214 City Homes on Country Lanes 



all, it possesses the confidence of the people in a degree 

 that no private organization, however enlightened and 

 unselfish, can ever hope to attain. 



I repeat : It is not money, but the right sort of leader- 

 ship that the people have a right to expect from their 

 Government. The country-minded masses in our cities 

 can pay for garden homes about as readily as they can 

 pay rent on city apartments, if they can only be shown 

 the way. It would be not only kindly and humane, but 

 absolutely constitutional, for the Government to "pro- 

 mote the general welfare" by this means. 



The scientific organization of a garden city involves 

 not merely the selection, purchase and improvement of 

 the site, including public facilities and private dwellings, 

 but the setting up of advanced forms of social and 

 economic life. These things take care of themselves 

 after a while, but not at the beginning. Take the 

 matter of cooperation in buying and selling: The 

 argument for the system is unanswerable. It is pre- 

 posterous to have a number of little competing stores, 

 duplicating all the processes and all the expense in- 

 volved in distribution, when one fine central department 

 store, cooperatively owned and managed, ought to serve 

 the community infinitely better. If I were founding a 

 garden city in almost any European country, I should 

 not hesitate to adopt the better way; nor would the 

 people consent to consider anything else. Cooperation 

 is in the European blood; but not nearly as much so in 

 the American blood. Many of us have had experi- 

 ence and "the liuriil child dreads the fire." 



The establishment of a successful cooperative enter- 

 prise on a purdv democratic basis requires fidelity to 



