South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1916-04-17

Editor Stiffness
Your paper has spoiled my sun
day afternoon.
Ny shoes are covered with mud
Ny legs are bruised and scratched
from pushing through entanglements
OF old wire. I have scrambled up
ancient mounds of ashes. capped
with fresh sinking garbage, and
looked from them into pits Of filth.
Ny throat is sore from innumerable
cigarets smoked 10 displace more
offensive odors. And my heart is
heavy with the pictures of an end
less clutter Of hopeless, dirty-faced
boldly curious children.
Ny dreams Will not be sweet to-
night.
Your paper, with its unlovely pic
lures, IL was waiting on the step
when I first opened my door this
morning No kindly wind carried
il down the street No pilfering
neighbor saved me from its insiduous
paragraphs. 1t lay on the step
waiting to spoil my day. 10 send
me off on my cherries walk.
For it is the walk 1 have taken
that will not let me sleep.
Usually l take a walk on Sunday
afternoon. but such a different sort
of a walk. Usually 1 take my turn
at the feminine pastime window
shopping, clarifying It 10 suit my
desires into a magnificently critical
500 rob foy. tho Y,o~foot of, o.e+1o
Slowly 1 stroll through the nice resi-
dence districts of the city, and care
fully and judicnously choosing the
home that mos- suits my mood. I
call it my own. I go towards Sunny
side when I am ambitious, where 7
can picture myself riding up a long
driveway and entering il through a
coach door. When the weather is
had l stay close 10 the center Of
town and pick a substantial warm
looking house. If it is spring and 7
feel the lust for growing things I
walk along Riverside drive. or cross
into Navarro place, where I plant
and grow a wonderful garden in one
Of the spacious backwards. Some
times when my imagination is ven
turesome 1 people the home of my
choice with others besides myself.
The places 1 choose are always good
places for children.
But today with your pictures and
your article on housing conditions
haunting my mind 1 took a different
course, and started to follow your
courageous writer through the un-
pleasant districts she described.
went into the hole behind St He'd
VICES school over to Maggie's court,
out TO the corner of Division and
Arnold SITS. then back across the
river into Little Italy Always, with
a newly awakened passion for
squalor, I sought out the bad places,
the homes I didn't want.
The things 1 saw-alI that your
writer told of and worse.
Empty beer bottles, dozens Of
them in one place no. even thrown
off the porch. An obscene joke
scribbled on wall. A basket Of
washing carried into a place with a
vile backyard-as it hangs there to-
morrow will its well-to-do owner
know the menace to health that will
come with it back TO her home? A
filthy privy which expressed itself
in the pathetically tiny white crepe
hung on the door Of the house in
front
l did not see any houses to choose
for my own today / can only re-
member a horrible string Of dirty
backwards, enclosed with old broken
down fences, and filled with an in
describable hodge-podge of discard
ed household furniture, stable filth
and decaying garbage. There We're
no good places for children in the
alleys I saw today.
Now l am thinking Of the clean,
comfortable homes I saw last sun
day and the Sunday before. Are
they the beautiful face of our city
that blinds us all to its gangrened
feet?
No, I shall not sleep well tonight,
but l thank you for it.
You have shown the sore, but
you have started the cure. too. ana
that gives hope. Success to you in
the work.
South Bend. April 16