But how different it is today ! Dignity is 
 cast to the winds. It is circulation that counts, 
 and "muck-raking" has become the order of the 
 day. And it is a good thing it has, too. 
 
 The exposure of inefficiency, waste and dishon- 
 esty is having a needful effect upon the voter. He 
 is getting his eyes open. He is beginning to cast 
 off party ties, even as he dropped out of torch- 
 light processions thirty years ago. He is begin- 
 ning to regard the office holder as his servant rath- 
 er than his master; albeit, he manifests an astonish- 
 ing degree of whimsicality in giving his orders. 
 Will the initiative and recall sober him into stabil- 
 ity, or will they make him even more fickle? 
 
 Some fifteen years ago a writer made the bold 
 assertion, very much ridiculed at the time, that 
 there had not been a real statesman in office since 
 the Civil War. While such a declaration was some- 
 what hyperbolic, yet in the light of what has since 
 taken place, considering, that is, the change of
 
 1 8 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 front of our office-holders and aspirants for office 
 all along the line, there was much truth in the as- 
 sertion. Looking back over years not so long gone 
 by, we now see that men high in official position 
 whom we called statesmen, were simply politi- 
 cians; their chief concern was to retain, rather 
 than to acceptably fill, office. Politics was a game to 
 be played like chess, and the most skilful politician 
 or party won. The great mass of voters being 
 sunk in stupid partisanship, prejudices were more 
 potent than principles. It is safe to say that, dur- 
 ing the last quarter of a century, four out of five 
 intelligent men of all parties have really been in 
 favor of certain reforms, — the reasonable reduc- 
 tion of the tariff, an income tax, the election of 
 United States Senators by popular vote, and a doz- 
 en other reforms; yet, at the behest of the powers 
 that be in their respective parties, because of par- 
 tisanship, in other words, they have been fighting 
 each other on these very issues. Had men disfran- 
 chised themselves, they could scarcely hav^e done 
 more to perpetuate abuses and obstruct reforms 
 than they have done by a blind adherence to party. 
 Such being the attitude of the electorate, no new 
 things of vital importance were considered by the 
 office-holders. Afraid to grapple with the real is- 
 sues of the day, they made a virtue of cowardice 
 and boasted of being "stand-patters." Their 
 speeches were of the "spread-eagle" sort, consist- 
 ing of "glittering generalities" that pointed out no 
 remedy. If anybody did rise to demand a specific
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 19 
 
 remedy for wrongs, he and his followers were ridi- 
 culed and caricatured till they became discouraged 
 and disgusted, and quit. Witness the fate of the 
 Populists. Here was a body of men who had suf- 
 fered and thought, and who had ideas about reme- 
 dies. But they were charged, forsooth, with wear- 
 ing whiskers, and so every cunning politician in 
 the land that held office by grace of the "interests" 
 clapped his hands and set the sycophants, together 
 with the great amoeba class of voters, yelping after 
 these Populists. And thus "safe and sane" politics 
 prevailed, and "national honor" triumphed. Even 
 at a much later time, in the face of a popular de- 
 mand for action on the tariff. Congress voted to 
 await the report of a committee of non-members 
 and adjourned! It is still the proper strategy for 
 an administration, the party in power, when the 
 people clamor too loudly for relief, to hang the 
 matter up in some such commission. 
 
 Thus, having been neither qualified nor obliged 
 to take definite and summary action on problems 
 that press for solution, our official class, especially 
 in national politics, have learned little that is new. 
 It is really amusing to see how some of our "states- 
 men" are taking hold of the real issues that con- 
 front the American people. How wildly they rush 
 to the writings of the radicals to learn the very 
 meaning of the terms initiative, referendum, recall 
 and proportional representation! 
 
 In this matter of statesmanship we are destined, 
 if I mistake not, to recast our ideas very material-
 
 20 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 ly. At the present time, as already intimated, we 
 are demanding that our office-holders actually do 
 something for the good of the people, and in our 
 impatience we are, in some parts of the country, 
 taking matters into our own hands through the ini- 
 tiative and referendum. The keen intellect of Sam- 
 uel J. Tilden was never more clearly manifested 
 than in his masterful letter accepting the nomina- 
 tion to the presidency. In that letter he used the 
 following language: "There is no necromancy in 
 the operations of government. The homely max- 
 ims of every-day life are the best standards of its 
 conduct." How true it is that there is no necrom- 
 ancy in government becomes evident upon reflec- 
 tion. The service of the people through common 
 sense rules, — what more is there to it? In its 
 practical conduct government is simply a matter 
 of business. As that great mind, Thomas A. Edi- 
 son, in a recent interview said, "Governments are 
 just huge business concerns." While for the high- 
 est offices greater abilities are, as a rule, though not 
 always, needed than for the lower ones, yet no oc- 
 cult or magic powers are required for the conduct 
 of any office. Given an official imbued with a pur- 
 pose to serve the people, and he will be required 
 to exercise few powers that would not be called 
 into play in the conduct of a business enterprise. 
 Some years ago Battling Nelson, the pugilist, as- 
 pired to be mayor of his home town in Illinois, 
 and he outlined a platform of principles on which 
 he would conduct the office. That platform, in its
 
 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 21 
 
 answer to the needs of his city, would compare 
 favorably with any that a so-called statesman might 
 draft. Considering the fighting qualities of the 
 Dane, it is very probable that had he become may- 
 or he would have gone far in applying his plat- 
 form. 
 
 But there is a further stage in the evolution of 
 political ideas which will, when attained, make of- 
 fice-holding statesmanship seem rudimentary. So 
 accustomed have we become to associating the idea 
 of statesmanship with the incumbency of a high 
 office that we have not as yet conceived of the le- 
 gitimate scope of the term. Is not a state's man 
 any one who serves his state in a political capacity? 
 Are not the publicist and the orator who discuss 
 political questions and advocate the application of 
 sound principles in government, though they may 
 never hold office, just as truly statesmen as is a 
 United States Senator? Who will deny the appel- 
 lation of statesman to the late Edward M. Shep- 
 ard or to Louis Brandeis? A metropolitan news- 
 paper refers to a former member of the United 
 States Senate as an "ex-statesman;" and this not- 
 withstanding that he continues to devote much of 
 his time to the public welfare. I submit that this 
 man is as truly a statesman today as when he was 
 a Senator. Some men only become true statesmen 
 after they have quit office and have no ambition 
 to return; for then they see public questions in a 
 different light and discuss them with more freedom 
 and honesty.
 
 22 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 Pursuing this idea further, we will yet realize 
 that not even great names, in or out of office, are 
 alone to be coupled with statesmanship. And there 
 will come a time when cities and towns will have 
 their local statesmen. In a little city in Ohio there 
 is a young woman who, though she has never held 
 office, is yet an authority on the powers and duties 
 of municipal officers, and is frequently consulted 
 by them. Moreover, she is at the head of a civics 
 study club, organized by her efforts; and she has 
 settled more than one strike. Shall we not call 
 this lady a stateswoman?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 What is it to Live? 
 
 CITY life ! We hear this expression every 
 day, but what a misnomer, what a mock- 
 ery the phrase is! As if there could be 
 any life where everything is objective 
 and nothing subjective; where the individual is 
 swallowed up in the mass; where automatic mo- 
 tion takes the place of individual action; where 
 personal traits are not to be looked for, because 
 of the atrophy, through non-use, of the powers 
 needed to develop them. 
 
 Considerable attention has been paid in recent 
 years to the evils, the dangers, of the city; to its 
 intemperance, its immorality and its crime; to the 
 concentration of its wealth, and the prevalence of 
 its poverty; to the corruption of its politics and to 
 its lawlessness. These phases all constitute press- 
 ing problems, some of which will be considered in 
 subsequent pages of this volume. But I wish here 
 to notice the one distinguishing evil of the city, an 
 evil that is nothing less than a blight. In propor- 
 tion to its importance, the attention given to it has 
 been slight. Far worse, because more pervasive, 
 more paralyzing and more hopeless than the Mis- 
 eries of Paris, the evils set forth in Darkest Eng- 
 
 23
 
 24 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 land, the Shame of the Cities, or the poverty that 
 explains How the Other Half Lives, is the absence 
 of any real life by the automatons conventionally 
 called men and women who make up the city's 
 population. 
 
 What Is life, and what is it to live? An eminent 
 biologist has likened the human organism to a 
 machine, that is, "a system in which chemical af- 
 finities, especially the union of the oxygen of the 
 air with the materials of alimentation, produce 
 heat, electrity and muscular work." And Virchow 
 calls life "a particular kind of mechanics." These 
 are excellent definitions, from the purely physical 
 point of view, and, together, they would almost 
 describe the city people and their motions. But 
 man is, or should be, something more than a com- 
 bination of chemical elements; and life is, or 
 should be, more than mechanical motion. If this 
 is not so, then biography is a fable, and history a 
 waste of words. The truth is, that, as applied to 
 man, the highest part and product of nature, it is 
 personality that counts. Personality is that which 
 makes us say, of the object of the remark, "Here 
 is this or that kind of man." Personality is that 
 without which there is no real man. It is the em- 
 bodiment of character and of charm, of reputa- 
 tion and of aspiration; and to live is to possess and 
 develop all these attributes. Personality is man's 
 greatest asset, for it is nothing less than the man 
 himself. Take from man his personality and he 
 loses his identity.
 
 WHAT IS IT TO LIVE? 25 
 
 Now personality depends upon individuality, 
 with which idea, in a secondary sense, it is synony- 
 mous. But how much of individuality do you find 
 in a big city? Very little. 
 
 When applied to the men of the city how much 
 truth there is in the assertion of Jules Payot that 
 "there is hardly one man in a thousand who has 
 real personality. Nearly all men in their general 
 conduct, as well as in their particular actions, are 
 like marionettes drawn together by a combination 
 of forces which are infinitely more powerful than 
 their own. They no more live an individual life 
 than does a piece of wood which is tossed into the 
 torrent, and which is carried away without know- 
 ing either how or why." Much the same thought 
 is expressed by Dr. Julia Seton Sears who, in her 
 admirable little book, "Concentration," says: "It 
 is interesting to notice how few there are who are 
 really in control of their own minds. The 
 field of consciousness is open to every kind of ran- 
 dom, drifting thought forms; and many carry 
 around minds which are ready to receive every 
 negative thing that is projected into them either by 
 individuals or conditions." How could it be oth- 
 erwise when so much time is spent amid the roar 
 and buzz and everchanging scenes of a big city? 
 
 Some time ago, under the caption "Burievl 
 Alive," Collier's Weekly had this to say, in pait, 
 of a very general type of city man : 
 
 "From earliest youth he has worked in offices, 
 and twenty years of that atmosphere have subdued
 
 26 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 him. Those trailing years have enriched him with 
 a sHghtly venomous human interest in those about, 
 the timidity born of routine indoor work, the ser- 
 vility to those in authority, the scorn of those who 
 work in ways a little more menial than that of his 
 own clerical rut. He is now middle-aged, mature, 
 perfected. He has become pussy footed, has ac- 
 quired a soft voice, a purring, apologetic manner. 
 He walks around as if on tiptoe, peering over 
 desks, gently intruding wherever he scents the faint 
 beginnings of an office scandal. In his soothing, 
 low pitched voice he drops venom into each wait- 
 ing ear as he goes up and down the office. In his 
 work there is little to which he looks back with 
 pride. A thousand weeks of filing cards, hammer- 
 ing typewriters, adding up columns of figures, have 
 not left him with blithe memories of something 
 accomplished, something done. One thing for him 
 they have done; they have thoroughly tamed his 
 spirit. There are no adventurous quests in him. 
 There is never an evening when his spirit will an- 
 noy him by yearning to do impossible things. Bet- 
 ter than an animal cage of thick iron bars, or a 
 prison cell where the pads are fat and impenetra- 
 ble, is the modern office for taming the roving 
 blood and reducing to orderliness the leaping joy 
 of hfe." 
 
 Quite another type than this subdued man, to 
 whose credit it may at least be said that he earns 
 his daily bread, is that smart fellow, the "four- 
 flusher." He fares much better than the tamed of-
 
 WHAT IS IT TO LIVE? 27 
 
 fice man, in fact, waxes fat — until he oversteps the 
 line between unconscionable and unlawful and gets 
 into the hands of the federal authorities. He 
 flourished in increasing numbers from the time of 
 his advent some twenty years ago down to a recent 
 time, since which period the aforesaid federal au- 
 thorities have thinned his ranks somewhat. He is, 
 generally speaking, a well-dressed, round, smooth- 
 faced chap with fishy, impersonal eyes, and a turn- 
 down mouth, expressive of cynicism. He is by na- 
 ture an Ishmaelite and a freebooter, and is quite 
 impartial with respect to his victims; all is fish that 
 comes to his net. He is not a human being in the 
 sense that Abraham Lincoln was a human being, 
 for he has no heart. His whole stock in trade is 
 bluff, on which, as Eva Tanguay sings, "half the 
 world is run." 
 
 Of course, bluff or "front," is not limited to 
 practitioners such as the one just described; nor is 
 it confined entirely to the city, but is to be found 
 wherever men are sailing under false colors. Its 
 most common employment, however, in this com- 
 mercial age, is in reference to one's wealth. "If 
 you have not a virtue, assume it," has many fol- 
 lowers along this line, these days. If there were 
 as many millionaires as men who contrive to be so 
 considered, they would be as numerous as spar- 
 rows. If I were to frame a new definition of mil- 
 lionaire it would be: A person worth $30,000 and 
 who runs a bluff at a million. A few more years 
 of bluff and this term millionaire will become
 
 2 8 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 cheap and lose its meaning, as many another brave 
 word which started out well has lost its meaning. 
 
 If we take the newspapers for it, about the only 
 people of the city who possess an individuality are 
 multi-millionaires, star ball-players and champion 
 pugilists, together (in a minor degree) with the 
 higher city officials. All other citizens are on a 
 dead level, with respect to the figure they cut; you 
 rarely hear of them unless as victims of a holo- 
 caust, as persons charged with crime, or as parties 
 to a salacious scandal. 
 
 Yet it would be a mistake to make individuality 
 depend upon either fame or fortune. If it did so 
 depend, most of us would be doomed to remain 
 nonentities, no matter where we pass our days. It 
 is not because people are poor that they lack indi- 
 viduality. Many a man in the country or village 
 that possesses no more property than does the av- 
 erage city man has a pronounced, even picturesque, 
 personality. He is known and duly appreciated 
 in a wide circle for his integrity, his sound judg- 
 ment, his wit, or for his eccentricities, and his fund 
 of good stories. And the local weekly paper takes 
 note of his comings and goings. No, neither fame 
 nor fortune should be considered essential to in- 
 dividuality. But individuality and real living do 
 imply being counted, being taken note of — being 
 somebody, in short — by reason of distinct traits of 
 character. It is through the exercise and influence 
 of his traits of character that a man should im- 
 press himself upon the community in which he
 
 WHAT IS IT TO LIVE? 29 
 
 lives. Without these qualities, or if they be in an 
 atrophied condition, he is nothing. 
 
 If you would make a man a dog, treat him like 
 a dog. We do not like to take note of blanks, 
 either in lotteries or in lives, but if we will be at 
 the pains of looking into lives that are but types 
 of thousands of other lives, we will understand 
 why there are so many human dogs in a big city — 
 and stray dogs at that. Do they not receive much 
 the same consideration, or, rather, lack of consider- 
 ation, accorded to stray dogs? Who knows your 
 citizen, the vaunted product of civilization? Who 
 cares for him? What does he amount to? And 
 what does he get out of life? When a man re- 
 ceives no attention, and is of no interest to his fel- 
 low men, his personal relations of necessity cease, 
 or are greatly curtailed. He feels his loneliness; 
 he realizes his insignificance; all individuality is 
 starved out of him, and he drops out of sight. He 
 virtually becomes an outcast. With him it is sheer 
 neglect that represses "noble rage" and freezes 
 "the genial current of the soul." So far as the 
 sentiment of commiseration is concerned the poet 
 of today could find far greater inspiration for an 
 elegy in a city cemetery than in a country church- 
 yard. Says Luther Burbank, the plant-wizard: 
 "When the cactus had to contend with hungry 
 beasts and the heat of the desert, it developed 
 spines and a thick hide. Underfed, underpaid, ig- 
 norant and helpless folk, peopling the deserts of 
 our cities, go through identically the same read-
 
 30 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 justment. They develop barbed, suspicious, embit- 
 tered natures." Your citizen has a right to vote, 
 and is flattered, near election time, by smiling of- 
 fice-seekers. Newspapers sometimes tickle his vani- 
 ty by referring to him (in the abstract, however), 
 as the "sovereign voter." But all this is cold com- 
 fort; he feels himself a cipher notwithstanding. 
 Like the despairing cry. 
 
 "Water, water everywhere, 
 Nor any drop to drink," 
 
 could well be the city man's wail, "People, people, 
 everywhere, nor any one I know." For it is scarce- 
 ly an exaggeration to say that outside his family 
 (if he has a family) he really knows no one, and 
 if a business man, he only half knows his family, 
 because of blunted sensibilities or diverted 
 thoughts. Someone has well said that no man can 
 be a good husband or father who is absorbed in 
 money-making. His business associates he knows 
 in a merely diplomatic way. The ordinary citizen 
 is almost a stranger among the half million or 
 more of his fellow beings. He has, sometimes, a 
 nominal acquaintance with a small circle, but even 
 such an acquaintance is more circumscribed than 
 that of the average village resident in his native 
 town. 
 
 With only such a shallow acquaintance with 
 one's fellow man, is it any wonder that no distin- 
 guishing traits of character are to be discovered,
 
 WHAT IS IT TO LIVE? 31 
 
 or even expected in city men; that all are, like the 
 derby hats they wear, very much the same? When 
 an individual, the man from the country or small 
 town, appears on the scene, he is apt to be consid- 
 ered a "character;" and when contrasted with the 
 standardized beings about him, he is a character. 
 Spend an hour at an Inter-urban station observing 
 the people who get off the cars, and you will under- 
 stand. Note the smack of individuality about 
 them. Their clothes may be of the style of the 
 early seventies, but you do not doubt the import- 
 ance of these people "back home." They may be 
 "Rubes," but they get more of real life out of one 
 month than the city man gets out of a year. And 
 they differ one from another, too; you can com- 
 pare them. But suppose the city man should un- 
 dertake to compare the characters of his neigh- 
 bors, if he be so fortunate as to know the name 
 of those who live three doors from him. What a 
 farce the whole proceeding! It would be like com- 
 paring one blank piece of paper with another. 
 
