The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1906-04-19
WASHINGTON LETTER
ESPECIAL Correspondence

ESPECIAL COTreSpOn0euce.l
Washington has been likened to the
mans house that was said to have a
Queen Anne front and a Mary Ann
back. The Mary AIMS are the shacka
and hidden alleys in the Interior Of the
big blocks in which the national CAPT.
tai Is laid out. The police census OF
1897 named SOS of these alleys, with a
population Of 1898 people. while in
1906 the police enumerated 2S6, con.
taining 1905 Inhabitants.
The first definite step to clean the
alleys out was taken last month when
the commissioners of the District OF
Columbia appointed committee with
the idea Of converting them into small.
er streets.
The Capitals Alleys.
This action follows ten months In.
vestigation into housing conditions In
Washington just completed by Charles
F. Weller, secretary of the Washing
ton Associated Charities, who has lived
In different alleys or the capital In or
der to get at the real facts of the stu.
alton. Some of the conditions that he
unearthed will prove revelation to
those acquainted only with the Queen
Anne" fronts of the city. Here is what
he found almost within earsh0t Of the
White House:
"Chinch row." indescribably bad, Ia
only three blocks from Dupont circle
or seven blocks from the White House.
Two senators who were taken there to
inspect a score of inhabited shacks
agreed that they were not f1t for cow
stables. yet children are reared from
babyhood to maturity In these places
There Is no water supply whatever In
the worst Of these novels. Such have
only wooden box toilets surrounded by
the most insanitary conditions imagi-
nable.
Under Senate's Eaves.
A little nearer the capitol itself is
"Bassett's alley" with its hidden en-
trance only three feet wide. In single
rooms and with no water connections
at all, it's people live fairly under the
caves of the senate chamber and the
house of representatives. 20 street al
ley" exemplifies the extreme of moral
degradation. Here Mr.. Weller found a
six room house containing five fami-
lies and four room dwelling with a
separate family in each room, one of
them comprising a man, his grown
dren. In North court all the water
required for twenty-five two story
houses, with 139 occupants. Is drawn
from an old pump in the alley.
Tenement House Evils.
Not only has Washington this pecul-
lar alley problem to contend with, but
it has the beginning of tenement house
evils such as those perplexing New
York and Chicago. Mr.. Weller de-
scribes one tenement in particular that
was studied last summer. The build
ing is three story affair with twenty
four rooms opening into dark Railways.
Along one side runs a fifteen foot en-
trance roadway of a disreputable al
ley. All the ashes and refuse are
dumped into the rear basement, which,
the janitress says, Is cleaned out twice
in six months; the tenants say once a
year. In Douglass fats forty fami-
lies were found in fifty-four occupied
rooms. On each of the two floors there
were fifteen rooms on either side of a
cemented hallway that ran through the
center of the tenement. There was q
single toilet room in the center of each
floor, and the one sink and faucet from
which were drawn all the water sup
plying thirty rooms were located In
this toilet chamber, together with q
hopper for emptying Stops.
Improvement Plans.
Perhaps the greatest danger of this
tenement house problem in Washing
ton is that the evil is a growing one
There are no adequate regulations to
prohibit the erection of more buildings
as insanitary as those already de-
scribed. The local public and the peO-
pie of the country generally are as
sured that Washington is an ideal city;
that it has no serious municipal de-
fects; that there are no tenements-
and there the matter rests.
Three steps have been advocated
which if followed out will help to bring
about decent living conditions in the
capital-frst, opening the alleys into
minor streets; second, the condemna-
ton of insanitary dwellings (by the
present regulations a building can be
condemned If the joists are rotten and
there Is one chance in hundred that a
beam will fall on somebody's head and
kill him, but If the sanitary conditions
are ten times worse and if there are
ninety-nine chances out of a hundred
that the persons living there will be
killed by tuberculosis or some other
disease the building stands; third, a
general housing commission, advOcat-
ed by President Roosevelt, to draw up
statutes to remedy existing evils and
set sanitary standards for all new con-
structiOns.
Slums Of WashingtOn.
It is within the power of congress 10
better these conditions. The negligence
that has been shown Is perhaps due to
the fact that the national legislators,
living as they do but part of the time
in Washington, have not felt the real
Importance Of immediate action. The
people of the District of Columbia