"Within a stone's throw of this church are districts in which ten
men and women sleep in one room twelve feet square. New York is
the most crowded city in the world. London has seven people to a
house; we have sixteen. In two houses were found the other day one
hundred and thirty-six children. Death stalks through these crowded
alleys with scythe ever swinging.
"Shall we, too, desert?
"I hear the tread of coming thousands from these shadows who will
laugh at your flag, who know not the name of your President, or
your God, whose heavy hands upon your doors will summon you before
the tribunal of the knife, the torch, the bomb to make good your
right to live.
"When your population shall number ten millions, and the gulf between
the rich and poor shall have become impassable, some gigantic corner
shall have doubled the price of bread, starvation spread her black
wings, and idle thousands sullen and desperate begin to look with
darkening brows on your unprotected wealth, then will come the test
of modern society.
"This growth of the city is as resistless and inevitable as the
movement of time. Why people continue to turn their backs upon the
open fields and crowd into this great foul, rattling, crawling,
smoking, stinking, ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, oozing
poison at every pore, is beyond my ken, but they come.
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