The fathers of these aliens seemed to forget family ties, and even that chivalry, supposed to be a masculine instinct, for they fought with fist and foot to get to safety, regardless of their women and the children. The reserves from the station had to be called out to keep the fire lines intact, while the grimy firemen worked with might and main to keep the blaze from spreading. After it was all over Burke wondered whether these great hordes of aliens were of such benefit to the country as their political compatriots avowed. He had been reading long articles in the newspapers denouncing Senators and Representatives who wished to restrict immigration. He had seen glowing accounts of the value of strong workers for the development of the country's enterprise, of the duty of Americans to open their national portal to the down-trodden of other lands, no matter how ignorant or poverty-stricken. "I believe much of this vice and crime comes from letting this rabble into the city, where they stay, instead of going out into the country where they can work and get fresh air and fields. They take the jobs of honest men, who are Americans, and I see by the papers that there are two hundred and fifty thousand men out of work and hunting jobs in New York this spring," mused Bob. "It appears to me as if we might look after Americans first for a while, instead of letting in more scum. Cheap labor is all right; but when honest men have to pay higher taxes to take care of the peasants of Europe who don't want to work, and who do crowd our hospitals and streets, and fill our schools with their children, and our jails and hospitals with their work and their diseases, it's a high price for cheap labor." And, without knowing it, Officer 4434 echoed the sentiments of a great many of his fellow citizens who are not catering to the votes of foreign-born constituents or making fortunes from the prostitution of workers' brain and brawn. The big steamship companies, the cheap factory proprietors and the great merchants who sell the sweat-shop goods at high-art prices, the manipulators of subway and road graft, the political jobbers, the anarchistic and socialistic sycophants of class guerilla warfare are continually arguing to the contrary. But the policemen and the firemen of New York City can tell a different story of the value of our alien population of more than two million! CHAPTER VIII THE PURITY LEAGUE AND ITS ANGEL In a few days, when an afternoon's relief allowed him the time, Officer 4434 decided to visit the renowned William Trubus. He found the address of that patron of organized philanthropy in the telephone book at the station house. It was on Fifth Avenue, not far from the windswept coast of the famous Flatiron Building.