Third.—Whenever labor organizations by reason of false leaders have made

unfair demands or established conditions which were unfair to the

employer, it has been because of the use of collective force against the

individual employer, and this has been defeated whenever the employers

have organized similar associations for their own defence.

Fourth.—That strikes for advance in wages and improvement of

condition—occurring, as they do, during a period of prosperity—usually

succeed, while strikes for recognition of the union, usurpation of the

rights of the employer or against the reduction of wages almost

invariably fail in their purpose.

Assuming that the employer is governed by honesty of purpose in dealing

with labor, and that the employee is equally honest in his desire to

give worth for wages, the organization of both parties must slowly but

surely remove force as the means of securing results, and cause a resort

to reason and conciliation as the best means to accomplish the greatest

value for both.

There are two great obstacles which prevent the substitution of these

means of settling the labor question at present, and which must be first

removed before better conditions can be realized.

On the part of the employer there is the refusal (usually sentimental)

to recognize the union, and the determination to destroy it. He forgets

that his effort to destroy the union presupposes his recognition of it,

else he would be fighting a nightmare, while the recognition in fact

would enable him to learn its scope, purposes, and plans, and by

co-operation secure a valuable ally instead of an unreasonable enemy.

In the use of the word union, I desire always to be understood to refer

to such organizations of workingmen as are conducted along reasonable

lines and are led by representatives worthy of the best element

composing the membership, who formulate their demands in harmony with

known business conditions and control their movements within the lines

of law and order, because when they assume any other condition they are

simply mobs, and deserve only the condemnation of every worthy citizen.

The obstacle on the part of labor is the effort to establish the idea

that recognition of the union implies more than the agreement to make

collective bargains between employer and employee at such times as a

change in business conditions demands or permits, or to insist that it

conveys the right to enforce rules and methods in the conduct of the

business without the consent or co-operation of the employer.

To remove these obstacles and establish a condition of harmony and

mutual prosperity, the employer must not forget that wage-earners have

formed powerful associations for the purpose of advancing and protecting

their interests, and have delegated their individual power to, and

placed their confidence in, the officers of their unions.

That these officers are in many cases far above the average of their

craftsmen, and their highest ambition is to better the condition of

their fellow-workmen.

That the aggressive methods of labor unions are very frequently caused

by the determination of the employer to destroy them, without giving

them a chance to be heard in their own defence.

That in the conduct of business involving large investment for plant,

and the employment of a large number of men, able management is required

to secure the best results from machinery and power, but good government

is necessary to secure the highest efficiency of men, and the best

government is that which is founded on the consent of the governed.

That responsibility for the performance of such an agreement as should

exist between employer and employee cannot be measured by legal or

financial standard, but can be safely based on individual integrity, and

in this I have found that a very large majority of the workingmen in

this country hold an agreement which is made for them by the officers of

their union as binding them in every sense of the word.

That the organization of associations of employers in kindred branches

of industry tends to uniformity in method of regulating the employment

of men, and at the same time affords protection against the demands

which may be unfair or the strife which may be instigated by unwise

leaders of organized labor.

The employee must not forget:

That the right to be a union man implies also the right to be a

non-union man.

That no honest employer can discriminate between the men in his employ,

or recognize the right of any body of men to determine whom he shall

employ.

That the effort to establish a minimum rate of wage, if based upon the

lowest standard of efficiency, destroys the earning power of the more

competent workman and lowers the standard of all.

That the effort to limit production is false in principle, and can only

succeed, if at all, when the demand is in excess of the supply, and when

it succeeds, it causes the creation of methods and machines which

supplant the skill of the mechanic and bring into competition a lower

grade of labor at a lower wage.

That the effort to create a monopoly by attempting to retard the

privilege of the American boy to acquire a trade is destructive to the

best interests of a progressive nation.

That the laws, rules and methods of labor unions must be changed to

conform with present conditions, if the union hopes to be recognized as

a factor in the adjustment of the labor problem.

That the right to strike, or refuse to work, under certain conditions,

does not involve the right to prevent others from working, if the

conditions are satisfactory to them, and involves responsibility for all

the damage that may arise.

That the standard of wage cannot be measured by the standard of time

employed, or energy expended, but by the results attained.

These, and many other differences which might be enumerated, are the

causes which make for strife and dissent, and prevent the harmony which

should exist for the mutual benefit of both classes. These differences

can only be removed or harmonized by honest and intelligent conferences

between the employer and employee, and to bring about such conferences

is the purpose and aim of the National Civic Federation. The success of

the effort promises, for the employer, the markets of the world; for the

employee, continued and increasing profits; for the country, industrial

peace and better citizens.

HARMONIZING LABOR AND CAPITAL BY MEANS OF INDUSTRIAL PARTNERSHIP

By ALEXANDER PURVES

Treasurer, Hampton Institute, Virginia

In this age of business supremacy, when trade has become the leading

science and merchandising an art; when sentiment is being pushed aside

by the forward rush of commercialism, and expediency seems to be

successfully competing with morality; when one is almost persuaded that

the Church itself, to survive, must be conducted with business sagacity,

one is compelled to acknowledge the futility of urging any plan for the

reformation of the existing relations between capital and labor with

serious hopes for its present consideration and possible adoption,

except the same shall be able to prove its principles to be in accord

with good business policy.

There are those who believe the danger to vested interests is increasing

proportionately with the ever growing average of intelligence on the

part of the wage-earners and that the former will eventually be

overwhelmed by the latter to the demoralization of both unless capital

anticipates and averts the danger by securing end maintaining a hearty

co-operation of the working classes through a substantial acknowledgment

of the just claims of enlightened labor to an enlarged share in the

product of the two.

It seems reasonable to assume that with the advance of civilization and

general intelligence, some means must be found for the treatment of the

whole matter of the return for services rendered, that shall be more

progressive and more humane in character than the present basis of

supply and demand. As Prof. Gilman says—“We must acknowledge that the

wages system, viewed in its simplest form of time wages, does not supply

the necessary motives for the workman to do his best.” To which we may

add, that neither does it appeal to his sense of right nor to his theory

of justice.

The first advance towards a change must be made by the masters, and any

movement for a revision of the existing system must take form in an

apparent concession on the part of vested interests. The apparent

indifference and complacency with which the dominant class regards the

whole matter is most regrettable. The leaders in reform should adopt

some plan whose successful operation would commend itself—from a

business point of view—to the many masters. That is to say, whatever is

done in that direction, let it be done primarily because it is _just_

and right. Then if it can be shown to be profitable to capital, so much

the better. Such a demonstration would be invaluable, not so much by

reason of the resulting increase in the incomes of the leaders in the

movement, as that such a fact would make probable the extension of the

system into other enterprises where such an incentive would have the

stronger influence.

The successes, moderate though they have been, which have generally

attended the introduction and operation of profit-sharing plans in

various forms, should encourage further developments and extensions of

that system in the broadest manner possible, without, however,

introducing or permitting any features that would embarrass the

administration or weaken the personnel. As the successful manufacturers

of the present generation are largely those who have found ways to

utilize the by-products and the power which had theretofore gone to

waste, so the successful masters of the future must be those who shall

find some means of harmonizing the demands of capital and labor, thus

saving and utilizing that large percentage of human energy which is now

worse than wasted in the continual contention, passive or active,

between the working classes and vested interests. Apart from every other

element of advantage, can there be any question as to the increased

_physical_ capacity and staying powers of a man when led on in hopeful

expectancy rather than when driven on by physical necessity?

It is justly claimed that in many instances the wage-earners would not

be benefited by a distribution in cash of a percentage of the profits,

that they would fritter it away either foolishly or with lack of

discretion. There is nothing to which the average family can adjust

itself so easily and with such alacrity as to an increase in income.

Could we but save the wastes of carelessness, the losses from strikes

and lock-outs, and to these add the enlarged profits resulting from a

broader co-operation and greater physical ability to produce, then

capitalize and conserve all of these for the benefit of those who in

each case have contributed their proportion—either in capital, brains or

labor—to the enlarged success of the enterprise, we would have placed

within reach better homes, better clothing, better food, better schools,

and have taken a step forward which should inspire individuals of both

classes with higher ambitions for a larger and better life.

“Prosperity sharing,” strictly speaking, does not go, far enough,

because it limits the amount awarded to labor to a small percentage of

the real profits. The share must be small because “adversity sharing”

does not accompany profit-sharing. In all fairness the share of labor in

the margins of the business should be of such proportions that justice

to all would make it alike a sharer in losses as well as in gains. By

this we do not mean to say, when losses occur, that labor should

contribute actual money to make good any portion of the impairment. Such

a proposition would be impracticable and impossible. The share of labor

in the surplus profits—that is, after the payment of standard wages and

a just return to capital for its simple use—should be upon a most

liberal basis, and any and all impairments suffered in years of

adversity should be made good out of subsequent surplus earnings (in

which, except for such impairment, labor would have been a sharer)

before wages shall again be entitled to any further dividends.

Amongst the various schemes that have been put into operation in those

concerns which have endeavored to make their employees sharers in the

profits of the business, the most familiar plan is that of offering to

wages a dividend on the total amount thereof, at the same rate of

percentage as is paid on the par value of the capital stock. This

proposition is unfair, since in most industries the capital stock

amounts to several times the total of the annual pay-roll. After the

first adjustment upon that basis, the incentive to labor to strive for

larger results is almost insignificant, since the share of wages in the

subsequent increased earnings would, where the capital is equal to say

four times the annual pay-roll, amount to only one-fifth of the increase

in net earnings, the other four-fifths thereof going to capital.

