HOUSING REFORM EUPHEMISTIC ideas of the 
IN THE COUNTRY -C-' country have for so long 
been accepted that most of us 
have become blind to the peculiar problems of the rural or sub¬ 
urban districts. The man who lives beyond the limits of the 
metropolis becomes sympathetically exercised over the tenement 
house evil of the great city, but is oblivious of the presence of 
similar abuses in his own neighborhood. When they affect him 
personally, of course he is aroused, but generally too late. 
In these days of an awakening social conscience it is being 
realized that one’s duty does not end at the boundaries of one's 
own property. There is a duty to the community that must be 
heeded. If the obligation is slighted, the individual suffers with 
the town. We refer to the housing abuses in the country. Every¬ 
one knows of districts in his section where conditions are little 
better than in the tenement of the great city. These ugly spots 
cannot be covered up by indifference. The ostrich attitude does 
not do away with the country slum. What is more, its rank 
growth partakes of the nature of the weeds; it spreads. In an 
address delivered by Mr. E. S. Forbes, of Boston, the matter and 
its import were clearly presented. Some of the salient features 
might well be brought out here, for the same spirit that has 
actuated the National Conference on City Planning will be found 
ready in the country if only the need is felt. The address from 
which we quote is illuminating. In speaking of the country 
slum tenement, Mr. Forbes says: “This type of dwelling is the 
joint production of the land shark, the shyster architect and the 
jerry builder, and nothing in the way of a tenement house could 
be worse except another of the same sort but higher. It is usu¬ 
ally of the flimsiest construction, and after a few years the' owner 
is likely to ask for an abatement of taxes because of its deprecia¬ 
tion in value. It is a dangerous fire hazard, dreaded alike by the 
fire department and the owners of neighboring property. It is 
terribly destructive of real estate values, and the coming of one 
such building into a residence district will cut in two the selling 
price of the nearby properties. Within a month a building com¬ 
pany appeared in one of the large suburban towns in the vicinity 
of Boston and announced that it proposed to put up fifty of these 
three-deckers. The people, rich and poor alike, could almost 
hear the crashing of property values and at once took steps to 
ward ofif the impending danger and to protect themselves against 
similar attacks in the future. 
‘This shows to what length carelessness and ignorance and 
unregulated greed will go in their predatory raids upon the wel¬ 
fare of the community. We should all agree that the exploita¬ 
tion of the tenant is a greater injustice than the destruction of 
property values, but there is no reason why either of these things 
should be permitted. Both are common in our suburban towns. 
We have heard much about the injury to the tenant, but not so 
much of the other side of the question. 
One of the serious results of the lack of building regulations 
is that no property owner, be he large or small, knows what is 
going to happen to him. The daily newspaper supplies illustra¬ 
tions of this. A citizen built a beautiful house within an area 
of 50,000 square feet of land — and presently found himself con¬ 
fronted by a garage. A gentleman expended $17,000 on his 
place, as he called it — and by and by a fellow citizen built a row 
of seven one-story shacks on the opposite side of the street. A third 
citizen, whose property cost him $50,000, awakened one morning 
to discover a Chinese laundry in the basement adjoining his own, 
and the selling price of his estate automatically reduced by that 
master stroke of Fate and an unscrupulous neighbor to $13,000.’ 
A policeman in a country town which I knew well, built himself 
a comfortable house on a generous lot and adorned it with trees 
and shrubs to suit his taste. Along came a speculator who 
planted a flimsy firetrap of a three-decker within three feet of 
his lot line, cutting off his sunlight and robbing him of half the 
savings of his lifetime. These are the tragedies of the suburban 
towns, and they are certainly worthy of the attention of the 
National Housing Association. They do things better than this 
in Germany, as we all know. There you are not allowed to go 
on your way with no regard whatever for your neighbor. You 
may not kill him with an unsanitary and unhealthy house, if b> 
chance he does not own his own home and has to rent one from 
you; or if he is so fortunate as to own his own place you cannot 
rob him of his property by building some unsightly or undesir¬ 
able structure in his immediate vicinity. Why should these 
things be permitted in America? They need not and ought not 
to be. At the same time that the protection of the law is thrown 
around the tenant, securing him against oppression and wrong 
on the part of the owner of his dwelling, something should be 
done to preserve the beauty and attractiveness of our towns and 
cities and to afford a reasonable safeguard for the property values 
of the homes of their citizens. 
“The only difference between the evil housing conditions of 
the small village of a few hundred people and those of the city 
of as many thousand population is in degree not in kind. There 
is only one problem in both village and city. It was perfectly 
natural when we woke up to the evils of bad housing that we 
should at first direct attention to the tenement houses of the large 
cities. The evils were concentrated there, we could see the out¬ 
rages practised upon tenants and the dangers which threatened 
the rest of the community, and we said these inquities must go. 
But now a clearer and fuller knowledge has shown us that bad 
housing is quite as much a matter of the one and the two-family 
house as it is of the dwelling which shelters a much larger num¬ 
ber of families, and reform is just as necessary in the one case 
as in the other. It makes no difference what kind of a house a 
man lives in, he has a moral right to fresh air and sunlight, to 
proper sanitary conveniences, to privacy, to protection against 
fire and to freedom from overcrowding because these things 
are necessary for health and decent living. If the speculative 
builder will not recognize this fundamental right, or if an owner 
is so ignorant that he does not know enough to satisfy these 
moderate requirements then they should be enforced by law, 
and this whether the dwelling in question is designed for one 
family or two or twenty. 
“I am convinced the only way in which owners, occupants 
and community can be assured of adequate protection against 
bad living conditions is by bringing every kind of dwelling within 
the scope of the law. A tenement house law is good as a step 
towards something better, but the general situation demands not 
a tenement house, but a well enforced housing law. Under such 
a law it will probably be necessary to classify dwelling houses 
according to the number of families occupying them, but this 
offers no great difficulty. The great achievement will be the 
wiping out of the troublesome distinction between tenement 
houses and private residences and the bringing of them all under 
one general housing law. The City of Columbus has already 
done this. In several of the towns of Massachusetts groups are 
at work upon a similar law. It is bound to come, nothing can 
stop it, because it is in the interests of the health, morals and 
happiness of all the people.’’ 
These questions which Mr. Forbes discusses should merit your 
attention on the ground of your duty to society and for the pro¬ 
tection of your own home. Will you act in your locality? 
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