accepted formulas of his class as to give up these "magnificent investments?" Was it an abhorrence of tenements, or a growing fastidiousness as to the methods? It is to be observed that up to that time he and his family had tenaciously kept the revenues from their tenements; evidently then, the source of the money was not a troubling factor. And in selling those tenements he must have known that his profits on the transaction would be charged by the buyers against the future tenants and that even more overcrowding would result. What, then, was the reason?
About the year 1887 there developed an agitation in New York City against the horrible conditions in tenement houses, and laws were popularly demanded which would put a stop to them, or at least bring some mitigation. The whole landlord class virulently combated this agitation and these proposed laws. What happened next? Significantly enough a municipal committee was appointed by the mayor to make an inquiry into tenement conditions; and this committee was composed of property owners. William Waldorf Astor was a conspicuous member of the committee. The mockery of a man whose family owned miles of tenements being chosen for a committee, the province of which was to find ways of improving tenement conditions, was not lost on the public, and shouts of derision went up. The working population was skeptical, and with reason, of the good faith of this committee. Every act, beginning with the mild and ineffective one of 1867, designed to remedy the appalling conditions in tenement houses, had been stubbornly opposed by the landlords; and even after these puerile measures had finally been passed, the landlords had resisted their enforcement. Whether it was because of the bitter criticisms levelled at him, or because he saw that it would be a good time to dispose of his tenements as a money-making matter before further laws were passed, is not clearly known. At any rate William Waldorf Astor sold large batches of tenements.