Letter to Editor (Maya, Amy and Kara)

Dear Editor,
We thought there was a huge problem in chapter XV: The Problem of the Children with the way children were raised. People had too many children and couldn’t take care of all of them with the amount of money they had. Most kids spent their days and nights on the streets looking for food or work. Their parents didn’t care and even gave them beer to drink and sell for extra money. Policemen noticed but after the kids gave them beer, they didn’t care and had other problems to worry about. Many of the kids died because of disease and poor living conditions but their parents hardly noticed and moved on with their lives as if nothing had happened.
There was also a problem with the Bohemian immigrants in Article XII: The Bohemians – Tenement-House Cigar making. Even though they don’t make an effort to learn the American way of life, have stubborn pride of race and a popular prejudice, which makes them disturbers of public peace and enemies of organized labor, we should care more about them. They live a “rat” life, because their bosses cut the wages of their underpaid labor. Most of Bohemians live and work in tenement cigar factories. Wives and children work too, so they can make a living for the family. Unions refused to accept women though. We don’t think the Court of Appeal should’ve prohibited cigar making in tenements. People that worked there became desperate. The Health Department considered thinking about helping them but decided that they lived much better than clothing-makers. We think that people there, specially Bohemian immigrants, should’ve been better treated and able to work wherever they wanted to.
In Article XVIII: The Reign of Rum, your article explains that in the slum regions there is a coint of 111 Protestant churches, chapels, and places of worship of every kind and 4,065 saloons. Although at the places of worship, the attendance is much larger, the amount of the saloons cast a dark shadow over the towns. It brings suffering into innocent lives and increases the rate of crime in the towns. Though this may be good for all the owners of the saloons, it decreases the quality of life for most of the people. Nobody cared if alcohol was sold to the under aged because it brought in more money. There was eventually a law made that only three liquor licenses could be given out per street crossing. Although this helped somewhat, there were still existing places selling alcohol without a license. We think the police should’ve done more to help this problem for the good of people.

Thanks,
Maya, Amy and Kara.