Broke, A Man Without A Dime

English: Homeless man, Tokyo  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Broke; A Man Without A Dime, Free eBook from Chuck Thompson

INTRODUCTORY

I was born on the 28th day of April, 1857, in the village of Port Byron, Rock Island County, Illinois. The waves of the grand old Mississippi sang my lullaby through a long and joyful childhood. So near at hand was the stream that I learned to swim and skate almost before I was out of kilts. My father, A. J. Brown, at that time was the leading merchant and banker in the town. We were an exceedingly happy and prosperous family of six.

My father died when I was seven years of age. My mother, a woman of exceptionally brilliant intellect and lovable character, has been with or near me almost all my life. She died in 1909 at the ripe age of eighty-four.

When a boy in my teens I attended school in Boston, where I spent four years. In the early eighties I moved to Colorado and have lived there ever since. In 1897 I was married, and the intense interest and sympathy my wife has shown in my crusade for the homeless has been one of my greatest encouragements. With no children for company, it has meant a great sacrifice on her part, for it broke up our home and voluntarily separated us for nearly two years.

I have often wondered why I should have been the one to make this crusade, for all my life I have loved solitude, and have always been over-sensitive to the criticism and opinions of others. My mission is not based upon any personal virtue of goodness, but I have been inspired with the feeling that I had taken up a just and righteous cause, and the incentive of all my efforts has ever been that of compassion—not to question whether a hungry man has sinned against society, but to ask why he is not supplied with the necessities of existence.[A]

I am trying to solve these questions: Are our efforts to help the unfortunate through the medium of our “Charities,” our “Missions,” and our churches all failures? Why is crime rampant in our cities? Why are our hospitals, almshouses, our jails, and our prisons crowded to overflowing? And these questions have resolved themselves for me into one mighty problem: Why is there destitution at all,—why is there poverty and suffering amidst abundance and plenty?

I am convinced that poverty is not a part of the great Eternal plan. It is a cancerous growth that human conventions have created and maintained. I believe it was intended that every human being should have food and shelter. Therefore I have not only asked “Why?” but I have tried to find the remedy. My crusade has been constructive and not destructive.

My mission is not to censure but to disclose facts. I am without political or economic bias.

I shall ask my reader to go with me and see for himself the conditions existing in our great cities,—to view the plight of the homeless, penniless wayfarer, who, because of the shortsightedness of our municipalities, is denied his right to decent, wholesome food and to sanitary shelter for a night. And my concern is not only the homeless man, but the homeless woman, for there are many such who walk our streets, and often with helpless babes at their breasts and little children at their sides. And after my reader has comprehended the condition that I shall reveal to him, I shall ask him to enlist himself in the cause of a Twentieth Century Free Municipal Emergency Home in every city, that shall prove our claims to righteousness and enlightenment.

To-day there is everywhere a growing sense of and demand for political, social, and economic justice; there is a more general and definite aim to elevate the condition of the less fortunate of our fellow-citizens; there are united efforts of scientific investigators to discover and create a firm foundation for practical reforms. I am simply trying to show the way to one reform that is practical, feasible, and—since the test of everything is the dollar—good business.

If I can succeed in showing that old things are often old only because they are traditional; that in evolution of new things lies social salvation; that the “submerged tenth” is submerged because of ignorance and low wages; and that the community abounds in latent ability only awaiting the opportunity for development,—then this volume will have accomplished its purpose.

I am determined to create a systematic and popular sympathy for the great mass of unfortunate wage-earners, who are compelled by our system of social maladjustment to be without food, clothing, and shelter. I am determined our city governments shall recognize the necessity for relief.

Let me not be misunderstood as handing out a bone, for an oppressive system. “It is more Godly to prevent than to cure.”

In these pages I shall undertake to show by many actual cases that the so-called “hobo,” “bum,” “tramp,” “vagrant,” “floater,” “vagabond,” “idler,” “shirker,” “mendicant,”—all of which terms are applied indiscriminately to the temporarily out-of-work man,—the wandering citizen in general, and even many so-called criminals, are not what they are by choice any more than you or I are what we are socially, politically, and economically, from choice.

I shall call attention to the nature and immensity of the problem of the unemployed and the wandering wage-earner, as such problem confronts and affects every municipality.

We find the migratory wage-earner, the wandering citizen, at certain seasons traveling in large numbers to and from industrial centers in search of work. Most of these wandering wage-earners have exhausted their resources when they arrive at their destination, and are penniless—“broke.” Because of the lack of the price to obtain a night’s lodging, or food, or clothing, they are compelled to shift as best they may, and some are forced to beg, and others to steal.

For the protection and good morals of society in general, for the safety of property, it is necessary that every municipality maintain its own Municipal Emergency Home, in which the migratory worker, the wandering citizen, can obtain pure and wholesome food to strengthen his body, enliven his spirit, and imbue him with new energy for the next day’s task in his hunt for work. It is necessary that in such Municipal Emergency Home the wanderer shall receive not only food and shelter, but it is of vital importance that he shall be enabled to put himself into presentable condition before leaving.

