INDEPENDENCE VERSUS DEPENDENCE 141 



a fuel and light budget of $2.9 5 per week; a minimum 

 rent budget of $4.50 per week. This is a total for each 

 family, each week of $15.85, without provision for 

 accident and illness, birth and death. In the course of 

 one year, even on this minimum basis, $824.20 will 

 have to be expended on each unemployed family con- 

 sisting of five persons. 



Eight hundred dollars, at the present purchasing 

 power of the dollar, is a lot of money. Yet I know, 

 upon the basis of my own experience, that it is more 

 than is required as the initial capital with which to 

 establish a self-sufficient homestead. 



It is much more than the amount with which many 

 of our pioneer forefathers established themselves in 

 the country and supported themselves indefinitely. 



If even half that sum not more than five hundred 

 dollars were to be intelligently laid out for land 

 and lumber, for seeds, livestock, and implements, the 

 average family could produce for itself the bare essen- 

 tials of living, and have plenty of time left for part- 

 time or seasonal employment in industry. With 

 proper instruction and leadership, not much more 

 than half the sum which is now being spent to support 

 a family for a year would be sufficient to take one 

 family permanently off the relief list. It would do 

 more. It would not only enable them to support 

 themselves; it would ultimately make it possible for 

 them to repay the money and materials furnished 

 them. 



The problem of unemployment would for them 



