People Who Have Crossed Our Threshold

THROUGH the years there has been a procession across our threshold — made up of those who have become part of the very texture of the House on Henry Street and of those who have tarried but a little while, those who have come from far-away lands and those who have come because word had reached them that they might find in this place help and surely sympathy. We have had a continuity of family life, developing a fellowship rich beyond description or appraisal. Varied are the occupations of the residents, though the first requirement for eligibility is not the candidate’s vocation, but his interest in social progress and his participation, at least to some degree, in efforts in that direction — and of course a sense of humor.

In recalling happy memories of people who have crossed our threshold, and whose coming has enriched our understanding, I trust I may be forgiven if the temptation is sometimes irresistible to add treasured details until the mention of a friend has grown to the proportions of a character sketch.

I

I think all who know the Settlement will comprehend why the one who takes first place in our processional is Florence Kelley. For twenty-five years she was an inspiration to us and often a prod, but she was always brilliant, even at the breakfast table. It will be a sad loss to America if the story of that ardent crusader is not retold to coming generations, for her times knew none more effective. She made her generation think! She goaded with the whips of her wit, her quickness, her bottomless sympathy, her readiness to act wherever new danger menaced the child and the people whom she believed were imposed upon by outdated legislation or other discriminations. She was responsible for great ‘ethical gains’ through legislation. From her college days to the end of her life her brilliant mind turned toward amelioration of social conditions, but it never paused there. She urged us to work for the abolition of poverty. Her wit made people remember the sober things she said.

She was one of the first members of the Socialist Party in this country. Her translation of Engels fixed her in that fellowship. But the Socialist Party of the early days bore little relationship to its present organization under the guidance of Norman Thomas. Long ago, as we stood by the window watching a poor little procession carrying the banner of Socialism, Mrs. Kelley said, ‘I belong there, but they put me out because I could speak English.’

She was intolerant of superficiality, of selfishness, of inaction, and her tongue could be very sharp. Once I was trying to apologize for a woman who had disappointed those who had expected much of her, saying, ‘Well, she has an open mind.’ ‘That’s what I object to,’ flashed Florence Kelley. ‘It’s open top and bottom.’

Her spirits were often youthful to the point of mischievousness. One day I was presiding over a very serious meeting, conscious of my inability to meet the requirements of the occasion. Before me sat a woman suffering from bad boils and bandaged as such afflictions require; near her was a man with troublesome eyes, and another with a conspicuously bald head and oddly trimmed beard. These three were very much in view from the chairman’s seat. When Florence Kelley bent over confidentially, I thought of course it was to offer me a helpful suggestion as to procedure. Instead, she completely upset the presiding officer by whispering, ‘Do you remember what the lady said at the zoo when she saw the hippos — “My, ain’t they plain!”’

Newton D. Baker, long the president of the National Consumers’ League, of which Mrs. Kelley was general secretary, said that he never left her presence without feeling that his own flagging spirit and energies had been ‘re-inspired by the touch of elemental force.’

During this period of the New Deal it is pleasing to know how many who have been what we call ‘Henry Streeters’ are helping shape social legislation. Governor Lehman in Albany has given the State of New York a markedly effective administration. Since his college days he has devoted himself with unstinted generosity to causes, and in his elective office has demonstrated the importance of trained intelligence and social vision in the great affairs of the state. The Henry Morgenthaus, both Sr. and Jr., Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and many others are translating their training and experience and convictions into measures which promise a better life — at least, a more secure life.

My friend Robert Wagner, United States Senator from New York and effective champion of sound labor legislation, recently said: ‘Legislators, no matter how ardent their desire for public service, have frequently been so busy during their earlier years with the routine work of a profession that they have lacked the time to become fully aware of the facts and principles of social work. Because of this, one could not overestimate the central part played by social workers in bringing before their representatives in Congress and state legislatures the present and insistent problems of modern-day life.’