 The fact is, the city man does not know his 
 neighbors in any real sense. There is an indescrib- 
 able something, perhaps it is the vastness and the 
 vagueness of a big city, that not only minimizes 
 the individual, but shrouds him a veil of incompre- 
 hensibility. There is a bewilderment in numbers. 
 As, while watching the simultaneous perform- 
 ances taking place in a three-ringed circus, we get 
 but a confused impression of what each performer 
 is doing, so, in looking at the kaleidoscopic move-
 
 3 2 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 ments of the men and women who make up a 
 big city, we focus little attention on individuals. 
 Or, again, in the sense of mass, the city is the or- 
 ganism of which the citizen is but a cell. In this 
 sense also, a forest may well illustrate the city, and 
 the tree the individual. As the forest robs the 
 tree of attention, so the city takes the attention 
 from the citizen, the man. 
 
 Hence it is that in a city one does not know his 
 neighbor, and, if an old resident, the chances are 
 he does not care to know him; if he did, he could 
 not. Any attempt in a city to become acquainted 
 with one's neighbor seems to be in bad taste. City 
 people, even professing Christians, seldom speak 
 without the formality of an introduction. To do 
 so, unless at a Rescue Mission, would be a breach 
 of etiquette; yet in a nearby church the clergyman 
 stands Sunday after Sunday, conventionally preach- 
 ing the brotherhood of man. Occasionally a young 
 clergyman — generally one recently from a small 
 town — inwardly astonished at the coldness and in- 
 difference of city people and at their lack of fellow- 
 ship, will hire a large tent, and, pitching it on a 
 vacant lot, seek by sheer novelty to enthuse his au- 
 dience. Vain effort, and one speedily abandoned. 
 The exhorter soon finds that he is dealing with a 
 class of people very different from those he swayed 
 in the little town he came from. 
 
 Deprived of that influence which in a smaller 
 community he could exert, and of the importance 
 resulting therefrom, the cit}'^ man loses not only
 
 WHAT IS IT TO LIVE? 33 
 
 the picturesqueness of individuality, but all charm 
 of personality. He becomes a mere shuttle-mov- 
 ing, by the force of necessity, to and fro between 
 home and worshop, store or office. And it mat- 
 ters little whether it be one or the other. Except 
 for his better clothes, his more prosperous appear- 
 ance, and a little more elbow-room, the office man 
 who takes a late car down town differs but little 
 from the sad-eyed, sullen factory hand, who, hav- 
 ing to take an earlier car, is packed against his 
 fellow toilers like a sardine in a box. In either 
 case there is the same dumb nobody. 
 
 Do not try to start a conversation with one of 
 these better dressed men. You will be considered 
 "fresh" if you do. Should you so far forget your- 
 self and the eternal proprieties as to try to con- 
 verse with one of these conventional human atoms, 
 you will receive no notice. You might as well 
 have addressed a post. Should you persist in your 
 effort to be sociable and make a second remark, 
 look out! for the probabilities are you will get a 
 reply so gruff and short as to make you feel that 
 you have committed an unpardonable offense. No 
 Reuben, come to town, ever evinced greater out- 
 ward signs of distrust toward a would-be conge- 
 nial stranger than do these presumably sophisti- 
 cated denizens of the city. 
 
 It is only just to the manual toiler — a term that 
 has come, though improperly, to be synonymous 
 with working man — to say that the foregoing 
 strictures do not apply so fully to him. The labor-
 
 34 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION. 
 
 Ing classes, so-called, are the only city beings who 
 approach the country and small-town people in re- 
 spect to sociability and sincerity. The factory 
 worker (unless he be one of those chaps who is ob- 
 sessed with "class consciousness," in which case he 
 Is apt to be rather grouchy, for he hates the world 
 and himself thrown in) will very frequently re- 
 spond to a stranger's adv^ances, and be friendly, 
 and that without reserve. Not so with the soft- 
 handed business man, bank, store, or office clerk. 
 He stands on what he mistakes for dignity, and be- 
 fore a stranger can get his attention, he must show 
 his credentials, — good clothes, and at least an as- 
 sumption of equality in the business world. If the 
 reader is here prompted to excuse the business man 
 on the ground of his "busy-ness," I reply that while 
 this may partially account for his lack of sociabil- 
 ity and politeness, it does not deny it. The fact 
 remains just the same; this is all that I contend, 
 which is enough. 
 
 The naturalist tells us of fish that lose their eyes 
 because they live in the waters of caverns where all 
 is dark; the physiologist affirms that all one need 
 do to lose the use of an arm Is to carry it in a sling 
 for a long time; and the evolutionist emphasizes 
 the part played by environment In the development 
 of all life. It Is the violation of this law of exer- 
 cise, this law which says to us: "Use or lose," that 
 accounts for the loss to the city man of very much 
 that history and biography, as well as the noblest 
 ideals of our common humanity, teach us should
 
 WHAT IS IT TO LIVE? 35 
 
 characterize the real man. Indeed, if one were to 
 accept the unique theory of the late Henry Drum- 
 inond concerning the nature of the human soul, as 
 propounded in his "Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 World," he would find much to convince him that 
 the seasoned city man has no soul; that his soul 
 died of starvation. 
 
 "Then hit the trail and follow it adown the western slope ; 
 This city life may be all right for those whose eyes are blind, 
 Or those who never see beyond the daily, dulling grind. 
 But herding round a snubbing post from eight till half past 
 
 five. 
 Has never kept the outdoor heart of vagabonds alive. 
 Here every man is for himself, the devil for them all; 
 And few have pity for the weak who by the wayside fall, 
 They're branded with the city's iron, in body, heart and soul ; 
 On every hand I see them strive, with money for their goal 
 But outward where the sun goes down is room for you and 
 
 me. 
 And there the men are what their God intended they should 
 
 be. 
 This old corral is far too small for my six feet of brawn, 
 So I shall take the Western trail before another dawn. 
 And all I ask of future years is that my feet may stray 
 Along some sun-kissed range until the final round-up day." 
 
 — Helen Washer.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Superficiality and Frivolity 
 
 IN an address delivered a year or two ago be- 
 fore a graduating class a distinguished states- 
 man deplored the superficiality of the times. 
 It was a seasonable theme. For there has 
 never been a time in our history when serious study 
 and sober thought were so demanded of all our 
 people as they are today. Insidious evils are prey- 
 ing upon the moral body of society — grievous ills, 
 relating, for example, to "the lowering of the 
 ideals of marriage and the substitution of a tem- 
 porary contract for that permanent union which is 
 necessary, to take no higher ground for the nurture 
 and education of the next generation; the commer- 
 cial employment of married women, resulting to a 
 serious extent, in the neglect and disruption of 
 family life and the displacement and unemploy- 
 ment of men; the uncontrolled multiplication of 
 the degenerate, who threaten to swamp in a few 
 generations, the purer elements of our race . . . 
 the prevalence of vice, the increase of insanity and 
 feeble-mindedness, and their exhaustless drain up- 
 on free-flowing charity and the national purse; the 
 wide circulation of debasing books and papers 
 which imply the existence, to a deplorable extent, 
 
 36
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 37 
 
 of low ideals amongst a multitude of readers; and 
 some of the manifold evils of our industrial sys- 
 tem which cause the hideous congestion of slum- 
 dom with its irreparable loss of the finer sensibili- 
 ties, of beauty, sweetness and light." 
 
 Nor is careful thought less called for in the con- 
 sideration of remedies. Political innovators, sen- 
 sible of the wrongs in "present conditions," to 
 use a current platitude, and aware that the people 
 do not get a "square deal," but unmindful of the 
 fact that under our form of go\'ernmcnt it is their 
 own fault, in the long run, if they do not, are pro- 
 posing to make the horse drink by means of the 
 Initiative, Referendum and Recall. A New Na- 
 tionalism and a New Democracy also are being 
 preached. And now, more portentous than all 
 else, the spectre of a capital-labor war, which for 
 forty years has occasionally appeared to disturb 
 our complacency, is assuming the flesh and blood 
 aspect of reality, and is standing over us with 
 threatening mien, an apparition that seems half 
 anarchistic, half socialistic. 
 
 But is not our Nero strumming the lyre while 
 Rome is burning? Wliat indication is there in the 
 absorption of men and women in chewing gum, ex- 
 changing comic picture-cards, crowding moving 
 picture shows, attending card clubs and reading 
 inane novels whose sole reason for existence is the 
 author's need of money — just as a shoddy suit of 
 clothes is made to sell — what indication is there 
 that we have any problems to solve? Yet are not
 
 38 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 these and similar avocations, the rule rather than 
 the exception in our great cities today? While 
 it is true that many books on reform are published 
 now-a-days, besides magazines that are full of the 
 "literature of exposure," yet for every one such 
 publication read there are scores of the other kind, 
 as inquiry at the bookstore and the library will dis- 
 close. If it be thought that a civilization in which 
 flourished a James Whitcomb Riley, a William D. 
 Howells, a Thomas Edison, and many men of 
 like eminence, can not be in a very bad way, it 
 should be remembered that it was in the decadent 
 days of old Greece and Rome that some of the 
 best examples of literature, philosophy and art 
 were given to the world. But we need not go back 
 to ancient times nor to foreign lands for illustra- 
 tion of this truth. Right here in Boston today one 
 side of the city is writing and painting, while the 
 other side is writhing and panting. Indeed, Bos- 
 ton, in her history, is a composite Athens and 
 Rome in all their glory and in much of their de- 
 generacy. 
 
 The superficiality of the city is owing, primarily, 
 to the lack of real life there. The man who really 
 lives, is, in the main, a serious man; his thoughts 
 and his conversation are worth while. Not so 
 with automatons; not so with butterflies. Shut out 
 from responsibilities in large affairs, realizing his 
 impotence, conscious of the lack of weight of his 
 opinions on matters of moment, the city dweller 
 descends to trivial things. His consciousness of
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 39 
 
 his own littleness finds expression in his conversa- 
 tion, however much he may stri\c, by mock digni- 
 ty and austerity, to "run a bluti" at importance. 
 And what are tl;e topics of his conversation? Lit- 
 tle things. For instance, where you hear one citi- 
 zen talking intelligently, and as one Iiaving 
 thouglitful views, on the fundamental (|uestions of 
 human welfare, you will hear twenty indulging in 
 frivolous talk, and this whether it he on the street 
 or in the home, th.e latest peril of Pauline being a 
 favorite topic in the latter place. As for wit, we 
 had a current specimen of it a year or two ago in 
 the brilliant changes that were run on "skiddoo," 
 "twenty-three," and "stung." 
 
 Of the topics of conversation in society, when on 
 parade, Mr. Ralph Pulitzer has this to say: "Plays 
 are touched on, but acting is ignored; operas are 
 discussed, but only for the personal performances 
 of celebrated singers, not for the music of the 
 operas themselves. Politics are discussed only so 
 far as they aliect the Stock Exchange or the race- 
 track. Politicians are, of course, beneath discus- 
 sion, save in the rare cases of male members of so- 
 ciety who have answered the call for gentlemen to 
 enter politics for their purification, and who have 
 invariably turned out the most pointedly practical 
 politicians of the lot. Painting is discussed only to 
 the extent of the latest fashionable foreign artist's 
 portrait of the latest fashionable native society 
 woman. Literature is less fortunate, being con- 
 siderably talked about in the shape ol the latest fie-
 
 40 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 tion; but all the talk confines itself to the plot and 
 the character; the style is left severely to itself. 
 Science is discussed only as represented by the mer- 
 its of competing types of automobiles. States- 
 manship figures in the conversation only as mani- 
 fested in the iniquities of a tariff system which 
 makes possible the New York Customs inspection; 
 and the most effective methods of nullifying this 
 system (being also touched on) . . . The 
 market is the one inspiration that can transmute 
 general loquacity into general eloquence. It is not 
 merely that the future of a stock is like the future 
 of the soul, a subject on which any one man's guess 
 is as tenable as any other man's theory. But prac- 
 tically every man present has learned his stock quo- 
 tations at his mother's knee. He knows 'The 
 Street,' its traditions, its whole history, a great 
 deal better than he knows the history of his coun- 
 try." 
 
 Your citizen seems to be characterized by petty 
 curiosity as well as by petty conversation. He is 
 curious over the manner of applying pitch to the 
 pavement; the size of the new numbers being 
 placed on houses; the newest kind of lamps on au- 
 tomobiles; and it is not an uncommon sight to see 
 a dozen citizens critically inspecting some new-fan- 
 gled contrivance on one of these machines, making 
 momentous observations the while. Who has not 
 had to take to the curb to get by a crowd of men 
 monopolizing the sidewalk just to see some adver- 
 tising youth inside a store window seesaw a neck-
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 41 
 
 tie around his collar? llie fellow who designed 
 that diagram on the package of the Inner Seal 
 food preparations must have had in mind this 
 mouse-like curiosity of the city people. 
 
 Enduring a hopeless from-hand-to-mouth ex- 
 istence, calloused by the stereotyped scenes of ar- 
 tificial creation, and shut out from the inspiration 
 of nature's works, cynicism comes all too often, to 
 take the place of idealism in the city man's mind. 
 Who can fail to understand Hepworth when, in 
 his "Brown Studies," he says: "I am not the same 
 man that I was in New York. I lived so long 
 among all sorts of creatures there that I found my- 
 self growing cynical; but since I have slept in the 
 woods, where everything is honest, loyal to its des- 
 tiny, and true to the high purpose for which it 
 was created, I notice that the simplicity and trust- 
 fulness and buoyancv of my boyhood are coming 
 back." 
 
 Of course, "simplicity and trustfulness and 
 buoyancy" will come back when they are given a 
 chance, since they are our primal inheritance. No- 
 tice the change, after a year or two, in the char- 
 acter of the man who retires from business, quits 
 the city, and goes to his country home. With the 
 city dweller, however, the case is very different. 
 Anything for him but the crime of appearing 
 "green." What remnant of naturalness is still left 
 to him out of his inheritance from country-born 
 ancestors is shut in by a sort of storm-door of bluff, 
 through which his fellow man is rarely permitted
 
 42 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 to enter. To betray emotion is to invite a derisive 
 smile from the man at his elbow. For instance, to 
 show sympathy for the messenger boy who has 
 fallen from his wheel, and especially to start to his 
 assistance, would be chicken-hearted. If you are 
 a true city man, you will stand by and grin. It is 
 so comical, you know, to see a fellow plunge over 
 his wheel on to the stone pavement. And that 
 ragged, half-starved, man sitting on the park bench 
 or lounging in the shelter-house, during the mo- 
 mentary absence of the policeman — who of the 
 city's hurrying throng ever stops to minister to 
 him? Were one to do so, the recipient of the at- 
 tention would think himself dreaming, so amazing 
 would be such an instance of Christian concern. 
 Yet a goodly per cent, of the passers-by are 
 "Christians." Even the Salvation Army, that 
 unique organization at first looked at askance by 
 dignified clergymen, and then welcomed by them 
 as just the thing to look after the offal of human- 
 ity, while they themselves courted the well-to-do, 
 — even the Salvation Army has now too much red 
 tape about it to bother very much with such un- 
 fortunates. 
 
 There are more love songs sung, more love ser- 
 mons preached and less true love in the world to- 
 day than there has been in a hundred years before. 
 And all because men and women have been flocking 
 more and more to the city, where there is no time 
 for love, where there are too many distractions, 
 and where simulation and synicism take its place.
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 43 
 
 No sooner is a new sentimental song sung than its 
 parody chases it across the continent. It was cer- 
 tainly a city chap who changed "All the world 
 loves a lover" into "All the world laughs at a 
 lover." 
 
 There is, to be sure, a sort of charity for Jesus' 
 sake, a calculating, or at best, sense-of-duty kind; 
 but little enough of innate, spontaneous, no-re- 
 ward-expected, kindliness. Even among women, 
 especially educated women, of the rising genera- 
 tion, this absence of heart is noticeable. A ladies' 
 magazine recently deplored, with much evidence 
 adduced, the cold, artificial, and unsympathetic 
 natures of the young women who come home from 
 college. 
 
 The increasing attention giv'en to dress and es- 
 pecially to amusements — the fondness for the lat- 
 ter fast becoming a craze — also emphasizes the 
 city's renunciation of serious purposes, that is, in 
 the making of men and women, and its abandon- 
 ment to the superficial and the ephemeral. While 
 we are fond of saying that money does not make 
 the man, we must all admit that in our land today 
 it is the one thing that differentiates man from 
 man, the possession most prized, even if not most 
 praised; and when, though thus esteemed, its ac- 
 cumulation is abandoned as hopeless, recklessness 
 is apt to follow. "What is the use of trying to 
 save money?" reasons the citizen in ordinary cir- 
 cumstances. "No investment can be made with 
 what little I may, by rigid self-denial, accumulate."
 
 44 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 Where a front foot of residence property costs 
 more than a whole acre of farm land in the coun- 
 try, and where the ownership of a business calls 
 for the investment of a fortune, the method em- 
 ployed in bygone days of getting rich by saving is 
 impossible. The most the average city man may 
 hope to do is to provide for a "rainy day," which 
 has come to mean a short period of idleness or 
 sickness. But few of us like to think of "rainy 
 days." So the money goes: for necessary house- 
 hold expenses first, and then, more and more for 
 fine clothes and amusements. The foregoing re- 
 marks apply almost wholly to the so-called pros- 
 perous classes, that is, to those who are making a 
 comfortable hving. In the case of the very poor, 
 the order of expenses is likely to be rev^ersed — 
 amusements and pie and cake coming first, and 
 flour and meat second. 
 
