the aid of the Federal Government in the manner substantially as set forth under the terms of the proposed United States Housing Act; namely, S. 4424 by Senator Wagner and H. R. 12164 by Congressman Ellenbogen; and Whereas by further legislative declaration in July 1933 the Legislature of the State of Massachusetts, having further found that the clearance, replanning, and reconstruction of the areas in which unsanitary or substandard housing conditions exist and the providing of decent, safe, and sanitary dwelling accommodations in said areas and elsewhere for persons of low income are public uses and purposes for which public money may be spent and private property acquired; and Whereas the legislature, having created the State board of housing, and authorized the organization of limited-dividend corporations and under date of July 1935, under chapter 449 permitted the establishment of municipal housing authorities which are declared to be agencies and instrumentalities of the State for the purpose of promoting the public health and safety by providing for the elimination of unsanitary and dangerous housing conditions, for the relief of congested areas, and the construction and supervision of dwellings, and for the letting of apartments at reasonable rentals; and Whereas mortgage funds are not available in amounts sufficient to finance large-scale limited-dividend-corporation projects, or public funds available in amounts sufficient to finance projects of municipal housing authorities without the aid of the Federal Government in the manner substantially as set forth under the terms of the proposed United States Housing Act, being S. 4424 by Wagner and H. R. 12164 by Ellenbogen; and Whereas it is desirable that the benefits of a continuing Federal housing policy be extended throughout the United States by providing for a permanent housing agency in the Federal Government: Therefore be it Resolved, That the Massachusetts State Board of Housing respectfully urges upon the United States Senate the enactment at the earliest date possible of the United States Housing Act of 1936, being S. 4424, introduced by Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York, and urges upon the House of Representatives the enactment at the earliest possible date of the identical measure introduced by Congressman Henry Ellenbogen of Pennsylvania, being H. R. 12164; and be it further Resolved, That a copy of this resloution be sent to the President and to the Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the Members of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor and the House Committee on Banking and Currency. WASHINGTON, D. C., April 21, 1936. GENTLEMEN: The statement herein made that some $325,000,000 could likely be saved, also create employment for about 60,000 in producing substitutes that have been demonstrated as practical to produce locally for 60 percent of the production values of some $300,000,000 in the 1929 census record which was considered to be a normal consuming year, also create further employment to provide a substitute for 80 percent of another material with some $90,000,000 values produced in 1929. The substitute material is not now in any sense, it has been well and practically introduced by private business and capital, also by the Government, all of which can be verified from private and Government publications and illustrations. But it was a product that had to earn its technical recognition for generally marketing it in actual practice before sponsoring the program with Government or private capital to make the economics and the aforesaid employment possible. The further employment the program will create in providing the suggested replacement facilities for manufacturing the product locally is estimated at 430,000 for 1 year directly and indirectly in the first instances and about 200,000 in another instance you will be told about presently following. As the technical approval and other essentials for sponsoring the program was just recently secured, also the right to further finance in compliance with the Security Act, the encouragement we receive from the public offering their cooperation will likely govern our action in sponsoring the program hereafter. However, these technical approvals, etc., were not the real marketing solution. The improving and making a large capacity hydraulic operating machine available was also necessary, to take care of the large products manufacturing program, that could not be produced with the Introductory Hand operating machines. With this accomplished so that the product that is manufactured under this method which quickly evaporates the water essential in its manufacture, can be compressed with hydraulics, which gives it great load-carrying qualities, also water-tight qualities, which similar purpose material generally lacks, that it is proposed replacing with this shell cast cement tile and manufacturing them locally. The following square foot 8-inch wall area produced per man in 8 hours of thin shell cast cement tile (commonly called Pauly tile) and market prices delivered at building site, also of hollow clay tile and ordinary hollow concrete units manufactured by the tamping method and lumber, tends to verify the economies and employment are real possibilities. 