Our progress still seemed slow
to Mr. Burns because in Chicago, the actual houses were quite
unchanged, embodying features long since declared illegal in
London. Only this year could we have reported to him, had he
again come to challenge us, that the provisions of the law had at
last been extended to existing houses and that a conscientious
corps of inspectors under an efficient chief, were fast remedying
the most glaring evils, while a band of nurses and doctors were
following hard upon the "trail of the white hearse."
The mere consistent enforcement of existing laws and efforts for
their advance often placed Hull-House, at least temporarily, into
strained relations with its neighbors. I recall a continuous
warfare against local landlords who would move wrecks of old
houses as a nucleus for new ones in order to evade the provisions
of the building code, and a certain Italian neighbor who was
filled with bitterness because his new rear tenement was
discovered to be illegal. It seemed impossible to make him
understand that the health of the tenants was in any wise as
important as his undisturbed rents.
Nevertheless many evils constantly arise in Chicago from
congested housing which wiser cities forestall and prevent; the
inevitable boarders crowded into a dark tenement already too
small for the use of the immigrant family occupying it; the
surprisingly large number of delinquent girls who have become
criminally involved with their own fathers and uncles; the school
children who cannot find a quiet spot in which to read or study
and who perforce go into the streets each evening; the
tuberculosis superinduced and fostered by the inadequate rooms
and breathing spaces.
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