The Battle with the SlumRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
History
The Battle with the Slum
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
Poor; Poor -- New York (State) -- New York; Tenement houses -- New York (State) -- New York
I remember the President of the Board coming into my office one day with
despair written all over him: of a hundred families, carefully picked to
go into the country where homes and work awaited them, when it came to
the actual departure only seven wanted to go. It was the old story of
objection to "the society of the stump." They wanted the crowds, the
bands, the kosher butcher shops, the fake auction stores, and the
synagogues they were used to. They have learned a lesson from that in
the Jersey colonies, and are building entertainment halls for the social
life that is to keep them together. Only a year or so ago an attempt at
home-building, much nearer New York, at New Orange, just over the hills
in Jersey, came to an abrupt end. It left out the farming end, aiming
merely at the removal of needle workers from the city with their
factory. A building was put up for a large New York tailoring firm, and
it moved over bodily with its men--that is, with such as were willing to
go. Work was plentiful in the city, and they were not all ready to
surrender the tenement for the sake of a home upon the land, though a
very attractive little cottage awaited them on singularly easy terms.
However that was almost got over when the firm suddenly threw up the
contract. It proved to be costlier for them to manufacture away from
the city, and they could not compete.
If there is yet an element of doubt about the Jew as a colonist, there
is none about his ability to make ends meet as an individual farmer,
given a fair chance. More than a thousand such are now scattered through
the New England states and the dairy counties of New York. The Jewish
Agricultural Aid Societies of New York and Chicago gave them their
start, and report decided progress. The farmers are paying their debts
and laying away money. As a dairy farmer or poultry raiser the Jew has
more of an immediate commercial grip on the situation and works with
more courage than if he has to wait for long, uncertain crops. In
Sullivan and Ulster counties, New York, a hundred Jewish farmers keep
summer boarders besides, and are on the highroad to success. Very
recently the New York society has broken new paths upon an individual
"removal plan," started by the B'nai B'rith in 1900. Agents are sent
throughout the country to make arrangements with Jewish communities for
the reception of workers from the Ghetto; and so successful have been
these efforts that at this writing some five thousand have been moved
singly and scattered over the country from the Atlantic to the
Pacific--that is, in not yet three years since the beginning. They are
carefully looked after, and the reports show that over eighty per cent
of all do well in their new surroundings. This result has been wrought
at a per capita expense of twelve dollars, not a very great sum for such
a work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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