The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-19

Field Secretary National Housing As
 sociation.
 Exclusive Service the Survey Press
 Bureau).
 Years ago Jacob Riis startled the country by his revelations of how the other half lived in New York. Due to these revelations and the work of pub lie spirited citizens year after year, the other half lives better in New York today. New York did not like the reve- lations. It was inclined at first to call Jacob Riis bad citizen. Later it changed the adjective to best"
 The rest of the country contented it. self with exclaiming over New York's badness and thanking Providence that it was different. But 1t wasn't diff ferent. except superficially. It had reason to be grateful that it did not have New York's tall tenements, solid rows of them mile after mile. But un- der different forms it had most of the things that made New York's tene- ments so bad. Philadelphia, with it's rows of little houses, Boston. with it's crowded Northend. Chicago. with its stock yards and Westside districts only 
 scorn at them. They did not have Rises, but they did have public spir- ited citizens who began to understand and grapple with these conditions.
 In Small Towns
 Then came the turn of the small cities and villages. They had thanked Providence that they were not as the big cities. But at last even small cities and villages are producing citizens who dare to look at their home con ditions and say what they think.
 Five years ago there were scarcely half a dozen American cities which realized they had housing problem. which have awakened to the fact Sums have been discovered wherever there has been an investigation. They are like weeds which grow wherever the farmers are shiftless. And no farmers ever were more shiftless than were our city builders, who seemed to think that city building was case of everybody's business and consequently nobody's business. But that time is past in every section of the country, except the Rocky Mountain states.
 Bad housing has been recognized un- der all its disguises. In New England the wooden three-decker-the weed peculiar to that locality-is being fought When the fight began, soon after the great Chelsea fire. the writer met an aggrieved builder of three deckers. This talk about fire hazard Is all rot" he declared. My family live on the third floor of a three- decker and we are not. afraid of fire" Why did you choose the third floor?" asked. Because the light and air are good up sthere," < he replied. And not until he had said 1t did he realize what he admitted. New England is be- ginning to realize that though the fire hazard is real, and that though fires like those of Chelsea and Salem are spectacular, the constant, unrecorded losses to health, efficiency, morals which come through crowding families together in dark, airless rooms are much greater in total. So 23 towns and one city have already forbidden the erection of more three-deckers.
 The Transplanted English Slum
 Tn the middle Atlantic states bad housing takes the form of the English ; slQm, closely packed little houses which fill nearly every foot of space within the blocks. Back yards are filled with double rows of tiny dwell ings which can be reached only by means of archways under the street houses. There is no room in these utts dwellings for proper sanitary ap-