The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-01-13
VICE PRESIDENT IN ON HOUSING POINTS OUT REMEDY
Public Opinion Must Con demn Man Who Allows
 Vicious Surroundings
Hon. T. R. Marshall Says the Home Is Vital Part of
 RecIaiming I.awbreakers

In letter to the Bridgeport Holls- ing Association, Thomas R. Marshall vice president of the United States,
 has given some pronounced views on the housing problems gained from his experience and by diligent probing of welfare questions when he was gov, ernor of Indiana His executive po- sition opened to him avenues that are closed to the average investigator and through the state prisons and similar mediums he took searching look into what neglected home life leads men and women into. His let ter says
 Tn so far as the question of crime is soluble by men, we think we dis covered it's solution in Indiana when we experimented and found that if we released d prisoner on parole and att tach him to a home, the chances are eight to ten that he would make good and become a law abiding citizen. We found also that the orphan home for normal children is a failure and that the only way properly to rear them for citizenship is in private homes
 We discovered also that it is neither a palace nor a hovel that constitutes a home; that it may be elaborate or plain, but that sanitation is neces- sary. To sanitation must be added the home spirit and. in my opinfon,s the highest results are obtained in a Christian atmosphere. Sometimes it is the building that is at fault, or the light, the heat, the plum ping. Per- haps the surroundings are such that the occupant, strive as he may, can not put into that indehnabIe some thing which we call home life. That life is like the sunlightwe cannot see it, yet we cannot see without it. Sometimes in the best of surroundings the absence Of this home life comes from the totally unpreparedness of. the woman of the house to keep it in any sort of order and to take any in terest in it.
 seThe problem is two fold: The building and the 1nhabita mt. The curse of our modern industrial civi- Hzation is the dragging of our girls in their youth into factories before they know how to keep a home, there falling in love and marrying, unpre- pared to keeping a home and drifting thence to the divorce courts. Legis- 1ation can do some things and should prevent the renting of premises which do not have good light good air and good plumbing but it cannot supply the spirit that can only be given by the woman of the house. Some day and believe it to be rapidly ap- preaching, the women are going to be prepared for the home making, and public opinion is going to frown down upon any man who rents unsanitary premises that he may make a greater profit on his money than he could from sanitary buildings.
 T recommend that in Bridgeport you go as far as public opinion will l justify you in going, but that you ad- vance with your legislation only by keeping step with public opinion. and that you foster and formulate public l.opfnion by calling attention to unsan- itary surfoundings of any home that i4nay be found.
 IT am a poor believer in any law, whether for enactment or for en- 1 Iforceuent, that does not have behind 1 it the moral and ethical sense of the community The man who rents his l house for mere gain, either to the vicious or the poor. cares but little for the law. but have never seen one yet who could stand in the face l Of public disapprova1." ]"