The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1922-03-30
What Building Would do for Business
BY George Wheeler Human
Editor, Chicago Herald-Examiner


What would help local business
most at this time? Half the business
men if asked this question would an
swer: Plenty of building. In a
hundred cities of the United States the
answer would be the same.
Of course, there is more building
from month to month. But popula-
ton grows few million every five
years in the United States, and for five
years building has Jagged far behind
the needs Of the increasing American
families and business enterprises.
100000 Builders
No doubt young married couples,
families with children and profess
ional men would be helped by more
nome building and office building and
by lower rents. But how would gene
raj business be benefited? Well, here
in brief is the answer:
In ordinary times about 2,25O,O0O
workingmen get their living, their
wages, the money spent at the retail
stores by their families out Of the
nations building industry; about
100000 contractors get their profits
and about $4,000 professional men
architects, engineers, etc., get their
commissions and fees. When the in
dustry is half idle, half Of these
100000 men do not get the money
and so do not spend it. That is
plain. Any grocer, butcher or dry
goods man figured that out long ago.
But big as this plain proposition, it
tells only about half the story.
Another Army Of Workers
Back of this great army Of build
ers is another army, and when the
first army is only half employed and
half paid, the other army is con-
demned to half time and half pay,
800.
When the 100000 builders are
busy, some 2,5OO,OO other men are
kept at work to supply them with
materials. The home builders and Of
flee builders, the tenants of homes
and offices in the cities, reach back
and purchase for their enterprises
the products of 100000 steel workers,
for instance; of 484,OOO workers in
lumber and furniture; of 243,OO0
workers in clay, glass and cement,
and Of about a million men in other
industries.
Nor is that the limit. These work.
crs not only pass en- the products of
their labor to the city builders, but
they in turn reach back and purchase
The materials furnished by the tens of
thousands engaged in numbering,
stone quarrying, iron, copper, lead
and zinc mining, some 100000 men.
md all along this great industrial line
providing power, heat and light for
its activities, are nearly 100000
others. =
How Business is Affected
So, all told, there are 100000
men, the majority doubtless family
men, whose prosperity is bound up
With the building business.
There is not steel mill, lumber
camp, gravel pit or stone quarry in
She United States that is not affected
by the building situation today. There
IS not a retail trade anywhere that is
not held back by the inability of this
great army of 100000 with it's
100000 or 100000 dependents,
/ draw the wages. salaries. fees and
riffs that W .uld be coming to its
rtemters if cniy tne h':ild:ng bust
ness corld be started full speed ahead.
Enormous Purchasing Power
The new purchasing power would
be enormous. 1t would be in the bill
sons. 1t would irrigate business in
the desert places all over the country
How widely the benefits would be dis
Jributed is beyond calculating.
In and by itself, even the regene-
ration of the railway business would
accomplish more; the settlement Of
J.e coal strike, not so much.
The only purpose Of this article is
10 show how the construction bust
ness is interviewer with the indus
trial life of the American people and
how its full revival would stimulate
as if by magic the welfare of the
whole people.