Well, that is what the American writer thinks of the tenement system--of the New York slums.
_Now_ comes the important question, What is the extent of these slums?
And on this point Mr. Riis declares more than once that the extent is enormous:--
To-day (1891) three-fourths of New York's people live in the tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the cities is sending ever-increasing multitudes to crowd them.
Where are the tenements of to-day? Say, rather, where are they not?
In fifty years they have crept up from the Fourth Ward Slums and the Fifth Points, the whole length of the island, and have polluted the annexed district to the Westchester line. Crowding all the lower wards, where business leaves a foot of ground unclaimed; strung along both rivers, like ball and chain tied to the foot of every street, and filling up Harlem with their restless, pent-up multitudes, they hold within their clutch the wealth and business of New York--hold them at their mercy, in the day of mob-rule and wrath.
So much, then, for the extent of these slums. Now for the nature of them. A New York doctor said of some of them--
If we could see the air breathed by these poor creatures in their tenements, it would show itself to be fouler than the mud of the gutters.
And Mr. Riis goes on to tell of the police finding 101 adults and 91 children in one Crosby Street House, 150 "lodgers" sleeping "on filthy floors in two buildings."
But the most striking illustration I can give you of the state of the working-class dwellings in New York is by placing side by side the figures of the population per acre in the slums of New York and Manchester.
The Manchester slums are bad--disgracefully, sinfully bad--and the overcrowding is terrible. But referring to the figures I took from various official documents when I was writing on the Manchester slums a few years ago, I find the worst cases of overcrowding to be:--
District. Pop. per Acre.
Ancoats No. 3 256 Deansgate No. 2 266 London Road No. 3 267 Hulme No. 3 270 St. George's No. 6 274
These are the worst cases from some of the worst English slums. Now let us look at the figures for New York--
DENSITY OF POPULATION PER ACRE IN 1890
Tenth Ward 522 Eleventh Ward 386 Thirteenth Ward 428
The population of these three wards in the same year was over 179,000.
The population of New York in 1890 was 1,513,501. In 1888 there were in New York 1,093,701 persons living in tenement houses.
Then, in 1889, there died in New York hospitals 6102; in lunatic asylums, 448; while the number of pauper funerals was 3815.
In 1890 there were in New York 37,316 tenements, with a gross population of 1,250,000.
These things are facts, and our practical politicians love facts.
But these are not all the facts. No. In this book about New York I find careful plans and drawings of the slums, and I can assure you we have nothing so horrible in all England. Nor do the revelations of Mr. Riis stop there. We have full details of the sweating shops, the men and women crowded together in filthy and noisome dens, working at starvation prices, from morning until late on in the night, "until brain and muscle break down together." We have pictures of the beggars, the tramps, the seamstresses, the unemployed, the thieves, the desperadoes, the lost women, the street arabs, the vile drinking and opium dens, and we have facts and figures to prove that this great capital of the great Republic is growing worse; and all this, my practical friends, in spite of the fact that in America they have
Manhood Suffrage; Payment of Members; No House of Peers; No State Church; and Free Education;
which is more than our most advanced politicians claim as the full extent to which England can be taken by means of practical politics--as understood by the two great parties.
Now, I want to know, and I shall be glad if some practical friend will tell me, whether a programme of practical politics which leaves the metropolis of a free and democratic nation a nest of poverty, commercial slavery, vice, crime, insanity, and disease, is likely to make the English people healthy, and wealthy, and wise? And I ask you to consider whether this seven-branched programme is worth fighting for, if it is to result in a density of slum population nearly twice as great as that of the worst districts of the worst slums of Manchester?
It seems to me, as an unpractical man, that a practical programme which results in 522 persons to the acre, 18 hours a day for bread and butter, and nearly 4000 pauper funerals a year in one city, is a programme which only _very_ practical men would be fools enough to fight for.
At anyrate, I for one will have nothing to say to such a despicable sham. A programme which does not touch the sweater nor the slum; which does not hinder the system of fraud and murder called free competition; which does not give back to the English people their own country or their own earnings, may be good enough for politicians, but it is no use to men and women.
No, my lads, there is no system of economics, politics, or ethics whereby it shall be made just or expedient to take that which you have not earned, or to take that which another man has earned; there can be no health, no hope in a nation where everyone is trying to get more than he has earned, and is hocussing his conscience with platitudes about God's Providence having endowed men with different degrees of intellect and virtue.
How many years is it since the Newcastle programme was issued? What did it _promise_ that the poor workers of America and France have not already obtained? What good would it do you if you got it? _And when do you think you are likely to get it?_ Is it any nearer now than it was seven years ago? Will it be any nearer ten years hence than it is now if you wait for the practical politicians of the old parties to give it to you?
One of the great stumbling-blocks in the way of all progress for Labour is the lingering belief of the working man in the Liberal Party.
In the past the Liberals were regarded as the party of progress. They won many fiscal and political reforms for the people. And now, when they will not, or cannot, go any farther, their leaders talk about "ingratitude" if the worker is advised to leave them and form a Labour Party.
But when John Bright refused to go any farther, when he refused to go as far as Home Rule, did the Liberal Party think of gratitude to one of their greatest men? No. They dropped John Bright, and they blamed _him_ because he had halted.
They why should they demand that you shall stay with them out of gratitude now they have halted?
The Liberal Party claim to be the workers' friends. What have they done for him during the last ten years? What are they willing to do for him now, or when they get office?
Here is a quotation from a speech made some years ago by Sir William Harcourt--
An attempt is being sedulously made to identify the Liberal Government and the Liberal Party with dreamers of dreams, with wild, anarchical ideas, and anti-social projects. Gentlemen, I say, if I have a right to speak on behalf of the Liberal Party, that we have no sympathy with these mischief-makers at all. The Liberal Party has no share in them; their policy is a constructive policy; they have no revolutionary schemes either in politics, in society, or in trade.
You may say that is old. Try this new one. It is from the lips of Mr.
Harmsworth, the "official Liberal candidate" at the last by-election in North-East Lanark--
My own opinion is that a _modus vivendi_ should be arrived at between the official Liberal Party and such Labour organisations as desire parliamentary representation, provided, of course, that they are not _tainted with Socialist doctrines_. It should not be difficult to come to something like an amicable settlement. I must say that it came upon me with something of a shock to find that amongst those who sent messages to the Socialist candidate wishing success to him in his propaganda were two Members of Parliament who profess allegiance to the Liberal Party.
Provided, "of course," that _they are not tainted with Socialist doctrines_. With Socialist doctrines Sir William Harcourt and Mr.
Harmsworth will have no dealings.
Now, if you read what I have written in this book you will see that there is no possible reform that can do the workers any real or lasting good unless that reform is _tainted with Socialist doctrines_.
Only legislation of a socialistic nature can benefit the working class.
And that kind of legislation the Liberals will not touch.
It is true there are some individual members amongst the Radicals who are prepared to go a good way with the Socialists. But what can they do?
In the House they must obey the Party Whip, and the Party Whip never cracks for socialistic measures.