In time of plenty a great American city like Chicago goes on showing a
more or less cheerful face to the world while in nooks and crannies
down side-streets and alleys poverty and misery sit hunched up in
little ill-smelling rooms breeding vice. In times of depression these
creatures crawl forth and joined by thousands of the unemployed tramp
the streets through the long nights or sleep upon benches in the
parks. In the alleyways off Madison Street on the West Side and off
State Street, on the South Side, eager women driven by want sold their
bodies to passersby for twenty-five cents. An advertisement in the
newspapers of one unfilled job brought a thousand men to block the
streets at daylight before a factory door. In the crowds men swore and
knocked each other about. Working-men driven to desperation went forth
into quiet streets and knocking over citizens took their money and
watches and ran trembling into the darkness. A girl of Twenty-fourth
Street was kicked and knocked into the gutter because when attacked by
thieves she had but thirty-five cents in her purse. A professor of the
University of Chicago addressing his class said that, having looked
into the hungry distorted faces of five hundred men clamouring for a
position as dishwasher in a cheap restaurant, he was ready to
pronounce all claims to social advancement in America a figment in the
brains of optimistic fools.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63