THE CZECHS OF CLEVELAND
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Typical Business Building.
12608 Miles avenue; Quincy gs and Loan Association, Quincy avenue at East 89th Street.
All these encourage thrift and teach the value of small savings by the same methods which the government adopted for the sale of thrift stamps. Twice a year Vcela places on the market a block of shares. The subscriber pays fifty cents a week per share, and at the end of six years is owner of a $200 dollar share, which he may either draw or leave on deposit at five per cent interest.
The builder of a new home can get a construction loan up to three-fourths of the value of the property under way, and these loans are paid off by monthly payments which take care of the interest and constantly reduce the principal. Thus the workingman is assisted to finance the building of his home, and it would require an extraordinary run of bad luck to keep a Czech from completing his payments.
The savings and loan associations have by no means a monopoly of Czech savings and investments. The Broadway Savings and Trust Company, one of the strongest banks in the city, is built largely upon the patronage of the Czechs. The Columbia Savings and Loan Company, also at Broadway and East 55th street, with a branch at 4828 Fleet avenue, also deals chiefly with Bohemians. On the west side the Clark avenue Savings Bank may be considered a Bohemian bank, while the Society for Savings and other down town banks carry many Czech savings accounts. The day after payday in a Czech neighborhood sees a constant procession of depositors with passbooks and hard times seldom find the Czech without an account to draw on.
Newspapers.
Among the occupations of the Czechs listed in Cleveland in 1869, there was one printer. We are not informed whether he had opportunity to work at his trade at that time, but he undoubtedly did in 1871, when the newspaper “Pokrok” (Progress) was brought here from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and es-
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