 In the matter of dress, as in everything else, the 
 conventional attitude is taken. Little or no thought 
 is given to what cut or color of raiment best be- 
 comes the wearer. To insist on wearing what real- 
 ly becomes one, regardless of the prevailing style, 
 would smack of an individuality, which, as we have 
 seen, the city resident does not, as a rule, possess. 
 Men and women are governed by one iron rule, 
 namely, the rule imposed by a clique of fashion- 
 makers in New York and Paris, for whose finan- 
 cial interest it is, of course, to make radical changes, 
 at least in the ear-marks of clothing, from year to 
 year. And how these dictators of style must laugh
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 45 
 
 at some of the effects they produce! For the young 
 man who prides himself on being in "the swim" to 
 he seen wearing a sack coat, though it be in good 
 condition, that is an inch or two shorter than the 
 New York fashion maker has decreed he should 
 wear, or for the young (or middle-aged?) woman 
 to go out with a hat, that, however becoming, is 
 of last year's style, would almost amount to a dis- 
 grace. It would be a source of humiliation, at all 
 events. The impression is not here intended to be 
 given that all city people are thus weak votaries of 
 the fashion plate; but it is undeniably true that 
 nearly all who have the money to follow the er- 
 ratic decrees of fashion do so. 
 
 Occasionally society people will assert a purpose 
 to throw off the yoke and dress as becomes them. 
 My paper publishes an account of a movement by 
 Chicago society women against a uniform style of 
 dress, sought to be imposed on them by the Chica- 
 go Dressmakers' Club. They say that "women arc 
 meant to be pretty and are going to be." Much 
 power to them ! But I am afraid the dressmakers 
 will win the battle. 
 
 In the line of literature and of amusements, 
 plays, shows, and the like, we find the parodox of a 
 craving for the exciting, sensational, and fantastic, 
 along with a state of mind that takes the most as- 
 tonishing things as a matter of course, and is not 
 surprised into admiring anything. The portrayal 
 of human nature, that feature which makes the 
 classics, whether plays or books, so valued, finds
 
 46 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 little expression in the stuff that sells in the city 
 today, notwithstanding that many of these produc- 
 tions are advertised to possess "human interest," 
 as the catchy phrase puts it. The sensational and 
 the dramatic — how the papers glare with the 
 words ! — the improbable and the impossible, is the 
 style of presentation that pleases. It is by these 
 traits that the novels of the day win popularity. 
 The mix-up (one can hardly call it plot) of the 
 story abounds in the improbable and sensational — 
 a guess and a thrill on every page. Still, it will 
 probably be a relief to the reading public when the 
 last precious stone stolen from a Hindu Raja has 
 been restored, and when the last instance of love- 
 making and marriage of first cousins shall have 
 been recorded. Let us hope, too, that melodra- 
 matic players will soon understand that profanity 
 on the stage is not wit, but only a lumber-Jack's 
 substitute for It. All honor to the memory of the 
 late Ezra Kendall whose boast it was that he never 
 resorted to profanity to win a laugh. 
 
 This craze for the unreal, the fantastic, may be 
 attributed, in the main, to two causes, one local, 
 the other general; one incident to the city, the oth- 
 er to the century. First, it is undoubtedly true that 
 the stern realities of existence in a city where, as 
 a rule, all must work or starve, together with the 
 hopeless, tread-mill, grind which the vast majority 
 of toilers are forced through, year in and year out, 
 seem to call for a relaxation just as opposite to 
 their experience as their imagination can conceive.
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 47 
 
 These people, therefore, crave the exhilaration, the 
 ccstacy, that comes of seeing, and of reading about, 
 the spectacular and unreal. Secondly, the wonder- 
 ful inventions and discoveries in this generation, 
 all of which have been stepping-stones to others 
 quite as important, have rendered us very credu- 
 lous. Nothing startles us now; on the contrary, 
 everything is accepted as a matter of course. The 
 whole spectacle of man's achievements tends to 
 convert our minds into a sort of dreamland where- 
 in everything becomes possible. Nature sets no 
 limitations, we may do what we please. Wise-acres 
 have pronounced the boat unsinkable, so "on with 
 the dance." 
 
 It is on a public thus deluded that get-rich-quick 
 fakirs fatten; that "electric" and "magnetic" heal- 
 ers flourish; and that scamps who advertise to 
 grow hair on a bald head, or to raise the dying, 
 thrive. How many millions of dollars have been 
 taken from the pockets of the too credulous by 
 these rascals during the last twenty-five years! 
 
 It is with a public thus deluded, too, that mere 
 notoriety so frequently wins over solid worth in 
 politics. The masses today are "easy-marks" for 
 the advertising politician. Formerly an office- 
 seeker who bragged and blustered was not taken 
 seriously; he was regarded as a barking dog that 
 never bites. But now the successful candidate is 
 almost as much an advertised product as is a break- 
 fast food. And how many voters are really influ- 
 enced, though unconsciously, by a name that sounds
 
 48 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 good to them ! Politicians have not yet, like many 
 stage people, adopted attractive names, but fortu- 
 nate is the candidate in a big city whose name is 
 Tip Tyler, or Nick Kik. He is sure to win over 
 Henry Smith or George White. Better public ser- 
 vants will be chosen when the voters make it their 
 business, through committees, or associations, to 
 know something of the character and qualifications 
 of a candidate, and insist, where the office is pecu- 
 liarly political, that he tell in black and white what 
 he stands for. 
 
 Finally, it is to a public thus deluded that effec- 
 tive appeals are made by madly ambitious men 
 who, like Cleon of old, go up and down the land 
 flattering the people and shouting their own vir- 
 tures, real or assumed, from the house-tops, while 
 they misrepresent the records of more worthy men 
 in office; who loudly demand that the people 
 should rule when it is the last thing in the world 
 they really want the people to do ; who vehemently 
 declare for righteousness in politics, but who, when 
 in office, violate nearly every principle of honor. 
 Of this kind of cry that the people should rule, an 
 independent paper sagaciously remarks that it has 
 "fooled many nations, and it is fooling Americans. 
 It is the biggest tickler the world has ever manu- 
 factured. It flatters everybody, and in the exulta- 
 tion of that flattery, the many fall down and wor- 
 ship the howler, rub their foreheads in the dust 
 and sing the chorus into the ground, and call them- 
 selves blessed because of the coming of so great a
 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND FRIVOLITY 49 
 
 prophet, one able and willing to read their minds 
 and kind enough to tell them that they must rule, 
 through him." Have we not much evidence in 
 present day politics of the truth of Barnum's say- 
 ing that "the American people love to be hum- 
 bugged?" But, as for Lincoln's dictum that "you 
 can fool part of the people all the time, and all the 
 people part of the time, but you can't fool all the 
 people all the time" — it sounds fine, and is true; 
 but does it amount to much in practice? As a mat- 
 ter of fact, the demagogue does not find it at all 
 necessary to fool all the people all the time; a ma- 
 jority will serve his purpose, and it need not be 
 made up of the same people that were fooled be- 
 fore, either. 
 
 I can find no more pertinent thought in conclud- 
 ing this chapter than that of Frederick Denison 
 Maurice when, in comparing our own times with 
 the degenerate days of Athens, he said: "The pas- 
 sion for novelty had eaten up all other and bet- 
 ter passionss in them (the Athenians) — all rever- 
 ence, all faith, all freedom. It is a very awful les- 
 son. We are not one-half as clever as the Athen- 
 ians were. But men have lived among us, and 
 deeds have been done among us as noble as any 
 they could boast of. We have been a more practi- 
 cal people than they were; perhaps less prone to 
 speculation, but more successful in hard, tough 
 business. Depend upon it, all qualities are in the 
 greatest danger of perishing; depend upon it we 
 shall become petty and frivolous, and stupid with-
 
 50 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 al, as we learn to spend our time as the Athenians 
 spent theirs. There are men among us who do. 
 They go about from club to club, and house to 
 house, and street to street, saying 'What now? 
 What is the last, the very newest thing? Who can 
 tell us? That which was heard two or three days, 
 or two or three hours ago is stale. We must have 
 something fresh. That is what we are hunting 
 for." Such men are the most miserable creatures 
 that this earth brings forth. The past is nothing 
 to them, nor the future. They live in the moment 
 that is passing. Their life is absorbed into that. 
 And do not let any of us say that we are not in dan- 
 ger of becoming such men as these. We are all in 
 danger of it; men of all parties and professions, 
 men whose language sounds most serious, as well 
 as those who never speak of any world but this."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Childhood in the City 
 
 THE greater number of our large cities 
 are so new, at least in their vastness, 
 that comparatively few of the older res- 
 idents thereof are in all essentials com- 
 plete products of the city; and even those who are 
 partially so have been influenced in some measure 
 by contact with the constant accretions from the 
 country. 
 
 But what of the myriad of boys and girls that 
 are today wholly a product of the city, especially 
 of the big city? Born, reared and cooped up within 
 the walls of apartment houses, or at best in dwell- 
 ings without yards in which they can play their 
 games, as is the case with an ever-increasing num- 
 ber, their whole lives spent in the city, what sort 
 of men and women will they become? This is one 
 of the most momentous questions that our civiliza- 
 tion must answer. That there is a difference be- 
 tween these children and country bred children ad- 
 mits of no doubt. That the clothes of city chil- 
 dren of well-to-do parents are of better appear- 
 ance and that their wits are keener than were those 
 of their grandparents in their youth is beyond 
 question. But is the fibre of their character as 
 
 51
 
 52 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 strong, as reliable? Will they become as real 
 men and women? It might sound like a harsh 
 judgment to decide in the negative, for until per- 
 haps one or two more generations of city life have 
 given their additional evidence, judgment would 
 be premature ; and yet there is not wanting strong 
 evidence on the subject even in our day. 
 
 In his thoughtful book "The Future Citizen," F. 
 A. Myers quotes a London scientist as saying that 
 "life in a big city makes children quick but not 
 intelligent, hastening the development of the brain 
 unnaturally. They become superficial, alert, but 
 not observant, constructive and reasoning; excita- 
 ble but devoid of enthusiasm, chances destroyed 
 for being clever; blase, fickle, discontented, bird- 
 witted, and, properly speaking, seeing nothing, for 
 time is not permitted to delve, bewildered at the 
 multitude of things. In fact, life in a city is essen- 
 tially dangerous to the child-boy — corrupting, so 
 prone is a boy to be led off. The city attractions 
 interfere with his best intellectual development as 
 it does with his physical progress, leading off his 
 attention from his best efforts. The tendency is 
 to put temptations in his way that lead him down 
 rather than help him up." 
 
 The almost uniform testimony of parents whose 
 experience has been such as to qualify them for an 
 intelligent opinion is that "the city is a poor place 
 in which to bring up children," Unless we are 
 ready to admit that the painting is more real than 
 the scene it represents, that the artificial is superior
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 53 
 
 to the natural, we must deny that children who are 
 so much the creatures of an artilicial atmosphere 
 as are city children, can become the real men and 
 women that country children can. It is not im- 
 plied here that children should grow up wild, their 
 characters to be left like a neglected garden in 
 which weeds may choke out the fruits; but simply 
 that contact with nature should be allowed in order 
 that, like apples kissed into ripened perfection by 
 the life-giving sun, they may develop into real men 
 and women. 
 
 The truth is, we are far more creatures of cir- 
 cumstances than architects of our own fortunes, 
 "inspirational books," however well meaning, to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. I cannot forbear 
 at this point, because of its relevancy to my whole 
 theme, a somewhat lengthy quotation from "Force 
 and Matter," that profound work of Ludwig 
 Biichner, a pioneer, with Darwin and Wallace, in 
 the field of evolutionary discoveries. Biichner 
 says: 
 
 "Now just as nations as a whole are dependent 
 for their history and characteristics on external 
 conditions of Nature and the internal ones of so- 
 ciety under which they have grown up, thus is the 
 individual man no less a product and sum total of 
 external natural forces, not merely in his entire 
 physical and moral being, but also in each single 
 department of his activity. This activity depends 
 first and foremost on his whole mental individual- 
 ity and special charactedstics. I.at: what is this
 
 54 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 individuality which acts so decisively on man, and 
 in each single instance quite apart from additional 
 external forces, fixes his line of conduct within such 
 narrow bounds as only to leave an exceedingly 
 small scope for the exercise of his free will? What 
 is this individuality but the necessary product of in- 
 nate physical and mental qualities, in connection 
 with training, teaching, example, custom, rank, 
 fortune, sex, nationality, climate, soil, conditions of 
 time and living, and so on? Man is subject to the 
 same law as every plant and every animal — a law 
 with the clearly defined features of which we have 
 already met in the primitive world. As the plant 
 depends for its existence, its size, its form and 
 beauty upon the ground in which it is rooted; as 
 the animal, great or small or large, wild or domes- 
 ticated, beautiful or hideous, is the creature of the 
 external conditions under which it has grown up; 
 as an entozoon ever changes as it passes into the 
 interior of another animal; thus each man is no 
 less a product of similar external circumstances, ac- 
 cidents, and arrangements, and can therefore by 
 no means be set down as such a mentally independ- 
 ent being endowed with a free will, as moralists 
 and philosophers are in the habit of presenting 
 him. He who brings with him into the world an 
 innate tendency to benevolence, compassion, con- 
 scientiousness, love of justice, and so on, is in most 
 instances cut out for a good moralist, supposing 
 that bad training or adverse conditions of life do 
 not forcibly subdue that tendency; whilst on the
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 55 
 
 other hand a congenital proclivity to melancholy, 
 or indolence, or frivolity, or vanity, or arrogance, 
 or avarice, or sensuality, or intemperance, or gam- 
 bling, or violence, can, as a rule, be neither con- 
 trolled nor checked by any kind of will or imagi- 
 nation." Perhaps Biichner goes too far when he 
 denies the power of the will to at least check con- 
 genital or inborn evil propensities, but the prepon- 
 derating influence of heredity and environment 
 over mere will seems clear. 
 
 So far as parental influence goes, a child is, gen- 
 erally speaking, either doubly blessed or doubly 
 cursed. If his parents are honest, sober, sensible 
 and thrifty, they not only endow him with good 
 blood, but with a good home as well, and train him 
 in the way he should go. If, on the other hand, 
 the parents are vicious, ignorant and shiftless, they 
 not only taint the child's blood but neglect his wel- 
 fare also. 
 
 The fundamental evil, not of society, not of the 
 state merely, but of the human race which builds 
 society and the state, is "bad human protoplasm," 
 producing "scrub-stock." And the great work of 
 the race, if it is to advance, is its own regeneration 
 through all those means which produce "a more 
 healthy, more vigorous, more able humanity." But 
 a discussion of those means would lead us into the 
 field of what is known to this generation as Eu- 
 genics. 
 
 How different must be the human being that 
 passes his life, from the cradle to the grave, in a
 
 56 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 great city from one that thus lives in the country! 
 Marked as is the countenance of the country man 
 from that of the city man, his modes of thought 
 and traits of character are scarcely less so. 
 
 These distinguishing peculiarities begin to mani- 
 fest themselves in childhood. That varieties exist 
 even among city children, that they are not all cast 
 in the same mold, though more and more they ap- 
 proach a uniform type, is conceded. Some are the 
 children of rich parents, some are the offspring of 
 moral and cultured parents; others are the prog- 
 eny of ignorant and depraved parents. If, as Dr. 
 Holmes said, the training of a child should begin 
 with its grandparents, we need not doubt the in- 
 fluence of parental circumstances on a child's des- 
 tiny. Allowing, therefore, for differences grow- 
 ing out of the financial, intellectual and moral stat- 
 us of his parents, we first note the artificial cast of 
 the city child's mind, his propensity to talk only 
 of the mechanical things about him. Nearly every- 
 thing he sees or has to do with is man-made. He 
 is a stranger to the works of nature, because he sees 
 little or nothing of them. Of actual contact with 
 food plants and with animals he has had no ex- 
 perience; and consequently he knows nothing 
 of their inception, growth and culture. Not 
 having them about him, the property of his par- 
 ents, he does not have them to look after, and so 
 misses an early and valuable lesson in industry. 
 "Books are not the only agency of intellectual de- 
 velopment; there is the experience of industry
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 57 
 
 The comradeship of nature on a farm, 
 the sense of strict faithfulness and loyalty, are 
 gained in the country, and the work there is a 
 training of hands and heart and brain — to plan, 
 to will, to work, to execute." 
 
 Shut out from the real, even though unconscious 
 communion with nature in her moods that change 
 with the seasons, the city child loses something that 
 no daily view of tall buildings, however stately 
 and ornate, can compensate for; and that some- 
 thing is a sense of the sublimity of nature, the con- 
 templation of which deepens, while it makes more 
 sincere, the characters of men. The solemn for- 
 est, the babbling brook, the expanse of meadow, 
 the golden grain, and solitude for contemplation 
 of them all, are not of the city. But in their stead 
 is a desert of crowded houses and business blocks, 
 around which swirl the sickening smell of automo- 
 biles and the choking fumes of factories. Even 
 the birds of the city have come to be only those 
 dull-colored, songless, pugnacious sparrows that 
 so typify all the rest of what takes the place of life 
 there. 
 
 The storm-door of bluff and bluster, referred to 
 in a former chapter, is early erected in front of the 
 city child's character. A manifestation of this is 
 to be seen, or rather heard, in the tone of the lan- 
 guage he uses. This speech, a combination of Irish 
 brogue with Bowery tough, has within recent 
 years become so common as to threaten the very 
 sound of our language. Formerly confined to the
 
 58 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 confab of street gamins, among whom it seemed 
 natural and was amusing, this tone has now be- 
 come so common as to be nauseating. It habit- 
 ually characterizes the speech of many of the 
 younger mechanics, salesmen and even bank clerks, 
 while it is not altogether absent from the voice of 
 young women. The use of this debased form of 
 speech seems to proceed partly from moral cow- 
 ardice born of a fear of being natural and partly 
 from a silly belief that it makes the user of it ap- 
 pear worldly-wise — the same feeling that swells 
 the chest of a boy of fourteen when he is seen 
 (though not by his father!) smoking a cigar. To 
 be simple and natural in speech is thought befit- 
 ting only to the clodhopper. 
 
 With no playground near the house on which 
 to engage in sports, and with no routine of chores 
 to do, the city boy, especially during school vaca- 
 tions, is sorely tried for proper amusement or oc- 
 cupation. My city reader, if you are the parent of 
 a boy, how often you have heard that boy go 
 through the house distractedly wailing, "What can 
 I do, what can I do?" The movement for public 
 playgrounds in the city, while very worthy, will 
 necessarily fall short of expectations; for not only 
 must the playgrounds always be pitifully inade- 
 quate in number and size to accommodate the 
 thousands of city children, but even where the play- 
 ground is nearby, there is that happy-go-lucky 
 trait in human nature that prompts ten children to 
 play in the dirty and noisy streets to one that goes
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 59 
 
 to the decorous playground. 
 
