Children of the City

by David Nasaw

  In Philadelphia, the police and courts, undeterred by lack of legislation, started their own campaign to rid the streets of the newsboy menace. For “agitating and frightening mothers and others who have relatives in the war, several Philadelphia newsboys [were] fined, or given the alternative of spending a term in jail.”42

  In those helter-skelter days of journalism between the Spanish-American War and World War I, the newsies shouting the headlines were as much a part of the urban street scene as the lampposts on every corner. Informing the world of the latest calamities, they broadcast the news with an immediacy and enthusiasm no other medium could approach. Not all city residents, however, appreciated the service. The boys, to be sure, made a lot of noise. They also shouted their headlines in immigrant and working-class accents that grated on the ears of those in the high-priced neighborhoods and hotel districts who preferred to spend their evenings in total isolation from the raucous elements of urban life. As one disturbed resident of New York City wrote to the New York Times in the summer of 1912, the boys had become “an unmitigated nuisance in the neighborhoods they invade” and a serious health hazard to those “who are sick or nervous.… Doctors will testify that the chances of recovery for their patients are sometimes seriously impaired by the raucous shouts portentous of calamity.”43

  Had the boys been more quiet, refined, and middle-class in their manners and accent, they might have offended fewer people. An Atlanta judge, recognizing the class bias inherent in the city ordinance forbidding the boys to hawk their papers after eight in the evening, threw it out of court, claiming that the boys had every right to “cry their papers on the streets so long as they do not block traffic or disturb the sick.… The sidewalks are for the newsboys as well as the millionaires.”44 In New York City, Mayor Gaynor firmly but politely rebuffed a series of New York Times letter writers who complained about the “young foreigners” and their “offensive” pronunciation and voices. “They do not disturb me any,” declared the Mayor. The newsies of El Paso and Seattle were not as lucky. In these cities, ordinances were passed forbidding the boys to shout after hours or within certain areas of the city.45

  The newsies made a lot of noise because it was fun, part of their public service as unofficial town criers, and the only way they knew to advertise their wares. When the news was a bit stale, tame, or just plain dull, it was the newsie who sold the paper by creating the excitement the headline lacked. Regrettably there were days, weeks, even months when the news was so slow and the headlines so tame that not even the most imaginative and energetic hustlers could sell out the edition. The worst times were those following extended periods of crisis. In his poem “Post-Bellum,” Dean Collins, a Portland (Oregon) newsie, described the boys’ plight in the days following the close of World War I:

  A newsboy with his papers sat sighing on the street,

  For the cruel war was over and the foe had met defeat.

  And the scare-heads in the dailies, they had vanished like a spell,

  And the liveliest thing the newsie had was market heads to yell.

  “O, maybe Sherman had it right,” said he, “but wars must cease—

  And Sherman never tried to peddle papers when ’twas peace.”

  “They used to saw an extra off each half hour by the clock.

  And we used to wake the echoes when we whooped ’em down the block.

  War may be just what Sherman said it was, but just the same,

  If Sherman were a newsie, O, I wonder what he’d think

  Of peddling papers after peace had put things on the blink?”

  “How can I jar the people loose to buy the sheet and read,

  If I start yelling ’bout the rise in price of clover seed?

  When they are used to war and smoke and sulphur burning blue,

  Will they warm up to read about the W.C.T.U.?

  O, Maybe Sherman had it right on war—but wars must cease—

  And Sherman never tried to peddle papers after peace.”46

  What is most remarkable about the poem is its candor. The poem was printed in a newspaper put out by the boys to raise money for their club, clubhouse, and organized activities. They used the publication to emphasize their patriotism and their promise as future citizens. And yet, no one at the paper, neither the poet nor his editors or publishers, saw fit to exclude or at least tone down the sentiments expressed. While the rest of the nation celebrated the cessation of hostilities, the newsboys published a poem mourning the Great War’s untimely conclusion.

