City growth and new social problems
1. Under modern conditions many laws restricting free competition are required to secure the health and convenience of the citizens. The rapid growth of city populations has brought new social and economic problems. The friction in social relations is greater when men are crowded together. In 1790, three per cent. only of our population lived in cities of over eight thousand; to-day the percentage is thirty-three. Then the city dwellers numbered one hundred and thirty-one thousand; now they number twenty-five millions. Then there were but six cities of eight thousand or over; now there are five hundred and forty-five. Then the largest city (Philadelphia) numbered fifty thousand persons; to-day the largest city (New York) numbers three millions. Many laws are survivals suited only to the older rural conditions. In London, these problems were first forced into prominence, and a law passed after the great fire of 1665 to regulate the rebuilding of houses, streets, sidewalks, and sewers, foreshadowed alike the American law of special assessments and the modern tenement-house legislation. A mass of laws wise and foolish has resulted from the attempt to meet the new conditions. The laws of nuisance and of sanitation have been rapidly changing.
Need of social regulation
Why not leave such subjects to individuals? It is for the interest of every one that his back yard should not be a place of noisome smells and disagreeable sights. But men are at times strangely obstinate, selfish, and neglectful, and through one man's fault a whole community may suffer. The refusal of one man to put a sewer in front of his house would block the improvement of a whole street. The obstinacy of one may bring an epidemic upon an entire city. There must be a plan, and by law the will of the majority must be imposed upon the unsocial few. Where voluntary coöperation fails, compulsory coöperation often is necessary. Thus health laws, tax laws, and improvement laws regulate many of the acts of citizens, limit the use of property, and compel men to a course against their own wishes and judgments. The justification for these limitations on the right of private property, on free choice of the individual, on "free competition," must be found in the social result secured.
Tenement-house laws in cities
Interests affected
2. Tenement-house legislation is an important recent expression of this social protective policy. As city population grows denser, land increases in value, and the evils of bad housing threaten the welfare of the great majority of city dwellers. Light, sun, air are shut out, and cleanliness, decency, and home life are made impossible. Two policies are open to the public. It may be left to private enterprise to solve the problem. If the tenant agrees to rent a disease-breeding house, he is the first to suffer. The interests of investors, it is said, will supply as good a house as each tenant can pay for. The other policy now adopted is to set a minimum standard of sanitation and comfort, to which all builders and owners must attain. Property owners are no longer left free to determine plans, height of building, proportion of lot built on, lighting, materials, and workmanship. Complying with the legal requirements, they are left quite free to collect whatever rent they can get. Such legislation is partly in the interest of the body of landowners as against the selfish desires of some individuals. One bad building may bring down the rent of all on the street. Partly, however, the regulation is in the interest of the tenants and of society as a whole, and against that of the landlord. The rents from slum property are threatened; hence the strong opposition always manifested against tenement-house legislation by some landlords, architects, and contractors, who fight it bitterly as an interference with their interests and as a confiscation of their property. It is not quite certain how marked will be the effect of this policy in making the rents too high for the poorer tenants and driving them into the country. But this result, predicted by the enemies of the policy, is not so undesirable, and the enlightened sentiment of the public to-day favors all efforts to destroy the breeding-places of disease, misery, and crime.
Public inspection of goods used in the homes
3. Laws forbid adulteration of products for domestic use and provide for public inspection. English laws of the Middle Ages forbade false measures and the sale of defective goods, and provided for the inspection of markets in the cities. Recent legislation in many lands has developed much further the policy of insuring the purity or the safety of articles consumed in the home. The oleomargarin law passed by Congress was, however, designed as protective legislation in the interest of the farmer. Usually, the self-interest of the purchaser is the best safeguard for the quality of goods; but personal inspection by each buyer frequently is difficult and time-consuming, requiring special and unusual knowledge of the products, and special costly testing apparatus. The state undertakes, therefore, to set a minimum standard of quality, and to apply it by the economical method of social coöperation. This policy extends only to staple products and to a comparatively few articles. It would be impossible as well as unwise to apply it to art products, except to protect the morality of the community. This inspection sometimes raises the price, but the evils are small compared with the convenience and the benefits resulting to the citizen. He is assured that the article he buys is of standard quality, and if he wishes a cheaper quality there is no law to prevent his adulterating it for his own use.
State support of education