The Arena

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"Children born in Europe, and who lately came to this
country, are much better informed than the children born and
reared in our own State, and this condition of affairs has
also been remarked by the factory inspectors of other
States. Very few American-born children could tell the year
of their birth, State they lived in, or spell the name of
their native town."

In the midst of his gloom, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics
courageously endeavors to show that wages have increased for men in
the labor organizations. But in so doing, he merely whistles to keep
up his courage, for he dare not investigate now, as he did in 1883 and
1884, the employment of women and children, lest he show how much
worse their condition has become during the intervening years, and
thereby forfeit forever his position of laureate to the powers that
be.

The omission of a State census in 1885 was a breach of the
Constitution for which no previous decade affords a precedent, and the
absence of a school census becomes, year by year, a graver sin of
omission as the pressure of economic conditions makes child labor more
widespread and more injurious.

In default of the State census and of adequate information from the
State Bureau of Labor Statistics, and of efficient factory inspection,
an eager welcome awaited the statement touching New York City,
published in Mr. Carroll D. Wright's report of the National Department
of Labor upon the working women in twenty cities, whereof the
following speaks for itself.

Mr. Carroll D. Wright's report for 1889:--

"As respects ventilation, a properly regulated workshop is
the exception. The average room is either stuffy and close,
or hot and close, and even where windows abound they are
seldom opened. Toilet facilities are generally scant and
inadequate, a hundred workers being dependent sometimes on a
single closet or sink, and that, too often, out of order."

"Actual ill-treatment by employers seems to be infrequent;
_kindness, justice, and cordial relations are the rule_."

It would be interesting to discover the idea entertained at the
department as to what constitutes ill-treatment.

"Out of 18,000 women investigated, the largest number, 2,647
earn $200 and under $250 per annum, 2,377 earn from $250 to
$300. The concentration, it will be seen by consulting the
tables, comes on earnings ranging from $150 per year to $350
per year."

"_It is quite clear from the various investigations that
have been made, that there is little, if any, improvement in
the amount of earnings which a woman can secure by working
in the industries open to her; her earnings are not only
ridiculously low, but dangerously so._"

"The summary by cities, tables xxx, pp. 530 to 531, would
seem to indicate that _the majority are now in receipt of
fair wages when the whole body of working women is
considered_."

When such self-contradictory "information" is placed before the public
as the fruit of investigation, the question arises whether the
Department of Labor is not one more link in that chain of appliances
for confusing the voter which embraces a dozen State bureaus of
irrelevant reformation created chiefly within the last decade.
Certainly in comparison with the first report of Mr. Wright's
Massachusetts incumbency, the present one indicates a retrogression as
marked as it is injurious.

Defective as it is, however, this information is the latest that we
have, and it indicates terrible poverty among the better situated
manual workers.

The average wages of the employed during employment being decidedly
less than a dollar a day, it is not strange that homelessness grows
and the police department reports:--

"As will be seen, the enormous number of 4,649,660 cheap
lodgings were furnished during the year, to which should be
added the 150,812 lodgings furnished in the station-houses,
making a total of 4,800,472. If tenement-house life leads to
immorality and vice, certainly the fifty-eight
lodging-houses in the Eleventh Precinct, furnishing
1,243,200 lodgings in one year, must have the same or a
worse tendency. Reflection upon the figures contained in the
above will lead to the conclusion that we have a large
population of impecunious people (all males) which ought to
be regarded with some concern. It is shown above that an
average of 13,152 persons, without homes and the influence
of family, lodged nightly in the station-houses, and in
these poorly provided dormitories, an army of idlers willing
or forced. It is respectfully submitted that social
reformers would here find a field for speculation, if not
for considerable activity."

Into whose hands can our half a billion of added wealth have wandered,
that it leaves more than twelve thousand human beings homeless
throughout the year? And is the growth of such poverty, not
retrogression?

It is urged from time to time that New York is no typical study for
American conditions because of the immigration that forever flows
through it, and the abnormally large proportion of the "_un_fittest"
left as our residuum. But in comparison with the armies of the unfit
systematically produced by our industrial system, the stratum of
residuum deposited in the metropolis by the flood of immigration
rolling westward, is too trivial to disturb the equanimity of candid
observers. Only the perverted vision which leads New York's most
famous charitable institutions to imprison beggars and kidnap the
children of the very poor in the name of philanthropy, can so confuse
cause and effect. If we were civilized, if we were doing the nation's
work in an orderly manner, every recruit would be so much clear gain.
It is the disorganization of our moribund industrial system which
leaves no welcome for the immigrants save as the tenement-house agent
may bleed them, and the sweating contractor "grind their bones to make
his bread." It is this disorganization which turns the source of our
finest reinforcement into a means of demoralization and temporary
retrogression.

We have seen that in accumulated wealth, the city of New York
increased by nearly half a billion dollars in the past ten years. A
fair share of this material wealth was doubtless derived from the
application of electricity to human uses, for that was pre-eminently
the decade of electricity.

Yet, even in this respect the metropolis failed to hold its own. For,
while the substitution of electricity for horse power has gone rapidly
forward in the small cities of the West and South, New York has
suffered an extension of its slow, filthy, and pest-breeding
horse-car transportation. There can be little doubt that the
unspeakable state of the streets contributed largely to the deadliness
of the epidemic which raged at the close of 1889.

Nor was the electric lighting of New York more successfully developed
than the use of electricity for transportation. The last night of the
ten years found the city buried in stygian gloom, because the duty of
lighting its streets is still a matter of private profit; and the
insolent corporation which fattens upon this franchise surrendered the
privilege of murdering its linemen unpunished, only when its poles
were cut and its wires torn down. A more classic application of the
Vanderbilt motto in action it would be hard to find, or a more
thorough demonstration of the inadequacy of capitalism to rule the
genii itself has summoned. Characteristic of the low plane of humane
feeling in State and city is the substitution of the electrician for
the hangman in judicial murder, at a time when the effort is general
upon the Eastern Continent to abolish capital punishment.

As the application of electricity rose pre-eminently characteristic of
the past decade among the uses of science, so architecture towered
above all other arts. Yet, for one problem solved after the
magnificent fashion of the Brooklyn bridge and the Dacotahs, hundreds
of plans were devised with delicate ingenuity for filling up with
bricks and mortar the small remaining air space in the rear of
tenement blocks. And this noblest and most humane of all the arts was
degraded in the service of millionnaire land-owners and sub-letting
agents until the problem of to-day is, how to kennel the greatest mass
of human beings upon the least area with smallest allowance of air,
and light, and water, without infringing the building laws. One of the
simplest solutions is superimposing floor upon floor, so compelling
tired women and puny children to mount narrow, dark, and gloomy
stairs, and increasing to its maximum the danger of fire. The Egyptian
pyramids and the catacombs of Rome centuries ago were not poorer in
healthful light and air than were these homes of our fellow-citizens
in our own decade of retrogression.

But does this mean that our civilization is a failure, and the prime
of life past for the Republic? Far from it. It means, I take it, that
capitalism has done its work, and has become a hindrance, that the
old industrial and social forms are inadequate to the new requirements
and must be remodelled, and that promptly. It is now nearly half a
century since Karl Marx wrote the following words, but they apply to
the New York of to-day, as though he were among us and suffering with
us:--

"It is the sad side which produces the movement that makes
history by engendering struggle.... From day to day it
becomes more clear that the conditions of production under
which the capitalist class exists, are not of a homogeneous
and simple character, but are two-sided, duplex; and that in
the same proportion in which wealth is produced, poverty is
produced also; that in the same proportion in which there is
development of the productive forces, there is also
developed a force that begets repression; that these
conditions only generate middle class wealth by continuously
destroying the wealth of individual members of that class,
and by producing an ever-growing proletariat."

OLD HICKORY'S BALL.

BY WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE.

It was in the year of our Lord 1806; the season, September; in the
State of Tennessee, and the tenth year of its age, _as_ a State.

The summer was over, the harvests ripe, the year growing ruddy. Down
in the cotton fields the balls had begun to burst, and the "hands,"
with their great baskets, to trudge all day down the long rows,
singing in that dreamy, dolefully musical way which belongs alone to
the tongue of the Southern slaves and to the Southern cotton fields.
Across the fields, and the rich, old clover bottoms that formed a part
of the Hermitage farm, the buzz of a cotton gin could be distinctly
heard, adding its own peculiar note to the music of Southern nature.

A cotton gin! it was a rare possession in those days, and General
Jackson's was known from Nashville to New Orleans. Indeed, the whole
of the previous year's crop had not yet been disposed of. The great
bales were heaped about, waiting for the flat-boats that would carry
them up the Cumberland, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and land
them at the great New Orleans market. A slow trip for the bulky bales.
Could they have foreseen the time when the tedious river's journey
would be shortened to one day's run over a steel track, what must the
big bales have thought! And those gigantic heaps of cotton seed which
all the cows in the county could not have consumed, could they have
"peered into the future" and found themselves in the _lard cans_! The
old gin would have groaned aloud could it have known that it was
buzzing itself into history as surely as was the tall, spare, erect
man coming across the field in the late afternoon to see that the
day's work was well done.

What a heroic figure! and a face that even in youth bore the impress
of a man marked by destiny for daring deeds. Imperious in temper,
majestic in courage, and unyielding in will, he was one born to lay
hold of fate and _bend_ it to his desires. Yet, there was a timidity
in the eye which no _danger_ could make quail. And when down the lane
there came the clatter of horses' hoofs striking the hard, dry earth,
and with the horses a vision of long, dark skirts waving like black
banners in the breeze made by the hurrying steeds, the owner of the
cotton gin stepped within and beyond the vision of the lady visitors.

But they were not to be out-generaled even by a general; and straight
up to the gin the horses were headed.

"General Jackson," one of the ladies--there were but two--called to
the timid hero who had run away at her approach. Instantly he
appeared. He wore a large, white beaver hat, the broad brim
half-shading the clear-cut, strongly outlined features. When he lifted
it, even Beauty could not fail to notice the high and noble forehead,
the quick, eager eye, and the delicate flush that swept across the
patrician features. "General Jackson, I have come in the name of
charity. No, no, you need not take out your wallet. We are not asking
money."

A smile played across the strong, thin lips. "How?" said he, "doesn't
charity always mean 'money'? I was of the impression the terms were
synonymous."

"Then for once own yourself in the wrong," laughed Beauty. "We have
come to ask the privilege of a charity ball at the Hermitage."

"A _what_?"

"A charity ball; and at the Hermitage."

A most comically pleased expression came into the earnest eyes of the
master for an instant. Only an instant, and then a heavy frown
contracted his forehead. A flash of scorn in the clear eye, and a curl
of the proud, sensitive lip, told of the suppressed anger that had
suddenly smitten him.

"The Hermitage," said he, "is the home of my wife. _She_ is its
mistress, and to her is confided its honor and the honor of its
master. To her belongs, and to her alone, the right to choose its
guests, and to open its doors to _her_ friends. I am surprised you
should come to _me_ with your request."

Ah! she was forearmed; how fortunate. Beauty smiled triumphantly. "But
your servant who opened the gate, told us that Mrs. Jackson was not at
home."

"Ah!" the frown instantly vanished, and the hand ever ready to strike
for her he loved with such deathless devotion was again lifted to the
broad old beaver.

"I think," said he, "in that case I may answer for Mrs. Jackson, and
pledge for her the hospitality of the Hermitage for--_charity_."

Again he lifted his hat; across the fields the sound of a whistle had
come to him, and a servant waited, with polite patience, near by with
the horse that was to carry his master down to the river where the
boats were waiting to be inspected--the new boats which, like
everything pertaining to the master of the Hermitage, were to have a
place in history.

"Ladies," said he, "charity is not the only voice calling upon the
Hermitage farmer. Our country,"--he waved his hand toward the river
where the boats were being builded,--"or one who nobly represents her,
is calling for those vessels now in the course of construction
yonder."

"_Will there be war?_"

How the clear eyes danced and shone beneath that question which over
and over again he had put to his own heart,--"Will there be war?"

"We hope so," he replied. "All the West wishes it, the people demand
it, and the time is ripe for it. Already a leader has been chosen for
it; those boats were ordered by him."

"Colonel Burr?"

"Aye, Aaron Burr."

* * * * *

The night was balmy and deliciously fragrant with the odors of cedar
and sweet old pine. Balmy and silent, save for a rebellious
mocking-bird that trilled and trolled, and seemed trying to split its
musical little throat in a honeysuckle bush before the open window of
a little "two-story" log house set back from the road in a tangle of
plum trees, wild rose-bushes, and sweet old cedars.

Every window was wide open, and from both windows and doors streamed a
flood of light, to guide and welcome the guests who came by twos, and
threes, and half dozens to the Hermitage ball. They were not in
full-dress array, for most of the guests were equestrians, or
equestriennes, and brought their finery in the little leathern
band-boxes securely buckled to the saddle-horse. Stealthily the fair
ones dismounted, and stealthily crept along the low piazza, through
the side room, carefully past the pretentious "big room," and up the
stairs, a narrow little wooden concern, each tenderly hugging her
precious band-box.

There were but three rooms below, barring the dining-room which was
cut off by the low piazza. The stairway went up from Mrs. Jackson's
little bedroom into a duplicate guest-chamber above. Two others, as
diminutive, one above and below, were tucked onto these. And this,
with the big room, was the Hermitage. A very unpretentious cabin was
the first Hermitage; the humble and honored roof of Rachel and Andrew
Jackson, the couple standing under the waxen candles in the big room
waiting to receive their guests. The master was resplendent, if
uncomfortable, in his silken stockings, buckles, and powder, and rich
velvet. For, whatever his faults, he was no coxcomb, and the knee
breeches and finery had only been assumed for that one occasion, at
the "special request" of _charity's_ fair committee.

The vest of richly embroidered silk was held at the waist with a
glittering brilliant, and left open to the throat, as if in deference
to the flutes, and frills, and delicate laces of the white shirt
bosom. There was a glitter at the knees where the silver buckles
caught now and then a gleam from the waxen candles dangling from the
low ceiling in a silver and iridescent chandelier, to the imminent
peril of the white roll of powdered hair surmounting the tall
general's forehead. At his side, proud, calm, and queenly in her
womanly dignity and virtue, stood Rachel, the beloved mistress of the
Hermitage. Her dress of stiff and creamy silk could add nothing to the
calm serenity of the soul beaming from the gentle eyes, whose glance,
tender and fond, strayed now and then to the figure of her husband,
and rested for a brief moment upon the strong, gentle face with
something akin to reverence in their shadowy depths. Her face,
beautiful and beneficent, was not without a shadow: a shadow which
grief had set there to mellow, but could not mar, the gentle sweetness
of the patient features.

There was the sound of banjo and fiddle, as one by one the dusky
musicians from the cabins ranged themselves along the wall of the big
room, which had been cleared of its furnishings, and young feet came
hurrying in when the old Virginia reel sounded through, the low
rooms, calling to the dance.

More than one set of ivories shone at door and windows where the
slaves gathered to "see the whi' folks dance." But prominent and
conspicuous, in a suit as nearly resembling his master's as might be,
and in a position at the immediate right hand of the slave who played
the bass viol, stood Caesar, the general's favorite man-servant. He
bore himself with the same courtly dignity, the same dignified
courtesy, and had stationed himself beside the viol in order to have a
more thorough view of the dancers, and above all of his beloved
master. He had faithfully ushered in the last guest, and had hurried
to his place in order to see General Jackson step down the long line
of dancers and bow to his partner. Not for worlds would he have missed
that bow, to him the perfection of grace and dignity.

Two by two the couples entered, crossed to the centre of the room and
bowed each other to their places opposite in the long, wall-like line
which characterizes the stately reel.

The ladies dropped like drooping lilies for one brief moment in the
midst of their silken stiffness, skirts that "stood alone," and made
their courtesies to their swains with proper maiden modesty.

Caesar saw it all from his post of vantage near the big viol, but he
was not interested in the visitors, he knew what they could do. He was
waiting to see his master "lay 'em all in the shade bimeby." Of course
he would open the ball. He wasn't fond of dancing but it was the
custom of the day, and he and Miss Rachel "knew their manners."

But for once the custom of the day was changed. Caesar was destined to
disappointment. Mrs. Jackson's rustling silk announced her approach
before she appeared, leaning, not upon the arm of the general, but in
company with a florid, rather fleshy gentleman, no stranger, however,
to the Hermitage hospitality. Much to the negro's chagrin he led her
to the very head of the long lines of bright dresses and gay gallants,
and stepped himself, as Caesar declared, "like a young cock," into the
general's own place opposite. The master stood at the very foot, the
escort of a lady Caesar had never set eyes upon before, and who for the
life of him he could not forgive for being the general's partner.

He was grievously disappointed, so that when the florid fat gentleman
at the head danced down between the gay columns, and made his manners
to the lady at the foot, as gallantly as anyone could have done, Caesar
expressed his opinion loud enough to be heard by the very gentleman
himself.

"Mr. Grundy tryin' step mighty high to-night," he said.

But it was when "Miss Rachel" danced down in her silken skirts and met
the master midway the line, and dropped a low courtesy, her full
skirts settling about her like a great white umbrella, and the stately
general bowed over his silver buckles like some royal knight of old,
that Caesar's enthusiasm got the better of his indignation.

"Beat _dat_, Mr. Grundy!" he said, in a low, if enthusiastic, whisper,
"beat dat, sar." And Mr. Grundy pranced down again to "beat" the
master in the "swing with the right" movement of the old-fashioned
dance.

Promptly the general followed, meeting "Miss Rachel" half way with a
second courtesy over the tips of her fingers, just visible under the
lace ruffles at her wrists.

"Try _dat_, now, Mr. Grundy!" And this time Caesar forgot his whisper
so that a burst of applause followed the challenge, to Mr. Grundy's
extreme chagrin; for he, alas! had forgotten his bow before swinging
the lady.

It was then the dancing assumed something of the appearance of real
rivalry.

Down the line galloped Mr. Grundy again, stopped, bowed, "swung with
the left," and _bowed again_.

The general had been outdone, even Caesar had to admit it, and the
dancers laughed aloud and clapped their hands at the pretty little
gallantry.

But the master was equal to the emergency. Again the stately figure
met "Miss Rachel," the couple bowed, swung with the left, bowed again,
hands still clasped, and then the powdered head of the master dropped
for an instant over the lady's hand, that was lifted to his lips, and
the dancers parted.

Amid the spirited confusion of "chasing the fox," passing under the
gates held "high as the sky," and passing back again into line,
Caesar's voice could be heard still sounding the challenge:--

"Beat it, _if_ you kin, Mr. Grundy. _Chas_say _to_ yer best, Mr.
Grundy! Back yerse'f _to_ de lead, Mr. Grundy!"

Clearly, Mr. Grundy was not the favorite. Caesar's "backing" had
inspired confidence in the general.

However, if Mr. Grundy was, as he said, "a cock," he was nevertheless
a game one. Down the centre he tripped again, flushed and determined,
courtesied exceeding low, swung "with both" hands, then dropped for an
instant upon one knee while the lady tripped back into line. There was
a murmur of quick appreciation and all eyes were turned on Jackson.
Would he, _could_ he, think of anything so delightfully graceful?

Caesar's mouth stood wide open. His confidence in his beloved and
stately master never once faltered. He knew he would never suffer
Felix Grundy to outdo him in the simple matter of a bow; but how?
What?

Straight on came the general; bowed, extended his arms, when, as ill
luck would have it, he set the toe of his shoe upon the front hem of
"Miss Rachel's" silken gown, and, rising from her courtesy, there was
nothing to do but drop forward into the arms extended, amid the shouts
of the assembled guests, emphasized by Caesar's emphatic--

"Dar!"

He had done a very awkward thing. One of those _happily_ awkward
things which crown a man conqueror more surely than all the tricks of
art can do.

Nobody attempted to surpass that feat, and when the couples had each
in turn passed their parade, for such is the old Virginia reel, and
the dancers filed into the supper room, General Jackson was still, in
the judgment of his servant at all events, the master of grace and
chivalry.

A sumptuous supper and worthy the mistress who planned it. At the head
of the table sat Jackson; at the foot, the young statesman and guest,
Mr. Grundy.

When the company had all been seated, the master rose, his right hand
resting upon a tiny tumbler of red wine, such as stood at every plate.
He motioned Mr. Grundy, and lifted the tumbler. "The man honored by
fate, and fostered by fortune. The man chosen and set apart for the
service of the nation. A man whose name shall go down the years as the
synonym of courage and of honor. The foremost man of the age,"--and
the voice ever strong for the friend, absent or near, pronounced the
name of one at that moment tottering upon the brink of ignominious
destruction and disgrace--"Aaron Burr."

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