OCR Interpretation


The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917, January 14, 1914, NOON EDITION, Image 7

Image and text provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-01-14/ed-1/seq-7/

What is OCR?


Thumbnail for

"No, we're-not crowded. And we 1
wouldn't crowd. Why should we to
accommodate a lot of floaters from
out of town. We have 268 men here
now. We give them bread and cof
fee and a bowl of stew between 5
and 6. They come early."
It is evidently here that the men
who are sent out to work for the city,
one day's work to pay for three
nights' lodging and the chunk of
bread, th'e coffee, and the stew, get
the reward of their toil.
There is nothing optional about
this toil. Either the men must scab
on labor in this manner, or they are
sent to the Bridewell.
"Do you know?" asked Dr. Mur
ray, "some of these men refuse to
work? They actually refuse to
work."
"Perhaps they feel they haven't a
right to take work that belongs to
other men."
"Oh, no, it is always a fact that
the street cleaners are laid off in the
winter when the appropriation gives
out and are taken on again when a
new appropriation is made. The
budget will probably be taken up to
night and passed through this week."
"And when there is the new ap
propriation, will the regular force of
men be put back to work?"
Murray wasn't sure about thatl He
was impressed with the idea that
"men with families would be given
first chance."
"But if these men are still forced
q clean streets or go to the Bride
well," the reporter insisted, "will they
be paid at that time with three
night's lodging and the chuck you
give them here?"
Murray was confused. "Well, I
guess they will be paid" then he
stopped, then added with a bluster
"but if they get paid, they can't
sleep here."
The Dawes Hotel was filled .to its
capacity at 8 o'clock, and the capac
ity was increased yesterday to 500.
The Dawes is 'not run on charity.
Men pay 5 cents for a bed and 10
cents for one of the little rooms.
They also buy what they eat.
One of the men in charge there
stated they were not co-operating
with the municipal in the scheme of
having men work for the city for
three night's lodging and "chuck."
And he admitted that outside of the
first day the hotel opened there had
been very little call for the men to
work since.
That is the army of the unemploy
ed. They will fill at least three free
and partially free lodging houses;
they crowd the cheap pay houses, and
some of them were still tramping the
'street at 10 o'clock, while the chill
still cold penetrated through their
thin clothing.
Young men, middle aged, and old,
men with broad shoulders and men
with narrow, men with coughs that
warn of abused stomachs or tortur
ed lungs; men who hold their heads
high and men who lower theirs in
defeat the long, winding army is a
black blot on civilization, and every
hand that reaches out for a charity
roll and a tin cup of coffee is brand
ing the mark of shame on the system
that lets this thing exist.
But will the hands that reach for
the roll and coffee ever rebel and
knock the charity aside, while they
clutch at the throat of the system?
One wonders as the silent army
moves slowly on.
o o
SHAW, AGCASSIZ AND FORD
By N. D. Cochran.
Shaw, Aggassiz and Ford just
three men all millionaires. Shaw
and Aggassiz are principal owners of
stock in the Calumet & Hecla mines
in Michigan. They live in Brookline,
a fashionable and exclusive suburb of
Boston. They have enprmous in
comes from copper dividends. Their
families live in luxury on money
made from copper that miners dig
from the bowels of the earth, over a
mile below the surface.
And those miners didn't average

xml | txt