1. Thin shell cast cement tile 8-inch square foot wall area per man in 8 hours, 285 square feet; prices at building site, 14 cents. 2. Clay tile per square foot of 8-inch wall 485 square feet per man in 8 hours, prices at building site 14 cents per square foot. 3. Ordinary tamped concrete block or tile per square foot of 8-inch wall, 392 square feet per man in 8 hours, 14 cents per square foot at building site. 4. First-grade lumber cost per square foot of similar purpose walls of wood lath, studding, sheeting, paper, and siding delivered at building site, 16 cents per square foot. It is known the Honorable President, the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, also the Honorable Works Progress Administrator have seen the permanent construction of homes, etc., with such thin shell cast cement tile by the Government in Panama Canal. Recently a prominent Washington citizen, when showing him illustrations of the Panama Canal construction, stated he had just recently visited the Canal and carefully and interestingly noted that construction. Furthermore, a not far back dated letter received by a United States Senator from the Governor of Panama Canal states "The cement tile is extreme y durable in this climate and it is preferred to clay products in that it can be cheaply manufactured to meet the fluctuating requirements of tile at a small capital outlay for plant as it needs no burning.” A letter from a steel housing official states "You (meaning the sponsors) seem to have hit upon a plan of producing a low-cost building unit that only needs establishing of its manufacture throughout the country for its universal use.' A letter from a cooperage official states "In calling on my sisters recently who have lived in a thin shell-tiled home for some 20 years, therefore, I am advising my friends in the lumber business that this tile is the logical substitute for lumber in exterior walls of homes, etc." Hence, this tile is and has been expected to replace lumber in outside walls if and when the essential technical marketing approvals, etc., were secured, therefore become a real forest conserving feature so much talked about and desired by the Government conservation authorities of the Nation's forests. It should be kept in mind that the exterior walls and interior finishes, fixtures, etc., cause the high cost masonry fire or semi-fireproof construction of homes. The thin shell cast cement tile walls need only a thin smoothing up coat of stucco for painting, also a thin smoothing up coat for plastering the interior of the walls for painting and papering and plain interior finish and fixtures for low costs. Such homes will have dry walls with automatic ventilation. Such homes will be 7% to 10 degrees cooler and can be adequately heated with 30 percent less fuel. In fact, such homes will be as comfortable to live in, if not more so, as the homes generally occupied by the taxpayers or likely to be occupied by the taxpayers that will be called upon to make up the subsidies for more expensive constructions. Furthermore, the introductory thin shell detached two-story homes built from footing in the cellars to roofs prove such walls have adequate load quality. In fact the walls were built of tile that did not test over 50 percent of the Federal and city building code load requirements. The tile manufactured in Panama Canal were manufactured of about the same cement content mixture and used at a considerable earlier age. The generally monumental 12-inch solid concrete and hollow walls specified by the Government heretofore for one- and two-story detached homes and threestory row houses only add to their cost, also the heavy load duty tile for light duty service. Hence, the need for subsidies which should strictly be limited for exceptional cases in construction of homes for slum occupants. There are some 5,000 cities that can support a thin shell cement tile plant, therefore, and in lieu of aforesaid, if the expected cooperation is received from the public if this article is published we will undertake to sponsor the tile plants with or without Government financing and 10 low-cost modern homes of three to five rooms for each city at $1,500 to $2,500. The program will provide employment in each city for 86 directly and indirectly to carry it out. At the same time employment can be created for some time for 200,000 more in providing portable tile manufacturing facilities mounted on trucks and railroad cars to produce stocks of low-cost tile, etc., for builder supply dealers in over 10,000 additional small cities and villages. These programs will generally be managed locally and financed locally by local builders and manufactuers when they are shown that durable low-cost omes are possible of semifireproof or fireproof construction. Hence cities that do not provide the homes for occupants of such homes or that should be occupants of low-cost