Can You Suggest a Name? E again call attention to the prize of $100 offered by Mr. WE J. E. Kinney, president of the United States League as also of the big Buckeye association of Columbus, Ohio, for the best short word or term that aptly describes the building-loan occupation. Nearly all occupations have a one-word designation that conveys in the popular understanding an accurate idea of the calling. referred to. The building and loan worker is an exception. He can state his occupation only in a roundabout way. He wants to get away from it,and join the short term class. That is the object of the prize offered. The offer is open to all and the number of names to be submitted by any one not limited. Entries for the contest should be sent to the editor of the AMERICAN BUILDING ASSOCIATION NEWS, whereupon they will be forwarded to the committee selected to award the prize. It is stipulated, however, that the prize will not be paid if the name is not approved by the United States League of Local Building and Loan Associations. Proceedings of the Building Societies' Association of England. THE HE proceedings of the annual meeting of the Building Societies' Association, held at Margate, noted in the preceding issue of the NEWS, have been published in a clearly printed volume of 160 pages. It contains all the addresses, discussions and toasts proposed at the banquet and makes an interesting volume that can be read with profit anywhere. A perusal shows. that the national meetings over there do not differ much from similar meetings in this country, and that the problems are much the same.. It might also be observed that the secretaries of the English.: and American organizations have something in common. Mr. R. H. Marsh, the secretary of the English Association, has filled that position for the past thirty-five years, while Mr. H. F. Cellarius has served in that capacity since the organization of the United States League. When building associations find the right man for the place they keep him there, and, as happened at both meetings held this year, they tell them that their services are appreciated. A Educate Your Law Making Bodies. T the National Capitol, as well as at the various legislatures, there will be many new members in the law-making bodies. Inasmuch as legislation will be under consideration at Washington, as well as at the various state capitols, it will be necessary for the building associations to carefully look after their interests. In some legislatures more than 50 per cent of the incoming general assemblies are new members, who have not yet learned how and why the wheels turn around. A new legislature necessarily moves slower than one made up of experienced members. The building association interests should impress their representatives in the state legislature, as well as in Congress, of the importance of their institutions. It would be well for them to get in touch with the representatives and impress upon them the necessity of protecting these interests, together with advancing the idea of "home ownership," as one of the. important after-war-problems. It would be well for the various State Leagues to consider the importance of educating their law-makers. Copies of the AMERICAN BUILDING ASSOCIATION NEWS should be mailed regularly to their homes, so they may become better acquainted with the co-operative savings and home-building movement. SEE Begin to Sell the Building and Loan Idea. EE your prospects in the evening, under the softening influence of the home, and then Paint your picture so that every member of the family will see in it a personal benefit, a sure support, an unfailing resource, a vehicle for the realization of every ambition. The main objective should be to interest the entire family in the home ownership idea. Show them how by systematic savings they will in a definite number of years have their mortgage paid off. Show them that a regular amount saved provides the home for any eventuality that may come along. MEMBERSHIP in a league gives a feeling of confidence on the part of the secretary and directors that cannot be obtained in any other way. Here they can consult other successful friends in the movement concerning problems that may arise and can then trim their sails accordingly. Surety Association Authorizes Blanket Bonds for Building Associations. OR some reason the surety associations have heretofore dis FOR criminated against building associations in writing continuous blanket bonds which offer advantages that many associations would like to secure. A few Ohio companies and possibly some in other states had bonds of this kind until last year, when they were ordered canceled by said Surety Association. That action led to activity on the part of those interested, resulting in said. Surety Association reversing itself. The members of the Surety Association of America have now been authorized to write for building associations, in states where the latter are under the supervision of a state department, continuous blanket bonds, similar to those heretofore written for banks, covering dishonest acts of employes, robbery, burglary, theft, hold-up, destruction or misplacement, etc. This action of the Surety Association. places the building and loan associations of the United States on an equality with banks as regards bonds of this character, which is as it should be, and it is advisable for the associations to take advantage of this very effective and satisfactory way of protecting themselves against the risks mentioned. It should be added that it was largely due to the efforts of Mr. J. E. Kinney, president of the United States League, that this concession was made to the building and loan associations. IT Knowledge is Power. ought to be obvious that the more a secretary or director knows about his association the higher will be the degree of success he will attain. Every official must realize that the educational activities of the various Leagues are directed toward one chief end-the greatest measure of success for the individual associations. For any association to refuse to affiliate with sister organizations is only doing harm to the institution they are supposed to represent. The new inspirations gained, the many new friendships with people that really begin to realize the true value of co-operative effort means much for the future development of the movement. Join your leagues and be an active supporter. Get new ideas, broaden your viewpoints! A Better Homes Week October 9-14. VERY commendable movement has been started to interest people in building not only more, but better homes. With the