Persuasive are the statistics . . . of the effect on boys and girls, in weight and height, of the conditions of a garden town like Bourneville, as compared with Saint Bartholomew's Ward, in Birmingham, only twenty minutes away

Take these two groups of boys and girls, one hundred from the city slums, the other hundred from the garden town, and line them up before your industrial magnate. "There you are, sir. From which group will you recruit your shop forces?" Is there a question as to where his choice will light?

The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company issued in 1918 a booklet describing their building projects, entitled, "Which Shall It Be, Home or Hovel?" According to this circular, building of houses for employees "is not charity. It is not graft. It is humanity; above all, good business. No man worried at home, living in a hovel surrounded by dirt and filth, his family subjected to all the dangers and disease which infest such habitations, can do good work."

Sometimes houses erected by an industry are only rented to its employees; sometimes they are sold to workmen on the installment plan. More and more industries are buying land in rural regions and building their own villages near by. Such houses built to-day are equipped with modern conveniences; made to meet the needs of various sized families, including those which take boarders; and often provide space for the little garden so dear to the heart of the immigrant fresh from the fields of Europe. The importance of this last point is appreciated by one large company which is now considering building for its employees.1

1Notes by H. T. Waller, Goodrich Company, sent to W. M. Leiserson, of the Americanization Study staff.

From our experience we do, however, urge that any plan of housing for the immigrant employee should include a lot of land enabling the foreign employee to exercise his native ability in market gardening.

Homes built in this way will be powerful factors in promoting health and in teaching the immigrant American standards of sanitation. Many of the employers, who will only rent their houses to employees, say that this policy is necessary to protect the property and to maintain a good standard of cleanliness. Peasants who have been accustomed to the most primitive housing, without running water or toilet facilities, who have frequently lived in the same building with their animals, cannot be expected at once to accept or to practice American methods of keeping clean.

A few industries are doing educational work through women inspectors, whose business it is to inspire the immigrant with the desire to imitate American standards. These women work in the homes, and in one case they also utilize a neighborhood center established and supported by the industry itself. A very good example of such a combined housing and educational policy is to be found in Morgan Park, Minnesota.

The question of boarders seriously affects the housing of foreign-born employees. Boarders and roomers are usually taken for one of two reasons-economic necessity, or the desire to help newly arrived compatriots. Industry has the power, in a large degree, to abolish the first factor. The seriousness of the second varies according to the races employed. The groups which average the greatest number of boarders or roomers are those among whom there is a large

proportion of single men, chiefly the Croatians, Lithuanians, Magyars, Poles, Serbians, Rumanians, and Greeks. In considering any housing project for industrial workers the races involved should be studied in order to adapt the plans as far as possible to their particular habits and needs.

FLOATING LABOR CAMPS

Quite different from the problem of housing factory employees is that of accommodating floating labor in camps. This type of labor is usually associated with such industries as lumbering, ice cutting, beet-sugar and fruit growing, or with highway and railroad construction and repair work, and is largely composed of immigrants, as is brought out by Jenks and Lauck.1

Disregarding geographical lines, it may be said, in general, that foreign-born wage earners constitute more than three fourths of the entire number of persons engaged in railway and other construction work.

In 1912 and 1913 W. M. Leiserson made a study of labor camps in Wisconsin for the Industrial Commission of that state.2 Of the 50,000 wage earners living in camps in Wisconsin, he calculated that 20,000 were housed in bunk cars for railroad work; 20,000 in lumber camps; 5,000 in ice-cutters' camps, and 5,000 in camps for the construction of dams, buildings, roads, and bridges.

The railroad "gangs" were housed in box cars, which allowed 170 cubic feet of air per man, one half

1 Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem, 1913, p. 180.

2 W. M. Leiserson, Labor Camps in Wisconsin, Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, pamphlet, 1913.

of the legal requirement in Wisconsin. The sanitary conditions of the camps were primitive, and there was no provision for taking care of the sick. Leiserson rarely found sick men in the camps because they leave as soon as they become ill.

The housing conditions in the lumber camps were generally worse than in the railroad camps. Two of the camps were found to be better than the rest. Running water, good beds, and bedding were provided; there was plenty of space allowed per man; the buildings were light, airy, and clean. These camps had no difficulty in holding men, and were, in fact, turning away applicants.

Another example of suitable housing is that of the Park Falls Lumber Company of Wisconsin.1

Each logging camp has twelve cars, of which four are used for the horses. One is a power car which provides the electric current for all cars and pumps the drinking water into an air tank, which furnishes running water in the washing car and kitchen car. A vapor-heating system is used and the cars are comfortable in the coldest weather. Sleeping cars are divided into four rooms, each 12'x15'. Each room has a door and window, constructed opposite each other, to provide proper ventilation, and contains six single-spring bunks. A dining car, containing small tables, seats 114 men. An equal number of cars are placed opposite each other, with a platform in the center which is lighted at night, so that the men may pass from car to car without touching the ground. Camp and commissary refuse is removed every morning.

The company found that the original cost of such equipment was double the cost of a set of ground camps to accommodate the same number of men and horses, but states

1 Bulletin No. 2, May 5, 1916, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, p. 8.

that it has brought ample return on the investment, as the camp can be moved from place to place and considerable time is saved walking to and from work, while the men appreciate these conditions so much that the company has had no trouble in retaining them since operations were commenced. It is now planned to add a sixty-foot car to each camp fitted up as a reading room and a bathroom, and to replace all the company's ground camps with this type of living quarters.

The Commission of Immigration and Housing of California has developed standards for labor camps which may serve in many respects as models for the country. The problem in California is peculiar because of the climate and the characteristics of the Mexicans, who are a predominant element in the agricultural sections of the state. The Mexican laborer generally has his family with him, and they move as a unit from one place to another. For these workers the commission has provided small family houses and supervision of sanitary regulations. It has been equally successful in its work in the mining and lumber regions, where the labor-camp problems are similar to those elsewhere in the United States.

The wide support which the California commission has received from both employing and labor interests, its nonpolitical character, and its expert work in the field of sanitation and housing, render its findings of the first importance to the problems of the foreign born.

It is almost impossible to deal with the problem of floating labor by local regulation. The labor is too migratory; the camp is often temporary, and usually isolated. The state as a whole must set standards and supervise their enforcement. In some occupations, particularly railroad work, where the problem