The weekly examiner., 1901-04-27
c "N Fl - ENTERTAINMENT CHILD
A STRUGGLE BETWEEN FAT POCKET .. BOOK AND THIN BABY.

BOOK AND THIN BABY. Deathtraps In Which Gotham Starves
 and stransIes the Children of the
 POOr-The New York Journals Ap-
 peal to Governor OdeII.
 The vile tenement houses and cheap apartment houses of this city are monuments-shamef monuments-to thousands of murdered children.
 Dr. Robins of the Rivington street lsettlement declsres that the children of the poor die in thousands of the tenement house disease" 1 This disease is due to lack of light, of sunshine and of air.
 The poor little creatures are born and wither in the dark rooms and darker halls
 The legislature of tEe state has pass ed law reforming at least a few of the tenement house abuses. This law, framed by disinterested citizens, Is fought by those who speculate in cheap ltenements and flats and speculate in the lives of children. l. Governor Odeu has delayed signing
 
 the tenement speculators. While he has delayed signing the builders of deadly tenements have has, tened to file plans for hundreds of atro- cious structures. One single firm filed plans at one time for S5 of the death traps. Plans now filed cannot be touch ed by future legislation. Let us hope that an administration may be found Ito condemn them later and ruin the vultures that build them. Yesterday Governor Odell listened to the speculating builders, who demand that no law be passed to control them.
 Their argument was to the point and simple. This is what they said, each arguing for fat pocketbook:
 'The children die for lack of sum- shine and light and air?
 Possibly.
 "But sunshine and light cost money. Are we to pay for those things?
 Cant we build what we like on our own land? The poor don't have to rent our tenements if they don't want to- This is a free country. Let us build the tenements and let the poor stay out of them if they please.
 
 ernor. Don't destroy our profits. You are a business man. Think of us. Don't be a sentimentalist. Remember, we employ skilled labor, and if you hurt us you hurt the laboring man. You lose votes," etc.
 The governor has heard the appeal of the rich spectators in child life. He has listened to the reasons of the Buddensieks and other criminal build CTS and has delayed signing the bill to please them.
 We hope that his mind will not be closed to the appeal of the tenement \ house child.
 II She cannot argue, she has no vested .I rights, no fat pocketbook. She has only J vested way df afigg,l- ment she can Sgfy point her thin hand l to her little baby sister or brother crawling, white and feeble, about the damp, sunless halls of the tenement. But the argument of the helpless child was written 19 centuries ago, lGovernor Odell, and the letters of fire in which it was written are bright and lclear today. Read 1t: -
 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done 1t unto Tine. y.
 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, 1t were better for him that millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea"
 Governor Odell, let this argument Of him who died for the poor outweigh the argument of the men with fat pocketbooks. The little children cannot go to Al bany, and their voices are feeble, but none the less receive them in his name and hear their side. You know that sunshine and air are as necessary to childhood as food and water.
 You know that children deprived of sunlight starve as though deprived of food. They wither and die, like plants in a cellar.
 Will you permit these spectators or "vested interests" to starve thousands and tens of thousands of children? We know that you will not. l. You have children of your own, gov ernor.
 Could any man get hearing to ''ar- que" with you against their interests Could any man with a plan to deprive them of sunlight visit you with safety
 Do for the children of the poor what you would do for your own.-New York Journal
 l Printers Will Try Arbitration.
 The vote of the International Typo