2o6 ROBERT W. DE FOREST 



the law must be modified. Whether the landlord's rent will 

 by the law proposed in any city be diminished below the point 

 of legitimate profit, can not be certainly demonstrated until 

 the experiment be tried. Some enlightened landlords, with a 

 sense of their obligations toward their tenants, are perfectly 

 willing to suffer this small diminution of income. Others are 

 not, and the others, who usually constitute the majority, in 

 alliance with the builders and material men, will always seek 

 to prevent legislation which affects their pockets. Tenement 

 house reform must always be militant, not only to gain ground, 

 but to hold the ground that has once been gamed. 



There is something for almost every one to do. Let none 

 suppose that our cities, however small, will remain free from 

 the evils of the tenement house, which in larger cities has 

 necessarily evolved in self protection tenement house regula- 

 tion. The tenement has come to the United States, like the 

 Canada thistle, to grow and to multiply. The smaller cities 

 need not go through the bitter experience which is teaching 

 New York and other cities their lesson. They can, by timely 

 regulation, prevent the crystallization of unsanitary conditions 

 into brick and mortar. I do not recommend the adoption in 

 every city of the New York law. It was framed to meet the 

 special conditions there existent. The remedy should be no 

 greater than the prevailing or expected disease w^arrants. A 

 few elementary regulations with regard to court areas, vacant 

 spaces, and regular and official inspection to make certain that 

 these simple regulations are followed in construction and that 

 ordinary sanitary rules are complied with in maintenance, 

 will suffice, if there always be a keen eye to look some years 

 ahead, to meet future needs before they make themselves un- 

 pleasantly manifest in your owti surroundings, and before 

 conditions are created, as in New York, which can not be 

 changed except at great cost to owners and to the municipality. 



