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II f l  LD AG'E POVERTY
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IBy MABEL LOUISE NASSAU




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OLD AGE POVERTY IN
GREENWICH VILLAGE




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G'reenwich House Series No. 6


Old Age Poverty in
Greenwich Village
A NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY
BY
MABEL LOUISE NASSAU


Introduction by        '.;
HENRY R. SEAGER
Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University
NEW YORK      CHICAGO    TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LO'NDON     AND     EDINBURGH




Copyright, 1915, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: Ioo Princes Street




INTRODUCTION
O    LD age poverty is a problem of growing seriousness in the United States.  Providing for the
aged members of a family in rural communities
involves little or no burden, because on the farm or in
the village there is always work that such persons may
do, and the item of rent is negligible. This is far from
the case in cities. As years go by, employers are more
and more reluctant to take on employees who are past
middle life. Moreover, the requirements of modern industry have become so exacting that older people are at
an increasing disadvantage in competition with those
who have the greater quickness and adaptability of youth.
" Grown old at forty" means less that modern industry
so saps the vitality of the worker that he must be discarded at that age than that modem methods are better
served by younger persons. This unfavorable industrial
situation is paralleled by the greatly increased expense in
cities of maintaining an added member of a family in
idleness. Old people have thus come to be a burden
upon the family to which they belong. That this burden
is usually willingly borne should not blind us to the fact
that it adds not a little to the difficulties of the normal
wage-earning family in connection with meeting the rising expenses of living.
The above facts are familiar to social students, but it
remained for Miss Nassau to bring together convincing
illustrations of them for our own city of New York.
Her study embraces one hundred of the aged neighbors
whom she learned to know as a resident of Greenwich
House. Greenwich Village is neither better nor worse
than the other districts of New York in which wageearners predominate. If Miss Nassau's description is
true to the facts for this part of New York, it may be
accepted as substantially true to the facts for the city at
large.
292478




6


INTRODUCTION


Although her one hundred aged persons were selected
at random, great care was taken to include none who
were not obviously representative of large groups. By
classifying her examples into six groups, the author succeeds in indicating how varied is the problem.
Many of these aged persons are not dependent on
charity, or likely to become so. Through their own industry, through contributions of their families, or through
pensions, they are freed from material anxieties. It is
striking, however, that the great majority of these
Greenwich House neighbors either already feel the pinch
of poverty, or else are haunted by the fear that before
long they may be brought to want. That so many lives
should be embittered by fear of dependency culminating
in life "on the Island" and the pauper's grave is a
serious reflection on our civilization.
Miss Naussau's study is not an argument for any particular plan of caring for the aged poor. At the same
time, her discussion of the various plans that have been
proposed and of their merits and demerits from the point
of view of the evidence which she has collected, supplies
convincing proof of the need of some broad, constructive
policy.
Combining the interest and pathos of biography with
the objectivity of a social investigation, Miss Nassau's
book is to be commended to the attention of all those
desirous of knowing the conditions under which one
large class of people lives in New York, and of contributing toward the amelioration of those conditions.
HENRY R. SEAGER.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
May 14, 1915.




CONTENTS
I. GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM.      13
II. AGED PEOPLE WHO ARE SELF-SUPPORTING   19
III. AGED PEOPLE PARTLY SELF-SUPPORTING
AND PARTLY SUPPORTED BY THEIR
FAMILIES....... 27
IV. AGED PEOPLE SUPPORTED ENTIRELY BY
THEIR FAMILIES....     31
V. AGED PEOPLE PARTLY SELF-SUPPORTING
AND PARTLY DEPENDENT ON CHARITY     36
VI. AGED PEOPLE SUPPORTED PARTLY BY
THEIR    FAMILIES  AND  PARTLY  BY
CHARITY....... 39
VII. AGED PEOPLE WHOLLY DEPENDENT ON
CHARITY.......    42
VIII. CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY OF THE AGED. 49
IX. DIFFICULTIES OF SAVING FOR OLD AGE. 58
X. EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF THE AGED
ON THEMSELVES, ON THEIR FAMILIES
AND ON SOCIETY....    69
XI. DISLIKE OF INSTITUTIONS.... 8
XII. THE NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION FOR AGED
PEOPLE IN AMERICA.                 93








PREFACE


T    HE following studies were made while in residence
at Greenwich House Settlement during the winter
of 1913-14, under the direction of Professor
Henry R. Seager.
The purpose of the study was to find out, through a
small intensive study of individuals, how well the aged
poor are provided for, by their own efforts, by their
families and by existing charitable agencies, and to see
what further provision is needed.
One hundred people over sixty years of age, living in
the area known as Greenwich Village (between Fourteenth and Canal Streets and lower Fifth Avenue and
West Broadway to the Hudson River), near or under
the actual poverty line, were selected for special inquiry
and for as accurate delineation as possible.
Obviously one hundred people do not afford a basis
for statistics or for sweeping general observations, but
from such a group individuals can be chosen that are
typical of larger groups. The classification of groups
in Chapters II.-VII. are surely broad enough to include
a large number of people, and the carefully selected types
described in them and in the succeeding chapters are, I
am convinced, normal and representative.
Since it seems fair to believe that the representative
types of this study are representative of the old people
in the city at large, I have put forth the conclusions which
I have drawn from them with a good deal of confidence.
With the genuine desire to be fair, "unworthy" as
well as "worthy" illustrations are given, though probably the people described, as a whole represent, in intelligence and morals, a higher standard than might be
found in some other more crowded districts, or in districts less well supplied with churches and settlements,
or in a regular house-to-house canvass..
9 




IO


PREFACE


A few of the people interviewed were met on the
street, or suggested by neighbors, but most of the names
of those called upon were given by organizations. Appeals for lists of names were made in person to the
churches of all denominations in the district (twelve
churches were asked to co-operate), to the settlements,
to the A. I. C. P. and to the C. O. S., to a day nursery,
to a milk station, to one of the district visiting nurses,
to a hospital and to a dispensary, to three men's hotels,
to St. Andrew's coffee-stand, to the Salvation Army, etc.
The majority responded helpfully, though some were
able to give only two to five names, while others contributed ten to twenty names. Many names were un-.
available because out of the district limits, or under the
age desired, or because the people themselves were unwilling to give information, or were out working when
called upon, or had changed addresses.
At first I did not reveal the real purpose of the investigation, but made a " friendly visit." But afterward
I was advised to do so, because, as an experienced church
visitor said, "The old people are asking what you are
' after '; they guess you are 'up to something.' " When
I did state my purpose, nearly all were willing to help
by answering questions, sometimes with a desire to help
the cause, sometimes (not understanding the matter at
all clearly) with the hope of immediate personal gain.
Unfortunately a number of women, in upper and
lower Greenwich Village, had been interviewed some
time before by someone "who asked some of the same
questions as you, but she was from Washington." And,
it was explained further, " she had big sealed papers and
she was going to send all the answers back to Washington, and she asked for twenty-five cents from me and
from Mrs. -       and Mrs. -     for postage, and we
never heard anything from her again." This person,
evidently a "fake," must have made quite a little sum
for herself, and it needed patient explanations to show
the difference of the investigation I was conducting.
Some people, with no faith whatever in any definite
results, gave information as a personal kindness. A plan
to.strt a " grandmothers' club " had to be given up, as.  ^ '.




PREFACE                     II
the women were mostly too busy working, or else too
infirm to come to the settlement. Some people were
visited only once, others several times, and the information gained in interviews was eked out by those giving
the lists. Some of the organizations allowed their names
to be used as introductions, but sometimes names were
given with the distinct understanding that the visits
were to appear as casual. Some organizations, while
showing sympathy with the investigation, refused to give
names, or were unable to give names. Thus, on the
whole, interest and kindness were shown everywhere by
organizations and by the people themselves.




I




I


GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM
O    NE of the first impressions I received in starting
out on this investigation was, that the aged are
not a problem by themselves. The aged cannot
be considered separately, for their destinies are interwoven inextricably with those of their families, and with
that of society as a whole.
In calling upon the aged member of the family, the
whole family history was unrolled;-what affected the
aged, affected the middle-aged, and the children, so that
the problem assumed far wider and deeper significance
than I was prepared to expect.
The whole situation seems very little understood by
people in comfortable circumstances. Only a few special
students of economics, philanthropists and social workers
appreciate its seriousness, and what an exceedingly small
proportion of society they compose!
Important books have been written on the subjects of
social insurance and old age pensions. Among them,
in order of the date of their publication, are: I, "Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age," by Charles
Booth (1892); 2, "State Insurance," by Frank W.
Lewis (I909); 3, "Social Insurance," by Henry R.
Seager  (19IO);   4, "Workingmen's Insurance     in
Europe," by Frankel and Dawson (I910); 5, "OldAge Dependency in the United States," by L. W.
Squier (I912); 6, "Social Insurance," by I. M. Rubinow (g913).
On page 239 of his book L. W. Squier says: "That
the problem is present that it is widespread; that it
deeply concerns our national happiness and prosperity;
that its demands are insistent, and that the attempt at
13




I4


GENERAL ASPECTS


its permanent solution must be nation-, perhaps worldwide, cannot be doubted by an intelligent observer of
economic conditions to-day"; and I. M. Rubinow, in
his chapter on "The Old Man's Problem in Modern
Industry," says (pp. 301 and 302):
"Unfortunately these blessings of civilization, like
most other blessings for that matter, have not benefited
all classes of society-not in the same degree, anyway.
For side by side with the achievements of old age in arts,
literature, business, professions, science and statesmanship,
modern civilization on its industrial side has created the
very grave problem of superannuation-the problem of
the jobless, helpless, incomeless, and propertyless old
man of fifty." Later (p. 304) he says: "Second, the
economic conditions of the wage-contract accentuate the
economic disability of old age. Under normal physiological conditions, old age, unless preceded by a definite
chronic ailment, should lead to a gradual failing of the
productive process. As the medieval independent worker
became old, he worked less and produced less, but he
went on working as long as he could produce something.
For an agricultural community, the usefulness of an
old man or woman does not cease until actual senility is
established, and actual senility is a comparatively rare
phenomenon. But under a wage system, the condition
is altogether different."
These quotations show the trend of scientific thought,
and the books mentioned and others give full information
concerning the measures that are being taken abroad and
in America to solve the problem on the legislative
side.
In the following pages I have attempted to supplement these scientific treatises by giving my concrete observations, gained in personal contact with the people
discussed, describing their conditions as I found them.
It is always very difficult for a member of one social
group to understand thoroughly the conditions affecting
a member of a different group. We may have approximate experiences, but never very similar ones. The
best we can do is to enter, as far as possible, through
imagination and intuition, and by a process of cumula



OF THE PROBLEM


15


tive study and sympathetic inquiry, the lives of many
individuals in another group, and thus enter into a kind
of other-group consciousness-to think and feel, as it
were, in terms of those whom we are trying to comprehend. In this spirit of trying to see the individual as
an individual, and yet in the proper relation to his heritage and environment, the following studies are given.
Until the poor are considered not only economically but
individually, with all their personal equations taken into
account, we cannot solve their problems, any more thanwe can solve their problems by regarding them merely as
individuals without taking into account their economic
relations.
This report is, then, largely a description of individuals, supplemented by a few cautious generalizations.
After interviewing a number of people, I decided to
divide the aged persons studied for better understanding
into six groups, according to their source of maintenance,
giving, under each group, descriptions of typical people.
This was rather difficult, because each person was very
distinct and, in a way, each seemed unique. Still, there
was enough similarity in their present conditions, if not
in their histories, to make them fit into such a simple
classification. Also, it was difficult to decide just which
" cases " illustrated each group or chapter best-for some
really illustrate several. The classification is thus not
rigid, but it has the advantage of giving a few distinct
pictures and contrasts, and of putting general facts and
actual people into close juxtaposition.
As no statistics compiled from one hundred people
would justify elaborate statistical analysis, statistical
tables are introduced merely to show that the one hundred interviewed were a fairly varied group.
Here are a few general statistics:
W omen........................   65
Men................         35
I00




i6


GENERAL ASPECTS
Ages
(Women)
60-64..........................
65-69...........................
70-79.......................
80...........................
~...~~...~..~..~............


60-64
65-69
70-79
8o
Women


(Men)
~ - ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ Nationalities. ~ *. ~ ~~ ~ 
Nationalities
]


I8
13
21
4
9
65
15
II
8
I
35
Men
Io
13
3
6
2


25..........
i8..........
3.........
4.........
4..........
3.........
2..........
I..........
I..........
I..........
3..........
65


Irish..............
American..........
Colored
English
German...........
Italian............
Scotch............
French
Canadian
Swiss
Unknown.........


I
35


Condition
Women-54 widows; 9 single; 2 separated.
Men-9 widowers; 3 single; 2 separated or divorced;
21 married.
I neglected to ask twenty-one women and eight men
if they had savings, but of the rest five women and five
men had savings-that is, ten out of seventy-one had
savings. The savings of the five women were partly
left to them by someone else, and, except in one case,




OF THE PROBLEM


17


could not last long. Of the five men, two were bachelors and could thus save fairly easily; one had savings
sufficient for one year only, and another's savings were
fast diminishing. So that the savings counted for little.
The reason I neglected to ask the twenty-nine people
if they had savings was, usually, that they so obviously
had nothing.
Almost none of the people interviewed had had early
industrial training.  I neglected to ask twenty-five of
the women if they had had special training, but of the
forty I did ask, only three were trained-of those one
for dressmaking, one for tailoring and one for millinery.
Of the men eleven were not asked, but of the twentyfour asked, six were trained-two in Germany, one as a
shoemaker and one as a builder; one in Scotland as a
shoemaker, one in Italy as a blacksmith, and two in
New York, one as a bricklayer and one as a carriagebuilder. Lists of occupations are given in each of the
six groups.
Women were engaged almost entirely in the traditional
women's occupations-sewing, dressmaking, washing,
scrubbing, domestic service and janitress work, with a
few in factories and stores. The work, as a whole, was
very unskilled work, with a few exceptions. Probably
in another generation there will be more variety in
women's work. Most of the men were also unskilled
workers, though a few worked in factories and had trades,
such as painter, mason, carpenter, shoemaker, bricklayer,
printer, baker. Then there were a number of longshoremen and truckmen, and a number had little street stands,
or helped their sons in stores.
There are certain generalizations which might be
made about widows and widowers, couples, and single,men and women, but one hundred people seem scarcely a
safe basis for generalizations, especially as this study
aims to be a study of individuals in relation to the general problem.
There is, however, one common quality found, not
only in each group, but in almost all persons interviewed,
and that was economic fear. Fear was shown by nearly
all of the self-supporting persons, that their ability to




GENERAL ASPECTS


work might not last much longer. Fear was shown by
those dependent on their families, that the relative who
was the source of support might lose his or her job, or
might marry and with other demands be unable to help.
Fear was shown by those dependent (wholly or partly)
on charity, that they would not receive sufficient or continuous help.
The fear of being forced into some institution was
widespread and intense. Then there was the fear of
illness. Of course the fear of illness is not confined to
the poor or aged, but it is most serious for the poor,
because they literally cannot afford to be sick. It is
one thing to be ill, with the care and comforts which
money can buy, added to the care and consideration that
can be given by relatives who have leisure; but it is
another matter to be ill when almost penniless, and
when relatives are already overburdened with work.
The combination of being old and poor and ill is tragic!
By this I do not mean to imply that I found all the
people I interviewed unhappy. Many were cheerful;
some because of fine character, and some because they
were so stupid or so selfish that they did not realize, or
did not care, that they were a burden to their families
or to society. On the whole, however, I was impressed
by the worthiness of most of the people I met, by their
simple virtues of unselfishness, cheerfulness and courage,
and by the dignity with which they bore their hardships.




II
AGED PEOPLE WHO ARE SELF-SUPPORTING
T     HIS group contains twenty-seven persons. Their
occupations are as follows:
Nine widows:
One lives on savings.
One lives on savings and takes lodgers.
One dressmaker.
One does sewing.
One takes child as boarder and sells newspapers.
One does office scrubbing.
One does day's work out and washing at home.
Two in domestic service.
One single woman:
Has two furnished-room houses.
Ten couples:
(For couples the history of the man is given.)
Two live on savings.
One clerk.
Two janitors with wives' assistance.
One truckman.
One has street candy and peanut stand.
One in store, but is about to lose job.
Two help sons in stores.
Three widowers:
One works on docks.
One bricklayer.
One night-watchman.
19




20


AGED PEOPLE WHO


Two single men:
One janitor with odd carpentry jobs.
One has savings.
Two separated or divorced men:
One umbrella-mender
One has newsstand.
Four people belonging to this group are described in
the chapter, " Difficulties of Saving for Old Age "; one
widow (No. 93), one couple (No. 39), one widower
(No. 56), and one single man (No. 62).
The following descriptions are given here as the best
illustrations of this group: four widows, the one single
woman, two couples, one widower and the two separated
or divorced men.
No. 6-Mrs. C.
Mrs. C. is sixty-two years old, and (now that her
varicose veins have grown so bad that she can't work) has
a little top-floor back room in a furnished-room house,
though until recently she received $5.oo a week in domestic service. She was a servant before she married,
so she naturally turned to that after her husband died
sixteen years ago. He was a mechanical engineer, and
died on a trip to Japan, leaving no savings. Mrs. C.
has had to stop work before because of illness, and each
time her savings have been broken into. This time they
are nearly gone, and the visiting nurse told me she probably can never work out again, though she thinks she can
begin,work again soon. The clergyman of her church
thinks she ought to go into a Home, but she refuses to
do that. She is independent and cheerful, and doesn't
want charity. She is cooking on the oil stove that heats
her room, just enough to keep her alive, and has perfect
faith that she can get a good position again just as soon
as she can stand on her feet and hobble around.
Her children are dead, and she has no one to help
her. She says she spends $3.50 a week, for room, heating, food, etc.




