The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-10-11
LIVE IN NOVELS
Mexican Population Becomes a
Menace to the City.
Eleven Are Found HuddIed To-
gether in One Room.
ONE SHACK SHELTERS Nine
Children From These Tene-
ments i'm the Public Schools.
Nine Hundred of These For
eigners Are in Topeka.
ONE SHACK SHELTERS NINE

Following investigation of the Latin
quarter in Topeka, the city board OF
health has discovered it is facing
Mexican problem here because of the
unsanitary surroundings in which the
Latins live, menacing public health
That condition, DR.. H. L. Clark, city
health officer, believes is caused by
the turbulent condition of Mexico
which incites the Mexicans to settle
with their families in the United
States. Before the last few years of
revolution in the mother country the
men only came to this country, work
ed during the summer, and returning
to Mexico in the winter. Now their
numbers in northern cities are in
creasing rapidly The police say there
are 900 Mexicans in Topeka.
In an investigation of Mexican quar-
tiers in the Santa Fe yards. members
of the health department today an
nouncced the conditions they found
there are bad. The colony is near the
east end of the Santa Fe viaduct.
Nine in One Shack.
A family of nine, two adults and sew
en- children according to Clyde Tres
ner, who led the investigation. were
found living in one small shack. There
were two beds in the place and one OF
the rooms was used for a combination
kitchen, pantry, dining room, bedroom
and living room. Thirty families. the
heads of which are employed by the
Santa Fe at, Tresner says, $3.50 a day,
live in the colony.
One of the family of nine told
Tresner that that income was their
sole means of existence. The health
officer took piece of pencil and pa
per and did some figuring. which pro-
Sfo
persons, the figures showed, the
amount afforded each member of the
family a fraction of a cent more than
II cents a day for food, clothing and
fuel Tresner and his forces arrived
at supper time. The sole food in evil
dence in many of the houses consist
ed of small pieces of meat, corn cakes
and beans. Seven or eight persons to
a table partook of that.
Many in the Schools.
Health officers estimate there are a
hundred or more Mexican children in
the Latin quarter attending public
schools. Many from the colony in the
Santa Fe yards, which the officials
point out is unusually insanitary, at
tend public schools.
These people are brought north by
the railroads in the summer when
work is plenty and they receive only
small wages, barely enough to live on.
Then in winter when there is no work.
they are too poor to keep sanitary
and they are generally objects of char
ity from the city or county. The rail-
road furnishes them places to live in
but no support when sick. 1 under
stand they are not furnished medical
treatment by the railroad when
dangerously ill. The Santa Fe, it APP
pears to me, should have a physician
inspect these places at least once
week. The Mexicans are ignorant ana
haven't enough money to call in d
private physician. Because of their
ignorance they do not know how to
obtain medical aid from the city or
county-at least many of them don't"
Eleven in One Room.
In another shack visited, eleven
were found living in one room. A child
was found in another place sick from
throat trouble from which another
child in the same colony had died
few days before. The woman in the
place told the health officers the child
that died had been treated by an
American DOCTOR The doctor was
called by telephone and he said he had
not treated the child. but said he had
left medicine for another one.
American doctors medicine no
good" was the way the woman ex-
planned things to Tresner Me give it
to child; it die
According to the doctors story the
woman had made a mistake and had
given the child medicine left for an
other sick child.
The Santa Fe has been asked by the
health officials to induce the Mexicans
to clean up. There was evidence that
a cleanup was going on when the in
vestigation was being made but little
Roadway was being made.