 For lack of suitable pastime the boy, whether 
 schoolboy or factory boy, is too frequently lured 
 into vice, crime and extravagance; evils which in 
 after life he must conquer, if he is to amount to 
 anything. Of this want of proper recreation and 
 its effect upon a certain class of young factory 
 workers in Chicago, Jane Addams says: "This 
 inveterate deniand of youth that life shall afford a 
 large element of excitement is in a measure well- 
 founded. We know of course that it is necessary 
 to accept excitement as an inevitable part of recrea- 
 tion, that the first step in recreation is 'that excite- 
 ment which stirs the worn or sleeping centers of a 
 man's body and mind.' It is only when it is fol- 
 lowed by nothing else that it defeats its own end, 
 that it uses up strength and does not create it. In 
 the actual experience of these boys the excitement 
 has demoralized them and led them into law- 
 breaking. When, however, they seek legitimate 
 pleasure, and say with great pride that they are 
 'ready to pay for it,' what they find is legal but 
 scarcely more wholesome, — it is still merely ex- 
 citement. 'Looping the loop' amid shrieks of sim- 
 ulated terror and dancing in disorderly saloon 
 halls, are perhaps the natural reactions of a day 
 spent in noisy factories and in trolley cars through 
 the distracting streets, but the city which permits 
 them to become the acme of pleasure and recrea- 
 tion to its young people, commits a grievous mis- 
 take.
 
 6o CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 "May we not assume that this love of excite- 
 ment, this desire for adventure, is basic, and will be 
 evinced by each generation of city boys as a chal- 
 lenge to their elders? And yet those of us who 
 live in Chicago are obliged to confess that last 
 year there were arrested and brought into court 
 fifteen thousand young people under the age of 
 twenty, who had failed to keep even the common 
 law of the land. Most of these young people had 
 broken the law in their blundering efforts to find 
 adventure and response to the old impulse for self- 
 expression. It is said indeed that practically the 
 whole machinery of the grand jury and of the 
 criminal courts is maintained and operated for the 
 benefit of youths between the ages of thirteen and 
 twenty-five. 
 
 "Possibly these fifteen thousand youths were 
 brought to grief because the adult population as- 
 sumed that the young would be able to grasp only 
 that which is presented in the form of sensation; 
 as if they believed that youth could thus early be- 
 come absorbed in a hand to mouth existence, and 
 so entangled in materialism that there would be no 
 reaction against it. It is as though we were deaf 
 to the appeal of these young creatures, claiming 
 their share of the joy of life flinging out into the 
 dingy city their desires and aspirations after un- 
 known realities, their unutterable longings for 
 companionship and pleasure. Their very demand 
 for excitement is a protest against the dulness of 
 life, to which we ourselves instinctively respond."
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 6i 
 
 If the city is responsible for the perplexities and 
 dangers of boyhood, it is not less so for those of 
 girlhood; for the old-time modesty which distin- 
 guished girls in general is a thing of the past, and 
 sports and vices are now scarcely determined by 
 sex. City conv-eniences — the laundry, the bakery, 
 the dressmaker's establishment — often combine to 
 force the city girl, at least the daughter of well- 
 to-do parents, into a life of idleness, incompetency 
 and finicality. And the daughters of the poor, the 
 girls who have to go into the store, the factory or 
 the restaurant, are confronted in the matter of rec- 
 reation, by dangers even greater than those which 
 face their sisters because of ennui. Says the au- 
 thor just quoted: "Never before in civilization 
 have such numbers of young girls been suddenly 
 released from the protection of the home and per- 
 mitted to walk unattended upon city streets and to 
 work under alien roofs; for the first time they are 
 being prized more for their labor power than for 
 their innocence, their tender beauty, their ephe- 
 meral gaiety. Society cares more for the products 
 they manufacture than for their immemorial abil- 
 ity to reaffirm the charm of existence. 
 
 "In every city arise so-called 'palaces' — 'gin pal- 
 aces' they are called in fiction; in Chicago we 
 euphemistically say merely 'places,' — in which al- 
 cohol is dispensed, not to allay thirst, but, ostensi- 
 bly to stimulate gaiety; it is sold in order to empty 
 pockets. Huge dance halls are opened to which 
 hundreds of young people are attracted, many of
 
 62 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 whom stand wistfully outside a roped circle, for 
 it requires five cents to procure within it for five 
 minutes the sense of allurement and intoxication 
 which is sold in lieu of innocent pleasure. These 
 coarse and illicit merrymakings remind one of the 
 unrestrained jollities of Restoration London, and 
 they are indeed their direct descendants, properly 
 commercialized, still confusing joy with lust, and 
 gaiety with debauchery. Since the soldiers of 
 Cromwell shut up the people's playhouses and de- 
 stroyed their pleasure fields, the Anglo-Saxon city 
 has turned over the provision for public recreation 
 to the most evil-minded and the most unscrupulous 
 members of the community. We see thousands of 
 girls walking up and down the streets on a pleas- 
 ant ev^ening with no chance to catch a sight of 
 pleasure even through a lighted windov/, save as 
 these lurid places provide it. Apparently the mod- 
 ern city sees in these girls only two possibilities, 
 both of them commercial; first, a chance to utilize 
 by day their new and tender labor in its factories 
 and shops, and then another chance in the evening 
 to extract from them their petty wages by pander- 
 ing to their love of pleasure." 
 
 Of the demoralizing influence of the modern 
 dance, or rather the acrobatics and contortions 
 that go by that name, there is scarcely a paper or 
 a pulpit that does not give warning. In a sermon 
 on the situation in New York, the Rev. Charles A. 
 Eaton said: "This dancing craze is nothing but 
 another form of hysteria. It is not difficult to
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 63 
 
 remember back to the time when everyone was 
 bridge crazy. These things follow one after the 
 other. I do not wish to appear as alarmist, nor do 
 I wish to appear so narrow minded as not to recog- 
 nize the need and the right of the people of our 
 times to have amusements and recreations, but I 
 do believe that the hysterical pursuit of pleasure 
 through which we are now passing has not been 
 equaled in this world since the days of ancient 
 Rome, when the people paraded the streets and 
 begged only for bread and play. What was the 
 result in ancient Rome may be the result in modern 
 New York." 
 
 The present European war was even foreshad- 
 owed by the universal craze for dancing, accord- 
 ing to a Norwegian writer, who says, in part: 
 "When a certain period of culture nears its termi- 
 nation for lack of new ideas, then humanity in its 
 search for a fresh path to follow will undergo cer- 
 tain psychological symptoms, which a careful ob- 
 server will recognize as precursors of a new cul- 
 tured epoch. These symptoms are of a more or 
 less epidemical character and spread over smaller 
 or larger parts of the world. 
 
 "To dance is nothing abnormal in itself is the 
 conclusion drawn, but when all the world is as in 
 a frenzy, when there is dancing on all the stages, 
 in every society, and serious business men at their 
 old age start to learn new steps, there must be 
 something wrong, there must be some mental de- 
 fect in humanity which forms a grave symptom of
 
 64 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 an impending social decline." 
 
 On the outskirts of a village in northern Michi- 
 gan in which it has been my good fortune to spend 
 a few weeks each year, for a decade past, there 
 dwells a happy family. The father and mother 
 are of the common people. The children — two 
 boys and two girls — range from a modest, win- 
 some little girl of eight to a manly boy of fifteen. 
 Opposite the humble home of this family is a large 
 green pasture, dappled with dandelions, where 
 roam the cows of the villagers; and beyond the 
 pasture is a little swamp, dark with the foliage of 
 ash and cedar, mysterious with strange shrubs, 
 small animal life and croakings and bubbles — just 
 the kind of a place a child's imagination loves to 
 convert into an African jungle. In the distance, to 
 the right, rise high hills that are covered with for- 
 est trees and blackberry bushes; while along their 
 base flows a swift and sparkling trout stream. 
 
 What a contrast is childhood in that little Mi- 
 chigan town with childhood here in Boston — or in 
 any other big city! On nearly every avenue in 
 many sections of this motley city saloons, whose 
 business is always rushing, spew out their human 
 wrecks, to reel, tattered and blear-eyed, among 
 these same little children. It is no exaggeration 
 to say that in some populous quarters of the city 
 drunkards, loafers and brawlers are practically the 
 only grown people these children of the street 
 come in contact with during the day. What will 
 the harvest be? How will these children turn out?
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 65 
 
 That disorder, violence and crime, especially 
 homicide, are on a rapid increase in all our large 
 cities, well informed persons are aware. Said Po- 
 lice Commissioner Woods in an address before the 
 Harvard Union but recently: "The strange thing 
 recently is that the greatest amount of crime has 
 been committed by small boys, the second genera- 
 tion of foreigners. We are trying to study what 
 makes these boys go wrong. It seems to be that 
 the young immigrants outgrow their parents, learn 
 with rapidity new speech and customs, laugh at 
 their fathers' long beards, and the strange customs 
 of their homes, and plunge right in for what they 
 consider the essence of American life — to get 
 money." 
 
 A New York paper in a recent discussion of a 
 new and alarming form of lawlessness said: 
 "Gang warfare in New York has now regularly 
 assumed the aspect of pitched battles fought out in 
 the streets with bomb and revolver and with cas- 
 ualties as heavy as in many a Mexican or Cuban 
 engagement. The evolution of the gang system 
 has proceeded rapidly. There may be people to 
 whom the name still connotes a fortuitous gather- 
 ing of idle youth whose main occupation of hang- 
 ing about the corner saloons was varied by incur- 
 sions into high-spirited rowdyism. But that stage 
 has been long outgrown. Even as the gang weapon 
 has changed from the convenient cobble-stone and 
 beer-bottle to fire-arms and dynamite, the activi- 
 ties of the gang have become professionalized. To
 
 66 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 be sure, the political functions of the gang have 
 been seriously abated. The 'gorilla' as a factor in 
 doubtful districts on election day is a vanishing 
 type. But in place of this intermittent occupation, 
 with its correspondingly low opportunities of prof- 
 it, there has been developed an entire class of gang 
 activities in the economic field to which it is high 
 time that the authorities gave their complete at- 
 tention. 
 
 "The gangs of today are profitably engaged in 
 the white-slave traffic and in many varieties of 
 blackmail, in addition to the ancient and honora- 
 ble occupations of burglary and highway robbery. 
 The profits of the trade are important enough for 
 rival gangs to engage in armed warfare for con- 
 trol of the business, and for the ambitious to fight 
 for leadership within the gang. The methods vary 
 with the locality. On the East Side, for example, 
 the blackmailing of tradesmen flourishes to an ex- 
 traordinary extent. Horse-poisoning is a favor- 
 ite occupation, and heavy amounts are annually ex- 
 torted from business men and livery men for im- 
 munity. The sinister feature is that the victims 
 are fast coming to accept the situation as inevita- 
 ble." 
 
 Whence come the members of these marauding 
 gangs which, together with an ever-increasing num- 
 ber of lawless "strike-sympathizers," openly chal- 
 lenge the constituted authorities, as they did last 
 year in Boston, and threaten the destruction of so- 
 ciety itself? What was the childhood environ-
 
 CHILDHOOD IN THE CITY 67 
 
 ment of these hoodlums and anarchists? It was 
 not of the country or the village, but of the city 
 streets.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Public Manners 
 
 IT is related that once upon a time a man 
 dropped into a certain newspaper office in 
 Cleveland and informed the editor of his pur- 
 pose to write two volumes — one on the Cus- 
 toms, and the other on the Manners, of Cleveland. 
 A year or so thereafter, the story goes, this am- 
 bitious writer again made his appearance in the 
 editor's sanctum with the first volume of his work. 
 "There," he proudly said, "is the book." "But," 
 exclaimed the editor, "where is the other volume 
 you were to write, the one on the manners of 
 Clevelanders?" "Well," ruefully replied the au- 
 thor, "I found there was a lack of material.' 
 
 While it is not true that "all cities are alike," 
 that all are equally delinquent in respect to their 
 manners, it is emphatically true that in none of 
 them does politeness in public even approach the 
 requirements of a twentieth century civilization. 
 When contrasted with our achievements in art, 
 in science and in mechanics, embodied in the handi- 
 work of the day and to be seen all about us in per- 
 fection and splendor, our manners verge on the 
 barbarous. 
 
 It was Henry George who said many years ago 
 68
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 69 
 
 that although our material advancement had made 
 possible the Brooklyn Bridge, our political pro- 
 gress had not enabled us to prevent dishonesty in 
 its construction. May we not likewise say that, 
 although we have in most cities fine street cars, our 
 manners in them are often execrable; that, while 
 we take a just pride in our modern thoroughfares, 
 our behavior on them is almost universally rude, 
 — from the lack of courtesy toward others on the 
 walk to the running down of our fellows by auto- 
 mobiles in the roadway? And in the tiieatre we 
 have produced stage effects that are marvelous in 
 their beauty and realism; while the orchestra mu- 
 sic leaves nothing to be desired, — unless by the 
 poor snare drummer, whose ever- increasing stunts 
 he might well wish were done by machinery, — but 
 theatre manners are bad. 
 
 All through our history, the persistent criticism 
 of American manners by foreign visitors and Eu- 
 ropeanized Americans has naturally led to fre- 
 quent comparisons of our social usages with those 
 of other countries. For a long time we suffered 
 by the comparison. American travelers abroad, 
 mingling, for the most part, only with the well 
 bred people of the higher circles, "would contrast 
 the civilities practiced in those circles with the un- 
 polished habits of the common people at home. 
 Then, European travelers of the privileged classes, 
 humiliated at not finding any lackeys over here, 
 gave us an unfavorable reputation. Many exam- 
 ples of this kind of criticism are to be found in
 
 70 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 Mr, John Graham Brooks' entertaining volume, 
 "As Others See us." Again, the respectful deport- 
 ment of the early immigrants to our shores, espec- 
 ially during the first months of their stay, made u 
 favorable impression upon us. We no longer get 
 such people, the Anglo-Saxons, in any considerable 
 number. Instead, we are being deluged with un- 
 assimilable semi-Asiatics from the despotic coun- 
 tries of southern Europe. May we check this im- 
 migration before it is too late! 
 
 Within recent years there has been a change of 
 opinion in the matter of comparative manners. 
 Any candid and observing American that has trav- 
 eled through Europe within the last ten years will 
 wonder at criticism from tiiat quarter. Such a 
 person will likely agree with Brander Matthews 
 in saying: "The more familiar and impartial the 
 observer may be with the social usages and habits 
 of Great Britain and the continent of Europe, the 
 less emphatic will be his feeling that the foreign 
 standard is really superior to the American." 
 
 For any practical purpose, however, the superi- 
 ority or the inferiority of foreign manners should 
 count for little with the patriotic American citizen. 
 It is neither a clumsy nor a spread-eagle use that is 
 here made of the word patriotic; the term is used 
 advisedly. For a patriot is not one who merely 
 flaunts the flag and who rises in the church or the 
 theatre when The Star Spangled Banner is sung, 
 glorious as is the flag and inspiring as is the song. 
 A patriot is simply one who loves and serves his
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 71 
 
 country, that is, his fellow citizens who compose 
 his country. Nor, as the world of to-day is be- 
 ginning to realize, is it only in war that a patriot 
 can serve his country. In fact, the statesman who 
 averts a war, where principle is not sacrificed, is a 
 truer patriot than the general who wins victories 
 on the field of battle. 
 
 But to return to the thought, the comparative 
 politeness of nations is not of particular moment. 
 Nor is it of importance whether the manners of 
 the city or those of the country are the better. 
 There is little basis for comparison, since the ele- 
 ment of numbers largely determines the proper 
 conduct of t!ie individual. He who has plenty of 
 elbow-room may act accordingly. 7he rights of 
 the man who occupies a bed alone are very differ- 
 ent from those of the fellow who is unfortunate 
 enough to be one of the proverbial "three in a 
 bed." In the country a man is a law unto himself. 
 He can take the middle of the road; and he can 
 indulge to his heart's content in whistling or sing- 
 ing along the way. He can eat garlic or onions 
 without offending, for he is not going from his 
 dinner table into a crowded theatre. Thus, rural 
 rules of etiquette do not and need not coincide 
 with urban rules. 
 
 And yet how small a percentage of the people 
 of the city habitually act in public as though they 
 knew they were among hundreds or thousands of 
 their fellow beings, each one of whom has mani- 
 fold rights! Do we not daily encounter the ecu-
 
 72 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 pie, and often the trio, of dolts who, oblivious of 
 their surroundings and of the convenience of pass- 
 ers-by, stand and carry on a conversation in our 
 pathway as we would step from the street-crossing 
 to a crowded sidewalk? And these obstructers are 
 not in the main, country people, innocently indulg- 
 ing in country customs, nor are they always the un- 
 educated, paradoxical as the term dolt as applied 
 to them here may seem; on the contrary they com- 
 prise all classes of citizens. One would suppose 
 that after suffering, themselves, from this sort of 
 nuisance day after day for perhaps half a lifetime, 
 these people that block the way would learn some- 
 thing. It should be the duty of policemen who 
 stand at street-crossings to abate this nuisance as 
 much as possible, though seldom, if ever, do we 
 see an officer clear the sidewalk at the approach to 
 a crossing. Until the police do take action in this 
 matter, perhaps as effective a means as any of 
 teaching manners is to bump the obstructers out of 
 the way in Everett True fashion, instead of meek- 
 ly walking out into the gutter to get by them. Pos- 
 sibly they might then learn that sidewalks are 
 meant primarily to walk on and not to stand on. 
 A more common breach of good manners Is the 
 utter disregard of the law that pedestrians must 
 keep to their right. Possibly there can be no hard 
 and fast rule about this while walking through the 
 crowded shopping districts; for experience has 
 shown that it is not always expedient or even pos- 
 sible in such situations to keep to the right, since
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 73 
 
 streams of people are nearly always entering or 
 leaving the stores along the way. But on the street- 
 crossings it is imperatively demanded that we keep 
 to the right. Lo do otherwise, to compel our fel- 
 lows to dodge this way and that, is not only dis- 
 concerting but frequently leads to accidents in these 
 days of swift-moving cars and automobiles. On a 
 crowded street-crossing there should be the dis- 
 cipline of the army, not the disorder of the mob. 
 The deadly work of the automobile in our city 
 streets is at last forcing officials to enact and en- 
 force more stringent laws for the protection of pe- 
 destrians. A statement recently addressed to the 
 Governor of New York by the Secretary of State 
 says that in eleven months of the year 19 13 there 
 were 967 persons killed and 6,107 persons serious- 
 ly injured by automobiles in the State of New 
 York! Just now a "Safety First" campaign is be- 
 ing waged in the city newspapers. But for one 
 suggestion looking to the curbing of the automo- 
 bile, there are a dozen admonishing the citizen to 
 look out for it. Had the automobile been the ne- 
 cessity of the poor instead of the pleasure of the 
 rich, it would have been driven from crowded 
 streets long ago. Observe the course that was tak- 
 en with the bicycle, the convenience of the poor, 
 for example. Even in the days when reforms 
 moved slowly, the bicycle was made to get off the 
 sidewalk and take to the street. This was a very 
 proper ruling, to be sure; but if the bicycle should 
 be forbidden the sidewalk, how much more ought
 
 74 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 the ponderous, death-dealing automobile be barred 
 from the crowded city streets ! 
 
