“I never wear hand-made laces because they remind me of the eyes made blind in the weaving.”—Marie Corelli.

The morning of April 19, 1910, found me in Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis, resting on the green moss below the “laughing waters” of Minnehaha Falls. This wonderful spot of nature took possession of my imagination until I was in one of God’s factories, where a thousand creations were coming into life and beauty. The sparkling translucent falls, touched with a silver light, became a marvelous lace-weaving loom. I caught, white and shining, the actual resemblance to the hand-made Irish, the Duchess and Rose-point. Over all this great workshop of the Diety was joy, peace and happiness. For the first time real lace to me was beautiful, for it was of God’s creation. The vision of eyes made sightless, the stooped shoulders of the aged, the little, starving children overworked for the mere pittance to exist, these were not in the weaving. To the thoughtful, any adornment, the price of which is paid by the blood of human lives, is no longer beautiful. Here I saw that every bird and bee, all insect life, even the smallest and most abject about me, either were building or had built homes.

I then remembered my mission to Minneapolis. “Surely,” I said to myself, “with this temple of worship to which the good folks of Minneapolis may come, thoughtlessness and selfishness will not be found here.”

Yet I wondered if I should find it. I had come to continue my battle for my homeless brothers. The approach of late afternoon and night found me wandering about the streets a jobless, moneyless man looking for work and shelter. I found Minneapolis not in advance of other cities, and much behind many in its care for its homeless toilers.

I first went to a private employment office. There seemed plenty of work to do, work for everybody, but I could find no private office where they would give me work and trust me until pay day.

I visited the city free employment bureau where I counted fifty men looking for work. There were chairs for fourteen. The rest seemed quite willing to stand as long as their feet held out, in the hope of securing something. As I scanned their faces I thought a large percentage of them seemed of the type driven to such a condition by lack of opportunity to make an honest living. Later I learned that many of these men came day after day, hungry and cold, after having spent the night huddled up somewhere in the open air.

Next I became a beggar. I began looking for a public institution which would give me a bed, since I was unable to pay for one. I first tried the Associated Charities. The attendant took me into a little side room where as in other places, all sorts of rubbish was stored, and asked me the usual list of humiliating questions. Finally he told me they could do nothing for me, as it was too near their closing time.

Doubtless this institution does many worthy things, but providing shelter for the homeless man without money is not among them.

Directed by the attendant at the Associated Charities (who at least had gotten rid of me), I went to the Union City Mission. The attendant here, after making me repeat my questions regarding the possibility of a penniless man getting a supper and bed, turned on his heel without answering me and began to turn on the lights—for evening prayers! At the Salvation Army lodging house the attendant simply said: “We ain’t got nothin’ to give away.” At the Y. M. C. A., “the beds were all full.” The attendant didn’t know whether or not he could allow me to take a bath,—simply a polite refusal.

Next I appealed to the police. Asking the first officer I met where a man without money could get a bath, I was directed to the river. He then recalled the advice however, saying it was too early in the season for the public baths to be open. Another policeman referred me to the old city lockup (Central Station) for lodging, saying, “Go there. They will give you a cell.”

I did not go to the extreme of enduring the hardships forced upon the indigent, honest workers of Minneapolis. It was not necessary. I knew the pitiful condition only too well.

Just as I finish this story there is laid on my study table a letter, which reads:

“In the latter part of the year 1910 the Board, realizing the necessity of providing some lodging place for the transient class unable to pay for accommodations, decided to install a Municipal Emergency Home on the second floor of the old city lockup (Central Station). The work of installing this home was accomplished at an expense of $3,426.28. It was opened on the tenth of January, 1911, prepared to accommodate fifty applicants. The first three months of its operation demonstrated the fact that in order to care for all demands it would be necessary to increase the space.

“We have now a Municipal Emergency Home that will accommodate a hundred and forty. The house is just as sanitary as it is possible to make an emergency home. It has all modern improvements, separate beds, baths, medical attendance, and fumigation. Lodgers are furnished with clean night-robes and socks and given a good wholesome breakfast. Of course this is entirely free. If a man has money we turn him away. The home is supported by public taxation.”