  The newsies had been so corrupted by their business that they no longer knew when to keep quiet. They had learned to worship the bottom line. What mattered was the number of papers sold. If war, catastrophe, and tragedy sold the most, then they would gladly parade them through the streets. Modesty, humility, honesty—it was clear—won no prizes and sold no papers. The boys who shouted the loudest and twisted the headlines most creatively earned the most. All was fair on the streets. What counted was that you got the change, not how you got it.

  The children, as we shall see, could be quite scrupulous in their dealings with one another. Their customers were another story.

  The newsies had two sources of income: sales and tips. To sell their papers, they advertised their headlines, stretching the truth to make the news more exciting. To secure their tips, they employed all the tricks they knew. Tips didn’t just happen. They had to be coaxed out of the customers’ pockets.

  Since most afternoon papers cost a penny, customers with a nickel had to either wait for their four pennies in change or leave a 400 percent tip. The more frantic the customers, the more time the newsies took fishing the change out of their pockets. Early in the afternoon, they might claim to be out of change and suggest that if the customer just waited a moment, they would scurry round the corner to get it from the candy store. In such cases, the boys stood a good chance—as they knew—of being told to keep the change. Alexander Fleisher, who kept track of such things, estimated that in up to 33 percent of street sales, newsies without change or slow to make it ended up with “a larger coin than the sale call[ed] for.”47

  Next to dashing commuters, drunks were the softest touch for newsies on the prowl. The reformers feared that the boys hung out at saloons because they wanted free drinks. The truth was different. The boys knew that the drunker the customer, the easier it was to shortchange or coax a tip out of him. Harry Bremer, in his unpublished study of New York City newsies, recorded the following conversations with a twelve-year-old who claimed to specialize in squeezing tips from drunks outside saloons.

  “ ‘A man’ll give yer a quarter, and yer’ll say yer ain’t got change and he’ll tell yer to go get some and yer’ll go and won’t come back.’

  “ ‘And leave him standing on the curb?’

  “ ‘Sure! He’ll wait for yer. Last Saturday a man gave me $5, and I didn’t have change—so he told me to get some. I tried one store and they didn’t have it—and I went to another and they didn’t have it—and I went back and saw the man standing on the corner and I went around the other way!’

  Syracuse, New York, February 1910. “Group of Italian newsies on South Avenue, selling in saloons and stores. Had just come out of saloon in front of which they are standing. Behind them are two typical saloon-patrons who insist on being in the picture. 10 P.M. Cold. Snowing.” (Lewis Hine Collection, NCLC)

  “ ‘What did you do with it?’

  “ ‘Gave it to my mother.’

  “ ‘All of it?’

  “ ‘No, I kept half for myself and spent it.’ ”48

  Prostitutes were also big tippers. Harry Golden, who “hawked papers from the corner of Delancey and Norfolk,” made regular trips to Allen Street, the Lower East Side’s red-light district, where he earned his tips by running “occasional errands for the whores who lived there. They always gave me an extra nickel for delivering the paper and another nickel for running to the grocery store or the soft-drink stand.” In Chicago, investigators for the
Vice Commission were startled and upset by similar business arrangements between prostitutes and the children who ran their errands and delivered their newspapers.49

  Some children stole their tips, some chased them, others performed for them, preying on the sympathy of the “Americans” who felt sorry for the poor children peddling their papers. The evenings, especially Saturday nights during the cold weather months, were the best times to perform for tips. The children dressed for the occasion and chose their locations with care. In Syracuse, Mrs. W. J. Norton, a member of the city’s Social Service Club, found a “small boy of eleven” standing outside a saloon for three quarters of an hour “weeping in a most realistic fashion as a possible customer approached. Again and again he had spasms of weeping at the opportune time. His paper bag was soon empty.” Florence Kelley, at the time Secretary of the National Consumers’ League, reported having seen in New York City “a little boy, a very ill-fed, wretched, shabby little boy, offering papers for sale at a quarter to twelve o’clock, midnight, at the door of the women’s hotel, the Martha Washington Hotel. He seemed to be speculating on the pity of women who might be coming home late from theater or opera to that hotel.”50

  The Saturday night newsies were a mixed group. Some were regulars who sold every night of the week, others hustled the Sunday papers only. The Sunday papers, a recent publishing innovation, had become a necessary source of information and entertainment for city and suburban residents.51 The first editions arrived on the streets late Saturday night, in time to reach the downtown crowds on their way home from the movie palaces, music halls, and restaurants.

