For instance, the efforts of the philanthropist and working man together
have succeeded in shortening hours of labor and increasing wages--without,
alas! increasing the speed or quality of the work done, especially in the
trades which have to do with materials of construction, so that
house-building has about doubled in cost within twenty-five years, largely
due to cost of labor. This increased cost has fallen heavily on the very
group of people least able to bear it, the skilled artisan, the teacher,
and the young salaried man. Again I call attention to the need of a
philanthropist who shall raise his eyes to that group, the hope of our
democracy, those whom he has held to be able to help themselves--and given
time would do so; but time is the very thing denied them in this motor
age. Help to make quick adjustment must come to the rescue of those to
whom time more than equals money.

One used to wait patiently for seed-sown lawns to become velvety turf.
Money can bring sod from afar and in a season give the results of years.
So the housing of the $2000 family can be accomplished just as soon as it
seems sufficiently desirable. It needs a research just as truly as the
cancer problem or desert botany, and affects thousands more.

One other cause of increased cost in construction and operation which
does, if wisely carried out, increase health and efficiency is the
sanitary provision of our recent building laws.

The instalment of these sanitary appliances becomes increasingly costly
because of the rise in wages of the workmen, plumbers, masons, etc. The
careful statistics of the Bureau of Labor show conclusively that all
building trades have decreased hours of labor and increased wages per
hour, so that cost of construction has doubled, and the sanitary
requirements have again doubled the cost, so that it is easy to see why