What the settlement-house experience has often meant was finely stated by Ernest Poole: ‘Here — when I was still a youngster, thank God — I came into a personal intimate home with windows looking all over the world. And I come here again and again and again.’

II

There is pride in remembering that when Sidney Hillman came to New York, little known outside the particular group of factory workers with whom he had thrown his lot, he knocked at our door and asked if there was room for one more. There are many people in this and in other countries who now recognize the vision and the truly statesmanlike qualities of this labor leader. When Seebohm Rowntree, the English industrialist, was in New York he expressed his disappointment that organized labor here was not actively engaged in promoting better conditions, but added: ‘Sidney Hillman is a figure apart. There is none more distinguished anywhere.’ Among Sidney Hillman’s achievements, in addition to the cooperative housing projects of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, are the joint employer-employee research programme of this great labor union, its labor bank, its pioneer unemployment insurance scheme, and its active workers’ education. His is the steady hand that holds the union together, while his fine mind creates the practical plan for a more abundant life.

One evening years ago, in the little back garden of the main house when the whole family was gathered for after-dinner coffee, this creative thinker, looking worn from the trials of the day, taking only a few moments’ respite before the evening activities, said: ‘I am not interested in higher wages or shorter hours of work as ends in themselves. What would higher wages and shorter hours avail if the workers did not know how to use their lives to develop their own qualities and help build up a better society?’ He has been criticized, at times persecuted, for his determination to carry out this programme, which he believes can only come about through cooperative effort on t he part of the working population. His influence is not limited to workers in the needle trades. Those who are aware of the origins of farseeing legislative measures are never surprised when they discover the guidance of Sidney Hillman.

Elizabeth Farrell lived on Henry Street for many years. She contributed the original design, truly scientific as well as humanitarian, for the education of the retarded child in the public school system.

Lavinia Dock, pioneer nurse, pioneer suffragist, has shared in almost countless measures that have increased the nurse’s education and opportunities. An educator herself, her Materia Medica has gone through repeated editions, and the history of nursing which she and Miss Nutting prepared is a classic. But this represents only one segment of her interest. I cannot even say it was always the dominant interest, for the rights of women have been well to the fore. In her years with us, everyone admired her, none feared her, though she was sometimes very fierce in her denunciations. Reputed a man-hater, we knew her as a lover of mankind. Though a pacifist, she believed in militant suffrage, and one eventful election day, when women in New York were appropriating the tactics of the English suffragettes, the captain of our precinct came in after the polls closed and very repentantly asked me to apologize for him to Lavinia Dock, whom he greatly admired. ‘For,’ said Captain Handy, ’I could n’t arrest her, I just could n’t do it, and I know that was what she wanted.’

It would be unprofitable to select from the group only the individuals whose names are best known as belonging to us, because many of the most successful participants in the settlement adventure have worked quietly. Generous Felix Warburg, Charles C. Burlingham, friend of all just causes, Governor Lehman, former Governor Smith, George W. Alger, and their distinguished colleagues on the Settlement Board of Directors, give of their best that the Settlement venture may be exploited to its utmost. But another board member, Hyman Schroeder, has been one of us since at eleven he joined the first boys’ club. His quick comprehension and sympathy have never been dulled by repetition of claims and appeals. He seems to have made of his early obstacles a finer-tempered tool of service.

III

Though I was obliged to withdraw from active membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Mrs. Kelley represented the Settlement as well as herself by her participation. At the time of the first convention of the organization, formed to further better race relations in this country, the occasion promised to be almost too serious unless some social provision were made. I suggested a party at the House, but even the organizing committee was fearful.

‘Oh, no!’ they protested. ’It won’t do! As soon as white and colored people sit down and eat together there begin to be newspaper stories about social equality.’

‘But two hundred members of the conference could n’t sit down,’ I submitted. ‘Our house is too small. Everybody would have to stand up for supper.’

‘Then it would be all right,’ they said with relief, and the party was successful.