 Sometime, possibly, the people of the city, 
 grown tired of the Court's slap on the wrist admin- 
 istered to "speed-maniacs," will rise up and de- 
 mand this very thing, namely, that the automobile, 
 the modern car of Juggernaut, be banished from 
 the down-town streets. It had no right there in 
 the first place ; and that it should longer be allowed 
 in our crowded shopping districts, a menace to life, 
 is a reproach on municipal gov^ernment. In the 
 meantime, one of several conspicuous placards by 
 which the city fathers might inculcate good man- 
 ners, and, in this instance, wise precaution, should 
 read: "Keep to your Right." The bill for these 
 signs might be met by stiff fines imposed on the 
 heathen who spit on the walk. 
 
 Of all public places, the church is preeminently 
 the one where good manners should be looked for. 
 The people who congregate in religious edifices are 
 presumably people who really love one another, 
 and who, therefore, would do nothing that could 
 interfere with the enjoyment of the service by 
 their fellow-worshippers. But all is not smooth 
 even here. From the nuisance of much whisper- 
 ing, through the gamut of falling hymn-books, 
 the crackling of programs and other papers, to 
 women's hats that hide the preacher from view, a 
 great deal of offense is given. We often hear the 
 question raised why men do not attend church ; oc- 
 casionally the discussion takes the form of a long-
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 75 
 
 winded symposium. Passing by doctrinal consid- 
 erations, which have no place here, it might be 
 ventured that if the church would pattern after 
 the theatre in having sloping aisles and in requir- 
 ing women to remove their large hats, more men 
 would attend the services. The time has passed, if 
 it ever existed, when men care to turn a religious 
 service into a penance. Suppose some public 
 spirited city newspaper address a request to the 
 clergymen of its city to require women to sit with 
 their hats oft in church. Perhaps, for obvious rea- 
 sons, an exception might be made on Easter Sun- 
 day. 
 
 It is in the theatre, undoubtedly, that the most 
 common and the most exasperating, if not the most 
 serious, violation of good manners is to be found. 
 The theatre is open every day — we are just begin- 
 ning to wonder why the church is not. For one 
 person who attends church ten go to the theatre. 
 Whether or not this is a healthy social sign, the 
 fact itself will not be disputed. People go to the 
 theatre for relaxation and entertainment. Fur- 
 thermore, they pay for these benefits, many of 
 them a no inconsiderable part of theif income. Is 
 it not important, then, that they should be per- 
 mitted to enjoy the program undisturbed? It is 
 not only important but in all moderation it may be 
 said to be imperative. 
 
 But what do we find the situation to be in near- 
 ly every theatre today? Needless annoyance of 
 many kinds. The following excerpt from an arti-
 
 76 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 cle by Betty Bradeen is a mild criticism of some of 
 these annoyances: "There is considerable com- 
 plaint from theatre lovers against those who talk 
 during a performance — they say with justice that 
 intermissions are sufficiently frequent to permit all 
 necessary conversation. Silence should be the rule 
 at such places for the sake of those who go for en- 
 joyment of the play and for no other reason — 
 and the number of men and women belonging to 
 the first class is sufficient to attract attention at 
 least if they choose to assert their right. 
 I have often wondered why people spend their 
 money where they are sure to find rudeness. I 
 wonder why more do not take the straightforward 
 course of complaint against those who care noth- 
 ing for the complaint of others. I sat in front of 
 a woman at the theatre who never came on time 
 and never ceased talking for the entire evening, 
 and sat there one night each week for a whole 
 year. I did not want to incur her enmity. Finally, 
 I managed to have my seat changed and her 
 neighbors made it so uncomfortable for her that 
 she was glad to keep quiet. It was a man who 
 brought her to her senses, a man with a clear idea 
 of his own rights and no fear of consequences." 
 
 A similar testimony was given by a theatre-goer 
 not long since. "I was scarcely seated," he says, 
 "when two fellows took seats in the row behind 
 me and at once began to keep time to the music 
 with their feet. Of course, the rattle of their feet 
 on the floor was very soothing to my nerves and
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 77 
 
 helped me to appreciate the music. When they 
 finally got tired keeping time, they lay back in their 
 seats, one of them bracing his knees against the 
 back of my seat, and shifting about just often 
 enough to make me feel joyous. Then when the 
 curtain rose they related to each other, as if all 
 alone in the house, their impressions of the per- 
 formers and of the play." 
 
 Now, this patron's rights were clearly violated, 
 just as yours are, reader, in every theatre. But 
 there is more to this, for this particular man did 
 not do as most of us would have done, that is "let 
 it go," for he had some spirit along with a sense of 
 Iiis rights; so, at last, when he realized that he was 
 likely to be robbed of his entertainment, he turned 
 and addressed his tormentors thus: "See here, I 
 paid fifty cents to enjoy this show. Now you put 
 your feet on the floor, keep them still and stop 
 talking or I will have you put out." "Well," he 
 continues, "they flushed up, but after a minute or 
 two, resumed their antics, at the same time making 
 sarcastic remarks about finical people. I said 
 nothing further to them, but got up and went back 
 to one of the ushers and told him what was going 
 on. Now this usher was a young man after my 
 own heart; for, upon my pointing out the two of- 
 fenders, he gave them to understand that a contin- 
 uation of the annoyance would insure them a swift 
 if not graceful exit from the house. They were 
 as quiet as proverbial church mice during the re- 
 mainder of the performance."
 
 78 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 Here the offenders were men. But observation 
 will show that women are quite as unmindful of 
 the rights of those around them. If they are not 
 as noisy with their feet they make up for it with 
 their tongues. Indeed, it seems as if the chief ob- 
 ject of some women in going to the theatre is to 
 visit. Possibly their telephones are out of order. 
 
 In this discussion of manners, let us not be mis- 
 understood. The curtailment of no one's liberty 
 is here advocated, for it is no one's liberty to in- 
 terfere with any one else's rights. It would be 
 well could the ancient idea of the term civility be 
 revived; for it implied "a state of society in which 
 the relations and duties of a citizen are recognized 
 and obeyed." This question of liberty and rights 
 is sometimes sadly confused. We have all heard, 
 but are often unmindful, of the experience of the 
 Irishman who, upon landing in America, stretched 
 out his arms in appreciation of his liberty. One 
 of his hands accidentally came in contact with an- 
 other man's nose. Pat's explanation that he 
 thought this was a free country did not avail, for 
 his victim replied: "This is a free country, but 
 your freedom ends where my nose begins." 
 
 Speaking again of the theatre, it may be said 
 that the three great reforms in this generation have 
 been the substitution of fellow players in the pre- 
 ceding act for the audience as targets for ridicule; 
 the adoption, only after a terrible lesson, of the 
 asbestos curtain, together with the ample provision 
 for ?xit ii) case of iire; and the order for the re-
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 79 
 
 moval of women's hats during the performance. 
 
 It is doubtful which of these three reforms is 
 the most appreciated by the public. Though the 
 first-mentioned is a recent innovation, let us hope 
 that it is a permanent acquisition, not a passing fad. 
 It is such a boon that we scarcely know whether to 
 thank, the theatrical manager for it, or to condemn 
 him for not bringing it about long ago. No more 
 outrageous breach of good manners could be per- 
 petrated on a patron who had paid his money os- 
 tensibly for entertainment (only to cite one form 
 of offense) than the old custom of making the man 
 whom nature had deprived of hair the butt of 
 coarse stage jokes. 
 
 Of the second reform it may be said that it was 
 imperatively demanded. All places of public as- 
 sembly should insure safety. But what was the 
 use of going to the theatre if one could not see 
 the stage? When we think of what our theatre- 
 going fathers put up with out of a false sense of 
 politeness to women, we cannot but believe that 
 right then they atoned for many of their short- 
 comings. We feel thankful for a dispensation by 
 virtue of which we may sit in a theatre of hatless 
 heads. 
 
 Still, if our fathers could not see what was tak- 
 ing place on the stage they could at least listen to 
 real singing; while we have had to endure the bel- 
 lowing tremolo, — and just because some silly girl 
 discovered she could sing while shaking in a chill 
 — (this account of the origin of the tremolo will
 
 8o CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 do as well as any other.) Oh, how we have 
 yearned for the sweet notes of the olden days! 
 What enthusiastic applause we have all given the 
 occasional singer who, having an appreciation of 
 the melody in the human voice, actually sang ! And 
 now when the corrugated tremolo is going out of 
 fashion, or is subsiding into a faint trill, the reci- 
 tative song is coming in. Well may we exclaim : 
 "Are we never to hear vocal musk! May some 
 bold manager rise up and administer a quietus to 
 this new abomination — even as a discriminating 
 publisher did some time ago to the dialect story. 
 The modern spoken song, with its awkward tran- 
 sition from talking to singing, is a species of vocal 
 slops, and is, it is safe to say, a bore to every mu- 
 sic lover who is compelled to listen to it. Novel- 
 ty is not always improvement. 
 
 But let us be just. Have not the folk on the 
 stage a good cause to complain of a cold-blooded 
 audience, an audience that sits unmoved through 
 a worthy performance? That there are such au- 
 diences theatrical people agree, Mr, William H. 
 Crane, than whom no one is better qualified to 
 judge, has made some interesting comparisons of 
 different audiences. He says "Clevelanders smile 
 where Cincinnatians chuckle, Chicagoans hee-haw 
 and Milwaukeeans roar." It would be of interest 
 to learn his opinion of a Boston audience whose re- 
 peated encores often materially lengthen the per- 
 formance. It is Mr, Crane's opinion, too, that a 
 cold audience cheats itself, since "players who are
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 8i 
 
 not encouraged by laughs or hands lose interest 
 themselves and play perfunctorily." 
 
 Not only is unnecessary annoyance caused by the 
 ill manners of individuals, but it often results from 
 thoughtlessness in the construction or arrange- 
 ment of public buildings. When we consider the 
 attention that is given to details in our manufac- 
 turing and business concerns that all may run 
 smoothly, it is astonishing to note the entire lack 
 of such attention when profits are not at stake, 
 when just every-day human welfare is concerned. 
 It was ten years before the owners of an arcade 
 building in a certain city had sense enough to put 
 the words "In" and "Out" on the doors through 
 which people passed all day. Of course, had every- 
 one that went in and out been thoughtful enough 
 to keep to the right, no trouble would have result- 
 ed; but as it was, people were constantly running 
 into one another in the doorways. 
 
 A short time ago a citizen who had been trying 
 to write a postcard on a shelf designed for such 
 purpose in a city post-office, but who had been 
 bothered by one of those dunces who think the 
 only way to put a stamp on an envelope is to pound 
 it on with the fist, stepped into the postmaster's 
 private office and stated his grievance, politely add- 
 ing a suggestion that a placard be posted on the 
 wall above the shelf forbidding pounding on 
 stamps. But that august official, with the true in- 
 stincts of a politician, answered that the people had 
 rights and that he was not the man to take them
 
 82 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 away. It was In vain that the citizen insisted that 
 he himself was one of the people and had a right 
 to use the shelf for the purpose for which it was 
 intended, undisturbed by pile-drivers who were 
 using it for a purpose for which it was not intend- 
 ed. He also pointed out that such a placard would 
 save many pens and holders which the pounding 
 caused to roll on to the floor. But the postmaster 
 was not concerned about that. The loss did not 
 come out of his pocket. It is to be feared there 
 are too many such patriots in the public service of 
 our country, some of them higher up than post- 
 master. 
 
 Manifestly, any consideration herein of the con- 
 ventionalities of etiquette would be out of place. 
 Doubtless it is desirable for all of us to know and 
 to practice the usages of polite society; — to say 
 "thank you" instead of "thanks;" to say "beg par- 
 don," instead of "what?" in reply to a remark we 
 did not catch; to abstain from pointing at objects 
 along the street; to hold our forks in the correct 
 position, and eat "wet dishes" with a spoon. For 
 these, and countless other regulations that insure 
 "good form," there are reasons. But a noncon- 
 formity with any of these observances, while it 
 may offend the fastidious, cannot be considered an 
 infringement of anyone's rights. Indeed, the per- 
 son who would call the transgressor's attention to 
 a lapse from one of these forms of decorum would 
 himself commit the greater offense. 
 
 No, It is not the politeness demanded by the hyp-
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 83 
 
 ercritic that is called for to ameliorate the harsh 
 conditions imposed by the vast numbers that con- 
 gregate or that cross one another's path in the city. 
 It is just an applied respect for the rights of our 
 fellow men; that is all. 
 
 It has been the part of a good-natured philoso- 
 phy to condone the ill-manners of Americans, just 
 as it has been a part of that same philosophy to 
 excuse every other shortcoming that is American. 
 One writer of prominence, voicing the spirit of 
 this philosophy, says: "In America, bad manners 
 are caused by want of thought; they are the result 
 of carelessness rather than wilfulness. The Amer- 
 ican is so busy minding his own business that he 
 has no time to be as regardful of the rights of 
 others as he ought to be." 
 
 With the truth of this statement, few will find 
 fault. Though partly an apology and partly a 
 justification, it aptly characterizes the conduct of 
 the American as it has always been. But is not the 
 time come to cast aside, or greatly modify, this old 
 pattern, to cease being "so busy minding our own 
 business that we have no time to be regardful of 
 the rights of others?" There are more than ten 
 times as many people in this country today as there 
 were a century ago. In our great cities a tnan 
 comes in contact with a hundred of his fellov/ be- 
 ings where his forefathers met but one of theirs. 
 Furthermore, these hurrying hundreds that he jos- 
 tles in the street and in other public places are, for 
 the most part, strangers who cannot be expected
 
 84 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 to overlook a rudeness as would the friends or 
 acquaintances of the olden time. "In America bad 
 manners are caused by want of thought," — but 
 this excuse will not restore an eye that has been 
 poked out by an umbrella carelessly handled. 
 Want of thought where the rights of others are 
 concerned is a kind of selfishness which it behooves 
 us all to be on our guard against. Strictly speak- 
 ing, even where one is not called upon, in the 
 cause of good manners, to do things in the serv- 
 ice of his fellow man, how gracious an act it is to 
 do them ! "A man stoops to pick a banana peeling 
 from the sidewalk and throw it in the gutter, and 
 his companion comments : 'You are not paid to 
 do that.' Nor is he, neither is he paid for care- 
 fully depositing rubbish of his own in the box pro- 
 vided for that purpose. Nor does the traveler 
 who turns off the light when he leaves his hotel 
 room find his bill reduced." Nevertheless, such a 
 regard for the welfare of others is real patriotism. 
 There is no gold lace about it, no fife and drum, 
 by the magic music of which even the poltroon is 
 often galvanized into a hero. But in these days 
 the habitual regard for the rights, even the minor 
 rights, of our fellow citizens is the kind of patriot- 
 ism that is most needed. 
 
 We have all become familiar, through widely 
 published statistics, with the fact that insanity and 
 nervous breakdown are rapidly increasing in our 
 country, especially in our large cities. "We live 
 too fast," the medical men tell us. Doubtless the
 
 PUBLIC MANNERS 85 
 
 strain of ever increasing competition in business, 
 on the one hand, and the dissipations in which re- 
 lief from it is sought, on the other, are the pri- 
 mary causes of this degeneracy. But everything 
 that discommodes, that irritates and vexes, occa- 
 sions friction and increases the wear and tear of 
 body and mind; and tells, in the long run, on the 
 health. Our city authorities, in recognition of this 
 fact, are now following the lead of the old-world 
 cities in taking action to suppress needless noises, 
 such as screeching car-wheels, raucous automobile 
 horns, excessive blowing of locomotive whistles, 
 and cries of street vendors. Even the church bell, 
 the subject of many a lyric in the olden time, is 
 challenged of its right to ring. All of these pro- 
 hibitions are proposed in the cause of public health. 
 Can it not likewise be urged, in the light of the 
 discussion in this chapter, that the ill manners of 
 the many whom the city dweller meets day after 
 day have a hurtful effect on his health? Unfortu- 
 nately, it is not possible in most cases to prohibit 
 rudeness by law. But the man or the woman who, 
 in a public place, respects the rights of others is, 
 to that extent, a conservator of human health.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Publicity: Good and Bad 
 
 DURING the last decade of our history 
 there has been both an insistent de- 
 mand for, and a persistent practice of 
 pubhcity. But there are many kinds 
 of pubhcity, and the kind that has been demanded 
 has been furnished grudgingly, while the sort vol- 
 unteered has been supplied ad nauseam. 
 
 Of the publicity demanded — by the press, by 
 magazine writers and by politicians seeking favor 
 with the voters, — it may be said that it has chiefly 
 concerned private and quasi-public corporations. 
 These corporations are, of course, conducted pri- 
 marily for profits. When we read in Adam 
 Smith's "Wealth of Nations" the doubt expressed 
 as to the success of the corporate, as compared 
 with the individual and partnership form of enter- 
 prise, we smile, just as we smile when we think of 
 that early nineteenth century scientist's assertion 
 that it would not be possible for a steamship to 
 cross the Atlantic, as the weight of the coal neces- 
 sary to furnish steam would sink it; or again as 
 we do, when we read the conclusion of one of our 
 early statesmen that the "Great American Desert" 
 would never be fit for cultivation. Any doubt as 
 
 86
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD 87 
 
 to the prowess of the corporation vanished long 
 ago. The last forty years have witnessed an in- 
 \asion of tlie institution into every branch of busi- 
 ness, Irom railroading down to shoe polishing, 
 and today, corporate enterprise in everything ex- 
 cept agriculture, is the rule, private and partner- 
 ship undertakings being the exception. It is esti- 
 mated that more than fifty per cent, of the wealth 
 of the country (placed by the World Almanac for 
 19 14 at $130,000,000,000) is owned by corpor- 
 ations. Eliminating agricultural property, the es- 
 timate of the wealth so owned is over eighty per 
 cent. 
 
