it is such an old subject in new york. it has been here so long. for thirty-five or forty years newspapers and magazines have discussed the bread-line, and yet there it is, as healthy and vigorous a feature of the city as though it were something to be desired. and it has grown from a few applicants to many, from a small line to a large one. and now it is a sight, an institution, like a cathedral or a monument.
a curious thing, when you come to think of it. poverty is not desirable. its dramatic aspect may be worth something to those who are not poor, for prosperous human nature takes considerable satisfaction in proclaiming: “lord, i am not as other men,” and having it proved to itself. but this thing, from any point of view is a pathetic and a disagreeable thing, something you would feel the city as a corporation would prefer to avoid. and yet there it is.
for the benefit of those who have not seen it i will describe it again, though the task is a wearisome one and i have quite another purpose than that of description in doing so. the scene is the side door of a bakery, once located at ninth street and broadway, and now moved to tenth and broadway, the line extending toward the west and fifth avenue, where formerly it was to the east and fourth avenue. it is composed of the usual shabby figures, men of all ages, from fifteen or130 younger to seventy. the line is not allowed to form before eleven o’clock, and at this hour perhaps a single figure will shamble around the corner and halt on the edge of the sidewalk. then others, for though they appear to come slowly, some dubiously, they almost all arrive one at a time. haste is seldom manifest in their approach. figures appear from every direction, limping slowly, slouching stupidly, or standing with assumed or real indifference, until the end of the line is reached, when they take their places and wait.
a low murmur of conversation begins after a time, but for the most part the men stand in stupid, unbroken silence. here and there may be two or three talkative ones, and if you pass close enough you will hear every topic of the times discussed or referred to, except those which are supposed to interest the poor. wretchedness, poverty, hunger and distress are seldom mentioned. the possibilities of a match between prize-ring favorites, the day’s evidence in the latest murder trial, the chance of war somewhere, the latest improvements in automobiles, a flying machine, the prosperity or depression of some other portion of the world, or the mistakes of the government at washington—these, or others like them, are the topics of whatever conversation is held. it is for the most part a rambling, disconnected conversation.
“wait until dreyfus gets out of prison,” said one to his little black-eyed neighbor one night, years ago, “and you’ll see them guys fallin’ on his neck.”
“maybe they will, and maybe they won’t,” the other muttered. “them frenchmen ain’t strong for jews.”
131 the passing of a broadway car awakens a vague idea of progress, and some one remarks: “they’ll have them things runnin’ by compressed air before we know it.”
“i’ve driv’ mule-cars by here myself,” replies another.
a few moments before twelve a great box of bread is pushed outside the door, and exactly on the hour a portly, round-faced german takes his position by it, and calls: “ready!” the whole line at once, like a well-drilled company of regulars, moves quickly, in good marching time, diagonally across the sidewalk to the inner edge and pushes, with only the noise of tramping feet, past the box. each man reaches for a loaf and, breaking line, wanders off by himself. most of them do not even glance at their bread but put it indifferently under their coats or in their pockets. they betake themselves heaven knows where—to lodging houses, park benches (if it be summer), hall-bedrooms possibly, although in most cases it is doubtful if they possess one, or to charitable missions of the poor. it is a small thing to get, a loaf of dry bread, but from three hundred to four hundred men will gather nightly from one year’s end to the other to get it, and so it has its significance.
the thing that i protest against is that it endures. it would be so easy, as it seems to me, in a world of even moderate organization to do something that would end a spectacle of this kind once and for all, if it were no more than a law to destroy the inefficient. i say this not in cruelty but more particularly with the intention of awakening thought. there is so much to do. in america the nation’s roads have not even begun to be made. over132 vast stretches of the territory of the world the land is not tilled. there is not a tithe made of what the rank and file could actually use. most of us are wanting strenuously for something.
a rule that would cause the arrest of a man in this situation would be merciful. a compulsory labor system that would involve regulation of hours, medical treatment, restoration of health, restoration of courage, would soon put an end to the man who is “down and out.” he would of course be down and out to the extent that he had fallen into the clutches of this machine, but he would at least be on the wheel that might bring him back or destroy him utterly. it is of no use to say that life cannot do anything for the inefficient. it can. it does. and the haphazard must, and in the main does, give way to the well-organized. and the injured man need not be allowed to bleed to death. if a man is hurt accidentally a hospital wagon comes quickly. if he is broken in spirit, moneyless, afraid, nothing is done. yet he is in far greater need of the hospital wagon than the other. the treatment should be different, that is all.