ARE SELF-SUPPORTING


21


No. I-Mrs. B.
Mrs. B. I met selling papers on the street. She is
sixty-eight years old and shuffles along painfully, with
ragged shoes. Occasionally she falls down with attacks of
dizziness, but she manages to make about $2.00 a week
from the papers.
I went home with her and found her pretty young
granddaughter of seventeen years sick in' bed.  This
granddaughter lives with Mrs. B. because her mother
drinks and is immoral, and the girl feels she can't live
in such a home, though apparently she and her mother
are on speaking terms, and work in the same horseradish factory nearby.
With Mrs. B.'s $2.00 a week, $Io.oo a month paid
for the board of a child (to whom Mrs. B. gives devotion but not very competent care) and the granddaughter's wages, the family budget covers usual expenses. But the granddaughter has been operated upon
for appendicitis and now is sick again. At my suggestion
the C. O. S. was asked to help with the rent, and the
request was granted, but of course the C. O. S. can't
keep on paying their rent.
The granddaughter feels the responsibility of aiding
in her grandmother's support, and the grandmother feels
the need of working just as long as she can drag around,
and dreads the idea of being dependent on her delicate
granddaughter.
Mrs. B.'s second husband died twenty years ago and
left no savings. She took in washing, took children to
board and sold newspapers. She used to make about
$6.00 a week.
They have three rooms, of which one is light, in a
disreputable street, and the rooms are dirty, but that is
not surprising, as the girl stands all day at her factory
work, and Mrs. B. exhausts her strength selling the
papers and doing the necessary cooking.
The immoral mother keeps a young son with her.
One wishes he could take refuge with the grandmother
too, but until he can work, who would support him?
And yet with it all,-her fear and her growing weak



22


AGED PEOPLE WHO


ness,-Mrs. B. keeps a brave, sweet and even cheerful
outlook on life!
No. 48-Mrs. 'W.
Mrs. W. is a widow, an office scrubwoman. She is
sixty-two, Irish, but has lived in New York forty-nine
years. Before she married she was a domestic servant,
so after her husband's death, thirty years ago (he was
a street laborer), she went out washing and ironing,
which gave her about $7.00 to $8.00 a week. Now she
does office cleaning at $6.00 a week. She had three
daughters who died; one who worked in a flower factory died quite recently.  She lives alone except for a
lodger to whom she rents a room for $I.50 a week, which
reduces her rent of $13.00 a month, and leaves her
enough for food, heat, clothing and some carfare. She
says she walks as much as she can to save carfare, but
the four trips a day —the office cleaning is done in two
sessions-make too much walking.
She says she has no savings; probably the daughter's
illness and the need of extra coal during an unusually
severe winter took her savings.
Her lodger may leave, or her rheumatism may grow
so much worse that she can't work, so her future isn't
very secure!
No. 2o-Mrs. H.
Mrs. H. is an Irish Catholic, sixty years old. She
came to the United States when six years old, and had
a convent training till she was fourteen years old. She
then worked in a shirtwaist factory till she married.
Her husband died fifteen years ago, leaving nothing but
burial insurance. Her son left her some savings. She
has a sister and two nieces, but they can't help her,
and she lives alone with two lodgers, whose payments
cover the rent and leave a little over. As she can't
find work at present she lives on that "little over" and
the savings. She must have difficulty getting on, and I
fancy the savings are not enough to last much longer,
as she is gloomy and pessimistic and worried about the
future.




ARE SELF-SUPPORTING


23


No. -— Miss D.
Miss D. is a shrewd, energetic Irish spinster of seventyfive, still fairly well and strong. She was at one time
a tailoress, but has had for years two furnished-room
houses, paying the amazing rent of $I,6oo for them, i.e.
for both. There are twenty-one rooms, which she rents
for $1.75 to $4.oo00 a week. She says that lately she just
clears enough to live on, and she has a great deal of
work, as she keeps the rooms in order herself. She says
she has " lent relatives money," and that " they will have
to take care of me when I can't work longer! " Aside
from this rather unbusinesslike arrangement, she seems
an example of a rather unusually intelligent woman of
her class and she certainly is -unusually strong physically.
She isn't a fair example of what most women of her
age can do. Of course, it remains to be seen how well
these relatives will reward her. Single women are especially apt to be preyed upon by relatives, and when they
have savings they rarely take proper care of them.
No. 5-Mr. B.
Mr. B. is a native American, sixty-three years old.
He and his wife are still well and strong enough to work.
They do janitor work for four houses, receiving four
rooms, coal and gas free and $12.oo a month pay, which
is just enough for food. Probably tips help out. He
used to be a driver and a porter, averaged $I6.00 a
week, but they had thirteen children to provide for, and
of the six left none can now help them. They have no
savings and no insurance. I didn't see Mr. B., but
Mrs. B. said they always wanted to be independent, and
"when we can't care for ourselves we'll go to the poorhouse." It is easy enough for her to say that now
when they can both work, and such a contingency seems
impossible, but to the observer who thinks of old age
and incapacity not far off, such reliance upon a capital
of physical strength seems rather desperate. The woman
made the speech in a belligerent tone, not as if she and
her husband would ever go to the poorhouse with any
willingness.




24


AGED PEOPLE WHO


The following case illustrates a transitional stage
which is typical probably of what will happen later with
others described as self-supporting at present, but with
the imminent possibility of being obliged to give up work.
No. 67-Mr. D. Z.
Mr. D. Z., over sixty, was introduced to me by some
neighbors, who took me to call on him, evidently hoping
I could help him in some way, and interpreted for me.
He was born in Italy and has been in New York fourteen years, but never took out naturalization papers. It
was probably a big mistake for him to leave Italy, as he
had a position as a government forester there. At first
he did brass work in a factory here, but now he is only
a clerk in a candy store, receiving $4.50 to $5.0o a
week, and even this job he is to lose soon. He can't
speak English and seemed stupid and glum, so probably
his employer can't be blamed for dismissing him, as he
would not attract trade. His wife is in a hospital with
tuberculosis. He lives alone. He has two sons, but
apparently they can't help much, and the two Italian
girls who interpreted seemed to think outside aid would
be needed.
No. 57-Mr. B.
Mr. B. is one of my absolutely unauthenticated cases,
but his story was interesting, and plausible enough. I
met him on the street. He said he was seventy-two and
was born in Scotland, but came to America when thirty
years old and took out naturalization papers. He had
learned shoemaking from his father, and followed that
trade until his wife made him become a weaver because
she was one. He didn't like being a weaver, and wasn't
successful, and after her death went back to shoemaking
-evidently with general relief, as he said she was so
very difficult he never wished to marry again. But
finally he had to give up shoemaking, and now he is a
night-watchman at a men's hotel kept by a very stingy
woman, who pays him only 35 cents a night in addition
to a bed in the daytime. Out of that 35 cents he has to




ARE SELF-SUPPORTING


25


get his meals. He said, " I'll work till I have to go into
an institution," and apparently was not alarmed, especially, at that prospect, because he is at present so uncomfortable. He has no relatives in this country, and
at seventy-two he cannot expect to live so many more
years. A small amount would enable such a man to live
in independence and comfort at a Mills Hotel.
No. 52-Mr. A.
Mr. A.'s career must be a fairly typical one. He has
a newsstand on Hudson Street, and is independent and
cheerful in spite of his wooden leg. I had no one to
authenticate his story, but it seemed probable. He was
born in New Jersey sixty-three years ago, and worked
on a farm, then he was a mason, and in an accident lost
a leg. He worked in a restaurant, and finally settled at
the newsstand. He said he took in about $I.oo a day.
He was separated or divorced, probably the former, as
poor people are rarely divorced. He has three children,
but said, " They can't help me, and anyway I wouldn't
want to depend on my children."
Aside from his lameness he is well. He has a "furnished room" somewhere, and must get on well on $7.00
a week just for himself, and be able to save something.
I met one or two other old men with little stands
and felt as if that were quite an appropriate and pleasant
mode of livelihood for men incapacitated for hard work,
but of course it takes some little capital to get a license
and to start a stand, and there is competition, and then
it takes fair health for even that work, which requires
being out of doors more or less in all kinds of weather.
This story is much like the preceding and both are
given as examples of comfortable self-support.
No. 94-Mr. T.
Mr. T. I met at his trade of wandering street umbrella-mender. He said he earned about $7.00 a week
and that he was separated from his wife and lived at a
men's hotel. He was born in New York, is sixty-five




26 SELF-SUPPORTING AGED PEOPLE


years old, and said he was perfectly well. He looked
as if he drank rather heavily, but perhaps his out-of-door
life accounted partly for his appearance.  He had
worked on the docks and railroad, where he got $40.00 to
$50.00 a month. He enjoys his present trade, as did
another man, who earned about $4.oo a week, selling
feather dusters all over New York. He said, however,
he had no savings, which he ought to have, with $7.00
a week and no one else to support. He really is the sort
of man one could see go to Blackwells Island without
great regret, and yet he has a rather independent spirit,
and I'd be sorry to send anyone to Blackwells Island.
Of these people described, it is easy to see that no
one had a future really well assured, except perhaps
No. 11, which is rather curious, because the single women
of the investigation were mostly worse off than married
people with children to depend on and than single men.
The special deduction to be drawn from this group is
the uncertain future of most elderly people who are still
working. They would not be working with their physical disabilities, many of them, if they had someone else
to depend upon, and, therefore, when their present capacity for work gives out, as it soon will, they have no
one on whom to rely for support.




III


AGED PEOPLE PARTLY SELF-SUPPORTING
AND PARTLY SUPPORTED BY THEIR
FAMILIES
HIS     group contains nine persons.   They are
grouped as follows:
Six widows:
Three janitresses.
One takes lodgers.
One sews on skirts.
One does washing at home.
One single woman:
Dressmaker.
One married couple:
Longshoreman (husband).
One widower:
Mason and plasterer.
One of this group (a widow) is described in the
chapter on "Difficulties of Saving for Old Age" (No.
68).
The following descriptions are given as the best illustrations of their group: two widows, the one single
woman, the widower, and the couple.
No. 78-Mrs. M.
Mrs. M. is an Italian, seventy-five years old. She
has been in New York fifteen years, but speaks very
27




28     PARTLY SELF-SUPPORTING AND
little English, as her daughter answered my questions
altogether. She has rheumatism, but does sewing on
cloth skirts. Her daughter said her mother had never
worked except at home. She now lives with a son and
his wife and one child, and the married daughter lives
in the same house on another floor. The name was given
me without any details, and I couldn't find out many
details. I saw them working on the ready-made skirts,
and apparently the family was able to care for the
mother, only she was expected to work as long as possible. This illustration is given to show one of the ways
that old women can help along a little when they have
families able to take the larger part of their support.
No. 89-Mrs. P.
Mrs. P., a colored woman, sixty years old, having
done laundry work in a laundry for years, now does
occasional washings at home. She lives with two grandchildren, one seventeen years old, and they help her, as
she doesn't make enough to support herself. As she says,
"I've been sickly for ten years."  Still, she probably
makes enough to provide food for herself.
No. I8-Miss H.
Miss H., "over sixty," Irish, was a dressmaker, but
now can't get much work, though she is well enough to
sew. She lives alone, making what she can, and her
sister contributes to her support. She spoke as if her
sister could fairly easily help her, and she evidently likes
living alone and gets on on a very small amount.
No. 40-Mr. S.
Mr. S. is an intelligent German, who has been in
America thirty years.
At the time of his wife's death he had help from the
C. O. S., and the two younger children were put in an
orphanage. Now he and his sixteen-year-old daughter
manage to live in an independent but poverty-stricken
way. He had a trade-school training and worked as a




SUPPORTED BY THEIR FAMILIES                29
builder. He once had his life insured, but failed to keep
up payments and the policy lapsed. He has been incapacitated by severe asthma for years, but is occasionally
able to do odd jobs as mason and plasterer. It is pathetic
to see his various signs advertising his trade, because of
course he can't be very competent now because of his
failing strength and poor breathing, and, besides, the
present-day demand is for younger men, who will work
quickly, even if not so carefully or accurately.
So Mr. S. doesn't get much employment. His daughter began work at fourteen and now at sixteen has occasional factory work. She recently received $4.00 a week
at a box factory, but as soon as a slack season arrived
she was laid off. She isn't strong; has rheumatism and
a weak heart. She has been advised to "live out," but
she can't bear to leave her father, and he really does
need her, as some of his attacks are very bad. Of course
for a delicate girl to be so insufficiently fed and clothed
is an economic waste, as she will inevitably become a
care to society in an incurable hospital or some institution
unless she dies. Her father chafes at his inability to
support himself and her. He realizes she ought not to
work, and yet they both need the money she earns at
times. He has worked when he could, and evidently
been steady and temperate. He is now a really tragic
figure.
No. 71-Mr. G.
Mr. G., Irish, sixty years old, was at one time a
second foreman, working on the White Star Company
docks at $20.00 a week. Then he worked as a longshoreman, and now he gets only occasional jobs. He is
well enough, but can't get much work. He partly supports himself, and he and his wife live with two sons,
aged twenty-one and twenty-three, unmarried, and a
widowed daughter with one child. His wife said, "It
would set him crazy if he had to be dependent on his
sons," but of course a little later it must come to that.
These illustrations (except Nos. 78 and 18) seem to
indicate that the efforts of old people are required, even




30        PARTLY SELF-SUPPORTING
when they can only contribute a little to the family income. No. 40 may sound extreme, but is, in my opinion,
a rather typical case.
I found that with only two or three exceptions old
people do not give up working before they have to. On
the whole, all worked who could possibly work.




IV


AGED PEOPLE SUPPORTED ENTIRELY BY
THEIR FAMILIES
HIS group contains twenty-eight persons.   They
are grouped according to their last occupation.
Fifteen widows:
Four did washing.
Two did sewing.
One domestic nurse.
One did book-folding.
One was in an underwear factory.
One lived out.
Two never worked.
Three unclassified.
Two single women:
One curled feathers in a shop.
One was chambermaid in a hotel.
Seven couples:
One truck driver.
Three longshoremen.
One dock-worker.
One in tobacco factory.
One in sugar house, stableman and watchman.
Four widowers:
Two longshoremen.
One in factory.
One baker.
Several persons in this group are described elsewhere
as follows: Two widows (Nos. 85 and 87), two couples
(Nos. 31 and 95) and one widower (No. 60) in the
3I




32       AGED PEOPLE SUPPORTED
chapter, "Effects of Dependency "; one widow (No. Io)
in the chapter, "Difficulties of Saving"; one widow
(No. 58), one longshoreman (No. 76), one couple (No.
97) and one widower (No. 92) in the chapter, " Causes
of Dependency."
The following descriptions are given as the best illustrations of their group: three widows, one single woman,
two couples and one widower.
No. 74-Mrs. K.
Mrs. K. is Irish, sixty-eight years old. She was a domestic servant till she married, and after her husband's
death, twenty years ago, she worked in an underwear
factory, but she hasn't been able to work for thirteen
years on account of sickness and then feebleness.
She lives with a widowed daughter and her two children.  There are no other relatives.  The daughter
makes $6.oo to $7.00 a week in a handkerchief factory.
Seven dollars a week is not enough for two adults and
two children; indeed it is most insufficient.
The two following cases seem especially good illustrations of families entirely willing to support the aged
member, making no appeal for outside aid (unless having the service of a district visiting nurse is considered
appealing to charity, and poor people don't consider it
exactly that), while all the time an outsider can see the
effects of under-nourishment and strain.
No. 54-Mrs. A.
Mrs. A. is from Sweden, a Protestant. She was a
domestic laundress till she married, and her husband was
a boiler-maker, who left no savings when he died. She
is crippled and unable to work. She lives with a married
daughter and her husband and two children. The sonin-law makes $I2.00 a week. There are no other relatives. The mother and two young children look sickly.
Twelve dollars a week is not enough to support a family
of three adults and two children. They cannot possibly
have enough to eat.




