20,000 unemployed men in the city already.

Now look at the two statements, and you see the awfulness of the
fact, no matter which estimate is accepted as correct. Suppose
you strike a balance between the two (although the Trades
Association inclines to believe the _Globe's_ figures are the
more accurate), and you have the appalling assurance that 30,000
unemployed men are wandering through the streets of this city
seeking work. Even granted that the mayor's conservative estimate
is most correct, the fearful fact still remains that our peace is
menaced by twenty thousand men who have not the necessary work to
earn their daily bread.

These facts most conclusively refute the statements too often
made that "men won't work," and "there's work enough if men are
only willing to do it." Such is not the truth. I can find you
many instances where good, steady workmen have offered to the
foremen of certain establishments $10, $25, and even the whole of
the first month's wages if they would find them employment.

One laboring man being interrogated by one of the commissioners who
gathered the facts for the author of this work, replied to the
question, "What can you say for those who won't work, who are commonly
called the 'bums of society'?" in such a thoughtful and suggestive way
that I give his words verbatim.

"Let me ask, What is a bum? As a rule, you will find him to be a
creature degraded by circumstances and evil conditions. Let me
illustrate. A man loses his job by sickness or some other
unavoidable cause. He seeks work, and I have shown you how
difficult it is to find it. He fails time and time again. Is
there any wonder that he grows discouraged, and that, picking up
his meals at the free lunch counter, sleeping in the wretched
lodging houses, associating with the filthy and degraded, he,
step by step, drifts further away from the habits of integrity
and industry that used to be a part of himself? He sinks lower
and lower until, overcome by circumstances, he is at the bottom
of the social ladder,--at once a menace and a disgrace to the
city. Instead of blaming and condemning him, poor fellow, we
should look at the circumstances that made him what he is, and
endeavor to remedy them."

It is not, however, with the uninvited poverty which flourishes in
every great