Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, State of Wisconsin Volume 14 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ... Ownership," by B. F. Northrup, LL.D.: Philadelphia, as the greatest workshop of America, furnishes a striking influence in point. Its comparative exemption from strikes is due to the fact that," as a rule, the workingman there owns his home. Hence, he is as conservative as the capitalist. You may fiud scores of squares with nice brick houses of workingmen, not one of which is a tenement house. Philadelphia has now double the number of dwelling-houses of any other city of its size in the world. This marvelous increase in its homesteads is due to its co-operative building associations, numbering over four hundred. They have been tried for nearly fifty years, and have proved such valuable forces in promoting industry, economy, sobriety, thrift and prosperity that the State encourages them by exempting all their stock and mortgages from taxation. Though the holdings of these associations exceed $50,000,000, they are managed by workingmen at little expense, and are always open to public scrutiny. Failures have been very rare, less than in any other class of financial associations. The worst of those closed during the panic of 1373 paid ninety-three cents on tbe dollar. These associations, so unique, tried so long and so successfully, are a model for the workingmen of the country, certainly in large manufacturing centers. That I may speak authoritatively, I will epitom'za certain statements kindly furnished me by an eminent Philadelphian, especially conversant with this subject, who says: The tenement house is unknown here. In the rioti of 1877 the 20,000 members of building associations acted as an effective counterpoise to the lawless throngs that crowded the streets, The instinct of self-preservation, of social order, was as strong with them as with...