194 ROBERT W. DE FOREST 



women in this country who are giving attention to this subject, 

 are doing so from love of their fellow men, and an earnest de- 

 sire to give them in their homes some of the healthful surround- 

 ings and comforts they enjoy in their own. 



There are few large cities in America in which there is not 

 some tenement regulation, and some agitation for its extension; 

 nor is this activity confined to the larger cities. Kansas City 

 in the west, Hartford in the east, Yonkers, Syracuse and 

 Rochester in New York, are already moving in the same direc- 

 tion, and the subject is receiving close attention in Washington, 

 Cleveland and Pittsburg. 



The New York law of last winter was a state law, appli- 

 cable to all cities of the first class. It included Buffalo as well 

 as New York, and Buffalo did its full part in securing the en- 

 actment of the law. Philadelphia is emphatically the city of 

 homes, and not of tenements. Fortunately for Philadelphia, 

 its working classes are almost exclusively housed in single 

 family dwellings. It has, as most of you know, an admirable 

 code of tenement house laws, which has proved very useful to 

 us at New York in preparing ours, and it has its Octavia Hill 

 association to advance the cause of housing reform. 



In some quarters benevolent people are proposing to build 

 model tenements. That is good as far as it goes, but if at the 

 same time other people, not benevolent, who have no motive 

 but gain for themselves, are permitted to build tenements 

 which are not models, the extent of progress is very limited. 

 What we must do, first and foremost, is to secure proper legis- 

 lation, using that term in its broadest sense, to include city 

 ordinance, as well as state law. Legislation to regulate build- 

 ing, so as to secure for new buildings proper air and light space 

 and proper sanitation; legislation to regulate, in buildings old 

 and new, their maintenance so that health conditions may be 

 improved and at least not be impaired; legislation, moreover, 

 that provides the means for its own enforcement, by proper 

 inspection. 



Most of us have been brought up to believe that, as owners 

 of real estate, we could build on it what we pleased, build as 

 high as we pleased, and sink our buildings as low as we pleased. 

 Our ideas of what constitutes property rights and what con- 



