Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-12-13
Building Associations and Homes.

Seymour Dexter in the American journal of Politics
Each of these building and loan associations
is growing influence in every community
where it is located, stimulating the building
and owning of homes.
Not alone this, but it ia an influence tending
to develop four habits in the life of every
shareholder, namely: Promptness in the matter
of meeting financial engagements; industry.
the finding and performing of labor, steadily,
whereby the money shall be earned to meet the
dues that should be paid; frugality, not parting
with their money when earned in careless
foolish ways, and. lastly. saving. or in other
words, the habit of accommodating. Develop in
any young man these four habits and continue
them through term of ten years andhis future
material and moral welfare assured.
When the stakeholder is a man of family
without a home the association opens to him
a practical method to obtain one and stimulates
desire In that direction. He perceives that
soon as a sufficient sum can be accumulated to
make up the margin between the purchase
price of the home and the sum the association
Will loan upon the property, lie can borrow the
money. purchase the home and his dues and
interest will but slightly exceed the amount he
has been paving for rent. This inspires hope,
not alone in him. but in his household. They
are content to make little self-denlals from
week to week. if the savings thereby go directly
into the purchase price of the coveted home.
man who has earned, saved and paid for a
home will be a better artisan and clerk, a better
husband and father and better citizen of the
republic. Tho wife will be a better wife and
mother in her own home than In tenement.
There is no pride IN caring for. improving or
beautifying tenement or rented house-shall
we say home? No. il is not a homo: it is but a
stopping place; shelter from cold and storms
No tendrils OF the heart affection cling to it:
1t is all the same to the tenant if he moves to
another house the next month, except for the
labor and expense. Children born and reared
in tenements do not have fair chance for life
and strength; their possibilities cannot be de-
veloped as when in their own home, with its
grass plot, flower beds and the fresh air. 1t is
in the true home of this kind that the family,
in all OF Its better phases and possibilities will
thrive the best that worthy ambitions will stir
the strongest. that morality will find the surest
welcome, temperance its abiest advocates and
patriotism Its purest development.
Our free government and this western civili-
ZatIon will not depend so much upon the gran
deur of its cities, its manufactures, its rail-
roads. its great material achievements of every
kind, upon the character of the men and
women which il shall develop; and their char
acter will be nodded III a great degree by their
home life. and the highest form of the home
life can only be obtained in u home owned By
those dwelling therein.
What has been done in Philadelphia by build
ing and loan associations can be done elsewhere.
This movement is well under Roadway in nearly
every city In the northern states. 1t deserves
the cordial support and encouragement of all
employer Of labor as well as those devoting
their energies to moral. patriotic and philan-
thropic purposes.
Make the republic pre-eminently nation of
home owners and taxpayers and its future
IL assured, as well as the morality OF its social
life.