The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-04-25
SMALLPOX RACES
AMONG CROWDED
OLD TENEMENTS
Epidemic Used to Stir
Racial Hatred
Especial to The Daily Worker,l

A smallpox epidemic or considerable
extent holds this city in its grip,
spreading thru the working class
sections and doing its greatest dam.
age in those neighborhoods where low
wages, malnutrition and unsanitary
housing conditions prevail.
Hospitals Under Quarantine.
Every day sees new "quarantines'
by the local board of health and the
epidemic has reached such proper
stions that several big hospitals have
been roped of by the police
The outlying suburban districts,
where the rich exploiters and prof.
teers live in extravagant luxury, are,
so far, free of the pestilence.
In those parts of the city where the
plauges toll is heaviest, hundreds of
oidfashioned open nigh soil" wells
abound, poluting the air with vile
and deadly stencil and constituting
the only sanitary convenience hun
dreds of working class families have
contracted the disease.
Rich Are Free from PERIL
On the other hand the gorgeous
mansions of Philadelphia's profit
drunk plutocrats are known to be
equipped with as many as four to ten
modern bath rooms, toilets, shower
baths, etc, scattered thru the prem
Uses from cellar to attic.
Since mid-war years Philadelphia
has been the mecca" of heavy Ne
gro migration from the southern
states.
These workers, in blissful ignor-
ance of the real conditions in this city
of brotherly love (?), hope to find
here a human and secure life denied
them by the sunny south. Instead,
they find want, and squalor, filthy con-
gestion and human misery awful to
behold.
True to type the capitalist class are
taking full advantage of the situation.
melting Race Riots.
Their various stoolpigeons and
under cover" propagandists are eau
tfously spreading the poisonous ru-
NOR that the smallpox epidemic, to-
gether with the other economic and
social evils which make this place a
charnel house Of poverty, disease,
banditry, Bookkeeping, prostitution,
child labor and vile unsanitation, are
all due TO the increased Negro popu-
lation.
This pernicious propaganda serves
double purpose for the capitalists.
First-it tends to develop bitter
race" animosities between the white
and black wage slaves here, and thus
retards the growth of industrial and
political solidarity on the basis of the
class struggle. among all workers. IT.
respective of color, creed, language
or birthplace.
Second-it helps obscure the fun
damental cause Of the prevailing
smallpox situation-vis., had housing
conditions from which the exploiters
and profiteers benefit enormously.
The Facts Of Workers Mlseries.
The following excerpts from a re.
cent statement by B. ]. Newman, d.
rector of the Philadelphia Housing AS
sociation (capitalistic) throws a vivid
light on the matter. We quote:
ut was found also in this survey
that go per cent of these tenement
families occupy one-room apartments
in which all the practices Of family
life are carried on.
But Of the 263 tenements in opera
ton today only 40 were found to be
oDeratinR legally
bad sanitation was found in
more than one-half, 81 per cent to be
exact.
Their faults were, defective plumb
ing, leaky roofs, flooded cellars. In
adequate sanitary equipment were
found to exist in SO per cent. In
these buildings were windowless
rooms and there were six cases Of
living in cellars.
Horrible overerowding.
"Overcrowding was noted in many
cases. In one house Of nine rooms
for which SIS rent was paid SS occu-
pants were found Five girls slept in
a single bedroom in this house and
FIVE boys in another; in still another,
man, his wife and four children,
making six persons TO this rooan,
while each of two other bedrooms was
occupied by man, his wife and three
children, making a total of q persons
sleeping In four rooms.
THE number Of families occupying
one-room apartments has increased
per cent (since 1922 Tene-
ment houses in Philadelphia occu-
pied by industrial workers are not
only costly in rent charges, but they
represent a grave risk to the com
munity in their assault upon the
health and morals OF tenants"