clinics, and yet the slums which, it has been said, "can breed in a week more tuberculosis than all sanatoria can cure in a year", are permitted to remain.

If we walk through the back streets, the east sides, the south ends, or across-the-track sections of any city in the United States today, we are shocked into an awareness of our bad housing record. There is a slow degradation which threatens the very life of our people who must reside in slums. In slum areas, taking an ever-mounting toll of crime, disease, and death, nearly 10,000,000 families in the United States eke out an existence in homes which fall far below the standard known to be necessary for maintenance of health and safety. New York City alone counts 17 square miles of slums, where the danger of death from fire is constant, where the hopelessness of such an environment makes a life of crime seem promising by contrast. Nearly 2,000,000 persons in New York live in old-law tenements, classified by law as substandard 35 years ago. These families call as appealingly for aid as did the residents of the recently inundated cities of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Hartford, and the smaller towns which lay in the path of the flood.

Studies made in New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and other cities in past years have pointed to conditions proportionately as bad as those of New York.

Jerry-built, obsolete dwellings offer the low-income family not even the creature comforts. Buildings that do not deserve to be called "homes", of a standard below that we exact for "contented cows", are shockingly omnipresent in communities throughout the country. Although substandard housing takes different forms in different cities, there is little variation in its effect on the tenants.

Houses are consistently crowded close together on the land, commonly four deep, producing terrifying fire hazards, with the outhouses jammed in between the rows of houses. No hot water is available for bathing, cooking, or cleaning; a cold-water tap in the yard is commonly used by as many as 10 families. I have seen in many of these cities a single water tap in the kitchen as the prevailing equipment.

The lack of central heating forces whole families into one room, usually the kitchen, where there is a stove. From Maine to Mexico, from Canada to the Gulf, one finds dwellings so old and poorly constructed that all the ingenious devices of their occupants cannot keep out the rains and sharp winds of winter, that deny protection against the heat of the summer sun.

My own observations of slums in many cities are reinforced by the findings of the real property inventory taken by the United States Department of Commerce in 64 cities in 1934. Over two and a half million dwelling units were inspected. Of the houses enumerated, though the superiority of American plumbing has long been proclaimed, nearly 33 percent of the total number visited had no indoor water closets. Over 50 percent of the dwellings had no baths-either tubs or showers; only 50 percent were heated centrally.

How much longer can we ignore the existence and the social importance of such housing accommodations as these, shelter which is unfit for human habitation, and an appalling contrast to the vast natural potentialities of our country to satisfy the need and the right of every family for a decent, healthful environment?

While one must recognize the fact that the housing problem of low-income wage workers is essentially an economic problem, and that substandard housing is an economic drain on the whole community, I believe the social implications of this problem offer one of the most convincing arguments for such a concerted attack on it as will be made possible by passage of the Wagner bill. We can no longer afford, either as a civilized nation or in the name of common humanity, to remain apathetic toward the slums.

The last 3 years have seen a realistic beginning made in the solution of the housing problem in this country, a solution which is solidly based on the provision of low-rent housing, to which slum clearance is a necessary corollary. The Housing Division of the Public Works Administration has undertaken the construction of 50 demonstration projects, of which more than half necessitated demolition of slum areas. These projects, when completed, will demonstrate the possibility of providing housing of acceptable quality at rents within the means of low-income wage workers. This program has been carried on despite the many difficulties inherent in developing it with emergency methods and ideology.

Efforts to acquire land for low-rent housing at a fair price have been blocked in many cities, owners stubbornly refusing to cooperate. At every point the Housing Division has had to blaze a new trail through territory hitherto untrod in the United States. Carefully formulated policies with respect to various aspects of the program have been gotten under way and then ruled out by the Comptroller General or obliged by an Executive order to conform to shifts in some other part of the emergency program.

Despite the technical and psychological difficulties involved in formulating policies and carrying through to completion projects that will stand the test of time, a most commendable beginning has been made. The emergency program for rehousing urban dwellers now approaching completion has laid a firm foundation of careful research, high standards, and socially motivated policies for the established Federal-municipal housing service so urgently needed and outlined in the Wagner bill.

The Federal Government and the municipalities have gained valuable experience in the field of public housing during the depression and the demonstration period. Growing out of this experience, the continuing, long-range program proposed by the Wagner bill will stimulate local initiative and activity, bring about a certain degree of uniformity with consideration for differences in local needs, establish and make possible the enforcement of national standards, and at the same time affirm the principle of local autonomy.

