Sometimes I become afraid of my own generalizations upon the massed
misery of this Ghetto life, and feel that my impressions are exaggerated,
that I am too close to the picture and lack perspective. At such moments
I find it well to turn to the testimony of other men to prove to myself
that I am not becoming over-wrought and addle-pated. Frederick Harrison
has always struck me as being a level-headed, well-controlled man, and he
says:-
To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as
hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of
industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the
actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own
beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room
that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as
much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance
of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are
housed, for the most part, in places that no man thinks fit for his
horse; are separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a
month of bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to
face with hunger and pauperism .
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