Other institutions have established a custom of presenting to their

employees annually a sum of money equal to a certain percentage of their

salaries. But this extra income soon becomes as much a matter of wages

as the weekly or monthly pay-roll, and little real good is

accomplished—the employee is still working for _fixed_ wages. There is

something in the make-up of a man that cannot be wholly satisfied, no

matter how secure it may be, with a definite agreement that he shall

receive a certain fixed sum of money for a given amount of work, however

liberal the compensation may be. There is a positive satisfaction in

having a pecuniary interest in an enterprise where the financial return

is not definitely restricted and known in advance, even though there may

be as an accompaniment some danger of a loss.

Any attempt to satisfy the craving of labor for justice will fail if

handicapped by paternalism. A man must be acknowledged a man. His sense

of independence and self-respect must be strengthened and not crushed.

Furthermore, a man is not satisfied to have even a part of his just

earnings expended for him. Company kindergartens, company libraries,

company churches are doubtless very estimable in their way and are doing

much good. They are a step in the right direction and most valuable in

the practical demonstration which they offer that it pays capital to

improve the conditions and surroundings in which the operatives live.

But those who are to enjoy these institutions should not be allowed to

feel that they are under any obligations to the owners thereof. Rather

they should be given to understand that a certain definite percentage of

the net earnings of the enterprise would be expended for the public

good—not as a benefaction, but as a just due—giving to the operatives,

as far as possible, the administration and management of such company

institutions.

Some manufacturers believe that if their employees can be induced to

purchase homes adjacent to the mills the labor problem has been solved.

From the manufacturer’s point of view the plan is attractive. An

employee who puts the hard-earned savings of years into a small

dwelling—generally situated in a community wholly dependent upon the

local mill of his employer—doubtless ties himself up very effectually to

the enterprise, but whether he is attached by his loyalty to and

affection for the concern, or is held by the self-welded fetters of a

money investment is an open question.

The actual value of an investment in any business is based primarily

upon the security—the consideration of the rate of interest being

secondary to the safety of the investment. This is recognized by the

great exchanges where all manner of stocks and bonds are bought and

sold. These compel the frequent publication of the earnings and general

business of those corporations that desire to have listed any of their

issues of securities. No one can say with truth that public knowledge of

the affairs of any such corporation has imperiled the proper operation

and legitimate success of the enterprise. On the contrary, experience

has proven the wisdom of such a course from every standpoint—the public

is better protected in its investments of capital and such corporations

are given a standing in the financial world not accorded to those who

keep their affairs secret and guarded from the public view. We are

compelled to infer that the negative action on the part of these latter

concerns is prompted by one of two reasons: either they are striving to

secure a higher credit rating than that to which their actual condition

would entitle them, or, more probably, that they fear their percentage

of net profits is larger than public sentiment would regard with favor.

It would seem in either case that the interested public is morally

entitled to frequent and intelligible information regarding all

corporations which owe their very existence to the public consent.

What is true of corporations is true of individual partnerships as well.

To let the interested public have knowledge of the true state of affairs

would doubtless be very distasteful to all classes of masters. And yet

it is not difficult to imagine that conditions still less agreeable may

confront the masters if the demands for justice to wage-earners are

ignored. Would not the publication of figures covering the assets,

liabilities and earnings (or losses) place all business upon a firmer

foundation and exert a helpful influence on the adjustment of profits

between capital, brains, skill and labor? Is the withholding of truth an

established virtue and the publication of truth a dangerous experiment?

And finally if the introduction of profit-sharing into a business

necessitates the publication of the earnings of the business, would it

not be fair to ask the few masters to make that concession to the

interests of the many workers?

Business organizations are composed of two classes—those who own and

control and those who operate and produce; or rather those who

contribute their money and those who contribute their lives. We are not

aware of any moral law that denies that the man who makes his

contribution of flesh and blood in work be it in stoking a fire, running

an engine, operating a type-writer, selling goods or driving a truck—is

justly entitled to as full a knowledge of the pecuniary result of his

labor as the man who merely loans capital to the operation.

The following principles may be set down as sufficiently well

established to be used as a basis for working out plans for the reform

of prevailing relations of labor and capital:

(a) That whenever there is sufficient confidence on the part of the

employees a direct or an indirect dividend to labor is a good investment

for capital.

(b) That with an actual dividend-earning interest in the business every

participant would be prompted to individual efforts: 1st. Towards

accomplishing more work in a given length of time. 2d. In the saving of

waste. 3d. In seeking and suggesting improvements in the manufacture and

in the conduct of the business looking to the advancement of the general

welfare. 4th. In that it would naturally become the self-imposed duty of

every employee to challenge a co-worker for laziness or upon the

commission or omission of any act through which a loss to the business

would be the likely result; and, therefore,

(c) That capital in business is best secured when every employee is

pecuniarily benefited through the enlarged success of the enterprise.

It is a false theory that capital shall not accumulate, or that the

return upon it shall be restricted within definite limits. There must be

allowed to capital the opportunity for enlarging returns in the

development of new enterprises—a chance to earn more by risking more.

Otherwise there will be no incentive for its broader operations and its

usefulness will be restricted. That capital is accumulated in the hands

of the comparatively few is not, generally speaking, an accident, but

rather that fact is a strong indication that those who control it are

the men best qualified to hold it intact and make it most productive.

Besides the elements of capital and labor, the matter of brains or

business sagacity must be recognized as an indispensable factor in

business and must be reckoned with. The peculiar ability that a certain

small percentage of men possess to conduct modern business ventures at a

profit is of great value, is always in urgent demand and must be well

paid for. Like everything else it will naturally seek for itself the

best market and will generally go to the highest bidder. There can be

little doubt that the neglect to recognize and properly care for this

element as essential to success has been largely the direct cause of the

many failures of purely co-operative ventures. Brains must be paid for.

Sagacity must have its reward.

Amongst the many obstacles which confront any effort to arrive at some

fair basis for the introduction of profit-sharing institutions, probably

the most prominent is the difficulty of establishing a satisfactory

system for calculating and treating the profits and losses of the

business so as to avoid the element of suspicion on the part of the

employees as to the fairness of the bookkeeping employed in arriving at

the basis for the division to them provided for in the agreement. Many

honest efforts of employers to introduce plans for a distribution

amongst the employees of a percentage of the net profits of the business

have been defeated solely by reason of the inability of the management

to overcome the distrust on the part of the wage-earners in the

bookkeeping, it being a simple enough matter so to treat the accounts of

profits, losses, depreciation of plant and receivables, that the

percentage actually due the employees under the agreement may be cut

down or entirely obliterated at will. The plan of having a direct

representative of the employees (of the watch-dog order) in the

management is neither desirable nor logical. There may be individual and

isolated cases of perfect faith and trust on the part of labor towards

capital, but as a business proposition in the present stage of our moral

development there must be something more tangible than the mere verbal

assurances of the owners, endorsed by an accounting under their

direction.

It is with the aim of presenting a plan for meeting in a measure this

difficulty, and at the same time outlining a scheme which should operate

to the mutual advantage of both capital and labor without compromising

the security of vested interests, but rather strengthening it, that the

suggestions herein contained are submitted—the basic principle being

that the encouragement of righteous ambition with a well-grounded hope

for future prosperity must surely develop the best there is in the

wage-earner with benefit both to himself and to capital as the

inevitable result.

In considering the proportion of the net profits which should be paid

out in cash dividends to capital for its use, it may (at least for the

sake of presenting this argument) be counted fair to assume that in the

average legitimate enterprise the withdrawal of say 60 per centum of the

actual net earnings would be the _limit_ of safe business policy and

that the remainder of such earnings should be kept in the business for

the purpose of extending the enterprise and the more securely protecting

the investment.

As an outline for a plan for the proposed adjustment in a concern

already established, the proposition is that a binding agreement shall

be entered into, which shall provide for the payment of the regular

standard of cash wages to all employees of the concern, including the

officials and management—and shall likewise name a definite amount which

shall be determined to be a just and fair annual return to capital for

its simple use; not, however, exceeding say 60 per cent of the average

established net earnings; that the agreed amount shall be paid annually

(in quarterly or half-yearly instalments) as a dividend upon the common

stock of the corporation _cumulatively_; that it shall be especially

understood that the company by a two-thirds vote of its common

stockholders may issue for needed additional capital preferred stock;

that the prior right to subscribe to such preferred stock shall be

pro-rated one-half of the issue to the holders of common stock, and the

other one-half to the holders of the debenture books (hereinafter

particularly set forth) in proportion to the par value of the respective

holdings; that wages shall be a first claim upon the assets, and that

the dividends to capital stock shall have the first claim upon the net

earnings, and that they shall be cumulative at a rate fixed by

agreement; that after the payment of such dividends as a _first charge_

upon the net profits of the business, 20 per cent of the net profits

then remaining shall be set aside in a contingent fund (to be hereafter

specifically referred to) and that the balance of the annual net profits

still remaining shall be held in the business—but, one-half thereof for

the benefit of the stockholders and the other one-half for the employees

(under certain restrictions and agreements to be explained presently).

It will be readily seen that the above treatment of the annual net

profits would continue the accumulation in the business of the surplus

earnings in excess of the regular cash dividends, and so increase, as

now, the security of the original investment and (as hereinafter shown)

in no way diminish or endanger the present power of the stockholders to

control the management of the concern.

