Abuses of Building and Loan Associations
A BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION has on the face of it a wonderfully beneficent sound. Advertisers and agents sing their praises as means by which a working man can get a home on easy terms. And yet, some of them have so manipulated law that he who is in debt to them pours his money into a great vacuum for years, finding himself as deeply in debt after paying for his home twice over, as he was when he began. For instance, a man in San Rafael, Cal., borrowed $2,800 from the Continental Building and Loan Association in July, 1896. The demand upon him, shown in a suit at law, to the present time was $7,764.63, and yet, when he sued for recovery of this sum, the simple defense which the company made was that it was the State law. A law sanctioning such proceedings certainly ought to be ruled out as unconstitutional.