The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-08-07

that these sharks are operating today.
They own long rows of alley homes,
and derive large incomes from the
rents. A four room house in one of
these rows is valued at about $400
1t rents on an average for $12 month,
or $144 a year In other words every
three years the tenants more than
pay for the houses they rent, and
some of them have lived in their
shacks for so years.
Most of the houses are tumble down
wooden or brick structures. Mr. Ham
has made a survey which congress
will get in the fall. He says:
1T is doubtful whether there are
more than 10 bathrooms in the entire
alley system Leaks in the roofs
average four or five to a house in
some alleys. The alleyways are paved
and are kept comparatively clean by
city ordinance. But the city cannot
clean up the interiors The houses are
crowded because the rents are high
and even in four room house rooms
are rented out to- several families.
When you consider that six or seven
! people sometimes occupy single
room 10x12 feet existence in these
homes can be imagined"
| Not All Negroes
! Not all the alley jewellers of Wash
/ ington are negroes. A stones throw
| from the beautiful grounds of the Cap
| itol are some of the most congested
| districts. Poor foreigners who come
! into Washington through the nearby
Union Station settle down in these
/ lodgings, the cheapest the city affords
/ in the built up sections.
Vice and crime, are bred in these in
ternal streets, welfare workers say.
Often the entrance to an alley is by
a narrow courtway Beyond this cul
de sac the alley broadens and winds
and branches. There are alleys with
in alleys. Police cannot patrol these
streets" closely because the force is
not large enough to permit mems be-
ing detailed to alleys only.
AS for disease, investigators have re
ported whole rows of alley houses
known as lung blocks" where tuber-
culosis is found in four houses out
of every five. Other districts have
periodical sieges of typhoid. Mr.. Ham
states as his opinion that an outbreak
of smallpox or some other epidemic
in the alleys would be felt all over
Washington.
| There is Kick Back.
There is the kick back to the situa
ton. Washington is getting its clean
ing and cooking and washing done by
the alley jewellers, and getting them
perhaps a little cheaper than if the
workers lived in the suburbs and had
to pay carfare out of their earnings
But the city is exposing itself to the
diseases that prey on the people OF
the hidden slums.
Washing for the best homes" is
done in the alley shacks. People &C
out of houses where there are cases Of
: fevers, tuberculosis, and syphilis tC
work all over the city. This condi
, ton, or its equivalent, is true perhap;
in any city. Disease germs are almos'
unacceptable. But in the alleys, as il
the tenement districts of great cities
disease is less controlled and more
powerful.
Some of tn shacks rub elbows with
the back yards of fine residences. The
alleys are just far enough away anC
, sufficiently shut off by board fences
: to be disregarded by the people whC
live facing the streets. But the ale!
, dwellings are at the same time jus
? close enough for disease to spread.
system Tolerated
| So far, however, the dangers ant
! the wrongs of the alley system hav;
+ been tolerated The city does tn
: best it can with the laws and ordin
ances on the books. But any radica
. steps rest with congress. The com
> missioners of the district are nov
y taking an active interest in the sit
uatiOn.
: Several years ago congress passed
law to close the alley houses on
fixed date When the time drew nea
an extension was obtained. II wa
argued that the city could not absor
so many people moving at the sam
y time.
Now the alleys are to close N Nc
: vember, and again it is being urge
that the date be put off two years. Nj
I Ham opposes this on psychologist
| grounds He says that the tenant
n would stay on until the two year
were up. as they have done this time
) and then there would be panic at tn
last minute.
S He urges instead that the alleys b
closed in three installments yea
q apart. The tenants would know a
/ about the moving days and whic
| alleys were to close first. 1t would
| possible for the district to absor
5000 people at one time in small
houses, chiefly in outlying sections
The other alley tenants, seeing tn
first set move, and realizing tha1 thei
turn would surely come On the fixe
dates, would begin to look about an
the whole emigration would be accom-
! plished without serious confusion.
Mr.. Ham has laid this plan befor
congress. He says that the alley
should be turned into playground
minor streets, city parks, garages an
parking spaces.