house is theirs, but will complain loudly if the landlord will not add two
without increasing the rent.

At the foundation of what seem exorbitant rents is this demand for modern
improvements in old houses, and the atrocious carelessness of tenants of
property. It is not their own, and they do not obey the golden rule in the
use of it.

Every five years or so plumbing laws are changed, and if an old house is
touched the fixtures and pipes must be all renewed. Tenants have learned
to fear the sanitation of old houses, and yet abuse the appliances they
should care for.

Public ownership or corporate ownership or an increased lawlessness are
accountable for a disregard of others' rights and of property which is
unnecessarily increasing the cost of living.

I have said elsewhere that it is not because the landlord does not want
children in the house but because he does not want such ill-bred children,
vandals, who have no respect for anything. He charges high rent because
his investment is good for only ten years.

The shibboleth of duty to own a home has so strong a hold on the moral
sense of the people that it is made use of by the promoter who may in some
cases think himself the philanthropist he intends others to call him. I
mean that the duty of owning and the heinousness of paying rent are so
ingrained that buying on the instalment plan has seemed a righteous thing,
even with the examples of broken lives in plain sight. As an incentive to
save, if there were anything to save, it might have been justified in the
days of feudalism. But for an independent American to confess that he