To accomplish this, it is proposed that after the regular cash dividends

have been paid to capital and the said percentage set aside for the

contingent fund, annual stock dividends shall be declared covering the

amount of the surplus earnings which are to be held in the business;

that the certificates issued therefor shall be in the nature of

_deferred stock debentures_ which shall have no voting power and shall

be subordinate in every respect to the common (and preferred) stock of

the concern, both as to dividends and principal, so that said deferred

stock debentures shall not be entitled to any dividend or interest

whatsoever except when earned during the then current year, and not

until after the dividends upon any preferred stock shall have been paid

or set aside, nor until the said agreed sum (equal to 60 per centum of

the established average net earnings) shall have been paid out, or set

aside for the dividends upon the common stock and said contribution made

to the contingent fund; that the said deferred stock debentures shall

receive dividends at a rate not exceeding 6 per cent per annum when

earned in the then current year, and in no sense shall said dividends be

cumulative; that in the event of liquidation or dissolution, the common

(and preferred) stock shall be paid in full before any payment shall be

made upon the said deferred stock debentures, but said deferred stock

debentures shall then receive all of the assets remaining after the

payment in full of the preferred and common stock and of all outstanding

indebtedness; and that the said deferred stock debentures shall always

be subordinate to the general creditors of the company.[3]

These deferred stock debentures shall all be issued to a

trustee—one-half thereof to be held in trust for the benefit of the

common stockholders, and the other one-half shall be considered as

_extra wages_ and shall be held by said trustee for the benefit of the

employees. Cash dividends on all deferred stock debentures, when

declared, shall be paid to said trustee, who shall disburse the

same—one-half thereof to the holders of the common stock pro rata, and

the other one-half to the employees in proportion to the respective

amounts standing to their credit on their debenture books (hereinafter

described).

That is to say, for illustration, that if the capital of the concern is

$1,000,000 and the net earnings for the past several years have averaged

$200,000 per annum,—60 per cent of such earnings, or $120,000, would be

the amount agreed upon as the annual cash dividend to capital

represented by the common stock,—that 20 per cent of the balance of such

earnings, or say $16,000, would be the amount to be paid into the

contingent fund, and that at the end of the first year of the operation

of the plan the balance, or sum of say $64,000, would be held in the

business, but that deferred stock debentures to cover said amount would

be issued to the trustee—$32,000 to be held for the use of the

stockholders, and $32,000 as extra wages to be held for the employees.

At the end of the second year after the payment of the dividends to

common stock and the percentage to contingent fund, a dividend would

then be declared upon $64,000 of deferred stock debentures, and for the

balance of the net profits still remaining another issue of deferred

stock debentures would be made to said trustee; and so on from year to

year.

The effect of the above arrangement being that after the payment of all

cash dividends to common (and preferred) stock, and the setting aside of

the said percentage to the contingent fund, the surplus earnings then

remaining—representing the surplus assets of the company—would be

capitalized in the form of deferred stock debentures and held in trust

for the joint interests of the original owners (or their assigns) and

the employees—it being especially provided that should the company at

any time or times prefer to pay the amount of surplus earnings in cash

directly to the stockholders and the holders of the debenture books

instead of issuing the deferred stock debentures therefor, it shall have

the right and option of so doing.

Each year the amount of the deferred stock debentures to be issued to

the trustee as wages shall be calculated as above outlined, and the

percentage thereof in which each individual employee is interested shall

be determined by the proportion that his wages for the year shall bear

to the whole salary list for that period. This amount then shall be set

down in his debenture book, and upon this sum he will be entitled to

receive through the trustee (when earned) dividends not exceeding 6 per

cent per annum, non-cumulatively and subject to certain limitations set

forth in and made a part of his debenture book as hereinafter

particularly set forth. The fees of the trustee for the above and all

other services to be charged to the general expense account of the

concern. The said trustee shall be entitled to full statements of the

condition of the company at any time, and at all times shall have access

to the general books of the concern.

A debenture book shall be issued to each employee, and shall contain a

full statement of the conditions upon which the same is issued, and

shall be signed by each of the respective holders thereof in evidence of

his understanding thereof and agreement thereto. Each debenture book

shall be numbered, and the age, nationality, sex, etc., of the employee

shall be stated therein. It shall provide among other things:

(a) That no employee shall be entitled to participate in these extra

wages until he shall have been for one year in the continuous employ of

the company.

(b) That the debenture book may be redeemed by the company at its

option, at any time upon the payment of the total principal sum or sums

therein set forth.

(c) That nothing therein contained shall in any way limit the power of

the management in the control of the business, and that their authority

to employ and discharge any employee shall not be limited in any way

whatsoever, but shall be left entirely to the discretion of the board of

directors and that under no circumstances shall the issuance of said

debenture book entitle the holder thereof to any voice in the management

of the business.

(d) That in case of losses in the business in any year or years, the

impairment thereby caused shall be made up either (first) out of

subsequent profits, or (second) out of the contingent fund, or both, and

all accumulated dividends upon the common and preferred stock shall have

been paid in full before the holder of the debenture book shall be

entitled to any dividends.

(e) That the individual named in the debenture book shall, after all

impairments have been made good and all dividends on the common and

preferred stock due and in default, as above set forth, have been paid,

be entitled to receive, through the said trustee, dividends, when

earned, at a rate not exceeding 6 per cent upon the total of the amounts

therein set forth, but in no sense shall the dividends upon the

debenture book be cumulative.

(f) That said debenture book shall not be redeemable during the life of

the employee named except at the option of the company.

(g) That in case of the death of the holder thereof, the same shall form

a part of his estate and shall be convertible into cash at its par value

within thirty days, upon application to the company, and the same shall

be paid for out of and held by the contingent fund when the balance in

said fund will so permit, otherwise to be paid for out of the general

funds of the company and held in the treasury.

(h) That said debenture book shall not be transferable without the

consent of the company.

(i) That it shall be especially understood and agreed that all

calculations of profits and losses of the business shall be left

entirely to the discretion and best judgment of the board of directors,

and that their decision upon these and all matters touching the question

of depreciation of plant, amounts charged to profit and loss, valuations

and inventories, and all other matters affecting the business and policy

of the company, shall be final, and from whose decision there shall be

no right of appeal.

(j) That the “net earnings” of the concern shall comprise the amount of

the profits of the business after deducting all losses and charging off

an agreed percentage in the valuation of the plant account for

depreciation and any other items of doubtful value, at the discretion of

the board.

(k) That in case the holder thereof shall make or attempt to make any

assignment of all or any part of his interest as set forth in said

debenture book, the same shall, at the option of the company, be

immediately forfeited as liquidated damages for violation of this

contract, and shall revert to and be held as a part of the said

contingent fund.

(l) That these debenture books may be attached by the company for any

indebtedness due to it, in any department, by the holder thereof.

(m) That the company reserves the right to issue for capital account

preferred stock with cumulative dividends, which new issues shall in

every particular outrank all issues of deferred stock debentures; it

being provided, however (as above set forth), that the holders of these

debenture books shall have the prior right to subscribe, pro rata, to

fifty (50) per cent of any and all of said new issues of stock.

The amount to be set aside to the contingent fund shall be paid in cash,

and may be invested in legal and marketable securities. This fund shall

be held in the first place to make good to the company any excessive

business losses that cannot be met out of the current profits of the

concern. It will also purchase at par the debenture books of deceased

employees; and any accumulation of income therein shall be used as a

basis for sick benefits, etc., upon such a uniform plan as the amounts

thereof will warrant, the disposition of the available income for that

purpose to be placed as largely as practicable in the hands of the

employees.

The proposition is that the above treatment of profits shall be

continued annually from year to year, so that at the end of the second

year of its operation—after the payment of the regular cash dividends

upon the common (and preferred) stock out of that year’s net profits and

the payment into the contingent fund—the dividend on the deferred stock

debentures shall be declared and paid upon the amount thereof held by

said trustee; and for the remainder of the surplus earnings for the

second year another issue of deferred stock debentures shall be made to

said trustee, one-half for the use of the common stockholders and the

other half as extra wages to be held for the use of the employees, and

that the amount thereof to which each employee is entitled to credit

shall again be determined as above set forth, and shall be entered in

the respective debenture books and added to the amounts of the previous

similar credit, and so on from year to year, it being provided as above

set forth, that in case the company could not make advantageous use of

this increase of capital it shall have the option of disbursing the

amount in cash direct to the employee and stockholders.

Could the masters manipulate the bookkeeping so as to fleece the

employees of the percentage of profits to which they were actually

entitled? The writer believes that this could not be, and for the

following reasons:

(a) It will be seen that under the plan as suggested, whatever action

the management might take regarding the valuation of the assets and

calculation of the annual profits, its decision would bear equally upon

the interests of the stockholders and of the employees.

(b) If the management is overly conservative and the actual surplus

assets are thereby cut down, the stock dividend to the trustee,

representing both the employees and the stockholders, would be _for that

year_ unduly diminished; but such action could make little or no

difference in the final result, as the actual surplus assets would still

be intact, and if not shown in one year would surely appear in another.

So that beyond a delay in the division thereof those in control of the

bookkeeping would be powerless to discriminate against the employees,

and as already shown an unfair settlement would bear equally upon

capital and labor. Then, too:

(c) There could be little or no object in such an attempt, as it is not

intended that the surplus, whatever the amount may be, shall be

withdrawn from the business and distributed, but that the whole of the

same shall be retained in the business (so long as it can be used

advantageously), and under the plan as outlined all of these surplus

earnings shall be capitalized and subordinated to the original

investment and thus acting practically as a guarantee fund to protect

and secure the same; and, again,

(d) It is a part of the plan that all employees, from the lowest form of

unskilled labor to the highest salaried official, shall be sharers in

the dividend to wages. Under such an arrangement it would be practically

impossible for the owners to equivocate or to treat the question

unfairly.

