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Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 3, 5 January 1931, Page 5

Chicago's Derelicts.

Sharp winds foretelling winter's ■ rapid approach, found many of the Chicago's homeless and hungry secure in shelters they have built amid a- mass ,of brick, stone and junk. A 1 block square in Canal Street, just west of and in sharp contrast to Chicago's towering skyscrapers of steel and concrete, is the "city of the homeless," where colour and creed mean nothing, and where the one concern is whether the police department will, become too interested in its "citizens."

Here—in over, under and between the mass of broken bricks, stone's, cement, blocks, tin, junk, boards and dirt, unemployed have constructed, "model" hovels for winter hibernation. This .small group, those who want to work and cannot, and a greater number who habitually avoid any form of remunerative exercise, have built a city that reflects more the appearance of ruined Pompeii than structural Chicago. 7

Homeless men,-and hungry, time a day—the. Canal Street clan exemplifies .one minority of a mass of 115,000 registered, and many more, unemployed. The home-made huts represent almost the primitive in architectural design. The materials—principally brick and tin—are more modern, but they have been combed from the huge debris ground that is bounded by Canal and Harrison and Clinton and Polk Streets. Some have been erected with particular care. The crevices are filled with mud and rags and dirt. Inside may be a strip of discarded carpet spread on brick or bare earth. Every hut has its stove; each original enough to patent. Here every man is a king every day. The co.utour of the huge debris grounds resembles somewhat of a golf course. The "streets" of the Vagabond village are in the valleys; the piles of broken rock and brick in most instances from three sides of a hut. The cave design is predominant, as this requires othe building of but one wall. All this misery in America —the muchvaunted * richest country in the world— with hundreds pf millions of dollars lying unused in the coffers, is being continued by the fluctuations of the manipulators of Wall Street daily on the Stock Exchange floor, where traders seeking to amass fortunes, operate witli devilish glee at the expense of small speculators all over the country, who are being "shorn" through inability to increase their marginal requirements with brokers in the leading' cities of tho country. Violent Criticism By Senators. Addressing San Francisco lawyers, Senator Hiram Johnson, of California, I'one of the leading statesmen of the United States, drastically criticised the I United States 1 Government's failure to I, put a quick end to the unemployment | situation. "This is a 'robot era" of statesmanship," he said. "The pushing of a button and there comes forth from the mouths of politicians common place phrases and utterances that are meaningless. There is a disease in the body politic of the land. Unemployment is an infinitely worse disease. It has been strikingly illustrated to me in San Francisco, when I pass the Paulist Fathers' Church and find a line of men a block long waiting to get a free plate of soup. It is terrible to contemplate such a situation. I have seen not one, but three bread lines. If-they could vote millions for relief of foot-and-mouth disease, why cannot we spare something for these men and women for this disease in the body politic? It is just such conditions that lead to serious events." Two other prominent Senators have advocated that the United States Government send the country's 'surplus of 10.0,000,000 bushels of wheat to feed the starving millions in' China and other parts of the world, and that other foodstuffs surpluses should be to assist in feeding the hungry in America, r&tliar than that the food should be destroyed or rot in granaries.