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that bad housing conditions should be corrected by community action rather than by industrial.

One doctor spoke of trying to get his "people out of basements" as a good housing measure. Another wrote that the "foreign born should not live in clans, but mingle with the native race," a rather interesting remark when one recalls the attitude of the average member of the "native race" toward this question. Still another physician thinks that "the tendency of the foreign born to live in colonies and to patronize in a business and professional way only those speaking their own language . . . are practices that militate against rapid Americanization." This man has evidently not given much thought to the cause of this tendency to colonize. His cure for it is to teach the foreign born the English language. He advocates penalizing industries which employ non-Englishspeaking workmen, as well as the men themselves.

More thoughtful answers indicated a desire to seek industrial as well as community solutions. One advocates "careful supervision of housing conditions by nurses and doctors." Another suggests: "Provide good housing. Create and foster a community spirit, stimulating initiative." A third writes that his company is "instructing them [the foreign-born workers] in the Building Association plan of purchasing their own homes instead of rooms and tenements." Most of the physicians felt the need of nurses to do educational work in sanitation and hygiene in the homes.

Abram I. Elkus, chairman of the Reconstruction Commission of the state of New York in 1919, summarized in his report the problem of housing our immigrants in New York City. After a discussion of

the preliminary findings of the tenement-house survey made by this commission, he said, in conclusion:

We must decide on a housing policy. We must look the whole problem straight in the eye. We must find a way out. We have spoken of American standards of living, and look at the kind of homes we give to the newly arrived immigrant. The landlord of one of the houses that had subagencies said to one of our investigators that he would have no trouble in filling his house when immigration had again started. What is the use of talking of Americanization and education if the people of this city are to be forced to live in the homes that are being pictured by our block surveys? It is time that we should look at this matter clearly.

BETTER HOUSING

First, decent buildings, with adequate modern conveniences, should be erected by private interests, communities, or industries. This is not the time to decide who shall do it, but to get it done. The community itself must either control them absolutely or retain sufficient reserve power to insure proper standards of construction and maintenance, both of individual buildings and of entire building schemes in relation to town planning.

There is a great opportunity here for the native born to co-operate with our new Americans in making and executing building plans. Each race coming to our shores brings with it a building experience of its own as well as an appreciation of beauty in architecture. A recent report of the American Red Cross Commission to Italy includes a section devoted to "Housing in Italy," where this point is elaborated:1

1 Mildred Chadsey, "Housing in Italy," Report of the Commission for Tuberculosis, American Red Cross in Italy, pp. 2, 3.

Americans might learn much from Italians, who, through centuries of experience in building and in seeing examples of building for people who live in groups, develop better plans for multiple dwellings than Americans. They might get suggestions for city tenements built about courts that would not present the hideous rear view that makes parts of some cities like New York and Chicago look like wildernesses of back stairs and clotheslines, and would afford a better place for assembling and outdoor work than the street in front of the tenement.

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American housing experts who prepare our building and sanitary codes might learn from Italians the value of such sections as the following, taken from the Roman code:

It is forbidden to paint the doors and windows of the building with colors that are out of harmony with the tint of the walls of the building.

The color of the outside of buildings facing public streets must be harmonious and uniform for the entire length of the wall. In case of disagreement on the color to be used, the communal authorities shall decide.

In buildings and in villas having special artistic or historical character, it is forbidden to make alterations which shall threaten in any way their æsthetic value.

Do not such regulations as these, self-imposed by the Italian people, point to their inherent love of beauty in housing and their respect for its preservation? Yet, considering the Italian immigrants as they crowd into our slums, the native born are too apt to lose sight of this significant point. To recognize and utilize such heritages as these would result in mutual respect and increased understanding.

Second in the solution of the housing problem, many foreign born will need education in the use of decent houses, so that they will not be abused. To be successful this education must be undertaken in a

co-operative spirit. The customs of the group concerned must be understood, their reaction to their new dwellings carefully watched, and the educational process adapted to their particular needs. The whole problem of educating the foreign born in hygiene is so involved with this matter of method that we must return to it toward the end of the book after other elements have been introduced.

Third, the most important and most difficult factor of all is the necessity for changing the point of view of the native American toward this whole question. It must be altered fundamentally. The foreign born must not be regarded as a neighbor to be kept at arm's length, but as a neighbor to be really lived with. Only by human contact can we hope to assimilate our new Americans into our national life. The housing problem involves the most important sanitary and health relationships, but its difficulties largely arise from a combination of economic conditions with social prejudices and misunderstandings. Its solution is impossible on either a philanthropic or a business basis alone, or by any combination of the two, unless a broad foundation of human, neighborly understanding underlies the whole endeavor.

V

SELF-HELP AND HEALTH

Ir is little realized that immigrants have extensively developed organizations for aid in time of illness which function quite independently of any American agency. Frequently in small communities wherein native Americans must depend upon their individual resources in time of sickness, and wherein publicly organized facilities are inadequate or nonexistent, the foreign born will have well-defined organizations for sickness and death insurance and for medical care.

This capacity for co-operation is an inheritance which most of our foreign born bring with them from Europe. Many of the southeastern Europeans, notably the Italians, have been members of local or village co-operative associations at home, which they continue in this country. Almost all of these associations, although they may be formed for other purposes-social, cultural, or political-include some scheme for sickness and death insurance.

It is well to dwell upon the contrast between native and foreign born in this respect, but we should by no means leap to the conclusion that because of the prevalence of sick and death benefit societies among the foreign born, they are fully protected against the

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