The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1904-09-22
Landlords Trusts Organ
lied i'm Cities.
POOR PEOPLE TURNED OUT
Widows and Orphans, with Their
Scant Household Goods, Set
Out In the Street.

city have to battle with.
Today, upon the sidewalks of
New York, 1000 families, toilers of
the teneme ts, are homeless
-evicted, because they cannot
meet the exorbitant demand for
the ramshackle buildings in which
they exc out miserable existence.
These tenement dwellers are a
class unknown to any city but
Greater New York. The west
knows them not. In some of the
"doubledeckers," with four or
more families to floor, the condi-
tions are beyond the conception of
the most vivid Imagination.
Six, eight, and even 10 mem bers
of one family, with but one bread
winner, have been found existing
in two miserable rooms, destitute
of the barest necessities. Con-
sumption and kindred diseases run
riot under the conditions prevail
ing. Only the downtrodden and
miserable seek these shelters, and
it is upon these that the blow of
grasping owner falls.
Scarcely tenement but houses
a widow, living in her little back
rooms, without ventilation, striv-
ing in her desperation to keep
breath in her babes and strength
in herself to feed them. Trying
to keep alive the shrunken thread
that holds body and soul in it's
thralldom.
Still the "other half" wonders
when the question arises: els it
worth the struggle2" The lower
East Side is the scene of the great
est destitution. Here the combine
has increased the rents 80 per cent, =,
which, in many cases, means from
50 to So per..month to the already
over-burdened toilers, whose only
pleasure is to be had in breathing
Gods fresh air on Sunday-and
in the tenement districts even this
is fever-fed.
Husbands, worn out in the grim
grapple with adversely, die, leay-
ing widows and orphans destitute.
Life insurance is a stranger in this
world OF want. The widow must
take up the family burden. Her
life in the tenements has sapped
her strength, yet she must battle
with the world in order to eat.
Her children must be fed. But
for the little ones she would per-
haps seek the long sleep, rather
than struggle helplessly on, bat
tling in vain the powerful under
current.
Children, little ones not more
than B or 6, who should be going
TO school or out il the country
breathing the pure air, are forced
TO walk the streets peddling apples
or gum to-add their mite to the
1amily's puny fund. Rent must
be met. 1t was hard enough be-
fore the increase. Now it Is i'm
possible.
When the money is not forth
coming, city marshal, armed
with writ of eviction, issued by
the courts, invades the little place
called home and throws the mea-
ger possessions into the street.
sickness may be there, but that
makes no difference to the process
server. Paid in fees, he sees only
the CLINT of coins as he disposses-
ses the tenement dwellers.
Greed for gold is back of these
evictions. The owners, desiring
to sell their property. must force
up the values. To do this thew
must show that the tenements
bring $4,000 in rentals instead of
1880. To this end the rent of
the toilers is increased, adding to
their already bending shoulders
this new weight of crushing power.
Rents, provisions, apparel, the
very necessities of existance, In
crease in price annually. The
wage of the tenement dwellers re-
mains the same. 1t may even be
at times, and the bread
Winner crushed between the upper
md neither millstones of supply
md demand, is ground to bits.
Apparently there is no hope for
he poor.
A l. A L