The purpose of each Municipal Emergency Home, as advocated in this volume, is to remove all excuse for beggary and other petty misdemeanors that follow in the wake of the homeless man. The Twentieth Century Municipal Emergency Home must afford such food and lodging as to restore the health and courage and self-respect of every needy applicant, free medical service, advice, moral and legal, and help to employment; clothing, given whenever necessary, loaned when the applicant needs only to have his own washed; and free transportation to destination wherever employment is offered. The public will then be thoroughly protected. The homeless man will be kept clean, healthy, and free from mental and physical suffering. The naturally honest but weak man will not be driven into crime. Suffering and want, crime and poverty will be reduced to a minimum.

In looking over the field of social betterment, we find that America is far behind the rest of the civilized world in recognizing the problems of modern social adjustment. We find that England, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway, and other nations have progressed wonderfully in their system of protecting their wandering citizens. All these nations have provided their wage earners with old-age pensions, out-of-work funds, labor colonies, insurance against sickness, labor exchanges, and municipal lodging houses.

Because of the manifest tendency to extend the political activities of society and government to the point where every citizen is provided by law with what is actually necessary to maintain existence, I advocate a divorce between religious, private, and public charities, and sincerely believe that it is the duty of the community, and of society as a whole, to administer to the needs of its less fortunate fellow-citizens. Experience with the various charitable activities of the city, State, and nation, has proven conclusively to me that every endeavor to ameliorate existing conditions ought to be, and rightly is, a governmental function, just as any other department in government, such as police, health, etc. The individual cannot respect society and its laws, if society does not in return respect and recognize the emergency needs of its less fortunate individuals. Popular opinion, sentiment, prejudice, and even superstitions, are often influential in maintaining the present-day hypocritical custom of indiscriminate alms giving, which makes possible our deplorable system of street mendicancy.

The object of the personal investigation and experiences presented in this volume is to lay down principles and rules for the guidance and conduct of the institution which it advocates.

The reader has a right to ask: How does this array of facts show to us the way to a more economical use of private and public gifts to the needy? Are there any basic rules which will help to solve the problem of mitigating the economic worth of the temporary dependent? I shall give ample answers to these queries.

In the hope that the facts here presented may bring to my reader a sense of the great work waiting to be done, and may move him to become an individual influence in the movement for building and conducting Twentieth Century Municipal Emergency Homes throughout our land, I offer this volume in a spirit of good-will and civic fellowship.

E. A. B.

Denver, September, 1913.

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Undermining The Constitution A HISTORY OF LAWLESS GOVERNMENT (Part 6)

Chief Justice John Marshall established a broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Thomas James Norton

THE LONG-PURSUED PURPOSE OF CONGRESS TO CROSS THE BARRIER OF THE TENTH AMENDMENT AND ENTER THE POLICE FIELD OF THE STATES, OFTEN CHECKED BY THE COURTS AND THE PEOPLE, WAS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE PACKERS AND STOCKYARDS ACT OF 1921

in enacting the Packers and Stockyards Act of August 15, 1921, Congress did not move in obedience to powerful voting groups, as it did when it passed An Act for the Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy, and for Other Purposes, and as it did in passing the bills on Child Labor.

It had no apparent reason for disregarding the Tenth Amendment and meddling in the duties of the States. There may have been complaints about the charges or services to the public of the stockyards at Chicago. If there had been dissatisfaction in that respect, the complaints should have been lodged with the commission of Illinois having authority. No default in the service of a corporation of a State could have given jurisdiction to Congress.

A belief of many dangerous to constitutionalism

While the opinion has often been expressed by persons otherwise well educated that if a State will not perform

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its duty, then let the Nation do it, the Constitution is not changeable that way: An amendment is necessary to a change. The idea, however, is startlingly prevalent. Multitudes believe that the National Government should take over more often than it has done.
Whatever the urge, Congress stepped into Illinois and took the control of the stockyards at Chicago away from the State. The sanction in 1922 by the Supreme Court (258 U. S. 495) of the action of Congress made the law effective as to stockyards on railroads in other States, and managing bureaus moved in.
The action by Congress was under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which empowers it "to regulate commerce among the several States." This clause and the General Welfare Clause are the two stand-bys for Congress when it finds the Tenth Amendment in its way of stripping the States and The People of their freedoms.
Governor Roosevelt condemned congressional invasion of States
The Packers and Stockyards case was undoubtedly in the mind of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York when, in 1929, addressing a meeting of governors, he condemned unsparingly the "stretching" of the Commerce Clause by Congress to cover its intrusions into the States.
The stockyards at Chicago were being regulated by the State of Illinois. Livestock coming from other States was unloaded at the yards, fed and sheltered. Dealers in livestock had offices in or near the yards and made purchases there. Most of the animals received at the stockyards were taken by the large packing companies and manufactured into beef, pork, and other meats and foods. Those manufactured products were in part shipped out of Illinois to other States.

