Las Vegas optic., 1914-08-27
HER LAST WISH
IS CARRIED
OUT
MRS. WILSON'S PLAN FOR CLEAN.
ING UP WASHINGTON is
IN USE

years the city of Washington has
been fretting with a mean sociologi-
cal problem found in the alleys which
run criss cross through the blocks of
the city; and in which hundreds of
negroes have been born, lived and
died. For so years vice, disease,
Icrime and ignorance have been bred
in alarming proportions in Washing
tons alley homes. For 25 years the
city government has been pecking
away at the problem and has succeed
ed in cleaning up two of the worst
holes ever seen in modern city; for
Is years women's clubs and civic or
ganizations have held meetings and
deplored the existence of such filthy
nests of homes for human beings;
but it remained for Mrs Woodrow
Wilson on her dying day to whisper
the wish that one of the bills for the
elimination of the long stretches OF
alleys in washington could be report
ed and passed. Her wish has almost
become law The senate Immediately
passed an alley elimination bill; the
house has a modified form of that
bill on its calendar, and may take II
up and pass 1t at any time now.
In the years to come visitors to
Washington will be taken into the by
ways and will be shown minor streets
on which workmens cottages have
: been built somewhat after the fashion
on the English worlzmen's homes;
they will be shown interior parks,
made of the scooped-out city blocks,
D and will be told that the minor streets
and the interior parks of Fairgrounds
were once the villainous unlighted
: unwatered, unkept alleys which made
a Mrs. Wilson sick at heart when she
( realized that the capital Of the United
Y States fostered such breeding grounds
l. of dirt and crime. Washington's al
= leys constitute it's slums.
S The alley is distinctly a Washington
b product, as far as its being inhabited
t is concerned. Washington is laid out
q in broad squares. On four sides OF
+ 1.-THE squares are pretty decent homes
d in every case. Through the squares
+ run alleys which were originally in
e tended for the butcher, the baker, the
t ashman, freshman, milkman, etc. How
ever, when the civil war broke cut
v ington and scheming real estate mer
: began building little shacks within
d the squares for the housing of the ne
l. groes.
O. nThe shacks fronted on the alley
; ways. Some of those civil war shacks
i are still there.
4 Mrs. Wilson had favorite exhibit
n of this sort in what is known as Goat
s alley There is no running water
> there is scarcely any light in the
r house, as there is but one window II
! has been there for so years and the
n successive owners have reaped for
8 tunes in rent The alley has been in
h lhabited chiefly by accomplishing
@ washwomen who carried home the
g wash of clean white folks who would
have turned i'll had they seen where
their linen was being washed.
When Mrs. Wilson came to Wash
ington the womens welfare depart
ment of the National Civic Federation
n was wrestling with the alley problem
Mrs. Earnest R. Bicknell chairman
of the Washington chapter of the de
partment was working at the prob
lem daily, trying to arouse public I'M
terest in the dirty outlay of narrow
O streets and foul homes. Another
woman, who afterwards became close.
J. ly associated with Mrs. Wilson in her
t alley cleanup tours, was Mrs. Archi-
n bald Hopkins. These two would call
+ meetings and raise subscriptions and
y carry the entire burden upon their
i own shoulders. and an occasional
$ newspaper article would be the net
: result of their labors.
4 When Mrs. Wilson became interest
ed she had been resident of the city
2 but a few months; and she first heard
!. the story of the alley homes at an
Il afternoon meeting of the women's
: welfare department of the National
+ Civic Federation. Mrs. Wilson be-
n lieved in action. There had been sew
4 eral years of afternoon tea sociologi-
. cal work and it had not amounted to
i much in practical way. Mrs Will
q w. T. Greene, Hopkinton, N. H,
: writes the following letter, which will
/ interest every one who has kidney