It will be generally conceded that the universal publication of the

assets and liabilities of all business enterprises would greatly

simplify and proportionately stimulate trade. With the added security

against losses that such a system would assure, a liberal extension of

credits would be the natural and a safe outcome. It is more difficult,

however, to meet the question as to what effect the publication of the

earnings, debts and resources would have upon the credit and general

business of a _single_ concern when in direct competition with others in

the same class which continued to hold to the system of secrecy. It is

clearly impossible to make a conclusive statement concerning this

question. Whether the publication of accounts by one concern would work

to the advantage or disadvantage of its secretive competitors seems

wholly problematical. So far as we can see, however, indications point

with some confidence to the ultimate success of that concern which does

not conceal that of which their creditors of a right should be informed.

Regarding the probable effect upon the general business of the concern,

it seems reasonable to claim that the liberal and just treatment of the

employees will surely appeal to the public at large and that the

advantage gained through the profitable influence that such action will

have upon the concern’s constituency, especially among the buying

public, would largely overbalance any possible disadvantage that could

come as a result of the exposition of figures regarding the condition of

its affairs.

As to the effect on credit when the published earnings show a decrease

in profits it is still difficult to do more than surmise, though if the

liabilities of the enterprise are made up more and more each year in a

growing percentage of subordinated income-debentures we believe the

publication of decreased profits would not operate towards the

impairment of its credit, and certainly not until the losses became so

extensive as to imperil the solvency of the concern—in which latter case

it seems clear to us that little can be justly said in support of the

custom of concealment.

Would the plan of letting the employees generally become part owners of

the concern place them in a position to give trouble to the management

of the enterprise, and would they not soon demand, as stockholders, the

right to a voice in the direction of its affairs and in the shaping of

its policy? On the contrary, it is urged:

(a) That with the proper and timely guarding of the interests of the

original investment through sufficient, clear and undeniable limitations

upon the rights and powers carried with the issues of deferred stock,

such issues could not be used to the detriment of vested interests, but

rather:

(b) That such a pecuniary interest in the enlarged success of the

business would act as a guarantee of loyalty to the management and as an

incentive to the employees to further the legitimate business of the

concern, and:

(c) That the employees with a money investment in the enterprise, if for

no higher reason than the instinct of self-preservation, would realize

the value and necessity for harmonious and sympathetic co-operation

between the capital, brains and energy of the concern.

Would capital be benefited by the operation? We claim without

reservation that it would—and for the following reasons:

(a) That the net profits of the business would be largely increased

through the reduction of friction; the larger incentive of labor; the

increase in the physical capacity of the workers to produce; the saving

of useless waste; and through the absence of strikes and lock-outs; as

in all of such increase in net profits the capital would be an equal

sharer with its employees.

(b) That the true loyalty and support of all employees would greatly

strengthen the security of the capital in the business and

proportionately add to the real value of the investment.

(c) That where adverse legislation may be easy of accomplishment when it

attacks the interests of one man or a small body of men, it would be

quite a different matter where the interests of all employees are

involved.

(d) That the surplus profits would not be paid out and distributed, but

would be held in the business, subordinated to the claims of the

original investment, and so very materially adding to the security

thereof.

(e) That with a property interest in the business the tendency of the

operatives to shift from one concern to another without real purpose

would be reduced to the minimum, and that the consequent advantage to

the management would result in a distinct gain in the stability of the

business.

Would such a plan when perfected succeed? If it would increase the

productivity of the workers, if it would tend to elevate character, to

develop a greater loyalty to the concern and help to change an operative

from an automaton into a man, if it would strengthen the security of

vested interests and narrow the gulf between wealth and work, and

finally, if it would be in the direction of righteousness and justice,

it must finally succeed. It cannot be expected that at first the

introduction of such a scheme would be received by the operatives with

enthusiasm. It would only be through the medium of their more

intelligent leaders that they could be assured of its benefits, and only

after several years of successful operation could we expect it to

receive the unqualified support of the workers. When, however, their

capitalized extra wages show an accumulation and they begin to receive

annual cash dividends upon the surplus earnings of previous years, we

may be reasonably assured of a decided change of sentiment in its favor.

In the meanwhile the masters would do well in avoiding undue antagonism

to labor organizations _per se_, so far as the large body of

wage-earners is concerned, the benefits of profit-sharing are still to

them unproven, while the trade union has in many ways demonstrated its

usefulness in protecting the interests of its members. Whether it does

more really to help the best interests of the worker than to hinder, may

be an open question. However this may be, certain it is that the

institution is strongly established in the mind of the workman as his

strongest friend, his one means of expression and his only hope of

material salvation. In its reverses as well as in its successes his

heart will remain loyal to his union, until he shall have been furnished

a substitute which has proven to him its larger usefulness.

In view of the increasing tendency to incorporate business, this paper

has treated the question as it relates to organized capital. It is

nevertheless clearly true that the same general situation obtains in the

strictly partnership concerns and that the principles herein suggested

could be the more readily applied in such cases, especially as the power

to act is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who have no one

else to consult.

In such a case it is suggested, in place of the issue of the deferred

stock debentures, that the surplus net earnings—after the payment of the

agreed interest to capital, and the assignment in cash of the percentage

to contingent fund—shall be credited to a “mutual reserve fund” which

fund shall take the place of the proposed trustee in a stock company,

and shall be entitled to receive dividends (or interest) upon the same

terms and subject to the same limitations provided for the deferred

stock debentures, and that said fund shall be held for the joint and

equal benefit of capital and employees—the respective interests of the

employees to be entered in a pass-book similar in terms to the debenture

books herein particularly described.

The plan briefly outlined is offered as a suggestion. Doubtless every

point made can be improved by modification or substitution. If it

influences in a small degree more earnest thought on the part of those

in whom the power is vested, towards the formation of a comprehensive

plan looking to a more reasonable division of the product of all and a

fuller acknowledgment of the humanity of man, its purpose will have been

accomplished.

III. The Housing Problem

TENEMENT HOUSE REGULATION—THE REASONS FOR IT—ITS PROPER LIMITATIONS

By ROBERT W. DE FOREST

Tenement House Commissioner of the City of New York

When Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor of the State of New York,

attended the opening of the Tenement House Exhibition of the Charity

Organization Society of New York, and looked over the models of

tenements, old and new, and the charts which showed the close connection

between the housing of the vast majority of that city’s population, and

health, pauperism and crime, he said to the few of us who had organized

this exhibition—“Tell us at Albany what to do, and we will do it.” The

result was the New York State Tenement House Commission of 1900, the

enactment last year of the most advanced code of tenement house laws as

yet put in force in any American city, and the creation for the first

time in this country of a department directly charged with the oversight

of the construction and proper maintenance of tenement houses.

The tenement house problem we had to meet in New York was the most

serious of any city in the civilized world, for in New York, according

to the last census, out of 3,437,202 inhabitants, 2,273,079, or more

than two-thirds, lived in tenement houses, and there were 82,652 of

these tenements in the city.

The interest in this particular phase of the housing question is not

confined to New York. No one who has followed, even carelessly, public

opinion on this subject can fail to realize the hold it has upon the

public conscience. It may be that some tremble at the effect upon their

own fortunes of a possible social revolution, and seek to protect

themselves, for their own sake, by trying to make what they call the

lower classes more comfortable in their homes. But the large body of men

and women in this country who are giving to this subject attention, are

doing so from love of their fellow-men, and an earnest desire to give

them in their homes some of the healthful surroundings and comforts they

enjoy in their own.

There are few large cities in America in which there is not some

tenement regulation, and some agitation for its extension. At the moment

there is an active movement in Boston for the appointment of a

commission to frame a new code of tenement house laws for that city.

There is a similar movement in Chicago and in Cincinnati. Nor is this

activity confined to the larger cities. Kansas City in the West,

Hartford in the East, Yonkers, Syracuse and Rochester in New York, are

already moving in the same direction, and the subject is receiving close

attention in Washington, Cleveland and Pittsburg.

The New York law of last winter was a state law applicable to all cities

of the first class. It included Buffalo as well as New York, and Buffalo

did its full part in securing the enactment of the law. Philadelphia is

emphatically the City of Homes, and not of tenements. Fortunately for

Philadelphia, its working classes are almost exclusively housed in

single family dwellings. It has, as most of you know, an admirable code

of tenement house laws, which has proved very useful to us at New York

in preparing ours, and it has its Octavia Hill Association to advance

the cause of housing reform.

In some quarters benevolent people are proposing to build model

tenements. That is good as far as it goes, but if at the same time other

people, not benevolent, who have no motive but gain for themselves, are

permitted to build tenements which are not models, the extent of

progress is very limited. What we must do, first and foremost, is to

secure proper legislation, using that term in its broadest sense, to

include city ordinance, as well as state law. Legislation to regulate

building, so as to secure for new buildings proper air and light space

and proper sanitation; legislation to regulate, in buildings old and

new, their maintenance so that health conditions may be improved and at

least not be impaired; legislation, moreover, that provides the means

for its own enforcement, by proper inspection.

Most of us have been brought up to believe that, as owners of real

estate, we could build on it what we pleased, build as high as we

pleased, and sink our buildings as low as we pleased. Our ideas of what

constitutes property rights and what constitutes liberty are largely

conventional. They vary with time and place. They are different in

different countries. Liberty, proper liberty, to-day, may, under

changing conditions, become license to-morrow. I came home from Europe

not long since with a French friend, who had gone home to his native

country to take possession of his ancestral estates. He told me of

having found the trees grown up quite thickly around his father’s

country home, and of the difficulties he had encountered in obtaining

permission from the public authorities to cut down some of them, which

was finally only granted on condition that he replanted elsewhere. That

his trees could only be cut down with the consent of the public

authorities, and that he could properly be required to replant elsewhere

as a condition of obtaining that consent, seemed to him a part of the

eternal order of things. He no more questioned it in his mind than we,

who live in cities, question the propriety of obtaining from the city

building department a permit to build, based upon approval of our

architect’s plans.

