_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._