THE TENANT AS A CITIZEN

While all that has been said in the preceding paragraph is true, it must not be thought that tenancy is necessarily a bad thing in all cases, nor that a man who does not own his home cannot be a thoroughly good citizen.  There are circumstances that make it necessary for many families to live in dwellings that they do not own.  Tenancy may be a step toward home ownership.  A citizen may have insufficient money to buy a farm, but enough to enable him to rent one.  By industry, economy, and intelligence, he may soon accumulate means with which to buy the farm he occupies or some other.  The increase in the number of tenants in the Southern States is due in large part to the breaking up of many larger plantations into small farms which are occupied by tenants, many of them negroes.  That many of these tenants are on the road to home ownership is indicated by the facts stated on page 117.

It is as much the duty of the home renter as it is of the home owner to take an interest in the community life in which he and his family share, and to cooperate with his neighbors for the common good.  While he lives in the community he is largely dependent upon it, like any other citizen, for the satisfaction of his wants.  Its markets and its roads are his for the transportation and disposal of his produce and stock.  He gets the benefit of its schools for the education of his children.  He may share in its social life if he cares to do so.  His property is protected by the same agencies that protect that of his neighbors.  He cannot, therefore, escape the responsibility of contributing to the progress of his community to the extent of his ability.

TEAMWORK BETWEEN LANDLORD AND TENANT

It is as much the duty of the man who rents a farm as it is of the man who owns one to make his farm produce to its full capacity, to protect the soil from exhaustion and the buildings and fences from destruction.  But on the other hand, it is the duty of the landlord, both as a good business man and as a good citizen, to make such terms with his tenant that the latter will take an interest in the farm and will find it profitable to farm properly.  There must be team work.

The landlord must be interested not only in his land but in his tenant.  The tenant must be interested not only in himself but in his landlord and his land.  A system that favors the tenant to the injury of the land is bad.  A system that favors the land to the injury of the tenant is equally harmful.  Either system will result in the poverty of both the landlord and the tenant. [Footnote:  Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, quoted by Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones in “Negroes and the Census of 1910,” p 16. (Reprint from the southern workman for August, 1912.)]

The fact remains, however, that home ownership contributes to the permanence, the stability, and the progress of a community.  It is also a fact that conditions have developed in our country, both in cities and in rural communities, which make home ownership increasingly difficult.  In another chapter (Chapter xiv) we shall see what some of these conditions are, and what our government has done and may do to overcome them.