Lecky, in one of his later books, speaking of sanitary legislation,

says: “Few things are more curious than to observe how rapidly, during

the past generation, the love of individual liberty has declined; how

contentedly the English race are committing great departments of their

lives to the web of regulations restricting and encircling them.” It is

not that love of liberty has declined, it is that the English race are

meeting new conditions with the same genius with which they have evolved

their great system of common law. Living, as most of them did a century

ago, in separate houses, and in small villages or towns, every man could

build as he pleased and could maintain his building as he pleased

without seriously endangering the liberty of his neighbors, but with the

steady movement of the population from the country to the city, and the

marvelous growth of cities, not only horizontally but vertically, new

conditions must be met, and the property rights and liberty of one

neighbor must be limited to protect the property rights and liberty of

another. If a man built an isolated house in the country, without light

or air for the bedrooms, and kept it in such filthy condition as to

breed disease, it is a fair question whether his liberty should be

infringed by any building or health regulation. He may be fairly left

free to suffer the consequences of his own misuse of his liberty. His

death, and that of his family, from disease so caused may, as an awful

example, do more to advance civilization by making his neighbors more

careful, than would his life and theirs under enforced sanitary

regulation. But if that same man is separated from you and me only by a

board partition or twelveinch wall, and our families meet every time

they go into the street or into the back yard, his liberty must be

restricted in some degree in order to enable you and me to enjoy ours.

How and why has tenement house law been evolved in American cities? In

the same way in which the Anglo-Saxon mind deals with any such problems.

Just as it evolved common law, and for the same reasons. First a

case—that is, an evil—to be remedied; afterward a decision—the

application of the remedy, and the establishment of a principle or law

by which similar evils shall be remedied. It is not according to the

genius of our race to provide the remedy in advance of the supposed

disease. Better be sure that the disease really exists, even if some few

die from it, and then provide the remedy which will be sure to meet

actual conditions, than to burden the community with advance remedies

for diseases that after all may prove to be imaginary. Even if the

disease be not imaginary, such remedies are apt to be worse than the

disease itself. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon countries, a conflagration has

usually preceded precautions against fire, and the evils of sunless,

airless and unwholesome tenements have preceded any attempt to prevent

these deplorable conditions. Eventually we act, and when we do we act

practically.

It may be well to define what is meant by a tenement house, for without

definition there is infinite confusion in the use of this term. In one

of our recent civil service examinations in New York, a candidate,

evidently “learned in the law,” or supposing himself to be so, defined

it as being “That which is neither land nor hereditament.” It has its

popular and its legal meaning. Popularly, it is used to designate the

habitations of the poorest classes, without much thought of the number

of families living under any particular roof. The National Cyclopedia

significantly says: “Tenement houses, commonly speaking, are the poorest

class of apartment houses. They are generally poorly built, without

sufficient accommodation for light and ventilation, and are overcrowded.

The middle rooms often receive no daylight, and it is not uncommon in

them for several families to be crowded into one of their dark and

unwholesome rooms. Bad air, want of sunlight and filthy surroundings

work the physical ruin of the wretched tenants, while their mental and

moral condition is equally lowered. Attempts to reform the evils of

tenement life have been going on for some time in many of the great

cities of the world.”

Legally, tenement is applied to any communal dwelling, inhabited by

three, or in some cities four, or more families, living independently,

who do their cooking on the premises. It includes apartment houses,

flat-houses and flats, as well as what is popularly called a tenement,

if only built to accommodate three, or as the case may be four, or more

families who cook in the house. It is in its legal sense that I use the

term. At first blush it may seem objectionable to class apartment

houses, flat-houses and tenements, so called, together, and subject them

to the same code of regulation. Practically, it has never been possible

to draw any line of separation between different houses which are

popularly designated by these different words. Nor has anyone ever

suggested any regulation proper for the poorest tenement, using the word

now in its popular sense, which would not be voluntarily, and as matter

of self-interest, complied with in the most expensive apartment house.

Nor is there any certainty that what to-day is popularly called an

apartment house may not to-morrow, in popular parlance, be a tenement of

the worst kind. My own grandmother, within my own recollection, lived in

what was then one of the finest houses, in one of the most fashionable

streets of New York. Not long since I passed the house, and noticed on

the front door a sign reading, “French flats for Colored People.”

In its earliest form (and many cities have not yet passed beyond the

first stage) the tenement was a discredited private house, or other

building, not originally built for the occupation of several families,

but altered for the purpose. Each floor of what was originally a private

dwelling was changed so that it could be occupied by a family. Later

on—it may be at the beginning—each floor was subdivided between front

and rear, so that it could be occupied by two families. One of the chief

evils of such tenements arose from cellar occupation, and consequently

some of the earliest tenement house regulations relate to the occupation

of cellars.

In its second stage the tenement house is built for the purpose,

imitating, not infrequently, in a servile manner, the arrangement of the

altered house, with its dark rooms, and only gradually being adapted to

a new architectural form growing out of its special use. The

introduction of running water and city health regulations made it

possible and desirable to locate water-closets inside. Courts and

air-shafts increased in size. Fortunately, the process of evolution is

not exhausted, and is still going on.

The tenement is still regarded in many places as an exotic, not adapted

to our climate. But, judging from the history of New York and other

cities, West and East, the tenement house has come to stay, and is,

perhaps, destined to crowd out other and better forms of housing. I

remember well when the first tenement to be dignified by the term

apartment house was built in New York. It was in the early 70’s. Now it

is a prevailing type of new building for dwelling purposes on Manhattan

Island. There were no less than 82,652 tenements in Greater New York at

the time of the last census. The development of the tenement has been

largely influenced by legislation intended to prevent its worst evils.

To test the reason for such legislation, and to define its limitations,

a brief summary of particular subjects of regulation is desirable.

Protection against fire is almost universal. Structural provisions

directed to this end are contained in the building laws of all cities.

In New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Jersey City, Providence,

Syracuse and Nashville, all tenements must have fire-escapes. All

tenements over two stories in height must have fire-escapes in St.

Louis, Baltimore, Louisville, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Denver, Toledo and

Columbus. In Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati, this rule only applies

to tenements over three stories in height. In many cities tenements must

be fireproof throughout when over a certain height. In Philadelphia this

is true of all over four stories; in Washington of those over five

stories; in New York, Buffalo, Louisville, Minneapolis and Denver, of

those over six stories in height. In Boston, the limit is 65 feet.

Light and ventilation are protected by minimum open spaces. In

Philadelphia there must be open spaces at the side or rear equal to

one-fifth of the lot area, and the minimum width of all spaces is eight

feet. In Buffalo, under the local law in force before the general state

act of 1901 was passed, the minimum width of any outer court was six

feet in two-story buildings, eight feet in three and four-story

buildings, and one additional foot in width for each additional story.

The minimum interior court was eight by ten. In Boston, a clear open

space at the rear must be left equal to one-half the width of the street

on which the tenement fronts, and there must be two open spaces at least

ten feet wide. In some cities the required court area is expressed in

square feet, without regard to minimum width or length, and increases

proportionately with the height of the building. This principle is

adopted in New York, where the minimum width of exterior courts in

buildings five stories high is six feet on the lot line and twelve feet

between wings, and the minimum area of interior courts on the lot line

in buildings of the same height is twelve by twenty-four, reduced this

winter in three-story tenements to eight by fourteen. Such buildings

must have an open yard at least twelve feet wide in the rear. The height

of rooms is almost universally regulated, the minimum usually being

eight feet. The height of tenements is limited in many cities.

Water supply is prescribed. In New York, water must be furnished on each

floor. In Philadelphia and Buffalo, on each floor, for each set of

rooms. In Boston, Chicago, Jersey City and Kansas City, in one or more

places in the house or yard.

Water-closet accommodation is very generally prescribed. In

Philadelphia, and in New York under the new law, there must be one for

every apartment. Under the old law in New York, and at present in

Chicago and Detroit, there must be one for every two families. In other

cities the unit is the number of persons. It is twenty persons in

Boston, Baltimore and Denver; ten persons in Rochester.

The reasons for tenement regulation may be roughly classed as

follows—precise classification is impossible, as it is seldom that any

particular regulation is attributable solely to a single reason:

The protection of property rights in adjacent property. Such is the

reason for regulations requiring fireproof construction in whole or in

part. Such is the chief reason for limitations of height and for leaving

an obligatory open space at the rear of each house so as to preserve

thorough ventilation for the block. The protection of neighbors and the

community from unsanitary conditions, by which they might be affected,

or which might breed contagion. Under this class falls the great body of

sanitary law and tenement house regulation of a sanitary kind. That all

legislation which falls within these classes can be justified as a

proper restraint on the liberty and property rights of some, in order to

protect and preserve the property rights and liberty of others, is

clear.

There is another and increasing class of regulations intended to protect

the life and health of those who cannot, it is supposed, protect

themselves by any means within their control. Fire-escapes, which are

almost universally required by law in non-fireproof tenement houses,

belong to this class. There is no such regulation for private houses,

and there is usually no such requirement for two-family houses. The

reason for the fire-escape in tenements and hotels must rest either on

the supposed inability of the inmates to protect themselves, as the

owner of a private house can protect himself and his family, or else

from the greater number of persons exposed to risk. Of such class also

is the law providing that there be a separate water-closet for each

apartment, as in New York, or for every two families, as in Detroit and

elsewhere, and that lights be kept burning in public halls at night. No

such regulations exist for private houses. They can be only justified in

tenement houses on the theory that the tenants in such houses must live

in them, cannot control their maintenance in these particulars, and are

entitled to the protection of affirmative law for these necessities or

conveniences. It may be answered that they need not rent rooms in houses

not furnished with separate water-closets, and the halls of which are

not kept lighted, unless they wish to, and that they should not be

restricted in their liberty to rent rooms in such houses, it may be at a

lower rent, if they so desire. The reply may be, and in some cities

would properly be, that they would have no choice unless the law

intervened to protect them. Moreover, it might be urged that in the

provision for separate water-closets for each apartment, and in the

lighting of public halls, there was an element of protection to public

health and morals in which the community had an interest, and which the

community by regulation should insure.

