by an equal amount for slum clearance by municipalities in order to purchase real property for a song. They will undoubtedly utilize the additional $1,600,000 Government guarantee of mortgages to further feather their nests. Homes for the rich and well-to-do may be a byproduct of this plan, but to say that millions of working men will find livable dwellings as a consequence of this bill is nothing but a deliberately sponsored illusion.

Even that section of housing to be sponsored directly by the Government is not to be built by the Government, but merely financed by it. The building will be farmed out to private architects, bid out to private builders, and subcontracted to private contractors. This provides another opportunity for the building material interests and the building contractors, using all the infamous methods which have made the building industry the third most profitable in the country, to extract exorbitant profits at the Government's expense. Added to this is the other ingenious method of so poorly constructing Government-built projects whereby the small rooms and lack of closet space make these houses so uncomfortabe that they cannot enter into competition with higher rental privately owned dwellings.

It is worthy of notice that with President Truman's endorsement of this bill it becomes a bipartisan measure. This, then, is the very best that the two parties pledged to uphold capitalisın-and it might be added the Wallace Party likewise wedded to this system-have to propose in the richest and most prosperous country of the whole world. Only one home where almost 60 are needed.

We are not impressed with the argument that this pitiable half measure is better than none at all. The so-called liberals are worried that not even this bill will get through Congress. What a damning commentary it is that the only program of liberalism today is the acceptance of half-poverty, half-homelessness and half-slavery. Those who listen to this siren's song will eventually be faced with total poverty, total homelessness and complete slavery.

This bill must be rewritten from beginning to end. The government must itself build not 500,000 homes but at least 29,500,000. Such an enterprise is the very minimum required for the common decency of the millions of men and women who have labored to produce the great wealth of this country. Naturally such a program will meet the undying hostility of the powerful banks and trusts which rule us today. To them such a project is "pure socialism."

These monopoly interests have reached a stage where they can no longer maintain a peacetime economy, they no longer have the desire or incentive to produce the works of peace. Profits for them today are inextricably tied up with producing instruments of death and means of destruction. To remove their obstruction and sabotage is therefore the first prerequisite for a genuine housing program, for the welfare and happiness of the great masses of the people.

Where will the billions come from to initiate such a program? Where did they come from when it was found necessary to build tanks, ships, guns, and planes during the last war? Where did the billions come from that were required to build the satanic Oak Ridge atom bomb development? We propose as a begin. ning that the billions once again being used to build the engines of death and destruction and to finance private armies all over the world be transferred to the housing program. We propose the complete reversal of the taxation program with the aim of exempting the poor and confiscating the fabulous billions in profits extorted from the Government by the great corporations during the war and extorted from the public through inflationary prices after the war.

First, the Government would invoke the right of eminent domain over all lands and properties where it intends to build, instead of paying the king's ransom the realty interests would demand for their property.

Second: The Government will insure itsef against a new profiteering raid on the Treasury by nationalizing and operating under workers' control all the feeder industries which provide building materials, to avoid paying the racketeering prices by which private industry makes cheap housing impossible.

Third: The Government would set up a Government planning board consisting of the outstanding architects and engineers and representatives of the workers in the building industry to carry through the project.

One of the byproducts of such a program would be the teaching of skilled trades and the creation of jobs at decent wages for millions of men.

If carried to completion this program will help turn America into the garden spot of the world, not for a handful of parasites as it is today, but for the millions of America's workers and farmers.

(The statement of Frederick A. Ballard, in behalf of the Washington Housing Association, above referred to is as follows:

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK A. BALLARD, RERESENTING THE WASHINGTON HOUSING

ASSOCIATION

Mr. BALLARD. The Washington Housing Association comprises a group of local citizens who for the last 15 years have been working for the provision of decent housing, especially for families of low income, in the District of Columbia. This association approved the original housing bills S. 1592 and S. 866, and reaffirms its support of the latter bill in the form in which it passed the Senate.

In Washington the need for housing for the low, and even to some extent the moderate, income groups is acute. While there is a substantial amount of housing under construction in the Washington Metropolitan area, the lowest price houses available are generally out of reach financially of the lower-income groups.

The National Capital Housing Authority owns and manages eight low-rent housing projects built with Government loans. In addition, it manages Langston, a 274-unit development for Negroes, which was built by the Public Works Admininstration in 1936. The eight projects, completed in 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943, contain 2,433 dwelling units. This housing was built under provisions of the United States Housing Act which was, in many particulars, similar to the pending bill. It has provided satisfactory rental housing for 2,700 Washington families of low income during a period when very little housing was available for such families. However, there are now nearly 17,000 families on the waiting list for accommodation by the local authority. Some 7,000 of these are veterans' families. The Bureau of the Census reports that some 40,000 families were living doubled up here in April 1947. Habitable vacant dwelling units available for rent in July 1947, were reported to be two-tenths of 1 percent.

