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no permanent or healthy revival in the building-supply industries because there will be no restoration of prostrated hope to save the home and no check to the devastating loss of faith in the wisdom of home ownership.

Finally, there is not one line in this bill, with all its regimentation, that protects the home owner from excessive interest rates on repair loans.

Mr. Farrington gave you that illustration in connection with the roofing matter, and I will not here attempt to go into it further.

To forestall your thought that we have come only to find fault, let me say that last January we presented to the R.F.C. as a basis of a specific request our own plan of home-mortgage stabilization and reconditioning which would not require any legislation; which was based upon the private and connective initiative of home owners in cooperation with mortgage holders with only such emergency liquidity from existing Federal credit facilities as emergency conditions warrant and as existing law permitted.

This program takes into consideration the need of concentrating a reconditioning campaign upon home-owner groups that can protect their homes from further devaluation by putting on needed repairs.

And, Senator Couzens, may I call your attention to the fact that in our plan we dug out a way in which we may get to the home-owner groups that could make repairs, and I will be glad to put that in if you wish.

It provides for competent and disinterested counsel to the home owner as a guard against needless further debt commitments and unsound charges for credit. Neither of these things are done by Senate bill 3603. Furthermore, the bill would effectually block such services to the home owners of the country.

Finally let me put this into the record: Our program, based as it is on private initiative, will bring back the billion and more dollars of private capital needed each year to keep our 25 million family dwellings in repair and will bring it back in a way that will start into circulation the stagnated red blood of the building industries and relieve us from the menace of Federal control in the field of home ownership, because it was devised from the viewpoint of the homeowner interest.

Mr. Chairman, I have a 2-page statement here about the structure, scope, polices, and so forth, of the membership of the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise that I should like to put into the record if you want it.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well. You may do so.
Miss OBENAUER. It is as follows:

STRUCTURE AND PURPOSE OF THE ORGANIZATION

1. The Home Owners' Protective Enterprise is a national noncommercial organization of home owners incorporated only a little over a year ago under the laws of the District of Columbia. Its name is protected throughout the United States and its insular possessions by registry in the United States Patent Office. Its powers and limitations are clearly defined by its charter and incorporator bylaws which cannot be changed without submission to the four national consultants, who are not removable and whose numbers cannot be increased except by the consent of at least three of such consultants. These instruments assure to resident members of each State and political subdivision complete control of their own home-owner policies and activities, including the building up of their own membership, the collection of dues and the maintenance of

membership records. Because the organization is so young and because its national officers and resources have been absorbed thus far in discharging the principal function of the national office, viz, getting to all home owners in every State information essential to their guidance and protection during these stressful times, there has been no check-up as to the State membership. As a result of our series of coast-to-coast broadcasts, not only have membership applications and inquiries come in from all over the country, but there are pending applications and inquiries from State and local home-owner associations for mergers or working affiliation with the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise. Some of these local associations claim 14 to 15 thousand members-some do not state their membership. All of such applications or inquiries must be referred to the State policy committee for action. The decision is limited only by the general provisions of the charter and bylaws of the national organization, most important of which to this committee are:

That no officer of a commercial home financing agency or of a utility company whose services enter the home is eligible to membership, nor can money in either gifts or loans be accepted from such sources;

That the State units of the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise and such home-owner associations as it absorbs must be absolutely noncommercial, nonpartisan, and exclusively for the home-owning family.

Just one word further about charter and by-law provisions: Pending the time when State policy committees in half or more of the States have selected 2 members-1 man and 1 woman-to serve on the national policy committee to control by majority vote the policies and personnel of the national office, it is the right and duty of the national officers to disseminate information important to homeowners and to express judgments as national officers on measures introduced into Congress in the name of the home-owning family for purposes or with effects outside of the advertised intent of the legislation. It is time and it is our duty to let the home-owners of the country know just what actually is in such measures, regardless of what is said about the intention of its official sponsors whose good faith we do not question.

As to my personal qualifications to speak of conditions in the field of home ownership:

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my hair has grown white, and not prematurely either, in collecting and interpreting facts, the results are matters of published and public records, they will mark the degree of my.dependability as a fact-finder and analyst.

For the last two and a half years I have been studying intensively conditions in the field of home ownership and mortgage finance, not alone as revealed by published and unpublished figures of government and private agencies, but as revealed by thousands of individual home-owners whose mortgage finance status are separately shown on cards filed in our Barr Building offices. More than any officer of the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise I have talked and corresponded with these men and women. Such is the background and basis of testimony presented to this committee from the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise in the interest of the 14 million families who own the home in which they live.

