The Daily Worker

THE "GOLD DUST LODGE". A HELL HOLE OF CHARITY 2,200 Exist Here on Skimpy Ration and Religious Dope
(By a Worker Correspondent)
NEW YORK.-New York City is a mint for the dispensers of charity but poor pickings for the recipients.
The "Gold Dust Lodge" is a horrible example of the institutions provided for the housing of homeless workers in this city. It is a "paradise" in comparison with the municipal lodging house. Here is a description of this "eden."
The "lodge" occupies a six-story warehouse at the East River and there are twenty-two hundred men existing in there from day to day.
They eat two "meals." A dish of prunes for the "guest" with bread and black coffee in the morning and an equally rotten meal at night.
The discipline while rigid is not harsh. However, one's self-respect is injured wherever he turns. Only those who have no better place to go and to keep from quick starvation go to the "lodge."
After he is given a bed number and listens to the "address of welcome" delivered by one of the Salvation Army officers who run the place.
This is given after the "religious" services and all are herded downstairs where they remove their clothing except the socks and shoes.
The garments are checked by bed number, the "guest" receiving a tag which he hangs about his neck. He does his share of the work, all being called at stated intervals.
Those working in the kitchen gang receive "compensation." Their coffee is sugared and they eat an additional meal! They go to work at five in the morning.
Coffee, oatmeal, oleomargerine and bread are provided by certain manufacturers, yet the portions provided do not satisfy the hungry men. Those who dropped to the mission-stiff level (defeated dispirited workers-Ed.) panhandle for the funds with which to buy food and tobacco which all classes of workers crave. Bumming the butts of another's smoke is a common practice and matches are a luxury.
95 Per Cent Penniless
Ninety-five per cent of the workers are penniless. They come from the seamen, sales workers, restaurant workers, mechanics, actors, etc. Over sixty per cent are over 60 years of age, 36 per cent over fifty and the rest under 50.
The place is depressing: the dope handed out by the "colonel" rightly uninspiring and I think most cruelly facetious when visitors are present.
Evening services are small in attendance.
These represent the most unfortunate victims of capitalism. For the sake of argument, I will admit, they are better off than if they were in jail. "No one is really starving," says Washington. Maybe not but then thousands are dying of "mal-nutrition." One can see the ambulance here daily carting them off to the hospital for "attention."