Temporary houses originally constructed for rent to war workers, and now occupied by families with income of $3,000 or less, number 4,114. These houses are required to be torn down or otherwise disposed of very shortly and the occupants will be added to those already seeking rental housing here. The Census Bureau in 1947 reported that there were 45,000 houses in the District of Columbia where demolition of major repairs were indicated.

Our Veterans Housing Center reports that their records indicate a shortage here of 30,000 dwelling units.

Confronted with this state of facts, some of the members of the Washington Housing Association last year initiated a project for the construction of 300. dwellings for veterans, to be privately constructed and operated in order to attempt to demonstrate a practical method of partially meeting this emergency. A corporation was formed, a tract of land was optioned and estimates for the lowest conceivable construction were secured from a leading manufacturer of preassembled houses. Even with every item of cost reduced to the greatest possible extent, we found that it would be necessary in order to break even to charge a rental of $58.40 for one-bedroom units, $67.50 for two-bedroom units, and $78.50 for three-bedroom units. The objective of low-rent housing for veterans could, of course, not be fulfilled at such levels, and it became apparent that the need could be met only by some kind of subsidized program.

Enactment of the pending bill should apparently enable Washington to construct perhaps 5,000-10,000 low-rent dwellings, thus assuring some definite progress toward meeting what we consider a serious emergency. The Washington Housing Association accordingly joins with the housing associations in many other cities in urging that your committee give favorable consideration to the pending bill in the form passed by the Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. We are happy to have with us this morning the Right Reverend Monsignor John O'Grady, Secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Charities.

Monsignor O'Grady, we are very happy to have you proceed. Monsignor O'GRADY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. First I want to present, for the record, the statement of the National Council of Jewish Women endorsing the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Housing bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the statement of the National Council of Jewish Women will be inserted in the record.

Monsignor O'Grady.

STATEMENT OF RT. REV. MSGR. JOHN O'GRADY, SECRETARY, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES

Monsignor O'GRADY. My name is Rt. Rev. John O'Grady, Secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Charities.

I have been participating in this heated debate about housing for about 18 years, and I know that the debate has been quite heated during the past 10 years. We have been assured right along that some means could be found of providing housing or low-income groups at a price they can afford to pay.

Those of us who have been interested in this program for nearly 20 years felt there was no other way out of it, except through some form of public housing.

At first, as an individual, I gave a good deal of attention to the possibility of cooperative housing for low-income groups, and I sort of talked myself out of that. Most of the people who were interested in cooperatives also have talked me out of it.

Then, we have heard people on the other side of the fence tell us that there are other ways out of it. But it seems to me that this is a serious social problem.

I had the opportunity of hearing the mayor of Detroit yesterday. I had visited his city just this week and I had seen some of the families to which he referred yesterday. I visited them. I saw one of his emergency shelters, and had talked to the families and their children, occupying that shelter.

Now, I take rather a matter of fact view of the situation. Needless to say, I am not a Communist, nor a Socialist, nor a cousin of any Socialist or Communist, and I regard myself as an economic conservative. I want to make that clear for the record. I think my background in regard to these matters is clear, and I do not believe it needs too much study. I think it is rather an open book. I am perfectly willing, if anybody can present any other program for lowincome housing, to accept it.

Those of us who have worked on this program and who have been discussing it for many years, thought about housing for families with children. We have not thought about housing for single individuals. We thought that for the time being they could hustle for themselves, and we still believe that they can hustle for themselves. I do not think we were thinking about housing for $4,000 a year families. We thought they could hustle for themselves, too, and I, for one, still believe they can. So I have no sympathy for those who want to retain them in these public housing projects. We have no more responsibility for them than we have for the ordinary citizen who is outside of the projects. I do not think the fact that we have taken them into the projects, which were supposed to provide housing, temporarily for low-income groups, until such time as they could pay the regular rents, is right. Therefore, I have no sympathy for those who would want to retain these high income families in the housing projects. They were never intended for them and it is very unfortunate that they were diverted to the use of war workers during the war because I think that has complicated the entire picture and has made it easier to confuse the people in regard to this entire picture. I think that was made clear by the testimony offered yesterday.

