The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1896-10-12

Thfn Guhtsoe.
What are the wage earnar's ane-
ciai interests in improved housingP
In the first place, this class Is vital
ly interested in the conservation OF
health. Good health means earning
power, and as workingmen lead
more or less of a hand TO mouth ex-
istence any loss of earning power n
q serious matter. Lord Beaconsfield
aptly voiced this truth in an adj
dress delivered at the opening Of
some new blocks of improved tene-
ments in London. He said 1.-The
health Of the people is really the
foundation upon which all their
happiness and their power depend.
Few realize the loss of productive
energy through sickness brought /
about by bad living environments.
Sir James Paget, the distinguished
English physician, estimates that
the whole population of England be- |
tween Is and 65 years old works in |
each year 20, 600, 900 weeks less than !
it might if it were not for sick |
ness. He puts down the loss infliot-
ed on wage earneIs at nearly S15,-
600, 600 annually. He refers simply
to purely preventable loss. Some
years ago the. London health au-
thorities instituted inquiries in GER
tain low neighbofhoods to estimate
the value of labor lost in a year, not
by sickness, but from sheer exhaus-
tion induced by unfavorable sur
roundings. Itwas found that, upon
the lowest average, every worker
lost about 20 days in the year from
this cause. One might go on multi
plying such instances. but it is not
necessary to enforce the argument
by cumulative citation.
Wage earners are vitality interest
ed in the passage and enforcement
of wise sanitary laws Bad santa
ton entails proportionAlly worse
economic consequences to them than
to the more highly favored. They
are also more often the victim Of
sickness and epidemics. fostered by
insanitary neighborhoods. The
workingman has a positive interest
in using whatever political power
he possesses to secure legal RENE
dies against uninhabitable houses
through appropriation laws such as
those current in England and the
measure recently put into operation
by the board of health of New York
city under the tenement house law
of 1895. Who, if not wage carriers,
are interested in the obliteration of
rookeries where the death rate
equals 73 in 200? Whatever pro-
notes better living conditions, no
matter whether it comes from legal
enactment or private effort, will find
support from wage earners who ap-
t preciate their true interests.
! Important as are the physical and
: economic aspects of this question,
they are not the sole, perhaps they
. are not even the chief, considera-
tions. Ethical issues have greater
+ ultimate significance. Many of our
moral and social ills are more near
ly connected with bad housing than
: appears upon the surface. Take,
: for example, drunkenness. How alb
surd to suppose that immoderate
liquor drinking can be suppressed so
long as people are left to live in
houses where lack of elementary
sanitation saps vitality, while noise
I someness and unattractiveness i'm
pei a search for outside relief. IL
is entirely unjust to suppose that
only low impulse to debauch OF a
reckless disregard of family duties
leads wage earners to contract the
d saloon habit" The utter dullness
: and the lack of individuality in tene-
? ment house existence often lie back
: of the fatal temptation.