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The Autobiography of a Son of the City

By CHARLES STELZLE

Introduction

By REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D.

President, The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America

WHATEVER else may have influenced Charles

Stelzle in the making of his remarkable life, the Church had an important part in it. He went to Sunday school as a tenement youngster, where he learned the basic teachings of Christianity. And when he became a workingman he found his principal friendships and companionships in the Church. And later the Church gave him his chance to carry out his ideals, backing him in the program which he executed with such marked success. The name of Charles Stelzle is honored among the workingmen of America to-day, not only because he is a union machinist, but because he is a man of sterling integrity and an active churchman..

I am glad that this boy from the tenements of East Side New York has succeeded, and more than glad that he has told us in such vital and arresting ways the story of his struggles. I am familiar with much which he has passed through. In my boyhood, beginning before I was twelve years of age, I worked in the mines of my native land. There I learned a great deal which has been of the utmost value to my ministry. The intercourse which "Charlie Stelzle" has had with high and low, rich

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and

poor, and the many among us who are neither rich nor poor has been fruitful far beyond the ordinary because he has lived with the people, shared their lot, and entered into their lives.

The day is fast approaching when the workers the world over will learn from such Christian leaders as Charles Stelzle that the Church is not so far removed from them as many have imagined. They will discover what he so clearly shows: that the Gospel of Jesus is a workingman's Gospel-one that he can live and preach and find comfort in— one that will help him to rise to the highest places of trust and confidence within the gift of his fellows, or that may be reached only through the sheer force of his character.

I own that I have been profoundly moved by this account of his life and work which Charles Stelzle has told so modestly, yet so wisely, and withal so thrillingly. It should be read by every priest, rabbi, preacher, employer, and employee throughout the Nation.

Abcubes Cadman

Our Side of the City

OR several generations the East Side of New York has been synonymous with depravity. Newspapers have delighted in printing big headlines about the criminals and degenerates who were supposed to make the East Side tenements their rendezvous. Blood-curdling stories have been written about subterranean cellars and dark passageways in which fearful crimes were committed.

New York's "rubber neck" wagons are still doing a thriving business with visitors from Indiana and Iowa by promising to show them the "lair" of the East Side gunmen and the white-slave traffickers. And the gullible travelers from the Middle West grip their seats in happy ecstasy

as they are megaphoned through the
"Ghettos" and the "slums" of America's
greatest city, anticipating the thrills
which they will give their friends and
neighbors when they get back home, tell-
ing them how narrowly they escaped
with their lives. If they but knew it,
they were taken through the safest sec-
tions of the city. Of course the East
Side has contributed its share of the
criminals and degenerates and the im-
moral people of the city, but no more.
than its share. The worst parts of New
York from this standpoint have been in
the middle section of the city-the Ten-
derloin and "Hell's Kitchen" on the
upper West Side, and other picturesque,
police-guarded precincts. It has rarely

been necessary to doubly patrol the streets of the tenement districts of the East Side because it was feared that crime and disorder would break out.

No, the East Side hasn't been criminally inclined. Its chief crime has been its poverty. The mass of the people living east of Fifth Avenue in the lower part of Manhattan have always been. honest wage-earners, living perfectly decent lives, moving into the suburbs or the uptown districts as soon as they could afford it, mainly so that they might have. more breathing space, more light, and a better chance to raise their children.

I was born in the heart of what is now, not only the most densely populated part of the East Side, but of the world. There

I lived for twenty years, coming back ten years later to engage in social and religious work in the same general district. In an area in this section of about threequarters of a square mile there were in 1920, 219,256 people living, or at the rate of 327,040 people per square mile. The population per square mile for the United States is only 35. There are only 30 cities in the entire country which have a greater population than is found in this East Side district. If all of New York City were as densely populated, it would contain more than the entire population of the United States. If all the people living in this district were suddenly seized with a desire to rush into the street, there wouldn't be room enough for them to stand.

There are many places of historical interest in this neighborhood, among them the old Marble Cemetery, on Second Street just off Second Avenue. This

me.

was the first cemetery that I knew as a boy, and it had a peculiar fascination for Here rest the bodies of many old New Yorkers-among them Adam and Noah Brown, who during their lifetime built ships for Commodore Perry's fleet in 1812; and John Ericsson, builder of the Monitor, of Civil War fame; and for many years President James Monroe was buried here. The names on the tombstones in this old cemetery are all but effaced, and yet here and there one can make out the name of a former Knickerbocker who would be shocked beyond measure could he walk through these side-streets which were open fields when he lived there.