  The boys followed the crowds through the streets from the entertainment districts to the after-hours clubs and eating places and then to their train stations and ferry terminals. Saturday night was a good time for sales and tips. The streets were crowded with people who, after an evening of fun, had more trouble than usual resisting the importunings of the young merchants. Myers Diamond, who hustled Hershey’s chocolate bars with almonds in front of the Lyric Theater on Market Street in Newark, sold four times more bars on Saturday nights than on weeknights. According to Scott Nearing, the Philadelphia newsies made as much on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings as “during the remainder of the week.”52

  The newsies who sold the Sunday papers stayed up with the downtown crowds, then got up again on Sunday mornings to sell their papers to the rest of the city. Some remained downtown all night, sleeping between editions in the newspaper offices or nearby. Their work schedules were determined by the newspapers’ publishing schedule. In Baltimore, the boys began the evening hawking the Philadelphia papers, which arrived about 10:00 P.M. At 1:30 A.M. they moved on to the local Baltimore editions. In Chicago, at the Loop, the boys sold from midnight, when the first edition appeared, until the early morning hours. In New York City, they could be found in the Times Square area, papers in hand, from early in the evening to well after midnight. Jersey City newsies sold from 12:30 to 2:30 A.M., then slept a few hours “under the car shed at the ferry” or in the ferry house so they’d be up and ready for their Sunday morning customers. Business was so good in Jersey City and Elizabeth that the boys took the ferry into New York City to get the papers on Saturday night rather than wait for the regular delivery later in the morning.53

  The newsies on the town on a Saturday night tried their best to behave as the “Americans” believed they should: with charm and servility. The newsie who tipped his cap, opened restaurant and car doors, and exhibited his respect for his betters had a good chance at a sizable tip.

  According to child labor reformers, tips were so plentiful that many boys carried papers only as a front. Their real money was made begging tips. In this age of conspicuous consumers, the most conspicuous of all were the big spenders who lavished tips on doormen, waiters, cabbies, and newsies. The children went out of their way to encourage the practice. Scott Nearing, at the time Secretary of the Pennsylvania Child Labor Committee, was particularly bothered by the boys’ shameless behavior in embarrassing tips out of customers who could not afford them. “A bashful young man, taking his best girl to the theater for the first time, is particularly ‘easy,’ and the newsboys ‘spot’ him at once and are sure that if they do not sell a paper, they will at least get a nickel for their pains.”54

  Though most newsies could not have resisted teasing a tip out of a “bashful young man,” they were on the lookout for bigger game. Harry Bremer, who made several outings to Times Square in his capacity as special investigator for the National Child Labor Committee, described in his own dispassionate prose the Saturday evening he spent “following two boys, one not more than eleven years old, and the other about thirteen,” as they canvassed the area in search of fine-looking ladies and gentlemen with change in their pockets. Bremer trailed after the boys “from the Criterion Theatre on 44th Street, through this street to the Hudson and Belasco theatres, then on to the Hippodrome, back across 42nd Street to Broadway and down to the Knickerbocker Theatre at 38th Street. By this time it was about 11:45 and the crowd had thinned, so the boys started west across 39th Street for home. At each theatre and in the crowd on 42nd Street they thrust lighted matches at cigar ends and waited for tips, and in some cases went right up to people and asked for money. One case of this kind is worthy of note. At the Hudson a middle aged gentleman was standing with two ladies. There was nothing about him to suggest any service to be rendered yet the little fellow stepped up to him, and in a few seconds I saw the man hand the boys some change, pennies and a white coin that might have been a nickel or a dime.”55

