Better Homes in America | Page 3

expression in turning towards the
making of the home. It is the final answer to every challenge of the
soundness of the fundamental principles of our institutions. It holds the
assurance and prospect of contentment and of satisfaction.
Under present conditions any ambition of America to become a nation
of home owners would be by no means impossible of fulfillment. The
land is available, the materials are at hand, the necessary accumulation
of credit exists, the courage, the endurance and the sacrifice of the
people are not wanting. Let them begin, however slender their means,
the building and perfecting of the national character by the building and
adorning of a home which shall be worthy of the habitation of an

American family, calm in the assurance that "the gods send thread for a
web begun."
Here will be found that satisfaction which comes from possession and
achievement. Here is the opportunity to express the soul in art. Here is
the Sacred influence, here in the earth at our feet, around the
hearthstone, which raises man to his true estate.
(Signed) Calvin Coolidge

THE HOME AS AN INVESTMENT
By HERBERT HOOVER
One can always safely judge of the character of a nation by its homes.
For it is mainly through the hope of enjoying the ownership of a home
that the latent energy of any citizenry is called forth. This universal
yearning for better homes and the larger security, independence and
freedom that they imply, was the aspiration that carried our pioneers
westward. Since the preemption acts passed early in the last century,
the United States, in its land laws, has recognized and put a premium
upon this great incentive. It has stimulated the building of rural homes
through the wide distribution of land under the Homestead Acts and by
the distribution of credit through the Farm Loan Banks. Indeed, this
desire for home ownership has, without question, stimulated more
people to purposeful saving than any other factor. Saving, in the
abstract, is, of course, a perfunctory process as compared with
purposeful saving for a home, the possession of which may change the
very physical, mental, and moral fibre of one's own children.
Now, in the main because of the diversion of our economic strength
from permanent construction to manufacturing of consumable
commodities during and after the war, we are short about a million
homes. In cities such a shortage implies the challenge of congestion. It
means that in practically every American city of more than 200,000,
from 20 to 30 per cent, of the population is adversely affected, and that

thousands of families are forced into unsanitary and dangerous quarters.
This condition, in turn, means a large increase in rents, a throw-back in
human efficiency and that unrest which inevitably results from
inhibition of the primal instinct in us all for home ownership. It makes
for nomads and vagrants. In rural areas it means aggravation and
increase of farm tenantry on one hand, an increase of landlordism on
the other hand, and general disturbance to the prosperity and
contentment of rural life.
There is no incentive to thrift like the ownership of property. The man
who owns his own home has a happy sense of security. He will invest
his hard earned savings to improve the house he owns. He will develop
it and defend it. No man ever worked for, or fought for a
boarding-house.
But the appalling anomaly of a nation as prosperous as ours thwarted
largely in its common yearning for better homes, is now giving way to
the gratifying revival of home construction. Accordingly the time is
ripe for this revival to afford an opportunity to our people to look to
more homes and better ones, to better, more economical and more
uniform building codes, and to universal establishment and application
of zoning rules that make for the development of better towns and cities.
We have the productive capacity wasted annually in the United States
sufficient to raise in large measure the housing conditions of our entire
people to the level that only fifty per cent, of them now enjoy. We have
wastes in the building industry itself which, if constructively applied,
would go a long way toward supplying better homes, so that what is
needed imperatively is organized intelligence and direction. For the
problem is essentially one of ways and means.
And, finally, while we are about Better Homes for America and are
lending such indirect support to the movement as the Government,
States, counties, communities, and patriotic individuals and
organizations can rightfully give, let us have in mind not houses merely,
but homes! There is a large distinction. It may have been a typesetter
who confounded the two words. For, curiously, with all our American
ingenuity and resourcefulness, we have overlooked the laundry and the

kitchen,