Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-05-19
WATERBURY IMPROVEMENTS.
But Property end Rents Are Toe
 High for the Working Man.

High for the Working Man.
 Well. that beats out the Dutch remarked . prominent business man yesterday as he took a look at the police patrol with an Of1cer and 2 drunk in 1t en route to the lookup. Some time ago man was kicked and clubbed from where he was found to the cooler. but now, by love, he gets ride and has an oficer to wait upon
 him. I'm not finding fault with the
 new crdei. because I belieya Ii is tll. proper thing, but l refer to 1t sim- ply to remind the board of public works who claim to have struck nothing but Paradises once they got their heels out of Waterbury, that after all we are not so much behind
 the times. l talked with man who
 was member of that party" con- tinued the gentleman in an aside,
 "and he assured me that he made
 some little inquiries into other things
 besides paving blocks, curbstones and
 receptacles for waste paper, and he
 assured me that he had not struck a
 place where 50 many working people
 own their own homes as they do right
 here in Waterbury. I haven't seen
 anything to this effect, in the papers,
 80 thought I'd give you the tip and
 let that go with the other things.
 know something about Waterbury
 and I'm no stranger to other New
 England towns, and have no hesita~
 tion whatever in saying that this is
 the best place I ever lived for / a
 working man who has a good job
 and knows how to mind it and put
 his money to the best possible use.
 Talk about Improvements. Why,
 could show you streets that are as
 clean as the best kept railways in
 the community, but the property
 abutting on these thoroughfares Is all owned by wealthy men. If a man
 of modest means got hold of place
 there he would quickly be crowded
 out by some expensive improvement.
 We all know what can be done pro-
 vided everybody had big means, but
 what can you expect in the way of great public Improvements from men
 working for $1.50, who are raising families and at the same time trying to pay for homes? What we want is more cleanliness and less talk about saddling large expenses on the pub lie. Don't you know that this sort of thing has practically put stop to the business of buying building lots and building houses by the common people. Keep the city clean and pave streets out of the public exchequer wherever such treatment is needed; give us such fire and police protec- tion as is needed; equality in the matter of water rates and everybody will want to own something, but SO
 long as you continue to talk as if the intention was to cover the streets with, gold bricks whole lot of peo- pie will prefer to keep theh money in the banks rather than invest 1t in real estate. The papers are full of accounts of real estate transfers, but did you ever stop to notice that 95 per cent of these transactions are on improved property, houses that oth- CTS have grown tired of trying to hold. How many. people are buying building lots with view to putting homes on them? This sort of thing was common few years ago, but you don't hear much about it now. The result of this is that the land lords have tenants by the throats and can charge what they please for their teneH1ents. Only yesterday I r talked with man who was after hunting the whole town for a tenement and the cheapest he could find, and that was half mile from his work, was $15. How is man going to pay that out of small days pay. He can't do 1t and the chances are that the price will De higher. It is bound to be if the population of the town keers on increasing and none of the working people build. In ten years almost all the laborink people will be tenants and unless we get cheap CT class of rents than are available now I don't see how many will man. age to keep roof over their heads. should be done by the city government to encourage the work ing people to build instead of scar ing the wits out of them about expen- ditures which they may expect to meet in case they get hold of any thing like building lot of a home"
 The gist of the mans argument was that until recently Waterbury was a great place for the building of homes by people who wanted them for their own use, while now anG for the past few years, very few work ing people care to invest a dollar in that way. He was afraid that too many take this talk about expenses too seriously and as consequence they are hoarding their earnings in the savings banks or spending it in an effort to live beyond their means. Still he contended that more work ing people own homes here than in other places of the same size. but he attributed this to conditions that ex- Isted here some time ago when peo- pie built and took their chances. end
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