It must not be imagined that the neighborhood is irreligious. Jewish and Catholic enterprises flourish, and there are scores of little synagogues scattered throughout the tenements, meeting in the tenement-houses themselves, although

The young gentleman standing nonchalantly beside his brother is Charles Stelzle

at the age of nine

there are many pretentious buildings,

usually former usually former Protestant churches, which have been converted into orthodox synagogues. Once this was a Protestant stronghold, but in recent years scores of Protestant churches have moved out.

FOR

OR nearly fifty years I have watched this boyhood neighborhood of mine grow. Sweeping through it there have followed successively the Yankees, the Irish, the Germans, the Bohemians, the Russians, the Italians, the Greeks, besides a great smattering of smaller races, each naturally leaving behind a remnant, until to-day there is scarcely a country on the face of the globe which isn't represented. It is a mosaic of nations, and about as picturesque as mosaics usually are with all their form and color.

The product has been no outstanding race, but "East Siders." Much has been said about New York being a great "melting-pot of the nations." But it is unquestionably true that the East Side of New York is strongly, persistently American in spirit. While many of the foreign-born retain some of their old country customs, it should be remembered that not all "Americans" were born in America.

Only two per cent of the people living here are native white of native parents; that is, white persons both of whose parents were born in America. In the minds of many people, this constitutes a real peril to our American institutions, but it does not necessarily follow. For example, the attendance at the public school in this area is greatest among children both of whose parents were foreign-born. Wise leaders among the foreign-born encourage them to emulate the best that they left in the old country-and who can deny that each of their native lands contains histories and traditions of which they might well be proud, and which they would do well to remember, and thus become better Americans?

My parents came to the East Side of New York when they were quite youngmy mother was only six. Her father was a prosperous German baker who had a city-wide reputation because of the rye bread he sold, having a fairly large delivery-wagon service. I remember distinctly my mother's businesslike air as she helped fill in as special saleswoman on Saturday nights when the bakery shop on Eldridge Street was crowded with customers. My grandfather accumulated a considerable fortune, and returned to Hanover, Germany, his native town.

My father was a brewer by trade. He probably was a good workman, but he

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Mr. Stelzle's mother at the time of her marriage at eighteen
And so the struggle began. She, who
had enjoyed the comforts of a prosperous
home, with no cause for financial anxiety,
was now to spend many years in a hand-
to-hand battle with all the horrors of
poverty, asking favors of no one, but
determining to keep strong so that she
might work for the sake of her chil-
dren.

was a poor business man, and the generous wedding dowry which he put into a brewery of his own soon disappeared. One of the heritages which he left consisted of a big book of unpaid accounts. And, as my mother had married against the distinct wishes of her parents, her pride would not permit her to appeal to them for help. So when my father died, she moved with her children into the

very heart of the tenement district of the East Side, resolving to fight her way through alone. How well she did it, and what she suffered in the doing of it, will forever make her a heroine in my eyes.

TT would be easy to tell harrowing tales
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of life among the people with whom
I lived, and some of these tales ought to
be told. But any account that leaves
out the real joy of living, as one sees it

even to-day on the East Side, when conditions are undoubtedly worse in some respects than they were forty years ago, would be unfair to the poorer tenement people, who are by no means morbid in their outlook on life. There is no doubt that I suffered as much on account of poverty as does the average youngster now living in lower New York. But, taking it altogether, I was by no means an unhappy boy, even when I was living in the midst of extreme poverty. It is a question whether the son of the "princely merchant" that I read about in the Sunday-school books got as much real

excitement out of life as I did when, for instance, I swam from the end of an East Side dock, contrary to law and in peril of my life, as passing ferry-boats swirled the river into dangerous eddies, or when I spent a stolen day in the swamps of Long Island hunting for cattails and swallows' nests.

Grand Street on Saturday night was as good as a show. It was the great shopping center of New York's lower East Side forty years ago. But not all those who thronged the sidewalks came out to make purchases in Ridley's, the biggest department-store in that part of the city, nor to buy of the peddlers whose little carts lined the gutters, block after block, from the Bowery to Essex Street and beyond, spilling over into the side-streets and practically filling Hester Street, which paralleled the main thoroughfare. For those who bargained and cheated, and even for those who did a legitimate business, Grand Street on

was the only Irish boy in the gang and
he was a born fighter. No doubt he later
became a Tammany Hall leader in the
district.

And while we're on the subject, it
might not be amiss to say that Tammany
Hall's influence on the East Side was,
and is, largely due to the very human
qualities shown by its representatives.
They not only know every one who lives
in the block, but they know about his
domestic and economic and social needs.
They know about them the whole year
round, and try to supply them; whereas
the reformers live uptown and so it
appears to the people seem to be in
business for the purpose of taking privi-
leges away from the people, rather than
furnishing them with jobs, and coal, and
food, and getting them out of the police
courts if they happen to have trouble
with the police. These things Tammany
Hall does.