I was much moved when I contrasted the first timid conference with the superb meeting in Washington in 1932. On Sunday evening the auditorium of the beautiful Labor Building was devoted to a memorial to Florence Kelley. The anxious misgivings of the first meeting were things of the past, and this was a truly glorious occasion, organized by educated leaders of the Negro race. Society has built up artificial barriers, and, like the Walls of Jericho, we find that they tumble when the trumpets are loud and clear enough and the marchers persevere to the seventh round.

The House solved a dilemma for our colored friends when Mrs. CobdenSanderson was our guest. The Negro intelligentsia had never forgotten that her father befriended their fathers during the Civil War. They wished to give a reception for Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson, but there was no public place they could secure at that time which seemed dignified enough for this distinguished lady. We gave the Settlement’s beautiful dining room and the residents’ sitting room for their hospitality, and we were their guests.

Among our summer residents are often students and teachers from the South who come North to get settlement experience. In residence one summer was a Negro girl who had graduated from Oberlin and was taking postgraduate study at Bryn Mawr. At the end of the season I asked a young man, a teacher in a Southern college, what had been his most interesting experience while he was with us. He seemed uncertain, and I suggested that living in the house with a colored person on an equal footing and eating at the same table must have seemed unusual. Said the young man, ‘I forgot she was a Negro.’

IV

I cannot refrain from including in this article the story of Peter Caulfield, a tramp whose visits to us were not frequent, though I knew him for many years, but whose personality fixed him in my memory. When first we met, Peter was not quite twenty — thin and tall and consumptive. One of our nurses, caring for a woman in a poor tenement, introduced us. Peter had knocked at the door of the tenement to ask for food. To see an American boy begging in our neighborhood was unusual. The nurse asked him why he came there. ‘Where would I go when I was hungry if not to the poor?’ said Peter.

The nurse gave him a scrap of paper with my name and address on it, and he found his way to Henry Street. Somewhat diffident he seemed, and very thinly clad. He said he was a waiter by trade, and that he spent the winters in the South and the summers in the North. He had been ill in the hospital, and so had lost the chance of going South that year. ‘When you hang underneath a car where there’s no chance of a brakie going through, you have to think of the weather,’ he said.

Peter seemed so unfit to struggle through a winter of unemployment that I offered to send him to a farm in Dutchess County. ‘To make quite sure,’ I said, ‘I shall have to write and find out whether they can take you. And I have to be certain you can get along without drink, for you will not get it there.’

‘Can I have hot coffee sometimes?’ he wanted to know. ‘And hot tea? And hot soup?’

I felt safe in promising this.

‘Then I won’t need drink.‘

While we waited for a reply, Peter was boarded at a cheap temperance place in the neighborhood. He called every day, fairly clean and brushed. One day he came smelling of liquor. I said, ‘I’m not trying to reform you, Peter, but please don’t let me waste money on railroad fare if you are dependent on liquor.’

Peter explained: ‘I minded a wagon for a man in the Bowery and he treated me. I could n’t say, “ Give me a glass of milk instead.” How would that have looked?’

In a few days Peter went to the farm. I had occasional letters from him. At Easter I sent him a card of the season. A few days later he rushed in, looking well fed and wholesome. His story (and it was a true one) was that there had been a fire the night before, and the director of the farm had given the men and boys placed with him money to get back to New York. Spring had come and he thought they could fend for themselves. Peter showed with pride the Easter card and said, ‘Nothing happened to this.’

He would not take money from me and I was obliged to throw a coin after him down the stairs.

Peter called regularly on his return from the South, and again in the fall before his departure, and gave me minute details of how to travel without a ticket.

One day a friend of mine, a member of the House of Morgan, called to say good-bye. He was leaving in a private car for St. Augustine. Peter called twenty minutes later. He too was going to St. Augustine. I like to think they went on the same train. One friend wrote telling of his fine journey, the luxurious appointments, the care that had been taken to make every detail agreeable. The other friend wrote: ‘I got here OK. Good car. I like this place, but for business give me New York. I hope you will send me a letter to the post office. It is the custom of this place to go to the post office for the mail.’