ENTIRELY BY THEIR FAMILIES


33


No. 66-Mrs. D.
Mrs. D., Irish, seventy-seven years old, lives with a
daughter and son-in-law and six children. She has been
a widow for eighteen years, and hasn't been able to work
for fifteen years, which is natural, considering her age.
The son-in-law is a truck-driver, making $12.00 a week.
The youngest child is a baby, but think of three adults
and five children living on $12.oo a week! They all
looked sick and discouraged and dirty. The mother and
daughter seemed to think the mother's dependence natural, but the son-in-law must feel it hard to support his
mother-in-law when he isn't making enough to care for
his children properly.
No. 41I-Miss S.
Miss S. manages somehow to impress one with her
dignity, even though she and her sister live in one back
room in a furnished-room house on a disreputable and
hopelessly dirty street. They are favored guests, in that
the janitress gives them meals in the basement, and when
Miss S. is unusually sick she has her meals on a tray
upstairs, as she is seventy-eight. The younger sister is
about sixty, but seems young in comparison and is still
curling feathers in a shop. For a while during the
spring she was laid off from work, and in trying a new
temporary position she found that younger girls could
work much faster, and was very thankful to regain her
old job at $I2.00 a week, out of which she pays $8.oo
for board, i.e., for both her sister and herself. There
is a brother of seventy-two, whose wife died recently,
who has diabetes and gets a police pension of $14.00
per week (as a patrolman in service he made $1,200
a year). He had not helped the sisters, but perhaps he
will now that his wife is dead after a long sickness. But
he may die soon himself. The younger sister wishes
that her sister would go into a Home, but won't suggest
it to her, and is struggling hard to take care of her and
support her. The older sister doesn't realize these struggles, and is full of pride over her sister's abilities. As
she told me one day, "My sister is treasurer of the




34       AGED PEOPLE SUPPORTED
--- club at the church, and when she wished to resign,
the president simply would not allow it." The S.'s were
born in New York, and have a feeling of responsibility
for poorer neighbors. Once from the window I saw a
man dressed in rags, sorting over the contents of the
ash barrel in the backyard, and Miss S. exclaimed, " Oh,
that is old Bismarck. He comes around every few days,
and we give him pennies. He lives on the Bowery, and
is supported by odd jobs and gifts. I haven't seen him
for some time; no doubt we pamper him sometimes, and
when he gets too many pennies he gets drunk." This
was said with a grand air of kindly patronage. Poor
women, they are both so really admirable and selfrespecting-what is to be their fate!
No. 6i-Mr. C.
Mr. C. is sixty-five years old, Irish, and an invalid
with bad asthma. He was a longshoreman earning anywhere from $5.00 to $25.00 a week, towards the end only
an average of $6.oo a week. But he hasn't been able
to work for ten years on account of illness, and his
wife can't work either.
They live with an unmarried son of twenty-four years,
who makes only $8.oo a week. A married daughter,
living in the same house with them, has six children and
says she can't help her parents financially, but must, I
think, help some. The man was too sick to talk, but
the wife and daughter said they felt the situation "was
hard" on the son and I quite agreed with them. I
found the case through a nurse, and the family seemed
independent and self-respecting. Savings were eaten up
by the man's long illness, and now the two old people
depend entirely on the son.
No. 82-Mr. M.
Mr. M. is Irish, sixty-seven years old. He was a
longshoreman, and had no savings when he had a paralytic stroke eighteen years ago. He and his wife of
sixty-one live with their son of twenty-two, unmarried,
who works on the docks. I talked with the wife, who




ENTIRELY BY THEIR FAMILIES


35


said her sister and cousins were the only other relatives
and couldn't help, so their support falls entirely on the
young son. She didn't say how much he made.
No. 96-Mr. T.
Mr. T. was born in Ireland and came to the United
States when nineteen; now he is sixty. As a longshoreman he earned $I2.oo to $20.00 a week-less as he grew
older. His rheumatism made him give up work three
years ago. He lost his wife eight months ago and lives
with an unmarried daughter who works in a store. He
has sisters in Brooklyn, but they can't help. He had
no savings when he stopped work, but has some insurance. So the daughter must have had to support both
parents for three years, and now has her father to care
for entirely.
The special deduction from this group seems to be
that the children show willingness to support their parents, but that they have many difficulties in so doing.
Many families are struggling so hard for a bare existence that even the smallest additional strain is a burden. Of course the old people do not eat a great deal,
but their food costs something, and they take space
which otherwise might bring in some income from boarders or lodgers.
This subject is taken up more fully in the chapter
on "Effects of Dependency."    The information was
given me that Italian men usually retire very early and
are supported by their children, but I did not happen to
encounter this condition among the Italians I visited, perhaps because the ones I visited were poorer than those
referred to; and certainly I did not find this the case with
other nationalities.
On the whole, it seemed to me that the old people
worked as long as possible and that their families struggled hard to support them when they could work no
longer. In fact, it seemed as if the families' struggles
were often too great, and that the whole economic
standard of the families was thereby lowered.




V


AGED PEOPLE WHO ARE PARTLY SELFSUPPORTING AND PARTLY DEPENDENT ON CHARITY
PTpHIS group contains eight persons.      They are
grouped as follows, giving their occupation:
Six widows:
Two janitresses (at present).
One a former domestic nurse.
One does a little janitress work.
One does a little washing.
One helps one-third year in fresh air home.
One single woman:
Furnished rooms.
One single man:
Ladies' dressmaker.
One widow    (No. 69) is described in the chapter,
"Dislike of Institutions." The single man (No. 32)
is described in the chapter, " Causes of Dependency."
The following descriptions are given here: Three
widows and the single woman, as best illustrations of
this group.
No. 23-Mrs. S.
Mrs. S. is seventy-four, a native of Germany. She
said she stopped school at twelve years old to help her
father, a tailor, working with him till she came to
America, at the age of twenty-two. She then worked
as a domestic servant till she married. Her husband
was a glazier at $I2.oo a week. He left no insurance.
36




PARTLY DEPENDENT ON CHARITY                37
She has "burial insurance." She works as a janitress
for free rooms, and the A. I. C. P. gives her $5.00 a
week for herself and two grandchildren. She had eight
children. One daughter and three sons are left, but
can't help her. She is soon to be moved by the Society
to the Bronx and two other grandchildren are to live
with her, and a general new arrangement is to be made.
She has a most independent spirit and is hard-working
and self-respecting. 
No. 44-Mrs. T.
Mrs. T. is sixty-four, a native New Yorker in pretty
good physical condition for her age. She does janitress
work in a small house, which reduces the rent from
$16.00 to $o0.00 a month. Then she gets sewing from a
church, from which she makes $I.00 a week, and receives
an outright gift of 50 cents a week, so she is not dependent on her family, practically bringing in the equivalent
of board and lodging.   She lives with a widowed
daughter who has a son of fourteen years. The daughter earns $10.00 a week and two meals daily, working
in the restaurant at the Grand Central Station. This
wage is good, but the hours are bad, from 2:30 in the
afternoon to 12:30 at night, and the continual electric
light and underground rooms are bad for her eyes and
health generally. So it is well that the grandmother can
help herself at present, and perhaps when the boy goes
to work the mother can change to less harmful work,
though the grandmother may not be able to do janitress
work much longer. The sewing of course is charity,
but she does not feel it that exactly.
No. 33-Mrs. N.
Mrs. N. is seventy, a native New Yorker. She never
worked till fifteen years ago. Her husband died seventeen years ago, and she lived with her father, who had
a U. S. Army pension, for two years. Then she did
washing and still does a little, but makes only about
50 cents a week recently, as she is growing feeble. Her
church gives her sewing, which brings her about $3.50




38  PEOPLE PARTLY SELF-SUPPORTING
a week. She lives on this $4.00 a week, alone, paying
$7.50 a month for rent and 50 cents a week for coal.
This case almost belongs with the group of people
wholly dependent on charity, but I put it here as she
earns a trifle. It and Case No. 26 in the next chapter,
and others, show the part taken by church aid.
No. Is-Miss F.
Miss F. is a native New Yorker, seventy-five years
old. She used to do sewing and tried renting furnished
rooms, but wasn't successful and had no savings when
she stopped regular work. She has now three rooms,
rent $i6.00 a month, and- sublets one for $Io.oo. She
gets $8.00 a month for church sewing, plus an outright
gift of $2.00 a month, to which she adds with occasional odd jobs of sewing and washing. She feels she
really earns the church money and calls herself "selfsupporting." She won't go in a Home yet, but realizes
she may have to do so some day. She thinks "women
with husbands ought not to be given work," and it is
true that an aged spinster has an especially hard time
economically.
The special deduction from this group seems to be
that old people, even when helped by charity, try to do
what they can towards their own support, that there
isn't that easy dependence on charity so many people
fear. In the chapter, " Effects of Dependency," a sample
case of a pauper family is given, a family (No. 28)
ruined by charity, but this is given to be fair, to show
all sides-not because I believe it represents an at all
large class of people. Such a class I believe to be much
smaller than is usually supposed. It was at any rate
the only example among my one hundred cases investigated.




VI


AGED PEOPLE SUPPORTED PARTLY BY
THEIR FAMILIES AND PARTLY BY
CHARITY
T    HIS group contains thirteen people.   They are
grouped as follows, with their last occupations
given:
Ten widows:
Three did washing.
One domestic servant.
One factory worker.
Two never worked.
Three unclassified.
One single woman:
Unclassified.
Two couples:
One painter.
One in appraiser's store-keeper at Blackwells Island.
One widow (No. 75) and one couple (No. 26) are
described in the chapter, " Dislike of Institutions "; two
widows (Nos. 3 and 28) are described in the chapter,
"Effects of Dependency."
The following descriptions are given as the best illustrations of their group: four widows and the single
woman.
No. 55-Mrs. A.
Mrs. A., Irish, aged sixty-five, has been a widow for
nineteen years. She used to work in a crinoline skirt
39




40      SUPPORTED PARTLY BY THEIR
factory, getting $12.00 a week, but before she stopped
she got only $4.00 a week at the Butterick factory.
She had a fall and is feeble. She had no savings when
she stopped work. She lives with her sister. The sister,
also a widow, although only two years younger, is
stronger and brighter, and still earns money at odd
jobs. She was a milliner and also worked in a fruit
store and a paper factory. A charitable society helps
with groceries, and the two old women think that the
" people at the office are just grand." When the younger
one can't work, it looks as if an institution is all that
is possible for them. Charitable societies rarely pension
old people entirely, and as Catholics they can't get much
help from their church.
No. I4-Mrs. F.
Mrs. F. is an Italian, aged sixty-two. She has been
a widow since the age of twenty-five.  She came to
America eight years ago to join a prosperous son, but
he has been stricken with blindness. The blind son is
a widower with five children. One child was adopted,
two are in Homes, and the other two live with their
father and grandmother. One is sixteen and gets $5.00
a week, the other is fourteen and is trying for working
papers. Another granddaughter, whose parents are in
Italy, boards with the family. She is twenty-five years
old, and works in a corset factory. A charitable association helps out. Again it seems as if the burden fell
heavily on the young.
No. 47-Mrs. W.
Mrs. W. is Irish, sixty-seven years old.  She isn't
strong physically or mentally and cannot work any. Her
husband was an iron-moulder, who died seven years
ago. She said she never knew how much he earned!
She lives with a son of fourteen, at work, and a feebleminded daughter. Another feeble-minded child is at
Central Islip. She is helped by a charitable association,
but the responsibility for the young son seems heavy.




FAMILIES AND PARTLY BY CHARITY 41


No. ig-Mrs. H.
Mrs. H. I found living with a daughter whose husband
had died very recently, and whose son of fifteen was
making $3.50 a week. Unfortunately I forgot to find
out if the daughter who was looking for work had found
any, but she could probably find something in time, and
the church to which they belonged was helping them.
The point of this illustration is that Mrs. H. has been
a widow for twelve years and her husband was ill for
fifteen years before he died, with diabetes, and Mrs. H.
has the same malady. Think of the burden of such long
illnesses, for poor people!
No. 26-Miss M.
Miss M., sixty years old, born in New York, lives
with her sister, who makes $7.50 a week at a collar and
cuff laundry. She receives help from her church, about
$4.00 a week from sewing and outright gifts. She has
epilepsy and cannot do any real work. If it were not
for the church's assistance it would be a very difficult
case, as the sister's $7.50 is scarcely enough to support
two people, one an invalid. She is rather above most
of the people in this investigation, and yet not equal to
some, and not eligible for one of the better-class Homes,
even if her infirmity did not bar her out.
The special deductions from this group seem to be that
families do not take more outside assistance for their
aged members than is necessary, and that churches and
charitable societies have many demands for help for the
aged which they consider entirely reasonable and right.
The few men in these last two groups, and the next
group, will be commented upon in the conclusions after
the next group.




VII


AGED PEOPLE WHOLLY DEPENDENT ON
CHARITY
H   IS  chapter includes two groups.    The first
T group contains nine persons with their past occupations as follows:
Five widows:
Three did sewing.
One milliner.
One unclassified.
Three single women:
One sewing.
One factory work.
One fur worker.
One couple:
Shoemaker.
Of these, two widows (Nos. 4 and 29) are described
in the chapter, "Dislike of Institutions"; one widow
(No. 7) is described in the chapter, "Effects of Depehdency," and one single woman (No. 12) in the
chapter, "Difficulties of Saving."
The following descriptions are given as the best illustrations of their group: two widows, one single woman
and the couple.
No. 34-Mrs. O'H.
Mrs. O'H. was born in Ireland. She is seventy, and
seems weak physically and mentally. Her husband died
thirty-four years ago.  She lives with an unmarried
daughter of thirty. An unmarried son, a machinist,
42




DEPENDENT ON CHARITY


43


died three years ago. The daughter had to give up factory work on account of tuberculosis, and now one of
the charitable societies is helping them. The daughter
evidently wasn't a bad case of tuberculosis, as she is
supposed to be nearly well; but it all seemed rather
hopeless to me, for if the daughter goes back to work in
a factory she is apt to have the trouble again worse than
ever. She said to me, " Factory work is hard; indeed,
all life seems just hurry up, hurry up."
No. 77-Mrs. L.
Mrs. L. was born in America, and is a widow, aged
sixty-two. Before marriage she was a milliner, and
also after her husband's death. His sickness used up
his money. She ranged in earnings $Io.oo, $i8.oo,
$I2.00, $Io.oo a week. She is incapacitated now because of sciatica and rheumatism. She has no children
and no relatives nearer than second cousins, and lives
alone in a "furnished room." She is supported by her
church, which pays her rent, and by friends who contribute food. She evidently doesn't get enough food.
She said, "I stinger myself as much as possible."  A
working-woman I knew well vouched for her as a
thoroughly hard-working, admirable woman.
No. 25-Miss M.
Miss M. lives in proud isolation, scorning her neighbors, for, as she said to me one day, " How would you
like to live with people a class below yours?" She has
one room and an alcove, and refuses to be friends even
with the woman next door, who is supported by the
same church! She said of this neighbor, " She insulted
me one day, and I sent her out of my room and told
her never to come back," adding with tears in her eyes,
" But I am sociable and try to go out to see people,
though I'm too nervous to see people who irritate me."
Poor soul, she has nervous dyspepsia and is feeble and
a cataract has grown over one eye. Because she has
"seen better days," the church to which she belongs is
most generous to her, spending upon her about $25.00




44


AGED PEOPLE WHOLLY


a month for rent, food, heat, etc. In contrast to others
in the house she is very comfortable, but she does not
think she is comfortable; her scorn of her surroundings
is intense. Her father was in business, but failed when
she was eleven years old. Without any real training
she worked in stores and factories, and at one time earned
$18.00 a week, in seasonal work, but eight years ago
she had to stop work on account of her poor eyesight.
She can't see to read much now, says she repeats poetry
she learned when a child in Canada, and she goes to
lectures at the public schools, etc. She once said, "I
used to go to lectures at school-but the only lectures
they have now are economical, and I have enough of
that at home, and I don't like it! " She is a keen observer of character, and one day in commenting upon
one of her church visitors, she said, " Miss -  never
lost herself "-a rather neat comment on self-control, I
thought! With all her loneliness and unhappiness she
won't go into a Home, and it is fortunate she is a member of a church able to support her.
No. 46-Mr. V.
Perhaps old Mr. and Mrs. V. do take charity a
little easily now, having lost the capacity to provide for
themselves years ago. If you were seventy-seven and
partly paralyzed, wouldn't you feel as if someone ought
to take care pf you, and if you had no children, or anyone to depend upon, wouldn't you fall back on charity
and finally get used to it? I can't put Mr. V. quite in
the "pauper class."  He was born in Germany, where
he learned the trade of shoemaker, and he worked in
Switzerland and France before coming to America.
When he had to give up working he had $500 saved,
but of course that would not last so very long. A
Home that sometimes gives outside aid gives him and
his wife $15.00 a month. They pay $5.00 a month for
two rooms in a rear tenement ground-floor, damp and
drafty. That leaves $Io.oo a month for some food and
fuel, light, clothes, etc. Another charity gives them
weekly groceries and occasional gifts, but is trying to
persuade them to go into a Home. However, they pre



DEPENDENT ON CHARITY


45


fer to be together and independent, no matter how uncomfortable. What a travesty on Browning's words,
"Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made!"
this picture is, of cold, half-starved people, with lives
empty, forlorn and neglected!
The special deduction from this group seems to be
that people who are given entire support by charitable
societies and churches really do need it. None of the
people in this group are really to blame for their dependence.
I was impressed by the fact that I found a number of
single women and widows, but few men, living alone,
and that I found more women than men that were
entirely dependent. I wondered if men, who naturally
have not as much of the " home-making instinct" as
women and therefore would not try to live alone, cooking for themselves, would drift out of Greenwich Village, down to the cheap Bowery hotels and lodginghouses. But a clerk in a cheap men's hotel in lower
Greenwich Village said that his place was as cheap as
those in the Bowery, and that I must remember that men
incapacitated for work and without wives, children or
sisters, were apt to give up and go to the Island, and
that men of the very poorest classes often drank heavily
and died early. Therefore there are not as many elderly
men helped by outdoor charity as women.
Later at a men's hotel, of a slightly better grade, on
Sixth Avenue I did learn that there were a good many
men there over sixty, able to work a little, so it is true
that instead of trying to live alone, if they have a little
money men go to a hotel.
It can easily be understood that more elderly poor
women than men would be members of churches and
helped by them. One church in Greenwich Village has a
list of about twenty elderly women who are partly or
wholly dependent on the church's bounty, and they are
an especially deserving group.




46


AGED PEOPLE WHOLLY


And it is easy to see that single persons are more
apt to be dependent than people with children, and especially single women, because they are more unselfish,
as a whole, in helping their relatives from time to time
and therefore less apt to accumulate savings.
And there are many widows whose children are dead,
and their position is much like that of single women.
And then, too, there are many married women who
have never worked, or at least not during their husband's lifetime, who find it difficult to support themselves after their husband's death. Those who have
worked before marriage generally cannot go back to the
same kind of work, having lost in efficiency during the
intervening years, except in unskilled work like scrubbing offices, etc.
Apparently the poorer workingmen can't or won't
keep up life insurance,-probably they can't, most of
them,-and often men better off won't, so widows of
men with good wages, and sometimes of men with good
salaries, are utterly destitute.
The subject of the cost of maintenance of people outside of institutions is discussed in the chapter, "Dislike
of Institutions."
The second group in this chapter perhaps really does
not belong here. It is a group of people who receive
U. S. Army pensions, who otherwise would necessarily
be entirely supported by charity. Of the one hundred
investigated three others than those in this group received U. S. Army pensions, but as they were also helped
by their families they are included in the group, "Aged
People Supported Partly by Their Families and Partly
by Charity."
This group numbers six persons as follows, with last
occupations:
Five widows:
One never worked.
One tailoress.
One dressmaker.
One did washing and janitress work.
One unclassified.




