5. We keep hammering away at the importance of their keeping in touch with the county adviser and getting the free literature that is sent out by the state and Federal authorities.
6. We try to be of aid in everything which promotes the general social and economic welfare of the community. For example:
a. Our Mr. —— was chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee in —— County.
b. Any proposition for new roads, new schools, or new churches gets our hearty and immediate support.
c. In all cases where we have been asked to donate an acre or half acre for church purposes, we have done so.
d. We have been instrumental in helping a number of incipient business men to start cheese factories.
"REALTORS"
Certain phases of the real-estate business requiring concerted action, and especially the desire of the higher type of land dealers to put their trade or profession on a higher level, and thus to prevent it from falling into disrepute in the public eye, have led the better type of real-estate men to organize themselves into local real-estate boards with an associate membership of leading local merchants, bankers, lawyers, and others particularly interested in real-estate developments. The "realtors" prefer to speak of their trade as a "profession" or "calling," not a business or trade, for they claim that an up-to-date real-estate dealer is a community builder and leader whose preparation requires a good general education and a special training, pointing out that a number of the best colleges in the country are giving courses in the real-estate business.
Nineteen local boards from thirteen states formed a national association in 1908. At present the association comprises 130 local boards in this country and Canada, with a total membership of about 8,500 persons.
The aims of the National Association of Real Estate Boards are to promote efficiency among its members, to be a clearing house for the exchange of information and ideas, to publish an organ of the association, to broaden the sphere of influence of the local real-estate men, to assist in organizing local boards, to fight the land "sharks" and "curbstone brokers," and to maintain a high standard of professional ethics.