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The conditions of labor exercise a preponderating influence upon the lives of the workers. Long hours and low pay have compelling force and necessitate the residence of the overworked and underpaid in the over-crowded and congested districts of New York City. Even the efficient workman counts the carfare to distant points a drain on his income, and locates near the industrial districts. The conclusion indicated is irresistible, that the factory and the workshop are the predominant factor in the lives of these workers, and that the factories in the crowded sections of Manhattan are largely responsible for the problem of congestion of population which confronts the city in these districts. The latter being limited in size, buildings must be erected which will house many families. Some students of the problem have discovered the fact that in the most congested districts there are to be found the largest proportions of aliens. The conclusion is then drawn that congestion is due to immigration. The best that can be said of this generalization is that it is indeed a hasty one. The tendency for people to group themselves together in a strange land is most natural. The newly arrived immigrant seeks his friends or relatives,-if he has none, he seeks companionship where he can understand and where he can be understood. From this little nationality group, he makes his start in the struggle of the New World. These steady accessions of newly arrived immigrants no doubt augment the crowded districts, but they are scarcely an important cause. Similar tendencies of congregation among immigrants are found in sparsely settled Minnesota and in the Dakotas, but we do not find congestion. The logical explanation is, that there are other and perhaps more fundamental causes at work.

"One of the most powerful lodestones of the city is the city itself, and within the city, the center is the magnet. These advantages of the city and the center of the city are not purely pleasurable, but are social in the best sense of the word. It is at the center of a great city like New York that educational and cultural facilities are found most highly developed. As a shrewd employer of men once said, 'A man can get more for nothing in New York City than he can buy with his whole wage in a small town.' He can get more pleasure, more excitement, more education, than he can anywhere else. The city contributes to every side of a man, no matter how varied his nature. This is true,

in general, of the city; it is pre-eminently true of the center of the city's population, where congestion has occurred, or is likely to occur.

"Congestion is often attributed to the inordinate desire of certain races or nationalities to congregate. The Jews and the Italians have each been accused of causing congestion. These recent arrivals have no doubt largely inhabited congested districts, but it seems unjust and unscientific to assert that congestion is caused by these groups of people. In fact the entire reasoning underlying this theory of congestion is based on a priori logic and is open to serious objections. The returns of workers employed in Lower Manhattan, in the uptown factories, in Brooklyn, near Brooklyn Bridge, in Williamsburg, in Queens Borough, near the 34th Street Ferry, and in suburban factories located on the outskirts of Greater New York, display certain uniform tendencies which may be formulated as follows:

"A working population tends to live in the immediate vicinity of its place of employment.

"The distribution of a working population is greatly influenced by such industrial factors as hours of work and wages. The degree of distribution may be termed residencemobility.

"The residence-mobility of a working population varies inversely with the length of the working day or week. The longer the working day the intenser the congestion. "The residence-mobility of a working population varies directly with the wages or labor. The workers earning the lowest wages are the most congested.

"The nationality or race of the workers has no appreciable effect upon the residence-mobility of a working population.

In the most congested districts a large proportion of the workers find it impossible to secure adequate or comfortable living quarters. Hence we find that the workers employed in Lower Manhattan take, on the average, a longer time in getting to and from work than the workers in any other group. Nor do the workers employed near Manhattan show any tendency whatever, that could be interpreted as indicating a preference for the congested districts. The workers prefer to live near their places of employment. This is the tendency despite nationality, which may be urging them to live among their countrymen. These facts indicate that the recently-arrived Italian or Russian

Jew does not prefer to live in the congested districts. They are found to reside near their places of work, and when the two alternatives are open to them, the larger proportion embraces the opportunity to live among decent surroundings. The most important finding in the investigation of the group of workers employed in Brooklyn near the Brooklyn Bridge is the relatively small proportion who live in Manhattan, in spite of its accessibility. With the crowded down-town colony of Little Italy easily accessible, only 37.8 per cent of these Italians live in Lower Manhattan. Of the group working in Brooklyn, there are more than fifty per cent less Italians, and almost fifty per cent less Russians and Jews living in Manhattan, than of the groups that are employed in Manhattan. This fact shows the effect of concentrating industries in Manhattan and demonstrates what a difference exists when the factories are located only just outside. Manufacturers in suburban sites within accessible distance of Manhattan remove their workmen from the congested districts. The workmen, when given the chance, prefer to live in the less crowded sections. This is true even of the much-maligned Italian and Jew.

