RELIEF: Last Client

Overseer of the Poor in Hoboken for 42 of his 74 years was bluff, beefy Harry L. Barck. He thought during Depression that the State let the “Relief trust” turn public charity into a racket. Two years ago, when New Jersey turned administration of relief over to its municipalities, he proceeded to act on this belief by cutting Hoboken’s Relief rolls from 7,000 clients to 360. Tales were borne to the State capital at Trenton about Mr. Barck bawling out applicants, refusing to buy milk for families with small children. Poormaster Barck’s friends retorted that he was weeding out “chiselers,” had cut Hoboken’s Relief expenditures to $6,000 a month.

One day last week Poormaster Barck was interviewing applicants in his office. He had been attacked so often that Patrolman Louis Carmody stood on guard outside his door. The officer had just been asked to arrest Mrs. Lena Fusco for spitting in Mr. Barck’s face when into the office shuffled small Joseph Scutellaro, 36, an unemployed carpenter. Carpenter Scutellaro had received $5.70 for his wife and two babies since he applied for Relief in December.

Soon from behind the closed office door came angry voices, Harry Barck’s shout: “That’s all there is to it. Next!” But the door did not open. When an assistant and Patrolman Carmody opened it, they found Harry Barck clutching his chest, his last client standing white-faced near the wall. Ironical was the fact that during the interview a postman had delivered an $8 relief check at Joseph Scutellaro’s house, more ironical, the weapon with which Joseph Scutellaro, by his own confession, had dealt a mortal wound: the long spike on which Poormaster Barck stuck rejected applications.