The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-13
Home.

Home.
 Yes, there is "A Home Owner's' creed.
 Here it is Buy home first, before you buy booze, before you buy sealskins or diamonds, before you buy automo- biles.'
 These real estate boys rub It in; they go so far as to say: Buy home first, before you ask the girl to marry you"
 
 to this It might get me in bad with the marriageable misses.
 I just stop to ask, is it wise to put too many handicaps in the way of fellows popping the question.
 Uncle Sam has put a Quietus on the marrying business, and I'm afraid to make it more difficult for girls to get husbands by requiring. them to have a nest before they look up a preacher. By the way, read in an old English book about the clergy, that it was once required that clergymen should preach at least one sermon every quarter urging upon young and old to consider seriously the question of marriage. l dare say some maidens will pray that this custom be revived.
 Birmingham has cause to be proud of the Buy -Home'' idea, as .Aill Fer guson, one of our very own, originated it. He put New Workers on to it last week and from the press notices he got he made them open their eyes to it's pos- abilities.
 suggested at the real estate lunch con that it would not be out of place to ask the ministers of Birmingham to make mention of the Buy Home" campaign from their pulpits today, Sun day, as it was Mothers Day, and it would be easy to talk on Mother, Home and Heaven"
 I'm going to quote freely from a real estate classic. It came unto fame as private letter from Fred E. Reed of Oakland, Cal, to Tom Ingersoll, execu- tive secretary of National Real Estate Boards, Minneapolis, Minn. It's known from ocean to ocean among realtors as Prom Fred to Tom," and it's some breezy letter. To show what Fred Reed thinks of Hills idea, ajust read:
 This Buy a-Home- First which we have grabbed, we've just decided to be the biggest thing ever put over in real estate circles in California, and we don't even stop there.
 By the time we'd been at work & week, we knew that we had the big issue for 1917 for the National association"
  To show that the Californians don't go to sleep when they get hold of an idea, Fred says:
 We've got all the school children com- peting for prizes for the best essays handed into the teacher, every one of them going home to Daddy and saying: Daddy why don't we own our own home? The school teachers are correct ing essays written by every pupil in the city on the subject, and if our present fathers don't buy homes. believe me the next generation will. We've got every man, woman and l child in the town who owns q camera, or who can borrow one, taking pictures 1 of homes competing in the Most Beauti- | ful Picture of an Oakland Home contest. 1 we've got the professionals sending in all the photographs they have taken that they think are especially artistic. for the prize for professionals. we've got the backyard garden ladies rubbing their sides with glee because of 1 the prizes for the most artistic backyard vegetable garden.
 | Get this, Tom! Every improvement l club in our city appoints its committees to select the winner of this contest for 1 that particular district and the fedora ton of all the improvement clubs ap- l points a committee to select the win ner among the winners Can you see it, man?'
 ] The Gas and Electric company have de cided they sell more electricity to homes than they do to apartment houses, sc every letter going out has our "Buy-a ! Home First sticxer on the back of it Every bill of the telephone ccmpany like.