DEPENDENT ON CHARITY


47


One widower:
Worked in Navy Yard, and on bridges.
One widow (No. go) is described in the chapter,
"Causes of Dependency," and the widower (No.. 99)
in the chapter, "Difficulties of Saving."
As an illustration of this group, the following description is given as typical:
No. 88-Mrs. P.
Mrs. P. I met on the street and, after some conversation, accompanied to her home. She is Irish, seventyseven years old. She was a tailoress before she married.
Her husband was a brass finisher. He was in the Civil
War for three years, during which time bad kidney
trouble developed, so that afterward he could do very
little work. After his death Mrs. P. did washing and
ironing, but now she has severe rheumatism and can't
work. She had four children; one was lost in the army,
one is in an asylum, two daughters live in Brooklyn,
but evidently can't or won't help her. A grandson lives
with her and pays $4.oo00 a week board, but practically
the pension supports hey. (The usual U. S. war pension
for a widow is $12.oo a month.)
The special deduction from this group seems to be
that as these few people actually need their war pensions,
perhaps others receiving war pensions do also. But in
no way do I wish to seem to approve the reckless extension of our war pensions, as I know that many, many
people receive them who do not need them.
The question naturally arises why the victims of war
and their wives should receive pensions any more than
industrial victims. In this connection I wish to quote
from Jacob H. Hollander's recent book, " The Abolition
of Poverty." He says (p. 105): "A very considerable
part of those in receipt of pensions lie without the
ranks of the aged poor, and, on the other hand, certain
large categories from whom this class is largely recruited,
are entirely excluded from the benefits of the pension
system. The real significance lies in the fact that the




48               AGED PEOPLE
United States has for nearly two generations been making generous expenditures-in!912 the cost of the pension system was $I53,000,000, about three times as great
as that of the British old-age pension system-which,
even though originally inspired by other considerations,
have as their actual consequence the relief of a material
part of existing old-age dependence. Both in fiscal provision and in public preparedness, the way has been paved
for a transition to a more comprehensive, a more equitable, and probably a more economical, system of old-age
provision."




VIII


CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY OF THE AGED
T    HE causes of old-age dependency are found upon
inquiry to be many and varied, and upon the
whole much more pardonable than would seem
on the surface. Dependency can be traced principally
to the following causes: (I) to lack of proper industrial
training in youth; (2) to low wages during the entire
working period; (3) to the specialization of industry;
(4) to casual employment or non-employment stretching
over a fairly long period of time; (5) to diseases caused
by under-nourishment, overcrowding and overstrain; (6)
to dangerous occupations and industrial accidents; (7)
to the natural feebleness and inefficiency which old age
naturally brings, in reality and in general estimation,
for even if old people are not weak and inefficient they
are so considered and younger men especially are preferred by employers, and the younger generation crowds
out the older; (8) to intemperance, although, as Frank
H. Streightoff says in " The Standards of Living Among
the Industrial People of America" (p. 147), "Alcohol
is both the cause and the effect of bad conditions of
living"; and (9) to the death of the breadwinner of the
family, leaving families unable to support themselves.
Before giving illustrations from the lives of people
with whom I came in contact during the investigation,
I wish to quote from two writers on this subject. The
first quotation refers to dependent widows with young
children, but really it is also applicable to older people,
and sums up the general causes of poverty, which of
course eventually make older people dependent. Edward
T. Devine, in his " Report of an Investigation on Matters Relating to the Care, Treatment, and Relief of Dependent Widows with     Dependent Children,"' says
(PP. 35, 36):
49




50        CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY
"The second explanation to be considered for the lack
of improvement in some families-and here we are upon
surer ground-is that the overwhelming mass of human
misery, of which the suffering and dependence in these
few thousand families of widows is but a part, is the
result of causes and conditions with which both voluntary charity and public relief as such are powerless to
deal. Tuberculosis, typhoid, fatal industrial injuries, insufficient pay, economic inefficiency, the physical strain of
overwork, the exploitation of the vices and weaknesses
of men and women for commercial profit, are all subjects with which social workers in the charitable societies
are deeply concerned, but for which remedies lie in
other and more powerful hands. Concerning the great
creative forces of the misery which they are called upon
to investigate and relieve in individual instances they can
only lift up their voices in eloquent testimony. They
may testify also, as has been intimated, to human weaknesses, to lack of energy and resistance, to the fact that
some. human beings are apparently from   their birth
doomed to failure in any severe life-struggle. But they
may well be appalled when they see such weaker persons,
and others not by any means unfit for any reasonable
struggle, subjected to uncontrolled infection, to overcrowding, to overwork, and injurious strain, to fiendish
temptations such as the strongest could not resist under
similar circumstances, to a necessity of paying the highest
price for inferior, diluted and polluted commodities and
services, and to further necessity of providing from their
own insufficient resources and by their own inadequate
efforts, for such contingencies as sickness and death in
the family, for childbirth, for infirmity and old age, for
unemployment, whether due to personal fault and inefficiency or to industrial causes affecting an entire group
or an entire community of workers. The large lesson
to be learned from any such study of the widows' problems as has been made for this committee is that of the
responsibility of the community for much of the larger
part of the sickness, death and dependence which constitute that problem, and the utter inadequacy of either
public or voluntary relief as a solution of that problem.




OF THE AGED


51


Until the community responsibilities for the social and
industrial causes of poverty are more fully met it will be
unreasonable to expect either public-relief officials or
voluntary agencies to secure a reasonable standard of
living or normal family life for any large proportion of
those whom they seek to aid. The charitable agencies
do, however, come to have a large amount of valuable
evidence of the need for preventive social measures, and
their leaders have been conspicuous in initiating and
advocating such action."
The second quotation, although it refers especially to
old 'men, can be applied also to old women.
In the book " One Thousand Homeless Men," by Alice
W. Solenberger, in the chapter on Homeless Old Men
(p. 12), she says: "Eighty-five of the I32, as has been
said, were of good character and habits, and had always,
previous to the advent of old age, been self-respecting
and fully self-supporting members of society.  With
these men the causes which were apparently most responsible for their final dependence were (I) the receipt of irregular and insufficient wages over a period
of years, which made saving for age difficult if not impossible; (2) the rearing of families which had exhausted resources and in the end left no member able
to care for the parents; (3) impracticability or lack of
'business sense,' on the part of upright and industrious
men; (4) loss of savings through bank failures; (5)
business reverses for which the men themselves could not
be blamed; (6) ill-health or crippling accidents which
destroyed earning capacity before sufficient savings for
age had been accumulated, and a few other miscellaneous
causes, none of which indicated failure upon the part of
the men themselves to do their best during their working
years to prepare for oncoming age."
Here are a few    illustrations from  the hundred
studied in this investigation, which best show some of
the causes of dependency mentioned.
No. 58-Mrs. C.
Mrs. C. is a native American, aged seventy-eight.
She has never done any regular work. Her husband




52        CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY
worked in the Knickerbocker Ice Co., but was killed
thirty-seven years ago in an accident. The firm paid her
$300 and took her oldest child of seventeen (she had five
younger children) into their employ, and he became a
bookkeeper. She has three children living; three daughters, two of whom are married, and she lives with the unmarried one, who makes only $7.oo00 a week. Perhaps the
married daughters contribute something to the mother's
support, but she says, "I don't know what I would do
if it weren't for this daughter," referring to the unmarried one. Of course nowadays in New York a firm
would have to provide an annuity for such a widow, but
this is not yet the case in most American states.
No. go-Mrs. R.
Mrs. R., born in the United States, is seventy years
old, a widow who has never worked any. Her husband was a church sexton and Civil War veteran who
died six months ago after an illness lasting five years.
They had no children and had saved money, but that was
lost in an unfortunate investment. She is lame, having
fallen and broken her hip. Her two sisters, both widows,
can't help her, and she gets along on the $12.00 a month
war pension with a little help from her church. As she
says, it is difficult to pay rent and for coal and food out
of $12.00 a month. She has two tiny rooms in an
attic for $6.00 a month and lives alone.  She says,
" What would I do without the pension? " She did not
say what the investment was or how it was lost.
No. 36-Mrs. Q.
Mrs. Q. is English. She came to America when
thirty-eight, and is now over sixty; still she hasn't grown
at all American, and seems to have walked straight out
from the pages of a Dickens novel. She is in good
physical and mental condition; indeed, she is really
clever. At one time she did drink quite a little, but has
straightened up again.  She is supported largely by
church sewing and gifts from friends, but in the summer has a position at a Fresh-Air Home. She says she




OF THE AGED


53


is on the "night-watch" for three months. She lives
alone, but has numerous friends at settlements as well as
at her church. After a curious career she is now satisfied
and happy. She feels she has always worked hard, and
now that she can't do any regular work she feels it right
for the church to help her. Her father was a pawnbroker, and she was always comfortable at home. She
married a Scotland Yard detective, and they came to
America. Her husband apparently never worked much
in America. She had two successful little dry-goods
stores, said she sometimes made $200 a month, but lost
$1,200 in an investment. Her husband made her very
unhappy; he was wild and unfaithful to her, and so
extravagant he used up all her savings. After his death,
which was a great relief to her, she tried running a
furnished-room house, but was not very successful in
that venture, and finally gave up trying to support herself. People can't help feeling sorry for her, and are
glad now that she should be so happy, after her many
vicissitudes. She goes to many meetings and sociable
affairs at her church and two settlements, and is always
an important figure. Her appreciation of speeches is
unusually keen, and she is always impressive and entertaining and would really be missed in her community
if she had to go away to an institution.
No. 78-Mrs. T.
Mrs. T. is Irish, sixty, and a widow. She used to
work in a store, and then as a chambermaid in a hotel
at $IO.oo  a month with board. She hasn't been able
to work for ten years, as she has had kidney trouble and
varicose veins and suffers a great deal. She lives with a
cousin who supports her, though she herself is nearly
sixty and makes only $7.00 a week. Mrs. T. has no
other relatives, and appreciates her cousin's kindness very
much. The cousin also pays for Mrs. T.'s insurance,
the principal of which is soon due. Perhaps that will
help them both, as probably the cousin can't work much
longer. Mrs. T. feels her dependence very much, but
naturally her savings were used up during her ten years'
illness.




54        CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY
No. 97-Mr. T.
Mr. and Mrs. T. live with an unmarried daughter
of nineteen who works in a biscuit factory, and they have
a boarder. Mr. T. was born in New York sixty-two
years ago. He worked in a tobacco factory, where he
made $I2.00 to $14.oo a week until five years ago, when
his hands were injured. His wife said he "feels bad
because he can't work," but really there are few things
that a man of sixty-two with deformed hands can do.
He might be a "ticket-chopper" on the elevated road,
but these jobs are difficult to get, or he might have some
sort of street stand, but these take money to start.
No. 92-Mr. S.
Mr. S., Irish, a widower, aged seventy-eight, is deaf
and feeble and unable to work. He was a baker, but had
to give up his trade on account of sickness fifteen years
ago. He made $I3.00 to $I5.oo a week, but had no
savings when he stopped. He lives with his sister (all
his other relatives are dead), who keeps boarders and
supports him as well as herself. She said that her brother
worked as long as he could, but now takes his dependency
on her as natural, and she feels it is " rather hard."
No. 32-Mr. McI.
Mr. McI. is both typical and unique-typical in that
he represents a class of men thrown out of employment,
partly by being pushed out by younger men and partly
by having a trade that is growing obsolete, and unique
because of his present mode of existence and support.
He is a native New Yorker, single, aged sixty-seven. He
is in good physical and mental condition. I made only
one call on him and his sister, but was so entertained
I wished to go again. I found her-she is seventy-three
-cooking the dinner, and he was sewing on the machine,
doing sewing given to his sister by the church. When
I asked how he was able to do that kind of sewing he
told me his story. As a young man he had tuberculosis,
and when he recovered he could not do heavy work, so
he became a woman's dressmaker (not tailor) and fol



OF THE AGED


55


lowed that trade for thirty-four years. He spoke with
pride of dressmaking done for actresses, such minor ones
that I failed to recognize their names, but tried not to
show my ignorance. He showed me a waist he had
made his sister, as a sample of his work, and it was certainly a marvelous creation. But he said, "Nowadays
people buy ready-made clothing; it's cheaper." So he
gets work only occasionally. He and his sister have two
rooms for $ I.oo a month, and she gets $3.00 worth of
sewing a week and a gift of fifty cents a week, which
probably pays the rent and for her food, and he probably
makes enough for his food. And he does most of her
sewing. He is said to be a kind good man, and his
pride, though amusing, also has something fine about itto love work, even if dressmaking work, is to share in
the dignity of labor to some extent! He is still proud
of his profession and of his figure, and his small wrist,
and he is bright and cheerful, and he and his sister seem
happy together. But if it were not for the church assistance what would they do?-for neither could really earn
money at regular work.
Of course the locality of Greenwich Village and the
limited number of people studied cannot furnish illustrations of all the causes of dependency, but these descriptions are given as examples of some of the causes,
and other experiences and testimony bear out the facts
stated at the beginning of the chapter.
At the Salvation Army headquarters in Greenwich
Village I was told that the men who applied there for
work confessed that they dyed their hair to appear
younger, and that men were often thrown out of work,
not because of incompetence, but simply because of their
age.
One woman nearly sixty (No. 41 in Chapter IV.)
told me that during' a slack season she was laid off her
usual job and tried to work elsewhere, and that she
found it difficult to compete with young women; as she
sadly said, " I find they can work faster; I fear I can't
hold the job." Later, much to her relief, she was called
back to her old place. She is well and strong, but simply




56        CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY
hasn't the nerves or the skillful fingers for the speed
which modern industry demands.
At St. Vincent's Hospital I was told that few elderly
men applied at the dispensary, because "The majority
of men in Greenwich Village are longshoremen and
truck drivers, and the former are not only injured often,
but often die early."
A tenement inspector told me "Many of the women
in Greenwich Village do laundry work and that leads
to rheumatism and Bright's disease."
Some men do change from one kind of work to another, in an ascending and then a descending scale of
wages, but some men who have all their lives done but
one kind of work, when that line is obsolete or overcrowded, know nothing else to do, and can find only
the poorest kind of badly paid work to go into-if they
find any work. This is one of the results of specialization of industry.
As an example of this there is the following story:
Two or three years ago the husband in a little family
I was interested in, in Greenwich Village,-lost his job
in a tobacco factory where he had been practically ever
since he left school. He was not discharged-but the
firm failed. He was about twenty-eight years old, born
of Italian parents in this country, undersized and not
strong (how could he be? he had scarcely ever had
plenty of really nourishing food). His wife, an American, had worked in the same factory at times, but had
two children and another one was expected. The man
tried in vain to get work, and people in his wife's church
tried also to help him find work. Finally I enlisted
the help of a workingman, who interviewed a boss in a
factory where he had once worked, in behalf of Mr. G.,
but poor little G. wasn't able to do any heavy work and
had no skill whatever except in his own line. The
older workingman said, " I'm trying hard to get that
young fellow a job; he is just the kind that should not
be out of work long. He will get discouraged, and
then he will go to pieces." Finally the church took him
in some of its work, and paid him more than he was
really worth. He had no initiative, and no resource and




OF THE AGED


57


no general skill, as a natural result of his specialized
work.
Now, if people are incompetent when young, what
can we expect of them when they grow old? It is not
people's fault often when they are incompetent, but a
lack in their early training or in their one-sided occupations, and very frequently in their lack of physical
energy. It is utterly unreasonable to expect energy and
initiative and skill from a man with no training mentally
or industrially, and with a weak constitution. So then,
incompetency becomes often not so much the fault of
individuals as the fault of our social system.
One of the usual remarks of the careless and uninformed is: " Oh, of course any man who is of any account can get a good job." But I've tried desperately
hard to find work for competent men as well as incompetent men, and here also find amazing difficulties.
Again, it is easy to talk of men rising, but often if a
man has any fairly good job, or even a poor one, he is
afraid (if he is married) to run any risk of losing that
job by trying for a better job, and thus his ambition
is deadened.
A workingman (not in New York, but the situation
is no doubt universal) said once to me, " Some of the
men at the works thought I was crazy to risk giving up
my job there till I had another 'one somewhere else; poverty makes cowards of them." But this man was able to
take the risk and give up the work that was undermining his health because influence was being used to
procure work for him elsewhere, and because assistance
for his family was assured in the interim between the
two jobs. But the man with no backing hasn't the time
or opportunity even to apply for work elsewhere, and
doesn't dare risk interims between jobs. And so men
stay in one position, or one kind of work, all their lives,
which gives them temporary support and in no way
provides for their old age, but this is discussed further
in the chapter, "Difficulties of Saving." Enough has
been said here to indicate the general causes of dependency.




IX


DIFFICULTIES OF SAVING FOR OLD AGE
N   the preceding chapter the subject of low wages
was touched upon, but I wish to dwell upon it
more at length here, because it seems to me very
few realize that the poor have practically no margin
for unexpected demands, much less for savings, with
their small budgets.
A very clever Irish woman of good birth whom
I have known for years, whose husband, once rich
through lucky speculations in another country, is now
poor and forced into the ranks of unskilled workers,
once said to me, apropos of her husband's wage at that
time of $i.oo a week (with a family of four children), "I now understand Lord Roberts' remark about
the 'irreducible minimum'! "
Another woman, who told me she could live well on
$12.00 a week when they had that, was, on the very
surface, an example refuting that statement. She and
her husband and two children were living in three
rooms (two of which were dark), and all were undersized and looked under-nourished, and were sick a great
deal.
When people haven't enough for the daily necessities
of life, how can they save?
Let me quote here from Louise Boland More, who
lived two years at Greenwich House, and wrote as a
result of her investigations a book, "Wage-Earners'
Budgets."  She says on p. 5: "The average wage-earner's family in this neighborhood is constantly on the
verge of dependence, and would become dependent on
friends or charity, at any time of long-continued industrial depression, illness, or unemployment. The ' margin
of surplus' of the income over expenditures is very small,




SAVING FOR. OLD AGE


59


and it is only in exceptional cases that it is possible for
a family of average size to make much provision for the
future."
It is intensely instructive to follow the career of an
unskilled workingman's family for a period of several
years, encountering its various vicissitudes. A family
which I have known for about eight years has lived all
up and down the west side of New York and Harlem,
and is now in Brooklyn. The man never makes more
than $12.o0 a week as a driver or at other casual occupations, and very often he is on part-time work or out
of work. At one time, having sold all their furniture,
the family were reduced-the five of them-to living
in one "furnished room," for which they paid $4.00 a
week. At this juncture a more fortunate friend, giving
up a furnished lodging-house, offered them some furniture if they could get into a flat in which to put it.
There are various Protestant churches that lend funds
to parishioners, but this family is Roman Catholic, and
the Penny Provident Fund and other such societies require some sort of guarantee. As the family had appealed too often to the charitable societies, they would
not help. I found the $I7.oo  with which to pay rent
in advance and to move the furniture. Since then they
have never reverted to such destitution, though several
times since they have received groceries from a charitable
society, and one other time I paid two-thirds rent for
them, and a Catholic priest paid the remaining onethird and sent men to move them. The oldest son now
I has work and two other children Will be able to get
their working papers in a year or two, and the wife
often takes the position of janitress. But, unfortunately,
when the boy has work the man often hasn't, or, if both
are working, back debts have to be paid'and generally
someone is sick, and thus an extra expense. They occasionally catch up in their finances, but they never really
get ahead.
The man has two or three times in these last eight
i years lost his job because of drinking, but on the whole
t since taking a cure when I first knew him, he has kept
pretty steady, even through periods of discouragement
I.