Peter called one New Year’s Eve — alas, the worse for drink. We were preparing for a musical, and when I hurried down to the basement, there stood poor Peter, ashamed. I said, ‘You came to wish me a happy New Year, did you? How kind of you, Peter!’

‘No,’ said Peter, ‘I went to the hospital and I was too late to go South. But I could n’t bear to sleep in a park on New Year’s Eve. It would n’t be lucky, and I thought you would find a place for me somewhere.’

On another occasion a most unpleasing tramp came to Henry Street, asked for me, and stated his needs. I felt that he was in some way connected with Peter, and I was sorry that Peter should have sent him. The next time I saw him I told him of this mendicant, and said: ‘You know, you and I are friends, but I don’t want you to send people like that man to me, and I am surprised that you did.’

Peter at once identified the tramp. ‘Was that the fellow?’ he demanded, and when I recognized the description he burst out, ‘Well, what do you know about that! The big skunk! Why, you know’, Miss Wald, I don’t talk about you to anyone. I would n’t send anyone like that to you. I hope you did n’t give him nothing. [I did n’t.] Here’s how it was. We was laying out under the trees, one night in Wyoming last summer. He got to talking about his home and his mother and all that. And I — well, I guess I got kind of soft, and I talked about you and how good you’ve been to me. And then — well, the big slob!’

V

Some time later the chaplain from the Tombs came to see me to ask whether I would befriend a prisoner who had been there many months and who said I knew him. His name was Peter Caulfield. I went at once to the prison, but the hour was too late to see him. I sent a message by the guard to ask whether he had a lawyer. The answer came back, scrawled on the margin of a newspaper: ‘My lawyer is Miss Lillian D. Wald.’

Through the District Attorney I learned that Peter had been arrested for stealing a roll of towels. Peter’s story was told, his unfitness for work, and I added that he made an effort to take care of himself. I had never known Peter to lie or to steal. I promised that if Peter were released I would protect the city from his dangerous presence by sending him to the country. Alas, I was subpœnaed to appear in court. There before the judge stood this poor creature. He might have been the very man described by Tolstoy. His Adam’s apple worked up and down with embarrassment and he did not look at the witness. The judge dismissed him. When I reached the Settlement, Peter had appeared and gone. He must have run all the way. He had come to the door only to say he wanted to thank me for what I had done for him, and then vanished.

It was not long after this that I received a letter:—

Deer Frend — I guess I got to face the music this time. Id like to say good bye, and Id like to say Im sorry I came to your house that New* Years night when Id had a drink.

Next day found me at the hospital. Peter was obviously about to ‘ face the music.’ ‘Peter,’ I said, ‘despite your ways there is so much that is good about you I am sure you must have had nice people. Don’t you want me to write to them?’

He was not interested, but he would do anything to please me. He finally gave a Boston address. Helena Dudley of the Boston Settlement, to whom the address was sent, found a decent family, an old father and a sister who was a milliner. A letter came from the sister:—

I can’t help but be grateful to you for showing friendship to Peter. He has been nothing but a trouble to us all his life. We cannot both afford to make the journey, but if he wants to see his own people one of us will come.

I took this letter to Peter. lie read it, then said briefly, ‘I’d rather have the money.’

I learned many lessons from Peter. One was a reconviction of the unlikelihood that a frail character in a frail body can march through life. Another was the unfailing chivalry that I have found among the weakest. I have never known it to fail. It must be deep in the minds of men even of the lowest spirit, that respect and therefore chivalry due women whom they believe to be good.

My first lesson in this was when I had been living on the East Side only a short time. A call came, and the message indicated a very sick child. I seized a bag and rushed out. The address was in Pearl Street. That street is not straight, and it is difficult to find numbers on it. Under one of the extension arches of Brooklyn Bridge I saw three men. It was dusk, they were roughly dressed, and they looked a bit rowdy. For a single moment I hesitated and was tempted to take the longer route through Park Row, but I did not. I kept to my course and accosted the men.

