The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-06-25
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ALTON
BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN. Director.
washtnstan, D. @
WAsHINGToN's sLUMs.
Washington. D. @


noted the world over for its cleanli
ness and order, has more than $4,000
inhabitants living in filthy alleys.
These unfortunate alley dwellers
must vacate their present homes a
year after the signing of peace with
Germany, when an act of congress,
abolishing the alleys as places of resi-
dence, becomes effective.
The city of Washington now faces
the big problem of how to provide
housing accommodations for these
people in an already overcrowded city.
Congress will be asked to help solve
the problem by appropriating S6,-
0oo,0 to erect three thousand sani-
tary homes.
About ten years ago. the Alley I'm
provement association began a fight
for the elimination Of Inhabited alleys
in the District of Columbia. Other
civic bodies Joined the movement. AS
result of their combined efforts.
with the valuable assistance of the
late Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. who took
work of the capital, bill was passed
by unanimous vote of both houses of
congress wiping out the alley evil
The date set for the evacuation of
the alleys originally was July I, 1918,
but because of the great congestion in
gress found it necessary TO extend the
date until one year after the signing
of the peace terms
Nine-tenths of the inhabitants of
| the alleys are colored. The number of
alley jewellers increased considerably
during the war. The great influx of
war-workers crowded many poor fam
! lilies out of their street homes into the
alleys. These poor families had to
| ~, oil @H 0lre Of
| which had not been used since the
| Civil war. In one place ten families
were found housed in a dilapidated
! barracks last used by the Union
/ soldiers in 1865.
The alley evil of the capital was
denounced recently by Chief Justice
Mccoy, of the district court, when he
| sentenced John Jones, .colored, seven
teen years old, to serve twenty years
in the penitentiary for shooting Virgie
| Mills, thirteen years old.
In imposing the minimum sentence
allowed under the law; Chief Justice
| Mccoy said that the boys plight was
! probably cue in part to the fact that
| he had been reared in an alley The
| court characterized the alleys of
| Washington as a burning shame and
| declared that 80 long as they are per-
mitted to exist we may expect out
| breaks of crime" He stated that
some of the inhabited alleys he had
l
This denunciatio of the alley evil
| by Judge Mccoy has stirred the
| Emergency Housing Association, a
philanthropic organization of repre-
sentative men and women of the dis
| trict, to action. This association has
made a careful study of living condi-
tions in the alleys of the capital and
is behind the movement to have con-
gress appropriate money to build
homes fofsthese people when the alley
| no ff-or7
place of abode.
William V. Mahoney. secretary of
the association, says that the alleys of
Washington are as bad as the slums in
the East side of New York
The strongholds OF the bootleg
gers" he said, "are almost invariab IDLY
found in the alleys" Therefore, to
abolish them. compelling the inhabi-
tants to move into wide, we'll lighted
streets. will tend to eradicate the nests
of bootleggers and other criminals
THE congestion in this city, due to
the war, has driven many respectable
colored families to the alleys. We
colored family had lived for thirty
eight years on a wide street in the
northwest part of Washington. Be-
fore the adoption of the Salisbury law
which rented to war workers at three
times what the colored family had
paid. 81
Some of these wretched tenements
shelter entire families in one room.
| We know of a row of four brick houses
first floor and one room on the second,
There is no front or back yard, no
sewer, water or gas in the houses; but
at the end of the row is an unSheltered
each winter, and two flimsy toilets
opening directly into the alley. We
4 have known repeatedly of two families
occupying one of these houses at the
same time.
This row of unspeakable novels,
breeders of vice and disease, is not To-
Gated. in some out of the way, neg
lected corner of the city, but is in the
very heart of the capital, and under
the shadow, almost, of a seven-s story
thrives in the alleys does not always
stay there, either.
"a colored washerwoman who lived
in an alley was told by her white en-
ployer when she came after the
clothes that she would not be given
the wash that day, because the white
woman's children were ill with scarlet
fever, and the employer would not
) risk having the contagion taken to the
washerwoman's home. The colored
woman replied with an appreciative
smile: Laws, missile. don't worry
bout ma children, dey just had the
scarlet fever two weeks ago.
I'VE have figures in the files OF
our association" said Mr.. Mahoney
which prove that eighteen to twenty
: people live in small five-room house
) in an alley. The police census of the
alleys is far short of being correct fol
this reason: The police take the cen
sus in the daytime when most of the
!. inhabitants of the alley are away
: Those remaining home are unwilling
and many times afraid to give the cor.
rect information, and we are quite
sure that over $4,000 people live ir
these slums.
THE association is of the opinion
that the building of 5000 small
houses. in view of the high cost Of
building, the class of tenants con
E cerned and the limited time before