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402 profiteering. Among immigrant populations the Finns have co-operatively purchased a number of boarding-houses in several cities and are engaged in operating them. In New York City they have purchased tenement houses as well. In Greater New York the Queensboro Corp. has recently built several apartment houses for sale to cooperative organizations of their tenants. But this move- ment is still in its infancy and will probably lag far behind that of Great Britain, because of America's relative lack of experience in economic cooperation in all its forms.

Governmental Housing The most pronounced difference be- tween the housing policies of Europe and those of American states and cities lies in the fact that American cities and states do not under any circumstances build houses for wage-earners. No American city has yet engaged in house construction, and it probably would be unconstitutional in most American states for cities to undertake such construction if they so desired. One American state, Massa- chusetts, has built houses with state money. An appropriation of only $50,000 was made for this purpose and a small tract of land was purchased in the city of Lowell, where 12 houses were con- structed as a demonstration of methods of improved economical house construction. The houses so constructed have been sold on easy terms to their occupants, but the state Legislature has not been convinced of the utility of promoting further experiments.

The Massachusetts Homestead Commission, which was charged with the construction of these houses, has been eliminated, its functions being taken by the state department of public welfare.

The need of providing for the rapid manufacture of munitions and for the construction of ships forced the Federal Government, shortly after America's entrance into the World War, to arrange for the housing of the workmen engaged in war industries. In some instances the population could be housed in existing dwellings, but in more than a hundred communities it was found that manufactur- ing of materials needed for war purposes would be retarded unless houses were immediately constructed. There were three branches of the Federal Government which were engaged in house construction in the year 1918. The War Department built villages of temporary construction at the remote places where it had powder plants, bag- loading plants, etc. The Emergency Fleet Corp. built permanent villages for workmen engaged in construction for the U.S. Shipping Board. The land was provided by the ship-building companies, but the houses were planned, built and financed by the Federal Govern- ment through the housing and transportation division of the Emer- gency Fleet Corp. in 27 different towns and housed more than 9,000 families. The U.S. Housing Corp. which received appropriations from Congress amounting to $100,000,000, planned 128 communities for more than 25,000 families, in addition to housing accommodation for approximately 25,000 single labourers, and actually completed after the Armistice houses for more than 6,000 families and 8,000 single workers. Both the Housing Corp. and the .Emergency Fleet

the value of village and suburban planning, and their experiments in the designing and construction of houses have had and will con- tinue to have a pronounced influence upon subsequent housing un- dertakings of America. These houses in almost all instances are now being sold on relatively easy terms of amortization to their occupants. They are being occupied by skilled labourers and persons of relatively small means who are engaged in commercial pursuits. They have in no sense solved the problem of housing for the un- skilled labourer, but are of great value as an indication of modes of planning and construction for families having an income of from $2,000 to $3,000.

Housing Finance. The relative costliness of housing by the Federal Government combined with the pronounced distaste which the American people have for centralization of power has resulted in a strong reaction against the continuance of house construction by Government. There is, however, in the United States a sentiment for elimination of taxation of mortgages, a movement for tax exemption for new buildings and a movement for governmental aid in the financing of local housing undertakings. The chief Ameri- can device for financing of individual house construction or construc- tion of houses in small groups is the building and loan society. There were in the United States on June 30 1920 approximately 7,788 building and loan associations, with a membership of over 4,280,000 persons and total assets amounting to over $2,100,000,000. The funds are used almost exclusively for the construction or acquisition of house property. The state of North Dakota finances home build- ing by the issue and sale of state bonds repayable with interest not to exceed 6%. One bill before Congress in 1921 would provide for the issue of Federal bonds which would nearly double the assets available to these associations for housing purposes. Other sug- gested measures present recommendations for credit legislation similar to that of Canada, providing for central funds, low interest charges, easy terms of amortization, experimentation, and advice in the matter of housing.

