HOW THE WORKING PEOPLE LIVE
238. =In Europe.=--A large proportion of the immigrants from Europe
have been peasants who have come out of rural villages to find a home
in the barracks of American cities. In the Old World they have lived
in houses that lacked comfort and convenience; they have worked hard
through a long day for small returns; and a government less liberal
and more burdened than the United States has mulcted them of much of
their small income by heavy taxes. Young men have lost two or three
years in compulsory military training, and their absence has kept the
women in the fields. From the barracks men often return with the
stigma of disease upon them, which, added to the common social evils
of intemperance and careless sex relations, keeps moral standards low.
Thousands of them are illiterate, few of them have time for
recreation, and those who do understand little of its possibilities.
Religion is largely a matter of inherited superstition, and as a
superior force in life is quite lacking. To people of this sort comes
the vision of a land where government is democratic, military
conscription is unknown, wages are high, and there is unlimited
opportunity to get ahead. Encouraged by agents of interested parties,
many a man accumulates or borrows enough money to pay his passage and
to get by the immigration officer on the American side, and faces
westward with high hope of bettering his condition.
239. =In America.=--On the pier in America he is met by a friend or
finds his way by force of gravity into the immigrant district of the
city. Usually unmarried, he is glad to find a boarding place with a
compatriot, who cheerfully admits him to a share of his small
tenement, because he will help to pay the rent. With assistance he
finds a job and within a week regards himself as an American. Later
if it seems worth while he will take steps to become a citizen, but
recently immigrants are less disposed to do this than formerly. Many
immigrants do not find their new home in the port of landing; they are
booked through to interior points or locate in a manufacturing town
within comfortable reach of the great city; but they find a place in
the midst of conditions that are not far different. Unskilled Italians
commonly join construction gangs, and for weeks at a time make their
home in a temporary shack which quickly becomes unsanitary. Wherever
the immigrant goes he tends to form foreign colonies and to reproduce
the low standards of living to which he has been accustomed. If he
could be introduced to better habits and surrounded with improved
conditions from the moment of his arrival he would gain much for
himself, and far more speedily would become assimilated into an
American; as it is, he is introducing foreign elements on a large
scale into a city life that is overburdened with problems already.
Changes in the manner of living are often for the worse. Instead of
their village houses set in the midst of the open fields here, they
herd like rabbits in overpopulated, unhealthy warrens, frequently
sleeping in rooms continually dark and ill-ventilated. They still work
for long hours, but here under conditions that breed discouragement
and disease, in the sweat-shop or the dingy factory, and often in an
occupation dangerous to life or limb. Though they are free from the
temptations of the military quarters, they find them as numerous at
the corner saloon and the brothel, and even in the overcrowded
tenement itself. If they bring over their families or marry here, they
can expect no better home than the tenement, unless they have the
courage to get out into the country, away from all that which is
familiar. Rather than do that or knowing no better way, they swarm
with others of their kind in the immigrant hive.
240. =Tenement House Conditions.=--In New York large tenements from
five to seven stories high, with three or four families on each floor,
shelter many thousands of the city's workers. These are often built
on lots too small to permit of air and light space between buildings.
Some of them contain over a hundred individuals. Three-fourths of the
population of Manhattan is in dwellings that house not less than
twenty persons each. The density of population is one hundred and
fifty to the acre. Twelve to eighteen dollars a month are charged for
a suite of four rooms, some of them no better than dark closets.
Instances can be multiplied where adults of both sexes and children
are crowded into one or two rooms, where they cook, eat, and sleep,
and where privacy is impossible. Thousands of children grow up
unmoral, if not immoral, because their natural sense of modesty and
decency has been blunted from childhood. The poorest classes live in
cellars that reek with disease germs of the worst kind, and sanitary
conditions are indescribable.
If these conditions were confined to the immigrant population,
Americans might shrug their shoulders and dismiss the subject with
disparaging remarks about the dirty foreigner, but housing conditions
like these are not restricted to the immigrant, whether he be Jew or
Gentile. The American working man who finds work in the factory towns
is little better off. The natural desire of landlords to spend as
little as possible on their property, and to get the largest possible
returns, makes it very difficult for the worker to find a suitable
home for his family that he can afford to pay for. Yet he must live
near his work to save time and expense. Old and dilapidated houses are
ready for his occupancy, but though they are often not so bad as the
large tenements, with their more attractive exteriors, they are not
fit dwellings for his growing family. A flat in a three-decker may be
obtained at a moderate rental, but such houses are usually poorly
built, of the flimsiest inflammable material, and they, too, lack
privacy and modern conveniences.