I have sought by these illustrations to point the closeness of the

dividing line between justifiable restriction of the individual liberty

of the house builder and house owner, for the protection of the liberty

of others, and paternalism. It is undoubtedly true, as Mr. Lecky states

in the concluding part of the paragraph to which I have already

referred, that “the marked tendency of these generations to extend the

stringency and area of coercive legislation in the fields of sanitary

reform is one that should be carefully watched. Its exaggerations may,

in more ways than one, greatly injure the very classes it is intended to

benefit.” There is real danger lest in our eagerness and earnestness to

improve the condition of others, we legislate from the point of view of

those fathers and mothers who are always ready to regulate the affairs

of every family but their own, and break down the habit of

self-dependence and the spirit of individual responsibility upon which

the vigor of our American social fabric so largely depends.

Perhaps the most important limitation to tenement house reform, in the

construction of new tenements, is the question of cost. If tenements

cannot be rented at a profit they will not be built. There are many

things which it would be desirable to have in a tenement, each one of

which adds to its cost, and if they be required by law to an extent

which makes it unremunerative, tenement building will cease. It is

undoubtedly desirable that all tenements should be fireproof throughout;

indeed, the same may be said of private houses. In 1892, Boston so

prescribed; but few, if any, were erected, and the law was consequently

modified in 1899.

The amount of rent which the average American workingman in any

particular city can pay approximates a fixed quantity. Any legislation

which materially increases this rent, or which prevents building and

therefore prevents his finding shelter, is quite certain to be repealed.

This proposition, however, is not so discouraging as it may appear at

the outset. The standard of living among our working classes is steadily

improving. What yesterday was a luxury, to-day is a necessity. In many

cities, apartments which are not provided with running water are

unrentable. Bathing facilities are increasingly in demand, and are

frequently being provided. Families that have once lived in apartments

where the bedrooms have light and air, will not hire apartments which

are dark and unventilated. The supply must meet the demand. Interest

rates are receding; economies in construction are being introduced,

which some time ago were unknown, largely by the building of houses by

the wholesale. The large profits which were demanded as the normal

income on tenement houses in the past are no longer expected. Rooms up

to the standard of the modern tenement house law can be provided without

increasing the rental.

Another limitation in many cities is the prevailing lot dimension. If

Dante were to-day writing his “Inferno,” the lowest depth would be

reserved for those men who invented the twenty-five foot lot and imposed

it on so many American cities. In unbuilt districts, where several lots,

whatever be their dimensions, can be purchased and built upon together,

the lot dimension does not necessarily control the frontage of the

building, and the tendency in such districts in New York is to build

tenement houses of wider frontage, which admit of better court

arrangement, but there are usually so many lots separately owned, and so

many which are situated between lots already built upon, so that their

enlargement is impossible, that any proposed legislation prescribing

court areas which, however desirable, puts the prevailing lot unit at a

disadvantage, will meet with overwhelming resistance. No better

illustration of this can, perhaps, be found than the story of New York

legislation this winter, of which I intend to speak. From the point of

view of proper tenement house construction, happy that city in which

land is sold by the front foot, instead of by any procrustean lot unit.

There is another practical limitation, not necessarily to the

enactment of tenement house law, but to its permanence, in the extent

to which it, either actually or supposedly, interferes with the

profits of builders and material men, and perhaps no better

illustration of this practical limitation can be given than a simple

recital of the contest over the radical amendment of the New York law

which has been waged at Albany during the past few weeks, and which

terminated only a few days ago. The New York law of 1901 marked the

longest step in advance that tenement house reform in that state has

ever taken, though in its provisions for court areas, the particular

point in which it was assailed this winter, it does not go so far as

the Philadelphia law, and but little further than the previous Buffalo

law. It unquestionably increased the cost of construction by its

fireproof provisions, as well as, though in a less degree, by its

larger court areas. That there would be, this winter, organized effort

on the part of building and real estate interests to modify it was

certain and inevitable. Many bills were introduced amending it, but my

illustration only concerns two, the City Administration bill, in the

preparation of which I myself had part, and a bill introduced by a

Brooklyn member of the Legislature in the interest of Brooklyn

builders and material men, who claimed that they represented the

people of Brooklyn. It is a fair question whether Brooklyn did not

really have a grievance against last winter’s law. One of the

prevailing types of Brooklyn tenements is a three-story house on a

twenty-five foot lot, with two families on a floor, making six

families in all, each apartment running through from front to rear.

These houses had been built with interior courts or air-shafts about

two and a half feet wide and ten feet long. These light-shafts were

supposed to light and ventilate the interior rooms of each apartment.

As a matter of fact, they furnished little light or ventilation to any

bedrooms below the top floor. The same type of air-shaft in taller

tenements of Manhattan was one of the chief evils against which the

new law was directed. These evils were undoubtedly less in a

three-story building, but still existed. The minimum interior court or

air-shaft permitted by the new law in such buildings was eleven feet

wide by twenty-two feet long. Such a court prevented the building of

this type of house, and no tenements of this type were consequently

built on twenty-five foot lots from the time when the law went into

effect. The Brooklyn bill sought to amend the law, as respects three

and four-story houses, by permitting a return to the old air-shaft,

with an increased width of six inches, and with a somewhat increased

length, making it three by twelve. We conceded that under the law it

was impossible to build this particular type of tenement on a

twenty-five foot lot, with each apartment running through from front

to rear, but we demonstrated that it was perfectly practicable to

build what seemed to us a much better two-families-on-a-floor tenement

on such a lot, by putting one apartment in the front and another in

the rear; that it was perfectly practicable to build, under the law,

apartments running through from front to rear on a somewhat larger

lot, and that the law interfered with no other current type except the

one in question. The separate front and rear apartments, which were

practical under the new law, are usual in Manhattan, and the rent

obtainable from the front apartment differs but little from that

obtainable from the rear apartment. Our Brooklyn friends insisted that

though Brooklyn was a borough of New York and only separated from

Manhattan by the East River, Brooklyn people were so accustomed to

apartments running through from front to rear that they would not rent

rear apartments, and indeed, that the social distinction between

families who could afford to live in the front apartment, and those

who would be forced to live in the rear apartment, was so great that

they would not rent apartments in the same house.

This proposition may seem strained, but we of the City Administration

were finally satisfied that so much regard should be paid to local

habits and customs, that it was wise to modify our minimum court areas

in three-story houses to such a point as would permit the building of

this particular type of Brooklyn house. Plans were then made which

demonstrated beyond peradventure that by reducing the minimum court area

to 8x14, instead of 3x12, this particular type of house could be built,

with bedrooms infinitely better lighted and better ventilated than those

opening upon the narrow shaft. One would have supposed that this

improved plan, which permitted Brooklyn builders to construct a

front-to-rear apartment, for which they claimed so many advantages,

would have been received with acclamation as a solution of the

difficulty. Not at all. Some insisted that Brooklyn must have what it

was accustomed to, narrow air-shaft and all. Others more openminded,

while frankly admitting that the new plans made better apartments, which

should bring in an increased rental of from fifty cents to a dollar a

month, insisted that tenants would not pay more rent, and that because

the buildings under these new plans cost say $800 per house more than

under the old plans, they would not be commercially profitable, and

therefore would not be built. Not a word was said as to the interests of

tenement dwellers. There was no dearth of apartments in Brooklyn at

current-rents. Indeed, the supply was far beyond the demand. The whole

issue turned on the commercial profitableness of building under the law,

as amended by the City Administration bill, to meet this Brooklyn

condition. The Brooklyn builders were perfectly frank in their

arguments. They started with the premise that the building of tenements

in Brooklyn must be made commercially profitable; that buildings under

the new plan, with a minimum court area of 8x14, would not be

commercially profitable, because about $800 was added to their cost, and

therefore insisted that the law should be amended to meet their ideas of

commercial profitableness. That the purpose of the law was not to

promote building operations, or increase the value of real estate, but

to provide healthy habitation for tenement dwellers, and that that

purpose was certainly being accomplished under the new law so long as

tenement dwellers could house themselves without any increase in rent,

was ignored, nor if it had been urged would it have seemed to them an

argument worth considering.

I am happy to say that they did not succeed, but they demonstrated the

influence which can be exerted upon the average legislator by men of

their type through their trade and allied labor organizations, and had

those who, at the moment, represented the unorganized public in the

cities been less active, and had the force of public opinion as voiced

by the press been less outspoken, the result might have been different.

The advance of tenement house reform undoubtedly means some diminution

in the profit of the landlord, or some increase in rent. Improved

tenements must cost more. Someone must pay that cost. If any material

rise in rents would produce such opposition to the law as to repeal or

modify it, then either the cost must be borne by the landlord, or the

law must be modified. Whether the landlord’s rent will by the law

proposed in any city be diminished below the point of legitimate profit,

cannot be certainly demonstrated until the experiment be tried. Some

enlightened landlords, with a sense of their obligations toward their

tenants, are perfectly willing to suffer this small diminution of

income. Others are not, and the others, who usually constitute the

majority, in alliance with the builders and material men, will always

seek to prevent legislation which affects their pockets. Tenement house

reform must always be militant, not only to gain ground, but to hold the

ground that has once been gained.

