Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1888 — Building Associations. [ARTICLE]

Building Associations.

Tlieir Financial and Moral value to a Community. Lafayette Courier. There is nothing that will contribute more to the general prosperity of a business and industrial community than Well managed building associations, and the laws under which they are operated have been drawn with such care that ample safeguards for tie protection of investors have f>Pen provided against every conceivable contingency; and h&ses,. by reason of defalcations cv otherwise, are rarely if ever heard of. In order t.o z make bahding associations successful the one thing needful is to get a good beginning; after that they will thrive from the force of their inherent excellence. There is one association of this character in Lafayette, But there ought fiybe at least a dozen—the more ter. Iu R prosperous town, Containing one-fourth the city, do less associations operation, and tfie wonderful pros-: perity is attmmted these instifutioir&, which hive provided laboring men witfimppdrtunities for a safe f Sfid investment of their gs. They are likewise corpffiendable from a moral as well zis a financial standpoint. The ’dlsposifibiroFTFe- average wageworker is to be improvident, and a good share of his earnings, outside of rent and necessary living expenses, goes for unnecessary indulgences, which is not so unnatural as some people ! in better circumstances suppOse, because the lot of a wage-worker is hot a happy one, and seeing ho opportunity for getting a permanent foothold in the struggle for existence, for want of some better investment, the surplus of his weekly stipend is usually invested where there is no hope for a profitable return. Building associations make it possible for every man to own his own house and pay for it with the money that would otherwise go for

rent Seven or ten dollars a month, or whatever the amount exacted by landlords from tenants, is just that much money thrown away by the renter, when by becoming a member of a building association he could apply it to payingfor a home of his own. There isn’t a laboring man in Lafayette who cannot own a house or lot in fee simple inside of the ensuing six years if he will Join a building association and turn his rent mo hey to an investment oh his own account instead of contributing it to his landlord. It is better and safer than a savings bank, and when a man gets a few payinents made on his shares and begins to realize how easy it is to aceuihulate and sees the possibility of being able to be sometiling more than a mere dependant on his salary and the doubtful charity of the owner of the roof that shelters him, he is imbued with a desire to increase his savings, and he lops off unnecessary expenses here and there and is warmed with a zeal to be more economical in his habits and add to the little start he has made and which seems to grow surprisingly. All that is necessary is the startafter that all is encouragement, and the man only wonders why he had not thought of it sooner. By and by he has saved enough to buy a lot aud the association loans him money at a low rate of interest to build a comfortable little cottage, the monthly demands of the- landlordcease to be an annoyance and a drain, and the man has gained a substantial footing that makeshim a better and more independent citizen, who appreciates the importance and responsibilities of citizenship and he has a better opin-

ion of himself and the world than he ever dreamed of before. The lessons in economy and saving he has learned by his experience with the building association have by this time become fixed; expensive habits have been overcome, and he has entered upon a newdiTe'oFiisefulness and respectability. The picture has exaggerated or overdrawn, for the writer himself has seen it exemplified in a georO of instances where improvident inechanics and laboring men have Hot only provided themselves with 'comfortable homes, bht have had their habits and Jbent of lives revolutionized through the beneficient operations of building associations. As an enemy of the dram shops they are more formidable than all the temperance societies in existence, and the mutual advantages of their operation is of great and permanent benefit to every comm'iinity where they exist.