Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1926-02-05
Growing ngMovementDeman
the End of Disease-Breeding
Tenements In New York CITY

By international Labor News Service.
New York. Feb. 3.-There Is still
ma practical program to provide bet
Ter houses for the 100000 New
Workers who live in tenements long
nrfit for human hab,tation, but there
is a general coming together Of opin-
ion fostered by the state, city and the
interested public to devise a practical
method of tearing down the blocks
Of disease-breeding, old-law houses
and building modern, sunlit homes.
Unless some economical way can be
found, including easy condemnation and
large-seale construction in an econo-
mical way, economic pressure will
force both the poor and the middle
classes off Manhattan Island, deelai-
es Clarence Stein, chairman of the
state Housing Commission.
Aid TO Workers Vital.
Such aid to those who live on the
East Side and West Side is important,
for these workers constitute the back
bone of the eity's industrial life, for
New York. known for its financial
preeminence is also the greatest fac
tory center in the United States.
The erection of square miles of
frame houses in the far-distant su-
burbs are not a solution, housing eX-
perts point out, and are distinct fire
hazard for the residents.
The congestion of the population,
the need for better transit facilities
and a scientific housing program has
engrossed the attention of Mayor Wal
ker and the new city administration.
The mayor hopes among other things
TO unscfamble the big foreign popula-
ton OF the city and distribute 1t. The
maintenance of health requires TINS
as much as the need to have workers
near the city itself.
Health Head in Lead.
Foremost in pointing out the health
needs of the city's workers is DIR. Louis
|. Harris, now commissioner of health,
whose efforts for industrial hygiene
have won the admiration and support
of the New York Labor movement. DIR.
Harris points out building better
homes for workers will further reduce
the death rate. He bases his obserya-
ton on block surveys made in the
congested parts of the city.
Commissioner Harris approves the
plan advocated by Governor Smith to
give limited dividend corporations en-
gagged in building houses for work
ers the right to condemn property
Modern homes, he points oht, will re-
duee infant mortality and the adult
death rate for as rule the percent-
age of deaths is greatest In crowd
ed sections.
Bad Housing Kills Toilers.
At the Battery in the Syrian and
Italian quarter and near the docks,
although the population is but 62 to
the acre, the mortality rate is very
high because of bad housing, he SAID.
On the East Side itself among the
Jewish population the mortality Is
lower because the race has immunlzed
itself against many diseases. As the
population moves to Harlem and the
Bronx with growing prosperity the
death rate continues to drop.
Negroes pay a heavy price for llv-
ing in the city, for congestion Is worst
Ill the DidCh btlL' L VI al AiANSN 'NAsN
ers, it is hoped, limited dividend cor
porations will develop modern homes,
similar to those erected in the Sunny
side community in Long Island City
Fight Housing Proposals.
The state and city program is as
sailed from several hostile quarters
by real estate men and reactionarles.
Rather than city finance for such de-
velopments, LientenantGovernor Low
man advocates extension of the self
help system of the building and loan
associations.
His view is that private capital and
private iniative is sufficient to meet
the emergency still confronting those
who earn less than $4,000 a year and
for whom no modern homes are avail
able. Building and loan associations
have been the backbone of the build
ing of individual homes in the. su-
burbs, it is pointed out, but they have
not been able to finance large con-
struction in the city because of the