Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1918 — Page 2

Building Model Towns for War Workers

By Robert H. Moultor

Uncle Sam Is Providing Moneu But After War Buildings Will Revert to the Communities

f- ■■■■■ HEN the United States entered the Wwar and orders for goods of every description began to pour into indusi trial plants on a huge scale, the first s cry of the manufacturers was for men. Whether skilled or unskilled, there was work for them. In order ImuRW to attract as many as possible, wages

were raised to almost precedented height s. Mechanics be-

gan to draw from $7 to sls a day. High wages served the purpose of obtaining labor, immediately a new problem arose. Workmen came, but went away again. The output of factories was below what it should have been and it was difficult to maintain quality. This was due to the fact that as. fast as the factories raised wages landlords raised rents. If a man was earning $lO a day and was obliged to pay nearly that much for a de-

cent place in which to live, he did not linger long. Some factories were hiring 6,000 men a year in order to maintain a force of 1,000. Then Uncle Sam stepped in and went into the town-building business. An appropriation of SIOO,000,000 was made for emergency wartime housing, and while that was only a starter It was sufficient to provide shelter for about 150,000 persons. More money has been asked and it doubtless will be forthcoming. In the beginning Uncle Sam made a mistake. His first idea was to provide temporary barracks, something on the order of those at the army cantonments. But in the case of the ship workers he found out that 60 per cent of them are married, and their wives and children objected to living in bunk houses. Moreover, temporary houses, while costing within 10 per cent of as much as permanent ones, are a total loss within a few years. So he decided to make these towns permanent As a result, he is now covering whole square miles of vacant countryside with pretty little houses, boarding places, stores, theaters, churches, paved streets and all utilities. He has at his service the best town planners and architects in America. Arid with all the haste that is being made, beauty and good taste are not being sacrificed. The houses will not all be alike in color, material or style. On the contrary, throughout each of these spacious, slumless tracts, will be evidence that the thing was planned as a whole —that this street was curved on purpose, because a curved street is prettier than a straight one —that yonder church was put squarely across the end of the park because it would look well there. The eye will unconsciously start a vain search for eyesores, blank Fide walls, billboards and disorder. The chief benefit which accrues to the worker from the building of these towns is the fact that landlordism is to be a thing unknown. The benefits are to go unfailingly to the workers. Rents must be based on cost and not on the maximum which the tenants can be forced to pay. And Inasmuch as Uncle Sam has no desire to retain the ownership after the war, he has evolved a scheme to sell them, not to individuals, but to the communities as a whole, to be held in trust as community property. Each such town will be, at the start, at least, in the complete possession of a local housing company composed of and partially financed by publicspirited business men of the vicinity. They put up 20 per cent of the money and they get the other 80 per cent on first mortgage from the United States labor department or from the shipping board, each of which has $50,000,000 given them by congress this spring for just this purpose. In lending money to local housing companies in congested communities, the government lays down the stipulation that dividends shall be forever limited to 5 per cent annually—even after the government’s mortgage is paid off. Any excess income must be re-expended upon the property or else eliminated by lowering the rents. The part of the rent that would ordinarily go to landlords’ profits wIU go to pay off the government’s mortgage at the rate of 2or 3 per cent a year. The mortgage is for ten years, and at the end of that time enough presumably will be paid off to enable the government to say: “Go get a private mortgage to pay off the balance.” Then if the local housing company has not meanwhile sold off any of the houses the town will substantially own itself, subject to mortgage. For its rents will be based purely on costs of capital and sendee. The private capital, limited to 5 per cent return, is practically a second mortgage. One of the first government logos made to the new village at Newport News provided that 90 per cent of the private capital is to be amortized and retired. Normally the private capital owns equity. Including the part of the cost which has been amortized and the unearned increment, the size of which is more or less problematical, but it can’t do anything with this treasure except redistribute the annual proceeds therefrom among the people in the form of a rebate on rents or in communal services, preferably the latter.

