CHAPTER 4. SOCIAL WORK 47
Soon the man came in shouting "I want my gas and light bill paid." I told him quietly that they were already paid. "I don't get enough cornmeal," he said. "What part of the South do you come from?" I asked, knowing that no person in the north asks for cornmeal. "I come from Baldwin County, Alabama," was the answer. "I used to teach history in Fairhope" was my reply. "You know my kind; I won't argue with you," said he smiling. The fact was that the nice clean social workers tried to clean up this old man who was born dirty, born with a tendency to drunkenness, lying and laziness; and they wore themselves out and aggravated him in their efforts. I visited this family every two weeks for four years and concentrated on the teen age children, so that they wanted a better environment and raised the standards of the family. They moved to a better neighborhood and got off relief. About this time the old man asked me for a pair of shoes. I said, "what did you do with the pair you got last month; sell them for booze?" "No, my buddy and I were up north looking for work and got caught in a storm and came to a cabin, Here we rested over night and put our shoes to dry by the stove and when we got up they were all turned up and we couldn't get them on." "And you came home in your bare feet; tell us another one old man," was my quick reply. He broke out laughing. If I had called him a liar he would have knocked me down. And he didn't get the shoes.
In the early days of the depression the rules were very strict and many who needed help did not get it. Whenever I found it necessary to break a rule I would do so. Once I moved a large family who had been evicted to a place where the rental was above schedule; then I took the rent voucher to my boss and asked him to sign it. "You can't do that," he said. "I already have done it. You do it for your friends; I'm doing it for some one who has no friends." If I did not do this too often I got by with it.
One angry Italian client went to a distribution station and broke a chair over the head of the man in charge. I was sent to his home to make peace. He lived the third flight up and when I knocked on the door it was opened and a chair was raised toward my head. When he saw me he smiled and said "O.k. you're all right Hennacy." Several months before I had visited him and in the course of my conversation had praised Sacco and Vanzetti, not knowing in what good stead it would stand me now.
A group of clients who called themselves the 17th Ward Taxpayers Club wrote to the Governor asking that problems of relief be explained to them. This was a tough neighborhood. My boss called me in and said that he was not going there and lose his temper and get in a fight and lose his job. He asked me to speak for him. I took an Irish friend along, Ray Callahan, the president of the union, in order that anything I might say would not be misquoted. The meeting was in a dance hall in the rear of a saloon. There was standing room only. When I was introduced I said: "You folks did not come here to hear my boss talk; you did not come here to hear me talk; you came here to hear yourselves talk. Go ahead, and if I can answer your questions I will do so, and if I can't I will admit it." "Why didn't the so and so bastard boss come here himself" someone shouted. I knew the details of many rules and regulations and explained them but did not defend them. I gave the anarchist argument of