 Thus far, however, it has not been the large 
 profits of the corporation that have prompted the 
 demand for publicity concerning its operations; or, 
 perhaps, it would be more correct to say that this 
 consideration has not generally been the cause of 
 the demand. An exception exists in the case of 
 public-service corporations, especially where there 
 has been a marked sentiment in favor of municipal 
 ownership. There the demand for a statement of 
 profits, with a view to securing lower rates, has 
 been quite insistent. But the corrupting of the 
 law-making bodies, municipal, state and national, 
 by corporations, resulting on the one hand in a 
 violation of the sanctions of government and on 
 the other in giving such corporations great advan- 
 tages over the individual, was the first occasion 
 for the light of publicity upon them. The creation 
 of values by watering stocks and the over-issue of
 
 88 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 stocks, next received attention. Then the search- 
 light was directed upon the discrimination in 
 freight rates by railroads, the issue of passes and 
 the bestowal of other benefits upon the favored 
 few. 
 
 As a consequence of the disclosures resulting 
 from this kind of publicity, stringent legislation has 
 within recent years been enacted in nearly all the 
 states affecting the chartering and operations of 
 corporations. The Secretaries of State, the Rail- 
 road, Insurance and Public Service Commis- 
 sioners, have been given wide inquisitorial powers 
 concerning them; and detailed reports of their 
 status must now be made by them. In fact, so 
 drastic are the laws and supervision in some of the 
 states as virtually to place a corporation in a strait- 
 jacket. One can appreciate the feelings of that 
 Mississippi banker who notified the depositors to 
 come and get their money, as the bank was going 
 out of business for fear the legislature then in ses- 
 sion would make it a criminal offense to do a bank- 
 ing business. But while the bright light of pub- 
 licity may cause the officers of corporations to 
 blink, the people at large can look on with satis- 
 faction, feeling that by the aid of that light they 
 may see what is wrong and learn how to right it. 
 
 A few words now concerning a form of public- 
 ity that is as new as is scientific advertising. It is, 
 in fact, a species of advertising. I refer to the 
 politician's exploitation of the public's attention, 
 allusion to which propensity was made in the earlier
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD 89 
 
 pages of this book. This art of self-advertising 
 has given rise to a remark which may be said to 
 have already acquired the force of an axiom: 
 "Toot your own horn or it will remain untooted." 
 And what an ever- increasing blare and din of 
 horns there has been throughout the land during 
 the last fourteen years, or since the new century be- 
 gan ! The old fashioned statesman, so quiet and 
 dignified, with his charming sense of modesty, has 
 disappeared, together with the high hat and long- 
 tailed coat he wore. A new set of men have come 
 to the front. They wear derby hats and business 
 suits, and in their quest of office they pursue busi- 
 ness methods. Prosaic in appearance, they are 
 nevertheless born actors, and actors of the melo- 
 dramatic type. How boldly they rush on to the ice 
 — after it has been found to be safe ! How they 
 "thunder in the index" of "glittering generalities," 
 their vague cries for "humanity" and "human 
 rights" alternating with self-glorification over what 
 they have done or will do for the dear people 1 In 
 every campaign, and between campaigns, the office 
 seeker "toots his own horn," in speeches, in ar- 
 ranged interviews, and, (if he is big enough) in 
 editorials of papers owned or controlled by him- 
 self. Personal publicity bureaus and carloads of 
 boosting reporters! Whoever heard of these 
 things in the days of Grant and Tilden and Sher- 
 man and Thurman? 
 
 But advertising pays, and so, at least until the 
 general public becomes more discerning, and can
 
 90 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 tell shoddy from wool, the advertising politician 
 will be with us. In any city, the politician who 
 keeps his name in the papers is the successful one. 
 People think they know him because of his ubiqui- 
 tous name, whereas, they do not really know him 
 at all. The masses — and they cast the great ma- 
 jority of the votes — do not draw the line very 
 closely between fame and notoriety. They are too 
 absorbed in getting a living to inquire into the of- 
 fice-seeker's character and qualifications, and so 
 they readily take a candidate's own estimate of 
 himself. They go further and become enthusi- 
 astic over this self-advertised product; and in the 
 case of an advertising executive, especially, wheth- 
 er mayor, governor or president, they will go any 
 length with him in his efforts (very common just 
 now) to be "the whole thing." But this opens 
 the question of executive encroachment, vital 
 enough for a volume, but foreign to our present 
 purpose. 
 
 A former president of the United States, a gen- 
 tleman and statesman of the old school, at least 
 so far as modesty and ability go, laments, in a 
 magazine article, his lack of advertising qualifi- 
 cations, which lack he modestly ascribes to his ju- 
 dicial training, instead of to his high sense of pro- 
 priety. But whatever the reason for the lack, 
 thinking people with long memories are thankful 
 for it. 
 
 A distinction should be made between the 
 preaching and the boasting politician. The form-
 
 PUBLICITY: GOOD AND BAD 91 
 
 er may be of some service to his country, while the 
 latter is a bore at best. There is little danger from 
 an excess of political preaching, provided it does 
 not teach anarchy. For in this sordid world po- 
 litical ideals — ideals of economic and social jus- 
 tice — are a proper accompaniment of the spiritual 
 ideals proclaimed from the pulpit. The more we 
 have of it the better it will be for us. 
 
 Of all the agencies of publicity, the press is, of 
 course, the most far-reaching and prolific. It is 
 difficult, indeed, for the modern mind to conceive 
 of any considerable degree of publicity, or even of 
 civilization, without it. And yet but three or four 
 generations ago the press cut a comparatively small 
 figure in the dissemination of news; for in the 
 opening days of the republic, when we were a ru- 
 ral people, newspapers were few. In fact, there 
 were at that time only three or four daily papers 
 and but two score weekly, semi-weekly and month- 
 ly publications in the entire country. The hap- 
 penings of most communities were made known 
 by the village gossip, and the news of distant 
 places was carried by the stage-driver or the sea- 
 captain. 
 
 To the citizen of today whose "breakfast is not 
 complete" without the morning paper with its 
 luminous account of a world's daily doings, the 
 newspaper of his forefathers would be a curiosity. 
 He would look in vain through its four small 
 pages for matter such as now greets his eye in any 
 daily paper. No startling headlines would ap-
 
 92 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 prize him of a fresh intrigue in Europe or of a 
 horrible crime committed the day before in some 
 distant city in his own country; for such news 
 would be from three days to three months old be- 
 fore it became known to him. And what items the 
 paper might contain would appear in an almost 
 unintelligible form, no pains being taken to present 
 it in an orderly manner. In the place of news by 
 telegraphic dispatch, would be found letters from 
 friends who were visiting in some other town, or 
 roughing it in what was then the far West. In- 
 stead of crisp editorial squibs would be found pro- 
 lix moralizing on the evils of gossip, theatre going, 
 card playing, and intemperance. In the field of 
 politics the tone of the press of that early period 
 was as coarse and abusive as the press of a century 
 later was cynical and time-serving. 
 
 Within the last twenty years the press has be- 
 come more independent in politics than ever be- 
 fore, many of the most influential papers having 
 no afiiliation whatever with any party. And yet, 
 however much such non-partisan papers are to be 
 commended for their independence in politics, it 
 is almost precisely this element of the press that is 
 the worst offender in what constitutes the chief 
 faults of the press today. The staid party organs, 
 for the most part, have a dignity and self-respect 
 that forbids sensationalism. The independent 
 papers, on the other hand, are neither owned nor 
 controlled by men interested in party success, but 
 by men who are primarily after profits; and a
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD 93 
 
 large circulation being essential to large profits, 
 they cater to the curiosity and imagination, to put 
 it mildly, of the masses to insure that circulation. 
 Now what are the chief faults of tiie press to- 
 day? The first and foremost is undoubtedly the 
 ruthless invasion of private rights and the sanctity 
 of family relations. In the village no one is so 
 contemptible and so detested as the scandal-mon- 
 gering gossip. Now what such a pest is to the vil- 
 lage community, many a newspaper is to the city 
 — it is a pity that condemnation is not likewise 
 general. No sooner is a divorce suit filed, espec- 
 ially where prominent people are parties to it, 
 than these jackals send reporters to the house of 
 trouble and there the insinuating threat is often 
 conveyed that unless the facts are given to this 
 emissary they will be obtained anyhow. Once ob- 
 tained, they, the secret, if not sacred, things of the 
 family life which in no way concern, nor should 
 interest, the public, are published broadcast. Of- 
 ten a twist is given to the facts that changes the 
 whole aspect of the case, and serves to embitter 
 or humiliate those concerned. This impertinent 
 prying into private affairs is carried into many 
 other personal matters as well; and it is not alone 
 the one who is in trouble that is subject to unpleas- 
 ant notoriety, but if he be prominently connected, 
 his relatives must be brought in also. The only 
 circumstance in mitigation of the harm done by 
 such publicity is that in the city one's circle of 
 acquaintances is narrow. Not so many people as
 
 94 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 in a village stare at him because of the news- 
 paper's zeal in publishing "news." 
 
 Of this fault of the press, the veteran editor, 
 Col. Henry Watterson, in an address before news- 
 paper men some time ago, used the following vig- 
 orous language : "Pretending to be the especial 
 defenders of liberty, we are becoming the invad- 
 ers of private right. No household seems any 
 longer safe against intrusion. Our reporters are 
 being turned into detectives. As surely as this be 
 not checked we shall grow to be objects of fear 
 and hatred, instead of trust and respect. Some 
 one," he goes on to say, "ought to organize an 
 intelligent and definite movement toward the bet- 
 tering of what has reached alarming propor- 
 tions. I say this in your interest as well as the in- 
 terest of the public and the profession, for I am 
 sure that you are gentlemen and want to be con- 
 sidered so, whereas the work you are often set to 
 do is the reverse of gentlemanly. It subjects you 
 to aversion and contempt — brings you and a high 
 and mighty calling into disrepute by confusing the 
 purpose and function of the newspaper with those 
 of the police and the scavenger." These are strong 
 words; had they been uttered by a layman, doubt- 
 less they would have been treated by the press in 
 a jocose spirit. Smart editors would have had 
 much sport with the man who was so ignorant of 
 the proper functions of journalism. 
 
 If the invasion of private right ranks first 
 among the faults of the press, misrepresentation
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD 95 
 
 closely follows. We are all familiar with the 
 saying, "You can't believe what you see in the 
 papers," a dictum which is too sweeping, per- 
 haps, hut which has much evidence to justify it. 
 Who has not often read a "write-up" of some 
 person or of some occurrence that he knew to be 
 almost pure fiction? Newspaper men are, of 
 course, only human and so are liable to make mis- 
 takes in spite of the best intentions. Where no 
 person or cause is injured by the publication of 
 an incorrect report, little harm is done. But is 
 sufficient care and conscience exercised in cases 
 where a person, or a cause may be injured by such 
 perversion of truth? It cannot be said that there 
 is. The effort to be sensational and thus increase 
 the circulation of the paper seems almost to pre- 
 clude this. 
 
 Of "yellow journalism" Major J. C. Hemp- 
 hill, another veteran editor of the chivalrous 
 Southland, in an address at Yale College, spoke 
 as follows : 
 
 "The press in these abundant times, speaking 
 generally, is in the business for the money there is 
 in it. The most potent force in shaping and di- 
 recting the thought and sentiment of the country, 
 it is yet a beggar at the door of patronage. Little 
 or no independence is actually possessed by the 
 journalists who preach independence. It must be 
 said, however, to the credit or discredit, as you 
 please, of the public, that it reflects largely the 
 character of the newspapers by which it is served.
 
 96 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 "The yellow streak runs not less through the 
 press than through the people. The shame of the 
 press is that it has catered to the worst tendencies 
 of a corrupt and malodorous age. Its mission 
 ought to be the elevation of the public; instead 
 it advertises its degradation; fairly shrieking 
 against any restriction upon its liberty, it converts 
 liberty into license. 
 
 "Broadly speaking, the most sensational and 
 irresponsible newspapers make the most money 
 and there has been noted for years the gradual de- 
 gradation of the American press to the American 
 level. 
 
 "There is no profession so exacting, none re- 
 quiring so extensive and accurate knowledge of 
 history and philosophy and political economy, 
 none calling for so great patience of opposition, 
 such clearness and firmness of judgment, such 
 courage of conviction, and such careful regard for 
 the rights of others. That is why, in my opinion, 
 the newspaper should be, in fact, the judge and 
 jury and not the swift witness or the paid counsel- 
 lor in the case on trial before the people * * *. 
 That newspaper is unworthy which for personal 
 profit or political gain for itself or its party, mis- 
 represents the position of a professional or politi- 
 cal rival; that follows any particular course be- 
 cause it is popular; that joins in the defamation of 
 any man because there is something to be made 
 out of it whether in the way of Increased circula- 
 tion or adventitious importance."
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD 97 
 
 Perhaps if the kind of newspaper here described 
 would practice the Golden Rule instead of the fan- 
 cied rule of business, it would, in the long run, 
 discover that the Golden Rule is the real rule of 
 business. 
 
 A form of publicity that is of service to a city, 
 but which has not received sufficient encourage- 
 ment, is the People's Column, the Forum, the Edi- 
 tor's Mail, &c., as communications of newspaper 
 readers are variously styled. A generation ago let- 
 ters from the reader to the editor of a paper were 
 few. And they were expected to indorse the edi- 
 tor's views. Woe to the writer who dared to dis- 
 sent, especially if his letter was faulty in grammar 
 or diction, for the chances were that he would be 
 so lampooned as to deter him and others of his 
 kind from making any further expressions of opin- 
 ion. Today communications of readers receive 
 respectful consideration and are generally pub- 
 lished as a matter of course. I know of but three 
 or four metropolitan papers where, judging from 
 the monotonous adulation of the contributions, a 
 writer is expected to indorse the paper's views. 
 
 It is not, however, of letters in criticism of the 
 paper's views that I would speak, but of those that 
 deal with matters of concern to the citizen, with lo- 
 cal abuses and reforms, which the editor and the 
 reporter fail to discuss — for these functionaries, 
 Argus-eyed though they be, cannot sec everything 
 of interest that is going on; nor are they omni- 
 scient.
 
 98 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 I have said that the writing of letters is not 
 sufficiently encouraged. But, in justice to the 
 newspaper, it may be said that the paucity of com- 
 munications has another explanation, at least in 
 part. Now it is true that we seldom see an urgent 
 invitation to the reader to send in anything — un- 
 less on the society page he is invited to try his 
 hand at defining a true lady or a perfect gentleman 
 for the dollar prize, or else, on the fiction page, 
 he is urged, in competition for another dollar 
 prize, to write the concluding chapter of the thril- 
 ling drama, "The Eavetroughs of New York," — 
 everything else in that city having already been 
 dramatized. But is there not something wrong 
 with the public spirit of a city of a million people 
 when in none of its papers are found more than a 
 half dozen letters from the readers? Are there 
 not hundreds, yes, thousands, of bright men and 
 women in such a vast city that could offer, in a few 
 lines, suggestions founded on their observation or 
 experience, that would make for the welfare of 
 the city? And is it not their patriotic duty to do 
 so? Many a nuisance might be abated, many a 
 graft exposed, many a reform brought about, if 
 citizens would tell the public through the news- 
 paper what they know of specific cases. A citizen 
 of Boston notices, day after day, that horses fall 
 on a certain steep thoroughfare in that city. He 
 writes to one of the papers about it, suggesting 
 that something be put on that highway that will 
 prevent the horses from falling. A few days af-
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD 99 
 
 terward this is done; and the newspaper frankly 
 gives the citizen the credit for the service. A lady 
 in another city calls attention to the tobacco juice 
 expectorated on the steps of the street car by the 
 motorman, much to the damage of women's skirts; 
 and an investigation is made. A citizen of another 
 city writes in condemnation of the practice of mer- 
 chants in using excessive quantities of salt to melt 
 the snow on the sidewalk, whereby the shoes of 
 pedestrians are ruined. The girls employed in an 
 office building of still another city tell, in a news- 
 paper communication, what they propose to do 
 to make thoughtless or selfish men move back in 
 the elevator, so the girls can get in without a 
 struggle. I have a friend, quite a traveler, who 
 makes it his business, if he sees a city derelict in 
 any particular, to write the leading newspaper of 
 that city about it. He believes that seed thus sown 
 will strike root. 
 
 There is a great field of civic usefulness in these 
 letters from the habitual or occasional reader; and 
 the People's Column should be expanded into a 
 page. 
 
 Those ill manners which, as we have seen in the 
 preceding chapter, rob polite people of their 
 rights, might, in a great measure, be corrected by 
 publicity. In the chapter referred to, the barbar- 
 ous manners in the average theatre were discussed. 
 Some of them are of such long standing as to seem 
 as a heritage from the past, and, like the principle 
 of monarchy in old China, everlasting. But the
 
 loo CITY LIFE, ITS AxMELIO RATION 
 
 world waked up one morning to find China a 
 full-fledged republic; and so it may happen that 
 theatre-goers will soon enter a theatre as suddenly 
 made the place of good manners, where all may 
 enjoy the play undisturbed. 
 
 The theatre management should take measures 
 to enforce decorum. Within recent years a few 
 timorous attempts have been made in many play- 
 houses. Babies have been barred from the house 
 and late arrivals forbidden to take their seats dur- 
 ing an act. But a much more drastic policy is 
 called for. Those unesthetic advertisements of 
 toilet powders and creams and chewing gum that 
 are to be seen on many a stage curtain should give 
 place to a big-lettered proclamation something like 
 this: 
 
 Rules of This Theatre. 
 
 Patrons must not annoy those around them. 
 
 They must keep their feet on the floor and keep 
 them still. 
 
 They must not indulge in conversation during 
 an act. 
 
 No one is allowed to occupy more than one seat, 
 nor use but one arm-rest. 
 
 Persons with the fumes of liquor on their 
 breaths or with foul-smelling pipes in their clothes 
 are not allowed in this house. 
 
