The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1916-01-21
FIGHT FOR
BETTER HOMES
Movement Now Includes 1888
Cities and Towns.
BAD HOUSING WIDESPREAD.

Five Years Ago There Were Scarcely
Half a Dozen American Cities Which
Realized They Had q Housing Prob.
lem, but a General Awakening Has
Taken Place.
BY JOHN lHlDER.
IField secretary National Housing asso-
ciation.l
Years ago Jacob Riis startled the
country by his revelations of how the
other half lived in New York. Due to
these revelations and to the work of
public spirited citizens year after year,
the other half lives better in New
York today. New York did not like the
revelations. 1t was inclined ut first to
call Jacob Riis a bad citizen. Later it
changed the adjective to best"
The rest of the country contented It,
self with exclaiming owe New York's
badness and thanking Providence that
it was different. But it wasn't differ
ent except specifically. 1t had reason
to be grateful that it did not have New
York's tall tenements, solid rows of
them, mile after mile. But under diff
| ferent forms it had most Of the things
that made New York's tenements so
bad. Philadelphia with it's rows of lit
tie houses, Boston with its crowded
north end, Chicago with its stockyard
and west side districts, needed only a
Riis to point the finger of scorn at
them. They did not have Rises, but
they did have public spirited citizens
who began to understand and grapple
with these conditions.
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 condi-
tons and say what they think.
Five years ago there were scarcely
half a dozen American cities which re-
allied they had a housing problem.
Today there are 1873 cities and towns
which have awakened to the fact.
Slums have been discovered wherever
Ethere has been an investigation.
T. Bad housing has been recognized un-
der all its DISCUSSES. In New England
the wooden three decker-the weed
peculiar to that locality - is being
fought. New England is beginning 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 t%wenty-three towns and one
city have already forbidden the erec-
ton of more three deckers.
In the middle Atlantic states bad
housing takes the form of the English
slum, 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 lit
tie dwellings for proper sanitary ap-
planes, so an outdoor toilet Mt the
end of the passageway serves all fami-
lies, and one outdoor hydrant supplies
all their water. In some of the older
and most crowded sections of these
cities there are large areas without
sewers.
In the middle west and the south.
where land Iovercrowding has not yet
developed to any such degree as 1t has
in the northern and eastern cities.
there is bad housing under another dis
guise. The one room cabin still persists
in the degenerate form of the board
shanty In nearly all the states west Of
the Alleghenies, although even the At
lantic seaboard, which has not known
the pioneer since the United States be
came a nation, has some of these re
minders of him.
The southwest and the Pacific coast
are not free from bad housing. The
corrals Of Texas, the house courts OF
southern California. have already be
come well intrenched. And even the
tenement or barrack dwelling has ap-
peared. But 1t is in northern Califor-
MIA and farther north that the tene-
ment menace is the worst.
San Francisco rose from its ashes a
city Of wooden tenement houses. Its
enthusiasts boast Of it as the new Ath.
ems under the blue skies Of a modern
Greece. Its builders house people in
dwellings from which no glimpse of
blue sky may be seer. But in. Cslifor-
MIA there is a state commission on Inn
migration and housing, which Is pre-.
.paring for the expected Immigrant tide
by setting better standards for their
dwellings.
In Los Angeles and in some Of the
Texas cities boards Of health are de-
manding in the interest Of the commu-
nifty that housing standards be raised.
In some of the southern cities there ID
progress. In the north laws have been
enacted. companies organized. to build
good, inexpensive dwellings. But all
along the way there are practical prob.
lens. The experience of one city d
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