Excerpts by Mr. Charles B. Ball from "Housing Problems in America," Proceedings of the First National Conference on Housing, New York City, June 3, 5 and 6, 1911, (National Housing Association, 1911); 89-90, 101-102, 112-113, 183-186, 198, 200-201.
[begin page 89]
MR. CHARLES B. BALL, Board of Health, Chicago:
I have been much interested in this question of ownership. There are those in this room who will remember the case of the man in New York city who very shortly after the passage of the law of 1901 sold three-quarters of a million dollars' worth of tenements in order to escape the operation of that law.
The greatest difficulty we have in Chicago is the lack of knowledge of landlords of what their property is like, and I am sure that is true as to many cities. But we have also the individual ownership of tenements by owners whose standards are very low. We can find thousands of houses on small lots where there are from three to eight families, usually in two houses, where the owner lives on the premises, and in the poorest apartment. It is almost impossible to raise the standards of such owners to correspond with those of the law. It is a tremendous difficulty.
One of the things we have to contend with in Chicago is that we have hundreds of families that depend upon water-closets under the front vaults. The tenants of a number of stories in a rear building have to come down to the ground and go, underneath the front walk to get to a toilet. That is an evil lacking in New York. [end page 89]
I was quite struck with Mr. Glenn's statement that good laws quiet public opinion. There are many people that go to sleep just as soon as a law is passed. That is just the beginning. If every one were up and doing after a law had been passed we should make progress. The best example of that is a recent one in Chicago. We passed a law imposing the care of sanitation of street cars upon the sanitary bureau of the department of health. There are something more than 5000 street cars in Chicago, and it was impossible to get from our finance committee an appropriation for five inspectors, 1000 cars apiece, to clean up those street cars. The consequence is that we are constantly blamed for not enforcing that law, and we have not been enforcing it, but we can show that there is a good reason for failure. These points are well worth our attention. . .[page 90]
[begin page 101] One of the points in which Chicago has been preeminent, is that in copying in 1902 the New York standard our ordinance prescribed that it should apply to two-family houses. It has been so for nine years, and it was, I think, the first and most noteworthy example in that regard.
I do not think there is any probability that it will be changed in Chicago. The regulation of the single-family house, however, was absolutely lacking until this year. Our tenement code, which took effect January 12th, describes habitable rooms with practically the same conditions that are prescribed for such rooms in tenement houses. Heretofore a man could build over [end page 101] his entire lot, if he were building a residence: he could build rooms as small as he pleased, entirely without windows and with any ceiling height that he desired. Strange to say, some of the strongest objections to the inclusion of such dwellings, in respect to habitable rooms, came from architects who have been designing for wealthy people, who said that they wanted .to build in these great houses small rooms for servants. . . . [page 102]
[begin page 112] I do not see why Chicago cannot come in for some congratulations over what has happened in our reform legislation. We have just passed an advanced code, December 5th. The history of it is this, that ten years ago the City Homes Association made an exhaustive study of tenement-house conditions in sixty-four blocks, and there resulted from that study a tenement code which was copied in many respects from the New York code, and which was in operation until the passage of the present code. [end page 112]
For two years past there has been a great deal of discussion about a new building ordinance. Our tenement code in 1905 was amalgamated with the building code, which was undesirable, but could not be helped. Very little attention was given to the tenement features in drafting the new code. On the 27th of June last year, there was sent to the council a code which had been labored over for a year and a half, but which was inconsistent in many features and was objectionable in parts. This was referred to a commission of eight for codification rather than for change of substance.
We were able, working in that commission, to make some definite improvements in the tenement part of the law, and that law is now in effect. With respect to the question of state law versus city ordinance, we have a strong conviction growing out of our knowledge of the situation in Chicago, that for that city at all events the city ordinance is far preferable to the state law; that is, it was clearly brought out in our discussion with the interests that opposed advance in the present code, that there was no question of the stability of the existing ordinance. The only question that came up in connection with our new building code was the question, "Shall we make such and such an advance?" There was no question of staying where we were. That is in very marked contrast with the periodic attacks that have been made by certain interests in New York city upon the state law which has been in force here since 1901.
