Juvenile Leagues
As in city clean-up work and other social activities, so in their housing reforms, women have enlisted the aid of school children, forming them into juvenile leagues to act as housing inspectors for the more obvious and outward defects. Boy Scouts have become greatly interested in certain cities in the work of educating tenants to a sense of responsibility for obedience to health laws and also in pointing out violations to the authorities, not only on the part of tenants but of landlords also. A picture at once comes to mind of a little member of a Juvenile League pointing out to a tenement owner certain needs and improvements which she had been taught to regard as requisite—a picture printed in The American City to illustrate the work accomplished by children. Both men and women have been earnest in enlisting the sympathy of children, partly for the actual inspection help rendered by them, and yet more for the sake of educating the children in proper standards of living in order that they may demand for themselves decent conditions through pressure on their parents while they are minors and through individual, social, and political activity when they are adults.
The importance of far-reaching power for the health officer is realized by women housing reformers as well as by men. For example, Mrs. Bacon, who was so instrumental in securing the enactment of the Indiana state housing law, dealt with this subject at the second national housing conference held in Philadelphia, in her paper on “Regulation by Law.” Mrs. Johanna von Wagner of California did the same under her title of “Instructive Sanitary Inspection.” The spirit of the conference showed an earnest desire to coöperate with public officials, extend their powers, and add to the constructive suggestions pointing the way to improvement in city housing. The women delegates and speakers shared this spirit and contributed to the practical suggestions as well as to plans for coöperation.