"When the influence of immigration and the distribution of the various nationalities are carefully considered, the tendency of our immigrant people to live in congested districts near the work places cannot occasion very great surprise, in view of the fact that our foreign population is the most unskilled, and therefore, the lowest paid, and that it is employed in industries working the longest hours. This tendency-and the fact that aliens form the largest part of our most congested population is admitted-has been frequently seized upon as the explanation of congestion, and hence these theorists have demanded restriction of immigration as a remedy for congestion. However, if congestion were due to the desire or willingness of our alien population to live in congested districts, we should expect those employed within a reasonable distance of Manhattan to make every effort to live there. But this is exactly contrary to the facts as brought out in the preceding study. The Italians, Jews, and Slavic peoples, who have oftenest been indicted for congestion, have proved themselves innocent and their positive unwillingness to live in Manhattan, when escape is offered, is evidenced by every group of workers in the factories outside of Lower Manhattan.

If, therefore, this mass of evidence has any weight, the oftrepeated theory of congestion-that it is the result of the preference of the people, the gregarious instinct-is disproved.

"The basic cause of congestion in all great cities is to be found in the failure on the part of the community to provide necessary safeguards. The first of these negative causes is the lack of proper planning of the city. Had our cities been laid out on broad, comprehensive plans, had our streets been laid out on wide, intelligent lines, and adequate parks provided, had our industrial and commercial districts been segregated, and our residence districts reserved, some of the very tap-roots of congestion would have been removed.

"The lack of adequate building laws is closely linked to that of city planning. The limitation of the area of the lot which can be built upon, the height of the house, the size of the rooms, are all factors which would definitely and certainly confine and limit congestion. But even those laws we have, have not been adequately enforced. Had our laws been enforced in the best possible manner, we would have gained a little in preventing congestion. Of the local conditions peculiar to New York, which with thought and foresight might have been prevented, the first and foremost is the lack of adequate rapid transit. Whenever it has been advantageous to do business in Lower Manhattan, it has been convenient, because of lack of transit facilities, both to have a permanent place of business there and to live there. Transit not only converged on Lower Manhattan, but what there was of it simply conveyed people into the crowded districts and 'dumped' them. Had transit facilities to neighboring localities been convenient and adequate, the population might have availed itself of the advantages of the central city, and business might have flourished in other than down-town Manhattan districts. Important factors in the campaign for the relief of congestion of population in Manhattan are: first, the removal of factories from Manhattan, and their distribution according to some comprehensive plan throughout the outlying suburbs; second, the enactment of laws to prevent the reproduction of bad living and housing conditions in the other neighborhoods. This is city planning.

It is evident from Professor Pratt's analysis that conges

tion in New York City is not wrought by the habits or standards of living of the immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, but is forced upon them by conditions not of their own making.

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As regards the effects of this congestion upon the rate of wages, on the other hand, the determining factor is not the discomfort suffered by the immigrant, but the amount he must expend for rent. And it is a well-known fact that house rent in New York is higher than in the rest of the United States. The average rent in New York City for a normal workingman's family, according to latest available statistics, was $13.50 to $14.00 a month, whereas in the rest of the United States, it ranged from $8.25 to $11.00 per month. The Jewish or Italian immigrant in New York City was compelled to expend for rent about $1.00 a week more than the wage-earners in small towns where the native American workmen predominate. The American workman may be better housed, yet when the manufacturer employing immigrant labor in New York must meet in the nation's market his competitor employing native American labor in a small country town, it is the native American workman, rather than the immigrant recently arrived in New York from Southern or Eastern Europe, that can be induced or coerced to accept a lower wage.

C. Housing Conditions in the Country at Large

In a retrospective view of the New England textile manufacturing towns of the period when the operatives in

'Amos G. Warner; American Charities, p. 180. "Not only is the cost of housing less in cities outside of New York, but the accommodations enjoyed are better. Detached houses are the rule, with no question of access to light and air. The number of rooms is 3, in only I case of the 53 (Rochester); only 6 report 4 rooms, and 7 and 8 rooms are of frequent occurrence. . . . For $8.00 a month in the smaller towns of the State, and $10.00 or $11.00 in the cities like Syracuse, better accommoations can be secured than for $15.00 in Manhattan."-Chapin: The Standard of Living in New York City, p. 303.

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