The day book. [volume], October 27, 1913, Image 14

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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how to handle, sanely, almost any
municipal housekeeping problem
"which affects the health of the com
munity. Under the present condi
tions; a- wholeTgrQup of partypoliti
cians go poking along doing one dull
thing after another and accomplish
ing little or "nothing!
The remedy for the housing prob
lem for wage earners in big cities has
been discovered and successfully
tried out in Europe the municipality
builds and sells or rents the houses
to those who would otherwise be ob
liged to live in tenements. The sales
are made on long time payments, 1
sufficiently small so that they can be
paid without bankrupting the small
purse, as is done in Ulm, Germany,
where the death rate for children
dropped from 40 in 100 to 18 in 100
after the experiment. While in Liver
pool, where the city destroyed a slum
and built houses for rent deaths from,
tuberculosis were cut in half!
Here is the unvarnished, practical
advice to communities throughout J
the country that are struggling to
prevent rather than to cure disease,
from a woman who has spent 19
years among the people of the crowd
ed stockyard district here in Chicago!
She is at the head of the Univer
sity of Chicago settlement work and
speaks out of a long, varied expe
rience among tenement dwellers.
"What shall we do to increase the
health of our communities, especially
of the children in, our crowded city
sections?" a representative of The
Day Book asked her.
And her answer was: "It is not so
much whaf shall we do as why don't
we do it?"
"Every time the question of pre
venting disease among the children
and bettering their health and condi
tions of living is mentioned, someone
says, 'Teach the mothers.' Yes, that
is all right. We must teach the moth
ers. But the whole burden is being
Reaped" on these poor mothers :wh
already have had and "will have to
bear the children.
'"Mothers are being instructed and;
instructed and instructed while com-j
munities stand idly by neglecting the.
responsibility which they should
shoulder!
"The garbage question, the hous-s-ing
question, the playground ques
tion are all problems which the mu,
nicipality should solve.
" "The mother can do her level best, -but
ft the wage of the father is not
sufficient to make it possible for the'
little family to live in anything bat a
crowded tenement, what is she to do?
"The mother can Instruct her child '
and bring it up carefully, but if there '
is no place L it the street for it to"
play, how can she alter the condi
tion? "The answer to the housing ques-J
tion has been successfully answered
abroad, where the death vrate has
been wonderfully lowered among
chlldren4n the cities which have tried'
the experiment of building and selling
or renting houses to earners of very3
small wages. That does away with
the tenement And it is th'e sane way;
of preventing disease among children0
as well as grown people. It's the way
to help children to be-bornwell. ,
"The playground question has been,
partially solved In the cities in this1
country. -But I have a word to say,
about it. I believe that each city,
block should have a small space re-1
served for small children to play in.
Make the streets narrower, if need
be, but give the - little children a
breathing spot for themselves. r
"The garbage disposal in a city is
a far more important health measure.
than most people consider it.. But if
is not such a difficult 'matter to set
tle. Yet "we .find men and women
talking and-' talking .and doing this
thing, and the other thing, and ac
complishing nothing, we might say.?
And why? Well, chiefly because of .
the existence of party politics in mur
njcipal.affairs. sife..iM
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