241. =Effects of these Conditions.=--It must not be supposed that
these evils have been overlooked. Building associations and private
philanthropists have erected improved tenements, and have proved that
the right sort of structures may be made paying investments. State
and municipal governments have appointed commissions and departments
on housing, fire protection has been provided, better sanitary
conditions have been enforced, and hopelessly bad buildings have been
destroyed. But slums grow faster than they can be improved, and the
rapidly growing tenement districts need more drastic and comprehensive
measures than have yet been taken. The housing problem affects the
tenant first of all, and in countless instances his unwholesome
environment is ruining his health, ability, and character; but it also
affects the community and the nation, for persons produced by such an
environment do not make good citizens. The roots of family life are
destroyed, gaunt poverty and loathsome disease hold hands along dark
and dirty stairways and through the halls, foul language mingles with
the foul air, and drunkenness is so common as to excite no remark.
Sexual impurity finds its nest amid the darkness and ill-endowed
children swarm in the streets.
242. =Possible Improvements.=--There must be some way out of these
evil conditions that is practicable and that will be permanent. Those
who are interested in housing reform favor two kinds of
measures--first, the prevention of building in the future the kind of
houses that have become so common but so unsatisfactory, and the
improvement of those already in existence; second, provision of
inexpensive, attractive, and sanitary dwellings outside of the city,
and cheap and rapid transit to and from the places of labor. Both of
these methods are practicable either by voluntary association or State
action, and both are called for by the social need of the present.
There are definite principles to be observed in the redistribution of
population. The principle of association calls for group life in a
neighborhood, and it is as idle to think that people from the slums
can be contented on isolated farms as it is to suppose that they can
be converted readily into prosperous American agriculturists. Close
connection with the town is indispensable. The principle of adaptation
demands that the new homes shall answer to the needs of the people
for whom they are provided, and that the neighborhood shall be suited
to those needs. The houses will need to be enough better than those in
town to offset the greater effort of travel. The principle of control
demands that the new life of the people be regulated as effectively as
it can be by municipal authority, and if necessary that such municipal
authority be extended or State authority be localized. There are
difficulties in the way of all such enterprises, but social welfare
requires improvements in the way the working people live.
It is notorious that immigrants and working people generally have
larger families than the well-to-do. The children of the city streets
form a class of future citizens that deserve most careful attention.
The problem of the tenement and the flat is especially serious,
because they are the factories of human life. There the next
generation is in the making, and there can be no doubt about the
quality of the product if conditions continue as they are. It is
important to inquire how the children live, what are their occupations
and means of recreation, their moral incentives and temptations, and
their opportunities for the development of personality.
243. =How the Children Live.=--The best way to understand how the
children live is to put oneself in their place. Imagine waking in the
morning in a stuffy, overcrowded room, eating a slice of bread or an
onion for breakfast and looking forward to a bite for lunch and an
ill-cooked evening meal, or in many cases starting out for the day
without any breakfast, glad to leave the tenement for the street, and
staying there throughout waking hours, when not in school, using it
for playground, lunch-room, and loafing-place, and regarding it as
pleasanter than home. Imagine going to school half fed and poorly
clothed, sometimes the butt of a playmate's gibes because of a drunken
father or a slatternly mother, required to study subjects that make no
appeal to the child and in a language that is not native, and then
back to the street, perhaps to sell papers until far into the night,
or to run at the beck and call of the public as a messenger boy. Many
a child, in spite of the public opposition to child labor, is put to
work to help support the family, and department store and bootblack
parlor are conspicuous among their places of occupation. Mills and
factories employ them for special kinds of labor, and States are lax
in the enforcement of child-labor laws after they are on the statute
books.
244. =The Street Trades.=--Employment in the street trades is very
common among the children of the tenements. There are numerous
opportunities to peddle fruit and small wares at a small wage;
messenger and news boys are always in demand, and the bootblacking
industry absorbs many of the immigrant class. By these means the
family income is pieced out, sometimes wholly provided, but the ill
effects of such child labor are disturbing to the peace of mind of the
well-wishers of children. Street labor works physical injury from
exposure to inclement weather and to accident, from too great fatigue,
and from irregular habits of eating and sleeping. It provokes resort
to stimulants and sows the seeds of disease, vice, and petty crime.
