The leaven in a great city

by Lillian William Betts

The lessees put two ladies in control of the property. One or the other was to be found there each day.

The tenants were notified that rent must be paid weekly; that the rooms would be white-washed and painted; that the agents would be at liberty to visit the rooms daily; that no child would be permitted to carry liquor on the premises; every bundle or basket carried by a child would be examined, and any liquor found would be emptied into the sink in the yard. Water would be put in the halls on each floor; destruction of property would mean eviction. All who were unwilling to accept these conditions were asked to move at once. The rent remained the same, four dollars per month for two rooms. Families desiring four rooms could have them for eight dollars per month, the company cutting a door through the party walls, giving direct ventilation through the floor, with windows opening on both alleys. The absolute impossibility of getting two equally good rooms in the neighborhood for the same rent kept the majority of the families. A few tacitly accepted the change, largely because acquiescence was their habit of mind, while some expected to set at naught any rules or regulations that they found obnoxious. No tenant moved voluntarily.

The new ownership took possession with the same human beings who had occupied the houses for years. The first step was to insist on cleanliness. The alleys were swept and washed every morning, as were the halls and stairways. Garbage cans were provided and their use insisted on. Every can or bundle carried by a child was examined, and all liquors found in them were emptied into the sink in the yard. Quarrels and fights grew less frequent, especially among the women. The children attended school, for their appearance during school hours led to investigations that the majority of the tenants preferred to avoid. The aim was to establish such relations between the representatives of the company and the tenants as would give opportunities to reduce the ignorance and indifference that were quite as responsible, if not more responsible, for the misery in the homes than lack of money. The tenants held aloof. They were tenants because they could not get as much comfort for the money elsewhere; but there could be no friendship where the payment of rent was insisted upon, where drunkenness involved the risk of, and abuse of property positive, eviction.

Several young couples were tenants. The aim and hope of the agents were to gain the confidence of these young mothers. The first child of one died late that summer. Potter's Field was the place of burial. The young father could have worked six days in the week, but that would have been slavery intolerable. He refused it, and followed his lifelong habit of drifting, which was also that of the young mother. She had never resented her husband's days of idleness until this baby died and there was not one cent to provide for the care and disposition of the little body. This was the opportunity of the two women who were waiting to prove that they were not oppressors. A little coffin, a white slip and socks, some flowers—at that time an unheard-of tribute to death—a carriage and a grave in the cemetery approved by the mother's church was provided. The battle was won. Every man, woman and child in the alley surrendered to this evidence of comradeship. That this act gave birth to hopes that must be stifled was natural. Rules must be enforced and comradeship expressed at the times of emergency. The first and hardest battle was won. Confidences were gained that led to marriages and baptisms that had been neglected or forgotten. The office, simply but tastefully furnished, became a school-room, where the mothers and the children learned to sew. Goods were bought in quantities and sold at cost to the learners. A sewing machine and a teacher appeared and were welcomed. Practical talks, or, more properly, conversations, were held; but no one took note of them as special efforts in philanthropy, they were so naturally a part of each day's experience. The daily visits to each tenant resulted in establishing relations that justified reproof, suggestion, commendation. The standards of pleasure, pain, suffering, accomplishment were elementary in the alleys. An hour's work with the needle left the worker exhausted, and diversion then meant moral safety. The homes were barren, and the acme of hope was wages to pay rent, buy food and clothes; the last rarely realized. The months, and even years, passed without the people passing beyond the confines of the ward. The generations lived this life, and it was a fixed habit. The world had nothing to offer to the habitual residents of the ward that the ward did not provide; it has but little to-day to offer them.

In spite of the emptiness of life and barrenness of these homes, they were on the whole better than the homes of the preceding generation.

When the wives laid the cause of their burdens on their husbands' shoulders because they drank, the question, "Did you know he drank when you married him?" would be answered easily, with no thought of self-condemnation, "Yes," in frank confession.

"Do you drink?"

"I drink beer, mostly. Sure, ye get discouraged just working and washing, and never a cent; not a decent rag to go on the street, and no place to go when you get there but a neighbor's house. What is there but a glass of beer? You don't mean to get drunk; yer that before ye know."

This total lack of personal relation to life was me mental attitude of almost every woman. If she was a widow, she worked to make a home for her children, who, again and again, so often that it ceased to attract attention, heard how much harder life was because they were in it. This seemed the accepted attitude, and accounted for the expression on the faces of these children—a puzzled, hardened expression that blotted out all suggestion of childhood. That time was an element in the problem of life was not accepted. That the garment made at home would last longer and cost less was conceded; but what was the use of making things when they could be bought so cheaply. The total absence of reasoning powers was shown here. To make soup would mean staying at home, thinking and planning for hours in advance of a meal. The soup would cost no more than steak and provide two meals, but it would mean loneliness, when the time, through ignorance, could not be turned to interesting uses.

There were women in these alleys, mothers of grown children, who could not tell a bias from a straight edge; who could not put a gingham apron together having straight and bias selvages. Beyond sewing on occasional buttons, there was no use in their minds for needles. They had worked in tin factories. They had worked at all kinds of employment that called into play the minimum amount of brains and the maximum of muscles. Not one woman was found who before her marriage had worked in any line of employment that had the slightest connection with the arts of home-making. The wages they earned was that of unskilled labor, in lines of employment known to be intermittent. Wages, large or small, went into the common family fund. The future was not a matter of care. When all in the family worked, life was lived merrily; when hard luck came, life was lived stoically. This spirit went into the home of the wage-earners when they married. There was far less physical suffering than the privations of their lives made natural. Often these limitations were self-imposed; there was money enough to give life color and purpose, if only there had been knowledge to guide in the adjustment between necessities and income; a conception of time as an element in the financial problem.