Life in the Cities

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 12, 1908

Life in the Cities.

VERY much has been said of the season of prosperity thru which the country has been passing, and yet it has been again and again pointed out that this prosperity was enjoyed only by certain classes. Others had found existence growing rapidly worse on account of the much greater advance in the prices of commodities than in wages.

Mr. Maily, a journalist who has made a special study of the lower East Side of New York City, writes in a recent Independent some of the reasons for the rent strike which has taken place in that city. We are informed that one section in New York City has a population which averaged in 1900, 382 9-10 to the acre, and in 1905, 432 8-10. Other parts of New York show from 90 to 96 per acre. If the whole city was settled as densely as the lower East Side, it would have a population of 90,549,610, or as much as the whole United States. Think of it! One block alone had a density of 1,458 to the acre.

And yet the rents under these wretched conditions are continually increasing. Where it is possible at all, the whole family works, and the average income is estimated at $600 per year; and of this income at least 30 per cent is paid out for rent alone. These buildings are not rented as a general thing direct by the owners, but are farmed out. Sometimes as many as five transfers of the same property have been made in one year, each man raising the rent and so getting his profit out of his investment. What wonder is there that the people should unite their interests and strike for lower rents?

——o——

Continued Peace, if—The Rev. Benjamin Chapell, M.A., of Tokio, quoted in an article sent out by the American Peace Society of 31 Beacon St., Boston, does not hold out much hope of peace unless the race prejudice which exists in America can be taken away. He maintains that "the troubles are only just beginning, that the problem will grow graver until Oriental emigrants are placed on a basis of equality of treatment with those from Europe. One purpose of the Society [of peace] is to bring this about without appealing to the sword." We are face to face, he tells us, with an immense question, the greatest of the centuries, with India and China arising, with Japan, to national and Oriental consciousness, and the Pacific a mere Hellespont, a ferry. America desires peace with the consideration that Japan is an inferior nation; but he tells us that "this is certain, no ministry in Tokio could live a month that would in any slightest way admit Japanese inferiority to any other people beneath the sun. There is no prospect that America will ever meet the wishes of the Japanese, and the question will never be settled right until it is settled in harmony with the Japanese ideas of equality."

"And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Rev. 13:8.