The San Francisco call., 1897-02-02
Letters From the People.
MUNICIPAL HOUSING.
Hhdt Has Been Done in Some Large
GerDdu. Cities,

Hhat Has Been Done in Some Large
German. Cities.
| To the Editor of the San Francisco Calt-SIR
| Perhaps should 5 tate in a preliminary note
| that my failure for fortnight past to offer
| further suggestions on municipal government
is due to my absence in the mines and not TO a
oss OF interest in the subject. Indeed, the
| more familiar one becomes with what has been
done by the older progressive cities OF the
world for the general welfare, noting the
happy results which always follow even the
most startling innovations, the greater and
deeper the interest one feels in this vital prob
lem of the present hour, the rational manage
ment of municipal affairs in large cities.
Municipal housing claims our attep ton in
this letter. On page 355 OF Albert Shaw'S ac-
mrable book on municipal Government in
Europe" we are told that call thorough stud
ents of III problem of life in modern cities
are now agreed that the housing of the people
IS the question that requires from this time
forth the deepest consideration and the boidest
and most serious treatment" and only super
hc1al minds will dissent from this conclusion.
few facts will help US here. "In 1889 II
was found that 73, 900 persons in the city OF
Berlin were living in the families occupying a
single room in tenement houses; 382. 900 were
living in two-room tenementS; 432,OOO In
three-room apartments and 39S. 600 occupied
tour-room habitations." Now, although the
one-room dwellerS were only about one-SiXth
as many the three-room dwellers their rate
of mortality was twenty-three times as high,
and thlrty-three times greater than that OF the
tour-room. occupants"
Mr.. Shaw makes this further comparison: ::
The total population OF Berlin in 1885 was
1,3l5, 900, and "the $4,000 people who lived
in the one-room quarters suffered nearly half
the entire number of deaths of the whole
population. Their death-rate was 1888 per
1000, nearly one-sixth OF their entire numb ber,
while the two-room dwelters sustained death
rate of only % 3, the three-room dwellers only
10. and the four-room people lost only 5.4 per
1000 OF the population" He adds that half
the mortality of the Berlin one-room dweilers
occurred in households where five or more
persons occupied the one enclosed space"
Important results Immediately followed d
this minute statistical investigation in 1885.
Drastic rules were at once adopted by the
municipality for the construction OF tene-
nthouses-one requiring that at leas
a third part of the lot should be left unbuil t
| upon as a court space for air and light; an
other forb1dding the construction oil apart
ments cont tanning less than a prescribed num-
| Der OF cubic feet of SPACE and requiring
| proper provision for daylight, ventilation and
| heating, while the tenemeut-houses already
| occupied were brought under strict municipal
authority, and in various ways the evils OF
| overcrowding were lessened and the average
| character OF the housing OF the poorer classes
greatly improved.
But more important result OF the statisti-
| cal inquiry OF 1885, causing immediate action
| OF the municipality TO protect the poor from
| the avarice OF landlords and the city from
! the devastation OF epldemics, was the i'm
mense impulse given to a movement to create
| Greater Berlin. To this end the municipal au-
| thority proceeded to lay off the djacent ter
| ritory and prescribe exactly the character OF
| the houses that propertY-owners might erect.
| On this point Mr.. Shaw remarks that ''such
| regulations may seem irksome, yet all cities
| must come to the conclusion that the righ is
| of the masses in crowded communities are
superior 10 the whims of individuals; that
| the pretense that private ownership of land
carries with II any absolute right TO disregard
| the general welfare is a banefuI heresy which
| is not TO be tolerated when it asserts It's impu-
dent Claims"
On page 361 we are told that "all the other
| leading German cities have made similar sta
| tistical inVestiga tions, and most of them are
| endeavoring 10 reform the evils which they
! now fully com prehend." However, bright as
| the future OF these German cities now seems
| to be in the sanitary housing OF people who
| can never look forward 10 the day when they
| shall have homes OF their own, but must al
| ways live in hired tenements, still it must be
conceded that these cities have much yet to
| do before they are the equals of Glasgow and
| Paris in the humane and practical relief al
| forded the more abject poor, and more espe-
cially do they seem to lack the divine benevo-
| lences incarnated In the municipal life of
Glasgow and Paris which protects, edueates,
| clothes and feeds the little children OF the
hapless and helpless poor.
JOSEPH AsBURY JOHNSON.
IL Essex street, Jan. 80, 1897