nts who were going to waste on
free soup. The proposition to establish a farm colony for their
reclamation was met with the challenge at Albany that "we have had
enough reform in New York City," and, as the event proved, for the time
being we had really gone as far as we could. But even that was a good
long way. Some things had been nailed that could never again be undone;
and hand in hand with the effort to destroy had gone another to build
up, that promised to set us far enough ahead to appeal at last
successfully to the self-interest of the builder, if not to his
humanity; or, failing that, to compel him to decency. If that promise
has not been all kept, the end is not yet. I believe it will be kept.

[Illustration: R. Fulton Cutting, Chairman of the Citizens' Union.]

The movement for reform, in the matter of housing the people, had
proceeded upon a clearly outlined plan that apportioned to each of
several forces its own share of the work. At a meeting held under the
auspices of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor,
early in the days of the movement, the field had been gone over
thoroughly. To the Good Government Clubs fell the task, as already set
forth, of compelling the enforcement of the existing tenement-house
laws. D. O. Mills, the philanthropic banker, declared his purpose to
build hotels which should prove that a bed and lodging as good as any
could be furnished to the great army of homeless men at a price that
would compete with the cheap lodging houses, and yet yield a profit to
the owner. On behalf of a number of well-known capitalists, who had been
identified with the cause of tenement-house reform for years, Robert
Fulton Cutting, the president of the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor, offered to build homes for the working people
that should be worthy of the name, on a large scale. A company was
formed, and chose for its president Dr. Elgin R. L. Gould, author of the
government report on the "Housing of the Working People," the standard
work on the subject. A million dollars was raised by public
subscription, and operations were begun at once.

Two ideas were kept in mind as fundamental: one, that charity that will
not pay will not stay; the other, that nothing can be done with the
twenty-five-foot lot. It is the primal curse of our housing system, and
any effort toward better things must reckon with it first. Nineteen lots
on Sixty-eighth and Sixty-ninth streets,