The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions by the members of the committee? [A pause, without response.] We are very much obliged to you.

Miss OBENAUER. I thank you for hearing me.

AMENDMENTS OFFERED BY MR. FARRINGTON

Hon. DUNCAN FLETCHER,

HOME OWNERS' PROTECTIVE ENTERPRISE,
Washington, D.C., May 25, 1934.

Chairman Committee on Banking and Currency,

United States Senate.

MY DEAR SENATOR: I am submitting 14 amendments to Senate bill 3603. At the time you so courteously invited suggestions as to needed amendments I was not in a position to make them, as I did not know the attitude of the Board of Governors of the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise in this matter. I make them now with the full approval of the board. I am requested, however, to make clear that while the attached amendments would remove some of the features of

the bill which we feel are very hostile to the interests of home owners, it is the conviction of the officers that such amendments do not remove the fundamental objections to the National Housing Act as the measure still moves up in the direction of needless regimentation in the field of home ownership and needless increase in the burden of taxes.

Yours very truly,

MARVIN FARRINGTON, Attorney.

Amendment no. 1 to Senate bill 3603: On page 4, strike all of line 17 after the word "Government," and strike all of lines 18 to 20, both inclusive. Amendment no. 2 to Senate bill 3603: On page 4, strike the following at the end of line 23 and beginning of line 24: "personal finance companies,”.

Amendment no. 3 to Senate bill 3603: On page 6, line 4, change the period after the word "title" to a colon and add the following:

Provided, however, That it shall be a condition precedent to making any such loan or agreement to lend that the Corporation shall require any and all such financial institutions applying to it to produce evidence to prove that each and every obligation representing a loan or advance of credit presented to the Corporation does not include interest and financing charges, against the maker of such obligation, which together are in excess of an actual 8 per centum per annum: And provided further, That the Corporation is hereby prohibited from making a loan or agreement to lend against the security of an obligation representing a loan or an advance of credit that includes interest and financing charges, against the maker thereof, which together are in excess of 8 per centum per annum.

Amendment no. 4 to Senate bill 3603: On page 6, line 10, strike the word "amortized".

Amendment no. 5 to Senate bill 3603: On page 6, line 11, strike the following "or low-cost housing projects,

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Amendment no. 6 to Senate bill 3603: On page 6, line 20, strike the figures "80" and in lieu thereof substitute the figures "70".

Amendment no. 7 to Senate bill 3603: On page 6, line 21, add a comma after the word "therefor" and then strike the remainder of line 21, all of line 22, and the following from line 23: “in the case of homes constructed since the passage of this act, or 60 percent of the appraised value of such property in the case of existing homes,

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Amendment no. 8 to Senate bill 3603: On page 6, line 25, strike the word "existing".

Amendment no. 9 to Senate bill 3603: On page 7, lines 3 to 8, both inclusive, strike the following: "It shall be the duty of the Corporation to discourage socially undesirable building or purely speculative overbuilding, and the Corporation shall not insure mortgages where in the opinion of the Corporation such socially undesirable building or purely speculative overbuilding will result."

Amendment no. 10 to Senate bill 3603: On page 17, beginning in line 15 and ending in line 22, strike the following: "Such associations, including their franchises, capital, reserves, and surplus, and their loans and income, shall be exempt from all taxation now or hereafter imposed by the United States, and all shares of such associations shall be exempt both as to their value and the income therefrom from all taxation (except surtaxes, estate, inheritance, and gift taxes) now or hereafter imposed by the United States; and”.

Amendment no. 11 to Senate bill 3603: On page 22, line 20, strike all of line 20 after the comma (,), and also strike all of lines 21, 22, and 23.

Amendment no. 12 to Senate bill 3603: On page 36, lines 9, 10, and 11, strike the following: “in no case shall the amount of the advance exceed 60 per centum of the value of the real estate securing the home mortgage loan".

Amendment no. 13 to Senate bill 3603: On page 36, line 14, strike the figures “50” and in lieu thereof substitute the figures "65".

Amendment no. 14 to Senate bill 3603: On page 36, lines 15, 16, and 17, strike the following: “in no case shall the amount of such advance exceed 40 per centum of the value of the real estate securing the home mortgage loan”.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now hear Mrs. Sherman. If she will come forward to the table and take a seat opposite the committee reporter.