60 _           DIFFICULTIES OF
and times of such inadequate nourishment that I trembled for his good resolutions.
I have described this family at length because it seems
to me to illustrate in a concrete way the unceasing struggle to "keep even."  How could such a family have a
"margin of surplus," much less save anything?
In a way this family epitomizes the sort of existence
a large proportion of our humbler wage-earners leadforever hovering on the brink of destitution, always
making an effort to have enough to eat and a decent
place in which to sleep, and yet seldom achieving even
that, being forever underfed, usually badly housed, and
often in overcrowded quarters.
This case, although it may have some distinctive features, must be typical of thousands and thousands of
people.
Various statistics have been compiled giving the lowest budget on which workingmen's families can possibly
exist.
John R. Shillady in an article in The Survey says:
"The Committee on Standards of Living and Labor of
the National Conference of Charities and Correction
has been formulating standards below which society
dare not go and be safe. These standards have been
accepted by the conscience of the country, so far as the
social workers of the country represent that conscience,
as a minimum for industry. The Pittsburg Survey,
Chapin's study for New York, the New York State
Conference figures for 1907, and other investigations
have convinced even the sceptical that less than $800
in New York, between $635 and $700 in Buffalo five
years ago, and approximately the same amounts in other
places are unsafe minimums for a family of five. The
1912 platform of the National Conference Committee
asked, among other things, enough to provide for a
normal standard of living; to provide for recreation
and amusement, etc." And yet a large per cent of
workingmen receive a wage of less than $600 a year.
So much for quotations as to wages and their testimony as to the difficulties of providing a living, still
less a budget on which savings are possible. Does it




SAVING FOR OLD AGE


6i


not seem reasonable to decide that many families simply
cannot save, and that when families do save it is at a
tremendous cost to themselves, and to society indirectly,
in bringing about low standards of living and also often
low standards of morals? This effect of income on
morals is well summed up by J. R. Shillady in the article
in The Survey referred to before. He says: " Character,
efficiency and a high standard of living are among the
main things of life, but they are not achieved first in
serial order but only after income has been secured.
Though all persons with adequate incomes do not possess
'character' and 'efficiency,' or achieve a high standard
of living from every point of view, yet, on the whole,
increase of income; when assured and permanent from
sources not demoralizing, results in higher standards,
greater efficiency and better character. Incomes falling
below an amount sufficient to provide for the normal
demands of the human animal for food, shelter and
recreation, result in decreased efficiency, lowered
standards and weakened character."
From years of personal experience with the poor, it
is astonishing to me that individuals do preserve, even
when in most dire poverty, as much moral stamina as
they do.
And even when people have larger incomes these may
be cut down by heavy expenses for sickness, accidents
and occasional non-employment.
In the hundred people investigated, only a few were
found that had any savings, and these were not large
enough to last long. And the few who had these savings had received higher wages than the others, or had
had fewer demands upon them because of no families,
or small families to support.
And added to low wages and accidents, illnesses and
non-employment which eat up savings, there are instances of bad investments.
It is of very little benefit to theorize about people and
to say that they should be different. Poor people might
perhaps be much more efficient in finding good jobs and
in keeping them when found, and in keeping well and
in spending their wages more wisely, but in our efforts




62


DIFFICULTIES OF


to help them we must face the situation as it is, and
we must not expect impossibilities from them. Indeed,
considering all their difficulties, I am often amazed that
they manage as well as they do.
The following descriptions are given as illustrations
of the subject:
No. 68-Mrs. D.
One of the Catholic churches gave me Mrs. D.'s
name. I found her scrubbing some rear tenement steps,
very breathless because she has asthma. She is sixtytwo, born in Ireland, but has been in New York since
she was twelve years old. Her husband was a blacksmith, and she had five children, but they are all dead.
She did washing and cleaning before and after her husband's death, and now is a janitress. She said she was
paid only $6.00 for her work, and pays $4.00 in addition for her rent, i.e. she gets by her work $6.00 off
the $Io.oo a month rent.
That seemed rather impossible at first, but I learned
that janitress' compensations vary greatly-from  rooms
plus money, to rooms for which there must be some payment made. It depends on the size of the house and
whether furnace care is included, and also seems to vary
with different landlords' or agents' wills, and the bargain they can make. Two widows of my hundred
people got rooms free for work, and two other widows
besides Mrs. D. got reduced rent, and two couples
working together got rooms plus money.
Mrs. D. must get fees from other people in the
tenement where she is janitress, and her brother, who
"works on a boat," helps her, as she must make the
$4.00 extra for rent, and get money for food. She is
unusually clean and brave and patient and hard-working,
but naturally how can she save anything?
No. 93-Mrs. T.
Mrs. T.'s tale is tragic. Her pastor spoke of her with
respect when he gave me her name, and after my one
call I left her with admiration. It is difficult to de



SAVING FOR OLD AGE


63


cide where to place her as an illustration-for she illustrates the self-supporting group, and is an example of
the difficulties of saving and a person one would hate
to send to an institution when she can work no longer.
She was born in New York City sixty years ago, and
learned the dressmaking trade with her mother, leaving
school at fourteen. She followed her trade till she married, and since her husband's death, after a severe illness, six years ago. She had seven sons, but they are all
dead, and she has no other relatives and no savings.
She used to make $8.00 to $9.oo00 a week years ago, but
now her income is most uncertain. She says she occasionally makes $30.00 a month, but she has taken in as
little as $2.50 a month. She lives alone, and her health
is good, and she seems young for her age, which is remarkable, for according to her accounts the cases of
illness of members of her family which she has nursed
would have worn most women out utterly. I stopped
her recital of illnesses, and said, "You are wonderful
to have lived through all that," and she replied, " Oh,
I haven't told you half of all I've gone through." Now,
probably she cannot sew till the very end of her life,
and, even if she could, it is difficult to believe her neighbors would continue to employ an old woman as a dressmaker in competition with cheap ready-made clothes!
What is to become of her? How could such a woman
ever save money?
No. io-Mrs. D.
Mrs. D., Irish, sixty years old, lives with a son of
eighteen, who works with the Western Electric Company and makes $15.00 a week. She feels after former
greater comfort that it is very difficult to manage on
that, but their present position isn't the point of this
illustration, nor is the fact that she herself at one time
earned $I2.00 to $I5.o0 a week at book-folding. The
point is, that her husband after such a good position as
he had left her nothing. He made $25.00 a week and
fees in a hotel (he had something to do with managing
waiters and keeping books, etc., at entertainments; I




64


DIFFICULTIES OF


couldn't quite understand just what he did, but he got
good fees as well as a salary). And the reason he left
her nothing was that he was sick four years before he
died, and as she said, "All his earnings were eaten up."
No. 12-Miss D.
Miss D., Irish, aged sixty-two, was a hand worker
on furs. Her highest pay was $Io.oo a week. She had
savings, but they were used up by illness in her family.
She has trouble with her arms now and can't do anything but church sewing, and sewing from a society, and
out of what she makes she helps a widowed sister, who
lives with two worthless nephews, as the third sister is
dead. All the money she has ever made has had to be
used for others. How could she save?
No. 39-Mr. R.
Mr. R. is an Italian, sixty-six years old, who came to
the United States when ten years old. As a child he
went about with his father and a " grind organ." Then
he went into a candy factory for sixteen years, and finally
'had an independent artificial flower business-in the
best years making a profit of $6,000 according to his
daughter's account. Then three years ago the business
went into a receiver's hands, " because of someone else's
fault." Now because of his chronic asthma and feebleness he can't work. He has enough savings to support
himself and his wife for about one year, and they are to
move to a little house of their own on Bath Beach.
There are eight sons and two daughters, and they can
support their parents when the savings give out, but
this shows how difficult it is to have savings to last many
years, even after a profitable business career.
No. 99-Mr. W.
Mr. W., Scotch, seventy-eight, widower, came to
America when fifteen years old. He was a sailor at
$I6.oo a month, and was in the Navy during the War.
Then he worked in the Navy Yard at $3.50 a day, and




SAVING FOR OLD AGE


65


finally worked on bridges at $4.50 a day, and even for
$1.50 an hour for some specially dangerous work. A
year ago he hurt his head working on a bridge and
hasn't worked since, but he draws a Navy pension of
$22.50 a month, on which he lives comfortably.   He
said he tried a Home, but left it and lives in a room
somewhere, taking his meals at a restaurant.  He has
no near relatives. It would seem as if he could have
saved money, but he said no, that he had $I,800 in the
bank at one time, but his wife's last sickness used that
up!   This was a street acquaintance, but the story
sounds plausible.
To show how and why some people can save money,
the following illustrations are given-Nos. 62 and 56 -which are unusual cases.
No. 62-Mr. C.
Mr. C., met on the street, gave the following report:
He was born in Italy, but has lived in America forty
years, is now sixty-eight years old, and is single. He
had a peanut and fruit stand, but gave it up two and
one-half years ago because of sickness and lameness. He
has savings and boards with friends. He seems to have
been able to save because he had no family in America
and could keep all he made for himself!
No. 56-Mr. A.
Mr. A. is a native American, aged seventy-two. He
is in good physical condition, and is still working. His
wife is dead and he has two unmarried sons, both living
with him and working.    He has some savings-why?
Because he is a skilled laborer-a bricklayer-and his
family has not been a great strain on him. He sometimes made $7.oo a day, or $50.00 a week, and now
gets 70 cents an hour. Of course, bricklaying is a seasonal occupation, or at least not a steady one, but he has
done well in it, and evidently he has not been ambitious,
having- been content to live on Jones Street for twentyfive years.




66


DIFFICULTIES OF


Then there is one more difficulty which the poor experience in trying to make wages cover their needs and
leave a little over for emergencies if not for old age.
They have to waste money buying in small quantities,
and at wrong seasons, etc., because they haven't a large
enough weekly margin to spend any considerable sum
at once. The following is an example of this:
One time in summer when there was a big bankrupt
sale of men's clothing, and various thrifty wives in comfortable circumstances were laying in supplies of winter
clothes for husbands and children, I thought of a poor
woman whose husband needed clothes badly, and was
about to send her word of the sale. But suddenly I
remembered that her husband was at that time making
only $II.oo a week, and that she seldom had more than
one dollar a week left, after paying for rent and gas
and food for two adults and four children, and out
of that $I.oo they were paying 50 cents a week on a
bill at a furniture store, and there was always something
needed even though most clothes for the family were
donated. It seemed ironical that she should be told to
go to a bargain sale! And such slight margins are
typical. The tenement mother has to cast her mind's
eye over the needs of her family and decide which child
shall have the surplus each week, while extra trifles,
like soap, thread, extra carfare, and especially shoes,
are of staggering importance.
So that the very people who need to count every penny
are the ones paying especially high prices for coal, flour,
etc. They have to buy cheap food, which is not nourishing, and cheap ready-made clothes, which wear out
quickly.
And yet people talk glibly of the " improvidence of the
poor." Why, poor people can't even afford to buy things
by the dozen. They simply pay the highest prices for
the poorest foodstuffs., Indeed, considering their resources they manage wonderfully well, and of course
occasionally do get unusual bargains.
People generally have no conception of the way the
poor have to curtail expenditures; it is really pitiful,
their efforts to make every cent tell. I remember once




SAVING FOR OLD AGE


67


talking with a young widow, for whom I was ordering
weekly groceries from a charitable association. She was
telling me of her efforts to spread her supply of food,
with supplements she was able to add, over the week.
(She managed to pay rent and have a little over by
doing washings.) She finally said, "And I never ask
a neighbor in, even for tea and crackers, though it is
hard not to be able to afford that much."
The whole subject of the difficulties of saving is
summed up most succinctly by I. M. Rubinow in his book
"Social Insurance." He says on p. 313:
"It is not necessary to repeat the general arguments
made in an earlier chapter as to the absence of a continuous surplus from which savings could be made, as
well as to the depressing effects of the saving habit on
the standard of life. But we may point out, at this
juncture, several reasons why the remedy of individual
savings is even less applicable to the problem of old age
than that of sickness or unemployment
" I. The amount necessary is evidently greater, for
old age is not a brief transitory condition, such as sickness or unemployment may be. It would require a continuous saving for a great many years.
"II. The amount necessary is uncertain. There is,
after all, the even or more than even chance of early
death before old age may be reached. And in addition,
the wage-earner has no means at all to know how much
he would have to save, nor whether his savings will
prove sufficient.
"III. It is the final emergency, which in the natural
course of events must be preceded by all other emergencies of a workingman's existence. Inevitably the fund
of savings would have to be used to meet all these
emergencies.
" IV. The remoteness of the emergency would prevent necessary savings at a time when such savings would
be easiest, that is, in earliest years.
"V. To assume that under these conditions all workingmen could save sufficient to provide them against old
age, would be to disregard all real conditions of the
wage-worker's existence. Even in the most saving of




68           SAVING FOR OLD AGE
our states, the average amounts held per depositor in the
savings banks are ridiculously small as compared to the
amount needed for a sufficient income at old age.
"VI. Finally, special saving for old age would only
be possible through a persistent, systematic and obstinate disregard of the needs of the workingman's family,
which would make the preaching of such special savings
a decidedly immoral force."




x


EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF THE AGED
ON THEMSELVES, ON THEIR FAMILIES
AND ON SOCIETY
W r E have considered the causes of dependency of
the aged and found many reasons and excuses
for those who arrive at the age of about sixty
years, and are unable to work, with no savings to live
upon. We have also considered the position of the dependent aged, in several groups, but principally we have
dwelt upon their incomes, and the incomes of those who
support them, and upon the various other sources of
maintenance.
I wish now to discuss and illustrate some of the
effects of such dependency. My studies brought home
to me not merely the tragedy of the dependency of the
aged in its effects on themselves, but in its indirect
effects. The old suffer, and even those who are uneducated, and undeveloped, and unused to the finer influences of life have instinctive, fine sensibilities, though
their expressions of such sensibilities are most crude.
Some of the cases I give in detail suggest the feelings
of the aged, their dread of being burdens, etc. And
often when they feel their children can support them
fairly easily, they hate to give up and long to be independent. One poor old woman said to me (she was a
cripple from doing laundry work), speaking of being
supported by her unmarried son, a longshoreman, "If
I could only make my own dollar again, instead of taking it from him, though he is kind!"
Some old people who still manage to work have not
only themselves to provide for, but, with the link of the
middle generation missing, have their grandchildren to
provide for.
69




70      EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF
And still more pitiful are the old single people or
childless couples, who feel that though they have contributed their share to the work of the world, they must
accept charity at the end of their lives. They feel the
bitterness of this.
Other families show that while the aged are slowly
dying, the middle generation is being overworked and
the young generation is being under-nourished.
This suggests that the middle generation has the burden of decision and responsibility as to the problem of the
aged.
Formerly I supposed that many aged people were
sent to institutions by families who would not support
them, but I grew to realize that it was much oftener because they could not support them, judging by the efforts
made by families to take the burden of support themselves.
Think of the middle generation trying to decide
whether to support the aged parents and thus have less
to eat for themselves and for their children, less for
clothes, less room, and less for occasional recreation, or
to put the old people in an institution!
One young married woman in Greenwich Village,
whom I've mentioned before, told me that the time had
come when her parents and her husband's parents all
needed help. She said her husband's parents lived in
New York in another district, and although the aged
woman could still do a little work, i.e. washing and
cleaning, she could not earn much, and the man couldn't
earn anything. He was a shoemaker, but had such
trembling hands he couldn't sew on shoes any longer,
and anyway there wasn't much demand for hand-made
shoes any more. The old man was looking for a job
as a porter or watchman, but couldn't find a place.
Her parents owned a little house with a garden in New
Jersey and usually could "get along," but she had to
send money to them occasionally, all that could be
spared, for her husband earned only $12.00 a week. So
she said, as his parents needed so much help, they would
have to have outside aid, and she had, on advice, sent
them to a charitable association for assistance.




THE AGED ON THEMSELVES                    71
Of course this is rather an unusual case, but it shows
what can happen.
Another story was told me by a clergyman of one
of the smaller churches in Greenwich Village. The
clergyman expressed himself as much interested in the
investigation and in the subject generally, but said he
could not let me call on any of his people, fearing that
my questions, however tactful, would in some way
offend them, that even the poorest were hard-working,
self-respecting and independent. He said, however, that
he would tell me a story illustrating one phase of the
effects of dependency of the aged. His story was in
substance as follows:
An entirely worthy woman of ninety years, whose
other relatives were all dead, lived with a married
granddaughter. One night when she was awake she
heard the granddaughter and her husband quarreling.
The man said that he could not support the grandmother any longer; that he had his children to care for,
and that any extra burden was intolerable. The young
woman loved her grandmother and said she couldn't
turn her out of the house. Next morning the old
woman packed up her belongings and told her granddaughter that she had overheard the quarrel and that
she could not be dependent on a man who felt her such
a burden. The granddaughter remonstrated, but the
grandmother was firm in her decision. She went to the
clergyman, telling the story, and asked advice as to
what to do. He. happened to know of a charitable
woman, then wealthy. who had risen from poverty, to
whom he sent her. The charitable woman gave the poor
old soul a definite pension, and sent her to board with
some people in the country she knew, who took a few
people, especially old people, to board. There in gratitude and comfort the old grandmother lived out her
days. It was easier for her to take charity from a strange
woman who could afford it, than from a connection
who couldn't afford to support her and grudged her support.
So much for the effects on the old people themselves,
and on the middle generation.




