People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1896 — All Should Have Homes. [ARTICLE]

All Should Have Homes.

“The home is the unit of the nation. “The more homes the broader the foundation of the nation and the more secure. “Everything that is possible should be done to keep this from being a nation of tenants. The men who cultivate the earth should own it. Something has already been done in our country in that direction, and probably in every state there is a homestead exemption. Thisexemption has thus far done no harm to the creditor class. ‘‘l wish to go a step farther. I want, if possible, to get the people out of the tenements, out of the gutters of degradation, to homes where there can be privacy, where these people can feel that they are in partnership with nature; that they have an interest in good government. With the means we now have of transportation there is no necessity for poor people being huddled in festering masses in the vile filthy and loathsome parts of cities, where poverty breeds rags and the rags breed diseases. I would exempt a homestead of a reasonable value—say of the value of $2,000 or $3,000 —not only from sale under execution, but from sale for taxes of every description. “Under certain conditions I would allow the sale of this homestead and exempt the proceeds of the sale for a certain time, during which they might be invested in another home, and ail this could be done do make a nation of householders, a nation of land-owners, a nation of home builders. I would invoke the same power to preserve these homes, and to acquire these homes, that I would invoke for acquiring lands for building railways. Every state should fix

the amount of that be owned by an individual, not liable to be taken frpm him for the purpose of giving a home to another, and when any man owned more acres than the law allowed, and another should ask to purchase them, aud he should refuse. I would have the law so that the person wishing to purchase could file his petition in court-.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.