Saturday night was a serious affair. But G

for the boys who were out for a lark it was a riot of fun. The "movies" did not exist in those days, and there were practically no boys' clubs nor social settlements, and few institutional churches. There were a great many self-organized social clubs that met on the first floors of some of the smaller “private houses"

-so called because the front doors were usually kept locked-and in rooms back of saloons. But membership in these was only for the older boys who were earning enough to afford that luxury.

For the small boy there was only the gang and Grand Street. Sometimes it was both. This made it all the more interesting. Not infrequently the feuds of the gangs were fought out on Grand Street, sometimes to the great consternation of the merchants of the carts, the contents of which were tumbled into the street in the excitement of a "scrap" between the Orchard Street and Allen Street gangs. Many a plate-glass window suffered on the same account.

I belonged to the Orchard Street gang. Our leader was a short, stocky, redheaded Irish youngster, who was absolutely fearless and who was known to stand his ground alone, the solitary target for the stones of the Allen Street gang, after the rest of the Orchard Street gang had retreated. And on these occasions he came back to his crowd with great scorn; what he left unsaid was not worth mentioning. It did not matter what he said, however. He was always unanimously chosen as our leader. He would probably have been the leader whether we had chosen him or not: he

RAND STREET was to me the greatest street in New York. Occasionally I took a walk up Broadway, but "the Great White Way" was then unknown, and Broadway was almost deserted at night. There were no electric lights, and when the few gas lamps in the stores were put out New York's chief thoroughfare was a dreary place. I always came back to Grand Street with a feeling of pride that lower New York possessed the finest street in the city.

In strong contrast to the rough life of the gang and the excitement of Grand Street was the influence which the illuminated cross on the steeple of St. Augustine's Chapel, on Houston Street east of the Bowery, had upon me. I was just about thirteen or fourteen, the age at which the religious appeal takes strongest hold of a boy. This cross, which could be seen for blocks against the deep night sky, appealed tremendously to my religious imagination.

Not that we cared particularly for Stewart; for some reason which I have forgotten, he had not a very good name among the East Siders.

Second Avenue was the great promenade street of the East Side forty years ago. Even in those days there were many German coffee-houses and reading-rooms all along the avenue. It was an event of importance when I was taken to one of them by an aunt or an uncle. Most of them served only coffee or chocolate and tea, and all kinds of German coffee cake. There was a very comfortable, homelike atmosphere about these little coffee-houses, and the people used to linger and gossip or read.

Second Avenue is still the great thoroughfare of the East Side. Early in the morning its wide pavements are crowded with foreign workers who pour out of the tenements in the side-streets and march like a mighty army, all moving in the same direction, toward the clothing factories and department-stores just beyond Union and Madison Squares. Scores of thousands of men and women from the tenements make their daily pilgrimage along this magnificent street, so full of human and historic interest. At night, from the big theater on Houston Street to the Labor Temple on Fourteenth Street, which I organized about fifteen years ago, the avenue is a blaze of electric lights, cafés, bath-houses, motionpicture theaters, jewelry shops, and dozens of other enterprises. Each nationality has its own particular café or casino, where its favorite old country dishes are served and where its national airs are played by native musicians. On Saturday and Sunday nights many of those who have profited in business and moved uptown or out of town come back to enjoy a "regular dinner" with all that goes with it.

Even a casual stroll down Second Avenue and into some of the side-streets will reveal the signs of the people's aspirations. The way they throng the public baths-the district supports one of the biggest Turkish baths in the city, conducted exclusively for men-shows the desire for bodily cleanliness. There are "beauty shoppes" on nearly every block. Dentists do a profitable business. Even automobile agencies seem to thrive; and palms are used for decorative purposes just as in the automobile district uptown. Pianos and musical instruments are prominently displayed for sale in many of the store windows. Apartmenthouses are given most royal names, like "Florence Court," "Victoria Hall," and "The Imperial."

Almost directly opposite St. Augustine's Chapel is Second Avenue.. About half a mile up this street is St. Mark's Church. The impression this church. made upon me was quite different from that made by St. Augustine's. For when I thought of St. Mark's it was not with any religious feeling, but always in connection with the fact that the body of A. T. Stewart, the merchant prince who founded the store now known as John Wanamakers', had been stolen from the graveyard. What a source of mysterious possibilities this story was to us boys! Nothing that St. Mark's ever did was big enough to overshadow the story of the ghouls who robbed the graveyard. The next installment of "An East Side American" will describe some of the neighbors the queenly school-teacher, the drunken woman, the charity investigator, the mikman, the actor, and the restaurant-keeper

in Danger?