72      EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF
How does the dependency of the aged affect the
grandchildren? To begin with, in families burdened
by the support of the aged, or in families where there
is a missing generation, the children have to go to work
too early, or else there is the general lowering of standards
at home. It is rather difficult to decide whether it is
better for children to stay at school longer and be undernourished, or to go to work early and have more to
eat, and yet this is a common problem for the poor to
have to decide.
This problem came up not only in the cases I studied
personally but in connection with families discussed by
the settlement residents.  Questions like these were
heard: "Well, what had better be done-shall the
grandmother or the child be placed in an institution?
Can we tide Mrs. -      along till her grandson can
work?" etc.! And this is illustrated also in cases Nos.
3I and 87 which are given a little farther on.
Before taking up the subject of the effect on the young
people of going to work too early, I wish to speak of the
family budget in general-that is, of the way it is made
up. It is generally considered that a man's wages should
support his family, and that only in cases of emergency
should a woman whose husband is alive have to work.
She is needed at home to care for the children and to
do the cooking, washing, cleaning, etc. Let no one think
that a tenement woman with, say, three children and
a home to care for has much time for idleness. She can
save much by giving proper attention to the buying and
cooking of food and the making and mending of clothes.
So needed is she in the home for the best interests of the
children that those who have the administration of the
widows' pension fund in the A. I. C. P. always arrange
that the widows to whom the pension is given should
do home work such as janitress work, etc., whenever
possible. Nearly all educators, school truant officers,
officers of the Gerry Society, and health officers agree
that a mother with small children should be kept out of
factories and at home.
But if the husband's wages are too small to support
the family, and the wife cannot contribute to the budget,




THE AGED ON THEMSELVES


73


lodgers are often taken. But they are nearly always a
detriment, as their presence means overcrowding and
often is a serious moral menace to the family.
The only other solution for an inadequate budget is
to send the children to work as early as possible. Several questions are involved here. When girls and boys
go to work too early it is bad for their health, it is
often dangerous for their morals, and it gives them in
one way too much liberty, and in another way too great
responsibility.
As soon as a girl or boy contributes to the family
income, a feeling of independence develops, which is
detrimental to parental authority. Economic independence heightens the sense of personal independence. At
the same time this contribution, often of the entire wage
earned except for money for carfare and luncheon and
a few cents for spending money, sometimes makes the
young people feel that an unfair burden falls on their
shoulders. They work hard and yet gain little in food or
clothing and almost nothing in added spending money.
There is often no time for the sons and daughters to
go to trade schools. If the father is sick or out of work
or dead, and especially if the family is laboring under
the additional financial burden of an aged person, as
soon as working papers can be secured the boys and girls
are pushed into industry, and must have their entire
industrial future ruined by lack of proper preparation,
enduring meanwhile real hardships.
This is well brought out by Clara E. Laughlin in her
book, "The Work-a-day Girl."   Speaking of the Minimum Wage for Women, she says, on p. I66: "The
average workingman...has probably been able to
make no provision for these days of declining industrial
worth which set in so comparatively early for him.
When his daughter goes to work she should be able to
relieve the strain by a little more than the cost of her
keep; but she should be able to do it without those
hardships of renunciation to which many of our young
workers are driven by their parents' desperate desire to
save against old age."
So the burden of the aged falls heavily upon the young.




74      EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF
The effects of the dependency of the aged upon society are of course very indirect, but are felt in the
general lowering of wages, when the aged do try to
work at lowest wages, and by the general lowering of
family standards of living by the forcing of the young
to work-which is not only bad for them, but also lowers wage standards and overcrowds industry. And by
the overwork and overstrain of the middle and young
generations the general physical efficiency is lowered,
just as indeed all poverty with its accompanying undernourishment lowers the vitality and efficiency of the
race.
The following cases serve as illustrations in part of
these facts. Instead of the usual order of arrangement,
-widows, single women, couples,-they are arranged
as they illustrate effects on the old people, on the middle
generation and on the grandchildren.
No. 95-Mr. T.
Mr. T., sixty-four years old, born in New York, has
serious chronic indigestion; he looked really ill, and
hasn't worked for one year. He and his wife live with
a daughter separated from her husband, and a son of
nineteen years. Of fifteen children there are eight left,
and of all his sons-the father said the youngest was
the best, and the kindest to his parents. The father
feels rather bitterly towards one son who could easily
help him but won't. He resents his dependency deeply,
especially as it falls on the youngest son. The daughter
said, " Father always worked when he could." Mr. T.
was a bricklayer and a truck-driver, earned $12.oo to
$15.oo a week, but got down to $I3.00 a week before
he stopped work. He had no savings when he stopped
work but a life insurance policy. However, his illness
isn't the kind to end his life very soon necessarily, and
he and his wife evidently are a burden and his feeling
of uselessness and helplessness is pitiful.
No. 7-Mrs. D.
Mrs. D. illustrates a higher social grade than any of
the others interviewed. She is well educated and re



THE AGED ON THEMSELVES


75


fined and feels her position of dependency keenly. Her
husband was well-to-do, but left her nothing. She was
born in Ireland, but came to America when three years
old, and is now over sixty. Never having worked any,
she could do nothing to earn money after her husband's
death but a little fine sewing. A wealthy friend gave
her sewing to do, and gifts for years, but she finally
died. Now Mrs. D. is living alone in a boarding-house,
but said she might leave any time, but she would not
go into an institution. Friends here and there help her
out in a precarious way, and evidently she had appealed
to a charitable association, as they gave me her name,
saying she was a gentlewoman in need. She had apparently no church connection to help her. She was
distressed and vague, and what is to become of her is
hard to imagine.
No. 3-Mrs. B.
One can't help being sorry for Mrs. B., although
she is rather an ungrateful old soul to the church which
helps her, in addition to help from a settlement. She
does suffer with fearful attacks of asthma, her struggles
for breath are distressing to witness, but somehow one's
sympathies go out especially to her daughter-in-law.
This poor woman has to nurse her mother-in-law and
go out doing cleaning, besides doing the janitress work
where she lives (her husband, Mrs. B.'s son, being disabled and no financial help), and she is breaking down
with all this work and overstrain.
No. 85-Mrs. P.
Mrs. P., an Italian woman of sixty-five, has been in
New York twenty-seven years and can't speak English.
Her daughter talked for her. The mother worked on
a farm and sewed on trousers. Her husband died eight
years ago, and sickness keeps her from working now, so
she lives with her married daughters, who take her in
turn. At present she is with a daughter who has six
children. The young woman gave the impression that
her mother was happy and took her dependency as a




76      EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF
natural matter, and she said, "All of us daughters are
willing to help mother, but our husbands are not, for
they have their own mothers to help." The daughters
all seem to need occasional outside help,-for example,
milk at a milk station,-and once one of the daughters'
husbands got a union card through a charitable society,
and one daughter was sent to Sea Breeze. Evidently the
families are on the border-line and every little extra
counts.
No. 6 —Mr. C.
Mr. C., an Irish widower of seventy-four years, seems
to illustrate several effects of dependency. He worked
in a factory, and then as a longshoreman, making $8.oo
and $9.oo to $25.00 a week, i.e. getting these amounts
irregularly-and finally made only about $2.50 a week
before stopping two years ago, pushed out by younger
men, naturally at seventy-two years of age. He had no
savings when he stopped; even his insurance policy had
run out. He lives with a son and his wife and five
children. Two married daughters and some nephews
evidently do not help. The daughter-in-law said her
husband was a truck-driver making $I5.00 a week, and
with five children there wasn't much to spare, and she
seemed to resent the support of her father-in-law, and
he " wishes he had money of his own," so he is unhappy,
and she is upset, and evidently all are cramped, and yet
there is no one to blame for the situation.
It seems fair to give one example of real pauperism,
though it is the only one I would call that, in the hundred investigated.
No. 28-Mrs. McC.
Mrs. Mc.C.'s family is not an example of the
"worthy poor," but the reverse.  The whole family
illustrates the degenerating effects of extreme poverty.
Mrs. McC. herself at seventy can scarcely be blamed
for not working, but she certainly has lost a great deal
of her self-respect. She was born in Ireland and worked




THE AGED ON THEMSELVES


77


in a factory till she was married. Her husband was a
weaver in Ireland, and came to the United States for
" better wages," but succeeded in becoming only a daylaborer and died twenty-eight years ago. Then Mrs.
McC. went out to do scrubbing and washing, and worked
till three years ago. Then she had pneumonia and an
abscess in her ear, and she is sick and feeble now. Of
six children only two are left, and one cannot help, so
she is dependent on a widowed daughter, with whom
she lives. This daughter has four children, the youngest in a day nursery. The daughter works out by the
day, but isn't successful, making only about $8.00 a
month for the rent, and a little over. A charitable association provides some groceries. A church helps a little.
Mrs. McC. confessed to the groceries, but said they did
not have enough to eat, and rather begged for contributions. Afterward I found that several settlements
had helped, sending the children away for vacations,
etc., and that the mother was considered worthless.
Now all these doles and makeshifts are bad for the family, especially the uncertainty of them, and the temptation is to rely upon them and to try for more aid instead of more work, for apparently the daughter could
work more, and the effects are the worst upon her. Of
course, old Mrs. McC. can't work, and it is possible to
believe that the daughter worked hard years ago. The
point of this story is meant to be that sometimes the
strain for the middle generation is too great, and that
occasionally people succumb, and that after all the individuals who fall are not always entirely to blame
when conditions are too hard for them!
No. 31-Mr. M.
Mr. and Mrs. M. are separated, not through lack
of affection, but because the only two of the eight sons
and daughters living who can help their parents are
two widowed daughters. One widowed daughter supports her father. She does janitress work, for which
she gets nice light rooms and $Io.oo a month. Then
she does scrubbing at some offices, for which she gets




78      EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY OF
$20.00 a month. But $30.00 a month clear isn't much
to feed two adults and two children and to clothe them
and to provide for all emergencies.  And she must
work very hard to do the office and janitress work! She
says her father doesn't realize what a burden he is. He
worked on the docks for about $Io.oo a week and when
incapacitated hadn't saved anything. The old woman
lives with the other widowed daughter. I just stumbled
on this family when inquiring for someone else. I made
two calls on the daughter with whom the old man lives,
and one call at the house where the old woman liveswhere I saw the old woman, but not the daughter.
That daughter goes out cleaning and supports her
mother and three children, and an invalid brother lives
there too. The old woman gave the impression of
living on very short rations and said, "I've just given
the children some breakfast, but we didn't even have
any sugar for the coffee." So apparently both families
are struggling hard.
No. 87-Mrs. P.
The pastor of their church said, " You will find the
S. family hard-working, self-respecting Germans," and
I had known two of the boys slightly years before, in
connection with some work in the neighborhood, as good
and reliable. So I climbed the long stairs with expectations of a pleasant visit. I entered the kitchen and a
comfortable scene met my eyes: a woman of about fortyfive and one over sixty were sharing tea with a guest,
another woman over sixty, whom I had heard of as a
possible "case" for me. The boys served as an introductory theme, and then I was obliged to rest and
have tea too-and to hear all the family news. While
I recovered my breath, I learned that the family consisted of four generations, represented by one person
from each generation. One of the boys and his little
sister had died of tuberculosis, the boy recently, and now
at last they understood about the disease, and had had
the rooms well fumigated. The great-grandmother was
in an adjoining room asleep; they said she was ninety




THE AGED ON THEMSELVES


79


and very feeble. The boy was at work. As I questioned more closely, from underneath this cheerful surface grim facts emerged. They said the boy didn't earn
much yet of course, and not only his mother but the
grandmother of sixty-three takes in washing,-both are
widows. The boy's mother explained that they couldn't
get enough washing to do and that was why "we seem
so idle to-day." She would be glad if I could send
more washing to them to do. The neighbor couldn't
speak English very well, and was deaf, so I was told
that they often gave bread and tea to her, as she had
even less than they. Probably the great-grandmother
won't live much longer, but by the time she dies the
grandmother, now sixty-three, won't be able to do washing and help with expenses, and most unfortunately the
mother isn't very strong, and the boy with his heritage
and environment hasn't a very good prospect physically.
I couldn't quite decide whom to pity most, the mother
with' the two older people to support and her fear for
her last child's health, or the boy himself, who at the
beginning of his working career is burdened with the
three widows to assist. I felt that the boy, of course,
was the one who might suffer most from the circum-,stances.
Thrift is here, and family devotion, and self-respect;
they are too proud to receive financial aid from church
or charity, but as all the boy's wages must go to his
family, what has he for himself? And how overwhelming is the whole situation!
Some of these effects are well emphasized by I. M.
Rubinow in his book "Social Insurance," on p. 315,
when he says:
"But, nevertheless, there must be thousands of families where children are either unable or unwilling to
render aid to the superannuated workers, but do it,
nevertheless, because of deep attachment to the parents,
or family pride revolting against application to charity,
and that the filial obligation is thus enforced by a
neglectful society with the effect of frequently depressing a standard of life already too low, or forcing the old
father or mother to eat the daily bread unwillingly




80        EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY
yielded, in pain and humiliation, or preventing the formation of a new family by the dutiful son or daughter
because of the existing obligation towards the ruins of
the old family."
And Alice W. Solenberger, in her book " One Thousand Homeless Men," says on p. 77, referring especially
to men retired by industrial accidents: "When in such
cases standards of living are lowered, and the earnings
of children taken out of school must be resorted to, the
indirect result will be revealed only in later years in the
undermined vitality of these children. Yet this indirect
result may be far more serious than the direct one."




XI


DISLIKE OF INSTITUTIONS
O    F all the women I talked with only three thought
they would like to go into an institution. One
of a better position than most, evidently didn't
like living with her brother and his wife, and just
wanted to get away from them, and was perfectly vague
about Homes; one lived alone and was scared by her attacks of dizziness, which sometimes caused her to fall
and once caused quite an accident, and she was considering an offer from her church to put her in a Home.
And the third, who was very lonely because of the recent death of her daughter, and didn't like living with
her sister-in-law, although she was independent because
she received a U. S. Army pension, thought also vaguely
that she might like to go into a Home. But the overwhelming majority dreaded the very idea of an institution and fought bitterly against it.
At first I thought their fears were very unwarranted,
just as their extreme fear of hospitals is. Though after
visiting numerous free wards in hospitals one does realize that unless the poor patients are " interesting cases"
they often are neglected, or are experimented with, and
even when receiving proper attention they often do not
understand what is happening to them; as one old
woman I knew said, "They stuck needles into me, and
I'm too old for needlework, and put me into a freezing
box, when I'm so cold. I'd rather be in my own little
basement, near the stove."  Later, however, I found
many of their fears about Homes substantiated. Even
in the best of Homes there is a tremendous loss of liberty and individuality, and the inmates are at the mercy
of the matron unless having "a pull" with some of the
patronesses of the Home.
One gentlewoman I knew of was sent to the infirmary




82


DISLIKE OF


in one of the very best Homes and was kept there five
days before a doctor was summoned, and died as a result
of neglect. Relatives then exerted themselves, an investigation was made, and forty-two complaints were
received against the matron, who was finally dismissed.
Another gentlewoman, who had lost all her money,
and all her friends, though her husband had been an
editor and she had known distinguished people in her
day, was placed by a church in one of the less wellknown but supposedly satisfactory Homes. Most of the
other inmates were foreigners, and they treated her very
badly. She had a room with a woman who spoke no
English, though there were other English-speaking inmates there. Some of the women actually " hazed " her,
and stole food from her. The poor soul almost lost her
mind under this treatment. Finally she was sent to a
hospital to the psychopathic ward. When her church
heard of this the doctors at the hospital were consulted,
and as no mental derangement was found, except a certain loss of memory and vagueness natural to age though
exaggerated by her trouble, she was removed from the
hospital to a place outside of New York, where $I.oo a
day board is paid for her and she is free and happy again,
though many of her cherished belongings were lost at
the first place.
It is only fair to add that I do know one or two very
superior Homes for gentlefolk in reduced    circumstances and that such Homes will always fill a certain
need.
But if such things happen at high-grade institutions,
think of the helplessness and sufferings of people placed
in free institutions.
Men do not hate institutions quite as much as women.
As I said in the chapter, "Aged People Wholly Dependent on Charity," men have not the same instinctive
love of home-making and do not struggle as women,
to keep a home, even if it is only a single room, with
an oil-stove, which they use for heat and on which they
prepare most meager meals.
Neither do men care quite as much for personal possessions and privacy, and they manage somehow even on




INSTITUTIONS


83


Blackwells Island to have more liberty than the women
there, so they don't suffer the same when they " give up."
In order to see some of the actual conditions of those
who gave up and went to public institutions for the aged,
I visited the Home for the Aged on Blackwells Island
and the Farm Colony on Staten Island.i It is not necessary here to give descriptions of the two institutions in
detail. I wish to mention merely what is particularly
striking.
The Farm Colony is by far the superior, partly because of the cottage system and because married couples
are not separated, and because it is smaller-with more
ground, etc. There is one cottage containing sixteen
couples, which is of course only a beginning in the right
direction. And there are two other cottages there for
women with single rooms, or rooms containing only two
persons, and more cottages are to be built. Probably
this system of cottages is more expensive and would not
be practicable financially on Blackwells Island, but they
might even on Blackwells Island have one big building
for married people.
Many people who heard Albert Chevalier in his
"Coster" songs, and were shocked at the revelation of
the tragic separation of old married people in England,
would be surprised to know that that system exists on
Blackwells Island. But perhaps the most striking thing
of all is the horror, of course greater because on a larger
scale at Blackwells Island, of the huge dormitories with
the beds nearer together than in the usual hospital wards.
That people can sleep in such huge dormitories so close
together seems incomprehensible-for although the very
poor have never been used to the luxury of real privacy
there is a difference between sharing a room with two
to four relatives-and a room with a hundred or so
strangers.
The hospital provisions at both places seem commendable and efforts are made for amusements, with occasional band concerts near the blind women's pavilion at
Blackwells Island. And at Blackwells Island, under
one of the churches, there is a library and reading-room
where men and women both may go.




