New York Evictions in 1903
By Editor
The reason that we hear so many optimistic expressions about the world’s growing better is apparently because men are becoming blind to actual conditions, or callous toward suffering and oppression. The following item from the Labor Leader is evidence of this fact:— How American sympathy went out to the evicted Irish some years ago, when as many as 3,000 families were turned out of their homes for non-payment of rent! But 60,463 families were evicted in the city of New York, Manhattan borough, alone, during the year 1903, without exciting special wonder. Yet where is the difference? Apparently the only difference is in the fact that New York evictions last year were about 20 times as many as in the worst year of Irish evictions. In proportion to population the disparity is much greater. Whereas the Irish evictions of the heaviest year numbered about 1 to every 1,300 of population, those of New York numbered about 1 to every 35 of population.