p. 10 | THE SIGN OF DECAY

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 26, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 38.

THE SIGN OF DECAY

THROUGH the United States Public Health Service, announcement is made that on July 1, 1918, a United States law will go into effect which will require that all alley dwellings in the District of Columbia shall cease to be used for residence purposes.

In order to provide accommodations for those who will be forced to seek new homes — houses that open on streets instead of alleys — a limited dividend company has been organized to erect a series of “model homes for the purpose of demonstrating to the nation the relationship between good housing and good health.”

These homes are to be known as the Ellen Wilson homes; and the incorporation provides that no stockholder can receive a dividend greater than five per cent net. This plan is along the line of what has been followed in some of the large cities in the Old World.

At first, attempts were made to render the old buildings sanitary by fumigation and other means; but it was found that success could be secured only by destroying those old buildings entirely, and building new ones, properly lighted and ventilated.

As a result of these experiments in the Old World, not only was sickness largely removed from families that previously had been afflicted, but crime was greatly lessened. Our government’s health service hopes to demonstrate, through these new homes, what can be done throughout the nation in the way of reducing sickness and crime by giving the people proper homes to live in.

The great cities, not only of this nation, but of the entire world, present one of the most difficult problems of the age; and the spirit of helpfulness and of humanity that prompts these efforts to relieve the conditions must be recognized.

At the same time, the fact should be pointed out clearly that it was when Rome began to show strong signs of degeneracy, that there was need for the government to do so much for the people at large. Whenever we have a large dependent class of people who cannot take care of themselves, the condition is one of advanced decay. The normal condition for an individual is, to be able to take care of himself in a manly, independent kind of way. And while the studied efforts of all our philanthropically inclined people must be commended, and while it is proper to assist them, in every way we can, in relieving the situation, we must not close our eyes to the fact that decay is marked upon everything in society, and that chaos is coming on as rapidly as it can.

Sickness, poverty, and destitution are in all the great cities; and in spite of the best efforts to relieve these conditions, we find that in the main they are growing worse and worse, and the discontentment among those who are ignorant and depraved is one of the greatest problems of this time. We must seek to relieve it all that we can; but on the other hand, we must not close our eyes to what lies just ahead of us.