At normal rentals, the revenues of such a community will be far greater than ordinary taxes. For while houses depreciate, land neither rots nor wears, and such a town will be in effect owner of all its underlying land. The Utopia of the single taxers is achieved by virtue of the fact that the town was caught young and started right with no land boom allowed! The town will be In the position of having bought Itself at cost without letting anybody pocket profits on the rising values. Perhaps the most remarkable example of Uncle Sam’s ability as a town builder is Yorkship, near Camden, N. J., designed to serve employees of the New York Shipbuilding corporation. This town, where 10,600 of Uncle Sam’s shipworkers will live while they are making ships with which to beat Germany, might almost be said .to have been built overnight. Starting work early in the summer, 1,000 houses will be ready for occupancy in October, and another thousand will follow within a few months. Some idea of the speed employed in the work is indicated by the fact that one group of five workmen’s houses was put up frdm foundation to roof in 36 hours. While putting up a thousand houses in a few months is an amazing feat in Itself, it becomes more so when it is understood that the buildings of Yorkship are to be things of beauty, embodying all that is attractive in our old Colonial style of architecture, and at the same time up to date in everything. In short, it will be a town that will give the workers new zest for the morrow’s work when they troop home of an evening. Speed, practicality and simplicity, but the best of everything, was the gist of the government’s instructions, and these instructions are being followed to the letter. At the same time there isn’t a trace of paternalism in the government’s attitude toward the workmen. Uncle Sam simply wanted to show them that he fully appreciates what they are doing for him. The town of Yorkship will occupy a site of 140 acres, 100 of which are now being developed. The main feature of the town plan is a central square, abo,ut 300 feet on each side, from which the major streets radiate. Around the central square threestory buildings have been erected, with stores on the first floor and apartments above. The west side of the square opens upon a broad green, or common, 125 feet wide and 450 feet long, which is flanked at its farther end by church sites and terminated by a site for a school or library on an axis. From the north side of the central square a broad boulevard leads out toward New creek, con> necting w’ith a bridge and main connecting road to the shipyards. Parks and playgrounds are also liberally provided for. Streets, are laid out, for the most part, with a width of 50 feet, with roadways 18 feet wide, grass strips 9 feet 6 inches wide, and sidewalks 4 feet wide. A few streets of greater width where there will be a concentration of traffic have been provided, while alleys of a 10-foot width are provided on the interior of all blocks* 1 The plan for Yorkship is perhaps the most complete town plan ever made. Every house is complete; it has hot and cold water systems, modern plumbing, up-to-date plumbing fixtures, gas range, hot-water heater, electric light and cellar furnace. Most of the houses are of brick, with a few stone, stucco, or frame. The majority have slate roofs. The order for brick for Yorkship is said to have been the largest single order of its kind ever given. The brick used came from seven .different manufacturers and is varied as to color, etc., so that the aspect of the village will not be at all monotonous. J..,./ In fact, the architect has consistently aimed at avoiding monotony. Starting as he did on, virgin land —the site of Yorkship before he went to work on it looked like ap ideal golf course —it was out of the question to run up houses in unsightly rows, as if in a city. On the other hand, individual houses would have been too expensive. The problem that confronted him, therefore, was to produce dwellings at a minimum cost and yet make them as attractive as the nature of. the plan demanded.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

had to be so varied in design as to be attrac , the difficulty of the task will be better understood and appreciated. . . To get the needed variety and yet conform the general plan, the architect hit upon the un que idea of having small-scale drawings made on pieces of cardboard for different parts of a house one for the .middle, one for the right corner, one for the left, etc. By combining these slips like children’s picture blocks so as to form a whole groUphouse. a surprising variety of combinations was obtained. As soon as particularly attractive combinations were made they were photographed, and it is these selected combinations which will appear again and again at Yorkship when the village is completed, yet they will be so arranged as to cause no rponotony of effect. In addition to the varied types of houses, there were also developed about a dozen different types of porches. Then in order to add still further to . the variety, .a gable roof was designed for one group of houses, a flat roof for another, a roof like the ones in the old Colonial houses of Salem, Mass., for still another, and so on.- No less than seven different kinds of roofing materials have been employed, including a new one which gives an interesting effect as of an old-fashioned ribbed copper or red tin roof, and does it so successfully that it takes an expert to tell the difference. Towns such as Yorkship undoubtedly will have an excellent effect on our workers. As an antidote to bolshevism they should prove most efficacious. It is impossible to Imagine any man being discontented when his government is mobilizing the best talent in. the country to provide for his comfort. At the offices of the Emergency Fleet corporation ■ there are acres of desks at which the best housing experts in the country are busily engaged in evolving the best of housing plans. . The architectural profession is being combed for town planners, and the government is looking all the time for the most distinguished engineers and the men most learned in public utilities, and employing them at no more than a living wage to give the workers every comfort and all the beauty of home surroundings that-eAn possibly be obtained. To illustrate how this is all being done at a low cost unknown before, it may be stated that architects employed on such work are charging only onesixth of the fees which they would charge under ordinary conditions in times of peace.