There is something for almost everyone to do. Let none suppose that our

cities, however small, will remain free from the evils of the tenement

house, which in larger cities has necessarily evolved in self-protection

tenement house regulation. The tenement has come to the United States,

like the Canada thistle, to grow and to multiply. The smaller cities

need not go through the bitter experience which is teaching New York and

other cities their lesson. They can, by timely regulation, prevent the

crystallization of unsanitary conditions into brick and mortar. I do not

recommend the adoption in every city of the New York law. It was framed

to meet the special conditions there existent. The remedy should be no

greater than the prevailing or expected disease warrants. A few

elementary regulations with regard to court areas, vacant spaces, and

regular and official inspection to make certain that these simple

regulations are followed in construction and that ordinary sanitary

rules are complied with in maintenance, will suffice, if there always be

a keen eye to look some years ahead, to meet future needs before they

make themselves unpleasantly manifest in your own surroundings, and

before conditions are created, as in New York, which cannot be changed

except at great cost to owners and to the municipality.

THE HOUSING PROBLEM IN CHICAGO

By MISS JANE ADDAMS

Hull House, Chicago

In considering the housing problem in Chicago, it is at once evident

that we are not in the deplorable condition of New York, nor yet perhaps

in the happy condition of Philadelphia. Until a year and a half ago, we

thought that all our problems in connection with the housing question

were in the future. We have a way in Chicago of shoving disagreeable

problems into the future, and saying that we will take care of them by

and by, when our resources are more adequate, when we have developed a

little more civic consciousness. An association of people, however,

called the City Homes Association, come eighteen months ago, made a very

careful investigation of such tenement districts as we have and their

report was startling, even to those of us who knew something of the

conditions by daily seeing them.

The time at the disposal of the committee was only six months, and

Chicago is very large as to area. We have 187 square miles under city

management, and the tenement houses, certainly according to the legal

definition given by Mr. De Forest, are scattered more or less through

that very large region. It seemed, therefore, better to take three

districts, limiting carefully the area of the districts, and to make as

careful a study as possible of each. The largest one, in two of the

river wards of Chicago, was mainly occupied by Italian immigrants and

Russian Jews. The second in size was the Polish district northeast of

the business quarter of the city, and the third in size the Bohemian

district extended south from the centre. We discovered several things

which were very surprising, among them that many of the houses were

owned or partially owned by the people living in them. The thrifty

Bohemian put his savings into a house, perhaps building at first a house

on the front of his lot, living in a few rooms, and so saving rent until

he had enough money to build a rear tenement, in the end covering up his

lot as much as possible and renting it all out. The Italians to a

somewhat lesser extent did the same thing, and the Poles also, so that

one could not talk of the effect of tenement house regulation upon the

landlord in contradistinction to the effect upon the tenant, for it is

very largely the neighbors of the tenants themselves who are the

landlords, and the tenant and landlord are represented by the same type

of person. Their interests are identical, not in the larger sense, but

in the immediate sense, and they stand together either in demanding or

opposing certain regulations. The situation is quite unlike that

obtaining in the cities where the landlord lives in some other part of

the town, and where tenement legislation affects only his property

interests and not his human interests.

We also were very much surprised at the density in certain quarters

which this investigation disclosed. If the average tenement house

density of the three districts investigated were spread throughout the

city, we could house within our borders 23,000,000 people. We discovered

one-seventh of an acre which was occupied to the ratio of 900 people to

the acre, and if that density were applied to our borders we could

house, not very comfortably to be sure, all the people of the Western

Hemisphere. This seemed to us sufficiently alarming in a city in which

it was said that the matter of density was something concerning only the

future. The average tenancy in the houses throughout these three

districts was only three families to a house. This average means that in

many cases there is no real tenement, but a single house. Again, many of

these single houses were very small, sometimes containing but two or

three rooms, and the average number of rooms to an apartment was 3

116–1000. Although many houses were small and the tenements for each

house again small, in certain quarters the density within the houses was

very great and the conditions bad. We also found in these three areas

almost a hundred full-fledged double-deckers, and a great many more that

only escaped being double-deckers through a mere technicality in the

definition that had been settled upon. These double-deckers are growing

and, unless we have a more vigorous enforcement of tenement house

regulations in Chicago, threaten to become very common there.

In both the building department and in the health department of the

city, a great deal is left to the discretion of the inspector. Of

course, in the city where the landlord not only owns his house but also

lives in it and at least knows which way his tenants vote, this matter

of discretionary power becomes an important one. It is very hard for an

official to stand out against a certain amount of political pressure,

and the consequence is, that while there are laws fairly good on books,

this large discretion left to the enforcing officers has made many of

them of little account. This is especially true in regard to the yard

spaces, which are set between the front and rear tenements, the size of

the shafts, and other special regulations. The City Homes Association is

trying at present to secure a better code of tenement house legislation,

to restrict the discretionary power and thus to limit the very casual

and varying judgment of the enforcing official, and to give some sturdy

standard in law observances.

In the matter of rents, Chicago is in rather a curious state. The

property in the river wards, in which many of these houses are situated,

has been held for a long time by its owners upon the theory that finally

factories and shipping interests were going to occupy the land. The

consequence is, that the little houses which were built very soon after

the fire have been allowed to remain, without very much repair and

without very much change, and in many cases have become so wretched that

only a low rental can be asked for them. The men who own them, content

themselves with getting out of the houses about enough to pay taxes and

to keep up a minimum amount of repairs. So that the rent of certain

houses in the river districts is low. Perhaps this is not low for

Philadelphia, although I am sure it will sound low for New York. The

average rent paid by an Italian family for an apartment is $4.92 a

month, or $1.78 per room a month; the average rent paid by a Bohemian

family for an apartment is $5.93 a month, or $1.64 a room; by a Polish

family $5.66 for an apartment, and $1.40 for a room; by a Jewish family

$8.28; the average rent rising to $2.12 a room. Whenever the question of

modern tenements comes up in Chicago, and the cost is carefully gone

into, it is found very difficult to furnish apartments in good,

satisfactorily well-built houses at so low a rental, and yet once this

rental has been established, it is found on the other hand very

difficult to ask much more than the current rate. By a strict

enforcement of law many of these houses should be demolished. That would

rid the city of a number of unsanitary houses and bring conditions to a

more normal situation.

What Mr. De Forest says about the twenty-five foot lot, I should very

much like to corroborate. It is very difficult to erect a convenient

house on a lot 25 feet wide and 120 feet deep. This unfortunate division

of property was made in the first instance, doubtless, to enable as many

men as possible to own their own separate houses. For a long time we

have made a sort of fetich of the house, and have come to believe that a

man has a sense of being at home only when he is within four walls

standing alone upon one piece of ground. In reality the idea of a home

reaches back so much further than the four walls, and is so much more

deeply implanted in the human breast than the ownership of land that we

do not need to fear that a new type of house will destroy it. But we are

timid and would rather be uncomfortable in a little house than to start

out in some reasonable way in building apartments. If one has a house

12½ feet wide and 24 feet deep and 24 feet high, one has not a very

comfortable arrangement. It is not even rationally divided, but by a

purely imitative method; in every house you enter you will find the

little hall, the little stairs, and all the other things that presuppose

plenty of space. If that same strip of twelve feet had been added to the

other strips in the block and the whole treated in some reasonable

manner, we could comfortably house the same number of people in a sort

of glorified tenement house or apartment house; each family might have

at least one large living-room where the members could get together in

comfort and have a much better chance for conserving family life than

they have in the little square box. Some of us still believe that a

workingman has a sense of ownership only when he puts his savings into a

piece of ground or the house in which he lives. To tie a workman down to

a given piece of ground is often of questionable good. A man may put all

his savings into a house on the North Side of Chicago, for instance, and

before it is paid for, find himself out of work; his next work may be

fifteen miles from that place, in South Chicago. If his house is

partially paid for, it is very difficult to get rid of it, and it is

also difficult and expensive to travel fifteen miles twice a day. If his

property had been in some other form, let us say stocks or bonds, it

would have allowed him much more mobility in regard to his labor, and he

would have a better chance of adjusting himself to the changing

conditions of his trade.

A Housing Conference, it seems to me, ought first of all to look at

industrial conditions as they confront the workingman of to-day, not as

conditions existed fifteen or twenty years ago, nor as they existed for

our fathers. A conference should not consider the workingman of its

imagination, nor yet the workingman as he ought to be, but the

workingman of to-day as he finds himself, with his family, with his

savings, with his difficulty of keeping a place very long, due to the

sudden changes in the methods of his trade. His employer is obliged to

make constant changes and adaptations in his factory, but his landlord

is afraid to try changes in his house. We hold a certain fiction in our

minds of what home is and what it ought to be, forgetting how far back

it goes, that it can survive all sorts of changes and adaptations, that

the one thing which will kill it is that which kills every living thing,

_i. e._, lack of adaptation to its environment; if it fails to adapt

itself to the situation as it really exists, it is for the first time

endangered. If the community, as a whole, gives its mind to it, as the

Philadelphia community seems to be doing, and knows conditions

accurately and thoroughly, I am sure we are going to see very marked

changes in the housing of the poorer people of the modern cities, and we

shall no more cling to the single house than to the country store. The

time may come, when, if in any city, the death-rate rises above the

normal, that the body of public-spirited citizens shall at once feel

forced to do something about it, that they shall be filled with a sense

of disgrace and feel that a disaster has occurred in their city. At the

present moment the death-rate is constantly above the normal, in certain

quarters of our cities; we allow it to be high year after year, knowing

that it is excessive. This apathy can only be explained on one of two

grounds, either that we do not know the housing conditions which exist,

or that we are so selfish as to have no sense of responsibility in

regard to them.