  As the evening wore on, the children grew bolder. Taking advantage of the late hour and adult compassion for children who should have been home in bed, the newsies practiced what the reformers called the “last paper ploy.” Feigning exhaustion, cold, hunger, or all three, the children begged passers-by to buy their last papers so they could go home. As Edward Clopper, reformer and author, observed, “A kind-hearted person readily falls a victim to this ruse, and as soon as he has passed by, the newsboy draws another copy from his hidden supply and repeats his importuning.”56

  In Chicago, Elsa Wertheim, special officer of the Juvenile Protective Association, found a pair of brothers working this hustle. “Johnnie [seven years old] accosted the passer-by with his ‘last paper,’ while Harry [thirteen] concealed himself in a doorway with all the rest of their stock, and pocketed the money as soon as the customer’s back was turned.” On his Saturday night tour of Times Square, Harry Bremer saw the trick worked to perfection. “In front of the Republic Theatre on West 42nd Street, I saw three boys between the ages of eleven and thirteen. One had two papers, another had one, and the third had none. I bought the paper from the boy who had only one and in answer to my question he said he would now go home.… A half hour later, at 11:15 P.M. I returned to this spot and mixed with the crowd leaving the theatre. As I had anticipated the three boys were on the job dodging in and out of the crowd looking for opportunities to do something that would procure tips. The boy from whom I had bought the last paper, and who said he would go home, had procured another ‘last’ paper.”57

  Hartford, March 1909. “A common case of teamwork. Joseph, the smaller boy goes into the saloon and sells his ‘last paper.’ When he comes out his brother gives him more. Joseph said, ‘Drunks are my best customers. I sell more’n me brudder does. Day buy me out so I kin go home.’ He sells every afternoon and night, and extra late on Saturday. At 6 A.M. Sunday he is at it again.” (Lewis Hine Collection, NCLC)

  The newsies were shameless when it came to soliciting sales and tips. Far from home and family, farther yet from school and teachers, they accepted the ethics of the street huckster as their own. If a bit of chicanery, an ounce of deception, a little playacting brought more sales, so be it. “Let the Buyer Beware.” They, the sellers, were doing nothing illegal. They were merely performing for their public, extending and enlarging the truth like the headlines they shouted through the streets, cultivating a
n image like the ads in the papers they hawked. Why not, if it would add to their earnings, accentuate their poverty? Why not parade the fact that they were cold and poorly clad and in need of the change their customers carried in their pockets? Why not put on a show?

  Such business practices, though not illegal, were roundly condemned by the reformers, who urged the public not to leave tips or buy “last papers.” Adults who rewarded child duplicity, they suggested, were being taken for fools and, along the way, contributing to the delinquency of minors.58

  It is easy to ridicule the reformers for their fears. Twelve-year-old newsies who pulled the “last paper ploy” were not in training for careers as pickpockets and hoodlums. They were, however, as the reformers understood, being swiftly corrupted by their success. The children were learning that there was no such thing as morality in the marketplace. Whatever sold goods and elicited tips was fine with them. They had absorbed the very worst lessons the business world had to offer: how to cheat, lie, and swindle customers. Eleven- to fifteen-year-olds who should have been getting their moral instruction from school, church, and, if they were fortunate, home, were growing up on the streets with the morals and values of sideshow barkers and snake oil salesmen.

  The reformers broadcast their fears—and their warnings—in public meetings, pamphlets, and scores of press releases reprinted in the daily papers. Adults who should have known better ignored their pleas. They were not fooled by the child “hams” who wept for their tips. Most of them probably had a good idea what was going on, but continued, nonetheless, to buy papers and leave tips.

  The more prosperous Americans, on their way home from business or pleasure, saw what they wanted to see in the city left behind. The children of the street were not, to their eyes, the exploited, deprived children the reformers had described, but a band of little merchants selling their wares. Some were dirty, some ragged; some scowled, some whimpered; but they were all on the streets for a noble cause: to make money for their families—and themselves. Here were scores of children who had adopted the American credo, who believed in hard work, hustle, and long hours, who were on their way up the ladder to success. With the help of kindly benefactors who bought their goods and left tips, these children would raise themselves from poverty to prosperity.