Mrs. SHERMAN. I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you please state your name, address, and whom you represent?

STATEMENT OF MRS. JOHN D. SHERMAN, NATIONAL CONSULTANT, HOME OWNERS' PROTECTIVE ENTERPRISE, BARR BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mrs. SHERMAN. I am Mrs. John D. Sherman, Washington residence, Hotel Grafton. I am a national consultant in charge of organization contacts of the Home Owners' Protective Enterprise; a past and honorary president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, retiring chairman of the American Home Department of the Federation, and presidential commissioner of the United George Washington Bicentennial Commission in charge of women's organizations of the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement.

Mrs. SHERMAN. And I will state that I own a home in Colorado.
The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Mrs. SHERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am deeply interested in the American home and in home ownership. I feel that everything that is humanly possible should be done at this time to safeguard the home owner from the loss of the family dwelling.

I am opposed to the pending bill for reasons expressed by Miss Obenauer and Mr. Farrington. I feel that it fails to give distressed home owners the needed and hoped-for assistance and in general is not to their best interest.

Of all the losses sustained by the Nation during the last 5 years none has been more serious than the loss of homes through foreclosure. The home is the very foundation of our social structure, and where a home is lost through loss of power to meet obligations it means much more than the loss of a house. It means the family's loss of its life savings-a loss of confidence-a deadening blow to family morale and a mortal wound to home ownership.

I believe the Nation would be benefited as much as the home owner if greater sympathetic consideration were given to an effort to saving its home-owning industry. And aside from this I object to the strong evidence of regimentation of homes disclosed in this bill by the last two speakers.

I am not speaking officially for any organization of women but my experience with these groups covering a period of 25 years gives me a very fair idea of the reactions of the women of the Nation to any plan that even suggests regimentation or standardization of their homes.

This is also the thought of the president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs who said in a public address the 11th of this month:

We want no standardization of homes, we want individualism, and we sound that note of warning to the Government in our cooperation with them.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions by members of the committee? [A pause, without response.] We are very much obliged to you. Mrs. SHERMAN. I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. We will now call Dr. Compton.

Mr. COMPTON. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Please state your name, place of residence, and occupation.

STATEMENT OF WILSON COMPTON, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE NATIONAL LUMBER MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. COMPTON. Mr. Chairman, I am the general manager of the National Lumber Manufacturers' Association. I am here in their behalf and for the lumber code authority.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you examined the pending bill (S. 3603)? Mr. COMPTON. I have.

The CHAIRMAN. You are familiar with it, I take it, and we will be very glad to have your views.

Mr. COMPTON. I think it would probably not serve any good purpose for me to comment on the general features of the bill, as to which I and those for whom I speak are quite in accord with those who have appeared here in favor of the proposed legislation. We want to be understood as endorsing this bill in all its major aspects, in all its principal provisions, together with a confession of incompetence to pass judgment upon the adequacy of some of its details, as to which undoubtedly there is competent professional and expert assistance available to the committee.

I think perhaps a statement on my part would be most helpful if it represents particularly the viewpoint of an industry whose principal and special relationship to this subject will be that of those supplying materials. And I believe it is true that the lumber industry and its related timber products industries will be more largely involved in the supplying of materials for home building and home repairs, such as is contemplated in this legislation, than any other one industry.

The situation in our industry I should like to lay before you with a few brief figures, although with no unnecessary statistics. I think, Mr. Chairman, you know from the standpoint of your own State, that we are engaged on a rather difficult code undertaking, particularly in respect of increased wages over the country as a whole which has been much greater than in the case of most other industries. The increase in minimum wages has been a little over 100 percent since a year ago. That reflects great advance. In addition it reflects the dismal sweat-shop level to which wages in these industries had been forced by the cycle of destructive prices that were under way in this industry, and in most other industries with which you are doubtless familiar.

The CHAIRMAN. Has there been any materially increased demand for lumber?

Mr. COMPTON. There has been since a year ago. Since the code went into effect there has been an increase of about 30 percent in volume and-

Senator BARKLEY (interposing). What increase has there been in prices?

Mr. COMPTON. The increase in prices has been, as an average for the industry and please understand that there are a good many that are vastly more, and some vastly less-but the average is about 60 percent.

I am speaking now solely of material prices, mill prices as to which I am only competent to speak.

This is what has happened in the last year under the code: As to an industry which a year ago its business had shrunk in volume to the

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