We talk about cities carrying this load. I think we had better study the load they have to carry, and I think that in studying the present load, the present conditions, and the present income from the projects, the rents as they appear at the present time, do not give us any key to this situation. We might as well throw that out of the window. I do not think there is any use in discussing that very much, because we have a considerable number of high-income families in all these projects, and as I move around among these projects-I happened to be in the city of Columbus, Ohio, last Monday. That is the first thing I asked the housing authorities: "How many high-income families do you have in these projects, and what are you doing to get them out?" That is the first question I ask. Of course, they always come back at me with the statement, "Congress passed a law last year and made it impossible for us to evict them." Î say, “I think they ought to get out, anyhow, because it is reflecting on this whole program and is confusing this whole issue."

I do not think it is any answer to say that these families cannot find housing. They are in the same position with the people that you bring here, in your service, to Washington, and in the same position with all other citizens of the same income levels. That was not the purpose of the legislation, and that is not the kind of thing for which we campaigned, for which we fought, and for which we are still fighting. That is not the issue and I think that ought to be made very clear from the beginning.

Of course, as I move around the country, I discuss this housing situation, as I have discussed it with the members of the joint committee individually, as I have discussed it in very great detail with Senator McCarthy, and with his friends-I think I can say that Senator McCarthy is a friend of mine. I have no hostility toward him of any kind. I think he is an awfully fine man, and I think he is honestly trying to find a solution to this situation. I have talked to him frankly about this situation, and I think that he recognizes that there is a need here which cannot be met by private enterprise as it now exists. When you talk with the real estate people you get the same answer. I have had many answers, and I have received many critical letters from real-estate people from all over the country. They wonder why I should want to become involved in this whole controversy. My answer is that I am supposed to be working among the underprivileged and I am supposed to be battling for the cause of the underprivileged. That is the only justification I have for my interest in this field. I am not concerned about it as a political problem. I am concerned about it as a social problem, which affects the lives of thousands of our people and I want to see the problem met properly, and I want to try to get our story across to the American people, because, after all, you are the representatives of the people, we are speaking to you, we are appealing to you as their representatives, and, of course, we have the greatest respect for you as the representatives of the people.

Now, I noticed throughout the testimony yesterday the assumption that somehow or other this thing could be taken care of by the States and local communities. First, we have got to understand the size of the job, and we cannot understand it from the study of the present situation. So much should be made clear. This Detroit situation is self-supporting, you say. It is not really self-supporting, if they

get out all these high-income families. This project is going to be very, very far from self-supporting. You are still going to need a subsidy. I think that ought to be made clear, to begin with.

Now, we speak about the States and local communities solving this problem. I have watched this merry-go-round in Washington for nearly 35 years now, and I have seen a good many movements and I have watched the movements that have developed during the depres sion; I have watched the movements that have developed during the twenties. I have seen the development of what we call Federal responsibility. I have seen it in the Highway Act in 1915. I have watched it in vocational education. I notice, for instance, even in the beginning of the last depression-I followed very carefully what Mr. Hoover was trying to do in developing a national work program, and I have very great respect for former President Hoover. I think he is a great citizen of our country and of the world as a whole. I think he tried very hard, long before the coming of the New Deal, to develop a national work program. While he was talking to the States about undertaking their responsibility, he was also trying to develop and I saw a good deal of correspondence at that time-the foundation for many of the things that were done afterwards. I think that record has never been very fully written. The story of what he did from 1928 to 1932 has never been fully told.

I have noticed that, for instance, when the mortgage market was beginning to shake to its very foundation, people did not sit around here and say, "Let the States and cities handle it." I notice the Congress got very busy and immediately passed legislation. I remember very well the development of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. I know of many of the discussions which entered into the development of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. I do not think in that instance the people said, "You have got to go back to the States." I know there was no thought of it. The only big discussion-people thought I was too wild at the time, because I was advocating public works, and I know some of the tough economists told me that we should put Federal credit under a business structure.

Then we came along to the home loan bank. We did not think about turning that back to the States.

Nor did we, in the matter of bringing commercial credit into this field of housing, making it easier for the builders, securing their loans, up to 80 percent, through the Federal Housing Administration, when all that was in question, we did not raise the question of turning it back to the States. I am simply pointing to this matter for the record.

I have noticed in the letters that came in here in the early thirties, with regard to relief, as they poured in from cities, from mayors of cities: "We cannot take care of this problem in these big cities." I noticed very quickly the change in the mentality of the Congress.

Now, it may be that we have not told our story to the American people properly. We have not brought it into their backyard sufficiently. I said to a prominent newspaper man with whom I rode down from Detroit on the plane the other day, "How about this housing issue?" He said, "Well, it is a secondary issue. I do not think you have brought your story close enough to the American people yet." Well, maybe that is true. Perhaps we need to tell them the story a little bit more clearly. Perhap it needs to be dramatized a little more fully. Because, after all, the members of this committee are going to reflect,