New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-01-31

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w worn question, disposed OF
by the convincing logic OF
events. But some haunting reminisoence OF
the phrase prompted me 10 ask, What IS the
matter with the great East Side? What IS Its
greatest social i'll, or sore? What is Its great
est need Of social service?'
II has long been commonplace OF mu-
nicpal statistics that in the lower East SIDE
of New York is the densest urban population
in the world. There IS community WITHIN
but largely apart from the rest OF the city, an
urbs in urbe. OF which everybody talks, but
which few outside Of itself ever see. Its vast
population is polyglot 1t teens and throos
with industry. 1t makes incessant appeal for
charity. II is the habitat of gangs and gun
men. 1t is also the home of integrity, thrift,
prosperity. Supremacy, it has come to be con-
sidered as inclusive Of the most trying and
most urgent social problems OF the great me-
tropols.
SO / asked my question one day OF DR..
Fleischman, administrator of the Educational
Alliance. an observant, expert and sympathetic
authority: What is the most distressing So
oial sore OF the East Side, and what is its chief
need for cure"
His answer was the decline OF domesticity,
the lack OF community of interests in families
the absence of sympathy between parents and
children. Remedy this, he said, and you will
effect the social regeneration Of the East Side
THE ALIEN is FATHER TO AN
AMERICAN CHILD.
This IS the situation: The parents come
hither, in mature life, from the Pale and
Ghetto OF the Old World. They are fixed in
the language. the customs and all the lite ot
their ancestral homes. They are as alien to
America as Kamohstks is TO the Sahara. The
children, brought hither in infancy, or born
here. enter our schools and acquire the Ian
euaee. the customs and all the life Of the
New World-a language unknown and customs
strange to their parents. They pursue studies
of which their parents have never heard. They
acquire and cherish ideals which their parents
cannot comprehend.
What is the inevitable result? Estrange-
ment alienation. great gulf between parents
and children. Some degree of affection still
remains, but that is all. There is no sympathy,
no mutual helpfulnesS, no community OF in
terest no true domestic life The parent loses
interest in the child, because the child is pur-
suing strange new studies and ways OF life, OF
which the parent knows nothing and which he
is too old TO learn. The child loses interest in
and even respect for the parent, whom he
looks upon as an old iogy, hopelessly wed
ded to customs which he, in his rampant
young Americansm, has learned to despise.
And so the old folks. after the day in the
sweatshop. sit at home alone in the evening
81 N to divine
the present. while the young folks go upon the
streets. and TO cheap dance halls and the
movies; and too often drift into gangs and
tough resorts.
THE SUPREME NEED IS THE RES
TORATION OF DOMESTIC UNITY.
What is supremely needed then is to restore
domestic unity, with parental sympathy Tor the
child. and with juvenile respect for the parent.
And this. said my friend, is the unique, and on
the whole. the most important work OF the
Educational Alliance Its activities are multi
farious but this is its most striking feature,
that il appeals 70 and ministers to young and
old TO children and TO parents. and 1t does so
in a WA specially and successfully designed TO
bring them together in appreciation and SYM
pathy. in helpfulness and respect
Come and see said he; and on doing so 1t
proved well worth the seeing. Not everybody
knows the corner of Eas, Broadway and JET
ferson st. There are multitudes who can tell
YOU all about the corner of Broadway and 42d
st. 10 whom the other address is as much
terra incognita as the heart OF Tibet. Union
SQUARE they know. and Madison Square. and
Washington Square. But ask them OF Seward
Park and note the stare OF utter ignorance.
Yet Seward Park is one Of the most interest
Ing spots in all the city. Time was. only few
years ago. when its area possessed the un-
enviable distinction of being the most longest
ed. in human population, on the surface OF the
earth. Not in London nor Berlin, not in reek-
ing Canton nor teeriing Shanghai. were human
Beings so packed into gigantic rabbit warrens
as in that heart of our own East Side.
But before the park came the Educational
Alliance just twenty-five years ago; and erect
ed at East Broadway and Jefferson ST. its six
story building. 1t was largely because of that
building. and the influences which proceeded