Evening star., 1902-08-09
THE "STREETERS" WARS
NO HOUR OF PRIVACY FROM THE
CRADLE TO THE GRAVE.
Ihe Dumb, Hopeless, Desperate Fight
OF the Mothers Against Chiidren's
Sickness in Summer.
Copyright, 1902


to walk a block without seeing a white
Grape streamer hanging from the common
entrance to barracks. In some of the
crowded blocks every other door faunts
one.
10 the stranger this is. no doubt the
most shocking sight to be seen in those
sections filled with unusual sights For the
croWdlng that robs the living of all the
little privacies that more fortunate human
beings hold sacred robs death still more
In the tenement house man, woman and
chlld must die as they have lived in public
Children play with the poor, cheap token
or a famfly's sorrow; the other inmates of
the tenement sit and lounge in the doorway
Where 1t hangs, and talk and laugh: the
d1ngy Railways resound with the voices of
the peddlers and merchants who deliver
thelr wares, and with the chaffering of
tne1r customers; the undertaker's men ar
rive with clatter and joke with the neigh
bors as they halt before the door; often the
streamer futters over the wares of the
shopkeeper who has his store or stand in
the ground floor
One day last week there was small
crowd around one Of the many sticky fly
peS1eSed, evil soda water fountains that
are erected everywhere on the sidewalk
From the doorway alongside white Grape
with a few sad little artificial blossoms
wreathed around it, waved in the damp,
glass of poisonous looking pink fluid that
customer had just raised to his lips
ShriT laughter from the bystanders greeted
the incident. Then followed a bitter dis
pute, in which, before long score of men
and women We're enthusiastic participants.
because the customer demanded that the
owner of the fountain replace what part of
the drink had been lost.
Upstairs, little form, wasted until it
looked startlingly like a big, broken doll.
lay on bed in a room crowded with chat
tering neighbors All who passed through
the common hall craned their necks to look
In over the shoulders of those who filled
the room. No man who went by the open
door where the tiny corpse lay took off his
hat. On the threshold stood large woman
with her elbows glistenng with the soap
suds of her weeks washing. She was tell
ing an interminable story of one of her
children that was "as sick this one,"
and how it would have lived if she had
only done so and so.
The mother sat by the bed of her baby.
Now and then she would reach out fur
lively and pat the little dead hands. Now
and then she would cry, quietly, with
piteous self-repression. The father? He
was away working as usual-no not quite
as usual. for he had taken a heavy heart
with him that morning. The large woman
broke off once in her tale to wonder how
he felt Il always feared, sort Of she
said, that maybe he made too much of
Esther. Don't you remember" she appeal
ed to the mother, 'how he used to call to
her as soon as he got to the corner and
hold out his arms for her and carry her
to work all day today? It's good he's got
it to do though. Funerals is terrible
pensive. When our little Sammy died." and
the endless tale began anew.
When the father appeared at last, walk
ing slowly up the street with new stoop
In his weary shoulders, there was no dimi-
mutton of interest. Men and women stopped
him on the street and the children crowded
around and listened. A neighbor woman
hustled into the kitchen and cooked his sup
per for him, calling on him continually with
kindly, loud-voiced insistence to Come
away, now; come away from her and eat.
You can't do her no good, poor little dear.
She's better off; she is, indeed, and you
must think of the rest"
THE rest were on the street, being
made heroes of to an extent, but not too
much: and being envied openly by other
children for their coming opportunity to
ride in a carriage Their sharp little faces,
unnaturally knowing, seemed wiser than
ever as they described to their circle what
the undertaken had done and how much the
funeral would cost.
Not Humanity Brutalized.
Yet this humanity of the tenements is not
humanity brutalized. This humanity Is
bound together by communal ties far closer
and more intimate than are those Of hap
pier districts. But it is humanity in battle.
The tenement house dwellers look forward
to the annual summer dying of the children
as unquestioningly as the soldier looks for
ward to the dying comrades in war. Cen
Grafton after generation has seen 1t. In the
spring mothers look at their offspring and
ssk themselves which ones are likely to be
taken. They tell each other that such
one probably will not live through August.
Mute uncomplaining, they take heed of
the'heat as it grows; unconsciously heroic,
they face death in struggle that is more
direct than any except where two men
stand face to face to kill; they trudge for
ing a sick, complaining child to the ugly
river piers to catch stray puff of air that
happier mortals would sniff at In disdain,
but that to those mothers is Gods own
mercy sent to earth.
The crowds that block the sidewalk on
the day of funeral SO that way hardly can
be cleared for the coffin; the hundreds of
aces that stare with open curiosity into the
face of the mother as she goes to the car
rage. are not there because they lack SYM
pathy Through generation after genera
ton of conditions to which no breeder of
cattle would dream Of subJecting his stock
thew have been robbed of the human knowl-
edge that what grief Graves more than any
thing on earth is privacy. In their bewil-
dered notions Of living they despoil the be-
reayed of their communion with their loved
dead because they know no means for
showing sympathy that is not public.
They die as they have lived-in utter, un-
compromising publicity. The first cry of
the newly born is hailed by neighbors, and
often the neighbors' children, thronging
around the bed. Childhood's little griefs
and Joys belong by acknowledged right TO
1.-THE street" The dark, odorous rooms are
places to cook in and otherwise only to
seek when shelter becomes absolutely nee
essary. The real life of the tenement. from
childhood to death. is on the street, the fire
escape and the roof.
Tenement Roof Gardens.
Long before the prosperous folk of the
country had evolved the beautiful idea of
the roof garden the poor of New York had
their roof gardens, not for pleasure, but as
vital factors of living. Unlovely roof gar
dens they were and are, with clothes posts
and lines instead of vines, smoking, SCOT
scattering chimneys instead Of fiuted col
umns, and the hundred stenches Of dirty
streets and suffocating thousands instead
of cooler airs.
There, night after night, the tenement
house folk gather to enjoy the nearest ap-
proach to untrammeled social life that they
can ever know. Lounging around on the
painted tin, blistered from the combined
heat of the days sun overhead and the
Kitchen fires of the multitude Of families
below, they make love. Somebody in every
house ia sure to have q banjo, Another