File:Beauty for ashes (1914) (14597328000).jpg

Identifier: beautyforashes01baco (find matches)
Title: Beauty for ashes
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Bacon, Albion Fellows, 1865-1933
Subjects: Working class Tenement houses Poor
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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oom, a yard, a hall, a court, bygiven variations on the prescribed dimensions. Allthe time my reverence grew for the man, whoever hemight be, who had been able to write the first tene-ment law, and to know what and how much of every-thing ought to be required. After I had done my best, in cutting, trimming,and adding, I called in our housing committee, andthey puckered their brows over the same sections,and over other questions that had bothered me: Would this law give the poor the relief wesought ? Was it fair to the property owner? Were we making stringent enough regulations ? If we made them more stringent, could we passthe ordinance? If we passed it, would it stand? Finally it was completed. J. E. Igleheart, one ofour committee, gave it the proper legal form, and Itook it to the mayor. It was a comprehensive little bill, though morethan the few sections I was to prepare, and lessthan the larger cities had. It went into the build-ing ordinance, which waa already a document of enor-
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T3 ^ T303 LAYING FOUNDATIONS 169 mous bulk. In due time, the council took up thematter, and as promptly put the whole thing backinto a safe pigeon-hole, where it lay, gathering dustand anathemas, for many months. Later, the menof our committee took a copy of our tenement regu-lations to the council meeting, one night, and quietlyput it through, as a separate ordinance. But thatwas long afterward, when we had almost given uphope of its ever going through, and had taken up acampaign for a state tenement law. While the bulky roll of the ordinance was repos-ing in the pigeon-hole, the State Conference of Chari-ties met at Evansville, I had chosen, The Homesof the Poor, for the paper I was asked to prepare,and told all I knew about our slums. That eveningwe gave a reception in our home to the out-of-townguests, and I met many who afterwards helped me,some of them prominent politicians. During thedays of the conference I took every opportunity todiscuss the need of a state housing law with

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