THE CHALLENGE OF THE CITIES
Poole, Ernest
THE CHALLENGE OF THE CITIES The Story of a Young Man from the Country, an Ambition, and the Feverish Life in a Big City By ERNEST POOLE AS a frosty October night was settling over New York's...
...I looked at the poster, but it meant nothing to me...
...One by one he made me acquainted with his various patent miracles...
...Gollyflob's ball, mad to be in the papers, mad to read about murders, divorces and prize fights, mad to get well when they have no diseases, mad over the idea that they know it all when they've barely begun to learn...
...He talked little...
...Why be foolish, son...
...The narrow crowded store was like him...
...He turned toward the Arch...
...And through all these, somewhere way off in the distance, the big-hearted brotherhood of humanity...
...tugs, ferries, and steamers, commanding and cursing in whistles and toots and furious blasts...
...It is my lucky day...
...At last we reached the house, and entered the little front office...
...faces thin and hollow and flushed, with eyes unnaturally bright...
...Heart," he cried...
...Louis E. Reber, Wisconsin is carrying the benefits of education to her workingmen and artisans, by means of lectures and correspondence-study...
...At last he pulled out a five dollar bill...
...And now all at once the surging life of the city seemed right before his eyes...
...The fact that such an innovation has been made possible at an aristocratic seat of learning and culture, as well as at a democratic state university, is another indication that the movement toward democracy in education is world-wide...
...He snorted...
...I had no job...
...one grey headed man had tucked a handkerchief over his collar to keep it clean for tomorrow's job hunt...
...And in hours like these, which are not sane hours, the old druggist's face used to rise up as I had seen it last...
...Very quietly the old man looked up...
...This was a long speech for the doctor...
...Go out," he said, "buy two shirts and six clean collars...
...Today I get my job...
...He seemed amazed at my skill, and assured me that I would rise fast and very high...
...An' today I get my job...
...Education means life, safety, progress, freedom...
...I worked for this savage eccentric physician three years...
...And he seemed to stand for the whole cold sparkling city, holding out the lesson of Graft to the raw recruit—and smiling and asking— "Why be foolish...
...but even then I could vaguely feel that this amiable little boss of mine was a wizard dealing out fire...
...To meet it, the benign old druggist gave them a certain bottle that held forth amazing promises...
...Yes...
...Now," he said at last, "today I get my job...
...In the next five weeks it sank in deep...
...Around him the craft of all sizes were pounding and lurching and ploughing down into the waves...
...I tried to pay for both, but he refused...
...He showed me how simple the science really was, in spite of the pompous doctors...
...I stood dumfounded, as much a fool this time as last...
...Commenting upon this, The Outlook, says, "This is a long step forward, when one recalls what the traditions of Oxford are...
...But the Montana Lookout says that the Amalgamated Copper Company has already appropriated "the greater part, if not all" the water power capable of development...
...the remaining time on outside work...
...You go this way...
...He rose, his smile grown doubly kind, and laid his hand on my shoulder...
...While I talked, he strode up and down the room, stopping only to question or to dart a keen look at my face...
...he asked...
...under his big eye-glasses his little eyes flashed, his chest swelled, and his wide thin sensitive lips fairly quivered...
...They are wrong...
...And waste no time...
...My weekly pay was five dollars and twenty-five cents...
...His eyes twinkled...
...Still, we may as well lock the barn...
...But as though under some tremendous tonic, the dying man's face changed from its look of death to one of ludricrously mingled protest, humility, apprehension...
...The door was flung open, and in the doorway appeared a short, savage man with a tumbled shock of light yellow hair...
...Kubelik...
...He was one of the millions of men who struck out for the West and the prairies, and since then by hard work have made good...
...I heard him humming a marching song as he walked off down the street...
...He said nothing...
...No," he said gayly, "I have still two dollar forty-two cent...
...He himself embodied the best of its forces...
...Well," cried the little man, now completely exasperated, "can't you see you have a job...
...Few patients came here with prescriptions, for this was a tenement quarter...
...Eleven died...
...From the one show window, from every nook and cranny on the walls, and even from strings in the air, your eye was met by smiling signs which assured you of comfort, relief and miraculous cure...
...A joint committe of workmen and representatives of the University of Oxford recently made a report which, in brief, contained the following radical proposals: 1. That workingmen and boys shall have a chance, in different localities, of studying under tutors who shall be under the direction of the University, jointly with the representatives of the working classes...
...The doctor returned and glared at me, in such a way that I quickly explained my position...
...Twelve hours he spent on his patients, on medical books and on journals...
...The story of this recruit, his fight for an education, the growth of new wholesome ideals—I shall try to sketch only in brief impressions and pictures, as he gave them to me...
...You are the flesh and blood and brain of the future...
...Each year in increasing armies they come...
...He slept six hours a night...
...Will you prescribe another...
...Some I had known in the village drug store, but most were new,— nerve tonics, powerful stimulants, narcotics...
