ant evils is the fact that wage-workers must live within an accessible distance from their places of work. This necessity puts the owners of real estate in the factory district in a position of advantage over the tenants.

The landlord took the utmost advantage of the situation by charging the highest possible prices for the poorest possible accommodations, and disregarding every law of health and decency in erecting big barracks meant for occupation by the poor.

An inspector for the council of hygiene in 1864 thus reports the landlords' methods with regard to repairs:

Every expenditure of money which the law does not enforce to make is refused; and blinds half swung and ready to fall and crash with the first strong wind; doors long off their hinges, which open and shut by being taken up bodily and put out of or in the way; chimneys as apt to conduct the smoke into the room as out of it; stagnant, seething, overflowing privies, left uncleansed through the hot months of summer, though pestilence itself should breed from them; hydrants out of repair and flooding sink and entry; stairs which shake and quiver with every step as you ascend them; and all this day after day, month after month, year in and year out.1

Such were the housing conditions to which the "old immigrants" of Teuton and Celtic stock submitted for more than a quarter of a century, at a time when the population of New York was but a fraction of its present size, and there was still an abundance of unimproved land in the upper part of Manhattan Island. These conditions are a thing of the past. The typical tenement house in the Jewish and Italian sections of New York to-day is a decided improvement upon the dwellings of the Irish and the Germans in the same sections a generation or two ago. "The visitor of 1900 could go about dry-shod, at least, in tenement yards and courts where thirty-five years before the accumulation of what should have gone off in sewers and drains made access almost impossible."

The causes of the present congestion in New York City

Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 459.

2 Ibid., p. 488.

have been the subject of an exhaustive investigation by Professor Pratt, of the New York School of Philanthropy. Although believing that restriction of immigration would have "salutary results in different directions," he found from the mass of statistical evidence collected by him, that congestion is produced by industrial factors which are not related to immigration and over which the immigrants have no control. We must abstain, for want of space, from quoting his statistics. His conclusions are reproduced in condensed form, yet, as nearly as possible verbatim, in the following abstract:

"New York City is the great mart of, the American continent. Every company or corporation of any size or importance has offices, usually its principal offices, in New York City. The New York market, therefore, is an exceedingly important factor in the concentration of manufacturers in that city. The fact that New York City is large and commercially great, makes it a desirable place in which to locate a manufacturing enterprise. A very large and increasing importance should be attached to this element as a factor in the congestion of manufactures in New York City. During the last half century New York has been changing from a purely commercial city to a manufacturing center as well. The value of manufactured products has increased nearly tenfold. The great bulk of the manufacturing in greater New York is carried on in Manhattan below Fourteenth Street, on that small but immensely valuable one-hundredth of the city's total land area. the whole number of workers engaged in manufactures in Manhattan, 321,488, or 66.8 per cent, work in factories below Fourteenth Street, while only 160,368 or 33.2 per cent work in the much larger area above Fourteenth Street. The problem of congestion of population, then, seems to be. closely linked with that of congestion of industries.

Of

"Population must live within an accessible distance of its place of work. Hence, it is scarcely necessary to point out how important a cause of congestion of population the concentration of industry, trade, and commerce becomes.

1 Edward Ewing Pratt: Industrial Causes of Congestion of Population in New York City, pp. 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 39, 42, 94, 97, 138, 145, 146, 155, 166, 167, 182, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 204.

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.