“If we lived up to our national professions,” I said, putting into words the thought that had been in my mind since the first day I began to work in the tenements, “the street-cleaners would begin in the tenements, where the greatest number would be benefited. In a democracy where the majority is supposed to rule, human life should be considered before property—babies should be more valuable than empty houses.” “I see ’em starting to clean the streets in the tenements!” the thin girl jeered. “If they don’t you’ll see tenement people living in those palaces, and the people from the palaces living in the tenements,” the stout girl retorted passionately. “They done it in Russia and we’ll do it here. Within ten years; I’m giving it to you straight.” “Youse said it,” the man in overalls agreed emphatically. I glanced into the faces of the six persons about me. The prescription clerk’s features wore the mask of those whose mental attitude is I-hold-my-tongue-and-let-you-do-the-talking. The eyes of the pale boy at the soda-fountain were like smouldering fires ready to flame with any powerful emotion. The square jaw of the man in overalls reminded me of a bull-dog. Of the three women the stout girl alone possessed the faculty for logical reasoning, yet the other two, once their emotions were aroused, would outstrip her, run ahead of her, leading a mob to burn, kill, destroy. “They’ve done it in Russia; we’ll do it here.” It was entirely evident that the five agreed with her assertion. Ten years between our present condition and revolution! Her one alternative?—that the government stop sacrificing the masses in the interest of the classes. The reign of terror in France, the red horror in Russia—what would it be in the United States when our turn came? On my way to the offices of the A. S. P. C. A. that afternoon I saw that the dead horse had been removed and the asphalt carefully washed clean. “The animal society’s got rich swells behind it. Our children ain’t got nobody.” The words of the slumbrous-eyed boy at the soda-counter rang in my ears. At that time influenza hung like a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand over New York City, from which it would spread over the whole Union. CHAPTER XVII THE SCOURGE Whenever I think of the influenza epidemic in New York City there flashes before me a series of mental pictures, pictures so indelibly stamped on my mind that I believe they will go with me to the grave. In each of them, in all of them, I see myself walking through the slums of the great city as through the Valley of the shadow of Death. But unlike the valley through which Christian passed I could not make out even the narrowest of safe pathways. So far as my vision extended my next step might plunge me into the ditch wherein the blind lead the blind, or into some bottomless quag. And always over me, over the whole of each of these pictures, Death spread his black wings.