...But on the third day I found it at last on the upper East Side, in a snug little drug store...
...And here I was...
...And as he stood at his counter, with row on row of patent medicine bottles rising behind him, questioning patients in his soothing old voice and then prescribing one of the bottles with placid absolute faith that in a few hours all would be well, he made a perfect picture of benignity and wisdom...
...now swerving, now forging ahead, now backing water and drifting...
...I read a few medical books, but more newspapers...
...But," he stopped short to relight his black old pipe, and added slowly, "The man who don't love this mad crowd, love to be with 'em, to watch 'em, work with 'em, laugh with 'em, fight with 'em...
...The first light of day was making the Arch, the trees, the buildings, the pavement, all grey and cold...
...The cough with blood" was what they called their trouble...
...Not a word had been said...
...A gourmand, sir, who stuffs like a pig, gets scared and rushes to me at least twenty times a month—for a tonic...
...Come on!' it cries, 'We're done with crawling, we're going to rush...
...Why be foolish...
...I watched these people come again and again to buy more bottles, and still look eagerly at the quiet reassuring old face,—and again take hope...
...Hello," he said, "You look like a genuine sick man...
...Work, vigor, zest, keen interest in people, the power to plunge deep into a problem and shut out all else, an equal power to shut out work and laugh,—in him you could feel the city's deep throbbing pulse of health and life and power...
...and so, when at last I could hold back no longer, I took no money from him, only the forty odd dollars that I had earned as a clerk in the village drug store...
...Here hundreds of thousands of young recruits have stood for the first time—looking ahead...
...You are so young...
...He cared little about making money...
...Arrangements have been made for tutorial classes in eight localities, and it is proposed to establish a lectureship in political theory and instituions which shall be of especial service to students who come from the industrial classes...
...What's wrong...
...I cut my hours of sleep down to six...
...Ha...
...But he couldn't see it, and things grew strained between us two...
...Yes," I said, "fine day...
...the man who don't know that somehow or other these four million humans dumped down from all parts of the earth are going to work it all out into something tremendous and wholesome—that man is the maddest fool of the lot...
...Some think," he said, "that Manhattan is built on a rock...
...All at once my companion stopped...
...the spray from the fountain was hazy and blue,—and cold...
...A few still tried to look decent...
...The druggist was a comfortable little old man, somewhat bent, with long soft white hair and frank reassuring blue eyes...
...I have never seen him since...
...But this I refused...
...I awoke now, and stood up and stretched to throw off the stiffness...
...The city's challenge is thrown straight at you youngsters...
...Through this I got close to his public work, and began to feel the prodigious life forces of the big city, working out problems of public health, public justice, public education...
...He wanted to be a farmer...
...A moment later I saw an amazing sight...
...he repeated...
...I wrote my first letter home that night...
...I know...
...Glad to see you...
...THE CHALLENGE OF THE CITIES The Story of a Young Man from the Country, an Ambition, and the Feverish Life in a Big City By ERNEST POOLE AS a frosty October night was settling over New York's crowded harbor, a stocky, black-haired boy of eighteen stood out on a North River ferry-boat's bow, breathing deep the rough bracing air of the ocean, excitedly smiling, staring for the first time at the dazzling panorama ahead...
...And day by day and night by night, in a tide that is ever swelling, some with money behind them, some with only strong bodies, stout hearts, and keen minds, a few to be famous and rich, and some to be totally shattered,—they pour in to answer the challenge...
...During the winter, the fool who rocks the boat busies himself with anti-Japanese bills...
...This was about what dad had foretold...
...Then come back...
...I took a long tramp that night, thinking out the lesson, the lesson taught by the town to tens of thousands of us country cubs...
...Humbug, bosh, outrageous...
...I now took it up again and added typewriting, and soon was able to do all his letters and speeches...
...BUT an end to this came soon...
...The Fall had come again, and the city was filled with job seekers...
...Mad to be millionaires, mad to be asked to old Mrs...
...When he turned and saw me, his smile broadened...
...The dying man staggered through, lurched against the door to the inner room, and pounded...
...When this reacted on my nerves, the old druggist suggested a bottle...
...Back in the west I had learned shorthand...
...Well," he said, "fine day...
...In the inner room, a half hour later, he jerked out my entire story, ambitions and all, including the "pets" of the placid old druggist...
...As he saw the intruder, his square hard face contracted...
...he asked, with a strong foreign accent...
...Hello there," he said very gravely...
...A few blocks north, we found a man beginning to paste a huge poster up on a bulletin board...
...There are stories, too, of poverty, failure, obscurity, weary monotony, death—tales by tens of thousands— but these are tossed impatiently aside...
...We have supper sharp at six...
...But most were in hopeless rags...
...Come on!' "What we old ones are working on now is to give you real chances to learn, to grow strong for the public work ahead...
...All at once, down in the dark waves, he caught sight of a tiny speck of a dory, pitching and crawling and twisting...
