San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-03-25

to attract attention, improve conduct,
compel respect, bind families and
friends together, form communities,
found states and create nations. Men
and women reared in and among beau
tiful homes acquire good taste from
them and seldom if ever do a very
ugly thing. Good home making in
wolves all the high arts and produces
the most happiness for us all.
Home Owners Best Citizens.
The small homes are just as i'm
portant or more important than large
homes from a moral, economic and
patriotic point of view. The building
of homes is matter of most vital
concern to the welfare of a nation.
Homeless citizens and families, wheth-
er rich or poor, are not potentially
the best citizens. A citizen with a
rent receipt and a foreigner with
passport have similar uninterested
and irresponsible mental attitudes to-
ward the community, town or state.
Carelessness and extravaganza taught
to children and adults by the use OF
property not their own is tremen-
dous economic and moral loss. There
are now about sixty per cent OF the
people of our country living in rented
homes and apartments.
There is no valuable sentiment IN
rented houses and apartments. There
is no national economy or individual
economy in rent paying; on the other
hand, every individual home owner
makes an additional credit possibility,
creates an additional property security
to the nations wealth and an addi-
tlonal urge for all other forms OF
permanent construction.
Civic bodies and legislatures should
diligently work to remove oil unnecec-
sary hindrances or hazards to the
individual home building instinct such
as fire loss, difficult and complicated
real estate transfers, uncertain values
due to unwarranted changes in the
use of real estate through lack OF
coming laws and city plans, monopo-
listic and price fixing material and
labor conditions and labor disputes.
To incline n series of laws towards
encouraging home building is less
sentimental than practical and funda-
mental; in fact, all beneficient laws
may well be tested by the one ques-
ton: "Do they tend TO make more
and better honest for home owner
ship visualizes and substantiates the
highest instincts of man and leads the
strongest motive force we have-par-
enthood-to the noblest products of
human energy and democratic citizen
ship.
Planting Of shrubs and trees about
the house, making the yard practically
an outdoor living room and embell-
ishing the street and immediate en-
vironment of the house are essential.
So-called back yards should be con-
sidered things of the past and gardens
should be substituted therefore.
Small House Best.
The house should be as small as
possible consistent with comfort, con-
venience and reduction to the mini
mum of homework. Size and display
do not make for happiness. The house
should have good quality though less
quantity. Nothing can be gained by
way of comfort, durability or aatrac-
tiveness from inferior construction.
Since the cost Of house of good
floor plan and exterior treatment
does not increase in proportion to an
increase in the size of rooms, therefore
proper space for furniture and the ex-
preston of individuality and taste of
the owner or occupant should not be
sacrificed.
Open porches should be reduced to
a minimum. Sun porches and sleep
ing porches and sleeping rooms can
be used as open porches in the sum-
mer and rs habitable rooms in the
winter. They are preferable to open
porches.
Houses should be practically non
burnable and more than one stairway
in small house should be considered
extravaganza or useless.
The prejudice against hard floors
should be overcome and floors be
built fireproof with a good attrac-
tive, non-absorbent finish, preferably
of cement and stone or marble ag-
gregate, capable of being ground
smooth and polished.
1t has been shown in two or three
instances in recent years that the first
and second floors of residences can
be built fireproof in buildings whose
walls are built of brick or other mason
material at cost not exceeding . IL
per cent more than the cost Of wood
joists, wood floors and wood lath. In
some instances building can be made
fireproof in this manner without extra
cost provided the architect and the
builder understand how to use the
modern reinforced concrete construc-
ton. A floor made of colored mar
bles and Portland cement, ground
smooth and polished, is not only fire
proof, but very sanitary, easy to
clean, easy to repair, and will last
for years without any expense for
upkeep. The only objection is a
prejudice against the hard floor, due
to the association Of marble or stone
floors with damp and cold Easements
or rooms that have not been heated
By modern methods.