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AN ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE WITH THE SLUM IN NEW YORK
TO THE FAINT-HEARTED AND THOSE OF LITTLE FAITH THIS VOLUME IS REPROACHFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR
[Illustration: COLONEL GEORGE E. WARING, JR.]
COLONEL GEORGE E. WARING, JR. _Frontispiece_
POLICE STATION LODGING ROOM ON EAST SIDE 18
ALFRED CORNING CLARK BUILDINGS--_Model Tenements Of City And Suburban Homes Company_ 84
EVENING IN ONE OF THE COURTS OF MILLS HOUSE NO. 1 94
LETTER H PLAN OF PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 165 (SHOWING FRONT ON WEST 109TH STREET) 214
PLAYGROUND ON ROOF OF NEW EAST BROADWAY SCHOOLHOUSE (AREA 8,348 SQUARE FEET) 220
A TAMMANY-SWEPT EAST SIDE STREET BEFORE WARING 242
THE SAME EAST SIDE STREET WHEN COLONEL WARING WIELDED THE BROOM 248
The slum is as old as civilization. Civilization implies a race, to get ahead. In a race there are usually some who for one cause or another cannot keep up, or are thrust out from among their fellows. They fall behind, and when they have been left far in the rear they lose hope and ambition, and give up. Thenceforward, if left to their own resources, they are the victims, not the masters, of their environment; and it is a bad master. They drag one another always farther down. The bad environment becomes the heredity of the next generation. Then, given the crowd, you have the slum ready-made.
The battle with the slum began the day civilization recognized in it her enemy. It was a losing fight until conscience joined forces with fear and self-interest against it. When common sense and the golden rule obtain among men as a rule of practice, it will be over. The two have not always been classed together, but here they are plainly seen to belong together. Justice to the individual is accepted in theory as the only safe groundwork of the commonwealth. When it is practiced in dealing with the slum, there will shortly be no slum. We need not wait for the millennium, to get rid of it. We can do it now. All that is required is that it shall not be left to itself. That is justice to it and to us, since its grievous ailment is that it cannot help itself. When a man is drowning, the thing to do is to pull him out of the water; afterward there will be time for talking it over. We got at it the other way in dealing with our social problems. The doctrinaires had their day, and they decided to let bad enough alone; that it was unsafe to interfere with "causes that operate sociologically," as one survivor of these unfittest put it to me. It was a piece of scientific humbug that cost the age which listened to it dear. "Causes that operate sociologically" are the opportunity of the political and every other kind of scamp who trades upon the depravity and helplessness of the slum, and the refuge of the pessimist who is useless in the fight against them. We have not done yet paying the bills he ran up for us. Some time since we turned to, to pull the drowning man out, and it was time. A little while longer, and we should have been in danger of being dragged down with him.