Moral deterioration follows from the bad habits formed, from the
encouragement to lawbreaking and independence of parental authority,
and from the evil environment of the people and places with which they
come into contact. Children are susceptible to the influence of their
elders, and easily form attachments for those who treat them well.
Saloons and disorderly houses are their patrons, and when still young
the children learn to imitate those whom they see and hear. Even for
the children who do not work, the street has its influence for evil.
The street was intended as a means of transit, not for trade or play,
but it is the most convenient place for games and social enjoyments of
all sorts. The little people become familiar with profane and obscene
language, with quarrelling and dishonesty, and even with more serious
crime, and no intellectual education in the schoolroom can counteract
the moral lessons of the street.
245. =Playgrounds.=--Various experiments for keeping children off the
street have been proposed and tried. Vacation schools in the summer
provide interesting occupations and talks for those who can be
induced to attend; their success is assured, but they reach only a
small part of the children. Gymnasiums in the winter attract others of
the older class, but the most useful experiments are equipped and
supervised playgrounds. For the small children sand piles have met the
desire for occupation, and kindergarten games have satisfied the
instinct for association. The primitive nature of the child demanded
change, and one kind of game after another was added for those of
different ages. Swings, climbing ladders, and poles are always
popular, and for the older boys opportunities for ball playing,
skating, and coasting. All these activities must be under control. The
characteristics of children on the playground are the same as those of
their elders in society. Authority and instruction are as necessary as
in school; indeed, playgrounds are a supplement to the indoor
education of American children.
246. =The City School.=--The school is expected to be the
foster-mother of every American child, whether native or adopted. It
is expected to take the children from the avenue and the slum, those
with the best influences of heredity and environment, and those with
the worst, those who are in good health and those who are never well,
and putting them all through the same intellectual process, to turn
out a finished product of boys and girls qualified for American
citizenship. It is an unreasonable expectation, and the American
school falls far short of meeting its responsibility. It often has to
work with the poorest kind of material, sometimes it has to feed the
pupil before his mental powers can get to work. It has to see that the
physical organs function properly before it can get satisfactory
intellectual results. The school is the victim of an educational
system that was made to fit other conditions than those of the
present-day city; the whole system needs reconstructing, but the
management is conservative, ignorant, or parsimonious in many cases,
or too radical and given to fads and experiments. Yet, in spite of all
its faults and delinquencies, the public schools of the city are the
hope of the future.
The school is the melting-pot of the city's youth. It is the
training-school of municipal society. In the absence of family
training it provides the social education that is necessary to equip
the child for life. It accustoms him to an orderly group life and
establishes relations with others of similar age from other streets or
neighborhoods than those with which he is familiar. It teaches him how
intelligent public opinion is formed, and brings him within the circle
of larger interests than those with which he is naturally connected.
He learns how to accommodate himself to the group rather than to fight
or worm his way through for a desired end, as is the method of the
street. He learns good morals and good manners. He finds out that
there are better ways of expressing his ideas than in the slang of the
alley, and in time he gains an understanding of a social leadership
that depends on mental and moral superiority instead of physical
strength or agility. As he grows older he becomes acquainted with the
worth of established institutions, and his hand is no longer against
every man and every man's hand against him. He likes to share in the
social activities that occur as by-products of the school--the musical
and dramatic entertainments, the athletic contests, and the debating
and oratorical rivalries. By degrees he becomes aware that he is a
responsible member of society, that he is an individual unit in a
great aggregation of busy people doing the work of the world, and that
the school is given him to make it possible for him to play well his
part in the activities of the city and nation to which he belongs.
READING REFERENCES
VEILLER: _Housing Reform_, pages 3-46.
RIIS: _How the Other Half Lives._
CLOPPER: _Child Labor in the City Streets._
MARTIN: "Exhibit of Congestion," art. in _The Survey_,20: 27-39.
GOODYEAR: "Household Budgets of the Poor," art. in _Charities_,
16: 191-197.
"The Pittsburgh Survey," arts, in _The Survey_, vol. 21.
LEE: _Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy_, pages 109-184.