By HUGH A. STUDDERT KENNEDY

On the Pacific coast bankers and business men are asking the question which heads this article. The author gives the facts upon which the reader can form a judgment

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SHORT time ago an article appeared in a well-known financial magazine which asked this question, and answered it quite definitely in the affirmative. "Destructive money power," it declared, "no longer lairs only in New York, in the vision of men who are apprehensive that somehow-some time somebody is going to domesticate the free wild money of the Nation and monopolize its powers for selfish purposes. The money dragon of the alarms of the moment is environed in California. It abides in San Francisco, and haunts Market Street instead of Wall Street. It is even concrete enough, in one of its incarnations, to be named. It is the Bank of Italy, thus isolated, and it is, in the abstract, Branch Banking. The abstract 'reptile' already has its serpentine folds round a third of the banking strength of America, and according to its opponents menaces the National bank system and threatens the Federal Reserve structure."

Is this true? Is this article just another piece of scare-mongering or is it based on sober fact? It may not be easy to answer, but one thing is certain -it is everybody's business. In no country in the world is banking so much a question for every one as it is in the United States, where the vast majority of the people have bank accounts, and where a check, signed and countersigned and indorsed again and again, may take its place for days with the Nation's currency.

The smallest doubt cast on the stability of the National banking system would sound like a knell in the dark places of fear in millions of homes in the United States. The French peasant with his hoardings under the hearthstone of

any occasion, are in a different posi- manity's hopes and fears, aims and astion.

A short time ago a prosperous bank in a small town in the West had a strange experience. A prominent citizen in the experience. A prominent citizen in the town died, and all the business houses in the city, in order to do honor to his memory, agreed to close their doors for one hour at the time of the funeral. The manager of the bank decided to come into line; he ordered the bank closed, and promptly at the time when the big grocery store on one side and the big shoe store on the other pulled down their shades the bank doors were shut and a card was placed in the window bearing the legend "Bank Closed." What followed was remarkable. Some people who happened to be depositors, returning early from the funeral, saw the notice, never connected it with the function they had themselves just attended, but jumped to the horrifying conclusion that the bank had suspended payment. The news spread rapidly; from all parts of the town terrified depositors flocked to the bank, and when the doors were finally opened a real run was in full swing. It was not stayed until hours after until currency to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars had been rushed by motor car from the nearest Federal Reserve Bank and banks in neighboring towns had come to the aid of their hard-pressed colleague to the extent of hundreds of thousands more. Nothing is more delicate, as far as the depositor is concerned, than the credit of his bank. Faced with the persistent rumor that his bank is lacking in stability, and the average man is sorely tempted to be on the safe side-that is, the outside.

his cottage, the British workingman, A

paying cash as he goes, with little left over, if any, and what he has deposited in the post office savings bank or in his local co-operative society, may have little concern with the way the big banks or the little banks of the country do business. But the people of the United States, carrying check-books in their pockets as a matter of course, and accustomed to use them on every and

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ND so it is everybody's business, this banking business, and everybody would assuredly feel more comfortable if he knew more about it. It is, moreover, romantic business, full of drama and full of kicks, and the most romantic part of it, in spite of its outward and visible austerity, is the Federal Reserve System. Every great business, when seen properly, is not a machine, but a wonderful microcosm of humanity, with all hu

pirations, laughter and tears and anxieties. The bank president is a man, and he has led and is leading his life, and his business is part of his life, enters into a thousand hopes and a thousand dreams. And so it is all the way down to the youngest recruit among the stenographers or booking clerks. The Federal Reserve Bank is a banker's bank, and as it pays its millions here and receives its millions there it requires but little imagination to see it all for what it is a great clearing-house for human activity rather than for paper and scrip and dollars and cents. It is, moreover, one of the greatest guaranties of safety to the depositor, small or great, which could well be devised. It is the great each-for-all and all-for-each of the American people.

PRIOR

RIOR to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, some eleven years ago, the cash reserves of the country were scattered among 25,000 different institutions, and provided no central reservoir from which banks could draw cash when it was urgently needed. This system of holding bank reserves has been compared to a system of fire protection in which each of the several thousand families in a city keeps its own cistern of water instead of having the whole city's water supply stored in a common reservoir connected by conduits with every part of the city, and so instantly available in unlimited quantities for the putting out of a blaze at any point.

The structure of this Federal Reserve System was completed just prior to the outbreak of the Great War. By November, 1914, it was in full working order. Without it, or something like it, it is doubtful if the United States would have passed through the early years of the war without a financial panic comparable to that of 1907. Without it, or something like it, it is quite certain that the World War could never have been internationally financed. Any one who desires to see how near the world came to utter financial chaos in the middle years of the war has only to read Walter Hines Page's telegram "of greatest urgency" from London to President Wilson to

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