240 Our Poorer Brother 



made parks and play-grounds for the children in 

 the crowded quarters ; in every possible way we have 

 striven to make life easier and healthier, and to 

 give man and woman a chance to do their best work ; 

 while at the same time we have warred steadily 

 against the pauper-producing, maudlin philanthropy 

 of the free-soup kitchen and tramp lodging-house 

 kind. In all this we have had practically no help 

 from either the parlor socialists or the scarcely more 

 noxious beer-room socialists who are always howl- 

 ing about the selfishness of the rich and their unwill- 

 ingness to do anything for those less well off. 



There are certain labor unions, certain bodies of 

 organized labor notably those admirable organiza- 

 tions which include the railway conductors, the loco- 

 motive engineers and the firemen which to my 

 mind embody almost the best hope that there is for 

 healthy national growth in the future; but bitter 

 experience has taught men who work for reform in 

 New York that the average labor leader, the average 

 demagogue who shouts for a depreciated currency, 

 or for the overthrow of the rich, will not do any- 

 thing to help those who honestly strive to make 

 better our civic conditions. There are immense 

 numbers of workingmen to whom we can appeal 

 with perfect confidence ; but too often we find that a 

 large proportion of the men who style themselves 

 leaders of organized labor are influenced only by 

 sullen short-sighted hatred of what they do not 

 understand, and are deaf to all appeals, whether to 

 their national or to their civic patriotism. 