 An infraction of these rules will receive ade- 
 quate attention on complaint of any patron. 
 
 By the publication and enforcement of some
 
 PUBLICITY : GOOD AND BAD loi 
 
 such rules as these, the play would be much more 
 enjoyable, and delinquents taught lessons that they 
 would be likely to carry into other places of public 
 assembly. 
 
 Railroad and street-car companies might also 
 adopt this form of publicity, much to the comfort 
 of the traveling public. To the lonely notice not 
 to spit on the floor they might well add several 
 others looking to the welfare of their patrons. 
 For example, the passenger on a railroad train 
 might be warned against occupying more than one 
 seat for any purpose. Such a notice might have 
 some effect on the fellow (we have all met him) 
 who has far more to do with the seat in front of 
 him than he has with his own, throwing his wraps 
 over the back of it, leaning his arms upon it, loll- 
 ing in the faces of its occupants and poking his 
 knees into the back of it. 
 
 Another posted rule, for all kinds of public con- 
 veyances, might forbid whistling. Is there any 
 criminal worse than the fellow who, having you 
 at his mercy for perhaps a three hours' ride, per- 
 sists in whistling, generally in that blood-curdling 
 tremolo, — and always something that nobody, 
 himself included, ever heard before! Why should 
 this nuisance be permitted to choose such a time 
 and place in which to compose his music? 
 
 This idea and practice of publicity might pro- 
 fitably be carried into many other situations where 
 the rights of the public are now being invaded.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Fellowship 
 
 URGING fellowship upon the people of 
 a city may seem like Indulging In the 
 proverbial "hollow mockery." What 
 with the dwarfing of the individual Into 
 Insignificance by sheer force of numbers, the Iron 
 relation, In factory and store, of master and ser- 
 vant, even If softened by name Into employer and 
 employee, the absorbing pursuit of wealth by the 
 former and the painful struggle for a decent living 
 by the latter, all resulting In a sordid, dollar and 
 dime, grind, the preachmg of fellowship would 
 seem at least a waste of time. Said Bishop Spald- 
 ing in a sermon some time ago: "Christian apolo- 
 gists from early days have claimed that Christian- 
 ity has destroyed caste, and phrases like 'the broth- 
 erhood of man' are used as If they were all true 
 and meant the same thing. In reality, there never 
 was a time when society was so divided into so 
 many unsympathetic and even antagonistic groups 
 — we have white and black, capitalist and laborer, 
 plutocrat and proletarian, mistress and maid and 
 many others which designate opposed interests." 
 Real fellowship, let us bear in mind, is comrade- 
 ship, and comradeship is not based upon consid- 
 
 I02
 
 FELLOWSHIP 103 
 
 eratlons of service or of success, but upon an un- 
 selfish interest in one another. 
 
 Much has been written of hitc upon civics aiul 
 sociology in their specific relation to the city. Most 
 of the books and articles treating of these subjects 
 are almost exclusively devoted to discussions of 
 street, park and playground systems, sanitation, 
 public service corporations, modern conveniences 
 and the like. These questions have a proper place 
 in any consideration of municipalities, and the im- 
 proxements demanded in respect to the matters 
 handled are certainly desirable; but a city may be 
 a veritable "spotless town" and provide all possi- 
 ble conveniences besides, and still be an undesir- 
 able place to live in, still be but a swept and gar- 
 nished pen, where greed and selfishness reign. As 
 for city conveniences, they are not unalloyed bless- 
 ings; for instance, the street car and automobile 
 have caused many a business man to give up walk- 
 ing, much to the impairment of his health. 
 
 Where the real life of the people has been writ- 
 ten about, it has frequently been misleading by rea- 
 son of its glowing optimism. Were one to take 
 the word of some of the social settlement litera- 
 ture — much of it written or inspired by paid 
 agents of the various welfare associations — one 
 would almost conclude that every house in the city 
 is visited and every inmate looked after; that there 
 is, in conse(]uence, no need unsatisfied, no grief un- 
 assuaged, that, in short, in the language of the poet- 
 philosopher seated in his easy chair "All's right
 
 104 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 with the world." Occasionally, though, we un- 
 expectedly hear discordant notes in the battle for 
 human welfare, as, for instance, when, following 
 the optimistic sermon of the preacher, with its as- 
 surance that Christianity is sweeping on to victory, 
 we listen to the heart-rending appeal of the mission 
 worker from the same pulpit, that we bestir our- 
 selves to save a lost world. Verily, much depends 
 upon the point of view. 
 
 We all remember the controversy that was 
 waged some years ago over the question whether 
 we are a Christian nation. The newspapers and 
 the religious publications gave considerable space, 
 for a time, to this discussion. It is well that the 
 question was raised and that it should be raised 
 from time to time. The introspection it compels 
 is good for us. We thus take stock of ourselves 
 and ascertain (if we are fair) how our practices 
 accord with our professions. The comparison 
 should be of perennial interest. 
 
 Leaving out of consideration the question 
 whether the world is growing worse (Billy Sun- 
 day says it is and Ferrero says it is not), what is 
 the situation in our land today with reference to 
 applied Christianity? Nominally there are, ac- 
 cording to the World's Almanac, 75,000,000 
 Christians out of a population of nearly 100,000,- 
 000. But how many real Christians are there? 
 How many that not only fully believe the doctrines 
 of Christianity but habitually practice the precepts 
 of Christ? How many live as though they real-
 
 FELLOWSHIP 165 
 
 ized that "Faith without works is dead?" Not 
 to apply the extreme test of turning the other 
 cheek, or of giving the cloak also, it may be per- 
 tinently asked how many of these 75,000,000 
 make their neighbors feel that they love them as 
 they love themselves? How many habitually give — 
 not merely to the Salvation Army kettle at Christ- 
 mas time — to them that ask? How many love 
 their enemies, or do good to those that hate them? 
 Again, how many take no thought of what they 
 shall eat or what they shall wear? Finally, how 
 many make us feel that they are trying to lay up 
 treasure in heaven instead of on earth? Precious 
 few. i 
 
 Froude said: "Show me a people where trade 
 is dishonest and I will show you a people where 
 religion is a sham." It Is well known that in our 
 country during the last ten years the departments 
 of justice in city, state and nation have been busy 
 with cases involving the sale of fictitious mining 
 stocks, the adulteration of foods and the use of 
 short weights and measures. And a Boston paper, 
 anent the soaring prices of food-stuffs in the face 
 of record-breaking crops at home and practically 
 no market abroad, felt called upon recently to 
 urge, among many don'ts, the following: 
 
 "Don't be afraid of the shop-keeper. Don't 
 let him weigh the paper, twine, tray or any other 
 container and charge you for It. It is against the 
 law. Don't let the butcher rest his finger on the 
 projecting bone and don't let him press his body
 
 io6 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 against the scale. Don't forget to weigh every- 
 thing at home. Don't send children to the stores 
 if you can help it." 
 
 A great railroad system, mindful of the white- 
 slave traffic, so-called, recently caused a placard to 
 be posted in many of its stations warning girls 
 traveling alone against speaking to strangers, or 
 going to an address given to them by a stranger; 
 going to the assistance of a woman who apparent- 
 ly faints on the street; accepting candy, food or a 
 glass of water, or smelling flowers offered to them 
 by a stranger. In the light of these things, of the 
 state of society with respect to honesty and moral- 
 ity that they imply, is it not idle, at least, to call 
 ourselves a Christian nation? 
 
 The chief trouble with the Christianity of today 
 is that while one part of its devotees are serving 
 mammon, the other part are so religious, so ab- 
 sorbed with matters of doctrine, and apparently 
 so fearful of contamination, that they do very 
 little practical good in the world, and so are only 
 negatively good themselves. It was the former 
 kind of Christians, it seems to me, that Professor 
 Ely had in mind when, in his straight-from-the- 
 shoulder little book. Social Aspects of Christian- 
 ity, he said: 
 
 "Nothing is more difficult, nothing more re- 
 quires divine grace, than the constant manifesta- 
 tion of love to our fellows in all our daily acts, 
 in our buying, selling, getting gain. People still 
 want to substitute all sorts of beliefs and obser-
 
 FELLOWSHIP 107 
 
 vances in place of this, for it implies a totally 
 different purpose from that which animates this 
 world. It is when men attempt to regulate their 
 lives seven days in the week by the Golden Rule 
 that they begin to perceive that they can not serve 
 God and mammon; for the ruling motive of the 
 one service — egotism, selfishness, — is the opposite 
 of the ruling motive of the other — altruism, de- 
 votion to others, consecration of heart, soul and 
 intellect to the service of others." And again: 
 "When one visits the leading churches of New 
 York and Boston, when one forms acquaintance- 
 ship with their members, with the very best will, 
 it is simply impossible to believe that they are try- 
 ing to place the needs of others on a par with their 
 own needs. Self comes first, and there is little 
 apparent effort to obey, in their expenditures of 
 money, the precept that love for others should 
 hold equal place with love for self. The more 
 seriously one reflects upon this, the longer one 
 turns it over in one's mind, the more shocking ap- 
 pears the divergence between profession and prac- 
 tice. The average Christian is of the world, and 
 is governed by its motives in his expenditures. To 
 get on in life, to enjoy the pleasures of wealth, to 
 be spoken well of by those high in the ranks of 
 fashion — all this is the dominating motive." 
 
 It seems, likewise, that the same writer had in 
 mind the latter kind of Christians, the theological 
 kind, when in the same book he said: "I believe 
 it a common impression that Christianity is con-
 
 io8 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 cerned primarily with a future state of existence." 
 And again : "We go to the Bible with the notion 
 that we are to learn about heaven rather than 
 about earth, and so we make things apply to a 
 future existence which were intended for this 
 world," Finally, to all professing Christians the 
 Professor applies the "acid test" when he puts the 
 searching question: "Did it ever occur to you that 
 a man who claimed to be a Christian, and was not 
 at the same time a philanthropist, was a hypocrite 
 and a liar? Yet, if Christ speaks true, this is un- 
 doubted. Select one of the gospels, and read 
 therein the words of Christ, and you will see how 
 Christ comes back again and again to our social 
 duties." Professor Ely might well have presented 
 the correlative side of the case in a proposition 
 something like this, namely: If the 75,000,000 
 professing Christians of our country were real 
 Christians, there would be no involuntary idleness, 
 and there would not be a hungry woman or child 
 in the land. Nay, even more : Such good influ- 
 ences would be thrown around the erring ones as 
 soon in truth to make this a Christian land — if not 
 in faith, at least in works. 
 
 No institution is broad enough to compass the 
 kind of fellowship needed in the big city. The 
 church is not adequate; for, even if it were more 
 sincere, more democratic and more zealous in its 
 ministrations than it is today, the age-long ques- 
 tion of creed would still block the way. The com- 
 municant must subscribe to a creed, or else he is
 
 FELLOWSHIP 109 
 
 a hypocrite; and hypocrites are not desirable com- 
 panions. That a man is moral and kind and char- 
 itable does not count in the orthodox church, if 
 be be known to disbelieve the cardinal doctrines 
 of that body, be they ever so absurd, as deter- 
 mined by the same reasoning that every intelligent 
 person apph'es to other problems. That this is 
 true, is abundantly proved in the not infrequent 
 heresy trials. It is as rare a sight to see a Chris- 
 tion working hand in hand with an unbeliever in a 
 charitable cause as it is to see a Protestant and a 
 Catholic so engaged. 
 
 Creeds have undergone changes, it is true, and 
 they will continue to undergo changes, for "the 
 thoughts of men widen with the process of the 
 suns." Judged by beliefs considered by the Pil- 
 grim Fathers essential to salvation, whole congre- 
 gations of professing Christians of today would 
 be lost. And who doubts the fate of Christians a 
 hundred years hence, if they are to be weighed 
 by the orthodox balances of the present day? 
 What with the industry of the higher critics, the 
 unearthing of illuminating tablets in old Egypt, 
 Babylonia and Assyria, and the rise of non-theo- 
 logical cults, like the New Thought, that satisfy 
 both spiritual and temporal needs, the outlook for 
 stability in theology is not promising. This is not 
 denying the vital value of the principles enunciated 
 in the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 especially the Golden Rule. Many equally exalted 
 moral precepts are to be found, as scholars well
 
 I lo CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 know, in the teachings of Krishna, of Zoroaster, 
 of Lao-tsze, of Confucius, of Buddha, and even 
 in the Confession of the soul before the tribunal 
 of Osiris, the god of ancient Egypt. Beside the 
 observance and practice of such principles, insur- 
 ing right conduct and noble character, all merely 
 theological doctrine is at best but a fifth wheel 
 to the wagon of salvation. I do not underrate the 
 importance of an abiding faith in a kind but just 
 God, whose laws automatically and inexorably 
 reward virtue and punish vice. Fortunate, indeed, 
 is the person who possesses this faith, and lives 
 accordingly, for he is wise. As long, however, as 
 acceptance of any creed is made necessary to 
 church membership, the church cannot extend the 
 hand of fellowship to all men. An honest and 
 independent thinker can have no place in an or- 
 thodox church body. 
 
 Again, worldly success, either in terms of fame 
 or of fortune, cannot be a bond of helpful fellow- 
 ship; rather is it the reverse, for it is precisely 
 along this line that there is the greatest cleavage, 
 that there is the most marked separation of classes 
 in society today. The successful are praised, 
 courted, honored and endowed with virtues they 
 never possessed, as to kings in ancient times was 
 accorded the dignity of descent from the gods; 
 the unsuccessful are denied the possession of any 
 exalted traits, contemptuously treated or entirely 
 ignored. And yet to the enlightened, how absurd 
 are these distinctions ! How many successful men
 
 FELLOWSHIP III 
 
 are themselves the principal factors in achieving 
 their success? And how many are worthy of it? 
 Not all, surely. The ways of success are mysteri- 
 ous. An analysis of the careers of successful men, 
 where the real facts are known, will show how 
 little many of those men had to do with their own 
 success, or at least how little of work they did to 
 win it. Such an analysis will confirm us in the 
 belief that "some are born great" and "some have 
 greatness thrust upon 'em." Circumstances have 
 much to do in deciding whether one's life is to be 
 successful or unsuccessful. This truth was partly 
 expressed by the immortal bard who says, again: 
 
 "There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 Is bound in shallows and miseries." 
 
 Occasionally we see a man so obsessed with the 
 notion that he alone is responsible for his success, 
 that he openly claims credit for creating his op- 
 portunities. The only hope for such a man, ex- 
 cept in a hard fall from his pedestal — and some 
 have so fallen — is that he may happen to see in 
 the dictionary the definition of the word oppor- 
 tunity. Opportunities come; they are not made. 
 Observing persons have all wondered at the phe- 
 nomenal success of some men — men that "toil not, 
 neither do they spin," yet gather the shekels in. 
 And right here the observations of the brilliant 
 and versatile Arnold Bennett, who, by the way, 
 has the good sense to write thin instead of thick
 
 112 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 books, are apropos: "Most writers on success are, 
 through sheer goodness of heart, wickedly dis- 
 ingenuous. For the basis of their argument is 
 that nearly anyone who gives his mind to it can 
 achieve success. . . . Having boldly stated 
 that success is not, and can not be, within the grasp 
 of the many, I now proceed to state, as regards 
 the minority, that they do not achieve it in the 
 manner in which they are commonly supposed to 
 achieve it. . . . 
 
 "No one is a worse guide to success than your 
 typical successful man. He seldom understands 
 the reasons of his own success; and when he is 
 asked by a popular magazine to give his exper- 
 iences for the benefit of the youth of a whole na- 
 tion, it is impossible for him to be neutral and 
 sincere. He knows the kind of thing that is ex- 
 pected from him, and if he didn't come to London 
 with half a crown in his pocket he probably did 
 something equally silly, and he puts that down, 
 and the note of the article or interview is struck, 
 and good-bye to truth I . . . Are success- 
 ful men more industrious, frugal and intelligent 
 than men who are not successful? I maintain that 
 they are not, and I have studied successful men at 
 close quarters. One of the commonest character- 
 istics of the successful man is his idleness, his im- 
 mense capacity for wasting time. I stoutly assert 
 that as a rule successful men are by habit compara- 
 tively idle. As for frugality, it is practically un- 
 known among the successful classes: This state-
 
 FELLOWSHIP 113 
 
 ment applies with particular force to financiers. 
 As for intelligence, I have over and over again 
 been startled by the lack of intelligence in success- 
 ful men. They are, indeed, capable of stupidities 
 that would be the ruin of a plain clerk. Another 
 point : Successful men seldom succeed as a result 
 of an ordered arrangement of their lives; they arc 
 the least methodical of creatures. Naturally when 
 they have 'arrived' they amuse themselves and 
 impress the majority by being convinced that right 
 from the start, with a steady eye on the goal, they 
 had carefully planned every foot of the route," 
 
 With Mr. Bennett's Insight, no observing per- 
 son will find fault, for its correctness is confirmed 
 in real life all about us. In the pursuit of wealth, 
 it is probably true that a hundred work hard and 
 fail, to one who succeeds by hard work. And in 
 the various positions of employment the hardest 
 workers are almost uniformly the poorest paid — 
 from the baggage-man or the clerk in a busy store 
 up to the secretary of a railroad president or an 
 Assistant Postmaster General. As for correct per- 
 ception being a requisite for success, we have the 
 exclamation of Carlyle : **Fie on your man of 
 logic; he never succeeds 1" No, success is more 
 likely to be with the blunderbuss who vehemently 
 contends that two and two make five. The phi- 
 losophy of this fact is well expressed in the dic- 
 tum: *'It is not ideas that move and transform the 
 world, but passions; and a passion, even if it be 
 absurd, is a thousand times more powerful than a
 
 1 14 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 wise idea." 
 
