ch 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.

The members of the associated local boards call themselves "realtors,"
as distinct from "real-estate men" or "land dealers"--names which, they
feel, are tainted by the unscrupulous methods of the "sharks."

The association has published a code of ethics for its members, in
which paragraph 13 is especially noteworthy. It reads:

As a duty to the public and each other, members should report to
the board misrepresentations or any fraudulent, criminal, or
illegal act pertaining to real estate, which may entrap and injure
innocent or ignorant persons; and the board owes it to members and
the community to take steps to stop such practices and to punish
parties guilty thereof.

The local boards often render certain services to the community. The
valu