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Someone in Congress or elsewhere conceived the idea that the transportation of freight was continuous, from the feeding lots where the livestock was fattened to the States in which the meats were consumed, and that therefore Illinois should have no control of such "interstate" commerce.
Stockyards Act superfluous as well as illegal
In the statement of facts preceding the opinion by Chief Justice Taft, it was said that "the act seeks to regulate the business of packers done in interstate commerce." But that could have been done without usurping the police power of the State of Illinois over a local industry. For the Sherman Anti-Trust Law had been enacted in 1891, thirty years before, to prevent or remove the conspiracies and combinations in restraint of trade and competition which were in this case charged against the packers.^[1] The Chief Justice said that the Packers and Stockyards Act "forbids unfair, discriminatory and deceptive practices in such commerce" -- precisely what the Sherman Law had long forbidden. Except that the Sherman Law was not an invasion of the State in disregard of the Tenth Amendment. The Packers and Stockyards Act was.
The Act made the Secretary of Agriculture a tribunal to
1. The Sherman Law was supplemented in 1914 by the Clayton Act. In the same year the Federal Trade Commission Law was enacted to prevent "unfair methods in competition in interstate commerce."
In suits under the Sherman Law combinations like Standard Oil and Northern Securities were broken apart. But each of the leading parties charges the other with failure during its time in office to enforce the anti-trust laws. Senator Borah said in a speech to his colleagues that each party is enthusiastic for regulation of too-big business only in campaign time. It is a question whether the magnitude of many industrial and commercial organizations may affect people toward a belief in Socialism or Communism.

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hear complaints of unfair and monopolistic practices and to make desist orders. That was unnecessary, for courts of equity had been giving such remedies under the Sherman Law.
Sherman Law had proved its complete adequacy
Indeed, as far back as 1905 a decree in a suit under the Sherman Law ordered (196 U.S. 875) the packers to desist from monopolistic practices in their trade in interstate commerce. And following the report of the Federal Trade Commission, and before the passage of the Packers and Stockyards Act, a bill was filed in a Federal Court of the District of Columbia to enjoin the Big Five packers from monopolistic practices in the purchase of livestock and the sale and distribution of meats. To a decree stopping the monopolistic practices complained of, the packers consented.
In 1912 these same packers had been indicted for monopolistic practices in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and upon trial were acquitted.
The Sherman Law also proved adequate to break up Standard Oil, Northern Securities, and many other powerful monopolies.
As has been shown, the courts had many times, under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, made such combinations give up their controlling shares of stock and desist from the other practices complained of. There was no need for further legislation. The Interstate Commerce Commission had been, under the Commerce Clause, regulating transportation of commerce for more than a third of a century, and the Federal Trade Commission, under the Act of 1914, under the same clause, had for several years been

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making orders respecting fair practices in trade and commerce.
Long line of holdings submerged by Stockyards decisions
The decision in the Stockyards case was contrary to a long line of holdings by the Interstate Commerce Commission and the courts that interstate commerce begins upon the delivery of a shipment to a carrier consigned (addressed) to a point in another State, and that it ends upon delivery to the consignee. It was held, for illustration, in another case, that a shipment of property so delivered became taxable by the State where it was received. By many similar decisions the difference between interstate commerce and intrastate commerce had been clearly defined. By the definition so worked out the stockyards company in Chicago, chartered to provide for profit yardage, feed, and care for livestock, was no more engaged in interstate commerce subject to Congressional regulation than was a grocer in a nearby street receiving goods from another State. That the animals were later to go to other States in the form of foods did not make a through interstate shipment of the animals part of the way and the foods at another time the remainder of the distance.
Theory of decision of Supreme Court
The Supreme Court said that the Act treated all stockyards "as great national public utilities." But to call companies operating local yards for feeding and otherwise caring for livestock consigned to them and for facilitating local transactions between sellers and buyers, "great national public utilities," could not change the facts or con-

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fer jurisdiction on Congress to regulate their business to the ousting of the constitutional jurisdiction of the States.
However, the Supreme Court held (258 U. S. 495) otherwise, Justice McReynolds dissenting and Justice Day not sitting.
This decision is to be used later to support the extravagancies of the National Labor Relations Act as being, not what its title calls it, but a law regulating commerce among the States in accordance with the Commerce Clause of the Constitution!
Fond hope of Madison dashed
Madison fondly believed that the States would rise unanimously against any aggression by the National Government upon their local authority (The Federalist, No. 46):

"But ambitious encroachments of the Federal Government on the authority of the State governments would not excite the opposition of a single State or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole."

Those revolutionary worthies could not conceive of the pusillanimity of a century and a half thereafter! The representatives of the people of the States in Government have originated most of the invasions of the States.

[And Much Worse Two Centuries Thereafter in the 21st Century !!]

Thanks to the fine folks over at Barefoot's World.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/

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• Undermining The Constitution A HISTORY OF LAWLESS GOVERNMENT (Part 3)
• Undermining The Constitution A HISTORY OF LAWLESS GOVERNMENT (Part 1)
• Anti Federalist Papers No. 36 - Representation And Internal Taxation
• Federalist Papers No. 32. The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)
• Anti Federalist Papers No. 21 Why The Articles Failed