May Festivities

The May of merrie England, before the Puritan blight fell upon the land, is a thing of joyous memory. It recalls the maypole with its attendant maidens dancing about it, doing homage to their queen of the May. Even Puritanism did not entirely put an end to these celebrations, for the May festival survived here and there, and was even transplanted to New England by certain recalcitrants, as the chronicles of Morton at Merrymount testify. May festivals have been held In many New England towns all the way down toward the present and the custom has not yet wholly died out

TICKLED TO DEATH.

In the camp they have all sorts of sports, also movies at night A young lady, after looking over the camp, was heard to remark, “The government sure tries to make the boys happy.” J, “Yes my last suit of underwear just tickled me to ’death,” said an old timer, grinning.—Chicago Tribune.

"Do you know the seven wonders of the world F* "No, but I know three.” “Only three?” "Yes; I’ve only been married three times,”

In solving this problem, the architect evolved a limited number of units of architectural design and repeated them in large numbers through the village, but in such ■ groupings and regroupings as to obtain a considerable variety, and interest. These group houses are for several families of workers —from two to five families in a group. When it is considered that it was necessary to design 250 actual structures in a period of four weeks and at the same time bear in mind that the structures

HIS IDEA.

MIGHT HAVE BEEN STARTLING

Just a Possibility That Thera Waa Method In Passenger's Remarkable Exhibition of Drowsiness. One afternoon, In a train running over an Illinois line, an amusing conversation took place between the conductor and a passenger who appeared to be under the influence of liquor. The passenger was lopping against the window sUI and acting sleepy. “Wake up and gimme your ticket!" growled the tonductor. No move. Once more the pasteboard collector admonished his Aioozy (or boozy) passenger to awaken and dig up some sort of transportation. Still no move. The conductor went through the train and punched the local tickets. Then he returned. By that time the train had gone past two stations. “Say, now, come out of the dumps and give me your ticket or off you go snorted the conductor as he grabbed the fellow rudely by the arm. The passenger revived slightly, but quickly sank back against the window sill again. “Where is your ticket?” demanded the trainman gruffly. “You certainly have one somewhere about your person!” . The fellow offered no answer. At that the conductor grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to his feet, but he sank back limply into the seat. Seizing the man by the collar again the conductor shook him roughly and yelled with mouth close to ear: “Confound your pesky skin; I’ve searched all of your pockets and you haven’t a ticket anywhere on you!” The passenger, slightly awakened from his stupor, blandly replied: “Well, then, never mind. Let ’er go. I ain’t goin’ a great way anyhow!” And he wasn’t. He stepped off at thp next station.

Has Artificial Ventilation.

• A Frencji fort at Verdun has artificial ventilation. It is by Maj. Gen. Charles A. Clement, U. S. A., who visited the firing line. A fort, looked on as the best that French engineering skill could build, was made of re-enforced concrete, extending many feet under ground, and stood near the site of the stronghold referred to. It was smashed to atoms by the Germans, but the French, even as the pieces were flying about them, constructed a new subterranean fort of rock and granite which effectually resisted the attacks of the enemy. This fort General Clement describes as somewhat resembling an anthracite coal mine. He said that the air in the fort’s hospital was pure and, despite the fact that no sunlight ever penetrated the place, the conditions compared favorably with those of similar Institutions on the surface of the earth. . . , The foregoing description gives us a glimpse of French efficiency displayed In their defense of Verdun. — Popular Science Monthly.

The Armed Motortruck.

Tn the old days of the overland stages there sat up. in front alongside the driver the express messenger, carrying on his knees always ready for Instant use a sawed-off shotgun. In these later days, on another sort of vehicle, and for protection against another sort of highwaymen, both men on the box are armed. The vehicle Is the big, powerful motor-driven army supply wagon. On each side of the driver’s seat on these wagons is a deep leather holster and In each holster is carried a repeating carbine; a lively, handy weapon and one carrying mariy more, , shots than the old-time sawed-off shotgun.

No Mosquitoes on Hog Island.

Officials of the United States shipping board state that they believe that Hog island, now the center of a vast shipbuilding Industry, is effectually rid of mosquitoes. The work involved the draining of a marsh 25 miles long at a cost of $250,000. New Jersey has been reluctant to take such steps, but since witnessing this achievement it has decided to expend $150,000 to drain the Newark meadows near the Submarine Boat Corporation plant and has instituted work at the Camden yards across the river from Hog island.

Disappointed.

“Tough, ain’t It?” the Yank commented, as they lifted him into the ambulance. “Oh, you’re all right,” said the corps man cheerfully. “Just a couple of places where a couple of hunks of shrapnel can’t do any harm.” "That ain’t what’s worrying me,” explained the doughboy. •‘But here I am going back to a base hospital wounded, and the only Germans I’ve seen since I came to France were three prisoners.”

