The Children of the Poor

The problem of the children is the problem of the State. As we mould the children of the toiling masses in our cities, so we shape the destiny of the State which they will rule in their turn, taking the reins from our hands. In proportion as we neglect or pass them by, the blame for bad government to come rests upon us. The cities long since held the balance of power; their dominion will be absolute soon unless the near future finds some way of scattering the population which the era of steam-power and industrial development has crowded together in the great centres of that energy. At the beginning of the century the urban population of the United States was 3.97 per cent. of the whole, or not quite one in twenty-five. To-day it is 29.12 per cent., or nearly one in three. In the lifetime of those who were babies in arms when the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter it has all but doubled. A million and a quarter live to-day in the tenements of the American metropolis. Clearly, there is reason for the sharp attention given at last to the life and the doings of the other half, too long unconsidered. Philanthropy we call it sometimes with patronizing airs. Better call it self-defence.

He stood over the gutter the day I met him, reaching for a handful of mud with which to “paste” another hoodlum who was shouting defiance from across the street. He did not see me, and when my hand touched his shoulder his whole little body shrank with a convulsive shudder, as from an expected blow. Quick as a flash he dodged, and turning, out of reach, confronted the unknown enemy, gripping tight his handful of mud. I had a bunch of white pinks which a young lady had given me half an hour before for one of my little friends. “They are yours,” I said, and held them out to him, “take them.”

Doubt, delight, and utter bewilderment struggled in the boy’s face. He said not one word, but when he had brought his mind to believe that it really was so, clutched the flowers with one eager, grimy fist, held them close against his bare breast, and, shielding them with the other, ran as fast as his legs could carry him down the street. Not far; fifty feet away he stopped short, looked back, hesitated a moment, then turned on his track as fast as he had come. He brought up directly in front of me, a picture a painter would have loved, ragamuffin that he was, with the flowers held so tightly against his brown skin, scraped out with one foot and made one of the funniest little bows.

One girl, who could not have been twelve years old, was hard at work at a sewing-machine in a Division Street shirt factory when we came in. She got up and ran the moment she saw us, but we caught her in the next room hiding behind a pile of shirts. She said at once that she was fourteen years old but didn’t work there. She “just came in.” The boss of the shop was lost in astonishment at seeing her when we brought her back. He could not account at all for her presence. There were three boys at work in the room who said “sixteen” without waiting to be asked. Not one of them was fourteen. The habit of saying fourteen or sixteen—the fashion varies with the shops and with the degree of the child’s educational acquirements—soon becomes an unconscious one with the boy. He plumps it out without knowing it. While occupied with these investigations I once had my boots blacked by a little shaver, hardly knee-high, on a North River ferry-boat. While he was shining away, I suddenly asked him how old he was. “Fourteen, sir!” he replied promptly, without looking up.

On my way to the office the other day, I came upon three boys sitting on a beer-keg in the mouth of a narrow alley intent upon a game of cards. They were dirty and “tough.” The bare feet of the smallest lad were nearly black with dried mud. His hair bristled, unrestrained by cap or covering of any kind. They paid no attention to me when I stopped to look at them. It was an hour before noon.

“Why are you not in school?” I asked of the oldest rascal. He might have been thirteen.

“’Cause,” he retorted calmly, without taking his eye off his neighbor’s cards, “’cause I don’t believe in it. Go on, Jim!”

I caught the black-footed one by the collar. “And you,” I said, “why don’t you go to school? Don’t you know you have to?”

The boy thrust one of his bare feet out at me as an argument there was no refuting. “They don’t want me; I aint got no shoes.” And he took the trick.

The show was progressing famously, and the daughter was beaming with pride, when one of the boys suddenly beckoned to her, and pointing to the distinguished financier remarked:

“What der yer call dat bloke?”

“Whom do you mean?” asked the proud daughter, in a tone of much surprise, being quite unaccustomed to hearing the distinguished financier described as a “bloke.”

“I mean dat bloke over dere, settin’ off dem picturs!” replied the boy.

“What do you desire to know about him?” inquired the proud daughter, with freezing dignity.

“I want ter know what yer call one of them fellers dat sets off picturs?” persisted the boy.

“That gentleman,” said the proud daughter, in her most impressive tone, “is my father.”

“Well!” said the boy, surveying her with supreme contempt, “don’t yer know yer own father’s trade?”