‘I am searching for this number on Pearl Street,’ I said, ‘and I don’t know how to find it. I have been called to care for a sick child.’

The men were at once all attention.

‘Lady,’ said one of them, ‘this ain’t a safe neighborhood for you and it’s getting dark. We’ll go with you.‘

And two of them did so, one carrying my bag, the other tottering a little but not very much. They took me to the number. The child was desperately in need of care, and it was a long time before I finished. W’hen I came down it was quite dark, but the two men were waiting to escort me home.

VI

Occasionally strangers who find their way to Henry Street come because they want to observe a phase of American life not always available to a visitor. For diplomatic reasons our hospitality has been asked from Washington for foreign delegations. Once we were frankly told that a South American commission was under the impression that there is nothing to be seen in the United States but the successful attainment of material ends. The official to whom the delegation had been entrusted felt that it was important for their understanding of this country that they should see something of values other than those that are purchasable. Of course the hospitality of Henry Street was accorded.

One morning John D. Rockefeller, Jr., stopped for a brief discussion of a vice investigation under way by a special grand jury of which he was foreman. He was most earnest in his quest for clarifying fact and opinion. As he departed I opened the door to members of a German Chamber of Commerce delegation who had come to America to study similar groups and inquire into the moral influences said to be operating in American cities. W hen I told them who the visitor was that they had passed on the steps, and commented upon the sincerity of the many men and women of his generation who were studying the evils latent in our civilization and trying to remedy them, one of these Germans said: —

‘The opposite is true in Germany. The strong and unselfish people of influence, best known in America as the Forty-Niners, have passed away. The people of the succeeding generation are bent on gain and entirely unresponsive to higher ideals.’

Years ago my introduction to English men and women came through the Fabian Society. Honor Morton, friend of R. R. Bowker, had invited some members she considered interesting to meet her American guest, and from that introduction lifelong friendships have ensued. Graham Wallas, affectionately called ‘Wallas the WellBeloved,’ was the first man resident we had. When he came to the United States he had letters to many distinguished people, but as he was then lecturing and had limited time it did not seem possible for him to present his introductions. I ventured to invite the people on the list for Sunday supper. Theodore Roosevelt, Jacob Riis, Richarc! Watson Gilder, Felix Adler, Seth Low, Brander Matthews, are some of the names I recall.

After the party was over, our attractive guest was as interested as were we in discussing the significance of the coming of these busy people to a settlement on the lower East Side. It was before the days of the automobile, and to reach Henry Street was not simple. Yet everyone except Brander Matthews had come; it happened to be his birthday.

Theodore Roosevelt, then Police Commissioner, was escorted by Jacob Riis, his loyal friend. On the journey they had met an Italian who was ‘minding his pushcart’ and was being nearly blown away by the gusts of that wintry night. ‘Teddy’ was bubbling over with the fun of his interview with the peddler. T. R. had said to the man, ‘I don’t see how you fellows make a living.’ The Italian shrugged and replied, ‘No good, no good. What I maka on de peanuta I lose on de dam’ bananV This was the first of many visits from T. R.

VII

Later Ramsay MacDonald and his bride came to us because Fabian friends had told them they would see something of the ‘moral influence’ that was leavening the Tammany lump of New York City politics. We were deep in preëlection organization, and the MacDonalds had opportunity to see us in action. The first night they arrived we took them to a mass meeting for which we were responsible in Apollo Hall, at that time a centre of local ‘machine’ politics. Felix Adler, Dr. Rainsford, and other supposedly influential reformers (alas, we know better now than we did then what an election requires!) were to speak. But we were sold out. The pro-Tammany owner had rented another floor in the building for a ‘regular’ meeting at the same hour of the same night. The audience there was accommodated with chairs, but there was not a single seat in the room we had secured at a high price. And the people who came and went purposely scuffled and coughed and stumbled. Never was there a sadder failure! Next evening our party, with Professor Giddings and other sympathetic citizens, went to hear the election returns, and instructive it was to see the jubilant crowds and their banners of victory — ‘To Hell with Reform!’

