Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1904 — RICH MEN’S GREAT CHARITY. [ARTICLE]

RICH MEN’S GREAT CHARITY.

Millionaires to Take the Poor of the Cities and Plant Them on Farms. L'liicago millionaires are organizing to promote a gigantic philanthropic work, no less than the colonization of the slam population of the great American cities upon farms. The Field and Workshop Society is the corporation which has been formed to work out the details. E. T. Rosenthal, who is responsible for the Industrial Art League, has been the principal sponsor and creator. ■The organization will be national. Fifty thousand dollars will be spent in organizing. When societies are organized in all the cities, delegates will meet in convention and elect trustees to conduct the business of the society. The first move of the imw society Will be to get land from the United States government. That is the crux of the scheme. The land, under the operation of the homestead act, can be secured at a nominal price by settlers remaining on it for a brief term of years. Having the laud, the society makes a selection from families of the slums and more such ns give promise of success from the congested districts to new settlements. The society will locate tha families on the land, expecting the railways to give them free transportation. The society will take care of the settlers, until they can support themselves, and as tho lands become productive yearly payments by the settlers to the society will he expected until full setilement is made. The scheme is to he financed by ths issuance of bonds against the lands secured by settlement. Millionaires are expected to take the bonds in $50,000 lots. The project does uot differ iu .purpose from what other societies Iwive attempted. Tiie difference is one of scope.