The nearest address was in the lower part of Madison Street. Mary D——, a widow. The house was one of the typically dirty tenements of that section. As I entered the hall a strong odour of garlic and onions almost suffocated me. I rang the janitress' bell. She opened the door and as soon as I mentioned the name of Mary D. she knew I was from the charities, for she immediately began to tell me that the D.'s have no coal, that the charities have neglected them, that the woman is sick and the five children, the oldest of whom is eleven years old, are hungry and naked.

"But, my dear lady, I'm not from the charities. I'm a sewing machine agent," I lied, according to the advice of Mr. Lawson.

"Oh! a new agent? Why, she has just paid $1 last week on the machine," and with changed attitude: "What do you bother me for? Go upstairs and see her—third floor back left." She re-entered her apartment. I walked up the three floors. At the door I stood a little and thought how I should behave. "Who's there?" a voice asked. "Sewing machine agent," I answered, timidly.

"Come next week—I have no money," was the reply. "Excuse me. I can't open the door for you now. I am not dressed, Mr. George."

I went downstairs and in the hall I noted down everything that the janitress had told me. Five children, no coal, no food, $11.50 rent, and so on.

My next address was in Henry Street.

It was one of the coldest days of the winter of 1911. The snow was knee-deep and the icy wind blew at a terrific speed. The house where I had to go was one of those old, decrepit buildings, where misery lurks and peers at one from every door, every brick, windowpane, nail and knob. The windows were covered with a coat of ice. Some broken panes were stuffed with pillows and rags. On the ground floor was a grocery. "They surely buy their provisions here," I thought, and entered the store. An old woman, the storekeeper, asked me what I wanted.

"Could you give me any information about the family S.," I asked.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "you are from the Gerry Society, aren't you?"

"Well?" I said nonchalantly. "What of it?"

"Well—it's all a lie, that's what I could tell you. The poor woman does her best. Why! she works herself to death. A widow with three small children—a fine woman, a good mother, a real lady, if you want to know. But her neighbour, the rag pedlar's wife, is jealous. I don't know why! And she did it. Why should you take away the children from a mother? She feeds them well. The children haven't good clothes! Well, she is a poor woman and children are children. They wear, they tear; what can she do? Buy every day new clothes? A poor widow that works from early morning till late at night!"

"What is the name of the rag pedlar?" I asked the woman.

"Goldberg," she informed me. "A bad woman, without a mother's heart. Don't go to her. She'll tell you a lot of bad things about the poor widow. Don't go to her, Mister. Oh! that such beings should be alive at all!" she muttered in Yiddish.

"I have to," I assured her, and after inquiring the floor where Mrs. Goldberg lived I walked up the three flights. I knocked at the door.

"Come in," came the answer. Mrs. Goldberg opened the door, and as I entered the cheerful aspect of a tidy kitchen and the singing of the boiling pots on the stove greeted me invitingly. Mrs. Goldberg bade me enter their "front room," furnished pretentiously. I sat down at her invitation, and contrary to all rules on such occasions I waited for her to start the discussion—I hardly knew what to say. I did not have to wait long. Mrs. Goldberg immediately asked me if I was an agent from the Gerry Society.

"But what have you against that poor woman? Why do you want her children taken away? Are you not a mother? Have you no feeling? What is it? Have you a personal grievance against the woman?" I said in the tone to invite confidences.

"But just because I am a mother," she snapped back angrily, her eyes flashing. "Come here," she said, making a sign for me to follow her. I followed her into a third room. A boy of about six years was in a bed. His face was burning with fever. Around his neck he had bandages, and on a small table were a dozen bottles of medicine.

"Well, what has that to do with it?" I queried.

"This is my only child," she explained. I did not understand what connection there was between her sick child and the desire to put the children of the other mother away. I told her so, energetically, almost insolently.

"You see," she explained, "her children are always running around half naked and barefooted, even in the coldest weather. They are always sick, but she does not care, because when this is so she runs to all the charitable societies and gets help and medicine. The children play in the hall the whole day, and whenever her child has a sore throat three or four other children catch it. Last year two children caught diphtheria in this house. Both children died. When my child gets sick I have to pay for medicine and the doctor and everything. If she can't take care of her children, let her not have any—that's all. Each one for himself," she added; "I have to take care of my children."

"But," I argued, "are you not a mother? What can the poor woman do?"

Mrs. Goldberg's eyes flashed, and with the assurance well-fed people generally have, she answered: "Oh! never mind! I would know how to take care of my children! There would be no charity business with me. Oh, no! I assure you!"