The early visit to Henry Street of Ramsay MacDonald and his wife on their wedding trip was the beginning of a long association. And because ‘ Chequers ’ and ‘10 Downing ’ and even ‘Hampstead’ and ‘Lossiemouth’ are known as inspiration points through the experience and the contributions to the world of the famous Prime Minister, my thoughts revert to the little home established in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where now stands a beautiful marble bench, placed there in memory of Margaret MacDonald by the Women’s Labor League.

In 1927 came the Prime Minister for a brief holiday with the dear daughter, Ishbel. Mr. MacDonald’s very serious illness during that visit made clear the affection in which he was held. I refrain from dwelling upon the tragedy of that interrupted trip, but cannot resist telling a story. The anxious doctors in the Philadelphia hospital felt that the institution’s store of the brandy which was essential for him might be distasteful to the Prime Minister, and they asked me whether I could secure a better grade. I telephoned Sir Joseph Duveen, the celebrated art collector and Mr. MacDonald’s friend, who, being British and hospitable, might have maintained a cellar of pre-Prohibition stocks. The next morning brought Sir Joseph’s secretary with historic bottles. One was selected for immediate use, and while the nurse was administering the dose I explained to the patient that it was 1815 French brandy, and that Sir Joseph Duveen had provided it. In feverish half-consciousness, the patient said: —

‘Eighteen-fifteen — that’s the time Tchaikovsky celebrated — that’s about when Romney painted the beautiful Mrs. Davenport—’And he wandered on over the harmonies of that period.

In thanking Sir Joseph, I wrote him of what seemed to me an extraordinary revelation of the things that dwelt in the mind of this man. A telephone call from New York brought expressions of eager friendship from Sir Joseph: —

’I own “Mrs. Davenport.” May I not bring the picture to the hospital and hang it in his room?’

The risk was too great for this almost priceless painting, and I thought it only right to refuse Sir Joseph. But the great authority on art answered: ‘I’d like to bring it over. There’s nobody whose judgment on pictures I value so much as his.’

A sequel to the incident occurred when I was in England some months later; I was asked why, when ‘Mrs. Davenport’ went to the hospital to see the Prime Minister, she was not permitted to call!

VIII

When I read of Lord Lytton’s illuminating report on Manchuria it recalls a handsome visitor, for at Henry Street we remember Lord Lytton not so much for his broad understanding of international affairs as for his grace as a Morris dancer. In the appropriate costume, with bells on his knees and flute at his lips, he made his own music as he danced round and round the gymnasium, to be followed by Chalif, whose athletic Russian dances were in striking contrast.

When Margaret Bondfield first came to visit us, she was not yet the Right Honorable Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labor in the MacDonald Cabinet, only woman Privy Councilor of England; but when she spoke to an admiring audience in the Settlement it was plain to be seen that here was one who had developed a great philosophy out of her experience. Later she said in Montagu House, headquarters of the Labor Ministry, that her poverty and trials as a worker and a labor leader had all been a preparation for the office she held.

Sometimes we remember to ask our guests to record their visit in our Guest Book, and on the pages are the names of artists, actors, archaeologists, leaders of forlorn causes, philanthropists, dancers, statesmen, scientists. Dr. Abraham Jacobi, whose broad interests as a physician form a unique chapter in American medical history, is on the same page with the militant suffragette, Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst. There are mementos of the visit of the Japanese Red Cross Commission, a reminder of Ellen Terry’s generous gift of her art to us, and Galsworthy’s greetings.

Galsworthy and his wife came to New York when his play, The Mob, was attracting the attention of New Yorkers to the Neighborhood Playhouse. Alice and Irene Lewisohn were responsible for a notable production. People used all kinds of direct and indirect influence to get seats. Galsworthy, whose presence in New York was not known, telephoned to the little theatre.

