6
THE CHEMA W A AMERICAN
C apital city to be an exam ple to th e N ation. T h e alleys have been
paved, sewers and w ater m ains have been laid in them , they are lighted
and cleaned as are th e streets. Yet they keep th eir old lead over the
stree ts w hen it comes to to talin g th e figures for disease and d eath .
In th is, W a sh in g to n ’s experience has been like that of Liverpool and
other E uropean cities w hich tried unsuccessfully to make badly situated
dw ellings wholesom e bv cleaning and fu m ig atin g . A fter th irty -th re e
years of unavailing effort to im prove th a t w hich was fundam entally bad,
Liverpool finally decided th a t th e only hope lay in w iping out its in
sanitary areas. It dem olished the old houses by the acre and in place
of them built new houses. W here dw ellings have been crow ded so close
together th a t there was scarcely passage room for a stout man to squeeze
his way to one of th e old rear houses, it built new dw ellings opening
upon wide spaces w hich provided lig h t and air. Im m ediately sickness
and death decreased—and w ith them vice and crim e. W hat had seemed
a hopeless stru g g le for m ore th an a generation was won.
O ther cities in E u ro p e have done the same and w ith the sam e results;
b u t w hat m akes L iverpool’s figures of u n u su al value is th a t the new
houses are occupied by th e same people who occupied the old ones.
In some places the population on a given area in the new dw ellings is
99 per cent the same as th a t w hich lived on the area in the old b u ild
ings. So here the effect of housing is not com plicated by questions of
different occupants, of better food or clothing or a generally higher
standard of living. T h e housing has only been changed and the re
su lts are strik in g .
W ashington is attem p tin g m uch the same w ork, th o u g h in a less
dram atic m anner. C ongress has enacted a law w hich goes into effect
on Ju ly 1, 1918, acco rd in g to w hich all the alley dw ellings in tiie Dis
trict of Colum bia m ust cease to be used for dw elling purposes. M ean
w hile, in order th a t th ere may be accom odation for those who will be
forced to seek new homes in street houses, there has been organized a
lim ited dividend com pany w hich is to build houses th at will be not
only san itary , th at will provide not only abundance of lig h t and air,
but houses attractive arch itectu rally , hom elike in th eir arrangem ents
and co n tain in g bath room s and provisions for hot w ater in place of the
old out-door closets and h y d ran ts.
Such houses as these cannot, of course, yield the retu rn upon th e in
vestm ent th a t old houses did. In fact C ongress in its act incorporating
th e E llen W ilson Hom es, lim ited its dividends to five per cent net,
but they will yield to th e ir stockholders a dividend in the form of satis
faction because of needed w ork well done. T o th eir te n an ts they will
give relief from preventable sickness and death and an increase in the
joy of living.