"She is a widow with small children," I pleaded. "What would you do in her place?"

"Oh, never mind. I would do something—anything—everything. My child will always have enough to eat and some clothes, as long as I live," and as she looked at the sick child she rolled up her sleeves as though ready to start a fight against the whole world to defend her child from want and misery.

I departed, first assuring Mrs. Goldberg that something would be done to "protect her child," and went up another flight to see Mrs. S.

The grocery woman had probably announced the fact that the "Gerry Society man" was in the house, for as I passed through the hall many a door opened and closed. Some of the women eyed me as though I were a murderer, while others looked at me as though I were something mysterious—a man who had the power of parting children from the mother. My position was not a very pleasant one. I thought of what I should do if the real "Gerry Society man" were to appear on the scene. I hastened towards Mrs. S.'s door. A few old women followed behind me. I knocked. A timid "Come in." As I opened the door I saw two small children, one probably six and the other four years old, hiding under the table. My heart contracted. Mrs. S. stood in front of the table, hiding the children, her open hands like the claws of a tigress, ready to defend her offspring. We looked at one another, mutely, for a few moments. Her eyes were sparkling with the fire of an injured animal, her hair was dishevelled, her brows were knit together in a supreme decision, her mouth twitched, and she was pale, pale as a waxen figure. From under the table the two children looked at me fearfully.

"Are you Mrs. S.?" I finally stammered out, while I took out my notebook.

No answer.

"Are you Mrs. S.?" I repeated again, as I regained my composure.

"Don't take away my children, Mister. Don't take away my children," the poor mother yelled and growing hysterical she repeated this terrible cry in heartrending tones, tearing her hair. "Don't take them away."

The poor tots came out from under the table. Quickly she pushed them back, and continued to cry at the top of her voice the same sentence: "Don't take away my children. They are mine, mine. My God, they are mine."

"I don't want to take your children away, madam," I told her repeatedly. "Calm yourself, I did not come to take them away." But she did not listen to me. She kept on crying and tearing her hair. Neighbours came in from all sides.

"Help, help," Mrs. S. cried. "Help, help, mothers! He wants to take away my children. Help, help!" and she ran to the window.

I gently laid my hands on the hysterical mother's shoulders, and looking straight in her eyes I said slowly and distinctly:

"I—don't—want—to—take—your children. Be quiet," I begged. Among the neighbours was also the grocery woman.

"He wouldn't take away your children. This gentleman comes to speak with you. Calm yourself, Mrs. S., calm yourself," and softly, in Yiddish, she blasphemed Mrs. Goldberg and her husband, father and child.

After a few moments, during which the grocery woman spoke to her in soothing tones, Mrs. S. quieted down a little. A reaction set in. Thick beads of cold sweat appeared on her brows, while her cheeks flushed with a sickly red. She asked for a glass of water and sat down. To express how I felt all this time is more than I can do. I only know that I went through some faint reflection of all the emotions that agitated the poor woman. I sat down opposite to her and tried to soothe her. She could not look me in the face. As I spoke her eyes caressed the two little children, who, during the excitement, had come out from their hiding place. They went to their mother. She placed them one on each side of her and passed her arms around their necks, presenting to me one of the strongest pictures of motherhood that I had ever seen.

"Well, how do you feel, Mrs. S.?" I broke the silence.

"Just a minute," was her answer, and she ran into the bedroom from where I heard her sobbing. I took advantage of her absence to ask the other neighbours to go out. They departed reluctantly and stood outside. I tried hard to make friends with the children. Not even my pennies would they accept, and soon they went into the bedroom with their mother—all sobbing together. I looked around the house. The stove was cold. The wind blew in from a broken window. A few crumbs of bread were on the table. A few broken chairs, a big clock, out of order, on the mantelpiece, a picture of a man of about thirty years old in the centre of a wall, this constituted most of the furniture. The whole house was in a state of complete disorder, with not even an attempt at cleanliness. Through the open door of the bedroom I saw two folding beds and the torn mattresses shed their straw all around the house. I felt very uneasy and wished to cut short my visit, but hardly knew how to back out of my position.

"Mrs. S.," I called, "won't you please come out and talk matters over with me? I am pressed for time. It's one o'clock and I have other work to do."

The woman re-entered the kitchen, followed by the children. She had arranged her hair, put on shoes and buttoned her torn waist.

"Sit down," I urged. She did so.

