Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-11-28
THE SUBWAY AND THE LUn

The New 4OTk SuUWdy 5 SOC1VAUSASdA effect, using the term iIl that com moner sense which restricts it's refer ence to the lower grades of society, IS one of the most enteresting prob lems raised by the roads operation. It should be the most important con sideration; but because other, more immediate, results have. been permit ted to thrust themselves into view, the road as now opened was not plan ned on scale great enough to secure these effects in full force. The pro- posed xtension, however, will increase lts sociological usefulness, and even now the results will be more than at first thought appears. The wonder, and the pity, is that public attention is so little directed to this most sig nifIcant phase of the subject.
 Social problems are to a very large degree problems of environment. If to any great extent the subway les sens the rigors of the slums. if through its means any considerable number of sleeping-rooms have more sunshine and fresh air, and thousands of child ren have better places than crowded streets in which to play, many other ends than merely those of the peoples s comfort must be served-ends of health, morality, education and politi- cal purity. Improved housing condi- fions in the existing tenement dis tricts can do something, but not q great deal. The area is limited and. crowded as it is, the trade, industry and wealth of the city is forever pounding against it in pitilessly en- croaching waves Unless there be a vent, the crowding becomes worse and worse; and If, in the slow process of time, all the houses be rebuilt there will result the creation of homeless class. cast out to find worse quarters than those that had been remedied
 The only satisfactory vent is that furnished by cheap rapid transit The workers are compelled to live near to their employment. As competition is keener and hours of work are longer in the descending scale of labor, it is more and more essential that between home and work there be quick and easy accessibility. Tn the lowest grades of all this requirement becomes SO insistent that no rapid transit sys- tenn will directly serve, since none can be devised thatiiS so cheap and easy as short walk. But the tenement population is of as many graduations as that in any other residential area, and it's salvation lies in the constant drawing away of the upper stratum at rate that makes possible the admis- sion without increased discomfort of the steady influx at the bottom. Fol the internal effort, in as far as it ex- ceeds the mere struggle for existence is to rise; and the more removals that can be made from the top, the better for those who are beneath.
 Now the best and cheapest rapid transit system may not secure the daily patronage of even the upper stratum of the slum populations; but if it really be rapid and really cheap if does begin to affect the stratum just above, drawing 1t from it's former quarters and dissipating it over . broad area, so leaving the homes thai had been occupied by the stenement population for the occupancy of the upper stratum of the slum population A moving up takes place all down the sca1a The gain is less spectacular il the lower strata than in the upper but it is no less welcome or valuable fle great good of the New York sub way will be not merely in its making possible the clerks removal of his family from small apartment on tht middle east side to the little home uI town; but in the effect of that remov I al in ever broadening sociological circles, down to the furthest limits oi society The effect may not be clearly evfdent-those who watch the fain rippIes on the distant shore may no see the stone that caused them-but i is at it's work, throughout the com rnunity Boston Transcript.