Memoirs of a millionaire

by Lucia True Ames Mead

“Well, first of all,” said a man who proved to be an agent in one of the large model tenement houses, “what would all those women do if you take away their work from them? They would be idle and shiftless, and just spend their time in gossiping and quarreling. I know ’em.”

“It seems to me,” said Mildred, rather tartly, “that if the average poor man’s wife has not enough to do in washing, ironing, scrubbing, sweeping, making and mending clothes for a household and attending to her children, we need not feel any necessity laid upon us to fill up any spare moment she may have for herself by an addition of needless work for work’s sake. I know poor mothers in Boston who don’t get down so far as the Common twice a year, who scarcely see a green tree from one year’s end to another, who never think they can spare a moment’s time to amuse their children, and who gladly turn the poor little ones into the street to get them away from the hot cooking-stove which occupies the best part of the only family living-room. It is to such mothers that I would give a little freedom, and in time they will find something better to do than quarreling and gossiping if they live in my tenements.”

“But they will have to pay a little more for their food than if they cooked it themselves. The wages of the cook must be paid, and even a little more counts,” remonstrated another skeptic.

“Not at all,” said Mildred, eagerly. “Think of the immense saving in fuel to begin with. Why, most of these people, as you know well, buy coal in small quantities, often by the hodful, paying for it at an enormous rate when reckoned by the ton, to say nothing of the evil of sending children out along the wharves to pick up dirty barrels and bits of wood for kindling.”

“But in winter they would need the fire just the same for warmth,” said some one.

“No; the whole house would have steam heat, thus making a valuable saving of space as well, by doing away with the stove and place for fuel. The halls of the model tenements now are heated by steam. I estimate that the trifle extra which would be added to the price of the room and the food would be no more than, probably not so much as, what would be spent for food and fuel in the old way; for the poor that I have known are the most extravagant people living. They buy a poor quality of food at high rates, and through bad cooking and irregularity of living waste and spoil much that they have.

“Besides, I have had another thing in mind,—that is, the mothers who go out to work by the day and have to let their children come home from school to pick up any kind of cold dinner that they find, and who, so far as my experience goes, invariably spend every cent they get upon candy and innutritious cakes bought at the bakery.”

“This is all a charming theory, Miss Brewster,” said a pale-faced lady with auburn hair, who had hitherto remained silent; “but I am afraid that until you have a more enlightened community to deal with it won’t work. The conservatism, perhaps one might call it the stupidity, of the lower classes is something we are fighting against all the time. Every innovation has to be introduced with great caution in order not to offend them. Strange as it may seem, these people who come from lands where they have been down-trodden, with no privileges of any sort, stickle more for their rights and independence, and are far less willing to yield to restrictions than we. They don’t want to be ‘bossed.’ They want to do as they please, even if they pay more for it and are not half so well served. The idea of saving fuel and getting rid of the nuisance of ash-barrels would not appeal to the low Italians. They cook their little messes of macaroni over a few sticks, and would not dream of using the fuel that an Irishman would require.

“Let me tell you about a cheap lunch-room that was started as an experiment some time ago. We gave good, nutritious food at the lowest cost price, and what was the result? It remained on our hands, and we could not sell it, and discovered to our surprise that the people for whose advantage we had established it learned that if they waited until the food was cold and ready to spoil they could come to the back door and ask for it and get it for little or nothing. It would really have been wiser to throw the food away. Yet the very same people who would do this showed a decided pride when they suspected any supervision or interference in their domestic affairs. A coöperative kitchen was established in one of our tenement houses as an experiment, that is, a range to be used in common, in order to save the fuel and heat in summer of a fire in each separate room. But no one liked to use it. Each woman was afraid of interfering or being interfered with.”

“Naturally enough,” said Mildred; “and anything that should tend to mix up families, where the yielding of personal preferences and ‘taking turns’ is involved, would probably fail so long as human nature remains human nature. I do not propose anything of that sort, you see.”