84


DISLIKE OF


For sitting-rooms the men fare better at both places.
There is no special enclosed gathering place for women
at Blackwells Island, but the men have a big isolated
one-room building which they call " Klondike," where
they can smoke and play cards; at least I didn't see
such a room for women, and we were guided around
faithfully until in spite of long years of tenement visiting
I could stand no longer the sight of such depressed, hopeless, sad, vacant, wretched faces. All seemed to live
such a hopelessly monotonous life with no individuality
or scope for personal effort.
And at Staten Island the men had a real sitting-room
in the basement of one of the buildings; but the women
had only their dining-room to use as a sitting-room, and
it was much less comfortable and cheerful than the men's
room, though women need homelike surroundings more
than men.
The conclusion seems evident that men are given
sitting-rooms at both places largely because of their
smoking and chewing and spitting habits!
Of course people do get desperate and commit suicide
or try to do so. One of the nurses at Blackwells Island
said, "I don't think I can stand it here much longer,
it is awful. I don't wonder some of the old people
wander down to the river and get in boats and-well,
sometimes nothing more is heard of them! "
At neither place did I have any opportunity to speak to
any of the old people alone, but probably this was just
chance, as of course visitors are allowed to come regularly to sing or read or talk with the inmates.
I feel I ought to say a word in commendation of the
regulations for cleanliness, bathhouses, etc., at both
places, and especially of the general hygienic regulations
at Staten Island, where the disinfecting of clothes in the
laundry, etc., is fine. With 3,000 people at Blackwells
Island and I,Ioo at the Farm Colony at Staten Island,
cleanliness and hygiene are big problems.
My last comment is on the lack of provision at both
places for the keeping of personal effects, which is a
most serious defect.
At Staten Island, in the dormitories the women had




INSTITUTIONS


85


chairs by their bedsides, so they practically owned a
chair as well as a bed, and the clothes on their backs.
Think of the tragedy of owning nothing more, when
every human being has inherently a love of acquisition
- of property, as is proved also in asylums for children,
where it is found that children pine away if acquisition
of personal belongings is denied them! I asked one of
the heads at Staten Island if the inmates could not have
a locked tin box for personal belongings, but he insisted
that that.would be a menace to the general hygiene. I
said, " But the boxes could be inspected regularly." To
which he objected irritably, "There is no one here to
do such work. I am short of help as it is, besides the
people here are riff-raff, anyway.": This statement I
could not agree with at all, for many of the inmates
seemed very decent, respectable people, and in the cottages where they were given liberty (entrance to the
cottages is rather by "pull," and perhaps to some especially deserving ones) they looked very neat and nice.
However, in all that has been said, I have tried not
so much to criticize existing conditions at both places,
as to criticize the whole system, for I hope some day other
schemes for old-age provision will be found that will do
away with such gigantic institutions.
Ideally, when possible, families should be "kept intact." As an important settlement worker said to me in
effect, "The influence of the grandmother in the home
of Italian families is very much needed. To begin with
she often knows much more about the care of babies than
the trained nurse or the mother. Secondly, her effect
on the manners of the younger generation is important.
She has more influence on the grandchildren than the
mother has. And thirdly, besides the effect on manners, there is a deeper, more subtle influence that the
grandparents exert.  They inculcate reverence in the
young, and moral steadiness. In the changing social and
industrial conditions and the readjustments of racial
habits of thought and life, though the young often lose
respect for and obedience to their parents, somehow
they still respect and obey their grandparents."
In a lesser degree this is no doubt true of other




86


DISLIKE OF


nationalities. If grandparents could pay board to their
families, when the families are too poor to support them,
how much gain there would be doubly-to the aged and
to their families.
Then there are the aged who have no families to
board with, even if they had the money, but who, if they
had the money outside that it must cost to keep them
in an institution, could live alone or board with friends.
I cannot agree with F. Spencer Baldwin in this respect. He says in an article on "The Findings of the
Massachusetts Commission on Old Age Pensions" in
the American Statistical Association Publications for
March, I9IO: "The most interesting question that
arises in connection with the almshouse population relates to the probable proportion of this class that would
be enabled through the grant of pensions to withdraw
from institutional residence. The facts as to the physical condition, earning power and family connections
of inmates throw some light on this question. It appears that 93.8 per cent of the aged almshouse inmates
have physical defects of some kind, and 79.1 are wholly
incapacitated for labor, while an additional 8.4 are partly
incapacitated. Thus the percentage of able-bodied in
the aged pauper population is only I2.5. This fact
points to the practical impossibility of removing any
considerable portion of this population from the institutions through the establishment of a pension system. Another fact of similar significance is the extremely small
percentage of almshouse inmates having adult children
or other near relatives able to assist them, namely 7.7
per cent. It is obvious that aged inmates having no children or relatives with whom they could live would not,
as a rule, be enabled by the grant of a small pension to
leave the almshouse."
These statistics do prove that most people at the almshouses can't work to support themselves and that they
are there because their relatives can't afford to support
them, but it scarcely proves that their relatives or friends
could not care for them if paid to do so; and plenty of
these poor people in almshouses, even with physical disabilities, would prefer to live alone outside rather than




INSTITUTIONS


87


stay in almshouses, if they had a little money which they
could spend as they wished!
Now as to the cost of maintenance of the aged outside of institutions.  It was practically impossible to
calculate the cost of elderly people living with their families, but I gathered some data from   people living
alone.
Of women I found some existing on $3.00 a week,
and one or two spending nearly $25.00 a month. Miss
M., No. 25, in the chapter, "Aged People Wholly Dependent on Charity," had about $25.00 a month given
her. Mrs. W., No. 48, in the chapter, "Aged People
Who Are Self-Supporting," earned $6.00 a week. Mrs.
N., No. 33, in the chapter, "Aged People Partly SelfSupporting and Partly Dependent on Charity," said she
lived on $4.oo a week. Mrs. N., No. 84, in the chapter,
"Aged People Supported Entirely by Their Families,"
said her son gave her $3.00 a week, and she " got along
on that," and others managed on this amount. While
Mrs. K., No. 75, in this chapter had really less than
$3.00 a week.
Two people living together can get along on less, but
couples at present are seldom supported outside of institutions, and where they are helped a little and earn
something themselves it is difficult to ascertain their
budgets. And elderly women, without relatives, insist
on living alone, as far as my experience goes, so I have
no data at all exact of two people living together.
Also I was unable to gather much data of men living
alone from the men themselves, but some interesting information was given me at one of the Mills Hotels.
These Mills Hotels are not entirely philanthropic
enterprises running at a financial loss, as is sometimes
supposed, but pay, according to the statement of one of
the clerks, a three and a half per cent dividend, which, of
course, is not much of a return on the capital invested,
but very far from a loss. There are about 4,000 men in
the three Mills Hotels, with 1,554 rooms in the one I
visited. One of the clerks there said that there were
lots of men over sixty living there and working, and
that their wages ranged from $5.00 to $25.00 a week.




88


DISLIKE OF


The rooms are mostly twenty cents a night, and the
meals are served a la carte, or table d'h6te at I5, 20
or 25 cents. Women are allowed in the restaurant
6nly. There are large gathering rooms for the men,
and all is not only clean but attractive too. Of course
some men stop there who could afford to go elsewhere,
but such men are not encouraged to stay.
It may be a perfectly impracticable suggestion, but if
the State ever gives pensions of any kind, why couldn't
the State then keep such hotels, and get back some of
the money paid out? Then the State would be saved
the expense of huge free institutions and the people themselves would be much better off.
To substantiate some of these remarks on the general
dread of institutions, etc., the following is quoted from
Alice W. Solenberger in her book, "One Thousand
Homeless Men." On pp. 124 and 125 she says, "We
found, too, that it was much more difficult to persuade
persons to be financially responsible for the care of the
old-particularly of old men-than    it was of the
young," and on pp. 126 and 127, "When in trying to
secure adequate aid for self-respecting old men we found
that there were neither relatives nor friends who could
be interested in their behalf, and when because of breaking
health the men were no longer able to work, we invariably were confronted with a problem which in most
cases we were unable to solve because the lack of institutions made it impossible for us to offer the men the
sort of care they should have had. As before stated, there
were a few men whom we did not hesitate to send out to
Dunning [the Chicago almshouse], and who were quite
willing to go there, but of the twenty-five whom we finally
placed in the poorhouse at least sixteen should have been
cared for in some place where they could have been associated with a better class of men and where they would
have been spared the unmerited stigma of shame which
their residence in the poorhouse entailed," and on pp.
I14 and II5 she quotes some entries made in records at
the Bureau of Charities.
"Is tired and discouraged and says he is afraid he
will have to give up and go to Dunning [the Chicago




INSTITUTIONS


89


almshouse] soon," is an entry on one record. "Says he
is physically well but mentally weary," is another.
"Is having a hard struggle.  Is as strong as ever,
but finds it increasingly hard to get work because he
looks old." This from the record of a man of sixty
who had lived forty years in Chicago and who had had
good work records with a number of Chicago firms.
" Has had so little work this winter that he has almost starved, but cannot bear the thought of the poorr
house."
"Unable to find any work.    Says he is penniless,
friendless and discouraged."
"Has no work yet, but says he would rather starve
than go to Dunning."
"Such entries as these may be found on fifty per
cent of the records of the old men applying to the
Bureau, and these are not men who have been idle and
profligate, but respectable Irish, German or American
workmen, or, in some cases, business or professional men,
many of whom have spent all their lives in Chicago, and
have contributed their fair quota to its prosperity and
wealth."
Here are a few descriptions of people taken from the
hundred in this investigation.
No. 69-Mrs. D.
Mrs. D. was born in Brooklyn seventy-seven years
ago. She said she left school at twelve "to help her
mother." She never worked until after her husband's
death and then she became a domestic nurse, making
sometimes $1o.oo to $12.oo a week. But four years ago
she had to give up regular work, as she had heart
trouble and wasn't strong, and she used up her savings
in doctors' bills, etc. She never had children. She has
a brother still older, but he can't help her. She lives
alone in a furnished room, and is supported by odd jobs
and gifts. She does not wish to go into a Home, but
even if she did who would pay the usual entrance fee,
for the church to which she belongs evidently can't do
much for her, and it would be a shame to send her to a
public institution.




90


DISLIKE OF


No. 29-Mrs. McG.
Mrs. McG., over sixty, born in Philadelphia, was ill
when I first visited her. She had a weak heart and had
lost one eye. She told me she worked on passementerie
before her marriage and after her husband's death. Some
time ago she had a very serious illness, was taken to the
hospital and the doctor told her she was not sick but
starving, and that she must stay at the hospital for rest
and nourishment. When she gained strength she went
back to her two rooms, and someone in her church paid
her rent-$8.oo a month-and she did church sewing
for $1.50 to $2.oo a week, and had other gifts occasionally. Various people had tried to persuade her to
go into a Home, but she absolutely refused to do so.
Neighbors were kind, and she clung to her home and
to being alone. She was not able to do the sewing when
I first saw her, but expected to do it soon. When I
saw her later she was better and quite cheerful. She
thought the person who gave her the rent " very kind,"
but she felt that she really earned the money for the
sewing, and she felt independent and loved her possessions and her own little kingdom. Later one of the
nurses who went to see her found her dead-this the
nurse had always prophesied would be the case. She
probably died very suddenly and easily on account of her
weak heart, or the neighbor across the way, who often
helped her, would have been called in. Well, Mrs.
McG. had what she wished, she kept her own home to
the end!
No. 4-Mrs. B.
Mrs. B. was born in New York seventy-two years ago.
She said she went to work at thirteen, "because of the
panic." She has always made button-holes, at first as
regular work, then as odd jobs, and now mostly for her
church and two other societies, all of which contribute to
her support. She lives alone and is still in good physical
condition. She had the opportunity to be placed in one
of the better-class Homes, one considered among the
very best, but she refused to go. Some people consider




INSTITUTIONS


91


her quite unreasonable; those who know most about
even the best Homes sympathize with her!
No. 75-Mrs. K.
Mrs. K.'s name was given me by the wife of a pastor
of one of the smallest churches in Greenwich Village.
I found her living in a small tumbledown vacant house,
in a small room, with her things overflowing into the
hall. She has hardening of the arteries. She said her
husband was a clerk and she never needed to work, but
he drank heavily, and after his death, three years ago,
there was nothing left but a very small insurance which
lasted only a short time. Her sister-in-law in Washington gives her $5.00 a month and sometimes a little more,
which pays for her wretched room, and for oil for a
coal-oil stove, and her church and her friends provide
food. She said a charitable society had helped her formerly, but refused at present to help.  She said the
society tried to get her into a Home, but she refused to
go. The society, when I communicated with them, insisted that her sister probably helped her more than she
admitted, and that anyway she should be forced into a
Home, as she was too sick to live alone and had such
a dirty room that it was a menace. I agreed that her
room was dirty, but I had seen others just as dirty
from which tenants were not forced to move, and as the
woman can't live long (she wishes herself to die soon),
it did seem as if food and an occasional " cleaning-up"
might be provided for her and she might be left in peace.
No. 7o-Mr. G.
Mr. and Mrs. G. live on Jones Street, and almost
every time I passed by the house in which they live I saw
Mr. G. stationed on the front steps where he could watch
all the numerous activities of the street, and always received a cheery greeting. He can hobble around a little,
but can't work since he was paralyzed five years ago.
He was paralyzed on one side, and is blind in one eye.
He was born in New York City sixty years ago, and
according to the investigations of one of the charitable




92       DISLIKE OF INSTITUTIONS
societies had a good record and received good testimonials
from his employers. He told me that as a boy he
worked with a clothing company, and then did trucking
and later was a butcher, making at his highest success
$I,ooo a year. Then he was in a United States Appraiser's store, where he earned $70.00 a month, and
finally he was a keeper on Blackwells Island, where he
got $60.00 to $70.00 a month. When he could no
longer work he had some savings, but those are exhausted
now, though he still manages to keep up his insurance
policy payments. His wife goes out washing and cleaning, but doesn't make enough to support both of them,
and they refuse emphatically to go to an institution!
As he said to me, "I know what Blackwells Island is
like!"  A brother and two stepdaughters can't help.
Old employers and the State National Guard, to which
Mr. G. belonged, have been appealed to, but as yet not
with satisfactory results. At present Greenwich House
and the C. O. S. help them a little, and a scheme is on
foot to raise some sort of regular allowance from various
sources.




XII


THE NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION FOR
AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA
N      T W, certainly the cose study of even the hundred people in this investigation leads to the
belief that there are old people unavoidably dependent, because they cannot work, and that their families cannot, or will not, or ought not to support them,
and that putting people into big institutions is not a
satisfactory way of solving the old-age problem,-in
short, that some other provision for dependent old people should be made.
This provision for old age is usually made in Europe
by some sort of social-insurance or pension system.
It is not within the province of this report to discuss:
(I) the different schemes of pensions or social insurance
in any great detail, or to point definitely to which is the
best and wisest to institute in America, or (2) the number of people who would be eligible for such provision,
or (3) the cost of such provision,-an attempt has been
made merely to add to the evidence on the subject of
the actual need for provision for the aged, not merely
for their own sakes, but for the sake of their families
and even for the sake of society.
The subject of pension and social-insurance systems is
growing in importance. One writer sums up the kinds
of pension and insurance systems as follow: (I) Voluntary Private Old-Age Insurance; (2) Subsidized
Voluntary State Insurance Against Old Age; (3) Compulsory Old-Age Insurance; (4) Non-Contributory
Old-Age Pensions; and these are thoroughly described
in the books mentioned in Chapter I.
All these systems are being tried in various countries,
and America is at last seriously considering the problem.
I. M. Rubinow says in his book on Social Insurance (p.
93




94      NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION
4I I): ( The demand for an old-age pension has for over
twenty years constituted a permanent plank in the platform of the Socialist Party, but for the first time it has
now become a living issue, as is proven by the fact that
it has been included in the famous 'confession of faith'
and in the National and New York State platforms of
the Progressive Party."
And certain states have taken preliminary steps in the
same direction. So it is to be hoped that the way will
be found by which provision for the aged can be made,
adequately and acceptably, and yet with less expense
than is often feared!
To stop generalizing and to return to the scope of
this particular investigation, it was most surprising to
realize the difficulty with which I found one hundred
aged people suitable for this study in the large area of
Greenwich Village. Of course, this is only a drop in
the bucket by way of evidence, but it seems to me a
rather significant drop. There are probably not as many
aged people needing state provision as is often feared.
But those who need provision need it badly. The present
provisions are not only pitifully inadequate but exceedingly hit-or-miss-much too much is left to chance.
I hope I have indicated clearly the fear of institutions
which hangs over the poor, and the generally merited dislike for them. Institutions are not a satisfactory mode
of provision for the aged, and could never be made so.
Secondly, although many churches make efforts to help
their aged members they seldom have funds enough to
help very many, and besides dependent aged people who
are church members form a very small group, i.e. members of Protestant churches; and Roman Catholic
churches give comparatively little financial aid. It was
interesting to see that the people really belonging to
churches and helped by their churches seemed on the
whole more self-respecting than those helped by charity,
i.e. charitable societies.
Thirdly, the charitable agencies, with all their laudable efforts, are not able to cope with the situation of
providing adequately for aged people outside of institutions. As one agent of a society said to me: "We can