DISCUSSION OF THE PAPERS READ BY MISS ADDAMS AND MR. DE FOREST:

“Q. Is the discretion, which Miss Addams says is abused in Chicago to

such an extent, exercised with regard to the legal court area which

should be left unoccupied by the building?

“A. (Miss Addams), I would reply, yes, that buildings are permitted to

go up with lesser court areas than provided by law. The matter is so

largely in the hands of the office giving the permit that almost every

provision is changed. I think we found in this investigation houses

which illustrated the encroachment upon and the breaking of every single

ordinance found upon the statute books, in regard to the shaft area as

well as other provisions.

“Q. I cannot see why the figures mentioned should be unduly low for the

rent per room per month, or should be too low to permit a reasonable

profit to the owner of property. I have rented a six-room house in

Washington, around the corner from one of the best residence districts,

for $3.50 per room per month; furnished rooms in New York, near Columbia

University, for $2.00 a week, and downtown, near the business part of

the city, for $1.50, furnished, with attendance. I wonder if Mr. De

Forest can tell us what, under modern conditions in New York City, for

example, should be a fair rent which would enable a landlord to get a

fair profit on the investment per room per month.

“A. (Mr. De Forest), In New York, rents are, I think, on a business

basis. In other words, I do think the landlords expect to receive, and

do receive from their tenements a normal income, and, in many instances

more than a normal income. The modern tenements which are being put up

by the City and Suburban Homes Company of New York, which are now being

increased in number, do produce a fair income, representing not less

than 4 per cent on the money invested. I refer to the buildings

constructed at the present time under the modern requirements of the

state law.

“Q. The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company paid 5 per cent from the

very beginning and rents its flats for about $3.00 per room per month.

The buildings are one to three stories high.

“A. Land is considerably higher in Washington. This land is not less

than $150, and usually $200 a foot. The price quoted lowest was $1.78

per room per month, whereas your price was $2.00 a week, for New York;

$3.00 and $3.50 per month for Washington.

“Q. We have heard this question from the standpoint of Chicago, New York

and Philadelphia, but the clientele of this association, as I understand

it, covers the entire country, and I should like to ask Mr. De Forest

whether it is not true that the investigation made by the Tenement House

Commission of New York disclosed the fact that in virtually every

manufacturing city of the country there is to-day distinctly a housing

problem for the poor and that definite constructive work needs to be

done to remedy the evils.

“A. The investigation made by the Tenement House Commission which

covered all the large cities, and some of the smaller ones of the

country, includes statistics from twenty selected cities. It is true

that the tenement house problem presents itself in a much less degree in

some places than in others; it does so to a much less extent in

Philadelphia. In other large cities of the country the housing problem

exists to a large extent, and so much so in some of the smaller cities

that last winter the cities of the second class in New York

State—Syracuse, Utica, Albany and Rochester—took up the problem of

regulation in these cities. Jersey City, which is directly opposite New

York, and which is a comparatively small city, has some of the worst

housing conditions in the whole country.

“Q. About how large a proportion of the population is affected by the

housing problem in New York?

“A. The total population of New York is about 3,400,000. Out of that

population upwards of 2,200,000 live in tenement houses, as legally

defined, which includes apartment houses. The proportion in Brooklyn is

quite as large as in New York, although there is a smaller number of

families per house.

“Q. What is a double-decker?

“A. (Miss Addams), The double-decker was originally, of course, a house,

which grew from the fact that there was a front tenement and a rear

tenement, and that later the two were joined into one house.

“Q. I would like to ask Miss Addams as to Chicago and Mr. De Forest as

to Brooklyn, whether any notice has been taken of the question as to the

best pavement for the poor sections of the city, that is, whether

asphalt for the lanes and alleys is not, as a rule, cleaner in

appearance and in other ways, than other kinds of paving, as

cobblestone, for instance.

“A. (Miss Addams), I will ask Mr. De Forest to answer that. Paving is a

weak point in Chicago.

“A. (Mr. De Forest), Perhaps I ought to say that I am glad to find some

point on which New York has something to say. Most of our congested

tenement districts in New York, largely on the East Side, have been

paved with asphalt. This is regarded as a matter of grave importance,

and was one of the subjects considered by the Tenement House Commission;

that in some districts there should be asphalt pavements, because the

families almost live in the streets in summer and the children all play

there, was one consideration, and keeping the streets clean was another

of great importance.

“Q. Do you think that the facilitation of the workingman in change of

residence, either within metropolitan borders, or from one city to

another, or from one state to another, is a good thing in contemplation

of his privileges and duties as an American citizen?

“A. I think that in industry, as it is now organized, with the sudden

changes and fluctuations of skill, if the workman is deprived of the

power to sell his labor, it is very bad for him. Then I think the

adaptable person is a better American citizen than a person who is

planted too hard.

“Q. Are you not, therefore, regarding only the rights and the good that

may be done to the individual, eliminating altogether his obligations as

a citizen?

“A. What I wanted to say was this, that I think we have a way of

relegating all the old-fashioned virtues to workingmen and reserving to

ourselves the most interesting and more adaptable virtues. We say to our

workmen, do not drink, be thrifty and industrious. These are good but

negative. We reserve to ourselves the power of developing an interesting

life, and all the rest of it. On general principles, if a man can stay

in one place and own his house, of course it is better for him both from

a financial and social point of view; but there are exceptions, and we

all know that the present industrial conditions imply constant change

both in methods and place of manufacture, that if we really understood

the workingman’s needs and were trying to serve him, we would evolve

some such plan as has been evolved in Belgium. A man there puts his

savings into the Government Savings Bank, which has all the features of

a building and loan association. As I understand it, he may make partial

payments upon a house in Brussels, but if his work takes him away from

that city to another within the kingdom—let us say Ghent—he may transfer

his payments to a house in Ghent. On the other hand he may remain in

Brussels, complete his payments until he owns his house or withdraw his

stock in his own house, after allowing for proper depreciation, and hold

his savings in simple bank stock. The entire arrangement is flexible and

adaptable, and transfers the sense of ownership from the simple

ownership of land and house, to the more complex one of stock.

“Q. Regarding gardens, playgrounds and gymnasiums, which, in some

sections of Philadelphia—namely, the College Settlement—have been

located on the tops of buildings for the benefit of children, has that

been done in New York and Chicago, and with what success?

“A. I should say, yes, so far as the movement has gone, that is with

regard to open playgrounds, not speaking of roof gardens, and with

regard to open parks. The small park movement has undoubtedly done a

great deal of good, and the children’s playground, so far as it has

gone. It has not gone to the extent that its friends desire. So far as

roof gardens are concerned, that is, the adoption of roofs for

recreation, that has not been done so far as I know. It has been thought

of and talked of, but never carried out.”

CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE HOUSING PROBLEM IN PHILADELPHIA

REPORT PREPARED BY THE OCTAVIA HILL ASSOCIATION

The work of the Octavia Hill Association has been one of detailed

management of the houses of the poor and not of investigation, but it

cannot let this opportunity pass without describing some of the

conditions known to it. No comprehensive report of housing conditions in

Philadelphia has ever been made. The Seventh Special Report of the

Commissioner of Labor in 1894 on the Slums of Great Cities has

interesting data on living conditions at that time in certain sections

of the slum districts, while “The Philadelphia Negro,” a social study,

by W. E. Burghardt Dubois, published by the University of Pennsylvania

in 1899, throws a vivid light on the problem in its relation to the

colored population of the Seventh Ward. We believe that the time has

come for wider consideration of this important subject. Our purpose in

this paper is to urge strongly the importance, if not the necessity, of

a thorough investigation and that one may be undertaken in the near

future before our situation becomes more serious.

Philadelphia had in 1900 a population of 1,293,697 persons, covering an

area of almost 130 square miles, with an average density of about

fifteen persons to an acre. Of its 258,690 dwelling-houses more than

one-half are two-story dwellings, and its average number of persons to a

dwelling is 4.91. These facts show that our problems differ radically

from those of New York and Chicago and that it is the house built for

occupation by a single family and not the tenement, which is the

important feature for us to consider. The excellent system which has

made Philadelphia famous and has given it a larger proportion of

separate dwellings for the working classes than any city of an equal

population, has blinded our eyes too long to the evils which have been

growing up about us. Until within a few years the building law was

practically a dead letter, and no check was placed on the avarice of the

landlord in his desire to gain the utmost possible return from his

ground space. Even to-day we have no laws for the enforcement of

underdrainage and our municipal departments are unable with their small

force of inspectors to cope with the conditions we are facing. These

facts have given us problems which though the way to their solution may

be plain, yet demand serious consideration.

Philadelphia can be justly proud of the way in which the needs of the

regularly employed wage-earner have been met by the small house. In the

newer and outlying parts of the city this house is found in its best

development. There are rows upon rows, streets upon streets of

attractive four and six roomed houses with an increasing number of

modern conveniences. Sanitary plumbing, bath, range, furnace, gas, a

cemented cellar, a porch and a small yard may be had for from $15.00 to

$20.00 a month. Three thousand six hundred and twenty-five two-story

houses were in 1901 added to the already large number of these and the

Building and Loan Associations bear witness to the continued demand and

the increase of popular ownership.

Nearer to the centre of the city also, and in the great mill and factory

districts, one finds still the individual home, but here the houses are

older, the rows seem longer and more unbroken in their monotony and in

innumerable courts and alleys there is surface drainage. Here, also, we

find the various features of the problem which grows more difficult in

the older parts of the city and as the social scale is lowered. In

prosperous times, each small house holds one family. In times of

industrial depression the house built for one family must with no

additional conveniences, no better arrangements for privacy and comfort,

accommodate two or more.