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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



October, 1908 



Monthly Comment 



HAT the present time — literally just now — 

 affords one of the most favorable oppor- 

 tunities in which to build is not nearly so 

 widely known as it ought to be. For a 

 number of years past the outcry of con- 

 sumers against the high prices of material 

 and labor has been of the loudest possible 

 description, and everyone who has been in the least familiar 

 with the building situation can count scores of undertakings 

 that have been shelved because of the great cost involved. 

 But notwithstanding the fact that building operations every- 

 where fell off because of the enhanced cost of material, 

 prices continued to mount until it seemed as though there 

 was to be no limit to the increase. And everyone felt this 

 condition, the speculative builder, the individual owner, even 

 the householder who wanted a few boards for a fence or a 

 small number of bricks with which to repair a wall. As the 

 last named class includes the majority of people living in this 

 country the pinch was well nigh universal in its effect. 



The panic of a year ago wrought many changes in the 

 financial situation, and presently extended to every phase of 

 American endeavor. The building material trade was by 

 no means the last to feel its effects, but it has certainly felt it 

 and has continued to feel it for some time. Yet the results 

 are only now being realized by consumers who have, many 

 of them, fortunately awakened to the fact that now is the 

 time to build, because prices are distinctly lower than they 

 have been for some time. What better reason could be ad- 

 vanced for building than this? Even the question of para- 

 mount necessity is not more potent than this, because one 

 can, sometimes, get along without objects of desire, though 

 never long without buildings. But all sorts of makeshift 

 contingencies can be availed of when great expense may be 

 avoided, and hence the cheapness of building materials and 

 conditions is a superlatively potent reason for engaging 

 in any necessary building operation that may now be 

 undertaken. 



This condition is not likely to be permanent nor to remain 

 in force for any considerable period. No class of builders 

 are so susceptible to changes in the price market as the specu- 

 lative builders of the large cities, because their operations 

 are largely carried on with borrowed money, and there must 

 be quick returns to yield profitable results. There has been 

 a decided increase in this sort of building in many of our 

 cities, and that it is clearly due to the fall in prices may be 

 immediately established by anyone who will take the trouble 

 to make comparisons with quotations and estimates made a 

 year ago and, let us say, the day before yesterday. But no 

 one believes these favorable conditions will prevail, no one 

 looks upon them as permanent in any sense; they are matters 

 to be availed of now, or the favorable opportunity will have 

 gone and there will be a fresh postponement of building 

 operations because of high prices. A second reason, then, for 

 immediate work, and the better reason of the two. 



With increased building operations must come increased 

 betterment in the condition of all the allied trades. Low 

 prices that are brought about by adversity confer no real 

 benefit on anyone. They mean loss and stagnation of enter- 

 prise; they mean lack of work; they mean depression of in- 

 dustry; and they mean, in many cases, want and misfortune 

 among many who may not even seem to be connected with 

 the matter in hand. These conditions must be reversed and 



the normal state reached in the swiftest possible time and in 

 the most direct manner. We need, as the daily press has 

 plentifully reminded us in the past six months or more, a 

 quick return to prosperity. This will not be obtained by 

 unnecessary effort or by forced conditions, but by a strict 

 attention to the business in hand. In other words, by a sane 

 solution of the special problem of the day. If, for the time 

 being, the prices of building material are reduced, it is good 

 business to take advantage of that situation. One helps 

 oneself, helps many other people, helps the financial condi- 

 tion of the country and hastens the return of permanent pros- 

 perity by doing precisely this thing. 



One of the most interesting developments of current 

 financial conditions has been a realizing sense of the value of 

 presenting a good front to the world. Every business man 

 has long been aware that this quality is among the most 

 valuable of business assets, and yet the very men who know 

 this often invite disaster by proclaiming calamity aloud in 

 the most public places. Scarce more than two short years 

 ago the whole financial and commercial world of America 

 was rent from top to bottom by the exposures of improper 

 business methods that seemed to have reached to the very 

 highest places. Reputations that presumably were as strong 

 as the rock of Gibraltar disappeared over night or were 

 irretrivably ruined in a single hour. The scribes, seeking 

 good markets for their wares, rushed into the most public 

 place, each vieing with the other in the hideousness of his 

 disclosures. As a matter of fact, we have not yet recovered 

 from this uproar. 



The reaction came when it was found that these exposures 

 were hurting general business, and that many innocent people 

 were being injured by the mere displayal of other people's 

 sins. As this state of things had been brought about by pub- 

 licity, that vast public agent was enlisted in the great work of 

 restoration. But it is always easier to pull down than to 

 build up, and the eager voices and nimble pens that were so 

 active is destroying have not found it so easy to repair the 

 damages they wrought. Yet the plain duty of everyone is evi- 

 dent : all must help. It is a simple remedy, but a powerful one, 

 and if it could but be applied to the work of reconstruction 

 with the same vigor and force that was employed in destruc- 

 tion, our period of adversity would come to an end at once. 



Those concerned with building in any of its forms have 

 now an opportunity to do their share in bringing about the 

 return of prosperity and individually benefitting themselves 

 by hastening their proposed building operations. A multi- 

 tude of reasons points that the present decrease in prices is 

 simply a sag that, within a very short time, must return to 

 the upward march that made building such an expensive 

 operation only a short time since. Even now the reduction is 

 not uniform, and is quite more distinctly marked in some 

 parts of the country than in others. But it exists, and that is 

 the main fact. That is the valuable fact for the builder, 

 and that is the one great thing that should be borne in mind 

 at the present time. The opportunity thus presented is one 

 that should be availed of at once; it represents a condition 

 that can not last, and we certainly do not desire another 

 panic in order that it may be brought about again. Here, at 

 all events, is something the builder, the investor and the home 

 maker should know. It is a condition that invites the most 

 rigid scrutiny, and which certainly promises a hopeful out- 

 look for the near future of the building industry. 



