O. Mills, the banker philanthropist, who was anxious to help
that way. I chose for the Good Government clubs the demolition
of the old tenements. It was my chance. I hated them. A law had
been made the year before empowering the Health Board to seize and
destroy tenement-house property that was a threat to the city's
health, but it had remained a dead letter. The authorities hesitated
to attack property rights, vested rights. Charles G. Wilson, the
President of the Board, was a splendid executive, but he was a
holdover Tammany appointee, and needed backing.
Now that Theodore Roosevelt sat in the Health Board, fresh from his
war on the police lodging-rooms of which I told, they hesitated no
longer. I put before the Board a list of the sixteen worst rear
tenements in the city outside of the Bend, and while the landlords
held their breath in astonishment, they were seized, condemned,
and their tenants driven out. The Mott Street Barracks were among
them. In 1888 the infant death-rate among the 350 Italians they
harbored had been 325 per thousand--that is to say, one-third of
all the babies died that year.
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