Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1919-10-30
ASSOCIATIONS ARE
AID TO BUILDING
Article Tells What Building and
Loan Associations Mean
TO Workers.

1t seems that the building and loan
association plan of operation should
be absolutely clear to almost every
one, that the wonderful work they
have done and are doing-not as a
philanthropy, but as business
should be fully understood by every
one of US, and proper appreciation
shown.
When we look about and pick the
communities where the live men have
fathered and promoted these building
and loan associations, we will invari-
ably find that the healthiest of these
cities are also the homes of live and
fourishing associations. To what
can we attribute this? The answer
is evident.
The greatest element which goes to
make for the success of any city is
civic pride. Pride in the city as a
whole and pride in the individual part
of it which is the property of the
individual interested. Even though
a city should boast of a large per-
centage of men of large means, the
greatest majority Of its citizens must
from economic necessity be made up
of the wage earners, or the great
class of-.toilers. And while few
men of large means may do much to
make a city well known and popular,
its real foundation rests upon these
wage earners who day after day earn
their money and spend the greater
portion of it with the varied indus
tries which go to make up the whole
fabric of community life.
These are the men whose welfare
determines the welfare of the city
and whose civic pride builds for its
future greatness, and the first neces-
sity for the installation of this pride
is the personal pride of the thing he
calls his home.
Home How little it may mean to
the man who is able to own half
dozen or more houses, and how much
to the man who has for years paid
out stipulated sum each month for
the privilege of keeping his furniture
in the same rooms and complaining
about the water pipes to the man
who owns it.
That very pride of ownership is the
thing which makes it so hard for the
landlord to make any real money
from his investment in rented houses.
1t is this home owning pride which
the building and loan associations
have done so much to foster, and
thousands upon thousands of men
who had for years entertained the
ambition of owning their own homes
have been helped to realize upon that
ambition.
First, the association instills the
habit of thrift in the individual by
suggesting methodical saving through
their cumulative savings plan of pur-
chasing stock on the installment plan.
BY the time this habit is deeply
rooted the man has saved enough for
the initial payment upon his home,
the ASSOCIATION is in a position to
buy that home for him and let him
repay the loan in the same manner
he made the original savings, by ma
turing stock in the association equal
to the amount of the loan.
This habit Of thrift fostered by
the building and loan associations,
has done more than any other thing
to make the most healthy communi-
ties in the country and the home own
ers the most stable and solid citizen
ship the nation could hope to build.
Every cent these associations real
ize from their operation goes directly
back to the stockholder or depositor
in the form of dividends at the close
Of each year, and the security they
offer probably cannot be excelled from
the standpoint Of the investor. Their
growth and prestige has been phen-
omenal, but the next few years should
see a still greater increase for they
are the worthiest institutions we can
support, both for the good of the COM
munity and for the good Of the in
dividual.