Children of the TenementsRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
General
Children of the Tenements
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Tenement houses -- Fiction
The attempt to colonize Jewish immigrants had two objects: to relieve
the man and to drain the Ghetto. In this last it failed. In 18 years
1200 families had been moved out. In five months just before I wrote
this 12,000 came to stay in New York City. The number of immigrant
Jews during those months was 15,233, of whom only 3881 went farther.
The population of the Ghetto passed already 250,000. It was like
trying to bail out the ocean. The Hirsch Fund people saw it and took
another tack. Instead of arguing with unwilling employees to take the
step they dreaded, they tried to persuade manufacturers to move out of
the city, depending upon the workers to follow their work.
They did bring out one, and built homes for his hands. The argument
was briefly that the clothing industry makes the Ghetto by lending
itself most easily to tenement manufacture. The Ghetto, with its
crowds and unhealthy competition, makes the sweat-shop in turn, with
all the bad conditions that disturb the trade. To move the crowds out
is at once to kill the Ghetto and the sweat-shops, and to restore the
industry to healthy ways. The argument is correct. The economic gains
by such an exodus are equally clear, provided the philanthropy that
starts it will maintain a careful watch to prevent the old slum
conditions being reproduced in the new places and unscrupulous
employers from taking advantage of the isolation of their workers.
With this chance removed, strikes are not so readily fomented by
home-owners. The manufacturer secures steady labor, the worker a
steady job. The young are removed from the contamination of the
tenement. The experiment was interesting, but the fraction of a cent
that was added by the freight to the cost of manufacture killed it.
The factory moved back and the crowds with it.
Very recently, the B'nai B'rith has taken the lead in a movement that
goes straight to the heart of the matter. It is now proposed to head
off the Ghetto. Places are found for the immigrants all over the
country, and they are not allowed to stop in New York on coming over,
but are sent out at once. Where they go others follow instead of
plunging into the city maelstrom and being swallowed up by it. Soon,
it is argued, a rut will have been made for so much of the immigration
to follow to the new places, and so much will have been diverted from
the cities. To that extent, then, a real "way out" of the slum will
have been found.
End of Project Gutenberg's Children of the Tenements, by Jacob A. Riis
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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