 There is a kind of success, too, sometimes a bril- 
 liant success, that comes of appropriating the un- 
 acknowledged help or ideas of others. Many an 
 empty-headed lord has got through life very pas- 
 sably, thanks to the brains of his valet. Many a 
 lazy or absentee Congressman has got credit for 
 efficiency, through the industry of his private sec- 
 retary. Sometimes a man still higher in office re- 
 ceives the plaudits of the people by appropriating 
 the bright idea of some minor Department Chief, 
 as witness the movement for the conservation of 
 the nation's resources. Again, it is related that 
 the day after President Cleveland ordered the re- 
 turn of the Confederate flags, an old Union sol- 
 dier, then a guard in a certain State Capitol, was 
 reading of this order in the morning paper. The 
 Governor, happening to pass by, the old guard 
 read the order to him, remarking with some 
 warmth that if he were Governor of that State 
 he would telegraph the President that he would 
 see him in purgatory before he would return the 
 flags. The Governor seized the idea, sent the 
 President some such message as the old guard 
 had formulated and got much glory out of it. 
 Even so great a thing as our fundamental law, 
 the Constitution of the United States, it now 
 appears, has been credited to the wrong men. 
 The pamphlet of a comparatively unknown, 
 though educated and thoughtful citizen of 
 Connecticut, Peletiah Webster, published in
 
 FELLOWSHIP 115 
 
 1783, four years before the Constitutional Con- 
 vention assembled, contained the scheme of that 
 great instrument. Hamilton, Madison, Wilson 
 and others of the convention used this pamphlet 
 without so much as a thank you; and history has 
 given them the glory — another illustration that, as 
 Napoleon said: "History is fable agreed upon." 
 It is well that Congress has taken notice of Web- 
 ster in the form of a bill to erect a memorial to 
 the real author of the Constitution. My readers 
 can doubtless recall instances within their own ob- 
 servation where credit went to the wrong per- 
 son. As Lessing truly says : "Some people obtain 
 fame, and others deserve it." 
 
 Where worldly success is really won by the 
 man himself, as we say, it is often through the 
 most reprehensible methods, ranging from nig- 
 gardly parsimony to downright dishonesty. In 
 either case there is nothing to admire about it. 
 Two residents of a certain city were one day rid- 
 ing down town in a street car, and as they passed 
 by a spacious tract of land with an old brick house 
 in the center, one remarked to the other: "I ad- 
 mire the old fellow that lives in that house." 
 "Why so?" asked the other. "Well, he came to 
 this city a poor young man, and by working hard 
 and saving his money he is now worth a million 
 dollars. He gets down to his dry- goods store 
 in the morning before his clerks do and he stays 
 until they are gone. He tends right to his busi- 
 ness." As he finished this encomium, his com-
 
 1 16 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 panion asked: "Is that all?" "Why, isn't that 
 enough?" was the reply. "Not for me," came the 
 rejoinder. "You have simply described a human 
 hog, a being that lives only for self. Before I can 
 join in your admiration of the man you must show 
 me what he has done for his fellow-man other 
 than perhaps being a convenience as a dealer in 
 dry-goods." In the ranksof the "self-made" there 
 are far too many like this dry-goods merchant. 
 
 Of fame, it may be said with that writer of 
 sensible things. Dr. Frank Crane, that it is "a 
 gambling affair." "There are no known laws for 
 becoming noted," says Dr. Crane, "if your card 
 turns up you win; if the little ball stops on your 
 number you arc it! That's all." He then cites 
 the case of the hard-working lawyer, William A. 
 Butler, who, though a worthy person, never won 
 fame in his profession, but who in a leisure mo- 
 ment wrote "Nothing to Wear," which he sold to 
 Harper's Weekly for $50. The poem caught the 
 fancy of the public, and we all know the rest; the 
 writer of "a few pages of society verse," became 
 famous. Take the case of the English author 
 whose book had no better success than Thoreau's 
 "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers." 
 Now it happened that Gladstone had his portrait 
 painted with a copy of the volume in his hand. 
 That was enough; the book soon found its way 
 into the hands of everybody. "To feed a child's 
 mind upon the motive of being famous some day 
 is immoral," again says Dr. Crane. "He certain-
 
 FELLOWSHIP 117 
 
 ly can be useful, great and strong some day, if he 
 will, ( ?) but guessing which of the three shells 
 the pea is under is hardly a worthy life's busi- 
 ness." Says Schopenhauer: "He who deserves 
 fame without getting it, possesses by far the more 
 important element of happiness, which should 
 console him for the loss of the other. It is not 
 that a man is thought to be great by the masses 
 of incompetent and often infatuated people, but 
 that he really is great which should move us to 
 envy his position; and his happiness lies, not in the 
 fact that posterity will hear of him, but that he 
 is the creator of thoughts worthy to be treasured 
 up and studied for hundreds of years." 
 
 Since both fame and fortune are so often un- 
 earned, or go to the unworthy; since the only thing 
 that can be truly said of successful or famous men 
 is that they are fortunate, how little should success 
 be considered in estimating men 1 That it should be 
 made a fetish, as it is today, is idolatry; that it 
 should be a barrier, as it also is, between men, is 
 snobbery. 
 
 The fellowship that is needed in the city today 
 is as broad as citizenship, and as deep as kind 
 hearts can feel. How false are tests of creeds and 
 of worldly success as solvents of social problems 
 when put beside the touchstone of universal kind- 
 ness I 
 
 "So many books, so many creeds, 
 So many paths that wind and wind — 
 When all this old world rcallv .lecds 
 Is iust the art of being kind. "
 
 1 18 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 As was shown in an earlier chapter, charitable 
 and philanthropic organizations have been increas- 
 ing rapidly in our cities during the last few years. 
 While some of these societies are voluntary, being 
 formed by men and women with a practical love 
 for mankind in their hearts, most of them are in- 
 stitutions established by the city; and they are the 
 subject of municipal budgets, the same as are the 
 various departments of government. Some per- 
 sons believe that all philanthropic and charitable 
 work should be the "job of the city;" and many 
 an unreasoning diatribe against large philanthro- 
 pies by the rich have we seen in the editorial 
 columns of radical newspapers. "Why leave to 
 the kindly impulses of the conscience-stricken rich 
 the task of caring for sick babies, over-worked 
 mothers, soul-hungry folk of every age marooned 
 by poverty in the crowded cities?" exclaims one 
 organ. With the cry of justice, not charity, these 
 people would discourage the kindness of heart 
 which prompts the fortunate (not necessarily the 
 conscience-stricken) to relieve the distress of the 
 unfortunate, while at the same time they would 
 make the poor ever more dependent upon charity 
 as a settled policy of municipal government. Thus 
 would the city become ever more attractive to the 
 poor than would the country, the source of food 
 supplies — the very thing that, as the philosophical 
 historian, Ferrero, points out, was one of the chief 
 causes of the ruin of ancient Rome. 
 
 No one worth listening to advocates the sub-
 
 FELLOWSHIP 119 
 
 stitution of charity for justice. Some day, per- 
 liaps, we will carry the idea of brotherhood so 
 lar as to conceive society as being only a big fam- 
 ily, and, as at no family table would one member 
 be allowed to gather all the lood around his plate, 
 so neither will any member of society, especially 
 in a democracy, be allowed to own and control an 
 excessively large fortune. As an equalizing meas- 
 ure this limitation of wealth would have a decided 
 advantage over the income tax, which the rich can 
 indirectly collect from the poor. We will then 
 go Mr. Carnegie one better and declare that in- 
 stead of it being a disgrace for a man to die rich, 
 it will be a disgrace for a nation to permit a man 
 to possess millions of dollars while millions of 
 men go hungry. But this is a far look into the 
 future; and besides, the most perfect dispensation 
 of justice will not insure against misfortune, and 
 so there will always be a Held for individual help- 
 fulness. We are living in the present, and Heaven 
 knows "the harvest truly is plenteous;" let not the 
 laborers be few. In a recent article on poverty in 
 the United States, Professor Todd, of the Uni- 
 versity of Illinois said : "It may shock our national 
 vanity, but it is true, nevertheless, that from 10 to 
 20 per cent, of our fellow Americans are in real 
 distress; that 20 to 30 per cent, are living con- 
 stantly below a physical efficiency minimum, and 
 that even a higher percentage do not receive an 
 income sufficient to maintain either economic or 
 social efficiency."
 
 120 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 So far from public Institutions being all-suffic- 
 ient as an uplifting force in society, they are fre- 
 quently a stumbling-block, in the way of the un- 
 fortunate, and a hardener of the hearts of the 
 well-to-do. It may be laid down as a rule, I think, 
 that In the field of philanthropy public institutions 
 are, to the extent of their establishment, destruc- 
 tive of individual effort In the same field. Too 
 much reliance is placed by the citizen upon the wel- 
 fare departments of the city. Many a man has 
 found an excuse for withholding aid and comfort 
 from the distressed in the thought: "Oh, well, the 
 city has a place for the down and out. Let them 
 apply to the Board of Charities. What do I 
 pay taxes for, anyway?" 
 
 In these days there are not wanting writers, 
 who, saturated with academic notions about "scien- 
 tific philanthropy," decry all giving by the individ- 
 ual to the needy, thus overruling Christ himself, 
 who said: "Give to him that asketh thee." "Indis- 
 criminate," "wasteful," and "demoralizing" char- 
 ity are favorite words with these writers. But 
 are the charitable institutions of State and city 
 always wisely managed? Not if former Governor 
 Foss spoke truly. In a message to the Legislature 
 he said: "Public money is being poured out with- 
 out any businesslike and adequate safeguard;" and 
 he mentioned many charitable institutions where 
 there is no adequate accounting. It Is said on 
 good authority that It costs the average city three 
 dollars to give away five. As I write these lines,
 
 FELLOWSHIP 121 
 
 my morning paper notes a resolution introduced 
 in the City Council of Boston in its session yes- 
 terday, asking for an investigation of a charitable 
 organization of which the mover said: "Their 
 own reports show that it cost $48,000 to give 
 away about half that sum." So much for red 
 tape, and high salaried officers, even if not some- 
 thing worse. 
 
 Again, the optimistic and often highly colored 
 newspaper accounts of the charitableness of a city 
 cause kindly disposed persons to take too much 
 for granted, and think that enough good things 
 are already provided. About the time one news- 
 paper in a certain city was going into ecstasies 
 over a "Community Christmas" — a lean tree in 
 the public square, covered with tinsel and filled 
 with gewgaws and surrounded by a curious crowd 
 from the downtown district — another paper was 
 testing out the fellowship spirit in a different way. 
 It sent out a reporter, disguised in threadbare 
 clothes, to see just how much of the "milk of hu- 
 man kindness" there was in that city. In a whole 
 afternoon on the streets the reporter found but 
 two persons out of twenty-five who were willing 
 to help him. The sum total of the relief was thirty- 
 five cents; and the donor of the quarter fumbled 
 through all his pockets in search of a dime in- 
 stead. This tells the whole story, and always will. 
 The person that is unwilling to stop and listen to 
 one in distress (but not drunk) and help him if 
 possible, has little of the charity- teachings of
 
 122 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 Christ in him; and in a city made up of such peo- 
 ple a "Community Christmas',' with all its allitera- 
 tive larrup, is but sounding brass and tinkling cym- 
 bal . Charity only on Christmas day is off the 
 same piece as piety only on the Sabbath day. 
 
 Within recent years many voluntary organiza- 
 tions have been formed in various parts of the 
 country to aid the poor or friendless. Such is, 
 among others, the Big Brother lodge of the Elks, 
 by which each member constitutes himself a broth- 
 er to one or more boys in need of a friend; and 
 the resulting friendship finds expression in mater- 
 ial aid and moral influence. Within one year af- 
 ter it was organized, this beneficent department 
 of the B. P. O. E. had established nine hundred 
 lodges, and assisted five thousand boys. What a 
 power for practical good this society may become ! 
 
 The Gideons, now numbering fifteen thousand 
 out of more than half a million traveling men, 
 though not as young an organization, may be 
 mentioned as another force for good among the 
 lonely men and women of a big city. It is this 
 organization that puts the Bible in every guest 
 room in the hotels of our country and does other 
 good deeds. Many are the men — and women too 
 — whom the Gideons claim to have saved from 
 lives of shame or from suicide. 
 
 Of purely local societies that are organized to 
 extend the hand of fellowship to the stranger and 
 to the derelict, nearly every large city can now 
 boast one or more. May they greatly multiply!
 
 FELLOWSHIP 123 
 
 But, after all, the individual must be the unit 
 of true fellowship. Just as the threads must be 
 new and strong to insure strength in the fabric, 
 just as the ingredients must be pure to insure a 
 wholesome dish, so must the individual be friendly 
 to insure the fellowship that is sadly needed in so- 
 ciety today; for in society, as in nature, a stream 
 will rise no higher than its source. 
 
 All about us, in the big city, are men and women 
 hungering for fellowship as the destitute hunger 
 for bread; and it is the duty of every good citizen 
 who is fairly fortunate in having friends to chum 
 a little with those in need of friends. Several 
 years ago a president of the United States became 
 convinced that the farmer was lonely, so he ap- 
 pointed a commission to provide ways and means 
 of amusing him. Of course, the farmer and his 
 wife, with their grange meetings, their sewing cir- 
 cles and other bees, their picnics and their revival 
 meetings, laughed at this, just as the wage-earner 
 in the city laughed at the same official's innocent 
 counsel to have a large family. This socializing 
 commission had hardly got to work when it was 
 realized that it was the people of the crowded 
 city, paradoxical as it would seem, instead of the 
 farmers, that were lonely. Accordingly, since the 
 city of Rochester, a few years ago, threw open the 
 doors of its public schools to the people of the 
 various neighborhoods for night meetings, school 
 houses in many cities have become social centers 
 where next door neighbors may become ac-
 
 124 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 quainted ! 
 
 We hear much of Christian brotherhood. But 
 we see very little of any kind of brotherhood in 
 the city today. Why, men never even speak unless 
 they are acquainted, but pass one another like the 
 beasts of the jungle, silent and intent on their prey. 
 A strange sort of brotherhood, this. A few kind 
 words every day, a disposition to be friendly, — 
 how many a poor soul might have risen instead of 
 fallen had he received this little attention! 
 
 In a certain town in the West lived a mechanic 
 who was at the same time a musician of consider- 
 able talent, but this man had a very common weak- 
 ness ; he would drink. The habit finally threatened 
 to work his utter ruin. He lost job after job until, 
 although in the prime of life, he gave up looking 
 for work and became a street loafer. Every re- 
 spectable person shunned him. No, not everyone. 
 One man there was, a blunt though kind-hearted 
 manufacturer, who had known the derelict in his 
 better days. Now this good man did not avoid 
 the unfortunate, nor did he go to him with a sanc- 
 timonious air and remonstrate with him. But he 
 went up to him and, in the same offhand manner 
 he had with everyone, extended his hand and said; 
 "John, I need a skilled man in the die-room and I 
 want you to come to work tomorrow morning? 
 Will you come?" John went to work, and he has 
 often told, during the many years of a sober and 
 industrious life he has since lived, how it was his 
 boss's manner on that eventful day that reformed
 
 FELLOWSHIP 125 
 
 him. There was no condescension and no con- 
 tempt, but the manifestation of confidence that 
 restored the man's self-respect and nerved him for 
 a better life. 
 
 We have not all jobs to offer the unfortunate, 
 nor, it may sometimes happen, money to bestow, 
 but we all do have something of ourselves to give; 
 and in many cases that is the thing most needed. 
 Of such a gift, as of mercy, it may be said: "It 
 blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 
 Among the advantages that accrue to him that 
 thus gives himself to others, did you ever fully 
 appreciate, my readers, the enlarged and clarified 
 knowledge of human nature? This kind of knowl- 
 edge is perhaps the most important of all, and 
 well has the poet said: "The proper study of man- 
 kind is man." We often hear people speak of 
 learning human nature from Shakespeare or 
 Schopenhauer; but you can no more learn human 
 nature from books than you can learn to harness 
 a horse from them. Contact with men is as es- 
 sential in the one case as contact with a horse is 
 In the other. In the characters in books we simply 
 recognize traits which we have already found in 
 men and women by personal and intimate acquaint- 
 ance with them; that is all. What knowledge of 
 human nature would one have who should shut 
 himself up in his library and disdain to mingle 
 with men? It would be very much like that Eng- 
 lish scholar's knowledge of French which he had 
 gained from books only. When he went to Paris
 
 126 CITY LIFE, ITS AMELIORATION 
 
 and undertook to use his French he found that no- 
 body understood him. 
 
 Another thing we learn by this gift of ourselves 
 in fellowship with men, be they ever so lowly, is, 
 that there are diamonds in the rough which need 
 only to be polished by friendly contact to shine 
 with luster. In the city, more than anywhere else, 
 superior worth may lie latent and buried for want 
 of an opportune circumstance to evoke it. 
 
 "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 We often read in the daily press of the man 
 who has won a Carnegie medal for some heroic 
 act. His name, it may be, is on every tongue. 
 And, quick to turn his fame into fortune — no mere 
 sprig of laurel goes in these money-mad days — 
 he closes a contract with a vaudeville manager. 
 On the day before the heroic act, the hero was a 
 mere nobody, so far as reputation went. And yet, 
 all the while, he had in his make-up the qualities 
 of a hero; it needed only the occasion to call them 
 into action. Among the men that pass us every 
 day on the street are many such. Opportunity — 
 a runaway, the cry of "a man overboard," or a 
 frantic woman at the window of a burning build- 
 ing — is the only thing necessary to convert these 
 prosaic men into lauded heroes. 
 
 And there are heroes whose heroism never gets 
 into the limelight. Such are the fathers and moth- 
 ers who, on a small income, for which they drudge
 
 FELLOWSHIP 127 
 
 unceasingly, and at a sacrifice of themselves, not 
 only manage to keep the wolf from the door, but 
 rear children into educated and upright men and 
 women. Such, again, are the little newsboys who, 
 no matter what the weather may be, are out on 
 the dirty and noisy streets all day and often far 
 into the night. that their accumulated pennies may 
 help support the home, in which perhaps there is 
 a drunken or invalid father. And such, lastly, are 
 those shop girls who, perchance alone in the world, 
 on a sum smaller than a club man spends for 
 cigars, manage to keep body and soul together and 
 in the state of purity that God meant for them. 
 
 1 hese are the souls with whom we may possibly 
 have fellowship, if we will but take the pains to 
 look around us. And they are immeasurably 
 more worthy than are many whose favor we court 
 — more worthy on their own account and on ours 
 as well. 
 
 It is not possible to know people as well in the 
 big city as in the small town, and for reasons al- 
 ready set forth in this book, but by such an ac- 
 quaintance with them as is possible, we may at 
 least ameliorate their condition and our own. Then 
 let us have more of good cheer, more of kindly 
 interest and more of praise for efforts well meant, 
 to the end that life in the sordid city may not be 
 as soulless as it is today.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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