Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 218, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1916 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME TOWN HELPS

“SLUMS” OUTSIDE OF CITIES Country Districts May Have Their Share if Proper Regulations Are Not Observed. When we read or hear of slums we almost Invariably think of the back, crowded, dirty and perhaps wicked districts in the large cities. It seems that there are rural slums. When the American Civic associated held its convention it outlined a campaign of attack on the rural slum as it exists both In the village and in the open country. The campaign is a part of a wholly new movement for country planning which is intended to supplement and strengthen the work of city planning which the association has been carrying on with success for some years.

The civic association’s information department speaks of the rural slum as if it were something newly discovered. It is true enough, as we already have suggested, that most people do not think of slums of having existence in the country, but that they are no strangers there Ims been known to some students of sociological conditions for a long time. There are rural slums to be found In plenty in country districts where “good government” Is supposed to rule the day. Slums spring up about the pens of the “blind pigs.” These places are, perhaps, more of a menace to the country youth than the slums of a city are to the city youth. Because In some places there is a luck of more wholesome the country bby Is led to seek what he thinks are recreation and entertainment in the plague places nearest at hund. —Chicago Post.