My aged "senator" friend left me, to walk a long way in search of
someone he knew, who perhaps would make his burden light. I did not
need to be told the feelings of the old gentleman as he wearily took
his departure. I had started for the Public Square to rest, though
momentarily, for there was a dinner which must be battled for. I passed
a fruit store. There was an array of delicious fruit in front,--many
baskets of rich, purple grapes, marked ten cents. I was sure I could
have eaten at least one basket. They were not directly in front of the
window. It would have been so easy to pick up a basket unseen and be
quickly lost in the crowd. After all it _was_ true, then, that starving
men and boys filched bottles of milk from doorsteps, a loaf of bread
from the bakery, or a pie from a wagon!
I stepped directly in front of the window and looked at the apples
and oranges. A woman inside seemed to have her eye on me,--I fancied
suspiciously. Instantly she stepped out and picking up one each of the
fairest of the apples and oranges offered them to me. I hesitatingly
regarded her gift. "Take them," she said, "God made them to be eaten."
I had had nothing to eat for eighteen hours except my "charity" bowl
of barley soup and with it the warning not to come back. The city of
Cleveland had nothing to offer. It remained for a poor woman to give me
a portion of her small possessions.
I reached the Square. Broken, I dropped into a seat and was immediately
lost in sleep, from which I was suddenly awakened by a sharp blow on
the bottom of my feet, which, through the thin half-wornout soles, left
a burning sting. Lifting my head, I saw a burly policeman who growled,
"Keep your eyes open. This Square is for wide-awake people."
"It certainly is not for the city of Cleveland, then, in its care for
its homeless," I remarked.
Remembering I was in a "Golden Rule" city, I felt that I could safely
reply to this august hint of the law, without fear of being "run in" or
beaten into insensibility, as I had seen helpless men treated in other
cities for such presumption. He simply gave me a half comprehending
look as he passed on. Now this officer was not the Chief of Police
in that city. He was simply a subordinate, and a city of six hundred
thousand people requires a large police force. Notwithstanding the
spirit of the Chief of Police, or his high ideal of what a police
department really stands for, his good aim and end will be miscarried
continually by his hirelings, until the required qualifications of a
policeman are based upon intelligence, good-will, good morals, good
deeds, and not upon the fact that he helped carry his ward.
I saw, however, during my short stay in this city evidences of
advancement in the character of their police system, which spoke
volumes for Cleveland, even though the homeless and temporarily
moneyless toiler, seeking work, found no help in the many
considerations for labor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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