The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-10-19

look out OF place, for example, at
a dinner in the White house, even
if their influence and supremacy
were practically due to skill in levy
ing blackmail tribute and to play
ing the smallest possible return.
The wide-open town as all New
York knows, is Tammany Halls
visible means Of support. The per
son who lives in New York and
/ doesn't know that lacks ordinary
intelligence. 1t isn't debatable
proposition. Every one knows that
the town is wide open; the real
question is who is paying the bill?
What does it cost? Upon whom
does the real burden fall? Can
Tammany Hall stop it if it would?
Is the Tammany Hall policy, OF
which former Mayor Gilroy com
planned indirectly in a public inter
view several months ago, making
New York city, as he. said, most
expensive place for the,poor to live
in? Is the poor man paying part
OF the wide-open town bill in rents
that are unnecessarily high? Are
the sick suffering because the ice
bills are doubled? Is this policy
costing the lives of the young and
the old? Is the system of filth and
corruption, visible at every hand,
eating up flesh and blood? Are
young men and women being ruin
ed in greater numbers than before
Tammany came back into power?
Is crime increasing? Are the Pot
ter's Field interments growing ont
of proper proportion? Are the
crimes against children on the in
crease? Is human life as safe as
before? Is the death rate, espec-
tally on the East Side, any higher?
Are homes for the unfortunate and
fallen, the absolute weary of this
world: overcrowded?
All these are proper questions,
especially as Tammany Hall has
become supreme in state as we'll
as local politics, and because its
leaders are ambitious. The ques-
tons demand fair and truthful ans
wers. Let these answers be set
forth here.
EAsT-s1DE DEATH RATE INCREASING.
Take the death-rate first. Ever
since the beginning of Mayor
Strong's administration the New
York city death-rate has been 60
ing down, swiftly in the days of the
Strong regime, very slowly in the
days of resumed Tammany rule.
Good pavements and fair street
cleaning have done it. But that is
the condition for the entire city, or
rather the boroughs of Manhattan
and the Bronx, the cold city," But
how about the East Side? How
about the Seventh, Tenth, and
Seventeenth wards, where the great
tenement-house population lives?
Here are some figures from the
Health Board records, records now
under the complete control of Tam
many Hall. The total tenement
house population in the Seventh
ward, according to the census of
the sanitary squad of police, in
1898, the first year of the Van
Wyck administration, was 81, 2 S..
The number of deaths in that ward
during the year was 1888. The
death-rate on the basis of the ten
ement-house population was 1851
in a thousand.
Now let us be fair in this mat
ter. This was not the death-rate
in the ward. What that was no
one can tell. The number of
deaths in each ward is know n for
every year, of course, but the
census Of the entire population in
every ward is not. However, the
Seventh, Tenth and Seventeenth
wards are made up almost entirely
of tenement houses. The popula-
ton in other buildings is a mere
drop in the bucket, and DEATH
rate based upon the figures of the
yearly census of the sanitary squad
is practically the death-rate of the
ward. Now look at the death-rate
for 1899 in the same ward. In
1899 the tenementhouse popula-
tiou in the Seventh ward was TO-
o33, and the deaths numbered
1348. The death-rate in thou
sand was 1903. Look at the
Tenth ward. In 1898 the tene-
~, on r bo,,co ,,o,,,1o <;o- u,,, o. 49,