Making War on Snails.

Snails may be enticed to harbor In and feed on bran, if placed in handfuls where they are numerous. Every morning the places should be examined and the snails destroyed. Quicklime, if dusted on the rows of early peas and other early vegetables in spring, when the dew is on them, is a certain cure for snails, If persevered in.

Hawthorne's House.

A breath of air from a bygone day and a vanished world hovers around a real estate advertisement in the Boston Transcript “The VTayslde,” the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne in historic Concord. Mssa. is offered Jcr net

SOLDIER THE 7TH

By DOROTHY DOUGLAS.

(Copyright, IMS, by McClure Newspaper " Syndicate.) Lucinda purled -the last row on her seventh sleeveless sweater. Six of the'boys she had grown up with already had their warm khaki sweaters “somewhere in France,” and this seventh one she would send to John Watson. When it was finished, Lucinda put a suggestion of sachet in the woolly folds. It would remind John of femininity. She felt sure he, would like that familiar scent Also she tucked In some chocolate and many packages of his favorite cigarettes. Her letter was long and gossipy. Lucinda tried, in all her letters to the soldier boys, to give 'them a touch of home; a feeling that they were still near and dear to her and a part of the daily life at home. It seemed an unusually long time t before she heard from France. She supposed John’s regiment had. gone into action. Perhaps that was thfe delay. But when word came from the sweater it was in another handwriting than that of John Watson. Lucinda’s fair head dropped forward and she shook with terrific sobs. John was the first of her seven brave fighting friends to fall in battle. When her tears permitted her to continue the letter she found the contents peculiarly touching. He, the soldier who had written it, was John’s closest pal. They had stood side by side in the trenches. “ —and I wish the shell had taken me rather than John,” the letter ran. “He had much to live for, while I’m one of the lonely soldiers you read about. John has spoken of you to me and I know you’re the kind of girl that would want me to take the sweater you made for John. I need it badly and know he would want me to have it. The package came just after John fell. I read the letter and shared the cigarettes and chocolate with the rest of the boys. If you have a moment for a lonely soldier please write me as you would have John.”

She wrote back a long letter and sent more cigarettes and chocolate as well as wristlets and a helmet. She made minute Inquiry as to any special requirements he had and thanked him for the plots he had sent. While letters and messages were crdsslng the wide ocean Luelnda wrote a story that brought her In the biggest check she had received any magazine. The vivid bits of life that David McLeod, the seventh soldier, 4wtd sent her had added a strong touch of reality to her work. She wrote him of tfie success of the story and told him that she was putting half the check in a little bank. “When you come over to America after the war,” she wrote, “we will spend all your half of the check making you forget the tragedy of war. I am spending mine all on soldiers —doing just the little things that I can.” Lucinda and David continued their strange correspondence and found much pleasure in it. Her stories Improved wonderfully and the bank for the returning soldier became bulgy with checks. But the day came when Lucinda waited in vain for an ansWer to her letters. After long days of depression, when she had quite given up hope that David was one of the living heroes, she had a letter from a hospital In France. “They almost got me,” he wrote, “but I’m pulling through like a team of American- mules. Guess it takes more than a bunch of Boches to kill this globe trotter. I’m coming over to your country when my wounds are sufficiently healed to let me travel.” •• Lucinda put down her head again and cried. The tears were happy and might have sent tiny flowers springing up had they fallen on earthly gardens.

Her stories were decidedly happier now—the endings more complete. In the little bank a considerable sum hwaited David. Lucinda realized that It would take a lot of going to spend all that on inaklng David forget He had told her to look for a onelegged man when it came near time for his arrival, and when he stood outside her studio door Lucinda’ gasped with joy at his nearness. David had told her the exact date. His crutches for the second tore at her heart, for It meant that he had suffered and suffered dreadfully. “Here, here,” he said brusquely, wanting to hide his emotions. Tm a soldier with a grand medal—not a baby doll.” This was when Lucinda fluttered about doirig the thousand and one things an ultra-feminine woman must do for a soldier who has fought. She blushed hotly but continued, for in David’s eyes she read the hunger for mothering and home. She felt instinctively that her seventh soldier needed her more than any of -the others. In fact, Lucinda, felt many things —among them that her own need of David was going to be great She had written of so many fine men, but David embodied the finest of them all. She hoped desperately that he would fall in love with her. "We’ll write plays together and noyels and do all sorts of big things,” he said, voicing her very thoughts. “And some day, when you’ve used up all the plots we will globe-trot—for more. You see,” he added tenderly, “a lonely soldier gets a great chance when a, knitted sweater arrives.”