The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-06

room. and it appears that in thes,
one-room tenements the average
death rate for a number of giver
? cities at home and abroad is abou
? twice what it is in a two-room tene
/ ment, four times what it is ma three
room tenement, and eight times wha
! it is in a tenement consisting of foul
? rooms or over. These figures vary
somewhat for different cities, but they
approximate in EACH city those giver
above; and in all Gases the increass OF
mortality, and especially of infant
mortality, with the decrease in the
number of rooms used by the family
and with the consequent overcrowdine
is startling. The slum exacts heavy
total of death from those who dwell
therein; and this is the case not mere
ly in the great crowded slums of high
buildings in New York and Chicago
but in the alley slums of Washington.
In Washington people cannot afford to
ignore the harm that this causes No
Christian and civilized community can
AFFORD to show happy-go-lucly lack
Of concern for the youth of today;
| for, If SO. the community will have to
pay a terrible penalty of financial
burden and social degradation in the
I tomorrow. There should be severe
child labor and factory inspection
| laws. It is very desirable that mar
ried women should not work in fac
[ tories. The prime duty of the man is
to work, to be the breadwinner; the
prime duty of the woman is to be the
| of tariff and finance sink into utter in
| significance when compared with the
| tremendous, the vital Importance of
trying to shape conditions that
| these two duties of the man and of
| the woman can be fulfilled under rea-
sonably favorable circumstances. If a
race does not have plenty of children,
| or if the children do not grow up. or
! If when they grow up they are un-
h healthy in body and stunted or vicious
in mind, then that race is decadent
and no heaping up of wealth, no
splendor of omentary material pros
perity, can avail in any degree as
offsets.
The congress has the same power of
legislation for the District of Columbia
which the state legislatures have for
dent to our highly complex modern in
dustrial civilization, with its manifold
and perplexing tendencies both for good
and for evil, are far less sharply ac-
centuated in the city of Washington
than in most other cities For this very
reason it is easier to deal with the vari-
GUS phases of these problems in Wash
1ngton, and the District of Columbia
government should be a model for the
other municipal governments Of the ma
ton, in all such matters as supervision
OF the housing of the poor, the creation
OF small parks in the districts inhabit=
ed by the poor, in laws affecting labor
in laws providing for the taking care of
the children, in truant laws, and in pro-
viding schools.
In the vital matter of taking care of
children, much advantage could be
gained by a careful study of what has
been accomplished in such states as
Illinois and Colorado by the Juvenile
courts. The work of the juvenile court
is really a work of character building.
1t is now generally recognized that
young boys and young girls who go
wrong should not be treated as crinli-
mails, not even necessarily as needing
reformation, but rather as needing to
have their characters formed, and for
this end TO have them tested and de-
veloped by a system of probation. Much |
admirable work has been done in many |
or our commonwealth by earnest men |
and women who have made a special
study of the needs of those classes of |
children which furnish the greatest |
number of juvenile Offenders and there /
fore the greatest number of adult Of |
tenders; and by their aid, and by profit
ing by the experience Of the different |
states and cities in these matters, 1t /
would be easy to provide a good code |
for the District of Columbia.
Several considerations suggest the |
need of a systematic investigation into |
and improvement of housing conditions |
in Washington The hidden residential /
alleys are breeding grounds of vice and |
minor streets. For number of years
influential citizens have Joined with the
district commissioners in the vain en-
deavor to secure laws permitting the
s.
The local death rates. especially from
preventable diseases, are so unduly
high as to suggest that the exceptional
of Washington's better
sections is offset by bad conditions in
her poorer neighborhoods. A special
commission on housing and health
conditions in the national capital
would not only bring about the refor-
nation of existing evils, but would also
formulate an appropriate building code
10 protect the city from mammoth brick
-enements and other evils which threat
IN to develop here as they have in other
titles. That the nations capital should
be made a model for other municipaIi-
lies is an ideal which appeals to all
patriotic citizens everywhere, and
such a special commission might map
put and organize the city's future de-
1elopment in lines of civic social SER
vice, just as Major L'EAfant and the
'ecent park commission planned the
arrangement of her streets and parks.
has no compulsory school i
attendance law and that careful in
luiries indicate the habitual absence
rom school of some twenty per cent of {
md fourteen. 1t must be evident to all
Who consider the problems of neglect 1
ID child life or the benefits of COM (,
'ulsory education in other cities that
me of the most urgent needs of the 1
rational capital is a law requiring the
chool attendance of all children, this {
aw to be enforced by attendance 4
gents directed by the board of educa- /
ion. Z
Public play grounds are necessary
means for the development of whole
ome citizenship in modern cities. It Is {
important that the work inaugurated 7
lere through voluntary efforts should /
,e taken up and extended through con- 7
,ressional appropriation of funds suf- '
icient to equip and maintain numerous a
onvenient small play grounds upon land t
which can be secured without purchase c
r rental. It is also desirable that small 7
d as SmalI-park play grounds in dense =