_Anti-slum_ motives originated in cities where there is a clear dividing line between the clean and the unclean, the infected and the uninfected, the orderly and the disorderly, high and low vitality. As soon as one district becomes definitely known as a source of nuisance, infection, and disease, better situated districts begin to make laws to protect themselves. A great part of our existing health codes and a very large part of the funds spent on health administration are designed to protect those of high income against disease incident to those of low income, high vitality against low vitality, houses with rooms to spare against houses that are overcrowded. To the small town and the country the slum means generally the near-by city whose papers talk of epidemic scarlet fever, diphtheria, or smallpox. Cities have only recently begun to experience anti-slum aversion to country dairies whose uncleanliness brings infected milk to city babies, or to filthy factories and farms that pollute water reservoirs and cause typhoid. The last serious smallpox epidemic in the East came from the South by way of rural districts that failed to notify the Pennsylvania state board of health of the outbreak until the disease was scattered broadcast. Every individual knows of some family or some district that is immediately pictured when terms like "disease," "epidemic," "slum," are pronounced. The steps worked out by the anti-slum motive to protect "those who have" from disease arising from "those who have not" are given on page 31.
[Illustration: A COUNTRY MENACE TO CITY HEALTH]
_Pro-slum_ motives are not exactly born of anti-slum motives, but, thanks to the instinctive kindness of the human heart, follow promptly after the dangers of the slum have been described. You and I work together to protect ourselves against neglect, nuisance, and disease. In a district by which we must pass and with which we must deal, one of us or a neighbor or friend will turn our attention from our danger to the suffering of those against whom we wish to protect ourselves. Charles Dickens so described Oliver Twist and David Copperfield that Great Britain organized societies and secured legislation to improve the almshouse, school, and working and living conditions. When health reports, newspapers, and charitable societies make us see that the slum menaces our health and our happiness, we become interested in the slum for its own sake. We then start children's aid societies, consumer's leagues, sanitary and prison associations, child-labor committees, and "efficient government" clubs.