endorsement of President Harding and the co-operation of the governors of most of the states, a call has been sent out to American communities to devote one week-October 9th to 14th -to demonstrate the advantage of building more serviceable and better homes. An advisory council of prominent personages as well as a national committee has been formed to further the movement. The national bureau of information is at 223 Spring street, New York City, in charge of the secretary, Mrs. William Brown Meloney. Local committees are to be organized to carry out the plans in the various communities. Building and loan associations everywhere should take their rightful place in the forefront of this scheme. They are the real home-builders, or perhaps better still, the potent, enabling force behind the home-builders, and whatever is done to make the home more attractive, more liveable is in line with the work they are doing. The movement received the following endorsement from President Harding: MY DEAR MRS. MELONEY: THE WHITE HOUSE July 21, 1922. I am directed by the President to assure you of his earnest endorsement of the Better Homes Campaign which has been launched by the Advisory Council and is being carried on by representative women of America. He regards the campaign as of particular importance, because it places emphasis not only upon home ownership, which he regards as absolutely elemental in the development of the best citizenship, but upon furnishing, sanitation and equipment of the home. The President feels that as many millions of dollars and the best minds of this generation have been devoted to improve factory conditions, the home is deserving of its share of the same intensive consideration. There are twenty millions of house-keepers in America. For them, the home is their industrial center as well as their place of abode, and it is felt that altogether too little attention has been paid to lightening the labors and bettering the working conditions of these women. The President feels that the women who are so successfully conducting this campaign are entitled to all consideration and recognition, and he hopes that every community in America will exhibit a model home. Yours sincerely, GEO. B. CHRIST AN, JR., Secretary to the President. Campaign. Mrs. W. B. Meloney, Secretary Hoover, in emphasizing "The Home as an Investment," adds his endorsement, saying: One can always safely judge of the character of a nation by its homes. For it is mainly through the hope of enjoying the ownership of a home that the latent energy of any citizenry is called forth. This universal yearning for better homes and the larger security, independence and freedom that they imply, was the aspiration that carried our pioneers westward. Since the preemption acts passed early in the last century, the United States, in its land laws, has recognized and put a premium upon this great incentive. It has stimulated the building of rural homes through the wide distribution of land under the Homestead Acts and by the distribution of credit through the Farm Loan Banks. Indeed, this desire for home ownership has, without question, stimulated more people to purposeful saving than any other factor. Saving, in the abstract, is, of course, a perfunctory process as compared with purposeful saving for a home, the possession of which may change the very physical, mental and moral fibre of one's own children. Now, in the main because of the diversion of our economic strength from permanent construction to manufacturing of consumable commodities during and after the war, we are short about a million homes. In cities such a shortage implies the challenge of congestion. It means that in practically every American city of more than 200,000, from 20 to 30 per cent of the population is adversely affected, and that thousands of families are forced into unsanitary and dangerous quarters. This condition, in turn, means a large increase in rents, a throw-back in human efficiency and that unrest which inevitably results from inhibition of the primal instinct in us all for home ownership. It makes for nomads and vagrants. In rural areas it means aggravation and increase of farm tenantry on one hand, an increase of landlordism on the other hand, and general disturbance to the prosperity and contentment of rural life. There is no incentive to thrift like the ownership of property. The man who owns his own home has a happy sense of security. He will invest his hard earned savings to improve the house he owns. He will develop it and defend it. No man ever worked for, or fought for a boarding-house, But the appalling anomaly of a nation as prosperous as ours thwarted largely in its common yearning for better homes, is now giving way to the gratifying revival of home construction. Accordingly the time is ripe for this revival to afford an opportunity to our people to look to more homes and better ones, to better, more economical and more uniform building codes, and to universal establishment and application of zoning rules that make for the development of better towns and cities. We have the productive capacity wasted annually in the United States sufficient to raise in large measure the housing conditions of our entire people to the level that only fifty per cent of them now enjoy. We have wastes in the building industry itself which, if constructively applied, would go a long way toward supplying better homes, so that what is needed imperatively is organized intelligence and direction. For the problem is essentially one of ways and means. And, finally, while we are about Better Homes for America and are lending such indirect support to the movement as the Government, States, counties, communities, and patriotic individuals and organizations can rightfully give, let us have in mind not houses merely, but homes! There is a large distinction. It may have been a typesetter who confounded the two words. For, curiously, with all our American ingenuity and resourcefulness, we have overlooked the laundry and the kitchen, and thrown the bulk of our efforts in directions other than those designed to make better homes by adding to the facilities of our very habitations. If, in other words, the family is the unit of modern civilization, the home, its shelter and gathering-point, should, it would seem, warrant in its design and furnishing quite as large a share of attention as the power plant or the factory. We believe, therefore, that in every community in which it is possible a "Better Homes in America" Demonstration should be planned and carried through during the week of October 9th to 14th, 1922. |