Old boarding-houses in this
neighborhood have been converted into community houses, with
entertainment halls, shower baths, and other conveniences for the men
and their families. Thus tests are being made to discover whether it is
possible to encourage among certain classes of foreign laborers, whose
habits of life have not, to put it mildly, been of the tidiest, some
appreciation of the standard of civilization represented by clean,
pretty cottages, pleasant meeting houses, and shower baths.
I have not told about the billiard tables, bowling alleys, and game
rooms of the clubs, nor about the model rooms fitted up to show
housewives how they may make their homes attractive at but slight
expense, nor about the annual medical examination of the children, nor
about the company dentists who charge their patients only for the cost
of gold actually used, nor about the fine company store at Edgewater
Mine, nor about the excellent meats supplied by the company butchers,
nor about the low prices of supplies, nor about the effort to
discourage employees from buying cheap furniture at high prices on the
installment plan, nor, above all, about the clean, decent, happy look of
the families we chanced to see.
Even had I the space in which to tell of these things, it is perhaps
wiser that I refrain from doing so.
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