Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/50

 JANE ADDAMS 31 That an American city would allow such an accumulation of garbage on its streets is almost unbelievable. This and kin- dred activities reduced the death rate of the ward from third to seventh among Chicago wards. The whole attitude of Hull House is exemplified by Miss Addams's reply to the manufacturers who offered to give Hull House $50,000, enabling it to become ^^the largest institution on the West Side,'* if the residents would cease their agita- tion for sweat shop reform. It must have caused these manu- facturers no little embarrassment to hear her declaration that she and her friends were not interested in exalting Hull House but that they were interested in protecting their neighbors from undesirable working conditions. It is this attitude which has kept Hull House alive. It is easy to record visible material results such as the above, but almost impossible to make clear the larger, per- sonal, human results of the movement. To record the influ- ence of Hull House in sweat shop and labor legislation, re- pression of the sale of morphine and opium to minors, and the amelioration of conditions in poor houses — this would be an easy task, but would give no real insight into the work of Miss Addams. To give her personal part as a member of the Board of Education, as arbitrator in the Pullman Strike, as member of the university extension staff of the University of Chicago, as a member of the committee to investigate poor- house conditions — to review these personal honors and ef- forts would tell little of her work save the esteem in which she is held. To know her real work one must get an insight into the changed environments, the uplifted lives and the re- directed careers of the thousands whom she has touched. That old age finds itself not abandoned, that youth finds it- self appreciated, that the sorrowful find comfort, that the dis- couraged find inspiration, that the weak find strength, that the sick find health, that the misunderstood find toleration, that the immigrant finds his place in the new world — these are the real achievements of Hull House. And all this is achieved through the devotion, the sympathy, and the real love for mankind that inspires Miss Addams and her co-workers.