The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1872-08-17
Cooperative Homes No. l
BY EDN ARD T.. HALE.

cooperative homes NO. l.
BY EDW ARD +. HALE.
We have gwen this name, as the best We
can select, to one or two paper, NhIOh VII
! attempt to describe some "a The steps Of
/ progress which have thus far been made in
IN Improvement which We believe essential,
and some If the principles on which they
depend. The dangers, not to say the in
cunveniences, Of life i'll large cities, have
hy this time arrested the attention even of
the most careless The question, How
/ will you govern large city , hard enough
when that city is Londonor Pekin, is hard
er yet when universal suffrage is at the
bottom of the government. The mere
toundatIun-questlon, How Will you hive
IN large city II becomes Of critical i'm
portance when, i'll city like New York,
every mother Of Intelligence believes chat
she must carry her children away for the
summtr if they are to live through the
first five years ct life,-or when i'll city
as small rs Boston, washed by the salt
water on three sides, you have, III hot
summer, a death-rate Of children under
/ five AS high rs a thousand i'll a hundred
days If the reader will bear in mind that
IN large tenement house III New York
the annual mortality has been one III eleven
if he will then ASK himself what it would
be to him to have one i'll eleven Of the
persons nearest him i'll business, in resi-
dence, or i'll church, die in "A years time,
he viii perhaps make clear that tenement
houses, eight stories high, twenty-five feet
wide, and one hundred and twenty fee deep,
are not the best possible residences in which
either to bring up the young, or to house
the men and women on whose shoulders is
the work nf the world.
Yet there is an evident tendency Of trade
and manufactures to the centralized work
ia cities. tendency 50 distinct that it would
be lille to fight against it, The distinct So
luton Of the problem of health, education
and life Of the great middle class or labor
my class. which is, fortunately, all but the
whole of America, is found not III inviting
everybody to 60 to the prairies, g to grow
up with a new place, but in such organi-
zation of the homes around cities, that
men can live in the country, sleep in the
country, educate their children in the
country, while they do their work in the
concentrated workshops within the limits
Of large towns.
MS Is SO eNlueIJ LIaL COIlSJhnt dlLeulptb
are made in this direction. Every traveller
through New Jersey sees the lines Of little
wooden villages which line the railroads
| for forty miles from New York. West of
Philadelphia the same phenomenon is be
ginning. On eight diverging lines of rail
ways, villages Of "suburbaLs" have been
growing up around Boston for many years
All Of these instances are illustrations Of
what is attempted in the right direction.
A vast deal more is to be done, however,
than has been done and it requires more
intelligent combination than has been usual
Of the three sets Of people concerned. name
| ly, Of the landowner, the railroad pro
/ prietOr and the settler, to make the exodus
from the towns become "A system.
Let the reader consider how large "A pro-
blem is in hand Ultimate success, if one
sought for an absolute ideal, would he such
depletion of the tenement houses of New
| York or Boston, as to bring their rate Of
mortality down, say from one eleventh Of
their population to one fOrty-hfth. This
as providing few cottages in the country
for bank-tellers, and evening paper editors,
and dry-goOds clerks. The system, for
there must be system, must be such
that every stevedore, Jumper, or day-labor-
er of whatever name may avail himself OF
it, as well as the man who wears broad
cloth on week days Nor will it answer u
make plan which shall simply attract a
few enterprising or perhaps romantic peo-
pie, who like changes and are willing t.
take good deal Of hardship for the sake Of
change. 1t must be plan which shall bt
large enough to attract everybody's atten
tion,-simple enough for everybody to un.
derstand, cheap enough for everybody tC
profit by it peclniarily, substantial
enough to ensure permanency. Each o
these requisites has, i'll fact been secured
III one or another experiment. Each new
experiment, which is prepared for with car,
and study, will secure more Of them. AnC
it only requires study of the experiment.
already made to avoid the bunders and tn,
consequent misery which belong to the his
tory Of SO many forlorn villages with ro
mantle and high-sOnnding names, which
stand as monuments Of selhshness ant
folly around all our larger cities. Tn,
failure of such enterprises no more show
that people are not to live in open al
houses, half an hour from their workshops
than do the ruins of little flannel factor
les all over New England show that it wa
never meant that New England should un
dertake the manufacture Of cloth. Becaus
one man fails when he does a thing wrong
there is no reason why another man shoul
not succeed who does thing right
Let us aim high. What is the ideal cor
dition Of home life, for workingmen, 50 "a
! as our civilization has seen or attained
| involves a separate house, owned by tn
: tenant, with windows on each side, read
t ventilation, and a patch Of land larR
enough for the ornament at least of tn
E home, perhaps for the occupation Of tn
children. 1t would be foolish to attemI
! anything better than this, and this is
every mans command, if he does not drin
= or steal, in hundred successful towns
t North America, such, for instance, a. Wol
1 cester, Massachusetts,, or Syracuse, Ne
York. We name these two places, only b
way of convenient illustration. OF mo-
: of our large successful towns, which Al
not too large, the same thing may be sais