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And there are many such. Months of idleness, a diet of bread and coffee, all the horrors of shivering nights in the open or in vermin-infested flop houses, the morning rush for the “help wanted” pages of the daily papers, the standing in line for hours waiting to apply for a job—a hundred men for a single position—would these things not take the heart, nay, the very soul itself, out of a man?

When I was discharged last month, losing my position because of a general retrenchment, never shall I forget the scenes at the Public Library when with scores of others I sought the protection of its sheltering walls at early morning to thaw the night’s coldness out of my half-frozen body, and search the papers for a possible chance of employment.

One young man in the huddled group interested me immensely. When the doors swung open, he bounded up the stairs like an athlete, well in the lead of the rushing horde who refused to wait for the elevator in their frenzied scramble for the first chance at a paper and possible employment. Well-dressed, palpably clean living and efficient, he was an excellent type of the successful young business man. I could picture him as a broker, in an insurance office or bank, or filling some responsible position in a business house. But in the fall of many such houses, his had evidently gone down to ruin and now the lad was beginning to feel the pinch that comes from weeks of idleness.