is in the interest of the tenants and of
society as a whole, and against that of the landlords. The rents
from slum property are threatened, hence the strong opposition always
manifested against tenement-house legislation by some landlords,
architects, and contractors, who fight it as an interference with
their interests and as a confiscation of their property. It is not
unlikely that this policy has the effect of making rents too high for
some poorer tenants and driving them into the country. But this result
is not so undesirable. Moreover, the control and inspection of housing
conditions has in a few states been made statewide to reach even "the
country slums" which lately have been recognized to exist. Enlightened
sentiment to-day favors efforts to destroy the breeding-places of
disease, misery, and crime, no matter where they may be.

Property owners are in many communities no longer left free to
determine height of buildings, appearance, or even the uses for which
houses may be erected in any district. American cities have still much
to learn in this regard from the example of many European cities which
have developed the art of city planning with wonderful results in
beauty of landscape and of architecture, in practical economy for
business, and in the health and welfare of the mass of the people.

Sec. 9. #General grounds of this social legislation#. Why are not such
matters as we have been discussing safely left to individuals? It is
for the interest of every one that his back yard should not be a
place of noisome smells and disagreeable sights. But men are at times
strangely obstinate, selfish, and neglectful, and through one man's
fault a whole community may suffer. The refusal of one man to put
a sewer in front of his house may block the improvement of a whole
street. The heedlessness of one family may bring an epidemic upon an
entire city. There must be a plan, and by law the will of the majority
must be imposed upon the unsocial few. Where voluntary cooeperation
fails, compulsory cooeperation often is necessary. Thus health laws,
tax laws, and improvement laws regulate many of the acts of citizens,
limit the use of property, and compel men to better social courses
against their own wishes and judgments.

All such laws as these are protective legislation, in that they depart
from the rule of free trade taken in its broadest sense. It does
not follow, however, that all these laws stand or fall together. The