Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1912 — MRS. WARREN SPRINGER PROPOSES BIG CHARITY. [ARTICLE]

MRS. WARREN SPRINGER PROPOSES BIG CHARITY.

Widow of Extensive Land Owner In Jasper County Plans Social Settlement for Chicago Poor.

Mrs. Margaret Springer, widow of Warren Springer, whose death occurred last week, was made the sole executrix without bond of the estate of her husband, which, according to a Chicago estimate, is valued at $2,000,000. According to the Chicago Tribune Mr. and Mrs. Springer had for a long time considered a plan of colonizing the poor of Chicago who were honest and willing to work. Their idea was to place them on a small farm near Kniman, Ind., where Mr. Springer has about 2,000 acres of land. The Tribune publishes the following about the eccentric millionaire and his plans which Mrs. Springer now proposes to carry out:

“The project, which Mr. Springer did not live to execute in person, was planned in detail by him and Oscar Lovell Triggs, former professor of English literature at the Unversity of Chicago. “The scheme includes the division of a 2,000 acre farm near Kniman, Ind., sixty miles from Chicago, between families from the congested tenement districts of Chicago and the establishment of a social community for the industrial and educational betterment of people lagging behind in the city struggle for existence. This colony of social redemption, backed by the Springer millions, is to be. made the nucleus for more extensive settlements.

“The proposed Springer colony ’s to bring into effect the dead millionaire’s pet ideas of social problem solutions. He protested always against city social settlements as means' for ultimately bettering the lot of poor workingmen and their families.

“Take the poor out of the city,” he is quoted by his widow as saying. “Stop trying to reform them amid their squalid surroundings in the city. They don’t need to be reformed. They will develope under the proper surroundings in the city and the neighbors will hear them. Instead of that we send them settlement workers who chloroform them, but the effect is temporary.” . v .

“My husband- and Triggs had outlined the plans of the community which they were going to establish before Mr. Triggs left the University of Chicago,” said Mrs. Springer. “After he was discharged my husband pleaded with him to take .hold of the work. He offered to deed him the whole farm and give him a free hand in running the community. But Mr. Triggs had been kicked about so much and he was so distraught by the notoriety which had come to him, that he' did not feel equal to the task at that time.” “Now I shall consult him and I may bring him to Chicago, if possible, to help me carry out this work, which my husband bad so much at heart My other helpers will be Stephen Marion Reynolds, of Terre Haute, Ind., and Seymore Steadman, of Chicago.’ “Mr. Springer experimented with various agricultural schemes on his farm to gain experience for his work. He came to the conclusion that the cultivation of strawberries, raspberries, onions, sugar beets, pickles and other vegetables would prove the most practical and profitable. He had the promise of a pickle manufacturer trf

establish a factory near the farm as soon as the colony was established.” “The farming is, of coursd’, to be carried on under the instruction of competent men. We desire to get as much out* of the soil as possible and to carry on intensive farming along the most up-to-date lines. We will demand that each member shall put his best foot forward and help himself, once he is established on his plot of ground.

“To his son, William, the** only issue of his first marriage he left |5,000. The son was not in Chicago to attend his father’s funeral. In fact, no member of the family seemed to know where he wsfc, or is, if alive. Long ago he was practically disinherited, and it was understood that for some time afterward he worked in Chicago as a streetcqf conductor, ringing up fares paid by his father and stepmother, to whom he did hot speak as they rode on his car. “Mr. Springer’s body is lying in an unmarked grave in Rosehill cemetery by the side of his son, Warren, whose resting place also is undesignated. The graves of one of Chicago’s most eccentric millionaires and his son will continue to be unmarked. This was his expressive wish. “But the realisation of a great philanthropic dream, which the real estate man drrsnwd some ten years ago and planned to execute in his old age Is