Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-09
NO SLUMS IN BERLIN
SOME THINGS THEY DO BETTER
IN GERMANY THAN IN AMERICA.
Tenements in German Capital Clean
and Well Lighted-No Dark Rooms
Window Gardens.

Berllns great lesson Is that of comfort
able, cheerful, self-respecting living. As
you study the conditions in which the Ber-
liners are born and grow up you cease to
wonder why German emigration to Amer
lea has fallen Off The wonder Is that there
is any left why On earth" asked my
self, should German care to emigrate,
with chance of gravitating to an
American slum, when he has the choice of
living in this clean, wholesome, beautiful
capital?" There are no Sums In Berlin.
You may have seen this statement In print
but you do not realize its full meaning I'M
people in the German metropolis-the peo-
pie who in New York would be huddled In
squalld rookerieS in Allen street or HelIs
kftchen-the people who are so poor that
even in Berlin they take their coppers to
the horse-meat butcher shop or stand in
line to buy condemned beef at tie munic-
ipal slaughter house. Many of them are so
poor that they are partly supported at the
public expense.
The homes of these people are In broad
sunny streets, usually lined with trees and
often parked off with strips Of turf In an
American city most of these streets would
be called avenues, II they were not pro-
NOTED to the rank of boulevards. On each
side blocks of dignif1ed and attractive
dwellings resembling In outward appear
ance the ranks of high-grade apartment
houses about Morningside Park.
Flowers and Verdure.
But there is one feature of these Berlin
tenements which has no counterpart In any
section of New York. On both sides of
the street the house fronts, from top floor
to basement. are one continuous bower Of
verdure In front of almost every window
is balcony that has been turned into a
hanging garden of flowers and vines You
see these window gardens in ever quarter
OF Berlin-they are the city'S most dis
tinctiye and most attractive feature-but
nowhere do they seem charming g. in
the quarters where they throw their radiant
disguise over the grim skeleton of poverty
Each Of the tenements whose front is thus
brayely decked has spacious central court
sometimes a succession of such courts
opening one into another through roomy
arches. In all Berlin there is no such stag
nant well of putrid vapors as We call an
"airshaft." Nor is there dark ROOM
Every tenement room opens either upon the
street or upon an ample court as big as a
village yard, through which the breezes and
the sunlight have full play. In the newer
tenements, every apartment. even If it con-
sist of only one room has its bath. The
public halls In the poorest buildings are
scrubbed and light. The Superintendent
1t would be an insult to call him a jan
itor-has a neatly fitted office, with his pa
pers docketed in a business-iike desk The
usual arrangement Of the upper floors is a
long hall dividing all the kitchens from the
bed rooms and living rooms. The sitting
rooms are rather ambitiously equipped with
curtains, carpets, ornamental clocks and
pretentious furniture. Everything is scrup-
ulously clean. Throughout the great build
ing the broonas and sprinklfng pots are never
still. Nowhere do you sniff the fetid ten
ement smell that gives the first warning of
your approach to an American slum. The
children. whose fathers may be earning 70
cents day or may have their rent paid by
the city, wear neat little print frocks, and
their faces show the wholesome influence
Of sunshine and fresh
Cleanliness Of the People.
Nor Is all this a bit of Arcadaan village
Hfe Berlin Is the fourth city In the world,
and growing at rate that win soon make
1t the third. It has more people than the
borough Of Manhattan. 1t Is nearly three
times the size OF Glasgow. which testers
with slums. It has deep and widespread
poverty. If the poor OF Berlin can be
housed with decency and comfort there is
no reason why any city should have SUBJ
merged area. No reason but one, and that
Is the desire of the people themselves. For
some of the pleasing features OF their tene-
ment system the Berliners have to thank
paternal government. The government can
regulate the construction of tenements; can
insist upon spacious courts, forbid dark
rooms. inspect the sanitary arrangements.
and regulate the lighting and cleaning OF
the public halls. But the government does
not plant and tend the window gardens; 1t
does not scrub the kitchens, sweep the par
lors, wash the chfldrens faces and 1aunder
their clothes, These things are done by the
people themselves. Not only do the tenants
look after their own apartments. but they
form mutual cooperative moral police to
maintain the general standard Of the house.
Ifthey find q slatternly family among them
they make Ii feel their disapprOvai, and IL
necessary they complain to tile manage
meut and have It eyieted. So 1t appears
that # you'd not be enough to import the