With respect to the general question of state law and city ordinance, there is one interesting fact which I think it may be worth while to note. We have a comprehensive state factory law in Illinois which distinctly provides that a municipality may, if it cares to do so, pass sanitary provisions superior to those of the state law. It seems to me that it would be wise to encourage such legislation everywhere. [end page 113]
[begin page 183] MR. BALL:
Under the direction of Professor Tufts, of the University of Chicago, during the summer of 1909, a more or less cursory investigation of conditions was made in Aurora, Joliet, Freeport, East St. Louis, Alton and Moline, and the same general situation of neglect and lack of control which has been spoken of this evening was found to be prevalent in all those cities. Photographs were collected showing some of these bad conditions, and an effort was made this year to get the authorization of the legislature for the appointment of a commission to study the situation throughout the state as a basis for legislation. We think the easiest way to control the situation would be through state law, which would affect the smaller as well as the larger places. It is necessary to create public opinion before we can care for these things in the state of Illinois.
In connection with my work in Chicago I have had opportunity to go out into smaller surrounding cities and see something of their housing. Freeport is a railroad town about 100 miles west o Chicago. There are not many housing evils there, and yet there are two notable examples of buildings recently erected having less than a foot and a half between them, with windows opening upon that space less than a foot and a half throughout the length of the building. There are also, on the principal street, a number of three-story and one or two four-story buildings with apartments on the upper floors and a store on the lower floor, and many of the former have rooms entirely without communication with the outer air.
Racine, Wisconsin, is the most thoroughly sewered small city that I have ever studied. It is their habit in Racine, when a man builds a house on the outskirts of the city, to extend the [end page 183] sewer system two or three squares, if necessary, to sewer that house. At the same time their sewage disposal is into a small river which flows through the town, and is undoubtedly a source of river and lake pollution, which should be given attention. There are one or two very bad examples of overcrowed [sic] lodging houses in Racine which I noted; one of them was an exceedingly dirty building, in which were housed a great many laborers. I saw in the attic rooms, only six feet high, as good evidences of overcrowding as I have ever seen in a small city.
In Aurora, a beautiful little city lying on both banks of the Fox River, one would hardly expect to find bad housing, and yet in a half-day's visit I was able to point out to the mayor and city solicitor some very striking examples of things that ought not to be. There was an aggravated case of fire danger, a livery stable with horses stabled on the floor below, and above that, four apartments, two of them occupied by families and two vacant. At the rear of this building was a tumble-down shanty in which hay and vehicles were stored. The only entrance to the apartments on the second story was a stairway from the street alongside the livery stable. The building was long and deep, and the rear apartments had to depend solely upon the stairway for access. It was as bad a fire-trap as I have ever seen. I saw three shack dwellings on the banks of the Fox River in that town that for conditions of dirt and dilapidation I have never seen equaled.
I have had some experience in dirt and dilapidation. We went into one of those houses, inhabited by an old colored man, and the mayor and I went through his front room into the rear room, which was very dirty. In going out we saw cobwebs which were as thick as one's hand. Perhaps you can tell me how long a cobweb has to hang before it gets three-quarters of an inch thick.
In Aurora one of the principal sewers, four feet in diameter, and running at the time I saw it just about half full of sewage, discharges into an open ditch within twelve feet of the rear of a large lodging house in which twenty or thirty men are housed. Adjacent to that lodging house I saw another one, where on account of lack of proper conveniences it was the [end page 184] habit of the housewife to throw out the kitchen slops on the adjoining ground. Although I have seen some pretty good examples of neglect, I have never seen such an accumulation of kitchen-sink refuse as was heaped up against that building. It was three feet above the level of the ground, and sloping out in conical shape from the house against which it rested.
Those are the things we find in small towns, and we should do something to remedy them. One habit I have in visiting cities is to inquire at public libraries as to what works they have on housing. I am usually surprised to learn that they have possibly only one book or perhaps two. It seems to me one of the best things that can be done where there are public libraries is to make such inquiry and suggest to the librarian the advisibility of placing in the library some of the standard housing literature.
