=The World of the Transportation Men.= The transportation men live in a world apart. How many sailors do you know? How many street-car men? How many railroaders? Have you ever wondered where the conductor on the street-car upon which you ride so often lives? “Yes, we have a little church, but it is over across the tracks where the railroad men live, and I always attend the Presbyterian Church here.” This was the excuse given by a gentleman for not attending the church of the denomination to which he had belonged before he moved into a new community near Chicago. We do not want a church to be known as the Railroad Men’s Church or the Sailors’ Church or the Street-Car Workers’ Church. This is not the way to be the best kind of a neighbor. What we do want is for the church everywhere to take an interest in these men who are providing for our transportation and also carrying the necessities of life for all the world. We come into personal relationships with many of them in a business way, and they all do much to add to our wealth, our happiness, and our comfort. We in turn as individuals and as members of the church should acquaint ourselves with the conditions surrounding them. For instance, in the waters of the New York harbor, living upon the canal-boats which move in and out carrying coal, hay, and other rough freight, are the families of the workers, and in these families there are approximately 5,000 children. They are at one place to-day and another place to-morrow. These people have no citizenship in the best sense of the word. Many of the men do not vote because they live in no locality long enough to register. The questions of schooling, of church privileges, and of all social contact are serious ones. Yet how many people in New York City, or for that matter in any of the smaller towns and villages where these boats land, have ever once thought of the status and social conditions of these men, and women, and their children? Things we know. The things which the boats and the railroads carry and that other thing that looms so large, the profits that are made from transportation, are regarded as very important; but we have paid scant attention to the men who produce things and carry them from place to place. CHAPTER VIII THE WORLD OF THE MAKERS OF LUXURIES