146 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



tenants to whom they are willing to rent the place for more than one 

 year at a time. To them I would say that if such a condition exists, 

 it is a strong argument in favor of restricting the amount of land 

 that can be held by an absentee landlord. There has been considerable 

 agitation about this matter and much argument on both sides. It 

 seems to me that we must agree that better homes and better citizens 

 are the rule on farms operated by the owners than on farms which are 

 part of large holdings belonging to absentee landlords. If the state 

 is interested in having better homes and better citizens, and if we 

 agree that these are encouraged by the pride of ownership, certainly 

 we should welcome a law placing a reasonable limitation on the 

 amount of land that any man might own unless he worked it himself. 

 But merely passing such a law will not get us very far in the 

 solution of this problem. We must provide not only for the sale of 

 part of the landlord's holdings, but we must provide also for their 

 purchase by the tenants. And this is by no means easy under present 

 conditions. A tenant, or any one who desires to buy a farm, may do 

 so if he has accumulated approximately half the price. The other 

 half can be borrowed by giving a mortgage on the land as security. 

 Under the old system of borrowing from mortgage brokers, a mort- 

 gage on a farm for half the purchase price is by no means to be lightly 

 considered or carelessly contracted. Such loans usually run for five 

 years. Within that time it is very often impossible for the young 

 farmer to pay any considerable amount. Then th^re is hanging over 

 him all the time the dread of this mortgage, the knowledge that on a 

 certain date it will be due, and the fear that he will not be able to 

 renew the loan, or will be required to pay a generous commission to 

 the agent who handles it. Instances are known where the commission 

 charged for obtaining a loan of this kind was equivalent to one year's 

 interest. Hence the traditional dread of mortgages, and the plan 

 followed by so many farmers of skimping and scraping and slaving 

 during the best part of their lives, and sacrificing education, culture, 

 physical comfort and even health, in order to get out of debt. We 

 need not be reminded that real homes cannot be developed under these 

 conditions. In many cases these farmers and their wives not only 

 spend the best part of their lives trying to pull out of debt, but they 

 come in time to develop a habit of scraping and saving to pay off 

 mortgages, a habit that they never overcome. They start out to pay 

 off on their farm that they may have a home free of encumbrance. 

 It takes all they can save to do the trick. There is nothing left for 

 even the ordinary comforts of life. When the farm is finally paid 