I should like to have included here on the subject of the legal situation excerpts from a recent decision rendered by the New York Court of Appeals which indicates the right of the housing authority in New York to secure property for slum-clearance projects by exercising the right of eminent domain.

The CHAIRMAN. That may be included in the record at this point. (The matter referred to is as follows:)

The petitioner, a public corporation organized under the municipal housing authorities law * seeks to condemn certain premises in the city of New York ** ** the public use for which the premises are required is stated in the petition to be: "The clearance, replanning, and reconstruction of

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part of an area of the city of New York, wherein there exist, and the petitioner has found to exist, unsanitary and substandard housing conditions." The owner resists condemnation upon the ground that the municipal housing authorities law violates article 1, section 6, of the State constitution and the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution because it grants to petitioner the power of eminent domain for a use which is not a public use.

Briefly and broadly stated, the statute provides that a city may set up an authority with power to investigate and study living and housing conditions in the city (of New York-Ed.) with power to investigate and study living conditions in the city and to plan and carry out projects for the clearing, replanning, and reconstruction of slum areas and the providing of housing accommodations for persons of low income.

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The facts found were that in certain areas of the cities in the State there exist unsanitary and substandard living conditions owing to overcrowding and concentration of population, improper planning, excessive land coverage, lack of proper light, air, and space, unsanitary design and arrangement, or lack of proper sanitary facilities; that there is not an adequate supply of decent, safe, and sanitary dwelling accommodations for persons of low income, and these conditions cause an increase and spread of disease and crime and constitute a menace to the health, safety, morals, welfare, and comfort of the citizens of the State, and impair economic values; that these conditions cannot be remedied by the ordinary operation of private enterprise.

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Concededly, these are matters of State concern. ** * * The fundamental purpose of government is to protect the health, safety, and general welfare of the public. All its complicated activities have that simple end in view. * * The menace of the slums in New York City has been long recognized as serious enough to warrant public action. * The session laws for nearly 70 years past are sprinkled with acts applying the taxing power and police power in attempts to cure or check it. The slums still stand; the menace still exists. * * * Legislation merely restrictive in its nature has failed because the evil inheres not so much in this or that individual structure as in the character of a whole neighborhood of dilapidated and unsanitary structures. To eliminate the inherent evil and to provide housing facilities at low costthe two things necessarily go together-require large-scale operations which can be carried out only where there is power to deal in invitum with the occasional greedy individual owner seeking excessive profits by holding out. The cure is to be wrought not through regulated ownership of the individual but through the ownership and operation by and under the direct control of the public itself.

The designated class to whom incidental benefits will come are persons with an income under $2,500 a year, and it consists of two-thirds of the city's population. But the essential purpose of the legislation is not to benefit that class or any class; it is to protect and safeguard the entire public from the menace of the slums.

The so-called limited-dividend corporation different attempt to solve the problems.

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afe embody another and After 10 years of experiment [their] use, for economic reasons, has proved inadequate as a solution.

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In a matter of far-reaching public concern the public is seeking to take the defendant's property and to administer it as part of a project conceived and to be carried out for its own benefit. That is a public benefit, and, therefore, at least as far as this case is concerned, a public use. The order and judgment should be affirmed.

Senator Wagner's bill gearing the permanent program in with that of the emergency period, gives promise of an effective attack on the slums by providing Federal aid in the form of outright subsidies, as well as low interest bearing and long-term loans, for slum clearance and low-rent housing projects.

It is coming to be recognized very generally that private enterprise cannot provide homes of modern standard at rents sufficiently low to make them available to low-income wage earners. I present to you herewith an economic brief on low-rent housing which has been prepared by Evans Clark, director of the Twentieth Century Fund, and a director of the National Public Housing Conference,

which I shall not take time to read, but which I should appreciate having included in the record of these hearings.

The CHAIRMAN. That may be offered for the record.

(The matter referred to will be found at the conclusion of the statement of Miss Alfred.)

Miss ALFRED. Mr. Clark's main premise is that it is aboslutely essential that governmental subsidies for public low-rental housing be guaranteed.

