Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-07-30
Grace Murder"
To the Editor of The Evening Star:

To the Editor Of The Evening Star:
The doctors are discussing race muir
DER" and attributing the mortality among
infants to the willful ignorance and neglect
of mothers. Ths is done not "as an evil
dence of good faith" but for publca-
tion.'D
The first inference is that all these muir
Gered children are fatherless: as nothing
is said of any duty assigned to that part
ner In the baby factory. Even the stork
is not assailed.
There are several answers to this grave
accusation:
l. 1t is almost an unknown thing for a
mother who can nurse her baby TO refuse
to do 1t, except in the toploftical regions of
what is enormously known as good So
ciety. where people are not immoral IRON
ignorance or necessity. My obServat ton
is that when poor mother does not nurse
her baby 1t Is either because she can not
or because 1t is forbidden by her physician,
which is not uncommon.
2 The greatest mortality is among the
poorest class. which. in this city, Is the
colored people. They are herded in alleys,
without air. water or sewerage. If they
can afford to rent a house in better To-
cality they are not permitted to do so. They
pay 90 per cent more than whites for equal
accommodations. The woman who scrubs
for me pays $3.50 for a tumble-down frame
shanty. without an Improvement or a con-
venience. and upon which the landlord re-
fuses to expend cent in repairs. This rem
tai would ensure comfortable sanitary
home to a white family.
B. l was invited to attend the first meet
ing of the financial group now named the
Sanitary Improvement Company," or
something simlar-the one Which has lately
been advertised at public expense. 1t was
decided to erect only dwellings for poor
and worthy whites, for the present, and
to rent them at net profit Of! only per
cent.
One would have thought that the mis-
sionary spirit was abroad. from Green
lands Ice to 1ndias coral.
The houses We're erected. and have been
rented almost without exception to police
officers and to printers. earning from $500 to
81 900 a year.
The worthy poor I do not know of a
house built by philanthropy and occupied
by the poor of either color in this town.
The negroes are housed less comfortably
than well-bred animals. No wonder babies
die. 1t does not need much wilfful neglect
on the part of the mother.
f. The mothers of the poor of both races
go to their work early and return late,
to earn bread for these murdered father
less babes If they find them dead at night
1t Is not an occasion for surprise.
g. There Is not a public bath in this
city, and people are harried about the free
use of water which should be encouraged.
g. Men make and pretend to enforce the
laws: and the adulteration Of foods goes
blandly on. Do not blame the mothers.
There isn't a woman on earth running a
canning factory. and very few conduct
dairy farms. and none are condensing al
legged milk. Yet well-to-do adult people are
perishing for want Of pure and nourishing
food
Z. If any one will go over the records
Of any hospital patronized by men, wheth-
er 1t be military or civilian. American or
foreign. and notice that four-f1fths of the
patients are suffering from one class of
diseases. he will not SO readily accept this
stood by the tiny body of dead child
a short time ago, and said to the doctor,