THE OTHER OTHER HALF
To the Editor:
“We want to know ‘how the other half lives.’” This was said fifteen years ago, and we are saying it today. But it is the other half that we now have in mind. Library shelves are filled with books about the one half. Sociologists have studied it; health officers have examined it; sanitary boards have considered it; laws have been made to regulate it. Juvenile courts, protective leagues, visiting nurses’ associations, social settlements, charity organization societies, have been bringing us day by day information as to how that half lives. Now we want to know how the other half lives.
Recently there has been a great investigation of one special phase of the life of the poor. Great business firms have been asked how certain sums of their earnings were distributed as wages to the poor, and the wage-earners have been asked what use they made of these wages. How much do working girls receive and how much does a working girl need to live decently? These are the questions that have been asked. “We want to know more of the life of the working people,” has been the cry.
But wait. Now we want to know how the other half lives: Society is a whole, not a half. These great questions are questions of society, and they can not be answered by investigating half of society.
Yes, we want to know about the $2,000,000 that was paid in wages; to whom it went, and how it was spent, but we also want to know about the $7,000,000 that was paid in dividends. To whom did it go, and how was it spent? How much did the dividend receivers need a week on which to live? Were they judicious in their expenditures? These questions also ought to be investigated by a commission.
What do we know about the occupations, the health, the morality, the family life of the very rich?
If we are suspicious that the home life of the children of Mrs. Zambrowski of Mulberry street is not all that could be desired, we send a juvenile court officer to investigate. If there is evidence that the father is not honestly employed, if there is disease in the household, some officer is on hand to see what is the matter. What do we know of the home life of the Van Astor children? Is Mr. Van Astor an industrious bread earner? Are the home conditions of the Van Astor children morally healthful?
We want to know more about these excursions to Europe. Are they always cultural? We want to know more about the life of Mrs. Astorbilt in her Paris home. We want to know more about the employment conditions of the “Four Hundred.” Perhaps a law should be made in the interests of health limiting the number of continuous hours spent in certain social activities. We want to know more about the lives of boys and girls in wealthy boarding-schools. We desire to find out just how a working girl spends $8 a week, but we also wish to learn just how the dividend receiver spends $800 a week. The poor need visiting housekeepers to instruct them, but may not the wealthy need visiting home-keepers?
The unexplored continent of sociology is the life of the wealthy. It is to the interest of the health and well-being of society that a careful and dispassionate study be made of this subject.
Clarence D. Blachly.
Chicago.