Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1909 — Independence of the Home Lost In Modern Apartments. [ARTICLE]

Independence of the Home Lost In Modern Apartments.

By the Right Rev. JOHN J. GLENNON, Archbishop of St. Louis. CHE modern city dweller has come to be something like the cliff dweller out in the pueblos of the west. Like them, our modern citizens build one above another and, instead of houses of their own, live in apartments that bear somebody else’s name. THERE USED TO BE INDEPENDENCE, BUT THOSE WHO LIVE IN APARTMENTS ARE DEPENDENT IN THEIR COMINGS AND GOINGS, DEPENDENT FOR THEIR LIGHT AND HEAT, DEPENDENT FOR BODY AND SOUL, UPON THE ELEVATOR BOY AND JANITOR. But the MODERN APARTMENT HAS COME TO STAY, and no criticism will prevent its growing popularity. You will say that the citizen today is driven to accept it because he cannot procure sufficient help or the help he procures won’t help him; that there is independence enough to be found in the apartments and time and money and responsibility demand it. I will admit much of this. Still, the apartment house, whatever its advantage, IS NOT AND CANNOT BECOME A HOME. Dependence is still your life’s legend, with obstructions and restrictions of all kinds around it. IT 18 HUMILIATING TO ANY ONE WHO WOULD CLAIM TO BE THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE TO FIND THAT HIS HEAD MUST BE BOWED ALL THE TIME, AND, AS FOR THE FAMILY, THE RULES OF THE UP TO DATE APARTMENT DO NOT SUPPOSE THAT YOU HAVE A FAMILY.