The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-03-23
Tenement House Reform-Report oi
the Committee Of Nine.

anu uol ueieiy, not even PiipSiP"'y' "
the part of the population forced to dwell
in the tenement houses as they are, but
also to those who dwell in Fifth and Madi-
son avenues, on Murray Hill or any other
hill, where are to be found the homes OF the
opulent, whose veal Ii is rooted i'll the gen.
eral prosperity of the city. For the prosper
ity of all those rich people and the security
OF their property must be dependent always
upon laws made in the name of the many,
and in proportion as the many are de-
graded, ignorant, hopeless, they become
the tools of political systems ruinous to all
security and prosperity systems such as
are Swallowed forth in what has already
been done for us by Tammany Hall.
But what must be tho condition, mentally
and morally, OF any masses Of population
born and reared in such homes as the tene-
ment houses of this city? Housed worse
than good man houses his cattle, without
light or fresh air very often, in very cess
pool of filth, is it any wonder that morality
becomes mere name with them? Is it any
wonder that disease finds in their systems
hotbed that raises our regular rate of
mortality beyond that of any other civilized
city? Is it any wonder they are soured
against a social system that makes them its
victims, and that they howl for communism
or any other ism that promises u change?
Plundered to dreadful extent in rent for
even the wretched homes they have. is it
strange that they take to vile food and yiler
stimulants because they are cheap, and that
murder and all other violence follows?
No city can be safe in whose prosperity
the mass of the people have not some share;
and city that grows great and rich and
splendid, and permits it's laboring popula-
ton to be oppressed and driven to the wall
in proportion to its accumulation of wealth,
builds it's future over worse than volcanic
fires Out Of the tenement houses of this
city, if we permit them to- remain as they
are, will come an enemy with which we
shall not be able to cope. Therefore we
deem the labor taken up by the gentlemen
of the Tenement House Committee OF Nine
as one of very great Importance and as not
entered upon an hour too soon. 1t is well
to reform our politics, to put drones and
thieves out OF Office, to decide in their time
all the important issues Of the hour
as they come up but unless we reform and
ef1ectually remedy this tenement house evil,
all else that We may do in reform in this
city will be done, in great degree, in vain !;
while. if we really reform the tenement
houses, we shall strike an effective blow at
the seeds of almost every evil in the body
polite. The root Of the Tammany Hall
system is in the tenement houses. and SO is
the root of every other evil of which that is
either the type or the source. People who
have the moral stamina to compel probity
in Office are overweighted in our political
schemes by populations systematically de.
moralized, and the result is immunity for
rogues in office.
| port of this important committee They
have considered the subject rs to the pres
ent tenement houses and what it is pos
sible to do with them by the enforcement
Of the observance of sanitary code, as to
the construction of tenements on new and
improved systems, and as to the relation
of the subject to rapid transit, the immedi-
ate force of which relation, il strikes us,
they do not perceive. Their direct and
important recommendation is the solution
of the trouble with capitalize formation
of joint stock companies for the erection of
suitable houses for the people who now
live in the crowded and loathsome cara
vansaries Of the vile neighborhoods. Every
one of the points they touch in this
scheme is good, but some are better
than others. In the formation of
companies with capital to construct dwell
ings on o new plan and on the chances
opened for such scheme by the effects of
rapid transit lie the great and Immediately
important facts Tenement house property
pays. AS it is managed under the present
evil system it pays extravagantly-two or
three times as much as good property. In
real estate sale the other day a piece of
tenement house property in Forsyth street
was sold for fifteen thousand nine hundred
dollars, and the actual annual income of
the property from rent is two thousand
eight hundred and twenty dollars, or seven
teen per cent. Now, on good residences
people are satisfied il they get six per cent.
Moreover, the fact that eighty million dol
lars have been invested in this property
within ten years shows the opinion of capt.
talists-which is instructive. But an in
| come like this is on houses managed as
they are but even well managed and with
| some consideration for tenants the return
would also be very great.
Here, therefore. is the main fact in the
case. Capital is invited to help in circum-
stances where it may directly benefit itself
and have an advantage besides that it
gains by the general improvement in the
condition of the people. Dividends are
limited to five per cent in the association
which the committee of nine proposes to
| form but that assocation-an excellent