THE HELL OF POVERTY
THE HELL OF POVERTY Organized Charity Shows The Hideous Sores of Capitalism LIKE * m*n ™th a past our social order has a dual life. Outwardly it is polished and pleasing to the eye if we...
...The spirit of the Carpenter broods over the earth, humankind grows mellow with sentiment for the unfortunate, the money bags yield a fraction of their contents for relief, and into dens and hovels and basements and other haunts of the social abyss agents of charity carry their alms...
...The new books in every held that are of Interest to those who think are reviewed by competent men aad women...
...with the need of plodding...
...They will be a social charge of a civilized people, as much as the maintenance of public libraries and the distribution of the mail...
...Of matt, a big job like that does cut into your time...
...When a jam like this comes along, bow lucky you oldboys are to have comfortable murder on one another, 'there were a strong labor and Socialist parry in this town, * couldn't get away with it, could you...
...They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders...
...The address of Comrade Marchbank at the convention aroused a great deal of interest and enthusiasm...
...Vegetating in basements and garrets and shambling in the shadows of city streets are the wastrels, the human driftwood, the misfit unfortunates, who do not live and who never had a chance to Eve...
...Don't Keep The New Leader To Yourself rjpHR New Leader wlH soon fee Are yean oM and It U not oftea that we have talked direct to oar reader...
...Sam deWitt surveys the sorry scene of fcapitsttsm as it unfold* from week to week, using...
...But for these, the slave would be forced up to the wildest desperation...
...And how many others are there down there in the abyss who are not exhibited at all...
...In any event, get that subscription aad encourage the noble friends whose generosity far several years ha* made it aasafhhj for you to enjoy year paper...
...ito dun wits for his Jests, Its trundles as theme* for hi* muse, and always inspiring...
...Jicit ahns for her ate...
...The deficit* are made ap at annual dinners and by the contributions of a users— stairs (Ins aad sympathetic organisation* We rarely nave ashed the aid of ear leader* hat we take advantage of this headay season to urge yon to de wunwhing that wiB cost you nothing and that wffl herp your paper much...
...No continuous reward throughout the year as justice due to useful labor, but a charitable dole thrust down into the pit for withered hands to clutch and only a few hands at that...
...In this service it provide* a guide to worth-while reading aad helps It* readers to avoid what to THE COST TO YOU Survey the column* of your paper, survey aay issue you may wish, and we are certain that our readers win agree that The New Leader perform* a service which no ether paper provides to this country...
...That would he a sntendhl "boost.* Consider the offer on another page of Upton Sinclair** great novel, "Boston...
...There comes a middle-aged man with four little girls, a father unemployed for five months, furniture sold, all hungry, and the little ones having found beds on wooden planks...
...la this respect The New Leader to unique...
...Supplementing...
...It is the best that you have discovered and it is necessary, but it is not a substitute for the industrial equity and social justice that must replace it...
...As we get it, there were some 60,000 letters in those files...
...We want more reader...
...Of course, you're not *TO*d *bout mis...
...We would not prevent your descent into the pit to bring light, heat, clothing, food .and comfort to its inhabitants—even though it be for only a day, a week, or a few months...
...The New Leader to also read la every state of the Union, fe* Canada, Meztoe, aad by a few subscribers sa other parts of the world...
...INTRODUCING MR...
...This Is the holiday season and we want to use this column this week to tolk with yea about your paper...
...The New Lister...
...Aunt Mary can no longer wrest bread from a wash tub and "freedom" has left her stranded in the pit...
...Many "philanthropists" who so...
...The remaining days the sanctimonious and the well-fed, the keepers of the money bags, the polished apologists for the idle gentr* who live on the labor of others, the wasters, the speculators, the gamblers m human merchandise,—all stut the earth and chant the praises of die social order built upon such rotting human foundations...
...A Message from British Labor Next Tuesday Evening On Tuesday Bvaning, December Isth, SJ0 pjn^ a reception wU be given to Comrades James March bank and E. Edwards of the British Labor Fusty, and fraternal delegates to the recent convention of the American Federation of Labor held In New Orleans...
...The New York Evening Post has its "Old Couples' Fund" and other papers have their special batch of the wretched...
...And now to your work with your salvaging corps, your hands of mercy and love...
...Without that aid The New Leader would not be worth the energy, that to put Into It each week...
...It la their paper...
...Inwardly it is ugly, often fool, even revolting...
...Sores are salved, empty stomachs are filled, fires kindled, backs clothed and feet shod— for a time...
...Aren't there Republicans mixed up' flung...
...Seme veto the Socialist ticket bat are not active Soctahsto...