There have been attempts made recently to side-track or to absorb the slum clearance and low rental public housing program, confusion has been spread abroad, conflict caused by efforts to blur the sharp line of demarcation that lies between the subsidized public rehousing plan and the Government's various agencies of assistance to private home builders and owners. Consolidation, or even any formal coordination of these basically different programs, different both as to purpose and procedure, would surely strike the death knell of the young slum clearance and low-rent housing program, now struggling for existence.

I believe that the enactment of the Wagner bill into law will guarantee the provision of dwellings for those families whose needs are not served adequately by private enterprise, and will make the new housing unavailable to families who can afford to live elsewhere, and thus noncompetitive with ordinary commercial operations.

There are two features of this measure, however, which I would urge you and the members of your committee, Mr. Chairman, to change. In the first place, the amount of the appropriation is pathetically inadequate. I do not at all agree with those who blandly state that we probably can spend no more in the next 5 years than the sum stipulated in the bill. Given a definite and clearly defined plan, an established Federal agency, and the increased number of local housing authorities, why, the bill when passed, will be given great impetus.

I am convinced our American ingenuity and ability are grossly underestimated when it is stated that we probably can spend no more than approximately $9,000,000 in 5 years. It is my estimate, based on the pressure of the needs of the people and on the Housing Division's accomplishments and preparedness for expansion, that we could well plan to spend such a sum as this during each of the next 5 years.

Even at that rate, or with some $4,000,000,000, we should rehouse no more than one-tenth of the families whose needs cry for attention. My second criticism of the bill is the administrative set-up provided. It seems patently unnecessary to hire five persons at a salary each of $10,000 to direct a program that every other country in Europe has allocated to a single administrator in some regular department of government. I should much prefer to see this $50,000, plus the added expense of setting up a whole new organization, go into housing.

Also, it is an unsound policy to divide responsibility among five persons, in my opinion. By placing in the hands of a member of the Cabinet the obligation to carry out the housing program there would be slight opportunity for passing the buck, duplicating effort, or effecting unnecessary delays.

I earnestly hope that the slum-clearance and low-rent housing plan will be left where it now lies, in the hands of the Secretary of the

Interior. Continuity of effort and method will thereby be assured, the present sound policies maintained, and public housing will be defended as rigorously as it has been during the trying emergency years since its initiation.

There is such a peculiar tendency in America today to change horses in the middle of the stream. If perfection is not realized at once, our impatience drives us into some other procedure. I feel we have a public-housing program under way that, despite the problems inherent in emergency technique, compares favorably in quality with that of other governments that have been housing a quarter of a century or more.

I am willing to let the Secretary of the Interior carry on.

In the 10 months which have elapsed since the hearing held before your committee on the original Wagner public-housing bill I have had opportunity to observe a rapidly mounting interest in, and a more intelligent understanding of, this all-important legislation among individuals and groups in many parts of our country.

Where a year ago one heard among public officials the query, "Shall we undertake a slum clearance and low-cost housing program?" today the ear catches the more positive statement, "We must determine what is the best way to undertake such a program."

Fear and suspicion of public housing is rapidly diminishing. Opposition, where it raises its head, is being counteracted by the public impatience with bad conditions of housing, is drowned out by new cohorts who demand that the slums must go.

Because of the wide popular support that Senator Wagner's bill is receiving, it would seem impossible to believe that the measure could fail of adoption by this Seventy-fourth Congress before adjournment. Because of the deep social values of such a program which will be assured of development under the terms of this bill, I wish to urge your unanimously favorable report, your expeditious advancement of it to action by the House.

I know of no better alibi for the promotion of a permanent publichousing program than that contained in a message addressed to a regional conference held in the city of Memphis, Tenn., in October 1934 under the auspices of the National Public Housing Conference. This message came from the President of the United States, and read in part as follows:

The housing division's task was not only to give relief in the emergency, it was also to develop a technique for American slum clearance and rehousing, a work which had been discussed academically for many years, but which we have not attempted to practice seriously.

At the present time few local government are in a position either financially or legally to launch an extensive campaign on their slums. They must look to the initiative and resources of the Federal Government. From my familiarity with the activities of the New York State Housing Board and the Housing Division, I am convinced that urban slum clearance and reconstruction at the outset must be financed and perhaps in some cases subsidized by some governmental agency.

It probably would be wise to set up a permanent agency to develop a program of research, to offer guidance to local authorities when requested or needed. and to handle financing. In all probability for some time to come the Federal Government will have to bear the major burden of financing, with low interest rates and long amortization periods.

Then, in conclusion, the President said: