Browse Primary Sources
Voice of the People - Chicago Tribune
Galena, Ill. - Tho I am only 21 years old and far from being eligible for nursing home confinement, I was shocked by the revelations in your paper about the neglect, abuse and uncleanliness in Chicago area "nursing homes."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-06
VI-"Reporter 'Directs' Home" - Task Force - William Currie - Chicago Tribune
". . . It was his first day on the job, and the young nursing home administrator paced the floor in front of his desk. He had a problem, and he knew it. He was utterly incompetent for the task of administering care to 31 helpless old people, many of them crippled and senile, who lived in the South Side nursing home. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-06
Nursing Home Closed
Dr. Murray Brown, city health commissioner, yesterday ordered a South Side nursing home closed and directed the owners to immediately begin transferring an estimated 81 patients to other homes.
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-06
Voice of the People - Chicago Tribune
Chicago - We congratulate The Chicago Tribune for your exposure of the disgraceful conditions prevailing in some nursing homes. The Chicago Area Council of Senior Citizens Organizations Inc., consisting of 76 senior citizens' community groups with 15,000 members, has a bill pending in the state legislature covering this subject.
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-05
Follow-up: "Nursing Homes Investigators Cite Examples of Good Care" - Task Force - Chicago Tribune
". . .Mermelstein, 48, and his wife, Louise, own and operate Balmoral Nursing Home, 2055 W. Balmoral Av., one of nearly 20 nursing homes where Tribune Task Force reporters and Better Government Association investigators worked undercover as nurse's aides, maintenance men and mop boys. At most homes, they quit in disgust after several days of observing patient neglect and abuse. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-05
Reaction: "Nursing Home: 'A Lousy, Horrible Place'" - Task Force - William Jones and Pamela Zekman - Chicago Tribune
". . .Dr. Franklin Yoder, Illinois director of public heath, made a surprise inspection of several Chicago nursing homes yesterday and described one of the homes as a 'horrible lousy place' . . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-05
Voice of the People - Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO - "The Tribune's exposure of the wretched treatment accorded the aged inmates in nursing homes cries out for corrective action rather than futile lamentation.
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-04
Nursing Homes Unit Backs State's Probe - Unsigned - Chicago Tribune
The Metropolitan Chicago Nursing Home Association, which on Tuesday charged that The Tribune and Better Government Association disclosures of scandalous conditions in nursing homes were exaggerated and "politically motivated," last night "strongly endorsed" action being taken in response to the disclosures.
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-04
V-"As 'Patients,' Probers Learn Ordeal of Nursing Home Life" - Task Force - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
". . .What is unusual in these two cases is that both the patients and their "families" were members of the Tribune Task Force and Better Government Association team that spent six weeks investigating every phase of nursing home operation. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-04
"How We Hung John Brown" - Henry S. Olcott - in "Lotos Leaves"
It will be conceded that the first act in the bloody drama of the American Conflict had its climax on the 2nd of December, 1859, when John Brown of Ossawatomie was hung at Charlestown, Virginia.
Lotos Leaves 1875-01-01
Reaction: "Subpena Homes for Elderly" - Task Force - Pamela Zekman - Chicago Tribune
". . .Subpenas were served on Chicago area nursing home operators yesterday as a special federal grand jury opened an investigation into the operations of substandard homes and their dealings with drug suppliers, physicians and the public agencies that pay for patient care. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-04
IVA-"Crippled and Elderly Patients Abused in North Side Home" - Task Force - Philip Caputo - Chicago Tribune
"The toothless old woman, her shoulders bent by age and disease, stood in the kitchen doorway staring at two nurse's aides drinking coffee. Her request was a simple one: she wanted a cup. "Well, you can't have any," one of the aides responded. "Why not?" asked the woman, her arthritic hands clutching a metal walker. "Shut up, frog mouth; we're runnin' this kitchen," the aide snapped. The woman stood expressionless for a moment, then shuffled away to her room. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-03
XIV-Medicaid Probe: "Bureaucracy Choking in Attempts at Control" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Medicaid has become an unmanageable monster in New York City, consuming billions of tax dollars while failing to keep its promise of an effective system of responsible health care for the poor.Its $1.3 billion annual budget will increase at the rate of 10% a year, according to city officials. Moreover, the cost has been bloated with the billing abuses of many doctors and other providers who operate on a fee for service basis that is loosely audited and relies on the practitioner's honor.
New York Daily News 1973-02-11
VI-Medicaid Probe: "Foot Docs Wearing a 35M Golden Slipper" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Podiatrists have socked the city for more than $35 million in the last seven years. The taxpayers are footing the bill for expensive and often unnecessary care, according to the city's Health Department.A News reporter, posing as a welfare client with a medicaid card, recently asked for a podiatrist at a lower East Side group practice. He found that bills and X-rays come first, before he even took off his socks and shoes.
New York Daily News 1973-01-31
IV-"Regulations Fail to Aid ' Living Dead'" - Task Force - Chicago Tribune
"They describe themselves as the living dead, people who spend the final days of their lives eating, sleeping, staring and, finally, dying. They are the victims of a multimillion-dollar nursing home and shelter care boom in the Chicago area that has mushroomed beyond the control of city and state healthcare officials. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-03
Reaction: "Daley Orders New Laws, Nurse Home Inspections" - Task Force - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"Mayor Daley yesterday ordered key city department heads to begin immediately to draft ordinances upgrading requirements for nursing home employees. During a two-hour meeting in the mayor's office, Daley also said he has ordered city building, fire and health inspectors to "increase their surveillance" of nursing homes. Daley told reporters that new laws controlling the operation of nursing homes probably will include a specific ratio of nurse's aides and nurses to patients. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-03
Man's Inhumanity - Editorial - Chicago Tribune
Hidden away in filthy, rat-invested dungeons. Abandoned in "warehouses fir the dying." Clad in rags, forced to huddle half frozen in their own dirt. Fed slop not fit for animals. Subject to constant physical and mental abuses. Denied medication and the last shreds of human dignity by callous, incompetent caretakers.
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-02
IIIA-"'Nobody Works Too Hard Here'" - Task Force - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
". . .It is called the Kenmore House Nursing Home and it is a reminder that for many of our elderly poor the holden years are a cruel trick filled with dreary, smelly rooms, incompetent staff and meals consisting of table scraps. I worked at Kenmore house at the filth is everywhere. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-02
III-"Nursing Home's Shaving Time Becomes Torture for Patient" - Task Force - Chicago Tribune
"The young man had just begun to mop the filthy floor of the South Side nursing home when he was summoned by a nurse's aide. "Hold this guy's head or I'll never get him shaved," the aide ordered. The old man, his body crippled by a nervous disorder that caused his arms and head to jerk uncontrollably, hadn't been shaved in a week. It was a difficult task at best and today it would quickly become an ordeal. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-02
Reaction: "Halt Nursing Home Funds" - Task Force - Philip Caputo - Chicago Tribune
"The state Public Aid Department announced yesterday it is withholding thousands of dollars in public aid payments to Chicago area nursing homes named in a Tribune series exposing mistreatment and neglect of the elderly poor. George Dunne, County Board president, disclosed plans to remove hundreds of public aid patients from substandard nursing homes in an attempt to force them to close. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-02
Reaction: "Simon Will Ask Nurse Home Probe" - Task Force - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"Ald. Seymour Simon, who eight years ago as County Board president ordered bus-loads of patients removed from substandard nursing homes, yesterday praised Tribune disclosures of wretched nursing home conditions and said he will seek a City Council investigation. "I would hope that Board of Health and public aid officials will work together quickly to find extra space in good nursing homes for those now living under the conditions found by your reporters," said Simon, an independent Democrat. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-01
IIA-"Nurse Homes Defy Health, Fire Codes" - Task Force - Chicago Tribune
". . .They hire strangers off the street without bothering to find out who they are and pay them a pittance to care for thousands of helpless, elderly and mentally disturbed patients. They profess to operate according to the strict guidelines set down by public health officials, yet thumb their noses at state inspectors who seek to close them down for hundreds of health, fire and sanitary violations. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-01
II-"Cries for Help from Aged Answered with Brutality" - Task Force - Pamela Zekman - Chicago Tribune
"The man and woman had been herded into the bathroom of the North Side nursing home and now they stood naked, facing each other in helpless humiliation. Shivering and self-conscious, the two patients had responded almost mechanically to the orders to undress, barked by a nurse's aide. 'Goddamn it, hurry up. I have no time for you," the aide snapped when they hesitated a moment. The woman stood silent, staring at the floor. Then in a final desperate effort to salvage some dignity from the incident, she clutched a thin sweater to her breasts and protested: 'But he's not my boyfriend' . . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-03-01
IA-"Tribune Task Force Reports from Inside" - Task Force - Chicago Tribune
"The Chicago Tribune begins today an extraordinary report on the misery and plight of hundreds of persons living in a shadow world of our society. They are the unfortunate confined to poorly staffed and equipped nursing homes in the metropolitan area. Today's account and eyewitness stories which will appear in the next several days have been compiled by a task force of reporters. It is the first assigned of this special unit of Tribune reporters and introduces a new concept in comprehensive news gathering. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-02-28
I-"Abuses in Nursing Homes" - Task Force - Chicago Tribune
"The first assignment of the newly formed Tribune Task Force was a comprehensive investigation of patient care in Chicago area nursing homes. This is the first reports on the six-week probe by Reporters William Jones, Phillip Caputo, William Currie and Pamela Zekman. They are hidden in warehouses for the dying. Millions of tax dollars are misspent every year to keep them in squalor so depressing that they enjoy talking about their own deaths. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1971-02-28
XIII-Medicaid Probe: "Drawing a Map of Land of Nod"- William Sherman - New York Daily News
Addicts with medicaid cards have found a doctor's office on the lower East Side where they can obtain prescriptions for tranquilizers and hypnotic drugs at a cost to the city of about $15 a pop.Each day, dozens of drowsy, incoherent addicts and methadone maintenance patients pass through the medical-dental facilities at 104 Avenue B, where they sit for a quick examination by Dr. Leonard Parr and in almost every case, walk out with prescriptions for one or more of the drugs - some of which can be addictive.
New York Daily News 1973-02-10
XII-Medicaid Probe: "City Gives Dr. Hi Billmore Shot of Comedownance" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
When doctors met Health Department attorney Stuart Laurence, they usually begin with loud protests of innocence and agonizing tales of self-sacrifice and good works.By the time the meetings are over, many of the physicians and other professionals who are called in by the score to answer to fraud charges and other abuses of the medicaid program are mewing soft apologies, making promises of good behavior, and are ready to sing checks for restitution.
New York Daily News 1973-02-08
XI-Medicaid Probe: "Medicaid's Deaf Ear to Hearing Aid Dealers" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Operating through a loophole in city medicaid regulations, two major hearing aid dealers went into nursing homes, canvassed hundreds of elderly residents and ordered devices for them at $250 each. It was discovered later that many of the residents were not hard of hearing or did not use the aids.
New York Daily News 1973-02-07
X-Medicaid Probe: "How Medicaid Dentist Pulled City's 800G" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Fred Fisher is a medicaid dentist with an East Harlem practice who neatly extracted $800,000 from the city in two years, much of it in an alleged double billing scheme for false teeth and other work that some of his patients never needed in the first place. Although indicted two years ago by a Manhattan grand jury on 241 counts of submitting fraudulent bills, Fisher, 37, is still running his medicaid operation at 1690 Lexington Ave. out of the second floor of an old frame building. Since he opened his nine-chair office at 103d St. six years ago, Fischer has billed the city for more than $1 million, much of it for work performed by other dentists in his employ.
New York Daily News 1973-02-06
IX-Medicaid Probe: "In Race for Medibucks, the City's Poor Lose" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Medicaid was launched in 1966 with two major goals: quality of care for the poor and freedom for the patient to choose his own doctor. Both ideals, so proudly hailed at the beginning, have been buried in the grab for the medical dollar.In New York City this year, about $1.3 billion will be spent on medical assistance for the poor - as much as all other welfare costs combined. Of that sum, about $180 million will go to the physicians, dentists, and other individual providers while the rest will be paid out to hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions. Most doctors refuse medicaid patients, and the city records show that only 3,000 of about 23,000 doctors have ever taken a medicaid case.
New York Daily News 1973-02-05
VIII-Medicaid Probe: "Medicaid Loses as Docs Play Beat the Clock" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Playing an expensive version of Beat the Clock, some medicaid psychiatrists routinely dismiss patients after a 10-minute chat, then bill the city for a full four's psychiatric examination. One doctor charged $700 for 25 hours of work in one day and sometimes, the Health Department said, bills are paid for patients who were not seen at all.
New York Daily News 1973-02-02
VII-Medicaid Probe: "Pair of Medicaid Kings With a Midas Touch" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Meet the Medicaid Kings: Two men from Long Island who in three years parlayed a corner dental office on W. 125th St. in Harlem into a multimillion-dollar medicaid conglomerate, the biggest in the city, offering services from allergy care to methadone and piercing ears.According to Health Department records, examined by The News as part of an investigation of medicaid, the top billing center in the city is run by Benjamin Schneider, 57, and his brother-in-law, Victor Marcus, 58. Back in 1946, soon after they were discharged from the army, Schneider and Marcus started to practice dentistry at 79 W. 125th St. Twenty-three years later, medicaid came to Harlem, and today, Schneider, who lives in Woodmere, and Marcus of Roslyn, preside over the BenVic Corp.
New York Daily News 1973-02-01
V-Medicaid Probe: "How a Physician Can Prescribe Pure Dollars" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
The pharmacy in the Delancey Medical Building is only a counter in a second-floor hallway and behind that, a room with some shelves and a small working area for mixing prescriptions.But last year, out of that small one-man operation at 80 Delancey St. came $95,000 worth of medicaid billings. The business was generated from a large group of doctors, dentists, podiatrists, and other specialists who also rent space on that floor and cater almost exclusively to medicaid clients.
New York Daily News 1973-01-30
IV-Medicaid Probe: "You Don't Need Glasses to See Thru This" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
A News reporter with a medicaid card and 20-20 vision walked into a lower East Side optical center to have his eyes examined and discovered that what you see is not necessarily what you get. To put it another way, he got glasses when they were not needed. Accompanied by a News photographer posing as his cousin, the reporter strolled into Sol Moscot Opticians at 118 Orchard St. Five minutes earlier at the Delancey Medical Building across the street at 80 Delancey St., an optometrist had examined the reporter, who was in the same guise and said, "You have 20-20 vision. You don't need glasses."
New York Daily News 1973-01-29
III-Medicaid Probe: "How Medicaid Paid $457,000 for Sesame Oil" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
A 76-year-old Romanian-born physician, Emanuel Revici, announced to the world for than 20 years ago that he had developed a cancer drug. Since then, the doctor has claimed to have invented other drug remedies for alcoholism and narcotics addiction.His remedies have never received approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration. So, city officials were dismayed last fall to discover they paid paid out $457,000 in medicaid funds for his panacea for drug addiction - injections of sesame oil, sulphur crystals, and other still unidentified compounds at a voluntarily hospital here.
New York Daily News 1973-01-25
II-Medicaid Probe: "Our 'Patient' Gets More Tests on 2d Visit" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
A man complaining that a table had fallen on his foot was number one in line. An old woman, her calves bulging with phlebitis, stood behind him, and next to her a boy who said he is a junkie was holding a packed duffel bag and an old guitar. He mumbled something about stomach pain.They were welfare clients with medicaid cards waiting to see the receptionist at the Park Community Medical Building, 131 12 Rockaway Blvd., Ozone Park, Queens. After they registered their complaints they joined about 25 others sitting silently in the crowded waiting room. Every five minutes or so another patient was called into an examining room.
New York Daily News 1973-01-24
I-"Medicaid Probe - A Cold? Take 3 Doctors Every Hour" - William Sherman - New York Daily News
Disguised as a welfare client complaining of a cold, a reporter with a medicaid card wandered into a group medical office in Ozone Park, Queens, one day last week and asked to see a doctor.The patient was first sent to a foot doctor, then twice to an internist with instructions to come back a third time, and then to a psychiatrist who arranged for weekly visit. On his second visit, the patient was given an electrocardiogram, three blood tests, two urine tests and a chest X-ray.
New York Daily News 1973-01-23
Current Books
In her very preface Mrs. Van Vorst shows that the great subject she has started out to handle is, with all her sympathy, not understood even by herself. For she writes: ‘It is evident in order to render practical aid to this class, we must live among them, understand their desires *** put ourselves in their environments, etc.,’ and in the beginning she makes the inseparable barrier – We – They. We on the one side, they on the other, and while she admits the need of comprehending the class she sees needs help, she gives no hint of the need this class of comprehending in their turn that which would help.
Overland Monthly 1903-05-01
"Five Books of the Moment" - The Bookman
What these ladies have discovered in the course of an exploration involving, for women of the favoured class, fully as great an endurance of actual physical hardship as would be entailed by a trip to the North Pole or to the heart of Africa, they have discovered starting out with the point of view, with the lack of knowledge, shared by the majority of their class. Taking thus the angle of vision of their class as a starting point, and never losing sight of it through all the increasing widening of their own mental horizon, they have written a book which cannot fail to touch the hearts and awaken the minds of those who have, perhaps, never had the case put in a manner so comprehensible for them.
The Bookman 1903-04-01
Review of The Woman Who Toils
Much attention has been attracted to a recent book, "The Woman Who Toils," by a newspaper comment upon a letter addressed to one of the authors by President Roosevelt. The point he emphasizes is an important one, but does not by any means cover the whole problem of the book. Mrs. Van Vorst has accomplished a difficult and valuable task. Her spirit as she works besides the woman who toils is perfect. Her lack of self-consciousness, her absorption in her study of conditions, her exceptionally clear intellect, and her beautiful and discriminating sympathy make up a very unusual equipment.
Christian Advocate 1903-04-23
"The Monotony of Labor" - The Literary World
Seldom have we read a more interesting, or, in its way, a more valuable book than this "The Woman Who Toils," by Bessie and Marie Van Vorst. These two women, of the so-called upper class, became factory hands for a brief season. They sought "jobs," got them, and worked at them in a Pittsburgh factory, a small mill town in New York, at clothing making in Chicago, at shoemaking in Lynn, and in a Southern cotton mill.
The Literary World 1903-04-01
The Woman of the People
The working-women of the people in America I divide into four categories, considering in turn the problems of each and the circumstances that have determined their position. These four categories are the servant, the charwoman, the woman of a generation ago, and the factory girl. Generally speaking, the industrial aristocrat is the factory girl; the older woman has a role in the home only; and the units of a second order are the charwoman and the servant.
Harper's 1903-05-01
Review: Jack London's "People of the Abyss" - Unsigned - Current Literature
The most vivid and truthful picture that has yet been drawn of the saddest of modern civilization is Jack London's "People of the Abyss." The artistic power which enabled the author, in his "Call of the Wild," to give an enthralling interest to the experiences of a dog without in any way endowing his animal hero with other than animal powers, has enabled him in this volume to depict the wretchedness of the life of London's poor without ever using his imagination - save to see the mind and spirit of those who live in the environment described.
Current Literature 1904-04-01
"'The Jungle' and the Progressive Era" - Robert W. Cherny - History Now
The publication of Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle produced an immediate and powerful effect on Americans and on federal policy, but Sinclair had hoped to achieve a very different result. At the time he began working on the novel, he had completed his studies at Columbia University and was trying to develop a career as an author. He had been born in Baltimore in 1878, but his family had moved to the Bronx in 1888. Though he came from a prominent family, his own parents had little money, and he paid for his university studies by writing dime novels and short stories. While at Columbia, he also became a convert to socialism.
History Now 2008-06-01
"The Inferno of Packingtown Revealed" - Review of "The Jungle" - The Arena
The Jungle is worthy of a place by the side of Frank Norris' greatest work, The Odojna. These two works have more of historic truth than many histories and they are marked by that high order of genius that compels the reader to see and feel all that man can see and feel under tragic conditions similar to those described. They are, we think, the greatest realistic romances that America has given to the world. There are many realistic writers, but for the most part they succeed only in reproducing the details of common, every-day life without revealing the soul of the picture they would portray. They are superficial observers and write superficially. They are imitators and theft works are dull and unprofitable. But let the man of transcendentimagination describe a scene and we see and feel what he sees and feels. We pass behind the mask or the superficial aspects and see the interior workings of life. The soul of the picture is revealed. He sees all that is to be seen; he feels what the actors in the scene feel; he shares the boundless hopes, the lofty aspirations, the nameless fear and the measureless despair of those that move to and fro in the play. When he depicts a section of life he becomes in the highest sense the historian of what he describes. It is this element of imagination that differentiates the genius from the hack writer; the poet from the versifier. It is this element of imagination also that invests a great painting with life, atmosphere, soul, that the camera can never catch, hold or reflect.
The Arena 1906-06-01
Review: Jack London's "People of the Abyss" - Edward Clark Marsh - The Bookman
Most of these respectable gentlemen (and ladies, too, though I grieve to include them) imagine they are at least partially actuated by a pure love of mankind. Probably Jack London does. He is not. Jack is not a dull boy. On the contrary, he is decidedly precocious. But he is a healthy, vigorous, young nomad, with all a healthy boy's love of adventure. When he descended among the People of the Abyss in the English capital last year the zest of adventure was one of his motives. But the biggest motive of all, if the result of his adventure may be taken as evidence, was his desire for material to make into a book. Of course Mr. London is a very young man. If he were not he would not have revealed himself so frankly. According to the documentary evidence, he may have spent six weeks in his researches, possibly two months; scarcely more. In this time he set himself not merely to gather statistics regarding the people of London's East End, but to get at the very heart of their lives—to learn how they work, sleep, eat, drink, think, love, hate, struggle, and die. To do this, he lived, he says, their own life and endured all the hardships that fall to their lot. If Mr. London imagines that he really did this, then his idea of how "the other half" lives is vastly amusing.
The Bookman 1904-02-01
What Life Means To Me
But now there is a stirring of life within the masses themselves. The proletarian writer is beginning to find a voice, and also an audience and a means of support. And he does not find the life of his fellows a fascinating opportunity for feats of artistry; he finds it a nightmare inferno, a thing whose one conceivable excellence is that it drives men to rebellion and to mutual aid in escaping. The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of "art for art's sake" than a man on a sinking ship thinks of painting a beautiful picture in the cabin; he thinks of getting ashore, and of getting his brothers and comrades ashore - and then there will be time enough for art.
The Cosmopolitan 1906-10-31
'I Have Chosen to Belong to the Remedy' - Michael Haddon - Journalism.co.uk
Working as a cleaner at a brothel to expose the prostitution of young girls, Anas was treated like one of the punters in a police raid he had helped to organise. "When they came to arrest everybody they assaulted me several times and I was happy about that, because it meant it was never leaked by the police hierarchy that I was undercover," Anas told attendees at a Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) event last night.
journalism.co.uk 2008-11-25
"Sex Ghetto Raided" - Anas Aremeyaw Anas - The New Crusading Guide
The operation got underway as a result of an undercover video obtained by The Crusading GUIDE reporter and submitted to the Ghana Police. The paper obtained hard core evidence on a Video Compact Disk, where little girls were sexually exploited in turns by adults who had paid for their services. This reporter picked up a job at the brothel as a cleaner responsible for sweeping used condoms and cleaning the rooms. The Crusading GUIDE is yet to publish details of what is captured on the video CD, where children are seen being sexually exploited.
The New Crusading Guide 2008-01-28
"Diplomatic Sex Scandal Hits Accra" - Anas Aremeyaw Anas - The New Crusading Guide
Sex and pornography are very much an integral part of the tourism boom. But before anyone begins to think about the numerous backyard hotels sprawling around Accra as the main theatre of the drama, let the New Crusading GUIDE confirm that the latter-day Spa's are knee-deep in the sordid, carnal side of tourism. They are not as innocent as they pose. The paper's investigative journalist has caught on camera the grotesque and horrifying activities of a Ghanaian spa called Working Girl Wellness Centre.
The New Crusading Guide 2009-03-20
"Smuggler, Forger, Writer, Spy" - Nicholas Schmidle - Atlantic Monthly
". . .Over the past 10 years, Anas has gone undercover dozens of times, playing everything from an imam to a crooked cop. Hardly anyone in the country knows his face. Photos of him on the Internet are either masked or digitally doctored. (He claims to own more than 30 wigs.) Once, while doing a story about child prostitution, he worked as a janitor inside a brothel, mopping floors, changing bedsheets, and picking up used condoms. Another time, on the trail of Chinese sex traffickers, he donned a tuxedo and delivered room service at a swanky hotel that the pimp frequented with his prostitutes. . ."
Atlantic Monthly 2010-11-01
"The Jungle at 100" - Chris Bachelder - Mother Jones
The Jungle was rejected by a half-dozen publishers, including Macmillan (“Gloom and horror unrelieved,” noted one of Brett’s readers. “As to the possibilities of a large sale, I should think them not very good.”), before Doubleday, Page & Company agreed to publish it. The book came out 100 years ago, in February 1906, when Sinclair was 27, and it achieved immediate and astonishing international success. According to the New York Evening World, “Not since Byron awoke one morning to find himself famous has there been such an example of worldwide celebrity won in a day by a book as has come to Upton Sinclair.”
Mother Jones 2006-01-01
Editorial following "The Jungle": "The Beef Investigation" - The Independent
The charges made by Mr. Upton Sinclair against the beef packers methods, put into his novel, but vouched by him to be true, have been examined by two most admirable men selected by the President, and to the surprise of many people the muck rake is vindicated.
The Independent 1906-05-31
"Watchdog urged for Ontario’s retirement home" - Moira Welsh - Toronto Star
"The Star investigation into retirement homes is a 'wake-up call for Ontario,' said Judith Wahl, of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. Nursing homes resources are strained, but they still face strict regulations — especially for medical care. But there are now 24,000 people on a waiting list for one of the province’s 77,000 nursing home beds. For those who cannot live at home, even with help from government programs, there will be nowhere else to go but Ontario’s retirement home industry."
Toronto Star 2010-10-03
"Seniors at risk in retirement home, investigation reveals" - Dale Brazao & Moira Welsh - Toronto Star
"While one reporter investigated from the inside, another delved into management of the home owned by Elaine Lindo. We found health records showing dangerous food preparation; court records detailing a confrontation that led to an assault allegation; and Lindo’s attempt to evict a resident who refused to pay a massive rent increase."
Toronto Star 2010-10-01
"Is 'The Jungle' True?" - Upton Sinclair - The Independent
"The question is," says The Independent reviewer, "how seriously shall we take this story of life in the packing house district of Chicago?" That seems to be the question with a great many people. For the past year, ever since the story began appearing serially, I have been receiving half a dozen letters a day asking it; so that if a public answer serves no other purpose, it will at least help to lighten the burden of my mail.
The Independent 1906-05-17
A Home Colony
I suppose that the average professional man invests ten thousand dollars in a home (or else pays rent equal to interest upon that sum); and that he pays two thousand dollars a year living expenses for his family. Let a hundred such families combine to found a co-operative home, and there would be a million dollars for building and equipment, and two hundred thousand dollars a year for running expenses; I believe that for half of the outlay five hundred people could live and enjoy comforts at present possible only to millionaires.
The Independent 1906-06-14
"Tramp Boys" - Josiah Flynt - The Independent
There are about seven thousand boys in the United States who live, from one end of the year to the other, exclusively in tramp life. It is impossible to take an exact census of all - they are too migratory, but I base my estimate on over ten years' acquaintance with American tramp life, and on travels with tramps which have taken me into thirty states. In winter, there are easily five hundred tramp boys in New York City alone.
The Independent 1899-03-09
"Railroad Slums" - Josiah Flynt - The Independent
There are slums in the United States, however, which are distinctly American in origin and arrangement, and which no other country in the world is troubled with. I refer to the tramp "hang-outs" and camps situated on almost all of the trunk railroad lines in this country, and to the vagrant and criminal rabble which infest them. All countries are plagued with wandering bands of beggars and thieves, but ours is the only one whose railroads are overrun by professional out-of-work gangs of "hold-up-men," and a constantly increasing army of hobos. In Europe, it would be utterly impossible for such a state of affairs to exist, and European railroad men as well as European vagrants find nothing in our railroad life more surprising than the fact that it exists in the United States.
The Independent 1899-06-15
"Critics demand retirement home probe" - Moira Welsh, Dale Brazao - Toronto Star
"Reaction to the Star’s expose was swift. The Ontario progressive conservative caucus immediately sent a letter to the government Friday calling for a sweeping investigation into the living conditions of seniors in both retirement homes and nursing homes."
Toronto Star 2010-10-01
"Reporter’s diary reveals substandard conditions at retirement home" - Dale Brazao - Toronto Star
"SATURDAY 8:52 am – Urine puddle on floor of stairwell. Has been there for 24 hours. Told this is a slipping hazard, a staff member grumbles, takes mop and cleans. Sam, who fell off his chair Thursday night, has angry bruise on leg. Staffer says he likes to sleep on floor. 10 am – Some residents sleep in room all day. Diapers, which most residents pay for, rarely changed. Discarded people. Few visitors. When the bathroom is cleaned the same mop and water used to swab lounge floor. Mop and pail stored in shower on second floor."
Toronto Star 2010-10-01
"Retirement homes: Seniors need more protection" - Dale Brazao - Toronto Star
"Star reporter Dale Brazao spent a week living undercover in one of Toronto’s worst retirement homes. He found seniors with advanced dementia struggling helplessly, residents sitting for hours in feces-filled diapers, bathrooms without toilet paper or clean towels, bad food, broken appliances and underpaid workers. Yet Elaine Lindo, owner of In Touch Retirement Living, claimed: “We are one of the best in the city and everybody knows that.” The Star has published horror stories like this for years. Yet the abuses continue."
Toronto Star 2010-10-03
Followup to "The Jungle" - "The Condemned-Meat Industry"
In the course of his recent defense of the Y. Beef Trust, Mr. J. Ogden Armour writes as follows: Government inspection is another important feature of the packers' business. To the general public, the meat-eating public, it ought to appeal as one of the most important features of any and all business in the whole country. It is the wall that stands between the meat-eating public and the sale of diseased meat. This Government inspection alone, if there were no other business or economic reasons, would be an all-sufficient reason for the existence of the jacking and meat business on a mammoth scale. It should, if understood, make the general public a partizan supporter of the large packers.Strangely enough, in view of its vital importance, this Government inspection has been the subject of almost endless misrepresentation—of ignorantly or maliciously false statements. The public has been told that meat animals and carcasses condemned as diseased are afterward secretly made use of by the packers and sold to the public for food in the form of both dressed meats and canned meats. Right here I desire to brand such statements as absolutely false as applied to the business of Armour & Co. I believe they are equally false as to all establishments in this country that are classed as packing-houses. I repeat: "In Armour & Co.'s business not one atom of any condemned animal or carcass finds its way, directly or indirectly, from any source, into any jood product or jood ingredient."
Everybody's Magazine 1906-05-01
"The Ethics of Going Undercover" - Kathy English - Toronto Star
"Did the end justify the means here? Did this exposé of the profound neglect Brazao witnessed meet the public interest test? I have no doubt this was the right course of action. This investigation met all of the thresholds journalism ethicists have laid down for undercover reporting: The information is vital to the public interest (particularly given the demographics of an aging population and a severe shortage of nursing home beds); there was no other way to get this story and know the conditions inside the home, and the nature of the deception was fully disclosed to readers. . ."
Toronto Star 2010-10-09
"How Hobos Are Made" - Josiah Flynt - Los Angeles Times
Scattered over the railroads, sometimes traveling in freight cars, and sometimes sitting pensively around camp fires, working when the mood is on them and loafing when they have accumulated a "stake," always criticising other people, but never themselves, seldom very happy or unhappy, and almost constantly without homes such as the persevering workman struggles for and secures, there is an army of men and boys, who, is a census of the unemployed was taken, would have to be included in the class which the regular tramps call "Gay Cats."
Los Angeles Times 1900-02-11
"Tales Tramps Tell" - Josiah Flynt - Los Angeles Times
Each Has His "System" - The tramps' methods of begging, as has been said, are largely regulated by circumstances and experience, but even the amateurs among them have theories about the professions, and they are never more interesting than when sitting around some "hang-out" campfires, discussing their notions of the kind of "ghost stories" that go best with different sorts of people. Indeed, the bulk of their time is passed in conferences of this character. Each man, like a passionate gambler, has a "system," and he enjoys "chewing the rag" about its intricacies.
Los Angeles Times 1900-01-07
"Tramping with Tramps" - Josiah Flynt - The Century
Some years ago I was sitting one spring afternoon on a railway-tie on "The Dope" when New York Barcas apeared on the scene. There was nothing very peculiar about Barcas, except his map of the United States. Not that he ever set up to be a topographer, or aspired to any rivalry with Johnston, Kiepert, or Zell, but, like the ancients, Barcas had his known and his unknown world, and like them again, he described the land he knew just as if it was all the world there was.
The Century 1893-11-01
"The Tramp and the Railroads" - Josiah Flynt - The Century
... It was my fate, a few days after setting foot in my native land again, to be asked by the general manager of one of our railroads to make a report to him on the tramp situation on the lines under his control. For three years he had been hard at work organizing a police force which was to rid the lines under his control of the tramp nuisance, and he believed that he was gradually succeeding in his task, but he wanted me to go over his property to give him an independent opinion of what needed to be done.
The Century 1899-06-01
"Under The Cloak of The Klan" - Steve Sonsky - Miami Herald
About a year after newsman Jerry Thompson went undercover and infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, he came face to face - or face to hood, as it were - with the President of the United States. And Jimmy Carter, the President from the South, got angry. It was Labor Day 1980, and Carter, campaigning for reelection, was giving a speech in Tuscumbia, Ala. "1 was standing there with a group of Klansmen in a crowd of 30,000 people, wearing the damned robe, standing out like a sore thumb, and I felt like a damned fool," recalls Thompson, 42, a prize-winning reporter for The Nashville Tennessean. "We got Carter's attention when we unfurled the Confederate flag, and he just - well, a red glow came over his face and he really got angry and he looked right at us and he said, 'It takes a damned coward to hide under a sheet.' "Hell," Jerry Thompson says with a laugh, "1 thought it took a helluva lot of guts to stand out in front of that many people looking like an idiot with a white sheet on"
Miami Herald 1983-01-18
"The Tramp at Home" - Josiah Flynt - The Century
Being in New York and having ten days at my disposal before leaving for Europe, I decided to retrace some of my old routes, and to renew my acquaintance with old roadsters. What I saw and how I fared along the way are embodied in the following pages. I have confined myself to the rehearsal of bare facts without further comment, believing that the reader will moralize and philosophize whenever necessary.
The Century 1894-02-01
"The City Tramp" - Josiah Flynt - The Century
Vagabonds specialize nowadays quite as much as other people. The fight for existence makes them do it. Although a few tramps are such all-round men that they can succeed almost anywhere, there are a great many others who find that they must devote their time to one distinct line of beginning in order to succeed. So to-day we have all sorts of hoboes. There are house-beggars, office-beggars, street-beggars, old-clothes-beggars and of late years still another specialization has become popular in vagabondage. It is called "land-squatting," which means that the beggar in question has chosen a particular district for his operations.
The Century 1894-03-01
"What to do with the Tramp" - Josiah Flynt - The Century
I must first explain just what I mean by a tramp. Some people think that he is simply a man out of work, a man willing to labor if he has the chance; and others, although admitting that his not so found of toil as he might be, claim he is more a victim of circumstances than of his own perversity. Neither of these opinions seems to me to meet the case. According to my experience, - and I have studied the tramp carefully in over thirty States of the Unions, - his is a man, and too often a boy, who prefers vagabondage to any other business and in moments of enthusiasm actually brags about the wisdom of his choice.
The Century 1894-09-01
"How Men Become Tramps" - Josiah Flynt - The Century
A body of vagrants twice as large as the standing army of the United States, has compacted itself together in this country by common aims, methods of action, and manner of speech. Little is known of it, in whole or in part, for it is like the Irishman's flea or the "little joker" of the gambler - no sooner discovered than lost. To study it, one must become joined to it, part and parcel of its manifestations.
The Century 1895-10-01
"Jamie The Kid" - Josiah Flynt - Harper's
It was my last night in San Francisco and I could not leave without saying good-bye to Old Slim. His place was almost empty when I strolled in, and he was standing behind his greasy bar counting the day's winnings. The adios was soon said, and I started for the street again. I had hardly left the bar when the door suddenly squeaked on its rickety hinges, and a one-armed man came in with a handsome kid.
Harper's 1895-10-01
"Club Life Among Outcasts" - Josiah Flynt - Harper's
For several years it has been my privilege to come in contact with men and women, boys and girls, who have been turned out of respectable society, or born out of it, and who are known to the world as vagabonds, rowdies, and criminals. I have made the acquaintance of these people in a variety of ways, sometimes accidentally and sometimes purposely, but almost always voluntarily. I wanted to know what their life amounted to and what pleasures it contained.
Harper's 1895-04-01
Comment: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
From the Springfield Union: The New York Tribune hits upon a truth when it says, regarding the terrible poverty to which women are reduced by the competitions of trade, that it is in the power of the churches to furnish remedy for this agony of toil. When public sentiment is called to such abuses the first thought is some kind of an organization to fight them. But the churches are, or ought to be, already organized for just this kind of work, but their power has been frittered away by the formation of all sorts of outside associations for doing the work of benevolence. A church this is not organized for charitable for in the community is an abstraction.
The New York Tribune 1886-11-24
Discussion: "Prisoners of Poverty" "Mrs. Campbell's Good Work" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
But the articles of Mrs. Campbell have also led to much discussion within the wide circle in which they have been read. Different theories are advanced as to the causes that produce the dark facts which these stories unfold. How far women themselves contribute to their own misery through their own individual pride and version to certain kinds of work for which they are especially fitted is a question freely debated. There are citizens prominently identified with philanthropic institutions who while they have the utmost sympathy with the sufferers, are balked at the threshold of their efforts to relieve them by the disinclination of women themselves to abandon over-crowded holds of labor in exchange for occupations less degrading and far more profitable.
The New York Tribune 1886-11-26
Letter to the Editor: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
Sir: I have long rester under the impression that Mrs. Helen Campbell exaggerated the suffering among female works of New-York. I am forced to agree with the remark made by Dr. Howard Crosby in The Tribune of November 26th, to the effect that "all this hue and cry about so much destitution and misery and the unscrupulous greed of employers is groundless."
The New York Tribune 1886-12-22
Followup: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
Police Commissioner John McClave said he had read the articles on "Prisoners of Poverty" in The Tribune with much interest. "I think," he said, "every intelligent man who reads those papers must see that something ought to be done soon for the protection of these working women in this city. It is easier to see the need of protecting than to devise a plan for securing it. I have been thinking over the subject and am convinced that Legislature could furnish some relief, but not all that is needed. It is plain that the law at present does not prevent crafty and unscrupulous men from robbing women of their just wages."
The New York Tribune 1886-12-22
Reaction: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
From "Women's Work" in The Brooklyn Eagle:The prescription of Mayor Hewitt and other people - "Go out to domestic service" - is hardly prepared after a thorough diagnosis of this particular social disease. Besides, if it were, the women would not take the medicine unless they chose. Here again facts run against theories, and millionaire publicists no more than other persons can escape the catastrophe. Cleaning and "upstairs work" are honorable employments - for good cooks and efficient chambermaids. So the position of bootblack or waiter is one in which a man may get through life creditably and respectfully. But if men who are not fitted for these occupations, or who think they can do better, are not forced into them, why should women be urged into corresponding employments as to which they hold like views?
The New York Tribune 1887-01-07
Letter to the Editor: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
Will the piety and intelligence of New-York, seeing Christ, as he told us to do, in these His suffering ones, do for them what they have neither time nor knowledge to do for themselves?
The New York Tribune 1887-01-13
Reaction: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
From the Cloak, Suit and Ladies' wear Review: "A few Sundays ago the "Evolution of a Jacket" was narrated - a tale of the direst poverty and the hardest kind of a struggle for existence. How the conditions of the people described is to be ameliorated we do not know; it is a question that deserves the attention of philanthropists and political economists. It is only fair, however, that the side of the manufacturers should be given against whom a feeling seems to be entertained that they really are to blame for all the poverty and distress of the people employed to make the garments.
The New York Tribune 1887-02-02
Letter to the Editor: "Prisoners of Poverty" - Helen Campbell - New York Tribune
A certain Mrs. H who is engaged as a teacher during several hours of each week, after suffering martyrdom from the dirt and carelessness of different servants, decided to try "lady-help." She sound a Norwegian widow who wished to try living out. Mrs. H. explained to this widow that she could pay $16 a month, would give the helper a pleasant home and treat her as one of the family.
The New York Tribune 1887-02-05
VI-"Studies in the Slums" - Helen Campbell - Lippincott's
On the wall, near the small looking-glass, hung a round cap with hanging fox's tail - such a cap as the half-bloods of our north-western forests wear, and the peasants of the European North as well.Jan smiled as he saw my puzzled look. "It iss vy I say I will tell it all," he went on in his grave, steady voice. "Ven I see dat it iss to see de North. For, see, it vas not alvays I am in de city. No. It iss true I am many years in Stockholm, but I am not Swede: I am Finn - yes, true Finn - and as know my own tongue vell, and dat is vat some Finns will nefer do."
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science 1880-10-01
V-"Studies in the Slums" - Helen Campbell - Lippincott's
"It's Norah can cook equal to myself," Norah had said with pride as she emptied the black and smoking mass into a dish; and these methods certainly cannot be said to be difficult to follow.There is no conservatism like the conservatism of ignorance, yet in this case want of knowledge there certainly was not. Norah had lived for two years before her marriage with a family the mistress of which had taught her patiently and indefatigably till she became able to set a fairly-cooked meal upon the table, but the knowledge acquired then seemed to have been laid aside as having no connection with her own life.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science 1880-09-01
IV-"Studies in the Slums" - Helen Campbell - Lippincott's
"I've never told the whole straight, ahead, ma'am. The Lord knows it all an' there've been times I couldn't ha' done it, an' wouldn't ha' done it if I could ha' helped it. For, you see, in spite of the deviltry I never quite got rid of the sense that God sat lookin' at me, an' that, I do suppose, come from what stuck to me, whether or no, in the school. An' you'd wonder that anything stuck or could."
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science 1880-08-01
III-"Studies in the Slums" - Helen Campbell - Lippincott's
"Now, it'll seem to you like a bit of our the Police Gazette or those horrid story-papers, but, do you know, when she wasn't three Pete came home one night just drunk enough to be cunnin', an' he said, after he'd had his supper, he wanted to take the child a little way, only round the corner, to show her to some friends of his."
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science 1880-07-01
II-"Studies in the Slums" - Helen Campbell - Lippincott's
"My father was a counterfeiter, and ran away from justice before I ever I can remember him. There was a lot of us, an' me they put with me grandmother. She was old an' a devout Romanist, an' many's the time, she she was tellin' her beads an' kissin' the floors for penance, I'd shy thing at her, just to hear her curse an' swear at me, an' then back to her knees. I'd got well beyond her or anybody by the time I was thirteen. They let me run loose."
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science 1880-06-01
I-"Studies in the Slums" - Helen Campbell - Lippincott's
We may regard it is a temporary stage of development - a stage resulting from the inevitable doubt underlying thought and action in this mysterious nineteenth century, and which for a time holds with so firm and benumbing a grasp that escape seems neither possible nor desirable. The narrow minds settles easily and contentedly into the belief that everything is as bad as it can be, and that the majority fail to accept or recognize such fact gives us the sense of unique possession, filling the pessimistic sod with a satisfaction only less intense than that of his optimistic brother.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science 1880-05-01
VI-"Max" - Helen Campbell - Sunday Afternoon
"It seems a hundred years ago that I was a little fellow at home," he began, still looking up to the strip of sky, and his slender hands clasped about one knee. " You can judge for yourself that I did not come of the same stock as most of the men here. My father was a lawyer in H; a stern, hard man, deep in his business from morning till night, and paying little attention to me one way or another. My mother was very gentle and delicate and sad; loving me passionately, as she had loved my father till his coldness and hardness made her concentrate it all on me. I suppose she spoiled me, and yet it is through her that I am here to-day. At any rate, I know that any freedom or indulgence always had to be coupled with the words: 'We won't say anything about it before father, Max; he might not like it.' The most reasonable thing was always hedged round with this warning, and we both shook when he came near us unexpectedly. He was a very religious man in his own fashion, but not much of the real thing as you get it here. His God liked best to roast sinners, and I heard very little from him but threats of dropping into hell, if I went a hair's-breadth out of the way. He had been brought up so, and stood it, and he could not see why the same thing did not fit me. So I was either scared to death or reckless, and ended with being the last, pretty much all the time. I was bright enough, and father had me study Latin when I was only seven. At ten he sent me to boarding-school, and that pretty nearly killed mother. She had been a good deal of an invalid, but then she went to bed, and staid there mostly except when I came home for vacations."
Sunday Afternoon 1879-07-01
V-"An Experiment and What Came of It" - Helen Campbell - Sunday Afternoon
"We're going home, we're going home, We're going home to-morrow!" Now these words, sung intermittently, and each note as if pumped out by an exceedingly active little high-pressure steamengine, meant work, and hard work too. Down the dark and creaking stairs, and through all the smells and sounds of the tall tenement-house, their ring seemed to call one on, and the crippled boy at the door of the back room on the third floor beat time with his crutch as he stood, and forgot to scowl as I passed. Up one more flight and in at the open door, and this is what I saw: a room, like all the rooms in these great houses, with low ceiling, dirty walls, rough floor, opening at the back into a dark bedroom; if of the better class, into two or three, but all depending for sunshine and air upon the two windows in the front. In this case there was but one bedroom, and the sick, heavy smell of unwashed bedding and equally unwashed human beings made a sort of fog, which with the steam from the little clothes-boiler on the stove filled the rooms and the hall as well.
Sunday Afternoon 1879-06-01
IV-"Six Stories in One" - Helen Campbell - Sunday Afternoon
"One hundred and eighty-two people in that one house 1 Where do they put them ? " I said. " I know there are ninety where the O'Brien's live, and that is crowded. This is no larger?""No. They're the same, but I'll tell you how they do it," said Mrs. McAuley's quiet voice. " You've seen a good deal, but you haven't been in it as we have. Now I'll tell you what I know about every one of those floors, and there's six with the basement. To begin with, there's four families to a floor. They're packed because they have to be. The men get little work and have nothing to pay for better rooms. The topfloor has a family for every room, that is if you choose to call it a family. They're rag pickers mostly. Four men and three women live together in one of them and pay four dollars a month. Married? Oh, no ! There's one widow on that floor. She has a back-room and takes seven boarders. I've seen the floor thick with them at night."
Sunday Afternoon 1879-05-01
III-"The Tenement House Question" - Helen Campbell - Sunday Afternoon
"Civilization! Oh, how I detest that word!" said the Bachelor of the company, throwing away his paper and marching up and down the room. "Here is this report from the Board of Health, and I defy you to find in the darkest of the dark ages anything worse than the condition of the tenement houses of this city. I believe the peasant of the thirteenth century to have been incomparably better off than the man of the same social grade to-day. Suppose he did live in a windowless hut with an earth floor. At least the air of heaven could find its way in. Is there anything in the imaginations of either Milton or Swedenborg, fouler or more pestilential than the sewage and sink exhalations surrounding and permeating those horrible structures. Leave thorn, however, and take this very one we are in."
Sunday Afternoon 1879-04-01
II-"Sunday in Water Street" - Helen Campbell - Sunday Afternoon
The Bix-story tenement house, while less shaky than the one we had just left, was equally odorous, and how human beings lived through such pulling upon all the vital forces, I could not see. We passed familiar faces on two of the landings, and I found this house had gradually been filled by the "regulars" at the mission, and though a liquor saloon still continued below, hid thus altogether lost its former character as one of the most brawling, disorderly houses in the block. Up to the fourth floor, and a front room, overlooking the street; a room of tolerable size, but intolerable dirt, where four little children sat on the floor eating bread and molasses, while a man in the corner sat smoking. He nodded surlily, but said nothing, and I followed into an inner room; a dark bedroom, where no sunshine could ever reach, and which had the same heavy, oppressive smell I had noticed in the other house; a fog of human exhalations. Propped up in bed, for easier breathing was a woman in the last stages of consumption; a deep, red spot on each cheek, and her frame the merest skeleton.
Sunday Afternoon 1879-02-01
I-"An Experience Meeting in Water Street" - Helen Campbell - Sunday Afternoon
To one approaching Water street either from the upper portion of New York or by way of Fulton Ferry from Brooklyn, it is difficult to believe that the word "slums" can be applicable. On week days the whirl of business life; the hurrying masses of preoccupied-looking men; the constant stream of drays and heavy wagons, and the bales and piles of goods of every description, from rolls of leather and towers of paper boxes up to sugar hogsheads and enormous boilers, indicate only the American devotion to its god, the dollar. And on Sunday the utter absence of all ordinary sights and sounds; the deserted streets and silent warehouses, would seem to evidence the most careful keeping of the fourth commandment. For two or three blocks, stoves and boilers are sole proprietors of the deserted thoroughfare, and only as Peck Slip is passed does a suggestion of what is to come suddenly dawn upon one, as the whole character suddenly changes, and the sound of music from a sailors' boarding house is heard. With Dover street and the great pier of the East River bridge ends the dominion of trade in its higher forms, and a new trade, old as the foundations of the world—the trade in men's souls—takes its place. In a former article the general feeling of the locality was given, but on Sunday a special effort seems to be made to enhance the attractions of the vile dens, thick set for blocks, till warehouses again take their place.
Sunday Afternoon 1879-01-01
John Seigenthaler's Introduction to Jerry Thompson's book, "My Life in the Klan"
Jerry Thompson's My Life in the Klan 1982-01-01
IX-"My Life With The Klan" - Jerry Thompson - Nashville Tennessean
I was saddened every time I saw Klan children at a KKK function. In the flickering light of huge crosses in vacant fields there were always the beautiful, shining faces of small children - boys and girls - not yet in their teens; Klan children. They were being introduced to the Klan's racist doctrine of white supremacy. Each time I saw them I felt sorry for them.
The Nashville Tennessean My Life With The Klan (Series Reprint from the Nashville Tennesseean) 1980-12-15
VIII-"My Life With The Klan" - Jerry Thompson - Nashville Tennessean
Suddently on Nov. 30, it dawned on me I might not be the only person leading a double life - belonging to two different Klan factions that were bitter rivals. It was only a week before I was to give up my role as a reporter working undercover in the Klan. Until that day it had never occurred to me that a fellow member of Bill Wilkinson's Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan might be infiltrating Don Black's Knights of the KKK, just as I had done.
The Nashville Tennessean My Life With The Klan (Series Reprint from the Nashville Tennesseean) 1980-12-14
VII-"My Life With The Klan" - Jerry Thompson - Nashville Tennessean
Bill Riccio, decked out in a green beret, camouflage fatigues and jungle boots, fingered his 45-caliber automatic while holding forth on the front porch of Klansman Tommy Parson's home. "When we come to power," he told the Klansmen surrounding him, "we will be the most powerful force in this nation." Anger distorted his face, and his chin quivered as he warmed to his subject: "I can't tolerate - and none of us should tolerate - anyone who would infiltrate any group and gain the confidence and the friendship of the people in it, then publicly turn against us." I was standing just a few feet from Riccio....
The Nashville Tennessean My Life With The Klan (Series Reprint from the Nashville Tennesseean) 1980-12-13
VI-"My Life With The Klan" - Jerry Thompson - Nashville Tennessean
Jimmy Carter's famous grin disappeared as he looked across the Labor Day crowd at Tuscumbia, Ala., and saw that my Ku Klux Klan buddies were unfurling a Confederate battle flag. Suddenly, this Southern-born president, whose administration stood for equal rights for black Americans, recognized our white robes and hoods - and he saw red. "There are some who practice cowardice and preach fear and hatred," said President Carter departing from the text of his prepared speech and "It makes me angry when I see them with a Confederate battle flag."
The Nashville Tennessean My Life With The Klan (Series Reprint from the Nashville Tennesseean) 1980-12-12