t Side has a soul, but it is not an
ecclesiastical soul! It is a soul that is alive--so much alive to the
interest of the people that many times I felt ashamed of myself when I
listened to the socialistic orators on the street corners and in the
East Side halls. They were stirring up the minds of the people. They
were not merely making them discontented with conditions, but they
were offering a programme of reconstruction--a programme that included
a trowel as well as a sword.
The soul of the East Side expressed itself in the Yiddish press,
daily, weekly, and monthly, and in Yiddish literature, and in the
spoken word of the propagandist whose ideal, though limited in
literary expression, made him a flame of living fire. It was this soul
of the East Side that drove me against my will to study the relation
of politics to the condition of the people. One of the first things
that I discovered was the grip that Tammany had on the people. Every
saloon keeper was a power in the community. Men, of any force of
character whatever, who were willing to hold their hands behind their
backs for Tammany graft, were singled out by the organization for some
moiety of honour. Small merchants found it to their advantage to keep
on the right side of the saloon keepers and the Tammany leaders. I
remember trying to express this thought in an uptown church to a
wealthy congregation; and I remember distinctly, also, that I was
rebuked by one of the leading lights of the missionary society of
which I was a part. I was informed that my business was to "save
souls," and in my public addresses to tell how I saved them; that
political conditions must be left to the politicians--and it was done.
To the old church at the corner of Market and Henry streets came
Dowling. He followed me as a matter of fellowship--we loved each
other. And came also Dave Ranney, the "puddler from Pittsburg."
On the first anniversary of Dave's conversion, I gathered a hundred
wastrels of the Bowery together and gave them a dinner at the church.
Dave, of course, was the guest of honour. When my guests were full and
warm, they became reminiscent, and I urged them, a few of them, to
tell us their stories--to unfold the torn manuscripts of their lives.
Dave told his first.
"Boys," he said, "I was one of de toughest gazabos what ever hung
aroun' de square. I met dis man an' tried t' bleed 'im, but it warn't
no go--'e was on to de game and cudn't be touch't.
"I giv'd
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