The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-08-03
SLUM ARTICLE LIKED
BY KEOKUK LABOR MEN
"The Stun" Title OF Piece Which Ap-
peared In Workers' journal,
Telling Conditions.

The Keokuk Trades & Labor AS
sembly has become interested very
much in an article published in re-
cent labor edition. The writing is
headed THE Stun" and has to deal
with social conditions of cities. large
and small, which all classes are in
terested in.
The article in full text appears be-
low:
If the slum Of a great city were
produced by the people who live in it.
its suppression would be hopeless
task. But the slum is a product Of
social tendencies-of social pressure
operating steadily in one direction;
and there is nothing quite SO irresist-
ible as tendency.
You can see the slum on the small
scale in almost any country village,
though 1t is not called slum there.
A few poor families, SO poor that they
live on the very edge of restitution,
make the village s1um. Whenever
death or sickness occurs in one of
these families, the charitably dispos-
ed find relief work" to do next door.
This is charity at its best. AS the
village grows into town, the num-
Der of its poor increases, their pow
erty deepens, and the slum begins to
take form as slum; when the town
becomes a city. its poverty area wild
ems until there are literally acres of
it; and when the city becomes a
metropolis, there are square miles OF
slums (streaked with "tenderloins"
and red light districts).
For all OF this there is competent
cause. The cause is economic pres
sure, scarce opportunity to earn de-
| cent living Water never knows why
it runs down hill Neither do slum
} jewellers know why they are so condi-
! toned They do not reason it out
) they cannot explain it. And If the
} powers of civil government were
: thrust into their hands on condition
l that they remedy these neglects OF a
!. society which they are part but not
as members, they would be helpless
to do it. Social regeneration cannot
come through it's worst victims. MOI
0 can 1t come from charity. When Boil
J, ton Hall said that charity is an in
l. and increasing the number of poor.
. he stated solemn truth. Charity
, scarcely touches the problem. There
" is no substitute for justice. Nature
IL defies us to find one
q The only practical remedy for thu
q slum is to reverse the tendency tina
,. produces it. Repressive Legislation
n will not do it. 1t fails as often as trie'
Q. and 1t has been tried times withou
N number. Purity propagandas an
q anti-vice crusades are equally futile
q Nothing permanent can be accom-
/ lished until these social current
which produce the slum are reversed
1t is push from the outside no
n pull from the inside, that people
y the poverty stricken area of BIZ
g city There is nothing there to pull
q Pull is attraction and poverty is no
20 attractive. The push on the outsid
Il is caused by an artificial narrowing G
re opportunities due to monopoly of lant
Dr. The relation between the two ma
not be seen at glance. Deep-seate
things never are, and this is social
subterranean. But the relation
there and easily demonstrated. Ono
2. relieve land monopoly pressure froI
the outside, and the same force tina
has made the slum will destroy i
1t will do SO by process Of elimination
Every aspect of the slum is ugly;
does not possess single virtue;
. is all vice. The struggle" agains
;; poverty in the slum is virtue impor
- eG from the outside. You will fin
- this struggle not only in the slum bl
- life as drop of ink discolors clea
:, plotting pad When once the ten,
= ency is reversed the slum will be d
, stroyed in much less time than
=. takes to create one. The wonderf1
!, withdrawing and therefore pove
~ ty-abolishing. forces of the industri,
!, world will do it.
But in this case as in all otht
n things, men exhaust every avenue fl
a doing things wrong before trying
o. do them right. Our experiments wit
81, the slum have been failures to dat
It The slum persists-larger, more me
'ul acing than ever, and more hideous I
Of scatter the slum is to spread its co
Ike tagion; to concentrate it is to parac
re its atrocity and foulness. To deny i
nd existence is to play the ostrich. ]
at abolish it by legal enactment directt
49,
p.