There is developing very rapidly a public demand that every
worker shall be provided with a decent, sanitary and comfort-
able home. The wage-earners of America are deserving of this
new conception of living and are entitled to no less. This, then,
is the inspiration, the motive of one of the ultimate objects of the
American Federation of Labor.
The demand of the wage-earners is not only for sanitary and
fit houses to live in, but that a sufficient number of houses shall



32 LABOR AND THE EMPLOYER

be available so that they may be freed from the evils of high
rents, overcrowding and congestion. The ordinary method of
supplying houses through their erection by private capital for in-
vestment and speculation has rarely, if ever, been adequate.
Nearly all of our workmen's habitations are built on a system
of exploitation. Most of the houses built for the wage-earners
are built to sell. This system of exploitation does not permit
of proper housing facilities and adequate upkeep.
Our present practices and policies for housing the workers are
unjust. We demand that every wage-earner shall be afforded
the opportunity of living in a healthful, wholesome dwelling and
environment which shall tend to uplift and not debase. The
safety of the republic is not promoted, nor its standard of cit-
izenship elevated, by the streams of persons reared in slums and
unsanitary tenements. — From "Labor Standards After the War";
Annals of the American Academy, December, 1919.