...I HAD been slowly getting rid of the night, on a bench in Washington Square...
...No job...
...You look about like I feel...
...To be concluded next week...
...In this town," he said solemnly one day, "half the people are mad—stark raving mad...
...He chose the place where the chances were best, and I did the same...
...I had given up my room to make the money last longer...
...The extra quarter," he said, "is just to—" he waved his hand...
...It is built on nerves—high-strung quivering nerves which scare the life out of people...
...He was slight and wiry, with a dark narrow face and eyes that went with the smile...
...I shook my head...
...And of this I soon had glimpses...
...Through the University Extension Division, under the direction of Dr...
...Kubelik...
...I wanted to be a physician...
...I was an ignoramus those days...
...I hate close bargains," he ended...
...These problems," he said one day, "depend upon you...
...He also gave me constant smiles and kindly advice...
...We celebrated our splendid luck by a hearty breakfast at thirty cents each...
...But whether we rush downward into all the diseases of body and mind and morals, or upward into sane vigorous health and equal rights and chances,—that all depends on you...
...and clases have been formed in various localities for group-study, under the tutelege of University instructors...
...It ended in my leaving...
...Toward dawn I had fallen asleep...
...Often I stood in line in the dark, at 4 A. M., waiting...
...My pets," he called them...
...Then I sat down and began the old business of sizing things up...
...He shoved me out...
...He chuckled...
...And I went for those shirts on the double quick...
...And straight ahead, from the towering skyscraper mass, in white twinkling stars, in round yellow moons, in cold blue arcs, in rows and pin-point masses and lofty sparkling clusters, the lights of Manhattan seemed flashing by millions their challenge out into the night...
...Just then the round jovial sun cocked one eye over the roofs in the East...
...This I told to the druggist one night...
...I went with him up Fifth avenue, which at this hour was empty for miles ahead...
...It does not involve any lowering of the standard of that ancient institution, but it does involve a recognition of the brotherhood of all classes of society...
...We parted, soon after...
...His dark face lit up, his eyes sparkled, and he stood there watching proudly, muttering fast in Bohemian...
...My idea of Manhattan was changing...
...The next instant, the little doctor had him by the arm and rushed him out through the door...
...I MISSED my job that day and the next...
...It had been mighty hard on dad...
...Meanwhile, watching our patients, certain faces grew familiar...
...And as we walked on, he talked so hard, he was so proud of his countryman and so sure of his job, that I too caught the spirit...
...and now they see their children, one by one, leave home and go back to the cities...
...I went out more and more, in off hours, to see the big sights of the city...
...It was hard, but it had to be...
...You call this medicine bad...
...I lived in his house, I was with him half the day, and little by little I saw the city in quite a new light...
...I traced fourteen of these neighborhood cases that year...
...Here he shot a quick look up at me...
...Over all the spray dashed in gleaming clouds...
...Here five patients were waiting...
...I had been a month in the city and still I had no job...
...A young foreigner sat up on the bench next to mine, and stretched and yawned, and then smiled at the fountain as though he liked it...
...Around me some sixty men lay asleep...
...I worked for him eight months...
...For year by year, as the magazines and newspapers go on multiplying and spreading and searching for every untouched nook in the land, the challenge of the cities reaches wider, ever wider, in stories of boundless chances: tales of prodigious industrial schemes and achievements, of brilliant Wall Street campaigns, of fame of all kinds, of endless excitement: in brief, the old idols of Fortune and Fame and Adventure...
...and he told them, with that gentle absolute faith of his, that all these promises were true...
...The University of Wisconsin is nearly three years ahead of Oxford in carrying out this worthy purpose...
...It means, instead of increasing hatred and violence, a slow, sure working out of such public health problems as panics, high-handed finance, terrible accidents, useless wars, great disease epidemics, overcrowding and darkness and subway strap-hanging, divorces, murders—every kind of madness...
...I still stood there staring...
...Do you wish to go on with your work...
...I'll tonic him...
...You know so little...
...He had lived all his life in a quiet western village...
...In his office not only were free and pay patients treated alike, but I have seen him turn scores away who, like the stout red-faced man, had money to pay but no real disease to be cured...
...A month of hunting for work, no job, and all but nine dollars gone...
...So did mine...
...The druggist was doctor too...
...The government has withdrawn from entry all public lands along upper Missouri power sites...
...One afternoon, on the street, a stout red-faced man seized my arm and begged me to help him in reaching his doctor...
...As I rose slowly, staring at him, he added with a smile, "If not, you may go...
...A group of city failures,—bums...
...On the way, he told me in gasps that his heart was "wild as a woman...
...Oxford Educating Workingmen ENGLAND is at last waking up to the need of educating her working classes...
...2. That these workmen shall be given an opportunity to study at Oxford, under special provisions...
...Fine—from my coun-tree—fine...
Vol. 1 • February 1909 • No. 7