...So you isn't Bind if we bring this Rothstein matter up again, with I fcv more questions...
...If we are able to believe the Wfti Tammany and the police department of the City of York are as far apart as Commander Byrd and the **th Pole...
...And you didn't answer us, lease, as we remember, you were in South Bend, Ind., celadteae'tbe victories of the Notre Dame football team...
...We understand that the latest & far your persistent lateness is the fact that just as you at nuking out to fill some important engagement someone ok joa on the 'phone...
...A PEEP INTO THE ABYSS Turn to the four pages of last Sunday's Times and note the parade of social pariahs, a hundred selected from the pit where thousands fester beneath the richest city in the world...
...2* then you won't be bothered by the telephone...
...Some day the honest J**ni this town, the great majority who have to work for will get together...
...Each one is a "case* as you know and the whole pageant must be interpreted in terms of statistics and analyzed in accord*with that "rugged individualism" which the successor of Coolidge has told us is the basis of our glorious "civilization...
...hti according to our information these letters contained ref - acnees to all sorts and conditions and people and their colorial activities...
...Bet sometimes we just sit and wonder whether the Judge ^ttt tell a teeney-weeney whopper when he told us that Anyhow, what we would like to know is, why Nathan ¦¦dan should have first shot at all those letters and how ••J of them that mean anything are now extant...
...Not even the Coolidge "era of prosperity' more extensive" than the world has ever known has passed these unfortunates into that moderate degree of assured comfort which our ancestors of the caves had...
...There are the weekly contributions of McAltetar Coleman, loaded with wit and satire and showing...
...This skeleton closet of capitalism is exhibited swift upon the heels of the gaudy exhibit of "prosperity," and thus two worlds confront each other in stark antagonism...
...J ^ Very respectfully yours, J % THE EDITORS OF THE NEW LEADER...
...THE SOCIALIST IDEAL Frederick Douglass, a fugitive slave, wrote of these same holidays arranged for the black bondmen of another social order, an order blessed by their "betters" and protected by the Constitution...
...That offer to made a* a special tadncssatai to yea...
...Will some one please toss her a few alms...
...Some are mugresstie mam hers of muons or ether orgs nl ¦¦flues...
...Thus the Post, organ of the capitalist and financial gentry, bulletin of the Coolidge religion of "prosperity...
...These holidays serve as conductors, or safety valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity," wrote Douglass...
...And so this ex-slave probed the "benevolence" of the polished gentry of the Old South...
...Two-score special correspondent* and the best feature* of The Federated Press supply the really vital news of the day...
...Of course, you "welcome" such an inJ^^IWion...
...It was to Mr...
...In all the great cities and in every town charitable organizations, the Salvation Army, the Volunteers, and hundreds of other relief societies parade before us the broken men and women, the cast off veterans of industry, the wretched unemployed, the human casualties and wrecks of a misdirected system of producing and distributing wealth...
...Kept a lot 4 tetters on file...
...jar Mr...
...The boy-friend who was shot on November 4th up a the Park Central Hotel...
...Mayor: We trust that we are not boring you with these letters...
...not for much longer, Jimmy...
...The insuring and reecptssa has been arranged hi tn* sisTHml am of the Rand School, 7 E 15th St., New York City, under the joint ¦aspic as of various trade unions, the New Leader, the Rand School aad the Socialist Party of New York city...
...The sister publication of the Post in Philadelphia, the Ledger, carried a crusade against old age pensions in Mellon's paradise of Pennsylvania to a successful conclusion...
...But as it is you * lining pretty...
...Out of a dank cellar stalks a family of eleven children unable to locate Mr...
...There to not another Labor publication tn the United State* Ifttat place* before It* readers each week the variety of new* and information which The New Leader provides...
...These hideous reminders of the social pit shamble in a revolting pageant before us in description of "cases" intended to awaken sympathy...
...The N«w-York Times each year has its "Hundred neediest cases...
...Maybe they'll do it next election...
...It are the Stories regarding the movement in other parts of the world, news obtained from the new* services *f the Labor aad Socialist laHeasttiiesf, the Trade Union International, the Transport Workers International, aad aur foreign exchange*, ha aa other American ewMtoattoa will there be...
...It is finally found but the weakened man falls in a faint and tumbles into the pit, carrying his wife and three little ones with him...
...genuine hurnanirarianism, not hypocrisy— these shall be the basis of the social order which we will build...
...And here feebly walks a woman of 84, a wage worker all her life, and Ho old age insurance to assure her some comfort ere she passes into the shadows...
...Socialism, not capitalism...
...How many other hundreds and even thousands still lurk m the shadows nobody knows...
