Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-04
FAGGED-OUT
PHILADELPHTANS
There Are Many in the Con-
gested Sections of the City.
Children Who Have No Place
to Play.
BY EDWARD YATES HILL


rian Church. on Washington Square,
during the last ten years. have taken
me into almost every street and byway
OF downtown Philadelphia, There is
no kind Of home, lodging house, board
ing house, boarding place, hotel or
den with which I have not become
more or less familiar.
A minister who obeys conscientiously
the legitimate calls upon him to visit
the sick, help those in trouble and
serve where death has come will gain
a first-hand knowledge of the social
conditions in his field. 1t was to sys-
| tematize and make accurate for use
the general information gained in this
way that I undertook to investigate
more scientifically the great section ly-
ing between Broad street and the Della
ware River and from Poplar street t90o
north) to oregon street (2700 south).
1t was unnecessary to make any tab
ulation of the places of evil found
among these people. They are every
where and may be taken for granted.
Go where you will, the saloon Is at
hand, and easy of access are all the
other evils which the saloon suggests
AS Sad as War
There are certain causes of evil,
however, which no one who would un-
derstand these people dare overlook.
Wholesome life cannot exist where the
physical structure OF the part of the
city where these people live is rotting
down. Philadelphia has on her comely
body some dreadfully ugly, putrid
sores. There is nothing in modern his
tory quite so sad, save the butchery
and agony of war, as the way in which
leprosy spots the old parts of great
cities.
Take the case of the four northern
wards of this district under review,
the 11th, 18th, 18th and 14th Wards.
The population of those wards Is to-
day only about 1000 less than it was 30
years ago. They have been growing
in population since 1900. In 1880 the
population was 6s,s1S; $780, 65,793; 1900,
62,527; 1910. 66,Ol7. Thirty years ago
these wards were covered with the
choice, clean, lovely homes for single
families. Since that time factories and
all sorts of industrial establishments
have spread out over perhaps one
third to one-half of the territory, and
yet the population remains substan-
TALLY the same. Think what pack
ing in of people! 1t means that the
nice homes have first become apart
ment houses, then descended through
all degrees of the rooming, hall bed
room. cheap lodging varieties until
now hundreds of them are tenements
needing every sort of fumigation which
a people bent on decency should give
them. The most congested rooming-
house section above the business sec
ton runs along for three squares on
either side of Vine street. In and
around this Tenderlon are the home
less shiftless unambitious and de-
feated. For the most part they are
tagged -out Americans, who have gone
deeper and deeper into hopelessness.
Trolley Dodgers
Now the sad part of it is that many
good, earnest people. especially work
ing people, feel that they must live In
this district because of the easy access
to their places of employment. There
are over 5000 school children in the
four wards above mentioned. The Vice
Commission found 1912 children be-
tween the ages of 6 and 16 living in a
district four blocks square in the very
heart of the Tenderloin. In the same
16 blocks there were in all 250O minors.
Think of the acquaintance, the inti-
mate daily familiarity, with the worst
phases of humanity thrust upon these
children through their entire forma-
tive periodi These children when not
in school, when not IN the houses such
as they are, must be in the streets
And 1t almost paralyzes belief that in
these four wards. with their $4,000 peo-
ple there is not one open square, no
place to play, not a chance anywhere
for an uninterrupted game, These chill
dren must dodge trolleys all the days,
look to the police for their monitors
when out of sight of their mothers and
find their only quiet retreats In
nolsome alleys and blind courts and
other dark. unventilated holes bordered |
by cheerless and oozy brick walls
Overcrowded Acres
Below South street in this district is
population of at least 100000 Q9O,704 |
in 1910. The greatest density is in
the Sd Ward, where there are l2s,2s2 |
people to the square mile. Compare
this with Germantown, with $4,000. or
with swarthmore, having 1000 to the |
square mile. and the contrasts in the |
conditions under which people live in |
this urban world will be felt keenly. |
How pitiful is the life of the childrenl |
Below South street there are only four |
open spaces. and in the whole district |
from Poplar southward there are only |
eight open spaces for public use. even |
including Independence and Washing |
ton Squares.
The multitudinous childrenl Think |
OF It: s615 babies were born in these II |
wards lying entirely within the district
in the year 1918,
A high percentage of infant deaths |
would be expected. and it is no sur
prise that tuberculosis. every year ex-