Crowded tenements without light or air, dirty streets with no provision for wholesome recreation, are proofs of poor government and inefficient democracy, no matter how prosperous and contented a city may look in its richer quarters.
People who are obliged to live in the crowded districts have a lowered vitality and a lessened value to the world; and the same natural impulses which, rightly directed, lead to an orderly, useful, contented life, may be the causes of delinquency if stunted or misdirected. The slum is an economic crime, condoned by a public which pays the penalty in contamination and contagion thrust back upon itself.
Housing: Air and sunshine are the first requisites of healthy life. The government recognizes a certain responsibility in insuring these necessities, and prescribes by law regulations for the construction and inspection of living accommodations. Many families cannot choose their homes, but are obliged to live in the kind of buildings that are to be found near their work. Inside rooms without windows, rooms into which a ray of sunshine has never penetrated, are common in every city in the State. The law prohibits, in cities of the first class, the building of new tenements with inside rooms without windows, but many old ones are in existence, and two-family houses may still be built with inside rooms. In other cities there are practically no restrictions, except by occasional ineffectual city ordinances. Sanitary arrangements, and the water-supply in many tenement-houses, are insufficient for health or even decency.
Tenement-house inspection is a part of city government in which women are particularly fitted to serve. In New York City, there are 103,688 tenement-houses and 193 inspectors. Only eight of these are women.
The war has greatly intensified the housing problem. With the tremendous increase in certain industries which has brought thousands of people to work in new factories, there is a corresponding demand for living accommodations near their work. These factories may not be permanent, and so private capital hesitates to build houses near them. The result is a terrible crowding of people in unsanitary and unfit buildings. The consequences of such overcrowding is seen in the increase of child delinquency, immorality and disease, an increased death-rate, and the inevitable unrest from such unhappiness which results in strikes and labor troubles.
Recreation: The modern city so far has made little provision for the natural irresistible desire of youth for play.
This is all the more dangerous because young men and women are being drawn in great numbers from the protection of the home, for work in factories and shops. They have a freedom from restraint such as they have never had before. They have money which they have earned; they are eager for amusement. When they come to the end of a day of exhausting work their love of pleasure will not be denied. If they are not given the right kind of amusement, they will take the wrong kind.
Instead of recognizing this natural instinct for play, and providing safe channels for its expression, all provisions for recreation are usually left to commercial interests, to be used for their own gain, without supervision or control. Vice is often deliberately disguised as pleasure, and the most normal and healthy impulses of young men and women, that, properly directed, lead to happy married life, are frequently used as a means to their downfall.
Loneliness also plays a part. Many a young man or girl comes to the city to find work. Where can they find the social intercourse and companionship necessary to normal life? The homeless boy often stands around the edge of the dance-hall, vainly hoping to make the acquaintance of some “nice girl.” The lonely girl, living in a cheerless hall bedroom, turns to the dance-hall as a place to find companionship. Proper provision for public recreation, well supervised, would help to bring this boy and girl together in decent, wholesome surroundings.
The Dance: In young girls, the social instinct, the desire to meet and know other people, and especially those of the opposite sex, becomes a dominant factor between the ages of fifteen and twenty.