"Now," I started, "what's the matter with your children? Why are they walking naked? It is a very cold day and they are liable to fall sick."

"I am a poor widow," she started plaintively, "what can I do?"

"But listen here," I said, "this does not go! The children must be properly clad."

The woman looked me in the eyes for a few seconds, and then, all of a sudden, she asked me: "Are you a Jew?"

"Yes," I said, "but what has that to do with it?"

She evidently heard only my acknowledgment that I was a Jew, and with the feeling that I was her brother she gained confidence that I would not take her children away from her.

"If you are a Jew," she continued, "you will not take my children away, and I will tell you the whole truth."

"Go ahead," I encouraged her, and she told me the following:

"Since my husband died three years ago, the charities have given me two dollars a week and paid my rent. Every year, in the winter, they have sent me coal and clothing for the children. This year they have a new investigator and she does not like me."

"The investigator does not like you?" I repeated. "Why?"

The woman looked away for a few moments, then she shrugged her shoulders and said: "I don't know why. She does not like me and that's all, so they sent me only a half ton of coal at the beginning of the winter and no clothes for the children. Every day I went to the office and asked and begged for coal and clothes, but the investigator does not like me—she does not like me—and she works against me. So what could I do? To go and buy shoes and coal I need money, and I haven't any. From the two dollars a week I get we hardly have enough for bread—dry bread." And as the poor woman pronounced the last word the smallest of the children repeated it in tones that would have melted a heart of stone. His hungry eyes appealed to the mother for the staff of life. "Bread," the older child repeated. "Mamma, give me bread. I am hungry—give me bread."

The mother cried. The children were still asking for bread and the mother was still crying when a young lady, whom I recognised as an investigator from the charities, entered without even knocking at the door. Mrs. S. jumped up from her chair, very confused.

"Who is that man?" the investigator asked without even a greeting as she entered. The woman did not know what to do, what to answer.

"Who are you?" the investigator questioned me insolently.

"By what right do you ask me that?" I replied. "I haven't asked you who you are."

"Well, I have a right to ask," and turning to the woman, she said: "You must tell me immediately who this man is—do you hear? Who is he? or no coal, no money, no rent—do you hear?" She yelled all this, shaking her jewelled finger in the woman's face. I would have liked to have seen how far she would have gone, but the eyes of the poor mother were so appealing, so full of despair, I went up to the investigator and showed her a paper with the heading of the institution.

"So, you are it!"

"Not a word," I said.

"It's all right." She turned to Mrs. S. "I know who he is. It's all right. Any coal left? No, well, you'll get your coal to-morrow."

"And shoes?" begged the woman.

"Bread, mamma," both children said at once, "ask her for bread, mamma."

This was too much for the well-fed investigator. "Oh, these beggars! these beggars!" she repeated. "Are you coming down soon?" she asked me, and without bidding Mrs. S. good-bye she went out, saying, "I'll wait for you downstairs. I'll have to talk matters over with you."

I assured Mrs. S. that I would do all in my power to prevent her children being taken from her, and I was soon downstairs, where I found Miss Alten waiting. We walked some distance together without speaking a word—just eyeing one another. We passed a lunch room. I asked her to have a cup of coffee, feeling sure she would refuse. To my great astonishment she accepted, and soon we were sitting at a table with the steaming coffee before us. The pleasant warmth of the place and the steam from the cups soon melted the ice. She was a handsome dark girl of about twenty, of Jewish-Russian descent. She had a pleasant voice, yet how harsh and cold was her speech awhile ago, exactly the same voice as Cram's. I wondered then! not now! Afterward I learned that this was the professional tone, the intimidating note, as Cram called it.

"Why did you leave Mrs. S., that poor woman, without coal?" I asked. "It's so very cold and you know she has no money to buy any!"

"Oh! she's a pest," Miss Alten replied, making a grimace that passed like an ugly cloud of hatred over her young face. "That was to punish her, to show her that she must not disregard my authority," she continued. "Last month she finished the coal. When I came to see her she told me the story, and I told her she would get it next week. Instead of waiting, what do you think she did? She came up to the office to beg. So! I thought, you come to the office. Wait! you'll wait a month before you get any at all. And that is why it happened. To show her that I am the boss. We have to have some means of keeping them in order, you know."

"Yes, but it is not fair to punish her. And for what? She felt cold, so did the children, and she's a mother. She was afraid of sickness for them. Why, great God, they could have died." Miss Alten laughed at me long and scornfully.