Something was said by the last speaker about fire limits. We have the principle of local option applied to Chicago in a novel way. I have never heard an argument up to the present time in the city council or in any committee of the city council suggesting that the question of fire limits was a broad matter involving public policy, but merely a question as to what the alderman wanted or the people of that district wanted. There are some notable and surprising cases within my observation where a builder intending to erect a frame factory purchased ground outside the fire limits, and where somebody in the neighborhood, objecting to the presence of the particular structure, requested that that ground be included within the fire limits, which has been done with great alacrity. It will probably be possible in many towns where there are not at the present time frame buildings, to get requirements prohibiting their use. The difference in cost between a frame and a brick building is relatively small, not more than 10 to 12 per cent and negligible when one comes to count the advantage of the brick building over the frame.
Another point worthy of attention is the increasing tendency to underground occupation. The one thing that has impressed me in the city of New York in my observation of the last two or three days has been the increasing occupation of underground [end page 185] spaces. Since I lived here seven years ago this has gone on with suprising [sic] rapidity, and there are hundreds of tenements and hundreds of other buildings that had cellars and basements unoccupied when I left here, into which have now gone business enterprises, bootblacking establishments, markets, little shoe stores, barber shops and similar establishments. These have been increasingly put underground, not alone in big cities, but in small towns.
The town of Urbana, Illinois, has about 12,000 population. It is the seat of the University of Illinois. There is no reason why there should be a single bit of underground occupation, and yet there has been put underground in a building in Urbana, a barber shop which has absolutely no communication with the outer air. It has a skylight of glass in a vault out in front, but absolutely no window to the outer air. I think of this case because it illustrates something to which we ought to have our eyes open as an increasing evil. . . . [page 186]
[begin page 198] MR. BALL:
I do not want the statement made in respect to the civil-service method for the appointment of sanitary inspectors to go uncontroverted. It may be that we can discover some better method, but at the present time we have none. I believe there are in this room some good proofs of the principles of civil-service methods as applied to sanitary inspectors. In Chicago, three years ago, I set the questions for about 364 inspectors, of whom 42 passed and got on the eligible list. Last year we had 15 2 candidates, of whom 17 passed. I think those two examinations, apart from others of which I have some knowledge, have proved very desirable and in the main satisfactory methods of selecting civil-service inspectors. There may be some better way, but we do not yet know what it is. . . . [page 198]
[begin page 200] MR. BALL:
It seems to me the things we are not doing in Chicago are se, much greater than the things we are doing, that we have not much to say for ourselves. Those of you who know Chicago will probably characterize it as being a city of great untidiness. We should like to have you come and see that untidiness when it is cured. The only thing that 1 have against Pittsburgh is that Mr. Beatty is not willing to have people come and see him. [end page 200] He says, "Come in a couple of years and we will show you what happened." We are glad to have you come to Chicago now. Things are moving there. Our tenement-house law was passed nine years ago. The principal defect was that it was modeled too closely on the New York law of 1901. For example, that law allows the construction of alcove rooms, or did for a year until they found out that they were bad.
They cut it out of the New York law, but we kept on in Chicago for seven years, so that we have more alcove rooms in Chicago than we ought to have. We have re-framed our ordinance lately; we have not the advanced results that we ought to get, but we have moved somewhat. We have increased the, minimum-size room from seventy to eighty square feet, and I do not think there will be any difficulty in getting eighty-foot rooms. The greatest thing we are doing in Chicago, in comparison with other cities, is in the number of stories. We have not built in ten years half a dozen tenement buildings more than three stories high. We build only three stories high, and the fire limitations which are imposed on a seven-story building in: New York city, we have imposed on a four-story building for ten years past. It seems to me that is a lesson for Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit and a few other cities; they do not need to build higher than that.
Something has been done by the School of Civics and Philanthropy. We do not know our conditions in Chicago, and one of the principal things that ought to appeal to every one interested in housing conditions is to find out the facts. We do not know how many tenements there are in Chicago. I do not believe you know how many there are in your own city, and if you can learn that, it is worth while. . . .[page 201]
