Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-20
HOUSES HIT
IN DISCUSSION BY
CLUB SPEAKERS
Dwellings in Communities Cut
Off From Rest of City Held
Danger to All Citizens.
MANY RESIDENTS ARE
DOMESTIC SERVANTS
Huge Death Rate and Contagion
Present Challenge to Rest of
National Capital.

Unqualified endorsement of a measure
now before Congress for adjustment of
Washingtons $50 inhabited alleys was
given last night by the Monday Evening
Club after speakers had described these
hidden communities" as centers of
disease and crime which infect the
whole city.
John Ihlder, chairman of the Hous-
ing Committee of the Washington
Council of Social Agencies who framed
the present bill after a long study of
the alley situation. described the pro-
posed legislation as calculated not only
to rid the National Capital of its hid
den plague spots but to convert the
property to socially profitable uses.
S5OO,OOO Fund to Start.
1t calls for a 10-year program, with
the United States Housing Corporation
authorized to acquire the alley prop
.erty by purchase, condemnation or gift,
reLlat it, and convert it to its most
appropriate use. Some, he said, may
be converted into minor streets, others
into Fairgrounds or nei3hborhood parks,
and still others into business property.
The program is to be financed for
the first year with $500. 900. now stand
ing to the credit of the Housing Cor
poration on the Treasury books, repre-
senting a profit from the Government
housing operations during the war At
ter that the bill calls for loan from
the national Government of 100000
annually in the form Of revolving
fund, for as long as will be necessary.
The operation as whole. he said, may
be conducted without any actual loss
since the profit from converting desir-
able alley property for business use
will probably offset the loss from alleys
so situated that they have no business
value
This gradual process, he said, will
entail no hardship on the alley dwell
erS. A recent survey by the Council
of Social Agencies has shown that there
are enough street houses, renting at
about the same rates as the alley prop
erty, to take care Of the alley inhabi-
tants for the first two years of the
program and by that time other houses
will become available as the conversion
program proceeds.
improvements Not Remedy.
The alley situation is such, he said,
that any improvement in the alleys
themselves serves only as temporary
palliative whereas the only real rem
edy will be to tear the condition out
by the roots. The alleys, he said, con-
stitute communities within commun-
ity. almost completely cut off from the
life of the city, with their own nsCl-
tutions and morals.
The original fault, he said, lays at
the door of George Washington and
Mai. Pierre L'Enfant. who laid out
city plan which, however excellent in
itself, called for intelligent administra-
ton. They did not provide for this adj
ministration after they themselves were
gone. The result was that as the city
expanded and the character of its
neighborhoodS changed, the large
blocks laid down in the L'Enfant plan
fell into the hands of persons eager for
profit, and the large garden spaces were
filled with cheap dwellings, with no
openings on the street and systems OF
interior communications. The very
secrecy attracted the lawless.
The alleys still have a population of
approximately $4,000, he said. TINS
population now is almost entirely col
ored. Efforts to wipe out the' alleys in
the past, he explained, have failed
largely because they did not provide for
intelligent utilization of the property
without loss to the owners.
Wiping Out Necessary.
With the great Federal and District
building program under way here, said
Lieut.. Col. U. S. Grant, Sd, executive
officer of the National Capital Park and
Planning Commission, it is essential
that Washington'S "SlumS" be wiped
out. This problem is much easier, he
said, because the slumS are largely con-
centrated in the alleys, each one sharply
circumscribed. While trying to abol-
ish the average city Slum in one place,
he said, often only results in pushing it
into another direction, WaShington's
problem is only the wiping out of little
islands" scattered all over the city.
Canon Arson Phelps Stokes Of the
Washington Cathedral said that both
the moral and health situation in the
alleys was much worse than among
persons of approximately the same type
in the same neighborhoods, but living
in street houses. Thus in some districts
the death rate in the alleys was 80 per
900 annually, compared with only II
in the streets, and one out of three
children dies in the first year. He
pointed out that one-half of all births
in the alleys are illegitimate, much
higher rate than among the same sort
of persons in street houses.
The health problem, he said, is vital
to all of Washington, since many domeS-
tic servants come from the alley homes,
bringing the disease germs with them.
Disease Carried to Homes.
The alley houses were described as
dark, desolate holes" by Miss Gertrude
II. Bowling of the Instructive Visit
ing Nurse Society, who said that the
existence of these hidden pest holes
with new Government buildings arising
around them reminded her OF the scrip
tural "whited sepulcfre." She stressed
the alleys as sources of health ccntaglon
for the rest of the populace, with alley
women in domestic service carrying dis
ease germs into all sorts of homes.
The alleys are a law unto themselves,
Miss Rhodea Nfilliken, Washington po-
licewoman, told the social workers.
About 8 per cent of all crime in the
city takes place there, she said. Walter
S. Ufford and william V. Mahoney also
spoke in favor of the bill
Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, who has
crusaded for adjustment of the alleys
for many years. arranged for the meet
ing and presided. She asked that the
society accept no alternative for the
proposed bill.
-AaunBN