‘No tickets,’ said the girl at the box office. ‘Who’s talking?’

‘John Galsworthy. My wife and I should like very much to see the play.’

The girl was not to be hoodwinked. Said she, as she slammed down the telephone, ‘Quit your kiddin’!’

No one is more welcome to the House than Helen Keller, whom we love. And she has a genius for finding words for great truths. Her comment on our busy programme was: ‘Sympathy without works is like eyes without light. ’

Mary Macarthur, revered figure among labor women in England, accompanied the delegates to that first international labor conference in Washington. Her name in our Guest Book recalls to me a painful incident that I hesitate to record, but. it did happen and it might as well be told. The treaty makers at Versailles had conceded Woodrow Wilson’s point that the Labor Covenant should be included in the treaty itself, and had incorporated it in Article XIII. President Wilson had immediately issued the invitation for the first meeting under this article to convene in Washington.

But alas, when the delegates reached Washington much water had flowed under the bridge — the treaty had been repudiated, President Wilson had been stricken, the election had brought another party into power. Nobody felt the responsibility, hardly even the impulse of hospitality, for the delegates who had arrived at the President’s invitation. They found nobody to welcome them, and no arrangements had been made, although the meeting place, the Pan-American Building, had been secured by the forethought of the English international acting secretary, who had also purchased note pads and pencils. Women’s organizations did assume the obligation of occasional entertainment. Somewhat sardonically, the only official gesture was a trip to Mount Vernon aboard a Navy craft, and this was urged upon our Secretary of the Navy by his wife, whose Southern instincts of hospitality were doubtless outraged by the neglect of these guests. The European delegates, who met as strangers, made entertainment for themselves and cemented friendships that have endured through the years. There was some slight balm in the supper given for the international labor delegates at Henry Street, when they were encouraged to ‘explode’ their disappointment, and to realize that, though Washington had failed, many Americans were deeply concerned with their mission and disturbed by the fiasco of the conference reception.

Another visitor whose concern was first of all with labor was Keir Hardie. We were both busy and had no chance for what he called ‘thorough talk,’ so we agreed to breakfast together. He was grieved to find in this country so little sense of sacrifice on the part of the wage earners. At the time, there was a strike in Troy and he went there to see the picket line and to study the situation. He commented on the attractive girls in their crisp, fresh dresses, but he was quite shocked when he learned that they did not do their own laundry work and that they even had their nails manicured! He did not question their right to these small luxuries, but. he was disturbed that they were willing to spend money on nonessentials when ‘the cause’ needed funds. He was even more shocked when he found that a threatened strike at the Eastman Kodak plant in Rochester was organized in protest against the inadequate parking space provided for employees’ cars. His was the bewilderment of the stranger over the American standard of living in ‘normal’ times. How splendid was the spirit of the man is revealed in the page he inscribed in our Guest Book:—

Underlying Socialism is the great basic truth of human equality; not that all are to be alike, but that all are to be equal, which is a very different thing. Under Socialism there would be no exploiting class, no tyranny of one sex or race over another. Socialism would give reality to the claim so often insisted upon from the Christian pulpit, and yet so universally belied by our everyday deeds, that God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth to dwell together in unity.

IX

The ‘Man from Dahomey,’ a picturesque stranger, I met when an institution for the homeless in our neighborhood invited Mary Antin and me to a Passover service. It was the custom of this centre to gather in for the sacred festival the homeless and the immigrants detained at Ellis Island. The host of the evening, gowned in his shroud,¹ reclined on a couch according to the ritual, and the guests, most of them men who were strangers from distant lands, were all familiar with the ceremony. In a far corner of the room I noticed a black man, and when I commented on his presence at this Hebrew festival one of the staff told me he was a Jew. The man was called over, a tall erect figure with dark skin, straight hair, and a nose slightly aquiline. My equilibrium was nearly lost when he addressed me in English with a Scotch burr.

