we in New York are suffering from the misdeeds of our forefathers. The old tenements of New York form a terrible object lesson in the law of heredity.

Nor are these tenement questions simple questions of justice to dwellers in the tenements. They have other aspects, of which more later. Speaking for the moment, however, only of justice toward the working classes, it is justice, not charity, to give them the opportunity of living in houses in which healthful conditions are possible. It is justice, not charity, to give them the opportunity of freeing their children from the contamination of vice. They may not avail themselves of these opportunities. That is their responsibility. To give the opportunity is ours. That all new tenements should have their living-rooms opening into the outer air, and that this air space, in buildings of the average height, should in the case of exterior courts be at least six feet wide, and in the case of interior courts not less than twelve feet wide, and that each family should have its own separate closet; that in old tenements livingrooms which do not open to the outer air should open by a window into rooms which do, is the minimum of opportunity for health. That prostitution should be punished more severely when committed in tenement-houses than when committed elsewhere is the least we can do to drive it from the homes of the poor.

It is charged that the moderate extension of tenement-house regulation made by the recent tenement-house law violates property rights. If by property rights we mean the unrestricted license of constructing and maintaining any kind of a building for any purpose on a city lot, then such property rights are violated. But what would my property right in such a lot be worth if my neighbor, in the exercise of his so-called property right, had such a license? Health laws, building laws, police laws, are all violations of such property rights. And without such laws property rights in their true sense could not be pro

tected. The exercise of such property rights in cities of the middle ages produced the black death. Their exercise in our own city, limited as it recently has been, is producing the scourge of tuberculosis. It is not a property right to maintain a nuisance or to provide a place in which to commit a crime. Moreover, property rights in real estate must vary according to the place where they are to be exercised and the effect of their exercise on property rights of adjacent owners. It is my property right in a village to build any cheap frame house I wish. Not so within the fire limits of a town. It is my property right in any village to burn soft coal. Not so in New York city. True, some owners of vacant lots in the tenement districts may suffer a diminution of value by not being permitted to build over more than seventy per cent of their lot area, but more lot owners in outlying parts of the city profit by the increased value of their lots incident to the wider distribution of population. Can it be doubted that lot owners in all parts of the city, taken in the aggregate, are benefited? True, too, that owners of those old tenements who under the law must substitute sanitary plumbing for that which now exists, and make, it may be, other changes, are involved in expense, and they may not get this all back in the form of increased rentals for better accommodation, but are not all property owners in the aggregate bettered?

True, Smith's gain may not precisely compensate Jones for his, Jones's loss, but is it any different kind of a loss than Jones (designating by Jones the owner of city realty in the indefinite) would sustain and is sustaining all the time by a shift in the current of trade or fashion? And is it fairly to be considered a loss? Is it not rather simply cutting off an unearned increment of value which lax tenement laws have added to some city property and from which Jones and Jones's predecessors in interest have unduly profited? Where there is hardship, as there undoubtedly is in some cases, is it not the same curse of heredity? Is it not

because former owners in the line of succession have been greedy for high rents and large profits? But suppose it is all loss to the Joneses, and there is no compensatory gain to the Smiths. Who is to be more considered, the small number of property owners, the Joneses and the Smiths, most of whom can stand a loss. without even curtailment of luxuries, or the 2,372,079 tenement dwellers of New York? If either the Joneses or the Smiths must suffer in pocket, or the two millions and more must suffer in health, and life, and virtue, who can doubt on which side is the greater good of the greater number?

But justice to the working classes is not the only reason why we should improve their housing conditions. Charity to ourselves is quite as cogent. You and I and the Joneses and the Smiths must all live in the same city with these two millions. Their homes back up against ours even if they do not front on the same street. They jostle us on the sidewalk, and we must need crowd up against them in the street cars. Putting the question on the lowest plane of self-interest, will it not pay you and me and the Joneses and Smiths, for ourselves and our families, to be better protected from contagion, physical or moral, even if it involve a loss to our pockets?

These tenement

Nor is this the only other consideration. dwellers constitute a majority of our city voters. According as they are better or worse housed will be the quality of our municipal administration. Every savings bank account is said to make for good government. Every home has tenfold more influence. How can the dark and foul rooms that many are forced to call their homes make for any other kind of government than misrule. Our forefathers answered the call of patriotism and struck for their "homes and firesides." What patriotic motive can summon the dweller in such surroundings to strike, except to strike down the civilization that permits such abominations to exist. It is a mistake to suppose that the humblest tenement

cannot have some attractions of a home, if only there be light and air and freedom from objectionable environment. I venture to say that the strongest impression carried away by those who visit New York tenements for the first time is not their squalor, but their neatness, and their neatness under conditions that would seem to make neatness almost impossible. The desire to make the home finds pathetic expression in the print that vainly tries to cover the stains on the wall, and the plant that struggles with the children for light and air with which to grow toward flowering. Justice and self-interest alike demand the opportunity to realize that desire. I venture to say that there is quite as much inherent neatness on the East Side as on the West Side, and that there is quite as much virtue in proportion to temptation in the tenements as behind the brownstone fronts. The people of the tenements do not ask for charity; they demand, and have the right to demand, justice. And woe be to those who deny that justice.

There are those who say that municipal government by universal suffrage is a failure. Their number in the latitude and longitude in New York is fewer than it was two weeks ago this morning, but it is still large and that number may be recruited at the next election. Municipal government is a failure and deserves to be a failure unless it gives the opportunity for a home to those of its working classes who have the industry and perseverance to earn one.

Mr. DE FOREST.-I now take great pleasure in introducing to you one of the officers of this Conference, a gentleman well known to all who are working in the cause of charity in this city, Mr. Thomas M. Mulry, President of the Particular Council of St. Vincent de Paul.

ADDRESS OF THOMAS M. MULRY.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:- A few years ago in the city of New York, we held a meeting of the National Conference of Charities and what particularly impressed the New York members of that Conference was the utter ignorance of the people of New York regarding their own charities. We were surprised to hear some of our visiting friends tell us what splendid institutions we had, what magnificent institutions for helping the poor of every class, and then it dawned upon us that, while we were listening to lectures of sociology and receiving instructions how to manage institutions and manage societies, we ourselves had been about as well posted and as far advanced in the matter as any other people from any part of the country.

This State Conference of Charities is, to my mind, of much more importance than the National Conference to the people of this State. We have gone to this National Conference, met people from our own State engaged in charitable work, and yet we were total strangers. A grand object of this State Conference should be to join together and to make one united body of all the charity workers of the State of New York. In this way, when we attend future National Conferences, we go as a unit and work as a unit for the common good of all.

The Conference which opens to-morrow will, I hope, be a success, and one of the best means to make it a success is for us to stick closely to the subjects and the matter under consideration.

It seems to me we waste too much time talking of the effects of poverty or of crime, or whatever it may happen to be. If we come down to the cause, and work out the remedy, it will, I think, accrue more to the interest of all concerned in the work. You know we are apt to become reminiscent at these meetings and think that our society or our institution is the best in existence, and we are apt to endeavor to impress this on their minds to such an extent as to bore our auditors. Now if we leave out these questions and get