National Affairs: Destitution

In Manhattan last week Subway Motorman Fred Floodgate had shut off his power and was coasting his northbound express into the West noth Street station when he caught a blurred glimpse of a slim, blonde woman poised on the edge of the platform. The next instant there was a downward flutter of a black-and-tan dress. Motorman Floodgate’s hand stiffened on the emergency brake control. Clamped wheels shrieked. The train slid 50 ft. before stopping. Ten minutes later police gathered from the tracks the bloody remains of Elsie Green, 38. Her purse on the platform contained 55¢. A clerk, long jobless, she had died in a manner favored by many a New York suicide.

In Cleveland last week men and women began knotting themselves into a mob before a branch office of the Associated Charities on St. Clair Avenue. Most of them were jobless. Donato Ferrante and Ben Favorito, their leaders, told them Associated Charities were deliberately starving them. The crowd yelled their assent to direct action. They would raid the branch office, get the wherewithal for one square meal. Suddenly six squads of police trotted up, threw themselves about the office. The mob of 800 was about to charge when the police set off tear gas. The raiders fell back blubbering. Police clubs broke the rest of the attack. Donato Ferrante and Ben Favorito were arrested for disorderly conduct.

Also, last week, the following happened:

¶In Manhattan Rocco Colonna, 33, unemployed musician, leaped to the tracks in the 42nd Street station of the new $191,200,000 Eighth Avenue Subway, opened two days before. Before a train appeared he was dragged up with a broken leg.

¶In Kansas City Dan McLaughlin, 75, weary wayfarer from Texas, knocked at the door of the General Hospital, said he had a pain in his stomach. Doctors found he needed food, sent him on to the Helping Hand. There he cut his wrists and throat, was carried back to the hospital. Said he to the doctors: “You didn’t want me yesterday. Now maybe you’ll take me this way. I’ve no job, no folks— nobody left. Why should I care?”

¶In Boston Dr. Towneley Thorndike French, 57, graduate of the Harvard Medical School, murdered his wife “because I was tired of living in abject poverty.” Six weeks ago Mrs. French was discharged as an elevator operator.

¶In Nice, France, Mrs. Helen Risso Carpenter, 35, U. S. citizen, tried to drug herself to death when her money gave out. She lived with her four children at Ville-franche.

¶In Manhattan William Bound, seaman, said “No” to a beggar. Police later found Seaman Bound lying on the sidewalk with stab wounds in chest, arm and shoulder.

¶In Pittsburgh, John Kane, 72, gave up art and his studio to return after five years to his old work of housepainting. Said he: “I’m tired of painting over canvases I’ve used before and I’m about out of paint. People can do without paintings but they must have money. I want a job.”

¶At Babylon, L. I. police found May Hardy, 38, A. E. F. trained nurse, starving in a maple grove on a private estate. For two weeks she had slept on a bundle of old rags and papers. She was penniless.

¶At Mahwah, N. J. Norman Falconer, 55, murdered his wife, killed himself. His explanation: “My brain just cracked. I have had many financial worries. I am terribly sorry.”

¶Near Los Angeles Mrs. Edna Porter Killian, 35, clubwoman, murdered her rancher husband Howard, killed herself because she was worried over finances. The Killians, both graduates of the University of California, were prominent among the landed gentry around El Monte.

¶In Oskaloosa, Iowa, Mrs. Myrtle Crump, 41, jobless school teacher, prepared to spend a second winter with her two children in a tented hole in the ground.

¶In Manhattan a desperate mother abandoned her two-month-old baby in an automobile parked in the night glare of Broadway. Her note: “His name is Billie. I have tried to keep him but I can’t keep myself. I am a young widow almost starving. . .”

¶At Flushing, L. I. William Henry Joseph Tubbs, 32, jobless & penniless, was ordered from his wife’s parents’ home when a bad check charge was about to overtake him. Before he disappeared, he killed his six-year-old son asleep in a crib.

¶In Boston, Clarence R. Heath, 47, branch manager of Colonial Life Insurance Co., took cyanide of potassium, died in a hotel room. Reason: “Business Reverses.”

¶In Cincinnati, Alva Wonnell, 59, high-school teacher famed for his penmanship, hanged himself in his basement. His salary had been cut. He feared dismissal.

¶In Milwaukee Ignatz Rewolinski, 250-Ib. policeman, was pushed through a window of a county food station, slightly cut, when a noonday breadline began to riot. Arrests: 13.

Also occurred last week many a suicide which had no apparent connection with the Great Depression. A Manhattan peanut peddler shot himself because he was ill. Because his daughter eloped, a Maryland farmer did away with himself. Unexplained suicides (in addition to dozens for traditional reasons) included a wealthy paper manufacturer, a retired Marine Corps major, an Army sergeant in the Canal Zone, a dress manufacturer, the social secretary of the wife of Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams, etc. etc.