clerks, social workers, and teachers, and so do not serve as demonstrations in housing and sanitation for those who are unfamiliar with American conditions.

Houses constructed by industrial concerns for their employees furnish an interesting study. Great impetus has been given to this activity by the housing program pursued by the United States government during the war. Permanent villages were built around the industrial establishments which were likely to endure after the war, and many temporary ones were erected elsewhere. These villages grew out of the imperative war-time demand for stable labor forces. Without decent and adequate housing labor could not be induced to stay long in one place, so millions were spent by the United States government to this one end.

For many years, however, certain industries have felt the great need of decent housing for their employees, and have made attempts to secure it. The houses found in certain isolated mining regions are examples. In some parts of the East whole villages have been developed by the chief local industry. Whitinsville, Massachusetts, is a case in point. The more recent plan is to build houses for employees on easy payments, so that the individual industry does not own the worker body and soul. The kind of houses built, and the number of modern conveniences in them, depend on the degree of enlightenment of the industry, on its size, and somewhat on its location.

PREVALENT TENEMENT CONDITIONS

The preliminary report of the tenement-house survey of New York City, made in 1919 by the Reconstruc

tion Commission of the state of New York, depicts prevalent conditions: 1

By the time this work is completed we will have visited 1,700 houses, consisting of about 34,000 apartments, accommodating between 175,000 and 200,000 persons.

In innumerable instances families are crowded together in dark, ill-smelling apartments and are unable to find other quarters. To a great extent vacancies exist in Italian and other foreign districts. There has been practically no immigration during the past few years. During this time a great many of the inhabitants of the Italian sections in the lower and upper East Side went abroad to fight for their country.

Thus it is evident that the immigrants who have once known better quarters than the slums cannot be induced to live in them again. It is in the regions occupied by the newly arrived immigrants that the most miserable tenements are found. It is apparent that one who has become accustomed to the comparatively better conditions in the Bronx and upper Manhattan cannot be induced to return to these portions of the city where the old, dark tenements are in such abominable repair. . . All of these apartments have interior, dark rooms, but these exist in practically every neighborhood that was investigated by the committee. In a block in the East Forties vacancies existed in houses of a similar type. Very often they were caused by a lack of proper sanitary and toilet facilities. These were situated very often in the yards and were used by a number of families. The rooms in the vacant apartments are dark and in many cases damp. Practically all the houses were in need of repair.

Certain of the conditions that were found to exist in practically every block can be remedied by better management. These include lack of repairs, such as walls without plastering, walls needing painting, dirty halls, courts,

1Address of Abram I. Elkus, chairman, before a meeting of the Reconstruction Commission of the state of New York on June 9,

1919.

and yards, and, above all, unsanitary conditions brought about through lack of care of toilets.

A study of a block in the East Forties gives some very good examples of conditions difficult to remedy. The thirty-six tenement houses in this block are all old brick houses built before 1901 and showing all the evils of the "old law" tenement construction. The lighting is particularly bad. Of some 1,200 rooms in the block, 600 have indirect lighting-that is, they have no windows opening to the outer air, only the so-called windows opening on to another room. Of the other 600 rooms, only half have windows to the street. The others open on a back yard or on a court. Of course, these 600 dark rooms must be used. In almost every case they are bedrooms. It is evident that at least 600 people and probably a great many more, since at least one, often two, three, and sometimes four people sleep in these dark bedrooms, are compelled to sleep under unsanitary conditions, no matter how well they keep their apartments. There are apartments of three and four rooms, arranged in corridor fashion —that is to say, each succeeding room depending on the last for the exit and entrance. On the plans filed with the Tenement House Department, these rooms would be labeled successively parlor, dining room, living room, with toilet adjoining, and bedroom. Where only the last room is used as a bedroom, proper conditions would exist, but they cannot if, as is invariably the case, the so-called parlor and dining room and often the kitchen are used as sleeping quarters.

The notable work of the California Commission on Immigration and Housing in improving such conditions is discussed later.

BOARDERS IN EVERY THIRD FOREIGN-BORN HOME

The crowded conditions under which the immigrants live were attested beyond dispute by the United

States Immigration Commission Report in 1909.1 The commission secured information from more than 17,000 households in industrial localities. Among the households whose heads were native born the average number of persons per sleeping room was 1.92, as contrasted with 2.53 among those whose heads were foreign born. The following table shows the per cent of households of each nativity group which kept boarders or lodgers.

TABLE XVIII

PER CENT OF HOUSEHOLDS KEEPING BOARDERS OR LODGERS BY GENERAL NATIVITY AND RACE OF HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD 2

Only those nationalities are included in the table of

which 500 or more households were studied.

The table brings out the fact that the households

1 Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem, 1913, Table VI, 2 Ibid., Appendix E, p. 459.

p. 457.

which take the greatest number of boarders or roomers are the latest comers from eastern and southeastern Europe. The Croatians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Magyars, and Poles show a high percentage. In the tables from which the above extracts were made the Serbians and Rumanians showed extremely high percentages, but they were based on less than a hundred families and so have not an adequate basis for comparison. In the more recent immigration the young men come alone, those with families bringing them over in later years. This is especially true among the Greeks, the Balkan races, and the peoples of Asia Minor. The communal system of living practiced by these men leads to serious overcrowding.

Of the 15,127 households of the foreign born included in the Federal study, 34 per cent had seven or more persons per household, as against 13.8 per cent of the native born of native parents. Nine and one tenth per cent of the foreign born had ten or more per household as against 1.2 per cent of the natives. It is apparent that this congestion among our foreignborn population must work for serious impairment of health.

AMERICAN HOUSING VERSUS IMMIGRANT HEALTH? What effect on the health of the immigrant have the unsanitary housing conditions to which he must submit in this country? Inadequate washing facilities mean unclean bodies, homes, and clothing. Overcrowding means aggravation of these evils, as well as the rapid spread of contagious diseases, like tuberculosis or diphtheria. Lack of knowledge as to the proper use of toilets leads to their fouling as well as