...An emaciated young mother with five children starving because civilization had no room for her...
...Correct us if we are wrong, but isn't there idanct in these letters to an old-line newspaper executive, i ntye number of so-called "society people," prominent figSB m Tammany Hall and even a few Republicans, for good ¦ante...
...Net hi the town of a gift...
...JAMES J. WALKER, . x jfew York City HalL (Please Forward...
...This is the age of efficiency and unless you pry into the most intimate details of the wretched, their ancestry, their habits and their family histories, you might make a mistake in relieving some famished man or woman...
...Coolidge "s "prosperous" world...
...We would raise no bar against your mission of mercy...
...Whether R to the Base* Vi—HH tragedy, the heroic aacrihea* eat battle hi Patoteea, the sad sto agate aad amusing awrilsia of oouragement to given to the soldiers who fight la the ranks for a better world...
...Burkan...
...There is the wife and five children whom a noble judge sentenced to destitution by sending the breadwinner to prison for some petty crime...
...And for another thing, hasn't Nathan Burkan something wfcwith Tammany Hall...
...Follow the course of - Organized Charity, scrimped and iced...
...In the Name of a cautious, statistical Christ...
...Here is the presser in an East Side tenement who collapsed at his work and sank to destitution while four children cry for food...
...You know the case we am...
...Secure,in the upper range of their blessed "order," enjoying assured incomes, the ruling gentry live over a social abyss into which we are permitted to peer once each year...
...First name Arnold...
...There is the soldier who went to war to make a world "fit for heroes to live in," now a tubercular, homeless, hungry, and dependent upon the alms of neighbors...
...Its circulation to larger at the ead of the -istir—»' campaign than It was at the beginning but Its receipts from subscriptions aad advertising de not yet fay the cost of publication...
...But such things will happen in ***> crowded days when progress is everywhere making ikb vast strides, so that very little privacy is left anyone...
...and woe betide the slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation of those conductors...
...that Socialists can laugh and play while they baUd...
...Always a hundred, and these only the neediest...
...Hasn't he been or isn't he now i&trict leader in the Hall...
...There la no adatisstan charge aad everyone to ei atoeass to hear from these excellent and experienced labor men, relative to their prospects tn England, and thaw ImiirssaJsaa of the United states, aad eartainry of Mexico...
...The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of slavery...
...And this parade of the social pariahs is repeated in every city in the United States every year in the season of "glad tidings...
...At any rate they don't seem to have worked M) aay passion about the affair...
...Justice, not charity...
...sure that old age pensions are the essence of "paternalism" and possibly the path that leads to "Bolshevism," so this veteran of industry shambles into view to excite our pity...
...the hand-worker on fine shoes till the factory installed machines and he was turned into the street to walk for weeks in search of a job...
...StiB other* are prof as good prospects, WHAT YOU CAN DO your paper, The New Lender...
...To be sure, Judge Olvany has assured us that Tammany 8* »just a "patriotic organization" and has nothing to do •ft Hie running of this city...
...Played cards a bit...
...There is the girl of 13 in a basement stitching powder puffs, child of a longshoreman, head of a family of nine, and earning $20 a week...
...Why not...
...Both of these men are prominent in the British Labor Movement sad occupy high positions in their respective " Both awn are excellent speakers...
...We see the hypocrisy, the injustice, the social wrongs, the exploitation, the deprivations that are inseparable from a system where industrial opportunities are owned by one class and the rest of us are dependent upon the owners...
...Some unfortunates will always be the wards of society, but these will not be the objects of private charity...
...THE PAGEANT OF POVERTY • In New York City the Times and other dailies lift the lid for a few weeks and reveal the social hell below...
...Some of the ragged may be encouraged in a career of "laziness" if not carefully investigated, listed, charted and indexed...
...We are most interested, not in the identity of the man sis shot Rothstein (because we presume he will get his, tits tie publicity has died down a bit and some of Arnold's {must go out riding some night), but tn the letter-fisss that It drfnnct gambler left behind...
...WeB, you remember that last week we wrote you asking, ¦ to-payers who have to chip in to keep this police force a aufonns and beans, how come that none of these hired sat of ours have shown what you might call an acute intermt k am case...
...Necessary as this mercy is it merely mops up some social pus and for a time keeps your wretches reconciled to their fate...
...For capitalism we shall fight for the ideals of Socialism...
...Why, bless your staging heart, of course, there That's the reason, isn't it, why no local Republican *¦» ere a bit hot about pressing the investigation...
...Burkan that these letters were turned over h- District Attorney Banton right after the murder of Rothsxk waoto Mr...
...Joseph T. Shipley edits a splendid drama page, bringing...
