El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-07-20

Heroic Efforts Made to Save
Little Ones in Crowded
East Side.
BABY SAVING WORK
ON EXTENSIVE SCALE
CBy stanford McFarInnd.)

New York. n. Y, July 2O.-The moth
ers of New York's East Side are again
in the clutch of the old terror; the ex-
cessive heat wave. Mothers with in
fants and babies facing their desper-
ate second summer are living in fran
tic fear. They realize full well that
before the heat abates hundreds of lit
tie lives viii be snuffed out and the
question is constantly before them
whose child will it be-"
Despite the great and energetic eff
forts of organized societies and per-
sOnal philanthropists looking to the
relief OF the East Side children there
is no human power than can prevent
hundreds of them from succumblng TO
this hot breath of summer, which an
nually gamers its harvest of young
and old
Crowds Seek Breathing Space.
With the mercury doggedly hanging
around 100 degrees ana no assurance
of Immediate relief the East Side does
indeed present a pitiful spectacle
While thousands of children and their
mothers have been taken TO the sea-
SIDE there seems to be no diminutiOn in
the thrOngs that people the inadequate
parks and breathing spaces or the
East Side, of mothers that sit at open
windows frantIcally tanning their
naked young and of the old who walk
restlessly about, pathetically seeking
shady places that often are already
But New York has never failed TO
respond magnfficently to the appeal
coming from her suffering East Side.
Every year the city puts forth IN
creased efforts to alleviate the sor-
rows of that teeming section, and
while IL is inevitable that many ba-
bies will die this summer that might
Lave been saved. it is equally true that
thousands viii Oe saved that might
have died but for the succOring care
afforded by the city, by charitable or
CARNATIONS and private individuals.
This work has become so well syste-
matized and has grown to such vast
proportions that it is not stating more
than the truth 20 say that every sick
baby on the East Side can receive med
lcaI attention without cost and that
before the summer is over every needy
child can have trip to the seashore-
Baby Supreme in New York.
If there is one thing on which the
great city Of New York is united;
mat binds the metropolis together as
by a golden thread, it is the love Of
babies In New York, the baby is
king, or queen, as the case may be.
To save the lives of its babies is New
4Ork'S greatest municipal enterprise
an enterprise amounting almost to
a civic passion. And since most of its
babies are on the East Side and con-
ditions there make their chances OF
life more precariOus than elsewhere it
is therefore on the East Side that
New York concentrates most of its
work of conservation OF the young.
If one has lost his great respect for
the great metropolis through believing
that it is too commercially hardened
to interest itself in the needs of the
poor and humble, let MIN take a walk
through the East Side on any of these
hot midsummer days. There he will
find at various points health stations
with East Side mothers flocking to
them as to a harbor OF refuge, with
sick, crying infants, seeking aid and
comfort from the skilled female ply
Elpiqng
there. And from each one of these sta
tons go out corps of nurses, under
the doctors directions, visiting homes,
II those seeming tenementS can be
called homes, where there are sick ba-
bies. Like soldiers actuated by the
purest patriotic motives, these devot-
day with their ears scientifically at
tuned to catch the fainteSt cry of
help emanating from babe.
The chief boon the city offers to the
aside from the health stations, is the
free municipal baths. These baths are
scattered throughout the district Each
one is supplied with staff of attend
ants. The baths are carefully inspect
ed and kept in a sanitary condition.
Free Baths n Blessing.
The borough of Manhattan also has
free baths off Battery park, where the
in a manner that only can
be achieved by an East Side youngSter.
II any summer visitor to New York
wishes to get an idea of how much
happiness the city affords its poor
let him make a visit to any
Of these baths. If he isn't amply re-
paid for his pains there is something
the matter with his mind and heart.
So it is not only the health. but the
happiness also of the East Side chill
dren that the city aims at. While
New York may be regarded as hard
and heartless in many respects, there
IS no denying that the city likes to
see its children happy; the children OF
the poor as well as the rich, and in
this effort to afford health and amuse-
lnent to its children the city is truly
democratic.
Thus far mention has only been
made of what the city itself has done
and is doing to make life tolerable for
Continued on next pagel.