homes are likely to cause such renters to go to cities that will provide such homes. Reducing the load qualities 50 percent and the thickness of walls one-third is up to the technical men and it does not seem logical that they will not cooperate when it is a fact that one-, two-, and three-story homes must be built with safety factors from 1 to 28 to 1 to 72 when the actual loads that will come on the walls in the order named is only some three-quarters ton, 11⁄2 tons, 14 tons. In other words, the usual factor of safety for schools and buildings where many people congregate are of 1 to 4. We do not advocate that the factor of safety should be reduced for such homes over 50 percent which reduction coupled with the 8-inch walls in place of 12-inch walls will eliminate subsidies only under exceptional circumstances. More Government cooperation, particularly in financing, will make the employment providing program, etc., feasible to carry out on a large scale and put well underfoot in 6 months. The program will cost approximately $100,000 per city; that is, where the homes will be built and the employment created with that money will be productive and create assets equally the $100,000 and will make further material available for any type of home, thereafter. Neither the tile nor tile construction has been patented by the sponsors. THE PAULY MANUFACTURING CO., STATEMENT OF JOHN L. LEWIS, PRESIDENT, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA I have asked that this statement be presented the committee that the record may show the endorsement of the Wagner housing bill by the United Mine Workers of America. It has been estimated that even in 1929 more than 12,000,000 families had less than $1,500 annual income, and one-half of these fell below $1,000. Even then the problem of decent housing for these low-income workers was acute; but in the 7 years since then the decreases in wages, the spread of unemployment, the cessation of building, the reluctance to repair, have all contributed to make the problem a major one in the national economy. I am No man earning $80 a month can afford to spend one-third of it for rent. told that under the policy of this proposed law, with its limited grants and longterm, low-interest-bearing loans, homes for the working poor can be created at something near $5 per room per month. The competition with private enterprise promoted by public aid in this field is, obviously, only a competition with slums. The Mine Workers have a direct interest in this legislation. In a large part of the mining districts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and in parts of Pennsylvania and the South the miners live in the cities and towns. Their homes are, by the disparity between their income earnings and the rents charged, too often just dilapidated shacks. But apart from that, we have a larger interest in the living standards of the workers. Those standards start with the home life of the worker and his family. In the low-income class they have been forced to accept the discarded housing of more favored groups or have had to accept the makeshifts which speculative interests have conceived for their exploitation. The lower the degree of earning power the greater has been the degree of rental exploitation of low-paid workers. Such an act ought to stimulate building and the industries dependent upon building activity. It ought to encourage municipal bodies and local societies toward the elimination of slums. It ought to ease the public charge that is caused by the disease, vice and crime of slum life. It ought to lessen the unrest and despair that provide the premises for alien doctrines. It ought to make a definite contribution to better citizenship, for all efforts to promote character and the civic virtues must ultimately involve consideration of home life. RESOLUTION (Resolution by Alderman Pirolo) Whereas within the city of Paterson there exists deplorable housing conditions; and Whereas this condition cannot be remedied by private agencies or initiative; and Whereas there is now pending a bill, the Wagner-Ellenbogen Housing Act which has as its goal the creation of instruments to provide adequate housing facilities for the several cities of the United States: Therefore be it Resolved, That the Board of Aldermen endorse this act, the Wagner-Ellenbogen Housing Act; and be it further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be sent to Senator Walsh, chairman of the Committee on Labor and Education now holding hearings on the WagnerEllenbogen Housing Act in Washington, D. C.; and be it further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be published in the local press. CHARLES J. PIROLO, Alderman. Passed April 20, 1936. Attest: THOMAS A. TONGE, President, Board of Aldermen. EDWARD DUPREE, City Clerk. ROLAND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY OF GREATER NEW YORK, New York City, April 22, 1936. Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. GENTLEMEN: This will serve to inform you that the enclosed resolution has been adopted by the Roland German American Democratic Society of Greater New York and is hereby transmitted to the members of your committee. SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Very truly yours, ERWIN H. KLAUS, President. RESOLUTION ENDORSING WAGNER PUBLIC HOUSING BILL ADOPTED BY YORKVILLE ROLAND GERMAN-AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC CLUB; ADOPTED BY ROLAND GERMANAMERICAN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY Whereas housing conditions now existing in many parts of the country are most deplorable; and Whereas the action of the Senate Committee on Labor and Education in shelving the housing bill, proposed by Senator Wagner, last year was a disgraceful one and was in complete disaccord with the urgent need that must be recognized; and Whereas the Wagner public housing bill is designed to establish a long-range, low-cost public housing program, with decent, healthy, sanitary, modern, and low-rental housing as its ultimate goal; and Whereas establishment of a definite housing program is of vital necessity, not only to the millions of slum-dwellers but to the general welfare of the whole Nation: Be it Resolved, That the Roland German-American Democratic Society of Greater New York and its affiliated district organizations go on record as requesting from the Congress of the United States passage and enactment of the Wagner public housing bill at the earliest possibility. Hon. DAVID Walsh, FEDERATION OF DYERS, FINISHERS, PRINTERS, AND BLEACHERS OF AMERICA, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR: Enclosed please find a copy of a resolution passed by the national executive board of the Federation of Dyers, Finishers, Printers, and Bleachers of America, representing 40,000 workers, of whom 16,000 are residents of Paterson. The resolution urges the passage of the Wagner-Ellenbogen Housing Act, an act which we believe, with a deep conviction, will be the instrument which will bring modern low-cost housing to Paterson and the several cities of the Nation. We urge upon you full and uncompromising support of the act to insure its enactment in the Houses of Congress. Very truly yours, [SEAL] GEORGE BALDANZI, President, Dyers Federation. Whereas the making available of modern low-cost housing for all of the people is now recognized as the proper concern of government; and Whereas housing for the great numbers of people of low income can be accomplished adequately only by governmental aid; and Whereas the low-income groups must of necessity live in cast-off housing in slum and blighted areas; and Whereas the continued maintenance of slum and blighted areas is socially undesirable and leads to social waste of human life, as well as widespread economic waste; and Whereas in Paterson the need for such housing is immediate and urgent and the several trade unions cannot finance a low-cost housing project for this city; and Whereas the mayor of the city of Paterson has appointed a city housing committee on which labor is represented to secure such low-cost housing for this city; and Whereas such a project is possible only through the instrumentality of the Wagner-Ellenbogen Housing Act; Therefore be it Resolved, That this body, Dyers Federation representing 40,000 workers, urge upon the several legislators in the two Houses of Congress enactment of the Wagner-Ellenbogen Housing Act: And be it further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be sent to the Senate Committee on Labor and Education now holding hearings on this act, to President Roosevelt, to United States Senators A. Harry Moore and W. Warren Barbour, Congressman George N. Seger, representative of the Passaic County Congressional District, and Congressman Cavicchia, Essex County Congressman: And be it further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be forwarded to the press for publication. GEORGE BALDANZI, President. Attest: [SEAL] H. W. FRITZ, Secretary. CINCINNATI METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY, Hon. DAVID I. WALSH, The United States has made only a beginning in housing and even that under the handicap of a set-up that has been a part of the emergency unemployment program. Unless Congress enacts this measure with such amendments as the discussions at the congressional hearings may prove to be advisable, this work, which we consider to be among the most socially beneficial undertakings by the Federal Government, will, so far as we can learn, be practically stopped. We consider the proposed measure to be in its main aspects sound and most carefully considered. We can assure you that there is real interest and support in Cincinnati for slum elimination and low-rent housing, as indicated by the fact that our newspapers have all given editorial support to the Laurel Homes project now under way here and by the further fact that there has been no organized opposition by any civic organization. We hope that you will give the Wagner-Ellenbogen bill your careful study and will use your influence to support the bill, with such changes as the hearings may prove desirable. Yours sincerely, STANLEY M. Rowe, Chairman. |