"Die, die? Her children die? They never die. They never die. Their children never die, these beggars."

The coffee was finished. Miss Alten buttoned her coat, put on her gloves, and saying good-bye she quickly disappeared from the table. I sat more than an hour, drinking one cup of coffee after another. I wanted to think but my mind was in confusion. "They never die. They never die," rang in my ears. And to think that the wages of these women investigators are seldom higher than ten dollars per week, and that if somebody did not help them out, a brother, a sister, or father, they themselves would be depending on charity, or—

"I'll have her discharged, too," I finally decided, and with this determination I went out again into the street.

Aimlessly I walked through the slums. I had never taken so much interest in every minute detail of the street as I did at that time. Every house, every window, every door meant something, said something. Tales of untold misery and despair and shame. I looked at the clothes of all the children and tried to guess, figure out, which one's mother was an applicant and which was not. Unconsciously I had divided the world into two classes—one that applies to charity and one that does not.

Then I made up my mind that Miss Alten was a relative, perhaps a sister, of Cram's, and I felt sorry that I had not asked her about it. In our discussion his name had been mentioned several times, and she had always affirmed that "he was the finest gentleman and the best investigator of the whole bunch."

How curious! Two such cruel beings in one charitable institution! I wondered.

My next case proved a very interesting one. It was in Monroe Street, on the fifth floor of a yard-house—Mrs. Miriam D.

As nobody around the neighbourhood wanted to tell me anything beyond the fact that Mrs. D. was a very honest women, I went up to the applicant at once. The mother was not at home: only her three children, a girl of twelve, another one of ten and a boy of seven years old were in the house. They sat, all three, around a table, and worked at their lessons. The kitchen was very clean and warm. The children were tidy, and everything was in order. But the poor girls were as pale as death. A single glance was enough to know that they were starved out. Only in their big, moist, Jewish eyes was there life. I asked the children where the mother was. "We don't know," was the response of all three, and they looked at one another as though to say, "I wish she were here."

From my talk with the children I learned that they were expecting a cousin by the name of Leb from the old country, so I decided to impersonate an agent of Ellis Island and get all the information I wanted in that way. I asked the girls how they were living; whether they had things to eat every day.

"Yep," the boy of seven said, with pride. "But not enough," added the oldest sister.

"From where does your mother get money to buy food?" I queried.

"From the Charities," the second girl explained, while the older sister kicked her in the shins as punishment for her frankness.

"Have you no relatives?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, we have," all three again answered.

"Who are they?"

"Louis Goldman, Uncle Louis," she explained.

"What is your uncle?"

"A shoemaker."

"And who else?"

"Uncle Marcus."

"And what is he?"

"A bum," the little boy put in. "A bum, that's what he is." I had a hard time to get him out of his sister's hands. They were still trying to kick him when the mother came in.

Mrs. D. remained at the door in surprise, evidently wondering who I was.

"What do you want?" she questioned.

I was taken by surprise, but I immediately remembered the children's talk about a cousin from the old country and I said that I was an agent from Ellis Island.

"Why!" the woman cried out, in ecstasy, "is he here? Oh! children your cousin is here!" And she kissed them all in an outburst of happiness. "Is he here? Tell me."

"Who is he?" I asked.

"Oh, I'll go immediately and take him out. It's my cousin, Leb Herman Rosen, my own cousin."

"All right," I said. "You'll have to give me some information first."

"What information? It's my real cousin."

She sat down ready to answer my questions. I took out my note book and put the following questions:

"How long are you in America?"

"Eight years."

"How many children have you?"

"Three."

"How long is it since your husband died?"

"Four years."

"Now, if you want to take your cousin in your house you must prove that you'll be able to support him until he gets work, and show enough money to assure the United States that he will not become a public charge. How do you make a living? How much are you earning a week?"

"I—I—I," she stammered, "I make a living."

"How?" I insisted.

"I sell whisky, tea, coffee, powder, toothpaste."

"Well, how much do you make a week?"

"Well, well, I make a living."

"But to keep a cousin you must make more than a living—more than you need."

"I make more," she said. "I—do make more."

As I knew that she was receiving charity I did not believe her and told her she would have to prove that she made more than she needed. She walked up to a chiffonier, searched a drawer, and to my great astonishment brought forth a bank book which showed that she had one hundred and thirty-five dollars accumulated in the last two years.

"Will that prove that I earn more than I spend?" she said triumphantly.