_ Several American states have established housing commissions since the war to handle questions of rent profiteering or other special problems. The housing committee of the N.Y. State Legislature has conducted an extensive investigation into profiteering and col-

lusion in building construction which is to be followed by indict- ments for such malpractices as can be reached by law. Rent- profiteering commissions in many cities and states have succeeded in diminishing flagrant evictions and profiteering in rentals and have in thousands of instances succeeded in effecting conciliation or compromise between landlord and tenant. The necessity of increas- ing rentals in order to make a reasonable return upon invested cap- ital and to encourage new construction has, however, not been ap- preciated by all such commissions.

At the beginning of the year 1921 the situation in the United States was as follows: Building prices during and following the war had increased more than 100%; rentals during the same period increased by about 25 %. The shrewd investor, seeing that he could make no profit in building houses to rent, invested his money in other enterprises. Very few houses had been built for sale because of anticipation of a fall in building costs. Late in the year 1920 building prices began to decline. As the decline had not yet stopped at the beginning of 1921 building had not yet recommenced. The actual shortage of housing in America is not measurable. There has always been a shortage of housing of good quality, but it is cal- culated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that if house-building had continued at the rate of construction which was normal in the pre-war years there would have been 1,200,000 more houses or apart- ments In the United States in 1921 than there were. Many years of conditions favouring building construction were needed to make up for a housing shortage of this magnitude.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Carol Aronovici, Housing and the Housing Problem (1920), California State Commission of Immigration and Housing. Reports and other publications: Morris Knowles, In- dustrial Housing (1920) ; U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation. Report of the U.S. Housing Corp. War Emergency Construction (Housing War Workers) (1919-20). Lawrence Veiller, Housing Reform, a Handbook for Practical Use in American Cities (1910) and A Model Housing Law (1920). Edith Elmer Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage-Earner (1919), National Housing Association, New York City. Housing Problems in America (reports of conferences) (1911-20) and other publications; N.J. State Board of Tenement-House Inspection, annual reports (1904-20); N.Y. Tenement-House Department, reports (1903-17); John Nolen, City Planning. (J. F.) HOUSSAYE, HENRY (1848-1911), French historian (see 13.828) died in Paris Sept. 23 1911. The fifty-fifth edition of his Waterloo appeared in 1906, and after his death were published Jena et la Campagne de 1806 (1912), and La Patrie Gucrriere (1913)-

See L. Sonolet, Henry Houssaye (1905). HOUSTON, DAVID FRANKLIN (1866- ), American public official, was born at Monroe, N.C., Feb. 17 1866. He graduated from South Carolina College in 1887 and the following year was tutor there in ancient languages. From 1888 to 1891 he was superintendent of schools at Spartanburg, S.C., and from 1891 to 1894 was a student in the Harvard Graduate School (A.M. 1892). From 1894 to 1902 he was at the university of Texas as adjunct professor of political science, professor (after 1900), and dean of the faculty (after 1899). He was president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas from 1902 to 1905 and then returned to the university of Texas as president. Three years later he was elected chancellor of Washington Uni- versity, St. Louis, but resigned in 1916. In 1913 he was appointed Secretary of Agriculture by President Wilson and in 1920 was transferred to the secretaryship of the Treasury. He was a member, generally ex officio, of the Federal Council of National Defense, the National Forest Reservation Committee, the Federal Reserve Banks organization committee, and chairman of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. He favoured woman suffrage but was opposed to raising a loan for a soldiers' bonus. He was the author of A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina (1896). HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN (1837-1920), American novelist (see 13.839), died in New York May n 1920. In 1915 he received the gold medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters for his work in fiction. To within a short time before his death he continued to contribute to the " Editor's Easy Chair " of Harper's Monthly. His later works included My Mark Twain (1910); Imaginary Interviews (1910); Parting Friends: A Farce (1911); Familiar Spanish Travels (1913); New Leaf Mills: a Chronicle (1913); The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon: a Fantasy (1914); The Daughter of the Storage and Other Things in Prose and Verse (1916); The Leatherwood God (1916) and Years of My Youth (1916). In 1920 he edited with an introduc-