ST. LOUIS WINS NEW TENEMENT HOUSE LAW
St. Louis has just won an unremitting fight of five years for a tenement house law. Though there has during these years been much newspaper publicity, even an “extra” once when a public hearing ended in a riot, the final passage has been scarcely mentioned.
This law, social workers feel, marks a great advance for St. Louis. It requires running water on every floor of every tenement house, and a light from sunset to sunrise in every common hallway. Further provisions are that all halls of every tenement house must be kept by the owner in good repair and free from dirt, filth, ashes, or refuse, and that the rooms must be so maintained by the tenant. Fruit, vegetables, rags, junk, etc., may not be stored in a tenement house. For every tenement dwelling containing more than eight families there must be a caretaker or janitor.
Other provisions of importance are that cellars may never be used for living purposes and basements only under certain restricted conditions. Finally, no apartment nor any room of a tenement-house shall be occupied by more persons than will allow for each adult 500 cubic feet of air space, and for children 350 cubic feet each. This does not apply where the occupants make up a single family. It is designed especially to reduce the number of lodgers, whose presence results in so much overcrowding and immorality.
Those who have won this battle look back over as varied a struggle as social workers have ever encountered. In 1905 Charlotte Rumbold prepared for the Housing Committee of the Civic League a report on tenement-house conditions, so vividly written and illustrated that not only St. Louis but many other localities were stirred and eventually framed reform legislation. The St. Louis bill as first drawn was changed only in a few small details during its long career before passage. At the beginning it was fiercely fought by real estate men, who at one public hearing packed the house with pleaders, mostly tenement-house tenants, against the bill. Its defenders encountered hissing and hooting. All the lights were suddenly turned out, and half a riot followed. After this the crowd surged to the mayor’s office before it quieted down. The bill was defeated.
Shortly after the Civic League and the Real Estate Exchange held a conference and, to every one’s amazement, found that after all they disagreed only in certain minor matters. The same bill was re-introduced in 1911, but failed, owing to contention at the eleventh hour concerning certain legal aspects. When a new Board of Health was organized in 1912, its program included the passage of this bill. It was again introduced in September, 1912, and, in spite of repeated efforts of several legislative members to let it sleep to death, the constant prodding by other members brought the bill to final passage.