I looked at her in astonishment. A mother who lets her children starve to put money in the bank! What wild animal would neglect its offspring to such an extent! I called her into the next room and told her what I thought of her and who I was. She cried bitterly under my lashing, and then told me the following story:

"I should not tell you this, but as you think that I am an unnatural mother I must explain myself. My husband died four years ago. He was a cloak operator and earned good money when I married him. After the second child was born his wages did not suffice to keep us as well as he wished. It was a very busy season. He worked overtime every night, until one and two o'clock in the morning. When the season ended we had three hundred dollars in the bank. But soon he got sick. Six months he lay sick at home. When all the money was gone we had to send him to the hospital. A month later he died, and two months after his death I gave birth to the third child. While I lay in bed there was nobody to take care of the children and there was no bread for them either. A neighbour wrote to the charities and told them all about us, and our plight. Two days passed. A woman came, looked around, questioned me and went away. They sent a nurse and money to feed the children. When I was out of bed they called me to the office and informed me that they had decided to give me two dollars a week and pay my rent. But, I ask you, could I live on two dollars a week? I had to do something. I went out washing and scrubbing floors. I got sick. The charities got to know that I worked. They immediately informed me that if I worked they would not give me anything. What could I do? Live on the two dollars? That was an impossibility. Work? I did not earn enough to get along without their support. Little by little I began to sell tea and coffee in the hours when the children were in school. But the investigator was informed by the grocer and butcher that I spent more than two dollars a week. Again I was called to the office. They questioned me, tortured me, accused me of being a bad woman. Where did I get the money? In despair I lied to them. Told them that the grocer and butcher had given wrong information, that they did not know; they had no proof and had to give me the pension.

"Still I could not get along on their money. My children were hungry. I was hungry. I went out again and sold tea and coffee and whisky, and under my coat I would bring an additional piece of meat and bread. Soon the neighbours knew that we had meat every day and some of them told the investigator. By this time she had made it a habit to spy on my every move. She reported me to the office. Again I was called and questioned and again I lied and cried. I could not get along on their two dollars a week and could not get along on my work alone. But when I got home I was wiser, and since then, instead of buying bread and meat, I have to put the money in the bank. This one hundred and thirty-five dollars is the meat and bread of my children, their health and their life. Yes, I am a bad mother. I am a bad mother," and wept anew.

The next day I went to the office and gave a report of my work. The case of Miriam D. I reported more extensively than the others, insisting that the children were starved while the woman had one hundred and thirty-five dollars in the bank, accumulated not from surplus but from what she was forced to deprive her children of. Mr. Lawson immediately called in the Manager and showed him my report. They congratulated me on my ability and I felt that they would tell their investigators that they must not persecute the woman and the orphans by spying. The Manager pronounced me a second Sherlock Holmes and announced that Mrs. D.'s pension would be cut off.

I was dumbfounded. So this was the result of my work! To take the bread out of the mouths of the three orphans. I accused myself of stupidity and could look no one straight in the face. Through treachery I learned the truth, and instead of using it for her good I had used it to help the investigators be more cruel, more questioning than before. What could the woman do? Had she not told me that she could not live on what she earned? Was the one hundred and thirty-five dollars enough for her to support her children? And I imagined them all starved and sick, dying in hospitals. All through my fault. I should have known that they would not reform their investigating system because of my report. How I hated myself. How I hated the whole world. At night when I went home I was ashamed to kiss my children, for I had committed a crime. As I thought of the inscriptions on the doors: "For the poor of the land shall never cease;" "Let thy hand give freely to the needy," etc., I remembered Dante's "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate."

In disgust and despair I walked the streets the next day without being able to do anything. Like a criminal who returns to the scene of his crime I walked around the house. I felt a strong call to go in and beg forgiveness for her undoing. I have since learned that it has not done any harm. On the contrary, deserted by the charities the woman redoubled her energies. The cousin she was waiting for arrived a few days later, bringing some money with him. They bought a grocery store and she is earning her living. But at that moment I thought myself guilty of the greatest crime. I made many decisions, but stuck to the last, namely, to take notes of all the evil that organised charity was doing and at the first opportunity give them out for the benefit of the world.

I understood that the welfare of the poor did not concern the men at the head of the charity organisation; that it has become a business for them. A business they were managing, just as others manage factories. Their concern was to reduce the cost, to economise, just as the manufacturers try to produce the greatest amount of product with the smallest amount of outlay. And if hunger, starvation, sickness was the by-product, well, so much the worse for the poor.