...at The Maw Leader...
...Yes, Christ walks the earth one day in a year of 365 days...
...ICED CHARITY OF CAPITALISM There are the cripples and the blind, the ragged and the diseased, the neglected and the wastrels, who drag their weary bodies in a wretched pageant of poverty, famine and despair...
...For industrial mastery we are determined to substitute industrial democracy...
...Each year as Christmas approaches, capitalism casts aside its mask and bares its hideous sores...
...lte is really too bad...
...There to the "Timely Topics" of Norman Thomas each week, aa intelligent survey and comment apon pubUc affairs and public problems that to not equalled by any other weekly hi this country...
...Outwardly it is polished and pleasing to the eye if we do not look beneath the surface...
...Some are sjimislhlms and will be interested H approached...
...Then note the pale, thin man, still in his thirties...
...six months t9 election, no one in town will remember your name...
...There are enough of you to add a thousand ar more leaaass to ear Bat la the next few weeks...
...Hate to Bother Our Busy Mayor gut Must Ask More Questions «0N...
...THAT ROTHSTEIN MATTER AGAIN Bat speaking of progress, the reason for this letter is to' a* how your police department and District Attorney are ¦SjMMBg in the Rothstein case...
...Another war veteran who at the end of three months of unemployment, his wife and two babes hungry, dazed at the social magic that has hurled him from the heights of a "hero" to the depths as an outcast of the industrial world...
...to our readers sound Judgment of aa art which, since Ms origin, ha* registered important changes hi society aad oftea to the first to THE FIELD WE SURVEY Then there to the weekly survey *f the ffntialsw movesaeat-a the United States, £he most complete that will be found hi that country...
...Yet your paper to not self-sustaining...
...President and politician, banker and industrial magnate, editor and publicist, the grafter who markets his vote and the official who betrays his trust, all sing the praises of the best of all possible worlds...
...Sort of a snow bird...
...We want yea to help us get them...
...Wei, for one thing, he was the friend of Rothstein and ¦ the hwyer for a number of Rothstein's associates in transitions which, to be extremely charitable, were not exactly ¦* benefit of judge or jury...
...Consider it* claim* for the support of thinking men and women...
...It to accepted in aQ other countries as the authoritative voice of the progressive Labor aad Socialist movement aad it to quoted by Journals of this msvsssast hi many Moreover, this service to provided at a cost that to eat of alL proportion to Ha value to ito readers aad Ha service a* aa organ of education...
...Thank God, sayeth the Post, our batch of the old folks will get alms...
...It is also worthy of your consideration...
...We are told that you are much too pfite to be abrupt and that as a consequence you are con0gth- being detained by your garrulous friends on the other caf of the wire...
...They can make It or break it Whatever I to merit may be its influence to limited by the circulation given It by Ito friend* In the Add...
...la The New Leader but who should have it...
...Finally, we Socialists peer into the social abyss with you hut we see more than you do...
...There is the despairing woman in a rickety tenement thinking of drinking the lye which she purchased with her last 15 cents and a family of five living among rats in a dark and damp storage room...
...The president of the republic broadcasts to the multitude "an era of prosperity more extensive" than the world has ever known...
...The concentration of wealth, the race tn armament*, the sorry intrigues of the world's diplomats, our dangerous expansion in Latin-America, the plight of the trade the tragedy of the farmer*, and a hundred other theme* are discussed in editorials or special articles...
...freedom, not dependence...
...Be sure that only the "worthy poor" receive your ministrations...
...found aa rich aad a* varied aaasarlal aa what worhlagmea aad Labor struggles a* home are sto* feature...
...jt«r/ rate you may be thankful to us that we are not calligyoo on the telephone...
...Then the wastrels and the misfits, yes, the social abyss itself, will gradually disappear...
...THE REPUBLICANS GO SLOW like you, we hate to be abrupt Take your time about **ering this...
...Fortunately among them is not the prospect 2 * kgislative investigation of your administration as some *b outside Republican proposed...
...Do not misunderstand us...
...Here comes a tottering old Negro mammy, one who in her childhood was a slave and played with the white brood of a noble master...
...Whether it be a striking novel, a work in history, en labor, on imperialism, economics, politics, the drama, poetry or any other theme of •octal significance to the builder* of a new world of labor equity aad industrial democracy, The New Leader passes on to Its reader* aa informing review of It...
...BVRKAN Of course, we don't know, for we haven't seen the letto, bat what we are concerned about here is the man who fat snr mem after the shooting, fib name is Nathan Burkan...
...Yea, Christ walks the earth one day in the year...
...the faltering...
Vol. 7 • December 1928 • No. 52
