POSTLUDE 159 



ever, instead of duplicating, with false romanticism, the 

 clumsy appliances of pioneer days, will be modern and 

 efficient. Power will be used both to eliminate drudgery 

 and to speed up production. Modern inventions will supply 

 comfort. The homestead will furnish the security of which 

 industrialism has deprived us. What I called domestic ma- 

 chinery in my last book, in contrast to factory machinery, 

 is to be given a chance to free the unemployed of Dayton 

 from their dependence upon industry and make possible a 

 higher standard of living than they ever before enjoyed. 



"Dayton is not waiting for economic planning in order 

 to find some way of taming the machine. It is decentraliz- 

 ing production, instead of integrating it; and eliminating 

 distribution costs by making the point of production and 

 the point of consumption one and the same. It is making 

 the home, rather than the factory, the economic center of 

 life, and turning to education, and the artist-teacher rather 

 than to the politician and the technical specialist for a 

 way out. Dayton promises to make social history. Some- 

 thing really new is emerging from its struggle with the 

 problem of relief." 



Since the above was written, the goal for the coming 

 year in Dayton, provided the necessary capital can be 

 secured, is to establish fifty Homestead Units to enable 

 between 1,750 and 2,000 families to make themselves self- 

 sufficient and secure even under present-day depression 

 conditions. These units will form a ring around the city, 

 as can be seen from one of the drawings reproduced. 

 While an effort will be made to keep the units as close to 

 the city as possible, the tentative limit set by the committee 



