Several times we stopped to talk with these people--one little
Jewess girl I knew whose three tiny sisters had been roasted alive
in a sweatshop fire. This child had jumped from a fourth-story
window, and been miraculously caught by a fireman. She said that
some man had started the fire, and been caught, but the police had
let him get away. So I had to explain to Sylvia that curious
bye-product (sic) of the profit system known as the "Arson Trust."
Authorities estimated that incendiarism was responsible for the
destruction of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of property in
America every year. So, of course, the business of starting fires
was a paying one, and the "fire-bug," like the "cadet" and the
dive-keeper, was a part of the "system." So it was quite a possible
thing that the man who had burned up this little girl's three
sisters might have been allowed to escape.
I happened to say this in the little girl's hearing, and I saw her
pitiful strained eyes fixed upon Sylvia. Perhaps this lovely,
soft-voiced lady was a fairy god-mother, come to free her sisters
from an evil spell and to punish the wicked criminal! I saw Sylvia
turn her head away, and search for her handkerchief; as we groped
our way down the dark stairs, she caught my hand, whispering: "Oh,
my God! my God!"
It had even more effect than I had intended; not only did she say
that she would do something--anything that would be of use--but she
told me as we rode back home that her mind was made up to stop the
squandering of her husband's money.
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