FOR AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA


95


raise only small funds for assisting aged people outside
of institutions. The public is asked to support institutions and naturally expects the dependent aged to be
put into those institutions." And not only do the charitable societies not have funds enough to provide for the
aged, but their assistance, except in sharp emergencies,
has unfortunately a deteriorating effect upon the recipients. I heard of one young married woman, whose
family in her childhood had been regularly assisted by
charity, who said, "Rather than have my children supported by charity I'd kill them all." It seems as if the
whole attitude of large charitable societies had to be,
under present conditions, much too high-handed.
In a collection of stories entitled "Mrs. Mahoney of
the Tenements," by Louise Montgomery, there is a story,
"Case No. II99," of a charity visitor who has an old
man moved to a hospital without his or his wife's consent. The neighbors take up a subscription, and one
young man goes to the hospital, and, claiming to be the
son, takes the old man home to die, as the doctor admits
he probably won't live for a month. Now this story
probably has no basis in actual facts. As powerful as the
charitable societies are, they are not allowed, even if they
wished, to remove patients to hospitals by force-only
the Board of Health is allowed to do that, when the
patient is considered a menace to the family and the
neighborhood.  But the story does illustrate a certain
attitude of charitable societies and of many people, rich
or well-to-do, towards the poor, and this is the attitude,
in a blunt form-" If we help you even partly as well
as wholly, you must do as we direct absolutely." Now,
it seems to me that this is, not always but often, an
unreasonable and exceedingly high-handed attitude. It
is the attitude of power towards the defenceless, and it
seems only justice that the state shall guard all its citizens in such a way that they shall never reach the point
where their destinies are so dominated. And besides,
think of the towns and villages where there are no organized charities!
Nor does it seem that, in a true democracy, provision
for citizens of any class should be left to another class




96      NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION
to be given as charity. When people have contributed
all their lives to the industry of their state, should they
be obliged at the end of their days to depend on charity?
After struggling to keep their self-respect by hard work
all their lives, think of the choice at the end, to go to
an institution, or else to deprive their families of the
very necessities of life!
The people who receive United States war pensions
do not feel so disgraced, and I was much interested in the
attitude of the people I saw one morning at the " Exempt
Firemen's Association" rooms.   The women sitting
waiting for their pensions looked respectable and selfrespecting. I fell into conversation with one of them,
and she explained, " Our husbands belonged to the volunteer firemen in the old days, you know, and now we are
just being paid back dues; it isn't a charity pension, you
see!"  This idea of "justice" rather than "charity"
is well brought out by F. W. Lewis, in his book, " State
Insurance," when he says on p. I50: " In the more recent
discussions of old-age relief we hear more of doing justice and less of bestowing charity. The preamble to the
old-age pension act in New Zealand recites that it is
equitable that those who, in the prime of life, helped to
bear the public burdens of the Colony and to open up its
resources should receive pensions, and in the debate in
the British Parliament upon the recent old-age pension
act, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, in reply to
the demand for a contributory plan: 'The workman
who has contributed health, strength, vigor and skill to
the building-up of the wealth of the nation has made
his contribution. "
And the constructive side of social provision for old
age is brought out in the following quotations. I. M.
Rubinow says in his book " Social Insurance" (p. 312):
" But the purpose of a social policy in dealing with destitution is not only to substitute for private and public
charity, is not only to prevent starvation, not only, in
short, to prevent the extreme of pauperism, but also to
cure or prevent poverty, to prevent semi-starvation, to
raise conditions of life, standards of life for the victims
as well as for the working-class as a whole, by removing




FOR AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA


97


the depressing effect upon wages and the standards of
living which a large contingent of pauperized or semipauperized or simply destitute individuals must necessarily exercise." And Henry R. Seager says in his book
"Social Insurance" (p. II8): "The proper method of
safeguarding old age is clearly through some plan of
insurance. Old age is a risk to which all are liable, but
which many never live to experience. Thus, according
to American life tables, nearly two-thirds of those who
survive the age of ten die before the age of seventy.
Under these circumstances, for every wage-earner to
attempt to save enough by himself to provide for his old
age is needlessly costly. The intelligent course is for
him to combine with other wage-earners to accumulate
a common fund out of which old-age annuities may be
paid to those who live long enough to need them."
So far the authors quoted have been in favor of some
system of social insurance, or of pensions-the majority
advocating the former. Let us now turn to objections
given to pensions, and to some discussions on voluntary
and compulsory insurance.
There seems to be rather a good deal of fear that state
pensions would injure the "self-respect of the workingman " and " discourage thrift" and have a " disintegrating effect on families."
In the American Labor Legislation Review for June,
1913, in an article on "Old-Age Insurance," F. Spencer Baldwin, Secretary of the Massachusetts Commission on Old-Age Pensions, says (p. 2Io): "The thrift
habit is not something instinctive and spontaneous; it is
the race product of careful training. It is extremely
hard to build up and very easy to break down. The aim
of modern poor-law reform has been to cultivate this
habit by penalizing unthrift and stigmatizing dependency. The establishment of the pension system means
the abandonment of this approved policy of conserving
thrift, and reversion to the discredited methods of general outdoor relief. The gravest consequences are to be
apprehended from the new policy. In general it must
exert an enervating and demoralizing influence on character, lessening the sense of personal responsibility, self



98      NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION
reliance and self-respect, and sapping the foundations of
individual independence, initiative and resourcefulness.
"Finally, the effect of non-contributory pensions on
the family must be set down as a further objection to
the plan. A non-contributory pension system weakens
the bonds of family solidarity. It takes away in part
the filial obligation for the support of aged parents,
which is one of the main ties that hold the family together. The supporters of the pension policy deny that
this result would follow. They contend that, on the
contrary, their plan would strengthen the family; they
reason that the payment of small pensions to old people
would help to keep families together by making it possible for the children to retain the aged parent in the
household, in view of the addition that his pension would
bring to the family income. While this might be true
in individual cases, it can hardly be doubted that the
general effect on the family would be disintegrating.
The assumption by the state of the obligation to support
the aged in their homes would undermine filial responsibility precisely as the guarantee of public maintenance
of children would destroy parental responsibility. The
impairment of family integrity is, in fact, one of the
most serious dangers threatened by recent experiments
with non-contributory pensions."
And the same author says in the American Statistical
Association Publications of March, I90o, in an article
entitled "The Findings of the Massachusetts Commission on Old-Age Pensions " (p. I8): "A non-contributory
pension system is simply a counsel of despair. If such
a scheme be defensible or excusable in this country, then
the whole economic and social system is a failure. The
adoption of such a policy would be a confession of its
breakdown. To contend that it is necessary to take
this course is to assume that the members of the workingclass either cannot earn enough or cannot save enough
to take care of themselves in old age. If that be true,
then American democracy is in a state of decay which
no system of public doles could possibly arrest, but would
rather hasten."
Now, it seems to me that the small benefit given




FOR AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA                  99
by a pension at the end of life would scarcely encourage
men to be reckless in earlier years. And as I have tried
to demonstrate from practical instances in the chapter,
" Difficulties of Saving for Old Age," much saving for
old age is impossible. Thrift is needed for wise expenditures and proper living, and is scarcely possible as
productive of saving for old age. And surely families
would not love their aged members less if they were not
such financial burdens, but more. And of course no
one would consider that pensions are a remedy for low
wages-they are merely palliatives while wages are low.
One might with equal accuracy say that we should not
have hospitals for tuberculosis, as it is a preventable disease, though no one doubts the need of hospitals till the
disease is entirely eradicated!
And there seems to be great fear that the poor will
not have enough opportunity for self-sacrifice!
Frederick L. Hoffman says in the American Statistical
Association Publications for March, 9gog, on p. 367:
"A non-contributory old-age pension scheme will not
solve the problem of the dependent poor and will not
prevent an increase in the burden of real pauperism;
but, on the contrary, it will undermine and tend to destroy the self-respecting character of our people as
citizens in a democracy where economic independence,
achieved by individual effort, self-sacrifice, and selfdenial, is, after all, the only aim and end worth while."
Surely the poor when known individually have plenty
of exercise for these virtues of self-denial; it could not
harm them to remove a few of their difficulties. My
own appreciation of the futility of these arguments found
confirmation in the comments on them by I. M. Rubinow in his book so often referred to, " Social Insurance."
On pp. 314 and 315 he gives first a quotation from the
report of the Massachusetts Commission on Old-Age
Pensions:
"' The disintegrating effect on the family. A noncontributory system would take away, in part, the filial
obligation for the support of aged parents which is the
main bond of family solidarity. It would strike at one
of the forces that have created the self-supporting, selfea::1




100     NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION
respecting American family. The impairment of family
solidarity is one of the most serious consequences to be
apprehended."'" And then he says: "There is a good,
old-fashioned atavistic nobility of sentiment about this
argument which will greatly please all good men and
women except those who have to be supported by their
children, and those who have to support their parents and
also their own families on a wage-earner's budget.... It
further seems to assume that we love our burdens and
that when parents cease being burdens the children cease
loving them. It assumes that the standing of a superannuated parent in a family is in an inverse proportion
to the amount he is able to contribute to the family budget. It is an appeal to an ideal of a patriarchal family
which has been dead for a century in every industrial
country, and which really never had any strong hold
upon American life. Of course, its inapplicability to the
aged single man or the aged spinster aunt will be evident. For it certainly cannot be claimed that the support of all spinster aunts is also a fundamental principle
of American solidarity. Then again, even married people may not have any children, or may have lost
them...." And he says much more of interest on this
subject, not in praise of a pension system, but to prove
that these particular arguments against pensions are not
valid and to urge the need of some sort of social provision.
Another question is brought up in these articles-the
difference between pensions given to civil employees and
war veterans and to workingmen in general. In his
article, "State Pensions and Annuities in Old Age," in
the American Statistical Association Publications for
March, I909, Frederick L. Hoffman says on pp. 368
and 369: " The argument is advanced that such pensions
are really not fundamentally different from the pensions
paid to soldiers and sailors for service rendered the nation
in times of peace or war, or to civil service employees of
all kinds, who are retired on attaining a given age; for
it is said, if the state considers it just to pension our
fighters, why should she not also pension workers?...
The case is very different with men who have followed
*




FOR AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA                101
their own ends and served their own purposes, who have
made their struggle for success and who, because of misapplied energy or misapplied talent or because most
likely of misspent years, are dependent upon charity in
their old age. The more than thirty millions of men
and women employed in the industries of this country
are not working for the state or for the nation, but they
are working for themselves, and they have unrestrained
control over the expenditures of their incomes, and, to
that extent, they have their future fate in their hands.
These are the workers of the nation, but not the workers
for the nation, and the difference is fundamental, and
ought never to be lost sight of in discussions of this
kind."
Isn't this rather more theoretic than actual, all this
about "misspent years " and " unrestrained control over
expenditures "-and how can soldiers be considered such
unselfish laborers for the nation?-they surely are quite
as self-seeking as factory workers, for example.
Besides, if pensions are so fearfully demoralizing, why
are private pension systems so lauded? In an article
entitled "The Work of the Massachusetts Commission
on Old-Age Pensions," in the American Statistical Association Publications for March, I909, F. Spencer Baldwin says, on p. 426, referring to private pension schemes:
"The general nature of the leading schemes is substantially the same. Provision is made for the voluntary or
compulsory retirement of employees at a certain age, with
weekly or monthly allowances. The amount of the allowance is determined by the length of service and the
wages of the employee. It is usually calculated on a
basis of a percentage of the average wages for each year
of service. The expenses of the pension system are commonly borne by the employer without contribution from
the employee. Often the pension system is combined
with provision for sickness and accident insurance organized on a contributory basis. The motives that have
induced large corporate employers to provide retirement
pensions are partly economic and partly humanitarian or
philanthropic. Economic motives play the leading part.
This thing has been done because it has been found to




102     NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION
be good business policy. The economic gain from the
pension system is twofold: it eliminates the waste and
demoralization attendant upon the continued employment of old men who have outlived their usefulness, and
it helps to promote industry, contentment, and loyalty
on the part of the working force. The pension system
aids in solving the difficult problem of stimulating the
employees of a large corporation to the highest efficiency,"
etc.
Why are public pensions so much more harmful than
pensions given by corporations?
Having given these arguments for and against the
pension system, it seems only fair to give a few arguments for and against insurance schemes.
In an article by F. Spencer Baldwin, "Old-Age Insurance," in the American Labor Legislation Review of
June, 1913, he says, on p. 206, speaking of the Massachusetts savings-bank insurance system: "The weakness
of the plan is the fundamental failing of all voluntary
insurance systems, it fails to reach the mass of the working population, especially the class of low-paid laborers
most in need of some provision for old age. As Professor
Schaeffler has well said: 'Experience has everywhere
demonstrated that the great mass of those workingmen
who are poorly off will not voluntarily insure themselves.
Furthermore, the great majority of those who would
like to do so cannot on account of the smallness of their
earnings. In other words, it is exactly that class which
is most in need of insurance that either will not or cannot avail themselves of this device.' The statistics of the
savings-bank insurance in Massachusetts show that very
little use has been made of the provisions for the purchase of annuities." A most interesting article on the
Massachusetts Savings-Bank Insurance and Pension
System is that by Louis D. Brandeis in the American
Statistical Association Publications for March, 90o9.
From my own little experience also I can see that very
few are able to pay for voluntary insurance. Whenever possible, the poor keep up their " burial insurance,"
as fear of a pauper's grave is one of their most pressing
and terrifying anxieties, but often they are unable to


I - - - -




FOR AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA 103
keep up even the small payments demanded for that
insurance.
To be sure, in late years the whole system of private
insurance has improved greatly, and it might be improved
still more, so that life insurance would cost the poor
less and give them greater benefits. But no system of
private life insurance or the payment of annuities could
ever solve the problem of providing adequately for old
age, for it would provide only for the better-paid class
of working-people, not for those who need such provision
most.
Now, if the very poor can't pay for voluntary insurance, how could they pay for compulsory insurance,
even if that insurance were contributed to by the state
and by employers also? On p. 19 of the American
Statistical Association Publications for March, I9IO, F.
Spencer Baldwin says in the article before referred to
on " The Findings of the Massachusetts Commission on
Old-Age Pensions": "It may be that eventually the
state will undertake to enforce this obligation upon the
individual by law. The state may, in the interest of
all, say to the individual: 'You shall provide for your
old age through saving made easy by a system of insurance established by government, in order that the general welfare may not be disturbed by your coming to the
state for support in your old age.' The principle of
compulsory education has been adopted and widely extended. The principle of compulsory sanitation has been
applied in various directions. The principle of compulsory insurance might be defended as a needful measure of further state interference for the protection of
society against the burden of old-age pauperism, precisely
as compulsory education and compulsory sanitation have
been instituted to protect society against ignorance and
disease. A system of state insurance thus grounded,
however, would be based on the principle of enforced
obligation on the part of the individual to insure himself
and not on that of recognized duty on the part of the
state to pension all worthy citizens. The British and
Australian pension systems are based on the latter principle, involving the doctrine that a citizen may claim a


------— ~11111




104     NEED OF PUBLIC PROVISION
pension from the state as a civil right. That doctrine
is distinctly un-American. The opposite principle of
obligatory insurance, as here interpreted, is the only one
that could possibly be harmonized with American conditions, traditions and ideals."
Now it seems to me that compulsory education and
sanitation, and compulsory insurance are scarcely parallels, for the burden of their payment falls very differently. And also it seems to me that however individualistic our early American methods may have been,
we are at last working out ideas of more co-operative
responsibility. As Henry R. Seager says in his book
"Social Insurance" (p. I9): "The failure of wageearners to provide, each for himself, against the contingencies that I have specified-accidents, illness, premature death, unemployment and old age-is to my mind
merely proof that collective remedies must be found and
applied to these evils."
So far no one system of provision for old age seems
entirely satisfactory; all pension systems and all insurance systems seem to fail in some respects. But perhaps
some combination or modification of these systems will be
discovered. It scarcely seems to me that the workers
could contribute much money towards any system themselves, but perhaps those receiving over a certain wage
might, and perhaps not only all manufacturers but all
employers might contribute, and the state might levy
some tax for the fund, and then pensions could be graded
as to amounts given, with certain qualifications (as was
first proposed in England), and this might be administered with less cost than some writers fear, through post
offices or banks or municipal employment bureaus, or
even municipal co-operative workshops!  Surely some
provision for the aged ought to be made and will be
made in time.
The general situation is well summed up by I. M.
Rubinow in his "Social Insurance" (pp. 42 and 43):
" To sum up: ( ) From two-thirds to three-fourths of all
productive workers in the United States depend upon
wages or small salaries for their existence.  (2) From
four-fifths to nine-tenths of the wage-workers receive




FOR AGED PEOPLE IN AMERICA 105
wages which are insufficient to meet the cost of a normal standard of health and efficiency for a family, and
about one-half receive very much less than that. (3)
If a certain proportion of wage-workers' families succeed
in attaining such a standard, it is made possible only by
the presence of more than one worker in the family.
(4) This condition, however, can only be temporary in
the history of any workingman's family. (5) The increase in the standard of wages is barely sufficient to
meet the increased cost of living. (6) An annual surplus in the workingman's budget is a very rare thing,
and is very small. (7) The growth of savings-bank deposits in the United States is not sufficient evidence of
the ability of the American workingmen to make substantial savings. A large proportion of these savings
belong to other classes of population, and in so far as
information is available the average workingman's deposit is very small. (8) The analysis of the economic
status of the American wage-worker does not disclose
his ability to cope with the various economic emergencies
without outside assistance."
Formerly people thought that the working-people in
America were as a whole so much better off than the
working-people abroad that no special provision need be
made for the aged in America. These optimistic beliefs,
however, have been somewhat shattered.
But to return to the evidence in this particular investigation. Surely some of the cases described in the preceding chapters point to the fact that many old people
suffer greatly, mentally and physically, and that no existing provisions fit their needs. Only those who really
know and respect the hard-working, independent poor
realize their struggles, their sensitiveness and their heroism against overwhelming odds.
Should we not encourage wage-earners to keep up their
standards of living throughout their lives, and when
their wage-earning power is over, if it is necessary for
their sakes and for the sake of their families to help,
shall we not provide them with the opportunity to live
with independence and self-respect in their old age?.-     ^PR., 2 5 116




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