New-York tribune., 1901-03-31
THE CRY OF THE CHILD.

OF all the human forces none are more potent,
| perhaps none potent, as the appeal OF the
child for its rightful due. The Instinct or
fatherhood and motherhood is sunk so deep ID
the human heart that il lives on even Wheh
almost every holy instinct is sere and dead.
Neither misery nor poverty nor hard dlstresses
can wholly drive il out and often it survives
amid the horrible environment of criminallty
and vice 1t is the last human instinct to nee
the heart where human instincts are dying, ana
when il is gone there is left behind dead
soul whether the body be living or dead Most
men and women devote far more than half of
their mature life 10 care and thought and labor
for their children 1t is an impulse more con-
trolling than any passion, more enduring. more
constant The tiny fingers of a child can open
barred doors which strong men cannot open;
child with piping voice and lsping tongue can
speak more powerful arguments than advocates
and orators. Therefore it is certain that the
cry which is just now going up from the tene-
ments of this CITY will be heard and answered,
for it is the cry of the child 1t is the cry of the
child asking for its rightful due asking for air,
asking for scrap of sunshine-more than all
else asking for surroundings of moral decency
in the midst of which it may grow up with
chance of purity and innocence.
Concerning the tenements there are many
hard nroblems much need for careful study, for
conservatism for practical understanding. The
tenement problem cannot be settled by a
demand for impossible things With the sta
tistics of a years deaths from fire in the tene-
ments a quick impulse would be TO demand
that all such buildings shall he absolutely nre-
proof But such a demand, 1t is well known,
would aid no one. while ii would work lncal-
culable misery and distress, because, by stop
ping new building and compelling the use OF
some of the present structures condemned as
tenements for other purposes. it would result in
worse congestion even than now exists. Like
wise with extreme demands of any kind in rela-
ton to the tenements. All this is well known,
and was. happily thoroughly appreciated ny the
Tenement House Commission. whose careful
and conservative report is now before the legs-
lature. together with bill aimed TO supply
the needs indicated by the commissions investt-
CATION.
But there is nothing extreme or impracticable
about the chief relief which the child of the
tenement asks. Build as well as you can, as
safely as you can. with as much regard TO sani-
tation as you can, but above all remove from
the tenements the curse. the abomination, of
open. fragrant, Haunting immortality and vice.
The child cries out for chance to grow up In
innocence TO a life of purity. Give it that II
nothing else, We rejoice that the Committee of
Fifteen has taken this matter up and added the
weight of its Endorsement to the recommends
ton of the Tenement House Commission. This
recommendation. TO increase the responsibility
of the landlord and increase and intensity the
penalty of traffic in immOrality, points the only
course by which the child may be answered
and the tenement houses cleared. not for an
excited day or week or MONTH but permanently.
Of this terrible evil.