The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1916-05-03
BENNINGTON MUCH
IN NEED Of MORE
lENtMENTS
Industries OutgrOwing Our Home
Accommodations
SITUATION BECOMING ACUTE
Manufacturers Seeking More Employees
Who Can Not at Present Be
Housed.

Bennington Is face to face with the
most unusual Industrial predicament
she has probably experienced since
the Civil war: Want of workers for
her factories and want of houses in
which they may live after they are Sc
cured.
Hitherto the question Of more
houses has been mostly discussion and
nothing else, but with the sudden pros
perity which the mills and factories.
are enjoying, new plants being erected
and large orders being handled, the
problem of what Bennington is to do
about labor and the housing of labor
is taken from the status OF conversa-
ton and becomes an acute and vital
need in her immediate industrial
growth.
1t needs but three minute talk
with most any of the employers OF
Bennington to realize that any able
bodied man who is able to work, do his
work well, work steadily and deliver
value received for his wages, can get
a permanent job here. There is hard
ly an industry here which is not run
ming to full capacity and many plants
are running night shifts to handle the
unusual amount OF business. The
E-Z Waist company is erecting a
building which more than doubles its
capacity, the Payne brush factorys
new building has just been completed
and is going full blast, the Holden,
Leonard mill and the Bradford inter
ests have all the business they can
handle apS all the Cooper plants are
running night and day with the excep-
tion of the machine shops.
The demand for women help eX-
ceed that for men. Girls working in
Benningtons mills make anywhere
from So to $40 a week, according TO
the nature OF the work and swiftness
of the operator. The Bottum & Tor
rance Company employs girls almost
exclusively and few reliable appli-
cants have been turned away.
Indeed, so acute is the need of help
that at different times, many of the
employers have talked the situation
over with the Board of Trade officials,
who in turn, in. trying to attract work
men, are Immediately met by the in
Quiry: But you have no houses in
Bennington for your workmen to
live!"
This statement in the main is true
and Immediately discounts the eifec'
tiveness of the boards effort to relieve
the labor situation until the more
pressing problem of sufficient houses
is solved.
At the present time it is safe to say
there are almost no desirable tene
ments in the village available for rem
tai. Even this figure may be high
There are several shelters from the
rain" in the outlying districts which
are little more than "shacks",a aud rem
for few dollars a month"; but rea'
houses are snapped upins most q in
stances before the last tenant moves
out. tf foiit9s 9ni "a H99"
A double house of six to eight roofht
in good section, with hot and adeolt
water good floors and, modern plumb
ing rents from $15 70 SIS depending eoI
whether it is furnace heated SUCH :
house, renting for better than S400 {
year entire, costs around $4,000 tC
build Several bungalows have al
ready added to the attractiveness o
certain sections which have been bull
at figure around $500 and rent fol
around SIG. 1t would seem to the
person who has a knowledge of rea
estate rentals that houses in Benning
ton should be a good investment, al
houses built for investments go.
Two factors, however seem to hole
back local men from splurging il
houses, one the fear that Bennington,
present prosperity is more or les
temporary and that reaction vii
come; second, the natural New Eng
land conservatism which would rathe
invest in. western mortgages than a
home, Bennington needs the western
ers confidence in tomorrow and to b.
willing to back it up with cash
Interest rates in Vermont are ia
lower than in the west This sectio
is less subject to booms and slumps
and while it's growth is slower, it
almost always on permanent basis.