He was from Dahomey, on the Slave Coast of Africa. He explained that his tribe had always been distinctive in Dahomey because they proclaimed their belief in one god and one wife, and because they had never been cannibals. Many of their neighbors, he stated, adhered to the custom. ‘Indeed,’ he added with some pride, ‘when religious fervor moves Dahomey people to cannibalism they often come down to our tribe, who are weavers and industrious workers, and eat them.’ (‘Quite a compliment, in a way,’ one of our party murmured.)

The man from Dahomey had, as a stowaway, reached Scotland, where a philanthropic gentleman took him under his wing and had him educated. He had always planned to return to Africa and give his people the benefit of his education. The French had identified the tribe as Hebrews because of their customs, and brought to them the Bible which had been translated for the Abyssinians. This stranger was then under study by Franz Boas, the famous anthropologist at Columbia University, and, to make sure the Jew from Dahomey with his Scotch burr was not spoofing me, I turned to Professor Boas, who corroborated the fact of this remarkable Slave Coast tribe.

From the Arctic came a man who showed in the errand which brought him that geographical boundaries never really divide, and that people who care for humanity arrive at identical realizations. Through Henry Goddard Leach, that devoted interpreter of Scandinavia, we came to know Hjalmar Lundbohn, called the ‘King of Lapland.’ This man, a geologist, who attained a position of authority in Swedish industry, had taken 30,000 Swedes to work in the iron mines in Lapland. He was eager to provide every modern cultural advantage for these transplanted workers, that their migration should not be a loss to them. He was interested in the Lapps, also, a nomadic people whom he refused to employ underground because he was sure sucii work would destroy them.

The particular errand that brought him to Henry Street was the problem of the six-hour working day, for which the Swedes had asked. This understanding man said, ‘Six hours is a long day to toil beneath the earth. I would willingly accede to the request except for the fact that the people have had no training in using leisure, and eighteen hours of unemployment might be disastrous. I want to find out what you people do to help your friends use their unemployed time in creative, helpful pleasure and instruction.’

X

Weddings that have been celebrated at the House have ranged from those of residents and their chosen mates to the Armenian wedding for which we had to search New York and its environs to find a bishop who could perform the ceremony. It seemed inauspicious to have the newly arrived and lovely bride make her vows in a language she did not know. When we did find the bishop (in Hoboken), he put on a most gorgeous robe and patiently taught us a complicated ceremonial.

Trouble as well as pleasure has brought visitors. A District Attorney once insisted that more crimes had been confessed voluntarily to me than to him. There seems to be a widely felt need for a confessional. Certainly I cannot flatter myself that people who have gone out of their way to confide in me came for advice. I doubt whether anyone ever followed advice I gave. W hat they really wanted was to tell their trouble — sometimes their crime — to someone who would forget.

A lovely young woman, a leader in her circle, one day stopped me on the stairs. I cannot forget her desperate eyes, the flutter of her breath and of her hands as she told me that she must see me alone. Closeted in my room, she said: ‘I want to tell you something. There was a man I loved. He could n’t marry me. Perhaps I would n’t have married him. But I stayed with him. And I never told my mother. It’s the only thing I ever kept from her. It gnaws at me. Must I tell her?’

W’hat she had done haunted her. But I entreated her not to tell her mother, pointing out that it was of the past, and she would only make her mother suffer to no purpose. And I asked her when she saw me to forget that she had told me this. She had kept her secret for a long time and she was worn with the weight of it. The fact that I shared it might have spoiled our friendship, but it did not. And, having passed on her ‘sin,’ it no longer tormented her. She went her gentle way in peace once more.

Perhaps this article should be closed by quoting one of our simplest neighbors, who, in trying to formulate her evaluation of the Settlement, said to another neighbor, ‘I’ll tell you what — what you get out of this house you can’t take away in your pocket.’